Understanding Psalm 74: A Study of Lament and Divine Kingship

Join Preston as he dives deep into Psalm 74, exploring its themes of lament and divine kingship. Preston discusses the communal lament of Israel during times of trauma and national humiliation, highlighting the poetic imagery of God slaying sea monsters. This study connects ancient cultural stories with biblical texts, offering insights into how believers can express their faith and call on God in times of intense pain and suffering. Discover the relevance of these ancient scriptures in contemporary life and learn how faith can provide strength through chaos and lament.

00:00 Introduction and Opening Remarks
00:18 The Relevance of Psalm 74
01:21 Understanding Communal Lament
03:46 Israel's Complaint to God
07:43 The Boldness of Lament
11:42 Remembering God's Past Victories
14:28 Cultural Context and Imagery
22:23 Applying Psalm 74 to Modern Life
24:43 The Call to Action and Conclusion

Transcript

Good evening. We've got a couple handouts being passed around. If you'd like one of those tonight if you would go ahead and open up your Bibles to Psalm chapter 74 tonight. That's where we're gonna be studying pretty much exclusively from until the end of our lesson tonight. But when it comes to preaching.

You know, there's two things you're always trying to do besides, you know, preach the gospels. You, you always wanna preach something that you're passionate about, something that excites you, but you also wanna preach something that is relevant because you're preaching to a congregation and you're trying to encourage the people and speak to the needs of the people in the congregation.

And every once in a while those stars align where maybe there's a text that you really, really wanna preach on because you find it really interesting or really fun to talk about. And it's relevant to what's going on in the lives of people in the congregation we're conversations we're having as a church.

And so Psalm 74 is the stars aligning for me. And tonight, because it is as, as I'll refer to it as the boast metal of all of the Psalms. It is super hardcore. And that's because it talks about God slay dragon slay dragons plural, actually. And as we'll get into in just a few moments, but it's a communal lament.

Psalm 74 is a lament that is Israel is delivering through ASAP in a time of deep pain. In trauma and national humiliation. And out of that comes this ancient story that Asaf is kind of recounting on behalf of Israel. Where God is victorious over this sea monster, these sea monsters and the leviathan.

And so Psalm 74 is really cool in a lot of ways. Maybe that's a bad way to describe a communal lament. But I hope we will have some interesting things to, to think about that maybe will give us some kind of cultural backgrounds as far as how the Psalm Psalmist may be viewing. This kind of picture, this poetic image of which, in which he's talking about God.

But also help us learn a little bit about lament and give us some teaching as we've been kind of thinking about in our Bible class on Sunday morning. And so I'm gonna geek out a little bit in this sermon, so if you, you know, start feeling like your eyes are glazing over, I'll hopefully try to pull you back in with some, some relevant teaching on Lament tonight.

But bear with me and, you know. I, I've been here a year now. I've preached 20 sermons. This is number 21, I think. You know, gimme one, gimme one a year. This is the one where I'm gonna geek out a little bit, and hopefully you'll find some interesting things in it too. But Psalm setting forth. Awesome. It's so cool, and I hope you'll see some of that tonight as well.

But it's a communal event, like we said, and it's broken up into three pretty distinct parts. First the complaint where Israel through Asaf. Is letting God know that things are not how they ought to be. And at the heart of the Psalm where we kind of get this dragon slaying imagery is a remembrance.

Remembering this ancient story that God is the king from of old, and it's something that's gonna be carrying them through this really difficult time. And then finally, a call to action. God, oh God, arise and defend your cause is what the Psalmist says here. And so at the outset, I think looking at this shape is helpful in terms of thinking about how we structure our own personal elements but it's also going to be kind of the trajectory of our lesson tonight as well.

But as we said, the Psalmist asap, he's kind of the voice of Israel. He's talking for the nation, Israel. He starts in verse one with his com complaint. Israel is in great pain as we're about to read about because they're in they're they're experiencing great pain at the hands of an enemy, and they're speaking very honestly to God.

