Sound Doctrine: The Righteous and the Wicked

Pastor's out of town today, but we still have our little note takers with us. And just as Pastor always does, I have stickers for you. So if you are taking notes and you fill out your notes, come to me afterwards. Got some dogs, some kitty cats, some fish, some really neat stuff I think you'll enjoy. It's good to be a part of a family worship model church where we can hear the little pitter-patter of feet and we can hear the cries of babies. And it's nice. It's a blessing to be a part of this congregation.

Pastor Casey over the last 18 weeks has been going through the New Hampshire Confession of Faith that we've adopted as our church confession and spent the last 17 weeks going through it. Tonight, or this morning, is week 18 and then he'll finish it next week with week 19. The heading that we're studying today is the difference between the righteous and the wicked.

There is a difference between the righteous and the wicked. We live in a day and an age where we try to blur the lines with everything, right? Say they're all the same. There's no difference. But there's a difference between the righteous and the wicked. The difference is in this life. And also when we stand before the Lord in judgment one day, it'll be greatly different at that point as well. For our Scripture reading this morning, we read Psalm 52, and that's where we'll be today. So if you open up your Bibles in Psalm 52, we'll just be going line by line through Psalm 52.

Psalm 52 is one of those Psalms that has a description above it that tells us when it was written. And Psalm 52 was written in a very nutty time in David's life. David, remember, was a young shepherd boy and he had been determined to be king by the prophet and he had been anointed. He had gone out and had won many battles. He had fought Goliath as a young boy when all the men were failing in their courage. And as you know the story, as his fame increased, Saul began to dislike David. And what was the song? The song was so well known that even the Philistines sung it. And it was, "Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his" what? His ten thousands. Exactly right.

And so Saul meant to run a spear through David. He wanted to put an end to David. Jonathan tried brokering peace, but to no avail. And so David went on the run. And if you recall the story, he's hungry. He's tired from being chased down by Saul and his armies. And he goes to Ahimelech, who is the priest there at the Tabernacle. And he says, "Do you have any provisions for me? Do you have any showbread?" That was bread that was offered up to the Lord, but it would be changed out every few days so it wouldn't be a stale offering before the Lord. And Ahimelech said, "Sure, I can give you these provisions."

Now David was not honest with Ahimelech. He did not tell him that he was being hunted down by Saul, that Saul meant ill. He actually said, "Well, I'm on a special secret mission from Saul and I didn't have time to bring any provisions." And then he asked Ahimelech, he says, "Do you have any weapons here?" And priests don't have weapons. But there was the sword there that he had used to actually behead Goliath, which was the actual sword of Goliath. And they had that there and they gave it to David.

And while this was taking place, there was a man who was Saul's chief herder of his animals. And later on we find out he was also the chief of all King Saul's servants. So he would have been a very highly ranking man. His name was Doeg. And Doeg happened to be in the tabernacle the same time David was there and he witnessed it. And he decided to take that as a trump card, if you will, and to put it in his pocket and to be able to play that at a time when it would be very good for Doeg.

There was one day when Saul was down on himself and down on all of his men and he said, "Why is David still not caught? Why haven't y'all been able to bring him in? Why has he promised you that he's going to give you land and make you great? He can't do that." And he begins to question whether his men were up to the task of capturing David. And Doeg was there. And Doeg wanted the favor of the king. Because if you have the favor of a king, you'll probably become a very rich man, right? And you'll have high status as well.

And so what does Doeg say? Doeg says, "I saw David at the tabernacle." In fact, he inquired of Ahimelech, Ahimelech inquired of God for him, and Ahimelech gave him food, and Ahimelech gave him a sword. Which, that was partially true, but it wasn't the full truth. It made it sound as if Ahimelech was aiding and abetting David, and that Ahimelech and David were conspiring against Saul to come against Saul and to overthrow Saul and to take his throne from him.

So Saul was furious, and he called for Ahimelech and all the priests to be brought before him. And he accuses Ahimelech. And you'll find this, by the way, if you want to look at this later, in 1 Samuel 20-22, you'll find it in those three chapters.

And Ahimelech pleads innocent, which he was. He had no idea that Saul and David had any enmity between them. He had no idea that Saul was trying to hunt down David or that David was on the run from him. But Saul did not believe it. Saul believed Doeg over Ahimelech the priest. And so he commands his guards, "I want you to kill Ahimelech, the priest, and all the other priests that are here today." But they didn't.

