Psalm 4 tonight. I can't tell you what a blessing
it is to me to sit up here and watch y'all, one or two, three at a time,
come in those doors on a night like this. Jack and I used to sit in his
office before service there in New Caney, Texas. I
remember him saying one time, one of these days we're going
to do this the last time. I think about that sometimes. What a blessing it
is to meet together and I know that When you come, you don't come
to be entertained. We just don't do that. It makes me think that maybe
the Lord has kept me out of the way enough that the Word of God
is a blessing to you. And if that's true, then I want
to be here too. I know it doesn't always seem
like it, but I believe, before I die, I believe that maybe the Lord will make
it so that nothing is important to
His people except His worship. And I see some of that now, and
I'm so thankful for that. King David writes a short psalm
here, but one so full of heart and worship, clearly inspired of God to cause
us to think upon our Redeemer and praise his name for the security
that we enjoy in him and his precious blood. He cries out in verse 1, hear
me when I call, O God of my righteousness. David never took that for granted.
He was confident that the Lord would hear him. He says that
to his enemies in the next verse here. The Lord will hear me. He's promised to hear me. I know
that he will, but he never took that for granted before God because
he knew how unworthy he was to be heard of God. O God of my
righteousness. Hear me when I call on you. Paul said, whosoever calleth
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And that's what David's
doing here. This is the call of the sinner. Crying for mercy. Have mercy
upon me, he said, and hear my prayer. That's his only request,
is that God would hear him. That's the mercy that he's seeking
here. He knows that all God has to do is hear. And it's all going
to be well with me. It's an interesting name by which
the Lord addresses him here. Paul, as I said, he said, call
upon the name of the Lord. Call upon him as who he is. His name is his character, his
attributes. And David emphasizes One part
of our Lord's name. We know that he has many. The
Lord, our righteousness is as expressed here. He's the Lord,
our provider. God will provide himself a lamb.
He's so many things to us. But here he calls him. Oh, God of my righteousness. God is the author of my righteousness. In the person of His Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, as my representative, the Lord Jesus stands before
God, the Father, the very embodiment of my righteousness. God, when we talk about imputation,
God imputes righteousness to us. We think about that word
means to give the credit for. But what we need to understand
about our righteousness before God is that it's not like his
righteousness. It's not a copy of his righteousness.
He is my righteousness before God. He stands before God as
me. He represents me before God. And God looks to him as my surety
for satisfaction to his law, for payment for my sin, all of
my sin. And he gets it from him. He receives
it from him. satisfaction, and sin atonement. So he's the author of my righteousness,
and not only does he stand as the embodiment of my righteousness,
but in time as a living, walking, breathing human being, a man,
an accountable, made under the law man. He lived as my righteousness. He fulfilled all righteousness
for me, he said to John. Thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness. Christ is the one fulfilling
it. He's doing it for us. He brought in everlasting righteousness,
as the prophet said he would, as a man. The last Adam and himself
stands as the righteousness of all of his people. All of those
he redeemed with his precious blood, all those for whom he
interceded, in John 17. And he's the witness of my righteousness. He's the one who sees me righteous. David appeals to God and not
men in the matter of righteousness. Men, you think about man's estimation
of righteousness, us. Mankind condemned the innocent
blood the innocent blood, the only one who has ever been innocent,
we condemned him. There's our judgment concerning
righteousness. But God justifies the guilty
in Christ. Whose estimation of you matters
to you? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies, and
God justifies us because it is Christ that died and is risen
again. God's the judge of my righteousness.
It doesn't matter much to me how men see me. If God says to
me, as he said in this parable, of those who are his faithful
servants in Christ, in Matthew 25, 21, If God speaks these words
to me, then I don't much care what anybody
else thinks about me. Well done, thou good and faithful
servant. Thou hast been faithful over
a few things. I will make thee ruler over many
things. Enter thou into the joy of thy
Lord. Because of Christ, that's what
I will hear. That's what his people will hear.
His acceptance, his approval, his satisfaction with us. God's the maintainer of my righteousness. I can't fall. I can't fall away. My righteousness doesn't depend
in any way on what I do. Isn't that a blessing? God of
my righteousness. He is the Lord, my righteousness.
