Be Not Silent

[0:00] let me say a quick prayer for us and then we can start reading heavenly father thank you that we get to come together and pray to you as a church as a local body of christ father we pray that you would bless our time together pray that you would strengthen us through the work of prayer and we pray that you would help us to be effective help us to bring to you our needs our desires help us to do kingdom work and be the engine for your kingdom and i pray that you're blessed your bless our time in your word and we pray in christine hey guys i swash your bells that's from king um all right psalm 109 be not silent oh god of my praise for wicked and deceitful mouths are open against me speaking against me with lying tongues they encircle me with words of hate and attack me without cause in return for my love they accuse me but i give myself to prayer so they reward me evil for good and hatred for my love appoint a wicked man against them let an accuser stand at his right hand when he has tried let him come forth guilty let his prayer be counted as sin may his days be few may another take his office may his children be fatherless and his wife a widow may his children wander about and beg seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit may the creditor seize all that he has may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil let there be none to extend kindness to him nor any to pity his fatherless children may his posterity be cut off may his name be plot blotted out the second generation may the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the lord and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out let them be before the lord continually that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth for he did not remember to show kindness but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted to put them to death he loved to curse let curses come upon him he did not delight in blessing may it be far from him he clothed himself with cursing as his coat may it soak into his body like water like oil into his bones may it be like a garment that he wraps around him like a belt that he puts on him every day may this be the reward of my accusers from the lord of those who speak evil against my life but you oh god my lord deal on my behalf for your namesake because your steadfast love is good deliver me psalm 109 verse 22 right now for i am poor and needy and my heart is stricken within me i am gone like a shadow at evening i am shaken off like a locust my knees are weak through fasting my body has become gaunt with no fat i am an object of scorn to my accusers when they see me they whack their heads help me oh lord my god save me according to your steadfast love let them know that this is your hand you oh lord have done it let them curse but you will bless they arise and are put to shame but your servant will be glad may my accusers be clothed with dishonor may they be wrapped in their own shame as in a cloak with my mouth i will give great thanks to the lord i will praise him in the midst of the throne for he stands at the right hand of the needy one to save him from those who condemn his soul to death so um psalm 109 is a lament uh that prays for god's wrath and judgment upon a person's enemies it creates a potential challenge for us as christians because as followers of christ we're called to love love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you but here we read some pretty like harsh curses upon one's enemies may his days be few may his children be fatherless that there be none to extend kindness to him so that's something we'll we'll need to wrestle with in this this passage and it helps to to hold on to the overall theme of psalm 109 which is how we respond in the face of injustice or malice so the main takeaway is that in the face of injustice we can entrust ourselves to god for his help and salvation so we can entrust ourselves to him there are three roughly three parts to this chapter there's verses one through five uh which is complaints against the enemies um and then verses uh six through 19 um which is uh the psalmist um curses upon his enemies and then the rest um is is um his plea to god and ultimately seeing the glory of god as as the end of all this um so let's look at verses one through five uh the psalmist complain to god he's got he's got enemies um he has people who are returning him evil for good um he's he's loved them but they're they're hating him back and he's getting attacked with with lots of slander words of lies and hate accusation um and so it's it's it's pretty awful experience to receive ingratitude when uh when you've loved someone um to do somebody good but in return get hatred or indifference um you know it could be from co-workers classmates uh could be from your spouse or kids i imagine how hurtful it would be like like up late making food for collateral and like washing her clothes and she's like dad you don't love me like i'm not grateful for you at all they'd be like ah that hurt right um but i mean on the other hand i think about how often we would do this to god um romans 8 says that god works all things for our good psalm 84 11 god does not withhold any good thing from us but like mark prato said when he visited we can have hard thoughts about god i think it's really easy for me to have hard thoughts um about him we don't really think he loves us when when he does and we choose to to look at our circumstances instead of looking at his word where he says he's compassionate um and he's he's gracious and he loves us um but we all have hard thoughts we all have wrong thoughts about god don't be discouraged right that's why that's why christ came and christ came and experienced this song in his life he's the one who was unjustly arrested unjustly accused and put to death he's the one who did good to people but they killed him in jealousy and hatred judas someone from his inner circle that he loved and prayed for and cared for he betrayed him right so um we have an amazing savior he did this for us he did this because he loves us um so we can take courage in that uh verses six