“Where is God? Where is justice?” These are questions that have been asked hundreds and thousands of times throughout history. Whether it is by some as we hear of evil on a world-wide scale such as during the holocaust or in our own lives as people and circumstances seem to be against us on an overwhelming scale. It is not uncommon to hear the questions, “Where is God?” or “Where is justice?” Nor are these questions that have been asked only by those who lacked knowledge of God. For even in Psalm 74, the psalmist ends asking, in essence, where God is. He petitions God to defend his cause, to remember those who scoff at him, and not to forget the uproar that continually goes up against him. He says this, no doubt, because on some level his own heart is asking him, “Where is God?” and “Where is Justice?” So how do we answer these questions in a world where evil, death, Satan, and every enemy of God seems to be having their way? One place we can turn to help us answer these questions is Psalm 75.

Psalm 75 is a psalm of thanksgiving, a psalm in which the author begins and ends with giving thanks to the Lord, and in between these two exclamations recounts why God is worthy of such praise, although the content of this middle section might seem odd and alarming to us at first. The psalm itself can be divided into four sections. Verse 1 stands as an introduction to the psalm in which the psalmist declares that the people give thanks to God for his mighty deeds. Then, in verses 2-5, the Lord speaks, declaring that he will one day judge the earth even as he reigns over it, including his enemies, whom he commands not to rise up against him. Then, in verses 6-8 the psalmist speaks again providing in some ways a commentary on what the Lord has just declared. He points out that God indeed is sovereign over the world and that God’s enemies will be judged. Finally, in verses 9-10, the psalmist declares again God’s praises in light of what has been recounted in verses 2-8.

And it is the content of verses 2-8, in which the psalmist tells us why God is worthy of praise that proves especially helpful for us in answering God’s seeming absence at times in the midst of great evil or the seeming absence of justice that we see every day in our world. Let us, therefore, this morning turn to these verses, see something of the ways of our God, and then walk out of these doors with a better knowledge of the one we rightly call our Lord.

First, we see from these verses that …

God is right now reigning over the earth, sustaining it, and lifting up and putting down individuals as he wishes

The Lord declares in verse 3, “When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars.” The idea of the earth tottering with its inhabitants is most likely a reference to the effects of evil. Thus, the Lord is declaring that when evil and all its effects seem to be shaking the earth to its core, the Lord is the one who steadies the earth and holds it together.

That is to say, when everything seems to be falling to pieces, even then the Lord is in control. Now this does not mean that we will be able to see the Lord’s hand, how he’s working, or some great degree of lessening of evil. It does mean, however, that we can at all times that the Lord is in control. Thus, we can know that the Lord is reigning whether we can see his hand or not.

In September of 1530 Martin Luther wrote to Philip Melanchthon, a friend and colleague at Wittenberg, to comfort him as he faced Catholic theologians who were a threat to his theology and possibly his life. He wrote the following:

“I hope and pray that you may be strong and of good courage and undisturbed by the outward face and appearance of things present, for you know how fully everything is in the hand of God, who in a single moment can cover the heavens with clouds and clear them again. Indeed, he not only does this, but it pleases him to do it.”¹

And so we see from this psalm that indeed everything fully is in the hand of God. The details of my life and yours and every minute thing occurring in this moment and that will occur forever more until the Lord returns all occur within God’s oversight, as he sustains the world. Though the earth shake and its inhabitants, God keeps steady its pillars. He right now is reigning over the earth, regardless of how the picture might look to us.

In addition, he is lifting up and putting down individuals. Therefore, as we look out and see the mighty powers of man and rulers in this world, we can also declare in that moment that one only has power because God has allowed it, and when he is put down it is by the hand of God. Thus, Jesus declares to Pilate, as Pilate declares to him his authority, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11).

Therefore, as the world cries out (and maybe at times, God’s own people with them), “Where is God in the midst of the evil and the earth’s inhabitants shaking against him?,” the answer is that God is reigning over it, steadying the earth and its pillars.

“Then,” we might ask, “what about all of his enemies? Is God simply one to come steady things but do nothing about his enemies or for his people? Is he simply coming to settle the earth but do nothing about those shaking it or for those seeking his glory?” The answer is also found in these verses as we see that …

God will one day judge the earth and its inhabitants, and his judgment will include vengeance against his enemies and vindication of his people

These are the wondrous deeds about which the psalmist says, “We give thanks to you, O God … we recount your wondrous deeds” (1). He give thanks for the Lord’s judgment. Now, again, for some reason this element of judgment has completely fallen off the landscape of American Christianity. We think of salvation in pictures similar to a loving individual coming and taking an orphan out of a bad situation, holding him, stroking his hair, and loving him forever. That is in no way an incorrect picture, for adoption itself is a picture of salvation. However, if that alone is how we understand salvation, then we have an insufficient picture. And that is clearly seen in our psalm.

