If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Psalm 34. This is a psalm of David. And the setting is that he is on the run from Saul, who's trying to kill him. And he makes his way to Achish, king of Gath. And Achish, king of Gath, finds out from his friends, the people who are with him, this is David. The people said, Saul has slain his thousands, David his ten thousands. This is a dangerous man. You better do something about him. And when David hears that, David is afraid. And David decides he's got to take matters into his own hands, as it were, and so he feigns madness. He feigns insanity. And he is seen walking about, scribbling on the gates like a crazy man, allowing the saliva to run down into his beard. And apparently, the people again said, listen, Achish, you've got to do something about this guy. And Achish says, this is all in I Samuel 21, Achish says, I've got plenty of crazy people around. I don't need another crazy guy. This isn't David. And so, he leaves David alone and David flees. David's life is spared. And it's in that context as David looks back over his life and he sees what God has done. Now, as I read this, I want you to notice. Just follow and I'll go back into the text in a moment. I want you to notice the first seven verses. David is praising the Lord. Notice what he's doing. Then in verses 8 through 14, he's telling us why he's praising the Lord. Then in verses 15, or excuse me, in verses 4 through 7, he's telling us why he's praising the Lord. In verses 8 through 14, he's telling us what we ought to do And then as verses 15 to the end of the chapter, he's telling us why we should do that which he's commanding us to do. Powerful psalm. The Bible is the infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God. It is our only rule of faith and practice. So hear God's Word, then a brief prayer. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord. The humble will hear it and rejoice. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and rescues them. O taste and see that the Lord is good! How blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! O fear the Lord, you his saints! For those who fear him, there is no want. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they who seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing. Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life and loves lengths of days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones. Not one of them is broken. Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems the soul of his servants, and none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. Father, in the name of Jesus, we ask that Your Spirit would come upon the preacher and everyone here, and that we would see the goodness of God, Your goodness, that we would taste and see the goodness of God, and that we in turn would ask others to taste and see the goodness of God. And above all, Father, we want to see Jesus. high and lifted up, drawing people today to Him for the first time or drawing us back in repentance. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Please be seated. So, as I mentioned in the introduction, David is reminiscing David is reminiscing about how things were. God had delivered him out of the lion's mouth. A really difficult time. And so he's looking back. And again, you'll notice in the first three verses, he's praising the Lord. In Philippians chapter 3, Paul says, Rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you again is no trouble for me and a safeguard for you. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice. Let your forbearing spirit be made known to all men. The Lord is near. Our lives Peter says, are to be marked with joy inexpressible and full of glory. That's what David is doing as he's looking back. He's seeing what God has done. He says, I will bless the Lord at all times, even when I was on the run from Saul. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise. shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord. I'm not boasting in my wealth. I'm not boasting in horses. I'm boasting in the Lord. Paul the Apostle said that he boasts in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, to which this world was crucified, to us and us to the world. This is what our lives are all about. We boast not in ourselves but God. And we trust not in ourselves but God who raised the dead. My soul will make its boast in the Lord. The humble will hear it and they will rejoice. They'll watch me rejoice. They'll rejoice. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. People, he says, as we reflect back over God's covenantal faithfulness to me, and then as you look in your own life, magnify the Lord with me. Let us rejoice in Him together. And then he tells us why. Why is it that he is rejoicing in the Lord and exalting in the Lord and urging the other people to exalt in the Lord? Well, you'll notice how Yahweh gave him protection and provision and deliverance. I sought the Lord. And he answered me. It kind of reminds me of Psalm 63. David's also on the run there, and he says, Oh God, Thou art my God. My soul will seek after Thee. My soul longs for Thee. My flesh yearns for Thee in a dry and weary land where there is no water, to see Thee in my sanctuary, to behold Thy power and Thy glory. He's in trouble. And in his trouble, he cries out to God, I sought the Lord. And you think back in your own life, when you've been on the run, and things look really bleak, health-wise, with your children, with your job, and God works in your life, and you say, I sought the Lord. I sought the Lord, and He answered me." He's not just way out there somewhere. He is right here with us. I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and He delivered me from all my troubles. They looked to Him and were radiant. The Lord bless you. The Lord keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you. that He would lift up your countenance and give you peace. Throughout the Scriptures we see evidences of God's glory coming on people. You remember Moses said, Lord, show me Your