The Severity and Kindness of the Lord (Psalm 5)

Sermon for MHBC (25 July 2021). You can listen on Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, or our website. Live at 11:00am on Sundays. Also available as a podcast here or by searching “Monument Heights Baptist Church” in your favorite podcast app.

I have to admit that preaching through the psalms sequentially is challenging. I am encouraged by John Calvin, however. He had been preaching through the Psalms when he was run out of Geneva. He stayed out of Geneva for three years before returning. Upon his return, he entered the pulpit on the following Sunday and without mentioning a word of his three-year exile, he simply picked up preaching with the next verse in the Psalms where he had left off three years prior.

I believe I’ve said before, but it is worth repeating, one of the major advantages of preaching sequentially through texts of Scripture or even whole books is that we are faced to heed the full counsel of God’s Word. We can’t merely hide in our favorite passages. We must wrestle with difficult passages. This morning’s passage is difficult.

One of the reasons it is difficult is because we find in it a truly fierce God. At the same time, we find that this fierce God is also endlessly faithful and loving. The love of God is an easy subject to talk about, but we often find ourselves shying away from the wrath of God.

Sometime last year Leland was working on question 18 in the New City Catechism. Here’s the question with the children’s answer:

Will God allow our disobedience and idolatry to go unpunished?

No, God is righteously angry with our sins and will punish them both in this life, and in the life to come.[2]

Now teaching that to a four-year-old was challenging. Why do I find it challenging? Is it because I don’t think my four-year-old needs to hear that language? That might be part of it. Notice that’s an emotional response. But I also think there’s a deeper reluctance in my heart. The reason I find it so hard to teach my child this language is because it forces me to accept it as true. After all, if I’m going to indoctrinate my son with this language, I had better believe it myself. And it’s only when we understand the severity of God that we can begin to grasp the breathtaking reality of His kindness.

Let’s look at v. 1: Give ear to my words, O Lord; consider my groaning. Like many of the psalms, the psalmist, once again identified as David, begins with a petition. “Hear my prayers, LORD.” And once more, we are instructed in the way of prayer. We come before a great King, asking for His aid. There is something worth noting about that last word groaning. In Psalm 1, we are told that the person who meditates on the instruction of the LORD is blessed. That word meditate in Psalm 1 is the verb form of this word groaning in Psalm 5. The verb also appeared in Psalm 2 where we read about the kings of the earth who plot against the LORD and his Christ. These connections seem to reinforce the ongoing contrast between those who would humble themselves before the LORD and those who would continue in resistance and rebellion. As we are faced with the severity of God in this passage, we are urged to a posture of humility.

Verse 2: Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray. Again, notice the posture of humility and the recognition of God as King. “My King and my God.” It is to you that I pray.

Verse 3: O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. Notice how this petitioning the LORD is a priority for David. It starts his day. In the morning is repeated twice.

And this prayer is grounded in the character of God. Look at the connecting word in v. 4: For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. David is petitioning the LORD about his enemies, but there is application for virtually any situation. This world is under the curse of sin. We might petition the LORD on any number of items due to that curse. And when we do so, we are making that petition on the basis of His character. Now what does this say about God’s character? He does not delight in wickedness; evil may not dwell with Him. He is just. He is holy. He is good.

Let’s keep going. Verse 5: The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. Now this verse might shock you because it says, “The LORD hates all who do evil.”[3] This might be one of the reasons we would skip v. 5, but there are three really important things to note. First off, this hatred speaks to the perfect and unblemished character of the LORD. How could He not hate that which is opposed to Him? How could he tolerate that which is contrary to His perfection? So we have a clear statement on the severity of God. And it may trouble us, but it is part of God’s governance of the world. If God is not just, then wrong will never be righted. Justice and grace are not somehow opposed. It is through justice that redemption is possible.[4]

The second thing to say is that the LORD’s moral character, including His justice and wrath, and yes, even if we are to use the biblical language, His hatred, remains distinct from human character because unlike human character God’s character is perfect and holy and untainted by sin. When we speak of God’s wrath or hatred, we are not talking about something haphazard or reactionary. God’s character is perfectly united, so He isn’t susceptible to an outburst of anger. His anger is an outflow of His perfect and undivided character. Furthermore, the eternal God sits outside of time, so He does not react to events in a linear fashion like you and I do.

