Psalm 34. This is a psalm for the troubled and
tried. It's a psalm for the humble,
broken, contrite heart. It's for sinners. It's for God's children. And
he wrote me a letter sometime a few years ago, and he said,
this psalm is for us. I read that to you out of 1 Samuel. This is supposed to be the occasion
of David writing this psalm. And after reading that in 1 Samuel,
where he feigned like he was a madman, It's almost as if he sat down
embarrassed, ashamed of what he did. Ever felt that way? Since you have believed, have
you ever felt ashamed of something you've said, something you've
done? You wish you hadn't said it.
And I just feel like this is where David's at. I feel like
this is, This is like what I would call a holy resolve. David has
sat down, he's ashamed of what he's done, the way he's acted
as God's child, and he's saying, from now on, I will bless the
Lord at all times. I will bless the Lord at all
times. But this I know about blessing the Lord at all times. It takes a real work of grace
to be able to do this, to bless the Lord at all times. To bless
the Lord when it's good, things are going well, is an easy thing
to do. But to bless the Lord when He's
taken away from you is a work of grace. Job said, the Lord
giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. The child of God knows that all
of His times are in the Lord's hands. He knows that. And He
knows that everything that will come His way, whether it be heartache,
whether it be sunshine, is ordained of God, and God has sent it. I find, and I know I say this
so often anymore because as I get older, how many times have I
said this since I've been here? As I get older, I realize, and
it's comforting to me, it's comforting to know that all things are of
God. That a fly can't even light on
me. without the permission of my
Heavenly Father. I believe that. A mosquito cannot
bite me, and I've had a few of them bite me down here. Everything
down here's got teeth. I've learned that. But the Lord, He allows that. I mean, He gives permission to
that. You know, we watch over our children,
but nothing, I mean absolutely in no way compared to how God
watches over His children. God watches over His children
so minutely that He knows how many hairs on your head. I can't
even comprehend that kind of watchfulness, that kind of knowledge. And David says, I'll bless the
Lord at all times. Good times and bad times. He
knows that all his times are in the Lord's hands. And I have
no doubt he feels embarrassed about being so afraid of Achish
and Saul. It is written in Proverbs, the
fear of man bringeth a snare. Look what it did to David. Look
what it did to Abraham. He gave up his wife. That's unthinkable. That's unthinkable. But I'm not
in Abraham's shoes. I'm not going to say I wouldn't
do it because I guarantee that'd be the first thing I'd probably
do. And she's sitting right there looking at me saying, I can't
believe you're saying that. But Abraham, out of fear, twice
out of fear, gave up his wife to the king. That's what fear of man will
do. It will cause you to do the most
dumbest things on earth. And it will cause you to bring
a reproach on the name of Christ. If we fear God, We have no reason
to fear anything else. As I heard Paul Mahan say once,
if we fear God, we fear nothing else. If we don't fear God, we
fear everything else. And so David has a resolve here
that he says, I will. Now, if you apply this to Jesus
Christ, he did perfectly bless the Lord at all times in the
Garden of Gethsemane, He had no place to lay His head, yet
every night He blessed the Lord. He thanked His Heavenly Father.
He often went to pray. He'd pray all night. And in praying
all night, no doubt, no doubt, many times He spent much of that
time in prayer blessing the Lord, blessing His holy name. Giving
unto Him the glory due unto His name. He did that. We can apply
this psalm in many places to him, because it does say in one
place, "...not a bone of his shall be broken." Well, we know
that applies to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says here, "...his
praise shall continue to be in my mouth." Praise replaces cursing. What a change is made when God
takes possession of the heart, isn't it? What a change God makes
in a man. He that knows no changes knows
not God. Grace in the heart is evidenced
by speech. That's why Paul said, let your
speech be seasoned with grace all the time. Our Lord's speech
was seasoned with grace all the time, wasn't it? He always spoke
graciously to sinners. He always spoke that way to those
who were in need. He spoke graciously to them.
Grace, it says, poured from His lips like a river. There's a river that flows from
the throne of God, a river of grace. And that grace came to
us through Jesus Christ as the Mediator, All things are given
to us in Him, and grace is given to us in Him. And here's the
poor man's resolve. Now, I'm not going to probably
cover all this at all because there's not enough time. But
here's the poor man's resolve. You'll notice I didn't say here's
the king's resolve. Here's God's chosen's resolve.
