of our study, making applications of the study, City on a Hill or Sinking Ship. For those who have not been with us, these are recorded and I have them up on our church's sermon audio page. So if you'd like to listen to the whole series, what I did is started with the Old Testament, then did the New Testament, and then did the history of America and specifically the founding era of America as very decidedly on the side of the city on a hill opinion as opposed to the sinking ship opinion which has presided over the decline of America. And now what I'm hoping to do is just take what we've looked at from the scriptures of the Old and then the New Testaments, and then finally look at American history and make applications from each parts of the study to specifically what can we do, what are the things that we can do in our local areas, in our churches, in our lives, in our families, with our friends, what can we do with this knowledge? So, first thing, properly inform your faith. Now, this is very important because the faith of the founding of America is very different than the faith that we hold to currently. They're very, very different. And this is one way in which they're different. In our day, and this is something I repeatedly have experienced throughout my lifetime, anytime things are bad in politics, people tell me that Jesus is coming back soon. That's the constant thing that I hear. I talked to a brother this past week, met him in the store, started talking, realized he was a believer, and then he told me that Jesus is coming back soon. The scriptures don't actually indicate that when things get bad Jesus is coming back. They tend to indicate that all of his enemies will be made his footstool and then is the end. After all of his enemies have been subdued, 1 Corinthians 15. then is the end, and the final enemy to be subdued is death, which is the resurrection. So the picture that the scriptures paint is very different from the picture that our teachers have taught us since about the late 1800s. Before that, it was a very different way of thinking, and we looked at that last month where we saw the Puritans, the Pilgrims, Presbyterians, early seminary professors, Jonathan Edwards from Princeton, Thomas Shepard from Harvard. We saw that the founding faith of America is this city on a hill. And we also looked at the origin of that phrase from John Winthrop, the Puritan governor of Massachusetts, how the idea was that America would be a city set on a hill so that the light of the gospel would go out to all the nations. and they saw the conversion of some of the Indian tribes as like the first fruits of God's work of reformation through the whole world. We also saw the first great awakening and how that was fueled by the same idea of the revival coming as a movement of God's spirit and fulfillment of his promises. But the passages that they relied on in both the Old and New Testaments are the sorts that we're looking at, the sorts that we've been looking at. Okay, so, first thing of properly informing our faith. Christ's kingdom will defeat Satan's. All nations will be blessed in Isaac and Jacob's seed. They will be the inheritance and dominion of the Son of God, and all of Christ's enemies will be his footstool. And we saw this from the Old Testament. We went through several passages, I'm just summing up some of the passages we looked at. Genesis 3.15, God says that he would put enmity between the serpent and the woman, and between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, and then the head of the serpent would be bruised by the seed of the woman. So there is a prophecy concerning Christ, concerning his virgin birth, because women don't have seed. The man has the seed, the woman delivers the child, but he's saying that there's going to be this miraculous conception, and this child will crush the head of the serpent. but he will receive injury on his heel, which is a very different place to be injured. Head injuries are fatal. Heel injuries will pass. In other words, Christ will rise again. He'll be victorious, but Satan will be defeated and completely ruined. Genesis 26, 4. I will make thy seed to multiply, this is the seed of Jacob, or excuse me, of Isaac. I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven and will give unto thy seed all these countries. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. So every nation will be blessed through Christ who is the seed of Isaac. And then Jacob in chapter 28, 14. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." So the Gentiles will be blessed in Jacob. That's where Paul talks about us being engrafted into the olive tree Israel. And the seed of Jacob, which is our Lord Jesus Christ, all the families of the earth will be blessed. All the nations, all the families. Psalm 2 verse 8, The father speaks to his son and says, ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession. Now, of course, inheritance is what a father passes on to his son. And this is the father speaking to the son of God. And he's saying that if the son of God requests this, this will be given to him. He will be the heir of the heathen. Now for the Jews, You'll remember that the inheritance in Deuteronomy, Moses describes the inheritance of the various nations. And he says that Chemosh is given this inheritance to them over here, and these people have this false god, and they have their land that God, the true God actually gave them that land, but they ascribe it to their false gods. And those are their inheritances. Those are the things that they can possess and enjoy. Well, this is saying that if Christ wants it, if