Episode Transcript
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Comes from Psalm fifty six. Please
turn there in your bibles. Here the
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word the Lord, the arrant inspired, authoritative, pure word of the Lord,
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Psalm Fifty six, to the choir
master, according to the dove on
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far off terribins, a Mixtim of
David when the Philistine seized him in Gath.
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Be Gracious to me, Oh God, for man tramples on me all
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day long in attack or oppresses me. My Enemies trample on me all day
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long, for many attack me proudly. When I am afraid, I put
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my trust in you and God,
whose word I praise. In God I
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trust. I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?
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All Day long they injure my cause. All their thoughts are against me for
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evil. They stir up strife,
they lurk, they watch my steps as
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they have waited for my life for
their crime. Will they escape in wrath,
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cast down the People's Oh God,
you have kept count of my tossings.
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Put my tears in your bottle,
are they not in your book?
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Then my enemies will turn back in
the day. When I call this,
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I know that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise,
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and the Lord whose word, I
praise in God, I trust.
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I shall not be afraid. What
can man do to me? I must
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reform my vows to you, Oh
God. I will render thank offerings to
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you, for you have delivered my
soul from death, yes, my feet
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from falling, that I may walk
before God in the light of life.
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Let's pray, Lord, we are
so thankful for your word. We know,
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Lord, that it is through your
word that you sanctify your people,
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that you cause us to grow in
grace and knowledge of our Lord, Jesus
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Christ. We know that it is
only through your word, by means of
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your spirit, that we could glorify
you by becoming more like, more like
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you. We know, Lord,
that your word is good and you are
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faithful and true, and you are
faithful and true always and forever. So,
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Lord, I pray that you would
bless the reading of this word and
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the preaching of it as well,
that you would attach the eternal truths of
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your word to our hearts, that
we might not sin against you. In
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Jesus name, Amen, you may
be seated. Juliana's life was full of
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trials and misery, and I meant
suffering. She was given up for adoption
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when she was just a baby.
She was the product of a drunken night
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with some stranger and neither parent wanted
to remember that that evening, and so
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they gave her up for adoption and
Julianna never did meet her biological parents.
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Sad to say that her parents,
her adoptive parents, weren't any better.
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Her father, adoptive father, abused
her in every way imaginable on a weekly
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basis, and the mother just ignored
it, just pretended that everything was okay,
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thinking if she just ignored it the
problem wouldn't be there. And one
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wonders why these parents even wanted to
adopt her in the first place if they
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weren't going to treat her well.
And from the abuse from father, Julian
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always walked a little funny when Juliana
went to school. She grew up in
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went to school. She was an
outcast. She was rejected by her peers.
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She dressed in all black, walked
weird, had some scars on her
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wrists and thighs from cutting and,
of course, for these reasons and others,
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she wasn't very sociable. For several
years. Julianna thought on many occasions
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if she should just end her life. Nobody would miss their anyways. But
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you could never pluck up enough courage
to do so, she thought. And
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so she thought she would just lead
a a miserable life, life being unloved
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and alone, and she would just
let time take her away. and Juliana's
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life isn't too different from others their
lives. Admittedly, it seemed to be
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the case that the harsher providence lay
upon her than on others. She experienced
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the men suffering great trial, I. Men's oppression and hatred from others,
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but we all do. We all
experience trials of various kinds. We all
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experience oppression, rejection from others,
hatred from others, suffering torments. And
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if you haven't, you just haven't
lived long enough and you will face those
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trials if you live long enough.
We all experience enemies from within. We
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all experience enemies from without. And
David, his life wasn't immune to trials
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either. David's life was full of
enormous torment and tribulation, as we see
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in this psalm and as we examined
this text, Psalm fifty six, we
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will take note of David's plight,
his immend's suffering and torment and tribulation his
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affliction, and then we'll look at
his plan. How David addresses this suffering,
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how he, by faith, deals
with all of the attacks of his
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enemies. As we began the Psalm, we see the Psalm is situated in
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a particular point in history, it
says just above verse one, when the
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Philistines seized him in gas. Now
we see this story in First Samuel Twenty
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one. You don't need to turn
their, I'll summarize it for you.
