SPEAKER_00: You are listening to the Gateway Franklin Church podcast.
SPEAKER_00: To learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, including our service times here in Franklin, Tennessee, visit us online at GatewayFranklin.com.
SPEAKER_00: And now, here is this week's message.
SPEAKER_01: The Lincoln Memorial is the most visited memorial in Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: Some 7 million people visit it every year.
SPEAKER_01: It's massive.
SPEAKER_01: It's 188 feet long.
SPEAKER_01: It's 119 feet wide.
SPEAKER_01: If you put that on a football field, it takes up from the end zone to the 40-yard line.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's massive.
SPEAKER_01: Inside sits the towering image of Lincoln.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's 19 feet tall.
SPEAKER_01: Who's been to the Washington or to the Lake of Morrill?
SPEAKER_01: So you've been there, you got the visual, what it looked like.
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing to see the scope of it.
SPEAKER_01: It anchors the western part of the reflecting pool.
SPEAKER_01: The eastern part uh end of the reflecting pool is the Washington Monument.
SPEAKER_01: It's an amazing sight.
SPEAKER_01: And you walk in, it almost feels forever in a sense.
SPEAKER_01: You walk in this massive area, and there sits there sits Lincoln.
SPEAKER_01: There's 36 Corinthian-inspired columns around uh the Lincoln Memorial, and it represents the 36 states that were a part of the Union when Lincoln was when Lincoln was president.
SPEAKER_01: Um, to us, Lincoln is bigger than life, like the no-brainer for the presidential hall of fame.
SPEAKER_01: Um but as you know, I finished reading um a book on Lincoln, 750-page biography on Lincoln, uh called Team of Rivals.
SPEAKER_01: And what was striking in the reading of this is that Lincoln's presidency and himself was shrouded in national doubt.
SPEAKER_01: Um, his reelection was very much in doubt.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, only six of the first 16 presidents ever served a second term.
SPEAKER_01: And he was the first in eight to serve a second term.
SPEAKER_01: Um I I enjoyed reading that book so much.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I finished it a couple months ago and I I miss him.
SPEAKER_01: Um of the things that stood out to me was how underestimated he was, how publicly maligned he was.
SPEAKER_01: His education didn't match his peers' education.
SPEAKER_01: Now he was an attorney, but he wasn't he wasn't schooled in the Northeast.
SPEAKER_01: His family had no pedigree, like a lot of the people that he was running for offices for years and years against.
SPEAKER_01: Um he was given the nickname Rail Splitter.
SPEAKER_01: Any Lincoln Memorial University graduates in here?
SPEAKER_01: LMU, they're the rail splitters.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever said, what is a rail splitter?
SPEAKER_01: You know, it was a physical labored job.
SPEAKER_01: Lincoln took it on as a badge of honor, and yet it was meant to deride his background.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Lincoln went into the presidency with this he felt mandate of ensuring that the Union did not disintegrate.
SPEAKER_01: This is what he was.
SPEAKER_01: It was fracturing.
SPEAKER_01: The nation was fracturing, especially around the issue of slavery.
SPEAKER_01: Now, ironically, Lincoln comes in not as an abolitionist.
SPEAKER_01: He comes in on wanting to maintain the status quo.
SPEAKER_01: North has slaves, or North does not have slaves, South has slaves.
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to change that.
SPEAKER_01: What we want to do is that with the new territories that slavery now, it's it's done.
SPEAKER_01: No slavery in the new territories.
SPEAKER_01: He was trying to hold together these factions of the Republican Party.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, side note, this is fun.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there was a political party in the day, and their name was the Know Nothing Party.
SPEAKER_01: I think we still have a couple of those today, the Know Nothing Party.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, so he was trying to hold everybody together.
SPEAKER_01: Um his his position on slavery changes, it changes over time.
SPEAKER_01: That this this was only going to be rectified, uh, or the union was only going to stay together in 36 states if this could be eradicated.
SPEAKER_01: And so he feels this strong, compelling force to hold the union together and stop this, stop this this this moral um degradation to end this.
