But only the Lord's justice. We don't take vengeance on ourselves. Vengeance belongeth to me, says the Lord. All right, so we're going to Psalm 95. We're gonna pick it up where we left off. All right, Psalm 95. We can sing them, we can read them, We can pray them, we can preach them. We're going to preach them now. So we've already started this and we've covered really the first six verses with just the beginning of verse seven. And we can tell from the first seven verses of this psalm, as we've already covered in previous sermons, we can tell from the first seven verses of this psalm that there is a proper approach and frame of mind that we ought to have as believers in God and in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a proper approach and frame of mind we need to have when entering into the presence of God in this particular way. And we know that we're always in his presence in one sense, but there's a special presence which we talked about last week. And we ought to enter into the presence of the Lord with this approach and frame of mind. Be it we approach him in worship through song or songs directed towards him. We don't sing them for our own good pleasure. There are expressions that we're adopting from the Psalms to sing to him. Or whether we approach his presence by coming to him in prayer. or whether we approach his presence by just our spiritual fellowship with him, or even our spiritual fellowship with one another. Because where two or three are gathered together in his name, he's in the midst of them. And there's a special, even particular presence, even in that situation, when there's fellowship between the saints and the things of Christ, the Father is there and the Lord is there and he is pleased in that. He writes a book of remembrance about it, we're told. And how much the more is that true when the saints assemble together as the body, right? So I think both the how and the why of a proper approach to God in our worship, our prayer, our thanksgiving, and our fellowship. But I think the how we approach Him and the why we approach Him is quite beautifully expressed in verses one to seven. Let's just read it to remind ourselves. Oh come, let us sing unto the Lord. Let us sing unto the Lord. We come singing. So there's a certain pleasure in serving the Lord. Let us sing unto the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise of the rock of our salvation. in order to make you happy to serve Him. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. If you're thinking when you're coming to God's presence, really, how do you come any other way? You're coming in the presence of giving you everything that you don't deserve. The same thing was true for me. So you can't be thinking. The brain can't be operating and coming into the presence of God without thanksgiving, no matter what situation you're presently in when you approach Him. You may approach Him in tribulation. You still gotta come to him on Thanksgiving, if you're thoughtful about it. And make a joyful noise unto him. Not with fanny craws, be with psalms. That's what the Bible says. Not with kumbaya. Kumbaya. For the Lord is a great God, and a great king above all gods. In his hand are the deep places. Mary in a trench. In his hand are the deep places of the earth, the strength of the hills. is His also. The strength of the hills, what's the strength of the hills? We talked about that. The strength of the hills, what makes the hill or the mountain seem so powerful? It's massive size and height, right? It seems like this was there before I was. This was there before my father was and before my father's father was. The strength of the hills, the strength of the mountains are their heights and the higher they are, The stronger they appear, right, that metaphoric strength, you know, that, you know, dirt and rocks don't have strength. Well, I suppose they do for foundations and things like that, but you know what I mean. It's being used as a metaphor. So, wait a minute, so the Lord's in the Mariana Trench and he's on top of, you know, the highest mountain. The sea is his. And he made it. and his hands form the dry land. So you're either in the lowest place or the highest place. You can go into the ocean, you can go into dry land. He owns it all, it's his glory. So the natural conclusion is, oh come, let us worship. So here's what we say in verses one to seven is about the proper approach, the proper frame of mind to have when we approach the presence of God in that more particular and profound way in worship and in fellowship, in prayer. And it's kind of summed up in verse six. Oh, come let us worship. What else are we supposed to do? Tell him how things are in the world. Think he knows better than us. We'll be fumbling the ball the longer we talk. Oh, come let us worship and bow down. The only other position I could think of is flat on your face, I've told you. We come to him, here's the frame of mind, because this isn't a mechanical, oh, just do these things and God is pleased with you. It's not a matter of mechanically doing it. It's a frame of mind, a heart condition. Oh, come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker. We don't come to him frivolously, okay? Just always remember when you approach the Lord in prayer who you're talking to. If a dignitary that you can't believe has come to your house