And I told you when we got to
these, there'd be something that we may even skip. But here in
this 25th Psalm, David says, Under thee, O Lord, do I lift
up my soul. And the reason he says that he
lifts up his soul, because his soul was downcast. You can't
lift up something that's not downcast. Something that's not
low. And there are times when We feel
so heavy of heart and soul that we feel like we can't even lift
up our eyes, much less our souls. But if you think about it, it's
when we are the lowest, the lowest, that we really, really lift up
our souls to the highest. And that's why when the lower
we get, the higher we lift up our souls. The lower we get,
the higher we cry. The deeper we go, The higher
goes our cry, I believe. And there are several things
in here involved in lifting up our souls to God. David said,
Under thee, O Lord, lift up my soul. I lift up my soul. And
it's like lifting up a sacrifice. When the high priest took the
sacrifice and lifted it up and waved it before the Lord, David
said, I'm lifting up my soul before you, Lord. This is my
soul. And I'm lifting it up before
you. You don't know what can do anything for it. It's low. It's downcast. But I lift it
up. I lift it up. And I'll tell you
why He done it. He lifted up with His whole heart. That's the only way that He'd
like. Lift up my soul. You see, He says He don't want
His soul lifted up in pride or arrogance or audacity or presumption. He said, lift up my soul. to
thee, O Lord, and to lift up your soul before God. I mean,
you've got to be downcast. You've got to be pretty low.
And there's pride and arrogance and audacity and presumption.
We'd never go lift up our soul to God like that. And there's
no use in lifting up our souls and our voice to the Lord without
our heart, without our eyes. You know, even lifting up our
eyes without our heart being involved. And that's what David's
doing. His heart's involved in this. His soul's involved in
this. You see, God looks on the heart. And when we lift up our
souls, He's looking at our heart. If you got your heart in this,
it's your heart in this. It's your soul in this. It's
everything that pertains to you in this. You see, it's with the
heart that we seek Him. It's with the heart that we find
Him. And when we lift up our souls, we're saying, Lord, I'm
looking for You. I come before you and we worship Him with our
souls and with our heart. Look over here in Proverbs with
me in 23 and verse 26. You know, I get so discouraged
with myself because it seems like everything I do is half-hearted. And I know it's distasteful to
me. I know it would be terribly distasteful
to God. Proverbs 23, 26. And oh, you see, David said,
when we lift up our soul, we lift it up with our whole heart.
Our whole heart's involved in this business. Whole heart in
this. And he says here in verse 26
of Proverbs 23, My son, give me thine heart. Lift up your
soul. That means I'm lifting up my
heart. I'm lifting up myself to you. And let thine eyes observe
my ways. And that's what David's doing
here. He said, I lift up my soul. I lift up my soul. And I tell
you, for God to lift up our souls, and it's our souls. It's our
souls that need the Lord. It's our souls that are saved,
not our bodies. It's our souls that need Christ.
It's our souls that need to be lifted up. It's our souls that
need to be honest and sincere and hopefully and needy before
the Lord. It's our souls that are hungry.
It's our souls that have need. It's our souls that we need God
for. It's our souls. And you know,
when God made a man, he made him a living soul. And that's what he calls his
soul. And they'll talk about, on the Titanic, when the Titanic
went down, they said this many souls were lost, this many souls
were saved. That's what they call them, souls. This many souls went out. And
that's what we're talking about, lifting up our souls to God.
And oh Lord, I lift them up to you. And then look what else
it involves. Faith. Look what it said in verse
2. Oh my God, I trust in thee. Why do we trust Him? Because
He's trustworthy. He is trustworthy. There's nobody
more trustworthy in this universe than God Himself. Has He ever
made a promise He hasn't kept? He made a promise to Abraham.
And he kept his promise. Made a promise to Isaac, and
he kept his promise. Made a promise to Jacob, and
he kept his promise. Made promises to his son, and
he kept every promise that he made to his son. And his promised
son made promises, and he kept every one of them. And beloved,
we trust him because he is trustworthy. And David said here, my God,
my God. And that's why we say the Lord's
my shepherd, and he's my God. He has to be my God, and he has
to be your God. And He's my God and He's your
God by covenant. That's how, do you know, before
anything was ever done, God entered into a covenant. And we, as my
God, I trust indeed because He entered into a covenant with
His Son before the world ever began. Made a legal agreement
between Him and His Son. And that agreement was that the
Father, would give the Son of people and the Son would redeem
those people and pay their debts and save them by His grace. So
our salvation depends on my God and His covenant. Never ever,
and I've said this and I'll never quit saying it because I need
it for myself, I'll never ever, ever trust myself and God never
has ever looked to me for anything. Never has. He's looked to Christ
and Christ alone for my salvation. He's looked to Christ and Christ
alone. That's why He says, My God in thee do I trust. He didn't
say, My God in my will I trust. My God in my works I trust. My
God in my acts I trust. My God in my prayers I trust.
