Psalm chapter 10. I want to read
through the psalm first of all and then we're going to try to
comment on it. If you look at this psalm it starts out in verse
1 with a plea to the Lord because it seems like he's not present
in the great trouble. And the trouble that's described
here is the trouble of wicked the wicked of this world. And
so much of the psalm is a cry against the wicked. And then
also in this psalm we see, in contrast to the wicked, the ones
who are called poor and oppressed, and fatherless, and also humble. Those are the ones who are set
in contrast. Those are the ones who are the
object of the scorn of the wicked. So in this psalm we have the
wicked And then we have those who are the poor, oppressed,
fatherless, and the humble. And so the psalm opens up with
a cry to the Lord. Listen to the way it says. Why
standest thou afar off, O Lord? Why hidest thou thyself in times
of trouble? The wicked in his pride doth
persecute the poor. Now as I read through this, notice
how it doesn't seem to have any relief for the pronouncement
of condemnation here on the wicked. There's no mercy spoken of here
toward the wicked in this psalm. It's all condemnation, the wicked. And the wicked are called several
things in here, and we'll see those as we go through this.
But notice how the cry against the wicked. The first verse,
Lord, where are you? It seems like when I'm in trouble,
you hide yourself. Why is that? In verse two, the
wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. Let them be taken in
the devices that they have imagined. For the wicked boasts of his
heart's desire and blesses the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth. The wicked, through the pride
of his countenance, will not seek after God. God is not in
all of his thoughts. His ways are always grievous.
Thy judgments are far above, out of his sight. As for all
his enemies, he puffeth at them. He has said in his heart, I shall
not be moved, for I shall never be in adversity. His mouth is
full of cursing and deceit and fraud. Under his tongue is mischief
and vanity. He sits in the lurking places
of the villages, in the secret places doth he murder the innocent. His eyes are privily set against
the poor. He lieth in wait, secretly, as
a lion in his den, he lieth in wait to catch the poor. He doth
catch the poor when he draweth him into his net. He croucheth,
and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones. He hath said in his heart, God
hath forgotten. He hideth his face, he will never
see it. Arise, O Lord, O God, lift up
thine hand, forget not the humble. Wherefore doth the wicked contemn
God? He hath said in his heart, Thou
wilt not require it. Thou hast seen it, for Thou beholdest
mischief and spite, to requite it with Thy hand. The poor committed
himself to Thee, Thou art the helper of the fatherless. Break
thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man. Seek out his wickedness
till thou find none. The Lord is king forever and
ever. The heathen are perished out
of his land. Thou hast heard the desire of
the humble, thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause
thine ear to hear, to judge the fatherless and the oppressed,
that the man of the earth may no more oppress." Alright, there's
the psalm. Notice, as I mentioned, that
here in this psalm there's no hope for the wicked. The wicked
are The greatest condemnation is pronounced on them. The evidence
of their wickedness is laid out. The whole intent of their thoughts
and their actions are to afflict and to oppress the poor and the
fatherless, the humble, those who put their trust, who have
committed themselves into the Lord's hand. Now we're tempted
at first when we read this to wonder if we should be always,
like this psalm appears to be, highly indignant and angry against
the wicked of this world. And if we took that course, how
would we interact with anyone in this world? We would always
be judging others in such a way as holding ourselves aloof from
them or over them in our own minds, and we would find it very
difficult to even put up with our own household because it
seems like You know, we would find ourselves to be on one side
and everybody else on the other. So, you have to wonder, what
is this psalm really saying here? Well, certainly, there's no relief,
there's no... softening of the message to the
wicked. The wicked are held up here and
really excoriated. There's great condemnation given
by God here in this psalm against the wicked. But notice in the
last verse, the way it describes the wicked, there's several names
here given for the wicked. In the first two to four verses,
they're called the wicked. And then in verses two through
five also, their pride is highlighted. And then in verse five itself,
it says their ways are always grievous. And verse five, it
also says that God's judgments are above them and out of their
sight. and then later it says their heart is full of pride
against God and hatred and their voice, the voice of their heart,
is always talking about how God is forgotten and that they have
this arrogant attitude. You can see the wicked in this
psalm as as a person sticking their fist in God's face without
any fear, without any intimidation, as if they're going to go on
forever and nothing's going to happen to them. And they hate
God, and they hate God's people. So that's really what this psalm
is about, this attitude of hatred towards God, pride, and a resolve
to oppose God's people in any way, even when they're innocent,
when it serves the wicked to their own purpose, and they hold
themselves up. as the standard here to judge
God and to judge others. So it's a very hateful, the person
held up here is very hateful in this psalm. So who is this?
Well, there's three things I thought of when I read this psalm. First
of all, the wicked describes in verse 18, it says, the man
of the earth. So we see that this is the natural
man. This term natural man is used
in the New Testament to describe what we are as we are born to
our first parents. Jesus said, that which is born
of the flesh is flesh. And that's it. It doesn't get
any better. All flesh is his grass. The natural man does not
receive the things of the spirit of God. He cannot know them.
They're spiritually discerned. And so this first, this phrase,
the man of the earth refers to the natural man, the old man,
the man of flesh. And therefore it describes all
of us, what we are by nature. Now that's a terrible thing if
God can only pronounce condemnation on this wicked man until we see
that we can be born again, that what is born of the flesh is
flesh, but what is born of the spirit is spirit. So scripture
not only talks about the natural man and the man of the flesh,
but scripture talks about the One born of God, who is born
of the Spirit, and therefore is of God. Okay? So that's the
first thing we see here, is the wicked are all of us by nature. And secondly, this means that
all people on earth are naturally wicked. And so we see this in
Romans chapter 3. If you look at this psalm in
verse 7, I'll read it in verse 7, then I'll read it in Romans
chapter 3, where it's quoted there. Let me get to Romans 3,
and now let me read these side by side. In Psalm chapter 10
and verse 7, it says, the wicked, his mouth is full
of cursing and deceit and fraud, under his tongue is mischief
and vanity." In Romans 3, and this is a description of all
of us as it is written, there is none righteous, no not one,
there's none that understandeth, there's none that seeketh after
God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become
unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Notice, their throat is an open sepulcher. With their
tongues they have used deceit. The poison of Asp is under their
lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their
feet are swift to shed blood, as we saw in this psalm. where
it says they crouch, they hide, they try to catch the innocent
in their net, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction
and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they
not known, there is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we
know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them
who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all
the world may become guilty before God. So, I read that With all
the rest of the things that I mentioned here about the natural man, the
flesh, the old man, the carnal mind is what? Enmity against
God. It is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be. And that's what we are by nature.
In fact, I want to read that verse to you in Romans 8, verse
6. Notice what it says, Romans 8,
verse 6. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against
God, hostility. For it is not subject to the
law of God, neither indeed can be, so then they that are in
the flesh cannot please God." In the flesh, carnal mind, all
those things describe the natural man, what we are from our first
birth. We have to be born of God. And
that's why he says in the next verse, in Romans 8, verse 9,
but you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. In other words,
your life is Christ in you. You were crucified with Christ,
Christ lives in you, you now believe on Him, and you live
your life, you live by the faith of the Son of God. You're not
in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so, be that the Spirit of
Christ dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you,
the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because
of righteousness." Okay? So there you have it. There's
two different nature is described here. The
one carnal, the one flesh, the one we received by our first
birth. David said, I was, in sin did
my mother conceive me, I was shapen in iniquity. That's David. And we received that through
Adam, because when Adam fell, we fell in him, and he could
only have children who were also fallen. We received our sinful
nature from our father, Adam, through the natural birth process.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh. How did we become sinners? In Adam. How did we receive our
sinful nature? Through our natural birth. How
do we have a new nature? How are we born of God? How do
we become the sons of God? How are we raised from the deadness
of our own sinful selves? We have to be created in Christ
Jesus. We are His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus on two good works, Ephesians 2 verse 10. So these
two are set side by side, the new man and the old man. the mind of Christ and the carnal
mind, the new nature, the one created in Christ Jesus in whom
Christ dwells by his spirit, and the one who is only flesh,
the natural man. All people by nature are natural. All of us by nature until we're
born of God are only flesh. have only a carnal mind. God
has to raise us from the dead. He has to create us in Christ.
