Psalms 94
Chuck Smith on Psalms 94
Verse by verse, taught on Sunday nights: the C2000 series, 1979 to 1985, and the C3000 series, 1985 to 1999. Permission granted by The Word For Today.
Sunday Nights, 1979 to 1985 (C2000)
Chapter introduction
Psalm 94:
Verse 1
O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth (94:1);
Now, it's hard for us to remember that. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19). So often we try to take vengeance ourselves against the evil that is done to us. So often we say or hear said, "I'll get even with him," as though it is our place to take vengeance.
But LORD God, vengeance belongeth to thee (94:1),
But he said now,
show yourself (94:1).
And take vengeance, Lord.
Verses 2–7
Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud. LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph? How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all of the workers of iniquity boast themselves? They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, they afflict your heritage. They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless. Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it (94:2-7).
Somehow there is that kind of feeling with those who are guilty of unrighteousness that God doesn't see. No fear of the Lord in them. They do not realize that though they may get by with it here, someday they are going to answer for those things that they have done. Vengeance belongs to God and God is going to come in judgment to bring vengeance upon the workers of iniquity. But what fools they are thinking that God doesn't see or that God doesn't regard what they are doing.
Verse 8
Understand, you brutish among the people: you fools, when will ye be wise? (94:8)
When you going to wise up?
Verses 9–17
He that has created the ear, do you think he can't hear? the one that created your eye, you think he can't see? He that chastens the heathen, shall he not correct? he that teaches man knowledge, you think he doesn't know? The LORD knows the thoughts of man, that they are emptiness. Blessed is the man whom you chasten, O LORD, and teach him out of your law; That you may give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked. For the LORD will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. But judgment shall return unto the righteous: and the upright in heart shall follow it. Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence (94:9-17).
I would have been wiped out.
Verses 18–23
When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up. In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul. Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frames mischief by the law? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood. But the LORD is my defense; and my God is the rock of my refuge. And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off (94:18-23).
So the psalm is out of a troubled heart because of the oppression of the wicked, but the acknowledgment that God is the God of vengeance and God will avenge, and God will uphold the righteous. But those that have been guilty of wickedness shall be brought in judgment one day.
Sunday Nights, 1985 to 1999 (C3000)
Verse 1
O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth; (94:1).
For God said “Vengeance is mine. I will repay saith the Lord”.
O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, (94:1).
God’s told us we are not to take vengeance but we are to commit those things to the Lord.
shew thyself (94:1).
Do something.
Verse 2
Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud (94:2).
Now that doesn’t mean a good reward, that means a reward that is fitting to what they have done, repay them or get them back.
Verse 3
LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph? (94:3).
Jesus said an interesting thing in a parable that he’s talking about a certain servant and he was sort of the accountant for his master. He had been juggling books and he was caught and his master said, “Okay, clean the thing up. You’re fired.” Realizing that he was going to fired he began to call the creditors in and said, “How much do you owe my master? Hundred dollars? Let me change that and make it fifty. How much do you owe my master? Fifty? Here let’s make it twenty-five.” He began to do all these favors for the debtors of his master. Now the Lord, when he found out what he did, commended him. Not for his honesty but for his shrewdness. You see, he had enough sense realizing that he’s going to be out of a job soon and if he ingratiates these people to him then he can go and borrow money from them. They owe him one kind of a thing.
He took advantage of his present situation to set himself up for the future. That was what was wise. What he did was corrupt and dishonest, probably thrown in jail for it. He was taking advantage of his present situation and set himself up for the future. Jesus said that’s what we should be doing. Here we are on earth, here we have the opportunity to serve the Lord, we ought to be taking advantage of our present situation to set ourselves up for the future, that is for eternity. Jesus said,
“Lay not up for yourself treasures on earth for moth and rust corrupt and decay, where thieves can brake through and steel. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”
The only place you can do that is here. When you get to heaven you cannot lay up treasures in heaven. We just, of course coming back from Europe, had an interesting experience. We went through seven countries so we were dealing with six different currencies. It was crazy. When we landed in Germany we used the Deutschmarks but the moment we crossed over in Austria they did want the Deutschmarks, they wanted shillings. I had a pocket full of Deutschmarks and a bunch of coins but couldn’t spend them, they didn’t want them they wanted shillings. So I had to change my Deutschmarks and my dollars into shillings. As we left Austria and went back into Germany they wanted Deutschmarks again and as we went into Switzerland they wanted the Swiss Franks. All of this changing of currency. The one currency was only good for the one country.
