Good evening, everybody. I'm honored to be back here once again. And I'll tell you, I I hope that the messages that I've been able to preach here lately have been a blessing to you because they blessed me. I'm thrilled to be able to prepare messages. I asked God to guide me.

I trust that, when you hear them, they're they're speaking to your heart in ways that only God can apply the truth of his word to your heart. But, this evening, I'm gonna have us look, please, at Psalm 106. And there are, several verses to this Psalm. In fact, it's 48 verses long. And psalm 106.

Yeah. Okay. I I sometimes am hesitant to read longer passages, but I think we need to read this passage. So how about if we do it this way? How about if we read it responsibly?

I read the odd verses, you read the even verses as we work our way, and I'll I'll read verse 48 together with you. Does that sound like a good idea? Would you like to try that? Okay. Alright.

Let's start. If you found Psalm 146, look up here or raise your hand or something so I know we're ready to go. Psalm 146. We're gonna start with we're gonna read the whole thing. Start with verse one and end with verse 48.

I'm sorry. 106. I'm sorry. Yeah. I met a 106.

It's been a long day. Actually, I got my mind distracted by talking with brother Ray. I'm thinking about Kansas City instead of preaching tonight. Brother Ray, we're we're glad you're back tonight. Glad you had a safe journey home.

I know this isn't home to you, but we're glad you're here. Okay. Psalm 106. Alright. I'll begin reading with verse one and you follow in verse two, and we'll alternate like that until we get to the end.

Praise ye the Lord. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Blessed are they that do or that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times. That I may see the good of Thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of Thy nation, that I may glory with Thine inheritance. We have ended with our promises, and we have committed to them we have done it with you.

Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea. He rebuked the Red Sea also, and it was dried up. So he led them through the depths as through the wilderness. And the waters covered their enemies. There was not one of them left.

They soon forgot his works. They waited not for his counsel. And he gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul. The earth opened and swallowed up Nathan and covered the company of Abiram. They made a calf in Horeb and worshipped the molten image.

They forgot God their savior, which had done great things in Egypt. Wonderful works from the land of him and zero earthly things by his sheep. Therefore, he said that he would destroy them had not Moses, his chosen, stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them. But murmured in their tents and hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord To overthrow their seed also among the nations and to scatter them in the lands. Thus, they provoked him to anger with their inventions and the plague breaking upon them.

And that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations forevermore. Because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips, but were mingled among the heathen and learned their works. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils and shed innocent blood even Thus were they defiled with their own works and went a whoring with their own inventions. Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people. And so much he made the award his And he gave them into the hand of the heathen, and they that hated them ruled over them.

Here that he's also suppressed them, they were brought in subjection to come under their hands. Many times did he deliver them, but they provoked him with their counsel and were brought low for their iniquity. Nevertheless, he ordered their afflictions when he heard their cry. And he remembered for them his covenant and repented according to the multitude of his mercies. Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the heathen, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting. And let all the people say, amen. Praise ye the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word to us.

We're grateful for the reminder that you are a holy God, and you will not tolerate sin even in your own people. Your chosen people, the Jews, when they sinned against you and refused to repent, ultimately, you judged them. You cast them out of the promised land that you brought them into, and then ultimately, eventually, you brought them back from the exile in Babylon. You're an amazing God. You're not a god to be trifled with.

You are almighty, and you are our creator. We owe you our very existence. Please, would you help us to approach your word with the honor and the reverence that you deserve? And would you also please speak to our hearts this evening? Open the eyes of our understanding because we cannot grasp the spiritual truths that you have for us unless you enable us to do so.

Lord, I'm a weak creature, helpless, inept, incapable. I need you to help me. Fill me with your spirit, Use me to bring glory and honor to the name of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ. We thank you for hearing our prayers. In your name, we ask this, Amen.

Now, I just want to mention the title for this message is Is That Any Way to Act? Or Not One Lesson Was Learned. The the background, as you may have gathered from reading this, was basically somewhat tied in with what we studied this morning from the book of Exodus. Right? Because it talked there we didn't go into this in Exodus this morning, but that's where God delivered the Jews, the Israelites, from slavery and bondage in Egypt, brought them out, made of them a great nation, brought them into the promised land.

