PSALM 97 - Fire and Darkness

Introduction

One of the things I’ve learned about myself (and Jodee has learned as well) is that I am terrible at home repairs—particularly when it comes to appliances. For example, a number of years ago our refrigerator’s ice maker quit working (this was, I think three refrigerators ago… But I didn’t kill them all...) We had no ice, and so I did what everyone does—”We don’t need to pay a repairman for this! I’ll just go to YouTube!”

I found a video that matched the problem we were having (and the make and model of the fridge we had) and diligently followed the instructions on what part we needed and how to replace it. I plugged the fridge back in and then settled back to wait for the sound of the ice maker to begin running again. Three days later we called the refrigerator repairman who came and promptly fixed the real problem with speedy, proficient and courteous service. (There are plenty more stories where that came from—cars, tractors, computers, hot water tanks, you name it—anyone in the family will be happy to supply you with more!)

That’s a universal tendency though, isn’t it? We’ve all done it—leaping off into a solution to a task with the wrong plan, trying to use the wrong tools for the job (I get it honestly; I remember Dad telling me how he had a socket wrench explode into pieces while he was trying to use it as a hammer...) We know what needs to be done and where we want to go, but go about getting there all wrong.

Take for example the first verse of our psalm this morning:

Psalm 97:1 LSB

1 Yahweh reigns, let the earth rejoice; Let the many coastlands be glad.

We read that verse—make the whole world glad that YHWH reigns—and we immediately think of the best ways to do that: We tell people to be glad because God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives; we tell them that God is their biggest fan, that He wants them to be happy and successful; we turn worship services into pep rallies and sermons into life-affirming comedy routines. We carefully cultivate the Christian persona equivalent of a door-to-door aluminum siding salesman—desperately eager to please people so they will listen to our Gospel elevator pitch. Our inspirational posters are full of sunsets and pussy willows because we want people to have positive associations with God.

But how does this psalm follow up the call to make the nations glad in God?

Psalm 97:1–4 LSB

Yahweh reigns, let the earth rejoice; Let the many coastlands be glad. Clouds and thick darkness are all around Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. Fire goes before Him And burns up His adversaries all around. His lightnings light up the world; The earth sees and trembles.

The very portrayal of YHWH that the Scriptures commend for the gladness of the nations is the one that we go to any length to avoid. But a few moments’ reflection will show us that our proposed solution to make the nations glad in God has backfired on us. Because worshipping a pussy-willow God produces pussy-footed Christians. A shallow, entertaining, inoffensive portrayal of God cannot produce the gladness and joy that Psalm 97 commends to us. The nations will not be glad at the news that “If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it...” As strange as it may sound to us, it is only when we see YHWH as He is revealed in places like Psalm 97 that we will have the joy and delight in Him that we can share with the nations.

So the way I want to summarize the message of Psalm 97 for us this morning is that

Worshiping the God of FEARSOME RIGHTEOUSNESS produces a people of GLAD FAITHFULNESS

This is what we read in the opening verses of this song—the earth rejoices and the coastlines are glad because of

I. The revelation of the HOLINESS of God (Psalm 97:2-6)

One of the greatest victories that the Enemy of our souls has won in our culture is to portray holiness in terms of weakness—centuries of idolatrous imagery in the Church that depicts Jesus as a pasty white, limp-wristed hippy with long blond hair straight out of a Clairol commercial; images of chubby naked babies with tiny little wings bobbing around on puffy white clouds; Precious Moments figurines lined up on a windowsill with teardrop eyes and clutching tiny porcelain teddy bears and dressed like the Twelve Apostles. No wonder the holiness of God is utterly disregarded in our day.

But what does the Word of God say holiness is?

Psalm 97:2–4 LSB

Clouds and thick darkness are all around Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. Fire goes before Him And burns up His adversaries all around. His lightnings light up the world; The earth sees and trembles.

Holiness is the black clouds of a massive thunderstorm on the horizon, it’s the hot gale that sweeps before the storm that tells you that you only have moments left to run for shelter. It is an earthquake throwing you off your feet and making the solid ground under your feet buck and swell like the waves on the sea; it is lightning from heaven falling to earth with a roar that stops your heart and tears an involuntary scream from your throat; it is darkness and gloom and thick blackness that makes a hardened sinner tremble like a child.

