Psalms chapter 37. We'll spend
the day here today, this morning, this afternoon. But I want to
read the Psalms. I'm not going to cover the whole
Psalms, but I want to read it so it will be hopefully in our
minds. Psalms chapter 37 and verse 1. Fret not thyself because of evildoers,
neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For
they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the
green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good. So shall thou dwell in the land,
and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord,
and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way
unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to
pass. And he shall bring forth thy
righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently
for him. Fret not thyself because of him
who prospereth in his way, because of the man that bringeth wicked
devices to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake
wrath. Fret not thyself in any wise
to do evil. For evildoers shall be cut off,
but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the
earth. For yet a little while, and the
wicked shall not be. Yea, thou shalt diligently consider
his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the
earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The
wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his
teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him,
for he seeth that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn
out the sword, and have bent their bow to cast down the poor
and needy, and to slay such as be of an upright conversation. Their sword shall enter into
their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. A little that
a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.
For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholdeth
the righteous. The Lord knoweth the days of
the upright, and their inheritance shall be for ever. They shall
not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine they
shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish,
and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs. They
shall consume, and to smoke shall they consume away. The wicked
borroweth, and payeth not again, but the righteous showeth mercy,
and giveth. For such as be blessed of him
shall inherit the earth, and they that be cursed of him shall
be cut off. The steps of a good man are ordered
by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he
shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with
his I have been young, and now am old. Yet have I not seen the
righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging breath. He is ever merciful
and lendeth, and his seed is blessed. Depart from evil, and
do good, and dwell for evermore. For the Lord loveth judgment,
and forsaketh not his saints. They are preserved for ever,
but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall
inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever. The mouth of the righteous
speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment. The law
of his God is in his heart. None of his steps shall slide.
The wicked watches the righteous, and seeketh to slay him. The
Lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he
is judged. Wait on the Lord, and keep his
way. and he shall exalt thee to inherit
the land. When the wicked are cut off,
thou shalt see it. I have seen the wicked in great
power, and spread in himself like a green bay tree. Yet he
passed away, and lo, he was not. Yea, I sought him, but he could
not be found. Mark the perfect man, and behold
the upright, for the end of that man is peace. But the transgressors
shall be destroyed together, and the end of the wicked shall
be cut off. But the salvation of the righteous
is of the Lord. He is their strength in the time
of trouble. And the Lord shall help them
and deliver them. He shall deliver them from the
wicked and save them, because they trust in Him." Brother Mahan,
pulpit a number of years ago, preached from this psalm, and
I remember what he titled his message. I've not heard the message
since then, but I remember the title of his message, and it
was, Words to Live By. And I'm not going to preach his
message, but I want to borrow his title, Words to Live By. And this morning I just want
to look at one of them, but I have some comments on this psalm. It has to do with opposition.
You probably noticed that as I read this psalm. It has to
do with opposition between the righteous and the wicked, the
believers and the unbelievers. And this has gone on ever since
the fall of man. This is what's been happening.
Opposition between the children of God and the children of the
devil. between the seed, the holy seed,
and the corrupt seed. If you're in Christ this morning,
you're of that holy seed, that spiritual seed. You're Abraham's
seed. And you're in opposition with Satan's seed. And that's
what this psalm here is about. These two are set against one
another. And man, sometimes this opposition
becomes intense. The righteous want peace. They
seek it, don't they? They want peace between themselves
and God. They want peace of conscience.
They want peace between their brothers and their sisters. They
want peace with everybody that will allow them to have peace
with them. But the wicked, the unbelievers,
they don't want peace. They want war. They want to fight. David said this, ìMy soul hath
long dwelt with him that hateth peace.î I am for peace. Me too. Me too. But he said,
ìWhen I speak, they are for war.î They want to fight. This world
wants to fight, donít it? There are some unbelievers who
are just plain old contrary. I mean, theyíre no respective
person. when it comes to causing people
pain. It's not about you personally.