And I can't mess that up. If I could, I would. And you
know that's right, you would too. And he's the rewarder of
my righteousness. And he himself is my reward. David often when praying for
new mercies from the Lord, as he did here, He often recounted
previous mercies. And that's just good. That's
just good prayer. Thou hast enlarged me when I
was in distress, past tense. And David reminds himself and
the Lord of that. We should take note of that. And remember that when we pray.
Don't forget what God's done for you already. when you pray,
when you're asking Him for something. I'm talking to myself and to
you. And there was no doubt an encouragement
to David to pray that way because it's just foolish to think that
God has blessed me all of my life. It's just foolish. And
let me just call me what I am, foolish. To think that God has
taken care of me my whole life and yet I'm too stupid to trust
Him for tomorrow. That's just unreasonable, isn't
it? It's just not reasonable. And so let me remember what I
pray. All that He's already done. He's not going to leave us desolate. And this is glorifying to God
to remember that He's helped us hitherto. Lord doesn't ever
do anything else for us We can raise an Ebeneezer right here.
Can't we? Right here. Look at that with
me in first Samuel 7. This is such a blessing. I knew
of this and We've looked at this before It was a blessing to me to see
this again first Samuel 7 and verse 7 When the Philistines heard that
the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpah, the lords
of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children
of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. And the children of Israel said
to Samuel, cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us, that
he will save us. out of the hand of the Philistines.
And Samuel took a sucking lamb and offered it for a burnt offering
wholly unto the Lord. Samuel is God's prophet. He knows
if God's going to have mercy on us, we know how he's going
to do it. It's going to be in Christ. It's going to be because
of the blood. And so he offered that burnt
offering to the Lord. And the Philistines drew near
to battle against Israel while that offering was on the altar.
Here comes our enemies. You think about that. But the Lord thundered with a
great thunder on that day upon the Philistines and discomfited
them. And they were smitten before
Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued
the Philistines and smoked them until they came under Bethkar. And then Samuel took a stone
and set it between Mizpah and Shin and called the name of it
Ebenezer, saying what that word means. That's what Ebenezer means.
Hitherto, that the Lord helped us. Have you raised any of those
in your life? In your heart? a memorial unto
the Lord of thanksgiving and praise for what he's done, for
what he's done. I know one thing, if you're a
member of this church, you've raised at least one. Look at
what God has done. Now, it's been observed here,
and I believe it's worth looking at, that David first speaks to
God in this psalm, and then he speaks to men, and then he speaks
to God again. Look at Colossians 4. I want
you to look at this. Colossians 4 verse 2. If you're
going to speak to men for God, and that's not always preaching. You don't have to be a preacher
to do that now. You speak to your children of
the things of the Lord. People that you love when God
gives an opportunity. If you're going to speak to men
about the things of God, you're going to have to speak to God
for men, before and after. And look, we see that here in
Colossians 4 and verse 2. Continue, Paul said, in prayer,
and watch in the same with thanksgiving. Continue in prayer. That's the
first thing he said. Now, speak to God, commune with
God, fellowship with God, give thanks to God, and make your
requests known to God. And one of them, he said, with
all praying, also for us. Don't forget to pray for me when
you pray. He said that quite a bit, and
I know why. We need it. We need it. That
God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery
of Christ, for which I am also in bonds. And you better believe
Paul was praying that same thing. He was speaking to God before
he went to speak for men. He said, I want a door of utterance,
but we don't have to talk to God about it first. That I may
make it manifest as I ought to speak, make it clear, make it
plain. And then he said, look, verse
five, walk in wisdom, toward them that are without, redeeming
the time. Speak to God, continue in prayer,
and then deal with your fellow men who don't know the Lord. And understand that time is precious. This time that God's given is
precious, redeeming the time. And then look, let your speech
be always with grace. You see how prayer comes first,
and then speak to men. And let your speech be always
with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought
to answer every man. David spoke to God first, and
then he speaks to men and gives some gospel instructions. That's
the title of the message tonight. And then he speaks to God again.
