We so enjoyed having the fellowship this morning of our brother Reverend John Morrow from overseas, and he brought us a good challenge about being Andrews. And he related it to the fact that, well, sometimes we can be not in the first place, but in the second or maybe third place sometimes, and it does not really matter. where we are so long as we are used of God. What a great challenge and encouragement that is for all of us as we think about the need of being useful for God in His work. And sometimes we feel we're no use because we have not much talent, we don't know what to do, and we don't know how to do it. Well, it's a good thing then to pray, Lord, just open the door for me. The Apostle Paul said, a great door and effectual. That means a door that was opened by God. And the effectual use was that he was going to go through that door and God was going to use him. And that's exactly what we need to pray for, that the Lord will enable us to do the very same thing. I want you to turn tonight please to Psalm 143. Psalm 143. Well, this psalm is one that David prayed during a time of severe difficulty in his life. Now, as you read it, you certainly see David's heart here, but there is no doubt that in the relief just behind, you will see the Lord Jesus praying this prayer. But as we pray it, I want us to think tonight on this subject. A prayer from a soul in anguish. A prayer from a soul in anguish. And to see how the Lord will speak to our hearts tonight from this. Psalm 143. Hear my prayer, O Lord, Give ear to my supplications. In thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness answer me. And enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. For the enemy hath persecuted my soul, he has smitten my life down to the ground. He hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is desolate. I remember the days of old. I meditate on all thy works. I muse on the work of thy hands. I stretch forth my hands unto thee. My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land, Selah. Hear me speedily, O Lord, for my spirit faileth. Hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit. the pit of death. Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning, for in thee do I trust. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto thee. Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies. I flee unto thee to hide me. Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God. Thy Spirit is good. Lead me into the land of uprightness. Quicken me, O Lord, for Thy name's sake, for Thy righteousness' sake. Bring my soul out of trouble and, of Thy mercy, cut off mine enemies and destroy all them that afflict my soul. for I am thy servant." Please bow with me in prayer now. Father, in the closing moments now of our service tonight, we are thankful for this time we've spent already in the house of God today in this place of prayer. And dear Lord, ask that our hearts would not be sleepy, our minds would not be dull, they would not be distracted in the many issues of life. But Lord, I pray that we would come these moments, and the Spirit of God would open the Word to our souls. And Lord, please, open our soul to the Word. We need instruction. Lord, we need to be taught. We need so often to be guided and rebuked and directed. Lord, hear this, our prayer tonight, as we think upon this subject, what it means to be an anguish of heart, a soul that is distressed and distraught for any number of reasons. And Lord, I pray that Whatever we have to learn tonight from this, we would draw words of help, words of comfort, words of encouragement to the hands that hang down and the feeble knees. Lord, sometimes we feel we can't even stand up any longer. We can't go forward. We have nowhere to turn. Lord, come to our aid, we pray. Come to the aid of every single believer in this house tonight. Lord, bless us now, we pray, and may the glory of God shine forth. And Lord, hear us and answer our prayers. In Jesus' name we ask these things. Amen. Perhaps the one thing that is worse than someone saying to you, well, what's the matter? Why are you troubled? Or maybe they go to say, cheer up, it can't be that bad. Don't look so glum. Maybe they will say, you seem to have lost the joy of the Lord from your face, from your life, What's your problem? Is it perhaps because there is something going wrong in your heart that you need to put right? Some issue that's been taking place? But the only thing that's a bit worse than someone asking those questions, while it may be being asked by someone who is very close to you, someone that you feel maybe in your heart should know you better. They should not be asking those questions. You think that they should be perceiving a little bit more about your heart's condition because you feel like David when he said, I am so troubled that I cannot speak. So troubled that I cannot speak. Tonight, maybe your soul is spent Your mind is churning and you are grieved. Your heart is sunk because of the weight of the issues of life. And that weight upon your mind, why it seems to have squeezed all the joy out of you. Cry out to God. But what do you hear? You hear nothing from God. The Lord is silent unto you. What do you do now? Where do you turn now? What do you have left to do? It gets a bit worse because you try to read your Bible. You try to open the Scriptures and get some relief, some help, some way forward. But the Scriptures are really just like a closed book to you. And then maybe you have closed the book. Maybe you've set it aside. Maybe you haven't turned to it