Psalms 35-36 - "God, Please Destroy My Enemies!"

[Music] Psalms chapters 35 and 36 Father in Jesus name we approach you tonight as we're gonna see tonight there's going to be a lot of contrast between the between the wicked and the righteous and Lord the only way for any human being to become righteous is to first of all become wicked we have to acknowledge that were sinful people before we can actually take advantage of the free gift of salvation offered to us in your son Jesus I just prayed tonight Lord that every one of us in this room who has a relationship with you who knows Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior that we could just give you a word of thanks right now Lord thanking you for the sacrifice that was made on the cross two thousand years ago where that spiritual transaction took place our sinfulness was given to Jesus and His righteousness was given to us it was a free gift it can't be earned there's a free gift and all we can do Lord has respond according to Romans chapter 12 by then offering these bodies these lives as living sacrifices and part of that Lord is being equipped to live before you and Lord Psalm 30:5 in Psalm 36 will equip us tonight will probably answer questions that we have will challenge us and so we ask now lord help us to put aside everything that would distract us help us to forget about the things of the day and the things that'll come tomorrow and just to give our full attention to the work of the Spirit in this room tonight Lord so we thank you and we praise you and we love you god you're so good to us bless this evening in Jesus name and everybody said would y'all mind taking a minute just checking your phones and making sure that your electronic devices are off you know it's interesting people who don't come into church you know and have that that habit of putting their phone on silent when a phone rings in church you can see about seven people panic and they start digging through their purse and it's only one of them you know we're like seven or eight people in the auditorium they're like is it me is it me so I want to make sure it's nobody I just want to make sure before we get started tonight that we would just respect the Lord enough I better make sure here nothing worse yeah all right we're good to go yeah we're gonna have a great time in the Psalms tonight but we're gonna be covering a couple of Psalms that that create a lot of question over the years as people have been reading through the Psalms they may approach their pastor another believer and they'll say hey man I was reading something as I'm going through the Psalms and every once in a while it just seems like David is having a really bad day and and he says some things that I don't understand and I definitely don't know how to apply them to my life right now and so tonight we're gonna talk about a couple of things that that maybe you've actually know stumbled over or questioned regarding the Psalms so Psalm chapter 35 will it'll stir us and then Psalm chapter 36 as a complement to Psalm chapter 35 we'll come along and begin to answer a few of the questions that Psalm chapter 35 creates so look at the screen the title for Psalm chapter 35 is God please destroy my enemies great title isn't it thought it up myself it's a good title but but automatically we're all just kind of feeling uneasy aren't we as you think about that you know you're gonna see David going through this almond he's gonna just be really kind of laying it out Psalm 30:5 is the fourth of 14 imprecatory psalms and that word imprecatory it just basically describes how the author of the psalm is pleading with God to pour out judgment on his enemies how many of us regularly pray like this good I'm so glad to hear just a few so there's a distinct pattern as you look at the imprecatory psalms there like I said there's fourteen of them the first one is Psalm chapter seven and it's fairly mild as you read through it you just you find it is imprecatory prayer mild and then as you get to Psalm 109 which is the last of the imprecatory psalms David is just man he's callin down anathema on his enemies like over 30 times in Psalm 109 David is is almost saying to the Lord you know cast them into hell Lord just be harsh with them it's just a really really intense psalm so it starts in seven very gentle it builds its way through the Book of Psalms and by the time you get to Psalm 109 these imprecatory psalms David is just coming unglued and so New Testament believers really tend to struggle with the imprecatory psalms because i know i don't do this i don't wake up in the morning and go okay lord this dude dinged my car at Walmart yesterday and I'm just praying Lord that I'm calling down fire from heaven I want you to scorch him right where he's at I mean we don't pray that way do we we kind of pray very differently Jesus taught us to love our enemies he taught us to do good to those who spitefully use us he taught us to turn the other cheek he he taught us not to repay evil for evil but rather a blessing so how do you reconcile David writing these imprecatory psalms and then the words of Jesus in the New Testament where we're told to treat our enemies in a specific way well one group of scholars come along and they teach us that the Old Testament has a different essence or spirit than the New Testament but I can't accept that because the scripture says in the book of Hebrews that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever he doesn't change God does not change and so I think the simple solution as you look at the imprecatory psalms is to understand that David was writing the psalms as the king of Israel not as an individual person David was writing these as king of a nation who was responsible to be sure that he fulfilled his role of bringing both justice and mercy and these kinds of things to a nation in fact if you look up at the screen micah chapter 6 verse 8 gives us something that i think you know you see in the life of David he Myka writes he has shown you O man what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God so as we go through Psalm 35 which is an imprecatory psalms excuse me David is writing this as the king not as an individual man David is writing this as a man who has the responsibility to make sure that the justice and the mercy of God are upheld within the nation that he oversees and so we'll jump right in verses 1 through 3 are our introduction I'm going to read verses 1 through 3 and then we're going to take this apart david says plead my cause o lord with those who strive with me fight against those who fight against me take hold of shield and buckler and stand up for my help also draw out the spear and stop those who pursue me say to my soul I am your salvation now verse 1 lays out an introduction for us and I you really got to catch this as you go through it starts out as a psalm of David and then verse 1 plead my cause o Lord with those who strive with me and then he says fight against those who fight against me now I think it's important to establish who David is referring to in these imprecatory psalms and who he's not referring