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He said, feeling, because our feelings are up and down, we're to walk by faith. Heard an old preacher one time, he said, sometimes, he said, it's better felt than tell, amen? And his English was not exactly right, but I know exactly what he was talking about. And I'm glad every now and then, listen, every now and then, God does put a little feeling in this thing. You say, well, preacher, I don't ever feel nothing. Well, don't mess it up for the rest of us, amen? I'm enjoying this trip a little bit. I'm telling you, it's important how our countenance is. You study the Bible, the countenance is the wind of the soul. When God spoke to Cain and Cain had sinned against God, he said, why has your countenance fallen? Why hath our countenance fallen? And I fear one of the reasons why we don't see as many people saved in these days as we used to is we go around with a long face, we go around with a heavy countenance because we're not walking with the Lord, we're not enjoying the things of God. And I know there's hard times. I know some of you tonight are going through some hard times, but my, we ought to have some joy in our heart, a smile on our face, but just because we're saved, if nothing else was going right in our life, just the fact that we're saved And we don't have to go to hell and heaven's gonna be our home. That ought to excite us, amen. I'm telling you, things are different than they used to be. Used to, years ago, God's people were more excited. I remember it. I've been in it long enough now. I remember when I first got saved, there's some folks that didn't mind a bit worshiping the Lord. And I fear that's where we're missing it in this hour. And while we've got a younger generation, they're leaving fundamental churches And they're going to these churches that are modernistic and new age. And I realize they shouldn't do that. I know that's not right. But listen, they're tired of the dead mess. They're tired of people sitting around saying they love God and acting like God forgive us our mother-in-law moved in. That's the truth. God help us. And I've got a good mother-in-law, so I can say that. But we'll have some joy in our heart, amen? You say, preacher, I don't feel like it. Well, just get in your Bible or think about when you got saved. I know an older preacher in the county tonight, and he said, I'll shout on credit. He said, I don't have to have something going on good. So the Lord is good tonight. And I'm not minimizing anybody's troubles. We've all got troubles, but the Lord is good. And when you worship the Lord and you praise the Lord, you testify about the Lord, it'll help you. It'll strengthen you. If you mope on the problems you're having and all the time looking down, Anybody ever walked around looking down? Little kids do that all the time. They'll walk around, my kids, they'll walk around a lot of times when they were little looking at their feet. You're gonna run into something. I mean, something bad's gonna happen. Look up and look out and smile and know the heavens are home and one of these days we're gonna be there with the Lord. I didn't mean to discourage you. I hope that encouraged you tonight. Let's go to Psalm 102. We're going to look at a psalm tonight. that we started a couple weeks ago, and we're going to look at a very discouraging portion of that psalm tonight, and I hate we have to do that. I don't make apologies for the Word of God, but we're going to deal with the discouraging part of this psalm tonight, but it's not going to end there. Next week, Lord willing, we're going to move on into the next portion where God turns this thing around in the life of the psalmist. But to get the good out of it, we have to understand just how low this psalmist was. If you remember a couple of weeks ago, we started looking at this in light of the fault in verse number 2 of being in the day of trouble. And we're all going to have days of trouble. We're going to have times of turmoil. and heartache and discouragement in our life, and reading about it in the Bible, knowing how others handled it, knowing how God intervened on behalf of others is going to help us when we get in our time of trouble. So, if you're able tonight, let's stand together. Psalm 102, verse number 6. We'll read down to verse number 11. Here the psalmist said in verse 6, I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I am like an owl of the desert. I watch and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop. Mine enemies reproach me all the day, and they that are mad against me are sworn against me. For I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping, because of thine indignation and thy wrath, for thou hast lifted me up and cast me down. My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass. Verse 12 said, but thou, O Lord, shall endure forever and thy remembrance unto all generations. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you again for the privilege of being in your house on this Wednesday night. Thank you for the songs of praise and the joyful songs we've heard tonight in the choir singing and the specials. Thank you, Lord, for a season of prayer with the people of God in the prayer room. We don't want to take that for granted, Lord, that we can gather together and pray together. and bear one another's burdens. Lord, it sure is a joy being saved tonight. Sure is a joy being a Christian. Lord, I'm glad that what we have in you far outweighs the troubles and the trials of this life. Lord, I realize there's some tonight that we've even been praying for today, going through some dark valleys and great troubles. Lord, I'm glad it's not always that way. I'm glad there's some honey in the rock. I'm glad there's joy for the journey. Lord, help us when we get in those times to enjoy it and experience it and praise your name because of your goodness. Lord, have your way in the service tonight. Bless the message, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for standing. Now, a couple weeks ago as we started in this psalm, we began and looking at the thought of the psalmist, dealing with your day of trouble. In verse number 2, the psalmist, whom we're really not sure who he is, but we know