[0:00] you open your Bible to Psalm 52. I'm going to just say a few things to you, and I don't know if we'll cover all of Psalm 52, but we'll be done when we do. When you're studying the Psalm, sometimes I tell stories about, and I'm going to do that tonight, and you may wonder where we get that. So I want you to look at Psalm 51, and probably in your Bible right above it is a footnote that the Hebrews would have had there. This is to the chief musician, send this to the song leader and the choir director, a Psalm of David.
[0:35] David wrote it when Nathan the prophet came unto him. Now we know what story to go look up. We know what story to go look up. It's pretty clear to us. Go to Psalm 52, and we're going to find out that this is a story about a really wicked person named Doeg, if that's how you say his name. If it's not, he's a dodo bird, so we don't like him anyway. But anyway, old Doeg is there. And then if you go over to 54, which will be in Sunday night, which is where I'm working right now, there is these Z films, and they are going to betray David.
[1:13] And so that song's about betrayal. You can write that in the margin. 54, it's about betrayal. Jesus was betrayed. David was betrayed. There's a lot of betrayal in our lives. And so when this song is sung, everybody understands the background. And then these three Psalms, if you just look at them real quickly, they're all about a battle between right and wrong, good and evil. We're in the middle of a war. Our country is in a very unstable and unrested time. And it's really a battle between right and wrong. And so first chapter 52 is Doeg, an extremely wicked man, maybe like the Antichrist, maybe like Saul. It's a, so we're going to read a story about him. We'll talk about what the Bible says about him first. And this is a Psalm that they would sing. So Doeg is a, an extremely wicked man. He, uh, doesn't look at verse seven. That's all we'll read before we dig into the chapter. It says, lo, this is the man, Doeg, that made not God his strength.
[2:29] Look at that. This is the man who made not God his strength. What'd he do? He trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself in his wickedness. This guy was like, I'm richest man in the United States. I'm the richest man in the world. I don't need God. I got money. Money buys power.
[2:56] I can do anything I want. I don't need God. And then instead of trying to strengthen himself in goodness and strengthen himself in serving God, he strengthened himself in filthy, wicked, Satanism, demonism. He strengthened himself in doing what was wrong. This is a story about a man named Doeg. We know that, but you can also go all the way to the new Testament and you can check it out with Judas. You can check it out with the antichrist. There is this theme throughout the Bible of those who choose not to make God their strength. Now, can we just say real quickly, having money does not mean that you are trusting in riches. You can have money and not trust money. You can have money and not be owned by money. Sometimes poor people trust in riches just as much as rich people can because they're like, if I could just make a little more, all I need is more money. And so you're playing the same game, but that's not who we are. This verse is clear. We know our strength is God. We know our strength is, we know our strength is praying to a God in heaven that hears and answers prayer. That's where our strength comes from. It doesn't come from our money. It doesn't come from our wealth. It doesn't come from our nice houses.
[4:20] By the way, when you're hanging on a ventilator, well, you don't know what's going on until they wake you up. But when you're hanging on a ventilator, it don't matter how much money you got, it ain't going to do anything. You're going to need God to come through. And then you ask God and God blessed.
[4:34] Let me just take you through the story and you can look up the story of Doeg, but here's the story. David has run away from the palace and he's run away from Saul. Saul has attempted to kill him 16 times now, and he's running for his life. And so he goes to Nob, I said he, Alpharetta, and he sees Ahimelech, the priest. When he gets there, Ahimelech doesn't know what's going on. I mean, it's not like they had Facebook updates and nobody sent him a Marco Polo message. Nobody knows.
[5:10] And David runs into Ahimelech, the priest, and he says, hey, I'm here on the king's business. And I left so quickly, I didn't even bring a sword and I didn't bring a lunch. And so I was wondering if I couldn't get some food. And he says, well, I don't have any food here except what we got dedicated to the Lord. But I guess you could have that as long as you men have been pure, hadn't been with women. And you haven't been doing things y'all and I do. And David says, oh, no, no, we've been traveling for three days. They're fine. Everybody's fine. It'll be all right. And so while he's there, David looks over and he sees Doeg. He's an Edomite. An Edomite is a descendant of Esau.