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And that's really just the narrative of
what is going on. And Psalm fifty
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six is a window into David Soul, how he is interacting or experiencing this
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affliction. Saw and first amuel twenty
one, David was running away from Kings
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Saul, who was hot on his
heels. You might recall. Saul did
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not want David to succeed him and
so he tried everything in his power to
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end David's life, God's successor to
the Kingdom. So David fled to Gath
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and to its king, aqish.
When David gets there, he has of
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course not a Philistine, he's he's
not a friend, he's an enemy,
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and ACACIA's servants rightly, are surprised
at David's presence and they don't offer him
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a warm welcome. They don't say, David, is great to see you,
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come on in, what can we
do for you now? They are
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confused and wondering what's going on.
But David is a little deceptive and he
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lets the spittle trickle down his face, writes some insane markings on the walls.
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He becomes a madman and he ends
up preserving his life through this way.
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God preserves his life and allows David
to live there for a time.
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But it wasn't peaches and cream for
David. In the land of the Philistines,
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in Gath, David is feeling the
waight of his enemies from within and
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from without. Wherever he turned and
he has met with people who hate him,
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who reject him, who will press
him, and we see this affliction
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at several points in this Psalm Verse
One, for instance. He begins with
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man tramples on me, whether it
is Saul in his own kingdom or a
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Philistine outside of his kingdom, David
feels trampled under foot by his enemies.
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He feels overtaken by those who hate
him so vehemently. Like a man running
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in a crowd who then trips and
the inattentive and careless crowd just tramples under
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on him. So David experiences the
the weight of his enemies, feeling trampled
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oppressed. Verse One goes on all
day long. An attack or oppresses me.
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This oppression sadly doesn't let up.
There's no reprieve, there's no modicum
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of rest for David. As far
as David's enemies are concerned, the only
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kind of reprieve David will get will
be his death. Verse too, David
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Says, many attack me proudly.
This attack from his enemies is an arrogant
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one, from an elevated, condescending
position, where they are stooping down and
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looking at David and they are boasting
in their touns against day David, in
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their oppression, in their assailments.
And they loved to mock David, considering
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him so weak. They love to
mock David's God. Where's your God?
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He's in effectual, he's weak,
he doesn't care about you, obviously,
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or if he cares, he's not
powerful not to do anything about it.
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David, abandon this God of yours
is clearly a false god or an impotent
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God. Verse Five. All Day
long they injure my cause. These enemies
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take David's words and they twist them
to mean what David never intended. Perhaps
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you've been on on their receiving end
of such word games or twisting, where
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somebody takes your words, maybe takes
your words out of context or hones in
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on one particular thing you said,
perhaps not with great clarity, and just
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uses that to come against you,
uses that to support their own cause and
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to attack yours. That's what these
enemies were doing to David and that's what
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the enemies of God's people do.
Peter tells us as much. He says
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that false teachers and scoffers take Paul's
writings and they twist them, like they
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do the other scriptures, to their
own going in destruction. Verse Five continues.
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Their thoughts are are against me,
are evil against me. David's tormentors
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imagine and conjure up evil things against
David. They arise in the morning thinking
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what can we do to make David's
life a living hell? Let's see how
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much we can do to hurt David. That's their purpose in life. David
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is experiencing all their thoughts are evil
against me and verse six. They stir
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up strife, they lurk, they
waited for my life. Not only do
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they think evil, they lie in
wait to carry out those malicious plots that
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they have been so carefully conspiring together
to carry out, just watching and waiting
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for the the littlest slip up of
David, a moment of weakness, a
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moment of vulnerability. There's nipping at
his heels, watching, waiting. Can
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you imagine David's pain here? This
is weighty suffering, this is wady oppression.
