Psalm 6, sometimes I feel at liberty to preach somewhat of a theme message and sometimes I don't. I just felt like we needed to go back to Psalm 6 and it does talk about giving thankfulness to the Lord, but that is not the central theme of Psalm 6. Just to give you a foundation again for our visitors and maybe those listening online, but the book of Psalms is not It's not just one book with 150 individual chapters. It is 150 individual psalms. And psalms are songs. The Jews used to sing these, just like we tried to sing that this morning. And most of the time, we learn these psalms and we get to the end, I say, well, you know what? By the last two standards, we had nailed that thing. That was not true about this morning. But it was a very difficult psalm. But they were songs that were sung. And there are five divisions within Psalms. Or you could call them five books or five scrolls. They didn't have enough room to write them on the same scroll or the same document, so they divided them. And interestingly enough, they do have different themes. The first book is Psalm 1 through 41, and the theme is human suffering and the need for God's deliverance. And we've seen that so far, we're going to see it again today. And, you know, this is one reason we know that the Bible is the Word of God. It is God-breathed. It was not conjured up by men. And that is because many things like what we're going to read today wouldn't have made it in there. It's too humbling to man and too exalting to God. I mean, David was a man after God's own heart and you can tell in Psalm 6 he is having problems. This is known as a psalm of lament. And just to give you a background on this psalm before we read it, David seems to be suffering greatly. And it appears to be a possible sickness or physical ailment. We're not totally sure about that, but it certainly seems to be the language he's using. And the psalm is a little vague in the sense that we're not totally sure if David is being punished for his sin or if he just thinks that he's being punished for his sin. Now this is an important distinction to make because it changes the way that we view this psalm. And it's really important to remember that although the Bible is inspired by God, it is breathed out by God, sometimes God allows the writer more divine insight, and other times He's allowing them to write more from human experience and perspective. And by the way, that is the whole purpose of the book of Ecclesiastes. In fact, if you read Ecclesiastes, and just take it as such a wooden interpretation and so literal, that's how you come up with certain heresies. The point of Ecclesiastes is to be a contrast with the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs is a book of God's wisdom. The book of Ecclesiastes is the best that a man can hope for without God. In fact, Ecclesiastes makes the statement, I think it's chapter 1 and verse 15. It said, that which is crooked cannot be made straight. Is that a factual, true statement? Or is it a statement made as being the best that a man can hope to do without God? I'm certainly glad that the Lord Jesus Christ can take that which is crooked and make it straight. And in fact, to prove the contrast, when John the Baptist came on the scene as the forerunner of Jesus, you know what he said? He said, when the Lord gets here, He's going to take that which is crooked and make it straight. Because what is impossible with man is possible with God. And so I think that we see this kind of contrast in Psalm 6 right here. And the reason I say that is because you have to keep in mind that the Jewish culture almost exclusively viewed human suffering as a direct punishment from God, as a direct result of sin in their life. And in this way, the judgment of God and suffering were seen as being one and the same. We see this in the book of Job, do we not? Job's three friends come along and say, you know Job, you've got to have some kind of secret sin in your life because God would never do this to somebody who is innocent. Hey, we see this from the disciples in John chapter 9. You remember when they saw the blind man begging at the entrance of Jerusalem? And what did these good disciples say to Jesus? Lord, which man did sin, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind? In other words, what did he or his parents do that he would deserve to be born blind? The Lord said, nothing. No particular reason. In fact, I made him this way so that on this very day when I walk through here, I could heal him and get glory for it. That's literally what Jesus said. That wasn't the same verbiage He used. That's what He said. God can do that. And so I think that we need to put that kind of context and framework on Psalm 6. I don't think that David is actually being punished for his sin. I think he is greatly suffering a sickness or some type of physical ailment. And because of that, he thinks that he is being judged by God. And the reason I conclude this is because when David actually was being punished for sin, He repented, and in Psalm 51, we saw this a few weeks ago, He was very specific about the sin He had committed, right? We don't see that in this Psalm. He's just vaguely saying, Lord, have mercy on me, and take your judgment away from me. But He's never specific about a sin that He has committed other than what He did with Bathsheba and all the fallout from that. The Bible said He served the Lord all the days of His life. I think that's the way we have to look at this. And so also when we think about the equation in the Jewish mind of suffering and the judgment of God, I think we see this in verse 2 where He said, Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak, O Lord. Heal me from my bones or becks. Do you see how He equates the mercy of God with healing? That's because He equates His punishment with His sin. And