this is the inspired, infallible word of God. The psalmist said, hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble. So he lets us know there is a day in his life, which is described in Psalm 102, that troubles have descended on him. We understand this is not just one day. It would be great tonight if our days of trouble were just one day all the time, but many times it's more than just one day. Sometimes it's many days, and it's weeks, and sometimes even longer than that. We saw in verse three, he talked about plural, days are consumed like smoke. So he's going through a period of discouragement and no doubt even depression that's happening in his life. And that happens in the life of of God's people just as much as it does the world. So you find some discerning here the day of trouble. That's what we looked at. Now tonight I want to pick up in verse 6 and really he's going to go to the bottom of his situation here between verses 6 and 11 and to get to where we're going next week and the week after we're going to have to really look at what happens here and where he's at. And he describes that in verses 6-11. And here tonight I want to look at the desolation of the day of trouble. If you look up the word desolation, one of the synonyms to the word desolation is simply to be alone. And quite often when you're in times of trouble, one of the greatest tools of the enemy is to come by and whisper and say, you're alone. You're the only one going through this. Now, he's a liar and the father of it, but we think that sometimes. Thank you. We think that we're alone and we have a little pity party sometimes. We get in our mind that nobody else is facing what we're facing. Nobody's been through what I've been through. We've all been there and probably gonna be there again before it's over, but tonight we're going to look at this desolation that the psalmist describes in these verses and see just to the point of where he got to. And some of this that we deal with tonight, it may be familiar to you. You may be in a situation like the psalmist was in here in Psalm 102, but tonight we're going to deal with a discouraging part, but hang on, it does get better. That's why I read verse number 12. Verse number 12 is where it changes. We find that he's going to come out of this. In verse 12 he said, Beginning in verse 12, which is what we're going to deal with next week, Lord willing, he begins to look up. Things begin to change and God begins to move into his situation. But before he gets there, he's got to go through verses 6 through 11. So let's examine these tonight. Look at about four things of desolation that may come in our day of trouble. First of all, as we mentioned the word desolation, we see the loneliness. Verses 6 and 7, the psalmist uses three different birds to describe his loneliness. I love how the scripture uses animals for picture references and descriptions about things that are going on in the life of human beings. And our Lord, many times, would use an animal as a description. And this is what the psalmist says here in verse number 6. First of all, we find the distance of his loneliness. He said in verse 6, I am like a pelican of the wilderness. Now, if you look up a pelican, and there's a lot of things we could say on this tonight, and I'm not going to get into all of it. We could run a whole bunch of rabbits and talk about different things about every one of these birds. But it seems like to me the similarity here of him using these three birds is the loneliness of the situation he's in. And when you think about a pelican, most of the time the pelican is always around water. If you've ever been to the beach, you've seen the pelican and they like the lakes and the beaches and the places where they can get around water because they are, by and large, fishers. That's how they eat. They're made with that big beak and they're made with the big net under their beak where they can scoop up fish. That's their main diet. So here is a pelican, the psalmist said, he's like a pelican, he said, of the wilderness. And the wilderness in Bible lands in the Middle East is a very vast, uninhabited place, a very dangerous place. So he's talking here about his distance from where he ought to be. He feels like he's far, far, far away, kind of like a pelican would. if it's out in the wilderness and should be somewhere by seashore. Many times when you and I go through trouble and trials and discouragement in our life, you're gonna feel like you're a million miles away from God. Sometimes you'll come to church, even faithful, three times a week, and you'll feel like you're a million miles away from church. There's something about discouragement and disparity that makes us feel like we're far removed from where we once were. When you think about the life of Job, and Job was sitting in the ashes, alone and his children had passed away and many of his servants were gone. Much of his wealth was gone. His wife seemingly was not real close. She did speak to him at one time, but most of the time we find through the book of Job, Job is in the ash pile of remembrance alone. He feels very disconnected and very far away from where he ought to be. When you think about the pelicans from what I've read, they are social birds. Matter of fact, all these birds for the most part that he mentions here are social birds. They're used to having a companion around. And the psalmist here feels as if he's totally alone. Nobody's around. Nobody cares about him. That's one of the One of the tools or tricks that the devil uses to get us even deeper in despair and our discouragement. So he mentions the distance of loneliness as he shows us the pelican. Secondly, he mentions the dryness of loneliness. And you may see some different things with these animals. I'm just giving you what the Lord has given me in looking at these. But in verse number 6 he goes on to say, I am like an owl of the desert. And again, the desert and the wilderness are very similar. But when you think about a desert, it's a very dry place. I've been in a desert several times when I was in the military and I don't like a desert. It's a dry place. There's not much there. It's a strange looking place. Some deserts you're in, you feel like you're