I want to turn to Psalm 7, that is the place from which I'll be preaching this morning. So we are returning to our sermon series in Thessalonians in a way in that we're taking up a psalm of focus related to 2 Thessalonians. You know that before the holidays we finished 1 Thessalonians. So we're now ready to begin second Thessalonians. And as our custom has been for a long time, we take a psalm of focus that's related to whatever section I'm preaching on in the morning and seeing that in connection with that sermon series. And I always introduce that psalm to you with a sermon on that psalm. So as 2 Thessalonians starts off with a lot about God's righteous judgment, the first two chapters speak much about that, then I thought it would be good to take Psalm 7 as our psalm of focus, because in this psalm we plead with God to come and judge. It's a good psalm for us to learn at this time, not only because it is related to 2 Thessalonians that we're going to be looking at but also because praying for God's judgment is something that is often neglected in the church today. So it would be good for us and maybe stretching for us to learn to lift up these verses before the Lord our God. As with all the Psalms, be sure that in singing it, you don't merely sing with your lips, but that you are fully engaged with your heart. with your sentiments, with your soul. This very psalm reminds us that God is the one who looks upon the heart. He sees right to the depths of our being. It actually says the heart and mind in our translation, but it's actually heart and kidneys, which refers to the very depths of a person. So please listen as I read this psalm to you. Again, it is Psalm 7, and it is the word of God. Listen with reverence before the one that I just spoke about who sees your heart. Even as you listen to his word. Psalm 7, verse 1. A meditation of David which he sang to the Lord concerning the words of Cush of Benjamin. O Lord my God, in you I put my trust. Save me from all those who persecute me and deliver me. lest they tear me like a lion, rending me in pieces while there is none to deliver. O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is iniquity in my hands, if I have repaid evil to him who was at peace with me, or have plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue me and overtake me. Yes, let him trample my life to the earth and lay my honor in the dust. Arise, O Lord, in your anger. Lift yourself up because of the rage of my enemies. Rise up for me to the judgment you have commanded. So the congregation of the peoples shall surround you. For their sakes, therefore, return on high. The Lord shall judge the peoples. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to my integrity within me. Oh, let the righteousness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the just. For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds. My defense is of God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day. If he does not turn back, he will sharpen his sword. He bends his bow and makes it ready. He also prepares for himself instruments of death. He makes his arrows into fiery shafts. Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity. Yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood. He made a pit and dug it out and has fallen into the ditch which he made. His troubles shall return upon his own head and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown. I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High. And may the Lord be pleased to bless the reading and also the preaching of his holy and infallible word. When I preach from the Psalms, I very often encourage you to sing them with the risen Lord Jesus Christ. The Psalms are uniquely designed to be sung by God's covenant people in every age. That means that Israel sang them in their various circumstances when they were penned. And it means that Jesus Christ sang them when he was here. They were all suitable to the church in his day and to him as the one who had come to be our savior. What is, and then we are able also to sing them today with significance and meaning. They're so written that they speak in every age and apply to every age. But what is special about them is that as songs for God's covenant people, we sing them with Christ as our covenant head. Though David and others penned them, they did so as prophets of Christ. That means that they are first and foremost his songs, the songs of Jesus, and that we have the privilege of joining with him as our exalted prophet, priest, and king, and of singing with him as our leader. We have seen before in Hebrews where it speaks of him as the liturgist of New Testament worship, the one who leads the worship. Because he gave these songs to us, we know that everything in them is pleasing to him. And we also know that if we sing with him, if we are in faith, then we can sing them as those who are accepted by Christ as members of his kingdom. So we can come before God with confidence. In other words, singing them with Jesus means that we come to God as those who are represented by him as our king and who are united with him and with each other as we sing. Psalm 7 is one that you especially want to sing with Jesus because in it we ask God to judge everyone, including us, with righteous judgment. If you're not in Christ, then the last thing you want to ask God to do is to judge you in righteous judgment. If you're not in Christ, who is our righteousness and who is crucified for our sins, asking God to judge you means that you're asking him to condemn you rather than to vindicate you. His just judgment will