My God in thee do I trust. And I tell you what, He's our
God by choice. He chose us, and guess what,
beloved? We chose Him after He chose us.
If He ever chose me, we would have never chosen Him. But once
He did choose us, I chose Him. I choose Him right now. And I
tell you, He's ours by purchase. He bought us and paid for us.
He's ours by power. He'd come in power and made us
willing. He'd come in power and translated
us from the kingdom of darkness. He came in power and quickened
us. And He's ours by cleansing. His
blood cleansed us from all of our sin. I was talking to a fellow
yesterday. His brother's been listening
to me on Sermon Audio somewhere, he said, but had been listening
to me and recommended he come over here and visit us. And he
said, I believe it would do you good to go over there. And whether
I've talked to his brother or not, I don't know. He's from
up in Pennsylvania, and this fellow lives in Bledsoe County.
Well, we talked yesterday and the first thing he said, you
know, asked me where we was and all that. He said, well, we're,
we're, we're, we're, we're cemetery, messianic cemeteries. I said,
what's that? And he started telling me that
he started meeting with these old man and woman who were Jews
years ago over here in Vandiver somewhere. The old man's died
and he said, we keep the feasts and the holy days and the Seder,
which is the Passover. And he said, we say a Hebrew
prayer and then we repeat it in English. And I said, don't
you know, I said, Christ fulfilled every one of those. Christ was
our Passover sacrifice for us. He fulfilled all the feasts. He fulfilled all the holy days.
He fulfilled all the ceremonies. And he says, well, then that's
told, then what's our responsibility? I said to worship Him, and to
praise Him, and open His book, and worship Him, and honor Him,
and learn of Him, and bow down to Him. He said, well, no wonder
my brother likes what you say. He'll agree with everything you
say. But now, can you believe that? People will believe a lie,
but then they'll believe the truth. And if a man ever believes
the truth, it's because God comes in power and grace and choice
and saves a man. And if God don't do that, no
matter what you say to him, and he wanted to run over and talk
about what God couldn't do to a man who did not keep the Feast
of Tabernacles. Feast of Tabernacles? Christ
is my tabernacle. That's what he says, the tabernacle
of God is among me and Christ is our tabernacle. I told him
all that, and he said, now see why my brother likes you so much.
So he agrees with me. He said, go run along with what
you believe. I'd rather believe what I believe than what he believes.
That's for sure. That's why I quoted him philosophically. I said, let no man deceive you
with philosophy and vain deceit by holy days, touch not, taste
not, handle not, which are just a shadow, but Christ is the body. But I swear to all my guardian
angels, I trust that's what David said. Faith. Faith lays hold
on God. Faith lays hold on all the promises
of God in Christ. It's his faith that tastes the
goodness of God. And faith actually tastes God,
tastes the goodness of God, tastes the grace of God. Taste the love
of God. Taste His faithfulness. And if
we taste it and say, it is good, it is sweet, no wonder He says,
thy word is like honey. Honey. It's necessary food. And then look what David said
there in the second part of that verse. And let me not be ashamed. Let not mine enemies triumph
over me. Oh, you reckon God would let us ever be ashamed if He's
our God? He said, let me not be put to
shame. Don't let me be ashamed. Don't let my enemies whip me.
Don't let my enemies conquer me. Don't let me be put to shame
by my enemies defeating me. Don't let the world defeat me.
Don't let my flesh defeat me. Don't let sin defeat me. Don't
let any enemy that I've got, don't let him defeat me so I'll
be ashamed. That's what David's saying. You
reckon that could happen? If it could, we'd have been whipped
long ago. And then, oh, it's a desire for his ways. Look what
he says. Well, let me just comment a little
on verse 3. Yea, let none that wait on thee
be ashamed. Oh, Lord, we wait on you. Oh,
let none wait on you be ashamed. Don't let them be brought to
shame. Say, oh, God forsook them. Let them be ashamed which transgressed
without cause. You go through the scriptures
and find lots of people who transgress without cause. Ahithophel, David
Absalom. You go through the scriptures
and find them. But David says here, and here's another thing
about lifting up our souls. We desire his ways. Oh, we have
faith in God. We lift up our souls to him and
we desire his ways. Show me thy ways, O Lord. Teach
me thy paths. Show me thy way and teach me
thy paths. And, oh, when David says, Show
me thy ways, I wrote a few things down about that today. And I
forget the man's name, but I got it out of a little book today.
