Timeless Biblical Truth.
Believers will both praise God and warn the wicked that in His sovereignty He will execute His justice for both at the proper time.
- Believers praise God for His wondrous deeds (1).
- God warns the wicked to turn from their wickedness and submit to Him because He, as the One who is in sovereign control over the earth, He will judge the world at His own time (2-5).
- God is in sovereign control over the earth (2-3).
- The wicked need to become humble and submit to Him (4-5).
- Believers acknowledge that God is sovereign in the execution of His judgment (6-8).
- God alone exalts or condemns in His judgment (6-7).
- When God judges the wicked will receive a full measure of God’s full wrath (8).
- Believers praise God for His justice regarding the wicked whom He cuts off and the righteous whom His exalts (9-10). “The term ‘Bible’ is used to refer to the collection of writings regarded as authoritative and foundational by Christians. Like many words in modern English, it derives from a Greek phrase: ta biblia, which literally means ‘the books.’ Other terms are also used, such as ‘Sacred Scripture’ or ‘Holy Scripture.’” Alister McGrath: In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture, p. 219.
Questions for Second Milers
- How important is God’s justice to His character? To His plans for the earth?
- Should believers praise God for His justice in condemning the wicked? Why or why not? If so, how do you praise Him for His justice?
- Who is speaking in verses 2-5?
- Upon what basis (verse 3) does God justify His warning to the wicked in verses 4-5?
- What is the significance of the image of the cup in verse 8?
- Name one area where pride is a particular problem in your life. Since you are aware of this problem, what have you been doing to forsake it?
- Give your own short title to this psalm.
“No human writings, however sacredly composed, are at all capable of affecting us in a similar way. Read Demosthenes or Cicero, read Plato or Aristotle, or any other of that class. You will, I admit, feel wonderfully allured, pleased, moved, enchanted; but turn from them to the reading of the Sacred Volume, and whether or not it will so affect you, so pierce your heart, so work its way into your very marrow that the comparison of the impression so produced, that of orators and philosophers, will disappear, making it manifest that in the Sacred Volume there is a truth Divine, something that makes it superior to all the gifts and graces attainable by man.” John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, 8.1.
Lanny Tanton is the Pastor at The Bible Church of the Lakes in Horseshoe Bay, Texas – just outside of Marble Falls. Pastor Tanton welcomes you to our website and hopes that you’ll enjoy reading these insightful blog posts. Please contact us if you have further questions!!
