THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Psalms: Living By Faith In God

CXLIX. Praising God For His Coming Judgment

(Psalm 149:1-9)

 

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

            A lot of troubling sin has been committed in human history, and justice demands that it be addressed:

            (1) It needs to be addressed in the media: (a) KABC anchor Jory Rand during . . . the Los Angeles riots over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on June 8, 2025, said: “‘It could turn very volatile if you move law enforcement in there in the wrong way and turn what is just a bunch of people having fun, watching cars burn, into a massive confrontation and altercation between officers and demonstrators.’” (“Notable Quotables: Chronicles of Bias XXXVIII,” Republican-American, December 31, 2025, p. A6) For a news anchor to say that watching cars burn in a protest is “fun” and to excuse demonstrators for confronting law enforcement officers is very wrong!  (b) Also, “(i)n . . . the Minnesota welfare-fraud saga . . . Ryan Thorpe and Christopher F. Rufo reported in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal” that “‘(b)illions in taxpayer dollars have been stolen . . . (a)nd the media, duty-bound by progressive pieties, refuse to connect the dots.’” (“Government’s competence crisis,” op. cit., January 7, 2026, p. A6)

            (2) Sin needs to be addressed in the scientific community: “The denial among many in the ‘scientific’ establishment of massive biological differences between males and females – a lie that was pervasive enough to shape law in blue states throughout the 2010s – has undoubtedly contributed to a climate of reflexive distrust in major institutions . . . ‘(S)cience’ – when viewed not as an information-gathering process, but as a sacred, infallible institution of ultimate authority – can be corrupted by intellectually derelict ideologies and bad-faith actors.” (“‘Battle of the Sexes’ exposes absurdities,” op. cit., January 3, 2026, p. A6)

            (3) Sin also needs to be addressed in religious realms: (a) Islam has its record of troubling sins: “(M)embers of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, the regime that rules Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Boko Haram are all terrorists but we may presume that they also are true believers whose interpretations of the Koran and the Hadiths (collections of the sayings of the prophet Muhammad) are not insupportable.” (Clifford May, “The many shades of Islam,” loc. cit., January 7, 2026) (b) However, Christendom has been marked by great sins, too: Psalm 149:1-9 that we will view in this sermon “has been put to unholy uses.  As (Christian scholar) Delitzsch has pointed out, Catholic princes were incited to warlike fervor at the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War” against Protestants “by reference to it; and in the Protestant camp by use of it Thomas Muenzer incited the peasants to rebellion” against Catholic nobles “at the beginning of the Peasants’ War.” (H. C. Leupold, Exposition of the Psalms, 1974, p. 1001)

 

Need: So we ask, “If much troubling sin has occurred in history that needs to be addressed, what should we do?”

 

I.             Psalm 149:1-9 is a call for God’s people to praise Him for blessing them and to enable them to be victorious in military war over other wicked nations (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Psalm 149):

A.    Verses one to four call for God’s people to praise and rejoice in the Lord for his blessings to them, Ibid.

B.    Psalm 149:5-9 then urges military triumph for God’s people (Ibid.), calling for a two-edged sword in their hands to execute vengeance upon wicked enemy nations, their people, their kings and their nobles in carrying out God’s judgment that is decided against them, all to the honor of all of God’s saints.

II.          If we were to interpret this psalm as a call that we Christians must fight against evil foes, we would have to wage holy war against many religious and secular entities worldwide, what the New Testament never orders of us Christians and what would also leave us viewed as terrorists to the harm of our testimony.

III.        Thus, to apply this psalm correctly requires a consistent literal interpretation of all Scripture:

A.    Failure to interpret Psalm 149:1-9 in a consistent literal way has led to tragic wars involving Christendom:

1.     It began with the 3rd cent. Alexandrian school’s effort to harmonize Christianity with Platonic philosophy, what required Scripture to be read nonliterally. (J. F. Walvoord, The Bles. Hope and the Trib., 1976, p. 12)

2.     The church denounced this school as heretical, but though Augustine in the 4th and 5th centuries read non prophetic Scriptures literally, he followed the Alexandrian school’s nonliteral approach to prophecy, Ibid.

3.     Interpreting prophecy nonliterally led Augustine to adopt the Alexandrian School’s view before him that the Church replaced Israel so that Israel had no future 1,000-year kingdom, the amillennial view. (Charles C. Ryrie, A Survey of Bible Doctrine, 1978, p. 164; J. Dwight Pentecost, Things To Come, 1972, p. 381)

4.     As a result, influential Church Father Augustine’s amillennial view via the nonliteral view of prophecy was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformers. (Walvoord, op. cit., p. 12-13)

5.     Consequently, both Catholics and Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries believed that Psalm 149 was a call for their respective group to wage holy war against the other, for each group viewed itself as the true Israel of God versus the other alleged errant and evil group.  Thus, Catholics and Protestants fought each other in the Peasants’ War and later in the Thirty Years’ War! (H. C. Leupold, Exposition of the Psalms, 1974, p. 1001) The Thirty Years War “reduced the population of Germany by more than half,” leaving cities unable to be rebuilt or farms to be replanted. (Compton’s Encyclopedia, 1973, Volume 20, p. 160)

B.    In great contrast, Jesus viewed Scripture prophecy literally in Matthew 5:18: He said that prophecy would be fulfilled down to each small Hebrew letter yodh and to each tittle in a Hebrew letter that distinguished it from every other letter, thus affecting each word’s spelling and thus Scripture’s literal view of prophecy!

C.    If we then interpret ALL Scripture in a consistently literal way, we find that Psalm 149:1-9 predicts the subjugation of wicked nations by a repentant nation Israel at the start of Christ’s future millennial kingdom: 

1.     Heeding Jesus’ example of interpreting Scripture prophecy literally leads to our viewing Israel as distinct from the Church and vice versa. (Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, 1970, p. 97)

2.     The literal interpretation of the Daniel 9:25-27 prophecy also produces the dispensational view that Israel now faces war and desolations that will climax in her facing the antichrist in the Tribulation Period. (Ryrie S. B., KJV, op. cit., ftns. to Dan. 9:25, 9:26, 9:27; H. Hoehner, Chr. Asps. of the L. of Chr., 1979, p. 139)

3.     Then, Revelation 19:11-20:6 and Zechariah 12-14 literally predict that after that Tribulation, Christ returns to earth, defeats the antichrist and his armies and sets up His millennial kingdom with a repentant Israel.

4.     Thus, Psalm 149:6-9 looks “forward to the subjugation of the nations” under the repentant nation Israel “at the establishment of Christ’s millennial kingdom” in fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah 54:11-17 and Micah 5:4-15 to the literal nation Israel. (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, op. cit., ftn. to Psalm 149:6-9)

 

Lesson: Psalm 149:1-9 prophetically calls for the future, literal, repentant Israel at Christ’s Second Coming to earth to praise God for His blessings and to execute God’s judgment as His agent in defeating wicked Gentile foes.

 

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God's gift of eternal life, John 3:16; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11.  (2) May we interpret all Scripture in a consistently literal way and so fulfill God’s calling that we in the Church era live righteously and disciple the nations for Christ while submitting to human government and looking for the Rapture and Christ’s Second Coming to set up His kingdom.

 

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message and/or provide additional guidance . . .)

            The consistently literal interpretation of Scripture provides guidelines on righteous, practical responses in us believers in our current dispensation of the Church to the sins we noted in our introduction (as follows):

            (1) On activists having “fun” watching other peoples’ cars burn in a demonstration or the legacy media’s initial failure to pursue the story of great welfare fraud in Minnesota, Deuteronomy 22:1-4 (with Matthew 7:12) taught that if one saw that any possession of another party had been misplaced or lost, he was to do what he could to reverse that party’s loss.  Watching someone else’s car “burn” in a demonstration or not trying to stop the known defrauding of taxpayer’s money is sin, so we are obliged do what we can to protect another party’s property!

            (2) On relating to law officers, we should submit to their orders as law-abiding citizens, 1 Peter 2:13-17.

            (3) On the widespread lying in the scientific community of denying the great differences between men and women, Deuteronomy 22:5 reveals that even cross-dressing is an abomination to God.  He calls us to submit to His rule by functioning like the man or the woman that He created us to be. (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NIV)

            (4) On the call for holy war given in some of the statements in Islam’s holy book, the Koran, or the misinterpretation of Scripture to direct Christians to wage holy war against evil entities, (a) Jesus told Pilate in John 18:36 that His kingdom was not of this world [as to its source] so that His disciples would not fight even to deliver Him from death.  We as Christ’s true followers in the Church must not wage holy war, for that is not God’s will for us.  (b) Rather, our role is to be law-abiding citizens of the human government under which we live (Romans 13:1-4 with 1 Peter 2:13-17), (c) the exception being that we obey God over the government if what God’s command of us differs with what the government commands of us.  (d) However, even if we must practice Biblical civil disobedience, we must be peaceful and orderly in how we do so that we might uphold our testimony before the world, 1 Peter 2:12.  (e) As for the judgment of the many sins in the world, we must wait on Christ for His Second Coming to earth for Him to judge the nations as foretold in Psalm 149:1-9 and other passages like 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10.

            May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God’s gift of eternal life.  May we interpret Scripture in a consistently literal way to fulfill God’s calling for us.