turn your Bibles to Romans chapter, I'm sorry, Psalms chapter 13. Psalms chapter 13. A few weeks back I preached on a message called the four I wills of Psalms 9. And I thought about titling this one the four how longs of Psalms 13. But The Lord led me to actually make this a two-part sermon, realizing there's a lot more here than I could preach in 45 minutes. Psalms 13, verses 1 through 6 is where we're going to be in the first part of this. And in the latter part, we're going to also read in Psalms chapter 18, verses 30 and 32. Psalms 13, verses 1 through 6. Let's stand out of respect for God's Word as we read the passage today. Psalms 13 verse 1 says to the chief musician, a Psalm of David, how long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel of my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord, my God. Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. lest mine enemies say I have prevailed against him, and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me. Let's begin with the word of our heavenly Father. I'd ask you just to please be with me as I preach this message, Lord. May your hand of mercy be upon not just myself, Lord, but also upon those that hear. And Lord, as the Bible tells us, be doers of the word and not hearers only. And God, I pray that we would be truly the doers, people who take the word of God and apply it and use it and do it. Lord, again, thank you for the time that we have today. May you bless it and use it. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Psalms chapter 13 is definitely one of those passages that you question what was going through the mind of David. What was David thinking when he said those things? Four or five different times he cried out, how long, O Lord? Now I want you to understand as Christians, David is, we find David here, he's not riding this from the throne, but from a storm. Four times he cries, How long, O Lord? Words that echo in the soul of anyone who's ever waited on healing, a breakthrough, or an answer that seems delayed. David feels forgotten, forsaken, and faint. He's searching for God in the shadows. But if you flip a few pages back to Psalms chapter 18, which we will go to tonight, you'll hear a different tone there. God, David, is no longer sighing. He's singing. He declares as God his way is perfect. How did he get from a sorrow to a song? From pressure to praise, from weeping in Psalms 13 to worship in Psalms 18. And that's the journey that we're gonna walk together in this message. From the darkness of the storm to deliverance on the other side, because the same God who allows the storm also anchors us through it and meets us with the strength and joy on the other side. Your storm may sound like silence, but it's not the end. When faith holds fast, hope breaks through, and you can get to the other side. So the title of my message today is On the Other Side of the Storm. Let's begin with a word of prayer one more time. Heavenly Father, I just pray again, Lord, I need your help. I need your grace to be able to go through this. Lord, may you please help. In Jesus' name, amen. There's a reality in every storm. We saw a storm here today, right? The clouds rolled in. Yesterday, it was so bad. We were walking in Walmart with the kids. And literally, it sounded like a million golf balls being bounced off the roof of Walmart. It was an amazing storm. I remember, as a kid, seeing storms roll through in Northwest Indiana. And I thought, for sure, it looked like the Lord was coming back. There was all kinds of green clouds and all kinds of things going on. Boy, I thought, oh my goodness, it's the Lord's return. But, you know, sometimes you look at those storms and you say, oh, it's going to be bad. But then there's a time where it's really bad. It's really awful. And after the storm, you see the rain cease. And sometimes you might even see a little bit of a rainbow. The air smells crisp. And listen, you think about what a storm does. It brings rain. It brings thunderclouds. Now, there are some storms I don't ever been a part of and hope never to be. Tornadoes or hurricanes. But the reason for a storm is that God brings us through it. It may seem bleak. It may seem dark. It may cloudy your vision. But listen, the reality of the storm is that God loves us even in the midst of that storm. No matter what you're going through, no matter what kind of circumstances you are put in, God is always there. A little girl sat on the front steps of her elementary school long after the last bell had rung and one by one, students were picked up by parents. The sun began to lower in the sky and tears welled up in her eyes. She looked anxiously at every passing car. She whispered, maybe mommy forgot me. She didn't doubt her mother's love. She couldn't understand the delay. Her heart interpreted absence as abandonment. Her young mind couldn't grasp traffic, flat tires and unexpected detours. All she knew that she was still waiting. But