It was as a senior in high school that I heard, or at least understood, the gospel for the first time. God’s grace not only changed my eternal destiny, it gave me a desire to do right, and totally embrace every truth in Scripture. Grace also gave me a burden to see others saved. But the truth is that, as I attended a secular high school, I often felt like the Lone Ranger. I was the only real Christian in a host of hostile lost people. One experience epitomized such a feeling. In a class discussion about evolution, I was the only one in the room who believed in, and stood up for, biblical creation as explained in the Bible. Of course, student and teacher alike ridiculed me. In that, and other instances, I was the Lone Ranger.
If you’ve ever felt like you were the Lone Ranger too, you and I are not alone. In Psalm 12:1, David wrote, “Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.” In verses two through four, he goes on to describe the ungodly speaking words of “vanity” with arrogance because they believed they would always prevail without consequence. Chapter Fourteen goes on to explain there were many who were fools in their hearts and said, “there is no God” (14:1). It seemed to David, when God “looked down from heaven…to see if there were any that did… seek God, (His conclusion was); They are all gone aside…there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (14:2-3). It was enough for even a godly man, like David, to get discouraged.
How was David to get through these conditions without succumbing to utter defeat? There is a simple threefold answer. David continued to look into the “pure words” of Scripture for comfort and strength (Psalm 12:6- 7). All of Psalm 73 describes David’s struggle with envy over the wicked that prospered. But then he remembered that the end of the wicked would eventually be divine judgment “in a moment” (Psalm 73:19). Finally, David realized: “…in Thy [the Lord’s] presence is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11). These simple but profound truths comforted and strengthened David, and remembering them can do the same for you.
The next time you get discouraged by the overwhelming ungodliness of our day, remember these things that enabled David to continue on the right path.