Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I haven’t mowed my lawn in about three weeks.

A while ago I ran the mower deck as high as I could, just to lop off all the six-inch high Dutch clover sprigs that were still shooting up out of the crispy dead grass, but the lawn hasn’t fared well through this dry spell!

Of course, there is a significant portion of our ruling elites who will tell us that our crispy lawns and empty rain barrels is a direct result of our refusal to use curlicue lightbulbs or quit using fossil fuels and start driving electric cars—that only they can rescue us from so-called “climate change” (provided that we turn over more and more power to them!)

It is a mark of the hubris of our age to believe that mankind possesses the power to change the way the planet’s climate works!

This is just another example of our wanting to usurp God’s authority over us—we don’t want to have to admit that we depend on Him for even the weather!

But of course this is just foolishness, isn’t it?

Because the Scriptures are plain that God is the God of the weather outside our window and the climate that impacts our whole planet.

When that rain moved through last Sunday and Monday, it was the hand of God:

Deuteronomy 11:14–15 (ESV)

14 he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil.

15 And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.

And when there is drought, this too is from His hand:

Deuteronomy 11:16–17 (ESV)

16 Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; 17 then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.

The psalm before us today was most likely written to praise God for an abundant harvest that came after a time of drought:

Psalm 65:9–10 (ESV)

9 You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide their grain, for so you have prepared it.

10 You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth.

This is a fitting and proper reason to praise God, since He is the One Who controls not only the weather and climate, but all of the processes and developments in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.

As we consider God’s unassailable and total control over everything in creation, the word we use to describe that complete authority and control is sovereignty.

When we say God is sovereign over all things, we are talking about His “absolute independence to do as He pleases and His absolute control over the actions of all His creatures” (Bridges, J. (2017).

Trusting God (Reprint ed.).

NavPress.)

So from one standpoint, we might say that Psalm 65 is about God’s sovereignty over the things it mentions—He ordains the rain on the hills, subdues the turbulent peoples, brings sinners to Himself, and so on.

But this psalm wasn’t just written to praise God for His authority over these things; it is written to praise Him for how His authority moved to accomplish His purposes for His people.

God holds sovereign and utter control over the weather, and He uses that sovereign control to bless His people.

This is what theologians mean when they speak about the providence of God—the purpose behind His sovereign control over all things.

So we can define God’s providence this way:

PROVIDENCE OF GOD: “God’s purposeful SOVEREIGNTY by which he will be completely SUCCESSFUL in the achievement of his ultimate GOAL for the UNIVERSE.”

As I pray that you will see from this psalm, the great comfort and hope that we have in God—the reason that this psalm calls us to give Him the praise that He is due—is not for the mere fact of His sovereignty, but for the way He purposefully employs His sovereign rule over all things as a reflection of His gracious and loving character.

This is the first of four psalms in a row all addressed “To The Choirmaster”—in other words, these psalms were written to instruct God’s people on the reasons that He should be praised.

The way I want to summarize Psalm 65, then is that this psalm is teaching us to

Praise the PROVIDENCE of God that DELIVERS you from DESOLATION

When you come here in this worship service, you come to praise God.

And Psalm 65 instructs you to praise Him for His providential work in your life; for the ways that He has delivered and strengthened and provided and led and instructed and protected you.

I don’t know what kind of week you have had (or what kind of month, or year…) maybe you have been struggling under a load of shame and guilt because of your battles with sin; maybe you came here this morning full of anxiety after watching a particularly troubling report about the state of our rebellious nation or tumultuous world; maybe you have come here with a spiritual life as crispy and brown as a drought-stricken lawn—in the midst of a season of spiritual drought, disappointment with God or dryness of devotion—you’re just not “feeling it” in your walk with God.

I don’t know what circumstances you are in as you have come to worship this morning; I do know what the Word of God requires of you this morning—that you offer God the praise He is due for His providential care over you.

And so I want you to walk through these verses with me so that we can see together the reasons that God is worthy to be praised—so that God’s living and active and powerful Word will go to work in your heart to spark in you the praise that He is due, that you will see and rejoice in Him as the God whose providence delivers you from the desolation that is your natural state apart from Him.

Look at verses 1-4 with me:

Psalm 65:1–4 (ESV)

1 Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion, and to you shall vows be performed.

2 O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come.

3 When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions.

4 Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts!

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!

The first reason that your praise is due to God this morning is because

I.

