Light Is Sown For the Righteous • Psalm 97
Notes
“There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Luke 21:25-26
For many people life is becoming darker and harder to bear. They can only imagine what is going to happen, and all that dystopian science fiction doesn’t help things. They can imagine the worst. But they’re not even close to how bad it’s going to be.
I want to share a number of things I learned in my regular meditation.
God is speaking to those who are listening to Him. He shows us what He is going to do in the future. He wants us to be able to see and recognise His goodness right now.
I’m reading in Psalm 97.
1. This psalm shows us the future.
A. The future is that the Lord is going to rule the whole earth.
1. That is indicated by the many islands. It doesn’t matter how many or where they are, they are not too far or obscure.
2. But God will rule over big nations, the superpowers, the little nations, and all the many islands. The rule of Jesus Christ will be all over the earth.
B. We have the return of Jesus Christ sketched out for us.
1. The Day of the Lord will begin with thick darkness.
a. Joel 2:30-31 “I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, blood, fire and columns of smoke. “The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.
b. Amos 5:18-20 Alas, you who are longing for the day of the LORD, for what purpose will the day of the LORD be to you? It will be darkness and not light; as when a man flees from a lion and a bear meets him, or goes home, leans his hand against the wall and a snake bites him. Will not the day of the LORD be darkness instead of light, even gloom with no brightness in it?
2. The heavens will declare His righteousness and all the peoples will see His glory.
a. That is, Matthew 24:29-30 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory.
b. The very heavens will declare His righteousness, that Jesus is who He claimed to be, the Son of God, crucified for the sins of the world, raised from the dead, the King of kings and Lord of lords. He will be seen to be the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Him.
3. The earth sees and trembles. Lightnings light up the world, mountains melt like wax. All the peoples see His glory.
4. All the idolaters are ashamed. Their gods are shown to be false and a lie. All the philosophers will be ashamed. All their speculations will be shown to be false. Scientists that declare that there is no God will be ashamed of what they boast in. The psalmist has advice for idolaters and their gods: let them all worship the true God.
5. When Jesus comes back, He will rescue Israel from destruction. This is in Psalm 98:1-3. Jesus is going to save Israel and the whole earth is going to see the salvation of our God. No other god is able to save those who worship them.
2. The result of God’s rule is happiness.
A. The earth is going to rejoice and be glad.
B. One of the reasons is that Jesus is going to restore all things to the conditions before the Fall of man into sin.
1. We know from Revelation 16 that when Jesus comes back the earth will be destroyed. We read in chapter 16 that the judgments of God turn the water in the oceans and rivers to blood. Everything in the seas dies. With the last judgment there is a great earthquake that flattens all the cities of the world, destroys all the mountains, erases all the islands, and causes 100 pound blocks of ice to come down and tear through everything in its way.
2. But Jesus will restore the waters, the islands, and the mountains. Notice again Psalm 98:7-8. The sea will roar and all its fullness. The rivers will all be purified and made new. No more billions of tons of plastics in the oceans, with animals eating that plastic and then the plastic getting into the food chain. There will be hills and mountains again. Jesus will make the earth like the Garden of Eden, everything will be fresh and new and restored.
C. Another reason for rejoicing is because there will one righteous government all over the earth.
1. The anti-christ will rule over the whole earth for about seven years and will destroy it.
2. Jesus will rule the whole earth for the next thousand years and it will be righteous and just, as it says in verse 2. No confusion, no private motives of stealing from the treasury and putting the funds in a private account in Switzerland or Panama. No attempts to enslave the people, no oppression, no appalling taxes, no refugees, because no war! No waste in government, no stealing, no lying to the people, no elections, so no one running for office. No more Satan running the earth.
3. So once more look at Psalm 98:4-9. Joy goes off the scale, all over the world. The entire earth is going to be spectacular everywhere, like the Garden of Eden. No wonder the whole earth will rejoice and be glad.
D. Does everybody understand that these things are still future? They haven’t happened yet. But they will happen.
3. One group of people is happy right now, before any of this happens.
A. These are God’s people. Here they are described as Zion, Jerusalem, and the daughters of Judah. God’s people.
B. The outstanding characteristic of God’s people is that they hear Him when He speaks. And they believe that it is God speaking and they obey Him.
1. Unlike the world, which rejects God and refuses to listen to Him. They are going to see His glory, His lightnings. The idolaters are going to see Jesus Christ retrn to earth and they will be ashamed.
