WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons, 00:00:02.759 --> 00:00:05.700 a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg. 00:00:06.339 --> 00:00:08.259 It's our hope that these sermons will draw you 00:00:08.259 --> 00:00:10.660 more into the life of following God, Father, 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:13.460 Son, and Holy Spirit. Please consider coming 00:00:13.460 --> 00:00:15.560 and joining with us each Sunday morning at 10 00:00:15.560 --> 00:00:17.960 a .m. in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg. You 00:00:17.960 --> 00:00:21.239 can find us online at secondcitychurch .org and 00:00:21.239 --> 00:00:23.780 on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We hope 00:00:23.780 --> 00:00:28.559 you enjoy this sermon. God bless. Let's pray. 00:00:33.229 --> 00:00:37.310 Oh God, you are our King. We desire you above 00:00:37.310 --> 00:00:42.250 all things. We ask that you would speak to us 00:00:42.250 --> 00:00:48.670 today by the Word. Help us to have hearts and 00:00:48.670 --> 00:00:52.590 ears open and ready to receive. Touch us, oh 00:00:52.590 --> 00:00:57.210 Lord, by your Spirit. Do your work and your will, 00:00:57.289 --> 00:00:59.710 we pray, in the name of Christ our Savior. Amen. 00:01:03.469 --> 00:01:07.030 For about 30 years, in the late 19th and early 00:01:07.030 --> 00:01:10.689 20th centuries, there was a brutally horrible 00:01:10.689 --> 00:01:16.109 regime in the Congo, as a European rule in the 00:01:16.109 --> 00:01:19.290 Congo. The Congo territory is very large, but 00:01:19.290 --> 00:01:22.069 a relatively small amount of people were able 00:01:22.069 --> 00:01:24.670 to take it over because they had vastly superior 00:01:24.670 --> 00:01:27.730 weapons, and they would treacherously side with 00:01:27.730 --> 00:01:31.109 one tribe against others and then switch alliances. 00:01:32.639 --> 00:01:35.000 Historians estimate that somewhere between five 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:37.959 and ten million Congolese died during that 30 00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:40.099 -year span, either from outright violence or 00:01:40.099 --> 00:01:44.000 from starvation. And what's sort of horribly 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:47.719 interesting about this is that all of these deaths 00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:53.439 weren't, at least in theory, based in race hatred 00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:57.540 or governmental expansion. It was merely greed. 00:01:57.980 --> 00:02:00.959 These were commercial interests, not state interests. 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:05.819 The nation of Belgium's King, Leopold II, sort 00:02:05.819 --> 00:02:10.400 of hoodwinked the international community of 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:12.439 his day into thinking that the Congolese needed 00:02:12.439 --> 00:02:17.240 protection from Arabic slavers, and that he was 00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:19.719 benevolently willing to provide that protection. 00:02:20.419 --> 00:02:22.599 And if everybody got some nice ivory out of the 00:02:22.599 --> 00:02:28.080 deal, so much the better. Well, a few years into 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:31.479 this noble experiment, An English journalist 00:02:31.479 --> 00:02:35.099 was at the docks and watching trade ships sail 00:02:35.099 --> 00:02:40.259 out to Belgian -controlled Congo and he realized 00:02:40.259 --> 00:02:44.300 that the ships weren't loading anything to trade. 00:02:45.419 --> 00:02:48.419 They were only loading boxes and boxes of bullets. 00:02:50.539 --> 00:02:54.169 Therefore, all of this ivory and later... rubber 00:02:54.169 --> 00:02:56.409 that came out of the Congo during that time was 00:02:56.409 --> 00:02:59.009 not sold by any stretch of the imagination by 00:02:59.009 --> 00:03:03.490 the African people, it was merely stolen. A nasty 00:03:03.490 --> 00:03:06.689 irony in the story is that the Belgian for -profit 00:03:06.689 --> 00:03:09.169 company, which was doing the dirty work here, 00:03:09.550 --> 00:03:12.750 the main investor in which was King Leopold himself, 00:03:14.009 --> 00:03:17.590 employed forced labor of all of the natives that 00:03:17.590 --> 00:03:21.389 it could catch. That is, the king claimed he 00:03:21.389 --> 00:03:24.159 was going to protect the natives, from slave 00:03:24.159 --> 00:03:27.199 traders and then functionally, even if not legally, 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:31.879 made them slaves himself. Why do I bring this 00:03:31.879 --> 00:03:37.680 up? Well, the first spoken line in Joseph Conrad's 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:43.060 1901 book Heart of Darkness is as follows. And 00:03:43.060 --> 00:03:47.000 this also has been one of the dark places of 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:51.180 the earth, which is an allusion to Psalm 74 and 00:03:51.180 --> 00:03:56.819 verse 20. Have regard for the Covenant for the 00:03:56.819 --> 00:03:59.300 dark places of the land are full of the habitations 00:03:59.300 --> 00:04:03.939 of violence Habitations means living places environments, 00:04:03.939 --> 00:04:08.300 