Well, the history of Christendom is filled with stories of monks who, in their desire to escape temptation, retreated to some distant hideaway monastery, far from other people, hoping to avoid anything that might tempt them and lure them into sin. They lived in isolation, they lived in solitude, they lived in often silence. But that's not the way that believers in Christ are supposed to live, nor is it the way to avoid temptation. Jesus made it very clear in his high priestly prayer to the Father that while he was soon to return to heaven, to glory, He was leaving His followers, He said, here on earth, His disciples, and leaving them here to carry out His will in the midst of enemies who would try to lead them into sin and lead them astray. In John chapter 17 is our Lord's high priestly prayer. In verses 14 and 15, speaking to the father concerning his disciples, Jesus said this, I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I'm not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. The Lord was praying for the father's protection. over his followers, because they would be subject to the devil's attacks. The devil is the evil one that Jesus was referring to. And his attacks would include persecution and hostility from unbelievers, and the temptation of this evil world's system to live a life of sinful compromise and conformity. Earlier that evening, if you'll recall, in the upper room discourse, the farewell discourse of our Lord, Jesus had very bluntly told his disciples that after he returned to heaven, the world of hostile unbelievers would direct their hatred of him towards them. They wouldn't have him around anymore, so they would hate and direct their hatred against his followers. He said that in the world you can expect tribulation, meaning not simply trials that everybody has because they're humans, but the tribulation of persecution. in opposition to the gospel. So to think that Christian living is simply a quiet life of solitude, isolated and unhindered by anything and anyone, folks, it's both unrealistic and it's biblically wrong. It's incorrect. We are called by Jesus to live out our faith amidst opposition disapproval, antagonism, hostility and resistance. And the reason that this is the case is because according to the Bible, this entire world system, what we would call society or our culture, It's under the domain of Satan. It's evil, it's not neutral. In 1st John 5.19, John said this, We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. Lies in the lap, literally, sitting in the lap of the evil one. Jesus called Satan the ruler of this world. Paul referred to the devil as the prince of the power of the air. And Peter calls him our adversary who seeks to devour us. Scripture makes it clear that Satan doesn't act alone. He has demons who carry out his work, and he has humans who unwittingly are his ambassadors, his servants, his workers. And they do his will by propagating error and falsehood, and they often do it in very subtle deceitful ways. In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, the Apostle Paul speaking to the Corinthians who were being led astray by false teachers said this in verse 3, he said, but I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. Now how would they be led astray? Well, you jump down to verse 13. He talks about men who purposely try to lead others astray, and they were doing a good job at the Corinthians. Paul said, for such men are false apostles, meaning they claim to be apostles, but they're false, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. He said, no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. meaning that they are deceitful. And then he said, therefore, it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness whose end will be according to their deeds. Therefore, in light of all this satanic opposition that comes through unbelievers, what we need to know What we need to know is how do we walk in obedience to the Lord when we face so much antagonism for our faith? How do we do that? How do we remain faithful and loyal to Scripture when there are so many who despise God's Word and who do everything in their power to undermine the Word of God and to try to lure us away from devotion to the Word of God? Well, that's what we're going to study about this morning. Because we have come in our study of Psalm 119 to the 15th stanza, which the psalmist devotes to telling us how he personally remained loyal to the Word of God even though he lived amongst people who hated him, they hated the Lord, and they hated the Word of the Lord. And what he does in this 15th stanza is he teaches us by his own example how to be faithful to the Lord when surrounded by those who are not simply unfaithful to the Lord in a neutral way, but those who are downright wicked, evildoers, men who deliberately oppose the Word of God and try to pull us away as believers from trusting the Word. In the verses before us, Starting at verse 113, going to verse 120, the psalmist tells us how he was able to maintain his loyalty to scripture even though he was opposed by many. Let me read it to you again, and now that you have at least a gist of the theme, I think it'll come through even stronger. He says, I hate those who are double-minded, but I love your law. You are my hiding place and my shield. I wait for your word. Depart from me, evildoers, that I may observe the commandments of my God. Sustain me according to your word that I may live, and do not let me be ashamed of my hope. Uphold me that I may be safe, that I may have regard for your statutes continually. You have rejected all those who wander from your statutes, for their deceitfulness is useless. You have removed all the wicked of the earth like dross. Therefore, I