3. Drinking from God’s Cup Psalm 75:7-10

Text: “For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and He poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.  But I will declare for ever; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.  All the horns (pride, authority) of the wicked (Christ-rejecters) also will I cut off; but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted.”

Psalm 75:8-10.

Good morning, praising Christian!  Why are you found praising?  Who are you praising?  What Eternal reason would you have to be praising – even when you are at your wit’s end, why have you still this vital something for which to praise God?  Glory to the Lamb, Christ Jesus!  Bless the Lord, O my soul!  We praise our Sovereign Lord God Jehovah continually because we KNOW from His own inspired, God-breathed, Word that we have a great cup to drink from His hand that shall be our refreshment FOREVER.  Hallelujah!  Dear and Sovereign Lord God, we praise and thank Thee!

Verse 7. “But God is the Judge: He putteth down one, and setteth up another. Our Lord God is a Sovereign Lord God, “…Our God is in the Heavens: He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased.” (Psalm 115:3)

Matthew Henry Comments:

“In these verses we have two great doctrines laid down and two good inferences drawn from them, for the confirmation of what he had before said.

Here are two great truths laid down concerning God's government of the world, which we ought to mix faith with, both pertinent to the occasion: —

1. That from God alone kings receive their power (v. 6, 7), and therefore to God alone David would give the praise of his advancement; having his power from God he would use it for him, and therefore those were fools that lifted up the horn against him. We see strange revolutions in states and kingdoms, and are surprised at the sudden disgrace of some and elevation of others; we are all full of such changes, when they happen; but here we are directed to look at the author of them, and are taught where the original of power is, and whence promotion comes. Whence comes preferment to kingdoms, to the sovereignty of them? And whence come preferments in kingdoms, to places of power and trust in them?

“The former depends not upon the will of the people, nor the latter on the will of the prince, but both on the will of God, who has all hearts in his hands; to him therefore those must look who are in pursuit of preferment, and then they begin aright. We are here told, (1.) Negatively, which way we are not to look for the fountain of power: Promotion comes not from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert, that is, neither from the desert on the north of Jerusalem nor from that on the south; so that the fair gale of preferment is not to be expected to blow from any point of the compass, but only from above, directly thence.

“Men cannot gain promotion either by the wisdom or wealth of the children of the east, nor by the numerous forces of the isles of the Gentiles, that lay westward, nor those of Egypt or Arabia, that lay south; no concurring smiles of second causes will raise men to preferment without the first Cause.

“The learned bishop Lloyd (Sermon. in loc.) gives this gloss upon it: "All men took the original of power to be from heaven, but from whom there many knew not; the eastern nations, who were generally given to astrology, took it to come from their stars, especially the sun, their god. No, says David, it comes neither from the east nor from the west, neither from the rising nor from the setting of such a planet, or such a constellation, nor from the south, nor from the exaltation of the sun or any star in the mid-heaven."

“He mentions not the north, because none supposed it to come thence; or because the same word that signifies the north signifies the secret place, and from the secret of God's counsel it does come, or from the oracle in Zion, which lay on the north side of Jerusalem. Note, no wind is so good as to blow promotion, but as He directs who has the winds in his fists.

“(2.) Positively: God is the judge, the governor or umpire. When parties contend for the prize, he puts down one and sets up another as he sees fit, so as to serve his own purposes and bring to pass his own counsels. Herein he acts by prerogative, and is not accountable to us for any of these matters; nor is it any damage, danger, or disgrace that he, who is infinitely wise, holy, and good, has an arbitrary and despotic power to set up and put down whom, and when, and how he pleases. This is a good reason why magistrates should rule for God as those that must give account to him, because it is by him that kings reign.”  (Matthew Henry (1662-1714) Commentary on the Bible)

Verse 8. “For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup…full of mixture. Note, first, that the cup of the Lord is a cup full of mixture: Eternally sweet red wine for His Blood-bought children; the Eternal vile dregs of the cup for the wicked. “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye MUST be born again.”  (John 3:3-8)

“The judgments of God upon sinners are the cup of the Lord's right hand, (Habakkuk 2: 16.) The wine is red, denoting the wrath of God, which is infused into the judgments executed on sinners, and is the wormwood and the gall in the affliction and the misery. It is red as fire, red as blood, for it burns, it kills. It is full of mixture, prepared in wisdom, so as to answer the end. There are mixtures of mercy and grace in the cup of affliction when it is put into the hands of God's own people, mixtures of the curse when it is put into the hands of the wicked; it is wine mingled with gall. These vials, (1.) Are poured out upon all; (see Revelation 15 7; 16 1); where we read of the angels pouring out the vials of God's wrath upon the earth. Some drops of this wrath may light on good people; when God's judgments are abroad, they have their share in common calamities; but, (2.) The dregs of the cup are reserved for the wicked. The calamity itself is but the vehicle into which the wrath and curse is infused, the top of which has little of the infusion; but the sediment is pure wrath, and that shall fall to the share of sinners; they have the dregs of the cup now in the terrors of conscience, and hereafter in the torments of hell. They shall wring them out, that not a drop of the wrath may be left behind, and they shall drink them, for the curse shall enter into their bowels like water and like oil into their bones. The cup of the Lord's indignation will be to them a cup of trembling, everlasting trembling, (Revelation 14:10). The wicked man's cup, while he prospers in the world, is full of mixture, but the worst is at the bottom. The wicked are reserved unto the day of judgment.” (Matthew Henry (1662-1714) Commentary on the Whole Bible)

Thought: God’s Cup for the Wicked: “They have not only the cup, but the dregs of the cup, that is, the worst of the cup; for as in a good cup, the deeper the sweeter; so, in an evil cup, the deeper the worse: the dregs are the worst, the bottom is the bitterest of a bitter cup.” (Joseph Caryl 1602-1673) God’s cup of wrath is on its way – wicked unbelievers, beware!