Let's bow our heads in prayer.
Father, sometimes your word is very shocking and even upsetting.
We ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would do a gentle but powerful work within us,
that the gospel would become so real to our hearts,
that we would trust that even when your word is its most shocking or most upsetting,
Father, that these are words that you know that we need for our soul's health,
to become more like Christ and to live with freedom and integrity,
with justice and goodness and beauty in this present age,
until we come to the age to come, the new heaven and the new earth.
We ask, Father, for this gentle but important and powerful work of your Holy Spirit,
and we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
So when I get the privilege occasionally to help people speak,
one of the common mistakes that people have to speak make
is they assume that people know the text quite well.
I've probably read Psalm 58 this week.
I wouldn't be surprised if I read it 30 times.
And so it's very present and fresh in my mind, but maybe not to yours.
And if some of you are maybe just watching the sermon and haven't heard anything,
what I'm going to do is I'm going to read all of Psalm 58 again right now,
and then we're going to go back.
I'll make a couple of other comments, and we'll go through it slowly.
But because some of you might say, like, what did that say?
Did Ross say that?
Like, did it say that?
And so let's just hear it so it's fresh.
And then people will understand a little bit some of my comments at the beginning
as we walk towards the text.
And by the way, why are we preaching this text?
I'm preaching this text because our summer series are all the—we were to pick—
the 10 sermons were to pick Psalms between 31 and 60,
and 58 is within 31 to 60.
And I saw the text, and I knew it was one of the main cursing texts in the Bible.
And I don't want to hide it from people.
And I thought part of what it means to be a church
is that we learn to read the Bible together
and that I provide some help with a text that otherwise might really shock you.
And so that's why I'm looking at it.
I wasn't thinking, oh, let's pick the most offensive text I possibly can and preach on them.
No, it was within that, and I think it's important.
Many Christians can go decades, maybe their whole life in church,
and never once hear a sermon on a psalm like this.
And it doesn't help you.
It doesn't help me as a preacher either.
So here's what the psalm says.
To the choir master, according to Do Not Destroy, a mitkam of David,
do you indeed decree what is right, you mighty lords?
Do you judge the children of man uprightly?
No, in your hearts you devise wrongs.
Your hands deal out violence on earth.
The wicked are estranged from the womb.
They go astray from birth, speaking lies.
They have venom like the venom of a serpent,
like the deaf adder that stops its ear,
so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or the cunning enchanter.
Oh God, break the teeth in their mouths.
Tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord.
Let them vanish like water that runs away.
When he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.
Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime,
like the stillborn child who never sees the sun.
Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze,
may he, that's God, sweep them away.
The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance.
He will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.
Mankind will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous.
Surely there is a God who judges on earth.
And I'm going to say, this is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
So, I mean, for many Christians,
to even see that this psalm is in the Bible is a shock.
And for people who are maybe trying to figure out the Christian faith,
this confirms a lot of their worst fears.
They've always suspected that beneath that pleasant,
oh yeah, we all believe in love, you know, God is love.
There is, in fact, an iron fist that will hurt people.
They say, George, didn't this psalm just pray that people will die?
Didn't this psalm ask God to kill people?
And did it really just say that we want to bathe in the blood of the wicked?
George, are you actually saying that we should pray this and live this?
And if you're not, then that confirms what I've always thought,
that you pick and choose.
And so, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you pick the text about sex that you like
and dump on everybody else,
but when you have complicated texts like this that go against you,
you just ignore them.
I've always thought that's what Christians were like,
just picking and choosing,
and it's pure prejudice if you talk about sexuality
or some other types of things.
It's just your prejudice,
because you don't talk about texts like this.
Now, we're going to go through this text
to show that we don't just pick and choose.
I don't want to pick and choose.
I want to have the Bible speak into my heart.
And I'm going to tell you right now,
I mean, when I read this text on Monday,
I thought, whoa, okay,
and I sort of wondered if I should have picked it.
But I've actually now, after studying it a week
and praying about it,
I actually am very pleased that this text is in the Bible.
And I think we should all be pleased that it's in the Bible
and that, in fact, it opens the door
to how helpful and insightful
and real to humans' experience the Bible is,
like for real human beings living their real lives.
