Helper of the Helpless (Psalm 10)

When was the last time you played a game of hide and seek?

It's a game as old as time. It's a classic.

It's one of the first games you learn to play when you're

growing up. The fun thing about hide and

seek is when you find the person you're looking for, friends.

What do you do when it feels like you're stuck in a game of

hide and seek with God? Like you're seeking him, trying

to find him, but he's nowhere to be found?

What do you do when it feels like God's face is hidden?

What do you do when you feel a massive gap between God's

promises and your experience? Friends, in these types of

situations, no sunshine and rainbows.

Religion will work. Religion and and even in some

cases a sort of cultural Christianity will do us no

lasting good. Is Christianity just a crutch to

escape reality? Is it an excuse to ignore the

pressing needs of the moment? We have tragedy pressing in from

all sides. I mean, just look at the news.

Look at our world around us. Is Christianity meant to be just

this false smile we put on our faces?

What about when your friends confront you with injustice?

When they bring up to you the things in this world that are

happening all around? How are the people of hope to

respond then? What will you say to them?

What about when injustice comes knocking on your door, when the

pain becomes personal, When the hurt and the loss and the

tragedy make you weep? Maybe some of you this morning

have come in with those types of burdens, with affliction, seeing

the injustice in the world and experiencing it in your soul,

thinking God is supposed to be a helper.

But I'm experiencing so much hurt and so little help.

Feeling like you're stuck in a game of hide and seek with God,

sunshine and rainbows. Religion won't work.

Then suffering slices right through shallow answers to deep

sorrows. But in Psalm 10 we learn from

the psalmist how we should seek God's face when he feels hidden.

Listen as I read Psalm 10, Psalm chapter 10.

Psalms 10 · chapter mention

You can turn there in your Bibles.

Psalm 10 reads, Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?

Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor.

Let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.

For the wicked boast of the desires of his soul, and the one

greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord in the pride

of his face. The wicked does not seek him.

All his thoughts are, There is no God.

His ways prosper at all times. Your judgments are on high out

of His sight. As for his foes, he puffs at

them. He says in his heart, I shall

not be moved throughout all generations.

I shall not meet adversity. His mouth is filled with cursing

and deceit and oppression. Under his tongue are mischief

and iniquity. He sits in ambush in the

villages. In hiding places.

He murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for

the helpless. He lurks in ambush like a lion

in his thicket. He lurks that he may seize the

poor. He seizes the poor.

When he draws him into his net. The helpless are crushed, sink

down and fall by his might. He says in his heart, God has

forgotten. He has hidden his face.

He will never see it. Arise, O Lord, oh God, lift up

your hand. Forget not the afflicted.

Why does the wicked renounce God, and say in his heart, You

will not call to account, but you do see, for you note

mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands.

To you the helpless commits and self.

You have been a helper of the fatherless.

Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer.

Call his wickedness to account till you find none.

The Lord is king forever and ever.

The nations perish from his land.

Oh Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted.

You will strengthen their heart. You will incline your ear to do

justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that the man

who is of earth may strike terror no more.

This is a heavy passage, a relatable passage, and it serves

us as God's people, as a model of how we should respond to

injustice. Friends, what do we do when

God's faith feels hidden? Point #1 lament evil, lament

evil. We see this in verses one

through 11. Notice how the psalmist begins.

Look down at verse 1. He says, why, O Lord, do you

stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in

times of trouble? This phrase times of trouble

occurs only two times in the Old Testament and we find it in the

chapter right before. In Psalm 9, verse 9, David

Psalms 9:9

writes the Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold

in times of trouble. Psalm 9 and Psalm 10 are almost

like paternal twins. While there's some debate as to

whether David wrote Psalm 9 and Psalm 10 because of Psalm 10's

lack of a superscription, that little headline at the top, the

connections between the two make it obvious that it's very likely

that David did indeed write both, that he had his pen in his

hand. He wrote Psalm 9, paused, and

then wrote Psalm 10. It's a continuation of the same

line of thinking. The connections are right there.

Psalm 9 and 10 both speak of times of trouble.

