Psalms 68 — Psalms 68

0:00 Good morning. I do have one last announcement. If you are on the drama team for VBS, and if you are, you already know that. We are going to meet right after the service. So I will try to keep the message as short and sweet as possible, so I do not run over.

0:23 And then we're going have a little drama practice as soon as I get done. You mean if you don't make it too long, it will be drama practice. Right, right, right. I start to ramble then somebody just cut me off. We're going to talk about Psalm 68 this morning.

0:42 Psalm 68. But before I begin, let's just ask God's blessing upon our study of his word. And father, thank you for another day which we can come before you to read from your holy scriptures. Pray, Lord, that you would fill this room with your holy spirit. Lord, in spite of my sin and in spite of my weakness and my failures, I pray that you would still speak through me, that any message that you have for the people this morning would come through loud and clear, and I would just be a vessel.

1:17 Christ's name, amen. So as I said, the scripture passage this morning comes from the sixty eighth Psalm, which is a beautiful, although somewhat complicated poem. And we're going to start by reading the entire Psalm, although I am not going to speak from the entire Psalm. It has been a bad habit of mine in the past of trying to cover too much material in too little time. Psalm 68 has 35 verses, so that would give me about one minute per verse if we're going to cover the whole thing.

1:54 And I don't think that's a good idea. So, I'm going to use an old teaching technique that I learned on the job. And that is, we're going to cover some of the important material here this morning. And I'm going to assign the rest for you for homework this week. Now you say, now you say to yourself, well, I did not come to church this morning in order to be assigned homework.

2:17 Well, that is what you get when you ask a math teacher to deliver the morning message. So your assignment is to read Psalm 68 at least twice in the coming week. And you can turn in a two page report to me next Sunday. Psalm 68. May God arise.

2:41 May his enemies be scattered. May his foes flee before him. As smoke is blown away by the wind, may you blow them away. As wax melts before the fire, May the wicked perish before God. But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God.

2:59 May they be happy and joyful. Sing to God, sing praise to his name. Extol him who rides on the clouds. His name is the Lord and rejoice before him. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling.

3:18 God sets the lonely in families. He leads forth the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious live in a sun scorched land. When you're... When you went out before your people, oh God, when you marched through the wasteland, the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain before God, the one of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel, you gave abundant showers, oh God, you refreshed your weary inheritance. Your people settled in it.

3:51 And from your bounty, oh God, you provided for the poor. The Lord announced the word and great was the company of those who proclaimed it. Kings and armies flee in haste. In the camps, men divide the plunder. Even while you sleep among the campfires, the wings of my dove are sheets with silver, its feathers with shining gold.

4:15 When the Almighty scattered the kings in the land, it was like snow fallen on Salmon. The Mountains Of Bashan are majestic mountains, rugged are the Mountains Of Bashan. Why gaze in envy, O rugged mountains, at the places where God chooses to reign, where the Lord himself will dwell forever. The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands upon thousands. The Lord has come from Sinai into his sanctuary.

5:17 The Lord says, I will bring them from Bashan. I will bring them from the depths of the sea that you may plunge your feet in the blood of your foes, while the tongues of your dogs have their share. Your procession has come into view, oh God, the procession of my God and king into the sanctuary. In front are the singers, after them the musicians, With them are the maidens playing tambourines. Praise God in the great congregation.

5:47 Praise the Lord in the assembly of Israel. There is the little tribe of Benjamin leading them. There is the great throng of Judah's princes. And there are the princes of Zebulun and Naphtali. Summon your power, O God, show us your strength, God, as you have done before.

6:05 Because of your temple at Jerusalem, kings will bring you gifts. Rebuke the beast among the reeds, the herd of bulls among the calves of the nations. Humbled, may it bring bars of silver. Scatter the nations who delight in war. Envoys will come from Egypt.

6:23 Cush will submit herself to God. Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth, sing praise to the Lord. To him who rides the ancient skies above, who thunders with mighty voice proclaim the power of God, whose majesty is over Israel, whose power is in the skies. You are awesome, o God, in your sanctuary. The God of Israel gives power and strength to his people.

6:50 Praise be to God. That is just a wonderful Psalm. Couple interesting fun facts about this little Psalm. One is, at least according to Strong's Concordance, Psalm 68 contains 13 words that are found nowhere else in the Bible. Maybe a little extra credit assignment for somebody if you have time this week.