What Jesus is saying is that you should take advantage of the position you are in now to make your exchange into the currency of heaven. There are no banks at the gates of heaven like you have in the airport that says, “Change”. You can’t, when you get to heaven, go up to the change bank inside the duty free area and say, “Hey, I’d like to get some currency up here”. You take advantage of what you are able to do now, laying up our treasures in heaven. For you see, the gold, which is so valuable to you here, has no value here in heaven at all. You try to go in lugging a suitcase full of gold “Alright I’ve got all my gold. I’ve saved it Lord, I buried it and here I have it here in heaven”. He says, “Throw it out in the street and let the steamroller run over the thing. Use it for asphalt here”. Not current in heaven. So taking advantage of the present opportunity of serving God, of investing our lives in the things of God, so that when we perish we are received into the eternal kingdom.
At the present time it would seem that God allows the wicked to triumph. In this world it seems that they are wiser and that’s what Jesus said in the parable, “The children of this generation are wiser than the children of light” It seems like every case that the ACLU takes they win corrupt as they are. It seems like the communists outwit us at every corner.
Verse 4
How long shall they utter and speak hard [perverse] things? [against you] and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?
Letting them go on in their pride boasting about the evil that they are doing and that they have done. Bragging about evil, we hear it in the world. So many times we hear fellows bragging about their evil exploits.
Verse 5
They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage (94:5).
They put down the Christian, they make fun of you because you seek to serve the Lord, they mock and they speak with derision.
Verses 6–7
They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless. Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it (94:6-7).
God really doesn’t care. They say that God is detached from his creation, that God just created and now he stepped back and just the thing go. He doesn’t really care what happens. Sometimes it would appear that way because God does allow the evil people to go on and to prosper in their evil ways. The psalmist addresses the brutish among the people and the fools.
Verse 8
Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise? (94:8).
You misunderstand God. When are you going to wake up? When are you going to be wise? Think about it logically.
Verse 9
He that planted [created] the ear, shall he not hear? (94:9).
One of the marvelous capacities that we have is the hearing capacity. These three little bones that pick up these vibrations as we speak transfer these vibrations into your brain that are then cataloged by your brain into the references that have already been planted there and these odd vibrations coming into your brain are interpreted by your brain into thoughts and ideas. Now that’s weird. God created that capacity. Language is an interesting kind of a covenant or agreement between us that certain sounds mean certain things. As long we are in agreement on this we can communicate.
Now when we were in Austria we had a horrible time when we lost our luggage trying to communicate to the conductor what had happened. He didn’t know any English and I didn’t know and Dutch. We were both frustrated. He would talk to other people and I’d think how in the world is he communicating ideas with those weird sounds. My brain wasn’t picking up on anything. There was no reference to plug into.
Language is an interesting thing. The hearing capacities are fascinating because my brain catalogues and classifies and records and puts in the file these sounds so I have a reference when I hear the sounds again. I have this reference as the brain decodes the vibrations that it goes into this system of references and it flashes into my mind the understanding of the thoughts and the ideas that are being communicated. Fabulous the fact that it’s able to record. Otherwise everytime you talked it would be like babbling to someone. You wouldn’t know it because if you didn’t remember it there would be no reference points. You couldn’t communicate. You’ve got to catalogue those sounds and put them in the file. The process of communicating in language.
The factory senses, they send the vibrations into the brain through the bones that go on up from the nasal passages on into the brain and they send off these little vibrations. Again, your brain catalogues these vibrations that come in through the factory senses. It says, “Hey, chocolate chip cookies. Alright”. I have a catalogue there for chocolate chip cookies, I have another one for roses and the various smells and how your brain as David said, “We are fearfully and wonderfully way and that my soul knows right well”. The God who created the ear surely he can hear.
he that formed the eye, shall he not see? (94:9).
The eyes taking these pictures, eighteen of them per second, impressing them on this jelly which comes into the brain again as vibrations at various frequencies. My brain interprets them as colors and as faces. Again, this great catalogue system that I have there in the brain. You see some ones face and you say, “I know him. Where do I know him from? I know that person. What is his name?” You try and try and try to recall and it’s just not there and then tomorrow when you’re driving down the street “John, oh yes! John Thomason, sure”. My brain’s been working on it all the while and it finally flashes and got the right cards. I love it.
Verse 10
He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? (94:10).
You think you can get by without God’s corrections?
he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know? (94:10).
Gives us the capacity of learning, the capacity of knowing. He is the one that created the DNA’s and the storage banks in the brain. You think that God doesn’t know? Yet this is the feeling that many people have concerning God. God doesn’t see what I’m doing. God doesn’t hear what I’m saying. God doesn’t know what I’m doing. That’s wrong. You’re uncultured, you’re undeveloped and you’re a fool if you think God doesn’t see and God doesn’t know and God doesn’t care.
Verse 11
The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity [empty] (94:11).
I’m certain, with God and all of his knowledge; he knows the little electronic pulses that flash across our brains and brings us our thought patterns. As God can read these thought patterns that goes across my brain, he knows that they are just empty, empty headed. Think of all the empty thoughts that we think. God knows the thoughts of man, they are empty. Even those profound thoughts. We think “Oh my that’s very profound” God says, “Oh how empty”.
Verse 12
Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law (94:12).
The Bible tells us not to despise the chastening of the Lord, this is the correction. Now God doesn’t punish his children, he does correct his children. The chastening process is not a punishing process, sometimes it’s painful but the idea is never that of punishment. The idea is always of correction. We should remember that as we deal in the training of our children. We should not seek to punish them; we should seek to correct their behavior. Sometimes we get those things confused and we give punishing. God corrects. “But whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth”. It’s a part of the expression of God’s love that he cares enough to correct us. The Bible says that if you don’t correct your child you hate him. Why? Because you are destroying him.
“A child left to himself will bring reproach to his parents. The iniquity of the world is bound up in the heart of the child but the rod of instruction will drive it from him.”
Dr. Wilder Smith said, “The pushing back of those frontiers, the importance of it”. The Lord pushes back those frontiers in our lives, he allows difficulties, he allows hardships and he allows pain. It’s all a part of the processes of God correcting me, teaching me.
Verse 13
That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked (94:13).
Now the idea was Lord how long before you really are going to take care of the wicked? How long are you going allow them to go on prospering, triumphing? God will teach us, he will instruct us. I go through trials and the wicked don’t seem to go through the same trials that I have. Why? Because they’re not God’s children and God is preparing the pit for them. Their destruction “slumbers not: the scripture says. So God is watching over me. I go through adversity but they are being prepared for destruction.
Verse 14
For the LORD will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. But judgment shall return unto righteousness: (94:14).
God will bring judgment and judgement can be good and judgement can be bad according to where you are. You can go to court and get judgment from the court that will give you back your property or you can get a judgment that will take away your property. So the judgement that God gives to his people is good.
Verses 15–17
and all the upright in heart shall follow it. Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence (94:15-17).
No one seems to stand up for me when I really need it but the Lord, he will stand up for me and he will be my defense.
Verse 18
When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up (94:18).
Lord I’m falling; God’s mercy holds me up.
Verse 19
In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul (94:19).
Our thoughts race, when we are in trouble, a million miles a second. They are almost as fast as the speed of light. As I’m trying to figure things out and I find this turmoil within, God steps in and comforts my soul.
Verse 20
Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law? (94:20).
Can there be fellowship light with darkness?
Verse 21
They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood (94:21).
Boy what a thought as far as abortion. What can be more innocent than an unborn child? They condemn the innocent blood. They get in front of the TV camera and scream.
Verses 22–23
But the LORD is my defense; and my God is the rock of my refuge. And he shall bring upon them [the wicked] their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness, (94:22-23).
Lord, how long? Their day is coming. As in the ninety-second psalm, foolish and brutish that they be exalted or that they seem to be getting by, they will be destroyed forever.
Verse 23
yea, LORD our God shall cut them off (94:23).
The day of righteous judgment shall come. You can count on it.
Father we just again thank You for the word of God that ministers to our spirit. Help us Lord to walk in the light of Your word. May we meditate in it day and night. May it be our food to strengthen us in the inner man. In Jesus name, Amen.