Alright. If you have a Bible, Psalm chapter 4. Psalm chapter 4. If you have been alive for any length of time, you know the one thing that happens to anyone and everyone is you find yourself in conflict at times with people. And whenever we find ourselves in conflict with people, There's only certain things you can do when you're in conflict, right? If you're in conflict with someone, something's not going right, you can just try to ignore it, right? You can just say, I'm just going to ignore it. I'm going to just walk away. Ignore, walk away. and not try to resolve it, not just try to ignore it as much as possible so that it doesn't impact you in any way, shape, or form. A second thing you can try to do is engage, right? Engage either just to fight so you can share your thoughts or engage in order to try to reconcile, but you either ignore and walk away or engage hopefully, hopefully for a positive result. Sometimes you engage not for a positive result. Sometimes you engage simply to tell the person what you think, right? So you can ignore, you can engage, or you can, in a sense, take your conflict, take the problem to God. And in a roundabout way, that's what we find in Psalm chapter four, because if you'll look in Psalm chapter four, you'll notice in verse two, first, Psalm chapter four, if you'll look at the title, you'll notice that it's a Psalm of whom? Of David, it's a Psalm of David, and David seems to be having an issue here. He seems to be having a problem. And the people involved or the conflict that he's having is with some people who are referred to as what? In Psalm chapter 4 verse 2. O ye sons of men. O ye sons of men. Do you everybody see that? O ye sons of men. How does the king, the NIV translate it? Oh, men, all right? Sons of men. Now, if you hear the phrase sons of men, you probably are familiar, do everybody remember the phrase, look at Genesis 6-2? It doesn't say the sons of men there, but it uses a similar phrase, just not about sons. It refers sons of God, but it refers to the daughters of men. Everybody see that in Genesis 6-2? Yeah, Genesis 6-2? All right, everybody see that? Remember, there's a contrast there between the sons of God and the daughters of men. Now, remember, there's not a lot of agreement on who the sons of God are. Some believe they're angels, some believe they're from the godly line, and we could go through all of that. But the daughters of men are clearly a reference to whom? just daughters of men, right? And clearly they're contrasting them with the sons of God. Now, if the sons of God are simply those from the godly line, then the daughters of men would be those who are not saved or those who are lost, correct? Now, if you go back to Psalm 4, the sons of men here clearly may be speaking of ungodly or unregenerate people that David seemed to be having some kind of problem with, because look what he says, Psalm 4 2, Oh ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame. Somehow they are attacking him in some way, shape, or form. He's in some kind of conflict, right? And to turn his glory into shame seems to indicate that they are maybe slandering him, accusing him, attacking him. They're somehow, you know, they're somehow speaking negatively of him. They're taking that which should be maybe a good thing, and they're trying to turn it to his shame. So they are attacking him in some way, shape or form. So guess what? David has a choice here, right? Because whenever we have a conflict, we have a choice. What are our choices again? Just ignore it and walk away and don't worry about what they're saying. Just, I'm not going to deal with you guys at all. Just not going to, you can say whatever you want. Another thing would be, Engage, fight, and now you either engage and fight to try to prove that they're wrong, or engage just to let your frustration be heard, or hopefully to fight so that you can reconcile, but you can engage in some way, or the third option is to go to God. Well, in the psalm, we're gonna see what David chooses to do, all right? Now there's some difficulties in how to interpret the whole psalm. I'm not gonna really focus on the whole psalm. I'm just going to focus on kind of a, just looking at part of it. But so in this, now we do know this, I guess we can say this much. Obviously in verse two, O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? How long will ye love vanity? Clearly he does engage. Agree? Yeah, I'm saying, I'm here, I mean, he seems to be speaking to them, yes? But before he engages them, he does something else, right? And that's the key of verse one. So in a roundabout way, what we could say is before David engages the individuals, before he speaks to the individuals, he speaks to God, all right? And that prayer is found where? Do what? Verse one, obviously, yeah, verse one is obviously where the prayer is going to be. If he speaks to God before them, and that's talked about in verse two, then he's got to speak to God, obviously, before verse two, so that would put it in verse one, all right? So let's look at this and see what we find in this prayer, all right? First, we have the phrase, hear me when I call. Hear me when I call. Now let's look up the Hebrew because that hear me is one Hebrew word that translated hear me. Let's look