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I'll go on a limb here and
say that you have not experienced this
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kind of oppression in your own life. Perhaps you have to this extent,
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perhaps not, most of US having
to experience such hot hatred, such opposition
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from our enemies. But we still
do have enemies. We have our own
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sin, after all, that would
want to subject us to its rulership once
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again, even after we've been freed
from it in Christ. We have,
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of course, the world, that
group of people, that system of thinking
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that is set in opposition to God
and all those who trust in him.
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Of course, there is the devil, the enemy. What do we do
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when our enemies trample us. What
do we do when the world assails us,
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when our sins, which so easily
entangle us, oppress us or weigh
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us down, or when the devil
gives it all he's got to lay waste
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to our souls? Well, David
shows us the way, or, to
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be more precise, God, through
this inspired Psalm, through David's life here,
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shows us the way. David pleads
with God. He feeds himself with
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sound teaching, reminding himself of who
God is and who he, David is.
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He trusts in God, he worships
God and he walks in obedience.
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So we've seen David's plight, his
affliction and in his time of great trouble.
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Now we see his plea and his
plan. Verse One Again Says Be
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Gracious to me. Oh God,
notice the urgency. Be Gracious to me,
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O God. The very first words
that come out at David's mouth are
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a cry for grace. He says, Lord, do you see the bloodthirsty
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wrath of my enemies? Do you
see the attacks of My Enemies? Oh
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Lord, deliver me, deliver me
now, please, Lord, deliver me.
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Be Gracious to me, Lord,
I need your grace. Without your
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grace, I will be overwhelmed and
overrun by My Enemies, by my oppressors.
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His first course of action is crying
out to God for grace. That
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should be our first course of action
as well. When we are beset by
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the world's attacks. We need to
cry out to God, cry out to
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him for grace. Lord, be
gracious to me. I'm entirely dependent upon
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you. Can't do anything apart from
your grace. I can't fight these enemies.
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I need your grace. There's this
plaque or Waldcor and in our master
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bedroom and it says when life is
too hard to stand, kneel. And
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if you're thinking that's cheesy, it's
because it is a little cheesy, probably
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something from Hobby Lobby. Not Knocking
Hobby Lobby. It's a good store,
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got some good Waldycor and other things, but I make note of that because
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even though it's cheesy, it's true. When life is too hard to stand,
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we are to kneel. We we
are recognizing that we can't do things
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on our own. We're to pray
to our God, cry out to him.
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Lord be gracious to me, for
man tramples on me. What is
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your immediate reaction when you face trials
of various kinds, when your boss withholds
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justice from you, when your family
members speaks evil things, hurt think hurtful
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things, false things about you to
you, when your child, who is
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wayward, doesn't ever seem to respond
to the gracious advances of the Gospel,
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when you've lost your job, when
you are undergoing chronic sickness, when you've
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lost a loved one? What do
you do when you face these trials,
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when you even just feel a bit
of the oppression and persecution from the world
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because you stand firm for Jesus Christ? Do you say, Oh, Lord,
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I can't do this on my own, I can't handle this, it's
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too hard. My enemies seemed to
overpower me. They seem to trample on
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me all day long. They oppress
me. Even my friends, my family
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members, are against me. Lord, I need you to be gracious to
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me right now. I needed this
moment. Is that your first response when
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you face trials of various kinds?
Because too often, when life gets hard,
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people tend to run away from God, they tend to run away from
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the church, the very institution God
established that we would find comfort, refuge
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strength. Too often people run away
from their refuge Jesus Christ, from their
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God, from their fortress. They
don't fall upon the greatest of the Lord.
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But crying out to God is essential. It shows our weakness, it
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shows our vulnerability, it shows our
utter dependence and great need for our loving
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heavenly father, and it is a
call to action. It is a call
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for our great God to act favorably
towards his people. Because we know,
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don't we, that the Lord has
our good in his heart, he has
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our best interests in mind, he
loves us with an everlasting love, and
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that's why we cry out to our
God and say, Lord, what we
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are experiencing doesn't match up, at
least on the surface, with your faithfulness,
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with your protection, with your provision. Lord, be gracious to me.