glory. His face is covered with the radiance of God as he thinks back and sees how God delivered him out of the hands of Achish, king of Gath. And he looks and he sees many, many other examples. His face is radiant. They looked to him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed. This poor man – he's talking about himself – this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and the Lord saved him out of all his troubles. You see their deliverance. You see provision. You see protection. Now he's changing gears. He's been praising God for what God has done. He's giving the rationale for it. Now he's going to apply it to his hearers, his readers, as the Holy Spirit begins to apply it to you and me and the people in this community. You notice he says in verse 8, here's the command, O taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. What is the goodness of God? Well, clearly here it is refuge. Clearly it is deliverance. Clearly it is provision. We know that we receive every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He goes on, Paul, talks about God's electing grace, talks about the Son's redeeming grace, talks about the Holy Spirit's sealing grace. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were under the wrath of God, but God was rich in mercy. All throughout the Scriptures we see this idea of God saying, taste, look, see who I am, see what I've done. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. He says, listen, fear the Lord, you saints. What does it mean to fear the Lord? The fear of the Lord means, I desire more than anything in my life to please the Lord. I want to be well-pleasing to the Lord, Paul says in Ephesians 5. In other words, to fear God means, I desire more than anything in this world His smile. on what I do, what I think, what I say, and I dread more than anything else His frown or His displeasure." Now listen, if you're in Christ, He loves you, but He can still frown on you. It's like when your children, whom you love dearly, disobey, then you're not happy. You're not pleased. You frown. You have to discipline. But you still love them. That's the picture here. Fear the Lord, you His saints. Why is that? For to those who fear Him, there is no want. That's an amazing statement. If you fear God, If you desire more than anything, His smile on your life, and you dread more than anything is found, if the bent of your life is to say, Lord, I surrender to You, I want to trust You, I want to obey You. He says you will never lack for anything. Now again, That doesn't mean we don't have sickness. That doesn't mean we never lose our job. Of course not. But in the midst of all these things, remember again, David's in big trouble, right? In the midst of all the trouble, he says, when you fear Him, You will not lack for anything. He says the young lions lack and suffer hunger. Well, you look around and you see sometimes there's a drought and the animals are not fed and they die and so forth. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they who seek the Lord shall not want for anything. He's saying taste and see. Step back and look at what God does and you seek Him as well. It's an evangelistic message, as it were, to the unbeliever, but also to those in the covenant, reminding us to get back, to come back to Him when we tend to move away in our folly. Then in verse 11, he goes on. Come, you children." Again, he's telling, he's urging them to come. Come, you children. Listen to me. See, you get the impression there, he's an older man. He's thinking back. He's talking to the young people. He's talking to the children. He's talking to the teenagers. He's talking to the twenty-somethings. Come, you children. Listen to me. I'm an old man now. I've been through a lot. I've seen God provide. You know, King Achish and what God did there. Watch, look, see what He's done. Come, you children, listen to Me. I'm an older person. Listen to Me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. This is a good thing. I'm going to teach you to seek Him earnestly. Watch what I say. Watch what I do. Who is the man who desires life and loves length of days, that he may see good? Who is this man? In other words, seek him. Who is this man? Well, he goes on to say, keep your tongue from evil in your lips from speaking deceit. Be careful with your tongue. Fear the Lord with your tongue, as it were. Depart from evil. Do good. Seek the Lord. Fear the Lord by living in obedience to Him. Seek peace and pursue it. Don't be a troublemaker. Don't sow seeds of discord amongst the brethren. Walk in holiness. This is what you need to do. And then he tells them why. He said, the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous. And his ears are opened to their cry. The face of the Lord is against evildoers to cut off the memory of them from the earth. You don't want that to happen. You want to seek Him. The righteous cry, and the Lord hears. When you as a righteous person, if you could become a righteous person, if you seek Him, He says, the righteous cry and the Lord will deliver him out of all his troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Do you remember a few weeks ago, I forget her name, but there's a young woman newscaster on Fox News who had one child and she was pregnant with her second child and her husband was killed in a bicycle accident. Remember that? And I didn't know anything about her life, but her testimony was amazing. Here she is. She's just lost her husband. She's pregnant, I believe, with her second child. And as she's giving a statement, here's the verse that she used, the righteous cry, and the Lord hears. and delivers them out of all their troubles, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." That's the comfort she received. So, he goes on to explain why they're to taste and see that the Lord is good. Many are the afflictions of the righteous." Hey, he's not saying that when you seek after Him and you fear Him, that all of a sudden all your troubles and afflictions and problems go away. No. In fact, many are the afflictions of the righteous. It's not an easy life. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but there's another strong adversative, but The Lord delivers him out of them all. David's in great difficulty with Achish. The Lord delivered him. He's not an armchair quarterback. He's not an ivory tower theologian. He's been in the midst of it all. He's able to say, God delivered me. And God will deliver you. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. I'm here to tell you, the Lord delivers you out of them all. He keeps all His bones. Not one of them is broken. Now, we know that we have accidents. We know that bones break. We know that we die. But He's giving a general principle here. Just like in Ephesians chapter 6, children, obey your parents and the Lord. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise that you might live long on the earth. We know there are children who love Jesus who die young, in infancy or as teenagers. And it doesn't mean that when they die, well, I guess they didn't serve the Lord. No, no, no, no, no. It's a general overarching principle. If you obey your parents, generally speaking, Because you're being lawful, you're going to live a long life. The same thing is true here. You fear the Lord. Your bones will not be broken. He keeps them all. Evil shall slay the wicked. The unrighteous, the wicked will be judged. Those who hate the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems the soul of His servants. And none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned. This is a word of comfort. This is an evangelistic word to the unbeliever. This is a word to the covenant community for people who might be straying away. He says, I want you to remember and understand, He will redeem His servants. None of those who take refuge in Him will ever be condemned. There therefore is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. In other words, bottom line, summing it all up, what David is saying to these people, and what David is saying to you and me, is taste and see that the Lord is good. Now, let's apply that, all right? As I look out at the congregation, the majority of you are my age or older. That's OK. I'm happy to be 63, soon to be 64. But most of us here are older. Now, I see some younger folks here. That's great. Praise the Lord. We need more of that, right? All right, here's the deal. There are 75 million millennials in this country. And sociologists will divide that up differently, but let's just say it's from the age of 18 to 35. 75 million. These young people remember, all they remember is Desert Storm, Columbine, The Oklahoma City bombing, 9-11, the Gulf War, seeing people their age go off to war and not come back, or go off to war and come back with no arms or no legs or brain damage. That's what they see. They see ISIS beheading people in the Middle East. Many of them coming out of college are saddled with an enormous amount of debt. Many of them are not really able to get good jobs. The economy's basically been flat for seven or eight years. Many of these millennials in your community and beyond have dysfunctional families. There's divorce. There's been abuse. There's all sorts of things going on. Many of them have gone to university and they have heard Marxist, leftist-leaning professors debunk America and Christianity. They've been told that Christopher Hitchens, who was a militant atheist, is right on the money. They generally don't have a context for history. They don't really understand the historical context in which we find ourselves. That's why they can vote for Bernie Sanders. And here's the thing I want you to see. They don't really trust their parents, a lot of them, but they're looking for someone. They don't have an anchor. They're looking for someone. They're looking for someone to speak into their lives. You know who they're looking to? They're looking to their grandparents. They're looking to people our age and older. Let me give you a classic example. I was on a plane recently coming back from South Africa. Those are nine-hour flights. You've got to find something to do, right? So I start watching movies. Most of them you can't watch, but here's one that was pretty good, The Intern. You ever seen that one? The Intern. Yeah, it's a good movie. It's Robert De Niro, who's 70 years old. He's a widower. His wife has just died. He's retired. He's getting a little tired of the retirement thing. He sees an ad for senior interns. And so he applies for the job. And Anne Hathaway plays the main character. And she's this young millennial, 20-something, sharp businesswoman who's got an online fashion business that's rocking and rolling. They're making money hand over fist. And he comes in. And he wears his coat and tie every day, you know. And the people with him say, you shave every day. Why do you shave every day? Well, that's just what I do. And you see this beautiful story developing where the young guys he's working with begin to trust him. One of them moves in and lives with him because he doesn't have enough money. They're starting to ask questions. How do you handle your money? How do you do this? And then he becomes basically a confidante to Anne Hathaway in the movie. It's a beautiful illustration of this whole idea that the young people are looking for someone to minister to them. So I want you to think about that in the context of this psalm. I want you to think about your life. You look back over your life and you see, yeah, you've had some hard times, no doubt about it. You've had plenty of dark nights of the soul, but you look back and you begin to see a pattern of how God has provided for you. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they who seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing. And you begin to see God's hand of blessing and protection and provision and deliverance throughout your life. You think back how you narrowly escaped that automobile accident. how you were about to lose your job, and all these other people are being fired or let go, and you still keep your job. You look back and you see all this, and a lot of times we're so in the middle of it all, we don't really get it. Step back and see what He's done. And remember God's infinite goodness to you. And then you realize there's people around you, maybe your grandchildren, maybe children in the neighborhood, who are without an anchor to the soul. They're looking for something. There's many biblical examples of this. How about Judges chapter 11? There's this guy named Jephthah. Jephthah came from a seriously dysfunctional family, kind of like what happens today. It's always happened. Here's the deal. Jephthah's father has a prostitute, and the prostitute becomes pregnant, and the child is born, and the child's name is Jephthah. And so Jephthah's father, Gilead, brings him into the family, and in the meantime, Jephthah, Gilead, and his wife have a lot of other children. They've got a bunch of boys. But you see, the boys that came from Gilead and their mother reject Jephthah because he's illegitimate. And when he gets old enough, they say, you're out of here. Get out of the house. Leave. You're not getting any of the old man's inheritance. So he has to flee. And then we're told that when he flees, He goes to a place called Tov. That's interesting. I'll come back to that in a second. But while he's there, he starts hanging out with bad guys. These are gang members, as it were. Jephthah is an ancient gangbanger. That's what he is. He's bad news. He's causing trouble everywhere. Now, in the meantime, Israel realizes the Ammonites are about to overtake them. And they begin to hear the illegitimate child from the dysfunctional family. He's been over there in Tov, and now he seems to be a pretty good guy. He seems to be a pretty valiant warrior. So they say, hey, can you come back and help us? He says, are you going to take me back in? Am I going to be your leader if I take care of business? They say, yes. So he comes back. He takes care of business. He runs out to Ammonites and they make him their ruler. The word Tob in Hebrew means goodness. He's met the goodness of God. This illegitimate, dysfunctional family member, this gangbanger is now Good! He's tasted the goodness of God. He's experienced the mercy and the grace of God as he looks forward to the great Redeemer, the Lord Jesus. You see this throughout the Bible. Listen. Look at Noah. He's a righteous man, right? The old man gets drunk after the flood. And you know what happened next. Abraham, righteous Abraham, on two occasions, has his wife say, listen, tell them you're my sister. Now she was his half-sister. Tell them you're my sister, because if you don't, you're a beautiful woman, and they're going to take you and they're going to kill me. So in other words, he's basically sacrificing his wife's morality to save his own skin. He does it not once, he does it twice. And Isaac did the same thing. He learned it from the old man. He did it to Rebecca. And then they have Jacob. You remember Jacob? Really good guy, right? Jacob was a con artist. He ripped his brother off twice. Then he flees and Laban took advantage of him. Laban ripped him off with Rachel and Leah. And then he calms Laban. He magnifies his sheep and his goats. And then he says, I'd better get out of here. It's time to leave town. So he goes back with this huge entourage. And he's going to go back into the land. When he's going back, he finds out that his brother Esau knows he's coming. Remember, he cheated and he ripped off Esau a couple of times. Now he's afraid. So what does he do? He puts his wives and his children in front of him. They're the buffer. What a jerk. You know? Unbelievable. And then they have Dinah. Remember what happened? She got raped. Remember that? And so, then Dinah's brothers decide they're going to take care of business. Hey, you guys can become part of the family, but now if you're going to become part of us, you've got to be circumcised. And while they're laying around in their pain after being circumcised, they come in and they kill every last one of them. These are the people in God's covenant. Isn't that amazing? These are God's people. Now, God worked in their lives. And they did seek Him. And they did become more righteous. But, man, they had a lot of skeletons in the old closet. You know what I'm saying? Listen. Never forget the covenant of grace. I will be a God to you. You will be a people to Me. As weak as you are, and every one of you know, every one of you can sit here and say, I'll bet you, I'll bet you that you confessed in that time of public confession, I'll bet you confessed the same sins you do every week. That's what I do. Right? You're not what you ought to be. But God. I will be your God. You didn't choose me. I chose you and appointed it to you so that you should bear much fruit, that your fruit should remain. I chose you. You're my people. You're the apple of my eye. Here's what happens. People my age and older, and even the younger folks here too, you see, here's what happens. You know you sin, and the devil starts working you over. See, the devil's the accuser of the brethren, Revelation 12. And he tells you, who are you kidding? You can't pray. You can't witness. You can't try to mentor somebody younger. You're a hypocrite. Your life's not what it ought to be. That's what he does. What you ought to do is you say, you're right. You don't know the half of it. I'm even worse than that. But God is merciful. God is righteous. Here's my challenge. I want you to think about people in your life. I'm talking right now to people my age or older. I want you to think about people in your community that are younger. Could you begin to reach out to them? Could you begin to try to get involved? Pray about it. Ask God to lead you. And you begin to say to them, I want you to taste and see that the Lord is good. Listen, we know the sin of choice amongst even professing evangelical millennials is fornication. Some 70 to 80 percent of men in the church, this includes young people, are hooked on porn. This is a major issue. And what we need to do is come alongside and minister to these people. A lot of the millennials who go