Psalm 10 - Sinners and Orphans

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk, Sinners. You might ask yourself, why start off calling us sinners?

And it's because of what we'll read today in Psalm 10, and even just kind of in my brief look through before hitting record today, I was taken aback by this chapter and the light that scripture kind of, or if you will, the mirror that scripture holds

up to us to say, this is who you really are. And today, as we look at God's Word, I think we'll see once again ourselves for who we truly are in the sight of God, and our desperate need for Jesus and for His righteousness and for His like changing us

and transforming us as a result. So let's dive right in today. Psalm 10. Why do you stand far away, Yahweh?

Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Have you felt like that before, that God, where are you? Like I want to feel like you are here with me.

I want to have like a nice, comforting, overwhelming presence of everything will be okay. And in times of trouble, it feels like you are not here with me. And I don't have that fuzzy feeling.

Where are you? He says, in arrogance, the wicked hotly pursue the needy. He says, let them, the wicked, be caught in the plots which they have devised.

For the wicked boasts of his soul's desire. The wicked person says, hey, this is what I want. This is what I'm going to get.

I'm going to get this money. I'm going to get this person. I'm going to win this prize.

I'm going to reach this point in the company. I'm going to have this possession. I'm going to be at this level of government.

The wicked boasts of his soul's desire. And the greedy person curses and shows disrespect to the Lord. They're a greedy person, one that is primarily about this world's gain and possessions and wealth.

Think of 1st Timothy chapter 6 that says that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. There is no, there's really no end to where a desire for wealth and possessions and money, there's no telling where that could take you.

He says, the greedy person curses and shows disrespect to the Lord. I don't need God, I need money. I don't need stuff from him, I need stuff from other people.

I need what they can give me. He says, the wicked in his haughtiness and his pride does not seek him, the Lord. There is no God in all his schemes.

There is no acknowledgement of who God is or what God wants for this person. He says, his ways succeed at all times, yet your judgments are on high out of his sight. He says to him, as for all his enemies, he snorts at them.

He says to himself, I will not be moved. Throughout the generations, I will not be in adversity. Here, the writer of this psalm is detailing, this wicked person is just saying whatever they want.

They are attempting to get whatever they want. They're cursing. They're disrespecting God.

He's succeeding in everything that he's doing. He is a successful business person. He is a successful politician.

He is a successful neighbor. And he just kind of disregards any of his enemies. He says, I'm set, like no one's going to get me out of this position.

Verse seven, his mouth is full of cursing. I want to stop right there. His mouth is full of cursing.

We have all been at the point where we say words that we shouldn't say, words that are... I forget in what circumstance I mentioned cursing before. There's a couple different ways that scripture talks about cursing.

The primary way is in demeaning another person. So this would be like, I wish you were dead. I wish the gods would punish you or kill you or take you out.

You are worthless. I think I mentioned last episode, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. If you tell someone like, you moron, you stupid person, you worthless person, that goes against the heart of God's law for us.

So things that are demeaning, things that would say, I wish that person didn't exist, those are all biblically cursing.

There's also blasphemy, which would be when you, maybe if you were to say, oh my God, in a flippant manner, that's not actually reverent of him as our God, but he's just like an exclamation, like, oh my word.

But using that, but using God's name in that spot would kind of be a flippant, uncaring, unrespectful use of that.

Obviously, we would know many people that would use Jesus Christ as a curse, as an epithet, that they would just use it flippantly, other times with other foul language thrown in there as well.

So cursing mainly, demeaning someone else, devaluing them, viewing them as less than unimportant, worthless, you're not valuable, blasphemy of saying that God, using God's title and his names is something that's just flippant and not worthy of like

deep respect or care when you use it. And then there is foul language that we would think about today, that many of the words that could get bleeped out might be taken up in some of those categories that I already mentioned, where if you were to say

someone was a this or that, or if you were to say you're just such a blank and blank blank, that would be used in kind of that way. This person's mouth is full of cursing would specifically be the demeaning people kinds of things.

And while we should let no wicked word, we should let no corrupt communication come out of our mouth, it is very true that we should definitely guard against a demeaning other people and tearing other people down with our words, because this is

something that the wicked do, and so we as God's people should not participate in that. His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, lies and oppression. Under his tongue is harm and injustice.

Like with how he uses his words, he's using it to demean and drag down other people to take advantage of them, to get the shady business deals that he would get the benefits and other people would foot the bill for it. All of that's happening.

The wicked, verse eight, he sits in the lurking places of the villages. He kills the innocent in the secret places. His eyes surreptitiously watch for the unfortunate.

So here he's kind of being described, actually, verse nine, he lurks in secret like a lion in his lair. He lurks to catch the needy. He catches the needy when he pulls them into his neck.

Then he crushes the needy one who cowers. And unfortunate people fall by his mighty power. So here it's the lion in the jungle that is sneaking.

He's finding the zebra that's just separated from the herd. He's finding the person that is kind of down and out, that is struggling through life. And he finds them.

He kills them. He takes their possessions. He robs them.

He does all these things. He is looking how he can take advantage of other people. Verse 11, he says to himself, God is forgotten.

He has hidden his face. He will never see it. This is the thought of the wicked, that if they even recognize or believe that there is a God, they go, He's got better things to worry about.

He's not going to judge me. He doesn't really care about what I'm doing. But the truth is that God does care.

We see this in verse number 12. Arise, Yahweh. God, lift up your hand.

Do not forget the humble. Why has the wicked treated God disrespectfully? He has said to himself, You will not require an account.

You're not going to call me to task for what I've done. You have seen it. For you have looked at harm and provocation to take it into your hand.

The unfortunate commits himself to you. You have been the helper of the orphan.

So God is the one that looks at the evil in the world and it says he takes it into his hand, that he is going to judge evil and that it's something that he genuinely cares about because he cares about the unfortunate. He cares about the orphan.

And may we be very careful that we don't have a disdain for the unfortunate, the needy, the orphan, the down and outers. We should not have an attitude of looking down on people in those situations.

We should have a heart like our God, of I'm going to care for them, I'm going to be their helper. That that would be our desire. So verse 15, he then calls on God because God cares for the unfortunate and for the orphan.

He says, break the arm of the wicked and the evildoer. Seek out his witness until you find none. He says, just eradicate all of the evil.

He says, Yahweh is king forever and ever. Nations have perished from his land. Yahweh, you have heard the desire of the humble.

You will strengthen their heart. You will make your ear attentive to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed so that mankind, which is of the earth, will no longer cause terror. Here, the writer details, God, I know you're going to take care of it.

God, I know that you're king forever and ever.

And you will make it so that mankind, who is just flesh and bone, the ones that have not turned to God's kingdom and righteousness, but have just been insistent on this world's possessions and benefits and positions, if they've been concerned just on

the things that are of earth, of earth's kingdoms, that they will be gone forever. And what a comfort. I know I have had friends in my life that have struggled with, I can think of one couple that they had a son who was killed.

And it wasn't because perhaps the son got caught up with the wrong people and made some decisions that then resulted in that, which would also be a very sad circumstance. It wasn't that.

It was that this person just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and someone else's fight then took this one's life.

And as a result of it, I saw their heart both of forgiveness that they didn't have ill will towards their son's killer, but also a call for God's justice, that God, may you bring justice.

Like we aren't going to harbor ill will towards this person, but we're also going to call on you as the one who makes all things right that you would make this situation right.

And I think as we look at Psalm 10, that needs to be our heart, that we would not just say, we wouldn't start becoming the wicked through how we think about the wicked. So the wicked devalues people.

He doesn't care about God, so he doesn't care about people who are made in God's image, which is why we respect people. It's why we love people. It's why we care for people as much as we can, because they are made in the image of God.

And he has given them mind and will and emotions just like he himself has. And so we are called to have that respect and care for those that are made in God's image.

It's why murder is such a serious thing because it's destroying someone who is meant to shine out who God is. And all of us have interacted with people, both saved and unsaved, that to an extent shine out who God is.

Sometimes it's through their care, how maybe they might love a spouse, maybe how hard they might work at a job, maybe the passion that they bring to something, to maybe a hobby, but that we can see little aspects of our God in them that just as he

has those emotions and he has a mind and he has will and he is diligent and he is all of these things that we can see little pictures of God in every person that we interact with. So if we don't guard ourselves, the wicked who completely devalue the

image of God, both God himself, they don't care about God and they don't care about people who are made in God's image, they say, okay, this person that I'm going to rob, this person that I'm going to kill, this person that I'm going to take

advantage of, this person that I'm going to talk bad about, talk down about, I view them as less than me and I am great, I am powerful and they are all terrible. And if we aren't careful, we could think in our pride, I am great, I am righteous and

this person and this person and this party and this nation, they're all terrible and I'm great and I'm righteous. May we realize that we can very easily take on that same costume of the wicked. And we should not devalue someone else.

It was mentioned in there that the wicked is one that curses, that degrades down people, that demeans them, that devalues them, that says, you know, it's not really worth it, that they would live. It's fine if they live or die, like who cares?

But that we wouldn't have that same thought towards another person. It doesn't mean that justice doesn't come, but it does mean that as far as our will is concerned, as far as our emotions are concerned, that we wouldn't wish evil on others.

We wouldn't wish someone was dead. Instead, we would say, God, like, I want you to bring justice. However, however that looks, God, bring justice.

Make it so that this wickedness does not continue. But I'm not like personally demeaning that person in the sense that I say, who that person is, is just terrible, should be thrown out.

If there was ever a person like that, I'm sure the Apostle Paul would have counted as one that was going house to house and kidnapping people and throwing them into prison and trying to make them blaspheme Jesus and allowing for them to be put to

death as a result of his actions. That is a very wicked person. And justice might say, OK, well, then he needs to be killed because he is making it so that other people are killed.

But a lack of ill will towards another person would say, I want them to be changed by Jesus. And that should be our prayer for everyone in our world. It doesn't mean we don't pursue justice, but we do pray for both justice and salvation.

We realize that what God can do in a person is greater than anything we could ever imagine. So that's Psalm 10. And we can all become this person.

We can all begin to take aspects of that. We can all begin to tell some lies. We can all begin to demean other people.

We can begin to have hatred in our heart. We can begin to ignore God in our decisions or think, okay, well, I've been engaging in this sin for a little bit, and God hasn't struck me with a lightning bolt.

So, you know, maybe he won't call me to account, just like the wicked says in that Psalm. But let's realize we have all been sinners. We can all be sinners.

So, let's turn back to God. Let's realize that we need him and that we should repent and turn to him again and again. Tomorrow will be in Psalm 11.

Thank you for tuning in today. Thank you