They say things to God that we probably wouldn't dare say on a normal day. But this lament, this national Le Lament is not an everyday prayer to God. It's the language of lament intense pain and trauma in the life of the believers is now giving birth to this very daring language of the believers to God.

And so let's start reading and we'll continue to go through the psalm and let's start in verse one. This is kind of the situation. The Psalmist's painting says, oh God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your past of your pasture? Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage.

Remember Mount Zion where you have dwelt direct your steps to the perpetual ruins. The enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary. And then he goes on to talk about these blasphemy, blasphemous acts of the enemy and what they have done to God's home in Zion. And when he says in verse four, look at all, look at the things that he lists here.

Your for your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place. They set up their own signs for signs, which is probably battle standards of some kind. Which of the opposing enemy likely bore the image of their gods? They're saying their gods have triumphed over Yahweh, the God of Israel, and so.

That's bringing an idol into the temple. That's a blasphemous act. But he says in verse five, they were like, those who swing axes in a forest of trees, all it's carved wood, they broke down with hatchets and hammers. All the ornate beautiful designs within the temple are being down. And we're, and just scrapped by the enemy.

He says in verse seven, they set fire to your sanctuary. They profane the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground. They said to themselves, we will utterly subdue them. They burned all the meeting places of God in the land. And so the fundamental problem, the lament that Israel's bringing to God is that they feel like they've been abandoned.

An enemy has come and they have conquered Israel and they've destroyed the temple. They were God's purchase, his redeemed people, but now they're cast off in God's anger, smokes against them, God's home. Zion, the temple, Jerusalem, it's been invaded and conquered. It's in ruins, and so the psalmist calls the Lord to remember, direct your steps to the sanctuary saying, Hey, don't forget us.

Come and see what you've allowed to happen because you've left. Of course, historically speaking, we're we're talking about most likely the destruction, the Babylonian destruction of the temple in 5 87, 5 86 bc And we know from the story of scripture that that was caused by Israel's disobedience, their their inability to hold to the covenant, but the psalmist doesn't focus on Israel's sin.

Instead, he's concerned with God's silence over the enemy's desecration of the temple, treating these holy things as profane and these deeds of the enemy. They're in the front to Yahweh. That's what the psalm, how he, how he sees them, he's astonished, and that God, he would allow God to let this happen.

This is the place where your name is dwelled and you're letting these guys come in and raise banners of their own idols as if they've conquered you. How? Why would you let this happen? But the psalmist continues to get even more bold in his language. Look what he says in verse nine through 11. Here he says, we do not see our signs.

There is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us. Who knows how long? How long, oh Lord is the foe to scoff is the enemy to revile your name forever. Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand, and look at what he says here? This is pretty amazing. Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them.

You know, it's already pretty bold of him to say, you know, have you, have you forgotten us, God, where? Where have you gone to? But here the Psalmist continues to ask, well, how long are you going to let this happen to us? Why don't you do something? And and the last statement in verse 11, I think is, it's amazing.

He, he's basically saying, you know, you ever, your dad ever told you when you're outside working, you know, Hey, get your hand outta your pockets because you're supposed to be working, you're supposed to be doing something. And you're like, oh, you know, you're little kid. You don't want, you wanna keep your hands in your pocket, you don't wanna do anything.

Right? Well, the psalmist is almost saying something like that to God. And that might make us a little bit uncomfortable and it, it should, because this is not a normal situation, right? This is a time of intense lament. And I think when we think about how this might apply ourselves in times of intense lament, we're not talking about, you know, minor things in our life.

We're talking about serious times of intense pain and trauma that we might that maybe few of us in here have actually endured. There's times when we experience a tragedy like this in, in our lives, and I think maybe we're, we're tempted to feel like we have to grin and bear through all of it as if everything's okay when it's not.

And even when we think about this word complaint, we might think, well, that's an unusual word to use and maybe a potentially sinful attitude to have towards God. And in pain, we might in prayer tend to to be on the side of reverence rather than kind of pulling our punches and being honest with God. And no doubt, reverence needs to be always the forefront of the way that we talk to God.

