The 37th Psalm. Psalm chapter
37. I wanted to speak this morning,
the Lord willing, on a sure cure for fretting. A sure cure for
fretting. Now if you don't know what fretting
is, I'm sure you'll find out before you get through this meeting
this morning. So we covet your prayers. Let's
begin reading with verse one. I'd like to read down through
verse eight. Verse 8, fret not thyself because
of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of
iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down like the grass and
wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good,
so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires
of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord.
Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall
bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment
as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently
for him. Fret not thyself because of him,
who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked
devices to pass. Cease from anger and forsake
wrath, fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. This psalm has
been a real blessing to me through the years. Many, many times my
spiritual needs have been met by the reading of Psalm chapter
37. I realize that we're living in
very difficult days, hard days to understand. Some of the Lord's
people are being desperately tried at this time. Some of the
Lord's people are in a state of absolute confusion as to just
what it is that the Lord is doing with them. I believe that most
of us are aware that this is a world, Jesus said, wherein
we would have tribulation. He said, in the world you'll
have tribulation, but in me you'll have peace. He said, I've overcome
the world. Jesus said, let not your heart
be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. In my Father's house are many
mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go away
to prepare a place for you. And if I go away, I will come
again to receive you unto myself. The Lord Jesus knows what we're
going through. He is very much aware of our
difficulties, very much aware of the trials that we have. Now, if you're a child of God
living in this world and you somewhat feel confused, I think
that this is very common. I think it's very common because
the Lord's ways are not our ways. As the heavens are higher than
the earth, so are the Lord's ways higher than our ways. And the Lord's ways are sometimes,
they just are very much cross-grain to our flesh. And fleshly wisdom
will not enable us to figure out exactly what the Lord's doing
in our lives. We know that sense and carnal
reasoning is an enemy of the saint of God because the old
mind, the carnal mind, which is not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be, but is full of enmity toward God
and toward his ways, oftentimes become very riled whenever God
begins to work in the heart, in the life of his child. Now,
I have read many things that were a blessing to me, but I
read recently a statement made by Lord Bacon. He was a writer in old times
and he wrote about the different characters of the Christian.
And maybe this would give us a starting place this morning,
maybe to help us understand ourselves a little bit better as we begin
to try to find a sure cure for our frettings, our worryings,
our murmurings, our complainings, our whinings in this world. And I hope this morning that
if you come here, that you come with an empty cup and that the
Lord will fill it. and that you'll go out of this
place this morning with something, something that'll stand your
soul instead and will enable you to deal with the problems
and the tests that you most surely have and will have in this life. Now, Lord Bacon wrote He says
a Christian is one that believes things his reason cannot comprehend,
and he hopes for things which neither he nor any man alive
ever saw. He believes three to be one,
one to be three, a father not to be older than his son, and
the son to be equal with the father. He believes himself to
be precious in God's sight, and yet he loathes himself in his
own. He dares not justify himself
even in those things wherein he can find no fault in himself,
and yet believes that God accepts him in those services wherein
he is able to find many faults. He is so ashamed that he dare
not open his mouth before the Lord, yet he comes with boldness
to God and asks Him anything he needs. He hath within him
both flesh and spirit, and yet he is not a double-minded man.
