Turn to Psalm 57. We're going to look at just one
verse tonight. Frank asked me about three or four weeks ago
if I would do this tonight. And I came to this psalm, and
I've spent three or four weeks just on the first verse. And
I've gotten just a couple of golden shavings off this large
nugget that's here on this one verse. I've often thought over the years,
I'm a billboard reader, especially church billboards. And many years
ago, when our country was attacked by terrorists, Our president at that time, President
Bush, used this phrase and it became very popular. About every
speech, about every appearance, he said, God bless America. Very
good thing to say. And it became very popular to
put everywhere. There was a little grocery store out by us, out
back of Ironton there, about three miles out. And they had
an advertising board out close to the road every day. And they
would have different items in the store. And of all the billboards
that I've ever seen, this was to me the most, it just made
me aghast. God bless America. And right
under it, on the same page with something that magnificent. Pork
chops, $2 a pound. And for 15 years I've never found
anything that surpassed that in all its ignorance until two
weeks ago. A little church out behind. And this is what they had on
their bulletin board. God has no favorites, but our
pastor does. No cats. I love basketball maybe more
than anybody you know. I love it at every level. I've
got a grandson there, he's in the third grade. I love to watch
him play basketball, and I watch it at every level. And I love
it. But I'm telling you, they don't
mix. There's no comparison. They don't
belong on the same page. And my first thought was anger
that anybody would do something this ridiculous on a place to
honor God, to His matchless name, to His Word, put a scripture
on there, something that He's breathed and given us for all
eternity. And yet that's what they put.
And after my anger died down, I thought, what little bit's
on there, it's a lie. God does have favorites. My son-in-law,
Gene, he knew this fellow. He worked with him at the coal
docks many years ago. And he told me, he said, I'm
going to write him a letter and I'm going to tell him what you've
got out there on your board is a lie. Because God does have
favorites. And thank God he's got favorites.
And he's always had favorites. He's always had favorites. Before
He ever created the heavens and the earth, God had a people that
He loved. And He gave those people to Christ.
And Christ was a surety of those people. Always. The covenant was made between
the Father and the Son. And the Son said, I'll go down
there and I'll do all that your justice and your holiness requires
to redeem those people that are your favorites. And I'm telling
you, the seriousness of it, If God does not have favorites,
heaven will be unoccupied for all eternity. If God does not
have favorites, nobody will ever be saved. Ever. Nobody. If God does not have favorites,
the Lord Jesus Christ will inhabit all eternity and will not have
fellowship with mankind if God don't have favorites. But thank
God, He has favorites. And tonight, I want to look at
one of God's favorites. One that God Himself said, I
found David to be a man after my own heart. This is one of
God's favorites. And we're going to look at just
verse 1 in Psalm 57, but before we do, Let's go back a ways and
let's get some history and lead up to what's going on here in
57-1. We have no information in the
scriptures of David's first 18 or 19 years. We don't know anything
about him. The people of God, the nation
of Israel, had been dealt with by God through prophets. for
many, many, many years. God would raise up a prophet,
and God would talk to this prophet, and he would tell this prophet
what to go and tell the people. And this man would go and say,
Thus saith the Lord. And he would deal with the people.
He would chastise them. He would rebuke them. He would
correct them. And this went on for many hundred
years. The heathen nations around Israel,
they all had kings. They all had monarchs. They all
had rulers. And the people wanted to be like everybody else. They
didn't like the way God did things. And they wanted to have a king.
And so they looked around at their people. And here was this
man named Saul. Saul was a giant back in those
days. Saul was 6 foot 6. He was 240 pounds. He was a soldier.
He was a magnificent looking specimen. And they said, we want
Saul to be our king. Samuel came to God and he said,
what's these people? What are they thinking? What
are they doing? And he said, don't you worry about it, Samuel.
It's me they've rejected. It's me they've rejected, not
you. It's me they've rejected. Go ahead and give them what they
want. And so Saul became the king. Now this went on for a
period of time and things certainly changed. Saul began to take the
young men from the nation and cause them to have military service,
had to serve in the military and those type of things. The
taxes went way up. He was a monarch. He was a supreme
ruler and did what he wanted to do. Well, God called Samuel,
and he said, Samuel, I want you to go down there to Bethlehem,
and I want you to anoint my king. And Samuel said, okay, I'll go.
