WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:15.599 Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:20.480 ! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:25.679 either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:32.159 that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself? 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:37.359 The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:42.159 we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:48.799 Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:55.120 what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian, 00:00:55.119 --> 00:01:00.320 checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:05.280 questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:07.759 that you're really struggling with. So God bless. 00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:15.679 Just bow our heads in prayer just before we begin. 00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:25.360 Father, we ask that you would send the Holy Spirit upon us. You continue to send the Holy Spirit upon us. 00:01:26.320 --> 00:01:33.200 Father, you know how earthbound we can be, how small our vision of you can be, 00:01:34.320 --> 00:01:39.840 how preoccupied we can be with small things and neglect to think of you or remember you. 00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:47.359 And so, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit, in your kindness, would bring this scripture deeply into 00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:54.719 our hearts, that we might more and more and more be gripped by the gospel and live with a big 00:01:54.719 --> 00:02:01.600 understanding of just how big you are and how you rule over all things. And we ask this in the name of 00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:05.359 Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated. 00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:18.879 J.R.R. Tolkien, in his book, The Lord of the Rings, it's also in the movie. 00:02:20.240 --> 00:02:24.319 There's a scene towards the end of the three movies, or all of the books, 00:02:24.319 --> 00:02:31.199 where Gandalf says to Pippin, I think it's Pippin, no it's Sam, Gandalf says to Sam, 00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:40.560 or sorry, that everything sad will become untrue. Everything sad will become untrue. 00:02:42.799 --> 00:02:49.359 He didn't give a Bible passage to go along with this, but if he was, if Tolkien was to have given a 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:53.680 Bible passage to go along with this, excuse me, it's allergies, nothing else. 00:02:56.240 --> 00:03:01.840 It's not because I smoke cigars or cigarettes or anything like that, it's just allergies. 00:03:02.880 --> 00:03:08.480 If there was to be a Bible verse to support this profound truth that everything sad will become 00:03:08.480 --> 00:03:14.080 untrue, it would be the psalm that we're looking at today. So it'd be a great help to me if you got 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:24.160 out your Bibles and turned to Psalm 96. Psalm 96. I mean, I think in some ways, if I was to give it a 00:03:24.160 --> 00:03:31.840 title for the psalm, it would be a beautiful vision of what is, but it could also be used as a, or as a 00:03:31.840 --> 00:03:40.320 subtitle is why it is that everything sad will become untrue. And it's just a short psalm, 13 verses, and 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:47.599 here's how it goes. Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth, sing to the Lord, 00:03:47.599 --> 00:03:53.359 bless his name, tell of his salvation from day to day, declare his glory among the nations, his 00:03:53.359 --> 00:03:58.919 marvelous works among all the peoples, and just pause before I go anything any further. Jason did a very 00:03:58.919 --> 00:04:05.439 good job of reading the psalm, and I did an all right version of just reading that. Here's how you need to 00:04:05.439 --> 00:04:12.079 imagine hearing the psalm. You can hear some kids in the background, and those of you who've been here 00:04:12.079 --> 00:04:16.740 after the service, there's all these kids running around all excited, running around back up there, 00:04:16.860 --> 00:04:20.579 and down the sides, and in the church, and up the aisles, and doing all of that type of stuff, 00:04:21.060 --> 00:04:26.199 just running like crazy. And you know how excited and crazy kids can get, like a whole pile of five-year-olds 00:04:26.199 --> 00:04:32.100 and seven-year-olds? So what you need to imagine when you're reading this, and we're going to have to 00:04:32.100 --> 00:04:36.900 imagine it three times, because for those of you who are grammar nerds, there's three parts to the 00:04:36.900 --> 00:04:43.939 psalm, and all of the three parts of the psalm begin with crescendos. Sing, sing, sing, ascribe, 00:04:44.100 --> 00:04:50.200 ascribe, ascribe, let, let, let, let. They're all these crescendos. That's how it's designed to be in 00:04:50.200 --> 00:04:55.860 the original language. So what you need to imagine, and this is really hard for us, because you see, 00:04:55.860 --> 00:05:02.900 one of the consistent mistakes that Christians make about God is we think that he's really old, 00:05:02.960 --> 00:05:07.560 and we're young. But actually, the problem for us a lot of times with the Bible is that God is younger 00:05:07.560 --> 00:05:13.660 than us. That it would be far better for us to think of God as an excited four-year-old than somebody old 00:05:13.660 --> 00:05:19.540 and