love your testimonies. My flesh trembles for fear of you. and I'm afraid of your judgments. Now, I want you to know it's not by accident, it's not by coincidence that these words immediately follow the previous stanza where the psalmist stressed that the word of God gives guidance to us in a very dark and sinful world. In verse 105, which started the previous stanza, we read this, your word is a lamp to my feet and it's a light to my path. It's only by the word of God that any of us knows how to navigate our way through this great darkness and error of our world. It's only by Scripture, because only the Bible reveals to us the way that God wants us to think and to behave. Otherwise we walk in darkness, we walk in falseness, and we do whatever we think is best, which so often is just terrible and has disastrous consequences. Now this statement then about God's Word being a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. That's just as I said when I taught this. It's just a very broad statement, a very general statement. However, as we've seen from the verses that follow, this general statement, the psalmist gets into some very specific areas of life where God's Word provides guidance and understanding. We don't need to review that, but I want you to know now as he moves on to the next set of verses, the next paragraph, the next stanza, the present stanza that we're studying, the psalmist tells us that although we may know how we should live, and of course we would know now because the Word tells us, the Word enlightens us, But even though we know how we should live if we follow Scripture, He wants us to know that we can expect opposition and resistance to our pursuit to obey Scripture. With many who are trying to pull us away from the narrow path of submission to the Word of God. Notice how often in the verses that I just read to you that the psalmist makes reference to those who oppose the Lord and His Word. In verse 113, at the beginning, he speaks of those who are double-minded. In verse 115, at the beginning, he tells evildoers to depart from him. In verse 118, he speaks of those who wander from God's statutes. He says that they are deceitful. In verse 119, he speaks of unbelievers as the wicked of the earth whom God, he says, will remove. Now, I want you to know the reason that he mentions the wicked so often in these verses is because, as I mentioned a moment ago, He is revealing to us how He remained faithful and loyal to the Word when men like these double-minded, deceitful, wicked, evildoers were all around Him, constantly standing in opposition to His desire to walk in the light. of the Word. And folks, that's why this particular stanza is so pertinent, so important, and so helpful to us, because the world that you and I live in is equally filled with great resistance to a believer's desire to obey the Word of God. In fact, never in the history of our nation have we seen such blatant and unconcealed opposition to biblical truth as we do today. Never have we seen this. while our country has never really been a Christian nation, at least until recently, it had at least some semblance of adherence to Judeo-Christian principles and ethics. And even if that adherence was merely outward and not from the heart, we understand that. But today, there is such a growing animosity against biblical truth that there isn't even an attempt being made to pretend to respect those biblical principles that have long guided our culture. And the result of this is that the Christian faith is being assaulted on a number of fronts like we have never seen before. For example, the family and sexuality are under attack. As the world doesn't simply tolerate homosexuality, they actually celebrate it, as well as transgenderism and all that goes along with that. And the basic understanding of what is right and wrong is being attacked by the postmodern thinking of our world that there is no standard anymore of right and wrong. Just whatever you think is right, that's right, but it's right only for you. So don't impose that on anybody else. If you think it's right, it's right. Integrity is also under attack because lies and deceit are so common and so accepted that the world is run by those lies and by the people who propagate those lies and nobody really cares much about it. We're just sort of callous to it. And certainly the Bible is under attack, and the Bible has always had its critics, it's always been attacked. But the major attack of today is a little bit different. It's coming in the form of rejecting the narrowness and dogmatic nature of Scripture, because the concept of, let's just be tolerant, is now the new rule of the day, as people reject the notion that some thinking and some behavior is absolutely false and wrong. Folks, this is the world that we live in, and we work and we rub shoulders with people who think like this. They reject your standards of morality and ethics. They reject your view of God. They reject your belief that Christ is the only way to heaven. They reject your belief in the Bible as the authoritative Word of God. And I want you to know it's only going to get worse. It is not going to get better. And we know that, that it's going to get worse and not better because the Apostle Paul told us this under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. He predicted that society would grow more and more antagonistic and self-centered. as they oppose the Word of God. Listen to what Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 1 through 5. He said, But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, Haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power, avoid such men as these." Now, I want you to understand that when we read the term, the