Open your Bibles, there we go,
it's working now. Open your Bibles to Psalm 11. We'll begin by simply reading
the entire psalm. In the Lord, I take refuge. How then can you say to me, flee like a bird to your mountain? For look, the wicked bend their
bows, They set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the
shadows at the upright in heart. When the foundations are being
destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord is on his heavenly throne. He observes the sons of men. His eyes examine them. The Lord examines the righteous,
but the wicked and those who love violence, his soul hates. On the wicked, he will rain fiery
coals and burning sulfur. A scorching wind will be their
lot. For the Lord is righteous. He
loves justice. Upright men will see his face. Now, if your Bible contains the
little notes before the psalm that are supposed to indicate
who wrote this particular psalm, because not all of them were
written by David, It says, for the director of music, of David. Now, I'm not exactly certain
who it was who put those titles in there. I'm assuming whoever did so,
and I do know that it was far enough back, it was Jews that
did it, and maybe they had good reason. for doing it, but I know
that they are not part of scripture. So we cannot be certain that
this was actually written by David. In fact, it refers here in verse four, the Lord is in
his holy temple. And strictly speaking, there
was no temple in David's day. unless he simply applied the
word temple to what was more normally called the tabernacle. So we don't know that this was
written by David, so we cannot assign it to any experience,
any particular experience in the life of David that we know
about. And I think that's good. And the reason it's good is if
we can too clearly identify a psalm like this to a particular incident
in someone's life, we might not think it applies to our circumstances. But you'll notice that this psalm
does not tell us what trouble the psalm
writer was facing. He does mention that the wicked
bend their bows and they set their arrows against the strings
and shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart, but we
don't know, you know, this is a poem, that could be something
metaphorical and not literal. We don't know, but we do know
this. Whoever wrote this was in some kind of danger. He perceived
he was in danger. And he begins by saying, in the
Lord, I take refuge. Now, refuge is a place for those
in danger, in trouble of some sort. The scriptures say that the Lord
assigned, I believe it was seven cities, within the boundaries
of the nation of Israel, the United Nation of Israel. And these seven cities were called
cities of refuge. And their design was this, if
someone killed someone accidentally, it was not a murder, it was an
accident. they were still subject to the avenger of blood, I think they
called it. Normally speaking, someone from the family of the
guy who got killed would seek to avenge the blood of his relative. Now that was just kind of the
kind of justice that went on in that day. And it actually,
well, it still goes on in some places, even right now. And in
the state that I spent most of my childhood, it went on up until
about 100 years ago. You are familiar with the Hatfield-McCoy
feud. Now, that wasn't like, there
never was warfare as such. you know, with a bunch of Hatfields,
you know, behind rocks on one side and McCoys on the other.
It was just, maybe a Hatfield would go off into the woods to
go hunting and never come home. Or a McCoy. And it all started
because, and I can't remember which side was which, but one
of them killed somebody else. I can't even remember why. And
so a blood feud started. Well, you killed my brother.
I'm gonna kill one of yours. And that went back and forth,
I think over a period of 30 years. Blood feuds. And that's, the
cities of refuge is a place where the one who had accidentally
killed someone could run and find refuge from the avenger
of blood. because he would not be allowed
in the city. There would be some kind of trial to determine that the death
was indeed accidental. But here's the interesting thing
about the cities of refuge. Even if they showed and can prove
that death was an accident, nothing intentional about it, just pure
accident, even if they proved it, the man still could not leave
the city of refuge until the high priest died. And there's gospel truth to be,
you know, gotten out of that. But the point was, the avenger
of blood was still out there. Of course, the high priest represents
Christ. And for us, we flee to the city of refuge, which is
also Christ. And we can't leave the city of
refuge. We can't go abroad, as it were, in the land. until the
high priest dies, Christ, till we see him as having died for
us. Because when our Lord died, the
avenger of blood was satisfied in his death. Therefore, we could
go abroad, as it were. Nonetheless, he said here that,
in the Lord, I take refuge. Now, I take refuge in the Lord
from the Lord. People think the devil is our
enemy. Well, he certainly doesn't like us. And he is intent on
destroying us. But he is not the problem. The problem you and I face as
sinners is not the devil. The devil's perfectly happy with
us sinning. He's also perfectly happy with
us being self-righteous. Who's our problem if we sin?
