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If you look at Psalm 35 verse number 4 Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul Let them be turned back and brought to confusion that divides my hurt So the Psalmist is asking God, God will turn his enemies into being confounded and confused So that's the title of the sermon tonight, Confounded and Confused Have you ever looked at somebody's life and looked at somebody's actions? You've seen the way they've behaved, maybe in a tough situation they've made certain decisions in life And you've kind of said to yourself, I don't know why they made that decision I'm confused, it confuses me to understand why they chose that path Why they said those words And sometimes when we look at certain people's actions We kind of want to understand where they're coming from You kind of want to put yourself in somebody else's shoes But it's just too confusing, how is it that somebody did this? You know why they did it? Because they were confounded and they were confused Which is why it brings you to confusion to try to understand why they're acting that way One thing that we learned from this Psalm is that God will sometimes cause people to be confused or confounded Confounded and confused, these are similar terms Of course the word confounded is more archaic, we use the word confused So let's have a look at this, this will be the main driving point of the sermon today And the Psalmist is asking God, can you confuse my enemies? Can you confound my enemies? And I think the great lesson we can learn here is we learn how we can pray Against those that are trying to hurt us Pray against those that are our enemies And you know the Bible commands us that we ought to do good to our enemies I'm not saying that we ought to do something bad toward them We ought to do good unto them But when we go to the Lord for justice, we ought to be praying to the Lord Can you confuse my enemies? Can you confound my enemies? And we'll take an understanding of what that might look like here So let's start there in verse number 1, Psalm 35 verse number 1 You can see it says the Psalm of David, so this is again King David's Psalm Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me Fight against them that fight against me We know that many of the Psalms are about David against his enemies And he's crying to the Lord for help We'll look at verse number 2, take hold of shield and buckler And stand up for mine help So the first thing he asks from the Lord when he's dealing with some wicked enemies of his He asks for the Lord to come to his defense He says take hold of shield and buckler He runs for God to defend him He doesn't seek to defend himself He runs for the Lord who's going to be strong defense Amen? Now we often pray that Some Christians don't have a problem asking and praying for the Lord to defend them But how many Christians have the courage or believe it's right to pray not just for defense But for God to go on the attack We'll look at verse number 3 Now he says to God, draw out also the spear And stop the way against them that persecute me Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation So not only is the Psalmist asking for defense He's asking God, can you go on the attack now? Can you go attack my enemies? Can you go take them down Lord? They deserve to be attacked And he's asking for God to take up his spear Which of course is a weapon of attack So it's not just about being defensive It's about asking the Lord again You know, who defends us? The Lord Who fights for us? Who attacks our enemies for us? It's the Lord, it's not our job to do that But there's nothing wrong with us going to the Lord And seeking his help, seeking him to defend us Seeking him to attack for us as well And you know, I think a lot of Christians Don't even think this is a Christian attitude A lot of people just, they don't know the Bible You know, they love the Psalms but they don't understand This is another imprecatory prayer You know, this is another prayer where the Psalmist is asking God, take out my enemies, okay? Take up your spear, destroy them But I love the way he asks God to destroy them He asks God, can you confuse them? Can you confound them? Can you mess with their minds, in other words, okay? So what is it, verse number 4, let's look at it again Let them, those are the enemies, be confounded And put to shame that seek after my soul Let them be turned back and brought to confusion That devise my hurt Now I was looking up the dictionary definition of the word confound or confused And the favourite one that popped up for me And I'll just tell you what it is My favourite definition that I saw there Was to throw the mind into disorder To throw the mind into disorder So instead of asking the Lord to imprison his enemies Instead of asking the Lord that they would be destroyed by Some other powerful enemy of maybe that they might have, alright? Instead of asking the Lord to maybe cause them to fall sick Actually the Psalmist says, God, can you mess with their minds? Can you cause their minds to be disordered So they don't know their plan of attack against me And you know, this is one sure way that God may very well use His chastisement or his defence or his attack Against those that are striving to hurt his people And you know, when I understood this part of God When I understood that he's someone that can mess with people's minds A lot of these psalms really started to speak to me in a great way I started to realise, wow, this is found a lot of times in the Bible, okay? Where God would act in this way And so, you know, I guess when we think about God messing with some people's minds I guess the first thought that we would get is of course the reprobate, okay? Now, let me just quickly read to you from Romans 1.28 It says, for even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate mind To do those things which are not convenient, okay? So there are certain people, and I'm not going to teach you on reprobates today But there are certain people that do not want to retain God in their knowledge, okay? They don't want to be thinking about