What Can The Righteous Do?

I'm so grateful to be here with you today. Like Pastor Eric said, my name is Merrick, and I've been Eric and Merrick. I've been living in Bloomington for about a year now, and I've been in the pressure cooker of its sort of spiritual warmth. I'm so grateful for that church, and it's really been a blessing to me. And I don't think it's just a distinctive of that church, but I think it's the fruit of the Spirit, and I see that in you today. The first time I visited this church was four and a half years ago. I was doing some volunteering on the northwest side of Indianapolis, and the group that I was with said, well, it's Sunday morning, so we're not going to work. You can go to a Catholic service, or you can go to a Protestant service. And of course, I said, well, I want to go to the Protestant service. And we came here, and we sat right where Timothy's...

sitting now, and it was just an incredible blessing. And we began to sing some songs, and I'm putting two and two together, and I'm realizing, oh, wait, they're singing the music that I had recently been introduced to from some person in South Carolina sending me My Soul Among Lions songs. And so it was just such a blessing to worship with you guys over four years ago. And I'm grateful to be back here with you again today. So thank you. For our text this morning, if you would stand with me for the reading of God's Word, we are going to be looking at Psalm chapter 11, we just sang. So turn with me if you're able. We're going to start in verse 1. This is God's word and it is eternally true. In the Lord I take refuge. How can you say to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain? For behold, the wicked bend the bow. They make ready their arrow upon the string to shoot in darkness at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed, what?

can the righteous do? The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold, his eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence his soul hates. Upon the wicked he will rain snares. Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous. He loves righteousness. the upright will behold his face. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I want to begin by asking you a question. And my question for you this morning is, has anyone ever given you advice that was wrong? Maybe it was a friend, not just advice over what restaurant to go to, but maybe it was about something deeply spiritual.

Maybe this advice came from someone that you trusted. Perhaps the reason that the advice came to you was that you were at a crossroads in your life, or maybe you had just faced a tragedy in your life, and the voices that were coming to you were giving you things that were certainly not, as Pastor Tim Bailey would say, helpful. The things coming to you were not good for your soul. and for your heart, and they caused you to doubt God's promises. Psalm 11 is a Psalm of David, and the title gives us no specific occasion. Many commentators have tried to speculate. Some have tried to place it at a moment in David's life. They've put it when he was fleeing Saul, or later with the rebellion of Absalom, when David really did flee Jerusalem.

Others have put it earlier still when David was at Saul's court and there was this conspiracy against him that was taking place. We really don't know when in his life he's describing or if it's even something that we're aware of that it's describing. But what we do know is that David was facing danger and that there was a temptation for him to run and his life was being threatened. And so the first thing is, while not all of our lives have been physically threatened, our lives are not unlike David's in that we have faced temptations to run, to go elsewhere, to be anxious. How many of you are ever anxious? I am anxious. You know what it's like to be anxious.

And when these times come in our life, there are places that we run to. There are things that we cling to, that we confide in, and those things have our hearts. And so this psalm is David's experience of such a time in his righteous, godly, bold, stalwart, faith-filled refusal to listen to that counsel. And so we're going to look at several things this morning. First, we're going to look at what David's friends said. And then we're going to look at what David saw. And then lastly, we're going to see what the upright or the righteous shall see. And so notice that this psalm does not begin with David sort of sitting you down and having like a family meeting and saying like, here's what's going on, right? As you're reading it, it's like, even as I was just describing with the lack of context, like, where am I?

Imagine if I walked out over here into the foyer and there was an argument amongst some of the young men. And they're arguing back and forth. Maybe they're debating theology or something. And I just have no clue, no context what's going on. And I'm like, guys, this is happy to talk, but what is going on? That's how I initially felt reading this psalm. But then as I got into the psychology of it a little bit, I realized that you really don't need much context. When you look at the words, you see that the dialogue that's taking place is not far from our hearts. It's not far from our minds and the things that we say and the temptations that we have and the daily experiences of what it means to be a Christian in a fallen, in an already but not yet world. And so let's look at verse 1. Listen to what's being said. In the Lord I take refuge.