land on everyone who is not in Christ so that they are brought to the lake of fire. You are full of sin, and unless you are in Christ, you have no way to atone for your sin. And that means that you will not stand, as the first Psalm says, in the day of judgment. But what a delight it is to sing this Psalm with Jesus. Knowing that we stand in perfect righteousness before God. To know that you have come to Him to save you and that He has received you. And that the Father has received Him and all who are in Him. And has welcomed us to Himself. That through faith in Him you will not be condemned, unless He is. And you already know that He will not be condemned. The Father has already acknowledged that His sacrifice for His people's sin is fully accepted by Him. He has raised Him from the dead and He has exalted Him as Lord and Christ to sit on His right hand to be our Savior. That means that when you ask God to judge you, you can be sure that you will not be condemned with the wicked because you belong to the righteous kingdom of Jesus Christ with Him representing all of us. So with that in mind, let us examine the words of this Psalm that our Lord Jesus has given us to sing with him. We begin here in this Psalm by asking God, to deliver us from those who persecute us. The word persecute means to pursue, so they're pursuing after us to harm us. This is certainly something that we as covenant people have always needed to ask. We are told in the Hebrew title of this psalm that the occasion when David wrote this had to do with the words of Cush, a Benjamite, something that this man had said. We do not know who Cush the Benjamite is, we have no record of him, but we know that King Saul was a Benjamite who readily received slanderous accusations against David, and that Saul was a Benjamite. It could be a reference to Saul himself because it certainly fits, but if not, it's probably someone who was going around trying to look for dirt on David, You can see politics hasn't changed at all, and then coming and reporting to David the things that he had found. As an ungodly, unregenerate man, Saul was jealous of David, and he yearned very much to find some fault with David, even though David was one of his most loyal subjects. Instead of rejoicing in David, Saul received slanderous reports about him, and then persecuted him with the intention of killing him. Very much like what we saw in Genesis with Jacob and Esau or even before that with Cain and Abel. How Abel was despised by Cain because he was righteous and Cain was not and he wanted to destroy him. You remember how God came and pled. with Cain that he would repent and that he could also receive mercy and how he refused to do so. So the great son of David, Jesus Christ, our Savior and our covenant head received similar treatment to what David received when he was here. He had many, even among those who are numbered with the covenant people of Israel, who slandered him because they were the ones that were seeking to be righteous by their own works. And Jesus truly was righteous. And so they hated him just as they hated anybody that was trusting in him for their righteousness, because it exposed them as being unrighteous. So they resented him and they slandered him. And he obviously had the favor of God as he went about doing miracles and that irritated them all the more. As you know, they actually ended up crucifying him in accordance with the decree and intention of God. They didn't do anything other than what God had planned because God had purposed that he would deliver him to the cross to die for our sins. But their goal was not that at all. Their goal was to rid the earth of him. They wanted him out of the way. But until the appointed time for him to die, Jesus also had to pray, Psalm 7, that God would keep him safe from persecutors. And so God did until the appointed time. And even when he was crucified by them, he bore our sins indeed, but then he prayed to God that God would vindicate him by accepting his sacrifice for his people, which is what he was doing. And he was accused of being a wicked man. See, he's on the cross. He's a cursed man. And indeed, he did bear the curse for us. But of course, God did vindicate him by raising him from the dead and then exalting him to be Lord and Savior, as I already mentioned. And now from heaven, Jesus prays for all of His people, for His church, all over the earth, who are persecuted for righteousness, the same reason. He prays for us, and He has given us this psalm to pray along with Him against our persecutors, knowing that He will be heard, that we will be heard, because He will be heard. And the Father always hears Him, and we're praying with Him. He counts all persecution against us as being against him. Do you remember when another Saul was persecuting the church? And what he said to him when he was exalted in heaven? And this Saul was on the earth persecuting the new believers. And he came to him and he said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So Jesus regards all the persecutions that are going on in the world against his people as against him because that's who they in fact are against. It's because of those who are righteous in him that they're hated because the world hates righteousness. The world hates those who are walking with God. That's what is at the root of the problem. So this assures us that when we're persecuted for righteousness sake, he counts it as being done against him. You can see how the song begins with an affirmation of trust in God then. In singing this psalm with Jesus, we tell the Lord, our God, that we're relying on