Well, unless you are completely disconnected from social media, which I admit would have its merits in our day and age, you've no doubt heard about the distinctly anti-Christian themes on display at the Olympic Games opening ceremonies this past week in France. In addition to just an abundance of demonic looking red lighting and flames shooting up from the stage for no apparent reason and a gigantic headless Mary Antoinette, those who are watching the opening ceremonies were exposed to a retelling of The Last Supper, painting by Leonardo da Vinci that's so famous, except this time all the characters involved with this depiction were actually men in drag dress standing in provocative poses, all except, of course, the child of about eight years old that was shockingly seated at the table along with all this blasphemous debauchery. There were no scenes ridiculing Islam, by the way, or any critiques of Buddhist principles or ideals, and we shouldn't be surprised by that. There is only one true God, there is only one true faith, and the enemy that opposes the truth is really only concerned with that true God. I don't know what else the world would have to do to convince Christians that we are surrounded, in fact, by enemies who hate us and who rejoice to see us harmed, but this is the reality that followers of Jesus have had to contend with, not just recently, but to some extent or another ever since the resurrection of Jesus Christ. a world that is driven by sin and stained by the errors of Adam, is going to be naturally opposed to our Savior, Jesus Christ. And we will see that play out through history, that those who follow after Christ, we have been warned, will be hated because of our connection to God's Holy Son. And the Psalm that we're gonna look at together this afternoon, David is going to express despair that has gripped him due to the threatening presence of enemies. enemies that are seen to be all around him, not only on the outside of the covenant people of God, but even opposition that he faces from within the covenant community that he's a part of. And so Psalm 56 has much to teach us, both in regards to showing us a very common pattern in the human response to opposition, and by teaching us a good way to minister to our own souls in the midst of this kind of opposition. So if you've got your Bible open to Psalm 56, I'm gonna read the entire Psalm out loud, and then we're going to take a look at this Psalm in six different sections. All together today, we will see that the main idea of it is to equip us for worshipful living, that we might not be afraid, but that we might be bold in the confidence that we can have in Christ. So Psalm 56 says, to the choir master according to the dove on far off Terebinth, a mictum of David when the Philistines seized him in Gath. Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me all day long, and attacker oppresses me. My enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you, in God whose word I praise. In God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? All day long, they injure my cause. All their thoughts are against me for evil. They stir up strife. They lurk. They watch my steps as they have waited for my life. For their crimes, will they escape? In wrath, cast down the peoples, O God. You have kept count of my tossings. You've put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me. In God whose word I praise, in the Lord whose word I praise, in God I trust. I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? I must perform my vows to you, O God. I will render thank offerings to you, for you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life. Let's bow our heads and thank the Lord for this passage in prayer. Almighty God, Holy One of Israel, we come before you thankful. for what you have to show us. These words have blessed the saints through the generations, Lord God, since they were penned by your servant, David. And God, we can still benefit from them today. Father, we have not solved the problem of human fear. Our weakness is real. Our lack of knowledge is real. And so in light of that, God, if we are not looking to and trusting in you constantly, Lord, we can expect for fear to take grip of us. But we know, Lord, that you are the remedy for all that would cause us terror. And so help us, God, to look upon you and to rejoice in the strength that is ours if our hope is in your son. And we ask this in his perfect name, amen. So the name by which this psalm was commonly known to the Jews was In God I Trust. And that comes from what essentially amounts to a refrain or perhaps even a chorus within this song. And that's a phrase that should not be alien to us, right? In God we trust. If you take some currency out of your pocket, I don't happen to have any right now, because I'm a dad, so all my currency goes to other places, but you would look upon your dollar bill, you would look upon your coins, and you would find inscribed or embossed upon that piece of currency, in God we trust. we can clearly see that the majority of our fellow Americans do not actually trust the Lord. But a strong case can be made that in days past, a greater proportion did. And we would no doubt be a mightier and more stable nation today if the people of this land indeed did put their faith in the Lord, rather than in the passing things of the world that so many people trust in, such as the very currency that I just mentioned, or in our physical health, or in the stability of the environment. There are so many fickle and fragile things that man puts his hope and his trust in, but none of them are worthy of our faith. This Psalm is going to urge us today to place our confidence in the one place it deserves to be. in the God of David, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And we are told that Psalm 56 was written to the choir master. And therefore God's intentions in writing this through David was that Psalm 56 be adapted and sung in worship by the Israelites. It was a great joy to hear Psalm 1 sung in our service this morning. Can you imagine if we sung more of the Psalms just straight from the scripture? You'd be literally memorizing chapters of the word by singing them over and over again with your congregation. And so Psalm 56 was intended to be used as a tool for ministry and to worship the Lord God. in a corporate sense. The tune to which it was to be set was known as The Dove on Far Off Tarabins. Now, I don't know what that song sounds like. No doubt it was an older song that would have had a familiar tune to it. The choir master and the covenant people would have quickly picked up. And so this is not an unprecedented thing. We sing the song All Glory Be to Christ. And does anybody know what that song is based off of? An older song, not even a worship song, but it's sung to the tune of All Lang Syne, the song that is often sung at New Year's Eve about looking back on the past. And so we adapted that tune that people know so that people could quickly pick it up and recognize the song and commit it more quickly to memory. And so that was something they were doing even back in the days of David writing the songs. So the psalm would fall under the category of a mictum, which most believe was a title for psalms that were particularly aimed at teaching wisdom to the people of Israel and equipping the covenant people for worshipful living. So whenever you see miktam, there's often a lot of wisdom built into a miktam, but there's also usually an element of challenging, trying to help you to see that it is difficult to live in obedience to the Lord, but nevertheless, it is what he deserves from us, that we should desire to strive after him and to walk in the ways that he has prescribed for his people. A final comment in the biblical introduction points us to the historical events which inspired David to write this poem, when the Philistines seized him in a town called Gath in 1 Samuel 21, verses 10 through 15. And I will speak a little bit more to this historical context in a few moments. But first, let me talk about the composition of this psalm. And it's helpful to see this psalm broken down into six sections, all of which are two verses long. You might notice that it's 13 verses long. There is one section, the fourth section, that is slightly longer, so it gets three verses instead of two. But there are two verses in particular that stand out, which would be verses three through four, and then again, verses 10 through 11. Each one of these is almost saying the exact same thing, And I think they function kind of like the chorus or the refrain of this song. It's really the driving principle. that we should look to the Lord God and have great confidence and courage because our hope and faith is in Him. So we're gonna look at these sections one at a time. Again, there are six in total. And then hopefully as we look at each piece of this puzzle and link it together, the big picture will become very clear to us. The first section, verses one and two, is an appeal from David to his God. He says, be gracious to me. That is his request of the Lord. Be gracious to me, O God. And then he shares from the heart his concerns. Man is trampling upon him all day long and the attacker oppresses him. And then he repeats the context again, for