And Samuel goes down to Bethlehem, and there's a man down there
in Bethlehem named Jesse. And Jesse's got eight sons. And
Samuel goes down there to the home of Jesse. And he goes in,
and he prepares the sacrifice, and he prepares the feast. And
he said, now we're not going to sit down and eat, Samuel,
or Jesse, until I see all of your sons. And Jesse said, all
right. And so he brought them in one
at a time, beginning with the eldest. And this young man come
in, probably 40 years old. He was the oldest of those eight
boys. And he was an impressive looking young man. He was big
and he was just impressive, impressive looking. God never said a word
to Samuel. And all seven of those boys that
was in the house, they all passed by. And the Lord never spoke
to Samuel. And Samuel said, now we're not
going to eat until all of them. He said, is this all your boys?
Oh, he said, I've got one young one. He's the youngest. And he's out there on the hillside
and he's watching the sheep. And I thought when I read that,
I thought, my, oh, my. He didn't bring that Jesse didn't
bring that young man in to meet. This is Samuel. This is Samuel. I mean, in that day, there was
nobody in the kingdom like Samuel. This is a man that talked to
God, that spoke to God, and God spoke to him, communicated with
him. I mean, there was nobody in the
kingdom greater than Samuel. And here's this young man, this
20-year-old man, and his dad don't even bring him in out of
the field to see Samuel when the prophet comes to his house.
I've finished reading a series of books. I've given them to
Tara, and she's going to read them now. They're on the Civil
War, detailed books of the Civil War. Principally, the books,
there's three books, and principally they deal with six or seven characters. They deal with, from the North,
they deal with Ulysses Grant, they deal with a man named Joshua
Chamberlain, who was a two-star general, Medal of Honor winner,
and they deal with a man named Winfield Scott. And he was also
a two-star general. And on the South, it deals with
General Lee, and deals with Thomas Stonewall Jackson, and deals
with James Longstreet and Jeb Stuart. That's the characters,
the primary characters in the book. And I've read them all,
and I finished it, read it twice. And I finished it, and if I had
the opportunity to sit down with one of those men, it'd be James
Longstreet. He was Lee's right-hand man during
the whole Civil War. And I thought when I was looking
at this and thinking about David there out on the hillside, there's
eleven of us men in our clan, eleven of us, me and my four
and then the six grandsons. If James Longstreet could come
to our house for supper, I guarantee you I'd have him all there. I
guarantee you. If Henry Mahan come to Ashland.
and was going to have supper at our house, I promise you,
everybody would be there. I promise you. But it didn't
happen here. I guess he left his youngest
boy out there on the hillside. Samuel said, go fetch him. It
had a beautiful word, go fetch him. Go bring him in. And that's
how all God's children, that's how they come. The prophet comes,
speaking the Word of God, And the Spirit says, bring him in. He's one of mine. He's one of
my favorites. Bring him in. And there's many
here tonight. There's many of God's favorites
here tonight. That as a result of the preaching of the gospel,
as a result of the work of the Spirit of God, as a result of
that conviction that's taken place in the heart, we flee to
Christ. We lay hold of the Savior. And
this is what's happened here. David's one of God's favorites.
And he said, David walked in and God spoke to Samuel and said,
that's him. Arise and anoint him. And the
scriptures say that the Spirit of the Lord rested on David from
that time on. The Spirit of the Lord rested
on him. Now we go forward a little bit.
This is one of God's favors. We go forward a little bit. David's
three oldest brothers are up there in the army now. And the
Philistines has invaded the country and declared war on Israel. And
Saul takes his army out there, and you're all familiar with
this story. And he's camped on this side of the valley, and
the Philistines are on this side of the valley. And they've hired
a mercenary, a giant named Goliath. I mean, you talk about a warrior.
This guy is probably nine feet tall and weighs 450 pounds. The
spear he carries, just the spearhead weighs 18 pounds. And the coat
of mail that just covers his just covers his torso, just covers
his heart and lungs and ribs, 150 pounds, and he's got a helmet
on and leggings on his legs, everything protected. And he
comes out for 40 days and he comes down in that valley and
he screams up obscenities and abominable things, he says, about
the God of Israel and the army up there and I'm scared to death. Young David with some supplies
for those boys that are in the army. Sends them some cheese
and some bread and those things. And David comes up there on the
40th day. Now, Goliath's been doing this
for 40 days. But this is the last day he's
going to do it. And David comes up there and he hears this. And
he's just amazed. He's amazed. And he said, do
you hear what that man's saying? He's defying God Almighty. He's
blaspheming the God of Israel. And the men said, well, you go
down there if you want to. We're not going down there. He
said, I'll go down there. He said, is there not a cause?
