God's Faithfulness

We started our small group time tonight with singing songs that professed praise to God. One of them was based on Psalm 96, and I was struck by a beautiful truth as we were singing the chorus. Here are the last five verses of the Psalm (vv. 9-13):

Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!
Tremble before Him, all the earth.

Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns;
The world also is firmly established,
It shall not be moved;
He shall judge the peoples righteously.”

Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and all its fullness;
Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the LORD.

For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth.
He shall judge the world with righteousness,
And the peoples with His truth.


What a strange thought: we rejoice because the LORD is coming to judge the earth in righteousness and truth.

By all rights, the prospect of coming face to face with the holy Lamb in that day should cause us to cry out to be crushed by rocks rather than face His wrath (Revelation 6:16). And yet, what is the psalmist's response? He rejoices in this thought! Why does he rejoice? He rejoices in the LORD's ultimate judgment because he knows that he serves a faithful God, a God who will unquestionably keep the covenant which He has sealed with His people, which guarantees that they will not face His wrath in those last days.

If the psalmist - who was a member of the first covenant - rests upon the promises of God to the extent that he rejoices in His coming to the earth to judge humanity, how much more reason do we - as members of the perfect covenant of the Son - have to rejoice in the same thought!

And if we can trust in God to be faithful in His promise to save us from His wrath by the covenant of His Son's blood, to the point that we delight in the judgment-bearing return of that Son upon the earth, how much more can we trust in God to be faithful to His people in this life! If we believe that God has already done the unthinkable in counting us righteous by the sacrifice of His Messiah, why do we so often doubt that this same God will provide for us in ways which are far less bewildering?

Why do we have reason to rejoice? We rejoice because we know that we serve a faithful God, a God who will undoubtedly keep His promises, be they large or small. If we rest upon this truth, we will be most certainly blessed by it.