Pray and Keep Watching for God’s Answer

Transcript

GRM 1154
04/10/2016
Pray and Keep Watching for God to Answer
Psalm 5
Gil Rugh

I direct your attention in your Bibles to Psalm 5. We've been taking time to look at some of the Psalms, just taking them in order as they come, even though the Psalms aren't necessarily connected that way like some of the other books of the Bible. I don't have any particular plan for how many of these psalms we will do, just see until I come to a decision that it will be time to move to a next book study. So could be anywhere from one more week to 145 more weeks, but we'll see.

As we do look in the Psalms together and do some of them in a more concentrated time, we have impressed upon us what you've noticed when you read them on your own, and that is there is a similarity, a similar emphasis. I was reading a professor who has a commentary on the Psalms and he commented that one of his students in his Hebrew class studying the Psalms, the paper he had to write also noted a question, why is the psalmist always whining? He is always complaining about his troubles, his problems, the difficulties he is in. And we wouldn't call it whining, but we do refer to many of the psalms as laments. They are speaking about their troubles, the trials, the difficulties and that has been true through the first four psalms. There is a reminder repeated that there is a great contrast between the godly and the ungodly, the righteous and the wicked. And it is revealed in their character, it is revealed in their conduct and it is revealed in the ultimate consequences that will come to each group. And because there is this difference, this conflict, there is a relentless conflict between these two groups—the godly and the ungodly, the righteous and the wicked. And the unrighteous are constantly attacking the righteous in one way or another. Sometimes it is more overt persecution, which has resulted in martyrs. In David's case it involves those who wanted to kill him and dethrone him from being king. It also involved those who told lies and tried to destroy his character. And this is going on continually.

Why has God put this all together in the Psalms? It permeates the rest of Scripture as well, but here we have it in a more concentrated way. One of the reasons, I think, is because we as God's people are prone to forget. We have the song, Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love was true for Israel and it happens to the church in these days. And part of what happens is we lose perspective on what the real situation is in the world in which we find ourselves.

Come back to the end of your New Testament just before the book of Revelation to the first epistle of John, 1 John 5. And 1 John has talked about this conflict and difference between those who belong to God and those who do not—the children of God and the children of the devil. In chapter 2 he wrote, by this the children of God are obvious and the children of the devil are obvious. The children of God practice righteousness, the children of the devil, and I'm not indicating the people on this side are the children of the devil, just the distinction. But there is a clear distinction that is evident and manifest to those who are discerning. Then you come to 1 John 5:19, “We know that we are of God,” we believers that he has written so much about. Note the last part of this verse, “and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” The whole world lies under the authority and control of the devil.

Come back to the gospel of John now, the same writer, the Apostle John, writes in the gospel of John 8. He's addressing the religious leaders of His day, religious leaders in Israel. And He tells them in verse 41, “You are doing the deeds of your father.” Their response is “We have one Father, God. Jesus said,” verse 42, “If God were your Father you would love Me. Why do you not,” verse 43, “understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My Word.” Important to note this. The unbeliever is dead to the Word of God, he has not ability to hear it with understanding. He can hear it read, preached, sung, but he has no ability to hear it with understanding. You are not able, they are spiritually dead. These are people who as far as knowing what it said were very well prepared, they were experts in the Word of God. But they were unable to hear its message, the truth of it.

Verse 44, “You are of your father the devil and you want to do the desires of your father.” Now note this, we just read in 1 John 5, “the whole world lies in the evil one,” has the devil as their father. Do you know what that means? They want to do what the devil wants done, they share in his sinful character. “He was a murderer from the beginning, he does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie he speaks from his own nature for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Now God doesn't repeat Himself because He has run out of material, He repeats Himself because it is so important for His children to grasp and understand the situation in which they find themselves. We live in a fallen world, we live in a world that is dominated and controlled by the devil, we live in a world that is populated by people who have the devil as their spiritual father and they always do his will.

