God Unchanging--Psalm 9:5-8

You have rebuked the nations; you have made the wicked perish;
You have blotted out their name forever and ever.
The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins;
Their cities you rooted out;
The very memory of them has perished
But the Lord sits enthroned forever;
He has established his throne for justice,
And he judges the world with righteousness;
He judges the people's with uprightness.

Last week I wrestled with the previous section (9:3-4), dealing with the righteous judgment of God. Today, I want to deal with the same thing, with perhaps another couple of insights, obviously going off of these few verses above.

First off, we need to be honest about Who it is we're dealing with here: GOD. Often times when I've spoken of God or even sang songs of worship to God, I've been guilty of simply singing or talking as if God were just another person, at the same level as me, with a background, a birthday, dreams and visions, feelings that can be hurt, etc.
But this isn't the God we see in the Bible. The God we see in the Bible is a God who is "from all eternity" (Psalm 93:2), is "the eternal King" (Jeremiah 10:10), is "immortal" (Romans 10:23), exists "from everlasting to everlasting" (Psalm 90:2), and is "the first and the last" (Isaiah 48:12). He is the Creator of all things (Genesis 1-2), He doesn't learn anything new from anyone (Isaiah 40:14), He "never changes" (James 1:17), and not only FROM and THROUGH Him exists all things, but TO Him exists all things (Romans 11:36).
If we're going to speak of God's character, we need to at least be Biblical, instead of speculating about what we think God is like (like we've all done), lest we make mistakes and sell Him short, which we will invariably do if we try to describe who God is in our own terms. Furthermore, why speculate?--He's revealed Himself clearly in Scripture. That's why I bring up all of those passages: Even if there's a distance between us and the pages we're reading (which there always is), we can't say God doesn't clearly show Himself to us in language we can understand. Furthermore, He's revealed Himself expressly through Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:2-3). The reason we don't go to the Scriptures to be taught by God about who He Himself is is because that would mean a) turning off all of our "noise" and listening to Him, b) being invited in to think the deep thoughts of God whereas our world and society continually pushes for a shallower level of shallowness, and c) humbling ourselves to do that which we know we can't do in and of ourselves. Nevertheless, He's revealed Himself.

God also says of Himself in Isaiah 55:8-9, "My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

In looking at the clear Scriptural description of God's character, we see a few things very clearly:
-God is transcendent, meaning that even to compare ourselves with God by saying we're ants and God's a genius giant would be a as far under the truth as one edge of the universe is from the other, and then more. There's not even the right language to compare ourselves with God, because He's SO far beyond us in every way. To call Him "transcendent" will suffice for now.
-God is eternal, meaning there's no time when God hasn't existed. Clever skeptics have often asked the question, "Well if God created the universe, who created God?" hoping to elicit a dumbfounded response, and often times met with one. But the question is stupid--NO ONE created God, that's what makes Him God. TIME is His creation, as well as SPACE. There isn't a thing that you could possibly know about anything at any given time without it being a gift from the Living God to you, just by virtue of the fact that it exists in time and space, which exists under God's sovereignty. God is before the beginning of time and after the end of time, as well as being outside of space. He's eternal.
-God is eternally wise and all-knowing. He knows everything, plain and simple. There isn't a single thing that's a surprise to Him, as He perfectly knows the past and the future with perfect clarity. His understanding knows no end.
-God is infinitely powerful, meaning there's no possible way that He could not get what He wants. There's also no possible way that He couldn't fulfill a promise. Because, in power, He's so far above the every day operations of the universe (and is the one who brings them about), there's nothing that couldn't be destroyed at a given second if He wanted it to be. There's also an infinite amount of things to be imagined that He could just call into existence that don't exist right now.
-Finally, God is holy. This means that the measuring rod of morality (right and wrong)--something that EVERYONE has and uses on a daily..even hourly..level--is only perfectly upheld by God. There's nothing He could do that could ever be wrong, because since all things find their source and purpose in Him, including RIGHT AND WRONG, He must be transcendent over that, too! He could ONLY be right, but He could NEVER be wrong.

Why do I bring all of this up? 2 reasons: 1) I want you to worship Him, and 2) I want you to understand (as much as we're capable) that He is the LAW for all things. If He makes rules, and they're not followed, He has every right to flood the Earth and kill off everyone if He wants to. In the Bible, He did that one time.
But that was the ONLY time He did it. He promised immediately afterward that He never would do it again, and He hasn't. So what's God to do with the fact that people STILL turn from Him and sin against Him?

