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January 8, 2022 7:00 am
Welcome to through the saw a weekend ministry of the truthful overtime will study all 150 Psalms with pastor Don Greene from Cruz Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio were glad you're with us but over the Psalms that as we join our teacher in the truthful tonight. In the course of our exposition, we come to Psalm 58 and I would invite you to turn to Psalm 58 for study tonight. This is a wonderful text for those who perhaps feel as though they are under attack, and they can clearly see the unrighteousness of the attack as they go through life and yet it speaks to even more transcendent issues than anything in our personal lives it with the subject matter that addresses Psalm 58 will begin in verse one. David writes and says do you indeed speak righteousness. So God's do you judge uprightly O sons of men, no in heart you work unrighteousness on earth you weigh out the violence of your hands.
The wicked are estranged from the womb. Those who speak lies go astray from birth. They have venom like the venom of a serpent like a death cobra that stop saps its ear so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or skill forecaster of spells, O God, shatter their teeth in their mouth, break out the fangs of the young lions. Oh Lord, let them flow away like water that runs off when he aims his arrows let them be as headless shafts. Let them be as a snail which melts away as it goes along like the miscarriages of a woman which never sees the sun before your pots can feel the fire of thorns. He will sweep them away with a whirlwind. The green and the burning alike. The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked and men will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous.
Surely there is a God who judges on earth. Psalm 58 is not the most familiar song by a long shot in the Psalter when we think of songs we would think of Psalm one Psalm 23 Psalm 90 maybe Psalm 100 Psalm 119 Psalm 58 is not a song that gets a whole lot of attention.
I think it's fair to say and its tone as you have just heard.
As I read it is stark. What is he talking about what is the general thrust of the song well will let the 19th-century commentator Perrone introduce it for us this evening. He says and I quote this Psalm is a bold protest against unrighteous judges. It opens with an indignant protest against their deliberate perversion of justice while they pretend to uphold it.
It lays bare their character and that of those whom they favor as men thoroughly, habitually, by their very nature, corrupt, and finally because they are thus beyond all hope of correction or amendment. It calls upon God to rob them of their power and to bring all their councils to not" so this Psalm is written in a rebuke to those who have human authority and abuse.
It it rebukes those who are charged with upholding righteousness from their position of authority, but use it and and corrupted and turn justice on its head and turn it upside down. The very people who should be upholding righteousness are the ones who are implementing wickedness and it's just the nature of life that that's the way things so often go once again. We are met with the realism of Scripture and we find comfort in the fact that God's word speaks to that which we find going on around us in our culture and in our own personal existence. And so this Psalm is expressing righteous indignation against injustice. Now, in our present age of tolerance, there is little room for the concept of righteous indignation and therefore some of the things that are said in this Psalm by David strike our ears as harsh and severe but beloved.
Let me encourage you to let your perception of this Psalm be guided by Scripture and not by the world around us. The fact that we live in a society that not only tolerates but celebrates wickedness should not condition us away from scriptural judgments against the very thing that God plans to bring his judgment upon right.
We want to align ourselves with God against wickedness and this Psalm helps us to do that and so were going to open. First of all with the picture of unrighteous judges in the first five verses the picture of unrighteous judges in the first five verses and David opens this Psalm with a rhetorical question two human rulers look at verse one, where he says do you indeed speak righteousness over God's do you judge uprightly O sons of men. Now it's important to understand right from the start that the term in the Naz be new American Standard version of the Bible that's translated God. Zeus is subject to various different translations in the Hebrew for purposes when you and I hear the word God. We immediately think about it in terms of deity, whether real or false, but for purpose. It's enough to know that he's not addressing these men, as is true deities. He's not ascribing deity to these men that he speaking about.
He simply addressing those who have authority to judge as the parallel line shows look at verse one. Remembering that Hebrew poetry is often written in parallelisms where the second line is echoing the meaning of the first line so he says do you indeed speak righteousness of God's. And then we see what he means by that. When he says do you judge uprightly O sons of men, so he speaking to those who have the authority to judge on the earth, so he speaking to people who have positions of power and authority over others, that's who he is addressing here in this song.