I'll go down there. And King Saul came and took all
his armor off. He said, here, David. Saul's
6'6", David's 5'7". Put all this stuff on. You can't
even see him. You can't even walk. He said,
I don't need that stuff. He said, I'll go in the power
of God. And he goes down off that mountain, and he's got a
little sling in his hand. And he goes down there in that
creek and gets five little stones, little flat stones. And he goes
out there and faces that giant. And he slays it. There's only
one spot that's not protected on Goliath, as if he needed protection,
right there on his forehead. David slew him. One stone killed
that giant. It's one of God's favorites.
Think about it. Think about this obscure, unknown
boy keeping sheep for his father down there in an obscure place
called Bethlehem. And he just happens to come up
there on this particular day. And he said, I'll go down there.
I'm not afraid. The Spirit of the Lord is on
me. The Spirit of the Lord is dwelling
in me. And he went down there and slew
that John. Now, we go forward a little bit. has an evil spirit that's troubling
him. And he gets no rest and he's
just agitated all the time. And some of the men around him
say, well, now that David, that fellow down there in Bethlehem
said he's a master musician. He can play the instruments.
It's like the voice of an angel. And he said, well, you bring
him up here. So he brings him up there. And when this evil
spirit attacks Saul, David comes in and plays on that harp or
whatever, you know, and just soothes Saul down, he just goes
right off to sleep, you know. And so Saul is so impressed with
David, he promotes him up to be the captain over the royal
guard. The three principal officers
in the nation at that time was the king, certainly was Saul.
And Joab was over the army. He was the general of the army.
And then the third most prominent man in the whole kingdom was
the captain over the royal guard, which was David. And David would
go out with the soldiers, and David would be just heroic in
battle. And the people began to say,
well, Saul's slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands,
you know. And David was just, he stole the heart of all the
people. They just couldn't hear about him enough, and couldn't
see him, and cheered him whenever he walked down the street. And
Saul, oh, he didn't like it. And Saul got angry. And Saul
sought to kill. David. God's anointed. And David
fled. And he went into the mountains.
And he found some caves there. And there were some people there
with him. He sent for the protection of his family. He got his mother
and father. He got his brothers. And some other supporting people.
Those closest to him. And they come there. And there
they are hiding in a cave. And you say, now wait a minute,
Dale. Wait a minute. I was right with you when you
said this was one of God's favorites when he went down there and anointed
him king. That was a good day. And then
he went down there and slew that giant. That was a good day. I
can see where he was one of God's favorites then. And then he brought
him right up there into the kingdom, right up into the palace, and
he promoted him all the way to number three in command of all
of Israel. I can see where he was God's
favorite there. But now wait a minute. Is he still God's favorite
in a time of trouble? Is he still God's favorite? Yes,
he is. He absolutely is. And it may
be that some here tonight are in a heavy trough, in a great
time of trouble. God's been merciful to us. He's been gracious to us. He's
reached out from wherever we were, and He's called us by His
grace, and He's sent His gospel right to us. And by the preaching
of the gospel, he's done a work of grace in our hearts. And we
flee to Christ and we love the Savior and rest in Christ. And
oh, it's just on the mountaintop. Everything's great. But our Lord
Himself said, in this world you'll have tribulation. Trouble's coming. Trouble's coming. You know, the
old writers say that the trouble that Job was in, there was none
like it. God said to Satan, you see, you
consider my servant Job, there's nothing like him. He's perfect.
He's upright. He fears God. He avoids evil. There's nothing like him. Nobody
like him. And yet them old writers say that that ordeal with Job
was seven years. It wasn't just a cough. It just
wasn't a cold. It wasn't a battle with the flu.
It was seven years of sitting out there and scraping those
boils off his body every day. sprinkling that dust on it to
get some relief from that agony of those open sores all over
his whole body. Seven years. And it may be that
the Lord will bring us into a time of that. That kind of trouble. Are we still God's favorites? Yes, we are. There's not many
verses that I know by memory. I just don't, for whatever reason,
I just can't do it. But I know Romans 8.28. And I
remember when I heard it as a kid the first time. And we know all
things work together for good to them who love God, to them
who are called according to His purpose. I believe that with
all my heart. I don't understand these things
that happen. I don't understand these troubles. I don't understand
what is the purpose. It's all purpose of God. It all
comes for a reason. Well, if it just came for two
days, that'd be great. It may not. It may go on. That
man that the Lord went there at the pool of Siloam and all
those sick people was waiting for the water to be troubled.