Now you see the conflict that is set up, why the psalmist is relentlessly repeating the conflict, the difficulties, the dangers in which he finds himself, because he was living a godly, righteous life in a world that is committed to be ungodly and unrighteous. He was living a life in obedience to the living God surrounded by people who were living their lives in rebellion against the living God. Now over time if we are not careful we settle down in the world, we begin to look around us, and we have a comfortable world we live in, a comfortable lifestyle. And we begin to look at the people we work with, friends neighbors, others—well, they are not such bad people. And we probably have more in common than we realize.

I was reading, and you see with all that is going on in the news, they talk about evangelicals and how we use expressions like they are evangelical Catholics. What in the world is that? That's an oxymoron. You are either evangelical or you are Roman Catholic, just to use them as an example since it is rather a popular expression today. An evangelical used to be one who believed the truth of the Gospel and salvation was only by God's grace, only by faith in what God had done and provided in the death and resurrection of His Son by His grace. Which is contrary to the doctrine of Roman Catholicism. So how can you be an evangelical Catholic? You just take all of the meaning out of evangelical. It would be like being an evangelical Buddhist or for Israel to claim we are godly Baalamites. Could you be an Israelite Baalamite? But we begin to fail to appreciate the barriers, the walls, the absolute total difference there is between the child of God and the child of the devil. And the Psalms pack together what it means to be a child of God living in an ungodly world. It is a life of conflict, it is a life of opposition.

Come back to the Psalms and if you go back to the first Psalm you see this repeated emphasis. In the first Psalm you have the contrast drawn between the man that God blesses and the man that God does not bless. Verse 1 was “How blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the paths of sinners” and so on. The man that God blesses is not the man who has been absorbed into the sinful world, living the worldly lifestyle. It's totally different. The child of God, the godly man, he is immersed in the Word of God and prospers by the grace of God. Verse 4, “The wicked are not so,” they are worthless in the sight of God. Good only to be gathered into barns to be burned because it has no value. They don't experience God's blessing.

Psalm 2, lest you think that these are just isolated, individuals in the world who are of such wicked, ungodly character, Psalm 2 told us all the nations are joined together in rebellion against God and His people and the king that He appoints. That is in contrast to those who have bowed before God and His king. And they receive His blessings, they take refuge in Him, as the Psalm ended.

You come to Psalm 3, we have a similar situation. It began about the many adversaries that are multiplying, opposing David. Many rising up, many saying God won't deliver him. But the contrast, I know you are my God, I know you are my protection. Verse 7, “O Lord, arise, save me, and you shatter all my enemies.” Rather picturesque of the enemy being completely destroyed in the battle. The closing, “Salvation belongs to the Lord, your blessing upon your people.” When we fail to begin to see a distinction between God's people and the devil's people, then all of a sudden we are just wandering in a world of confusion.

Psalm 4, the same conflict. Began, “Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness. You have relieved me in my distress,” now answer my prayer and be gracious to me again. And what do the wicked do? They attack his honor, try to discredit him, destroy his character. But the Lord has set the godly one apart for himself in verse 3. And calls the wicked to turn from their sin and trust in this God who brings righteousness. And then that psalm ends, the psalmist is secure in the midst of this conflict and relentless opposition because the Lord takes care of him.

We come to Psalm 5 and we are going through the same issue. You need to stop and ask yourself, is my lifestyle reflected as the lifestyle of the godly? The church has become like Israel, Israel found ways to fit with its neighbors and mingle its worship and so on. And they lost their identity as God's people reflecting God's character. And the church does that. Words like evangelical now are stretched to include everybody, and the world is constantly reaching out to us. I have a card lying on my desk I received at Easter, I received one like it at Christmas from the leaders of the Mormon church in our city, signed by three of their leaders. They are telling me at this Easter season they just want to quote, they had a verse in there, they want to encourage me in my sharing of the Gospel and encourage me in the work we share together in bringing God's Gospel. We share nothing together, we have nothing in common. The Gospel they talk about is not the Gospel that God has revealed in His Scripture; the Christ that they talk about is not the Christ of the Scripture. We say, they are being so nice, they are being so gracious, maybe I ought to return that. We need to beware of flattery and begin to think we are not so different after all. So you not only can be an evangelical Roman Catholic, you can be an evangelical Mormon. Pretty soon you will be an evangelical Muslim, or an evangelical Buddhist because evangelical means nothing. It's like our expression, we are people of faith. And I believe there is no God, can I be included, too?