on another planet. Everything looks different and shadows are not the same at night. And I can remember one time being in the high desert there in Southern California and it being 20 degrees at night and being about 80 in the middle of the day. There's big temperature swings and everything's just weird in the desert. Matter of fact, that's one of the first places I went when I deployed was to a desert and leaving the mountains of western North Carolina and the green lush vegetation that we have. Went out to a place where there were mountains, real high mountains, but no trees. And I thought we'd landed on the moon somewhere. It was just a discouraging place. There's something about looking, if you've ever traveled much at all and been away from home any length of time, boy, you start getting back toward the mountains and you start seeing the mountains. If you're coming in on 40 from the west coming east and you'll see the state line and the mountains and all that, that we live on this side of, boy, it's an encouraging thing. But the psalmist here, he said, I'm like an owl in the desert. He said, it's dry where I'm at. And so it is many times in our discouragement. In our discouragement, many times we read our Bible out of duty, which is good, and we ought to do that, but it's dry to us. It doesn't seem to have the same meaning. as it does in days when we're encouraged and have joy in our heart. Many times when you're discouraged, you'll come to the house of God, and everything's still running just like it was before. Preaching's still the same, singing's still the same, folks are still the same, but you'll feel a dryness down in your soul. Be careful when you're in those days and in those times that you don't blame everybody else for your dryness. I've seen that happen before. I've seen people that themselves were in a desert place, and then they wanted to get upset with everybody else and say everybody else had changed, which really, it wasn't everybody else's fault. They were in the desert place. So be careful about that. Any way that Satan can divide us in the family of God and from the Word of God and from our prayer life, he'll do it every time. So he mentions a dryness here. And often when you're lonely, in troubles and trials, you feel like God is not moving in your life, you feel like God is not answering your prayers, you feel like you're just never going to be able to get where you need to be. So he mentions that again, that dryness. Then notice thirdly, as we're looking at loneliness tonight, I see the discouragement of loneliness is mentioned here in verse number 7. Now, in verse 7, he goes to a little bit different bird. I thought something was interesting about this, and I really don't know if it even ties in with the message tonight, but I will mention this to you. In verse 6, the pelican and the owl fall under the classification of the unclean birds in the Word of God. They were not fit for sacrifice. They were not fit for consumption. They were not to be used for anything. They were unclean. When you study Leviticus and Deuteronomy, you'll see that list of unclean birds. But you get to verse number 7, and now he's going to refer to a sparrow. And a sparrow was different. It was a clean bird. It could be used for sacrifice and things. So here, he mentions the sparrow, but yet still looking from a lens of being lonely. He said, I watch and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop. So here he references to himself as being a sparrow, like a sparrow, sitting up on the rooftop, lonely. If you know anything about sparrows, they're very social creatures. They're all the time in flocks together. They're all the time congregating together. You very seldom just see one sparrow. You usually see multitudes of them. But he said, I'm like a sparrow sitting on the rooftop alone. He said, I'm watching. I'm looking off. I'm seeing everybody else enjoy life. I'm seeing everybody else go down to the house of God and have a good time. I'm seeing everybody else laughing and enjoying the things of life, but here I am just in a desolate place, a dry place, a discouraging place. So he's discouraged, no doubt. If you think about the sparrow tonight, the sparrow is known for having a joyful song. It's a songbird. I mean, no matter how cold the weather is, no matter how hot the weather is, those songbirds, when they're out and about, if they're around and they've not migrated, they're going to sing. They're going to have a song unto the Lord. Many times we don't have a song under the Lord, but those birds always are singing to their creator. So here he's like the sparrow alone on the rooftop, not having a song. The sparrow represents joy in the word of God. He's saying, my joy is gone. My joy is depleted. I'm discouraged. I just can't seem to find anything to have joy about. Sometimes that's where we wind up when we're in days of trouble and we get discouraged and we feel alone. You remember David, when David ran from Absalom, I think that was probably one of the darkest days in King David's life. You can imagine, there's one thing when Saul was after him. Saul was another king, but Saul was not David's family. It was another thing when David had to deal with some of the other issues of his life, but when his own son committed treason against him. when his own son ran him out of the kingdom and David runs out and he goes up the hill and he goes away from Jerusalem and he's just weeping. The Bible said he goes up the Mount of Olives, he's barefoot, he's weeping, he's broken hearted and he goes on a little bit. One gives David counsel and says, lodge not in the wilderness this night. There's a great message there. When you get lonely, When you get in a wilderness like this psalmist was talking about, you don't want to get comfortable there. You don't want to stay there. Don't lodge in the wilderness. Don't hang out in the lonely shadows. Get out as quick as you can. Because if you stay there very long, some mischief is going to befall you. You're gonna get so discouraged you may not get up and get out of it. Many of you have heard preaching on the eagle, and I've heard several men preach on the eagle, and most of them that have studied and know about the eagle, they'll talk