I want to reread the Psalm tonight as we get back into it. This evening, we're going to especially consider the last three verses, which really, as you Consider it, we'll go ahead and reread the whole chapter, but the last three verses are a prayer directly to the Lord in the context of this psalm. Psalm 36, to the chief musician, a psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, an oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked. There is no fear of God before his eyes. For he flatters himself in his own eyes when he finds out his iniquity and when he hates. The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit. He has ceased to be wise and to do good. He devises wickedness on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He does not abhor evil. Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the great mountains. Your judgments are a great deep. Oh Lord, you preserve man and beast. How precious is your loving kindness, oh God. Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of your house. And you give them drink from the river of your pleasures. for with you is the fountain of life. In your light, we see light. Oh, continue your loving kindness to those who know you, and your righteousness to the upright in heart. Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked drive me away. There the workers of iniquity have fallen. They have been cast down and are not able to rise. Let's pray. Our Father God, it's a joy to gather in your presence again to worship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, to declare the worth of your great name, and to submit ourselves to your holy word. And we pray, Father, that you would teach us to pray through this psalm. to meditate on its truth and to use its content to direct our thoughts toward you. And we do ask, Lord, with the psalmist, that you would continue your loving kindness to those who know you and your righteousness to the upright in heart. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Do you ever use the very words of Scripture themselves as a substance for your prayers? Do you ever, in other words, pray through a passage of Scripture? Much of what we're going to do this evening, as we focus on those last three verses of the Psalm, is also going to be learning to pray through Psalm 36. And part of what I'm going to do tonight, it's maybe a little bit different than what I often do, is I'm going to quote a couple of things that may be just a little bit longer than I sometimes do, because I'm gonna quote, first of all, from the Valley of Vision, that collection of Puritan prayers that some of you are probably familiar with. And as we begin tonight, just remember, David is praying this prayer to the Lord for deliverance from those who would do him in. Deliverance from the wicked. And so this particular prayer from the Valley of Vision, page 328, is called The Servant in Battle. And as we begin tonight, I want to encourage you with this. It's not too long, it's a couple of short pages, but I want you to stay with me the best that you can here on this busy and tiring Memorial Day weekend, all right? The Servant in Battle. O Lord, I bless thee that the issue of the battle between thyself and Satan has never been uncertain and will end in victory. Calvary broke the dragon's head, and I contend with a vanquished foe, who with all his subtlety and strength has already been overcome. When I feel the serpent at my heel, may I remember him whose heel was bruised, but who, when bruised, broke the devil's head. My soul, with inward joy, extols the mighty conqueror. Heal me of any wounds received in the great conflict. If I have gathered defilement, if my faith has suffered damage, if my hope is less than bright, if my love is not fervent, if some creature comfort occupies my heart, if my soul sinks under pressure of the fight. O thou whose every promise is balm, every touch life, draw near to thy weary warrior, refresh me that I may rise again to wage the strife and never tire until my enemy is trodden down. Give me such fellowship with thee that I may defy Satan, unbelief, the flesh, the world, with delight that comes not from a creature, and which a creature cannot mar. Give me a draft of the eternal fountain that lies in thy immutable everlasting love and decree. Then shall my hand never weaken. My feet never stumble, my sword never rest, my shield never rust, my helmet never shatter, my breastplate never fall, as my strength rests in the power of thy might. That Puritan prayer in many ways is related to the psalm that we've been looking at today. He prays that God would give him a draft of the eternal fountain, a drink from that eternal fountain that lies in God's immutable, everlasting love and decree. And is that really not, in a sense, what we're praying as we work through Psalm 36 together, that God would help us to drink from the rivers of delight, from the rivers of pleasure that never run dry. May God help us to pray as servants in battle. First of all this evening, starting particularly with verse 10, but we're gonna look a bit back at some of the things we saw this morning as we pray through this psalm. First of all, we're praying for continued steadfast love. We read it already