They both call for God to arise. Both pray that God would not

forget the afflicted. While they're an obvious pair,

they also have distinct personalities.

In Psalm 91, we read of David recounting the wonderful deeds

of the Lord. But here in Psalm 10, David

moves from recounting to wrestling, from speaking about

God's presence. In Psalm 10, I'm excuse me,

Psalm 9 to mourning. God's absence in Psalm 10 feels

like God is far away. David, like us, felt the tension

between God's promises and the world's problems.

He had trouble aligning what he believed with what he saw.

The Psalms are full of these honest cries arising from what

has been called divine hiddenness, times where God

feels far away. This theme is found across the

Psalms. Psalm 44, verses 23 through 25

Psalms 44:23–25

read Awake. Why are you sleeping?

O Lord, rouse yourself. Do not reject us forever.

Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction

and oppression? For our soul is bound down to

the dust. Our belly clings to the ground.

Or look at Psalm 13 verse one reads.

How long, O Lord, why will you forget the wicked forever?

Excuse me, will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my

heart all the day? How long shall my enemies be

exalted over me? The Bible is a very honest book.

It's not just full of sunshine and rainbows.

Christianity. The Psalms are full of these

honest cries of times when it feels like God is asleep.

What do you do when you feel like you're playing hide and go

seek with God? These Psalms call us to imitate

David by praying prayers of lament.

Praying prayers of lament. Lament is prayer and pain that

leads to trust. I'll say that one more time.

Lament is prayer and pain that leads to trust.

It's cries of confusion that flow from faith.

As we saw a few months ago in the Habakkuk series, Lament is a

divinely approved pressure release.

When the pressure in your soul of confusion and trial and

sorrow have no nowhere else to go.

Lament is the way we release them to God by saying honestly

what we see and what we feel. How is lament different from

grumbling might be asking that question.

Lament complaints to God while grumbling complaints about God.

Lament flows from faith flows from trust in God, whereas

grumbling flows from unbelief. Lament leads to deeper trust,

while grumbling leads to deeper sin.

Christian, do you have this category of prayer in your

spiritual toolbox? Without it, there will

eventually come a time, if it's not come already, where you're

out of options, you're out of levers to pull, and you'll need

to pray prayers of lament. The pressure will be such, the

suffering will be such, the confusion will be such that

lament is the type of prayer that you need to pray.

I personally struggle with people pleasing.

I'm a habitual people pleaser. If I'm over at someone's house,

I might hesitate from saying if I don't prefer that particular

food. I'm worried that my honesty

might hurt their feelings. I'm worried that saying what I

actually think, what I'm actually feeling, is going to

make someone feel bad. Maybe you feel the same way,

beloved. We can do the same thing with

God holding back our honest prayers, because deep down,

whether we would admit it or not, we don't want to seem like

unthankful Christians in our sufferings, even as we talk

about them with God's people. We could just put on this fake

smile and suffer in silence because we don't want to come

across as unthankful to God's people or to God Himself.

Beloved, God won't be hurt by your honesty.

He won't be hurt by your honest prayers of lament.

Our lack of lament does not deceive God.

He knows our confusion. He knows our sorrows.

He knows everything. Us not telling Him doesn't make

it any different. He already knows.

So crack open your sorrows right in front of the Lord.

Go before Him in prayer and pray right where it hurts.

Tell God honestly where you're confused and where you feel like

he is far away. Follow David's example and bring

your lament to the throne of grace.

Bring others laments to the throne of grace.

This is exactly what David goes on to do.

He says to God exactly what he sees.

He presents the evidence to God that suggests that God is far

off. Look down at verses 2 and 3.

David writes in arrogance. The wicked hotly pursue the

poor, let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.

For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one

greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord like a movie

jumping into a high speed chase, verse 2 just immediately ropes

in our attention the wicked hotly pursue the poor.

The wicked here are a dangerous combination of both pride and

prosperity. They're proud and they have the

means and the power to execute oppression on all those around

them. They're steered by their selfish

desire. That's the steering wheel of

their life, their desires. Verse 3 says the desires of his

soul. They're greedy for gain.