last days, that's not referring to just before Jesus comes. The last days is a biblical term that refers to everything from the time of Messiah's first coming until his second coming. So we are in the last days. We've been in the last days for over 2,000 years. And these days, Paul says, they are characterized by difficulties. Because he says that difficult times will come. And the thought behind this word difficult is that they are dangerous times. Not simply hard. They're perilous. They're dangerous. And they're dangerous because of the way that unbelievers think and behave. Although Paul used a lot of words, as we just read, to describe the vices of unbelievers, in essence, what the Apostle is telling us is that unbelievers will be totally filled with themselves, living without any effort to restrain their selfish, depraved, sinful natures, so that they care about no one but themselves, and they'll do whatever they want to do to whomever they want to do it. And this obsession with themselves will even carry over to churches and religious establishments, because notice what Paul said in verse 5. He said that some will hold to a form of godliness, meaning that they will give some type of outward appearance of being godly, of being religious. But in reality, he said, they aren't, because they've denied the power. What is the power? It's the power of the gospel. They've denied God's power to transform lives and convert people and change them that way. In other words, they are just religious hypocrites, hiding their true colors because they are just as wickedly self-centered as those mentioned in the verses in this passage. So, the world of unbelievers is evil. And they are only going to increase in their evil as we move closer to the return of our Lord. And because unbelievers are so opposed to Christ and so opposed to His truth, they would love nothing more than to thwart and frustrate your pursuit as a believer of obedience to the Word. They would love to come alongside of you and help you to compromise what you claim to believe by encouraging you to conform to the ungodly standards of this world. So the question again is this, how do you and I as believers in Christ remain loyal to the Word of God when we are surrounded by so many who are disloyal? Well, we do it very simply by following the example set by the psalmist because he maintained his faithfulness to the word even though he was opposed by many. And he tells us how he did this in the verses before us. See, what he does in these verses is he reveals certain actions he took as well as certain attitudes that he had that enabled him to persevere in his loyalty to the Lord Listen, follow his example and you will find yourself being just as loyal to the Lord as he was. So let's get into our text. The first thing he tells us that he did to maintain his loyalty to God's word is that, number one, he separated himself from unbelievers and evildoers, really, evildoers. Notice verse 113, I hate those who are double-minded, but I love your law. Now, as the stanza opens, the psalmist lets us listen in on his prayer to God. This is a prayer that he's giving to the Lord, and we hear him telling the Lord about his attitude towards those that he calls double-minded, and his attitude also towards the Word of God. He refers to it as the law, but he means the Word of God. He says he hates people who are double-minded, but he loves God's law. I don't think anyone here would have a problem in understanding that this man loves God's law because throughout this psalm he hasn't been ashamed to tell us that. The whole psalm is really about his love, his devotion to the word. He meditates on it, he lives by it. It's more important to him than food and water. He loves the word. That's not a surprise to us. However, what's not so clear and may sound a bit surprising is what he means when he says that he hates double-minded people. Prior to this, the psalmist has said that he hates every false way. If you look at verse 104, you'll see, from your precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. But here he says something different. Here he says that he hates certain individuals, not simply their ways or even their behavior. He says he hates them. So, how are we to understand his words about hating those who are double-minded? Well, first of all, we need to identify who he's referring to. Who are the people who he calls double-minded? The thought behind this Hebrew word, double-minded, the thought is to vacillate, to go back and forth, to waver, and thus the term that the translators have put in here, double-minded, it's very accurate, double-minded in contrast to someone who is singularly minded, focused. It's helpful to know that this word is related to the very same Hebrew word that the prophet Elijah used when he was on Mount Carmel challenging the people of Israel to make up their minds Who they're going to follow? The Lord or the false god Baal? I read to you in 1 Kings 18.21, he said to them, how long will you hesitate or halt, sometimes it's translated, how long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. Now the word that the psalmist uses for double-minded, it comes from the same root of the word that's translated hesitate or halt between two opinions that Elijah used. As he told the people, make up your minds, stop going back and forth, wavering between the Lord and following the false god Baal. And the thought is that they were being undecided. unsettled, vacillating back and forth without forming a firm conviction and opinion. In fact, let's go a little bit deeper. This particular Hebrew word, if we were to translate it literally, would be to leap. To leap. So what Elijah is actually saying is stop leaping. Stop jumping