11th letter. Does anybody remember how many letters there are in the Hebrew alphabet? 22, ooh, 22. All right, let's see if we can remember them. There's Olive, Base, Gimel, Dollis, Hay, Wah, Chase, or Hase, and then Tase, then Yode, And then cough. It's easy to remember that one. Cough. All right, and those should be in segments of eight verses. Every eight verses is one letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And in those eight verses, like under Aleph, all of them start with that letter Aleph. And so we're on Psalm 119 and down in verse 81. So verse 81 all the way through verse 88, they all start with the letter Koph. So I want you to notice there, we're halfway through the Hebrew alphabet. And as we look at these particular verses, I thought sometimes we've got to come up with sermon titles for the sermons, for sermon audio. And the title for tonight is very simply, Got a Problem? Anybody got a problem? If you're living, you've got a problem. It might be a little problem. It might be a big problem. You might have multiple problems. But life will bring us problems. Nobody's exempt from problems. And even if you're a believer, sometimes some people think, well, if you become a believer, then all your problems go away. No, sometimes they multiply. And the good Lord has them there for a purpose. And he causes us to grow, to grow in trusting him. understanding his ways. He wants us to lean upon him, to call upon him. So in verse 81, I want you to notice what the psalmist is doing. He's got this deep longing in his soul. And verse 81 says, my soul faints for your salvation. His soul is fainting for the Lord's salvation. Now what does it mean, salvation? If you're talking to a believer, if I was talking to you one-on-one and I was talking about salvation, you automatically would think being saved from your sins. Now that is salvation. We are saved from our sins. That word saved very simply means delivered. We are delivered from our sins. What is involved in salvation? There is repentance. There is faith. There is forgiveness. We are forgiven from the penalty of sin. We are delivered from the wrath of God. We are justified. We are sanctified. And that's all part of salvation. The Word of God even says in chapter 8 of the book of Romans, we are glorified. So there is glorification also in salvation. Now that's one definition salvation. Now the reason I go over this word salvation is because there's more than one definition to the word salvation. If we think as we read God's Word and we see this word salvation there are times when it's talking about deliverance from sin and and being separated under God, but there's also sometimes, like in the Psalms, the Psalm is talking about being delivered from sorrows. There are sorrows in life and times where life is difficult and we pray for God's deliverance. There's deliverance from particular situations. You come into different problems and encounters in life and you pray for God to deliver you through whatever troubles you might be having, whatever trials you might be going through, whatever sickness or sorrows are coming in life, what we find is that something that we all have in common. All of us. It's a universal problem. It is common to any child of God. Y'all remember the old spiritual song Nobody knows the troubles I see. I better not sing it. Anyway, nobody knows but Jesus. And you know what, that's true in a sense. And sometimes close friends know our sorrows and our troubles and our struggles in life, but nobody knows them completely. like our Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to notice first off here in the first three verses, what we're looking at is the psalmist's troubled soul. His soul is troubled so deeply that he's longing, he's fainting for God to deliver him. When you get to the point where your troubles have got you so overwhelmed that you're almost ready to drop over, you know you're carrying some heavy burdens. This, in what he's writing about, we don't know the particular situation, but we do know that he's almost about to lose sight is what the Word of God says. The Word of God tells us. Because he's fainting for his salvation, the Word of God tells us over in Psalm 37, and down in verse 4, he says, delight yourself in the Lord, and he'll give you the desires of your heart. The psalmist is desiring, deep desire, for God to deliver him. Oftentimes in life, And you can probably think back in time when you've had particular troubles or trials in your life. Oftentimes the troubles or trials that you have are not what they seem to be. Think about some things in the past. Look how God brought you through it. And look how you thought it was a bigger mountain than what it was. Anybody got an example? You don't need to tell me. I'm just saying. You ought to know, when you look back in life, and you see you were in a bad predicament, and you look at how God brought you through it, you can see you've probably made the problem bigger than what it really was. It's kind of like getting cloudy outside again. It's supposed to rain again tomorrow. It's going to be cloudy tomorrow. Well, you know what? The clouds are like troubles. They block the sun. But behind the sun, what God's view is, is a blue sky. The sun is always shining. It's just that we don't always see it. And sometimes we make mountains out of molehills, and sometimes we've got to focus so on the mountain that it becomes like it's insurmountable, and there's no way around this mountain, or over this mountain, or through this mountain, and we often lose sight of God. The Word of God tells us in Proverbs 29 in verse 18, without a vision the people perish. The word vision is a word revelation. It's talking about the Word of God. When we don't have a revelation from God, the Word of God, when God's not speaking to us through His Word, it's like we lose hope. And if we lose hope, That's when we start to perish. The psalmist is saying in verse 2, my eyes fail for your word. Saying, when will you comfort me? He is losing sight. He's losing that vision. He's losing sight of the word of God. Whereas in verse 81 he says, but I hope in your word. But the problems become so overbearing that he loses sight of the promises of God. There are times problems can overwhelm us. That's when we need to get a right perspective on the Word of God, the Spirit of God using God's Word, and how he applies it to our hearts and lives. And when we get our hope back in the Word of God, That is when God gives us peace. Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is fixed upon you. If you're fixed upon the Lord, your mind and your focus is upon Him, it don't matter what mountains in front of you. It don't matter what Goliath is in front of you. It don't matter what's in front of you. if your mind is stayed upon the Lord. Our problem is we get distracted by the things of this world. And we get distracted from the Word of God. We get distracted from getting our focus upon the Lord our God. And we get all rattled and addled in life. And we get frustrated in life. The psalmist then goes to what his life is like in verse 3. And notice what he says in verse 83. For I am become like a bottle in the smoke. Now what is the psalmist saying here? He's become like a bottle in the smoke. If you were to look up this passage of scripture and look up that word in particular, the bottle, he's talking about a wineskin. Now imagine a wineskin. You remember what wineskins are made out of. They're made out of animal leather or some type of animal thing that holds the liquid in there, the wine, the water, whatever it might be. If you have a leather liquid container hanging from a ceiling in a room that is smoke-filled, what usually happens when the smoke is in the room, say like with your clothes. If you know somebody that's a heavy smoker, if you've ever been in somebody's home that's a heavy smoker, and you don't even stay that long, You know what? You start to smell like a heavy smoker, don't you? Your clothes kind of absorb that. Even so, the wineskins absorb the odor of the smoke. Now, as you think about that, if you had that wineskin that had been in a smoke-filled room and you smelled it, it would smell like smoke. because the smoke has saturated the wine skin. Now what do you think, if you filled that full of water, what do you think that water would taste like? Probably not too good. Probably tastes like smoke on the water, I mean smoke in the water. My little side joke there. Not everybody could catch that. Here his life is likened unto a wineskin that's in a room full of smoke. And the smoke has saturated the wineskin. And because of that it started penetrating the wineskin and it started polluting the wineskin to where it affected the odor and the taste. Now what does he liken his life to? The wineskin. I believe what he's talking about here is the influence of the world that's all around him. And the world's influence can sometimes penetrate to the point where we're going to smell like the sin of the world. Where we're not going to have a sweet savor unto God. Where it removes the Christian taste, so to speak. Now how do we get rid of that? You remember what the Word of God says, and let me just read it because I'm liable to butcher it if I try to quote it, but over in the book of Romans chapter 12, in Romans the 12th chapter in verse 1, The Apostle Paul is writing, he says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service or act of worship. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So how do we transform our minds? If it's been polluted by the world, if it's been affected and the world has penetrated our lives to the point it's starting to ruin our testimony. It's very simply being transformed by the renewing of your mind. How do we renew our minds? You remember what Jesus prayed in that high priestly prayer in John chapter 17 and verse 17? Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. The word of God has a purifying effect. The word of God affects our hearts and our lives and it affects our minds and that's what we're looking at right here. we are sanctified, set apart into God. And this comes through the Word and by the Spirit. Notice what he says in the latter part of verse 83. He says, Yet I do not forget your statutes. Though the world and all the sinfulness of this world might affect us to some degree, the psalmist is saying, do not forget your word. I don't forget your statutes. I'm keeping them close to me." He hid God's word in his heart that he might not sin against God, even though he's like a wineskin in the smoke. He goes on to say, he talks about, the troubling situations that he is involved in in verses 84 through 87. And these troubling situations, I want you to notice in verse 84, he says, how many are the days of your servant? Or how long do I have to live? When will you execute judgment on them that persecute me? In other words, there are those that are tormenting him through lies, through false gossip, through talk, And the psalmist is saying, how long, oh Lord? How much longer do I have to put up with this? When are you going to intervene? When are you going to judge them that are persecuting me? It's almost like God has pushed the pause button. In other words, you've ever prayed and it seems like God's pushed the pause button on you. In other words, my prayer, it don't seem like he's hearing my prayer. It don't seem like my prayer is getting answered. You ever felt like God's paused you? There was a sermon by a preacher, I'm not going to say I agree with him doctrinally on everything, but his name was Anthony Campolo. And his sermon was titled, It's Friday, but Sunday's coming. A good