I like that hymn, don't you? However, all of God's people
go through the fire. All of God's people go through
the flood. All of God's people go through
great sorrow. And all of God's people are under
the blood. Not just some, all. He must,
through much tribulation, trouble, go through this world and be
of good cheer. One time I entitled this, Waiting
on Something Good to Come Out of All This Trouble. And I've shortened it this time
to just wait and you'll see. Verses 13 and 14, David said,
I had fainted. I would have quit. I didn't think
I could make it. I didn't think that I could endure
this deep trial and trouble unless I had believed to see the goodness
of the Lord. He said, all things work together
for good. I don't see. He went through
some things. He may have thought, how can
any good come out of this? But he tells us in the end, wait. Just wait. And he shall strengthen your
heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Wait, and you'll see. You'll
see. We're all going to see clearly
someday how it all was good. Never be that way. That the thing
we thought was the worst thing that could possibly happen was
good. Just wait. You'll see. Go ahead and laugh, because it
is true. It's true. Job 14 says, Man that is born
of woman is few days and full of trouble. Trouble-filled days. Brother Scott Richardson said,
Man, we have three kinds of troubles. We're either coming out of trouble,
in trouble, or heading back into trouble. That's so in it. It's just so. David was a man
after God's own heart. God loved David dearly. And whoever
God loves, He puts them through trouble. It's God's goodness. You know that? Trials, afflictions,
troubles here on this earth are God's... It's God's love. It's God's mercy. It's God's
grace. To make us want out, to make us call upon Him. It's good.
It really is. David, his life was filled with
troubles. If you just glance at the Scriptures
over in Psalm 25, it says, the troubles of my heart are enlarged. And here in verse 5, he says,
in a time of trouble He shall cure me. Over in Psalm 30, he
says, you hid your face and I was troubled. Psalm 31, have mercy
on me, I'm in trouble. Everywhere you turn, David is
writing about, I'm in trouble. Man, we're in trouble. We've got troubles. David had
troubles of heart, troubles of mind, troubles in his body, troubles
of soul, troubles without, troubles within, troubles at home, troubles
in the world. He had troubles with his enemies.
He had troubles with his friends. He had troubles at home in his
marriage. You know, Paul said about marriage, he
says, good, you know, a man obtains favor of the Lord if he gets
a good wife, a woman that knows the Lord, and vice versa. A woman
gets a man that knows the Lord, and it's a blessing. But Paul
said, you're still going to have trouble. You've got two sinners
living together, and one's a male and one's a female. you're going
to have some trouble. But that trouble is compounded
if one of them doesn't know the Lord. And I've often thought,
and the Lord gave me a wife who loves the Lord and loves me,
and you know, we worship together. There's nothing we'd rather do.
And on the way home, we're talking about the message. When we get
home, we sit at the table and we talk about the message. Wake
up in the morning, she's reading, I'm reading, we talk about it.
And what a blessing that is. But I can't imagine being married
to someone, Christ is my all, and to them, He's nothing at
all. I can't imagine that. That's got to be one of the hardest
trials of all. And you're rejoicing in the Lord,
and you worship the Lord, and you go home, and they tear it
all down. David was married to such a person
as that. Micah, Saul's daughter. She mocked his religion. What
did the Lord do to her? David had trouble with his children.
You know, what kind of trouble? Absalom, my son. Absalom, Absalom,
Absalom. Good God, I've died for thee.
Didn't it? You know that most of the leading
men in Scriptures had unconverted, unsaved children? You know that? Aaron, two of his sons. God killed them both. Samuel,
both of his sons. Eli, both of his sons. What did
they say? It's the Lord. It's the Lord. David, several
sons. Jacob, He didn't have much good
to say about any of his sons, did he, when he blessed them
all? Not much good at all. A couple of them gave him a Benjamin
and Joseph, you know. David had trouble with his house
and his home and his family, with his children. Oh, those
were deep troubles, aren't they? I can't imagine having a wayward
child. I'm so thankful the Lord has
not put us through that. Tough trial. What I did to my parents, I can't
imagine. My son or daughter doing that
to me. Troubles. David had troubles
with lusts, sin, temptation. The world doesn't have trouble
with these things. Only God's people have trouble with sin.