that up just to see how we can take this prayer apart and if we can learn anything from it, all right? It says, hear me, and the Hebrew word is this Hebrew word. It's this Hebrew word. Strong's H, 6,030. Anah. Anah. Anah. Anah is used 329 times, all right? Anah. Answer, 242 times. Hear, 42. Testify, 12. Speak, eight times. Sing, four times. Three times, bear. Two times, cry. Two times, witness. One times, give. All right, so answer. So in another way, you could say, he is saying, hear me, but he could also be saying, answer me. He could be, all right. But notice the Strong's definition. There's a lot here to go through, right? We have the primitive root, properly to I, or generally to heed, pay attention, by implication to respond, to speak. Now, please note, specifically to sing, Shout, testify, announce, give account, afflict. See all of that? Now, the outline of biblical usage, though, is to answer, respond, testify, speak, or shout. All right, so it's almost the idea is, hear me when I call, it's almost giving the implication that this is not David just saying, hey, you know, Lord, it's David is coming with great passion. Hear me, like it's almost he's shouting, he's crying out to be heard. Not only to be heard, he wants some kind of possibly an answer, but it's mainly demonstrating Most would say it's demonstrating that David is approaching this with great passion and zeal because obviously he's probably what? Well, he could be ticked off. I mean, it's okay to say that, right? I mean, could he not be ticked off? I mean, if someone is turning your glory into shame by gossip and slandering and going after you, do you think you're going to be a little mad? Right? Or am I the only one who perceives that? I think he can be mad. I mean, we can't say David is ever above getting mad, right? Right? I mean, David is a person, I mean, come on, David was just like the rest of us, yes? Over and over and over we see that, okay? So, but this is interesting. So, he in a sense takes his passion and zeal that could be first and foremost directed at the sons of men who are clearly turning his glory into shame. He seems to take that passion and before he speaks to them, he speaks to God. Now, I'm not saying that there's a definitive principle being prescribed here, but it's definitely an interesting concept. The concept is sometimes when we are the most upset and we want to say something to someone, we should probably take it and go to, like, I think the way Spurgeon put it, before he engaged in the battlefield, he went to the closet to pray. Sometimes before we speak to those we are ready to have conflict with, we should first cry out to God. So in other words, the passion he may have had towards them, he exerts it towards God and he basically cries out. It's right there, it's open book. Psalm 4.1. Hear me when I call, hear me. He's asking, he wants to be heard, right? So we could say this, that Psalm 4-1, if you wanna outline this, is David's prayer, right? Or the prayer to God, that's the way I called it, the prayer to God, and it starts off with David's passion, David's plea, right? Hear me, Lord, hear me when I call. There's a plea, there's a passion, because he's obviously bothered, right? All right, so there is the, we'll call it his passion in prayer, his emotion in prayer, right? And then what do we have next? We have his passion in his prayer. What do we have next in his prayer? We have who he's addressing, right? But he references God in a very specific way here. Now this is interesting because he references God as what? The God of my righteousness, which is fascinating in the context, right? What is David's problem again here? He's in conflict with the sons of men, right? Everybody remember that? He's in the conflict with the sons of men. What's the issue? They're turning his glory into shame, meaning they're doing what? I mean, you don't have to go with me. What do y'all think he's doing? I mean, if he's turning his glory into shame, they're trying to accuse David of things, right? Would that not be what they're trying to do? Well yeah, he goes on to describe them, but I'm saying specifically what they're doing against him, right? What they're doing against him is turning him, so he's upset. So now, that's interesting. If someone's attacking you and turning your glory into shame, isn't it fascinating that he addresses God in this prayer as who is his righteousness? God is the God of his righteousness. Now, some could argue he is saying God is the source of his practical righteousness, You could possibly make an argument there, but I think he's saying that God is the God of my righteousness, which is interesting because this made me think of another passage. Can you think of another passage? This one's in the New Testament, where it talks about someone possibly accusing or attacking a Christian. I know that's a very vague question. Just think Romans and go to Romans chapter eight and see if you can find it there. Okay, there you go. I'll just narrow it down. Because as soon as I read this, as soon as he says, God, the God of my righteousness, I'm like, oh, wow, this is perfect example of this concept. Romans chapter eight. You can skip the first 25 verses. So that means somewhere starting after verse 25 and before the end