Good morning. Our pastor is in Sellersburg,
Indiana this morning. He's been there all weekend at
a conference there at the Redeemer's Grace Church where Brother Fred
Evans is pastor. I reached out to him this morning
and they've had good services and I pray they're having one
right now and we look forward to the Lord bringing him and
his family back home safely to us. If you would, open your Bibles
back to Psalm 142. Psalm 142. Our message this morning comes from this first phrase
in Psalm 142. These two words that say, I cried. I cried unto the Lord. Now, what
does it mean to cry? Now, often we take this word
cry, if I were to say I saw someone cry or they were over there crying,
it makes us think of tears. But crying is more than that.
In all the different definitions I looked up of crying, it all
came together in this. Crying is an expression of emotion. Now the easiest way for me to
explain that is as a parent, my children cry to me all the
time. Sometimes they cry to me when
they're sad. Sometimes they cry to me when
they're angry. Sometimes they cry to me when
they're happy. Sometimes they cry to me when
they're scared. Sometimes they cry to me when
they're hungry. Sometimes they cry to me when
they need something. In this example right here, David
is crying unto the Lord. Look at the heading under Psalm
142 if your Bible has one. It said, a prayer when he was
in the cave. David's situation right here
is David has been anointed to be the king of Israel. God anointed
him as the king. Well, at this time the people
had chosen Saul as their king and he was currently the king.
Understandably, when Saul found out that the Lord had anointed
someone else the king, he did not want to give up that title.
So he had taken his army, and he was chasing after David to
kill him. David had 600 faithful men with
him, and they had been fleeing from Saul through the countryside,
the mountains, everywhere. And in this moment, David and
his men were hiding in a cave. And David cried unto the Lord
at this moment. And all the writers say that
Saul was in one of two places. Remember, David and his men are
hiding in a cave. And Saul and his men are either
at the mouth of the cave, the opening of the cave, or they
are already inside the cave where David's hiding. David says, I
cried unto the Lord. He is expressing emotion to his
Lord. David is in a dire situation. One thing about a cave is that
there's usually just one way out. David's enemy is in the
way. David has no place to retreat.
He is in a place of hiding that he doesn't feel comfortable in,
and his enemy has him outnumbered, has him outflanked, has him out
everything. David is in trouble and he needs
saving. As we go through this chapter,
I want us to try to put ourselves in David's situation. Now, I
realize that it is very unlikely anyone in this room will ever
find themselves in this situation, hiding in a cave, someone chasing
them, trying to kill them. But what we need to realize is
that our current spiritual situation is even worse than David's situation. Our sin is ever before us. What
we've done, if we realize we're being chased by our sin, if we
realize we're in trouble, we try to find a place to hide.
We find a cave of some sort and we hide there only to inevitably
realize that our sin is attached to us. Our sin is everywhere
we go. That without someone coming to
our rescue, we are going to die spiritually. So in this chapter,
we hear what David says. Now, the first and most important
thing that we can learn from David here is it says, I cried
unto the Lord with my voice. With my voice unto the Lord did
I make my supplication. David knew where to cry. David
knew that the only hope for him surviving this is through the
Lord. And we must realize our only hope of surviving our situation
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our only hope. It wasn't
enough that David here said, I cried unto the Lord, but he
had to say it again. He said, with my voice unto the
Lord did I make my supplication. The heading here saying a prayer
when he was in the cave, you could say that crying unto the
Lord is the same as praying. Those two things mean a similar
thing. But I want us to realize that
The word crying here is a little bit rawer than praying. It's
a little more emotional. We pray before a service. We pray after we read scripture.
We pray before we eat. Sometimes we pray before we go
to bed. Sometimes we pray when we wake up. We have these habits
of praying, and they're wonderful, and we should do it even more
often. But to differentiate between those two, This morning when
I read before William came up, I prayed the Lord would be with
us as him and I spoke this morning. But in the three seconds from
walking to that chair to this place right here, I was crying
unto the Lord to be with me. We cry when we find ourselves
in a position that we don't know what else to do. David here had
said, I cried unto the Lord with my voice. I'm not sure David
actually audibly cried. David had faith in the Lord saving
him here, but he was hiding in a cave with 600 men. And I promise
that if any one of those men made even a just a, everyone
looked at that person and was like, like they didn't want to
make a noise. The volume of our voice, the
way we talk, all those things are irrelevant when we cry unto
our Lord. We don't have to say anything out loud. We just have
to approach our Lord. Crying here, it says at the end,
make supplication. When we cry to our Lord, we must
do so humbly. We must do so asking for grace
and mercy from him. We don't plead merit or worthiness. David in this moment did not
say things such as, I'm gonna be a good king. I'm strong enough. I can do this. I deserve this.
