Please turn with me tonight to Psalm 83. Psalm 83 is in many ways an imprecatory psalm because it is a psalm that calls for God's vengeance on his enemies. It is the last of the psalms of Asaph, that are recorded in our Bibles. And his Psalms are usually about the sovereignty of God over not only all the nations per se, but specifically over his enemies and over all circumstances. And he calls out to the Lord in verse 1, Do not keep silent, O God. Do not hold your peace. And do not be still, O God. Many times when we cry out to God, as you know, the thing that is most dispiriting is no answer. We cry out to God to make a situation better. We wouldn't even mind if He made it worse, because at least that would be some sort of definite answer. But when it just stays the same, or when he seems to not be responding at all, that is what seems so difficult to us, isn't it? But sometimes the Lord is silent at certain times, and Asaph has a particular situation in which he wants the Lord to act, and that is this. Verse 2, For behold, your enemies make a tumult, They are surrounding Israel. He says, and those who hate you have lifted up their head. They've taken crafty counsel against your people and consulted together against your sheltered ones. They have said, come and let us cut them off from being a nation that the name of Israel may be remembered no more. So the situation in the Psalm is not like David praying about his own enemies. It is Asaph praying about the enemies of God. And there's all the difference in the world between praying about the enemies of God and how we are to deal with our own enemies as Christians. Because when we have enemies as Christians, we have a different sort of counsel to follow. It's not that our enemies aren't always necessarily to be regarded as the enemies of God, and we're not to take God's vengeance or retribution into our own hands. Where would you go in your Bibles to find out how to deal with your enemies, enemies that come into your life? You would go to the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says, you've heard it said, by men of old, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies and bless those who curse you and do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you. And if you ever want a lengthy commentary on that, as to just how to do that, where would you go? Go to the... Well, sure, you'd go to the Good Samaritan. That's good. That is an excellent illustration of just exactly how to do that. But you would go to the last half of the twelfth chapter of Romans, where it says, Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men, and so on. And that's an excellent passage to remember. when you are faced with the prospect of dealing with personal enemies. But yet at the same time, there are enemies of God. There are nations that rise up against God, and that's what Asaph is talking about here. He's talking about people who want to, if possible, obliterate the nation of Israel. Now, Here, of course, he has equated God with God's people and his purpose in his people as a whole. So, he says, your enemies make a tumult and those who hate you have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against your people and consulted together against your sheltered ones. So here he is making a very strong identification with God and his people. Where do we have authorization in the Old Testament for such an idea that God is going to arise and bless because of his people or curse because of his people? Now that's from the Abrahamic Covenant, isn't it? God leads Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees and he says, I will bless those who bless you, Genesis 12.3, I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So closely is God identified with his people. And this comes over to the New Testament, as you well know. Because it comes over into the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. When Jesus says to Saul, why are you persecuting me? Why are you persecuting me? To persecute God's people is tantamount to persecuting God. Same thing on the Day of Judgment. People are going to ask a question of Jesus. Well, when did we visit you? When did we feed and clothe you? When were you thirsty and we gave you to drink? Or when didn't we do it? Because he says that you've done it to him or not done it to him. And the answer is going to be in as much as you did it to or did it not to the least of these my brethren. You have done it or done it not to me. So the point is that Asaph is saying here that the people of God are his people, his property, and therefore he's asking God to defend those whom he has promised to shelter. It's a great phrase, you know, that occurs over and over in the Psalms about asking the Lord individually to keep me as the apple of your eye. What's the apple of your eye? We talk about someone who perhaps has a child and she's the apple of her daddy's eye. What does that phrase mean? It's your most favorite thing because it's your pupil. You would protect this person and care for this person as you would the pupils of your eye. And so that was how God thought of Israel in the great song of Moses. You remember in Deuteronomy 32.10, he