So the psalmist, and what God is relentlessly driving home to us is the truth that we must not forget or abandon. We have become “more successful” because the world likes us better. It may be an indication we have become more like the world and more opposed to God.

So Psalm 5 begins with a prayer of David, again as we have seen on other occasions. And you'll see the intensity of his prayer. “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my groaning, heed the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God. For to you I pray.” There is urgency and intensity in his prayer. Note the words that he uses—give ear, consider, heed. Lord, listen to me, pay attention. This is not something he is commanding God in a wrong sense, but he is coming, Lord, this is a burden, this is serious to me. You are the only One I can turn to, you are the only One who can provide the help that I need. Look what he talks about—my words, my groaning, my cry. He goes from, the word groaning here just like we talk about talking under your breath. It is groaning like Paul will write in Romans, groanings too deep for words. Sometimes you are so overwhelmed in the situation and the situation is so dire you just don't know even for sure how to pray. But he is before the Lord. Lord, you know the condition I am in. Sometimes you are there with a little bit of silence because, what do I say? And then you come to the word, “my cry” in verse 2, and that's like a shout. Lord. There is intensity here, there is urgency. This is not just a prayer he is throwing out as he is on his way, Lord, it is going to be a difficult day. Help me. I'm out the door and that's the last I think about it. David here is gathered in the presence of the Lord at the beginning of his day, as we will see in a moment.

Lord, this is my situation, only You can help me! “You are my King and my God.” What a great expression. David is king in Israel but he sees himself as a servant of the King who rules over the nations. David was king of the nation Israel, but his King was the King of the nations. You are my King and my God. He not only has authority, He has the power to act with His authority. He is the God/King. You are my King, my sovereign, the One that I obey and serve. You are my God who has all power. He sees God as the king over the nations who can control all. Where else would I go but to the One who is sovereign over all and has power over all. You'll note trouble and trial is good for us because in that situation where we feel helpless, we realize there is a God that resides in heaven who rules over all. He is my king and my God. And you'll note the personalness of it—my King, my God. I'm coming to you on the basis of the relationship I have because of your covenant love for me. And call upon you to intervene on my behalf.

“For to you I pray.” Again the lines have to be drawn clearly, I pray to you. When I come to a passage like this I think of Jeremiah 10, turn over to Jeremiah 10. Jeremiah is living and ministering 500 years after David wrote Psalm 5; David is about 1000 B.C. and Jeremiah is carrying on his ministry around 500 B.C. But they have a similar situation. Do you know what is true of Jeremiah? We have the book written by Jeremiah after Jeremiah, the Lamentations of Jeremiah. He is constantly opposed by the enemies of God, under attack. Later he will write in this book, even my closest friends waiting for my fall. Like David he is attacked from within the nation and without.

Jeremiah 10, “Hear the word which the Lord speaks to you, oh house of Israel.” The problem for David came primarily from within the nation, the problem for Jeremiah came primarily within the nation. The problems and attacks on believers often come primarily from within the professing church. Here is what the Lord says, verse 2, “Do not learn the way of the nations. Do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens, although the nations are terrified by them.” God's people live in a different world, so to speak. The world of the unbeliever, they look to their religious beliefs and convictions and the zodiac and the signs of the zodiac and all of that influence their conduct, their hopes and their fears. “The customs of the people are a delusion.” We say today it is not nice, it is not polite, it is not correct to criticize other people's religion. Well, then we will let God do the criticizing. Just share with them what the Word says. The customs of the people are delusion, they are vanity, they are emptiness, they are worthless.

