WWUTT 1054 Break the Teeth of the Wicked?

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Those imprecatory psalms are tough to balance. You know where it says, God please destroy my enemies?

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Don't we want the wicked to repent? Well we must be thinking not just about those wicked persons, but those whom they harm when we understand the text.

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You're listening to When We Understand the Text, committed to sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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And don't forget our website, www .wwtt .com. Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the psalms and picking up where we left off last week, that would put us in Psalm 58.

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If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there. To the choir master, according to do not destroy a mictum of David.

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Do you indeed decree what is right you gods? Do you judge the children of man uprightly?

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No, in your hearts you devise wrongs. Your hands deal out violence on earth.

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The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray from birth, speaking lies.

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They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear, so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter.

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O God, break the teeth in their mouths, tear out the fangs of the young lions,

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O Lord. Let them vanish like water that runs away. When he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.

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Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun.

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Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away.

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The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.

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Mankind will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a

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God who judges the earth. So right at the very heading of this particular

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Psalm, Psalm 58, it says to the choir master, according to do not destroy a mictum of David.

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Well, remember when we read something like according to do not destroy, which Psalm 57 was also recorded the same way.

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And Psalm 56, according to the dove on far off terebinths. Well, whenever you see something like that opening up the

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Psalm, it means that there was a song, an instrumental melody that these words were meant to be sung with.

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And that melody was called do not destroy. Apparently, Psalms 57 and 58 were written to this melody.

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Whatever that song was, we don't have record of it. We don't know what the tune sounded like anymore, but that's the instrumental piece that this

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Psalm was meant to be sung along with. And the song was congregational. Psalm 58 is a congregational hymn, and it's something that the people of Israel would sing in light of being ruled by a tyrant.

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So when they wanted godly leadership, they would sing a Psalm such as this, that they were hoping that those who were oppressing the people would be destroyed by God.

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Their teeth would be shattered. They would be like a stillborn child, which is a pretty gruesome image that we have here.

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That was in verse 8. And that's not to mention verse 10. The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance.

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He will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. There's some dark imagery going on here, but it pales in comparison to the darkness that is wrought upon a people at the hands of a tyrannical ruler.

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The way that we start this Psalm, Psalm 58, verse 1, do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?

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Now, that could strike a person as odd, the way we begin this, because there are not any other gods.

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There is only the one true God. So what are we talking about here? Are we addressing idols, false gods?

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Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Now, that's referring to those who are rulers, who are in authority, many of whom, at this particular time, thought of themselves as gods.

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There are rulers in the world today who think of themselves that way as well. But whenever the

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Psalms refer to those rulers as gods, it's referring to them very sarcastically.

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They don't have any authority that God has not given to them. So no one sitting on any throne or in any high office has an authority that they themselves have given themselves.

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Any authority that anyone has has been granted that authority by God. Daniel praised that,

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Daniel 2. It's stated also in Romans 13. So these who are gods, who fancy themselves rulers over the people, do you indeed decree what is right?

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Do you judge the children of man uprightly? No. So we're talking to wicked rulers here.

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They do not judge right. They do not judge in the fear of God. They do not judge according to his precepts.

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In your hearts, you devise wrongs. Your hands deal out violence on the earth.

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The wicked are estranged from the womb. So from the time of a person's conception, they have wickedness in their hearts.

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A lot of people just don't have the means and the opportunity to demonstrate the kind of wickedness that they truly have.

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No one is as wicked as they could be, for God's restraining hand prevents mankind from being as evil as they could be.

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But if God were to release his hand, well, then they fall into worse and worse depravity. And Romans 1 makes that clear, where it says that God gives them over to a depraved heart to do what ought not to be done.

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And they fall into more and more sinful things. In the case of a wicked ruler here, this is someone who has been wicked from the womb.

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It's not because he ascended to some wicked throne or you're looking at his position of power as being inherently wicked.

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That's not the case. This is a sinful man who is sinful from conception.

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And that's the way it is with all of us. All are born in sin. Romans 3, 23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

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When we were reading Psalm 51 a few weeks ago, David praying in sin, did my mother conceive me?

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We as descended from Adam have all been born with Adam's sin.

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And that wickedness is greater in some than it is in others. But it's God's restraining hand that keeps it from being worse than it could be.

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The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray from birth speaking lies.

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No one has to teach you to speak lies. Children know to lie without seeing any example of anyone else lying to them.

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You know, when I say they know to lie, they know how to lie. No one has to teach them how to lie.

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We are born with those sinful hearts and some without the discipline and the training and the instruction of the

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Lord never come to understand that lying is wrong. And so as they get older, they continue in these lies.

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If they receive positions of authority, those lies could even cost people their lives. Your hands deal out violence on the earth, as was said in verse two.

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Verse four, they have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter.

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Now snakes can't hear anything anyway. They don't have ears, but this is metaphorical. It's saying that no one is going to be able to tame this wicked person.

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They're not listening to anyone anymore. They are not being persuaded by anyone. They are fulfilling the wickedness that is in their heart.

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So we might understand this as a person that God has given over to their own depravity. This is a person that is not going to turn and repent.

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Their heart has become hardened and that's significant to consider. And I'll talk about that a little bit more as we keep going.

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So verse six, oh God, break the teeth in their mouths, tear out the fangs of the young lions, oh

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Lord, let them vanish like water that runs away. When he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.

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So notice here that all of these are dull instruments that are ineffective, break the teeth in their mouths, can't really bite you, can't inflict a person with the venom in their fangs.

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That was talked about in verse four. They have venom like the venom of a serpent. Well, they can't pass that venom on to anybody if they don't have teeth to bite a person with their venom.

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So break the teeth in their mouths, tear out the fangs of the young lions. What do you have to fear of a lion that doesn't have any teeth that they can maul you with?

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Let them vanish like water that runs away. It's not water that rushes against or floods or devastates, it retreats.

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It's like the tide that goes out, nothing to be threatening. When he aims his arrows, let them be blunted, not sharp, not going to pierce.

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So though this wicked man has it in his heart to do wickedness, may the Lord restrain the blow that he wishes to inflict.

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May it not land hard upon those who fear God. That's essentially what's being asked of here.

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Let them, let the rulers now, verse eight, be like the snail that dissolves into slime.

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That's gross, right? You know, that's considering this king as being the lowest of the low, though he thinks of himself as highly above everyone else since he's sitting on a great throne.

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He's no better than snail slime. So remind him that he's snail slime and let him dissolve like the snail slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun.

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And like I said earlier, that's pretty dark. That's pretty gruesome. But whenever we read these imprecatory

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Psalms, when we're wishing upon someone that God would break their teeth and that he would have vengeance upon them and they would be struck down.

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This is of the understanding here that the wicked will not repent. And instead, what we are seeking is justice.

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Now, we can't know for sure that a wicked person will not repent. So I think that whenever we pray such a thing for a, you know, pray something such as this about a ruler who is wicked, we could pray it very generally.

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We might want to be very, very careful not to, you know, directly say, God, I hate this leader.

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So please strike him down. I think we need to be careful about that. But that we say these things generally, because there are going to be wicked rulers.

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Even though God can turn the heart of a person to repentance, there are nevertheless going to be those who are going to be wicked and they will be judged in their wickedness.

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We can't overlook that either. So we're praying that God's justice would come upon those who are wicked.

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And there's nothing wrong with praying that. I think we need to be very careful about directing that at a particular person.

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But as I remember, a pastor friend of mine he and I were having this conversation about imprecatory

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Psalms. Is it OK to be praying for somebody that God would destroy them, that he would strike them down?

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Would we want to wish that upon our enemies, knowing the hell that awaits them? And this pastor friend of mine shared with me, he said, you know,

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I've prayed this way. I don't necessarily stand in the pulpit and say this. And I pray that whenever I'm saying it, that I'm doing so humbly.

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But I think of he was talking specifically about another pastor in his community who had committed adultery.

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There was a church split, but he still assumed his position in his pulpit and led tons of people astray, though he was a wicked, sinful man.

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And this pastor friend said to me, regarding this guy, I would pray, Lord, please change his heart or stop his heart.

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And I pray that I'm not overstepping my bounds in saying such a thing. So that the wicked people would not continue to afflict those who are righteous or lead others astray.

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We might pray and ask for something like that. Lord, please change his heart or stop his heart so that he will no longer harm those people whom he is harming.

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You know, whenever we pray from Revelation 22, the way that John prays,

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Lord Jesus, come quickly. What we are saying is not just that we want

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Jesus to return and take us to be in heaven with him. We're asking for his judgment to come upon the earth.

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So that in itself is an imprecatory prayer to ask for Jesus to come quickly.

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We can pray that, and it's perfectly fine to pray that. And we know there are going to be wicked who are going to be judged.

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We just, we need to be careful. We need to be humble, not to name a name in the sense that, oh,

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God, please bring the fires of hell upon that person. We wouldn't want that to happen to that person.

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We would hope they would repent, but in the event that they do not, that God's justice would most certainly be served.

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So here the psalmist prays, as we have in verse nine, sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away.

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The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.

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Mankind will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges the earth.

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In Revelation chapter 14, we read about God judging the earth and the, there's an angel to whom it is told, put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth for its grapes are ripe.

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So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God.

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And the wine press was trodden outside the city and blood flowed from the wine press as high as a horse's bridle for 1600 stadia.

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That's 200 miles of blood that is as deep as the head of a horse, basically from the ground to a horse's head.

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That is a picture of the judgment of God coming upon the wicked. And there would be so much blood that it would be gross and deep and flows a long, long way.

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And we know that the judgment of God comes upon those who do wickedness, who have not followed

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Christ and through Jesus Christ received the forgiveness of sins. God's judgment will come upon the person who does not know

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Jesus or who is not known by Christ. And mankind will surely say there is a reward for the righteous.

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Surely there is a God who judges the earth. When you go on to the next chapter of Revelation, Revelation 15, you see the people praising

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God for his judgment upon the wicked. We will rejoice in God for his mercy, having delivered us from his judgment.

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And we will also praise God for his righteous judgment that he has poured out on the wicked.

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That's kind of hard for us to wrap our minds around now, but we read about it in Revelation. So we continue on to Psalm 59, to the choir master, according to do not destroy our third consecutive

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Psalm written to that tune, a mictum of David, when Saul sent men to watch his house in order to kill him.

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This is 17 verses. I'm going to read a little bit at a time and then we'll break it up and talk about what we're reading here.

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Deliver me from my enemies. Oh my God, protect me from those who will rise up against me.

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Deliver me from those who work evil and save me from bloodthirsty men.

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So this is when David was, he was married at this time and was married to Saul's daughter,

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Michal. And in the house in which they lived, it was surrounded.

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There were people at the house watching for David in order to kill him. But Michal helped

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David to escape. So imagine living in a house where you knew people were outside waiting to kill you, the kind of anxiety that might cause in your spirit.

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And this is the Psalm that David prayed as he's thinking about the deliverance of God, that only

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God can deliver him from these bloodthirsty men. For behold, they lie and wait for my life.

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Fierce men stir up strife against me for no transgression or sin of mine.

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Oh Lord. They just hate him because they want to hate him. Not because David has done anything wrong.

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For no fault of mine, they run and make ready. Awake, come to meet me and see you

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Lord God of hosts are God of Israel. Rouse yourself to punish all the nations, spare none of those who treacherously plot evil.

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Selah. You know, there are ministers that have a very high profile, honest ministers, those who truly preach the word of God in the fear of God.

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And there are people all around them that want to destroy them and bring them down. So I would ask you, my brothers and sisters in the

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Lord, that you pray for those ministers. And I would ask that you pray for me.