about a time in an eagle's life which is called a moping period, and that eagle will get down in the valley and lose all of its feathers, and it can't fly, and it can't get its own provision, and the only hope the eagle has is for other eagles that have been there. to come by and drop it some meat so that it can sustain itself, get its strength back. They'll grow a calcium deposit on their beak where they can't eat and they have to. Boy, there's a great message. I'm not preaching on the eagle tonight, but I'd kind of like to. They have to get that eagle with that calcium deposit, he has to get to the rock. Amen, you'll get that in a little while. He has to get to the rock and beat his beak upon the rock and break that calcium off so he can eat again. And many times, that's what happens in the life of a Christian. We get in that moping period. We get in that woe is me. We get in that gloom and despair and everything's coming into our life. And it's real what we're facing. Whatever it is, it's real. But we gotta be careful not to stay there. And thank God the psalmist is not going to stay there. But in verses six and seven, He describes the loneliness of the day of trouble that he's in. And secondly, to make matters worse, when we get to verse number eight, and isn't this the way it is? I don't know about you, but it's happened like this in my life. I don't just think about one bad thing in my life. Now you might do that, and if you do, Praise God. Pray for the rest of us. Because I think most of you are probably like me. I don't just think about one bad thing. When I start going down that pathway of thinking about something bad in my life, I'll go from one bad thing to another bad thing and another bad thing and another bad thing. And the next thing I know, it's like, man, this is uncontrollable. I can't handle this. I don't know about you, I don't know if it's just my age, but I'm of age now, sometimes if I wake up real early in the morning, like three or four o'clock, I don't normally do that by choice, but if I wake up for some reason, I have a hard time going back to sleep, used to it, didn't matter, but I have a hard time going back to sleep, and a lot of times my mind will start rolling, and I'll start thinking about this, and then that, and that, and then after a while, it's like, man, I'm so discouraged, I wanna crawl under the bed and not ever get up. You may not have those times, but again, if you don't, pray for me, because sometimes I do. It's not often, but sometimes I do have those times. So here now, this thing's getting worse in the mind of the psalmist, in his heart. He goes from loneliness to now dwelling on a situation of loathing in his life. It's not he that is loathing something, it's others that are loathing him, hating him. Look at verse number eight. When we get to verse number eight, I see the adversaries are mentioned here. He said, now my enemies reproach me all the day. Again, here's the tie of the thought of Psalm 102, the day of trouble. And now he's not only talking about his position of loneliness, but now he's saying, hey, not only am I alone, but the people that are far off, a lot of them hate me. They don't like me. They don't care about me. Here's his enemies and his adversaries. Again, in verse number eight, mine enemies reproach me. The word reproach means to blame, to ridicule, to criticize. When you're lonely and you're discouraged, the last thing you want is somebody to criticize you. The last thing you want is somebody to kick you on farther down. in the discouragement you're in, but that's where the psalmist is at. His mind goes from his loneliness and being like one of these birds that's alone and in trouble, now his mind goes to the enemy, the adversary, and how they hate him. I think about 2 Timothy 3, verse 12, the Bible reminds us, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. If you live for God, you're going to have adversaries. If you're here tonight and you say, oh, I got some people that don't like me, join the crowd, amen? Just tell them to get in line, take a number. You're going to have people that don't like you. And we shouldn't go about trying to make adversaries, I don't agree with that. But if you're going to try to live by this Bible and stand on the truth and not go the flow of the world's going, You can't help it in this day. You're gonna bump into some people. You're gonna have adversaries. They're gonna be people that don't like you, that despise you, they don't like the direction your family's going. There's gonna be some of you tonight, I've been in this community long enough, and it's this way, with a Bible-believing church in any community, there's gonna be some people you run into, and they find out where you go to church, they're not gonna like you because you go to church. Here, I've had people, I've had it back through the grapevine, very seldom have I ever had anybody tell me face to face, I don't quite understand that. I mean, if I had something bad to say, I think I'd just go say it face to face. But through the grapevine, I've heard many times that, hey, believe this, Little Ivy, that preacher's this, this one's this, that one's that. Listen, it's going to happen. Don't let that knock you out of the fight. Don't let that get you so discouraged in your day of trouble. You're going to have adversaries. I'm going to have adversaries. It's going to happen if we live for God. So he dwells on the adversaries. He moves on in this thought of loathing. In verse 8 he dwells on their actions. Not just the fact that he has adversaries, but now he describes to us the very actions of the adversaries. Mine enemies reproach me. all the day, and they that are mad against me are sworn against me. So he reminds us of their actions of bringing reproach again, blame, criticism, fault finding. He also reminds us here of their madness, their anger, their hatred toward him. In Luke chapter six, verse 22, Jesus said this, Blessed are ye when men shall hate you and when they shall separate you from their company and shall reproach you and cast your name as evil for the son of man's sake. It's going to happen sometime. There are going to be times when people don't like you and that fact that they don't like you is