to so here in verse 1 David speaks of two groups that are troubling him look at verse 1 he has the first group he says plead my cause with those to strive with me the word plead and the word strive are legal terms I want you to picture what David is saying to the Lord is that people have brought formal accusations against me but lord I I'm convinced and I'm confident that I'm innocent and so Lord what I'm asking you to do is to bring a case against them because they're not innocent they are guilty and then David will return to this thought almost this courtroom idea in verses 11 through 18 but what he's gonna focus on is this next sentence where he says fight against those who fight against me and that word fight is a military term and these were enemies of Israel that were launching a military campaign against her and since Israel was God's chosen nation we can boldly say that the enemies of God were attacking God's people and David was the king the leader of God's people and so he's speaking as the king but but we have to make it really clear here we are not talking about a group of people who were personal enemies of David David wasn't calling God to destroy someone that did something trivial to him on a personal level David wasn't calling on God to go in to fight against those neighbors whose dogs bark all night right or that kid that drives up and down your street with the stereo you know at level 20,000 you know and your whole house shakes goo goo goo goo goo you know and I know that that every once awhile I do pray for my neighbors whose dogs bark all night and I pray for that kid that drives up the street and you know what I pray is Lord please just let them realize how their actions are affecting other people but you know I never go as far as saying Lord that kid that drives up the street with a stereo blaring you know I pray his stereo would get stolen in Jesus name we can do that and that is not what David is doing you have to see here that this imprecatory psalms written against two groups of people one was a group of wicked people leveling a military attack against him against Israel and the other was a group of people leveling formal accusations against the king of the nation and so in verses 2 through 10 David's gonna ask God to respond to this military attack and so notice verse 2 he says to the Lord he says Lord take hold of shield and buckler and stand up for my help also draw out the spear and stop those who pursue me say to my soul I am your salvation so what we see David doing here in verses 2 & 3 is he's asking God to protect him by stopping his attackers you know he literally he's saying Lord take hold of a shield and buckler these are these are implements of war these are things that soldiers carry and so he says Lord I want you to go to war and stand up for my help and then he says in verse 3 draw out the spear and stop those who pursue me and so David is literally asking God to do whatever it takes to stop these enemies even if it means for God to destroy them now how many of us are little uncomfortable with that like David how can you as a man of God say hey destroy these people well you may not get your answer right away but when we get to Psalm chapter 36 you're gonna go now I get it now I get it right so key part of this Psalm and this is really the core of it you have to understand here's David's heart David's heart is not in Lord destroy my enemies David's heart is in this say to my soul and to verse 3 I am your salvation see the whole core of this Psalm is David saying to the Lord I'm in deep trouble here and I need you to first save me and along the way Lord I need you to speak to my heart and let me know you're gonna save me so this is the whole core of the psalm this is David saying Lord there's nothing I can do later on we'll see that he's outnumbered later on we'll see that in a sense he's outsmarted and he goes before the Lord and he just says I need to know that you are going to fight this battle for me that's the whole focus of this Psalm so notice verse 4 he says let those be put to shame and brought to dishonour who seek after my life let those be turned back and brought to confusion who plot my hurt let them be like chaff before the wind and let the angel of the Lord chase them let their way be dark and slippery and let the angel of the Lord pursue them now David's getting pretty harsh in his prayers here he's starting to get very very specific and as you look at this what I see in these verses that I just read is that David is asking the Lord for what you and I might call poetic justice we talked a little bit about this last week what is poetic justice just look for a minute look at verse 4 you have a group of people who at the end of the first sentence they're seeking after David's life do you see that who seek after my life they're seeking to actually kill David and what does he do he says Lord let them be put to shame and brought to dishonor and then notice again we've got a group that plots his hurt the end of verse 4 and he asks God to let that group be turned back and brought to confusion they're plotting trouble for David and he's saying let them find trouble so poetic justice is kind of like David saying Lord let the violent meet a violent end let the cheaters be cheated let the liars be lied to I told you guys last week that if I'm gonna watch a movie I really like a good political thriller I like a political thriller because it challenges your mind you've got to really follow what's going on and the thing I like in the political thrillers is that the bad guys they always thrive right through the movie and you're just thinking how is it that the bad guys are always getting away with everything they do wrong and just as the FBI is you know the FBI is on their tail they're just about to get them another bad guy comes along and kills the main bad guy that's poetic justice that's where you got a guy who's out killing people and another bad guy comes and kills him and and again you're thinking I wanted the police to get him I wanted the FBI to get him I want this guy to spend the rest of his life in prison and it's only a movie why am I so worked up over this right but when the other bad guy comes in and takes out the one bad guy it's just like an imprecatory salt it's like David saying you know let the cheaters be cheated let the liars be lied to let the violent die at the end of the violent and then I want you to notice something else and we can't spend a lot of time on this but this is a really cool theological study out of Psalm 30:5 twice David calls upon the angel of the Lord he says here the end of verse five let the angel of the Lord chase them he says let their way be dark and slippery and then he says and let the angel of the Lord pursue them as scholars don't all agree on this but as you go through the scripture you find that the scripture talks about angels in a generic manner but as you go through the Old Testament you find that there is this figure in the Old Testament who is often referred to as the angel of the Lord not an angel of the Lord he appears all throughout the Old