to talk to you, you'll mind yourself how you talk to that person that has all that power and that you hold in esteem and that you never thought you'd have an audience with. Yeah, you'll mind yourself. Well, who's that guy? Just another sinner who rose in the ranks of sinners on this earth. How about when we come in the presence of the Lord, see? So we never want to forget that. It's a very trite frame of mind in modern Christianity today, particularly in their so-called worship services. And so we come to worship, we bow down, we kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God. That all makes sense. And we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. So that's what we covered up to so far. And this all makes sense. This all makes sense. The wisdom in the appeal of verses 1 to 7 in this psalm, I think, It just resonates with God's people. When you read these verses, these first six verses in the first part of verse seven, when you read these verses as a believer, someone's regenerated, you say, yeah, yeah, that's right. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Oh yeah, you don't need, do I need to convince you? So any of these points, do I need to talk you into it? I need to talk the world into it, and if I do talk them into it, they won't mean it, and they're just going along because they don't know how to answer. No, no, this is stuff that should be intuitive to us as regenerated believers. Like, yes, yes, yes. Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah, I got to remember to do that. So there should be no battle here. It resonates with us. But verse one to seven does not always resonate with those that claim to be the people of God. Well, just like the last couple of verses of Psalm 149 doesn't resonate with those that say they're the people of God. But even something like this, which all seems good and pleasant, but for the unconverted, this guy, he wants all this stuff from me. It seems like God's just full of pride and he's just all about him. I don't know what they're thinking. But the verses one to seven does not resonate with all people. For the elect of God, I think these first six and a half verses, these first six and a half verses will have a very powerful and poignant effect on our minds and hearts. We understand it, we see it. The regenerated and those that are filled with the presence of God through the Spirit will immediately identify and gravitate towards these truths and see those as words of wisdom and prudence, like, yes, and they'll say amen to it. And really, how could it be otherwise? If we can just leave the psalm for a moment and go to 1 Corinthians 2, how could it be otherwise for God's people? It should just naturally come right into our souls and hearts without resistance as, again, God's children. In 1 Corinthians chapter two and starting at verse nine. But as it is written, I hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." We can't even imagine it. We only have an inkling. But for the unregenerated, they have no comprehension of this. They can't even imagine. This is how great God is. Verse 10, but God hath revealed them unto us, the believers, by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. See, the reason that Psalm 95, the first part, which seems like all pleasant, right? There should be no problem. It resonates with us so easily, but it doesn't with the world. Do they come and worship him? No, you know, they're out in their, I don't know, on their boat, they're playing golf, they're watching the football game, they're doing something. I'm not talking about just Sundays. What about the rest of the days of the week? That's just an easy example to use. But God hath revealed unto us by his Spirit, verse 10, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man? Right? Only a man can understand A man, human beings understand human beings. If you're not a human being, you can't really understand a human being. Your dog does not understand you. He understands you at a really basic, simple level. I have a warm place, he gives me food, and he pets me. That's as far as it goes. He knows nothing about your desire for the knowledge of the infinite and to serve him in the concepts of our relationship with those we love. And we feed the dog. We pet him. We're nice to him. So he's loyal to us. And we love our dogs, don't we? If you don't love a dog, there's really something wrong with you, you know? But they don't understand. Only the spirit of a man can understand a man, you see. Even so, verse 11, even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. We couldn't identify with God unless we're indwelt by God's Spirit. That's the sharp distinction between the believers on earth and everyone else. They don't get it because they can't and neither could we before God's Grace entered our lives and we were indwelt by the Spirit. Verse 12, now we have received not the Spirit of the world, and that's not gonna buy you anything, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us. Oh, we will know that they're freely given to us. Think of this morning's sermon, right? Oh, we kinda earned it. Well, the Spirit of God didn't teach you that. The Spirit will teach us the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. And that word comparing is to synchronize. So the Spirit enables the scriptures to come together. Because