Good evening. If you would, turn
with me to the book of Psalms, chapter 3. I want us first to just read these
first two verses. Psalm 3. Lord, how are they increased
that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against
me. Many there be which say of my soul that there is no help
for him and God. These are the two verses that
caught initially caught my attention to this passage of scripture,
and I can only speak for myself, but I know it's true for all
of us. But there are times when we read
scripture without giving thought or giving look as look into who
was going through it and who was writing at this time. And
David was in a very troubled time of his life at this point,
and he is fleeing from his son Absalom. I'd like us to look
just very briefly at a little bit behind that so we understand
where David is when he's writing this. That's found in 2 Samuel
chapter 15. Absalom was David's third son,
and it says in Second Samuel, Chapter fifteen. We'll start
in verse two. And Absalom rose up early and
stood beside the way of the gate. And it was so that when any man
had a controversy, they came under the king for judgment.
Then Absalom called unto him and said, What city art thou?
And he said, Thy sermon is one of the tribes of Israel. And
Absalom said unto him. See, thy matters are good and
right, but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee." Absalom
said, moreover, that I were made judge in the land, that every
man which hath suit or cause might come unto me, and that
I would do him justice. And it was so that when any man
came nigh unto him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand,
and he took him and kissed him. And on this manner did Absalom
to all Israel that came under the king for judgment. So Absalom
stole the hearts of the men of Israel, and it came to pass after
40 years, Absalom said unto the king, I pray thee, let me go
and pay my vow, which I have vowed to the Lord in Hebron.
And so what I noticed initially about this, when we read that
Absalom stole the hearts of Israel, But 40 years had passed, so this
is not something that just happened overnight. He spent a long time
doing this. Picking back up in verse 13.
And then there came a messenger unto David, saying, The hearts
of the men of Israel are after Absalom. And David said unto
his servants that were with him in Jerusalem, Arise and let us
flee, for we shall not else escape from Absalom. Make speed to depart,
lest he overtake us suddenly, and bring evil upon us, and smite
the city with the edge of the sword. And behold, the king's
servants said unto the king, Behold, thy servants are ready
to do whatsoever my lord the king hath appointed. And the
king went forth, and all his household after him. And the
king left ten women, which were concubines, to keep the house.
And the king went forth, and all the people after him, and
tarried in a place that was far off. So that's a little background
as to what's happened here. Absalom has a desire to overthrow
his father as king. And so what he's done is he's
stolen the hearts away by the men of Israel, saying, you don't
need to go to the king. You come to me and I'll take
care of it for you. So he had their loyalty through deception. And so here we find David being
confronted by one of his trusted servants in the middle of the
night, and it said that They had to steal away in the middle
of the night because it was going to be that sudden. They felt
that he was actually going to, Absalom was going to come and
try to take them and kill them. And I got thinking, I mean, this
is his son. This is not I mean, I'm about
to have a son. I can't imagine what it would
be like to have one of your own children want to come to, you
know, take you, your mother, your family, everything to kill
just for power. And so that's that's where David
is right now. In reading about where David
went, it said that he didn't go. You think, where would you
go if you were being chased and you were in David's position?
You'd think you would go to a trusted friend or a place where you'd
be safe amongst people you knew. But David, being a man of war,
knew that he couldn't do that because if he went into the camp,
to where his brethren were, that he was friends, he knew that
Absalom would come and slaughter them, too. And so he didn't want
to bring them into the same danger that his own family was. So it
said he went out in the wilderness and basically stayed out in the
desert for a while away so that he could keep his people that
were loyal to him safe from Absalom as well. And so where we pick
up here in Psalms three, verse one, where he says, Lord, And
so this is that first word stopped me there. It's almost the way
that he says it. This is what a blessing that
we overlook that we have someone that we can call on. David at
this time was the most powerful man in Israel. And who could
David call upon? He was he was it as far as men
go. He was the most powerful, had
everything. And yet that one person when he's all of this
is this house of cards has been ripped out from under him and
he calls upon the Lord. It's a good place to call on.
It's a privilege that we I think often forget. We call on the
Lord, but we forget what a privilege that is calling upon his name. And so why is it a privilege?
Because it's a privilege of who I'm calling on. He's the Lord. He's not my copilot. He's not
the man upstairs. He's not this Jesus that people
want him to love him and want him, want us to accept his offer. That's not who he is. He's the
Lord. He's the Lord by right. He's the Lord by righteous proclamation.
