out of 2 Samuel chapter 22. This is probably one of the three verses that exposed the gospel to me for the first time. At least asked, created a lot of questions, if you will. And I'm gonna start in one spot and work backwards, if you will. So I'm gonna start in chapter, 2 Samuel chapter 22, and verse 31. It's quite the blessed verse in reality because it's absolute. And that's what I'm going to talk about today is the Lord. He's absolute. God is my strength and power and he maketh, he maketh my way perfect. He maketh my way perfect. If we flip over to Psalms 18 and verse 30, Psalms 18 and verse 30. The same author in the same situation writes, as for God, this is not talking about us, as for God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried, it's tested, it's proven, and he is a buckler. Which if you're not familiar with the word, what a buckler is, that's a shield. That's protection. So let me re-read that again. He is a buckler to all those that trust him. Where does trust come from? It comes from the Lord only. That's it. He can't lose one. He saves. He's God. That's what my dad said this morning. Hope is not a wish, it is an expectation of surety and salvation through Christ only. There's no aisle to walk, there's no method to the madness, it is through him and through him only. Nathan actually read in the back today, Habakkuk 1 verse 13, you can turn there if you want to. You are of pure eyes to behold evil. In other words, the Lord cannot see anything but perfection. So the title of this message originally was, The Lord's Path for a Believer. And now I think I'd like to rename it, The Lord's Path. It is what a believer will go through if you hear the message. So again, I bring us to our passage, 2 Samuel chapter 22. I start in verse seven. In my distress, I called upon the Lord. And I cried to my God, and He did hear my voice out of His temple. And my cry did enter His ears. Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations of heaven moved and shook because He was wrath. He was upset. He wanted to protect. There went up a smoke out of His nostrils and fire out of His mouth. Devoured coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub and did fly, and he was seen upon the wings of the wind. And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled. The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice. And he sent out arrows and scattered them. Lightning discomfited them. The channels of the sea appeared and foundations of the world were discovered in the rebuking of the Lord at the blast of his breath of his nostrils. He said, from above he took me, he drew me out of many waters, he delivered me from my strong enemy, and from then it hated me, for they were too strong for me." I'll stop there for just a minute. I apologize because this is technically three messages. There's too much here. And so I'll give you the initial, if you will. The Lord will rescue those who belong to him. And if you go back and read those verses, it's an absolutism. The Lord will rescue those who belong to him. It is not of your choice. It is not. And if you have an ego on that, just understand that the Lord will rescue whom he will rescue. The rescue is of him. Working at the city pool for several years, I watched a few times when people were saved without the ability to save themselves. Their rescue of their own self was impossible until some sort of lifeguard came and rescued them. As a lifeguard, You're at the mercy, I'm sorry, as a victim, if you will, you're at the mercy of someone to save you. You do not have the ability to be saved. And we cry out, help. The lifeguard does show up. The power of the Lord is to save. Verses 18 through 16 proves that. He is absolute. He is the most of absolutes. Verse 7 through 17 highlights that the Lord sent from above. He brought out us of many waters. So my analogy of a lifeguard is one thing, but think about the waters that a believer goes through in reality. And each one of us, we don't want to profess, but each one of us go through different waters. What I mean by that is we go through different levels of Sin of questioning, there was a point in time I would show you that I thought I believed, but I really didn't because I was in a grace church and I thought I heard the Lord, but I really didn't. The Lord will send from above and he will save out of many waters. More than one form of drawing out, more than one form of need. Each one of us have our own need that we need the Lord to save us from. At that point in time though, we don't know it. And that's a scary part looking back in reality. And it's also probably why we are so blessed when we look back at what the Lord has done is we remember what we were, our condition, that situation. And probably most of us can put a finger on when we heard the gospel for the first time. Because it arrests us, it saves us at that point in time, and it stalls us in that point where we see that our heart is fully changed. Scary though, if I remember right, it was pretty scary to realize, holy cow, I can't save myself. My ego was so big that there was no way that I could have anybody else get involved with my salvation