Book of Psalms - Psa. 10, Vs. 1-18 (02/26/2023)

Huh? We good to go? Alright. Well, it's been a minute since I've done a

Sunday school, so good to be back sitting here with you guys to do another psalm.

We've been enjoying Ben Jamin's walk through Malachi, but he's in the process of getting moved now.

He's deep in the process of moving and so he asked that we just pause his study there and for me to take over a little bit, which

I'm happy to do. I am left wondering what's going to happen next in Malachi.

I kind of have a little bit of a cliffhanger there, but that's okay. We'll leave that cliffhanger waiting for us for a little while.

We are in Psalm chapter 9. You're wondering where we are. Psalm chapter 9.

We've just kind of gone through them chapter by chapter. Remember, Brother Bill started us off with chapter 1 and we finished off 1 and 2 and we saw that those two chapters kind of went together.

We saw that 3 and 4 kind of went together as well and there's this division of the psalms where there's pairs of psalms.

This one pairs with the last one, chapter 9. I'm going to do a quick recap of chapter 9 for you guys because it's been so long since we've done psalms.

In that chapter we talked about the importance of connecting to God's presence. David used the music, which was played upon the musleben.

Remember, it was an ancient, what's the word

I'm looking for? Instrument. Musical instrument that we really don't know what it is. We don't know what it looks like.

We don't know what it sounds like, but we do know that it is an instrument that is to denote victory at the death of our enemies.

He used the music of the psalm, David did, to set his heart upon an expectation of victory.

We talked about the fact that the Lord will utterly remove the remembrance of our enemies, making like even their name disappear.

We will be sitting in heaven someday going, who was that that was oppressing us? Like they made my life terrible on earth.

I can't even recall their name. And just the thought that there's zero remembrance of them should be something that we kind of fear for them.

It should be something where we go, that's a pretty bad fate. So with that in mind, we should endure hardships and oppression by the enemy, kind of being concerned for the enemy who's oppressing us, because whoever oppresses us,

God's children, are going to meet a pretty terrible end. And so he begins to warn his enemy of that end, the pending doom and a perfect punishment that will come from the

Lord. And then he reminds the readers, us, that this same perfect judge will be our perfect comforter.

David calls on the reader to join him in his intention to praise

God. Remember, it was like he rehearsed the psalm, and then it's almost like he's saying, hey, come on, join in with me, guys.

And he says similar things, almost like it's, join in with me and let's sing it again, you know?

And one of the takeaways that we had, or the main takeaway, I would say, perhaps, is just this idea that we are

God's children. His presence is with us. And anyone who oppresses us, they're walking a dangerous road.

And so we're supposed to be fearful for their safety's sake. And we had,

I don't remember if it was when I was doing chapter nine or not, but we talked a little bit about some of the martyrs and some of the great stories of the martyrs in which the people who were persecuting them came to know the

Lord through their martyrdom. I'm going to turn off my notifications here because I'm getting texts.

Hold on one second. Do not disturb. There we go. Okay, so now we're going to look at Psalm chapter 10.

And a lot of people think that this is a partial psalm. They think that this is something that is incomplete, but Spurgeon notes that it's complete enough to stand alone.

He does believe that it goes with Psalm chapter nine, though, as a pair. So if that's the case, if it goes with Psalm chapter nine as a pair, then we should think maybe this is also played upon the muthlaban.

It does not expressly tell us this, but it does make us think, well, maybe this is about victory.

Okay? So think about that. Think of this psalm through the expectation of victory.

And let's start reading it. Psalm chapter 10, verse one. Why standest thou afar off,

Lord? Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? That doesn't sound like victory, does it?

Have you guys ever had tough times? Tough times in which you wondered, why hasn't

God saved me yet? Ada has. She just told us. She's like, me, me.

Those times when maybe we're expecting deliverance, right?

And we should expect deliverance. But sometimes we've been expecting it. And the weight of the weight starts to get to us.

Right? It starts to weigh upon us. Waiting on the

Lord is an entirely different skill set than the expectation, really.

Like the proper initial response, right? How many times have we had something happen and we go, okay,

I know how I'm supposed to respond. And we fight the urge to respond improperly.

And we do the right thing when we say, okay, I'm responding the way the Lord wants me to.

So we do that. And then nothing gets fixed.

We respond and we expect a victory. We expect the fight to be over.

Nothing happens. So we say, okay, now I'm supposed to endure a little bit.

So I'm going to continue to respond properly. And it's just a test of patience, something like that.

Right? And still nothing. And we begin to think, how long, oh

Lord. So then we go, okay, well, now I'm going, I'm going to make sure that other people are going to respond properly as well.

Maybe that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to encourage others, even though I'm experiencing some kind of turmoil myself.

And so we do like what David did in the last song where we say, come on, guys, join in with me. Let's, let's all sing together.

Let's praise the Lord together. And let's, uh, we can carry the load together because you know, this is bad thing and it doesn't just affect me.

Maybe it comes in the form of a prayer request, right? Like here's my prayer request, guys. I'm really struggling with this.

Can you guys kind of shoulder the load with me? That's why part of why we do prayer requests is that we can all bear each other's burdens.

We can pray for each other. And so we do that. We do what we're supposed to do. Still nothing.

We endure it longer. And eventually the greatest persecutor of all starts to get the better of us.

And that's time because we do everything we're supposed to do, but then time's against us.

Like how long do I have to do what I'm supposed to do before God finally delivers me from this persecution?

Maybe it's somebody who's treating you wrongly. Maybe it's a situation where you just can't figure out the way out of it.

Maybe it's a work situation. You can't figure out the solution to the problem. Whatever it is, you try, you try again, you try a third time.

And then it's like, well, come on, where are you God? Like, I feel like I'm doing my part. When are you going to do your part?

Right? This first verse is why standest thou afar off Lord?

Now he's starting to go, well, why are you doing this? Why aren't you here with me fixing my problem for me?

Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? And it seems as though what's happening is

David is, he's doubting the, he's doubt, he's not feeling the presence of the

Lord in his, in his trouble. Why are you far off? You see, it's like, it doesn't feel like you're near me.

So we'll do, we'll do just about anything. We'll even declare that the, with our words, that the victory is won, that the battle is finished.

And we'll say that because we've read it in scripture that it's already done. We'll try to look at it from God's perspective.

Like, okay, this is, this is a thing of the past for the Lord. Like he's already defeated this enemy.

And then at some point we're sucked back into the reality that we're not outside of time. We are in it and we're still experiencing it and it's not over yet.

And so it just becomes really, really tough. It's in these times that he feels like he's just not near us.

You know, that's the worst. Remember that's where it cuts us to the quick, as Spurgeon said about this very topic in one of the other songs we read.

Remember in chapter nine, we saw that the enemies fall in the presence of the Lord. That's why we want him near us.

That's why we want to feel like he's near us. Because if our enemies fall in the presence of the Lord, and it seems as though in our experience that our enemies have not fallen, then we begin to say, well, that must mean logically that God's presence isn't here.

Right? That's kind of how we begin to think of it. Well, so what we're going to see throughout

Psalm chapter 10 is this mental attack that David just let us in on.

It feels like God's far off. We're going to see how David deals with that mental attack.

That's what we're going to learn from Psalm chapter 10 here. If you'll remember in Isaiah 40, 31, this is one we're all pretty familiar with.

It tells us they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles and shall run and not be weary.

They shall walk and not faint. So if you've ever wondered, how do we do

Isaiah chapter 40, verse 31, Psalm chapter 10 is going to give us a clue.

All right. All right. So verse 2, and really this is verse 2 through 11, but I'm not going to read through all of these because verses 2 through 11 kind of go together.

Because what we're going to see next is David begins to recognize the place for which his enemy is operating from.

And he begins to literally talk about that. He's casting these worries and concerns to the

Lord. He's saying, it feels like you're not with me, like you're far off. It feels like you're hiding yourself in this time of trouble.

Now I'm going to expound to you, God, and just how bad things are. Okay. So for the next few verses, that's what we're going to see.

