Would you turn to Psalm 58. Psalm
58. Do you indeed speak righteousness,
O congregation? Do you judge uprightly, O ye
sons of men? Yea, in heart you work wickedness. You weigh the violence of your
hands in the earth. The wicked are estranged from
the womb. They go astray as soon as they
be born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison
of a serpent. They are like the deaf adder
that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice
of charmers charming ever so wisely. Break their teeth, O
God, in their mouth. Break out the great teeth of
the young lions, O Lord. Let them melt away as waters
which run continually. When he bendeth his bow to shoot
his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces. As a snail which melteth,
let every one of them pass away. Like the untimely birth of a
woman, that they may not see the sun. Before your pots can
feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind.
both living and in his wrath. The righteous shall rejoice when
they see the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the
blood of the wicked, so that a man shall say, verily, there
is a reward for the righteous. Verily, he is a God that judgeth
the earth. Let's pray. Lord, we come into your presence
in the name, the high name, the righteousness and merits of thy
dear son. Lord, we ask that by your spirit
we might be enabled to hear your gospel, to believe your gospel. Pray that you would be pleased
to speak in power to our hearts. Lord, we confess our sin. We
confess the inability to confess it as we should. And we pray
that through the intercession of your son, our prayers will
be acceptable in your sight. We pray that you'd unite our
hearts together to fear thy name. Lord, we pray for our friends
that are going through such difficult times. We pray for your grace
upon them. Lord, we would remember all your
people wherever they meet together. We pray for your blessing on
the upcoming conference. We pray that you give each speaker
a word from you for our hearts. Now bless us for Christ's sake.
In his name we pray. Amen. Now this is another one of what
is called the imprecatory Psalms. By that, David is cursing people
using very strong language. You couldn't help but notice
that as he made these curses against the people he is speaking
to. Look in Psalm 59. Here's something
similar in verse 13 where he says, consume them in wrath.
consume them that they may not be, and let them know that God
ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth." Now, this psalm
I just read in Psalm 58 has been left out of some psalm books
for singing because it's been said that it's incompatible with
Christian doctrine. That's foolishness. Look in Psalm
69 for a moment. This Psalm is quoted in Romans
11. So this is actually quoted in
the New Testament. Verse 21, they gave me also gall
for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Who's speaking? That's the Lord speaking, isn't it? And look
what he goes on to say, let their table become a snare before them,
and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become
a trap. Let their eyes be darkened that they see not and make their
loins continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon
them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. And you can
go on reading, but the point is, this is the Lord speaking,
and he's speaking in what is called the imprecatory Psalms,
where David is cursing someone. Now, I think of the Lord's denunciation
of the Pharisees. In Matthew chapter 23, here's
the language he used, hypocrites. fools and blind, blind guides,
whitewashed sepulchers, serpents, generation of vipers. How can
you escape the damnation of hell? That is the Lord's Language and
I suppose these apostles of love should think this should be blotted
out of the new testament because the lord speaks With such language,
but this is inspired by the spirit of god for our benefit verse
one Do you indeed speak righteousness? Oh congregation now this word
congregation is The only time this word is used in the Old
Testament. And about all the other translations,
silent ones, silent ones. It's the adjective
that means silent, not speaking up. To be dumb. The Lord refers to this in Matthew
chapter 23 verse 23 when he says to the Pharisees, you've omitted
the weightier matters of the law. You've kept your mouth shut
when you should be speaking. You know, quite often, listen
to this real carefully, quite often a false prophet is identified
not by what he says, but what he leaves out. what he fails
to say. That is generally the issue with
the false prophet. It's not so much what he says,
but what he fails to say, what he omits, what he leaves out. Turn to John chapter 12. John chapter 12. Verse 42, nevertheless
among the chief rulers Also, many believed on him. But. Well, that's a dangerous, but isn't
it? But because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him. They didn't publicly identify
with his message by their mouth. Lest they should be put out of
the synagogue for they love the praise of men. more than the
praise of God. And that kept them from saying
that which should have been said. Now, David is rebuking these
silent ones. He says, do you speak righteousness,
you silent ones? Do you judge uprightly? Obviously not. Yea, here's what's
going on in your silence. Yea, in heart you work wickedness. You weigh the violence of your
hands in the earth. Now this is what is behind this
silence. You are working wickedness. Now that is true of anybody who
fails to confess the truth. I think of Paul quoting David
when he said, The spirit of faith is, I have believed, therefore
have I spoken. Now he is rebuking these silent
ones, these ones who failed to tell the truth. guard their language. They speak in ways so as not
to offend. They speak in ways so as not
to be understood. They won't come out and say it.