7:12 What are the 13 words that are only in Psalm 68? And the second is, if your Bible is anything like mine, it contains the words, the names for God, God and Lord. Those are the only two that show up in my version of Psalm 68. But according to the scholars that I have read, there are at least six different names of God in the original Hebrew in this Psalm, and each name of God in the original language communicated some different attribute. So, again, that would make another great sermon, but it's not the one that I'm going to give this morning.

7:47 But there's always more to the Bible than what meets the eye. So, you might ask yourselves, on what occasion was Psalm 68 written? And of course, we don't know for sure. Most of the people that I have read over the last month or so seem to agree that Psalm 68 was written by David on the occasion when the Ark of the Covenant was being brought into Jerusalem. Now you might remember this account from two Samuel chapter six.

8:14 Ark was coming into Jerusalem and then there was this problem. A man named Uzziah reached out and touched the ark and was struck down dead. That's a whole different sermon for a different time. But the end result of that is that it kind of put a damper on the party. And so they took the ark and they put it in the house of Obed Edom and it stayed there for three months or so, I think, until David finally figures out how to transport the ark with respect.

8:40 And then they get it on the move again and there is this wonderful scene in second Samuel in which the ark of God representing the dwelling place of the Lord, the spirit coming into Jerusalem and it is amidst all of that joy that David apparently wrote the sixty eighth Psalm. And now having read through the whole thing, we're just going to spend a little bit of time this morning on three short pieces of it. And to help you out, I have boiled down the entire message into three words, all of which start with the letter S. So if you're taking notes, here they are. The first thing we're going to talk about is the source.

9:48 First six verses. First six verses. Notice first the source of David's joy. May the righteous be glad and rejoice before God. May they be happy and joyful.

10:01 The source of David's joy is not in his own worldly success. It is not in his economic security. It is not in the fact that he has a beautiful house in the suburbs and a well manicured lawn. When the psalmist says, may the righteous be happy and joyful, he is not talking about the kind of happiness that comes from getting a promotion at work or from the Browns having a winning season is not that kind of joy. It is none of those things that give David joy.

10:29 In fact, he does not even say, may we be happy and joyful because we live in The USA and we just celebrated our independence. David's joy comes from one thing alone, the joy of knowing the Lord. He sings about God arising, the enemies being scattered, God is on the move here. You see, God is supposed to be the joy of his people. And we are supposed to rejoice when we come into God's presence.

10:56 But so many times, I find myself distracted and then looking to other things for my own happiness. There are things in this world that keep me from rejoicing in God. That's probably just my problem and you do not suffer from that like I do. But, sometimes I allow the issues of my country or of my school or my favorite political party, sometimes I allow those things to become the source of my joy or to distract me from the joy of God. I'll give you a little example of this.

11:31 Example is that I love my country. I'm not ashamed to say that. I love this country. Megan and I were fortunate to be able to travel around Europe for four weeks or so. And we get back and people say to me, of all the places that you have been, where would you most like to live?

11:47 You know where I would most like to live? Elyria, Ohio. That's where I that's where I like it the best. Of all the places that I've been, I like this place the best. And so I love United States, and I love Independence Day and celebrating our freedoms.

12:02 I like to get together with my family, and we cook hot dogs, and we have apple pie, and we play sports in the backyard. And I like to watch fireworks. I think it's great that as a nation, we celebrate our independence by blowing things up. I think that's fantastic. What a way to celebrate the freedoms we have, but through explosions.

12:24 But here's the thing. I can't allow myself to mix up love of America with love of God. As much as I love this country and I try to work to make it a better place, I have to realize that my citizenship is not really in The US Of A, it's in the KOH. Kingdom of Heaven, that's right. Kingdom of Heaven, yeah.

12:48 Sometimes I look at how things are heading in this country and I worry or I get upset and I look at laws being passed that permit immorality and I see politicians who put the needs of themselves above the needs of people. And I see the national government interfering in Christian schools and judges interfering with Christian businesses. And in a sense, it is appropriate for us to be angry about those things. But my problem is, is that sometimes the issues of politics get me so passionate that I forget something. And that is that America is not the source of my joy.

13:25 God is. America is not my eternal home. Heaven is. And so I try to be a concerned citizen, but I try to not let it distract me from the true source of joy. And so, when things don't go my way, and when the candidates I vote for don't get elected, when some new law is passed that undermines the gospel, I am saddened by that.

