Sunday Night, November 29, 2020 PM

Good evening. It's good to be with you all once again. So, we'll be, as Michael said, in the last part of Psalm 5 tonight. And I'd just like to say it's been a very big joy for me to be able to spend time in the Word of God, to study it, to pour over it, to see who all has written about it, through the history, through the centuries of how theologians have written about this and understood this Psalm.

And it's been incredible to do that. And I very much appreciate your willingness to be here and listen to The Intern on Sunday night. So, thank you for the opportunity. I very much appreciate that. And I appreciate the grace that the Lord has granted as well.

Trusting God in Psalm 5

And as He has granted, we've been walking through Psalm 5, a psalm of David, where he was confronted with evil. We're not sure specifically when this took place in David's lifetime, whether it was during the time of Saul or during the time of David's son Absalom's rebellion.

But we do know that the evil was real and very present for David. And his response to this evil was to pray. Last time, we examined the aspect of David's prayer centered in verses 4 through 8 in Psalm 5, which was, when faced with evil, pray with confidence in God's holy character.

We saw that David took confidence in God's holy intolerance as well as God's holy mercy. Now we come to the last aspect of David's prayer, when faced with evil, pray with trust in God. With trust in God.

Specifically, trusting Him with the wicked in verses 9 and 10, and trusting Him with yourself in verses 11 and 12. So, let's read the passage tonight and see what it has to say. See what the Lord has spoken.

Psalm 5, starting in verse 9. For there is no faithfulness in their mouth, their inward part is destruction. Their throat is an open tomb, they flatter with their tongue. Pronounce them guilty, O God, let them fall by their own counsels.

Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against you. But let all those rejoice who put their trust in you. Let them never shout for joy because you defend them. Let those also who love your name be joyful in you.

For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous. With favor you will surround him as with a shield. This is the word of God. Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you for this time tonight. We thank you for your word and for your grace given to each of us during this last week.

Lord, to watch over us, to provide for us, to give us many things we're thankful for, Lord. And we are indeed thankful for so much you've given us, including your word. May we come to it tonight, Lord, with an attitude of submission, to not try and filter our own ideas into it, but filter our ideas through it, Lord.

We thank you for the guidance and for the clarity it gives, Lord. Please help us to understand it further and further as we study it, and as we walk with our Savior, Jesus Christ. And it's in his name we pray.

Amen. So David, in this last aspect of his prayer, trusts God with the wicked in verses 9 and 10. To begin this portion, David again turns to the state of the enemies he faces. In verses 4 and 6, he specifically looked at the state of the enemies, what their character was like, how they lived and what their sin was like.

And now he does so again a bit more specifically. We see that the wicked are enemies that have absolutely no truth. No truth. There is no faithfulness in what they say. The only thing you can count on with what they speak is that what they speak is not true.

It will not come to pass. And it's been very helpful for me to understand and to contrast this with the faithfulness of the Lord. For how often was the Lord faithful to the people of Israel during their Egyptian bondage, during their time of the Exodus, during their time of the wilderness, and so on through the histories?

How often was the Lord faithful in every situation, through every rebellious act, and every blessed time that the nation experienced? He was always faithful. Always. Every time the Lord speaks, it's truth.

Every time. We see this in the Word of God, as it is the Word of God. It speaks truth to us. It tells us what is true and what is false. David here says that his enemies have no faithfulness in their mouth.

Not sometimes or every so often. Sometimes they speak truth, other times they speak wickedness or falsehood. But all the time, there is no faithfulness in their mouth. He says their inward part is destruction.

Who they are on the inside is nothing but evil. Their very heart is wicked. We know from other parts of Scripture, do we not, that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?

And furthermore, an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. David goes on, their throat is an open tomb. Out of their mouth comes nothing but deadness.

Nothing good is spoken from them. Have you ever talked with someone who had bad breath? Like, pretty bad. To the point of, you find yourself going to the Lord in secret prayer and asking, Father, please give me strength for this conversation right now.

But what is it like when you come across someone who might not have bad breath, but rather, only deadness came from their mouth, their speech smelled like a grave. How much more worse. Only thoughts and words that are wicked pour forth, being reflective of their inner heart, of their inner nature as that person.

David continues to describe the truthless enemies as those who flatter with the tongue. Part of the wickedness of their speech was that they sweet-talked. What exactly is flattery? How is it wrong? How is it a sin?

How does the Word of God describe this to us? Flattery is a type of deceit. A type of deceit that presents a false sense of reverence to someone or something. It's a type of deceit that presents a false sense of reverence for someone or something.

Jude describes some apostates in the New Testament, some among the church he wrote to in his epistle, who were of the church, around the church, but were not of the true faith. What did he say of them?

They would mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. To gain advantage. Isn't flattery used in this way to deceive people, to make one's own situation better, to achieve one's own crooked goals and crooked plans?

The deceit was part of the character of the enemies of David, and he noticed it very clearly. And it's this mention of flattery that, if I had to make a guess, I would say that Psalm 5 was during the time of Absalom's rebellion.