He is often led captive by the law of sin, yet it never gets
total dominion over him. He cannot sin, yet cannot do
anything without sin. He is so humble as to acknowledge
himself to deserve nothing but evil, and yet he believes that
God means him all good. Now, beloved, that's a whole
lot to digest at the very outset of a meeting, but it gives you
somewhat of an idea as to how complex the Christian is and
why when the floods of problems and trouble rolls over us, why
we react so strangely to all of those trials. Recently I've
heard about some who have been clinically, who have been diagnosed
as being clinically depressed. And one of the individuals who
I heard, well, fact is two of them, I was very, very much surprised. I just couldn't hardly believe
it. But then after thinking about it for some time, I come to the
conclusion that probably most of the children of God that reach
the age of 60 or 70 years old in this world, having lived through
the struggles and the trials of this life, having dealt with
their own flesh, their own carnal minds, having to deal with the
flesh of others and all of the ups and downs that they've experienced
that probably most people are clinically depressed. Most people
probably are. I heard of a preacher this week
who is a very sound preacher, one that God has blessed mightily
and used mightily in the ministry of the gospel. Pastors a large
church, but he lost a couple of children along the way. Been
many, many tests along the way, many trials. and he was just
diagnosed as being clinically depressed. Also, I heard about
a famous comedian this last week, Roger Dangerfield, who has made
many, many people laugh throughout the years, but yet was just diagnosed
as being clinically depressed. And it was such a wonder, he
said, to find it out. And that he's been so happy since
he found out that that was his real problem. And so, beloved,
I know this morning that each one of us are in difficult circumstances,
trying circumstances, and we need what the Word of God has
to say to us to give us a cure. Now, I want to say that I believe
that worrying and fretting are sins with their own punishment. Sins with their own punishment. When one worries and frets and
stews, and we're worry warts by nature, and I believe that
David was, I think that David here in this inspired instruction
and direction which he gives us here in this chapter, I think
he writes out of the experience of his own heart. Out of the
experience of his own heart. I believe that David had much
to fret about. But I do think that these are
sins, fretfulness and worrying, are sins of their own punishment.
And that's why I think that many, many times we come down to the
end of the road, worn out, white-headed, maybe bald-headed, and maybe
somewhat distraught that things are as they are with us in particular,
in our later years. And this is because we have given
over ourselves at different times to this fretting, to this worrying,
to this stewing, to this murmuring about God's ways in our life.
How dreadful it is to lay awake. Have you ever laid awake all
night worrying? Have you ever laid awake fretting
and just being warped up in your mind and heart about things that
you couldn't do anything about? But David also gives us here,
I think, a sure cure for this fretting. And this I wanna talk
about this morning. He gives us what I would call
here a sevenfold cure and if you're given to fretting if you're
given to murmuring and complaining and Worrying I'd like for you
to listen to what the Word of God has to say this morning to
your heart Well the first thing that David would point out to
us first of all he said fret not thyself In verse 1 he said
it again in verse 7 and also he said it again in verse 8 fret
not thyself fret not thyself, fret not thyself in any wise
to do evil, fret not thyself. And so first of all, he says
in verse three, trust in the Lord, trust in the Lord. So the first cure in this remedy
for fretting and stewing and worrying is to trust in the Lord. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
I believe will cure our fretting. from this standpoint, when we
trust Him, when we trust Him, when we rely upon Him, when we
cast ourselves entirely and wholly upon the Lord to provide for
us all of our spiritual, all of our physical needs in this
world, He has promised to take up the load, and to bear the
load, and to provide. In Matthew 6 and 33, the scripture
says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things will be added unto you. The Lord said,
do you have need of what the Gentiles have need of? They're
asking, and they're constantly occupied with their needs. Do
you have these needs? Well, certainly we all have these
various physical and mental and material needs that all other
people have. Well, the Lord Jesus said the
thing for you to do is to trust me, to rely upon me. I will provide
these things. in Philippians 4.19 says, but
my God. He was writing to the Philippian
church and this Philippian church had been faithful in supporting
him in the gospel. They had provided his needs and
they looked after him in the ministry. And Paul said, but
my God shall supply all of your need according to his riches
in glory by Christ Jesus. You have a need? Trust in the
Lord. He's able to provide. He opens
His hand and satisfies the need of every living thing. Trust