You may have co-workers like this. You may have relatives
like this or neighbors like this. They're just out to cause people
hurt. And you don't have to take them
personally because they're like that to everybody. But there
are those occasions when the unbeliever plots against the
believer and it gets him angry. He's angry. Have you ever had
anybody to look at you and you know they were angry at you?
And boy, that hurts, doesn't it? They're angry with you and
you know it. And they speak harsh words. And they do it because you're
Christ. They do that simply because you
are a believer. He says here in verse 12, "...the
wicked plotteth against the just." They plot to hurt Him. They plot
to demote Him. They plot to embarrass Him and
sometime even to kill Him. The Jews plotted against the
Son of God. They had their secret meetings
and watched and waited to take Him and kill Him. They plotted
against Him. And it says here that they gnasheth
upon Him wither teeth. They grit their teeth, they are
so mad, and the words that came out of their mouth are like sharp
swords. This is what they did to Stephen,
when it said they picked up rocks and they gnashed on him with
their teeth, and then they stoned him to death. And here in verse
14 of our text, it said they have drawn out the sword, and
they have bent their bow, and look who they have bent it against.
Look who they've drawn out their sword against, the poor and the
needy. Now you can understand one wicked
person plotting and drawing out a weapon on another wicked person,
but here is a poor, weak, broken Christian and he's plotting against
him. And he says, not only against
the poor and the needy, but to slay such as be of an upright
heart. You know this shows man's hateful
depravity, doesn't it? If he was made to fight somebody,
Greg, it was different. But just to come up and reproach
a poor, needy child of God and seek to slay him. I tell you,
it tells us not only man's depravity, but it tells us somebody else
is behind the things working, doesn't it? Man wouldn't be as
near as mean as he is if the devil didn't get in his heart
and stir him up. And that's what Satan's doing
here. Cain was said to argue with Abel and slew him. And why
did he slay Abel? Abel was a just man, wasn't he?
He was a believer in the Son of God, a tender man. And Cain
slew him. And why did the Bible say Cain
slew him? Because he was of the wicked
one. Satan was working in his heart,
stirring his heart up, his enmity against his Christian brother. And Cain hated the Lord. He hated
the ways of the Lord. And when he saw Abel offering
that bloody sacrifice for his sins, and when he found out that
he was rejected because of his own works, he said, man, I hate
him. I'm going to kill him. And he
gnashed on him with his teeth and laid wait for him and stoned
him to death. Judas did the same thing with
the Son of God, didn't he? He went to him and plotted the
hour and the way to betray the Son of God. And who was it put
that in his heart? Satan put it in his heart to
betray the Son of God. So all of this plotting of these
men here, there's somebody working behind the scenes. And that's
the devil. You and I have been blessed not
to suffer physical persecution. And I'm thankful for that, aren't
you? I'll never pray God send affliction to this country. I
hope as long as I live and my children live, we've got peace,
we've got liberties that we've had so often in this country.
I bless God that he set up the kind of government that we have
that we've got these liberties. If somebody jumps onto me physically,
I can call the police and I'll do it if I've got a phone. But you know suffering is relative? We don't have to be beat up physically,
or we don't have to suffer martyrdom and death to really suffer. And somebody looks at you with
that hateful attitude, and man, it kills you, doesn't it? And
they take the words that's coming out of their mouth like sharp
swords sticking in your chest, and man, that hurts. But it's
relative, isn't it? We lived in the days of our forefathers.