for a long time because the times in the past that you turned to it, there was no relief. There was no word, there was no help coming. And your soul is, well, really at the point of despair. You don't know what to do. The advice, well, it may come from some well-meaning folk. They might say, well, you must be very backslidden. And then perhaps the person begins to point out the problem areas of your life, and they might name them off. The problem with that is that only adds more grief to your problem because you know what the problems are. You know them all. Beyond that, you know a whole bunch more that they have not mentioned. This is a real issue and a problem that we have. So, where do you turn? Where do we go? Friend. We have to turn to the only place and to the only one who knows us and who knows us better than we know ourselves. And when your heart is in anguish and your soul is virtually drowning, turn to the Lord. And my friend, turn with the words of Psalm 143 upon your heart and pray as he starts in verse 1. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Lord, give ear. Lord, He is saying, listen to my supplications. Listen to my heart yearning and cry, because, Father, of Thy faithfulness unto me. Because, Lord, of Thy righteousness He is saying, Answer me." He goes on in verse 2, and he says, Lord, do not enter into judgment with Thy servant. And what he means by that, is simply, Lord, do not begin to mark my iniquities. For if the Lord was to mark my iniquities, well, I know them, they are more than the hairs of my head. They are multiplied over and over, and the devil reminds me often of that thing. And yes, yes, I know in my heart that Jesus Christ has died for my sins. And I know and have learned well that His justifying grace and His blood has washed away my sins and He has covered me. Ah, but how the enemy will come relentlessly. The devil will come to bring against me all of my sins in the past. And he will also bring all of my failures in the present, and all of the fruitlessness that I have added up. The enemy, he has persecuted my soul, David said, and he has smitten my life down to the ground. He has made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been long dead." So hear what he's saying. Friend, is there anything that you could imagine that would be darker than a coffin closed and buried six feet under the earth? Could you imagine of anything that signifies or that illustrates darkness that is cold and could be felt? A darkness that is so real that you have no light at all? And yet here in the soul of God's servant, here in the depth of His being, He is saying, Lord, if you withdraw yourself from me, I am like that person that has been cast down to the ground, and I am dwelling in darkness like as of those that have been long dead in the grave. And all that I have around me, I see His great distress and anxiety. I look around me in the community and I see more than enough to distress and discourage my soul. I look in the political realm. I look in the social realm. I look in the educational field. I see so many areas that are distressing. and murder, and pillage, and abuse, and alcoholism, and drug abuse, and you multiply these things and they come upon our minds one after another, and we try to encourage ourselves. And as David did in verses 5 and 6 of the psalm, he says, Lord, I remember the days of old. And so he is trying now to see and rejoice in the Lord, trying to see the evidence of the hand of God upon his life. He said, I remember the works of old. Lord, I know what you have done for me in the past. And I can see the faint markings of those things. They are there. He said, I meditate on all thy works. That's a good thing to do. It is a blessed thing for us to remember what God has done for us. It's a blessed thing for us to consider all the things He has done for us personally, done for these nations of ours that have, at this point in time, turned away from God, and yet the foundation of them built upon gospel truth, built upon the Word of God. He said, I muse. on the works of thy hands." He is meditating on all that God has done. He's now bringing a little bit closer to home, thinking more clearly about what the Lord has done for me. And then he says, I stretch forth my hands unto thee. The picture is here of this man on his face before God. and his hands are being extended forward, and he's crying out unto the Lord. He is setting up this prayer that he's going to ask unto the Lord now. And this urgent prayer of a soul that is in anguish The gist of it really begins from verse 7 and running down to the last verse of this psalm. And here is an urgent prayer he offers in the first place. I want to remind you of an urgent prayer to be heard from God. He says, Hear me speedily, O Lord. Why does he pray, hear me speedily, O Lord? What's the urgency? Well, the urgency, as we've already laid before you as carefully as we can in these opening verses, is the fact that his spirit, why, it is failing him. His heart has sunk down. He has been praying, but he's receiving no answer, no response. My soul feels very empty. He feels very dry, parched, lies in a dry and a thirsty land. And he is falling on his face before the Lord, and he does not sense the presence of God. In fact, what he does sense is that God's face has been turned against him, or at least turned away from him. He is sensing the weight of this And he says, if God does not respond to me, Lord, then I am just like a dead man. Is there anything worse than the silence of God to a believer? Is