so I really believe this is the mindset of what's going on here. Now let me say this, God will definitely chasten and discipline His children when they get out of line. But many times God will allow suffering into our lives, not as a direct result of sin, but as a means of growing and maturing us in grace. This is important to know, because get this, and I see this a lot in the counseling that I do. But it's bad enough for somebody to suffer, But it's even worse if we're convinced that it's our fault, and that if we would just repent that it all goes away. It's bad enough to suffer, but it's even worse to feel bad about the suffering, and it's even worse to feel bad about feeling bad about the suffering. We just tend to compound the problem. I think that's what's going on with David here. But with this framework in mind, let's read the text together in Psalm 6. Let's read the Word of God together. He says, O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak. O Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed, but thou, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, deliver my soul. O save me for Thy mercy's sake. For in death there is no remembrance of Thee. In the grave, who shall give Thee thanks? I am weary with my groaning. All the night make I my bed to swim. I water my couch with my tears. Mine eye is consumed because of grief. It waxeth old because of all mine enemies. Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. For the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord hath heard my supplication. The Lord will receive my prayer. Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed. Let them return and be ashamed suddenly. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we love You. We just come to You in Jesus' name. And we're so thankful for the salvation that we have available to us through the cross of Jesus Christ and His finished work. God is death, burial and resurrection. You promised Lord, that if we would just repent and trust that Gospel, that You would save us and forgive us. Lord, I pray if there's somebody lost that doesn't know Jesus and the part of their sin, that You would save them today. Lord, if somebody's struggling with temptation, if somebody's struggling through a trial of great hurt, great ailment, Lord, as David was, I pray that You would give them peace and comfort. Lord, just fill me, Holy Spirit, and empty me of sin and self. And we give these things to You, Lord. In Christ's name I praise You. So I want to wrestle with a question this morning. In what ways do we need the Lord to save us from ourselves? Because that's what I want to deal with. And I guess if you were to give this message a title, it would be, Oh Lord, deliver me from myself. Save me from myself. Now I know that all of y'all are just perfect human beings and you never have any problems. and you never have any worries or trials or temptations, and maybe you think you don't need to be saved from yourself, but I'm telling you that you are public enemy number one. If you want to know who your greatest enemy is, it's not even Satan. It's that person that you look in the mirror every morning. That's the number one enemy. And so we need to be saved from ourself, and part of the good news of the gospel is not that God affirms us in our sin, but He saves us from our sin, from the penalty and the power of our sin. We need to be saved from ourselves. And in fact, when we think about sanctification, if you're saved, the moment that the Lord saved you by grace through faith, when you came to Him in faith, we are forever positionally sanctified. But then throughout our life, there's a process of sanctification by which He makes us less like us and more like Him. And one day when we leave this world and God brings us to heaven to be with Him, we're going to be perfectly sanctified forever and not even be capable of being tempted by sin. Isn't that a wonderful truth? And so I guess in a very real way, we are saved, but He is saving us and one day we will be saved perfectly. Body, soul, spirit, every aspect of our being will be redeemed. And so we do need to be saved from ourselves. But what does that look like? And how does that play out? Well, number one, we need to be saved from our perspective. Look at verse number one. He says, Rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Now there's a really fine line that I have to walk here, so I want you to pay attention so there won't be any confusion about what I'm actually saying here. But in our flesh, we are so corrupt that we are always struggling to have a right perspective of God and ourselves. Do you know that? That's certainly true of a lost person who doesn't know Christ, who's not regenerate, who doesn't have the Holy Spirit. But I'm here to tell you it's also true for saved folk. I'm talking about people that are regenerate, that do have the Holy Spirit because even though we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we still live in this body of flesh. We struggle with temptation, we struggle with just the everyday things of life, but we struggle with our perspective of both who God is and who we are. And I think that David is a little off here. Let me say it this way. When a person has never been saved, when they have never repented and put their faith solely in Christ to forgive and cleanse them from sin, they tend to think that God is absolutely fine with who they are and how they live their life, but nothing could be further from the truth. So if we start with this category, A lost person tends to have a wrong perspective of God because they think that God is okay with who they are and what they do in their life. That God is absolutely okay with who they are and what they do. Listen, friend, that's not the God of the Bible. The Bible says that he's angry at sin every day. In fact, you can even look just one Psalm over where we were a couple of weeks ago. Psalm 5 and verse 5. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. That's about God. That He hates sin and the workers of iniquity. You can go ahead to Psalm 7 and look at verse 11. Psalm 7 verse 11. God judges the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day. And so the lost person is wrong, because he tends to have a view of God that is way too low, which by default means they have a view of themselves that's way too high, like God could never do anything to me, because, you know, I'm just so... I mean, why wouldn't God love me? I'm just so lovable. I mean, I'm just so awesome. Why wouldn't God stand on the portals of glory and applaud every single thing that I do? It wasn't very long ago, and I'll have to say this and move on, or we'll be hunting rabbits, I recently saw Joel Osteen's son is now preaching, if you want to call it that. We've had to deal with him for decades, and now we've got to deal with his son. But Joel Osteen's son had a message, and I really got nauseated. First of all, he was talking from the perspective as if everybody else is already saved and is a child of God, and that's not true either. Friend, not everybody's a child of God. You're not born into this world being a child of God. If that was true, we wouldn't need to be born again into the family of God. If that was true, we wouldn't need to be adopted into the family of God. If that was true, Jesus wouldn't have told the Pharisees, you are of your father the devil. If that was true, Ephesians 2 wouldn't say that we're by nature the children of wrath. We're not born into this world being a child of God, and if we were, then Jesus died in vain. He died for nothing. And so, I want you to understand that. But Joel Osteen's son, the next thing he did is said that God was just so consumed with our lives, that he was just up there, and man, he just had his phone. Do you realize that God is up there in heaven? He's got his phone taking pictures of you, and he's just so proud of everything you do. I mean, just, duh. That's all I'll say is, ugh. That's a fleshly perception of who God is. And it's a fleshly perspective of who we are. And that's a wrong perspective. That's a ditch on one side. God is holy and He hates sin. But on the other end, On the flip side, I do think that a say person battles with the perspective that they're not okay. That everything in their life is wrong. That they should always feel guilty and that they should always be beating themselves. Isn't that just like Satan? You know, when somebody's lost, Satan's like, no, you're just fine. And when you're saved and covered by the blood, it's like, no, you're really not okay. You shouldn't be having all that joy. No, no, you should be weighed down with guilt and beating yourself and you should be walking across hot coals barefooted because that's just the Christian thing to do. Isn't that how that works? I remember there was a church that I was in and the pastor kept making the statement, it was a big salvation message, and he kept saying that the devil will never tell you that you're lost. In other words, if you're doubting your salvation, it's because you're not saved. Like if you're 99% sure you're saved, you're 100% lost, and the devil will never tell you you're not saved. That's not true. Like I said, when you were lost, he said you were okay. And there's been times since I've been saved where you almost felt like you had to feel guilty unnecessarily for things, but you don't have to keep beating yourself for things that Christ was already beaten for. And this is an important thing to understand because I find it interesting that as a man after God's own heart, David says that God is angry and hotly displeased with him. When just one Psalm later it says he's angry with the wicked. But David is a man after God's own heart. And so this is really important because when it comes to intense suffering, Our perspective dictates our reality as far as the way that we feel about our situation. That's just the way that it is. And in biblical counseling, the thing that I'm going back to school for, and the thing that I've been doing for years in correlation with my pastoring, is I'm constantly trying to take people from an unbiblical perspective about themselves and their situation to a biblical perspective about themselves and their situation. And I think David has missed the mark a little bit here. Again, I think that God is allowing us to see him writing this in his anguish. And don't we say stuff in the heat of our emotion that were just not true, or maybe we don't mean, or we have to take back? Certainly God is angry with the wicked. He will punish them. He will cast them into the lake of fire for all eternity. That is in the Bible. But that is not the situation with David. And we have to get this, because as a child of God, God will discipline His children as a father, but He will never punish us as a judge. Isn't that a wonderful thought? And so, if you're a child of God, and bad things happen to you, or hard seasons come into your life, and your knee-jerk response is that this is your fault, it's going to be overwhelming. But God chastens us so that we'll get back on the right path. But if you will know beyond any shadow of a doubt that God is chasing you for a specific unrepentant continued sin, you're going to know that. Like God doesn't play with that stuff. I've got a friend of mine in Mississippi. And he was saved. He was a Christian. But he got with the wrong crowd his senior year at high school, started doing things he shouldn't do, going to parties, getting drunk, all that kind of stuff. And one night he went drinking and driving and he had a horrible wreck and now he is confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. But