And this is what's being talked about here in the course of this retelling of the historical activities in the life of the nation of Israel. And probably this was written by a Levite who is most likely a priest. Levites were the priests. Most likely, it was written during the captivity probably in Babylon where they had been carried away like Ezekiel was. Right?

It may have been Ezekiel. I don't know. It doesn't say. We don't know for sure. But nonetheless, they were looking back sort of reminiscing over what God had done, how he had acted in the national affairs of the nation of Israel.

And he could see as he remembered these various events, how his own people I mean, he was a Jew himself. He was saying, know, my forefathers, this is what they did and I've done it. This is how they rebelled against you and I rebelled against you. Right? So it's a time of confession.

He's recounting the different sins of the people. And he's talking about incidents where God just he said, I've had it. During the time of the judges, you might remember there was like this cyclical thing where the people would go into sin. They would embrace the idolatry of the Canaanites that had not been fully driven out of the land. And God allowed these people then to oppress them, to cause great hardship.

And ultimately, they'd cry out to God and God would deliver them from their oppressors. And this was a cycle, went on for a long time. So finally, then there's the kingdom. We know how that went. Didn't last too long.

Eventually, God sent the Northern Kingdom away from the land forever, taken captive by the Assyrians. And then about two hundred years later, not quite that long, longs long comes Nebuchadnezzar and Babylonians. They take away the Southern Kingdom into, captivity once again. So this is what we're dealing with here. This is the background that we need to understand.

Now there's one actually, two other passages I wanna draw your attention to before we actually get into the body of the message. Please listen to Proverbs fifteen nine and ten. The way of the wicked is an abomination under the Lord, but he loveth him that followeth after righteousness. Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way, and he that hateth reproof shall die. Does this apply to the Israelites in this circumstance?

Does this apply to mankind today? Does this apply to you and me this evening? Oh, yes, it does. And, another passage which I read this morning, but I want to remind you about it because some people have a hard time seeing the connection between what happens in the Old Testament and how is this relevant to us today. If you're not familiar with this passage, I want you to be very familiar with it.

It's first Corinthians chapter 10 verses one to 11. And I'll read this passage once more. Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea. Again, this is a reference to when the Israelites came out of Egypt. God led them in the daytime with a pillar of cloud and at night with a pillar of fire.

They all passed through the sea. It's a reference to their crossing of the Red Sea on dry land. They were all baptized under Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all they all became participants of this incident in the history of Israel. They were baptized into Moses, the leader.

They did all eat the same spiritual meat, reference to the manna that they had for forty years that God provided for them, for their sustenance. They all drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. See? So they're they're dealing with Christ pre pre the birth of Christ. Christ was there.

This is interesting. You need to think about that. So it's relative to us too. It's relevant. So, but with many of them, God was not well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things were our examples. To the intent, we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And as we read Psalm one Psalm one zero six, we saw the various things, things they lusted for. Neither be idolaters as were some of them as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed and fell in one day, '23 and 20000.

Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. These are all incidents that took place during the wilderness wanderings. Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples. They're written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. So God is like telling a story through the history of the chosen people, Israel.

He told them, when you go into the land of Canaan and you get all these houses and lands and everything that I'm gonna give to you, do not think for a minute that you're getting all this stuff because you were somebody special, that you guys deserve this and earned this. No, you're getting this because I don't think he said this, but it's because God's gracious. He gave them this because he's a gracious, loving father. And so He's writing in the history of the ancient Israelites ways that He deals with His people. And He does this throughout history.

His ways of dealing with the Israelites are the ways that he deals with his people today. We're not chosen people, the Israelites, unless some of you here are of Jewish heritage, But the fact remains, God doesn't change. The way He dealt with people then is how He deals with people now. Okay? So the theme of this message, you're wondering if I was ever gonna point it out to you, God teaches his children the right way to act by highlighting their failures to act the right way.

