Psalm 39 is very popular in greeting cards in parts. There are passages of the psalm that really warm the heart, and most people know it. Where can I go from your spirit? Nowhere. God is everywhere. He's even in death. He's even in hell. If you're under the water, God is still there. You can't hide from God. When I was created, God created me. He knit me together in my mother's womb. I'm fearfully and wonderfully created. I mean, these are all very famous passages. But you don't hear the psalm preached on a lot. And the reason is because after these very heartwarming sections, the last little fourth of it is, God, you are so good and everything about you is so good. Your thoughts are so good. I really wish you would just absolutely slay the wicked. I mean, every last one of them, I want you to cut them down. They are my enemies. I totally hate them. I hate them with a pure hatred. To get to this point, the average evangelical goes, how did we get here? And they go, well, I'm supposed to love my enemies. How does this fit? And it really bothers them. As Reformed Christians, we know that the opposite of love isn't hate. They're not dramatically opposite. The dramatic opposite of both love and hate is indifference. And it is possible to hate someone and love them at the same time. It's kind of a complicated situation. But if you're married, trust me, you've got this one down. There's another part, though, of that section that most people don't catch. And in our singing of it, while this rendition of the psalm is actually a very good rendition, it does slightly obscure one little part of it. We sang, from men of blood I turn away, they speak against the name divine. I count God's enemies as mine. That's not exactly what the Hebrew says, and in most English translations, you will see what it says. It says, they take your name in vain. Now, you can take God's name in vain by using it as a curse. You can take God's name in vain by befouling it with profanity and speaking as God. That all can happen. But usually, the concept of taking the Lord's name in vain is when you speak for the Lord and say, thus says the Lord, and God hasn't. When you're putting words in God's mouth, you're lying about God, you are specifically claiming God while committing the sin. Which means that the psalmist says, slay the wicked. The world created by your hand is so wonderful. The wicked should be in it. And by the way, many, many of the wicked are actually overtly religious. They wear God's name. They can't really take his name in vain without it, usually. So the psalmist is actually saying, one of the greatest places where you'll find enemies of God is actually in religious places. Just because somebody takes the name of God doesn't mean that they aren't wicked. I really wish that were the case. I wish that everyone who said, I'm a follower of Christ, they really were. I would really like that. But even when David was writing his psalm, the Holy Spirit was telling him now When you look among God's people you will find a mixture of the righteous and the wicked and do not be surprised by that It does unfortunately take place