No, David knew he was all out of options. He needed the Lord
to save him. Now look at verse two. David
said, I poured out my complaint before him. Now this is not a
complaint of the Lord, of his providence. David wasn't complaining
of something of the Lord, but instead this was a complaint
of our sin and unbelief. We don't have a problem with
our Lord. The problem was with ourselves.
Our complaint before the Lord is that I'm so sorry I'm who
I am and the things I do. It is so shameful. And then he
says, I showed before him my trouble. We don't need to show
the Lord anything in the way that we show each other. If I've
got something I want you to see, I have to actually show it to
you. Our Lord knows everything about
us. He knows everything inside of us, our thoughts, our situation,
the outcome, everything. But what it's saying here, We're showing the Lord that David
or that we understand the effect of our soul, of our own soul,
our exercise, our ease, our burden. We understand, we're showing
the Lord, this is where I am. I'm in a place right now where
I'm crying to you because I have nothing else. We have open hands
before the Lord. We've got nothing. We have nothing
to bring before him, nothing to say in front of him. We just
have to plead the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he's
doing. He's crying into the Lord. Lord, please save me. We must
put our troubles out there. We must admit what we are. The way to be rid of our troubles
is to carry them to the Lord. It says, take your burden and
leave it there. Take your burden to the Lord
and leave it there. All the troubles of this life
are burdens. They're cumbersome. They're heavy.
They make us tired. You know, we always, we need
rest because we're so fatigued from our sin. You know, you ever
thought about at night when you're going to bed and you need sleep,
that it really didn't matter that much what you did during
the day. You still need sleep. Our sin is what costs us our
fatigue. And if you want to be unburdened,
if you want to find rest, just take everything you have and
just take it to the Lord and leave it there. He will take
care of it. He will handle it for us. Look
in verse three. When my spirit was overwhelmed
within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I
walked have they privily laid a snare for me. David is ready to sink with his
present affliction. He's ready to faint from the
hiding of God's face or from our unbelieving mind. How often
do we find ourselves in a place where our spirit is overwhelmed
within us simply because we are burdened with all the things
that trouble us. In the second part of this verse,
in the way wherein I walked, have they privily laid a snare
for me, The Lord knows everything. He knows our path. He knows our
steps well before we even get to the trail we're walking on.
If it were left to me, I would walk into this snare that has
been laid before me. But the Lord determines our path.
He orders our steps. If we walk into a snare, it's
because He walked us into it. He put it there for our good
and for His glory. Look at verse 4. I looked on
my right hand and beheld there was no man that would know me. I looked, I beheld all around
me. David was in a cave with 600
men who had put their life on the line with him. They had fought
with him. They had fled with him. They'd
left their families with him. They probably thought that they
would die for him. They were in this cave with him
at this moment thinking that. They were probably as honorable
to him, as loving to him, cared so much for him. And he says
here, I looked on my right hand and I beheld, but there was no
man that would know me. There is no one in this world,
no man or woman, or nothing any of them can do that can help
us. We will find no comfort in each other in this regard. In
this cave, in this pitch black cage, this cave, his refuge failed
him. He said here in the second part
of this verse, refuge failed me, no man cared for my soul. No man sought after his soul
or his life. David's title of king couldn't
save him. His 600 devout soldiers couldn't
protect him. And he had no defense against
his enemy. David was distraught. And what
an absolute great place that is to be. to realize that you're
in the dark, to realize that we have absolutely no help and
there's nothing in our power to save ourselves. That is a
place that only the Lord can take us. If the Lord does not
put us in a position that makes us understand and makes us to
see that we are truly helpless, we will go about our days on
this earth feeling confident that we can do it. If the Lord
doesn't show us who we are, the Lord shows us who we are and
yet what do we do? We still find confidence in ourselves.
We still do despite knowing how frail and how feeble we are.
