Sinners Shall Be Consumed

Location	Subjects	Takeaways	Sermon Link
Emmaus Orthodox Presbyterian Church	wickedness	-	https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermons/114251915177044

💡Big Idea

Takeaways and Next Steps

📖Bible Passage

Ps 104.35

Let sinners be consumed out of the earth. Let the wicked be no more. Bless Yahweh, my soul. Praise Yah! Scripture

Points

• This Psalm teaches man to praise God for all of creation that the LORD made.
  • It is a poetic retelling of Genesis 1.
• Psalm 104 includes the Hebrew command hallelujah
• Why does Psalm 104 end with these words that sinners shall be consumed from the earth and the wicked shall be no more?
  • You might think this is a rather unpleasant ending to a majestic and beautiful song about how righteous and holy God is.
    • But this teaches us an important principle: even the magnificence of creation is not enough for man to praise God.
      • And so God woos us. and pursues us.
      • It is as though a man stands there indifferently and says “That is all well, but I’m going to take my chances and find my blessing in other ways.” and as though the Lord responds “If my wonderful creation is not enough, then these unrepentant sinners are surely deserving of destruction.”
      • [*] We need both the blessings and threatenings of God.
• After this warning, the scripture continues Let the wicked be no more.
  • ❓: Who are these wicked people?
    • It is all those who do not delight in God their Creator, who do not praise Him and honor Him.
      • No matter how kind they may seem to be, they are in fact wicked.
      • They are without Christ, without God.
      • In Ps 1:1-3:
        • the blessed man is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
        • and the wicked man is the one who does follow wicked teaching.
          • in many cases, the way of the wicked is self-sufficiency, self-determination without any dependence upon God’s grace, nor any deep understanding of their own sin and need for salvation.
          • The wicked man is simply a person who does not live in the way that God demands and requires.
      • It is hard for us to think of wicked in these terms, because today we tend to use the word wicked to describe someone who has committed a particularly heinous crime.
        • We tend not to use this word to describe neighbors who are kind, cordial, yet unbelieving.
          • We would tend to use the word unbelieving to describe them, but not wicked. Why not? This is the word that God uses in the Bible.
• wickedness is to live any other way than the way which God demands.
  • ❓How would the Lord describe you?
    • Did you praise the Lord with all your soul? Did you delight in His law?
• There are only two kinds of people:
  • 1. Those who bless the Lord and praise Him and
    • These are the righteous
  • 2. The wicked.
• Our culture, even evangelical churches keeps dealing in shades of grey, but in fact the Bible teaches that it is black and white.
  • Churches today are loathe to use words like wicked or righteous. We fear using these words, and we fear offending others with these words.¹
• What shall happen to the wicked, to the sinners? They will perish.
  • Ps 37:18-20 Yahweh knows the days of the perfect. Their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be disappointed in the time of evil. In the days of famine they shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish. The enemies of Yahweh shall be like the beauty of the fields. They will vanish— vanish like smoke. [[Ps-37#v19|]][[Ps-37#v20|]]
  • Ps 92:7-9 though the wicked spring up as the grass, and all the evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever. But you, Yahweh, are on high forever more. For, behold, your enemies, Yahweh, for, behold, your enemies shall perish. All the evildoers will be scattered. [[Ps-92#v8|]][[Ps-92#v9|]]
  • Ps 139:19-22 If only you, God, would kill the wicked. Get away from me, you bloodthirsty men! For they speak against you wickedly. Your enemies take your name in vain. Yahweh, don’t I hate those who hate you? Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred. They have become my enemies. [[Ps-139#v20|]][[Ps-139#v21|]][[Ps-139#v22|]]
  • Matt 3:7-12 [[Matt-03#v8|]][[Matt-03#v9|]][[Matt-03#v10|]][[Matt-03#v11|]][[Matt-03#v12|]]
  • Ps 1:4-6 The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish. [[Ps-01#v5|]][[Ps-01#v6|]]
    • The wicked are unstable, fickle and easily fall to temptation, and foolish teachings, but the righteous are but the righteous are resilient, like a tree planted firmly in the ground (Psalm 1:3)
    • The wicked and sinners are spiritually dead.
      • See Ephesians 4.
      • They are not useful. They are like useless chaff. When something is useless where do you throw it? In the fire, or the trash.
• It is interesting that the term for hell in the bible comes from trash. Gehenna was the garbage heap of the city of Jerusalem.
  • Hell is God’s junk heap. It is as though God says that the sinners have become junk for the junk heap. This is a frightful picture!

Application

• If the grace, love, and blessings of God, which are beyond measure, then the terror of His punishment ought to terrify us and turn us to repent.
  • Those who oppose the God of power and fight against Him will be consumed.
• But God is able by His grace to take wicked sinners and make them those who would worship Him.
  • ❓: Which one are you today?
  • Plead with God and ask Him to take your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
• Even this ought to cause us to praise God.
  • While sinners are consumed by God, let my soul praise the Lord, without end.
• Let everyone praise the Lord!

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Further Study

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💬Discussion Questions

Footnotes

Footnotes

1. What we really fear is that these offensive words will offend ourselves, because we know that they describe us. ↩