Oh man, you may be seated. Would you turn in your Bibles to me tonight to Psalm 119? We're gonna look at verses 113 to 120. This is the Psalmic stanza. Psalmic in Hebrew is roughly equivalent to the S in English. Psalm 119, 113 through 20. I hate the double-minded, but I love your law. You are my hiding place and my shield, I hope in your word. Depart from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God. Uphold me according to your promise that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope. Hold me up that I may be safe and have regard for your statutes continually. You spurn all who go astray from your statutes, for their cunning is in vain. All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross. Therefore, I love your testimonies. My flesh trembles for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments. That's far the reading of God's word. One of the things that I loved at the beginning of every single semester of my education, whether I was in my undergrad or graduate school, is that I knew that at the end of that semester, I was going to know so many more things. And I knew that there would be a cluster of paradigm shifts that would take place throughout the semester. And if you don't know what a paradigm shift is, maybe you've not heard that term, it's just that moment when the shoe drops and you look at things in a radically different way than you've ever looked at them before. It gives you a new lens. It gives you a new filter. Probably the biggest paradigm shift that we've ever had was when the Lord converted us through the ministry of His Spirit. And this is an ongoing thing in Christianity. We have paradigm shifts all the time. It certainly doesn't stop when you get a degree or finish a class. In fact, if you stop having paradigm shifts in this thing called sanctification, you're probably not thinking. What does Paul tell us? Paul tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, and sanctification is progressive, and that includes our understanding. Now, I say all that to say this, one of the biggest paradigm shifts that I had, and I continue to be reminded of, is how the Bible talks about hate, and specifically, as we read in this stanza tonight, how the Bible puts forward how the child of God utilizes hate. Now, as you can probably imagine, one of the biggest buzzwords in our culture today is hate, right? the haters or the racists, okay? You show dislike for anyone or anything and automatically you're a racist, you're a hater, and consequently, listen to me, The church is very, very afraid of this thing called hate. We don't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. We don't want to be those Christians. We don't want to be those fundamentalist, whack-job Christians. You know, those Christians that will go to the front of an abortion clinic. and say, you know, have signs that say God hates you. And, you know, we chafe at that. I understand that. We could probably talk about more felicitous ways to evangelize folk at abortion clinics, but the fact of the matter is God does hate murderers. I mean, there's no getting around that, right? And one of the biggest paradigm shifts I had when you think about this category of hate is that as many times as Bible commentators and preachers would, for example, try to unsay what Romans 9 says, Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. Have you ever heard commentators try to do exegetical gymnastics on that? Well, when it says hate, it just means they kind of dislike. No, it doesn't. It's miso in the Greek. It's where we get the word misanthrop, which means a hater of men. Okay? Miso, Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. God has a real hate for those who are outside of the covenant that he made with his son. And the children of God, particularly in the Psalms, will engage in this kind of hatred that is sanctioned by God in what are called the impregnatory Psalms, or one author has called them the war Psalms of Israel. So we've talked about this a lot, but one of the things I want you to know is there's something very liberating, there's something very liberating in utilizing the category of hate in the way that the Bible justifies you using it. Now, we should be suspicious, we should be humble when we engage in this because, to make it very simple, if you're hating somebody because of some personal offense and not because they have violated the glory of God, or in other words, if you're hating somebody because you want to take some personal vengeance out on them, then that is a hate that is contrary to the hate that is sanctioned by God for His children. As the Bible says, vengeance is mine, says the Lord. But I want you to also know that this hate that is talked about, hate that in its prayer, these impregnatory Psalms, calls God to bring down judgment and even death and destruction upon those who are enemies of God, is not relegated simply to the Old Testament. In Acts chapter 4, when the church was being persecuted, The church got together and they prayed that God would bring destruction on their enemies. That's an imprecatory prayer. So