He's the Lord God Almighty. Psalm 24 says, Who is this king
of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the
Lord mighty in battle. This is the one who delivered
Israel time after time. He marched them out of Egypt.
The Lord's presence went before them. And it said when the sea
saw it, it fled. This is that of Psalm 114. So
the mountains and the hills, they trembled and shaked with
his presence. And this is who the Lord is. The earth knows
her maker. And even though men may not see
it, that the earth knows her maker. And it's raw power who
the Lord is, the Lord God Almighty. Who can stand before his fury
if thou wouldst mark iniquities who would stand? So there's no
men, no men in here and no men ever other than the Lord that
have stood before his fury and not died in their flesh. Who
can oppose his will? His will, who is the decree of
determinate counsel of foreknowledge of God. He knows it and he decrees
it. And so he is wisdom. Who can stay his hand or say
unto him, what doest thou? He's God, he's all powerful and
he's holy. Yet his heart is moved with compassion
toward his people. How do you know that? Well, the
verse of the Psalms that I turn to a lot that makes makes me
see the weakness of our flesh. But yet the Lord knows that he
says he knows our frame and he remembers that we're but dust.
There was a time when the Lord was made flesh, he was born from
his father, but made flesh and he was not had sin in it at all. Yet we did. But he went through
the same temptations, the same trials and the same tempest that
we had to encounter. But yet he did it all without
sin. Hebrews 217 says he was made like unto his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and a faithful high priest. The Lord
had to be made flesh. And that that's what makes him
so understanding to what we go through and what we struggle
with. He went through the same things and he can understand
that. And so I can call on his name and know that he hears me
for Christ's sake. And so this is the only grounds
by which I can know and I can call and know the Lord hears
me. So Psalm 68 says this, just a portion of this verse, the
Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping, and so We come to
the Lord in prayer, we come to the Lord asking, and we come
to the Lord weeping. We come to the Lord for any reason.
It can be a large, great, huge thing we're dealing with, or
it can be the most small, insignificant thing. It doesn't say to come
to him for one thing or the other, but we're to come to him with
all things. In verse one, Lord, how are they increased that trouble
me? Many are they that rise up against me. And for David, it
would seem, and every other man whom we've read much about their
experiences in their life through scripture here, trouble never
seems to decrease, whether it be David, Solomon, Moses, all
these, even the Lord in his life from from from the day of birth
to the day that they, you know, they're in their death. Trouble
seems to always decrease. It doesn't go away. And Job says
man is full of days is a few days and full of trouble. And
so I think that's an accurate description of us. And you can't
escape trouble when you're the source. And my sin is the cause
of most of all the problems in my life. And trouble can come
in many forms. David was encountering many forms
at this time. It can be physical. Whether it
be violence, loss of health, financial trouble, trouble can
be in the form of an emotional trouble, whether it's loss of
a loved one, a bad marriage, trouble can be mental, depression,
anxiety. What I feel is one of the most
difficult, if not the most difficult trouble is spiritual trouble,
where The Holy Spirit is grieved, where I'm not blessed. I come
here to hear the gospel, and I can't hear. I don't feed. Nothing makes me panic more when
I feel that I have spiritual trouble. So you feel like you
cry out. In Deuteronomy, it describes
the heavens being as brass. You feel like no one's even hearing. And so this is a terrible state
that we're in, but yet we're flesh, and so that's why we do
experience it. And concerning the Lord's people in trial, it's
something that we will know. So a few scriptures on that.
One is thou feedest them with the bread of tears. We're tried
in the furnace of affliction. This is concerning the refining
of our faith. Thou makest a strife unto our
neighbors and our enemies laugh among themselves. Turn over to
Psalm 22. This is one of the songs we know
is the song of the cross, but this is also the song of David.
Verse one, my God, my God, why has that forsaken me? Why are
you so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring?
