Ascension Presbyterian Lord's Day Worship

Call to Worship and the Heavenly Mount Zion

Well, good morning, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome to the corporate worship of our God. Please stand and hear God call you to worship through his word.

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire and to blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words so that those who heard it beg that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, to heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

See that you do not refuse him who speaks for if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth.

But now he is promised saying, yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven. Now this yet once more indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken as of the things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire. Amen, let us pray.

Our father in heaven, we have come to worship and bow down and kneel before you, the Lord, our maker, for you are our God and we are the people of your pasture and the sheep of your hand. We come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

He is our advocate with the father. He is our only mediator between God and man. He always lives to make intercession for us. Through him, we come boldly to your throne of grace. In his name, we earnestly seek you.

Oh Lord, our souls thirst for you. Our flesh yearns for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Bow your heavens and come down and have at the praises of your people. Remember your promise, oh spirit of Christ, to be present in the midst of your worshiping people when two or more are gathered in your name.

Condescend to us, grant us the joy of your fellowship. Speak to us through your word and be blessed by our praise and adoration. We ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. Please kneel as you are able for the corporate confession of sin.

Corporate Confession and Assurance of Pardon

Let us join together in confessing our sins. Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become of us a consuming fire of judgment.

Set us free from the past that we have changed. Open to us the future in which we can be changed. And grant us grace to grow in Jesus Christ the light. Please stand as we think of our sins and we think of the old covenant people of God who regularly had to continue to offer a sacrifice for their sin, knowing that the blood of bulls and goats would not take away sin.

Yet we have one, our Lamb of God, who has been sacrificed for us and takes away our sin. With great joy, receive this assurance of pardon. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of his love in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, rejoice, your sins are forgiven.

Amen.

Amen.

Please take up the Trinity hymnal and turn to hymn number 642, Be Thou My Vision, hymn 642. Man, what a glorious hymn. Please take up the insert and look for our Psalm of the week. Psalm 56, you have recorded all my ways.

Psalm 56, the tune will be the traditional, crown him with many crowns. I'm sorry, all hail the power. Thank you, I made that mistake earlier. Thank you. All hail the power of Jesus' name, which is not the same as crown him with many crowns.

Psalm 56, please remain standing.

Revelation 8 and the Public Reading of Scripture

For the public reading of God's word from Revelation chapter eight.

Revelation chapter eight, this is the word of the Lord. When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God and to them were given seven trumpets.

Then another angel having a golden censer came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense and he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne and the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints as ascended before God from the angel's hand.

Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar and threw it into the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings and earthquake. So the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

The first angel sounded and hail and fire followed, mingled with blood and they were thrown into the earth and a third of the trees were burned up and all the green grass was burned up. Then the second angel sounded and something like a great melon burning with fire was thrown into the sea and a third of the sea became blood.

And a third of the living creatures in the sea died and a third of the ships were destroyed. Then the third angel sounded and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the spring of water.

The name of the star was Wormwood. A third of the water became Wormwood and many men died from the water because it was made bitter. Then the fourth angel sounded and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, a third of the stars so that a third of them were darkened.

A third of the day did not shine and likewise the night. And I looked and I heard an angel flying through the midst of the heaven saying with a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth because of the remaining blast of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Let us now continue our worship by confessing our ancient Christian faith in the singing of the Apostles' Creed.

Who was conceived by the bread of heaven

Please take up the hymnal once more and open up to hymn number 235. All glory, Lord and honor, hymn 235.

People of God

Amen.

Please now make preparation for the prayers of the people. Let us pray together. O God, from whom come all holy desires, all good counsel, and all just works. Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey your commandments and also that we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may live in peace and quietness through the merits of Jesus Christ, our Savior.

Who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, God forever, amen. For the church of Jesus Christ, that it may be filled with truth and love and be found without fault at the day of your coming,.

We pray to you, O Lord, for all ministers, missionaries,.

