Saturday afternoon, as I wrestled with the implications of this psalm in the context of the upcoming new year, new century and new millennium, I have decided to put together a miniature series on the state of the church on the grand occasion of this millennial crossing. Today, we will look at the first half of Psalm 94, move on to the second half next week and then open the new eon with the oldest psalm in the Psalter - that of Moses in Psalm Ninety.

Joseph Alexander would divide this psalm "into two parts, in the first of which the ancient church complains of Jehovah's absence and apparent desertion, and of the consequent triumph of his enemies ... while in the second she asks and confidently looks for his return and their destruction." In this psalm, the writer appeals to God as the great judge of the earth. The first seven verses, as Spurgeon divides it, detail the psalmist's "complaints against the wicked oppressors" . In the second four verses our psalmist reasons that the skeptics will eventually learn that God has not ignored their wickedness.

Derek Kidner titles this psalm: "A God who punishes". He observes that the word punish is a much less loaded word socially than vengeance. However, he observes that even the word punishment is still controversial in our own time. By contrast, The Geneva Bible carries the title "God the Refuge of the Righteous". There is a difference in those titles wherein we may discern a proper attitude before our God and King.

When I first preached on this psalm in 1992, crime was rising and public institutions were either ignoring or profiting from the situation. However, if the national crime statistics being reported are accurate, today we are actually better off than we were eight years ago. Statistically and financially at least. Mayor Gulianni has had major successes in New York City, The State of Texas is not afraid to execute deserving criminals and the Federal Government is even willing to execute a criminal for the first time in many a year. And so we may not "feel the pain" implicit in this psalm, as our soon to be ex-president so eloquently once described his attitude towards the ongoing sufferings of the down and out.

Ah, but, here's the rub, in that contemporary theme. Does it truly matter if wickedness has been somewhat bought down by prosperity? Has immorality been lessened because of an excessive overweening tolerance? Has the progressive political spin cycle been too effective in calling attention away from deep pits of slime, carefully carpeted over?

"O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongs - O God, to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth!"

When I was little and traveling around the county, I would on occasion pass by a bar in the company of my father. I noticed that it was always dark inside and I asked Dad, why they didn't turn any lights on. He commented that, since no good thing ever came out of the dark corners of bars, that those imbibing, plotting, scheming and hiding were naturally ashamed of their dealings and so preferred the darkness to the full light of day.

In those years, Dad was a regular participant in the administration of county education. Several times, his hard fought battles to preserve local control and descent standards was undermined by the bar clubs. And once all of the little schools for which he had fought had been closed he left the office of County President. The main problem as I remember it was the fact that everything he said and did took place in the full light of public display, the opposition, who hoped to profit is some way from a new system, schemed and plotted unobserved. And so as a result, those small institutions which had minimally accomplished the passing along the beliefs and habits of Western Civilization were closed and newer institutions inhabited by state approved educators devised a new regime!

Such devious goings on were not limited to just the schools and businesses. When the old United Presbyterian Church in North America was swallowed up in the merger of 1957, none of the local participants were ready for the size of the new presbyteries which were three to more times larger than expected Individual and congregational voices were drowned out in the preplanning that always took place out of sight and out of mind. At least one meeting to which I was summoned by the bureaucracy was held in a bar. Times were a changing, the lights were even on in the Presbytery capital, the executives even talked openly of closing and consolidating the small churches, who tended to disagree with their concepts of progress and theology.

Had the full light of day shone on either or any of the progressive developments of the fifties and sixties, we might still live in a different world. In the business environment, the progressive milk companies met with bankers to plan the annihilation of the local companies who delivered milk door to door. They were successful, even as the bankers were in eliminating all local competition a decade later.

"Rise up, O judge of the earth; Render punishment to the proud. Lord, how long will the wicked, How long will the wicked triumph?"

Alexander Solzhenitsyn once wrote of the wickedness of the Soviet system which destroyed the village life so that no community could continue to govern itself. All prerogatives of power must be assumed by the Supreme Soviets and the party flunkies who were willing to take complete direction, even it if meant, as it did on one occasion planting wheat seed directly into snow.

American soviets were more sophisticated, kinder and gentler. Yet the egg co-op just as assuredly took my father's market and dropped him as a supplier when they no longer needed him. Rural self-insurance co-operative programs and institutions turned into a megalomanic corporation. Even rural kids clubs designed to encourage the prosperity of family farms turned children towards the university that sponsored the program . Not much of anything could be left to the little people, every part of life could be improved if the organization was big enough and those at the center controlled everything.

