WWUTT 1179 Who Greatly Delights in His Commandments? (Psalm 112)

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The Apostle Paul said in the book of Romans, if God is for us, who can be against us?

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If we trust in the God who reigns supreme over all things, we have nothing to be afraid of, even the bad news of these days, when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the

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Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

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Q &A on Friday. Now, here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone.

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Welcome to the Thursday edition of the podcast, where we're going through the Psalms in our

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Old Testament Study. Picking up where we left off last time, that puts us in Psalm 112, if you wanna open up your

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Bible and join with me there. Now, I'm doing something different this time around.

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If you're a regular listener to the podcast, this sounds like it usually does. You don't notice anything different. But in addition to recording the audio,

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I'm also recording video. And here's the reason why. For the last eight years,

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I've had an Old Testament Bible study meeting in my home. We started in Genesis.

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We've now made it more than halfway through the Psalms. But because of the coronavirus pandemic and stay -at -home orders, we're not currently meeting.

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For the sake of those families that had been coming to our home, I thought I would record the

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Thursday Bible study video. I would do video in addition to the audio that I record so that the families who are at home can watch on our website.

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I'm already having trouble coordinating this because I'm used to just looking down at my

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Bible, not having to look up at a camera at the same time. So we'll see how this goes. This is just an experiment.

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I may totally mess this up, but here we go. Psalm 112, we'll go ahead and start by reading through the entire thing.

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Praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments.

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His offspring will be mighty in the land. The generation of the upright will be blessed.

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Wealth and riches are in his house and his righteousness endures forever.

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Light dawns in the darkness for the upright. He is gracious, merciful, and righteous.

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It is well with the man who deals generously and lends, who conducts his affairs with justice.

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For the righteous will never be moved. He will be remembered forever.

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He is not afraid of bad news. His heart is firm, trusting in the

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Lord. His heart is steady. He will not be afraid until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.

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He has distributed freely. He has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever.

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His horn is exalted in honor. The wicked man sees it and is angry.

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He gnashes his teeth and melts away. The desire of the wicked will perish.

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I think that's a particularly relevant psalm for things that are going on currently, and you may have thought so as we were reading through these verses together.

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So we come back to verse one, praise the Lord. And by the way, in Hebrew, this word is hallelujah.

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That's literally what the word means, praise the Lord. So if you've ever wondered, why do we sing hallelujah in so many songs?

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Because it means praise the Lord. There's the translation of it right there. Blessed is the man who fears the

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Lord. Now, this may sound familiar to those who have been regular listeners to this broadcast and have even been with me as we've been going through the psalms.

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For when we started our study of the psalms, I mentioned that the psalms often come back to either psalm one or psalm two.

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You will see similar themes carried through the rest of the psalms, just as you would see them at the very beginning of the study of this book.

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It's kind of like psalm one and two are thesis psalms to the rest of the psalms. So as we have in psalm one, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the

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Lord and on his law, he meditates day and night.

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How did we start psalm 112? Blessed is the man who fears the

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Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments. You know, one of the labors, one of the burdens that has been on my heart as a pastor is ensuring that my flock, my church, those people that have been entrusted to my care, that they love the word of God.

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That has been my desire, my burden as a pastor, ever since I started to make this people, to get this people to stir in their hearts a love for God's word.

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So as somebody who greatly desires that among the people of God, it is a great frustration of mine whenever I hear any minister or preacher diminish the reverence that we should have for God's word.

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And one person that I think of in particular and someone I made a what video about recently is Andy Stanley.

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And Stanley is someone you've heard recently he's been famous for saying things like you need to unhitch yourself from the old

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Testament. And one of the statements that he made in just recent weeks, it was just last month, he said that God loves you more than he loves his commandments.

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All of this just diminishes the word of God. And he'll say things like, the Bible says is where our trouble began.

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And you shouldn't say, well, the Bible says, you should say Matthew says, you should say Mark says, which is the same thing as saying the

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Bible says. That's completely ridiculous for Stanley to be doing that. And he thinks that he's building up a people for God.

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Maybe he thinks that's what he's doing. I don't know exactly what his motivation is.

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But what he's actually doing is he's making the Bible irreverent to his hearers. They don't uphold or revere the word of God in any kind of way at all.

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There's no reason to hold it in great esteem because of the way that he talks about it.

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And so it's a struggle of mine as a pastor when my desire and my burden has been for the people of God to love

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God's word. And here, this guy who's got so many more thousands of followers than I do.

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I mean, my audience is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people who know and listen to Andy Stanley.

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And he's leading God's people astray, diminishing the reverence that we should have for God's word.

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How is it that God's word is so greatly praised here at the start of Psalm 112? Praise the

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Lord. We start with praising his name for his commandments. Blessed is the man who fears the

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Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments. We are to have a great love for God's word.

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It says in Isaiah 66 too, this is the one on whom I will look, the man who humbles himself and trembles at my word.

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We should tremble at the word of God. It's John Knox who so famously said that he fears no man, but he trembles every time he steps into the pulpit.