As Pastor Casey mentioned last week, there are times when we must disobey a ruler, right? And that would have been wrong to have slain the priest of the Lord. So they refused to do it because the Bible says that they feared God. But Doeg didn't. And so Saul tells Doeg, "You kill him."

And so Doeg, in one of the most evil stories in Scripture, takes his sword and he kills these 85 priests of the Lord. These are men who aren't trained in war. These are men who don't have weapons. These are men who can't go anywhere. They're surrounded by the king's guard. And he kills them all, slaughters them before the king. And he doesn't stop there. He goes to Nob, which was the city where the priests dwelled. And when he gets to Nob, he kills every man, every woman, every child, every nursing infant, and all the livestock there as well. That's what we call a wicked man, right?

And David has penned Psalm 52 while he's still on the run and while Doeg is still rising to power underneath Saul and seemingly getting away with murder, right? But there's a difference between the righteous and the wicked.

First of all, we're going to look at the rebellion of the wicked. We're going to look in Psalm 52, verse 1. "Why do you boast in evil?" He's ascribing this Psalm, or speaking the Psalm, as if he was in the same room with Doeg. He's saying, "Why do you boast in evil?"

It's one thing to commit evil. It's another thing to boast in it, is it not? It just shows that you've sold your soul at that point, right? You're rejoicing and glorying in what God hates. The word "evil" in verse 1 means destruction. It means ruinous calamity. And here was a man who was boasting in ruinous calamity. Doeg was proud that he had slain the priests of Israel. He was proud that he had killed the infant children. He was a man of mad destruction, and he was boasting in that. And we find that wicked people boast in evil.

Because to do evil, to engage in wickedness, is to rebel against God, is it not? Yes. The Bible tells us in the law, "Thou shalt not kill," right? So to kill these people willfully and gleefully is to shake your fist at the lawgiver. It's to say, "I am in open rebellion against you. Who are you to tell me what to do?" That's what Doeg had done. Doeg was boasting in his evil. Verse 1 says, "Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man?"

This second phrase, "O mighty man," was probably meant a little bit tongue in cheek because the word "mighty man" there is a word in Hebrew for "hero." This man was no hero. It's nothing to brag about, nothing to be proud about, by slaying defenseless, unarmed, untrained men, by slaying their elders, their daughters, their sons, their livestock. Nothing at all to brag about. So this man was not really a mighty man. This is actually probably used in scorn of him. He thought himself in his mind to be a hero. He was his own press corps, if you will, but he was a stench in the nostrils of God and among the righteous.

So why do you boast in evil, O mighty man? Look at the second part of verse 1. "The goodness of God endures continually." This is the goodness of God. The word "goodness" is the Hebrew word hesed, which you've studied before. That means God's loving kindness, His covenant faithfulness. In short, it's His love. It's His grace. It's an Old Testament word for His mercy, His grace, that He shows to people that He's in covenant with. And he says, "The goodness of God." The word "God" here is not the regular Adonai, which would be Lord, or it's not Elohim, which is another name for God. But here, it's just simply El, which means the mighty one.

And what he's telling Doeg here is that Doeg, the hero so to speak, Doeg, who calls himself a mighty man, is no match for the goodness of the mighty one, the God who is mighty, El. He says, "The goodness of God endures continually."

What David is saying is that the mercy, the covenant faithfulness of God, that God shows His people, that God is showing David, even while David's on the run, it endures forever. It endures continually, and it'll be there long after Doeg is removed from the scene. The evil think that God is like them. They think that God can't be at two places at once. They think that God has His limits. They think that He may not see, or that He may not judge them and bring about their own demise. But the goodness of God endures continually.

The hope of the righteous is that God never fails. There will be times in the life of Christians where great tragedy unfolds, where Christians are persecuted, right? Where men and women give their lives for the Savior. But even then, the covenant faithfulness of God endures forever. And David was confident in that. He was confident that no matter what he was seeing, that the priests whom he loved -- David loved the house of the Lord.

He writes in Psalm 27:4, what does he say? "One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple." So this would have cut him to the bone to hear that these priests had been slaughtered like this, but it did not shake his confidence in the faithfulness of God. Did not shake his confidence that God's mercy endures forever.

And the odd thing is, is that Doeg didn't even realize that the same confidence in God that supported David was actually supporting Doeg. It is because of God's mercy that any one of us have any continuance in life, right? In the garden, God said, "The day you shall eat it, you shall surely" what? Die. God could have wiped out humanity right then and there, right? Every breath that we have is a gift from God. Every heartbeat is from Him. And even those who are opposed to God, God is upholding them in their breath. He's upholding them in life, in hopes that the goodness of God might lead them to repentance, right? Evil men, though, don't listen to that. They mistake God's mercifulness, His long-suffering, with weakness, and they commit more and more evil.

