Turn with me, if you will, tonight
to Psalm 37. Psalm 37. My subject tonight is precepts
for life. As you know, I don't often try
to tell people what to do or how they ought to do things,
how they ought to live in this world. I don't pretend to know
the answers to most of the things that perplex people. I don't
pretend to know the answers. I try to help as I can to guide
you and any who seek such guidance in living in this world for God's
glory, but I don't lay down rules and I'm certainly will not now,
I have not in the past and I will not tomorrow by God's grace ever
bring out the whip of the law and try to lash you until you
submit to what I think you ought to do or submit to what I know
you ought to do. I just don't. I believe that free men serve
God freely. Free women serve God freely.
You seek to live in this world by the will of God, by the word
of God, and for the glory of God. And I lay no other Rule
before you. Whatever you do, do it to the
glory of God. And I'm perfectly happy to leave
it at just that. But the scriptures do give us
some guidelines. And here in this 37th Psalm,
I'm going to show you eight precepts for life. Yesterday morning early,
I got a copy of a message, outline of
a message that Brother Mahan preached from this Psalm 25 years
ago. And it was so simple and so blessed.
I thought this is just exactly the right thing for tonight.
So hold your Bibles open here at Psalm 37. And let me show
you these eight precepts to which Brother Mahan directed my attention. This is a Psalm of David, the
Psalms with the hymn book of the Old Testament. Now, I had
an article in the bulletin this morning. I hope you have read
it and will read it again concerning congregational singing. Clearly,
the New Testament teaches and it is proper that we enjoy the
privilege of congregational singing and we don't subscribe to the
idea that you only sing the Psalms and chant the Psalms, only sing
certain things. That's totally contrary to Scripture.
But this book of the Psalms was the hymn book of the Old Testament
Church. The Psalms were constantly chanted
and sung in just that manner. And we would do well to sing
the Psalms far more often than we do. Though in our English,
it's very difficult to get a sense of how the Psalms rhymed or fit
together in rhythm, and so it's difficult to do that, except
on rare occasions. Some folks put together some
songs or some tunes that are very good. Brother David sings
Psalm 121 frequently. But most of the time, when people pretend
that they're singing the Psalms, what they've done is they've
rearranged them and reworded them to fit what fits a good
English meter or a good English rhythm, and they sing it that
way. But that's not singing the Psalms. That's singing what men
have written, just as we sang our congregational hymns just
a few minutes ago. But the Psalms were intended
to be Psalms of instruction, comfort, direction, and praise
to God's saints as they worship God and as they make their way
through this world. And the Psalms were allowed the
privilege of going with the man after God's own heart into his
closet. And we can hear him say and say
with him, Things that we want desperately to say, the things
we feel, but we don't feel comfortable to put them into words. One of
the reasons the pages of the Psalms are so thick in the Bibles
of God's people who've had some experience of His grace is just
that. How many times do you feel in
your soul the things that you see expressed in the Psalms?
I can't say that. David did what we're admonished
to do. He came boldly, freely to the
throne of grace, opened his heart to God in honesty and pleaded
his cause before God and begged God himself to take up his cause. These Psalms are not only Psalms
written to be sung to worship and praise God, give instruction
to his people, as all songs ought to. Well, never to sing a song
or never to sing a hymn of praise, either in congregational singing
or as someone leads us in worshiping God as they sing a special for
us. Never should one be sung. It's just emotional nonsense.
Songs ought to give us instruction. and comfort, and reproof, and
sing praise to God our Savior, all of them, all of them. Otherwise,
they don't qualify as psalms, or hymns, or spiritual songs
as we're admonished to use in worshiping God. This psalm was
also written, as were all the psalms, by divine inspiration. So that while we go with God's
servant into his closet, We are allowed to go into his closet
knowing that these things God the Holy Spirit calls him to
write and indicted the very words of the Psalms so that we're given
instruction from God Almighty as to how we're to worship him,
how we're to confess our sins, how we're to seek his mercy and
seek his grace. If you look down in verse 25,
you'll see when David wrote this psalm. He said, I've been young
and now I'm old. Yet have I not seen the righteous
forsaken nor his seed baking bread. So David wrote this psalm
when he was an old man. I'm almost beginning to qualify. He wrote the psalm with much
experience. with much experience. Here's
the man who was betrayed by the king he loved, Saul. The man
who was betrayed by the friend he trusted hit the fell. The man who was betrayed by the
son he adored, and that son tried his best to kill him. The man
who was betrayed By his own wives, the man whose children constantly
grieved his heart, he had a house full of rebels. The man who betrayed
his friend and betrayed the woman whom later
he loved for he took her when she wasn't his. And David says,
now I'm old. Let me tell you what I've learned.
