[0:00] The following message is given by Walt Alexander, lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in Athens, Tennessee.! For more information about Trinity Grace, please visit us at TrinityGraceAthens.com.
[0:14] ! Psalm 5, Psalm chapter 5, we're going to dive into this psalm and see what the Lord has for us this morning.
[0:38] And I am excited. Psalm 5, I'm going to read the subscript and then read the psalm.
[0:49] To the choir master, for the flutes, a psalm of David. Verse 1, give ear to my words, O Lord.
[1:04] Consider my groanings. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God. For to you do I pray.
[1:17] O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice. In the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and wait. Watch. For you are not a God who delights in wickedness.
[1:36] Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers.
[1:48] You destroy those who speak lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house.
[2:06] I will bow down toward your holy temple in fear of you. Verse 8, lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies.
[2:17] Make your way straight before me. For there is no truth in their mouth.
[2:28] Their inmost self is destruction. Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue. Make them bear their guilt, O God.
[2:42] Let them fall by their own counsels. Because of the abundance of their transgressions, cast them out. For they have rebelled against you.
[2:54] But let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy and spread your protection over them.
[3:06] That those who love your name may exalt in you. For you bless the righteous, O Lord. You cover him with favor as with a shield.
[3:20] May God bless the preaching of his word. How do you pray when trouble gets personal?
[3:32] How do you pray when trouble gets personal? I recently read this story about Mary. She begins, both of my parents were destroyed by alcoholism. I was three when they divorced.
[3:44] She continues, my mother loved me and tried her best. But drinking became her refuge. Binges and craziness the norm. I was repeatedly locked out of my house for such things as losing a piano competition or dumping vodka down the drain.
[4:00] And had to break in the basement window to get inside. I was 17 when Jesus found me. A friend invited me to church and I clung to the minister's reassuring words of God's unfailing love.
[4:15] I was hopeful my life would change. I married a man six years older than me. At first our relationship comforted me. But then he became violent.
[4:27] I was hit repeatedly. Once with a dog chain. Strangled. Kicked in the stomach. Pushed off a dock. Down the steps. Unbelievably, I convinced myself I still loved him.
[4:42] At 23, I found my father again. I thought he would protect me and defend me. So I left my husband. Instead, my father sexually abused me.
[4:55] I plummeted to utter despair and attempted suicide. Failing, I screamed at God for allowing me to live. Where was he? What is he doing?
[5:10] Trouble troubles all of us in a fallen world. As we talked about last week. It's a fact of life that we all must face and pray through with God's help. But how do we pray through it when the trouble gets personal?
[5:23] How do we pray when we find ourselves kicked around by wicked people like Mary? How do you pray? When your spouse cheats?
[5:35] When your best friend slanders? When your parents ignore? When others mock you and barely look at you when you speak? When your boss watches your every move and is bent on making you a failure?
[5:49] Or maybe he just demonstrates again how little he cares for you and your spouse and your family by pushing you to overwork. How do you pray when you face evil and evil doers?
[6:04] You know, as I've said several times since we've moved through this series, many of these first songs from the book of the Psalms unveil David's prayer when he faces trouble. But this Psalm is a prayer of David when he faces evil.
[6:18] It seems clear from this passage that David is being slandered and attacked. And those attacks begin verbally. They begin with verbal jabs lofted across the room at him.
[6:29] But now they've become more and more personal. They begin to haunt him and torture him. They threaten not just his position as king. They're not just kind of sullying his reputation.
[6:40] They're after his life. But this Psalm is not just about David or for David. The Word of God is living and active.
[6:51] And this prayer this morning is God's Word for us. The living God is addressing us this morning and seeking to teach us how to face evil and pray it down.
[7:03] As maybe Kenneth Copeland would say. Where are we going? In a word, pray, trust God, and do the right. Pray, trust God, and do the right.
[7:13] I think in so many ways this is going to teach us how to face it and pray it. And so point one, we're going to break this out in four points, believe it or not. No acronym though. First point is prepare your heart.
[7:24] Prepare your heart. Before you pray, prepare your heart to approach God. You know, first David prepares his heart by appealing for God to hear. Look in verse 1 and 2. He says, give ear to my words.
[7:35] Consider my groanings. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God. For to you I pray. He begins by declaring not his prayer but his pain. Give attention to my, or give ear to my words.
