Good morning. I'd like to welcome you to another edition of our Anchored in the Word morning reflection. And glad to be back with you today and getting back into Psalm 28. So if you have your Bible, I'd like to ask you to take it. And let's all turn together to Psalm 28. We're going to look at verses 1 through 4. And we're going to continue this study on how to deal with the chaos in our culture and the comfort that we need when we're facing these challenges. So Psalm 28, verse 1, says the following. Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock, be not silent to me, lest if thou be silent to me I become like one of them that go down into the pit. Hear the voice of my supplication when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. 3. Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity which speak peace to their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts. 4. Give them according to their deeds, according to the wickedness of their endeavors give them after the work of their hands, render to them their just desert. Now, if you remember on Monday, we talked about some introductory material about how God deals not just with individuals, but how he deals with peoples, nations, civilizations, towns, cities, if you will. And then after that, we got into a second issue. Yesterday, we talked about the conflict that David was experiencing in his personal life. And so today what I'd like us to do is I'd like us to kind of get into the continuation of that, and I want us to look at what David was actually asking God for. And so if you look back at verse number 3, you're going to see exactly what he says. He says, draw me not away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts. Now, this is very fascinating what David is doing here. In his prayer, he's basically saying, God, I want you to do two things. His primary concern, number one, is judge the wicked. And by the way, he understands that God deals with people in their sin. But then there's a second aspect. The second aspect is, as you are dealing with the wicked, please preserve the righteous. And if you remember yesterday, we talked about some of the implications that David would have understood if God's going to judge the wicked. then we're going to be affected by it in some way. Here he's saying, God, please, in your justice, have mercy on us. I want to give you an illustration that I think really helps, at least has helped me to understand, I think, what's going on here. I want you to think about what happens when a person goes into surgery. A surgeon skillfully has to make certain cuts, and when he makes those cuts he's inflicting pain. That's why there's a recovery process, that's why they have to put someone under anesthesia, that's why it takes a while before a person is off of their pain medications after they have a surgery. They have to inflict pain. And they're going to damage tissue. There are going to be pieces of flesh cut out, cut off, incisions are going to be made. But in the midst of those cuts and the inflicting of that pain, there is precision. That surgeon is doing the absolute best that they can to limit the damage that's being done. And the reason that they're doing that is because they're removing tissue that is ultimately affecting the health of a person. And so, they're removing what is bad, what is diseased, what is sick, what's not healthy, what's damaged, and they're removing it so that the overall, the person's overall health can improve. And so, if someone has a successful surgery, they're going to heal and what's going to happen is what's been removed, it's going to be gone, it's not going to affect them anymore. and now their body can begin that healing process. I want you to think of that illustration as we think about what David is saying. He's saying, I want you to deal with the wicked, remove what is destroying society, all right? And I want you to preserve the righteous. I want you to keep your people so that they can continue to influence the people around them. That's what David is ultimately saying. So we see the two sides, judge the wicked and then preserve the righteous. David is saying evil people have to be stopped. Their belief systems are detrimental. The things that they're doing as a result of their belief systems. They're harming people. They're unjust. They're unrighteous. They're sinful. They're an offense to you. They need to be stopped. He's also recognizing in these verses, that, you know, God is very slow to come in justice like this. And the reason is because God is patient. This is something that sometimes frustrates godly people as they say, why is God being so patient? Why does he wait so long? Perhaps you've thought this before. I know that I've thought this before. Well, it's because God's kind. He's patient. It even seems as if God is reluctant sometimes to deal in wrath and justice. It's because he's very kind. But even though God is kind and he's patient, he's still holy. He's still righteous. He deals with evil. And so David is saying, God, please judge the wicked. On the other side, please preserve the righteous. God has to actively, personally, preserve the righteous in these moments if there's going to be a continuation of godly people in the world. And by the way, when we read the Old Testament history, we see that there are many times in history that God did exactly that. I mean, look at the days of Noah. It says that in the days of Noah, there was a continual thinking on evil, and what does God do? It says, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and God essentially destroyed the wicked, and he preserved Noah and his family. And he did that because he was making this distinction. What we see is we see this issue of measured justice. When I think of Psalm 12, verse number 1, the psalmist writes, Help, O Lord! The godly man ceaseth, the