This 37th Psalm is very much like the 73rd Psalm. And we're
not going to try to read these 40 verses or the 73rd Psalm,
but I urge you to read them and read them carefully. Read them
while this message is on your mind. The Psalm is talking about
the believer in a world full of wicked men. And the wicked
are prospering. The wicked are prospering. Everywhere
David looked, He saw the wicked prosper, living in luxury and
ease, while God's saints by and large are afflicted and suffer,
live with difficulty. Those who have no regard for
God, no interest in the things of God, seems that everything
they touch turns to gold, and the believer struggles to put
bread on the table. Wicked men blaspheme God, despise
God, have no interest in the gospel of God, and yet they prosper
almost all the time. They seem to succeed. Most people
in this world who you'd look at and say, boy, boy, he's a
success. Look what he's done. Look what
he's accomplished. Look, look how he is. What a
life he's made for himself. What a living he's provided for
his family. Most of them Most of them, and
I use the word most deliberately, certainly not all. Most of them
are vile, wicked men. They got where they got by trampling
on the necks of other people. They obtained what they obtained
by virtually robbing other people. The believer, the true believer,
the child of God, usually is unknown, unrecognized, appreciated
by few. Generally, God's people are insignificant,
poor. They're not men and women of
great influence. They rarely amount to much in
the eyes of men. No one regards them as important.
No one cares about their opinion. They're unknown, unrecognized,
and they're not influential anywhere. Not the wicked. These who ridicule
God, ridicule his people, ridicule his word, who want to get rid
of God, just want to erase God from the memory of man, who want
to take God and God we trust off the coins, take God out of
the Pledge of Allegiance, take God out of the minds of men.
They would like to take God out of history, just take him out
of history altogether. They seem to prosper. They get
advantage and they take advantage. The wicked, the unbelieving,
are by great majority the majority in this world. The wicked, the
ungodly men, vile, vile, disgusting, wretched, corrupt men are the
great majority in this world. Now, I don't doubt that they
are sometimes the moral majority as folks a few years ago liked
to call themselves. I don't doubt that they may sometimes
be a conservative majority. When I was younger, you all might
not believe this, I was far more conservative than I am now. And
I've lived long enough now to find out that in the political
world, conservatives about as corrupt as liberals. I can't observe much difference
in them as far as character is concerned. I've observed very
little difference in them. The wicked are certainly the
majority. They always have been. And if
I read this book correctly, they always will be. Those who believe
God are called a little flock. Fear not, little flock. A little
flock in a desert land. A little flock that nobody would
miss if they would go. A little flock of complete insignificance. But our Lord says, fear not little
flock. It is your father's pleasure
to give you the kingdom in the light of these things. David
wrote under the inspiration of God, the Holy Spirit, as a man
of mature years, both in years and in the experience of God's
grace as a man rich in grace and rich in faith. And in this
psalm, he gives us eight blessed, blessed precepts, guidelines,
not rules, just just guidelines, words of admonition from God
Almighty for his people. I want to just call your attention
to them and you can mark them. I hope you will take your pen
and mark all eight of them as we go through this psalm and
then go back and fill in the blanks by reading the whole psalm.
Number one in verse one. David says, fret not thyself
because of evildoers. Neither be thou envious of the
workers of iniquity. You see, the evildoers. David
said in Psalm 73, he said, I saw the wicked prospering,
his eyes bugging out with fatness, his children all sitting around
the table, his grandchildren there. And he said, I was envious
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. And so he acknowledges
that what he is writing here to you and I, the admonition
he's giving here, the guidance he's giving us is guidance that
he needed. I learned a long time ago that
the best preaching I can do is to preach to Don Fortner. Because
it's something that I need, most likely you need it too. If I
don't need it, it won't do you any good. So David says, my feet
had almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped. I saw the
wicked and I was envious. I was envious. Here he says,
fret not thyself because of evildoers. Neither be thou envious against
the workers of iniquity. Don't envy them. Don't get angry
with them. Don't be jealous of them. Give
you two reasons. First, they shall soon be cut
off. Look at verse two. They shall
soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb. Don't envy them, they'll soon
be gone. Second, don't envy them because
what they have here is all they'll ever have. It's all they'll ever
have. Turn to Psalm 73 for just a minute. It is true that Many spend their
days on earth in ease and luxury, but they'll soon be cut off.
