If you turn in your Bibles to Psalm 76, I'll tell you that the opportunity to not be in a pulpit every week and occasionally preach meant that I decided I wanted to sort of get to some passages that I always wanted to preach. And one of those was Psalm 16, and we've given that sermon a couple of times over the last a few years, the phrase was, my inmost self teaches me all through the night. And you've sang that and you think like it means something and it's true, whatever it means. And what does that mean? I wanted to spend some time till I was confident that we had that one. Someday I wanna get to your right hand will teach you marvelous things. Another true statement that I'd love to be sure I know what that means. And there is a passage in Psalm 76 that says, with what's left of wrath you're girded. Which is intriguing. And maybe you're much brighter than I am and you knew what that meant intuitively when you sang it. Or maybe you're like me and you've sang it a number of times and think, I wonder what that means. So that sort of put this psalm on the list of sermons I wanted to get to. Another thing put it back on the radar in the last few weeks, my son and I traveled to Zambia. Zave and I traveled to Zambia to get Bola Visa so that we could come here, and it was a long trip. And it was an anxious trip, lots of borders with a child that doesn't look much like me. I look a lot like a trafficker, so this was a bad combination. Zave helped out a lot. And we got to the embassy, we had an interview, it went well, and then I got a call that said, you gotta come back in, we didn't like something. And now I'm thinking I gotta cancel flights and maybe we're not gonna make it back. No visa, no go. So we went back and it was an anxious couple of days waiting to see if we would actually get it or if we were going to be going back to South Sudan and sitting. And a pastor friend there named Benson Zam called and I was hoping to take him out to lunch to say thank you for his help. And he said, there's a family conference down the road from you. Why don't you come over and meet me there? And it was a Reformed Baptist family camp. It was a wonderful way to spend the afternoon because some good preaching, spent time around people that weren't suspicious of us. But at the end of one of the lectures, someone asked, and I think for a large part of the group of people there, reform theology was sort of a newer thing. And so whatever the lecture was, at the end of the lectures, there were just questions generally about reform theology. And so someone raised their hand and said, I'm told to pray for my enemies. And then they, I think, read from Psalm 103. No, well, I'm sorry, I'm gonna mess this up. which says, you know, may someone else take his place and his wife be a widow and his son be fatherless. And she said, so what about that? And the man who had just given quite a good lecture on God's providence and resting in him, which was exactly what we needed to hear at that moment, said something like, well, we have more light in the New Testament. Not such a great answer. A better answer. And one we're going to see displayed here is that our king, Jesus Christ, was spoken for through the greatest king that had been before him, King David, who spoke with words that didn't really fit in his mouth near as well as they did in his son who was coming. And we hear words of judgment, not from an angry man, not from a vindictive Christian, but from the king who loves his subjects, defends his subjects, and defeats his enemies. So there's a lot of comfort we can take in that. So listen to Psalm 76, maybe with those ears. It won't all be stories today, I promise. Psalm 76 reads, nope, yeah, I'm in 67. In Judah, God is known. His name is great in Israel. In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling place is in Zion. There he broke the arrows of the bow, the shield, and the sword of battle. You are more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey. The stout-hearted were plundered. They have sunk into their sleep. None of the mighty men have found the use of their hands. At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and the horse were cast into the deep, into a dead sleep. You yourself are to be feared, and who may stand in your presence when once you are angry, you cause judgment to be heard from heaven, the earth feared and was still, and when God arose in judgment, the earth feared and was still when God arose in judgment to deliver all the oppressed of the earth. Selah. Surely, the wrath of man shall praise you. With the remainder of wrath, you shall gird yourself. Make vows to the Lord your God and pay them. Let all who are around him bring presents to him who ought to be feared. He shall cut off the spirit of princes. He is awesome to the kings of the earth. Let's have a word of prayer and we'll begin. Lord God, we ask now that you would By the power of your spirit, take these words, instruct our minds, give us eyes to see and ears to hear both what you mean and why we need it. And we ask that you would show us our sin, show us where we are weak, that you would strengthen us, convict us, rebuke us, correct us. Lord, do your work in us, we pray, through the power of your word. Christ's name, amen. Could you hand me that Bible right there, Brian? Switch Bibles, make sure I have the same one in the pew but I left my sermon notes in that Bible. Think with me for a moment of how difficult it is without something like the Psalms to navigate life honestly as a Christian. I remember sitting in church on the north side of Pittsburgh 25 years ago. And in the middle of the sermon, someone came up and tapped the pastor on the arm and whispered to him that a missionary family from the church had just been attacked in West Africa. And the daughters and wife had been ravaged, and the sons and father had been tied down. that part of the family was