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We've got Psalm 64, look at verse number two, hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked. The title for the sermon is the secret counsel of the wicked. Have you ever wondered what the wicked do when they come together, when they start to conspire, people that have maybe attacked you, personal enemies? Have you ever wondered what's happened in their hearts? How have they done this? Why have they done this? Sometimes when you have enemies, you sort of wonder why, I mean how? I don't understand, well, God tells us here in Psalm 64 what we need to understand, why they respond, why they react to you the way that they do. The secret counsel of the wicked, obviously we would not want to be part of that counsel. You know, if the wicked are counsel, they're coming together, they're forming their secret meetings, you don't want to be caught unaware in that meeting. You want to be away from that. And so, of course, a Psalm of David, he begins by saying here, my voice, O God, in my prayer, preserve my life from the fear of the enemy. Preserve my life from the fear of the enemy. And so, hey, what do we notice in David? He's got a fear of the enemy. You say, but David, you're a man after God's own heart. But David, you're a great Old Testament, you know, a saint. And David, you know you should not fear anyone but the Lord, but you can see in the beginning a time and a weakness that David is fearing his enemy. And so he goes to the Lord impressed right away. I mean, example after example in the book of Psalms, when we're afraid, when we need protection, when we need a place of refuge, when we need a person to vent and to cry upon, we must go to the Lord God in prayer. Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer. David's a perfect example of going to God in prayer, even when you are fearful. Now, as I said, this Psalm helps us understand the actions of your enemy, okay? When you're being attacked by an enemy, it doesn't just happen. Like, you know, you can go about life and all of a sudden you're being attacked. You go, what in the world? That came out of nowhere. But the truth is, it didn't come out of nowhere, okay? There was a secret counsel of the wicked that took place before you were attacked, okay? Now, not only that, and you say, well, I haven't really experienced that past the camera. I've never really had anybody come out against me. Maybe I've not lived life long enough. Maybe I've not even been saved that long. And so I've not really had these personal attacks against me. What I also wanna warn you, what I want you also to consider in this chapter is as a warning to see whether you're behaving not necessarily as an enemy, but as a frenemy. Do you know what a frenemy is? Sometimes you say, man, with friends like these, who needs enemies? And I often think about the book of Job, right? Job lost a lot. Job suffered a lot. And there come his free friends. We call them friends, but really they're not friends, are they? I mean, they come along those free enemies of his that he counted as friends. And so I want you to be careful. You know, you in your friendship, you know, you may accidentally find yourself amongst the council of the wicked, you know, and you by your actions might be a frenemy rather than a friend. And so that's a warning for you as well as we go through this chapter. Verse number two, where we get the title from, David says, hide me from the secret council of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity. As I said to you, when you're attacked, it's not sudden. Okay, it's premeditated. When people start to say nasty things about you, you know, all of a sudden you have your friends turning against you, it's not sudden. It feels sudden. But there was a secret council of the wicked. People get together, the wicked will get together, your enemies will get together, have meetings for the primary purpose to start an insurrection, as it says there, the insurrection of the workers of iniquity. Now the word insurrection really has to do with authority. You know, an insurrection is basically an uprising or a rebellion against authority, okay? Now in this, you know, in a scenario, look, obviously this is David, King David, he's a man in authority. And within his kingdom, he's seen certain people coming together, trying to destroy him as a king, trying to take down his kingdom out of his hands. That might not be you, you may not necessarily have authority in a situation, but what we still see here is how, you know, when you have these attacks, it's because of secret meetings, secret gatherings. And I don't know if it's ever gonna happen in this church, I hope not. But be careful when someone says to you, hey, can we just have a conversation with a few other people here about our pastor? Be careful, for what purpose exactly? You know, or any pastor, or anyone in authority, just be mindful about what kinds of meetings and gatherings you're getting yourself involved in, because it says here, it's the workers of iniquity that like to come together, you know, for the attacks. Again, the insurrection against authority is from King David's point of view. But what I want you to notice there is they themselves are workers of iniquity, from the insurrection on the workers of iniquity, all right? So they themselves are wicked people. They themselves have a bad testimony, a bad reputation, they're filled with all kinds of sins, but what they wanna do is take someone who is innocent as far as the accusations they're gonna throw at them, and they wanna project their own filth onto others. Something that really amazes me, that I've really come to understand is this term called projection, projection. Like, I'm not talking about, we had a projector before, right? We had a screen. And that's the idea. The idea is that the projector machine would project an image. And sometimes the workers of iniquity are so filthy, so wicked in themselves, they project their own