said, He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland a howling wilderness. He encircled him. He instructed him. He kept him as the apple of his eye. And it talks about how he takes care of, protects, and shelters his people. And what the psalmist is saying here is people are encircling the people that you encircled. They're encircling the people that are the apple of your eye. They are after your property. I had a friend once who had an old car. It was a great big General Motors car. You know about those kinds of cars. Those are wonderful cars. They'll last for many thousands of miles. Those of you who were much younger when those cars were around, remember that It was just wonderful to drive down a long stretch of road in a great big full-size General Motors car like a Pontiac Bonneville or a Buick Electra 225 or maybe a used Cadillac Fleetwood. It was kind of like riding inside Moby Dick. You just went down the highway oblivious to all around you, wonderfully isolated from the elements and riding on a cloud. But, of course, eventually the rattles do develop and the rust begins to corrode and the squeaks and shakes develop and things begin to happen to those cars just as they did to all others. My friend had a very, very old full-size GM car that had given her many, many miles of service, but it got to be prone to breaking down in the last few years. When it would break down or the problem would develop with it, she would always call out to God and say, Lord, this is your car that you gave me. There's something wrong with your car. There's something wrong with your car. That's how she always prayed about the car. It never was hers. It was always God's. And it was God's problem to get that car fixed or at least to get her home. And so that is what Asaph is saying here. These are your people. This is your problem. Look at what's going on. How can you possibly be passive? How can you possibly be still? How can you possibly be holding your peace? So, he says, look at what these nations have said. They've said, come, let us cut them off from being a nation that the name of Israel may be remembered no more. And then he begins to list these various peoples that are conspiring in verses 5 through 8. For they have consulted together with one consent, with one mind. They form a confederacy against you. I find it fascinating how God in the Old Testament and the Lord Jesus Christ in the New is a common enemy. I don't know if you fully appreciate the fact that some very strange groups of people got together and conspired together against the Lord. Because it tells you, for example, you don't need to turn there, but in Mark chapter 3, when Jesus heals the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath, It says, then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him how they might destroy him. So here are the Pharisees on one hand, and the Herodians, the followers of the politics of the Herods. They were supporting the dynasty of the Herods, and they were absolutely non-religious. They were in cahoots with Rome. They liked the fact that Herod Antipas reigned in Galilee in the place of his father, King Herod the Great. So you find what is known in political circles as strange bedfellows here, don't you? They're against each other, but their common enemy is Jesus. And you will find that about the world, won't you? You can go, for example, into a New Age bookstore, and you can find there the teachings and books of all kinds of groups that would disagree with each other. But boy, do they have a common enemy. It's Christianity. And in just the same way, you have all these nations gathered together, encircling with one consent, forming a confederacy against God. The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites. You can sort of get some idea from a Bible map where some of these places are. Edom was, of course, down to the southeast of Israel. A little further north was Moab. And further north of Moab was Ammon. Moab and Ammon were named for two sons. One son was of course named Moab and the other son was Ben Ami. Do you remember whose sons they were? Lot's sons, the sons of Lot by his own daughters. And they were historic enemies of Israel. And then Edom, that tribe and nation came from who? Esau. So the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, and Ishmael of course was the son of Abraham according to the flesh, not the son of the promise, but the son that he had with Hagar. It has been suggested that that term Hagrites also refers to descendants of Hagar, relatives of the Ishmaelites. But in any event, that was also a tribe in that area that had been fought by the tribes to the immediate east of the Jordan and some of the tribes just to the west. Now, there is another town here mentioned in verse 7. Gebel is apparently on the other side of the map. It's apparently way north on most of your Bible maps, up north of Tyre and that whole country of Phoenicia. There's a town called Byblos that your Bibles show. And that was called Gebel at the time. And then there is Ammon, the Ammonites. Amalek, you remember that there was to be war against Amalek forever, God decreed. The Amalekites fought against the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. And then there's Philistia over to the West with the inhabitants of Tyre up to the North. Philistia is, as you know, roughly the area of the present Gaza Strip. So here are these nations all around to the Southeast, the East, the Northeast, And then the Northwest, and West, and Southwest. And Assyria, from up North, has also joined with them. They have helped the children of Lot, Moab, and the Ammonites. So, here is Israel surrounded by enemies. And here is what God prays, or rather that the psalmist prays to God that he will do. Deal with them as with Midian, as with Sisera, as with Jabin at the brook Kishan, who perished at Endor, who became as refuse on the earth. Make their nobles like Oreb and like Zeb. Yes, and all their princes like Zeba and Zalmanah, who said, let us take for ourselves the pastures of God for possession. Here are a lot of phrases that were known to Israel's history, a lot of names of perhaps obscure people. And so the question is, what do these historical references speak of? When the psalmist says, deal with them as with Midian, what's he saying? Who was defeated? Midian, the Midianites. By whom? by 300 men of Gideon. Do you remember that Gideon started out with an army of 22,000? And God said, the numbers are all wrong. It's too many. And so you need to find out who's afraid and get the ones that are afraid out of there. So 12,000 left and that left Gideon with 10,000. And the Lord said, well, there's still too many. And so he devised a plan for Gideon to pare them down to a usable agile number. Remember how he got them pared down? Yeah, they went to the river. They went to the river and he said, bring them down to the water. And he said, everyone who laps from the water with his tongue as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself. Likewise, everyone who gets down on his knees to drink, So what happened is that one group picked up water and lapped it out of their hands. The other group got out on their knees to drink. Well, that's no position for a soldier to be in if there's an attack. And so the 300 men who lapped the water out of their hands were the men that God chose to remain as the army. And they had a great victory against the Midianites. They just went into the camp with their weapons in one hand, and they had a torch inside of a pitcher and they dropped that pitcher on the ground exposing the torch. Lights went on all over the camp and they yelled for the Lord and for Gideon and God roused up the Midianites and they began to kill each other and there was a tremendous victory. And that was a huge event in the life of Israel. So the Psalmist is saying, do it again. Do it again. Deal with them as with Midian. Or as with Sisera and with Jabin at the Brook Kishon. That's a great story too, isn't it? Who was Sisera? He was what? Yeah, he was Jabin's commander. Jabin was a king and he was oppressing Israel back in the days when Deborah was judging. And Sisera was his general, commanding 900 chariots of iron. You remember that Barak went up with Deborah and there was a great victory. The Lord sent a mighty storm, sent a cloudburst. And the Brook Kishon, the Valley of Kishon became a roaring torrent and aided in sweeping away much of the army. And you remember, of course, how Cicero died, don't you? Who can forget JL? J.L. coming in as Cicera slept, and as Deborah sang about it, most blessed among women is J.L., the wife of Heber the Kenite. This is Judges 5.24. Blessed is she among women in tents. He asked for water. She gave milk. She brought out cream in a lordly bowl. She stretched her hand to the tent peg, her right hand to the workman's hammer. She pounded Cicero. She pierced his head. She split and struck through his temple. At her feet he sank, he fell, he lay still. At her feet he sank, he fell. Where he sank, there he fell, dead. So much for Sisera. And Jabin was defeated in that great battle, too. He perished at a place called Endor, some miles from Mount Tabor, where the battle took place. This is another great instance of God coming to the rescue, because even though there was human agency, as with the death of Sisera at the hand of Jael, It was God who sent the cloudburst, God who sent the torrent and the brook Kishon. The stars and their courses fought against Sisera, the song of Deborah says. And he perished at Endor. There he lay on the ground outside Jael's tent and became his refuse on the earth. Verses 11 and 12 speak of nobles and princes of the Midianite army, Oreb and Zeb, and Zeba and Zalmana. These were executed after Gideon's rout of the Midianites. Gideon killed Zeba and Zalmana himself. Oreb and Zeb were killed by the tribe of Ephraim. Verse 12, who said, let us take for ourselves the pastures of God for a possession. One of the things that is so striking about that sentence is that it is the goal of these enemies. They want to conquer the country. They want to obliterate the name of God. They want to completely destroy Israel as a nation, that its name may be remembered no more. And the phrase they use is a phrase that is chilling and blasphemous all the more for what they want to do to a particularly beautifully named possession of God. Let us take for ourselves the pastures of God for