my enemies trample me all day long. So there's this emphasis here on the feeling that he can never escape the eyes of those who would do him harm. He feels like he is constantly under the gun. And you know how that affects the heart of man. You've probably been in a situation where you were burned out because there was no relief. Many times we can take great trial, we can take great challenge as long as there are little oasis of rest in between. It's part of the beauty of the Lord's Day as we get a built-in rest. Each week the Lord commands us to come together as His people and to sing the praises of Christ together, to look to His Word for wisdom and encouragement and comfort. But sometimes in life it feels like there's a never-ending barrage of challenge and there doesn't seem to be an answer to these oppositions that face us. And that is the sentiment of David's heart here. Knowing a bit about the historical backdrop for David's struggle is helpful. Thanks to the introductory comments, we know where to look. And so in 1 Samuel 21 verses 10 through 15, David is on the run. He is on the run because Saul, the king at the time, the first king of Israel, has become embittered towards David and seeks to take his life. The very king that David had sworn to serve, had sworn to protect, had risked his own life to fight for, this very man who was anointed by God and was set apart by God as holy, therefore, was now David's enemy. David despairs to be stuck in such a difficult position because he doesn't want to do any harm to the anointed of God, and yet he must look out for his own life as well. When I spoke earlier of enemies from inside the camp and from outside of the camp, this would be David's example of opposition from within his own covenant people. David is fleeing in hopes of preserving his life, And his destination is a very odd destination. It is the city of Gath. Now, just out of curiosity, does anybody know why Gath would be a strange place for David to go? Gath was the hometown of Goliath, the giant whom David had slain. So you can imagine that David was not a very popular character in that Philistine city. Gath was not a place where the Israelites dwelt, it was a place where the enemies of Israel dwelt. And so you get a sense for how desperate David is, that he would flee out of such desperation to a very place that was of great danger to him, because that was of, in his eyes, less danger than being under the watchful eye of this king that wants him murdered. So you might think that David was crazy by going there. Ironically, when David arrives, he is apparently recognized by people. He is seized, taken into custody, and then brought before King Achish, the ruler of Gath. And David seems to hope that the king will give him some sort of asylum, that he can claim to be a political refugee, and that the king might let him stay there. But as he's assessing the situation, The servants are identifying him as David, the one for whom songs have been written. Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands. And so they've realized they've got a prize on their hands. They've got this mighty warrior from their sworn enemies, the Israelites. So David realizes that he's in great danger. And the way that he preserved himself was by acting as though he was literally crazy. If you go back and read, if you have time this week in 1 Samuel 21, he began to let the spittle drip down on his beard and he began to make marks on the doorposts, he started acting like a buffoon. And by doing so, this was a tactic, he was trying to make himself seem less threatening to the people. It seemed to work. The King Achish saw David as a pitiful sort of soul that he had clearly lost his mind. And so rather than put him to death or put him in prison as a prize to show the rest of the Philistines, there was no honor in taking this man who was clearly out of his mind. And so he turns him away and lets him go. Man in his weakness should not turn to other men for help. They should turn to the one who is greater for them. And this is something that David is having to learn. In his effort to get away, he went to go get help from Achish, and he ended up finding himself in greater peril. Man can only find relief from God, however, if he has been reconciled to God. We think that David appealing to King Achish is a long shot. How is it any different from somebody who is not a Christian, who is an open sinner, who is in rebellion to Yahweh, running to God in their time of desperate need and asking for God to help them, even though their relationship with God has not been reconciled through Christ? They've been living as though God is irrelevant. They have been bringing shame on the name of Yahweh. And now they are in need. And they think that despite their desire to be free from God and his authority, that they will come and they will appeal to his power to get them through. King Achish may have been fooled by David's clever coverup, thinking him mad. He sent him away and didn't do him any harm, but Yahweh cannot be deceived. And so an appeal like David is making here means nothing if we are not brought near to God according to his grace. God is the one that we should trust. But if you are an enemy to God and you want nothing to do with his Christ, then he will prove to be no help to you. Ultimately, we can only be reconciled to the Lord through Jesus Christ and the work that he has done. If we're still stuck in our sin, asking God for help is a silly thing. If we are firmly stuck in the covenant works of Adam, and we are not trusting in Jesus Christ to be our hope and our righteousness, then we stand before the Lord God as a target, not as one that he will help. Now, that changes if you go to God and appeal for mercy for your sin. And that is our hope, that when the gospel is preached, that somebody who is an enemy to the Lord God will recognize and see the weight of their sin, will see that they absolutely have no power to overcome their sin unless God helps them, and then in a cry of desperation, seek the Lord God, ask for his mercy, confess sin, And if that is sincere, then the Lord, of course, is doing a work in that man's life. And he will hear them for the first time, not as an enemy, but as an adopted son. The sinner has no mediator. As Paul's been preaching in this section in chapter four of the book of Hebrews, one of the great blessings of being connected to God through covenant is that Jesus Christ has become a mediator for us. We spent a lot of time already this afternoon in prayer to the Lord, and that is a blessing to be able to speak to the almighty maker of heaven and earth. But if you're not in Christ, if there is no connection to Yahweh through Jesus and His atoning work, then you have no mediator. You can only stand before God yourself, by yourself. And He cannot see you apart from your sin unless that sin has been defeated on Christ. There is also no obligation in God. If you have rebelled against Him and there is no reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ, then He owes you nothing. He has not made any promises to you. All that he owes you is justice. So the only person who can come boldly before the throne of grace is one whom God has promised to make his son or daughter. And that promise only comes through Jesus Christ. We should not miss, church, how blessed we are to be able to appeal to Yahweh. There is no higher source to whom we could possibly appeal. God will never be defeated by his enemies. I've been defeated by my enemies in the past. There have been people that have been opposed to me and I tried to stand up for them and it didn't work. I was shown to be weak. I was shown to be outmaneuvered. People have been smarter than me in the past and made me look foolish. But there is no one who can defeat God. Anyone who would call themselves an enemy to God is a fool because their defeat is absolutely sure. learned in Daniel chapter four just a few nights ago, that his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. And he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? God has ultimate power and authority. So if you want to appeal to one who is greater than you, You're wasting your time by going to another man. You're wasting your time by going to some philosopher in this world. You're wasting your time to appeal to the help of someone who is less than the one who is willing to help you if you are in fact in covenant with him. Go to the Lord God. If we belong to the Lord God, our enemies are his enemies. If there was somebody who was going after one of my children, I would not see them as a neutral party. I would see them as a threat to my family and I would look after my kids. So too do our enemies become God's enemies because God has a great love for us. The position we were in before we were opposed to God, we earned his wrath, that is the position that our enemies are in right now if they are not believers. And so we may pray as David prays here that God will rightfully judge the weak, that he'll defeat our enemies in defense of his beloved children. Now, it's worth our time, I think, this afternoon to pause for a moment. and to ask the question, is it wrong or is it hypocritical to pray in the way that David sometimes prays? And it's not predominant here. I hope in the future to do a couple sermons in what is called the imprecatory Psalms, the Psalms where we see David praying to the Lord God for the destruction of his enemies. He's doing that in a very mild way here, but as Christians, is it wrong or hypocritical for us to ask God to bring destruction upon those who would bring destruction upon us? Seeing as we were such a short time ago in the same position that they are in now, wouldn't it be more appropriate for us to pray only for our enemy's salvation? Now, it's true that many Christians hold to this position, but let us think about this through the eyes of our God. Yahweh is holy. He is unique and set apart and one of the things that is so special about him is that he always cares about justice. Now you might think of yourself as a just person, somebody who cares about what is right, but your love and affection for what is right pales in comparison to Yahweh's love for what is right. He must and always must care for what is righteous and good and He is the judge of all things, and he has a responsibility to uphold the universe in a way that accords with his character. And since there is no sin in him, he must care about justice. Yahweh brings justice always. And he does it by one of two different ways. He does it either by exacting the correct and proper penalty for sin from the guilty, he brings about justice by enduring that penalty himself through Christ in order to set a poor sinner free. Now recognize this, church. Both of these solutions bring glory to God. Do you see that? When God punishes a rebellious sinner who refuses to accept Christ, when he sends them to judgment, he is glorified in that. He is doing the right thing. But when he changes a heart and causes an individual to want to be reconciled to God, and then the sins that belong to that individual are crushed upon Christ, God is glorified in that as well. That is also the right thing for him to do. And so both of these solutions bring glory to God. God is not only glorified when sinners are saved. And I think some people think wrongly about that, that God would be most glorified if all the people in the world were saved. That is not necessarily the case. He is glorified as well when sinners are punished. And so it is always His prerogative to choose which scenario suits His will better. We can therefore pray, friends, for the punishment of the wicked and the exacting of justice with a clear conscience, if we're asking for these things not to satisfy some selfish motive in ourselves, but because we truly desire for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. And we truly desire for his name to be exalted and for people to respect him as they should. Now look at a passage of scripture that speaks to this in some degree in chapter 12 of Romans. It says here in this passage, bless those who persecute you, Bless and do not curse them. Verse 16 says, live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by doing so, you will keep burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And so many would read a passage of scripture like that and they would say, well, it doesn't seem like there's any room for the imprecatory Psalms at all anymore, that that must be a bygone thing. I am to do good to my enemy. I am to feed him if he is hungry. I'm to give him something to drink if he is thirsty. And this is my only way to fight back, is to do something good to that individual. The difficulty in making that a general principle that we must always follow is this, the context of Romans 12. Does anybody know what the context is? It's about being connected to the body of Christ. Remember, there are times when we will have opposition from outside of the church, but there will also be at times when we have conflict within the church, within the church with other believers. And so it is inappropriate for us to pray for God's destruction or some kind of justice against sin for those who are within the church, because we know justice has already been exacted upon Christ for them. So much of what is being said here in Romans 12 should really be understood in the context of somebody within the church that has a problem against you. How do we keep peace within the body of Christ? And so, yes, it is much more befitting a Christian to show kindness and love, even in response to another Christian sinning against us or treating us unjustly. But we are to strive for that peace. We must not speak curse against the people who believe that God has redeemed them, however imperfect they are. But there are instances, even in the New Testament, where those who would do evil need to see justice. When you go to the book of Revelation in the letters that we often, or the part of the letter that we often call the report card of the churches, you're gonna see in Revelation 2.6 that in Ephesus, one of the things that God commends the church in Ephesus for is that they hate the work of the Nicolaitans, which the messenger of God says, which I also hate. So here we have a wicked people who are not a saved people, who are trying to have influence on the saved people of God, And God hates their works. So it would not be wrong for us to pray that their efforts to infiltrate the church and to hurt the church would come to a dramatic end, that God would protect his people, that he would keep them from the evil wickedness of those who would want to infiltrate like wolves and slaughter the sheep. in the church of Philadelphia in chapter three, verse nine, God will make the false Jews who are described as a synagogue of Satan bow down at the feet of the believers in Philadelphia. So there's a humbling, a public humbling of these individuals who would like to confuse law and gospel for the church in Philadelphia and cause people to trust in their own deeds rather than the deeds of Jesus. Are we not justified in praying that the wicked forces of the world, such as those who mocked our savior in the Olympic ceremony, be stopped from doing this? that their influence would no longer shame the name of God and confuse people who may be led astray by their blasphemy. I think we absolutely can pray for that to be stopped and that God would have a mercy upon the innocent by stopping the works of the wicked. Now, again, I say that word innocence with a caveat there. None of us is truly innocent, but through the blood of Christ, many are being saved and the church needs protection. Any prayer for justice like the one that David prays against his adversaries must be lifted up though with a spiritual asterisk attached to it. Lord, crush your enemies. Put a stop to the wicked ones who oppose you. Your true son is worthy of exaltation. And if there are those who oppose him, then oppose them. But here's the asterisk. If you so choose to pour mercy out upon my enemies and take my enemy's guilt upon your son, then I would rejoice in that as well. Are we willing in praying that justice be done, leave room in our minds to see that we don't know who the elect are. And there are some who are exceedingly wicked. They are professionals at sin. And yet God, through his might, he can save them. He can redeem their hearts and pull them out of that lifestyle and drag them from the darkness into the light. And if he does that, then that person is no longer an enemy to the kingdom of God, but as a son or daughter of the king that we call dad. And so now we have a new brother, a new sister. And so David lifts up his appeal. God may choose to do other. He might choose to do either one. He might choose to stop the hand of the wicked, to bring destruction upon them, and that would result in glory to God. Or he may choose to change their hearts and to redeem them, and that would bring glory to God as well. You notice in David's appeal here that there's a note of humanness in his cry for help. There's a bit of desperation here. Despite his knowledge of God's sovereignty, we see traces of worry, anxiety, of fear, maybe the outpouring effects of great fatigue and burnout. And as the psalm unfolds, we're gonna see an example of the kind of back and forth that is not at all foreign to the great majority of believers. By David's example, we see that we can reasonably expect from a man or a woman who is saved by the grace of God, but lives in a fallen world, that we must still contend with our own personal weakness and limits. A back and forth whereby we become overwhelmed by the opposition that mounts up against us, but then, We are able to recall the grace of God and find our strength renewed and our hope invigorated, only then later to again fall back once more into the dregs of doubt and anxiety. This kind of unsteady movement through life is not foreign to most Christians. We've experienced this to some degree or another. But the one who trusts in God does not stay in this valley of doubt and anxiety. No matter how many times Life takes us to that place. The Spirit will cause the believer to persevere through it, and will bring our attention back to the strength that is ours to appeal to. And we see that on display in verses three through four, which is the first of two choruses, really, in this song. And I would say that this section is properly titled, David Remembers Who He Trusts, okay? And so when David says, when I am afraid, I