The judge, God Himself. One preacher put it this way,
the Lord saves us by Himself, for Himself, from Himself. He's the one we need saving from.
He is the true avenger of blood. But we take refuge in the very
one that we need to be protected from. But that's the wonder and
mystery of the gospel. But the writer here says, in
the Lord I take refuge. How then can you say to me, flee
like a bird to your mountain? Now this is a strong statement
of faith. If someone is actually, literally seeking his life with
bows and arrows and they've got men working for them that'll
shoot from the shadows, it may seem the better part of
wisdom. Go somewhere secretly up into
the mountains where they don't know where you are and therefore
they won't be able to get to you. Doesn't that sound perfectly
reasonable? But he's saying, I've taken refuge
in the Lord. I don't need to take refuge in
a mountain like a bird would. I don't need to flee from the
threats of men when my refuge is God. What can they do? Moreover, even if they did, Managed
to shoot him and kill him. If his refuge is God, they still
haven't brought harm to him. They just delivered him from
the troubles of this world into the perfect pleasures of the
world to come. Now you think of that, brethren,
you who believe the Lord Jesus. Death is not a bad thing. Death's a good thing. I understand. I remember Henry
saying this in Sunday school class once, talking about death.
He says, I can understand young people not wanting to die, particularly
when they have families. They want to finish their responsibilities
to the family. They got kids to raise, a spouse
to take care of, all that kind of stuff. He said, you know,
but when you get a certain age, what is really left for us here? And I'm not saying that I actually
want to die, but there are many times I'm
quite tired of this world. And I don't resist the concept
of death in the way I used to, not even on the natural level. My father, he was not a complainer, but he did say, that, and this
was even before he had the stroke, he had no particular interest
in sticking around. But we believers have even more
than that. It's not just our weariness of
this life. It's the glory that awaits. And
so we know that there is no one and nothing In heaven, earth,
or hell, they can bring us harm if we have taken refuge in the
Lord. Now verse 2, it says, the wicked
bend their bows, they set their arrows against the strings, and
shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart. That's true.
If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, everybody
that's not a believer in this world, whether it be a human
or any of the spiritual beings that are here, but we don't know
where and we can't detect them, we know from the Bible they exist. But any being that is in warfare
with God is an enemy to us and will do whatever is in its power
to derail us, especially those spiritual beings who are trying
to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ. And
believe it or not, they want to separate us from that love,
not because they have any particular hatred for us, and just want
to see us suffer, it's actually kind of worse. They don't care
about us one way or the other. Why should they? We're nothing
to them. Rather, if by any means they
can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ, what
have they done? They have robbed God of the greatest
glory that he takes to himself. at least the greatest glory that
he takes to himself within our reality and our understanding.
The most glorious thing, that which God says, for lack of a
better way to put it, that which he is most proud of is his gracious
salvation of his people by the sacrifice of his son. It says that God did all these
wonderful things for his elect to the praise of the glory of
his grace. When Moses said, show me your
glory, God answered Moses and said, I will cause all my goodness
to pass before you. Now if you, you know, thought
in the way that Humans think about glory and what would glorify
God and show them to be great. You know, you would expect God
to say, all right, then I will cause thunder and lightning and
earthquakes, and I will shake the earth on its foundation,
and all this kind of stuff, as to be something to demonstrate
His glory. Well, you know, His glory can
be demonstrated in that. In fact, the scriptures say the
heavens declare the glory of God. But when Moses said, show
me your glory, It was as if he were saying to God, show me that
aspect of who you are in which you take the most pride. And God says, I'll have my goodness
pass before you. And I will declare the name of
the Lord. And I will be merciful to whom
I will be merciful. and I will be compassionate to
whom I will be compassionate." The gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ is called the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. That's what it is. Now, if we
are beneficiaries of that gospel of the glory of the blessed God,
what harm can come to us? And these enemies of God, they're
trying to rob him of his glory, and seeing as though they could
not accomplish that, You know, they were behind the scenes working
to have our Lord Jesus killed, because they didn't understand
any better than the Jews how the Lord would accomplish His
victory. And they thought by working in people like Judas
and Pilate and Herod and the leaders of the Jews, they thought,
you know, well, we can get rid of Him. If we get rid of Messiah,
there will be no salvation. And so they had him killed, not
realizing in doing so, they were playing right into the purpose
of God. But their hope was this, that
they will have robbed God of His glory. The devil wants that
glory. He desires that glory. He can't
get it. And so like all bullies, if he
cannot elevate himself to a certain status, then he goes after those
who are higher than him, trying to bring them down, so that he
ends up being the top dog. Well, you and I, if we are the
people of God, And the devil and his minions,
they say, well, we failed at destroying Messiah. But you know,
if we can destroy just one of those, Messiah was sent to save. He will lose that crown of glory. He will have been a failure.