in the Lord. The Bible says the Lord knoweth
them that trust Him. The Lord knoweth them. There's
something going on between the man who trusts in the Lord and
the Lord. The Lord knows them. He knows
them in a very intimate way. So David would say trust in the
Lord. We don't look to the deeds of
the strength of the flesh For our comfort, but to him alone. We look to the Lord alone We
are to trust in him Psalm 62 and verse 8 says we're to trust
in him at all times at all times There's never a time when it's
inappropriate to trust in the Lord. Somebody said, well, I
wonder if you could just trust too much. There isn't any way
a man or a woman, boy or girl, can trust too much in the Lord. Somebody says, I just wonder
if it'd just be all right if I just trusted the Lord in my
present situation. If I just leave it with the Lord,
if I just trust Him, I'll tell you it'd be all right. I tell
you, the Lord, everything He said in the Bible is to get you
to trust Him. It's to entice you to trust Him. It's to bring your heart to Him
so that you will trust in Him at all times, whatever your situation
be. You say, well, my foolishness
has gotten me into some trouble. Well, trust in the Lord at all
times. You say, well, I think that I
could have avoided this if I'd just been a little bit more careful. Maybe you could have, but I'll
tell you this. The crooked ways, we cannot make
them straight. Only God can make the crooked
ways straight. There are so many situations
that happen in the life of a believer, and we don't know why they ever
happen, but they do happen. And only God can make the crooked
ways straight. Trust in Him at all time, and
fret not thyself. Leave it in the Lord's hands,
and trust in Him. Now the second thing that David
mentions, here is in verse four. He says, delight thyself also
in the Lord. Delight thyself also in the Lord. Now, what this means is, I think,
is to rejoice in the Lord. And I think this is a cure for
fretting from this standpoint, that when we're taken up with
the glory of His person, when we're taken up with the power
of His atonement, when we're taken up with the freeness of
His grace and His mercy and the sureness of His love and kindness
and grace, it leaves no room, really, for fretting. It leaves
no room for it. Now, beloved, this is so important
that we see this. Delight thyself also in the Lord. You say, well, I really have
some other things that I'd like to delight in, but they disappoint
me so greatly. Well, I have a person, and I
want to delight myself in that person. Please don't. Please
don't. It's all right for you to be
taken up with someone, for you to like someone, to enjoy someone. It's all right for you to have
human companionship and for you to have the blessings that flow
out of the heart of one individual towards you in love. It's wonderful. It's a great blessing. But don't
delight yourself in humankind. in the sense that this scripture
is talking about. It's talking about one knowing
the Lord, one having an understanding of who the Lord is, having an
understanding of the attributes of God, the character of the
holy God of heaven, and then for one to take up a delight
in Him and to say, I want to know more. I want to know more
about His person. I want to know Him, the glory
of His person. Oh, I always look. I do. I always
listen. I like to hear the conversation
of people. I look for people who know something
about the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus is dear. He's
precious to my heart. He's my Savior. He's my Lord. He's my coming King. He's precious
to me. I delight myself in the Lord
Jesus and I love people that love Him. I love people that
delight in Him. I want to be around those people
who know Christ. and fellowship with Him and have
it in their hearts to love Him and adore Him and to follow Him. And so if we want to get away
from fretting, this murmuring and complaining, know more about
His person. Think of the Atonement more and
more. You know, beloved, We all know
that we must leave this world and go yonder to be with the
Lord. We all know that if it were not for His atonement, we
would have no forgiveness of sin, we would have no pardon
of our iniquities, and the guilt of all of our transgression would
still be upon us. If it had not that he bore our
sin in his own body on the tree, then we would not be saved today. We would not have any life and
liberty in Christ and any joy in the gospel. But I'll tell
you, there's something that we need to think about every day.
And that is, there's three things that occupy my mind when I think
about the atonement. Beloved, I do not want to ever
think about my sin without thinking about the atonement. You know
when you think about your sin, it's overwhelming isn't it? It's
overwhelming you would say well I can't believe Possibly that
it could be true that my sins could be forgiven well when we
think about the atonement of the Lord Jesus and we're delighting
ourselves in the Lord. We're trying to rid ourselves
of all this negative thinking about what's going on in our
life. And you know there's so many things that seem so important
at the time, but in the light of eternity are not important
at all. And in the light of our sin,
they're not important. The main thing for you to be
thinking about is how you're going to get rid of your sin.