put my trust in you, in God whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid, what can flesh do to me? Here we see a glimpse of the confidence that is often the property of the believer, right? He remembers who he needs to trust and remembers why he trusts in him. And so David, you might notice, is who's he talking to? He's really talking to himself. He's acting as his own counselor. He tells himself what he ought to know, things that will do him great good if only he will refuse to ignore these things or forget them in his time of need. When a person's distraught in our day and age, the most common solution that is recommended, and I'm not just talking about Christians here, I'm talking about people in our culture in the West, The most common solution that is usually recommended to them, go get some therapy. Go find a counselor who's gonna sit with you for the long haul. They're gonna get to know you. They're gonna spend hours with you. They're gonna work through your stuff. Find a professional who can listen and advise you moving forward. Often the person is considered trustworthy to do this is an individual who's been trained in secular universities, universities that often do not hold any kind of semblance of respect for Christianity or the principles contained in God's word. But that is often the advice. Go and find yourself a psychologist who can sit down with you. Somebody who knows the human mind and psyche better than you do. And I'm not saying that every therapy is wrong, necessarily. But should we be quick to follow this kind of path? Should we be quick to listen to that kind of advice? Now, there are times in our lives, friends, when a professional opinion is needed. Missy and I are about to start building an ADU in our backyard, an accessory dwelling unit. And I want to do a lot of the work myself. And I tell you, if I were to just go out there and build something, it would not pass inspection, guaranteed. I don't have enough knowledge of how to build things properly. I don't know how to wire things up. without burning something down. And so I am absolutely gonna consult with professionals, people who know the trades better than I do so that I'm not just putting my family in danger, so I'm not building something that's gonna be a mess that's never gonna get approved by the permitting process. When you have an insurance claim, you might need to talk to someone who understands the insurance industry so that they can navigate all the pitfalls of that industry because there's a lot of ways you can go wrong at insurance. But who is the expert on matters of heart and mind? Is it someone who has spent a lot of money to get a university education? Or is it the Lord? The Lord who knows the heart and mind of man better than anyone. Does he not know us perfectly? be very hesitant to engage in a long-term relationship with a therapist, even if that therapist claims to be a Christian, considering that the majority of training that a Christian counselor goes through is typically sourced from secular places of knowledge. Now there's a difference between therapy and I would argue biblical counseling. Therapy is focused on a continual return to you. Your therapist listens to you, how you feel, what you're experiencing, what you're going through, what you experienced before. They're determined to empathize with you, to affirm you, to validate you, to offer suggestions to you about you and about what you might do differently. You notice what word keeps popping up over and over again? You, you, you, you, you, right? But good biblical counsel doesn't ignore you, but it is a return to the greater truths that you must contend with. And here is how what you are going through is gonna be impacted by God. A true counselor says, the word says this about what you're experiencing. Listens to you. Here's what you're dealing with. Takes note of your fears and of your struggles and your pains, but then takes you to the word of God and shows you the grace of God and how it affects and impacts the way you're dealing with what you're dealing with. His grace, His sovereignty, His promises, His provision, your testimony of a spirit working in you and in your life up to this point, all of these things are more useful to you than some 10-step program that a therapist can try to put you through that may or may not help you in any meaningful way. Realize that this counterintuitive focus away from you and back onto God will actually do much more to truly teach you about you than will hours of therapy that doesn't take God into consideration. It makes your real and felt needs the focus of this session. without any contemplation about the God of the universe. So think about how David responds to his struggle and his strife here. He's facing opposition from outside of Israel, from within Israel. Having identified that he's afraid, he reminds himself what a man in covenant with God should do in a situation like that. Put your faith and trust in God. This Refrain that we read here in verses three and four is actually directly quoted in the book of Hebrews chapter 13, where the author of Hebrews says, keep your life free from love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you or forsake you. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? Specifically, David reminds himself to trust God's word. He turns his eye back to what God has declared about himself because the word is not some temporary observation, some trivial piece of knowledge that will get you through the moment. The word is the eternal declaration of what is true. And so when your eyes and focus are on the unshifting, unchanging word, then the wisdom you're getting is much more than just a get you by today for the moment kind of advice. David specifically reminds himself to trust in God's power, not just his word, but his power. If David trusts in God, then who can ever overpower God? No one can. There is no one who can oppose him or meet his measure of strength and might. And so he also reminds himself there in verse four to resist the temptation to fear. to resist the temptation to make more of man than he should in his own mind. These are things that David knows. He has had plenty of evidence to fortify this position that he preaches to himself in verses three and four. But notice that in verse five, we find David returning to the appeal process again. He knows that God is good, he knows that he can trust him, but like a true human, he finds himself going back to the fear again. Verse five, this is the second appeal that he makes to God, verses five and six. All day long, they injure my cause." Meaning that they're trying to keep him from doing the godly things that God has put on his heart to do. All their thoughts are against me for evil. So there's applauding against his life. Verse six, they stir up strife. They lurk, they watch my steps. David almost feels like a hunted man. And that's something we should prepare ourselves to experience a little bit as Christians in a society that is getting increasingly wicked. You may begin to feel like you are a hunted individual, like the culture around you has a target on your back. That's what David felt here. He says, they have waited for my life. You see, David trusts in God, but as a flawed man, he doesn't trust in God the way that he knows he should. However, he's going to keep returning to the approach of preaching to himself the things that he should know, even if in the moment his emotions aren't letting him believe them as well as he should. And we should take note of the fact that he is returning to this refrain, I will trust in God, is evidence that he actually does have faith in God, even though it is an imperfect faith. His persistence to continue to try to seek the things of God is evidence that the Spirit is working within him. This is success for the Christian, not to completely eradicate all the opposition in your life, because this life is for opposition. This life is full of resistance, and it is how God grows us and teaches us. But success for the Christian is not the avoidance of opposition, it is endurance in the face of opposition. It is continually seeking out the Lord, even though we have to deal with discouragement at times, even though we get sad, even though we suffer loss. and is continuing to press forward, and loving the Lord God, knowing that I might not even have the faith that I need right now, but God is going to carry me through even though I am a weak man. So we counsel ourselves. We do it knowing that we will need to counsel ourselves again. This is the nature of being a man or a woman. There is no surefire, simple, one-time, set-it-and-forget-it solution to our struggles. This is discipleship, friends. We face it each day, and we move forward together. You know what, there's a pattern that we can see in our lives, and this pattern is probably, it's not my pattern, it's just the pattern of humanity. As a Christian, I determine to follow the Lord faithfully. It's what I want to do. But then I encounter opposition. I'm reminded that it's not an easy path. I see how weak I am as a human being, and I'm not meeting the goals that I set for myself. I begin to suffer from my weakness, and doubt begins to assault my faith. But then I remember the might of