Turn back to Psalm 9. Title of the message, Consider My Trouble. Consider My Trouble. Now this
psalm, for the most part, is a psalm
of victory. David says here, When my enemies
are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence. For
thou hast maintained my right and my cause. Thou hast sat us
in the throne, judging right. Thou hast rebuked the heathen.
Thou hast destroyed the wicked. Thou hast put out their name
for ever and ever. It's a psalm of victory, but
we know by experience that all of our enemies are not dead. They are very lively. We have
enemies inward, that old nature, and we have enemies outward.
That's why he says in verse 13, Have mercy upon me, O Lord, consider
my trouble. Because I still have enemies.
Although the Lord has conquered them, and He has put them out,
and He has put a check on their power, yet we feel You know,
we feel our enemies. And this is what he's talking
about here in verse 13, but let's look at this. He says in verse 12, when he
makes inquisition for blood, he remembers them, he forgeteth
not the cry of the humble, There are some things that God forgets. For example, the sins of His
elect. The Scripture says He remembers
them no more. God remembers nothing against
His elect. Not one sin is remembered against
them. However, there are some things
that God never forgets. And that's the injustice done
to His people. He never forgets that. He never
forgets their cry for help, even though it may seem like He has.
David said in one place, "...Has thou forgotten to be gracious?"
God never forgets the cry of His children. Even if we forget, let us remember
this, He does not. He does not forget. Now, he says
when he makes inquisition, that word inquisition means judicial
or official inquiry, when God inquires after the blood of His
martyred saints. It means intensive questioning. And the example I thought of
was Cain and Abel. You know, Cain slew his brother
Abel. He murdered him. Now, I don't
know how much time went by from the time that Cain murdered Abel
and the time that God called Cain to account for that murder. You remember, God said, Cain,
where is your brother? And Cain comes up with this smart
aleck answer, Am I my brother's keeper? Can you imagine answering
God like that? Am I my brother's keeper? And God said, His blood cries
from the ground to me. God knew where he was because
He was with him. He was in glory with him. He
knew where he was. But he's making Cain account
for what he did to his brother. I was thinking of, when I was
reading this, I was thinking of Nero. All those believers whom he martyred,
he put them in arenas and let the beast tear them apart. He
burned them at the stake. I'm sure that he went home and
went back to his life, went back to his feasting and just lived
on some more years. He didn't even know their names.
He didn't know the names of those people that he had martyred. But God never forgot them. God
never forgot them. And that man, that man has to
answer for the blood of God's children that he shed when he
makes inquisition. He says when He makes inquisition,
God will do this for all His martyred saints. No one gets
away with injustice to God's saints. No one gets away with
it. It is written in Matthew 23.35, and the Lord is speaking
to the Pharisees there, "...that upon you may come all the righteous
blood, shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto
the blood of Zacharias, son of Barqais, whom you slew between
the temple and the altar." They had forgotten all about that.
They weren't thinking about that, but he's saying here that God
is going to require their blood at your hands. He has not forgotten
it. No one gets away with anything. And God remembers His people. He says, "...He forgetteth not
the cry of the humble." Sometimes it looks as if God has turned
a deaf ear to the cry of His people. There they are in the
arena, being torn by beast. Where is God? I'll tell you where he is. The
same place he was at when his son was being nailed to the cross,
on the throne. He's on the throne. God chose
their death. And they died at the hands of
wicked men. And those men are gonna answer
for it. But to them, to them, it's a glorious death. To them,
it was the way that God chose for them to honor Him in their
testimony of Him. And our death is chosen. However
we die, God has chosen it. We may die in an accident. We
may die in a long illness. But however it is, it'll be a
death that God has chosen. And that'll be the way we'll
honor Him in the way we die. God has chosen it. And God will, in His time, honor
all those who have given their lives for the gospel. He will
bless them, and in His time, He will avenge their cries. That's
what He's saying here. Now, seeing this as so, the psalmist
prays here for mercy to be shown on him in his present situation. He says here, "...he forgeteth
not the cry of the humble, and that being so..." That being
so, Lord, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me. This gives
him encouragement, and it ought to give us encouragement to pray,
to call upon Him constantly, because he forgets not the cry
of the humble. And we should cry, have mercy
upon me, first of all, because God delights to show mercy. That
gives me, you don't know how much that gives me encouragement
when I pray because God delights to show mercy. And when I ask
for mercy, I'm asking for something that God delights in. He delights
to show it to me. Have mercy upon me. Lord, I tell
you, that gives me great comfort and encouragement in prayer.