It's a narrowly focused. It's a targeted song in that sense. And from the beginning. He is challenging them on the very basis of what they do. He goes and he he immediately rebukes them and says are you judging in righteousness. Are you doing what is right from your position of godlike authority Nantes acid in a somewhat rhetorical way, but in verse two.
You can see he doesn't even allow them to speak. He answers his own question when he says in verse two. No in heart you work unrighteousness on earth you weigh out the violence of your hands and so he's addressing that which we know far too well by our own sad experience that those to whom authority has been entrusted. Use it to their advantage. They twist justice.
They are willing to take bribes they are willing to do that which would advance their own personal interest rather than uphold principles in righteousness and been entrusted to them for the good of others, and for the good of society. And so David goes right to the heart of it and says let's talk about what you are doing from your position of authority and he rebukes them, and he declares you're working unrighteousness your weighing out the violence of your hands.
Now David is therefore wrapped up in a principal that often discourages us as a team. When we see corrupt politicians at work when we see those who have authority abusing at 10 and and working against the interests of those at their call to protect and defend when we see courts upholding rights so-called to abortion and homosexuality and other matters of the sort in saying that this is a human right then and it is fine for blood to be spilled by mother against her own child and that that is a good and righteous and lawful thing guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Well were outraged by that. We realize that's a totally unjust wicked thing to do in this Psalm helps us give voice to that wind wants this when we are not in a position to be able to do anything to stop it on our own. It is remarkable that God has given us his word. He's given us his Holy Spirit is given us the gospel which is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes that he is not entrusted to the church the power to stop people from sinning is not given to the church the power to enforce justice at the highest levels of society, sometimes we live and we suffer under wicked rulers.
Will David here is giving voice to that. The question is how did we ever get to a point where men who have the authority and the responsibility to uphold righteousness. How did we ever get to the point where those who are designed to uphold the law actually become instruments of lawbreaking and un-righteousness. How did it ever get to that point. How did things ever get so distorted in society in general and in the wicked judge himself yes I would like to preach this in the halls of the Supreme Court, but I won't get that opportunity. I'm quite sure, so I'm content to preach to you tonight and let you carry it out. As you will.
How did it ever get to this point will David answers again his own question in verse three when he says the wicked are estranged from the womb. Those who speak lies go astray from birth. These men and these women are wicked as adults because they were born wicked at birth. They were corrupt at birth.
This is a statement of the reality of total depravity and of original sin that men are born into sin.
The we are born with corrupt hearts. All of this, not just the wicked judges of which David is speaking here, David could save himself and Psalm 51 verse five behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. So David says. I was born into sin.
Sin attached itself to my soul from the very point of my conception. The human race is corrupt and so when men are born they are born into corruption they are born into sin.
They are born with hearts that are prone to wickedness and so it's not surprising then that as they go from infants with corrupt hearts and grow into adulthood. It's not surprising that corruption goes with them along the way. David is explaining how did you ever get to a point where wickedness so marks you if we can trace it all the way back to your birth. There was never a point where you were not inclined to righteousness. You've always been inclined to wickedness that is true of every man woman and child every ever born into the human race since Adam born with corrupt hearts there inclined to wickedness, not toward righteousness.
So for the sake of what David is saying here tonight from Psalm 58. What he saying is, is that this fraudulent leadership did not suddenly happen overnight. This is the natural outgrowth. This is the natural outcome of men who were born into sin, and the fact that we have wicked rulers is a is an indication that we are part of the wicked human race.
And so the injustice of it all. The unrighteousness of it all. The sinfulness of it all is simply the natural result of what came before in their lives. It's a result of who they are, they act in this manner, their their lives show forth these works because it's who they are, their lives, their actions, their official rulings are giving way are giving display to what they have always been in their hearts. David says the problem is that they are beyond reproof, David illustrates that with a very jarring word picture in verses four and five. Look at it with me here. Speaking of these wicked judges.
He says they have venom like the venom of a serpent like a deaf cobra that stops up its year so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or a skillful castor of spells. We've all seen pictures or may be maybe videos of Eastern man playing a flute while a snake is rising up from their midst and it looks like he's charming the snake. What's David saying here. Why does he illustrate his point about wicked judges.