How can you say to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain, right? You're vulnerable, David. Your back is exposed. You might as well save yourself if you can. You have to leave. You have to go. So who's saying this to David? Well, normally, if you're on a battlefield and you're waging war against your enemy, Your enemy is not going to tell you to flee to safety. So these aren't David's enemies, so to speak, that are giving him counsel. These, the way it's written, those who are giving him counsel, it's sort of his friends. It's most likely a group of men or a man in his inner circle. And so when you look at the words that are being said to tempt believers, For example, in the next Psalm, Psalm chapter 12, well, those are words from enemies. In Psalm 12, they're saying, like, who is master over us? These words are not the words of an enemy per se. This is the urgent, panicked plea of a friend. And so what do they say to justify this faint-hearted counsel? What's their reasoning? Look with me at verse 2.

The wicked bend the bow. They have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot at the upright in heart. The danger is real, brothers and sisters. And in this case, the bows being bent are real bows. The arrows are real arrows, whether physical or metaphorical. The enemy's not made up. Wicked men in their sin and in their conniving God's servant David, and they're naming something. This psalm is naming something about David's world that is also true of yours. We cannot be, and we're not, at least I don't believe you are, naive to the growing hostility against Christians in our nation. Our society is not immune to this. The sort of Christian heritage is all but...

Gone, and it's not going to get better until the church rises up and says no more. But when she does rise up, she will be shot at. These are sort of attacks at the very foundation of life. Maybe you're taking your kids on a walk, and there's this sudden exposure to a mockery of biblical conviction. How frustrating is that? Maybe it's words that come from an unbelieving family member. This, in my life, is very resonant. All of my siblings are unbelievers, and it's really hard. Or maybe it's even within the church this happens. Slander, strife, backbiting, divisiveness, biting and devouring one another, itching ears, these things weigh on us. And in every single one of these things, there is a counsel, and it carries the same counsel that David's friends gave him.

And the thing about these attacks are that they don't stay on the outside of our armor. It's our own flesh that catches them. We feel the stings and the hurts, and subtly in our mind we think, maybe we don't say this out loud, but we begin to think, well, maybe they are right. Maybe I should run. Maybe I should care less about my character and my devotion. Why do I serve the amount? in my church that I do? There's no fruit. There's no reward. Or where is the progress in my life from fighting this besetting sin that I've had for so long? Lord, why is it not going away? And so why is that? Why is it that these attacks, these arrows never seem to just stay on the outside? Well, look with me again carefully at verse two. They fitted the arrow to the string to shoot.

in the dark, at the upright, in heart. I think about my mom growing up would always play Unshackled. It's this radio ministry at a church, homeless ministry in Chicago, and they would have testimonies, and it would be like dramatized testimonies of men and women that would come to know Jesus. And one of the things you realize is, for me, as I've traveled the nation, asked men their testimonies. is when someone is raised in a nominally Christian home, and then they really come to know Jesus, when they're really born again and it's genuine for them, only then do they start to be persecuted by their family or by their community or even by their church, and they start to be punished and penalized for really being a Christian. Just us being assigned among a sort of Christian demographic wasn't enough. It was because their hearts became...

Something had changed inwardly. Christ had changed them. The bows of the wicked are not aimed at the men whose lives are given over to the world and to its desires. And if that's you this morning and you're like completely in that sin and you haven't repented, well, you're not going to receive the comfort that this text gives you. And it may be that you're not even going to have these temptations. And I pray that's none of us, right? But the scripture says, let every man take heed lest he fall. So that's who the wicked shoot at. That's who it comes from. And there's no better example of this than Christ. Like the whole book of Psalms testifies of him. I love to go through the book of Psalms and think through the life of Jesus, right? Psalm 22, for example, it's just incredible. And it's no different with this Psalm. Who is the upright man in heart?

Does anyone remember when Jesus was arrested? He was arrested contrary to Jewish law. He was arrested at nighttime. And so I think of this passage, to shoot in the dark at the upright. The religious Pharisees, they twisted his words. They tried to get witnesses to destroy him. He was the perfect upright man. And he received temptation. So scripture says, we do not have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with us and our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are yet without sin. And what was that temptation to him? Well, flee and take the easy way out. Come down and save yourself. That was Christ's temptation. Remember his temptation in the wilderness? And so when you understand the hostility of the world and the flesh, and the devil against Christ ultimately, but then also us as we are little Christ who reflect him and we carry our crosses in this world just as he did as the hymn says, Jesus, I my cross have taken. When you understand that, you understand verse 3. This is the sort of climax of this counsel. Look with me in verse 3. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

This is where the voice was going the whole time. This is the ultimate despair, the ultimate grief. It's the ultimate gloom. What can the righteous do? And the sad implication is nothing. That's the implication of this text in terms of what David's friends were telling him. And Pastor Eric mentioned earlier that I work in the anti-abortion ministry. All these men like to preach Psalm 11, when the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? And the foundations of our society are crumbling, and so we need to rebuild the foundation. You know what? Amen. That's my full-time job, and I love that. But what's also true is that this is not just a diagnostic thing. This is what David's friends were saying to him.