he asks for it in his mediation as high priest, that the Father will give him every part of the earth as his possession. And that's part of when we pray in the Lord's Prayer, which we looked at, and we'll see application from that in the New Testament. Thy kingdom come. That's what we're praying. That Christ would be the heir of all nations. That he would be the king of all kings. OK, Psalm 67 7 God shall bless us. And this is the people of God praying this God shall bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear him. Now this is, the first part of Psalm 67 is a request, a series of requests. God bless us, cause your face to shine upon us, that your way may be known among all nations. This is no longer making requests in verse 7. Now it's a prophecy. It goes from praying, God will you please do this, to saying, God you will actually do this. So the type of statement is very different. And it's actually appropriate. This is why we have to inform our faith. Should we pray that all the nations of the earth would fear God? Yes. Should we know that God says this will happen? Yes. That's the basis on which we pray. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. Because God has promised to his son that all the nations will be his inheritance. Because God has said that all the ends of the earth shall fear him. North, south, east, west. He's promised this is what will happen. Psalm 72 verse 8. He shall have dominion. This is speaking of Solomon as a type of our Lord Jesus Christ because of course Solomon's name did not endure as long as the sun and the moon. That's only Christ through the power of a resurrection life. But this, through Solomon, speaking of Christ, he shall have dominion also from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth. So Christ Jesus is King of kings and Lord The word dominion means lord or lordship. Christ will have lordship everywhere in the earth is what it's saying. There will be a universal reign of Christ. From sea to sea, and this is actually, as you pointed out last time, Alan, this is built into some of our national songs that we sing, from sea to shining sea. We're actually reflecting the faith of the pilgrims and the Puritans when we say those words, because they believe that that was actually the case. Christ would actually rule over all the nations, that Christendom would spread to all the heathen areas, all the nations of the earth would come under the dominion of Christ. and then Psalm 110, which we sang earlier. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. And we looked at this at first Corinthians 15, but let me ask you a question. When is it that Christ sat at the right hand of God? When did that happen? When he ascended, that's exactly right. So Christ was incarnated. He was crucified, buried, he died. He rose again on the third day. Then when he ascended up into heaven, he was seated at the right hand of the father. This is when God says this to him. You sit here and wait, because now during this age, after your resurrection, I'm going to make all your enemies your footstool. That started when he ascended up into heaven. And the angels told the apostles, he's going to come back the same way you saw him go up. He's going to come down in clouds, and he's going to be accompanied by angels. And Paul talks about that as the last day, the final day, the resurrection of the living and the dead. When the sheep and the goats are finally divided, that's the end. the end of all things, and the kingdom gets delivered up to the Father. So this is talking about the period from Christ's resurrection and ascension until the final judgment. All of his enemies are being made his footstool. And that's what's happening right now. This is a description of the gospel age. It's not some future age. This is now, from the time of his ascension, which is what? 34 AD, 33 AD, 30 AD, something like that. since then until now. This is what he's been doing and he'll keep on doing it until all of his enemies are made his footstool. So we must properly inform our faith. Christ's kingdom will defeat Satan's. All nations will be blessed in the seat of Isaac, the seat of Jacob. Christ will inherit and have dominion over all the nations of the earth, to the utmost parts of the earth, and all of his enemies will be made his footstool. Now that's very different, of course, than what my friend, my brother in Christ that I talked to earlier this week told me. His belief is the end comes when everything gets really bad. God says the end comes after everything gets really good. And then comes the end. After all of his enemies have been made his footstool, then comes the end. So we must properly inform our faith concerning these things. Because how you expect the game to develop is how you'll end up playing. The morale of the troops is how they figure the war is going to go. If they expect total victory and dominance, they play like it. They fight like it. If they expect you're a bunch of losers, they play like it and they act like it. And the church has been acting like losers for about a hundred and, let's say, thirty, forty years. Maybe a hundred and fifty years. The church has been told by its pastors, you're losers. God doesn't care about you. He cares about those people over there and that little plot of land. That's who you need to be concerned with. No, that's not the game that God plays. Christ will inherit all the heathen, all the Gentiles, from sea to shining sea, to the ends of the earth. He has been promised this dominion. It's been prophesied time and again. Okay, second thing, properly inform your faith that Christ's kingdom