The answer is found in another of God's attributes:
-God is the supreme embodiment of love and graciousness. As Exodus 34:6-7a famously says, "The Lord (is) a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." Being a loving God who shows grace and gives forgiveness, He would seem to be presented with a dilemma--what is He to do with this world that He forgives OVER and OVER and OVER again and just doesn't seem like it wants to change? The answer is that, in love, He pours out His Son Jesus to death on the cross, and whoever believes that Jesus is who He said He was (God), is forgiven (as God promised in the Exodus passage), and is filled with the Holy Spirit, which is simply the embodiment of God's presence with us (John 16:7-14, Acts 2:37-38). Being both forgiven of sin and blessed with His presence IN us, we live a lifestyle of repentance from sin into holiness before the Lord, which simply means living with God's glory as our primary target in all of life and practice, which is what we were created for in the first place. What kind of a God is this that would bring salvation to a people rebellious and hostile to Him, and actually do EVERYTHING along the way? The answer is 'no god'. Only THE God can be all of the aforementioned characteristics and still be as loving as He is.

Arguably the two best books I've read on God's character, outside of the Bible are A.W. Tozer's "The Knowledge of the Holy" and R.C. Sproul's "The Holiness of God". You should read them both. You'll digest them and be set on fire. You'll also be humbled and brought to your knees before God's throne, which wenaturally don't want to be!

Being the Absolute LAW for all of life, we see a passage in Psalm 9 that would make perfect sense from God's perspective, but doesn't seem to make sense from humanity's perspective. It's clear that a god who judges things is railed against almost instantaneously by our society. Why is this? It's simple: No one thinks they're wrong, or that anyone, including a Deity, has a right to judge them. I don't. I've struggled with God calling me a sinner.
But anyone who's a Christian will say easily that even though they didn't like it at first, the more and more they've been given eyes to see the way things really are, regarding the world and their self and the relationship between the world and their self, the more they've realized it's true. The thing that makes me a believer in what the Bible says is the fact that the worldview of the Bible seems to be 100% true. All that it says about how God is made known in His creation, about how the way things are aren't the way things are supposed to be, about how there IS life after death, about how there is better for us in our lives if we'll just surrender to the God who is there, etc., it would seems, makes sense, and is true. It HAS to be true. Otherwise, what hope is there for anything, in a world that seems to be headed to disaster at 100 miles a minute?

Verses 7-8 say "the Lord sits enthroned forever; He has established His throne for justice, and He judges the world with righteousness; He judges the people with uprightness."
Can I just say that this is a relief? Our whole lives are shrouded in the fear of how others will judge us. From the moment we wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and begin to get ourselves ready for the day, we're already in thought over making ourselves presentable. When we begin to walk out the door to some gathering of whatever sort, we're filled with at LEAST a small sense of anxiety over being around all of the people, in the fear that they will notice something imperfect about us, so we make small talk to shield ourselves (and them) from having to share what's really on our hearts and what really sits on the throne of our hearts. In a sense, we're constantly anxious over the fact that we know no one judges perfectly. We know they're imperfect, so we worry about what they'll think of us; and we know WE'RE imperfect, and since WE judge others based on unfair criteria (by what we see, instead of hearing the whole story), we know we'll get the fair treatment in the vice-verse.
But this passage--praise God--tells us that God, on His throne, judges with a perfect righteousness, and could never waver or change His mind regarding what He thinks of someone. How is this possible?: He knows all things, so there's no possibility of Him judging based on what He sees, when He knows what's really going on in someone's heart of hearts.

There's a passage in Isaiah 11 that speaks of when Jesus--God-with-us--will come to the Earth to pay the ransom for sin so that humans can be covenanted with God, and it attributes this same characteristic from the previous passage to Him (vv 3-4): "He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth..." Who are the poor? Not just those with little money. Everyone is the poor this passage refers to; because compared to Him and His glory He shares with the Father as the Sovereign Lord of all things, everyone is bankrupt. And since His holiness and perfection is beyond all comparison and couldn't even begin to be put into words (see Isaiah 6), the standard of His judgment will be righteousness perfected, just like the God David refers to in Psalm 9 (because Jesus IS that God).

Let me suggest that the reason it's a relief knowing that God judges in righteousness is due to the fact that since He knows all things that are in our hearts and minds, IF He accepts us and draws us to Himself as we are IN SPITE OF knowing the very core of our being, it MUST mean that He loves us. And yet we all know that "love" never means telling people what they want to hear or leaving people in their problems if their problems are killing them--we all know "love" means calling a spade a spade if it's a spade, in the name of HELPING the person who needs to change. They may rail against it at first, but if they stand up to overcome the obstacle, they ALWAYS know in the end that the person who told them the truth is their TRUE friend, compared to the ones who never wanted to confront them with their issue. This is God's character: He tells us what we need to hear, because He loves us. We've missed His standard of holiness, and instead of leaving us in our broken state to rot for eternity, He tells us the truth.