Don't, don't misunderstand me at all. Even in lament, we need to be very reverence to God. But that doesn't mean that we can't be honest with him when we experience tragedy. In fact, if you've probably experienced any sort of real trauma or, or or pain in your life, it probably definitely changed how you talked to God.

And most of us probably haven't felt this type of pain, but I know for certain, some of you here. Have, and I, I venture to say that it, it probably did shape and change how you prayed to God in those moments. That your prayers maybe were a lot more raw. They were a lot more angry maybe at God. But I think Psalm 74 shows us that lament like this is not a lack of faith, but it's an expression of deep faith.

Israel complained because they believed that their God had the power to act. They weren't just saying, woe is me, you know, to, to avoid. But they were crying out to the only one who could really make things right. And our language in lament, I think oftentimes can often become kind of risky if we want to talk about that way.

If you read job, job talks, very riskily riskily, is that a word? I'm not sure. Very riskily to God, and he recognizes that in, in his speech in any other day. This type of language is something we would not dare to use to God, but in Lament, the Psalmist shows us this is very biblical language to use.

It's not that we're seeking in any way to disrespect God in the way we address him, but we're trying to draw near to him. We're trying to be honest and we're trying to be very bold in speaking to him in our suffering. But Psalms doesn't stop there. He doesn't stop with just a complaint. Things are terrible.

God, man, I can't believe you would leave us in the lurch like this Will know he gets to the heart of his lament here in remembrance and define help in the present. Psalmist looks backwards. So read with me in verses 12 through 17 here, and this is where we get the title of our lesson tonight from verse 12 when he says, yet my God or God yet God my king is from of old working salvation in the midst of the earth.

This is where we're gonna geek out for a little bit. This is a passage saying God is king. Well, how does the psalmist say God became king? Well, he says in verse 13 through 15 or through 14, you divided the sea by your might. You broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. You crushed the heads of the leviathan.

You gave him his food for the creatures of the wilderness. He's saying you battled with the sea. You battled sea monsters, you battled Leviathan and you conquered them. You are king. And because of that, you were able to, he says in verse 15, you were able to create, saying you split open springs and Brooks, you dried up ever flowing streams.

Yours is the day. Yours also the night. You have established the heavenly lights and the sun. You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth. You have made summer and winter. And so he says you've been king or you've been made king because you conquered these forces of evil and chaos. And, and through that you created the world with order, with boundaries, giving it function.

And so the solution in this, this time of lament is to remember that even though in the moment it didn't feel like it. God was, is and always is king. And in Psalm 74, this is a really kind of weird picture. Why? Why is the psalmist talking about dragons? Well, we enter into this poetic kind of recounting of God's creation of the world, and some is really foreign to us.

I think when we read it and we're like, where does this come from? Why is he talking like this? It's a world in which one creation is made through a battle with these chaotic monsters. That's really weird where we don't see that in Genesis one. And secondly, God has made King, but he can be challenged and he has to defend his kingship.

That's weird. That's not what we see elsewhere in the Old Testament. So we might be wondering, well, what does slaying monsters have to do with God being king or the creation of the world? And even more than that, what does it have to do with the lament that the psalmist is giving here? Well the first thing, and this is where I'm gonna geek out so your eyes may glaze over.

But just stick with me here 'cause I think this is really cool stuff. In a time of need. Israel is sharing images and stories from kind of shared cultural images and stories from the nations around them about a God battling monsters in order to become king. It offers this. Psalm 74 is kind of offering a poetic, kind of alternate way of looking at God's creation of the world different from Genesis one, not, we're not talking about contradictory things.

People might try to make those claims. When reading some of these texts, and I think it's important to talk about these and recognize it's just a poetic kind of take, it's a different alternative look kind of perspective on God's creation and kingship. But in Genesis one, we know God doesn't create through a battle, he doesn't create through collaboration with any other guides.