We think, man, we got it made today. But we don't live in their
days, do we? We live in our time. And suffering
is always relative to us. We're not suffering as near what
other people are suffering in other countries. But we're suffering. And our suffering means something
to us, just as theirs meant something to them. We hurt. when someone has a hateful
attitude towards us. It hurts when they speak unkind
words to us and misjudge us and misrepresent us and threaten
us in some way or another. When the rulers wanted to stop
the apostles from preaching, they began with threats. Let
us severely threaten them. That's what people begin with,
isn't it? Try to intimidate you. They try to threaten you. But then, they carry out the
threats. They carry out the threats. My
wife was listening to a message left on our answering machine
the other day. I came in the house and she was
so distraught and upset and she was on the phone and she got
a message from the IRS that says you're under investigation or
you're going to be arrested or something. And she got so upset. And she called back and it was
some of these foreigners trying to intimidate people, trying
to threaten people over the phone and with letters and this and
that. People are like that, aren't they? And it doesn't bother them. They'll threaten you and worry
you and cause you to fret if they can. It wasn't long until these verbal
threats from these Pharisees and the Sanhedrin turned into
physical beatings. They beat them. And later on,
they killed some of them. As soon as the Lord saves you,
I tell you, you begin to suffer in some way or another. You begin
to suffer with your heart and in your heart with this warfare
from this old nature. And you may suffer from those
who used to be your buddies when you were in sin with them. Peter
said this, they think it strange that you run not with them to
the same excess of right. And then what do they do? They
speak evil of you. When they use God's holy name
in vain now, you don't laugh anymore, do you? It grieves you. When they tell their vulgar jokes
to you now, you don't think they're funny. When you now tell them
of your Savior, after a while they might begin to speak evil
of you and evil to you, and they get harsh in their attitude.
And I tell you, it can grieve you. Let it go on long enough.
Let it go on deep enough, and after a while it will begin to
grieve you. You suffer because of that. I don't know what our first reaction
would be. and the anxiety it would cause
us if you and I were physically beaten. And if the authorities
come and threw us in jail and took our stuff, how would we
feel? How would we feel? Would we begin
to fret? Sometimes someone's bad attitude
towards us can almost kill us. Harsh words can stick in our
chest. In this world, you shall have
tribulation, our Master said. We must, through much tribulation,
enter into the Kingdom of God. If we suffer with Him, if we
suffer for His namesake and because of Him, we shall reign with Him. There are two things concerning
suffering at the hands of unbelievers. Two things. The first one is
this. We don't respond in kind. We don't respond in kind. We
don't respond with our hateful attitude. We don't respond with
unkind words. Be not overcome with evil. but
overcome evil with good. There may be times, and thank
God when there is, that we can lawfully defend ourselves, but
not by acting like the unbelievers act. You speak hateful to me,
I'll be mean to you. You threaten me and I'll dare
you to do it. You curse me and I'll curse you back. You slap
me and I'll slap you back. You hate me and I'll hate you
back. You plot to hurt and kill me and I'll plot to kill you
first. We cannot answer in kind. This is the way of the world,
isn't it? This is the way of the unbeliever. Here's the thing
about the true child of God. He don't desire to act like the
world. The fight's been taken out of
him. I heard Clarence say the other day, and I knew Clarence
before the Lord saved him, he was an arrogant, proud, ex-Marine
that fought all the time and thought he could whip anybody.
Ain't that about the size of a Clarence? I was talking to
him the other day and you know what he said? He said, the fight's
out of me. The fight's gone out of me. That's
the way it is when God calls a person to Himself. He breaks
him, doesn't He? He takes the fight out of him.