But David was encouraged by the faithfulness of God, and he says it endures continually. The word "endures continually" means every day. God's faithfulness is good to you today. You may be having a good day today. Tomorrow may be different. God forbid, on the way to work maybe there's a traffic jam, or maybe there's a wreck, or maybe there's a loss in your life this week. God is still good. He's good every day. He's always faithful to His people.

Number two, verse 2, "Your tongue devises destruction." He's speaking of Doeg here. He's saying, "Your tongue, your tongue that speaks lies, that equivocates, that speaks partial truths, that is misleading." He says that it devises destruction. He's saying that the lips of Doeg weren't simply misspeaking. Sometimes it'll say, "Well, I misspoke," or "I didn't mean that." Doeg meant that. He meant to deceive. He meant to injure. He meant to tear down. He meant to destroy.

Verse 2 says, "Like a sharp razor working deceitfully." That's an idiom in Hebrew, which refers to a razor that is honed with a very sharp edge just being whetted, and that that particular razor, if you don't handle it carefully, what will happen? It'll cut you, right? Years ago when my kids were little, my middle one, he had a good friend that was very much of an upstart, wanted to be an entrepreneur, and he started selling these knives. I don't recall the name of them. He gave Toby a set of these knives, and these things were super duper sharp. I mean, way too sharp. We ended up actually tossing it because we cut ourselves so many times trying to use them in the work. By accident, it happens. In here, he's calling Doeg a sharp razor working deceitfully. His deceit cuts, and it destroys, and it harms.

Verse 3, "You love evil more than good." This is at the heart of every person in rebellion against God. They love evil more than good. Now, the Hebrew actually is a little bit -- our translation of the Hebrew is a little bit tricky because it makes it sound like maybe he loves evil 51% and then he loves good 49%, and as humans, we can say, "Well, we understand that." No. He means, as the NIV would say, or even the ESV, he loves evil rather than good, or he loves evil in the place of good. It means he doesn't love good at all. He loves evil, but he doesn't love good. And that's the heartbeat of those who are in rebellion against God.

Years ago, Milton, the great poet who wrote Paradise Lost, he put the words in Satan's mouth in that great poem, and he said, "Evil, be thou my good." Because for Satan, that's what he wants, right? He wants evil to triumph over good. Isaiah chapter 5, verse 20, the prophet writes, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."

Goodness reminds people of God, right? And so, to eradicate goodness is to eradicate the reminders of God, to eradicate the vestiges of His fruit in this world. And that's why the evil men who are in rebellion are so dead set against what is good. They deride what's good in culture. They'll make fun of the nuclear family. Oh, isn't that cute? A mom and a dad and kids. And they want to replace it with God knows what else, right? Anything that's good, the evil man will ridicule because he wants to replace it. He wants to replace it with evil.

He says, "You love evil more than good, lying rather than speaking righteousness." Selah -- means pause. Think about that. We think it may have been a musical note or some type of an annotation. It could have been an extended note that they would sing to give you a chance to think about the music and the words that had just been spoken, or may have been just an interlude, if you will, just a pause. But he wants you to think about that. And what he's saying here is this: "You love evil more than good, lying rather than speaking righteousness." "Speaking righteousness" can be translated "doing righteousness."

In the land of Israel, just as in the land of today, there's a want of righteousness. There's a super abundance of people doing evil, but a lack of doing good. When you read the news, what do you hear about? Bad stuff, right? Bad news wall to wall. You don't really hear about people doing good. Thank God it is being done. It's being done through the church, right? And we are rejoiced in our hearts when we hear stories of good being accomplished. But here, he's not even willing to work righteousness because he loves lying. He loves deceit rather than goodness.

Verse 4, "You love all devouring words, you deceitful tongue." He says, "You love all devouring words." The word "devouring" there means to swallow up. He's saying, "You want to consume all that is good, all that is precious, all that is innocent." And then he says, "You deceitful tongue." He actually calls Doeg a tongue because that marked him. It was by his words that those 85 men were killed, that he got Saul's approval to kill those men and then to kill everybody at Nob.

So we see the rebellion of the wicked. It's that their heart is set against God. They don't fear God. They want to work evil rather than good because they love evil rather than good. Let's look in verse 5 and I want to show you the repayment of the wicked.

