We come now to our sermon, and our sermon is Psalm 75. The text is Psalm chapter 75, verses 1 to 10. But just for background, you don't have to turn there. I'm going to read to you from Revelation chapter 14. Just listen to this as the kind of context for Psalm 75, verses 1 to 10. Listen to Revelation chapter 14, beginning in verse 8. Another angel, a second, followed saying, fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality. And another angel, a third, followed them saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger. And he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night, these worshippers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name. So that's Revelation chapter 14. But our text this evening is Psalm chapter 75 verses 1 to 10. That is found in page 618 in your pew Bibles. Psalm chapter 75, our text. To the choir master according to Do Not Destroy, a psalm of Asaph. A psalm. 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 keeps 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. 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 is the word of the Lord. Let's go one more time to our God in prayer. Father, we pray that your word would go forth in power, that you would be left with us. We don't want to add to our intellect. We want to cherish the God of glory for all that he is. We pray that your word would go forth in Jesus' name. Well, if God were to keep himself from judging the wicked, he would be wicked himself. God's righteous judgment demands that all sinners, all who have not trusted in Jesus Christ, should suffer the full force of his punishment. It would be terrifying for us believers to find out that God is a God of love and mercy and sappy forgiveness without some sort of justice. If we've even had a cursory, meaning just a a glance over the scriptures, we'd know that God is a God of justice. We'd know, as Genesis 18 says, that God is the just judge of the earth and the punisher of sin. But here's the question. We know that. Is God's righteousness in dealing with sin a thing to be praised? Now remember, this psalm is a psalm of praise and of thanksgiving. It starts with, we give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks. And then it ends with, I will declare it forever, I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. And then just recounting God's judging the wicked. So should our hearts leap within us? Should our affections be stirred in us when we think of God's righteous wrath being poured out on the wicked? Should we cling lovingly to this God of justice because of his justice and his wrath? Surely we should cling to him because justice has been satisfied in Christ on our behalf. But what about clinging to him for being the righteous punisher of wickedness in such a graphic way as Psalm 75 tells us? Why do we sing to him for this and how can we sing to him for this? Well, Seventh Reformed Church, if there's anything I want to make clear to you this evening, or rather, if there's anything that the Scriptures want to make clear to you this evening, it's that the expression of God's wrath and justice is worthy of our highest praise and affections. We'll see that this psalm is a song of thanksgiving and praise for this very action. And the point of this psalm, Psalm 75, and remember, Expository preaching. The point of the psalm is the point of the message. So the point of this psalm, Psalm 75, is this. God is to be praised for his just judgment of the wicked and the righteous. I'll repeat that. The point of the psalm is that God is to be praised for his just judgment of the wicked and the righteous. And friends, if I could just be transparent, my hope is not to add to your intellect as I prayed. It's not for us to say, oh, you know, I've gained some information about God, stuff that I didn't know, or I already knew this, and this isn't new, but it's a good reminder. My hope and my prayer is that your affections would be stirred for God, and that as a result of studying this psalm and hearing the preached word, your heart would cherish God for all that he is, both in his love and in his fierce justice. My hope in God is that through his spirit, we all would exult in, praise, glorify, and exalt God as judge, the one who pours out his wrath upon the wicked and lifts up and delivers the righteous, as we see in Psalm 75. The one who has a show of his strength shows forth his glory in displaying this aspect of his character. My prayer is that we would all cling and cleave to God in Christ more dearly and treasure him more fully in our hearts at the revelation of his just judgment of the wicked. Let's cry out with the saints in Revelation chapter 19 verses 1 to 2, hallelujah. salvation, and honor, and glory, and strength. Be to the Lord our God, for His judgments are true and righteous. Now we're going to look at this psalm in three parts. From verse 1, thanksgiving. From verses 2 to 5, warning. And from verses 6 to 10, judgment. So verse 1, thanksgiving. Verses 2 to 5, warning. And verses 6 to 10, judgment. So beginning first with that thanksgiving in verse 1, we give thanks to you, O God. We give thanks for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds. You'd have to notice the difference between this psalm