Sermon(Ps 18): The perfect God

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025252099

 

 

 

 

Scripture reading: Ps 18

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>> .... 6 In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. .... 20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me. 21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. 22 For all his ordinances were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me. 23 I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. 24 Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. .... <<

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When others disdain and make a fool of you, you can use this phrase in Korea: "Do you see (regard) me as water?"(, which means "Do you think I am a foolish and feeble man?") Or this phrase: “Do you intend me to drink water?”(, which means "Are you going to deceive me?") Beloved Brethren, do not see your God as water! Do not give him water (false promise and commitment)! A man with a good heart but without strength is not perfect. A man with an evil mind and strength is not perfect, too. A perfect man is good in heart, full of love, rich in wealth, and powerful in defeating the enemies. In other words, the perfect man is the one who has everything except the evil and dirty mind. Do not see this man as water, or you have to pay dearly! If you regard the perfect God as a fool, you must pay dearly!

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God is perfect, so he punishes the wicked thoroughly. “With the crooked thou dost show thyself perverse. The haughty eyes you dost bring down. (v. 26, 27)” Here, the crooked man is one who has crooked mind and lives the life of doing others harm. In this passage, we are talking about people who are trying to treat men and God like a fool. There were some people in the Bible who were punished by God when they were fooling God. The representative guile of human beings is to make a pitiful appearance before God and to pray to him desperately for help, and then, after getting blessings, to forget all his grace. To such people, God is a formidable God of retributive justice. God causes all their wealth to vanish away through accidents, thieves and illness. God sends them swindlers more crooked than they in order to empty their purses. So that nothing, even not a dust, may be left with them! When Israel betrayed God, he caused the neighboring countries to thrive, to invade Israel and to rob it of all. Do you wish to defeat God with wisdom and logic? Please quit! What a disastrous defeat did those suffer who dug a pit for Jesus? “Render to Caesar (the emperor) the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. (Lk 20:25 )” By this one word, Jesus' opponents had to shut their crafty mouths. The Bible says that man can not beat God in wisdom and strength. When man resorts to petty tricks against God, God takes action so that the man himself may be deceived (or be a bitten biter). When man shows off his strength before God, God uses another man, who is very ignorant but much stronger than the man, in order to break the arrogant man's pride.

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Some people may object to this sermon, saying, "There are so many stories about the loving God in the Bible, how can you teach such a crude God of retaliation?" Yes! God loves man so much! But we need to know that as his love is great and deep, so the wrath toward his betrayers is great. He who says that God is a God of love and never punishes the wicked is a fool and an ignoramus ignorant of the Bible. God is one who can cast powerful demons into the hell with one word, demons who are backing up the strongest and most wicked men in the world. When we think of this powerful and majestic God, we will turn from sins and live righteous life. When a man as a husband and father loses his authority in home, his children are apt to degenerate. A wife who likes to despise her husband in front of her children is a foolish woman ruining her children. And the clergy are doing a foolish ministry in the church if they emphasize only the God of love but do not teach the believers his dignity and sternness. If there are believers in the church who are habitually late for the worship of God, dishonestly offer tithes, and show a careless attitude toward the proclaimed word of God, they must be scolded with a harsh rebuke. God's power and majesty prevents the Devil and the power of evil from attacking the church and the believers, and prevents believers from swerving from the right path. Dear children of God, please do not regard God as a ruthless God without love because he passes harsh judgment on the world.

 

 

God blesses the righteous because he is perfect. Today's Psalm 18 is a poem that David composed when he thought of God's grace on the day the God delivered David from all his enemies and Saul's hand. To David, God was indeed a very good one. The reason was that God was a better father than his fleshly father. What kind of God was the God whom David met? “Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. With the loyal thou dost show thyself loyal; with the blameless man thou dost show thyself blameless; with the pure thou dost show thyself pure; and with the crooked thou dost show thyself perverse. (v. 24-26)” My brethren, because God hates evil and punishes us if we sin, he will surely give us clean and perfect blessings if we obey his word and live a righteous life.