Now, I'm going to say also,
my sermon's going to be a little bit different
than some of the others.
You know, I can just tell you,
there's three lines in this text
where there's some major, major translation issues.
I'm only going to talk about one.
I'm not going to talk about the other two.
And there's really only one place
where the Hebrew sort of is very helpful
to understand the text,
and I'm going to talk about that.
But, you know, the rest of the text,
I could nuance and stuff,
but it's just as shocking.
Like, it's just as shocking.
Like, the text is good enough as it is in English.
And it, like, you might go and read eight different versions
about the first part of verse one
and get different translations,
but the part about bathing your feet in the blood of the wicked,
it's fundamentally,
you won't see that fundamentally different than any of the text
because that's just very blunt there.
So let's look.
Let's walk towards the text,
and it begins like this.
And in this particular case,
I hope Claire has it up,
the so-called superscriptions,
actually very important to interpreting the text.
And the superscription says,
to the choir master.
So I guess David wrote this so the people could sing it.
And the tune is,
according to Do Not Destroy,
which must have been a tune.
Nobody knows what mitkam really means nowadays,
but it's a mitkam of David.
So King David is the one who wrote this psalm.
And then he continues on like this.
Do you indeed decree what is right,
you mighty lords?
Do you judge the children of man uprightly?
No, in your hearts you devise wrongs.
Your hands deal out violence on earth.
Now,
this text is actually very, very simple
and very, very profound.
It's as if,
with just a couple of very simple lines,
it gives a bit of an outline
about how you live a moral and good life
and the different aspects of it.
The very first line,
and so first of all,
the first verse is rhetorical.
In other words,
it's expected that you say no.
That's the expected answer.
It's rhetorical.
It's not like a real question.
It's no.
The answer is no.
And the other thing about the text,
which is important to know,
is that there's a lot of debate
about how to translate the first part of the line.
And so really,
at the end,
you can go read some commentaries on it
and all that.
The bottom line is,
the first part of the first verse
is contrasting two different ways to do wrong.
Sins of omission
and sins of commission.
And so what that means is,
you know,
let's say somebody comes to me
with some complaints
about things that are going on in the church
and maybe about a particular person
and make some accusations against them.
And one of you
happen to have been a witness of the actual event
and you know that the person who's accused is innocent
and you remain silent.
That's a sin of omission.
It's actually a sin
which isn't really talked about much in our culture.
It could be that you hear about a great financial need
and you have,
and the God puts it on your heart to deal with it,
but you don't do it.
That's a sin of omission.
You could have given that check
that would have helped with that financial need,
but you didn't do it.
And we often don't think of that.
There's times when you can speak out
and you remain silent.
And it's a very,
that's the first type of the sin.
The second type of the sin
where you actually make bad decisions,
wrong decisions,
decisions which are unjust,
corrupt, hurtful.
And that's a way to understand
how to live a very moral life.
You don't fail to act in a good way when you can
because you should.
And you don't do things which are wrong.
And the other part of the psalm,
which is actually very,
very profound,
is that if you look at verse one again,
it says,
do you indeed decree what is right?
Remember I told you there's the implicit,
if you look at all the different translations,
you'll see the words,
they're trying to figure out how to do silence
and how to,
anyway,
we don't go into it.
But the main thing is,
verse one asks about whether you do right,
and verse two talks about you do wrong.
And what the psalmist is doing
is picking actually the very most basic,
simple moral categories,
right and wrong.
We had lots of grandchildren
visiting us over the holidays.
And, you know,
some of them were just two or three.
And you see parents either succeeding or failing
in just some very simple moral instruction.
Don't do that.
That's wrong.
You know, that's wrong.
You should do this.
That's good.
You know, you should share.
That's good.
You don't tell a lie.
That's wrong.
Very, very simple things.
You don't hit your brother in the head
with a metal rod.
That's wrong.
You know,
but very simple right and wrong.
And that's the way that the psalm
sort of phrases the issue.
Now, here's the part,
the one part in the psalm
where the underlying Hebrew
isn't entirely caught in the English.