And that's, I believe, a lesson for us. And David, as he so often
did, as I said, he cries here for mercy. That's God not giving
us what we deserve. Grace and mercy are much the
same, but you can think of them, distinguish them in your mind
that way. Grace is God giving us what we don't deserve. And
mercy is God not giving us what we do deserve. They go together,
don't they? You can't have one without the
other. But here, he doesn't give, David said, don't give me what
I deserve, hear me. You see that? What I deserve
is for God to turn a deaf ear to me. That's what I deserve.
Don't give me that. Hear me, have mercy on me and
hear me. And then he says in verse two,
Oh, you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity
and seek after leasing? Now David has the right to ask
this as God's anointed king. How long will you turn my honor
as God's king into shame? He was now in exile because of
wicked men. Many say, and I believe from
what I've read, that it's true that Psalms 3 and 4 are companion
Psalms, that he wrote four along about the time that he wrote
three and was in exile from Absalom and his enemies when he wrote
four as well. And he has the right to ask this
question as king. David was king by God's authority.
But this, of course, ultimately is speaking of God's glory. That's
true, even if David's talking about himself here, and he was
primarily, but that's still God's glory, because he's God's king.
He wasn't man's king, he's God's king. He was king by the authority
of God Almighty. And as this whole psalm and all
of the psalms are prophetic of the Lord Jesus Christ, David
himself being a beautiful, typical picture, of our Lord Jesus Christ. We understand these words rightly
as the words of David's son and David's Lord. How long will you
turn my glory into shame? Leasing is lies and deception. How long will you love lies?
That sounds like what we talked about recently, doesn't it? Why
don't we Turn to the Lord because we love ourselves. We love our
shame and our lies and our sin. David was in exile because of
the lies and deception of Absalom and his followers. And David's
Lord was rejected as king because of the lies, deception of wicked
men. As I said already, we condemn
the son of God to die. Have you ever really thought
about that? They said in John 19, 6, it says, when the chief
priest, therefore, and the officers saw him, they cried out saying,
crucify him, crucify him. And Pilate said, you take him
and crucify him. I don't find any fault in him. And the Jews answered this. This
is what they said. We have a law. We have a standard. This word law here, it means
that which we've established. This is what we, consider to
be true and right and just. And so we've made it a standard.
This is what we've established. We have a law. By our law, he
ought to die. You talk about loving lies, loving
deception and foolishness and being wrong. We love being wrong.
We delight in it because he made himself the son of God. John
18, 37, Pilate said unto the Lord, are you a king then? Jesus answered, thou sayest that
I am a king. To this end was I born. For this
cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto
the truth. Remember what we're talking about.
David said, how long will you love lies? The reason they murdered
the truth is because they loved lies. And when I say they, I
mean we. He said, I came to bear witness
unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth
heareth my voice. And Pilate said unto him, what
is truth? What a question. What a question. How long will you love your lies? That's a good question, too. And David, of course, there is
talking to these enemies of his, to his own son Absalom and those
who were following him. But he said this in verse 3.
Look at this. But no, you've lied on me and been deceptive
about me and finagled and connived to usurp my throne and to drive
me out. You love lies and you turn the
very honor and glory of the Lord into shame by doing that because
God anointed me king, not you. But he said, you know this, you've
chosen your path of lies and deception and rebellion against
God's authority. But know this, that the Lord
has set apart him that is godly for himself. It was God that
picked me out and set me aside. The Lord will hear when I call
unto Him. You see the context in which
David is saying that? He's saying this still to his
enemies, and this is a warning, clearly a warning. He said, you're
picking on one of God's little ones now. You can lie and you
can rebel against God's authority, but know this, you love lies,
but know the truth. Here's the truth. And when I call unto God for
deliverance, he'll hear me. Because I'm his chosen king.
You've rejected me as king, but he chose me as king. Does that
sound familiar? Was it Peter? I'm pretty sure it was Peter
that preached. The stone which you builders rejected, God has
made this same Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Oh, can you hear the warning
here that David is issuing? You've rejected me, but God has
set me apart. God has made me your king and
you can rebel against that. But know this, when I cry unto
him, he's going to hear me. And what does that mean for you?