They're boasting, scheming and renouncing God.

And then in verse 4 we read in the pride of his face, the

wicked does not seek him. All his thoughts are there is no

God. David here skillfully identifies

The Fountainhead of sin, the source of all sin, and that is

No Fear of God. The source of our sin is pride,

arrogance. Where we don't fear God's face,

we don't fear His judgment. The place where God should have

been in their hearts has been replaced by selfish desire.

That's what's driving them. That's what's driving their

life. We see here what we might call a

type of practical atheism. Practical atheism.

It's essentially where, whether you would admit it or not, you

live as if there is no God. You might say there is a God,

but your thoughts would reveal otherwise.

The NIV in this verse literally reads there is no room in their

thoughts for God. No room.

Sadly, this is as common today as it was way back then.

At UNC, where Brian Miller and I have the privilege of going out

and sharing the gospel with students, we often come across a

practical atheist response. Someone who might say there is a

God, but then when we ask them, have you ever thought about God?

You ever considered his existence, will often get the

response. That's not something I think

about very often. I don't really worry about God.

That's not something I spend much time thinking about.

That's the response we get pretty often, and it's sad

because many of these students clearly do not have God in their

everyday thoughts. There's no room in their

thoughts for God because God has been replaced in their hearts by

something else, some other desire, pride, selfishness,

whatever drives them pride has pushed out the fear of God in

their thinking. In the neighborhood that I grew

up in, we had a neighbor across the street who I spent a good

amount of time playing with my siblings.

We spent a good time playing with him and I'll never forget

one particular afternoon. We're playing, we're having fun

shooting basketball. And on this particular day, he

had come to think that if he had his eyes closed that he would be

invisible. If he just closed his eyes that

instantly he would magically poof, go away and be invisible

and he would yell at us with his eyes closed.

You can't see me, you can't see me.

And all of us would yell back at him, Yes we can, Yes we can.

He thought that because his eyes were closed, because he couldn't

see us, that we couldn't see him.

Friends, this is what pride is like before an all seeing God.

Just because we don't see him or care about him or think about

him doesn't mean that God doesn't see us.

God's not fooled. Your lack of seeing him doesn't

mean he ceases to exist. Your lack of seeking him doesn't

cause him to vanish. God is there.

God sees verses 5 through 6 of the Psalm point out this exact

thing. Says his ways prosper at all

times. Your judgments are on high out

of his sight. As for his foes, he puffs at

them. He says in his heart, I shall

not be moved throughout all generations.

I shall not meet adversity. Friend, your lack of thoughts

about God do not erase his existence.

God sees even if your eyes are closed.

Look back down at verse 7 says under his tongue are mischief

and iniquity. Here we have a vivid image of

trickery under the tongue, hidden away, ready to bounce out

the wicked. Are plotting and mischievous.

They're using their words for greed and gain rather than for

others. Then in verses 8 through 10, our

attention is brought again to the way that they ambush the

poor. David describes this person like

a lion, the master predator. Big mane, very strong, loud

growl. The wicked person uses his

tongue to deceive, his eyes to identify the vulnerable, and

then his strength to seize them. Here we're reminded that the

weakest and the poorest are often the most vulnerable to

attack the orphan, the person without the resources or the

power to defend themselves. We're also reminded that

prosperity is not an automatic sign of God's favor.

Here in this passage. This person is greedy for gain.

They want more and more. The helpless are easy targets

for these lions to attack. David here is mourning.

He's lamenting before God that he lives in a society filled

with lions attacking the helpless poor, those with little

money, little physical strength. No fatherly defenders are being

attacked within Israel and the world.

At that time, there was No Fear of God in people's gaze, No Fear

of God in their thinking, No Fear of God to stop them in

their tracks. In verse 8, the psalmist talks

about hiding places. Kids, I don't know if you've

ever played hide and go seek. I'm pretty sure you have.

You have a hiding place. It's where no one is looking.

