God the Judge in a “Judge Not” Culture

If you would open your Bibles to Psalm 75. We’ll be continuing our study in the book of Psalms. Again, I would encourage you if you haven’t already been doing this to go back and listen to the other recordings from the other gatherings that you’re not attending so that we’re benefitting from the full effect of immersing ourselves in this amazing book from God’s Word. Psalm 75, I’ll begin reading in verse one:

We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds. “At the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity. When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars. 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 high, or speak with haughty neck.’” For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. But I will declare it forever; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. All the horns of the wicked I will cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up.

This 16th century protestant reformer Martin Luther summed up his theology with these words, he said, “One must always let God be God.” And whether you go in the same direction as Luther goes theologically, I think we could all as Bible-believing Christians agree that that’s a good summary of theology. We must “let God be God.” But that’s a classic example of “easier said than done,” isn’t it? Because nobody has trouble letting “God be God” as long as God does what we would do if we were God. That’s kind of the way it is but the God that we’re talking about—the God of Scripture, the God of Psalm 75—is a God who does some things that are out of step with our cultural preferences. Matter of fact, it’s more than out of step, sometimes they flatly contradict our cultural preferences––our personal preferences.

So this God—just to put this all in perspective—this God is a God who defines right and wrong. He defines right and wrong. His is not one opinion next to many opinions. His opinion is something we call “truth.” He defines right and wrong, and He does it not after having polled our culture or any other culture. He simply defines right and wrong. This God gives us a list of dos and don’ts. Often times we use that phrase “dos and don’ts” to distance ourselves from the notion, but God gives us a list of dos and don’ts, many of which are as binding as they ever were.

The God that we read about in Scripture tells us that if we live life on our own and reject Him as the loving Creator and Lord––if we do that––we will be condemned. The God we read about in Scripture doesn’t need us. He doesn’t have a human-shaped hole in His heart that only you can fill. That’s not how God reveals Himself in Scripture. He doesn’t run a democratic republic, as grateful as we are for ours. He doesn’t run a democratic republic, He runs a kingdom. He is a loving King; He is a compassionate, and generous and gracious King; but He’s a King and He shares His throne with no one. This is the only God there is. There are no other deity candidates out there. There are no other God options in the universe. This is the one, true, living God. He defines Himself in this way.

To a culture whose favorite verse is, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1)—to a culture that stands ready to quote that verse to God Himself should He get any ideas—to our culture, to us, God comes in Psalm 75 and He unapologetically asserts His right to judge, His competency to judge, and His title as judge. So we want to, we need to think biblically about the judgment of God and Psalm 75 is going to lead us in that.

Along the way we want to stop and just carefully avoid three wrong responses that are tempting and within striking distance of us. We want to avoid three things. We’ll hit them each in their turn. We want to steer clear of ridiculing God’s judgment, we want to steer clear of boasting in God’s judgment—sort of with a smirk on our face, and we want to steer clear of minimizing God’s judgment.

Because I hope that we’re going to see before we’re done that judgment is actually at the very heart of the good news of the Christian faith. There is no gospel without judgment. In a fallen world there is no salvation without judgment and that’s clear from beginning to the end of the Word. That’s why incidentally this passage––which the theme of this passage is about the judgment of God––that’s why this passage which is about judgment can begin with a word of thanksgiving. Clearly something about this judgment must end up being good news for those who trust in this God who is the way He is.

Look how it begins in verse one. This is a Psalm about judgment. It begins in verse one with these words: “We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds.” Don’t miss where this Psalm begins. It’s important. It begins with thanksgiving. Here’s an underlying truth: the attitude one has towards the judgment of God reveals one’s view of the character of God. Let me say that again. The attitude one has towards the judgment of God reveals one’s view of the character of God.

Psalm 75 and the Source of Judgment: The Lord God

This psalm begins with God. It begins by urging us, the reader, to consider the source. Before we talk about how or when He judges, let’s establish that He judges and talk about who it is that is doing the judgment. The source of judgment in this text the one doing the judging––is God Himself, the Lord God Himself. Look at that in verse two. God is speaking in the first person at this point. “At the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity.” Look at verse six, there’s source language here: “For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness come lifting up, but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.”

