Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 30, 2024 | Summer in the Psalms - Psalm 5: Punish the Wicked, Please!

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June 30, 2024 | Summer in the Psalms - Psalm 5: Punish the Wicked, Please! · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, good to be with you this morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're continuing our series in the Psalms, and uh we have a couple weeks left this summer as we're walking through it.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and I hope that you have been um that not only that you've enjoyed it and got something from it, but that uh the walking through the Psalms has uh better enabled you to go before the Lord in prayer and in worship.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that you know, as we go through these psalms, especially the ones in the beginning, they're uh they're from David, right?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: David's going through a lot of things, and uh you might not relate particularly to being a king that has a son trying to kill you, um, sort of a unique experience.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but really what the Psalms offer is a model or a sort of a framework for how we can go before the Lord when we are in distress, when we are struggling, when we are in pain and in doubt and all those things, and later on in praise.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning's psalm, Psalm five, is uh is again from David, and uh it is a wonderful reminder to us of uh how we can pray and what it looks like to go before the Lord when our prayers have not been answered, when we are in the middle of our pain, um, and in fact when we have yet to see what we expect to see, which is God's deliverance.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um we are waiting as David is.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so this psalm this morning, it's about, like many of them, right?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is about the wicked, it is about those who are attacking David, it is about sort of his relationship with God.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you'll see a number of things this morning that are unique that will help you walk through your own situation.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, it's a reminder that, you know, God loves you, God knows your situation, uh, God hears you, he listens to you, but you need to talk to God, right?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so these psalms are sort of continue to draw us back week after week into this space where we go, yeah, this is what it looks like for somebody who knows and loves God and is walking through all of life's challenges.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: As we begin, uh David says, Listen to my words, Lord, consider my sighing, pay attention to the sound of my cry, my king and my God.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: For I pray to you.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: In the morning I plead my case to you and watch expectantly.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I said, we'll we'll continue to walk with King David through He wrote He's written about half the Psalms, and so we'll see him, we'll revisit his life a lot.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And though uh the last couple weeks we were looking at a very specific situation, the Psalms say, hey, this is what he wrote when Absalom was trying to kill him.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Many times it is just like a psalm of David, a praise of David.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then people at different times try and like attach things to it.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is must must have been what he was going through when that happened.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: But at Psalm 5, we don't know what's going on.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now we'll find out a little bit later a few more details, but this is just a morning prayer of the king of Israel.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And as he goes before the Lord, um, he is a man of troubles.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: He has woken up with burdens that are not new, right?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so anybody who is in a situation where you have had something that you have carried forth into today that didn't start today, um, this is for you.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so as David is speaking these things, he's like, My sighing, and in Hebrew, this word is sort of like his muttering, his kind of like his under-the-breath words, and then also his cries, that he has been going before the Lord with whatever this is for a long time now.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but his attitude and his heart, as we see at the end of verse 3 there, is he goes, I plead my case, and then what?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I watch expectantly.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the posture of the king of Israel, right, is that he goes before the king of the universe and he says, or you can imagine him saying rather, like, anything that I have ever needed as king, I have people who serve on me hand and foot.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have people who go and do whatever I need at any time I ask for it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: What I say is the law here.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: What I say goes.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And yet in humility he goes before the Lord because there is something that he cannot fix.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: There is something that he cannot change, and it's burdening him.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Lord, I come before you with great expectation because I know who you are, and not only that you have delivered me in the past, but I have faith that you will deliver me in the future.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: But right now, I am in a period where I am just waiting.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we can, I think, all relate to that.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's another great reminder, too, before we move on from this section, that I mean, you have arguably one of the most powerful and influential people on the earth at this time, who is going before the Lord in this way.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: There is no amount of success, there's no amount of wealth or lack thereof, there's no amount of good things or bad things going on in David's life that is changing his communication with God.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the things that he's saying, but his frequency of going before the Lord, like this is a man who knows what it is like to begin his days and like last week, end his days before the king of the universe.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as we go on, we're going to see that before David gets to the request portion, right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Before he gets to the, this is what I really am looking for, God, he is going to uh spend the next section here just proclaiming um specific things about God that relate to his circumstances, but they are just sort of an act of adoration, of thanksgiving, of recognition and praise of the God of the world.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: As David goes before him, he says, For you are not a God who delights in wickedness.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Evil cannot dwell with you.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: The boastful cannot stand in your sight.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: You hate all evildoers, you destroy those who tell lies.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord abhors violent and treacherous people.