Let me make a couple of announcements
before I read. Paul Mayhead will be here preaching
both services Sunday, and Obi's going to be preaching up at,
taking the service up at Madisonville for David Edmondson while David's
up in Katy. So we pray the Lord will bless
him while he's up there. Let's read this 59th Psalm together. Deliver me from mine enemies,
O my God, Defend me from them that rise up against me. Deliver
me from the workers of iniquity and save me from bloody men.
For lo, they lie in wait for my soul. The mighty are gathered
against me, not for my transgression, not for my sin, O Lord. They
run and prepare themselves without my fault, awake to help me, and
behold, Thou therefore, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
awake to visit all the heathen, be not merciful to any wicked
transgressors. They return at evening. They
make a noise like a dog and go round about the city. Behold,
they belch out with their mouths. Swords are in their lips. For
who say they doeth here? But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh
at them. Thou shalt have all the heathen
in derision. Because of his strength will
I wait upon thee, for God is my defense. The God of my mercy
shall prevent me. God shall let me see my desire
upon mine enemies. Slay them not, lest my people
forget. Scatter them by thy power and
bring them down, O Lord our shield. For the sin of their mouth and
the words of their lips, let them even be taken in their pride. And for cursing and lying which
they speak, consume them in wrath. Consume them that they may not
be. And let them know that God ruleth
in Jacob under the ends of the earth. And that evening, let
them return. And let them make a noise like
a dog and go round about the city. Let them wander up and
down for meat and grudge if they be not satisfied. But I will
sing of thy power. Yea, I will sing aloud of thy
mercy in the morning. For thy has been my defense and
refuge in the day of my trouble. Unto thee, O my strength, will
I sing. For God is my defense. and the
God of my mercy. Oh, our blessed Father, gracious,
gracious God, in the holy, blessed, glorious name of your Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, that name we love, that name we adore,
that name that when we speak of it we speak with awe and wonder
and love and adoration and worship, praise, that name we call on
continually and constantly while we live yet in this world. Father,
we thank you for thy blessings today, for your preserving power
today, for your wondrous grace given again today. Lord, you
give us every day. They're your days and you give
them to us. It seems good in your sight. We're here, we're
healthy. We're here to hear, to worship,
to call on your name, to hear your blessed gospel. So Lord,
meet with us and we pray for those who are not with us through
your providence or through sickness. Lord, please be merciful and
gracious to the ones that are sick and weak in body. Restore
their health, it seems good in your sight. God, move on the
hearts of people to come and hear the gospel of the grace
of God. And Lord, when we go to the meeting this weekend,
we pray that you go before us. And Lord, give us something to
say. Give David something to say. Cause us to be a blessing
to the saints there. And Lord Jesus, we pray for Paul
as he comes here. God, use him mightily in our
midst. And as Obie goes to Madisonville,
Lord, use him there. Lord, quicken his heart and his
mind. Loosen his lips that he can speak to your glory and the
good of those there. We ask these things in our Lord
Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I want you to look
there in verse 10. I think, I think it hadn't been
too long ago, I preached on the God who shall forfeit me. And
I don't know if I use this text or not, but I want you to look
there in those first five words, the God of my mercy, the God
of my mercy, the God of my mercies. Now, if you'll look over here
at the top of the psalm and you see the title of the psalm, it's
got a little, in my Bible, it's got a little two beside it and
you look in the margin and it says, destroy not a golden psalm
of David. This is the fifth of David's
golden psalms. And they started in Psalm 56
and they go through here. And what that means is that he
had enemies. And this was the psalm here,
it was the psalm of destroy me not. That's what he's praying
for, God destroy me not. And so he goes to his father,
he goes to God and says destroy me not. And David had great affliction. In this particular place he had
great affliction. And God had used this affliction
to tune David's heart. If God uses affliction oftentimes
to tune our harps, and destroy or not, and that's what he says
in the margin there, destroy not a golden psalm of David,
and Psalm 58 says the same thing. Psalm 57 says the same thing. Psalm 56 says the same thing. They're golden psalms of David.