With that kind of scene. One commentator explains it this way. He says I'm told that snakes do not actually hear very much.
If anything, they are controlled more by the motion of the flute, then by the tune, but that is irrelevant to the writers image is point is that people intent on evil will not listen to those trying to dissuade them either to man or God.
Therefore, they are equally deaf both to reason and to Revelation." Why is it that people who are pursuing a course of unrighteousness.
Why is it that when you've tried to talk to your family members who are going into sin or living a life that is dominated by sin and you talk with them and you plead with them. Why is it that it's like that, you might as well be talking to a brick wall.
Why is it that these wicked judges will not pay attention to David even though he is so obviously speaking the truth to them. Men you are pointed to Harpole Justice and you're not doing it.
Why do you do this, let me explain why that is, is because you were corrupt from birth, there's an implied call to repentance and everything that David saying and yet you know by your own sad experience as well as I know from my sad experience both in life and in ministry that so very, very often when you talk to people about issues and confront them in their sin. What you get is this people sticking their fingers in their ear and absolutely refusing to hear anything that you had to say they will not heed a call to repentance. They will not yield an inch of ground to say you're right I'm wrong, I'm sinful. I need help.
Why is that why do people refuse to listen. One of the consequences of being a sinner is this men become skilled in their sin, and because as Jesus said in John three will turn their because they love their sin.
They refuse correction. They will not let someone correct them on the very point of darkness that they love for themselves.
Look over in John chapter 3 for a moment John chapter 3 in verse 19 gives us the same principle from another perspective from a New Testament perspective. Jesus says in John chapter 3 verse 19.
This is the judgment that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. Why is it that the judges would listen to David why is it that your loved ones won't listen to you when you try to call them out of sin. It's because they are in chains to darkness and they like it that way. They refused to listen because they don't want to come to the light.
They want to stay in the darkness. And so there like a snake that stops up its year and does not respond to its charmer anymore in the venom of a viper that strikes is in their lives. And here's the thing, beloved as I told her this was kind of a start. Song right I'm delivering on my promise and I say here's the thing, what I'm about to say has very practical application for all of us and we have to come to grips with this when men are like that. It is beyond your human power to change it. You cannot argue them out of it.
You can't nag them out of it.
You can't scare them out of it. Look, if they would listen to Christ when he was on earth. What on earth makes you think that a sinner is going to listen to you in your own words of human wisdom. This helps us understand where the problem is. This helps us understand where we need to go for our help and assistance we can have beloved, we can have. Now this is helping me right now we can have no confidence in the person themselves that were talking to that there is anything in them that is going to incline them to respond favorably. We need to set aside our confidence in our hope in in human ability, human perception and a human ability to receive correction doesn't mean that we don't have hope. It just means we have to know where the hope lies in what we do with that. When this occurs, beloved in your personal life when it occurs in society. Here's what Psalm 58 tells us to do what it teaches us to do.
When this occurs, what you have to do is to consciously, deliberately, urgently and dependently turn the matter over to God because you do not have the power to argue somebody out of their sinful inclinations. All of a sudden you realize that you're in the midst of the spiritual battle that you don't have the power to win one of the reasons that God brings you into those circumstances. One of the reasons that you are allowed.
God allows you to feel that kind of hard. It that kind of threat to your well-being, even one of the reasons that God brings you into that is for this purpose that he would teach you through that circumstance to be dependent upon him, and to pray urgently to him about the matter at hand and to not trust in your human ability to solve it now.
Some of us more than others. We don't like that we like to be in control. We like to win the argument but sometimes people are too hard and in sin or they have too much power to listen to and you have no leverage to change it well. When that happens. Beloved, we need to we need to realize that the humbling the humbling but needs to take place here starts with you rather than the other person.
Yes, that person needs to be humbled by God come out of their sin, but as you continually bounce against the wall and continually get no response or are continually see the, the, the wickedness and depravity of society going deeper and deeper and deeper, rather than getting angry, getting upset, getting whatever what this is designed to do is to humble you, and to, as it were fall on your knees and look up and say God I can't do anything about this, I have to appeal to you.