Him to be our refuge. You don't have another place to go. Oh, Lord, my God, in You I put my trust. You see how we call Him Lord or Yahweh, His covenant name, self-existing one. Yahweh, my God, that's what we call Him. because He who has sovereign authority and power is our God. He has said in His covenant, I will be your God and you will be my people. Through Jesus His Son, He is our God. That is the foundation of our confidence that we know that He looks after us because we are His people. And sometimes we need to have a strong confidence because in the middle of persecutions, we say, Lord, where are you? And to know that he is the Lord, our God, and that all things concerning us are in his care. And the words, in you I put my trust. These refer to taking him as our refuge. The word trust refers to a refuge. A place of safety that you go for protection. We are affirming that we are in His place as the Lord our God. That we are in His hands as our protector. That we have nothing else to protect us. He's the only one that we are relying on. And you see what we say, what we want Him to do. We say, save me from all those who persecute me. Persecute. Somebody that's coming after you, they're hounding you, they're pursuing you. It's not paranoia here. We have raging enemies who are dead set against us for the one reason that I mentioned before. Because we are God's people, and we're righteous in Him, and they are not. Their opposition comes in various ways and in various modes and various times. Sometimes it can be fairly friendly in outward form. But at the heart of things, anyone who is unwilling to have Christ as Savior is at war against God and those who belong to Him. That's where the battle line is drawn. Because God has various ways of restraining sinners in the world, He often doesn't allow the root of sin that is in them to fully mature in this world. But at the root of all who are not in Christ is an utter refusal to have God as their God. There is a defiant opposition to Him that will stand up and fight until the very death. There's a strong commitment to living life their own way without the true God who requires perfect obedience and who requires, who will not accept us as sinners apart from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. If we are following Him, then the world is opposed to us and would destroy us if it came down to it. If it came down to that being the necessity and the circumstances. This comes out in places where there is little restraint of sin. Where sin is allowed to grow up. You begin to see a rising tide of hatred and opposition and even rage against the people of God. I think we can see something of that growing in our society. It has nearly, we're seeing that more and more. It comes out in places in the world. The root desires were brought to light with David and even with Christ when he was revealed. And people who are otherwise mild people became aggressive and violent toward them. Very often this is seen in the world. In our day, we're seeing the growing opposition to the church in the West. It has not nearly reached full maturity yet. But when it does, people wish to tear Christians to pieces. You're starting to see that sometimes. This is happening in many parts of the world, though, in our day. where people are being dragged off and persecuted. Many, many martyrs in our day, in Iraq, in the Congo, in China, in Nigeria. You can see the urgency of the request that God would deliver us in verse two then, lest they tear me like a lion, rending me in pieces while there is none to deliver. They would have ruined Christ if they could. And if they would ruin him, then they would ruin anyone who is in Him, because we're tied together with Him. Now with such angst against us, you would think that we must have done some harm to them. That's what they slanderously say about us. But Christ our Head did not come to destroy, did He? He came to save. He came to rescue sinners from Satan, and to set them free so that they could serve God. They are committed to going their own way, but he offers them freedom from that bondage and an opportunity to return to God. He commands us to love them and to do good to them and to try to win them back to God. This is what infuriates them, but this is no just cause for them to hate. So in verse three through five, we present before God our innocence in a very striking way. In short, we say to God, let our enemies have our way with us if we are guilty of doing wrong to them. If we have done wrong, then let all of their wrath and vengeance come on us if their accusations are true. See, it says in 3 through 5, O Lord my God, if I have done this, done what? If there is iniquity in my hands, if I have repaid evil to him who is at peace with me, or have plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue me and overtake me. Yes, let him trample my life to the earth and lay my honor in the dust. You dare not pray this prayer if your enemies do have just cause to pursue you. If you've done wrong to them, if you start to harm them. If this is so, then you need to repent before God and you need to go to those enemies and you need to ask them for forgiveness and tell them that you've sinned against God and against them. But how wonderful it is that in Christ, we're joined to the Savior who has no malice. against the wicked. He continually pleads with them, even as he continued to plead with Judas to repent. As we saw earlier, how God pled with Cain to repent. He does good and not evil to them. And if we're in Christ, that is what we're to do in him by his grace and through his help. This