of the chapter. Okay. Nobody? Either I wrote the reference down wrong and I'm giving you all the wrong ways. How about verse 33? Okay, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? What does it mean to lay anything at the charge of God's elect? You're taking a Christian and you're doing what? You're accusing them of something, right? You're accusing them of something. And what does the text say? Who can do that? Now, why is it saying that to do that is a futile thing? God is the one who justifies. How does God justify us? Imputed righteousness, that's what I'm looking for. He justifies based off of an imputed righteousness. If he justifies me based off an imputed righteousness, then no one can lay the charge at me because my justification is not based on my practical righteousness, it's based off my imputed righteousness. So therefore you can lay a charge, but it's not going to impact what? my justification. So what is David's, David seems to be referencing? Well, if we understand it that way, David is like, hey, Lord, there's people, like, before he even mentions what these people are doing to him, his issue is, God, hear me, God of my righteousness. He understands he is righteous from, where does the righteousness derive from? God. Now, I believe this referencing an imputed righteousness. I don't think it references the practical righteousness, and I think the rest of it will play that out, because look what he says. Look what he says. I'll just skip. Look at that last part, almost the last part of Psalm 4, verse 1. Have mercy upon me. Well, I don't need mercy if I'm all righteous, right? So I think what he's saying, look, He is going to God saying, hear me, and he is reminding himself, because sometimes when we come to God in prayer, what we're doing is we're trying to align ourselves with God and think biblically, right? So, at this point, if someone is accusing you of something, You can either do everything you can to try to prove that you didn't do it, you did it, whatever. You can fight and fight and argue and argue and fight and argue. Sometimes you can't even prove that you're right. Sometimes you can't even prove that you're innocent. Sometimes it's beyond your ability to prove it. There's nothing you can do. All you can do is just like, well... Okay, whatever, you can think it, you can not think it, but what we do know is what we can remember is that no matter what I'm being accused of, now obviously if we're being accused of something that we did, we can acknowledge it, but whether we acknowledge it or don't acknowledge it, the reality is we need to remember that we are righteous where? In God. Now what kind of righteousness is that? An imputed righteousness, therefore it doesn't ultimately matter what anybody thinks. Now, you say, well, it does matter what people think in a practical way. In a practical way, maybe, but at least in this situation, David is immediately going, Lord, hear me, please. I'm crying out, I'm shouting, but you are the God of my righteousness. My righteousness is settled in God. Now, that doesn't mean we ignore practical righteousness. I'm not saying we don't, but it's just interesting. He's being accused, and that's what he's going to rely on. Is it not, or that appears? So, what do we have? We have David's passion in prayer, and what else do we have? David's address to God, or how he addresses God, or how he refers to God, however you want to write that down. He refers to God as the God of my righteousness. Then what is next? Yeah, we are still on one. Okay, now we're right after, oh God of my righteousness, unless the NIV completely eliminates an entire phrase. Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. Okay, does the NIV completely obliterate that entire thing? Or how does it say? Okay, give me relief from my distress. It doesn't talk about when he was in distress? Okay, hang on, I'm going to look at it. Okay, I'm going to look at it to see some. It just says, give me relief. That's all it does. I'm going to look up all the English translations here just to see if we need to address it. The NIV. Oh yeah, it just says, yeah, just give me relief. So the NIV, this doesn't work as well. So obviously we have a textual variant, which happens, you know, frequently. It doesn't change everything, but it does mess up trying to understand this. If you look at it in the King James and I think most other Well, it depends, ESV, people go back and forth on how to do this. All right, but let me try to explain it this way. What David, so David cries, we have David's passion, we have David's address of God in his prayer as the God of my righteousness. And then what many believe here, what he does is he reminds himself and is a sense reminding God of God's past mercies. Right? Because the King James says, thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. What does it mean that he has enlarged me when I was in distress? Okay. Let's look up the Hebrew word for enlarged. All right. Thou hast enlarged me. Thou hast enlarged me, we get this. Thou hast enlarged, it's this. All right, ra-cab, okay, and it means, used 25 times, enlarge, wide, large, make room. It can be literally or figurative, to make room, to open wide, to be, to grow wide, widen, to make large, to make room. So