potentially easily grumpy like me. We're tired, potentially, like me. So what you need to imagine 00:05:19.540 --> 00:05:26.840 is imagine that one of you go out, and all of a sudden, like a whole gaggle of five to nine-year-olds 00:05:26.840 --> 00:05:31.879 all come up, and they grab your shirt, grab your hands, and say, come on, you got to come, you got 00:05:31.879 --> 00:05:36.220 to see this. You know, come, come, come. No, no, you're going too slow. I mean, parents know what it's 00:05:36.220 --> 00:05:39.520 like when you have kids like that. You're going, no, no, no, come on, you got to go, you got to go. 00:05:39.879 --> 00:05:44.680 That's what you need to imagine. So imagine that the Bible, they don't tell you who the psalmist is, 00:05:44.680 --> 00:05:51.199 but this is God using the psalmist to say to us, oh, sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord, 00:05:51.259 --> 00:05:56.980 all the earth. Sing to the Lord. Bless his name. Tell of his salvation from today. Declare his glory 00:05:56.980 --> 00:06:01.620 among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. It's like a whole pile of seven-year-olds 00:06:01.620 --> 00:06:06.560 all excited, trying to grab you and bring you along, and they're all excited. That's how you should read it. 00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:14.780 It's really, really bracing. There's this crescendo, and it's really interesting. Look, 00:06:14.819 --> 00:06:19.480 notice the very first line, oh, sing to the Lord a new song. I mean, on one hand, it's one of the 00:06:19.480 --> 00:06:23.319 reasons why we shouldn't just sing old things, although it's good to sing old things, and it's 00:06:23.319 --> 00:06:30.040 good to hear it. For some people, an old song is a new song because they've never heard it. I remember 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:36.300 when we'd introduced contemporary music into this church, and there was this very grumpy lady who 00:06:36.300 --> 00:06:40.740 just was grumpy all the time. I think she thought that being grumpy was one of the essential fruits 00:06:40.740 --> 00:06:49.280 of the Holy Spirit, and one day she complained about all these modern songs being sung, and the song 00:06:49.280 --> 00:06:57.060 that she was complaining about was, And Can It Be?, written in the 1700s by Charles Wesley, and when I 00:06:57.060 --> 00:07:01.199 told her it was written in the 1700s by Charles Wesley, she actually said to me, You're lying. 00:07:01.560 --> 00:07:06.339 That was how grumpy she was. But anyway, so sometimes it's good to read single songs, but what 00:07:06.339 --> 00:07:11.699 the new song is referring to, it's similar to what in the book of Lamentations says, His mercies are new 00:07:11.699 --> 00:07:18.899 every morning. It's to have an experience, a fresh experience of God's mercy and kindness and grace. 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:24.899 So pray, oh, sing to the Lord a new song. In other words, Lord, grant me a new experience, a fresh 00:07:24.899 --> 00:07:31.060 experience of your mercy and of your grace. And so you have these three whole sets of commands. 00:07:31.159 --> 00:07:35.279 Oh, and just one other thing, which is sort of cool, another grammar thing, sorry. Look in verse 2. 00:07:35.819 --> 00:07:41.639 Sing to the Lord, bless his name, tell of his salvation from day to day. About 200 years or so, 00:07:41.759 --> 00:07:49.379 100 to 200 years before Jesus came, Jewish scholars translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek, 00:07:49.379 --> 00:07:55.120 Greek. And when they translated that word tell, they translated it with the word that we get 00:07:55.120 --> 00:08:02.699 evangelism from, which is actually one of the three main verbs used in the New Testament to talk 00:08:02.699 --> 00:08:06.680 about what we're to do when we teach the Bible. It's actually where the word evangelism from. Anyway, 00:08:06.759 --> 00:08:11.000 so they have all these commands. So you can just imagine, okay, so you have a whole pile of kids, 00:08:11.120 --> 00:08:15.579 you know, sing, sing, sing, come on, tell, declare. They're driving, you're trying to get you along, 00:08:15.579 --> 00:08:19.800 and you're, I don't know, you just want to drink your coffee, and you're feeling a bit grumpy, and all 00:08:19.800 --> 00:08:26.620 that type of stuff. So you say, okay, why? Why? So the way the psalm is structured is you get these 00:08:26.620 --> 00:08:33.500 sets of commands, then the why or the what. Like, what is the truth that demands a type of implication? 00:08:34.340 --> 00:08:38.759 And so that's how it all was. It's going to be a series of, like, do-do-do, let's do-do. And then, okay, 00:08:39.059 --> 00:08:45.399 the parent pauses, or you pause, and they finally get the kids to say, what's going on? And they tell you 00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:49.240 what's going on, and they understand that what's going on implies that you should be doing this, 00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:54.860 and that's how the psalm is structured. All three cases. So you get that in verses four to six. 00:08:56.120 --> 00:09:01.600 What is it? And what you're going to see here, beginning, you already get to see it. You're 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:08.600 going to get this powerful, the whole psalm is a powerful, beautiful vision of the real world, 00:09:08.860 --> 00:09:14.259 and how we should live in it. It's not, Phil, I mean, there's going to be aspects of it that are 00:09:14.259 --> 00:09:18.039 going to shock us. In fact, in a