The God in Charge
Psalm 82
Main Idea: God is the judge with all authority, and in Jesus, he redeems our authority by taking on all our judgment.
I. God’s Judgment (82:1)
In 1 Samuel 2:3, the barren woman Hannah says “For the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him all actions are weighed.” By his very nature as the standard he judges all the actions that he sees completely. He is the God of all knowledge and Asaph believes this.
Job 1:6: Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.
Genesis 6:1-2: When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.
The spirit of the Satan breathed in the Sabeans and Chaldeans when they afflicted Job (Job 1:13–19)
It is explicit in Daniel that Michael is clearly an angelic being over a nation (Daniel 12)
When David used his power to call a sinful census, Satan lay behind him (1 Chron. 21:1)
An evil spirit tormented King Saul and drove him to wickedness (1 Sam. 16:14)
Those who used their power to oppose Christ were children of the devil (John 8:44)
There are “cosmic powers over this present darkness” (Eph. 6:12)
The Satan who entered into Judas Iscariot (Luke 22:3) claims to be God (2 Thess. 2:4)
“Whenever a human being exercises power other than by the Spirit of God, a darker spirit is at work. In their pretense to be a god, they represent spiritual and demonic powers. So ‘the gods’ may, at the same time, be spiritual beings in the heavenly places and powerful human beings on earth in whom their spirits breathe.”
- Christopher Ash, The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary.
II. God’s Verdict (82:2-7)
Exodus 3:7-8: I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
"Their title and dignity will not save them. They are creatures, and therefore accountable."
-Derek Kidner, Psalms 73-150
They must account for what they have done by the God who judges over all the earth. Privileges and delegated authority aside, if any creature tries to sidestep God’s will, they will certainly experience God’s wrath.
III. God’s Inheritance (82:8)
At every level, the heavenly, the civil, and the personal, we have failed to steward the authority that God has given us. We were meant to rule and reign like God on this earth, but we turned a garden into a trash heap. So how will God inherit the nations when the nations also deserve the wrath of God?
Colossians 1:13-14: He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 2:14-15(MSG): Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
Expand your view of God’s rule and watch his rule in your life expand with it. Because this is the good news from Psalm 82, God is the judge with all authority, and in Jesus, he redeems our authority by taking on all our judgment.