what she didn't know was this. Her mother was doing everything in her power to get there. She wasn't relaxing at home. She wasn't ignoring her. She was on the way. Delayed but determined. And sure enough, just when the little girl was about to give up hope, a familiar car pulled up into the lot and the mother leaped out, wrapped her arms around her and said, I would never forget you. I think about our relationship with Christ, it was a lot like that. Now again, there's no delays with the Lord. Everything's perfect in His timing. But we do know this, that even though we don't hear or we don't see what the Lord is doing, that does not mean he's not working. It does not mean that he's not taking care of things. That's David, that's us, waiting in the silence, wondering if God has forgotten us, but we forget that God delays are not his denials. His abandoning us, he's on the way. He's working behind the scenes. He's already written our name on his hands, as it says in Isaiah 49. When it feels like God has forgotten you, remember, you're not abandoned. You're engraved. You're not cast off. You're carried. You're not forsaken. You're forever in His care. So we find the first question that we find in Psalms chapter 13, how long wilt thou forget me? I can't imagine David's emotion. You think about David as he's trying to escape the clutches of Saul. Saul was completely mad. He lost his mind over the thought that David was going to take his kingdom from him and he wasn't going to let that happen. He did everything in his power, including moving the entire army of the children of Israel against King David. And in doing so, David was on the run. Many times David would run to places that he never thought of before. He would hang with people that he never thought of before because he was in this situation. One time he went to the Philistine army and literally act like a madman to stay there. One time he hung out with people that you would consider, the Bible calls them ill-fitted. They didn't have a good, they were those that are kind of the baser sort. Yet God used that time with David's life to remind him of his love, to remind him he was still there in the midst of all those problems. I think David's not just complaining, he's crying out from a place of deep distress in this verse. He feels like God has forgotten him. He's been waiting, he's been praying, and nothing seems to happen. The heavens seem silent. But this isn't a doctrinal statement. David knows in his heart God doesn't truly forget. It's raw emotional outbursts that he's having, an honest reflection of his human experience in his current situation. This is faith under pressure. Not gone, but gasping. And I think David, as he's dealing with this, you'll see later on in the passage how he finally comes to that conclusion. But we have to remember God's character is he never forgets. Remember, the Bible says that the one thing he does forget is our sins as far as the east is from the west, right? But everything else, once you become his son, once you become his daughter, he never forgets you. He always loves you and he always cares about you. He's just like you're just like the prodigal son, no matter whatever situation you're in. The Bible says he chaste love with who he chastened and scourge with every son. God never stop loving you. It's fine. Turn your Bibles Isaiah chapter 49. Isaiah chapter 49 and verse 15. Boy, this I read this and I thought, wow. We've already kind of mentioned this verse, but I think it's good to turn to it and read it. The Bible says, can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet I will not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. Boy, read that passage and don't you remember how good God is that he literally is engraved you upon the palms of his hands. How many's ever heard the phrase, I know you like the back of my hand. How many's ever heard that phrase? That's the way God is with us. You ask, hey, how are you doing? I mean, my daddy used to write stuff on his not to forget. And I took some of that. I don't do it anymore. I use my phone now. But back in the day before phones, we would write things on our hands. It's a bad habit. It's probably not very polite. But we would put things on there, maybe phone numbers. Maybe we'd put a name that we needed to remember. Why? Because that was the place. You always will see the back of your hands. You always will see, I'm sorry, the palms of your hands. And that's the way God looks at you. He looks down and He sees you with the palms of your hands. And when you're ever thinking that God has forgotten you, remember that God is always there. God compares His care to that of a nursing mother, one of the strongest human bonds imaginable. But even if a mother could forget her child, rare but possible, God never will. He says, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hand a permanent, visible reminder of His love and attention. It's a covenant price, promise