there anything worse than when you are in the time of your urgent need, and you're crying out to God, you hear nothing, and you wonder, Lord, what are you doing to me? What are you doing that I cannot seem to make any sense out of this? It seems that there's one dead end after another dead end, and life has given some very hard turns for you." He prays, Lord, I need my prayer to be heard. Do you feel like that tonight, believer? Maybe I'm not speaking to you tonight. Maybe you have been rejoicing in the Lord and you have been really going on with God. You've been proving the sufficiency of God's grace in your own personal life and you have been serving Him and going on. I don't despise that at all. I rejoice with you and other believers would also. But at this time in your life, believer, then you begin to pray for your brother or your sister, someone near to you, and you maybe do not know anything of what they're going through at this point in time. They need to hear a word from God. They are desperately longing to know the Lord coming near to them, and for some reasons, God has been in silence to them, it may well be. And this is something that we all must look at very carefully in our own hearts and lives. It may well be that there is disobedience and sin that is lurking there in the life. You must answer that question honestly before God and say, Lord, search my heart and show me the areas where I have grieved the Spirit of God, or the areas of my disobedience, the areas of my rebellion. Well, quite honestly, as we pray that prayer, the Lord brings those things right to the surface right away. And we need to get those put right. Because we really cannot go on with God, you cannot go forward with the Lord as long as there is that sin that's residing in the life. If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear me. And it really means the Lord will not respond to my praying. The Lord will remain silent unto us until we get that thing put right that must be put right. We know in our hearts what it is. And if there's some question and doubt about it, then all you need to do is ask the Lord, and He will bring it to our hearts. He will show us exactly what it is. It may well be that there is something that has to be put right, and why there has been the silence. But friend, that's not always the case. And it may well be that God has been silent for you and to you in your life because He is testing you and He is proving your faith. And He steps back a little bit because He wants us to pray on. He is testing our resilience in prayer. He is putting us through a time of hard trying because He wants to prove us on the other side of that trial to bring us through so that you, believer, so that I will be able to see the goodness of God and to realize that our life is one that walks by our faith and it's not by our sight. Yes, the Lord may well be putting you through the trial of your life just now. And why? that He may receive glory unto His name. At the end, that's the purpose that the Lord is working in us and through us. He is doing something, believer, that will yet bring forth the greater glory of Christ Jesus in us. And we pray through us so that our lives will reflect that glory and it will be seen in others. Maybe in others who are going to go through a similar trial. And so, he prays in verse 7, an urgent prayer to be heard. But secondly, notice he prays an urgent prayer to hear from God now. So it changes. In verse 7 it is, Lord hear me. And then in verse 8 it is, Lord cause me to hear. Oh, isn't that Isn't that the way it should be? That we are on the receiving end of the speaking voice of God from His Word. I need to hear that. Oh, we often cry in our desperation, Lord, hear me. I'm praying and praying, but I don't get an answer. But have you thought about praying the other way? Lord, maybe my ears are hard to receive the Word. Maybe I'm doing so much complaining or speaking out that I am not tuned to listen to the voice of God from His Word. I need to hear a word from the Savior. Cause me to hear, Lord. And He gives two reasons, and these two reasons are found in verse 8. He says that, In thee do I trust. Lord, I need to hear again about your love to me. I want to experience the details, loving kindnesses of the Lord, and I need to hear them in the morning. And the picture there is one who has labored and toiled and struggled all through the night. And it's been dark. And it seems like the dawn is never going to come. But he says, Lord, make me to hear of the things that I know, that I've heard in the past, but I have to have them renewed to me from the Scripture, the loving kindnesses of the Lord. The Lord is merciful to His people. His mercy is higher than the heavens. It is deeper than the sea. It is broader than our imagination. And His loving kindness to us, why He loves us with an everlasting love. And let us never forget that. Oh, we so often are frail in our doubting. And yet, the Lord would say to us, is there any good reason for you to doubt my loving kindness to you, friend, believer in your life? He says to us, child, think again of all that I have given you. Think of all that Christ, my only begotten Son, has done on your account. Renew and reconsider. all that we have and all that we are in Him, we need to hear that word from the Lord again tonight. Cause me, Lord, to hear of this thing. He says, Lord, cause me to know the way wherein I should walk For I lift up my soul unto thee." The soul, the very fact it has to be lifted up unto God means it's right at the