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We call Lord, Our Lord,
to act. That's what David is
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doing here, so we need to
be doing he cries out to God for
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grace, but he doesn't cry out
to God only for grace. We see
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him crying out to God for particular
kind of Administration of grace, namely Justice
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on his enemies. Verse Seven,
he says for their crime. Will they
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escape? It's rhetorical question. The
answer, of course, is absolutely not.
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Will they escape and so he says, in wrath, cast down the
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People's Oh God, in Your Holy
Hatred against sin, in your white hot
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anger against all that is against you. Lord, cast down these people,
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these enemies, he's oppressors, he's
attack, curse. Cast him down,
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oh Lord. These are strong words, there's no doubt about it. David
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recognize that God is the judge of
all the earth and as judge, he
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will judge rightly. So David is
is right to call upon the Lord for
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Justice. The Lord loves justice.
The Lord Loves Grace. He loves to
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give grace to his people. He
loves to give justice to those who who
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sin against him, who don't trust
in him. So Dave is calling out
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for grace's calling out for justice.
But he doesn't take justice into his own
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hands. He doesn't take whatever insignificant
resources he has at his disposal, which
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really aren't any at this point.
He doesn't try to destroy all the Philistines
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single handedly. He doesn't do that. He doesn't pull a Shamgar for instance,
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kill six hundred Philistines with an ox
code. Doesn't go sampton style with
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a donkey job OOne calls upon the
Lord here because he knows he's utterly dependent
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Upun God to get him out of
enemy territory. He doesn't take justice in
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his own hands, using whatever his
sense of justice would be. He pleads
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with a just judge to do what
is right, to meet out justice as
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the Lord sees fit. When you
cry out to God for Justice, do
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you then try to carry out justice
in your own way, thinking, well,
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that person did something to me,
Lord, give me justice. I
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am now a vessel of your just
hand and I will take my rod and
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seek my enemy and destroy him.
That what we do? I hope not.
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Do you let the Lord of Vengeance, of venge you in his time
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and in his way. VENGEANCE is
mind, says the Lord isn't yours,
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it's the Lord's. But this is
not a life of passivity or a life
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of inactivity. This is not a
just so let go and let God kind
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of attitude. We are doing something. This is active. We are praying.
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Prayer is a very powerful means that
God has established for us to call
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upon him to act. It's very
powerful and effectual because we are praying to
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our great and gracious and righteous and
Wise God and we are submitting ourselves to
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his will, to his plan,
to his timing to his sovereign and good
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ways, which ways are not our
ways. The prayer of the righteous avails
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much so we are doing something.
David is doing something, something significant,
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something that we all need to be
doing. When we face trials, instead
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of earn away from God, we
cry out to God for Grace and for
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justice. And that's what he does. He pleads with the Lord. Furthermore,
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David feeds himself with sound teaching,
with the truth of God and scripture.
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He reminds himself of who God is. First we see that he reminds
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umself the God is a trustworthy God. David's God and our God is a
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trust worthy God. Verse Four,
he says in God whose word I praise,
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in God I trust, I shall
not be afraid. What can flesh
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do to me? Look at all
of human history and you will not find
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one point at which God failed to
be faithful, at which point God failed
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to be worthy of all your trust. He has always been trustworthy, and
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that's why he calls us to trust
in him, because he alone is worthy
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of our trust. Though every man
be a liar, God will be truthful
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even when we are faithless. God
will remain faithful and notice the emphasis and
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verses three and four. In just
a matter of a few words, he
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says the same thing slightly differently.
He says, I put my trust in
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you, and then in God I
trust. He is confessing and rather rather
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professing. Reminded himself the of the
object of his faith. My God is
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the object of my faith. There
is no one strong enough, there is
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no one worthy enough to be trusted. Then our God, and our God
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is then worthy of all of our
trust, not just some of our trust,
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not just some areas of our lives. These things we can't really handle,
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so we'll give them to God,
but those things we can, so
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that's our domain. Doesn't work that
way. God is worthy of all all
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of our trust. And if not
God, then who you me? Maybe
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we all just came together collectively.