to church don't believe the Bible. Hey, I got a lot of homosexual friends. How could God be against them? Maybe the Bible's not true after all. The Bible says we're not to fornicate. Well, I like doing that and I do that a lot, so maybe the Bible's not true there. Maybe I'm okay. But what you need to do is you need to step back and remember what God's done in your life. And then you just start telling people, let me tell you the goodness of God. Let me show you how over the last 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 years, even in spite of my sin and my weakness, and you know I'm not going light on sin, you know that. But in spite of my sin, God's been faithful to me when I was not faithful. Because you see, they've got this idea That the church is for righteous people, and we're not righteous. We need Jesus. And for those of you that are younger, you've got friends like that. If you are in this church, and you've been walking with Christ all your life, I'm sure you've had your struggles from time to time. But you're here, and you've got friends who are a mess, and you know it. taste and see that the Lord is good. Just see that He's good. Would you do that? Now, in closing, let me give you an example. In the Sunday School Hour, I told you about my ministry to homosexual men, so I'm not going to go into all the detail on that. But let me just give you one of many stories of what God did. I would meet with these 15 to 20 homosexual men, HIV positive. Most of them were poor and most of them were black. And we would have a meeting for about an hour or so. We got to the point where we'd all go out and I'd take them to dinner. We'd all eat dinner together afterwards. And it was wonderful times of fellowship. One night, we're meeting in a circle and one of the young black men, who lived in the projects in Brunswick, I said, is there anything we can pray for you guys about? He said, yes, I've got an issue. He said, this was November, all right? He said, back in March, I borrowed money from the local finance company. You know what that means, don't you? That's a loan shark, right? I borrowed $200. And they're now taking $50 a month out of my government check. I said, when did you get that loan? He said, March. I said, so now it's November and you're still taking $50 a month out of your government check, right? Yes. I said, what's the principle? What's the principle? I said, well, I explained what I meant by principle. Oh, OK. I still owe $151. I said, would you bring me your paperwork next week? I want to see if I can do something about this. So he brought me his paperwork. You know, when you take a loan, all right, they have the truth, the truth in lending law makes you state the actual percentage of the loan, right? Guess what the loan percentage was? Right there in black and white, 68%. I said, OK, can I have that paperwork, please? I got it. I went the next day to the loan shark's office. I said, I'm Al Baker. I'm the pastor at the Golden Isles Presbyterian Church. I'm here to pay the debt of so-and-so. God bless you, sir. That is such a nice thing. I said, don't give me that. You are guilty of usury. God hates that sort of thing. God's going to judge you if you don't repent. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Taking money like robbing this poor man. Here's a check, $151. He's good to go. Now that young man came to know the Lord. And the next to the last Sunday, I was at the church at Golden Isles. It was Easter Sunday. He came to church with two other black people who were in our ministry. One was a man, one was a woman. They all three had AIDS. The black couple actually performed their wedding for them. They came to the Lord. They all three came to church and our church was almost completely white, very affluent. And they come in, they're all dressed up. They're excited to be there. They love Jesus now. They're all dying from AIDS. They're poor. And they come in and they sit on the same row right next to an older couple that she looked like a model. Beautiful. I think she'd had several surgeries to continue to make herself look good. You know what I'm saying? She was really nice looking, okay? And he, they were dressed to the nines, you know. So there they are sitting next to my three poor HIV positive friends, and this white couple, sitting next to the poor couple, or poor people, this white couple worth $50 million. And I thought to myself as I'm sitting there waiting to preach, this is the gospel right here. This is beautiful. It's awesome. That's the God we serve. Taste. and see that the Lord is good. Remember what He's done. Step back, get the big picture, and then find someone in your community and take Jesus to them. And it might be that there's someone here today who's not there yet. You don't need to look any further. You're not going to find it in Islam. You're not going to find it in Hinduism. You're not going to find it in materialism. You're not going to find it in Marxism. You're not going to find it in animism. You're not going to find it in morality. You're going to find it in Jesus. He's the only one. Run to Him right now. My life is a mess. It doesn't matter. He's glorious in changing messes into redemptive people. Run to Him right now and He'll save you right where you are. That's the kind of God we serve. Amen? Let's pray. Lord, thank You for Your Word. Lord, I thank You for this church. And I ask that You would work in each one right now. Who is that person, those people that come immediately to mind? Yes, I need to reach out to that person. Just become his or her friend. And just to show them that Jesus is good. That you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are a good, merciful, gracious, long-suffering, covenant-keeping God. So, Lord, work in each of our hearts. And may we leave here renewed and strengthened and the glory of Christ Jesus. And Father, draw any to Yourself today that they would run to Jesus and say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And You will save them right now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.