Psalm 9 - What has God done for you?

What has God done for you? Psalm 9

1 I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. 2 I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. 3 When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before your presence. 4 For you have maintained my just cause; you have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment. 5 You have rebuked the nations; you have made the wicked perish; you have blotted out their name forever and ever. 6 The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins; their cities you rooted out;     the very memory of them has perished. 7 But the LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, 8 and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness. 9 The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. 10 And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you. 11 Sing praises to the LORD, who sits enthroned in Zion! Tell among the peoples his deeds! 12 For he who avenges blood is mindful of them; he does not forget the cry of the afflicted. 13 Be gracious to me, O LORD! See my affliction from those who hate me,     O you who lift me up from the gates of death,  14 that I may recount all your praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion     I may rejoice in your salvation. 15 The nations have sunk in the pit that they made; in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught. 16 The LORD has made himself known; he has executed judgment;     the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. 17 The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God. 18 For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever. 19 Arise, O LORD! Let not man prevail; let the nations be judged before you! 20 Put them in fear, O LORD! Let the nations know that they are but men!     This post follows the outline I used this morning for the talk during the Zoom gathering at Bonny Doon Church.    David begins Psalm 9 with his desire to give praise to Yahweh and recount all of His wonderful deeds. I wonder how you would answer the question, “What has God done for you?” Even in the midst of our current world situation there are plenty of things to be glad about, if we would just focus away from the current barrage of information. Let’s be glad and sing praise to the name of the Most High.  The name of the Most High in the Old Testament was Yahweh or other variations of that name. The leaders of Judaism chose to stop using the name, “Yahweh” because they wanted to avoid taking the name of the LORD in vain, one of the 10 commandments. So, they spoke the word lord every time they read the word Yahweh in the Old Testament; 5,000 times. The translators of the New Testament carried that tradition on to this day and all we have of the name of the Most High is the word LORD spelled with four capital letters. Jesus is the name given by God that means Yahweh is Savior; YaShua. Let’s just praise your name, Jesus!   David goes on to talk of the wonderful deeds of God as a righteous judge. Verse 5 talks about God’s rebuke of the nations, but lest we think of this as a harsh and rash judgment, we should look at verse 17 where it describes these nations as those who forget God. While the people of Israel spent 400 years in Egypt, God was giving the nations of the middle east plenty of time to remember God, and they didn’t. God is always seeking to bring people to repentance and faith in Him. If you look at Amos 4:1-13 the prophet shares the words of God about how He tried and tried to get the people to repent, and yet they would not turn to Him. Could this virus we currently are experiencing be another attempt by God to draw the world to repentance and faith in Jesus?   What makes a person “wicked?’ According to David and his writings, a person is wicked when they forget God and turn away from Him. Those who are seeking, listening, wondering, and questioning, do not fit in this category. They have not forgotten God.     David continues his list of God’s wonderful deeds in verse 10 of Psalm 9 by saying, “God cares for those who seek Him.” While God cares for all people, “God so loved the world,” and He sent Jesus to die for the whole world, not just the few that He wanted as His own. The Bible says, “God is not slow as some count slowness, but patient, waiting for all to come to repentance.” Romans says He causes all things to work together for those who love Him, and I personally think to love Him is another way of saying seek Him; or not forget Him. God desires to make all things good for you, in the right time.    David also tells us that God is a stronghold (9), a place for us to hide in the times of trial. Come into His presence and find rest for your soul in the middle of any turmoil you are going through, illness, anxiety, fear, uncertainty, etc. He understands our situation and is willing to comfort and guide us at every turn.   Another wonderful deed David mentions is God does not forget the cry of the afflicted. (12) Any who are afflicted with anything are welcome to come to God and He will hear them. David says the schemes of man will not prevail. (19) Even if it looks like the greed of man, the evil that they seem to get away with, will go unpunished, in the long run, God's justice will prevail, His good will come, He will ultimately be magnified as the King of kings and LORD of all lords.   "I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High."   "God inhabits the praise of His people." Psalm 22 Pastor Edd