We're worthy of trust. Perhaps some religious
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figure, your pastor and elders.
They worthy of all of your trust?
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Presidents, are they worthy of all
of your trust? Perish the thought.
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Not One of us is is worthy
of all of another person's trust. Only
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God, father, the son,
the Holy Spirit, is worthy of all
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of our trust. And just look
at your life and see all of God's
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faithfulness. Look at how he has
worked in your life. I don't know
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how you guys do things, if
you have a midweek prayer service or if
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you at Sunday school take prayer requests
or how you do that, and maybe
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it's just be a email, but
I'm pretty confident that you guys give prayer
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request to to one another and you
are made aware of this prayer requests and
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I hope that you enjoy them as
much as I do, because hasn't it
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been your experience that most the time, just a few weeks, months or
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so after you give your prayer request, you find out that that request is
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turned into a a praise, a
Thanksgiving, and we see over and over,
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week after a, week after week, how God has shown himself to
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be faithful in our lives and as
he has been faithful to other people,
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you are then encouraged because you are
a part of God's people and that faith
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in less looks different, of course, in different situations, but God remains
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faithful in your life. And just
look at all of scripture and see his
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faithless to his covenant and to his
people, how he's faithful to provide a
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seed of the woman to crush the
head of the serpent, how he is
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faithful to to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, to David and in
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the new covenant with Jesus Christ.
He has been faithful, even if people
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had to wait a long time,
even if they had to wait thousands of
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years, especially for those in the
Old Testament, as they are awaiting a
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heavenly city. God remains faithful even
in their time of waiting. Because God
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is trustworthy. David can put his
trust in him and notice he doesn't deny
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his spear. He's not a good
stoic or Buddhist. He's not suppressing his
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sorrow, his emotions. He's not
saying emotions are beneath me and it's just
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the mind and I'll just mind over
matter. I'll just deny all of my
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fears. They don't exist. It's
all my it's all an illusion. Maybe
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he's hidden do in that regard.
No, he doesn't deny his fear.
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He says when I am afraid,
he recognizes that he is afraid. It's
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natural for US weak men and women
to be afraid. There are so many
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things that come against us. If
he had no reason to be afraid,
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from an early perspective anyways, what
is that? I don't doesn't make any
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sense. We are afraid evil threatens
to undo us. We have so many
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reasons to be anxious, because perish
the thought that you could ultimately control all
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things. If you could, you
wouldn't ever go to any funerals or hospitals.
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I don't think you'd ever think it'd
be a good idea to have bronchitis
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or something. There are so many
reasons for US things and keen, from
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an earthly perspective, to be afraid
because ultimately nothing is in our control.
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So David doesn't deny his fear,
but he is essentially saying when I am
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afraid, I won't be afraid.
And how can that be? Because of
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the object of his faith. He
looks to his redeemer. He doesn't look
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inward to his own self strength or
fortitude. He doesn't even look outward to
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any hopeful armies that come to his
aid. He looks upward. He looks
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upward to his redeemer, his Lord. He looks to his God. He
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doesn't find strength in himself, he
finds strength in his Almighty God. He
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doesn't feed his fear either. He
doesn't just worry and worry and worry and
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worry which accomplishes nothing. He doesn't
stare at his problems. He trusts in
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God, and that's why he can
say, that's why we can say,
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what can flesh do to me?
Or, later on, in verse eleven,
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what can man do to me?
Now, if you're reading the Psalm,
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you might object. David. Clearly
man's doing quite a bit to you.
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Read Your Own Psalm. Man's trampling
on you all day long. An
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attackers oppressing you. Your enemies trample
on you all day long. They attack
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you proudly. They injure your cause. All their thoughts are against you,
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for evil. They stir up strife, they lurk, they watch your steps,
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they wait for your life. Seemed
to be a problem, doesn't it?
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David? Why are you complaining if
man can't do anything to you?
