So when David is saying, Lord, show me your loving kindness in the morning, he's saying, Lord, show me your blessings. Show me what you bless. Tell me what you bless. That's where I want to line up on. I want to line up on that side. I want to line up with where your unwavering faithfulness is flowing in and flowing through. The word loving kindness or the word mercy, it has the idea of a covenant commitment of God to show His love to His people. That's why it's referred to as loving kindness, mercy, steadfast love, unfailing love, that God has a way that will not ever fail you. You could rest your entire life upon Him and His way. And David said, I need to hear that. I need to hear that from you in the morning. Because if I don't hear it from you in the morning, what am I in that day? I'm as good as a dead man. I can't bless people. Because I'm not a blessing if I can't bless people. And I can't bless people or be a blessing if your blessings aren't upon me. Your blessings can't be upon me if I don't know your blessings. So I need your, you follow how that, plays out in our journey as well. All right, anybody have anything you wanna pass on to us, give away to us? We just wrapped up with our time in the book of Psalms. We are entering into 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel. So for the next 24 days, we'll be in Samuel. Yeah, you still spending some time in it, huh? How many Psalms are there? 150. Now, we're going to see some of the occasions for these Psalms as you walk through 2 Samuel. And when you consider some of those, as well as the fact that often you would consider, well, December might be a little strange time to jump from a Psalm into Samuel or second Samuel. But man, everything in the word is about who? All pointing to Jesus, right? And we're gonna see some things as you read through Samuel of some prophetic promises of that son who's coming. So it runs right in step with, in tune with, to redeem the time, and that's the thing. We don't look at Christmas how our culture looks at Christmas, but we want to redeem the time, Doug. That's the thing. We take advantage of the opportunity. Scripture says we want to always be ready and utilize the seasons that we do find ourselves in to be able to take somebody from where they are to where he is and bring him to them, you know. So these things just are used to help solidify us and our understanding of God's promises and his unwavering faithfulness to fulfill those promises. But Brother Shannon, what you gleaned in the Psalms, you said you're still there. Well, I've shared with y'all before, I used to read five psalms every day for years because they're that rich and refreshing every time you walk through it. But where you at? 143. 143. 143. One of my favorites. I like verses six through eight, of course, that leads into verse number 10. But yes. For thou art my God. And that's a statement that we need to understand, that we need to do His will, but we need to be taught how to do His will. and that he is my God, and that spirit is good, lead me into the land of uprightness. I mean, that's a preaching sermon right there, you know? Yes, and we have found that here's a guy, as the scriptures would describe him, a man after God's own heart. That's the spirit of it. We've seen him say, Lord, unite my heart that I might fear you. That is, pull it all together that I could set my affection upon you, that I might give place to you, that I could hear from you, that you could show me, that you can teach me. And how many different times have we've seen David, because David's the author of this psalm, How many times have we've seen him ask that thing, teach me, teach me, teach me. And God had taught him and taught him and taught him, but he's still asking God to what? Teach me, teach me thy will, show me thy will, point it out to me. And that's the thing, the idea of this request of teaching is saying, bring me close and extend the arm and show me, point out, your hand, what you're doing, your work around me, because I want to see it. And you see, that's the idea of those that fear the Lord, is they don't want to take another step in their journey without hearing from God, without seeing Him do something. In our reading today in 2 Samuel 1, we're going to see, you will see, and this is what we want to ask for, is the difference between the supernatural man, the spiritual man, David, and a natural man, this Amalekite, who's operating just in a natural realm, a natural world with no spiritual heavenly mindset compared to one who has a heavenly mindset. You have two contrasted people in how they view in the circumstances, how they view in life, how they have viewed the past. Because you gotta consider, here's David, who lived probably no less than 15 years of his life on the run from a man whom he never saw as his enemy. All he did was avoid him. He just stayed away from him, stayed out ahead of him, so he couldn't take his life, but he would never lay his hand on him. Why? Because he was God's. And