message there as far as in that, that was his popular message. And though it's Friday and things look dark and dim and heavy and burdensome and it looks like the whole world's crashing in, just remember Sunday's coming. And oh what a difference that made when our Lord Jesus Christ rose again. One of the songs we sing, our old hymn we used to sing, Moments are passing, passing for you and for me. You remember that song? And sometimes it seems like our life is passing and God's not intervening. God's pushed the pause button on me. It seems like my prayer is not getting through. Why is God so silent? You know what you think, that's bad. Can you imagine living in between the intertestament period? That 400 years between the Old Testament and New Testament? There was no word from God at all. God didn't speak to any of his prophets or anything until all of a sudden, 400 years later, Jesus Christ comes on the scene, fulfilling all prophecy and everything. Is God silent at times? All you gotta do is go back and God's got in His Word different examples of different people that we can learn from. You look at Job. Boy, did Job have it hard. Do you believe Job cried out to God in pain? Losing all his children, losing all what he owned. His wealth just went... Then his health went... You think he cried out to God? But James tells us to look at the end of Job's life. You see there, we only see a little frame of the picture. Like Job was in, all he could see was the time frame he was in. You can look at the life of Abram. Abram was promised a child. A few years passed. 75 years old. He's 85 years old. Man, still no child. He's up in his 90s. Sarah, his wife's 90. Did God forget? Did God push the pause button? You remember Isaac, the son of promise, was born. You can go down through history and you can read about Joseph. Joseph sold into slavery, thrown into a pit, then thrown into slavery, then thrown into jail because of Miss Potiphar. How long, Lord? I mean, we're talking about a man's life for 20 years. It seems like God was silent. Consider the end of Joseph's life. Second to the Pharaoh over all of Egypt. which was the main power of all the world at that time. Look at the life of Jonah. You think of Jonah. God prepared a fish for Jonah. And all of a sudden... Now if you... I don't know if y'all... I mentioned this a few weeks ago, maybe quite a few weeks ago, there was a video of a guy on a float or something, a raft or something, and it was a teenage boy and his dad was filming him and a whale swallowed him up and spewed him back out. I'm like, whew! But Jonah was in that belly for three days and three nights. Can you imagine being in a fish's belly for one day? One night? It stunk. It was dark. And no doubt Jonah cried out. The next day? He couldn't even tell if it was the next day. It's dark in there. Unless he looked through the hole in the whale that comes from the top where he spouts the water. I'm kidding. The third day! And it seems like God's not answering his prayer. And then, he gets vomited out on the shore. God always has a grander plan. a better view of the whole plan than we do. That's why we got to keep our eyes upon Him. We only see the frameworks, the little time period that we're in. God sees the whole picture and God's working in a way far beyond our comprehension. in such a way to make something beautiful out of even bad situations. Like the tapestry work we often use as an illustration. On one side it's a beautiful tapestry of a picture or something, but if you turn it around it's all like that. That's because God's working and He's making something beautiful out of that plan. One of the things I studied and I was going to try to bring it out for last Friday's message at the conference was, and I briefly mentioned it here, the peacock feather. The peacock feather, I just had to allude to this, there's two types of feather on the peacock. There's the T feather. And that's kind of angling it off to where when the peacock spreads its feather, it's angled like that. And then there's the eye feather. You notice the eye feather is made up of different colors. And all the colors are the same pattern in every peacock eye feather. It's amazing how God has designed that bird and its feathers. And God had a plan. But on one side of the peacock feathers, it's all brown. Reminded me of the tapestry part. On the other side is just beautiful colors with the peacock. And a lot of that is iridescent as far as you look at it from a certain angle which brings out those colors. It's fascinating how God works when we see how he works. And one of the things we need to do is we need to have our eyes open to how God is working in all of creation around us. And we can see his handiwork and we can marvel at the great things that God has done. We need to get a better view of who God is and how he's working. what we've got to do when situations come and they seem burdensome, or they seem like overwhelming problems, or the trouble's too great, the trouble's too big, that's where we've got to trust in God's goodness. He who counts all the stars in the sky and knows them all by name, you know what, he's not going to forget one of his little children. Doesn't matter if it's Sister Helen, Or if it's you, God knows you by name. And how much more precious in His sight is His children than just stars. How Sister Anne would sing that song, His eyes upon the sparrow, and I know He watches me. Does He care? Yes, He cares. We've got to trust His goodness. We've got to trust His love. and his faithfulness. Notice the psalmist goes on to say about how the evil people have laid traps for him. He says in verse 85, the proud have digged pits for me which are not after your law. Now, back in that day and time, how they caught animals, they would lay a trap like a pit. And they would cover the pit with some