Reading this psalm, it's very easy to miss the most important truth in it. And maybe it's just because I'm blind, dumb, or stupid that I say that. Maybe you've already noted it carefully as we have read the psalm. But this psalm of Asaph is one that is constructed around The proposition that the glory of God in the earth is inextricably bound together with the good of His people on the earth. You see that if you look at the beginning of the psalm and the end. The end of the psalm gives you the whole purpose of all the petitions that the psalmist is here raising to the Lord. Why is he praying this? That men may know that Thou whose name alone is Jehovah art the Most High over all the earth. The purpose of this psalm is that men may be brought to behold the unique greatness and glory of the Lord Jehovah. But how is that to be done? Well, when you look at how it is to be done, there really is no reference to what we would call any miraculous manifestation. There is no reference to some of the more glorious moments in Old Testament history. What there is, is a reference to the ongoing battle of ten nations against Israel. They had made themselves confederate and they had said, This, by the way, leads many interpreters to see this as a prophetic psalm that has its final fulfillment in the climactic last days of this age. And I think there's a lot of truth in that. They say, let's get together and let's obliterate them from being a nation. Wonderful how up to date Old Testament history and Old Testament prophecy is. That is still the aim of a great confederacy of nations today. That has been said year after year, decade after decade. The old saying, they're going to push Israel into the sea. Now the president of Iran talking about what they're going to do to Israel. All this has been going on. And it is reflecting this age-old hatred of the people of God. But the point I'm making is this, as this confederation of ten nations came against Israel with the avowed intention of taking counsel to make sure that they were obliterated from off the face of the earth, the psalmist is praying, Lord, intervene. Defeat these enemies. Support your people. Bring your people through. Why? That people may know that Jehovah alone is the most high over all the earth. Point again, the glory of God in the earth is inextricably bound together with the good of his people on the earth. Now that should give us encouragement to come to pray. We are, as Paul says, the Israel of God. We do have a confederation of more than ten Middle Eastern nations against us. We have a confederation of the powers of hell and of earth, combined and consulting for the destruction of the house of God among men, the people of God on earth. That's the reality. Now then, we should have encouragement here to pray, because the Lord, and this seems an overstatement of the fact, but it can't be when you stop to think of it. The Lord's glory cannot be manifested on the earth if He is not doing good to His people. He cannot manifest His glory if he is not protecting his people, if he is not supporting his people, if he is not intervening on behalf of his people, if he is not showing himself strong for the cause for which they are standing. The glory of God is hidden when his goodness toward his people is obscured. And so if we have a desire for the manifestation of the glory of God among the nations, we are praying that the Lord will come and bless His people. Now I think, you know, when you stop to think of that, that lifts up the whole matter of our praying to a totally different level. You see, this is more than us coming to pray, Lord, we want to see people see Him. Now, we should be praying that. But this is more than us praying simply, we want to see people saved. We want to see the churches built. We want to see the congregations established. We want to know the preaching is being used of God. It's good to pray those things, but the motivation behind those prayers is much, much higher. It is that the glory of God may be seen in the earth, because this is the only way in which God is going to manifest His glory. If He does not come through with power behind the church that is preaching the gospel, then His glory cannot be seen. Is it the will of God that men are brought to acknowledge His unique greatness and glory? Is that the will of God? Are we in solid ground when we're praying for that? Surely we are. But if we're in solid ground for praying for that great end, then we are equally on solid ground when we're praying for the means to that end that God Himself has revealed in His own precious Word. That should give us great confidence, great boldness, and yet a great sense of responsibility as we come to pray. That's the basic truth of this psalm. As I say, I think it would be easily overlooked. I have confessed that may be my peculiar blindness or stupidity because when I looked at the psalm, before I came out to the meeting tonight, I had no intention of saying any of that. None of that even registered with me. Just as I read it again, I realized how dumb can you be? How can you miss the obvious? What took my attention when I read it was the fact in verse 3 that the psalmist is praying For God's people, in peculiar terms, they have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones." Thy hidden ones. And that really was what I wanted to set before you as we came to pray, as an encouragement for us to pray. That this is God's description of His own people. They're His hidden ones. That's a very small little phrase, and yet it is something that's full of meaning. Why or how does God call us that? Well, certainly it would be good to say that we're hidden by God, but not from God. And as we come to pray about the work of God, about the state of religion in our own hearts, in our own homes, in our own church, state of the work of God much beyond these four walls as we come to pray for that. It's good to know we're hidden by God, but we're not hidden from Him. His eye is upon the righteous and His ear is open unto their cry. What does it mean to be hidden by God? Well, obviously there is a sense. I'm not sure how much the psalmist would have had it in mind to start with, though it cannot be divorced from the thought. But There's the idea of the eternal purpose of God. That's where you're first of all hidden. Remember how Paul said, "...the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His." The Lord has a people whom He has, as it were, hidden in the secret counsel of His eternal electing purpose. They are His people. His by divine choice. His by divine appointment. His by an eternal union that was established in the covenant of redemption with the Lord Jesus Christ. They're His people. Now when you stop to think that that's, if you could use a contradictory term, that's how far back we go with God. If that's the case, Is there