SPEAKER_01: Um the war did not go well at the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: Um he had generals who completely disobeyed direct presidential order that that publicly maligned his leadership, um, publicly stating that he wasn't fit for the office.
SPEAKER_01: Someone in his own cabinet was actively uh campaigning for the presidency about two years in, actively, when I say actively, you know, talking to newspapers, doing all kinds of things, again, to discredit that this whole thing of keeping the Union together in this war was well above um Lincoln's ability to control.
SPEAKER_01: Um the war had taken a specific toll on his life.
SPEAKER_01: Like they talk about pictures of before and after, and they do this for all presidents and church planners, where they take pictures of you before and after, and you know, here comes this tall, you know, lanky man, and you know, he he didn't care about clubs.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, his clothes didn't fit, he was all rumpled all the time, and then they take pictures of him at the end, and the war had taken its toll.
SPEAKER_01: Um, personal tragedy, his own life had taken a toll, the election had taken its toll.
SPEAKER_01: Um he um the the the the tide of the war does not turn until near the end of his first term.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it wasn't until he gets Ulysses S.
SPEAKER_01: Grant in a position of overall leadership of the armies do we start seeing someone that had the resolve in Grant to stick to, and it was, I mean, you could read in the history books what a and we live in a Civil War area, right?
SPEAKER_01: The tragedy that it was in terms of the loss of life on both sides is staggering.
SPEAKER_01: Um and and um so but it wasn't until near the end of uh his first term does the war start to take a turn.
SPEAKER_01: It looks like, I mean, it is firmly in hand, um, and then he wins the election for his second term.
SPEAKER_01: The night that he's at Ford Theater is after the election win, and he just wants to go to a play.
SPEAKER_01: He loved the theater, went all the time.
SPEAKER_01: He was especially fond of Shakespeare.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was a well-read man.
SPEAKER_01: Interestingly enough, what he goes to see that night was a satire, a comedy called The American Cousin, about an uh person from the Union making it well and going back to England and trying to fit into English society.
SPEAKER_01: And it was a it was a comedy of how how much of a difficult transition and the fun that was made of him.
SPEAKER_01: He was going to blow off steam.
SPEAKER_01: He was just going to blow off steam.
SPEAKER_01: He he is shot, as you know, that evening in his box at Ford Theater.
SPEAKER_01: He succumbs to that assassin's bullet the next day, April 15th.
SPEAKER_01: Um April 15th, 1865.
SPEAKER_01: The contents of Lincoln's pockets was then given to his wife Mary, and then to his son Tad.
SPEAKER_01: And then in 1937, his granddaughter, Tad's daughter, then donates the contents of Lincoln's pockets, donates them to the Library of Congress.
SPEAKER_01: Um, this is a picture.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Judah, now you know why I told you to look at it.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see what's in there?
SPEAKER_01: My knife collector friend back there.
SPEAKER_01: So this is what this is what's in his pockets.
SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's like he should have won cargo shorts, actually, is what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: So he has two pairs of glasses with cases.
SPEAKER_01: One of those pair of glasses is repaired by twine, this upper right hand thing.
SPEAKER_01: That's the president of our United States.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: A lens polisher, that was kind of a weird-looking thing that looks like a clam over here.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, one sleeve button, go figure, an embroidered handkerchief with his, it says a dot lincoln, um, a watch fob.
SPEAKER_01: So the watch fob to the left over here looks like a uh diamond or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: That's quartz, that was to counterweight the balance of the pocket watch.
SPEAKER_01: He had a pocket knife, as all right, as all good presidents should have, a pocket knife in his pocket.
SPEAKER_01: The$5 Confederate bill is kind of a stumper.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but he had visited Richmond.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Richmond was the the capital, then, if you will, of the Confederacy.
SPEAKER_01: And he he visits Richmond right after its fall.
SPEAKER_01: So it's believed that it was given to him kind of as a commemorative, you know, keepsake trophy, if you will.
SPEAKER_01: And then a purple silk lined wallet.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but here's um, if you're mistaken, this is this is not a this is not a library lecture on the life of Lincoln.
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm actually going somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: Um he had nine newspaper clippings in his wallet.
SPEAKER_01: Nine.