Destroy me not, and I know this, whom God preserves, Nothing or
nobody can destroy. Nobody can. They may be greatly
afflicted, like David was, may be greatly tried, but as long
as God has his preserving hand on a man, there ain't nothing,
absolutely nothing can destroy him. And this time, this psalm
was written when Saul sent after David, after he had done, went
home. He done tried to kill him. Look
over in 1 Samuel with me in chapter 19 and you'll see this is where
this psalm was born. Psalm 19 and verse 10. You know that Saul had sent and
had David's house surrounded. and watched that they might kill
him, that they might take him. And look what he says here in
1 Samuel 19.10. This is what's going on, this
psalm. And Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with the
javelin. But he slipped away out of Saul's
presence and he smoked the javelin into the wall. And David fled
and escaped that night. Saul also sent messengers unto
David's house to watch him and to slay him in the morning. And
Michael, David's wife, told him, saying, If thou save not thy
life tonight, tomorrow thou shalt be slain. Now these folks come
to his house, they's dead serious. If they get their hands on this
man, he's dead. When he gets up of a morning
and starts out of his house, I want him killed. That's what
he's saying. And look what happens, he goes on. So Michael, his wife
said, you better run and hide tonight or you'll be slain in
the morning. So Michael let David down through a window and he
went and fled and escaped. And Michael took an image and
laid it in the bed and put a pillow of goat's hair for his bolster
and covered it with a cloth. And when Saul sent messengers
to take David, she said, he is sick. And Saul sent his messengers
again to see David saying, bring him up to me in the bed that
I may slay him. If he won't get out of bed, just
take the bed and all and bring him to me. And that's where this
psalm was born. And that's why he called him
the God of my mercy. And I know this, none of us like
trouble. Nobody likes trouble. Yet a life
without trouble wouldn't be very interesting, be boring. Something's
got to be going on all the time. And it's through trials that
we find out that our faith is real. You know, it takes clouds
and sun to make a beautiful sunset, make a beautiful sunset or a
beautiful sunrise. It takes the clouds and the sun
just in the right place. It takes rain to make a rainbow.
And that's what God's telling us here, and what David's saying,
the God of my mercy. David was greatly tried, and
he is tried often. He was tried very severely. And
yet it's by these trials that we see the grace of God in him,
and God's power upon him. And we see the man, David, by
his afflictions. And I know this, that that's
what we find out ourselves, and we find out whether our faith
is real. God knows our faith. But we sometimes
think we don't have any, and God puts our faith in the furnace
to purify it. But David, instead of looking
at his trouble, he starts looking at his God. He starts looking
at his God. Look in verse 1. He said, Deliver me from mine
enemies, O my God. Psalm 59, 1. Deliver me from
mine enemies, O my God. Defend me from them that rise
up against me. He went to God and said, Lord,
you defend me. You're my God, you defend me.
You take care of these people. I can't take care of them. Look
what he said down in verse 17. Under thee, oh my strength, will
I say. I have no strength. I can't fight
these enemies. I can't deal with these people.
Unto thee, O my strength will I sing, for God is my defense
and the God of my mercy. He's surrounded by bloodthirsty
men. Saul said, bring him up in his
bed. Bring him in his bed up here
so I can kill him. I want to be the one to kill
him. And David just appears calm, he believes that God will make
a way of escape, and that's why he says, defend me, oh my God,
defend me from them that rise up against me. You see David,
and oh my soul, if I could learn this, David looked to God now,
and you know why he looked to God now in this situation? Because
he had always looked to God. He habitually looked to God. He didn't have no place else
to look but to God. He believed God. His soul felt
the power and the presence of the Almighty. And man, many don't
deny the existence of God. Many will say they believe in
God. but they don't know the reality of his existence like
David did and like the Lord's people did. They don't live by
God. They don't live through God.