He has to birth us by His Spirit. He has to give us life. And that
life is by the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
this psalm is addressing the wicked, the natural man, the
man of flesh, the man who is the old man, that carnal nature
that we're born with. But it is also addressing, because
it addresses that, all people, across all time, across the whole
world, because we're all natural. And so within those two groups,
What we are in our sinful self, what we are naturally born into
this world, all of us are partakers of that. But only some of us
are partakers of the Spirit of God. And that happens, how? How does that happen? How do
we become partakers of the Spirit of God? Well, we have to be born
of God. And how does that happen? when
we hear the gospel. Jesus said, the words that I
speak to you, they are spirit, they are life. And when does
this happen? When we are given life, when
we see that Christ and him crucified is our salvation, that's the
evidence of the new birth. That's the evidence of the life
of Christ in us when we believe Christ. And so Jesus said, whoever
hears my words and believes on him that sent me has everlasting
life already. He shall not come into condemnation. He has already passed from death
to life. This is a present possession
of those who believe Christ. Whoever believes my words already
has everlasting life. It isn't, he shall have it because
he believes him, therefore it will be given to him. No, he
has it already. It's a present possession. So,
all of us by nature correspond to the wicked in our old man.
All people on earth correspond to the wicked in their natural
selves. God's people are born of God.
They also correspond here to the poor in this psalm, to the
oppressed, the persecuted ones, the fatherless, and the humble. And that doesn't happen. In fact,
he says in verse 17, notice, Lord, thou hast heard the desire
of the humble. Thou will prepare their heart. thou wilt cause thine ear to
hear. God prepares the heart of his people, like he says in
Acts 16, 14, whose heart the Lord opened, Lydia's heart. And
so God gives us a new heart, a new spirit, in Ezekiel chapter
36. He says that he promised to do
that. And this is when the spirit of God is given to us so that
we can see that Christ, for us, is all of our salvation. Faith
is the evidence of the new birth. And not just faith that I believe
things are gonna turn out good, but faith in Christ and Him crucified. There's no salvation without
faith in Christ and Him crucified. Now I want to be careful here,
but I want to mention this because this came up in this week. Someone
was asking me about a devotion, and I went and read some excerpts
from the devotion to see if I could recommend it, and the person
writing the devotion said something like this. We need to make sure
that we're not just thinking about Christ as our Savior, what
He did for us. We need to think about Him. And
so the problem with that kind of a statement, and I know people
are trying to do right when they make those statements, but it's
just confusing. It's just confusion. If we separate
Christ from his work, we can't know him. If we separate Christ
from his work for us to save us, we cannot be saved. It's
Christ and him crucified that we preach. And this is very important. We can't know Christ unless he
makes himself known through his work. And that's why he said,
ask and I'll give you the water. I'll give you this water. And
the spirit of God points us to the Christ on the cross who went
into the grave and rose and sits on heaven's throne and intercedes
for us. It's not just Christ in the abstract. It's the Christ
of scripture. If we say, well, you just need
to know Jesus, Which Jesus? There's a lot of Jesuses running
around. We need to know the Christ of the Gospel. And so, I don't
want to get off on a tangent there, but you can tell that
that is something that can come up. We want to trust the Lord. We want to know the Lord. How
do we know Him? He reveals himself to us in what he did. That's
part of being a prophet. He speaks, and he speaks about
not only his will, but his work, what he's done, where he is,
his offices, and all those things are part of the revelation Christ
gives. Okay, so the first two things
here, the wicked represent all fallen man. That's what we are
by nature. We have an old nature. It resides
in us. We, in our fallen nature, are
here described as the wicked. So when we understand it in this
light, what is this psalm saying? Well, we see now that it's actually
a blessing. We want God to deliver us, which
we know the Lord Jesus Christ alone will. We want Christ to
deliver us from our wretchedness, don't we? Our wretchedness, meaning