So that's what we see here in Psalm 106. So do any of you recall hearing your parents say something like this when you were a misbehaving youngster? Anybody misbehave when they were little? Okay. Brother Ray was the first one to raise his hand after me.

Alright. We know to stay away from him. So this is what I heard or something like this. Is that any way to act? Haven't you learned anything?

Usually, they spoke in exasperation. If you're a parent, you've probably had the same experience in dealing with your children at one point or other. Didn't I tell you that? Didn't I teach you that? How did you learn anything?

Is that any way to act? Yeah. I I've done the same thing my parents have done to me. Usually, they spoke in exasperation. We both we heard it with chagrin because we both knew that our behavior was inappropriate.

When I when I did things that were disobedient, I knew I was doing the wrong thing. My parents didn't have to call me on the carpet. I knew what I was doing wrong. But, you know, as good parents, they wouldn't let me get away with it. So indeed, we have no doubt as children been called out about numerous about this problem numerous times in our brief life.

Well, God frequently portrays himself in the Bible as a loving father concerned to train his children. Guess who that is? Well, if you've trusted his son, Jesus Christ, to save you from your sins, you are one of God's children. He's going to deal with you as a child, his child. He loves you, but he's going to discipline you.

He's going to train you. He's going to help you to become the person he wants you to be. And he knows that you can be with his help. So we're going to focus on Psalm a 106, but the preceding Psalm, you can read that at another time. Psalm a 105 is kind of the handmaiden.

They go together because Psalms one hundred and five and one hundred and six both magnify the grace of God, but in different ways. They come at it from a different approach. Psalm a 105 is a pure recounting of the saving grace of God with no reference to Israel's sin whatsoever. Psalm a 106, on the other hand, is a recounting of Israel's sin for the purpose of magnifying the saving grace of God. So whenever we see this this catalog, so to speak, of sins, and we we find similar things in the New Testament, it's not to say these are things that you shouldn't do, but that's true.

It's to say God is gracious in delivering us from these sins. They no longer have power over his children. Okay? So Psalm 105 culminates in a motivation to obedience, to obey God. Psalm 106 culminates in a petition for deliverance.

God have mercy on us. Help us. So both Psalms share the same focus seen in the opening call, give thanks to the Lord. This is important here. This Psalm is the dark counterpart of its predecessor, Psalm 105.

It's a shadow cast by human self will in its long struggle against the light. If you look at mankind's history, go back as far as you want, and all you will see is men in rebellion against God, struggling against the light that God has been endeavoring to bring into this world. It's been a constant battle, and things haven't changed since the time the psalmist wrote this psalm. So let's look here. I have a brief outline.

The first part of the psalm verses one through five are praise for God's goodness. I'm gonna read them again just briefly. Praise ye the Lord. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endureth forever. Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord?

Who can show forth all His praise? Blessed are they that keep judgment and he that doeth righteousness at all times. Remember me, oh Lord, with the favor that thou bearst unto thy people. Oh, visit me with thy salvation that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with Thine inheritance. That's a great prayer.

He wants to participate in the blessings that God has for His nation, the chosen people, the Israelites. This is reason enough to begin with praise because almost the entire song consists of a list of Israel's sins. Yet over and over, we see God forgiving and restoring his rebellious people whenever they cried out to him for help. That's an important lesson for us to learn. We as hard as we try not to, we still either stumble into sin or blindly walk into it or their eyes wide open, we embrace it.

Even God's children, it's sad to say. That's us as human beings. We're sinful creatures. So the example given here before us is, okay, you've sinned. Stop it.

Confess it. Come to me. I'll forgive you. I'll restore you. I'll listen to your cries for help if you'll but cry out to me.

So in this brief prayer here, we see God's enduring mercy. Sometimes it's translated steadfast love. The theme of this Psalm could be called God's faithfulness and man's unfaithfulness. Yeah. Sad to say.

The central theme is God's extraordinary long suffering. This ultimately leads to a prayer for deliverance. We'll get to that in verses 46, seven, and eight. The Psalm opens with a call for praise, linking it to the themes of God's goodness and steadfast love. And it emphasizes that true praise requires both action and acknowledgment of one's failures.