is the way of his people and the way of the new life that he's planted in us, that we love our enemies and we do good to those that hate us. And then we can say with confidence by the grace of God that we have not sought to harm those who are persecuting us, but we have sought to do them good. Nevertheless, though as those in Christ we seek to do good to our enemies, we also are to desire to see God bring justice at last. And that's the next thing that our Savior teaches us to sing with Him in prayer to God in this psalm. This is something that confuses a lot of people. Because we're told to love our enemies, to do good for them, to pray for them, and then at the same time, we pray these prayers that God would come and visit them with His wrath and His justice and His judgment. So how does this fit together? We see it beautifully in David. When Saul, who was the anointed king that was over him, was pursuing him and trying to kill him as a personal enemy, David continued to do good to Saul. But then when there were enemies that were coming against God's people and trying to destroy them, David rose up an army and went out and killed many thousands of them. This is the kind of thing that we see, that we fight, we desire to see wickedness brought down for the sake of God's people and the establishment of God's righteous kingdom. We want to see wickedness rooted out, but at the same time, as those enemies are there that are persecuting us and pursuing us, we're praying for them, we're seeking to see them brought to repentance and come to know the Lord. So you see here that in this portion of the Psalm, we ask God to bring everyone to justice in accordance with his righteousness. It's a prayer that all of us should be praying. You see how we call him to wake up. and take action in verse 6 because all these tragedies, all this hostility is going on and God's not doing anything. We see people being dragged off and killed. If that was happening in our society as it is in some parts of the world, we would have a real sense of the horror of this sort of thing. You see that three words are used to address Him as one who has been, as it were, slumbering. In verse 6, it says, arise, O Lord. It says, lift up, lift yourself up. It says, rise up or wake up. That's the idea. These are all words that have to do with going from a state of inaction to a state of action. So we're asking God, you know, visit with judgment. For so long, he's been waiting to judge. It's been allowing wickedness to go on advancing, growing up, maturing. Even in our society, things that were appalling only 70 years ago are now things that are promoted. Wickedness that's promoted, abortion of unwanted children, sexual promiscuity, and even the honoring of perversion in parades that mayors and prime ministers are involved in. Speaking blasphemy against the Lord and against his anointed. All sorts of things that would have been recalled from just a hundred years ago. are now part of the course. We ask the Lord then to arise because of the anger, the fury of those that are raging against His people and against Him. We ask Him to lift Himself up because of the rage of our enemies that grows more and more hostile every day. We ask Him to rise up to the judgment that He has commanded or decreed or appointed. for the sake of his church and among the nations. And that's really where this request comes in, that God would do this for the sake of his church. You see the request that he would arise to take action for his church in this psalm. In the middle of verse six, it says, rise up for me. Now think about this, again, this is Christ our head, the King of His church, rise up for me, meaning me and my people, rise up for me, He says, to the judgment. And we sing with Him as His people, as the King says before God, rise up for me to judgment. We come and we say with Him, rise up for me, for my King, to judgment. The judgment you have commanded. So the congregation of the peoples shall surround you. For their sakes, therefore, return on high. See, when God brings about that judgment that we're asking Him for, what happens? What happens to the congregation of the peoples or the nations, the assembly of the nations, the church across the world? What happens to it? It's brought together. to Him. It comes around Him. The church is gathered unto Him in that day of judgment. The request is that God would return on high, that He would take His elevated visible seat to the world. Because you see, His reign is not visible. to the people of the world today. They can walk about and ignore Him. We want Him to take His seat as He has done in various times in the past, such as at the flood, where God is seen, or when He came to bring judgment on Jerusalem and the Son of Man was seen in the clouds, riding in His chariot, bringing judgment on them. This is a request of our Savior that we join Him in asking for the sake of His persecuted people, because of the fury of the enemies and because of God's anger against them. We are asking Him for nothing else but what He has commanded or decreed to be done, what He has said He would do. In verse 8, we affirm with confidence then, the Lord shall judge the peoples. He'll judge them all, all the nations we brought before Him, and He will judge them. We yearn for Him to do this. First, we yearn for Him to judge us, His church. With Jesus, we say of Him and His whole church, middle of verse eight, judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to my integrity in me. We're being accused along with our brothers and sisters all over the world who are accusing us and Jesus with us. And the great desire we have with our Lord is that He would judge us to vindicate us. He would show that we really are his people, that we're actually serving God. We know that we have come to Christ. We know that Christ is in the right, even though our enemies say otherwise. Sometimes it can be intimidating if enemies are saying, that's evil, that's evil, that's evil, that's evil, that's wicked. And we can start to, it could start to affect us and make us turn away from what our God has said. And you see, we need to hold on to this truth that we're in the right with Christ and that God is going to vindicate us. So we ask God to arise, to show himself and set the record straight so that everyone will know the truth. And second, we yearn for him to judge the wicked. You can see that in verse nine. Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end. We don't want wickedness to go on forever. We want it to be brought to an end and for God to establish the just and the earth to set up justice and righteousness. Don't want wickedness and oppression and malice and hatred and evil and all these things. We want the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells. If you don't want that, if you think that wickedness is kind of a good thing to have around, you're kind of glad that it's around and it's easy to It's easy to go there, isn't it? When we're tempted and we see something, we say, oh, that looks that looks good. And it's not good. But if that's your disposition, if you if you don't want a place, a kingdom of righteousness to be established, if you think it's good to have false religion, a little bit of that mixed in a little bit of immorality, then you have no part with Christ. He didn't come to perpetuate us in evil. He came to reconcile us to God in righteousness. You'll have your portion with the goats and not with the sheep in the day that he comes if you want, if you don't want his kingdom to come. And his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. If you don't come to him and his kingdom, then you're over here in opposition to that kingdom. Unless you've embraced Christ and you're trusting in him and you're yearning for him to come and establish his kingdom, then you're not really one of his people. God knows the heart. That's why he is able to judge with perfect righteousness. See what it goes on in verse nine. It says, for the righteous God tests the hearts and minds. I mentioned before that's literally kidneys. It's referring to the deepest part of us. God sees to the depths of you. So examine yourself before him. What's in your heart? What's in your kidneys, as it were? Do you want his kingdom of perfect righteousness where he is perfectly obeyed, where he is exalted, where he alone is God? He knows if you love him. He knows if you have received his son and if you want him to be exalted. What comfort there is for all of you who are sincere. As verse 10 says, my defense is of God who saves the upright in heart. None of us are perfect, but people who are upright, who are sincerely in Christ, wanting to see him exalted and to see his kingdom come. And this brings us to the last thing that's spoken of in this psalm. We're gonna look at verse 10 a little bit more in just a moment. But it's spoken of in the psalm by Christ and us with him. The psalm changes here, as I mentioned when we were singing it earlier, at verse 10, from verse 10 to verse 16, from a request to God, from prayer and supplication to God, to where we're encouraging each other. Encouragements that we speak to each other. You know how the Psalms do that. Some of the Psalms are devoted particularly to praise of God and who He is, maybe what He's done. Some of them are prayers, like the first nine verses of this Psalm that we've just looked at. And some of them are words of encouragement that our Lord, who of course I said before is the author of these Psalms, words of encouragement that He gives us to share with each other in the body. We sing to one another with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Words of encouragement that he's given us. That's what we have in the remainder of this psalm is words of encouragement that we speak and sing to one another. So in verse 10 through 16, we assure each other that God will deliver us from the attack of the wicked. In verse 10, we sing with Jesus, my defense is of God who saves the upright in heart. Now that word defense that's used there, some of your Bible versions might say this, it's actually shield. So this is saying, my shield is of God. That's interesting language, isn't it? What does that mean? What it means, you might think of it as a shield that's made of God. You have shields that are made of steel or something like that, but here is a shield that's made of God. He surrounds the upright in heart with the protection that we have just been asking for in the first part of this psalm. What he says to Abraham in Genesis 15-1, he says to all of us, do not be afraid, Abram. I am your, what? Your shield and your exceedingly great reward. God himself is our shield. Isn't that encouraging? Who can harm us? If God is surrounding us as our shield, he encompasses his people about with deliverance. Who can bring a charge against us? If we change to the other idea of this word is if God is our defense, he's defending us. No one can bring a charge against the elect. And that's what he is for who? We saw it before for the upright in heart. It's what he is for Christ and all who are in Christ. He knows them that are His, so let everyone that names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. Come