will be national in scope due to the diffusion of the knowledge and fear of God. And this is not just the Old Testament that teaches this. We'll talk about that in practical application, but we must think in these terms. And this is how our founding fathers thought as well, by the way. This was their founding faith. Because they believed in these prophecies as having actual application to their nations. Isaiah 2, 2. It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. Our Puritan and Pilgrim forefathers, they didn't think this was hyperbole. They thought this was a description of what's actually going to happen, in figurative language, of course. But you have hills are the cities, right? Jerusalem is built up on a high hill because when your enemies come against you, you reign from there and you keep all the protected and precious things there because you can shoot arrows down at them. You can throw rocks down at them. They have to ascend up. So that's where they would have their centers of government and dominion. The kings would sit on their hills. The Roman emperors would sit on their hills, right? So here what it's saying is all the dominions of the earth, all the nations that sit in power on their high hills. They're going to go down, and there's a hill that's going to go up. And it's the mountain in these last days, this is the gospel time, the mountain of the Lord's house, where God has his son seated on Mount Zion. That hill is going to be lifted up above all the reigning governments down below, and they're going to submit themselves to that hill. That's exactly what the prophecies were talking about. But specifically, the nations and the governments of the earth will submit themselves to the kingdom of Christ. And historically, for all of its foibles, this is what we've called Christendom. The nations of Europe submitting themselves to the kingship of Christ. That was not an abandoned idea by our founding fathers. That was a reformed idea, put on its proper biblical foundation, stripped of the papacy and all the abuses. Our idea as the founding of America was, we're rebuilding Christendom. In fact, the city on the hill was, we're going to show the rest of Christendom what happens when you found it on a scripture foundation, as opposed to a tradition foundation or a papacy foundation. What happens when you found Christendom on the Bible? And eventually that got eroded by future generations, but that's what we started with. Daniel 7, 14. And there was given him, again this is after Christ ascended, there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom. that all people, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." Now of course the context of Daniel is Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar, king of kings, remember that? He thought of himself as the Messiah. As the king exalted, his hill was exalted above all the hills. And this in Daniel is specifically an apologetic for the kingdom of Christ as against the heathen rulers and the universal kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar, or any other king, because he actually, in the vision of the image, he deals with all the various kingdoms that would arise, the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the Assyrians, all those kingdoms are going to be crushed by the kingdom of Christ. They're all going to go down, and his kingdom is going to last longer, it's going to be of more solid substance, and it's going to go on and have glory over all people, nations, and languages. That's the same claim Nebuchadnezzar made. I am the king of kings over all peoples, all languages, all nations. And this is saying, no, Christ is that king. You are a false pretender, Nebuchadnezzar, the son of God coming out of this people group that you've taken away. He's going to come from them and he's going to arise and reign over all the nations. And his kingdom won't end after 40 years. His kingdom will go on until all the nations. But notice. His dominion, his glory, his kingdom has a national scope, doesn't it? It has a scope that's beyond just me or my family. It's actually to nations as well. Habakkuk chapter two, verse 14. There are other passages like this. The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Okay, so how many parts of the sea are covered with water? All of it, right? So then, how many parts of the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord? All of it, okay? So this is what I mean. God gives us, Abraham was told, your seed will have this land and they'll be more numerous than the sand on the seashore. And if you listen to that and you read the newspaper and you looked around at the people that Abraham lived around, what would you say about that promise? Is that realistic? No, no, it's completely unrealistic. No, I can't even have a child. And God actually comes to Abraham and tells him this, and he says, but I don't have a child. I don't even have an heir. How am I going to have children like these stars that you're pointing to? I've got Eliezer here. Is he going to inherit? I mean, it just seems ridiculous. Sarah's told the same thing. You're going to have a son, and she laughs. and then she pretends like she wasn't laughing. Okay, so it seems impossible, doesn't it? You look around, you read the newspaper right now, you look at social media, you look at Joe Biden, you look at all these idiots in the World Economic Forum, you look at Bill Gates and the shots and all this goofiness, and you say to yourself, how is this gonna happen? But that's the point. God is not limited by the powers of man. God's promises are not circumscribed by