Oh, my God, I cry in the daytime, but down here it's not. And in
the night season and I'm not silent, but thou art holy. Thou that inhabit us, the praises
of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee, they trusted, and now
this delivered them. And they cried unto thee, and
they were delivered. They trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
But I am a worm, and am no man, a reproach of men, and despised
of the people. All they that see me laugh me
to scorn. They shoot out the lip, and they
shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver
him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. But thou
art he that took me out of the womb, thou didst make me hope
when I was in my mother's breast. I was cast upon me from the womb,
and thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from me, for
trouble is near, for there is none to help. And so last scripture
I'll give you is Jacob, when he found out that Benjamin was
going to be taken to Egypt when they were bringing back grain
from the famine. He said, all these things are
against me. And the reason I'm saying all these is to give us
an idea of the different kinds of troubles and trials that people
go through that we can read about here. And so there are times I think
we feel that the Lord's face is set against us, that everything
we do and what my intents and purposes are seem to crumble
and fall apart. And you try to seek the Lord's
presence and the Lord's guidance in what you're doing. And it
seems that he just shuts the door every time it seems one's
open. And so there are times that we can feel cut off, cast
out and alone. Wondering, does the Lord hear
me when I call? Can a believer feel this way? Yes, we can. The reason is, we still have
our flesh, and the evidence of that is, what sin have I stopped
since I've become a believer in the course of time? And there's
none. And that is my evidence that
I need Christ more than ever. Verse two in our text. Many there be which say of my
soul, there is no help for him in God. And so this is would be the way
the world would look toward one of the Lord's children. You know, all the trouble about
you. How could God be in what you're doing? God's not going
to help you. They write you off. The children
in this world write you off your Lord and the gospel that you
believe. They take strength in their numbers and in their works
as a form of acceptance before God. They paint a very bleak
outcome for you and me. When all hope and all strength
has been lost, this is the only time that we really see how great
he is. It's when all these things that cloud our view, cloud our
vision of Christ and his power and everything that the Lord
does for us, we miss all that because we've got so much else
going on in our own, you know, vain existence. Once all that's
ripped out from under us, we see how great he is. And so what
I want to give you here in the rest of this chapter is three
things that the Lord provides for me in the time of trouble.
And so the three things are protection, honor and joy. And so the first
one, we read verse three, But thou, Lord, art a shield for
me, my glory and lifter up of my head. The Lord is my shield,
which is protection, protection against that which would hurt
me. And so you think about what is a shield? A shield is, we
all can kind of think about some of the movies we've seen where
one of the soldier carries a shield and then he carries a sword.
One hand is used to attack with and the other is used to block
that attack. And so the shield is to take the blow so that I
don't have to. The blow would surely kill me
if I didn't have the shield. But if I had the shield, it takes
the blow so that I don't have to. So how is the Lord my shield? Well, The Lord was made flesh
and he came here to redeem his people and the Lord went to the
cross and stood before the wrath of almighty God and took the
blow for my sins so that I didn't have to. And so that's how the
Lord's my shield. And this shield for me here in
my center reference, it says shield about me. And so when
I read a little more about that, it talked about the shield being
it's not just about me, it's round about me. So the shield
is just what I have in front of me. So but my enemies and
those who seek to do me harm are not going to attack me just
from the front. They're going to attack me from behind as well,
where my parts are exposed and vulnerable. And so if the Lord
is a shield about me, then I don't have any worry for fear that
anybody can get me or that I'm going to fall away. The Lord's
going to protect me. I'm in his hands. Even the parts
that I can't see, the things that I don't know of, the Lord's
protecting me and hedging me about. And so, secondly, in our
text, verse three, that thou, Lord, are a shield for me and
my glory. The Lord is my glory. And this is speaking of my honor,
glory, majesty. As men, we're going to glory
in something. We're very proud. We're very
deceived. And we fool ourselves so often
in what we glory in. And what I was thinking of in
how we're so deceived, it's like a man being in a burning house
looking for the way out. You've got the smoke up high. We're very proud and lifted up.
And we can't see because of the smoke. It's all up here. And
if left there, the house is going to burn around me. It's only
when we're brought low where the smoke's not. Smoke doesn't
get low. It's only then can we really see where we're at. And
scripture comes to mind. Let not the wise man glory in
his wisdom, neither the mighty man glory in his might. Let not
the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory
in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the
Lord. So if that doesn't show me my need of him and my in my
ability to glory in him, that's that's the scripture. I'm a sinner
and I can't keep the law and I can't please God with what
I do or what I don't do. So where does that leave me?