filthiness onto others. They see people, other people, in light of their own wickedness and their own sinful behavior. I looked up the definition of the word projection just to give you an idea of this. But the definition is the mental process by which people attribute to others what is in their own minds. For example, individuals who are in a self-critical state, like they just criticize themselves. They sleep all their problems, and they, you know, self-critical, it says consciously or unconsciously may think that other people are critical of them. Though that other person probably not even thinking about them. But because they're so critical about themselves, they go, oh, no, they're thinking critically of me. They're probably not even thinking about you at all, okay? But they project that onto others. And this is something that I see, and it's, I don't know if it's a mental problem, a mental condition, or, because even this definition says it can be consciously or subconsciously. Like, let me give you an example. Let's say, I don't know, I'll just use a marriage, for example. Man, let's say you're married to your wife, and your wife may have had a previous bad relationship, whatever that looked like, okay? Maybe an abusive relationship, maybe, you know, her, whatever, cheated on her, you know, she has a lack of trust because of that experience from a previous relationship. And then what happens is you get married, and then your wife, or vice versa, whatever you wanna look at, starts to project their insecurities and their pain and their hurt from the first relationship onto you, okay? They'll say, well, you know, this other guy over there cheated on me, and so you're gonna be doing the same. You know, or, you know, they've been hurt, and they've, you know, they've been so, they've been so, you know, saddened by experiences in the past, and then they'll set up boundaries, blocks, you know, and it's hard to build a relationship with that person. They'll criticize you for things that they've experienced in the past because of their own, again, insecurities or what have you. That happens in relationships, and I often wonder why is that? Like, why, you know, why do you project what's happened with somebody else onto somebody else? You know, it's not right to take the sins of others and then apply that to someone else when you don't even know if that's how they feel about you, but it happens, these things, it always interests me, this concept of projection, or you might feel that, you know, you need to go on the attack. You feel like you need to take someone down because you think they're desiring to take you down. It's your own wickedness. They don't care about you. They're not thinking about you. They're not trying to take you down, but because of your lack of confidence, you know, you wanna tear others down before they tear you down, but they don't wanna tear you down. This is projection, be careful of it. It's real, like it's a real issue in the world, and, you know, I thank God that God is someone who, you know, holds individuals accountable for their own sins, and instead of projecting, what God did was take all our sins and put it on himself, like the complete opposite, right? And he paid the penalty for us. But be careful of this. You know, when people come together, they're workers of iniquity themselves, they're wicked themselves, and they wanna tell you this other person's wicked. If you can keep your finger there, come with me to Psalm 1. Come with me to Psalm 1. Psalm 1 is one of my favorite Psalms, by the way. I don't know if it's just because it's the first one you find, but it's actually so deep, it's so beautiful. Psalm 1, verse 1. Psalm 1, verse 1. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. Brethren, you're gonna be tempted sometimes. You're gonna be drawn, even without realizing, just out of ignorance. You're gonna be drawn into situations, into meetings, into gatherings, into conversations that are just full of wickedness, full of sin. It's about tearing down somebody or tearing down a family. And God says, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. You know what? If someone starts to have a conversation with you and they wanna gather people about so and so, and you know, this is not, you need to walk away and say, guys, this is not the right way to do things. You got an issue, brother or sister so and so, you know what the Bible says, you take it one on one with them directly. I don't need to get involved. Why are you bringing me into this? Walk away from that, okay? Rather, it says in verse number two, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Which one are you? Oh, did you hear the gossip about sister so and so? Oh, yeah, yeah, I wanna hear. Tell me all about the gossip. Or, I wanna see what God has to say in his word. I don't wanna hear the gossip of sister so and so. Give me the Bible instead. Let me hear the Bible instead. I wanna delight in God's word, not in gossip and rumours and destruction. Reverend, God will bless you greatly. You know, when you pull yourself out of that situation, it's hard because you know, if I pull myself out and I say, this is not right, guys, that they're not gonna like you. Like, you might become their enemy. You know, instead of attacking others, you might become the victim of their actions. Back to Psalm 64, verse number three. Psalm 64, verse number three. So, I hope you see this. When you're attacked by somebody, when people criticise you, they have, you know, trying to tear you down, it's, you know, your first response is gonna be like, man, have I really, I mean, what, I must have done something so bad. And then you're like, but what did I do? But I must have done something so bad. Why all of a sudden? It's not all of a sudden. I want you to understand that. They meditate on these things. They get together. They try to find other parties that they can influence and involve in their attack against you. Verse number three, it says, who wet their