that God has given. You're not overlooked, you're engraved. What forget doesn't mean with God. When David says forget, we must understand, he doesn't mean that God is absent-minded. You know, we as human beings who are finite, don't have a lot of, sometimes we forget. I know I've done that a few times. Any of you homies ever forgot a birthday or forgot an anniversary? You husbands won't admit to it, but it happens, right? We forget. God doesn't do that. He's not absent-minded. He's describing in David this message. He's describing a felt delay in God's action. In scriptures, we find many times where God, you say, does God remember? Yeah. If you find Genesis chapter 8 verse 1, the Bible says God remembered Noah. We find here in Genesis 30 verse 22, God remembered Rachel. So does God have to remember? No, he knows your name, but there's an absence. It's like he comes back to it. God hasn't forgotten. I'm horrible. I'm not absent-minded, but there's a lot of things that I have to do. And sometimes, at work, there is things that I have a whole list of things I gotta get done before this is a completed job. And many times, I'll do a walkthrough. This done, this done, this done, this done. Oh, I need to do that. Let's get that done and I'll get it done. God is somewhat in the same way he's he's looking back and saying, OK, what needs to be taken care of here? Now, we'll get into the reason for delay, but I want you to understand God has never forgotten you. It's a delayed understanding. God isn't David isn't ignored. He's in the waiting room of God's providence in Psalms 13. So we find secondly, not only to how long, we find secondly, how long wilt thou hide thy face? So the first question that he asks is how long wilt thou forget me? The second one we find in this passage is how long wilt thou hide thy face? I remember playing peek-a-boo with your kids, right? I've seen this, I don't know when I saw this video, a guy was playing peek-a-boo with his kids and he had had a beard this little girl's her entire life. And so she's sitting there and she's playing peekaboo with him and all of a sudden he puts it on his face, he goes and shaves his beard, puts a towel on his face and comes back and she pulls the towel off his face and just starts to cry. Because it's no longer her daddy with the beard on her face. Now, I find that as an interesting idea, but the idea of a hidden face of the father can be illustrated in kind of like this. A young boy once stood in the middle of a crowded room during a game of hide and seek. It wasn't the typical version. The game had a twist. He was blindfolded, and his job was to listen carefully for his father's voice. The father would call out simple instructions like, take a step forward, now turn left, now reach out your hand. The goal, to lead the son to a hidden gift waiting in the room. At first, the boy followed with confidence, but then the father stopped speaking, and then there was nothing but silence. The boy froze, confused. Dad? Dad? He whispered. Where'd you go? Still silence. The father hadn't left the room. He was watching. close. His silence wasn't abandonment. It was part of the lesson. He wanted the boy to stop relying on constant direction and start walking by trust, remembering his voice and believing in his nearness. Finally, the boy took a trembling step forward and found the gift waiting for him. Then the father rushed in and embraced him and says, I never left. I just wanted you to learn to trust me in silence. Do you feel that God is silent to you today? Do you feel like he hasn't answered your prayer? Do you feel like there's something that's necessary? David felt the same way in Psalms 13. God, where is your face? Where is the warmth of your presence? Not gone, just hidden. Not absent, just silent. Sometimes God removes the emotional nearness, not to punish us, but to mature us. His silence sharpens our ears. His hiddenness deepens our faith. It's said of children that If you scream all the time and you yell all the time, that children will grow used to your yelling. You scream and you shout and you holler, kids will get used to it. But if you talk in a very quiet tone, stern but quiet, I remember this very clearly as a kid. Sometimes I'd fall asleep in church. And my father would whisper a disciplinary tone, and it woke me up instantly. To this day, I struggle with falling asleep in church. Ask my wife. I might get like two hours of sleep the night before, but you know what? I'm wide awake during church. I don't know. It's just I was trained. But you know, it's interesting. My dad didn't have to yell at me. He didn't have to scream at me. He was very quiet in how he said things. He wants us to wait to hear him. Listen, if there's all kinds of noise and there's all kinds of yelling, there's all kinds of screaming and you don't ever hear God's voice and listen, there's a lot of reasons for why we don't hear God's voice. But the truth is, is that we have