three-fold application. Firstly,
initially, David is writing about himself, about his own trouble. His eldest son Absalom has revolted
and he has rallied men of Israel around him to support him in
overthrowing his father's throne. If you go back and read, Absalom
would stand at the city gate daily. And he would greet people
coming in. And he had learned their business. And if they were needing to settle
a dispute, a legal matter, seeking justice for the king, Absalom
would speak negatively about his own father. And he'd say,
he won't do anything. But if I were king, I would. So Absalom was a good politician. And what made it worse, David's
right-hand man, his advisor Ahithophel, whom David had entrusted with
kingdom secrets and procedures and plans, Ahithophel saw what
was coming and he switched sides and he sided with Absalom. That really crushed David's heart. And so he's writing about his
trouble in this chapter. And then secondly, when we read
this psalm and probably all the psalms, there is an application
of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose suffering and whose abuse and
mistreatment was greater than any other. who ever walked this
earth. But then thirdly, by divine inspiration,
this is given to us, to all true believers, for our lives and our situations
and predicaments. And I want us to consider this
one verse, verse 22, and look at it carefully for a few minutes
this morning. such a precious statement of
scripture. Let me just read that verse again,
Psalm 55, 22. Cast thy burden upon the Lord
and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous
to be moved. Four things about this verse.
First, the people that it concerns, they're called the righteous
in the latter part of the verse. He shall never suffer the righteous
to be moved. You say, well now that sounds
fine for people who are righteous, but that's not me. I'm a million
miles from it. God's law demands perfect righteousness. And I'm not. But listen to this
now. The Scripture says, Paul did
in Romans 10.4, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. In other words, what God's law
required of us, He found it in His Son. He is our righteousness. In 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30,
we read, But of Him, that is, God, are ye in Christ Jesus, who has made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Christ has made
our righteousness. What God's holy law required
of us, Christ has become for us. 2 Corinthians 5.21, Paul
said, For He, God the Father, hath made Him, Jesus Christ,
to be sin for us, believers, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. In other words, the very righteousness
that God requires is ours in Him. Romans chapter 4 and verse 3
says that Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for
righteousness. It didn't just say he believed
in God, it said he believed God. And it was counted unto him for
righteousness. Abraham in himself wasn't righteous
any more than you are. But he believed God. And believing
God, it was counted unto him for righteousness. Can you believe
God? That's the question. Romans 9.30,
what shall we say then? That the Gentiles, that's you
and I, which followed not after righteousness, we didn't perform
it, but have attained to righteousness. How? Even the righteousness which
is of faith. Faith in Christ. So here in this Psalm, we as
God's children are called the righteous. The righteous. It's not a question of you feeling
like you're righteous. It's not a question of you claiming
to have been perfect and righteous. No, you haven't. But in Christ,
God's people are the righteous. Secondly, in this verse, we see
something of the portion of God's people. And here David calls
it, thy burden, thy burden, cast thy burden upon the Lord. And
by burden here, the reference is not to any specific thing,
but rather to the divinely ordained portion or load you're given
to carry as an individual in life. You've heard the term beast
of burden, and I guess you've all seen this in pictures. A
little donkey or a burra. Boy, they'll have the load piled
up on his back, hanging over on both sides, tied on him. Looks
like the load he's carrying weighs more than he does. Called a beast
of the load, the portion he has
to bear. I used my old dictionary to look
up some of these terms, and I brought it with me this morning. Here
it is for you all to see it. Somebody may have one bigger
than that, and if you do, I'm happy for you. That's five and
a half inches thick. But I brought it just to tell
you, in studying the Bible, now I've got books. I've probably
got 2,000 or 3,000 books between here and home in every way you
turn at home, by the way, in the way of everybody and everything.
