We're in Psalm 79. If you open your Bible to the very middle, if you're at home with us, you can turn on your app or you can get a copy of God's Word. If you open your Bible to the middle, Psalm 79 is almost the middle of the middle book in Scripture.

This is our last week on the Psalms before we start Looking next week at the beauty of Christ's church all the way from Genesis to Revelation. A biblical theology of the beauty of Christ's church. And as I look out among the crowd, I see the beauty of Christ's church because you are the church. Not the building across the street, though it will be beautiful in its own way.

You, you are the church. And I can't wait to walk through Genesis to Revelation thinking about how you bring out the beauty

If you have found Psalm 79, would you stand with me as we read it together? This is a psalm of lament. It's a national lament written by Asaph, the Levitical leader and singer of ancient Israel. And please give your attention to it. As you may well know, men have died and women have died to translate the scriptures into English, and we take it for granted so easily.

Please hear God's word. It is given to you in love. Psalm 79, A Psalm of asap. Oh God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the heavens for food. The flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth.

They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us. How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire? Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name, for they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation.

Do not remember against us our former iniquities. Let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low. Help us. O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name, deliver us and atone for our sins for your name's sake. Why should the nations say, where is their God? Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants be known among the nations before our eyes.

Let the groans of the prisoners come before you according to your great power. Preserve those doomed to die. Return sevenfold into the lap of our neighbors, the taunts with which they have taunted you, O Lord. But we, your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever. From generation to generation, we will recount your praise.

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but God's Word stands forever. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated, please. Father, would you take this very vivid passage in Psalm 79, and would you, Lord, massage our hearts by your Holy Spirit in it to change us, To attune our hearts to how we, too, are liable to your judgment and how we, too, must follow suit, as Israel of old did, to repent, but not with a temporary repentance, but looking to Jesus on the cross to be our ultimate Redeemer, our sacrifice and our place.

And so would you give us eyes now to see the ancient purpose of this text, the modern application of it. and help us to see the beauty of your Son throughout it. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, a little housekeeping. This weekend, as I was meditating on Psalm 79, I totally changed the outline of our sermon.

Because Psalm 79 is not about injustice. It's really about judgment. And so everywhere you see the word injustice in your outline, I want you to scratch it out, and I want you to put the word judgment. So that the three points of the sermon, if you're a note taker, are the source of judgment, 2 would be sifting through judgment and sin's consequences.

And point 3 would be searching for ultimate judgment. And because this psalm is about judgment, it's therefore heavy. And maybe it's because of my own spiritual disposition this weekend, but I was just overwhelmed with the need for us to hear a word about judgment because God don't play.

Barbara Walters was not a very imposing figure.

She didn't strike fear into the heart of foreign leaders when she walked into the room to interview them. But after the interview, every single one of them said, I'm afraid of that, little woman. Because Barbara Walters had a way throughout her amazing career of bringing out the truth out of people, even the most notorious criminals of the world.

She interviewed some amazing people in her career, didn't she? Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher, Monica Lewinsky, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin are among some of her most famous interviews. It's one thing for you to be a good journalist, to ask, but Good questions. It's another thing for you to receive Emmy after Emmy after Emmy for your journalism.

And it's another thing altogether to have a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame given in your honor. And when I read Psalm 79, I think about old Barbara Walters. I just stumbled into Psalm 79 preparing for this sermon. And I fear this little woman, Psalm 79, because it asks searing questions.

So I'm just going to ask you a few questions, if I can, for a few minutes. And I want you to think about the fact that the Psalms, as we end our series on the Psalms for this year, 2024, remember Calvin's words that the Psalms are the anatomy of the soul. They rip us open and they examine our motives, our hearts, and they call us to obedience.

So here you go.

Where do you find your refuge, your safety? Your comfort, your escape, your pleasure, your security.

This is the primary question that we get from Psalm 79. The Psalms dig out all of our false trusts like a thorn in our skin. They get the needle underneath it and they pop the questions out for you to struggle with and deal with. Where? Those of you who feel like you are sitting high because the stock market is doing well.

Do you notice the way that you begin to rely? on your wealth to be your security.

Many of the addictive behaviors that you suffer from are addressed by the question, where do you find your rest, your refuge, your security? Why do we say we rest in worship, O Trinity? Because you rest in so many other things that don't really give you rest.

Question number two is more direct. Who or in what do you trust? Trust is one of the major verbs of the Psalms. And it asks that of us again here. Where do you place your life directing, life anchoring trust? Do you place it in people? Do you place it in your abilities? These are just honest questions, and if you're new here, welcome to Trinity.

These are the kind of questions we want to ask. Where do you honestly place, is it in your diet, or your exercise, or your medical care? Where do you place your trust? Let me ask it a different way, whose performance matters in your life? On whose shoulders does the well being of your world rest? Who can make things better?

