Psalm 55. Psalm 55. I titled this psalm, or this message, Cast Thy Burden Upon the Lord. Look in verse 22. This is what David ends this psalm with. He ends it with this statement, "'Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.'" He will keep you. That's what he's saying. He will keep you. You will have all the temporal blessings that you need, and you know you already have all the spiritual blessings that you need. They were given to you in Christ before the world began. But throughout this Psalm, this is what David is doing. He tells us to do what we will see that he had done. Cast your burden, whatever it is, upon the Lord. Now I know that David wrote most of the Psalms as he was moved by the Spirit of God to write them, and in writing them, He spoke of Christ, or it might be better to say it like this, the Spirit of Christ was speaking through Him, and speaking through Him to us. Here in 2021, He's still speaking through His Word that David wrote down. Now here in this Psalm, David is under great stress. This is probably the most stressful time in his life, other than when he had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and then had Uriah killed, and then God broke him. Then he wrote Psalm 51. That was a very low point in his life as far as that goes. But here, David, and you'll see this, in the first part of this psalm, he's pretty much stressed out of his mind. I mean, he is stressed. But the Lord put him through that. I was looking at this song we just sang, that first line. Wean my heart. He's talking about my heart. Spirit of God, descend upon my heart, wean it from earth, through all its pulses move. Do you know what you're asking? Seriously, when I read that, I sang that, what I wanted to do was put Selah. Pause and think about what you just said. Pause and think about what you just sang. Wean my heart. Now God can do that. And this is what's going on with David. God is making the sweet psalmist of Israel. God is really making a leader and a king out of him. He's king, but he's going to make him that sweet psalmist of Israel who is the king of Israel. But it's going to be through real hardship. And I don't know of anything more difficult than what I just read to you. His son, his son plotting to take over the kingdom and he's going to kill David. Absalom is planning on killing David. He's not going to just say, Dad, you need to set aside, you know, your old, you know, your judgment. No, he planned on taking him out. And he did all of this treachery and all this deceit, and David didn't even know what was going on, as far as we know. I mean, all the men would come into town. He said, you all need to come to me. He stopped them from getting to David. You need to come to me. And then after some time went by, I read to you what happened. And that to me, that to me would be the most stressful thing to have to deal with is when you're a family, a son, a family member wants to take you out in order to take your place. I mean, that's just hard to deal with. But we'll see this here in just a little bit in the Lord Jesus Christ. Judas, who sat with him, followed him, The Lord called him friend. You know that when he came and he betrayed him? The Lord looked at him and said, friend? He called him friend. And this is reference, and we'll see here as we go along as we get on down in here, this is referencing that situation between the Lord Jesus Christ and Judas. Now also, this psalm here, it's another psalm with the mask on. That means it's another instructive psalm. Now, if the Lord's going to instruct us, we need to listen. We need to really, you've got to grab your mind, your attention, and listen. Now the first two verses here, David makes a fourfold petition to God in prayer due to the great stress that he's under. He says here, give ear to my prayer. That's his first petition. The whole purpose of prayer is to be heard. It's to be heard of God. It's to lay out everything that I have, my burden, whatever's troubling me, is to lay it out before Him. It's to be heard. You know, our Lord said this, I know that you always hear me. And no one prayed more and more fervently than the man, Jesus Christ. He continually, continually called upon God, His Father, to protect Him and to keep Him. He trusted God to keep Him, even though He's God. Yet as a man, he trusted God to keep Him, to watch after Him, watch over Him. Then the second thing he says here, he said, "...hide not thyself from me." David's close friend Ahithophel, which was his counselor, and Absalom, his son, turned their back on him. Turned their back on him. And David is saying this, Oh God, don't turn your back on me. Don't turn your back on me. You know, one of the things that I can say this from a little experience, that when you're really in a stressful situation and you lay your burden before the Lord, one of the things that seems to happen to the believer, it seems like, from my experience, your sins rise back up. And you know when you lay it down before the Lord that He can just turn away from you. You know He can just turn away from you. And David's saying, Lord, don't turn your back on me. Ahithophel's done it. Absalom has done it. And I can hear my Lord saying this in the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas has turned his back. His disciples are going to what? Everyone's going to scatter. Every last one of them scatter. Peter denies him. But he says, don't you do it. I don't care if everyone else does it. I don't want them to, but everyone else