God's Clock, God's Throne, and God's Pruning Shears Text: Psalm 75:2-5
Introduction: The Arrogance of Autonomy
We live in an age that is drunk on the wine of its own insolence. Modern man, particularly secular man, believes himself to be the master of his own fate, the captain of his own soul, and the supreme court that gets to define reality. He looks at the world God made, breathes the air God provides, and uses the logic God embedded into the creation, all in order to declare that God is irrelevant. He thinks he can set the timetable, define the terms, and hold court over the Almighty. He has raised his horn on high, and speaks with a stiff neck, assuming that because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, that there is no judge on the bench.
This is, to put it mildly, a profound miscalculation. It is the central delusion of all rebellion against God, from the serpent in the garden to the technocrats in Brussels. The delusion is that man is autonomous, that he is a law unto himself, and that God's world can be run indefinitely on principles of godlessness. But this psalm, like a blast of cold, clean air, blows all that nonsense away. It reminds us that there is a throne in heaven, and it is not vacant. There is a Judge, and He has a calendar. And on that calendar, He has made some appointments.
This psalm is a song of Asaph, and it is a corporate declaration of thanksgiving to God. But the middle section, our text for this morning, is God speaking in the first person. The people of God are giving thanks, and in the middle of their worship, God Himself cuts in to tell them why their thanks are so well-founded. He is a God who does not just observe history; He intervenes in it. He does not just watch the proud build their towers of Babel; He comes down and scatters them. He is not a distant, deistic clockmaker. He is the sovereign Lord who sets the pillars of the earth and who, at His chosen time, will judge with perfect equity.
We need this reminder more than ever. We are surrounded by boastful men, wicked men, who lift up their horns. They control the universities, the media, the halls of government, and the boardrooms of major corporations. They speak with insolent pride, assuming their reign is permanent. But this psalm tells us their foundations are sand, their boasts are hot air, and their time is short. God has an appointed time, and when it arrives, all the proud horns will be cut off.
The Text
"For I select an appointed time, It is I who judge with equity. The earth and all who dwell in it melt; It is I who have firmly set its pillars. Selah. I said to the boastful, 'Do not boast,' And to the wicked, 'Do not raise up the horn; Do not raise up your horn on high, Nor speak with insolent pride.'"
(Psalm 75:2-5 LSB)
The Divine Timetable (v. 2)
God begins His declaration by asserting His sovereignty over time and justice.
"For I select an appointed time, It is I who judge with equity." (Psalm 75:2)
The first thing we must grasp is that God operates on His own schedule, not ours. "I select an appointed time." The Hebrew word is mo'ed, which means a set, appointed time or season. God is not reactive. He is not scrambling to respond to the latest crisis manufactured by CNN. He has His purposes, and He has His calendar, and the two are perfectly synchronized. Paul tells the Athenians that God has "appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained" (Acts 17:31). There is a final, appointed day, but there are also countless smaller, appointed times within history.
This is a profound comfort for the righteous and a terrifying threat to the wicked. For the saints, it means that our suffering is not endless and our prayers are not unheard. God has an appointed time to deliver Zion (Psalm 102:13). For the wicked, it means that their apparent success is temporary. Their party will not last forever. God's patience is not the same thing as His approval. He gives men rope, but there is an appointed time when He pulls it taut.
And when that time comes, the judgment will be perfect. "It is I who judge with equity." This is not the sloppy, politically-motivated, finger-in-the-wind "justice" of men. Human judges can be bribed, intimidated, or just plain wrong. But God judges with meshar, with straightness, with uprightness. His standard is His own holy character, and His knowledge of the facts is exhaustive. He sees the secret motives, the hidden sins, the proud thoughts that no human court can ever prosecute. When He judges, there are no miscarriages of justice. Every verdict is true and righteous altogether.
The Unraveling World and the Upholding God (v. 3)
Next, God describes the inherent instability of the created order apart from His sustaining power.
"The earth and all who dwell in it melt; It is I who have firmly set its pillars. Selah." (Psalm 75:3)
Here is the foundational reality of the world. Left to itself, the whole created order, including every human society, would simply dissolve into chaos. "The earth and all who dwell in it melt." The word for melt here speaks of dissolving, quaking, unraveling. This is what happens when men rebel against the Creator. When human cultures reject God's law and His authority, they are sawing off the branch they are sitting on. The very fabric of society begins to come apart. We see this all around us. When you redefine marriage, you get social chaos. When you abandon fiscal responsibility, you get economic collapse. When you teach children that they are meaningless accidents, you get nihilistic violence. The world melts.
