Thank you for tuning in to our PodBean subscription. We hope that you enjoy the message and we trust that God will speak to your heart. If you would like to so into the ministry of rebirth, please feel free to do so. You will find out banking details along with our pay for us link in the sermon description. Now, let's get straight into this week's message. - Amen, thank you so much. You may take a seat, hallelujah. Amen, turn it me to Psalm 10, will you? Psalm 10. And when you're there, please give me an amen. - Amen. - Ah, so quick. (laughing) I'm gonna be caught lying in the face. (laughing) Okay, when you really there, give me an amen. - Amen. (laughing) - Ah, so quick. (laughing) Amen. And just remember norms, testimony, it's a good cue for offering, eh? Don't put coins in offering basket. (laughing) Must be a silent offering, okay? (laughing) I'm just kidding, I understand how the guy with the offering talk, (laughing) amen, and everyone has such a beautiful story of what God has brought him through and I can't wait two years, the rest of your stories for this month, amen. From Psalm 10, we journey to the personal of Romans. Romans is Paul's largest letter that he wrote. It's considered a compendium for the gospel, for understanding the gospel. Literally, you cannot understand the gospel accurately without reading and understanding the book of Romans. Impossible. It's a concise, detailed summary of what the gospel is, why Jesus came and how that impacts us in the life to come. It'll take exactly an hour to read, if you're a slow reader, 1.2 hours like me. So please, in your reading plan, prepare yourself for our sermon series on the letter of Romans, amen. Reading from verse one, it's good to see Keegan and Tufs in the building as well. Anybody else? I'm not seeing, okay, so we there, I'm reading from the ESV translation and Psalmist opens up and says, "Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In arrogance, the wicked hotly pursue the poor. Let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised. For the wicked boast of the desires of his soul and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord, in the pride of his face, the wicked does not seek him. All his thoughts are, there is no God. His ways prosper at all times. Your judgments are on high out of his sight. As for all his foes, he puffs at them. He says in his heart, I shall not be moved. Throughout all the generations, I shall not meet adversity. His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression under his tongue of mischief and iniquity. He sits in ambush in the villages. In hiding places, he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless. He lurks in ambush like a lion in his ticket. He lurks that he may seize the poor. He seizes the poor when he draws him into his net. The helpless are crushed, sink down and fall by his might. He says in his heart, God has forgotten. He has hidden his face, he will never see it. Arise, O Lord, O God, lift up your hand. Forget not be afflicted. Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, you shall, you will not call to account. But you do see, for you note mischief and fixation, that you may take it into your hands to you the helpless commits himself. You have been the help of the fatherless, break the arm of the wicked and evildoer. Call his wickedness to account till you find none. The Lord is king forever and ever. The nations perish from his land. O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted. You will strengthen their hearts. You will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that the man who is of the earth may strike terror no more, amen. And that's the best part of the sermon. And you'll note verse three, with your crayon, you can just highlight it. First part of verse three, the for the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul. And I want you to know verse 17. O Lord, you hear the desire of the wicked. And what we have here is a contrast between the wicked who boasts of the desires of his soul and the Lord who years the desires of the afflicted. This contrast is meant to highlight the arrogance of the wicked and the dependence of those who are pressed upon the Lord. The underlying tone and teaching of the psalm presents us with two divergent ways of life, which is not foreign to your ears. When you consult or read through Hebrew wisdom, wisdom literature, that's the book of Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes, you will find this theme and motif that undergirds wisdom, literature, and that's the doctrine of two parts. There's the way of the righteous, and there is the way of the wicked. And Jesus in his wisdom taught this when he said, that there are two ways, two parts, a narrow road, and a broad road. In other words, God essentially classifies all of humanity and two ways. You are the righteous or wicked. You are either a sheep or you a goat. There is no hybrid, no mongrel in between. You are the hortoco, you are the in his kingdom or you're outside of his kingdom, and you see this in his judgments in the earth. When he judged Sodom and Gomorrah, you are either in the city or outside of the city. When he judged the earth with a flood, you are either in that ark or not in that ark. And on the day of judgment, you either have Christ or you don't have Christ. And that's why John in his epistle, he says, he who has the son has life. He who does not have the son