to Christ and find full forgiveness and new life in Him. He and all who are in Him will be protected and saved from all evil and from all the assaults and slanders of the wicked who want to tear them to pieces. We encourage one another as the song continues that God will deal justly with the wicked. that He will bring them to their appointed place of destruction. Because if they succeed, then they slander us and bring down the righteous kingdom of Christ, and bring down Christ even, to ruins. That's what they're trying to do. And so, we want to assure each other that's not going to happen. That's not what's going to happen. He will bring them to their place of appointed destruction. You see the affirmation in verse 11 that He is a just judge. He's not going to pervert justice, not going to distort justice. He's the judge of all the earth. As Abraham says, will not the judge of all the earth do right? He will not acquit the wicked. He's not going to let them off. We remind each other that he is angry with the wicked every day here. Verse 11, no one should assume that God has, that because God has not taken action yet, that that means that he's not angry with the wicked. That's a very faulty assumption that people make. It's only, what's going on, it's only that he's waiting until the appointed time to judge them. Going back to Abraham again, you know how God told Abraham in Genesis 15 that he was gonna give him the land of Canaan, and that he was going to, they were gonna conquer the Canaanites? But do you remember what he said to him? He said, it's not gonna happen for 400 years. Do you remember why? He said, because the iniquity of the Amorites, people that lived in Canaan, was not yet full. They were already wicked, and God had already purposed to destroy them, but he said, yeah, we'll do this in 400 years, because their iniquity hasn't grown up enough yet. I'm going to wait until it's really clear what these people are like, and then I'll bring my judgments against them. Very, very interesting, isn't it? So he's waiting. And we say, oh, God's not angry with him. No, just because he didn't do anything for 400 years does not at all mean that he's not angry with him. He's angry with the wicked every day. It's a deadly deception for the wicked when they think that because they didn't receive any punishment, they do something and they say, Oh, I guess it's okay. And they go on doing it. God is angry at sin, and if sin is not dealt with, that anger is going to be visited upon them, that wrath is going to come upon them in the appointed day that God has of judgment. In verse 12 and 13, we declare the truth when we sing this psalm, that God is actually preparing as He waits to bring judgment. What is He doing? He's preparing for judgment. Just as Jesus said that He was preparing a place for us who are His people, so He's also preparing judgment for His adversaries, the implements of their destruction. It says of the wicked in verse 12 and 13, if he, the wicked man, does not turn back, then he, God, will sharpen his sword. He bends his bow and makes it ready. That's a picture of actually, I mean, literally it says standing on his bow, where they would stand on their bow. And then they would bend it up to string it. It's getting his bow ready to go out. He also prepares, verse 13 says, for himself instruments of death. He makes his arrows into fiery shafts. So they're saying, oh, God's not angry. Yes, he is. Notice on the one hand, though, that God is giving them an opportunity to repent by waiting as well. We're told that in scripture. That's what these words, if he does not turn back. It's a time for the wicked to turn back. They can repent. Like God kept pleading with Cain, as I've mentioned. You know, if he would do right, then it would go well for him. You know what the Lord does if the wicked do turn back. He fully forgives them in Jesus Christ. He welcomes them when they come back to him. He receives them and he will give them a home in the new heaven and the new earth. You know how he welcomed Paul, who had been one of the cruelest of all persecutors. He welcomed him into his kingdom. He fully forgave him of all his wrong. And how he welcomed in the Old Testament King Manasseh, a man that would kill children for looking at him in the wrong way. This is a cruel man. And yet he repented and he was restored and brought back. Yes, God waits that he may be gracious. He's long suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. That is our God. But how it increases the guilt of the wicked to have a gracious God who's pleading with them and waiting for them to come and repent when they don't repent. when they harden themselves against all of those calls to come and receive mercy. For those that do not repent, there is this awful picture that we have right here in verse 12 and 13 of God getting implements of judgment ready to use on them. There he is sharpening his sword. There he is stringing his bow, preparing his instruments of eternal death, setting his arrows on fire. Each day his anger grows as the wicked continue in their wickedness, as they continue to refuse his call, as they continue to oppose his son, his beloved son that he sacrificed in the world to be a sin offering for those who repent. the wicked and their offensive ways are described in our song in verse 14 through 16. We tell about how the what is in them that that causes God to to turn against them while he will turn on them while he will bring judgment. We see here their fertility and their futility, their fertility and their futility of their wickedness that makes it certain that