very bottom. The soul's on the ground. The enemy has knocked it down to the ground. And he said, Lord, I come to lift up my heart unto my Lord again. And I need to hear from God. Maybe, believer, that's just your simple prayer tonight. Lord, cause me to hear. I need that Word, and I need it now, Lord, because it seems that things are falling quickly, and things are slipping out of my grip quickly. Lord, come to my aid now. He goes on to pray, and look at this thirdly. There is an urgent prayer for help and for direction, and that encompasses verse 9 unto verse 11. He says in verse 9, deliver me, O Lord, from my enemies. I flee unto thee, and I hide me. Deliver me from my enemies. What enemies? Well, we know that The greatest enemy that we have is Satan who comes to destroy our life, our testimony, our witness. He would knock everything out of us if he could. But we also realize that the enemy that we have abides in this very heart. It is the enemy of ourselves. And we will have to battle against ourself and battle against our own lusts, our own hearts, our own goals that we set in front of the will of God, our own way that we have so placed as a prominent thing in our life, and we are saying virtually, I want my way first, and if there's anything left over, well, Lord, you can have what's left. But now he's at the point of saying, no, Lord, I need help. and I need it urgently, and I am praying that God would deliver me from my enemies." We have many enemies against the Church of Christ that are cultural, that are political, that are educational. Those things are many, and we sum them all up We say, O God, make me strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, that I might hold firmly the shield of faith. Wherewith we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one, for he comes at us with great ferocity, and he comes at us relentlessly. He doesn't stop. But our God is able. He has given us the equipment, He has given us the wherewithal, we have the armor of God by faith that we must have on as we dare not entertain the idea of facing our enemy on our own. We will quickly be set down and put aside. Here is a prayer for help and for direction. He says, deliver me from my enemies, and then he goes on to say, Lord, teach me to do thy will. You now are watching the progression of this prayer. From the point of total despair, now he is coming to hold on to the Lord, to the horns of the altar by faith. He's saying, Lord, I need to hear this word from you. I need deliverance from my enemies. I need you to teach me to do thy will. And you know, the very fact that he prayed this prayer, we learn some things. We learn that the will of God is something that can be done. The will of God is something that can be done. If God was commanding us, requiring of us something that was impossible for us to do, why, it would be unreasonable and unfair. The very fact the psalmist is praying this is something for us to believe or to grasp hold of. The will of God in my life can be done. And in doing the will of God in our lives, there is no greater place for us to position ourselves in. For if we are in the will of God, then we know our lives are in His hands to mold us and to make us what we are to be for Him. We learn also that doing the will of God Well, it does not come naturally to us. No, it doesn't. Because the natural man is opposed to the will of God. We desire our own way. We don't want God's way. But when regeneration has occurred, when we have been saved by His grace, He's put us on a new course. That is true. But we know that our old flesh still resists and wars against the way of God. and His will in our life. It doesn't come naturally. And we will continually, from the day we're saved until the day when we die, we are going to be battling this issue of the will of God and submitting ourselves to it. And it's not just, friends, something that we do once in our life and say, well, I'm glad now that my life is given over to His will. This is going to be for us a battle daily, a battle for us that will never stop. And it's something that naturally we cannot do, so therefore we can only accomplish this by the indwelling power of God. That's what we need. And when we have God's Spirit and power abiding in us, we are able to do that which is against our natures, against our natural desires. And we can follow on and do that which is His will. We also learn from this little phrase that knowing the will of God and doing the will of God are two very different things. Because we as Christians, we can know the Scriptures, we can learn them from years ago and of studying, and we might say and even acknowledge, I know what God wants me to do. But I have not submitted myself to do that thing. And that's the difference. We may be knowledgeable in many things in our lives, but it's until we come to that point of total submission to His will and acknowledging that I will give myself over to the Spirit of God to direct me in every way It's a daily offering up of ourselves. It's as the Apostle Paul said, a daily of this, I am dying unto myself that I might live unto righteousness. And it's every morning. It's throughout the day, friend. We also learn that doing the will of God is the distinguishing mark of a Christian life. of a faithful Christian life. That's right. Because when you find a Christian, and we've all been there, we know what we're talking about here, when we are not doing God's will, when we are walking in some disobedience or not walking in complete harmony with the Lord, well, our testimonies