He is always been king. He is and always has been king. And in Genesis one, he created out of benevolence. He didn't create out any sort of need like these other gods, these false gods of those fellow nations. And he doesn't create out of violence, but he creates out of peace. There's no opposition to him in Genesis chapter one, and in fact, it's really interesting in Genesis one, verse 21, the word tiny name, one of my favorite Hebrew words, it's the word for sea monsters.

It's used in Psalm 74. It shows up in Genesis 1 21. If you're reading the ESV, it says God or. Great sea creatures. And so the same word is used, but in Genesis one, rather than it being an enemy, like in Psalm 74, it's one of the creative beings that's not in opposition to God. But we're seeing a different perspective here.

In Genesis one, God's kingship is unchallenged, but now Psalm 74, God's kingship is seen from a different light. It's under assault by dragons, no less. Again, it's the most metal of all the Psalms. It is so cool, but it's different. The worldview of Psalm 74, it's really strange to us. Where's this coming from?

Well, like we said, it finds its home in the nations around Israel and their worldview. Stories of a God battling the sea or a sea monster representing chaos are fairly common as we're about to see. I've got some cool pictures and some couple different things stories we'll kind of summarize and, and kind of compare.

'cause in victory, a God is establishing order. He, he shows mastery or command over creation out of this battle. And he's declared King over all the other guides, over humanity and over creation. And when we compare Psalm 74 and what's going on to some neighboring images and stories, we see a lot of similarities.

And don't, don't get me wrong, there are that many more, you know, that, a ton of differences as well. We're not trying to flatten these out and say they're all the same, but just to give you kind of a picture of what the psalmist may have in his mind as he's talking about God slaying dragons ancient Mesopotamia.

This is a, they had these cool like cylinders we found that you can roll out like roll out on a piece of clay and it makes these images and what do we have? This is wild. It's like a big old dragon with seven heads. The dragons here talk about as numerous heads. And these two kind of God figures.

The dragons got fire coming outta his back. That's pretty hardcore. And he's slaying some of the heads. Four outta these seven heads have been destroyed. We see another similar one from Acadia. Hm, Mesopotamia, this weird, funky looking dude. I guess that's what they thought their gods looked like. They look pretty goofy to me.

But a seven headed panther faced dragon fire coming on his back and this dude's cutting his head off. It's pretty crazy stuff. Even in Egypt, you know, ancient Mesopotamia to the east of Israel, to the west in Egypt, the sun, God rah, he's on this boat here in the underworld and set this other God.

They're slaying this serpent apex and. He's represented as waves. There's kind of this relationship between these chaotic sea monsters and in the sea and things like that, and slaying these monsters. And then even Assyria to the north, kind of northern farther north of Babylon. There's this conqueror.

You may not be telling this one. This one's kind of wicked. He's got some sort of lightning bolt with him and some arrows. This guy's bringing him a scepter because he's killing this giant, funky looking dragon. And so we might think that's kind of strange, but these images are really common, but not only in images, but even stories.

And we think about some of Israel's most close neighbors, the Canaanites. We know of Baal, we talk about Baal a lot in the Bible. He appears as this rival God, this false God that people believed in. But here it seems like they're taking the story of Baal or Du, the Babylonian God, and now they're saying no.

Your God is a false God. Our God is the true king and your stories that you made about him, we're gonna say no. We're gonna reappropriate them and use them for Yahweh and so, and show him that, you know, you said, bill, if you smite your enemy, you'll take your eternal kingship. Same with Mar Duke. You know, formerly you were the beloved son.

Now he's your king. Well, my God is king from Avol. No, Yahweh is a king from Avol. There's a battle the sea God yam. The Hebrew word for sea is yam and lotan. The fleeing serpent is who Baal kind of fights with this. This water serpent is kind of an extension of the sea. And so Baal fights with him and he doesn't end up creating afterwards, but he builds a palace in coincidentally, seven days, which is kind of cool.

But Marduke, he fights this monster Ach, this chaotic sea monster. She's the creator of all these other sea serpents and things. He battles with her and kills her and is maid most high of all the gods. And then he creates the world using her carcass pretty hardcore as well. Well, same thing. God battles and then ultimately creates right after.