can do it. But Lord, don't you do it. Because that's the end of it. That would be the end of me if he does that. And then he says here thirdly, attend to my prayer, attend to my request, my supplication. In other words, give special attention to it. This is fervent prayer right here. The fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. He's asking God to give special attention to it and to give immediate attention to it. He's asking him to give immediate attention to it. And fourthly, he's asking God to answer. After all that he has prayed, he says, answer my prayer. Lord, answer my prayer. Prayer is to be answered. What else are you praying for? In prayer we do this. We praise God and we pray for things that we need. We pray for one another. And we expect prayer to be answered, but we expect it to be answered according to His will, not my will, but Thine be done. And David was so restless over this. Look, he says there in verse 2, "...attend unto me," that is, attend to my prayer and hear me, "...I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise." He was having a hard time finding words. He was so distraught. He was so distraught over Absalom turning on him and Ahithophel turning on him. He was so distraught, he could do nothing but mourn. And the meaning of this, I mourn in my complaint, he was so distressed in mind, it was like he couldn't get his thoughts together. He was wondering. He just couldn't get it together. I don't know if anybody here has ever been that stressed out or not, but I'm telling you what, that's stressed out when you can't even get your thoughts together. And you can't even put it into words, it's so stressed out. You can't put it into words. How fitting, I thought, how fitting this prayer is to our Lord in the garden. I want you to turn over to Mark chapter 14. I have to read this prayer to you so we can make the connection. in Mark chapter 14. Mark 14, let me look in verse 32. And they came to a place which was called Gethsemane. And he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here while I shall pray. And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed," I mean sore amazed and to be very heavy. And he saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death. I believe our Lord is saying here, I'm going to die right here if I don't get help. As a man, he felt the full weight of sin. He felt the full weight of betrayal. He felt everything he took away. He felt it. And he says here, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death. Tear ye here and watch. And he went forward a little, and look here, he fell on the ground. He didn't just get down on his knees. He fell. He totally lost physical strength and fell over on his face. That's how burdened he was, that's how distressed he was, that's how crushed he was as a man, as our substitute. He fell on the ground and he prayed that if it were possible The hour. The hour. Remember He said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Thy Son that Thy Son may glorify Thee. The hour has come. And He's saying here, if it's possible, the hour might pass away from Him. If it's possible for us to be saved any other way, let this hour pass. Well, it didn't pass because it's not possible for us to be saved any other way. And he said, if it's possible, let this hour pass. And he said, Abba Father, he's crying now. David, go back over that psalm, he says, I cried loud. It's hard to say how far away you could have heard him crying loud. And he said, Abba Father, all things are possible unto thee. All things. Take away this cup from me. Take this cup from me. This cup of wrath. This cup of the fury of God. Take it away from me. If it's possible. He said, all things are possible to you. You know what he's saying? You can. You can take this away. But notice what he says here, nevertheless. not what I will, but what thou wilt." Isn't that what David said over in Samuel? He said, if it's the Lord's will for me to come back, fine. If not, that's fine too. He said, whatever the Lord's will is in it. And he cometh and he findeth them sleeping. That's us most of the time. And he saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? "'cause not thou watch one hour. "'Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. "'The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.' "'And again he went away and prayed "'and spake the same words. "'And when he returned, he found them asleep again, "'for their eyes were heavy. "'Neither wished they what to answer him. "'And he cometh the third time. "'He went back there three times "'and prayed the same thing.'" Same thing. And he cometh a third time and saith unto them, Sleep on now, take your rest, it's enough, the hour is come. Behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners." And then you can go on and read the rest of the story. Well, this prayer is so fitting to our Lord that David prays here. And David here in It's fitting to our Lord, and it's fitting to David, this is something he really experienced, and it's fitting to us, because we'll come into times, there'll be times when we'll go to the Scriptures and we'll say, I can identify with him there. But David here, he is so distracted by this stress that he can't even mentally think and keep it together. Satan is a master of distraction. He is an absolute master of distraction. He'll have you looking over here when he's actually working over there. He's a master at it. The greatest weapon of Satan also is not only distraction, but