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Even still, we're getting closer to what's going on with David in his specific situation.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: But at this point, right, it is just like these are the qualities of God.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uh right now I've got a kind of a small group of guys that I meet with, and we're walking through a systematic theology book, and lately we've been in these chapters that are just like the attributes of God, his justice, his mercy, his goodness, his, you know, all of these things.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And admittedly, like those chapters, particularly, I mean, systematic theology can get dry.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, particularly when you're getting on to chapters that are like, let's just talk about what it means that God is good by definition.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And not only that he is good, like we have ascribed that quality to him, but he is the originator and the definer of what is good.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this is an example here of where these things come to bear.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, why is it important to understand those kinds of concepts?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because as David goes before the Lord and he says, For you are not a God who delights in wickedness.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Evil cannot dwell with you.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's not saying, like, God, this is, you know, evil, it's not your favorite thing in the world.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we know that you would rather not.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is not like any other, you know, sort of, think of like Greek mythology or, you know, any pantheon that we have.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got these gods with mixed emotions, and, you know, they can do good things, they can do bad things, we're trying to appease them, so on and so forth.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we worship a God who is good and holy and righteous.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it is more than just he hates evil, it is the opposite of his nature.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we look at these things, to say that God would love evil is going against not just his character, but who he is and who he tells us he is in his word.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this important?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are many times where we kind of play fast and loose with God's desires for the world when bad things happen.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the point of this message is not to get into why do bad things happen.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why do bad things happen?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because we live in a fallen world, right?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And God is going to redeem it in the end.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but for David here, this is a conversation with the Lord where he is simply affirming the things that he knows are true about his God, and he is anticipating, right, with expectation, he's like, and I'm waiting to see these things come to bear again, right?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, the wicked are attacking me, they're assailing me, all of these things.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I know, God, I know that you are one who is holy and mighty, and you hate what they are doing.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so my expectation is not whether or not you will ever do anything, but simply when it will happen.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have that kind of assurance.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: To go against this, to begin to attach blame to the Lord for evil in the world, it's one of the quickest ways to make him angry.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh later on in the Bible, the prophet Micah, excuse me, Malachi is dealing with this, where he says, You have wearied the Lord with your words.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking to Judah.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Yet you ask, How have we wearied him?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, when you say, Everyone who does what is evil is good in the Lord's sight, and he is delighted with them, or else, where is the God of justice?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is, you gotta understand, we are hundreds of years in the future here.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Israel has gone through some uh, let's just say, cycles of rebellion.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they have gone into exile and they have returned and gone into exile and returned, and and there's this great question.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is the last book in the Bible before the New Testament, and it's kind of like, where is God right now?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where is he?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, there's a 400-year period of silence after Malachi before Jesus comes onto the scene.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And people are asking these questions.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, we see evil and wicked the world.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Where is God?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: What is he doing?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But they move beyond those questions because you'll see those questions in the Psalms.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see people, and in fact, in way more extreme language than David is using in Psalm 5, they'll go, like, how, Lord?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Why, Lord?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why now?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, God, how could you allow that?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: They'll ask those questions in a way that you're going like, ooh, okay, we're getting, we're testing the boundaries here, okay?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're reminded that God included them in the Psalter.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's good for us.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the line that gets crossed is when we begin to go, God, you are in so many ways the author of evil, or you don't care about this, or you delighted in seeing this evil happen, this wickedness, right?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: We move beyond this uh period of questioning into assigning blame to God, and it is never a good place to be an accuser in God's throne room.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is the role specifically, actually, attached to Satan.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we look at David here and we go back to the Psalm, go back to the text here in verses four through six, we are just witnessing a prayer of expectation that says, I don't know how you are going to bring this through, but I trust that you will.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that prayer of expectation is one that is based upon knowing who God is and what he has done.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, you gotta think about King David, right?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like he, as his role entails, he is in a throne room and he has people that come before him.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it is kind of funny, like you can expect any king throughout history, when people go to King David, they're like, you know, oh, great, magnificent, you know, one whose wisdom.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are different points in time in the Bible where they call him, they're like, it is like we are talking to the angel of God here, and he's okay, you know, pump the brakes.