Psalm Chapter 36

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David the servant of the LORD.

Psalm 36:1 The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.

This is probably what starts all mankind on the road to sin. They lose their fear of God. If you recall the story of Adam and Eve. Satan was able to lessen their fear of God by showing them that they would only gain wisdom, not die. This was a great lie. Satan misrepresented God much like many false teachers have done throughout church history; and changed what God said into something that pleased the ear of man.

Satan made God seem more reasonable and human rather than a God that meant what He said. When God speaks though, it is truth. It is to be feared and respected. We should never attempt to dumb down the word of God into something we can handle. Neither should we add to the word of God, our own doctrines and commandments that God didn't make. There are two extremes that we tend to get into: Harsh legalism or a license to sin. Either extreme is wrong.

The word of God is not a comic book and neither do we have a right to feminize it to please the feminists or any other group that is offended by the word of God. We can change it into different languages but we dare not change its meaning to suit our lifestyles. We are not to add to or take away from the written word especially the book of Revelation.

The lack of the fear of God is the beginning of all sin. The men or women who translate the bible in the past or in present times should make sure they have the fear of God and would never purposely change the meaning. They actually need the guidance of the Holy Spirit to make sure their motives are to tell it like it is and not put their own opinions in it.

Psalm 36:2 For he flattereth himself in his own eyes, until his iniquity be found to be hateful.

Be leery of those that boast in themselves and puff themselves up. Avoid those that desire followers after themselves instead of after Christ. Sometimes people will do this. They will start to look too much to the leadership instead of giving all glory and honor to God.

Psalm 36:3 The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit: he hath left off to be wise, and to do good.
4 He deviseth mischief upon his bed; he setteth himself in a way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil.

Pray for discernment and watch for leaders that deceive, plot and do not hate evil. Avoid compromisers, especially those that compromise the word to please men or draw followers after themselves. A true man of God will be grieved at sin, desire to bring people to Christ and desire to speak truth.

Don't follow any group today who advises you to hand over your whole paycheck into their treasury. God never requires that. You have an obligation to support your family.

I should add here to avoid purposely trying to find fault with your pastor or teachers. Some may use the warnings in scripture as an excuse to cut down, find fault and criticize someone who is trying to serve the Lord faithfully.

While there are deceivers that we have to watch out for, there are those that love God and try to serve God but they make mistakes and we may not always agree with them. They are not false teachers but rather, they think differently and have a different way of seeing things.

Here is an example:

I had a pastor that was good at fund raising. He was full of love and all he did was for the good of someone else or the church, never himself. Well, I hate fund raising. I would much rather see us concerned with the spiritual things. Does that mean this man was a false teacher. No. It just meant that his way of accomplishing things were different than mine. He figured fund raisers would attract the neighbors of the church to us and in turn would lead to the church growth. His heart was right and his motives were right.

I saw things a little different. That doesn't make me any more spiritual, neither did it make me a bad person that stood in the way of what the pastor was trying to do. In such situations let those that have a desire to do fund raisers volunteer for those type of things and those that have no desire to find something else to do for the Lord. Neither side should condemn the other. We go about criticizing each other far too much.

There use to be a man in a church I use to attend that never raised his hands to praise God as many do, he never showed any emotion, never taught a class, never testified and never did anything we might consider spiritual. Yet that man took care of his handicapped wife faithfully, fixed anything in the church that was broken, mowed the lawn and locked and unlocked the church doors every service. See how wrong we would be if we judged that man by the way he acts in a church service instead of how he acts in his daily life.

We are all different and all have different talents. We should recognize this and not find fault over these types of things but we do need to take heed to discern false teaching or those that have no fear of God or the word of God. If we see a fault of this type, it should grieve us, not make us desire to get on the phone and share this with the world.

Psalm 36:5 Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.

In all that I've said, we can be assured of the mercy of God and His faithfulness. God also has a desire to see us grow spiritually. God is not sitting in heaven hoping we sin so He can cast us into hell. He is more likely cheering for us to accept His way of salvation. That being faith in Jesus Christ. In fact the angels in heaven rejoices if just one person repents and comes to the Lord.

Psalm 36:6 Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.
7 How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.

I'm so glad God is a holy God. I'm so glad He is righteous and judges righteously. I'm glad there will be no sin in His kingdom.

Psalm 36:8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.
9 For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.

Those that know the Lord shall be partakers of the fountain of life. Jesus is that fountain of life and without Him there is no life.

Psalm 36:10 O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart.

The upright are those that seek God and seek His righteousness knowing that we by ourselves have no righteousness. Our righteousness is only through the way of salvation God provided through Jesus Christ.

Psalm 36:11 Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me.
12 There are the workers of iniquity fallen: they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise.

All workers of iniquity shall come to nothing. Evil plots against the righteousness will be judged. God sees everything. Heaven will not stay silent very long. DC

Psalm 37

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