will be hurting for that, and other people will be able to see it. We know it ourselves and be sure that others will know it because the distinguishing mark of a faithful Christian is that which is going on to do the will of the Lord. Therefore, it's a good prayer to pray, Lord, teach me to do Thy will. He also prays that God would quicken him. The word quicken means to make alive to stir up the spirit of the Lord which is within. And so when he prays, Lord, quicken me. Why? Because I feel very dead and cold. I feel so distant from you. Lord, quicken my soul. Revive my spirit. That's what I'm praying for. That believer is what we should be praying for every day. Lord, renew us. quicken us, stir us up, because we need to be revived. Yes. You notice the final verse of this psalm, and I say this in conclusion tonight. He prays, Lord, and of thy mercy cut off mine enemies and destroy all them that afflict my soul, for I am thy servant. He comes back to the enemies again. Now, He's already dealt with those. He's already spoken about those earlier on. Why come back to them? Because David knows that the enemies, they're going to be with us throughout every single day of our life. Friends, we are soldiers in a warfare. We are soldiers in a battle. And if we forget that fact, then we will lose out, we will miss the import of what David is saying here. Yes, the great enemy that comes against us and all those internal enemies that we have to deal with that must be put under the blood of Christ and under the power of God every day that we live. And don't think you're going to be released from this for a moment, because as soon as we think we have a little bit of a reprieve, well, look out. because that's when you're going to be hit very hard again. But as we know the maneuverings of our enemy, and as we realize that he is never resting, he is never at ease, he does not sleep, well, we face every day with this knowledge, that though the enemy is great, greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. And greater is Christ our Redeemer and our great Savior and King. Greater is He to equip us, to empower us, to enable us to be victorious Christians. This is not by anything that is of our strength, but it is everything. by the power of God who has promised to enable us to be overcomers. For we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. And if we have this truth, and we know that height, nor depth, nor angels, nor principalities, nor any powers that can be amassed by the devil in hell or unearthly powers. None of these things can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus and of His determined will in our life. Therefore, believers, it is through our Savior's risen power that we are to take this strength and know this deliverance. every single day of our lives. And David says at the very last phrase, I am thy servant. He says, Lord, ultimately the responsibility, and he places it back unto the Lord. I humble myself, Lord. I acknowledge I have no strength. I acknowledge that the enemy is too great for me. And Lord, I am your servant. And you must come to my aid. You must come to my help. Because if not, I am finished. I have no power against this great enemy. But in Christ, I am a victor. In Christ I know this, that safety is from the Lord. And that word in Proverbs is the word victory is of the Lord. And that's where I will rest. And that's where I will go forward in confidence. And that's where we will know, believers, if anything will be done in this fellowship, in this ministry, if anything will be going forward in His work, We will be by His power, His strength, but we need to be willing servants in the day of His power. And as each one of us are walking with Him, each one of us daily cultivating our fellowship with Christ and our walk with Him, and He stirs our spirits and we are in that fellowship with God, then we will Go forward from strength to strength. Satan will be defeated in our lives. We will know victory after victory. And we will go on rejoicing in so great a salvation that we have in Him. I want to close our service tonight by singing this hymn, number 312. Number 312. This one, the words will not be on the screen, likely, because we didn't, I didn't tell Jonathan before about this, but nonetheless, you have your hymnal, number 312. Please, let's sing it prayerfully unto the Lord. O soul, are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see. There is light for a look at the Savior, and life more abundant and free. We'll stand pleased to sing. ♪ Be a drop of light in the darkness to see ♪ ♪ As light for a lover and a Savior ♪ ♪ And light for a family to be ♪ ♪ Turn your eyes toward Jesus ♪ ♪ The knowledge of Him remains ♪ ♪ O come, O come, Emmanuel, the Lord of hosts. ♪ ♪ And close to the world that is dying ♪ ♪ His perfect salvation to share ♪ ♪ Turn your eyes toward Jesus ♪ ♪ The Father is one and the Father is two ♪ Our Father, we come in the weakness of our own selves, but we pray in the strength of the living God. We come, Lord, not despairing tonight, but, O Lord, we come confidently depending. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. We shall run and not be weary. we shall walk and not faint. Lord, increase our strength where we are weak and help us to depend more and more upon Thee, our living God. So, Lord, bless us tonight as we go downstairs for a time of fellowship, receive our thanks for the food that has been provided. Separate us in Thy fear. With Thy mighty blessing, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.