Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
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sermon. God bless. Okay, we're in Psalm 75. This
will be the last one for this year, and then
we will pick it up again next year. One of the
things that Christians stand up and confess,
and one of the things that we as a church stand
up and confess week in, week out, is that Jesus
is returning to judge the living and the dead.
And I would guess that there are those of you
here this morning who may not buy into the whole
Jesus is God, conquering the cross, Satan's sin
and death, risen from the dead, all that kind
of stuff, or all the rest of Christianity. And
as soon as I said, yeah, Jesus coming to judge,
this is what you're thinking. Yeah, this is one
of the reasons. This is one of the reasons why
Christianity is not me. So unappealing. Right
there, the clip of your faith, that poor kind
of, this is creed of Christianity, judgment,
no thanks. And maybe for a Christian, the whole
judgment of God thing is also maybe off -putting
you, maybe recalls here in memory times where
judgment has been present, rendered on you. Maybe
Jesus is showing up as a judge on the great day
of the Lord. Maybe evokes in you those memories
of the nightmares when you showed up to class
with no pants on. Or maybe one of the ones that
I've had these past 15 years since I've been
an ordained pastor, showing up to worship. and
nobody else comes. Or worse, showing up and having
no idea what I'm talking about. And you all know
that I have no idea what I'm talking about. And
like one by one, you'll leave. I tell you, I've
had that nightmare more than a few times. Truth
is, the judgment of God doesn't elicit the warmest
feelings, many of us. And we're telling this
song, Psalm 75, that it's of Asaph. And as Jed
said a couple of weeks back, most of these songs
in this third book of the Psalms, they're related
to worshiping God in the temple, the God of worship
of God's people. This one, it says, is to the
choir, and then at the end, at that little title,
it says it's a song. Everybody's supposed to
sing this one together. And this one is sung
to one of my favorite tunes, Do Not Destroy.
There are other songs that have titles to them,
tunes that they're supposed to be sung to. Psalm
80, in five songs from now, is supposed to be
sung according to the lilies. Psalm 88 is according
to Mahalath -Leonov, which I am fairly certain
is an Elvish tune from Middle Earth. Mahalath
-Leonov. I don't know. Anyway, this one's Do
Not Destroy, which is, as I said before, almost
certainly a heavy metal screamo tune. Do not
destroy. At the very least, I was waiting and
asking that this was all about judgments, and
the tune was Do Not Destroy. But here's the thing.
As much as the pushback that we give, from the
emotional pushback in the very least, and sometimes
intellectual pushback to that, to the doctrine
of judgment of God. Did you notice this song
celebrates? Celebrates. If you have that Bible
open still, Psalm 75, you can look down with
me at verse one, and this is how it reads. We
give thanks, for your name is near. We recount
your wondrous deed. When God comes near, when
the day of the Lord happens, which, by the way,
does have an ultimate day of the Lord, the coming
judgment, and the return of Christ, but the day
of the Lord is something that happens throughout
them. There are different days of the Lord in
the Bible, but when God comes close, they give
thanks. When we think of God Christ Himself coming
near, judging, the living and the dead, we give
thanks. And I know, my guess is some of you are
like, I don't know, I don't normally do that.
That's not a general impulse when I think of
that. And so today I want us to look at this
text and I want to suggest a few reasons why
it's white, give thanks. the context of the judgment
of God. Okay, so the first reason that I think
you go on to give thanks for the judgment of
God, listen, he did not want evil. You don't
want evil. The other day, a couple days ago,
I was with my kids, I was away from home, and
our little dog Teddy is barking like crazy and
leases upstairs, and Teddy hasn't normally just
barked that crazy. You've been to our house,
many of you, and you know that he barks, but
not like... And he's doing that kind of thing.
And so Melissa goes downstairs and she looks
out the window and literally looked directly
in front of our house, right? Like we've got
a little tiny front porch and then there's three
stairs and this right here at the front stairs,
there's two guys getting arrested. Which, I don't
know what they're getting arrested for. People
sometimes get arrested and it finds out that
they didn't know what they were being arrested
for. That's all true. But let me tell you, it
is unsettling. to have somebody arrested dying
quickly in front of your house. Ryan, we desire
safe neighborhoods, right? You desire safe neighborhoods.