there in verse 10, didn't we? Oh, continue your loving kindness to those who know you and your righteousness to the upright in heart. David is leading us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to pray for continued, steadfast love. Now, as you think about what David says here in verse 10, you can't help but think that in essence he's saying, Lord, we've already talked about this in this psalm. We've already seen the glorious attributes that you have. And now based on those attributes, Deal with your people accordingly. Some of what David I think is doing in verse 10 here is praying the promises of God. Praying according to God's character. And if we pray according to God's character and according to God's promises, we will be praying in line with the will of God and we will be praying for things that will be answered. Remember what we looked at this morning. David mentions two of those things right here in verse 10. God's mercy or steadfast love his loving kindness as it is in the New King James, and his righteousness. And those are two of the four things we looked at this morning. Do you remember the concept of God's loving kindness or his steadfast love that came up in verses five and seven and now here again in verse 10? Continue your loving kindness to those who know you. In the steadfast love of God, It's as if we hear the Lord Jesus Christ himself, our great intercessor, our great advocate, speaking words like this to us, these words of steadfast love. I am going to set my love upon you, my child. I am going to make a covenant with you, God says to us, based on my faithfulness to you, not on what you can bring to the table. I will do a spiritual work of regeneration in you, giving you new life in Christ. I will bring you back when you fail. I will never let you go. Nothing can separate you from my love. I will be a refuge from every kind of trouble. You can flee to my protection for safety. You can place all of your hope and complete confidence in my salvation from judgment and death. And God speaks to us in his steadfast love with this kind of tenderness, with this kind of covenant promise, that the work that was begun will continue. And we need to remember when we pray that God's loving kindness would continue to those who know you, that we actually hear the voice of Christ, the promises of God calling out to us and saying, I have promised these things to you. I will continue my loving kindness to you because that's the very nature of this steadfast love. Now, I won't reiterate all of it from this morning, but we saw along with God's steadfast love, his faithfulness, and as we learn to meditate on this psalm, and as we learn to pray through this psalm, we remember the faithfulness of God, that he is committed to his own promises, and he is committed to his own people. His mercies are new every morning, and great is his faithfulness. But in verse 10, David highlights steadfast love and righteousness. And to pray this, we would recognize first that God is always perfectly just. In him, there is no darkness at all. And so we pray for him to show us his favor, that even though we have not merited that standing with God, that in Christ we have been made accepted in the beloved. In Christ we have been made righteous. In Christ we have access to the throne of grace. And so it's not out of place for us to come to a completely righteous God and plead steadfast love even as we recognize His righteousness. And so we pray for his protection. We pray for the glory of his own character. And concerning issues of justice itself, we know that if God does not bring justice to a temporal situation on this earth and in this life, then we pray, Lord, convince my heart and faith that you are still in control and that true justice will ultimately come, even when that's not the way it looks in the circumstances that surround me. God is a righteous God, and at the right time, and in the right way, as God has decreed, true justice will prevail. What a blessing that must have been for David, who is obviously concerned about his own well-being because of the enemies who would destroy him. And you can't help but think he's reminding himself of the character and the promises of God and the justice of God that will be seen in perfection even if not always in our lives or in this world. And I think we should also acknowledge and pray through the judgments of God even though they're not mentioned here in verse 10. Remember, the judgments are God's sovereign decisions or his decrees worked out in providence. And we acknowledge that his judgments are good, even though we often really don't understand them. Why would you have done this or allowed this? We know, oh Lord God, you are not the author of sin. There is nothing but absolute moral perfection in you, and yet you have allowed a great deal of violence and sin and pain, and we don't understand yet another school shooting, and yet we trust that you are good and that you have allowed man a certain amount of leash for a certain amount of time, but your judgments are true and righteous altogether. As we pray for God's continued steadfast love, we remember as we saw this morning that God is the giver of life of every kind, verses eight and nine, what