He's poor and he's needy and he's broken. And don't expect
him to act like the world and revenge and avenge himself. He's not like that anymore. The
Lord took that old goat attitude from him and put a sheep attitude. He can't fight and plot and try
by carnal and evil means to outmaneuver the wicked world. He just can't
live that way. He wants peace. There are times
and situations in a believer's life when he's being mistreated
and he absolutely finds no way that's lawful to avenge himself
without stooping to some wicked devices. And he can't do it because
he's a believer. Christ is in him. And it's in
these situations, in these times, when the Lord Jesus says, Turn
the other cheek. And it's in these times and situations
when he cannot find a lawful way to defend himself that Paul
speaks and says, Brethren, avenge not yourselves. But give place
to wrath. Give place to wrath. And that's
what this psalm is talking about. When you come to the place where
you have no lawful means to defend yourself, and you will not avenge
yourself, you will not stoop to the wicked devices of the
evil, what do you do then? Don't fret. That's what this
psalm is about. So the first thing is, You don't
respond in kind. You're not of this world. You
don't respond in kind. The second thing is the believer
is not to fret. He doesn't respond when he's
persecuted, when the wicked plot against him, and not only does
he not respond, he's told here not to fret. This word fret means
to be overly irritated. overly disturbed, overly vexed,
overly angry to the point of wrath. You ever had that feeling? Well, we've had that feeling,
haven't we? Threaten not thyself because
of evil doers. Do we get disturbed and vexed
because of the sins of wicked people? Of course we do. Of course
we do. David said, Rivers of water run
down my eyes because they keep not thy law. Who could live in
the time that you and I live in, could see all the sin of
our day and not be vexed? Lot was vexed, wasn't he? With
a filthy conversation of the righteous. Sins against one another? I've seen in Chicago alone, on
the south side of Chicago, already this year, January, February,
March, three months of this year, there has been 900 people murdered. Can you imagine that? That's
a war zone, isn't it? If we were losing that kind of
a man overseas in a war, man, it would be serious. That vexes
me, doesn't it, you? Because those are human beings
killing one another. Sins against God, sins against
His law, His gospel, sins against mercy. Man, we see a lot of people,
I know people, I've got relatives, dear relatives that I love who
are right now sinning against mercy. And to sin against the
law is one thing. That's dangerous. But to sin
against mercy, that's more dangerous still, isn't it? And we see that
and our heart bleeds and we're grieved. Secret sins and open
sins. But we're told not to fret because
of these evildoers. Don't get so angry. We're ready
to stoop to any means, even wicked means. to stop the source of
wickedness. Don't go out and blow up an abortion
claim. Nobody in this room could possibly
be so disgusted with abortion. It's the most repulsive thing
that I can imagine. But for me to take a bomb, to
take some dynamite, and put it in an abortion clinic and blow
it up would mean I'm stupid to the tactics of evil men. We can't fret until we get to
that point. If we're going to do that, what
about going and blowing up the churches where God is lying on
and where people are deceived? Where does it end? If we start
down that road, where does it end? Do we start cutting people's
ears off? Do we draw out a sword and start cutting their ears
off? Are we still cutting their heads off? The Lord Jesus said if you live
by the sword, you'll die by it, didn't He? You'll die by it.
Don't fret because of open and profane sins of the wicked. Don't
fret because of the secret sins of the hypocrite. Don't fret
because of crooked, lying politicians who promise things they know
they cannot deliver. Don't fret because the prospect
of a felon economy. Don't fret because of wars and
rumors of wars. Don't fret because of rumors.
Don't fret. This world is evil, and sometimes
the evil touches our homes. And it touches our hearts and
it can get difficult to bear. And some of you have experienced
this, haven't you? And it's for this reason we're told in this
psalm, don't be overly agitated. Don't be overly irritated. Don't
be overly angry and want to lash out and avenge yourself to stop
the source of the pain. Look what he says here in verse
8 in our text. He says, cease from anger. Cease from anger. It will consume
you. Cease from anger. And forsake
wrath, fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. Well, there are some times when
we can lawfully protect ourselves and do something to stop the
evil and the harassment. And I thank God for those times.