They don't live because of God. Their life is not God. Their life's not in God. God
was such a reality to David that he just automatically, when something
happened, he just looked to God and said, that God defend me
and the God of my mercy. I've got enemies rising up against
me. I ain't gonna deal with them. You deal with them. You deal
with them. And oh, he believed God. His
soul felt the power and presence of Him. And I'll tell you something
about God. And you all know this as well
as I do. God's unseen. God's invisible. No man's ever seen Him. But the
Lord Jesus Christ, He declared Him out. God's unseen, but He's
ever present in the lives of His people. There's not any time
that He's not present in the lives of His people. And that's
the way He was with David. And He's unheard by our ears,
but yet we hear Him here. I was thinking about Brother
Henry the other day, and I told Shirley this. I said, Brother
Henry can't hear nobody's voice. He can't hear nobody's voice.
He can't hear nothing. But I said, he'd still hear the
voice of God. Fanny Crosby was born blind,
blind all her time. But look at the hymn she wrote.
You know why? Because she saw the Lord with
eyes not like thee. And that's what David's talking
about. And that's what I'm talking about. God's unseen, but He's
always present. He's unheard by our ears, but
we know and hear and perceive in our hearts. You see, faith
has a greater perceptive power than any of our senses does.
Sight says, I'm surrounded by my enemies. Faith said, God'll
save me. Do you remember over when Elijah
Elisha, not Elijah, Elisha. The king sent a great bunch of
chariots down, surrounded Elisha's house because he was telling
everybody what was going to happen before it happened. And so he
and king would go after somebody and they'd be moved because Elisha
was telling them where to go. And he says, there's a bird right
here telling somebody. And so he surrounded Elisha's
house. And Elisha's servant, Elisha's sitting in the house,
and Elisha's servant went out and he said, Oh, run back in
there. Master, master, master. He said, Oh, we're surrounded,
we're surrounded. And Elisha didn't even get up
and he said, Lord, give him, open his eyes that he may see
that there's more for us than there are of them. And he walked
outside and he saw thousands and thousands of chariots of
fire surrounding the other chariots. That fella just went to rest.
And that's what David's doing. Oh, listen. 5th Sense says, I
can't. 5th Sense says, I can't. God
says, I will. Sight, reasoning, and understanding
says, with me and this is impossible. But faith says, with God, all
things are possible. Faith falls on God. It can't do anything else. It
can't do anything else. I've heard Todd say that many
times. You cannot not believe. You cannot not believe. And that's
what David's doing. He cannot not believe. He's surrounded
by angels. But listen, God is my God. And we as David, we cry out to
God. We look under the hills from
which comes our help. Why? Because that's where he's
at. There's where he's looking at and observing us. His eyes
run to and fro near earth. And he's truly sympathetic and
can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. And he's
ready with his mighty arm and his mighty power to save his
people and their situation. How many times has he saved us? And it's such a, Hundreds of
situations. And David fled to God in this
particular trouble because he couldn't trust anybody else. Michael, his wife, was Saul's
daughter. And she ended up ridiculing David
later. Michael was his wife, but she
proved faithful, but he couldn't absolutely be sure. He was shut
up to God. Look what he says here in verse
9. He says in verse because of his strength will I wait upon
me. Now I want you to know he's not
talking about God's strength here. He's talking about Saul's
strength, his enemy's strength. He said my enemies have great
strength. Oh listen, because of his strength
you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to wait on you. I'm
just going to wait. He's too strong for me. I'm going
to wait on you. I'm going to wait on you. For God is my defense. He's my high place. And I'll
tell you something, beloved. It's easy for a man to walk when
he can see. Any man can walk when he can
see. When his feet can find its way. But to walk when there is
no help visible. When there's no way plain. Now
that's a horse of another color. What a blessing it is to cast
yourself upon God when you don't know which way to go or what
to do and the way's not made plain. If you can find your way,
you will. But when God makes the path invisible
and not the way plain, that's when you cast yourself on God
and say, Lord, You do it. You do it, huh? And if a man
