Psalm 097

Introduction

I’ve said before that Psalms 93 to 100 are known as enthronement psalms, because they’re all about how the Lord reigns. And so, today’s psalm begins with the declaration that he reigns. And after the opening verse, the rest of the psalm can be divided into three parts. In the first part — verses 2 to 6 — the Lord the King is coming. In the second part — verses 7 to 9 — idolators are put to shame, whereas the Lord’s people rejoice because the Lord is the great King over all gods. And in the final part — verses 10 to 12 — the psalmist calls on God’s people to hate evil. That is, we’re to do what is right in the sight of the Lord the King instead of doing what is evil.

Verse 1

The psalmist declares in verse 1 that the Lord reigns. That is to say, Israel’s God — the God who has bound himself to them and who has promised to be their God and to deliver them from their sin and misery by his Son — that God reigns.

He then tells the earth and the distant shores to be glad and rejoice. He means that everyone everywhere should be glad and rejoice. Whether you live here or whether you live far across the sea, you should be glad and rejoice. Why? Because the Lord, Israel’s God, reigns over all.

And, of course, he’s a good and wise and faithful God, isn’t he? That had been Israel’s experience. When they were slaves in Egypt, he rescued them. When they were hungry in the wilderness, he fed them. When they were thirsty, he provided them with water. He brought them into the Promised Land, an Eden-like land flowing with milk and honey, and he enabled them to settle down there and he gave them all they needed. And so, he’s a good and wise and faithful God. That’s the kind of God you would want to reign over you. You don’t want a tyrant to reign over you. You don’t want someone who will make you slave for him and who will make your life miserable. You want a good God to rule over you. And that’s what the Lord is. And so, rejoice, because this good God reigns over all.

Verses 2 to 6

And this King is coming. That’s what verses 2 to 6 are about. The psalmist says that clouds and thick darkness surround him. That is to say, when he comes, he’ll come with dark clouds. He goes on in verse 3 to refer to fire which goes before him and consumes his foes on every side. So, this is the fire of judgment. This is the fire of his wrath. He also mentions lightning which lights up the world. So, out of the dark clouds which surround him, there comes flashes of lightning. And he says that the earth sees and trembles. He means that the people living on the earth see it and tremble. His coming strikes terror into their hearts.

Mountains melt like wax before the Lord. So, imagine one of those thick Yankee candles. It feels solid in your hand. But once you light the wick, the candle quickly melts and soon there’s hardly anything left. And so, the mountains seem solid and firm. Nothing can move them. Or so it seems. But when the Lord comes, they will melt like wax. They will give way. They will fall.

The psalmist also refers to the Lord’s righteousness and justice. According to verse 2, righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. I’ve said before that one of the roles of kings in the ancient world was to judge the people and to sort out their disputes. And the Lord the King judges with righteousness and justice. His judgements are right. They are fair. They are true. No-one can accuse him of making a wrong judgment or of being unjust. And according to verse 6, the heavens proclaim his righteousness and all the peoples see his glory. The Lord is righteous and glorious. Everything he does is right and everything he does is great. And he is coming.

Verses 7 to 9

We turn now to verses 7 to 9 where the psalmist says that all who worship idols are put to shame. When the Lord comes, idol-worshippers will be ashamed, because it will become clear to them that they were trusting in the wrong god. Their gods are only idols. They are only blocks of wood or stone. They can’t see. They can’t speak. They can’t do anything. They are nothing. And so, they will be ashamed for ever trusting in these worthless idols and for ever boasting about them. They once boasted that their gods are great. Baal is great. Dagon is great. Marduk is great. But when the Lord the king comes, they will be ashamed.

The psalmist even calls on their gods to worship the Lord the King. It could be that he’s calling on whatever spiritual powers lie behind the false gods. The devil has blinded the minds of unbelievers and he’s convinced them to worship idols instead of the true God. And so, the devil and all his demons all the spiritual forces of evil in the world should bow down before the Lord and acknowledge that he is greater than they are. Or perhaps the psalmist is mocking the false gods. Those gods, which the pagans worship, should bow down before the Lord. Think of that story from 1 Samuel 5 when the Philistines captured the ark of the Lord and they placed it in the temple of their god Dagon. And in the morning they discovered that Dagon had fallen on his face before the ark of the Lord. Every idol should likewise fall on their faces before the Lord.