He brings HOLINESS out of DEPRAVITY (Psalm 65:1-4)

The first and greatest reason that you have, Christian, to praise God’s providence this morning, is that

He has ATONED for your TRANSGRESSIONS against Him (v.

3; Isa 53:5)

When the record of your “iniquities”—the Hebrew word means “twistedness” or “perversions”—when the record of your iniquities prevail against you with recurring shame, with burdensome guilt that hounds you—praise God for the fact that He has paid the price for all of them through Christ!

As Isaiah prophesied about that Atonement:

Isaiah 53:5 (ESV)

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Your guilt has been atoned—it has been paid for—by the blood of Jesus Christ!

And in verse 4 the psalmist reminds you that it is by God’s providence that you have come to Him:

Psalm 65:4 (ESV)

4 Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts!

He not only atoned for your transgressions against Him, but

He ORDERED your STEPS to Him (v.

4; cp.

Acts 17:26-27)

God’s purposeful sovereignty—His providence—brought you near to Him!

He so ordered your steps so that you would come to Him, He orchestrated the times and seasons and events of your life so that when the time was just right you would reach out and find Him (Acts 17:26-27).

Before you ever thought to draw near to Him, He providentially drew you to Himself by faith in Jesus Christ who purchased your atonement, taking away your old heart of rebellion and indifference to His holiness, and giving you a heart that is satisfied with His goodness and holiness!

Draw near to praise the providence of God that delivers you from your desolation of sin and rebellion, and draws you to Himself by faith in the atonement provided by the blood of Christ on the Cross.

He brings holiness out of depravity, and in verses 5-8 we see that we are to praise God’s providence because

II.

He brings RULE out of CHAOS (Psalm 65:5-8)

David goes on to instruct his people to sing in verses 5-8:

Psalm 65:5–8 (ESV)

5 By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas; 6 the one who by his strength established the mountains, being girded with might; 7 who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples, 8 so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.

You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.

David brings in the imagery of the mountains and seas, and God’s complete control over them—His strength “established the mountains”, and His power “stills the roaring of the seas”.

But there is more to these verses than just God’s sovereignty over mountains and oceans—we can pick that up from the end of verse 7, where David equates the “roaring of the waves” with “the tumult of the peoples”.

Throughout the Old Testament (and into the New Testament as well), imagery of mountains and seas are used to describe governments and peoples—for instance, in Isaiah 2, God’s kingdom is described as the “mountain of the LORD”—and in Daniel 2, the stone that struck the image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream became “a mountain that filled the whole earth” (Daniel 2:35)—an image of the kingdom of God.

(Daniel 2:44).

And so I think it is fitting for us to see here in Psalm 65 that when David sings of God’s establishing the mountains in His strength, he is not just singing about God’s power and control reflected in the majesty and immensity of Mount Everest, but is also meant to remind us that

He is SOVEREIGN over KINGDOMS (vv.

5-6; cp.

Acts 4:27-28)

The providence of God means that He is in control over the kingdoms of this world.

Even unruly kingdoms and rebellious governments and wicked rulers are tools in His hand to accomplish all of His purposes.

They try to thwart Him or rebel against Him or nullify His laws, but even their attempts to stop Him do nothing but advance His purposes!

This is what Peter told the crowds in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 4--

Acts 4:27–28 (ESV)

27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

All of the governments of Judea and Rome—Pilate and Herod together, Jews and Gentiles alike—united to stop Jesus; but it was God’s hand that moved them!

God used their rebellion against Him to accomplish His greatest purpose—the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God the Son whose kingdom is even now growing into a mountain that will fill the entire earth!

Praise is due your God in His providential care over you, Christian—He is sovereign over kingdoms, and

He SUBDUES the UNGOVERNABLE (vv.

7-8; cp.

Psalm 2; Mal.

1:11)

Psalm 65:7–8 (ESV)

7 who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples, 8 so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.

You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.

The mobs of people who surge and roar against His authority, the chanting and jeering multitudes who protest and rail against the way He created the world (and the way He created them), the seas of people who, in their spite and rage are trying to burst their bonds and cast away the cords of His decrees about sexuality, marriage, the dignity of the unborn—the masses who demand that they be free of any and every constraint that God and His unalterable decrees place upon them—God stills their roaring and silences their tumult!

But look carefully at how He does this—He could “still” them by destroying them, but instead, He silences them by bringing them into awe of Him!