God, they don't want to praise God They don't want to think about him as creator They hate God, they hate the concept of God Well, God gets to a point when he gives them over to a reprobate mind He messes with their mind, the word reprobate means rejected, okay? And they can no longer think like a normal human being, okay? This is why they end up doing, you know, disgusting, unnatural sins, you know? Such as homosexuality and things like that But God can give people over to a reprobate mind Those that have rejected him, those that do not want to think about him We're not talking about Christians here, we're talking about God haters, okay? These are people that never got saved, but they've heard of God They've heard of his salvation, and they've rejected Jesus outright Again, we don't know exactly at what point that line is crossed with God But surely he can mess with people's minds, okay? He gives them over to a reprobate mind And of course that is a permanent thing, okay? The mind there is permanently destroyed That mind and that heart of that reprobate can no longer believe on the gospel Can no longer believe on Jesus Christ And they will, they're damned They're on their, you know, they're breathing the last breaths before they're cast into hell There's nothing they can do to change their eternal destination But can you please keep your finger there in Psalm 35 and turn to Daniel chapter 4 Turn to Daniel chapter 4 Because I'm going to be looking at four groups where God may mess with people's minds And understand for what purpose and what could that look like So let's go to Daniel chapter 4 and verse number 31 Daniel chapter 4 and verse number 31 Actually it's four groups, not necessarily where God necessarily messes their mind But we might have people in this world where their minds are messed up, okay? Where they are mentally handicapped to some extent The next time, the next group of people that we might see where God will mess with someone's mind Is to bring somebody into humility, okay? So when we turn to Daniel chapter 4 we're dealing with King Nebuchadnezzar Who thought too highly of himself, you know, if we read the whole passage We know that he was very proud He doesn't recognise that God gave him his kingdom and he thinks it's all about himself And, you know, God warned Nebuchadnezzar that if he does this that God will mess with his mind So let's look at Daniel chapter 4 verse number 31 And again Nebuchadnezzar here at this point is not saved, okay? He's an unsaved heathen king But it says in Daniel 4 31 While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying O King Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken The kingdom is departed from thee And they shall drive thee from men and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field They shall make thee to eat grass as oxen And seven times shall pass over that seven years Until thou know that the most high ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will So Nebuchadnezzar is going to face his judgment of God Where he's going to be cast out of men and he's going to start eating grass like an ox Like a cow That's going to be his food, he's just going to go find a field and start eating the grass He's going to be driven insane, alright? Let's keep going, verse number 33 The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar And he was driven from men and he did eat grass as oxen And his body was wet with the dew of heaven Till his hairs were grown like eagle's feathers and his nails like bird's claws So he's there for seven years, he's lost his mind for seven years And his nails grow and they look like claws His hair grows and he gets long hair or whatever He doesn't fix himself up, I mean this guy looks like an animal He's eating grass of the field, he's gone insane Look at verse number 34 And at the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven And mine understanding returned unto me In other words he lost his understanding He was confused, he was confounded, this was a judgment from God Now he wasn't given over to a reprobate mind Remember the reprobate is a permanent alteration of their mind This was something temporary, this was a seven year thing Seven years of being driven insane by God Understanding returned unto me And then it says, and I blessed the most high And I praised and honored him that liveth forever Whose dominion is an everlasting dominion And his kingdom is from generation to generation So you can see where God has allowed Nebuchadnezzar to be messed with in his mind Where he's driven to be humbled He's understanding, his sanity returns to him And he realizes God did this to me And then he seeks to worship God He recognizes the God of Daniel, the God of the Bible And I believe King Nebuchadnezzar gets saved here Definitely because this is King Nebuchadnezzar's testimony Of how he came to worship the God of the Bible And so that's the second group there Where God can mess with the mind of another unbeliever But to bring them to humility They've been too proud, they've been too lifted up And God does it so they will be drawn toward the Lord So Nebuchadnezzar was never somebody that outright rejected God In fact he never rejected God He just tried to add God to all his other Babylonian's God that he had But the reprobate actually hates God completely Doesn't want anything to do with God And that's why it takes permanent damage to their brain The reprobate mind And so we've got the reprobate which is permanent And then we have this temporary alteration of the mind Where Nebuchadnezzar is driven insane for seven years Alright The third group in the Bible that we see that seemingly lose their mind And if you can please turn to Luke chapter 8 Luke chapter 8, we read a lot about it especially in the gospels The four gospels of Jesus Christ It's those that have been possessed by devils Now I have no reason to not believe that there are still people that are possessed by devils today And you might see somebody lose their mind, completely lose their mind And they might be taken to some mental institution Or they might be considered insane But it's not