through through 19 so these are the harsh words uh by the psalmist um quick note here it's it's somewhat ambiguous um as i was studying up on this commentators are are split in terms of like who is saying this because the the um pronouns change it goes from the plural of enemies to the singular appoint a wicked man against him right it says in verse six let an accuser stand his right hand so it's going from the plural to the singular so um some people think maybe this is a quote of like the enemies saying this against david this is a attribute david right and so david's basically saying to god like look at what they're saying to me right so that's one view um i i'm going with the view that this is sort of just david making singular his enemies like this just like he's talking in the singular of all these people who are saying this stuff to him so i think that makes sense uh but i could be wrong um but assuming that view so he he prays that his enemies prayers for example would be counted as sin again they'd be his children would be fatherless his wife a widow so basically this guy would die right um his enemy was loses possessions there'd be no kindness extended to him and um and the reason right why is david praying these things it's because the enemy his enemies uh did the same thing they didn't show kindness they cursed others uh they took advantage of others so this is uh basically some serious like eye for an eye happening here right um my enemies did this let this come upon them um and again there's it's an uncomfortable tension for us as christians because we're called to love our enemies so how are we supposed to read this um again as i was researching this i came across the comment like most like most churches in their standardized like readings of the psalms are just kind of like skip over this part right um because they don't want to deal with it uh in in a christian paradigm but i think we can i mean we should apply this this is god's word um so this does apply to us i think a couple ways it can apply to us is one we we ought to hate evil and injustice these things are wrong and we should hate it right um so yes on one hand the lord was led like a lamb to the slaughter he didn't cry out when all this injustice was happening to him but it's not like that's the end of the story he was raised from the dead um he is the righteous lord every knee will bow every tongue confess that that he is lord and he's going to do away with sin and injustice and sorrow right those things are wrong and they're going to be gone um so it's good to hate evil and to cry out against it uh second thing to notice is that we ought to cry out in trust to god um because even though the psalmist is speaking these these harsh things to god against his enemies he speaks them to god it's not like he takes matters into his own hands right so even though he's saying like may this guy's children be fatherless and his wife a widow he's actually going out and killing this guy so that his kids are fatherless and his wife is a widow right he's he's pouring out his heart to god um so i think of psalm 62 it says for god alone oh my soul wait in silence for my hope is from him he only is my rock and my salvation my fortress i shall not be shaken on god rest my salvation and my glory my mighty rock my refuge is god trusted him at all times oh people pour out your heart before him god is our refuge is a refuge for us um so i think the application is that we have to pour out our hearts to god um in the big things and the small things and god will hear what we shouldn't take vengeance ourselves but we should trust him to take vengeance in his own ways and his own timing um and then the last part so verses 20 through 31 um here the psalmist asked for deliverance because of god's steadfast love verse 21 says deal on my behalf for your name's sake um i yes i desire comfort i desire comfort like quickly i desire medication i desire deliverance uh but more important than all these things is god receiving glory is god receiving um it's god being known truly um and and for the great god that he is it's important for us to to remember that we're in a world full of sinners um world full of people who are going headlong towards death and you know it's more important than my comfort that they be reconciled to god that they know him and they're saved from death and um so i remember i also remember the lord jesus verse 25 in the psalm says i am an object of scorn to my accusers when they see me they whack their heads and so we read in in his uh experience of being crucified in matthew 27 it says in verse 39 and those who passed by derided him wagging their heads and saying you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days save yourself if you are the son of god come down from the cross so also the cheap priests with the scribes and elders mocked him saying he saved others he cannot save himself he's the king of israel let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in him he trusts in god let god deliver him now if he desires him for he said i am the son of god and the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way and so i mean as he was dying people high in society and low in society everyone was mocking him and jesus just took it you know he just endured it um i think my reaction when i'm slighted and disrespected is to quickly like defend myself but jesus doesn't um and he did it so that we could we could know god we could be his children um through faith in him and uh the lord is our teacher he's the one that we should fix our eyes on and follow in his footsteps derive hope and strength so yeah remember when you're experiencing difficulties like we all do um live for god's glory um and it might be an occasion to to glorify the lord um it's it's like the woman from uh the sermon this past sunday who just want to be healed and slip away right but god had something better for her than that um so yeah be encouraged uh when you're facing injustice remember to cry out to pour out to the lord trust in him and uh with that let's let's enter into some some prayer hey brian hey brian hey brian hey brian