We continue with the ministry of God's Word. Turn with me to Psalm 10, the 10th Psalm. Stand together for the reading of God's Word. Why do you stand far off, O Lord? Why do you hide in times of trouble? The wicked in his pride persecutes the poor. Let them be caught in the plots which they have devised. For the wicked boasts of his heart's desire. He blesses the greedy and renounces the Lord. The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God. God is in none of his thoughts. His ways are always prospering. Your judgments are far above, out of his sight. As for all his enemies, he sneers at them. He has said in his heart, I shall not be moved, I shall never be in adversity. His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression. Under his tongue is trouble and iniquity. He sits in the lurking places of the villages. In the secret places, he murders the innocent. His eyes are secretly fixed on the helpless. He lies in wait, secretly, as a lion in his den. He lies in wait to catch the poor. He catches the poor when he draws them into his net. So he crouches, he lies low, that the helpless may fall by his strength. He has said in his heart, God has forgotten, he hides his face, he will never see. Arise, O Lord, O God, lift up your hand. Do not forget the humble. Why do the wicked renounce God? He has said in his heart, you will not require an account. But you have seen, for you observe trouble and grief. To repay it by your hand. The helpless commits himself to you. You are the helper of the fatherless. Break the arm of the wicked and the evil man. Seek out his wickedness until you find none. The Lord is king forever and ever. The nations have perished out of his land. Lord, you have heard the desire of the humble. You will prepare their heart. You will cause your ear to hear, to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may oppress no more. Thus far, the word of God, let us pray. Father in heaven, we continue to seek you in our worship. We come to be under the sound of your word. For it is you who speaks with truth and clarity. You alone are right in all your sayings and all your doings. We are a needy people, and we come to acknowledge our need, and we come in humility to be under the word that you would instruct us. Lord, bless your word to accomplish your holy purpose. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. You can tell from The bulk of the psalm, we've just read that one of the themes of the psalm is the wicked. The wicked are introduced to begin with in Psalm 1. You remember how you have the righteous man and how he flourishes, how his mind and heart are fixed upon God and his word. But the wicked are not so, and so the wicked are presented. They are like chaff driven before the wind, and in the day of judgment they shall not stand in the assembly. of the righteous. Then in Psalm 2, you have something more of the wicked, how they rebel against the Lord, against His anointed. They seek to cast off the rule and the reign of God and of His Christ, and yet the Lord has set His King in Zion. And indeed, that king is mentioned here even in this Psalm. The Lord is king forever. In verse 16, he is king. And though the wicked do prosper and seem to go on, yet God sees them. And that is the real theme of this Psalm that David is focused on. In the Septuagint, which is, some of you will recall, it's the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures, done by the 70 elders probably in the third century before Christ. Psalm 9 and 10 are combined. They're one psalm. But then we find later on that they're separated into two. And you can see there's a heading, an inspired heading in Psalm 9. There's one in 11, both to the chief musician. But Psalm 10 does not have one. And we do not need to be troubled with that, that these have been separated. And so it suits itself to be a psalm in its own right. Remember the cry that David gave in Psalm 9 as he began by thinking of the Lord, the Lord's faithfulness in the past and his hope for the future and singing praise to God. Then he comes and he makes one plea. in verse 13 in that Psalm. But then we find that plea renewed and the focus of David's concern comes forth in a richness and in quite a bit of detail here in the continuation in Psalm 10. Psalm 9 and 10 is an acrostic Psalm following the Hebrew alphabet. There's several of those sprinkled throughout the five books of the Psalm. And so Psalm 10, rather remarkably, opens with a fairly long description of the wicked. But then it returns and closes with further cries, much like we saw in the previous psalm, for God to arise and to act, for God to deliver. And that hope and confidence is rooted in the very nature of God. The Lord is king forever. And so we hear echoes of Psalm 2 here in the latter part of this psalm. But before we look at the psalm in its whole, which I've divided into two parts, the wicked described, it's very obvious, verses 2 through 11, and then a prayer to God to deliver his people from the wicked, verses 12 and following. Look at verse 1 as it hinges between the two. Notice how Psalm 9 ends with, Arise, O Lord, let not man prevail. And then we find something most remarkable, but not something unusual for the believer. Notice David's plea or his inquiry. It's a pressing inquiry. Why do you stand afar off, O Lord? Why do you hide in times of trouble." David was in very great affliction, whatever the circumstance that he's in. And he has a sense of the abandonment of his soul. He lacks an awareness. He's unmindful of God's presence with him. And so he makes this plea. His affliction is very great that it seems to him that God has somehow withdrawn, forgotten, or gone off. David's reason for that is because God's delayed action, because of the delay of God's justice, because as we find, as the psalm moves on, that the wicked seems to go on and on. The wicked man prospers and he seems to behave with impunity and gets away with so much. Even as we see in our own day, each of us can think of many examples, perhaps personal, but even general. And we wonder, why does God not act? We find other places in the scriptures where the writers cry out, God, open your ears, open your eyes, see. We find that here in David. It seems that the delay in justice gives David the sense that God is asleep because he knows that God does oppose the proud. It's interesting how David, In his perception that God has somehow removed himself, that God doesn't seem to be acting, he makes a plea to God. He entreats God with a confidence. Thus, verse 16, with confidence, he speaks to the God he knows is there, and he says, Arise, O God, arise, for the Lord is king forever. Again, he's confident that the Lord is there, even though he doesn't sense it. But what's interesting is you, this seeming evidence that God is not there, perception that God is unconcerned, the wicked takes in a different way. We will see that as we move through to consider the wicked, how he takes it as an excuse for sin, as a license for sin. He's emboldened by God's lack of judgment and he presses on. But God is there. My dear friends, we understand that God is always there. Even as Psalm 2 says, the Lord, that is the Father God, has set his king in Zion. Christ is seated on the throne. And so we are reminded even as David is walking by faith and not by sight, so we must do. David is not wringing his hands in the corner, feeling forsaken and abandoned as some as how God has gone off to some other place that God has forsaken and forgotten. Though David does not perceive Him and sense His presence, yet he presses on with a confidence because he knows God is there. You understand that indeed the deist is wrong. For in their wrong system of religion, their mindset is that God created all things and established all things and then has gone off and just left them to run without his involvement, without his presence. David doesn't conclude that. And indeed, the deist is wrong. God is very much involved, governing all his creatures and all their actions. The true child of the Father understands this. Why is it that at times God's presence seems to be withdrawn? Why is it that where there are times when we feel abandoned and forsaken, and there's books by the Puritans and others that even deal with this topic, they're useful when we find ourselves in such a state. Why is it then? Sometimes God's presence seems to be withdrawn because of our sin. We feel forsaken because of our own sin and our own action, things that we have done or failed to do. We feel forsaken and abandoned by the Lord. Many of you here will know that, you are aware of that. In that sense of missing God's presence, your heart is grieved. And because you're a child of the Father, you're stirred up. You even seek to stir yourself up and to seek the Lord and to draw near to him. Perhaps your cry is like David's cry here in this psalm as well as in others. Sometimes it's because of our neglecting of God. We'll go through a season. sometimes even sounding like the wicked man in the song, that we can do it on our own, that we have our own ability, our own confidence, such as the nature of our sin. Let us remember that the Lord is king forever and draw near to him. That should be our response. And though there may be through our searching, In our examining the self before God in prayer and pleading the Holy Spirit to give us understanding, if there be any fault in us, maybe we find there is no explanation. It's not through a fault of our own. God, for His own purposes, seems to have withdrawn. Many times the case is that He would strengthen our faith, even as we saw with the Syrophoenician woman. who the Lord challenges incrementally. She has faith, and because of his seeming withdrawing from her, his seeming unwillingness to help her, her faith grows. And so it is that when we exercise faith, when we must walk by faith and not by sight, by exercising of our faith, our faith is grown. It strengthens for our greater good. And so David, as we see in the Psalm, these two Psalms particularly joined together, David presses on, walking by faith, and he prays, he seeks the Lord, even as he did in verse 13, have mercy on Lord and consider my trouble from those who hate me. And then here we come in Psalm 10. to a fairly, shall we say, distasteful treatment of the wicked who oppose us. Just what is their nature? And so we want to consider them the wicked described. David makes quite a long presentation of the rebel's wickedness. This is the first time we come to that in the Psalms. There will be another treatment in Psalm 14. We saw something in some Romans 3, you know, that their mouth is an open grave, their tongue is like a viper, as David, as Paul draws from the Psalms in many cases, describing the wicked. But this is the first time we've really encountered it here in Psalm 10, for the wicked boasts his heart's desire. But the key thing to note here, The chief mark is the first thing David deals with in verse two, the wicked in his pride. the wicked in his pride. Pride is the downfall of every sinful soul. If you think of any sin that you've ever committed or you've seen others commit, what lies behind it, what lies underneath it is a foundation, is a foundation of pride. And so it is that even sin began in the garden as Satan came making his boast and his false claims that Adam and Eve could be free from God. They could be gone unto themselves. It's the very nature of pride to think that you can operate independent of God, that you can go it alone. Again, you've heard me say it. I find it very interesting and helpful in our English language that the center letter in both pride and sin is I. That is our great problem. We often have an eye problem. And this is the chief mark of the wicked. It is the wellspring of their sin. They they boast that they can do whatever they please. And so verse two, that first statement kind of sets up as a summary or an outline what follows. The wicked in his pride persecutes the poor. And then David goes on and treats the matter of pride. And then he comes in the later on in verse eight and following, actually seven transitions to talk then about the persecution and the oppression of the poor. And so it is when we consider what David begins with here, the pride of the wicked, Do we understand David's sense of God's withdrawal? That God is not there because God opposes the proud. David is mindful that God opposes the proud. He acts and God has reserved for himself Vengeance, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. And David, mindful of these principles, does cry out. Why do you stand afar off? Because here's the wicked man in his pride persecuting. And so he then begins to describe what it looks like. Verse two. Or verse three, the wicked boasts of his heart's desire. He blesses the greedy. He renounces the Lord. Before we go on with that, I want to draw your attention to the second half of verse 2. Because David, in the midst of his description of the poor, he slips in something of a prayer. Notice verse 2, the second half. Let them be caught in the plots which they have devised. That's a prayer. Does that not remind you of something we saw in Psalm 9? Look back up, verse 15. The nation should suck down in the pit what they made. In the net that they hid, their own foot was caught. The Lord is known by the judgment he executes. The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Think on this. David's remembering how that's been the case in the past. David has come on into Psalm 10 as we find it with this framework. He's mindful how God deals with the wicked. Their devices become their own undoing. And so David, thinking on the wicked who in his pride persecutes the poor, utters a short prayer, let them be caught in the pots which they have devised. And so he says, then the wicked boast in his heart. And we begin then in the inner man of the wicked man, the boastfulness of his heart. And there within himself, he blesses the greedy and renounces the Lord. His heart is not focused on God. He is not God word. There is no worship before his eyes. He is all about himself in the iniquity of his own heart, as well as the other. He blesses the greedy. and he renounces the Lord. The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God. God is in none of his thoughts. These are sober words. This is the mark of the rebel before the Almighty. The Almighty who should ever be before our minds, ever in our thoughts. The God who of creation, who speaks to us from the heavens above to the earth around us with his governments of all things around us. God who is in evidence in an overwhelming manner and yet the wicked God is none and is in none of his thoughts. And so he goes on in his wickedness. He scoffs at his enemies, those who oppose him. And thus he becomes greatly inflated in his pride and bold in his sin. Look at verse six. He has said in his heart, I shall not be moved. I shall never be an adversity. The proud and arrogant man takes to himself that which belongs to God alone. God's in none of his thoughts. He fully believes the lie of Satan that you can be God and he lives in this suffocating kingdom of one that he is so confident. I shall not be moved. I shall not be in adversity. That's his boast, the great boast of the wicked man as he goes about in his rebellion. His boldness mounts to new heights like the rich fool. He sees success in his evil design as a seal of the certainty and that what he's doing is right and that God's not there and that he can do all that he will. He enjoys his rewards in his iniquity. He enjoys his ease and thus he concludes, I'll just tear down my barns and I'll build bigger barns. For I will say to my soul, eat. Drink in, be merry. But we move from his heart where he makes these great boasts to verse seven. We see then the overflow of the heart is on the tongue. It's in the mouth. Notice verse seven, his mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression. Under his tongue is trouble and iniquity Paul picks up on this in Romans 3 and he talks about how the venom of Asp is under his tongue. Mouth is full of cursing, cursing of God and man, deceit, treachery. He moves along in his arrogance, pride, his confidence, telling lies in order to advance himself, telling lies in order to justify himself and excuse himself, and in all these things he oppresses. As we shall see, the poor, the weak, under his tongue is trouble and iniquity. Smooth is his speech, but it is filled with sin. The wicked man is filled with cruel malice. He's a manipulator. His words cannot be trusted. He's a liar. Indeed, from this point we see David Moose, the picture, as it were, so that we could see the scene of the wicked man. It's as though he has his lair in his den. He even uses the language. He equates him to being like the lion who hides looking for the helpless. So you imagine this wicked man who dwells in a city looking for some hapless victim, some helpless poor widow or orphan, a stranger in the city. someone that he might take with his treacheries, someone he might murder. Notice the language. He sits in the lurking places of the villages. He's not on the main square where commerce is conducted, where the light is in evidence. He's in the dark places. He's in the shady places. I'm sure some of you have traveled around and you make a wrong turn, you get off on the wrong exit and you're driving along and you feel like you're in one of those lurking places in the city. You're uncomfortable. You want to get out because dangerous people often are found there. This is the place that this man makes his home. And not just one place, but in the villages. This is where he is found. And in secret he places his murders on the innocent. There's no cause for the crime he commits. Those that he takes and slays to take from that which they have, there's no justice in it. He only thinks of himself. He looks for the one that he might tear down. We were hearing about the parable of the Good Samaritan earlier. those wicked men who were lurking along the way in a lurking place, a lonely place, waiting for the lonely single traveler and someone who was defenseless to come along and to fall upon them. That's the very nature of what we see here, lurking in a secret place to murder the innocent. They left that man for dead. But we see his eyes are engaged His eyes are secretly fixed on the helpless. He's looking. He's watching others. He's calculating. He's evaluating. He's discerning. He's determining who will be easy prey, who has something worth getting, and he goes after it. He lies in wait secretly as a lion in his den. And like the lion, when he sees one, he comes out, he lies in wait to catch the poor. He rushes forth, he catches the poor, and he draws him into his net. You see the picture of verse 10 of the crouching lion. He crouches, he lies low that the helpless may fall by his strength. Somewhat of a hopeless picture, isn't it? When you think of the helpless, the weak, the vulnerable. The one with no defender. And here is the wicked seeking to devour him. And then David comes back to the heart in verse 11. We began in the heart back in verses 3-4 and following. And now we return. It seems that the Lord stands afar off. David is mindful of that. And he, walking by faith, what does he do? He cries out to the Lord. Where is this man? He has a conversation in his heart. God is forgotten. God's not there. God's hiding his face. He will never see. God doesn't care. God's disinterested. And he emboldens himself. He encourages himself. And then it is at this point that David makes a transition. Before we go on with that, let us consider we have seen the type of wickedness that David describes here in this psalm in Genesis. Genesis three, we have the introduction of sin. We have the fall, the temptation of the fall. We find the first two people, Adam and Eve, a husband and a wife. When they fall into sin, we see the wickedness that is described here at evidence. Adam, who is to be a defender and a protector of his wife, when God becomes making inquiry, he immediately turns on her and he blames her. We say he threw her under the bus. It's wickedness in his heart, pride, self-preservation, even in the face of the Almighty. So great is the wickedness. But then we come in the next chapter to Cain and his Abel. One, a God's fear, a God worshiper, by the grace of God, a new creature in Christ who draws near to God, worshiping him aright, and his brother Cain who does not. God challenges Cain, as we saw, if you do right. must master sin. Yet Cain makes no cry for help. He does not look to the Almighty. He's confident in himself and his own heart. And yet there's this reminder of his brother. And so what does he do? He devours his brother, find him in the field alone. He falls upon him and he murders his own flesh. And then in the next chapter, we find Lamech, who takes to himself two wives, contrary to the law of God. It says, oh, God's gone off. God does not see. That I will do as seems right in my own eyes. I will have two wives because I want two wives. And then, like Cain, he slays a man. And then he writes poetry about it in his great boasting, celebrating his murder. So we see pride and persecution of the people of God, right there in those first generations. from Adam, and so it's been from the beginning. And here we find David many centuries later, many, many, many multitudes of wicked men who've seen other wicked men, and it seems to them as though they go on with impunity, and there's no justice, and God does not act, and men are emboldened, even as it is in our day, where people are engaged in wickedness. Are you not troubled by the wickedness that is all around us, the oppression? And as people of faith, we know God is there, Yet we're troubled by the wickedness that we see, and yet they take it to themselves and say, God is forgotten. Or even more boldly, now we have the philosophers as God is dead. Those who act as there is no God and they go on to the great confidence. Against the Lord and against his anointed. Where do we find Christ? In this passage. I think we find Christ even this far, I mean, surely we find him the second half of the psalm, but we find him, sometimes it's not because of what's, because of his presence, but because of his absence. Why is the wicked so wicked? It's because his heart is dead and trespasses. He's in iniquity. This wicked man, the wicked men who are described here are wicked because they are without God in the world. They're under the rule of the king of darkness, even Satan. They are under his kingdom and they are deceived. They are about all that is opposite to that which is good. And so we find that Christ is the opposite of all that. He is the righteous one. Why does David cry out? Why is David troubled about the wicked? Because David's a righteous man. And why is David a righteous man? Because of God's grace to him, a sinner. Because God has given David a new heart. Because David has called upon in the name of the Lord and been saved. Because David has been born from above. Like Adam and Eve and Abraham, he believed what God has said and it was accounted to him as righteousness. By faith are you saved. It's by faith in the promises of God. Indeed, we have the righteous man reflected in David. who is troubled by the wicked, and who is that righteous man but the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why David is troubled, because there's something of the stamp and the imprint of the Son of God being formed and fashioned by God on David's heart, because David is the one who began by saying, I love your law, O God. I meditate on it day and night. And David, thus being fed and refreshed and renewed in the word of God, he sees the wicked, and thus he is troubled. As we go on, then, we see the prayer that David makes. As a man who is righteous, he turns to the righteous God, and we see that outburst in verse 12, like we saw at the end of Psalm 9, in verse 19. Once again, we see the cry out, just this sudden upshooting of prayer, arise, O Lord. a cry for God to deliver his people from the wickedness. Notice the contrast between the men, a contrast between the ungodly. In these two verses, you look at verse 11 and verse 12, as they're set juxtaposition, there's a great chasm between the two that are speaking. There, David presents the wicked man. He speaks, God has forgotten. He hides his face. He will never see. And then across the chasm, there's the righteous man, saved by grace. And what's his cry? Arise, O Lord, O God, lift up your hand. Do not forget the humble. What a contrast. That should be our cry. I don't know about you, but I'm troubled by many things as I see the headlines and follow the news, and we see the deterioration and the decline within our culture, and yay, even within the church. Perhaps we too would be like David, and we wonder, why, Lord? Do you stand afar off? Why? Do you hide yourself in times of trouble? My friends, God has not forsaken His church. We should be like David and cry out. We should be on our knees before God saying, Arise, O Lord! Lift up your hand. Bless the preaching of the Word. Send it forth with a demonstration of the Spirit's power. Convert the wicked and draw them unto Yourself. Grant them salvation in Your Son. David cries out as he does because he acknowledges that God reigns. God reigns. He doesn't see him. He doesn't see an evidence that he's there. And yet David is confident that the king, the Lord is king forever. And indeed he is near at hand. And he cries out to him, even as it were through a thick cloud, like a great fog about him, that he cannot see the sunshine of God's face. We cannot see or feel the smile of God's countenance upon him. He knows that it's there though hidden by the clouds and the conduct of the wicked. And David cries out, arise, oh Lord. Oh God, lift up your hand. Oh that the church would learn to shout to God in our day like that. God arise, God acts. What does David ask for? He asks that God should show himself. Arise oh Lord is a call for God to come forth and to make himself known to act with his strong mighty hand. This is a great theme of God and the revelation of God throughout the scripture, the outstretched hand of God's justice and the strong arm of his vengeance. Exodus 13, 9, we find when Moses recounts, so with a strong hand, the Lord brought you out of Egypt. David remembers that strong hand. He knows the scriptures. He knows the faithfulness of God, and he cries out that God would rise up and show himself. He cries out that God would show himself in action for judgment on behalf of the people, the humble. Notice verse 12. What is the first thing he says as he cries out for the Lord to act? Do not forget the humble. And again, we have one of the great contrasts. How do we this Psalm begin? After the cry, where are you, Lord? What does David begins? He's got the proud man. There's the proud. And then what's the contrast? Here's the humble. Those two are always set in opposition to each other. The man who says there is no God, who boasts against God, conducts his ways against God. And there's the man who is humble and broken and contrite before the Lord. We spoke of this two weeks ago when we were in Psalm 9 and we were thinking of the Beatitude. Blessed are the poor in spirit. That's the beginning of our salvation. We come in humility to God and say, nothing in my hand I bring. I have no righteousness of my own. I need you, O God. Have mercy on me. David prays that God would show himself in judgment on the half of his people for the humble. Thus he goes on in verse 13 and 14. Why do the wicked renounce God? He's crying out for God to act and then he reflects. Why did the wicked renounce God? He has said in his heart, you will not require an account. Now here again is the contrast between the humble and the proud. The proud is saying God's not going to act. There's no judgment. There's no justice. I can act with impunity. The humble on the other hand knows that God will require an account. The proud has said in his heart, you will not. require an account. But then David encourages himself and presses the Lord that speaking to God, but you have seen for you observed trouble and grief to repay it by your hand. The helpless commits himself to you. You are the helper of the fatherless. It's amazing to me. I've been reading 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles, and some of Isaiah that goes with it. I'm reading through chronologically this year. And one of the great themes that you see or one of the great reoccurring themes is that the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. Pressing on. You see that the helpless are there and wrapped up. And he mentions the fatherless. Again, David's walking by faith. It's his confidence. And so David is asking that God would show himself, that he would show himself acting on behalf of his people, particularly the humble. And we find that the humble, that the poor, the fatherless is the one that those are oppressed. Remember the wicked man, he's lurking in the villages. He's in the secret place. He's looking for the innocent. He's looking for the helpless. He lies like a dying lion in his dead waiting to catch the poor. And David makes his appeal. He presses God with a confidence because he knows God. He knows who God is. He presses him and he says, you have seen. Isn't that remarkable? Do you see the testimony of faith there? David begins by saying, where are you? But yet David knows God's there, and thus he prays, impresses, or writhes on God, because he says, you have seen and you have observed. Repay, Lord, because these, the helpless, the fatherless, the ones that the wicked are oppressing, they've committed themselves to you. And then David prays with a great boldness, verse 15, break the arm of the wicked and of the evil man. Why? Because that's what God does. God is the God of vengeance. David doesn't say, I'll go break the arm of the wicked and the evil man. That's our inclination, isn't it? But remember what James says, the wrath of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God. And so David makes his appeal to God, to God who does that. He's confident. Break the arm of the wicked, seek out his wickedness. until you find none. Don't just go out and begin. David says press your justice, press your pursuit of him. Remember he's hiding, he's lurking and so David says seek him out. Seek him out and find him and bring him to justice. So David would have the God would show himself in action on behalf of his people and prevent them from doing any further harm. Thus, he says, seek out his wickedness until you find no more. That is, put an end to it. Bring it to an end. Elihu and Job speaks along these same lines. He says, do not let the hypocrite reign. lest your people be ensnared. There's another passage in the Psalms, I believe it is, where when the wicked are in authority, that there's a temptation for the church, for the righteous to stumble. There's a danger for us that when we see the wicked going on with impunity, that we can become tempted to engage in such and thus Elijah says do not let the hypocrite reign unless your people and be ensnared unless David let us David pray seek out his wickedness until you find them rid the earth from the evil my friends this this day will come there's a day coming when God will put an end to wickedness and evil forever And it'll be a great and glorious day when the Lord Jesus Christ comes again. But until he comes, we must press on. And indeed, our prayers should be arise, oh Lord. We should pray, Lord, guard me that I should not sin with impunity. Guard me that I should not stumble. And though the clouds darken the countenance of God, we should press on. What's the foundation then of David's prayer? We find that in the transition of verse 16 as he draws to a close and making his case before the Almighty. He comes back to this one, sure, certain truth. The Lord is King forever. Notice he uses the capital O-L-R-D. That is the covenant faith Lord. David makes his plea on the basis that his God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God who's revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush to be the self-existent one who establishes his covenant with his people. And he cannot break it. "'It is as sure as he is.'" And he says, this Lord, this covenant faithful Lord is king forever, not just over Israel, but indeed over all the nations of the earth. I love it as you see wicked kings subdued. I was just recently hearing how Hezekiah, he made his appeal to God, similar to David. Here he goes, and he lays it out before the Lord, and Sennacherib's there, he's threatening great things, and even boasts, he says, well, the Lord sent me down here to do this. And haven't you, Hezekiah, torn down the Lord's high places? He's not gonna defend you, but Hezekiah makes his case before the Lord. And as the Lord acts, even the pagan kings learn that the God, the Lord, this God, is not just the King of the Jews. He's not isolated to a little strip of sod along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. He is the King over all. over all the nations. This is not what the Philistines found when they took the ark of the covenant of the Lord and brought it into the temple of Dagon. And there's Dagon falling down the second time broken because God is the king forever. The nations have perished out of his land. You see here, David's doing something we saw in Psalm 9. Psalm 9, David began by rehearsing God's faithfulness in the past, and therefore he had a hope and a confidence for the future. Here, David mentions that David's king over a nation that is in the land that was once occupied by the Gergesites, and the Hittites, and the Perisites, and all those full esteemed people. He has driven them out, that's what David said. The nations have perished out of the land. See how he connects that with the Lord, the covenant faithful Lord? That was his promise. He said to Abraham, I will give you this land. I will drive out these wicked people from before me. And David says the nations have perished out of his land. But then David even thinks of his own self, Lord, you have heard the desire of the humble and you will prepare their heart. You will cause your ear to hear, to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may oppress them no more. David is sure that the Lord is unchanging. He's the same yesterday. He recounts those events of the yesterday. He's the same today. And you even hear of the future, that he will do it so the man of the earth may oppress no more. David is a confident that this king who rules forever will rid the earth of oppressors. My friends, I think there's an eschatological, as is the proper term, something future, something that it will culminate in the end that is echoed in the psalm. that when Christ comes victorious on the clouds with a shout and the trumpet of the archangel of God, that he will come and as the judge of all the earth, he will judge the nations and he will end all oppression. There will be no more oppression. Is that not the promise of scriptures? He says, I will wipe away every tear from your eye. Why do we weep? oppression, oppression from without, oppression of sin, the oppression because of the consequences of the fall of our first parents. But there is a day when indeed the man of the earth may oppress no more because Christ shall come and all will be right. There'll be no more oppression, no more sorrow, no more suffering, no more losses. But until he comes, we press on. Like David, we take great encouragement from David, that even when there are times, and there will surely be times, my friend, in our lives, when it'll seem that the clouds of the oppression will obscure the presence of God, be sure of this, he is there. This was the promise of Jesus before he ascended to the right hand of the Father through the clouds. He assured the church who were represented by the apostles who are the foundation of the church. He assured them and us in them. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. David did not hear those words, but David has that hope because of who God is. Well, as we conclude, though, let's consider some application. First, to the one who's oppressed by sin. Perhaps you're here this morning, and you're oppressed by sin. You have not known the deliverance that the Lord Jesus Christ can give, that deliverance you need from the chief of all oppressors, because sin will drag you down to the grave. Indeed, sin holds you in chains, and you're abound, and the judgment of God is upon you. The wrath of God abides still. To that one, make your plea. Go to God, for he is the king of the earth and he has come in extending mercy in his hand. But he shall not always extend mercy. There's a day when there will be judgment and wrath. But while he extends mercy, the scripture says, call upon my name. You say to the saint who is persecuted by some oppression, some oppressor, God hears you. God sees you. He doesn't miss any of it. I know. I know well there are times when it seems that He does not see, that He's not there, but be assured He sees all. He's at work for your good, even in the oppression. He's working all things together for good, for the called ones, according to the good counsel of His purpose, that you would grow, that you would mature. He sees. He will give you justice. His delays are designed for your good, that you might grow and mature and be further conformed to the image of a son, to the one who is oppressing, sometimes it's in our own home, sometimes it's a sister oppressing a brother or vice versa. Maybe it's a father oppressing his family with anger or some other addictive sin. Psalm is clear, do not think that God does not see. Do not think that God has forgotten. He sees you if you are oppressing. He sees that oppression that you bring on the poor. He calls you to repent and to seek his face for the salvation of the Lord. Amen? Let us pray. O Lord, our God, we do rejoice before you that you are ever faithful. We look to you in confidence because you are king forever. We thank you for this great king that you have set in Zion who rules the nations. and subdues them under His feet. And Lord, we pray that You would strengthen and uphold Your church until He comes. When every nation has been subdued, it should be delivered up to the Father. Lord, guard and keep us in the way, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Stand together and sing Psalm 2 that we've referred to. You'll find that on the other side of the insert in your worship guide.