In other words Psalm 75 is not a reluctant admission on God’s part. It’s not Him saying, “Look, I know the cat’s out of the bag on this one, so let me just go ahead and admit this: I am the sovereign judge. Okay, that’s what I do.” No, God is not reluctant in that way. This psalm views God’s judgment in a positive light; a positive thing. It begins with thanksgiving. Look how it speaks of judgment in verse three: “When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars.” Well what does that mean? It means that there’s some sense in which when God judges the earth He is stabilizing the earth.

Humanism tries to offer us hope that we can establish peace and justice in this world apart from God. In our time and culture that hope––in our time and our culture that hope––is often built on some notion of evolution, or human development over time, and that’s coupled with the importance of education. The only problem is it’s not working. Our advances in education are only making the weapons of war more sophisticated. They’re not solving the problems of unrest and injustice in our lives, our hearts, in the world, in society. It’s not happening. God is the one who establishes order. God alone––according to Psalm 75––is the one who can keep the universe from teetering over into moral disorder. God alone, that’s His job.

Back here in verse three: “When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars.” When we think of divine judgment, we often think of it in terms of God shaking things up. Actually the Scripture sometimes speaks that way. In Hebrews 12, God comes in judgment and everything that can be shaken will be shaken. So it views God’s judgment as a shaking up of the earth. But it’s interesting because this psalm comes from the opposite angle. It’s using that shaking metaphor but it’s coming at it from a different way. It’s telling us that in one sense when unrighteousness, and evil and injustice are left unchecked in the earth—the moral fabric is coming apart, the moral order of the universe is teetering, it’s tottering there—and when God steps in in judgment He is steadying the world, steadying the universe.

One of the reasons I think people in our culture, people even in Scripture, find God’s judgment perturbing, concerning, is because we don’t begin where this psalm begins. We don’t begin with a view of the biblical God: who He is, what He’s like. So you hear boasting throughout the Word, even here in the Psalms we can see like this. In Psalm 94:3–9, note the view of God on the part of the wicked:

O Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult? They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast. They crush your people, O Lord, and afflict your heritage. They kill the widow and the sojourner, and murder the fatherless; and they say,—so here’s the theology of the a godless world, here’s what they say— “The Lord does not see; he God of Jacob does not perceive.” [And the Psalm goes on to say] Understand, O dullest of the people! Fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?

So Psalm 75, it views judgment in a positive light because it views God in a positive light. Which is to say again that our view of judgment takes its cue from our view of God. It dances in step with our view of God. Well what does that mean practically? As we’re reading through the Bible it means if I trust God’s character, I’m convinced He will judge rightly. So before we read that difficult chapter where God comes in judgment, we’re convinced that God is good. And after we read that difficult chapter on the judgment of God we’re convinced that God is good.

We’re not questioning the righteous character of God because we’re going to the source at the beginning and we’re asking the question, “Okay, who’s the one doing the judging? I know it’s a difficult chapter. Who’s the one doing the judging? Oh, it’s God. Oh, what else do we know about God in His self-revealing Word?”

First, we know He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is not a God who’s trigger happy. He’s not giddy, blasting people from the skies. That’s not this God. We know too, “The Lord is righteous in all his ways” (Psalm 145:17) the Scripture says. All—not some of His ways, He’s righteous in all of His ways. He doesn’t have temper tantrums. He doesn’t wake up on the wrong side of the bed. His judgment is an expression of His righteous character. He can’t do anything but be righteous. And then, Proverbs 3:19 tells us, “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth.” He didn’t just found the earth by wisdom, He runs it by wisdom. He judges the earth with wisdom.

We often see wisdom and God’s judgment coupled together. For example in Romans 11:33 it says, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments.” Judgments, wisdom. They stand in lock step together in God, His character. That’s who He is. So this God––it’s this God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, righteous in all of His ways, all wise—that’s the one who’s the judge of all the earth.