SPEAKER_01: They were newspaper clippings of one was someone commenting, uh wrote an article on how strategic and strong his platform was for his second um election.
SPEAKER_01: There were articles written that um uh that was in favor of his stance with the Union uh to stick with the war until slavery could be abolished.
SPEAKER_01: And then there was one particular written by a London statesman that he had a great deal of respect for.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Bright was his name.
SPEAKER_01: And Bright was writing a letter to someone else and it was published.
SPEAKER_01: And Bright spoke about the brilliance he saw and how Lincoln did everything from form his cabinet to war strategy to how he was handling the different factions that he put around him.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why would Lincoln carry those?
SPEAKER_01: Because the war did not was not going well.
SPEAKER_01: Because continually in newspapers it was written about how he wasn't qualified for the job, how the cause was lost, how what he started to hold the union together, he was actually causing the union to fracture.
SPEAKER_01: And here it is, our 16th president of the United States, who we would consider Hall of Fame president, he should have always been full of confidence.
SPEAKER_01: He, there was times where he had to pull out these newspaper articles and read in order to bolster his own courage and his own confidence.
SPEAKER_01: It was said that Lincoln would stay up at all hours waiting for news reports to come through the telegraph wire at the war office so that he could read to see how the war was going because it was so up and down and down for so much of the time.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's my here's my premise.
SPEAKER_01: Have you been in a place where you needed courage and confidence?
SPEAKER_01: That nothing around you, no circumstance that you were in warranted any courage or confidence.
SPEAKER_01: And you needed something from outside of yourself, like there's an old sports phrase that said, don't read your own news clippings.
SPEAKER_01: That this is different.
SPEAKER_01: This is that that you there's just you find yourself or have found yourself in a place in time and you weren't going to dig yourself out.
SPEAKER_01: And somebody you needed some kind of confidence from someone else that believed in you enough to get you out of that place.
SPEAKER_01: This is what today's sermon is about.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 125 that Pastor Micah read to beginning, is not a prayer, it's not a it's not a lament, it's not a song of thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's believed to be, I read it in one place called a communal psalm, and I had not heard that phrase before.
SPEAKER_01: But the psalmist is writing to the people.
SPEAKER_01: In some regard, and this is a weird connect, but to me, it's kind of like the the team that meets with the coach at halftime, and you have just got punched in the face in the first half.
SPEAKER_01: And the coach kind of gets you in the confines of the locker room because he needs you to be different when you go back out on the field or the court or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the kind of connotation I get from this psalm that the psalmist is writing to these pilgrims, and he's writing to instill courage and confidence in them for the walk, for the pilgrimage, for the life, the circumstance ahead of them.
SPEAKER_01: But the courage won't be found in who they are, or the confidence in what they bring to the table.
SPEAKER_01: He's drawing their attention to who their God is.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so here is here's Psalm 125 again.
SPEAKER_01: Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
SPEAKER_01: As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surround his people, both now and forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: The scepter of the wicked will not remain over the land allotted to the righteous, for then the righteous might use their hands to do evil.
SPEAKER_01: This part sounds a little like a prayer, but Lord, do good to those who are good, to those who are upright in heart, but those who turn to the crooked ways the Lord will banish with the evildoers.
SPEAKER_01: Peace be on Israel.
SPEAKER_01: There's so much more to this psalm than what your ears can pick up on.
SPEAKER_01: Um Philip and I had a com uh Paul and I had a conversation after the last last week when I showed all those pictures of Jerusalem, and he said there was a Jewish uh book uh uh shop owner that told him that when you come to Israel, you're to listen with your eyes.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I was trying to show those pictures last week.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I want you to be able to see what the psalmist is saying.
SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, how I begin, there's no way for me to um, I couldn't find a picture that will adequately uh convey this, so I'm gonna have to do my best to draw the picture for you.
SPEAKER_01: But when we begin with verse one, verse one, those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken, but endures forever.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so the the metaphor here deals with Mount Zion.
SPEAKER_01: So we got to start with Mount Zion because it holds, it it's the metaphor, it holds it together.
SPEAKER_01: So um, so Mount Zion, this is this is where we have Mount Zion and Mount Moriah.
