Well, we're moving on to another Psalm, believe it or not, Psalm 31. It's really great as we go through here tying in some of these Psalms that we have found such a blessing to us and to tie them into actual events within David's life and his experiences and to get into some others that may be with some others along the line with Moses and a few, well, I'm trying to think what his name is here from Psalm 72, Asaph, there we go, and a few of the other ones that have written some Psalms that were all relevant to their, or germane to their life, I should say. But tonight's message in Psalm 31 is always be prepared. That was a good slogan for the Boy Scouts of the United States of America, though I wouldn't give you a nickel for them today. There's some good scouts and some good scoutmasters in there, but the leadership has just gone down the tubes. Local groups may be fine, they may be wonderful, but the overall national leadership has gone the way of the world, which is typical and ruined a great organization and so on. Be that as it may, I'll probably, anybody who is a scout, in the scouts will probably, I'll get inundated one way or another, but that's okay. Speak the truth, and you do it in love. I mean, it's a shame, but anyway. Psalm 31, looking at just the first couple verses here as we begin tonight. David says, in thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be thou my strong rock. for in house of defense to save me, for thou art my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for thy name's sake, lead me and guide me. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me, for thou art my strength. Into thine hand I commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth. Well, a little bit of background here. David has been deemed an outlaw by the unrighteous King Saul. By this time, Saul, from a spiritual perspective, has lost any real relevancy in his relationship to the Lord. God has basically given up on him as far as leadership goes. He's already taken the throne and he's promised it to David. in God's due time, and David was smart enough, even as a young man, to realize that it would come about in God's timing. If you remember a couple of his men, he had a couple opportunities that he could have taken King Saul's life, and David said, no, I'll not raise my hand against God's anointed. God put him in the office, and David was basically saying, let God take him out of that office, and then we'll move forward. But David takes notice of this little town which lies south of Judah, south in Judah, in a valley not very far from the Philistine border. And keeping in mind, as I said, that David is being sought after out of jealousy by King Saul, David really hasn't done, he hasn't behaved himself unseemly, he hasn't behaved himself unrighteously. He did what he did in the best interest of the people. He did what he did in the best interest of the king. Really, he put God first and the king second and the people third. But this small town was being invaded by the Philistines, this town of Kila, or Kiala if you want to pronounce it that way, but this small town was being invaded by the Philistines and they were the goal of going on to the threshing floors and robbing everything they could, take everything out of there. It was kind of the easy way to make a living, I guess. You don't do anything, you wait until the farmers get their harvest in, you go and rip them off at the harvest time, I don't know. But that's what the Philistines were doing. And so this town, they were not able to defend themselves. They weren't able to take care of themselves. And at that particular point in time, I think King Saul was out to lunch for the most part. But anyway, they were robbing the threshing floor. And it is more than what David can stand. And he chooses to do a great deed for these citizens of Keilah. Now, he's on the run. And he's really putting his hand in the lives of these people at Gila by even considering going down there to help them against the Philistines. Well, he asked God, if you want to read that in 2 Samuel chapter 23, which we'll get to a couple of verses in a minute. But first of all, he was concerned about them. He asked God, should I go down there? Will you be with me? Will you help me? And of course, God gave him the answer that he would be able to defeat the Philistines. So David's about to learn in this particular process after having rescued, it's more than David could stand and chooses to do a great deed for the citizens of Keilah. And with his band of merry men, David rescues these people by defeating the Philistines. Those he didn't kill, they chased them back over, crossed into their line. But one of the things in this whole account here is that David is about to learn that not every good deed done is returned or appreciated. Amen? Maybe you've done things that sometimes it's your own children. So your own family members, you do something good for them without any without any real expectations of anything in return. You just do it. But nonetheless, It's usually not very well appreciated. And so this is true about even God's people. You can do things for God's people, and they'll let you down at some particular point. Not all, obviously, but there are those who will. There are those, and Brother Jung can tell you, many a pastor has really gone overboard for a lot of the people within the church, and when push came to shove, and he says something or does something