And in our text, it's clear that before the eyes of others, the

attack of these lions might be postponed.

No one's looking. Excuse me?

If someone's looking, they might not attack, but when no one is

looking in the dark, the attack goes forward Because they assume

that God doesn't see, they assume that God's eye isn't

there. They assume that because they're

in the dark that there really is no God.

Friend, who are you in the dark? Who are you in the hiding

places? The modern reader may read these

verses and think, well, I'm not that bad, I'm not like that, but

we need to take a closer look. I need to take a closer look.

How often do you puff up in pride against those who are

weaker than you? When you're the strongest

mentally or physically in the room, Do you use that

superiority selfishly or selflessly?

When no one is looking, what do you think and what do you do?

Well, verse 10 summarizes the state of things.

The psalmist says the helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall

by his might. This is a godless society within

Israel and within the world at large.

It's a time where might makes right, you might say.

Certainly times are different today.

We're in 2025. We have modern technology.

That was 1000 years ago. Surely things are different now.

Surely we've made progress. Yet throughout our world, it's

obvious that the most vulnerable are being preyed upon.

With our eyes wide open, we can see the helpless crushed all

around us. Predators prey on the most

helpless and the most innocent. Even children.

Millions of abortions each year. Shootings across our country and

across the world, the persecution of Christians, those

who believe in Christ across the globe, the list goes on and on.

Turn on the news, you see it there.

Talk to your friends and family, you see it there too.

Those who are most vulnerable, most weak are taken advantage

of. We live in the same world as the

psalmist did, and the psalmist here models for us a sensitivity

to sin that we should follow. All of this should affect us as

God's people. It shouldn't be water off a

duck's back. It shouldn't be light or easy

for us to brush these things off.

We shouldn't ignore it and go with the sunshine and rainbows

approach. Depending on who you are,

there's likely certain evils that you're more nose blind to

than others. My wife Kim and I are eager to

welcome our first child into the world come December.

Lord willing, we'll bring this child in.

And I've been asking a lot of dads, hey, give me some advice,

give me some tips and tricks, tell me what is going to happen.

And one dad I was talking to just the other week said, Joe, I

want to let you know that the stinky diapers, you'll

eventually get used to them. Eventually it'll be just second

nature. And I was thinking to myself, I

sure hope that's true. I sure hope that's the case,

said eventually you'll grow nose blind to them.

But friends, let's not grow nose blind to the sin around us.

What tragedies, what evils don't prick you like they should?

Politics especially can pollute our sensitivity to certain sins.

We're soaking more in political commentary than we are in

Scripture. This is why we need God's Word

to splash us in the face and to remind us the sins and the evils

that are all around us. Get into your Bibles.

Read Scripture. This is one reason why we need

one another. We need each other in the church

so that when sin or tragedy strikes, we can weep with those

who weep. Maybe a brother or sister can

remind you or point out to you certain sins that you've grown

numb to, either in your own life or in the world at large.

Perhaps something that you're listening to or watching, or

your regular intake of social media or the news is dulling

your senses and you need to scale back and introduce more

scripture after the service. Ask a brother or sister what

evils are you tempted to grow nose blind to?

Well, verse 11 concludes this section of lament.

David has been pouring out his heart before the Lord, pouring

out his pain, showing the evidence that God feels hidden.

And in verse 11, he concludes with these words talking about

the wicked says he says in his heart, God has forgotten, he has

hidden his face. He will never see it.

In verse one, David, praise God, why do you hide your face?

Here in verse 11, the wicked say, God, you have hidden your

face. God seems far away and the

psalmist has prayed his pain before the Lord.

And here in this last verse, verse 11 of this section, the

wicked seems to think that God will never see and will never

judge. But it's a dangerous thing, a

very, very dangerous thing to conclude from God hasn't to God

won't. Just because God hasn't judged

the wicked doesn't mean he won't.

And friends, as we stare at the unbalanced scales of justice, we

need to guard against that same assumption.

Just because God hasn't judged our enemies doesn't mean he

won't. That's why we must point #2

Petition the God of justice. Petition the God of justice.