moment, we're going to read something which is very shocking to 00:09:18.039 --> 00:09:25.879 Canadians in general, and Canadian Christians. But it's so consumed with this positive vision 00:09:25.879 --> 00:09:30.919 that it's not really polemic, but because it has a positive vision, it's going to bang up against 00:09:30.919 --> 00:09:36.559 things in the world that don't fit with it. And so here's the things which we are to understand are 00:09:36.559 --> 00:09:44.099 true. Verses four to six. What are the truth? For great is the Lord. Verse four. Great is the Lord, 00:09:44.459 --> 00:09:52.439 and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. Here's the bit. For all the gods of the 00:09:52.439 --> 00:10:02.019 peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him. Strength 00:10:02.019 --> 00:10:08.240 and beauty are in his sanctuary. And in verse five there, for all the gods of the peoples are 00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:12.460 worthless idols. You know, sometimes I tell you that if you know the original language, you have a bit 00:10:12.460 --> 00:10:17.579 of a different nuance. Actually, the different nuance here is even harder for Canadians to hear. It 00:10:17.579 --> 00:10:23.019 actually literally says, it's a very good translation, because you see, another word for idols in the Old 00:10:23.019 --> 00:10:28.860 Testament, there's several words for idols, but one of the main words for idols is worthless nothings. 00:10:28.860 --> 00:10:39.139 Worthless nothings. Allah, a worthless nothing. That's what the psalmist saying. Krishna, a worthless 00:10:39.139 --> 00:10:45.980 nothing. That's what the psalmist saying. The gods and goddesses of native spirituality, worthless 00:10:45.980 --> 00:10:53.539 nothings. Whoa, we Canadians say. Now, it's really funny about that. You know, I mean, the whole, 00:10:53.539 --> 00:11:01.240 most of Canada is quite prepared to tell us that we're completely loony. You know, our views on 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:06.339 sexuality, our views on money, our views on power, a whole pile of things, they're willing to say that 00:11:06.339 --> 00:11:10.539 we're loony. And if you go online to listen to Muslim apologists, what they'll tell you all the 00:11:10.539 --> 00:11:16.980 time is that we Christians are completely and utterly wrong. If you go into India right now, the 00:11:16.980 --> 00:11:22.919 Indian government is ruled by a party that will tell us that people like us are dangerously wrong and 00:11:22.919 --> 00:11:28.360 don't have any place in the country, at least to come from outside. So why is it that we feel so 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:34.719 uncomfortable just saying something like this? Atheists will tell us that we're ridiculously wrong, right? 00:11:34.839 --> 00:11:40.779 When Richard Dawkins talked to Iann Hersey Alley, who used to be one of the leading atheists who were 00:11:40.779 --> 00:11:48.759 good friends, he said to her, but good grief, Iann, like the incarnation, the resurrection, that's completely 00:11:48.759 --> 00:11:57.240 and utterly ridiculous. How could you believe it? Well, you know what? If there is a God that does 00:11:57.240 --> 00:12:02.439 exist, the triune God is described in the Bible, who has created all of all things, then any God 00:12:02.439 --> 00:12:06.679 who claims to be God that is not that God is in fact a nothing. 00:12:06.679 --> 00:12:16.919 Here's another way to put it. Wes Huff, a Canadian apologist, has become famous through his Joe Rogan. 00:12:16.919 --> 00:12:21.239 At first, I think it was Billy something, a conspiracy theorist, and then Joe Rogan, and now he was just 00:12:21.239 --> 00:12:27.799 about a month or so ago on Flagrant Podcasts. He's got, I think, several million views. He was for three 00:12:27.799 --> 00:12:32.199 hours peppered with different objections to the Christian faith, and one of them was, of course, 00:12:32.200 --> 00:12:36.600 this common idea by many people that all religions ultimately teach the same thing and lead you to 00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:41.960 the same place. And Wes Huff gave this absolutely brilliant response to it. He said, what would you 00:12:41.960 --> 00:12:47.240 say if I said that I went into the local library and I read every single book in the library, everything 00:12:47.240 --> 00:12:55.000 from The Cat in the Hat to Mark Kearney's book on, you know, Mark Kearney's latest book on values, 00:12:55.000 --> 00:13:02.759 and Nietzsche on the death of God, and Karl Marx on the Communist Manifesto, and just say I read 00:13:02.759 --> 00:13:07.000 every single book in the library, and I'm here to tell you they all say the exact same thing. 00:13:08.759 --> 00:13:14.279 Well, you'd know that there's two possible reasons somebody would say that. The first and most likely 00:13:14.279 --> 00:13:19.559 reason is they didn't read any of the books. They just went and sat in the library and made something 00:13:19.559 --> 00:13:23.960 up out of their head. The second thing is if they actually did read them, they don't understand them, 00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:28.360 because those all the books in the library can't say the same thing, and all the religions of the world 00:13:28.360 --> 00:13:34.280 can't, they all say completely, massively different things on lots of important matters. 00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:39.800 And so this is just saying something which it flows from the positive vision. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:45.960 In fact, I'm going to sort of jump ahead a little bit about what this positive vision is. 00:13:47.800 --> 00:13:51.960 When we read the whole psalm, you're going to see a whole pile of things describing who the Lord is. 00:13:52.920 --> 00:13:58.200 And it's going to say that the Lord's beauty is infinite. It's going to say that His glory is 00:13:58.200 --> 00:14:03.080 infinite. It's going to say that His strength is infinite. It's going to say that His knowledge is 00:14:03.080 --> 00:14:07.639 infinite. It's going to say that His justice is infinite. It's going to say that His goodness is 00:14:07.639 --> 00:14:13.000 infinite. It's going to say that His splendor is infinite. It's going to say that His rule is 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:19.240 infinite. It's going to say that His love is infinite. But at the same time there are not nine different 00:14:19.240 --> 00:14:25.899 infinites. There's just one infinite because there's just one God, the Lord, Yahweh, the Father 00:14:25.899 --> 00:14:33.500 in heaven. His beauty is infinite, glory infinite, strength infinite, knowledge infinite, justice 00:14:33.500 --> 00:14:39.279 infinite, goodness infinite, splendor infinite, rule infinite, love infinite, and there are not 00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:47.620 three infinites. There's just one infinite. There's just one God. And if that's true, all these other 00:14:47.620 --> 00:14:53.159 things that break things up in reality up, I mean, that's, you know, at the end of the day, 00:14:54.159 --> 00:15:01.200 in the deepest part of who we are, we long for something like what I've just said and what this 00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:09.659 psalm is declaring to be true. Because you see, religions and spiritualities and contemporary 00:15:09.659 --> 00:15:14.299 thought are always breaking these things up into very different categories that are often in trouble 00:15:14.299 --> 00:15:22.779 with each other. I'm watching the last season of the Harry Bosch episodes, and he has a conversation 00:15:22.779 --> 00:15:31.339 with his daughter. And it's a very classic problem that you see in life all the time. And basically, 00:15:31.339 --> 00:15:38.219 she's talking to him, and she has a problem because, you know, there's the truth, and there's what's 00:15:38.220 --> 00:15:55.440 right, and there's also loyalty, and there's also, you know, compassion. And she has a problem because 00:15:55.440 --> 00:16:01.879 the four of these things are all fighting with each other, and she doesn't know what to do. And 00:16:01.879 --> 00:16:06.440 Harry's response is, you just have to figure out how much of the gray you can live in. 00:16:06.440 --> 00:16:12.560 Now, I mean, on one hand, of course, in a fallen human world, we often feel these things in tension. 00:16:12.740 --> 00:16:18.560 But, you know, if you think about it, how can it be love if it's not true? How can it be love if 00:16:18.560 --> 00:16:24.820 it's not good? How can it be justice if it's not true? How can it really be true if there's no aspect 00:16:24.820 --> 00:16:30.780 of goodness to it? And surely beauty is connected to all of these things, and integrity is connected 00:16:30.780 --> 00:16:35.720 to all of these things. And so we live in a world where we see all of these things as types of 00:16:35.720 --> 00:16:40.379 separate types of things. But one of the glories of this psalm, the positive, beautiful vision, 00:16:40.779 --> 00:16:47.040 is that they're all, there's this, all these things exist. They're real. They're worth 00:16:47.040 --> 00:16:52.980 acknowledging and living within, and they all ultimately come from the one Lord. 00:16:54.420 --> 00:16:59.240 And any other God or Lord that is not the Lord is a nothing. We shouldn't be afraid of them. 00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:06.000 We shouldn't be afraid of them. Now, that's the first of the crescendos. The second set of 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:11.960 crescendos, and now, so you just have to think about yourself. The kids, you know, they grabbed 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:17.039 you over there. Come, come, come. And they grabbed you, and they're taking you. They got you to about 00:17:17.039 --> 00:17:21.700 there. You know, you paused about there, and you said, why? And then they gave you this answer, 00:17:21.819 --> 00:17:25.019 and then they say, now they're going to say the next group of things that are going to sort of get you 00:17:25.019 --> 00:17:32.619 farther on. And those are the crescendo that comes in verses 7 through 10. And here's how it goes. 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:38.639 Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to 00:17:38.639 --> 00:17:44.279 the Lord the glory due His name. Bring an offering and come into His courts. Worship the Lord in the 00:17:44.279 --> 00:17:49.400 splendor of holiness. Tremble before Him all the earth. Another crescendo, but the three, ascribe, 00:17:49.559 --> 00:17:54.819 ascribe, ascribe, and then going off into other types of things. And then the reason is, say among 00:17:54.819 --> 00:18:00.939 the nations, which is sort of the last of the crescendos, the Lord reigns. You pause the kids. 00:18:01.799 --> 00:18:06.240 Why do you want to, why do we have to do all these things? Because the Lord reigns. The world is 00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:12.879 established. It shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity. These are these three 00:18:12.879 --> 00:18:19.839 profound