because one day when I have time, I'll go ahead and save myself. That's not how it works at all. One day at a certain point in time, I would go through a work that I would save myself That's not how it worked at all. And I remember that when the Lord did provide clarity of the gospel, it arrested you 100%. More than one form of drawing, more than one form of need is saved. More than one form of distress is saved. He saves us from all waters. Every single one of them. The lifeguard of lifeguard. He saved us from trouble when we do not fathom even trouble exists. We don't even know it's coming. Because of a sincere and one-of-a-kind love, there is no true love like His. There's none. The only life to a believer is from the only one who can save them. Without our Savior, there is no life. If you talk to a fellow believer, their stories are not all the same, but have distinct characteristics in it. We can all attest to, at one point in time, That sounds different. At one point in time, my heart feels different. At one point in time, we hear someone or read something that says this is different, but also right. It's correct. Drew always attests to throwing a book across the room. I can tell you where I was at at the university. All of a sudden, I thought, oh my goodness, one verse. That's all it was. I'd heard that verse probably, I don't know, 20, 30 times in my life, didn't understand it until the Lord said, that's it, right there. So, point one is the Lord will make his people humble. And I'm gonna go to my favorites, Lamentations 3. Lamentations 3 and verse 11. This is quite a blessed passage. I asked Drew to marry myself and Tara to this passage for a reason. It's about a believer's clarity. Lamentations 3, verse 11. Just a few verses. Please go back and read this one on your own. I'm just going from 11 to 14, but I steal you away from the best part. Okay, just keep going down. Verse 11. He had turned aside my ways, Lord, and pulled me in pieces. He hath made me desolate. That's a sad word. That means without anything. He had bent his bow and set me as a mark for his arrow. He has caused the arrows in his quiver to enter into my veins. I was a derision to all my people and their song all day. We are humbled. We are humbled by the Lord. Our Lord will first make you see your condition. This is the condition that cannot save. This is a condition that goes to hell and full of sin. You cannot turn to God at a time of your choosing and say, I'm saved. It is by his sovereign election that you are rescued from sin, even sin to come in the future. Sin in the past, sin before time, you're saved. This decision was made before time that you would be numbered amongst his people. Each and every one of you who hear the message, I am sure can remember the time space in which the word became clear. when the Lord appointed your heart to hear, that usually comes with a visceral reaction. And it's funny, when I talk to people about this in the past, some, they get sad, some they get angry, but every one of us know our condition at that point. So, I've spoken mostly of the lows, because that's what the Lord does first. He saves and He shows the two different conditions, His and ours. And what's beautiful is that the Lord makes them the same, eventually. Once you realize that He has saved, your condition now is His condition, ultimate salvation. And I say ultimate, I use words in class like fantastic and ultimate and awesome. Those words mean absolute. You know, when I say ultimate salvation, it's not like dad always talks about, well, if you just, they play the hymn long enough, you can walk the aisle and you can get a little salvation until, you know, you leave and go eat the buffet and then go home and get a little bit of salvation. Ultimate salvation, the verbiage I'm trying to use is the salvation. There's only one, and it's through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why I say that when there's a visceral reaction, it is usually like, oh my goodness, how was I ever that way? How was I ever that way? How could I have ever been comfortable that way? And then the Lord opens your eyes and opens your heart. So when I heard it the first time I wept, I cried, alone in a minivan. How could the Lord take my cold and sinful heart and save a soul? And we see who we are. More importantly, for the first time, more importantly, for the first time, we see who he is. That's the difference. So this message, I think I've done a lot that talks about our condition. Let me now focus mostly on what I'm really intending is that we see who he is. Because if we come here, we don't really want to just expose our own condition. It's him. And what a beautiful saver that he truly is. So if we look back in 2 Samuel chapter 22, I would like to look at two verses here, verses 18 and 19. I have problems reading them. They're all diced up with pen. He delivers me from my strong enemy and from them that hated me, for they were too strong. Too strong. They would overpower us. They, the world, prevented me in this day of my calamity. And then, Drew and I have talked about this multiple times, there is a blessed word right there. Can you see