Sunday Sermon: God Hates the Wicked (Psalm 5)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. Let us consider these words together and you may remain seated as we read.

Psalm 5, beginning in verse 1. Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my groaning.

Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my

God, for to you do I pray. O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice.

In the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. For you are not a

God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you.

The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers.

You destroy those who speak lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house.

I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you. Lead me,

O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies. Make your way straight before me.

For there is no truth in their mouth. Their inmost self is destruction.

Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue. Make them bear their guiltiness,

O God. Let them fall by their own counsels because of the abundance of their transgressions.

Cast them out for they have rebelled against you. But let all who take refuge in you rejoice.

Let them sing for joy and spread your protection over them that those who love your name may exalt in you.

For you bless the righteous, O Lord. You cover him with favor as with a shield.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to your word today, I pray that we would consider ourselves, our unworthiness to come before the throne.

David, even in his humility, praying before God here, may we have humble hearts as we come into your presence.

May we consider that we are sinners unworthy to be in company with God, and yet you have made us righteous through the giving of your son,

Jesus Christ. We remember his incarnation here in this holiday season.

May we also remember that he as God -man intercedes for us at the very throne of grace, and he is coming back again to judge the living and the dead.

We exalt his holy name this morning as we consider ourselves and your holiness.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray, and all God's people said, amen. I was contacted by someone earlier this week who said to me, you preach hate and will not be at the right hand of your

Lord when you pass. You will be far removed from grace, cold, silent, and alone.

My first thought when I saw that comment, you preach hate, was, wow, you preach hate. He must know what

I'm preaching about this Sunday. I did ask this individual to show me whatever example he saw of me preaching hate, and he didn't have one.

So it was just another one of those wanting to belittle, not really correct in righteousness.

Psalm 5 presents us with something that most professing Christians do not like to talk about,

God hating anyone. After all, 1 John 4, 8 says,

God is love. Is not love the opposite of hate? So if God is love, then he cannot have any hate in him, can he?

But as I've heard Paul Washer say, in order to be loving, you must hate.

Because I love children, I hate abortion. Because I love liberty,

I hate anything that would take it away from me or from my neighbor. Because I love what is good,

I hate what is evil. That's Romans 12, 9, by the way. As I've heard someone else say,

God is love, but that's not all he is. He is a righteous God who feels indignation every day,

Psalm 711. He hates the wicked and the one who does violence, Psalm 115.

He lets loose his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress.

A company of destroying angels, Psalm 78, 49. He makes dreadful assaults,

Psalm 88, 16. He is a God of vengeance, which is exactly how Psalm 94 begins.

O Lord, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth. O judge the earth, repay the wicked for what they deserve.

So we consider at Christmastime this baby that was born and put in a manger, what humble beginnings of our

Lord God. That he would leave his throne in heaven and put on the likeness of sinful man and dwell among us.

And so we must consider this, not just at Christmas, but all the time, that Christ in his humility came for our benefit.

That we also, desiring Christ's likeness, would be humble. But we must also consider that Jesus is not a baby anymore.

And he will come to judge the nations. This child that was born in Bethlehem is also he who was spoken about in Revelation 19 as smashing the nations with a rod of iron.

This God who judges, is that your God? Can you worship the

God of vengeance? I heard a false teacher in Yukon, Oklahoma, say that if hell is real, that would make

God a sadist. Really? You wanna stand before God and tell him that?

See, the implications of God's holiness and his righteous character mean that he will hate iniquity.

And all who do wrong. The fact that he is eternal means that his countenance will be against them who do evil forever.

If you only want a God who is all mercy and love and forgiveness, but you would never worship a

God who is also angry and jealous and vengeful, you worship an idol. You worship a

God of your own making, that is not the God of the Bible. Furthermore, I would put to you that your religion is a contradiction.

How can mercy exist where there is no justice against the unrighteous?

If you do not know that God hates your sin, then you cannot know how

God shows mercy to you, the sinner, God's grace, his undeserved favor.

Cannot be gracious if you do not know that what you deserve is judgment for your rebellion.