That’s why this Psalm can speak of judgment the way that it does by beginning and say, “We give thanks to you, O God…We recount your wondrous deeds.” That doesn’t mean though that there won’t be mystery. It doesn’t mean we’re always going to understand the connection between the wisdom and righteousness of God and the judgment that we find in that next chapter of the Bible that we find ourselves reading. We may not fully understand the “why” and the “how” of God’s judgment, but faith in God means we come to these passages with a humble trust and confidence that God is right, that God is good.

This brings us to the first wrong response to the Biblical teaching about God’s judgment. The first way that we don’t want to respond is: we don’t want to ridicule God’s judgment. So outspoken critics like Bill Maher––as if there’s another kind of critic––speak of God’s judgment in this kind of flippant way. He sums up the story of Noah and the great flood with these words: “The story of Noah is about a psychotic mass murderer who gets away with it, and His name is God.” There’s an underlying assumption in that—not just that statement from Bill Maher, but sometimes the way that we can think about God when we read about His judgment—and it’s this: we have this habit of assuming that our sense of fairness and justice is the standard of fairness and justice.

But when we speak like this, we give the impression that there is some moral code that exists outside of God––if you will, above God––and God Himself is answerable to that moral code of what’s right and what’s wrong. God is only righteous insofar as He conforms to that moral standard which just so happens to perfectly match my sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. You see this. “I know this might look like a conflict of interests but this is just what would have been right for God to do based on what I know.” This is arrogance. This is pride. It’s ridiculing God’s judgment. This is standing in judgment over God Himself.

A few years ago there was a debate tour between atheist Christopher Hitchens and author and theologian Douglass Wilson. They traveled around, they set up in auditoriums and school auditoriums, and diners and pubs throughout the states and they had vigorous conversation about the questions of, “Is Christianity good for the world?” And at one point in that debate Christopher Hitchens, the atheist, brought up 1 Samuel 15 and the slaughter of the Amalekites. Douglas Wilson said, “I think it was okay for God to order the destruction of the Amalekites.” And Hitchens quickly interrupted him, he said, “There I got you to say it.” And Wilson said, “You didn’t get me to say anything. I’m happy to say it.” He didn’t mean, “I’m happy, I’m giddy about God’s judgment.” He simply meant, “I’m not embarrassed of God. Who am I to stand in judgment? If God ordered the destruction of the Amalekites, He is righteous.” He goes on later on in the debate to say, “This may come as a surprise but Christians believe the Bible. That fundamental foundation of trust that God is righteous. He’s good. There’s no other possibility. This is our foundation, our presupposition. We don’t call into question the God who is, we trust Him.”

One of the reasons I think our culture is so allergic to biblical teaching about the judgment of God is because it reminds us of something that we hate hearing in our pride: God is above us. He’s flat out above us. I am not God’s accountability partner. He’s not asking me, He’s not asking you, or anyone else if it’s going to be alright for Him to flood the earth in Genesis 6. “Is it heavy handed Matt––mortal Matt––is it heavy handed for me to order the destruction of the Amalekites?” He’s not asking me that question. That’s above my pay grade. I’m not able to weigh in on that discussion. God knows. He’s all-wise.

We’re allergic to hierarchy. I mean, unless we’re on top, that’s the irony. We’re allergic to hierarchy unless we’re on top. That’s not just a modern thing, a 21st century thing. It’s not just an American thing. It’s a fallen humanity thing. Isaiah 29, Romans 9 make this abundantly clear. Isaiah 29, God is speaking through the prophet Isaiah and He says, “You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?”

The ridicule response is arrogant, and it’s proud, and it’s wrong because it operates on the assumption that we have a better sense of right and wrong than God does. This response is not just so self-righteous as to look down its nose at other sinners. It takes self-righteousness to new levels. It looks down its nose at God Himself. Friends this is not an appropriate response. That is arrogant and prideful. The God of the Bible—we have to be convinced of this—the God of the Bible is who He is. He is not changeable, malleable at the hands of our culture.