still missing because the gorillas had taken them when they left. And so middle of the sermon, the pastor stopped and said, we're going to pray now for them. And if ever there was a time to interrupt the sermon, maybe that's one of them. And we're praying. And I happened to be sitting next to a young woman I'd gone to school with who just two weeks earlier had a similar experience, not quite as extreme, but same substance. And she's crying. And I'm sort of shaking just in anger. And the pastor begins praying and prayed for the family, prayed for those rebels that they would come to know the Lord and prayed for that the Lord would draw them near. And I found myself not wanting to pray. It was half a prayer, and I didn't have words for it at the time. I didn't understand why I was so frustrated. I knew why I was angry. I knew why I felt that I couldn't quite bring myself to simply say, convict them of sin and draw them to yourself, even though I felt like I needed to pray that. And I knew it was my sin that was keeping me from wanting to pray that at all, but it still felt like half a prayer. And eventually, it was words like this, that allowed me to say, okay, and the other half of the prayer comes from the mouth of my savior, who gives the judgment. It's not me, it's the Lord, and it's me being given words that maybe I wouldn't dare say. And the other half of the prayer is, Lord, bring them to justice. Bring them to you, or bring them to justice, but bring them down. And here in Psalm 76, it's not just to bring them down, but we're going to marvel in the beauty and glory of the Lord, and in the fact that we can trust him. Why is it Paul, in Romans chapter 12, can say, bless and do not curse, leave room for the wrath of God, give yourself to hospitality, be kind and considerate to one another, and this, that, and the other, and like, but who's gonna take care of the justice? And his answer at the end is, the Lord has that, and he has all of it, Not some of it, not that he's taken care of what he can, he's got his hands full, so you know, no, it's like the Lord has that. So you can give yourself to this. Look at Psalm 76. In Judah, God is known. His name is great in Israel. In Salem also is his tabernacle and his dwelling places in Zion, and there he broke the arrows of the bow and the shield and the sword of battle, Selah. In Judah, God is known. His name is great in Israel. We're even going to throw a Salem in there. Salem, well-constructed city. Melchizedek was the priest king of Salem. This is, I think, the name of it. Went back when it was a Jebusite city of some sort or another. So this is an ancient name. But we're talking about the same thing. We're using different words, different languages to describe the people of God. And the people of God centered upon the place where the Lord promised to meet them. At that time, not unlike today, when Jesus says, not on this mountain or on any other, but wherever People gather in spirit and in truth. But at that time, the Lord said, there will be a centralized place where you will come. And I'm going to see to it that the sacrifices are just so, and the worship is just so, so that you get a good testimony of the Messiah who's coming. And you're going to come here. And I'm going to order this in such a way that you know very well all that I can tell you about the coming Savior. But when you come here, you will find me. You can say you're before the face of God in this place. And so he speaks here not because there's something all that special about that hill, except that this is the place where the Lord said, you can come before me. And here you will meet me in a special way with the sacrifices that are acceptable, with the priesthood that I've established, with all of the pictures of Christ laid out before you. And what does it say? It says that he's known, that he's known. Now, the Lord is known everywhere. You know, the book of Romans tells us at the very beginning that what may be known about God, his invisible attributes and his power, cannot be denied. You know, God doesn't believe in atheists. There aren't any. There are just those in denial. There are those who have cognitive dissonance, right? You're learning about that. They are holding ideas that they can't get rid of and they don't try to reconcile. They know God is there. But that's not the known that we're talking about. We're talking about God being known as in daddy. God being known as in I love you. When the Lord says on that last great day, to those who say, Lord, Lord, we cast it out, we cast out demons, and we perform miracles, and the Lord says, I don't know you. The Lord doesn't mean, where did you come from? I don't remember making you. The Lord doesn't mean, I've never seen you before. I'm unaware of your existence up until just now. The Lord means, we don't have a relationship. The Lord means you can't call me father, you can call me your honor, and that's what we are. You're in the dock. But in Israel, in Judah, the people of God, in the midst of the temple, God is known. He's known for who he is. And now part of what we should know of the Lord is going to, we're going to talk about as we go forward. But his name is great in Israel. We know him to be who he is. We know him and we love him for who he is. And one of the books on marriage, Tim Keller says, something to the effect of to be loved and not known means nothing. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But in marriage, what we're going for is to be known and to be loved. And for the Lord to know you, not just who you are in public, but for the Lord to know you and to love you and to have sent his son to die for you, despite the fact that he knows who you are. And for us to know him, not just the God of our own making, not just the one we'd like him to be, but to know him for who he is and to love him as he is. His name is great. That's what we sing about. And we sing it because we believe it. In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling place is in Zion. I came across multiple people who said a good translation would be lair or den, but I can't tell you why that's the case. But the idea here, this is where God dwells. Brings to mind a Discovery Channel show I was watching years ago, and people are doing research on Siberian tigers, and they're marching through you know, the stunted forest lands of northern Siberia, and they're on alert the whole time. I mean, the tigers aren't there. And so you're sort of, you know, speaking quietly and whispering, and they've got some device, listening device, you know, for when it's coming. But then as they get close to the den, the place where the cubs are. They want to tag the cubs. As they got there, then they were on high alert, right? We've got three or four people out front. We are rushing. We are as quickly as we can trying to get these things tagged and get out of here. Because while we don't want to run into Mama anywhere, we certainly don't want to run into her here. This is not the place where we want to be surprised by a Siberian tiger. This is the den. This is the lair. This is the place you don't touch. And this is where the Lord has been pleased to put himself in your midst. He's here. This is where someone should be very nervous about messing with. This is the place they should be very nervous about messing with. They don't want to disturb the cubs, the children of God, the people for his own possession, you. His dwelling place is in Zion. So there, it gives us a foreshadowing now in verse three of what's to come. There he broke the arrows of the bow and the shield and the sword of battle. He destroyed it all. The weapons of war, the offensive weapons, the temptations, the persecutions, but also the defenses. All of those things that seem so dangerous right now. challenged my children to read some difficult literature while they're still in my home because I don't want them to read it for the first time when they leave my home. I want them to have wrestled with it a little bit. The arguments they're going to get, the blogs they're going to read, I want to make sure that they've in some way associated themselves with these things because I don't want them to be so effective when they go out and I have no ability to inform because they seem very strong. They seem very strong. But we live in this fog. We live down here where the swords seem sharp and the defenses seem impregnable, but we are going to, C.S. Lewis in his space trilogy talks about going up into space and it not being darkness, but he said, I don't know why I ever thought of space as dark, because it was like, it was fuller and filled with more brightness. And when we arrive in the presence of the Lord, there is going to be a clarity that we don't have here. And we're going to see defenses and shields as nothing, as being silly things that will be broken down. And we're going to see the persecutions and the power and the kings as being little to nothing. And we're told here in Psalm 76 that the Lord deals with them. And he's going to deal with them finally. But listen, take a look at verse eight, if you jump down, because we're talking here about Salem and Judah and Israel and the dwelling place. But we are told in verse eight, when it speaks of the judgment, that the Lord caused his judgment to be heard from heaven. The Temple Mount was never God's cage or the place in which he was captured or bound or somehow only powerful there. It was the place where he promised to meet with his people. It was the place where he gathered his chicks. And it is the place he dwells. And yet he is the king over all the earth. He was then, he is now. And when his judgment rings, it may well be through the church in this life, and it will be for the church in every age, but it is from heaven. Heaven is his throne and the earth is his footstool. And that was true then, and it's true now. He is near us. He is pleased to dwell with us. But it's not because he has no power outside of these doors or outside of our assembly. It is that he is here because he loves us. Take a look at verse four. You are more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey. The stout-hearted were plundered. They have sunk into their sleep, and none of the mighty men have found the use of their hands. And at your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and the horse were cast into a deep sleep. You are more glorious than the mountains filled with prey." So this is one of those verses where I sort of think I know what it means, and I sing it for 10, 15, 20 years thinking, because as a hunter or as just someone who loves the forest, when I think of God being more glorious than the mountains filled with prey, I'm thinking, you know, Appalachian foothills filled with white tail and black bear and elk and days gone by. What could be more glorious than the beauty of the mountains filled with all the bounty of God's good creation? But I'm not sure that's what it means here. While I think that's not an untrue set of statements and maybe It's not a bad thing for your mind to be prompted to. It seems as if this is not saying that you are more glorious than the surrounding mountains full of good things to eat. However, Something of a poetic condensation. It is the surrounding mountains upon which the enemies of God at various times would sit and perch and bear down upon Jerusalem. This is the verse that makes some commentators say that the passage, Psalm 76, was written about the Sennacherib's invasion. although it's a psalm of Asaph, which seems to put it in David's time. Nonetheless, the language or the idea seems to be that when all of our enemies are surrounding us on the high ground, you are more glorious yet. Those who make us a prey, those to whom we are just something to be caught and eaten, and