[0:00] Psalm 9. For the director of music, to the tune of the death of the Son, Psalm of David.
[0:14] I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart. I will tell of all your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and rejoice in you.
[0:25] I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High. My enemies turn back. They stumble and perish before you. You have upheld my right hand and my cause, sitting enthroned as the righteous judge.
[0:41] You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked. You have blotted out their name forever and ever. Endless ruin has overtaken my enemies. You have uprooted their cities.
[0:54] Even the memory of them has perished. The Lord reigns forever. He has established his throne for judgment. He rules the world in righteousness and judges the people with equity.
[1:08] The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name, trust in you. For you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.
[1:20] Sing the praises of the Lord, enthroned in Zion. Proclaim among the nations what he has done. For he who avenges blood remembers. He does not ignore the cries of the afflicted.
[1:32] Lord, see how my enemies persecute me. Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death. That I may declare your praises in the gates of a daughter Zion.
[1:44] And there rejoice in your salvation. The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug. Their feet are caught in the net they have hidden.
[1:55] The Lord is known by his acts of justice. The wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands. The wicked will go down to the realm of the dead.
[2:06] All the nations that forget God. But God will never forget the needy. The hope of the afflicted will never perish. Arise, Lord.
[2:17] Do not let mortals triumph. Let the nations be judged in your presence. Strike them with terror, Lord. Let the nations know they are only mortal.
[2:28] Well, this is God's word for us this evening. And Ray is going to come and explain it for us. Ray, over to you. Before we look at it, let's ask God to help us to understand it.
[2:45] Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it describes who you are. It describes who we are. And Lord, it shows us how to live.
[2:57] I do pray, Father, that you would speak to us now. You would help me to be clear. And speak to us all, Lord, according to your will.
[3:07] In Jesus' name. Amen. As we look at Psalm 9 tonight, keep your Bibles open. I don't have any great overheads. In fact, I don't have any overheads at all.
[3:18] So I'd like you to look at your Bibles and follow through with me as we cover the verses. I hope we're going to see two themes come out. The main theme is about God's reign.
[3:33] Psalm 9 is predominantly about God's rule over mankind. And the verses that point us to this are verses 7 and 8. It's really like a key verse in the psalm.
[3:46] The Lord reigns forever. He has established his throne for judgment. He rules the world in righteousness and judges the people with equity. So we're told there in verse 7, the time frame for God's reign is eternal.
[4:04] And we're told also in verse 8, the way he reigns. It's with righteousness and equity. Equity means fairness. So he reigns in righteousness and fairness.
[4:16] The other theme that we can pick out from this psalm is that of memory. Let me explain that. There are two parts to this theme.
[4:31] And it's the wicked forget God, but God remembers. And you'll see that threaded through the psalm. I hope we'll see that tonight. The verses that summarize this, verses 17 and 18.
[4:45] The wicked go down to the realm of the dead, all the nations that forget God. But God will never forget the needy. The hope of the afflicted will never perish.
[4:59] So just as a final bit of introduction, who wrote the psalm? You'll see there from the heading that it's a psalm of David. And so tonight we see through his eyes how God deals with his enemies, how God deals with his enemies, God's enemies, and how God deals with those who trust him.
[5:19] And you'll see as you read through it that it's a personal reflection that's born out of David's experience. And it is predominantly, above all else, that covers many things, it's predominantly a psalm of praise.
[5:35] And I'm hoping that we're going to look tonight under two headings, taking the theme of memory, that the wicked forget God, and the result is that they will be forgotten, and that God does not forget the believer.
[5:54] And then we'll look at those quickly, and then we'll look at the main application of the psalm. So the wicked forget God, and they will be forgotten. That's our first theme going through.
[6:08] Those of you that have been around in the Sunday mornings, we've been looking through 2 Samuel, and you'll see that we've seen how God deals with David's enemies. And we see that David's enemies are God's enemies.
[6:25] And the reason for that is David is the anointed king, and therefore those who fight against David are fighting against God. So when we read the psalms of David, we can thread those thoughts into our reading of the psalm as well.
[6:41] It's not just David's enemies we're looking at, we're looking at God's enemies. And in this psalm, they're known as the wicked, or predominantly they're called the nations.
[6:53] So the wicked nations. Psalm 10 that we'll look at next time, in a month's time, is a partner to this psalm, and that deals with the more individuals being wicked, being wicked in their behaviour.
[7:12] So three quick things to see about the wicked, and then one quick thing on David's response.
[7:22] So we're going to look now at verses 3 to 6. I'm not going to read through it, but try and pick up as I read through quickly, as I point quickly to the verses. Verse 3, you can see that David's enemies are turned back.
[7:36] And why is that? Because in verse 4, David's cause is upheld. The wicked are rebuked and destroyed, in verse 5, to such an extent that verse 6 we read, their name is blotted out.
[7:54] So they are under God's judgment, their memory perishes, and in the end, the wicked are forgotten. Secondly, we see that their evil plans recoil on them.
[8:09] And again, we've been seeing this in 2 Samuel. But here we're in verses 15 to 18. Verse 15, they fall into the pit that they've dug. They're caught in their own net.