He can’t be taken in a piecemeal kind of way. It’s not like we have these options coming down like when you’re buying a computer and you can choose, or select, or deselect which software you want installed on the system. That’s not how God is. We can’t take him in a piecemeal kind of way. He is this way. It’s a package deal. He is creator, law-giver, judge, savior, comforter, returning King. He’s all of those and it’s an all or nothing prospect. You take Him as He is for your eternal joy or you reject Him as He is for your eternal destruction. We don’t say that with a smirk on our face, we say it because it’s the truth from God’s Word. We plead with those who won’t hear it and we say, “Please submit to this God for your eternal joy!” This is who God is.

Really in a way the doctrine of God’s judgment draws a line in the sand between those who take God as He reveals Himself in His Word, and those who pick what they like and leave aside the rest. Augustine said, “You who believe what you want of the Gospels and disbelieve what you want, believe yourselves rather than the Gospels.” How true this is of the Word. Believe what you want about the Word, and disbelieve what you want; believe yourself and not the Word. One author put it this way:

But far from owning that this culture hates God, the vast majority of men will not only strongly deny it but affirm that they respect and love Him. Yet if they’re supposed love is analyzed it is found to cover only their own interests. While a man concludes that God is favorable and lenient with him, he entertains no hard thoughts against Him. So long as he considers God to be prospering him, he carries no grudge against Him. He hates God [get this] not as one who confers benefits [who hates a God who confers benefits? “He’s giving stuff? Great! Awesome! I’ll take Him.”] He doesn’t hate God as one who confers benefits but as a sovereign, lawgiver judge. He will not yield to His government or take His law as the rule of his life. The only God [he goes on to say], against whom the natural man is not at enmity is one of his own imagination.

God is not ashamed of His title as the judge of all the earth. It’s the first thing out of His holy mouth when He speaks in the first person in verse two. “At the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity.” This is the source of judgment.

Psalm 75 and the Target of Judgment: The Proud

The next thing that comes up in our passage is the target of judgment, namely the proud. Follow along with me, verse four:

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 high, or speak with haughty neck.” For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.

From beginning to end this is how God comes in judgment. From the beginning where proud Satan and his angels were cast out of heaven, to Adam and Eve in the garden eating the fruit so that they would be like God, to Pharaoh arrogantly refusing to let God’s people go, all the way to the end of time in Revelation 18 and the downfall, the throwing down of luxurious, great Babylon. The whole Bible presents this picture that God’s judgment always hits its target and it targets human pride. It always hits its target and it targets pride.

You know there are these moments when as you read through the Bible it’s sort of like your hair stands up on edge and you think, “He shouldn’t have said that. He should not have said that. That is not going to bode well for him moments from now.” It happens in Daniel 5 as one example. So background of Daniel 5: God’s people are in exile, Jerusalem has been torched, and Belshazzar is the then ruler of Babylon, and he’s throwing a big party and the theme of the party is, “Babylon is bigger, badder and richer than everybody else. And since I’m ruler of Babylon it’s kind of like a ‘Look how awesome I am’ kind of party.” So this is what Belshazzar is doing, and then he does something in this moment in Daniel 5 that is really dumb. He orders his subjects to go and get the gold and silver vessels. “Remember the ones that we stole from the temple at Jerusalem before we burned it to the ground? Yeah go get those vessels, bring them in, we’ll drink from the holy vessels to celebrate the glory and dominion of Babylon. So a round of drinks for all my lords, my wives, and my concubines! Drink to the glory of Babylon with the vessels of God’s holy temple.” The text (Daniel 5:4–6) says:

They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.

When this ruler of the empire, the great empire of Babylon is addressed by the sovereign God and judge of all the earth through Daniel, here’s what Daniel 5:18–23 says:

O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father [your ancestor] kingship and greatness and glory and majesty. [God raised up Nebuchadnezzar.] And because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would, he killed, and whom he would, he kept alive; whom he would, he raised up, and whom he would, he humbled. But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne, and his glory was taken from him.