Who can make it work? Who makes it safe? Who makes life successful for you?

Allow the Psalms to dig out from the anatomy of your heart and ask those honest questions. And would you be so bold and courageous as to bring those questions to the foot of the cross this morning as you prepare to come to the Lord's table. And as you come to the Lord's table here in just a few minutes, I want you to think about who Another question.

Who are your people? Are you a Lone Ranger? Could it possibly be because you do so many things independently that you're so spiritually tired? That you haven't learned to see yourself as part of a covenant community? Who are your people? Who knows you? If you're standing on the outside of this church just checking things out, look, we're so glad you're here.

But some of you have been checking things out for years. And maybe the Lord is calling you to move in, to take vows together with us so that you can say, Ah, my people, I am part of Christ's church universal, yes, but my people are those who worship in this particular time and place and who are beginning to know me.

to help me see the beauty of my Savior? What defines your communities? Does the house size that you live in or your standard of living, how does your understanding of the world get shaped over time by these people that you call your own? Honest questions, as those 79, Psalm 79, were like a little Barbara Walters begging to bring the truth out of us.

Listen, Psalm 79 teaches us about judgment. And the judgment that we find in Psalm 79 is this atrocious judgment by God on the people of Israel. Where he explains, first, the source of God's judgment in the first four verses. Did you hear what I read earlier? The nations have come into your inheritance.

They've come, they've besieged the walls of Jerusalem. This is referring to when Nebuchadnezzar came with his arrayed troops. This is when Jehoakim, remember his son, Jehoachin, this is 2 Kings 24 and 25, he ruled for three months. And then he made a, Nebuchadnezzar came in and he took Jehoachin out, and then he set up Madaniah, who was Jehoachin's uncle.

He changed his name to Zedekiah. And he said, you are going to rule. And Zedekiah made all these deals with Nebuchadnezzar. Okay, great. Great. I will do what you need me to do, just don't take the city. And so Nebuchadnezzar said, if you do what I asked, I won't take the city. And Zedekiah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, and Nebuchadnezzar came with his arrayed might and crushed the city.

For 18 months, they hammered Jerusalem. And even the new pharaoh of Egypt came to the aid of Jerusalem to help fend off the Babylonians. But even Egypt, by that time, not nearly the superpower that they once were during Moses day, even Egypt couldn't help them. And they broke through the walls, and they took the city captive.

Anybody who had any kind of education and degree, they took out of the city. All the skilled craftsmen, they took out of the city. You can read Jeremiah 40 and read 2 Nephi. Kings 24 and 25. They took the bronze pillars that the craftsmen had so delicately made of the temple and says they melted them down and repurposed them.

They hauled off every silver utensil of the temple. It doesn't say anything about the Ark of the Covenant, but most scholars believe that God's presence and glory had already left the temple because of their disobedience. That He doesn't even mention the fact that the Ark of the Covenant was probably taken then as well.

Everything of value they take. And they leave the poorest of the poor in the city of Jerusalem. And this perspective of looking at the city once in its beauty and majesty, the presence of God's glory, people who had rebelled against God, God came and destroyed the city and the temple, evoking His judgment upon Israel, or the southern king of Judah in this case, or the Babylonians.

To remind them that God don't play. And what he's trying to help people see, as Asaph writes this psalm, from the perspective of the poorest of the poor, the weakest of the weak, who are left in the city. I mean, imagine 9 11. Imagine the city being burned to a crisp. Imagine what it would be like to be left in that city.

Where do you find food? How do you survive? What do you do? They're picking up the rubble of this once great city. And notice, Bodies are strewn. Bodies of aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, mothers and fathers are strewn all over the plains.

They've poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem. There's not one to bury them. How can they possibly bury everybody? Thousands of people were killed and they were just left.

We become a taunt to our neighbors. We've been mocked and derided by those around us. Do you see the judgment that is placed upon Israel here? And you say, well, what's the source of the judgment? The source of the judgment was Nebuchadnezzar. And Nebuchadnezzar, who was his imperial commander, who came in, and he took, remember, he took Zedekiah out, and he took him captive.

And you may remember, in one of the most horrifying passages of Scripture, is when he takes Zedekiah out. Remember, he takes him to Ramah. And it says, And did it before Zedekiah's eyes. And it says, So that the last thing that Zedekiah sees is the slaughtering of his own children and all of his own nobles.

I mean, do you see that God's judgment? God, don't play. He took out the nobles, the princes. He took out the sons of Zedekiah, so that the last thing he sees is the death of those who were most precious to him. Because what do they do right after that? Then they gouged out his own eyes. And they hauled him like an animal carcass.

It says in verse 7, He put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and he bound him in chains to take him. And the Chaldeans burned the king's house and the house of his people, and he broke down the walls of Jerusalem. All right, some other honest questions.