Finally, we desire justice. Even our though our moral character is sinful, we desire the righting of wrongs and the redemption we long for requires justice. So we need verses like this and like v. 6:You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. Again, we’ve clearly seen the severity of God through His holy wrath and justice. Now we transition to his kindness and mercy, but I must caution that both the justice and kindness of God are part of His perfect character. Nevertheless, we see the LORD’s incredible kindness and mercy on display in Scripture. Before we go to v. 7, let’s consider two passages.

Psalm 30:5 says: For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Here we can see how God’s justice is completely good.

Then there’s Exodus 34:6–7:

The Lord passed before [Moses] and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, 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, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Notice how we see both mercy and justice, but also notice that his steadfast love abounds into the thousandth generation, whereas his justice only goes through the third or fourth generation. And this steadfast love is what we find in the next verse in Psalm 5. Verse 7: But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you. Notice it is through the LORD’s kindness that David can enter before him. And his posture is instructive. He enters in fear, bowing down. This is the humility we talked about early on.

And then another petition in v. 8: Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me. His enemies are out to destroy him, but he knows that deliverance is found in the LORD. This is consistent with how Jesus teaches us to pray when he says, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Evil in the passage probably isn’t abstract, but might even be better translated, “Deliver us from the evil one.” Remember what 1 Peter 5 says. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

This world remains under the sway of Satan. He is referred to as the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2), the ruler of this world (John 14:30), the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4). And the result is following after Satan’s rebellion. Look at v. 9: For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.

Now David speaks here of his enemies, but Paul quotes this verse in a lengthy string of OT quotes in Romans 3 to show that no one is righteous before God. Paul indicts all of humanity by saying that no one seeks God.

Verse 10 of this Psalm makes the same point: Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you.

And this is a prayer the LORD will answer out of His justice. But David also instructs how we might avoid such a fate. Verses 11–12: But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you. For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield. Those who take refuge in the LORD will find eternal refuge? What does it mean to take refuge in the LORD? It means to trust in Christ and Christ alone for righteousness and salvation. Only by being covered in His righteousness do we find refuge. We heed the warning of John the Baptizer: “Flee from the coming wrath” (Matt 3:7). And as Spurgeon noted, we flee that wrath by flying to Christ.[5]

Remember I mentioned that Paul quotes from this Psalm in Romans 3. As he develops that argument, he indicts all of humanity. And what we learn is that the gospel of Jesus does not make sense without the wrath and justice of God. Why would Christ die? Why would trust in him be so crucial? In Romans 3:23–26, Paul makes this point unmistakably clear:

all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an atoning sacrifice by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

On the cross, the Lord is both just and merciful. We do not find mercy by being really sorry or trying hard to be good people. We find mercy by looking to Christ and his perfect sacrifice. And that mercy is perfect and secure.

In Romans 11:22, Paul writes, “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity for those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.” He’s speaking about God bringing the Gentiles into his people. But he notes both the severity and kindness of God. The determining issue Paul says in v. 20 is belief. Will we receive what Christ has done or will we continue to rely on ourselves? Will we trust that Christ has completely satisfied the wrath of God or will we continue to believe that we don’t deserve wrath or that we can escape it through our own sufficiency? One scholar famously commented, “Only he who knows the greatness of wrath will be mastered by the greatness of mercy.”[6] Until we face up to the severity of the Lord, we will never understand the breathtaking kindness of the gospel.

---

[1] Some of this material first appeared in a sermon I preached on May 3, 2020: “The Severity of God” (Lamentations 2).

[2] http://newcitycatechism.com/new-city-catechism/#18

[3] As Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:223, notes this is a rare instance of hatred at persons as opposed to deeds (also see Mal 1:3; Rom 9:13).

[4] See Bavinck, 2:228.

[5] “Flee from the Wrath to Come.” I found the whole sermon edifying. https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/flee-from-the-wrath-to-come/#flipbook/

[6] Stahlin, TDNT, 5:425, notably quoted by John Stott, The Cross of Christ, 111.