If you are visiting with us today over these summer weeks, we're going through the Psalms.

We began this a number of years ago, and we've simply been taking them each in their turn.

And so we come this morning to Psalm 75.

But last week we looked at Psalm 74 and we considered how often in life we need to be patient as we wait, and we're honest with ourselves.

And really we don't like having to wait.

The context of Psalm 74 was waiting on the Lord to act against his enemies and the enemies of his people, who seem to be succeeding in their oppression of the faithful.

And it was in verse 11 that gave us the clearest image of how the psalmist was feeling and how the people of God could cry out to him.

Where the psalmist wrote, why do you hold back your hand, your right hand, take it from the folds of your garment, and destroy them?

And so the psalmist or the congregation of God's people who would be singing this ancient hymn of Israel, would be asking why God was standing back, quite literally, with his hands in his pockets.

Why was he just standing there doing nothing?

And the image is strong because we know that same feeling today.

And in Psalm 74, the answer came in the following verses, as the psalmist recounted all that the Lord had done for his people.

And as they knew his faithfulness in the past, so they would know it again in the future, even if they were not sure of when God would act.

Now.

Psalm 75 is similar, but different.

It's not asking a grand global question of when will you punish your enemies and the enemies of your people people?

Nor is it looking for this great sense of a nation.

Psalm 75 builds on Psalm 74 by looking at the individual, by the individual believer, asking themselves the hard questions that they want to ask God.

But Psalm 75 is a hymn of praise in all of this, thanking God for the wondrous deeds that he has done for Israel and celebrating the fact that he is the judge of all the earth.

And as the judge of all the earth, he will in his own time put down the wicked, and he will lift up the faithful.

So Psalm 75 is all about a relationship with God.

Now, we don't know if this psalm fits in with a real time situation that the people knew in particular, or whether it was a general psalm for them to be able to cry out to God against their enemies.

But the tune, as I mentioned as we read this passage that would have been used, is simply called do not destroy.

Now, we have no idea what it Sounds like it is interesting if you go onto YouTube and type in do not destroy.

There are churches that have attempted to try and guess what this tune might have been like.

But this is the fourth Psalm and the last that this tune is associated with.

So this is a tune that would have been known well by the people of God, because the previous three Psalms that was used in were actually three consecutive Psalms 57, 58 and 59.

And those are all psalms of David, as he wants to pray against Saul's action against him, the unfairness of Saul.

And the songs are about Saul's unjust rule.

So we get an idea of the tone of this, that there's a sense of vindication, of personal vindication.

In the earlier Psalms, David saying, saul is saying all this about me, but it's not true.

So vindicate me, Lord.

And that's what we'll see in Psalm 75.

So in the age in which we live right now, it has never been easier to keep in touch with family and friends, be they across the street or across the world.

Many of us here don't even understand how you communicate.

I've heard of this thing called Snapchat.

I've been told don't go anywhere near it.

And I've been obedient and haven't.

So I know that Snapchat, I know that WhatsApp, if you're older and apparently if you're really old, Facebook messenger is the ways of communicating.

I'm so old, as many of you will know, text messages are my way to go.

But it really hasn't been easier.

In an instant, photographs can be sent from one part of the earth to the other.

We can hear news quite literally in real time because of audio technology, video technology, and it's instant, with barely any delay.

But many of you will remember costly telephone calls that were made because in our day there was no such thing as inclusive minutes.

You paid per minute that you were on the phone.

And of course, the closer the phone call was, the cheaper it was.

Letters took anywhere between five days to two weeks to be delivered to the furthest parts of the globe.

And there was nothing instant about it.

Communication 30 years ago required a lot of waiting to hear news or receive information.

You're living in what we had to do in the good old days.

And in one sense, Psalm 75 is a Psalm that is written carefully, just like you're writing a letter with a 20p stamp, wanting to give as much as you can.

This is not an instant message to God's people.

This is something that they need to hear and they need time to ponder on.

And we see that space given right in the heart of this psalm, and we'll come to it in a few moments.

You see God's wanting to express to them or giving them an opportunity to express their feelings about who he is and the situation in which they find themselves.

For them, the people of God, their issue is that they have to wait on the Lord, and they don't know when he will respond, nor do they know when he will act.

And they begin in verse one with grateful praise of his name, because that's where God's people must always begin in reminding ourselves of who he is, where they say, we give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks for your name is near.

Men tell of your wonderful deeds.

As God's people sing this song, they identify themselves as the ones to whom God's name is near.

They are the people on whose account God has performed his, as they describe it, wondrous deeds.

Now they're not specific here, as they were in Psalm 74 about what God has done, but as we saw back then, that included the exodus from Egypt crossing the Red Sea, and the mighty enemies that they had to defeat to get to the promised land.