And. I may have lost you there. Come back with me Now if you think that's not interesting or fun. But the point of all this stuff is not that Israel or the Bible is in any way ripping off all of their neighbors or something like that. Israel's just drawing on stories and imagery that's familiar to the nations around them, but they're re-entering them around their God, Yahweh, not Baal, not Mar Duke.

These gods cannot save. They are not the king. God is the king. The Psalm has thought this perspective to be helpful right now, this alternative way of looking at the creation of the world in God's kinship, why would that be helpful right now in this moment of National Lament? Why is it helpful to us? Is it just, you know, Preston being a total nerd, showing a bunch of, you know, weird clay tablet things from 4,000 years ago?

No, it has, I think it has relevance for us because lament. Like the psalmist bringing this story back, this ancient story. Now bringing it talking about Yahweh lament leads to a confession of faith that God is still king, even when our circumstances shout otherwise, you know, when creation is kind of depicted as this divine battle.

It's not just, you know, a fact, God created the world, or let's move on. No, it's, it's an act of redemption. It's a conquering over evil and and chaos. It's something that needs to be re-experienced in the future. It's not just something in the past, but something that needs to be done once again. 'cause not only did God build the world, but he overcame chaos in the evil to do it and this kind of alternate view.

But however, sin still endures in the world, even though this battle has kind of taken place. And these new challengers, like the ones that are are attacking Israel here in the psalm, they rise up and now they become these new sea monsters, these new Leviathan the, the psalmist is having to face and that now God is being called to stop once again and the psalmist is desiring that God would declare himself king again, that he would battle with these occupying enemies just like he did with the sea serpents of old.

And I think Psalm 74, for us, it speaks to us in these experience, these times of chaos within our lives. Those times of chaos that we didn't choose, we can't control ourselves. There's times in life where maybe we lose a child, a spouse, or family members unexpectedly to some sort of tragedy. Or maybe when our home is torn apart because of divorce or some sort of abuse in the home, maybe I have unexpected health problems, things that arise really quickly, and I don't know what to do about them.

I don't see if things are gonna get any better. Maybe we are, we're focused on bigger issues like our culture and it's shift away from the gospel, and we might feel awash in this kind of chaotic waters of confusion with everybody thinking something different around us and not knowing what to do or not knowing if the gospel can really affect and have power in our culture today.

We see wars and injustices and things going on, whether it's in Palestine and in Israel, or all the way up in Russia and Ukraine, or here in our hometown or hometowns or country or state, all the different injustices and wars that are raging, that are just too powerful for us, and we think, well, what can I do about this?

It's in times like this, I think we feel attacked by chaotic ways if we want to kind of talk about it like that, or we're menacing dragons in our lives, and it seems in these times in the throes of chaos that God is not in control. That's what it feels like to us, but in this chaos like Israel, we've got to confess our faith.

God is still king, even when my circumstances shout otherwise. Israel. What the psalmist here has shown us is saying, Hey, we need to look back. When we find ourselves in pain and tragedy, we need to look back and remember who our God was and still is today. He is our king, and even in lament, we ultimately believe things are not always going to be this way.

We know that God has conquered, God is conquering and God will conquer. And that is why the Psalmist talks about dragons. But the psalmist doesn't end there. He doesn't end with the complaint or remembrance. And those two things are important in Lament, but it's not a total fix for someone in Deep Lament 'cause he ends with a call to action.

You know, if it, if we could just remember in our complaints, then he would've ended it at verse 17, but that's not where he ends. Lament is not complete without God being called to make things better. As the psalmist is talking about, to reassert his rule and look in verse 18, that we will conclude our reading.

Have a couple more things to say. He says, remember this, oh Lord. The enemy scoffs and an and a foolish people reviles your name. Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beast. Do not forget the life of your poor forever. Have regard for the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the inhabitants or the of the habitations of violence.

