(upbeat music)
- Hi, this is Pastor Tom,
and I want to welcome you to our look at Psalm 97
and drive time devotions today.
Let me start by reading verse 10 of this Psalm.
Verse 10 says, "Let those who love the Lord hate evil."
How do you do that?
How do you hate evil?
It is actually very important to know how to hate evil,
or you'll be drawn into evil.
You can try to hate evil by being evil,
and that just draws you into evil.
Romans 12 tells us not to be overcome by evil,
but to overcome evil with good.
And Psalm 97 tells us how to do that.
Tells us some of the good things
that we can do to hate evil.
Number one, here's what this Psalm tells us.
Recognize God's power over evil.
That God is more powerful than any evil.
Verses one to six, "The Lord reigns.
Let the earth be glad.
Let the distant shores rejoice.
Clouds and thick darkness surround him.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Fire goes before him and consumes his foes on every side.
His lightning lights up the world.
The earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the people see his glory."
Now we hear about God reigning again and again
in this section of Psalms.
We need to see that God is firmly on his throne.
That he is the one who is in power.
And verses two to six give us some of the evidences
of God's reign.
When I say recognize God's power over evil,
there's something needs to happen in my spirit,
in your spirit, that helps us to see with our spirit
that God reigns.
Because we see the evil that's around us, physically.
But spiritually, God is more powerful.
So what is it that can cause me to begin to see
with my spirit that God reigns?
Well, this Psalm gives us some pictures
to help us to see who God really is.
It gives us the picture of clouds and thick darkness.
That God is more mysterious than we realize.
We don't know everything there is to know about God.
Sometimes we get so close to God,
we think we know it all about God.
And so then we think, well, the God we know
isn't seeming to defeat evil,
but the God we know is so little of who God really is.
He's surrounded by these clouds of thick darkness.
I know a little of him as my father,
but there's so much more of his power that I do not know.
There's the picture here of the foundation of his throne
being righteousness and justice.
There is a foundation that can never be moved,
a powerful foundation,
a foundation to stand on for all eternity.
There's a picture here of a fire that consumes his foes,
that God is gonna destroy evil in the end.
Now, this fire also purifies the saints
and other places in scripture,
but here we're talking about consuming evil.
There's a picture here of lightning
that lights up the world.
The power of lightning is amazing.
If you've ever been in a lightning storm,
you know what I'm talking about.
That the flash of light is almost unbearable.
And if you're close to that lightning,
the boom of the thunder is almost more than you can bear.
That is who God is.
Mountains melt like wax.
If I can see with my spirit how powerful God is,
I can see how weak evil really is.
The heavens proclaim his righteousness.
I look at the stars.
I see the grandeur of who God is.
So those pictures, as you take them into your spirit,
you begin to see the reality of God's power.
Recognize God's power over evil.
That's how to hate evil.
Second thing we do is you set aside idols.
Verses seven to nine.
All who worship images are put to shame,
those who boast in idols.
Worship him, all you gods.
Zion hears and rejoices,
and the villages of Judah are glad
because of your judgments, oh Lord.
For you, oh Lord, are most high over all the earth.
You are exalted far above all gods.
Images and idols, the same thing in these verses.
Now our images today are mostly not on the wall,
they're in our hearts.
Our idols aren't on some mantle, they're in our minds.
Let me give you a sentence to identify any idols
that you might currently be trusting in.
With the confession that I have too often
trusted in idols in my life.
Let me give you a sentence to identify any idols.
If blank, then I would be truly happy, truly fulfilled.
If, and what's in that blank, fill in the blank,
then I would be truly happy, truly fulfilled.
If anything but God is in that blank, that's your idol.
If I could get this job, if I could get married,
if I could make this amount of money,
if this would happen in my family, if whatever it is,
then I would be truly happy, truly fulfilled.
Only God can truly fulfill you, truly bring you joy.
Anything but God in that blank space, that's my idol.
And we all have our idols.
And we hate evil by turning away from our idols.
Now I know, you might be thinking, wait, wait,
I thought this was about fighting evil in other people
who are truly evil.
I'll never forget this quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn
who saw firsthand the evil that was done
in the Soviet prison camps under Joseph Stalin,
the millions that were killed.
And he writes in the Gulag Archipelago,
the line separating good and evil passes not through states
nor between classes, nor between political parties,
but right through every human heart.
If I'm gonna hate evil, I gotta hate the evil
that's in my heart by doing away with idols.
And that's not a one-time thing.
That's an everyday thing, an everyday choice.
Oh, I've let this one become an idol.
I'm doing away with it, Lord.
I'm cleaning out the house again, Lord.
I'm doing away with that idol.
And there's a third thing that this Psalm tells us to do
in order to hate evil.
Number three, know that you are safe in God's hands.
Verse 10, let those who love the Lord hate evil,
for he guards the lives of his faithful ones
and he delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
So the most immediate application
after this admonition to hate evil
is know that you're safe in God's hands.
Don't give evil more power than it actually has.
Evil does have great power.
Evil can ruin lives, circumstances of our lives.
Satan is pictured as a roaring lion,
but evil does not have ultimate power, only God does.
Evil does not have eternal power, only God does.
And you are ultimately, eternally safe in God's hands.
Whatever evil circumstances you are facing right now,
you're ultimately safe in God's hands.
Whatever evil things people are doing
or saying about you right now,
you are eternally safe in God's hands.
And so the anxiety that you have might be an indication
that you're letting evil rule your life.
See yourself right now as safe in the hands of God.
That's how you hate evil.
And then number four, you live in the light.
You hate evil by living in the light.
Verses 11 and 12, light is shed upon the righteous
and joy on the upright in heart.
Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous
and praise his holy name.
You hate evil when you walk out of the darkness
into the light, when you help someone else
to walk out of the darkness into the light.
Now, there's an interesting phrase here.
Light is shed upon the righteous.
That word shed, actually in Hebrew,
it has the idea of being sown, like a seed.
The light of God is not always like a switch.
We think of light like a switch, you just flip it.
No, here it's sown like a seed,
sown in your heart through God's word,
watered through prayer and through fellowship
with God's people, and then that light dawns in your heart.
It's not just flipped on like a switch,
it dawns in your heart, and then you walk in that light.
It's not that some people have the light and others don't,
it's that some people allow God to sow that light
into their hearts through his word.
They're faithful to tend what God has sown
and they're rewarded with a harvest of light.
That's how you hate evil.
So as we pray today, let's pray
that we would not be overcome by evil,
but by God's grace, we would overcome evil with good.
Our Father, we turn to you in prayer
and we ask you to help us to come against evil with good.
Come against evil by today,
recognizing the power that you have.
You will defeat evil one day,
and you're defeating evil
in ways that we don't even see today.
To come against evil by recognizing by your grace
that we have to confront the idols in our lives
and replace that blank of what's gonna fulfill us
with your name again and again and again.
We do that right now.
And we recognize right now, Father, before you
that we are safe in your hands,
like a shepherd holding a sheep safely.
We are safe in your hands.
And we recognize right now that we can live in the light,
your light that you put into our lives.
We don't have to walk in darkness any longer.
That's what Jesus did for us.
And so thank you that by your power,
we can overcome evil with good.
In Jesus' name, we pray this.
Amen.
Join us tomorrow.
We're gonna look at Psalm 98 and joy to the world.
(upbeat music)