Verses 12 through 15 the first words read.

Arise, O Lord, O God, lift up your hand.

Forget not the afflicted. Why does the wicked renounce God

and say in his heart, you will not call to account when God

feels hidden, when His justice feels far away?

We are called here to model David and petition this God of

justice to call out to him that He would balance the scales.

Psalm 7 verse 6 is very similar. It reads, Arise, O Lord, in your

Psalms 7:6

anger, lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies.

Awake before me. You have appointed judgment.

David, unlike us today, lived in the theocracy of the nation of

Israel. He had been appointed king, and

he was called upon by God to dethrone his enemies so that he

could righteously rule. In that sense, we are not like

David. We are not anointed kings here

to establish our Kingdom here on earth, to establish our nation,

the nation of Joe or insert your name.

But church, we can model David's petition by praying that God

would punish evil doers, that he would push back the enemies of

righteousness, that he would push back those who seek to

oppress the poor, that he would have victory over evil.

We should pray that God would disarm wicked people, wicked

institutions. When we see evil all around us,

call a brother or sister, say, would you pray with me?

This evil is burdening my soul. And you can pray like David that

God would disarm them. We should be praying for our

persecuted brothers and sisters. We should be praying for those

in our society that I was mentioning earlier that are

helpless, that are being crushed.

We should not only pray for God's justice now, we should

pray for God's justice in the future, the justice of God's

second coming of Christ's return.

We handicap our prayers if we never pray for God to execute

justice. As Christians, God's judgement

can sometimes be one of these uncomfortable things.

Maybe pray for God's mercy, but God's judgement?

Can we pray for that? By not praying for God's final

judgement, we're essentially not praying for Christ to return.

Christ is returning to judge all things, so we should pray for

that. Listen to the prayers of the

Saints in heaven. Revelation 6 verse 9 says, When

Revelation 6:9

he opened the 5th seal, I saw under the clouds, Excuse me, I

saw under the altar of the souls of those who had been slain for

the word of God, and for the witness they had borne.

They cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy

and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood

on those who dwell on the earth? We should pray for God's second

coming, for His justice. Jesus Himself calls us to pray

in the Lord's Prayer that His Kingdom would come and that His

will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This is one of those prayers that you can pray and know that

you have a guaranteed yes. Those are pretty sweet prayers

to pray. You know there's a yes on the

other side of that prayer because Christ will return.

Brothers and sisters, we all long for the scales of justice

to be balanced. It's a deep craving in every

soul. Every time we see the helpless

crushed and our world spinning out of control, we crave

justice. There are Christian families I

love very much and sitting down with them as they share their

trials, the abuse that's gone on in their family, how within

their circles the helpless have been crushed.

Those who are most weak have been taken advantage of, and

there's no justice that's been done.

My eyes, they fill with tears because worldly comforts, they

just fall short. There's no silver lining,

there's no positive spin. So I'm sitting there with them.

There's just this crushing weight of evil unpunished,

that's on their backs. God has given us governments

with the power of the sword to punish injustice.

Praise God for that. But worldly injustice is

insufficient for at least two reasons.

It falls short for at least two reasons.

The 1st is that worldly justice systems don't possibly have the

ability to see everything. They're not all seeing.

They're not all knowing. Their eyes can't be everywhere

at once. And second, they don't have the

power to punish everything. They can't possibly punish to

the degree that's necessary, and they can't possibly punish with

the scope that's necessary. Their power is limited.

Their eye and their hand is weak.

And friends, without a God who is on the throne, the wicked

will get away with it. They'll get away with it.

And This is why verse 14 is so refreshing, as the burden of

unpunished sin crushes our backs.

Look down at verse 14 and let relief wash over your soul.

This is what the psalmist says, verse 14.

But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you

may take it into your hands. When justice falls through the

cracks, we can trust that God does see and that he will judge.

This is good news. It's good news that God is just.

It's good news that God's eye and his arm are strong friends.

This is the hope for the world. There's no utopia that's going

to be accomplished by justice here on earth.

