A Word in Season: Testing the Righteous (Psalm 11:5)

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Subscribe to A Word in Season on Apple Podcast (bit.ly/WISPod) or Spotify (spoti.fi/AWISPod) For this special season of uncertainty, Jeremy Walker, pastor of Maidenbower Baptist Church in Crawley, England, began making short devotions

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The anger of the Lord is a pure anger. The hatred of God is a holy hatred.
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And so when we read in Psalm 11 and verse 5 that the Lord tests the righteous but the wicked and the one who loves violence his soul hates, we shouldn't take anything away from that language of hatred, but neither should we read it as if it is the unrestrained rage, the ungoverned explosion of a sinful man.
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Rather it is God's set opposition to everything that is against him. It is the holy
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God against all that is unholy. So God truly does hate the wicked and the one who loves violence.
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These are the ones who go on delighting in the things that are vile and degrading, that are contrary to everything that God is and all that he has commanded.
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God is against the wicked. And therefore in verse 6, upon the wicked he will rain coals, fire and brimstone and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup.
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There may be much in this world that the wicked seem to get away with. There may be times when they seem to live at ease and die without distress.
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Nevertheless their latter end is terrible, fire and brimstone and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup.
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God will visit hell upon those who hate him. And so you might assume that the opposite to that would be that the
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Lord loves the righteous and they get an easy ride. But that's not what the 11th
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Psalm and the 5th verse says. It says the Lord tests the righteous.
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That the Lord puts them through trial. That the Lord brings the fire of affliction and the heat of temptation and the flame of persecution upon his people.
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That the Lord puts them in situations where their true metal will be shown.
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Where they will be seen to be what they really are. Now why would the
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Lord do that? Well in Deuteronomy in chapter 8 and verse 16 we read that the
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Lord tried the people in the wilderness when he fed them with manna which their fathers did not know.
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That he might humble them and that he might test them to do good in the end.
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God's purpose in testing is not to break his people but rather to purify his people.
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To demonstrate to them and to others that they are indeed what they claim to be.
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It's the pressure of trial that so often reveals hypocrisy. It's when the heat is on that you see what someone is really made of.
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And that is for better and for worse. Now to be sure the trials that God's people go through do reveal their own frailties and weaknesses.
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But in that revelation it sends them running to their heavenly father. It shows that they are indeed a people of faith.
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It reveals that they are indeed the ones who trust in God. And so in verse 7 of this psalm the
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Lord is righteous. He loves righteousness. His countenance beholds the upright.
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The Lord is looking and looking favourably upon his beloved people. And though those trials are not pleasant and though there may be that chastising element of a heavenly father who wants to work out what is wrong and work in what is right.
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Nevertheless when we go through trials, temptations, difficulties and sorrows.
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When the afflictions and the persecutions and the oppositions come against us and upon us.
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We should not work back from the testing to the hatred of God.
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We should not presume that God is in some deep rooted way against us.
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That he is not ours and we are not his. Rather the Lord tests the righteous.
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He puts us quite deliberately into situations where as he upholds us and helps us.
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The dross will be taken away. The good metal will be seen to be what it is.
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And the Lord in his mercy and in his favour will bring us through and show to us and to others that we are indeed his people and that he is keeping us and he is saving us and that we are resting upon him in all things.
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So when the wicked seem to have an easy life. Let us remember that upon them he will rain coals, fire and brimstone and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup.