The Song of the Steadfast – Psalm 11

So the word of the day is faith, and we're going to be looking at Psalm 11 today.

So if you have your Bibles, turn to Psalm 11 and have it open there.

And I'm going

to give just a couple of moments here in case somebody got kicked out of the stream and is unable to join us.

Apologize for that.

Oh, somebody wanted to know, how do you check your count?

Well, the parents need to be counting too.

So you need to be tallying because there is no official count.

Because I certainly don't know how often I say the word.

How many times I say the word faith, that's a mystery to me.

So I don't actually keep track of that, nor do I know going into it, how many times I'm going to say it.

I've had kids ask me that.

How many times are you going to say the word of the day today?

And I have no idea.

I don't count them.

I don't plan them.

I don't get up and memorize or script.

Well, I script, but I don't memorize everything I'm going to say.

So I don't exactly know how many times the word faith comes up.

All right.

So we're in Psalm 11.

Before we begin, I wanted to make a quick announcement about streaming and

services, etc.

So for our own streaming purposes and church purposes, we have been basically using the governor's guidelines

for us being able to get back together.

And this last week, the state of Idaho announced and the government

issued the rebound .idaho .gov guidelines for rebounding and

recovering Idaho.

If that's even possible by this point, I don't know.

But in that, in the phase one, it gives basically leeway for churches to be able to meet.

And so this is our last streaming service, Lord willing.

This is our last streaming service, and we will return to normal festivities next week.

What we're uncertain about as elders, and we need to talk about this this coming week, is

what are we going to do for Sunday school?

Oh, look at that.

I got wrong dragging back in the corner there.

What are we going to do for Sunday school?

Because as Dave Rich pointed out to me in a text this week, the guidelines, the governor's guidelines in phase one say you can meet

back together as long as you, you know, adhere to social distancing and

keeping distance between you and CDC guidelines for disinfectants, etc., which we're all always very

conscientious about disinfecting and wiping things down and cleaning things in our facility here.

But how do you do that with kids?

Because Dave Rich pointed out in a text to me this last week, with kids, it's impractical in a Sunday school class to do that, to

maintain that kind of a distance, because basically while you're teaching them a Bible lesson, Dave said, they're trading boogers, like an NFL

draft, basically, in real time.

I'll give you two dry ones for a wet one next week, and they're trading them like their baseball cards.

So how do you maintain social distancing with kids in that kind of environment?

It's impractical.

So as elders, we're going to have a, we're going to meet this next week on conference call and kind of chat about, do we want to even

have kids Sunday school class?

And we'll work with Ben Bryan and Sunday school superintendent in kind of figuring out that, whether we're going to do that or not.

It may be possible that we would just resume worship services for a month and not have Sunday school.

I don't know yet, but I'll send out a weekly update on Thursday.

We'll have something out in writing for sure on that.

So check your emails for the weekly update.

Probably put something on the church Facebook page as well.

Just letting everybody know what our plan is and what the policies are going to be.

And at a minimum, we're going to have our worship service starting up next week and we'll be back in Hebrews chapter eight, starting in verse one,

right where we left off, kind of did all the preemptory stuff about new covenant, old covenant, covenant

theology versus dispensationalism, et cetera.

And so when we start back up, we're just going to dive right back into Hebrews chapter eight, verse one, and looking at the new

covenant and what the author of Hebrews says about that there.

Next week is May 3rd, I was going to say 10th and then 7th, it's the 3rd.

On May 10th, on that Sunday, we're not going to have Sunday school class on May 10th simply because we're going to

have Easter breakfast or belated resurrection day breakfast on May

10th since that was robbed from us.

So we're going to have eggs and ham and juice and coffee and plenty of space.

If you need the space out to eat your dinner and feel comfortable, you can still come back, still be here for that.

Let us know, I'll be asking for sort of a show of hands next Sunday to find out how many people we're going to have to serve.

And if you're willing to help out by either paying for the food or bringing some of the

food to the church for that, Thomas is sort of leading point on organizing all.

That.

So contact Thomas.

You can even chat with him here in the chat window about it if you want to let him know that you're going to be helping out

with that and we need people to set up and people to clean up and help cook and serve and all of that.

And we usually have men that are going to be doing that.

So men, if you want to contribute to that, please let Thomas know.

So that's the plan.

Back here next Sunday, planning to meet for worship service.

Hebrews, not Hebrews, wow, Psalm chapter 11, the 11th Psalm,

we're going to be there today.

And again, the word of the day is faith.

The Hebrews are Texas.

I'm so you can tell I'm a little anxious to get back into Hebrews.

I'm chomping at the bit.

Our text this morning is Psalm 11 written in Hebrews.

Maybe that's the Hebrew, maybe that's the link in my head.

And I was thinking about how perfect this Psalm is for our troubled times.

And if we were going to have to do this social distancing and not have church service and just do streaming

services for any more length of time, I was going to dive into some of the other Psalms.

Psalm 46 was on my agenda and Psalm 11 today.

And I think that this Psalm is really perfect for the times in which we live.

Spurgeon called this or titled this Psalm, the song of the steadfast, the song of the

steadfast.

So let's read the Psalm and then I'll give you kind of some introductory observations and then we're going to work through actually the entire text today,

verses one through seven, Psalm 11.

The prescript says it's for the choir director, a Psalm of David.

In the Lord, I take refuge.

How can you say to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain?

For behold, the wicked bend the bow.

They make ready their arrow upon the string to shoot in the darkness of the upright in heart.

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

The Lord is in his holy temple.

The Lord's throne is in heaven.

His eyes behold, his eyelids test the sons of men.

The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked and the one who loves violence.

His soul hates upon the wicked.

He will rain snares, fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.

For the Lord is righteous.

He loves righteousness.

The upright will behold his face.

All right.

So this is a Psalm of David.

It's written by David.

And interestingly, we don't know the occasion upon which David wrote the Psalm, like what was

what was going on in David's life.

What what is the historical context of this?

We don't know that.

And commentators from the clues in the Psalm have suggested a few different times in David's life when he may

have written this Psalm.

It's been suggested that David wrote this Psalm during his time serving in Saul's

court while Saul was still king.

And and David was married to Saul's daughter, Mike, Mike, Michael, Michelle.

We can't forget it anyway, while David was married to Saul's daughter, and so Saul was David's father -in -law,

that it was while David was in Saul's court that he that he wrote the Psalm.

And they say that based upon verse three, where it says that the foundations are destroyed, what

can the righteous do?

And so in Spurgeon's commentary, he says it's probably written at that time because David would have seen

Saul's violation of the law and his utter lawless rule and reign as a king and all the foundations of society and

law and the nation of Israel's adherence to the to the Mosaic Code start to crumble.

And so that lament that the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

David would have been observing that.

And Saul was kind of a renegade, even at the time, away from God and God's word, or

some have suggested that this was written while David was being hunted by Saul.

And so then you see the the language in verse two, the wicked bend the bow to make ready their arrow upon the string to shoot in darkness at the upright

of heart.

And that idea that David was being hunted and the imagery there of David being hunted and having to flee from Saul,

some have suggested that that was the occasion that David wrote the psalm.

Others suggest that it was at a time of national tragedy, sometime under David's rule in his kingdom.

And this would have been at a time of public fear.

There, of course, were lots of opportunities during David's 40 years on the throne in Israel when he would have been

hunted and hated by others.

Maybe Absalom's rebellion when David had to flee the city of Jerusalem.

Maybe that was the occasion that David wrote the psalm.

Matthew Henry says, quote of this psalm, in times of public fear, when the insults of the church's

enemies are daring and threatening, it will be profitable to meditate on this psalm.

Close quote.

So that, I think, is an interesting statement in times of public fear, when when everybody is full of fear, when everybody is

panicking, when everybody wants to flee, meditation upon this psalm will be profitable,

Henry says.

And so we don't know the occasion of the psalm.

And Spurgeon said that David was something of an everyman, an everyman.

And that would be my wording to describe what Spurgeon meant by that.

What Spurgeon said about David is that God, by his providence, allowed David to

go through and to suffer all of the vicissitudes of life, all of the experiences common to men,

so that in any and every situation that we find ourselves, we could turn to the

Psalms and see there expressed the emotion and the frustrations and the anxiety and the

distress that is common to men.

And so God, in his providence, allowed David to suffer through all of those different experiences and then to write

about them so that we could always find in David and in the Psalms something that we could lean upon, something

that we could rest upon ourselves as we see how David wrote about it and described it and eventually how David

dealt with it.

That's Spurgeon's observation.

And you think, you know, that's certainly true.

In David, we see the descriptions of things that are generic enough that we can find parallels to

ourself and our own life.

And yet things that are specific enough that we are able to glean good encouragement and instruction from the things that are written.

So this psalm, you'll notice, is very generic.

It's very, very general.

There's a danger that is mentioned.

There's a temptation to flee that is mentioned.

There's the foundations are being destroyed that is mentioned.

We're not really specifically sure exactly when that was written or what the occasion was or who these enemies were or who

was counseling David.

It's generic and nonspecific enough that we can we sort of put ourselves into that psalm.

But then the counsel and the teaching from the psalm is specific enough that we are able to draw great

encouragement from it.

So it's certainly true that in many ways, David was an everyman.

I mean, if you've ever have you ever been in a situation where you were betrayed by a close friend?

David was in that situation.

He writes about it in psalm.

Now that I said it, I'm not going to remember psalm 110, psalm 108, 103, where he describes the

person who ate bread with him in the house of God, lifted up his heel against him.

And of course, that was a foreshadowing and a portrayal of the Lord Jesus.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were betrayed by a good friend and that that relationship was broken and

ruined forever?

David can relate to that.

Have you ever been in a situation where you sinned so grievously you wondered if the Lord could forgive you?

That's David with Bathsheba and Uriah and the whole situation.

Have you ever been in a situation where you've lost a young child?

David experienced that with the birth of his child with Bathsheba.

Raise your hand if you've ever been in a situation where your in -laws hated you and wished that you were dead.

I mean, David endured that, right?

David endured that while his father -in -law Saul hunted him and tried to point a javelin at him and pin him to the

wall and hunted him out in Gedi.

You're in a situation where your in -laws hated you and wished you were dead.

Raise your hand, right?

So David was in that situation on a number of different occasions.

Truly, David experienced every man's trials and every man's temptations and every man's experiences.

There's literally nothing that you and I could go through that we could not look in the Psalms and say, there's David.

There's David and there's me in that psalm.

I've experienced this.

I've seen this.

I've felt this.

I've endured this.

And yet the counsel that we get from it is really encouraging.

So here's the outline of the psalm and it really falls quite naturally into two divisions or two sections.

In verses 1 to 3, in fact before I give you the outline, John MacArthur in his

MacArthur Study Bible, the Study Bible, he says he

divides the psalm into two and he says in verses 1 to 3 we have the voice of fear and in verses 4

through 7 we have the voice of faith.

And so there's two voices, two voices as it were in David's head.

There's the voice of fear speaking to him in verses 1 through 3 and then there's the voice of faith speaking to him in verses 4

through 7.

So we would say the voice of fear or we would say that the verses 1 through 3 is the temptation to flee in fear.

And then in verses 4 to 7, we really have a resolution to stand in faith.

The voice of fear and the voice of faith.

And notice in verse 1 that David begins with the conclusion that he eventually eventually comes to.

In verse 1 he begins with, In the Lord I take refuge.

This is right out of the gate.

This is the conclusion that David comes to but it's not where David begins and it's not what David went through.

David ended with that confidence that in the Lord I take refuge even though that is not

what his heart was telling him at some point.

And this is something that we see quite frequently in the Psalms actually.

You see the psalmists and not just David but other psalms where before the psalmist will

describe to us his emotional anguish, his anxiety, his stress, his fear, the

temptation to doubt, whatever it is.

He will begin with a statement that right out of the gate expresses his confidence in what he knows to be

true.

And then you'll read about the temptation, the trial, the difficulty that he endured.

And then his own working through that issue.

And then he comes to the end or the conclusion of the psalm.

And when he comes to the conclusion of applying truth to his experience, he will then begin the psalm

with that.

So you have it here in verse 1, In the Lord I take refuge.

That's my refuge.

That's the statement of truth, the bulwark right over top of the whole thing.

This is what's written above the door of this trial that David went through is in the Lord I take refuge.

That is his confidence.

You see it also in Psalm 73.

I don't know if you've ever read a good study on the Psalm 73, any book written by Psalm 73

that describes that psalm and everything that Asaph went through.

If you've ever read a book on that, then you'll remember Psalm 73 begins with Surely the Lord is good

to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

That's where the psalmist Asaph begins in Psalm 73.

Surely the Lord is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

But that's not where Asaph began actually in his struggle.

Because then he goes on to describe how he saw the prosperity of the wicked.

He was perplexed at that.

And everything he saw made him think that God is good to the wicked, but not to the righteous, right?

The wicked live in ease.

They die in ease.

They have no concerns.

All their needs are met.

They're fat, dumb and happy and they enjoy life and everything is lavished upon them.

And the righteous, what are we?

We are afflicted all day long and we endure affliction and trials and tribulation and.

Temptation.

We're hunted and hated by the wicked and we go through all that.

But then at the end, Asaph says, the nearness of God is my good.

The wicked don't have the nearness of God.

They have all the nearness of this world's treasures, but they don't have God as their good.

And so what he comes to at the end of the psalm is how he begins the psalm.

Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

God is good to his covenant people.

God is good to the righteous.

He is good to the upright.

That's how the psalm begins, even though that's not where the struggle begins.

And so that's what we have here in Psalm 11 as well.

In the Lord, I take refuge.

So he begins with that conclusion.

I think this is a good pattern, by the way.

Sometimes when we face struggles or trials or temptations or doubts or even questions about our faith or questions about scripture,

it's often good to begin with what we know to be true.

What do we know to be true?

That God is good.

God is righteous.

God is sovereign.

Begin with what we know to be true, and then we have to view all of our doubts, our trials, our anxieties, our

difficulties.

We have to view those in light of what we know to be true at the outset.

So we allow then all of our struggles to be evaluated in terms of really what we conclude and know to be

true.

God is good.

In the Lord, I take refuge.

Now, let's look in verses one to three at the voice of fear, the voice of fear.

There were some people who were saying to David, flee, flee to the mountain, flee to the mountain to be safe.

Look at verse one.

How can you say to my soul?

Who was saying this?

We don't know.

Was it David's advisors?

Was it his friends?

Was it his family members?

Was it the stranger on the street?

Somebody was saying to David and to David's soul, flee as a bird to your mountain.

Look at verse two.

For behold, the wicked bend the bow.

They make ready their arrow upon the string to shoot in darkness at the upright in.

Heart.

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

This was the talk that was going into David's head, into his soul from some voice

who was saying to him, flee to the mountain like a bird.

Flee as a bird to the mountain.

Get out of here.

Behold, the wicked bend the bow.

They're hunting for you.

You are in danger.

There are threats.

The threats are real.

The threats are severe.

Maybe David was getting this from a counselor.

If he was king, maybe from a friend.

If he was being hunted by Saul, maybe from somebody among his mighty men.

If this would happen while he was fleeing out in En Gedi and Saul was hunting him, the danger was

real.

What we do know, and I think what we can conclude, is that this counsel was given to David at

a time when fleeing would have been sinful, unfaithful, unwise,

and probably an evidence of personal cowardice.

So Spurgeon says David was advised to flee at a time when his flight would have been charged against him

as either a breach of duty to the king or a proof of a personal cowardice, close quote.

There was something about fleeing at that moment and that temptation to flee in the midst of this danger and destruction that

was going on around David.

There's something about that temptation that in fleeing, David would have demonstrated either that he was a coward

or that he lacked faith in God or at fleeing at a time when it would have become evident that he was neglecting

his duty to either the nation or to the king.

And see, it's not always a sin to flee and this is something we have to keep in mind.

The Proverbs 22 verse 3 and Proverbs 27 verse 12, those two Proverbs

talk about how the righteous or the wise man sees danger

and flees from it.

There are times when fleeing something is not an act of cowardice, it's actually an act of wisdom.

There are times when fleeing is not something you do out of fear but something you do out of

maybe, well wisdom is the best way of saying it, out of wisdom and actually something you do out of

faith.

You see this in the life of David.

It wasn't sinful for David to flee Saul's murderous threats, it

wasn't sinful for David to do that.

When Saul picked up the javelin and tossed it toward David to try and pin him to the wall with it on two different occasions, David didn't just duck

the spear and then stand up and say, hey right here, hit me right here, take another shot at this, I'm not running from your presence.

David didn't do that, he took off.

That wasn't necessarily cowardice, that's just wisdom to flee danger like that.

When Saul hunted him, David fled out into En -Gedi with his mighty men and hid himself out in the wilderness.

It wasn't an act of fear necessarily, it was probably an act of faith, it was an act of wisdom at that time.

When Absalom took the throne and David left the city, was that an act of fear or an act of faith or wisdom?

I don't know, not every time that you flee is it an act of fear.

Saul would flee or Paul would flee different cities when authorities would come after him or when the crowds wanted to stone

him.

There were times when Paul stood there and took it and faced the heat and there were other times when Paul left the city.

So fleeing is not necessarily sinful all of the time.

Running from danger is not necessarily an act of fear, it might be an act of faith, it might be something you do in

wisdom because circumstances dictate that that's the time to get out and the time to leave and now is the

wise time to do it.

When is that?

How can I know that my act of leaving a situation is not an act of fear or cowardice, it's not going to

be sinful in that moment?

How do you know?

You want to know what the check marks are for that?

You want to know what the parameters of when fleeing is sinful and when it's not?

The answer to that is only you can know when that's the case.

Only you can know when fleeing a situation is wise or

when it's foolish and only you can know when fleeing a situation is an act of faith or whether it

is an act of fear.

Ultimately, we have to examine our own hearts and say, am I trusting the Lord?

Does he want me here in this?

Should I be here in this or is leaving at this situation the right and the wise thing to do?

There's no answer to that in terms of I can point you to a chapter and verse to say if you're fleeing in this situation, it's sinful.

If you're fleeing in this situation, it's fine.

Those parameters are not given to us in Scripture.

In some way, David knew that at this point in his life when he writes Psalm 11, he's describing

that, that it was the voice of fear that was saying to him, flee, leave, go to the mountain

like a bird, meaning hastily and quickly and before anybody can notice you're gone, like a

bird, flee to the mountains and get out of the situation.

And because the people, the voice of fear was speaking to David and they were saying that there were two

things that really should cause him to flee that situation.

The first is there was a very real danger.

Look at verse two.

Behold, the wicked bend the bow.

They make ready their arrow upon the string to shoot in darkness at the upright in heart.

That is vivid imagery.

This voice of fear, whoever it came from, somebody saying to him, get out, leave.

One of the things that this person mentioned or these people mentioned to David was you are in real physical danger.

The wicked make ready the bow.

They pull back and they are ready with their arrows ready, their arrows dipped in poison, their arrows

on that string ready to fire at you.

You are in very real physical danger.

Probably even David at this point was in danger of his very life.

His very life was in danger.

And the voice of fear was saying to him, the danger is real and you need to leave.

This is the imagery of hunting, by the way.

The hunter or the wicked is like a hunter with his bow drawn and the arrow is ready.

And he is waiting for a time, verse two says, to shoot in darkness at the upright in heart.

He's waiting for a time to fire his arrow, to take David's life, to take his opportunity when

David could not see it coming because it's dark.

So the imagery, the vivid imagery is not just of a hunter, but a hunter who stands over his prey,

waiting for that opportunity to seize the prey, to take his shot, to give the

kill shot when the prey doesn't see it coming, not even aware of it.

Has a vivid imagery there of a real danger that David faced.

The second reason that he was to flee was not just because of the danger, but because of the

destruction that these people observed that they mentioned in verse three.

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

What recourse do we have?

So the voice of fear was saying to David, look, you're in real physical danger.

The wicked have the bow made ready.

The arrows are ready.

They're waiting for the opportunity in darkness to fire their kill shot.

You need to get out and you need to get out quickly.

And not only that, but now the foundations are being destroyed.

And so then there's this expression of hopelessness.

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

What are you going to do, David?

Already, all the foundations of your hope have been undermined.

Everything that you might rest in in society is crumbling.

The foundations are being destroyed.

What can the righteous do?

What recourse do we have?

What are you going to rebuild this?

What are you going to do?

The best thing to do is just to let it crumble and to watch it crumble.

There's nothing you can do in this situation.

And this was the real temptation to say to David, what you're observing in the foundations being destroyed,

nothing you can do to stop it.

There's nothing you can do to rebuild it.

There's nothing you can do to alter it or even to slow it down.

What are the righteous do in such a situation?

Now friends, listen, I think that there is a sense in which we can, we can sympathize with this lament.

Can we not?

You see the right, you see the foundations being destroyed.

We look around us and we see a lot of foundations being whittled away every day, all the time.

What are the righteous going to do when the foundation of rule of law is destroyed before our very eyes?

When we have sheriffs and mayors and councilmen and

governors and congressmen who just violate the rule of law

at every turn and then seize upon a virus, a flu -like virus to

even do more so, to seize more power, to underline more and more of the rule of law, the

foundations of our society, the foundations of rule of law and of our Republic have been destroyed.

They've been destroyed.

They're not, not being destroyed.

They have been destroyed.

We are living amongst the rubble of it right now, while we try and say that we're honoring these foundational elements of

our culture and our society, they're being destroyed.

What, what are the righteous do when the foundation of the constitution is destroyed and the law is no more?

What are the righteous do when the moral underpinnings of our nation are destroyed?

When, when relativism is the catch word of the day, when, when your truth is your truth and my truth

is my truth and there's no such thing as objective truth and nobody will look to scripture and say that anything is objectively right

or wrong, what are the righteous do when the moral underpinnings of society and culture are in shambles?

What will the righteous do when the foundation of family is destroyed?

And now we live in a day when there is no such thing as a family.

Uh, the idea of one man and one woman in one flesh relationship for one lifetime, it's, it is no more.

And children being raised in that environment, no more.

Two men, two women, two men in a, in a dog, three men and a baby, however we want to, whatever we

want to call a family that becomes a family.

And, and what do we do when all of that foundational element is washed away and destroyed?

And there is no such thing as a nuclear God honoring family institution that's based upon scripture.

That that's no longer being destroyed.

That has been destroyed.

Or our society or our culture or the things that once held us together, those things are destroyed.

What do we do when our economic system is destroyed?

The foundation upon which the whole economy is built.

What happens when that is undermined?

Or even the doctrine and theology of the church at large.

Do we live in a country where the church forms a good solid foundation for everything that happens around us, where

it's the gathering place of the community anymore?

Do we even live in that culture or society?

What happens when the rule of law and the constitution, the moral underpinnings and the family and the culture and the structure and the society

and the church and theology are all undermined, all those foundations are destroyed and we're all just standing in the rubble of it.

What, what then will the righteous do?

David saw it in his own day.

He saw his own father -in -law Saul trying to kill him and murder him and chase him down and hunt the righteous.

He saw Saul violating the rule of law and violating the distinctions between priests and people.

Saul was constantly, between priest and monarch, Saul was constantly crossing that line, blurring those distinctions,

going after and killing priests of God because they gave David food or gave David shelter when he was in

hiding, or Saul wiped out all of those priests of God.

What happens when all of the rule of law and all of society begins to crumble around you?

What will the righteous do?

Do you feel hopeless?

That's the voice of fear.

It's the society we live in.

We can own that lament.

We can understand that lament.

What will the righteous do in such a situation?

There's an element of hopelessness there.

The wicked have bent the bow and the arrows are made ready and they're waiting for darkness to fall and the kill shot is going to come.

And David, what are you going to do to stop it?

What are you going to stay here and turn this around?

What are you going to stay here and try and rebuild this?

Somebody attacks the roof or destroys the roof.

You can repair that.

You can fix that.

You can do the walls.

But somebody comes in and destroys the whole foundation and wipes that out.

There is nothing.

It is game over.

It's over at that point.

And notice how I think these two things go together.

They went together in the life of David.

The wicked making war against the righteous and the foundation being destroyed, those two things,

they happened simultaneously and they are happening simultaneously in our day.

They have happened simultaneously in every culture that destroys the foundations.

Listen, the more the foundations are destroyed, the more we whittle away at those building blocks of the church, of society, of the

family, of a culture, of a country.

When those things are undermined, it goes hand in hand with a war against the righteous.

What are you going to do?

You're in danger, not only physical danger, but you have observed and seen the destruction that has

gone on all around you.

And what are the righteous going to do?

That is the voice of despair, of hopelessness, of fear

that is whispering in David's ear, flee like a bird to the mountain because you're in physical danger and there's

nothing you can do to repair this situation.

Your only option is to jettison, to get out, to bail out and to bail out now.

Do so while you still can.

Flee like a bird to the mountain.

That's the voice of fear, cower in fear, flee in fear,

flee to safety.

There's nothing you can do.

My friends, we are having panic and fear peddled to us today

in every quarter of society.

The cable news networks run nothing but the constant peddling of panic porn

to everybody.

And it's clickbait and it's one news story after another.

It is one headline after another.

It's one reason to panic after another.

You're not going to have toilet paper, go buy up all you can.

You're not going to have food, go buy up all you can.

You're not going to have hand disinfectant, go buy up all you can.

It's the constant peddling of panic porn at every opportunity, every voice around us,

every government institution, every government authority, every media talking head is all saying

the same thing.

Flee like a bird to the mountain, right?

The coronavirus has its arrow aimed at you.

And what are you going to do to rebuild it?

There's nothing you can do.

We're all, it's all beyond hope.

That's what's constantly being peddled to us.

Constantly.

That's the voice of fear.

You can listen to that or you can listen to the voice of faith.

Now, I find it very encouraging to see what David comes back to, what David rests in, what his confidence

rests in, in verses four through seven.

This is the voice of faith.

Read verses four to seven with me.

The Lord is in his holy temple.

Now you see why David starts by saying at the verse one, in the Lord, I take refuge.

The Lord is in his holy temple.

I want you to notice one more thing before we read the rest of verses four through seven, I want you to notice one more thing.

Notice that there is no place for God in the voice of fear.

There's no evaluation of that from a biblical perspective, from a God perspective, with God is not in the equation.

He's not in the mix.

He's not anywhere in this picture.

It's just physical danger.

Everything's being destroyed.

Run, flee, get out while you can, abandon it.

There's no room for God in that vantage point or that perspective at all.

The voice of fear does not incorporate any kind of sound doctrine or theology or perspective for God in it at all.

But the voice of faith does.

In fact, the voice of faith begins with this.

The Lord is in his holy temple.

Verse four.

The Lord's throne is in heaven.

His eyes behold, his eyelids test the sons of men.

The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked and the one who loves violence his soul hates.

Upon the wicked, he will rain snares.

Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.

For the Lord is righteous.

He loves righteousness.

The upright will behold his face.

That is beautiful.

That's the voice of faith.

Now notice that all of that is about the Lord.

He is in heaven, is in temple.

His throne is in the heaven.

He rules in that way.

He tests the sons of men.

He knows the sons of men.

He will punish the wicked and he will fulfill his purpose to the righteous because he loves the righteous.

Let's just look at, look at each one of those for just a moment.

He begins with the fact that the Lord is in heaven.

Verse four.

The Lord is in his holy temple.

That is that God is there and we are here.

And even though he is there and we are here, he has not abandoned us, his people.

I like the way Matthew Henry said it.

He said we are out of his sight, but sorry, he is out of our sight, but we are never out of his, that's perfect.

The Lord is in heaven.

That's the first thing to remember.

He is in his tabernacle.

He is in his holy temple.

He is in his place.

He is in heaven.

And though he is not visible to us, we are never invisible to him.

We always have to remember that.

Though he might be out of our sight, we cannot behold him there.

We are never out of his sight.

Second, the Lord rules from heaven.

This is the next part of verse four.

The Lord's throne is in heaven.

It's not just that the Lord is in heaven as if the Lord has fled somewhere and gone somewhere else.

But the Lord's throne is in heaven.

This is the place from which he rules.

His throne is there.

His authority is there.

His ruling is there.

He's never outside of that.

It's the seat of his sovereignty and his rule is in heaven where he is at.

The Lord is on his throne.

He sits there on his throne and he rules over all the affairs of men.

He rules over all of the events of human history.

In the seat of his sovereignty and rule, he has utter and total, complete authority and dominion.

And as so often said in the book of Daniel, his dominion is an everlasting dominion.

And his sovereignty rules over all.

And his throne is an everlasting throne.

And he never steps away from it.

He never steps down from it.

He never offers up that sovereignty or that position of rule and authority.

Even, even when the wicked bend their bow and even when their arrows are ready and even when it is

dusk and the night is about to fall and the wicked are waiting for the darkness to finally

give that kill shot to the righteous.

Even when the wicked have destroyed the foundations of everything around us, even then, our God is in heaven.

His throne is in heaven.

That's our confidence.

Psalm 103 verse 19 says the Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his sovereignty rules over all.

Psalm 2 verse 4, he who sits in the heavens laughs at the scoffing and the mockery of the nations.

The Lord scoffs at them, all the raging of the nations.

Psalm 2 verse 1, why do the nations rage?

And the people's plot a vain thing, saying we will cast off his cords from us.

And we will, we'll cast off God's rule.

We'll cast off his authority and we will do our own thing.

And so like a, like a pot under heavy heat boiling, the nations are raging.

It's constantly stirring and raging in the nations.

My, one of my favorite verses in all of the Psalter, Psalm 2 verse 4, the Lord sits in the heavens and he laughs.

He scoffs at them.

They are the object of his derision and his mockery, even from his throne.

All the raging of the nations, all the wicked who destroy the foundations and make ready their bow against the

righteous.

The Lord mocks them.

He scoffs at them and he laughs at them.

Psalm 115 verse 3, but our God is in the heavens and he does everything he can do.

No, our God is in the heavens and he does what he pleases.

Psalm 9 verse 7, the Lord abides forever and he has established his throne for.

Judgment.

Friends, I'm convinced of this.

If you and I could, with our physical eyes for one moment, if we were allowed to look

into heaven and to see God seated on his throne and that glory

and those angels and see surrounding him the hosts of heaven

singing constantly day and night, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come, the Almighty.

If we could see that worship and we could hear that with our ears and if we could see with our physical eyes into heaven right

now to see this reality of our God seated on his throne, ruling over all, if we were allowed to

glimpse that, I am convinced that we would never fear anything ever again.

And just because we cannot see it does not mean it is not happening and it is not.

True.

It's just that we can't see it.

And so we are in fear and we feel the despair of if the earth crumbles, if the

foundations crumble, what will the righteous do if we could just but see God on his throne?

Matthew Henry says this, let us by faith see God on his throne, on his throne of

glory, infinitely transcending the splendor and majesty of earthly princes, on his

throne of government, giving law, giving motion and giving aim to all creatures, on

his throne of judgment, rendering to every man according to his works and on his throne of grace to which

his people may come boldly for mercy and grace.

We shall then see no reason to be discouraged by the pride and power of oppressors

or any of the afflictions that attend the righteous.

Close quote.

If we could God see God on his throne of glory, of government,

of judgment and of grace, if we could behold that, we would never fear anything.

Not only is he in heaven and not only does he rule in sovereignty from heaven,

but he perfectly knows all men.

Look at verse 5, the end of verse 4, his eyes behold, his eyelids test the

sons of.

Men.

The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked so he knows their works and he knows their substance and he

knows their motives and their character and their deeds and their intentions.

He knows all of it.

He knows their plans.

Yes, the wicked destroy the foundations.

Yes, the wicked make their bow ready and put the arrows in it and are waiting at dusk for the darkness to fall so

that they can kill the righteous, they can destroy the righteous, that they can execute their plans.

Yes, the wicked plot and plan all of that.

But our Lord is in heaven.

He rules from heaven.

His eyelids test the sons of men, the righteous and the wicked.

And I would say that the Lord knows those who are his so that the wicked cannot get away with their

evil deeds.

They cannot get away with their wicked intentions.

And further, the righteous also cannot escape his notice because his eyelids test the sons of men,

the righteous and the wicked, and he knows those who are his and he protects them and he keeps them.

And this, I think, is very encouraging because he knows the righteous and he knows who are his.

He will not confuse us, the righteous, with the wicked on the day of judgment.

It's not going to get us mixed up.

He's not going to, we're not going to get lost among the wicked in his assessment of all of humanity, and nor will

the wicked get lost among the righteous so that he overlooks any of their transgressions or their

or their wickedness or their evil deeds.

He knows them.

And he will not escape his notice.

The wicked will not escape his judgment.

He tests the righteous and the wicked.

He tries them.

And the violent man, verse five says, the one who loves violence, his soul hates

the one who loves violence, his, that is God's soul, hates.

The violent man is the one with his arrows drawn, with his bow made ready, aimed at the righteous,

ready to do them harm.

The one who has destroyed the foundations, that is the violent man.

And Psalm 9, sorry, Psalm 11, verse 5 says, the Lord tests the righteous and the wicked

and the one who loves violence, that is the wicked one, God's soul hates.

I ask you a question.

Does God hate the wicked?

Does that make you uncomfortable?

God would hate the wicked?

What does it say in verse five?

The one who loves violence, God's soul hates.

It's not the violence that the psalm says that God hates.

It says that God hates the one, the person, the man, the woman, the individual, the wicked one who

loves the violence.

The individual who loves the violence, God's soul hates him.

That make you uncomfortable?

I ask you this, do you have room in your theology for a passion inside of God

that hates the wicked?

Or are you tempted to say, well, look, that can't possibly be, that's just one of those Old

Testament, really awkward phrases in the Psalms, you know, like the ones that talk about the

children of Babylon being bashed against the rocks and all that stuff, those uncomfortable verses that we like to skip over.

Is there room in your theology for a God that feels that way about the wicked?

And just in case you think this is some oddity, some unique verse that we should just gloss over, maybe translate

it a different way so that we maintain our sappy sentimental God that we often worship.

In case you think it's just in sort of a one -off, Psalm 5 verses 4 through 6, turn

over there for a moment.

Psalm 5, the fifth Psalm, look at verse 4.

Now typically you like to say, well, look, God hates the sin, but he loves the sinner.

Here are two passages in the Psalm that describe a hatred that God has, not just for the sin, but for

the sinner.

Not just for the sinner, but for the wicked.

Not just for the sin, but for the sinner.

The problem with us as Christians is that oftentimes we have such a sloppy,

slobbering, sentimental, sappy, a lot of S's in that sentence, view of God, that we think

that God needs the wicked.

He needs their love.

He needs their affection.

And he's constantly in heaven, on the verge of tears, wondering what's going to become of them if they don't repent and if they don't

join my side.

And I need them.

And I love them so much, just constantly, just about to weep, always just about to cry, I feel so bad for them.

That's the modern view of God.

Christian, that is not our God.

That is not our God.

We always think that God's heart is just bleeding so much for the wicked.

There's two Psalms that describe God abhorring the man of bloodshed

and deceit.

The Lord abhors the wicked man.

You hate not just all iniquity, but all who do iniquity, the

person that does this.

Psalm 11, going back there, verse five, the one who loves violence, God's soul hates.

Does that mean that God does not love the sinner?

That's not what I'm saying.

There is a love for God in the sinner.

It's not for the sinner.

It's not his redeeming love.

It's not the love that he has for his people whom he foreknew for the foundation.

Of the world.

It's not the love that God has for the wicked.

He doesn't have that love because all those whom he foreknows, foreloves in that way, he

calls to himself and he grants them faith and repentance and brings them through and secures them for

himself and sanctifies them and conforms them to the image of Christ and pours out on them grace and brings them to be

with him for all of eternity.

All whom God loves in that way, he does all of those things for that person.

But God is never said to foreknow the sinner in that way.

So there is in God both a love for the sinner, and I think a love that you and I cannot comprehend, a love

that is beyond our ability to describe and even experience ourselves or to even know.

God has that kind of a love for the sinner because the sinner is created in his.

Image.

The sinner is an image bearer.

The sinner is one of his creatures.

And so by his common grace, God does have a love for him.

But there are two different affections that reside in our God at the same time, a

love for the sinner and a hatred for the sinner, and not just a hatred for his.

Sin.

Psalm 7 verse 1 says, God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation,

indignation every day.

Toward what?

Just toward a general concept of sin?

No, it's toward the sinner who is the object of his wrath while they abide as

children of wrath, just as we once were.

God is a holy and a righteous judge.

He is just and he is pure.

And verse 5 says, the one who loves violence, his soul hates.

God does love the wicked as well.

And just because you and I cannot maintain in our minds and in our affections,

those two passions, those two affections in perfect harmony and in perfect purity because we cannot

maintain that in ourselves for one in the same individual does not mean that God cannot either.

We shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that God is altogether like us, that since we can't possibly love and hate

the same individual under the same circumstances at the same time, that God is unable to do that as well.

That resides in God.

These two, they're not conflicting, they're complementary affections, love and

hatred for the sinner at one in the same time.

God is not like us.

We cannot keep or maintain those two passions in perfect purity and harmony

together, but God can.

And thus God will judge the wicked.

This is what verse 6 says, upon the wicked he will rain snares,

fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.

Do you get angry that the wicked hunt the righteous?

Verse 2, verses 1 and 2, that the bow is bent, that the arrows are there,

the dusk is falling, darkness is about ready to fall, and that the wicked have destroyed the foundations of everything.

Do you get angry at the wicked?

Do you long for the judgment, the righteousness of God to be vindicated?

Does those things upset you when the wicked flourish and the wicked seem blessed and the wicked

get away with everything and foundations crumble?

Does that bother you?

Well, the voice of fear says flee, get out.

The voice of faith says God will rain down snares upon the wicked,

fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.

The judgment of God upon the wicked was something that comforted David.

It was a source of great encouragement to him.

You see, this is a righteous perspective that David has in the second half of the psalm.

The perspective that says God is just and from his throne, which he has established for

judgment, God is going to rain down snares upon the wicked.

Now, that likewise is a hunting imagery.

What does a snare do?

A snare is something that once an animal or a person is caught in it, it seizes upon them like a bear

trap and doesn't allow them to move or to avoid being caught or to avoid being captured.

A snare does that.

And so the imagery is just like the hunting imagery back from verse two with the bow being made ready and the

arrows being made ready for the righteous.

It's in verses one to three, the wicked hunt the righteous.

In verses four through six, God hunts the wicked.

So God's going to rain down snares upon the wicked, meaning in the vivid imagery that the wicked will not

be able to escape in the day of judgment.

They will not be able to escape God.

They can't get away.

They can't flee.

And we are told to flee or we are tempted to flee, verses one and two, because of that danger, because there's

nothing we can do.

What did the righteous do?

But the wicked will not be able to flee God on the day of judgment when God rains down snares upon him.

Spurgeon said this, as in hunting with the lasso, the huntsman cast a snare from above upon his prey

to entangle its head or feet.

And so shall the Lord from above, with many twistings of the line of terror, surround, bind and take

captive the haters of his law.

Close quote.

Now, if God were to rain down just one snare upon the wicked, just one, that one snare,

because God rains it down upon them, that one snare would be enough to ensure that they would never escape or avoid

his judgment or his justice.

But God doesn't rain down a snare like raindrops from the sky.

God rains down snares, plural, upon the wicked.

They will not be able to escape.

They will not be able to flee to the mountain.

They will not.

They will call to the mountains to fall on him, on them, so that they may hide themselves from the wrath of the Lamb,

Revelation says.

But those mountains will not fall upon them.

Nothing will shield them from his judgment.

God will rain down snares.

They will not be able to escape because their judgment is both certain and sure, and it

is inescapable.

And that raining of snares so that they cannot get away from him will be followed by fire and brimstone and

burning wind and blasting heat.

Verse six, fire and brimstone and burning heat will be the portion of their cup.

That phrase burning heat.

One commentator suggested that that's the phrase that is used to describe the powerful wind that would blow across the

desert, that would just be suffocating and debilitating

when the sandstorm kicks up and that that blast of hot air just hits you and you feel like you're

standing in front of a blast furnace.

That's the idea is just a suffocating heat and the fire and the brimstone that God will himself will rain down upon the righteous.

Spurgeon said in that cup of wrath will be full of mercy.

That cup of wrath will be full of mercy.

Sorry, full of misery without a drop of mercy in it.

The cup of God's wrath will be full of misery without a drop of mercy in it.

Unbelievers mock this, by the way.

They say, oh, yeah, well, the idea of God judging us and God destroying us and God having the last laugh.

The unbeliever scoffs at that.

He laughs at that.

He thinks that that's just that's funny.

That's stupid.

God's a God's the invisible man in the sky that he won't have his day.

We'll have our day.

The nations rage.

Remember?

And it's God who scoffs at them, at the nations.

The nation's rage and the people's plot, a vain thing.

And why is it that God must judge?

Why is it that God will rain down snares upon the wicked, followed by fire and brimstone and

burning wind?

And then a cup of misery will be their portion forever and ever.

Why would God do that?

Verse seven, because the Lord is righteous.

That's why he loves righteousness.

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

And because God loves righteousness, he will vindicate righteousness because God himself is righteous.

He must must punish sinners.

It cannot be otherwise.

He must punish sin if he doesn't punish sin.

And if he doesn't pour out the fine fury of his wrath to the very last drop for every

sin, every committed, ever committed, then God is not righteous.

He must punish sin because he is righteous and because the Lord loves

righteousness.

And he loves when righteousness is exalted and when righteousness is vindicated.

And the Lord loves when sin is judged and destroyed and removed

forevermore.

The Lord loves those things.

For the Lord is righteous.

That is his nature and that is his character.

And if you understand that the Lord loves righteousness, then you can understand why it is that

the man who loves violence, God's soul hates.

God doesn't hate the sinner in that sense, because the sinner is just some innocent person, just a human

being.

God hates the sinner in that way and in that circumstance because that sinner loves iniquity

and God loves righteousness.

And there is no righteousness in that sinner, that impenitent sinner.

And so there is nothing in that impenitent sinner that would draw or lure the love of

God who loves righteousness toward them.

So the one who hates righteousness, God's soul hates.

The one who loves righteousness, God's soul loves.

Because God is righteous, he must love righteousness.

And he cannot love wickedness and he cannot love iniquity, nor can

he love those things, the lover of violence or the lover

of iniquity or the lover of sin.

God hates the wicked.

God hates wickedness.

He hates the one who loves wickedness.

Why?

Because God himself loves righteousness.

But as I said, there is in God at one and the same time, these two perfectly compatible

emotions, affections, loves, if you will.

He loves righteousness, which causes him to hate the evildoer.

And he loves the sinner because the sinner is created in his image.

But it is not the sinner's sin or sinfulness that God in any way loves.

God loves the sinner because the sinner still, though it is marred, bears his image.

And that is what God loves even in the sinful sinner, while at the same time holding in

his heart the affection, the hatred for the wickedness and for the sinner himself.

Perfectly in perfect harmony.

That explains why it is that God will judge the upright, or sorry, the wicked.

While he loves and secures the blessings for the upright.

Verse 7, the Lord loves righteousness, he loves righteousness, and the upright will behold his face.

That's where David ends.

So the psalm begins with the wicked hunting the righteous.

The psalm ends with our God hunting the wicked.

The psalm begins with the wicked's hatred for the righteous.

And the psalm ends with God's hatred for the wicked.

The wicked destroy the foundations of the earth.

But God's throne sits on a foundation of righteousness, which God loves.

And though the wicked may make war against the foundation of God's throne, though they may make war against the righteous, they can never

overcome it because God loves righteousness.

And he who sits in the heavens laughs and scoffs at them who hate the righteous and make war against the

righteous and destroy the foundations of everything that is righteous or they might reflect righteousness.

I want you to notice in the psalm that God's judgment on the wicked is a cause of joy,

celebration and worship.

Now, I ask you, do you have room in your theology for that?

The David's source of comfort and encouragement was the fact that God is going

to rain down snares upon the wicked.

Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.

Does that encourage you?

Do you delight in that?

Can you worship a God who will judge the wicked?

And can you delight in it when it happens?

Can you rejoice in it when it happens?

Do you have room in your theology for that to give to worship God on the basis of

his judgments of the wicked?

That's hard, isn't it?

I hope you're going to make room in your theology for that.

Let me read to you.

In fact, you could just look up back to Psalms, Psalm 9.

Read with me Psalm 9, verse 1 and 2 first.

I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart.

I will tell of all your wonders.

I will be glad and exult in you.

I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

And that's fantastic, isn't it?

That's worship.

That's celebration.

He is a God of wonders.

He does these wondrous deeds.

I will exult and I will praise you with all of my heart.

I will be joyful beyond description.

He is worshiping.

He is encouraged.

He is edified by this.

He is rejoicing in something.

What is he rejoicing in?

What does the psalmist, David, notice the prescript, what is the psalmist rejoicing in?

What thrills his heart with worship and adoration and praise for God to such an extent?

Look at verse 3.

When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before you.

For you have maintained my just cause.

You have sat on a throne judging righteously.

You have rebuked the nations.

You have destroyed the wicked.

You have blotted out their name forever and ever.

The enemy has come to an end in perpetual ruins.

And you have uprooted the cities.

The very memory of them has perished.

That's amazing.

What causes David to give thanks to God with all of his heart?

The destruction of the wicked.

We live in a day when that is not popular, but I'll tell you, Christian, you better make room for that in your theology.

And I know the temptation of some is to say, well, that's see, that's Old Testament.

They got it all wrong.

All those people back then, they didn't quite understand who God was or, you know, Jesus came and he set all that straight.

And we're not supposed to, we're not supposed to, we're not supposed to take any kind of joy or

gladness or worship in the celebration or any kind of celebration in the destruction of the wicked.

Now, is that right?

Have you read the book of Revelation?

You know what happens in Revelation on the cusp and at the result of every time God

pours out his judgment upon the wicked?

You know what happens in heaven?

Do the saints up there mourn and genuflect and, oh, just wish I didn't have to see

that happen.

Is that how the saints respond in heaven?

No, they don't.

There is the angels sing and the saints sing and they say, finally, God is taking vengeance for his elect.

How long, oh Lord, will you delay in judging the wicked?

That's the cry in heaven.

How long will this go on while the wicked do this?

While the martyr's blood is being spilled?

How long, oh Lord, will you endure this?

And they want to see the righteousness and the justice of God vindicated on the earth.

And then when the bowls are opened and the trumpets are sound and the seals are broken and the one, the lamb, stands up

in the presence of heaven, who has authority to crack open that seal, the title deed to the earth, there is

worship in heaven.

Finally, he will do it.

And as the seals are released and the trumpets are blown and the bowls of wrath are poured out, there is worship in heaven continually.

If you are made uncomfortable with the thought of rejoicing in God's judgment on the wicked for their wickedness,

you are going to feel very uncomfortable in heaven.

You're going to feel very uncomfortable there because this is not just something that was relegated to the Old Testament that should make us uncomfortable.

And we just kind of gloss over that.

Friends, what brought David joy in the midst of the destruction and

the danger that he faced was this consoling thought that God will rain down snares upon them

and he will judge the wicked and we can exult in God because we will behold his face.

That's the voice of faith.

We can rejoice in that.

Just recently, it was announced that the leader of South Korea is in a vegetative state or dead or

very much alive, depending on which news outlet you read or you watch.

But I mean, he's somewhere between the most alive man on the face of the planet and the deader than Custer's horse.

He's somewhere in between that spectrum, vegetative state, hobbling around, limping.

I haven't seen from him.

He's maybe even dead by the time I say these words.

But in the event like that, what should we as Christians, how should we view that?

I don't think we should mock that.

I think that there needs to be two emotions in us.

Number one, it is sad that he did not know Christ and it's sad that he is going to face that

judgment.

But at the same time, we can rejoice in the judgment of God.

It can cause our heart to exult that somebody who has caused that much death and destruction is gone.

And if we cannot rejoice in the judgments of God, the problem is not with God.

The problem is not with his judgments.

The problem is with us.

I mean, who's more righteous?

David, who rejoiced in the judgments of God upon the wicked, or us who think that we're going to be more

compassionate than God, compassionate than God and not take any joy in that at all.

Did Jesus hate the sinners?

Didn't Jesus weep over Jerusalem?

Yeah, he did.

He did weep over Jerusalem.

That's an appropriate emotion for us to have, to weep over the lost, to cry for their

unsaved state, to be terrified at the fact that they will face that judgment.

That is an appropriate emotion.

But Jesus also said some of the most scathing, condemning words ever uttered toward those same

Pharisees in Matthew chapter 23.

And it is Jesus himself who will cast them into the lake of fire.

It is Jesus himself whom they will stand before and he will pronounce judgment upon them and he

will execute that judgment and cast them away from his presence into an eternal destruction.

We can have both of those emotions.

What I want you to see in Psalm chapter 11 is what caused David to rejoice.

Our God is in heaven.

Our God rules in heaven.

Our God knows the sons of men.

He tries them.

He tests them.

God judges the wicked and God will uphold and comfort and strengthen

and bless the upright.

That's the voice of faith.

Don't lose perspective on that.

As the foundations crumble, as the nations rage, as everybody paddles

panic porn on the news every single night, as they want us to live in fear, we don't need to live in

fear.

We don't need to listen to the voice of fear that says, flee, get out while you can.

You're in danger.

There's nothing you can do.

We can listen to the voice of faith.

We can listen to what is true.

In the Lord we take refuge.

Why?

Because he is in heaven, rules on his throne.

He knows the wicked and he knows the righteous.

He judges the wicked and he will reward the righteous.

Look at the last phrase of verse 7.

The upright will behold his face.

We will see that.

We don't now, but we will.

The righteous will.

And in that day we will praise and glorify and honor our great God in heaven who has

delivered the righteous and who will destroy the wicked.

And we will rejoice in those two things.

And we can even now rejoice in those two things.

Number one, that God judges wickedness and he judges the wicked.

We can rejoice in that, exult in that, worship a God who does that.

And at the same time, we can rejoice in the fact that he has delivered us from that wickedness so that we are not the

objects of his wrath.

We are the objects of his grace.

And those two things, the terror of God's judgment upon the wicked and our own understanding of what we have been delivered

from, ought to and should motivate us to share the good news of the gospel

with people who so desperately need it so that they will avoid that judgment.

Because everybody's sin will be judged.

It'll either be judged on the person who commits the sin or it will be poured out.

The wrath of that judgment will be poured out upon the substitute who stands in the stead of the sinner.

Every sin will be paid for.

Every last one.

Either the sinner will bear that sin as he experiences the wrath of God and eternal destruction, paying for his sin for all of eternity.

Either the sinner will pay for that sin or a substitute pays for that sin.

But the sin will be paid for.

Believer Christian, as you and I face everything that's going on around us, we can take comfort

in this.

The God, our God, knows everything that is unfolding, everything that is transpiring.

He sits in the heavens and he is worthy to be praised for delivering us from our wickedness and

for eventually delivering us from all of the wicked who seek to do us harm and who seek to destroy everything

around us.

Take comfort in that.

We can rejoice in it.

Listen to the voice of faith and not the voice of fear.

All right, Psalm 11, let us bow in prayer together and then

we'll sign off for the day.

Let's pray.

Father, you are righteous, God.

You are righteous in all of your doings, in all of your activities, in all of your judgments.

There is no unrighteousness with you.

You cannot look upon unrighteousness with favor, for you are a holy God and you are

good.

And so as your people, we rejoice that by your grace and by your providence, you have delivered us from our own wickedness.

The very things that we once delighted in that damned us, we took joy in those things and we mocked you

and we hated you.

And then you have changed our hearts and changed our minds and drawn us to your son and granted us repentance and faith

so that we might come to you and hate those things that we once loved.

And now we love those things that we once hated.

And we're grateful that you have wrought that in our hearts and our lives and help us to understand and to assess all of

the righteous and all of the wicked from the perspective of what you have revealed in scripture.

Help us to take joy and delight, not only when you deliver the wicked from their wickedness, as you have us,

but help us to take joy and delight when you deliver the righteous from the wicked by destroying the wicked and

removing it from the earth.

For eventually we will praise you and glorify you in heaven, in glorified states for all of

eternity, for your triumph over the wicked, over sin and over

all of your enemies.

And so we would just ask that you would help us to fix our hearts and our minds upon these comforting truths

that even while the righteous are hated and while we are hunted and while the foundations are being

destroyed, you are doing a work around us.

You are doing a work in us and you are doing a work through us.

So be honored in that, we pray, be glorified through that and continue to comfort our hearts with it.

We thank you for your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has made all these things possible.

And we look forward to our worship and our fellowship time again with one another next week.

And we pray your blessing upon the week that is to come here in Christ's name.

Amen.