right? The psalmist says that violence lives 00:04:08.300 --> 00:04:13.740 in the darkness Heart of darkness is a famous 00:04:13.740 --> 00:04:16.240 little book which describes the massive ivory 00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:20.160 grab From the perspective of a guy who went out 00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:24.329 there to join the noble cause to be a steamboat 00:04:24.329 --> 00:04:28.050 captain. The narrator was one of the employees 00:04:28.050 --> 00:04:30.930 of the company collecting the ivory and now he's 00:04:30.930 --> 00:04:33.269 telling the story and the first thing he wants 00:04:33.269 --> 00:04:36.350 to do is to say that London, where he is currently 00:04:36.350 --> 00:04:39.430 at the beginning of the book, is not really very 00:04:39.430 --> 00:04:43.750 different from the Congo. Why would that be? 00:04:43.810 --> 00:04:46.689 Because the people's hearts are the same everywhere. 00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:49.480 Remember the title of the book, it's Heart of 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:51.879 Darkness. Conrad implies, and using the language 00:04:51.879 --> 00:04:56.160 of this psalm, that in each of us is a place 00:04:56.160 --> 00:05:00.360 which, if we are left to ourselves in unhealthy 00:05:00.360 --> 00:05:04.120 ways, can become full of the habitations of violence. 00:05:06.459 --> 00:05:08.379 So I've taught Heart of Darkness to 10th graders 00:05:08.379 --> 00:05:10.920 for the last five years, so I was sort of obliged 00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:13.240 to make that connection. Flora, did you see that 00:05:13.240 --> 00:05:17.560 coming? Yeah, she did. But while Heart of Darkness 00:05:17.560 --> 00:05:23.100 is important, it's not a fun read. It's a real 00:05:23.100 --> 00:05:27.180 downer of a book. I don't enjoy it. And this 00:05:27.180 --> 00:05:30.360 psalm is kind of a downer too, isn't it? It's 00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:32.879 a lament psalm. And as Peter has pointed out 00:05:32.879 --> 00:05:35.920 to us, that's the largest genre of psalm in the 00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:39.759 Psalter. And that makes sense. I opened the sermon 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:42.579 today by talking about a genocide which was largely 00:05:42.579 --> 00:05:44.959 ignored in its own day and largely forgotten 00:05:44.959 --> 00:05:49.689 today. There's a lot to lament in our world. 00:05:50.750 --> 00:05:54.709 But I think if we are willing to read the Psalm 00:05:54.709 --> 00:05:57.949 in its very broad context, which is to say its 00:05:57.949 --> 00:06:01.350 place in the whole of the Bible, we will see 00:06:01.350 --> 00:06:05.910 that this is not just a downer of a poem. It 00:06:05.910 --> 00:06:08.810 looks like it's just lamenting a catastrophe. 00:06:09.529 --> 00:06:11.829 But if we zoom way out, we can see that this 00:06:11.829 --> 00:06:17.259 is the grounds for a painful but real celebration 00:06:17.259 --> 00:06:23.600 of the goodness of God. So let's get some context. 00:06:23.620 --> 00:06:25.860 Let's get some observation here. So as we talked 00:06:25.860 --> 00:06:29.360 about last week, Psalm 73 begins Book 3 of the 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:32.699 Psalms. The Psalms are divided up into five books 00:06:32.699 --> 00:06:36.379 and scholars suggest that those five books mirror 00:06:36.379 --> 00:06:38.939 in some way the five books of Moses, the Pentateuch. 00:06:39.459 --> 00:06:43.519 So if this is true, Book 3 is in some way mirroring 00:06:43.519 --> 00:06:46.139 Leviticus. That's the book in the Bible that's 00:06:46.139 --> 00:06:48.439 most about ceremonial holiness and how you get 00:06:48.439 --> 00:06:50.000 it. How do you live with a God who's holy if 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:52.839 you're not holy yourself, right? And the way 00:06:52.839 --> 00:06:55.759 that works in the Psalms is that this book is 00:06:55.759 --> 00:06:59.300 particularly about the temple, right? The temple 00:06:59.300 --> 00:07:03.420 is the place that you go to be with God. The 00:07:03.420 --> 00:07:07.459 New Testament scholar Michael Byrd says this, 00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:10.959 quote, the temple in this period was of course 00:07:10.959 --> 00:07:16.120 the heart and center of Judaism, the vital symbol 00:07:16.120 --> 00:07:18.040 around which everything else circled. It was 00:07:18.040 --> 00:07:21.620 supposed to be where Yahweh Himself dwelt, or 00:07:21.620 --> 00:07:26.899 at least had dwelt, and would do so again. So, 00:07:27.379 --> 00:07:29.500 this whole section of the Bible is dealing with 00:07:29.500 --> 00:07:32.500 the temple and this poem is dealing with the 00:07:32.500 --> 00:07:37.519 fact that the temple had been destroyed. God 00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:39.639 had said in Deuteronomy, as we read this morning, 00:07:39.699 --> 00:07:41.959 that He was going to give His chosen people a 00:07:41.959 --> 00:07:46.000 promised land. And he was going to choose a particular 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:48.959 place there and he would make his name dwell 00:07:48.959 --> 00:07:52.879 in it and he did that. That was the temple. We 00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:56.699 see that in verse 7 of this. And when the temple 00:07:56.699 --> 00:07:59.980 was built and Solomon, David's son, prayed over 00:07:59.980 --> 00:08:03.040 it, this is a quote, fire came down from heaven 00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:05.439 and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices 00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:07.939 and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. 