I have to appeal to an omnipotent God who hears my prayers. I have to appeal to him because there's no human solution to the problem at hand and David shows us that as we go into our second point here this evening we saw the picture of unrighteous judgments there like deaf snakes that won't listen to correction now. Secondly, we look at the prayer for judgment saw the picture of the unrighteous judges.
Now we see the prayer for judgment. That's going to take us through verses six and six through nine and this section of Scripture.
These four verses are remarkably picturesque. The pictures are painted in somewhat dark tones.
Perhaps bit David uses a series of illustrations and what he says here to illustrate what it is that he is asking God to do and sometimes preachers will use one or two or three illustrations to make their point here, however, David is using illustrations to make the point of what it is that he is asking God to do that before we look at these one by one and will look at them rather quickly. Let me just say that what he's about to say in these following four verses again it shakes our modern ears. These are vivid stark prayers that he is making in this song and it almost sounds to Psalm it sounds to some commentators I don't feel this way about it at all but to some commentators they would say is this even a righteous way to pray while that just gives us a sense of how severe it sounds.
Before we go into a just let me remind you of this David here in Psalm 58 is praying he is not taking matters into his own hands.
He's not like the guy who goes out and shoots an abortion doctor in order to stop the wickedness is not taking justice into his own hands. This way that way he's praying to God he's asking God to intervene, according to his holy justice is appealing to the righteousness and the holiness of God saying God in light of all of this wickedness. It is going on around me. In light of the evil that is it placing in high places and because God I don't have the ability to stop this myself. Therefore, I appeal to you. Watch this God.
I appeal beyond the opposition.
I appeal beyond the wicked rulers and I appeal directly to your holy throne.
And I ask you to do something that no man can do in the mere fact that this song is in Scripture part of the inspired tenant should give us the sense that God intends us to take this and to understand it and to somehow incorporate this into our view of him. Enough of that. But see the illustrations of David uses that are so vivid, he says in verse six. Remember who is praying against wicked people in high places. Verse six he says, oh God shatter their teeth in their mouth, break out the fangs of the young lions. Oh Lord, let's go through the mall and then will come back and pick him up first by verse let them flow away like water that runs off when he aims his arrows let them be as headless shafts. Let them be as a snail which melts away as it goes along like the miscarriages of the woman which never see the sun before your pots can feel the fire of thorns. He will sweep them away with the whirlwind. The green and the burning alike. Now what I want you to do here is is to just see the word pictures the metaphors the similes that he's using here he talks about shattering their teeth.
The fangs of young lions uses water as one of his illustrations arrows is another illustration like a snail like a miscarriage like a pot where the fire goes out all of that just to help you see that in rapidfire succession.
He is using a number of different illustrations to give voice to the prayer that he is making to God to deal with these wicked rulers he's making illustrations here and what is it that these illustrations are saying will look at verse six with me again. Oh God shatter their teeth in their mouth, break out the fangs of the young lions, old Lord, Yahweh, faithful covenant keeping God. Let's put it this way a lion needs its teeth to rip its prey needs its teeth to be able to chew into attack its prey young lions without teeth aren't able to do that they are defanged they are. They are virtually rendered powerless if they were to lose their teeth they would lose the source of their defense and their attack. Why does David say that here in that prayer. David is asking the Lord to remove the power of these wicked judges so that they're not able to carry out their wickedness. In fact God. If you remove their ability to do it. Then they're just going to be gnawing on something without getting anywhere make it so that they don't get anywhere. God is what he saying here remove the effectiveness of their evil intentions take away their power to carry it out in verse seven it's a similar kind of prayer.
Think of these five illustrations is like spokes on a bike wheel rolling out all coming all radiating out from the same hub saying similar things and in their intent.
In verse seven he says let them flow away like water that runs off will you know what that's you know what that's like on a hot summer day you you spray the sidewalk in the waters there for a moment, but it dissipates quickly and things are back to the original state.
The water just runs off for you know if waters running down the street after rainstorm it goes but it's it doesn't stay.