what was he, what was he saying? I was in distress, and in a sense, you made room, you opened it up, meaning what? Distress does what to us? presses, crushes, narrows. To enlarge the situation, using very figurative language, would be to do what? To relieve. So, what he is doing, David in his prayer, First we see his passion, we see his address to God as the God of his righteousness, remembering God as the source of his righteousness. He is now remembering God's past mercies, and he's reminding God of those past mercies. As Charles Haddon Spurgeon put it, he put it this way, this is how Spurgeon put it, this is another example of David's common habit of pleading past mercies as a ground for present favor. So he is saying, what he is doing is that he is pleading, hey, because of your past mercy, give me present mercy. And the past mercy was what? You have enlarged me when I was in distress. You have helped me before when I was in distress. Meaning that he is currently in distress. What is this current distress? The sons of men, right, who are turning his glory into shame, right? Everybody remember that? Okay. So, let's go through this. David, first of all, in his prayer, does what? He demonstrates what? Okay, remember we said this describes his passion, right? Describes his passionate cry, right? His emotion. He's passionately crying out to God. In other words, and remember the point, why I'm trying to point that out, he could be letting his emotion go where? at the sons of men, but before he runs to them, he runs to God and lets his passion and emotion out to God. Now, from there, he then addresses God as the God of my righteousness. Not only speaking of God as that way, but David is taking comfort that where is his righteousness found? In God, and that what matters? The righteousness God sees, not the righteousness people perceive or don't perceive. All right, does that make sense? Now we want people to see righteousness. We want people to see our good works, but sometimes there's very little you can do. All right, next, he then does what? He points to past mercies. He points to past mercies. As one translation put it, you have relieved me. Have mercy on me. In a familiar pattern, David used past mercies as a ground for future help. God, I know you haven't blessed me to this point to abandon me, so please have mercy on me. So he reminds God, and not only is he reminding God, I mean, obviously God knows, who's he reminding? He's reminding himself. God has helped me in the past, so I'm reminding that God will help me in the present. And he's basing, and he's asking God on that. So we have David's passion, we have David's address to God, we have David rehearsing or remembering past mercies, and then what do we have? Well, no, we have something still in verse one. Have mercy upon me. Have mercy upon me. Once again, we have a cry for mercy. This is how one commentary put it. Though thou mayest justly permit my enemies to destroy me on account of my many and great sins, yet I flee to thy mercy and I beseech thee, hear my prayer and bring thy servant out of his troubles. The best of men need mercy as truly as the worst of men. The best of men need mercy as truly as the worst of men. All the deliverances of saints, as well as the pardons of sinners, are the free gift of heavenly grace. In other words, why I think the first righteousness there, O God of my righteousness, is referring to a positional righteousness, is because he turns around and asks for Mercy. Meaning, almost, look, when we ask for mercy, we're asking God to do what? Not give us what we deserve. Almost as if he's saying, and that's how this, I think that was Spurgeon who said that, that David understands, hey, it would be perfectly right for my glory to be turned into shame. It would be perfectly right for my enemies to Destroy me right now some people try to connect psalm 4 with psalm 3 and think that this was David having problems with Absalom But we cannot say for sure because in some look at the heading for psalm 3 a Psalm of David when he first when he he fled from Absalom Absalom his son now remember David's son was trying to do what to David kill him now Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Now, let's be honest, right? Okay. All of a sudden, the church gets a text message. Everybody in the church gets a text message that Mary or one of the twins tried to kill Stephen and Sarah, right? Okay. No matter how godly we think we are, we'd be like, man, they must have done something wrong as a parent. It's live on the internet. There would be like, what is happening in that family? What is going on? And so your glory would be turned into shame. Well, if Psalm 4, and again, there's much debate here. Some people don't think it's connected to Psalm 3, because in Psalm 3, he seems to be fearful of his physical life, and in Psalm 4, he seems to be fearful of his reputation. But I think the two would go hand in hand. Absolutely, because come on, you know people would be saying, look at David's son. Look at David's son, right? Come on. I mean, wouldn't people be talking trash about David? They would. But David knows that a lot of his problems are because of his sin. So it's almost like, Lord, I need mercy. I need mercy, which is always interesting. I