really that their mind has been messed with by God But rather that they've opened themselves up to some evil spirit to destroy them Okay And we're not going to go too far into this because this is again This is not God directly affecting a man This is just somebody opening themselves up to a devil destroying their minds and destroying their bodies And in Luke chapter 8 we have the story of a man that was possessed by the legion of devils Okay And then Christ delivers him But I just want you to notice verse number 35 Luke 8 35 So once Christ delivers the devils out of this man It says And they were afraid Okay So Jesus not only cast out the devils But he restored that man's mind Of course once those devils were gone That man was going to be put back at his right mind So this is another This is a third category Where people can lose their minds again It's not the work of God But they've allowed a devil or devils to come and possess them And to destroy their life Okay Destroy their minds And then we have the fourth group And the fourth group of people Are people with genuine, you know, mental disorders And the reason for this isn't because God has judged them The reason for this isn't because they're possessed by some devil It's simply because we live in a sin-cursed world And our bodies are deteriorating Okay We have genetic defects And, you know, we all have genetic problems Okay There's no like superior human being on this earth without some genetic issue Everyone's got some issue Everyone's got their sin-cursed body We're all going to die one day This body deteriorates Okay No matter how much you try to look after and protect it One day it's going to pass away Alright But some people have genetic issues that affect their minds Okay So you might think about a child that might be born with Down syndrome Okay Or maybe not even born that way But they might have a serious concussion A serious head injury You know Just in life Maybe in a sporting accident A car accident And they've suffered brain damage Okay And again this is not God coming in and just making it happen It's just because of the sin-cursed world The consequences of a sinful nature and a cursed world Where unfortunately this happens to many people Again it's not a supernatural It's just a damage of the mind Okay And, you know, other people might have chemical imbalances in the brain That affect maybe hormones And that can cause people to be bipolar People get labelled with different kinds of mental disorders And I'm not a medical expert here I think that a lot of people are diagnosed with mental issues that have no mental problems at all They're just different We're all different But because they're not within social norms They're considered to be some type of mental patient You know We're all different I recognise that But then there are obviously some people that are born with these issues You know We often look at people that are diagnosed with depression And I never understood this before Because I used to think How can you be diagnosed with depression? How is this a mental disorder? Because I used to think Well, you know, we all get depressed, don't we? We all get saddened We all get stressed We all get worried and frustrated You know Are we all suffering from depression then? Do we all need to be treated? But what I understood once was made clear to me Is that people that are suffering from depression That are clinically diagnosed as depressed It's more to do because they've lost the mental capacity To overcome difficult situations A normal person with normal mental abilities Will go through sorrow Will go through depression Will go through sadness But then they have the mental capacity to find a solution Say, okay, this is how I'm going to work my way out of this situation You know I'm going to take steps moving forward To get myself out of this So I can overcome Whereas somebody that is diagnosed with depression From what I've heard anyway It's that the mental ability to get them out of that situation To create a plan to overcome the sorrow and the sadness It doesn't work Okay There's a problem there And so they're suffering from some type of mental issue Which might be genetic Okay And so I'm not going to go into all of that in any great depth We're primarily looking at when God will mess the minds of our enemies Okay And God can have a hand there So again, let me just tell you what those four grips are Number one, where God, you know, gives someone over to a reprobate mind Which is permanent Number two, where God allows somebody to go temporarily insane Okay In order to be humbled and to see the power of God We have number three, where God doesn't necessarily do this But somebody, a man, allows devils to corrupt their minds Okay Number four, people are just born with genetic issues That's just the way of the world Okay And so these are, you know, different groups of people Maybe suffering with mental issues Now, as I said, the title for the sermon tonight was Confounded and Confused Now, we can all feel confused sometimes You know, we might have different options in life And we say, look, I'm a little bit confused I'm not sure which option to take here But you're in your fine mental state Okay It's not that you're confused in the sense of the psalm You know, it's just that, hey, you're not sure which way to go You might look at a Bible passage and you go, well, that Bible passage, it's a bit confusing But again, we don't mean it in the same context as this psalm Because God is not the author of confusion Okay God wants to reveal his truth to us Okay This is the point where somebody just literally cannot think clearly Okay He was once an enemy trying to hurt the psalmist or hurt you And you've asked God, God has stepped in He's messing their minds And that person no longer knows how to hurt you No longer knows how to attack you And they start making and saying stupid things That ultimately lead to their own destruction That's what we're looking at here in this psalm So let's keep going there Go back to Psalm 35 If you turned away, Psalm 35 and verse number 5 Psalm 35 verse 5 says Let them, those that