God's not going to let them go on forever. See, they're fertile in bringing forth evil. It keeps coming out and more and more and more and more wickedness and evil. It grows up in them. They're pictured here as being pregnant with evil and bringing it forth more and more. Verse 14, behold the wicked brings forth iniquity, just like a mother would bring forth children. Yes, he conceives trouble, just as a mother would conceive children, conceives trouble. and brings forth falsehood, lies, deception, idolatry, hatred, malice, bitterness, trouble of all kinds. They're like a factory that's churning out falsehood and wickedness. Instead of looking to do the will of God, they're looking to do their own thing. They may be religious, but they don't worship God. The true God, as He is revealed, they worship Him according to their own ideas and traditions. They do not seek after God, but they seek after their idols. They may profess to be full of goodness, but they do not thank God for His gifts or serve Him with their deeds. They blaspheme Him and curse Him. They may claim to be pure of heart, but they give themselves to fornication and uncleanness instead of holiness and purity, and they keep bringing forth more and more evil as they go. There's a progression. There's a maturity of evil, and it would go on and on forever and ever. We saw when we looked in Genesis, how God kind of pulled back restraint, how people lived a really long time, like 900 years, and how the world was filled with wickedness. And then God said that he was going to put more restraint. on that, which he did afterward. But still that wickedness, it grows up in a society until God destroys that society. One society after another will grow up in wickedness, and then God brings them down. Another society grows up in wickedness, God brings it down. That's what we see in the world. Paul says in Romans 1.28, And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, that's the problem right there. They're not godly. They're not dealing with God. As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind. to do those things that are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. They are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them. Their wickedness breaks out in different ways. In one person, it breaks out in immorality that grows and grows and grows. In another one, it breaks out with malice and bitterness and oppression, covetousness in another, taking advantage of people. All different ways that sin will come forth. These are all the things that people bring forth. It's pregnant with evil. They're constantly churning out evil. It's just a matter of time and opportunity for sin to grow up in all of its fullness. If God takes restraint off, if he leaves us to our own way, then we go to utter wickedness. We're fertile in bringing forth evil and falsehood. But they're also made by God futile. in accomplishing their desires and purposes. They will not succeed. Just as they are fertile and they bring forth much evil, that evil will not stand. And that's what the promise is to us, that it will not stand, it will be futility. All of their work will be futile. Mentioned before, when judgment does not come quickly, they often think that they're getting along fine without God. They and their fathers have been living as they have for years, No harm has come to them. They have rejected Christ and his people, all these generations, and it's brought no trouble. So what's the big concern? But what they do to Christ and his people will come back on them. Do they dig a pit to trap the people of God? They will fall into the pit. You see that with Jesus, don't you? When they're setting traps for him all the time and they're trying to twist him in his words and they end up being the one that looks foolish. You see that in verse 15. Okay, the digging of the pit. And then they bring forth trouble upon Christ. Do they bring forth trouble upon Christ and his people? Well, that's gonna come back on the crown of their own head, it says in verse 16. Do they slander him and his people who follow him as being fools? They will be the ones who will end up being exposed as fools. Do they attack Christ and his people? They will find that he attacks them. See? We sing with Christ in this psalm of the justice of God. He is the righteous judge and he will bring forth justice. And so we conclude this psalm with that assurance, with the pledge that we're going to praise God. We're going to praise God for his righteous judgment. When it is complete, we're going to be praising God. We do not want him to be anything other than he is. We praise Him according to His righteousness, first of all, because righteousness is good. Righteousness is a very good thing. If God were not righteous and if He did not judge in righteousness, then that means evil would never end. It would go on and on and it would grow up more and more. What a dreadful thought it would be if God had left us to live forever in our sin. with no day of judgment, with no reckoning, with no time appointed, with no Savior to redeem us and to restrain us and to restore righteousness. We don't want God to pervert justice in any way for our sake or for anybody else's. We're pleased to have a Savior who has satisfied justice for us by His death on the cross, so that God can pardon us for our sin without compromising His justice in any way. If God, in order to save us, had to set aside His justice, then that would be a dreadful, terrible thing. There would be no hope for the world. Evil could go on forever. When He judges the sheep and the goats at the last