this carnal mind, in Romans 7 is the chapter of the Bible we always
refer to. And the Apostle Paul makes it
clear, this pertains to every child of God. And if we didn't
have this in us, we would have no warfare, no conflict. But
just like the children of Israel had enemies in the wilderness,
they had all these trials in the wilderness, and just like
they had enemies in Canaan, all the trials of their enemies in
Canaan throughout the whole Old Testament, it was there to prove
them. to prove if they were the Lord's
or not. And so we have, according to God's will, trials, trials
of faith. And the main trial we have is
the warfare within us between the new nature and the old nature,
between the flesh and the spirit, between the carnal mind and the
mind of Christ, between the unbelief that we have by nature and the
faith we have in Christ. And so Romans 7 makes this so
abundantly clear When we read this, he says, when we were in
the flesh, we had nothing but flesh, the motions of sins which
were by the law did work on our members to bring forth fruit
into death. That's all we could do. All that we did brought forth
death. But now we've been delivered
from the law. because we've died with Christ, and therefore we
serve Christ in the Spirit. And just read Romans 7 again,
and there's many, many good sermons on this. We were just talking
about one. Clay Curtis preached a sermon from Romans 7, and I
can't remember, I think the title might be, Oh Wretched Man, or
something like that. So, I refer you to that. So if
you understand that in Psalm 10, you will rejoice because
God is going to destroy. He is going to utterly remove
the old man from us. And there's no greater enemy
than our own sinful selves, what we are by nature, this flesh. The body is dead because of sin,
Romans 8.10, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.
Now the other thing that we see here is that because this refers
to our natural selves, therefore all those outside of Christ are
condemned as the wicked. Just like Pharaoh, remember,
he was like the king of wickedness in Egypt. He was. He was the
king. And what did he say when Moses
said, thus saith the Lord, let my people go. Pharaoh, in arrogant
impudence, said, who is the Lord that I should let Israel go?
I don't know the Lord. That's the attitude of the wicked
here. absolute fearless arrogance against God and His Word and
His revelation. And so this describes the fearful
condition of all those outside of Christ. That's why the Lord
Jesus Christ over and over in the New Testament cast devils
out because He had to deliver us from this natural sinful self
that we are. So this is also a condemnation
of all outside of Christ. Ultimately, they're going to
stand and give an account to their great dismay that they
have thought all their lives they were going to avoid this,
they lived in pleasure, they lived in and whatever they wanted
to do, and hatred of God, and hatred of Christ, and hatred
of His people, and they'll be discovered in the end to be standing
there, to have to give an account to the very God they stuck their
fist in His face, as it were, and lived their lives. And that's
us by nature, until the Lord saves us. But the third entity
described here is anti-Christ religion. Now, we often think
of Antichrist as a monstrous man who will appear at the end
of time. But the Apostle John makes it
clear that that is not the case. 1 John chapter 2, let me read
this to you. In 1 John chapter 2, because
sometimes, I know when I was a young person, I heard of a
man named Hal Lindsey. Pretty soon we were off into
these kinds of things. 1 John 2, that was not the case. What
he said was not true. But here we have 1 John 2, verse
18. Little children, it is the last
time. And this was right after the
cross. It is the last time. In other words, God has divided
history into two main partitions. Well, we could divide it up into
the time before the flood, the time after the flood, the time
before the law, the time after the law, the time before the
cross, and so on. But God has divided it up into
two histories. There's everything that came before Christ, and
there's everything after Christ. Everything after Christ is called
the last time, because the cross Christ has gone to the cross,
and judgment has occurred at the cross. Therefore, everything
following the cross is the last time until the end. There's no
more, there's no other time but this time that we're living in
now until we reach the end. He says here, it is the last
time, and as you have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now
are there many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time.