But it's the poor man. A poor man's resolve, he says,
when I say a poor man, I'm talking about poor in spirit, I'm not
talking about poor in purse. The poor man's resolve is this,
my soul shall make her boast in the Lord. David knew. He knew he had nothing to boast
in. He's embarrassed by his conduct, the way he acted. He's embarrassed. What do we have to boast in?
Zero as far as ourselves. Paul said, God forbid that I
should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul
says, I have zero to glory in myself. What I have, God gave
me. I do not have one thing that
God, my Father, hasn't given to me. The intelligence I have,
the health that I have, the understanding of the gospel I have, God has
given it to me. Listen to Jeremiah chapter 9
verses 23 and 24. Thus saith the Lord, Let not
the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory
in his might. Let not the rich man glory in
his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that
he understandeth..." You understand the gospel. You understand something
of who God is and how God can be a just God and a Savior. You
understand that. He said, "...let him that glorieth
this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me." Do you have any
idea what it is to know God? that I am the Lord which exercise
lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For
in these things I delight, saith the Lord." As long as this earth
belongs to the Lord, as long as it belongs to Him, He will
exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in this earth.
Now, it may look like things are out of sorts at times, But
he gets it back in sorts. He gets it back in sorts. It's
his. And here's the poor man's companions.
He says, "...My soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble
shall hear thereof and be glad. They will be glad when they hear
me speak of the mercies of the Lord." I don't want to hear an angel
preach the gospel to me. I want to hear a sinner. I want
to hear someone who's been humbled by the grace of God stand up
here and tell me what God has done for them. Our Lord said
often to the ones He would heal or save, He'd say, go home and
tell them what the Lord's done for you. The humble. The humble shall hear thereof.
They shall hear the message that I have to tell them. They will
hear, and only the humble will be glad thereof. Only sinners
are glad to hear this message. Not everyone's glad to hear.
This room wouldn't contain the people. But there's a few people
in Spring Lake, North Carolina, that are glad to hear this message. God has humbled you. God has
made you to see what you are. He's made you to taste of His
grace. And you are glad to hear the gospel. You're here. You
are here this evening because you want to be here. You want
to be here. As Ginger sent me a text, she
said, it's like an oasis. It's just like an oasis in the
week. This is an oasis. We can come here and for a little
while hear the truth. We can come here for a little
while and get our focus back right. You know, it's so easy
to get out of focus out there, isn't it? You know, if you ever take a
pair of binoculars and you're going to look at something and
it's all out of focus and you have to adjust it, you adjust
it until it comes real clear. That's what this does for me.
It helps me to get focused again, and not set my heart on these
things, but set my heart on things above. This life for a believer is all
about Jesus Christ. Paul said, for me to live is
Christ, and to die is gain. I want that to grow in me, and
I want that to grow in you. As we go along here, at whatever
time God gives me here, I want our desire to be after Him and
less after these things. I'm not going to say anybody can make money,
but not anybody can. But I tell you what, money comes
and money goes, doesn't it? It comes and it goes. Solomon
said, riches have wings and they fly away. What we have is eternal. What
we have in just a little while, just a little while, we are going
to leave this and what we have in Christ we are going to experience. we are going to look at Him face
to face. You know, I can't help but think,
and I know you probably think about Rupert, but I think about
Henry, and I just think of him, and all those years I sat there,
and all those years he took this book and he opened this book
up and he preached Christ to me and to the others there in
that congregation, and week after week, month after month, year
after year, and now he's looking into the face of Jesus Christ. That's our end. So many people
I heard when I was working out in public, one of the conversations
most of the time was retirement, retirement, retirement. Death
is retirement. That's the end. And we are not
coming back this way again. And the only thing worth having
is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all. Everything else you
can lose, but you can't lose Him. You cannot lose Him. "...the humble shall hear thereof
and be glad, the broken in spirit. To him the Gospel is good news."
You know the Gospel is not good news to everybody, is it? It's
not good news to everyone. I've talked to some people about
the Gospel and they look at me like a deer caught in headlights.
I'm like, so what? Zero interest. But we were all that way at one
time. Zero interest. And then he says here in verse
3, Oh, magnify the Lord with me. This is fraternal worship. This is fraternal worship. You
know, people, a lot of them, they go off to college and some
of them will join these fraternities. We have a fraternity right here.