and the previous ones. If you didn't know, book 3 in every book in the psalms has a theme. These books aren't just made in random order. God, by His Spirit, and the compiler of the Psalms, compiles the Psalms and there's a theme and a connection throughout all the Psalms in each book. And Psalm 75 is the third book of the book of Psalms, and it's one of ten Psalms by Asaph. So, this psalm is connected to the two previous ones and the seven ones that come after it. And notice the difference between this psalm, Psalm 75, and Psalm 73 and 74. I don't know if you all have read Psalm 73, a very famous psalm, and Psalm 74. Psalm 73 begins with Asaph lamenting the prosperity of the wicked. and the righteous languishing. It's probably the nations attacking Israel and sacking the temple and Israel just kind of wallowing in the dirt. And Asaph, he cries out in Psalm 73, I've cleansed my heart in vain because the wicked are prospering and the righteous are languishing. Or Psalm 74, how does that kind of begin and go about? It starts and it talks about the destruction of the temple, and Asaph in that psalm says, Oh God, why do you cast us off forever? Now obviously those end with praise, but the theme of those psalms is negative, it's despairing, it's depressing. The wicked are prospering, the righteous are languishing. that this psalm is different in content and even at the very beginning is different. It begins with emphatic praise towards God, repeated thanks. We give thanks to you, O God. We give thanks for your name is near. Now notice what the psalmist gives praise or thanks God about. Check it out in verse one. We give thanks for, so this is the reason, your name is near. Now, maybe you're like me, you read that and you think, what on earth is meant by praising God for his name being near? I understand praising God for him being near, but his name being near. Is God's name some kind of lucky charm where we just say Jehovah and Yahweh and things kind of happen? You have Christians like that, they think you say the name of Jesus and that name in and of itself has some sort of power and it's like a lucky charm. Well, some people think this is talking about God's presence being near and God's favor being near. I think it means something else. And if you have your Bibles in front of you, turn with me briefly to Exodus chapter 34, verses 5 to 7. And just for context, Exodus 34 is that great chapter where Moses cries out to God, show me your glory. And at verse 5, this is what God tells Moses, or rather what God does. Verse 5, the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. Revisiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation so friends God's name being near isn't just some kind of lucky charm. It's the revelation of His very character, who He is at His core. And you see the psalmists and the people of the Old Testament going back to Exodus 34 verses 5 to 7 as a promise. That's their anchor as the revelation of God's character to His core. But notice, the Lord merciful and visiting iniquity and judgment, these two things. Friends, that's this psalm. God the righteous, judging and visiting iniquity, cutting down the horns of the wicked in Psalm 75. And God being loving and merciful, slow to anger, lifting up the righteous, we're experiencing the fierce anger of the nations. So remember, that's the key to this Psalm. God's name, Him being righteous, loving, and just judging the wicked, being near the people of Israel. And so Asaph is praising God for delivering the righteous and judging the guilty. This God, His name, His very character is near His people and all that He is is the subject of Asaph and the psalmist and Israel's praise. These people, the Israelites, cling to the revelation of God through the declaration of his name and rejoice and praise him saying your name is near. That one will come and visit iniquity with judgment and that judgment is near because his name is near. So let's maybe just apply this to our own kind of situation as a Christian. First, do you as a Christian, in your walk with God, delight in the revealed character of God according to the Scriptures. Now, one of our greatest dangers as Christians is being saved and having this shallow, mystical walk with God that isn't informed by the Scripture's picture of God at all, but is, as a preacher said, a God made in our image that looks more like Santa Claus than he does Jehovah. Does the God you pray to and does the comfort you get from that God derive or come from at all the scripture's revelation of his character? We prayed, you know, in that pastoral prayer. I'm not a pastor yet, but the pastoral prayer, talking about Jesus being shepherd and king and prophet. Is that true of your life, going to God's revealed character as the anchor and that which comforts you as a Christian? But secondly, notice it's not just the name of God in his love, in his care. It's not just that that the psalmist is praising. It's all of his name. God being the just judge of the wicked and the righteous one who acquits the innocent. So Christian is all of God's name, your delight, all of it. Remember this is a psalm praising God for judging the wicked. In Christian, we have to embrace all of who God is, not just intellectually, knowing