truths for you to understand and live in. And when it says here about the ascribe, 00:18:19.839 --> 00:18:30.939 give, you know, notice what it says, verse 8, ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. So the 00:18:30.939 --> 00:18:38.779 word ascribe, the word give, is a type of acknowledgement of what is. It's declaring what 00:18:38.779 --> 00:18:44.959 is. So what it isn't is, it isn't as if, you know, I was to go out with a couple of the kids and 00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:49.019 we're looking up the clouds and we say, you know what, look at that, look at those clouds over 00:18:49.019 --> 00:18:54.100 there. Don't, doesn't it sort of look like a unicorn? You know, the kids being kids, they'd say, 00:18:54.200 --> 00:18:57.039 oh, well, some of the kids might say, yeah, that sort of looks like a unicorn. And one of the other 00:18:57.039 --> 00:19:02.299 kids, one of the older ones, probably a boy, would say, no, no, no, that's just an upside down ice 00:19:02.299 --> 00:19:06.319 cream cone. Like it's not a unicorn whatsoever. But you're just sort of looking at the clouds, 00:19:06.420 --> 00:19:12.539 trying to imagine what they look like. That's not what the command to scribe is. It's more as if, 00:19:12.539 --> 00:19:19.240 you know, I've maybe had some eye surgery or I've had drops in my eyes so I can't see very well. 00:19:19.960 --> 00:19:26.220 And they want me, as my eyes start to clear, people are asking me to notice what's really 00:19:26.220 --> 00:19:31.299 there. Are your eyes, can you see it? Like if you're in Vancouver and it's a sunny day, 00:19:31.619 --> 00:19:39.139 can you see the Rockies? Aren't they glorious? Can you see them? Aren't they glorious? That's what 00:19:39.140 --> 00:19:46.759 the command is. To see and to acknowledge and to declare, to see and to ascribe every people on the 00:19:46.759 --> 00:19:52.240 planet. It doesn't matter if you're in Rwanda. It doesn't matter if you're in Burundi. It doesn't 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:57.660 matter if you're in Uganda. It doesn't matter if you're in China or Taiwan. It doesn't matter if 00:19:57.660 --> 00:20:01.880 you're in the United States or Canada. All the families of the people, all of the nations, 00:20:01.880 --> 00:20:08.780 all of them. The declaration is for all of them. And we're to see his glory and his strength. The 00:20:08.780 --> 00:20:13.860 glory due his name. In verse 8, to bring an offering to come into his court. We're to worship 00:20:13.860 --> 00:20:20.180 the Lord in the splendor of holiness. Tremble before him all the earth. Verse 10, the Lord reigns. The 00:20:20.180 --> 00:20:27.040 world is established. Why? Because he has established it. It'll never be moved. He will judge the people 00:20:27.039 --> 00:20:34.359 with equity. And here's another one of those words here. This translation was done in 2001. Equity is 00:20:34.359 --> 00:20:41.980 no longer the right word to use. I'm going to be... It's not controversial. Here's... The common word 00:20:41.980 --> 00:20:51.899 now for equity is the opposite of what this means. Equity now means discriminating against people and 00:20:51.900 --> 00:20:58.120 treating them differently to get certain socially approved outcomes. That's what equity means. 00:20:59.019 --> 00:21:04.200 You discriminate against people based on certain characteristics about them. And you discriminate 00:21:04.200 --> 00:21:10.860 and you discriminate so that you get the results that you want. And this word is not equity. It's not... 00:21:10.860 --> 00:21:17.180 That's what the word is in Hebrew. The word is equality. The complete opposites. For... There's a PhD 00:21:17.180 --> 00:21:23.620 dissertation out there for somebody as to how the word equity went in 20 some odd years to now mean the 00:21:23.620 --> 00:21:28.700 opposite of what it originally meant. And so the word should be translated as equality if they were to 00:21:28.700 --> 00:21:33.779 update their translation. So that's why you have to keep updating translations because words change their 00:21:33.779 --> 00:21:41.360 meaning. And... But here's the thing. You know, earlier I said, here's the beautiful vision. There's a 00:21:41.359 --> 00:21:50.459 simple, coherent harmony and unity between all of those things. His infinity, his glory, his beauty, 00:21:50.639 --> 00:21:57.379 his truth, his knowledge and justice. There's a simple harmony and coherence between them. They're 00:21:57.379 --> 00:22:03.539 different, but they don't conflict with each other. They embellish each other. They help explain each 00:22:03.539 --> 00:22:08.559 other. The more you understand just how important the truth is to the Lord, then the more you can 00:22:08.559 --> 00:22:13.579 understand and trust that his justice is going to actually be just. And the more that you can 00:22:13.579 --> 00:22:18.220 understand his goodness, then you understand that the truth is going to be connected to his goodness. 00:22:18.339 --> 00:22:24.099 These things all fit together. And here now the psalm is bringing out this other aspect of this profound 00:22:24.099 --> 00:22:33.000 unity. That there is... The Lord is the one and only creator. The Lord is the one and only 00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:40.240 establisher of all things that exist. The Lord is the one and only judge of all of the living and the dead. 00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:47.799 The Lord is the one and only ruler over the entire created order. The Lord is the one and only ender. 