Doesn’t that sound like verse seven from Psalm 75? “But it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.” He goes on to say, and he’s speaking to Belshazzar:

And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. And the vessels of his house [“My house” God is saying] have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.

Now you go and you read through the end of chapter five and you find out that God puts an end to this party and to the kingdom of Babylon that very night. In come the Medo-Persians, in comes Darius, and they begin their rule. God’s judgment always hits its target and it targets human pride. This is not only true when it comes to pagan pride but this should sober us because it’s also true when it comes to religious pride. So both James and Peter in the New Testament remind believers, “God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).

This really brings us to another wrong response to biblical teaching about God’s judgment. That wrong response is to boast in judgment. Some of us, we can read passages that speak of God’s judgment of evil and assume an attitude of moral superiority. You remember the Pharisee’s prayer in Luke 18 where he lifted up his voice––it says in Luke 18––he lifted up his voice and he prayed, “God I thank you that I’m not like that guy over there.”? This is what we’ve come to call in modern culture “the humble brag” because his prayer is basically saying, “I’m better than you but it’s only because of grace.”

God will have none of this. You look at Jesus in the Gospels, you find the places where He’s shouting, where He’s rebuking, where He’s condemning and invariably He’s talking to––not the Belshazzars of the world; He’s not talking to the atheists and the idol worshipers––He’s talking to professing members of the community of faith. He’s talking to church-goers. He’s talking to Sunday School teachers. That’s who He’s talking to: leaders in the religious community of Israel. He reserves His strongest language for them. “You brood of vipers, you blind leading the blind, you white-washed tombs.”

When we watch Jesus’ manner with the self-righteous religious in the Gospels, we are seeing in living color God opposing the proud. Jesus says, “If you knew you were blind I would heal you but because you think you see, your blindness remains.” He says, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). That wasn’t a compliment. He wasn’t saying, “You guys are good. I’m going to get those losers.” He was passing them up in judgment. He was opposing the proud.

Thomas Watson, the Puritan, said, “The greatest of all disorders is to think we are whole and need no help.” You know we read through the book of Proverbs not long from now… You read through the book of Proverbs and we come to this moment that kind of brings us to the edge of our seats because the sentence starts this way: “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him.” And guess what leads the list of things God hates? Haughty eyes. He hates pride. Same thing in our text here, verse five: “Do not lift up your horn on high, or speak with haughty neck.” May God convict us of our haughty eyes!

This boasting response is arrogant because it assumes that when God comes in judgment of evil and injustice in the world, “I’ll be safe because I’m so righteous.” But no, when the Bible speaks about the problem of evil in the world––when it speaks about injustice, and vengeance, and jealous, and anger, and malice, and lust, and greed, and selfishness––we discover that we’re inside the problem of evil, not outside it. We’re inside the situation of evil. The Scripture says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). It goes on to say, “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). It says in Romans 3:11, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.”

Boasting is arrogant and it’s out of place in light of our corruption, in light of indwelling sin. Someone said, “Pride is the AIDs of the soul.” It’s said that no one dies of AIDs, but AIDs breaks down your body’s defenses against all manner of other illness that may eventually kill you. Pride does that—it kills your spiritual immunity system so to speak so that you can be taken down by any number of sins. It makes us think we’re above temptation. “All others might turn away from you but not me.” Remember that? Peter’s words to Jesus—famous last words. Check them out tomorrow. Pride goes before a fall.

The Apostle Paul had a friend named Demas. Demas joined him on mission trips. Demas gets a shout out in Colossians and in Philemon where Paul is saying, “Hey, Demas is right here with me. He greets you guys. We’re on mission together.” He mentions Demas in a couple of different places in the New Testament. These were gospel comrades. These were fugitives on the run. They were going into town. They were proclaiming the good news. They were getting beat up and run out of town together. They were taking selfies at the end of that city. This is Paul’s boy. This is one of his friends, his close comrade in the proclamation of the gospel. Then Paul in his last letter before he dies he writes to his son in the faith Timothy and he says, “Timothy you’re not going to believe this. Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world. Demas is gone. Demas has defected from the faith because he fell in love with this world.” Sobering.