But what they are doing here is thinking of him and his goodness towards them.

And this may simply have been on how he provides for them on a day to day basis.

Again, how he defeated his enemies, as we just mentioned, or their appreciation of his covenant love for them, how he's told them again and again, you're my people, I will love you no matter what.

And throughout the Psalms, the deeds of the Lord are described in different words.

They're described as wondrous, as mighty, and as awesome.

Those are powerful words and they express gratitude for the great acts God has done to guide and guard his people so that they will flourish in true righteousness or true piety.

And as in Psalm 74, we know that they know what these deeds are and how God has led them and defeated their enemies.

And this is what they want to tell each other as they sing.

But they also want the nations around them to hear this truth.

They want to declare to themselves and to the nations, as again we saw in Psalm 74, so that everyone will turn and glorify God.

So verse one gives us a moment of praise.

But it's in verses two to five that we move into a different way that this psalm speaks than has been presented in any of the psalms previously.

Because here we have God speaking through this psalm.

And as he does, he promises to work his judgment over the earth.

And this judgment will be in God's own time.

God will do what is right by his timing and not necessarily when his people want him to act.

And you know, this often can be perceived as it was then and still today, as frustrating.

But it is God who gives the promise that he will judge uprightly, or as the King James Version says, with equity.

In other words, he will judge those who deserve his judgment, because he is a God who lifts the righteous and he punishes the wicked.

Now, we must know something about God in all of this and who he is.

See, God doesn't fly into an uncontrollable fit of rage and kind of dish out punishment on all around him, the innocent then being collateral damage.

That's how humanity responds in anger and rage.

God knows those who are evil and how they have treated his people wrongly.

And he will judge them and them alone for this.

That's why God is a righteous judge.

That's why he will judge uprightly and with equity.

Because he is the God who knows who is wicked and he knows who is righteous.

And the reason why this is affirmed in verse 2 is because of what the Lord goes on to say in verse three.

He says, when the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm.

And this is where the pause comes for God's people, the time that they need to think through what's just been said with this one little word, selah.

And if you're here and wondered why, I paused after it, because that has been our practice, that as we've been going through the Psalms, we've paused after the word selah so that we can think or even look at what has been said and know its truth for us today.

And so what verse three is telling the people as they pause and as they think about it, that as he judges uprightly, God will preserve the stability of his creation.

Again, God doesn't fly into fits of rage, uncontrollable rage.

He knows what he's doing.

He keeps all of Creation in its order as he ordained it, while he punishes the wicked.

This is what's meant in verse three when he speaks of the earth and its people quaking, even though all around it may feel as on steady ground, it is the Lord who will keep it, and he will keep it together, because that's who he is in these moments.

He holds the created world tightly so it doesn't spin out of control, even though we may feel that it is.

But in verse four, he picks out those who will face his judgment.

And he will rebuke the boastful, and he will rebuke the wicked.

And these are names for people who don't know God.

But they're also content in their unbelief.

And it beggars belief that there are people in this day and age, in the world all around us who are content in their unbelief of God.

They will deny Him.

They will mock Him.

We have seen it even in these past days on our television screens of how he will be mocked.

And people simply go around boastful, proud and wicked, content in their unbelief of God.

Now, the psalm doesn't make clear whether the set time for judgment is the time of the final judgment for all the earth, or any time in which God chooses to make his justice visible.

Either way works.

But the warning is that he will judge.

And no one should want that judgment to fall on them, for they will not survive it because of their sin against God.

And there's a phrase in verse four that might cause a bit of a question in our minds, because it's a bit of a strange one.

We don't use phrases like this today.

The Lord says to the wicked, do not lift up your horns.

I was at a drive in service one time, and the preacher once said, lift up your horns, and everybody blasted the horn of their cars.

That's not what we're talking about.

Nor are we talking about the blowing of a trumpet, as we would known horns in Scripture to be used as a trumpet call.

More, it's symbolic of who these people are and what their instruments are, because in scripture the horn is a symbol of power.

And so to lift it up is to make a public assertion of power.

God warns the ungodly not to lift up their horn, and he promises to lift up the horn of the faithful instead, as we'll see in verse 10 and verse 5 strengthens this image.

When God says, do not lift up your horns against heaven.

Do not speak with outstretched neck.

And here God is warning the wicked not to be defiant against Him.

He has given his people a way by which they must live.

And it is his way, not one of their own or our own making.

And so humanity is warned that as the wicked of the world are warned not to be defiant against him and his ways, rather they're to turn to him to seek his forgiveness and trust in his salvation.

And the one truth that this psalm wants to tell us is that God has always been a God of salvation.

There is no difference in the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

He demonstrates Himself to be the God of salvation.

And in passages like this we see them pointing us to Christ, in whom we can only know full salvation.