going to come out in their anger towards you. Your lifestyle makes them mad. Your walking with Christ makes them mad. The Bible you carry makes them mad. If you don't believe me, you just go out tomorrow in public, wherever you go, whether it's work or whether you go shopping or whatever you're doing tomorrow, I dare you to do this. Take your Bible, not some little bitty one, take your Bible, your regular Bible, and tuck it up under your arm and you get out and start walking around among humanity, especially if your Bible has on the front of it, Holy Bible. You're gonna get some strange looks. You're gonna have some people look at you like you've got the plague. They're gonna look over here like this and they're gonna shake their head. Somebody might say, hey, this is not a place for that. That belongs in the church somewhere. Belongs here, belongs there. Just where you stand sometimes is going to develop an anger in the life of people. So it is. I heard a preacher say this years ago. Best thing that we could do as God's people is divorce ourself from public opinion. Stop worrying about what everybody thinks about you. Most of the time we worry about what people think about us and we don't even like them, if truth be known. I mean, I'm just being honest. Y'all tore up. What will so-and-so think about me? You don't even like so-and-so. I mean, you don't care none about them. Who cares what they think? Just serve the Lord. And again, I'm not talking about trying to make enemies. You don't have to do that. If you live for God, you will automatically have some people that just don't like you. And it's gonna come out in their actions. You're gonna invite somebody to church, they're gonna get mad at you. Hey, that's the way it goes. It's part of it. You're gonna try to help somebody with the scripture, they're gonna say something hateful to you. Listen, it's just part of it. So his loathing is really pulling him down in this desolation time of his day of trouble. Then not only does he talk about the adversaries and their actions and then their anger here, he goes on in the last part of verse number eight and he said this, not only are they mad against me, he said, and they that are mad against me are sworn against me. Now what's the psalmist talking about here? It's one thing to have somebody mad at you. We've all probably had people mad at us before, no doubt. If you're married, you've had somebody mad at you. Say amen right there. It's that spouse, amen. There's been a time or two she or he's been mad at you. I'll promise you that. I remember, I think it was my grandma, mama's mama one time said somebody told her a lady lived beside her or something. I guess her and my grandpa got in an argument, told her, said me and my husband never fight. And she said, yeah, you lie too, amen. There's no way two people are going to live under the same roof, two totally different people. Isn't that amazing how that works? Most spouses are polar opposite. It's amazing how that happens. Very seldom do you find a husband and wife that are exactly the same. Nature-wise, polar opposite. But you're not going to live on the same roof and not get mad at each other every now and then and have some words and have some anger that comes out. Well here now, the psalmist is talking about the anger, but it goes farther than that. Notice what he said in the last part of verse 8. He said, "...are sworn against me." Now what does this mean? Here's a good example. Acts chapter 23, verse 21. You remember when Paul was on the way to Rome to appeal to Caesar? And Paul's sister's son, if you read in Acts chapter 23, you can read the whole text about this. Paul's sister's son overheard a plot to kill Paul. So he runs to the chief captain after he goes to Paul. Paul says, get to the chief captain. He goes to the chief captain. This is what he said. He said, But do not thou yield unto them, for there lie in wait for him of them more than forty men, which have bound themselves with an oath that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed him. And now are they ready, looking for a promise from thee. So what is this boy saying to the chief captain? He's saying, there's more than forty men around the corner out there That they've sworn an oath that they're going to kill Paul. That he's not going to make it another day. They're going to take him out. That's where the psalmist was at. He said, they've sworn against me. It's one thing to have somebody mad at you. It's another thing when they're meeting in a back room somewhere and saying, how can we take this guy out? Or how can we take this lady out? That happens sometimes. It's happened to preachers before. It's happened to a lot of God's people before. Things have come out where people have come together. I remember my pastor saying years ago over in Yancey County, he was preaching a revival years ago and got a phone call, said, if you come back across such and such bridge, we're gonna be waiting with guns. And of course, if you knew him, it didn't bother him. He'd been through World War II. He didn't care. What was you gonna scare him with? And he went back and they weren't there, but yet they threatened him. I'm telling you that'll do something to your mind when you find out there's not just one person, but there's a crowd and they've made an oath they're going to get you or else. That's where the psalmist is at, man. There's people loathing him. Not only is he lonely, that's bad enough. Now he's thinking about, his mind's going down the thought of the loathing, the hatred toward him. And then notice where that brings us tonight to verse number 9. When we get to verse number nine, now he deals with the lamenting that's going on in his life. Now he is weeping. It's coming out of his eyes. It's not just a heaviness of heart. It's not just a bad day this guy's having. It's a day of trouble in his life. It's a sorrowful time. Look in verse number nine, notice his sorrow that's revealed to us here. He said, for I have eaten ashes like bread. Now when I think about this, I think about Job, because I mentioned to you earlier, Job, when he went to that ash pile, and that's where he got his help in chapter two. He got down to that ash pile, he found that potsherd, that potsherd's a type of Christ, and Job got in there and got some help, but yet the book goes on much longer after chapter two. And Job's in those ashes of those days of sacrifice. And when you think about ashes in the Bible, many times when one was brokenhearted and weeping and mourning, they would put on sackcloth and ashes upon their head. It was a sign of mourning. So here the psalmist talks about this in verse 9, I have eaten ashes like bread. He's not saying necessarily that he's just sitting there eating ashes by the handful, but he's saying, you know, I've not even been able to eat. I've just been in the midst of ashes. My lamenting, my mourning, my sackcloth and ashes has been heavy on me. He's talking about how this mourning is going on in his life and how that he's really lost his appetite. I'm telling you, you ever get real discouraged bad enough, it'll affect your appetite. You ever get low enough, and it happens to people every day in our nursing homes, a lot of times elderly people, they'll get discouraged, their spouse has gone on to be with the Lord, and sadly in these days, many times their children won't go see them. I'll save that for another message, but anyway, I won't get on that tonight. We got enough bad news to deal with here, but that burns me up. I'm gonna tell you something tonight. If your parents raised you and took care of you, you ought to do your best to take care of them, amen? And I know sometimes you can't understand their situations and stuff, but y'all do everything you can to take care. That honor of thy father and mother is not why you're living in their house. That's the rest of your life, amen? And that didn't cost you a dime, but it's the truth. I've seen Christian people mistreat their parents. Well, let me say that. I've seen so-called saved people mistreat their parents. I don't think they're very Christian. There's something wrong with that. And I know sometimes they have conditions that they have to go somewhere else, but you better be as good to them as you can. Somebody's gonna be taking care of you one of these days, buddy, and you reap what you sow. Hey, some people, what I've seen, they're headed for a world of hurt when they get old. But anyway, here's a psalmist and his sorrow is so bad, where I was going with that, I didn't mean to run that rabbit. Where I was going with that is sometimes people in the nursing homes, they get so discouraged because their family is gone and people don't visit them, that they quit eating. There's nothing wrong with them physically. Their body's fine. I mean, they could get up and do something, but they quit eating because they get so discouraged and they end up dying. So the psalmist, he's so low here, the sorrow has affected his appetite. And if you've ever been there, you know what that's like. That's a tough place. We see his sorrow in the lamenting. We see his sobbing in verse number 9. He said, I've eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping. What is he talking about? He's saying, when I try to nourish my body, there's tears falling in my cup. When I try to drink a glass of water just to keep me going, he said, I'm shedding tears. He's talking about this continual lamenting that's going on in his life. And there's been times that people have been through things that you wake up in the morning, you start weeping over it. You go through the day. I have heard more tragedy in the lives of God's people just in the past few weeks. I mean, good people, people that as far as I know, they're as right with God as anybody could be. I could tell you three preacher's families tonight that I know personally that's had great tragedy in their life just this past week. I mean, it seems like what an awful time to have at any time, but right now, right before Christmas, And they've been on my heart this past week. Three different preacher's families that I know and a couple of them, many of you know. I mentioned one in the prayer room tonight. His mother's got cancer and his daughter lost a baby. And I'm telling you, you just think about that and you think, my goodness, how much more can people take? That's where the psalmist was at. He was sobbing. In 2 Samuel 15, verse 30, I mentioned to you David earlier. This is where David was at as he was running away from Jerusalem and running from Absalom. And David went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet and wept as he went up. His head was covered. And he went barefoot. And all the people that was with him covered every man his head. And they went up weeping as they went up. You say, what's the big deal about that? Well, if you know anything about David, David was a man of war. I mean, listen, David was not a tender heart. David didn't care to cut your head off. He didn't think twice about it. There's one place in the scripture that talks about David didn't even care for the lame. I mean, he despised them. David was a hardened soldier. That's why God didn't let David build the temple, because he had shed blood. He was a hard man. I mean, he was a man that knew how to take care of business. But here he is, so broken over his day of trouble that he's weeping as he's running out of the city away from his own son. So some of God's choice people can get in these situations. You may be there tonight. You may be saying tonight, preacher, you're reading my mail. That's exactly where I'm at. Listen, don't let it drive you too far down because we've all been there before. And a better day is coming. Next week we're going to get into verse 12 and see the goodness. I wish we had time tonight. We'd have to call recess and take another hour or so to preach the next message. I won't do that to you. Everybody's got to work and go to school tomorrow. But it does get better, but we have to realize what's going on in this psalmist's life. Because when you see what somebody else is going through, it'll help you go through what you're going through. When you see that somebody else has went through something and came out the other side, it'll give you that strength and you that encouragement when you go through that trial. So his lamenting is going on in verse 9. Let me give you one more thing and I'll finish this thought tonight. Verses 10 and 11 is where I think he hits the bottom right here. I think this is the bottom of his day of trouble. We don't know how long this day is. Again, according to verse number 3, he said, For my days are consumed like smoke. We know this is more than just one day. If you only had verse 2, You might think it was just one day, but according to verse 3, and I think other places in these 28 verses, we find out it's more than just one day. We don't know the period of time. Again, I mentioned this to you a couple weeks ago, I think. Some writers and some biblical students think that this was a psalm speaking of the nation of Israel and how they were in their 70 years of captivity. It could have been. That definitely would have been days of trouble. I mean, some people went into that captivity and died there. Some, no doubt, were born during the 70 years of captivity and died there. So that would have been a whole lifetime of trouble. That might have been what they were talking about. I'm not really sure. But when you get to verse 10 and 11, you see the very bottom of this situation, and this is what we see as his loss, or maybe we'd even call it a perceived loss tonight. When you get into discouragement, your perception's all out of whack. I've been there, you've probably been there, if you've got any age on you. Some of you young people, many of you have been there, but some of you younger young people, maybe you don't understand what I'm talking about tonight. But you will. There'll be a day in your life where you get in a real discouraging situation. There'll be a death in your family. There'll be a trial. There'll be a sickness. There'll be a bad upsetting situation in your life. And you're really going to get discouraged and you're going to get down. And you're going to feel like everything's hopeless. You're gonna feel like everything's lost. I believe that's where the psalmist was at in verse 10 and 11. I believe he felt like, man, this is it. I ain't coming out of this one. I'm done here. Look at a couple things, and I'll give you and we'll be done tonight. In verse 10, he goes as far, and I'm not being critical tonight, because I don't know what I'd do, but in verse 10, he turns to an accusation. Look at what he said. Notice the wording here. He said, because of thine indignation and thy wrath, For thou hast lifted me up and cast me down. What's he doing in verse 10? He's getting upset with the Lord. He said, wait a minute preacher, you ain't supposed to get upset with the Lord. I know you're not supposed to, okay? There's a lot of things we do we ain't supposed to do. You ain't supposed to run 70 in a 55 either, but guilty. See, if it was just 70, it'd probably be all right, wouldn't it? No, there's a lot of things we find ourselves doing sometimes we're not supposed to do. And don't be too critical in verse number 10 of the psalmist, because you and I, no doubt, have probably been there before. We may not have said it, but we thought it. If somebody wrote it down, we'd have signed our name to it. That's where the psalmist is at. Verse 10, he said, because of thine indignation and thy wrath. Here's what the psalmist is saying tonight. He gets to such a depth of despair. In verse 10, he said, Lord, you've turned against me. He said, God, what have you done to me? Jeremiah did the very same thing. What did Jeremiah say? He said, Lord, you've deceived me. You've called me into the ministry. You sent me down here to preach to this crowd. I have no converts. They cast me, not just in a jail. You study that out. You know Jeremiah was in more than a jail, don't you? He was in the septic tank. That's where he was at. He was in the cesspool. Now, throw me in jail, I wouldn't like it. But you throw me in a cesspool somewhere, I'm really going to be down. I'm really going to be mad. Jeremiah said, Lord, you've deceived me. And then it wasn't too long, God stirred him up and helped him out of that situation. But we as God's people doing everything we're supposed to be doing, sometimes we can get so low into a place in our life where we feel like we ought to accuse the Lord. And I'm glad he's merciful tonight, aren't you? I'm glad that every time one of his children had to look to heaven and say, God, why are you doing this? Or what'd you do that for? I'm glad you don't send thunderbolts out of heaven, don't you? Aren't you? I'm glad. I wouldn't be here tonight if you did. There's been some times I've looked up and said, Lord, what are you doing, man? Why is this going on? I've looked to heaven before and said, Lord, I don't like what you're doing. I have. And I don't mean that disrespectful. There's been some times I've looked and said, Lord, I just don't like what's going on. That's where the psalmist was at. You might be there tonight, don't feel too bad about it, don't stay there, and don't let that cause you to perceive God as wrong, because He's never wrong. He never fails, He never does anything wrong, but sometimes we can feel that way, and that's where the psalmist was at. He's accusing the Lord of turning against Him, and we know that God didn't turn against Him, but this is how He's feeling in His day of trouble. So this accusation then shows His attitude in verse 11. You get to verse 11 now. Let me finish this part in verse 10. I missed this. I wanted to show this to you. He said to the Lord as he's accusing him, he said, for thou hast lifted me up and cast me down. What is he talking about here? When I read that, the first thing that popped in my mind is a yo-yo. You think about a yo-yo, it's up and down, up and down, up and down. Life is miserable when it's up and down, and up and down. And that's what the psalmist is saying. He's saying, one minute you bless me, Lord, and the next minute you cast me down. One minute you've lifted me up, you've been good to me, and now over here it looks like, Lord, you've just neglected me. And there's one thing, I don't like people playing games with me, okay? If you don't like me, tell me you don't like me, that's fine. But don't come up and be nice to me one day and mean to me the next. Friendly one minute and unfriendly the next. Just tell me how you are, I'll respect it. I may not agree with you, but I'll respect it. And he's almost saying