to find deeper faith to take root and understand, even though we don't hear him, we need to know he is there and he's there to take care of us and he's there to love us and he's there to bring us back to where he wants us to be. You think about the Israelites, they were how many years in Egypt before they heard God's voice? You think about between the New Testament and the Old Testament, how many years before God spoke to the Israelite? It was a long time, 400, 500 years that before God spoke. And you say, why? God was waiting. He had a plan. He was waiting. Silence is not abandonment. Silence is a test. In the Old Testament, God's face is symbolic of his favor, presence, and blessing. When David says, how long wilt thou hide thy face? He's saying, Lord, I don't feel your nearness. I'm praying, maybe some of you have said this, but there's no peace. I'm worshiping, but the warmth is gone. This is not, and I'm gonna make this clear, this is not about losing your salvation. It's about the sweetness of fellowship. David misses God's smile upon his life. So look at the context of God hiding his face. The phrase appears in multiple places in scripture usually signifies, number one, a displeasure with sin. The Bible says in Isaiah 59 verse two, your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you. God always wants us to be recognizing where our sin is at. Sometimes it's displeasure with your sin. Sometimes God hides his face because sin has created distance. He's not gone, but our sin clouds our ability to see or to feel him. And so sometimes that sin can cloud that ability to feel the peace and feel the understanding. Listen, it's an emotional sometimes thing that we're feeling. The truth is God's never left us. The Bible says he will never leave you nor forsake you. He's always there with you. And you might not feel him there, but it's because some of your sin has not been dealt with. I don't know what it is. We could go through a litany of different sins that might cause God to hide His face from you. But God wants to seek pleasure with His children. My experience in having a relationship with my children is the same way. I'm not always happy with them, but I still love them. I might be discouraged by some of the things they're doing, but I don't stop providing for them. Why? Because they're my children. I love them. And I want to continue to love them. And I will continue to love them. I'll never forget that. But God in His mercy has designed it in such a way that He wants you to start looking for your sin. Number two, not only is there a reason why you can't hear God is displeasure with your sin, but number two, it's the testing and deepening of faith. Isaiah 45 verse 15, it says, Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior. There are season when God withdraws the sense of his presence, not out of anger, but to grow our dependence. It forces us to walk by faith and not by sight. Wouldn't it be easy if there was just a broad neon light blinking every time you wanted to know what God wanted to do? All of a sudden, this broad neon light just pops in the sky and says, Harold, this is where you need to go. That'd be easy, wouldn't it? But God wants us to keep trusting Him and talking to Him and spending time with Him and having fellowship with Him. See, the more time you spend with someone, the more deeper your trust will be with them. Now, sometimes trust is not there because some people erode that trust. But with a heavenly father who's perfect, that trust will continue to grow. The more time you spend in the Word of God, the more time you spend in prayer, the more time God has a chance to work and increases your faith. When you spend time with the Word of God, it's meaning that you're serious. It's meaning that you want a relationship with Him. It means that you want more from Him. When you have less of a time with the Word of God, when you have less time in prayer, it shows that you don't want to have a relationship with Him. And you're not seeking His face. And you don't want His blessing. We find, thirdly, not only a testing and deepening of the faith, but thirdly, a call to seek him more in earnestly. The Bible says in Psalms 105 verse 4, seek the Lord in his strength, seek his face evermore. Sometimes God's hidden face is not a punishment, but an invitation. He's drawing us into a deeper pursuit. You say, Pastor, I am reading my novel. Pastor, I am praying. Maybe God's saying, you can have more. You just need to seek me more. When you get to that point, when you get a taste for God's blessing, a taste for the love of God, a taste for a relationship with Him, it exceeds work. It exceeds everything else, even your own family. You say, Pastor, are you trying to say that you're going to ban your family for the Lord? No, I will say this, that the person who has a close relationship with the Lord, their family will see a better father or a better mother because they have gotten better because