without the Spirit, you know, I mean, everybody can read. Unconverted people can read the Bible. Okay, it says God created the earth. Jesus died on the cross. Christ is coming. He said he's coming in that generation, but he's supposed to destroy the earth when he comes, so, you know. And then it says, you know, we're supposed to forgive people, but then we see the vengeance of God on his enemies, and they can't put these things together. They say, well, the Bible's just full of contradictions. Ah, forget that. They're never gonna get it. So the pieces don't come together except by God's Spirit. Because we're too stubborn, we're too selfish, we're too filled with our own wisdom, or whatever the problem is. There's probably a whole bunch of things. But when the Spirit comes in, he wipes the table clean, he erases all the junk on the chalkboard. We're starting from square one. He becomes our teacher. We're starting from scratch. See? So the Bible starts to come together. And maturing and growing in grace throughout our Christian life becomes, we have a bunch of separate facts that we're all believing in, we're excited about, we don't see the connections. And then, hopefully, year after year, this connects to that, and whoa, look at that. We keep growing. We keep reading the same things, and we keep learning from the same things. That's how the spirit of, and we don't get it all at once because, well, we're human beings, right? So we have to learn slowly, and this is what we call, you know, maturing and growing in grace. And all those, and this isn't about just learning a bunch of doctrines and having the Bible accurately understood. It's also taking that and it becomes a part of this in here. It becomes a part of how you view the world and live. And it's the Spirit that causes us to synchronize spiritual things with spiritual things. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. You go to church, what, twice on Sundays? I've had people ask me, what do you do that for? That's ridiculous. You mean, what do I do it for? Why wouldn't I? That's the question. What are you talking about? Well, I can't say that to them. They're not gonna get it. Well, here you go. Didn't you say you have a meeting in the middle of the week, too? Yeah. Oh, God, you know. Yeah, I mean, I love the Lord and everything. I want to serve Jesus, too. You've got to be reasonable. These are like surface things. I mean, you can use examples that are more profound, like the hard things God asks us to do. Actually, these things are fairly easy, right? But the natural man receiveth not the Spirit of God, for they have foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them. He can't even know them because they are spiritually discerned. You can talk to you blue in the face. He's just gonna think, well, you know, he means well. He's trying to find meaning for his life. You know, religion is the opiate of the people, the communists say, right? It's the opiate of the people. Well, yeah, you're gonna say that because you can't, you've never experienced it, so it seems like make-believe. That's the way it's going to be. Let them yak all they want. You can't convince them through logic. That's not how it's going to happen. They're spiritually discerned only by the indwelling of the spirit. And we know the spirit comes like the wind. You don't know where it's coming from. You don't know where it's going. It's sovereignly dispensed. You're not in control of it. Sorry. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? Nobody. But we as believers have the mind of Christ. So you take that whole text and then yeah, Psalm 95, the first six and a half verses makes total sense. We get it, the rest of the world isn't gonna get it. And that's just the byproduct of our relationship with him in the indwelling of God's Spirit. This psalm should absolutely resonate and connect with the minds and hearts of all of God's people. These first six and a half verses. But it doesn't connect with false professors. I don't mean false college instructors. when people who profess the name of Christ, right? A false professor is someone who claims to be a Christian. They may believe that they're a Christian, but they're not. Maybe they don't know that. In some instances, maybe they do, but they're not. They're false professors. They're not going to get the first six verses. That powerful bond that we have with the Lord, because as regenerated believers, we can and do understand the things of the Spirit, because we have the mind of Christ, is what Paul said, what we just read in Corinthians. But with false professors, the first six verses of Psalm 95, as pleasant as they be, and it seems pretty non-offensive, hey, if God is God, wouldn't this be true? Seems really like easy stuff. This is like grammar school, and you walk with Christ, it would seem to me. But even that doesn't resonate with false professors. And that powerful bond and intuitive recognition of these principles in verses one through six is lacking in the Matthew 7 pew sitters. I mean, they may understand the words. They can read, come, let us sing unto the Lord. Well, you know, I go to church and we should sing the Lord. Yeah, I agree with that. So they're not disagreeing with the words. I'm not saying that. Now, a false professor isn't going to disagree with the words. Well, in a lot of