be gone with this idea that imprecatory psalms and imprecatory prayers and imprecatory thoughts are simply an old covenant thing. In the book of Revelation, the martyrs that are under the altar, they say, how long, Lord, until you avenge our deaths? And they're not saying, again, for them. They're saying for the glory of God and the glory of the kingdom. So this is not an Old Testament thing. This is a New Testament thing. In his book, Warsongs of the Prince of Peace, James Adams warms about what he calls evangelical plastic surgeons. According to Adams, these surgeons are ministers in churches that are afraid to pray for judgment against the enemies of God, and especially to use prayers like these that are expressed in the Psalms. Adams cites several references of evangelical authors who have what should be considered less than orthodox views regarding such prayers. I'll give you one example. In Haley's Bible handbook, a standard reference book, states that prayers in the Psalms are not God's pronouncements of his wrath on the wicked, but are the prayers of a man for vengeance on his enemies, just the opposite of Jesus' teaching that we should love our enemies in the Old Testament times, for expedient sake, accommodated himself to men's ideas. In New Testament times, God began to deal with men according to his own ideas. This way of thinking is widespread. The pulpit commentary says, so with this, Psalm 35, and other imprecatory psalms, they give us not God's precept, but man's defective prayer. And some of you are gonna get sad when I read this, but even an esteemed author as C.S. Lewis, in his work, Reflections on the Psalms, refers to imprecatory psalms as devilish and diabolical. You can disagree with C.S. Lewis, it's okay. And with respect to his view of the Bible, you should disagree with him. So the early church didn't have this issue. The early church didn't have this issue of praying against the enemies of the church. And I have told you on many occasions that the church in Africa where rebel soldiers are coming in and stealing their children and forcing them, conscripting them into being child soldiers and doing unthinkable things, the church in those countries have no problem praying that God would bring wrath upon such wicked men, and neither should we. In all seriousness, as we see such things as the Islamic threats to the church continue, the Chinese church suffering threats and persecution, and increased hostility toward the church in the West, we need to learn to pray prayers strong enough to meet the challenges and humble enough to cast our full dependency on God. The Lord has given us such prayers right here in the heart of our Bibles. They are the prayer language of the Holy Spirit. They are in the imprecatory Psalms. Here's what I want to do. Just very quickly, I want to contrast two kinds of people in this psalm. Number one, the double-minded, and number two, the devoted. Number one, the double-minded, and number two, the devoted. I want you to notice first, it's in verse 13. I hate the double-minded, but I love your law. I hate the double-minded, but I love your law. James brings this up in James chapter one, right? If you want wisdom, pray that God would give you wisdom, but in praying that God would give you wisdom, you must ask in faith for the man or the woman who does not ask in faith should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. What is a double-minded man or woman? Well, make no mistake, a Christian can be double-minded. A Christian can be double-minded. Double-minded is when you don't know if you want to be independent or dependent from the Lord. And you have these conflicting thoughts. Maybe one day you're like, well, I want to commit adultery. And the next day, no, that's bad to do that. One day I want to steal and I want to lie, but then the next day, no, I don't want to do that. But it's just back and forth and back and forth. And I hate to say it, but really it smacks of schizophrenia, of spiritual schizophrenia, a double-mindedness that is unwilling or unable to stand in one place and not move. And sometimes that's what we need to do. We need to not do something, but just stand there. Don't do something, just stand there. That's what we should do. Stand there in our convictions. But the double-minded don't do that. What do the double-minded do? They ask themselves the question, am I gonna be dependent or independent on God? Or independent from God? And the answer is, well, which one will benefit me more? Which one will benefit me more? Which one will gratify my flesh? Which one will make me happy in a worldly way? That's how the double-minded think. They have no concern for the law of God. They are mercenaries when it comes to pleasure. And if they can get a kind of pleasure from God that suits their fancies, great. But if not, they're gonna go after what the world offers because they are double-minded. So first off, the double-minded, are double-minded, to be redundant. But secondly, I want you to notice in verse 18, they go astray from God's commandments. It says, you spurn all those who go astray from