it's the tongue. You see here in verse 3, because of the voice, that is the noise of the enemy, Many voices, many voices, because of the oppression of the wicked, for they cast iniquity upon me." What did they say about Christ? They said He's a blasphemer. He's a blasphemer. You can only imagine what Absalom was saying about his father David. They said He's a blasphemer. They said He's a wine-bibber. And he felt their hatred. He said, they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. You know, someone can hate me, and I can feel a little bit of it, or I may experience some of the outward fury of it, but the Lord Jesus Christ felt the hatred. He felt the depth of what hatred is. I've never felt that. I've never felt the depth of being hated. He felt that. He said, in wrath, they hated me. And then here in verses 4 and 5, we see David is in soul agony as our Lord was. I just read it to you. Soul trouble is the hardest trouble to deal with. It's harder to deal with than any physical trouble you've got. I tell you what, if God keeps your spirit up, you can handle anything physically. You can put up with it. But boy, when the soul is cast down. How many times did David say, My soul, why art thou cast down? Why are you cast down, O my soul? That's the hard thing to deal with. Soul trouble is hard to deal with. And he says here, My heart, My heart, it's sore pain within me. You can only imagine the pain of heart that he had from the rebellion of his son Absalom. I tell you what, we're all a bunch of Absaloms. I thought of that today. I sang about Judas, but I thought, well, wait a minute. If he hadn't saved me, I'd still be in rebellion. I'd still be... in hatred of God. My heart is sore pain within me, and the terrors... Now listen, the terrors of death are falling upon me. Our Lord, we saw this, our Lord felt this in the garden. I don't know if you've ever had a real terror, if you've ever felt that. I was telling to Tommy, we were talking about here the other night, But I think I told you, but when I was in my early 40s, I woke up about three o'clock in the morning. I thought I was having a hard time. I mean, it was hurting. I thought my chest was gonna split. And I just kept holding it, and I kept thinking it was gonna give up, and I laid there for about four hours. And then I finally got up about, I don't know, six, seven o'clock, and I told Vic, I said, I gotta go to the hospital. But during that time, when it hit me and I woke up, I can remember vividly the terror that just hit me, that I was about to die. I was going to die and leave her with the boys in high school, and then I was going to die, I was going to meet God, and I got to thinking, am I ready to meet God? I mean, it really hit me hard. So, he says here, the terror of death, terrors of death, Not just one, not just the fact of dying, but there's you... I'll tell you why. Job said, when I consider Him, I'm afraid. I'm afraid. I brought a message. I don't know if I brought it here or not. I brought it to Todd. Have you ever been afraid of God? He holds your life, my life, in His hands. And I'm telling you this, if you meet Him and you're not in Christ, you don't love Christ, you don't believe on Christ, there's no words for that terror. There are just no words for it. And David here, God allowed him to experience something of the terrors of death. He sent him because he says, they have fallen like it came down from heaven. They've fallen upon me. And I tell you this, what pains the child of God excites the enemies. Spurgeon said this, Spurgeon said, Think of our Lord in the garden, with his soul exceeding sorrowful even unto death, and you have a parallel to the griefs of the psalmist. He said, if you think of Christ in the garden, then you can have a parallel to David's grief. Here, David is wallowing on the ground like a worm that's been stepped on. What did our Lord do when I read to you Mark 14? He fell on the ground. He fell on the ground. That's what David is wallowing like a worm stepped on. You know, sometimes God lets us feel the fear of death and the horror of the wicked to remind us this is what He has saved us from. This is what He saved us from. Now, when you're going to die, I believe God gave you dying grace. But sometimes in between that, He lets you experience a little bit of the fear of death, and the terrors of it, and meeting God. Then it just makes Christ that much more precious to you. Oh, how I need Him in that hour. It causes us to run to the Lord Jesus Christ. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me." Well, I read it to you there in Gethsemane. He felt the full measure of horror. He felt the full measure of what it is to deal with an angry God. He felt it. He said, the fearfulness and trembling have come upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me. I know people who have anxiety attacks. I've had a couple of men whom I know, and they told me that this fear and dread just takes them over. I've never had that. I've never experienced that. But they were telling me that this one man that I worked with, he told me, he said he was in his 60s. He had already retired. He was working a second job there. And he told me, he said, he said, one day I went running out of my house, out in the front yard. I was screaming, waving my hands. My wife thought I lost my mind. And he said I was wallowing on the ground. And he said, I went to the doctor and he said he had a panic attack. He said, I was so much fear. He said, I never had such fear. He said, just drain over me. He said, it just took me over. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me. David just, I mean, he can't even sit still. He can't sit still. Because in the first part of this chapter, he's talking about, I'm wondering. I'm just, I can't get it together. Our Lord, our Lord was under such fear and trembling that He sweat great drops of blood. He sweat great drops of blood." Now, David expresses his desire to escape his present trouble, and he expresses it by taking the wings of a dove and fly far, far away. In verse 6, David said, and I said, when he had all this fear and trembling and fear of death, and all this stuff had just come up on him, He said, oh, that I had the wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest. And our Lord is saying, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Let me have rest. Job, Job said, I wish the day I was born was blotted out. I've never gone to that point. I don't know. I personally don't know anybody. Henry would be the closest that I know of that would come to that. But Job said, I wish that the day I was born was blotted out. It wasn't even on the calendar. It wasn't even on the calendar. The darkness just covered it. He said, why was I allowed to live? He was so stressed out. Well, I know this. We would fly away from all trouble if we could because God's people love peace. They love peace. You love peace. I love peace. Oh, I love it when it's peaceful. I hate friction. I hate being at each other. I hate it. I love peace, but listen. That wouldn't be good for us, would it? Aren't you glad that the father didn't relieve him of that and let him fly far away? Because you and I'd be in trouble. We'd be in trouble. We need trials, and we need heavy trials at times. Peter calls them if-need-be trials, if-need-be. Our Lord said, he that bear it does not take up his cross. He's not talking about going out here like some of these morons and getting a cross and putting it on their back and dragging it down the road so they can look like they're bearing a cross. No, we're talking about suffering. We're talking about suffering. Every believer has a cross to bear. And I thought about this, if you had the wings of a dove and you could fly far, far away, where would you go? You say anywhere but here. Well, I'll tell you this, wherever you go on this earth, you take trouble with you. It's going to be with you no matter where you go. You can't get away from trouble. You can't get away from troubles. Like that guy said, he had three wrecks at his house, and some guy said, well, if I were you, I'd move. You'll get it by the time you get home. Anyway, no matter where you go, trouble's going to be there. But here's the best thing to do. Take the wings of prayer and faith and fly up to the throne of grace and be at rest there. There's where you find rest. Moving to the next county ain't going to do it. Moving to the next state or moving to another country is not going to do it. The world hasn't changed since the fall, has it? Hasn't changed since the fall. fly up to the throne of grace and rest. There's no rest anywhere else but there." But there. He said, "...Lo, then would I wander far off and remain in the wilderness." Well, God said, you're the salt of the earth and the light of the world. What are you doing going to the wilderness? Now, that would be us if we could, wouldn't it? Wouldn't we just gather and get away from the world? Wouldn't we? We'll just let the world go on by." Well, you're the salt of the earth and light of the world, so that can't happen. It can't happen. God didn't make us to be solitary creatures. He lit the candle and then put you out there. You're the only light this world has. You really are. You're the only light. You think Washington's in bad shape? Let the church be taken out. Let the church be taken out. There wouldn't be no light at all left in this world. The fact that God has a people in this world, He still has light in this world, and there's still going to be some semblance of civility. Some of it. David said, lo then would I wonder, wonder far off and remain in the wilderness. Then he put seal of him. And he might've, when he said that, he might've thought, you know, I need to pause and think about what I just said. I need to pause and think about that. Just like when I was singing there, I had to pause and think. You know, instead of just singing, because we're singing, I was reading what we were singing. I read every line that we were singing, every word. He said, I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest. Yeah, I would do, but it doesn't work that way, David. It doesn't work that way. But our Lord was praying in the garden. He said, if it be possible, let this pass from me. Listen, there's nothing wrong with coming apart for a while, but we must get back in the battle. We have to get back in the battle. Now, David lashes out. He lashes out against his enemies. He says in verse 9... Well, first of all, I want you to point this out. In verses 9 and 11, we see what happens when authority leaves town. When authority leaves town, we're going to see what happens. But he says here, "...destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues." Confuse their tongues like he did at Babel. That's what he's saying. "...For I have seen violence and strife in the city." Remember, they left the city. And when he left, there was nothing but violence, he said, and strife. Day and night they go about it upon the walls thereof. Mischief also and sorrow are in the midst of the city. There's no rest for the wicked. They can't rest. Mischief is as sport to the wicked. Wickedness, in verse 11, is in the midst thereof. Deceit and guile depart not from her streets. And I had to put this in here. That's what you get when you defund the police. I just had to put that in there, but that's what you get. The king was ran out of town. He's the authority figure. He's the law. He got ran out of town and look what happened. A bunch of thugs took it over. And he said, there's nothing but violence. Man cannot. He cannot manage his self. You can't manage that old nature. That old nature is too strong. It dominates. The scriptures, as we've looked in Romans, it reigns as a king. It reigns as a king. And I tell you what, you take away all restraints, take away authority, and that's what you get. That's what you get right there. Day and night, they go out into the streets and the walls, upon the walls, and mischief and sorrows in the midst of the city, that's all it is. But the greatest pain for David was his son turned on him, his close friend Ahithophel turned on him. He says in verse 12, For it was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it, because he dealt with the Philistines and all them. Neither was it he that hated me, that did magnify himself against me, or I could go somewhere and hide from him. But it was thou, and you notice here, it's almost like he's speaking to him face to face, like the man is standing in front of him. It was thou, a man, my equal, my guide, my acquaintance. When Judas kissed our Lord on the face to betray him, he said, Friend, we had sweet counsel together. He says here, we took sweet counsel together. We walked to the house of God in company together. David did that with his son. He did it with Ahithophel. And they turned on him. Our Lord was betrayed by one of His disciples, one of the twelve. You say, well, He knew that. You know, He's God. He knows all that. I'm telling you, this shows the humanity. This shows the humanity of Jesus Christ. He felt the pain of that betrayal. I tell you, it's wow. When I look at my Lord, I just love your enemies. He doesn't tell us to do something he doesn't. It's just beyond me to explain. He said, we took sweet counsel together. We walked into the house of God in company. Well, I've seen that over the years. I've seen that happen. And I've seen some real close fellowship. People who've walked together for years won't even speak to each other no more. It's painful. And he says here, "...let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick in a hurry into hell." He's saying here, the sooner they do that, the sooner this wickedness, this wicked overthrows over with. Although he didn't want Absalom to die, he wanted Absalom to be reigned in, but God's going to kill him. Because he says later, Absalom, Absalom, would to God I had died for you. Let death seize... You say, well, boy, man, he's really... That doesn't sound like something a believer ought to say. Well, I'm going to say this. I don't know how to... Really, I've been trying to figure out how to handle that verse. You know, we pray. I pray that God saves sinners. I pray for all men. But there's some men God ain't gonna save. There's some men that the Lord didn't pray for. He said, I prayed enough for the world, didn't He? Well, if He's not praying for their salvation, what's the opposite? I think, here in verse 15, let death seize upon them, let them go down quick into hell. I can see here the wrath of the Lamb. Don't think He's just this mealy-mouthed, soft. No, this is the wrath of the Lamb. If He prays and intercedes for you, for salvation, you're going to be saved. But I tell you, if it's the opposite, you're going to hell. That to me, that verse is like, whoa, I mean, that's a powerful verse. There's no neutral ground. There's no neutral ground. That's another thing I see here. He said, let death seize upon them. I know a lot of the people I read was trying to really, you know, saying, well, David was a warrior and this was the warrior part of him coming out. No, our Lord is, He's a mighty captain. He's a captain of host. He's the Lord of hosts. Here's the character and experience, though, of the righteous. But he said, as for me, I will call upon God and the Lord will save me. When times of trouble come, he said, I'm going to call upon God and the Lord will save me. And listen here how often he calls. In verse 17, "...evening, and morning, and at noon will I pray." Our Lord prayed all the time. He was praying all the time. But David here, David says, I'm going to call upon Him in the evening, in the morning, and at noon. In other words, I am going to live in a constant attitude of prayer. You know, there is such a thing of being in an attitude of prayer. You can't always just stop what you're doing. If you're working somewhere, you can't do it, but you can live in an attitude of prayer. And he says here, "...and he hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle." He's done it every time. David's looking back. And our Lord, He looked over His life on this earth. He knew that He was delivered by His heavenly Father. How many times did he walk through the midst of them and they was trying to kill him? They wanted to kill him and they'd walk right through the midst of him. It's like, can't they see? There he goes. But they couldn't, they just couldn't, they couldn't do anything. They couldn't do anything. Because God delivered him. He has delivered me. He has delivered my soul. He's getting right to the root of the matter. In peace. He's done it in peace. from the battle that was against me." Brethren, can we say that? God has delivered us in peace. Christ, our peace. He's delivered us in peace from the battle that was against us. The battle's not yours, it's the Lord's. And He's delivered us. You're delivered. You're delivered. And listen, for there were many with me... You know what I think he's talking about there? Because we read that, there's 600 men with him. David right now rises up and he's speaking here, and our Lord can say this, the whole host of heaven, the whole host of heaven is with me. There's more with me than with them. You can find that over in 2 Kings 6, 17, when Elijah asked the Lord to open that young man's eyes, and that whole hill was full of chariots of fire. Those same ones are with us tonight. They're with us. And he says here, And there's something here that's interesting. He says in verse 19, God shall hear. God's not deaf. God shall hear and afflict them. He hears the counsel of the ungodly. There may be somebody out there plotting against you. You don't know it. You can't hear them. You're not telepathic. Isn't that what that is? Telepathic. But God hears every word. Every word spoken against you out there somewhere, God hears it. He says, God shall hear and afflict them, even he that abides of old. God will do this. Now think about this. He said, God will take care of them, and because they have no changes. Therefore they fear not God. When judgment doesn't happen immediately, they're emboldened in their sins. Men who know no change, men and women who know no change are lost. If God saves you, they're going to be a great change. They're going to be a great change. But those who know no change, they're lost. And he says here, and I know what he's doing. He's reflecting back to his counsel he had with Ahithophel and his son Absalom. He said, you know, I made a vow to the Lord, and I'm going to go play my vow. He wasn't having anything to do with the Lord. He's just going to go get what he did, this conspiracy. He says, He, that is, and I'm going to read this out of another translation. He, my companion, has put out his hands against those who were at peace with him. He has broken his covenant of friendship and loyalty. He's not a friend. He played like it. He played like it. His words, listen, the words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. Oh, but dad, he just put his arm around David and just said, hey dad, how you doing today? You know, I made a vow to the Lord and I need to go do that. I need to go pay that vow. He said, David, well, go ahead. War was in his heart. War was in it. Judas, all those times with the Lord, all those times he sat there, war was in his heart. Aren't you glad that God Almighty has ended the war that's in your heart, that was in there, that enmity that we're born with? God ended that war, or it'd still be there. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords. I said, that sounds just like Washington, D.C. today. It sounds just like it. war in the art. But he says here, to sum it up, cast thy burden upon the Lord. At the end of all that he said, at the end of the day, you know, all the frustration you've gone through today, and the problems you've dealt with today, and everything that's come your way today, here's what you do tonight before you go to bed. Every one of you. Every one of us. Cast thy burden upon the Lord, whatever it is, however small you may think it is. It's not small. There's no small burden. Cast thy burden upon the Lord. He shall sustain thee. He'll keep you. He'll strengthen you. You feel like you're never going to make it? There'll be times God will try you to feel like you're not going to make it. He'll sustain you. Because here, this is a promise, "...cast thy burden upon the Lord, he shall sustain thee." That is a promise. That's a promise of God. "...he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved." Now I put this in the Bulletin. I'm going to read it to you. Charles Spurgeon. "...cast thy burden upon the Lord, he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved." Thy burden, or what thy God lays upon thee, lay thou it upon the Lord. His wisdom cast it on thee, it is thy wisdom to cast it on Him. He cast thy lot for thee, cast thy lot on Him. He gives thee thy portion of suffering, accept it with cheerful resignation, and then take it back to Him by thine assured confidence. He shall sustain thee." That's the assured confidence. Thy bread shall be given thee, thy water shall be sure, abundant nourishment shall fit thee to bear all thy labors and trials. As thy days He has promised, as thy days so shall thy strength be. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved, He may move like the boughs of a tree in the tempest, but he shall never be moved like a tree torn up by the roots. He stands firm who stands in God. Many would destroy the saints, but God has not suffered it and never will. Like pillars, the godly stand immovable to the glory of the great architect." I can't say anything better than that. That's good. He will sustain thee. But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction. Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days, but I will trust in thee." Everybody you look at and all the trouble you see, remember this, everyone is short-term. Everyone. Every dictator, they're all short-term. God is long-term. God is eternal.