are confused and confounded, let them be as chaff before the wind And let the angel of the Lord chase them Alright, so we looked at the chaff before It's a chaff which blows away when you're growing crops And the idea that I get here about being confounded and confused and being blown away Is that it's kind of like the psalmist is asking this enemy, can you make him a has-been When I think about a has-been, I think about child Hollywood actors Children that got into Hollywood really early and they become really popular And then it's like, you know, what's happened to them, right? Many years go by, you don't hear about that individual What's happened to them, right? They become popular, they become full of pride They become very wealthy at a very early age And then they become insignificant They become like chaff that gets blown away They were somebody at one point and then they become insignificant And then when you find out, well, what happened to that child star? What happened to that Hollywood star? You find out they're filled with drugs You find out that maybe they've ended their life early They're imprisoned, they're, you know, whatever They're alcoholics, they've been divorced five times and remarried five times You know why that happens? Because they've become confused and confounded They've been overwhelmed with the popularity Overwhelmed with all the pleasures, so-called pleasures of this world And God, you know, has allowed in His power to just confuse their minds And you're just wondering, what happened to them? That was so promising and I don't think that Because I think all actors are trash anyway All Hollywood actors are trash But, you know, that's what people say They're so promising, they've got a bright future And then you find out they're destroying their lives They've gone insane, they've gone crazy And you're like, I just don't understand, how did they become? Well, the reason you don't understand is because you have sanity of mind You know, God many times can step in and destroy people's minds on purpose Because they've lifted themselves up against the Lord Let's keep going Verse number six Let their way be dark and slippery And let the angel of the Lord persecute them Remember, this is a godly man telling God Can you send your angel to persecute my enemy? Can you make their way dark and slippery, okay? So, Lord, can you just turn off the lights there? Right, when something is dark, you can't see clearly You don't know what steps to take, right? And it's slippery, meaning that you're going to slip, you're going to fall And so this enemy once had, you know, tactics against the Psalmist Or maybe against you, you can put yourself in this situation If you've been persecuted by people And you're asking God, can you make their ways very dark? Don't give them light, don't allow them to think of a good plan to attack me In fact, make them slip, Lord Make them hurt themselves, make them fall and hurt themselves Because they're so confused and so confounded And brethren, I've, you know, I've dealt with this in my life Where I've had enemies And all of a sudden, you know, it seems like they've got a plan And all of a sudden, they just trip over themselves, all right? Or they just end up hanging themselves, figuratively speaking, right? You've given them too much rope and they hang themselves It's like they don't even know what to do, they don't even know what to think They don't know how to move forward in their attack And I truly believe it's because God steps in many times And defends you, attacks those enemies and confounds them Confuses them, messes up their minds, okay? And they cannot think clearly I would hate to receive the judgment of God The chastisement of God in this way You know, I have wife, many kids, you know, two churches to oversee And I would hate for God to step in and confuse me, confound me I just didn't even know, what do we do? I don't know And the steps you take are dark and slippery and you fall and you hurt yourself But this is one sure way that God can attack your enemies And you need to think about this If you have people that seem to be on your back On your case, just trying to hurt you You may need to go to the Lord in prayer This imprecatory prayer like this And ask God, can you please mess with their minds? Let's keep going, verse number seven So the Bible says, look, let them be caught unaware Let them fall in their own traps Can you keep your finger there and go to Esther chapter seven I think the book of Esther has one of the best stories Of somebody falling in their own traps, okay? They set a trap to hurt others But then they fall in their own trap And Esther chapter seven, please, Esther chapter seven, verse number three Esther chapter seven, verse number three We have the story of Haman and his hatred toward the Jews And his hatred toward these people that have been taken into captivity And he sought to destroy, to kill all, to wipe out all the Jews in the land of Persia And we have the great story of Esther A very courageous, godly woman who sought to protect her people And let's just fast forward to the story here in Esther chapter seven, verse number three and my people at my request Before I keep reading, I should say that Haman He was basically like second in command on the kingdom, okay? And he was thinking that the king thought well of him He thought the queen, Queen Esther, thought well of him You know, he thought that he was going to be, you know, just paraded And received by the masses And his name was going to be great Haman was caught unaware The whole time he's seeking and plotting to destroy the people of God And he's caught unaware Verse number four, what does Esther say? For we are sowed, I and my people, to be destroyed To be slain and to perish But if we had been sowed for bondmen and bondwomen I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage Then the king, Ahasuerus, answered and said unto Esther the queen Who is he? And where is he that dost presume in his heart to do so? Who is this guy that's trying to destroy the Jews? Who is this guy who's trying to kill you, Esther? Well, it says there