And so the warning of these verses are still the warning for us today.

Now we may not like the term wicked.

In fact we may not even like to think that there would be those who would call us wicked.

But in our sin, that's who we are to God.

Because of our sin.

We are not good in sin.

We are rebellious people who defy God and we defy him and his ways.

And the warning is clear in these verses that judgment will be brought on those who rebel.

The only way to know escape from God's judgment is to trust in the Savior, to trust in him and to know his love.

And as we go into the New Testament, in John's Gospel, it's actually John the Baptist in his response to an argument between his disciples and a certain Jew that states this truth.

Because he says in John 3:36, whoever believes in the Son and has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.

This is what Psalm 75 is telling us.

It's telling us that there are those who believe and those who don't believe, well then God's wrath will be upon them, will remain with them.

And so it's quite clear cut.

The only way to know salvation is to trust in Jesus and no escape from God's wrath, which is his judgment on sinful humanity.

But we turn back to Psalm 75 and in verses 68 we see the people confirm that it is God who lifts up, and it is God who puts down the lifting up.

Here is a display of authority.

Verse 6 confirms that no one can exalt a man.

That is, no one can lift them up to forgive them or to know forgiveness from them.

It's only God who can do this.

And that's confirmed first in verse seven.

But it is God who judges.

He brings one down and he exalts another.

God's people sing this verse demonstrating that they are taking a stand for what they believe, a stance of faith.

And there are many times when God's faithful people must simply await his timing and not give in to despair.

And that's what they're doing here.

They're demonstrating their faith that God will be who he says he is, and that he will work in his perfect time, because God has promised that he will act, and when he does, then he will do what is right.

And verse 8 describes the judgment of the wicked, using the image of potent wine that the wicked must drink.

And this is an image that's used throughout the Old Testament.

And it's also used in contrast, because we have, in Psalm 116, verse 13, a contrast to this cup of bitter, potent wine.

And the drink of the righteous is one that brings joy and warmth.

But this one that's mentioned here in Psalm 75, that they will drink its dregs, is one that produces madness, confusion.

And it creates staggering, in other words, an ability not to walk in the right ways.

But notice how it ends, as I've mentioned, that he pours it out and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.

And saying that the wicked will drink its very dregs tells us that God's judgment of rebellious people will be complete, that when that judgment happens, there will be no ability to turn back.

Just like the Image In Revelation 18, God's judgment will be final and no one will escape.

Now, this should give us both hope, but it also should be a warning.

And the warning comes that if we're not on the side of the Lord, and if we're not trusting in Christ for salvation and living for him, then we will face the judgment and we will face the punishment that we rightly deserve.

But the hope is that salvation in Christ is enough.

Jesus has done everything that we need for salvation.

And so our response this morning must be that we are to trust in him or that we will trust in Him.

And this trust in Christ is twofold.

First, we need to know that his salvation is true and that it will not fail us.

That's what the people in Psalm 75 are telling themselves.

They're believing and continuing from Psalm 74 that even in their individual moments, where things have not gone as they wanted, God will not fail them.

They will know his salvation to be true.

And this may then spark a question for us, that if we are to continue to believe that God's salvation is true and will not fail us, then how can we be sure of that?

And how can we know that we are saved to continue to believe it?

And we call this assurance of salvation.

So how can we know of assurance of salvation?

I know them and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they shall not perish.

No one can snatch them out of my hand.

My Father, who has given them to me is greater than all.

No one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.

Look at that verse and look at its logic.

Look at where it begins.

How can we know that we're saved for all eternity?

Well, we listen to the voice of the shepherd, and as we do, well, we are known by the shepherd.

The shepherd knows us, but as we know that he knows us, then we will want to follow him.

And this is the logic that Jesus gives us because he gives us eternal life.

And so that assurance of us is that when we know eternal that we have eternal life, then we'll never perish, because we will be found with him forever.

No one can snatch us out of his hand.

My Father Jesus goes on to say, who has given them to Me is greater than all.

And he affirms that no one can snatch his people out of His Father's hand.

How do we know we're saved?

How can we have assurance of salvation?

We listen to the voice of Jesus as we find it in the word of God.

We follow his way, and we want to live for Him.

So let me give you a very straight challenge this morning.

If you call yourself a Christian, well, then there's something that you must do, and that's what Jesus is telling us here in John's Gospel.

We must read His Word, and we must read it daily.

Whether you as a young person say you're a Christian or you're an old person who says you're a Christian and everyone in between, you must be daily reading His Word.

You can't just depend on me to read it for you on a Sunday, nor can you depend on a YouTube video during the week.

You must read it, and you must go to somewhere else in Scripture that I'm not reading from.

There's books out there to help you daily read so that you can know and listen to the voice of the Lord through God's Word, that you will live his ways, that you will want to live for him, and that no Christian ever gets it completely right.