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God gives clean blessings to righteous men. There may be many dirty blessings(!) in the world. Of course, those are not true blessings. All the worldly things that have been gained in sin in the world are dirty blessings. He who enjoys such things is heaping sins on his head every day. The dirty worldly blessings they enjoyed will decisively lead them to hell at the last judgment. Those dirty blessings are only tokens of their curse for they will go to hell thanks to them. But the clean blessings come from God. God gives clean blessings unrelated to sins to those who have been living a pure and honest life without greed. Your store prospers without cheating. Suddenly, a brilliant business idea comes to your mind. A colleague who has liked to attack you strangely resigns himself. He who tried to cheat you is entrapped by his own trick and falls into ruin. Even an infectious disease manages to avoid your family. Of course, you may have to spend medical expenses for such disease as a cold, but all your money will not be spent for the cure of serious illness. Strangely enough, your company or workshop is getting bigger every day, Strangely enough, the number of those who come to your small store is growing every day. Your children carve out their lives without much money. Everyone! God has a lot of good ideas that can really make you rich. God will really give you a clean blessing when you are honest in the eyes of God and man. When we desire the holy and clean blessing of God without seeking the dirty worldly blessings, God will look on our hearts and permit us the heavenly blessings.

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God blesses righteous men with perfect blessings. A perfect blessing is a blessing that does not lack in anything. If a poor man has received the perfect blessing, he gladly gives thanks to God even for a trifle he has. This man does not envy the rich, because God always gives him all that he really needs. Rather, he will be filled with infinite gratitude and joy when God answers his prayers miraculously and at a proper time. If a rich man is blessed with the perfect blessing, he does not sin with riches but reveals God's power and glory with it, and uses it in good works to save many people. Righteous men are not discriminated in God, no matter how rich or poor they are. A (righteous) rich man is humble and poor in heart while a (righteous) poor man always looks confident as if he possessed all. Because God is the lord of the rich and the father of the poor. The righteous are not lowly people, even if they are of low status. Because they are the children of God. The righteous are not arrogant even if they are high in status. Because they are servants of God and are caring for the poor. It is the righteous person who knows how to be satisfied in any situation and is always happy and grateful, and such faith itself is the perfect blessing. Is a man really happy just because he is rich? Is a lot of money itself a blessing? No, it isn't!

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David always lived in a perfect blessing, whether in the days of humbleness or in the days of dignity. When David was chased by the enemies and suffered the threat of death, with him was the God who was the rock, fortress, hiding place, shield, horn of salvation, stronghold. The more he suffered, the greater power of God he received; and the more his life was in danger, the more clearly he saw God's strong arms. Even when he was going through the gloomy valley of death, he suffered no need in anything, because God was with him. God gave better blessings than before to David who had gone through these difficult young years. He made David king of Israel. Now David has taken over the kingdom, but another hardship comes to David. It is not an external temptation or an ordeal; it is internal one. When he was weak, he depended on God and became a righteous man; but when he became a powerful king, he was in a position to abandon the laws of God. But David confesses: “For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his ordinances were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. (v. 21-24)” David was humble in the sight of God even when he was a king, and ruled the sheep of his God, the people of Israel, in equity and justice. He ruled not with self-interest, but with a pure and honest mind. Of course, even after he became king, he sinned a couple of times, but he was forgiven because he was fundamentally honest and humble in heart. He said, "The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me. (v. 20)" This means that David confesses that God has given all the abundance and glory that he has received. Some may think that David is proud because he is speaking of 'my(his) righteousness' or 'the cleanness of my(his) hand', but if he was really proud, why did he say that the blessing on him had come from God? David tried to live righteously before God as far as he could, and he confessed his sins to God as far as he could recall them, and was forgiven them. Thus David felt guilty no longer, so he could say, "my righteousness" or "the cleanness of my hands". Brethren, I'll acknowledge that you are humble even if you say 'my(your) righteousness' or 'the cleanness of my(your) hands', but on condition that you live as David did. What a clean and perfect blessing David had, for he feared the God so much after he had become a king (without sins) in his honesty!

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God made neighboring nations servants of David because he did everything honestly before God after he became king. "Thou didst deliver me from strife with the peoples; thou didst make me the head of the nations (v. 43). The God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me (v. 47). For this I will extol thee, O Lord, among the nations, and sing praises to thy name (v. 49). Great triumphs he gives to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his descendants for ever (v. 50).” Kings and peoples of other kingdoms bowed their heads to David. What is a better perfect blessing than this? Even if you are a king, it would be a shame if you were summoned to a king of another kingdom and had to kneel before him. David had the blessing that his power was extended to neighboring countries. No blessing is better than this! This man David did again what pleased God. David praised and exalted the name of God in the presence of the kings and the peoples of the neighboring nations who had an audience with him. My brethren, you are blessed by God with perfect blessings so that you can reveal his glory and extol him before many people.

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God is the perfect one. He sends 'wrath and punishment' as well as 'love and blessing'. He shows his wrath to the wicked, to make all people know clearly his strength and power, and shows his love to the righteous, to make all people see clearly his mercy.

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May you live a righteous life before God and enjoy the perfect blessings that he gives.

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Chong Tack Kim

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                               - Dongtoma Sunshine Shurch -