The world loves sin. God's people is troublesome to
them. They're vexed by it. They're vexed by the sin within.
They're vexed by the sin without. They're like a lot inside them.
They want out. And yet we linger. So a man that's born a woman
is full of trouble. David was full of troubles. And
that's why he said, through all his troubles, he said, I would
have fainted. I would have fallen. I would
have quit a long time ago. I didn't think I could get through
what I went through unless I'd believed to see the goodness
of the Lord in all this. And I had to wait, he said. I
had to wait. And in waiting and trusting the
Lord, he showed me. He showed me. So he says, you
wait, and it'll strengthen your heart. You just wait now, and
you'll see. It's all good. This psalm, the
whole psalm, is a song. It's a song, isn't it? Can you
sing while you're sad? We need to. It's hell, a time
of trouble. Can you sing when you're mad?
We need to calm that old beast within. This is a psalm that
David wrote, a time of trouble, fear, a time of fear. Look at
it, verses 1. Through three, the Lord is my light, my salvation. I see clearly. I only see clearly
through my Lord, through His Word. I understand only through
Him and His Word. He's my salvation. I see clearly. I know now who is my salvation. It's not things. It's not people.
It's the Lord. It always has been. We just looked
at that, didn't we? After Goliath and David was afraid. But he trusted in the Lord. After
it was all over, do you think he trusted Him more? Do you think
he trusted Him fully? At that time he thought, of whom
shall I be afraid? Whom shall I fear? The Lord is
the strength of my life. Our Lord said this, as thy days,
so shall thy strength be. How's that? Look into Him and
Him only. You have no strength in yourself,
and there's no strength in anyone else. Don't lean on the arm of
the flesh. Don't look or call on anyone else. Call on the Lord.
He's the only strength you have. That's a fact. Of whom shall I be afraid? When
the wicked, He said, when the wicked, my enemies, my foes,
came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Brothers
and sisters, we have been assaulted, some of you 60, 70, 80 years
old. You've been assaulted all your
life, haven't you? Here you are. Here you sit, trusting, resting,
looking to the Lord. The adversary has tried to keep
you all these years, keep you from hearing the gospel, keep
you from trusting Christ, keep you from him, draw you away,
and here you sit. After all these years that came
upon you, So yeah, keep trusting it. No
war should rise against me. David, Paul said there's a war
in my members. Of this I will be confident.
What? My God is God. My God reigneth. The Lord is
Lord. He's my light. He's my salvation.
He's my strength. He's my protector. He's my provider. I'll slay this giant called unbelief. Listen to this. Listen to David.
All through the psalm. If you just turn anywhere, any
mini manual, if you turn anywhere, you'll read things like this.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my strength,
my buckler, the horn of my salvation, my high tower, my foundation,
my defense. Just turn anywhere and you'll
read that. We trust Him. We trust in Him. This is our
confidence. We have no confidence in the
flesh, any flesh. We have no confidence in man,
any man. Our confidence is in the God-man,
the Lord Jesus Christ. We trust Him. We trust His wisdom. Everything He's doing is right,
and He's doing it. Everything that's being done,
the Lord did it. Let's do it. We trust His wisdom.
We trust His love. He loves His people far too much
to ever do anything to really hurt them. It's all good. Would you hurt somebody you love? You can't do it. It's not possible
for the Lord. He loves too much, his mercy,
his mercy is too great, his power. We trust his power, we trust
his word, don't we? So come what may, this is our
confidence, like Eli, come what may. Though the tidings were
waiting, everybody's waiting on news. It's tough to wait,
isn't it? Every one of us have waited for news of some sort,
waited a sick loved one. Waiting for good news or bad
news. Come what may, here's your hope,
here's your confidence. Say with Eli, it's the Lord. It's the Lord. He is our strength. You see? Here's the believer's
desire. Here's the saint's desire. Verse
4. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after,
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my
life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, to inquire in His temple.
