So I was reading this morning, I said to my wife on the way down, I need today, I need this message. And I don't know if there's somebody else in the church today that needs this message, but I need this message today. I need to be encouraged. by the Lord, I really do. And I think we all do, from time to time, and sometimes they're worse than others. I mean, I'm not going off the deep end or anything like that, but you know, some days you just need an encouraging word from the Lord. And I was reading over this psalm this morning as I was going through, making sure everything worked, 5.30 in the morning, everything was working. I don't know why at 10 o'clock it wasn't working. But anyway, I was reading through Psalm 34, where we're gonna be this morning. I was reading through this and I just said, thank you, Lord. This is an encouragement to me. We're actually gonna start in 2 Samuel, if we can, 2 Samuel chapter 20, 1 Samuel, sorry, chapter 21. This psalm was written by David and it is widely thought that the psalm was written after the events sometime after the events that took place in 1 Samuel chapter 21, and we'll start in verse 10. This is at the time when Saul, King Saul, was chasing David, chasing him to kill him. And so David is trying to get away from him. And he does something here in 1 Samuel 21.10 that you think, okay, why did he do this? And so we'll read down starting in verse 10 of 1 Samuel 21. It says, and David arose and fled that day for fear of Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath and the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands? Now, ten thousands, he's talking, he slayed these Philistines, and this is where he's going now. And verse 12, And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath. He must have been more afraid of Saul, though, because he's going to this king, Philistine king. So in verse 13, he changed his behavior before them and feigned himself mad in their hands and scrabbled on the doors of the gate and let his spittle fall down upon his beard. Then said Achish unto his servants, lo, you see the man is mad. Wherefore then have you brought him to me? Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence? Shall this fellow come unto my house? And in verse one of chapter 22, David therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave of Delim. And when the brethren all inside this house heard it, they went down to him. So this was David. He changed his behavior. He did something that really wasn't appropriate, wasn't right. And I don't know if we could blame him for what he did, but it really wasn't the right thing to do. And so he probably thought about this afterwards and said, well, I did something that probably didn't please the Lord. And I wonder how many of us have been there, that we have done something and then realized that probably didn't please the Lord. Sometimes we even knew it wasn't going to please the Lord before we did it. We did it anyway. And I know oftentimes, I shouldn't say oftentimes, I hope it's not oftentimes, but I know I've done things from time to time. I haven't reacted the right way. Particularly when difficulties come in your life. This was nothing here this morning. I think I reacted okay. But sometimes we have huge things come into our lives and we don't always react the right way. But you know what? We have a faithful God. We have a faithful God who still loves us and cares about us. And this is what David is talking about in Psalm 34, talking about this God that still loves us in spite of who we are. That is grace, isn't it? That is grace. And we just thank the Lord for that. And so I'm going to pray and then we'll look at Psalm 34 here. Father, thank you for this time this morning. Thanks that we can be here with these very nice people. God, they've been so good to us for so many years now. Just thank you for the partnership that we have with this church and the people in it. Pray that you'd meet the needs that are here. And pray this morning that you would speak to us through your word. Thank you, God, that you love us and care for us and meet our needs every day. So we pray that you would bless our time together now and pray in Jesus' name, amen. So in this psalm, he's talking about really the faithfulness of God and how we, as his children, God's children, we should be vocal about our praise of God. We should not be like hiding as Christians, but we should be praising God so people can see it. This is what the first part, especially of the song, talks about. And I was reading this morning on the news And it was just the headline that caught my attention of this, I don't know who he was, a politician, representative, I forget now. He was in Florida, probably a state representative or something in Florida. He fell off a ladder not long ago. He fell and a tree branch hit, I don't know if he was trimming a tree, I don't know what the whole story was. He fell, he was in the hospital for a number of days, and he was just released from the hospital. And the headline was, he was praising God. He was praising God for taking care of him. And that's what we should do. And we've seen that lately with sports things, how that one man actually died on the football field, and they brought him back. And everybody, everybody, even unbelieving people, everybody was talking about praying for this man. And it's interesting, there was, I don't know if you're familiar with this man, he used to be a coach, Tony Dungy, he's a real prominent Christian man, and he said something lately about sin. particular sin and he was criticized for that and it's interesting that like a week before that they're calling on everybody to pray for this man and then another Christian man talks about sin and how this is wrong and they want his job. They don't want anything to do with him. I was a little bit disappointed this morning I saw that he apologized for that. Not that he shouldn't apologize, not the apology itself, but they forced him to almost take back what he said. I didn't read the whole story, so I might be misrepresenting what he said. But, you know, we live in a world where people don't like God, and they don't like Christians, and they don't like us talking about God, until they have a need. Then they'll come to