in verse number six And Esther said, the adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen So Haman's plans are found out, okay? He did not realize that the queen herself was a Jew And that by trying to kill all the Jews He was out actually hurting the queen herself, okay? So now he's afraid, what's going to happen? Drop down to verse number nine It says, and Habonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king Behold also the gallows fifty cubits high Which Haman had made for Mordecai So Haman had made these gallows, okay, to hang Mordecai What fifty cubits high, who had spoken good for the king Standeth in the house of Haman Then the king said, hang him thereon So they hanged Haman on the gallows That he had prepared for Mordecai Then was the king's wrath pacified, okay? So when we look at the fact that the psalmist is asking That God would mess with someone's mind That they would be caught unaware, okay? So in other words, we're praying that this enemy of ours Would lack situational awareness, okay? That would lose the ability to understand What is developing around them, the environment around them And when things are turning against them They still think they're going to win They still think they're going to defeat their enemies But the whole time the tables have been turning And eventually you see the same thing that he had planned To do to Mordecai He ended up suffering himself He was hung himself And this is a great example of somebody spreading the net Creating a situation to hurt somebody And then they fall into their own trap Again, God can cause somebody to be mentally blinded Confused, distraught, unable to think clearly Where they fall into their own trap I think this is a great prayer to pray Again, I've seen it in my life And I've seen it in other people's lives Where God has come in and defended them From the enemies that sought to hurt them, okay? Back in Psalm 35, verse number 9, Psalm 35, verse 9 Now you say, Pastor Kevin, are you sure we should be praying for this? God, can you mess the minds of my enemies? Can you cause them confusion? Can you cause them to be confounded? Can you make their ways dark and slippery, Lord? Can you cause them to fall into their own trap? Lord, I want to see them destroyed by their own hands Are you sure, Pastor, that this is a good prayer to pray? Absolutely, look at verse number 9 And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord It shall rejoice in his salvation So the psalmist is saying, when I see you confound the Lord When I see them confused and blinded And unable to attack me anymore And they destroy themselves He says, I'm going to rejoice about it, praise God Yes, this is in our Bibles Yes, not many churches like to preach on these psalms But these are wonderful psalms They give you great comfort Not great comfort, but it gives you great comfort To know that God can help you in such a manner Verse number 10 All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee? Who deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him? Yea, the poor and the needy, from him that spoileth him Can you please keep your finger there and go to Proverbs 24 Keep your finger there in Psalm 35 and turn to Proverbs 24 Is it right to rejoice when we see our enemies destroy themselves? Absolutely Now there is a proverb here that I want you to read And it's not a contradiction in the Bible It's just understanding this in the right way I want you to rejoice When you see God's hand against an enemy And he wipes them out for you I want you to rejoice in the right way So Proverbs 24 verse number 17 It says, Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth And let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth So should we rejoice when our enemy falls? Because Proverbs says don't, don't rejoice But he said, Pastor Gavin, you just told us to rejoice Well, let's keep going, verse number 18 Let the Lord see it, and it displeased him And he turned away his wrath from him You see, when you rejoice in the wrong way It will displease God And God will no longer continue pouring out his wrath on your enemy So you say, what do we do, Pastor? Do we rejoice or do we not rejoice? Of course we rejoice, but we rejoice in the right way You know, when we see our enemy defeated by the hand of God We ought not to be like, ah, sucked in, you're an idiot You deserve, look what happened to you and rejoice over there falling No, we ought to rejoice and say, God, thank you for helping me Lord, thank you for stepping in We're rejoicing in God's salvation We're not rejoicing at seeing somebody hurt themselves We would rather, wouldn't we rather be their friends? Wouldn't we rather they never hurt us? Wouldn't we rather that they love the Lord? Wouldn't we rather they believe in the gospel and be saved? We don't want to see them just destroyed for the sake of being destroyed But when we see them destroyed, we also turn to God and say, God, I rejoice in you I rejoice in your salvation I've seen your hand, Lord, and that will please the Lord But when we're just there mocking our enemy that has fallen Ah, you're an idiot, you're stupid, look what God has done to you That's going to displease God Because your heart's not in the right place When we rejoice When we rejoice, when we say our enemies fall We turn and rejoice in the Lord Lord, thank you for helping me Thank you for delivering me Thank you for your salvation Back to Psalm 35 So the question becomes And I think as we're looking for this psalm You know, when should we pray this prayer? When should we get to the point where we go to the Lord and say, Lord, I want you to mess with their minds Please confuse them Please confound them We'll sandwich from this point, I believe, all the way to verse number 26 We get the description of an enemy Where, you know, biblically speaking, you are in your right to go to the Lord and ask him to confuse them Because if you drop down to verse number 26 In the psalm, drop down to verse number 26 It says, let them be ashamed And brought to confusion, there it is again, together that rejoice at my hurt So you can see when we get to verse