Well in a moment we're going to look at Psalm 52 as I mentioned but in order to grasp the background of Psalm 52 I want to invite you to turn first of all to 1 Samuel chapter 22. And we have here in front of us in 1 Samuel 22 the background of what David writes about in Psalm 52. And let me just give you this part of the setting. Saul has learned that David and Jonathan had a covenant together of friendship. that Jonathan, Saul's own son, had been protecting David and that Saul had been telling David and warning David about Saul's plans and how he had warned David that Saul was determined now to kill David. And so Jonathan told David that and David fled. When David fled, he goes to the place of worship at that time, which is in Nob, and to the high priest, whom he had gone to many times to seek counsel, as people in Israel did. And so that's where we're picking up the story. It's gonna be made plain as we read through it, what happens. So starting in verse six we read, when Saul heard that David and his men who were with him had been discovered, now Saul was staying in Gibeah under a tamarisk tree in Ramah with his spear in his hand and all his servants standing about him. Then Saul said to his servants who stood about him, here now you Benjamites, will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards and make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds? All of you have conspired against me and there is no one who reveals to me that my son has made a covenant with the son of Jesse. And there is not one of you who is sorry for me or reveals to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me to lie in wait as it is this day." Then answered Doeg the Edomite, who was sent over the servants of Saul, and said, I saw the son of Jesse going to Nob, Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub. And he inquired of the Lord for him, gave him provisions, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine. So the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father's house, the priests who were in Nob. And they all came to the king, and Saul said, Here now, son of Ahitub. And he answered, Here I am, my lord. Then Saul said to him, Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread and a sword, and have inquired of God for him, that he should rise against me to lie in wait, as it is this day? So Ahimelech answered the king and said, And who among all your servants is as faithful as David? Who is the king's son-in-law, who goes at your bidding and is honorable in your house? Did I then begin to inquire of the Lord for him? Far be it from me. Let not the king impute anything to his servant or to any in the house of my father, for your servant knew nothing of all this, little or much. And the king said, You shall surely die, Himalic, you and all your father's house. The king said to his guards who stood about him, Turn and kill the priest of the Lord, because their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled and did not tell it to me. But the servants of the king would not lift their hands to strike the priests of the Lord. And the king said to Doeg, you turn and kill the priest. So Doeg the Edomite turned and struck the priest and killed on that day eighty-five men who wore a linen ephod. Also Nob, the city of the high priest, he struck with the edge of the sword both men and women, children and nursing infants, oxen and donkeys and sheep with the edge of the sword. Now one of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub named Abiathar escaped and fled after David. And Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the Lord's priests. So David said to Abiathar, I knew that day when Doeg the Edomite was there that he would surely tell Saul, I have caused the death of all the persons of your father's house. Stay with me, do not fear, for he who seeks my life seeks your life, but with me you shall be safe." So far the reading of God's word. Again I invite you to turn to Psalm 52 which will be our text for this evening. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ. As I mentioned before We see a lot of things in this world that are very wicked, very evil things. We saw another, again this week, when a man takes a rifle and goes and starts shooting people of the House of Representatives of a particular party. We've seen other acts of senseless violence. We hear of people attacking U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and places like that. We see all kinds of, we hear about the kinds of persecution that is brought against Christians in various lands. We see all kinds of things. We see how people react to these things. We see how people react to certain things that they consider to be unjust here in the city and how they go out and demonstrate about these things. Well, what are we as God's people, what are we to do in the face of those kinds? How are we to act? How are we to look at this world And how are we to look at those kinds of violence and so forth in this world, and the evil that happens, and sometimes against God's people? How are we to think about these things? How to react? And the fascinating thing to me about the Bible, about the book of Psalms in particularly, is that when you think about the Psalms, these Psalms are written by believers who are expressing their prayers and praises in response to things that happen to them in everyday life. That's what these Psalms come for. They don't just sit around and start writing poetry. They are reacting to things they see in this world. And what they're doing is they have gone to the Bible, they have gone to the revelation they had in those days, the Old Testament, they've gone to the revelation of God, and they have read. about who God is, the things that God does, the promises of God, His covenants. They read about how God has protected His people, how He's worked in this world, how He's brought justice in this world, and how He has stood up for these things. They have seen these things in God's law. They know what God is like. And they take that teaching of the Word of God, they take the revelation, and they go and they apply it to their everyday lives, and they write these songs. And they write these prayers and these songs. applying what they know about God to their lives. And they express praise, or they express lament, or they express hope. They do all kinds of things. And so we are also to take these Psalms and we're to apply them to our lives in the same way. To express our faith, to express our hope in the God that we learn from in the Scriptures. Now in Psalm 51, we have read that famous psalm of repentance, how David had been convicted of his sin, adultery and murder. And now David had been convicted of this and he goes before the Lord and he pours out his heart in repentance, in a brokenhearted repentance. He confesses his sin, he seeks the Lord, and he seeks the atoning power of God to forgive him for all of his sins. And he learned about God's forgiveness there, and he trusted in God's forgiveness, and he sang about the amazing grace of God to him, though he was a great sinner. He sang about God's mercies. Well now in this Psalm, Psalm 52, David is again responding to sin. But this time he's responding to sin that had happened in this world. A darkness, a great evil. One of the most despicable acts of evil that David had witnessed in his entire life. And he had seen a lot of darkness. He was a warrior, don't forget. He was on the run from Saul for many, many years. He himself had been in battle. He'd seen a lot. But this was one of the greatest, one of the worst. And David, even though God had not yet brought justice for this deed, David, notice David goes, and he's absolutely confident that God would bring justice. David's expressing that utter confidence in God because he knows God. And what he expresses is the judgment, the confidence that God will judge the wicked. But also he expressed the fact that the godly have much peace. Those two things are kind of contrasted here. But let's take a look at the psalm. First of all, we see how David looks at the wicked deed. the wicked deed. And we read about that in Psalm 122, but it's simply referred to as a Psalm of when David contemplation. So David had thought about this. He had taken time now and a contemplation of David when Doeg the Edomite went and told Saul and said to him, David has gone to the house of Ahimelech. And that brings up the whole picture that we just read about. And that's the reference then to 1 Samuel 22. So here is David's great and bitter experience. It was a massacre that was a massacre of all the priests of the house of Nab, even the high priest of God. All of the wives of these priests, all of their children, even the infants among them, the whole city of Nob, the whole small village of Nob, all of it, even their cattle, livestock, destroyed. Attacked and brutally murdered by Doeg. Now remember in the context, we learned that David had fled Saul. And David had gone to the house of the Lord. David had sought refuge in that house of worship where the high priest was. This was something that David regularly did. He'd go to the house of the Lord. He'd go to the temple. He would go to find counsel from the high priest. That's what David would do. That was something that Ahimelech referred to. Is this the first time I've ever talked to David? Are you kidding me? David comes to this temple all the time. Or not to the temple, but there is no temple yet. There's the place of worship. David's come here a lot. David's one of your faithful people. I know David. Why would I have not taken David in and tried to help him? He came to me. Why would I have not done that? I know nothing of any intrigue. I know nothing of David wanting to take your life. All I know is that David is a man of God who came to the house of the Lord, and I gave him help. That's all I know. Ahimelech was innocent in what he did. In no way did he commit treason against the king. Before the reading we had today, you can read back in 1 Samuel about that. When David had been at that temple, he had seen Doeg the Edomite there. And David must have known Doeg from other ways. And David worried right then. Something