00:08:08.870 --> 00:08:12.790 That's second Chronicles 7. God Himself had ordained 00:08:12.790 --> 00:08:15.589 the temple, gave specifications for the design 00:08:15.589 --> 00:08:18.810 and the decorations even, and He set His name 00:08:18.810 --> 00:08:21.930 on it and He filled it with His visible glory. 00:08:22.050 --> 00:08:27.589 And now bad guys break it down? Let's look at 00:08:27.589 --> 00:08:31.009 the outline of the poem. First, you have a section 00:08:31.009 --> 00:08:33.889 that starts with concern over the anger of God 00:08:33.889 --> 00:08:36.950 for Israel and lament at what that anger looks 00:08:36.950 --> 00:08:40.820 like. then it asks God to redirect his anger 00:08:40.820 --> 00:08:44.799 against Israel's enemies. That's in verse 11. 00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:47.840 Destroy them. The bad guys are out there, God. 00:08:47.879 --> 00:08:50.279 They've smashed all our stuff. Don't you care? 00:08:50.799 --> 00:08:54.460 The question is, why do you withdraw your hand, 00:08:55.139 --> 00:08:57.460 even your right hand? What are you waiting for? 00:08:59.100 --> 00:09:01.820 And the implied question behind this question, 00:09:01.820 --> 00:09:06.879 of course, is if God isn't working, to vindicate 00:09:06.879 --> 00:09:12.659 his people and his holiness, is he able to? Is 00:09:12.659 --> 00:09:17.879 God powerless? And then the psalmist answers 00:09:17.879 --> 00:09:21.379 this unspoken question in verse 12. He says, 00:09:21.700 --> 00:09:25.480 yet God, my King, is from old working salvation 00:09:25.480 --> 00:09:29.019 in the midst of the earth. God is real. His power 00:09:29.019 --> 00:09:32.240 is evident in creation and the ordering of the 00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:35.389 natural world. That's verses 13 through 17. I 00:09:35.389 --> 00:09:37.990 wish I had time to talk about Leviathan." Then 00:09:37.990 --> 00:09:41.070 he goes back to pleading with God to stop the 00:09:41.070 --> 00:09:44.210 wicked people. Verse 18 and verse 21 both say 00:09:44.210 --> 00:09:47.690 that the bad guys scoff against God and the poem 00:09:47.690 --> 00:09:51.070 ends in verse 22 with the unacceptable clamor 00:09:51.070 --> 00:09:55.990 of God's foes. So, how do we see God's goodness 00:09:55.990 --> 00:10:03.529 in this psalm? It's a fair question. Follow my 00:10:03.529 --> 00:10:04.970 interpretive reasoning here and we'll see if 00:10:04.970 --> 00:10:08.149 you agree. First, the main point of this poem 00:10:08.149 --> 00:10:10.289 is this. The temple is smashed and what are you 00:10:10.289 --> 00:10:13.110 going to do about it, God? Are you even there? 00:10:13.370 --> 00:10:17.110 Second, what we call covenant theology, which 00:10:17.110 --> 00:10:19.610 the Reformed tradition broadly follows, says 00:10:19.610 --> 00:10:23.169 that the whole Bible is about Jesus in one way 00:10:23.169 --> 00:10:26.590 or another. It says that because Jesus says that. 00:10:27.269 --> 00:10:29.870 And if that is true, this psalm is therefore 00:10:29.870 --> 00:10:35.149 about Jesus in some way. Third, as we read this 00:10:35.149 --> 00:10:38.269 morning from our Gospel text, Jesus speaks about 00:10:38.269 --> 00:10:42.629 his body as the temple. So that means it's probably 00:10:42.629 --> 00:10:44.990 fair to read Old Testament references to the 00:10:44.990 --> 00:10:47.830 temple as being part of what Jesus understood 00:10:47.830 --> 00:10:51.929 about himself and his mission. So the question 00:10:51.929 --> 00:10:55.330 is, what can this poem teach us about Jesus? 00:10:55.909 --> 00:10:58.629 And if you have followed me till now, perhaps 00:10:58.629 --> 00:11:01.230 you will be happy to write down my main points, 00:11:01.250 --> 00:11:05.039 which I will share with you. Alright, I think 00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:07.860 that this text can teach us about, first, the 00:11:07.860 --> 00:11:11.620 amazing providence of God, which we can understand 00:11:11.620 --> 00:11:15.340 in his preparing the temple in Israel's history 00:11:15.340 --> 00:11:18.960 as a type of Christ, the providence of God. Second, 00:11:19.340 --> 00:11:23.620 the amazing humility of God, which we can see 00:11:23.620 --> 00:11:26.740 in his willingness to let his temple be destroyed. 00:11:27.480 --> 00:11:32.100 And third, we can see the amazing, unpredictable 00:11:32.100 --> 00:11:35.470 benevolence of God, which we can see in the way 00:11:35.470 --> 00:11:39.230 he deals with his people and also with his enemies. 00:11:41.490 --> 00:11:43.830 So let's talk about the providence of God. When 00:11:43.830 --> 00:11:46.509 Jesus talks about the temple of his body, as 00:11:46.509 --> 00:11:49.710 we heard in John 2, he's not making this huge 00:11:49.710 --> 00:11:51.830 break with the Old Testament. He's not saying, 00:11:51.929 --> 00:11:54.610 forget all that old stuff, I'm here now. We didn't 00:11:54.610 --> 00:11:56.870 read all of John 2, but the context in which 00:11:56.870 --> 00:11:58.970 he says that he's going to raise the temple again 00:11:58.970 --> 00:12:02.049 in three days is Jesus has just gone into the 00:12:02.049 --> 00:12:06.879 actual rebuilt temple in Jerusalem and what he 00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:11.720 does there in John 2 is remarkable. Jesus, who 00:12:11.720 --> 00:12:15.019 is gentle and lowly in his own estimation, he's 00:12:15.019 --> 00:12:18.539 not given to lashing out as we say, makes a whip 00:12:18.539 --> 00:12:22.279 and he literally lashes out the money changers 00:12:22.279 --> 00:12:25.080 from the temple. Jesus cares deeply about the 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:28.620 temple and its honor. His disciples then remember 00:12:28.620 --> 00:12:33.279 the verse, zeal for your house consumes me. Jesus 00:12:33.279 --> 00:12:36.600 was zealous for the temple, as were all pious 00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:42.059 Jews. Why? Well, on the most basic level, you 00:12:42.059 --> 00:12:46.379 could say, the temple was beautiful. If you look 00:12:46.379 --> 00:12:49.120 at 1 Kings chapter 6, you'll see that the entire 00:12:49.120 --> 00:12:51.840 inside of the temple was covered in cedar wood 00:12:51.840 --> 00:12:56.139 and all of it was elaborately carved. In the 00:12:56.139 --> 00:12:58.759 form of gourds and open flowers, it was like 00:12:58.759 --> 00:13:01.379 a huge garden representing the garden of Eden 00:13:01.379 --> 00:13:05.639 that had all been whittled. And if you look back 00:13:05.639 --> 00:13:08.919 at one of the sad verses of Psalm 74 verse 6, 00:13:09.299 --> 00:13:12.720 it says here. All its carved wood they broke 00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:16.080 down. Right all the stuff that we worked so hard 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:18.940 on to make beautiful it's gone. We should remember 00:13:18.940 --> 00:13:20.480 the time here that we're talking about wasn't 00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:24.299 like ours with life was much harder. Beauty, 00:13:24.620 --> 00:13:26.720 in the sense of artistic creation, was a much 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:31.580 rarer thing. Just an instance. In my classroom, 00:13:31.779 --> 00:13:34.740 at school, I have a famous portrait of Gertrude 00:13:34.740 --> 00:13:38.580 Stein done by her friend, Pablo Picasso. I have 00:13:38.580 --> 00:13:41.120 this because I could print it off the internet 00:13:41.120 --> 00:13:45.240 and frame it for low, low prices. This was not 00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:48.019 an option for the Psalmist. Artistic beauty was 00:13:48.019 --> 00:13:51.139 something precious, something comparatively hard 00:13:51.139 --> 00:13:54.649 to come by. So hand in hand with the beauty of 00:13:54.649 --> 00:13:57.129 the temple is the cost of the temple. Of course, 00:13:57.389 --> 00:14:00.269 the man hours it took to whittle all of that 00:14:00.269 --> 00:14:02.970 would have been staggering, but consider the 00:14:02.970 --> 00:14:06.190 mere materials. First Chronicles 29 says that 00:14:06.190 --> 00:14:11.830 5 ,000 talents and 10 ,000 derricks of gold were 00:14:11.830 --> 00:14:14.169 used in the temple. I don't know how to do that 00:14:14.169 --> 00:14:17.710 math, but one website I found said that would 00:14:17.710 --> 00:14:21.330 be worth $200 billion. That's with a B, billion. 00:14:21.529 --> 00:14:24.710 dollars today. So the point here, so the temple 00:14:24.710 --> 00:14:27.929 was hugely costly, hugely beautiful, and when 00:14:27.929 --> 00:14:32.029 we think that Jesus is in some way the truth 00:14:32.029 --> 00:14:36.090 the temple was pointing to, we will see that 00:14:36.090 --> 00:14:41.330 he is more beautiful, more costly even than the 00:14:41.330 --> 00:14:43.950 temple itself, and we will gaze on him with wonder. 00:14:45.590 --> 00:14:48.649 1 Peter 1 says that we were quote, ransomed by 00:14:48.649 --> 00:14:52.590 the precious blood of Christ. Friend, His blood 00:14:52.590 --> 00:14:56.509 is precious. It is costly. To put it in flat 00:14:56.509 --> 00:14:59.509 economic terms, it had enormous purchasing power. 00:15:01.590 --> 00:15:03.750 It bought Him the souls of all the redeemed. 00:15:04.570 --> 00:15:07.750 So, we're talking about Jesus' blood. Let's go 00:15:07.750 --> 00:15:10.230 to our second point, which is the humility of 00:15:10.230 --> 00:15:14.730 God. So, the temple, which is the place in His 00:15:14.730 --> 00:15:17.669 providence where His name dwells, that's verse 00:15:17.669 --> 00:15:19.730 seven again, the dwelling place of Your name. 00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:24.440 It gets smashed by the pagan bad guys. And then 00:15:24.440 --> 00:15:27.940 Jesus, who is the true temple, who has been given 00:15:27.940 --> 00:15:31.519 the name above every name, gets smashed by the 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:34.779 pagan bad guys. This is a pattern. And it's a 00:15:34.779 --> 00:15:37.840 pattern of intense, unbelievable humility in 00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:41.460 God. Think about it. Psalm 74 is recounting the 00:15:41.460 --> 00:15:44.740 fact that God allowed the destruction of his 00:15:44.740 --> 00:15:48.519 temple, which doesn't make any sense. Going into 00:15:48.519 --> 00:15:52.159 a temple, and smashing it is a sort of demonstration 00:15:52.159 --> 00:15:55.759 that the god the temple is associated with is 00:15:55.759 --> 00:15:58.960 actually powerless. This is Indiana Jones stuff. 