Pride left unchecked, friends, will take us to places we never thought we’d go. Never thought we’d go. Will take us into lust, the foothills of lust, and then it will take us deeper and deeper into all forms of sexual immorality or adultery. It will do that. It will lead us to bitterness and isolation so that we close off our lives from other people and living sacrificially in love towards others because they’re not giving us what we need. Pride will lead us to think that way.

It will lead us to divisiveness in the church. I was reading a book this week by Francis Schafer called, The Mark of the Christian. The premise of the book is based on John 13 and John 17. Two verses: John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples…” “By this… [this is the apologetic; this is the indicator that you’re truly my disciples]…if you have love for one another.” John 17 Jesus prays, “that [the church] may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” And Schafer’s premise is basically this: Jesus is giving a right to the world. He gives the world the right to judge if we’re true disciples, He gives the world the right to judge if the Father has truly sent the son. And they get the right to judge that on the basis of whether they see us loving one another. There are moments when I kind of wish God hadn’t done that because in so many ways we as members of the Church of Jesus Christ—this is bigger than Brook Hills—the Church of Jesus Christ, we’re not necessarily overwhelming the world with evidence that any of this stuff is true. Pride is killing out witness.

We’re going to talk about in one of the next services Psalm 78—“Discipling the Next Generation.” Pride will lead us to disciple our children to be just little Pharisees, with their modern phylacteries and their external, outward rites, religious exercises, but they’re not amazed by grace and they’ve never wept over the fact that though their sins were as scarlet, they have been washed white as snow. What a tragic miss. What a tragic miss when we look at judgment and we boast in it.

We get smirks on our faces. We look at biblical judgment and all it produces is, “Thank you God that I’m not messed up like all those other people are. Thank you that I’m not messed up like those unbelievers over there with no moral compass, no sense of right and wrong. Thank you that I’m not like those people who worship with all the moving lights or those people over here who worship with the prewritten prayers and the pipe organs. Thank you that I’m not like them.” It ventures in missing the point. Where is my heart? Why am I smirking? This boasting is not good. You know, Paul diagnosis the issue of why so many of his kinsmen, his brothers and sisters in Israel, rejected the Messiah? He says it was essentially a pride issue. Romans 10:1–3:

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, [there’s plenty of that] but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

In this case the rejection of Israel on the part of embracing the Messiah wasn’t because they wanted to eat, drink and be merry with the dying, pagan world around them. They rejected God’s salvation because they were so righteous. They looked in the moral mirror and liked what they saw. They were blind to the reality that they needed a righteousness that was outside of them and they couldn’t just obtain this by their own works. They said, “We don’t need a handout. We’re not God’s charity case.” This is what Israel said and in it rejected the Messiah, rejected God’s way of salvation. No wonder Jesus begins the beatitudes––this list of things we’re supposed to seek––He begins them by saying, “Hold on, listen to this: blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

The Kingdom of God has a predictable pattern: God exalts the lowly and He brings down the proud. In Scripture blessing comes to those who are poor in spirit. The meek inherit the earth. Battles are not won by trusting in horses, chariots, the strength of man, the weapons of man, but by trusting in God. Scripture says, “With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes” (Psalm 108:13). This is fundamental, humble trust in the power of God. Oh to be a church full of people who are poor in spirit! Is that our desire? Oh to be a man, a husband, a father, a pastor who is poor in spirit!

Jonathan Edwards is well known for his resolute attentiveness to living a godly life every moment of his existence, every word that he said, every thought that he thought. He wanted to live for the glory of God in every moment of his life. Yet years after his conversion he said this: “I’ve had a vastly greater sense of my own wickedness and the badness of my heart than ever I had before my conversion.” Is that your experience? In Scripture the closer holy people got to the holy God the less holy they saw themselves to be. Is that our experience? Charles Spurgeon said, “It’s easier to save us from our sins than from our righteousness.” Friends, don’t miss who’s in the cross hairs of judgment in Psalm 75. It’s the proud. So there can be no more important response for us to this truth than to humble ourselves before this God, to cast ourselves—oh may we do this!—cast ourselves on His mercy because if we don’t think we need mercy, we need it more than ever. Let us not be proud!