the newspaper that says this is happening here and this is happening here. God makes promises. And what Satan wants to do is he says, you people of God, stop listening to the promise. Start looking out around you. Start worrying about all the bad things going on. I'm not saying we shouldn't worry about them. I'm not saying we shouldn't do things about them. What I'm saying is we should believe what God says. And if he says that our nations, all nations on earth, will be filled with the knowledge of God and the fear of God and will walk in the light of this truth about Christ and his exalted kingdom, then that's what's going to happen. Whether we believe it, it will be done to us according to our faith. And as our faith in these promises has waned, guess what's happened to our nation? Gone down the tubes. We lost faith in the promise, and the promise was not realized. And that's how the prophets generally work. They go to a people, Jonah goes to a people and says, you got 40 days and you're toast. And what do they say? We better repent, because maybe God will be gracious. And God is gracious. He goes to a people and says, I'm taking you out of Egypt. You're going into the land. Get yourselves ready. Send out the spies. The people suggest that. Moses is like, yes, let's do that. Send out the spies. Spies come back. God just told them they're going into the land, right? And then they say what? Well, we don't believe. There's too many difficulties. We've seen the newspapers. Newspapers say bad news, not going to work. And they don't believe. Do they go in? No. Didn't God say they were going to go in? Be it done unto you according to your faith. If you don't believe the promise, guess what? You're not going to see it. But if you believe the promise, guess what? You will see it. And so this is why God repeats this again and again and again, which brings us to the third part on page two of your handout, the practical application. Not only must we know the truth, we must pray according to it. And we'll talk about worship and then we'll talk about politics and we'll talk about family life and all these things, but just for now, our prayers. Pray for the conversion of all nations. for kings, for judges, for presidents, for representatives, and expect that God will answer these prayers in order to reform Christendom or Christ's kingdom among the nations of the earth. So if we believe that God's gonna do this, this impossible thing that seems like it's a pipe dream, that seems like lunacy to even state it, if we believe that God's going to do that, then we need to start praying that way. And when we don't believe that God's going to do that, are we going to pray that way? No, of course not. You don't expect God to do something and you don't think he's made a promise to do it. It won't become the basis on which you offer prayer to God and it will be done to us according to our faith and according to our prayers. Psalm 2, we looked at, ask of me. and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." Now, if Christ is asking that, and that's part of his intercession as our great high priest, do you think that we should pray that too? I would say so. I'd say yeah. If Christ is there being told, pray this and I'll do it, well what should we be doing? We should be praying the same thing. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. God bless us and cause your face to shine upon us so that your way may be known among all the nations of the earth. That's Psalm 67 at the beginning. Before the promissory part, there's the prayer at the beginning. So we ought to pray that. The same way that Christ is told to pray. Then he goes on. Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Now, kissing the son, this is very interesting. The Pope is really the only one, because he's an antichrist, he's the only one who preserves this. What does he say? Kiss my ring, right? And the woman, there was a woman who messed with his ring. He smacked her in the face because she was disrespectful. You guys ever see that? You should look it up. Pope smacking woman. You'll see it. She didn't kiss the ring properly and he smacked her in the face and she actually fell back. But that's a proper picture, only it's Antichrist instead of Christ. When they're told to kiss the sun, that means to publicly bow before him and make your allegiance known publicly. So this is not saying be a Christian and believe in limited government and keep your Christianity out of politics. No, this is saying to the kings of the earth, you have to openly acknowledge Christ as your Lord. You have to openly own him and submit yourself and bow before him and say, you are my master, just like the papists do to the Pope. That's what they're saying. You're my king. You're my God. You're my master. We must do that. Our kings must do that to Jesus Christ himself. Kiss the son, lest he be angry. What's the result if civil magistrates don't publicly own Christ? Look, you will perish. His wrath will be kindled. Do you want that? No, Paul says, why do we pray for the conversion of our magistrates? So that we may lead a quiet life in all godliness and honesty. If our magistrates aren't Christians, this is what we get, wrath. If our magistrates publicly submit themselves to Christ, what do we get? You'll be blessed. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Serve the Lord with fear. Rejoice with trembling. These are things we tend to say are opposites, but God makes them composites. Rejoicing and fearing God go together. They're not opposites. It's not religion versus relationship. Fear of God and rejoicing. They go together. Okay, so this has to be done. The judges of the earth, the kings of the earth, or they perish. And if they perish, we perish with them. They are the head, we are the body of the civil body. If they go down, we go down. Joe Biden gets judged, we get judged, okay? So this is why we're to pray that our national leadership, our state leadership, our judges, our representatives, we are to pray that God will convert them to the true religion. and that they would publicly own Christ. Psalm 72, Yea, all kings shall fall down before him, all nations shall serve him. These are acts of worship. Service in the Bible, when you read that word serve, it doesn't mean to bring food to someone. In the context of God, it means to do those acts of worship that he commands you to do. He commands you to do this, you do it. He says come in this way, follow these means, read this book, sing these songs, preach these words, that's what he says, then that's what you do. This bread, this wine, this water, you know, he says do these things, service means I will submit myself to the kingly orders of Jesus. And I will not listen to other voices, because I don't have any other king. In terms of God's worship, I don't listen to other kings. They don't tell me what I'm supposed to do. So all the kings of the earth, they acknowledge that this is the king of us. We worship him alone. We bow before him alone. Verse 17, his name shall endure forever, his name shall be continued as long as the sun and men shall be blessed in him. All nations shall call him blessed." Wait, wait, wait, wait. The nations now, not just the kings. Nations as nations will say that Jesus Christ is the blessed and only potentate. This is what we call Christendom. This is what we call a nation acknowledging and owning Jesus Christ as their king. And blessed be His glorious name forever, and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen. That's a good way to end a prayer, isn't it? This is how we're supposed to pray. Let the whole earth be filled with the glory of the Lord. Let all men, in other words, glorify God in whatever capacity He's given to them, whatever place or station, whatever calling, whether you're the chief dog in the civil realm or whether you're the lowest on the totem pole, the servant behind the house doing business for your master. Let everyone glorify God in their place. Because Christ is the King. Christ is the only object that all kings and nations should bow before. His is the name that endures forever. Isaiah 19, we looked at this concerning Egypt. Of course, Egypt, they were the enemies of the people of God. The Assyrians were the enemies of the people of God in the present day and the Egyptians in time past. So Isaiah says, in that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan and swear to the Lord of hosts, one shall be called the city of destruction. Okay, so those who hate Israel and enslave them in time past, what are they going to be doing that Isaiah says in that day? They're going to hate Israel? They're going to hate the people of God? No. They're actually going to speak the same language as them. That's the language of Canaan. The language that the Hebrew people spoke. They're going to, in other words, have the same words in their mouth that used to be only the words the Jews spoke. Okay? They're going to be grafted into Israel, in other words. And then they're going to swear by the name of God. If you had to count up their cities, You say 80% are converted. You got five cities, only ones devoted to destruction. That means four are fearing God. You see that? It's going to be a massive conversion of the Egyptians. Verse 19, in that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. Now that happened at the conquest of Canaan. They set up a pillar at the edge where the, what is it, two and a half tribes on the east side of Jordan? They had a pillar to say, this reminds us of how we're going to go down and we're going to worship down here in whatever place God puts his name, which was eventually Jerusalem. The altar in the center. That's at the tabernacle later at the temple. Now Egypt has everything that used to be unique to Israel. You see that? So they're going to be converted as a nation with 80% of their populace fearing God and serving him and one devoted to destruction. So the 20%. In any case, he goes on, verse 23, and that day in that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria and the Egyptian shall serve with the Assyrian. Okay. Now, the Assyrians are converted to this faith. They're grafted in. They worship together in a universal faith, together with the Egyptians. And then he goes on, I didn't put this in in the interest of space, but the Jews come back and join as the third in this. After the conversion of the Gentiles, Then is the conversion of the Jews. And then they all come and worship together, is what he's saying. There will be a universal Christendom where all the old animosities that men have perpetuated because of sin, those will go away. And only because of Christ. Only because of his kingdom. Only because they will all be converted to the one true religion. Okay, so we ought to pray for that. We ought to expect that. We ought to believe that that's what God is going to do. And we ought to pray and work toward that end. We'll get more into the work next time. I guess that'll be January, God willing. Okay, properly inform your worship. Okay, a lot of people sing a lot of nice songs, a lot of good intentions. I just wanna, wanna, wanna, wanna, wanna, wanna. They sing all these songs and they come up with new songs. You know, God actually gave