[7:50] Consider my groanings. This word groaning comes from the same word to murmur. The idea is it describes the sighs and sorrows and fears that simmer inside us and come out and grunts, groans, and grumbles in the face of trouble.
[8:04] The idea is David, pain is so severe, the only thing that comes out are groans. It doesn't picture a person with their hair combed and their Sunday best on pleasantly praying to God.
[8:22] It pictures someone battered and bruised, stumbling, kicking the dirt, mumbling to God. It's not a church going prayer.
[8:33] It's a broken life prayer. And the first thing he does is appeal for God to lean in and hear. And I just love it. Give ear, consider, give attention.
[8:44] You know, the idea is he's saying all that's coming out of me are just grunts and groans. So Lord, take them up and make sense of them. Listen to my broken words. Hear my grunts and groans.
[8:55] Hear what I want to say but don't know how to say. Hear these emotions boiling within me. And if you've been there, you know what David's doing.
[9:06] You know how these prayers go. He surrounds the Lord with appeals. Look at that in verse 1 and 2.
[9:17] Give ear to my words. Oh Lord, consider my groans. Give attention to the sound of my cry. My King and my God. For to you I look. He's literally surrounding the Lord with appeals to listen.
[9:28] And these appeals underline the urgency he feels. Things are not getting better. Things are going from worse to worse. And so he turns desperately. The Lord is King because he has nowhere else to turn.
[9:40] He prepares his heart. Then he prepares his heart by planning to pray. This is so interesting. Verse 3. Look down there with me. He says, Oh Lord, in the morning you hear my voice.
[9:51] In the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you. And watch. There's a future tense to these words. In the morning you will hear. Lord.
[10:02] In the morning I will prepare. David doesn't just pray. David doesn't just say what's ever on his mind. David doesn't just declare his needs. He approaches God slowly and carefully.
[10:14] He sets aside time and plans to pray. He knows the battle for the morning is one the night before. So he plans to pray. I think this is so interesting.
[10:26] Like he's in this much pain and this much turmoil. But he plans to approach God appropriately because of who God is. His King. His God. The Lord Yahweh. He plans to offer a sacrifice.
[10:40] Now that word is not in the original text. But I think it represents the ideas. The idea he plans to present himself and his request to the Lord. He plans to offer a sacrifice which would be completely consumed.
[10:55] As a metaphor for what he's doing with his life. He says, Lord, I plan to lay my life. And everything I have before you.
[11:07] Total commitment. Total allegiance. Total dependence upon you. It's much like Micah 7-7. We have that for you. He says, As for me, I will look to the Lord.
[11:18] I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. There's so many things going on in this passage. But the striking thing to me is just the purposefulness.
[11:34] To pray. The planning. In the morning. In effect, the morning. He says, In the morning, Lord, you're going to see me. I got an appointment with the carpet tomorrow morning. I got an appointment where my knees will be and my nose will be before you in the morning.
[11:49] I wonder if we talk like that. I wonder if we strategize our nights and week like that. John Piper says it like this. Such a helpful explanation for us.
[12:00] One of the main reasons so many of God's children don't have a significant life of prayer. It's not so much that we don't want to, but that we don't plan to. If you want to take a four-week vacation, you don't get up one summer morning and say, Hey, let's go today.
[12:17] You won't have anything ready. You won't know where to go. Nothing's been planned. But that is how many of us treat prayer. We get up day after day and realize that significant times of prayer should be a part of our life, but nothing's ever ready.
[12:32] We don't know where to go. Nothing's been planned. No time, no place, no procedure. And we all know that the opposite of planning is not a wonderful flow of deep, spontaneous experiences in prayer.
[12:43] That's very good. Some of the charismatics wouldn't like that. We all know that the opposite of planning is not a wonderful flow of deep, spontaneous experiences in prayer. The opposite of planning is the rut.
[12:56] Ever been in the rut? You're lying if you haven't been in the rut. If you don't plan a vacation, you'll probably stay at home and watch TV. The natural unplanned flow of spiritual life sinks to the lowest ebb of vitality.
[13:10] There is a race to be run and a fight to be fought. If you want renewal in your life of prayer, you must plan for it. Many good things don't happen in our lives or in our prayer lives because of a lack of planning.
[13:24] And I just love that. You know, one goal. I would encourage you. One goal. I don't know what you do, what a great prayer time is with you, but schedule a prayer walk this week.