Those who are rebelling against God, they never know if they're going to wake up in hell. And that's what we're going to see here, the repayment of the wicked. Verse 5 -- just as Doeg had done such great evil and had wiped these people off the map, if you will, had slaughtered them in their homes, had been guilty of such great bloodlust, had lied and deceived -- God says, "God shall likewise destroy you forever." That's a pretty powerful word. Is that a maybe? That's a certainty. "God shall likewise destroy you forever." The word "destroy you" means to demolish. The picture there is of a wall or a house being torn down, to be torn down forever, to never be rebuilt again, to never rise again, to never have life again. And so God is promising the rebellious ones who mock Him, who shake their fist at Him, that He will destroy them, He will tear them down forever.

Look at the second line, "He shall take you away." The word "take you away" in the Hebrew deals with tongs, coals, and fire. In ancient times, the easiest way to start a fire isn't what you see in the movies where you whittle wood together. It's where you take tongs and you take a coal, and you take it off the fire, and you quickly move it somewhere else to start another fire, right? But you snatch it quickly so it doesn't go out, and you move quickly so it doesn't set everything else on fire in the process. And the idea for Doeg is that he's going to be removed quickly, suddenly, as in a moment. We're never promised tomorrow. Just when the wicked think they are secure, and when the wicked think they're on the top of their game, and they can get away with it, and they'll never be moved, they will be snatched out. They will be plucked out.

Verse 5 says, "He shall take you away and pluck you out of your dwelling place." It's the third look at being destroyed, is that He'll take you out of your dwelling place, take you out of your tent. Just as Doeg had gone and slain the men and the women in their cities and at Nob, in their homes, He's telling Doeg here that you are not going to be able to dwell, you will not have permanence, you will be taken out, your household will be removed.

Verse 5 says, "And uproot you from the land of the living. Selah." He's going to be uprooted by God's hand as a tree being dragged from the earth. Where Toby and I live in Mount Dora, right across the street from our neighborhood, is a very beautiful piece of pasture land with some beautiful oak trees on it. About two weeks ago, they brought in the bulldozers -- it's becoming a new subdivision -- and they ripped up every single tree with their bulldozers, and there's not a single tree standing. There's no grass there anymore, just dirt. That's part of development. They'll come and they'll plant small little trees about four feet tall, that's the way that they do, but they took all those rooted trees that they uprooted, they put them up at the front, and they're in the process of cutting them up and dragging them away.

That's the picture of what happens to those who are rebellious against the Lord, who do not bow the knee, who are in opposition -- they will be uprooted from the land of the living. And that's the scariest thing in the world to the rebel against God, because their only inheritance is in the land of the living. This is their only joy in life, is when they make someone else miserable. This is their only hope of having any peace, because for eternity they will not have peace. They will not have eternal life. They will have eternal death. And so to uproot you from the land of the living is the thing that the wicked fear most. Even the richest people you can imagine, the people with the power, the people with the popularity -- ask them what they fear. They fear death because they know that once it's appointed for a man to die, and after this, what? The judgment. Exactly right.

So we see that the wicked will be repaid for their deeds, and very starkly here. Well, I want to turn to verse 6 here and look at the reverence of the righteous, because this is a contrast between the wicked and the righteous. Let's look at the reverence of the righteous. Verse 6, "The righteous also shall see."

When you hear "shall see," that's the first thing that should give you hope as Christians, is that the righteous are going to see the destruction of those who are their oppressors. The righteous will stand in the end, right? What a blessing it is to know that though evil seems to triumph temporarily and short term, in the end it will not. There is a lake of fire, right? There is a judgment, and Christ will have a sword coming from His mouth, and He will bring them to justice.

So he says, "The righteous shall also see." He says, "And fear." The word "fear" here is not speaking of a servile, servant-like fear -- that fear is your master, like, "I'd better do what I'm supposed to do or I'm going to get in trouble." It's not that kind of a fear. This is speaking here of a fear that we'd have towards a father, a reverence, where we want to please him. And as any young kid knows, he should fear his father when he's done wrong, right? Because the father should discipline the child. But here it's not that he's worried about being disciplined, it's that they're in awe of the discipline that God has just meted out. In other words, the righteous should always be in awe when God administers justice. It should strike a fear and reverence in our heart that leads us to realize how great our God is.