we saw earlier today. And we give thanks and we pray in line with the reality that God provides for us, both physical sustenance and spiritual nourishment. And He provides in such a way that we are abundantly satisfied, especially spiritually. That there is fullness and river of pleasures and we give thanks for those things. And we ask the Lord to continue to show the steadfast love of His spiritual abundance to us. And this is a prayer to know God through his word. To experience life as we saw this morning through that truth and set our eyes on the abundant table of heavenly things. We can pray, Lord, we know that you will deal with us in a way that is consistent with your holy character. But help us to feel, your steadfast love, and to know it, and to live in light of it. Help us to believe that you will deal with us in a way that is perfectly consistent with your holy character, and with your righteousness, and with your justice, and with your perfect judgments. Help us to believe it. and to see it by faith and to have faith that you do not change even though life never stops changing. You know, you all, my brothers and sisters in Christ here at Harbor have been through a lot in the last year or two. And sometimes God calls us to believe certain things by faith that we just can't sense today. Can't see it. We don't see how it's gonna work. We don't understand what he's doing. And I'm sure many times we struggle to ask why. And I do plenty of that myself, so. But what this psalm calls us to is to remember the character and the faithfulness of God, even when the trouble is present, even when the enemies are around, even when I fear for my life in some way, even when the current circumstances are troublesome and even dangerous. And yet to have the faith to be able to say with the psalmist, it is good for me that I have been afflicted because I was going astray. And God used, mercifully used those afflictions to bring things to the surface in my own heart and do a work that, yeah, I wouldn't have asked for it, but couldn't have been done well in another way. I want to point something out here in the language that David uses there in verse 10. He says, continue your loving kindness. We already talked about the river of pleasures in verse eight and how God abundantly satisfies us with fullness from his house. But there's also interesting imagery here in verse 10 that's related to that. Continue your loving kindness. The idea of drawing forth or drawing out your loving kindness. In other words, this is the language of source. Think about it like this. When you fill up a glass of water to drink it, You fill it up, but then you walk away from wherever you filled it, and you drink it, and then when you get to the bottom of it, it's gone. And it's kind of like this water bottle here. Excuse me a minute. Now, I have a question for you. When this is emptied, aside from some supernatural miracle that we don't expect, Is that bottle going to refill itself right here at the pulpit? No, because this is just a container for the water, but that's not actually the source of the water, right? It's not a spring. Well, the language David uses here is really the language of source. While this glass is not connected to a water pipe or a spring, we're talking about sources there, it really is kind of the imagery of a mother feeding her baby. You know, if things are going well and the mother is healthy, a baby can return to the mother's milk over and over again because in that case, the mother is the source. Sorry if that sounds crude, but the mother is the source and the baby returns again and again and again for months and continues to feed. Or you can think about the imagery of drawing water from freshwater springs. Every time you go back, unlike those Ohio waterfalls, every time you go back to a freshwater spring, there's water there. And there's water there again. You go back the next week, there's still water because it's a source. It's a spring. Brothers and sisters, that's how David wants us to see. No, we come for mercy, and we come back again, and we come back again, and it's still there, like a spring, mercy after mercy, blessing upon blessing, a river of pleasure. Continue, Lord, your loving kindness. You know, we're gonna need it at the day of judgment, too, God's mercy, and we're gonna have it. His mercies will not. So David leads us, in verse 10, to really think through the content of much of this psalm and pray for continued steadfast love from God to those who know him and for his righteousness with the other. So first, he's praying for steadfast love. But then in verses 11 and 12, we see him praying for protection from evil Look at verse 11. Really, verse 11 is a prayer for protection for people to where you could actually say, verse 12, maybe even sometimes by faith, it's recognizing God's ultimate judgment. Verse 11 says, let not the foot of pride come against you, and let not the hand of the wicked rise in your way. They're the workers of iniquity. They have been passed down. Well, clearly, this psalm is in the context of injustice at the hands of wicked men. Boomer says this, trials brought on us by are among the severest of a good man's life. He sees and abhors the injustice dealt