they maybe didn't like, then all of a sudden, look out. They're gonna come after you with guns blazing. But anyway, these citizens of Kila, will be forced to make one of two decisions at this point. Are they going to honor David for what he and his men had done in liberating this city and protecting them against the Philistines? Or are they going to honor King Saul and turn David over? Well, David's a little bit perplexed. He doesn't know which way these people are going to go. And so if we jump back here to 2 Samuel 23, And looking in verse 5, first and foremost, it says in the... Am I in the right place here? Oops, that won't help. Did I mark that down wrong? Let me check on first. I might have put an extra one in there, shouldn't I? Let me go back to 1 Samuel. I'm apt to do that. I got the date wrong in the bulletin, or in the whatchamacallit, so I probably got it wrong here too. I did. So if you put that down in 2 Samuel, mark it down as 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 5 says, So David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and smote them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah. Now you would have thought that they would have been very appreciative, that they would have, and I'm sure they were for the moment, but they also realized that, wait a minute now, if Saul finds out that we're harboring David and his men here. The king's gonna come and he's gonna destroy all of us. So the question is, David might have been better if he just kept on going on by there and let the Philistines do it, but that was not the kind of man that David was. And so you would have thought that nonetheless, that they would have at least tried to protect him. They would have tried to cover for him along the way there. But it says there in chapter 23 and verses 10 through 12, And it says, then said David, O Lord God of Israel, thy servant has certainly heard that Saul seeketh to come to Kielah to destroy the city for my sake. Will the men of Kielah deliver me up into his hand? Will Saul come down as thy servant hath heard? O Lord God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And the Lord God said, He will come down. And then said, David, will the men of Kielah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, they will deliver thee up. So here you have a man who did a wonderful thing, putting his life on the line, first of all, against the enemy of the Philistines, who were the Philistines. Then again, before King Saul would figure out where David was. So I'm sure David was astonished. that the very citizens that he rescued would not simply turn their backs on him, but would turn him over to Saul. He was completely dumbfounded. And this is God's point to be made here. The best of men are still but men, that flesh and blood will be disappointing at times. Whether it's your brothers, your sisters, your mom, your dad, husbands, wives, it could be anywhere at any particular time. So with this experience, David is now forced to prepare himself for many future unknowns. You just can't assume that a certain thing is going to take place in the future. Now you can plan, but you need to have a contingency plan that says what happens if this doesn't work out. Or what happens if this happens while this is going on, whatever this process might be? So as we're thinking about going down to Burlington and giving out socks and scarves and gloves, and what else do we get? Socks, gloves, hats, and everything like that. Get them all. They're all in a big box and ready to be put together in a package. So we'll have to figure that out. The men's per breakfast, we'll kind of work on that a little bit maybe. Get ready and figure out what day's best for us to head down to Burlington. Well, I'm figuring, OK, what happens if somebody comes up and says, You can't be doing that down here. We're just giving stuff away. So you kind of begin to think about these things here. So maybe I'll do a few phone calls here first to see what the story is there and find out if it's a problem. But I'm sure we'll all have to wear masks down here. It's out in public here in the city of Burlington, which is about as liberal as it can get to begin with. And you could be 10 miles apart, and they still want you to wear a mask for the most part. But anyway, if that's what we have to do in order to give out the gospel and give out tracts and give out something that people could use in the city, the homeless could use in there, then there's no big deal. We'll do what we have to do, as long as it's not unrighteous. So anyway, David is now forced to prepare himself for many future unknowns and in this psalm we can and we will discover six things that he prepared himself for and we would do well to follow suit. I think I've mentioned that in the past here that as parents we have to be careful when we decide we're going to have families. You better be ready to have a family because they're going to take a lot of time. They're going to take a lot of money. There's going to be a lot of heartbreak in the process of raising children for the most part. There's going to be some good days, bad days, there's going to be some up days, there's going to be some down days. And there's going to be some very disappointing, there's going to be some very discouraging days along with all the good days that come with it. But the idea simply is there, so while they're in their innocent toddler years, you might be thinking, okay, now we