Then he gives an example, what do people do? They make a god, they carve it out of wood or stone, they decorate it with precious jewels or metals. They have to narrow it down to be sure it doesn't fall over. And you know what Jeremiah says, verse 5, “It's like a scarecrow in a cucumber field. They can't speak, they must be carried, they can't walk, don't fear them. They can do no harm, they can do not good.” It's the same thing it was when it started out—a piece of wood, a block of stone.

I have a little statue I picked up on one of our travels in another country. Someone said, you shouldn't have that there, that's a false god. But it's just a piece of wood. I picked it up, you can tap it on its head, you can roll it around. If I don't set it up, it falls over. It is nothing. Now what is serious is when you worship that piece of wood because there are demonic spirits associated with false worship, as Paul writes to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10.

But here the contrast is, look at Jeremiah 10:6, “There is none like you, O Lord, you are great and great is your name. Who would not fear you, O King of the nations.” You see our God rules over all other kings, He is the King of the nations. Who would not fear you? Indeed it is your due, there is none like you. Verse 8, “They are all together stupid and foolish.” Verse 10, “The Lord is the true God, He is the living God and the everlasting King.” Verse 12, “It is He who made the earth by His power, established the world by His wisdom, by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.”

Come back to Psalm 5. You realize there is no other God but our God. I periodically get invited to prayer meetings and we are getting together pastors who will pray for the city. It can be bad, it will be good if we pray for our city. The problem is it joins together people of different religious beliefs. How can we pray together? I'm going to kneel next to a man praying to a piece of wood or stone and act like we are praying to the same God? I would expect God would say to me, Gil, what are you doing here? What are you joined? Well, we don't want to seem unkind. I'm not saying you have to go knock on the door and tell your neighbor your religious system is foolish emptiness. We must never lose the proper perspective when we're talking with these people, we must keep in mind we are representing the living God, they are representing their father the devil. We must present the truth of the Gospel so that perhaps by God's grace the Spirit will draw them to faith in the Gospel that we present. We're not there sharing and learning from each other. I find evangelical commentaries caught up in this, of how we learn from each other and we ought to have more interaction with unbelieving scholars and we can learn from them. I look to learn nothing from them about the true and living God. All it does is corrupt. The psalmist has clear perspective.

So it is to the King of the nations, to my King, my God that I pray. “In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice,” Psalm 5:3. “In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.” And this last statement, I pray and I watch, so we get the expression, watch and pray. That's usually the way we say it but it's really pray and watch. I come before God with my requests, with my burdens, I present it to Him. And then I watch for the answer. How many of you have prayed about something and you go out and you just forget about it. Well, if it's no more important to you than that, why would God be answering it? One of your children comes and they say, I need this by a certain time, and they go out and they never mention it again and they forget about it. Later you say, didn't you say you needed that? Oh, I forgot, what was it I needed? Some of our prayers are like that, something hits our mind but it is gone. We saw in Psalm 4 David remembered God's prior deliverances. Why? He prayed about it.

Here he starts in the morning, this is another morning prayer. We had a morning prayer titled that way in Psalm 3, and we had an evening prayer in Psalm 4. You realize the psalmist was regular in his prayers. What better way to start the day? He realizes there are enemies, there are attacks coming, there are difficulties, and remember this has the title, another one of those psalms for the choir director or for the music director. This is something that would be sung at the tabernacle in the temple by the choir and accompanied by the musicians. It was to be a constant reminder to the people, how do we begin our day? Well, I have a busy day, get up early, I'm out the door. Lord, bless the day, I'm on my way. David says I start the day in serious prayer, in intense prayer, persistent prayer. It's a regular thing for me to meet with the Lord in the morning.

I believe it is Martin Luther who is credited with saying, my days are so busy, I couldn't start them without three or four hours of prayer. I mean, if your day is busy, unless you fill it with trivial things, you have a lot to talk to God about. There will be difficulties in your day, the enemy of your soul, the devil, will always be looking for ways where his people might work to undermine or destroy your character, to discredit you, to bring trouble, discouragement, hardship into your life. I don't know everything that is going to confront me in a new day, but I serve the God and King who knows everything that is coming into my day. How fitting it is that I talk to Him about that day. I prepare my heart and mind in my conversation with Him. How fitting.