00:22:47.940 --> 00:22:53.460 In other words, the one who will bring things to an end. He is the one and only king. He is the one and 00:22:53.460 --> 00:23:03.640 only savior. And there are not seven. There is just one. And it is the Lord. He is the creator. He establishes 00:23:03.640 --> 00:23:10.259 everything. He rules over everything. He will judge everything. He will bring all things to an end. He is 00:23:10.259 --> 00:23:20.340 the one and only king. And he is the one and only savior. That is who he is. Now there's a bit of a question. 00:23:20.339 --> 00:23:29.659 There's an implied riddle in the psalm. Like why is the word salvation there? Salvation implies doom. 00:23:31.339 --> 00:23:40.740 It implies that you're dead, doomed, and done. And something has to happen to change that. 00:23:40.740 --> 00:23:51.160 Well, here's part of the brilliance of the psalm. We don't know when the psalm was written, but part of the psalm, 00:23:51.740 --> 00:23:58.140 almost identical wordings used in 1 Chronicles. So it's probably from around the time of King David. 00:23:58.299 --> 00:24:06.779 So it's a thousand years before Jesus. And the psalmist's insight was that there is something about the human 00:24:06.779 --> 00:24:11.819 condition that means that even though there's sacrifices, even though there's rituals, and they've 00:24:11.819 --> 00:24:19.420 all come from God, unless God does something truer and greater, there is no hope. It has to be 00:24:19.420 --> 00:24:26.259 the creator and the ender and the judge and the righteous one who does something. Otherwise, 00:24:26.720 --> 00:24:32.779 we can't be fixed. Here's another way to look at it. 00:24:32.779 --> 00:24:39.779 If you were on the right wing of the political spectrum, you probably had a lot of mocking things to say at the end of 00:24:39.779 --> 00:24:43.779 Biden's term when he pardoned a whole pile of people. 00:24:44.779 --> 00:24:51.779 You probably said to yourself, I would never pardon those scumbags. They should get the absolute worst, most justice 00:24:51.779 --> 00:24:58.779 they can possibly get. How dare he just completely and utterly deny justice and go ahead and pardon them? 00:24:58.779 --> 00:25:07.779 Now, most of us who would have said that probably didn't say it around the end of Trump's term or won't say it in a 00:25:07.779 --> 00:25:12.779 couple of years when he does the exact same thing. That's what presidents do. They pardon people. 00:25:13.779 --> 00:25:19.779 They pardon guilty people. And in a sense, there's no justice. I mean, occasionally it might be that there's an act of redressing 00:25:19.779 --> 00:25:24.779 something which was an unjust sentence, but it's often cronies and fundraisers and others who've gotten in trouble. 00:25:24.779 --> 00:25:28.779 And there's a simple declaration by the president that they're now pardoned. 00:25:28.779 --> 00:25:33.779 And you have, in a sense, a type of salvation, but it's not really salvation because it's not just. 00:25:33.779 --> 00:25:47.779 And you see, here's the problem. We can hear all about this stuff with, if we're really serious about it, if in fact God is going to judge me equally as he judges every other person, 00:25:47.779 --> 00:25:56.779 and he's going to judge based on a completely perfect true knowledge of me from his standards, how could I possibly pass that judgment? 00:25:56.779 --> 00:26:05.779 Like, how could I possibly do that? So you see, here's what often goes on. It's often how religion and spirituality works. 00:26:05.779 --> 00:26:13.779 It's a little bit like, well, you know, I think he should give me a pass because, well, like, because I'm me. 00:26:14.779 --> 00:26:18.779 And because I'm a bit of a big hearted guy, like I like all of you guys, he should give all of you guys a pass. 00:26:18.779 --> 00:26:23.779 But I can give him a whole long list of people. He shouldn't give them any type of pardon. 00:26:23.779 --> 00:26:31.779 Well, see, that's, if that's how it works, then God's not really just and he's not really good. 00:26:31.779 --> 00:26:41.779 And how does it all fit? Only the gospel. The psalm sets a riddle before the hearers in David's day and Solomon's day that only the gospel would reveal. 00:26:41.779 --> 00:26:48.779 And what it reveals is that, you know, and that's why if you read John 17, at the end of John's gospel, 00:26:48.779 --> 00:26:56.779 the God's glory is most perfectly revealed in the crucifixion of Jesus. 00:26:56.779 --> 00:27:10.779 God's glory isn't most perfectly revealed in the Rockies or if you don't like mountains and you like big sky on the prairies or parts of the Arctic. 00:27:10.779 --> 00:27:14.779 Or if you like lush jungles in the Amazon. 00:27:14.779 --> 00:27:17.779 God's glory isn't most perfectly revealed there. 00:27:17.779 --> 00:27:24.779 Although God's glory is revealed in all of those places, his glory is most perfectly revealed when Jesus dies upon the cross. 00:27:24.779 --> 00:27:32.779 Because, you see, what you see there is that God's justice is completely just. 00:27:32.779 --> 00:27:37.779 There is to be a just punishment for wrongdoing. 00:27:37.779 --> 00:27:40.779 And you also see his mercy. 00:27:40.779 --> 00:27:45.779 Only the Creator can stand for his creation. 00:27:45.779 --> 00:27:54.779 And so what we see on the cross is that as I, in a sense, in the future, God's, because God's done this for me already, 00:27:54.779 --> 00:27:58.779 I can't stand before God's judgment. 00:27:58.779 --> 00:28:04.779 And it's as if at the same time that I'm acknowledging that before God that I cannot stand. 