It's just gone soon enough quickly enough David saying God let them be like water that evaporates on a hot day. Let them dissolve away from their place of power and have no effect when it's gone when they're gone. Then he goes and he says let them be like headless shafts of arrows. All of a sudden you start to get the picture of what he saying right lions without teeth. No power, water, the dissipates it's it's here today and gone the next moment ahead. Lucero a broken arrow.
You know what that's like, far better than I do. Some of you. You take the head off a narrowing and shooting what's going to do this is going to flutter around and just fall to the ground harmlessly is not going all David is saying here is God act by your sovereign power so that the wickedness that they intend. Oh God. God, I pray that the wickedness that they intend would would flutter away and fall to the ground harmlessly without getting anywhere near the target. I love the picturesque nature of these this poem. So David is asking God in this prayer, having having pictured the wicked judges. Now in this prairies, asking God to make these men pass away, so that they leave nothing of their intended evil behind that there is nothing that follows them in their way. That would show success to the wicked plans that they had conceived of verse eight he continues on those of you that are a bit more squeamish in nature to get kinda grossed out. Maybe by the picture cobras and snails and that kind of stuff but that's all right, verse eight let them be as a snail which melts away as it goes along. What appears to happen when you watch a snail going along on a sidewalk. It appears that he simply wasting away as he slowly moves along it looks like from human perspective, it looks like he's just dissolving along the way he saying in similar way he saying God just let this dissolve slow them down and just let it all come to naught. Don't let them leave anything behind the knee uses a more appointment picture at the end of verse eight look at it with me. In verse eight, when he says like the miscarriages of the woman which never see the sun. I comment on this with a measure of restraint and compassion for those of you that have lost children to miscarriages. This verse does not diminish the compassion of God. For those that have felt that sorrow in their lives. David isn't writing as a pastor here addressing those who have gone through the sorrow of losing baby's writing is one who sees wickedness at high levels of society, and is explaining to God what it is that he's asking to be done in the miscarriage gives him a picture to give a miscarriage, a miscarried baby does not have the opportunity from a human perspective and earthly perspective to do anything productive in life. It is simply an illustration is simply a being a human being that did not have opportunity to do anything with a very brief life that was given to it.
What David is saying is, is God. Let those men be like that let their wicked schemes be like that all they might conceive the deed. Let it never come to fruition. Ned let it never have any productivity to what they intended to do. Oh God, let them be as though they never were just like a miscarriage never lived out a human life so you get the picture right*and yet there there is a clarity and what David is saying here God.
They are intent on wickedness working in a way that makes it go away now. Commentators struggled to translate and interpret verse nine. Look at verse nine with me. You can find a variety of ways this is translated and we won't go into all of it here this evening. Verse nine before your pots can feel the fire of thorns. He will sweep them away with a whirlwind.
The green and the burning alike. The ideas this picture a campfire. Those of you that like camping picture at pot of meat over a campfire and that the fire has just barely been lit in a whirlwind comes and blows the fuel away. The fire never gets hot enough to do any cooking in your left simply with the uncooked meat. There's nothing productive in it. You can't eat it. You can't use it. You can't do anything with it once again you see the picture the time building that fire was wasted. What David is saying is, God let all of their efforts and designs toward wickedness be wasted.
But all of the energy that they put into that, trying to get something productive for themselves out of the wickedness.
Father B wasted, let it just go completely watch this theological term coming up here. Lord, let it go completely the pot. That's right I said just let it go to waste. God don't let there be anything fruitful come from it.
God don't let them finish what they started. What a great prayer for you personally. People are plotting evil against you and you know when you know that there are designs of people who have authority over you who make threats against you to be able to to simply look beyond that and without any sense of fear or trepidation simply look up to your God who is faithful look up to your God.
It was powerful and able to do all that he promises look up to your God who works all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose to look beyond the person to look up to the throne and say God let it. Don't let this go anywhere just let it all fizzle out like wet fireworks on 4 July and have the confidence in your God that he will hear your prayer and he'll answer and you walk out from your prayer closet, confident and renewed and send by my life is in my God's hands and that's all I need to know what's the ultimate point of the Psalm.