And that's why they're after you and me, and it says, they
set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows
at the upright and hard. And I like it, it says, shoot
from the shadows. Of course, it means secrecy there. But do you remember the scripture
where it says, and this is the verdict, that light has come
into the world, but men love darkness, they love shadows,
for their deeds are evil. I don't believe the reference
there is that particularly wicked men and the
normal way we talk about wickedness, you know, drunkards and thieves
and murderers and adulterers and all that. The point isn't
that they love darkness rather than light because their deeds
were evil. Who was it that was most offended
by the coming of the Lord? It was the religious people,
the ones who had invested themselves in what they thought was obedience
to God's law, and thought that by their investment in this,
they had earned themselves the blessing of God, and Jesus Christ
comes. He is the light. What are they doing? The only
way that the Pharisees could appear to be righteous in the
eyes of the people was for them to live in the shadows of the
law. The law did not have enough light about it to reveal to everyone
that these Pharisees and the ones that, you know, the temple
priests and guards and all those fellas and the Sadducees, all
these big shots in religion, the law did not have a light
bright enough to reveal the sinfulness, the hypocrisy of these religious
people, and from the shadows they shoot at the upright. In
particular, they shot at the upright one, the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? His light was eliminating
the shadows in which they were hiding. The things he said outed them
for being the wicked people that they were. They had a good racket
going. They were highly esteemed among
the people. It says that the Pharisees, in
particular, were quite wealthy. And the Sadducees, at that point,
were in control of the temple. And you know that when you're
in control of the dominant religion of an area, well, you got access
to a lot of money. And the Sadducees were also in
cahoots with the political ruling powers. They had quite the racket
going. They were rich, they were powerful,
they lived in relative luxury. And the Lord Jesus Christ comes
and He shines a light on all of that. No wonder they took
aim at Him. But then in verse 3, when the
foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? Now
some commentator, and I can't remember which one, but he made
this point that this could be translated. When the foundations
are being destroyed, what has the righteous one done? That
is, it's not so much a question that when the foundations of
life as we know it are crumbling. Well then, what should a believer
do? Because that's who a righteous
person is according to the scriptures. He's a believer. Abraham believed
God and it was counted to him for righteousness. Rather, the
question is, when we see things falling down around us and the
very foundations being shaken and destroyed. What has God done? What has the
righteous one done? Now, I looked it up in Hebrew,
and you could go either way in translating it. And here's the
interesting thing. Both questions, when the foundations
are being destroyed, What can, quote, believers do, or what
has God done? Both of those are perfectly legitimate
questions to ask, good questions to ask, and here's the reason.
They are intertwined. Because what we as believers
are to do is in response to what we understand
that our God has done. When the foundations are being
destroyed, our Lord said, the wise man built his house on a
rock. Foolish man built his house on
the sand. Now, why was the on the rock
builder considered wise? Well, old construction, you know,
they didn't have concrete to pour a footer. They had to dig
down and find a rock. and begin their building with
some natural rock, because rock was, relatively speaking, immovable,
certainly compared to sand. Now, when the wise man built
his house, let's say it was like one of
those tract houses back in the 50s and 60s, and now all the
houses on the street look the same. The wise man, he dug down
deep, found some rock and built his house on it. Wise man comes
along, a lot of expense, a lot of labor involved in digging
down to bedrock. So he just, he started laying
his foundation block right there on the top of the ground. Now,
let's say they both finished their house on the same day.