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: But as David is familiar with that kind of language, it's part of the um respect and admiration that is given to the one who has the power to change circumstances, right?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it is sort of this deference, that's this recognition of who David is and the throne that he occupies to be able to say these things.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so now David, as we'll see in the next section, is picturing himself going into the sanctuary of God and perhaps even the tabernacle of the Lord to pray these things.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I'm in your throne room now.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so what he is saying to God is he is sort of lavishing this praise upon one who is deserving of all of these statements.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Lord, you are one like the boastful cannot stand in your sight.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: You hate all evildoers.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: These are things that, you know, it's not new information to God, but it's an act of worship in the midst of pain that David is saying these things to God, right?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of amazing how David is going to walk with humility and wonder, even while his world is being shaken apart.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Verses 7 through 9, we now see him sort of pivot and turn.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is his request.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I enter your house by the abundance of your faithful love.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I bow down toward your holy temple in reverential awe of you.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, lead me in your righteousness because of my adversaries.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Make your way straight before me, for there is nothing reliable in what they say.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Destruction is within them, their throat is an open grave, they flatter with their tongues.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, those last four lines give us uh basically the best idea in this psalm of what's going on with David.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: To some degree, there are people who are lying and uh being deceitful in their relationship with him, and most likely because of the reference to death, uh, they are trying to, you know, dethrone him, take him out.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are any number of circumstances.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: This happened to David all the time, right?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Any number of circumstances where people could be doing this inside the kingdom, outside the kingdom, within his own household.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but this is as much information as we get, right?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: God knows what's going on.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes I think that that can be such a comforting thought when we go before the Lord in prayer, and uh we don't have to tell him specifically what's going on because he already knows it.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: So as David speaks here, though, there's a very important uh reference he makes.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: At the very beginning, he says, I enter your house, and by that right now, we're just picturing sort of this uh this divine throne room of the Lord.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: The temple was not built yet when David said this.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So he could have been at the house of the Lord in Shiloh, he could have been, you know, some other place near the Ark of God.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: But he goes, I enter your house by the abundance of your faithful love.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that significant?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because what David is saying, you gotta think about this.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's he is like Psalm 1 separates the line between the righteous and the wicked, right?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we recognize, we talked about back then, that there are kind of two ways to talk about righteousness in terms of uh those who follow after God.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Righteousness in terms of the way that God defines it, being that God is righteous, is something only He can attach to us, because we can never do enough to become righteous on our own because we are we are sinners, right?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: All the time.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then there is another, there's kind of a secondary way of speaking about righteousness, which is more in the sense of like, well, I'm not, you know, not to be trite, but like I'm not murdering people like they are, I'm not lying and deceiving people like they are.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so, kind of in comparison, we come out a little bit better in the wash.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: But that's different than what David is talking about here.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I enter your house by the abundance of your faithful love.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: You only get to enter the house of God because he calls you righteous.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way that he calls you righteous is because through the love of God, he has proclaimed it to be so, because for us we have trusted in Christ as our Savior.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so what David is saying here, in so many words, as he goes, I have not entered your temple, your sanctuary, your realm here, Lord, I'm not, I'm not with you because I am good, which we might expect him to say when he is talking about the wicked people who are attacking him.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, I have entered your sanctuary because of your love, not my innocence, because of your favor.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so that then sort of shades the rest of the text is then he talks about the wicked and the righteous, and we go, well, David understands that the one big thing separating him from the wicked is that he has trusted in God as his Savior.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't have to go far in the Bible.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: David was a great king.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: He did not smell like roses, all right?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like he fell many times and in severe, significant ways.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so what David is recognizing, though, is that the thing that distinguishes him from those who are attacking, what enables him, in fact, to be able to then ask God for help in the throne room, is the fact that God's love has covered him.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And as we'll see at the end of this psalm, that David also has the blessing, the favor, and the refuge of God.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And these are all gifts from him.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's also important to see in the middle here, the first request that we see in this psalm, like what we would call kind of an imperative, uh, the first direct ask that David has of the Lord after the very beginning, where he just says, Listen to me, is right here where he goes, lead me in your righteousness.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is his, this is his statement.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, lead me in your righteousness, not my righteousness.