This is a fraternity. It's the Lord's family. It's
the Lord's family. It's what it is. And this matter of magnifying
the Lord is not a secret matter, it's a family matter. Oh, magnify
the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.
There's one thing I know that you cannot do too much of. Now,
everything else, Everything else in this world, in this life,
you can't do too much of. You can overeat, you can play
too much, you can work too much, you can do too much of. You cannot
worship and exalt Jesus Christ too much. It's not possible. It is an absolute impossibility
to exalt His name and worship Him. You can't give Him too much
glory and honor. We can't do it. Let us exalt
His name together, and this is unity. David wrote in the Psalms, I
believe it was David, not all the Psalms were written by David,
but he said how beautiful it is when brethren dwell together
in unity. He said it's like the anointed
oil that ran down on the beard of Aaron. He said it's beautiful. It's beautiful. Unity is beautiful.
There's nothing in a family that's more beautiful than unity, when
a family loves each other and there's no division in the family.
And there's nothing more ugly than a family that can't get
along. And a family that can't get along, you can be sure of
this, the love of Christ is not there. Unless it's over the gospel,
unless that family hates the gospel and you believe it, that's
a different story. But unity, oh my, there's nothing
like it. If the whole of creation were
at one time joined with heaven in praising the Lord, it still
would not be enough. It still would fall short. of
the glorious do His name. You know the cherubim and seraphim,
they fly day and night crying, Holy, Holy, Holy, with wings
covering their face. They do that constantly. Now we have the poor man's personal
experience and his encouragement to other poor men and women.
He says in verse 4, I sought the Lord I can just see David coming up
to a broken sinner or to somebody that's just broken down, their
heart's broken, and he says, I sought the Lord and He heard
me. He's encouraging us, what he's doing. This is encouraging
every humble sinner here this evening. I sought the Lord, He's trying
to encourage us. If one man can seek Him and be
heard, so can another. Seek Him in prayer, seek Him
in His Word, seek Him in the preaching of His Word, but listen,
seek Him. He said it'd be found. Seek ye
the Lord while He may be found. Call ye upon Him while He is
near. Seek Him. He that seeks me with his whole heart will
find me, He said. I sought the Lord," He's speaking here to
the humble. You see, the humble shall hear thereof and be glad.
Now listen to me, humble. I sought the Lord and He heard
me. The Self-existing One, capital
L-O-R-D, Jehovah. He heard me and He delivered
me from all my fears. Did you hear me? Did you hear
me? Did you hear me, humble one?
Your heart broken? Did you hear me? He heard me.
He'll hear you. We know the Pharisees said one
time, they said to the Lord, that God, I'm going to paraphrase,
He hears not sinners. That's what they said. That's
the only ones He hears is sinners. It's the only prayers He hears.
Prayers of a broken heart. He says here, He heard me and
delivered me from all my fears. Most of them unfounded. I'd say
most of my fears, most of our fears are unfounded, aren't they?
What do we have to fear? How many times did our Lord say,
O ye of little faith, why are you so fearful? Why are you so
fearful? Is God weak? Is he way off somewhere
and he can't get to us in time? Why are you so fearful? David
says here, and he's speaking to the humble, He heard me, the
God of heaven and earth heard me and delivered me from all
my fears. He was scared to death. Saul
was going to kill him. And then he was scared to death
that Achish was going to get him. It's like if the one on
the right doesn't get me, the one on the left is going to get
me. He was running. When he fled there in 1 Samuel
21, he went to the cave of Adullam and he hid out there. I mean, he was on the run. He was very fearful. And then
he comes to his senses. That happens every once in a
while. Every once in a while we come to our senses. And we
sit down and we say, why am I so fearful? Then we think upon the Lord,
and we think of all the times He's delivered us throughout
our lives. And then we take encouragement, and we can say, He's delivered
us from all our fears. Whatever your fears are, whatever
my fears are, the Lord can deliver us. Actually, He's already delivered
us. I was telling someone that's
going through something not too awful long ago, some time ago,
and they was going through something, and they was talking to me about
it, and I said, well, I'll tell you this, the outcome is already
determined. It's settled. That's done. Now,
you've got to walk through it. You've got to go through the
experience, but the outcome is already settled. That gives me
peace and comfort. I didn't think like that and
realize that when I was a young man. But now I know. I know that
my Heavenly Father hasn't left nothing to chance. He's left
nothing to fate. He's ordained all my steps. The
steps of a good man. You say, hold on there a minute.
