Psalm 36
Let’s hear from God’s word from
Psalm 36, it says, to the choir master of David, the servant
of the Lord. Transgression speaks to the wicked.
Deep in his heart, there is no fear of God. Before his eyes,
for he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot
be found out and hated. The words of his mouth are trouble
and deceit. He has ceased to act wisely and
do good. He plots trouble while on his
bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He does not
reject evil. Your steadfast love, O Lord,
extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your
righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are like
the great deep. Man and beast you save, O Lord. How precious is your steadfast
love, O God, the children of mankind take refuge in the shadow
of your wings. They feast on the abundance of
your house. You give them drink from the
river of your delights. For with you is the fountain
of life. In your light do we see light.
Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you and your
righteousness to the upright of heart. Let not the foot of
arrogance come upon me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.
There the evildoers lie fallen, and they are thrust down, unable
to rise. There is God’s word for us. Let’s
pray for just a moment. Lord, bless this hearing and little meditation on your holy
word. May this night we think on you and think on the way of
righteousness and see the blessing from you that in living that
way, We find joy and everlasting delight. Help us to see it and
to embrace it. We thank you for this in Christ’s
name we pray, amen. This psalm is a word about the
wicked and the righteous. It’s a word about the wicked
and a greater word about the righteous and the blessing that
we have from following Almighty God. Now if you were trying to
make sense of the world, if you’re watching the news, you’re reading
culture, living life, and you’re seeing what you see, hearing
what you hear, experiencing what you experience, and you want
to make sense of everything that’s going on around you, the Bible
can help. And here’s why we need the Bible
to help. Not just because it’s God’s Word, but because the Bible
speaks very clearly to us about what is going on in the world,
and it doesn’t mix words. It doesn’t sugarcoat it, it doesn’t
dumb it down, water it down, and it doesn’t go easy or play
nice. The Bible is very straightforward
about why the world is the way the world is. Now you know the
saying that we have, and this is why we need the Bible to tell
us why the world is this way, but you know the saying that
we first endure sin, and then we pity sin, and then we embrace
it. just last night or sometime this
week, my wife and I were remembering a movie that we watched 20 years
ago. And in that movie, there was a vague reference to some
behavior that is very normal today, or at least that is pushed
upon us as very normal. And we were commenting that how
18, 20 years ago when this movie came out, that behavior being
portrayed in the movie was quite a shock. It was sort of a testing
the waters and how We were commenting that we kind of chuckled about
it in the recent showing of it. And we kind of caught ourselves
saying, look, we’ve endured it, we’ve pitied it, and we’re somehow
being forced to reconcile it to the rest of our lives. And
we need God’s word to remind us that no, that is wrong. Know that is wicked. Know that
that is not a way of righteous living. So why do we need God’s
Word to sort of shock us into remembering what is good and
right and true? Well, it’s because the world wears us down. The
world wears us down. We’re like, what do we call it,
the frog in the pot of water and it simmers and it begins
to boil and that frog eventually is found dead, but it didn’t
know it was dying because the water gradually got warmer and
warmer and hotter and hotter. And the church needs to be very
careful because we are in the midst of a culture that is trying
to wear us down. It’s trying to simmer us in a
pot of boiling water. And one day we may wake up. Now
we know this is already taking place. You look at statistics
about evangelical Christians in the world, and there are behaviors
in America that many of us would call unacceptable and unchristian
and even downright sinful and wicked. But many in the evangelical
church, as much as 50 or 60%, will say that certain behaviors
are okay, that God just might find in his economy for those
things to be okay. But we come to a passage like
Psalm 36, And it says, look at verses one through four when
it speaks of the wicked. Transgression speaks to the wicked. Deep in
his heart, there is no fear of God. There’s no reverence of
God before his eyes. He flatters himself in his own
eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated. The words
of his mouth are trouble and deceit. He has ceased to act
wisely and do good. He plots trouble. while on his
bed, he sets himself in a way that is not good and he does
not reject evil. These are character traits of
the wicked. These are characteristics of
those who live wicked lives. There are several things, seven
or eight there. No fear of God, self-flattery. They think their sin can’t be
found out. Their lips are full of trouble and deceit. They cannot
do good. They plot evil. and they don’t say no to evil.
And we notice there’s a downward spiral. Where does evil always
end? Read about it in the Proverbs
and the Wisdom Psalms. It always spirals down to death. If you
want to live a foolish, wicked life, you’ll die. But the Bible
always promises that if you live a righteous life, it will be
an abundant life and it will lead to life. Now, you might
be saying in your mind, Psalm 36 sounds a little dark. Well,
there’s some other dark places in the Bible that speak of this
same thing. Remember after God made Adam and Eve, what did their
first children do? Well, Cain killed Abel. And then
there was progressive and deeper sin, on and on from there. Now,
I think it was Gene Parks was telling me the other week, he
was lying in his bed one night listening to the radio and he
was listening to the book of Genesis, a sermon on it. And the pastor that he was listening
to preached on that little passage in Genesis where it says, and
at that time they began to call on the name of the Lord. And
that was in the midst of a wicked generation. So we have to remember
that there’s hope. There may be all kinds of wicked
things around us. The evangelical church may be embracing it to
high degrees and levels, but there will always be a remnant.