anything about which we can't pray? You look at this opposition that there is to the work of God and the people of God. Isn't it a wonderful thing to be able to come to the Lord and say, Lord, here is a people upon whom you set your love from all eternity, whom you placed in covenant union with Christ from all eternity, You hid them, as it were, in that covenant. And now comes this army of satanic forces set for their destruction. Rise up to defend these people. Rise up to do them good. Can we not pray that? Is that not just another way of praying the truth that Paul set forth in Romans 8.32? That He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things? If He put us in Christ from before the foundation of the world, then He will withhold no good thing from us. So we can come and we can pray on that basis. But the idea I think here is, here's your hidden ones, they're under the gun as it were, and that's a strange sort of statement, I don't think they had guns in those days, but you know what I mean, they were under the gun, and so he's saying Lord, they've taken counsel, they've consulted against thy hidden ones. Surely God has undertaken to hide his people from the enemy that would inflict hurt upon them. Hidden means they're safe. Hidden means they're secure. Hidden also has the idea that He has put them in a place of perfect peace. Do you remember how Isaiah 32 describes the Lord Jesus Christ, that great prophetic promise? A man shall be as what? As a hiding place. Christ, the hiding place of His people. Christ, the place of safety, of security, and of peace. So here's the prayer. Lord, here are Your hidden ones. They're in Christ. You've promised them security. You've promised them peace. Lord, now give it to them. Is there not there also the notion that there often misunderstood by men and unrecognized by men, the hidden ones. The world doesn't see them for what they are. The world doesn't understand them, doesn't understand what they're about. I mean, as far as the world's concerned, and sadly, as far as most of the professing church is concerned, you're a bunch of lunatics. Say that with all due respect. You're a bunch of lunatics. You come to pray. Why? Why? I mean, if you believe in prayer, well, bow your knee two minutes later, get up and go do it. That's the idea today. Go do it. Go do something. Don't just pray. The world doesn't recognize or understand the hidden ones of God. But the Lord does. Because, and this is the thing that I I really want to leave with you from this that the phrase, the hidden ones are certainly, if scripture means anything, they must be the people of that hidden or secret place. Do you remember Jesus said, Matthew chapter 6, that you enter into your closet and shut the door. And you pray to your Father which is in secret in the hidden place. And your Father which sees in secret himself shall reward you openly. These hidden ones are a praying people. And here is then the great petition of the psalmist, Lord, Your church is under the attack of the devil, but these are Your praying people. Now, Lord, if Your name is going to be glorified in the earth, it must be because You're answering the prayers of Your people. It must be. We must never get used to turning prayer into a vain exercise of talking to ourselves or impressing each other. We must never get used to getting into the rut of simply going through a religious motion where we get no answer from God. The old practice of some of the saints in revival times and thereafter, it was a fairly widespread practice. where they would actually write down a date, a petition, and leave a column in which to record the day and the date of God's answer. That old practice, I think, would find most of us out. Because the reality is, we have got ourselves used to prayerless praying, forgive the oxymoron. And we have got ourselves used to unanswered prayer. Now, I know all the usual theological answers. I know all the usual semi-biblical excuses. I know all about delayed answers. And that a delay is not a denial. I know all those things. And there's a great deal of truth in them. Let's be honest. Let's cut the cackle and get down to reality. Those are supposed to be the exceptions. And there's not a scrap of evidence in that book that we're living anything like the biblical reality of Christianity. And I include myself in that. There's not a scrap of evidence that we're living anything like even a ghost of biblical Christianity in which it is the rule, not the exception, it's the rule to get answers to prayer. Not things that we dream up, not things that we convolute into looking like an answer, but things that are demonstrably, undeniably answers to prayer. If we're God's hidden ones, then God sees us in the secret place, and His glory is involved in getting answers to us. Now, don't misunderstand what I'm about to say. God is not in need of anything. But if I could put it colloquially, well, I'll rephrase so that I'm not misunderstood. It's in God's interest, even more than it's in our interest, for Him to answer our praying. It's in His interest. It's for His glory. It's for His honor. Because in no other way, under the sun, in no other way can He ever manifest His glory. if he will not answer the prayers of his people. Now don't misunderstand, I'm not saying if he doesn't answer your praying because he can answer somebody else's. That brings the responsibility back on to ourselves because our sin, our worldliness, our coldness, our deadness, our selfishness, our unbelief or whatever can get in the way and hinder the answering of our own particular prayers. And it's a sad thing that while God is moving to answer the prayers of others, He's not answering my prayer. That's not because God doesn't answer prayer. There's something wrong that has to be put right. That's what we have got before God to seek Him about. But oh, let us pray. We are His hidden ones. We are His hidden ones. Combine these two great truths, them together. and see, as His hidden ones get alone with God, unrecognized by the world, misunderstood by the world, hated by the world, targeted by the world, as they get alone with God, they can pray, Lord, meet with us, Lord, answer us, Lord, protect us, Lord, promote our cause, because the promotion of our cause is the promotion of your glory. Now, let that sink in. It's not every church can say that. We have got to be careful we don't arrogate to ourselves what is not true. But if our cause is His glory, then this is our prayer. This is our plea. And this is our assurance. God will answer prayer. Sure, He'll test our faith. As I say, I know all that. He will do that. He always does it. There's good reason for Him to do it. It would be destructive to us if He didn't do it. So, I understand that. But never let us make that the excuse for getting used to seeing nothing done in answer to prayer.