[5:48] Esau is a guy who rebelled against God and runs in families. Shouldn't have said that, should I? Let me just tell you, your children turn out a whole lot more like you than you think they do.
[6:02] And so that means I ought to take it real seriously. If you read the Bible, you'll find out that Jezebel and Ahab raised and trained wicked people. And you'll find out that godly people raised and trained godly people. Doeg is important. He's one of the chief shepherds of Saul's.
[6:22] And so David says, while he's there, now Doeg's watching. He's watching. He's listening. He's spying on things. And David says to Ahimelech, he says, I need a weapon. I want to have a spear with me. I don't have a sword. And I was just in too big a hurry to pick them up when I left.
[6:40] Kind of aggravates me the way David's not quite truthful here. And before the story's over, bad, bad things are going to happen. Horrendously bad things. Because when you don't tell the truth, the whole truth to nothing but the truth, you can cause a lot of trouble.
[6:57] I didn't say that, did I? You didn't hear it if I did. So Ahimelech gives him Goliath's sword. And David leaves and he runs to Achish, a Philistine king. And the king's servants, they know who David is. Achish's servants. All their people around there. When David shows up, they're like, that's David. He kills our people. He's a mighty warrior. They said Saul killed thousands and he killed 10,000. And David knows he can hear him talking. He knows they know who he is.
[7:33] So he gets nervous and he's not trusting God right now. And he starts letting the spit run out of his mouth and drip on him. And he starts clawing the door and acting like a crazy man. And the king says, I don't want no crazy people around here. He doesn't kill him. But he said, get the crazy people away from me. And so David leaves and he goes into hiding in a cave called Adullam. While David's hiding there in his cave, his mom and dad show up and his family shows up. And then the Bible says that all the people that were distressed and dead and discontented, they were Baptists. They all came to him and asked him to be their captain. And David says, I need to take my parents over to Moab and see if I can get the king to take care of them. We don't know what God's going to do to us.
[8:22] The prophet Gad is there with David. He says, you got to get out of this cave. If you stay in this cave, you're going to die. But back at the palace, Saul is an extremely insecure king. And in his mind, from his wife to his children, to everybody around him, they're all trying to take his throne. He knows God doesn't want him on the throne. He knows he disobeyed God.
[8:48] And he wants people to tell him what's going on. He knows Jonathan seems to be plotting against him. So Doeg, the wicked guy says, hmm, I can make some real brunny points with the king. I can get on his good side. And so he says, oh, king, you're wanting to know some things. I can tell you some things.
[9:07] And he tells him that David had gone to Ahimelech and had inquired of the Lord. David went there and asked Ahimelech to tell him God's direction and leadership. He got some food and he got Goliath's sword. And Saul is angry. And he calls Ahimelech and all the priests, 85 of them, to come to his palace. And when he got there, he said, y'all have conspired against me. And Ahimelech answers and says, I thought he was one of your best men. I had no idea that I was conspiring against you. That wasn't what I was doing. He's shocked. He says he knew nothing of a conspiracy. Saul in his anger says, Ahimelech, I'm going to kill you. And he turns to his men and says, kill him. And they refuse to kill the priest. They decide they won't kill him. So Saul knows there's a wicked man in his presence named Doeg. And he says to Doeg, you kill him. And Doeg picked up his sword and killed 85 men of God, right there in front of the king. He slaughtered 85 men. We haven't seen much of that go on in my entire lifetime when somebody would be that wicked. The mafia didn't usually have that kind of killing going on. He killed him. When he left there, Doeg said, I'm going to go down to Nob and I'm going to kill everybody who lives in Nob because they were built against the king. And the Bible says he went down and he killed the babies that were still on the breast and all the women and all the children.
[10:43] He destroyed an entire town. This is a wicked man. Now you got to understand, like you made it.