And way back there in the back was a man that had been that
way for 38 years. Couldn't get up and walk. 38
years. And the Lord walked back there
and said, take up thy bed and walk. After 38 years. Was he
favored of God? He sure was. Was he only favorite
of God that one day? He was always favorite of God. He was favorite of God before
the world ever began. So I thought, let's look at this
one verse. This one that we know, because
the Scripture testifies, this is one of God's favorites. This
is one that God loved before the foundation of the world.
This is the one that the Lord Jesus Christ would come and die
and take away all his sin and shame. would give him that perfect
righteousness to stand before the Father. Let's see how he
reacts in this time of trouble. Psalm 57, verse 1. And this is
what David says in the midst of all that trouble. I want to
learn this. This is for me and you all listen in. Lord, you anointed me to
be king and you sent me out there to slay that giant. And you sent me up there to be
promoted to a place of excellence and authority and prestige, and
now look what's happened to me. Where are you at? He don't do
that. And we shouldn't do that either.
He says, what a prayer. Be merciful unto me, O God. Oh,
be merciful unto me. That's not a very long prayer.
That's not very elaborate. But what he's saying is, I'm
in a mess and I can't do anything to help myself. There's nothing
I can do. And I'm going to stay this way
forever unless you do something for me. That's a good place to
be. That's a good place to be. Be
merciful unto me, O God. Be merciful unto me. He repeats it twice. This is
not just something flippant. It's just not something memorized. This is serious. This is very serious. Be merciful
unto me, O God, be merciful unto me. It's urgent. It's a time
of danger, a time of sorrow and grief and suffering and pain. And this is what he says. Be
merciful unto me. For my soul trusteth in Thee.
My soul trusteth in Thee. There's no place else to go.
There's no one else to go to. That that lives on and on forever
and ever, that innermost being, that true person, that heart,
that inside never dies. It trusts in Thee. It trusts
in Thee and no one else. If you don't help me, I can't
be helped. My soul trusteth in Thee, in
Thee and Thee alone, no one else, not myself, not my works, not
my deeds, not my doing or not doing, not my giving. My soul
trusteth in Thee, Thee, no one else. Yea, in the shadow of Thy
wings will I make my refuge, in the shadow of Thy wings I remember Henry years ago saying,
boy, this is delicate ground to be on here, to compare the
comfort and the hope that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ
to a mother hen. He said, this is delicate ground
to be on. But nonetheless, that's what
David said. Now, there's some. There's some, no doubt, that
have been raised in the city, like Terry. that probably has
never seen anything like this. My dad raised chickens when I
was a kid, back in the 1950s. I was about 10 years old. And
my dad raised 7,000 fryers a year. When they got to be two or three
pounds, he put them on the market. 7,000 of them. We had a chicken
house that was 130 feet long, 30 feet wide. And I'm amazed
that we didn't get burned out of the neighborhood. If you'd
never lived around a chicken house, It is gosh awful. I'm
telling you, it's hideous. But anyhow, he raised those things
and there was a place here in Ashton called Hinton Hatchery
and they sold baby chicks. And they'd bring them things
in in boxes about this big, square, about that tall, and in them
boxes was compartments. There's about a dozen compartments.
And there was 50 or 60 of these baby chicks, about that big,
just two or three days old, little fellas. And they'd bring a truck
over there at the house and drive in the driveway, and we'd unload
them baby chicks, and we'd take in boxes in that chicken house.