Let not the downtrod and turn back in Shame. Let the poor and needy praise your name. Arise. Oh God, defend your cause. Remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day. Do not forget the clamor of your foes. The uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually. So in Psalm 74, God's temple was destroyed.

His people had been left desolate, and now the land is filled with violence. It's not just right there in Jerusalem. It's spreading everywhere else. Israel's God, the one who could save, had been scoffed, that he'd been reviled and openly challenged by these enemies. Everything for God's people was at stake in Psalm 74, but Israel needed this ancient story in a time of lament because they wanted to be delivered from their abandonment, from their shame and their vulnerability, and that's how we feel so often.

If you've ever been in the throes of lament like this, I'm sure. But we complain and we remember because we want relief. Relief in the form of God's overwhelming power and saving acts over chaos and evil. And so Israel wanted to experience God's ancient victory in the present. They wanted to make it real, make it concrete.

It's not just a story in the past anymore that none of us experienced, but it's something that's a part of our own personal history Now. In short, they're saying, do it again, Lord, do what you did of old once again, right here and right now. And I think when we think about those, those times of chaos in our lives, even when we can't control any of it, well, Psalm 74, it shows us that, well, we need to call on God to act on our behalf.

In new and really powerful ways and I, I love how the psalmist has a great imagination in kind of talking about God's victory and his kingship in this way. And I think it tells us we need to have an imagination when we go to God in prayer, in times of lament, that our God is powerful enough to do anything greater than we can ever imagine.

So why don't we ask him to do things beyond our wildest dreams, even though we can't control? Those chaos in life, those times where, you know, we, we experience that tragic death in our family. Well, why don't we call on God and say, God, bring about the resurrection. Don't wait till I die. I don't, I want, I don't even want to go to the grave.

Bring your son back. Bring the second coming. Bring the resurrection glory. Now I want to see my child, my husband, my wife, face to face now. With that broken home, I ask, well, God, can you not only just make things a little bit better, can you renew the hearts? Can you mend the relationships of my family? Can you make our family stronger than it was before with health problems?

Well, God, not only can you maybe help me make through this surgery, well, can you give me powerful healing? Can you give me full recovery? With these cultural shifts, maybe you would say, God, I know that the, the, our world looks like a crazy sea where there's sea monsters, people acting like sea dragons everywhere we go.

And I, I don't know what to do. Well, God give me influence. I'm just me, but God, work through me. Let your power be seen through me. Let your gospel have success. Let it bring a revival in our world, even though. Everything is speaking, saying that there's no way that that could happen. Now, the wars and injustice, maybe we ask God, well, not just, you know, end it when you can.

God, no, God, bring justice, deliver these people that are struggling, bring evil doers and oppressors to justice. God, I think like the psalmist and all of these things, when we use the imagination of the psalmist. Well, we cry out in faith just like he did. Do it again, God, whenever we face our own leviathans, whatever shape they may take for us.

I think in lament though, it's also important to recognize the end of Psalm 74 too, because the Psalm doesn't end with a response from God. It does end with a cliffhanger for us, and I think this tells us. That even though Israel believed God could save them, they believed he might not. And so in lament, I may know that God has the power to deliver me for my present chaos, but even if he doesn't, I believe that he will in the future when he destroys all evil for good.

In times lament, I've gotta consider that. Even if I cry out, even if I even I remember who God is and I call him to action, he might not answer me how I'd want him to, but if I hold to my faith, that faith that the psalmist expressed here, that you, my God, our king from of old, well, we are not gonna be overcome.

Whether I experience his saving acts in my life or not, that's what we talked about in our, our summer Bible study, right? With Daniel's friends, Shadrach Meha, and a Bendigo. They said that right as they're about to go into the fiery furnace, they say, we, our god's powerful enough to save us from that fire.

But if he doesn't, we're still not gonna go back on our belief that our God, not Mar Duke, not your God, is the true king, will not bow our knee to him. And like Israel, if we believe this, we have an expectation that one day God's gonna blast away evil for good. He's gonna bring about an act of new creation so profoundly different than before, that evil won't just be destroyed, won't just be defeated, but it's gonna be destroyed, wiped off the map forever.