can walk where there is no visible pathway whatsoever, no visible
pathway, and you can walk when it's dark, when it seems like nothing is
right and everything's wrong, and you can walk when there's
no visible pathway, you know who you belong to? You belong
to people like Moses, who endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
To go through this life, and there's times when you can't
see the way, but God always makes the way. That's a God-given faith. And you're kin to David. You're
kin to Abraham. You're kin to Noah. You're kin
to Enoch. And you know what else? They
that are of faith are the children of Abraham. And oh, listen, let me tell you
something. As soon as David had looked alone to God, his trials
grew small, just grew so small. Look what he said about him in
verse eight. As soon as David looked alone to God and looked
at him, his trials grew very small. He said, but thou, Lord,
you gonna laugh at them. you're just gonna laugh at them. These fellas running around my
house, wanting to kill me, running around here, whooping and hollering,
trying to scare me, hollering, come out, David, come out, David,
Saul wants you, we're gonna kill you, David, we're gonna shed
your blood, David, we're gonna destroy you, David, walking around
his house, watching, banging on the door, come out, David, They went back and said, we can't
get him out of the house. Joe Saul said, go get him in
his bed and bring him if nothing else will work. But oh, listen
to what David said, but oh Lord, you're gonna laugh at them. Oh,
they made me run around my house making life miserable for me,
but you're gonna laugh at them. You're gonna have all of them
in derision. You're gonna make them look like
the fools that they are. Oh, to get away from man, and
the fear of man, and the trouble of man, and even your own heart,
and get up under the wing of the Almighty. And oh, get up
under His wing and exchange your doubt for certainty, exchange
your fear for confidence under the wing of the Almighty. Just
snuggle up under His wing. Oh, listen. Now look what he
said, I'm going to say a few things about the God of my mercy.
There in verse 10, the God of my mercy. He is the God of mercy. He's
the God of all grace, but David alone in the scripture, he's
the only person in the scripture that calls him the God of my
mercy, the God of my mercy. You see, the very, very heart
and soul of theology lies in personal row-downs. My God, my
Savior, my Redeemer, my Beloved, my Shepherd, my Defense, my Justifier,
my Righteousness. And that's when He becomes not
ours, but mine. And that's what David says. He's
the God of my mercy. Huh? And oh, that's the way we
have to have these personal pronouns. All conflicts in the world, you
know what they've been over? Over me and argue what belongs
to who. That property's mine. No, it's
mine. That there's mine. Nope, that's
mine. And next thing you know, people's fighting over which
one it belongs to. And kids, you see it in kids
all the time. Kids will have a closet full of toys and be
playing with all of them until somebody goes and gets one that
they ain't even looked at forever and they go get that one and
that's mine! And they start a fight. And I
tell you, beloved, as nothing, nothing influences a man so much
as that which he calls his own. And that's why David says, the
God of my mercy. That had influence on the God
of my mercy. And what David is saying is there's
a portion of God's mercy that's all mine. A portion of God's
mercy that's all mine. You see, if mercy is common to
all men, what does it avail man for mercy then? See, mercy is
like grace. If you look at it in the scriptures,
it's only given to people of the Lord. That's the only
people it's ever given to. It's not given to people indiscriminately.
People can say, oh Lord, have mercy on me and all that, but
David didn't look at it like that. He says, the God of my
mercy, the mercy which faith grasps for itself, it's the mercy
that'll bless him, the mercy that he'll prize above all other
things. Somebody said the other day that
they mentioned that they were mercy beggars. And a woman called
the preacher and said, boy, I said, I like the way that you call
yourself mercy beggars, because that's what we are, we're mercy
beggars. We beg for mercy. Be merciful to me, O thou Son
of David. Be merciful to my daughter, O
Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what David said, God's
the God of my mercy. It must go from we believe in
the God of mercy till he's the God of my mercy. Not to we believe,
but I believe. And he also believed this. It meant there was a portion
of mercy that he had already received before which was his
own. God already had a portion of
mercy for him. He says, the God of my mercy.