But it does not completely fly apart. Why? Because of the second clause: "It is I who have firmly set its pillars." While the surface of the earth is in constant turmoil because of sin, God Himself upholds the fundamental structure of reality. The word for pillars here refers to the foundations that hold something up. God established the foundations of the physical world (1 Samuel 2:8), and He also establishes the foundations of the social and moral world. These pillars are His created order, His common grace, His covenant faithfulness. Even in the midst of rebellion, God upholds the structures that make life possible. He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good. He maintains the regularities of nature. He upholds the institutions of family and civil government, however corrupted they may become.
The Selah invites us to pause and consider this staggering thought. The world is simultaneously dissolving because of our sin and being held together by God's sovereign power. This should produce in us both a profound sense of humility about our own abilities and a deep sense of gratitude for God's preserving grace. Without Him, everything would be tohu wa-bohu once more.
The Divine Warning to the Proud (v. 4-5)
Because God is the one who sets the schedule and upholds the world, He has the absolute authority to issue commands to the arrogant.
"I said to the boastful, 'Do not boast,' And to the wicked, 'Do not raise up the horn; Do not raise up your horn on high, Nor speak with insolent pride.'" (Psalm 75:4-5)
Here God addresses the root of the world's unraveling: human pride. He speaks first to the "boastful," the arrogant fools who live in a world of self-congratulation. Their central sin is a refusal to give thanks to God. They take the credit for their successes, their intelligence, their wealth, their power. And God's command to them is simple and direct: "Stop it. Do not boast." True boasting is to be in the Lord alone (Jer. 9:24), because He is the source of every good and perfect gift.
Then He turns to the wicked and uses a powerful image: "Do not raise up the horn." In the Old Testament, the horn is a symbol of strength, power, and dominion. A bull with high, sharp horns is a dangerous and powerful creature. To "raise up the horn" is to exalt one's own power, to declare one's own sovereignty, to act as though you are the ultimate authority. This is the sin of Nebuchadnezzar, who looked at Babylon and said, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?" (Daniel 4:30). It is the sin of every tyrant, every godless politician, every arrogant academic who sets his own authority against the authority of God.
God repeats the command for emphasis: "Do not raise up your horn on high." Don't lift it up toward heaven in defiance of Me. And He clarifies what this looks like: "Nor speak with insolent pride." The Hebrew is literally "speak with a stiff neck." It's the picture of a stubborn, rebellious animal that refuses the yoke. It is the posture of defiance. Stiff-necked pride is not just an internal attitude; it is expressed in words. It is the speech that mocks God's law, that redefines God's creation, that calls evil good and good evil. It is the arrogant speech that fills our airwaves and our internet feeds every single day.
Cutting Off the Horns
This passage is not simply a piece of abstract theology. It is a declaration of war against the pride of man, and it is a promise to the people of God. The world seems to be run by the boastful and the wicked. They appear to be strong, their horns are high and sharp, and their voices are loud. And we can be tempted to despair, to think that their dominion is secure.
But God has spoken. He has an appointed time. He is the one holding the pillars of the world together, and He can just as easily let them go. The entire foundation of the proud man's world is the sustaining grace of the very God he defies. And God's command to "stop it" is not a polite suggestion. It is a warning of impending judgment. Later in this same psalm, the psalmist declares God's intent: "And all the horns of the wicked I will also cut off; But the horns of the righteous will be lifted up" (Psalm 75:10).
This is the great reversal of the gospel. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). In His own appointed time, He shatters the power structures of rebellious men. He brings down the mighty from their thrones and exalts those of humble estate (Luke 1:52). He does this in small ways throughout history, toppling empires and humbling tyrants. And He did it supremely at the cross.
At the cross, the horns of the wicked were raised to their highest point. The rulers of this age, in their arrogant power, conspired together to execute the Son of God. They lifted their horn against heaven itself. And for a moment, it looked like they had won. But God had selected that appointed time. And in the resurrection, God judged with equity. He shattered the horn of Satan's power, He broke the horn of death, and He began the great project of cutting off all the horns of the wicked. He established the true pillar of the world, Jesus Christ, the one by whom all things consist (Col. 1:17).
Therefore, we are not to be intimidated by the stiff-necked pride of the wicked. Their time is short. Their power is derivative. Their foundation is melting. Our job is to live in humble submission to the one true Judge, to refuse to boast in ourselves, and to trust His timetable. He will cut off the horns of the wicked. And in His grace, through Christ, He will lift up ours.