Every prayer ought to start this way. Or at least have it before
it ends. Have mercy. Have mercy upon me. I know I don't deserve what I'm
asking for. If I did, I wouldn't ask for
mercy. I'd just tell you, you owed it to me. Mercy. I don't deserve this,
but I pray for it. I pray for it. Look upon my trouble. Anybody here know what trouble
is? Anybody here have trouble? Look, consider my trouble. You
know, when we ask God to consider our trouble, we are asking God
to take it in consideration before Him. It's as if you're saying,
Oh Lord, lay my trouble before you and look at it. Ponder it. Think upon it. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and
consider my trouble, which I suffer of them that hate me. Let my cry come before you, and
consider it." Isn't this why we pray? We don't pray just to
feel better. We pray to be heard. We pray
that God would consider what we are praying about. And if
you don't know trouble right now, you're going to. Sooner
or later, you'll know trouble. You'll know trouble. This is what we ask God to do
for us in times of trouble, is consider my trouble, which I
suffer of them. And here David is saying this.
And I know that you and I, when I look at this psalm, and a lot
of what David has to say, we have it so easy. We have it so
easy. That's why so often we sit there
and we really can't identify because we haven't had that kind
of trouble. We've not been put under that kind of a burden.
I have not had anybody chasing me and trying to take my life
and I'm having to hide in a cave. I've never had that to happen
to me. I've never had been ran out of my home and had to go
begging or anything. I've not had to do any of that
over the gospel. I'm trying to think of Hebrews
here. Turn over to Hebrews 11. I'm trying to talk and think
at the same time. It's not easy to do for me. Listen to this. In verse 36 of
Hebrews 11, and others had trial of cruel
mockings and scourgings, whipping them, moreover of bonds and imprisonments. They were stoned." I've never
been stoned. Nobody's ever thrown a rock.
There have been a few words thrown at me, but no one's ever stoned
me. They were sawed asunder. They were tempted, were slain
with the sword. And I'm thinking, they were tempted
to deny the gospel. John Bunyan, 12 years in prison. All he had to do was deny the
gospel and he's out. I believe he had a blind daughter
at home and his wife at home. And for 12 years... Now listen,
he didn't sit in a federal prison. He didn't get to go to the gym
and work out. No, he's in a dungeon now. He's in a dungeon. For 12 years,
all he had to do was not preach the gospel. That's why it's hard for us to
sometimes, when we're reading these Psalms and the Word of
God, it's hard for us to really enter in and identify with what
our forefathers in the faith went through. Some were sawed asunder, tempted,
slain with the sword, wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins
they couldn't even afford to buy clothes, being destitute,
afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They
wandered in deserts and in the mountains. I'm going to go home
tonight to a comfortable home, to a comfortable house and a
comfortable bed and air-conditioned." They wondered about in the deserts
and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. Oh, consider my trouble. I'm
almost, and seriously, I'm almost embarrassed to even say this,
consider my trouble when I look at what trouble they went through.
But we do have our troubles. We do have our trouble. Trouble
is still trouble. It's still trouble. "...which I suffer of them that
hate me." Our Lord said this, "...if they have hated Me, they
will hate you also." If you and I are honest, with the men and
women we deal with every day. If we are honest with them about
their souls, if we are honest with them about Jesus Christ,
if we are honest with them about who God is, who Jesus Christ
is, what He did, who He did it for, where He is now, you're
going to find out they don't like you. Now if you're going
to talk about the weather, you're going to talk about sports, you
can get along, you're going to be fine. But when you tell the
truth, they're not going to like you. Christ said, if they hated
Me, if they hated My testimony, they're going to hate you too.