have a daughter here and what happens if she gets pregnant when she's still a teenager and we're active in church? How are we going to handle that? Well, listen, pastors' daughters have gone out and gotten themselves pregnant, and pastors' sons have gone out there, and they've gotten involved sexually with other people, and you just name it. It happens to missionaries, it happens to the evangelists, it happens to pastors. It's going to happen in homes as well. So how are you going to handle that? Well, you know, being able to prepare ahead of time, you can't just assume that your sons and your daughters are going to do everything right every single day. But it just doesn't always happen. Now, it may happen on occasions, but it'd be very rare that there's times when our young people are going to make some poor decisions along the way. And as parents, you need to be ready. You need to be thinking ahead of time, doing all you can to train them in the way that they should go. But when they decide they're going to deviate from that way, you better be prepared. Amen? Or what happens when you don't have a job? You go to work one day and the angel of pink slip and says, well, we're done, we're closing up. Or like Rosa said, she may not have a job to go to next week, I don't know. We'll pray that God's gonna honor your sharing the gospel with her anyway. But the idea simply is, what are you prepared for? Well, you need to be preparing, can't wait. I guess the basic idea I'm getting at is that you can't wait until all of a sudden it's standing right in front of you, which is what most of us do. We don't necessarily plan that far ahead of any contingent because we don't want to think anything bad's going to happen, the loss of a job, the loss of a health, the one thing or another like that. But the truth of the matter is, those things do happen to us and are you preparing today for what might happen? You say, well, why waste all that time worrying about what's going to happen? I'm not worrying about what's going to happen. But you know what? We can save money. We can set money aside for the day that maybe we're fired or we lose our job or the way the economy is going and so on there that you've got a little nest egg. Dave Ramsey preaches on that in almost all of his books, Financial Peace or Financial Peace University. He teaches all of the ideas that you need to have some money set aside. You start out small. You start out at three months, maybe setting three months aside. Maybe then you build that to six months. Then you build that to a year because you just never know. Whoever would have thought we'd be facing a pandemic in the year 2020. A lot of people weren't prepared for that. When you live day to day, or from paycheck to paycheck, then when something like this happens, you're not ready for it. Now, those who have jobs, count your blessing. But those who don't, they're between a rock and a hard place, because if they were living paycheck to paycheck, then all of a sudden when the paycheck's gone, what do you do? Where do you go? Well, we need to be prepared, don't we? For not just on those kind of things, but any number of things, and only the Lord knows what the future holds. So number one, anyway, number one here that we're gonna look at this evening, rather, is David prepared himself for disappointment. Now, this isn't the idea that you walk around doom and gloom, knowing that, you know, this was a great day. Monday was wonderful there. Tuesday's just going to blow apart, you know. We can't run our days like that. We enjoy the moment that God's given us. And as the Bible tells us, that tomorrow will take care of itself. You don't have to try to regulate tomorrow. You live in the moment today. You live for the Lord. You walk with the Lord. And you are prepared, at least spiritually, for what's going to happen on Tuesday. So, I mean, if you're going to have doom and gloom, this is a Monday. I hate Mondays. I can't stand Mondays. That means I still have four more days to go to work, and I don't want to work. And so, you know, you're not exactly spiritually prepared for what might go wrong on Tuesday or Wednesday, for that matter. So, the idea is to take every day as this is the day which the Lord has made, and I shall be glad and rejoice in it. Amen? I don't care if it's one big snowflake or whether it's a bazillion snowflakes that come down here. This is a day which the Lord hath made. We shall be glad and we shall rejoice in it. But being prepared is not merely a scouting slogan, but it's a wise action to be taken in all activities along life's paths. You've been saving towards retirement. Hopefully you've put aside some money into retirement funds. It may not be a whole lot, but you put some money aside because everybody knows that you're not going to be able to make it on just Social Security. Now the seniors who might have thought that they were ready for retirement have found out that because of past economics that their 401ks have been just shot to pieces because of bad economics along the way. And so now they found themselves having to go out there and augment what they are getting in from that as well as anything else along the way that they can do or pick up. But so all the way through life, there are just things we need to be preparing for. Maybe the idea is setting something aside, because you know that your car is going to be breaking down. We've been trying to save some money, because our car