of Jesus Christ and the time that they spend with Him. Your relationship with God will broaden your ability to really deal with your sin and deal with how you deal with others. When you look at God and say, God, how do you want me to be? How do you want me to do? Jesus Christ sends his Holy Spirit to do what in your heart? He convicts you of sin and convicts you of where you've gone wrong and convicts you of your stupidity. And you step back and say, oh, God, I'm so sorry. And you start working on those little things in your life that are not in God's plan. God starts to smooth it out, as they say, a diamond in the rough. Before long, you'll shine forth like gold. Because why? You've spent time with the refiner. Christian, listen to me. Seek the Lord in his strength. David's condition was discouragement or spiritual weariness. When we grow weary, we may feel like God has withdrawn. In spiritual burnout, even Scripture can feel dry. and worship seems hollow. The danger is misinterpreting the silence as absence or disapproval. Face hiding is not the same as abandonment. God hides his face to us. We need to purify our hearts from idols. We need to test our loyalty when the feelings are gone. Train us to seek him, not just his blessings. And sometimes he hides his face to ask, will you still seek me when it's not easy? Will you trust me even when it is dark? God is always there. I want you to remind yourself, here's some encouraging promises to go along with this. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. The Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 5, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Numbers chapter 6 and verse 25, the Lord make his face shine upon thee. It's not forever, friend. Now, if you're unsaved in here, you've never accepted Jesus Christ as your savior. God is still calling you to salvation. God is calling you out of the world to be a part of this body of Christ. And you know what? If you don't never accepted the great plan of salvation that God has provided for us through his son, Jesus Christ, I encourage you today is the day to accept him. Listen. Abandonment from the Heavenly Father. When we when we sometimes stand before him, he'll say, depart from me. If you're unsaved in here, he'll say, depart from me, cursed into everlasting fire. Someday you'll stand before the throne of the King of Kings and you'll be forsaken forever. I don't think our Heavenly Father wants that. The Bible says he wants all to come to repentance. The question is, are you willing to come to him? and believe him that he is your Lord and Savior. So number three, not only does he say, how long will you hide his face? And this is a broader point, and this is what's going to take a little bit of time. How long shall I take counsel in my soul? Abraham Lincoln. during the darkest days of the American Civil War, faced constant pressure from generals, politicians, and press, even his own cabinet. But perhaps the loudest voice came from within. He was a man prone to melancholy, known for shouldering burdens silently. At times, he withdrew emotionally, walking the halls of the White House late at night, talking to himself, weary with sorrow. One of his aides recorded seeing Lincoln sitting alone, head in his hands, muttering, I must not fail, I must not fail. It was a loop of inner pressure. And though he had many advisors, Lincoln often wrestled in isolation, struggling with the weight of thousands of deaths. A divided nation and a moral cause he feared might collapse. But what turned the tide? Lincoln began to seek something beyond himself. In 1863, he issued a National Day of Prayer. and fasting, confessing that the nation had become too self-reliant and needed a return to God. In his own words, Lincoln said, we have forgotten God. We have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. He stopped listening to his own soul and started listening to God. Like Lincoln, David had reason to feel overwhelmed. When you become your own advisor, especially when weary, you often create pressure rather than peace. Self-counsel creates loops, but godly counsel brings liberty. When your thoughts echo fear instead of faith, it's time to change the conversation. You don't need to figure it out. You need faith to faith it forward. The soul doesn't need more of your voice. It needs God's voice. When you stop spiraling inward and start seeking upward, you'll find that peace you were looking for has been waiting all along in the promises of God. So we find here lately, the last part, that David had turned inward instead of upward. When we stop listening to God's voice and start relying on our own, we spiral into confusion, fear, and spiritual exhaustion. Here we find the emotion, take counsel in my soul. Here David describes a common human struggle. He's talking to himself, but not in a healthy sense. He's recycling his sorrow over and over. He's over-analyzing the situation and trying to solve