WWUTT 1244 I Dwell Among Those Who Hate Peace? (Psalm 120, 121, 122)

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This world is not a peaceful place. There are times and places where we will experience relative peace and relaxation, but true peace only comes from God, through Jesus Christ, when we understand the text.

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You're listening to When We Understand The Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. Find videos and more at our website, www .tt

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.com Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We're back in our study of the

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Psalms today, and we've just finished up a study of Psalm 119.

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By the way, if you were ever curious as to how long it takes you to read Psalm 119 out loud, it's about 25 to 30 minutes, depending on your pacing.

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So not quite the length of a sermon, but pretty close. We're picking up today in Psalm 120, and this is the first of what are referred to as the

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Psalms of Ascents, or the Songs of Ascents, ascents being spelled

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A -S -C -E -N -T -S, like ascending. Why are these called the

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Songs of Ascents? Well it's because these were songs that were likely sung together as a congregation as they're going up to Jerusalem.

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So they may not have been traditional to being sung within the temple itself, but rather while you're going to the temple.

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And since Jerusalem sat on a hill, on a mountain, and the temple was even the highest place there on that mountain, therefore to go up to Jerusalem, to go to Jerusalem was to go up.

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And this is why you see numerous references throughout the Bible about going up to Jerusalem.

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Even if you were in Samaria, which was to the north, if you go to Jerusalem, which would be south, why would you be going up to Jerusalem?

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Because you're going up in elevation. That would be the reason why. We also see these references in Acts, whenever it talks about like Paul and his missionary brethren going up to Jerusalem, no matter where they are,

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Jerusalem was always up. So therefore, the songs that were sung on the way to worship at the temple would have been the

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Songs of Ascents. And we have all the way through Psalm 134, various Psalms that deal with Thanksgiving, celebrating

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Zion, the wisdom of God. But this first one here in Psalm 120, this is actually a lament, and it's a lament by a person who is not in Jerusalem.

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So they're longing to be with Israel. And therefore it was a song that was sung as the people went up to Jerusalem.

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We're having that opportunity to come from places abroad and gathering together in order to worship

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God. So here is Psalm 120. It's like a good beginning to this series of songs called the

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Songs of Ascents. Psalm 120, in my distress, I called to the

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Lord and he answered me, deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.

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What shall be given to you and what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue, a warrior's sharp arrows with glowing coals of the broom tree?

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Woe to me that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Keter.

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Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when

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I speak, they are for war. So there you go. You've got a statement that's being made by a person who is not in Jerusalem.

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They are dwelling, they sojourn in Meshech, which was right around the Black Sea. And then the reference to Keter or Qadar, that was a people that dwelled in the

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Arabian desert. So we start off here in verse one, in my distress, I called to the

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Lord and he answered me, deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.

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Now this may be a personal request. It may be asking God that my own lying lips would be cleansed, that I not tell lies.

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But more than likely, this is in reference to the fact that the person is dwelling in a land of Gentiles, of people who do not know

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God and do not know the law of God. So the concern here on the psalmist's part is

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I would become like them. I would speak like the people that are around me. My heart would be inclined to the things that their hearts go after.

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So Lord, deliver me from that, that I would not be like them. Again, there may be that request also to forgive me of those sins that I've committed, but a recognition on the part of the person singing,

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I'm becoming like them. So I don't want my heart to go that way.

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I want my heart to be for Jerusalem. I want my heart to be for God. I want to be with the people of God.

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So deliver me from lying lips and a deceitful tongue. Let them not come against me.

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Let me not take part in those things. Speaking to the tongue as though the tongue is being personified here, as though it were a person that you were addressing.

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A warrior's sharp arrows with glowing coals of the broom tree. So again, the question being, what shall be given to you?

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A warrior's sharp arrows, a person who deals with lying and deceit.

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What they receive for that is the judgment of God. That's the warning there.

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And on the part of the psalmist that's singing this, it would be even a personal recognition of this to keep me far from falling into these lies and these deceits.

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May I remember that judgment comes upon the one that partakes in this. They receive the warrior's sharp arrows with glowing coals of the broom tree in case you're curious about the broom tree.

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It was a certain kind of wood that actually burned for a really long time. So when it came to making glowing coals that would be weapons, since that's the reference here, a warrior's sharp arrows with glowing coals that would be stuck on the end of the arrow.

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When it came to putting a coal on that arrow that would burn for a long time, the wood of the broom tree was ideal for that.

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So the broom tree was iconic in that sense. You wanted to chop the wood from it to be able to use it for war since the coals would last the longest when you would heat them up if that wood came from the broom tree.