Here's what he says in verse 2, the wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor.

Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined. And David recognizes that the enemy is acting from a place of pride.

So we've been talking about pride quite a bit, right? That's kind of been the hot topic that Ben's been going over even before he went into the book of Malachi.

But we've referenced pride a few times even in the book of Malachi. But before that, what book was it we were in?

Obadiah? Obadiah, yeah. So he was talking about the Edomites and how prideful they were. David is going to talk about his enemy here.

And he says, it's through pride that he's doing all of this. Why is this important for David to recognize that it's through pride?

Any ideas? Okay. You know, pride doesn't endure, does it?

Pride cometh before what? The fall. Yes, sir.

Okay. So David said that for those of you listening online,

God says that he pushes the proud away from him. So David knows he won't get any, his enemy won't get any help from God.

So that's a good point as well. Like if David wants help, it's kind of nice to know that he can go to a place that is exclusive to him, right?

He's got a special advantage there. Nobody else has this kind of help. David does.

So it's kind of a dual reminding. It's like, okay, one, I have an advantage because I've got

God. Two, God is completely against pride, which means this guy's going to fall, right?

Because I know that if he is operating in a place of pride now, he may not have fallen yet, but that's the precursor to falling.

Like, that's what happens before the fall. Pride cometh before the fall. He's about there.

Like, it's going to happen. He's teetering as we speak, right? So that's why it's so important that he reminds himself this is happening from a place of pride.

He then says, let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined. Does this remind you of anything else in scripture?

It immediately reminded me of a different story. One of my favorite stories in the story of Esther, right?

Haman had a plan, a device, literally a device for killing

Esther's people. He's going to kill Mordecai upon the gallows. And he ultimately got hung on those very gallows.

So if we are reminded of things of that, if we will think of the fact that the enemy works from a place of pride, and that is just before the fall, we also have to understand that the things that the enemy is doing may be the very things that he falls to, right?

Like Mordecai did. And I think that's really what we're seeing David ask the

Lord to do is like, hey, with what he's measuring to me, let it be measured to him, right?

Let him hang by his own gallows. Verse three, for the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire and blesseth the covetous whom the

Lord abhoreth. This is a really interesting verse to me because I think it typifies the pinnacle of pride.

This is as prideful as it can possibly get. Can't get any more prideful than this. I mean, think about it.

What is he saying that his enemy is boasting in?

His heart's desire. How do you boast in something like that?

It would be like saying, so Zach, you want that new

Honda Accord that just came out, do you? Guess what? I want a

Maserati. I don't have it, but I've got a bigger desire than you do.

Mine's more expensive than yours. Can you get any more prideful than that? Like there's nothing to it.

He's boasting in his heart's desire. Weird. And he blesseth the covetous whom the

Lord abhoreth. So not only has he reached the pinnacle of pride, this pinnacle of pride has also resulted in him directly opposing

God. Like the things that God hates, he blesses.

I mean, that's the pinnacle of disobedience, isn't it? So he's got the pinnacle of the heart problem, pride, and the pinnacle of the manifestation of that heart problem, which is calling good evil and evil good.

Yeesh. All right. So now what must that do to David? Like how's this helped

David to say this? Any ideas? Okay.

If he knows that pride comes before the fall, and he can now also recognize that this man has reached the pinnacle of pride, he can't really get much worse, can he?

So the fall must be pretty close. If he's gotten to this point, it couldn't possibly be much longer.

So when you're going through some kind of persecution, maybe it is a persecution from someone else.

Maybe it's a persecution for a situation, and we know that Satan tries to work things to mess up our situations.

Whatever it is, we know that we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers and rulers of this dark world, spiritual wickedness in high places.

We know that it's all a spiritual battle and that there is an enemy on the other side of our trouble.

Whatever trouble it is, it's not just, oh, this just happened to me and it's nobody's fault.

There's always someone at fault. It's the enemy, whether it be the enemy working through a person or the enemy working through a situation.

You have an enemy and he has reached the pinnacle of his pride to the point where he is blessing those that God abhors.