yes, God is just, God is loving, but all of who God is as our treasure. as loving and just in judging the wicked? Are we embracing a truncated God or a God cut in half? You know, you go to Exodus 34, you go to the prophets, you go to Isaiah, and you skip over all the judgment passages. It's not for me. It's for the wicked. I want to look at Isaiah 63 and all these kinds of passages that are an anchor to your soul as a Christian. Do you skip over those parts, refuse to delight in and praise the God of fierce justice, only to praise Him for His love and His mercy? I'd like to think of it this way, in this kind of illustration. Imagine you go to Yosemite or Yellowstone, some kind of national park. You go there and there's this great and grand mountain before you with all its crags and its peaks. It's just marvelous in its beauty and you refuse to look at the mountain head on. You turn around and you look at its reflection in this river, this lake with ripples. You get this distorted image of a mountain or maybe you take a picture on your iPhone or your mobile phone. And it's pixelated, and all you have to remind you of that great mountain at that national park is this pixelated picture. We do the same with God when we pick our pet attributes of God to love and do away with wrath and justice and judgment. Congregation, to look at only our pet favorites of God's attributes while neglecting others is to behold a God cut in half. It's to look at the beach without seeing the Mount Everest, the lush hills and the valleys, the meadows and forests, the deserts and tundras of God's glorious person. Listen to this quote from a writer, a 20th century writer named A.W. Pink. Listen to this. He says, quote, our readiness or our reluctancy to meditate upon the wrath of God becomes a sure test of our heart's true attitude toward Him. If we don't truly rejoice in God for what He is in Himself, and that because of all the perfections which are eternally resident in Him, then how can we say the love of God dwells in us? Each of us needs to be most prayerfully on his guard against devising an image of God in our own thoughts, which is patterned after our own evil inclinations. Of old, the Lord complained, you thought that I was like yourself, Psalm 50, 21. If we rejoice not at the remembrance of his holiness, Psalm 97, 12, if we rejoice not to know that in a soon coming day God will make a most glorious display of his wrath by taking vengeance upon all who now oppose him, it's proof positive that our hearts are not in subjection to him. So Christian, you want a true anchor, you want a real God who's not flabby but muscular, who's able to be the anchor of your soul in persecution, in trouble, where you could honestly say vengeance belongs to God. You don't trust in politics, you don't trust in the arm of the flesh, but you trust in the great God of glory. You've got to accept this God and delight in him. So point one, that Thanksgiving, it's Thanksgiving in praise for this loving and judging God being near his people. And we see we must praise God for all he is. So take that lesson, Asaph, seeing the nations come and expecting God's judgment on them. And that's just a picture of that last Judgment Day, as we'll see later. We come to the second point, warning. Verses two to five. And this is God speaking. So verses two to five is God speaking. And arguably you'll get debates, but verse 10 is God speaking. So listen again to verse two to five, God speaking. At the set time that I appoint, I will judge with equity. When the earth totters and all its inhabitants, it is I who keeps 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 necks. So a lot of maybe confusing imagery. But this is God speaking directly. So to the problem of Asaph in Psalm 73 and Psalm 74, will the wicked prosper? And the answer is an emphatic no. We see God say at the set time that I appoint, I will judge with excellence. And we know that Jesus himself says this. The Father alone knows the appointed time of judgment. But keep in mind, there is an appointed time of judgment. There is literally a day where God will take the dead and the living in Christ and bring them together and judge them. And God has appointed that very day, which brings us this implication that man has absolutely zero say as to when that day would be. It's God that sets the time, and man has absolutely no say. I think of this story that I heard a long time ago about a bunch of atheists that went golfing. Or rather, it was one atheist and a bunch of non-believers with him. And he was mocking God, and he was making light of God and the existence of God. And he said, I'm going to prove to you that God doesn't exist. And he stood back. And he yelled out to the sky, God, if you're real, strike me with lightning right now. And nothing happened. Now you might think that that's the love of God and the mercy of God, sparing him from being judged. Well, it's actually the wrath of God. Because if God were to strike that man with lightning, those people watching would have trembled in fear and perhaps repented and trusted in him. So that's the wrath of God. But second, just as an illustration, that man had absolutely no say in his foolishness when God would judge him by bringing death