In fact, I'm not going to read it to you, but when you get a chance, look at Psalm 97. Psalm 97 talks about the judgment of God, and it begins in the very first verse, it says to rejoice, and then it goes through God's sovereign justice, and His throne upheld by righteousness and justice, and then it ends with rejoicing, because when we see justice administered, it should bring joy to the Christian. This is not joy that's based in retribution, that we're taking vengeance on our enemy, and we want to see them in pain, and we want to see them suffering, but it's awe at the work of God, at the governance of God, that He is holy, and if He is not holy, then He's not God. If He wasn't a judge who administered justice, He would not be a good judge at all.

You also see the same thing in the book of Revelation, Revelation 18 and also 19. In fact, I'll read it in a second. The righteous rejoice when Babylon is judged, do they not? Don't they sing forth a song of praise at that point? In verse 6 it says, "The righteous also shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him." So the righteous shall laugh. That is speaking of a reverential laughter, a laughter that is again linked to being in awe of God who administers it. It's a laughter that comes from saying, "Finally, justice is done. Finally, Doeg will not be able to kill anymore the righteous. Finally, Doeg will not be able to slaughter the innocent. Finally, Doeg's lying lips are put to silence. Finally, Doeg cannot boast anymore against the Lord our God." That's the laughter that's being spoken of. Again, it's not taking joy in human suffering. It's not scratching out our pound of flesh, but it's a reverential joy knowing that God is judge, and we should be in awe of His governance.

Let me read to you real quick, just a support from that. Revelation chapter 18, after Babylon is falling. It says in verse 20, "Rejoice over her, O heavens, and O ye holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged you on her." They had a sense of relief because the wicked one who had eaten up their people had fallen. Revelation chapter 19, "After these things I heard a loud voice, a great multitude in heaven, saying, 'Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God, for true and righteous are His judgments.'" They were worshiping God because His judgments were true, and they were righteous. It was only righteous to punish the wicked. It says, "Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God, for true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants, shed by her." Again they said, "Alleluia, and her smoke rose up forever and ever."

So the righteous will see it and will rejoice, fearfully rejoicing, and will be glad. It says in verse 7, "They shall laugh at him saying, 'Here is the man.'" This word is related to what we see up in verse 1, "O mighty man," saying, "Here is this man who said he was mighty, the one who dared to raise himself up against God, El, the mighty one." This is verse 7, "Here's the man who did not make God his strength."

He didn't put his trust in God. He didn't make God his strength. In fact, where it says "did not make," in the Hebrew that's in the imperfect tense, and what that means is that it is a continual decision on the rebellious man to not make God his strength. In other words, it's not just a one-time thing. "I turned my back on God a few years back and haven't really thought much about him." This is the heartbeat of the rebellious. It's a continual desire to resist God, to push back against Him, to not make Him to be their strength, but to have their strength in themselves, to not trust God, but to trust themselves.

He says, "Here is the man who did not make God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches." Doeg was evidently very richly rewarded by Saul for doing Saul's bidding. He did what he did for riches, and oftentimes evil people do things for material rewards, right? They have a heart that's opposed to God. They sure do like the money, too. That's just icing on the cake. Verse 7, "He trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself in his wickedness." The word "strengthened" means to fortify or to make strong. He fortified himself in his wickedness. And the word "wickedness" there is destruction. It's malicious contempt. It's to do evil. He fortified himself by doing evil. He fortified himself against trusting God. He purposely hardened himself against God and did the opposite of what he knew God wanted him to do. That is the end result of the wicked. And so it's righteous, and it's just, for the righteous to take joy when righteousness is upheld, when justice is performed by the almighty God.

Look in verse 8, "But I am like a green olive tree." This is David speaking. David is still on the run. Doeg is not yet judged. It's been speaking about Doeg's judgment as something that will come. But when this is being written, David was still on the run, and Doeg was still at large against him and against God. But he says, "But I am like a green olive tree." A green olive tree is one that is flourishing, one that's rich in sap. Unlike the uprooted tree that Doeg would become, like all those who rebel against God will become, the righteous in contrast are like a planted green olive tree, fruitful, putting out fruit because they are united to Christ. He is the vine and we are the branches. And through Him, the sap of eternal life flows into us.

He says, "I am like a green olive tree in the house of God." He was promised permanence here, right? He's saying, "I dwell with God because God dwells with me." Even on the run, David could say that God was with him. Is that not what he says later on in the Psalms? "If I ascend to the highest point, there You are. If I go down to the pit of Sheol, there You are." God was always with him. And the same with the believer, right? Because we have placed our faith in Jesus Christ, the righteous have the hope of Christ in you, the hope of glory. He'll never leave us. He'll never forsake us. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit dwell within each and every believer. And what a blessing that is.