Testament but I'd like to talk about Joshua outside of the city of Jericho and he meets this angelic being called the commander of the Lord's armies and as you go through and you just look at all the places that the angel of the Lord appeared you find that this is none other than a pre-incarnate manifestation of the second person of the Trinity God the Son in the Old Testament and this blows people's mind because a lot of people go no no Jesus didn't come to the earth until the Year Zero in the city of Bethlehem when he was born but as you study the Old Testament you find that he actually came to the earth quite often as this person called the angel of the Lord and and as you study what he does he's like no other angel you know and so anyways that's just something for you to kind of chew on and to go after butBut David I bet he remembered back to the time of Joshua outside of the city of Jericho Joshua sees this angel with a flaming sword he goes were a man with a flaming sword he goes walking over and he says to him listen are you on our side are you on their side and the guy basically says I am on my side you need to figure out what side you're on because he was the angel of the Lord and David's probably thinking I want that guy to come and to chase my enemies away I want him to run them into darkness I want their way to be slippery you know I want them to pull that flaming sword and so here's the question now how many of us are a little bit uncomfortable with David being so harsh and calling on God to destroy his enemies right it's a little bit uncomfortable to look at this so we say now why is it okay for David to pray this way I mean why is it okay now notice verse 7 David tells us why it's okay to pray this way he says for without cause they have hidden their net for me in a pit which they have dug without cause for my life but destruction come upon him unexpectedly and let his net that he has hidden catch himself into that very destruction let him fall here's the key to understanding this imprecatory salt David is dealing with people who two times in verse seven here without cause have sought David's life now again this is not someone who put a door ding in your brand-new car at Walmart this is somebody who came to the king of God's chosen people and leveled serious accusations and sought to take his life without cause David had done nothing to these people in fact we're gonna find in the next section that he had done good to these people and we have to remember this is where New Testament Christians oftentimes we get caught up in emotion and feeling and we forget that we serve a God who is just let's talk about his justice for a minute a human being is born into the condition called sin and lives all of his life in a rebellious manner chooses to ignore the cross of Jesus Christ and the author the offer of salvation when that person dies and they are sent into eternity forever separated from God forever paying for their own sin in the lake of fire is that okay is it okay that God sent them there absolutely this is why because they had an opportunity to be saved and they chose not to take it and so that person could never accuse God of anything that person can never say you know what you call yourself a God of love but you let me go to the lake of fire and God would say you must remember my character I am faithful and I am just but I am also merciful I sent my son Jesus to a cross two thousand years ago to pay for your sins so that all you had to do is confess your sin repent receive the gift of eternal life and from that moment on you would have the confidence that your sin has been taken care of see God is just and David is going God you are a just God and I am asking you to act justly towards these people and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that I'm going to share a story here it's been long enough I think I can do it this last year Kelly and I sold our house and had a new house built in out in the country and it's where it's country and they're building houses in the country and we didn't realize when we moved in that we had a couple of neighbors that were making their living illegally and I won't go into much more but their illegal activities were causing some trouble in our neighborhood and I was home on a Wednesday studying an imprecatory salt to come in here and teach and I just started praying I just said you know Lord I've actually had the opportunity to witness to and pray with a couple of these people and they've not responded to your love that you've sent through through us and Leah lives near us and leah has shared a lot of the love of the Lord with some of our neighbors and so I just started praying in an imprecatory manner and I didn't pray for you know lightning to strike their house or for them to get in a car wreck and die or something like that I started praying for the Justice of God and there's more to this story but a number of weeks ago through the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department justice came to our neighborhood you know and when it all happened I just I just sat back and I said I did this no I totally didn't do that but I did say I've been praying for this I've been praying for this and I tell you what since this happened three or four weeks ago our neighborhood has just been so calm and peaceful it's so it's just so cool it is okay to pray imprecatory prayers Lord if these people are going to repent I pray for truckloads of mercy and grace to be poured upon their head because you love them and you pour truckloads of mercy and grace on my head but Lord if these people are not going to repent I pray father that the sword would come quickly and swiftly and thoroughly and maybe that will bring them to repentance you know I shared a couple of very uncomfortable things but you know I wonder how many people were praying for Adolf Hitler in an imprecatory manner and finally the hand of God came upon him you know there's nothing wrong with looking at a saddam hussein and saying lord please reveal the truth of the gospel to that man and save him but Lord if not because of the evil that he is bringing into this world smite him and do it quickly Lord and I then everybody just goes - yeah but but he's gonna die and he's gonna spend eternity separated from God and if he dies later rather than sooner how many more people's lives are gonna ruin before he spends eternity separated from the Lord so again Christianity is a religion of love it's it's it's a relationship with God where we love people we pray for our enemies we pray for those who spitefully use us but we need to remember to pray biblically we Christians aren't supposed to be wimpy pacifists who are scared to call upon the Lord or to even call the police say hey is it your job to bring justice it really is well could you come to my neighborhood and try to bring some justice because there's issues we need to get back to what the scriptures say so why well david says listen without cause and then check this out they've hidden their net for me to fall on a pit i don't know if there was a real net i think this is an