Revering the Word
Psalm 58 Sometimes the wicked receive justice this side of heaven.
Good morning, everyone. This morning we are in Psalm 58. I want to take you before we begin to one of my favorite Psalms. And it is Psalm 112. And it starts off praise the Lord, how blessed is the man who fears the Lord. Who greatly delights in his commands. And it goes on just to talk about the blessing of being a man of the Lord, a man of God. And it's just not really encouraging. But it ends. We'll listen to verse 9 and 10. It's 10 verses 9 says, he has given freely to the poor, his righteousness endures forever. His horn will be exalted in honor. This is speaking of the man of God, one who fears God. And then it ends this way, verse 10, the wicked will see it and be vexed. He will gnash his teeth and melt the way the desire of the wicked will perish. And I've often, you know, just as I've loved that Psalm, I've often kind of loved the first nine verses, you know, and then gotten to the 10th verse and be like, wow, you know, it really flips there. The wicked will see and be vexed to you and gnash his teeth and melt the way and the desire of the wicked will perish it. It seems as though in God's Word, especially in the book of Psalms, that we see the righteous almost desire the wicked to be punished for their wickedness. And I think some of that comes from the situation that David was in and that he had many enemies that were trying to take his life, whether it be King Saul, whether it be the Philistines, whether it be his son. You know, when someone wants to kill you, you could see how you want God to take care of them. And, but I think, you know, for those of us in America who have lived with a lot of safety, you know, praise God for the safety we have had, I'm sure there's been people that have been secret enemies of mine. But I guess I haven't had, you know, anyone ever wanting to kill me where I was praying that they would be killed, you know, I just, I have not personally experienced that. But so we have to kind of put ourselves in the context of wickedness and the best way that I think I have two examples this morning, but let me let's, let's read this Psalm. It's only 11 verses and then I'll have a couple of thoughts to share with you. All right, Psalm 58, do you indeed speak righteousness, oh gods, do you judge uprightly, oh sons of men, no in your heart, you work on righteousness on earth, you weigh out the violence of your hands. The wicked are estranged from the womb. These who speak lies go astray from birth. They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like a deaf cobra that stops up its ear so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or a skill for skillful caster of spells. Oh God, shatter their teeth in their mouth, break out their, the fangs of the young lions, oh Lord, let them flow away like waters that runs off. When he aims his arrows, let them be as headless shafts, let them be as a snail which melts away as it goes along like the miscarriages of a woman which never see the sun. I mean, what a, what a thing to say, right, like this is what I want for my enemies is like a miscarriage, before your pots can feel like the fire of thorns, he will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike. The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance, he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, and men will say surely there is reward for the righteous surely there is a God who judges on the earth. And, you know, it appears, you know, in life and in this situation that sometimes God takes out his vengeance on earth on people of wickedness and God protects those who are of him. And in this case, the righteous who have had wicked, it appears done against them are praying for God to take care of the wicked. Well, I'll tell you what, we can see examples of this in our world, you know, I have before me an article from Al Jazeera and it says Israel military says it has killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Narsala. And they have been killing lots of leaders of Hezbollah, and they've been having incredible success in, I mean the military strategic intelligence to know where these Hezbollah leaders are. And to be able to take them out the way they've been taking them out is quite remarkable. Now, I wish I could tell you how many missiles Hezbollah has shot into Israel, and yet very few even hit the ground. Israel has the Iron Dome and is knocking those missiles out of the sky. So their enemies like God is like protecting Israel, and yet they are having incredible success against their enemies and, you know, Israel has people all around them that are trying to kill them. And I'm sure there's some pleasure that Israel's having and taking out these leaders who are trying to take out Israel. So I guess I just see that as a modern example. I look at that as success when they're taking out these Hezbollah leaders so interesting, you know another story, my dad relayed the other day in a study but he's told me the story many times ever since I was growing up. I grew up in a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and there was a young man, I'm not going to mention his name, but there's a young man who my dad said taught him to steal and taught him to skip school. And so the young man was not a very good influence on my dad, and this is like when he was in, you know, very early grade school that he was learning these things. One day, you know he some people were crying and this young man had had died in a in a in a water pit he had he had drowned. And I guess my dad, like right away in his own mind, just was like, you don't want to do that kind of stuff you know you don't want to do what that young man was teaching him to do. It seemed to, you know, be kind of like a form of punishment for someone who was doing, doing what was wrong, and that at least that's the way that my dad received it as a young man. Here we have in Psalm 58 and here we have with Israel and Hezbollah. You know, I just don't understand why people don't try to live in peace, you know, as you can see I side with Israel and, and the things that they have been going through. You know, if people would not want to kill Israel if people would not want to launch missiles at them. If people would not want to come over and kill 1300 of their citizens and take people hostage. Israel would not be attacking these people. But I do believe even though, you know, the Jews in Israel, they need to come to Jesus, they need to find their Messiah who's already come. God still is looking out for Israel and it seems as though he is protecting them and allowing them to have great victory over their enemies. Well, I hope for you and for me that we will not be in a situation where we're having to pray for enemies around us to be killed. But who knows what our future may be, but it is, it is in the scriptures and it's interesting I think sometimes we don't know the fullness of who God is. It seems as though God takes pleasure and to a certain extent in when wickedness gets put down and when righteousness gets blessed. And, you know, that's what we have in many of the Psalms, including the one I loved Psalm 112, but here we also have it in Psalm 58. I think we need to know God in a greater fullness, God is love, but he also is wrath to those who have rejected him and to those who live a life opposed to him. And he is a blessing and a promise of eternal life to those who love and obey him and hallelujah. I'm thankful to be a child of God. How about you, amen. This is not the kind of stuff that we read in Psalm 58 that God has for his church for his bride. And for those who have come to faith in him. To them, he has gone ahead of us to prepare a room for us and having hallelujah. Thank you Jesus. God bless you all.