day, those in Christ having His righteousness and those not having Him are in their sin, those that are still in their sin, how we will praise God in that day for His righteousness. Then the wicked will be cast out with Satan and the righteous will be established in glory with Christ who was crucified for them. And we also though, not only sing of his righteousness, but we also sing praise to him because he is the Lord most high. You see that also in verse 17. Once again, we want him to be what he is. We don't want God to be weak. We don't want him to be impotent. We don't want to be able to control him. We want Him to have absolute power because He is righteous. We want Him to be the Lord Most High. If anyone else had that power, it would be a disaster. If anyone had power over Him, it would be a disaster. His sovereignty is a very good thing. And we pledge here that we will praise Him for righteousness and sovereignty together. They go hand in hand to give us true hope and a foundation of hope. And when they're fully revealed in the day of judgment, We're gonna break out with praise like we've never praised before because we will see the glory of God's righteousness and power. But for the wicked, it's just the opposite. The last thing they want is for God to be either perfectly righteous or absolute in power. They do not praise him for these attributes because these are the attributes that will be their ruin if they continue to go on without Christ. To them, the combination of perfect righteousness and absolute power is a dreadful combination. It's the last thing they want. That's why they worship idols. This is part of the evil that they churn out in their fertile hearts of wickedness. They churn out idols that are neither righteous nor all-powerful. Or if they're somewhat one of these, they're certainly not the other. In the end, God will judge them for rejecting Him. and his people. So what about you? The question is, can you join in singing this psalm with a sincere heart before God? Can you plead with God to judge you and to judge all the world in absolute, powerful, sovereign righteousness? Or is that the last thing you want? You don't need to go on in your terror of death and judgment, your fear of God in that way. If you repent and come to Christ, God will welcome you. And then you can join with his people. You can pray for his justice to be revealed and his judgment to be brought forth. It is going to be brought forth. You're not going to be able to stop it. You're not going to be able to stand against it. It's going to happen. And the thing is, I want you all to be able to rejoice in that rather than to dread that. Jesus Christ, our Savior, came and died on the cross so that we could have complete forgiveness of sins, no matter what we may have done, and that in him, that on the day of judgment, we can stand not having our own righteousness, but the righteousness that he has given us. And we can stand forever praising and rejoicing in our God. Please stand. Gracious Heavenly Father, how we thank you for all that you have done for us. Lord, how is it that a people like us could be able to look forward to your judgment? How is it that sinners like us, people who have transgressed your law, your holiness, could look forward to the day when you appear in all of your glory, and when you judge the world in righteousness? Father, it is only because of your mercy, your great mercy to us, and your grace through our Lord Jesus Christ that we can look forward to that day. And we praise you, Lord, that we will see your glory in that day like we've never seen it before. We praise you, O Lord, that we will bow before you and worship you, and that we will delight in you like we never have before. Father, we pray that you would prepare us for that day. We pray, Lord, that we would be in Christ right now. that we would be resting in him, that we would be trusting in him. Father, that rather than you preparing your implements of destruction for us, that you would be preparing a place for us in your house, in your dwelling place. Father, how we look forward to that and how we look forward to the time when you will root out wickedness. Father, we know what is in us. We know the how fertile we are in bringing forth lies and corruption that apart from your mercy, Lord, that it grows and grows and grows and never ends. But by your grace, by the renewing of your Holy Spirit, we're able to turn from that and we're able to follow you, Lord. Help us not to minimize what we are. Help us to be honest and forthright and to face what we are without Christ. So that we will see the truth and we will not deceive ourselves. And we will not be those who pretend that we're something that we're not. Father, we thank you that through Christ that we don't need to play games. We don't need to pretend that we can come to the light. We can come to the truth. We don't have to hide in the shadows of darkness and confusion, but we can openly walk before you, Lord, as our Lord and our God. Father, bless your people here in this room. Give them comfort and assurance that you are their shield and you are their defense, that you are their God, and that they will stand in the integrity of their heart in the day that you appear as those who are resting in you. Father, bless us as we come to the Lord's table. Bring to us that confidence and that assurance as we set forth the one in whom we trust at the Lord's Supper, the Lord Jesus Christ crucified. Father, bless us, Lord, as we rest in Him, as we look to Him and we have life from Him instead of death. We pray these things in His name. Amen.