But sometimes He shuts us up, doesn't He? And we can't even
protect ourselves. And when that time comes, here's
where He says, fret not thyself. How can we keep from fretting
within our hearts? How can we control and subdue
and keep this from controlling us and subduing us? Let's just
look at one word first of all, and we'll look at the rest of
them this afternoon. He gives us some words here. He gives
us trust in verse 3, delight in the Lord in verse 4, commit
your way unto Him in verse 5, and in verse 7, rest in the Lord. Those are some good words to
help us not to fret. But let's just look right quickly,
just a few more minutes, at this word in verse 3, trust in the
Lord and do good. Trust in the Lord. This is the
first thing He gives us and it's so important because this is
where we begin our Christian life, wasn't it? We know something
about trust because He has taught us to trust Him for our salvation
in the very beginning. I tell you where you begin your
experience. We always want to hear people's experiences. And
they differ so vastly, don't they? But I tell you where one
of our experiences, where they all come together. And here's
where they're all the same. However the Lord brought you
to Himself, He brought you to put all your trust in Jesus Christ
the Lord. Now if a man hasn't done that,
he's not a Christian, is he? He's not a Christian. He's brought
to give himself up To be saved by a person and a means outside
himself. To trust somebody else. And you
know, brothers and sisters, that's not as easy as we think. I mean,
when you think of the importance of our soul and eternity and
standing before God, you can't help but try to save yourself.
And it's difficult to strip self-trust away and to give yourself up
to be saved by Jesus Christ and His merit. And you won't do it.
And you can't do it apart from grace. It's the easiest thing
in the world to do through grace. But it's impossibility without
the grace of God to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. We trust in the blood of Christ
to cleanse us. We trust in His grace to save
us. We trust in His finished obedience to justify us. Salvation
is of the Lord, and it comes from Him. And as soon as we trust
Him, He saves us. We can pray, we can fast, we
can give, we can work, and all of these other things that may
be good in and of themselves, but we can never be saved. until
we put all our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. He asked those two blind men
one time, do you believe that I'm able to do this? Boy, that's
a good question, isn't it? And he still asked that question
to everyone. Do you believe I'm able to save
you by myself? And he has to bring the heart
to say, yea, Lord, I believe you're able. Yea, Lord, I believe
you are able. If one hers breath of our salvation
is in self-trust, then we are lost. Our anchor of trust must
be taken out of our own ship and cast upon that solid rock
of salvation. Any other trust and our ship
will go down into the black waters of judgment. Paul said, You trusted
Him. After you heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation, you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust is where we began, and
trust must never end. We must live our lives trusting
in the Lord. That's the remedy for fretting. Proverbs said, Trust in the Lord
with all your heart, as opposed to what? Lean in upon your own
understanding. I tell you, we can't understand
anything, can we? We just can't understand anything.
There are trials we go through, and we can't understand exactly
how we got in it. We come to ourself and we say,
how did I get in this mess? And we don't know how to get
out of it. Trust. must be exercised in the
Lord. There are two things we must
trust the Lord for. Number one is to guide us as
His children. We trust Him to guide us in the
way. And number two, we must trust
Him to deal with the unbelievers in His own time and in His own
way. And that is very important. Nobody
is getting by with anything. Nobody's getting by with anything.
We must trust the Lord for that. Do we trust in our sovereign
Lord to be able, in His wisdom, to direct our steps? Are we still
under the impression that we can direct our steps better than
He can? Do we think we're wiser than
our great sovereign Lord? Do we trust that our Lord is
faithful enough and cares enough for us to do it? When we take
in hand to direct our own steps, brothers and sisters, that's
the first evidence of mistrust on our part. We're not trusting
Him to do it. Mistrust will give way to fretting
every time. The only remedy for fretting
is to trust in the Lord. God purposed to put Joseph on
the throne there in Egypt, right under Pharaoh. He was going to
be the governor. But how God got him there would
confuse the wisest man that ever lived, wouldn't it? Who could have thought the first
step for Joseph being exalted was to be hated of his brother? Who would have ever thought that
before he could save much people alive, he had to be sold into
slavery? And if he was going to bind Pharaoh's
princes, he was going to first have to be bound himself. The
only way to the throne was out of the dungeon. Now that's a
mystery, isn't it? But that's God's way. This was
the Lord's way of leading Joseph, and almost every step of the
way was out of Joseph's control. He lost all control. He went
to see his brethren, and he was whistling, walking through the
field. He thought they were going to receive him and love him and
fix him a meal. They put him down in a pit. And
when he cried, they wouldn't even listen to him. And when they sold him to those
Ishmaelites, he tried to beg them not to do it, but they wouldn't
hear it. He went down to Egypt, and one
of the first things that happened to him was he was accused of
attempted rape. And he said, I'm not guilty.