And the mission of the church, that in faithful witness the gospel may be preached. We pray to you, O Lord. For those in positions of public trust, that they may serve justice and promote the dignity and freedom of every person, we pray to you, O Lord.

For the poor, the persecuted, the sick, and all who suffer, for refugees, prisoners, and all who are in danger, that they may be relieved and protected, we pray to you, O Lord. For this congregation, for those who are present and for those who are absent, that we may be delivered from hardness of heart and show forth your glory in all that we do, we pray to you, O Lord.

Finding ourself in agreement with all these things, we join our voices together and say, amen. Please stand and take up the insert once again and look for our Psalm of the month, Psalm 138. With all my heart, my thanks I'll bring.

Brother, any words of encouragement or instruction? I know this is our second time for this, is that right?

Okay, all right, Psalm 138.

Psalm 7: Trusting God as Judge and Defender

Well, please open your Bibles with me to Psalm number seven, the seventh Psalm. We are continuing our consideration of the Psalter, and today it brings us to Psalm number seven. Psalm seven, these are the words of God.

A meditation of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning the words of Cush, a Benjamite. O Lord, my God, and you I put my trust. Save me from all those who persecute me and deliver me, lest they tear me like a lion, rending me in pieces while there is none to deliver.

O Lord, my God, if I have done this, if there is iniquity in my hands, if I have repaid evil to him who was at peace with me, or have plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue me and overtake me.

Yes, let him trample my life to the earth and lay my honor in the dust.

Selah.

Arise, O Lord, in your anger. Lift yourself up because of the rage of my enemy. Rise up for me to the judgment you have commanded. So the congregation of the peoples shall surround you. For their sakes, therefore, return on high.

The Lord shall judge the peoples. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to my integrity within me. O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the just. For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.

My defense is of God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day. If he does not turn back, he will sharpen his sword. He bends his bow and makes it ready.

He also prepares for himself instruments of death. He makes his arrows into fiery shafts. Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity. Yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood. He made a pit and dug it out and has fallen into the ditch.

Which he made. His trouble shall return upon his own head and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown. I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord, most high.

Let us pray. Merciful Lord, the comforter and teacher of your faithful people, increase in your church the desires which you have given and confirm the hearts of those who hope in you by enabling us to understand the depth of your promises.

That all of your adopted sons and daughters may even now behold with the eyes of faith and patiently wait for the light which you have revealed in your word. And we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, who is the light of the world.

Amen.

Please be seated. Well, we are picking up again where we had left off some time ago in our consideration of the Psalms. And at the beginning of this, a few years back, we had mentioned there were some very good and reasonable things why we would do this.

The one I'm just going to mention is this from 2 Timothy 3, 16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete and thoroughly equipped in every good work.

The Psalms in many ways are uniquely equipped for this very thing, to teach us how we should act, what we should think, how we should respond, how we should talk to God. And so we come to this seventh Psalm.

C .H. Spurgeon wrote about this Psalm. He called it the Song of the Slandered Saint. There are times when the people of God will suffer injustice at the hands of wicked men. The righteous should call upon God to prevail on behalf of his people.

The God who says, vengeance is mine, I will repay, promises to right the wrongs done to his people. Here we have a Psalm that describes a time when David suffered unjustly. David suffered wrong at the hands of his enemies.

David called upon God to execute judgment in his wrath and indignation. That God would defend his people. And he will defend his people. He will execute perfect justice, and that with equity. We have many in our day clamoring about equity, so much so that we may be sick of hearing it.

But they will get equity, just not in the way that they imagine. They will get equity in judgment when our God rises to judge the people of God. His people, he will do so with equity. And God will judge those who persecute his people in this life or in the final judgment.

We see that this is a Psalm of meditation. The Hebrew word is shigion. And we are informed that that means that this is a Psalm of intense emotion, and that it is a varied emotion. It is not just one kind of emotion, but it's multiple kinds of emotion.