So it may feel like this is taking forever for God to come to my rescue.

But what have we asked the Lord to do? David has just asked the

Lord for the enemy to be hung by his own devices, right? So if that's the case, we then have to ask ourselves, if we're going to ask the

Lord, let them be taken by their own devices, how many devices would you like them to be taken by?

I mean, that's a way to look at it. If you think about it, it's like the longer this persecution lasts, the worse the end of the enemy will be.

There will be more devices for the enemy to be taken by because he will continue to employ those devices.

And so we go, God, you're taking forever. Why? Why aren't you coming to my rescue?

And it may be that the Lord's like, I'm really going to destroy them worse than you think.

Like you think they've got it bad now. Wait till next week when they've done a whole lot more to you. They're going to be,

I'm going to take them by all their devices. This is if you think about the fact that David, what he is asking for, everything he asks for, if he really thinks about what he's asking for, it will actually help him endure the time that he has to wait for the

Lord to come and help him. So when he's asking these things, it's not just to increase the urgency.

That's the thing is that we tend to think when in verse one, David says, why standest thou far off Lord?

Why hidest thou thyself in trouble? We tend to think that David is going to follow this up with, here are all the reasons why you need to come right now.

Here's all the urgency. And we read it that way. I read it that way the first time I read it. But as I start to think of all the things that David's actually asking for, he probably does want urgency, but if he doesn't get urgency, all the things he's asking for will help him endure longer.

That will help him renew his strength, you see, because he might not get the urgency from our perspective.

We know that the Lord is, he's just around the corner, right? And from his perspective, he's practically here, like he's practically back, right?

He sees the beginning from the end, like he sees it all. From our perspective, it may not even be in our lifetime that we see

Jesus return, right? But we can definitely experience deliverance from our persecution within our lifetime.

We might not get that. There have certainly been some people who didn't get that. Their deliverance was death.

And that's, I mean, the ultimate type of deliverance, because now they're eternally with our

Father in heaven. So how do we endure that kind of persecution?

We haven't experienced that yet, right? Praise the Lord. We haven't experienced that kind of persecution, but it may be coming.

And it certainly feels like, oh, well, this problem's never going to go away. Whatever, however small problem it is, we have to begin to look at the fact that God's promises always ring true.

He'll always come to our rescue, but it's almost never in our time.

And because it's almost never in our time, we can't let time persecute us the way that it does.

Like that time in and of itself becomes the enemy when we do that. However, we've got

David and I, we like to do this coffee talk stuff, and Matt and Ben will do this with us sometimes as well.

And this is purely speculation here. It's not something that we have, I would say, well,

I mean, we may have some biblical backing for this, but we have speculated that time works differently in heaven than it does here.

Some people think time does not exist in heaven, but there's plenty of scripture to prove that time does exist in heaven.

I'll just spit out one, like one of them is the fact that when it's talking about Satan and it says that Satan had all this glory till, it uses the word till, iniquity was found in him.

Well, that is a time word, right? So we know that Satan, who operated within heaven and was later cast down, there was time to describe that iniquity was found within him.

So there are other scriptures like this that would indicate there is time in heaven, but here on earth, since the fall of man, time has worked against us.

With time, everything heads towards disorder. The second law of thermodynamics plays on us.

And we have, we've often talked about how is it possible for us to be in the spirit, right?

And we know that the spirit cannot sin because the scripture tells us that. How is it ever possible to get out of the spirit, right?

In a sense to stop being connected to the spirit, because wouldn't that in and of itself be a sin? And so we have tried to think, all right, how can we deal with that?

Well, I think in this scenario, we kind of start to see David battling that.

If he's doubting that the Lord's coming, he's talking about how the Lord hides his face in times of trouble.

God doesn't really do that. So he's battling these thoughts like, I don't want to move towards actually sinning and losing hope.

So he begins to fight these thoughts by talking to the Lord. It starts with this prayer life.

And the prayer starts off with him telling God the problem, but also doing so from a place of recognizing what the enemy's weakness is, right?