God, I remember that I have no reason to worry because he's greater than me and he is my advocate, he is my mediator. And this is often, by the way, aided in our connection to the church. So many people who are struggling, they call themselves a Christian and they're struggling greatly, it's because there's no connection to the body of Christ. They don't have this kind of fellowship where they come together and they hear the word preached and it spurs on their heart. They sing together with the saints the things that they know that they should believe and that they should declare as true So those who cut themselves off from the church are often hindering themselves in this process. But so often, you know, we find ourselves in doubt, and then we remember the might of God. We remember that we should have confidence in Him, that we should come boldly before the throne. And then we rally, right? We're encouraged by that truth. We're determined once again to follow after the Lord. And the doubts we had begin to fade away. But then over time, what happens? Exposure to continued opposition exposes my weakness again, or exposes something broken in me that I didn't see before. And I see that there's more and more that I need help from the Lord. And so the tactics of the enemy also must not be ignored here. What is The writer of this psalm, David, what does he say? He says that his opposition is there to damage his cause. In other words, we live in a world that would love to see our efforts to serve God and worship him stifled. The enemy wants to, in any way that he can, hinder the mission work of the church. He wants to make us afraid so that we will not share the gospel with the people we know do not understand Christ and do not see their need for him. He wants to cause us to stumble into sin. Bless you. So we'll feel like we're not worthy to serve the Lord God. So that we'll shy away from the people of God so that our sin won't be exposed. He wants to do whatever he can do to damage the cause. David's enemies devised evil against him. And the world, it seems like, is never content with the degree of evil that they can do against Jesus. The world is constantly trying to find new ways to not only insult the Lord God, but to trick the Christian people of the world into following into that sort of footsteps of disobedience and debauchery. David speaks about how they are sowing division among himself and those he cares for. He's not even able to live in his homeland because he has to be on the run from the king that is supposed to be protecting him. And if the enemy can do so, he will sow dissension among the people of God. He loves nothing more than to see people who should be loving each other, hating each other, and distrusting one another, and being divided from one another. So these are all things that we face as well, friends. To see David go through this process of recognizing the opposition that he's up against, but refusing to give up on seeking the Lord and trusting him, should be a great comfort to our hearts. In light of that, David counsels himself further. And this is the one section that is three verses instead of two verses. It's verses seven, eight, and nine. And I would label this section as the section of assurance. And in this next section of Psalm 56, David addresses the mental conflict within by reasoning with himself. He takes the time to analyze the situation in light of what he knows about the true God. We see the apostle Paul using here a similar approach in the book of Romans that we've been learning about on Sunday mornings, where he's working to establish and flesh out some very important doctrines to his brothers and sisters in the city of Rome. And so Paul engages those Christians in a process that is classically used to convince and persuade others. He asks questions, and then he provides reasonable, ordered answers so that he might put to rest the potential confusions and anxieties of his audience. David is doing essentially the same thing here, but he's working this technique on himself in order to calm his own heart in a time of great distress. So verses seven through eight say, for their crime, will they escape? Here's the question. He wants to ask, are my enemies gonna get away with the way that they're treating me? Saul has tried to spear me to the wall. Is he gonna get away with that? And then he says in the second half of verse seven, in wrath, cast down the peoples, O God. Praise for God to intervene and to bring true justice. Verse eight, you have kept count of my tossings. In other words, God is not overlooking the fact that David is losing sleep over this. He's tossing back and forth in his bed because he's so anxious. But he needs to remind himself, God sees this. God knows his strife. God understands that there are tears that David has shed for the situation that he's in. In fact, he describes it in this poetic way. You put my tears in your bottle. Are they not written in your book, oh God? So David is reminding himself that God is not ignorant to him. Verse nine, then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know that God is for me. Look at the way that David addresses his own key fears here. He wants to know if his enemies will get away with what they're doing. David is speaking about his adversaries, namely the Philistine King Achish, who seized him, and they very well order him to be imprisoned or killed. We know the rest of the story that he's actually let go. But he's also talking about King Saul, whose anger and frustration and his own leadership failures are being taken out time and time again on David, to the point where he tries to personally execute him. Well, these men who seek to do David harm who attempt to take his very life, will they get away with their aggressions without tasting any consequence of their actions? The answer, David assures himself, of course not, that's ludicrous. God is the king who resides over all kings. He is ultimately responsible for the thorough application of all righteousness. And Yahweh will thoroughly do his job. Kings are to work the good for the people of God, but their authority does not grant them immunity from the law. They are not above the commands that they are to enforce in the land. David knows this. God is always good and will, according to his nature and in precisely the right time, judge the wicked. He will not allow injustice to persist forever. As the judge of all things, he would share in the responsibility of that wickedness if he were to just turn his eyes from it and never deal with it. King Solomon, of course, you know, is David's son, would later share some wisdom on this subject. The author of the book of Ecclesiastes, in trying to make sense of these things as his father, David, tried to make sense of them, writes in chapter eight, verses 11 through 13, he says, because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, in other words, because I don't see justice right away, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil 100 times and prolongs his life, Yet I know that it will be well with those who fear the Lord, because they fear before him. But it will not be well for the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God." So what Solomon is describing there in the book of Ecclesiastes, he's acknowledging this fact that God takes his time. And yes, this does in some ways embolden the sinner to think that he might be able to skirt justice. But Solomon goes on to assure us that all is not well for the rebel. By his wickedness, he cannot prolong his days. In other words, unless there's an intervention according to God's grace, the sentence of the wicked will be thorough and he will certainly answer for his rebellion. So we can identify in verse eight a second struggle that David needs to carefully reason through. He wanted to know if his enemies would see justice and he reminds himself that of course they will because God is a good judge. And then second, will God overlook my struggle? Will he be aloof and ignorant of my hurt and my pain? So Yahweh is more than a distant king to David. He is the God who has welcomed David into covenant with himself. He has placed his anointing upon David and has revealed to this man that David's gonna play a part in Yahweh's future plans to strengthen and provide for the nation of Israel. What feels then like a delay in justice is a problem for David, not just on a general righteousness level, but on a personal level. He's tempted to believe that God has somehow overlooked the promises that he has made to him. And so he must assure himself that God is indeed for him. God has not forgotten his child. He cares about David's strife and he notices his plight. With that being true, there certainly must be some kind of purpose to the current struggles that he's experiencing. The Lord would not allow David, his son, to endure this for no reason. And David cannot doubt that God has a resolution, a story, even though he himself does not know when it will come about or exactly how. You have kept count of my tossings, he says. He knows that God knows. He knows that God sees. Although sometimes we're tempted to think God has forgotten me. God is allowing me to suffer so much I can't believe that he really has his eye on me. We know