is just now getting close to 100,000 miles. It's still running great. It's still going safe. But going down the highway, the way I go down the highway, it may blow up any minute. I have no idea. But anyway, I won't be stuck with a down payment on a car or something of that nature there. We'd be ready to roll. for that. So you try to set some things aside as you can, you know. Hey, it doesn't take a whole lot, $10 here. I just remember reading. Oh, I know what it was. I think it was on... Facebook, someone had shared what they had done. They started the first of the year, and they had an envelope for every week. And every other week, either the husband put money in it or the wife would put money in the envelope for that week. And there'd be different amounts on there, and they'd have to put in it because it was not like $100,000 or something like that. But by the end of the year, they realized that they had over $1,300 that they had for Christmas money. because of this little unique thing that they did. Now, you may have an envelope system where you put five year, you know, you got a food envelope, and you got a car repair envelope, and you've got just different things that, you know, are going to come your way, whether it's tires on a car. So, again, is that not being prepared? Well, you know, you can be pretty disappointing if you all of a sudden have to blow your Christmas budget because you need the tires or something happens along the line. But it's not a charge to be sinister. about everything and everyone, but it's a charge to look at all possibilities. Because you know what the devil, he's pretty wily. And he will find many, many different ways to turn excitement into disappointment. And sometimes the greatest disappointments we have is after a mountaintop experience. There seems to be a letdown. We fought a great battle. We slugged our way out to get to the top of the hill, whatever the problem might have been. You slugged your way out. You worked up to the top of the mountain there. And you get up on the mountaintop, and you realize, all of a sudden, now you're going down the valley again. So you can become quite disappointed in a sense of letdown. So here, David is fully aware that he is in a very vulnerable situation. Saul is headed to Keilah with an army for one purpose, and that's to kill David and to wipe out his little army. The citizens of Keilah are going to turn on David even though he spared them and he saved their lives from the Philistines. So, I mean, you know, talk about being between a rock and a hard place. Talk about being disappointed. Well, David was. Well, while David's flesh wants to destroy the very people he rescued, he also knows that he needs to handle this. situation properly. And the reason is due to the fact that his testimony is at stake. So we have to remember that however we may sense and feel disappointment, how we handle that disappointment is going to say a lot about our daily walk with the Lord. If the flesh flies off the handle and we say things and do things that we should not do as a child of God, then we can ruin our testimony just that quick. And the devil knows that. So he's gonna allow, he's gonna bring disappointment into our lives so that basically he can show the people and say, well, see, these people aren't all that religious anyway. These people aren't all that righteous. So all the reason is due to the fact that his testimony is at stake. So we have to always beware that others, whether directly involved, or who are spectators on the sidelines, who know about the circumstances, who know about the situation, and that they will judge God based upon how we respond to the treachery. Or as in David's case, or those who have an axe to grind against us will say, yeah, see, I knew that wasn't real. It couldn't be real, it couldn't be genuine. And so again, our whole lives, we're on a stage as Christians. Among your family, you're on stage. among your coworkers. If they know that you're a Christian, your life is on stage, and your neighbors as well. So we are at God's best billboards. We are God's best billboards, I'll get it out. And what people perceive about God first and foremost begins with their observations of you and me when the road gets tough. when things don't go our way. When it's not one of those zippity-doo-dah days and all of a sudden they're watching, how's he going to respond? Now in many of David's circumstances he demonstrated that the power of God in lives as in his is more than sufficient to reign in our carnal, fleshly emotions if we are prepared for that reality. I say, you know, this could Turn a different way than I'm expecting here. But you prepared for it. And that's a spiritual preparation. And anyways, which was for David's sake. And it can be, for us, very impressive. I think the people were impressed that David didn't turn on him, but he fled. But secondly, David prepared himself for conflicts. Conflicts come. Whether it's parents and their children or children and their parents, husbands and wives, neighbors, co-workers, they come, don't they? You're going to face conflicts on a regular basis. Conflicts are simply a way of life for the redeemed of the Lord. Satan wants to destroy the testimony of every believer doing something worthwhile for God with their lives. He's not going to bother with those who aren't doing anything. He could care less about you as an individual. Yeah, you're saved, but you're not having any impact. Yeah, you're saved, but you're not doing anything that anybody would take notice of there. He's after those who are doing something, Sunday school teachers, or those who are able to witness at work, not using company time to witness, but you are a witness at work, or even among family members witnessing as well. And so in this situation of Kiela, David is sure how this thing is going to turn out. He is unsure, I should say, how this thing is going to turn out. Do I run? Do I stay? Do I fight? What do I do? And so he does the only really smart thing that anybody can do in any kind of a situation is to take 10 and go before the Lord, amen? So verse one in Psalm 31 says, in thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in thy righteousness. Now, the idea of let me never be ashamed is the idea that I didn't want to do something. that is going to be shameful. I'm going to have to come back, and I'm going to have to apologize. Not that we shouldn't apologize if we've done something wrong, but the idea is that why put myself through all of that, and I have to explain myself, or try to explain myself, or try to excuse myself, when if I had just acted responsibly as a child of God should, who was trusting in God, I wouldn't have to do that. And it would have a bigger impact on those who are observing us there. So again, he says, let me never be ashamed. Lord, I always want to say the right thing. I always want to do the right thing. And that's not easy to do, is it? You know, if you've got a temper, you're hot-blooded, and boy, I mean, somebody says something, and the first thing you want to do is just whack out at them, or somewhere along the line there. But nonetheless, David didn't want to be ashamed. And that should be our prayer on a regular basis. Lord, help me to say the right thing and to do the right thing, even though it may be a really difficult situation. The carnal side wants to fight while the spiritual side wants God to lead us, so that in the decision God is glorified. It says there again in chapter 31 and verse 3, and he says, For thou art my rock and my fortress, therefore for thy name's sake lead me and guide me. He wanted to do exactly what God wanted him to do. He wanted to do it the way God wanted it to be done. So David is more than capable of fighting. I mean, he's a fighter, he's a warrior. I mean, he's already proved himself in battle already up to this particular point in time. But if God is not directing, then David will not be sure or will not be secure in the Lord as we just read there in verse three. He wants to feel secure both in his decision-making processes and how he reacts to the situation. He wants to make sure it's done right. And so our safety and our confidence must always, always rest in the Lord first and not our abilities or our wisdom. Yeah, we may be able to work something out there that could put us in an advantage and make someone else look stupid or make them look like an idiot, but is that really the wise thing to do? Sometimes we just have to take the hit and move on. But our safety and our confidence must always rest in the Lord first and not our abilities and our wisdom. So first, be prepared for disappointment. If you're a child of God, actually if you're breathing and you're walking, you're going to have disappointment. That's all there is to it. You may be disappointed in this election and how it's going to come out. But listen, God's not surprised by it. God could have turned tables, but you know what, sometimes God just stands back and says, You know, you haven't gotten the message yet, and there's a message like Jack was saying earlier, there's a message that we need to take from this whole thing here. And one of the things that I think came out when Jack was saying it was that so many people, and I'm amazed at how many Christians are really depending on the government. They are so vested in the government taking care of their every need. that they can't even think straight. And God is gonna bring us all to a place, perhaps maybe, that we have to learn to trust on him. We may only have him. And if that's all you have, are you gonna be okay with that? Oh yeah, when nothing's going wrong, we can say, yeah, sure, I'm okay with that. But when push comes to shove, are you gonna be okay with that? That's all we have is God. If you can't count on the government. Listen, we wouldn't be the first Christians in any nation to have to undergo a persecution. That's for sure. So first, be prepared for disappointment. Have an idea how you're going to respond to whatever you might think might come down the pike. What am I going to do if this or this or this or this? And if you know anything about history, you can be sure of one thing, that history tends to repeat itself. But secondly, be prepared for conflict. Know to whom to turn to and to seek the Lord's wisdom and not to our own abilities. And thirdly, David prepared himself for death. And I think we'll deal with that next week because in COVID-19 people might get panicky. No. The idea is David prepared himself for death. And there's a couple of things I want to say in there, but I think it'll take me a bit longer than we have. And I want to get some prayer time in here tonight too as well there. So anyway, be prepared for disappointment. Be prepared for disappointment and then for conflict. Those are just things that come. Disappointment and conflict. Alright, so let's go to the Lord in prayer here tonight.