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Lead me in your righteousness.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Lord, make your ways straight before me.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to think back to when you pray to the Lord.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: How often, and maybe you don't even realize it, because I don't realize it all the time, how often are you praying that the Lord would make your path straight?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: That he would remove kind of thing like you're driving along a road and a storm has caused a tree to block it, and you're like, God, would you just pick up the tree?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, would you just do the thing?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Would you just make it like this would be, I see the rest of the road, I know which way I'm going.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, the God, right?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And yet what David is saying here is he goes, Lord, the path navigating through this storm, navigating through these waters, God is something only I can do if you make your pathway clear to me.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: If I am following your will, not my own.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is a perfect example for us of what it looks like to pray with expectation according to God's will, right?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is the not my will but yours be done kind of language, is expressed right here with David.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Make your way straight before me.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because if David is praying for any hope of rescue, of redemption, of deliverance from these circumstances, it's not going to become, it's not going to be because he had a you know a great brainstorming session and was able to figure it all out.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: God is the one who guides him.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: But now David turns his attention towards his enemies.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this is this is where we might sort of take a step back from the psalm because it gets pretty intense.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Punish them, God.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let them fall by their own schemes, drive them out because of their many crimes, for they rebel against you.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: But let all who take refuge in you rejoice.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let them shout for joy forever.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: May you shelter them, and may those who love your name boast about you.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: For you, Lord, bless the righteous one.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: You surround him with favor like a shield.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is the end of the psalm here.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, our attention is drawn to that first line.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Punish them, God.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when I was reading through this and kind of getting ready this week, my mind immediately, when I read that, went to Jesus when he says that we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the kind of things I was wrestling with this week early on, is I was like, what does it mean to sort of live in harmony with that statement?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because both are given, you know, by God, right?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to both love those who persecute you and persecute you and pray for them, and also be able to justifiably and righteously, as David is doing, say, Lord, punish them.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: I came up with three reasons why David, why this is something that we can actually copy and implement in our own prayers.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, three things, though.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that what David is asking here is completely within the will of God that he has revealed to us in Scripture about what he is planning to do to the wicked, right?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: So many examples in the Bible where God says, um, I basically like I do things right now, but the ultimate end of the wicked comes when I return, right?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: When all things are made new.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And simply what David is asking here is he goes, Lord, um, can you speed it up a little bit?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Can you can you sort of do the thing that you are going to do later?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Can you do it right now?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there are many times, right, where we see um those who are, and just as in a general sense of the word wicked, like pursuing any aim that is evil.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Many times we do see people kind of draw the noose up around themselves and ultimately hang themselves by taking the consequences of their own actions, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what David is asking specifically, let them fall by their own schemes.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, like, Lord, I know this is one of the ways that you work.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking that you would punish them, that the wicked would be distant from me, because, God, they have fallen down in their own schemes, and I would live to see the day when that happens, right?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: So David, first of all, is simply praying for the righteousness of God to be revealed sooner rather than later.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Umtice he is not, there's an element of respect in everything that David is saying here, but he's trying to pray within the will of God.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let them fall by their own schemes, drive them out, send them away.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Second, um, when we talk about uh what Jesus says, insofar as like we must love our enemies, we need to be careful that we don't then associate Jesus with having a lack of care for the punishment of evil and sin, right?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh these two things are not like opposite ends of the spectrum.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, they live out in harmony.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: When a perfect example of this would be uh when Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well, right?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes and there is no part of that conversation, particularly if you've read it before, where at the very end we are surprised to see him go, Yes, you know, I do know that you're living in adultery and you've had many husbands, and you're living with one that isn't one right now.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: But that was not the focus of his intention there in his conversation.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was to draw her into the water of life as they were standing by a well.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we see what Jesus is doing, we need to understand that he perfectly, being God, makes sense, perfectly embodies what it means to both be able to pronounce destruction against enemies and to be able to say, many times Jesus would go, think about what he says to the Pharisees, or to when he goes to those who are um leading children astray in their faith.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, talk about um the importance of why we do something like camp catapult.