It's sort of there,
but it's not purely caught.
And the underlying language
of especially verse 2
is that this isn't just something
that you do occasionally,
but that it grows.
And that's part of the main idea
behind the text.
So what it means is
it's very easy for me to tell a lie,
maybe,
or to do some other sin.
And I do that,
and then I repent of it,
and I, you know,
then later on maybe I tell another lie,
and I repent of it.
But it's possible
when you do something which is wrong
that you then do it again,
and then you do it again,
and then you do it again.
And before you know it,
doing that particular wrong act
has become a habit.
And then before you know it,
that habit has grown,
and it now reflects your character.
And then before you know it,
it's not just your character,
it's your identity.
And before you know it,
it's not just your identity,
but it's a fixed part of your identity.
And that's what the psalm is talking about.
So one of the things
which is quite remarkable then
about the psalm
is that,
and it's easy for us
to get it mixed up,
but when we see,
oh, sorry,
I forgot an important part.
The whole psalm
is addressed to wicked tyrants.
That's the insignificance
of mighty lords.
And so the thing
which is very significant
about the psalm
is that what we,
is how do we in our culture
think of great evil
and people who do great evil?
And how does this psalm
speak into how our world
understands great evil?
And you see,
what you can see right off the bat
is that the psalm
is doing something
very different than what we do.
Well, Stalin,
he was a psychopath
and a sociopath.
You know,
and then you fill in the blank.
This tyrant,
they were a psychopath.
They were a sociopath.
And what we tend to do
in our culture
is we psychologize
the evildoer.
We objectify the evildoer.
And what we do
is give ourselves a break.
Well, there's these
really evil guys
like Stalin and Hitler,
psychopaths, sociopaths.
There's them,
and you describe them
in psychological categories,
but we now have
a bit of a break.
And the Bible doesn't do that.
And so when the Bible,
especially in this next little bit
when it's describing the wicked,
what you're not to understand
is it's somehow
trying to just use
biblical language
to objectify
or put a certain class
of people.
And this is very important
because most of the way
modern thought works
is to do this,
you know,
that a person
of a certain race,
they're all bad
or they're all good.
Or a person
of a certain
socioeconomic category,
they're all bad
or they're all good.
and we put people
in boxes,
we put people
in prisons,
and we put people
in prisons
in such a way
that we can flatter ourselves
and give ourselves
a pass
on the evil
that we do.
And the Bible
uses very simple,
nothing more complicated
than you would,
a parent would tell
their two-year-old
about right and wrong.
That's the categories
that the Bible uses.
Very simple.
And it's warning us
that evil can grow.
In fact,
you see,
this is what you see
in the next verses
three to five.
And just as we start
reading the three to five,
you need to keep
in the back of your mind
another biblical image.
And in the biblical image,
in the Bible,
Genesis chapter three
is all about
the serpent
in the garden.
And the serpent
speaks lies,
believable lies
to Adam and Eve.
And Adam and Eve
swallow the lies
and act on them
because they want
to be like God.
And so keeping this in mind,
listen to how
verses three to five goes.
It goes like this.
The wicked
are estranged
from the womb.
I'm going to talk
about that more
in a few minutes.
They go astray
from birth
speaking lies.
And we're going to talk
about this in a moment
because right now
all of it does,
it does sound
a little bit like
there's a separate category
of evil tyrants
that are just bad
from birth.
And so we're now
objectifying them,
putting them off
as if it's all them.
So it does,
but I'm going to explain
why that's not
what the text is saying.
I'll read it again.
The wicked
are estranged
from the womb,
estranged from God,
estranged from the moral
order of the universe
that is based on,
is rooted in God,
comes from God.
They go astray
from birth
speaking lies.
And in the original language
it's actually more
they speak the lie
in a sense.
In other words,
they speak lies
and at some point in time
they become
ones who only speak
a lie.
They only become,
in a sense,
they become the lie.
And that's seen
in verses 4 and 5.
They have venom
like the venom
of a serpent.
All of a sudden,
what is it?
They become like a serpent.
You're thinking
of Genesis chapter 3.