And we see this intensity with David stating the situation with his enemies. We see the intensity of David's plea, plea rather, to God to render justice. And we see the intensity with David's response to a righteous God.

Notice what David had done though. When he was moved with intense emotion, in this case, caused by false accusations and persecution about him, he broke out in song. We need to recover this aspect of our singing.

We can call to mind James 5, 13. "'Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. "'Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing Psalms.'". David did both. In song, we need to learn that we can turn the most disastrous event into an occasion for singing.

That would turn the tables on the enemy, would it not? Martin Luther once said, "'David made Psalms, and we also will make Psalms, "'and sing them as well as we can "'to the honor of our Lord and to the spite "'and mock the devil.'".

That's what we should do. We should always be willing to turn to song. This Psalm, we are told, was written concerning the words of someone named Cush, a Benjaminite. We do not know very much about this man.

He was possibly a henchman of King Saul, who himself was a Benjaminite. This would set the context of this persecution of David, this false accusation, accusation rather, at the time when Saul sought to kill David, to take his life.

David was being unjustly persecuted by Saul, and he took great comfort in the perfect justice of God. Lest we forget, Saul was the magistrate. He was the king, and as we have been reminded in recent years of the study of Romans 13, one of the jobs that the civil magistrate has is to do justice, as God defines it.

Saul was an unjust man, but David knew that there was a just and righteous king, God himself. Well, let us take a look closer at our Psalm here today, and look at verse one. Oh Lord, my God, in you I put my trust.

In some ways, we should stop right here. That's all we need to study, right? That in any time and in any place, we could call out and say, oh Lord, my God, in you I put my trust. Then I won't lean on my own understanding, but we do need to be instructed to what that looks like.

And David continues. Oh Lord, my God, in you I put my trust. Save me from all those who persecute me and deliver me. David was in trouble. He was in great trouble, but he knew where he could turn. God was his refuge.

God was his high tower, his mighty fortress. In him, David could trust. Just to pause for a moment, you may have noticed in our first hymn today and our Psalm of the week contain some of these very themes.

We worship a great God who providentially worked all these things out so that the very themes which we would talk about here today we've sung about, that God indeed is our fortress and we can, like David, turn to him.

What was his trouble? Well, we touched on it a little bit. He was being accused of something by these words of this Cush. And if these are indeed around the times of Saul's persecution of David, unjustly that charge brought against him was one of treason.

Saul had accused David of trying to usurp him, to take the kingdom from Saul by force. Not only that, he accused his own son, Jonathan, of being in league with David and overthrowing his kingship. And this charge, Saul made very public.

Everyone knew it. David himself brings this to Saul's attention as we have in 1 Samuel 24, nine, where we read this. And David said to Saul, why do you listen to the words of men who say, indeed, David seeks your harm?

These may be the very words of this Cush or something similar. We don't know if Cush said these things or not, but we do know that David was being persecuted, being unjustly accused by the words of this Cush.

Maybe these words or maybe orders given by Cush to pursue David. Nevertheless, David was in severe distress and he cried out to the Lord, deliver me. That Hebrew word that is translated deliver means to pluck away, to pull out, to provide a means of escape.

And what should we learn here? As I mentioned that the Psalms are a great instruction to us as Paul indicated all scripture is on how we should act and respond. May we always respond this way as our first line of defense.

Whatever our emergency may be, may we ever rely upon the Lord and seek his help to put our trust in him, to cry out for salvation. And I don't mean our eternal salvation, although if you are not in the Lord, you should cry out for your eternal salvation, but those temporal salvations and protection to seek deliverance from evil, not to repay evil for evil.

We must remember that we worship a God who has said that if you seek to harm his people, you are like one touching the apple of his eye. We read this in Zechariah where he says, he who touches you touches the apple of his eye.

We are his treasured possession. We are his purchased and redeemed people. We are those to whom his son, our savior, Jesus Christ, shed his blood to redeem. We must remember that we should at all times and in all places put our trust in God.