lightweight stuff so when an animal would come prancing through, it'd fall into the pit and it can't get out. Not unless they didn't dig the pit big enough. And then he's in big trouble. But you understand what I'm saying? Here, the pit's been dug and they're trying to be deceptive by covering the pit, laying a trap for the psalmist. traps are an act of deception, and the proud have laid them for the psalmist to fall into. He says in verse 86, all your commandments are faithful, they persecute me wrongfully, help thou me. The persecution he was going through from the proud, who were trying to entrap him and enslave him You know what? That's going on today, but it's been going on since the beginning of time. Think of Eve back in the Garden of Eden. Was she not deceived? That was Satan laying a trap for her. And yes, she was deceived. You think back again of Joseph. There was Miss Potiphar in her deception trying to trap him, and Joseph ran away, she grabbed hold of his robe, and Mr. Potiphar, look at what your servant tried to do. Thrown in the jail. She laid a trap for him. Think of Job's wife. Curse God and die. Was that not deceitful? You think of others, you think of our Lord's life. They constantly tried to lay a trap. to entrap our Lord Jesus Christ in his own words and they can never do it. You remember what it says over in John? Here's a portion of scripture in John chapter 8 and down in verse 57 Verse 56, Jesus said, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. The Jews looked at Jesus and said, You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? Then Jesus said this, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. You remember what they did? Then they took up stones to cast at him. They were going to stone Jesus to death, but the word of God says, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple going through the midst of them and so passed by. Amazing. You see, deception is not a tool of God. It's a tool of Satan and a tool of the wicked to try to entrap the godly. And so what we have is the cry of the godlies in verse 86, the latter part, and it's a very simple cry. Help thou me. Have you ever cried out to God in a bad situation a very short prayer? Lord, help. Help me, Lord. That's what the psalmist is saying. How often I've thought, do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me. And the Lord does remember. Notice what he says in verse 87. In verse 87, they had almost consumed me upon earth. I'm almost consumed upon earth, but I forsook not your precepts. Here's the help for the needy. And I want you to notice, I underlined two words there in verse 87. It says almost and but. They almost consume me, but... You remember what we preached on this past Sunday night in Ephesians 2 and verse 4, but God. Thank God that he intervenes. Thank God that he's got a bigger plan. In Job chapter 1, down in verse 10, it talks about how Satan is approaching God and he's wanting to get at Job. And you know what Satan said to God? He says, you've planted a hedge about him. God had protection around Job. In other words, what God was saying This far, no more. You can come this far, but you cannot go any further. It's quite amazing. That's the same thing of what, when they were about to stone Jesus, and He walks right through the middle of them, and they didn't even recognize Him. In other words, this far, no further. It ain't your time. In the book of Acts chapter 27, in the book of Acts 27, As the Apostle Paul is talking, he says down in verse 21, But after a long abstinence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, Now here he is in the middle of a storm, major storm. He says, Sirs, you should have hearkened unto me, and not loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar, and, lo, God has given you all them that sail with you. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer, for I believe, God, that it shall be even as it was told me." In other words, the storm can go this far, but no further. There's but God. You remember when Jesus was in that ship, and he was fast asleep, and his disciples woke him up saying, Wake up, Lord, lest we perish. What did Jesus do? He rebuked the winds and the waves. In other words, as that storm is coming in the boat, the Lord says, This far, no further. In Psalm 119 and verse 87, they had almost consumed me upon the earth, but I forsook not your precepts. In other words, what the psalmist does, he sticks with the Word of God. And though it seems like all is crashing in around him, he's sticking with the promises of God. What God said that he will do. And then in closing this portion of scripture out, he says in verse 88, that old English word, quicken me. Give me life. Quicken me after your lovingkindness. Give me life after your lovingkindness. Just like your lovingkindness, give me that life. And so shall I keep the testimony of your mouth. What happens when troubles come in a believer's life, or let's say what should happen when troubles come in a believer's life, are bad situations or circumstances, however you want to label it, when that comes into your life, that ought to make your faith shine all the brighter. We need life from Him. We need life from above. We need that love that's from above. Quicken me after your loving kindness. And as God does that, we keep his testimonies, the testimonies of his mouth. Let's have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for your word. And Lord, we know there will be trials and tribulations and troubles in this life. Lord, we ask that you would help us to keep our eyes upon you, your goodness, your faithfulness, your loving-kindness. Lord, we pray that you would quicken us, give us life, even after your loving-kindness, so that we continue to keep your word. Guide us by Your Spirit, for Christ's sake. Amen. And you are dismissed.