Holiness is not tame; holiness is not kind; holiness is not sweet, it is not cute. See here in these verses, Christian, the holiness of YHWH presented to you so

That you may be TERRIFIED of SINNING against Him (vv. 2-4; cp. Ex. 20:18-20)

When the children of Israel were at the base of Mt. Sinai in Exodus 20, they saw what this psalm depicts about the holiness of YHWH, and they were terrified by it:

Exodus 20:18–19 LSB

And all the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and the people perceived it, and they shook and stood at a distance. Then they said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself, and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, lest we die.”

They were undone; the storm was breaking on them, if YHWH merely spoke a word to them it would end them. And this was precisely God’s plan in revealing His holiness to them—Moses said in Exodus 20:20:

Exodus 20:18–20 LSB

“...Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may be with you, so that you may not sin.”

Beloved, this is why worshipping the God of fearsome righteousness produces a people of glad faithfulness—when you truly grasp the fearsome reality of the holiness of God, it drives the desire for sin out of you! Consider the tornado of holiness that your lust will bring down on you; think of the terror and gloom of His holiness that you risk by your anxious unbelief; see how His fire incinerates those who oppose Him—this is the God that you flippantly ignore when you sin. The greatest sickness in the church today is that we do not understand the holiness of God.

God’s holiness is revealed so that you may be terrified of sinning against Him, and in Verses 5-6 we see that His holiness is revealed

That you may see no ESCAPE from His PRESENCE (vv. 5-6; cp. Rev. 6:16)

Psalm 97:5–6 LSB

The mountains melt like wax at the presence of Yahweh, At the presence of the Lord of all the earth. The heavens declare His righteousness, And all the peoples see His glory.

There is nowhere to run to; nowhere to hide from the presence of the holiness of YHWH. You cannot “head for the hills” to get away from Him, because the mountains themselves will simply collapse, like an ice cream cone in the sun, in the presence of His holiness and righteousness.

The Apostle John writes of the kings of the earth—symbolized by mountains throughout the Old Testament—crying out in terror at the revelation of the holiness of YHWH on His throne:

Revelation 6:16 LSB

and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb,

The mountains melt like wax at His presence, and “the heavens declare His righteousness” (v. 6). The stars in their courses, the planets and galaxies and all the inhabitants of Heaven itself will preach His righteousness; there is no way to get out from under it. And all the peoples of the coastlands—all of the inhabitants of all the islands, all the far-flung corners of the earth—will all have a front-row seat to His glory.

Psalm 97 is not about the God of the pussy willows and puppies; this is not the God of self-esteem and family values; this is not the God that can be bargained with on the Day of Judgment; He will not haggle with you on that Day like a cheap fishwife over whether you were a “good person” or not. This is YHWH, Maker of Heaven and Earth and all they contain, the One Whose very presence brings an end to His adversaries, the One Whose holiness goes before Him as a terrifying darkness and is enthroned in righteousness and justice to conquer the nations.

Only a people who worship the fearsome righteousness of God will live in glad faithfulness. The earth rejoices and the coastlands are glad because of the revelation of the holiness of God, and in verses 7-9 their gladness is fueled by

II. The exaltation the SUPREMACY of God (Psalm 97:7-9)

Psalm 97:7–9 LSB

Let all those be ashamed who serve graven images, Who boast of idols; Worship Him, all you gods! Zion heard this and was glad, And the daughters of Judah have rejoiced Because of Your judgments, O Yahweh. For You are Yahweh Most High over all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods.

What causes the daughters of Judah to rejoice? What makes Zion glad? it is the spectacle of seeing

All other gods COLLAPSE before YHWH (cp. Jeremiah 50:2)

The prophet Jeremiah paints a graphic picture of the failure of the other gods of the nations to stand against YHWH:

Jeremiah 50:2 LSB

“...Do not conceal it but say, ‘Babylon has been captured; Bel has been put to shame; Marduk has been shattered; Her images have been put to shame; her idols have been shattered.’

The contrast that the psalmist sets up here cannot be more clear—the faithful worshippers of YHWH will rejoice and be glad and delighted in His holiness and righteousness; His power will be a source of endless happiness to them.

But for those who trust in the “graven images”—who boast in the elilim (empty ones) instead of Elohim (God)—they will be mortified and humiliated because of their trust in those idols. Marduk and Baal and Asherah and Chemosh and Molech will betray and destroy their followers, but the one who puts his trust in YHWH will never be ashamed!