now he goes around and he tells people about his testimony. about salvation, him being a Christian, and how you don't want to be outside the scriptural will of God. And so, it's a very powerful thing. It's got a great testimony. But he didn't even have to guess because the consequences for that were so directly correlated to what he was doing at the time. You say, well Richard, why are you in that situation? Why are you completely paralyzed on the left side of your body? Well, because I went drinking and driving one night. I was drunk behind the wheel and I had a wreck and I flew out of the windshield. Now we could say two things about this. Number one, how gracious is God that He would still use him in such a powerful way. But we could also say, hey, there's people that do that all the time and they seem to get away with it. That's because God had a particular plan in that particular situation. There's grace in that too. So He'll get us on the right path and we don't have to guess about, oh, is this because of some kind of sin? We're going to know it. And so as a Christian, when you face trials, Listen, does it give you more hope and resolve to believe that every time something bad happens to you in your life that God is angry with your imperfection? Or that the reason you're in this trial is actually because God loves you and that the suffering is working towards your good and His glory just like Romans 8.28 says? I mean, think about this. As a Christian, it only applies to Christians, those that are saved. Does it bring you more encouragement and hope to think that every time something bad happens to you, it's just that God has thrown a lightning bolt at you? Or, that God does allow suffering into our lives because He has a purpose and a plan for it, and He's going to use it to grow us in grace and make us more like Him, that it's going to be good for us, and it's going to bring Him glory, and there's nothing that happens to us that doesn't first pass through the fingers of God. Which one brings you more encouragement? The second one. Well, it's good because the second one is also biblical. Now, I'll say this and I'll move on. There are a lot of Christians out there that are a lot like Job's friends. And they're a lot like David in this passage. And that they really think that if you just live the best Christian life that you can live, that it's all going to be a bed of roses. I know people that believe that. I believe that as a young Christian. But I tell you what, life has a way of hitting your theology in the mouth, doesn't it? And I'm not making this up. There are people, even in our family and in our lives and people we know, and thank God it hadn't been anybody here, but there are people that every time we get around them, they want to get Leah off by herself and say, hey listen, do you have some kind of sin in your life? You know, these migraines would probably go away if you would just repent. And I'm thinking, do you ever Bible, bro? I mean, but listen, I say this in Jess, but here's something else I found in the counseling that I've done. Is that people, they may not even be able to verbalize this, maybe they don't even realize it, but when you have that mindset, and I call that mindset retribution theology. In other words, God wouldn't do this if you didn't deserve it, or if you hadn't done something specific to deserve it. But I found that it's actually a form of control. And it really, they would never admit this, probably don't even realize it, but it's a whole lot closer to the health and wealth gospel than they realize. Because it's a way of manipulating God. Oh, you're suffering? Oh, you're going through a hard time? Hey listen, just repent and it all goes away. Isn't that sound like the health and wealth gospel? And I'll tell you why it bothers those people. It's because they cannot fathom the idea that God would bring suffering into our life and allow suffering into our life without us deserving it. That's a God that's too big for them. They want to be able to control that God by simply repenting and getting things right. Wouldn't that just be so simple? Hey babe, if you would just repent, the headaches go away. How do you like that? It sounds great on paper, doesn't it? But as she said many times, listen, if there was something, I'd be confessing to things I hadn't even done if it would go away. It's really sad, but it's not encouraging and it's not biblical. And so, we need to understand that we don't have to have that kind of perspective like David does here from a spiritual standpoint. David doesn't want us to have any joy because it makes us into weak Christians. From a human perspective, guilt and penance can be a means of control in disguise, just like I mentioned. If the suffering is all my fault, I have all the power to change the situation. By the way, and I'll mention this and I'll move on, I think it's the same way with guilt. If bad things happen in your life, I've counted so many people that had this guilt complex where they felt like every bad thing that happened, they had to turn it inwards. Because listen, if it's your fault, You feel like you can control it. You can change. You can do better. You can be better. But if it's somebody else's fault, you can't control them. It's a subtle means of control. Guilt can be a subtle means of control. Hey, if the suffering is my fault, then I have the power to change the situation. If my sin brought on the suffering, my repentance can take the suffering away. But if God is in control of my suffering, then it's out of my hands. Listen, true faith True, mature, seasoned faith is not trusting God to do everything that you want Him to do. Can you imagine what God would be like if He did what we wanted Him to do? True faith is when you trust God when things aren't going well, when you are