instances, in some instances they do. But they may understand the words of the first part of Psalm 95, and they may even appreciate, actually appreciate, the emotional connection the heartfelt connection that some of the other Christians around them may have with those words. And they can see, like, well, they really feel like that's something great and wonderful. And they see that zeal, and they're kind of impressed by that. And they're, you know, hey, it kind of moves them to a certain degree. And they may appreciate the believer's passion for the first six and a half verses here and actually, you know, be encouraged by it. Here's the problem, they don't have it. Do you ever appreciate a guy that is, you know, he's a millionaire, he buys what he wants when he wants. You can appreciate how nice that is, not have to worry about, you know, can I afford this thing and I want to help my kid over here, but I don't have the money to help him, but I can just help him out in this situation. I want to, you know, and you can almost feel good for the guy, but you don't have it. So you're not experiencing what he's experiencing, but you can see where he would enjoy it. There's people that go to church and claim to be Christians, and that's their experience with all the other Christians around them. They don't say it, but they just don't have that same joy, that same intimate connection. It's not their experience. They speak of the Lord, and they may speak of him accurately, but they don't know him. They can hear what is said in the pulpit and what they read in the Bible, and they can speak accurately about the Lord, but they don't themselves know him. They don't love him with all their hearts, with all their minds, even for, you know, brief periods, because even the best of us, you know, we slide off that, but we've also experienced it. They don't ever have that. And in the false professors, there tends to be a various degrees of spiritual apathy, though probably not admitted to, and sometimes it is admitted to, spiritual apathy and lukewarmness. That makes them feel uncomfortable and makes them have doubts about their conversion. They don't like that. They like fitting in, so they need to bury that. How do they bury that? That apathy and lukewarmness, and it seems like others can so rejoice when we're talking about verse four, verse five, verse six, and they say like, yeah, that is all good, but they're not really rejoicing, they're just agreeing. And they know that, but you can mask it with excited expressions. So you seem just as moved, but you know, you're kind of putting it on. Not to necessarily deceive others, but to deceive yourself. Or sometimes they hide that spiritual deadness just simply behind church attendance. Well, I'm here all the time. I mean, I really got to be close to the Lord. I mean, I know people that miss far more than I do. So that's enough for some people for a while. Or sometimes they hide their spiritual lethargy, lukewarmness, and distance from God while trying to deny they have a distance through something like Bible memorization. You know, they've been doing this. being the false professors for many, many years. And so they go home, and because they're concerned, they have some doubts once in a while, they study, they study, they read, they read, they start memorizing the Bible, and they can stand up and pray, and they start quoting all their scriptures in their prayer, and they just have a lot of the Bible memorized. See, only the Lord, by His Spirit, helps me to recall these. This is what the Spirit does. No, there are people with good memories. Do you know that? I told you, when I went to college, the people, it seemed like they never took their books home. They go in, they take tests, and they get A's. I had to go home with, I had my dirt bike, I took my book that's stacked up this high, took a rope, went around my back fender, got on the motorcycle, jump on it and pop the clutch. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Everybody else is driving their gold wings at Bryant. Not me. I bought that thing. I loved that bike. And I had to go home and study. So I was dating Paula, and Paula comes over. Hey, it's Friday night. Yeah, come on over to my house. She sits next to me while I'm reading books. Isn't that true? That's true. She'd sit there patiently. I'd feel bad, but like, I gotta test that money. There's other guys out there, you know, they're brainiacs, they're out doing their thing, you know, they study for a few minutes, you know. It's not me. False professors. They can hide behind Bible memorization. Okay, so what? It isn't about how many you can quote. It's about do you implement them in your life and do you love those principles because you have a love for God and for your fellow man. The Lord knows there are different degrees of intellectual capabilities between people. He isn't impressed with that. You know how far he is above the smartest of us? It's like, you know. We're all handicapped in his presence, you see. Mentally handicapped. No, so they can hide behind these things. You can hide behind Bible teaching. You can be a Sunday school teacher. You can be a pastor. And yet, you know, it's a performance. It's not in here, see. That's the problem. I'm always concerned with that, because Jesus said in Matthew 7, there would be many, the words of Jesus, that