[10:54] I think maybe you don't know the story, but if you're older, you know, the story of 9-11, you know how we knew the details and we heard it on the news. And before that, maybe it was the Alamo tea party, but these stories have circulated and everybody knows it. And the Holy Spirit of God says to David, write a song, write a song and send it to the men and tell them, I want them to sing this song. And here's the song. Go with me if you would to Psalm 52.1. Wicked people are proud of their sin. That's the first thing. Proud of their sin. Psalm 52.1, the Bible says, why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? This Doeg is a self-seeking opportunist.
[11:42] He is boasting about his sin. In other words, here's a guy that killed 85 people. You would hope he'd be embarrassed about what he did. He went to another town and probably killed hundreds, if not a couple of thousand people. He wiped out a town. This is a vile, filthy, wicked, dirty, lowdown, no good man who's done that. And instead of repenting for his sin, like so many do on news who would blatantly stand up and brag on a, on a gay agenda or brag on how they abort babies or brag on what they do wrong.
[12:18] That's what old Doeg does. I did wrong. I did wrong. That's good. I did wrong. He boasted. But David knew something that Doeg and Saul needed to know. Verse 52.1, he said, the goodness of God endures continually. You know what? It doesn't matter how wicked they get. It doesn't matter how bad things turn out. It doesn't matter if there's fighting and fussing in the United States of America. It doesn't matter if a virus is shutting us down. It doesn't matter if we're in World War II. We have a truth that outlasts it all. Our God is always good. That's what he said. David comes back and said, you can brag all you want. You can brag on your sin. I'll brag on our God. And he said in 52.1, the goodness of God endures forever. These wicked people have chosen their sin and the lie is the tool of their sin. Chapter 52, verse three, look at it. They love evil more than good. I mean,
[13:25] Doeg's the kind of guy wants to get in a room and say, how many, how many people you killed wickedly? How many people have you raped? How much porn are you looking at? How many times have you been unfaithful to your wife? Have you been to pedophilia Island with the guy who flies all the rich people out there? They want to brag about it. They want to brag about it. They love evil. This isn't our crowd.
[13:51] There's a war going on about with, with people that love evil more than good. And they love lying much more. They'd rather lie and make up tall tales than to speak the truth. Just real quickly. And I mean, real quickly, I think you ought to consider James three, just a little bit about the tongue.
[14:09] As we read this, you know, Doeg is using his tongue to destroy. He's using his sword to destroy. David could have told a little bit better story and warned the Himalaya. If we offend not in word, chapter three, is that James three too? Then we are a perfect or mature man. The tongue is a little member in our body. It says in verse five, but it boasts great things. And look what a great matter, a little fire kindles. The tongue can no man tame. Verse eight, it's an unruly evil full of deadly poison. We bless God with it and we curse men with it out of the same mouth, blessings and cursings come out. And he says, that's not natural. Springs don't put out sweet water and bitter, salt water and fresh. So let's learn to use our tongues correctly. He says, Ola Doeg thought he was a mighty man. If you look at verse one, 52 verse one, thou mighty man, but he will end up killing defenseless men, women, and children. He is a coward. His mischiefs were murder. His weapon was the lie. He uses his tongue to cut and kill. He enjoys destroying and is pleased with what he does. He destroys friendships, families, and peace. 52, four, thou lovest all devouring words. Oh, thou deceitful tongue.
[15:46] Doeg is a horribly wicked person. Doeg has killed several hundred people. Doeg is literally a picture of the Antichrist that's going to come forward someday and just try to destroy every born again believer. Doeg would represent the people in Northern Nigeria. The Muslims are killing Christian people there in that country. Doeg would represent the sinners that we live with who brag and boast about sin and wickedness. How do God's people react to it? Go with me if you would have 52 and verse five. Psalm 52 and verse five. This is good. God's people laugh at these wicked liars. Look at what the Bible says. I didn't say this. The Bible said it. God shall likewise destroy you, Doeg, Antichrist, Satan, all wickedness. He shall take you away. He shall pluck you out of your dwelling place and he shall pluck you out of the land of living, root you out of the land of living.
[16:52] Verse six. And righteous men will see and fear and laugh. It's going to become interesting in a moment. I want you to go ahead and mark it in your Bible in verse five, if you would. You see, Doeg's a destroyer and Doeg thinks he can get away with it.
[17:12] But there's a day coming when God will right the wrongs. And in this story, before we get to it, so I can get you set up for it. In this story, David's going to end up saying, I'm an olive tree planted in the house of God. You can mark her down. I'm where I ought to be. I'm stuck there. I'm growing there. I'm prospering there. And he looks at Doeg and he says, he's going to destroy you.
[17:38] He's going to root you out. Look if you would at verse five, he said, God will destroy you, Doeg. I may not have the power to, I may not be able to do anything about the Antichrist, but God will destroy you. God will take you away. God will pluck you up out of your dwelling place. God will root you out of the land of living. God's people can see wickedness, but we know God. We know God.
[18:04] We're going to win. I read the last chapter already. You should have read the last chapter. If you don't believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ, if you don't believe God's going to set up a kingdom here on earth, if you don't believe that even if you kill us, we go to heaven, we win.
[18:25] Laugh at you, Mr. Antichrist. Laugh at you, Mr. Doeg. We will see in fear because you know who we're fearing? We're fearing God. We're not afraid of you, Mr. Doeg. You may kill us. The second he cut over Himalek down, he woke up in heaven saying, glory to God, Sammy's here too. Amen. Not yet.
[18:49] Go with me if you would to verse seven. No way the wicked man can win. This is the man that made not God his strength. And you could win temporarily on this earth, maybe with your money. I mean, they keep a running list at Forbes to know who the richest guy is.
[19:11] They regularly let us know so-and-so just moved up four levels. The Tesla guy's getting richer, climbing above the other guys. They're keeping up with that like, whoo. The real list isn't what Forbes keeps. It's the one that God keeps. He trusted not in God. He didn't make God his strength. He trusted in his money. Today, we would ask God to save them and be concerned.
[19:37] In David's day, in David's day, it was a kind of a regular thing to pray, God, kill them. I mean, you read the Psalms. They're called imprecatory Psalms. You read them, you're like, Lord, you're kind of mean. I mean, it's like God destroy them and kill their kids while you're at it.
[19:55] And we're in the New Testament. We're in the days of grace. But you want me to tell you? Here's what you learn in the New Testament. It never was Doeg that was the enemy. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. We wrestle against the devil. And I can't wait to see him cast into the lake of fire with all of his demons and the Antichrist. And we can laugh in victory that our God won. We might have been living here for hundreds of years and watching Satan seem to win, but Satan has not and will not win. Go with me to Psalm 52 and verse 8. And David starts telling us what he believes. He said, I'm like a green olive tree in the house of God.
[20:37] I need to remind you what he just said to Doeg. He said, he's going to root you out of your inhabited place. He's going to pluck you up and throw you out. You're going to be out on garbage dump soon. He's going to take care of you. And then David goes, but not me. I'm a green olive tree.
[20:57] I'm still planted. I'm still watered. And I'm in the house of God. And God's going to take care of me. To be an olive tree to them was a blessing and prosperity. Verse 8. He says, why it happened?
[21:13] He said, I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever. David wasn't trusting his money and he was a king. David wasn't trusting his strength, even though he was a king and had armies. David said, I trust in the mercy of God. I really liked that too. You know what David said?
[21:33] I'm not good enough. I need God. I ain't got it in me. God's got to be good to me. And David knew that his victories came from God. Look at verse 9, if you would.
[21:47] I will praise thee forever. You need to underline this because thou hast done it. Underline that. Thou hast done it. Now, when you, let me tell you something about getting saved. You didn't turn over a new leaf. You didn't change the way you lived. You didn't quit drinking and running with sinners.
[22:06] You didn't do any of it. If you're saved, he did it. Thou hast done it. And if you teach a Sunday school class and lives get touched, you didn't do it. He has done it. And if you disciple somebody and God does something and God saves somebody, you didn't do it. God did it. Thou hast done it.