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, how deeply God values in giving gospel instruction to children.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he says it would be better for them to have a millstone tied around their neck and thrown into the ocean.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So this is not a God who is sort of dispelling the punishment of the wicked, but rather he's living with it in harmony.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so David is doing the same thing.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: He is just exercising sort of a voice that we don't often hear.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Third is David is asking God to handle this.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is another, there's an element, and it's been rising, I've noticed, in the last couple years in TV and movies.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: We love vigilante justice.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's Batman, okay, but it's also any number of characters that are sort of evolving in media now that are in that moral gray position, and they're sort of taking things into their own hands.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: And there's an element of us that we're like, yeah, that that sounds great to me.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Last night, um, my neighbor was setting off M80s at 2 a.m., okay?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: I he was letting freedom ring a little too early, okay?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm walking outside to go and say something after the third one goes off, um there is an element of wishing to bring a little bit of justice that I was certainly feeling, and I also recognize that I am not the one that needs to be doing that kind of thing, right?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Particularly at that point in time.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what does it mean for us to be able to, in all circumstances, particularly when we feel like we have been attacked, abused, um, uh brutalized in some way by others around us, that we continue to offer up the judgment to the Lord and take it out of our hands.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: That is the appropriate place for it.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it is an act of, again, humility and submission and all of those things that are hard for us to be able to say, like, Lord, I mean, David is saying, like, God, you punish them.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And many times he has been the instrument of God's will against the wicked, but in this case, he says, Lord, will you take it?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, as the psalm concludes here, right, there are three sort of stanzas that David concludes with.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, it begins by him going, but let all who take refuge in you rejoice, let them shout for joy forever.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first one.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And again, we go back to earlier in the Psalm where David is just like sort of naming general things that are true about God because the specific thing that he is waiting for has not arrived yet.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so we go, well, what is comforting David in the midst of his pain?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: When the answer isn't there, when he is sort of just um anticipating it, but it hasn't come, and apparently this has been going on for a while.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: What is giving David comfort?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing is that he is finding joy in the righteousness of God.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And make no mistake, when he says, Let all who take refuge in you rejoice, that rejoicing in context is over God's judgment of the wicked.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is what in this case he is rejoicing over, as he goes, Lord, I know I will see the day when all wickedness and evil will be put under your feet, and it will be a service to eternal joicing, rejoicing in your kingdom for those who have taken refuge in you.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: This confidence in the future.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, May you shelter them, and may those who love your name boast about you.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um the mistake that the three little pigs made, right, when the wolf came along, is only one of them picked the house that could withstand the wolf blowing on it.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: The confidence that David has to be able to call God his shelter and his refuge is because he knows that the Lord is able to stand against any and all schemes of the enemy, right?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing, there's no question in his mind about whether he has put sort of his chips in the right place, his eggs in the basket, if you will.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like everything is going to go okay for David in the grand scheme of things, because God is the one that he has placed his trust.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, God is his shelter.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that David is able to boast about the Lord because his God is always victorious.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then third, that the Lord would bless the righteous one.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: You surround him with favor like a shield.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much- I'll talk about this a little bit more in the podcast.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much in those two lines.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but remember, being righteous is a title given to us by God because we have trusted in Christ.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: And for those who have trusted in Christ, it is not just about salvation as if that is not enough.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a whole host of additional things that come alongside salvation and being in God's kingdom, walking in his kingdom.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And two of those that David mentions here that are particularly comforting for him is that he always is able to see the blessings of God upon his life, and in fact, the favor of God, emotionally, physically, spiritually, upon his life.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, it is surrounding me like a shield.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: As I look around and I see what is going on, and sort of a full view of everything, not just this circumstance, but everything, and particularly as the king, everything that has come before him, he goes, I see in my life that you have been like a shield to me, and I know that that shield is still here.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we wrap Psalm 5, and there is one last thing to mention.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you are walking through circumstances and you feel like you are being attacked, one of the hardest things to do is to handle the situation the way that God has asked you to handle the situation.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh something that David brings up here that I think is really helpful is he says, Lord, drive them out because of their many crimes, for they rebel against you.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is helpful because before anybody has ever attacked you, said a word against you, tried to harm you, spoken lies about you, any, before anybody has done anything against you, they were doing it to God first.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: They are his enemy first, before they walked along and became your enemy.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we go, well, Lord, this is happening to me, how can you tell me how I should be acting and in what way?