00:15:59.259 --> 00:16:00.899 If I don't believe in the god of the temple, 00:16:00.899 --> 00:16:03.259 I can go in and steal the stuff because it belongs 00:16:03.259 --> 00:16:07.240 in the museum. Or consider the more Christian 00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:09.259 story of Saint Boniface who lived in the 8th 00:16:09.259 --> 00:16:11.919 century. He is known as the apostle to the Germans. 00:16:12.159 --> 00:16:14.500 He is said to have, as part of his missionary 00:16:14.500 --> 00:16:18.139 journeys, chopped down the sacred oak of Thor. 00:16:18.759 --> 00:16:23.080 He wasn't smited for this act or smitten or smote. 00:16:24.279 --> 00:16:29.100 No tense of smite occurred to him. And therefore, 00:16:29.419 --> 00:16:32.220 he proved his point that the old gods had no 00:16:32.220 --> 00:16:35.620 power. And the people, that's the pagans that 00:16:35.620 --> 00:16:38.500 he was preaching to, converted en masse to Christianity. 00:16:38.840 --> 00:16:41.120 It's a crude kind of apologetics, but it worked 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:45.200 for him. So think about this. The God of the 00:16:45.200 --> 00:16:48.740 Bible in Psalm 73 allows the Boniface treatment 00:16:48.740 --> 00:16:52.399 against himself, right? The pagan bad guys are 00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:53.879 saying, your God doesn't have any power, let 00:16:53.879 --> 00:16:59.659 me smash his holy stuff, and God allows it. He 00:16:59.659 --> 00:17:01.740 doesn't smite them back. So the question is, 00:17:01.740 --> 00:17:05.839 can we trust him? Simply put, is he strong enough? 00:17:05.940 --> 00:17:09.039 Is he even real? God has chosen to look weak, 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:12.420 but the weakness of God is stronger than men. 00:17:12.519 --> 00:17:15.599 1 Corinthians 1. The theological answer to this 00:17:15.599 --> 00:17:18.720 is kind of startling. It's that God does not 00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:23.420 just let his temple be destroyed. He causes his 00:17:23.420 --> 00:17:27.039 temple to be destroyed. And the psalmist knows 00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:29.599 that this unthinkable problem has to do with 00:17:29.599 --> 00:17:32.839 God's anger. Verse 1, oh God, why do you cast 00:17:32.839 --> 00:17:36.299 us off forever? Why does the anger smoke against 00:17:36.299 --> 00:17:38.980 the sheep of your pasture? This is powerful language, 00:17:39.880 --> 00:17:43.309 isn't it? The Solomonic temple was destroyed 00:17:43.309 --> 00:17:46.710 about 200 years after David himself was alive, 00:17:46.809 --> 00:17:50.569 which means that at this time, the people of 00:17:50.569 --> 00:17:54.250 God had been singing David's Psalm 23 for 200 00:17:54.250 --> 00:17:59.849 years. The Lord is my shepherd, Psalm 23, I shall 00:17:59.849 --> 00:18:02.410 not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. 00:18:02.490 --> 00:18:05.589 And now 200 years later, this Psalm seems to 00:18:05.589 --> 00:18:08.009 reach directly back to be in contrast with that 00:18:08.009 --> 00:18:11.289 one. Why does your anger smoke against the sheep? 00:18:11.750 --> 00:18:14.710 God, I thought you were a shepherd. Doesn't the 00:18:14.710 --> 00:18:18.630 shepherd protect his sheep? Aren't your rod and 00:18:18.630 --> 00:18:22.809 staff supposed to comfort me? This is a real 00:18:22.809 --> 00:18:25.349 question, is it? What is God doing? How are we 00:18:25.349 --> 00:18:27.730 supposed to trust that he's good if he won't 00:18:27.730 --> 00:18:30.970 protect his people? What evidence do we have 00:18:30.970 --> 00:18:34.869 that he is worth our time in our worship? What's 00:18:34.869 --> 00:18:38.970 the answer here? We're in a Christian church. 00:18:39.410 --> 00:18:43.569 The answer is Jesus. John 10 verse 11, Jesus 00:18:43.569 --> 00:18:46.990 says, I am the good shepherd, right? Jesus says 00:18:46.990 --> 00:18:49.089 all that stuff about the shepherd. Can you trust 00:18:49.089 --> 00:18:50.670 the shepherd? Yeah, that's me. And then what 00:18:50.670 --> 00:18:52.730 does he say in the very next line, right? The 00:18:52.730 --> 00:18:54.470 good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, 00:18:54.809 --> 00:18:57.670 right? I am going to take the destruction of 00:18:57.670 --> 00:19:00.940 the temple. on myself, right? The answer is that 00:19:00.940 --> 00:19:03.019 God has allowed his temple to be destroyed, to 00:19:03.019 --> 00:19:06.200 show the depths of his wrath against sin. He's 00:19:06.200 --> 00:19:08.799 willing to destroy his own holy place in order 00:19:08.799 --> 00:19:11.980 to show how much he hates sin. And this destruction 00:19:11.980 --> 00:19:14.579 points forward to Jesus, who endures the same 00:19:14.579 --> 00:19:20.680 fate as the temple. For the very people God was 00:19:20.680 --> 00:19:24.400 wrathful against. So the fall of the temple was 00:19:24.400 --> 00:19:26.720 a tragedy, but it was a tragedy pointing forward 00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:29.579 to the great rescue that God was going to make 00:19:29.579 --> 00:19:32.299 for his people by the fall of the true temple. 