The gods of the nations are mere elilim—empty shells, nothingness dressed up in garlands and incense. They are powerless before YHWH and fall down before Him like Dagon falling to pieces before the Ark. But the psalmist goes on to call out the existing spiritual powers—the principalities and powers and thrones and angelic beings that inhabit heaven—see in verses 8-9 the command that

All of the angels WORSHIP before YHWH (v. 7; cp. Isa. 6:1-3) Heb. 1:6)

Psalm 97:7 LSB

Let all those be ashamed who serve graven images, Who boast of idols; Worship Him, all you gods!

The Hebrew phrase “Worship Him, all you gods” (all you “elohim”) can also be rendered “Let all the elohim—all the gods—worship Him”. This is the way the writer of Hebrews quotes Psalm 97:7 in Hebrews 1:6

Hebrews 1:6 LSB

And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, “And let all the angels of God worship Him.”

Not only does YHWH reign in splendor over the idols that don’t exist, He reigns over every spiritual being that does exist! Remember the fearsome sight of God’s holiness that the prophet Isaiah endured in Isaiah 6—terrifying spectacles of seraphim flying around the throne of YHWH in His hall, roaring out “HOLY HOLY HOLY” without ceasing—those angels of God have been thundering out that praise since before the world existed, and will do so for uncounted millennia to come.

This is the supremacy of the God Who has summoned you into His presence this morning. The God Who is exalted far beyond any other authority; the God Who is surrounded by ancient spiritual beings so fearsome that if one of them appeared before you you would simply die of fright—and yet they are too terrified of His glory to look Him in the face. This is the God Who demands (and receives) the worship of every spiritual being, every power, every so-called god or lord.

Where is the room for flippancy in the presence of such a God? Where is the call for silly pranks or gimmicks? Where is the justification for joking about His nature or trivializing His authority or treating His worship with indifference or acting as though we had better things to do on the day He calls us to gather? The nations are glad when the supremacy of God is exalted; His people rejoice when He is lifted up high above all authority and power.

A people who worship God in His fearsome righteousness will be a people of glad faithfulness. And as the holiness of God is revealed and His supremacy is exalted, the world will be transformed. In verses 10-12 we see laid out for us

III. The potency of right WORSHIP of God (Psalm 97:10-12)

Psalm 97:10 LSB

Hate evil, you who love Yahweh, Who keeps the souls of His holy ones; He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.

The children of the covenant—those who love YHWH in His fearsome righteousness—will first of all be characterized by

A holy HATRED for SIN (v. 10; cp. Prov. 8:13)

Seeing the fearsome righteousness of God drives us to holiness--we desire to be kept in His care, we long to be delivered from the temptations and snares of the wicked. Christian, your heart cannot simultaneously tremble at the fearsome holiness of God and also flirt with the temptations of sin.

The peril of a Precious Moments, pussy-willow God is that sin never becomes loathsome to you—if your God is the type that shrugs His shoulders at your sin, pats you on the cheek and says “Don’t worry about it dear; I know you’re not perfect, just forgiven!”, then why should you care about battling sin, about repentance, confession and receiving assurance of His pardon—if God loves you just the way you are, then why should you bother?

But the potency of right worship of God means that you will be unrelenting in your battle for holiness; you will fight sin wherever it makes its appearance; you will be diligent in the inspection of your soul; you will cling to the means of grace offered to you in the Word, prayer, worship and the Lord’s Table; you will take to heart what the Scriptures say in Proverbs 8:13

Proverbs 8:13 LSB

“The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the mouth of perverted words, I hate.

The right worship of God in His fearsome righteousness creates in His worshippers a holy hatred of sin, and it creates in them

A glad GRATITUDE for His GRACE (vv. 11-12)

Psalm 97:11 LSB

Light is sown for the righteous And gladness for the upright in heart.

If the potency of right worship of God means first of all that you are relentless in your hatred of sin, it also means that that relentless hatred is accompanied by a great gladness. Just as we don’t want to fall into the ditch of apathy towards holiness and abdication in our daily battles with sin, neither do we want to swerve into the opposite ditch of being the Sin Police in ours (or others’!) lives—fussing over hemlines and haircuts and curfews. It is a glad hatred of sin, a grateful desire to be holy.

The right worship of YHWH fosters an atmosphere of light and gladness. The beautiful Hebrew poetry couplet there in Verse 11 picture of God sowing light and gladness gives us assurance that He will cause both light and gladness to grow in the lives of His covenant children, His “upright in heart.” Holiness in your life, Christian, will be a holiness that brings light and gladness and joy and freedom—a light and gladness that continues to grow in greater and greater abundance in your life.