On that day, they both looked the same. And you know, the foolish man
would say, boy, that wise man, he wasted all that time and money
building that foundation. My house is as good as this.
He could jump up and down on the floor. Say, floor's solid.
Nothing going to happen here. Well, the wise man had a foundation.
Trouble was, it was made out of sand. Now, most of you all, I imagine,
have been to the ocean. at least once. There's an interesting
thing about sand. You can walk along the beach,
and you'll do fine. But you just, you go out there
to the edge of the water, where the water's coming in and going
out, and you just stand there. And you'll notice the sand starts
getting pulled out from under your feet. In fact, you can be pulled out
from under your feet enough that you've got to adjust your balance
to keep standing. Moreover, you get a good storm
coming in. Hurricane. Hurricane can remove
a beach. A hurricane comes inland and
houses disappear. And that's what that, in the
story of the wise man and the foolish man. The foolish man
whose house was built on the sand, his house did just as good
as the wise man's house, so long as the weather was good, so long
as everything was fine. But once the rains came down,
torrential rains, flood-producing rains, once that showed up, what
did that water do? It undermined the foundation. It destroyed his foundation.
And his beautiful home came tumbling down. And it says, great was
the fall of it. When it was all over, it wasn't
like he could just call the foundation expert and tell him,
well, you're going to need to bolster this part of the foundation.
No, the whole place just collapsed. But the one who built on the
rock, well, his house got wet, but that's all. It got wet on
the outside. That was the end of it. But there are things that we
experience in our lives as believers in which it would appear that
the very foundations of our existence are being undermined. We look at our government. Like I say, I'm not about politics,
I'm just illustrating this, but if you have any any sense about
right and wrong. If you have any concept of justice, you've got to see that the foundations
of our government are pretty well crumbling. Our founders wisely split up
the three functions of government into three branches, legislative,
executive, and judicial. And they figured, you know, as
long as we keep those three things separate so that no one person
or no one body has the capacity to exercise all three of those
powers, well, they'll be working against each other and each of
them will serve as a check to the others. Well, that's a good idea. But
that doesn't mean that they won't work in cahoots with one another.
And when it seems like every branch of government is filled
by people who have no regard for decency, what's it look like
so far as our nation is concerned? And I hope this isn't just old
fogeyism because things aren't like they were when I was a kid.
You know, you can fall for that, but there's just stuff going
on. It just blows me away. In fact, it looks so awful to
me, I've just gotten to where I don't even bother looking anymore. The foundations. are being destroyed. You look at our society. Ten years ago, I'd say that's
far enough back, you know, when this whole, just using this as
an example, this whole transgender thing was kind of starting to
take off. We could almost laugh at it.
I mean, our idea was, that is so ridiculous. Nobody's going
to fall for that. Oh, well. Can you believe that so many
in our nation are thoroughly convinced that a person can simply
say, I'm a woman, and that makes them a woman? I mean, I saw a video the other
day, and this woman was at a Some kind of political thing. I think it was a school board
meeting. But she was dressed up and looked like a cat Halloween
costume or something like that. She had some ears on and looked
like a set of one-piece pajamas, you know, with a tail and all
that. And she walked up and she says, I'm a cat. She gave a great
speech. She really did. And it accomplished
absolutely nothing. Because the foundations of common
sense, the foundations of even the idea there's such a thing
as truth have so crumbled within our society that there's no way
to use reason to convince people contrary to the delusions they're
following. The foundations are being destroyed. For a long time, and this is
concerning society again, they have talked about the disintegration
of the, quote, nuclear family. It has nothing to do with atomic
power. It has to do with the idea that
the family is the central unit of society. And if there are no families,
there will be no society. I started way back when I was
a kid. You that are of younger generations
might not realize there was a time when it was difficult to get
a divorce. If you wanted a divorce, you
had to go in court and prove that your spouse had done something
Something that justified you in separating yourselves from
them. Abandonment, unfaithfulness,
severe abuse, things like that. Now all you have to do is go
down and say, I want a divorce. And now the legal struggle in
divorce is how you're going to divide the assets. But to my knowledge, there is
no legal entity that believes and has the authority to say
marriage and the families that come from it are important and
we're not going to let them be broken up without good cause. The foundations are breaking. But that's just the foundations
of government and society. And that's happened many times
over in many places over the times of men. There are even
more severe foundations than that, more fundamental foundations. You and I, what do we see? And
this does grieve me to see it. People, people widely known,
widely known for Their supposed interest in Christ. Church leaders. And, you know, they're known
coast to coast. Got their big TV shows. Take
the name of Christ on their lips. Hold themselves forward as Christians. And then they get caught up in
scandal. Now, brethren, I understand scandal. You know what David
did, that was pretty scandalous. Believers are perfectly capable
of scandal. But what has happened now is
we have allowed for this class of super preachers, super Christians. People are making, they're like
celebrities, and they get put out there in the spotlight, and
the name of Christ is being brought into disgrace because of them.