And he says, Show me thy ways, O Lord. You see, there's two
ways of the Scriptures. There's the ways of man, and
the ways of man are death. Then there's the ways of God,
which leads to life. There's the paths of sin that
men walk in. Then there's the path of righteousness
in which we walk in. There's thy ways, David said,
thy ways, and then there are my ways. There's your way, which
is the way of truth, and there's our ways, which is the ways of
error. There's the ways that's good in God's eyes, and then
there's the ways that's good in our own eyes. And God's ways
leads to heaven. Our ways without Christ lead
to hell. And that's why David said here,
show me thy ways, O Lord. Teach me thy paths. Teach me
thy paths. And I was reading today where
it says it's like a wagon going down and making ruts and making
paths. He says, show me thy paths. And it's just like a road right
in front of us. And you go, show me that path. And Lord, lead
me in thy path. And that's why David said he'll
lead me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Oh my, show
me thy paths, Lord. That's why He says, show me your
ways. I want to know your ways. I want to know them. Oh my. Look over here and keep Psalm
25. Look at Psalm 107. Just a second. Psalm 107. And that's one thing that I believe
every believer is afraid of as much as anything that there are
in this world, is for God to leave him to himself in his own
ways. I think that's one of the things
that we say, Lord, please do not leave me to myself. Show
me thy ways. Lead me in your paths. And oh,
look what he said here in Psalm 103, in verse 7. Look what he said here. He made
known his ways unto Moses. Moses, he knew the ways of the
Lord. God made his ways known. This
is what I'm going to do. I'm going to do this, Moses.
I'm going to go down and do this to Pharaoh. I'm going to do this
for you, and I'm going to do this for your people. And God
made known his ways unto Moses. I'm going to show mercy. I'm
going to do this. But all the children of Israel saw were Acts.
They just saw acts that were done, and people love to see
acts. Oh, they want to see when the Lord's going to heal me.
They want to see the Lord do something. And David said, I
want to know His ways. It's not what He's doing. I want
to know His ways. I want to know the way God is,
the way He goes, the way He acts, His nature, everything about
Him. I want to know His ways. If He's going that way, that's
where I want to go. I want to know His ways that
He saves sinners. I want to know the way He preserves
His children. I want to know the way of His
Word. I want to know His ways. That's why the Jews constantly
said, Lord, show us a sign. Show us a sign. They wanted to
see an act. They wanted to see a miracle. But I'd rather see His ways,
because I'm a miracle. I've seen a miracle. I know a
miracle. I'm one of them. Lord, I know
His ways. And Lord desires ways. Back over
here in our text, we desire His ways. We must forsake our ways.
And while you're over there, look at Psalm 39. I know I'm
having you look, but these things pertain to this, Psalm 39. Oh,
we must forsake our ways to go follow His ways. And I'll tell
you what, We must forsake, we desire His ways. Oh Lord, without
Him, we'd be sunned tonight. You know, that last time we sunned,
all of our taints and all that lay as ashes at our feet. Oh,
may everything we've ever thought about us just lay as ashes at
our feet. Look what He said here in Psalm 39.1. I said, I will
take heed to my ways. I'll take heed to my ways. But
what's your way? Well, I know my tongue gets carried
away sometimes, so I'll watch what I say with my tongue. I
know my mouth gets to running and all kinds of things come
out of it. I'll think, by the way, I'll grind it. Especially
while the wicked's before me. And that's what David said. If
you, oh Lord, shoot me my way. And Lord, I don't want my way.
God's ways are opposite to the world. God's ways are opposite
to the flesh. God's ways are opposite to religion. God's ways are even to us. And that's why he said, O teach
us thy ways, O Lord, teach us, teach us, teach us. What's that song we sang, teach
us thy way, O Lord, teach us thy way. And I tell you what's
lifting up our souls also, this We desire truth. We have a great
desire for truth. Look what he said in verse 5.