and when God would judge in that final judgment. We see, linked to Psalm 73 and 74, that God will certainly not acquit the guilty. He'll vindicate his name. He'll show forth his justice. He'll punish ungodliness. And when we see all of that, we see that walking with God is all worthwhile. At the flourishing of the wicked, as Asaph was despairing, if God will judge and vindicate his name and bring justice, it's worth walking with him. Now, going on to verse 3. You see this imagery, the earth tottering, its inhabitants, and God keeping steady its pillars. Well, this is just talking about God's coming in that final day of judgment. When he comes, the earth will totter and its inhabitants, and the Hebrew actually connotes or means melting. The people will melt in the presence of this holy and glorious God. In fact, This very word of melting is the word used to describe the Canaanites when the Israelites came to massacre them. So the Israelites are coming in, the Canaanites melt before the Israelites. And just as a side note, as you're reading through the Old Testament, when we see the massacre of the Canaanites, do you just read that and try to grapple with, okay, how could God do this? Really, you should be seeing that as a picture to the world of common grace, so people are enjoying their life and people are going about their business, interrupted suddenly by God's judgment and killing all people. So that melting that the Canaanites experienced when the Israelites came is the melting that the wicked will experience when God comes in His glory. At the same time, the coming of God will be the comfort of all who cry out, come Lord Jesus. Those who have experienced persecution or weariness in fighting with sin. I think of the story of Jonathan Edwards. who when he was young was scared of thunder and lightning. Not for the common reasons that young people are scared of thunder and lightning, but because he knew himself to be in a Christless state, he was apart from Christ. And so when he saw that thunder and lightning, he thought of the condemnation of God. God would judge him and he was terrified. But when God saved Jonathan Edwards, He went from being terrified of that thunder to purposefully going out when there would be thunder and lightning and singing praise to God and praying and worshiping Him. And that's what that final day will be like for you, Christian. You'll go from being one of those who melts at the coming of God, knowing that God will damn you and be just, to rejoicing in Him with fear, with trembling, but rejoicing in Him and loving the appearing of your Savior. And in the midst of all that melting and the tottering, we see in verse three, it's God who keeps steady its pillars, so he still upholds the universe by the word of his power. A Christian, just exalt yourself in the power of God. Go home, read Isaiah 40, read these great scriptures that talk about God's power and God's majesty and delight yourself in him as the God for you in Christ. We move on to verses four to five, God's direct warning to the wicked. If you'll notice in the psalm, God makes a distinction between two people and he does this throughout the psalms and indeed throughout the scriptures, throughout the Old Testament. There's two kinds of people in God's book. There's the righteous and there's the wicked. Now you could say maybe the boastful is a third, but the boastful is just a synonym for those who are apart from Christ. So friends, God sees people only in two categories, righteous and wicked. There's no in-between and no grade curves. If you think about it this way, God has two grade piles, A plus and F. Or as Jesus put it, sheep and goats. We don't hear of any kind of hybrid between the two, any sheep goats or any goats that have sheep qualities or vice versa. There's no hybrids. It's righteous and wicked. And God warns the wicked directly. So if you're to think, okay, what do the wicked look like? You can go through all the scriptures, but this psalm tells us exactly what the wicked look like. And if you're not a Christian here, or you've never been born again of the Spirit of God, pay particularly close attention to this. Is this you? He says, do not boast. Do not lift up your horn on high and speak with haughty neck. And what on earth does that mean? Again, lifting your horn on high. Lifting your horn on high is just a symbol of victory and self-reliance and pride. So the wicked are lifting up their horns prematurely and they're trusting in themselves, they're boasting in themselves, they're declaring victory in all they are. And it's the same with that context, you know, boasting. They're boasting in and of themselves and they're lifting up their haughty neck. It means they're raising their necks in pride in all that they are. You know, I read from the beginning for the call to worship 1 Samuel 2 and you know, some church services, they have different scripture readings. I would have that whole verses 1 to 10 as a scripture reading because Psalm 75 is almost identical in many ways to 1 Samuel 2. In fact, I encourage you, go home, I know I'm telling you guys to read a lot, it's like a lot of assignments, but go home and read 1 Samuel 2. The similarities between the two are striking. And do you remember