[22:26] Psalm 52 verse 9. David said, I sure like to brag on God. In Psalm 52 9, he said, I will wait on thy name for it is good before the saints. I'm going to wait on God to do stuff. I think what's really interesting here is David basically says something like this. I'm watching God do stuff and I'm going to tell it to the saints because they like hearing it. You see what he said? It's good before the saints. I think, I think what you want to have happen and what's going on. And David's saying, let's sing a song about how good God is. Let's brag on how God overcomes doeg. Let's brag on how God overcomes wickedness. Let's brag on God. And I'll be honest with you. I really think we need to learn to be more vocal and say, boy, God's been doing stuff. When I give a chance for him, for a testimony, you ought to stand up and say, I was praying this week and God answered my prayer.
[23:22] I just want to say, you have done it. You ought to be willing to say, God has given me strength. God has taken care of my family. God has done this and God has done this and God has done this. You have done it. See, that's what is good before the saints. You know, we're like a mute church in a lot of ways, but you know what I like doing in Peru. I like getting several churches together because 20 went over here and 10 over here and 50 over here. I get them all in one room and I tell them, you need to brag on Jesus. So the other guys know how good he is. We need to be careful to brag on Jesus. So here's some lessons for three minutes. God is at work, even in the midst of horrible things that take place in our lives. I mean, when you look at 85 men of God being killed, and when you look at a whole city being destroyed, let me just say this to you. You need to know this. Innocent people suffer when wicked people have power. If we'd have been alive that day and the headline comes out tomorrow, 85 men of God and their families and their babies were killed yesterday. We'd all want to say, where were you, God? And God would say, I'm still here. You can still trust me. You can still look to my mercy. When I read the story, when I read the story of Naboth, it always bothered me when I was a kid. I'd read the story of Naboth and Ahab's trying to get his vineyard and he's trying to get
[24:52] Naboth to give up his vineyard. Naboth says, I can't. That's not what God wants me to do. And then Naboth's wife says, I'll get him killed so you can have it. She lies about him and says he's blaspheming God and he gets set up in front of everybody. And I keep waiting on the cavalry to come running across the hill and rescue Naboth. But he doesn't come. God's people can suffer. They're going to suffer in a tribulation period. They're suffering right now in places like Nigeria. Believers are being killed by Muslims. They're suffering in places like China and India. They're suffering. And you and I might suffer. We don't quit believing God. We might have things go wrong, but we don't quit believing God.
[25:36] When we have a lack of faith, it ought to embarrass us. I wonder how King David felt, or if we could bring him down here now and we could show him that God wrote the story of when he drooled on himself. But even with his lack of faith, God loved him. God forgave him. God gave him victory. And you might be weak and you might drool on yourself and act crazy. But if you'll just trust God, he'll do something in your life. You do not have to do wrong, even if they tell you to. That's another truth here.
[26:15] I love this. Oh, Saul says, kill the 85 men of God. He turns to his soldiers and they say, we're not doing it. You know, that was a risky thing. If you don't, if you don't kill, what happened to those guys?
[26:31] But they said, we'll do right. And he had to call on Doeg. How often are you turning in your faith? Because you're ordered to do something against what God wants you to do. And yet you do it because your boss tells you to do it. We don't do that. We stand. You can always answer the wicked in faith, knowing God is good forever. If I'd have died six weeks ago, seven weeks ago, whatever it is now, God was still good. And if I die tomorrow, God is still good. And by the way, if some wicked guy came and started hurting us, God's still good. God's still good. You don't ever let the world make us think.
[27:23] Here's what you can do. You can laugh while they kill you because you know you may be getting a temporary victory. But Jesus is on the way with a sword stuck out his mouth and he's going to win this battle because our God always wins. Father in heaven, I thank you for the chance to study your word.
[27:42] God, I pray you to help us to live good and honorable and true lives. I pray your name would be glorified in our lives, in our church. I thank you, God, that there are people here. And I'm asking you, God, to deal with their lives out of this chapter. And I'll give you praise.