It's that they begin
with a lie,
they begin with a lie,
they begin with doing
something wrong,
and before you know it
it's a habit,
and before you know it
it's a character,
before you know it
it's your identity,
and before you know it
you are indistinguishable
from the devil.
And you have power
over others,
and boy do you use it.
They have the venom
like the venom
of a serpent,
like the death adder
that stops its ear
so that it does not hear
the voice of charmers
or the cunning enchanter.
See, it's painting
this picture
that you continue on
and you come to this
point in time
when it not only
becomes your identity
but it becomes
in a sense
a point of your identity
that's completely
and utterly fixed.
You won't hear
anything against it.
You won't hear things
against the sexual sins
you commit,
the lies that you commit,
the greed,
the idols that you pursue.
You won't hear
anything against them.
You become in a sense
a fully devoted follower
of these idols,
these lies,
these sins,
and that's now become
who you are.
So,
you won't repent,
you won't listen,
it's become who you are.
Now, I just want to pause here
and say,
I'm not going to sort of
quote back and forward,
but I have been
remarkably blessed
by Derek Kidner's commentary
on Psalm 58.
And everything I say
this morning
is indebted
to his insights.
Once or twice,
I'm going to quote him,
I'm not going to mention him,
but he was the one,
I think,
who pointed me
in the direction
to understand this Psalm.
So, I just want to give
credit to where credit is due.
Derek Kidner,
a commentary written
over 50 years ago,
but still in print.
And here's the point
before we go any further
in the Psalm.
If you could put up
the first point,
Claire, that would be
very helpful.
This Psalm is a portrait
and a mirror.
This Psalm is a portrait
and a mirror.
This is what Derek Kidner
talks about.
So, it's a portrait.
And we're going to give
some examples
in a moment, actually.
But it's a portrait
of what happens
when you become a lie,
when you become a sexual sin,
when you become greed,
when you become power hungry,
and power hunger consumes you,
when selfishness consumes you.
You become that.
And so, it's a portrait.
But it's also a mirror.
It's something where
to look at and see,
Lord,
oh, I've been giving
my greed a pass.
I've been giving
my lack of forgiveness a pass.
I've been giving my desires
for revenge a pass.
I've been giving
my sins of envy a pass.
I've been giving
my anger a pass.
And are you saying
that I can become like this?
Like, maybe not like a Stalin
that can cause millions of death,
but, you know,
all of us know petty tyrants,
tyrants in families,
tyrants in workplaces,
tyrants in neighborhoods.
You know, the dad
who is a tyrant.
And we all know that.
And is that the direction
of my life?
So, it's both a portrait
and a mirror.
And in fact,
I'm going to show you
why that's the case.
If you turn in your Bibles
to Psalm 51,
Psalm 51,
and I think, Claire,
I'm just going to read
verses 4 and 5.
So, here's the significance
of David being the author.
David also wrote Psalm 51.
And David wrote Psalm 51
after he'd had adultery
with Bathsheba,
and he was caught out
by Nathan the prophet.
And Nathan confronts him,
and David acknowledges
that he is the man.
And after he has done that,
he writes this psalm.
And just listen to verses 4 and 5.
Against you,
talking about God,
you only have I sinned,
and done what is evil
in your sight,
so that you may be justified
in your words
and blameless
in your judgment.
Now, here's the thing.
Behold, I was brought forth
in iniquity,
and in sin
did my mother conceive me.
You see, that's why I said
that when you read the text,
it's exactly the same language
as occurs in Psalm 58
in verse 3
about being born in sin,
about being estranged from God.
So, David is not saying
there's this class of psychopaths
or sociopaths
who are tyrants,
and the rest of us
get a pass.
It's me, it's me,
it's me, oh Lord,
standing in the need
of repentance.
It's me, it's me,
it's me, oh Lord,
standing in the need
of redemption.
That's why we understand
the psalm
not just as a portrait,
but also as a mirror.
Now, we can say,
George, okay,
well, what about the language?
Okay, that's, I mean,
sort of interesting, George,
but the fact of the matter is,
George, the fact of the matter is,
it talked about praying
for the death of people
and bathing your feet
in the blood of the wicked.
So, before we go any further,
I want to give you
a couple of things
to think about
when we're going to read
verses six to nine,
and then when we're going
to consider verse 10.
Six to nine are the prayers
about, you know,
have them be defeated,
have their weapons fail,
have them die,
have them be completely
and utterly annihilated
by your judgment.
Those are the prayers.
And before we read them again,
I want you to consider this.
In 1988,
while he was a firm ally
of the United States of America,
Saddam Hussein
used mustard gas
on an innocent population
and killed 5,000 people.
And the American government
did nothing against him.
And Reagan,
of beloved conservative memory,
was the president.
And 10, 15 more thousand people
were permanently hurt
by this mustard gas attack,
purely and utterly
to maintain his power.
A group called,
believe it or not,
the Committee of Union
and Progress,
ruling in the Ottoman Empire,
in around the middle
of the 10s to 19,
like 15 or something
and around there,
forced the mainly Christian
Armenians
on a death march.
And 600,000
to 1.5 million people died.
An atrocity committed
by the Committee
for Union and Progress.
And Armenians
would say that the figure
of 1.5 million
is too low.
In the 1970s,
the Khmer Rouge
killed somewhere
between 1.5
to 3 million people
in their own country,
and their own country
before this
had less than
8 million people.
Less than 8 million people,
and they killed
maybe 3 million of them.
In the 1930s,
the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics
created a forced famine
in the Ukraine,
an artificial famine
where they stole the food
and killed 3.5
to 5 million Ukrainians.
In Rwanda,
500,000 to 800,000 people
were killed
in the genocide.
In Uganda,
in the 70s,
Idi Amin
killed 300,000
to 500,000
Ugandans.
And then
the National Socialist Party,
of course,
killed 6 million Jews.
How does our system
of thought
handle
such great evil
by such great tyrants?
I want to challenge you
if you're trying
to figure your way
through what's true or not.
A profound question
to ask yourself
is this.
Many people think
that the way
to have enlightenment
is to take on
Hindu
religious practices
and Hindu philosophies
and obviously
there are things
within that
which are admirable.
But Hinduism,
at its very core,
justified the caste system
that oppressed
a significant part
of their population
and did not see it
as evil
but justified.
Does Buddhism
teach you
to be quiet
in the face of evil?
Does Marxism
provide you
the categories
to be able
to see such things
like this
as a great evil?
Does contemporary
secularism
have categories
to describe
such sheer evil
of a massive scale
and if it cannot
handle evil
of such a massive scale,
can it handle
it in a small scale?
Mindful
mindful
of these examples?
Let's listen
to verses
actually no,
before I do that
we'll do this.
So I'll just give you
these examples.
Now imagine
for a second
that you are
one of those
Armenians
on the death march
that will kill
maybe all
of your family
and you will be
one of the few people
who will survive
or
you were a Cambodian
who somehow
manages to survive
all of that
but lost all
your family
or you were
in that village,
those villages
in Iraq
when Hussein,
Saddam Hussein
mustergassed
all those people
and killed them
or just imagine
how do you react
to it?
Most North Americans
want to ignore it
because it's upsetting
and they won't enjoy
their pumpkin latte
and pumpkin scone
if they think about it.
Post-modernism
teaches you to shrug.
Oh well.
Diplomats
like silence.
Fellow travelers
like to apologize
and defend
the evil.
Capitalists
like to accommodate.
If somebody
has to sell them coal
it might as well
be us.
Somebody has to
sell them bullets
it might as well
be us.
Many people
are urged
to surrender
to the inevitable
triumph
of injustice
and evil.
and many
admire it
and join it.
Not recommending
you watch
Peaky Blinders
but if you do
one of the things
which is very
powerful
and quite accurate
is the large
number of people
in England
in the 30s
who admired
Hitler.
So given
those options
given the evil
and given
the options
let's read
verses 6 to 9
maybe with
different ears.
What is 6 to say?
Oh God
break the teeth
of their mouths
tear out the fangs
of the young lions
oh Lord
in other words
that these
young lions
aggressive
and powerful
and ravenous
tear out their fangs
break their teeth
let them vanish
like water
that runs away
when they
my enemies
when these tyrants
aim their arrows
let them be blunted
in fact
God
let them be
like the snail
that dissolves
into slime
like the stillborn
child who never
sees the sun
let them be dead
sooner than your
pots can feel
the heat of thorns
whether green
or ablaze
God
may you sweep
them away
in your wind
which one of those
options would you
prefer to be
describing a view
in the face
of horrendous
tyranny
and why is it
that our default
position when we
hear psalms like
this as Canadians
is one of the
different things
which I mentioned
like being an
ostrich
or a postmodern
shrug
or diplomatic
silence
or accommodation
to evil
what about the
language of blood
well here's the
problem with
prayer
here's the
problem with
prayer
you know I
pray into a
need for
you know maybe
to support more
missionaries
or I pray into
the need
to see
some things
done in the
church
or maybe I pray
into the need
to deal with
to help the
poor
and the next
thing that happens
is that while I'm
praying about how
there needs to be
something done to
help the poor
and God whispers
into my voice
you should donate
$500 to the
food bank
or you're praying
that something
needs to be done
in the church
which there's a
gap and the
next thing that
the Lord is
putting on your
heart is that
you need to
volunteer to
step up and
take that on
or you're
praying that
there has to
be something to
do to help
this the
missionary outreach
to a place
like Iran
and the next
thing you know
is that God
is putting on
your heart
that you have
to give
$1,000
or $2,000
towards the
missionaries
every year
that they can
support and
do that
that's how
prayer works
and so God
is saying
you're praying
against injustice
we're going
to topple
them
come along
now here's
the thing to
understand about
this psalm
it's a
scream
it's a
scream
against
injustice
it is
a
visceral
scream
that means
you don't
necessarily
take every
single word
exactly
literal
it is a
scream
against
injustice
and the
problem we
have with
the Bible
is the
Bible
never
surrenders
or pardons
injustice
and it
never
justifies
doing
evil
it is
implacable
unfailingly
opposed
to the
reality
of human
wrongdoing
whether it
starts with
the two
year old
who decides
they want
to hit
their brother
on the
head
with a
metal
rod
or whether
it's
Stalin
planning
to kill
five million
or more
Ukrainians
it's an
unbroken
line
a moral
line
so
just in
closing
so what
do we
do
George
are you
saying
we just
pray
Psalm
58
like
are you
just
saying
that
that's
what we
should
do
no
I'm
not
and
if you
could
put up
there
if you
follow
in your
Bibles
Romans
chapter 3
verses
10
to 26
as we
draw the
sermon
to a
close
Romans
chapter 3
verses
10
to 26
and the
way the
book of
Romans
is structured
is you
have like
the first
15 verses
are sort
of just
some
you know
this is
who I
am
and this
is a few
things I've
been doing
in my
plans
and then
it's almost
like in
verse 16
and 17
Paul gives
a quote
from the
book of
Habakkuk
and he
sort of
gives
his
pracy
that describes
what the
whole book
is going
to be
about
and then
from
chapter 1
verse 18
to this
part that
I'm about
to read
it's sort
of what's
the problem
that the
gospel is
going to
solve
and then
from chapter
3
beginning
in verse
21
to the
end of
11
it's
how the
gospel
the good
news of
Jesus
dying on
the cross
in your
place
how that
solves
the problem
and then
chapter 12
13
14
15
is how
do you
live
given that
Jesus
is the
gospel
is true
that's
how the
book of
Romans
is
so this
what I'm
about to
read you
is the
end of
solving the
problem
and remember
how the
first part
of Psalm
51
about the
wicked
being
astray
from their
birth
and all
of that
type of
thing
and listen
as Paul
is bringing
his whole
argument
to a
conclusion
he quotes
from a
variety
of Old
Testament
verses
beginning
at verse
10
none
is
righteous
no not
one
no one
understands
no one
seeks
for God
all have
turned aside
together
they have
become
worthless
no one
does
good
not even
one
their throat
is an
open grave
they use
their tongues
to deceive
the venom
of asps
is under
their lips
their mouth
is full
of curses
and bitterness
their feet
are swift
to shed
blood
and their
paths
are ruin
and misery
and the
way of
peace
they have
not known
and there
is no
fear of
God
before their
eyes
and as
we see
later
Paul knows
that this
is describing
him
especially
in verse
chapter
7
verse
19
now we
know
that
whatever
the law
that's
the
Old
Testament
says
it
speaks
to
those
who
are
under
the
law
so
that
every
mouth
may
be
stopped
in other
words
those
who
know
what's
right
and
wrong
and
the
whole
world
may
be
held
accountable
to
God
for
by
works
of
the
law
in other
words
by
our
own
moral
actions
no
human
being
will
be
justified
made
right
with
God
in
his
sight
since
here listen
to verse
21
but
now the
righteousness
of God
has been
manifested
apart
from the
moral
law
although
the
law
and the
prophets
bear
witness
to
it
this
thing
which
is
separate
from
the
moral
order
the
righteousness
of
God
through
faith
in
Jesus
Christ
for
all
who
believe
for
there
is
no
distinction
for
all
have
sinned
and
fall
short
of
the
glory
of
God
and
are
justified
made
right
with
God
by
his
grace
purely
and utterly
unmerited
as a
gift
how
through
the
redemption
that is
in
Christ
Jesus
whom
God
put
forward
as a
propitiation
by his
blood
in other
words
as he
took
our
place
and
turned
aside
he
bore
in his
body
the wrong
that we
had done
the
good
that we
failed
to do
and
all
anger
that might
be
directed
against
that
all
was
on
him
and
we
receive
what
he's
to be
done
by
faith
and
this
was
to
show
God's
righteousness
because
in
his
divine
forbearance
he
had
passed
over
it's
an
image
of
the
book
of
Exodus
in
other
words
he's
dealt
with
former
sins
it
was
to
show
his
righteousness
at
the
present
time
so
that
he
might
be
just
as
is
maintained
and
the
justifier
of the
one
who
has
faith
in
Jesus
if
you
could
put up
the
gospel
changes
everything
you
and
I
who
are
Christians
cannot
simply
pray
psalm
58
and
you
and
I
cannot
simply
ignore
it
since
the
gospel
changes
everything
you
cannot
simply
pray
psalm
58
and
you
simply
cannot
simply
ignore
it
see
the
gospel
tells
us
that
God
wants
to
maintain
the
moral
order
and
the
just
order
and
while
that
is
only
going
to
lead
to
our
being
eternally
separate
from
him
Jesus
dies
in
our
place
because
he
it's
a whole
other
thing
but
he
can
he
dies
in
our
place
out
of
love
for
you
and
me
and
the
punishment
that
I
deserve
fell
on
him
and
the
destiny
that
he
deserved
is
given
to
me
and
he
does
it
out
of
love
and
it
tells
us
that
there
will
be
a
killing
maybe
500,000
Ugandans
fled
Uganda
and
lived
a
luxurious
life
until
his
natural
death
in
Saudi
Arabia
but
the
gospel
tells
us
he
does
not
evade
God's
justice
no
human
being
will
we
can
take
that
to
the
bank
we
can
base
our
life
on
it
doesn't
mean
that
we
can
be
indifferent
to
evil
at
all
but
it
relativizes
the
claims
of
tyrants
to
know
that
they
will
meet
the
triune
God
and
they
will
be
judged
you
see
in a
sense
what
happens
in
salvation
is
it's
not
that
I
appear
before
God
and
I
say
well
you
know
I
was
a
pretty
good
guy
you
know
at
least
a
B
minus
in
terms
of
as
a
husband
or
something
like
that
and
that's
a
passing
mark
won't
get me
into
graduate
school
but
it
you
know
it's
at
least
a
passing
mark