And so it's a little bit of an equivocation to say, well, don't worry about the world because God's throne is in heaven, so don't worry that the world is getting worse. I'm not telling you that, but what I am saying is don't be so focused on the foundations being destroyed that you lose the counsel we're going to receive from David and from the Lord a little bit later. Most commentators say that the foundations in mind are likely the sort of societal fabric. Think of the places in the Psalms when it talks about... the gates, right? Psalm 121, your children will stand with you against your enemies in the gates. These are the places of law, of culture, of justice. David's friends, they're looking out and they're seeing corruption. There's wicked men. They're spreading violence. They're attacking the wicked. And again, you know this. You know that this is the world you live in. My youth pastor growing up would always say things like, you know, it doesn't matter

who's president, the gas price normally doesn't change. I guess that isn't really true anymore. But it doesn't really matter. And what he would tell me is, Merrick, if you just get off of social media, you would realize that America is not that bad of a place. And while it is true that, at least if you're born, you're not going to, Lord willing, not going to be slain in the street openly, although even that's, right? But now that I think about that more, I want to say I love that man, but I disagree with him. You must, like Paul, be rightly disturbed by the idolatry that you see, right? You must be rightly angered by this. And so when you look at the hostility, it can just be paralyzing. The Bible says, repeatedly has this theme about the fear of man. The fear of man is a snare.

And so what I want you to know this morning is that though that fear is there, and I want to give you counsel, and I want to help you think rightly about this, what I also want to say is that there's another fear. There's another danger to David in this moment, and it's not just the arrows of the wicked. It's also the false counsel that others give us, and it's also that which is in our own hearts that would tempt us to even be open to believing that counsel, right? There's a reason that the counsel has ears. There's a reason why in Psalm 55, David was so distressed. He said, if it was an enemy that was attacking me, I could bear it, but it was you, one with whom I walked with in the temple, my friend, and you backstabbed me. It's a loose paraphrase. It may be that the bows of the wicked were aimed at David's body, but these fearful words were aimed at his heart. The world is a terrible counselor. The world

The flesh and the devil, they are terrible counselors. Don't listen to them. But friends can give poor counsel as well. If you walk into a Christian bookstore, there is a lot of poor counsel. Maybe if you go to like the Reformation Heritage Books store in Grand Rapids, that would be very different. But the average Christian bookstore, there's a lot of poor counsel. Remember Job's friends? What happened? Their misguided wisdom. made his agony just worse. How about Peter? Jesus tells his, okay, Peter is just hilarious. You know, he's, the Mount of Transfiguration was mentioned, Eric, you mentioned this earlier in Sunday school, right? Peter's up on the Mount of Transfiguration. He's like, should we build tents? Right? Do I need to go to REI and get a tent? No, Peter. But remember, Jesus tells his disciples, he must go to Jerusalem and to...

to suffer and to be killed. And Peter, with these sort of spastic good intentions, he says, far be it from you, Lord. Far be it from you, Lord. This shall never happen to you. And he rebuked Jesus. The good intentions of your friends and your own heart can blind you to the... The blasphemy of rebuking the God of heaven and earth and his divine plan. That's how blind it can make you. So far be it from you, Lord. Go away to your mountain, David. The world and Satan would have you believing these fearful voices that God's protection is insufficient. His providence over our lives, right? Our lives aren't going.

The way they are, maybe I thought that my life would be different by now. I have these plans. So run to something else. It's not practical to obey God right now, maybe in your business or in your interactions with your colleagues. How many of you have heard this? It's not your job to fix the world. Or you can't hold unbelievers to the same standard that you have on Sunday morning. To those of you that are single, maybe you're thinking, well, I'm never going to find a husband. I'm never going to find a wife. Or maybe those of you, I think of my mother, who's probably listening right now. I think of her who has sons that are middle-aged, and they are not walking with the Lord at all. And I'm thinking through these things that we begin to get wrapped around the axle on, right? Our children are drifting.

What's the temptation? Well, it's not my job to raise my children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Or for me, it's like, well, my prayer life is waning. Why am I not having these sweet, precious moments with the Lord that I used to have when I was first converted? You know, give me the joy of my salvation. Where is it? I used to be able to pray for so long and now it's like I'm just so busy. Or why are you devoting so much time to helping out in your church? Stop trying to get others to have the same zeal for the gospel that you have. Nothing is changing. When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? So the arrows are out to get you, brothers and sisters. The dangers of the faint-hearted friends, Job's friends, are out to get you. Your own heart is your own worst enemy. That's certainly the case in my life.

It probably isn't yours too. We internalize what we hear around us. We get wrapped around the axle, like I said, on these things. We perseverate. Martin Lloyd-Jones has this incredible series on spiritual depression. And one of the things he says is that we spend our days listening to ourselves, but not talking to ourselves. Like, why am I anxious? Why am I lonely? Why am I not believing God's promises to me? Sometimes our hearts don't even require a reason. And so the question, what I want to ask you and challenge you on this morning is, what is the first inclination of your heart in those moments? Is it just to listen? Listen to your heart? Jeremiah 17, the heart is deceitfully wicked. Who can understand it? Let's go back to verse one. Look with me if you're able. Notice, before David ever lifts his eyes up to the throne, Listen to how he began. The very first phrase, in the Lord I take refuge. How can you say to my soul? Before the conversation even begins, he's already thinking about the situation rightly. He's saying, I will take refuge in the Lord. I will stand on the rock. I will hide myself in the shadow of God's.

wings. How dare you tempt me away from believing his promises and to sort of base my thinking and then draw conclusions from that thinking on any foundation that doesn't begin with the truth that I take refuge in the Lord. He's so fixed on the Lord as his refuge. And it's as if he's saying, how dare you? How could you possibly suggest that I would run to some physical mountain when the Lord is by my side. The panic sets in in our lives, these things that I've described. You must reject those voices and even your own heart, and you must turn to God. I think about modern psychology and how you adjudicate between the Bible and then like scientific things. And I think there's a lot in psychology that's helpful, but I kind of think it's like a palantir. And what I know for my own life is, Sometimes I just need to do something. I just need to pray. I just need to trust the Lord. I just need to, Eric mentioned in Sunday school, just go do something. Just pray. Just call upon him and say to the Lord, I don't know what's going on in my life. I don't know these things from my past or these things from different influences I've had. But right now, as for me and my family, I'm going to give this to you. And I'm going to trust in you. The Lord is in his holy temple. That's what you must do when these temptations arise.

You listen to a constant chorus, a cacophony of despair, of fears and anxieties. Turn up the dial of the righteousness that God has put in your heart of questioning those and learning to be distrusting of those fears. So let's look at what David saw, what he does when the panic could have said it. Because this is not a one and done thing. This is a... a pattern, a rhythm. Verse four, the Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes see, his eyelids test the sons of men. Brothers and sisters, God is not swayed. He's not moved. In this portion of the chapter, there's this contrast between heaven and earth. And if David had only looked at what he could see, what his natural senses could verify, it would have been game over for him. There's no faithfulness in the land. Faith is the means by which you shift and you look up, right? Paul says in Colossians, set your hearts on things that are above, not on things below, but where Christ is seated.

You have to be able to look past the immediate darkness before you in the state of the church or the culture or your family and your own heart, and you must be able to look to God. It's what David does here. I think about men in my life who are fathers to me. I never met my father in my life. Never had a father growing up. But there are men that God placed in my life to be that for me. God is an incarnational God. He does that. Christianity is embodied. And there are several men in my life, when I have something bad happen, when I'm on 465 and my tire explodes, or, I mean, that's peanuts. You know this. That is nothing compared to the anguish of the soul and the dark moments in our lives. But when something happens, I know that there are men that I can call, and just the thought of them being completely unperturbed.

by my mishap, gives me courage. It encourages me. People say, oh, the sermon was really encouraging. We need to retrieve what that word actually means. It gives courage, strength. And so when I think about, there's a man probably like 45 minutes north of here who's like a father to me. When I think about him, he gives me courage. And it's like that's what's happening with David here. He's saying the Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. When these circumstances or the knowledge of this danger is coming, you don't need to be moved. And so if that's true of my father figure, how much more is it true of God in heaven? He is secure. He is unshaken. He's unperturbed. He's not swayed by the fouls of the enemy or our own hearts.

He's ransomed us by his precious blood. His final word has been spoken over all the particulars, all the little circumstances, all the day in, day out, all the hairs falling that are numbered. His eyes see, his eyelids test the sons of men. Children, do you know that God squints? That God looks. It doesn't mean that he has eyes, but it means that he's looking and he's watching. He's watching what you do and he's watching what your parents do. God is watching and looking over and he's caring for us. He's shepherding us just like a shepherd with sheep. And he's seeing and he's seeing the good things that are happening in this world. And he's seeing the evil things that are happening. And if he sees the arrows that are being fitted against the righteous in the darkness, then he certainly sees the ordinary, small acts of obedience by his saints, by his people who he says are the apple of his eye. He sees that as well. And he certainly sees and rewards the small, ordinary obedience of Clear Note Church. The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. God is examining.

He's inspecting. He's looking closely. He sees the wicked. He sees their deeds. But he looks to the ones who take refuge in him and he says, you shall see my face. And so it's not like unbelievers are going to get away with it or face no scrutiny, face no squinting. Again, getting back to the psychology of some of these psalms, you look at the psalm prior, Psalm 10. And what's being said is, where are you, God? Why are you so far away? They're boasting in their evil. They're doing it openly. They aren't facing the heat of your divine justice. Where is it? They're celebrating without a care in the world. And what you need to know about judgment is that oftentimes the exact opposite is the truth. Sometimes the way that God judges is he gives men over.

This is what Paul tells the Thessalonians is that actually their reveling in their sin is their judgment. So just real quick, don't be envious. You don't need to worry about them. Their day is coming. And there are anticipatory smaller judgments here on this earth, and we do rejoice over that. But ultimately, don't worry. One of the ways that God operates is to simply say, I'm going to hand you over. And that's one of the worst things that can ever happen to a person. So pray. for the unbelievers in this city. Dwell amongst them in such a way that you can reach them and love them and thank God for your own salvation and pray that they too would be saved. Look with me at verse six. Finally, what is the Lord going to do? Let him rain coals on the wicked fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. And so not only, like I said, does God leave them in their sins as a form of judgment, think of

Romans 1, but he's also a God of vengeance who really does take direct action to judge men according to their sins, right? There will come a day by which God has set and fixed that he will judge all men and their thoughts, the things seen and the things unseen by one man, by Jesus Christ. And there's only one name given among men under heaven by which we are to be saved. And it's his name. And that name is going to split the world in two as it already is. David is clearly, very clearly alluding to Sodom and Gomorrah. One old preacher, Robert Murray McShane, he has this great line. He says, at one moment, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were basking in the summer's sun.

And in the very next moment, they were sweltering in the lake of fire. And how often have you heard that that truth is actually a comfort to you? That's hard. I remember reading C.S. Lewis. I love C.S. Lewis, but I remember reading him on the Psalms. It was not very good, and he essentially said that David almost sinned when he said these sorts of things. What you need to know, and on the authority of God's word, I can tell you that this is a comfort to the righteous. It's not our only comfort, but it is a comfort to the righteous. The wicked will not have the final word. The world will not forever be a place where wickedness reigns and dwells. I will not walk on monument circle.

and see men and women who are not worshiping Jesus Christ. I will not go to Kroger and be surrounded by men and women that do not love and know this God. And I myself will no longer be plagued by these besetting sins in my own heart that caused me to think, why would I even judge those around me when I have this thing? Psalm 7 says that the wicked dig a pit, and the pit that they dig is the pit that they themselves fall in. It's kind of like something from a cartoon. Children, have you ever seen that where, you know, it's like the, you know, he, what's the cartoon with the mouse and the cat? Tom and Jerry. Which one is the cat? Tom. Okay, so Tom takes a double barrel shotgun and he shoves it through a hole in the wall and it curves around and comes out the other end and faces towards him.

This is a silly way to think about, but there's a truth here about the wicked. Proverbs 1 has a very similar image, that the wicked are lying in wait to ambush the righteous. And it says that they lie in wait for their own blood, and they set an ambush for their own lives. And so when you realize that the enemy out there is dealt with, you can look to the king in heaven and you cannot be affected. And so lastly, let's look at what the upright shall see. The psalm doesn't end with the wicked in their cup. And I hope that your spiritual devotional life doesn't just end there. I think it's very healthy and important that you have this sort of robust understanding of imprecation, but that should not be all that's there. For the Lord is righteous, verse 7. The Lord is righteous. He loves righteous deeds, or your translation might say he loves righteousness.