They're going to hate you too. But God is My Savior. He says,
Here thou that liftest Me up from the gates of death. That's
trouble when you're that close to death. You're right at the
gates of it. God is the only one who can lift me out of trouble,
deep trouble. No matter how deep the trouble
is, it's not so deep He can't lift me out. It's not so deep
He cannot bring me through. He only can deliver me from the
gates of death. Our deliverance, when you consider
this, our deliverance from eternal death is a great deliverance. What a great deliverance. He
has delivered us from the very gates of torment. It's like the
bran plucked from the fire. He reached down and just plucked
us out of it. You and I were children of wrath
by nature, even as others. There is no difference in anyone
in here, in this room, One outside of this room that
hates God. The only difference right now
is this, the grace of God and the work of God. The grace of God and the work
of God in you. That's the only difference. You
know, when you and I, we see somebody that's down and out
or somebody that's a criminal, somebody that's really in deep,
deep trouble over their sins, you and I can say, we can say
it with honesty, but by the grace of God, there go I, that's me.
Yeah, I mean anybody. You can look at anyone and say,
that's me. I mean, I have talked to men that I've worked with
and they'd be talking about a terrible subject. And one guy said to
me one time, he said, boy, I'd never do that. Oh, yes, you would.
Yes, you would. Thou that liftest me up from
the gates of death. It's a glorious deliverance because
it's of God. It's a great deliverance because
it's of God. I tell you what, this can also
be applied to the Lord Jesus Christ who died and rose again
and ascended on high, and when He rose again and ascended on
high, we ascended with Him, which lifteth me up from the
gates of death. Here's the reason, and here's
the reason, that I may show forth all thy praise in the gates of
the daughter of Zion, You know, when God delivers us from trouble,
it's not just to get us out of trouble. It's not just to get
us out of trouble. It's also for His glory. It's
for His glory. It's for the praise and the glory
of His grace. To me, that's the first thing
that ought to happen when God delivers us from trouble, is
we ought to make it known. that God, by His grace and by
His power, has lifted us up and delivered us. Don't be afraid
to say that. Sometimes I think because of
false religion and because of the way they carry on, we go
the opposite direction and we're too quiet. When we need to give
unto Him the glory, the Scripture says, let's do unto His name.
The Scripture teaches us, lift up your voice. Lift up your voice. Make it known who has delivered you out of
trouble. You weren't lucky. Nobody in
here is lucky. Oh, God delivered us. You know
that. You know that. God delivered. And make it known.
It amazes me when I watch these, and I shouldn't, but when I watch
some of these people on the news, when they interview them, And
I mean, they've been delivered out of a terrible situation. They've been delivered out of
actually dying. And I said, I was so lucky. That's just astounding to me.
But you know what? Here's where we ought to give
God the praise. If it wasn't for the grace of God, we'd say
we're so lucky too. We'd say the same thing. The only difference is the grace
of God. I will praise Thee, listen, that
I may show forth all Thy praises, where? Now listen, in the gates
of the daughter of Zion. I will praise Thee in the most
public manner, in the gates of the daughter of Zion, in the
church, Whether it be here or whether it be somewhere else,
I'll give you the praise, all the praise for salvation, in
a most public manner. Paul said this in Romans, I am
not ashamed of the gospel. And the way we show it, first
of all, is we tell it. We tell it. I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ, for it's the power of God unto salvation.
Paul said to Timothy, Timothy! Don't be ashamed of me or the
gospel. Don't be ashamed of me or the
gospel. Isn't it amazing that something like that would even
have to be said to us? Don't be ashamed of the grace of God.