It's no longer gonna be able to rear its ugly head again. We're gonna never gonna, we're gonna experience the world and where there is no cause or need to lament anymore, and this is what God has promised us through his son Jesus, because my Jesus. He is king. I love Revelation 12. How it's depict. It depicts Christ as one who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron.

This child that's about to be born through this kind of cosmically described woman who represents God's people. And this, this Messiah is being born through this woman. And as this woman's about to give birth, what do you see with this big red dragon that appears, and he's got his mouth open trying to catch this baby, this ruler that's coming to be locked in a cosmic battle with him, with this red dragon who wants to destroy him.

But as the story goes, the dragon fails the child that says in verse five was caught up to God and to his throne. Again, kind of a, this is a apocalyptic retelling of kind of the gospel story. And from God's throne, King's Jesus king Jesus commands these angel armies. And in verse nine of chapter 12, it says that ancient serpent, who is called the devil in Satan, he's referred to as this ancient serpent.

He's thrown down from heaven to earth. He's defeated in trying to stop the king and his people. The battle isn't over In Revelation 12, verse 17, it says, then the dragon became furious and went off to make war on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And like the psalmist and the lament that we've just been reading about, we're in this position where we're between the serpent's defeat and his final destruction and mortally wounded.

We hold fast to the promise to God's promise that Satan has ultimately been bound for a time in Revelation 20, verse one through four says, then I saw an angel coming down from heaven. Holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit in a great chain, and he sees the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended.

After that, he must be released for a little while longer. And so now in this, in-between time, we have to still endure Satan's assaults, these attacks from this dragon. But we trust that one day Jesus will come again and he will defeat that dragon for good. As verse 10 says that he'll be thrown into lake of fire and sulfur.

And now that final great battle, I love how, you know, parallel to Psalm 74, there's this kind of new creative act and this new heavens and new worth. That's described here. It says, uh uh, in Revelation chapter 1 21, excuse me. Out of that final great battle comes this, this kind of apocalyptic imagery, this new creation in which one a world is coming, which there is no evil, no sin or death, or dragons or lament when he says in verse one, that I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth has passed away, and the sea was no more.

And I saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorn for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people, and God himself will be as their God.

And listen to verse four. Think about this. If you're a person in lament right now. This is the promise we have through Jesus. He says he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Having a baby that cries a lot definitely has changed. How I view that passage right there hits home a little bit more. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. Jesus is our king. He's my king. I don't know tonight if he's your king, but he reigns at God's right hand and he hears our laments. If you were one of his brothers and sisters, if you were a child of God, he hears.

Lamentation. He's conquered evil sin and death on the cross and in the tomb. And right now he has the power to do something in your life if you'll call out to him. But whether or not he answers us while we wait, even when we face our own sea monsters and dragons. We can deliver him still our complaints that things aren't as they ought to be.

And we want him to come do something about them because we remember who he is, that he is the king who is conquered, who is conquering, and who will conquer. And because of that, we have faith that we can call on him to act. For us in our lives, either now, presently, to make them real and concrete in our own personal history or at the end of time when he comes again.

And so let's all pray to God just as a psalmist again and say, proudly, with an imagination, with courage and boldness and honesty in our trauma and our our pain and suffering, whatever it is, let us all say, do it again, Lord. And tonight you can have that hope and that king Jesus. But you can't have that hope outside of him.

If you haven't expressed faith in who he is, that he is Christ, he is a Lord, and he reigns at the right hand of God, that you've confessed your sin, that you've repented of your old way of life, tur, cutting off your ties with that ancient serpent, the devil, and desiring to live a life of holiness and purity following him into the water.

A baptism for the forgiveness of your sin so he can be washed, clean, and be made one of his. Well, if we can help you tonight, if we can help put you in touch with the blood of Christ and save you from the jaws of that ancient serpent, well then we want to do that as we, as we help you tonight. So if you will come now as we stand and as we sing is the.