back and forth between the Lord and Baal. You'll recall at that time in Israel's history, the people were engaged in leaping back and forth between believing in the God of Israel and believing in the false Canaanite God, Baal. That was the time of Ahab and Jezebel. They embraced Baal and tried to make him appear very attractive, very wicked. Whichever God impressed these folks, this is Israel we're talking about. Whatever God impressed these folks at the moment, that was the God they rallied to. It was an attitude of what we would call seesawing. Just going back and forth. One day there were believers in the Lord, next day there were believers in Baal. That type of stuff going on. Now going back to Psalm 119. Those are the kinds of people that the psalmist says he hates. He hates those who are undecided about the Lord. They aren't total rejecters of God in the sense that they totally dismiss Him, because they apparently at times have some at least positive opinions about Him. But nonetheless, I want you to understand this, these are not weak believers, these are unbelievers. Because while they claim to have some kind of belief in the Lord, They're just half-hearted in their belief. They don't have the commitment to the Lord that a true believer always has. And they won't make a commitment to Him. Because why? They love their sin, and they love the things of this world, and they are not willing to give them up. And that's why they are double-minded. You see, double-minded people want all the benefits that come from being a follower of Jesus Christ But they also want their sin too. They're not ready to give up their sin. They're not about to repent. And so they, at least mentally, they leap back and forth between some kind of affiliation with the Lord and then back to the world. Sometimes they attend church if it's okay, if it feels good. They pretend at times that they're Christians on fire for Him. But then they go back, living in conformity to the world. They just leap back and forth, whatever. whatever the moment calls for. Now the reason I say these people, whom the psalmist says are double-minded, are unbelievers, and they're not saved, and they're not weak believers, is because just two verses later he refers to these same individuals as evildoers, and then later he'll call them wicked. And an evildoer is someone whose life is characterized by evil. That's who they were. They were not converted people who just had a difficult time struggling with indecisiveness, not at all. Besides, he would never say that he hates those who are believers. But he says that he hates these who are double-minded. So, what he's really telling us is that he hates those unbelievers who live hypocritical, double-minded lives. They are just fakes, they're frauds, they're charlatans, acting as if they had some interest in the things of God, when they have interest only in one thing, themselves. Whatever benefits them. So the question, once again, that we face is this. And really, it's the first time we're facing it, but I'm challenging you to think with me. In light of the fact that the psalmist says he hates those who are double-minded. The question is this, is it right for a believer to hate anyone? The answer is yes. Yes. We are to hate those who reject and rebel against the Lord and oppose Him and His pure holiness. Now I need to clarify this, so listen closely. This hatred of ours is not to be personal, it's not pity, it's not childish, It's not a bad attitude. It's not a vengeful kind of hatred at all. In other words, we are not to be malicious. We are not to be mean. We are not to be nasty in our hatred of unbelievers because of anything that they might have done to us. But we are to hate, note this, sinners, unbelieving sinners, with a holy abhorrence as sinners. We are to hate them like that because they are sinners in rebellion, against the God that we love. Now this may surprise you to hear that we should hate unbelievers, but I want you to note the Bible says that God hates those who hate him, meaning unbelievers. For example, in Psalm 5, verses 4 and 5, David writes, for you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, No evil dwells with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all who do iniquity." Do you hear that? Under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, David says of God, you hate all who do iniquity. Psalm 11, verse 5. Again, David said, the Lord tests the righteous and the wicked and the one who loves violence. His soul hates. Malachi 1. says Jacob have I loved but I have hated Esau and Paul repeats those words in Romans chapter 9 so scripture clearly says that God has a holy hatred for those who rebel against him and not just their sin many of us think well we are to hate the sin but love the sinner God says he hates the sin and he hates the sinner listen very carefully Don't tune out right now, listen carefully. This does not mean that God only has hatred for sinners and nothing else. Because the Bible also says that God loves sinners and is merciful to sinners, all sinners. Because Jesus said in Luke 6 35 that God is kind to ungrateful and evil men. So while it may be hard for us to fully comprehend this, it is accurate, biblically accurate, to say that God is able to both hate and love sinners at the same time. In other words, He hates sinners because of their sin and rebellion, which is a violation of His pure holiness. He must hate, must hate them and must hate their sin because He's so pure and holy. Yet, at the same time, he loves these same sinners because his heart is not only holy, but it's a heart of love and mercy. As one eminent theologian put it, he said, God is able to love the one he hates. So, when the psalmist tells us that