Those of you who have been here a while will be surprised that I'm preaching on a psalm this morning. Please turn with me in the Psalter to Psalm 36, Psalm 36. We'll read the whole psalm, but we're considering the first four verses this morning and then the rest of the psalm next Sunday morning. We are reading God's Word, Psalm 36. Let us pay careful attention to God's own Word. Psalm 36, to the choir master of David, the servant of the Lord. Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart. There is no fear of God before his eyes, for he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated. The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit. He has ceased to act wisely and do good. He plots trouble while on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He does not reject evil. Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God, your judgments are like the great deep. Man and beast you save, O Lord, how precious is your steadfast love, O Lord. The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life. In your light do we see light. O continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your righteousness to the upright of heart. Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away. There the evildoers lie fallen, they are thrust down, unable to rise. So far the reading of God's Word. As you look at the world around you, do you sometimes feel confused, disoriented, alienated, Annoyed, angry, frustrated. When you're writing a sermon, you're never quite sure whether the things you feel are what all people feel or just what grumpy old men feel. But surely we live in a time of dramatic change that can be disorienting. And so I thought in the brief time we have together, would explain to you what's wrong with the world. Actually, what's wrong with the world in our time I think is a fairly complicated matter, and it's a matter I hope to take up in adult Sunday school this fall, Lord willing. For the sedate among you, I'm going to call this fall's adult Sunday school, The Collapse of Christendom. For those of you who are hipper and need a more attractive title to get you to Sunday school, I'm going to call it Sex, Race, and Politics. So, the time we live in are times of huge change. And I'm going to make the case that perhaps the times we're living in right now are a more dramatic time, even than the time for some of you older folks when you lived through the Second World War. So that's the challenge. But actually, what's wrong with the world is very simple. And that's what we're going to do this morning. Look at the simple foundational reality of what's wrong with the world, what's wrong with the world in every age and every time. And as I studied Psalm 36, I realized that I don't know of four verses anywhere in the Scripture that more powerfully summarize for us what's wrong with the world. Because what the Scripture always says is, what's wrong with the world. What makes things wrong in the world is alienation from God. And the essential character of the wicked in their alienation from God is just very powerfully summarized and expressed here in the first four verses of Psalm 36. So, I want to look at that with you this morning. Our translation is accurate, but not as helpful as it might be when it begins with the words, transgression speaks, transgression speaks. When you're preaching to a congregation that has a Hebrew professor in it, it's always just a little intimidating to make remarks about the original Hebrew. But I know a little Hebrew, and what this psalm really says at the beginning is the oracle. It doesn't say speaks. It's not a verb. It's a noun. The oracle. We might say the prophecy. There's a word being declared at the beginning of this psalm. There's a word, And it's a word of transgression. Or again, to translate it in a little more focused way, we might say it's a word of rebellion. It is transgression, but it's transgression in the sense of rebellion. There's a word of rebellion. There's an oracle of rebellion. There's a prophecy of rebellion that speaks to this world and speaks particularly to the heart of the wicked. And that leads us to ask, what are the voices we listen to? What are the voices we listen to? What is the word that we hear in this world? What is the word that shapes us and directs us and orients us as we live? And this psalm begins saying that for the wicked, the word that they hear, the word that shapes them, is rebellion. Last week when we had an opportunity to interview Reverend Angelo Contreras after the morning service, one of the great questions asked to him was asked by Steve Hauerzile. I thought Steve was going to ask whether he believed in common grace, but what Steve asked was, what do you read? What do you read? What a great question. What are you filling your mind with? What is shaping you? What are the things that continue to educate you and inform you? And this psalm is saying that the great problem of the wicked is the voice they listen to, which is a voice of rebellion. Rebellion against whom? Rebellion against God. Rebellion against the Lord. Rebellion against His truth. This is the foundational problem of human life. And in a real sense, it really doesn't matter which rebellion you listen to. Whether it's the rebellion of a false religion, or the rebellion of no religion. Whether it's a rebellion like communism that says there is no God, or the rebellion of secularism that just doesn't care about God. We could say the devil doesn't care what kind of rebel he creates as long as he creates a rebel. And this is the foundational reality in which we live, in which we operate. The wicked are those who have listened to an authoritative word that calls them to rebellion against God and against His truth. In a certain sense, Psalm 36 is just reflecting on what we read at the beginning of Psalm 2, isn't it? Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. It's a rebellion against the Lord. The Lord is sovereign. The Lord is king. The Lord is creator. The Lord is sustainer. And if he is creator, and if he is sustainer, it is the utmost foolishness to rebel against him. It would be like me deciding after the service that I want to exit through there. There used to be a door there in the old sanctuary. And I still want to go out there. And I'm a free individual. I have free will. I have rights. I'm going to go over there and go out that door. And I'm going to bang my head against the wall when there is no door. That's what rebellion is like. it's just stupid. Now, we're Americans. We have a right to be stupid. It's in the Constitution. And we demonstrate that right all the time. But it's tragic when it comes to the Lord God, to rebel against Him, to revolt against Him, to turn against Him. And it takes a tremendous act of will to try to do that. Paul talks about that, you remember, in Romans chapter 1, where he wrote, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. We live in a world that surrounds us with truth. I can look at that wall and see there's no door. but I can also suppress the truth and say, I've decided there is a door there. My deciding it doesn't make it so. And that's what Paul is talking about. We can suppress the truth. We can deny the truth. We can refuse to look at the truth. For although they knew God, that's the great Pauline statement. Everyone knows God. at some level. And the only way to avoid that knowledge is to suppress it. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and foolish, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. That's the tragedy of the world in which we live. We are surrounded by voices that claim to have wisdom, and what they have is foolishness. They claim to be building a new world, and what they are doing is utterly futile, bound to decay and certain to pass away. This is the tragic picture that is painted for us of the world in which we live for those who are wicked and in rebellion against God. And it presses on us the question, doesn't it? What voices do we listen to? What voices do we listen to? And this is why we have always encouraged one another to be spending time in the Word of God, to be reading the Word of God, to be reading the Word of God regularly at home, to come to church, to worship around the Word of God, morning and evening on the Sabbath day, to gather in study groups to study the Word of God. In a voice, in a world filled with voices that would lead us astray, we need the voice of God to be constantly with us and helping us and shaping us. It's not that the only thing we can read is the Word of God. You could read the Catechism. No, it is fine to read other things that are informative and helpful and illuminating about the world in which we live. But we have to let the Word of God have first place in our hearts and in our lives and in our direction so that we are not those who are living in rebellion against God and against his truth. So, this psalm in describing the character of wickedness as what's wrong with this world talks first about the voices we hear, and then it talks about the visions that we see. What do we see? Second half of verse 1, there is no fear of God before his eyes. There is no fear of God before his eyes. The wicked looks at the world, and what does he see? What is his vision? What he sees is no God. He sees no God, and therefore he has no fear. No fear of God. Now, the word here is not the word for fear that we are sometimes told can also mean just reverence and awe. Now this is stronger than that. This doesn't just say he has no reverence for God, or he has no awe before God. This word says he doesn't tremble before God. There is a point in thinking about the character of God and the reality of God where we have to recognize that those outside of God should tremble before Him in dread that He's coming as judge. One of the tragedies of the modern time in which we live is that the notion of the judgment of God has become almost a joke everywhere. But the Scripture makes clear that judgment is coming for the wicked. And that we have to be most serious about that. Psalm 7 says that God is angry with the wicked every day. That's a remarkable statement, isn't it? A remarkable statement of seriousness of the issues with which we're dealing. And if we see no God and have no fear of that God, we're not seeing reality. We're not seeing the truth. We're not seeing the world as it is. What a terrible thing to potentially fall into the hands of an angry God that we've never seen, we've never thought about, we've never faced. And because the wicked have no fear of God, the psalm says, remember this isn't me saying it, it's not the grumpy old man saying it, it's what the Scripture says, and because the wicked do not see God correctly, they don't see themselves correctly. For he flatters himself in his own eyes. Now, this is something we should be able to identify with as modern, self-flattery. Self-flattery. An ability to look at ourselves and not see the truth. Now, I shouldn't offer an illustration at this point, but I will. I occasionally see on television a face that has had so much plastic surgery that the person is no longer identifiable as the person they were or almost not identifiable as a human being at all. And I always think to myself, when that person looks in the mirror, what do they see? What do they see? And I assume since they spent all this money on surgery, they look at themselves and say, wow, pretty good. Now I have a few tucks, ideally, I might like to have taken. But isn't it sad that we live in a world of people who can look in the mirror and not see themselves as they are? Of course, I'm not talking primarily physically. I'm talking morally. Who are we? And what's the flattery preeminently that's talked about here? It's the flattery that is iniquity cannot be found out and hated. And again, this brings us back to God, isn't it? He's not primarily concerned whether you find out what his sin is. He's thinking God will never see his sin. And this is a tragic self-deception. To think that God will never see our sin. God who searches our hearts and knows us from beginning to end at every moment. To think that that God will never see our sin. That we can fool him? Self-flattery. What a path to death. Do we see God when we look at the world around about us? I was reading, see, I'm glad Steve Howersall didn't ask me what I read because some of the stuff is kind of questionable. But I was reading a biography of Tom Stoppard, maybe the greatest British playwright of the 20th century, and he's written some very interesting stuff. And in one of his plays, he has one of the characters say, who