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because this is my life.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: God, this is my my life is being ruined.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: My life is falling apart.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: How can you tell me what I should be doing?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Besides the fact that he is God, the greater thing is that he goes, because they were my enemies first, and this is how I have chosen to handle them.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so you should be able to, in time, all right, this is not a like day one prayer.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is like a day 50 prayer, a day 500 prayer.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is the prayer of faith and anticipation, saying, Lord, they were your opponents first.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just want to wrap by summarizing a couple things that we brought together here.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Give you some actionable items.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Things that David is doing from Psalm 5.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: He is trusting in a God who hates wickedness.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is a comfort to him, it is a balm to his wounds to go before the Lord and to uh as praise to God, but also probably as a reminder to himself, because he might not always be feeling it.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: I worship and follow after a God who hates wickedness, despises evil, and cannot allow it in his midst.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is a God who is working all things out for his glory, and though this is hard and painful and is absolutely terrible, I'm trusting in what he is going to do because I know his character.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, David is asking for a straight path according to God's will.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: I talked about this a lot, but I'd to just sort of emphasize the fact that you and I do not make good paths.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: We do not normally make right decisions, and even when we do, it is normally a blessing from God that we have.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so, one of the greatest things that we can request of the Lord, even though it might be tempting to sort of ask for a, you know, Lord, remove this specific obstacle, to take this thing, remove this disease, whatever, that it is going like, God, let me walk your path, because that is the only one that gets me to the end here.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Number three is that you can pray for the wicked to fall in their plans and in fact for God to punish them.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I want, like, kind of with some of those restrictions that we talked about, like Jesus, but that this is an element that God has offered up to us as a way for as we walk through these painful moments to be able to go, like, Lord, like I know that you hate this too.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so, God, like, as I see wickedness happening in my life, in my family, in my city, in my country, in my world, like all of these things, Lord, like, may you bring punishment and judgment upon these people both now and later, but now would be nice.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth and finally, rejoice in your salvation, blessing, and favor.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's probably a healthy aspect of Christianity where we are cautious because of the prosperity gospel about attaching specific blessings to our lives that the Lord has given.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't mean like that we might have the Holy Spirit or something like that, but the whole like we're dang we we don't need to tread into health, wealth kind of stuff.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: But what David is doing here is he simply goes, like, Lord, I know, I have seen, as he says later on in the Psalms, I've tasted and seen that you are good, right?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is my experience that I have you around me as a shield, and I'm taking that as I move forward.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: So as we close, I just I want to pray these things.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I want to pray these things over you.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if any of you are walking through a hard circumstance, I'm going to pray these things over you, and then we will, or and that's how we will go ahead and close today in prayer.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Would you bow your heads?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, as we go into Psalm 5 and we see your word revealed to us, and Lord, we we understand your servant David as the king of Israel who is painfully waiting in expectation.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: God, we find ourselves, so many of us, in that same situation today.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, many of us woke up this morning with burdens that were not new.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I pray for them that they would trust in you as one who hates wickedness and evil, Lord, that you do not allow it in your midst.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever sort of separation there is right now between what is going on and what we believe and who we believe you to be, Lord, that it is simply our misunderstanding.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because, God, we know that you are carrying all things out for your glory and for your goodness.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: God, help us to see that.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that you would make our paths straight according to your will.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that your path would be revealed to us because, Lord, our path is not worth following.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: God, as we need to navigate through both today, but Lord, whatever is coming down the pike tomorrow and the day after, and however the situation progresses, God, there's so many landmines for us to avoid.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would make your path straight for us.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: God, I pray for the wicked to fall in their plans, particularly if people are struggling, because there are those in their life who are attacking them and persecuting them and lying about them and being deceptive.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: God, that you would bring righteous punishment, that we might live to see their schemes fail.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: And God, that when that happens, we would rejoice because we have delivered judgment and given it up to you, God, in submission, because we are not worthy to handle that power.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: And God, finally, that we might rejoice in your salvation, your blessing, and your favor.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: God, what it means to be favored by you in our life.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why David is able to call it a shield, God, it is so comforting.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you for that, Lord.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: And God, as we move forward in this, we pray with expectation.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: We know that you hear us and we come before you now, God, in your throne room, saying, We are only here by your love, not our innocence.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: And God, we pray that your will would be done.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, love you.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next week.