SPEAKER_01: So Mount Moriah is where we the temple gets built.
SPEAKER_01: When David comes and conquers the city, um Mount Zion is the city of David, and then eventually just a whole mountain ridge gets absorbed in its Mount Zion, which is the earthly address for God.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so so Mount Zion, it's a mountain, but it's not the highest mountain in the area.
SPEAKER_01: On the east and the south, and on the west, there are mountain ranges that sit above Mount Zion.
SPEAKER_01: The valley to the south and to the east is a deep, it's the valley, the Kidron Valley, that comes down this way, I guess this way.
SPEAKER_01: You're just gonna have to be dyslexic for a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: And then the ravine on this side are so steep that you can't really traverse it.
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't traverse it from you wouldn't traverse it from uh an army standpoint.
SPEAKER_01: There's only one way really in, and that was from the north, from that valley, but you could see them coming from miles around.
SPEAKER_01: The city then sits with walls, fortress-like walls surrounding it.
SPEAKER_01: In 2 Samuel 5, when David is on a quest to capture then his this address of God, which is where he ends up uniting the twelve tribes of Israel under his reign, the the Canaanites, like specifically the Jebusites, had held that spot for 350 years.
SPEAKER_01: And in 2 Samuel 5, and a taunt to David, they say even the lame and the blind could defend these walls.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's how strategic, that's how fortified from a natural topography sense that this was.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the metaphor.
SPEAKER_01: Now think about it.
SPEAKER_01: As the pilgrims would make their way to Jerusalem, and they would make their way over these mountains, probably goat paths, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, not anything you're going to drive an army through, but where they were all when they would make their way up to Jerusalem three times a year, I can see this is the song that leads them through the mountains and the valley passes.
SPEAKER_01: I can see the psalmist picturing that this is what I want people to see.
SPEAKER_01: I want them to see that those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion.
SPEAKER_01: That's great imagery.
SPEAKER_01: I wish I could show you.
SPEAKER_01: There wasn't, I couldn't find.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there are images.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the way y'all looked at the screen, I actually thought that maybe Caitlin found one for me.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So um, so I I I um so let's get to those who trust in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It is the first Psalm of Ascent that uses the word trust.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the ironic the irony here is that Psalms uses the word trust more than any other book in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And yet in the Psalm of Ascent, this is the first time that the word trust is given.
SPEAKER_01: And it generally applies to trusting God for two things, vengeance and deliverance.
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty good.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: We we you might know the verse, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: When we're wronged or an injustice is caused to us, there are many times that we want to carry the vengeance, but he's saying, No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: There there are two specific things that you can like trust me for.
SPEAKER_01: I will defend you, I will deliver you.
SPEAKER_01: Now, um I stepped down off of that in the first service purposely, didn't fall.
SPEAKER_01: Um I choose not to do it in a second.
SPEAKER_01: All right, Alex, I need you.
SPEAKER_01: Don't sit on the front row.
SPEAKER_01: That's all I got to say.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so um, you familiar with trust fall?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Um I learned, I heard this story in my mission pastor days of a Bible translator being a part of uh in a village trying to translate scripture into their language, and they did not have a word for trust.
SPEAKER_01: And so on a particular day, his young aide was in a chair, think back to your middle school days, and he was leaning back on the two legs.
SPEAKER_01: You know this, right?
SPEAKER_01: Right when your buddy comes and knocks it out from under and you fall.
SPEAKER_01: All right, and then immediately that translator said, What word do you have for that?
SPEAKER_01: And he gave him the word that meant lean your whole weight upon.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So, I'm gonna lean on you in a second.
SPEAKER_01: All right, all right, so you have to be a little bit more active.
SPEAKER_01: All right, turn this way for me.
SPEAKER_01: All right, all right, so you don't have to hold me, I'm not gonna fall down, but I do need you not to let me fall.
SPEAKER_01: All right, look, I can do this, now yeah, I can do this, right?
SPEAKER_01: And my whole weight's not there.
SPEAKER_01: I'm leaning, right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm leaning, but my whole weight's not there.
SPEAKER_01: Now, now I will.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'll he has more than you thought, I know.