he hates those who are double-minded, He is not denying the fact that as a believer he is to love sinners and he is to extend mercy to them just as God does. He's not denying that at all. After all, Jesus said we are to love our enemies and we are to be merciful just as our Father is merciful. But this does not negate the fact that while we love unbelievers and long for their salvation, we are to have a holy, petty, not childish, not sinful, but a holy disdain for those who rebel against the Lord and hate Him because our love for the Lord and our understanding of His perfect holiness compels us to despise all rebellion against Him. I was thinking that perhaps it would be helpful to illustrate this with just some despicable character in history. Someone like Adolf Hitler. Those who know about Hitler, what he believed, what he did to the Jewish people, and to many other people as well, they wouldn't have a problem hating him. In fact, they would justify it. He was demonic, he was wicked, he was vile, he was the epitome of evil in a man. But folks, the same evil, depraved heart of rebellion that was in Hitler is in every unbeliever. And if you don't think that's true, you don't understand human depravity. Although they may not commit the same atrocities that Hitler committed, as far as God is concerned, the seeds of that same rebellion, the seeds lie in the heart of every single unsaved unbeliever. And that's why it's right to hate unbelievers, even as we love them and long for their souls to be saved. Now, while it was important, I felt, to address this issue, to take some time to explain this, because this is not an easy concept for us, and it's not a superficial concept that we just mention and move on. I want you to know that the psalmist's purpose in telling us that he hates those who are double-minded isn't to justify his attitude. That's not what he's doing. I tried to do that and explain taking in other scriptures, but his purpose is rather to explain how he stays loyal to God in the midst of such a sinful environment filled with so many who are double-minded. Individuals who would try to pull and influence him in the direction of their own wishy-washy, wavering views of God. And his point is that because he loves the Word of God, he hates and rejects and despises all vacillating attitudes towards God and His Word. See, what this man is telling us is that he wants nothing to do with those who are filled with so much uncertainty in their attitude towards God and His Word. He wants nothing to do with them because He doesn't want them influencing Him in His attitude towards the Lord and His Word. He has no interest in spending valuable time with those who have doubts and reservations about the Word of God. James, in the New Testament, in his New Testament letter towards the back of the New Testament tells us about doubt and double-mindedness. He says, those who doubt and are double-minded as a way of life, they are unstable. He says, because they are restless. They move, once again, the imagery, moving back and forth between whatever suits them at the moment. James 1.6, he says this, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. There's no firm conviction. It's just whatever the wind, wherever the wind blows, that's where he's at. See, unlike those who are double-minded, the psalmist tells us he's made a firm commitment to the Lord. He no longer leaps back and forth between faith and unbelief. He has taken his final leap and he's landed on the side of firm faith in the Word of God. Therefore, his love for the Word of God causes him to be a man of deep conviction, a man of certainty, A man of confidence. His confidence is in the Lord and His Word without any hesitation, without any reservation. In fact, look, he's so confident in the Lord, he tells us in the next verse, verse 114, that in the midst of being surrounded by those who are double-minded, he tells us where he takes refuge. He takes refuge in God. Notice verse 114. You, he says, are my hiding place and my shield. I wait for your word. Rather than listen to those half-hearted and double-minded individuals, men who are filled with doubts, skepticism about God, this man is so different. This man trusts in the Lord as he looks to God's word for help, for protection. Listen, what he's telling us is that the way he maintains his loyalty to the Lord, the way he remains faithful to the Word, is by seeking shelter in the Lord from the double-mindedness of those around him. In other words, he doesn't entertain the half-hearted, worldly, loving attitudes and doubts of those who are double-minded about the Lord. Instead, he takes refuge in God by seeking Him in prayer and looking to His Word for comfort, for protection, for encouragement. Now, why is all of this so important to us? It's important because we are all subject to being tempted to doubt, to have doubts about the Lord, about His Word. We have temptations to waver in our love and our devotion to Christ. This is one of Satan's most effective strategies. He uses his double-minded followers, half-hearted religious hypocrites, to put doubts into our minds as to the trustworthiness of Scripture, so that we'll be weak and shaky in our faith in the Word. Listen, you may be a saved individual, you may be a converted person, but this doesn't mean that you are not subject to having doubts about the Word of God. Nor does this mean that you never vacillate between loving the Lord and being drawn into the pleasures of this world, the pleasures of your own flesh. This is the ongoing battle that we face every day. This is Paul in Romans chapter 7. This is us in Romans chapter 7. The good that I want to do, I don't always do. The things I don't want to do, I find myself doing. And