Faithbase

Good morning again, and I was, as I was praying in the previous section, Psalms 9, 1 through 2, is all the more we did, I just felt at that point to complete that prayer. Originally we were going to pray through verse 5, but I want to now read verses 3 through 8. Now again, I'm not going to promise you that we'll pray through that entire section, but I'm trying to just follow the leading of the Holy Spirit here as far as our time of prayer. Now in verse 3 of Psalm 9, Lord, we thank you as we come before you in the name of Jesus Christ, that you are not only the one who deserves our praise always, and the one whom we love and lift high, but you are the one who protects us, Lord God. We know that we often neglect an aspect of what we are supposed to pray to you about. In asking for you to bring judgment, in asking you to judge righteously, Lord, your love and your mercy have no context without the fact that there is a standard of right and wrong that you have established. There is no other standard that has any validity except for the standard of right and wrong that you have established as an expression of your character, Lord God. We pray that our enemies would turn back, that those who would reject you, Lord Jesus, those who would attack your people, those who would consider the Christian faith even perhaps a threat to the freedoms of others, Lord God. And I truly believe, Lord, that they don't think that, most people don't think that. What they do think is that they despise the truth, that they despise God and his people. And so I pray, Lord, that our enemies will turn back, that they will fall and perish at your presence, that you shall display yourself in all your power before them, Lord, because you have maintained our right and our cause, and you have sat on the throne judged in righteousness, Lord. We are only righteous in Jesus, our Lord and Savior. We are only found acceptable to you in our Lord Jesus Christ, and because of that you maintain our cause. You watch over us. You protect us. Lord, that doesn't mean that we will forgo hardship, it doesn't mean that, but it does mean that you shall watch over us and bring us through hardship, Lord, because you sit on the throne judging in righteousness, and you've rebuked the nations. Lord, I pray that the nations that have a characteristic of godlessness, Lord, and I'm thinking right now of the Islamic world, Lord, that it is a counterfeit religion, Islam is a counterfeit religion, and those people have been misled, their eyes have been blinded, and I ask, Lord, that you'd bring sight to their eyes spiritually, that you would judge those nations that have turned away from the truth, Lord, and I know that's not just the nations that are characterized by the Islamic belief, but, Lord, that's what's on my heart right now is the things that are going on, for instance, in the Middle East, in Israel with Gaza, and how Hamas, representing, really, Lord, what Islam is all about, and I pray, Lord, that you would not only open the eyes of the people who have been blinded by Islam, but you'd open the eyes of others who don't know the truth about how violent and bloodthirsty the Islamic faith actually is, Lord God, so we pray that you will rebuke the nations, that you will destroy the wicked, that you will blot out their name, Lord God, and, Lord, again, when we pray this, our first and foremost hope and prayer is that you blot out the wicked and destroy them by killing the old man and bringing that person to a new life in Jesus Christ. That is our chief hope and prayer, Lord God, that you would choose to draw from the midst of these nations that despise you a cadre, a seed of the faith and the true faith in Jesus Christ that will then be spread throughout the entirety of those nations, that you will destroy the false religion of Islam, that you will destroy the false faith that is represented by that horrible religion, Lord God, but instead, that the faith in Jesus Christ, that one true faith, will supplant that, Lord God, as you rebuke the nations, destroy the wicked, we pray that you do so by bringing them into the faith, the true faith in Jesus Christ, and that their names, the name of this false religion would be blotted out forever, that these folks who have been brought into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ will forget the past and look ahead to living a life that's pleasing to you, Lord Jesus. So I pray, Lord, that we can keep these things in mind, that our righteousness is not something that we have produced, but it is something that you have given us, that we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are reminded that it is you, Lord God, who gives us both the ability, the desire, and the ability to do what is right, and you do so in the strength of Jesus Christ. So we pray your blessings on this day, that as you do this work, your name will be glorified. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.