They win out from us, these antichrists. Antichrist means not only against
Christ, like anti, but it means a substitute Christ. Someone
who preaches and teaches or puts themselves in the place that
only Christ can occupy. And what is that? That's claiming
that we're justified by anything other than Christ's righteousness.
That is anti-Christ religion. And it doesn't matter whether
it comes from Presbyterians, or Baptists, or Evangelicals,
or Pentecostals, or Catholicism, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or Mormons,
or anybody. It's wrong. If it's not Christ,
it's wrong. There's only one way, truth and
life. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. We're justified. That's what
the gospel is, isn't it? If you were to distill the gospel
in one word, it would be justification. by the blood and righteousness
of Jesus Christ. And I say that because I'll read
this text of Scripture to you in Galatians. I'm not trying
to get off track here, but I have to get these things settled in
your heart when we go through Psalm chapter 10. But he says
in Galatians chapter 3, he says, Even as Abraham believed God,
and it was accounted to him for righteousness, He says in verse
eight, for the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen
through faith preached the gospel unto Abraham saying, in thee
shall all nations be blessed, meaning in Christ. So that's
the gospel, it's justification by Abraham. Christ's righteousness,
which we receive through faith. We lay hold on this truth as
the only truth that will save us, that Christ died, rose, and
is seated and intercedes for us, and he is all of our salvation.
But there's this huge opposition to that in the world, and it's
called anti-Christ religion. they substitute other things
for Christ. And there can be idols, open
and evident things like Mariology and idols of the Catholic religion,
but more subtly it comes in as introducing something into salvation
that requires you to do your part in order to make salvation
work, like our will or our works. or our personal sanctification
to make it work. We have to come up with the goods.
And so all of that is anti-Christ religion. We're either saved
by Christ and he's finished the work, or we're doomed. And that's
the attitude and that's the full commitment of the... Let's go
back to Psalm 10. Look at this, how he says it
here. Look at verse 2. Verse 1, Why standest thou afar
off, O Lord? Why hidest thou thyself in times
of trouble? God could do something. He will
do something. He's righteous. He's a judge
of all. Why doesn't He? Why is it that it seems like
wickedness abounds in the earth? It seems like it's in government,
it's in schools, it's in my own home. In fact, I find it within. Why does God allow this? That's
the cry here. But this psalm here, understand,
this psalm is an intercessory prayer from the advocate of God's
people who are called poor and oppressed and fatherless and
humble here. They're persecuted. And so this
is a prayer for them. And so the opening words are,
why standest thou? Why don't you help? Oh, Lord,
why do you hide yourself in time? It seems like it. It seems like
it. But he doesn't use the word seems.
He's just saying, all I can see is that there is no help for
the poor. They're being oppressed. And let me describe the people
who are doing it, or the person, or the entity. It's the wicked.
The wicked. And so then he sets up the enemy
of God and his people here and describes them. The wicked in
his pride. And now see in this description
of the wicked our own sinful self. See in this description
every man by nature and see in this description Antichrist.
Antichrist religion. The wicked in his pride doth
persecute the poor. Remember when Jesus was on the
earth, what did they do? They persecuted him. They persecuted
him. And yet he was the one who was
bearing our sins and our sorrows. And so he describes this in Isaiah
53 and Psalm 69 and other places. They poured out persecution upon
the one God afflicted on Christ. And so that's what the devil
did in Revelation 12, wasn't it? He was waiting for the man-child
to be born. The woman gave birth to the man-child.
The dragon tried to kill the man-child. And this is all history. The serpent is trying to kill
Christ, to kill the Son. and to kill his people, to shame
him, to show that, you know, they stood around the cross and
they mocked him. He saved others. Himself, he cannot save. If he
be Christ, let him come down from the cross. He trusted in
the Lord that he would save him. Let him deliver him now, seeing
that he trusted in him. All these are mocking, vitriol from the mouth of the
natural heart of man, controlled and dominated by Satan. A hatred for Christ, a hatred
for his people, their purpose is to show that his salvation
is not enough to save them. And so they're going to make
fun of God that these people trusted in Him. I want to read
to you a couple of places of scripture in the Old Testament,
in 2 Kings. in 2 Kings 18-19 is about Hezekiah. And if you might remember this,
Hezekiah became king and then this foreign enemy set out to
mock Hezekiah and to mock Hezekiah's God and to try to get the people
of Israel afraid that their God Their king and their god could
not save them, and so in 2 Kings chapter 19, we're in the middle
of it here, I'm gonna read to you what happened here. This
man from Assyria sent his captain, and let's see, it says in the
last verse of chapter 18, 2 Kings chapter 18, last verse, it says,
then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household,
and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder,
to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words
of Rabshicah. Rabshicah was sent by the Assyrian
king. And it came to pass, when king
Hezekiah heard these words, that he rent his clothes, and covered
himself with sackcloth, and he went into the house of the Lord,
and he sent Eliakim, which was over the household, and Shevna
the scribe, and the elders of the priest, covered with sackcloth,
to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. And they said to him,
Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble and of rebuke
and blasphemy, for the children are come to the birth, and there's
not strength to bring forth. That's a terrible situation.
The mother has come to give birth to her child, and she has no
strength to bring forth a child. Verse four, it may be that the
Lord thy God will hear all the words of Rav Sheikah, whom the
king of Assyria, his master, has sent to reproach the living
God, and will reprove the words which the Lord thy God hath heard. Wherefore lift up thy prayer
for the remnant that are left. Hezekiah is asking his servants
to go to Isaiah the prophet and to hear the words of Rabshika
who was sent by the king of Assyria to defy God, just like Goliath
did. And David spoke against him.
But here in verse 5 it says, So the servants of Hezekiah came
to Isaiah. And Isaiah said to them, Thus
shall you say to your master, King Hezekiah, Thus saith the
Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which
the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I
will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumor, and shall
return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword
in his own land." So Rabshika returned and found the king of
Assyria warring against Libna, for he had heard that he was
departed from Lachish, and when he heard say of He sent messengers again unto
Hezekiah, saying, Thus shalt thou speak to Hezekiah king of
Judah, saying, Let not thy God, in whom thou trustest, deceive
thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand
of the king of Assyria. Do you see what this man is saying?
What does he mean by that? He's saying, arrogance. He's
talking against Israel's God and he's saying, don't let your
God deceive you that I won't take Jerusalem. In verse 11 he
says, Behold thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have
done to all the lands by destroying them utterly, and shalt thou
be delivered? Have the gods of the nations
delivered them which my fathers have destroyed as Gozan and Hardan
and Rezeph? and the children of Eden, which
were in Thilassar? Where is the king of Hamath,
and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim,
of Hina and Iva?" You see, he's going down the list. Look, I've
destroyed all these countries. Their gods wouldn't save them.
Your god's no greater than them. I'm going to destroy you. He's
putting himself in the place and power of the ultimate authority
and power in God's place, this man, king of Assyria. And Hezekiah
received the letter of the hand of the messengers and read it.
And Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord and he spread
it before the Lord. Hezekiah says, okay, here's the
words of this man against you, Lord. And Hezekiah prayed before
the Lord and said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between
the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone. And of all the
kingdoms of the earth, thou hast made heaven and earth. Lord,
bow down thine ear, and hear. Open, Lord, thine eyes, and see,
and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach
the living God. Of a truth, Lord, The kings of
Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands, and they have
cast their gods into the fire, for they were no gods, but the
work of men's hands, wood and hay and stubble, therefore they
have destroyed them. Now therefore, O Lord our God,
I beseech Thee, save Thou us out of His hand, that all the
kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord God, even
Thou only. Then Isaiah, the son of Amos,
said to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
that which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib, king
of Assyria, I have heard. And this is the word that the
Lord has spoken concerning him. Notice, this is God's word to
the great enemy of his people. And this is the wicked of the
earth. This is the natural man. This is anti-Christ religion.