[8:21] And we see also that this is borne out in the readings we've had in 2 Samuel. Two weeks ago, we were looking at, if you remember, 2 Samuel 16, Absalom, and that name that nobody can pronounce, Ahithophel.
[8:41] How did I do? Ahithophel. They sought to destroy God's anointed, David. And we learned that week, two weeks ago, God always wins. Trouble recoils on the heads of those who go against God, who are wicked.
[8:58] Verse 17, their fate is death. Why is their fate death? Because they forgot God.
[9:10] The third thing about the wicked is that they will see that they are only mortal. Verses 19 and 20. In their pride, they think they're going to triumph.
[9:22] Verse 19. But they forget that they are only men. God would judge them, and they will be forced to recognize their mortality.
[9:33] So it's three quick things. They're under God's judgment. Their evil plans will recoil on them, and they will finally see that they're only mortal.
[9:43] From these verses we've read so far, there are two things that stand out to us. God is in control.
[9:54] That is the first thing. God's enemies are not in control. God is in control. And we see that particularly in verses 13 and 14. Because David knows that God is in control, and that finally God will judge his enemies, for that reason he calls out to God and asks for deliverance from the present troubles he was going through.
[10:18] Verse 13. See how my enemies persecute me. Lord, see how my enemies persecute me. Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death, that I may declare your praises in the gates of daughter Zion, and there rejoice in your salvation.
[10:36] So because of David's experience of knowing God is in control in his past problems, he can now call out to God and ask God to rescue him from his present problems.
[10:50] Why is he praying this? Well, clearly he needs deliverance. But his overarching desire there we see, can you see this in verse 14, that he may rejoice and declare God's praises.
[11:05] Therefore, David's preoccupation, even in his troubles, is not rescue, it's that God will be glorified.
[11:18] I wonder how often we, mine is close to never, how often we take the focus off of our problems and rescue from that and onto the glory of God.
[11:32] Amazingly, in God's providence, he's able to do both of those things at the same time, rescue us and glorify himself as well. The other thing that these verses about the wicked show us is that God's judgment is real.
[11:49] Verse 17, we've seen that the wicked are judged because they have forgotten God. God always judges evil.
[12:01] Always. Sometimes in this life, but always it will be in eternity. Unless Jesus has taken God's judgment for us, we stand under God's judgment for the evil that we have done.
[12:17] So, we've seen here that the wicked forget God. What does this phrase mean? They take no account of God in their day-to-day living.
[12:29] They consider they are not accountable to God and they'll live as they want, thank you very much. They'll live as God doesn't exist. That's what it means to forget God.
[12:40] And the result we have seen is that it results in God's judgment and that they are forgotten. Notice what David says about God's judgment here.
[12:54] These are very solemn if we take this serious. Verse 3 and verse 19. Verse 3, my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before you.
[13:06] Before you here literally means at your presence. so that David's enemies stumble and perish at God's presence.
[13:17] Verse 19 says, Arise Lord, do not let mortals triumph. Let the nations be judged in your presence. So here, judgment is by God and it is in his presence.
[13:33] This applied to God's enemies in David's day. It applies to God's enemies in our day. And in the future, when Christ returns in the final judgment, it will apply then.
[13:49] And we get an awesome glimpse of this final judgment and the fact that it is in God's presence in Revelation. Let me read to you. You can turn to it if you want. It's page 1133.
[14:01] Revelation 5, Revelation 5, and we're going to read three verses there, 15 to 17. Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks and among the rocks and among the rocks of the mountains.
[14:25] They called to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.
[14:35] For the great day of their wrath has come and who can withstand it? So those who refuse to acknowledge God, here it's described as those who forget God in this psalm, they will be judged in his presence.
[14:55] And what an awesome and fearsome thing that will be. And it's awesome and fearsome because as we read in verse 8 earlier on, God is the righteous and fair judge.
[15:10] Verse 8 says, he rules the world in righteousness and he judges the people with equity. So for the believer, Jesus is our saviour.
[15:22] For the unbeliever, he is the final judge. And Paul tells us in Acts 17 verse 31 that the final judge will be our Lord Jesus.
[15:36] All judgment has been handed over to him. It says that he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man he has appointed and that is Jesus.
[15:53] So that is rather solemn that God will judge his enemies but it's because he is the righteous judge and he always does what is right.
[16:06] But here we see God's memory does not fail. God remembers his people. You see that in verses 7 to 12 particularly. Let me read those to you. The Lord reigns forever.
[16:20] He has established his throne for judgment. He rules the world in righteousness and judges the peoples with equity. The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed a stronghold in times of trouble.
[16:34] Those who know your name trust in you. For you Lord have never forsaken those who seek you. Sing the praises of the Lord enthroned in Zion.
[16:45] Proclaim among the nations what he has done. For he who avenges blood remembers he does not ignore the cries of the afflicted. So this psalm also teaches us that though God's people are seen as oppressed in verse 9 afflicted in verse 12 and needy in verse 18 God does not forget them.