the next word after calamity? I'm using a King James Version, but it says, but, and in other places it says however, even so, as for, it means hang on, this was a situation. However, the Lord was my stay. So let's reread that real quick. They prevented me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay. It is written that we are permanently. These are matter of facts to a believer. These are absolutes to a believer. We are delivered from an opponent of sin. Too strong for us, but it's conquered. Take a second for that, just for a second, think about that. Sin is too strong for us, but we are permanently, through the love of Lord Jesus Christ, forever delivered from an opponent that's too strong for us. You're kept. I think there was a message years ago talking about the palm of the hand of the God. And there's no grip. You're in his hand. I think there's actually a hymn. Inside his hand, you cannot be released. You're saved, 100%. We are delivered, are, and I put my notes, are delivered. I don't know if that's proper grammar, but that is in bold in mine, but we are delivered from sin. Even outmatched by sin, our Lord saves or removes you from calamity, from trouble. My stay actually mean, my stay, the verbiage is defined by, if you go back there, foundation. I mean, these are blessed words for every believer. written that we are delivered 100%. Verse 20, another blessing reads, he brought me forth also into a large place. I didn't know what that meant. So I went back and I looked at a large place actually is defined at that time of a place of safety, of peace, of blessing, and this word I love, liberty. And in the United States, we think, you know, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, you know, right in the constitution. It's a different kind of liberty. Okay. Liberty is a freedom from oppression. Liberty is freedom from sin. Liberty through sovereign grace is a liberty like no other. It means you have a freedom of your heart from sin by and only through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the only way. A large place is a blessed place where you delivered from sin. That's the large place. We're there. Humility in grace remains. We did not come haughtily because of this knowledge. Oh, we're saved, so then let me go out and break a lot of laws. No. We did not come haughtily because of this knowledge. We become emboldened, though, to grow in grace. A mixture of humility because we know the Lord and he's blessed us. The humility comes from him because he's blessed us and we know that he has saved us and he knows and we know how grateful we should be We come in bold and grow in grace to come to the Lord more often. Wednesday and Sunday are times. But Monday. At 930 I got a prep period. You know, at Friday before you go out and go to the football game. A verse here and there. We become emboldened. to come to the Lord more often. We fellowship with other people. We call our fellow brethren. We take care of the church as a whole. And I don't mean the building, it's the people. Why? The Lord blesses us with like-hearted people. We become thankful that the Lord loves us. Verse 21. Second Samuel 22 verse 21. The Lord rewards me according to my righteousness according to the clean cleanliness of my hands. Happy recompense me. We keep the Lord's statutes. Once he reveals himself, our heart changes. It becomes more sincere. We become one who wants to hear the gospel more. One who wants to learn of the one we know and love. We cannot look back on sin. what we were and look to what we want to be. It can't be the same thing. We look forward through Christ, not through our own ambitions. We don't say, okay, we're saved and then now take the next steps. We look forward to Christ. Lastly, Jesus saves fully and completely. I read earlier in a commentary of another writer and I do not believe that this was a grace preacher. that these verses are not about sinless perfection. I don't think there's anything in here that's about sinless perfection in reality, or sinful perfection. I'm sorry, I read it wrong. Sinful perfection. Sinless perfection is of the soul through the Lord. We sin many times throughout the day. Though we know the gospel, the truth, so how can we be one of his beloved? Well, I'll read to you one verse, and then I'll close. Let me give you this thought one more time. How can we be one of His beloved? Let's go to Ephesians 10. I wrote that down wrong. Ephesians 1.10, I believe. Yes, Ephesians 1.10. How can we be one of His beloved? That the dispensation of the fullness of times, here it is, He might gather together in one. Who's one? That's Christ. All things in Christ. All things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are of earth, even in Him. That's everything. That's everything. You can't put anything outside of that. That means that everything is in Christ. He might gather together in one all things in Christ. That means if you're a believer, he's gathered you. Everything, all your faults, all your strengths, everything in him, not by you, but through him. Let us always, when we turn to the word, find him in every stretch and every manner. Dad, will you pray?