But it gets even worse than that. Because many of these guys, they
start out and what they're saying is true, what they're preaching
is true, but then comes in a little fame, you know, and I'm kind of glad the Lord never
let me get famous. I haven't had to worry about
this temptation. But you know, if they're gonna
get on this talk show, If they're going to be a part of this notable
group, they've got to take this corner off the gospel, this rough
spot off of the truth. You'd be amazed. And I don't
think it's important that you go online and learn about all
these religious leaders and all that, you know. Like I told my
wife the other day, I just like information. I don't care what
it's about. I like information. So I see this stuff and I click
on it. Men who at one time their name
did mean something with respect to the truth. There was a time
when they were holding the truth. But then the world comes up with
some objection to it. And if they don't bend to what
the world wants, or at least compromise some, the world's
not going to have them on their shows. And I mean here even the
religious world. They aren't going to be able
to sell as many books. Might not be able to get any publisher
to publish any of their books. Okay, I gotta say this now, say
this now. And if truth is not our foundation,
then what is? When the foundations are being
destroyed, what has the righteous one done? We don't like to see it when
the foundations, the things we consider to be the foundations
of our stable life, when we see them crumbling, shaking, cracking
up. But we can find comfort in this. Whatever's happening, it's because
of what the Lord has done. And even when we see the name
of Christ brought into ill repute, now that's hard, we hate that. I hate the name of Christ being
associated with so much of the wickedness going on. I hate hearing people malign
His glorious name. It's interesting, you go on television,
You know, you broadcast TV, there's certain words they're not allowed
to say because that's going over the, quote, people's airwaves,
you know. On cable, you can pretty much
say you want. But if you're going to be a broadcaster, there's
some strict rules about what you can say. But you can use
God's name. You can drag His name through
the gutter all you want. Isn't that interesting? I'd much
rather hear some vulgarities. and hear them take the name of
my beloved Savior and use it like it's garbage. But that's
what they do. But you know something? When
these things happen, when we see foundations crumbling and
the buildings built upon them falling down, here's what we
can say. God did that. God did that, and there's some
good, holy, righteous, just, and gospel reason for it. I remember one time complaining
on Facebook about these Big Shot TV preachers. And I'll be honest
with you, I just think virtually every one of them is a disgrace
to the name of Christ. I suppose if everything about
me were known, I'd be a disgrace, too. But what they're doing publicly
and what they're proud of and what they actually get applauded
for, to me, is a disgrace to Christ. And I just don't like
that. And I mentioned how they're deceiving
so many people. And Brother Alan Gillette, a
brother preacher over in England, he put a comment under that.
He said, God builds up those churches to keep the goats out
of ours. I thought about that and I said,
yeah. You know, if you're outside and
the mosquitoes are bothering you, what do you do? You put out something
that attracts mosquitoes. They leave you alone. We've just got a handful this
morning, but I'd much rather meet with
this handful than have the rest of these pews filled with goats. I'm glad that there are religious
organizations to keep the goats busy. You say, well, don't you
want them to be one to the Lord? One thing you'll find in the
Bible, goats never turn into sheep. God didn't go out and find goat.