But that's not all: He causes us to change and be brought back into the light of truth. "In that day, you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free," are Jesus' words for His disciples. We all know truth stings at first, but if it breaks chains in the end, it was necessary. As God judges in righteousness, from the throne that sits for FOREVER, knowing our hearts from bottom to top, we can trust that He's NEVER wrong, and that's liberating. It's liberating when the hard truth we're hearing from Him is THE truth, because even though it hurts, IT'S THE TRUTH, and that's all we want in the end. And He EMPOWERS us to walk in light of this revealed truth.

I've spoken before about how society's rebelliousness towards God's judgment is misguided, but I'm going to touch on it again.
Many people say that they have trouble believing in a god who judges and tells people when they're wrong or are in sin. They say that a god who has standards is a bad god. But this is a faulty logic on many levels, and I'll list three reasons why:
1. Every single person sits on their own throne of judgment. There's not a person alive who doesn't judge others every single day. From walking on the sidewalk in downtown Pittsburgh and seeing a group of "rough looking" guys standing on the sidewalk ahead of me, I cross to the other side to miss them. Why? Because I'm using judgments based on what I've known in the past, but not necessarily based on the truth. I'm ASSUMING that those guys might jump me or cause problems, based on what? Probably TV more than anything. You've done things like this. Everyone does. Is the answer to just put ourselves in harms way at all times? No--the answer is to admit that we judge ALL the time.
2. If we could design a GOD-like figure, we would assign it standards by which to judge, too. Everyone, in their heart of hearts, knows that it's a bad god who lets everything pass in the name of "freedom". It would be a bad high school principal who lets his students do whatever they want, in the name of freedom and choice. He HAS to exercise rules, authority, and judgments, because if he doesn't anarchy will ensue. This is due to the fact that we don't really have any idea what we're capable of. Many murderers started off just like you. And God has standards because He's good and understands we will turn everything to crap left up to ourselves.
3. The reason why He tells you you're a sinner is because He wants better for you and is willing to come all the way down to your level for the sake of changing your heart and bringing you into that which you were created to be/have/experience. Life is a constant movement out of things we don't find satisfying into things we think are more worth it anyways, and the idea of a God telling you there's more and better is only congruent with our lives already. We change all the time anyways--He just tells us what is better to change into, and actually brings about the change necessary to get there.

In Sproul's "The Holiness of God", one of his main points is that there are far fewer people who don't believe in God than there are people who say they don't but really just don't LIKE God, so they say they don't believe in Him. I've heard that the two points of atheism are: a) I don't believe in God, b) and I hate him...ironic, huh? Why is it such a distressing thing to think of a God who transcends us, is better than us, and sits in the seat of judgment OVER us? It's because our whole lives are a house of cards we've built using perishable things, which is why any time you encounter someone who's better than you at what you're good at, it's devastating. It suddenly negates and tears apart your whole life right before your eyes, and you don't feel better until you go away from this transcendent person, back into your life where you're the go-to-person in this field, and get the house of cards built back up. But a fierce wind comes through, blows the house down again, and you're back to rebuilding.
It's the same way with your relationship to this God of the Bible: You live your life in the framework of no-god-ness, because you don't WANT God to be real, and any time the conversation of His being real comes up, you get defensive because your house of cards is being blown over yet again (maybe it is right now...I commend you for still reading).

But you need to know that even though God tells you His righteous requirements that you've MISSED, He's good for what He says. As I read recently in a Bryan Chapell book, "What God requires, He provides, and what He provides, He perfects." Don't fight it anymore--whatever it is that's causing you to rail against Him, just take a second to ponder on the fact that He MUST be loving if you've missed His righteous requirement and you're still here. He is. He loves you, and even though you sit in His hand right now and it's the the most fearful place in the world, it's also the most freeing place. He will help you live up to His standards. You're living up to someone's standards already in every part of your life, but they're not righteous and you're never promised grace from anyone (including yourself). But with God, you ARE promised grace and forgiveness. So seek HIS standard, knowing that a) they're the best standards, b) He sets them because He loves you and knows what's best for you, and c) He'll help you.

Call out to Jesus who is your hope for salvation. He won't abandon you and He won't leave you in the dust. Instead, He CAME to the dust and WENT to the cross, because the holy God of the universe loves you enough to give His Son for the sake of drawing you to Himself. His throne is forever, His righteousness is righteous, and His hands are good. Trust Him today.