Not only lead me in thy ways, but lead me in thy truth, and
teach me. David's asking for two things
for God to teach him. Teach him his ways, and teach
him his truth. Lead me in the truth, in thy
truth, and teach me. Teach me. Our Lord Jesus Christ
says you know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Oh, teach us the truth of your
Word. Oh, let us know your Word. Teach
us the truth of your Word. Teach us the truth about ourselves.
Don't let us be deceived in ourselves. Teach us the truth about ourselves
or everything that there is about us that's wrong. Oh, God, teach
it to us. Teach us truth about ourselves. Teach us the truth about how
needy we are. How needy we are. How weak we
are. Teach us the truth of how ignorant
we are. Lead us into thy truth, O Lord. God of my salvation. Ain't that
what he said? For thou art the God of my salvation.
On thee do I wait all the day. Teach me, teach me. And on thee,
he said, on thee do I wait all the day. Here's some other things
I come across today. On thee do I wait all day. Do you wait on the Lord all, what
does he say? All the day. All the day. Not part of the day. This old
man, when I studied this today, says, wait on the Lord all the
day, though it may be a long day, a long, long, long day,
tedious day, hot day, miserable day, a day that goes on and on
and on. Still, we wait on Thee all the
day. It may be a dark day, a dark
day. Lord, wait on thee all the day. It may be a day of darkness,
no light, and it may be a stormy day, a real stormy day, but wait
on thee all the day, all the day. And then look here at verse
7, a desire to honor the Lord, I'll wait. Just teach me, Lord.
I'll wait all the day. Just teach me. Remember not the sins of my youth,
nor my transgressions. According to Thy mercy, remember
me for Thy goodness sake, O Lord. Down in verse 11, it says, for
His namesake, for Thy namesake, O Lord, pardon me. You see, we
desire His honor for Thy goodness sake, for Thy namesake. Lord, God, You're good. For Thy
namesake, to plead His name. For Your namesake, for Your goodness
sake. We want to honor You. To plead His name is to plead
His nature. Moses said, Lord, show me Your
glory. And you know what he said His
glory was? I'll cause my goodness. I'll proclaim the name of the
Lord, I'll cause my goodness. to pass before you. I'll call
it my goodness. That's my name, goodness. And
it's a goodness of mine that I have mercy. It's a goodness
of mine that I have compassion. And it's a goodness of mine that
I do it for whom I will, because it's good that I do anything
for anybody. It's a good. It's not my goodness.
So why do we lift up our souls? Why do we desire His ways? Why
do we desire His truth? that He'll be honored, that His
name will be magnified. Who else can teach us? Who else
can give us faith? Who else can forgive our sins?
Who else would not remember the sins of our youth? And the greatest
thing we can do in this world is to honor God and bless His
name You know what? That's what we're going to be
doing throughout eternity. And if we don't do it here, you
know, that's what we're going to do throughout eternity, is
just honor and glorify Him. And that's where it starts here,
for His goodness and His namesake. And then we need patience. Oh,
I didn't mention this, but I mentioned it some more. There in verse
five. On Thee do I wait all the day. On Him do I wait all the day.
You know, it's Isaiah 40, verse 29. I've never preached from
it, but one of these days I want to. Isaiah 40, verse 29. You know, on thee do I wait.
We wait on Him. We be still before Him. Even
if our hearts and our minds ache before God, He'll arise for us
in His time. And he said here, he gave us
power to the faint, and to them that have no might, he increased
his strength. Even the youth shall faint and
be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. People in the prime
of their life, the young, they'll get weary and they'll faint.
The young men will utterly just fall down. But listen to this,
that they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,
They shall mount up with wings of eagles, they shall run and
not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Huh? Not to faint. Psalm 27 and verse
back over in our text over here. Look what he said in Psalm 27
in verse 13. I had fainted unless I had believed
to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Listen
to it. Wait on the Lord, be of good
courage, and He shall strengthen thy heart. Wait, I say, on the
Lord. Oh, we're going to wait on Him.
We're going to be still before Him. And I say, and I believe
everyone of you would agree with me, it's probably the hardest
thing a believer ever does is wait on the Lord. He wants things
done now. wants an answer to things now. You know, everything is fast
now. But he said, remember the patience
of Job. And our Lord said, in your patience
possess you your souls. And let me give you another one
here. Back over in our text. Look in verse 7. Confession is
involved in lifting up our souls. Remember not the sins of my youth,
nor my transgressions. Oh, confession. He says, you
know, I have them, the sins of my youth. I have them. I can't
hide them. I remember them. And he didn't
say they were sins of my innocence when I was young and innocent.