13:51 But I should not let it consume me. Lord, I desire to live as one who bears a blood bought name, as one who fears just grieving you and knows no other shame. My ultimate joy lies in a higher government, one that is headed by God who, as it says in verse four, rides upon the clouds. And David says in verses five and six that we are to praise God because he is a God of mercy, of tender compassion. He cares for the afflicted and oppressed.

14:58 The Lord of joy. So, you might be here this morning and you are thinking, okay, that sounds good to me. How do I get to know this God that David is talking about? How do I find the real source of joy, real freedom, and true righteousness? And that leads us to point number two, salvation.

15:19 Let me just pick up this Psalm again in verse 16. Why gaze in envy, O rugged mountains, at the places where God chooses to reign, where the Lord himself will dwell forever? The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands. The Lord has come from Sinai into his sanctuary. When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train and received gifts from men, even the rebellious that you, oh, Lord God, might dwell there.

15:52 Praise be to the Lord, to God our savior, who daily bears our burdens. Our God is a God who saves. From the sovereign Lord comes escape from death. I think verses sixteen and seventeen are a beautiful picture of the power of God. That his power is more rugged and mighty than the mightiest mountain.

16:15 I have been blessed with the opportunity in my life to see several different mountain ranges, the Rocky Mountains and the Smoky Mountains, the Alps. And anytime you stand next to a mountain, you are impressed with the strength and the power that is before you. But this verse says that even the mountains ought to be envious of the places where God chooses to reign. That's the kind of God that we are worshiping this morning. And then I get down to verse 18.

16:48 When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train. What is that verse talking about? Let's turn quickly to Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four and verse eight. Ephesians chapter four verse eight.

17:15 But to each one of us, grace has been given as Christ appointed it. This is why it says, when he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men. So this verse in Psalm 68, here we have David. David is given a prophecy. A prophecy of someone who was to come and who was to die and who was to rise from the grave and ascend into heaven, leading the way for all of us who are captive to sin.

17:49 So remember when I asked a few moments ago, how do I get to know this God that David is rejoicing about? The answer is right here in Psalm 68 verse 18. The gift of salvation and of relationship with the Almighty God comes only through one way, through that one person who ascended into heaven, and that is belief in Jesus Christ. Jesus alone has the power to give you eternal life, and Jesus is freely giving it to all those who turn to him. Christ came into this rebellious world not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

19:08 We can experience this salvation only by believing in Jesus. So what does that mean? You ask, you say, I want to know this mighty God. I want to experience ultimate victory over death. What does it actually mean to believe in Jesus?

19:27 I'm gonna give you a little illustration, which I know is not... This is not a good illustration, but this is the best I could come up with. I don't know how many of you are following the World Cup. I will confess, I am not a big fan of soccer. In fact, I think it's just as much fun to watch the CCS Warriors play soccer as it is the men's national.

19:50 Probably more fun to watch them play soccer than the US men's national team. Part of the problem is that, I admit, I don't really understand the rules of soccer. I'm So not always sure of what's going on. And the other part of the problem is that at our house, we only have antenna television. So, I have to watch all the games on Univision, the Spanish channel.

20:11 And so, I don't even know what the announcer is saying. Right? Unless somebody scores a goal and then I wake up because someone is yelling, I'm not really sure what's happening on the field. But Megan and I have been... We've been watching the World Cup mainly to see how far The US was gonna make it.

20:28 And if you've been watching any of the coverage, you're going to see people holding signs or chanting things like, I believe that we will win. I believe that we will win. Same thing happens in most sports. And I always wonder, what do those people mean by I believe that we can win? Do they mean, I am going to communicate telepathically to Tim Howard and he is going to keep the ball out of the goal?

20:55 I don't think that's what they mean. Do they mean, if we just think hard enough, the power of positive thinking is going to cause our guys to put the ball in the goal and we're going to win? I don't think that's what they mean either. When they say, I believe that we will win, this is what I think they actually mean. I know it is hypothetically possible for our team to win the game and I really hope it's going to happen.

21:21 But that's kind of tough to put on a sign or to make in a fun chant. It is hypothetically possible for us to win. Right. No. But that's what they actually mean when they say I believe.