2. But God’s people heard about His coming again, and they were glad and rejoiced. They heard about this in God’s word. They knew that God’s word always accomplishes what He sends it out to do. He never speaks and it doesn’t happen. So He raises the dead and calls into being things that don’t exist as though they did. And the come into being.
C. The word of God has His judgments on the wicked, why they are accounted wicked, and their punishment. It’s all there written down beforehand. It’s a testimony to God’s existence. But it’s the people of God who hear and believe that it’s God speaking and that all these things must take place.
4. It is to these people who listen that the Holy Spirit gives two commands. The first one is: Hate evil, you who love the Lord.
A. Love the Lord is the command of all that God has commanded. In Deuteronomy 6 it is called THE commandment. All the 613 commandments of God are commentary on this one most important commandment, that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
B. But there is a problem here. You don’t summon up all the love you have and do your best to love God. It doesn’t work. You don’t have any love for God because you are a sinner.
C. So first receive the love of God for you. 1 John 4:9- 10 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. And you receive the love of God into your life. The best food in the world does nothing for you until you receive it into you. So intellectual knowledge of God’s love does nothing for you. You really have to receive the love of God in Christ Jesus. Then you will know the love that God has for you.
D. Hate evil is the very beginning of our becoming disciples of Jesus.
1. Luke 14:26-27 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
2. Mark 8:35 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.
3. Evil starts in me. That’s why we pick up the cross every day and follow Jesus. His death to sin becomes my death to sin. His resurrection life becomes my resurrection life.
E. If you love the Lord, then you hate evil. They are two sides of the same coin. Evil is what messes up your relationship with divine, eternal love. Sin destroys God’s people. Sin destroys and kills. The wicked oppress, enslave, and kill.
F. God here says nothing is going to separate you from His love. He preserves the souls of His saints, He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked.
5. Our ultimate future is glory. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.
A. Realise that every seed you sow is alive. You bury that seed in dirt, but you’re not throwing that life away. There’s a legitimate expectation to putting that seed in the dirt. A new life will come from that seed that is far beyond the seed, it looks completely different, it is far better and more advanced. And it bears life. It reproduces itself with more seeds that can be buried in the dirt.
B. God is a shepherd, He is also a farmer.
1. He plants light. But it’s a seed, so that light is alive. God plants living light.
2. And He plants living light in dirt. He scooped up the dirt and made Adam. He breathed the breath of life in Adam, and he became a living soul.
3. In John 1:4 we see Jesus described as light. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. God has planted living light in us.
4. The result of this life of Jesus growing in us is to be made like Him as He is in glory.
a. 1 John 3:1-3 See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
b. Philippians 3:18-21 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
c. If we suffer with Christ to the death in this life we will be made like Him in the resurrection. Light is buried in the dirt of the righteous, and we have hope. It is not wild speculation that there will be a harvest. It is a legitimate expectation that we be raised from the dead into eternal, glorified life.
6. So here is the other command for the people who listen right now to the word of God: rejoice and give thanks.
A. Rejoice in the Lord, in what He is doing now and in the future. Everything He said is going to happen. It must happen. God doesn’t lie. Nothing can stop God because all the enemies of God are temporary, but His plan is eternal.
B. So give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name. Literally, give thanks at the memory of His holiness. Remember His holiness, His love for you, and acknowledge His goodness toward you.
C. We are going to rejoice in the future. We are going to be full of joy and thanksgiving. The whole creation is groaning and longing for our revealing with Christ.
D. But God commands us to rejoice now, because it’s going to happen.
E. What that does is make us to live by faith. We believe the word of God and we act upon it. If it’s true in the future, then it’s true now, and we can be happy right now.
7. So what?
A. The times we live in are dark. We are flooded and overwhelmed with a situation designed to overwhelm us. Too much news. The news is discouraging. And we don’t know what we can believe. We can live in fear or resignation. It’s hopeless. We can expect nothing good.
B. If we live without happiness it’s going to hurt us. If we live without hope, that’s misery that will grind us. It is a temptation to think like everyone else, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Or give up and quit following Jesus because nothing is happening. That’s the wrong way to think because we will live wrongly, like everyone else without hope.
C. Instead of fear or resignation, we are to live with truth that enables us to live rightly no matter how bad the situation gets around us. The joy of the Lord is our strength.
D. Now we consider and think through these things that we hear from God.
1. Have you received the love of God? As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God. Have you received Jesus?
2. Then consider the word of God. Are these things true? Did Jesus rise from the dead? Then Jesus is going to come back and He will rule on the earth. And we can be happy right now. We can give thanks at the memory of His holiness.
Let’s pray.