will say to me, Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name, we cast out devils in your name, we did many wonderful works in your name, there'll be many, Jesus said, and he'll say, I never knew you, depart from me. People think, well, you're just legalistic with lordship, salvation, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, I'm listening to Jesus, and I'm saying, you know, He's right. When I go on vacation and try and find churches to visit on vacation, it's very discouraging. You try the best you can, and you go sit in a service, and it's like, ugh. And sometimes it's, oh, should we walk out? And sometimes, you know, like, you know, that wasn't too bad. Once in a rare while, hey, I really like that. It's not easy. Be careful if you move. I found out when we got married, we moved to Connecticut from Massachusetts, we couldn't find a church. We tried for over a year to get visiting places. And eventually, we ended up in Bloomfield, right on the edge of Hartford, where the office was. So I'm in the center hub where all the action is. Church is all over the place. I realized I can't find a home, a home church, to raise a family in here. I can't do this job. I don't want it. And the Lord gave me some other Motivations to not want because I actually liked doing the job. I liked insurance adjusting because I didn't do like the boring stuff I did just you know the houses so it'd be a house fire a flood you go in you wait a thing up for the damages and the Contractor comes and he's gonna give you a high price He's just trying to soak you then you've got a you should come in not low, but you should come in what? should be fair, and you're going to negotiate somewhere in between. Then they get lawyers involved, and you're going to go to the lawyer's office, and he makes you sit in a small chair with a big leather back, and he's in a big chair, and he's a big lawyer with his $2,000 suit, and he's trying to intimidate you. And I thought that was all fun. But there are not perks. There are downsides to corporate America. I said, I don't like this. I like the job, if it just didn't If it was like an insurance adjuster's office that was a private one with a father, a son, and four guys that worked for him, it'd be beautiful. But I worked for Aetna. I mean, they kind of owned Hartford at the time, so it was corporate. And that was headquarters, and I lived in headquarters. And I was the go-to guy, the guy that hired me for the insurance adjusters, for the homeowners. So I was just going to be his, you know, his boy that he's going to raise up and be his glory boy, because he hired me. I said, yeah, give the night away. I can't give you a night away. You got to give you a night away. We can't make you, but you have to do it. You know, they'll look in your files and come up with stuff. Just they do that to people. But I didn't say this. So I'm not going to do it. They support abortion. I'm not going to do it. You can't make me give charity. They give you a piece of paper telling you how much you're supposed to give. I'm getting sidetracked, but it's the world. I can't operate in that. So I quit my job. I told my boss, I'm going to leave this job. You know, there was hundreds of people looking for this job. I gave that job to you. Yeah, I know. What are you going to do? I'm going to start a roofing company with my brother. You're going to go pound nails after you had this job? Yeah. You thought I had lost my mind. So the world, they're just not going to understand. They're not going to get it. They can't get it. Those things are spiritually discerned. It's either in the heart. or it's not in the heart. In verse seven, let's just look at a particular here. In verse seven, for he is our God. This is the end of the good part of the psalm, the so-called good part of the psalm. It is a good part of the psalm, but so is the second part, but that's not how the world sees it. It's just like, hey, this is just like, maybe I subconsciously, that's why we did Psalm 139. It's good, good, good, good, then oh, what happened to this good psalm? Same thing here. For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Now that ends the good part. I would have thought this last sentence in verse 7, when they came up with the Bible verse divisions, would have been part of verse 8. I don't understand why they included it. It's not even like part of the sentence, you know, and it's a total shift. Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart, as in the day of provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness. When your fathers tempted me, proved me and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation and said, it is the people that do err in their heart and they have not known my ways. Unto whom I swore, I swear in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest. Period. End of that wonderful psalm from verse 1 to 6. Oh, what they ruin a good thing for. A C.S. Lewis be crying in a soup. Look, this is how people think. It's true in Psalm 139, be true, yeah. And you know what I'm saying, it's true. You know I'm not exaggerating, you know. It's not that they would never say, oh, we hate the second part. They can't say that, they're not allowed to say it. The Bible's a despite and inerrant word of God. But they avoid it. I looked up online, just to see how someone would explain