I'm not guilty. Did anybody believe him? No.
He tried his best as lawfully as he could to defend himself
and to save himself from those heathens down in Egypt. But what
happened to him? They put him in the prison. He
got down in the prison. Pharaoh has two servants there.
One of them was going back up to Pharaoh's house. And Joseph
said, Please remember me. That's what I'd have said. But
he forgot him. Every step of the way, every
avenue he went down, Every door he tried to go through was shut
right in his face. He was utterly dependent upon
the Lord to lead him. And I just wonder sometimes if
that wasn't one of the most confused young men that you've ever seen.
The Bible says he wept. He's away from his daddy, his
brother, his mommy. He was down there where he couldn't
understand the language. And I wonder if he didn't lay
there of the night in that dark cell and weep and think, what
in the world has happened? Everybody's turned on me and
it's out of my control. But all along, the Lord was leading
him. Dear child of God, the Lord of
glory has purposed to take you to heaven, to his house, and
bless you without measure. But the way there, It's full
of twists and it's full of turns and dark valleys and hills of
difficulty and you'll never make it. You'll never make it unless
God directs your steps. You must trust Him to do it. If you don't, you'll spend your
time fretting and angry at this circumstances. You are fretting
and angry at that person and this person if you don't trust
the Lord to direct your steps. Jeremiah said this in Jeremiah
10.23, O Lord, listen, this is important to know. Listen, he
said, Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh
to direct his steps. It's not, is it? We don't have
the wisdom. We don't have the power of the
will to direct our own steps. He said, Lord, correct me, but
with judgment, not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing. And when the Lord directs our
steps, it doesn't mean we'll never err. and never fall. But it just means that when we
do fall, He'll pick us up. Look what He says here in my
text, and look in verse 23 again. The steps of a good man are ordered
by the Lord, and though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast
down. For the Lord upholdeth him with
His hand. We fall. We're not angels, are
we? We're mortals living in sinful
bodies in a sinful world. And you know something? Even
our falls are directed by the Lord. Now, this is a mystery. And I'm not about to get up here
and charge God with sin. But I tell you, even our falls
are directed of the Lord. Let me ask you this question.
If they're not directed of Him, who directs them? If that's out
of His control, ain't that scary? Because I tell you this, you're
going to fall. It may be a heart fall. It may be an open fall
where everybody knows it, but you're going to fall. And the
Lord knows you're going to fall, and He's made provision for that. Aren't you thankful? Oh, Peter
said, Lord, not me. I ain't going to fall. Everybody
else may fall, but I ain't going to fall. You need to be talking
to these other guys. I'm not like everybody else.
They may deny you and forsake you, but not me, Lord. I'll go
with you unto death." Who was the first one that forsook Him
and cursed and swore that they never knew Him? Was the Lord in charge of that?
Could the Lord have stopped that? I tell you what He does sometimes
by directing our faults He teaches us a valuable lesson that we
can't learn any other way. He humbles us and makes us to
know, Lord, if you don't direct my steps, then I'm not going
to make it. I'm not going to make it. If you are being persecuted,
if you are being afflicted, dear child of God, There is a purpose
in it. God is directing your steps,
even your fall. And He is going to take you along
this road to His house. You think Joseph never did fall?
You think he never had these things going on in his mind and
thoughts? You think everything he did from
the time his brothers sold him till he's put on the throne was
just perfect little Joseph? He struggled just like we did.
And when he got down there and out he was thinking, man, I know
why this is happening. It's because I thought this,
and it's because I did this, and it's because I said that.