And they should fall on their faces before the Lord because — according to verse 9 — he is the Most High over all the earth. So, there’s no-one over him. There’s no-one above him. He does not answer to anyone else. He is over all. And therefore he’s over all spiritual powers in the heavenly realms and over every human authority here on earth. He is exalted above all other gods. In fact, he is far exalted above all other gods.

Those who worship idols will be ashamed. But take a look now at verse 5: ‘Zion hears and rejoices and the villages of Judah are glad’. The people in Zion — that is, the people in Jerusalem — and the people in the villages of Judah are glad. They’re not ashamed. They’re happy. They’re happy, because unlike the idol-worshippers, they were worshipping the true God. They were trusting in the Most High God. They can rejoice at his coming, because he is their God. And they can rejoice because of his judgments, which, as we’ve already heard, are righteous and just. They are true and good.

Verses 10 to 12

And in the final part of the psalm, the psalmist calls on those who love the Lord to hate evil. That is, they are to reject evil. They are to shun it. They are not to do what is wrong. They are to have nothing to do with it.

And the psalmist reassures the Lord’s people that he will guard their lives and he will deliver them from the hand of the wicked. And so, if we’re ever tempted to respond to evil with evil and to do to the wicked as they do to us, we’re to remember that we’re not to do what the wicked do. We’re to hate evil. When they do evil to us, we’re to respond with love. We’re to do good to even our enemies. And we can rely on the Lord the King to rescue us from the hands of the wicked.

Verse 11 is difficult. The psalmist says that light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright in heart. The Hebrew word translated ‘shed’ really means ‘sown’. So, light is sown upon the righteous and joy on the upright in heart. Often in the psalms, the second line of a verse clarifies the first line. And so, what does the psalmist mean when he says that light is sown on the righteous? He means that joy is sown on them. Just as a farmer sows seed in the ground, so God will sow joy in our hearts. And just as seed grows, so our joy will grow. It will grow because the Lord guards our lives and delivers us from the wicked.

And so, rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous; and praise his holy name. The righteous are all those who have been declared right with God through faith in Christ the Saviour. And having been declared right with God through faith in Christ the Saviour, we’re to do what is right in the sight of the Lord, instead of what is wrong, relying on the Holy Spirit to help us. God’s people are to hate evil and we’re to love what is good and right and pleasing to the Lord.

Conclusion

This is a psalm about the coming of the Lord. Of course, what the psalmist did not know, but which we now know, is that the Lord’s coming would be in two parts and the Lord comes in the person of his Son.

The first time the Lord came in the person of his Son, he did not come with dark clouds and there wasn’t any lightning or fire. The mountains did not melt away at his coming. This is because the first time he came, he did not come to judge the world. Instead he came into the world as one of us to suffer and die on the cross for the sins of his people in order to make peace for us with God. And after his death and resurrection, he ascended to heaven to await the time of his second coming.

And when the Lord comes again in the person of his Son, it will be more like the psalmist said it would be. According to what we read about it in Revelation 16, there will be flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. And every island will flee away and the mountains will not be found. The whole of creation, in a sense, will run away, because the Lord is coming in the person of his Son to judge the world in righteousness and justice.

And when he comes, all those who worshipped idols and who did not worship the true God will be ashamed. And they will be sent away to be punished forever for all that they have done wrong. But the righteous — all of God’s people — will be brought into the new heavens and earth to be with the Lord forever. And in the new heavens and earth, everything that was wrong in this world will be put right.

And in the meantime, while we wait for his coming, what are we to do? We’re to love the Lord and we’re to hate evil. In other words, we’re to do what is right in his sight, seeking to honour and obey him in all we do and say. And we’re to trust in him that he will guard our lives and deliver us from the hand the wicked, who may hate us for loving the Lord and who may persecute us. And we’re to rejoice in him and his salvation and praise his holy name.