out to him. A good man may well ask to be saved from such crimes. In other words, Boomer is saying it's entirely appropriate to follow God's authority. Remember this morning in the first four verses, we talked about how it was a description of those who are in their natural spiritual state. And in the first couple of verses, we saw that they had a sinful heart condition. What does the fool say in his heart? He says, I don't believe. I don't bow. I don't fear God. I don't care what God supposedly thinks. I make my own way in life. Nobody looks out for you better than you do. I'll do what it takes to get what I want. And if you're going to go where you want in life, you might have to use the connect as prongs in your ladder. I'm not a bad person. I'm just a smart person. And if people are so dumb that they get taken advantage of, that's on me. kind of mentality. It may not even be articulated in someone's own words, but those are the kinds of things often brewing in the heart of one, remaining in a sinful condition. But it doesn't remain in the thoughts, does it? It doesn't just remain in the plottings and in the mind, but it works its way out into the words, and it works its way out into the action. And so in verses three and four, we saw that the wicked have what you might call a sinful hand condition. How do the wicked behave? Their words are destructive. Their actions are spiritually foolish. They have plans to build their own kingdom, but they are evil plans with no desire to see God's kingdom. And it may not always seem that explicitly evil on the outside, but the words and actions come from a heart that does not fear God. desires the advancement of his own foolish intentions. And so while someone might have the veneer of politeness or cultural propriety, someone is either laboring for the glory of God or for the glory of sin. They either have motives, a desire to build others up and bring glory to Jesus, related to his fellowship, or a heart of pride. Little or no. These are the kinds of people that David is struggling. Clearly, there have been specific acts of evil committed against David. And his prayer is that the foot of pride would not come against him, and that God would not let the hand of the wicked drive him away. And the language that David uses here is really language that would be familiar and yet horrific to those who heard it. When he uses this terminology there in verse 11, he says, let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked drive me away. That idea of being driven away is essentially the idea of being made a wanderer, or being put in flight, being sent. Now, from the very beginning of Israel's history, there were those who wanted to come against them. You remember that Israel grew in Egypt's womb, so to speak, and Egypt came against them. And then they came back to the land of Canaan, and the Canaanites came against them. That's been the story of so much of their history. But this idea of being driven away is the language of being sent into exile. But eventually, the northern tribes were sent into exile to Assyria. And then later on, the tribes of Judah followed, going into exile to Babylon. And those were signs that God judged them as Israelites. And so David is saying, don't let the wicked make me a wanderer or send me into exile. But then this language of being driven away also ended up taking on a figurative meaning. And so this idea came to mean bringing about a severe trial and causing great anguish. So whether it meant to literally send someone into exile In this psalm, I guess you could say permission, invitation. Those who hate you, who hate your church, who hate your children, do that if it would please you. But then, brothers and sisters, we also know that if God chooses not to answer that prayer in that way, that we still have confidence and faith in his steadfast love to come through whatever he's going to do with the hands of the wicked. And part of that, part of that faith, you see it there in verse 12? You get the sense that verse 12 is not necessarily, but perhaps in many ways prophetic. It's almost like you see David pointing at some point, perhaps in the future, something has occurred and he's pointing and he's saying, over there, you remember that battle? Do you remember that situation? There, the workers of iniquity have fallen. They have been cast down and they are not able to rise. They have been defeated. Now, whether at a battle on this earth and in this day, whether physical or perhaps in our day more likely spiritual, whether something that occurs in our lifetime where that justice is brought about, or whether we have to wait for the day of judgment. I believe this last verse is something that we can pray, but it's also something that can fuel our faith. Along with what we've already seen about God's righteousness in this psalm, that he will perfectly execute justice, whether now or later at the day of judgment, we have the promise that perfect justice will be executed. But there's something else I want to bring out here. And this is something that I think we see as we study the whole of scripture. I mentioned this morning that I'm convinced that David had something of an understanding of the doctrine of justification. And Paul pretty much comes right out and says it in Romans 4 as he quotes David in Psalm 32. And you have to understand, you have to believe to some extent that while the Old Testament believers didn't know all there was to know, certainly, about the coming Messiah, that we do understand that in Abraham... So in Scripture, we often see a pattern of God giving opportunity to the wicked to repent. Think of Noah. Think of John the Baptist. Think of Jonah, city of Nineveh. See, the scripture elsewhere teaches us that today is the day of salvation. Sometimes God chooses to withhold his hand of justice and judgment in order to give an opportunity for people to repent and believe. Even this last verse makes me think about how, you know, we, in that imagery of Jesus Christ as the rock, we either come and fall broken upon him or he will crush us. And it makes me think about the wicked who fall in repentance and faith as they're given an opportunity to believe. I'm not saying that's what verse 12 is saying here, but what I'm saying is look at the pattern of scripture where God regularly gives an opportunity for the wicked to turn. They often do not. But opportunity is often given with preaching mercifully being granted to them. And we must say, don't we, praise God for his long suffering, for without it, where would any of us be? So even though David writes this psalm in the context of those who clearly want to do him in, we also have to glean from the rest of scripture that it is the desire of our great and merciful God to turn those who are his enemies into those who are his friends. When we were still his enemies, Christ died for us. And think about it. David puts it in this language of, there the workers of iniquity have fallen, so we know perfect justice will be executed. But the thought came to my mind, what better way is there to destroy your enemy than to make him a brother in Christ? And perhaps God in his mercy at times will choose to show mercy to the wicked as opposed to simply showing them the justice that is deserved, just as we deserved it. And so we pray through this psalm. We pray, yes, oh, continue your loving kindness to those who know you and your righteousness to the upright in heart. We do pray for deliverance, that the foot of pride would not come against us, that the hand of the wicked would not drive us away. By faith, we see perfect justice executed, even if it's not the reality today. and we continue to meditate on the steadfast love of our God. As we bring these thoughts to a close tonight, I wanted to read some material from Matthew Henry. I don't know if you're familiar with his writing called A Way to Pray. but he has a book that's filled with various topics, and a lot of what he does is just kind of synthesize scriptural truth, and at the end of each section is a list of references. I would encourage you to get a copy of that and The Valley of Vision, and use it to help you learn to pray. In fact, when you're really struggling and you don't know how to pray, sometimes it can be helpful to just pray the words of scripture themselves, Or use things like the Valley of Vision or A Way to Pray by Matthew Henry to give your weary soul and your struggling mind some content with which to come before the Lord. Listen to this, now this is called, this is the heading of this section of prayer. It says, pray for the conviction and conversion of atheists, hardened sinners, profane scoffers, and those that disgrace Christ by their immoral lives even while professing faith. That's the heading. And then here is the content of his suggested scriptural prayer. Show fools their folly when they say there is no God. For their atheism makes them corrupt and leads them to practice abominations. Teach transgressors your ways and let sinners be converted to you. Graciously give them repentance that will enable them to acknowledge the truth as it is in Jesus. Lead them into the way of truth that produces godly living. Mercifully enable them to deliver themselves out of the snare of the devil. And after that section, he has a half a dozen references that are really the substance of his meditation. He continues, Lord, maintain the honor of the scriptures, the law, and your own testimony to the truth. Enlighten those who speak contrary to the word, for they have no light in themselves. Magnify your name and your word above all things. Magnify the law, magnify the gospel, and make both glorious and honorable in the sight of men. Oh, that God would answer that prayer in our country today. Let those that are like sheep going astray return to Jesus Christ, the shepherd and overseer of our souls. Let people who will not be convinced by the word be won over by the lifestyle of Christians. As they hear the truth of your word, let them be convicted of their sin. Disclose the secrets of their heart by the proclamation of your prophetic word. bring them to the point of worshiping you as they are forced to admit that you are truly in the assembly of believers. If you're like me, in this way, and sometimes you struggle, your prayers tend to fall into a cadence using familiar language and sometimes you don't even know what you're saying because it's so familiar. and you're struggling with a sense of