because he was God's in the way he looked at Saul, he didn't have anything bad to say about him. And even though he didn't have anything bad to say, he didn't over spiritualize Saul's life in the sense saying that Saul was the best thing since sliced bread. He knew though that Saul had done good things in a natural world. Saul wasn't an example to follow in a spiritual world, in a heavenly world, but he was a man that helped people out in a natural sense And that's what David highlighted, you know, when he gave that legacy about him. But man, he was fond of Jonathan. I mean, he was moved by Jonathan. He called Jonathan the beauty of Israel. He was the epitome of what Israel could be, that he was a perfect balance of a man who was bound in his loyalty unto his dad, but bound in his loyalty and love unto whom his dad saw as an enemy, that he could function in between the two and be in right relations with both at the same time. And he said, man, if people had that kind of gift, Boy, Israel would be magnificent if they could be like Jonathan. So you see, but on the other hand, you see this Amalekite who was contrasted there. He wasn't asking God to teach him his will. He was an opportunist who was going to take advantage of an opportunity in the natural world to get ahead of the game, to set himself up for something that would be advantageous for him. Everything was about him, where on the other hand, David didn't make everything about him. He was looking at how to bless everybody around him. And that's why, because here's the guy who's saying, Lord, teach me, teach me. Every day he was saying, teach me, teach me. Look in verse number 5. He said, it's Psalm 143, I remember the days of old, I meditate on all your works, which we've already established. That's how the blessed man lives his life. He thinks about day and night the ways of the Lord. As Psalm 111 reminds us, God's works are wonderful. and they're studied, they're sought, they're frequented by those that take pleasure in them. He says, I muse on the works of your hands, I ponder what you've done. And I mean, he lived his life this way, but it wasn't enough for him just to meditate upon it, though he couldn't walk in it if he didn't meditate upon it, he still had to have God's personal touch in teaching him. That's what we don't wanna miss. We can reflect on things and meditate upon things, but if we're not seeking the active work of God in my life today, right now, I'm just setting myself up for a failure because I'm dependent on something in the past and I can't depend on past victories for today's triumph. I have to be dependent upon God now, right now. right now as I walk with him. And that's what we want to help people with. That's what we need help in our daily lives with. I mean, when we think about this, is that you think about David. He was a man, as the scripture says, that sought after God as a way of life. Scripture says he was a man that did the will of God. New Testament tells us that. Scripture, not only did he do the will, but the scripture says he done all the will of God. He done all the will of God. Scripture says he served his generation well. And you know, his words are still transferring life today. Still transferring life today. That is extraordinary. 3,000 years later, His life and His words, when they touch you because He was touched by God, they transfer life. There's life in them. Now we want to then consider that with ourselves. that let's just say ten years down the road or two days down the road or five years from now or even a hundred years from now, the things we say today or the things we write today or the things we do today If they were to touch a life 100 years from now, would they transfer a life to them? That's where we say, you gotta teach me your will. Verse six, he said, I spread out my hands to you. My soul longs for you like a thirsty land. I long for you to do what you did with Moses at the Red Sea. I long for what you did with Abraham and speaking to him and granting him mercy. I long what you did with Enoch when Enoch walked with you for those 300 years. I long, see that's that musing upon the works of the Lord. He's saying, I'm thirsty for that. Even though here's a man that's walked with him, a man that's talked with him, a man that's done tremendous things already for the Lord, a man who stood before a giant and watched him fall like a sequoia and then take his head off and present him to the king. Here's somebody who is, as he would describe it, fought lions and bears at the gift of God, at God's help, who wanted the world to know that there is a God in Israel. He's saying, Lord, I'm thirsty. I'm thirsty for your presence. I'm thirsty for you as in a dry land that I need you to quench that thirst in me. Verse seven, and here's where this gets personal with us. Answer me quickly. The idea of speedily is to say, I need to hear from you soon. I need to hear from you. I need you. I need you to speak to me. I need to hear your voice. Amen. Oh Lord, my