It leaves me unfit. I'm not able I'm not able to
do anything to please God. And I'm guilty. I violated his
law, and so I can only stand before him guilty, and then I'm
undeserving. And it's only when we find these
things that we find grace. If I'm saved, it's not because
of anything in me. He did it all. If I was lost
and he found me, if I was dead and he made me alive, and if
I was in debt, he paid it freely. And so what I'd like us to look
at, see how easy it is that he gets all the glory. This passage
of scripture illustrates it so well. It's Ezekiel chapter 16. And this is the story of every
believer and of every child of God. Ezekiel 16. Let's start in verse 4. Actually, let's start in verse 3. And they
say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, Thy birth and
thy nativity is one of the land of Canaan. And thy father was
an Amorite, and thy mother was a Hittite. And as for thy nativity,
in the day that thou was born, thy navel was not cut. Neither
was thou washed with water to sepulchre thee, and thou wast
not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. Let's just pause right
there for a minute. In looking at this, what this
is describing is this, the birth of this child. And this is, this
is all men who are men and women who are children of God, because
we have no noble birth. And the way this is described,
it's saying your navel was not cut. You weren't cut loose from
the connective stuff. I don't know all this. I'm learning
this as it goes. All the connective things when,
you know, a baby's born and it says you were not washed with
water. That's the first one of the first things they do when
a baby's born. They bring it out. They wash him. They clean
him up. They get, you know, make sure
he's healthy. Says else was not swallowed,
salted or swallowed at all. He's crying hungry. But this
said none of those happen with you. So verse five, none I pity
thee to do any of these things and to be to have compassion
upon me. But that was cast out in the
open field to the loathing of that person in the day that that
was born. And that speaks as to our sin. This is how offensive we are.
So you think what's, you know, even in the animal kingdom, you
know, the babies are taken care of. Most of the animals won't
eat their young and they'll take care of them. But yet they would
eat each other. But here we find this is not
the case. Even a mother can't love her
baby. It's cast out into the field.
It's the loathing of that person. It's hate, just hatred. It's
it's offensive. Cast it out. You're not going
to feed it. Not going to worry about anybody
coming to picking up, casting it out for dead. And that's us
is no ability. I can't. The baby can do nothing
for itself, but just cry and lay there until it dies. And
so in verse six, this is the Lord intervening and crossing
our path. And when I pass by thee, and
what I want you to notice here over the next few verses is how
many times I is used in what I is doing here. And this is the Lord working.
And when I passed by thee, I saw thee polluted in thine own blood.
I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live. Yea, I said
unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live. I have caused
thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased
and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments.
Thy breasts are fashioned, and thy hair is grown, whereas thou
wast naked and bare. Now, when I passed by thee, I
looked upon thee, and, behold, thy time was the time of love.
I spread my skirt over thee, and I covered thy nakedness.
Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, said
the Lord God. and that became as to mine. Then
I then washed I.D. with water. Yay. I truly washed
away the blood from me and I know it would be with oil. I float
the also with broidered work and shod be with badger skin
and I go to be about with fine linen and I covered the silk. I deck the also with ornaments
and I put bracelets on nine hands and a chain upon nine And I put
a jewel upon thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a
beautiful crown upon thy head. And thus thou wast decked with
silver and gold, and thy raiment was of fine linen, and of silk,
and brooded work. Thou didst eat fine flour, and
honey, and oil. And thou wast exceeding beautiful,
and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown went forth among
the heathen for thy beauty. And don't miss this, for it was
perfect through my kindliness, which I had put upon thee, said
the Lord God. And so if you look at this from
beginning to end, what did that baby have anything to do with
this? It lay there left for dead, worthless,
going to die, polluted in its own blood, hated. But yet the
Lord came and first thing he said, when I saw you, I loved
you. And so the second thing he did is that he covered thy
nakedness and he washed away the blood. That's the washing
away our sin, our sin debt. And then he talks about clothing
us with linen and putting a crown upon our head. This is the righteousness
of Christ. This is what he gives us. And
it was perfect through my comeliness. You know, we read it in the book
of Daniel where he talks about my comeliness when he saw the
Lord melted into corruption. But this comeliness is the comeliness
of the Lord put upon us. And so it was perfect through
his comeliness. And the renown went forth among the heathens,
thy beauty. And so when we see this, this
helpless, polluted, left for dead baby that was undesirable,
We can see how the Lord did it all. And we had nothing to do
with it. And that's fine. And that's the
story of every child of God. That he sought us, he loved us,
and he washed us. He adorned us with jewels and
fine linen. And he is our glory. And so that's
the second thing that he gives us. The third thing he gives
us, back to our text, Thou, Lord, art a shield for me, my glory,
and the lifter up of my head. And so this is what he's giving
us here is joy. So David, at this time, he had
much to be discouraged with. He was he and his wives and his
families had been cast out of the kingdom. He was fleeing,
running from his life, probably not knowing what way to turn
to next. And so he's appealing to the
Lord for help and for guidance. And I think what makes it even
more troublesome for David is it's at the hand of his own child. He loved Absalom. Absalom eventually was killed. Joab thrust a spear through his
heart, but it broke David's heart. And he was weeping and crying
for Absalom, the same one who was trying to kill him weeks
past earlier. So this troubled David. He didn't
just write Absalom off. But thou, O Lord, are the lifter
up of my head. And so the hymn came to my mind. When all around my soul gives
way, he is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand.
All other ground is sinking sand. What joy this gives us, the lifter
up of my head. Our circumstances may have us
cast down, but as Paul writes to us, we're not destroyed. And
we may be cast down at the time, but we're not going to be utterly
blotted out. And so what joy do I find? I find this in Christ. I find four things. I find first
faithfulness. We don't know anything really
about faithfulness, what we are in ourselves and interactions
with one another. But when the Lord says, I will
never leave thee nor forsake thee, that's faithfulness that
we can't understand, but we can only believe. Second thing that
the Lord gives us and joy that causes us to lift our heads up
is mercy. He says, return now backsliding
Israel and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you for I
am merciful and will not keep my anger forever. This is what
he is. He's merciful. The third thing
that he gives us is safety and protection. The Lord is thy keeper
and the shade upon thy right hand. And so when you think about
what a keeper is, a keeper you can think of is when Paul and
Silas are in jail, he's the keeper of the prison. And so he's the
guard that is charged with the lives of the men that are in
there and for keeping them there. And that's twofold. One is to
keep them from escaping. You know, I asked the Lord to
keep, you know, keep me Lord. I'd run away if the Lord didn't
didn't tether me to him. I mean, that's that's what we
are by nature. And secondly, it's to keep keep others from
coming in to get them. A lot of times we read about
in history, not so much today, but men would break into jails
and pull men out to kill them for what crimes they've done.
And so it's also to keep evil people that would seek to do
is evil away. And so that's if the Lord is thy keeper, then
woe unto the man that would seek evil upon you. And so, fourthly,
the fourth thing the Lord does for us in being the lifter up
of our heads is he gives us a sure foundation. He says, I'm the
Lord. I change not. Therefore, you
sons of Jacob are not consumed. And that is the fact that the
Lord does not change means. If he in eternity Chose me to
be one of his children. And set me aside as one of the
elect that can't be changed, no matter what I do, the Lord
will order things around me to make sure that that comes to
pass because he's God, it will. And so that's sure foundation
that the Lord gives us. Pick up in verse four, so I cried
unto the Lord with my voice and he heard me out of his holy hill.
So the Lord will bring the trial into the life of one of his children.
And it'll cause him to pray more, to read the scriptures more and
to seek his face more. And so that's what we see David
doing very often throughout his life. He's always been in some
kind of trouble. And so and this is what time, you know, when
we're weak fleshly and spiritually, we're made strong in Christ.
And that's what. What I believe David sees here is you see some
very powerful confidences in Christ here, what he's been listing
for us, how we're strengthening during a time of helplessness.
In Psalm six, verses six through nine, he says, I'm weary with
my groaning all the night. I make my bed to swim. I water
my couch with my tears and my eyes consume because of grief.
It waxes old because of my enemies. And then he gets strength in
seeing the Lord and through his spirit depart from me all you
workers of iniquity. For the Lord had heard the voice
of my weeping. The Lord had heard my supplication
and the Lord will receive my prayer. But all mine enemies
be ashamed and swore vexed and let them return and suddenly
be ashamed. And so this is you can see almost, you know, what
his thought process going through this. It's just he's down and,
you know, speaking of his woes. But then, you know, then the
Lord strengthens him. And, you know, what does he go
to his strength in the Lord? He can find them himself. But
that's where his true strength is. Verse five, back in our text. I laid me down and slept and
I wait for the Lord to sustain me. And this can mean, I believe,
two things. First, we can look at it in a
literal sense in that the only time, this is peace and protection,
the only time you can lay down is when there are no predators
about, nothing's going to get you, you're not going to lay
down because then you're vulnerable. And you're able to sleep when
you don't have cause for worry and cause for fear. And I feel
like that's something I lay there a lot at night and I know my
head's going and worrying about something, trying to work something
out. You can't sleep. But this man, he says he can lay down
and he can sleep and he awaked. He's got new mercies for the
next day. But I believe the primary meaning of this is it's an illustration
of the Lord's death, burial and resurrection. And so who was
the only man to ever lay down his life? That's the Lord. He's
the only one that has the power to do so. So he laid down his
life. No man takes it from him. And
slept here actually means death. And so it's where we read in
a lot of the Kings and Chronicles where it says that he slept with
they slept with their fathers. That means means he died and
went where his fathers were. And so that was his death upon
the cross. And then. Then I awaked, which
is for the resurrection. There's no more sin. So what
happens when there's no more sin? The only thing that's left
is righteousness once the sins paid for. And that's why the
Lord arose. So how real is this? And this this is a this illustration
was helpful to me at the time when I really didn't realize
it about. maybe about four or five months
ago, I made, I paid the last payment on one of my cars. And
so that was what a liberating experience I've been paying on
that stupid car for five years. And so finally you make that
last payment and I do it all online. So online, it'll show
the balance of my debt and then the payment that I make each
time. And so I made my last payment months ago and didn't think anything
about it. And just not even a few weeks ago, I was thinking, you
know, I didn't think to see if maybe there was some more interest
charged and maybe they're, you know, back charging me all these
things. There was $2 on it. I'm thinking in my mind, it's
not really paid off. So I'm going to log back in.
So I get on the computer and I log back in and then I'm expecting
to see the debt, the charges that I have, and then a zero
balance or some balance there. But when I logged in, it just
said no account. And so how real is this? This is what our record will
be in heaven. It's not when we stand before
the Lord, he's going to say, you know, I know that your sins
are paid for, but they existed. At one time, and you had this
debt here, even though it says zero balance, it says no account. So when he says their sins and
their iniquities, well, I remember no more. It means they're gone.
There is no more. And so that's how we have no
account in terms of our sin. In verse five, pick back up,
I laid me down for the Lord sustained me. So this is the picture also
of every believer in Christ, his life, his death and his resurrection
were mine, too. And so, how the Lord sustained
me, the Lord carried me through it all. I didn't do any of it,
but the Lord walked me through every bit of it. Because of this,
in verse six, I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that
have set themselves round about me. Arise, O Lord, save me, O
my God, for Thou hast smitten me, for Thou hast smitten all
mine enemies upon the cheekbone. Thou hast broken the teeth of
the ungodly. And so this breaking of the teeth,
a lot of the history I was reading on this, it said it was talking
about lions having no teeth in their mouth and how, you know,
that's what the Lord does is remove the element of danger.
And so that's kind of what that was referring to in that verse.
In verse eight, salvation belongeth unto the Lord, where you can
also read it as salvation is of the Lord. If salvation belongs
unto the Lord, he owns it. And that means that he can do
with it whatever he pleases. And so if he chooses me under
salvation, then it's his to give. He will save his people and thy
blessing, verse eight, is upon thy people. He paid the price
and he bought me back. And that's why I can be called
the redeemed. So how can I know if I'm one? Well, do I meet the
description to whom the promise is made? He will save his people,
so His people are the ones who are predestinated, chosen by
God. I can't know that. I can't know what was chosen
in eternity past. But what I can know is Christ
Jesus came into this world to save sinners. And if I'm a sinner
and I need saving, then Christ Jesus came in this world to save
sinners. So, yes, I'm a sinner. Well, then do I believe that
he's able to save me? Yes, I do. What do you mean?
It's my experience that is the baby of the baby that we read
about in Ezekiel 16 and him being able to perform this and where
I do nothing. I'm basically left for dead.
I've got no power to sustain my own life. I've got no power
to save myself. All I can lay there is be lay
there and eventually die. And so if that's my experience
where I do nothing, I can simply trust in him to do what he said
he'd do and believe in his word. So salvation belongeth unto the
Lord. And the things that the Lord
gives me in time of my trial are shield, my protection, honor,
and joy.