Not only cut off from this life, but cut off from life forever. Cut off from God, cut off from
light, cut off from any comfort, cut off from all hope. And were
it not for God's grace, we'd be just exactly like them. Just
exactly like them. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? What hast thou that thou didst not receive? And if
thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou'st not
received it? Don't envy the wicked. God will deal with them. Don't
be angry with them. Don't get too upset with them. I need this, I'm telling you.
I get too upset too easily with people who don't matter. with
things that don't matter. I get too rattled too easily
by things that really, in the long term of things, are really
insignificant. Don't do that. Don't do that.
It doesn't do any good. Nothing's ever accomplished by
it. Look here in Psalm 73. David says in verse 3, I was
envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
And you can read on down there but skip down to verse 17. Until.
Until. I was envious. I looked up there
and I saw that fella. His whole family is a delight
to him. A delight to him. He's an idolater,
but his whole family is a delight to him. He hates God, but he's
got all the money a man could ever want. He despises the things
of God, persecutes God's people, but he's got the largest estate
in the county. David said, I was envious when
I saw the prosperity of the wicked until. Verse 17, I went into
the sanctuary of God. Then understood I their end. What was it about that man you
wanted? What was it about his property
that you desired? What was it about his name and
recognition and power and influence that you coveted? I saw their
end. Here it is. Surely thou did set
them in slippery places. Thou castest them down into destruction. How were they brought into desolation? As in a moment. They're utterly
consumed with terrors. Listen to this, Psalms 92 verse
7. When the wicked spring as the
grass, when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, this is
the reason. This is the reason when the wicked
spring up like the grass, when they just cover the earth, when
all the workers of iniquity flourish in God's world, it is that they
shall be destroyed forever. Now, why would you envy that?
Why would you envy that? The Lord God has set them in
slippery places. and that God's appointed time
where all their feet shall slide. And the things that set them
apart and distinguish them in this world are the very things
that God has set in their hearts to destroy them. I just looked at Larry and Joe,
Fred, you fellas all businessmen, Lindsay, Rex, you've been involved
with Me and all your lives in business. And, uh, God almighty
allowed you and your various associations to experience, see
things that preserved you, give you faith in Christ. And I dare
say, I dare say, and you don't have to verify it or nullify
it. Not one of your associates you've ever had any association
with has any knowledge of God. If they do, it's a rare thing.
It's a rare thing. Not often men of some influence,
not often men who succeed in business, not often, not often
are such men given the grace of God in this world. Not often. Not many wise, not many mighty,
not many noble are called. God sent the world in the hearts
of some, so that they cannot discover his work. All right,
second, look at verse three. Trust in the Lord. David says, trust in the Lord
and do good. So shalt thou dwell in the land,
and verily thou shalt be fed. Trust in the Lord, not in riches,
not in your wisdom, not in your skill, not in your learning,
not in your position, not in your power, not in your neighbor,
not in your friends. Trust in the Lord, not in horses
and not in the arm of the flesh. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the
Lord and thou shalt be fed. You'll dwell in the land with
ease and be fed. Turn over a couple of pages to
Proverbs 3. Proverbs 3. Not long after Shelby and I started
dating, she turned to this passage one night. We were reading scriptures. And it struck me with profound,
profound encouragement, solemnity, and reproof. Verse five. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart. Lean not unto thine own understanding. You can't do both. You can't do both. You can't
both trust the Lord and lean to your own understanding. In
all thy ways acknowledge Him, that is, in all your ways bow
to Him, worship Him, seek His honor, seek His will, seek His
glory, and He shall direct thy paths. Temporal things, all of
them. Temporal things will soon fade
away and be gone. The fashion of this world passeth
away. The grace of God is forever. Only that which is spiritual
is eternal. Everything you can see and touch
and feel here is temporary. Every relationship Everything
on which men set their hearts is temporary. That which is unseen
is eternal. Trust in the Lord. His grace
is forever. Trust Him alone for pardon and
righteousness and everlasting salvation. Bless the Lord, O
my soul, and all that is within me. Bless His holy name, who
forgiveth all thine iniquities. who healeth all thy diseases,
who satisfieth thy mouth with good things. Oh, trust in the
Lord for his pardon and trust him for his providence, his daily,
daily providence, for his constant protection, for his daily provision. Our Father, which art in heaven,
give us this day our daily bread. Trust him. for His goodness. Trust Him in all things. Trust in the Lord and He will
direct your paths. Here's the third thing. Here's
the third thing. The psalmist says, trust the
Lord. Did you ever say that to your children? You were raising
your children and you had a question about something. You said, well,
just trust me. Just trust me. Sometimes you'd add something
else to it. You'd get a little aggravated and say, don't question
me. Don't question me. Trust me. If you expect your
children to trust you and not question you, David, that's asking a lot. But
we expect it. We expect it. Us. We don't have control over anything. We can't determine anything. The Lord said, trust me, don't
question me. How much more we ought then to
trust our God and never question him. Here's the third thing.
In verse four, delight thyself in the Lord and he shall give
thee the desires of thine heart. Delight thyself in the Lord. The word delight carries more
of a meaning than we generally think when we use that word. We think of it as just being
a passing delight, and that's the kind of delight we generally
have. My daughter right now has got
the notion to get a new car. She's been looking around getting
a new car when she's got maybe 10 years old, got a lot of miles
on it, and she's thinking about getting a new car. And she's
delighted at the prospect. And if they buy a new car, you
know what they'll do? Man, you get in that thing, you smell
that new leather. Boy, that's nice. That's nice. And then when
the kids get sick and throws up on the carpet, and the delights
go. Somebody at the Walmart gets
tired and gets mad because you got a new car and they got an
old truck and they take a buggy and shove it in the door. The
delight's gone. You get your fine jewelry and
your fine clothes and your fine house and your fine car and your
fine position. And then this will delight me.
No, it won't. No, it won't. It's just a temporary,
very temporary fleeting pleasure. That's all. No. Our Lord said,
I will delight to do thy will, oh my God. That's delight. Thy mercy and thy comfort, David
said, delight my soul. The word of God is my delight. In the song with Solomon, God's
church sings, I sat down under his shadow with great delight. Now that's delight delight thyself
in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart
hold your hands here at Psalm 37 and turn to 2nd Corinthians
2nd Corinthians chapter 4 God's presence and God's promises. God's presence and God's promises
are always soft pillows upon which to lay your head. God's
presence, God's promises. Delight yourself in the Lord. Everything here I said a moment
ago it was temporal. And we're insignificant. We're insignificant. We like to think we're important.
It won't be five years after you buried me and covered me
in the ground and somebody mentions my name, they'll say, who's that?
Don who? Don who? And the same is true
of you. You won't be remembered here long, no matter what you
do or who you are. You won't be remembered long, but you won't be forgotten in
glory. If your name is written in the book of life of the lamb.
So set your heart on eternity. Look here in second Corinthians
four 17 for our light affliction, our
light affliction. What a strange, strange word
for you. Our featherweight affliction. Now he's been, you read this
whole chapter, he's been talking, Alan, about a constant life of
turmoil and persecution and sorrow and affliction. From the day
God called him by his grace to the day he left this world, constant
affliction. He says our light affliction.
Our light affliction, which is but for a moment. Our very brief
featherweight trouble. Oh, God, teach me to think like
that. Worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight
of glory. These things are going to make
heaven more glorious than it could possibly otherwise have
been. While we look not at things which are seen, but the things
which are not seen. For the things which are seen
are temporal. Just puff away at God. Go, all of it. But the things
which are not seen are eternal. For we know, we know, that if
our earthly house and this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. All right, back here in our text,
Psalm 37, verse 5. Here's the fourth precept. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Commit your way to the Lord. Shelby planted a garden. I started
to say we. I didn't have anything to do with it this time at all.
And plow the dirt. And you lay off
the rows. And you put the seed in the ground. Go to the store and buy it. Put
out good money for it. And if you think raising a garden
is cheap, you ain't been in the feed store lately. Put out good
money for the seed. And you cover it up. You just
cover it up. What are you doing? What are
you doing? Committing it to the God of all
creation. Waiting for him to cause that
seed to spring forth with life. and bring harvest in his time. What do you do? Put it in the
ground and wait. Just put it in the ground and
wait. Nothing except wait for God. That's exactly how we ought
to commit ourselves to him. If the world from you withhold
of its silver and its gold, and you have to get along with meager
fare, Just remember in His word how He feeds the little bird. Take your burden to the Lord
and leave it there. If your body suffers pain and
your health you can't regain and your soul is almost sinking
in despair, Jesus the Lord knows the path, the pain you feel.