That's the one thing I desire, David said. I want to be in that
Lord's house with God's people. I want to worship the Lord. I've
seen His beauty. I've seen His glory. I've seen
my need of Him. I've seen His salvation. I've
heard His blessed Word. I just want to be in His house.
Lord, that's my desire. Do you think he'd turn away?
Do you think he'd cast out anybody that wanted to be in his house? I've told you so many times this
story. I love it because I loved old Abner, my dog, you know.
And he was an outside dog. That's where dogs are supposed
to be. Anyway, he was outside all the time. And every now and
then it was really cold, you know. And he always wanted in
the house. He always wanted in the house. And every now and
then, I couldn't turn him away. Finally, I said, oh, come on
in, Admiral. Oh, he'd just crawl in, and he'd
lie down at my feet like, just lie right here, right here. Won't
cause any trouble. I'm just so glad to be here.
I never said, get out of here, you old dirty dog. Never. Lord. This is all I ask for. This is all I desire. Okay? And David's talking about two
houses here. Yes, he is. He's talking about the house
of the Lord not made with hands in the heavens. Our heavenly
home. God's kingdom. God's house. He
said, I go to prepare a place for thee. If I go to prepare
a place for thee, I come receive you unto myself. You mean I can
come? Yes! You want to be there with me?
Yes! He's not going to turn away one person who desires to be
in His kingdom with Him and with His people. Not one. But you
don't know me. He does. He'll never say, you
dirty dog. You can't come in here. That's
the only kind He lets in. And David's talking about God's
house. We're in right now. This is the house of the Lord.
This is where God's people meet. This is where we want to be in.
You see, if this is where you want to be, this is what you
want to do, this is who you want to be with, and this is who you
want to hear, and who you want to worship, rejoice. He's not going to kick
you out. He's not going to kick you out.
The reason you're here, the reason you desire to be here, because
He said, let's go to the house of the Lord. He drew you towards
Him. He gathered you together to His
people. That's the reason you want to be here. That's the only
reason. If you come, He'll keep you. He'll not cast you out. One thing that I desire. He says
He'll hide me. Verse 5, here's a believer's
refuge, a saint's refuge. Verse 5, in a time of trouble,
He'll hide me in His pavilion. He says the secret of His tabernacle
shall He hide me. He'll set me up on a rock. You
know, this is a graduation is what this is. This goes low and
gets high is what this means. Pavilion is not a great grand
place. That's not what that means. You can't hide in a pavilion.
The pavilion actually means like an arc of bull rushes, a little
basket. That's what that means. It talks
about going from being in a basket to a tabernacle to finally being
on a mountain. And Moses is a good type of this,
she said. Moses' parents, it talks about
in Hebrews 11. Pharaoh was killing everybody. Pharaoh was killing all the children.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Can you imagine,
Margaret? Our governor was out to kill
all the children. Kill your daughter's children. And so Moses' mother and father
took that precious child of theirs that God gave them and put him
in a pavilion, put him in a basket, a little ark covered with bulrushes. And they thought, why is this
happening to us? Why is this happening to us?
Can anything good come out of this? Oh Lord, take my baby boy. Save him. Oh, mother, he's going
to save Israel by this boy. You just wait. You'll see. Can anything good come out of
this? She cast all her care on the Lord, a baby in a basket.
You know, we're all a basket case. That's right. That's how we start out. We're
all in the hand. And our mothers and our fathers, if they're believers,
cast all their care upon the Lord. Please, take care of him. Cast all your care on the Lord.
He's the one to carry it. And if you wait, you'll see it. Then Moses went from being in
a basket to a grown man, 40 years old. Finally, he's 80 years old
and he's walking with the people of Israel. They've come out of
Egypt. They've come through the Red
Sea. Water coming out of the rock. Bread raining from the
sky. There's a tabernacle. And Moses thought, this is as
good as it gets. Yes, we're wandering. Yes, we're
beset behind and before by all these enemies. But he said he
loved God's tabernacle. And he went in that tabernacle.