SPEAKER_01: Uh he has my whole weight.
SPEAKER_01: So so what does that mean practically?
SPEAKER_01: It means if he's not here, I'm down.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Alex.
SPEAKER_01: We played golf all day yesterday.
SPEAKER_01: He's okay.
SPEAKER_01: He's like me do that.
SPEAKER_01: Are you are you are you getting that?
SPEAKER_01: Hard question.
SPEAKER_01: Does that describe your trust in God?
SPEAKER_01: Like if you're not there, I'm falling.
SPEAKER_01: I I can tell you.
SPEAKER_01: If you're if you're s even close to a typical Western American Christian, I'm not sure, I'm not sure that's I'm not sure we hit that bar.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna hedge our bets, we're gonna look for something, because but I guarantee you there's enough of you in this room that you you have exhausted all of those other options.
SPEAKER_01: And the only one you got is God.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the imagery that the psalmist is putting forward.
SPEAKER_01: Those who lean their whole weight upon are like Mount Zion, the topography.
SPEAKER_01: The walls.
SPEAKER_01: The forces that would repel the forces coming to take the city.
SPEAKER_01: Those who lean their whole weight upon are like Mount Zion.
SPEAKER_01: And then it says, and will not be shaken.
SPEAKER_01: Now the English, our our English robs us here because who's been shaken before?
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so could this possibly be the correct understanding that if we fully lean our whole weight upon, then we will never endure anything that shakes us?
SPEAKER_01: Well, my own experience, my experience as a pastor, um, and my understanding of scripture tells me that's not so.
SPEAKER_01: That shaking is a part of our experience, it's a part of our pilgrimage.
SPEAKER_01: It's better understood will not fall.
SPEAKER_01: Those who trust in the Lord will be like Mount Zion, who will never fall, who will never fall, but endures forever.
SPEAKER_01: Endures forever.
SPEAKER_01: So we know about Israel's history, we know from Christ's own words in Matthew 16, 33.
SPEAKER_01: In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I've overcome the world.
SPEAKER_01: That tells me I will experience trouble, but I will not fall because of the trouble.
SPEAKER_01: So here's your pro tip for today lean your whole weight upon your Lord, the person you have placed yourself under.
SPEAKER_01: See, we do a good job, we do a good job with Jesus as Savior.
SPEAKER_01: We don't do quite as good job as Jesus as Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We want a Savior, we want a Redeemer, but it takes us a while to get to the place where we want His will over our will, which is what Lord is.
SPEAKER_01: Here's verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore, both now and forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: So I give you the geography, I give you the geography.
SPEAKER_01: Now, now he's taking this away from um, he's moving us from just a mountain, Mount Zion here, and he's saying, I want you to draw your attention to the mountains because God surrounds us like these mountains are surrounding Mount Zion.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the the Old Testament picture I get here is a story with Elisha.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Elisha succeeds Elijah as kind of the lead prophet for Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Elisha witnesses Elijah being taken up on a chariot of fire, scripture says.
SPEAKER_01: In this particular case, Elisha has prophesied in a manner which always disrupt anybody that was ruling, and they sent an army after him to the city of Dothan in order to capture Elisha.
SPEAKER_01: This particular morning, I don't know if his servants going out for bagels, for coffee, what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01: He gets to the door wherever they're staying, he opens the door, and he sees that army that is now about to take them.
SPEAKER_01: Closes the door, maybe discreetly, maybe screaming.
SPEAKER_01: Tells Elisha, we're surrounded.
SPEAKER_01: Elisha's prayer is Lord open his eyes and let him see.
SPEAKER_01: Lord opens his eyes and he sees angel, fiery angels all around the top, and saying, actually, they're surrounded.
SPEAKER_01: This is the imagery.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't negate the army outside the door.
SPEAKER_01: But it does negate the army outside the door.
SPEAKER_01: As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people.
SPEAKER_01: Both when, now, and when.
SPEAKER_01: There's no gap in that linear space, both now and forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: All right, here's verse three.
SPEAKER_01: The scepter of the wicked will not remain over the land allotted, right?
SPEAKER_01: So there's a there's a reference back to the land being given, allotted over to Israel.