Delight yourself in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Okay? We don't want to think about
our sin without thinking. We don't want to think about
dying without thinking of the atonement. We don't wanna think
about the judgment without thinking about the atonement, the atoning
work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, beloved, these are the things
that are important. All of those other things that
are trying to work their way in to your life and making you
think they're the most important things that ever, that you needed
to think about, my friend, you see how wrong that really is. And then the freeness of his
grace and the sureness of his mercy, when we dwell on it, delight
ourselves in the Lord, it'll leave no room for fretting. And then the third thing is found
in verse five. He says, commit thy way unto
the Lord. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in Him, and He shall
bring it to pass. Now what this means in the original
is, roll the whole burden of your life upon him. Roll the whole burden of your
life upon the Lord. And in the words of Peter, Peter
put it this way, casting all your care upon him for he careth
for you. First Peter chapter 1 and verse
5. Now, beloved, when we realize
that our Heavenly Father does all things well, surely we can
roll the whole burden of our life upon Him. You know, if I
believed, like some do, that God could make a mistake, then
I'd have trouble doing this. If I believe like some do that
God can only do and will only do what people let Him do, then
I'd have a lot of trouble with rolling the whole burden of my
life upon Him. But I believe in a God who said,
that he would work all things for my good and for his glory.
I believe in a God who said that he worked and performed all things
that was appointed for me. I believe in a God who's sovereign.
I believe in a God who's perfect. A God who never make a mistake.
A God who will not fail. A God who when a man gives up
his life into his hands, that God takes it and that God will
bring out of that life the very best thing that could ever have
been brought out of it. We need to believe in the Lord
to the point where we commit our way unto the Lord. Roll it
all upon the Lord. Now, beloved, this is not something
we can do just one time in our life and it's all over. I read
a book one time which was a real blessing to me on the Christian
secret of a happy life. And the Christian secret of a
happy life is for one to turn over, to roll the whole burden
of their life over on the Lord. and to leave it there, to leave
that burden with the Lord. But that's not something you
can do just one time. You gotta do it over and over
and over again. Keep rolling the whole burden
of your life on the Lord day by day. And beloved, this is
the way to get away from this fretting. We believe that God
is too wise to err and he's too holy not to do right. God is
not going to do wrong with your life. God's going to do what's
right with your life. Sister, brother, God is going
to do what's right for you. You young people here today,
you say, well, I just wonder life is so Life is so strange
and so difficult. I just wonder how I'll ever prevail
in this world Roll the whole burden on the Lord trust in him
Don't be afraid go on and live as God leads you to he will not
fail with your life Every day trust in him the proverb says
that we are to lean not to our own understanding but in all
of our way acknowledge him and and He will direct our step. So we're to trust then and to
commit our way unto the Lord. And then the fourth thing is
found in verse 7 and it says this, rest in the Lord. Rest in the Lord. Now, our Lord
Jesus Christ, having accomplished salvation for His elect, we read
in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3, He entered into His rest. The Lord Jesus came into this
world and was given a work to do. And in the book of John,
chapter 17, he says that I have finished the work which thou
gavest me to do. I finished it. And after he finished
the work, now, he entered into his rest. He was done. The Lord
Jesus was finished. The Lord Jesus went yonder to
be seated at the right hand of God. Now, beloved, let us learn
by the grace of God Let us learn by His grace to cease from going on to establish
a righteousness for ourselves because whenever we enter into
faith in Him, then we enter into our rest. When we're busy resting
in the Lord, we have no time for fretting and stewing and
for worrying ourselves to death as to what's going to become
of us. Rest in the Lord. Now, I'm here this morning to
say to you that salvation is an accomplished work. The atonement
is accomplished. What the Lord Jesus did on the
behalf of his people is a finished work. It's not something that
we're working on now. Someone says, well, I'd like
to be saved, preacher. What can I do? Well, really all
the doing has been done. It's all been done. You say,
well, I've heard that it's do. I've heard it's do. Well, you
know, the religion of the Armenians is it's characterized by do.
do. In other words, it's what we
do that is important. It's what we do that's going
to get us into heaven and it's what we do that should be actually
glorified. It's what we do. But beloved,
our religion, the religion of the Bible, is characterized by
the word D-O-N-E, done. It is done. It is finished. And our Lord Jesus Christ did
the work. He did the work. I'm here this
morning to tell you that Jesus did it all. Sin or nothing do,
neither great nor small, Jesus did it, did it all, long, long
ago. It's all been done. All the doing
and the dying was done by Him. My salvation hangs upon a life
I did not live, upon a death I did not die. Jesus did it all. He finished it, entered into
His rest, and everybody that trusts Him and everybody that
rests in Him, they rest in Him. They cease from their labor.
We're not trying to stay out of hell. We're not trying to
get to heaven. That's all been taken care of.
If you worship Christ, if you trust Christ, if you believe
on Christ, and if Christ dwells in your heart by faith, then,
beloved, all of the doing is finished, and we can rest in
Him. Now, there are many, many people
that the devil bothers a great deal about whether they're saved
or not. The devil bothers them a great
deal. And you know, they commit a sin. And the devil says, well,
you couldn't be saved and commit that sin. Why? No way you could
be saved and do and live and think the way you do. But beloved,
a child of God in this world, going through this world, through
this pilgrimage, experiences many encounters from the devil.
When the devil comes, he's the accuser of the brethren. And
you know what? When the devil says, you're this,
you're that, you're something else, we agree with him. We just
agree with him. Say, you're right. You're right
about that old devil. But we know something about your
future. When he reminds us of who we
are, we ought to remind him of his future. What it is that God's
going to do with him. We can rest, beloved, in the
Lord. Send the devil on back to hell
where he belongs. One old preacher down in the
South used to say, spit tobacco juice in his eye and send him
on back to hell where he belongs. Beloved, let me say to you this
morning, we need to come to rest in the Lord. Rest ourselves in
Him and if we rest in the Lord, Then we will not have to worry. We won't have time for all this
fretting and worrying and stewing. Just rest in the Lord. Now somebody
said, Preacher, you want to make us a fanatic. All this trusting
and all this delighting in the Lord and all of this rolling
our burden on the Lord. And you're just going to take
us clear out of the picture to the point where that we're just
going to be people just going out of here, just taken up with
the Lord. That's exactly my purpose. That's
exactly what this is about this morning, is to get you to look
away from yourself and to look to the Lord. Now in Psalm 37
verse 8, we have the fifth thing, and it says, cease from anger.
Cease from anger. Now this is important in our
equation this morning. Cease from anger, verse eight.
When we try to take matters into our own hands, we're bound to
create a sure mess of things. Remember, James 1.18 says that
the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God, meaning
that you cannot get mad and solve your problems. If you think you
can just get mad, real, downright mad, and solve all your problems,
you're mistaken. And the Bible says, never avenge
thyself, Romans 12. Never avenge thyself, leave it
to God's wrath. Vengeance is mine, I will repay,
saith the Lord. I will repay, saith the Lord. Cease from anger. God will take
care of the sheep. and subdue all of their enemies
under their feet. Now, I know there's a great temptation
to take up the battle yourself. And when somebody's done something
that you feel they should be dealt with, there's a great temptation
to say, I'm gonna do something about this. I heard one professing
believer one time, I doubted that he was a child of God. He
was a preacher and he had this tent. And the fire inspector
come into the tent and lit his cigarette lighter and stuck it
to the tent and burned a hole in it. And the tent was supposed
to be fireproof. But he burnt this big old hole
in the tent. And that fellow, oh, he got steamed, that preacher. He got so worked up and he said,
well, I'm just gonna take this, I'm gonna deal with this. He
said, God didn't give me this 220 pounds for nothing. And the
Lord gave me this, take care of situations like this. Well,
there's always that temptation. But that just digs a hole deeper
and deeper and deeper for you. You better leave it with the
Lord. You better leave it with Him. A child of God that's in
His right mind will say, that christian would say lord
forgive me but i do not and we must leave everything
with him and trust his wisdom and cease Cease from anger. Don't fret. Don't stew. Trust God. for it to be done. Repudiate
your own wisdom. Don't you see? Lean not to your
own understanding. Give up your mind to the Lord
and to the wisdom of his word. Give it up and leave it with
the Lord. Now I know what I'm talking about.
I've known all of us along these lines. I've had enough experience
dealing with people who I felt like ought to really been dealt
with that I just simply have learned the hard way and the
difficult way of this situation, leaving the situation to the
Lord. And then the Bible of course
talks about how that we should, if our enemies hunger, feed them.
And if they are thirsty, give them something to drink. Because
by so doing, you heap coals of fire on their head. And so you
just be good to them. Be good to them. Treat them like
you'd like to be treated. And leave them with the Lord.
And let them, as the saying is, stew in their juice. Just leave
them with the Lord. Okay, cease from anger. That's
the fifth thing. The sixth thing is depart from
evil. Psalm 37 verse 27. Let's read
it. Depart from evil and do good,
and dwell forevermore. We're exhorted in the Word of
God to put off the old man with his deeds. And by the grace of
God and the power of God, the Lord does restrain the believer
from living for himself and enabling the believer to strive to live
day by day for the glory of God. And so as a child of God, let
me instruct you to read the Word of God, find out what it is that
God says, have your senses exercised to discern between what is good
and what is evil as it's spelled out in the Word of God, and give
yourself to the mind of the Spirit as it is revealed in the Bible.
Give yourself over to that. Depart from evil and do good
and the Lord's blessing that be with you And so that's what
you should do. Somebody said well, what should
I do in this situation? Well, whatever it be Find the
mind of the Lord about it. But but if you're going to sin
to solve the problem That's not the way. That is not the way. And that's what this means when
he said depart from evil. And then lastly, seven is found
in verse 34 of this Psalm. Verse 34, let me read it to you.
And it's wait on the Lord and keep his way. And he shall exalt
thee to inherit the land. When the wicked are cut off,
thou shall see it. Wait on the Lord. We wait with
great expectation on the certainties of the Lord's promises. The Lord
has made many promises in his word. Read and discover these
promises and hide them away in your heart. We wait with expectation. David said, my spring is in the
Lord. He said, my expectations are
from thee. He waited on the Lord until the
Lord would visit him with his salvation, until the Lord would
come with a mighty hand and rid him of his enemies, until the
Lord came with his bounty in his hand to provide his needs. He would wait upon the Lord. God's purpose of grace and mercy
cannot fail. God's purpose of grace and mercy
cannot fail. Wait on the Lord. Wait on the
Lord. You'll never be a loser for waiting
on the Lord. Never. Never will you be a loser. Just wait with a heart of faith. Trust the Lord and give up this
Freddy. You're a believer? A believer? Somebody said, I am a believer.
Well, Just live like one. Live like one. You know what
a believer is? Somebody who trusts God. That's what a believer is.
And you're a believer? Then trust the Lord. Trust the
Lord. Well, these are the seven fold
cures for fretting and worrying and complaining. And I do hope,
as the Lord's helped me with these, that He's helped you.
and that his blessing would rest upon you. And you go out of here
this morning with a measure of victory in your heart, rejoicing
in the Lord.