[13:34] I'm committing to you to do it for myself. You can come and hold me accountable next Sunday morning. And I hope you do because I want to schedule a prayer walk this week. I'd like to schedule a few, but I'm going to start small and schedule one.
[13:48] And so, I don't know. If you've never been in the rut, you need this type of prayer. Have you ever felt yourself wondering what is prayer and how to do it? In a couple of weeks, we are having something I'm very excited about.
[13:58] We're having my good friend Bill Kitchell and C.J. Mahaney coming down to teach us for a Saturday morning seminar called I Can Pray the Bible. That's just our theme for the year.
[14:09] But the idea is I can pray to God. I can pray. These guys are great. Bill is my favorite person on the subject of prayer. There's no books I've read. I've read a few.
[14:20] There's no books I've read on prayer that's better than his content. So, you can mark that on your calendar. So, August 22nd. Come to that. That will help you. That will help you plan to pray.
[14:32] So, plan to attend. So, you can do that. Pray, trust God, do the right. Point two. David continues, consider your God. Consider your God. David immediately continues his prayer and considers who God is in the face of evil.
[14:46] After preparing his heart and preparing his sacrifice, David considers who God is. Look in verse 4 through 6. For you are not a God who delights in wickedness.
[14:57] Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies. The Lord of whores. Notice the way David describes God in these verses.
[15:10] It's all in the negative. He doesn't say God is light. He doesn't say God is love. God is holy. He says God is not evil.
[15:21] For you are not a God who delights in wickedness. It shows us what God is not and what God does not like. The Lord does not like wickedness.
[15:32] And even more than that, wickedness and evil are not welcome near the Lord. There's a wonderful kind of reference to hospitality in these verses. If you look down, evil may not dwell with you.
[15:44] Verse 4. The idea is evil may not come into your house. Evil may not experience your hospitality. Evil may not experience your protection and your care.
[15:54] If the Lord welcomed evil in any way to dwell in his house, he would be welcoming wicked people and protecting and caring for them. But evil is not allowed. Evil is not even allowed to stand before his eyes.
[16:07] The sinner shall not stand in the congregation of the righteous from Psalm 1. We see it right here. The point is God is not evil. You probably know that.
[16:19] But God is not swayed by evil. God is not swayed by evildoers. God tempts no one with evil, entices no one to evil. God does not give evil room to run around.
[16:31] God keeps evil on a short leash. In fact, God hates evil and hates evildoers. Now that may be just vanilla. That may just be Captain Obvious.
[16:43] But I don't think it is. I have a few things I hate. I hate the Florida Gators. Can I get an amen on that? Yeah. I hate the New England Patriots.
[16:55] I hate cottage cheese. I hate cooked apples. I mean, just textually, I just can't do that. I detest squash and the whole squash family.
[17:08] You know, whatever their cousins are, I'm against them too. You know, it's all of it. Knowing you guys, my front porch will probably be loaded with squash tomorrow morning. But more importantly, I hate abortion.
[17:20] I hate child abuse. I hate racism and prejudice. But nothing I hate reaches the level to which God hates evil.
[17:35] The Lord abhors evil. Evil. God is not neutral. That's the word abomination. It's abomination to Him.
[17:47] It's completely taboo, completely unwelcome. He detests it and abhors it. Now, we don't like to think of God hating anyone or anything, but that's because we're worldly. Secondly, if God didn't hate evil, we should be concerned.
[18:01] More than that, if God didn't hate evil, we should be afraid, terrified. In fact, David is recounting this. His confidence in praying to the Lord in the face of evil is strengthened immensely precisely because the Lord hates evil.
[18:15] And that's the way it should be in our life. I've told you guys this before, but I'll never forget one conversation I had with a friend of mine, a close friend of mine, after we had several miscarriages. And those were quite difficult.
[18:28] And there's a long story there I won't go into. But I remember having a conversation with a friend, just telling him about what's going on, telling him about what's going on in our hearts and just, you know, just kind of the grief that we were experiencing facing another or a third miscarriage.
[18:45] And he just said, God hates that miscarriage. And, you know, I was already a pastor at that point. I kind of knew that, but it was immediately, it was like a steel in my spine.
[18:59] I said, you're right. He hates it. And it just propelled me towards the Lord. You know, the Lord wasn't allowing something really evil to do something good in my life.
[19:10] And that does happen. But God hates the evil, even as it produces the good. And I just love that. And it just changed the way I pray. And that's what's going on in this.