Now having just finished the book of Jonah, it's interesting here to consider that Jonah did not actually want

God to be merciful and kind. That's what we want. We want God to be merciful, but Jonah wanted the

God of vengeance to pour out his wrath on the city of Nineveh. As much as we might recoil at the thought of God hating anyone,

I'd venture to say that more of us are like Jonah than we think. Justice for thee, but not for me, right?

It's only when we consider all the attributes of God that we can worship him rightly.

He is a God of wrath and justice. But it's in light of knowing this that we know he is a

God of mercy and grace. Let us consider again

Psalm 5. We'll do a brief overview of Psalm 5 here and then go through it line by line.

This is a Psalm of David as it says right at the very beginning. If you just set your eyes on the text, you might notice that there are some clear breaks in here and the editors may have done that for you.

Psalm 5 is broken up into five sections, verses 1 through 3 is one section, verses 4 through 6 another, verses 7 through 8, verses 9 and 10, and then finally verses 11 and 12.

The first section opens the prayer, an appeal to be heard, and then the next four sections go back and forth, contrasting the wicked with the righteous.

What does David want? Ultimately, as David is the one who has written this psalm, as he is the one who is praying here, what does he want?

He's asking the Lord to deliver the righteous and destroy the wicked.

Verse 10, make them bear their guilt, O God. In verse 11, bless the righteous,

O Lord, and cover them with favor. Now, if like David, you want justice, you want the wicked sentenced and the righteous saved, you better be sure that you are on the side of the righteous and not of the wicked.

David says in verse 8, lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness. What is truly righteous is not according to the mind of man, but according to the will of God.

How do we know what the will of the Lord is? We know it according to his word.

Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead. So may we hear the word of the King and do what he says for his subjects to do.

Now, there's our bird's eye view of Psalm 5. Let's look at it more intently here. Verse 1 says, give ear to my words,

O Lord. And that's capital L -O -R -D in all caps, so we know that this is the name

Yahweh in Hebrew. Give ear to my words, O Yahweh, consider my groaning.

Let's consider two things about the introduction of this psalm. First of all, every psalm begins with what's called a parallelism.

We have 150 psalms, and every psalm begins with a parallelism. It's the same statement repeated.

Sometimes that parallelism is in the first verse, and sometimes it's in the first two verses. In this case, it's in verses 1 and 2.

Give ear to my words, consider my groaning, give attention to my cry, for to you do

I pray. There's another parallelism in verse 3. O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice, in the morning

I prepare a sacrifice for you. Remember that what we're reading here is essentially song lyrics.

And this style, these parallelisms, this was a form of Hebrew poetry. We lose in translation a little bit of that brilliance that shines, not just in the message, but even in the form of communicating that message.

Nonetheless, a songwriter, somebody, for example, as skilled as Andrew, when he takes a psalm and he adds music to it, sometimes we'll sing these psalms that have music, he still wants to preserve what we might call the mechanics of the lyrics as much as he also wants to preserve the message of truth.

The Holy Spirit inspired this in the genre of literature that we're reading in.

And so it's wonderful to consider the poeticness of even what we behold here in the psalms.

Here's a second thing to consider about this introduction. David begins by saying, give ear to my words,

O Lord. Who is David? David's a king, right? And not just any king, he's the greatest king on earth.

Now, how can I say that? He does not have an empire. He does not have the largest army.

His kingdom is not even the highest -grossing kingdom in the world. So what makes him the greatest king?

Because he leads the people of God. Of all the people on earth, it is

Israel that God has chosen to put his name. Whoever is blessed to be chosen of God to lead this people and to do so faithfully, he's the greatest leader on the planet.

And yet, David's address in his humility is to a king even greater than he.

This appeal, give ear to my words, O Yahweh. He's asking to enter the presence of the king.

Look at verse 2. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my king and my

God, that the king of kings would listen to and consider his request.

My brothers and sisters, what a privilege it is for us to pray that we might enter into the throne room of the creator of the universe.

Amen. Give ear to my words. The second part, give consideration to my groaning.

The Hebrew word here is also translated meditation. So some translations might say consider my meditation.

But this is a meditation with earnestness. It's not really grieving. That's how we might often consider groaning, but rather thinking so deeply to be so in one's thoughts that it might feel like labor, like it becomes even physically stressing to you.

The only other place this word is used is in Psalm 39 3, which says, my heart became hot within me.

I mused, the fire burned, and I spoke with my tongue. As if there could be like spiritual blood, sweat, and tears to someone's prayers.

That's the kind of meditation that we're talking about here. David continues this earnest prayer in verse 3.

Oh Lord, oh Yahweh, in the morning, you hear my voice. In the morning,

I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. So what time of day might

David be praying this? He's praying it in the morning. First order of business of the day,

I talk to God. I remember the words of Martin Luther, 16th century theologian, who was asked,

Dr. Luther, what do you plan to do today? And he replied, work, work from early until late.

In fact, I have so much to do today that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.

Somebody felt the burden of that when I said that. As short as this psalm is, this is not a hurried prayer on David's part.

First of all, it's preceded by groaning. And then secondly, it involves sacrifice. That's not some hurry up task that you can do, right?

David begins the day with meditation, prayer, and sacrifice. In the morning,

I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. How much more would we consider our sin if we were having to slaughter an animal at the same time we were praying to God, right?

The word here for watch is the same for watchtower. Next week, Pastor Tom is going to take us through the book of Habakkuk, as mentioned in your bulletin.

I encourage you to read that before next week. It's a pretty short book, just three chapters. At the start of chapter 2,

Habakkuk says, I will take my stand at my watch post and station myself on the tower.

And I will look out to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

David has the same watchfulness here, as if he has taken his place in the watchtower to see what

God will say. I'm going to make my appeal to the king of kings, and then I'm going to watch for his answer.

Not just to hear what he will say, but to also see what he will do. As Abraham boldly asked of the

Lord, Genesis 18 .25, Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?

Now this concludes the first movement of Psalm 5. But as I said, the next four movements go back and forth between how

God considers the wicked and David asking that he consider the righteous. David knows that God is a

God who acts. He does not just sit on his throne and do nothing. There will be a response to his prayer, hence this statement of him watching, his confidence in watching.

The next section begins with this word for. This is David's confidence that God will respond.

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness. In other words,

God is not going to sit idly by and do nothing. Evil may not dwell with you,

David says. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes.

So we have three lines, three not statements, and three negative descriptions.

That is going to be followed by three positive affirmations. You hate all evildoers.

You destroy those who speak lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

Because God is like this, he responds like this. That's what we have here in this section.

Also consider who it is the Lord hates. Who does he hate? What are our descriptors here?

He hates the boastful. He hates evildoers, liars, the bloodthirsty, and the deceitful.

The boastful are the arrogant. They are the self -praisers.

It's interesting to consider that the same Hebrew word is also used to denote praise unto a false god.

Isn't that fascinating? So the word that describes the boastful also describes praying to a false god.

In the book of Judges, after Samson has been defeated and captured by the Philistines, it says in Judges 16 -24,

And when the people saw him, they praised their god, little g, for they said,

Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.

The reality is that it was the Lord who gave Samson into their hand. But that aside, the word for praising their false god is the same word for the boastful in Psalm 5 -5.

To praise a false god is essentially to praise yourself. And self -praise is idolatry.

What of these self -praisers? They shall not stand before the Lord. If a man ever stands before a king, he is considered a distinguished person.

You get invited into the presence of a king, well that says something about you. He has the favor of the king.

So to say the boastful shall not stand before you is to say that they will not enter the presence of God.

They are not worthy to address the king. Rather than stand in favor, they shall fall in judgment.

The next descriptor is evildoers. Or in some translations, workers of iniquity.

These are all who do wrong. According to what God says in his word is wrong.

They break the law of God. And as it says here in verse 5, God hates workers of iniquity.

We might think that's harsh. But we read it over and over and over again in the scriptures.

That God hates those who do evil. Fifteen times in just the first fifty psalms

Do we read about God's hatred not just for sin, but those who do sin? Nineteenth century

American theologian Albert Barnes once said, Nothing is more constantly affirmed in the scriptures than that God hates all forms of evil.

Through most of 2021, we studied the Sermon on the Mount. It wasn't that long ago that we heard these words in Matthew 7, 21 to 23.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven.

On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

And then I will declare to them, Jesus said, I never knew you.

Depart from me. You what? Workers of iniquity.

Workers of lawlessness. Evildoers. Tell me, do you think that God will cast into an eternal hell those whom he loves?

Of course not. God would not send people he loves to judgment.

Who will he send to eternal torment? Those whom he hates.

Those who do iniquity. Now, if you hate that idea, you think too little of sin.

Is sin not that big a deal to you? It's not just the world that shrugs at sin.

Many professing believers live and speak as if sin is not a serious issue.

Earlier this month, the New York Post reported that Pope Francis said, extramarital sins are not that serious.

What do you think people are likely to do when they hear something like that? They're likely to continue in sexual sin and not feel guilty about it.

And thus what happens? They come into judgment. And don't think that the

Pope is some kind of outlier in this. First of all, he's probably the most influential religious figure on planet

Earth. But secondly, the current and previous Southern Baptist Convention presidents have said something similar.

They said the Bible whispers about sexual sin. Oh yeah? Tell that to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jude 7 says, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Does that sound like a whisper to you? Does that sound like sin is not that serious?

Now sexual sin is certainly the passion of our age, but of course you know there are more sins than these.

Sin is anything that is contrary to the law of God. We find a very simple definition of sin in 1

John 3, 4. Sin is lawlessness. As I've heard R .C.

Sproul say, sin is cosmic treason against the creator of the universe.

God has said in his law and in his word what is right and what is wrong.

God takes his word very seriously and so should we. So how serious is it when we go against his word and we sin?

Listen my friends, sin is the reason we die. Death came into the picture because man sinned.

Romans 6 .23, for the wages of sin is death. Romans 8 .20 says that God subjected all creation to futility because of our sin.

Why did your bones ache when you got out of bed this morning? Because of sin.

Not because you're being punished for something you didn't confess last night, but because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

In God there is no sin, but in us there is plenty. God is so holy he cannot even look upon sin.

As we come to Habakkuk next week, chapter 1 verse 13, he is of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong.

Isaiah 64 verse 6 says of us that even our best deeds are like a polluted garment before a holy

God. The boastful cannot stand before him. Not only this, but he hates all those who are workers of iniquity.

What will God do to them? Verse 6, you destroy those who speak lies.

Even a lie is so serious a sin that it is deserving of death.

Consider that Jesus says in John 14 .6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but by me. If he is the truth, then what fellowship does the liar have with he who calls himself truth?

Earlier in John 8, 43 to 45, Jesus said, Why do you not understand what

I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

But because I tell the truth, Jesus said, you do not believe me. In Revelation 21 .8,

Jesus says, As for the cowardly, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

My friends, you hear lies every day. You have even lied to yourself.

You've lied to people that you love. You have lies told to you every day.

The news is full of lies. Elections are decided by lies. This COVID pandemic has been filled with lies.

Critical race theory and the woke movement built upon lies. Darwinian evolution taught in our public schools telling you that you're nothing more than a cosmic accident.

It's just a wicked lie. Lies destroy marriages. Lies break up churches.

Lies cause conflict among people and war between nations. Lies lead to death and bloodshed.

Consider the next verse, Psalm 5, 6, going on to say, Yahweh abhors, that is, that he detests the bloodthirsty and the deceitful man.

The bloodthirsty might also be translated men of bloodshed. They are men and even women who have no regard for the lives of others.

They may literally strike somebody else and shed the blood of another, or it may be that the disposition of their heart is to not care whether another person lives or dies.

Remember that Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5, you have heard it said, you'll love your neighbor and hate your enemies, but I say love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

He said that if you have even called your brother names, you are guilty of the fire of hell, for it is as if you have murdered your brother in your heart.

So even the bloodthirsty here may not be a person who literally sheds another person's blood, but somebody who doesn't even care about another person's blood.

The Lord is not indifferent to these things. He hates them and those who do them, along with the deceitful, the deceptive, the treacherous.

Notice how all of these are connected. The boastful, evildoers, liars, bloodthirsty, deceitful, all of these love lies and hate truth.