That gladness is summarized in the last verse of the psalm:

Psalm 97:12 LSB

Be glad in Yahweh, you righteous ones, And give thanks for the remembrance of His holy name.

Here at the end of Psalm 97—a psalm of fire and darkness surrounding the holiness of YHWH—the last word is gratitude in remembering the great holy Name of God. The name that has been used throughout this psalm—YHWH— “I AM”, the great promise-keeping God Who sealed His covenant with His people with the blood of the sacrifices. The psalmist says that gladness in YHWH is founded on gratefully remembering His holy Name.

Remembering the holiness of God is a great comfort to His children—as Matthew Henry wrote of this verse:

Those that hate sin themselves are glad that God does so, in hopes that therefore he will not suffer it to have dominion over them. Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 885). Hendrickson.

Consider the hatred that your holy God has for sin, beloved—He hates sin so much; His holy anger burns against sin so completely and so utterly that He was willing to yield up His own Son to the agonies of the Cross so that sin would not claim you! Jesus Christ suffered the gloom and anguish and terror of the holiness of God against sin, crying out in horror in the Garden of Gethsemane, mourning over His abandonment by His Father on the Cross, being swallowed up by the wrath of God so that you would be free from the terror of the holiness of God against your sin!

This is the remembrance of the holy Name of God that brings such gladness to His righteous ones—there is no condemnation, no threat of fire and darkness under the immense holiness of YHWH for you. Christ has borne the dread and trembling and fear so that you may bear the fruit of gladness and light of His own righteousness; even as you tremble at His holiness, it is a joyful trembling. Even as you are overcome by the dread of His righteousness, it does not dampen your gladness in Him.

There is a Latin phrase in church tradition, Coram Deo. It means “in the presence of God” or “before the face of God”. To live life coram Deo is to live all of your life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, and to the glory of God. Psalm 97 is a psalm that calls us to consider what it means to live our lives—every moment of every day—before the face of this holy God—coram Deo sancto.

Christian, live your life coram Deo sancto—before the face of a holy God. So live a life that hates evil. “Hate evil, you who love YHWH...” Be ruthless in rooting out the sins that want to settle into your life. Consider the presence of YHWH that melts the mountains and causes the earth to tremble, the thick darkness and gloom of holiness that surrounds Him and the fire that falls on those who oppose Him—this is the God that your sin wants you to rebel against! Let the imposing power and dread of the holiness of YHWH cause you to flee from temptation to sin and seek the holiness purchased for you by His Son.

Live before the face of a holy God—live a life that rejects idolatry. Stop leaning on your 401K for your security; stop grinding away at getting the approval of others; quit making a relationship status the ultimate source of your happiness; quit putting all your pride into your homeschooling or your marriage or your theological acumen or your patriotism or your perfectly organized home or well-developed quads. As good as those things might be in and of themselves, as soon as you start bending your life around them and making them the pillars of your happiness and security, they turn into empty counterfeits of God that will inevitably put you to shame. Rejoice instead that all of those things—money, approval, relationships, education, fitness, Bible knowledge—all of those things are meant to serve the glory of God. Make it your aim that everything in your life that you work toward and desire serves to exalt God.

Live before the face of a holy God—live a life that is full of delight. You will always recognize a heart that worships the God of fearsome holiness because it is a heart marked by gladness. A heart quick to laugh in the dark, able to find joy in the storm, untouched by trial and upheaval. Deeply-rooted biblical gladness comes to those who have rooted that gladness in the fearsome holiness of God, because they know that there is no fire or darkness or gloom or earthquake that can possibly dislodge them from the powerful Name of Jesus Christ that has made them righteous.

What does God’s Word reveal in you this morning? Has the fearsome righteousness of God created in you a hatred for sin, or are you indifferent toward the Christlikeness you are called to strive for? Are you fighting against the tendency toward holding other affections and desires above God, or are you happy to have other idols crowding the god-shelf in your heart along with Him? Is your attitude known for a glad-hearted joy and gratitude to God for His holiness as you grow into His image, or are you full of condemnation for the sins you see around you (while giving a pass to the corruptions inside your own heart)?

Here is the great Gospel-invitation to you this morning: Love God and hate evil—be glad in Him because He has promised your righteousness through His Son, Who suffered in your place the terror and gloom of the holiness of God against your sin. So let go of your idols, turn away from your sin, repent of your small-minded attitude toward the immensity of His holiness and give glad-hearted thanks for the remembrance of the holy Name of your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Jude 24–25 LSB

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.