Thanksgiving is a time when we offer thanks to God for all of His bountiful goodness to us. We will all eat a Thanksgiving dinner somewhere and I trust be thankful for God's loving kindness and care for us.

 David is thankful for God's providential protection, care and wonderful Justice. We probably don't emphasize God's Justice and Judgment enough. Let’s consider this attribute of God this morning.

          The first time we learn of God threatening judgment was when He created Adam and decreed death for him if he ate fruit from a certain tree.

Adam was the first man. He did not evolve. He was created as a perfect man with excellent intelligence and a sinless nature. He was placed in a paradisiacal place called Eden. God gave Adam a wife whom he named Eve because she was to be the mother of all living human beings.

In the garden Adam and Eve had access to the tree of life. They could freely eat from all the trees of the garden but they were prohibited upon pain of death from eating from one particular tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The prohibition was a simple probationary test of Adam’s obedience to God the Creator and Ruler. We all know the sad story.  The serpent tempted Eve and both Eve and Adam sinned by eating from the forbidden tree. When Adam disobeyed God he brought upon himself and his wife the threatened punishment of death. But his fall into sin and death was not for them alone. Adam acted as the representative head for all of his descendants who came after them by ordinary generation.

David prays in verses 13 & 14, Be gracious to me, O LORD; See my affliction from those who hate me, You who lift me up from the gates of death, That I may tell of all Your praises, That in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in Your salvation.

David knew that God had a plan of salvation. He also believed that the God of his salvation could hear his prayers and deliver him from his enemies who desired his death. By God’s deliverance he would be able to continue to sing God’s praises among the people of God for his salvation.

          Believers are in a special relationship with God that affords them protection from their enemies. He states in verses 3 and 4, When my enemies turn back,

They stumble and perish before You. ⁴ For You have maintained my just cause;     You have sat on the throne judging righteously.

Because of his salvation David believed he was under the special care and protection of God. God’s justice worked in his favor in protecting him from enemies.

The gospel is the good news that God made a way for sinners to be made just in His sight. God’s justice must be satisfied before he can declare righteous a sinner. He does this by means of substitution. A sinner can be forgiven his sins provided divine justice has been satisfied for him in the person of a suitable substitute. This substitute can redeem a person who is guilty of sin by taking the punishment justly due for sin. In such a case to qualify as a redeemer the substitute must    himself be innocent and sinless. A substitute who had even a taint of sin could not meet the condition of innocence and sinlessness. He would be disqualified if he had ever sinned even one time. This eliminates any person born of the seed of Adam since all descendants of Adam inherit a sinful nature. For this reason God had to provide a sinless man to be the substitute. This substitute person had to come into this fallen, sin-cursed world     without the imputed sin of Adam in his soul or body. He then must live a perfect life and never sin. He had to be like the first Adam before his fall, innocent and sinless and if after being born he ever sinned even one time he   would be disqualified from serving as a sinless substitute. This is why Jesus had to be born of a virgin, God had to prepare a sinless and undefiled body for the substitute that was not of Adam’s race; so Jesus is conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit.

The gospel of Luke Chapter 1:30-38 tells of how this was done. The angel Gabriel appeared to a virgin named Mary. ³⁰The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. ³¹“And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. ³²“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; ³³and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” ³⁴Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” ³⁵The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God. ³⁶“And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. ³⁷“For nothing will be impossible with God.” ³⁸And Mary said, “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. Luke 1:30-38 (NASB)

 But not only must Jesus the Redeemer live a sinless life, he must voluntarily offer himself to receive in his own body the penalty for sin in the stead of and on behalf of all for whom he offers himself as a substitute. This could not be a make-believe or imaginary punishment. He actually had to taste death and submit to the agony and horror of it if the penalty for sin was to be paid in full; also God had to show that he accepted his sacrifice by raising him from the dead.

This redemption was perfectly accomplished by God’s Son Jesus Christ. ¹⁶“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. ¹⁷“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. ¹⁸“He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. ¹⁹“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. ²⁰“For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. ²¹“But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” John 3:16- 3:21 

God’s salvation also includes the giving of a new ability and empowerment to those who are recipients of God’s grace to enable them to keep God’s Word.  A person dead in trespasses sins lacks the ability to keep God’s commandments and statutes. But now in Jesus Christ a sinner is given the Holy Spirit to indwell him and he is freed from the chains and shackles of sin.

 In Hebrews 10:14-18 we are told:  For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. ¹⁵And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying,

¹⁶ “This is the covenant that I will make with them

    After those days, says the Lord:

    I will put My laws upon their heart,

    And on their mind I will write them,”

He then says,

¹⁷ “And their sins and their lawless deeds

¹⁸Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

David expresses a very deep and wonderful appreciation for the righteousness judgment of God. He could rejoice in his salvation and also could praise God for His justice and judgment. Why? Because God’s justice works to the advantage and comfort of the saved man for the simple reason that the haters of God and enemies to the cause of Christ are sure to be defeated and ruined. David believed that his life was to serve this God of perfect righteousness, to keep His laws and magnify his righteousness at all times in all places with all persons. David did not always perfectly do that but when he failed he repented and returned to the Lord with all his heart.