All those who oppose Christ and the salvation of his people and
the building up of his church, Satan and his kingdom. This is
what God says to them. The virgin, the daughter of Zion,
hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn. The daughter of
Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee. Whom hast thou reproached
and blasphemed, and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice,
and lifted up thine eyes on high, even against the Holy One of
Israel, against Christ? By thy messengers thou hast reproached
the Lord, and hast said with the multitude of my chariots,
I am come up to the height of the mountains. to So it says in verse 27, I know
thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage
against me, because thy rage against me, and thy tumult has
come up into mine ears. Therefore I will put my hook
in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee
back by the way which thou camest, and this shall be a sign to thee.
You shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves,
and in the second year that which springs of the same, and in the
third year you shall sow and reap, Plant vineyards and eat the fruits
and the remnant that is escaped to the house of Judah shall yet
again take root downward and bear fruit upward for out of
Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant and They that escaped out of
Mount Zion the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this and a
little bit later He says and that night it came to pass that
the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the
Syrians a hundred and eighty five thousand They arose early
in the morning. Behold, they were all dead corpses.
So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed." You see the comparison
here? This is what's happening in Psalm
chapter 10. God is the intercessor and the
advocate of his people, as Hezekiah did in 2 Kings 18 and 19, and
Isaiah the prophet did. the advocate and intercessor
of his people is lifting up the wicked. against the wicked against
the Lord, the wicked against his people, and he's pleading
for God to stand up for his poor, his oppressed, his fatherless
people, and to take up his cause against the wicked on their behalf.
And that's exactly what history is all about. It's not only against
Satan and his kingdom. Jesus said, I have overcome the
world. In Galatians chapter 1 verse
4, who gave himself for us that he might deliver us from this
present evil world. And what is that? But Satan and
his kingdom. That's Galatians 1.4 and John 16.33. And what
is the victory that overcomes this world? Even our faith, right? We look to Christ who overcame
the world, who overcame the wicked. He overcame the wicked in his
pride, the thing in which the wicked man, the natural heart
of man trusted the most, Christ overcame him. He put away our
sin and he saves us. And when the wicked want to show
their power over God's people, then he holds up the virgin daughter
of Zion. He says, see, the Lord has saved
them. Remember John chapter 8, the
woman taken in adultery, brought by the scribes and Pharisees
to Jesus, sat in the midst and said, go ahead. What are you
going to do with her? Moses said, we have to stone
her. What do you say? No, no problem. He just writes
with his finger on the ground, and they're looking at that handwriting
of God right on the ground there, and they were condemned in their
conscience, and they all went out silenced. That's what the
Lord will do for His people. He's going to silence our carnal
mind. He's going to destroy that inward
sinful self we have. He's going to deliver us from
all of our sin. And so therefore, the Apostle
Paul says in Romans 7.25, I thank God through Jesus Christ our
Lord. So then with the mind, I myself
serve the law of God, with the flesh, the law of sin. And these
two are at warfare constantly, and the new man pleads for Christ
to deliver him from the old man and looks to Christ to do that,
and that's our victory. That's the faith which overcomes
the world. But in our natural selves, we're so full of pride.
And that's the wicked in the world. Pride describes us. Covetousness is held up as a
virtue. That's what he says here. The
Lord abhors, look at verse three. For the wicked boasteth of his
heart's desire. He wants something and he boasts,
I'm gonna get it. And he blesses the covetous whom
the Lord abhoreth. Covetousness is idolatry. All
these things describe what we are by nature. The apostle Paul
said, when the law said, don't covet, I found all kinds of sin
breaking out everywhere. All I did was covet. I breathe
covetousness because that's what I am by nature. How am I going
to be free from this natural man, this old man, this flesh,
this carnal mind? By looking to Christ. Lord, I
have no power over this enemy, but you do. You've conquered
him. I was crucified with Christ,
buried with him, I rose again. Therefore, God says, reckon it
to be so. In Romans 6.11. Reckon ye also
yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. We died to the sin, we died to
the law, we have been risen with Christ, we're married to another,
and we are the virgin daughter of Zion spoken of in scripture.