that the opposite is true. Yahweh is a personal God and he cares for individuals. His covenant is for the elect but his love extends down to each individual who's a part of the greater covenant community. So David does not need to let his anxieties and his fears cause him to look at Yahweh in such a distorted light that he forgets the promises that God has made to him. He will be a king in Israel because God has said that. He will serve the Lord and from his loins will become the one who will sit on the throne forever. He can hold tight to these promises. In Mark chapter four, verses 35 through 41, We read, on that day, when evening had come, he said to them, let us go across to the other side. And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was, and other boats were with him. And so the disciples and Jesus have been doing a public ministry, but they're transporting themselves to another place in Israel. So they're going across this lake. They're in a boat, verse 37, and a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so the boat was already filling. but he was in the stern asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. Jesus said to them, why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? I love this account in Mark's gospel. because he adds a detail that the other accounts leave out. And it is this heartfelt cry, this honest plea to Jesus, where the disciples wake him up. They're desperate because it appears that they may be lost in the storm. And they say to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? Of course he cares, friends. Of course he cares. There is never, an ounce of suffering that you endure that God is aloof to, that He is unaware of. He knows what you're going through. He understands your suffering and your struggle. And we must take confidence in knowing that there's no detail of our life that escapes the notice of our wonderful Savior. And there, even in that story of the storm, is a reminder to us, if God has made promises, then you have to be confident that they will be fulfilled. God's not gonna let Jesus die on the ocean. He's already told these disciples, I'm the Messiah. God's going to bring redemption about through me. So if they were trusting in that good word, then they would not have been afraid for their lives to be lost because they know that God's gonna preserve the Messiah. But like David, they were temporarily afraid that perhaps God's concerned about them and run out. They were panicking because it seemed as though God did not see the trouble that they were in, was not immediately taking care of their need in the way that they longed for him to do so. You don't have reason to be afraid of this though, friends. If Jesus is Messiah, God will not allow your life to be destroyed, not for no reason. You might say, but David had special revelation given to him. David was told that he would be the anointed. I don't have that kind of prophecy upon my life. He was told he would serve as a king, but I don't know the exact roadmap of where God intends to take me. But if you're saved by grace, then in some ways you do have a roadmap for what's ahead. I want you to consider for a second, Christian, some of the promises that have been God breathed in the pages of scripture that you can rest on every day. Hebrews 13, again, verse five, keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have for he said, I will never leave you or forsake you. That is a promise from the words of God's holy scripture. You can believe that promise. It's not the speculation of some therapist somewhere. It's not some mind trick that you play on yourself to get you through the moment. It is a promise from God's holy word. John 10, 28. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. Now, of course, Jesus was not saying there that we would never experience a physical death. Christians die all the time, but none of us will experience the second death, the death of the soul. If we are in Christ, then we will stand before the Lord God with a clear conscience because Christ has washed us and has put upon us his own personal righteousness. And who does Jesus speak of here? He's speaking of his own sheep. John 10, you might recall, is the chapter of John where Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd to the sheep. The ones who belong to Jesus, he shepherds them personally. He assures us that he knows his sheep. He's not negligent. He's not like some hireling who's just gonna run away when things get dicey. He assures them that the sheep know His voice. They know that they can follow their Good Shepherd wherever He leads because He is good to them. A verse later, in John 10, 29, Jesus reiterates the same idea, but adds to it that God is the one who has given the Good Shepherd to this flock, and God is greater than all of our adversaries. What weapon is fashioned against Him that can stand, friends? And if He is mighty beyond measure, and He is our sworn protector, what business do we have second-guessing His ways or thinking that He will not follow through? So God has not personally appeared to you and said, you're going to do such and such on such and such a day. But he has given you verses like this, where the scripture says, truly, you have reason to be confident in the Lord God, because no one's ever going to snatch you out of his hand. He's given you a permanent covenant that will be yours for eternity. Granted, not all situations that we're allowed to endure seem like victory to us. And we do not have here a specific promise that the good shepherd will not take the sheep at times through the valley of the shadow of death. He has every right to do that. It's not a place where the sheep like to go. He might very well decide that we need to be put through processes that are very scary and hard to understand for us. But we have another promise declared to us in his word, Romans 8 28. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purposes. Because of what I know about God, I cannot let myself fall for these unfounded fears, fears that ignore the decree of God. I would have to turn a blind eye to what God has revealed in order to stay scared about these things. But I'm sadly very capable of doing that, friends. Each Christian is, aren't we? There are times when we'll go through seasons where we don't remember the things that God has revealed to us. So let us think of David in those times. As we come back to verses 10 and 11, We're here at the refrain, at the chorus of this great song, where he says again, in slightly different words, but this is essentially the same thrust. He says, in God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? Please, Christian, do not stop returning to the God who has made himself known to you. David has doubted, he has wavered, but he comes back to what he knows to be true. What he knows to be true is Christ, that there is a Redeemer on the way, that Yahweh has promised him that there will be a king who sits on the throne, and he will sit there eternally, never to be dethroned, never to allow the people to go into exile. This king will be eternal. His word is worthy of our praise, and so count upon it, seek it, proclaim the word of God. God's word is so vital to our personal counsel. I think it's one of the things we take away from a psalm like this is that you can counsel yourself because God has given you the Holy Spirit that can understand the word and the word never lies to you. So the best counsel you have is when you open God's scripture and you say, I'm going through it right now, what does the word have to say to me about this? So care for the word of God, seek the word of God, put it in your heart, so you'll be ready in these times of trial and tribulation when enemies come against you, the word of God will buffet you, will strengthen you, will fortify your heart. Let us consider for a moment this phrase, what can man do to me? Man can do a number of things to us if we're honest, right? Man can deceive you. especially if you're not rooted and grounded in the truth of God's word. So one of the best ways to defend against that is to take the word of God seriously, to try to understand the word of God and to read it for comprehension, to know the instructions that God has given to us and the encouragements and blessings that he has rendered to us. There are so many benedictions in the scripture, blessings where God says, remember who you are in me. There is great blessing in being connected. Do not forget the covenant that I have given to you. But people can deceive. And so be aware that you live in a world where there'll be people who try to lie to you about who God is and about what he has in store for Christians. Man can slander, man can accuse. David had to deal with this. People who threw lies against David, trying to make others hate him and turn against him so that his leadership would be undermined. They can damage my body, right? Of this, David was acutely aware, having fought in many wars for Israel. Man can hurt you physically. You and I might struggle to comprehend that a little bit because we've never really probably been assaulted for our faith in any sort of meaningful physical way. But other saints throughout the world today and throughout the ages before have lost their lives