So he's doing all of these things. And it's a very roundabout way to say this, but time, we believe once you get to heaven actually works in your favor.

Because if there's time in heaven, things get better, right? And we have glimpses of this on earth.

There are some things that with time get better, right? Like you have to age cheese to make it better, for instance.

So we get glimpses of where time makes things better, not worse.

And so what we should do is we should, like Jesus taught us to do, ask the

Lord to make his will, not our will, but his will be done, right?

On earth as it is in heaven. So in other words, the things that are in heaven, we want to activate those things within our lives right now.

Like we want to act as though we are already seated with him in the heavenlies. We want to act as though time is going to make things better.

But we know in our experience, time does not make things better, right? It makes things worse because of the second law of thermodynamics.

So how do we how do we overcome this? Well, we begin to operate from a position of how can we make time work in our favor?

Well, that's what David's doing here. With more time, my enemy is going to suffer a greater demise because he's going to operate more of these devices against me.

And I'm asking the Lord to take him with those very devices. So he's going to have a worse end.

See, now, even though in the same scenario, I have to experience more of those devices, which means with time things get worse for me,

I can focus on that or I can focus on the good side, on the heavenly side of time. Even though I am experiencing more persecution with time, my enemy is also experiencing a worse demise because of his persecution of me over time.

Was that clear as mud or does that make sense? All right, so that's the focus that we want to have.

We really want to try and have this optimistic focus when we're coming to the

Lord with our problems, because if we'll begin to just communicate how we're feeling, that's okay.

But also David never just communicates how he feels. He also communicates the problem at hand.

He's not saying, I feel terrible. I do this all the time. I'll go to the Lord and I say, God, I feel terrible.

Can you just lift my spirits? David has often done this, but he also recounts, here's what

I'm dealing with. And he takes it a level deeper. It's not just, here's what I'm dealing with. Here's why

I think I'm dealing with it, because that person or that enemy of mine is operating from this place of pride.

If you'll take your conversation with the Lord two or three levels deeper like that, you'll begin to equip.

He'll equip you with your own words, in other words. I think that's what we're seeing with David here. His own words will equip him to endure.

Verse four, the wicked pride of his countenance will not seek after God. God is not in all his thoughts.

All right, the pride of his countenance. The word for countenance is af, which means face.

All right, so the pride of his face. So this is a pride you can see written all over the face of David's enemies.

That in and of itself is kind of a persecution we would have to endure, doesn't it? Have you ever seen someone who's persecuting you, or maybe not even persecuting you, they could be persecuting someone else, and you almost feel offended just by the way the person's looking, just the look on their face.

It's like, wow, why do I have to endure a person like that today, Lord? Why do I have to see this person who walks around with his face all puffed up like that?

Like, I've known a couple of people like this in life, and the feelings that I endure then is usually something like annoyance, right?

Now I get to be annoyed by this person who's, if they're not directing their ill repute towards me, like, they're directing it towards someone else whom

I love, and so now I'm enduring this because now I'm bearing the burden of this poor person, right?

Whatever. If someone pridefully deals with my wife, I'm livid.

I think that counts though, because we're one flesh. I'm definitely suffering like she's suffering. So you can see this pride all over the face of the person.

It's annoying, it's repulsive, there's nothing more abhorrent than a person who looks prideful.

And just as a side note, it's really just unfortunate that pride and confidence are mixed up in today's society.

We have gotten the two confused. Confidence is a good thing.

Pride is a bad thing, right? The Lord is against pride. And one of my biggest annoyances is just how many, many impressionable young women fall victim to falling in love with a prideful person because they are attracted to what they think is confidence.

Confidence is a very attractive trait in people, right? And this can happen to guys too.

They can see a woman who they think is confident, but she's more prideful than she is confident, right?

But I definitely see it like there are a lot of prideful men in this world and I just see women falling for these prideful men because they are attracted to what they think is confidence.

Here's the difference. Prideful are so focused on personal strength that they're blinded to personal weakness.

That's what pride is. You're so focused on personal strength that you are blinded to personal weakness.