He says, "I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever." The reason why he's like a green olive tree, the reason why he dwells in the house of God, he says, "It's because I trust in the mercy." This is the same word that we see up in verse 1, the goodness of God endures continually. The mercy of God, again, is His covenant faithfulness. It's His grace. It's His love. It's the special love that He has for His people. He says, "I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever."

The righteous are different from the wicked. The wicked continually fortify themselves against trusting in God. It's a daily choice to resist His will. It's a daily choice to love evil more than good. But what do the righteous do? It says, "They trust in the mercy of God forever and ever." Every day we get up we can say, "I trust in Your mercy, God. Thank You that Christ lived a perfect life, that He came to this earth. He left glory. He took on flesh -- God took on flesh, became the God-man, both humanity and God combined -- and He lived a perfect life, did everything that we were supposed to do, but have failed, and was like us in every way except without sin. And He rendered to God perfect satisfaction, perfect obedience, perfect fidelity to the commands of God. And He died on the cross as our substitute, in our place, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. If we trust in Christ Jesus, His righteousness is given to us. We are made spiritually one with Him and we are truly in Him, in the righteous one. So when God looks upon us, He says, 'This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.' We get the inheritance of God Himself because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. And so that is who we trust in forever and ever."

And look in verse 9, "I will praise You forever." The reality of being in Christ, the reality of having a Savior who gave Himself for us and who lives to make intercession for us and who fills us with the Spirit, giving us the presence of God -- he says, it leads us to praise Him. He says, "I will praise You forever because You have done it."

Now the words "because You have done it" can be taken in two senses. The first and primary sense in which this should be taken is David is seeing the fall of Doeg and the fall of the wicked as being a done thing. He was on the run and he knew that Doeg would love to slaughter him just as he had slaughtered the priests. But God had said through the prophet, through David's prophecy here, that the wicked would be destroyed, that they would be snatched out of the fire, that they would be snatched from their dwellings, that they would be uprooted, and he's seeing it as a done deal. And as Christians, that means a lot because there are some times when we are like David in Psalm 73 and we say there is no punishment for the wicked. Their eyes are full of fatness. They seem to get away with evil. But he's saying here it's a done deal, so he can praise God because he knows that God's justice is perfect. And God's justice is infinite. It will be done by God's hand, right?

And as Christians we know that we can rejoice because we know that the work of meriting God's favor, the work of attaining the righteousness of God, we can say, "Because You have done it," right? Our righteousness is not our own. We're not any better than the wicked because we were born better or we act better, but simply because we've received God's mercy, right? We've put our trust in the righteous one.

"So I praise You forever because You have done it, and in the presence of Your saints I will wait on Your name for it is good." He's not only going to praise God in his own devotion, he's going to do it in the presence of the saints. Some things are too big to celebrate by ourselves, right? It's one thing to sing a song of praise in your car or in your home, which I hope -- but isn't it a blessing to be able to sing it among the saints? To lift up our voices and to say, "God, You alone are worthy. God, You alone reign. You alone are righteous." I will wait on Your name for it is good. "I will wait" means simply "I will trust." God's name means everything that He is, right? It's His self-revelation to us. Everything -- His reputation, His works, and His judgments -- shows us who He is. We are to praise Him for it. And so we will wait on Your name, for it is good. The righteous have a good meditation and it's the Lord Himself.

So we go into the time of invitation. I want to challenge you to two things. One, what are you trusting in? Are you hardening yourself against the Lord? Are you resisting His will? Are you seeking to do evil? Is your life marked by a tongue that is full of destruction? There is hope for you. Doeg could have turned to the Lord at any time. He was actively resisting the Lord.

But you have an opportunity to call upon the Lord. The Bible says, "Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." God can change that heart, those desires that are evil, those desires that resist Him. God can change that to give you a new heart, new desires. He can take that heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. As long as you are rooted here in the land of the living and you're not uprooted yet, you have a chance to turn your life around, to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. And I pray you would do that today if you have not.

And secondly, my challenge to you is, my beloved Christian brothers and sisters, put your trust in the Lord every single day. That's what he says here in verse 8, "But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever." He will never let you down. He will never fail you. And He will bring justice in this world. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your goodness to us. We pray that these words would compel us, Lord, to be on our knees before You, trusting in Your good and precious name every day. It's in Christ's name we ask this. Amen.