spirit, my spirit fails. You think, well, here's somebody, man, who's lived in the highest of highs of walking with God. The one who wrote Psalm 23 for us, you know, for the Lord is my Shepherd, and I shall not what? Won't. Here he is saying, my spirit fails. Why? I need to what? Hear fresh from you. He hadn't heard fresh. That's the thing. He knew what life was like with having a fresh word from God. And now the fresh word ain't came. And he needed it. He needed it. He needed it. Do not hide your face from me for fear. I always use, y'all know I always say for fear with the word lest. For fear, I be like those who what? Go down into the pit. What's that picture of? What's that illustration of? Death. Going down in the pit is dying. You put bodies in a pit that have died. And that's what he was saying, that if you don't speak to me, I will be like those who go down in the pit. I'll be useless to help people today. I need you. Verse eight, calls me to hear your loving kindness when? the morning, fresh in the morning, which would give us an idea that David's prayer is coming to him in the darkness of a night. I need you to do something in this night, in the morning. I need you to speak to me of your loving. I need to hear your blessings in the morning. The idea of God's loving kindness, we see this brought up a lot. It's the same word mercy is what it is. That's what he's saying. I need to hear your mercy. I don't know if you remember this or not, but this is something that we want to keep in mind. with this picture of hearing God's mercy in the morning and having God teach us and show us His way. When Joshua led the children of Israel into the promised land, God told Moses, when you get in the land, there's going to be a valley. And in that valley, I want you to stage the nation. I want you to put the whole nation of Israel in that valley. And I want you to separate a certain amount of tribes, and I want you to put them on a mountain called Gerizim. And I want you to put another one on the mountain called Ebo. And there's two mountains that sit here and you in the valley and you take every word that I've given you thus far. So we would say the Older Testament and the first five books of the law that he had. He said, when they get in there, you stand there and you read all five books of the law before the people. One mountain will represent my blessing. One mountain will represent my cursing. And that in this valley of decision, they will choose to decide what side they want to line up on. Now, they didn't have a choice between the tribes who would be on what side, but the whole point is, is that you choose, if you choose God's mercy, if you choose his mercy, His blessings are going to fall upon you. That is, you'll hear from Him. His way will be yours. His teaching is what you're choosing. You're choosing His way. When you do that, His blessings come with it. But if you choose your way, that is, you choose not to go His way, what comes with it will be a life that will identify with a curse. So when he says, show me your loving kindness, your mercy, that is saying God mercifully gave them His way. And when you choose His mercy, those blessings will be identifiable upon your journey. That is saying you recognize God's way is the blessed way. You meditate upon it. You choose it. You walk in it. And that's part of David asking God to show him His will. He needed Him to constantly teaching him that way. And on these mountains, as they represent, one of them meant the mountain of cutting. And the cutting was it had trees upon it. That the trees represented the blessing. That there was trees that could be cut and used. It was usable. where the other mountain was bare. There was nothing. It was just a stony old mountainous terrain where there was no life there. And one was full of trees and cuttings upon it. And that was the picture of remember in the garden that he said, I give you seed and every seed would be a fruit bearing seed and it would bear fruit of its kind and those things were good. Those things were good. But after the curse came, he says that it was gonna produce what? Thorns and thistles, things you couldn't consume and it was not a blessing upon, it was reminders of a fall. Well, that's what those two mountains represented there. So every time we read about God's mercies, It was saying that God had not shown the rest of the world His mercies in the sense that He had not told them how to live life. He hadn't told them His ways, but He did His people. I think that's in Joshua 8. If you go to Joshua 8, it's just a great, great point of reference of every time you see the psalmist David, for an example, asking God to show him these mercies, to lead him in these mercies, to give him mercies every morning, then it's good to thank God for his mercies. That is saying God has shown me what I could never see without him and he showed me where he centers his love at. He shows me of who he is what He does. Yeah, Joshua 8, look in verse number 30. Blessing