 So moving across Psalm 96 to Psalm 97, one of the two Psalms which begins with the kingdom of God, the Lord is king, Yahweh is the sovereign one, let the earth rejoice. Yahweh is the one who's in charge and therefore the earth should rejoice. Some people have got the idea of God as a kind of a dangerous malevolent God and that if he was in charge the earth should be afraid because he was going to swallow it up or destroy it. No, when God is king the earth rejoices, when idols are worshipped that's when the earth should be really worried because when people worship idols they tend not to look after God's creation in the way that they should. And God is majestic, cloud and darkness around about him, righteousness and justice at the foundation of his throne. These are the things which mean he cares about what's done in this world and he through his royal power will put it right and fire goes before him and consumes his adversaries. In other words, if people are trying to mess up his world, if people are trying to destroy it for their own advantage or take advantage of the weak and the poor and so on, God is going to deal with that in his own way. His lightnings light up the world, the earth season trembles, the mountains melt like wax before Yahweh, before the Lord, of all the earth. So that's verses one to five, a terrifying picture in some ways and yet because he is king the earth must rejoice. There is a kind of a holy joy which isn't flippant, which takes God with utter seriousness but which trusts his righteousness and justice as the basis for everything that needs to happen. So verses six, verse six, the heavens proclaim his righteousness. When you look at the sky, when you look at the moon and the stars and the sun, they themselves as we saw in Psalm 19 are saying, yes, this is it, we are declaring the glory of God and all the peoples behold that glory. Whether they know it or not, when they look at the power and beauty of creation, it is the beauty of Yahweh himself, the Creator, that they are recognizing. And therefore verses seven, eight and nine, Zion rejoices and the idols are judged. The world is full of idols, it was in those days, it is now. But the people who know that Yahweh has chosen to dwell on Zion and then their successors in the gospel who know that the God who dwelt on Zion now dwells with his people in and as Jesus the Messiah and in and as the power of the Holy Spirit. We are called to celebrate and to turn away from all idols that will tempt us to worship some element of creation, whether it's money or fame or power or sex or whatever it is. No, we are not to worship these things, we are simply to worship the one true God. For you, Lord, are most high over all the earth. You are exalted far above all gods. So therefore verses 10 to 12, very similar again to Psalm 1. The Lord loves those who hate evil. This we remind ourselves as the conscious decision to see the way that many people go and to say, actually, I think the God I worship is calling me not to go that route. This may be just self-control, it may sometimes be self-denial, feels like that anyway. But God guards the life of his faithful verse 10. He rescues them from the hand of the wicked again and again. Maybe we are tempted or leered or in a moment of weakness, well, maybe I should go this way and God will be there to say, no, don't go that route. I love those who turn from that and I want to rescue you from the hand of the wicked. And therefore, even if life gets dark, light dawns for the righteous, verse 11, and joy for the upright in heart. So we come back where we began. Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous.