Friends, would you please stand as we read the Lord's Word. This morning I'm reading from Psalm 37. This is the Lord's Word. Do not fret because of evildoers. Be not envious toward wrongdoers, for they will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in him and he will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret, it leads only to evil doing. For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. For a little while, and the wicked man will be no more, and you will look carefully for his place, and he will not be there. But the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity. The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord laughs at him, for he sees his day is coming. The wicked have drawn the sword and bent their bow to cast down the afflicted and the needy. To slay those who are upright in conduct, their sword will enter their own heart and their bows will be broken. Better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord sustains the righteous. The Lord knows the days of the blameless, and their inheritance will be forever. They will not be ashamed in the time of evil, and in the days of famine they will have abundance. But the wicked will perish, and the enemies of the Lord will be like the glory of the pastors. They vanish like smoke, they vanish away. The wicked borrows and does not pay back, but the righteous is gracious and gives. For those blessed by him will inherit the land, but those cursed by him will be cut off. The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and he delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the one who holds his hand. I have been young, and now I am old. Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread. All day long he is gracious and lends, and his descendants are a blessing. Depart from evil and do good, so you will abide forever. For the Lord loves justice and does not forsake his godly ones. They are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked will be cut off. The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever. The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom and his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart. His steps do not slip. The wicked spies upon the righteous and seeks to kill him. The Lord will not leave him in his hand or let him be contemned when he is judged. Wait for the Lord and keep his way and he will exalt you to inherit the land. When the wicked are cut off, you will see it. I have seen a wicked, violent man spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more. I sought for him, but he could not be found. Mark the blameless man, and behold the upright, for the man of peace will have a posterity. But transgressors will be altogether destroyed. The posterity of the wicked will be cut off. But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord. He is their strength in time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him. This is the Lord's word. Would you please be seated, friends? Again, O Lord, we thank you for your word, and what a timely psalm for the days in which we are living, and we would come to you and pray that you would bless the servant to open up this passage of scripture faithfully. I pray, Lord, as well, that you would bless your people with ears to hear. I pray that you would, as we've come into this place today, many of whom's hearts are heavy, we pray, Lord, that this burden would be removed as we again look upon you. Thank you for your love for us, O Father. Now we ask that you will cause your kingdom to advance and that the kingdom of Satan would suffer injury. And we pray that your people who are and those who will be will be edified by these words. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Obviously, we're not in 2 Peter today. I almost had the sermon completed, and I could not find myself getting so jazzed about that passage. And I just, you could probably tell the demeanor of the service is different. We're a little bit heavy. And I thought, maybe it's just me. Maybe it's just me. But then I walk in this morning, and you hear the conversations and what's coming out of people's mouths. And I sense that perhaps we needed to revisit an old tried and true psalm to be reminded of the faithfulness of our God. We watched something this week unfold, really a very shameful thing. And there's reports. And you know, my stock in the internet, not my financial stock, but my confidence in the internet is very thin these days. Because you can find anything you want to find on the internet. If it supports your view, if it goes against your view, you can find it. My only confidence is that the word of God is true. That's my confidence in these days. So when we saw this past week an attack or an attack, a march that resulted in protesters breaching into the Capitol building, they initially said these were Trump supporters. Some of them were. Perhaps many of them weren't. I don't know. But I know that we've gotten to a point in our nation, there's a lot of anger. There's a lot of anger. And I sense that a lot of Christians are filled with that same type of anger. Jesus gave this warning in Matthew chapter 24. He said that in the end, because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. And that's where we're going. as Christians in this nation. You know, we're Republicans. Republicanism is not synonymous with Christianity. Please, please get that clear. And the Democrat Party is not synonymous with Christianity. You know what is synonymous with Christianity? the church. Christians are synonymous with Christianity. If you're like me, you're starting to feel like I'm a man without a country. I was telling someone this week, I already knew I was part of a minority and that minority got much more minor. And then you go, Lord, what do we do in these times in which we find ourselves? Because we are Christians, we have a citizenship in heaven. And yet We are citizens also of the United States. And we have responsibilities. But our greatest responsibility is to our God, who purchased us with his own blood, the blood of his son. That's our greatest responsibility. So we look here because we are watching all of these things taking place in our land. And I know that there's a tremendous level of disgust with things that have taken place. And this morning, one of the biggest problems we're having and seeing is that the right to be able to speak is now being limited. And we find that people are being shamed into silence. The only hope for our nation, and we've said this a thousand times, and you've said it, the only hope for our nation is Jesus Christ. And if the church pulls back, what hope does this nation have? If the church, if Christians who are called by the Lord's name are going to engage in violence, what hope does our nation have? We have to remember friends, we are first and foremost, the Lord's people. Psalm 37 is a wisdom Psalm. It's addressed to men rather than to God, and it reads very much like the Proverbs. It addresses three major themes. And we're only looking at verses 1 through 11 primarily this morning, but it addresses three major themes, the wicked, the righteous, and God's dealing with both. The wicked, the righteous, and God's dealing with both. Derek Kidner, a commentator said this, Psalm 37 is written to the righteous man to encourage him not to lose heart at the apparent prosperity of the wicked so that it does not cave into the temptation to join with the wicked in his wickedness. And the reason being is because we have a security in the Lord. We have a security in the Lord. So we need to, again, be reminded of the fact that we live in a fallen world. And as I was thinking about this on my way over this morning, this church and the church that we've all experienced in our lives 40, 50, 70, 80 years, We've come to these things. We've been brought up, nursed on, as it were, prosperity. We've always had it good. We don't know. We're not warring children. I was watching this little girl who's painting these masterpieces. She's, what, four years old, and she's painting these masterpieces, and they're selling for huge amounts of money. And I thought, this little girl is going to grow up. painting and she's only going to get better from here. When you're birthed, when you come to know the Lord in a time of hardship, you're geared for it. My grandchildren, they'll only remember times of hardship. And so I'm guessing that their faith will probably be more robust than most of us growing up. We don't know how to fight. We don't know what to do in the midst of hardship. We all want to cower and draw back or sin in our anger. But this is not the Lord's way for us. We live in a fallen world. We need to understand that, that the world has always, since the moment you were born and conceived, to the moment you were brought home in your mother's arms, to the moment you were received into the church and you made this public profession of faith, you have been in a fallen world. Did you know that? Or did you think that this was just the American thing? This is the popular thing and the good thing. We have to remember, we're the ones behind enemy territory that behind enemy lines here. Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail or the gates of Hades would not prevail against the gospel. We're the invading force. The church is the invading force. Let me give you a description. of what we're dealing with in this world. We have to understand the reality of the world then and the reality of the world now. And remember this, this Psalm is written by King David. He's the gold standard of all of Israel's kings. He is a king who foreshadows Jesus Christ. If you compare Saul's life with David's life, Saul's throne was one built upon human opinion. He did what was expedient. He was a man purely who walks after the flesh of his own heart. David, on the other hand, contrasting that with Saul, is a man after God's own heart. David is building a kingdom and a throne that is established upon righteousness. David's writing this Psalm, King David, and listen to what he says about the nature of life under his kingdom. You read this and you go, oh, I guess Israel wasn't like spick and span under this king. So the picture first is that not all Israel is Israel. There's two kinds of people in the world, those in the world and of the world, and those in the world and not of the world. We live in a fallen world, a world that is dominated by sin, a world that is under the curse of death. And King David writes this psalm to those who struggle with the wicked and their wicked ways. He refers to these antagonists throughout this psalm as evildoers, wrongdoers, wicked schemers, those who plot to destroy by sword and bow the upright in conduct. They are called enemies of the Lord and violent men. This is all taking place under King David's reign. There are people just like this, even in the best country, the best kingdom on the face of the earth, and this is still taking place. The world then and the world now are no different. And I think maybe this week you saw, hey, it can't be as bad as it looks. And maybe this morning you woke up and thought, well, Maybe it is as bad as it looks. Maybe it's even worse than it looks. And you feel your heart sink. There's this practice of evil in our land. Sin is lawlessness. The scriptures tell us this. The scriptures tell us what man's condition is. Again, you know these things. I know you know these things because we've spoken of them so often, but I think we forget them. Jeremiah 79, the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it? Romans 3, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. Listen, there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become useless. There is none who does good, there is not even one. Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 says that their minds have been blinded, that is the minds of the unregenerate have been blinded by the God of this world, by the devil. They're blinded by these things. And Paul would say to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 that they are held captive by Satan, caught in their snare, caught in his snare. And so he would go on to say then, concerning the last days, Paul would say, that in the last days difficult times will come. Now listen to this. This was prophesied. This is spoken thousands of years ago. Men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. Therefore, friends, knowing what man is and knowing what the final days of history are to be like, it should not surprise us that the vast numbers of people in our country esteem things that are just flat out godless. It shouldn't surprise us. We esteem charisma over substance. We judge poorly. We don't judge justly. We don't judge righteously. We judge based upon appearances. All the time, we are guilty of these very things, of judging by appearances. The man plays a saxophone. I think he'll make a great president. And we do the same with Biden or with Trump, right? He seems low energy. What a putz. Or we think of Trump and his tweets and say, what a jerk. and we don't bother to stop and consider the substance of things. Either way, we have to be very careful about these things. We know that the Lord has said that this is the world we are in, and we also know, friends, that we're strangers, we're aliens, we are pilgrims. We don't have here, said the writer of scripture, a lasting city, but we look forward to the city which is coming. We have no regard for the future generations. We don't act on principles now. We act almost purely on pragmatism. Is this going to help my career or is this going to hurt my career if I stand with this person or that person? If I speak against this, will I be submarined? These are not Christian ideas. These are fleshly things. Human life is expendable, but we'll save penguins. We'll save eagles. What's wrong with us? But you see, this is the world. This is the world. So we shouldn't be surprised when we are taken advantage of, when we are mistreated, or we are abused. This is the world that we're in, and it's difficult. It's a difficult thing. Many in Israel, under one of the greatest kings, suffered in such ways. What should our attitude be? Going forward, coming into this place today, what should our attitude be? The question is not whether or not you will encounter evil, because we have, and we most certainly will, but what are we gonna do about it now, as we go forward? What do you do with those ungodly neighbors? What do you do about unprincipled men and dishonest politicians and leaders, people who take advantage of their position and hurt other people? What do you do with it? If we're not very careful, we may fall headlong into sin. The writer of Psalm 73, Asaph, wrote, but as for me, my feet came close to stumbling. My steps had almost slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked. I've preached that psalm, I think, several times in our years together. And the temptation is always very present when you watch the news. And you say, what are we going to do with these people? You know, it's a good thing I didn't go to Washington, DC. I might have been so caught up in the anger that I would want to storm into those deliberations and say, what are you people thinking about? This is ridiculous. I wouldn't have tried to hurt anyone, but I certainly would have raised my voice. It's a temptation to fall headlong into sin with what's going on. For this reason, the Holy Spirit speaking to us by way of King David tells us this. Now listen, do not fret because of evildoers. How many of you woke up this morning fretting? Don't raise your hands. But also don't pretend like you don't, it doesn't weigh on you. I told you last week and I didn't want to say it this week, but I said to my wife on January 1st, if I don't technically get my feet out of the bed onto the floor, does the year start? You just have this dread in this sense that I think 2021 might be harder than 2020. I'm just saying. Do not fret because of evildoers, be not envious toward wrongdoers. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. Verse eight, cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret, it leads only to evil doing. You hear, this is the spirit of God has spoken to us these things. And the temptation we struggle with when we see evil politicians doing evil things is to get worked up. The word fret actually means to burn, to get heated with vexation. The temptation for all of us is to get all worked up over unprincipled people, to become worried, and to further become envious of the ease at which they seem, apparently, glide through life. We look and see the wicked getting away with their wickedness. And not only this, but they prosper. We've been geared to think that the good guy always wins. You remember what Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes? We see a wicked man living long in his wickedness and a righteous man dying young. You ever feel like that? We see it. We really, we do. This is then when we begin to wonder, where is the justice of the Lord? This stinks. We become worked up. We begin to fret. We become angry and full of wrath. But we are told, do not fret. It leads only to evil doing. One of two things will happen when we witness this phenomena. We become angry. And because we think in merely a temporal way, we begin to take the attitude that it's OK to sin. We envy those who are in sin. and eventually succumb to the same ethics and mindsets of the world. The end justifies the means. If you can't beat them, join them. Well, if this is it, and that's the way many Christians live, we live in a very temporal fashion. We think 70 or 80 years, that's it. And so I've got to get it all right now. And since I can't seem to get the upper hand with those who corrupt, I might as well play their game with them. Then I too can succeed. That's a temptation. And so it doesn't matter how I get what I want as long as I get it. Or we retaliate. If I can't join them, I'll beat them. I have a very different approach, right? Listen to what the scripture says. Never take your own vengeance, revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. And if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. In what way, then, are we to keep ourselves from worry, envy, and anger, and evildoing? We are exhorted to godliness, to a godly attitude. And I would sum up what the psalmist says by reading to you from Colossians chapter 3. If you'll turn there with me, Colossians 3. I'd like to read verses 1 through 10. Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience. And in them you also once walked when you were living in them. But now you also put them all aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abuse of speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him. Do you hear what he says? Therefore, if you've been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Notice here in Psalm 37, one through 11 and other places throughout this Psalm that the Lord directs our eyes, our hearts away from the wicked and up to the Lord himself. We recognize that there is evil in the land. We recognize that what we're seeing is evil. We are never commanded to fixate upon it. And I find that Christians, myself included, we fixate upon the evil of the land. And when we fixate upon it, we actually do fall into evil. And that's a dangerous place. Listen to what the psalmist writes in verses three through five and other places. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in him and he will do it. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. With words like trust and delight, remember Paul and Silas in prison, what were they doing as they're imprisoned? They're singing. They're delighting in the God of their salvation. Trust and delight and commit and rest, that is, be silent, wait. The psalmist urges us not to be overcome by evil. The idea is that our affections are stayed upon Jehovah and not focused on those in this world who perpetrate evil. So we get our attention off of those who have injured us, And we get our eyes back on the one who died for us, who laid down his life for us. So listen to this. Here's a stupid little thing for you to remember. Stop looking at the phone and start looking at the throne of God. See, you'll remember. That'll be the only thing you remember from this whole sermon, I can tell. But if that's it, good. Because we're so fixated on everything going on, and we do need to know what's going on, but we're so fixated on it that we're all worrying and getting worked up, and nothing good comes from that. We'll either join with the world in doing to them what they're doing to people, or we will retaliate, and we will perpetrate evil. That's not the way of the Lord. That's not the way we're supposed to go. You are right to trust in the Lord with all of your heart and to look to him. He has dealt with our offenses, which at one time separated us from him. You are right to bend the knee to him and to submit to his authority willingly. Now we have no reason to despair because we see others who thumb their nose at the Lord. You, however, trust, delight, commit, rest, wait. He is not slow, as some count slowness, but is patient with us. And it's not only an action of trust that we are called to place upon the Lord, or an attitude of trust, but is also an action. We are tempted to withdraw, again, to get even or to join with these individuals. But the Lord tells us to do good. We show our faith is genuine when we do good, when we obey the Lord and what he has told us. Some of you know, I went to that Stop the Steal rally. It was only 30 people. And there was a write-up in County 10, and they actually misspelled the name of the church. Instead of Grace Reform Fellowship, it was Grave Reform Fellowship. Not sure that that's how I want the church to be remembered. And I used it as an opportunity, the session knew, I used it as an opportunity to speak of Christ and encourage people to be faithful citizens of the United States, get involved, be involved in the whole political process. Christians, you want people of integrity involved in the whole political process. Well, last night, at a little after eight, I get a nice letter shaming me for what took place at the Capitol on Wednesday. Like I had anything to do with that. But I got a nice shame letter. And I've written the man back. And I was very gracious. My wife, I think. I was gracious, wasn't I? I think I was. And I've offered to meet with the man. I said, look, you know, you're getting news, I'm getting news. I'm happy to sit down and talk with you if you'd like. I'm not here to curse those who curse me, nor should you. We're here to bless those who curse us. This is an opportunity. I mean, I went to bed and I'm peaceful when I go to bed last night, you know, and I go, I just got this shame letter. It was amazing, the peace I had. I thought, because We've been sitting and slumbering in a nation where everyone is okay. But you know what I think's fascinating? My God is becoming sweeter to me as I see that the world is really very antithetical to the things of the Lord. My God is a king that's over all the nations. I don't have to be afraid. I really don't. And so my goal is to bless those who curse me. So when I get a letter, I'm gonna offer to buy coffee. Probably get a bunch of requests now to meet, so I'll buy him coffee. But the goal is we want to bless these people. We're called to action. We're called, as the Lord says in verse 3, do good. We look at it this way. We live in a nation. We know that there are all sorts of illegal things going on. We know there are crooked people. We know that people are going to take advantage of us. These are the last days we are living in. We must keep looking to the Lord. and we must continue to serve him. So again, if you'll turn with me to Romans chapter 12, and listen here to verses 14 through 21. And friends, this is why I caution you about deifying or or sanctifying, setting apart one party or another party. I will say it. I think somebody wrote it well. They said, has anyone ever thought about that the right wing and the left wing are both part of the same bird? I think that's what we're seeing. And I don't know of any Christian who can square with either political party and say that the Lord Jesus would be pleased with this. Now, clearly, there's a platform I agree with a whole lot more than the other, and I think is a whole lot closer to what the scriptures teach. But the Christian is going to take a stand, and eventually, you're going to find out we don't belong in this world. Listen to what Paul writes. Bless those who persecute you and bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own Revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. And if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And that's where we are. So when I hear all of these things and I see the things taking place, My first response should not be, I wish I could be there to punch them in the nose. It should be to bless them by praying for them, praying for repentance. And you wanna pray for justice, you wanna pray for righteousness, and you wanna promote those things. I'm very serious. I don't think Christians should be removed from the political process. Rather, I would rather see most of you involved in it. If for nothing else, just because you fear the Lord, and I trust that when a person fears the Lord and is in Christ, he will promote what is just and right. You should be involved. Our neighbors need people of integrity to get involved. When we become so discouraged with politicians, and all that goes on, I will get engaged with it, and I will try to do what is right in order to be a blessing to my neighbor. In other words, the Christian is called to do what is right regardless of the 99 or better percent of people who do wrong. That's our job. That's our job. And here's why. Because our hope is in the Lord, and it's not a vain hope. He will not forsake the righteous, nor will he ignore the wicked. The Lord is just. Now, let me say something. Our God reigns. Our God is real. His justice and the day of judgment is coming as surely, even more surely as the chairs that you are sitting in right now. This is what the scriptures repeatedly tell us, a day of judgment is coming. 2 Thessalonians 1.6, it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you. We're told, be not envious toward wrongdoers for they will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb. In verse nine, for evil doers will be cut off. Verse 10, yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more. and you will look carefully for his place, and he will not be there. The wicked only get away with their wickedness for a short while. You need to believe this. They only get away with their wickedness for a short while. They may prosper in this life, but their prosperity is but a vapor. Like grass without water is dried up and withers, they will be dispossessed from the earth when Christ comes again. The wicked then will be judged. They will be cut off. Their evil plots will backlash so that their swords will enter their own hearts. Their arms will be broken. Transgressors will be altogether destroyed. That's the day of the wicked. These crooked politicians. these people who are trying to stifle a gospel witness or free speech, their day is going to come to them. It is, but the righteous and the righteous is a word that's used nine times in this, in this Psalm, the righteous are not the ones who act necessarily always righteous, but it's the righteousness that is imputed to the, to the believer. that those are the righteous people. The psalmist is not saying that there are sinners and non-sinners walking around on the planet, but rather like Abraham who believed God, it was credited to him as righteousness. Listen, verses two and 10. how the wicked and righteous are contrasted. We are told, yet a little while, and the wicked man will be no more, and you will look carefully for his place, and he will not be there. But the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity. Notice he's contrasting the wicked with the humble. What's the difference? The wicked are full of pride, and they do what they want. The humble understand that they have no righteousness of their own, and so they humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. They look to God to deliver them. They are meek. Meekness is opposite the wicked. While the wicked perpetrate evil, the meek suffer long under it and they patiently endure it. Meekness is not the same as weakness, but meekness is strength under control. Jesus said, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. The reason they are meek is because their trust, again, is in the Lord, that he will vindicate them. They are godly and righteous. The faith that they have, the righteousness that they have, are not of this world. And the Lord will bring forth their righteousness as the noonday sun. That's the confidence we have. Because they take refuge in him, They will inherit the land forever. And the land that we inherit is not the United States of America. And it's not Palestine. But it's the new heavens and the new earth. That's when that's when everything's going to be set straight on that final day when we enter that heavenly country. The only hope for us is to turn to the Lord. No answers or solutions will be found in conventions. No deliverance from wickedness will be found in Washington, D.C. Those whose hope is fixed upon Jesus Christ will never be disappointed. Sin is dealt with and the hope of heaven is secured in Jesus Christ for us. So my friends, as we go out of this place today, and as no doubt this afternoon, you'll pick up your phone and you'll start reading the articles. Don't fixate there. Don't fixate, please don't. Because it'll only lead to evil doing. After you read those articles, you say, ah, yes. But a day is coming when Jesus Christ is going to set this all straight. That's really gotta be the place for the Christian to walk, for us to walk that fine line. While we live in the United States of America and we must be involved, it's a privilege that is an obligation to us. Yet our hope as Christians is not to become emotionally entangled in the United States of America, but to keep our hope and our eyes fixed upon our God who's coming soon to take us home to be with him. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord, again for this day and for your word and pray that you would help us as we are struggling, Father, with the many things that are going on in our country. And again, Father, we do pray that you will right the wrongs and that your will be done, that you will preserve justice and that you would extend mercy to us. And yet, Father, for us as Christians, we find that we don't fit so well with the Republicans and we don't fit with the Democrats. And it would seem, Father, that hearts are far from you and there's no integrity in our land. We pray that we would do good, that we would dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness, and that we would not imitate or long for the riches of the wicked, for we know that their day is coming. We ask, Father, that we would gladly serve you in quietness, that when opportunities or when times present themselves to speak, that we would speak and love the things that are true and right and pleasing to you. We pray that you would safeguard your people through this land and give us wisdom, Father, how to navigate these things. And please keep us from wicked and false teachers who teach godless things and doctrines of demons. That we might, again, Father, adorn the gospel and that we would point people to you. I ask all this now in Jesus' name, amen.