Once upon a time, a network producer asked his script writers to keep in mind, how their story line would play in the heartland? That was the sure road to entertainment and commercial success. Neither left coast would give that premise much more than a snicker and a scowl today! And yet, in the course of this transformation, we have become a proud people. Each new shopping mall must be larger, fancier and more consumer oriented than the last one.

I can well remember when Graceland opened north of the center of Columbus. Mom and grandma brought us kids into town to hear some "king" sing in honor of the mall named in the honor of his palatial palace in the south. That same place almost became nothing more than a highway to somewhere else a few years ago. Had their not been enough homes in the way of progress, Graceland would be barely a memory.

"Rise up, O Judge of the earth; Render punishment to the proud. Lord how long will the wicked, How long will the wicked triumph?"

Perhaps you might disagree with my many examples? Perhaps you have gotten used to this style of American life which in various ways we are exporting to foreign lands. When it comes to the American entertainment media especially, I am more inclined to agree with the assessment of the Muslim clerics behind the Devil's Curtain. Yet, if you follow the media in even the least, you have to agree with the words of the psalmist in verse four: "They utter speech, and speak insolent things; all the workers of iniquity boast in themselves."

Is it any wonder, that the election map of America displays an uncanny preference for a rural southern "rancher" image everywhere but in the cities? I thought it was very interesting to compare the dueling candidates this fall. One in his six-hundred dollar suit speaking from the metropolis, the other in a common dog-eared carhart coat going about his business deep in the heart of Texas. Yes, wicked politicians still abound in the rural heartlands. Lynden Johnson came also from Texas. But, at least in the country, they have the decency to turn the lights down in the bars where they flourish!

Verse five, means one thing in the Sudan, but the second in our place. "They break in pieces Your people, O Lord, and afflict Your heritage." The greatest change in the public schools after the rural consolidation of the fifties and sixties was the disappearance of Western Civilization and the God to whom that civilization was credited.

Of course we have only to travel to certain areas to see that verse six is literally being accomplished. "They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless." The great tragedy of the sexual revolution in this country is the fact that fathers are more an idea than a reality for almost half the population. So easily do the preborn fall between the cracks of love and care only to be flushed away for profits. This is where I fault the training of our young men in this country. Is it only because they fail to love the mothers of their children that these mothers fail to love the little ones who may or may not be allowed to grow up?

More and more the Church, the Bride of Christ is marginalized. Popular pop pastors, who will say anything to gather a crowd are allowed to counsel a pandering president, or speak words of encouragement to an increasingly pagan crowd. Creatures who could never ever qualify to lead a prayer meeting in a real church, are increasingly being strutted before a watching world through their popular paid performances in mall like "spiritual centers". "Yet they say, 'The Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand."

In the same way that we have a living constitution, so to does the popular evangelical and liberal churches evolve into institutions that pander to the lowest spiritual life forms imaginable. Didn't anyone learn anything from old king Solomon, who took a backwater state and turn it into the envy of all the world. "There is nothing new under the sun!", he learned. And while the history books celebrate his glory, the greater glory of His Father in heaven is ignored. "Vanity of vanities", did Solomon well write. The great institutions, the marvelous consumerist economy, the tallest buildings, the largest malls are nothing but a puff of smoke before the throne of God.

Look carefully at the last four verses: "Understand, you senseless among the people; and you fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see? He who instructs the nations, shall He not correct, He who teaches man knowledge? The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile."

What have we accomplished in the last hundred years? What have we accomplished in the last thousand years as a human race? "The Lord knows ..." If this long sad litany hasn't challenged your pride in being American or even human, read this psalmists challenge to human pride until you do! The human record of achievement these last hundred years especially is nothing to write home to heaven about! We are all a part of the American dream and experience even if we think otherwise! Just as the prosperity of Israel trembled and fell after the womanizing Solomon, so do we sense a minimum of concern at the tale end of the present administration.

Will the new president be able to handle the economy and guarantee continued prosperity. Of course not, of course we might prefer that any downward trend might providentially have happened under less "noble" hands? And yet, precisely where we want to believe that a president actually has these things under control, that is the nub of pride that our psalmist would rub in our faces! Our only hope, our only certain refuge is to be found in the second half of this psalm. May we look forward to the humility that even a president elect must learn, as it is to be taught in this psalm as well as in all scripture. Amen.