Do you know that I believe there's one common trait among all children
of God that separates them from the rest of religion. Now I understand
that there are all kinds of things in the scriptures that the Lord
tells his children that he gives them and they have. But when
I see that we believe on him, I'm so full of unbelief that
I can't feel confident in that. But I think the one thing that
the Lord gives all his children, and they can all understand with
each other, is that he gives us a genuine need of him. In religion, everyone is about
trying to show or act that they need God. But a true child of
God is given a genuine need of Him. So many people go through
the motions of trying to act like things are the way they
are. We find things to put our solace in, to find comfort in. But a true child of God understands
that the only thing that we really have, the only part we play in
salvation is that we have such a genuine need of Him. We are
completely dependent upon Him. Look at verse 5 here. David repeats,
I cried unto thee, O Lord. He figured out where he was.
He realizes what situation he's in and he cries unto the Lord
and he says, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of
the living. David finding no relief from
man and nothing worthy inside this flesh, we're all forced
by our Lord to cry unto Him. And we realize, thou art my refuge. The Lord is our refuge. The Lord
is the only protection from our enemies. He gives us shelter
from the storm, the storm that we created ourselves. He protects
us from ourselves. In Him, He gives us sustenance,
protection, and safety. And every child of God flees
to their refuge, to the Lord Jesus Christ. But unfortunately,
shamefully, we continuously leave our refuge. Whether it's unbelief,
foolishness, pride, or some other sin, we seem to want to abide
in our flesh. The Lord shows us who He is and
makes us come to Him. And when we come to Him, He gives
us comfort and peace. And what do we then immediately
do? Once we have peace, we find ourselves, you know, I want to
go back out in the world again. I want to go back to myself.
I want to go back to doing things on my own. And it is so scary. And it would be our downfall
if it were possible. Turn with me to Hebrews 13. Turn
to Hebrews chapter 13. The thought of always wanting
to be on my own, always the love I have for the things of this
world and for myself that just constantly takes me away from
Him. How scary this is. Look in Hebrews
13 verse 5 for the comfort of this. Let your conversation be
without covetousness and be content with such things as you have.
Be content. For he hath said, I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee. Our Lord Jesus Christ will never
leave us or forsake us. This is despite our best efforts
to just run as fast as we can headlong right into the storm
that we over and over again do. But he will not leave us. We
are bound to Him. We are His bride. We're joint
heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with
Him, that we may be also glorified together in Him. Because of our
Lord's sacrifice and His promise to us, we can say that here in
Hebrews 13 verse 6, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my
helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. The only
reason that we will ever get away from fear. is if we're looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ. I genuinely am afraid at plenty
of times throughout my life. I'm scared of something happening
to me. I'm scared of something happening to my family, to my
friends. I'm scared of all these different things. And the only
way that I can get away from this fear is that if I read things
like this, and it says, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear
what man shall do to me. He has to put my focus on him.
He has to bring me to him. Go back to our text here and look at verse 5 again. It
says, Throughout history, man has built so many impenetrable
refuges or fortresses. a place that no army can get
inside, a place where everyone inside feels safe. We see this
all the time on the History Channel or in movies with fiction and
things. We see people build this huge
castle, they put a moat around it, and they put towers, and
they do all these things for a refuge, for a fortress. But
do you know that all man-made refuges have the same problem? They're all great at protection. but they can't sustain everyone
who's inside. Our pastor had a message a few
weeks ago of Samaria and Israel, and they were in their city,
their walled city. An enemy came and they felt safe
in their city until the enemy just sat outside their city and
sieged them. and let no one come in or out.
And eventually what happened is they ran out of food. The
city couldn't sustain them to the point where it says that
the people were paying five silver pieces for dove dung. They had no food. They had nothing
and everyone was dying. You eventually have to leave
the refuge. and the protection that comes
with it, because you have to leave to get what you need to
survive. And once outside the refuge,
you have to defend yourself. In that story, the people were
dying inside the city because they knew if they left the city,
they were gonna die then too. So many people in this world
put their hope in something or someone other than Christ. We
are so inclined to find something of this world to put our refuge,
to hide in, whether it's baptism, whether it's our confession,
whether it's that we go to church all the time, we're church members,
all these different things, our own self-righteousness, what
we've done. We find a refuge, a man-made refuge, and though
we feel safe in it, There is a time that this refuge will
go away. We have to leave it at some point.