number 26, he hasn't really changed topics here But he's still talking about those that he's asking God to confuse So sandwich from here to verse number 26 The description of the enemy When you sort of identify your personal enemy as someone like this Then you can say, well I know this is when I can go to the Lord and pray for God to confound them So let's keep going there in Psalm 35 verse 11 Verse number 11 So this is what the enemy of David is doing False witnesses did rise up They laid to my charge things that I knew not So false witnesses So when people start to lie about you They lay to your charge, they say, you said you're going to do this You said you're going to do that You did this and you did that and it's all a lie It's false witnesses At that point, you know, hey this is an enemy that I can pray for That God would confuse, that God would confound Let's keep going, verse number 12 So what does David, what does the Psalmist do? Is the Psalmist doing evil to his enemy? No, it says, they rewarded me evil for good I've done them good But they've done me evil to the spoiling of my soul Well you know what, if you've done good to people Even when you know they don't deserve it You know, and they turn around, they do evil They harm you, they hurt you This is the time for you to pray an imprecatory prayer like this And ask for God to confuse and confound them Verse number 13 I believe what it's saying there, my prayer returned into my own bosom I believe it's saying that I prayed privately, you know, for this person You know, I've thought about this person I've seen them hurting I've fasted for them Hey, he's doing good toward his enemies He's fasted for them when he's seen his enemies sick He's prayed for them, not only with them, but privately He's gone to his house, he's thought about them He's praying privately Obviously, this guy, you know, the Psalmist And what you should be doing to your enemies Is doing good, pray for their good, okay? But then, obviously, when they do evil back to you And they can turn around and say, well God Now is the time for me to ask you to please defend me Please attack my enemy Please cause them to be confused and confounded Verse number 14 The point being here, brethren Is that if you've wronged somebody Okay, you've done wrong, you've done evil You've hurt somebody And then they've responded in a hurtful way That's not the time for you to pray An imprecatory prayer Cause they're responding from the wrong that you've done The point here is That if you treated that person as a friend As a brother, you know And they've turned around and they've backstabbed you They've hurt you Now you have the liberties Now you're justified to go before God And pray an imprecatory prayers Let's keep going, verse number 15 Notice that it's not just one When you've got that personal enemy They want to gather others with them They want to turn others against you It says So when's another time What kind of person should we be praying imprecatory prayers toward? Somebody that gets together with other people They conspire against you He says So it's a secret thing, right? They're getting together secretly To turn against you, to do you harm And when you find out about that And they tear into you That's when you ought to go to the Lord Lord, please confound my enemy Please confuse them Verse number 16 With hypocritical mockers in feasts They gnashed upon me with their teeth Okay So when you're hypocritically mocked That's another time That's another person that you ought to be praying imprecatory prayers against Now brethren I've said it many times I'm pretty sarcastic And I can mock Maybe I go a bit overboard sometimes I laugh at people I like to keep things light and friendly I can laugh and mock at myself too You know But the difference between just having a joke around You know, for fun And look at the kind of mocking that this is It says So obviously this mocking is to destroy Okay It's to destroy somebody It's not just to laugh around and have a good time It's to absolutely embarrass and destroy an individual Okay But it's not just mocking here It's not just when somebody mocks you They are hypocritically, hypocritical mockers Meaning that they are They're critical of you They're critical of your actions But they do the same thing Or they do even worse Okay Have you ever come across somebody like that That criticizes your behavior Criticizes what you've done But you know that they're the same They do the same Or they've done even worse than what you've done I hate hypocrisy You know, I hate it And it's just one of the worst things That gets under my skin Reverend Okay But hey, that's a great time Someone is hypocritically mocking you That's a great time to praise the Lord That he would confound them You know, the term that I've heard get thrown away in the last I don't know if this term I'm sure it existed before But the word projection The idea of projection is the idea where You know, you would criticize somebody For something But what you're really doing is you're projecting So you might say to somebody Hey, you're a racist But you're just projecting that racism And you're a little racist Okay You might say, hey, I don't know You know, this person is slothful and sluggard You know, but really you're projecting Your slothfulness, your slugginess Towards somebody else And of course that would be hypocrisy Because you're the one that's actually with that sin And those struggles But you're trying to make other people look like that way So you feel better about yourself Okay Well, you know what When people are accusing you falsely like that Hypocritically You ought to be praying that the Lord will judge that individual Let's keep going Verse number 17 And these are verses that I like in the Psalms Because, you know, we're just men We're just flesh and blood And when we're asking for the Lord to defend us And to judge our enemies It can seem like that God takes a long time You know, we want God to deal with something very swiftly, very quickly But you need to understand that God can see You know, obviously the future He knows the future And God sometimes