Psalms 140:1-3 ESV
“Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men;
preserve me from violent men,
who plan evil things in their heart
and stir up wars continually.
They make their tongue sharp as a serpent's,
and under their lips is the venom of asps. Selah”
Who are these “evil men” today in our present world, and/or
in America, and/or in the church at large in America? They are the thieves and
robbers Jesus spoke of (John 10) who are out to destroy the church and who care
nothing for the people (the sheep), for they are hired hands. And they are the “strangers”
who we are to run away from. And they are those who use cunning and craftiness
and deceitful scheming in their evil plans which are for conquering the nations,
and the people, and for destroying the church.
And they are liars and deceivers and manipulators who are
charlatans, and who are wolves in sheep’s clothing, whose goal it is to trick
and to trap the people in their webs of deception. And some (or many) of them
are pastors of church congregations (or of what is falsely being called “church”).
And some of them are just ordinary people who are husbands and wives and
fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and children of parents, but who
plot evil against others in their hearts and who like stirring things up.
And we must be on our guard against them for they are
usually very manipulative, and they can come across as charming and innocent
while they have a snake’s bite. And they will use the art of stirring things up
to try to get us to fight with them, or they will try to manipulate us via
their emotions, or they will try to put words in our mouths that aren’t there,
or they will do all sorts of tricks to try to get us to fail in some way so
that they can accuse us falsely of what we did not do.
Psalms 140:4-5 ESV
“Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked;
preserve me from violent men,
who have planned to trip up my feet.
The arrogant have hidden a trap for me,
and with cords they have spread a net;
beside the way they have set snares for me. Selah”
So, we must take these matters to the Lord in prayer and
pray for his wisdom and ask him to guard us from the hands of the wicked. For
evil people abound these days who are plotting evil against others, and who are
plotting evil against the righteous. And so we need the Lord to help us to see
their tricks and their traps so that we do not fall into them, and so that we
do not get caught in their snares. For their tricks are many, and if one doesn’t
work, they will try another and another until one does work.
And there are many reasons that evil people do this to other
people. In some cases, it is because they want to get rid of them, but they
need to do it in a conniving way so as to escape suspicion, and in order to put
it all on the other people who they are trying to put away. Some of them do it
to silence voices they do not want to be heard, and so they will try to
discredit some people so that others will stop listening to them. It is
basically mostly for all the same reasons Jesus’ opponents did evil toward him.
Psalms 140:6-8 ESV
“I say to the Lord, You are my God;
give ear to the voice of my pleas for mercy, O Lord!
O Lord, my Lord, the strength of my salvation,
you have covered my head in the day of battle.
Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked;
do not further their evil plot, or they will be exalted! Selah”
When we are treated in the manner as this describes here,
and especially if that treatment comes through the hands of people who are
supposed to care for us, or who give the impression that they do, and who
themselves are trusted people and so above suspicion, we seriously need to call
upon the Lord to give us counsel and wisdom and direction to make the right
decisions, and to know when to speak, and what to say, and what not to say, and
when to be silent. And we should never respond in the flesh.
We need to allow the Lord to lead us in this and to be our
strength and for us to not rely on our own strength and wisdom, which may be a
pitfall for us. And we have to be so guarded in how we respond, for these
people are tricksters by profession and they know all the many ways at getting
at us and at getting their desired response from us. So, we can’t go this
alone, and we must not let them stir up our emotions to where we will fight. We
can certainly speak the truth in love, and stand for what is right, and stand against
what is evil, but we should not let them drag us into a fight.
Blessed Be Your Name
by
Matt Redman
In
the land that is plentiful
Where
Your streams of abundance flow
When
I'm found in the desert place
Though
I walk through the wilderness
When
the sun's shining down on me
When
the world's 'all as it should be'
On
the road marked with suffering
Though
there's pain in the offering
Blessed
be the name of the Lord
You
give and take away
You
give and take away
My
heart will choose to say
Lord,
blessed be Your name
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