does not have life. The only two parts, amen. You saw with me family. Now looking at the psalm, the psalm has no title or superscription. There's no trace that gives us an idea to the historical significance or any historical reference points in the chronicles or in the life of David. If you recall our previous message on the psalm, I shared on Psalm 9. I did mention there's Psalm 9 and Psalm 10 are generally considered a single psalm for the acrostic and for the fact that Psalm 9 is titled by David and the acrostic runs from Psalm 9 into Psalm 10. So I encourage you if you're hearing this message for the first time, you can refer to Psalm 9 as well. Psalm 10 like Psalm 9 is a lament. And it is a lament specifically about the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the innocence. And haven't we all lamented at that from time to time? We look at the world, we look at the drug dealer, we look at the corrupt politicians, we look at those who boast in their pride and arrogance and we see how they thrive and they don't seem to have any troubles in life. And then we look at the good innocent people, the good guy, the good lady who suffers at the hands of the wicked, or we look how they suffer at the hands of, of these ills that plague society and we ask ourselves, Lord, why do good people suffer and why do the evil seem to thrive? And when we examined Psalm 10, Martin Luther said this, perhaps in his judgment, a no other psalm that describes the mind, manners, attitude and feelings and fate of the wicked. No other psalm describes and gives us such a clear profile of the wicked and ungodly man as Psalm 10 does in all of the psalms. Gives us a powerful portrait of the wicked in four parts. The first part from verses one to two is the lament. And then we see from three to 11, a description given of the wicked. Then from verses 12 to 15, we have a plea from the psalmist, which is most likely David, for God to intervene on his behalf. And in closing, we see with the last answer from verses 16 to 18, where the psalmist expresses his trust and confidence in the Lord and in his justice. And the big idea behind Psalm 10 is that there is a tension between the reality of evil in this world and a faith in God's ultimate justice and righteousness. And this tension in theology is often referred to as the problem of evil. Because men and philosophers and atheists today say that if God is good and powerful, how can he allow evil in the world? And so this is the philosophical tension that exists in the psalm, like we've addressed throughout journey in the book of Job. And we saw how Job as a righteous man suffered for no apparent reason. And this was the question raised by his friends. And so when we look at Hebrew wisdom and wisdom literature throughout the Old Testament, you will find this philosophical topic come up over and over again. Now quickly, before we get into our stanzas, our Bible topic this morning is a topic that the psalms do not shy away from. And that is atheism in the psalms. That's our topic this morning. Atheism in the psalms. Atheism can be defined as the absence of belief in God. A more assertive definition is an active denial of the existence of God. There are two kinds of atheism. The first kind is a theoretical atheism, the kind we normally think of when an atheist comes to mind. And that kind of atheist is describing Psalm 14 and Psalm 53. In fact, both Psalms begin the same way. With the well-known words, "The fool says in his heart there is no God." This person really believes that God does not exist. There is no higher power. They all know God. There is no God beyond this natural world. And the psalmist says in a nutshell, "He is a fool to think so." Reapold stated that atheism really bears its proper fruit in rotten conduct. Because the atheist does not see himself accountable to anyone. The other form of atheism is less known to us, but is dealt with from time to time in the psalms and dealt with in Psalm 10. And that is practical atheism. Practical atheism is what really shapes our culture. And sometimes even our church life. The practical atheist may acknowledge that there is a God. Yes, we believe that there is a God. But the practical atheist lives his life as though God does not exist. Person might go to church, might even serve in the church, have an active role in encouraging the church. But as far as he or her life is concerned, God might as well be non-existent. It is this person as Psalm 10 verse 4 describes. According to the psalmist in all his thoughts, there is no room for God. No room in your thoughts for God. No room for God in your decision making. No room for God in your plans. No room for God in the choice of men you date. No room for God in the choice of woman you choose. No room for God in the kind of habits you embrace. No room for God on the weekend. When it's Friday, especially, no room for God. No room for God on Saturday. Sunday morning, we make room for you. That's the life and attitude of the practical atheist. And it was McArthur who said, practical atheism is perhaps the most rampant form of atheism. It's the idea of living your life with any reference to God while still maintaining a veneer of religiosity. Packer stated our problem is that many of us are theoretically orthodox, but practically atheist. Our behavior and our lifestyles don't correspond with our faith in Jesus Christ. We offer lip service and no life service. There are no practical atheists here this morning. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. Hope you're not saying that by faith. (laughing) I'm just kidding. Okay. Now let's get into our sermon this morning. Broil stated that Psalm 10 represents a powerful appeal to God. It's an appeal that doesn't ignore from the reality of what the psalmist is going through. The psalmist is not drawing on any kind of religious trimmings or facades. The psalmist is coming to God in a real way with a strong appeal to him. He's put aside the deeds and the douse. He's put aside the cliches that we like to use when we pray. Lord, from the crown on my head to the soles of my feet. Lord, thou art good. He's not coming with that kind of approach. He's coming as a man with real feelings and in a desperate position. The psalmist approaches God as the divine judge. He recognizes and acknowledges him as a divine judge and he's pleading and begging God for justice. And what you will see as you read through this prayer and the psalm in particular is that there's a transition that takes place in the shift from the opening lines of the psalm and stanza to the end of the stand and the appeal. The psalmist starts out and begins with the desperate cry of lament. Lord, why are you so distant? Why are you so silent? Why do you stand? Oh, oh, oh, it's as though you're hiding in this time of trouble when I need you. Lord, where are you? Why? And there's a transition during his time of prayer. To a place where he acknowledges God in the last stanza as the king forever. And Lord, I know you see the wicked. I know you pay attention to the desires of the oppressed. And that's how we've got to hang on to a prayer. And that's how we've got to approach our time in prayer. Many of us don't spend enough time in prayer to go in depressed, to go in with our anxiety and to leave confidence. Because we're praying these two-minute prayers. Lord, why? Why? Why is this happening to me? But we don't hold on long enough and spend enough time in prayer to walk away encouraged from the presence of God. That's why these two-minute prayers on your pillow when life is hammering you, well, not suffice. You've got to hold on like Jacob, hold on and say, Lord, I'm not leaving this time of prayer until you speak, until you bless me. And so there's a shift in the song. And thus one he laments, he says, why O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? He begins with this cry of anguish and we could even say despair. He laments with two rhetorical questions. Lord, why do you stand so far away? And why do you hide away? The Psalmist is asking a question that is well-known to all of us. Lord, why, if I ask the question, Lord, why me? Lord, why, why did this happen to me? Why did this have to happen to my husband? Why did it have to happen in my family? Why did you allow the sickness to devastate my home? Lord, why? Why haven't you come through? Where's my breakthrough? The Psalmist asks this question mainly and particularly because he felt that God was distant from him. Wasn't really the fact that he was overwhelmed with the trouble that he was going through. No, he asked, Lord, why do you feel so distant from me? Why are you silent? And it's funny that in times of trouble, we're more prone to feel and sense that God is so distant. What is it about going through difficult times that apparently silences and distances God? All right. We feel overwhelmed when troubles face us. And I want you to know this morning that no one is exempt from trouble and that no influence you have, no affluence you have, no money you have, no relationship or outstanding you have in society and not even any kind of special relationship you have with God will free you from times of trouble. No one is exempt. Trouble will find you. It hasn't found you yet. It will find you soon. And this is something we Pentecostals and world of life, decreeing and declaring people don't like to talk about. With decree and declare you will walk over your storms, you will call maybe storm, no, no, no, no. Troubles found Jesus and they will find you too. So the psalmist comes and he brings his wise to the Lord. And we can learn something about the psalmist and this psalm about bringing our troubles to the Lord. We see the psalmist bringing his wise to the Lord. We have all felt this way and we've all asked why. We've got to learn to trust the Lord without wise. Even Jesus brought his wise to the Father. When he cried, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? There's nothing wrong with bringing your wise to the Lord and bringing your times around the bulletin, your questions to him. But the real question is why do we feel that God is so distant during times of trouble? It's natural to feel disconnected from God when you are met and faced with difficulty. It's natural because we get overwhelmed when trouble strikes. We get overwhelmed with anxiety and stress and our challenges and we instinctively make room for fear. And what our fear does is our fear numbs us to the perception of his presence. And in our desperate times we often want God to answer us immediately, in our time. And so we get impatient with him. And when he doesn't answer us in our time, it leads us into feeling like he's not interested. Like he's not good. Like he has all this power to answer us and solve every problem in our life, even if we brought ourselves into their predicament. We hold him