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How great a burden was on this man as a preacher to preach God's word and be able to do it accurately.

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And God was his judge. Man was not his judge. God is his judge. The apostle

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Paul said in Galatians chapter one, this is either verses 10 or 11, where he says, if my ambition was to please man, then

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I wouldn't be a servant of Christ. So our desire first and foremost should be to please God and not man.

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Greatly is the man, blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments.

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Now, oftentimes you'll hear it said that that word blessed is synonymous with happy. Kind of, there's some truth to that indeed.

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If we're blessed by God, you're gonna be happy, amen. But more to the point, to be blessed by the

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Lord is to be approved by God. So approved is the man who fears the

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Lord. God approves of this man who fears God. It's in Proverbs chapter one, verse seven, it says the fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. So the Lord approves of him who fears him, who greatly delights in his commandments.

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And this is not some Old Testament thing that we're talking about here. For the Lord Christ himself said to his disciples, as he says also to us in John 14, 15, you will show me that you love me when you keep my commandments.

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So this is not just some Old Testament Psalms thing here, folks, as the people of God, we must love his commandments and desire to keep them.

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When Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

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And a second one is like it to love your neighbor as yourself. When Jesus said that, he was summarizing the 10 commandments.

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The first four commandments are about loving God. The next six commandments are about loving your neighbor.

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Hence why Paul says in Romans 13 and in Galatians that love is the fulfilling of the law.

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When we love our neighbor, we're fulfilling those six commandments of the law. Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie, do not well bear false witness, do not covet.

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And the one I forgot is the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother. So those six commandments have to do with loving your neighbor.

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And when you love your neighbor, you are fulfilling the law. You are keeping the commandments of God and you desire to do this.

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So how is it that you obey the 10 commandments by loving God, by loving your neighbor?

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Blessed is the man who fears the Lord and greatly delights in his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

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Jesus said this in Matthew chapter 11. We love to keep the commandments of God. Just as David prays in Psalm 119,

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Lord, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. And that's the way we should all be, loving the commandments of God.

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They reveal to us the righteousness of God. How is it that we may please the

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Lord by keeping his commandments? So we delight to hear and keep the commandments of God.

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Going on here to verse two, the man who fears the Lord, his offspring will be mighty in the land.

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The generation of the upright will be blessed. Now, does this mean by keeping the commandments of God that we're gonna have lots of kids and they're gonna be mighty in the land?

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Maybe not literally. Some of us, we may be blessed with that. You'll have lots of children and they will be successful because the way in which they walk will be the way that you teach them to walk according to the commandments of God.

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Now, how might this apply in a spiritual context? His offspring will be mighty in the land.

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But in the way that we preach the gospel, as we spread the good news of Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the grave, whoever repents of their sin and puts their faith and trust in Jesus Christ will be forgiven their sins, will not perish with this world when

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God judges the world, but they will have everlasting life with God forever in his eternal kingdom.

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When we spread that message, those who come to faith and believe it are like our spiritual offspring.

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And as they grow and learn according to the commandments of God, they become mighty in the land.

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They are more than conquerors through him who loves us. As the apostle

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Paul puts it in Romans 8, this generation of the upright who walks according to the commandments of God will be blessed.

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And we've been instructed not only to preach the gospel, but also to make disciples or to disciple those disciples.

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So Jesus in Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20 says that we need to go and make disciples, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

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So we make disciples and we also disciple. And this generation of spiritual offspring will be blessed.

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The apostle Paul referred to Timothy as a true son in the faith. He referred to the

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Corinthians as his offspring. So those who we bring to faith and raise up in an understanding of the knowledge of God according to his word, they become mighty in the land.

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They are the upright who are likewise blessed by God, approved by God, because we teach them to fear the

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Lord and obey his commandments. Verse three, wealth and riches are in his house and his righteousness endures forever.

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Literal wealth and riches? No, we should not ever have this idea that as followers of Christ, we're gonna be blessed with literal wealth and riches on the earth.

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The wealth and riches that we are promised are stored up in heaven above where Christ is.

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Jesus saying in Matthew chapter six, that you are to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the things on earth that you need will be added to you as well.

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Our treasure is to be above with Christ, not on earth below.

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So the wealth and riches that we're storing up are not here on this earth, but they are in heaven above with God.

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We go on here, light dawns in the darkness for the upright. He is gracious, merciful and righteous.

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We live in a crooked and depraved generation in which we are to shine as stars in the universe.

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That is the way that the apostle Paul puts it in Philippians 2 .14. So we do all things without grumbling or disputing, but we hold fast to the word of life in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation in which we're supposed to shine the light of Christ.

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So therefore in Christ Jesus, light dawns in the darkness for the upright. Verse five, it is well with the man who deals generously and lends, who conducts his affairs with justice.

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In other words, we give to those who need. We don't cling to the stuff that we have as if it belongs only to us, but God has given us the things that we have so that we might bless others with it.