You're not a good man. In Christ I am. In Christ you
are. Are you not righteous in Christ?
Are you not holy in Christ? God has ordered, now this goes
back to numbering the hairs on your head. He has ordered, listen,
all my steps, one at a time. One at a time. Seriously, I mean
one at a time. whatever steps I take coming
out of here. Now I know the whole implication
of that and the spiritual implication of that. He orders our lives
and the direction of our life. But I'm telling you, He's ordered
every step we take. Every step. Without me, you can do nothing. You can't even take a step. You
cannot even take a step. I fear, and I know this about
myself, I suspect it about you, but my thoughts of God are too
human. I think of him too often in a way that I would think of
us or myself. He said, my thoughts are not
your thoughts and my ways are not your ways. He's high above
us, incomprehensible, incomprehensible. He says here in verse 5, they looked unto Him. Who's they? The humble, the broken in spirit,
the broken in contrite spirit. They looked unto Him. and were
lightened. Their burden was lifted. You
know when your burden will be lifted? When you, by the grace
of God, are really able to look to Jesus Christ and lay your
burden right there. Leave it there. We sing a song,
take your burden to the Lord and leave it there. We definitely
sing above our experience, don't we? Because most of the time
we bring it back with us. They looked unto Him, the humble
ones looked to Him, and they were lightened, and their faces,
they were not ashamed. I've done some shameful things.
You've done some shameful things. We've had some shameful thoughts.
But our Lord has so cleansed us and saved us that when we
see Him, we will not be ashamed. I remember this. I'm not one, I don't promote
dreams and I'm not a dreamer. I may be a daydreamer sometimes,
but I'm not a dreamer. But I had a dream years ago. There's a couple of dreams that
I had that I've never forgotten. But the one of them is that all
the men in the preacher's class, back when I was in 13th Street,
I was 23, 24 years old. They were gathered around the
Lord. Of course, I couldn't see Him. I just knew they were gathered
around Him. And I was standing out here.
And I wanted to go so bad in that circle, but I kept thinking
as I stood there, I kept thinking, He knows every thought that I
have. He knows everything that goes
through my heart, and I know, it was like a penetration, I
know there's nothing can be hid from Him. And I was wanting to
go into that circle so bad, but I just stood there and I was
just like, then I woke up. I woke up, but I remember how
powerful that felt that He could see into my heart and my thoughts. I have nothing to be ashamed
of. Yes, I know. Yes, I do, but no,
I don't. He's put them all away. He said
in Isaiah 45, 22, Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends
of the earth, for I am God and there is none else. Be ye saved
from what? From all your sins. all your
sins, all your shamefulness. You know, there was a time that
you and I weren't ashamed of anything unless we got caught,
right? And now we're ashamed of what
we are. Not only forgive me for my sins,
but forgive me for what I am. Everyone whom the Lord has been
saved by looking to the Lamb of God, and everyone who has
looked has never been ashamed." How long have I been going? Verse 6, this poor man cried,
this poor man, this poor sinner, This poor, wretched, sinful human
being, this mass of corruption. That's what I am. That's what
you are. A mass of corruption from head to toe. That's what
Isaiah said. He said, we're like a running sore from the top of
our head to the bottom of our feet. This poor man cried and the Lord
heard him, saved him out of all his troubles. I could not help
but think of the Lord Jesus Christ identifying with His people here.
He says, This poor man, there was no man any more poor than
Jesus Christ. Though he were rich, yet he became
poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. He had no place to lay His head.
Think about that tonight when you go home and you lay down
on that $50 pillow. Mine's $100. My son gave it to
me. And I don't even use it. I use
an old cheap one that I've had for a long time. But the Lord
had no place to lay His head. He slept out under the stars,
or he slept with one of his disciples at home, or stayed with one of
them, or somebody would invite him to stay. That's it. That's it. He didn't have a closet.