We shall prevail over our enemies. Now, we don't have time to go
through all the details of this tonight, but maybe next week
I'll try to pick up on some of these. I said I would, possibly,
when we didn't finish Psalm 9, but maybe next week it justifies
going through these in some detail. But I want to point out to you
that these first psalms, when we started reading these, from
Psalm 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and then it keeps going. Psalm
11, 12, 13, 14, 15. All these psalms are talking
about the great conflict between Christ and his people and the
devil and his kingdom. between Christ and our inward
carnal mind and the new man that's within us. So this warfare is
going to be talked about. And notice that the one plea,
the one resource, the one place, the refuge, the one place that
the poor and the humble and the oppressed and the fathers go,
is to the Lord. Lord, I have no one else to go
to, and so they go to Him. And notice also that in here,
the fatherless are spoken of. What are believers? We're adopted
because we were fatherless. God, the Father, has predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, to Himself,
in love. Ephesians 1, verse 5 through
6. And He has made us accepted in the Beloved. in Christ, in
whom also we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins through
His blood. So God has given this to us.
How do we know it? He told us in the Gospel. We had nothing,
we were poor, we were completely unable to pay our debt, and we
couldn't bring anything of any value to the Lord. And he did
everything for us in Christ. And that's the way he's going
to destroy the wicked in us and the wicked outside. Christ is
going to come in all of his power and he's going to bring Satan
and his kingdom to an absolute end. Everything that Satan intended
to do to his people is going to be done to him, just like
Haman, hung on the very gallows he thought to put Mordecai on.
The devices, the net of the wicked that they scheme to bring Christ
into, that's what they're going to be given. They're going to
give, they're going to receive what they wanted to give against
Him and His people. And so the Lord's going to do
this. But in the meantime, at this present time in our lives,
we're not praying against the wicked like, bring down the president,
or bring down the emperor of China, or bring down the governor,
or the mayor, or something like that. That's not our goal. Our
goal right now is to pray for those who are kings and in authority,
that the Lord might be merciful to them, because we're no different
than them by nature. We need mercy just like they
do, and God will save us just like he saves them. So we pray
for them, just like Jesus. He came into the world. I didn't
come to condemn the world, I came to save it. So now during this
gospel age, God is saying, take this gospel and preach it to
every creature under heaven, and those that believe will be
saved. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that we might see
your hand here in this psalm against the wicked nature that
we're born with, that we are by nature what we are in ourselves,
our greatest enemy, and that we would also see your hand over
the kingdom of Satan. You have overcome this world,
therefore you have overcome the prince of this world. And we
thank you, Lord, that because you've overcome this world and
its prince and death and the grave, that you have delivered
us from all of our enemies. Our sins cannot come before you. You've put them away. You've
justified us. Christ the Lord, who died for
us, has risen and reigns and now intercedes for us. And nothing
shall separate us from his love. And we pray, Lord, that this
message from your gospel, a glorious message of your salvation, will
come to us in power so that we might live in the wilderness
of this world by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and He shall
have the victory. He shall give His victory to
us. We shall be more than conquerors
through Him that loved us. What a blessing Your Word is
to know the state, the real state of things. And so we pray, Lord,
exalt Yourself, lift Yourself up, show Yourself strong on behalf
of Your people, fulfill Your Word to them, and show forth
your name and your glory and faithfulness so that none of
your enemies can ever say that you were not able to save the
poor and the feeble and the wretched and the blind and the lame and
the scabby and the spotted and the speckled. That you saved
all of your sheep and brought them all to you because it was
your work and not our worthiness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.