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Well, sure, from an earthly
perspective he could be killed, he could
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be tormented, as he is to
some degree here. But David isn't stuck
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on the earthly he is viewing his
oppression, his suffering, in light of
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his redeemer, in light of eternity. He is viewing it by faith.
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This trial is light and momentary affliction. As Paul will say, this life,
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after all, is the worst it
will be for us. Joel Osteen
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should have written your worst life now
for a disbelievers, your best life now
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for unbelievers, but your worse life
now for believers. So those who trust
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in Christ, this is the worst
is going to get. Even pile of
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all of suffering, the person who
has suffered the most in this earthly life,
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it pales in comparison to the way
to the glory that awaits us.
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This is not to say that our
sufferings are not real. This is real
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suffering that David is experiencing. We're
not to deny are real suffering, but
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wh're out of you are suffering in
context of eternity, by faith, trusting
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in our God, and that's why
we can say what can flesh, ultimately
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speaking, do to me? If
I die, I'll be with Christ.
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To die is to gain David's God. Our God is a trustworthy God,
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is also a caring God. Here
reminds himself of David's of God's tenderness,
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of God's affection. Verse Eight,
and this is what the verse that has
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drawn me to the Psalm. I
Love, love this psalm. It's my
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favorite psalm. Perhaps it's just my
favorite right now because I've studied it.
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I find that with each passage I
study and preach on it because my favorite
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and I just love the Psalm Verse
Eight. You have kept count of my
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tossings. Put my tears in your
bottle. Are They not in your book?
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It's term tossings can also be translated
as wanderings or mind reminiscent of the
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exile. But pointing here to David's
Aimlessness, his homelessness, as he has
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run away from Saul and is now
in the enemy territory, in a foreign
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land. The Lord has kept count
of David's unrest, of David's fear,
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of David's sorrow, of his nightly
tossing and turning, of his sleeplessness,
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and he has collected all the tears
that David has shed, all those that
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have trickled down his face or all
those that have burst forth from his face
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as he is urgently cried out,
called out to his God. The Lord
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has kept count of them, he
has put them in a bottle. David
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is assured that his whole past is
struggles, his the attacks of the enemies,
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his unrest, his sorrow, that
these are all known by his God.
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And God cares. It isn't the
case the God just knows about things
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and says our a good good luck
with all that. Hope you do well,
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see you on the other side.
He cares. He cares about them
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and they're all written in God's book. There ever, present before God.
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Likewise, the Lord is not oblivious
to your tears. He's not oblivious or
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heardhearted to your cries for mercy,
to your please for justice, for wisdom,
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for grace, for strength, for
deliverance. He's not hearthhearted towards those.
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He's not oblivious to them. He
knows and he cares. He hasn't
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forgotten our exile, wanderings, our
wanderings in a foreign land as we away
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to heavenly city. He hasn't forgotten
are tossing and turning. He hasn't forgotten
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our tears. He knows them all
and he cares. God is a caring
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God. God is a trustworthy God, and here we see in verse nine
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that God is a God who is
on David's side. God is on our
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side. Verse Nine, then My
enemies will turn back and the day when
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I call David knows that, when
he calls upon his holy and just God,
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that his enemies, David's enemies,
which are God's enemies, will turn
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back. They will turn away and
shame, they will run away and they
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will seek a hiding place from the
holy God, but they will not find
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that hiding place. They will not
escape the wrath of God. Justice will
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be given to them accordingly, for
they have not been the knee to the
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Lord. He says this, I
know, we saw that. He recognizes
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his own fear and in the midst
of this fear he is going back to
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what he knows. He's going back
to what the firm foundation is that he
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has in the word of God.
This I know. I know that.
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I know that, I know something
that cannot be shaken. I know that
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God is for me. Oh what
a comfort it is to know that God
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is on our side. How God
has shown us his favor. God has
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chosen us, he has, in
love, predestined us to be adopted,
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he has given us new spiritual life. What a comfort it is. No,
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the God is on our side,
the God is for us. He
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has made us children of God,
he has forgiven us, he has redeemed
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us. Oh what a comfort is
to know that God is for us,
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that God is on our side.