spiritual despair with emotional logic. Maybe he said things like this, I prayed but now I'm thinking, thinking, thinking. I can't shut off my mind. Or maybe he says, I'm trying to figure it out myself. David is stuck in a loop of self-talk and it's wearing him down. The Bible says, he said, having sorrow in my heart daily. How are you going to change that loop? How are you going to say, I got to stop this? I can't think like this. I know this is eating me alive. Oh, God, please. That's what you need to cry. Many times Christians get so wrapped up in their own self-pity that they forget that God is there to hear their voice. There's a danger of self-counsel. When we look inward instead of looking upward, here's what happens. You become your own advisor and you're already exhausted. You start counseling within yourself, your brain starts to start doing loops. That's when you start getting mad, right? Not angry, you go mad. You start to lose your mind. You end up leaning on your own understanding, as the Bible tells us in Proverbs 3, 5. Lean not on your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy paths. It's limited, your thinking is. It's distorted by emotion. And that's why you need something solid that's going to guide you in the right direction. Your thoughts echo your fears, not God's truth. Self-control rarely leads to peace. It often leads to panic because you're hearing more of your own doubts than God's promises. I can't tell you how many times good godly music or reading my Bible has helped me overcome my doubts and my fears, how it's encouraged me, how it's brought me along. And I can say it can be the same for you. When you look inward, you might misdiagnose the problem and describe the wrong solution. You think, maybe God has left me or maybe you try to figure it out instead of faith your way through. You don't remember his word. All you remember is the problem. And when you try to figure it out on your own, you'll always end up in the wrong situation. Psalms 42 verse 5. This is where David is later on. He says, Why art thou cast down, O my soul? What does he say? Why art thou disquiet in me? What does he say? Hope thou in God. He didn't stop and say, How long, O Lord, how long? No, he says to himself, Shut up! Hope thou in God. Now, that's some powerful stuff right there. And that's what we need to do as Christians. When we start getting overwhelmed in our thought, we get overwhelmed, we're sitting there, boy, this is a problem, this is a problem, evil surmising everywhere, and your thoughts are going wild. Say, hope thou in God. Where is your hope in yourself or in God? Is your hope in your wealth or in God? Is your hope in your education or in God? Where is your hope? You stand back and say, oh, God. Oh God, forgive me. Let me lean on you. God, help me to listen to you. Take my hope out of my heart and my desires and my life and hope in you. Self-talk must be scripture talk. Christian often do the same. We internalize pain instead of an interceding through prayer. We seek Google. or our gut rather than God's word. And we rehearse the worst case scenarios instead of remembering God's faithfulness. What's the result? Confusion, discouragement, and spiritual sorrow daily. When you're tempted to take counsel in your own soul, pause and ask, what does God's word say about this? Stop the spiral by praying scripture out loud. Don't counsel yourself with worry. Counsel yourself with the word. When I say counsel yourself, I'm saying literally read it out loud so you can hear it. Turn every anxious thought into a targeted prayer based on God's word. You know what you're going through, and you say, God, your word says this. Say it out loud. Say it out loud. You don't need to counsel yourself. God has already spoken. The Bible tells us in Psalms 119, verse 24, thy testimony also are my delight and my counselors. What is this counselor? God's testimonies. What is God's testimonies? His word. And here's my last one and I'm done. How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? External defeat reflects internal fear. David wasn't just talking about his enemies. He was looking at something more important. And I think this is why I think every Christian must recognize where God is. Where is God in your relationship with Him? Are you truly seeking Him? Are you truly looking for His guidance? Or instead, are you just resting completely upon your own understanding and the understanding of your emotions? How much time have you taken in saying, Lord, you're in control? You're the one that's taking control of the situation, not me. He's talking in this situation about the feeling of being overrun, of watching the wicked prosper while he suffers. He feels like evil is winning. He seems like the enemy is in control and God isn't stopping them. The cry comes from the discouragement of delay. We've already talked about that. Why hasn't God intervened yet? The weight of weariness. How much longer is