us a book of songs and said, sing this. And then in that book, he gives you everything that the Bible teaches in like a summary format. Anybody know what that book is called? The Psalms, that's the book of the Psalms. You have the doctrine of creation, you have the doctrine of the fall, you have the doctrine of total depravity, you have justification by faith alone, you have the future of Christ's kingdom, you have the coming of the Messiah, you have the promise to Him, you have the call of the Gentiles, the resurrection, all of it is contained in the book of Psalms in a summary format. It's like Luther called it a Bible in the Bible. That's what he called the Psalms. because it gives you basically the whole thing that the Bible says in one book. And then God said, take this book and sing it. Because singing does something to you. It actually has literal psychological effect upon you. It takes what you think about and it makes it sweet to you because you have some melody that you make in your heart as you're singing to the Lord, which is why Paul says that we're to sing what? Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Okay, now go and look at your book of Psalms and read the titles of the Psalms. Did you know that not all Psalms are Psalms? Some of them are psalms. Some of them are songs. Some of them are hymns. Some of them are multiples of those, actually. But the three major titles of the 150 psalms are psalms, hymns, and songs. and they're all inspired by the Holy Spirit. So the apostolic command is, you should be singing the Psalms, and you should be singing them with melody in your heart, and you should be singing them to one another. And if you happen to be rejoicing, you should sing the Psalms. James talks about that. Then he is merry, let him sing songs. So the Psalms are to form the piety and the faith of God's people in a devotional way, but also in a doctrinal way. And this is why I'm saying this. When the pilgrims and the Puritans came here, what did they sing? The Psalms. What was the first book printed in New England? It was a Psalter for singing. Why? Because their faith was founded on what the book of Psalms says, which is basically a summary of the Bible. And this specific doctrine of the city on a hill and the future of Christ's kingdom and his dominion over all nations, which book do you think talks most about that? The Psalms! Amazing! That book talks more about the kingdom of Christ than the book of Revelation does. because it gives you detail after detail, line after line about Christ's kingdom, the future of his enemies. In fact, it's the only book realistic enough to tell you to pray that God will break somebody's teeth. You know, all the songs people come up with are all soft, right? They're all happy, everything's positive, everything's great. Is everything great in the Psalms? No, because God made these promises and it seems like they're not being fulfilled. God, it seems like you're asleep. Wake up and strike your enemies. That's actually a very powerful tool. I think it was Bonhoeffer said, once people rediscover the Psalms, it'll be like this treasure chest of power comes on the church. So if we lock it up and we cover it over. I was at a Mennonite store one time and they were singing Psalm 139 and I was really enjoying it. And then they got to the part where David lashes out against those who hate God. And you know what they did to that? They threw it in the trash. Do you know how precious that is to David? God, you are so glorious. You're so great. You knew me in my mother's womb. May my words glorify you. May my thoughts glorify you. And look at these wicked people who don't appreciate you. Strike them down. Destroy them. That's appropriate, actually. And that's proper for our minds to understand that God hates the wicked. That he hates those who hate his people. That he hates those who hate his name. Because then it's like pretty serious. Like this is big trouble these people are in. This is a big deal for people to hate God. Because he is so glorious. He's so grand. He's so wonderful. And he's done so much for them. And how do they pay him back? By spitting in his face? They deserve to be destroyed. So it's a much more realistic book, and it recognizes, yes, there are these promises, but there seems to be a need for them to be fulfilled. You remember Jesus said about the widow woman? The unjust judge says, go away, I don't want to hear your case. She keeps on asking for what? Vengeance. Avenge me of my adversaries. You know what Jesus concludes with? That's a really bad attitude that's suitable for the Old Testament. Is that what he says? No. He actually says, so will God do for his elect who cry to him day and night. What are they crying for him? What are they saying to God? Well, we don't say it anymore, do we? That's bad words. That's the Old Testament vindictive old David. You know, he's just a Jew. He didn't understand grace. Oh, really? Is that so? No, that's not the case. He understood the grace of God better than I do. Better than I would say any of us do here because of his specific sins and how gracious God was to him. And yet he could still pray, destroy these people. And Christ says, God will avenge his elect who cry to him day and night. So the Psalms give us a realistic piety, one that can handle suffering as well as rejoicing, one that can handle hatred as well as love, one that isn't always positive and happy. It is positive and happy. Don't get me wrong. That's not all it is, though. It's more realistic. It's like a mirror for our whole soul. And it's a mirror for this city on a hill doctrine. All right.