Now David is going to draw a contrast between himself as a righteous man and the wicked. And he is going to show . . . He is confident God will reject the wicked and welcome him. So he says in verse 4, “For you are not a God,” and note that, that contrasts with what he has been saying. He comes to God, he has access to God—You are my King, my God. In the morning You will hear my voice, and then I'm going to be watching for your answer. It might be no, it might be maybe, might be wait, might be yes. He's not telling God what He has to do in his prayer, he is calling God to act on his behalf. And he is being honest and now the contrast between those who don't know God.

“You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, no evil dwells with You.” God is perfect in His holiness, perfect in His righteousness. He cannot make friends with wickedness, with unrighteousness. That's the point, no evil dwells with You, lives with You, resides with You. There is no acceptance there of sin. Then note the next statement, “You destroy those who speak falsehood, the Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.” You note we have moved, “the boastful shall not stand before Your eyes, You hate . . .” You see we have moved from talking about sin to talking about the sinner in verses 5-6. You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, no evil dwells within You.

We've talked about this before, some people say God hates the sin and loves the sinner. You know what we could do to clear any sin out of this room? Make everybody leave. Do you know why? The chairs don't sin, the carpet doesn't sin, the choir loft when it is empty, there is no sin. Do you know where sin comes from? Sinners. So you move quickly. “Wickedness and evil does not dwell with You,” which is another way of saying unredeemed sinners have no place in Your presence. “The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes. You hate all who do iniquity.” People don't like to think of that. God loves the sinner, hates the sin. God says I hate sin, I hate those who practice sin. “You hate all who do iniquity.”

“You destroy,” being the object of His hatred means you are going to be the object of His wrath. “You destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.” And you'll note again how we have seen this in some of the lists given in other places and in the New Testament as well as the Old. Here he talks about falsehood, lies being in the same category as killing somebody, bloodshed, because from God's perspective it all comes from the same source—hearts that are in rebellion against Him. We don't all manifest our sin with the same kind of conduct, but it all comes from the same source. It is the heart that is “deceitful and desperately wicked above all things,” Jeremiah wrote. Only the Lord knows the depths of sin in the human heart. That's why Jesus said in passages like Mark 7, “it's out of the heart that all sinful activity comes.” So from our perspective I would rather have somebody lie to me than kill me. If you are going to sin against me, tell a lie about me, don't kill me. And there are differences in physical consequences, obviously. God looks at the heart and says that lie came from the same kind of heart that murder comes from. That's why Jesus said, if you call your brother Raca, a worthless fool, it's on the same level as murder, because God is looking at the heart. So God hates all those who do iniquity, He is going to destroy those who speak falsehood. He abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit. These are strong words. It's a terrible, frightening thing to be the object of God's hatred because God's hatred brings with it His wrath. Well, I thought we were supposed to love our enemies. Love your enemies, do good to them that misuse you, Jesus said. Here you are telling me God hates people; that's not my God, my God is a God of love. It is true, God loves all people. He loves even those He hates. But we better understand the distinction.

Turn over to Romans 5, the apostle has demonstrated the sinfulness of all mankind. Jew and Gentile alike have been shown to be guilty, under God's condemnation, under wrath. Remember Romans began in chapter 1 saying, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” Now we come to chapter 5, he has talked about how we can be declared righteous by God. And we'll pick up with verse 6 for time. “For while we were still helpless at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Verse 8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Verse 10, “While we were enemies, we were reconciled by God through the death of His Son.” It's amazing. I was the object of God's hatred, I was His enemy, one opposed to Him, relentlessly opposed to Him. And yet in love He provided His Son to die for me so that I, by His grace, could turn from my sin and place my faith in Him and be cleansed from all my sin. My horrible record of rebellion against God was wiped clean, I was declared righteous by Him. That's the love of God.