There will always be a people who call on the name of almighty
God, but evil will prevail around us. There’s a downward spiral.
But keep going in Genesis. Even after people were calling
on the name of the Lord, you get to Genesis chapter six. And
there’s a little phrase at the end of chapter six that is a
sad phrase. It said, God looked down on the
children of man and he saw that the inclinations of men’s hearts
were only evil all the time. That’s a superlative statement,
so to speak. It’s a statement of they couldn’t
get any worse. They couldn’t get any more rock
bottom or dark. And so we see in the old covenant
that things were dark. Now you go over to Romans. We
just read chapter three a little bit ago, but read chapter one.
It speaks of men approving evil, doing evil, high-fiving each
other for their evil, and they get better and better at their
evil. They love evil, they practice evil, they cheer one another
on in their evil. And so we live and have lived
in the midst of a crooked and a depraved generation. And so
Psalm 36 helps us understand the world we live in, but it
also helps us understand, it’s not the blessing and it’s not
the benefits, but the effects of living an unrighteous life. It is not a good way to live.
You’ll go to death and you’ll live as a fool, but the wicked
flatters himself. He ceases to do good. He plots
evil. He has a wicked path. And he
does what is evil and blesses others for it. So there’s the
wicked. How about the righteous? We find
that in verses five through nine. It’s interesting how he teaches
us about the blessings and benefits of the righteous. He does it
through speaking of the character of God. And so he’s gonna give
us five things about God’s character. I’m sorry, four things. And then
he’s gonna give us four benefits based on that character. Look
at the four attributes of God you find. First is your steadfast
love, oh Lord. What does it say about that steadfast
love? It extends to the heaven. The second thing, your faithfulness.
It extends to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the
mountains of God. Your judgments are like the great
deep. Man and beast you save, oh Lord. And then it proclaims, How great
is your steadfast love. How precious is your steadfast
love. The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of
your wing. They feast on the abundance of
your house. You give them drink from the
river of your delights. For with you is the fountain
of life. In your light do we see light. And so it speaks of
the four attributes of God and then the four blessings of God.
It speaks of his steadfast love, his love that is unfailing. It speaks of his faithfulness,
his faithfulness that never forsakes us. It speaks of his righteousness. God will do what is right every
time, every place, he will do what is right. And then finally,
he speaks of justice. God will give justice to all
men in their affairs, even in the life to come, but this life
also. And so what benefit is there
from God’s steadfast love? What benefit is there from God’s
faithfulness? What benefit is there in his righteousness and
justice? Well, he tells us there in 7, 8, and 9, he speaks of
abundance. We feast on the abundance. We have the delights of his steadfast
love. We drink from his delights, it
says. And then it speaks of us having light and life. And you
see, those things are connected to God’s character. Without God’s
righteousness, justice, faithfulness, without his justice and steadfast
love, without all those things, we don’t have the benefits. And
so it’s a wonder that we have all these blessings from Almighty
God. And so we have a little ending to the Psalm. In Psalm
1, it speaks of the wicked are like the chaff which the wind
blows away. But herein, 10 through 12, it speaks of the blessing
of the righteous. Continue in your steadfast love
to those who know you and your righteousness to the upright
in heart. Let not the foot of the arrogance come upon me, nor
the hand of the wicked drive me away. There the evildoers
lie fallen. They are thrust down, unable
to rise. How is that possible? How is
it that we can live in this culture we’ve just mentioned? The Apostle
Paul says that this is a crooked and depraved generation. I don’t
know if y’all catch it, but every Sunday when I speak of us joining
together for the pastoral prayer, I say we ask for God’s help and
blessing as we live in a dark and dying world. That’s how the
Apostle Paul speaks of where we live. That’s why Jesus prayed
in John 17 that we might be blessed because he was leaving us behind.
He was going to heaven and leaving us here. But how is it that we
can find these benefits through God’s character in this world?
We’ll look at verse seven. It says, the children of mankind
take refuge in the shadow of your wings. That is the absolute
only way we can survive life in this world is to be found
in the cleft or under the wing of Jesus and to be found safe. And so if you’re trying to make
sense of the world, Look at it through God’s eyes. Psalm 36
helps us. If you’re trying to make it through
this world, then find refuge in Jesus by faith. Let’s pray
together. Great God, we thank you that
we have refuge in Jesus and that we can flee to safety in the
refuge of his almighty wings. And we pray that as this world
is dark and dying, it is crooked and depraved. Help us to be salt
and light. Help us to know our enemies and to know the war that
we are in, but help us to flee to Jesus and to find refuge and
strength in him. And we pray that you keep us
safe until you land us safely on heaven’s shores. And it’s
in his name we do pray. Amen.