illustration but david says they dug this pit without cause for my life and so he says let destruction come upon him unexpectedly there's nothing wrong with praying this way so david was innocent these people were guilty and it is okay to ask god to come to your rescue and to judge your enemies when you're innocent but when you're not in a sense you better be really carefully praying in an imprecatory way well you know lord i was driving down the road and I cut this dude off and then he flipped me the bird and I ran him off the road and I believe that was your justice for that guy flipping me the bird right I don't think God is up there in heaven going good boy you know well done thou good and faithful servant I think the Lord is going you to get on your knees and repent so it's really important that we don't pray imprecatory prayers when we're not innocent you know I provoked somebody to anger and now I'm gonna say to them God is gonna get you and I think that's where they're gonna look at you and go I think you better be careful right look at verse 9 and my soul shall be joyful in the Lord it shall rejoice in his salvation all my bones shall say Lord who is like you delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him yes the poor and the needy from him who plunders him so David's kind of he's using poetic language to say every fiber in my body rejoices in the Lord because I know that deliverance is coming I know that God is a just God and I know I'm innocent I know they're guilty and I know God's gonna act on my behalf but notice a couple of things here he says delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him and yes the poor and the needy from him who plunders him I think David is just using poetic language to say I was outnumbered everything was against me and yet the Lord is gonna work on my behalf now verses 11 through 18 God's gonna ask David I'm sorry David's gonna ask God to respond to the verbal attacks against him so he's already talked about the the military attacks and now he's gonna ask God to respond to these verbal attacks that were made against him look at verse 11 he says fierce witnesses rise up they ask me things that I do not know the Hebrew here this is not real good in English but the Hebrew is describing leveling false accusations against someone in other words they're hitting David with stuff he goes I have no idea what you're talking about David you did this I don't know what you're saying and and verse 12 tells us why this hurts so badly real quick I doubt any of us have ever had a military coming against us right a whole military okay but how many of you have had false accusations made against you okay now check out how bad this situation was David says verse 12 they reward me evil for good to the sorrow of my soul you see David was just grieved to the core of his being because what these people were doing were repaying him evil for good now he'll give us the details verse 13 he says but as for me he says when they were sick my clothing was sackcloth I humbled myself with fasting and my prayer would return to my own heart I paced about as though he were my friend or brother I bowed down heavily as one who mourns for his mother so listen these were acquaintances of David's I'm guessing that they were leaders from surrounding nations the David at one time had relationship with and David is saying listen there were times in the lives of these friends and acquaintances of mine when they had been sick and as they were sick I cared for them I worried about them I mourned over their situation I fasted and I prayed I was a true friend to them I showed them love verse 15 he says but in my adversity in other words we know that now David is in a bad situation and they're kind of kicking him when he's down he said they rejoiced and they gathered together attackers gathered against me and I did not know it they tore at me and they did not cease with ungodly mockers at feasts they gnashed at me with their teeth well that's some powerful language isn't it that's just really powerful so so David is saying you know when I was facing tough times they didn't care about me they didn't worry about me they didn't mourn over my situation they didn't pray they didn't fast and instead look at the wording they rejoiced and gathered together to hear what happened to David heard he's really really sick you know or maybe hey did you hear what happened to David his son Absalom is trying to steal the kingdom do you hear about that right and then it says attackers gathered against me so so they've come to verbally assault David behind his back he I did not know it it happened behind my back they tore at me they did not cease with ungodly mockers at feasts they gnashed at me with their teeth date david says you know what these people did they committed verbal character assassination behind my back these people who claim to be my friends verse 17 Lord how long will you look on rescue me from their destructions my precious life from the Lions I noticed something here that David didn't do what so many Christians do you know God I don't know maybe they just don't know what they're doing so just just kind of reveal to them that they're not being very good friends to me in Jesus name Amen I can tell you that a man like David that's been around the block enough times he knows human nature he's dealt with conflict throughout his life he came to realize you know why people like this act like this because they have wicked hearts because they don't love the Lord because they're not what they claim to be and so David he didn't play games he just looks at the Lord he says Lord how long are you gonna look onto this how long are you gonna allow these people one group to a military militarily attack our nation and then this other group Lord how long are you going to allow them to personally attack me as the king of the nation how long Lord when are you gonna put a stop to this and so he says this rescue me from their destructions my precious life from the Lions so he just calls out to the Lord he doesn't pull any punches he doesn't play any games he just comes right out and he says Lord these are not the kind of people that you pray for that you pray for God to touch their heart these are not the kind of people that you pray God lead them to repentance David says I've been watching these guys to my face they claim to be my friend they said they loved me and now they've turned on me and David says I've seen their true colors and you know I think that one of the reasons that that often times Christians we need to say shame on us is because we don't have that wisdom that David is showing here you know we're just okay so you you kicked in the teeth but you said you were sorry so I'm coming back from the dentist this afternoon with a new set of dentures and how about you kicked me again about what four thirty you know my mom used to say something I never understood it till I got older and got kicked in the teeth a couple of times my mom used to say Jesus has called us to love everybody mom would say some people you have to love from a distance and basically this is what we're seeing here yeah David David loved these people enough to pray that God would would deal with them justly but I don't think that after this instance David was gonna just they're gonna call him up say hey David really sorry about what I did you want to go get coffee no I think I'm gonna wait and just kind of examine and see if your word sorry turns into a lifestyle of repentance so in other words we don't need to continue to let people abuse us and mistreat us just because they said sorry just because we're Christians I thought you were a Christian aren't you supposed to forgive 70 times seven times I forgive you and I'm gonna observe you from a distance because I'm not gonna subject myself to what you bring into my life over and over and over again and so David is wise there and then this is cool because David now after all these prayers he's not sitting back gone you know my prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling God's not listening anyway look what he says verse 18 I will give you thanks and the great assembly I will praise you among many people you see these verbal attacks against David they were public and David was praying that God would publicly smite these people so that David could then go and publicly worship God for publicly smiting those who publicly railed on him and David just says you know I'm going to show people my worship and my praise because you're working in my life Lord I've been praying you're gonna answer I'm gonna go to the assembly I'm gonna go to the temple or I'm gonna go to where people gather and we are gonna worship I will praise you among many people and so in verses 19 through 28 we're gonna read through this pretty quickly this is David's prayer for vindication all right he's prayed against those who attack two militarily he's prayed against those who slandered him and now he's gonna just say God please vindicate me he says let them not rejoice over me who are wrongfully my enemies nor let them wink with the eye who hate me without a cause for they do not seek speak peace but they devise deceitful matters against the quiet ones in the land or the innocent ones says they also opened their mouths wide against me and said aha ahá our eyes have seen it now that's just a lot of talk for David to basically say to the Lord hey God these people were not only insulting me and mocking me but but they're claiming that they saw me doing something ungodly something wrong they say that they saw it with their own eyes and now they're bringing formal charges false accusation and David says don't let this happen Lord and verse 22 this is our comfort everybody who's been falsely accused put your hand up again especially if that false accusation has never been resolved up to this point I want to give you something to walk out of here with tonight verse 22 David says this you have seen O Lord do not keep silence David basically says I don't care what these people say about me lord I know what the truth is but more importantly Lord you know what the truth is you have seen that I did nothing wrong and then I was falsely accused they even say they saw it with their own eyes but I don't care Lord because you know what the truth is and you are a God of justice and even if you wait and I never see you bring this situation to a just resolution I know that my conscience is clear I know Lord that you know the truth and so he says Oh Lord do not be far from me stir up yourself and awake to my vindication to my cause my god and my lord vindicate me O Lord my God according to your righteousness and let's stop there for a minute David has prayed pretty boldly for the destruction and the just recompense of these people it's cool here because he says here verse 24 vindicate me O Lord God according to your righteousness he's saying God you're not gonna miss judge somebody the way I've been misjudged you're gonna judge righteously and that's why David says I'm praying with such peace because I know God that if I get out of the way you can deal with this situation righteously now how many of us who have been falsely accused could go and deal with that situation properly especially if we're still upset not too many hands up how many of us can look at the Lord and say I know you can deal with it righteously so it just kind of makes sense biblically that in situations like that we would stop trying to defend ourselves and pray Lord would you please vindicate me according to your righteousness keep reading notice this he says let them not rejoice over me let them not say in their hearts ah so we would have it let them not say we have swallowed him up let them be ashamed and brought to mutual confusion who rejoice it might hurt let them be clothed with shame and dishonor who exalt themselves against me and and David is just basically saying Lord just hold them accountable Lord just don't let them have a victory over me because I am innocent and verse twenty seven twenty eight this is the closing of the psalm let them shout for joy and be glad who favor my righteous cause and let them say continually but the Lord be magnified who has pleasure and the prosperity of his servant and my tongue shall speak of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long and this is kind of interesting hear what David says is that there's kind of a war going on here there's the people who are against me but David said there are plenty of people who are for me there's people who understand that that I'm being falsely accused and and he says Lord let this group of people who favor my right just cause let them shout for joy and be glad and then he says at the end again my tongue shall speak of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long and and David could say that because he knew that God was going to vindicate him it may not happen today or tomorrow but he says from this point forward I'm gonna praise and I'm gonna rejoice because I know that you are gonna answer this so real quick before we move on to chapter 36 there's an application of this imprecatory psalms because someone in the room might be going pastor and he just gave me permission to begin getting vengeance on my enemies first through prayer and then my personal actions you know door ding for door ding anything like that but Jesus told us in the New Testament in many places that because the world hated him they're gonna hate us as believers and they're gonna mistreat us right and so here's some guidelines to follow when we are falsely accused or we are attacked and and things like that number one is when you are accused as a Christian begin by exercising what we learned in Matthew chapter seven the first five verses there that were to examine our own life for sin before we do anything else because we might be guilty of something that we don't realize we're guilty of we may actually have provoked or we may have actually brought this on ourselves and we need to make sure that we haven't brought things upon ourselves by our sinful actions the second thing we just need to ask God to deal with our attackers justly justly being is that if they do have any