People make it some kind of sentimental feeling that means God will just overlook anything we have done wrong because I've been a good person, I've tried to do what I thought was right. I went to church, I was baptized, I took communion. That's an act of rebellion because in coming to God I will not do it His way. He says you will accept my way. That's rebellion. “There is a way that seems right unto man and the end thereof are the ways of death.” There is a broad way and a narrow way. Some people say if it has to be God's way, I'm offended by that. Right, that's one of the attacks that comes to Bible-believing Christians—you are narrow, you think you are the only one right, it has to be your way or no way. No one is going to heaven who doesn't believe like you. Well, that's true, not because it is my way, not because it is what I believe, but because it is what God said. I had to come to the same place that everybody else did and does that is ever saved. They have to recognize God is right and I am wrong; I either bow before Him and recognize He is the King and God or I will be destroyed by his wrath. Period. Yes, God hates sinners. We ought to remember that when we are talking to them, that doesn't mean we have to be unkind. Remember, we were just like them as Paul reminded Titus to tell the believers. To be respectful, to be kind, but don't sacrifice the truth in it.

If they bring up something like I know the Bible says God is wrathful and sends people to hell, and I don't believe that. Well, that is part of what God said and that part is true. The Bible does say God hates sinners and He is going to pour out His wrath on them and they will go to an eternal hell. But that's not all the Bible says is true. The Bible also says “for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life.” If you believe that truth, then you need no longer be concerned about the other side of the truth. So your real issue is you are angry with God and you are unwilling to stop rebelling against Him. And if God won't do it your way, you'll continue to fight on. You deserve to be judged. We don't want to deny the truth, but we don't come across like we are less than sinful.

Come back to Psalm 5. The contrast, David talked about himself in verses 1-3, revealed the character of the unrighteous that are in contrast to the righteous. Then he says in verse 7, “But as for me by your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house. At Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for you.” Remember the unrighteous and the unbeliever are not welcome into the presence of God. The temple is the place where God met with His people, first the tabernacle, then the temple. They could come into His presence on the basis of their faith and having the appropriate sacrifice offered in their faith on the basis of believing what God said. By your lovingkindness, he doesn't say because I am not sinful like these other people. I have always been a better person than they are, I have never been as unrighteous as they are. He points the horribleness of the sinfulness of unredeemed people, but he doesn't come because he is any different in his very nature.

“But as for me by Your abundant kindness,” that's God's covenant love, His loyal love. We mentioned the word hesed, the Hebrew word and it means God's covenant love. I come on the basis of Your mercy, the love that You showed to me that brought me into a covenantal relationship with You so that You are my King, You are my God. Israel had unwound and wandered so far, they thought just by going through physical activity they could claim a relationship with God. They were truly lost. David said “By your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house.” I don't forget when I come before you, it's because of the love shown to me. I will come into your holy temple, I will bow in reverence to You. He comes God's way, on the basis of the provision God has made. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.” Period. Paul says if they say if it is by faith in Christ plus being circumcised, they are anathema, cursed to hell. If it is by faith plus baptism, they will be anathema, cursed to hell. Be careful of the devil mixing error in and then glossing it over with a papering of truth. Like Jesus said to the religious leaders of His day, you are like whitewashed tombs, you appear okay on the outside but inwardly you are full of rotting corpses, which is where the psalmist is going.

Then he prays, verses 8-12 continue in his prayer. And God will continue to lead the righteous in the midst of the opposition by the unrighteous and He will just as surely bring judgment and condemnation on the wicked unrighteous. So he prays in verse 8, “O Lord, lead me in Your righteousness because of my foes.” He doesn't express confidence in himself—Lord, I will be faithful and righteous just like I have always been. No, I came into relationship with You because of Your lovingkindness and the desire of my heart is You continue to lead me in Your righteousness, Your righteousness, Your righteousness. This idea that we can obtain, acquire. No, we need God to credit His righteousness to our account, but He can't do that until the guilt of sin has been removed, which is what happened when Christ died on the cross and bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