For how did Absalom gain political support against his father? He would go to the people of the land, and he would say, you have many good causes, many great cases to bring before the king. And if only I were king, then I would make sure all of your good causes would be taken care of, and you would have nothing to worry about under someone like me.

So that would be my guess, but as mentioned before, we're not 100 certain when this happens. Verse 10. After a further note of the wicked before him, David now turns his enemies over to God. He seeks that God would act rightly in light of what these wicked have done, who they are, and how they have sinned.

May they be found guilty and punished for it. May the sin they have committed be what trips them up, what is their fall in the end. May the Lord cast them out, for they have sinned against him. Earlier in verse 8, David seeks that the Lord would lead him in righteousness.

David was saying, not my will, but thy will be done. And now in verse 10, he seeks and he states, may godly justice be done according to God's will, not according to David's will. For this is not a portion of scripture where David is acting revengeful or spiteful, or that he's seeking personal retribution or payback for himself.

He is trusting that God, whom these enemies have sinned against, that God will see that justice is done. As a good judge, we trust that the Lord would deliver unto the wicked what is due them. He will grant mercy on whom he will grant mercy, and on everyone else, he will make sure that he will give them the fair and the right outcome of their deeds.

He will grant them their proper wages. If we were on the sidelines, if we sat in the very courtroom, what would be our request of a good judge dealing with a guilty criminal brought before him? Someone who is guilty and wicked to the very core.

What would be our request of the judge? Would it not be rightly, like David, pronounce them guilty? We would not presume to take the seat of the judge ourselves, but we would trust in the character and the nature of that excellent judge, and we will know that he will ensure a right outcome for the wicked, for he's that good.

We indeed live in a truthless world, do we not? A world where every day conversation is harsh, it's coarse, it's bitter, it's flattering, and it's spiritually dead. We can even find ourselves falling into the sin of speaking evil, can we not?

Even on a daily basis. May the Lord guard our hearts and our minds and our mouths, so that it might praise him and edify and not curse, for the mouth is a very dangerous thing, one that can be used for good and one that can be used for evil.

Christians today should be willing and ready to turn over our truthless enemies and the evil we face to the Lord and trust him with those. We should not try and take the sword of justice for ourselves, but trust that the Lord will execute justice against the wicked according to his will, not according to our own, not according to our will.

And we must rest and take comfort in the fact that the Lord will make sure that justice is done for every sinner and every sin, either at the cross of Jesus Christ or at final judgment, for he is that good.

One important aspect I'd like to touch on with trusting the Lord with the wicked, this does not indicate a passive lifestyle of doing nothing. A lifestyle where we just stand back and say, something along the lines of the Lord will take care of this, I don't need to do anything, I'm just going to stand here and watch everything unfold.

Yes, he will take care of the wicked, you can be sure of that, but he also calls us to act faithfully and to follow his leadership and his guidance in every situation we find ourselves in. We must be faithful to do so.

Does not David earlier in the psalm ask of the Lord, lead me, make your way straight before my face? Help me know what to do, how to react, how to live, Lord. David trusts in God during this psalm, obediently following God's will and submitting to it and to him in every way.

And in verse 10, he gives a prophetic amen to the inevitable punishment coming to the vile sinners he confronts. A prophetic amen. May we be obedient to the Lord and how he would have us live, how he would lead us in every single way.

May we trust God with the evil we face in the land today. May we pray for justice, that is, rendering unto one what is due that person. I wanted to take a moment to clarify the term. May we pray that the guilty criminals may be tried justly and rightly.

May we pray that those who promote a false gospel are stopped, that their messages and ministries crumble. May we pray that organizations like Planned Parenthood break down and shut down. May we pray and may we trust God with the evils we face and with the wicked we encounter every day.

And when we see the Lord deliver justice, may we say amen. May we say amen. A note of caution would be prudent here, however. We need to take a moment to consider another side of prayer. To take this portion of scripture and set it in the larger context of the Word of God, the complete canon, how we ought to pray.

For we as Christians also need to follow what Christ taught us, how he instructed us to pray. Matthew 5, 44 and 45 say this, and this is Christ. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

We also should take note of the prayers of Christ and later Stephen when during their very execution they offered up a prayer saying, Father, forgive them. Father, forgive them. How do we connect these two ways to pray?

How can we say on one hand and pray to the Father, Lord pronounce them guilty with David, and with Stephen ask him, Father, forgive them? To be perfectly honest, I do not fully understand or know how this works completely, and I can't give a full answer to you with a bow tied up very nice on top.

I can't do that for you guys right now. But I do know that both of these ways to pray are revealed in scripture by the Holy Spirit, and though I might not fully understand, it might not absolutely make sense to me, I do know that the Lord commands us to pray in these ways, and we should be faithful to do so, to love justice and to extend grace to those who are our enemies.

I also take comfort in the fact that David in this portion of Psalm 5 entrusts his enemies over to the Lord, and this frees David to say, God, deal with these in your way according to your will, not according to mine.