What is this song teaching us about the nature of God. Let's sift through the, the metaphors and sift through the strong prayers and get to the point of what David knew to be true about God and what and how that drove his prayer. What is this Psalm saying what this Psalm 58 is saying is, God is a God of holy justice, God is righteous and he is not indifferent to the evil plans and evil schemes of men is not passive and indifferent when wicked people threatened harm against his own and therefore the song teaches us that we have biblical grounds to appeal to our God to frustrate their wickedness when we see it unfolding and earthly life. When we see wicked leaders pulling out the stops to accomplish wickedness, to take society in a sinful direction.
We have biblical grounds to say God defines them take away their power, stop them, hinder them. Don't let this go forward in your own personal life when you're under the threat of wicked people to go into trust your God enough to leave your case with him not to take vengeance into your own hands not to live in fear not to retaliate or anything like that is to say, God, you see what's going on here. I asked you to deal with it and I'm going to trust you and I'm going to leave it with you. I don't need to take matters into my own hands of God. I appeal to you and that is enough and we all we all grown under the weight of the prevalence of evil men. We grown under the weight of what our own wicked justices in the United States have done over the years gone by.
We grown under that and as months turn into years and years turn into decades under the wicked reign of it all.
You might be tempted to give up to say what's the point there's no outcome that can help here and when that comes beloved. What you need to do is to remember that Scripture speaks plainly of a coming judgment that will right the wrongs that God does not prevent in the course of time you know it's not just America.
There are others that have suffered under wicked regimes. Arthur, there are those that have lost their property lost their loved ones under the hands of despots who were happy to carry out their wickedness with no human recourse to it and that which families gave generations to taken away from them. We others an appeal to God at times like that. There's an appeal to God, we remember that there is a coming judgment. Beloved that will right the wrongs of earth, the God because he is holy because he is just, he will not tolerate the evil forever. There will be a time of accounting, there will be a day of reckoning that comes in we trust in that and we we rest in that and we look in that and we we look to that, I should say we find our comfort in that. Even when there don't seem to be answers in time in earth, and David takes us there in your third point here when he talks about the prediction of satisfaction the prediction of satisfaction we saw the picture of unrighteous judges. We saw the prayer for judgment and now briefly were going to see the prediction of satisfaction before I read verse 10. Let me just say this that once again Scripture cuts against modern sensibilities and I love that about God's word. Verse 10 of Psalm 58 says the righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. While that's severe let's give some biblical perspective to it so that we would understand it rightly, when God judges the earth when God brings his day of judgment pass he will throw down Satan.
Revelation 20 says that Satan will be cast into the abyss, never to be recovered again when God brings his judgment.
He will cast down evil men. He will cast down evil rulers who have sinned and abused their authority. There will be a great final accounting of a fearsome measure of judgment that I has not yet seen, nor ear has not yet heard blood. What this teaches us is that God allows the injustice for a time and we may not see the correction of it in our lifetime, but always come back to who your God is always come back to the fact that God is a God of righteousness.
He's a God of holy justice. He is a God of infinite holiness and he will not trifle with those who violate his law and abuse their positions of authority final judgment market final judgment will prove it. There will be a vindication there will be a writing of every wrong and Scripture speaks of true believers in Matthew five verse six as those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will beloved. I know that for most of you in here. Those of you that know our Lord Jesus Christ. This is true of every one of you been in your heart. There is a hunger and thirst.
There is a desire for righteousness. You might struggle personally with sin but you hated in your own heart you hate seeing the manifestation of evil in the world around you.
You feel the weight of that you grown under it. And yet in your heart.
There is this unquenchable desire that all of the frustration can't put out that is desiring for it to be right in the end, you know what when the final chapter is written, your thirst will be satisfied. Your hunger will be filled. We will stand and watch.
Somehow, we will see the display of God's judgment and his righteous vindication of his holiness and every earthly wrong will be called to account that is not been washed away in individualized by the blood of Christ. There is no getting away with sin. Those who perpetrated wickedness will pay the consequences of it in the picture of bathing our feet in their blood is bold. It is contrary to the tolerant spirit of our age.