you are more glorious yet. And the reason we're pushed that direction, even though it's not nearly as picturesque, even though I don't like it as much. The next verses repeat that idea. You are more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey. The stout-hearted were plundered. They have sunk into their sleep. Those who wait on the roads to destroy were plundered. Those who were hoping to plunder were themselves plundered. Those who seemed so strong fell into a sleep. In scripture, sometimes sleep means sleep, and sometimes it means dead. And this is one of those instances where the stout-hearted are no more. They have ceased to be. They are pushing up daisies and all of that. None of the mighty men have found the use of their hands. What would it be like for you if you were tagging one of those tigers? You know, you're trying to tag the ear and it starts to yowl real loud. What would your hands be doing at that moment? Hold still, man, come on, we need to get this done, right? And here is the picture, not of tigers, but of those who with all of their strength, with all of their breadth, with all of their might, with all of their past battle records in history, with all of those who have had their faith wasted in the classroom, lying in the wake of their college career, no matter how mighty they seemed, they are unable to make use of their weapon. If you've been in a fight, you know what you start to do. If your hands aren't shaking during the fight, by the time you're done, win or lose, you're walking away with the adrenaline pumping through your body, shaking so hard you can hardly sit still. But in this instance, here are those who don't shake, and yet they have lost the use of their hands in the face of the Lord and Him finally bringing what has always been promised to bear upon those who persecute his people, upon those who have destroyed his good creation, upon those who have not humbled themselves to turn to Christ. And that's very important. Before we go any further, the difference between those being described here as enemies and you or I is not the degree of our sin. It is not that your sin is generally not as bad or public as other people. It's not that you're less proud of your sin than other people who are more proud of their sin. The difference between you, if you can call yourself those who know the Lord to be great, those who he defends, and those he's fighting against, is whether you have known your sin to be great. and known your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to have died as the only way of seeing that sin forgiven. For you to know that the Lord is great because He did not spare His only Son and that you have seen in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ the very thing you needed so that you did not have a heavenly judge but a heavenly Father. that any of those who are being spoken of here are not different in kind than you or I. Perhaps some of them are different in degree, but not all. Wouldn't we love it if we could look out to our non-believing friends and simply say, just look at the church. They're better people. I mean, empirically speaking, on average, it's just better folks. more generous, more giving, more self-controlled, less depressed, less anxious. But we can't say that. We all want to say that. We all want to think that's probably true. We all want the kind of hope that that's what it turns out to be. But we know we couldn't prove that very well because we know our own hearts. And we know that it is by grace that we have been saved. And that if we have any hope at all, It is only hoping in the one who died and has risen again and who, having died and risen, says, I have finished it all. And that we can't even say to our unbelieving friends, you know me. Would I be this good if Christ wasn't real? They would laugh at us. What makes us different is Christ. What makes us take comfort in Psalm 76 and not walk away fearing is Christ, because he has given you the right to call yourself a child of God. At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and the horse were cast into a deep sleep, speaking of the greatest king on earth at the time of the Exodus. I don't know what the Ming Dynasty was doing at that time. I'm sure the historians will tell me it wasn't that dynasty. But the greatest known king in the world in which the scriptures were speaking, the Lord certainly knew who was greatest at the time. Pharaoh was drowned in the sea along with all of his army, none of whom were left to pursue his people. And think about the words, I have raised you up for this reason, that I might make my name great. This is what Paul, the language Paul uses in Romans chapter nine to speak of Pharaoh. It sounds very similar to the words Mordecai says to Esther, which is, for such a time as this, perhaps even the Lord has raised you up, right? Esther, up to that point in the story, maybe doesn't get a gold star for her behavior. or for her standing for the Lord. And yet, as one whom trusts in the Lord, he says, for such a time as this, perhaps the Lord has put you here. And to Pharaoh he says, I have raised you up for this very reason, that I might make my name great when I cast you down. The difference is Christ. You yourself are to be feared. And who may stand in your presence when once you are angry? You cause judgment to be heard from heaven. The earth feared and was still when God arose to judgment to deliver the oppressed of the earth, Selah. Who? Who is there who can accomplish this? Who is there who can do this? Is there anyone who can bring this about? Is there anyone who can conquer these kings and defeat these arguments and stop the trend? Oh, there is one. There is one. And in the book of Revelation, the words that I think are up behind me on the stained glass are sung to the only one, the Lord Jesus Christ. And here the language is, who may stand in your