the context of 1 Samuel 2? It's Hannah, barren Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, who has another wife named Penina. And Penina's bearing children, and Hannah's barren. And Penina is harassing Hannah. And Hannah is lowly, and she's totally empty of anything of herself, and cries out to God, and God gives her Samuel. And she cries out to God that God lifts up out of Sheol, God lifts up the righteous. It's the very thing we're seeing here. And there's a reason why the two are connected. Because that theme is true of both the wicked and the righteous. The righteous lowly, notice in verse 9 or verse 10, the righteous don't lift themselves up, they're lifted up by God. But it's the wicked that lift themselves up. That's what God does. God takes the lowly Hannahs who have nothing in themselves, empty of all self-righteousness, empty of all pride and boasting. They don't have any children. And God takes her and lifts her up and then casts down the wicked. And the scriptures are filled with stuff like this. Look at Absalom and David. Look at Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus, empty of all riches, completely bereft of anything. The rich man goes by in his pomp and splendor, haughty neck, lifting up horns. And God casts him down to Hades and lifts up Lazarus, that poor man, into Abraham's bosom. Or most strikingly, Think about Luke 18, the tax collector and the Pharisee. That Pharisee goes into the temple, he prays to God, he puffs himself up like these wicked in Psalm 75 and says, God, I thank you that I'm not like this tax collector. What does the tax collector do? Like the righteous, empty of all self-righteousness. He can't even lift his eyes to heaven. He looks down and he says, God be merciful to me, a sinner. And God justifies the one, lifts him up, and damns the other, cuts him off. So is that you? Are you here and maybe you thought you're a Christian and you either offer your righteous works to God, that God would accept you on their behalf, Do you trust in all the world has, young people here? You think that Christianity is ridiculous or silly and you want to be successful, you want to be popular? Friends, no, and we'll see later that God will cut that off and will exalt those who have no righteousness in themselves, who have no trust in themselves, and trust in God alone. But how does God warn? Well, he warns in mercy. God's not obligated to warn. God can say, you've lifted up your horns, you're arrogant, and I'm going to send you to hell. But instead, God in his rich love warns sinners. Just listen to this chapter and verse, Ezekiel 18 verse 23. This is what God says about the wicked here, the wicked that I've been speaking so harshly about. God says, have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live. This is not an accusatory shouting. It's an invitation to turn, to turn to God and live. So God set the appointed time of judgment. And in the meantime, in between the judgment and that appointed time, he warns all sinners to stop their self-reliance, to stop their pride, and to trust in him alone. And he's ordained you, church, to preach that news. So let's just think transparently. As God, when we preach the gospel to family members, to people on the street, to people at work? Are we just saying Jesus loves you, Jesus died for you? Or are we imitating our God in pointing out particular sin because we love them, we want them to escape it, and trust in Christ? Think about Jesus in John 4. He could have told that Samaritan woman, I have waters that you know not of, now come and believe on me. But he made a point to point out her sexual immorality. Christian, you as well, you need to take out the scalpel of the law and cut a sinner, even though it hurts, to heal him with the balm of the gospel. So, that's it for verse 2, but moving on to verse 3, and this is such a powerful part of the psalm. And it explains our kind of question, how can we praise God for judging the wicked? How can we sing praises to God when he damns the wicked? So verses six to seven, just to briefly go through it, for not from the east or from the west, not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it's God who executes judgment. This is just talking about the fact that the judgment of God is absolutely inescapable. You can't escape it. No matter what you do, no kind of power, no running will cause you to flee from that judgment. God is the one who judges, and he's the one, as verse 7 says, that puts down and lifts up. Now this is talking about, again, that Hannah-Penina thing we were talking about. Takes the righteous, cuts them down. Or rather, he takes the righteous and lifts them up, and takes the wicked and cuts them down. Talks about that, but also about the nations. And just as a side note, know this, Christian. caught up in geopolitics and political things and think that that alone is the reason why nations rise and nations fall. God holds the heart of the king in his hand. And Ukraine and Russia and revolutions and Venezuela and all these countries and their turmoil, it's the authorship of God that causes nations to rise and fall and to go to war with each other. He sends evil spirits even to nations to ward against each other and destroy one another for