could possibly look at a rose and not believe in God? Now, I paused over that. I was intrigued by that. Who could possibly look at a rose and not believe in God? Now, my wife will tell you I'm a great gardener. The truth is, I've always believed that if God wants weeds to grow, they should grow. But my wife is a gardener, and we have some lovely roses in our yard, no thanks to me at all. But just next to our patio up back, there's a rose bush that grows that produces big yellow roses. And I just happened to be reading that part of the Stoppard biography when that rose was just beautifully in bloom, just at the height of its perfection. And I looked at that yellow rose and I thought, I think that's right. When you look at the beauty, the complexity, the delicacy of that rose, it surely points to a creator, to a designer, who has filled it with such beauty and such perfume, such loveliness. Do we look at the world and see God as creator? Do we look at our fellow human beings and see the image of God displayed for us? Or do we just look at a world and think, I can get away with whatever I want, because God will not see and God will not judge? And then the wicked, if they listen to voices that lie and if they see and have vision of a world that is untrue, The result is that they live a life of vanity, a life of vanity, a life of emptiness, a life of lies. The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit. He has ceased to act wisely and do good. We live in a world of lies, lies, lies, lies. I just finished, clearly I have too much time. I just finished a book on World War II called "Stalin's War." I've seldom read such a depressing book about how Stalin so single-mindedly devoted every ounce of his energy to the advancement of communism and was willing at any moment to murder anyone who he even thought might stand in his way, and how he conned and deceived Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, and used them to advance his own cause in all sorts of ways, all through lies, lies that he never minded telling. Lies are a terrible thing, but lies about God are the very worst thing because they lead us away from truth and life and hope. And this wicked man not only lies, but he plots in bed at night. The whole picture here of wickedness, it brings home to me at least a feeling of a life that cramped, narrow, dark, sad, awful. And what does he give his energy to? Plotting. Plotting trouble. Plotting against the good. Plotting for the evil. That's what this psalm says. He plots trouble while on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He does not reject evil. Well, what can we expect from a world with this kind of wickedness in it? How can we be surprised that so much is wrong with the world? And how thankful we should be that God has rescued us from this wickedness. This pervasive alienation from him. and told us His truth, and told us the way in which we should walk. Now, I have a friend in this congregation, that will surprise you, who says, you know, I like your psalm sermons, but there's not enough about Jesus in them. And after I finished this sermon, I thought about that little small voice, and I thought, there's not enough about Jesus in this sermon. Where is Jesus in this sermon? Well, you haven't missed him. He hasn't come yet. But now is the moment. We'll see him more next week. But do you know how this psalm begins? The title to the choir master of David, the servant of the Lord. David, the servant of the Lord. This is only one of two psalms in the whole Psalter where David is described in the title as a servant of the Lord. And I think he's being very deliberate here. I think he's saying to the world, he's saying to the church, he's saying to you and me, the antidote to this wickedness that is pervasive is to be a servant of the Lord. Is to know the Lord. Is to serve Him and follow Him. And the great servant of the Lord is our Lord Jesus Christ, great David's greater son. In a world where people are serving themselves and serving sin, our minds always have to come back to Jesus as the servant of the Lord, the one who always walked in the ways of the Lord, the one whose heart was always turned to the Lord, The one whose mouth was always filled with the truth of the Lord. The one whose life was lived that others might know truth and life. And so we must not lose heart in a world that is so out of balance. So dominated by rebellion against the Lord. As I read this book about Stalin, I thought the kings of this earth in the 20th century led tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people to their death. And Stalin summed that up well, didn't he, when he said, one death is a tragedy. A million deaths are just a statistic. We can't even comprehend a million deaths, can we? We can't comprehend 10 million deaths. We can't comprehend 100 million deaths. But that's what the kings of the earth brought to mankind in the last century in their rebellion against God. We have to ask, don't we, did they know what they were doing? Who is the servant of the Lord who will lead us? Who is the servant of the Lord who will care for us? Who is the servant of the Lord who will die for us? Who is the servant of the Lord who will give us eternal life? Only our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have hope. So that no matter how crazy this world gets, we hear the truth. We see the truth. And our lives are not in vain in the Lord, because he is our God. he will keep us, and he will one day give us a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Let us live in that hope and in that faith. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, wickedness is great and rebellion is powerful, but we are so thankful that you are greater and you are more powerful. We thank you that in the face of every rebellion, you remain king, you remain sovereign, and you accomplish all things according to the counsel of your will, to the praise of your glory, to the building of your son's church, and to the preservation of Your people. And so we pray in the midst of confusion that You will give to us peace in our hearts and confidence in Your great purpose and keep us always looking to Your Word, knowing that only there will we find the words of eternal life. Hear us, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.