21:33 So how is that connected to me telling you that the only way to eternal life is to believe in Jesus? In our culture, we have a problem with this word believe. And sometimes that makes it hard to understand the Christian message. So we read a passage like Psalm 68, Our God is a God who saves from the sovereign Lord comes escape from death. And you say, that sounds great.

21:58 I want to escape from death. Who doesn't, right? How do I get saved? And the answer that Christians are going to give you is, believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus rose from the dead and you shall be saved. And there's that tricky word, believe.

22:13 So what does it mean to believe? Well, it does not mean simply to hope. I hope Jesus is real and that I go to heaven when I die. Brother, if that's where you are today, you're in real trouble. It is not about hope.

22:27 And it's not about saying it's hypothetically possible that there once was a man named Jesus, I suppose he may have risen from the dead. Right? That is not what we mean by believe either. And it surely doesn't mean I believe that everybody is basically good and we're probably just all going to go to heaven when we die. That's not what the Bible means by believe either.

23:13 I apologize many times for my poor choice of words or the rambling way in which I talk or for saying things which I do not mean. But one thing I will not apologize for is the message of the Gospel. And if you come to this church, we are going to stand on the authority of the Bible as the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God. And sometimes to preach the word of God accurately, we have to risk offending people. So if you are looking for a place where you can come and just feel good about yourself and hear some kind of watered down, sticky, sweet version of the gospel, this is probably not the place for you.

23:57 But if you see me after church, I can point you to several churches in the area where you can get that kind of message. And you can feel good about the gospel and feel good about yourself until you die and then you find out the Bible was right all along. What the Bible means by believing in Jesus is this, recognize that you are a sinner, that you have broken God's law, confess your sins to God and ask him to forgive you. Trust that Jesus really died on a cross some two thousand years ago and three days later rose from the grave. He paid the penalty for the sins that we committed.

24:43 Ask God to save you from death, from hell in the name of Jesus Christ, and guess what? You will be saved. You say, is that it? That all? Don't I have to suffer some punishment?

24:58 39 lashes? Don't I have to burn some incense and say some secret password? Do I have to quit my job and give all my money to the church and become a monk? No. No.

25:10 Confess your sins to God. Trust in your heart that Jesus died and rose again, and you will be saved. Faint not nor fear. God's arms are near. He changes not, and you are dear.

25:27 Only believe and you shall see that Christ is all in all to thee. Now this last part of the message is for those of us who are already believers. And that is the strength of God. Let's look down a few verses to verse 28. Summon your power, O God.

26:04 Show us your strength, O God, as you have done before. I like how the King James version puts this. Strengthen, O God, that which you have worked out for us. This is a prayer that I believe that I should be praying and praying often. Why should I ask God to strengthen something that he has already done before?

26:30 If God already did something, why am I asking him to strengthen it? The thing that he has done is the work of salvation in my heart. Some of us in this room were saved recently and some long ago. But at one point, all of us are going to experience trials and temptations and afflictions as a result of a lack of faith. This doesn't mean in any way that we have lost our salvation, but it means that the garden of our heart is parched and dry and in need of spiritual refreshment.

27:43 That is not very assuring, I know. But thankfully, you do not have to put your faith in me. But it's the reality of living in this world, and I think there's some benefit in Psalm 68 for those of us that have gone through those periods in life. Of course, part of the problem is that there is Satan, and Satan is always trying to turn our hearts away from God. But another part of the problem is that sometimes I just allow my faith to become weak due to carelessness or lack of prayer or lack of time in God's Word.

28:19 And I have to remember that God is not only the author of my faith, but he is also the preserver of my faith. Hebrews twelve:two, fixing our eyes upon Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. I love that verse. Hebrews twelve:two. I love that passage.

28:48 Even though it is sometimes hard for me to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus, Satan is always right next to me. It seems he's just right there willing to to say things to me like, your sins are just too great for god to pardon. Your faith is so weak. You don't repent enough. You are never gonna be able to make it to the end, and you will be lost.

29:13 That's what the devil says to me. He says to me, you do not have the joy of the Lord. You have such a wavering hold on Jesus. But those are the thoughts that I have when I look at myself, not when I keep my eyes fixed on Christ. We will never find comfort by looking at ourselves.