it. They say, what is the meaning of Psalm 95, verse seven through 11? And the first one I came to, it was some minister, I can't remember the author, but he's talking about, oh, and it's not about the whole Psalm. What is the meaning of Psalm 95, seven through 11? And then the title of the article was something like the meaning of, Psalm 95, seven through 11. Specifically, it's not about the whole psalm, it's about that one. So how do we handle this? And so he goes on to say, so the meaning of this psalm is, it's really good to sing unto the Lord, make a joyful noise, because he brings us salvation. It's really wonderful, and he just spends three quarters of the article talking about the first six verses. He's supposed to be talking about seven through 11. He can't come up with a sermon about seven through 11. He can come up with a few things to say about it. So he spends all his time giving the people what will make them happy. Don't get scared off by these verses. I know it's scary, that's why you asked the question, that's why I'm preaching it. So he talked about all the delightful things in verses one through six, singing and joy and thanksgiving and God is great and he's the king of all gods and he's the one who's created everything and we ought to worship him. Oh, amen, we love our worship services and the praise team and the praise band and they just have that they filter it through their worldview and like yeah, this is all great. So you get three-quarters way through the sermon, there's nothing about verses 7 through 11 and the title is that's what it's about. Now I understand wanting to give the context. And then when you get to verse 7-11, it was pretty much As simple as, well, we need to recognize that God and His holiness must judge and we must agree with His righteous judgments. Now let's just sing that. And then he ends up with a final paragraph, but it's always a blessing to serve the Lord and to sing unto Him. And we're back to the happy stuff. He just kind of like, well, I said, oh, I said something very general. And that was the lesson on the last part. Yeah, come on. So I think you can see there's a sharp turn starting with the last sentence of verse seven. I don't want to go through this fast, I want to stroll through this garden because it's good, it's not bad. That's why I want to stroll through it. And Paul and I would go shopping. Back when my knees were a little bit better. But when my knees were a little bit better, she'd go, I gotta go shopping. OK, so we'll be going into the mall or something. And I'd do roofing all day and carrying 80 pound bundles up two and three stories. And then we'd stock them on, put two bundles on. I'll do that. One time I did three bundles up three stories. And I'd get to the very end, oh boy. Then I get to the top, and it's not like I couldn't make it, but you feel like something's going to blow out down here. Like, OK, don't ever do that again. Nothing happened, but don't do that again. They're like on the verge. So this is what I did. But then when we go shopping, I'm walking around, and in about 10 minutes, my legs are feeling really weak, you know? It's like, oh, wait, let's stop at these dresses, because I want to get something for my wife and little girls. They're looking at little girls' dresses, and their legs get like they're wet spaghetti, like I have no strength. Of course, we walk into the gun store and you're full of vigor, you know. Let's go shopping for pickup trucks or something, you know. But, yeah, so she didn't too often want to drag me along. So here's my point, though. When we went shopping to the mall, Paula constantly says to me, slow down, because I'd be walking super fast. And like, you know, we got to hurry up and get through this, you know. And so that's what this guy was doing. When he got to the second part of Psalm 95, he wanted to run through them all because, you know, let's get this over with. Oh, but he's going to go nice and slow through the first parts. Now, if you notice, even when we went through the first parts, Sometimes I said some negative things. That's because, you know, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. So where there's a blessing, there's also the other side where you've got trouble and evil going on. So, you know, we have to remind ourselves of that. So that's the full orb lessons you want to get from these things. But the second part of this verse, look what he says. I'm just going to have to leave you this thought, because I know, like I said, I want to walk through the garden. So when I'm going through the gun store, you go nice and slow. You go, oh, look at this thing. And I have no intention of buying that. But could I see that? You just want to hold it, see how it feels. And you look at it, you say, oh, that is one piece of craftsmanship. You shouldn't even shoot it. Just hang it on the wall, put a light over it, and then play music like, ah. Because, you know, you want to tiptoe through the tulips, you know. When I'm in the mall, I want to do the 50-yard dash, see. And I want us to walk slowly through this because there's no reason for us to be embarrassed by what God said in the second part of this psalm. And if we really understood the love of God, the love of God, we'd go slowly through it. And that's what they're not getting. So to the best of my ability, I want