This frees David. It is true we are called to forgive our enemies. Amen. These evildoers we come across, and so we should do so. Doing so, we are free to let God be judge. We don't have to carry around emotions that tempt us to sin, like malice or resentment, and we don't have to take on the responsibility that was never ours, to be judge.

It's not our job. This frees us to love those coworkers who always seem to get away with something, get away with sin at the job. Every single day it seems like they can get away with something. This frees us to pray for those who persecute us, who come into church services and say, you can't worship in this way.

We can go to the Lord and pray, O God, if you would show mercy to my enemies, forgive them, Father. And if not, may justice be done according to your holy will. Hallowed be your name. Give me the responsibility to take care of my load, which you've given me, and trust you with all things.

Let us trust God with the wicked, and pray as the Lord directs us according to his word. David not only trusts the Lord with his enemies, but he also trusts him with himself. We see this in verses 11 and 12.

Blessing, Favor, and Righteousness for Those Who Trust God

David now moves to the last part of the psalm where he begins with a contrast. And we saw a contrast earlier in verse 7, but as for me, that grace-filled contrast. And now in verse 11 we see, but let all those rejoice who put their trust in you.

Those who trust in God, let those rejoice. Let them shout for joy. Let them be joyful in God. Why? Because the Lord defends them. He blesses the righteous. He surrounds them with favor as with a shield.

David trusts the Lord with the evil he faces with the wicked, and he also trusts him with himself and with his very life. David knows the Lord has granted him holy mercy. He can now come before the Lord in fear and praise.

He has the freedom to live as he should, an image-bearer of God. He now has the ability and the liberty to do so. What grace is this? He can now seek more mercy and guidance for every moment of his life.

God does not only make David righteous, but he also grants him protection and favor. There's so much more here than just being pardoned by the Lord. Do we not see this in the rest of Scripture? Do we not see that those who trust in God are blessed by him immensely in a multitude of ways?

Even when faced with the evils of the time, God's people trusted in him and were blessed by him in a multitude of ways, in a variety of ways. One of my favorite portions of the Word of God is in Romans 5, when the Lord's talking about through justification in Jesus Christ, we have peace with God.

The war is over, but it's not just that both sides kind of part ways and say, you stay on your side of the fence, I'll stay on mine. We'll never interact ever again. No, it's that the Lord says, you are made righteous through my son.

We have peace, and now I adopt you as my son, as my daughter. We are blessed in more ways than just being made right with God. What shall we say then to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns?

It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen. Who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We trust Christ our Lord and our God. In a sinful fallen world where we ourselves are sinners and deserving of judgment, we trust in Christ and we are blessed in him. We find joy in him, such a joy that it cannot be quenched by the evil around us.

Unlike the enemies of God, we do not speak evil, but our mouths now reflect our changed heart. For we now shout for the praise of the Lord. We now shout for joy. Praise be unto the Lamb who is worthy.

We love the name of Jesus Christ. We are made right with God due to his person and work, not to anything we've ever done. We are blessed for we have been given a righteousness that is not our own, but according to his righteousness.

We gain his righteousness. And as sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father, we are surrounded with favor and protection and so much more. So much more. When faced with evil, let us pray, trusting God with ourselves, with our very lives.

For when we're faced with evil, we oftentimes see the reality of what it could cost us, how we can be harmed, how it can harm those we love, what we could lose. But let us trust God with ourselves and with our very lives, with our families and every aspect of our lives.

When we confront the evils of our world, of our particular time, let us pray with confidence and comfort that we are secure in Christ. Trust him with your eternal salvation, with every breath you take, with every meal that he grants you.

Trust him with every situation you find yourself in, even when in a fight, even when in a fight. Trust Christ with yourself. Continue to have faith that the Lord will sustain you and may the objective reality, not subjective, something that does not change, may the objective reality of your position in Christ, may Jesus Christ himself be your joy that spills over abundantly.

May Christ be your joy. Know that you are blessed and surrounded with favor in Christ and in Christ alone. For there is no other way besides Christ to achieve being made right with God, to achieve all these blessings that we have in him.

For Christ is our only way. Psalm 5 recounts a real person, David, as he encounters real evil in the world he lives in, as real as the evil we face today. And his response was to pray first and foremost.

When faced with evil, let us pray. Pray with a sincere heart. Pray with confidence in the holy character of God and pray with trust in God. Pray with trust in God. Let's do that now to close the service.

Lord, we thank you for this piece of Scripture, Lord, that teaches us so much. And there's more to know from this passage of Scripture, Psalm 5. I thank you for it, Father. And we ask, Lord, that you would help us to pray first and foremost and to then follow through with obedience, with how you would have us live, how you would have us react.

Father, may we love justice, but may we also extend grace to those who hurt us, to our enemies, Lord. May we love those around us, Father. May we be Christ-like, Lord, and may we submit to you as you change us more into the image of your Son.

And may we find comfort and confidence in our position in Christ. May Christ be our joy every single day, for in him we find comfort, favor, and protection. Thank you so much for blessing us with more than we could ever hope to have, Father, for we know that we are guilty criminals without Christ, but in Christ we have every spiritual blessing.

Thank you so much for that. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.