If I cry to him and he hears my cry and you're against me,
what does that mean for you? You don't want to find yourself
against one of God's chosen, sanctified sheep because that
puts you against God Himself. And you don't want to find yourself
in rebellion and opposition against the Lord's Christ in any way,
form or fashion. In the parable of the unjust
judge in Luke 18, the Lord asked this question at the end of the
parable. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day
and night unto him, though he bear long with them? And then
he answers his own question. He said, I tell you that he will
avenge them speedily. That's both a warning and fearful
and also a comfort, because I'm one of those sheep. I'm one of
those elect. And I hear what David's saying
here. on both sides of it, don't you? Because I am in my heart
both the enemy of God and one of his sheep. The enemy still
lives in here, doesn't he? And I don't want to find myself
on the wrong side. I don't have time to contemplate
them long or say much about them, but I love those two words, for
himself. He has set aside Him that is
godly for Himself, His own peculiar treasure. He calls us His jewels. This is a comforting and wonderful
truth. God has set us apart for Himself. This is the same word used in
Exodus 11, 6, where it said, now when He said, when I come
through and I kill the firstborn, Talking about the Passover. He
said there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt
such as there was none like it nor shall be any like it anymore
But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move
his tongue against man or beast and here's why here's one of
the reasons that you may know that How that the Lord doth put
a difference. Same word as set aside in our
text. He's made a difference between
the Egyptians and Israel. Does that comfort you? For himself,
for himself, not a dog will move his tongue against you. He chose us before Jacob was
ever born or had done any good or evil. He set him apart. He
said, I love you. You're mine. He said to Jeremiah,
before I formed you in your mama's belly, I knew you. And before thou camest forth out
of the womb, I set you apart. I sanctified you. And I ordained
you a prophet unto the nation. Isn't that beautiful? Before
we were ever born, he set us aside for himself. He makes us godly. That word
there is faithful. That's the first definition of
the faithful. But that is godlike, isn't it,
to be faithful? Great is thy faithfulness. Of God are ye in Christ Jesus. He makes us what we are in Christ. Christ is made into us our wisdom,
our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption. And that's
of God that we're in Him who has made into us those things.
He doesn't find godly people and then set them. He's not looking
around for some godly people in this mass of humanity and
say, oh, there's a godly one over there. I'm going to set.
No, no. He makes us godly. Paul asked, who made thee to
differ from another? He didn't look for the different
ones. He made the different ones. What
do you have that you didn't receive? Then why are you glorious? What
does it mean to be godly? It means to be in Christ. That's
what Paul just said. Of God are you in Christ. And
because you are in Him, you're wise, you're righteous, you're
holy, and you're redeemed. That's what it means to be godly. David was the one who wrote this
song by God's definition a man after my own heart All believers
are godly in Christ Jesus And when his people call he hears
them He's promised to and then look at what David said now in
verse 4 he said you stand in awe of Clearly, they weren't
in awe of God or His King or anything about God. So he said,
that's your problem. He put his finger on it, didn't
he? You don't have any fear of God. You stand in awe. And sin not. The reason that
you're rebelling is because you don't have any fear of God. And commune with your own heart
upon your bed. But fearing God, now that's the
beginning, as we've seen in the Psalms, we've seen it in the
Proverbs, we see it all through the Word of God. You must reverence
God, you must see God as He is, like Job did, before you're gonna
hate yourself and love Him. By nature, you love yourself
and hate God. The remedy to that is seeing
Him as He is, and trembling, and being in awe of Him. Cease
from your rebellion. Cease from your sin. That's what
sin is. It's rebellion against God. Clearly
in the garden from what Satan said to our parents there. That's
what it was. It was God said this and God
said that, but we're going to do what we want to do. It's rebellion
against God. Lay down our arms. Surrender. Don't be influenced by those
who hate God. This is between you and God.
You commune with your own heart. Don't just throw in with those
who are rebelling against God. You commune with your own heart.
Now think about this. This is interesting. This is
between God and you. Commune with your own heart. Up on your bed now. Not while
you're driving to work. On your own bed. when the world
is shut out. And this is talking about thinking. Something that we don't really
do that much of. Thinking. Think. What did God say? Come now and
let us reason. What is repentance? It's a change
of mind. You got some thinking to do.
You understand that? We have some thinking to do here.
but not according to the flesh. And we're gonna see that here.
And this speaks of thinking, listen to you, commune with your
heart because defiance against God is madness. Can you see that? It's madness to rebel against
God's King is madness. It's contrary to clear and honest
reasoning. Now a man will never reason his
way out of his rebellion against God alone without the grace of
God because we're not in our right mind. We don't have that
kind of reasoning ability. We're unreasonable by nature
and we can't change that. But that's just a testimony to
our insanity right there. That's why we can't see what's
plain as day. The gospel is clear and plain
and perfectly reasonable. What's unreasonable is rebelling
against God. That evil man in the book of
Acts knew that. He said, you're going to find
yourself fighting against God, really? Is that where you want
to be? That's just not reasonable, is it? But that's where we are.
We're shaking our fist in the face of God. You need to think
about that. That's what he said there. You
think about that. When God does change a sinner's mind. And we've
seen so many times there in the book of Acts also where Paul,
his manner was to go in there and reason with sinners out of
the scripture. You got some thinking to do.
You need to think about where you are before God and what you're
doing and why. And that's the way that God,
through the teaching and per adventure, Paul said to Timothy,
if you teach them, and make them think about it. You know how
little thought actually takes place in this world? Then maybe God will change their
thoughts. That's how he does it. It's going
to start up here. And maybe he'll give them repentance.
And you know what repentance is? It's a change of mind and
heart. And when God changes a sinner's
mind and heart, we'll find him like that madman of Gadara. He
wasn't doing much thinking before, was he? He was just going through
the tombs, cutting himself. That ain't even reasonable. That's
just insanity. But when he met the Lord Jesus
Christ, he was found how? Sitting, clothed, and in his
right mind. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
When He gives a sinner his right mind, when He gives us a knowledge
of the truth, until then we'll be ever learning but never able
to come to a knowledge of the truth. But Paul said if you teach
them Timothy and God gives them repentance, they'll acknowledge
the truth. And when that happens, like the
prodigal, you remember what it said about him? It says he came
to himself. He did some communing with his
heart. And you know what he said? He
just realized what's obvious. What was obvious all along. He
said, here I am sitting here eating the husks that the swine
eat. And it says when he came to himself,
he said, how many hired servants of my father's have bread enough
and to spare? And I'm sitting here starving
to death. That just doesn't make sense, does it? I will rise and
go to my father. That makes sense. This is commuting with your own
heart in the pig pen. There wasn't anybody else in
the pig pen, I guarantee you. He was there as it were on his
own bed that he had made and he was laying in it and he's
sitting there thinking, I've got to get back to my father.
I'm going to die here. He said, I perish with hunger. I'm a goner. I've got to get
back to him. It doesn't make any sense me being where I am.
I've done this to myself. I will arise and go to my father
and I'll say to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and
before thee. And that's the truth. I've sinned
against heaven first, rebelling against God's king. Moses said,
you ain't murmuring against me. You're murmuring against, God
said to Moses, they're not murmuring against you, Moses. They're murmuring
against me. This is rebellion against God.
This is what we saw in Proverbs. To rebel against your parents,
God's authority over you is to rebel against God. I've sinned
against heaven and before you, and I'm not worthy to be called
your son, but I want to put in an application. Would you hire
me just as one of your servants? The most reasonable thing in
the world is for you to throw down your weapons and sue for
mercy. You need to think about where
you're at. And I do, too, every day. The fear of God comes first,
though, doesn't it? The fear of God. You're not in
any shape to commune with your own heart until you fear God. Your heart's not going to tell
you anything worth hearing until you fear God. You see that? And a hatred of your own rebellion.