He has justified us, he has declared
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US righteous in his holy sight,
he has sanctified us, devoted us to
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him, is sanctifying us right now. He has lavished wisdom upon us and
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inside. Oh what a comfort it
is to know that our God is on
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our side, that our God is
for us. He has sealed us with
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with his Holy Spirit. He has
made us one in Christ, in one
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with each other, and he has, before we were even born, prepared
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good works for us from before the
foundation in the world, that we might
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walk in them. Oh what a
comfort is to know that our God is
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for us, that our God is
on our side. He has given us
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his word, his faithful, true, inharrant, infallible, authoritative, pure
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word. He has given US each
other to stir one other up to love
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and good deeds and, most importantly, he has given us himself. Oh
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what a comfort it is to know
that our God is for us, that
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he is on our side. And, as a Psalmist says in chapter thirty,
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verse Five, God's favor is for
a lifetime. It never lets go.
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God's favor never lets up, it
never leaves us and never forsakes us.
406
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It always pursues us. His steadfast
love endures forever. The mercy and
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grace pursue us all the days of
our lives. If God is for us,
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and who can be against us?
Who can rightly bring a charge against
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God's elect for there is therefore now
no condemnation for those who are in Christ
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Jesus. When you wake up,
you are met with new mercies. Every
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morning, you are met with God's
favor, God's grace. Only in always,
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sometimes that grace looks like discipline.
We are given his grace. There's
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no longer any condemnation, no longer
any justice upon us, because the just
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penalty for our sins has been taken
care of. Because of Christ. He
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has paid the penalty, and this
is is the best news than anyone could
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ever receive, that God is for
them. It is worse news know the
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Gods against us, because our God
is in all consuming fire. It is
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a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God if you're not
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on his side, if you don't
trust in him, but it is the
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best, most blessed thing to be
in the loving and gracious hands of our
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God. Knowing what God has done
for us, how can we then not,
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along with David respond in worship verse
ten, in God, whose word
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I praise, in the Lord,
whose word I praise. David praises God
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for his powerful, true, faithful
word, this word that revives the soul,
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00:43:07.989 --> 00:43:12.710
this word that will never fade away, will never pass away, this
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word that will never return to God
void, but will always accomplish the purpose
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for which God has sent it.
Do you worship God for his word?
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Do you worship God because of its
unbreakable, rock solid promises? When you
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are in a heat of trial,
is your first reaction to worship the ink
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00:43:42.159 --> 00:43:46.800
at think about David's life, probably
the lowest point in his life when he
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committed adultery with Bathsheba, murdered your
Ayah, broke essentially all the ten commandments
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in that episode, and how the
Lord said that the discipline, the gracious
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discipline of the Lord, for that
grieve it for those grievous sins, would
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be the affliction and death of David's
son, the result of David Bathsheba's Union.
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And when this is taking place,
David would fall upon his knees and
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00:44:23.610 --> 00:44:27.690
and cry out to God for Mercy
for, as he says, who knows,
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maybe the Lord will spare the child, but in God's good Providence,
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00:44:31.449 --> 00:44:40.199
he didn't. And What is David
Do? He gets up, WASHES HIMSELF
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00:44:40.239 --> 00:44:49.440
OFF, changes his clothing, eats
and worships God. Worships God. This
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is the worst part in your life, David. You're going to worship God.
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00:44:52.030 --> 00:45:00.949
He afflicted your child. Your child
is dead because of God. At
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00:45:01.030 --> 00:45:07.179
David's lowest point, in the harshest
or most severe providence of God on David's
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00:45:07.260 --> 00:45:17.860
life, he worships. Do you
worship the Lord amidst your great trials,
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00:45:19.340 --> 00:45:27.570
when enemies oppress you all day long? Finally, David Walks in obedience.
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Deliverance leads to worship, which leads
to obedience. Verses Twelve and thirteen.