freshness, then I would encourage you to pray through passages like Psalm 36 and let the prayers of Scripture themselves become your prayers, but also to let those who have gone before us and have articulated their own scripturally-based prayers, use those for your encouragement. Use them for your prayers. such as the Valley of Vision or A Way to Pray by Matthew Henry. Now I pray that the truths of this psalm would be of real encouragement to you, my brothers and sisters, this week and at this time, this season in the life of this church. I know there are still unknowns, there are still a lot of decisions and struggles, but I want you to know that the Lord is with you, that everything is heading toward that great day in the new heavens and the new earth where these struggles will be no more. But I also want you to know that today and this week, Arbor Church in Dayton stands with you in the fellowship of the gospel. as we fight our own fight and strive for these things as well. And I appreciate your heart that even at this season that I've gathered even today that you're not just flipping over a belly up, but you're wanting to seek the Lord and to maintain an evangelistic spirit in the midst of a time of trouble and that you're seeking what the Lord may have for you in the next season. I know that as you look for a pastor, we're actually looking for an additional pastor and It seems like there's not necessarily a huge pool of men ready to go and the Lord may call upon you and us to be patient for a time. That doesn't mean everything gets shut down. I'm thankful that I've heard the testimony that you have had. You've had many faithful men that God has provided to bring the word to you for over these months. Thankful for friends like Grace Emanuel and for others who come alongside in the fellowship of the gospel. So I just, I want to encourage you, continue on in the steadfast love of God. Continue on praying prayers like David has taught us to pray today. Continue to be faithful, covenant to be faithful as your faithful God is covenant to you, or is faithful to you. And see what he might do. You know, God is the master of bringing beautiful and ordered things and powerful things out of weakness and chaos and difficulty. And he regularly does that, doesn't he? Even in the act of redemption, God brings beauty out of chaos. He brings life out of death. and he brings redemption where there was sorrow. And God is pretty good at that, and he does it a lot. I don't know what that specifically means for Harber, but trust in God, follow after him, and know that you have brothers and sisters praying for you and standing with you as you continue on the road, whatever road that is that might lie ahead. Let's pray. Our Father God, as we come before you tonight, having come through Psalm 36 today, we do pray, Lord, that you would continue your steadfast love to those of us who know you. Lord, we are frail. We struggle. Our faith, at times, grows weak. And if we were candid and honest, we would have to say there are times that we're not as connected to your word and are not enjoying the river of pleasures as we could be. We ask, Lord, that you would stir up our hearts, Lord, whatever is going on in our lives or in our church around us or in society, Lord, that you would plant deep within us a commitment to be Christ followers all the days of our lives. And whatever it is that goes on, whatever philosophies are flying around out there, whatever wickedness is being perpetrated at the hands of men, we pray, Father, that you would keep deep in our hearts a commitment to follow after you, knowing that you have already committed yourself to us in this covenant love, in your loving kindness. You have committed yourself to us. You have promised yourself to us. You have said you would never leave us and that nothing could separate us from the love that you have for us. The Lord help us to live in light of that, to believe that, to sense that, and by faith, to see you as the Scriptures portray you, not as people would accuse you. Lord, even when our own hearts would fabricate accusations against you, and if we were honest, we'd have to say at times it's probably happened. Lord, when our own hearts would fabricate lies and accusations against you, forgive us, Lord, and strengthen our faith to believe what you have revealed of yourself to us in your holy word. Help us to believe that and to live by it and to be satisfied with your judgments even when we don't understand them. Lord, I pray you would be merciful to harbor Reformed Baptist Church. You know, Lord, that they need a pastor. They need encouragement, strengthening, other brothers and sisters to come alongside of them. financial assistance, perhaps, or strengthening. Lord, you know the need. And we pray that in your mercy, if you would be pleased for this church to continue on, then Lord, that you would bring a sense of strength and help and encouragement and specific answers to these prayers that we pray. for the glory of our Savior Jesus, and for the encouragement and building up of the saints, and for the saving of the lost in a Holland, Michigan. We pray, Lord, that you would bring glory to yourself. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.