Christmas service

⁷ Let the sea and all that fills it,
the world and those who live in it, resound.
⁸ Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the mountains shout together for joy
⁹ before the Lord,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world righteously
and the peoples fairly.

Psalm 98

Introduction

I’m turning it on. Oh, it is on.

Friends, if you have your Bibles ready, would you turn to Psalm number 98? Psalm number 98. This is the third sermon through this brief psalm—just nine verses. We’ve looked at it over the last two Sundays, and now this morning, being Christmas Day, even to calm my own nerves as we come to the reading and the teaching of God’s Word, and also to settle your own hearts and minds, let’s bow our heads and pray to Almighty God.

Let’s pray.

*Father God in heaven, I do thank You for Your Word. It is faithful and it is true. Lord God, it is sufficient for all matters of life and godliness. I’m reminded, Lord God, of the texts that say that the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever. And Father, this morning we remember that in Your Word You present Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Savior of the world, the Lamb of God that was slain. This morning, Lord God, as we celebrate His first advent, His birth, I do ask, Lord, that You would help us to see Him clearly. And in seeing Him, Lord God, indeed would You stir the affections of our hearts that we would love Him all the more. Lord God, would You transform our lives that we might live well pleasing in Your sight? I ask all these things in the wonderful name of Jesus who is the Messiah, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to the praise and to the glory of our Father who is in heaven. Amen.*

Friends, at this stage I’m going to read Psalm 98. If you’re visiting with us, it is our practice of late to stand in the honor of the reading of God’s Word at this time in the service. And so as many of you as are able, could I ask would you please stand at this time?

Friends, I read to you Psalm number 98, beginning at the first verse. Hear the Word of God:

*Sing a new song to the Lord, for He has performed wonders; His right hand and His holy arm have won Him victory. The Lord has made His victory known; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His love and faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen our God’s victory. Let the whole earth shout to the Lord; be jubilant; shout for joy and sing. Sing to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and melodious song; with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn, shout triumphantly in the presence of the Lord our King. Let the sea and all that fills it, the world and those who live in it, resound. Let the rivers clap their hands; let the mountains shout together for joy before the Lord, for He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world righteously and the peoples fairly.*

Just so far in the reading of God’s Word. Amen. Please be seated.

Kids, if you are under the age of 13, I just want to remind you that if you have a sheet of paper that you got from the front and you fill it in during the service, straight after the service, you can come up to me and get a sweet. The sweets are ready. If you didn’t get a sheet of paper—I can see some panicked eyes—if you didn’t get a sheet of paper, come up to me after the service and just answer this simple question. Number one: who is this passage about? And number two: who is the judge that is coming to judge the world? Okay, that’s actually two questions, eh? But I’ll ask you those two questions with age‑appropriate answers.

Parents, adults, and those who are here to hear the reading and the teaching of God’s Word: last night I went onto a few of the websites and news websites that I follow. I started with a South African site. I always catch the headlines and read important articles on News24. The main article last night was: *Mozambique struggles to contain unrest as election results are upheld.* Actually on the way to church this morning—and I only stay like two minutes down the road—I happened to catch the news, and this was the main news headline in the news this morning. Fox News leads in terms of their world news with: *NATO leaders predict an era of 2% defense spending is probably history.* And you might say, well that’s good news. No, they’re predicting that the world is going to spend a lot more on defense spending. And in reality, defense spending ends up being attack spending, doesn’t it?

CNN reads: *Russian cargo ship sinks in the Mediterranean after an explosion.* And we know that there is war in that part of the world. That can’t be good news for us. Al Jazeera reads: *Israel attacks two Gaza hospitals and forces patients out of a third facility.*

I’m not going to give commentary on the news, but I read those headlines to make a simple point that I imagine each and every one of us already knows: **the world is a mess.**

A very popular Christian song which was written a few years ago asks the question, *Do you feel the world is broken?* And the immediate response of any rational person is to answer, *I do.* The song goes on to ask, *Do you feel the shadows deepen?* Friends, you don’t have to follow the news every single day and read every single article to know that the answer to the shadows deepening is *they are.* *Do you wish that you could see all of this made new?* I do.

The good news of Psalm number 98 is that in a world which is crying out for hope, God’s salvation has been declared and it has come through the person of Jesus Christ. But not only that: we celebrate His first advent this morning—Christmas Day—but we anticipate in this psalm His second advent, when all creation will burst forth in praise.