will allow things to play out To the point where your enemy is not just defeated You know, in the battle But that he's defeated in the whole war Many times God will just allow the things to continue for His wrath to be built up against that enemy And you've just got to be patient with the Lord's timing Now, what I like about verse number 17 It just shows the realism of the human nature Because the Psalmist is saying Lord, how long will thou look on? How long, Lord, are you going to keep watching? My enemies hurt me Rescue my soul from their destructions My darling from the lions So you can see the Psalmist becoming impatient Lord, how long, when are you going to step in, Lord? When are you going to defend me? When are you going to attack my enemies? When are you going to make them confounded and confused? And again, you know, if you have been praying these kinds of prayers And you've got enemies And you just don't see them being defeated Just realize that this is part of human nature We can all become impatient like this But again, this is in the Bible So we know that, no, don't worry God's timing will come, okay And he will destroy our enemies in his due time Let's keep going to verse number 18 And then he says I will give thee thanks in the great congregation I will praise thee among much people So he says, look, when you deliver me, Lord When you confuse and confound my enemy You know what I'm going to do, Lord? I'm going to praise you I'm going to go to the great congregation Hey, I'm going to go to church And I'm going to tell everybody I'm going to testify how you have delivered me And you've caused my enemies to become confounded and confused Now, I can't remember that testimony recently in church, do you? I don't know But this is something like we often rejoice when we see souls saved We might rejoice when we've been sick And we see God deliver us from some sickness But I haven't heard many times people come to church And say, Brevin, let me tell you a story I had this enemy come to me And I prayed some imprecatory prayer God destroyed him Praise God, I'm going to rejoice the Lord in the great congregation Hey, but it's something biblical It's something we should do You know, giving great testimonies like this When God has delivered you from the hands of your enemies Verse number 19 Let not them that are mine enemies Wrongfully rejoice over me Neither let them wink with the eye That hate me without a cause For they speak, not peace But they devise deceitful matters against them That are quiet in the land So these enemies of the psalmist They kind of mock you for sport Alright And they get a kick out of seeing you suffer The psalmist is saying, God, don't give them that satisfaction Don't let them be satisfied when they Don't let them succeed in their plans Because they're going to rejoice over me When they hurt me and they see me fall And they see me struggle They see me cry They see me get depressed, Lord Don't let them be satisfied when that happens Of course, you know, if they're confused and confounded They're not going to be able to think straight They're not going to find satisfaction in hurting God's people Verse number 21 Ah ha! Ah ha! Our eye has seen it So what are these wicked people like? Well, when you've got a wicked person That's just constantly watching you Constantly just seeing, watching you fail Their eyes are upon you And boy, I've seen this online Where you have some great men of God Some great pastors And look, every pastor is just a human being Every pastor is not perfect Every pastor can say some wrong things Or do some wrong things But you've got enemies online And they're just watching every sermon They're watching every video Just to go, ah ha! Ah ha! Our eye has seen it We've seen you fail Listen, if you watch someone long enough Of course you're going to see them fail If someone watches me long enough They're going to see me fail If I watch you long enough I'm going to watch you fail But these are wicked people The only reason they watch Is to see some mistake Some slip of the tongue And again, these are the kinds of enemies They're not there to be your friend They're there to waste your time And watch you fall Let's pray that these people Get confused and confounded That God will go on the attack In our war against these enemies Verse number 22 This thou hast seen, O Lord Keep not silence O Lord, be not far from me So it says, Lord, you've seen What the enemies have done And I think that's, again That's very encouraging Because people can hurt you And they might do it behind the scenes Or secretly And you're like, you know It's done secretly so nobody knows But you know someone's trying to hurt you You know so many people are trying to attack you But you just don't know how to respond to it Because if you start saying Well, this person's a wicked person They can sit around and say Well, what have we done? Because it's all done secretly But remember, God sees all things And this should give us great comfort Because God sees it when people hurt you When people are plotting against you When people are trying to hurt you God sees their actions Okay Look at verse number 23 Stir up thyself And awake to my judgment Even unto my cause My God and my Lord Now what I thought was interesting in this psalm Instead of the psalmist saying God, can you judge my enemy And of course, God will judge the enemy But the psalmist is saying Lord, can you awake to my judgment He's saying, can you judge me He says, even to my cause My judgment, my cause He's saying, why would the psalmist be saying that to the Lord Well, let's keep going to Psalm 24 Again, it says, judge me O Lord my God According to thy righteousness And let them not rejoice over me Okay So we want to remember that We may want to see God's hand A certain way against our enemies Again, maybe the timing We want God to deal with it quickly Or we want God to deal with it a certain way Okay But really, when God's judgment falls God's going to do it his righteous way Right Judge me, O Lord, according to thy righteousness Lord, you judge it righteously And so God may judge the situation