You do not want people in this city, do you?
No, you do not. This spring, Melissa and I were
at a wedding with a good friend in Kentucky,
and the minister who officiated the wedding is
somebody I went to seminary with at Covenant
Seminary. I was talking to him about what he's
doing now. This is now working in the context
of the local church. He works for an organization
that he heads called Christ for Kentucky, which
he says is for the good of the bluegrass, bringing
the gospel to the bluegrass state. And I said,
well, what does that mean you do, right? It felt
nebulous a little bit. And of course, they do
quite a lot of things, but one of the things
that he shared with me that they're doing is
that they are working to eliminate medical debt
in Kentucky. You might notice medical debt is
unbelievably crippling. for so many, it's actually
medical debt is so crippling. What was the number
I read? In Appalachia, one third of the population
has medical debt that is considered crippling
debt. Okay. So what happens is that they're not
able to pay and the health care providers that
are billing them, no, they can't pay. And so
they can get some of their money recouped for
the work they did by selling some of that debt
to creditors. And so they could sell a massively
discounted feed. I want to say it was 0 .5 %
of the actual number, but it might've been 1%,
I forget. And so these collections agencies,
they get all this debt and they can put liens
on their households. They can garnish wages.
And there's all this even what's taking place
in the amount of bankruptcy. It's actually the
number one reason for bankruptcy, personal bankruptcy
is medical debt. And so their organization is
seeking to fight this. And one of the things
that's happening here is that this is simply
an evil thing. Evil thing taking place. And you
want people to stop. And I don't want people
to stop. And thankfully, my friend and others
in Kentucky want people to stop. Look in the
inside cover of the bulletin with me. There's
a quote that I want to read to you. down to the
second one. It says, consider an argument from
the less to the greater. In the human spirit,
he who loves purity and chastity and has no wrath
against impurity and chastity is a moral leper.
He who pities the poor and defences and has no
wrath against the oppressor who crushes the weak
and slays the defenseless but loves them too
is a thief. Divine wrath and divine holiness.
I'm sorry, divine wrath is divine holiness in
activity. You desire the goodness of the world.
You desire for evil to be done away with. That's
part of the reality of the goodness, the celebratory
stuff of God's judgment. You don't want evil.
You want an end to war. We desire and we pray
for peace in the Middle East and all the rest.
Verses four and five, they say this. I say to
the boastful, do not boast. And to the wicked,
do not lift up your horn. Do not lift up your
horn on me, or speak with a haughty net. This
is what God says. To boastful and those who exalt
themselves, haughtiness and pride must come down,
must stop. What I'm suggesting to you is something
that you desire. God say no. This must end. You
want people to stop. You want safe streets. You
want stores where there's no rebelling. You desire
lovely marriages. You did not want predators.
It helped to cause the number one reason. for
personal bankers. God says to this, stop. No
more. There's a time when people say, you know,
what time is it up? No more. Consider this. This
is from Murdoch Cain, the writer who wrote the
insomniac system. There you have God's command
to let his people go by saying, who is God that
I shall be? Nebuchadnezzar endeavored to set
his throne in the kingdom above him, whose throne
and kingdom are forever and ever inherited. Listen
to the adulation of his degenerate admirers.
It is the voice of God, not of man. Coming nearer
to our own time, we have read how Adolf Hitler
gazed at a picture of himself riding proudly
on the white horse. A picture which bore the
brashest title in the beginning was the word.
Then in a voice that deliberately mocked Christ,
the eternal King, he exclaimed, I am providence.
But Campbell says this, but Pharaoh and Zeus
are swept to destruction. Nebuchadnezzar becomes
a companion of the beasts of the field, Herod
was devoured by worms, and Hitler becomes a suicide.
And you may not like the idea that's. You know,
you're impulsed to the idea of the doctrine of
God's judgment. You might not go, oh, that's
nice. I like that. But there's something in you
that says you even must stop. Stop. Let's come
to an end. God says to the Bible, do not transgress.
I'm suggesting this statement. You do not want
evil, and this is a reason to celebrate your
judgment of God. Second reason to celebrate it.
is that God is the only truly just judge. One
of the claims against Christianity and one of
the reasons why some people don't believe in
Christian faith is because of the witness of
Christians themselves, and specifically because
they look at Christians and they say, man, those
people are so judgmental. And I have no doubt
that that's the case so often. Christians can
be unbelievably judgmental. That's true. We can
wag our fingers at others. They don't dance,
don't chew, and don't go with girls that do.
Mary, do you remember that one? That's an older
slogan. Christians often associate holiness less
with being with the Holy One, Jesus, and more
with getting her out together and just doing
the right thing. And we do that to ourselves.
So we become incredibly judgmental on ourselves
and incredibly judgmental on others. That's true.
Of course, another claim against Christians and
Christianity and why we don't consider Christ
is that the church is full of hypocrites, which
it is. Part of being a sinner is often being
a hypocrite. And this is why Jesus, when he's
talked to his disciples in the Sermon on the
Mount, he says this, he brings these two things
together. He says, judge not, that you not be
judged, for with the judgment you pronounce,
you will be judged, and the measuring you use
will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck
that's in your brother's eye, but you don't notice
the log that's in your own eye? Because you've
got to be careful in judging. You've got stuff
that you can't see correctly. We don't see well.
Well, how can we say to your brother, let me
take the speck out of your brother's eye, and
there's a log in there. You have a pick. First
take the log out of your brother's eye, and then
you can see clearly to take the speck out of
your brother's eye. Which by the way, he's not
saying it isn't the speck in your brother's eye
that needs to be taken out. There's times where
we actually rightly say, hey, let me talk to
you about this. That's there. But Jesus himself
connects judging and hypocrisy. Right? And when
he does that, he says, it's because we are not
good judges. We do not see well. Care for that
judge. Verses six and seven here in Psalm 75
says, we're not from the east or from the west,
and not from the river. This comes lifting up.
And it's not who executes judgment. He's like,
it's not all those things out there. That's not
the right place to vote the judge to judge. God
who executes judgment putting down one lifting
up another What it's saying chase Nobody else
touches And you desire an end to evil you desire
judgment upon that which is evil in the world
God is the only tree just judge There's the truth,
right? Like I said earlier, it's not too uncommon.
If someone is and that's something they didn't
do, that happens. And we do it to others too,
don't we? Falsely accused in another sometimes.
False accusations. We are bad judges. The Bible
says again and again, God sees clearly. He judges
justly. So verses two and three again. Look down
there. At the same time that I appoint, I will
judge with equity. When the earth thunders and
all its inhabitants, it is I who keeps steady
with its pillars. It says I'm the one that can
judge right. My suggestion to you is that we
actually wrong for a just judge, a good one,
who sees properly, because we hate evil, and
we must acknowledge that we're bad judges. That
case seems like judgment was something that Foxy
and all the rest of Jesus talks about there is
her own mouth But we should give thanks the judgment
of God because we did not And because we need
a just judge Okay third Finally the great reason
why would be a thanks for judgment of God? is
because Christ bears it for you, bears the judgment
of God on your behalf. So maybe you noticed in
the scripture readings that one of the images
that we have in the Bible of God's judgment was
the cup. And one of those actually mentions Egypt
being judged. One of the really significant images
of Egypt Evil in the Bible is Egypt. And think
about it, right? Pharaoh felt threatened by all
these immigrants that had moved down to Egypt.
So he enslaved them. He made them work invariably
hard. He began killing off the little boys. And
if you know the story, judgment comes on Pharaoh
and all the land of Egypt, this evil place, doing
horrible things, God's world to God's people.
And the greatest day of God's judgment in that
story is the Passover. The Passover day brings
together two things. One, there's a just judgment
on you. And the other is there's a great grace
from God. So if you're a father of the people
of God, write it into that story, you'd heard,
you were to take a little lamb, kill it and put
its blood on the lintel on the doorpost there
of your house. And basically you had done that.
If something else had died in your place, taken
the wrath of God before you, you were passed
over. You had life where you deserved judgment.
Someone else died in your place. One of the great
images in the Bible, the wrath of God on judgment
is that. And listen to how it's described here,
verse eight. For the hand of the Lord, there
is a cup with foam well mixed, and he pours out
from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall
drain it down to the drakes. Thankfully, judgment
of God, think of the battle hand of the repellent,
right, was pouring out the vintage with grapes
of wrath. And there, of course, we must think
of the passage that was read from Luke, Chuck
Redford, there in the garden. Jesus himself is
in anguish before he goes to the cross. Interesting,
actually, what we didn't hear in those few verses
that Chuck Redford, the verse before the verse
after, and it was one of those things that when
I put it in the bulletin, You know afterwards
as a question with that because if you find it
what happens right before the verses that we
heard is that Jesus tells us the cyclists they
pray They think that you follow the temptation
and then the next verse after what we read is
he goes to a cyclist You didn't do it and they
do But the disobedient his own disciples disobeyed
him and therefore they fall into temptation they
participate therefore in the evil world But what
we heard in Shaddik, Jesus praying to the Father,
Jesus says, Father, take this cup from him. Take
this cup from him. Why would he ask that? Why
would Jesus use that kind of image for you? Why
would he say, Father, take this from him? but
because this is the great image of God's judgment
on evil and sin. And what does Jesus say? He
says, yet in our Bible, the worst be done. Because
what Christ does on the cross is he does take
the proper judgment of evil and sin upon himself.
This is the work of Christ upon the cross. the
judgment that we just say deserve, the judgment
that His disciples just say deserve, right there
in the garden, right now in that moment, we then
go in false temptation and participate in the
evil of filling God Himself. Jesus hangs on the
cross, brings the cup of God's wrath. God did
not turn a blind eye to the evil of this world.
He were not. You will not turn a blind eye to
the evil that you have done that I have done.
You will not. But there is a reason to sing and
to celebrate. Sure, there's a reason to sing
and celebrate because evil will be judged. And
that God alone is the just judge. But this song
points us ahead to where judgment and grace come
together across. When this is at the heart of
Christian singing, Jesus paid it all. Jesus bloody
on the cross, bloody lentil, the bloody host,
that God would pass over the just judgment on
me and on him. Christ would take it upon himself.
He knew no sin becomes that we might become the
righteousness of God. Let me end with something
beautiful. I think sort of helps to illustrate
this. So I mentioned this pastor in Kentucky
who's doing this work to eliminate the burden
of medical debt in the bluegrass state. But like
I said, medical debt is most often bought by
creditors who can at least pay some of the amount,
and then they can go after all this money that
creates such havoc in the world. What they said
this organization price for Kentucky is why don't
Christians buy the debt instead of the creditors?
And so they did this test program Last year 2003
surely 2004 and they were able to polish nine
million five hundred thirty nine thousand sixty
nine dollars of debt for thirteen thousand three
hundred eighty six Kentucky and now They are
raising the money currently by the also debt
for seventy five thousand more Kentucky. It is
numbered at approximately one hundred and fifty
million dollars. One hundred and fifty million
dollars. What are they doing? They're saying.
We're going to take it on ourselves. The evil
that is coming down through these through these
evil empires and evil creditors. We're going
to take it that you might have life. It probably
fails in some ways, but what I'm saying is Jesus
is drinking the cup of God's wrath and saying,
I will pay the debt that you might have life.
Judgment of God is not normally something that
we're running out from the streets and saying,
listen to this. But what I'm telling you is that
it is at the heart of Christian Good News. The
judgment of God came down. It was justly to come
on us on Christ in the cross. And He willingly
went there for you, that you would have life.
Let me pray for us. Lord, thank you for the songs.
Thank you that they invite us into. subjects
that we may skirt around, and that this song
points us to our blessed Savior, who submits
the will of the Father in drinking the cup of
bread for us. Lord, we bless you this morning.
God, we do pray. Come, Lord Jesus. Come and judge
the world in your righteousness, in your justice.
Bring your peace. And most of all, we say thank
you for your work on the cross. We bless you,
Lord Jesus. Because we are sinners, we are likely
to decide to defraud the temptation to justify
you so often with our hearts and our lives, and
yet we willingly go to the cross. So we say thank
you, blessed be the Lord Jesus. In the name we
pray. Thank you for listening to Second City
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Thanks again for listening. God bless.