Whereas for the confident, the focus on personal strength is tempered with the acknowledgement of personal weakness.

Notice I say acknowledgement. It's not just that they know it exists, it's that they acknowledge that it exists.

And to acknowledge a personal weakness is kind of a strength because then you go, all right,

I'm weak in this area. This needs to be improved on or I'm weak in this area. I'm going to need to get help on it.

So if you really want an easy way to know the difference between a prideful person and a confident person is a confident person as a measure of humility.

The prideful person does not because pride and humility are exact opposites and cannot coexist.

David's enemy is not confident. David's enemy is prideful.

There is no humility. There is weakness in his defiance and he cannot see that weakness.

He can't see it. So what does this result in? It results in the second part of this verse.

He will not seek after God. God is not in all his thoughts. Pride results in an inability to seek after God.

And Spurgeon puts it like this. He says, it is hard to pray with a stiff neck and an unbending knee.

I like how he said that. It's why this David says that he won't seek after God, because when a man is prideful, he is not humble and he's not bending the knee.

He's not bowing the head. He's not doing the things that you do to seek

God. So you will not find

God in any of his thoughts. That's the way that this should be read. By the way, we tend to think we tend to read it.

God is not in all of his thoughts, right? We go, okay, well, maybe God is in some of his thoughts, but he's not in all of his thoughts.

The way this should be read is that in all his thoughts, there is no God. God is not there.

Okay? And that's going to bring up something interesting later in this chapter, as you'll see. Verse five, his ways are always grievous.

His ways are always grievous. Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light, which is to imply that it is much harder to go the way of sin.

Think about that for a second. If Jesus' yoke is easy and his burden is light, then not having

Jesus' yoke and not having Jesus' burden must be really hard. It must be heavy.

What's weird about that is that that means the sinner is walking a much harder road. And it doesn't feel that way, does it?

We feel like overcoming temptation is the harder road. But here's the thing, that sinner cannot see the weakness.

He cannot see that the road is hard. I'm reminded of Saul on his road to Damascus, a sinner, right?

But one of God's. He's going to go kill Christians. And he is going to go and do it thinking he is living the life, he's doing the right thing, and God shines down upon Saul.

And what does God say to Saul in that moment? He says, it is hard for you to kick against the pricks.

So Saul doesn't even realize until he's told by God that, man, this is really tough.

Like, this is hard for me. Like, why is it hard for him? Well, because that's not what he was created for, was it?

He was created to honor and glorify the Lord. Now, I think there is a measure of that, because all things bring honor and glory to God.

For us, we are God's children, and we were built as vessels of honor, right?

And then there's vessels of dishonor. But those vessels of dishonor bring honor and glory to God in the end, because it all brings honor and glory to God.

But the vessels of honor, they get to be told by God, hey, it's hard to be a sinner.

Stop sinning. That way is grievous. And it would be grievous to us.

How often does it feel grievous when we sin? That's when we go, goodness,

I'm just a terrible Christian. It causes us to grieve, right? Those who are vessels of dishonor, who are not

God's children, they don't feel that grievousness. They don't see how grievous it is, because they're too prideful to recognize it.

And the Lord won't tell them that it's grievous. So it's a very different dynamic for them, but ultimately, it's just as grievous.

It's just we get to be aware of the grievousness. They will get to be aware of how grievous it is at their end, and it will be a totally different manifestation of that grievousness.

Thy judgments are far above out of his sight. There it is. He can't see it. He cannot even see the judgments of God.

That's how sad a state this man is in. He has no hope there.

He'll never catch a glimpse of the judgments of the Lord. And so now we'll see

David describe the way his enemy looks at his own enemies. All right, so now David's going to say, all right, so that this is the place in which my enemy is operating from, and now this is how it manifests when he is confronted with enemies of his own, which would be

David, if you think about it, right? David is his enemy. As for all his enemies, he puffeth at them.

He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved. What is this puffery? The word for puffery, or for for puffeth, is puach.

He literally goes puach when somebody confronts him.

He's like, pah. That's how it says, kind of how it sounds, pah. And it means to snort.