liable to rescue us. There's perhaps a sober truth that is often overlooked in the Psalms in general and in this particular verse. And it's this. Trouble will make an intercessor out of you. That pause is intentional. Some of us would never pray if we didn't go through stuff. And so God in his love would arrange an appointment with us. It is caught by a signing and allowing trouble. You're not going to like me for this this morning, but your troubles may be your biggest blessings. Your troubles and your moments of anxiety and despair for some of you has taught you how to pray. It has taught you how to trust God again. It has taught you how to love him again and spend time with him. Some of you found your first love because of trouble. Secondly, some of us have learned compassion throughout our times. We have learned how difficult and how impossible it is in moments of trouble to find a solution. We know what it's like now to be out of control of our circumstances. We know what it's like to grieve over our challenges and stresses and we feel the burden and weight of our problems and challenges. And now when we look upon people suffering in people's challenges, we have more empathy and more compassion. You cannot stand in the gap for people and intercede for people without compassion. So God was churning inside of you and brewing and working inside of you and intercessor. So when you pray for others, you have the key missing ingredient that so many intercessors lack in this compassion. Every miracle Jesus did was done with compassion. We're going to have no miracles from people who are praying for you with no compassion. So struggles and troubles will produce in you so much compassion that you end up praying for people's needs like you're praying for your own needs. That's the key. The Spurgeon who said in the furnace of affliction, we are refined and we learn the power of interceding for others knowing their struggles intimately. Verse 2 says in arrogance, the wicked hotly pursue the poor, letting be caught in the schemes of their own devices. And contextually speaking, what really makes the presence of God seem so distant from us is the oppression of people, the oppression of the wicked. And this is what the psalmist is saying. The psalmist is explaining at the trouble he is experiencing in life and the seemingly distant inactivity of God as a result of how people are treating him. And it's amazing how our relationship with God is impacted by how people treat us. Never let the ungodly rob you of your time with God, of your relationship with God. This is what gives rise to the trouble that the psalmist finds in himself. The psalmist sees the wicked and he sees two things about the wicked that's outlined in the Psalm from verses 2, right down to verses 11. Firstly he sees that the wicked sin against God. And he sees that in sinning against God they feel free to oppress the wicked. There's also a deeply philosophical question that is wanting the psalmist at this time. And it's a question that has perpetually played humanity over the ages. Jeremiah asked the question. The question is why does the wicked prosper? Why do all the treacherous live at ease? Jeremiah 12 was one. The question is why do the righteous suffer in the wicked prosper? Job 21 asked the same question. Verse 7 he says, Why do the wicked continue to live growing old and becoming powerful? Asaph in the Psalms asked the same question. In a different way Psalm 73 verse 3, why envied the arrogance and I saw the prosperity of the wicked? Why do seemingly good people face hardship? And why do individuals that are corrupt drive? It's been a difficult question for many. It's a question we've obviously addressed in the book of Job, but just for a few moments just when I look at it. And we've seen how people have struggled with this question. Many philosophers have struggled with this question. It was Albert Camus who explored this question and came to the conclusion that life is inherently meaningless. And the distribution of suffering and prosperity is arbitrary, random. Another philosopher Alvin Pettinger when dressing and exploring this question. He asked the question how can a good and powerful God allow suffering and evil in the world? It's a question that many have struggled with. And you can just look back over world history. You can look back over your life and you will be prone to ask this similar question. During the early 1900s we saw the reign of the Third Reich, the Nazi rule. And we saw how the Nazis perpetrated countless atrocities against innocent Jewish people, literally over a million Jews, two million Jews died, innocent Jews died under the Nazi rule. We saw under Joseph Stalin in the early 1900s as well, how Joseph Stalin's great purge led to the execution of over 700,000 people. Millions were also sent to the cool eggs at the labor camps and it's estimated that roughly two million innocent people died. So many philosophers have been led to ask the question. We see it in Scripture. The life of Job who suffers immensely in spite of his faith in God. How do we respond to this question of pain and suffering in the world? How do we respond to the question of why a loving and powerful God would allow a parent prosperity and thriving for the wicked and suffering for the innocent people? Firstly, in our biblical worldview, suffering is not meaningless. There's a purpose. And God can use it for his glory. And