In verses 3-6 of Psalm 9 we get the picture of a God of perfect rectitude and justice completely vanquishing all of David’s enemies. ³     When my enemies turn back, They stumble and perish before You. ⁴  For You have maintained my just cause; You have sat on the throne judging righteously. ⁵ You have rebuked the nations, You have destroyed the wicked; You have blotted out their name forever and ever.  ⁶  The enemy has come to an end in perpetual ruins, And You have uprooted the cities; The very memory of them has perished.

Those that oppose the people of God when they are sincerely engaged in seeking to serve this righteous God are assured that their enemies are doomed to destruction in their evil enterprises.

David praises God and gives thanksgiving to him when his enemies turn back, stubble and perish before him. David sees this as God maintaining his just cause. 

          David could have been remembering the nations that had been in the land before God drove them out and established Israel in their lands. He could have remembered the antediluvians before the flood. He could have remembered the cities of the plain that God destroyed with fire from heaven. And David had probably seen or known in his own lifetime many proud and wicked nations that had been uprooted and. brought to an end.

          This judgment process goes on all the time. It is going on now. This is true both as an ongoing process and is certain as a final completion on the Day of Judgment, why because-­⁷  But the LORD abides forever; He has established His throne for judgment,  And He will judge the world in righteousness;  He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity.

The righteous are glad and give thanks and sing praise to him who judges righteously. I am satisfied that there are nations and cities that God has removed that we don’t even remember anymore. There are some that we only know from the Scriptures. For a long time historians believed that the Assyrians were a mythological nation that never really existed. They thought the Bible was wrong when it spoke of the Assyrians until archeologists discovered ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh.

Babylon, the ancient capitol of the world, is no more. God declared through Jeremiah the forthcoming destruction of that great city and said that it would not be inhabited, that it would be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities. No man will live there, nor will any son of man reside in it. And so it is today, a silent witness to the judgment of God.

Where is the Third Reich that was going to endure for a thousand years? Where today is the mighty Soviet Union? Where is the mighty Persian Empire, the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great; the Roman Empire of the Caesars? God has judged them and they are gone.

Because God is eternal His government is also eternal. God is holy and just, therefore He is a moral Governor and a Righteous Judge. All wrongs must be righted. All sins must be punished. All injustice must be corrected. This means that those who have been wronged will see their just cause made right, and those who are unjust in their words and actions will be punished for their crimes. The righteouses are glad about this.

We see in our own nation much injustice and we see crime and violence on every hand. What are the people of God to do? David has the answer for us in this Psalm of Thanksgiving. We are to put our trust in God and call upon Him to deliver us from evil. My prayer is that God will either minister salvation to our enemies or execute judgment on them.

We are to remember his justice and praise him for it. We are to study both Biblical history and secular history and learn from it that God has ever and always dealt with men and nations righteously. As he says in verse 16 & 17 ¹⁵   The nations have sunk down in the pit which they have made; In the net which they hid, their own foot has been caught.

¹⁶ The LORD has made Himself known; He has executed judgment. In the work of his own hands the wicked is snared.

          At times it may seem that God has forgotten, that God doesn't see, that God is not on the throne, but David says,  ⁹  The LORD also will be a stronghold for the oppressed, A stronghold in times of trouble; ¹⁰ And those who know Your name will put their trust in You,  For You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You.

Let us join David in thanking God for his righteousness and justice. Let us give thanks to the Lord with all our hearts. Let us tell of His wonders and be glad and exult in Him. Let us sing praise to the Name of God Most High. Let us plead His cause against the rising tide of mischief, violence and terrorism that we see in the world. Let us plead with God to defend His cause and His people and rebuke the wicked, yea, if need require it, destroy the wicked. Let God send upon the earth his judgments that will let the nations know that they are but men and that they cannot prevail against God. Let us be ever so thankful that there is a God of perfect rectitude and holy justice that will know just what to do. Let us with zeal pursue His cause, preaching the gospel of His love to all we can, persisting in the face of persecution and opposition, knowing that our cause is just. Be thankful all ye people, for our God reigns and he is on the throne of his glory judging righteously.

Hymn #134 “God Will Take Care of You”

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The paper and sermon manuscripts from Pastor Todd W. Allen are made freely available for review and distribution. We only request that proper web page attribution be provided if distributed for any reason. Please be gracious to forgive typos and errors of expression. These notes are faithful approximations of what has been preached. May God be glorified in the preaching of His Word.

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