your statutes. They go astray from God's commandments. Again, I want to come back to how the double-minded think. There are double-minded who will be very godly and very obedient and very faithful in things that are convenient to them, but when it comes to something that challenges their predilection toward a particular sin, well, they're going to do it their own way. They're going to stray from God's commandments. But then thirdly, I want you to notice in verse 118b. Even though God is a God of truth, they insist on cunning and deception. What does the psalmist say? Their cunning is in vain. Beloved, I've dealt with a number of double-minded men and women in my years in ministry, and what I can tell you about all of them is they lie to everyone, including themselves. They lie to everyone, including themselves. In fact, they lie so much to themselves that they actually believe their own lies. And I wanna tell you this very solemnly tonight, okay? The men and women who are true men and women of God, the men and women who are true men and women of God, when they get the slightest whiff of double-mindedness in their soul, they panic. They panic because they know that double-mindedness leads to the high road of apostasy. You must guard your heart at all costs from double-mindedness. You must guard your heart from being okay and comfortable with strain from God's commandments, and you must guard your heart from being okay with lying to others, including yourself, in order to guard your sin. But now, on the other hand, I want to point out to you the devoted. What are some marks of the devoted? Well, number one, I want you to notice in verses 113, 119, and 115, that they love God's law. And look at the contrast in verse 113. I hate the double-minded, but I love your law. I hate the double-minded, but I love your law. Why do we love the law of God? Because in a world that has its feet firmly planted in midair, we have the solid ground of the word of God. In a world that has its feet planted in mid-air, we have God's will enshrined for us in this book. We don't have to guess what God wants for our life. In so many areas of life, we know. I mean, just think for a moment, some of you, it's been so long because you've been a believer for so long, but remember what it was like as a non-believer trying to figure out what to do with your life. Remember what it was like as a non-believer trying to make decisions about ethical issues. A lot of times it was hard, and you know what you often did? You often acted like the double-minded, like a mercenary. What's in it for me? But see, the devoted are not mercenaries. The devoted are ever and always dependent on the mercy of God as He reveals His will in the Word of God, and they are obligated to do what that Word says. Secondly, note another mark about the devoted, verse 114. I love this. They hide in the Lord. The Lord is their hiding place and their shield. The Lord is their hiding place and their shield. When you think of yourself being out in the wilderness, you're being pummeled by the sun, you're being pummeled perhaps by a storm, you're being pummeled by the elements. And then you find a shelter, you find a tower of refuge, a place into which you can run and be safe. That's how the psalmist depicts the Lord. He is my hiding place. And again, I come back to if you don't have the word of God, you're tossed to and fro by the culture. tossed to and fro by the culture when it says, well, if you want to be popular, you're going to have to be on the right side of history. And I'm so incredibly tired of hearing that because what they don't understand is that changes about every five minutes, right? It changes about every five minutes. But we go to a consistent hiding place that is the Lord, but also he is a shield. He is a shield. What does he shield against? Well, among other things, the logical consequences of the insanity of our culture. The logical consequences of the insanity of our culture. I mean, just think about it for a moment. When you start to take these ideas that the culture has about gender dysphoria and stuff to their logical end, you get things like what I saw this week, a male, a naturally born male, who's competing in female weightlifting. And of course, he's beating everybody, right? I mean, it's just absolutely ridiculous. but that is the logical consequence of relativism. He's telling the men this weekend, you know, the way we got where we're at today, you could draw a straight line all the way back to Rene Descartes, who after years and years of religious war says, I'm tired with religion, I want to figure out what can we be certain about? And so he went into a little dark room somewhere in France, probably with a baguette and a block of cheese and a little bit of wine, and he just thought, like, what can I conclude is certain, that I could be absolutely certain about, and I cannot doubt. And all of you know what he came up with, kagito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. Well, I want you to see the connection. What does that flower into? I think, I think, therefore I am. I think I'm a