and the cursing. Mercy and wrath. Now Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal. And as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the Law of Moses, an altar of whole stones over which no man has yielded an iron tool. That was always important. Why? Why would God say He didn't want any tool upon it? Man can't get credit. People are not going to look at the altar and say, man, who in the world built that? Who carved that thing out? It's an attention stealer. And everything about the Lord is to set us up where we don't take the attention in any kind of way on any kind of thing. All focus is placed upon Him. So he says, an altar of whole stones over which no man has yielded an iron tool, and they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord, sacrifice, peace offerings, verse 32. And there in the presence of the children of Israel, he wrote on the stone a copy of the law of Moses which had been written. Then all Israel, with their elders and officers and judges, stood on either side of the ark before the priests, before the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord. The stranger, as well as he who was born among them, half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal. And Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded before that they should bless the people. That was the intent, to bless them, to bless them, to put his blessing upon them. And afterward, he read all the words of the law. Now you think about that. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That's a lot of reading. You were talking about an all day affair, aren't we? Because I mean, they went through and everybody had to stand as it was all being done. I mean, the priest had to do what they were doing, that is they were sacrificing. They had the Ark of the Covenant there. They actually had to what? Engrave those words upon those stones and then read those words before the people. This is an all day thing here. This ain't just come in and let's go home kind of deal. There ain't no hurrying it up is what I'm saying. This was to be time consuming and it was to be intentional and purposeful. Verse 34. And afterward, he read the words of the Lord, the blessings and the cursings. Notice how we sum that up as both Leviticus and Deuteronomy does, is that nearly at the close of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, we find that God says, look, when you trust me, I'm gonna rest upon you. But if you fight me, You don't have to fight with me all the time. I don't want to fight with you. I'm giving you this so you can know. You can't keep it. God do that up front. But the key was, would you want to keep it? Do you wanna walk with me? Do you wanna know? And he goes on to say, verse 35, there was not a word of all that Moses had commanded, which Joshua did not read before the assembly of Israel with the women and the little ones and the strangers who were living among them. Not a word missing. Wow. Garism means cutting. The cutting off in the picture of a fruitful mountain full of trees. Elbow means leafless in the idea of a stone, a barren rock. No life, no green freshness, no leaf to fill the trees because there was no trees. of leaves. You follow the picture here. One was leafless. One is called cutting. Why? Because there was trees that could be cut off. One mountain is higher than the other mountain and we could know which one would be higher. The one that would be higher is going to be your stone mountain that had no trees upon it. but that's the picture. One represented lifelessness and one represented life. One represented the mercies of God. One represents the curses of God. Choose you this day where you gonna line up on. So when David is saying, Lord, show me your loving kindness in the morning. He's saying, Lord, show me your blessings. Show me what you bless. Tell me what you bless. That's where I want to line up on. I want to line up on that side. I want to line up with where your unwavering faithfulness is flowing in and flowing through. Because we're talking about, remember, the word loving kindness or the word mercy It has the idea of a covenant commitment of God to show His love to His people. That's why it's referred to as loving kindness, mercy, steadfast love, unfailing love, that God has a way that will not ever fail you. You could rest your entire life upon Him and His way. And David has said, I need to hear that. I need to hear that from you in the morning. Because if I don't hear it from you in the morning, what am I in that day? I'm as good as a dead man. I can't bless people because I'm not a blessing if I can't bless people. And I can't bless people or be a blessing if your blessings aren't upon me. Well, your blessings can't be upon me if I don't know your blessings. So I need you, okay? You follow how that plays out in our journey as well? Go back in 143 again in verse number eight. Look, calls me to what? Hear, to hear. Remember, hearing is what? Seeing. Faith cometh by what? Hearing. Hearing by the word of the Lord. Hearing. Calls me to hear, which is implying to see. That is, you gotta speak these things to me so I can see the loving kindness in the morning. For in you do I what? I trust you. I trust you. Therefore I trust what you speak to me. I trust what you show me. Calls me to know the way in which I should Walk, for I'll lift up my soul to you. Deliver me, oh Lord, from my enemies, for in you I take what? Shelter. Deliver me from my, anything that is an enemy to the loving kindness of God, in his way, deliver me from it. Deliver me from it. It's very similar, look in Psalm 103. 