Oh, it was a shocking glory of God. He took him from a basket,
a pavilion, to a tabernacle. And then when it was all over,
his life was over. Was Moses disappointed that he
couldn't go in the promised land? The Lord took Moses up on a mountain,
a rock, precipice, peak. He said, you see that? That's
my people, that's the land I told you about. Was Moses disappointed
he couldn't go in that land? Oh, God's taken him higher than
that. Mount Pisgah's lofty heights.
He viewed that sight. And our Lord has set our feet
on a rock. The Lord Jesus Christ. And now we see clearly. We're
hidden in Him. We're in the secret of His tabernacle. And He set us up on a rock. And
if you look, you'll see. Oh, the end is wonderful. It
gets higher. And then verse 6. Verse 6. Here's the believer's song. He
says, My head will be lifted up above mine enemies. Who? Your
head? Who's that? That's Christ. My head. He crushed the serpent's head. And above mine enemies round
about me. Now, David's been in trouble. David's been in deep
sorrows. You just keep reading. David
said, I watered my bed with my tears. He said he wouldn't be
comforted one time with the death of his or the sickness of a child. He'd been through deep troubles,
as all of God's people do, sleepless nights. He couldn't sleep. And
you know, David thought, like we think sometimes when we go
through these troubles and sorrows, we think, I'll never sing again. I'll never be happy again. I'll
never laugh again. Don't you? We were with Brother Bruce right
after one of the saddest times of his life. I preached the Gospel to him.
Don't you love his grin? He grinned from ear to ear. From
ear to ear. David said, I'm going to go into
his tabernacle and offer a sacrifice of joy. You see, the joy of the
Lord is your strength. I will sing. I'm going to sing. Oh, I'll never sing again. Yes,
you will. Yes, you will. David thought that. He said,
I'm cast down, Lord, I'm cast down. Oh, my soul, why art thou
cast down? He said, hope in the Lord. He
said, I'll yet praise Him is the health of my countenance.
Psalm 30. Turn there, Psalm 30. This is
good. You don't have to go far to see
this. Look at this, Psalm 30. I believe he wrote this. I'm
not sure. But David was smitten in battle,
and they thought he was dead. He fought another giant. One
of Goliath's brothers came out and slew him, thought he'd killed
David. And David was lying there wounded.
And who was it? One of the men picked David up
and suckered him and nursed his wounds and all that. And it says
in Psalm 30 verse Verse 3, O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul
from the grave. Thou hast kept me alive. I should
not go down to the pit. Saying unto the Lord, ye saints,
give thanks that thou rememberest His holiness. His anger endureth
but for a moment, and His favor is life. Weeping may endure for
a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Verse 8, I cried unto
the Lord. I made my supplication. Verse 10, Hear me, O Lord, have
mercy upon me, be my helper. Verse 11, Thou hast turned for
me my mourning into dancing. It put off my sackcloth and girded
me with gladness. He'd go from weeping all night,
and in the next night he'd be singing in the night. He'd giveth
me songs in the night. Isn't it so? Isn't it so? The Lord is good. The Lord's good. Wait, you'll
see. Saint's song. And here's his
prayer. Here's the prayer of all the
saints in our text. It says, Hear me, O Lord. Verse
7. When I cry with my voice, have
mercy upon me. Answer me. Will the Lord have
mercy upon those who ask for it? He cannot turn away. Cannot. He will not. He takes pleasure
in them that fear Him and those that hope in His mercy. Verse
8, When you said, Seek my faith, my heart said, Thy face will...
Lord, will I seek? Will the Lord turn away anyone
that seeks Him? He said, Seek ye the Lord, didn't
He? He said, Seek ye the Lord. Seek,
and you'll survive. Ask, and it will be given you.