Now David, “Lead me in Your righteousness because of my foes,” my enemies. I need You to keep me on the path. You know what happens when believers lose the clarity in their thinking, they no longer see the unbeliever as enemies and pretty soon we can say we have more in common than we do uncommon. That doesn't mean we can't have friendships in the general sense with unbelievers, and we can work in harmony with them at our job and be gracious to them. We go to the grocery store and we meet them and we are kind and thoughtful, of course. But I never forget the reality of where I am. I am a child of God, living in the midst of children of the devil. I am living in a world that contains nothing but the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life. It is constantly being used of the devil and his followers to try to weaken me, to distract me, to involve me and break down the clarity of my thinking, biblically.

“Because of my foes,” you think this is personal. Look at the end of verse 10, “for they are rebellious against You.” David realizes the foundational issues here is I am a child of God and they are not. They are my enemies because they are God's enemies, and I never want to lose that clarity—that God's enemies are my friends. Again friendship in the more superficial way, but in our spiritual condition I must not lose that clarity. If they are those who are rebellious against God and His enemies, those that He hates, I have to see them in that context. Pretty soon if I don't, I can't believe that one of my children is not saved, I'm just confident. They were baptized when they were 2½ and I still have my confidence in that work. We begin to adjust our theology out of our feelings. We talked that the Psalms are about feelings, but they are feelings controlled by the truth of God. Those dearest to me humanly speaking are my spiritual enemies for eternity if they do not bow before my God. That's why you cannot love father, mother, brother, sister, family member more than you love God and be a follower of Jesus Christ. We begin to get a theology that is a mixture of some Bible, some of my personal feelings, some of what I picked up over here and we stir it all together and say it is working for me. That's not what the standard is, the standard is, is it acceptable to God?

So he desires God, verse 8, “Make Your way straight before me,” make YOUR way straight before me. I want to walk God's road. Has the picture of someone going before and smoothing out the road. We fill potholes today, but in those days they didn't have the paved roads like we have. So someone had to go ahead and smooth the road to make it travelable. So God, make Your way straight for me. Lead me in Your righteousness. I'm going on Your road, wherever the world is going, I'm not going there. I'm going on the road that You have prepared for me.

“There is nothing reliable in what they say, their inward part is destruction, their throat is an open grave.” I referred to this, Paul quotes a portion of verse 9 in Romans 3 when he summarizes that there is none righteous, none that does good and he quotes part of this as support. “Their throat is an open grave.” You know what that is, you watch a crime program on TV and they exhume a body and they come to a body that has been lying and discovered. What do they do? They put something over their nose and mouth because the stench is terrible. What is coming out of the mouths of the unbeliever is a stench, there is nothing coming out of there that is pleasing to God. That's why the idea in the evangelical scholarly world, we go to unbelieving scholars who study the Bible and we learn from them. And it has become a plague. You pick up evangelical commentaries and they are quoting Roman Catholics and liberal Protestants because of their scholarship and it is a bucket of dung. It is like a rotting, stench corpse. And it is presented as something good for us to learn. And the attacks on those that are narrow and say we don't go there, you ought to read some of it. There is no place for them. You would think this would be preserved for unbelievers but they attack those who stand for the truth.

“Their throat is an open grave but they flatter with their tongue.” It's like the card I told you I received. I told you when I stepped out at a seminary that claimed to be evangelical and told the dean I just can't stay here, I might turn out like you. I can't trust myself in an environment where we are not together on the Word. Oh, Gil, it's so good to have you in our seminary, we appreciate the kinds of diversity. We want your opinion heard and we would love to you stay. I'm telling you I am going to save your place, and if you change your mind down the road you are welcome back. And I walk out saying, why do I always have to be the narrow guy that the line has been drawn. But if you yield to flattery, where do you go? He has nothing at stake, I have everything at stake. They can flatter with their lips, we must be committed to truth.