[17:13] God can be trusted. As we've seen God is declared to be the one reigning in righteousness and fairness now and forever and for those who continue to forget God it results in judgment but for the believer even when they are persecuted when they are afflicted when they are needy because we know God is righteous and fair we know we can trust him fully whatever our situation whether we're led through good times or bad times whether our week has been good or bad whether we're struggling we can trust God to do the right thing because he rules in righteousness Jesus here is our perfect example in 1 Peter 2 23 it says that Jesus continued in trusting himself to him who judges justly and what was trusting God for there what has he laid down his life for us he was trusting that
[18:24] God would do the right thing as he bore our sin God can God can always be trusted to do what is right that's in his very nature we also see in God remembering his people that God is a refuge for his people when God's people are oppressed afflicted and needy and even persecuted in those times we read in verse 9 that he is our refuge verse 12 he remembers us he does not ignore our cries so what marks out the difference between the believer and the wicked we're told here in verse 10 this is the difference it's that they know God they trust him and they seek him and because they know him they trust him and they seek him they are never forsaken verse 10
[19:26] God will never forsake or forget you that's certain the question we need to ask ourselves if we trust him in our times of need in those difficult things that maybe we've been going through this week or maybe we will go through this following week maybe difficulties in relationships problems at work or school perhaps problems of health or perhaps struggles to live the Christian life that you seem to be weighed down by certain things when all these things God doesn't forget you God is your refuge we need to trust him so let's let's finish with the application of this and it was very late on in my studies I discovered discovered that there's a verse that gives the application so we're going to look at it in verse 11 the application of all we've read in
[20:27] Psalm 9 is this sing the praises of the Lord enthroned in Zion proclaim among the nations what he has done so two applications number one sing the praises to the Lord number two proclaim what he has done now David is our example in verses one and two right at the beginning of the psalm in singing praises to God verse one says I will give thanks to you Lord with all my heart I will tell of all your wonderful deeds I will be glad and rejoice in you I will sing the praises of your name O Most High so why is David praising God according to verses one and two because of his wonderful deeds because of what he's done what were these things for David their deliverance from his enemies they are rescue for God's people and they're too that God will not forget us but he also praises God because of who he is here it talks about his name his very essence and he is the
[21:38] Most High the one who is high above all that is the all powerful sovereign the one who is the righteous judge so no wonder David rejoices no wonder he sings God's praise he says here that he's 100% committed to this we're told that he's going to give thanks with all of his heart he's not he's not 50-50 he's not you know partly praising God but you know there's so much other things to think about 100% committed with all his heart he will praise God what an example he is to us and it's significant that David starts his psalm his wording is a resolution to praise let me explain what I mean by that he doesn't say I give thanks I tell of all your wonderful deeds but four times he says I will I will give thanks I will tell of all your wonderful deeds
[22:50] I will be glad and rejoice in you I will sing the praises of your name that's significant because here he's setting out his resolution this is what I'm going to do whether I'm rescued from my enemies or not whether good times or bad times I will praise my God so whether he's joyful or sad he will praise his God now to be a people full of praise if you can 100% praise God and if you need to reflect on what God has done as David did you need to reflect on who he is as David did and you need to resolve to praise as we go into this week let's do that let's resolve to praise for who God is and for what he's done but the other application here from verse 11 is to proclaim his name among the nations proclaim what he has done to proclaim means to declare to speak out and it's telling the good things that he has done for us that he is a refuge for the oppressed and a stronghold in times of trouble verse 8 and that he never forsakes his people verse 10 now we're told to do this not just to those we gather with in church we're told to proclaim this to the nations to all people as we've seen in this psalm when David is talking about the nations his emphasis is on the wicked so this psalm is telling you to proclaim to the wicked the good things that God has done it's it's to the wicked in verse 5 it's to those who have fallen into the pit of sin in verse 15 it's to those who forget God in verse 17 it's for those who are under
[25:01] God's judgment in verse 19 so what do you think the deeds of the Lord are that we should be declaring to the wicked particularly well they need to know about the goodness of God in our lives they need to know about all the goodness of God as we all do but they also need to know of the mercy and grace of God the same thing we needed to hear of when we were still in our sins where we were still forgetting God when we were still living without God as we saw this morning the grace of God we need to be able to proclaim that to those around us friends and those who are God's enemies in Jesus we see God the righteous judge but also the saviour rich in mercy compassionate one who bears and forgives our sin so what's our goal in proclamation not that we may have a big church not that we may feel we've done something good at last but the glory may be brought to God verse 11 says sing the praises of the Lord enthroned in
[26:30] Zion proclaim among the nations what he has done so we proclaim what God has done so that other people may not just hear but they may come to know God as saviour too and that then they will go on to proclaim among the nations other people what he has done for them so let me just close by asking you what do you think this proclamation of what God has done will look like tomorrow morning in the workplace or school perhaps it's praying for opportunities and taking those small opportunities that we're presented with to tell of our experience of God's goodness to us pointing people to Jesus our saviour and our Lord with the long term aim that God will be glorified in their lives as well thank you
[27:30] Twins I had a time for to k wanted to to