Knock, and it shall be opened. Didn't He? He cannot lie. Seek. Lord, you said seek, and I'm
seeking. Verse 9, hide not thy face far
from me. The Lord ought to. And He does
sometimes. I need to preach on that. Psalm 45, I believe it is. Thou
art a God that hidest thyself. Psalm 55. And the Lord, you know, is displeased
and angry. I remember when I knew that my
father was angry at me. Didn't we, brother? We knew. And he wouldn't look at me. I
knew I'd hide his face from him. It grieved me. And the Lord does
that. But he says, oh, don't put away
your servant in anger. You've been my help. Don't leave
me. Don't forsake me. The Lord, He can't. Sister, He
cannot. He's better than us. He loves more than we love our
own. He cannot, He will not forsake anyone that calls on Him. He
has never let down one single person. He has never disappointed
one single person that depends on Him. Not one. You just wait, He'll say. Oh,
you're the God of my salvation. When my mother and my father,
He said, father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me
up. He gathers Himself. He remembers the Lord's covenant
concerning Him. Sure mercies of David. You know why the Lord won't forsake
His people? You know why He won't forsake
anybody that comes to Him by Christ? Because He forsook Christ.
Because He sent His Son to die for His people. And Christ
bore all the wrath and judgment of God's people against us. And
God is not angry with His people. He is not. Christ died. In verse 11, he says, teach me
that. Teach me thy way, O Lord. Lead me. Lead me in a plain path. Oh my, do you not think the Lord
will lead us all the days of our lives? Didn't David write
that? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He leadeth
me. He leadeth me. Our Lord said,
pray this, lead me not into temptation. Does He lead us? He leadeth me,
O blessed thought, O words with heavenly comfort from wherever
I be, whatever I do. Whatever I do, wherever I be,
still is my God that leadeth me. He leadeth me, He leadeth
me. Let's sing. By His own hand,
He leadeth me. His faithful follower I would
be, for by His hand He leads me. I'll help you. He's always
leading. He'll never quit leading. He's
a good shepherd, faithful shepherd. He leads His people. Those that
want to be led, those that need to be led, those that are sheep
and know it, they need led because of our enemies and their men.
He says, verse 12, don't deliver me with the will of mine enemies.
Please, Lord, don't let me have my will. Don't let man have his
will. Will he? No, he won't. He will do his will. He doeth
his will in the armies of heaven, among the inhabitants of the
earth, and this is the will of him that sent Christ. This is
it. Christ said it twice. This is
the will of Him that sent them. Everyone that seeth the Son,
seeth His glory, seeth their need of Him, that sees He's their
only hope. Every single one that seeth the
Son and believeth on Him and trusteth Him shall have eternal
life. And He said, I will. I will. This is the Father's will. He
said it's my will. I will raise them up at the last
day. I will not forsake them. I will
not cast them out. I will not leave them. I'll take them up to glory. Every
single one of them. Smile. You just wait. You'll see. He's coming for his
own. So David, in closing, says this.
I would have fainted. I couldn't have made it through
my troubles unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living. I couldn't have made it through
all this. I remember a dear brother going
through some of these troubles. His brother finally lost his
wife. He saw two sons put in prison. And I remember him saying, at
the time, I don't think I can get through this. He did. The Lord brought him
through. He laughed. He sang again, didn't
he? And now he's in glory. And boy,
is he singing now. He's solid. So David tells us,
wait. Just wait. Wait on the Lord. It is the Lord, whatever it is.
It's the Lord. Whatever comes, it's the Lord.
Be of good courage. Take all your courage, all your
strength. Strengthen thy heart in the Lord. Okay? Encourage
yourself in the Lord your God. That's what David did when they'd
come down and taken his wives and children, and they wept till
they had no more tears to weep. And David encouraged himself
in his God. He'll get it all back. He said,
wait, I say unto the Lord. You know, there's so many examples
in the Scriptures I can give you, so many stories. Like the
story of Joseph. Oh, you know, a godly man who
loved, the Lord loved him, and his father loved him, and his
brethren hated him. And you know the story, they
hated him and they were jealous of him. And one time they wanted
to slay him, but the Lord wouldn't allow that. And so they sold
their brother into slavery, okay? And he goes, he leaves his home,
his family, his father and all this, and he's in slavery in
Egypt. How can anything good come out
of this? And finally, and he was lied
on by his employer's wife, you know, he was falsely accused
of something he didn't do, and they put him in prison, two years,
two years in prison. Wasn't one of these country clubs?