to, and maybe I can give you a help. I'll just start with one thought. It seems, it seems from Hebrews that David is probably the author of this psalm. And he says in verse seven, today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart. Now he just went through all these wonderful things, but then he says to the people of his day, harden not your heart. See, I think it has great application to the kind of day we're in, this psalm, particularly the second part, and particularly the second part because it follows the first part. And I think we ought to rejoice in both parts. And I want us to be able to see that. I don't want us to, I don't, like me, just paint a picture a certain way so that you feel, as long as I'm talking, you feel that way. And then when you go home, uh, I forget how to feel good about the second part. I don't want that. I'm not doing this. This is not a pep rally. The idea of teaching is to enable large people, you know, see it for themselves. And if you get the Spirit of God in you, I'm convinced you will see it. I don't think it's going to take fancy teaching on my part. What I'm saying is actually I think it'll end up being straightforward once we do it, if it's not already straightforward to you right now. But if we can clarify it just a little bit more than the clarity you already have, that's just a wonderful thing. So let us not run away from God's Word, because you're going to have good things in life. You're going to go to church, you might get married, and then you have children, you have grandchildren, the Lord gave you a home, you got all this thing, and then something really bad happens. Well, we're not used to facing that. Well, you ought to be. Jesus said, they persecuted me, they'll persecute you. They hate me, they'll hate you. God's people always have opposition. And thus, the end of Psalm 139, all that beauty and wonder and worship, but there's a sword in their right hand, two edges for the fight. If you talk to a good soldier, Soldier that served in battle and had a good heart, you know, I've known men that went into the military purely For their Their macho desires and lust to prove themselves better than every other man. I know a couple guys like that Eager to kill One guy, he worked for us roofing. And he went in the military, then he got out after he was in for years. And he came back to work for a little bit. He says, I can't adjust to not being in. I can't, the routine. He goes, I want to get back. I want to get back. I want to get back and see action. I want to get back, you know, like I want to kill somebody. He actually got discharged for, I don't remember how they designated it, but two gung ho. And thus, I don't know how they designated it, how they phrased it, but basically a little mental imbalance. And you could see it to him talking to him. He was that way just kind of generally in life, you know? I mean, I like the guy. But yeah, he needed to go back and start hurting people. It wasn't about patriotism and honor. It was just about, I'm the best. I can do better. Let me go. No, that's not what God's looking for. And that's not what I'm looking out for. That's not what we're talking about. But there are men that maybe have killed in battle. But if they did, they did because they had to. And they didn't do it to puff their pride. They did it because they loved the people they thought that were in peril by bad people. And they'd stop the bad people if they had to die to save the innocent at home, whether they're right about that judgment of wrong, but if that's what they're thinking, that's an honorable thing. And Christians are supposed to be honorable. And we have a fight. And those men that served in actual battle that way, They may have some trauma from having to kill people, I understand that, but they're not ashamed of what they've done if they did it with honor and integrity, although it may make problems for them. And it's the same thing for God's people. Never be ashamed of having to wield a sword for God, but the Christian community is ashamed of any sword handling by God's people. That's not love. No, the man who won't defend his family against the encroaching enemy, that's not love. And as soon as the Christian community gets it, the sharper their sword will be and the greater effect it will have on our society. Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we're all so weak and so susceptible to bad thinking. There's not a one of us who aren't susceptible to it. In a moment of weakness, we can all go off the course, leave the path of what is right and true. But Father, we thank Thee for Your Word because it always brings us back to where we need to be, into where true joy and contentedness, and most importantly, in the midst of battles and tribulation, satisfaction and peace of conscience and a sense of honorable accomplishment for the greater good and for the glory of God. So Father, in our humble lives, All of us have ways that we can do that, even in the normal lives we live day to day. Help us to see the battles we face and to approach them with the integrity of a David, and not the fear and loathing of modern Christianity, which despises the battles of the Lord. Help us to see clearly, to act in grace, and only according to Thy will and through the wisdom of Thy Spirit. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.