FRET NOT THYSELF BECAUSE OF EVILDOERS, NEITHER BE THOU ENVIOUS AGAINST THE WORKERS OF INIQUITY. FOR THEY SHALL SOON BE CUT DOWN LIKE THE GRASS, AND WITHER AS THE GREEN HERB. (Psalm 37:1-2)

I. WHAT NOT TO DO: DON’T FRET

As more and more reports of fake votes, illegal votes, and votes allegedly from dead people continue to mount, astonishment and amazement also increases and mounts. More and more people “fret”. To fret really means to worry and to fume and to  be vexed. In other words, this magnificent Psalm is telling us in its opening phrase NOT to fret because of evildoers. Of course, almost no one frets because of “good doers”. Vexed means to be annoyed, frustrated or worried, and it also means feeling or showing irritation, annoyance and /or distress.

That is a description of many in America as the evidence increases of the possibility of a stolen election by foreign countries using voting machines specifically and deliberately programmed to record apparently false votes. The first precept is not to fret!

The corollary in verse one is “neither be thou envious against workers of iniquity”. The great English preacher, Charles Hadden Spurgeon, who has sometimes been called “ the Prince of Preachers”, said in his commentary on this Psalm, this is “the same advice under another shape”. Spurgeon said, “when we are conscious that we have been more righteous than they, the devil is sure to be at hand with blasphemous reasonings. Stormy weather may curdle even the cream of humanity.” Spurgeon continues….” for ungodly rich men are but as beasts fattened for the slaughter.” (The Treasury of David, Volume 1, pg. 170)

We are given the reason to heed the admonition in the second verse: “for they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb.” Note that this is a precept - a command- not a suggestion! We must not fret! We must not be envious against the workers of iniquity. Spurgeon continues with his valuable commentary with this question: “Is it worthwhile to waste ourselves in fretting about the insect of an hour….which in the same day is born and dies? Within believers there is a living and incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth forever; why should they envy mere flesh, and the glory  of it, which are as grass, and the flower thereof?” (Treasury of David, Volume 1, pg. 171)

II. WHAT TO DO: BELIEVE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST

The second precept is to “trust in the Lord, and do good”. This presents The Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He calls us to “come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) We hear that “...God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) We receive this great, good news and believe on Him. Indeed, in John Chapter 5, in verse 24, the Lord Jesus Christ states,  “verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears My Word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”

To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is to trust in Him. This is the second precept. This is a sheer gift of God. In fact, you cannot earn this gift. To earn is to work. Scripture states that if one “works” for it, it is not of faith. Moreover, it is a “wage”. “The wages of sin is death; (Romans 6:23), But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  We were dead in trespasses and sin, But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace you are saved;) And has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus ….” (Ephesians 2:4-6)

Therefore, in summation, don’t fret because of evildoers, but trust in the Lord! Commit your way unto the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the dearly beloved of the Father. We are accepted in the Beloved! In the 17th Chapter of John’s Gospel in the 23rd verse, the Lord Jesus Christ in His “high priestly prayer”, makes what Dr. Martyn Llyod-Jones of London, England, called “an astonishing request. Christ requests of the Father “....that the world may know that thou (God the Father) hast loved them (all who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ- all who believe in Him) as thou hast loved me! Lloyd-Jones said of this Holy request by the Son of the Father, “If it were not recorded here I would not believe it.”’ But it is. God loves you! Therefore, in trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ - the only begotten, dearly beloved Son of God - all who do trust in Him become the beloved of the Father themselves, even as He has loved the Lord Jesus Christ.

III. THE THIRD GREAT PRINCIPLE IS: “DELIGHT THYSELF ALSO IN THE LORD; AND HE SHALL GIVE THEE THE DESIRES OF THINE HEART” (Psalm 37:4)

We are therefore to “make Jehova the joy and rejoicing of thy Spirit.” (Spurgeon, Treasury of David pg.171) Spurgeon said, “There is no room for fretting if we remember that God is ours, but there is every incentive to sacred enjoyment of the most elevated and ecstatic kind.” We are to delight in our great and mighty God, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and trust the Lord who works all things after the counsel of His own will. Therefore, when we are delighting ourselves in the Lord, our desires actually are to ask for that which is the will of the Lord.

Of course, these great precepts in this great Psalm gives Christians direction in every matter in life. We are living in evil days and perilous times. The Holy Word of God is the most up- to- date and relevant Book in the world. There are many who do not agree. However, while there are many new and innovative pieces of equipment and things and stuff that have come about through the ages, ungodliness remains ungodliness; violence and murder remain violence and murder; stealing remains stealing; indeed, sin remains sin. Only the Word of God “is the same yesterday, today, and forever”.

It is because this Psalm is the Word of the living God that it is always true and relevant. So, one might ask, what can be done about evildoers? First, use the weapons of our warfare that are not carnal, that the Lord God has given us: (a) God’s Holy Truth in His Holy Word, (b) tell others the Glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, c) pray without ceasing. Ask God to help you and all your family to tell others His Holy Truth and the Glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. Pray for God to remove every false god in this nation and ask that we would have no other God before Him. Ask God to remove the ungodly, unrighteous, and those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness from all positions of authority in every state and everywhere in this nation. Ask Him to put an end to the dreadful scourge of abortion. Ask Him to put in the mind of every doctor in America that none would do an abortion. Read Exodus Chapter 20 and pray through the Ten Commandments and 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 and let us and everyone we know humble ourselves and pray as these passages of scripture call us. Remember, in the Lord Jeus Christ, God’s beloved Son, you are beloved too! Live as becomes the Gospel of Christ.

CONCLUSION

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family[a] in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21