And he was the God that had a portion of mercy for David before David
was ever formed in the womb. Before David ever come out of
his mother's womb in mercy, put his hand on David from the day
he come out of his mother's womb and was the God of his mercy
all the days of his life. Huh? It's the mercy that guided us
into the truth. It's mercy that brought us to
the gospel and brought us where the gospel was preached. Mercy
did that for us. And the mercy opened our hearts
to receive and believe and rest our souls on the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how great, how great, how
great have been our mercies. That's why David said, the God
of my mercy. And I'll tell you something else
he thought about mercy. Consider the mercy. God of my
mercy, consider the mercy you're yet to receive, that you're yet
to receive. There's a portion with just your
name on it, laid up for you. God is rich in mercy. He delights
in mercy. And out of all the mercy that
He's given, He has Exactly the same amount of mercy started
with Oh Bless the God of my mercy
For the mercies I have had and for those that's laid up in the
covenant, and you know what Isaiah called him He called it the covenant
the sure mercies of David Sure mercies of David The God of my
mercy is what he said. He felt as if all the mercy in
the heart of God just belonged to him. Just his, just belonged
to him. Let me ask you a question. If
you were alone in this world, just you by yourself, and God
loved you infinitely alone, you as by yourself, just you And
God loved you infinitely. And what would He be able to
do for you? Huh? If it's just you. If all
of His grace and all of His mercy and all of His love were focused
on you, what would you think about that? Well, that's exactly the way
it is for every one of us. It's all focused, that's what
they say, it's the God of my mercy. All of God's love and
grace and mercy and power is focused on me to save me from
my enemies. And everything God has for us
in Christ is focused right on us. You know why? Because He
said it was. I've loved you with an everlasting
love. Oh, the God of my mercy, He is mine and I am His. Let me show you something over
in 1 Peter 1.3. 1 Peter 1.3. I thought about trying to work
up a message on this today and then looked at this and look
here in 1 Peter 1.3. Oh, listen to this. Blessed be the God, Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy,
whoa, abundant. Abundant mercy, abounding mercy, hath begotten us again. unto
a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we get all
this mercy. And he's the God of my mercy
and the God of my defense. And he has a portion for me and
gave me a portion before the world began. He gives me mercy
now and mercy yet to receive. And he said, and this is what
we got to look forward to, to an inheritance incorruptible
and undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven
for you. Who's it reserved for? You know
who it's kept for? Reserved for the same people
that are kept by the power of God. Oh, listen, the God of my
mercy. When he says the God of my mercy,
he's saying he's the guarantee of mercy to me. He's the giver
of mercy. He's the father of mercy. He's
the source of mercy. He's the security of mercy. The
guarantee of my mercy. The God of heaven and earth is
the God of my mercy. That's what David said. And no
wonder he said the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. No wonder he said that. And you know what he said at
the end of that? You know what the last words he said in the
23rd Psalm? He said, surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Just look behind
you. There they are. You can't see
them, but they're there. You know why? God said they were. No wonder David said, he's the
God of my mercy. Is he the God of your mercy?
He's the God of my mercy. Oh, mercy beggars. Both hands held out. If you've
ever been in a third world country, in real, real poor places, people
sit around and beg all the time. Beg all the time. Sit out, you
know. Got him a little cup or a bowl
or something that people put thing in. And I tell you what, I'm a beggar. Got both hands out and my mouth
is open wide. Mercy, oh Lord, give me mercy. Please fill me with your mercy.
Give me mercy, let every step, every step, every single step
I take, Let it be a step given to me by your blessed mercy and
grace in Christ. Oh, bless his name. Our father.
Oh, our father. How rich in mercy are. Oh, thank
you for being so merciful to us. You're the father of mercies
and the God of all comfort. Thank you for meeting with us
tonight. Thank you for the Holy Spirit's presence. Thank you
for what you've done in my own heart. Blessed be your name. Keep these dear saints, those
that'll be traveling, see them safely there and see them safely
home. May our time be used profitably
to your glory in these meetings. and here for Christ's sake. Amen. Amen.