29:34 But the Psalmist cries out for God to strengthen that which he has worked out for us. What we are doing is praying that the Holy Spirit would turn our eyes continually away from ourselves and turning to Jesus because we are nothing, but Christ is all in all. It is not our hold on Christ that saves us. We do not measure our salvation by how tightly I am holding on to Jesus. It is not our joy in Christ that saves us.

30:07 Some days I'm going to have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Supposed to say where? Down in my heart. Some days I have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, and some days I don't feel like that at all. But if I'm trusting in my feelings for my salvation, then I'm looking at myself.

30:30 What is it then that saves us? It is the blood of Christ. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name. That's right.

30:49 Jesus name. So we don't look at our hands, which hold on to Jesus. We don't look at ourselves for strength, but we look to Jesus himself, the source of our hope. We look to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. We will never find peace by looking at our prayers or our actions and certainly not at our feelings.

31:13 As Charles Spurgeon wrote, it is what Jesus is, not what we are that gives rest to the soul. And don't forget the story of the... Think it was the 10 virgins who waited for the bridegroom and who did not replenish their lamps with oil. In the same way, our faith can only remain burning brightly if it is replenished with the oil of grace. And we can only obtain that from God himself.

31:48 The God who built the world also maintains it. The God who made us Christians by his spirit also maintains our salvation by his spirit. If we find ourselves trusting in anything else except for the cross of Jesus Christ, it will let us down. Therefore, we should daily go to the Lord, ask him for that grace and that strength that the psalmist talks about. And when we pray to God to strengthen our faith, we should expect that prayer to be answered.

32:22 It is his own work that accomplished salvation in us and we ask him to strengthen that work. Do you think that he is the kind of God who gets you started in salvation and then just leaves the rest up to you? I do not think so. He does not... He works to sustain the same hearts amidst all the trials of life.

32:42 So our faith is to take hold of his strength. And when we have his strength, then we can truly say that no power of darkness, no scheme of man can ever pluck us from his hand. That's my last C. S. Lewis quote, I promise.

33:00 He's got so many good ones. Relying on God has to begin afresh, every day, as if nothing has been done before. I can't say to myself, hey, I relied on God last Tuesday, so I am probably set for a while. It doesn't work like that. You have to rely on God's strength every day.

33:25 Faith asks no signal from the skies to show that prayers accepted rise. Our priest is in his holy place and answers from his throne of grace. Wow. We are almost out of time here this morning, which I'm sure will make some of you happy. But let me be a good teacher and just recap what we have been thinking about today.

33:54 The beginning of Psalm 68, we have David's joy at the spirit of God, arisen and on the march. David is filled with praise, able to see that God's fatherly love extends to the fatherless, the widow, the lonely, and the afflicted. But David, through the spirit, is also able to see forward to the Mount Of Olives where he sees the ascending Lord Jesus, his triumphal chariots, his innumerable companies of angels, and he beholds the Lord coming as a mighty conqueror. He sees Jesus making the way for sinners like us to follow in his train and to come before God, to know God, to have eternal life. He writes, blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burdens.

34:48 He is a God of salvation. And this should bring us some comfort, no matter what trials of life conditions bring us, that the Lord Jesus goes before us in all of our trials, just as the spirit of God would go before the Israelites in the desert so many, many years ago, Christ goes before us today. You know, Jesus Jesus knows your sorrows. And Jesus knows your weaknesses. And he knows your sins.

35:18 And yet, he still goes before us to prepare a place of heavenly rest and one day, he will come again and he is going to carry us home at last safely through death and into victory. Some of you know my grandfather, whom I do love dearly, is in the the last phase of his life. He's at the very end of stage four cancer, and there is no stage five. And he has suffered through weeks and weeks of radiation treatment, and it has failed. And the doctors said to us, barring any miracle of healing, he will be gone in a matter of months, if not weeks.

36:10 And I am sad about that. I said to my wife, I'm going to miss him when he goes. But here's the thing. He knows and I know that he is ready for heaven. And that one day, and it's really not that far from now.

36:30 It seems like it in human terms, but it's really not that far. One day, I will see him again. Because he and I both know that in a flash, in a twinkling of the eye, at the last trumpet, the dead will be raised to life, and we shall all be changed. That's what Drew was talking about this morning. We will all be changed.

37:03 Death will be swallowed up in victory. Where, oh, death is your victory? Where, oh, death is your sting? Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray.

37:59 We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.