want to make sure you get these very basic principles down. Whenever we find ourselves in conflict with someone, before we engage them, we speak to God. Now, I can preach it. It doesn't mean I'm going to live. Okay, right? I mean, it's always, and it's just smart, just from a purely, like a lot of times, they will always say, I mean, even if you go to the world, they'll say sometimes before you engage someone you're in conflict with, take some time and think before you speak, because you may regret what you say. Well, you have a greater chance of going and talking to God before you say anything, right? So that's number one. So it's always good, before you get in conflict, to first talk to God. Number two, it's always good before you engage with whoever you're having conflict with, is to first remember your own need for mercy. Because we always go into conflict with what kind of an emotion? That we're right. Don't we always go into conflict with a great, like almost a hypersensitive awareness of our own righteousness, our own goodness? Because we feel we're going into a just cause, right? We think it's a just conflict. We think it's a just, I'm right, you're wrong. You did this, Bobby. But can you imagine how we would approach it if we first went to God and said, God, you are my righteousness, not because I'm righteous. Right? You are my righteousness. And then literally say, have mercy upon me. Meaning, almost like, hey, I know I probably deserve these people talking about me. Do I? In what way? Oh, yeah, yeah, OK, right, right. Yeah, look at the 2 by 4 in your own eye before you worry about the speck in someone else's eye. But it's a hard time for us to ever see the speck in our own eye, or the 2 by 4 in our own eye. But this is a case where before he's going to go to them, now he's still going to go to them. He's still going to go to them. But he at least takes time to do what? Go to God. So, we got two very simple principles here, two very simple principles here, right? Okay, so let's go through the whole prayer again. All right, David, so let's make sure we take it apart. Psalm 4, verse 2, we see the conflict. Can everyone agree? Who is this conflict with? Sons of men. What are they doing? Turning his glory into shame. David is obviously bothered by this, yes? So, he goes to God in prayer. We see his emotion in prayer, right? Hear me! When I call, do we see it? It's a shout! Right? Okay, second, we see how he addresses God. God, the God of my righteousness. Meaning, he's looking to God as the source of his righteousness. And hopefully, that's what we always do. Can you imagine how we would approach a lot of things if we realize we don't approach it because we're righteous, we can only approach it because God is our righteousness. Because no matter how righteous we are, we're never that righteous, right? It's almost a humbling thing. And then what does he do? He remembers past mercies. God, you enlarged, you delivered me in the past, I need your help in the present. That gives me some sense of hope, some sense of stability that you're relying on God. And then have mercy demonstrates that he is almost saying, I know what I deserve. I'm asking for something. I'm asking for you not to give me what I deserve. I'm asking you for you not to give me what I deserve. Does that sound good? All right. Then what does he say at the end? Hear my prayer. What do you think that indicates? And most commentaries skip this, but what do you think? What do you think it indicates? I think it indicates humility because he's still begging God to hearing. So I think it once again is an example of humility. Have mercy. Hear me, hear me. It's almost like he goes from strong emotion to an acknowledgement he needs mercy to hear me, just hear me, hear me, hear me out. Hear me out. Now, he has been in the prayer closet. He's been in the prayer closet, right? He leaves the prayer closet. So now there's David's prayer. Now what do we have? Well, now we have his words to men. All right, or his words to the son of men, or we have the prayer to God, now the words to men, or the words to the son of men. And he speaks to them very clearly in verse two. Okay. All right, and well, yeah, oh, verse three, verse three and four creates all kinds of problems, but verse two, at least verse two is very simple, all right? O ye sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity and seek after leasing? Selah, now whenever we see selah, that always, what does that indicate? Well, it always, it indicates to stop. Possibly repeat, possibly meditate. Think on these things, right? So, David is saying, hey guys, how long? Now, it doesn't seem to be a, I don't know how you, now the only problem with reading some of these things, remember this is always the problem, is what do we not have when we read these things? What do we not have? Well, we may have a little context. We don't have anything indicating emotion. Right? Like we have to, we insert the emotion we think David may be, sometimes the Hebrew word will show you that it's passion or emotional, but like you could approach this a lot of ways, right? Hey Bobby, how long are you going to keep doing these things? Versus Bobby, how long? There's a big difference in those two ways of approaching it. I don't know