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For there are people out there who have tried to strike me and bring me down. Now it's not the sort of a thing where I've got people surrounding my house waiting to kill me.

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Thank God we live in a country where we don't have that kind of fear, but there are

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Christians that live in other parts of the world where they do have exactly that fear. That there are people waiting to kill those

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Christians who are worshipping in the place where they are worshipping. So also pray for them and do not be ignorant of the kinds of things that our

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Christian brothers and sisters around the world are suffering through because of people who want to kill them for the faith that they have.

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We continue on. Verse six. Each evening they come back howling like dogs and prowling about the city.

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There they are, bellowing with their mouths, with swords in their lips for who they think will hear us.

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But you, oh Lord, laugh at them. You hold all the nations in derision.

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Very similar thing to what was said in Psalm 2. Oh my strength,

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I will watch for you. For you, oh God, are my fortress. My God in his steadfast love will meet me.

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God will let me look in triumph on my enemies. And that may not be in this life.

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You may not have triumph over your enemies here. Though we must understand,

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Romans 8 says, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. But we will stand with God in glory and see triumph over our enemies.

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As I had just talked about reading even from Revelation chapters 14 and 15. So we continue on verse 11.

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Kill them not, lest my people forget. Make them totter by your power and bring them down.

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Oh Lord, our shield. For the sin of their mouths, the words of their lips, let them be trapped in their pride.

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For the cursing and lies that they utter, consume them in wrath. Consume them till they are no more.

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That they may know that God rules over Jacob to the ends of the earth. That's similar to what we read in Psalm 58 verse 11.

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Mankind will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges the earth.

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So we're at the point of Selah, that pause here again in Psalm 59. And we go on to verse 14.

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Each evening they come back howling like dogs and prowling about the city. They wander about for food and they growl if they do not get their fill.

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But I will sing of your strength. I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress.

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Oh my strength, I will sing praises to you. For you, oh God, are my fortress.

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The God who shows me steadfast love. Let me come back for a moment here to verses 14 and 15.

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Each evening they come back howling like dogs and prowling about the city. They wander about for food and growl if they do not get their fill.

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Does that not describe the social justice warrior that is so prevalent in our culture today?

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The woke, the critical race theorist, this person that just grumbles and growls about absolutely everything, but they have no end game.

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They keep coming back. They wander about for food and they growl if they do not get their fill.

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And this can be quite obnoxious. And these persons seem to be more and more hostile as the days go by.

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Who knows what they're trying to afflict people with or what the end game is going to be ultimately.

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But we must entrust ourselves to God. We must respond in kindness and not with the same malice that they would be hurling at one another.

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And we must love our enemies as Christ has instructed us to do. Vengeance belongs to the

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Lord. We must not take these matters into our own hands, but entrust ourselves to him who judges justly.

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As Jesus did, according to 1 Peter 2. Let us conclude with prayer.

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Our Lord, we can have such beautiful, gorgeous days and we can have days of relative peace and harmony, maybe in the neighborhoods that we live in.

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But there's also a world of chaos that is going on around us. And there are bloodthirsty and evil men that would want to strike us down and destroy us simply for the godliness that we want to have and the

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Christlikeness that we pursue. Lord, I pray as David has prayed here that you would blunt their arrows, that you would break their teeth in their mouth, and that what they want to afflict the people of God with would land soft.

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Give us hearts that are bold and are able to stand steadfastly in the day of trial so that steadfastness may have its full effect, according to James 1 .4,

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that we may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing, sharing in the sufferings of Christ, being made more and more into His image.

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Protect our brothers and sisters in the Lord in parts of the world where their lives are being threatened for worshiping

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Christ. And may they have a steadfastness, may they not shrink back from the way, but stand all the more boldly in the name of Christ against those who hate the name.

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We know that your name will triumph over all the earth and we will be singing with you in glory, holy, holy, holy, is the

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Lord God Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come. Amen.