here, I believe the psalmist is saying, Lord, you're treating me like a yo-yo. I don't even know if he knew what a yo-yo was. But it's like he's saying, Lord, you're treating me like a yo-yo. One minute you're good to me, one minute you're not. That's discouraging. That inconsistency that was perceived. God was not being inconsistent with him. I want you to understand that. God is at no fault. We know that. But in his perception, because of his day of trouble, he felt like the Lord was toying with him. He felt like the Lord was a puppet master just pulling on his strings. Just doing this and doing that and doing that. And sometimes you can get in a situation where you feel that way. Sometimes you can get in such a discouraging place in your life that you feel like God's just toying with you, just stringing you along. He's not, but it sure feels that way sometimes. It's not His fault, it's us and it's the flesh, but He talks about that. Then in verse 11, let's look at His attitude now. Here He goes to the bottom in verse 11. Two things I'll give you and I'll finish. Let's look at his attitude. Verse 11, he said, My days are like a shadow that declineth. What's he saying right here? He said, Lord, I'm going down. I'm not going to recover from this. It's like the latter part of the day is the shadow is declining and going away. A lot of people this time of year, they don't like this time of year. We're getting very close to the shortest day of the year. A lot of people, it discourages them, it depresses them. because of the less sunlight and the angle of the sun and all that kind of stuff. Listen, thank God you don't live in Alaska, amen? Thank God you don't live somewhere like that where it gets dark some days all day long. And that would really, a lot of mental problems and situations like that. I can get that, I can understand that. But here the psalmist is talking as if he's going down for the count. He's talking as if he's never going to come back up. He's saying, Lord, my days are like a shadow that declines. Lord, it's just misery, and it's awful, and it's just gloom, and I can't stand it. His attitude is an attitude of hopelessness, of despair. And then it leads us to the last part of verse 11, his anguish. Notice what he said. He said, and I am withered like grass. You ever look at grass, it's withered, and you say, man, there ain't no hope for that. It's done. It's over. It's dried up. It's withered. There's nothing good. We're just going to have to rip it up and plant it again. It's over with. That's how the psalmist felt. He said, Lord, I feel like I'm done. He said, I feel like it's hopeless. He comes to the end of verse 11, and I honestly believe from what you can see in reading this, the psalmist is at the very point of wishing he would die. You say, really? Do God's people get that way? Oh yeah, God's people get that way sometimes. Elijah, one of the greatest men of God you ever read about in your Bible, at the end of one chapter, he's calling down fire from heaven, and you get in the middle of the next chapter, he's crawled up under a juniper tree, a day's journey from civilization in the middle of nowhere, and he says, God, I'd really like it right now if you'd kill me and take me home. That's exactly how quick you and I can get into days of trouble. That's exactly how fast we can find ourselves in a situation just like the psalmist. Now I hate to stop here tonight, but that's where we're gonna have to stop for sake of time. But verse 12, to give you a little hope, verse 12, let me read it again. He said, but thou, O Lord, shall endure forever. thy remembrance unto all generations. Things are going to pick up now from verse 12 throughout the rest of the chapter and we'll begin to look at that again next week. But tonight I wanted to focus on these verses down through verse 11 to remind us tonight that there are times when great desolation comes in our life. There are days When you feel like you're not going to make it through that next day, you say, what do you do in situations like that? Well, you don't give up. You just keep pressing on. You say, when I feel desolate, should I still go to church? Yes, still go to church. It may hurt. It may hurt. There may be some days that you don't want to go to church. Get up and go anyway. There'll be some days you don't want to read your Bible. Read it anyway. There'll be some days you don't want to pray. Try your best to pray anyway. Try to get around some people of God. Just keep putting one foot in front of another spiritually and somehow and sometime you'll come out of that desolation. The psalmist did from verse 11 to verse 12, there's a turnaround. He's hit the bottom and now he's coming back up. And again, we'll get into that next week. But even though there's desolation, discouragement in our life, I'm thankful God doesn't leave us there. I'm glad He doesn't forsake us. I'm glad He doesn't turn His back on us. I'm glad His eye is on us. I think about that sparrow, and the Bible tells us His eye is on the sparrow. And if His eye is on the sparrow, and if He clothes the grass of the field and the tulips and all, if He does that for us, or for them, how much more does He love us tonight? How much more does He care about us? God cares about you. I don't know what you're going through tonight. I don't know where you're at. But one thing I do know, I do know the Lord knows where you're at. And I know He cares about you. And if you'll just trust Him, if you'll just keep walking by faith, you'll come out of that darkness. And you will come out stronger than when you went in. If you die in that darkness, if you quit in that darkness, you're not gonna get anything out of it. But if you'll stay true and just keep walking with God, you'll come out of those days of trouble and discouragement. You'll be stronger. You'll be able to help somebody else along the way. I appreciate the goodness of the Lord tonight. I hope this will help us. Let's stand. If you would, musicians.
The Desolation of the Day of Trouble
Identifiant du sermon | 121423033126105 |
Durée | 45:44 |
Date | |
Catégorie | Service en milieu de semaine |
Texte biblique | Psaume 102:6-11 |
Langue | anglais |
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