woman, therefore I am a woman. I think it's okay to marry a bridge, therefore I shall marry a bridge, okay? Like that was the fountainhead of relativism. And the irony is that he thought it was the fountainhead of objectivity. But here's the problem, when the culture tells you, you know where you want to begin with certainty? You begin with yourself. Here's where we have a shield against that, and we take up the epistemology of the Word of God, which says this, your certainty and your existence doesn't start with yourself. You know where it starts? Exodus 3 tells us. When Moses is on the mountain and he's standing before the burning bush, that theophanic manifestation of Yahweh in the Old Covenant, the burning bush, it was burning but it was not being consumed, Moses asked a question. What did he say? He said, who are you? And what was God's answer? One of the hardest things to translate in all of the Hebrew Bible, I am that I am. You know what that means? That means existence and certainty starts with God, not with you. Existence and certainty starts with God, not with you. And you say, well, how does that trickle down to me? I am created in the image of God. I have the image of God stamped on me. So I look at life through the worldview of God's law. I look at life through the worldview of God's presuppositions. And that's why I can say with the psalmist and the Proverbs, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Well, do I have science to back that up? No, it's the mere presupposition that everything cannot come from nothing. I don't need to go to Oxford and get a PhD in astrophysics to figure that out. It is absolutely asinine to think that you could start without a God and get everything that we see. But notice also, thirdly, the devoted waits on God's Word, verse 114b. The word has something to say about everything having to do with life and godliness, and Peter tells us this in 2 Peter 1, 3 and 4. God has given us everything we need to know about life and godliness through the knowledge of him, but what we've got to do is we've got to get in there and mine it out. And this is why the psalmist says, I await, I hope for your word. I remember when all this transgender, LGBTQ stuff came out many, many years ago, and there were a lot of Christians trying to think through, like, how should we respond to this? How should we respond to this? And, you know, when things are fresh like that, you don't want to jump the gun. You want to be careful. You want to make sure that you're going to give a good answer to the culture. Many of the men with whom I was speaking, even though we hadn't cinched everything down, we knew this, we're like, well, whatever the answer is, it's in the word of God. We just gotta mine it out. We've just gotta mine it out. And we came to the conclusion, well, the ninth commandment tells us what to do. Thou shalt not bear false witness. And so we can't call a man a woman, and we can't call a woman a man. We have to think God's thoughts after him. That's what we have to do. So we wait for His Word. This is why it's so important for us to read our Bibles as often as possible. you behold new things and new applications upon reading the word. One of the things I love about getting up in the morning with my wife is we sit down with our coffee and on most days with our Bibles and almost every time we do that, my wife will share with me something new that she's coming upon. It's not always something new like, oh, I've never heard that before, but it's a new application to her life. And by the way, that's the trick. Okay? In your quiet time, whatever you want to call it, you don't want to think of new applications for other people that are not there. You want to think of applications for you. You want to apply it to your own heart. In verse 114, he hopes in God. In verses 116 and 117, he looks to God for sustenance. And then finally, I want you to notice that in verses 118 and 119, this is really the foundation of why the psalmist says, I hate the double-minded. You know why, Christians, you know why the psalmist hate the double-minded? Because they're imitating God. I wanna show this to you. Look at verse 118. You spurn all those who go astray from your statutes. You spurn them, so I shall spurn them. Verse 119. All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross, therefore I love your testimonies. God discards the wicked like dross and we discard all their arguments that they put up before us. God hates the wicked and we hate the wicked. We hate what they do. That does not mean that there is no redemption. There is redemption because we were haters of God. We were haters of God. We spurned God. We went astray from God's word. We were double-minded and in the fullness of time, God sent His Son, born of a virgin, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law so that they might receive adoption as sons. So let's give thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ that tonight we can call ourselves sons and daughters of God, sons and daughters of the Most High, and let us beseech the Lord of hosts that we would not be double