[19:21] This whole section, really, is teaching us how to pray. And it's helping us. And prayer sometimes can be music. It can be a little more than musing about what you think and what you want and what you feel.
[19:31] But that type of prayer won't change you. And what I love about this prayer that David's praying is there's a way of praying where you fill your mind with the character of God. And that's what David's doing.
[19:42] He's filling his mind with the character and the purposes of God and finding himself changed. But David is not only, or not only considers what God hates, he considers what God loves.
[19:53] And this is where it gets really good. He considers what God loves. Look in verse 7. But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house.
[20:04] I will bow down to your holy temple in the fear of you. You know, you've got to get this. Evil is not welcome on the front porch. But I will enter your house. You see that?
[20:15] Evil is not welcome in your presence. But I will enter your house through the abundance of your steadfast love. I will enter your presence where only your eyes can see me clearly.
[20:27] The temple is your footstool. It's a place where you, it's your ottoman on earth. And there I will bow down at your feet where you can see me. That's bold, David.
[20:39] But take a note of what he doesn't say. He doesn't say, I will enter your house through my faithfulness. He doesn't say, I will enter your house through my goodness.
[20:52] I will enter your house because I'm not like those evil people. He doesn't say that. He doesn't say, I will enter your house through my righteousness. He says, I'll enter your house through the abundance of your steadfast love.
[21:04] Here it is. God does not welcome those who do not do evil. To put it another way, God does not welcome those who do good. God does not even welcome those who try to do more good to cover up their ego.
[21:20] God only welcomes those who come through his steadfast love. God loves those who hope in his steadfast love. God does not love those who do good.
[21:34] It's not what he's after. He's not after your hair being combed and your Sunday best being on, your shirt pressed and your life squeaky clean. He's after you hoping in his steadfast love. I love that.
[21:46] This word, steadfast love, comes from the promise to Moses on the mountain. Remember that Mount Sinai? He says, show me your glory. And the Lord said, I'll let my goodness pass before you. And he said, I am the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
[22:01] It becomes the core of the promise of what God's going to do for his people all throughout the Old Testament. It unveils the very heart of God, the character of God, which is steadfast love. It is a God who is completely free and yet binds himself to love.
[22:17] The Bible says God is love. Remember? First John. The Bible never says God is wrath. This is important to see in this context. God has to be provoked to wrath.
[22:28] God has to be provoked by evil and evil doers. But God is not provoked to love. The point of that is, is his love is not provoked by your good. His love is not provoked by your righteousness.
[22:41] His love is not provoked by your rule keeping. His love is free. Completely free. That's what's going on. And nowhere is it more clear than the rescue mission of Jesus Christ.
[22:53] I love the way it's put in Ephesians 5. If you remember that. Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church. That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. That he might present the church to himself without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
[23:08] Now that captures it well because this church really needs to be made beautiful. But Jesus doesn't love the church because it's beautiful. The church becomes beautiful because Jesus loves it.
[23:24] That's the story of our lives. That's the story of the gospel. There's no clean up here in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[23:35] No matter how ugly your life has become. No matter how broken it is. I want to invite you to come and receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you confess your sins and repent and believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, you'll be saved.
[23:51] And you'll begin this wonderful process of being made new. And being made beautiful again. And in so many ways, this is a counterintuitive confidence builder.
[24:04] When facing evil and evil doers. It makes the people of God unlike any other people. It makes the people of God people that can look evil in the eye and say, I am not unlike you. I am just like you.
[24:19] One of the English reformers of the late 1500s, John Bradford, watched prisoners being taken to execution. So the story goes in late 1500s, they were being taken to execution for their crimes, the death they deserved for their crime.
[24:33] As he looked upon him, he said, there but for the grace of God, there go I. That's what a Christian can say in the face of evil, even if it's agonizingly painful.
[24:46] There but for the grace of God, there go I. But it also frees us to run to the Lord without hesitation, regardless of whether today has been a good day or a bad day.
[24:58] And I love the way Jerry Bridges, he's going to help us do that this week. He's going to help us understand that. Jerry Bridges just helps us. I mean, we get into this good day, bad day type of mentality. I'm not going to read that quote because I cut it.
[25:09] But we get into this good day, bad day mentality. You wake up and you're like, in my house, you wake up and step on a Lego and you think, oh man, this is a bad omen. This day is going downhill. The problem is that's like seven days a week.