because the people in the world have taken them away. But remember what Martin Luther, the reformer, writes in his wonderful Wonderful hymn, one of my favorites of all time, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. He says, let goods and kindreds go, this mortal life also. The body they may kill, God's truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever. And you are a part of that kingdom. So they can take your body away if you are in Christ, but there is no second death for you. All they're doing is bringing you into glory. They're giving you the door to see your Savior face to face. They cannot strip you of the eternal things. They might take some temporary treasures away from you, treasures that would have been burned up anyway, but they can do nothing of eternal consequence to you. What can man do to me? He can do a lot of things that hurt me now, but he could do nothing that hurts me forever. God's promises will never be nullified. My identity cannot be undone. And the will of God will come to pass. And I can trust that it is always a goodwill. Now, if you are, never living with an eternal perspective, friends, and you think and meditate only on what affects you in the tangible present here and now, then these gospel assurances will have less weight in your life. The gospel truths that I just spoke of might have very little impact on your fears if all you care about is what's right in front of you. That's something you can grow in as a Christian. Ask the Lord God to make you think in ways that are more eternal, to consider that you are not just a being for the here and now. that you were built to worship God forever. Think more eternally, Christian, and do not let the moment that you are in right now overshadow the promises that God has given to you forever. And then the end of this wonderful psalm. I call David's resolution, because it is here where David, having counseled himself and fallen back into doubt and counseled himself with the true word of God and fallen back into doubt, finally comes to this place where he recognizes that even if he's doubting, what really matters is that God is good to him. And so he wants to continue to pursue this goal. Verse 12, I must perform my vows to you, O God. I will render thank offerings to you, for you have delivered my soul to death. Yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life. I must perform my vows to God, he says. And what that means essentially is I must continue in the path that you have placed me in. This is not a, I must perform my vows to you, O God, so that I'll be worthy of you, so that I might punch my ticket to heaven. It's rather David saying, you have promised me things. You have put me on a path and I will continue to pursue you because what else am I going to do? This is what you have ordained me for. Give me the strength to walk in faith after you. I will continue to render thankful worship to my God. Christian, you're called less to be a problem solver and more to just be a worshiper. This world is a mess and we wanna fix it. We wish we had the power to do so, but whatever state it's in right now, do not stop worshiping the King. Do not stop exalting the God who is above you, who loves you better than anybody else ever could. Your adoration of Jesus will protect you from self-doubt, will remind you of what really matters in your life, will give you a holy foundation upon which you may stand. For you have delivered my soul David writes, and of course for the Christian, we understand this to mean that my soul has been delivered from the second death. Though my body might be killed, my soul will last forever. God will keep me for himself for eternity. He has delivered my soul from falling. Our God saves us not only from damnation, but from the disgrace of godless living here and now. And so I don't have to worry that my life will be a total disgrace to God because if I'm his, then he is sanctifying me. He is making me holier and pure. and he's doing that by the work of the Spirit. He has made it possible for me to walk before him, not in darkness of despair, but in the light of life. And so David is preaching to himself here. Now, I wanna say this emphatically. This is my last point. David is preaching to himself. He's not just talking to himself. There's a difference between those two things. One of the worst compliments I could get is when somebody afterwards comes up to me, I preached, And they come to me and say, hey, that was a good talk, Pastor. I'm not up here just to talk. I'm not up here just to talk, friends. I'm here to preach. God has called the men who fill his pulpits to preach, and preaching is different than a discussion. It's just different than saying, here are some things to think about. Preaching is here to show you there's a God in heaven, and he's worthy of honor and glory. Preaching is to urge you on to following that God, to set aside whatever doubts and fears that you have, and to embrace the might of the Almighty. And so when you see this encouragement from David, recognize that he's not just talking to himself. He's preaching to himself. I will continue on. I must perform my vows to you. He's preaching to his own heart. Do not be weak heart. There is no place for you to doubt the living God because he is true and you know it. Do not let the deceptions of this world cloud your eyes. Do not let the enemy cause you to be divided in heart in your commitments to the world and to God. Just be committed to the Lord God. Preach to yourself, urge yourself on. Thank the Lord God that the word is here to urge you on and to press you forward into greater glory. And he will do this through the work of Jesus Christ, his son, and the Holy Spirit that is actively in and with you. So preach the gospel to yourselves, friends. Don't just talk about it with yourself. Preach the gospel to yourself and urge yourself to be in the light of Christ. David is a great example to us. I love that even though he was a mightier man than I probably ever will be, but I can see here that he struggled as well. And though David struggled, the Lord God held him fast, and he continued on, persevered, even through some great failures, and so can we. Let us thank the Lord God for the ways that he holds us fast and keeps us near to him. God, we praise you and thank you for the psalm that you have let us meditate on today. I pray, Lord God, that the encouragements that it brings to our hearts would leave us ready to face the trials and tribulations of this world, Lord God. Help us to be able to have the presence of mind to identify those who are our enemies. And I pray, Lord God, that we would be bold enough to even pray for our enemies and to ask for your mercy upon them, that you might solve our problem with them by making them a child of the light so that we can be brothers together and care about the same things together, Father. What a triumphant victory that would be. But for those who will not, call upon the name of Christ, we do ask, Lord, that you would put a stop to their wickedness. We say that and ask it knowing that one day there will be a final judgment where sin will be cast out from your creation once and for all. But even now, Lord God, I pray that you would display your righteousness in stopping the hand of the wicked and stopping the mouths of the liars, Lord, and helping truth to be known throughout your world. I pray, Lord God, that we would not forget that when we are weak, you are strong, And so even through the times when we doubt and we tremble, I pray, Lord God, that you would remind us that even those times cause us to cling more closely to you. And so I ask Father that if we need some of that trembling, that you would bring it into our lives. We often pray for safety and for clear passage, but God, some of your greatest blessings to us are the trials that you let us endure. Father, if it were not for these times, then I fear we would not know how to appreciate you as we ought to. And so God, train us up in whatever way is necessary and help us, Father, to not fall into the trap of thinking that we must overcome these things with some clever man-made way of approaching life, some philosophical adjustment, Laura, but then instead we would trust your word as good and holy and fully sufficient to equip the saints for all the works that you have ordained for us to do. May you be glorified for the accomplishment of all of them in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Another long sermon. Thank you for hanging in there with me, but we do have some time for discussion. So if there's anything that you, heard in that sermon that was confusing, you'd like some explanation about it, I'd be happy to spend some time talking in a little bit more detail about anything that was preached, or if you have any insights or something that stood out to you that you might think might be an encouragement to one of the other brothers or sisters here, this would be your opportunity to share and to talk. I thought the opposition part was really a blessing to hear about. I can tell you, you know, your passion to have an experience of that tragedy, you know, just, And I think it is true, like what you said. I mean, you need to be ready for that, right? You're not just looking, going through