tongue like a sword. To wet is to sharpen. They're sharpening their tongues. That takes time. That's preparation. Before they go on the attack, they're preparing what they wanna say, okay? They're preparing how they wanna say things. And bend their bows to shoot their arrows. They're getting their bows ready. They gotta bend it so it's got the tension to shoot the arrows. And these arrows and the sword, again, even bitter words. So again, when they're ready to attack, they're not going to just say random words. They've prepared. They've thought long and hard. Just like somebody going to battle, you prepare your weapons. You make sure they're sharp. They're going to damage. You're gonna make sure they can kill. They can cause harm. All that effort, all that preparation, they prepare before they go on the attack. They wanna make sure the words are harmful. They wanna make sure their strategy is perfect. That it'll take down the person that is upright. How can you prepare your words in such a wicked way? How can you influence people's perceptions of others? There are a few ways to do this. You can prepare your words by exaggeration. Maybe something did happen, okay? But you wanna exaggerate the event. So exaggerate is to make it more extreme or more dramatic than it really is. I mean, everyone's got issues. Like, we all know that. People try to get along out of the issue. People are trying to make that issue even greater, even bigger. You know, there must be more to it than what really Brother So-and-So has said. Exaggerate. So you're like, whoa, man, you're right. I just thought this was an issue Brother So-and-So's struggling with. But now I realize just how severe this, whoa, this is a massive issue. Half-truths. Half-truths is another way, you know? Where they only speak some truth. They don't give the whole truth. Because if they give the whole truth, you're gonna turn around and go, I mean, if you tell me the whole truth, they're not as bad as they seem then. So you give half-truths, strategically leaving out important pieces of information in order to deceive others. There's a pastor down in Brisbane. I've never heard so many half-truths in my life out of someone's mouth. Honestly, man, it was just, it was crazy to me. And then when you ask the question, oh, I didn't say that. Because yeah, because you left out half the truth. But you deceive. You wanna leave an impression. You wanna leave a thought and idea and you conveniently left that information so I can be deceived or so others can be deceived. I'm glad he's not there anymore. Half-truths, be careful of half-truths. Look, tell the whole truth. Tell the whole, let people make their own judgment call on a situation. You leave out important pieces of information. All right, I mean, you are purposely trying to confuse people's mind, deceive people. But again, this is all preparation. Planning, how do I say something to have maximum damage and effects? The other one that I think about is misleading opinions, mistaken beliefs, misleading opinions. You're like, well, I mean, I don't know, sister so-and-so was doing that, but I strongly suspect it. I've got some strong opinions, but what do you think, brother? Oh, yeah, yeah, right, yeah. That's probably the case. And now you're basically, you don't know if it's true, but you're acting upon it like it's true. Misleading opinions, mistaken beliefs. Making assumptions is kind of the phrase that I'm looking at, assumptions. You know what assumptions are? It's kind of like there are gaps in your understanding, and so you try to fill that gap, and there's nothing wrong with that in of itself. I mean, we're creatures, we try to fill gaps. We try to understand. We try to reason. God has given us this ability in our mind. And there are many things that I've had to assume about different scenarios, but I try very carefully not to speak of my assumptions as truth. You know, there are things in the Bible that I sometimes just don't know. There are certain gaps that I find, and I'm just like, hmm, I think it could be this. Could be that, could be that, could be that. Start making some assumptions. And I can get behind the pulpit and preach and argue for my assumptions, but if I haven't got the clear Bible telling me so, I'd rather avoid it. Because again, I don't know if my assumptions are true. It could be true, but I don't know for sure. Be careful about making assumptions about other people. Oh, brother so-and-so did this, they did that, because I think this. You know, they're going through a hard time in life right now, so this is probably what happened. I don't know what probably, or maybe, or I wanna know what happened. And if it's not, don't worry about it, I guess we'll, you know, it's not that important. Be careful with assumptions. Look, I'm sure, have I ever preached assumptions? I probably have. I mean, you know, if I'm going, especially chapter by chapter, verse by verse, I'm gonna give you my thoughts around certain things. I'm not going to intentionally try to leave things out, but I'm gonna try my best to say, hey, this is what I think, I could be wrong, here are some other thoughts. You know, you work it out for yourself. But I don't wanna mislead. I don't wanna leave you with an assumption as biblical truth and doctrine that you can hang your hat on. Look, there's enough in the Bible to hang your hat on, more than enough, okay, where I don't have to be bringing assumptions, and be careful. You know, again, I have a lot of assumptions, a lot of things happen, people situations, relationships, and I think probably this, but I don't know. Some might say to me, probably this, maybe, but I don't know. I'm only gonna act on the things that I know. I'm gonna act on the things that I have that's clear, that's been communicated by the party. I'm not just going to make things up in my mind because it could all be false. But be careful with these things, misleading opinions, mistaken beliefs, making assumptions, exaggeration, half-truths. If someone's like this crafty in their language, you better realize, man, this person's up to no good. This person's up to no good. You know, who are they attacking? You know, what is their goal? What is their target here? So they prepare, they prepare with bitter words. They prepare their tongues to destroy and to hurt as much as they can. And then verse number four, in Psalm 64, verse number four. They, sorry, that they, that they, they prepare, that they may shoot in secret at the perfect. Suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not. That they may shoot in secret at the perfect. Not that an individual is sinless, but rather that this person is innocent from all these criticisms and harsh words that have been said about them, right? They're not worthy of the attacks coming from their enemies. That's why they're perfect. But they want, they want to shoot. I want you to notice that, they shoot in secret. Think about that, they shoot in secret. Suddenly do they shoot at him. So again, the appearance is it's come out of nowhere. That's the appearance, it's come out of nowhere, what? But we saw in the previous verse, no, they prepared very carefully. We saw in the previous verses, they got together, they made council, they had meetings, they organized themselves for this attack. But to you, if it's you on the other side, it just comes out of nowhere. Go, man, I can't believe that. Can't believe people would say such things about me. Verse number five, they encouraged themselves in an evil matter. They commune of laying snares privily. They say, who shall see them? They want to operate behind the scenes. They want to be secret about it. But they encourage themselves in an evil matter. So again, they're cowardly to act on their own. Instead of the Bible principle, one on one, take your issue one on one with that brother or sister, they're too cowardly for that. I don't know why, because every time I've had issues, and I've just gone one to one, and someone's been willing to go one to one with me, we sort it out. And we sort it out in like two minutes. It's all forgiven, brother. And it's done. You move on with life. You want to bring other people involved. What do you think? Did you know Sister so-and-so did this to me? What do you think? Do you think that's right? Trying to get people gathered together. Too counted, just go. Go talk to your brother who you've had the conflict with. Just sort it out. Once you do it once, you know how easy it is. You'll do it a second time, and a third time, and a fourth time. They encourage themselves. Oh yeah, you did right. They can't, they have to operate in a group. They have to find other wicked people together. What's that saying? Birds of a feather will flock together. They'll find each other. They'll find each other, you know, and so they can feel better about their evil matters. Notice how it said in verse number five, they commune of laying snares privily. They want to lay traps on the person that they're trying to harm privately, secretly, operating behind the scenes. You know what it reminds me, like verse number four, that they may shoot in secret at the perfect. It reminds me of a sniper. You know, a sniper that might be hiding in a building somewhere, in a war zone. You know, they've got access to a window. They can see everything from a high vantage point. No one knows where they are. You've got soldiers on the opposing force walking down the street and they get taken out one by one. Bang, where did that come from? Bang, where did that come from? Snipers secretly there, right? They're well trained. They've organized themselves. They're going on the attack, but they want to hide. They don't want to be seen. They don't want to be seen. They don't want to take accountability for their wickedness. They don't want to take accountability for their words. They want to corrupt the mind of others. They want to make others do their dirty work. All right, like the sniper and their bullet, they'll send someone else. The person they've deceived, the person they've misled, they'll send them to say something. They'll send them to stir up the strife, to cause the problems. And they're just behind the scenes. They're loving it. And like it says there at the end of verse number five, they say, who shall see them? No one sees me. And I've been so smart. I've organized this behind the scenes. I've turned everyone against him. You know? He doesn't know it's me. So wicked. Are there people like this? Yes. Yes, there are people like this. Yeah, you're gonna go through this. You take a position of authority, you're gonna go through this for sure. It doesn't matter, workplace, workplace authority. You know, you're gonna have to go through this. But they feel protected, right? They're operating on a secret. They feel protected. They feel that nobody sees them. At the end of verse number four it says, and fear not. Suddenly they shoot at him and fear not. They got no fear. They know I'm not gonna get attacked in return. No one knows it's me. No one can see me. They don't realize that it's me they have deceived. I've manipulated them. I've manipulated their thoughts. It's all playing out exactly as I want. That is how they feel. And if you're on the receiving end, you won't know for a while. You'll be confused. You'll be like, man, sniper. Bullet, whoa, you're taking cover. Where are those bullets coming from? And then another party joins in and they're on the attack. You're like, what in the world? Another party, what in the world? Where's this all coming from? Suddenly. Have I really messed up? Have I really destroyed something? Have I really committed such grievous acts? Deserving of this? And you rack your mind and you go, what? Must be me. Because look at all these attacks. They've come out of nowhere. Keep your finger there and come with me to Mark 11. Come with me to Mark 11. When I think of this psalm, it reminds me so much of Jesus. I mean, we can look at many, many, many Bible stories. But the one that is constantly getting sniper attacked is Jesus. Just one example. Mark 11, 27. Mark 11, 27. I'm not gonna explain the stories or the parables that Jesus speaks about here so much. I just wanna see, I want you to see the actions of the wicked. Mark 11, 27. And they come again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, they come to him, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. So Christ is at the temple. Who's coming to Jesus? Chief priests, scribes and elders. Religious leaders, all right? I mean, these are all legitimate officers in the temple. They're doing legitimate work. Verse number 28. And they say unto him, by what authority doest thou these things? And who gave thee this authority to do these things? All right? Drop down to verse number 33. So Jesus answers. Jesus says to them, look, I'll answer you if you answer my question. And they don't wanna answer his question because they know if they answer it, people are gonna turn against them. Okay, but then verse number 33. And they answered and said unto Jesus, we cannot tell. Like we can't answer your question, Jesus. And Jesus answering safe unto them, neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things. You wanna know who gives me the authority? I'm not gonna tell you if you can't even answer my basic question. Okay, so anyway, it's not so much about what the context that I'm too concerned about. I just want you to notice that it was the chief priests, the scribes and the elders, right? So they can't, they're not winning this verbal debate with Christ. Okay, they can't, they realize, man, we can't answer his questions. So coming into the next chapter, Mark 11. Mark 11, please. Sorry, Mark 12, Mark 12, next chapter. Mark 12, verse 12. Mark 12, verse 12. Then Jesus Christ, let me catch up to speed. Christ gives the parable of the vineyard. And with the husbandmen, the gardeners of the vineyard, because they kill the son of the husbandmen, that they will be kicked out of the vineyard, basically. They're not going to inherit the vineyard, okay? And these priests, scribes and elders know that Jesus is talking about them. That they're not going to inherit the kingdom of God. Okay, so it's offensive teaching that Christ is saying there. And then verse number 12, Mark 12, 12. And they sought, again, they are the chief priests, scribes and elders. And they sought to lay hold on him, but feared the people, for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them, and they left and went their way. So you think, all right, Jesus wins. Jesus wins this verbal discussion, and so they leave. Yeah, but now they operate behind the scenes. Because look at verse number 14. Verse number, sorry, 13, verse number 13. And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians to catch him in his words. They're like, you know what, we can't do this face to face. We can't take on Jesus face to face. So we're going to go behind the scenes, we're going to send others. We're going to corrupt the minds of the Pharisees and the Herodians, they probably didn't like Jesus already anyway, we know that, okay. The Herodians are those that are part of King Herod's, you know, household, maybe servants, what have you, okay. So they represent as much as, you know, you would say, because King Herod operated under the Roman Empire, you could say that this is, you know, the governing authorities of the land as a representative. And then we'll send the Pharisees, a certain sect of the Jews, you know, a religious authority on the land. Let's send a religious authority and a governing authority. But they're like, we can't face Jesus anymore. They send others. They're like snipers. Let's try to catch Jesus at his word. Let's like, let's try to catch, lay a trap. Let's see Jesus say the wrong things so we can then turn against him, so we can turn the people against him. Verse number 14. And when they will come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man, for thou regardest not the person of men, but teacheth the way of God in truth, is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? So they're like, they're trying to butter up Jesus. We know you're true. We know you preach the truth. You don't care if it offends people. You just care about pleasing the Lord. We know that. So let's just ask you a question. And this is one of the traps. Sometimes people ask you questions to lay a trap for you. They don't really want an answer. They don't want the truth. They just want you to say something so they can use that against you. So they're asking Jesus, Jesus, should we pay our taxes? Now, like all of us, no one likes to pay our taxes. Okay. The correct answer is gonna be unpopular already by default. Jesus says in verse number 14, sorry, verse number 15, shall we give or shall we not give? But he knowing their hypocrisy said unto them, why tempt ye me? Bring me a penny that I may see it. And they brought it and he saith unto them, whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar's. It's like us, you know, you pick up a coin, say, well, that's got Queen Elizabeth on the back. Is that God's coin or does that belong to Queen Elizabeth? You know, who does it belong to? Soon it'll be King. King, what's his name? King. Charles. King Charles. All right, soon that'll be on our coins. You know, that's kind of like, you know, whose name, whose picture is on this penny? Verse number 17, and Jesus, and they said unto him, Caesar's. Verse number 17, and Jesus answered and said unto them, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And they marveled at him. See, I mean, like, they're trying to trip Jesus over. They're trying to make him to say the wrong things. He says, you know what, it's just money, who cares? It's got something else's face on it. Give it to them, it belongs to them. But you give to God what belongs to God. And they're like, man, we can't trap, we can't, we can't cause this Jesus to fall by his words. Like, this is why eventually they had to bring false witnesses against him. But that's how they are, brethren. And I know I have to be extra careful as a pastor because I get a lot of questions. I get phone calls, I get emails with a lot of questions. You know, I get people just asking all kinds of questions. And I don't know from the onset, like, is this person just legitimately wanting an answer? Does this person legitimately just want to learn, you know, wants to fix their understanding or try to reconcile things they've heard before? Or are they asking questions to gather information for an attack? I don't know. But I know when I started this church six years ago, I was getting call after call. I thought this was gonna be my life. Call after call after call. What do you believe about divorce? What do you believe about alcohol? Those two questions constantly, constantly. And eventually I started to realise, you know what? Whoever these are, whoever's calling me, asking me these questions, they want me to say something wrong to use that against me. They're probably even recording this conversation right now. And if I say something that they can use against me, it's probably gonna be on YouTube. But it took me time to realise, but that's how they are. Sneaky, behind the scenes. Oh, we're just pretending to be people with genuine questions. We'll send someone else with questions to cause you to trip over. Back to Psalm 64, back to Psalm 64. Verse number six. This is really scary too, verse number six. They search out iniquities. Now we know the man that they're attacking is perfect, referring to David. Like he's not deserving of what they're accusing him of, whatever, but they search out iniquities. They want to know every little detail. They wanna find every skeleton in the closet. All right, they search it out. They accomplish a diligent search. Like they really spend their time trying to find dirt on that individual. Whatever they can find, they'll diligently search this. Look at the next part, it says, but the inward thought of every one of them and the heart is deep. So get the idea of a deep well. Something like this, okay? A deep hole. The Bible's saying that these wicked people, their thoughts and their hearts are like this very deep ditch, okay? And they wanna fill that ditch with information as they diligently seek trying to find iniquities. Now they'll find iniquities because everyone's got iniquities. They'll find the sins because everyone's got sins. They'll find issues. But as they try to fill, what the Bible's saying here is, again, creative language, to say they're never satisfied. They find more, they find an issue. Oh wow, tell me more, I wanna know more about that issue. It's just that their thoughts and their hearts are so deep, so corrupted. They just wanna fill it with all this information, all these iniquities, all the biggest problems that brother so-and-so has or sister so-and-so has. It's just so wicked. Like be careful when someone comes up to you, even your pastor, and someone says to you, oh brother, please, please open up and share your struggles with me. Be careful. And look, yeah, I have struggles, you know? Yes, brother, I have struggles. I'm struggling with relationships. Can you please pray for me? And look, some people are just satisfied with that because they're not deep. They're just like, oh, okay, I can pray for that brother. But they're like, oh, well, which relationships? Having problems with the wife, huh? Having problems in the marriage? Tell me about it. Having issues with your children? Tell me all about it. And they act like they love you. That's how they act. I'm just concerned. You know, I just wanna be able to be there for you, brother. And you start to offload, you start to trust them because, you know, they're making diligent search. They're trying to find whatever answer they can. You know, this morning I preached a little bit about boundaries. You've gotta have boundaries, even in the information you share with others. There are things that only God needs to know. You know, that's it. It's up to God. He knows. Why does brother so-and-so need to know? Be careful when people come around you and say, so what do you know about brother so-and-so? They might not come to you directly, but I'll go to someone else. Oh, you're close to them. You know about the situation. Can you tell me a little bit? I wanna know. So what's the issue? Oh, really? Tell me more. Tell me more. What else? Oh, wow. Brevin, these are wicked people. And can we do this by, we can? That's why I'm saying like, okay, you know, understand your enemies, what your enemies are doing, but are you being a frenemy? Are you acting the same way? They're never satisfied. They just wanna keep searching. Just come over, sisters, just come over for a cup of tea. We'll talk about it. You have every right to complain about that situation. Just share your concerns and your problems to me. You have to be careful. Look, I'm not saying don't share information. I'm saying share it to God. If you need to vent, there's no one better. There is no one better to vent to than God directly. And look, if you do a good job venting to God, you won't need to vent to men because men can't do anything for you. But they'll be like, I can replace God for you. Just bear your burdens to me. And look, you could go one year, two years, three years without any attacks. And then year number four rolls around and all of a sudden, all that information you told your brother so-and-so is all coming out in the open and they're being used to attack you. And you're like, where did that come from? Because sometimes these secret counsels can be very long, can be a very long time finding the right opportunity to attack. You know, my wife, we talk about things and people say, not just my wife, people say to me, pastors, you're too transparent, you're too open. People can use that against you. But at the same time, there are other principles in the Bible. You may recall a sermon that I preached not long ago, give them enough rope to hang themselves, something like that. Sometimes I want to be transparent to the point where people feel they can attack because I want to draw out the enemies sooner than later. Sometimes I will be transparent because I want to say, hey, who loves me? Who trusts me? Who can I trust? And who's going to use that information against me? So I can see uses for both sides, but I'm just trying to say to you, there are people that just want to know everything. Tell me about sister so-and-so. Here's another one. And I know we do it. Don't tell me you don't. But when someone says to you, look, I want to tell you a secret. Please just keep this confidential between you and me. And you're like, yeah, well, of course you can trust me. Then you go to church. Oh, did you know? Oh, but you keep it a secret because sister so-and-so told me to keep it a secret. So you better keep it a secret. Dangerous. It's wicked. You know what? If you know if you can keep a secret or not, and if you can't keep a secret, just say to that person, please don't tell me. I can't keep secrets. There's nothing wrong with that. Just look, I can't keep a secret. Don't tell me. And then the one you told the secret to tell someone else, and then you get mad at them for telling your secrets. But you were the one that went to give you a secret. Like you think you can trust men, you can't. I have to be very careful as a pastor. I hear secrets. And because I'm not really a secretive person, like I'm not like, I like to be open and just, this is who I am. Sometimes in conversation, your secret might come out. Just, I mean, I'm not thinking about it. I'm not thinking, oh man, I gotta keep this a secret. Be careful about what you share to me. Okay, if it's a secret, you take it to God. Say, God, this is my issue. I don't know what to do about it, but you see it. It's not a secret. It was never a secret to you in the first place. So Lord, can you please help me handle this? Help me find the solution. Help me know how to overcome this struggle, whatever issue that I have. Verse number seven, please. Psalm 64, verse number seven. And I love verse number seven. How good is this? But God shall shoot at them with an arrow. Suddenly shall they be wounded. So we talked about them, these wicked people being the sniper, right? Like hiding in a window, just watching, watching. Yeah, but there was a master sniper above them who was watching their every move. Like, you don't know, you're on the streets. You're getting shot at. You don't know what's going on. You know, there's a sniper out to get, you don't know who it is, but they don't realize, because remember they said earlier, verse number five, they say, who shall see them? I'll tell you who sees them. God sees them. God's the master sniper. He's up even higher. He sees everything that's going on. He knows exactly where they're shooting from. He knows exactly the counsels and the wickedness and the lies and the deceit that they've said. He knows it all. So God is ready, now it's time for me to shoot you. And as sudden as it was to you, you go, man, this came out of nowhere. It says there in verse number seven, suddenly shall they be wounded. Just as like, where did this come from to you? They're like, whoa, where did this come from? God's attacked me. And notice the perfect and the upright man, King David. Did he go on the attack? No. Did he shoot back? No. He says, God, you shoot back. You shoot them with an arrow, God. You will shoot them with an arrow. And you all know this reference, Romans 12, 19. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Let God, let him step in. Let him do the shooting. He knows exactly where they are. Man, you can't play Battleship with, you know that game Battleship with God? You'll be sunk immediately. He knows all your positions. Let God win the battle for you. And I really love verse number eight as well, because look at the type of arrow that God uses against them. So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves. So the very tongue they've been sharpening to say harsh words, nasty words against you, that very same tongue will fall upon themselves. They're gonna be injured by their own doing. And it says, all that see them shall flee away. Reverend, they destroy themselves. Their testimony falls apart. I've experienced this as a pastor, more so than ever. And I see the pattern. The pattern, it's the same pattern again and again and again. Listen, if someone's attacking you, someone's criticizing you, don't go on the attack. Don't go on the attack. Just like David, run. You know, Lord, I'm scared, I'm fearful. Lord, I can't see the sniper. You hide to God, you cry to him and let God shoot back. And God will use their own words. Their own words to destroy their testimony, destroy their life. When it all gets revealed and they've been on the attack, look, eventually it'll be revealed. Eventually it'll be manifest who the wicked really are and who the perfect is, okay? Eventually it's gonna be revealed who's been on the attack. Look, and you might go through this in life. You might see conflicts between two brethren, for example. And you're hearing just constantly from one person, you know how wicked brother so-and-so is? Like, okay, you know, and you start to be maybe even, you start to pick, oh yeah, I think you're right. You know, yeah, there were issues. And you know, you're hearing this constant attack about brother so-and-so. And then in time, you realize, hold on, that brother doesn't attack in return though. Like, he's getting hammered. He's getting criticized. He's getting attacked. But the way I see him respond, he's not on the attack in return. Like, he's not trying to cause any damage. And what he starts to notice when it all starts to reveal itself, you see that one individual was the one who was wicked. One individual was on the attack. One individual was criticizing. One individual was filled with lies and deceit and rumors and gossip. And the other person did nothing. At that point, you know, everybody knows who the wicked individual was. Everybody knows. It's the one that got busy. It's the one that got down with the secret counsel of the wicked. They destroy themselves. So you don't have to attack them in reverse. Everyone can see their attacks. Everyone can see their weakness, the words of their own mouth. Everyone can see their actions. And then all of a sudden it's like, it's clear who's in the wrong here. It's clear who's been exaggerating, who's been deceitful. It's that, the person that's been on the attack. And God uses that, reveals that, manifests it to everybody. That's why it says at the end of verse number eight, all that see them shall flee away. Go, it was you all along. You're the one. Brother so-and-so did nothing to you. Family so-and-so did nothing to you. You're the one on the attack constantly. You're the one always criticizing them. I want nothing to do with you. And they'll lose their friendships. Their friends will flee. Everyone that sees will flee away. I don't want nothing to do with you. You've destroyed your testimony. Be careful that you don't gossip. That you don't exaggerate people's issues. That you don't go around digging for people's iniquities. Because God sees it. You think I can just ask, I can hide, no one sees me. I'm gathering information in time for my attack. God sees it all. You'll be the one that's found out. So I'm not pointing at anybody in particular. You'll be the one found out. And then you destroy your life. You destroy your reputation. Destroy your testimony. No one will want anything to do with you. Verse number nine. And all men shall fear and shall declare the work of God. For they shall wisely consider of his doing. People will look at that situation after it's all resolved, after it's all manifest. Go wow, look how God stepped in. Look how God delivered the perfect. Look how the perfect didn't attack back. Look how God stepped in and resolved the situation. So the wise will consider this. Be wise this afternoon. Please consider these words. When someone wants to tell you secret information about this and that. Listen, remove yourself as soon as possible. Be wise. Or encourage that brother or sister. Speak one on one with them. You know what you're meant to do. If you walk outside of God's will, you're going to make things worse. This is gonna blow up in your face. Go resolve it one on one. I don't wanna hear the gossip. I'm gonna go read my Bible instead. That's what I want. I want you to be wise. All right? When you see God's hand, God's judgment, God's ways. When you see someone, when God delivers someone, when they've done nothing wrong, you go man, vengeance does belong to God. God does step in, God does see. God does shoot back. God does see all things. And then that'll encourage you when you're going through a time like this, when your enemies rise up against you. And verse number 10, the righteous shall be glad in the Lord and shall trust in Him and all the upright in heart shall glory. So when this happens, you must like, do we want this to happen? We don't want it to happen, right? We don't want enemies attacking innocent people. You don't wanna be a frenemy and accidentally get yourself involved in this kind of thing. We don't wanna see it happen. But when it does happen and it's fully resolved and God comes through, man, we can glory. We can be glad about the Lord. So look how the Lord delivers His saints. And maybe you're going through this right now. I don't know, I don't know all your stories. Maybe you're going through something right now. Be wise, don't fight back. Say, Lord, I'm gonna run to you, I'm afraid. I shouldn't be afraid, I should fear you only, but Lord, I am afraid, I'm gonna hide in you. Lord, your vengeance belongs to you. Please resolve this matter in your time. Please deliver me from the workers of iniquity. And when God comes through, rejoice. Praise Him, sing glories, all right? Just praise God for who He is. Brethren, He is our defense and He is our shield. Says the upright in heart shall glory. Upright in heart. What is your heart like? We see two different hearts in this chapter. The upright in heart. Those that wanna just glorify God and then the ones whose hearts are deep, they wanna fill it with the iniquities of everybody in church. If you're this way, if you have this natural tendency to want to know about everyone's issues, everyone's sin, fix your heart. Please, before you destroy yourself or you hurt others. You gotta be satisfied to know, look, people struggle, people do wrong things. I don't need to know all the information. I can just take it to God. God, look after this person, look after them, help them in this situation. That's all that needs to be known. Don't we all have skeletons in our closet? Do you really want all those skeletons coming out for sister so-and-so to think, ah, because I wanna be praying about you and thinking about you? Man, so dangerous. Please, again, I'm gonna say, look, maybe I need to preach on boundaries again, but look after your families. Look after your children. Look after your marriage. Don't let anyone creep in, okay? They aren't God. Go to God, God, God, I've got these issues. I need to vent to somebody. Go, say, go to vent to God, I'm telling you. There is no one else. God is not going to reveal all your sins to the whole world. He's nailed it all to the cross. He's covered it with the shed blood of Christ. He's removed it from the east as far as it is from the west. God's not interested in just proclaiming your sins to this whole world, but man does it. Man can do it. Be very careful about who you confide in. Confide in the Lord God. All right, brother, the title for the sermon was The Secret Council of the Wicked. When you're attacked suddenly, oh, where'd this come from? It wasn't sudden, now you know. Okay, there's been a plan against you for a while, okay? But when it happens, you run to God and let God sort it out, let's pray.