00:28:04.779 --> 00:28:09.779 I, I, the, the price that has to be paid for the wrong that I have done is too much for me to bear. 00:28:09.779 --> 00:28:11.779 It will completely unmake me. 00:28:11.779 --> 00:28:14.779 I, I will become forever excluded from his presence. 00:28:14.779 --> 00:28:21.779 That God, the Son of God, the Creator, comes in, in a sense, puts his arm around me or puts his arm around you. 00:28:21.779 --> 00:28:26.779 And he says to God the Father, 00:28:26.779 --> 00:28:30.779 justice must be fulfilled. 00:28:30.779 --> 00:28:33.779 And I love George. I love you. 00:28:33.779 --> 00:28:37.779 Please allow me to stand in his place. 00:28:37.779 --> 00:28:44.779 So that the judgment and all of the punishment and the penalty that should fall on George will fall on me. 00:28:44.779 --> 00:28:48.779 And that's what we accept in Christ. 00:28:48.779 --> 00:28:51.779 We accept this substitution and exchange. 00:28:51.779 --> 00:28:56.779 So the God's justice, everything that I have done wrong is in a self dealt with. 00:28:56.779 --> 00:29:00.779 And only the Creator can stand for his creature like me. 00:29:00.779 --> 00:29:05.779 And it falls on him that I might be free. 00:29:05.779 --> 00:29:13.779 And I can stand before God saying, God, in, in your mercy, God, the Son of God stood in my place, 00:29:13.779 --> 00:29:17.779 condemned in my place, he stood that I might go free. 00:29:17.779 --> 00:29:19.779 That's what the gospel is. 00:29:19.779 --> 00:29:27.779 And so this Psalm with this powerful vision is also putting before people a riddle that only the gospel solves. 00:29:27.779 --> 00:29:35.779 Now, I still haven't got to why it is that everything sad will one day be untrue. 00:29:35.779 --> 00:29:39.779 Although you can begin to see it, especially with this doctrine of the gospel. 00:29:39.779 --> 00:29:42.779 But we have the final crescendo, which will help to bring it home. 00:29:42.779 --> 00:29:45.779 It's verses 13, 11 to 13. 00:29:45.779 --> 00:29:48.779 And with the other crescendos, there's three. 00:29:48.779 --> 00:29:50.779 Sing, sing, sing. 00:29:50.779 --> 00:29:53.779 And then there's ascribe or give, you know, give, give, give. 00:29:53.779 --> 00:29:54.779 Give, give, give. 00:29:54.779 --> 00:29:55.779 And now the fourth one. 00:29:55.779 --> 00:29:58.779 And now the image changes. 00:29:58.779 --> 00:30:03.779 It's no longer the kids dragging you along. 00:30:03.779 --> 00:30:07.779 It's all of us together now calling out to God. 00:30:07.779 --> 00:30:11.779 These last things are we're all calling out to God together. 00:30:11.779 --> 00:30:12.779 And here's what we call out. 00:30:12.779 --> 00:30:14.779 Verses 11 to 13. 00:30:14.779 --> 00:30:16.779 Let the heavens be glad. 00:30:16.779 --> 00:30:17.779 Let the earth rejoice. 00:30:17.779 --> 00:30:19.779 Let the sea roar and all that fills it. 00:30:19.779 --> 00:30:21.779 Let the field exult and everything in it. 00:30:21.779 --> 00:30:25.779 Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord. 00:30:25.779 --> 00:30:26.779 For he comes. 00:30:26.779 --> 00:30:28.779 For he comes to judge the earth. 00:30:28.779 --> 00:30:34.779 He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness, in his integrity. 00:30:34.779 --> 00:30:37.779 So here's this spectacular vision. 00:30:37.779 --> 00:30:44.779 You know, Jesus, when he, I think it's in Luke, Luke's version of when Jesus comes into the city, 00:30:44.779 --> 00:30:47.779 the just, what we now call Palm Sunday. 00:30:47.779 --> 00:30:50.779 So it's just a few days before he's going to be crucified. 00:30:50.779 --> 00:30:52.779 And, and, you know, they're singing Hosanna. 00:30:52.779 --> 00:30:57.779 There's this, this story is that people are calling Hosanna and praising the whole towns in an uproar. 00:30:57.779 --> 00:31:02.779 And, and people are throwing their clothes down to stop the dust and, and, and branches. 00:31:02.779 --> 00:31:06.779 And, and, and some of the grumpy people who are there who don't like Jesus say, 00:31:06.779 --> 00:31:10.779 you got to tell your people to shut up and stop them from saying what they say. 00:31:10.779 --> 00:31:11.779 And what does Jesus said? 00:31:11.779 --> 00:31:15.779 He says, if I stopped them, even the stones would cry out. 00:31:15.779 --> 00:31:20.779 The heavens declare the glory of God. 00:31:20.779 --> 00:31:22.779 The firmament proclaims his handiwork. 00:31:22.779 --> 00:31:27.779 And, and it's almost as if what this is capturing here, it's, it's a little bit like, 00:31:27.779 --> 00:31:33.779 well, it, I, we wouldn't hold the dogs back because Louise would really enjoy it. 00:31:33.779 --> 00:31:37.779 But, you know, when I, we have dogs. 00:31:37.779 --> 00:31:39.779 Louise loves dog. 00:31:39.779 --> 00:31:41.779 I don't, it's not so much that I love dogs. 00:31:41.779 --> 00:31:42.779 I love Louise and Louise loves dogs. 00:31:42.779 --> 00:31:47.779 So we have dogs and she spends all the time with the dogs and all of that type of thing. 00:31:47.779 --> 00:31:52.779 And, and, and so when Louise comes back, you know, I, I come back and they sort of, 00:31:52.779 --> 00:31:54.779 not looking at me, they're looking for her. 00:31:54.779 --> 00:31:56.779 And it's like they pounce on her, right? 00:31:56.779 --> 00:31:59.779 Tails wagging, tongues, all of that type of stuff. 00:31:59.779 --> 00:32:01.779 They're very friendly dogs. 00:32:01.779 --> 00:32:05.779 If you come over to our house, we have to have somebody holding the dogs back, right? 