103, notice how this works. 103, look in verse 11. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his what? His mercy, his loving kindness toward those who what? Okay, we've been seeing that constantly, how those that fear Him are waiting on His mercy. They're waiting to hear from God. They gotta hear from God. They can't live without hearing from God. This is what is separating us from our past actions. Verse 12. As far as the east is from the west. An indefinite separation. If you start going east and you stay going east, you can keep going east until you die. You'll never run out of going east. It's just what? You're just making one big circle. That's right. And then you'll be back north again. But it's impossible to strike out toward the west and stay on that same course without turning, you'll always be going west. Same way with going east, right? It does tell me that, right? Or it's endless. There's no other side. You couldn't get to the other side. There's no way, if it was flat, there would be no way for you to get to China and then back to continental USA if it was flat. True, because you're always going west, always going west. Well, notice how he phrases this. The word transgressions or trespasses means the acts, our acts of trespassing, the things we've done, the doing of them. And what does he do? As far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our acts of trespassing, what? From us. That is when we are hearing and walking in the Mercies of the blessings of God, you know what happens? We are constantly being separated from a past life that used to do things on our own. That's the idea. We're not talking about what he says up front about him forgiving us of our iniquity and our sins. That's a done deal. They've been cast in the sea of forgiveness, the scripture says. This is about separating us from a way of living that used to function without him. The more we grow in Him and His grace, He is separating us from a past life that used to get up every morning and go do our thing for days and months and years without ever seeking Him. But because now that we seek in Him and He's revealing Himself to us and His ways to us, our life, the acts of our missing the mark, trespassing with Him, we're getting further and further away from a past way of living. I ain't what I... gonna be but I ain't what I used to be is the idea you follow with that's what that is talking about there that he's making such a difference in my journey now that there's a distinction in how I once lived and how I live now because of his loving kindness that he's been showing me his way and He's been teaching me His way, I've been trusting His way, and I've been walking in His way, and it's separated me from a way of living that used to never consider Him in my life. That's the picture. That's the picture of the East is from the West. A lot of times people associate it with that He separated our sins as far as the east is from the west, meaning an indefinite separation. That's not what this is speaking of, though our sins are gone. He's dealt with them in the grace of God. Come on in, come on in. It's speaking of a way of living. The acts of our trespassing, he's separated from it. But what a beautiful picture, amen. That's saying a changed life, a changed life. Well, Miss Johnetta, good morning, good morning. Good to see y'all today. Ms. Buchanan, good to see you. Which place you going, Grant? Glory be. You're not, matter of fact, we wrapping it up. We love it when you come on in here. Amen? Amen. We love it. I got a hole in my eardrum. You have a hole in your eardrum? Tell me, how old is that eardrum? Well, where's my hearing aid? He wants to know how old you are, Granny. Huh? He wants to know how old you are. I'm a hundred and one. A hundred and one! Wow! The last of this month, I'll be a half of another hundred. Look at there, a half of another hundred, amen? And then when you calculate how long you was in your mama's belly, you gonna be a hundred and two. I was a little child of eleven. What number were you? The middle of 11. Yes, ma'am. I know we've been praying for you last time I seen you here. It was only within that week she had passed away. Yeah, yeah. I know she had been going through a tough time. I know all about that. So she's better off. Yeah, yeah. Better off with Jesus. Amen and amen. Good morning everybody. Glory be. Good morning, good morning.