No, no. And that's most people's greatest
hurting, confessing sin. They'll admit to mistakes. They'll
say it was because of extenuating circumstances, they'll admit
to sickness, they'll admit to addictions. But boy, to confess
sin. And I know, and this is one of
the mysteries of the gospel, one of the mysteries of our nature
and our new nature and our old nature. There's times that our
sin comes right up before us just as fresh as if we'd just
committed it. Even when we were children, even
when we was young teenagers. They come right before us just
like they're right there. And yet, at the same time, God
said, He blots out our sin as a transgression. All of our sins,
all of our transgressions as a thick cloud. Cast them as far
as the east from the west. That's why David said, Lord,
don't remember the sins of my youth. Because, see, he was remembering.
And he was confessing them again. And, oh, beloved, I tell you,
why do we lift up our souls to God? Why do we do it? Verse 8, because he is good and
upright. Good and upright is the Lord.
That's why we lift our souls up to him. Because he is good
and he's upright. God is love, God is good, God
is light. He's upright. That means that
he's perfect. There's just nothing wrong with
him. And that's why we lift up Jesus. He's good and He's upright.
And then because He teaches sinners, He says, therefore will He teach
sinners in the way. Ain't that what He says? The
meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach His
way. He teaches sinners. What condescension that God would
teach sinners. And I tell you what, I'm going
to tell you something. The only people that He does teach is sinners.
He don't teach nobody but sinners. He taught no righteous man anything. He ain't taught no good man anything.
But He's taught a lot of sinners a lot of things. He teaches sinners. He teaches them salvation. He
teaches them about Christ. He teaches them about His Son.
He teaches them about sin. He teaches them about their need.
He teaches them about... And Isaiah 53, verse 13 says
this, He said, Though thy children shall be taught of God. And that's
why He says, You're the God of my salvation, because He teaches
sinners. Ain't that why we pray for our
family members that's lost and unconverted? Lord, teach them.
Go out there and teach them. Go out there and lay hold on
them. Go out there and convict them. And if God ever starts
teaching a man, he's going to be well taught. It's not You
know, God uses people to teach, but if the Holy Ghost is not
present to apply what the preacher's saying, it won't do any good.
If the Holy Spirit's present, then men will learn something.
And it's God's business to teach sinners His way. And He's taught
me, I believe He teaches you, but He don't teach nobody but
sinners. Why does God not ask for even Republicans and sinners?
He's teaching them something. Oh, if this man knew what manner
of woman she was, he wouldn't have nothing to do with it. He's
teaching sinners. A Republican, what are you doing
going to a Republican's house? He's teaching sinners. Today,
salvation must come to your house. And then look what he said, and
I'll tell you why we lift up our souls to Him. All the paths
of the Lord are mercy and truth. In verse 10. All the paths of
the Lord are mercy and truth. He said, teach me thy path, take
me in thy path. Well, there's mercy and there's
truth. That's the path we go walking. Mercy and truth shall
follow me all the days of my life. Isn't that what David said?
Now he says the paths of the Lord. Our daily need, our hourly
need, our need of every moment is mercy, To forgive us, to cleanse us,
we need truth to guide us, to strengthen us and satisfy us.
And oh Lord, Lord evermore, keep us in Thy paths. And let me show
you one more thing down here in verse 14. Listen to this. The secret of the Lord is with
them that fear Him. Oh my, the secret of the Lord. What do you reckon that means?
That means we know something the world don't know nothing
about. I know the secret. You know, people have these things,
you know, and they got all kinds of hocus-pocus they got to go
through, but he said the secret of the Lord is within that period.
Oh, my secret? The world don't know nothing
about the secret of God's blessed grace given to us in Christ.
And these people, He'll show His covenant. Oh, my. Lord, keep us in Your paths.
Keep us in Your ways. And, oh, teach us, teach us,
teach us. We ask in Christ's blessed name. Amen. Our Father, oh, thank You. Thank you for your truth. Thank
you for your great mercies and grace given us in Christ. Oh, what wondrous truths you
teach us and what wondrous truths you give us. God bless it to
our understanding. Lord, David asked twice to be
taught. And then he mentioned that you
would teach sinners in the way. So, Lord, we ask you to teach
us of your way. Teach us of your truth. and teach
us as sinners the truth in new way. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen. Amen.