Look again at the verses for which the psalmist declares praise to the Lord. God declares that he will judge with equity (2), he declares to the boastful and wicked not to lift their horns against him (4-5), he declares that God is the one executing judgment(6-7), and he declares that God’s enemies will drink down the cup of wine (a metaphor for his great wrath) down to the dregs (8). Does not this picture take us back a bit? But it shouldn’t.

It shouldn’t because it is the picture for salvation throughout the Scripture. In the garden the first promise of the gospel is a threat to the serpent telling him his head would be crushed. In the Exodus, redemption is pictured as the Egyptians being drowned in the sea. With Goliath salvation is picture with David, the Lord’s anointed, cutting off his head. In Isaiah 27 the great day of salvation includes Leviathan being conquered with the Lord’s great and strong sword. And it is why the two texts that probably most accurately parallel our text this morning are two texts in which women declare a prayer and song to the Lord after having a son or knowing she would have a son.

The first of these texts is 1 Samuel 2:1-10. Hannah had prayed for a son, the Lord gave her Samuel, she takes him to the temple to dedicate him to the Lord, and then she prays. And you would expect it to be a prayer for which the background music could be that of a lullaby, but it is not. She begins saying that he heart exults in the Lord but she ends declaring, “The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the power of his anointed” (10). The other text that parallels so well is Mary’s song as she sings of having the Christ child. She begins declaring that her soul magnifies the Lord, and then in the midst of it she declares, “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones …” (Luke 1:51-52).

What in the world are these ladies doing? They are praying and singing as they praise the Lord for his salvation. For salvation includes not only the vindication of God’s people but the judgment of his enemies as well.

In the same way, one ruling over his enemies was often pictured in the ancient near east as the king having his foot on the neck of his enemy as if the throat of his enemy is his footstool. Thus, as Peter stands in his first sermon to declares the salvation of God accomplished in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ he quotes Psalm 110:1 which declares, “The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool’” (Acts 2:35). It is why Paul declares that at the resurrection that last enemy to be destroyed (death) will indeed be destroyed. For salvation includes God’s judgment of his enemies.

That is what our psalm celebrates. And though it sounds odd at first glance, no doubt all of us have longed for the destruction of Satan, sin, and death. Any of us who have witnessed the reign of death in our families as we lost parents or children, or have seen the effects of sin where marriages are torn apart, or have seen the news where burned bodies are hanging from a bridge in Iraq have cried out in our hearts, “God judge your enemies.” We have cried out for salvation.

And God declares in this psalm (no doubt, in part, to answer Psalm 74:22-23, “At the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity. … For 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” (75:1, 8).

Yet salvation also includes the vindication of the righteous ones. That is, as God’s enemies are judged, those who are his friends, his children, will be exalted. This is declared in verse 10 of our psalm as the psalmist declares, “All the horns of the wicked I will cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up.” But how can we be spared, for we are all deserving of judgment. The answer is in the Lord’s declaration from the garden, “Your will be done” after asking if this cup might pass from him.

That is, the cup spoken of in Psalm 75:8 was drunk down for God’s children by the Lord on the cross. He drank it down to the dregs so that we might not have to drink it. Our judgment is therefore in him. And even as he was raised and vindicated three days later as the Lord declared him righteous, so we will be vindicated in him at that last day. It is even as Paul writes in Romans 4:25, “He was raised for our justification.”

Thus, Psalm 75 gives thanks to the Lord for the work that we know has begun in death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord. God displayed his sovereign rule by sending his Son into a world where death reigns and conquering death, by allowing his Son to receive the punishment we deserved, by conquering every enemy so that all might be put under his feet, by raising his Son and giving him all authority in heaven and on earth so that he might reign over the world. This reigning of God, judgment of his enemies, and vindication of his people is begun in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and it will be completed when he returns.

Therefore, how must we respond to this psalm?

First, for the non-Christian who is an enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ, you must repent and believe, otherwise you will know the judgment that is to come.

For the Christian, we must join the psalmist in praising and thanking God for a salvation we do not deserve and for a freedom from judgment that cost our Lord drinking down that cup on the cross.

Also, we must then walk through life in labor unto the Lord, allowing his reign and ultimate judgment to guide our decisions. Specifically we must take to heart that we can …

1. Forgive those who sin against us, knowing that our judgment is not the final word.
2. Hate evil and yet not be overcome by it, knowing that there is a day when it will be no more.
3. Undergo persecution, knowing there is a glory to come to which the sufferings of this world are not worthy of comparison.
4. Pray in confidence, knowing God reigns over the earth and steadies its pillars.
5. Obey God in difficult circumstances, for the same God whose hands are guiding history is showing himself close to us in his wondrous deeds.
6. Labor diligently and responsibly in life and yet rest, even concerning things outside of your control, knowing that even God’s enemies are lifted up and put down by his sovereign hand.
7. And, finally, eagerly long for the day when Christ will return to finish that which he has started in his life, death, burial, and resurrection – knowing it is sure.

Amen.

¹Martin Luther, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, Vol. 18 of Library of Christian Classics, ed. Theodore G. Trappert (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955), 159.

A LOOK AT GOD, JUSTICE, AND REDEMPTION

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