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This is what is coming to the person who has the lying tongue.

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It is the judgment of God. James chapter three is where we read that the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.

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James three, five, how great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire and the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.

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The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire by hell.

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For every kind of beast and bird of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue.

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It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. With it we bless our

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Lord and father and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God from the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

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My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Judgment is going to come upon the person who curses others from the tongue and whether that cursing is done as a deliberate cursing, you're looking at that person and cursing them, breaking them down, treating them as less than you or whether that cursing comes about because you are gossiping and lying about them behind their back, spreading false information about the maliciousness that would defame their character.

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Even that is in a sense a cursing, though it may not be direct.

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You're still cursing that individual. God's judgment comes upon the one who speaks this way. Jesus said that a person is going to have to give an account for every idle word they speak.

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And in that same passage saying that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speak. So we're not really talking about the tongue as being something that that is in and of itself an evil thing.

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As James talks about it here in James three, but rather the tongue is guided by the heart.

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What comes out of the heart, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

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You could cut out your tongue. Your heart would still be as wicked as your tongue was.

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Right. And the only cleansing of our hearts that we can receive is through Christ.

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He is the one who washes us, forgives us of our sin, gives us a new person.

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Keeps us from being stained by the ways of this world. In fact, still quoting from James back in chapter one, verse 27 is where it says religion that is pure and undefiled before God the father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

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I guess in context with what we're reading here, verse 26 is where I should have started. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.

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Keeping oneself unstained from the world is one of the responsibilities that we have as Christians.

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God is the one who is called us out from the world and what we must be set apart for him holy as he is holy.

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And this holiness, this righteousness is given to us by Christ.

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We go on in verse five, back to Psalm 120, woe to me that I sojourn in message that I dwell among the tents of Kedar or, or Kadar too long.

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Have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace? I am for peace, but when

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I speak, they are for war. I want the peace of God. I want to dwell secure in the land where I live.

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But when I speak of things that are godly, which make for peace, the people hate what it is that I say.

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They antagonize me for that. They, they malign me because I desire godly things because I don't join them in their flood of debauchery as Peter says in first Peter chapter four.

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So when I speak, when I, when I talk with my tongue of the things that make for peace, godliness, holiness, goodness that is given to me by the

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Lord, how, how are my words responded to by the people that I live around, hate maliciousness, those things that create conflict and antagonism rather than peace and security.

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And so here I dwell among a people who hate peace. Now I think in the

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Western world, we have enjoyed a sense of peace more so than the rest of the world.

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But that doesn't mean that this has been, that doesn't mean it is a peaceful culture. Abortion is rampant where in the

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United States of America, 3000 unborn children are being murdered every single day.

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That's not peace. That's violence. That's violence around us all the time. When a million unborn children are being murdered every year by this heinous practice, sacrificing unto pagan sex gods.

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It's so people can have their sexual liberty and the, uh, and unborn children have to pay with their lives.

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That is not a peaceful setting in which we live. And when that is the blood thirstiness of the culture, we shouldn't be surprised in the way that things are going right now with this general sense of unrest.

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And you've got people storming the streets, particularly in major cities with signs that say no justice, no peace and oh justice and oh peace.

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They don't even know what they're asking for when they're asking for justice. It's just a, it's a word that is certainly good.

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God is just and all his ways are justice. According to Deuteronomy 32, it is, it is a good thing to desire justice, but the people who are calling for justice, not everybody understands what they are asking for.

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They're hijacking that word to make their cause appear just.

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But then when they are rioting and looting and destroying and disrupting the peace, again, that, that statement being no justice, no peace, then they're not actually asking for justice.

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They're, they're big hypocrites is all they are. This world does not have any understanding of true peace.

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It's not just living in, in quiet and security, but the true peace that we need to be after is peace with God.

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And when we have that peace, well then that certainly can spread to everybody else who is around us.

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When we understand the peace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord, knowing our sins are forgiven and the enmity that we had with God when we were in rebellion and breaking his law, we have been forgiven that.

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And now we have fellowship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I am for peace, but all the people around us are not.

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Anybody who is not in Christ is going to be for conflict, not peace. Let's continue on the next song of a sense.

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Psalm 121, I lift up my eyes to the hills from where does my help come?

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My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved.

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He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

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The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night.

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The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever more.

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Now that sounds like a perfect response to what we just read in Psalm 120. I don't know how much these songs were written in succession.

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If Psalm 120 and 121 were written together or if they were written separately and by the providence of God they were arranged in the

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Psalms to be this way as though one looks like it responds to the other. The next song we have is a song of a sense of David.