this world, right? It's just, you know, it's just a dream, right? Yeah. I think one of the things that I take home from this song more than anything else is that you need to be ready not just to succeed, but be ready to fail too. Be ready to be weak at times. Be ready to know that there'll be days when you are just down and you don't feel strong and you forget the promises. but continue, persist in seeking the promises of God. Look for the scripture to be light to you when your mind is shrouded in shadow. That persistence is so important. And if we don't give up and keep working forward with God's help, then we'll see how effective he is at pulling us out of those valleys and bringing us again to a place where we could see more clearly. the David crazy parts, it was funny. I know. He got away with something big there. I was like, how did he pull that off, man? I can't believe Akish didn't just put his head on a stick, you know? It was only the hand of God that was keeping him from danger there. But why did he go back to Gath? That just blows my mind. Of all the places you could go and hide, you know, don't go back to the place where you slayed their boy, you know? That's terrible. All right. Not a whole lot of questions. I got a couple. All right, good. I would say that the general context of that chapter is that we are connected to the body of Christ. But I wouldn't overlook the fact that it says there, in so much as it depends on you, live at peace with others. not just believers, but with non-believers as well. So we want to seek to live at peace with those who are the enemies of the cross, especially in light of the fact that God brings believers out of our enemies. But I would say that somebody who tries to take Romans 12 and say, we need to be pacifistic towards those who are not Christians, that we must only pray for their salvation. I think it's ignoring the fact that God is glorified also in opposing the wicked and bringing them to humility. So I don't think it is wrong to pray at times. God, what that wicked person said and did, you know, show them that it was wrong. Let them experience the consequences of that sinful action. I don't think that's wrong to pray. I think it's not wrong to pray when somebody is sinned against in a great way that we pray for justice to come upon that person, even if it is severe justice and they have to face the death penalty. If that is God's will, then he will do it. And if it's God's will for it not to be done in that way, then he'll bring about justice in his own way. So my whole point there is that if you use that section as some kind of like bulletproof argument against the Christian ever-praying and precatory prayers against wickedness, I don't think you can make that fit because so much of the context is dependent upon how you interact with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Yeah, Simon. By what you just said, if someone who is under that veil of doing bad to others really is just someone that's following the main person, what you're saying, what I hear is that you may not help that main person that is causing this trouble, but the person that might follow that person, their eyes might be open. And they might be able to say what I think weren't going to be if they had that conversation. Yeah, so it's tricky when there's a believer who's doing something sinful, right? Because if they persist in that sinfulness and there isn't a repentance in their heart, then it gives you cause to step back and say, is this person truly a saved person? Because there are those who would, with a sheepskin over their shoulders, walk amongst the sheep and the flock of God, but actually be a wolf. And so we have to be aware of those things. And that's one of the difficult tasks, I think, of those whom God has ordained to be pastors among the people is that we have to keep our eyes out. for those who would claim to be a Christian but who are truly not. So there are times when that can shift and change. But if somebody's claiming to be a believer and is trying to walk in the Lord, and there's evidence that there's perhaps real fruit in their life, but they are being wicked to somebody else in the congregation, we pray that God will open their eyes to that and will cause them to have a repentant heart. But it would be wrong for us to pray for God to crush that brother or sister. Yeah, yeah. And we see examples of that where where the Apostle Paul turns over, I think it's Alexander and Hymenaeus to their sins so that they might be saved. So he says, we need to turn them over to Satan. His hope is that they're truly believers. but he wants them to be saved, not to be crushed and destroyed. He wants that turning them over and the lack of fellowship that they are now losing because they've been cast out of the church will break their hearts and make them so grieved by their sin that they will finally repent and come back and do what a true Christian is supposed to do, which is submit themselves to the instruction of God. It's a good example of somebody within the church who's turned them over to Satan. That seems like an imprecatory prayer to a degree, but really the function of it, the purpose of it, was to spur them on to repentance and to bring them back into reconciliation. Good question. All right, folks. Oh, another question in the back. Go ahead, Raquel. I feel like my emotions tend to be pretty even feel. I was telling Missy about a moment last Sunday where I had a little panicky moment. I had a little first three and four moment where Noel leaned over and told me that Biden had dropped out of the race. Yeah. And I didn't anticipate it, but I felt like panicky all of a sudden. I was like, Gavin Newsom. Newsom. Really for the Christian, there should be no more peaceful person in the world. than somebody who calls upon the name of Christ. And I know we're not perfect at that, but how can someone in the world who does not know the sovereign God, or who knows of Him and opposes Him, how can they have any peace? I just marvel at the idea of somebody who's not in Christ having any kind of meaningful, real peace in their life. Because my peace is based upon God's perfect hand directing all things. And so there will definitely be times when our short-sightedness and our limited nature as humans is exposed. I will panic at times as well. There have been times when I couldn't find her. I was on the church campus and I'm looking everywhere and I can't find her. suddenly thinking of all the terrible things that could happen to my daughter. And, you know, it turns out she's hiding up in the mom-daughter room or something, you know, up in a place you wouldn't look but last. But there are those times when I freak out and I panic as well. We just need to remind ourselves that we're not gonna be perfect in our faith. Mark 9, 24, what does it say, Adam? I believe, help my unbelief, right? We confess that we believe in the Lord, but we confess that our belief is imperfect. And so I'm so grateful that Ephesians 2, 8, 9, it tells us that we are saved by grace through faith. We're not saved by faith through grace. There's a difference there. God saves us. And then he gives us faith and measure. And that faith is important to the process. But this thing that saves us is the grace of God. And the grace of God doesn't have an off day. The grace of God doesn't waver. It is his power at work in our life. I think all y'all agree with what you were saying, Raquel. I think Newsome probably, if not, has already come across that path, has been a candidate for imprecatory prayer. When I think of him and all the stuff with COVID that was going on, I definitely was tempted to pray, God break the teeth of the ungodly. When I think of the stuff that he's done, that billboard that he had, mocking Christianity, You know, the stuff that he's doing, I just learned of today in Richmond. I mean, these are wicked people. These are wicked people. And they hate churches. Look at all the stuff he did with MacArthur and all that. So, I ain't gonna say he hasn't probably come to. He's definitely a candidate for the preparatory prayer. Burn him or burn him is, I think, an appropriate prayer for that man. That man is evil, and he hates the church, and he hates God. I mean, think of the... A debate that was like, what, 12 years ago, 13 years ago, when he got on CNN, Larry King, and he debated John MacArthur over gay marriage? Well, he's been, his conscience almost seems like it's more and more seared, if anything else. And the way he views Christ and his body is satanic. And I don't think we can sugarcoat somebody like that. He's a threat to the body. Yeah. Thankfully, I think that. So was so. Thankfully, I think that he wouldn't win, even if they put him forward. I don't think he would have a chance to win. I think even Californians would be like, I don't think so. So I would like to think that people have seen enough of his true colors to be leery of him in a higher leadership capacity. But then again, he's still in governor's office in California. I would not be surprised if we did something even dumber like that, but thankfully it's not an issue at this point. All right, friends, enjoy the rest of your Lord's Day. Rest in the peace that Christ affords, and we'll see you back next time.