It is never right to distrust God and it is never in vain to fully trust him. But David continues, speaking of his enemies, he says, lest they tear me like a lion, rending me in pieces while there is none to deliver.

It's a very interesting way to describe the enemies. And in some ways, it's the words of a shepherd. A shepherd would have predators following the flock, bears, lions, wolves. And when they catch an unsuspecting sheep, they rend it piece by piece.

They tear it apart, devouring it. And that's how David describes his enemies here, that there is cruelty in their actions, that they are like animals, that his enemies will tear and rend him like a lion.

It's interesting that he would use that term. A lion is often used to specify one of great strength and courage. He may be referring to Saul. We must remember that many, many times we think of Saul as a coward, but he was not.

He was a valiant warrior and a giant of a man, one that may be befitting to call a lion. Nevertheless, David feared that his enemies would cut him in pieces, tear him limb from limb, we might say, that they would descend upon him.

And he knew that there were none to deliver him. There was nobody there that would deliver him, but there was one he could turn to for deliverance. David knew very well, and that's what he is teaching us here, that there is none to save but God alone.

There is none that can deliver but our gracious God. There is none that can save to the uttermost. There is no savior, no deliverer. There is none that can stay the hand of the enemy, but God alone. If it were not for him, the saints would fall prey to their enemies.

This is what David knew and why he cried out to God. And we may find ourselves in a similar situation. We may have our own cushions. You may have already experienced it. Those who would speak slanderously about us, about our faith, about our Lord, friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, and others, that they would slander and accuse us of vile things.

We shouldn't be surprised. God himself was slandered in Eden by the evil one. Hath God really said? God's afraid that if you eat, you will become like him. A slander. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was slandered by the religious elite of his day.

He saved others, himself he cannot save. We will be slandered. And sometimes you may even experience what I'll call friendly fire. Slandered by those who should be your friends. Slander leaves a cut that may be even deeper than a sword.

And even when it's wholly disproved, it leaves a scar. We may find ourselves facing trials and tribulations for our faith. We know this. It says anyone who tries to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

Because we name the name of Christ and seek to obey him. We may find ourselves suffering under such a curse and such tribulations. And when we do, we should turn to the Lord, our refuge, our mighty fortress.

That we should cry out to God what David opened this psalm with. Oh Lord my God, in you I put my trust. But let us continue and take a look at verses three through five here. David says this, oh Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is iniquity in my hands.

David is saying if those things which this Cush is saying about me, these things that he is saying, if these be true, then I am guilty not only of thinking them, but actually have iniquity on my hands.

And I've actually done something. If this is true, this specific charge is if it's true. But then David continues and goes on to verse four and says if I have repaid evil to him who was at peace with me.

So he moves from a very specific charge in verse three, if I have done this, to a more general charge. Not only if I haven't done that, if I have done evil to those who were at peace with me, to those who were in my circle, who through showing their love to me as their neighbor gave me that feeling of peace, that covenant bond of peace that's bound up in the word shalom.

If I have been at peace with my neighbor, but yet had done evil to them. So if I am guilty of this charge that Cush brought against me, or I have mistreated my neighbor by doing evil to him who was at peace, but then he raises the bar a little bit more.

Or have plundered my enemy without cause. Now we might think plundering our enemy is good at any time but God doesn't. God has instructed us to love our enemies. David is calling this out. He said if all of these things be true, if any one of these is true, then he says this, let the enemy pursue me and overtake me.

Yes, let him trample my life to the earth and lay my honor in the dust. David is saying that if I am guilty of these charges, any of them, I am worthy of the judgment of God. I'm worthy to have my life be forfeit and my honor that I should have tied to my name.

Let it be lay in the dust. I would be worthless. Now this is not David admitting to anything. This is David pleading with God and the innocence of his charge. He is saying I am blameless in the charges being brought against me and I'm blameless of any vile act that they may even think of against me.