00:32:05.779 --> 00:32:10.779 And at some point in time, after we're, we're pretty sure that the dogs are going to be a tiny, 00:32:10.779 --> 00:32:14.779 you're prepared, we let the dogs go. 00:32:14.779 --> 00:32:18.779 It's like saying, let her rip. 00:32:18.779 --> 00:32:24.779 So we're saying to God, let them go, let them go. 00:32:24.779 --> 00:32:27.779 And it's as if this image that one of the things that happened in the Garden of Eden, 00:32:27.779 --> 00:32:31.779 if human beings hadn't have fallen, that we would have lived in this world 00:32:31.779 --> 00:32:37.779 and we would have lived in a world where every day we saw, we heard the rivers praising God 00:32:37.779 --> 00:32:42.779 the way rivers are to praise God and mountains praising God the way mountains would praise God 00:32:42.779 --> 00:32:45.779 and trees and plants and animals. 00:32:45.779 --> 00:32:53.779 And we would live in a world filled with music of them in exaltation praising God. 00:32:53.779 --> 00:32:54.779 That's the real world. 00:32:54.779 --> 00:32:57.779 And because of the fall, God has held that back. 00:32:57.779 --> 00:33:03.779 But in the new heaven and the new earth, we will live in a world where we will hear the Gatinos. 00:33:03.779 --> 00:33:08.779 If we're here in an area like this, the Gatinos are praising God, the fields are praising God, 00:33:08.779 --> 00:33:12.779 the rivers are praising God, the rain praises God, the wind praises God. 00:33:12.779 --> 00:33:18.779 We will live in a world where what we call inanimate nature, it'll be inanimate in a sense, 00:33:18.779 --> 00:33:22.779 but it has its own mountainy way of praising God. 00:33:22.779 --> 00:33:24.779 And God has held that back. 00:33:24.779 --> 00:33:29.779 And so the end of the psalm is that God, Jesus is coming back, the Lord is coming back, 00:33:29.779 --> 00:33:31.779 let him rip, let him go. 00:33:31.779 --> 00:33:34.779 That's the world that we're going to live in. 00:33:34.779 --> 00:33:39.779 Romans says that creation groans, longing for the day when the sons of God 00:33:39.779 --> 00:33:41.779 and the daughters of God will be revealed. 00:33:41.779 --> 00:33:42.779 That's what this is referring to. 00:33:42.779 --> 00:33:49.779 They're getting it from places like Psalm 96. 00:33:49.779 --> 00:33:54.779 You see, if you look at this psalm, 00:33:54.779 --> 00:34:00.779 wherever God is, there is singing and joy. 00:34:00.779 --> 00:34:05.779 Wherever God is, there is singing and joy. 00:34:05.779 --> 00:34:12.779 And one day we will be before God face to face. 00:34:12.779 --> 00:34:18.779 And everything sad in our life will become untrue. 00:34:22.779 --> 00:34:30.779 Everything sad in my life and yours will become untrue in Christ. 00:34:30.780 --> 00:34:36.780 So, in closing, we have a big God. 00:34:36.780 --> 00:34:40.780 Therefore, problems are small compared to this big God. 00:34:40.780 --> 00:34:43.780 And we have a God who is really big, but he's not big to crush, 00:34:43.780 --> 00:34:49.780 but to save and ennoble and to bring out joy. 00:34:49.780 --> 00:34:54.780 We have in Christ a Father in heaven who loves you. 00:34:54.780 --> 00:34:55.780 This is his world. 00:34:55.780 --> 00:34:58.780 So pour out your heart to him in prayer. 00:34:58.780 --> 00:35:03.780 Learn to adore him and go and sing and tell and pray. 00:35:03.780 --> 00:35:07.780 This is our Father's world. 00:35:07.780 --> 00:35:10.780 This is your Father's world in Christ. 00:35:10.780 --> 00:35:11.780 And he is a big God. 00:35:11.780 --> 00:35:13.780 And he loves you. 00:35:13.780 --> 00:35:16.780 And he will bring all things to their proper end. 00:35:16.780 --> 00:35:19.780 And there is a real and true Savior. 00:35:19.780 --> 00:35:21.780 And that is why we should tell others about him. 00:35:21.780 --> 00:35:22.780 Why? 00:35:22.780 --> 00:35:26.780 God wants more people to sing his praises. 00:35:26.780 --> 00:35:29.780 That's why we share the gospel. 00:35:29.780 --> 00:35:31.780 I invite you to stand. 00:35:31.780 --> 00:35:36.780 Let's pray. 00:35:36.780 --> 00:35:50.780 Father, scientists talk about, like, everything just sort of, in a sense, being dead matter and just mere energy. 00:35:50.780 --> 00:35:54.780 But, Father, the world is filled with beauty. 00:35:54.780 --> 00:36:02.780 Father, even these newest shots from a more powerful camera of distance galaxies just show, Father, this. 00:36:02.780 --> 00:36:06.780 You can't do things without making them beautiful. 00:36:06.780 --> 00:36:09.780 And all things have been created by you. 00:36:09.780 --> 00:36:11.780 You hold all things together. 00:36:11.780 --> 00:36:12.780 There is no other. 00:36:12.780 --> 00:36:15.780 You and you alone will bring all things to completion. 00:36:15.780 --> 00:36:19.780 You and you alone, Father, control these things. 00:36:19.780 --> 00:36:26.780 And you and you alone have acted to do what needed to be done for us in sending Jesus to be our Savior. 00:36:26.780 --> 00:36:29.780 Father, you are a good God, a true God. 00:36:29.780 --> 00:36:32.780 You will return and bring all things to an end. 00:36:32.780 --> 00:36:34.780 And you will judge evil. 00:36:35.780 --> 00:36:37.780 And nothing evil can stand before you. 00:36:37.780 --> 00:36:42.780 And we ask, Father, that you grow in us the habit of adoration, 00:36:42.780 --> 00:36:49.780 that you grow within us just an ever deeper knowledge of how big and powerful and almighty and glorious you are, 00:36:49.780 --> 00:36:56.780 that you are our Father in heaven who loves to hear us pray to you about small and big things. 00:36:56.780 --> 00:37:02.780 So, Father, help us to live in light of the gospel and in light of these truths day by day. 00:37:02.780 --> 00:37:05.780 And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. 00:37:05.780 --> 00:37:07.780 Amen. 00:37:07.780 --> 00:37:08.780 Bye.