And this is what David is rebuking them for, you silent ones. Now look what he says in verse
three, the wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray
as soon as they be born, speaking lies. Now, this is speaking of
original sin. Adam's original sin that we're
all infected with, and this is the way we're born. The wicked
are estranged, and the word estranged means enemies, enemies. The wicked are enemies from the
womb. They go about as soon as they
be born speaking lies. Did you ever have to teach your
children to lie? Comes natural, doesn't it? They lie as easily
as they breathe. So do we. It's just what we are
by nature. The wicked are enemies from the
womb. Listen to this scripture. Romans 8, 7 says the carnal mind,
the natural mind, the mind you were born with, the carnal mind,
is enmity. It doesn't say against God. It
is enmity. It is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God. Neither indeed can be. Now, this is who he's speaking
of when he's speaking of the wicked. And every one of us know
that this is what we all are by nature. estranged from the
womb, born evil. Did you know that you were born
a very evil person? That's what scripture says. Born
that way. Thank God for grace. The wicked
are estranged from the womb. They go about as soon as they
be born speaking lies. And you know, I thought about
this, you know, when a baby's crying, a lot of times they're
lying. The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go about
as soon as the, I remember one time saying, were kids smarter
back then? No, they were just wicked. Wicked. That's the description
of you and I. Look what it says in verse four. Their poison is like the poison
of a serpent. They are like the deaf adder
that stop at her ear. which will not hearken to the
voice of charmers, charming never so wisely, although the gospels
preach clearly. They will not hear because they
don't want to hear. Now that's, that is why we're
so bad because we want to be that way. We want to be that way. Don't
want to hear the gospel. Don't want to bow to the truth.
And that describes every natural man. Now, notice what David says. He doesn't say, I'm gonna break
their teeth. He asked the Lord to do something about it. Remember,
vengeance on our part is never right under any circumstance.
The Lord said, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.
And what David is doing is asking the Lord to do something about
this. Look what he says. Break their
teeth, O God, in their mouth. Break out the great teeth of
the young lions, oh Lord. That's how he describes their
speech, the roaring of a lion, break their teeth. Verse seven,
let them melt away as waters which run continually. That's
the picture is water being poured into the sand and just disappearing.
Let that be the effect of their words. Let them melt away as
waters which run continually. When he bendeth his bow to shoot
his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces. Let them be blunted
and dulled or cut in half so they don't do any damage. That's
what he's saying he wants their speech to be. Verse eight, as
a snail which melteth away, let every one of them pass away.
Like the untimely birth of a woman, a boarded baby, that they may
not see the sun. Before your pots can feel the
thorns, he shall take them away with a whirlwind, both living
and in his wrath. That's strong language, isn't
it? That he's using against these
people. Now, if God be for us, who can
be against us? But if God be against us, who
can be for us? And that's what he is referring
to. Now, verse 10, the righteous shall rejoice when
he seeth the vengeance, he shall wash his feet in the blood of
the wicked. Now, the first thing that I would
point out about this is we read of the two kinds of people, righteous
and wicked. And those terms are absolute,
absolutely righteous, in God's sight, absolutely righteous,
no mixture, or absolutely wicked. That is how God sees me, either
absolutely righteous, or absolutely wicked. And let me remind you,
the way God sees is the way it really is. And he speaks of the
righteous and the wicked. And every time I use this scriptural
definition of all men, you're either saved or lost, righteous
or wicked, in Christ or out of Christ, all the different, I
love saying this, all of the righteous, believe themselves
to be wicked. And all of the wicked believe
themselves to be righteous, or at least have the potential to
be righteous. If I, if I get my act together,
I can, no, no. Righteous and wicked. Now, how
does someone, how can someone be righteous? Turn to Romans
chapter four. But, verse five, Romans chapter
four, verse five, but to him that worketh not. What's that mean? You understand
that you're so sinful that if salvation is dependent upon any
work you perform, there's no hope for you. Do you understand
that? to him that worketh not, but
believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly. Here's your hope
of being righteous because God, by what Christ did, justified
you, cleared you of all guilt, made you righteous, when in and
of yourself, you're nothing but ungodly. You understand that? To him that worketh not, but
believeth on him. Not believing in yourself. You
believe on him that justifies the ungodly. His faith is counted
for righteousness. Verse six, even as David also
described the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth
righteousness. Without works. saying, blessed
are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered
by the blood of Christ. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Now there's the righteous man,