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It's from David. So not all of these songs, 120 to 134, have the same author.

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It's by the guidance of the Holy Spirit that these songs look like. They go perfectly together.

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I lift up my eyes to the hills. That's looking up to where Jerusalem and the temple are.

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From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

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The Jews were supposed to pray toward Jerusalem. Wherever they were in the earth they were supposed to pray toward Jerusalem.

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We see Daniel doing that, for example, when the edict had been handed down that no one was to pray or pay homage to anybody but the king.

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And what does Daniel do? He goes up to his bedroom. He opens up the window and he prays toward Jerusalem.

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He can be seen praying. And that was how the wise men of the king caught him in this little trap they had set up for him.

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Looking toward Jerusalem is where a person was to pray, as God had instructed the Jews to do.

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So from another land, a person is looking unto the hills. My help comes from the

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Lord who made heaven and earth. So no matter where I am on the earth, God is my helper.

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He will not let your foot be moved. Even though you live among a people who hate peace, who always have hearts for war, if you are for God, God won't let your foot be moved.

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You will not be led astray by these people among whom you live. And we need to understand that as Christians.

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We need to take that to heart because we live in the world, though we are not of the world.

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And we must constantly be clinging to Christ who will not let us be moved by the ways of this world.

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He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

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The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

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And this is in reference to the evil that is done during the day or the evil that is done during the night.

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We kind of think of different kinds of evil practiced at different times of the day, right? There's a certain evil that goes on in the daylight, and then there's a certain evil that goes on at night as well.

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But no matter what kind of evil we're talking about, it will not come against you. The Lord will protect you.

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The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life, as it goes on to say in verse seven, the

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Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

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Whether you live in Jerusalem or you live outside in the rest of the world, whether you live among the people of God or you are surrounded by mostly ungodly people, he will guard your life from this time forth and forever.

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You will be delivered into eternity by the promise of God.

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Trust in Jesus Christ. Let's do one more. Psalm 122.

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I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord.

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So now we're going somewhere. The first two Psalms of these songs of a sense have been kind of laments about the fact that we live among an evil people in the world.

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So where shall we go? Let's go to the place we can worship God. I was glad when they said, let's go to the house of the

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Lord. Our feet have been standing within your gates. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem built as a city that is bound firmly together to which the tribes go up the tribes of the

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Lord, as was decreed for Israel to give thanks to the name of the Lord.

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Their thrones for judgment were set the thrones of the house of David.

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Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they be secure who love you.

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Peace be within your walls and security within your towers. For my brothers and companions sake,

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I will say peace be within you for the sake of the house of the Lord, our

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God, I will seek your good. So as we conclude here, let me impress this upon you.

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May we pray for peace within our churches. This world is so hostile and so angry and so quarreling right now.

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Can we go to a place that we know there will be peace? Let that be the house of God.

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Let that be the church. When we gather together with his saints, we're not perfect people.

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We're all at different stages in our sanctification, but may our desire be the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, guarding our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

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That church, when we assemble together, may be a refuge that we can get away from the clamor of the world and know that when we come together as this body in Christ, we're safe here.

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And we're all desiring the same thing to exalt and glorify

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Christ. And when our attention is there, not on worldly things, philosophies, a different devices that the world is trying to do to bring people together, which is all an artificial unity.

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The true unity we are going to find is when we're all together and we're worshiping

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God together. May we rejoice in the gospel of Christ. For it's the gospel that has the power to save for all who believe to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek, as it says in Romans 1 16. So our rejoicing in the gospel will be our unity.

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Looking to Christ, he brings us together. All these devices the world keeps throwing at us.

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Well, you need to know about this and you need to know this and there and you, you need to look at your brother or your sister this way before we can truly have unity.

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We need to look to the gospel together first. That's where that needs to start. And that's where we find our unity and our peace, love, brotherhood, growing together in Christ Jesus, who is the head of the church.

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When we're all growing together in him, we are knit together in love. Amen. Let us pray.

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Heavenly Father, give peace to our churches. May we stop, we stop clamoring and fighting against one another, especially within our respective congregations.

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We're not fighting against each other. We're looking for the ways that make for peace. We're looking to Christ who grows us, sanctifies us, makes us holy, brings us together.

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May we set aside our own selfish longings and desire as a people of God to worship

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God and give us the peace that surpasses all understanding, which this world cannot comprehend and this world cannot even match.

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But we find it in Christ, even while we live here on this earth.

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In Jesus' name we pray, amen. This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

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Find a good, gospel -teaching, Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again tomorrow as we continue our