And in that moment, we will stand before a holy God with nothing
to defend ourselves. In our sin, we will stand exposed. In Christ, we have a refuge and
our portion. In this verse, it says, Thou
art my refuge and my portion. In Him, He is our portion. It
is an inconceivably large portion. It is made for all of us, yet
at the same time, it is made and provided specifically for
each one of us. I love the thought that the Lord
has done His work for all of His children, yet at the same
time, He did that work for each individual child. It's amazing
to think how much he cares about his children, both as a group
and each individually. This portion is a soul satisfying
portion that will never be taken away. It will never be consumed. It's a portion for this present
life and for all eternity. Look at verse six. Attend unto
my cry. Lord, would you please be here
for me? In school, you children have
to take attendance every day. You're trying to figure out who
is there, who is present. David here says, Lord, will you
be present unto my cry? I know the Lord hears my prayers
and my crying, but Lord, I want you to be right here with me.
I need to feel your comfort. It says, attend unto my cry,
for I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors,
for they are stronger than I. We realize when our persecutors,
our enemies, approach us, we realize how weak we are. I thought
about defining or giving examples of all our different persecutors,
those who are against us. But what's really important about
the end of this verse is not who all our persecutors are,
but the next phrase, for they are stronger than I. It doesn't
matter what enemy we're talking about. They're all stronger than
us. All of them. In ourselves, we
can't fight off anything. We are totally dependent upon
the Lord to be there for us, to be our defender. Look at verse
7. I want to look at this verse
real quick in an example of what will happen and what we ask the
Lord to do for our souls. We say, Lord, bring my soul out
of prison, out of this prison, out of this sinful bondage that
we have. Lord, bring me out that I may
praise Thy name. All of our cries that we yell
to the Lord, and we'll turn to Revelation here in a second to
see examples of this. What we should be crying out is about
our Lord. We should be crying about how
wonderful our Lord is. We should be crying about how
great He is, how great things He's done to us. But what we
usually end up doing is we just end up crying to Him about ourselves. Even when I make a conscious
effort After studying this and praying on my own, I cannot get
through a prayer without circling back and saying something about
what I need or something I need done. I consciously say to myself,
don't talk about me. And I'm just a few seconds in
and I start saying things about, Lord, help me, save me, protect
me, all these things. Turn with me to Revelation chapter
seven. Revelation chapter 7. So listen
for just a minute here. I'm going to close this. Revelation chapter 7. In this
passage we see the disciple who's witnessing events in glory. And I said a second ago that
we should cry about our Lord, praising Him, instead of crying
to Him about ourselves. Our words should celebrate His
greatness instead of focusing on our weakness. But one day
we won't be covered in sin. One day, because of the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we won't have the burden and the
bondage and the filter of our sin. And look here, Revelation
7 chapter 10. And they all cried with a loud
voice, saying, Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne
and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round
about the throne and about the elders and the four beasts, and
fell before the throne on their faces and worshiped God, saying,
Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be unto our God
forever and ever. Amen. Our brother read, look
over on the page before, Revelation 5, verse 13. And every creature which is in
heaven, and on the earth, and unto the earth, and such as are
in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, this
is what they all said, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power
be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb
for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen,
and the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him
that liveth for ever and ever. All of our cries in that day
will be an adoration of our Savior. It won't be out of obligation. We struggle to think when we
say things out loud. When I say all of our cries lead
to one thing, that we want to be in a place where we can be
without our sin before the Lord Jesus Christ, praising His name,
spending all of our moments glorifying Him, And yet when we think of
that, it is difficult to imagine, humanly
speaking, of actually enjoying talking about someone else constantly. I have a difficult time talking
about someone else for more than a few moments positively. I can
talk negatively about people plenty, but it's very difficult
to talk positively about someone for more than just a few moments
without either trying to talk about myself or trying to make
something negative. But in that day, our cries will
all be of adoration of our Savior. And it won't be out of obligation.
You know how sometimes someone's giving a speech and they say
something, and someone in the group stands up or applauds,
and out of obligation, you stand there like, okay, I don't wanna
be the person sitting here, so I'll start clapping too. It won't
have any doubt mixed in. And all that's because when we
see our God and Savior face to face, There won't be enough years
to express our love, our gratitude, and our thanks to Him. When we cry to our Lord in glory,
it will be giving Him all the glory and praise that He deserves
from us now. And it is such a glorious thought
to think Not just that I won't have to ask for things of myself,
because He's already given us everything. To think that we
will never, in glory, won't have one single thing to ask of Him. That He has given us every single
thing we could ever desire, and all of it is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. In that day we will look to our
Lord and will give Him thanks for making us cry unto Him. We must cry unto our Lord for
He is our Savior.