presence? You yourself are to be feared. There is none like the Lord. Verse 10. Surely the wrath of man shall praise you. With the remainder of wrath, you shall gird yourself." All right, we called the sermon Alligator Teeth and Snakeskin Boots, and it's not because I was hoping it would be a cute sermon. It was because I'm no good at sermon titles. But listen, this language, the wrath of man shall praise you, What's left of the gnashing teeth on the great day of judgment, what's left in the earth uncontested prior to the great and terrible day of the Lord, will not be those who were strong enough to resist. It will be those who were great enough to bring more glory to the Lord when they are publicly destroyed. The wrath of man, the best they have to offer, the best they can do to destroy the people of God, the best they can do to try to bring down and tear down his church, is only in the last, in all of its strength and power, going to simply be like Pharaoh, who was allowed to rise for the day in which the Lord would display how much more glorious and great he was when he brings it to nothing. The wrath of man will praise you. With what's left of wrath, you're girded. Whatever seems to remain will simply be that which is worn as some sort of trophy. You know, what does the man on the bayou, what does Amos Moses wear when he's walking around? You know, the alligator teeth, right? Because what do you want to avoid on an alligator? The business end of an alligator's got a lot of teeth. And so you walk around and you got the teeth on your hat or the teeth on your necklace, right? And you can sort of, if you didn't buy it at a tourist shop, say like, this is what happens to alligators when they get too close. Or the snakeskin boots. Or the bear cape. Or whatever it is. We tend to take the most dangerous parts of something and wear it as a trophy. I get a picture, which is perhaps not exactly right, but here is the warrior coming out of battle, the smoke of battle, the confusion of battle, and we're left wondering. Maybe the women and children are back anxiously waiting. What is the outcome? Who has overcome? Only this time, it's not the one whose feet bring good news. The day has come for the Lord to deliver that news, and he comes out of battle still spread with the residue of battle. Not because he's weak and dying, but because he's victorious. The one who has treaded the winepress of the wrath of God, and whose cloak is still stained with what's left of the wrath of man. like a trophy. Here's what's left, and here's what I've done for my people, for those who try to touch the ones I love. The Lord is emphatically for you. He is your mighty warrior in your midst. And unlike mighty men here, He rejoices over you with singing. He's so glad for you. He loves you so much. that he not only comes out with the residue of the victory draped around him, but he sings over you. The day you sing the loudest to your great king for his judgments, you will find him perhaps singing louder out of the love he has for the bride that he has finally completely vindicated publicly. So it speaks of judgment there. the Lord judged from heaven." And judgment certainly has the tone that we've been talking about, punishment. Someone says, don't judge me, they mean Don't think poorly of me. But judgment also has another overtone. That is vindication. If you're being slandered in the newspaper, you are anxious, knowing what you did has no proof, you know, what they're accusing has no proof. They can't win this. You're looking forward to your day in court. You're looking forward to the day when the judge will throw this out and say, this is nonsense and you are free to counter sue for libel. And that day comes. That day comes when your king has not only defeated all the arguments and the best tools, but he also openly vindicates you publicly. This is my son. This is my daughter. They're mine. So the last verses, just look at them. We're not gonna explain them. Who is it worth living for? Who are you gonna live for? What are you gonna live for? What are you gonna serve? What are you gonna give your life to? And anything you give your life to, what's it gonna serve? What's the purpose of it? In light of all this, in light of who he is, in light of what he is doing and will do for you, make your vows to the Lord. You set your life and make your promises and direct yourself to him and his service. Who are you gonna, Who are you going to live for? Well, you pay your vows to the Lord, bring your presence to Him. That's why He's the only one. He's the only one worth living for and He is for you. He is so for you. Let's pray together. Lord God, we confess, as you have written, that you are more glorious than the mountains. You are more glorious than those who dwell in the high ground. You alone are to be feared. Lord, we praise you that you are who you say you are, that you have accomplished and will finish all that you have promised, and Lord, we praise you that you are for us, that all of that comes as a blessing to us for our protection, for our vindication, and that even that is for your glory. Lord, we are not at the center, you are, and yet you are pleased to take us and to give us such a part in this beautiful picture of a bride who is loved, of body who is cared for, as temple who is made glorious by your dwelling presence. Lord, we ask that we would have this picture in our minds today of you who will defend, who will vindicate, who will do it all. And that, Lord, we would not only trust that and believe it as an article of faith, but we would also then be enabled to live a life for you. That we would also, Lord, be able to live in such a way where we can leave room for the wrath of God, that we can leave the judgment to you as we go about being as sacrificial as you might call us to be, knowing, Lord, that all judgment is yours. Lord, we pray this in the name of Jesus, amen.