SPEAKER_01: The scepter of the wicked will not remain.
SPEAKER_01: So what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: What's the implication there?
SPEAKER_01: That the scepter of the wicked's there.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So when you say it won't remain, that's that's an indication that it's present.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So the scepter of the wicked, the rule of the wicked, will not remain over the land allotted to the righteous.
SPEAKER_01: The Hebrew connotation carries with it both political and social systems, as well as regular injustices.
SPEAKER_01: And if there was anybody that understood both political and social oppression, it was Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So we have Egyptian oppression, that after a short period of time then turned into Assyrian oppression, which then was followed by Babylonian oppression, which was followed by the Medes and the Persians' oppression, which was followed by Greek oppression, which then brings us to the New Testament Christ's day, and it was Roman oppression.
SPEAKER_01: They understood political and social and injustice.
SPEAKER_01: They understood all of those oppressions.
SPEAKER_01: And the psalmist is saying the wicked scepter is there, but it will not remain on the land allotted to the righteous.
SPEAKER_01: I read a news article on Wednesday.
SPEAKER_01: Wednesday is my right day for the if you're interested in the anatomy of a sermon.
SPEAKER_01: Wednesday, most of my research and reading and note-taking is finished.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm trying to bring it into a cohesive manner to preach.
SPEAKER_01: And it's amazing some of the things that pop up for me on Wednesday.
SPEAKER_01: And on this Wednesday, I read a news report of a family, a mom and a dad, of two teenage girls in Brazil who were arrested.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a present news article.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't something that happened 10 years ago or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: They've been arrested for intellectual negligence.
SPEAKER_01: They've been homeschooling their girls since COVID.
SPEAKER_01: The girls were thriving in that homeschool environment, and so they never went back to the state school.
SPEAKER_01: They were following the curriculum except for something around sexuality and tolerance.
SPEAKER_01: Parents did not align with the state sponsored curriculum to that regard, and so they left that out.
SPEAKER_01: The girls are thriving, they're blowing their exams out of the water, they're multilingual and accomplished pianists, and it's still pending in the court whether the mom or dad will mom and dad will serve 50 days in prison.
SPEAKER_01: Fifteen to 18,000 Nigerians, Christian Nigerians, have been killed this year.
SPEAKER_01: This year.
SPEAKER_01: Which is the biggest oxymoron I've ever heard in my entire life around abortion.
SPEAKER_01: I spoke to a couple outside in the great room right after the first service, visiting from Canada.
SPEAKER_01: I had a reference in here at Canada, but I could not find enough research to substantiate what I wanted to say, so I didn't say it.
SPEAKER_01: And they gave me enough.
SPEAKER_01: That there are things that pastors cannot say publicly from the pulpit without fear of arrest.
SPEAKER_01: And their pastor would have to go to the police station every Monday until they finally stopped them from coming there because of things he was preaching.
SPEAKER_01: He said they were 100 people before COVID, now it's an 800-person strong church, but they no longer meet in a church, they meet out on a farm in a barn because of that oppression.
SPEAKER_01: We hear folks, it has come west.
SPEAKER_01: So this is a part of our pilgrimage.
SPEAKER_01: And the promises that the scepter of the wicked will not remain over the land allotted to, or over those a lot land allotted to those who are righteous.
SPEAKER_01: And uniquely, the next part of that verse says, because my here put it up there so I don't butcher it.
SPEAKER_01: For then, the righteous might use their hands to do evil.
SPEAKER_01: It tells me the father understands that when we live in a predominant culture of wickedness, political, social, that inevitably it takes the toll, and there are righteous that lend themselves to it and are corrupted by it.
SPEAKER_01: Paul mentions at least five different people in the epistles that had walked away from the faith.
SPEAKER_01: Or were they walking away to?
SPEAKER_01: Some other idea, some other philosophy.
SPEAKER_01: Time was hard.
SPEAKER_01: Did not have enough confidence in God followed their own way.
SPEAKER_01: And I know that I mean if I'm gonna go step in stuff, I might as well keep stepping.