Sin not. When you fear God, you'll despise
your own rebellion against him. And then we will do what is absolutely
reasonable, what cries out to be done. Solomon said, wisdom
is crying out in the streets. We will go to him for mercy and
we will not be denied. Like Jacob of old will say, I
can't let you go. I will not let you go. I've got
to go to my father. I must have your blessing." You
remember those four lepers in 2 Kings 7? You remember what
they said? Why in the world are we going
to sit here until we die? That just doesn't make sense,
does it? God does a work on a sinner's heart, and then this matter is
dealt with in the heart. When God says, come, let us, you and I, you and I,
let's reason together. Where does that happen? Does
that happen down here at the front of the church, down an
aisle somewhere? It's hard work. Fear God. Stand in awe of Him. And repent
of your rebellions. Sin not. And commune in your
heart with God. And then, verse 5, offer the sacrifices of righteousness. This is how and why I am able
to call God the God of my righteousness because of a sacrifice, because
of blood, because of an offering, because of atonement. offer the sacrifices of righteousness. The prodigal's come to himself
now by God's grace. He's reasoned in his own heart
and he's concluded that he must get back to his father. But in
the spiritual reality of that picture, how can we ever get
back to our father? How can we get back to God? There's
a great gulf between us. He's holy and we're wretched
and vile. He can't even look upon sin.
But there's a way. The way. Abel knew the way. It's the way of blood. Sacrifice. Innocent blood. The
effectual atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. And these Old Testament
sacrifices now, they must be offered the way we're told. Abel
offered his lamp unto God. You remember how Paul said in
Hebrews 11? By faith. By faith, Abel offered
a more excellent sacrifice than that lamb he killed. It was more
excellent than Cain's. It was more excellent than what
was visible there on that day. He wasn't offering that lamb,
really. He was offering the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's only one offering that God will accept. Again, that's
what that publican said, Lord, be propitious to me. Propitiation
means sin offering. Be merciful to me, the sinner.
Be propitious to me. Receive the sin offering on my
behalf. That's our hope. Offer to God
the only sacrifice He'll accept. These sacrifices in the Old Testament
were ordained of God, and that was to be done, but it was to
be done by faith in the Lamb of God, which takes away sin. Paul said, these bulls and goats
and lambs, they can never take away sin, but they picture the
one who did. And that's how we offer them.
There's one way back to God. And Christ said, I am the way.
He said, I'm going and you're not going to see me. You can't
follow me now. You'll follow me later. But you know the way. Lord, we don't know where you're
going and how can we know the way? I'm the way. The way to
where? The Father. Heaven. The presence of God. Acceptance. Communion with God. What we lost
in the garden and then some way more than we lost. More than
conquerors through him that loved us and gave himself for us. He said, I'm going to be with
my father, and you're going to follow me later. And I'm the
way there. The precious sin atoning blood
of our Savior. And David, some say he was just
talking to himself there in verses four and five, that he wasn't
talking to his enemies anymore. I believe he was. I believe he's
still talking to Absalom, don't you think? He cried later when
Absalom died. He said, oh Absalom, Absalom,
would to God that I could have died for you. Instead of you. He loved his son. And these ones
that were rebelling against him, these were his friends and neighbors.
He's saying to you, stand in awe of God. Fear God. Don't reject
His King. Cease this rebellion. And seek
the face of God. And offer the sacrifice. God
will accept you in the sacrifice, in the atoning blood. Offer the
sacrifices, and when you do, put your trust in Him. You see
that? That's to offer that sacrifice
by faith. When you're offering that sacrifice,
don't trust the fact that, well, I'm offering the sacrifice like
God said. I'm doing what He said to do. No, put your trust in
Him. Don't trust yourself, your own
works, your own obedience to His law. Put your trust in the
Lord when you do that, see. That's what He said. When you're
cutting the throat of that lamb, put your trust in the one that
He pictures, the Lord. The one whose precious blood washes
sins away. John said unto Him that loved
us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. The one who
obtained eternal redemption for His people by that sin-atoning
blood. The one who hath perfected forever,
Paul said. those that He sanctified with
that precious blood. Put your trust in Him. You see
these instructions? Fear God. Lay down your rebellious
weapons against Him. Return, return unto the Lord. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness. And put your trust in Him. The
sinners substitute. Verse six, he said, there'll
be many that say, who will show us any good? You know who he's talking about?