It's only the justice from heaven coming down to earth.

When the clouds are ripped open, that justice will finally reign.

God will establish everlasting peace when he comes again.

God is really watching. He's really waiting to bring

final judgment on the earth. And This is why Jesus came.

He came and announced repent and believe, for the Kingdom of

heaven is at hand. There will come a day when God

will make all things right. He will RIP open the sky and

judge the living and the dead. Every arrogant thought, every

abuse of power, every boastful word, every proud look and every

word of deceit will be brought before the King of Kings and the

Lord of Lords, and He will begin his courtroom, and he will

execute justice and punish perfectly every sin, every evil.

Our perfect Creator will pronounce judgment on every

soul. Everyone of us in this room

individually will be judged before the God of the universe

and on our own, by our own merit, not one of us will be

pronounced not guilty. On our own.

The sentence will be guilty. God's eye will see right through

any pretence of good, even the good things we have done.

They'll be like paint over our rotten wrongs.

God can see right through to our proud hearts.

As verse 15 says, God will call our wickedness to account till

he finds none. Just like a righteous judge here

on earth won't let the good outweigh the bad, so God will

perfectly judge each of us. He'll judge every thought we've

had in the dark, everything we've thought, everything we've

done, all the things that we're ashamed of.

And the final judgement really should be a terror to those who

are doing evil. Maybe some of you even in this

room thinking that God is not going to judge you, that there's

going to be no accounting, that you're getting away with it.

Might I just point you to this text and say God's judgments are

on high right now, out of your sight, but eventually they'll

break over your head. So turn to this God.

The question we should all be asking is how can a just God

still forgive us? How can a just God wash away our

iniquity? How can the banner of guilty be

taken away from over our heads on that day?

Friends, this is also why Jesus came.

He came to announce His coming judgement, but He came first to

give righteousness to those who would believe on this earth.

He lived a perfect life where we failed.

Christ was perfect, and on the cross of Calvary, as He was led

up that hill, and as He had the crown of thorns placed in His

head, and as He was nailed to that tree, those sins of ours

who believe in Him were accounted to him so that He

could count. Many righteous Jesus can forgive

sinners because on that cross He was made to be seen as the most

angry, boastful, deceptive, greedy man to ever walk the

earth. As your sin and my sin was

placed on His shoulders, He was seen to be sin, so that in him

you and I might have the righteousness of God credited to

us. The just anger of God was poured

out upon Christ as if He was the most sinful man to walk the

earth. The cross brings together God's

uncompromising justice and his unrelenting mercy, as on that

cross he satisfied the wrath of God against those who would

believe. And then he was laid in the

grave. And the question would be, was

this God's payment for sin sufficient?

Was it enough? Well, I'm happy to announce that

three days later, Jesus rose from the grave, proving that the

check had been cashed. He can say to you and I, I

forgive you and actually mean it because he purchased it on that

cross. He is the just and justifier of

the one who has faith in Jesus. Friends, This is why Jesus is

the only way to salvation. This is why no other way to God,

no other religion can offer forgiveness.

Don't rely on them because Jesus is the only one who justly

satisfied God's wrath. So if you're not a believer,

turn to this God today and be accounted righteous by praying

that God would give you his righteous robes, the righteous

robes of Jesus, and that he would take your filthy robe of

sin. God will answer that prayer.

Call out to Him, bow before him, and He will wash you clean.

For us who are believers already, the justice of God is

good news for us. This is why we, like David, can

say to you, the helpless commits himself.

You have been a helper to the fatherless.

Many in our world despise the idea of needing help, of being

helpless, of needing someone stronger to overthrow the bully

or to fill in the gap where we're weak.

Many, even in Christian circles will repeat the phrase God helps

those who help themselves. But friends, this is not the God

of the Bible. We are all need and He is all

help. We are full of weakness and He

is full of strength. We are full of doubt and He is

full of promises. We are full of sin and He is the

fountain of righteousness. We struggle with sin and He was

tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

We are all need and He is all help.