You'd just scoop down in there, them little furry things, you'd
scoop down in there, the hands full of them, and put them out
on the ground, you know. And this was a pretty good setup,
my dad. He had a lot of money invested
in this, and made a lot of money. But in the middle of it, they
had six big brooders, there's about eight feet across, big
brooders. And they had gas running to them,
and they had a pilot light, and it was all on thermostat, and
when the temperature got to be a certain, when it cooled down
so low, that thing would kick on. And heat that, and brooders,
and them little baby chicks would go under there. But, until they
got used to us, anytime you could just, no matter how softly you
tried to get into that chicken house, you just cracked that
door open, man, them chicks run in under that brooder. There
they were. Well, that's what David's saying
here. That's what he's saying here. I'm going to hide under
your wings, like a chick hides under its mother. When the time
of trouble comes, when a hawk is flying over, or there's maybe
a possum loose that's come into the barnyard, or a weasel, or
whatever, and that little baby chick, there it is, just scurrying
around, just playing around, and then trouble comes. And that
little baby chick runs just as hard as it can. and runs right
up into his mother's wings. And all you can see is his little
feet sticking out. And there he is, just nestled up in there.
And I thought when I read this, you know what this baby chick
does not do? Don't take anything. Don't take
anything with it. He just runs for refuge up under
the wings of his mother. And I think that's a good lesson
for us. You know, when trouble comes,
what are we going to do? We wring our hands. Try to figure
out, humanly speaking, how we're going to get out of this, and
we'll do this, and we'll do that, and we'll do the other. Don't
just go to Him. Like David did here. Have mercy
on me, O God. Have mercy on me. I trust in
Me. You're my only hope. Without
You, I'm going to die. Without You, I'm going to perish.
Without You, I'm going to be overwhelmed in this trouble.
Will You have mercy on me? Because I trust in You. And until
this trouble is passed, I'm just going to hide under the shatter
of your wings. I'm just going to hide there under the shatter
of your wings. That's a beautiful, beautiful
illustration right there. And he says, I'm going to hide
there. I'm going to make my refuge there until these calamities
be overpassed. Now, what is that? What are those
calamities? Everybody here, we can start
here and go around the room, and we can say, what's going
on in your world? What's going on in your world?
Tell me your story, and yours, and yours, all the way around
through here. And it'll all be different. But
I promise you, we're all carrying a burden. We're all carrying
a grief. We're all carrying a sorrow.
All of us are. And if we're not, I promise you,
you will. I promise you, you will. And
what is it? Well, it may be sickness. It may be sickness. It may be
loved ones. It may be family near and dear
to us that are lost and without hope, without help. It may be
a host of things. It just may be a host of things.
It may be our sin. It just overwhelms us. We have
that mountaintop experience. The fellowship with our Lord,
and then just that quick, that old man just jumps in. Oh, and
that thought, that anger, that whatever, that jealousy, whatever.
There it is just right in the way. It takes away that fellowship. Well, at that time, have mercy
on me, O Lord. Have mercy on me. I trust in
You. I trust in You. I can't deal
with this. My old man is very strong. He's very old. He's very
strong. He's very powerful. Have mercy
on me, O Lord. I trust in You. Hide me. Hide me in the shadow of Your
wings until these calamities, until they be overpassed, until
they're gone. And they will be. They will be. I remember years ago, Bob Coffey. Becky was sick, very sick, and
Bob said he prayed every day, every breath, every minute. Lord,
will you make her well? Will you be pleased to make her
well? And then one day the Lord called her home, and Bob said,
he answered my prayer. He made her well. He preached
her funeral, and he said that in the message. He did. He answered my prayer. He made
her well. He made her well. Well, there's a time when these
storms and these calamities, we know they're coming sometimes.
Sometimes we hear them a long way off, like a storm. I wake
up at night. I love storms. I love them. I could just about
hear a thunderstorm roll by every night. I love to hear them in
the night. I love to see that lightning
flash and then wait for a few seconds and hear that thunder
roll. Then a little bit later, here'll come that rain. And that's
what David's saying here. Will you let me hide under your
wings? Have mercy on me. I trust in
you. You'll deliver me. No one else
will. Can I hide under your wings till this storm's passed? Till
it's gone? And it will. It'll approach and
we see the beginning of it and then it's right overhead. And
they're grievous. They're grievous. Don't let anybody
tell you that these trials are enjoyable. They're tough. They're tough. They bring heartache
and sorrow and grief. They bring pain and suffering. Lord, be merciful. My soul trusteth in Thee. Let
me hide myself under the shadow of Your wings till these calamities
be overpassed. I hope I learn this. I want to
learn this. I want to know it now in the
daytime, because the night is coming. And I'm going to need
this. We all are going to need this.
When it happens, it's good advice. It's good advice. It's good advice
for one of God's favorites. It's good advice for times of
trouble. I hope I learn it. I hope I learn it. All right.