Let's be honest about that.

We don't.

But we live desiring to want to do what is right, as Christ tells us.

And so what we're saying is that our standard of authority doesn't rest with ourselves, nor does it rest with the opinions of those around us.

It firmly rests with Jesus Christ and how we read the revealed word of Scripture each and every day, be it one verse or a hundred verses.

And so this is what we must do.

And so if you say you're a Christian, then what you must be doing is reading the word of God, because as Jesus himself says, my sheep listen to my voice.

So find ways of doing that.

Find a moment in the day where you can read and you can think.

Start out early morning, and if you have a long drive ahead of you, you have a drive in which you can think of what you've read.

Or maybe the 11 o' clock tea break or the lunchtime where the tea time is a moment of quietness or a moment where you can take yourself and read and pray and meditate on the Word.

To be a Christian means we live by God's way, and we, as his sheep, listen clearly to his voice.

And so that's the first thing we need to know that his salvation is true and will not fail us.

And so we must have assurance of salvation, which means we listen to the voice of the Lord Jesus.

And the second part of this response is to trust in Him.

And that means to know that evil will be punished.

All too often we start to balance things as we see them here on earth.

We begin to want judgments based on what we see in the world around us.

And you see, this is where Psalm 75 lands for us today.

Perhaps there are things in your life that still haunt you.

You weren't treated well, or you're plagued by animosity from family members towards you.

Perhaps you feel discouraged when you read or listen to the news and hear the media and those whom they interview twisting the truth.

What we need to know from this psalm is God will judge.

And as he does, all will be put right.

You will be vindicated, and those who have perpetrated against you will face what they deserve in God's judgment.

For a little while on this earth.

It may seem as if they're getting away with it, but they won't forever.

And this is what Paul assures us in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 7.

Do not be deceived.

God cannot be mocked.

A man reaps what he sows.

So if you are haunted by things of the past, if you're facing that animosity of today, or what you see on the news send you into despair.

Take heart.

These days of sorrow and injustice will pass, and it is God who will have the final word.

But there's another side to this.

Maybe you're here and you find yourself tormented by a conscience that knows you yourself to be the perpetrator of evil, of selfishness, of mean words or relational withdrawal of deceit.

If so, repent.

Repent and seek restitution with those whom you have wronged.

But beneath it all, take heart.

In the greatest truth of God's judgment, God judges his own righteous Son in place of us on righteous rebels.

So that any who turn to take, who want him as their Savior, to take him as their Savior, gets the future, gets that future that Jesus gave his life for.

This, above all else, is the reason to give thanks to God for His wondrous deeds.

And that's how this psalm ends.

As for me, I will declare this forever.

I will sing praise to the God of Jacob.

I will cut off the horns of all the wicked, but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up.

This is the declaration that these people finish on even in the midst of their cry for vindication.

The psalm ends as it begins with praise of God for who he is, but also an affirmation that they will do what is right and they will stay away from sin and evil and seek to live righteous lives.

Is this your desire?

Do you desire to live a righteous life?

Do you desire to have the name Christian upon you and actually live like it?

Because it's so easy to call ourselves Christians and do nothing when God's word tells us that as his people, we must walk in his way, otherwise we are making a mockery of Him.

And as Paul says in Galatians 6, God cannot be mocked.

A man reaps what he sows.

Do you want to stay away from sin and from evil?

Do you want to have assurance of salvation?

Well, the only one who can strengthen us to do this is the Lord Jesus.

And so each of us today must trust in Him.

Trust that he can and will save you, but also trust that he will vindicate you, that he will judge in his time, and he will keep us away from evil.

So that as we look ever to Jesus to listen to his voice, then the gracious Savior will truly lead us home.

Turn to Christ this day, truly in your heart, and know him to be the greatest we can ever know.

Our Redeemer, our defender, our Savior, our friend.

Look ever to him and respond well to him this day.

Let's pray our Father God, we thank you for your word that directs us.

It helps us to see what the truth is.

Even though in this world all around us, the truth that we see is not real truth.

It's all a screen.

It's all what the devil wants to put before us so that we will turn away from Christ.

So help us to be faithful.

If we profess the name of Christ, if we call ourselves a Christian, help us first and foremost to look ever to him and listen to his voice as we read it in Scripture.

Then help us to respond in prayer, in worship and in fellowship.

So that indeed we will continue to grow as a community of your people who truly love you and truly love one another and want what is best for each other.

As we outshine Christ before each other, so that they will know truly what it is to live for Him.

So help us to.

To live in this way.

To know what it means to have Christ living in us and through us, that all will see and place their trust in him as they respond to his great word.

So hear us as we pray and as we respond.

In Jesus name, Amen.