Psalms 75 and the Goal of Judgment: Salvation

The source of judgment is the Lord God, the target of judgment is the proud, and finally the goal of judgment is salvation. Verses eight through ten:

For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. But I will declare it forever; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. All the horns of the wicked I will cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up.

God’s judgment is a terrifying thing because God is infinitely holy and we have sinned against Him. The sobering thing that we find out here is that God’s judgment at the end of the day will not be poured out sparingly. It will be poured out in full. There is a cup, in verse eight, that is filled all the way to the brim with God’s judgment against human sin. That cup it says, “…[will be] drain[ed] down to the dregs.” On the last Day the cup will be turned over and there will be no drippage. God’s wrath will have been fully poured out on all evil.

No one will be able to charge God with over reacting to evil. Psalm 51, which we looked at just a couple of weeks ago, in verse four it says, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” There’s a sense in which those words could be written as a fitting response to every act of judgment in the Bible. What happened in the great flood? Here’s what happened: “Against You and You only did they sin and did what was evil in Your sight so that You were justified in Your words and blameless in this flood. You are not a psychotic mass murderer who got away with it. You are the judge of all the earth and You have done what is right.” The slaughter of the Amalekites: “You are justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgment.” The earth opens up and consumes the sons of Korah; fiery serpents are sent out into the camp of Israel: “You are just in Your words and blameless in Your judgment.” All the way down to the Day of Judgment where God’s wrath is poured out against all rebellion—as a matter of fact, in one sense it could be written over the door of hell itself—“Against You and You only have these sinned and done what is evil in Your sight so that You are justified in Your words and blameless in this eternal judgment.”

That is what our sins deserve. The Scripture points out time and time again that we should never play the justice card with God. That’s not a good day. We should never say, “God You’re not giving me what I deserve.” That’s not a good day. Psalm 130:3, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” It’s a rhetorical question. The answer is supposed to be obvious. No one could stand if God were marking our iniquities against us. Psalm 76:7, “But you, you are to be feared! Who can stand before you when once your anger is roused?” Answer: no sinner can and we have all sinned against this holy God. There’s none righteous, no not one.

So how is it that we can say the goal of judgment is salvation? How is it possible for us, far from ridiculing judgment, far from boasting and having a smirk on our face, far from that, to humbly give thanks for God in the midst of a song about His judgment? The answer to that has everything to do with the cup in verse eight and a prayer from the Garden of Gethsemane. Do you remember that, where Jesus knelt down in Gethsemane and He said, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). And the Father’s silence in the face of Jesus’ plea for this cup to pass tells us that it was not the will of God for this cup to pass from Jesus.

What was the Father’s will in sending the Son? This foaming cup of justice sat there for thousands of years as nations and Israel all sinned grievously before God. God could not simply take this cup and just pour it out on the ground as it were. That would be to deny His character; that would be to deny His commitment to justice, and God cannot deny Himself, so the cup has got to be drunk. And in the fullness of time God sends His Son to come and give His life as a ransom for sinners. Isaiah said, “The Lord has laid on Him [the Messiah] the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). The next time, friends, we see this foaming cup from Psalm 75, the next time we see it is on a hill outside Jerusalem on the darkest day in history. God the Father puts it into the hand of His Son and says, “Drink it.”

That’s your salvation. That’s the glory of the cross. That’s the glory of the mercy of God. Jesus took the cup and drained it for all who believe. This is the gospel. No wonder there is salvation in no one else. No wonder it’s such an insult to speak of other ways of salvation when He alone, the Son Himself, became the substitute for sinners. He alone, Scripture says, became sin “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The judgment of God on Jesus is our only hope of rescue. R.C. Sproul says, “The one from whom we need to be saved is the one who has saved us.”