hurting, when the finances are struggling, when the marriage is suffering. When the body is suffering and you ask God and nothing changes, that's what true faith is. It's God. You're God and I'm not. You know better. You have the power. You're in control. That's what real faith is. God's not a genie in a bottle. And He's not going to do everything that we want Him to do just because we whim Him to do it. We have to understand that. We have to be changed in our perspective. God doesn't allow us to go through trials in order to make us bitter, but in order to make us better. And I'll say this, if you're lost, you need to repent and trust Christ. Sometimes God allows people to hit rock bottom, So they'll only be able to look up and see Christ, and their need for Christ. But if you are one of God's children, and you are suffering, take a deep breath and remember that God loves you. He has a purpose and a plan for your suffering, and this too shall pass. Oh Lord, save us from our tainted perspective. Let me ask you this question, and I'll move on. I do have two more, but they'll be much quicker. I want to ask you this. Compared to eternity, How long do you think this life really is? I mean, if you could see a percentage, what do you think that percentage would look like on a pie chart? You wouldn't even see it. It would be immeasurable. This life is just a speck of sand on a beach compared to eternity. And yet, just because we live here and we're sensual creatures, this life gets all the attention. We are literally in that short space between the here and the eternally hereafter. And yet we just, man, we're just right here. We shouldn't give it that much attention. We need a change in our perspective. But secondly, not only do we need to be delivered from our perspective, I do think we need to be delivered from our pain. Here's what I mean by this. Look at verse 2. He says, Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak, O Lord. Heal me, for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed, but Thou, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, deliver my soul. O save me for Thy mercy's sake. For in death there is no remembrance of Thee in the grave. Who shall give Thee thanks? And I want to stop right there and say that He is not He's not talking about soul sleep. He's not talking about ceasing to exist. I know that Jehovah's Witnesses like to use this verse. He's not talking about it. He's talking about in this life. Once you're in the grave, you no longer praise Him in this life. That's literally what He's talking about. Verse 6, I am weary with my groaning. All the night I make my bed to swim. I water my couch with tears. Mine eye is consumed because of grease. It waxeth old because of all mine enemies. Can you not just hear the pain in these words? I mean, this rhetorical language. Have you ever felt like that? That your bed was just full of tears, your pillow was just soaked with your tears, you were just weary from groaning, your eyes felt like you just couldn't cry anymore. I think we can all identify with this at some point in time in our life. But here's the thing, even when we understand these deeper theological truths that we just talked about, that by itself doesn't remove the pain. And this is why we have to be gracious to those that are suffering. You know, I think sometimes, and listen, I'm as guilty about this as anybody. I can be tempted to do this if I'm not careful, but I think that if we're not careful, we can get too heady about these types of things. Because, you know, we act like, well, if that person would just give it to God, then it would be all sunshine and rainbows and skittles in the midst of their storm. But often it doesn't work that way, does it? So it doesn't really help you to browbeat somebody about that. Listen, you can have all the biblical knowledge in the world. You can know the promises of God. You can be settled in what you believe. And sometimes trials are still hard to go through. There's still heartache. There's still tears that are shed. That doesn't make you less of a Christian. That doesn't make you a weaker Christian. Listen, when my pastor got cancer, and died within nine months like that. I promise you there was some tear shit. I saw that man go through so much between the cancer and the chemo and being six hours away from home in this big cancer treatment facility. But he was still singing and praising God and witnessing to people until they put him in the ground. But I can promise you there was some hard times. There were some difficult conversations. It doesn't make you weak. It just makes you human. It just makes us understand how much we need the grace of God. And I'm telling you, there's sometimes, if you have not experienced this type of valley, one day you will. You'll find yourself in a place that only God can help you. You'll find yourself in a place that you don't even feel like you can communicate what you're going through in a way that somebody else will understand. You ever been there before? I'm glad that he understands our tears, aren't you? But this is also why we have to give ourselves grace. I found that when somebody is suffering really intensely, that the comfort that humans can bring is of no comfort. And sometimes God allows us to walk through those things that He can only walk through with us. I found that through those types of trials, God won't always give you exactly what you want, but He will always give you what you need. You know, even in this situation, with Liz help, and listen, I'm so thankful she's here. I'm so thankful that she's doing better. This is the best she's done in years. But there's been two times within the past five years, I had reached a personal breaking point. The first time was when we spent that first year almost exclusively on the road. Los Angeles, Michigan