softness or repentance in their heart that God would deal with them with grace and mercy and if not they don't want to repent that they would experience God's justice that that's a key way to pray in these situations and then the last thing if you look back to verse 3 don't forget that all of this came up because David was asking God to be his deliverer and his salvation and just ask God please deliver me lord only you can deliver me and so that means you don't take matters into your own hands you don't go to everybody and tell everybody what's going on in the name of let's pray for them you know in situations like that rather just put the whole matter in God's hands and wait on his deliverance so that's Psalm 30:5 we go now to Psalm 36 I think it's only what do we have here twelve verses Psalm chapter 36 I think it's 12 12 verses powerful verses and and we're gonna call this why wicked people do wicked things and this is gonna bring some really gonna shed some light on the previous song so if Psalm 30:5 made you uncomfortable as David was crying out for God to smite his enemies then Psalm 36 is gonna help because here David helps us understand why wicked people need to be smitten and can we all just get that in our mind for a minute wicked people need to be smitten does that and are we uncomfortable again oh I don't like that what do you mean they need to be smitten they need to be smitten they need to you know a good smiting from time to time gets our attention and oftentimes a person who has been smitten smited yeah quickly turns back to the Lord and so notice this to the chief musician so so this was actually supposed to be put to music and incorporate it into worship gatherings aren't you glad that Psalm 35 was not can you imagine if Ashley got up here and look Lord break their teeth in the name of Jesus we don't want to seem like that non-believers walk in the room they're like these people are crazy right but this Psalm was supposed to be put to music and you're thinking to yourself as you go through this I don't even want to sing this song right and notice that this was written by by David it's a psalm of David and he calls himself for the second time as we've gone through the Psalms now the servant of the Lord and this just sheds a little bit of light on chapter 35 why David was attacked and falsely accused you know when you serve the Lord unbelievers being around you are not too happy about it and so they're going to possibly make accusations so we go to verse one David writes these words he says an Oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked this word Oracle is interesting it's used throughout the Old Testament to describe a very direct word of the Lord and so verse one is telling us that all of Psalm 36 is an explanation from the Lord concerning why wicked people do wicked things and this is really good a lot of people like to make excuses for their friends and family members who do wicked things right oh he just got up on the wrong side of the bed for the last 36 years but he's deep down he's a good guy God's looking at this a little bit differently this is an interesting salt what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at why wicked people do the wicked things they do verses one through four will really focus on these wicked people and then as we get on we're gonna contrast that with the lifestyle of God and and of righteous people so notice why do wicked people do the things they do notice this there is no fear of God before his eyes and I want to tell you that's a Bible study all in itself right there a lot of people over the centuries have tried to summarize this phrase the fear of the Lord and I've read dozens and dozens of definitions all of them good but I got to tell you that the more I understand God's Word from Genesis to Revelation the simpler my definition of the fear of the Lord gets I try to make it more and more simple all the time and you could say that the fear of the Lord describes a respect and a reverence for God that motivates us to conduct ourselves in a manner that pleases God at all times it's a respect and a reverence for God that causes us to conduct ourselves in a manner that pleases God at all times we could go a little bit further let's talk about the people well let's wait a minute and do that in a second um we could add to our definition just just a little bit that when a person has the fear of the Lord they understand that God is a righteous judge and that he must judge sin another way to say that this isn't altogether biblical but I think it I shouldn't have said that because now someone's gonna go so you're gonna say on Biblical things from the pulpit just just bear with me for a minute the fear of the Lord is that mindset that we understand that we're gonna have to give an answer for every second of our life of every choice of every action and you could no we'll wait a minute if the blood of Jesus covers all sin okay so after you're saved the blood of Jesus prepares us to go to the Bema seat so it's true whether you're a believer a non-believer that the fear of the Lord causes us to realize that God is looking at my life every second and he's not winking at the things that I think are cute little sins you know all God's okay with that he just doesn't want us murdering people but he's okay with smoking a little weed once in a while or God's okay with you know and and we always come up with those things that we want to be okay and gods in heaven going I'm okay with that I didn't know I was okay with that I wrote that I'm not okay with that when did I become okay with this okay are we okay with the fear of the Lord we're all on the same page okay so let's talk about the people in Psalm 35 for a minute why did they attack Israel why did they make false accusations against the King what were they lacking in fear of the Lord they were living their lives completely forgetting that one day they would stand before the Lord and give an account for every second of their life for making false accusations for saying yeah I saw David do this thing you know and so there's a comparison in verses 1 & 2 using the word eyes what we're about to see here is that the wicked don't keep their eyes on God that we can have their eyes on themselves and look at verse 2 for he flatters him in his own eyes when he finds out his iniquity in it and when he hates look at the screen for a minute the NIV is so much better translating this verse NIV says in their own eyes they flatter themselves too much to detect or to hate their sin whoo that's powerful when a person doesn't have the fear of the Lord they begin to flatter themselves and they flatter themselves to the point where they don't even recognize that they have sin in their life that they're doing anything wrong or if by some chance they do recognize that they've got sin in their life and that they're sinning against humans and against God they are masters of excuses do you ever deal with people who are masters of excuses Genesis chapter 3 the Lord the woman you gave me imagine if they already had kids he would have gone it's the kids the kids