So the final response we want to avoid is minimizing judgment. We don’t want to minimize judgment. The minimizing response is also arrogant. Because if God in His Word makes judgment a prominent theme, then when I push this aside––no matter how humble I look or sound when I’m doing it––I have assumed the position of being God’s editor, being God’s P.R. agent. Read the Word. If God’s primary goal was to be accepted by our culture He really should have given us a different book, a much shorter one, because so much of what’s here is hated by our culture.

But more than that, we want to avoid minimizing judgment because when we down play the judgment of God we are stealing glory from the cross. When we look at the cross we see the greatest expressions of God’s justice and mercy in all of history. God’s justice––look at the cross––God’s justice is glorified in that moment like no other moment because the cup of wrath is being drained to the dregs. Justice is seen. But God’s mercy is equally glorious in that moment because it’s being drained by the Son, not by me. He is drinking my cup. If you put your faith in Jesus Christ, He’s drinking your cup on the cross so that there’s no wrath left for you. This is the mercy of God. The Apostle Paul says, “You want to boast? I’ll tell you what to boast in. Boast in that! God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” On the cross we see that God––according to Romans 3:26––“might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” God is the judge of the earth and He is the lover of our souls. We see both simultaneously in the cross.

But we must respond to this good news. Jesus isn’t automatically the Savior of everyone in the world. It’s not as though, “Hey because Jesus drained the cup there’s salvation for the whole world.” Otherwise we’d be universalists. There is some application––there is some response––that gets us in on the good of this gospel. This is why response is utterly vital. At the end of the day, all of God’s judgment against sin will have been poured out. Either Jesus Christ drinks the cup of God’s judgment in your place because God is merciful, or you’ll have to drink it yourself because God is just. No wrath will be left. It will all be drained. And the one who turns from sin and trusts in Jesus will never drink a single drop of God’s just wrath. Why? Because Jesus stood in our place and drank for all who trust in Him.

God is just which means He can’t let Jesus pay the full bill and leave some for you. That would be unjust. The wrath has been satisfied. This is why I love the verse of “It is Well” so much.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

That’s why Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” It’s not that condemnation was swept under the rug––so that’s good news––it’s that the condemnation was absorbed by Jesus. This is good news.

When we look at the cross we see God’s judgment accomplishing God’s salvation for all who believe. If you have never trusted in Jesus and turned from your sin, I would urge you and plead with you to run to the Savior of the world. This one who is the judge offers salvation to all who believe. Put your hope and your trust in the only one who can save, and the only one who can rescue us from what we deserve at the hands of a holy God! If it was appropriate for the psalmist to begin a psalm of judgment with a word of thanksgiving, how much more so for us? We can say with even more heartfelt conviction––Psalm 75––“We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds.” And His most wondrous deed of all is that the Father found a way in His wisdom to be at the same time the judge of all the earth and the Savior of the world. What amazing news this is!

• In Psalm 75, God unapologetically asserts his right to judge, his competency to judge, and his title as Judge.
• The attitude one has toward the judgment of God reveals one’s view of the character of God. (V. 1)

The Source of Judgment: The Lord God (V. 2–3)

• We may not fully understand the why or the how of God’s judgment, but faith in God means we come to these passages with a humble trust and confidence that God is good.

Wrong Response #1: Ridicule judgment.

• We have a habit of assuming that our sense of fairness and justice is the standard of fairness and justice.

You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”? (Isaiah 29:16)

The Target of Judgment: The Proud (V. 4–7)

• God’s judgment always hits its target and it targets human pride. Wrong Response #2: Boast in judgment.
• We can easily read passages that speak of God’s judgment of evil and assume an attitude of moral superiority.
• The kingdom of God has a predictable pattern: God exalts the lowly and brings down the proud.

The Goal of Judgment: Salvation (V. 8–10)

• God’s judgment is a terrifying thing because God is infinitely holy and we have sinned against him.
• No one will be able to charge God with over-reacting to evil.

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. (Psalm 51:4)

Wrong Response #3: Minimize judgment.

• When we downplay the judgment of God, we are stealing glory from the cross.
• When we look at the cross we see God’s judgment accomplishing God’s salvation for all who believe.