“Hold them guilty, O God,” verse 10, “by their own devices let them fall. In the multitude of their transgressions thrust them out.” We don't have time to look at the verses but later if we stay in the Psalms we'll come to what we call the imprecatory psalms, and this is just a taste. Sometimes we as believers are troubled, he is calling down curses and wrath on the unbeliever. I thought we love our enemies. But we never lose our perspective again of who and what they are and what their rightful destiny is. These are the enemies of God. We don't have time to go there, but the book of Revelation like Revelation 6, believers who have been martyred and are in heaven are crying out in the presence of the throne room of God for God to bring wrath on an unbelieving world. Do you think they are being unbiblical? Later in Revelation when God brings His devastating judgment, they are worthy, they deserve it. I don't want to slide into this sentimentality—I just can't believe God would send them to hell, I just can't believe God would . . . He's not that kind of God. He is, He is a God to be feared. We're believers in Jesus Christ in a biblical sense, we ought not to ever lose the understanding, our God is a God to be feared. They ought to tremble before Him. We ought to pray, oh God, have Your Spirit so convict them of their sin they can't sleep at night because they are on their way to an eternal hell. We've come to the place now, some who claim to be evangelicals don't believe in hell. Why? You move away in one piece, pretty soon everything unravels. I don't believe God will send people to an eternal hell. Well, back that up. Are they His enemies? Back that up, does He hate them? Does He say He'll pour out His wrath on them? We start to weaken here. It's like the water getting through the dam, pretty soon it no longer holds.

“They are rebellious against You.” What do people living in rebellion against a holy God deserve? What did you deserve before you got saved? Well, I was a pretty good person. Stop. Maybe. I'm not saying can you identify the precise point in time when God saved you, but if your view of yourself is you were never that bad to begin with . . . Maybe you never did some of the things that the world views as terribly sinful, but you had the same heart that every other person is born with—corrupted and sinful to the core. It's God's grace, God's lovingkindness.

He summarizes in verses 11-12, “Let all who take refuge in You be glad, let them ever sing for joy and You may shelter them. Let those who love Your name exult in Your name, for it is You who blesses the righteous man, oh Lord, You surround him with favor as with a shield.” You know in the midst of his trials David is not moaning in a hopeless sense of injustice. Everybody who takes refuge in God can have His joy. I have relentless enemies, but I have unending joy because I belong to the God who gives joy. You shelter them. It is You who blesses the righteous man, oh Lord. You surround him with favor. His grace, that's our shield. I don't come to God on the basis of Lord, I've been doing my best for You, I deserve better than this. I come even as His child, appreciating it is Your favor that protects me and keeps me. And I may suffer the afflictions like Job did, but Your grace and mercy and favor will be my protection. You provide Your joy for my heart. Even if they succeed in killing the body, I don't fear those who will kill the body, I fear Him who after He has killed the body is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. And Jesus said you better fear Him.

We as believers need to be reminded as we move through these precious psalms, they are talking about life situations. This just wasn't for David, this was to be learned by the singers when people came to worship and be accompanied by the instruments as they sang about the situation because as soon as Israel began to lose perspective on their relationship to God and the condition of the unbelieving world around them, they began to compromise and move away from God. And that's the pattern the church follows. We as believers want to be sure our perspective is clear. We are not different than any other lost, hopeless sinner until the grace of God intervenes in a life. You hear the truth, why have you not believed it? It is terrible things you have told about God, I don't think that that is what we want to hear. That's what we must hear. I realize that I am a sinner without hope and I turn and say God, all I claim is Your mercy. I believe that Christ died for me, everything else is nothing, I call upon You. “Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” It's a humbling step. I let go of everything else and take hold of that which is life eternal.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the riches of Your Word, than You for the direction of the Spirit and inspiring David to write this precious psalm to be used in the lives of Your people Israel. And by Your grace to be preserved and used down through the centuries and milliniums in the lives of Your people, in the church right down to today. Lord, may we claim these truths, be warned by them, be comforted with them. Lord, we live in a hostile, ungodly world but we live sheltered under Your protection. May we be faithful until we see You face to face. We pray in Christ's name, amen.