00:19:33.019 --> 00:19:35.740 The psalmist wants God to be a shepherd and protect 00:19:35.740 --> 00:19:39.460 his flock. God does this, but in a very unexpected 00:19:39.460 --> 00:19:42.859 way. He protects the flock from their deepest 00:19:42.859 --> 00:19:46.920 enemy, which is sin and eternal death. And he 00:19:46.920 --> 00:19:50.000 does this by humbly allowing the place where 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.059 his name dwells to be destroyed. On to my last 00:19:54.059 --> 00:20:00.039 point. Look again at verse 11. Why do you hold 00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:03.660 back your right hand? Take it from the fold of 00:20:03.660 --> 00:20:07.519 your garment and destroy them. Why does God wait 00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:13.099 to judge the evildoers? I think the answer is 00:20:13.099 --> 00:20:16.319 the relentless unpredictable benevolence of God. 00:20:18.059 --> 00:20:20.339 What would happen to the bad guys if the psalmist 00:20:20.339 --> 00:20:23.440 were in charge? It's not much of a question, 00:20:24.119 --> 00:20:29.619 right? Destroy them. There's an interesting textual 00:20:29.619 --> 00:20:32.319 point here. If you're reading a different version, 00:20:32.420 --> 00:20:34.619 particularly the King James, your text actually 00:20:34.619 --> 00:20:37.039 doesn't have the phrase destroy them. That's 00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:40.900 because the Hebrew here is really hard to read, 00:20:41.359 --> 00:20:44.180 says a commentary. All Hebrew is difficult to 00:20:44.180 --> 00:20:47.920 read for me. The Hebrew apparently is very disjointed. 00:20:48.220 --> 00:20:50.220 It's almost like the emotion of the speaker is 00:20:50.220 --> 00:20:52.400 too great and he can't even speak in complete 00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:55.720 sentences. The Hebrew for verse 11 literally 00:20:55.720 --> 00:21:00.140 just reads, From the midst of thy bosom destroy. 00:21:01.519 --> 00:21:03.579 And different versions translate that in different 00:21:03.579 --> 00:21:06.240 ways, but I think it's pretty obvious that what 00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:09.920 the psalmist wants destroyed is the enemy. So 00:21:09.920 --> 00:21:12.759 keep going in the text. Verses 18 and 22, both 00:21:12.759 --> 00:21:15.339 ask the Lord to remember that the enemy scoff. 00:21:15.660 --> 00:21:18.240 This is how you identify a biblical bad guy. 00:21:18.299 --> 00:21:21.720 He scoffs. Think of Psalm 1. Blessed is the man 00:21:21.720 --> 00:21:24.140 who does not sit in the seat of the scoffer. 00:21:24.460 --> 00:21:27.759 This scoffing is intolerable to the Psalm writer 00:21:27.759 --> 00:21:30.660 and he thinks it ought to be for God as well. 00:21:31.420 --> 00:21:33.839 Arise, O God, he says, and I think the Psalmist's 00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:39.400 judgment is right. His judgment is morally just. 00:21:39.740 --> 00:21:43.220 The bad guys should be struck down, but there's 00:21:43.220 --> 00:21:46.880 a problem with this, isn't there? The people 00:21:46.880 --> 00:21:51.779 who smashed the temple, guys, that's you and 00:21:51.779 --> 00:21:56.059 me. Without the grace of God and given the right 00:21:56.059 --> 00:21:58.240 opportunity, we would have broken down the walls 00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:02.240 of Jerusalem. We would have left not one stone 00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:06.529 on top of each other. How do I know? Well, the 00:22:06.529 --> 00:22:08.910 Bible's really clear that it's God's grace that 00:22:08.910 --> 00:22:12.029 keeps us from being awful. It talks in Deuteronomy 00:22:12.029 --> 00:22:15.269 about how, quote, tender and refined women will 00:22:15.269 --> 00:22:17.410 fight each other over food if they're hungry 00:22:17.410 --> 00:22:19.009 enough. And if you know the text I'm referring 00:22:19.009 --> 00:22:21.009 to, you know that I'm soft -pedaling that a little 00:22:21.009 --> 00:22:24.730 bit. Romans 5 says that we were enemies of God. 00:22:25.049 --> 00:22:27.089 Without the grace of God, there is drastic evil 00:22:27.089 --> 00:22:30.309 in our hearts. And without his preventative kindness, 00:22:30.369 --> 00:22:32.509 we would express it in drastic ways. You and 00:22:32.509 --> 00:22:35.339 I, friend, minus the grace of God, we would certainly 00:22:35.339 --> 00:22:40.119 have crucified the Lord Jesus. Spiritually speaking, 00:22:40.119 --> 00:22:44.779 we did. In Acts 2, in Peter's Pentecost sermon, 00:22:44.779 --> 00:22:47.920 he says this, this Jesus delivered up according 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:51.299 to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, 00:22:51.339 --> 00:22:54.740 that's providence again, you crucified and killed 00:22:54.740 --> 00:22:57.319 by the hands of lawless men. Even if you didn't 00:22:57.319 --> 00:23:01.279 do it yourself, you did it through others. Remember 00:23:01.279 --> 00:23:05.250 the words of the Getty hymn? Ashamed, I hear 00:23:05.250 --> 00:23:07.630 my mocking voice call out among the scoffers. 00:23:07.690 --> 00:23:11.710 We sit in the seat of the scoffers. We are the 00:23:11.710 --> 00:23:14.529 temple breakers. It was our sins that held him 00:23:14.529 --> 00:23:16.470 there until it was accomplished. And how does 00:23:16.470 --> 00:23:19.950 the Lord respond to our violence against him? 00:23:21.250 --> 00:23:23.670 He has every right to say just what the psalmist 00:23:23.670 --> 00:23:26.529 does here, destroy, destroy them. Yet what do 00:23:26.529 --> 00:23:32.539 we hear from the cross? Forgive them. Father 00:23:32.539 --> 00:23:34.019 forgive them for they know not what they do. 00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:36.740 We were enemies of God and without hope in the 00:23:36.740 --> 00:23:40.519 world and in Christ, God forgives us and makes 00:23:40.519 --> 00:23:45.940 us holy. And then what? There's more. We're more 00:23:45.940 --> 00:23:49.759 than just forgiven. What happens to us temple 00:23:49.759 --> 00:23:54.279 breakers and torch throwers and axe wielders? 00:23:56.980 --> 00:24:02.720 We become the temple of God ourselves. and know 00:24:02.720 --> 00:24:04.819 you not that you are the temple of the Holy Ghost 00:24:04.819 --> 00:24:06.539 which is within you, for you are brought with 00:24:06.539 --> 00:24:11.539 a price." 1 Corinthians 6. God himself will come 00:24:11.539 --> 00:24:14.740 to make his home in us, John 14. We are being 00:24:14.740 --> 00:24:17.000 built together into a dwelling place for God 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:19.779 by the spirit, Ephesians 2. This is a relentless 00:24:19.779 --> 00:24:23.539 benevolence in God. We were his enemies and he 00:24:23.539 --> 00:24:28.150 defeats us by making us friends. He allows us 00:24:28.150 --> 00:24:30.930 to destroy his precious things, and then he makes 00:24:30.930 --> 00:24:36.890 us precious in return. How long will your anger 00:24:36.890 --> 00:24:38.869 burn against the sheep of your pasture, the poem 00:24:38.869 --> 00:24:41.930 asks, and the Lord responds by becoming the lamb 00:24:41.930 --> 00:24:44.069 of God that takes away the sins of the world. 00:24:45.650 --> 00:24:48.430 God's anger flared against the sheep, and Jesus 00:24:48.430 --> 00:24:52.089 Christ was this sheep. And in doing this, he 00:24:52.089 --> 00:24:57.940 leads us all beside still waters. Okay, that's 00:24:57.940 --> 00:25:01.059 all over the place. That's landing very heavily 00:25:01.059 --> 00:25:02.839 in the New Testament. I want to tie this back 00:25:02.839 --> 00:25:05.539 to this text and to finish up with some applications. 00:25:26.490 --> 00:25:28.829 The truth of this is complicated a little bit, 00:25:28.950 --> 00:25:31.970 right? Because as Jesus says, his kingdom is 00:25:31.970 --> 00:25:36.269 not of this world. God does not operate on our 00:25:36.269 --> 00:25:38.589 rules or our timing or our sense of what's fitting. 00:25:39.490 --> 00:25:43.230 One commentator says, sometimes even the staunchest 00:25:43.230 --> 00:25:46.269 believer finds that the two really mystifying 00:25:46.269 --> 00:25:49.150 things about the way God works are his reasons 00:25:49.150 --> 00:25:54.920 and his timetable. We need to remember, even 00:25:54.920 --> 00:25:59.359 as we look at Christ and adore Him for His otherworldly 00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:01.720 goodness, that this is not a comfortable doctrine 00:26:01.720 --> 00:26:05.779 in the world. The temple getting broken down 00:26:05.779 --> 00:26:08.359 comes with massive loss of life and political 00:26:08.359 --> 00:26:12.200 liberty for Israel. Jesus' followers do get persecuted. 00:26:12.700 --> 00:26:14.940 Our own bodies, which the Bible says are the 00:26:14.940 --> 00:26:18.500 temple of God, break down by age and sickness, 00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:21.250 if nothing else. God will eventually restore 00:26:21.250 --> 00:26:23.069 all losses, but in the meantime, the world can 00:26:23.069 --> 00:26:29.589 be awful. As we see here in Psalm 74, God has 00:26:29.589 --> 00:26:32.670 chosen in most of history, at most times, to 00:26:32.670 --> 00:26:38.730 act as if He doesn't exist. I'll take this a 00:26:38.730 --> 00:26:41.130 step further. Let's get even more uncomfortable. 00:26:42.269 --> 00:26:45.430 I want to return to the horrible man -made loss 00:26:45.430 --> 00:26:48.089 of life in the Congo that I started things with. 00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:52.279 The Belgian commercial rule there? It was supposedly 00:26:52.279 --> 00:26:57.220 a Christian thing. In Heart of Darkness, the 00:26:57.220 --> 00:26:59.680 narrator says that when he's willing to go over 00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:02.119 and help the noble cause, people think of him 00:27:02.119 --> 00:27:06.579 as, quote, a sort of minor apostle. One of the 00:27:06.579 --> 00:27:08.500 more heartbreaking things I read while I was 00:27:08.500 --> 00:27:10.819 studying this was that during this period when 00:27:10.819 --> 00:27:13.079 actual missionaries were over there trying to 00:27:13.079 --> 00:27:16.160 tell the natives about the gospel, they would 00:27:16.160 --> 00:27:20.240 often hear this, quote, Can this Jesus you tell 00:27:20.240 --> 00:27:25.119 us about save us from the ivory trouble? Which 00:27:25.119 --> 00:27:27.720 is to say, can Jesus Christ save us from the 00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:32.980 Christians? And I think that is nothing less 00:27:32.980 --> 00:27:37.619 than a desecration itself. The name of Christ 00:27:37.619 --> 00:27:40.460 the Savior used to gain power and trample other 00:27:40.460 --> 00:27:42.599 people down, it's another vision of the temple 00:27:42.599 --> 00:27:45.940 being broken. And what I want to think for a 00:27:45.940 --> 00:27:49.460 moment here, is how Psalm 74 contributes to our 00:27:49.460 --> 00:27:51.940 vision of Christ's work. And I think it can make 00:27:51.940 --> 00:27:55.920 us see how profoundly relieved we should be for 00:27:55.920 --> 00:27:59.539 Jesus and his forgiveness. Look again at verse 00:27:59.539 --> 00:28:18.039 22. the prayer of the solemnist, the prayer of 00:28:18.039 --> 00:28:20.619 all his beaten down people. This prayer is in 00:28:20.619 --> 00:28:24.220 this book for a reason. God collects the prayers 00:28:24.220 --> 00:28:27.680 of his saints like incense, says the book of 00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:31.539 Revelation. One day God will destroy all his 00:28:31.539 --> 00:28:35.200 enemies, either by making them friends or by 00:28:35.200 --> 00:28:39.200 removing them from the universe. And who shall 00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:41.700 stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's 00:28:41.700 --> 00:28:44.619 fire. Brother, if you're in Christ, thank him. 00:28:44.799 --> 00:28:47.140 that he has taken the holy wrath of God for your 00:28:47.140 --> 00:28:50.920 sins. If you have not trusted in Christ, if you 00:28:50.920 --> 00:28:54.000 are not sure that you who were his enemy are 00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:57.039 now his friend, I implore you to think about 00:28:57.039 --> 00:29:00.980 this. Reconsider your standing with him. Draw 00:29:00.980 --> 00:29:05.359 near to him and he will draw near to you. Friend, 00:29:05.599 --> 00:29:08.339 Jesus who is dead at the hands of lawless men 00:29:08.339 --> 00:29:11.220 is alive and one day he will make all things 00:29:11.220 --> 00:29:13.940 new, but for now the temple is broken and the 00:29:13.940 --> 00:29:17.339 world is confusing and sad. So, applications. 00:29:17.759 --> 00:29:20.859 Let's pray for a faith that's strong enough to 00:29:20.859 --> 00:29:25.779 endure sadness and confusion. If our faith only 00:29:25.779 --> 00:29:27.440 makes sense when everything's going great, we're 00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:31.259 in big trouble. Because as the psalm reminds 00:29:31.259 --> 00:29:36.309 us, everything's not going to go great. then 00:29:36.309 --> 00:29:39.750 let's praise the Lord that when we go into sadness 00:29:39.750 --> 00:29:44.309 and confusion, we can meet Jesus there because 00:29:44.309 --> 00:29:48.410 he goes there before us in otherworldly humility 00:29:48.410 --> 00:29:50.829 and benevolence and he will never leave us or 00:29:50.829 --> 00:29:54.690 forsake us. I want to close with a little part 00:29:54.690 --> 00:29:59.430 of a poem from the great preacher Charles Spurgeon. 00:29:59.730 --> 00:30:05.660 It says, for this long light, excuse me, For 00:30:05.660 --> 00:30:08.099 this life's long night of sadness, he will give 00:30:08.099 --> 00:30:11.960 us peace and gladness. Soul, remember in thy 00:30:11.960 --> 00:30:19.000 pains, God or all forever reigns. Amen. Let's 00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:23.859 pray. Oh Lord God, we praise you that you are 00:30:23.859 --> 00:30:28.319 our King, that you are the lover of our souls, 00:30:29.240 --> 00:30:33.599 that you come to comfort the weak, and the needy, 00:30:33.599 --> 00:30:36.279 that you have a special place in your heart for 00:30:36.279 --> 00:30:39.000 those that the world forgets and thinks are worthless. 00:30:39.619 --> 00:30:43.059 Help us, Lord, to be more like you. Help us to 00:30:43.059 --> 00:30:48.660 be forgivers. Help us to be compassionate. Help 00:30:48.660 --> 00:30:52.960 us to run to you for sanctuary from the world's 00:30:52.960 --> 00:30:57.380 woes and also from our own sin. Lord, be our 00:30:57.380 --> 00:31:02.869 great King, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Thank 00:31:02.869 --> 00:31:05.349 you for listening to Second City Sermons podcast. 00:31:05.890 --> 00:31:07.849 We hope this sermon has encouraged you to worship 00:31:07.849 --> 00:31:10.769 God and to celebrate the gospel of Jesus. Please 00:31:10.769 --> 00:31:13.150 consider subscribing to this podcast and joining 00:31:13.150 --> 00:31:16.349 us in person each Sunday at 10 a .m. You can 00:31:16.349 --> 00:31:19.650 find us online at secondcitychurch .org and on 00:31:19.650 --> 00:31:22.230 Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Thanks again 00:31:22.230 --> 00:31:23.730 for listening. God bless.