He's not saying he's sinless, but he's saying in regards to these things, the slander that is brought against me, I am not guilty. What David is engaged in is something we should learn. He is engaged in a little self-examination.

He's had vile things brought against him. And when we have vile things brought against us, we really ought to look at our lives and say, are these things true? Have I done the things that they're accusing me of?

We ask the Holy Spirit to examine us as well, to call to mind whether we intentionally or unintentionally have done anything to deserve the slander that is against us, to determine if this was from God to drive us to repentance or from the accuser, Satan.

Are these accusations hell-born and hell-bound originating from the father of lies who works to accuse the saints of sin? We must examine ourselves. But if we find ourselves to be innocent, we must remember that no innocence can shield us from the calumnies of the wicked.

David had scrupulously avoiding any appearance of rebelling against Saul, who he referred to as the Lord's anointed. Not once, but twice he had Saul in his hand to do with what he wanted, once in the cave of Adullam and once in the midst of the camp.

And both times he didn't do anything. Not only could David say as he did here that he was guilty of these charges and so forth, being blameless did not keep him from being accused. The good that he did did not protect him from lying tongues, nor will they protect us.

Sinners have ill will against the saints. So we must remember that we should be blameless, that we should be innocent of the slander brought against us but that will not protect us from the work of the wicked ones.

At the end of verse five, we have a Selah. Remembering what Charles Spurgeon said about that term, it's a point where we should pause and look back and look forward. When we look back in this Psalm, we see the case that David has brought before the Lord caused by this one named Cush, these lying words, this accusation.

We see David's appeal to the God of heaven for deliverance. We see his protestation of his own innocence. But now let's take a look forward and see what David has for us in the remainder of the Psalm.

Looking at verse six, arise, O Lord, in your anger. Lift yourself up because of the rage of my enemies. Rise up for me to the judgment you have commanded. Look at the boldness. Notice the boldness of this statement.

He's crying out to the Lord to arise, to lift himself up. That term in verse six, rise up, in older translations was awake. David was boldly calling upon God for his support in this manner. Remembering in God's word that the Lord and the Lord alone is the judge and the repair of sins.

In Deuteronomy 32 to 35, we have vengeance is mine and the recompense, the repayment. Their foot is the wicked ones. Their foot shall slip in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand and the things to come hasten upon them.

Psalm 94, one says, O Lord God, to whom vengeance belong, O God, to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth. David is crying out to God that his judgment and justice on punishing evil and defending the good would be done now.

Rise up for me to the judgment you have commanded. This is what David is calling for God to do. But David continues. So the congregation of the peoples shall surround you for their sakes, therefore return on high.

David is kind of drawing a picture here, I think that is somewhat like a courtroom. We have the accusers, David's enemies, this one Cush and others bringing accusations against David. We have David, the defendant, standing before the judge.

We have the Lord, the just judge and it seems like we have around them, the people and the gallery in the courtroom here. So the congregation of the people shall surround you to hear the judgment that would come from the Lord.

And David continues and he says this in verse eight, the Lord shall judge the peoples. David is including his enemies clearly in there, judge my enemies who bring these false accusation but also the people.

Some of those in that surrounding congregation with itching ears believed the lying charge against David. They were duped by the wiles of the wicked ones around them. They too were to be judged but David also included himself as we continue reading, judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to my integrity within me.

Sometimes when we read this, we may be fooled into thinking that we have the ability to gin up within us some form of righteousness or some form of integrity. But knowing David, David knew very well that the Lord, his God was his righteousness.

That the Lord, his God was his integrity. That any good that was in David came from God and God alone. And that is our cry as well. That is where our righteousness and our integrity come from, the Lord.

David trusts that in the Lord, the great judge of the nations, that he will judge without prejudice and that he will judge accurately, that he will be able to give a righteous judgment and that David was willing to trust in that judgment and to rest fully upon that.