exactly how he's approaching it. Now you want to think that he came out of the prayer closet humble. So there's a part of me that wants to read that he's saying, how long, guys? Come on, how long are you gonna do this to me? Right? But he basically says, how long are they going to do three things? Right? Three things. How long, guys, are you gonna do, number one? Guys, why are you spending this time coming after me? Why are you gonna keep doing this to me? Second? Love vanity. Now the word vanity means what? Vain things. Delusions. Okay, now that's it. So we may want to look up this Hebrew word here, right? Because that kind of goes in a different direction than I would go. Because that would sound very negative, okay? That would be very negative if that's the way we should interpret it. So let's go with this, all right? How long will you love vanity? Okay. Okay. If I said Greek, I apologize. The Hebrew word here means it's used 12 times. Vain, vanity, no purpose, empty, vain things. Emptiness, vain, empty, idle, vain. All right. That seems better than that. Delusions would be more negative. Do you see why I would say delusion would be more negative? Hey guys, how long are you gonna keep chasing after delusions? turning my glory into shame. You're delusional. You see, that would be a very much more negative. But saying, how long are you going to keep pursuing that which is vain or empty? Well, why would it be vain and empty and meaningless? Why would it be meaningless and empty for them to turn his glory into shame? Well, because his righteousness comes from God. Right? Why? Well, clearly they're spreading falsehood and lies. Yeah, clearly. Well, it's vain to do it because his righteousness comes from God. It's back to the Romans 8.33 thing, right? Who can lay the charge at God's elect? No one, because who justifies? God. Right? Now, I'm not saying that, please note, because people will hear this in so many kinds of different ways. There is obviously a point in time someone has to be confronted, you have to deal with sin. But you gotta remember how you're dealing with it, right? You gotta deal with it realizing you may be dealing with someone's sin, but they are still what? Justified before God. These people would act like that he's probably not even justified before God, therefore that's a vain and empty thing to chase. What's the third thing that they're chasing? Leasing, how does the NIV translate that? False gods, okay, all right. The King James, the word leasing is, it means lie, untruth, falsehood, deceptive thing. Falsehood, lie, untruth, figuratively idle, so an idle could come into play, but it sounds like more, hey, you're pursuing that which isn't true. Now it's a little bit more negative. Now it's a little bit more negative, right? Hey, how long are you gonna turn my glory into shame? Guys, it's an empty, meaningless pursuit. And because it's a lie, okay? It sounds like it's a lie. Or at least some of it is a lie. Or at least some of their accusations aren't true. Now he seems to indicate some of it may be true in verse one. But there's something that they're pursuing that's just a waste of time. All right, everybody see that? All right, are we good there? All right, so what do we have? We have David's prayer to God, right? We broke that down, did we not? We have his words to men, and his words to men is, how long, guys, are you going to keep doing these three things? Turning my glory into shame, loving vanity, and seeking after lies, falsehood, and rumor, and innuendo, and whatever else that they're pursuing, all right? Now, verse three. Verse 3. How does the verse 3 begin in the NIV? Okay. Now, the King James says, but no. Alright. I feel, and you can tell me if you disagree, that he is still talking to the sons of men in verse 3. How many agree that he's still talking to the sons of men in verse 3? OK, what do we think? Now I think it just means stop and repeat and just. Okay, well, because a lot of people believe verse 4, there's a change in who's being spoken to here, right? So, basically this is how some view it. Verse 1, David speaks to God. Verse 2 and 3, he speaks to the sons of men. Verse 4, I'm not going to tell you who David is supposedly speaking to. But, verse 2 and 3, most put 3 with he's still speaking to the sons of men. All right? Because it would be hard to read that and change people, right? Don't you agree? I mean, if you disagree, that's okay. You can let me know. I mean, nobody has agreed in 2,000 years, so we don't have to agree, all right? I just think it's weird that he would be like, but no, and he's talking to someone else all of a sudden. He wants them to know something. And what does he want them to know? All right, in other words, you can attack, you can attack, you can do everything, but God has set apart the godly for himself. You can say whatever you want, but I've been set apart by God, ultimately, because my righteousness comes from God, and God is having mercy on me. God has set me apart for himself. Yeah, I think so, but I think just even if you just put no, he's gotta be telling someone to know something. So I don't think he's telling himself to know it. I think he's telling them to know it. Hey guys, in other words, what is he saying? You can attack me, but who are