You're gonna praise God, where are gonna start? Start by acknowledging how you have failed him. Start by thanking him for his grace and mercy and forgiving him. Go on to praise him. So, Lord, what can I do to serve you?

How can I bring you glory and honor with my pathetic human life? It's a life you've given to me to use for your glory. How can I don't know how you can do it, but if if you want to do it, please do it? In other words, make yourself available to God. Be willing for him to use you.

Brother Dick mentioned that this morning in his Sunday school class. Even such a simple thing as greeting a total stranger who comes into the congregation for a worship service. Let God use you, smile at this person, Welcome them. Tell them you're glad to see them. Even if it's somebody who's been here for years and you don't remember their name.

It's boring. I was talking during the meeting people. I didn't realize until later on who it was. It was Ruth Smith. I hadn't seen her in seven years.

I didn't know who she was. She said her name is Ruth. I hadn't seen her in seven years. It changed a little bit. I didn't know who she was till later on.

It dawned on me. And, so let me let me just tell you this briefly, the value of a smile. When I'm in The Philippines, they call me the smiling white guy. I I just I smile. I can't help it.

That's my nature. But a smile disarms people. It makes people feel at ease. They might wonder, what are you up to? But on the other hand, it disarms them.

It makes them feel good, especially if you're smiling at them. People can almost not smile back at you if you smile at them. They might give you a scowl. Keep smiling. All right.

So let me go back here. I got sidetracked. Sorry about that. Mercy and goodness are frequently found linked together in scripture. So mercy is the covenant word.

It's sometimes rendered steadfast love. If you've been a Christian for a long enough period of time and read commentaries or study Bibles, you've probably come across this Hebrew word. I believe the pronunciation is Hesed. Hesed. That's this word mercy or steadfast love or loyalty, loyal love.

God's mercy endures or lasts forever. That's what it means to be steadfast. It never ends. It never runs out, never dries up. Just like the song brother Dan sang about the river that never runs dry.

It's God's mercy. That's His chesed, His loving kindness is another way it's translated. So it's inexhaustible towards those who are or who humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. That's first Peter five:six. So you want to partake of God's inexhaustible mercy?

First step, humble yourself under His mighty hand. Acknowledge that He's God and you're not. That's the first step. So together with goodness, it suggests the steady kindness and support that one can count on in the family or between firm friends. Remember the theme?

God teaches his children the right way to act by highlighting their failures to act the right way. So now we come to the the longest part of the psalm verses six through 46, which is just confession of sin. We see that the consequences of Israel's rejection of God's promises, they're they're plainly set forth here. They suffered all kinds of punishments and trials and tribulations because of their sin. It's a sin to be a witness to God's miraculous intervention in your life and discounted as nothing.

Psalm a 106 verse seven, our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt. Yeah. But put yourself back here. You're an Israelite. You've been in slavery.

God has now delivered you. You've seen 10 plagues just devastating the country that's enslaved you, devastating its people, wiping out Pharaoh's army, drowning them in the depths of the Red Sea. You get to walk out on dry land. Can you even imagine? I can't even begin to what would it have been like to be there to see and experience firsthand?

And yet, our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt. They remembered not the multitude of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea. So you see such wickedness betrays the unbelief in their heart, but it also betrays the unbelief in my heart and your heart. It ultimately leads to rebellion against God, our creator. There there were times I can recall before I became a believer or before I began to live for the Lord as a believer.

I was kind of going my own way for a few years as a Christian, sadly. But there were incidents where in hindsight, retrospect, I could look back and I could say, wow. God was watching over me there, usually protecting me from some kind of stupid thing I'd done and keep me from getting killed or injured or causing problems to somebody else, damage to their property. Stupid stuff. I realized as I look back later on in life, wow.

God was watching over me then. I didn't even know it. I was oblivious to it. I imagine you've probably had similar experiences as he said, or you're nodding your heads like that's been something you've experienced. So the thing there is when you realize God's been a work in your life, do you acknowledge it?