So when he's confronted for the evil that he does, that's his response.

It's pretty flippant. They are so convinced that their way is right, that they will never even consider an alternative.

He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved. I don't know that having that stance is ever good unless your stance is rooted in biblical proof.

Like, it's okay to never be moved from the truth, but you better have 100 % certainty that you are right biblically to ever get to the point where you say,

I shall never be moved. Because we're pretty flawed human beings.

We can't really know the truth unless the Lord lights it upon us.

How does this manifest? When he says, I'll never be moved, pah, you and your thinking.

He says, I'll never be an adversity. Someone who thinks he'll never be an adversity is truly delusional, don't you think?

But what's the weakness there? What do you guys see as the weakness? Remember, he's got weakness he can't see.

What's his weakness when he says, I'll never be an adversity? Someone who thinks they'll never be an adversity never prepares for it.

There's a massive weakness. And if they don't expect that adversity will come, and that's a delusional thought because we've all experienced some kind of adversity.

If they don't think it's going to come, they don't prepare for it. So when it comes, it's way worse for them. See the weakness that he can't see.

His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud. Under his tongue is mischief and vanity.

Now we'll start speeding up here a little bit because these kind of go a little bit faster.

But here's something that's really interesting. His mouth is full of cursing, deceit and fraud. Cursing means oath.

Deceit means treachery. And fraud means injury or oppression. There's almost a digression there or a, what's the word

I'm looking for? A progression here, right? Like he makes an oath with a purpose of deceiving so that he can injure others.

You see, that's all found in his mouth. He makes an oath with the purpose of deceiving so he can injure others.

And the root of this progression of this, of this plan of his, the root is what's found under his tongue, right?

Mischief. So he operates from this place of trouble. That's what mischief means.

And vanity, wickedness or idolatry is what that word vanity means. So if he's going to make an oath with the purpose of deceiving others, treachery, so that he can injure people, what is the idol that he's worshiping?

An idol of self? It could also be an idol of mammon or some kind of personal gain, right?

But it certainly comes down to that, exactly that, Kyle, his self. He's worshiping himself because he's going to put himself over other people.

Verse eight, he sitteth in the lurking places of the villages. In the secret places doth he murder the innocent.

His eyes are privileged set against the poor. These are cowardly tactics, preying on the innocent, preying on the poor.

But I find it interesting that it shows us that he has a place of operation as well. David is telling God that his enemy operates in lurking places, in secret places.

That kind of gives us a hint. Where do we not want to be? We don't want to find ourselves in the lurking places or the secret places.

If we find ourselves in places we don't belong, we increase the chances that we're going to be taken advantage of by these types of enemies.

So David, his words are equipping him again, right? Like, that's where my enemy is, so maybe

I need to stay out of the lurking places. Maybe I need to stay out of the secret places. There's a very analytical aspect to David's prayer.

He's analyzing his enemy with the Lord. There's a strategy session going on between David and God right now.

He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den. He lieth in wait to catch the poor. He doth catch the poor when he draweth him into his net.

He croucheth and humbleth himself that the poor may fall by his strong ones. Okay, now we've got the word humbleth, right?

But didn't we just already determine that there is no humility in this enemy? So why is this word here? This word is not a true humility.

It's describing the way a lion attacks. And a lion attacks with a leap and a roar.

But what happens before the leap and a roar? Crouching and silence. It's all a trap.

It's a setup. It's not a real humility. It's there in order to ensnare his prey.

So it's a false humility designed to draw you in, draw you closer so he can leap and get you.

That's the kind of humility that he displays. He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten.

He hideth his face. He will never see it. All right. We now see the thoughts before the action.

All right. So imagine David's enemy crouching silently, getting ready to pounce.

And what's going on in his brain is that God has forgotten.

He's hiding his face. He'll never see what I'm about to do. Two things here.

One, didn't we already determine that God's not in any of his thoughts? Now he's talking about God.

How do we deal with that? Two, the very thing that has got

David kind of troubled at the beginning, why do you hide your face in times of trouble, is the thing that motivates the enemy.