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He says, I must perform my
vows to you, Oh God. I
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will render thank offerings to you,
for you have delivered my soul from death,
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00:45:40.920 --> 00:45:45.679
yes, my feet from falling,
that I may walk before God in
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00:45:45.760 --> 00:45:51.670
the light of life. David is
so sure that his life will be spared
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00:45:51.789 --> 00:45:57.670
he can speak of it as already
accomplished. David's deliverance is as good as
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00:45:57.869 --> 00:46:02.550
done, even though David's feet are
at the moment of composing Psalm Fifty six
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00:46:02.829 --> 00:46:09.300
not sure, not safe from an
earthly perspective, because of his enemies,
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00:46:09.420 --> 00:46:15.980
God's justice and care for him.
Are Sure because God is faithful to his
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00:46:15.139 --> 00:46:22.610
people. Likewise, we have been
delivered from God's wrath, we have been
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00:46:22.610 --> 00:46:28.010
delivered from death, from slavery,
to sin, from the domain of darkness,
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00:46:28.090 --> 00:46:31.730
and we have entered into the marvelous
light the kingdom the son of God.
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00:46:34.719 --> 00:46:39.320
How can we not then walk in
obedience, walk before our God in
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00:46:39.400 --> 00:46:43.880
the light of life, in the
light of the life that he has given,
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00:46:43.920 --> 00:46:49.829
the abundant life that Jesus promises us
in him? How can we not
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00:46:50.070 --> 00:46:54.909
then obey him and do those works
that he prepared for us before the foundation
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00:46:55.309 --> 00:47:01.860
of the world? By God's grace, Juliana met someone who ended up sharing
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the Gospel with her. Juliana went
to college her freshman year. She was
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00:47:09.539 --> 00:47:15.099
sitting at the cafeteria. She had
gotten her food and sat down, all
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00:47:15.139 --> 00:47:20.329
alone, of course, when another
woman, a fellow freshman, saw her
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00:47:21.210 --> 00:47:23.570
asked if she could sit down next
to her, and Juliana, a bit
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00:47:23.650 --> 00:47:30.360
reluctantly, said sure, and this
person showed an interest in Juliana's life.
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00:47:31.400 --> 00:47:37.440
It's talking with her, asking about
her, but our history just showing genuine
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00:47:37.480 --> 00:47:45.949
interest in her, and this sparked
relationship that would eventually include her friend sharing
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00:47:46.869 --> 00:47:54.949
the Gospel and helping Juliana to see
that God is for her in Christ,
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00:47:59.420 --> 00:48:05.820
helping Juliana to see the providence of
God in her life, how he has
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00:48:05.900 --> 00:48:10.059
worked out even all these immense sufferings
to bring Julian to a point of ultimate
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00:48:10.179 --> 00:48:19.769
trust in the savior. Like Juliana, we can have hope in God as
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00:48:19.809 --> 00:48:24.889
our salvation, because he has promised. said, though man trample us,
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00:48:25.170 --> 00:48:30.920
the offspring of the woman, the
son of Man, the son of God,
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00:48:31.039 --> 00:48:37.000
Jesus Christ, the Messiah, has
trampled under foot evil, he has
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00:48:37.639 --> 00:48:45.030
trampled serpent, he has conquered all
the evil that was threatened to unto us.
477
00:48:45.869 --> 00:48:52.030
And though we shed many tears of
sorrow because of Christ's victory in his
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00:48:52.269 --> 00:48:55.780
death and resurrection and now his State
of ascension, ruling at the right hand
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00:48:55.820 --> 00:49:00.820
of the father, because of these
things, he will come back and when
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00:49:00.860 --> 00:49:06.780
he does, he will wipe away
every tear from our eyes, every tear
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00:49:07.099 --> 00:49:09.849
that he collected in our in his
bottle, every tear that is written in
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00:49:10.090 --> 00:49:15.170
his book. Death shall be no
more. Neither will there be mourning,
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00:49:15.489 --> 00:49:22.130
nor crying nor pain for the former. Things have passed away. Behold,
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00:49:22.889 --> 00:49:27.119
the new has come. Amen