differently Than what you hoped for Okay The other thing the psalmist is saying, judge me Am I, Lord, can you truly look down upon me And say that what I'm suffering against this enemy That that's the right judgment for me You know, is it right for me to go through This punishment or, you know, these attacks From the enemy Can you judge me according to your righteousness, Lord And again, I think this is very wise Not just asking God, can you judge my enemy Can you destroy my enemies But can you judge me righteously as well Okay And, you know, this will help you accept When God does pass judgment And it might not be the kind of judgment you hoped for That you wished for But when it falls, you can say, well, God judged righteously He knew better than me Okay Verse number 25 Let them not say in their hearts Ah, so we would have it Let them not say, we have swallowed them up Again, he's asking God, don't give them satisfaction Don't let them think they've beat me Because, Lord, I'm your child, I'm your son I don't want, you know I don't mind them, you know, constantly trying to hurt Like, you know, be seeking to hurt me But I don't want them to be satisfied I don't want them to succeed I don't want them to see my fall Okay Verse number 26 Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion Together that rejoice at mine hurts Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor That magnify themselves against me So the Simon's saying, Lord, again Please confuse them, please confound them Okay To the point where by them being confused and confounded They start doing stupid things They start saying the wrong things They start acting the wrong way That it brings, they close them with shame That they're ashamed for what they've done Where before other people, other people would look at them And say, hey, you guys are idiots You know, you should be ashamed for the way you're behaving And dishonor That they would be dishonored by their behavior So again, this is one way God may very well judge our enemies To cause them confusion and be confounded Where their actions no longer look right or sane And they just dishonor Whatever honor they may have had, you know, before other people In the eyes of others Now they've lost their whole reputation Right People think of them like complete morons For the way they've behaved And yeah, surely that's what happens when people are confused and confounded They perform the wrong way They say the wrong things They do the wrong things And then their weakness is on show for everybody else They're ashamed They're dishonored Verse number 27 Then it says Let them shout for joy Who's them? Let them shout for joy and be glad Who's these? That favor my righteous cause Yea, let them say continually Let the Lord be magnified Which have pleasure in the prosperity of his servants And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness And of thy praise all the day long So it's saying Not only is it saying Lord judge my enemies and confuse them But Lord for those that have supported me Those that have been behind me Those that have helped me in this time of battle That have supported me against all these other enemies Lord we're all going to shout for joy together Right That favor my righteous cause Those that have looked upon me favorably Those that came to my aid and helped them Lord we're going to rejoice together We're going to rejoice that you have stepped in Lord And defeated my enemies that you've stepped in And you've saved me from this problem We're going to rejoice together And again that's the thought Where hey we need to come to church sometimes And bring that great testimony When God has delivered you from the hands of the enemy And we ought to rejoice together Alright And I think sometimes you know It changes the way we sort of process sometimes information Because we might go to church and share something like this And say yeah you know this guy that was trying to hurt me Or this enemy of mine that was trying to you know dishonor me or something And they've been sorted out And we're like oh yeah how sad Yeah you know Wishing didn't come to that But other you know we should be going No praise God that he's delivered us Praise God rejoice in the Lord that he's our great savior That he answers our prayers That he causes our enemies to be confused and confounded And so brethren in conclusion Psalm 35 is another imprecatory prayer You know And again There aren't many churches that will preach on these psalms Okay Or they'll try to justify or explain away And say well this is not how we ought to pray today But God has given us his word You know every word of God is pure Okay You know God has given us these psalms You know all scripture is given by inspiration of God And we ought to learn from this You know I mean when have you prayed like When's the last time you've prayed like this Well hopefully you haven't had too many enemies to pray But when you've had enemies And you've gone through problems and hardships Have you turned around and prayed like this Well this is why we got a psalm like Psalm 35 So we can learn We can identify Say God we want you to attack this certain way We want you to attack with confusion We want you to mess with their minds Lord We want them to be in a dark place A sleepy place Where they fall in their own nets They hurt themselves They destroy themselves Lord And you know you've given us this psalm So you can help us identify the kind of personality The kind of enemy that deserve this kind of prayer And I think if we pause And think about our lives Where people have been harmful and hurtful We can probably think back and say Yeah there were people in my life that were like this to me And you know next time this happens Or maybe you're in a situation right now Maybe you have an enemy right now that's seeking to hurt you In a similar way to Psalm 35 Well you know what Stop praying that God will bless them And pray that God will curse them Pray that God will confuse and confound their minds This is biblical, this is proper And again we have this in the Bible So God can teach us to pray in the right way Okay let's pray