And I know this is really easy to pick apart things in a political season like this. We love to say everything is about God's judgment, why things have happened the way they have. But I'm talking about your heart. Like, where are you hiding sin? Where are you being selfish in your marriage? Where are you trying?

Trying to live your own way. And where has God restrained His hand in mercy without judging you as you deserve? For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. For the wages of sin is death. We do deserve to have our bodies strewn across the plain just like this. And so isn't it obvious when you see the source of God's judgment in Psalm 79 that it comes from the activities of what we read last week in Psalm 78?

They sinned still more against Him. They rebelled against Him in the desert. They tested God in their hearts. He gave them food and they demanded more. They spoke against God in their hearts. They did not believe in God. They did not believe in His saving power. Think about the way that God, even now in 2024, restrains His hand from judgment.

The source of judgment in the ancient world was the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, who conquered Jerusalem. And today, for us, the source of our judgment is sin, and it is well deserved that we also deserve judgment, isn't it? The source of that judgment, of course, is sin. It goes all the way back to the beginning of the garden, when Adam sinned in the garden, and we all fell in him as our federal head.

And so how do you sift through sin's consequences? Because we do sift. We sift through them all the time. We sift through the consequences of sin. Sometimes God restrains us from consequences of sin. Sometimes you've gotten pulled over for a speeding ticket, for example, and you've been given a warning, and you should sing after you drive away because of His grace and mercy to you.

Sometimes when you do get that ticket, It's a small example. You deserved it because you spent. How much more sin deserves the white, hot wrath of God? And He is completely just in so doing. You can read chapter 6 of the Westminster Confession of Faith. You can read exactly why we deserve the consequences of sin that we do.

But notice, He first asks, How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire? Pour out your anger on the nations. They don't know you and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your name. For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste to his habitation. This is where this psalm convicted me because it is so easy for me to say, Lord, what about them?

Look at them. Look at us. We're planting churches. Our churches grow. People are loving each other. They're giving things away that nobody knows about for the sake of other families in this church. They're sacrificing. It's insane. There is amazing stories of grace. Lord, what about us? And the Lord looks at us and says, You know what you deserve?

The fact that you can have worship any Sunday is a miracle. It actually is a miracle. You can ask the truck drivers this morning. It's a miracle. And that He gives us this community is priceless and beautiful. Do you know that God has restrained His anger toward you? And He has given you the gift of common grace.

For those of you, even in this room, who don't believe the gift of common grace for you to inhale without pain. What a gift! And yet we cry out, How long, O Lord? And we sift through sin's consequences. But I want you to notice and learn from the progression that you see here in verses 8 to 10. He says, Do not remember against us our former iniquities.

Now he's starting to grow in his emotional and his spiritual awareness. Oh,

Father, do not remember our sins. Let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low. For those of you for whom the confession of sin and worship is foreign, why do we do it? Well, we do it because the Bible teaches us to do it, and Psalm 79 is a great example. This could be a confession of sin, we say.

Do you remember not against us our iniquities? Let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name. Deliver us and atone for our sin for your name's sake.

We sift through sin's consequences, and how do we do it? Notice what verse 5 teaches us, first of all. How long, O Lord? It teaches us first to acknowledge God's anger towards sin. How do you sift through judgment? How do you sift through sin's consequences? Well, first you acknowledge God's anger towards sin.

How long will we be angry forever? Jealousy burns like fire. Of course it burns like fire. The second commandment tells us that God is jealous for his namesake.

Amos 3. 2 says God will judge us when we take another name. And despite the judgment that came upon Israel, Zechariah 8 2 says that there will be a day when I will restore Jerusalem. When people will again run through the streets, and you begin to see that with Ezra and Nehemiah toward the end of the Old Testament, don't you?

You have to acknowledge that God is angry towards sin. And yes, He's angry towards your sin. He's angry by your sin.

Secondly, we confess our sin with humility. Look at verse 8. Do not remember against us our former iniquities. We acknowledge God's anger towards sin. Verse 8, we confess our sin with humility. And then, look at verse 9. We look not only to our own interests, but we look to the interest of God's great name.

Help us, O God, of our salvation. Why? For the glory of your name. My glory I will not give to the others, the Lord says. My people have committed two sins. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, hewn for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water, Jeremiah 2.

The Lord says, I will be jealous for my name's sake. And so we ought to join him in that jealousy and say, Lord, would you glorify your name? Through all of the injustices and the judgment that we experience, would you help us, Lord, to be able to see that the fame of your name is the desire of our soul.

Yea, Lord, walking in the way of your truth, your name and your renown, Isaiah says in Isaiah 26, 8, is the desire of our soul.