God doesn't mail us a check. He comes to us even though we

may feel like David, that God is far away, that He's hidden, yet

even there, even then God has not removed His Holy Spirit from

us. Remember what the Spirit is

called called the Helper. You and I have the Helper within

us, and that Helper is the very one that leads us to pray

prayers of lament and then pray prayers of petition.

That's God's work in you. Even though God may feel

1,000,000 miles away, He's actually, if you're a believer,

right inside you, helping you and causing you to seek Him.

You, like David, can remember how God has been a helper in

days past. Recall the times where God has

been a deliverer in your times of confusion.

In your confusion, commit yourself to the God of help.

He will fill you up in due time. We've seen how we should lament

injustice. We've seen how we ought to,

excuse me, We've seen how we ought to petition the God of

justice. Now finally, point #3 praise the

God of justice. Praise the God of justice.

The psalmist concludes in verses 16 to 18.

The Lord is king forever and ever the nations perish from his

land. Oh Lord, you hear the desire of

the afflicted. You will strengthen their heart.

You will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and

the oppressed so that the man who is of earth may strike

terror. No more.

Winter time is coming, even a little bit colder this morning

than it normally is. And many of us will be making

bonfires. I love bonfires.

I love getting them started. Sometimes they can grow a little

bit dim, a little bit cold. And what you do with the bonfire

is you either take the Stokes or you do it the old school way.

You just blow on those coals and they the oxygen hits them, they

get hotter, they glow. Well, in this Psalm, it's almost

as if when David prays his prayer of petition, that those

prayers are like oxygen hitting the promises of God that he

knows. And it makes him grow hotter and

hotter in his mind until finally, as he's praying prayers

of petition, his heart just naturally moves to prayers of

praise because those promises begin to feel glowing hot to

him. His petitions lead him to

praise. David prays that God would be

glorified. He prays in confidence, and he

prays in confidence because he knows that there is coming final

judgment. These prayers make no sense.

His praise makes no sense if God's not coming back to make

all things right, to make all things new.

While he certainly anticipated earthly victory in his Kingdom

in the nation of Israel, he's clearly looking forward to the

one who would come from his line, the line of David, who

would execute justice and righteousness for all who are

oppressed. He's looking forward to the day

when God's judgement will bring lasting safety for the people of

God. How does God respond to this

prayer of calling for God to arise, even these praises that

he lifts up to God? Well, Psalm 12 verse 5 previews

Psalms 12:5

God's response that will come. Psalm 12/5 reads I will now

arise, says the Lord. I will bring him into the safety

for which he longs. Christian, when God's face feels

hidden, look forward to heaven. Look forward to the day when the

scales of justice will be balanced.

Look forward to the day when the burden of injustice will be

removed from your back. God's goodness and His face in

heaven will not be hidden. God will deliver you to the

safety for which you long kids in heaven.

There will be no more locks on doors.

There will be no more nightmares.

There will be no more scary people.

Just safety. And that safety will be

accomplished because of God's righteous judgment.

No more bad guys, no more crimes.

Just peace, just safety. Look forward to that day.

In verse 18 we have a glorious promise.

It says on that day God will do justice to the fatherless and

the oppressed so that the man who is of earth may strike

terror. No more Christian.

Let God's final judgement be a comfort to you.

You're going to need this in your Christian life.

You're going to need this as you live in this world where the

righteous suffer and the wicked often flourish.

You're going to need these categories.

You're going to need the comfort of heaven and the day of peace.

Christian, if you came in today feeling like God is far away,

follow the Psalmist's example. When God's justice seems hidden,

lament the injustice you see. Petition the God of justice and

then praise him. He is the King.

He is coming back soon. You will come to find out that

he has heard your every cry. Let's pray.

Lord God, we thank you that you were just.

We thank You that you are coming soon to execute justice and

righteousness for all who are oppressed.

Lord, we pray that everyone in this room would be made right

with God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that they would

be justified through that sacrifice.

And Lord, we pray that when we see injustice around us that we

would turn to your word and we would turn to one another, and

that we would respond as David responded.

Lord, we pray all these things in Jesus name, Amen.