a possession. Obviously the picture in that of God is as a shepherd, isn't it? And the idea is that he's given this land of Canaan to the Israelites to be like a shepherd to them there. And that's their pastures. That's their pastures. That's their homeland. And so these enemies have the effrontery in Asaph's view to say, let us take for ourselves the pastures of God. for a possession. What incredible rebellion to rise up against the Most High God and take his provisions for his sheep as a possession. Reminds you of the same kind of story on a very small scale that Nathan told to David about the rich man who wanted to take the poor man's possession of a little ewe lamb and prepare it for his guest. He used that analogy to quicken David's conscience. In this case, this is saying we're going to take something that was very special and very tender and was given by a loving king to these people whom he regarded as sheep, but it's the pastures not of somebody Weaker than we are, it's the pastures of somebody who, if his reputation is right, is stronger than we are. And yet, we as sinners always never see God in just quite that way. And the very irony of their saying, let's take for ourselves the pastures of God for a possession. means that they have lost all sense of their place as creatures before Almighty God. And they have risen up against Him with the most unspeakable kind of boldness. And this is why the psalmist is saying, don't keep silent about this, O Lord. Don't hold your peace and do not be still. Here's what he wants God to do. Verse 13, Oh my God, make them like the whirling dust Hebrew says a rolling thing and so NIV translates a tumbleweed. Make them like a tumbleweed, like the chaff before the wind, as the fire burns the woods and as the flame sets the mountains on fire, so pursue them with your tempest and frighten them with your storm. He prays that God will come against them, that God will fight against them as he has in the past, just like he did with that battle against Sisera. He fought by bringing a storm. And in the great 18th Psalm, there's so much storm imagery there. Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken because he was angry. He bowed the heavens also and came down with darkness under his feet, and he rode upon a cherub and flew. He flew upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place. His canopy around him was dark waters and thick clouds of the skies from the brightness before him. His thick clouds passed with hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice, hailstones and coals of fire." This is a great image of God bringing in natural elements in order to fight with the enemies, but mostly it's simply an analogy of God using any means whatsoever to pursue them. The psalmist is saying, you're well able. to rain coals of fire on them. You're well able to destroy them as you did Sodom and Gomorrah. You're well able to send a storm that will disable their chariots just like it did Cicero's. Do it, Lord. Pursue them with your tempest and frighten them with your storm. And then the psalm takes a very surprising turn. Because it is definitely a cry for vengeance, a cry for God to move himself from inaction. But in verse 16, he says, Fill their faces with shame that they may seek your name, O Lord. Fill their faces with shame that they may seek your name, O Lord. So what is Asaph saying? Rise up, O Lord. Take vengeance. Send a storm. rout them, pursue them with your tempest, frighten them, make them ashamed? To what purpose? That they'll seek your face. In other words, the ultimate goal here in this psalm is not that they should be absolutely destroyed from the earth, but that God should show Himself in wrath and vengeance enough so that they will seek his face, so that they will turn and actually become part of the people of God. It says, let them be confounded, that word is ashamed, and it goes with the word shame in verse 16. Fill their faces with shame that they may seek your name, O Lord. Let them be ashamed and dismayed forever. Yes, let them be put to shame and perish. This idea of shame recurs over and over again in verses 16 and 17. What should they be ashamed of? Why does he repeat this attitude of shame? We, in 21st century America, don't like the idea of shame. We think it would be terrible for anybody to suffer a moment's shame. And yet, this is what God does to all of us when he brings us to himself. Because these people are supposed to be ashamed of what? Their sin, their enmity against God, their opposition to a holy God. He has to show His power and might so that they will be put in their place and then be convicted and be ashamed that they ever opposed Him, that they ever rose up against Him. That's what Asaph is praying for. Fill their faces with shame that they may seek your name, O Lord. Let them be ashamed and dismayed forever. Yes, let them be put to shame and perish that they may know that you whose name alone is the Lord are the Most High over all the earth. He seems to be saying, if necessary, kill enough of them so that the residue of them will take note and repent. This is a fascinating idea, and one of the reasons it's fascinating is because it reflects the way the New