faithful fail from amongst the children of men. He's lamenting the fact that everywhere he looks, it seems like the wicked are prospering and the righteous are being crushed. What's very interesting is by the end of the psalm, he says, he says that you will preserve them from this generation forever. And so what the psalmist is expressing is that even though the wicked seem to prosper and the righteous seem to go through hardship and difficulty, God deals with the wicked and god preserves the righteous or I think of another passage matthew chapter 16 verse 18 where jesus says I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. What is jesus basically saying? He's saying the church belongs to me, and I'm personally, actively building it, preserving it, and there's nothing that can stop my work. One generation can die, and the next generation will rise up. Another generation can pass on, and a new generation comes on. And what happens? God continues to preserve his church. It doesn't matter what they face. They will be preserved. Think of another example, Ephesians 6, verses 11-13. He says we're supposed to put on the whole armor of God, that we can stand against the wiles of the devil. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. It says, Wherefore, take unto you the armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day. The idea is that there is always going to be a conflict between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light, God's people and the world. But God has promised he is going to preserve, he continues to preserve, and he's going to strengthen his children as they go through this process. It's ultimately the grace of God that sustains us. And so if you have a person who is living in a time where there's religious persecution, and this has been a very normal occurrence throughout church history, in most cultures, Christians have experienced some level of persecution. What does God do? His grace sustains them as they face that persecution. When they're getting discouraged, when they feel like quitting, when they want to hide and not stand firm, what does God do? He comes alongside, He builds up, and He strengthens this church. What about when the church faces not just persecution, but it moves to a point where Christians are actually being killed for their faith? They're being martyred. What does God do? His grace upholds those people. all the way up until the point where they pay the ultimate price, where they die for their faith. God preserves his people. It's also God's grace that preserves a remnant. As there's pressure that mounts in a society, as people face even death for their faith, what does God do? He keeps the church safe. He preserves a remnant. And amazingly, God uses that remnant to rebuild in the future. One of the greatest examples is the way that God dealt with the nation of Israel. When we look at Israel's history, what do we see? We see this cycle. We see this cycle of sin, and God brings into the people some kind of judgment, chastisement, and then the people are humbled, and then God raises up a deliverer. We see this over and over and over again. We see how God had to deal with his people. But when God had to judge his people because of all of the wickedness in the land, what did he do? He preserved a remnant. And that remnant became what? The beachhead for his continued work. I want to encourage you this morning. In every single generation, God has his people. He is, by his grace, sustaining them as they face pressure. He is going to, by his grace, uphold them even if they have to pay the ultimate price. and he is going to preserve his remnant for future generations to be able to rebuild. So did people a thousand years ago. We have no idea where we are in church history. We have no idea where we are in the movement of what's going on in our nation. And I just want to challenge and encourage you this morning as David prayed for God to be measured in his justice, preserve the righteous, judge the wicked, like the surgeon makes that cut that removes what is harming a person's health to preserve what is healthy and strong, inflicting pain and actually doing some damage to tissue, but doing it very precisely for the good of that patient in the same way David said, God do this. That's what we should be praying this morning. And we should also rest in confidence in the fact that as we pray that, God works in that way. Even if we begin to shake and waver and we're discouraged and we're frustrated, and maybe we don't pray, or maybe we pray but we're doubtful in it, it doesn't change the fact that God is good. It doesn't change the fact that His grace sustains and preserves. God intervenes even as we are stumbling. And so I hope that this morning that'll be a tremendous encouragement to you. I'm excited about what we're going to talk about tomorrow because the first couple of lessons have been a little bit on the darker side. I would say that they're just speaking honestly about what's going on in the world from generation to generation. But as we move into the next two lessons, the next two sections of this psalm that we're going to study, we're going to see some really rich, encouraging, comforting truths. and so i pray that those things will be a help to you if you've enjoyed this today please take a moment to just jot a note say hey that was that was a blessing i appreciate it perhaps share it so that others can can find out about it there may be people out there that don't know we're doing anchored in the word again and they were following it back when we did it some time ago, and they'd like to get back on board and follow this, so I hope that you'll share it, I hope that you'll share your thoughts, and I hope that this will be an encouragement to you. Have a great rest of your day, and Lord willing, tomorrow we'll continue our series. Bye now.