He can save and He can heal. Take your burden to the Lord
and leave it there. When your youthful days are gone
and old age is stealing on and your body bends beneath the weight
of care, he will never leave you then. He'll go with you to
the end. So take your burden to the Lord
and leave it there. Look at verse 7. Yeah, verse
7. Psalm 37, verse 7. Rest in the Lord. Rest in the Lord. Fret not. Trust in the Lord. Delight yourself in the Lord.
Commit your way to the Lord. Now rest. Rest. Do you know the scriptures, from
beginning to end, compare faith in Christ to rest? The Sabbath
day, God consecrated to himself at the end of creation. was a
picture of rest. The Sabbath day given by the
law was typical of the rest of faith that's ours in Christ Jesus,
so that we cease to work and rest. Christ is the Lord, our
Sabbath. He is that one who is our rest. He giveth his beloved sleep,
the psalmist said. He gives his beloved rest. He
gives his beloved rest. The Lord Jesus said, Come unto
me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, and you will find rest unto your souls. Two forms of
rest. Two aspects of rest, I should
say. You come to Christ and you trust Christ as your Redeemer
and your Lord. and you rest. It's faith in Christ. You cease from your own works
and you rest. You rest. The whole religious
world says do and there's no rest for the wicked no matter
how religious they are. The gospel says done. It is done. The great transaction is done. I am my Lord's and he is mine. You rest. I can't tell you how
many times I've had folks say to me, I'd give anything if I
could just trust Christ. I'd do anything to have God's
salvation. And I respond, would you try
giving nothing? How about doing nothing? Do nothing? That's what you do when you rest.
You quit doing. You're you who believe not your
difficulty is just this you're still Trying to find some way
to make up with God by the works of your head and you can't do
it and you will never find rest Come unto me All you that labor
and are heavy laden and I will give you rest and then the Lord
Jesus says to You and I who come to him Take my yoke upon you
Learn of me, thy meek lowly in heart. As you take
my yoke upon you, learn of me, you shall find rest unto your
souls. I can speak with a little experience. You can, as things come up in
your life, fight God and be angry with God or you can bow to God. And as long as you fight, and
as long as you're angry, as long as you refuse to submit to God's
providence, as long as you refuse to kiss his head, you're going
to be uneasy and troubled. As soon as you bow down and slip
under his yoke, It's the Lord, Eli said. Mark,
his boys were dead. His boys were dead. It's the
Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good.
Moses came and told Aaron, his sons Nadab and Abihu were dead
inside the holy place because they offered strange fire to
God. They refused to bring God's sacrifice, refused to worship
in God's appointed way, and God killed them. And he said, don't
you cry. Don't you cry. Don't you? Don't you indicate any disapproval
of God's providence. Well, that's contrary to nature.
It is, but Aaron, God's priest, and he dare not behave as one
who didn't believe God. And this is what the book says
about Aaron. Aaron held his peace Rest rest. All right. Okay next verse 8 Cease from anger Cease from anger
Forsake wrath Fret not thyself in any wise
to do evil. The wrath of man worketh not
the righteousness of God. The wrath of man worketh not
the righteousness of God. Hold your temper and bite your
tongue. Hold your temper and bite your tongue. Cease from
evil. It will never do any good. Cease from anger. Cease from
anger. How many times did you ever really accomplish anything
except hurt somebody by anger? Anybody? Well, I just, I just
say, well, I've got to say, get off my chest. You may get it
off your chest, but it's on his for a long time. It's all his
fault. You take a pot of scalding water
and throw it on a fellow's face. You may get over it right now.
Well, I just, I've got a quick temper and I blow up and I'm
over it. But the fellow who's scalded has got to live with
it a while. Doesn't do any good. Doesn't do any good. Get angry
because of somebody does something wrong, business or whatever else.
And you're just, I just got to get even. You don't get even. All you're going to do is hurt
yourself. Now I'm talking to Don again.