one way you can protect yourself from this temptation to doubt and vacillate spiritually is to not listen to those who are double-minded. Don't pay attention to their skepticism and doubts. Paul told the Ephesians that they were to use the shield of faith to ward off the flaming missiles of Satan. You just hold up that shield of faith. No, I'm not going to listen to this other stuff. Listen, be very careful who you choose to spend the most time with, because those you spend time with will impact you. If you surround yourself with double-minded people, people who may talk about Christ, but they don't live Christ, he's just perhaps a topic of conversation, that's all. People who claim to be Christians, but show absolutely no commitment to Christ, no evidence of salvation. People who have some knowledge about the Bible, but that's all it is, just head knowledge. There's no love for it, there's no application. If these are the people that you are drawn to, and who you choose to spend the most time with, then you will find it impossible to remain loyal to the Word of God, because, I guarantee it, they will corrupt you. They will corrupt you. Eventually, their doubts will become your doubts. Their uncertainties will become your uncertainties. And you will find yourself loving the world and compromising your faith. I have found, as I was thinking about it this week, I have very dear friends who I choose very carefully because they're men of the word. In thinking about this, I thought, you know, the guys I'm closest to, They're all a bunch of dead guys. They're all former pastors. And for some reason, they're English. But I'm friends with men like Martin Lloyd-Jones, because he was such a man of conviction. I'm friends with George Whitefield. I'm friends with Charles Spurgeon. They don't know me at all. But these are my friends, a bunch of dead guys. And I gravitate to reading about them because of their conviction and their depth in walking with the Lord. They strengthen me. I want to hang with guys like these. Sounds creepy, doesn't it? But I want to hang with these dead guys because once they were alive and their words live on, I would encourage you. to make sure that your closest friends are men and women of conviction. If you want to be loyal to the Word, then you have to not only have contempt, and you understand I'm talking about holy contempt, not personal sinful contempt, but holy contempt in your heart for the sin of being double-minded. You ought to hate that. The Lord hates it. You have to make then a conscious effort to separate yourselves from individuals who are double-minded. That's precisely what the psalmist tells us he did. He didn't just hate these people. He made a conscious effort to separate himself from them. Notice what he says in verse 115. Depart from me, evildoers. that I may observe the commandments of my God." Now the evil doers, as I said, that he's commanding to depart from him, these are the double-minded individuals that he hates. And the reason he doesn't want them around, now he's speaking to them directly, not to the Lord. This prayer is turned into a direct statement to them. The reason he doesn't want them around is because he doesn't want them influencing him. He doesn't want them pulling him in the direction of their evil, double-minded thinking. In other words, he doesn't want hypocrites in his inner company. Now, we understand that we work with unbelievers. Most of you work with unbelievers. You have relatives who are unbelievers. He's not saying separate from them. Don't have your inner company, your closest friends, the people you choose to hang with and spend time with, don't have them be double-minded hypocrites, because that will only weaken your resolve to follow the Word of God. That's what the psalmist said. Notice what he says at the end of verse 115. Here's why he tells these men to depart. That I may observe the commandments of my God. He means because I want to observe. So that I may observe your word. See, the reason he doesn't want these people hanging with him is so that he can devote himself to obeying God's word. And if they're around him, that just won't happen. Because they will hinder him. They'll hold him back from the kind of devotion and communion that he desires to have with the Lord. In fact, you know how close He is and he wants to be with the Lord. I want you to notice the way that he refers to the Lord in this verse. He calls him, my God, the commandments of my God. And you may say, what's the big deal about that? Well, it is a big deal because in all of Psalm 119, this is the only time he speaks of my God, at least up to this point. He speaks of my God. He's spoken about God. But he's not called him yet until right here, my God. He's saying, the one I have a personal and intimate relationship with, he is my God. I'm his, he's mine. It's Jesus saying, my sheep know my voice and they follow me. See, this man has a love relationship with the Lord and His Word. God is very real to him. Therefore, he is adamant that nothing is going to hinder him from obeying His Lord, His God. Especially those evildoers who would seek to undermine and corrupt his faith in the Scriptures. See folks, living in this world, as I said a few moments ago, it makes it impossible to isolate ourselves from unbelievers. You just can't do that. And that includes double-minded hypocrites. As we saw earlier, we are not to live in secluded hideaways of solitude. Jesus has left us in this world to witness to others about him. That's exactly what we're supposed to be doing. We are to witness, we are to evangelize, we are telling others about Christ and salvation. We are living out the truths of the gospel day by day. We aren't to avoid unbelievers, we are supposed to be with them. But what we can avoid, that's the point of these verses, is making those who would undermine our faith with their doubts and lack of commitment, we can avoid making them our closest companions and friends. We want to witness to the unsaved, but we don't want to have them shape our values. I want you to see what the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians about the influence of unsaved people. If there's any statement, verse in scripture, that is very succinct and to the point about this, it is 1 Corinthians 15, verse 33. Paul said, do not be deceived. There's a reason he said that, because we are easily deceived by this stuff. Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. Bad company corrupts good morals. Evil, unsaved friends, including those who are double-minded, who may profess to know Christ, but their lifestyle denies Him. They are, according to Paul, a corrupting influence. So witness to them, but don't make them your close companions. If you and I are going to maintain our loyalty to the Word of God in the midst of this degenerate culture that's only getting worse, then you have to choose your friends wisely, not have fellowship with unbelievers. This is one reason why it is so important to be part of a Bible-believing church, where people take their faith seriously, where they are committed to the Lord. We're not talking about everybody, certainly, but for the most part, committed to the Lord, committed to following His Word, not simply believing it, but adhering to the teaching of His Word. I know you're familiar with this, but let me read this again, because it is so appropriate in this context. Hebrews chapter 10. starting in verse 23, the writer says, let us hold fast the confession of our hope, watch this, without wavering, hold on to it, without wavering, for he who promised is faithful, God is faithful, and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some. but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Listen, this is why it is so important to have personal friendships and relationships in the context of your church family. Not simply to come on a Sunday morning, listen to a sermon, sing some songs, then leave and have no contact with anybody else in the church for the rest of the week. That's not how God designed the church to be. You need friends from the church, people you can call on when you need encouragement, people you can call on to encourage. You need strong believers around you to help you not waver in your faith. So I ask you, who are your friends? Who are the people that you consciously make time to be with? Who do you spend the most time with? Those who are godly, who will help you to have biblical convictions, or those who will bring you down because of their corrupting influence. If you want to be loyal to the Word, then you have to distance yourself from those evil doers who would want to undermine your faith. Now, if you are not a believer, then you very well may be a double-minded individual, professing to know Christ, but your life reveals that you don't. You're a wavering individual. One day, positive thoughts about the Lord. You might even visit a church once in a while, but then you slip back into the world. Then you need to be converted. You need to know Christ. Don't deceive yourself into thinking you know Him. Paul told the Corinthians, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Examine yourself. Where do you stand? Are you just wavering like leaping back and forth? So like Elijah, I say to you, why leap between two opinions? If Jesus is Lord, then follow Him. Follow Him. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, and they do follow me. True believers follow Him. We're not talking about perfection, but we are talking about direction of life. Let's look to the Lord in prayer, and I urge you, if you don't know Christ, call on Him while you can. If you hear His voice speaking to your heart and turn to Christ to be saved today, turn to Him. And once again, I remind you that there'll be some elders up here at the front if you need someone to talk to or pray with. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for the example of this man of God, unnamed. We don't know who he is, Lord, but we thank You for him. He leaves us a great example, teaches us by his example. Lord, help us. Help us to make decisions for those of us who know you to be friends with those who would help us in our faith and not hold us back. I pray for our people. Pray for our people to choose wisely, to not embrace as their closest companions those who would propagate the errors of our day, but lead them. lead them Lord, lead them to Sunday school classes where they can get to know people, home fellowships, Sunday night service where there's a smaller, intimate, more fellowship. I pray that you would lead them to call and get together with some who love you and want you to be, and also be in home studies, to be in men's study, in ladies' studies, to just not be on the peripheral edge of the church, but involved. involved in the lives of others who they might provoke to good works and love. And Lord, I pray for those who may not know you, who might be deceived into thinking they know you because they made some type of profession, but there's no commitment to you, there's never been true repentance, there's never been a sustained time of obedience. I pray that you'll help them to see the truth about themselves. and that Elijah's words would come through to their hearts. Why hesitate or halt between two opinions? Let the Lord be God, then follow Him. I pray for this end. I pray for you to use your word to work in our lives. We pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen.