Well, it's been 56 years now this week, this coming week, since the winner of the 1968
Olympic Marathon in Mexico City crossed the finish line.
And most of us probably weren't alive to see that.
Some of you maybe remember that happening.
But when looking back on that particular moment in history, it's not the Ethiopian gold medalist
named Mamo Waldi that people tend to remember.
Instead, it is the runner from Tanzania.
His name is John Stephen Okwaring.
He finished dead last in that race.
And he is the one that has become an Olympic legend, an inspiration for countless athletes ever since.
And you say, well, how is that possible to get dead last and become such an inspiration to so many people?
Well, I'm glad you asked. I'll tell you.
And Okwari was never favored to win that race.
He was a good runner, obviously.
He was a good runner.
He's participating in the Olympics of his time.
But he was unfortunately caught up in the middle of the race into a collision with a group of other runners.
And he fell.
And when he fell, he did significant injury to both his knee and his shoulder,
even causing a dislocation in that moment.
And while 18 runners with similar or even less significant injuries chose to drop out of the race,
Okwari refused to do so.
He took a few brief moments to get medical attention from the people responsible for it.
And then he resumed the marathon course.
And he finished his race.
By the time he actually made it to the stadium where the finish line was,
you can, if you like the Summer Olympics, you know how this works.
They, the last thing that they do in the marathon is they enter the track and field stadium
and they do a lap around the track and field and then there's the finish line.
And so by the time Okwari actually gets there and he enters the stadium, it's dark outside.
He was, they were having to use, follow him with golf carts or cars or whatever they were using with
headlights that would show him even where to step as he's outside.
He finally makes his way into the stadium.
Most of the people had left at that point.
You can see even in the picture, most of the stands are empty at this point.
The race had been finished for well over an hour.
They had already done the award ceremony and everything.
Gold, silver, bronze medalists, they had finished their race.
They had received their awards.
The national anthem for the Ethiopians had played and everybody went home
except for the few people that remained in the stadium and John Stephen Okwari.
He was determined to finish his race.
And when he did finally finish, someone asked him, a reporter asked him,
why, why were you so willing to risk your health?
I mean, it was a significant risk.
Perhaps he might never run again.
He did end up running again, but he didn't know that that would be the case at that point.
And his response has now become a famous quote.
He said, my country didn't send me 5,000 miles to start the race.
They sent me 5,000 miles so that I could finish the race.
And we find wonderful inspiration in stories like that, don't we?
We love them, these stories of perseverance.
And the reason we love them is because so few of us are actually that determined.
Let me just tell you something.
I've run two marathons.
And they hurt.
They're not fun.
In fact, you get to a point around mile 18, 19, 20, somewhere around in there,
and what's going through my mind with every single step was, why am I doing this?
This is stupid.
Why am I doing this?
I can guarantee you something.
If I collide with somebody in the middle of the race, I hurt my knee and my shoulder,
and I dislocate something in the process of that, Jared ain't finishing that race, right?
We find inspiration in these stories because we're not like John Stephen Ackroy.
And this shows up in all kinds of ways in our lives.
Sometimes it's in really kind of insignificant ways like exercise, right?
The start of the year, every year, we're determined, all right, New Year's resolution.
I'm going to eat good, and I'm going to go to the gym,
or I'm going to get involved in this particular routine.
And we try our best to do it for a few weeks,
but right when the workouts start to get a little more strenuous
or they take us away from things that we would rather do,
the temptation becomes very strong to do what?
Like, sit on the couch with your Cheez-Its and your chocolate chip cookies
or whatever it is and just quit, right?
That's a less significant way.
We do this in more significant ways, though, don't we?
Marriage gets really hard.
The person that you wake up to every morning doesn't seem like the same person
that you fell in love with however many years before,
and now you're wondering, what have I done?
I'm not happy.
I'm not sure if this is going to work.
And the overwhelming temptation then is not to be John Stephen Hawkeye.
The temptation then is to say, well, I'm just going to do what's best for myself,
and I'm going to give up on this.
And we could talk about a million other categories of life
where we feel this temptation.
So finding inspiration in stories of perseverance through trial,
it can be the thing that we need in those moments to push us along.
The example of people like this tend to boost our own resolve to continue.
But what happens?
Where do we find help when the temptation to quit is a spiritual temptation?
When circumstances are so difficult that the impulse is not to abandon an earthly relationship so much,
it's not to quit on our workouts.
The temptation is actually to abandon our faith,
to abandon our trust in God,
to abandon our confidence in the Bible.
Where do we go to?
Where do we find help in those moments?
John Stephen Hawkeye doesn't help us with that.
So how do we get help?
I think Psalm 11 gives us the answers that we need for those questions.
The song, it speaks of a group of counselors
who advise David to essentially find his refuge in something other than the Lord.
And at the heart of their counsel is this question that they submit in verse 3.
They say, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?
David, what more can you do?
Nothing's working.
This following God's heart thing, this is not working anymore.
We've got to do something different now.
The wicked had grown so strong that David's advisors believed his best course of action at this point
was to abandon his faith and abdicate his responsibility as Israel's king,
especially their spiritual leader.
And fortunately for us, David refused to heed their counsel.
But he doesn't use the psalm to turn our attention to himself.
He doesn't want the reader or the hearer of this to persevere by looking at his example.
Instead, what does he do in the second part of the psalm?
He turns our attention to God's unchanging character, to God's unfailing promises.
And he explained how the Lord is the source of his resolve.
And he wrote it all in this song so that God's people will sing it and meditate on it
when they too are tempted to doubt God and his promises and to turn away from faith in him and his word.
There's two main sections to the psalm that we want to deal with.
First, we want to look at the temptation to quit in verses 1 through 3.
And then we'll move on to David's resolve to continue in verses 4 through 7.
But first, the temptation to quit.
Look with me again at verses 1 through 3.
In the Lord I take refuge.
How can you say to my soul?
And here's what the advisors were saying.
Here's the quote.
David, flee like a bird to your mountain.
Run and hide.
For behold, the wicked, they bend the bow.
They've fitted their arrow to the stream to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart.
And if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?
So David's counselors, they present two circumstances here.
First, they say the wicked had grown strong in their war against the righteous.
Having prepared their weapons, they took direct aim at the king.
And anyone who was following after his pattern of uprightness and of faithfulness to the Lord.
And to make matters worse, the enemy was firing from the shadows.
Making it difficult to see when the attacks were coming.
Now there could be a very physical component to this and what's happening in David's life.
I think probably we're meant to see this as spiritual imagery though.
Sometimes you don't know where the attack is coming from.
Sometimes it's from the least expected places that you begin to be confronted and challenged in your faithfulness to the Lord.
So that's the first thing they say.
They say the wicked has grown strong.
They have readied their bow.
They're shooting from the shadows.
But then they say there's a second problem here.
And that is that the moral fabric of society had degraded to the point that any effort to right the ship seems hopeless.
That's what they say in verse 3.
If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?
So David's counselors declared there's nothing more that the righteous can do.
And in the interest of self-preservation, they urged David to flee like a bird to the mountains.
To run and hide.
To find refuge in some other place than what he has up to this point.
That's the essence of the temptation David was facing in Psalm 11.
And it's not unlike our own situation.
Faithful Christians have no lack for enemies who are prepared to fire their arrows to deal a deadly blow to the influence of our convictions.
Some places the war is not even a battle of ideas.
It's a literal attempt to destroy the lives of those who follow God and his word.
Martyrdom is not a thing of the past.
It's as common and prevalent today as it's ever been.
It's just not something we deal with in our direct context quite so often.
You know, I'm thankful for ministries like Voice of the Martyrs that keep in front of us the reality of the persecuted church around the world.
In our world and in our context, this is often a battle of ideas.
But for many people and many Christians around the world, it is much more than that.
It's much more significant than that.
It's also true that the moral decline of our society shows no signs of reversing itself anytime soon, does it?
The foundations have been obliterated.
It doesn't seem like there's anything that we can do about it anymore.
Even the so-called conservatives have proven that they're not actually very righteous.
That whatever so-called moral ground they stand on is as faulty as anyone else is.
So when you know the wicked are anticipating your fall and working towards it,
and that there's no longer an effective influence of righteousness on society,
what is the temptation that we face?
Is it not to step back and to think, well, maybe we're the ones that's wrong?
Maybe we can't trust the Bible.
Maybe God has abandoned us at this point.
Maybe we need to just give up and give in.
I think that's generally the context of what's happening here in Psalm 11.
Other than running away, flee like a bird to your mountain.
It doesn't tell us a whole lot about what the practical actions were that David's counselors wanted him to take, does it?
It's poetic language, isn't it?
So we don't know exactly what was happening and what they intended for him to do.
But it's David's opening affirmation in verse 1 that sets the context of the advice.
Notice what he says.
He makes an affirmation from the very beginning.
In the Lord I take refuge, he declares.
Whatever he was being urged to do, David understood it was fundamentally an abandonment of the Lord as his refuge and strength.
The advice meant that he would have to doubt God's character and promises, ultimately finding shelter in some other place or some other person.
If you study through the Old Testament, particularly the narratives in the Kings and Chronicles books,
you'll find that this was a common occurrence, even as you read in the prophets,
that there would be times that Israel's kings, they would be overwhelmed.
And rather than trust the Lord and to trust the promises of God, they would go outside of Israel to try to find their help.
They would take comfort and shelter in Egypt.
Or they would take comfort and shelter in the Assyrians.
Or whatever it was, whoever it was that might come to their aid in those moments.
And oftentimes the judgment that they faced was because of that.
Their judgment was a correction, a punishment from God because they did not trust him and rely on him in those moments.
Perhaps that's something similar to the temptation that David has faced here.
Whatever it was, at the heart of it is the idea that it would force him to take refuge in something other than the Lord.
So the issue at hand here is not what actions should be taken when we're in a similar situation as David.
That's not really the issue.
The issue is what's at the heart of those actions.
Are we acting in trust and in faith?
Believing God?
Trusting him?
Or are our actions a reflection of an abandonment of trust in the Lord and his promises?
Your life choice is grounded in faith.
Or do you tend to take matters into your own hands?
Decidedly abandoning the Lord as your true refuge and strength.
This truth is so important for us to grasp.
Because the right response to difficulties will vary from situation to situation.
Let's say that what David's dealing with here is physical.
Well, we know that there were times in David's life where a retreat was the right thing to do.
He did it with Saul.
He did it with Absalom.
He did it in other situations.
There were some times where the right thing for David to do was to actually run and to get out of Dodge and to get out of the way.
And he was trusting God to preserve him in that.
But if that's the case here, he's determined that to take that action now would be to abandon my faith.
It would be to abandon trust in the Lord and what he's commanded me to do as Israel's king.
It may not have been physical.
It may have been something else.
That's irrelevant.
What matters is that whatever it was he was being tempted to do would have worked against what God had told him to do.
There's times when the right thing to do is speak up.
There's times when the right thing to do is to be silent.
There's times when the right thing to do is to be present.
Other times it's best to be absent.
But any action that results from abandoning our hope and trust in God will inevitably produce far greater consequences than those posed by the original threat.
That was a hard lesson that Israel learned over and over and over.
And let's be honest.
It's one that we haven't really very faithfully learned ourselves.
Loved ones, if we are going to be faithful Christians, we've got to learn to filter our lives through this lens.
All of our life.
Is any action you're considering right now or any belief that you are adopting or about to espouse,
is it fundamentally an abandonment of the Lord and his promises?
Have you weighed your counsel against the scripture to determine if you're engaging in sin with your actions and perspectives?
All of our thoughts and deeds must be grounded in this opening affirmation.
The Lord is my refuge.
He is the one I will trust.
But let's look a little closer at the counsel itself.
In the Psalms, the wicked refers to men and women who set themselves and their whole direction of life against God.
It's a designation that we should interpret in light of the introductory Psalms of Psalm 1 and 2 that we studied several weeks ago.
There, the wicked set themselves against the Lord, and they are ultimately judged by the Lord, right?
We can't forget Psalms 1 and 2.
They are the gateway into the Psalter.
We interpret the Psalms through the introduction that we are given in Psalms 1 and 2.
And that's what we're presented with there.
There are these two groups.
There is the wicked, who is represented as those whose direction of life is really set against God and His Word.
And they take their aim at the upright in heart.
The righteous.
Those whose direction and determination is to, according to Psalm 1 and 2,
delight in the law of the Lord and to meditate on it day and night.
So we have two categories.
The Bible often does this.
It gives us really two categories of people or two categories of destinations,
two roads to walk, two gates to enter in.
This happens a lot in the Scriptures.
So the Psalms are really dealing with these giant categories.
Here is the wicked who generally their lives, not everything that they do is evil.
That's not what that means.
But it means that generally their perspective, their life, their direction of life and of thought and of heart
is set against God and His Word.
Rather, they are walking in their own way.
Choosing to live life their way rather than according to God's plan.
And then there's this second category of the righteous or the upright.
Those who are determined to delight in the law of the Lord.
Not to spurn it, to delight in it, to meditate on it day and night.
To be like Jesus who is that tree planted by the rivers of water whose leaf does not wither.
Those are the categories here.
In Psalm 11, the wicked have grown powerful so that the foundations are nearly destroyed.
But what does he mean by foundations?
What is that really about?
This is where I think Christopher Ashe has a great little paragraph that summarizes it better than what I could.
And here's what he says.
When Bible poetry speaks of the foundations, it means the moral foundations of society.
What theologians sometimes call creation order.
It's the pillars upon which the moral order of the world rests.
The bulwarks protecting mankind from chaos, evil, disorder, and death.
These foundations are summed up in the Ten Commandments.
And all around David, these good commandments, the law that's celebrated in Psalm 1, are being trashed.
In his attempt to be God's king, David feels like a man trying to shore up a collapsing building in the midst of an earthquake.
Isn't that helpful?
What does David mean by the foundations or his counselors mean by the foundations being destroyed?
They're looking at the world around them.
They're looking at their society around them and they're saying,
This all has fallen apart.
This whole way of life and way of thinking and worldview that we've been trying to cling to and build up,
it's all falling apart, David.
What can you do now?
What can you do but either run from faithfulness, just abandon this whole idea,
or maintain it and die from the arrows that are readied by the wicked who are against us?
It's a demoralizing feeling, isn't it?
It's a demoralizing feeling of hopelessness that's presented here by David's counselors.
And again, it's not unfamiliar to us.
The moral foundations of our society, those essential ordinances instituted by God at creation and expanded on in God's law,
they continue to erode.
And remaining faithful to the Lord is going to set you squarely in the crosshairs of those whose God is moral progressivism or expressive individualism,
what they call progress.
It's not hard to see it.
Everything God instituted at creation is attacked.
And it has been.
It continues to be.
We're redefining marriage to accommodate perversion.
We've seen God-given roles for men and women reversed.
We're even now bringing into question the very truth of gender.
What is that?
The foundations are eroding.
The morality of our society is falling apart.
It has been.
There's a continued diminishing of the value of human life.
If you like politics, and to be honest with you, I don't like them.
I follow them because I feel like I need to follow them.
Because I know how to engage in an intellectual conversation with somebody.
But let's be honest.
There is not a political platform that exists in the United States now that is truly righteous and moral.
There's not one.
Even the conservative platform has capitulated to abortion.
No longer is the right to life really that important.
Is the institution of marriage and the family and the protection of it really that important?
It's been removed.
There's evident corruption everywhere we look.
Every sphere of society has it.
It's in government.
It's in schools.
It's in churches.
It's in our homes.
It's everywhere.
As a society, we tend to call what's evil good and what's good evil.
Church, we see this all the time.
Look around.
David's counselors saw this.
It may not have been the same situation.
It certainly wasn't the same exact thing that we face now.
But whatever they understood to be those moral foundations were eroding.
And they looked around and they look at David and they say, this is hopeless.
Why are we continuing in this?
We are the ones who are on the outside now.
What can we actually do anymore but run?
Give up.
Give up on this, David.
Fearing the shots of the wicked.
The shots of the wicked, fretting over the degradation of righteousness will inevitably lead to being tempted to question God's commands.
is he really right maybe the society's right it'll lead us to doubt his promises
will he really judge because it doesn't seem like he's doing it right now
it'll tempt us to abandon the faith
David's counselors asked what can the righteous do well let me tell you what the righteous must not do
don't give in
don't give up
do as David did
return to the scriptures
return to prayer
let the Lord renew your hope in his goodness and in his promises
this is the resolve that David maintained and he explains the source of his resolve
in the second part of the psalm let's move on to that resolve to continue look at verse four
the Lord is in his holy temple this is David's response to that council the Lord's in his holy
temple the Lord's throne is in heaven his eyes see his eyelids test the children of man the Lord
tests the righteous but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence let him rain coals
on the wicked fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup for the Lord is
righteous he loves righteous deeds and the upright shall behold his face the upright shall behold his face
David's explanation for continuing to trust the Lord is basically this God has not changed so I will not run
the Lord is not abdicated his throne so I will not question his sovereign rule
he is righteous in all that he does so I will not doubt his future judgment
the Lord's promises are faithful and true and I know I will enjoy his presence in the end
all of David's hope here all of it it rested on God's unchanging character and his unfailing promises
let's consider three affirmations that he communicates here first the Lord is on his throne
the Lord's on his throne verse four the Lord is in his holy temple the Lord's throne is in heaven
his eyes see his eyelids test the children of man in Psalm 10 we noted that there is an attitude that marks
the wicked and the attitude is either a denial of God's existence or a claim that he does not see
and will not judge you can go back and read Psalm 10 you can go forward to Psalm 73 and you'll see the
same idea presented there that there is this attitude that marks the wicked that's being characterized here
and that is they just kind of either ignore God's existence or they are complacent towards it or they say
he's not really active in anything that we're doing and what often produces that attitude is the apparent
success of those who follow their own way as opposed to following God's way if you go back and read Psalm 10
you'll see it they were successful in doing things their way they had gained wealth and influence and power
all the things that they craved and that led them to think well either God's not there there is no God
or you don't see he's checked out and it's just up to we can do what we want that's the judgment that's
what marks them David knows better than that he says the opposite he says God is in his holy temple
that's not a reference to the temple in Jerusalem that didn't even exist when David wrote this Psalm it
wasn't there he's not talking about that he's talking about God's cosmic temple
it's further clarified in the second line where God is said to be seated in the heavens
it's again a poetic picture God is in the place of rule sovereign rule over all of his creation
he sees he knows he hears he's aware he's working what David means to say is
that the Lord remains on his throne observing and ruling over creation and this truth contributed
to his resolve he could persevere through these moments not because he had the gumption to do so
he persevered through those moments because he truly believed God is there and he's active and I may not
see exactly what he's doing or understand everything that he's doing but I know he's there and I trust him
that's what gave him the resolve to continue
temptation to doubt the Lord it often follows the observation of the wicked success isn't it
because we can't understand why a holy God allows evil to succeed it's easy to question if we've placed
our faith and hope in the wrong place
we look at the suffering the evil around us and it makes us question doesn't it we're tempted to say
well maybe we've got this wrong how can how can God be loving how can he be good and all of these other
things be true too
you don't understand but God's delays
they prove neither his absence nor his idleness
we may not always understand his plan in fact most of the time we don't
but the faithful know and believe that he reigns
that he sees our works that he knows our thoughts
and that he will act according to his sovereign divine and perfect plan
and affirming that God remains seated on his throne produces the resolve we need
to continue when the situation is grim
but that brings us to a different question
how can we be so certain of this
how could David be so certain
how can we how can we really know that God is good if he is there
how do we make sense of what we see
is our faith blind
is Christianity a blind faith
an unsubstantiated faith
no I don't think it is
of course
that doesn't mean that we have every answer to every question
as one may ask
we don't claim that
but we're not without reason
for one
for all the evil that we see around the world
that suggests God's absence or at least his apathy
there is a multitude of good
that can only be attributed to his presence
we tend to ignore that part in this conversation
we focus on the wrong and on the suffering and on the evil
and we don't want to acknowledge the good
that can only come from the hand of a God
who is loving and engaged and good
but it's there
also God's revelation in the scriptures
it affirms again and again
that he is always working out his righteous plans
not only by what he states he will do
but what he has proven in history
that he has done
in fulfilling those promises
he's proved that he's there and that he's active
David knew that
he experienced it firsthand
but nothing gives us more confidence
than this
the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead
the resurrection
it changes everything
it changes the whole conversation
it proves that God has a distinct
saving purpose
in all that he does
it shows that he has
made a way for the wicked
a category to which we all belong by nature
that he has made a way
for the wicked to be forgiven
and to actually be transformed away from their wickedness
to display the glory of God
for which they were created to display
it affirms that Christ is indeed ruling and reigning
until every enemy has been defeated
and all of his elect has been redeemed
ours is not an empty faith
it's actually quite a robust faith
built on the incarnate word of God
Jesus Christ
the sinless son
and on the inscripturated word of God
the fact that
our God is a God
who has spoken
and he has revealed himself
in the pages of scripture
that is where our hope rests
it's not an epiphany
it's not in dreams
it is in substantiated reason
David says
because of this
the Lord is my refuge
and I will keep going
so the next time you're tempted
to give up and give in
consider the good that you see
go back to the scriptures
study them
but most importantly
look to the cross
in the empty tomb
it must mean something
it means much
the Lord is on his throne
the second affirmation here
is that
the Lord will judge the wicked
he will judge them
it's coming
look at verse 5
the Lord tests the righteous
but his soul
hates
the wicked
and the one who loves violence
let him rain coals on the wicked
fire and sulfur
and a scorching wind
shall be the portion of their cup
because David believes
that God remains on his throne
he also affirms
that God will eventually
bring his judgment
he doesn't do that
according to our timeline
and to our wishes
we aren't God
and he's not our pet
he's our God
we submit to his ways
to his plan
and what he has affirmed
is that judgment will come
and clearly the Psalms
are meant to assure our hearts
of this future judgment
a future judgment
which the wicked will be destroyed
and the righteous will be vindicated
it's one of the primary themes
that we've seen
again and again
in these first 11 Psalms
and we're going to continue to see it
in book 1 of the Psalter
over and over
it's repeated
that God's judgment is coming
even though in the present moment
it doesn't seem like it is
in this Psalm
David alludes to
God's judgment
of Sodom and Gomorrah
that's I think
the reference
that he's pointing us back to
in verse 6
let God rain coals
on the wicked
fire and sulfur
and scorching wind
shall be the portion
of their cup
the scriptures
they routinely refer
to that story
to emphasize
the future judgment
of the wicked
Jesus does it
in Luke 17
Peter does it
in 2 Peter chapter 2
in both places
they refer back
to Sodom and Gomorrah
to encourage those
in the present moment
who are wondering
if God is actually
present and active
in order that
they may set their eyes
on a future judgment
that's coming
so the scriptures
routinely
they go back to this
and I think David's
doing it again
here
so that his resolve
to continue trusting God
rested on the fact
that God will eventually
judge all who continue
in sin and unbelief
and he has proven
that he will do that
in other moments
so that we can trust
that those things
are pointing forward
to a greater judgment
for all
just because that judgment
isn't seen now
doesn't mean it isn't coming
it is coming
that's a reality
that should drive
unbelievers
to repent
while there's time
to do so
but it should encourage
believers
to remain faithful
when we begin
to doubt
and to question
as David was tempted
to do
so the Lord's
on his throne
and then he says
the Lord will indeed
judge the wicked
but then the third thing
is that really a promise
the Lord will bless
the righteous
he will bless us
verse 7
for the Lord
is righteous
he loves
righteous deeds
the upright
shall behold
his face
that's more
than an affirmation
he's clinging
to a promise
here
a future hope
that for David
was as certain
as the judgment
of the wicked
why should you
reject the temptation
to quit
and faithfully
continue instead
because God
is righteous
because he loves
those who follow
his righteousness
by faith
and because
all who do
will quote
behold
his face
can we think
about this
as a motivation
on David's part
anybody
can be
motivated
to desire
refuge
from God
that's what we see
in verse 1
in the Lord
I take refuge
that means
that things
are hard
and difficult
I need help
and if God's
willing to give me
that help
I'll receive it
from him
anybody can do that
this is different
this motivation
at the end
in verse 7
is not like that
this is a desire
it creates a desire
on the part
of the believer
to want to see
God's face
that is not
motivated
by a desire
for protection
that is produced
by a love
for a God
that you know
and believe
it's intimate
David says
the righteous
will behold
his face
and what he's
saying is
I want to
behold the face
of God
and God
has promised
that those
who continue
in faith
will see
his face
they will be
with him
and he
will be
with them
as certain
as God's
judgment
against the
wicked
is his
eternal
blessing
of the
faithful
and while
the wicked
will suffer
in conscious
punishment
apart from
God
those who
repent
and believe
will enjoy
the presence
of God
for all
eternity
if you know
Christ
this is your
hope
it's your
certainty
is that
not helpful
is that
not an
encouragement
in the
midst
of a
difficult
life
when the
foundations
are eroding
and the
wicked
have aimed
their arrows
this hope
of eternal
life
it produces
a resolve
to stay
faithful now
because of
what we
anticipate
will be
our future
but again
that produces
a different
kind of
question
for us
though
doesn't
it
if all
of us
are by
nature
sinners
set in
rebellion
toward
God
how can
anyone
be
considered
upright
enough
to behold
his face
doesn't that seem
to be what
David says
at the end
of the verse
the upright
shall behold
his face
does David
mean to say
that those
whose good
outweighs
their bad
will ultimately
be accepted
by God
no that's
not at all
what he means
to say
the scriptures
make it clear
that all of
our righteousness
all of our
righteous deeds
are like
polluted garments
that's what
Isaiah says
it's graphic
he says
even the best
that we can
offer
is not good
enough
essentially
is what
Isaiah is
saying
in Romans
we read
that by
works of
the law
no human
being will
be justified
in his
sight
so what
hope can
we possibly
have
that we
will behold
his face
or
are the
Roman
Catholics
right in
this
that you
can't
really
know
for certain
that you
can do
your best
and you
can just
hope that
you build
up enough
righteousness
that you'll
be able
to escape
this
kind of
intermediate
state
in purgatory
and enjoy
the presence
of God
instead
but there's
no way
for you
to really
know
now
are they
right
about
that
can we
really
not
know
no of
course
not
we have
a hope
that is
far more
certain
and secure
than any
hope of
righteous
deeds
that we
might
compile
now
you can
commit
your whole
life to
goodness
and get
to the
end of
it
and look
at your
big pile
of good
works
and you'll
still have
doubt
I wonder
if it's
enough
I hope
it's
enough
I'll cross
my fingers
oh we
have a
hope
that's
far
more
certain
than that
far
more
our
one
and only
hope
is the
death
and
resurrection
of
Jesus
Christ
he
is
the
sinless
son
of
God
he
bore
God's
wrath
against
our
sins
he
died
in our
place
so that
God
the
father
would
see
us
forever
more
not
for
our
righteousness
but
with
Christ
perfect
righteousness
by
raising
him
from
the
dead
God
showed
that
Jesus
is
death
was
enough
so that
our
sins
would
be
forgiven
and that
we
could
have
eternal
life
in
his
name
we
talked
about
this
with
Carmen
and
Julie
and
I
sat
for
an
hour
or so
yesterday
just
thinking
about
this
idea
the
idea
that
what
Christ
has
done
is
enough
it's
sufficient
you
need
add
nothing
to
it
in
fact
if
you
try
to
add
something
to
it
means
that
you
don't
have
the
faith
that
you
need
to
receive
Christ
to
come
to
Christ
is
to
trust
that
you
can't
possibly
do
enough
it's
to
trust
that
he
has
done
enough
that
he's
taken
your
place
and
to
turn
from
all
of
those
other
pursuits
and
to
trust
him
by
faith
and
to
believe
that
what
he
has
done
truly
is
enough
and
he
invites
us
to
receive
it
this
salvation
he
invites
you
he
says
come
to
me
all
of
you
who
labor
and
are
heavy
laden
he's
talking
to
a
group
of
people
who's
doing
their
best
and
trying
their
hardest
to
pile
up
all
the
good
stuff
and
hopes
that
it
will
get
them
there
and
he
says
this
is
a
burden
to
you
have
that
burden
he
says
come
to
me
I
will
give
you
rest
you'll
find
rest
for
your
soul
he
says
why
because
he's
done
what
you
cannot
do
he
fulfilled
the
law
never
violated
it
even
once
and
when
God
raised
him
from
the
dead
it
proved
it
was
God's
way
but
then
it's
also
God's
way
of
saying
to
us
my
son
has
power
over
death
and
life
and
he
has
authority
to
freely
give
it
to
all
who
come
to
him
for
it
that's
the
gospel
message
David
doesn't
have
all
those
pieces
at
the
time
that
he
lived
he's
living
in
an
old
covenant
time
he
doesn't
know
Christ
yet
he
has
the
promises
!
he's
clinging
to
the
promises
but
we
have
a
much
greater
advantage
than
David
and
we
have
no
possible
excuse
because
of
what
Christ
has
done
every
single
person
who
does
this
will
be
considered
upright
not
because
they
truly
are
but
because
Christ
is
and
they
will
all
behold
the
face
of
God
in
heaven
for
all
of
eternity
this
is
a
certain
promise
for
those
who
believe
and
it
will
produce
that
kind
of
faith
that
will
never
quit
John
Stephen
Ackwary
his
story
is
inspirational
we
should
reflect
on
things
like
that
it
will
help
us
those
things
do
good
for
us
we
should
pay
attention
to
them
but
you know
when
John
Stephen
Ackwary
finished
the
race
you know
what
he
got
nothing
he had
a sore
knee
and a
hurt
shoulder
sure
he's an
Olympic
legend
you know
I bet
if he
had an
opportunity
he would
have
loved
to have
had
that
gold
medal
though
he
finished
his
race
but
he
got
nothing
for
it
that
is
not
at
all
how
the
Christian
life
works
listen
to
Paul's
words
in
2nd
Timothy
chapter
4
I
have
fought
the
good
fight
I
finished
the
race
I
kept
the
faith
hence
forth
there
is
laid
up
for
me
a
crown
of
righteousness
which
the
Lord
the
righteous
judge
that
David
speaks
directly
of
from
this
psalm
will
award
to
me
on
that
day
on
what
day
on
the
day
that
he
stands
before
the
Lord
in
judgment
but
he
doesn't
finish
there
notice
the
next
phrase
not
only
to
me
but
also
to
all
who
have
loved
his
appearing
look
this
whole
issue
of
facing
situations
and
temptations
to
doubt
and to
quit
and to
question
whether
or not
this
is
all
worth
it
that's
going
to
happen
a lot
you
know
it
is
some
of
you
can
testify
to
that
greater
than
I
can
don't
quit
Paul
tells us
here
there
there's
too much
waiting
for you
to
quit
don't
give
up
on
it
only
those
who
persevere
to
the
end
will
receive
the
crown
and
God
is
good
to
give
it
his
promise
is
true
it's
sure
don't
doubt
it
anymore
what
else
must
he
do
to
convince
you
this
resolve
it's
only
going
to
come
through
trusting
God's
unchanging
character
in his
unfailing
word
what
can
the
righteous
do
they
can
go on
being
righteous
they
can
go on
standing
against
the
evils
of
society
doing
whatever
we
can
to
help
and
they
can
take
refuge
in
the
promises
of
God
that
are
fulfilled
and
made
perfect
in
the
person
and
work
of
Jesus
Christ
that's
what
the
righteous
can
do
and
that's
what
the
righteous
will
do