They love that which destroys instead of that which gives life. And David contrasts himself with these.

The next section, verses 7 and 8, he says, but I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house.

I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you. Lead me,

O Lord, in your righteousness, because of my enemies make your way straight before me.

Notice here that unlike the boastful, David does not boast in himself.

He is not standing there saying like the Pharisee in Luke chapter 18, oh

God, thank you that I'm not like these other people. That's not how David is approaching this. David humbles himself before the

Lord. He does not say thank you God that I'm not like the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

Rather, he recognizes that the righteousness he has comes not from himself, but it comes from God.

The boastful cannot stand before God, but where does David go? David enters

God's house through the abundance of your steadfast love.

Not because David is anyone great, but because God is great. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you.

I will honor you. I will fear you. The liar does no such thing. There is no fear of God before his eyes, as it says in Psalm 36, 1.

Now, when we consider the prayer of Jonah, Jonah chapter 2, verse 4, it says, I said,

I am driven away from your sight, yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.

Jonah knew he was being punished, but because of God's loving kindness, he would be delivered.

And the fulfillment of his deliverance would be in that he would get to look upon the temple of the Lord again, literally, physically.

He'd be there in Jerusalem and get to look upon the temple of God. That's how he knew and had confidence in his deliverance.

My brethren, do we not also look upon the house of God? Jesus described himself as the temple, and here we are blessed to look upon Christ as our

Lord and our Savior. The scriptures also call the church the house of God.

In 1 Corinthians 3 .16, Paul says, Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells within you?

Now, there's another place in 1 Corinthians where Paul refers to the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit, but in this reference, 1

Corinthians 3 .16, he's talking about the church. The church is

God's temple, and we are part of his church through the abundance of his steadfast love.

Amen? If you know Jesus Christ, you know you are part of his church. If you know you are part of his church, you know you belong to God.

And if you know you belong to God, then you know God has been good to you.

I will bow down before your holy temple in the fear of you.

I will bow down in that place where God dwells.

Now, evildoers might fear judgment, but they do not fear God. They fear judgment. They try to avoid it.

But if they rightly feared the Lord, they would have no fear of judgment. And you and I, if we are in Christ Jesus, we do not need to fear the judgment of God if we rightly and reverently fear the

Lord himself. As Charles Spurgeon once said, fear God and nothing else.

Isaiah 66, 2 says, This is the one to whom I will look, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and who trembles at my word.

Tremble at the word of God. Know what it says and do it. David goes on in verse 8 to say,

Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness, because of my enemies.

Make your way straight before me. The statement here, because of my enemies, this is in reference to those who lie in wait to ambush.

That doesn't necessarily mean there are bad guys waiting right outside and as soon as David finishes his prayer and emerges, they're going to pounce on him.

Listen, most of these guys knew better than to go man versus man against the giant killer, right?

So what does this mean? Because of my enemies in your righteousness, lead me.

David is talking about the schemes of the deceitful, how they attempt to ensnare others, either making you a victim of their evil works or a participant in their evil works.

How do we guard ourselves from the schemes of the wicked and the snares of the devil?

David says here, we stay on the path of righteousness, marked out for us according to the word of God.

We know the way that we should go when we read his word. Proverbs 3, 5 to 7 says,

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.

Be not wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. When you go the way of the righteous, you will be kept from the way of the evil and you will not suffer the consequences that evil men will receive.

Oh, my brothers and sisters, how good is the righteousness of God?

It is because of God and his righteousness that he has saved us. It is because of God in his righteousness that he leads us in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

As it says in Psalm 23, The righteousness of God delivers us and it even protects and guards us.

In Ephesians 6, the apostle Paul said to put on righteousness, the breastplate of righteousness in the armor of God.

When we desire his righteousness, we are protected from the schemes of Satan.

Matthew 6, 31, Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

The next movement of the Psalm, verses 9 and 10, go back to the actions of the deceitful.

For there is no truth in their mouth, their inmost self is destruction, their throat is an open grave, they flatter with their tongue.

Their inmost self is destruction. They're devoted to lies. Right down from the core of their person, they hate truth and love lies.

And what is David's request of them? Verse 10, Make them bear their guilt, O God.

Let them fall by their own counsels. The things they would tear other people down with, may it tear them down instead.

Let them fall into their own snare. Because of the abundance of their transgressions, cast them out.

For they have rebelled against you. Those who have rebelled against God will be cast from the presence of God.

But what about those who have loved righteousness? Let's continue on here to that last movement as we finish up.

In Psalm chapter 5, verses 11 and 12, we conclude by hearing about the blessing that God has for those who do righteously.

Let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy.

We've sung about that today, have we not? Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exalt in you.

David's motivation here is that God would be revered.

And that his word would be followed. Verse 12,

For you bless the righteous, O Lord. You cover him as with favor, as with a shield.

Beloved, here's what we must consider as we finish this study of Psalm 5 today.

If God had left us to ourselves, we would have been just like the wicked that David describes here.

Did God hate you before you came to Jesus Christ? His face was against you, to be sure.

John 3 .36 says, He who has the Son has life. But he who does not obey the Son shall not see life.

But the wrath of God remains on him. God's wrath remains on those who are not in Christ.

If you are not covered with the blood of the Lamb, you are an object of God's wrath.

Romans 3 .25 says, In his divine forbearance he passed over former sins.

Yes, God's hatred for our sin was upon us before Christ. But his love was for us in that he looked past our sin to who he would make us in Christ Jesus.

Romans 5 .8 -11 says, God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our

Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation.

And I love that word, reconciliation. What a blessing is contained within the very definition of that word.

To be reconciled means to accept that which was not previously desired.

When you were a sinner in rebellion against God, you didn't desire God. And he did not desire you in that state.

But having given his Son Jesus, who became a baby born in Bethlehem, who grew up in a perfect, sinless life, who died on a cross for our sins, who rose again from the grave, who ascended into heaven, the

God -man now seated at the right hand of the Father interceding for us because God has done this for us.

We have been forgiven our sins and we have been reconciled. God receives us as a son or a daughter of God and we love

God because of the transformation that has happened in our hearts by his Holy Spirit. We have been reconciled.

We have fellowship with God. And we can pray as David prays,

Oh Lord, in the morning you hear my voice. In the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.

But there are many who do not have this knowledge. There are many who do not know

Christ. And they will perish with the wicked as we read about here in Psalm 5.

We sang this morning. We opened our service singing, Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere, that Jesus Christ has come.

So we go with this message of the gospel to the world from Christmas to the rest of our next year, telling people the judgment of God is coming, but he loves and he has sent a

Savior and all who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

Go tell it on the mountain. Not a lot of mountains in East Texas, but we proclaim it from the highest place, that the world may hear and know.

It is said of Christ in Psalm 45 and in Hebrews 1, you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

Brothers and sisters, do you desire to be like Christ? Then you must be the same.

Love righteousness. Hate wickedness. If there's anyone here today who does not know the

Savior, remain, talk with any of the pastors that are up here. We would love to share with you the gospel that you may know a relationship with God, our creator, whom we've all rebelled against, but we have been reconciled to by faith in Jesus Christ.

If you're here today and you've been walking in sin, and as I've read from Psalm 5, your heart is burned within you.

I'm not even walking on the path of righteousness. What will become of me? You say you know the

Lord, but is his countenance for you or against you? Come and confess your sins, that you may be healed, as it says in James 5, and set your feet upon that path of righteousness and be found faithful servants of God on the day that he returns, not in fear of his judgment, but in awe of his glory.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we consider what we've read today in Psalm 5, your love for righteousness, your hate for wickedness, may this not be a thing that we're trying to bend and twist so that we can still have the passions of our flesh and say, oh, well,

God loves me. He would never do anything to me, even though I participate in this sin.

Are we truly children of God? If we love wickedness, may the hearts of those who do wicked be convicted.

May we turn from unrighteousness to the goodness of God given to us by faith in Jesus Christ, and so direct our steps that we may walk in these things all our days.

Give us courage and boldness to live in righteousness in the face of an unrighteous world, and that we may also proclaim to them the message of the gospel, warning of the judgment that is to come, that there is salvation by faith in Christ alone.