Don't be ashamed of the way God saved you. Don't hold back. Don't hide it. It is given to believers to continually
show forth God's praise in the church all over the world. You
know what a privilege it is to be here tonight? This is the
privilege. To be here and to sing His praises
and to give unto Him the glory and the honor due unto His name. We praise Him for who He is,
for what He's done for us in saving us in Christ. Continually. Continually. Because He says here, I will
rejoice in thy salvation. Both temporal, every time God
brings me out of trouble, we go into trouble, we come out
of trouble. We go into trouble, we go out of trouble. And we rejoice in His salvation
for every time He delivers us from temporal trouble, and we
rejoice in His salvation for saving us spiritually, saving us from the wrath of the
law, saving us from ourselves, saving us from the power of Satan,
saving us from the power of sin. I will rejoice in thy salvation,
I will rejoice in the freeness of it. Scripture says, Ho, everyone
that thirsteth, come to the water. Come and buy without money. How
do you buy without money? Without price. It's free. We rejoice in His fullness. All
things are yours in Christ. All things. And we rejoice in His completeness.
In Him you are complete. We do not bring nothing to the
table. He spread the table. David said in Psalm 23, You prepared
the table before me in the presence of mine enemy. You prepared it. But not so with the wicked. Who
are the wicked? If you ask the average person
down the street to describe a wicked person, they're going to describe
Charles Manson. They're going to describe somebody
like that. The wicked, it's everyone who does not believe God. You know how wicked it is not
to believe God? God who cannot lie, to call Him
a liar, you know how wicked that is? The heathen, He says here, are
sunk down in the pit that they made. You know, like the old hunter,
he goes out and he digs a pit and he covers it over, for his
prey he's trying to catch. The heathen are sunk down in
the pit that they've made, and the net which they hid is their
own foot taken. You know the wicked digs his
own grave by his sinfulness. He digs his own grave by his
sinfulness. His sinfulness is his shovel,
and every day he's digging it. He's just digging it, and he
doesn't even know it. And he's laying a snare, and
this is false religion here. False religion lays a snare,
not realizing they're going to fall into their own snare. It's like the man who sets the
trap and later forgets where he sets it and steps into it
himself. The Lord, he says here, but the
Lord of judgment, the Lord is known by the judgment which He
executes. And the wicked is snared in the
work of his own hands. He's thinking he's doing something good, and he winds up being snared
by it. He winds up being snared by it.
But the judgment that God will execute Well, all the wicked
and all false religion, he says here, will be known through all
the earth. That's what he's saying. It's going to be known throughout
this whole world. One day, one day, the whole world is going to know
that God is the judge of all the earth. They're going to know
it. God will execute judgment. Don't think that because judgment
didn't happen swiftly that God has let it go. Outside of Christ, now, God lets
nothing go. Not even a thought. Not even
a thought. Can you remember the thoughts
that went through your head yesterday, your mind? Can you remember the
thoughts that went through your mind a week ago? An hour ago? God knows the thoughts of a wicked
man if he lives to be 900 years old. He can bring back the first
thought. The day of judgment is going
to be a day of surprises. A day of surprises. The wicked, he says here, here's
their final end. Here's the end of the broad road
that they are on. Here's the end of the broad road.
They shall be turned into hell. Hell is a very real place. It's
a very real place. And not only is it just for the
wicked, but he talks about all the nations. In other words,
judgment will be worldwide. The whole world will be cast
into hell. And every one of God's children, when that day comes,
when this final thing is wrapped up and that day comes, every
one of God's children will shout, Hallelujah, when God sends the
wicked to hell. That will be a day that God will
not show mercy. Mercy will be nowhere to be found
for the wicked, for the unbeliever. to die outside of Christ, God will not show mercy. The wicked shall be turned into
hell, and all the nations that forget God, but the needy..."
Anybody here needy? Anybody here need Christ? David said, Lord, I am poor and
needy. He said, I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh
upon me. You know the worst way to be? Rich, and increased with goods,
and in need of nothing. That was the church of Laodicea. They were rich, increased with
goods, and in need of nothing. That's the worst way to be. The best way to be is to be needy. Lord, I need Thee every hour.