This is all my fault. I'm to blame for every bit of
this. But who was it that got him there? It was the Lord. And
what was He doing? Directing His steps. How necessary
that is! And to bring ourselves to trust
in Him to direct our steps will keep us from credit. Brother
Mahan, and you may have said it right in this pulpit on this
message, I can't remember, but I remember Brother Mahan saying
one time, if the Lord took us through this world and took us
within ten feet of Heaven's gate and said, now listen, I brought
you this far. I'm going to let you get the rest of the way."
He said within 10 feet we'd be lost before we got there. You
know who'd be waiting right there at those 10 steps away from the
gate? Satan would say, I'm going to camp out right here. And as
soon as the Lord lays it up to them, I've got them. The Lord
directs our steps. And what He's purposed to do
is direct this way through troubles and trials and falls and picking
us up. and giving us renewed energy,
making us put our nose back to the grindstone and go on. And
He's through this going to direct our steps right in to heaven. Trust Him. Trust Him. The last
thing quickly is this. Feel sympathy for your persecutors
in whatever sense and whoever it is that may be persecuting
you. are afflicting your heart and
grieving you. Pity that person. Pray for that
person. Pray that God will save them.
While all along knowing and trusting the Lord will deal with them
in His own time and in His own way. He will. He will. The Lord Jesus saved
many of His persecutors, didn't He? Saved 3,000 of them on the
day of Pentecost. That's 3,000 men. And Peter said
to them, you have taken the Lord and crucified Him and slain Him.
You've persecuted the Lord Jesus Christ. And what did He do? He
saved them. The Lord saves His persecutor. He saved Stephen's
persecutor, Saul of Tarsus. And He might save that one who's
persecuting you. But if he does, we can trust
the Lord for this. He will deal with them in justice. No hateful attitude goes unnoticed
by him. No foul word or every stroke
that causes you pain, he sees it. And they'll face it upon
the day of judgment. Verse 12 of our text says, The
wicked plotteth against the just. They gnasheth upon him with their
teeth. But you know, there is another
psalm that says the Lord is going to break their teeth out. He
is going to break their teeth out. Man alive! We have seen that happen to people,
haven't we? Have you ever seen anybody get in a fight and somebody
hit them with a pair of knucks or something and bust their whole
front teeth out? And there they are, their mouth
full of blood. He said, I'm going to bust your teeth out. You gnashed
on my people and now I'm going to gnash on you. I'm going to
bust your teeth out. The wicked use their arms to
accomplish all sorts of evil in this world. But in verse 17,
he says, the arms of the wicked shall be broken. He's going to
break a man's arm. In verse 14, David said, the
wicked have drawn out the sword and bent their bow to cast down
the poor and the needy. But he said, their bow or their
sword shall enter into their own hearts. If every eye of a word men's
going to give account of. How much more are these words
that are like swords? People don't care what they say.
I've never lived in a day, in a time like this, that people
don't care what they say. I keep telling the grandbabies,
girls listen, every idle word that we speak we'll give account
of. And yet look at the words, look
at the hostile words, the words of enmity and cruelty. and lies
that have been spoken. And on the Day of Judgment, the
Lord is going to turn those words, and boy, they are going to be
like swords in the hearts of the wicked. David said, I have seen the wicked
in great power, here in verse 35, and spread in himself like
a green bay tree. And yet, what did he say? He
passed away. He passed away. And lo, He was not. I saw Him,
but He could not be found. Brothers and sisters, put your
trust in the Lord. And don't fret. Put your trust
in Him to guide you through this world and uphold you in every
step of the way. And He'll do that. He's faithful.
And if somebody's causing you pain, remember this, He'll deal
with them. He'll deal with them. And He
knows how to deal with them, don't He? And that'll help us. Put your trust in the Lord and
that'll help you. This afternoon we'll go back and we'll look
at these other words here. Delight and commit and rest and
cease from anger. Let's pray.