you
know
and
it's
not
like
that
at
all
in a
sense
that
God's
judgment
on
me
has
been
dealt
with
in
Jesus
it
it's
passed
but
every
human
being
will
appear
before
the
judgment
seat
of
God
and
unless
you're
clothed
with
Christ
you
will
not
pass
and
the
gospel
changes
everything
because
it
means
that
when
I
have
given
my
life
to
Christ
and
then
somewhere
down
the
line
I
discover
there's
this
wonderful
phrase
about
the
I
think
it's
Psalm
74
about
the
dark
places
the
dark
habitations
and
I
discover
some
dark
habitation
deep
within
me
that
it
comes
to
a
shock
just
to
realize
how
controlling
I
am
or
how
unforgiving
I
am
or
how
self
righteous
I
am
or
how
bitter
I
am
or
envious
or
lustful
or
ungenerous
and
miserly
and I
come
face
to
face
with
some
profound
area
of
darkness
deep
within
my
life
where
I
realize
in a
moment
of
moral
clarity
how
some
great
evil
speaks
so
deeply
to
something
within
me
only the
gospel
can
only in the
gospel
can I
realize
that
Jesus
puts
his arm
around me
and says
George
I knew
that about
you when
I died
for you
I
knew
that about
you
when
I
died
for
you
and
my
death
for
you
covers
that
see
only
the
gospel
gives
us
the
security
to
look
at
the
dark
places
in
our
own
lives
and
to
cry
out
to
God
that
he
might
deliver
us
from
our
unforgiveness
our
greed
our
anger
our
selfishness
or
whatever
it
is
and
so
those
of
you
who
maybe
went
on
some
Zoom
calls
with
me
at
the
beginning
of
the
pandemic
you'll
notice
that
I
often
did
something
with
a
smile
because
you know
there
was
a lot
of
talk
about
how
it
was
infiltrated
by
members
of
the
Chinese
Communist
Party
and
I
would
say
for
those
members
of
the
Chinese
Communist
Party
listening
in
on
our
wardens
meeting
I
want
to
say
two
things
one
stop
persecuting
Christians
two
give
your
life
to
Jesus
and
like
I
said
in
a
bit
of
a
light
hearted
way
but
that's
how
Christians
pray
Psalm
58
we
pray
God
let me
never
forget
the
scream
against
injustice
or
be
like
all
those
other
things
of
post
modern
church
let
that
never
describe
me
and
Lord
I
ask
that
you
do
two
things
to
that
evil
tyrant
in
the
workplace
that
evil
tyrant
who
inhabits
a
country
I
ask
Lord
that
you
would
defeat
them
and
I
also
ask
that
you
will
bring
them
to
a
saving
faith
in
Jesus
Christ
and
that
is
how
we
live
Psalm
58
invite
you
to
stand
at
this
time
please
and
bow
our heads
in
prayer
Father
Jesus
has
warned
us
that
we
are
really
good
at
seeing
specks
in
other
people's
eyes
and
very
terrible
at
seeing
huge
logs
sticking
out
of
our
own
eye
and
so
Father
we're
really
good
at
seeing
how
evil
others
are
and
we're
not
very
good
at
seeing
the
evil
within
our
own
lives
and
Father
we
thank
you
that
you
knew
that
about
us
and
still
Jesus
came
and
still
he
died
for
us
and
we
give
you
thanks
and
praise
Father
that
your
word
starts
to shine
a moral
light
and
change
our
conscience
and
help
us
to
understand
who
we
really
are
and
what
right
and
wrong
really
is
that
it
provides
a
sure
and
certain
guide
and
we
thank
and
praise
you
Father
for
the
gospel
that
means
that
as
we
get
convicted
of
sin
that
you
also
convict
us
of
grace
and
the
need
for
Christ
and
Father
we
thank
you
for
this
and
we
ask
that
the
gospel
would
become
more
and more
real
to
our
heart
that
we
can
examine
ourselves
and repent
and
amend
our
lives
and
also
Father
that
the
gospel
becomes
more
real
to
our
avoid
sins
of
omission
to
be
generous
to
be
forgiving
to
be
active
and
supporting
to
reject
evil
and
to
pray
unceasingly
and
act
unceasingly
against
injustice
and
evil
in the
world
to
pray
against
it
and
to
act
against
it
when
it
is
in
our
power
and
Lord
we
ask
that
you
would
do
this
wonderful
work
in
our
lives
worthy
as
we
are
except
for
what
Christ
has
done
for
us
and
we
ask
these
things
in
the
precious
name
of
Jesus
Amen