I could get some amens back yonder, I'm sure. But anyway, I've got
books, and books are wonderful. Some of them are. Some of them
are not worth the paper they're printed on. But there's nothing
so blessed and good as an old, genuine dictionary. or as some say, dictionary. Okay? And that's my old one there. And everybody needs one, as big
as you can find, a dictionary. And study words. It'll really
help you even in studying the Bible, especially in studying
the Bible. And it's a valuable thing, a valuable thing. And
it defines this burden as And this is the specific burden spoken
of in the psalm, not just in individual crises, but it's talking
about the overall, it's talking about the divinely ordained portion
given one to bear. And we have all these words in
this definition in the dictionary. As burden, he's talking about
the care, the responsibility, the heaviness, the allotment,
the appointment, one's given charge or duty, one's part or
task, one's labor, or one's personal handicap in the race of life, one's portion, thy burden, thy
burden. Everyone here this morning has
a different set of circumstances in life. Family, job, physical,
relationships, obligations, responsibilities, and whatever yours is, instead
of just looking around and assuming that everybody else has it better
than you, feeling sorry for yourself, dwell
on this. how blessed it is to realize
that your burden was chosen of God just for you and given to
just you by the Lord Himself, not anybody else. That puts a
little different light on things. When we're not so busy blaming
this one and that one, and if this hadn't happened, this hadn't
happened, I wouldn't have been Don't read God out, read God in, because
He is in. Don't give the devil credit for
anything. Don't give him the credit for
outdoing God. Oh no, oh no. Acts 17, 28 says, for in Him,
that is God, we live and move and have our being. It's Him
with whom we have to do. How healthy that is, spiritually
healthy, to realize that and to feed on that. How very strengthened
it is to trust God as the appointer and the controller of all things. So you don't have to whine about
your God-given burden or portion. It's his gift. It's very needful. It's very profitable just for
you. I think we've all been guilty
of saying, well, I could do without this. Yeah, that's what we think
and would like to. But we don't want to argue with
the Lord, even though it don't feel good. A lot of it we don't like. At least
give God credit for knowing what He's doing. He can't do wrong. So the people here are the Lord's
people, the righteous. And the portion here is God given,
thy burden. Some of you got a pretty heavy
one. And the third thing in this verse,
the prescription that's given. What does he say do? It's the
first word. Cast. Cast thy burden. Do something with it. Now the dictionary says about
this word cast. To throw. To sling. To hurl with all one's strength. To heave. To push. To propel. to exert all energy
to rid oneself of, to discard, to shed, to molt. That word molt comes from the,
you've heard about the molting season of the eagle. At a certain
season in its life, it's molting, it sheds its worn and faded and
weather-beaten feathers. It looks ugly. like a buzzard
with no feathers. It breaks off that old, hard,
crusty beak. It'll go high in the mountains,
beat it off on a rock. It's resigning itself to die.
But it don't die. In time, the feathers grow back. The beak starts to grow. Attitude
changes. And once again, it soars high.
A newness of life. To cast means to shed, to molt,
to relinquish, to scrap or to junk. It means to surrender and
to dismiss or to reject. Get rid of it. Cast it. That's what it means. Sling it as far as you can. Now the fourth thought is where
are you going to cast it to? The place, the place. Where can
I cast my burden? Where can I lay down the load
I'm given and rest? Well, it's not a where, it's
a who. The verse tells us to cast thy burden upon the Lord. He's big enough to carry your
load. and your load, and your load,
and your load, and all of our load. He's the Lord. Cast it upon Him. He will not
throw it back at you, I promise. He'll bear it. He'll bear it. But you must want to be rid of
it. A lot of people would rather whine about the burden,
feel sorry for me, look how bad I have it, rather than to be rid of it. But there's a secret about casting
your burden on the Lord. It's given to you. You cannot rid yourself of it
without ridding yourself of you. You and your burden are one. That's the fifth thing, the promise
that's made. Look what it says here. And He
shall sustain thee. He won't carry the burden without
carrying you. He didn't say He'll sustain just
your load, He'll sustain thee. He won't carry the burden without
carrying you. You can't part with your burden,
your God-given load in life. You can only rest from it as
you yourself rest in Him. He'll not sustain the burden,
He'll sustain you with the burden. That's what the verse says. Mr. Spurgeon used to use very
simple illustrations, very true to life. Lived in the 1800s and
he said a man was walking along the road carrying a heavy load.
Another man came by in a wagon and stopped and said, friend,
would you like to ride with me? And the man said, oh, yes. And
he thanked him, and he climbed up on the wagon. And they started
down the road, and the driver looked over and noticed the fellow
still had the heavy bag on his shoulder, heavy load. And he said to him, why don't
you drop that sack behind you there on the wagon and just enjoy
the ride? And the fellow said, oh, I couldn't
do that. He said, you've been so kind to let me ride. I couldn't
ask you to carry my load, too. He didn't understand that in
carrying the man, he was carrying his load. But the Lord said,
cast thy burden, and not just thy burden. I'll not despair
of that. I'll sustain thee. I'll carry Look at the word sustain, this
for a moment. I'll talk about this and I'm
finished. Sustain, it means to uphold, strengthen, continue, renew, resuscitate, preserve,
persist, perpetuate, extend, prolong, to underwrite, to insure
or guarantee, to conserve, preserve, shelter and screen, cover, harbor,
save, retain, possess, to have and to hold, protect, guard,
to shepherd, to chaperone, to attend to, to care for, to cause
to persevere. He shall sustain thee. The Lord is a deliverer. He's not a dumpster. You can't empty your load and
go on your merry way saying, all I want you for, Lord, is
a dumpster just to get rid of what I don't want and what I
don't like. No. He wants you. He will take the load as He sustains
you. The Lord help us all today to
cast our burden, which really is to cast ourselves upon the
Lord. Very brief, very simple. Psalm 55, 22. Cast thy burden
upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thy burden. He shall sustain thee. He'll
carry you with the God-given load that you're given in this
life. So I bless His holy name. May
we trust Him today. Trust Him, trust Him today. Let's
stand together, if you would.