Those Who Work Evil

Psalms 94:1-7

“O Lord, God of vengeance,

    O God of vengeance, shine forth!

Rise up, O judge of the earth;

    repay to the proud what they deserve!

O Lord, how long shall the wicked,

    how long shall the wicked exult?

They pour out their arrogant words;

    all the evildoers boast.

They crush your people, O Lord,

    and afflict your heritage.

They kill the widow and the sojourner,

    and murder the fatherless;

and they say, ‘The Lord does not see;

    the God of Jacob does not perceive.’”

Who are the wicked? They are all those who practice evil and wickedness, and for whom wickedness is their habit, their lifestyle, what they keep going to and obeying and yielding to over again, deliberately and habitually, and usually without conscience, compassion, or true remorse. And many of them, sadly so, are also professers of faith in Jesus Christ, who claim Jesus Christ as Lord and as Savior of their lives and heaven as their eternal destiny, but regardless of how they live their lives on this earth.

So, they can be those who give off an image of being children of God, and followers of Christ, but truly they are the spiritually dead who are outside of genuine faith in Jesus Christ. For God is not their Father, but the flesh is still reigning in their bodies. They claim the grace of God over their lives but they are not living under the true grace of God, but they are being guided still by their flesh. For they are the sexually immoral and those who are angry at God and who curse God by how they live their lives.

So, their worship of “God” is false worship, for what they truly worship is a false god of the flesh, which is made to look similar to the One and Only True God but is a distortion of who God truly is. It is a man-created god which appeases human flesh and who does not put sin to death in the life of the “believer,” but who allows sin to still reign in the “believer’s” life. So they who worship this false god of the flesh end up mocking, insulting, and belittling the One and Only True God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

As well, their Father is not the God of the Scriptures, but their father is pleasure, enjoyment, fun, entertainment, sinful pleasures, immorality, lying, trickery, deception, and dishonesty, for that is what they truly worship and give their time and devotion to instead of to God. So they are wanderers who claim faith in the One True God but whose lifestyles are the opposite of what they profess. And they are those who use the grace of God as a coverup for evil, more often now the evil of sexual immorality and adultery.

Although they claim to call on and to pray to the one true God, they do not, for they are living the opposite of what God has called them to live. For they are not serving the Lord Jesus at his altar of sacrifice with their lives, but they are serving the flesh. They are not seated at the table of God, but they are seated in their filth – in what is dishonorable, corrupt, vile, immoral, wicked, and dishonest. So their “altar of sacrifice” to God is artificial, and they are being fed distortions and alterations of truth, but not the truth.

For they have people now in charge who are telling them that they are allowed to make alterations and adjustments to God’s dwelling place, and to the gospel of our salvation. And so they are now blocking out the light of the truth of the gospel from entering into their lives and into their gatherings, and they have turned the light into darkness. And so pleasure-seeking and entertainment and wandering minds and hearts are what are replacing true worship of God and the truth of the gospel of our salvation.

[Jn 3:19-20; 2 Thes 2:9-10; 2 Thes 3:1-2; Jas 1:19-21; 3 Jn 1:10; Matt 7:21-23; Matt 15:18-20; Mk 7:20-22; Lu 6:45; Lu 13:26-28; Jn 5:28-29; Rom 1:29-32; Rom 2:6-10; 1 Co 6:9-10; 2 Co 5:10; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Col 3:5-11; Heb 3:12; 1 Pet 3:12; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10]

Psalms 94:16-23 ESV

“Who rises up for me against the wicked?

    Who stands up for me against evildoers?

If the Lord had not been my help,

    my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.

When I thought, ‘My foot slips,’

    your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.

When the cares of my heart are many,

    your consolations cheer my soul.

Can wicked rulers be allied with you,

    those who frame injustice by statute?

They band together against the life of the righteous

    and condemn the innocent to death.

But the Lord has become my stronghold,

    and my God the rock of my refuge.

He will bring back on them their iniquity

    and wipe them out for their wickedness;

    the Lord our God will wipe them out.” Psalms 94:16-23 ESV

Jesus Christ, when he walked this earth, told us that if we follow him with our lives that we are going to be hated, rejected, mistreated, and persecuted as he was. So, a walk of faith in Jesus Christ is not “easy street.” It is not all fun and games and entertainment and self-pleasure. It is a hard life, and it is a life of suffering, but it is a good life, and a life of peace and true joy in the Lord. For we are at peace with God by God-given faith in Jesus Christ who are crucified with Christ in death to sin and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer as slaves to sin but as slaves to God and to his righteousness, all to the glory and praise of God, in his power.

But we are not to fear those who rise up against us and who persecute us without cause and who do evil against us. For the Lord is our helper. He is our support if we are walking in righteousness and in obedience to him and not in sin. He is our encourager and the one who lifts our spirits. Even though our enemies, who are the Lord’s enemies, band together against the lives of us who are righteous in the eyes of the Lord because we are walking in righteousness, by his grace, and not in sin, we are not to fear them or what they might do to us or say about us. But we are to let the Lord be our stronghold and our rock of refuge in whom we place our trust.

[Matt 5:10-12; Matt 10:16-25; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 6:22-23; Lu 21:12-19; Jn 15:1-21; Jn 16:33; Jn 17:14; Ac 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; Phil 3:7-11; 1 Pet 1:6-7; 1 Pet 4:12-17; 2 Tim 3:12; 1 Thess 3:1-5; Jas 1:2-4; 2 Co 1:3-11; Heb 12:3-12; 1 Jn 3:13; Rev 6:9-11; Rev 7:9-17; Rev 11:1-3; Rev 12:17; Rev 13:1-18; Rev 14:1-13]

Songs in the Night  

An Original Work / December 18, 2013

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.” Acts 16:25 NIV ‘84

Lord, I praise You forevermore.

You, my Savior, I now adore.

Hope in heaven awaiting me,

Because You died at Calvary.

I have been forgiven,

And I’m bound for heaven.

Jesus set me free from

All my sin, I say.

I will praise Him always!

Lord, I love You for all You’ve done:

Overcame death, my vict’ry won!

Jesus saved me, and now I’m free!

I rejoice in His love for me.

I will walk in vict’ry!

My sin is but hist’ry!

I am free to please Him

With my life today.

I will love Him always!

Lord, I thank You for giving me

A new life bought at Calvary.

Loving Jesus, I meet with Him.

Tender mercies now flow within.

Lord, I am so thankful;

Through my Lord, I’m able

To sit at His table;

Fellowship with Him.

I will thank Him always!

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