Do you give Him glory and praise and do you thank Him for this? He's not forgotten us. He's not taken His eye off the ball, so to speak. He's watching. He's watching each one of us.

He knows what we're going through and He knows what we're facing and he's actively engaged in our lives daily, moment by moment. It's not like the deists said that God just created it all and put it out there, and now he's sitting back with his arms folded just watching it all unfold. That's not at all true. It's not biblical. He cares.

He cares. So this catalog of sins committed by the psalmist ancestors includes unbelief, verses seven through 12. The ingredients of unbelief throw light by contrast on the ingredients of faith, beginning in the mind with reasoning that took no account of God's revealed acts, again, referencing the the miracles that they saw. So they reasoned that, this doesn't matter. God didn't do anything special here.

And then it found its outlet in their will. They rebelled against God. The unbelief starts here, works its way out through our will. Discontent in verses thirteen and fifteen, doesn't it sometimes seem as if nothing God does pleases us? We're just not contented.

Discontented. Paul said he's learned to be content whatever state he's in. It doesn't mean Florida or Pennsylvania or Arizona. It means whether I'm prospering or whether I'm suffering, whether I got a brand new automobile that's taking me down the highway nice and easy and smooth, or whether I'm walking on a dusty path with rocks on it and no sandals on my feet. I'm contented because he knew God was watching over him.

God was in control. When you have that realization and you approach life with that attitude, yeah, there are look, I'll admit, there are times when there are annoying things that happen in my life and I get bugged and irked. But when you get right down to it, God's gracious. He's always gracious to us. He's always good to us.

We have to remember that. Don't be discontented. Jealousy, verses 16 to 18. How often do we want for ourselves what someone else has? I try not to be this way, but I find that I am still sometimes.

Idolatry verses 19 through 23. Don't we Americans have our own varieties of false gods that we bow before? Prestige, reputation, money, clothes, house, car, sports, health, our body. Yes. We must admit this is true.

We may not have the little idols that people in some places of the world bow before, but we have our own false gods that we worship. Verses 24 to 27, another sin that they committed was drawing back. What that means is they flatly refused to march into Canaan. It was blatant unbelief and disobedience. I mean, how is it possible that this group of people who had seen God perform these absolutely stunning, incredible, amazing miracles and deliver them and provided for them as they wandered in a wilderness, brought them to the edge of the promised land and said to them, I'm going to go before you.

I'm going to drive these people out. Just keep following me and trusting me. And they said they sent spies in. Right? They wanted to see what they they they didn't trust God.

They wanted to see for themselves what they're up against. Sent the spies in. 12 spies. 10 of the 12 spies came back and said, no way, we can't take this land. You should see the giants in there.

You should see the wall of the cities they've got. Forget it. Let's turn around and go back to Egypt. That's what they did. Only Joshua and Caleb said, no, no, no.

We we can do this because God's called us to do it. God's gonna go before us. God will open the door for us. We will walk through it. They drew back.

I will rue to this my dying day, the day that I asked God what he wanted me to do with my life, and it became clear he wanted me to go into the ministry. I said, no way, God. I can't do that. I I can't do that. You you made a mistake here.

I'm not your man. I still regret to this day that I didn't say, yes, Lord. What in the world am I gonna do now? How do I do this? So don't draw back.

When you sense God is calling you to do something and you say, there's no way I can do that. How how can I possibly do this, God? I don't have the training, the time, don't have the money, don't have this, don't have that, whatever it is. Don't have the personality, don't have the whatever. Don't let that stop you from doing something if you're convinced God wants you to do it.

That became an incident in my life later on when God was calling me and my wife to become missionaries to Japan. I remember praying, Lord, send missionaries to Japan. They need missionaries over there. That's how I started out. And then I started praying more, more, like this.

Lord, I can't imagine that you'd want me to go to Japan as a missionary, but if you want me to go, I'm willing to go. And then it was, Lord, I can't believe you want us to go to Japan as missionaries? How are we gonna do this? That's why it went. And contrary to how I first responded when God called me into the ministry and I said, no way.

It wasn't so much no way I refuse to do this. It was like, way I can't do this. It was the same inside response. God, I can't do this, but now I know you can. I'm willing to trust you.

And you think this is what the Israelites who'd been delivered from bondage and slavery in Egypt and had wandered in the wilderness and were now standing outside on the border of Canaan. They should have been remembering these things that, yeah, we can do this, but God can. Let's go. God is honored by that kind of trust and faith. It's not foolishness.

To the world, it looks like it might be foolish. I remember my stepfather telling me when I told him God was calling us to Japan. He said, why don't you go to Africa? It's not so far away. Well, God didn't call me to Africa.

He called me to Japan. And my poor wife, she said to me, Japan? I lived in Puerto Rico for two years and I never learned how to speak Spanish. How am gonna ever learn Japanese? It's one of the hardest languages in the world.

God works in amazing ways. He puts you in circumstances and calls you to do things that you would never ever think. Uh-uh. I can't eat. This never even crossed my mind.

Didn't even know what a missionary was until I was 23 years old. First missionary I met, I thought I was meeting a living fossil because I thought they'd all died out a hundred years earlier. There was no need for missionaries anymore. The whole world was Christian, wasn't it? Or we all gonna go to heaven because Christ died for sinners and now we're all gonna go to heaven.

Right? That's what I believed until I heard the true gospel. So don't draw back. Next sin, verses 28 to 31, apostasy. This is not a word you hear in common ordinary conversation, but it's something that you read about frequently in the New Testament, especially.

So let's carefully define it. Forgive me for using a definition that I got from Wikipedia. I could have found it in my Logos Bible study application as well, but I found a quick, a good definition, believe it or not, in Wikipedia. So apostasy refers to the willful abandonment or renunciation of one's faith in Christianity and is characterized as a deliberate turning away from the core truths of Jesus Christ that a person once professed to believe. On our way here, my wife and I were talking about a young lady that we knew when she was just a baby.

She's now a grown up young adult. And, sadly, though she was raised in a Christian home, she now denies everything she ever once believed. First thought that came to my mind was it's apostasy. That's exactly what God's talking about here. This is what the Israelites did.

They denied. They willfully abandoned, renounced their faith in the God who had shown himself to be stronger than the false gods of the Egyptians. They deliberately turned away from the core truths that God was revealing to them. This is obviously before the time of Jesus Christ, but they knew some truths about God from their walking with him in the wilderness. He was revealing himself to them.

And they said, nope. We we reject that. It's a serious spiritual rebellion against God. We must guard our hearts against the temptation to chuck it all. Say, ah, what's worth?

What's the worth of this? It's it's is it really real? Nah, I don't believe it. I don't see any evidence of God in his world. I don't I don't believe this anymore.

I I've heard of and I've read of people, people growing up in Christian homes who do this. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of living God. People who turn their backs on what they once believed with regard to the gospel. Hebrews says there's no hope for them. They can't be saved when they reject the knowledge of the truth.

That's that's truly frightening. So be on guard for apostasy in your own life. Another sin pointed out here is provocation verses thirty two and thirty three. Just compare this with Deuteronomy thirty two sixteen, which I shall read here. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.

So what God is saying here is because the ancient Israelites rejected Yahweh, the covenant God who had revealed himself to Abraham and renewed that same covenant to Isaac, Abraham's son. And again, to Jacob, Abraham's grandson and through Jacob to all of his 12 sons. And these people were all descendants of Jacob's 12 sons. Yet they provoked God to jealousy by rejecting him and worshiping idols. They talked there about an event that occurred at Horeb.

That's another word for Mount Sinai. Do you remember what happened there? While Moses was up on the mount receiving the 10 commandments, Aaron was down below and the people were there. What happened? Do you remember?

You tell me? The worship of the golden calf. Where did he come up with that idea? Well, they probably saw it in Egypt where they've been surrounded with this idolatry for four hundred years. Don't say the rubbing shoulders with ungodliness won't affect you.

Evil communications corrupts good manners is how the Bible says it. You hang around with sinful people who practice sinful behaviors, not for the purpose of winning them, but you just become you become like them. So be careful. Provocation. Don't provoke God by our behavior because it can lead to paganization, which is the process through which pagan beliefs, practices, or customs are adopted or integrated into a culture or religion, often resulting in blending spiritual traditions where elements of paganism are incorporated into existing religious frameworks.

A pagan is someone who practices a religion or spirituality that is polytheistic, they worship many gods, or pantheistic, everything's a god, Often involving nature worship, Shintoism in Japan, and the veneration of multiple deities everywhere you find idolatry, hedonism, paganism. This is a snare that can grab hold of the heart of one of God's children if we are not careful. Peter warns us, the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. We're we're tasty morsels for Satan. We have to keep our guard up and we have to beg God to protect us and keep us, guard our hearts.

So historically, the term paganism was used by early Christians to describe those who did not follow the God of Abraham. Sometimes when we look at practices that have become common in church worship services, we wonder if the Lord could possibly be pleased with what seems so blatantly worldly that is pagan. So we need to guard, be on guard against these things even in our local congregation. So this Psalm sets a pattern for us to follow. After we acknowledge and confess our sins, we need to ask for his marvelous gift of salvation and forgiveness as well as praise his name, and that's what we find here in the last two verses.

There's a prayer for deliverance. Let me read them one more time. Psalm four 106 verses forty seven and forty eight. Save us, oh, Lord our God, and gather us from among the heathen to give thanks unto thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting.

And let all the people say, amen. Praise ye the Lord. For all of its exposure of man's ingratitude and sinfulness, this is a psalm of praise for it is God's extraordinary long suffering that emerges as the real theme. And this is the basis of this final prayer. This prayer has behind it the frank confession of national sin on the one hand and divine forbearance on the other.

It's the kind of praying which God delights to answer. So one way we can pray, pray for our nation. It says here, frank confession of national sin. Has our nation sinned against God? Oh my.

I wonder why God hasn't just eradicated our nation when I look at around me and see some of the things that are tolerated and promoted today. So we can begin with frank confession, Ashton, just like Daniel when he prayed. He started off by saying, Lord, I and my people, we have done these evil things. He put himself in with his predecessors, his ancestors. This is what this is what we have done as a people.

We know you're not pleased with us. Please have mercy on us. And, of course, individual personal confession of our own sin. It's important. But because God is so steadfastly loving, long suffering, kind, and merciful, we can have hope that he will hear our prayers, that he will deliver us once again from the evils that have beset us, whether in our nation or in our lives individually.

So ultimately, this Psalm is a testament to God's steadfastness, that is his mercy. And it's a reminder of the need for humility and gratitude in the face of human frailty. This Psalm is so helpful in guiding us back into the right paths when we have sadly strayed away from the Lord. There's not a Christian who's ever lived who has not strayed from the Lord at one time or another. Even the apostle Paul, Romans chapter seven talked about the things that he wants to do, he doesn't do.

If this is truly apostle Paul, where does that leave us? So it's helpful, the psalm, because it reminds us that God will receive us back into fellowship if we just repent and seek his forgiveness. There's not a single one of us who can rightfully claim that we're free from sin. We must recall that the only way to gain freedom, redemption from that sin is to acknowledge it or confess it and repent of it. Listen to God's word here in first John one eight, nine, and ten.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Yes. And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a God, that is God.

We make God a liar. We're saying, God, you're a liar. I haven't sinned. Don't do that. If they if you're doing that, his word is not in you.

God's word says that. Aren't you glad that Christ receiveth sinful men? That's a great hymn. Christ receiveth sinful men. Yes.

Where would we be without God's incredible mercy, his steadfast love? Let's determine with the psalmist to join our hearts and praise to our great God and savior, Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for the reminder that you do receive sinful men, but you will not tolerate sinful behavior indefinitely. We're thankful because, Lord, we we would be destroyed if sin had its way in our lives.

We're so thankful that you don't tolerate sin, that you deal with us firmly, yet gently and kindly, bringing us back into that right relationship with you. Please help us to trust you. Help us to serve you, to be faithful to you, and please forgive our sins for Jesus' sake. Amen.