The same one he's been talking to? They're saying, well, we
don't like David as king. We want Absalom to be king. Everything
will be okay then. You know what I'm learning? I
don't think there's anything wrong with caring about your
country and the leadership of the country and praying for them,
praying for your country, and being concerned about things
that happen. But you know, it doesn't make any difference if
Bush or Obama is president. It doesn't really matter. You
know what matters? Lord, lift thou up the light
of thy countenance upon us. We might think, well, everything's
going to be good if so-and-so is president and not if Absalom. Absalom is our champion. Let's
get rid of David and everything will be roses then. You know
when it's going to be roses? is when God is shining upon you.
And if you rebel against His authority, He's not going to
shine on you. You see what David's saying here? You have all these
high hopes you're going to be, you know, somebody in Absalom's
cabinet or, you know, everything's going to be, who's going to show
us any good? That's who we're going to make
our king. You better make Christ your king. And when I say make,
you know what I mean. Religion says that. We acknowledge him as who he
is, if he has mercy on us. He's already your king. Oh, bow. That's what he's saying. Fear
God. Stand in awe. And do what God said do. The
only way we can have communion with him and be righteous in
his sight is to offer, to honor the son who will show us any
good. David said, well, you may like
Absalom better than me right now, but if there's going to
be any good, any real good, it's going to have to be the
Lord lifting up the light of his countenance upon us. If he
does that, it doesn't matter who's on an earthly throne or what the circumstances are.
David's a good example of that here. He's living in a cave and
he said, I'm blessed to the Lord. I'm still God's king. He's still
taking care of me. I'm sure Absalom made all kinds
of promises of good, don't you think? They always do. Who's going to show us any good? If the Lord doesn't lift up the
light of his countenance upon us, then truly who could show
us any good? But if he does, then who can
be against us? And then David's talking to the
Lord again now. He says, you've put gladness
in my heart. more than in the time that their
corn and their wine increased. That's what makes men glad, sinners
glad, is the increase of earthly goods. But David said, you've
put a gladness in my heart that's so much more than that. They're
glad when they have a good crop or when they've got, you know,
when the wine is flowing, they're enjoying the pleasures and the
prosperity of this lot. He said, you've put a gladness
in my heart that's more David's corn and wine had dried up for
a while, for now. He probably wasn't drinking much
wine in the cave of Adullam. But he was glad. Who do you think
was sleeping better, Absalom or David? David was able to say, I will
both lay me down in peace and sleep. My security doesn't depend upon
the favor of men. The favor of men is fickle. It
comes and goes. What about us? We can't see this
without some soul searching, surely. What makes you glad? The corn and the wine? Habakkuk
said, when I don't have any corn and wine, I'm still going to
praise the Lord. I'm going to trust in him. When
the cupboard's bare, when the fig tree doesn't have any figs
on it, There's no cattle in the field. I'm going to trust Him.
I'm going to praise Him. Can your corn and your wine give
you a good night's sleep? Is the increase of goods an increase
of security? 1 Timothy 6, 17, Paul said, You
charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded
and trust in uncertain riches. And that's us. If there's ever
anybody that's been rich, it's us. We have everything. We want
and then some. Don't trust in uncertain riches,
but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. Do you hear what he said? Don't
you trust in what you have? Trust the one that gave it to
you. I wish I could obey that. This verse has sent me off to
sleep many a night with the peace of God in my heart. Paul said
in Philippians 4.6, be careful, be anxious, worry about nothing. Nothing. But in everything, by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known unto God. Cry out to God and say, here's
what I need, Lord. With thanksgiving, don't forget
what He's done for you. That's so easy to do, isn't it?
My goodness. Don't forget what He's already
done for you. With Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
unto God, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall keep your hearts. The peace that David said, I
can lay me down in peace and sleep. You know why? Because even in that cave, he
knew where everything he had came from. And he thanked God
for hearing him in his distress before and cried out to him for
mercy and left it right there. He left his soul, his body, his
situation. He left himself in the hands
of the merciful God of all grace. You see, he had done what he
was telling these others to do, offer the sacrifice. Come, not
because we're worthy, not for our righteousness' sake, Lord,
but for your mercy's sake, hear our prayer. And he said, I have that peace.
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep
your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. cause we trust
and we need. Peace. Let's pray together.