the problem of evil is not solved by changing circumstances per se. Personally, the problem of evil can be solved by changing our perspective and understanding how God sovereignly works in the affairs of man. Secondly, we see that the cross of Jesus Christ stands as a great symbol of suffering and the answer to human suffering. The cross of Jesus, whether you would like to acknowledge it or not, is the greatest crime committed against humanity and is unarguably the greatest sin that man has ever committed against God. The innocent, sinless son of God, who was falsely accused and betrayed and barbarically executed on the cross, our Creator, suffered at the hands of men to redeem us. And the cross represents what God did out of the worst circumstances in history. God made something beautiful out of the greatest atrocity in the earth. He resurrected Christ from the dead and brought good out of evil so that we could be redeemed by the precious blood of the Lamb. Lastly, what we learn from Psalms is that God will bring about justice and his righteousness, and though the wicked prosper and thrive, there is an ultimate day of judgment. And it's something that we've put far away from our theology and our understanding of God is that God is a righteous judge and he will execute his judgment. And we'll discuss that a bit later on in the song. From verses 2 to 7, we now look at the catalogue of attitudes and actions that the psalmist portrays about the wicked. Golden Gay states that this particular song, Psalm 10 is the longest characterization we have of the ungodly man, the faithless man. And so what we see here is the psalmist described to us how the wicked firstly read God and treat God. Vertical treatment. Firstly, verses 3 you will see that the wicked boast about the desires of their soul. The latter part of verse 3 we see that they even go to the extent of cursing the Lord. And then we see in the first part of verse 4 that the wicked do not seek the Lord at all. And the latter part of verse 4 we see that the wicked man makes no room for God in the adults. If you drop down to verse 11 you see that the wicked man has no concern for God holding them to account. He says in his heart for God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it. This is a portrait of a man or woman who has no sense of obligation to God. They don't regard him as creator and Lord. This is the portfolio of an individual who has given themselves over to the pride in their hearts and has expressed their total independence from God. And that's what sin is in effect. And that's what it means to be a practical atheist. You take the middle letter in the word sin, "I". It's all about me, my desires. I love independently from him. God is in none of his thoughts. His ways are prosperous. And this gives him a false sense of security about the way he's gone out in his life. And I want to say this to you as a child of God, you never allow the provisions of God to give you a false sense of security. You never think that because you blissed and because there's no trouble around your life and because everything is going well. And you're looking at promotion in the next few months and all your posts on it and you have money and enough to spare it. That gives you some indication that God is happy with you. Verse five, his ways are prosperous all the time. Why should he feel that God is unhappy with him? Verse six, he says, "In his heart that he will not be moved, he's reached such a place of arrogance that he says nothing can shake me." Oh man, he feels unshakeable. He has such a false sense of security because God seemingly hasn't judged him for his wickedness. That's the other reason for his false sense of security. God hasn't judged him. God hasn't punished him for the way he's loved his life. And verse five, we see that he even says in his heart that God's judgments are far out of sight, he sees nothing. This individual has become so arrogant that he has now assumed superiority over God to the extent where he holds curses at God. Verse three, he curses and renounces the Lord. Verse four, in his pride, he doesn't seek the Lord. We go over to verses five to ten. The psalmist now begins to describe how the wicked regard others. He has no regard for God. Why should he regard people? He has no regard for God, and this is also expressed in how he treats others. How you treat people as actually an indication of your worship. Cain, we saw his level of devotion in his worship to God. He brought an offering, a half-hearted offering to God, and God was not pleased with his worship. And so what does Cain do? He expresses it in his treatment to his brother Abel, and he kills Abel. Your faith in God is always expressed in your love and treatment of others. And so it was only naturally for the wicked man to oppress the poor. But what's interesting here is that he not only oppresses the poor, but he scorns his own enemies. And this is the extent of wickedness. It's not only shown in how you treat those who are poor and oppressed, but it's shown even in how you treat your enemies. You can tell the level of ungodliness even by the way of how a man treats his enemies. That's what Jesus said in Matthew 5. He said, "Man, if you're going to love me, follow me, worship me. You also have to learn to love your enemies, bless those who curse you and do good to them that despitefully use you and persecute you. Because our godliness and our worship and servitude to God is expressed not only in how we treat those who are disadvantaged, but even in how we treat those who don't like us. And those who despitefully use us. He's a quote I read some years ago, it says, "To love those who love you as human." Anybody can do that. To hate those who love you is absurd, is demonic. Who does that? But to love those who hate you is the Jesus way. And so the psalmist begins to further outline in detail to us description of this man's ungodliness and says, "Not only do they treat their enemies bad, but they boast that they cannot be stopped." It's an unstoppable force. Verse 6, "Not even God can stop him. Imagine the arrogance." And verse 10, we read that they curse and threaten and lie their mouths are an open sisful for every kind of vulgarity and destruction. And James speaks about the power of the tongue, a little member that sits a whole forest, a light, and they call so much destruction with the use of the tongue. And from verses 12 to 15, the psalmist now makes an appeal for God. There's a change in tone in the song. There's a shift in the song where the psalmist now turns from giving us a description of what the weaker are like. And please with God, Lord intervene. He says in verse 12, "Arise, O Lord, O God, lift up your hand, forget not the afflicted." The psalmist firstly asks God to intervene. Then secondly, he reminds himself, if you'll see in verse 14, that God does see and that God does take notice of man's wickedness. He reminds himself that God is concerned. He reminds himself that God is paying attention. He reminds himself that God's judgments and actions may be delayed, but he will have his retribution. God sees everything and he will leave nothing unnoticed. And we saw that when we spoke and taught through Egypt, we saw how Pharaoh and the Egyptians drowned the Hebrew babies. And years later, God gets his retribution and he strikes the firstborn of every Egyptian. God will get his retribution. He reminds himself. He calls to mind that there is a final judgment and he acknowledges God in verse 16 as king who reigns forever and who nations will perish from his land. There is a final balancing of accounts that we must all await at the final judgment. And for now, it may seem like his judgments are delayed, but when he meets out his judgment at the time, at the time of the end, it will be thorough. It will be inescapable and it will be a perfect judgment. His judgments are always right. And I would like to say this from time to time that in the choir of life, when I was in the school choir, and I can't sing to save my life. If someone had a gun to me, I'd be dead long time ago, and I would join the school choir. And man, I felt so good. I was under the illusion I could sing, you know, because there's like a hundred students here. We were singing and we were sounding good, and I'm taking the credit for myself. But in the choir of life, it's easy to fake the words. It's easy to fake that you are a singer. But one day you must stand solo before your creator and you must sing. And so one day we must all stand before God and give account for our motivations and give account for idle, hurtful words that we hold at others for actions and behavior that cause so much harm to others. God is a good God and his goodness determines the fact that he must punish the wrong. Don't think for a moment that him being a good God means that he oversees every wrongdoing. What kind of good person allows evil to go unpunished? He's a good God. And it's his goodness that undergirds his judgment. And the right of Hebrews tells us, in chapter 9 of 27, that is appointed for man to die once, and they're after the judgment. It is appointed for man to die once, and they're after the judgment. There are two inescapable appointments we have. It's with death, and it's with judgment. And judgment is as certain as death, as certain as text. And his judgment will be without partiality and his judgment will be final. And what that means is when God costs his judgment over your life, it cannot be appealed. It cannot be overturned once he's decided. It's decided. His judgment will be thorough and meticulous, and he will judge you on what you've become. And he will judge the wicked for every son. Listen to me. Every son will be brought into judgment for any individual who has not handed their lives over to Christ. That means this may shake your theology. That means the only escape from judgment for everything you've ever committed only comes to the place where you were born again, justified a new creature and imputes the righteousness of Christ on your life so that you now stand on the grounds of Christ's righteousness. And that is the only safe place. In other words, if you have not experienced this regenerating power of the Holy Spirit that brings change in your life, I don't care how many times you cried and asked God for forgiveness for what you've done. If you're not standing on his righteousness, you are condemned. Back in the day I used to do a lot of evangelists and door-to-door evangelists and people does a job or witness. There are 10 crusades, opening meetings. We even used to put that loud hailer, the evangelist team in the back of those little buckies and we used to say, "Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!" This is the spiritual police. Come up with your hands up. Those crazy things. And you know how many times you bump into people and they tell me, "Man, but how ask God for forgiveness for what you want to get?" Because there's no forgiveness without repentance, my brother. You forgive me. I went to the club on Friday and drank a little bit, but I asked him to forgive me for the Saturday morning. I said, "Well, you're in the club again on the following." Yes, but I asked him to forgive me for that too. No, no, no, no. There is no forgiveness of sins apart from repenting. If you have not experienced the born-again John Chapter 3 kind of experience, you are not standing on his righteousness. And you will judge you for every sin outside of a relationship of Christ. If you have not given your life to Christ, you are shaking, you are standing on uncertain grounds. Now we look at the closing stanza, verses 16 to 18. The psalmist now expresses his newfound trust and confidence in God, and in his justice. He acknowledges God as being king forever, the one who rules from his throne. And we see this transition from despair in the opening stanzas to a calm confidence in the closing stanzas. He finds peace in the presence of God in his time in prayer. And there is a power that comes from God's presence, a strength that comes from God's presence. That comes in times of prayer and despair that can leave us with rest. All hell can be breaking loose. The troubles may still be there looking at you square in the face. But when you come out of the presence of God, you can face a mountain, you can face any giant, you don't care what comes your way. You know that in the end, he reigns and he rules and he will walk everything out for your good. And so the psalmist makes a request, a final request. He says, "Lord, in verse 12, please do not forget the afflicted. Please break the arms of the wicked so that they cannot perform their evil actions." And in his Lord, please bring into account the actions of the wicked, trying closing in conclusion. There are roughly generally three things that the psalm addresses, firstly it addresses the issue of justice. There is a cry for justice. Secondly, there is God's apparent distance and silence. And lastly he asks, there's an issue of God's intervention. He wants us to know that God intervenes, that God is a way of everything we are going to. And firstly, let's look at the cry of justice, the cry for justice. And we see that in the opening verses, Lord, why do you stand the fall off? You know, the wicked hunts down the weak and who are eventually calling your own schemes and devices. And when we look at this cry for justice in some ten, this really resonates with the gospel message because this world has been riddled and this world has suffered at the hands of wickedness. And deep down, the cry of humanity was a cry for justice. Lord, how long does it suffer? And so when Jesus came, his assignment was simple, he heard the cry for justice. And look foretells us that when Jesus came onto the scene, he said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor." He said, "Me to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind to sit, and liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." He heard the cry for justice. Man was under the yoke of a wicked one, under the works of Satan. And so first John 3 verse 8 says, "For this purpose the Son of Man was manifested to destroy the works of the evil one." The thief came except to steal, kill, and destroy. A Christ came that we might have life and have life more abundantly. He heard the cry for justice. And the Psalm also addresses God's apparent silence and distance. He felt God was distant from him. He felt that God's presence was away from him. He felt that disparity between what he's going through and who God was. And the sense of God's silence was felt by Jesus himself. He's the ultimate example of a man who suffered not from the apparent silence of God. Because when we go into stuff, it feels like he's distant from us when he's not. But Jesus actually suffered the abandonment of the Father on the cross. He cried out of his abandonment, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And the Father eventually demonstrated to the Son that I have not forgotten you. And so the Father did not commit his flesh to corruption and raised him up on the third day, defeating death and the grave. And lastly, the Psalm addresses the issue of God's intervention. And when we look at the gospel message, we see that the cross of Jesus, even the incarnation of Jesus, was really God's intervention for suffering humanity, dying humanity. And the cross of Jesus stood as the greatest roadblock on the road to hell. And through Christ's suffering, through his atoning death, God in a nutshell would tell us, "I see your suffering. I see your greatest needs. I have not abandoned you. I am going to come through for you and save you." And through the death of Christ on the cross, he would identify with us in his suffering. He would be humiliated in order to bring redemption to those who are oppressed, not just by wicked men, but oppressed by the wicked one himself. And through Christ's death on the cross, through his atoning death on the cross, he would pronounce the final blow to the greatest enemy of mankind, bringing him into account and silencing the enemy, destroying the works of Satan. The cross assures everyone this morning. In every place and in every time, the evil has not had the final word. Amen. Can we stand this morning? (baby crying)