that's how he is righteous, because of God who justifies the ungodly. Now, let's go back to Psalm 58. The righteous shall rejoice when
he seeth the vengeance. He's going to rejoice when he
sees God taking vengeance against this wicked person. He shall
wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. Now, that's a difficult
concept for me and you to understand. You know why? Because of this
thing called the flesh. We do not see as God sees. One day we will, when the flesh
is put down, we'll see everything exactly as God sees it. And we will rejoice in the destruction
of anybody that's opposed to God. Now we can't really enter
into that right now because of our sinful flesh. We don't look
at things from the right, perfect perspective that God does. Turn
with me for a moment to Revelation chapter 19. Revelation 19, verse one. And after these things, this
is talking about what's going on in heaven. Judgment day, after
these things, I heard a great voice of much people in heaven. This is what's going on in heaven,
saying, hallelujah. salvation and glory and honor
and power. Unto the Lord our God for true
and righteous are His judgments. For he hath judged the great
whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and
hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again
they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever
and ever, talking about the eternal torments. And the four and twenty
elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that
sat on the throne, saying, Alleluia. And a voice came out of the throne,
saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear
him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, in the
voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters,
and as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Hallelujah, for the Lord
God omnipotent reigneth." Now, this was the praise of the church
for God's judgments, Him rendering vengeance against the wicked. If I'm an unbeliever, the last thing I'm going to hear
before I'm cast into hell is all the universe applauding God
for ridding the earth of such a one as me. Now that's so. We don't, as I said, really understand
that now as we will then. Because I can't, I have a difficult
time thinking of rejoicing with anybody being cast into hell.
I do. But one of these days when I
see things as God sees them, I'll be in complete agreement
with him. You see, whatever the Lord does
is right. And he doesn't do it because
it's right, it's right because he does it. shall not the judge
of the earth do right. We're on the Lord's side. Remember
when Moses said, who's on the Lord's side? Every believer's
on the Lord's side and whatever he does is right. And so look
what he says in verse 11. So that a man shall say, verily,
There is a reward for the righteous. Verily, he is a God that judgeth
in the earth. Now, men know intuitively that
God is righteous and that he will reward the righteous and
punish the wicked. I mean, that understanding, that
knowledge is in everybody. We just understand that, just
like we know God is. Somebody says, I don't believe
in God. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. No, I don't. Yeah, you do. I don't. Yeah, you do. Yeah,
you do. You can't hide that. You can't
put that down. It's so. God is. And everybody
knows that God will reward the righteous and punish the wicked. Here's the hope. In Christ, I
am righteous. In Christ, I am absolutely righteous. In Christ, I have the very righteousness
of Christ as my personal righteousness. And there's a reward for the
righteous. He's my reward. I know beyond
the shadow of a doubt that I don't deserve any reward, but I know
beyond the shadow of a doubt that He does. And whatever His
reward is, my reward is, because His righteousness is my righteousness. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. A man shall say, Verily there
is a reward to the righteous. Verily he is a God that judgeth
in the earth. God's righteous. His judgments
are righteous. Everything he does is righteous. Everything he thinks is righteous
and is righteous because he is righteous. You know, the Lord
doesn't have a rule over his head that he needs to conform
to. He doesn't have righteous laws
that he needs to keep in order to make him righteous. He is
righteous. And anything he does or thinks,
all of his acts are all together righteous. Now when I think of
him casting somebody into hell right now, Part of me just cringes
at it. I don't think there's anything
more difficult than to think of the fact that there's a hell,
that people will spend eternity suffering the wrath of God. And
what all is involved with that, I don't know. As a matter of
fact, I hate to hear hellfire brimstone preaching. You know,
where preachers all actually talk about how almost have they
enjoyed the thought of somebody being sent to hell and trying
to scare. You know, hell is not supposed to scare, used to scare
people. If you don't be saved, you'll spend eternity in hell. No one ever believed because
of fear of hell. Hadn't happened, never will happen.
But remember this with regard to our God. He is just and righteous. There is a place called hell
that everybody outside of Christ will be cast into. And when we
no longer have this thing called the flesh weighing us down, we'll say righteous are his judgments
all together. And we're saying it right now,
too, in Christ. What a glorious, don't ever look
at the Psalms as, how can he be so mean? This is the Lord
speaking. And everything he says is perfect,
righteous, and just all together. Amen.