But David continues and he writes this in verse nine. Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end but establish the just. For the righteous God tests the hearts and mind. What was the judgment that David was looking for?

This, that the wickedness of the wicked would come to an end. That the wicked ways of the wicked, that the evil deeds of evil men, false accusations and the outcome of those false accusations, the enticing of the people, the people themselves with itching ears to hear bad reports leveled against David and against the saints, that all of that would come to an end and that God would establish the just.

That they would all, all the wicked deeds would fall away and the just would remain standing. And that's one of the ways that the just are established. All the wicked ways of the wicked will come to an end.

But David also says that the righteous God tests the hearts and minds. This word translated tests means investigation, experimental investigation, trying out what is the thoughts and the works of the wicked ones to see where they end out.

It is a thorough testing. It is a strict testing. It is an accurate testing. It is an intimate testing. He tries the hearts, our inward affections, what we really feel, but also the minds, what we think, not just our actions, but our thoughts and our inward affections.

It is thorough. And this really should be our trust too, that we may be tempted in our day to look around and see the works of the wicked. It seems in our day that the wicked are having a field day, that their success is everywhere.

And not only that, but the wicked are even trying to entice those who should be our friends against us. And that would include fellow Christians, those who profess the name of Christ, that they are enticed to be against us.

We may think that the wicked ways are everywhere. Like we may have a picture to our mind, like Isaiah 59, 19, when it says, when the enemy comes in like a flood, and we see the flood of the enemy coming in, a flood that is threatening to overwhelm us, to sweep away everything that the righteous stands for before them.

We see the flood coming into the church. We see the flood coming into our families and into our community. The flood of immorality, the flood of persecution, the flood of accusation and the flood of temptation.

It all looks overwhelming and it cannot be stopped. That is, if we were leaning on our own understanding, that's what it would look like. But we, like David, should turn to God. In that Isaiah verse, it says, when the enemy of God comes in like a flood, that the spirit of the Lord would rise up a standard against them.

Just a brief aside, a standard is a flag. It's a banner. In ancient warfare, it was a melee of violence. And it was hard sometimes to distinguish friend from foe in this combat. And when somebody wanted to rally the troops, they would lift up the banner and the soldiers would see the banner and flock to it.

And likeway, we have a banner today. This might call to mind that time, and we read in Numbers, when the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord and he had sent against them snakes, poisonous snakes to kill them.

And Moses was instructed to lift up a bronze serpent and that everybody that would look upon the serpent would be saved. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in John's gospel said, just like they raised the serpent up in the desert, so shall the Son of Man be raised up.

The Lord Jesus Christ is our standard. When the enemies come in like a flood, we should turn to Christ, to focus on him, to trust in him. He, after all, is the one that will come to judge the quick and the dead.

So when we are unjustly accused, we do not take matters into our own hands, but rather we trust in him, to turn to him for justice, for he and he alone is able to judge with equity and justice. But we continue, and we look here at verse 10.

My defense is of God, who saves the upright in heart. This may call to mind a thinking of maybe continuing the courtroom scene. After all, we can give a defense, an apologia in Greek, of our faith there.

But this word that is translated defense means shield or buckler. So this is the image of the battlefield. A buckler is a shield about four feet high and was used as a defensive weapon against stones, and arrows, and even sword blows up close.

The Lord is a shield to us, deflecting the fiery arrows of accusation against us. And he saves the upright in heart. Well, that would be us, his servants, the saints. But he continues in verse 11. God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day.

As we've heard described already, that God is a just judge, but he's also an active judge. And we'll read more about that in just a moment. But his nature is always the same. He is holy, holy, holy. He cannot abide sin.

He has the same opposition to sin today as he has in times past. There are many who will say and believe that God's law no longer is binding, that his standard of justice and sin has passed away in the age of grace.

Yet God is the same today as he was yesterday, and as he will be tomorrow. He still hates sin. And he is angry with those who continue to indulge in it, regardless of what the billboard out by the highway might say.