And lastly, we see the solution to judgment. Look at verses 10 to 13. Why should the nation say, where is their God? Would you let the avenging of their outpoured blood be known among the nations and before our eyes? Let the groans of the prisoners come before you according to your great power. Preserve those doomed to die.

He's crying out, Lord, where is ultimate judgment going to come from?

And we know as we look down the corridor of redemptive history, we know that though we deserve judgment, that we, just like ancient Israel, had been sinful and stubborn. Read Psalm 78 again from last week. Yet God did display the full wrath and judgment of which this is just a shadow. Because even though their bodies were strewn across the land, even though the birds of the air and the beasts of the field found those who were left in the wake of the Babylonians, even though their blood was poured out on the ground, do you notice that God still restrains his anger?

He still restrained his anger, you know why? Because he reserved every single bit of it for the cross. And God the Father, you say, God is such a judgmental God. Oh yes, He is. But wanderer of wanderers, in grace upon grace, God took every single bit of that judgment and He put all of that on His Son. Do you understand that?

Jesus, even to the very end of the day, said, Lord, let this cup pass from me. He asked three times, let this cut past for me. Yet not my will, but your will be done. Because Jesus knew that he was about to endure the judgment and the wrath of the Father for every sin committed in the world. And a surgeon friend of mine told me that when they pierced Jesus's wrists, they put it through his carpal tunnel, which means that his hand probably was curled up on the cross like a crook, where you couldn't move it anymore.

And as he hung on the cross, the damage that that would have done would have crippled his hands forever. So isn't it interesting that the scars of judgment, the scars of judgment that were placed upon Christ's hands, We're the one thing that took the doubting Thomas to see and to feel and to know for him to believe.

And for some of you today, as you read Psalm 79, and you think about the judgment of God, I want it just to land on you that we all deserve that judgment. But the Father, in His grace, put that judgment on Christ for you. That's how much He loved you. And Jesus, in His resurrected body, He could have taken a form where He walked through walls.

Yet what did He retain? He retained the scars of His judgment. Amen. So that you would always know, oh, doubting Thomas, that you would be able to feel those scars of judgment, and that you would be able to say, like Thomas, Oh, Lord and God, I believe. Do you know that God took all of the wrath of Psalm 79, and all the wrath of every sin in the history of the world, and He placed it on Christ on the cross?

So that the ultimate judgment falls not on us, but it falls on Jesus. So that we're able to say, let the groan of the prisoner Come before you. According to your great power, preserve those doomed to die. Oh, he did! By putting his own son on the cross. Return sevenfold into the lap of our neighbors, the taunts with which they have taunted you, O Lord.

Oh, Jesus will bring vengeance upon the world when he comes again. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. So we don't have to have everything right about the arguments that we fight, the reasons that we try so desperately to make things right in the world. We can trust God will make things right in the end.

And so what is our job? Our job is verse 13. But, contrast, but we, your people, the sheep of your pasture, we will give thanks to you forever. From generation to generation. We will recount your praise.

The source of judgment is our sin. And as we sift through the consequences of our sin, how are we to do that? We are to acknowledge God's anger toward our sin. We are to confess with humility. And we are to look not only to our own interests, but to the glory of God's triune name for our help. in the midst of our own struggle with sin.

And as you take those confessions and you come again to the cross of Christ, you see Christ as the one who was ultimately judged for us, about whom the judgment of Psalm 79 squarely sits, of which the judgment upon Israel by Babylon was only a foretaste of the judgment that came upon Christ. And He suffered that for you.

And you know what? He knew your name. Jesus knew your name and knows your name at the right hand of the Father right now. Glory, hallelujah. He intercedes for you with the anxieties and the stressors and the things that you are concerned about. He also is concerned about because He knows what it's like to suffer as a human being because He suffered on the cross for us.

And He kept the scars to prove it. Hallelujah. Come to this table, oh friends, with the joy of recognizing that in that wine you drink, Is a symbol of Christ's judgment for sin and his glorious righteousness that has freely been given to you so that you may be the first in your family to run with confession, that you are not worthy of his grace.

And in so admitting you find the beauty of the gospel, how it changes everything about us. Let's pray together.

Father, would you Lord bring out the truth in us through your care and comfort in some Psalms and through your lamentation and judgment in others? And would you, for the glory of your name, would you deliver us in our battles with sin? Would you remind us that you have indeed atoned for our sin by taking all of the judgment we deserved and putting it on Jesus?

And would you help us to lead lives that demonstrate obedience to you in such a way that we cry out to you and say, Oh Father, would you glorify your namesake through us? And would you make this local church, this community, these people, would you make us a counter cultural community for the common good, who take seriously your word, who recognize that in the line of judgment, we are the ones who should have first place.

To whom much is given, much is required. And help us with the knowledge of this great truth to now give generously and to run to your table with joy, knowing that you have died and rose again for us. Glory, hallelujah. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.