his purpose. Then we come to this most important verse in Psalm 75 in verse 8. So there's a cup in the hand of the Lord. And this cup is found throughout the scriptures. There's a reason why I read Revelation chapter 14 verses 9 to 11. And it's because it's talking about this very cup of the wrath of God that will be poured out on all the nations. God will pour it out. They will drink of it full strength. And it's talked about in Ezekiel, it's talked about in the Psalms, it's talked about in Jeremiah. This cup of wine that's poured out on the wicked and they'll drink of it full strength. Why wine? Well, some think that it's because wine, that wine of God's wrath will so stagger the wicked that they'll have no control over themselves, that they'll be hopelessly helpless, be able to do nothing. I think that that's very convincing. But notice three things about this cup. First, that all the wicked will drink it without exception. So every single wicked person will drink it. This tells me this is not just talking about the nations, Israel. This is talking about a time where God will gather every wicked person and every wicked person will drink of the wrath of God. So no grade curve. Second, they'll drink all of it. He says to the bottom or to the dregs they'll drink it. And third, that it is well mixed. And the Hebrew here again is giving us this idea of a mixture with spices. I don't know if you know, in Jerusalem and in Israel, even in the Roman Empire, people would dilute their wine with water to stop them from getting drunk, to kind of weaken its strength. Well, the opposite is being said here. This wine is mixed with spices so that its strength would be all the more. There's no sense of dilution. It's an undiluted drink with full strength. There's no breaks. It's like surgery with no anesthesia. So, Christian, if you're like me, you look at this and you think, this is so harsh. How can we sing praises about this judgment? Are we not to weep for the lost? Well, first of all, yes. God uses in His sovereignty our broken prayers for the lost around us. And He hears them and saves based on those prayers in His sovereignty. And yes, remember that God Himself does not delight in the death of the wicked. But here's why we can sing a song of praise to God's judgment of the wicked. And this is the last verse I'm going to go to, and you can feel free to turn there if you'd like, but if not, just listen to Romans 9, verses 21 to 22. This is why we can praise God. for pouring out his wrath upon the wicked. It's Paul talking about those vessels created for dishonorable use. This is what he says. Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable? What if God desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy which He has prepared beforehand for glory? So here's three reasons why we can praise God for the display of His just wrath. Number one, it's the display of His power in righteous judgment. Without this demonstration of His wrath, we wouldn't know the glories of His holy righteousness and just judgment toward the wicked. And as we said before, the Christian clings lovingly to all God's glorious display of His character in person. His power is put on display for the nations to fear and for His people to look at and worship in trembling fear and awe. Number two, it provides rest for the persecuted and vindication for them and for God's name. God isn't just letting the persecutors of the earth go by. He's punishing them for the vindication of His name and for His people. And number three, for the believer, it's a display of the riches of His glorious love. God's mercy divorced from His fierce and holy justice is cheap, but when the Christian sees God's righteous justice and merciful love meet on the cross, he marvels at God's love. So if we might apply this verse to those of you who are not Christians here, for those of you who might think you're Christians and are self-deceived, may God free you from that. If you're a non-Christian, you might think the problem is outside yourself, but God in this portion of scripture says that you are the problem with the world. You think it's outside yourself, maybe politics will solve it, maybe activism will solve it, but you're the problem. Think of an action movie. You've got this villain. You're waiting the whole movie to see this bad guy die, and when he does, you just, you breathe a sigh of relief. Well, that is you to God. Your sins, God knows all of them. Every one of your secret sins and all of your inward wickedness. Now think about that first and greatest commandment. Have you obeyed and kept that first and greatest commandment, loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength perfectly in the last day? Have you done it perfectly in the last hour? How about in the last minute? Is your life marked by the fruits or those marks of the flesh that Paul talks about in Galatians? Think about it. Is your fruit marked by adultery, inward adultery? fornication, jealousy, being jealous of others, this consuming jealousy, fits of anger, you're angry at others, envying and desiring other people's possessions or husband or wife or job or positions. Take those 10 commandments and apply it to your heart. God is not as concerned with the external, he's