He didn't have a pantry. He had one robe he wore all the
time that we know of. He didn't carry a backpack on
his back. And when he sat down in the evening,
He ate what His Heavenly Father provided for Him. In the evening
when He'd sit down to eat, that's what He ate. What was provided
for by His Heavenly Father that hour. That's perfect faith, isn't it? That's perfect faith. And that
perfect faith is our righteousness. This poor man cried though, now
you apply it to us. This poor man cried and the Lord
heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. And boy, do
we have many troubles. Trouble, trouble, trouble. Everybody
can join in here. All of God's people can join
in here. There's not one of God's children that cannot join this
one. This poor man, that includes
everyone whom God saves. He saves a poor man or a poor
woman. And this is all we are at best.
What do you have that you didn't receive? You don't have anything. I don't
have anything. Nothing. David said in one place, I am
poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. And our Lord
said, blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed, they're blessed. God hears and He saves poor sinners
out of their troubles, especially soul trouble. I tell you what,
if you're not troubled over your sin, you don't really have any
troubles compared to your sin troubles. That's real trouble
now. That's real trouble. All these
other troubles will come and go, but sin trouble, if it's
not dealt with here, In Christ, if it's not dealt with in Christ,
it's going to be dealt with in you, in me. That's trouble. That's real trouble. And I'm
going to close with verse 7. And the angel of the Lord encampeth
round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them. Here's something
that I think that we really just don't give much thought to or realize,
is how protected we are. how protected we are. The angels of God are around
your house. The angels of God. I'm not trying
to sound like a fairy tale here. They're riding on your car on
your way home. They're in your car, around your
car. They're around your home. And I know. I mean, I'm ashamed
of myself. The things that I get afraid
of. The things that trouble me. But I'm telling you right now,
we have God's Word. We have His Word on it. That
the angel of the Lord encampeth. Wouldn't it be something if God
opened your eyes tonight, and my eyes, and we could look out
the window and we see chariots of fire all around our house? I'm not exaggerating. They are
there. Like Elijah said, the Lord opened
this young man's eyes. That whole hillside was full
of chariots of fire. Full of angels. You see, God
is a God of means. He's a God of means. And He's
created angels. Do you know why God created angels?
Turn over to Hebrews chapter 1. I don't know all the reasons
why, but I do know this one. Over in Hebrews chapter 1, In verse 13, But to which of
the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand until I
make thine enemies thy footstool? Well, he never said that to any
of them. He said that to his son. Are they, the angels, not
all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who
shall be heirs of salvation? We don't worship angels in any
way, shape, or form. But you know that the day you
were born, The day you were born, the angels watched over you.
You're God's elect. Christ died for you. Christ redeemed
you. And the angels of God, He has
sent them to watch over you all the way, every step of the way. when I graduated from high school. And the year after I graduated,
there was seven people killed in our class. Some from my graduating
class, some from the graduating class ahead of me, and some from
the one right behind me. There was seven of them. Seven
of them. And yet, here I am. 46 years
or something like that later, here I am. preaching the gospel,
not realizing, not realizing, when I was out there hot-rodding,
carrying on like a fool, that God's angels were watching over
me. And nothing could take my life.
Nothing. And the same applies for every
one of His children. Every one of them. The angel of the Lord
encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them."
He delivers them out of trouble. Out of trouble. You know how
many things would... You know how easy it is to die? I was
thinking about this this week. I thought, there's umpteen ways
to die. And it's so easy to die. If you just take it as a physical
thing. It's just so easy. We're so frail.
We're so frail. And yet the Lord delivers us
day by day by day. The angel of the covenant, the
Lord Jesus Christ, orders His heavenly host to encamp around
the house of His saints. He's given His angels charge
over us to take care of us. We're not alone. We're not alone. I wish we were more mindful of
that spiritual world than this physical world. Some people,
they get so tore up over this physical world and everything
that's going on in it. Men are just acting like what
they are. They're just acting like what they are. It is ours to set our minds and
our hearts on things above. That'll keep you encouraged.
You look at this mass, and I'm telling you the truth, you ain't
gonna have a happy day. You know, we'll have a good day.
It's not even possible. But if you set your heart on
things above, you know what's coming. We've got a good day
coming. And our Lord is ordering everything that's going on right
now according to His purpose. And we are under the care and
protection of His angels. You know, in 2 Kings 1935, One angel, listen, one angel
killed 185,000 men. I looked that up today. I mentioned
it here a week ago, but I had to find it. One angel killed
185,000. Never underestimate the protection
you have from the Lord. Well, Lord willing, maybe we'll
pick this up next week.