The upright shall behold his face. And so what I want to encourage you today is that when the illusion of the strength of the enemy or your own heart is gone, this is the thesis. You are free to obey Christ for his sake. You're free. You're free to obey Christ in ordinary, simple ways. God loves righteous deeds. He loves unnoticed. everyday faithfulness. God loves imperfect, struggling, ordinary Christians. G.K. Chesterton has this great line. He says, there is nothing more extraordinary, there's nothing more extraordinary than an ordinary man with his ordinary wife and their ordinary children. And I think that's a great picture into God's heart for the lowly, for the simple.

I mentioned earlier with some of you, I was talking before the service of some of y'all's faithfulness at the abortion centers here in Indianapolis when they were open. And I met some of you on West 16th Street on Georgetown Road at the Church of Planned Parenthood. And we would go and we would reach out to abortion-minded moms and dads and we would give them help and hope. You know, try to speak with them, give them the hope of the gospel, that God has a plan for their life and we want God's blessing in their life and we want to wrap our arms around them. And so I want to encourage you that now that those places are gone or maybe you've been in a season where you've done a lot of evangelistic ministry or you've spent a lot of time really leaning into your unbelieving family members or it feels like it's been a lot.

And maybe you've had a respite for some time now. I want to encourage you. Now's the time to turn the dial up. Where is that zeal going now? I just want to encourage you. Dwell in this city. Pastor Eric told me many of you are not from Indianapolis. I'm not from Bloomington. I'm from Northeast Indiana, Fort Wayne. I feel far more comfortable up there. And one thing I know is that I have a particular duty. to live and to dwell in Bloomington in such a way that it's going to be conducive to being evangelistic. And so I want to encourage you, the Lord loves righteousness. The Lord loves righteous deeds. Dwell in this city in Indianapolis or on the west side where you live in such a way that those works would be seen by him.

What would it look like you to put down roots, if not for sentimentality's sake, at least for the purpose of advancing the gospel? What are the righteous deeds and steps that you can begin to take in your own life? Maybe it's with your family. Now's the time to turn the dial up. Do not stop leading your family in family worship. The book of Hebrews, right, it says you've not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. Do not stop praying for your children. Do not stop praying for your family. Do not stop being hospitable. When I first visited this church four and a half years ago, I was invited to like three people's homes for lunch. Thank you. Don't stop that. And especially don't stop confessing your sin to one another. There's a reason why in some theological traditions, they consider confession and absolution to be a third sacrament. I'm not saying you adopt that theology, but I'm saying that the Christian church...

has valued and prioritized the verbal confession. I was homeschooled and when you're, a lot of homeschoolers are taught to read, there's like this tube thing where like you speak and your words come up to your ear so you can hear it. There's a value in saying things out loud to continue to confess your sins to one another. Your calling when the foundations of society are shaking, when the arrows are flying, when your soul is hit. and your temptation is to not trust in the promises of the gospel, it's not to imbibe the words of the fearful friends, your own heart. It's to simply look to Christ in heaven, be strengthened by him, be strengthened by that knowledge, internalize it, eat, feast on his word, and then go out and work because you're free. You're free to obey Christ for his sake. The easiest thing for you to do in this life is to forget God's promises. And like Charles Spurgeon said, to live as a practical atheist. It's the easiest thing. This is not a vaccine, a one and done. This is a repeated nourishing and eating. And so what if Christ has not been raised from the dead? What if God's word has been broken? What if the foundations are destroyed? What can the righteous do? Nothing. But Christ has been risen from the dead. Hallelujah.

He's conquered over sin and death. The foundations are not destroyed because God is in heaven. Paul says this to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, verse 19, but God's firm foundation stands. Bearing this seal, the Lord knows those who are his. Remember what Jesus said to Peter, again going back to Peter, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Not even hell. can stop my church advancing. So Christ himself is the foundation that God has laid. The Lord is righteous. He loves righteousness. He loves righteous deeds. The upright shall behold his face. That's the ultimate joy. It's not the penultimate joys here on this earth that are signposts. That's the ultimate joys that one day you will see his face. But until then, saints, brothers and sisters, know and have this knowledge.

that when the Bible says the fear of man is a snare, it says that because those who would read the Bible, we, us, would be tempted to fear man. There's a reason it's in the scripture. So don't fear man. Look to God in heaven and obey him for his own sake. Not for yours, not for your friends, but for his. Let's pray.