Psalm 97, we've been going through some of these Psalms the last few weeks and they're
all really kind of similar.
I probably won't say too much on this tonight.
It's just kind of more of the same type of language, just rejoicing in God and praising
God for his power and for his justice and bringing judgment on the evil and delivering
the righteous.
That theme is what we've kind of seen in a lot of these Psalms here in the 90s.
And so we'll go through another one tonight.
Psalm 97, let's pray and we'll get started.
God, we come to you and we thank you that we have the freedom to come in here tonight
and to read your word.
I thank you that we get to sing these songs.
I thank you that it's a lot of smiles, dear Lord, and a lot of love that's in this place.
And we just thank you for letting us be part of this church.
And I pray that your Holy Spirit would speak to us through these words, that we would rejoice
in you, dear Lord, and that we would just recognize that you are with us and help us
to grow in these words in the next few minutes.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.
As with many of these recent Psalms we've read, it really doesn't say in the Psalms
who wrote it.
Usually, most of them, people would say David wrote them and probably so.
Last week, we certainly didn't see that it was David that wrote it in the Psalms, but
it was almost word for word what we saw in Chronicles, a passage there that David did
write.
And so this is probably a Psalm written by David, but it could have been written by anyone.
It doesn't really matter.
We still can get some good out of it.
Psalm 97 verse 1, the Lord reigns.
Let the earth rejoice.
Let the many coasts and islands be glad.
This is a good reminder for us.
The Lord reigns.
And if the Lord reigns, then we have reason to rejoice.
We don't live in a world in which evil reigns or which the devil reigns or any of the bad
things that we see.
Those things don't reign.
Even the bad things that we go through that we're up against today, they do not reign,
praise the Lord, because the Lord reigns.
And so there is reason to rejoice that the Lord is going to have the final say for everything
that happens in this world and everything that happens in our life.
And he says, let the many coasts and islands be glad.
I think that may be just another way of saying let everybody, the whole earth, from all the
land to the coast, and then keep on going past the coast to the islands and the sea.
Let every part of creation, everything, people on the land, people in the islands, wherever
you are, let everyone rejoice that the Lord reigns.
Verse 2, clouds and thick darkness surround him.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Now this idea of seeing clouds and thick darkness and fire, as we'll see in the next verse,
around God, these are descriptive terms that we see oftentimes applied to God in the Old
Testament, that when God comes in judgment or when God's guiding his people or when God's
on the mountain, we see that there's clouds and there's thick darkness.
And part of that was for the protection of the people, that God's glory would be kind
of shrouded because you couldn't see the glory of God and survive.
Even Moses, a pretty godly man, wanted to, and he couldn't do it.
And so God, he appeared to the people in some form in the Old Testament, but not in a form
that they could really see him in all of his glory.
And so we see this same kind of language in describing God here, clouds and thick darkness
surround him.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
So when God sits on the throne, he is a just God.
He is a right God.
Everything he does is morally right.
It is good.
And his whole kingdom, his throne is established because he is a just God.
And that's a good thing because a just God is going to deal with all of the evils in
the world.
Praise the Lord.
There's no evil that's going to go unpunished.
But we also praise God that there's hope for us even in that truth, because if God served
justice on us, well, we deserve punishment as well.
But God says, look, I'm going to offer you a way that you can be forgiven of your sins
so that your sin can be paid for and the punishment for your sin can be taken by another.
And that is Jesus Christ.
And so we rejoice that the Lord reigns and in his reigning, even though he is a just
God and righteous, he still offers us a way of forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
Continues on in verse three, fire goes before him and burns up his foes on every side.
His lightning lights up the world and the earth sees and trembles.
So when God comes onto the scene and all of his power and all of his majesty, his enemies
cannot stand against him.
So God is always going to reign supreme.
And sometimes it may not seem that way because we do see a lot of evils that have taken place
in the world and we see a lot of evils today and we see a lot of sickness today and we
see a lot of death today.
And some people would say, well, it sure doesn't look like God reigns, but God reigns and everything
that occurs is because God allows it to occur.
But none of these things will have the final say.
All of these things will be dealt with and fire, that is something that consuming, something
that destroys.
This represents when God is showing up onto the scene, those things that are enemies of
God will be punished, sin and death and evil.
And all of these things will be destroyed.
Verse five, the mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence
of the Lord of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his righteousness.
All the peoples see his glory.
Now here we see this language, the mountains melt like wax.
Now this is all kind of figurative language and symbolic language describing God and the
power of God and the presence of God in ways that we can understand.
And showing the power of God by saying the mountains melt like wax.
Now I don't think that there's ever going to be a day that the mountains will melt.
I could be wrong, but I think it's just symbolic language showing us the power of God.
Things that are so big, that are so difficult for us are nothing for God.
You take the biggest mountain in the world, Mount Everest.
It is big and it is tall and there are hundreds of people who have died trying to climb it
because it is tough for us to try to master the biggest mountain in this world.
But yet we contrast that with the power of God.
The things that are the biggest to us, the hardest to overcome are things that melt like
wax before the Lord.
Psalm 121 says, I lift my eyes to the mountains.
Where will my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
And so sometimes there are mountains in our life that are like Mount Everest for us.
Things that are so hard and so scary and so difficult.
And we say, I don't know if I can make it to the peak of this mountain or not.
And even if I get close, I may die along the way.
But we have to remember that we serve a Lord that reigns.
And what mountain may seem too big for us is a mountain that will melt like wax in the
presence of God.
And so when we go up against our mountains and try to climb our mountains in life, we
need to do so in the presence of God.
Because while it's difficult for us to overcome our mountains on our own, in the presence
of God is something that we can do in his power.
Verse seven, all who serve carved images, those who boast in idols will be put to shame.
All the gods must worship him.
Now, we see this idea of worship and carved images and false gods throughout the Old Testament.
And here the Psalmist says, look, those gods are nothing.
They're going to be destroyed.
Those idols will be destroyed.
And even maybe even kind of mocking them here saying that even these gods will worship Yahweh,
will worship the one true God.
Now, certainly these gods don't exist.
They've never existed.
But again, the author is using language to whoever may read this, especially in those
days when other people would have had lots of gods they could have worshiped, to know
that, look, the Lord that I'm writing about, the Lord that reigns, reigns over every God.
And he is the one that we need to seek.
Verse eight, Zion hears and is glad.
All the towns of Judah rejoice because of your judgments, Lord.
Now, we see Zion a lot in scripture and sometimes it may be referring to heaven, but a lot of
times I think it's referring to Jerusalem.
And so when we see this language about Zion and about Judah, simply talking about God's
people, it's God's people here who are rejoicing.
And some have suggested that this Psalm was written after the Babylonian captivity, that
God had delivered his people and they had something to rejoice and that the enemies
of God's people and the enemies of God were not going unpunished.
And so we see Zion and Judah here who are the people who are rejoicing that God is bringing
about judgment.
Verse nine, for you, Lord, are the most high over all the earth.
You are exalted above the gods.
You who love the Lord hate evil.
He protects the lives of his godly ones.
He rescues them from the power of the wicked.
Now in the first part of verse 10 there, that's good instruction.
You who love the Lord hate evil.
If we love God, then we should not be okay with evil.
There should be a hatred of evil.
And so we can't say we love God and love evil.
If we love God, we have to hate evil.
And if we love evil, then we must hate God.
Those two things cannot, they don't go together.
And so he says here, you who love the Lord, is that any of us tonight?
If we love the Lord, then the call is for us to hate evil.
But really the temptation is that we put up with a little evil.
And we're probably all guilty of that on some level of being too accepting of some level
of evil in our lives.
But the scripture says if we love the Lord, we need to hate evil.
Verse 11, like dawns for the righteous, gladness for the upright in heart.
Be glad in your way, you righteous ones, and praise his holy name.
So who's going to have deliverance?
Who's going to see a light dawn in the darkness?
It is going to be those who are righteous.
So light dawns for the righteous, gladness for the upright in heart.
So if we want to, if we want to see some light in our life, if we want to experience some
gladness in our life and some joy in our life, then that comes when we love the Lord, when
we seek God, and when we flee from evil.
And we rejoice in him because he is the one who reigns.
And there's nothing that we go up against that we will ever be up against in this world
that will be too big for God.
It'll be too big for us on our own.
But if we seek God in the midst of our struggles and our troubles and our trials, we will be
delivered for all of eternity.
Let's pray.
God, we thank you for these good words, and I pray that we would just rejoice in you and
worship you, dear Lord, and knowing that you reign.
I pray that we would always remember that as we go through life, as life is difficult,
and sometimes it may appear that the enemy is reigning and the enemy is winning, dear
Lord.
The enemy has never won and will never win.
He's already lost.
And so, God, I pray that we rejoice in that, that we know that that is our light in the
darkness, and that is Jesus Christ that has come to die on the cross for us so that we
could be forgiven.
So, dear Lord, I pray that we would rejoice in that truth today, that if there are any
that do not know Jesus Christ, that they would repent and they would seek him.
God, maybe there are some today, and there are some mountains that are before them in
life that are really hard.
And I pray, God, that in your presence that they would seek you, that they would draw
closer to you, and that those mountains would melt like wax before them, that the fear and
the worries and all that they think about, whatever's before them, dear Lord, that that
will melt away in your presence.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.