Psalm 82
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Intro
Intro
Does it feel like sometimes God isn’t active? We look around and see so much injustice, and we wonder, “Where is God? Why hasn’t He put and end to this?”
Does God even see us and our plight? Does God care about those in power who don’t use their authority and influence to uphold justice?
How long Lord until you take action?
This Psalm puts our minds at ease. It reminds us that God does require an account of all beings, even those in the heavenly realms.
It also reminds us that the injustice will not go on forever, God himself will step in and make things right!
Continuing our survey of the psalms - covering a bunch to give us the flavour of the whole
These are songs of God’s people of Old, and God’s people today.
They find their fulfillment in Jesus, and Jesus is our worship leader.
If we sing and pray the Psalms we will end up singing and praying about things that we didn’t ever think about. They help shape our worship.
This is one of those Psalms that gets us out of our 2022 Australia bubble, and gets us looking at the big picture of God’s work in history. It also guards against the incessant “flattening” of spiritual things that we have a tendency to do.
It gets us to consider the work God is doing in the Spiritual realm.
Let’s break this Psalm down into 4 parts.
The Setting
The Setting
Who wrote this Psalm?
What is God doing in this Psalm?
We start with the description which tells us who wrote this Psalm. It is attributed to Asaph.
Who was this guy?
There’s a few Asaph’s in the Bible, but the most likely one who wrote 12 Psalms is Asaph the Levite who King David appointed as chief of a team of worshipers at the Ark of the Lord.
Remember, back in the Old Testament there was the temple, and before that the tabernacle, where people would come to worship, and where there were Levite priests who would oversee and lead that worship.
They had music teams! They had people whose job it was to play music and sing to the Lord.
Asaph was the worship team leader. And his sons followed in his legacy being temple musicians after him.
So, let’s get into the Psalm proper. What did Asaph write by the Holy Spirit?
A Psalm of Asaph.
God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
This is a weird place for us right off the bat. How often do you use this language to describe God?
So lets break down the two halves of this verse.
First, God is in his Divine Council, or some translations say “Great Assembly”. (“Great” doesn’t quite do the word justice, divine captures the idea better.)
This is like a parliament with God presiding. It’s not like our parliaments with major parties and majority vote, but with God calling the shots, and having his divine council come and make requests, reports and proposals.
We get frustratingly small glimpses into the spiritual realm, but the Divine Council is something that pops up across the scripture, for instance:
In the opening parts of Job, there is a scene in the spiritual realm where the Sons of God, and Satan present themselves before the LORD. This was when Satan asked to test Job.
Also we see the divine council in 1 Kings, where Micaiah the prophet speaks:
And Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another.
Other prophets also have visions of God, on his throne in a heavenly temple, directing the affairs of the world.
So, this is the Setting, God is in session with his Divine Council, but who is in this council and what is God doing there on this occasion?
“In the midst of the gods he holds judgment”
God is in the midst of the gods.
Remember that in Hebrew poetry the two halves of a verse are usually two ways of saying the same thing, or an extension of each other. To say “God has taken his place in the divine council” means “In the midst of the gods he holds judgment”.
God is in the midst of the gods.
Let that sink in for a moment.
I’m not going to hide your Bible from you. That’s what it says.
Alarms might be going off in your brain. “I thought there was only one god?” “This is heresy!”
It’s right here plain as day.
Now one of the things that Bible teachers have done in times past is to try and smooth over the “rough” parts of the Bible. The inconvenient bits that make for awkward conversations. They want to make the way easy and not create any potential speed bumps in your faith.
I say that is unloving, and deceitful.
Let God speak for himself, and let God’s people hear what he has to say!
Would you like to hear what he has to say???
God judges in the midst of the gods.
The Bible does speak of other gods. In fact God everywhere tells his people not to serve other gods.
“You shall have no other gods before me”
“LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords”
When it says he is the God of gods, it does not mean that he is the chief God among imaginary beings, it means he is the God over all other gods. Beside Him there is no other.
So while the scriptures speak about other gods, it makes it clear that our LORD is not simply one among many Gods, but He is the God of Gods. There is none like him, and he will not share His glory with another.
We don’t have options about which god to serve, it’s not like there is a selection and we have to pick the god that works best for us. The ancient pagans thought this way, from Israel’s neighbors, the Norse tribes, The Greeks & Romans, even the Hindus today. They worshiped a pantheon of gods, and forever trying to please the right combination of gods t get things to work out for their benefit.
No, there is one creator of heaven and earth who is in authority over all. He alone must be worshiped.
Now these other gods get other names in the Bible. Even though they are the same “species” as God, they are so distinctively different that we need other names to describe them. The most common one is Sons of God. And you see it is essentially used in our Psalm too in v6 where they are called Sons of the Most High.
Divine Beings
Rebellious - see Gen 6 and this Psalm
Ringleader of rebels is Satan.
Also called princes, powers and principalities in some places. Some of them are even called demons.
But they were created good, and they had a job to do (just like us). Before Israel went into the promised land, Moses reminded them of history:
English Standard Version Chapter 32
7 Remember the days of old;
consider the years of many generations;
ask your father, and he will show you,
your elders, and they will tell you.
8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.
9 But the LORD’s portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.
God split the nations up and put them under the oversight and protection of the Sons of God, but kept Israel for his own portion.
God had special plans for redemption, and he was going to use his own people Israel to achieve those plans.
So here in this Psalm we see God presiding over the divine council, and ready to judge the Sons of God whom he had put in charge of the other nations.
Now, I do need to tell you that there are people who think the term “gods” in this Psalm is sarcastic and that this is a Psalm directed to kings who thought them-selves divine. The idea being that they had failed in their duties as kings. If this Psalm were by itself I would be inclined to agree, but when you start tracing the Sons of God across scripture you find that it just doesn’t make sense to consider them humans at all.
So this is the setting for our Psalm, the opening that sets the scenes for what is to follow. So what comes next with God presiding in the Divine Council?
The Problem
The Problem
What is the issue?
The issue is bad leadership: Unjust judging, and playing favorites with bad guys. See:
“How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
The Sons of God were meant to preside over their realms upholding God’s values and standards. Although the other nations were not the special people of God like Israel, God’s moral law is still the universal standard. All people everywhere are called to serve the LORD, to honor their mother & father, to not steal, commit adultery, murder or covet.
In every place on earth God’s righteousness and justice should prevail. When someone hurts someone else, or steals something or backs out of an agreement, there should be a avenue to pursue justice and make things right.
And the people who are most vulnerable to others taking advantage of them rely on these structures the most. When you have wealth and influence it is much easier to get “justice”, and people are much less likely to try and take you on.
Imagine you were in a car crash, and the millionaire mining magnate Gina Rineheart was driving the other car. You had to give up your car insurance last week because you’re struggling to make ends meet, but not to worry, because Gina was at fault for this car crash. She should pay all the costs to get your car fixed.
But instead, she turns around and blames you and then expects you to pay for your repairs yourself, and even to pay for her car repairs to the tune of $10,000.
What recourse is open to you? You’re a poor person, scraping by, living pay to pay, and now this wealthy individual is blaming you for something you didn’t do and expecting to extract the costs from you pocket.
You could try and take it to court, but Gina has lawyers on retainer, they’re ready to go at a moments notice. What’s more, you have had a shady past and been rightly convicted of a few crimes in the past, your track record doesn’t paint you in the kindest light.
You don’t have any money to pay a lawyer, and even if you did the court costs and lawyer fees are likely to well exceed $10,000. So even though $10,000 is a huge amount for you, you can see the writing on the wall, and that you’re basically going to be extorted. You work out a payment plan so that you will pay her over the course of a year and your family will suffer quite a bit as a result.
How unfair is that?
(I don’t know what Gina is like, she may be a lovely lady, this is just a made up story for effect!)
God hates this kind of injustice. Taking advantage of people who do not have a means to defend their cause.
Back in the day, the people who were especially vulnerable were those who had no family, because God designed your family to be your safety net if you fall on hard times, but if you have no family, if you’re an orphan or a widow, you were most likely to be hurt and sinned against.
The next verses tell us what the Sons of God should be doing:
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
The Sons of God should be promoting righteousness and justice in their jurisdictions, but instead they are letting, or perhaps enabling
Now we don’t know exactly the mechanism for how this was supposed to take place, but we get glimpses across the Bible. Sometimes divine beings are implied to have influence over kings and nations.
Instead they are showing themselves to be blind and they’re threatening the foundations.
What country can stand when the wicked thrive and the weak are oppressed?
Our place is an example: Do you know who much justice costs in this country? We may have the ideals of a fair trial and the need to prove guilt, but our courts are a sham. They offer no hope to the destitute and the afflicted. What weak and needy person can take their case before the court? They need either a degree in law, or the money to pay someone else who does.
Cases are often won by whose lawyers can come up with them most creative arguments.
The Problem is that God’s appointed servants, even the divine, ones are not using their power and influence
The Judgement
The Judgement
What will be the consequences for the Sons of God?
God now pronounces his judgment: They will be dethroned and killed.
I said, “You are gods,
sons of the Most High, all of you;
nevertheless, like men you shall die,
and fall like any prince.”
They should have been with God in his divine council, but instead they’ll be overthrown.
Though they were Sons of the Most High, they will be made mortal like men.
Their doom is sure.
Isaiah speaks of it too!
On that day the Lord will punish
the host of heaven, in heaven,
and the kings of the earth, on the earth.
They will be gathered together
as prisoners in a pit;
they will be shut up in a prison,
and after many days they will be punished.
Then the moon will be confounded
and the sun ashamed,
for the Lord of hosts reigns
on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and his glory will be before his elders.
Jesus overthrew the rebellious powers:
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
The Prayer
The Prayer
What is the response?
The Response to this judgment is....
Arise, O God, judge the earth;
for you shall inherit all the nations!
Yes! God please judge!
God please take back the nations!
Is this your prayer? Do you find yourself asking God to bring Judgement? It is a good thing!
Not only do we hope for judgment, we long for the nations to be reclaimed, and even elevated to Sons of God!
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— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’
and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ”
“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”
God is bringing in the nations even now! Get on board!
Praying This Psalm
Praying This Psalm