concerned with the internal. Are you as those wicked, prideful and buffing yourself up? in either trust in your own works or in other things. Well, friend, God's justice demands perfect satisfaction and you will drink of his wrath to the bottom. And as we find in verse 10, God will cut off all the horns of the wicked. But there is a provision made. When you hear about this cup, if you've been to the church, if you've read your Bible, it races forward to something, doesn't it? It races forward to Jesus Christ, who said, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. and who said to Peter after he cut off Malchus's ear, shall I not drink the cup that my father has for me? Why does Christ mention that cup? It's a specific reference to this verse and all the verses that talk about the cup of God's wrath. And if we see it, we think this isn't right. The righteous and pure Christ drinking from God's wrath, that which the nations should have drank from. The answer, my friends, is found in this. that for our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus drank this very cup of the wrath of God to the bottom for sinners like you and me. He would not, He could not be stopped from drinking this cup to the very bottom for all the wicked sinners, sinners like you and me, who would trust in Him, who would be like Hannah, who would be like Lazarus the poor and the tax collector, who would say, God be merciful to me, an empty sinner, and trust in Him. He drank it to the full for them. Christ, the only righteous one, we read Psalm 75, the only righteous one who deserved to be lifted up was cut off. We read in Isaiah 53 that he was cut off from the land of the living as the wicked. The pure and holy one treated as the wicked to transform the wicked into the righteous and to be called righteous himself. Jesus drank from the cup of the wrath of God for all who would believe on him to the very dregs. And if I could just give one final kind of picture, remember what I said about that cup being filled, mixed with spices, being strong, no dilution. Well, when Jesus was on the cross, he was offered a drink. Do you remember this? That first drink that Jesus was offered, it was a drink that Mark says was wine mixed with myrrh or vinegar mixed with gall, and he refused that first drink. Now why? Well, that drink was given so that Jesus's senses would be dulled. He'd be able to go through the cross not experiencing the fury and the pain and its fullness, but having this kind of medication, this anesthesia, to free him from its power. Friends, Jesus rejected that drink so that he could drink from this Psalm 75 cup mixed fully to the dregs. He encountered its full power and its full weight for sinners. We dare not say that God is cruel if he himself drank from the fury of God's wrath himself. Now listen to this hymn. Oh Christ, what burdens bowed your head. That's the name of the hymn. This is what it says. Death and the curse were in the cup. Oh Christ was full for thee. But you have drained the last dark drop. Tis empty now for me. That bitter cup, love drank it up. Now blessings draught for me. So sinner and Christian, if you're questioning, have you been so emptied of all your self-righteousness, all your idols, to be like the lowly righteous and have nothing to hold to except Christ to save? And one last application for the Christian. Christian, look to the fact that if Christ drank from this cup of God's wrath and the wicked will drink from it, that there is not a drop of divine disfavor for you, not a drop. Even in his discipline, even in the hardships of life where everything feels or seems to be going wrong, it's coming from, it's issuing forth from a heart filled with fatherly love. All the wrath of God absorbed in the way for eternal, intimate communion with the living God, forever open because God's wrath was drunk down to the dregs by Christ. Christian, a different cup is given to you. It's the cup in Psalm 23 flowing over with Christ's goodness, God's goodness. And it's the cup of salvation found in Psalm 116 where you can drink and commune and fellowship with God and know His presence for all eternity. So just verse 10 there. The redeemed are lifted up, the righteous. Those that get all their righteousness from God, his horn is lifted up by God. They'll not lift up their own horns as the wicked, but they'll be lifted up by God in Christ to glory. Again, Hannah, the tax collector, Lazarus. As the sinner will know the unending wrath of God, you, Christian, will inherit the joy of your father for all eternity. So friends, may we bless God's name for his just and fierce wrath. And blessed be his name for taking the wicked, even in this congregation, and taking the wicked instead of judging them, transforming them to the righteous. Could that be you if you don't know him? Trust in him tonight. Amen. Let's go to the Lord one more time in prayer. Father, we plead with you that this word would be applied. God, that we would love you and not just know of you, but cherish you in our hearts and treasure you. Lord, I do pray that you would fill the cup of every Christian here to overflowing at your glory and at the love you've displayed in the cross. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.