I'm telling you. Never does it do any good. Never. And in this world, it's not going
to do any good to be angry with God's enemies and your enemies. They don't know any better. And
the battle is not yours. The battle is not yours. It's
the Lord's. And that's true of every battle. Cease from anger. Cease from
it. All right, look at the next one, verse 27. Skip way down
to verse 27. I've got to hurry. Depart from evil and do good
and dwell forevermore. I want you to turn, if you will,
over to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. I hope you read carefully the
excellent article I took out of Brother Mahan's commentary
on this passage in the bulletin this morning. In verse 20, depart
from evil. Depart from all evil doctrine,
all evil religion. Depart from evil. In verse 19, 1 Thessalonians
5, quench not the spirit. Despise not preaching, gospel
preaching, prophesying. Prove all things. Prove all things. This morning I had a message
I believe of tremendous importance and I'm sure raised lots of questions
in your minds as much as you hear me preach. You go take the
book and prove it. Prove it. Prove all things and
hold fast that which is good. If it's good, if it's according
to God's word, according to God's character, according to everything
you know about the gospel of God, hold it fast. If it's not,
don't do it. What's this? Abstain from all
appearance of evil. Now, as best you can, it is proper
that you don't appear to be doing evil. Our daughter, I remember
when she was just a little girl, She said, you know, you parents
who don't know this, often your children know things a whole
lot better than you do. We'd ask Faith, well, why don't you
do this, do that with this group of kids, that group of kids?
And she said, Dad, they do things I don't want to
do and you don't want me to do. And if people see me there, They're
going to assume I'm doing the same thing. That's right. That's right. But that's not
what this text is talking about. This text is talking about the
truth of God. It's talking about doctrine,
the gospel, the things taught in this word. Abstain from all
appearance of evil. You hear something and you can't
just put your finger on it. I can't say exactly what's wrong. But there's something missing.
There's something wrong. There's something that's just
not right about this. You know what? You're probably
right. You're probably right. You're dead sure right, you who
are taught of God. Somehow this just doesn't give
God the glory. Somehow this just doesn't speak
right of my Redeemer. Somehow this just doesn't magnify
my Savior. Depart from evil. Depart from
evil people. Depart from evil doctrine. Depart
from evil ways. And do good. Do good. Recompense no man evil for evil,
Paul said. He said, provide things honest
in the sight of all men. And if it be possible as much
as life in you, live peaceably with all men. Go out of your
way to get along. Go out of your way to get along
with folks. Go out of your way, bend over backwards. Put up with
stuff. I'm not going to put up with
anything. Oh, yeah, you will. If you live very long with that
same man. If you live very long with that same woman. Well, I
love him. I know. I love her. Yeah. So you put up with it.
And if I love you, I will, too. That's just. Recompense domain
evil for evil but good for evil Now look at the last one down
here in verse 34 Wait on the Lord and keep his
way Wait on the Lord and keep his
way and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land of When the
wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it." Wait on the Lord. Standing in Christ, having done
all, just stand. Jeremiah said, it is good that
a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the
Lord. When you got difficulties, do
you think I've got to do something? I've got to do something. Don't. Don't. Don't. Just wait. I promise you. I promise you. God will take
care of it. Just wait. Just wait. And I promise
you something else. You stick your hand in it and
you'll make a mess out of it. Just wait. God will take care
of it. But they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. You wait, you wait. The more
you wait, the stronger you get. They renew their strength. They
shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not
be weary. Wait, wait. This is the best
part. They shall walk. They shall walk. Sometimes you soar with the eagles,
but your head's real light. And you run, you run in the vigor
of your strength, but you don't observe much. And as you wait
on the Lord, when your head's not quite so
airy and not in such a rush, you walk. Do you know who walks
in the midst of mighty enemies? Do you know who walks in a time
of great storm? Do you know who walks when everything
around them is on fire? Do you know who walks among roaring
lions? Who walks? Folks who know they've
got nothing to fear. They walk. Wait. And walk. And don't faint. In
heaven, earth, sky, and sea, He executes His wise decrees. And all His saints can rest in
Him. For all He is and does is best. Wait then, my soul, in patience
wait, prostrate before the mercy seat, and through this dark and
cloudy day, wait on the Lord and keep his way. His way. What's that? His way is Christ. His way is faith in Christ. Wait. Just wait. Look to Christ. And you will
never, ever regret it. Never. You will inherit the land,
as he promised, all the blessings of God in Christ Jesus, when
the wicked perish. And you see it. Amen. Your handbook number 438