this going to take? And the fear of final defeat. Maybe they're going to win. Now, I wanna say this. In the end, God always wins. He always does. Doesn't matter what you think or what the world thinks. The Bible says, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord. There is coming a day. David's cry reveals he's begun to magnify the enemy and minimize his God. in a really sick, defeated way, you've made the enemy your God. You're saying they're more powerful than God. And that's where that defeatist atmosphere comes in. David's focus had shifted from God is almighty to the enemy is almighty. Who really is? Who is? God is. The core problem is the perspective. It's been distorted. David isn't seeing the enemy accurately. He's seeing them through the lens of fear, not through faith. When we forget who fights for us, the enemy always seems a lot stronger. Look at the 12 spies in Numbers chapter 13, verse 33. What did they say? They went down through the land of Israel, right? We've seen it with the kids. Grapes of clusters long, right? Some of them saw that. Some saw what? God is strong, right? They saw all the things, some of them did, saw all the good things, but then they saw, what, giants big and tall, right? And they said, we are like grasshoppers. And they forgot the God they serve. We sometimes forget the God we serve. The real problem wasn't the size of them, it was the smallness of their faith. They were looking and saying, hey, you know what? You're a big fellow. But I know one even bigger, right? I remember as a kid, I got picked on sometimes. It was fun. I was the blunt of a bully. And I remember one time there was this, it was a senior. I was seventh grade and he was, I don't remember the kid's name. But they would bully me. And one day, The biggest guy in the wrestling team, his name is Billy Ramos, walked by. Now Billy was, he was a big guy. He literally had muscles like you wouldn't believe. And he walked like this, you know. And he would, he actually in his senior year, he wrestled a Michigan State quarterback. He was that big and he only lost by one point. He was a big guy. He was the heavyweight guy of our team. And he saw this guy picking on me and he walked by me and he said, Hey, go pick on someone your own size. The guy looked up and he just took off. Now, I want to say it's the same way with our Heavenly Father. The devil knows he's defeated. And God just has to say, hey, why don't you go pick on someone your own size? And you know what? The Bible says he will flee from you. Submit yourself therefore to God, resist the devil, and what? He will flee from you. He's not looking at you. You're a pipsqueak in his eyes. He wants to, as Jesus said to Peter, he wants to sift you as wheat. But he looks at the guy behind you, and that's God Almighty, creator of the heaven and earth, Jesus Christ. And he sees Jesus Christ and he runs. Just like the pigs that the demons went into. They were cast out when Jesus says, he says, where can we go? Go to those pigs. And they all ran off into the distance and fell into the sea. Why? Because they were afraid of Jesus Christ. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. When we feel overwhelmed by people, pressure, spiritual attacks, it's often a sign we've drifted from the confidence of God's promises. Fear doesn't always mean we're losing. It just means we've forgotten who is fighting with us and for us. David wasn't losing the war. He was just losing his peace. We find Exodus chapter 14, verse 14, the Lord shall fight for you and he shall hold your peace. Romans 8, 31, if God before us, who can be against us? In Romans 8, 37, and all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. God doesn't always remove the enemies immediately, but he always remains greater than the enemy. So what's the spiritual perspective from all this? Well, stop measuring yourself against the enemy and start measuring your enemy against God. And every time you do that, you'll find, as David said, thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. The past battles, think of those. Remember those that God has fought for you. David had to remember the days that he had slayed Goliath and realize that God could do that again and speak God's victory over the situation. Psalms 27 verse 1 says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? If the enemy is exalted, it may be time to exalt your God again in your thinking, in your praying, and in your praising. Stop focusing on the size of the storm and start focusing on the strength of your Savior. It's not a sin to feel overwhelmed, but don't let emotions override God's promises. When feelings say God is gone, faith says He's still there. How about it today, friend? Are you going through something that you just think there's no hope? Are you measuring yourself up to a holy, righteous, just God? Or are you measuring yourself up to the enemy? You can live a defeated life, or you can live a victorious life.