In prison. Don't you know, how can, how,
why, why? How can anything good come out
of this? All right? They brought him out
of prison, okay? Finally, in the end, you just
wait. Finally, in the end, he's sitting
on the throne. And his brothers come, you know
the whole story. At the end of that story, Joseph
said, now you meant it for evil. Everybody meant evil against
me. But God meant it for good. I had to wait. But now I see
clearly it was all good to save much people alive. Men, a woman,
her and her husband left the people of God. They left the
house of God. They left where the worship of
God was, her and her husband. They left where God's people
were. for a better situation. And they did. They found it.
They went where God's people were not, where there was no
truth, no gospel. And they went there. They did
just fine. They had a home. They had two
sons. Had it all. Had all the world
could offer them. And this woman's husband died.
Now she's a widow. Well, she has her boys to fall
back on. Two sons, you know, they get
married. It's two sons. Both of them died. Now she has no one to fall back
on, nothing to fall back on. She loses her inheritance. She
loses her home. She loses everything. So she
decides, I need to go back where God's people are. I need to go
back where the truth is, where my people are. I need to go back
there. I hear that my people are eating, and I'm starving,
and I'm poor, and I'm down and out, and I have nothing. I have
nobody, no one to fall back on. I'm going back where God's people
are. And one of her daughters-in-law,
You know the story. One of her daughters-in-law,
name was Ruth, the woman's name was Naomi, said, I'm going with
you. Oh, she said, honey, you stay
here with your people, your mother, your father, and your kinfolk
and all that. And where they go to church,
no, I can't. I don't want that. I'm going to go with you. But
we're God's people now. God's house. So they did. Here they come.
How can anything good come out of all this? Don't you know they're
thinking that? Look what we've done. Look what
we left. Look what we've put ourselves
through. Look at what we've lost. How can we get... We'll never
be happy again. Don't call me Naomi, she said.
Call me Mara. Call me bitter. The Lord hath
dealt bitterly with me. No, Naomi. The Lord hath dealt
well with me. You'd still be there if the Lord
hadn't done all this. The Lord's bringing you back
home, Naomi. And He's bringing somebody with
you. And that's part of the reason He sent you there, is to bring
her back with you. Alright? Wait. You'll see. Years
later, Ruth is an old woman. Ruth is a grandmother. Ruth is
a great-grandmother. And she's sitting there with
a baby on her lap. And that baby boy's name is David. And she's laughing. Oh, she said, I would have fainted
if I had not believed to see the goodness of the Lord. No,
she said, I see it! I see it! The Lord's purpose
in all this is that I might see the Son, the King. And I remind you, Boaz, you know, his mother was
a harlot. My, my. How can anything good
come out of that? Oh, my, listen to this. Let me
close by reading this to you. And this is, you see, the patience
of the saints. This is the patience. Patiently
waiting, patiently hoping in the Lord. And this is what John
said. John, who was on an island, exiled. cut off from everything by himself
on an isle. How can anything good come out
of this? Well, here it is. And John said,
I am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom
and patience of Jesus Christ. Waiting on the Lord. Waiting
on the Lord. And then Revelation 13, 15, all
through here, it talks about the patience of the saint. Patience
of the saints. Talks about everybody against
them. They said, now this is the patience.
Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. That it
is the Lord. That whatever it is, it is the
Lord. And the Lord is good. to all
them that wait for Him. You just wait, and you'll see.
And you're going to sing. When this is all over and we're
in glory, after 30 minutes of silence, we're going to erupt and never
quit singing again. You know what? Never. No more
tears, Margaret, ever again. Laughter. Nothing but laughter. Won't that be good? Wait! Okay.