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And the man who deals generously and lends, he conducts his affairs with justice according to what

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God says is just and right. By the way, using this term righteousness, which comes up so many times in this particular

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Psalm, we're talking about those things that God has said is right according to his commandments.

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Not what the world says is right, what God has said is right. Verse six, for the righteous will never be moved.

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He will be remembered forever. And this comes back again to Psalm one, where the man who delights in the law of the

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Lord is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.

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In all that he does, he prospers. Sounds very similar to what we're reading here in Psalm 112, right?

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The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. So they're constantly tossed to and fro.

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Paul puts it this way in Ephesians chapter four, tossed to and fro by every shifting wind of doctrine.

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But we who are rooted and grounded in Christ, who love his law, who delight in his commandments, we are steadfast, we are steady, we are unmoving.

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Therefore, in verse seven, we are not afraid of bad news. He is not afraid of bad news.

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Wouldn't you say that what's going on in the world right now today is mostly bad news? I saw a meme that was kind of funny.

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It had Captain Jean -Luc Picard sitting in his captain's chair and it said, this is waking up every day in 2020.

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Damage report. So Captain Picard asking for a damage report. That's what it's like waking up every day in 2020 thus far.

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Is it not? What new disaster are we going to be dealing with today? But for the person who is firm in Christ, he has nothing to fear of bad news.

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We know that this world is fallen. Every day is gonna be full of bad news somewhere.

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It should not surprise us or shock us for we worship a sovereign God who is in control over everything, who according to Romans 8 .28

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is working all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose, for those who fear the

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Lord and greatly delight in his commandments, we have nothing to fear. For the commands of the king are the commands of a king who is sovereign overall, who is in control, has never been shocked off of his throne.

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He himself is not concerned of the things that are happening for everything is going according to the counsel of his will.

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Therefore, what do we have to be afraid of if we are in Christ?

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For we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. His heart is steady.

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He will not be afraid. Verse nine. Oh, well, I'm sorry. That was, he is not afraid of bad news.

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That was verse seven. His heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. Now verse eight, his heart is steady.

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He will not be afraid until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.

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And this doesn't necessarily mean people who may oppress us and come against us, although that could certainly apply.

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We could also be talking about here, the coronavirus. We will not be conquered by those things that might be ravaging the world around us.

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It doesn't just have to be coronavirus. There are plenty of sicknesses, illnesses, diseases that people are dying from right now.

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Not even just the virus, but plenty of other things. And we have no need to be afraid of that.

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That is an adversary that will be conquered. In fact, death itself is conquered by Christ and is the last enemy that will be destroyed in the end when

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Christ returns, as we read about in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. So we will look in triumph on our enemies, even the devil himself.

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The man who fears the Lord is distributed freely. He has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever.

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His horn is exalted in honor. Verse 10, the wicked man sees it and is angry.

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He gnashes his teeth and melts away. The desire of the wicked will perish.

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Now think of this. When the wicked see us walking in righteousness, they hate it. And the apostle

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Paul said as much to Timothy. He said that those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, those who desire to live in godliness will be persecuted.

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And Peter said in 1 Peter chapter four, that when they look and see that you're not joining them in their debauchery, they're gonna malign you, but they will have to give account to him who will judge the living and the dead.

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Therefore, the apostle Paul says to Timothy that we are to correct opponents with gentleness. This is 2 Timothy chapter two.

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For God may grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from a snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

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So be assured that our pursuit of godliness will be hated by those who are godless, but we must still in fear of God, remain submissive and obedient to him, not fighting and quarrel with those who wanna fight and quarrel with us, but holding out the word of life in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation, preaching the gospel that hopefully they will come to repentance.

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They will come to faith, and they are added to our spiritual offspring, more children in the faith who love

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God, adopted into the family of God, who will not perish in judgment, but will live forever with God in eternal life.

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That's Psalm 112. And I hope you enjoyed the lesson today as we wrap up both the audio and the video portion.

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If you're watching this podcast for the first time via video, there's a link to subscribe to the audio podcast in the description below.

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As I do, Becky said in the introduction, I do New Testament study Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Old Testament study on Thursday, and then the

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Q &A, which we will do on Friday, God willing, we will talk to you tomorrow with our

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Q &A. Let's conclude with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the goodness that you have shown to us in Christ Jesus.

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And I pray that you would give us confidence in these days. Though we have much to be afraid of with the way that the world is going, one new disaster after the next seems to be in the headlines every time that we wake up, but we have nothing to be afraid of.

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It would be rational to be afraid, at least according to the world's standards. But if we trust in Christ, what have we to fear?

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Nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So let us look upon these days with confidence, and they make us long all the more for the kingdom of God.

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Let us also make haste in sharing the gospel with the world so they will not perish when this world comes into judgment, but those who hear the gospel of Jesus Christ will repent and so be saved.

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May your spirit move through our words as we share the gospel in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation.

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May we fear no man, but stand in fear of God. And it's in the name of Jesus Christ, our

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Savior, in his name we pray, amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt

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.com, and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our