are going into the dog alright and Adam you know God says Adam I was talking to you I'll deal with even the kids and the dog later but I'm talking to you right now right the fear of the Lord when it's missing in somebody's life they don't even think about sin they don't think about how their actions are gonna affect anything so we get to verse 3 the words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit and this is interesting because Jesus taught us that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks in verses 3 and 4 here we're gonna see what's in the heart and what's overflowing through their mouths and through their lives so these people might be going listen I'm a good person I just do bad things once in a while God is saying when you see wickedness and the life of a person it's because they're hard as wicked the core of their being is wicked they are wicked notice the words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit that word wickedness means vanity affliction mischief unrighteousness evil and deceit everybody knows what the seat means right really cool quote by Charles Spurgeon look up at the screen he's talking about wickedness and deceit in the lives of human beings excuse me he says this pair of hell dogs generally hunt together and what one does not catch the other will if iniquity cannot win by oppression deceit will gain by shiki nuri that was Charles Spurgeon I love that he's talking about wickedness he's talking about deceit go on a little bit further verse three the second sentence he says he has ceased to be wise and to do good and this is really interesting the wicked has ceased to be wise and to do good so so the psalmist is trying to tell us that wicked people haven't always practiced wickedness there is a time when they practice righteousness and then they chose to stop they ceased being wise they ceased doing good and I think this verse does half a verse right here also tells us that everybody in the world knows the difference between right and wrong it's built into us we have a conscience Romans chapter 1 tells us that and then verse 4 reveals three things about the wicked person and boy really pay attention to this we're gonna talk about the wicked person's plans notice verse 4 he devises wickedness on his bed and that word devises talks about thinking or planning meditating upon so you know righteous people lay down at night and say a couple of prayers we fall asleep thanking the Lord for a wonderful day or for the trials we got through whatever it is wicked people they lay on their bed thinking up and creating wicked plots things to do or how to be wicked against other people and then notice the second thing about the wicked person we see his habits notice it says he sets himself in a way that is not good that speaks of he commits himself to things that are not good wicked people have wicked hearts and they develop wicked habits and then the third thing look at his attractions it says here he does not abhor evil and that word evil here we won't really explore this you can do that on your own the word should be lewdness its speaking of sexual sin of an impure nature so his plans his habits and the things he's attracted to are evil because his heart is evil all of this comes of the overflow of the heart and then verses five through nine tells us that they a focus or no verses five through nine now focus on the righteous it's really neat here first we talk about the source of righteousness and then we'll talk about what happens in the life of a person who has tapped into that source look at the source of human righteousness verse five your mercy O Lord is in the heavens your faithfulness reaches to the clouds so david says the source of human righteousness is the fact that God is is merciful and he says here Lord your mercy is immeasurable it reaches to the heavens it reaches beyond the clouds who's got a tape measure that can reach to the heavens anybody have one of those laser things that can tell us how high the heavens are know and so David is saying your your grace and mercy are immeasurable verse six your righteousness is like the great mountains what do you know about mountains they're immovable right and so he says Lord your righteousness is immovable your judgments are a great deep and and so he says your justice is as deep as the ocean incomprehensible so so what David is saying here is that the source of human righteousness is the mercy of God coming to God and saying you know Lord I bring you my sin I take as a free gift from you the righteousness of Jesus and he says O Lord you preserve man and beast when's the last time you saw a squirrel in your neighborhood at Walmart working or at the gas station pumping gas or something like that you know you never see a squirrel getting up and put on a little hard hat in his little tool belt huh hi-ho hi-ho it's off doesn't happen why because the Lord is the one who preserves everybody think about that as you go to bed when you lay your head on the pillow just give God thanks for preserving us and providing for us but you know what that's that's kind of a slap in his face for some people because God is providing and the wicked people don't even give him thanks they never even thank God for the wonderful preservation of their life or the provision of their life and David says I'm not going to be that way look at what David says he says how precious is your loving-kindness O God and that word loving-kindness and verse 7 and the word mercy in verse 5 it's the same Hebrew word and it just talks about God's abundant overflowing sacrificial love towards us that provides for us salvation and so David has drawn attention to God who is the source of human righteousness and now he moves on and he talks about how a person who has tapped into that righteousness through faith how it affects them and so he says therefore in others because of who you are God the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings he's talking about believers here he's talking about people who have put their faith in the Lord to save them and he says the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings and look at some of the benefits of being a believer David says they are abundantly satisfied with the fullness and that word really means the fatness of your house we worked so hard to not get fat huh get a steak you know and everybody's cutting the fat off their steak oh this is gonna clog your arteries right the fatness of the Lord God wants to give us an if you do a study on fat in the Bible you'll never go on a diet again because when they sacrificed an animal the the one thing that God said he craved that he loved was the fat because as it sizzled on the altar it was the sweet-smelling sacrifice going up to the Lord and so this is what's cool god says to the worshipers give me the fat it's the best and then notice what David says God gives us the fatness of his house so you give God your absolute best God gives you back his absolute best and then notice he says you give them drink from the river of your pleasures and this is written to people who live in a dry and barren desert and just think about God just saying listen you know I'm gonna let you drink from the river of my pleasure and as you drink from this every good and perfect thing that I have for mankind to enjoy it's yours and it's yours and abundance it's yours and abundance so david says verse 9 for with you is the fountain and that means the source of life with you is the source of life and this is what's interesting is that not everybody that's alive is living did you know that according to Ephesians chapter 2 I remember doing a Bible study one time called dead man walking from Ephesians chapter 2 and just talking about how people who are physically alive but they're not saved they're dead men walking because they're dead and their trespasses and their sins but once they receive Christ then they're born again there's their spirit is born and David says with you is the source of life the fountain of life so as you go through the world believer and you look at people around you not everybody's alive a bunch of people are dead and the unfortunate thing is some of those people will never taste life before they taste eternal death so I think that we have a bigger responsibility to share the gospel to share Christ with people to help dead people come to life in your light we see light and the New Testament speaks over and over of how non-believers live in darkness but how believers live in the light Peter spoke of how God called us out of darkness into his glorious light through the gospel of Jesus and David is acknowledging he says you know Lord everybody sees light but it's only when we see your light the light of life that we really come to understand what life is and what light is and so David closes the psalm in verses 10 through 12 with a prayer for God's blessing and for God's protection 10 he says Oh continue your loving-kindness to those who know you and your righteousness to the upright in heart you remember that earlier in the psalm and and especially back in Psalm 35 David had showed us how the wicked are destined for judgment and I know that breaks our heart but here he's saying you know those wicked people are destined for judgment because they refuse to come to the light they refuse to acknowledge that they need you but here he confidently talks about how God's grace and mercy are upon those who believe your righteousness to the upright in heart and then a blessing they're wonderful to know that the Lord has given us his righteousness verse 11 but not the foot of pride to come against me and let not the hand of the wicked drive me away and he's basically saying that the wicked should fear God because justice and judgment are coming but the righteous have no reason to fear the wicked and no reason to fear judgment because God is their protector and verse 12 really powerful here he says they're the workers of iniquity have fallen they have been cast down and are not able to rise my question in verse 12 is where he says there there it's interesting I look back at verse 11 let not the foot of pride come against me I think that that's what the word there points to I think that David is saying is that these non-believers these wicked that we've been talking about all evening this is where they dwell where do believers dwell John chapter 15 jesus said abide in me we abide in Christ non-believers wicked people they may dwell in Pride and so David is saying because of the wicked dwelling and pride they have fallen they have fallen into sin and their sin has caused them to be noticed this word cast down and notice what happens when a person is filled with pride and cast down unless they'll repent they are not able to rise not able to rise at all and that's not a good way to end us all it's not really encouraging is it it's like David saying okay so final lesson God's good to the righteous but let's talk about the wicked the wicked dwell in pride they're cast down they fall they can't get up ever again let's go on to the next one and so I don't think we can end it right there we have to do something that David didn't do right here we have to give hope and that hope is found in the fact that anybody whether they have dwelt in Pride and they have fallen deeply into sin they've been cast down to the lowest place it says here they are not able to rise I think as you go on through the rest of the Bible that says they are not able to rise until they allow the Lord to pick them up until they ask the Lord Lord I've created this terrible situation because of my pride would you pick me up would you restore me and so the application here is that when the person loses their fear of the Lord they find themselves on a really slippery slope they forget about God they're consumed by themselves they live in pride they're cast down and they are not able to rise and the warning here is that we as believers can never allow ourselves to depart from the fear of the Lord Amen father thank you for Psalm 35 and 36 these were a bit heavy tonight Lord a little bit different than a lot of the other Psalms where David is just constantly pointing us to your goodness and your mercy and and Lord we just walk out of here blown away by how amazing you are tonight was a little different Lord we've just got this sobering reminder that as believers we live in a world that is hostile to us and Lord we live in a world where people have completely rejected the fear of the Lord and are reaping the consequences of that as we look at the world around us Lord it's just obvious the fear of the Lord is absent Lord even in the church the fear of the Lord can be absent and so tonight Lord from Psalm chapter 35 we we echo what David says Lord you are my salvation speak to my soul and remind me that you have and will continue to save me and from Psalm chapter 36 Lord remind us that the fear of the Lord can be abandoned that we can cease from doing good and lord I just pray for anybody tonight who's looking at their own life and just saying I have just I have set aside the fear of the Lord I pray that quickly and and Lord maybe with tears that you would be sought tonight for forgiveness and restoration and there's a promise Lord throughout the Scriptures but I think John said it best that if we confess our sin you are faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us for all from all unrighteousness so even if we've abandoned the fear of the Lord Lord we can choose to return to it now and to be completely restored and so Lord we're so thankful for the goodness of God and for the gospel of Jesus I pray Lord that we would walk in the light and we would walk in the life that you've given us and as we go out of these doors tonight lord I pray that we would not lose sight of the fact that we are surrounded by people who don't know you and who need to know you you've called us to tell them so help us to be bold we thank you Lord we ask this in Jesus name and everybody said amen [Music] you

Channel: Calvary Chapel Greer

Views: 28,335

Rating: 4.873518 out of 5

Keywords: Wed_4-11-18

Id: b_MhMliM7bk

Length: 66min 32sec (3992 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 13 2018