I need thee every hour. For the needy shall not always
be forgotten. You know, it's easy to forget
the poor, isn't it? It's easy to forget the poor. But the Lord here says that the
poor here, and I believe here the poor is spirit, shall not
always be forgotten. The expectation of the poor, Blessed are the poor in spirit." What's your expectation? What is it? Here's my expectation. I expect God to do exactly what
He said. I expect to stand before Him
faultless and without blame. I expect to stand before Him
righteous through the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I expect
to hear him say, enter in. That's the expectation. I expect
to be saved. Because God said, he that comes
to me, I will know why he's cast out. All you that labor and heavy
laden, come to me and I'll give you rest. Lord, I come. I come. I keep on coming. That's my expectation. I expect
God to do just as He said He would. And He says here, the
expectation of the poor shall not perish forever. That's good news. Here's a promise. Here's a promise. God will not forget you. Others may have forgotten you.
Family members may have forgotten you. And you know there's times
when you've been needy, that you know you've been needy. And people haven't remembered
you. They haven't looked your way and asked you
if you needed anything. But he tells us here, I'll not
forget you. I'll not forget you. And the psalmist says here, and
I'll wind this up, in verse 19, arise, O Lord, arise, execute judgment. You know, there
is a time for God's people to pray that God would rise up and
execute judgment, put an end, put an end to sin, put an end
to such, if someone's a tyrant over you, If someone's really,
really messing with you, there's a time
to pray, Lord, put an end to this. Put an end to this. I like
the way David prays. It gives me encouragement to
pray. Look in Psalm 10. Why standest
thou far off, O Lord? Why hidest thou thyself in times
of trouble? Would you pray like that? Would
you? He said, I wouldn't pray like
that. That's pretty bold. I don't want to go to the throne
of grace and say, Lord, why are you not doing something? But I can read like that. I thought,
well, if he prayed like that, I can pray like that. Listen, in the right spirit and
attitude, you can pray like this. Lord, how long? How long are
you going to allow this person to do this? How long? with the right spirit and attitude,
there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with talking
to God like He's your Father, because He is. It just amazes
me sometimes what He says in prayer. I tell you what, He doesn't
try to be a theologian. Don't try to be a theologian
in prayer. Just be a son or daughter called upon a Father. Arise, O Lord, let not man prevail. Put a stop to him. Put a stop
to what he's doing. Let the heathen be judged in
Thy sight. And put them in fear, O Lord,
that the nations may know themselves to be but men. That's all they
are, is men. You look right now, because we
see so much of it on television, And you see all these nations
jostling, you know, you've got over in North Korea and they're
going to shoot us and everybody's going to do this, that and the
other. Lord, just show them they're just men made of dust. Show them they're just men. Put
them in fear. Send a hurricane through and
let them realize that you're God and they're not. Bring them to their knees. They're
just men. Remind them they're just men.
The Scripture says He remembers our frame that is dust. The great
problem is we forget that. We forget we are made of dust,
this body. Teach Him who the Sovereign is. We ought to pray like that. Lord,
teach this community who the Sovereign is. Men need to be reminded that
they are but men, that's all they are. And only God can teach
men this truth. Weak, frail men. The message that he's conveying
here is that God will call to account all the injustice done
to his people. And as for the righteous, he'll
not forget them. He will consider our trouble
and he'll not forget our cries. You know, there's things we pray
about and life moves on and we forget about it. You know, we
move on to something else, but you know, God has not forgotten
that. That's one of the things that
Henry, one time back in the Bible class one time, he was talking
about prayer, and he said, write them down. He said, write your
prayers out. And I found it interesting in
doing that, that you can go back a year later, two years later,
five years later, and you can look at a prayer and the Lord
answers it. When you have really, without
doing it, you forgot about it. You really forgot about it. But
it's interesting how you can go back. Just like a lot of the
letters that Henry wrote me in my early years, 23, 24, I go
back now and I read those letters. And I love reading those letters.
And you can go back and you can read the prayers that you prayed
years ago, and you can see God's hand in answering your prayers
that you prayed and you've already forgotten about it. All right, that's enough.