[25:21] That's stuff on a Lego going to get my coffee because they're all over the place. But, you know, we get into that mentality, a good day, a bad day. But it's on more important things than a Lego.
[25:32] It's on, oh, I forgot to read my Bible. The Lord must be frowning upon me. And this is meant to set us free, that that's not the way the Lord works. And we're free to offer our request to him, regardless of how good or bad that day has been.
[25:47] Pray, trust God, do the right. Point three, make your prayer. Make your prayer.
[25:59] After preparing your heart and considering your God, make your prayer. After all that buildup, David makes two prayer requests. Look in verse 8 and 9.
[26:13] He says, Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness, because of my enemies. Make your way straight before me. Notice the emphasis there. The emphasis upon your righteousness.
[26:25] Your way. Lead me in your righteousness. Make your way straight.
[26:36] I commit myself completely to you and to your ways. Lord, the idea he's surrounded by evildoers that threaten his soul, as we see in verse 9. For there's no truth in their mouth.
[26:48] Their inmost self is destruction. Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue. They're liars and deceivers. Flatterers and suck-ups. Whose real intent is to harm.
[27:00] Their mouth is an open grave. The idea is that their words are not mere verbal assaults, but they're dragging you down to death. They pierce and tear.
[27:11] So the gist of his prayer is, I'm surrounded. Lead me so that I walk straight. I'm surrounded. Place my feet securely so that I don't veer to the left or the right.
[27:26] I find this very interesting. I know I've said that like five times. But I find this very interesting. This is the heart of the prayer. This is the heart of the song. This is the main request. And the request is not deliverance.
[27:39] The request is dependence. He's not saying, Get me out of here! He's saying, You place me here, Now make my feet straight.
[27:54] J.I. Packer, who recently died, we give his most well-known volume, Knowing God to Anybody that's Baptized.
[28:05] It's just a fabulous book. He recently died. In one of the last interviews before he died, He said this, We don't make enough of the truth that we really are dependent upon God to enable us to do anything right which we do.
[28:24] I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me, whoever buys of me, and I am him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. The way to proceed, it seems to me, you can tell this is an interview, is to look to the Lord, tell Him, in effect, all of this depends on you.
[28:47] I can't do it. I can't break a sinful habit. I can't form a new pattern of obedience without your help. And having thus prayed and made it clear that it all depends on God, then it's up to us to make plans and divide procedures, decide what's going to do, what we're going to do, as if it all depends upon us.
[29:12] I think that captures it so well. And in many ways, that's the heart of this prayer. The heart of the prayer is not getting what we want from God, but having our hearts humbled in obedience and humbled in dependence upon God.
[29:26] Then he continues, Give them what they deserve. Give them what they deserve. Look at verse 10. He says, Make them bear their guilt. Let them fall by their own counsels because of the abundance of their transgressions.
[29:41] Cast them out, for they've rebelled against you. So right now, they're open graves and they're wandering around destroying people. So he prays, Make them bear their guilt. Throw them out because of the abundance of their transgressions, for they've rebelled against you.
[29:58] And you think, What are we to make of this? You know? Isn't this cruel? Shouldn't David be praying for them to be rescued? And I don't think we should. I don't think he should. This is a prayer for justice.
[30:08] Prayers of justice fill the book of the Psalms. In essence, He's praying to God to right wrong. Say, Lord, right wrong. God has promised to right every wrong in the end.
[30:20] And this is a prayer to move up the date and right the wrong right now. Sometimes the psalmist says to right wrong by punishing them. Other times the psalmist says to right wrong by giving evildoers what they deserve.
[30:34] And that's what he prays here. And this is a prayer we can humbly pray. It's striking. This would be a prayer that they would have sung. The congregation would have sung this. Now, we sing one song talking about the punishment of the wicked and we don't sing it full of faith because it feels a little weird.
[30:50] But this is a song that would have been sung. But we're depending on you for justice. You know, this world is all called up in justice in so many ways. And for the Christian, we should too.
[31:00] But our justice is looking to the God of justice who promises to right every wrong. And so we present ourselves to Him and we cry out for Him to punish the wicked in ways that only He can do.
[31:15] So pray, trust God, do the right. Point four, proclaim your confidence. Proclaim your confidence. After preparing your heart and considering your God and making your request, proclaim your confidence.
[31:31] Look in verse 11. He says, Let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy and spread your protection over them that those who love your name may exalt in you.
[31:45] For you bless the righteous, O Lord. You cover him with favor as with a shield. Let all who take refuge in you find your protection.
[31:57] Spread your protection over them. Cover them with a shield. Look, notice how it begins generally, let all who take refuge.
[32:14] And then in verse 12, it ends personally. You cover him. The idea is that let everyone find refuge in your protection and let anyone, anyone find refuge in your protection.
[32:28] Let them rejoice. Let them sing for joy. Let them exalt. One of the things I love about the Psalms is when it starts about talking about refuge, it immediately runs to singing. It immediately runs to joy because that's what it feels like to know his eye is on the sparrow and he watches me.
[32:44] I'll sing because I'm happy. That's what the hymn says. I'll sing because I'm free. His eye is on the sparrow and he watches me. So let them rejoice for you bless the righteous, O God.
[32:56] You bless the one who hides in you. And I love this. This Psalm ends in, or begins in murmuring and ends in joy.
[33:08] This Psalm begins with no confidence and ends in great confidence. This Psalm begins and groans and ends in singing.
[33:20] And that's the way it should be in our life. Let me tell you the rest of the story about Mary. After failing to commit suicide, she writes, I sought counseling in an extremely intelligent, kind young deacon.
[33:39] After a year, we fell in love and got married. We did not deserve the blessing of three beautiful children God gave us. For the first time, I had a family.
[33:51] My children were under six when I began experiencing severe headaches, hearing loss, and partial facial paralysis. A specialist discovered a massive brain tumor.
[34:02] It's the same girl. Parts of the tumor still remain inoperable and are now causing new complications. I remember feeling strangely calm, though.
[34:14] Though our lives were turned upside down, my family was still intact. My family grew, and though they were brought up in the church, they were also becoming strongly influenced by the world.
[34:28] All were arrested at some point. The oldest incarcerated for two years. We were devastated. Shortly after, my husband suffered two strokes, leaving his personality drastically altered.
[34:44] I discovered our finances were in ruin, and we eventually lost our home. Life has not changed, but God is changing me.
[34:57] What I discovered about heartaches and problems, especially the ones that are way beyond what we can handle, is that maybe those are the problems he does permit precisely because we cannot handle him or the pain and anxiety they cause.
[35:11] But he can. I think he wants us to realize that trusting him to handle these situations is actually a gift. Problems haven't disappeared, and life continues.
[35:24] But he replaces the sting of those headaches with hope. I think that's what this song creates.
[35:36] People like that that look evil in the eye, cry out to the Lord, and under his wing find refuge in strength.
[35:50] May it be said of us, let us pray, let us trust God, let us do the right and leave the rest to God. The old hymn says, courage, brother, do not stumble, though thy path be dark as night.
[36:05] There's a star to guide the humble. Trust in God and do the right. Let the road be rough and dreary and its end far out of sight. Foot it bravely, strong or weary, trust in God, trust in God, trust in God and do the right.
[36:21] Perish policy and cunning. Perish all that fears the light. Whether losing, whether winning, trust in God and do the right. Trust no party, sect, or faction.
[36:33] Trust no leaders in the fight. Put every word or action. Trust in God. Trust in God. Trust in God and do the right. Some will hate thee. Some will love thee.
[36:44] Some will flatter thee. Some will slight thee. Cease from man and look above thee. Trust in God and do the right. Simple rule. And safest guiding.
[36:57] Inward peace and inward might. Star upon our path abiding. Trust in God. Trust in God. Trust in God and do the right. Let us pray.
[37:10] Trust God and do the right. Father in heaven, we cast ourselves upon you and confess our need for you.
[37:20] there's no doubt there is wicked in our lives. Wicked people.
[37:33] Evil people. Feel uncomfortable assigning that label to them. Nevertheless, God, people that are opposed to you and opposed to your purposes and opposed to us and we confess, we want to be like David.
[37:47] we want to pray that you would lead us in your righteousness. Make your path straight. Help us to walk in the fear of the Lord. That we trust the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding and all our ways acknowledge you that you might straighten our paths and let our foot and our feet be secure, we pray.
[38:15] Confess these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to a message given by Walt Alexander, lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in Athens, Tennessee.
[38:25] For more information about Trinity Grace, please visit us at and let's pray.
[38:36] Amen.