Here’s the main idea from the last three verses of the psalm this morning: **All creation will praise the Lord who is coming to judge.**

And there are just two points this morning because it’s Christmas Day—and a third would keep us here till twelve o’clock. The two points are this:

1. All creation will praise (verses 7–8 and the first half of verse 9)
2. When He comes (the last part of verse 9)

All Creation Will Praise

So read verses 7, 8, and 9 together with me, and let me unpack it to one degree or another.

*Verse seven: “Let the sea and all that fills it, the world and all those who live in it, resound. Let the rivers clap their hands; let the mountains shout together for joy before the Lord.”*

Now, Psalm number 98 from verse 1 to verse 6 so far has been praising this Lord. You might remember Psalm 98 verses 1–3, and in verse 3—the first half of verse 3 in particular—it was Israel, God’s chosen people, who were worshiping the Lord. And then in verses 4–6, the praises of God’s people started to grow until all the world was worshiping the Lord. In verse 4: *“Let the whole earth shout to the Lord.”*

The question is: why? Why were they praising God? Well, in verses 1–3, Israel was praising God because God had won salvation for them. God had delivered them. In verse one: *“His right hand and His holy arm have won Him victory.”* In verse two: *“The Lord has made His victory known.”* And at the end of verse three: *“All the ends of the earth have seen our God’s victory.”* God is a saving God, and Israel was praising the Lord who was their mighty Savior.

Why was all the ends of the earth worshiping God in verses 4–6? Well, as we read verses 4–6, as we get to the end of verse six, it says: *“Shout triumphantly in the presence of the Lord our King.”* Now, all the earth is praising God for God is their revealed King. And what we saw on Sunday is that King is King Jesus, and that Savior is Jesus Christ—Yeshua—who is mighty to save.

Now, as we get to verse seven, the peals of praise are extending even more. What started off with Israel, what then went to all the peoples of the earth, now becomes all of creation praising God for who He is. *“Let the sea and all that fills it, the world and those who live in it. The rivers clap their hands. The mountains shout together for joy.”* All of creation is praising God when He comes again.

Praise at the First Advent

Now, this isn’t unusual in Scripture. This being Christmas, we are reminded—and we have sung—of all the people who praised Jesus Christ in His first advent. We had the angels in Luke chapter 2, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God at Jesus’s birth. And we had those shepherds, right, who came in from the fields and came to Nazareth—to Bethlehem—and found Jesus Christ after the angelic pronouncement. The shepherds who saw Jesus Christ and glorified and praised God for what they had seen and for what they had heard.

And add to the angels and to the shepherds in our traditional nativity scene, but a few years after the event come the magi—those wise men—not three, but three presents. Those wise men who came from the east to worship Jesus, offering Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. They aren’t the only people that worship Jesus; they’re the people that we see in our nativity scene. But shortly after His birth, as Mary and Joseph took Jesus to be circumcised at the temple, we have Simeon, that righteous man who praises God upon seeing Jesus in the temple, and Anna the prophetess who gave thanks to God and spoke about Jesus to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

What’s the point? The point is this: when Jesus came the first time, God’s people recognized God with us—Immanuel—and they praised and they worshiped Jesus Christ as their King.

The Reason for Creation’s Praise

In Psalm 98, we have Israel praising their mighty Savior. We have the world praising their righteous King. But in the end, we have all creation praising this Judge who is to come. Why is all creation praising this Judge? Because all creation is in a mess.

We see it in our news headlines, but we read it in the pages of Scripture. Scripture opens with Genesis 1:1 saying, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In chapter 3, after man had sinned, God said to the woman, He promised that a seed would come—one who would strike the head of the serpent. And then He pronounced a curse on all of creation. *“The ground is cursed because of you, Adam,”* God said. *“You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you. You will eat the plants of the field.”* Right from the opening pages of Scripture, we are told that our world is in a mess. And our world is in a mess because of sin.

In Psalm 98, the world—creation—is getting excited because the King is coming to restore order, to return things to the way they are supposed to be. And so metaphorically the sea and all that fills it, the world and those who live in it, the rivers clap their hands and the mountains shout together for joy before the Lord, before Yahweh, because He is coming to restore order to the universe.

Psalm number 98 anticipates the joy of Jesus’s birth as the Savior of the world who initiates God’s redemptive plan. This psalm highlights that His first advent is a foretaste, and the celebration of those who come to faith and trust in Jesus Christ are a foretaste of the ultimate restoration which is described at the end of the psalm, as all creation is brought under the feet of Jesus Christ.

That’s the first point: **All creation will praise the Lord**—from verse 7 to the first half of verse 9.

When He Comes

Well, when will that happen? It’ll happen when He comes. And it’ll happen because of who He is. And that’s the second part of verse 9: *“For He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world righteously and the peoples fairly.”*

Judgment Day is the day of God’s final, ultimate judgment on sinful mankind. Everyone will stand before God who will render final judgment on their lives. We see this the whole way through God’s Word. Malachi 4:1 says, *“Look, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and everyone who commits wickedness will become stubble. The day that is coming will consume them,” says the Lord of Armies, “not leaving them root or branches.”*

In the New Testament, in the Gospels, we read Luke 3:7—Jesus speaking to the crowd who came out to be baptized by him? Sorry, John the Baptist: *“Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?”* In Romans chapter 2, verses 5–6, that we’ve been working through before our Christmas series, Paul says, *“Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s judgment is revealed. He will repay each one according to his work.”* For His final judgment will include everyone who has ever lived and will consign people to their final destiny.

And the question here is: will this King return? This King who is a mighty Savior, this King who has been celebrated by everyone in the world—will this King return? And the answer is yes.

The Certainty of Christ’s Return

Around one‑fifth of Scripture is prophetic in nature, and perhaps one‑third of Scripture refers to the second coming of Christ. One‑third of that one‑fifth—it is a major theme of both the Old and the New Testaments, from its beginning all the way to its end. The Old Testament is filled with prophecies of this coming Deliverer. Over one hundred prophecies of the first advent of Jesus Christ were fulfilled literally. And so when we read such a vast number of prophecies speaking of His second advent, we can be assured that they too will be fulfilled literally. Friends, we can look forward to a literal return of the King.

And so that’s the conclusion of the second point: **All creation will praise the Lord who is coming soon to judge.**

Connect to the gospel

Well, how does this connect to the gospel of Christ? How do we go from Psalm 98 to the person and to the work of Jesus Christ on the cross?

In Acts chapter 17, verse 30, we read of Paul speaking. He says, *“Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has set a day when He is going to judge the world righteously by the man He has appointed. And He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”*

Here’s the point. Psalm 98:1–3 speaks of a Savior, and that Savior—that *Yeshua*—is none other than Jesus Christ, God with us. Psalm 98 from verses 4 to 6 speaks of a King, and that King is none other than Jesus Christ who is coming again soon. Psalm 98 from verse 7 to 9 speaks of a Judge, and Scripture reveals that that Judge is the man Jesus Christ who has been attested to by God raising Him from the dead.

Application for believers

How ought we to live in light of these truths? Well, believers: **praise the Lord.** He is worthy of your worship. He saved you from your sins. He is your King of kings and Lord of lords. And yes, He is coming soon to judge the world. But He is coming to restore creation and to restore you to Himself. So praise Him. Rejoice because Jesus has saved your soul. Because Jesus Christ is your King. Because Jesus Christ is coming back for you. Worship God for who He is: He is your Savior. He is your King. He is your Judge.

Application for unbelievers

Unbeliever—I can’t assume in a crowd this large that everybody has put their faith and their trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and their Savior. If you are here this morning because you’ve come with family or friends or even out of tradition, how does this message of a Judge coming soon apply to you? Well, friend, it should stir in your soul a certain type of fear: that a righteous God will soon judge your eternal soul.

God’s Word reveals that it is appointed for man to die once, and then after that comes judgment. How then can you be saved? Well, that’s where the Christmas story comes in, doesn’t it? Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born into this world. He lived the perfect life that you could not live. And then He went to a cruel cross and He died in your place, satisfying the wrath of God.

Friends, Jesus didn’t stay dead. From the grave, He arose, demonstrating that God has accepted the punishment which was laid upon His Son’s shoulders, and salvation is made available to you. The call on your life is to repent today. If you would hear His voice, do not harden your heart. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe with your heart that God raised Him from the dead, and you will be saved. Do not delay. Do it at once. Do not let this salvation pass you by.

Conclusion

The babe of Bethlehem lying in the manger is the Savior who is mighty, is the King who has come, and is the Judge who is soon coming again to judge the world of its sin. The world is a mess. But on this Christmas day, we celebrate the birth of our Savior King, who has come to bring joy to the world and will soon return to make all things new. Let us join creation in singing His praises.

The main point of this morning’s passage, Psalm number 98, is: **All creation will praise the Lord who is coming soon to judge.** And the way that we have seen that in the passages, we’ve worked through verse 7 to the first half of verse 9—all creation will praise—and then the second half of verse 9—when He comes to judge the living and the dead.

Indeed, let us close in a word of prayer.