is wrong with Doeg. He's going to do something wrong. I know it. And so when Doeg kept this information, he didn't go immediately to the king. If he's such a righteous guy, why didn't he immediately go to the king? He didn't. He held this information for a while. And when it was right, he brought up this information in an evil way. He implied to Saul that Ahimelech had committed treason against him, that Ahimelech had conspired against the king by helping David. He lied, he lied deliberately about Ahimelech's place in this. He saw an opportunity to get money. Remember Saul had said, hey, who's gonna, is David gonna give you land? Is David gonna give you promotions to be captains of thousands, captains of hundreds? Of course he's not, I'm gonna do that, right? And so he thought, huh, I could get something out of this, couldn't I? So he tells Saul what happens. In a lying way, he twisted it. And Saul flies into a rage. He demands that Himalaya be killed by Saul's warriors. And remember that? Saul's warriors wouldn't do a thing. They were not going to touch the men of God. But mighty Doeg, oh is he eager. And so he rises up with his sword and he slaughters 85 unarmed priests. And then he goes and he slaughters the whole village of their friends and their wives and their children. It's sick. It's evil. We've seen these kind of attacks ourselves and it's sick and it's evil. Now we read in the Bible two responses that David had. Two different places in the Bible we read of David's response to this. In our reading in 1 Samuel we read this survivor, Abiathar, came to David. The only one who survived. And David is devastated. You can read the devastation in his voice and grief. David says, I brought this destruction on your family, Abiathar. I am so sorry. You can't imagine his heartache. The last thing in the world he wanted to do is cause these people this kind of distress, cause this kind of thing to come on them. And guilt even. I suspected it when I saw Doeg. I knew something was going to happen there. But then he says to Abiathar, look, I know you're hunted. I'm going to protect you as long as I am able. You stay with me. I will do the best I can to take care of you. Now that was his first response. But what we read is a second response in the Bible in Psalm 52, a contemplation. David thinks through these things. This is kind of a wisdom psalm. Through the eyes of faith and through the eyes of scripture, David then begins to work us through how a believer responds to the wicked and to the evil we see happening around us in this world. So secondly, we get to the description then of the wicked. David describes the wicked. Now here he's describing Doeg, but you can also move this into the realm of all who are described as wicked. It's such a damning description of Doeg, isn't it? but of all who practice these kinds of evil ways. And David basically says he's a liar, he's a slanderer, he's a self-interested murderer. That's what David's saying, right? He thinks he's so clever, doesn't he? So does Doeg. Doeg is staking his future on the fact that Saul's gonna reward him. Doeg doesn't stop to think, well, what happens If Saul gets displaced by David, he doesn't stop to think about that. Of course, Saul's the king. Saul's got the army. Saul's going to win. I'm going to put my bet on Saul. And so I'm going to go and find my wealth and my reward and my chance for advancement in Saul. And so he goes and does that. And it doesn't matter what he has to do. He's willing to do anything, anything to get ahead. And so David talks about that how? How he delights. You boast in evil, oh mighty man. Your tongue devises destruction like a sharp razor working deceitfully. You love evil more than good. Lying rather than speaking righteous. You love all devouring words, you deceitful tongue. He boasts, you know. He's self-satisfied is what it's saying. Not just saying he's filled with pride. He's self-confident. He's confident that he's going to be rewarded by Saul. He's going to get ahead in this. This is the way to get ahead in this world. I'm going to go do this. Your problem is you love evil, David says. The murder of God's priests. That shows you that he hated all that was righteous and he hated the truth. That's really what David's saying here. Here's a man who so loves evil that he hates the truth. He hates righteous people. He's willing to go murder righteous people if that's what it takes to get ahead in life. There are people like this in this world. But he mocks Doeg, too, if you notice. Notice what he says in verse one. O mighty man. David knows something about mighty men, doesn't he? He has a bunch of mighty men. These guys were really mighty men. But what is this Doeg? Oh, the mighty man Doeg. He took a sword and he went and killed 85 defenseless people. Wow. You're a mighty man, Doeg. There's a little shot there, isn't there? But he's pointing out how often despicable the evil of the wicked really is. What does it take to take a rifle and go shoot a bunch of unarmed House of Representative members practicing for a baseball game? A lot of bravery there, huh? Same kind of thing. He mocks him. These words really, though, are meant, above all, to encapsulate the character of the wicked. prideful, self-centered, person who uses words for untruth. These are the weapons of often the wicked, untruth. Twisting the truth, practicing deception, trying, desperately trying, very self-consciously trying to paint people in the wrong way by twisting the truth. We see this all the time in our world. And so he says, that's what evil people are like. And we can gain a heart of wisdom now. We look around and see how people do this. And remember something, brothers and sisters, that's wickedness. We should be concerned about what we see when people do this stuff. This is evil. It's evil to destroy people's reputations with your mouth. It's evil to make up things about and twist the truth about people to show them to be way worse than they actually are. It's evil. Let's never forget that. We don't want to put ourselves in that kind of category, that we are practicing evil with our own mouths. That's the wicked. Now what is his declaration? He doesn't just give a description of the wicked, he gives a declaration of judgment, and that's in verses 5-7. In verses 5-7 he begins, God shall likewise destroy you forever. It hasn't happened yet. But David is absolutely and utterly confident in the God that he worships in Yahweh, the covenant keeping God. And so what does he say? There's two things really. He says first of all there's going to be judgment and then he also talks about the response of the righteous to judgment, verses 5-7. You see, David knows eventually this wickedness will be judged. Maybe not immediately. Maybe it won't happen the next day or two or the next month, so we gotta be patient. He's saying, be patient. God knows how to bring this stuff to pass. It's not your job to figure out God's timing. It's your job to trust in the God who does love righteousness and will bring justice. And what will this God do? It's thorough judgment. Four very picturesque verbs are used here. Very thorough judgment. God shall destroy. The word is very strong. It means tear down and break in pieces. Splinter up. This is rough stuff. Take away, the verb says. Describes something being twisted up out of the ground and plucked up like a tree by a tornado or how you'd take a weed and pull it up and twist it and pull it out of the ground. That's what's being described here. That's how God is going to bring judgment. He's going to pluck it up and take it away. And then he also goes on to say, he will pluck out your dwelling. Think about the justice in this. Just as you destroyed the homes of these priests, just as you destroyed all that they had, you, Doeg, will also be plucked up, and you also will be taken away from your home, and you also will lose all these things. You'll be expunged from Israel and from the people of God. And then finally, he also says, to add the final cap, you will be uprooted from the land of the living. It's pretty sober stuff. God will do what is just. But notice how all this strikes the righteous. David's confident that this will happen. God's people have seen God act in justice. We know God will act in justice. How do the righteous respond to the knowledge that God is righteous in his judgments? Well, notice what he says in verse 6. The righteous shall see and fear. Our reaction to the knowledge that God is just and a judge is that we ought to see and fear. We should be in a holy awe and fear when we see God's judgment come. We will understand there is a God in heaven. And that God is to be feared, that God is to be held in awe, that God is to be held in honor, that God is to be worshiped and honored because He is a God who is righteous in His judgments. And so the righteous are going to look at those things and they're going to make the right deduction. they will see that God will judge. That's how we're to look at this world around us. We see a lot of injustice, we see a lot of evil. How should you respond? Remember, you worship a God who's sitting on the throne of heaven and he will judge. Don't you worry about that, but that ought to make you sober as well. That ought to make you sober as well, that's what he's saying. Because you know, whenever you think of judgment and God's judgment, it also, there's an implicit warning for us, for all people, there's an implicit warning. God is a just judge. And it's a fearful thing, Hebrews says, to fall into the hand of a living God. And let's never forget that. God doesn't take sin lightly. God doesn't take evil lightly. And we must not either. We must uproot evil from our lives. We have to uproot sin from our lives. Because God is a just judge. Never mess around with sin and think, oh, it's okay, I can dabble in it a while. God doesn't play with this stuff. And neither should we. Remember who God is. But notice what he gets to in the next part of this psalm. And that is, he says, "...the righteous shall laugh at him, saying, He is a man who did not make God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness." Again, they're describing, he's describing there, what are the wicked like? God is not their strength. They care nothing of God. They trust in their power. They trust in their strength. They trust in their wealth. They invest everything in strengthening themselves in wickedness and making themselves more powerful and abusive. That's what the wicked are like, but he says they will laugh. Now this isn't a laughter of mockery. This isn't a laughter of people saying, oh, I just love to see the wicked get ripped to shreds. No, there's something wrong about that. We're not delighting in the calamity of the wicked. But what he's saying is that we as God's people should recognize that God is going to bring about a just judgment and that we can rejoice in the knowledge that God will not leave persecutors undealt with. God will not leave the wicked walking around carefree, scot-free, never having to deal with that holy judge. And in a sense, that should make us rejoice. That should make us satisfied. We should be satisfied in the knowledge, vengeance is mine. I will repay. It's not for you, it's not for me to take vengeance on the wicked. The government is established to bring about justice in this world, not you, not me. But trust, God will do it. And we can walk around this world thinking about that, knowing that, and committing that to God, and being satisfied in the knowledge that in the end, God's going to glorify himself by showing the wicked that they were wrong. And he's going to come. And he's also going to vindicate the righteous. And he's going to bless the righteous. The meek are going to inherit this earth, not the wicked. Jesus said, and that's the kind of laughter he's talking about. The people of God being absolutely sure in the victory of God. His right hand is powerful and holy and he has shown his justice and his salvation in all the world. That's what we're laughing about. That's what we're rejoicing in. And that should be our response when we see this wicked. Be trusting, be confident in your trust that God knows how to deal with all these things in His time and His way and commit it to the hand of God with confidence. And then we get to the final part of the psalm. The final part of the psalm is verse 8 and 9. And here, David contrasts himself with the wicked, not only with Doeg, but really with all the wicked. And what David is doing is saying, reflecting on, and David had to be thinking about this, he thought about this maybe for weeks, and he stopped and thought one day, you could just see the wheels turning, you know, what's the difference between me and Doeg anyway? When you see evil, you should ask yourself that. Why is he evil and I'm not? Is David going, Look at me. I'm not like those people. I'm much better than they are. They're from Edomites. Edomites are bad people. Now David says, you know what the difference is? And this is your reaction to wickedness too. It's time to reflect. The difference is grace. David steps back and compares himself with Doeg, and he considers those differences. And really, as I say, between all the righteous and all the wicked. And all the righteous ought to look, and we ought to embrace David's response that's recorded here. Here's what makes the righteous different from the wicked. David says, I, but, notice the but, it's a contrast, but I, I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. Doeg can be plucked up. Doeg can be ripped out. Doeg can be taken away from his dwelling place. Doeg can be taken from the land of the living. What's my hope? I'm like a green olive tree in the house of God. Now what does that mean? Well, the olive tree is well known in Palestine as a tree that lives for hundreds of years. Hundreds of years. It's very long-lived. And when it lives there in good places, it's able, it's strong, it withstands drought, and it's able to keep producing crop after crop, year after year, and over hundreds of years. Think of the fruit that comes to the owner of that one olive tree who receives a crop from it year after year for hundreds of years. That's great fruit. David says, you know what? That's really, that's what I'm like. I'm like an olive tree that has been planted securely and where? What's the secret to my longevity and my fruitfulness? It's that I am planted in the house of God. In the house of God where the worship of God has taken place. In the house of God where God declares his mercy every morning and his faithfulness each night. Where God receives the sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins. These are the things in David's world. David is thinking on God's unfailing love and how it gets proclaimed in the house of the Lord all the time. And we hear the promises of the gospel proclaimed in the house of the Lord. Where do we live today? We live in the house of the Lord. We live in the family of God. We gather together as God's people to worship before the throne of God. What makes us live? What makes us fruitful? What makes us flourish for a long, long, long time? Eternity is a long time, isn't it? The gospel hope. God's faithfulness, His rich, rich faithfulness that's proclaimed here. I trust in the mercy, the steadfast love of God forever and ever. That's the difference between me and Doak. Do you believe this? With David, do you believe that God really is in control of this world? That God will judge evil, but the righteous will be blessed with God's peace. Kept in God's peace. Even if you're one of those who gets taken out of this world by an evil person, you will live in the house of the Lord forever. Nothing shall be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Not famine, not sword, nothing. That's really David's hope, isn't it? That's our hope in the face of a wicked world. We can get scared to death. I'm never going to go out of the house. I'm never going to go anywhere. Who knows what crazed person might do something somewhere. I'm just going to sit at home and hold my shotgun in my lap and pull down all the shades. And if somebody ever comes in, then I'll be right. No, David says, you know what? I'm an olive tree in the house of the Lord. I have the mercies of God forever. And so what's David going to do? I'm going to praise God forever, verse 9 says. What should we do? How do we live in the face of these things? I'm going to trust in God for the future. Forever and ever I will trust in God for my good. That's trusting God for the future. I will wait on your name. I will hope, that word wait really is, I will hope on your name for it is You know what that's saying? It's saying God has a name and God is going to honor His name. And for the sake of God's name and His glory, God will rise and God will do what is righteous in this world. For His name's sake, He will lead us beside still waters. For His name's sake, He will keep us. And for His name's sake, He will keep His word. He will not forget His people. He will not forget His glory. He will not forget His kingdom. And He will rise. So I trust in that for the future, David says. And not only that, but then he also says, in the presence of your saints, I will do this. In other words, he says, I'm gonna bear witness of these truths with God's people in worship. In the presence of the saints of God, I'm going to go and I'm going to praise my God. And I'm going to say to others, and they're gonna say to me. We're gonna say to each other. This is our hope, this is our trust, this is our faith, and we're gonna encourage each other in this God and in His trustworthiness. That's what we're doing tonight as we worship. That's what we do in the morning when we worship. That's what we do when we gather as people of God in fellowship. We encourage one another in the promises of God. When you go visit somebody in the hospital, when you go visit somebody in their home who's in need, what do you do? You take the promises of God and you say, look, let's trust together. God's our God. We're going to be cared for by our God. Let's testify this to each other. And let's bear witness of it to a watching world. Let's do these things. That's the response of the righteous. Now, as we close, I want to remind you that David is saying these things as one who is himself a great sinner. Never forget that. David confessed in Psalm 51. that he was a sinner. And you know what? The only difference between David, who murdered one of his own mighty men, and Doeg, the mighty murderer, the only difference is God's grace. God's grace brought David to repentance. David knows he isn't better than Doeg. By grace, God brought David to that repentance stage. And if you're a believer, it's only by grace that God brought you there too. And it's by God's grace that you're not one of the wicked out there rampaging around doing these evil things. When you see the wicked running amok, when you see abuses of justice, the only difference between the righteous and the wicked is God's mercy and God's word. You know what this world needs then? This world needs to hear the gospel of grace. The gospel of Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth. The gospel tells us that God cares for justice so much that he put his own son to death in the place of sinners. He didn't let people go, just go. He meted out justice on Jesus Christ. God is a just God, and until his justice is satisfied, he doesn't turn his face away. God is also a God of mercy. And God's mercy was poured out on the ungodly, Romans says. It was for the ungodly that Jesus died, not for just people, not for good people. For ungodly people, Jesus died to make us a people who now live for the praise of his glory. God brought salvation to this world for evil people. And evil people need to hear the message of the gospel. They need to bow before King Jesus. Friends, you see why it's so important, Lord's Day after Lord's Day, as God's word goes out from the scriptures, that we don't turn away from the word of grace. The only difference between our pace and our destruction is the mercy of God, the grace of God, who worked in your heart and my heart and brought us to this faith. So what do you do? You praise God for the grace He gave you and you be confident in God's righteous judgment over the wicked and you live your life out of that mindset. Amen. I'd like