But what it is saying is this, that those of us who love righteousness are going to rejoice when God's justice is done and not out of a sense of personal retaliation against those who have done it. We are going to be glad that God is proven to be who he is David speaking in a word picture anyway.we are going to be glad that God has has fulfilled his promise to his people when he said, justice will be done when we see justice fulfilled were going to rejoice when it is let me add one other thought or two to this if you turn it. I'm not asking you to turn there if you turn to Isaiah 63 you would find that God expresses the fact that he's appalled that no one will actually go with him to judgment turn over to Revelation chapter 14 Revelation 14 Isaiah 63 versus three and six which I'm alluding to Justin all too brief, passing but what were saying here is that Scripture portrays God and prayer portrays him carrying out justice in a way that that that men will die as a result of it. And if we love God we love, his justice and we do not shrink back or speak against the fact that he's going to judge the world.
This way, Revelation 14 verse 19 so the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, and threw them into the great winepress of the wrath of God and the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood came out from the winepress, up to the horses bridles for a distance of 200 miles. That sounds really severe and it is the beloved before we accuse God of injustice for spilling blood of wicked men, shouldn't we remember what God himself is done in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about it this way, beloved, did not the Lord Jesus Christ spill his own blood for the sake of those who repent of their wickedness did not Christ shed his own blood to save sinners who had rebelled against him.
God is no stranger to bloodshed Christ shed his own blood for us having shed his own blood in mercy is not just for him to require blood from those who sin against him and refused to repent.
But there never be an accusation of injustice against God for bringing justice upon those who have rebelled against him. Psalm 58 closes with an encouragement for us to wait patiently on the Lord. Verse 11 with me. Men will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous.
Surely there is a God who judges on earth. David, having walks through the present condition of wickedness and leadership around them David.
Having prayed to God and illustrating God stop them make it all come to nothing ends on a note of hope and confidence as he says God is going to bring an end to this injustice and we will see it and rejoice so that the wickedness around us. The pressure of that as it were, lists her chin up and makes us look upward to our God.
We remember who he is a God of holiness, a God of justice. And that reminds us that there is a time that God is still sovereign over all the evil in the world and he will bring it to a conclusion and he will make it right.
In the end, and those of us who have trusted in Christ will be on the safe side of that judgment and we will see it and we will rejoice. All of the angst of the present day of the present age will be temporary and will yield itself over into glad satisfaction at the exertion of God's justice on the wicked. If you are in Christ find your comfort in that certainty. And until then, while we wait in the interim.
Wait patiently until God does what is right in his own time. Let's pray together.
Father, as you know so well. We grown under the weight of the wickedness of this world of the sorrow that sin brings into our own lives.
Father, we seen injustice over the course of history we see it in our own time. Sometimes we see it from time to time in our own lives father for those that are in that sticky mud that they're trying to walk through great grace to them lift their feet up, as it were, and placed them on solid ground that they would walk and confidence of your goodness and father as we think of those who are wicked and those who are outside of Christ. We pray first of all, especially as New Testament believers that you would have mercy on them and that you would save them, just as you did us that the end of their wickedness would be found in salvation in Christ and a new nature imparted in them by the work of the Holy Spirit. Yes, Lord, we would pray to that end, but if men refuse to repent father make all of their wicked plans come to nothing to disappear into the air like the fog missed that fades away in morning and leaves the bright sunshine in its place and comfort your people along the way father that we would not lose heart, but that we would always be confident in our God and confident in your ability to rule and superintend the world to bring it all to write conclusions when you say it's time we give these things all to you in the name of a friend. Thank you for joining us for through the Psalms, a weekly ministry of the truth. Pulpit and if you have the opportunity. We would love to invite you to join us on Sundays at 9 AM Eastern and Tuesdays 7 PM Eastern for our live stream from truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. You can find the link@thetruthpulpit.com thanks Don and Fred.
Be sure to join us each weekend as we continue through the songs with Pastor Don Greene. You can find church information God's complete sermon, library and other helpful materials@thetruthofthe.com this message is copyrighted by Don Greene. All rights was