Testament pictures our God dealing with his enemies. I mentioned Saul of Tarsus. Well, Saul of Tarsus was the enemy of God. He was a persecutor of the church, and Jesus considered him to be persecuting his very person. And so how did Jesus conquer that enemy? He conquered him by stopping him in his tracks and giving him a new heart and giving him eternal life, bringing him to faith and repentance. Turn over for just a moment to Romans 5. Romans 5, verse 6. An incredible argument here. For when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. They were elect at that point, according to God, but they didn't know it, we didn't know it, And as far as God was concerned, they were ungodly. And that is the state in which you find yourself as you come to God. In due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. It's pretty clear that what Paul is talking about is somebody who, first of all, is a righteous man, and he simply is one who keeps God's law perfectly. Keeps God's law as perfectly as one possibly could. being dead in trespasses and sins and unable to keep God's law, but keeping God's law in the sense that Paul thought he was keeping God's law and in the sense that all the Old Testament saints felt like they could be keeping God's law. Scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. This is not just someone who keeps the law of God, this is someone who actually demonstrates to the world that he is really good, that he is really a kind and generous, compassionate man. And Paul says, perhaps for such a man someone would even dare to die. And then in verse 8, he gives us the incredible contrast, but God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, that his blood has been poured out in punishment, and that punishment has been imputed to us, That satisfaction has been imputed to us. Our guilt has been imputed to Him. More than that, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies. Verse 10. So read that verse and put yourself in the same category as the Moabites, the Ammonites, and all of the nations round about Israel in the time of Asaph. You and I were just as much enemies of God. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. And that's just an unthinkable thing. The idea that by the death of God's Son, we who were in absolute, violent, defiant opposition to God were reconciled to God. Then Paul has another much more. Much more than having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. So, here is your story and my story. We start out in life alienated from God and an enemy of God. And God, in His incredible mercy, sends Jesus to die and preachers and ministers and witnesses to tell us of the good news, of the meaning of that death and the resurrection that authenticated Jesus' claim to be the Son of God. And now, we who are the enemies of God find that we were reconciled to God through the death of the perfect one, the death of His Son. And much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. I don't know about you, but I think that that is the most amazing way to deal with enemies that I know anything about. Send your son to die for them and change them into friends. That's what He has done. That's what He has done for every single one of us. So let's return to Psalm 83 for the end. Asaph prays that this vengeance will not just be for the extermination of the enemies, but that they will seek the name of the Lord. Verse 18, that they may know that you, whose name alone is the Lord, are the Most High over all the earth. And one of the reasons that that's important for them to know is that that term, Most High, got tossed around in not only the nations round about Israel, but ancient Israel itself. because it was a name frequently used for other gods, and especially the name used for Baal, Most High. And you remember, don't you, that the term God Most High is first used in Scripture when a strange and shadowy figure meets Abram after the Battle of the Nine Kings. His name is Melchizedek, and he's a priest of God Most High. But somehow he has come to the knowledge of the Lord that Abram knows. And Abram is willing to pay him a tenth of everything. This is a way of saying, our God is King of kings, Lord of lords, God over all, Lord's many, God's many, and so-called deities. What Asaph wants the nations around about Israel to know is God, that they may know that you, whose name alone is the Lord, are the true God, the most high God, the one who actually reigns over all false gods that anyone may devise. So it's a psalm where Asaph is calling on the Lord to rise, to be active, to not keep silent, but to do it for a purpose, to be a light to these nations round about and to bring them even if it has to be through severe punitive chastening to a knowledge of God. So, as I read the psalm, I think, blessed be the Lord, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has reconciled this enemy to God and who reconciles God's enemies every day as the Gospel is preached, and as He overcomes those who defy Him. That is what the Gospel does, and that is a way of conquering one's enemies that only our mighty, loving, and invincible God could have ever thought of. Glory to His name. Glory to Him in this place. Amen.