Right? So there's that. But what about this idea that God's not in any of his thoughts?

How is he even saying this? Well, this is not the true God. The God that the enemy has made up is a

God who is not omniscient and is not omnipresent. So God's not in his thoughts.

This is some false God that he's made up to let him to justify his actions.

Right? There's no God here that's going to hurt me. So God is certainly not in his thoughts. This is just, he's using the term

God here, and he even uses it with a capital

G. So this is strange because he describes a

God as if he's the God, but he's not omnipresent and he's not omniscient.

So we know that's not the God. Weird, huh? And then we'll see, we see

David. Arise, O Lord, O God, lift up thine hand, forget not the humble.

All right, so we're pretty much out of time and we've got about six verses left. Goodness, I don't know.

I think I can speed through them real fast if you give me about two minutes. All right. So there's this dual thing going on here.

Arise, O Lord, O God, lift up thine hand, forget not the humble. Here's what we see. We see a bold request.

God, rise up. But it's also kind of timid. Please don't forget me.

You see? So there's still this internal struggle going on with David. Wherefore doth the wicked contemn

God? He hath said in his heart, thou will not require it. Okay, so now we start to see David recognize that he's being equipped by the very thing that he just said earlier.

Like this guy thinks he's not going to get caught. He thinks that you're not coming after him.

It won't be met with punishment, this sin of his. But, and here's where the reassurance comes into play, we see the renewing of David's strength.

Thou hast seen it. For thou beholdest mischief in spite to require it with thine hand.

The enemy may despise God and believe there will be no justice for his actions, but David knows better. He tells his

God that he is aware of his omniscience. I know you're omniscient. I know you're omnipresent.

I know you won't let this go unpunished. And that's when David says, here comes the trust.

The poor committed himself unto thee. Thou art the helper of the fatherless. Remember in chapter nine, we talked about those who know your name will put their trust in you.

And I speculated that that name may have been Abba or father, right? And I told the story about how

I go outside in the dark with my kids and they're all, they're fine, right? So here, it kind of supports that idea, right?

Like who needs help more than the fatherless? And who would help the fatherless?

A heavenly father. Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man. Seek out his wickedness till thou find none.

See, the timidness is starting to go away. There's no, this isn't balanced with timidness here. This is go get him,

God. And not only go get him, continue to pursue him until there's nothing left.

Right? The wicked, until you can't even see wickedness anymore. The Lord is king forever and ever and the heathen are perished out of his land.

There's where he says, okay, the heathen have no place in your presence like I do. I'm coming to you because you're my exclusive advantage.

It feels like you're a long ways off, but I'm putting myself in your presence.

Instead of waiting for you to come to me, I'm coming to you. Coming to you in prayer. I'm telling you all this stuff. You're equipping me with, through this strategy session.

I'm starting to feel a little bit bolder. I started off with, come help me, but don't forget me.

Right now, it's more like, no, go get him and get him until he's dead. Tell him until he's gone, there's nothing left.

And he ends with thanksgiving. And this is the end of the chapter. Lord, thou has heard the desire of the humble. Thou will prepare their heart.

Thou will cause thine ear to hear, to judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress.

All right. So two minutes over time. Sorry about that. But that's chapter 10 of Psalms.

We see David go from this place of doubt to a place of thanksgiving again.

We've seen that over and over again in the Psalms. And I think what's really cool is that if we will treat our prayer, not just as times of request, but as strategy sessions with the

Lord, we will begin to be better equipped to endure because time is also a persecutor sometimes for us.

And we want to overcome that. So the way we renew our strength, like Isaiah tells us to do, is to just get into the details with God, because he'll start to remind you of just how good that time really is.

All right. So let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that time is actually really great and that we can either focus on the second law of thermodynamics and how time is decaying things on earth.

But because old things have passed away and behold, all things become new, we have a superpower in that we have the ability to use that time to improve and to get better.

And if we will just focus on that through strategy sessions with you, that's exactly what will happen.

We will endure the persecution and we will come out much stronger for it. We love you. We thank you for this.