you ultimately attacking? God, because God has set me apart for himself. And that's the exact words. And then what else does he say? And the Lord will hear when I call. Meaning what? Hey guys, you're pursuing lies and falsehood, you're pursuing vain things, you're turning my glory into shame, but what you need to know is I've been set apart by God for himself and he will hear me. You may not hear me, God will hear me. All right, does that make sense? All right, so we have David's prayer, or the prayer to God, the words to men. Now, here's where it gets weird. Next verse is what? Four. It's four. What happens in four? Offer the sacrifices of the Lord, Right, well, I think standing in awe and saying not, it seems to be in your anger. I think almost everyone believes it's referencing to anger. Who's being spoken to here? Now there's not agreement on this, so just so that you know. All right, you think he's referring to another entity, a group of people, other than the sons of men. Okay, so all right, we have option one. David has just introduced another group of people that he's referring to. So he's talked to God, he's talked to the sons of men, now he's referring to someone else. All right, and we don't know who these other people are. All right, that's one option. What's option number two? Talking to the sons of men. All right, very good. So we have two options. A completely unrelated group of people that we don't know who they are, and I don't think they're ever identified in the psalm. Next option is the sons of God, or sons of men, I should say, because, well, they're identified, and so the idea to keep going. What's option number three? He's speaking to himself, and that's a popular view. David starts talking to himself. He's got some words to himself, right? And he's gonna say something to himself. Look what he says to himself. Let's just go with this idea. Stand in awe. That's an interesting phrase, right? Most translations don't have it translated that way. If we look at the Hebrew for stand in awe, if I can get the interlinear to open. Stand in awe, it's one Hebrew word. This. Ra-gaz. Ra-gaz. Ra-gaz, right? Use 41 times. Tremble, move, rage, shake, disquiet, trouble, quake, afraid. It's a primitive route to quiver with any violent emotion, especially anger or fear. So whoever David is talking to, what is he telling them to do? Right. Hey, stand in awe, in your anger, in your tremble, in your emotions, do what? And sin not. Now either, if we understand he's talking to the sons of men, then what would he be telling them? Hey, in your anger, don't sin. We would be kind of weird, because he's referring to them as the sons of men, which seems to imply lost people, and he's already said that they're applying, they're doing what? Turning his shame into glory, pursuing vanity, and speaking lies. They're already sinning. So it would be weird to tell them not to sin in their anger. Who would need to be reminded here not to sin in their anger? Okay, the third party would just be hard for me. I can't textually, I would have a hard time with that one, because I don't know who the third party would be. It would just seem like, oh, David just now is just talking to, we don't even know who he's talking to. Talking to himself, though, now would make a little bit of sense. Because he's talked to God, he's at least tried to, and almost, now we can't, obviously, this is Hebrew poetry, right? So we always have to be careful, like we don't know exactly how the story plays out. But you want to imagine, hey, Bobby, how long are you gonna do these things? And Bobby's like, as long as I want. Or he went full Lacey, I do what I want. I do what I want. That's Lacy's philosophy, right? I do what I want, okay? And that could probably tick you off a little bit, right? I mean, when Lacy has said it, it's probably ticked you off a few times, right? Okay, I do what I want. That probably ticks you off. So sometimes we talk to God, we go to the people, and does the conflict work itself out? Okay. No, lots of times when we go talk to someone in conflict, does it resolve itself? A lot of times it doesn't. A million times it doesn't, right? We're still upset. So then what do we have to do? We've got another choice. Well, I've got to focus, because guess what? You can't change them. So what do you have to do? And your anger and your emotion What's the verse? It's open book. Sin not. Even the NIV says sin not, right? Do not sin. Right, okay, but I'm saying there's agreement on that. There's agreement on that, right? To stand in awe, that's like in your emotion and you're quivering, you're rage, you're angry, you're whatever it is. Do not sin. Do not sin. And then what else does he say? Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still. He's seemingly to tell himself to do what? Search your heart. In other words, whose heart does he need to search? His own heart. Why does he need to search his heart? He's the only heart that he can search, right? You can't go, man, hey, hey, your heart's messed up. You gotta sometimes search your own heart, right? You gotta search your own heart. So if we take it apart, what does he do here? Okay, in my anger, sin not, commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still. Now the King James says, commune with your own heart. How does the NIV put it? Search your heart. I think if we... Right. Yeah, oh yeah, it does. Which would make you want to think he's referring to the sons of men. Right, because he uses the plural. Right, so, and I could see why. If he uses the plural, it would make sense that he's not talking to himself, but most think he is, all right? The idea for commune here is to say, speak, to answer, to say in one's heart, to command. In other words, it's almost like, to commune with your own heart almost sounds like talking to yourself. talking to yourself. Now, you could argue, so you have two options, just so that we know, that he is either telling the son, because this is the only way this works, the third party does not make any sense textually to me, right? So, he's telling the sons of men, hey guys, in your anger, don't sin, and you need to go spend some time talking to yourself and searching your own heart. Now, he could be telling them to do that. Just seems odd. Well, yeah, I think they're ungodly, yeah. Right. Yeah, it doesn't make sin. Considering he's already just blasted them for basically lying and pursuing. Well, I mean, not really. I mean, they can search their heart to see what's going on inside, but they can't do it from a spiritual perspective. Yeah. So I just, I know the NIV uses the plural there, but the fact that he basically is telling himself to speak to his heart seems to me inferring that he's referring to himself. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I'm just saying you've got only two options here to go through it. All right. And then what else does he say? And be still. And be still, the NIV uses be still. Be silent. Now, this is important. Okay, now think of the way this works. David is in the middle of a conflict, right? Yes? And our principle we derive from this is before we engage in the conflict, we need to talk to God and we need to be reminded that God is our righteousness and that we need mercy. We need to see our need for mercy before we engage them. Right? He does engage them, right? And it's okay to engage. But at some point, the engagement has to do what? Sometimes you just have to stop. Sometimes the engagement doesn't go the right way. So then what can you do? You've got to then go work on you. And you've got to realize that in your anger, you are not to sin. You are to look into your own heart and to be still. What is that idea of being still there? Well, I think just trying to calm down from your anger. Being at peace. So if we took some principles from this, what are some of the principles I've already given you? Talk to God before we engage in conflict, see our need for mercy before we see their sin, right? Three, it's okay to engage, but four, at some point you have to stop worrying about them and you have to focus on you. You have to focus on you. Does everybody see that? And then what does he say in verse 5? And put your trust in the Lord. In other words, what is he telling you to do? Calm down, look to yourself, and do what? Serve God! In other words, hey, people may be saying whatever they want about you, but you can still do what? Serve God. Now sometimes that's hard. If you got people out there saying all kinds of bad things about you, and that you're trash, and you're a sinner, and you should never ever speak again, move again, walk again, breathe again, do anything for God again, and somebody say, how dare he keep offering sacrifices to God? How dare he does anything for God? You know what? Sometimes you just have to do what? Just forget about them. Right? Because this can happen. Sometimes in our minds, if we've committed a certain sin or whatever the sin is, we think the last place we should be is in church, which sometimes it's the place we should be, because we sometimes don't perceive like, well, if you've committed enough sins, you should just give up on Christianity. No, that's where you should be. Right? So he just says to do what? Yeah. And that just seems weird that he'd be saying these things to the sons of men. It seems really weird they'd be saying these things to the sons of men. It sounds like he'd be saying these things to himself, all right? So I guess we could add a principle. No matter how bad the conflict goes, whether it's successful or it's bad, what do you need to do? Serve God and trust in him, right? That's what we do. Now, what do you think do we have in, well, we're out of time. So I will just leave the rest of it to you. We won't cover any more. We won't break this into parts or anything. But you can look at the rest and see how you would do for six, seven, and eight. All right? How you would work on it or how you would do so. All right? All right, there we go, yeah. You can see how you would work that. All right, any questions? No, good? All right, all right, let's pray. Lord God, we come before you this evening. Lord, the one reality we all know is we find ourselves in conflict with others. And we do know that over and over and over, we don't handle that conflict in a biblical way. I pray that what David does in Psalm 4 will serve as an example and a challenge to us to consider and to think about and figure out how to apply in a practical way in our lives. We ask this in Jesus name. God's people said.