you and say, please pray for me. I mean, that is so hypocritical, isn't it? Inconsistent, whatever the word is. But anyway, we need to be talking about God. Verse one, Psalm 34, I will bless the Lord at all times. All times his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. We should be shouting praises to God for what he's done in our lives. We should be pointing people to God. We should be blessing God for what he's done for us and we should be doing it continually at all times it says. That word all is gonna show up multiple times in the psalm. We need to be at all times praising God. Our praise to God should come out of our mouth regularly. It should be our response to things. Praise the Lord for this. Praise the Lord that my computer didn't work. But we should be. People should know that we are Christians. They should know it. We can't hide that fact. My wife was telling me. I don't know, a week or so ago, she went food shopping, and she likes to always give out this particular Bible tract to the cashier or whatever. And she gave it to this one lady, and my wife started walking out of the store because the next person was coming up. But the lady, in the meantime, took a look at it, realized what it was, and she yelled as my wife was walking out of the store. I don't want this. I don't want this. So what? That's the way I say it. So what? She needed it. Especially her, maybe. But we should be. We shouldn't let people intimidate us. I know I get fearful sometimes, giving out tracks. What is this person going to say? Most of the time, they don't say anything. Sometimes they even say thank you. You go to Mexico, you give out a tract in Mexico, they ask you for another one. Anyway, we need to be talking about God, praising God, identifying ourselves with God, and magnifying the Lord. Verse 3, O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. Shout out the name of God. Magnify the Lord. And this is David now. He realized he had done something that he shouldn't have done. And here he is saying, praise the Lord, you know, we should praise the Lord and magnify the Lord. And he says in verse 4, I sought the Lord and He heard me. And what? Delivered me from all my fears. I don't know. That's one reason I think why they associate this psalm with that event that we read about. But he sought the Lord. When did he seek the Lord? Probably when he was in the cave. I don't know. You know, I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears. All my fears. I said to my wife this morning, Be anxious for nothing. You know, I mean, that's what we got to be. Be anxious for nothing. Don't, you know, don't fret over things. But that's not our nature, right? That's our first response. It's like, what am I going to do now? What am I going to do now? I sought the Lord and he heard me. You know, we can never doubt the fact that God hears us when we call out to him. He heard me. David was confident that when he crawled out to God, God was going to hear him. And we can have that same confidence that we crawl out to God. He's going to hear us. Now, because we've been here a number of times, we count you as friends, so I'm going to tell you some things about me, but you cannot repeat that. Somebody already came up to me and said something personal. She knew something personal about me. I said, how did you know that? Well, your wife told me. We're going to have a talk on the way home. But a few weeks ago, our mission had a, they call it a retreat. It's kind of a training time and Bible study time and that. But the whole retreat, three days, was on prayer. That was the focus of it, prayer. And in my heart, I'm like, that's gonna be boring. Now, I told you, you can't repeat that. Just delete that. Anyway, but you know, I'm probably the only one that ever finds prayer, praying hard. But you know, I'm on three days. And it was wonderful. I mean, it was wonderful. It's just what I needed. God knew that. It was wonderful. My wife didn't go. She didn't need it. I needed it. So we come back from that, and every Tuesday morning we have a meeting, like a director's meeting, a mission. Most of the other men are in South Carolina, but I'm in New Hampshire, so I do it on Zoom. I join the meeting on Zoom. And so I got an email the day or two before saying, this Tuesday, the meeting is going to be extended from 9 to noon. And the whole time, guess what we're going to be doing? Praying. Praying. And my first reaction was, the whole time? And that was wonderful, too. You know, why do I have that reaction? Probably because it's hard for me. And a lot of it was, it had to do with our relationship with God, communion with God, time with God, getting to know God, and talking to God as He's standing there, telling Him what's going on in your life, and getting to know Him. The more we know God, the more we can say, I will bless the Lord at all times. The more we know about God, the closer our relationship is to God, we're going to react to things in the right way when they occur. And prayer is so necessary. I sought the Lord, verse 4, and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears. Verse 5, I looked unto Him and were lightened. and their faces were not ashamed. This is reminding me of Philippians chapter four, verses six and seven, be anxious for nothing. And it goes on. Verse six says, this poor man cried, probably talking about himself, this poor man cried and the Lord heard him. The Lord heard him. and saved him out of how many of his troubles? All his troubles. All his troubles. Again, God hears us when we cry out to him. That's the place we need to go first. Crying out to God. As Saul was chasing David, David's running away from Saul. He came up with this plan. to save himself. But that wasn't God's plan. He didn't go to God first. That's where we need to go first. A few years ago, a real difficult trial came in our life, all of a sudden. Like one day, everything's fine, the next day, bang. Huge difficulty, huge. And I was like angry. That's not the way you need to respond. You need to go to God. God, this is huge. You need to help me with this to react in the right way. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamped round about them. camps around about them, that fear them, and what? Delivers them. Delivers them. God is going to be with us, no matter what is going on in our life, no matter what the circumstance, no matter what the trial, God is going to be there with us. He doesn't always necessarily take the trial away, but he helps us in the midst of it. Right away I think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, these guys that were thrown into the fire. They were telling the king, God's gonna save us from this. They were probably thinking, he's not gonna let us go in this fire. But no, what happened? They threw him in the fire. But where was God? There, right in the midst, right there. In the midst of our troubles and trials and difficulties in our life, God is right there. He's in the midst of it. And he wants to deliver us from it. He wants to save us from it. Why does he even allow it? That's not very nice. Well, that's what we think. We think, God, you know, I got enough things to worry about. I don't need this. No, God says, you need this. You need this. Most of our trials, Maybe all, I don't know. I don't know God's mind. But most of our trials, because we need to learn something about ourselves and God, that God can deliver us out of any difficulty that we have. He can. And he will, if we go to him in faith. Oh, taste and see, the verse that many of you know. Oh, taste and see, verse 8. that the Lord is what? He's good. He's good. Romans 8, 28, all things work together for what? Good. Blessed is the man that trusts in Him. If we trust God, He's going to bless us. He's going to bless us. Blessed is the man that trusts in Him. Oh, fear the Lord, ye His saints, for there is no want or no lack to them that fear Him. We need to understand who God is, sovereign over our lives. And the things that he brings in our lives are things that are necessary. And so we need to respect what he's doing in our lives and understand that he is a a powerful, sovereign God, and He can change circumstances, and He can help us in this particular need. A lot of us have memorized Proverbs chapter 3, verse 5. We want to read a little bit further than that, though. Proverbs chapter 3, verse 5. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. You might have those verses memorized. Verse seven, be not wise in thy own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones. Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the firstfruits of all thy increase. So shall my barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine." God is going to take care of us. He's going to meet all of our needs. We just need to be trusting Him. We need to acknowledge Him. We need to have this relationship with Him where we have this healthy fear and respect of the Lord and understand His sovereignty over things. He wants us to come to the place where, you know, our lives are changing to be more in the image. His image. Sanctification, we call it. Big word. We need to be moving towards this state of perfect righteousness, which we'll never reach on this earth, but this is the way we've got to be moving in our lives. So we have this such strong relationship with God so that when things come about in our lives, we respond in the way that is appropriate. Verse 12, what man is he that desires life and loves many days that he may see good? We wanna live. A long life. We want things to be good. Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile. That's a hard one, isn't it? Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. You know, we can't do these things. We can't do these things in our own strength. We need the Lord to help us. Our nature is to lash out at people who do things that hurt us or harm us. That's our nature. It's my nature anyway. That's, you know, that's the way we respond, but that's not God's nature. That's not who God is. God says, what? Love your enemies. That's not easy. We can only do that As God changes us from the inside out, from the inside out, we need to be moving in that direction. Oftentimes we think we're okay. You're okay here. I'm justified in doing this. I have good reason to act this way. Well, no, if it's sinful, if it's not God's way, there's no justification for it. But our nature is different. Who wants to do this? Who wants to do this? Depart from evil, verse 14, and do good, seek peace, and pursue it. I love these next few verses. The eyes of the Lord are upon who? The righteous. The righteous. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous. I was reading in Genesis not long ago, well, actually a few months ago. I pointed this out to my wife. I'm trying to find where it was. Chapter six. What? 28. Anyway, if I don't find it in a minute, I'll... Okay, so in chapter six, Verse eight, that's what she was trying to tell me, I know. Chapter six, verse eight, Genesis. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. I would like that to say, Dr. Jack found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Wouldn't you like your name there? Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And you know what? At this particular time, he was the only one. He was the only one in the world that God said this about, or could say it about. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. I came to that verse just in my own reading, and immediately my mind said, why? Why did Noah find grace in the eyes of the Lord? Verse 9, these are the generations of Noah. Noah was what? A just man. and perfect in his generations, and what? Noah walked with God. Noah walked with God. That's why he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He was a just man. He was righteous, perfect in his generation. And he walked with God. I want to be Noah. I want to be Noah. I'm like so far from being Noah. I want to be Noah. I don't know if I'll ever make it. But that's where I want to go. That's where we all should want to go. There was another man that walked with God there in Genesis. Enoch walked with God. And what happened? God took him. They didn't have to go through all this stuff. God took them. I'm like, well, God, I just bought this house. I don't want you to take me. I just... No, but, you know, this relationship with the God, so intertwined. Our life should be so intertwined with God that we automatically act the right way when difficulties come into our lives. Automatically. We automatically now, we act the wrong way. Not all the time. Not all the time. That's why the Bible says, you know, be filled with the Spirit. And it's a daily thing. Be filled with the Spirit. Let the Spirit control you. It's an inside-out thing. We heard a message on that not too long ago. It's an inside-out. Life has to change first inside, then it comes out. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open unto their cry. The face of the Lord is against who? Them that do evil. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of what? All their troubles. We saw that up in verse what, six. Verse six, this poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. There's a huge contrast in these three verses. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open unto their cry. When we cry out to the Lord, he hears us. What if each one of us today in this room at the same time, at the same time we say, okay, I shouldn't tell you what time it is, but 11, you know, 1116, we all cry out to the Lord at the same time. You know what? He'll hear us as individuals. He'll hear us as individuals. How does he do that? He's God. He's God. God can do that. I can't do that. I mean, you know, if somebody's talking to me and somebody over here talking, I'm like, I can't, what did you say? I can't hear you. You know, those things, but God hears us. He's watching us. He's not watching us to see what we're doing bad. He's watching us to see how he needs to help us. He's not like a God that said, hey, you know, that's the way I am with my granddaughters. I'm watching them to see what they're doing wrong. God is watching us to see where we need help. He's not trying to punish us when things, difficult things come into our life. He's not. The face of the Lord though, is against them to do evil. Sometimes we say, but this person did this bad thing. I have a right to be angry. And God says, no, you don't. You don't. But he says, I do. I have a right. And I'm going to take care of it. He's the one. He's the one that's gonna take care of it, not me. But God, you know, I'm better at that than you are. No, I mean, God is watching us to help us. He's listening to us to help us. His face is on the evil. His whole face is on the evil. Verse 17, the righteous cry the Lord hears. and delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close or nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. This weekend, with our mission, we had this, well, this week, we had two families that lost loved ones. One man lost his wife. Another man lost his mother. And that man's sister lost her daughter. Verse 18, the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. You know, God cares about, He knows that those things are hard for us. And He wants to come close to us and deliver us, those that are of a contrary spirit. When our spirit is hurting because of these things, He wants to help us. He's close to us. We need to call out to Him. This 19, I struggle with this verse sometimes because it says, many. I wish that word wasn't there. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. Why does he say that? Why does he even allow that? Many are the afflictions of the righteous. But what does it say? But the Lord delivers him out of them all. I mean, he's not allowing these afflictions to come into our life to punish us and say, oh, I got you again, I got you again. No, he's not. He understands that this world is cursed and there are going to be many afflictions as a result of that in our lives, but he wants to deliver us from all of them. And again, He's not saying, you're not going to have any. But when you do, you come to Me and I'll help you. I'll help you. Out of them all. Out of them all. He keeps all His bones. Not one of them is broken. It's just such protection that He gives to us. God loves us. God loves us. I mean, we have this God that is our Father. And David starts this psalm saying, shout it out. Tell people about him. Tell people about God. Evil, verse 21, evil shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate. Again, God is going to punish those that deserve it, the evil. There are two places to go when we die, only two places to go when we die. Where do the righteous go? The righteous go to heaven to be with God. Where do the evil go? Well, nobody wants to say that where the evil go. I mean, the evil don't want to even entertain that idea that they're going to go to hell. There's two places. God is going to separate people. He knows what's going on. He knows the people that are aggravating you or doing evil things to you. He knows those people. And he is going to punish them. He's the one who's going to take care of that. The Lord redeems the soul of his servants, and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate. None. Who's gonna be desolate? The evil, the unrighteous, the unsaved. They're gonna go to hell. But if you have trusted in Jesus Christ as your Savior, understanding that He paid for your sins and you couldn't pay for your own sins, if you are that person, you are a child of God, He is not going to allow you to be desolate. He's going to take you to be with Him in heaven. Praise the Lord for that. I don't think we appreciate that. In the world that we live in, there's so much craziness in the world that we live in that we don't appreciate what the final outcome is going to be for us. If we appreciated that, we would be shouting it out. Shouting it out. It starts, though, from the inside, this relationship with the Lord. One of the messages that we heard at that retreat was on communion with God, talking to God, just spending time with God. That may include reading your Bible a lot. But just getting to know God, talking to Him, and establishing a relationship with Him So that the first thing that happens when you have a difficulty in your life is that you go to your friend, God. God, you already know this, but I need help here. You already know this, but I need your help right now. And what's he going to do? He's going to help. Because it says there, it says there somewhere, that the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their crying. He's listening for you and me to cry out to him. And he's gonna fix it. He's gonna fix it. Praise the Lord for that. Let's pray.