SPEAKER_01: I know we live in an area that what was shocking to me was when I first moved here was how uh uh ironclad some people held on to this concept of once saved, always saved.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I mean, I'm an old big-time Pentecostal kid.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was at the altar so many different times, right?
SPEAKER_01: Repenting of my sin so I wouldn't go to hell.
SPEAKER_01: That is not an accurate assessment of the gospel that I lived under.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, I believe, and I've seen it and witnessed it, of someone saying, I think I'm gonna go this way.
SPEAKER_01: The psalmist is telling us.
SPEAKER_01: He's telling us that there there are the the wicked times do lead people to another path, a crooked path.
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of how it gets phrased.
SPEAKER_01: A crooked path.
SPEAKER_01: And and can I just can I just a little a little sidestep over here?
SPEAKER_01: Can I say there is only there's only so long you can live in both worlds without it taking its toll.
SPEAKER_01: I will say it it will take its toll.
SPEAKER_01: But but you can only you can only have one foot in and one foot out for so long before it just extracts a price.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I I hope you can sense how I'm telling you that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not telling you that to scare you into something or to slap you around something as as as much as just you need to hear that.
SPEAKER_01: You needed to hear that.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Um last verse, verse four.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, do good to those who are good, to those who are upright in heart, but those who turn to crooked ways, the Lord will banish with the evildoers.
SPEAKER_01: Upright here literally means straight.
SPEAKER_01: It literally means straight, to be straight.
SPEAKER_01: So, in light of the scepter of wickedness, is encouraging the members of the community, telling they really have two choices to walk straight after God, his will, or his ways, or to walk crooked and face banishment with the evildoers.
SPEAKER_01: This is supported by Psalm 1.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to Psalm 1.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed is the one who does not walk and step with the wicked, or stand in the st stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the Lord, who meditates on his law day and night.
SPEAKER_01: That person is like the tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and those who leaf does not wither, whatever they do prospers.
SPEAKER_01: Not so the wicked.
SPEAKER_01: They are like the chaff that the wind blows away.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous, for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
SPEAKER_01: That that supports, that that Psalm 1 supports what this psalmist says in 125.
SPEAKER_01: And then the last part of the of verse 5 says, Peace be on Israel.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so I've told you this the shalom, wholeness, ease.
SPEAKER_01: This is still the call for us, for Israel, for our nation, for our families, for our kids, for us personally.
SPEAKER_01: Shalom, let there be peace, wholeness, ease over all of us.
SPEAKER_01: So as I wrap this up, come up, team.
SPEAKER_01: Both of these statements are true at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, the world is a hard place, a dangerous place.
SPEAKER_01: It's becoming more hostile to the people and ways of God.
SPEAKER_01: Do you agree with that?
SPEAKER_01: That's a true statement.
SPEAKER_01: This one is also true.
SPEAKER_01: God is our refuge.
SPEAKER_01: He will not fail, and we will not fall.
SPEAKER_01: Our enemies are potent, but they're not omnipotent.
SPEAKER_01: I personally love how and I appreciate how honest the Bible is.
SPEAKER_01: If you're looking for a book of propaganda on Christianity, do not read the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Read somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible is really straightforward, it's plain.
SPEAKER_01: It tells the truth about the world, but it also tells the truth about our God.
SPEAKER_01: I remember being told this young middle teenage years, I guess, and um that Christianity was just my crutch.
SPEAKER_01: It was, it was uh, this wasn't the language teenagers use, but it was, it's, it's the way you, it's the way you extrapolate it.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's just an escape.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Christianity is neither one of those two things.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity is not a crutch for for um walking through hard times.
SPEAKER_01: God's a refuge.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not an escapist theology of somehow just trying to believe that something better will happen and so that I can escape the hardship of this world.
SPEAKER_01: It's not that.
SPEAKER_01: God is a refuge, He's our present strength.
SPEAKER_01: Those of us who trust in Him, lean our whole weight upon Him, we are like Mount Zion.
SPEAKER_01: We are surrounded by Him.
SPEAKER_01: We are strong through Him.
SPEAKER_01: And we will be shaken, but we will not fall.
SPEAKER_01: That's the power of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Our faith is our fortress and God is our refuge.