You know, the 99 wasn't about 99 sheep and then a goat that
the Lord went out and got and turned into a sheep on the way
back. The Lord has a people. He will gather them. And he does us a favor when he
gives the goats somewhere to go. Now, I'll admit, some sheep
get dragged into those places, but the Lord can save them out
of those places, and he does. What is God doing? What has he
done? Here's the thing. And here's the answer beginning
in verse four. The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord is
on his heavenly throne. He observes the sons of men,
His eyes examine them. He's still on His throne. Whatever they're doing, they
haven't been able to throw God off of His throne. He is still
in His temple, that place where He can be met by those who come
to Him in the proper way. And there they can find fellowship
with Him. as it were, fellowship with the
king of the universe, and don't think that he doesn't know what's
going on. He's observing it, and all of
it is going on according to his will. We don't have to worry
about it. And this gets to the question,
what can the righteous do? When we see this happening, what
can we do? We do two things. Number one, This is more not
doing. We can not fret. We can say, I don't have to worry
about that. I don't like it, it's displeasing,
it's vexing, but I don't have to worry that somehow the work
of God is going to be overthrown. It won't be. And secondly, we can worship
God in his holy temple. What's his holy temple? Well,
Peter says that we are his temple. You and I who know God, we can
still gather. We can still come together and
open the scriptures. Find the truth. Here the foundations have not
been shaken. Foundation of this book hadn't
been shaken. We can worship our God together.
and we can find strength and comfort in the knowledge of his
sovereign rule. Now, let me just give you one
example. When this event went on, a couple of thousand years ago,
the conjoined powers of politics and religion decided they would destroy the
Lord Jesus Christ. And you can imagine if you were
one of his disciples on that day, and you're there. Well, it says they all fled,
but we know at least John was at the site of the crucifixion,
and maybe some of the others were, maybe afar off, but they
knew what was happening. Now, Jesus Christ had been their
foundation. Everything of the last three
years of their life, about that amount of time, the last three
years of their life had been founded upon what that man said
and did. And they looked and they saw
him dying in the most ignominious, painful, and cruel way that man
could come up with. From their perspective, the foundation
was being destroyed. And all the enemies of God were
thinking the same thing. Ha! He was the foundation, but
we've got him now, and by destroying the foundation, well, the house
built upon him is going to fall. I think of Mary. Now, as much as some people try
to make out of Mary, not much is said about her. But often
it says she's pondered these things, and you imagine her standing
there watching her firstborn son being crucified. But not
only that, from the word of the angel to her, now she had to
wonder, did I really hear from an angel? Or did I just have
a bad dream that night? Is this really the one whom God
sent to be there? You've got to imagine, her whole
life from that night when the angel visited her, her whole
life, it looks like it's about to fall apart and suddenly have
no meaning. What can a believer, the righteous,
do? Well, the natural eye looks on
the events of Calvary and said the foundation being destroyed. And God is saying,
see, I lay a foundation stone in Zion,
and he that trusts in him will not be put to shame. They looked
and they thought they saw the foundation crumbling. What they
were really seeing was the true foundation stone being laid.
The only foundation crumbling on that day was, and we're speaking
metaphorically here, the foundation that was upholding that temple
about a half a mile away and the whole religious system on
which it was based. It was crumbling. It was falling
down. They just didn't know it. That day was not a day of the
true foundation crumbling. That was the day that God laid
in Zion His foundation stone, which will never crumble. Three days later, the Lord proved
that foundation stone didn't crumble. Here I am. Better than
I was before. And several years later, the
Roman army came in and the foundation of the temple, much of the wall
of Jerusalem was torn down and the city was left in rubble. And that temple's never been
rebuilt. And personally, I don't think it ever will be. Why? That day's over. That day's over. God laid the real foundation
stone. And Peter says we as living stones
are being built up into a house of God. And we're not built on
sand. We're built upon a rock foundation
that can never be shaken. So in all reality for us, the
foundation is never being destroyed. Things that we might have rested
ourselves on, they may be destroyed, but that's only so that we'll
learn, put everything on this foundation. Because everything
that's not on the foundation that God has laid. As Paul said, no other foundation
can any man lay than the one that's already been laid, Jesus
Christ. What should the righteous do
when they see the foundations of this world crumble? Oh well,
that was nice while it lasted. However, the foundation on which
I stand has not been moved. I am secure. Lord, thank you
for the foundation stone of Jesus Christ. Thank you that we are
secure in all of this because we are upon That foundation is
built upon it by your sovereign grace.