SPEAKER_01: He surrounds us.
SPEAKER_01: Don't give up on God, don't give into the wickedness around you.
SPEAKER_01: Walk straight, and He will direct your paths.
SPEAKER_01: Frederick Bieckner, acclaimed theologian, he just died in 2022 at the age of 96.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote this in his work called The Magnificent Defeat.
SPEAKER_01: He said, For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists, not just that beyond the steely brightness of the stars, there's a cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going.
SPEAKER_01: But that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-to-day lives who may not be writing messages about himself and the stars, but in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness, our inability to see.
SPEAKER_01: As we move around down here, knee deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world, it is not the objective proof of God's existence we want, but the experience of God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: That is the miracle that we're really after.
SPEAKER_01: And that is so, I think, the miracle we really get.
SPEAKER_01: The premise of the book comes from Genesis 32, where we have Jacob wrestling with God or an angel, and where Jacob says, he's not winning.
SPEAKER_01: And he's holding, but he says, I am not gonna let go until you bless me.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob's whole life changes after this.
SPEAKER_01: We have says that God touched his hip, his hip goes out of socket, he walks with a limp the rest of his days, but he is restored, and this is the lineage of Christ out of the person of Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: And Bigner's point is until you surrender to God, that magnificent defeat, you're on your own.
SPEAKER_01: But when you surrender and you lean your whole weight upon, knock will fall.
SPEAKER_01: Let me get back to Lincoln.
SPEAKER_01: So Lincoln carries these clippings.
SPEAKER_01: There's no telling how many times he pulls them out of his pocket and reads them.
SPEAKER_01: And so, as our movement piece today, we have Psalm 125 as a little newspaper clipping.
SPEAKER_01: Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
SPEAKER_01: As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds these people, both now and forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: The scepter of the wicked will not remain over the land allotted to the righteous, for then the righteous might use their hands to do evil.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, do good to those who are good, to those who are upright in heart.
SPEAKER_01: But those who turn to crooked ways, the Lord will banish with the evildoers.
SPEAKER_01: Peace beyond Israel.
SPEAKER_01: That's what's in these bowls.
SPEAKER_01: What's in these bowls is this little what we are calling a news clipping.
SPEAKER_01: And if you find yourself in a position where you feel surrounded, you feel like you have you've lost maybe some of that confidence, that courage necessary, I encourage you to make your way up.
SPEAKER_01: Grab one of these, keep it on your person, do whatever you want with it.
SPEAKER_01: But um man, what an encouraging week I've had unpacking Psalm 125.
SPEAKER_01: So the really the on the what the only way really to do this without it being chaos, it still will be a little bit chaos.
SPEAKER_01: But if you go out that way, if you want one, and come down in and back, there'll still be a prayer team over here in the corner.
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to grab one and you you need someone to you know lay a hand on your shoulder and lend you some faith today, some courage and the faith, they're gonna be there to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm gonna invite you to stand.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pray and we're gonna worship.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, I want you to walk out of here with more confidence than you walked in.
SPEAKER_01: Not because you believe more in yourself, but you believe more in the God who we've come to worship today.
SPEAKER_01: Father, for my brothers and sisters in Christ, maybe Lord, for for someone who is Christ curious, and they're here today because they wanted something more than some objective truth of whether you exist or lie.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I know, I know you can do something in this moment that can that would alter the entire trajectory of their lives.
SPEAKER_01: I can't say it, I can't speak it, but your spirit can do it in a manner in which they unmistakably know that they were not listening to words of some guy.
SPEAKER_01: But they were listening to you as you were speaking deeply to their soul.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, for those watching today that are just, they're just at the end.
SPEAKER_01: Stuff won't stop coming at them.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, will you fill them full of your strength and courage and confidence today?
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we are 100% dependent on you.
SPEAKER_01: We don't always realize it until we realize it.
SPEAKER_01: But I confess today we are 100% reliant on you.
SPEAKER_01: Do what only you can do in this moment for us, Lord Jesus, I pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I invite you to move.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you were encouraged and challenged by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: Again, to learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, find us online at gatewayfranklin.com.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today.