twice, well, Los Angeles twice, UAB, Jacksonville, Florida Mayo Clinic, I mean, just everywhere but home. And that was hard, especially when you didn't see any results. I know y'all go think I'm crazy. But that's fine. You know, it's true. But I remember one time y'all I was in Los Angeles. And she just been through another procedure that didn't work and she would they had just wheeled her back in the room from recovery. And I'm there by myself in this hospital the whole time she's there so far away from home. And I literally pulled up the security camera in my house. Just like look at my couch. I know that sounds stupid. But that's how bad I missed home. And I After that Dr. Michigan told us there was nothing else that could be done. And just basically deal with it. Don't ever let her be alone. Surround yourself with happy people. Think happy thoughts. It was driving me crazy. And I remember we drove back from Michigan to her parents' house. And the next morning, I got up real early and I drove to this nature park out in the middle of nowhere. And nobody was there. I knew they wouldn't be there. And I was just crying out to God. And I said, God, you've got to do something. I said, I don't know what to do anymore. I don't have anything to look forward to. And God just, man, He just gave me a peace. I can't explain it other than I knew that He was going to handle it. And it wasn't three months later we were here. And God gave us a respite. There was almost a year that she was a lot better and we had hope. Man, we thought this thing was going to turn around and she got worse. And the last two years have been, to me, the hardest of all of it. She hadn't been able to go to church hadn't been able to drive. I mean, it's just it's been really difficult. I've it's been I can't really explain it. But I had just about reached a breaking point. And then lo and behold, we find this doctor natural medicine that gets her off gluten and dairy and gets her on this detox. And now, I mean, she's not pain free, but man, she's driving again. She's a church again, she's able to enjoy life again. And I can't tell you what a boost is. I don't know where this goes. I don't know what happens. I'm just saying, thank you, Lord, for right now. He won't always give you what you want, but He'll give you what you need. And I do believe that we need help. We need comfort in our pain. And so we need to keep these things in mind. Sometimes God changes our circumstances, and sometimes He changes us. But He always gives us what we need. And sometimes we need to be delivered from our perspective. Other times we need to be delivered from our pain. And ultimately one day we will. I love what Joni Erickson Tada said. If you haven't read her story or read her books, you need to put that at the top of the reading list. Joni Erickson Tada had a diving accident when she was about 18 years old. Broke her neck. And they were in the bay somewhere, her and her sister. and she dove off and there was a rock there that was shallow, it broke her neck instantly, and she couldn't even swim to get out. If her sister hadn't realized what was going on, she would have drowned. She's been confined to a wheelchair for over 40 years, and what's even worse, the last book that I read from her was recent. And she said it's really, she struggled mentally and emotionally because, you know, for all these years, she hasn't felt anything. She can't move, but she doesn't have any pain. And she said for the last ten years, for whatever reason, her nerves are deteriorating and she's having this excruciating pain in her back to where when she has these flare-ups, she can't even sleep. And her thought, she said, this was in the flesh, but my thought was, Lord, can I go back to not feeling anything? I can't feel anything but pain with this body. But man, she made a statement I'll never forget. She was at a Q&A session, and somebody asked her, they had good intentions, but they said, When you get to heaven, the first thing you're going to do is run. And she said, no, that's the second thing I'm going to do. She said, the first thing I'm going to do is kneel. The first thing I'm going to do is kneel and thank Him for His sufficient grace that got me through the things I never thought I could get through. And then I'm going to run. What a thought. You can't say those things on credit. You can't say those things from reading them in a book. They've got to be lived. They've got to be real. And I tell you, God puts certain people in this world, and He puts us through certain things, not that we can brag about being delivered, but we can brag about the grace of God being sufficient to get us through those things. He can deliver us from those things, and I'm thankful for that. Number three, and I've got to be done, we need to be delivered from our pessimists. I think in this day and time, especially with social media, we got our personal pessimist. That they don't have anything good to say about anything at any time, at any place, in any way. And certainly, Job dealt with his pessimist. Jesus dealt with his while he was on this earth. I think David has his. I think we see him. Look at verse 8. He says, Depart from me. All you workers of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord hath heard my supplication. The Lord will receive my prayer. Let all my enemies be ashamed and sore vexed. Let them return and be ashamed suddenly. I think there's an important distinction to be made here from the enemies that he's talking about in Psalm 6 and the enemies that he's talking about in Psalm 5. Because the one in Psalm 5, they're clearly not saved. They're clearly anti-God. But the ones here, he is not praying for their destruction. He's not saying, Lord, let them fall by the sword or let them be consumed by their own ways. What does he say? He says, let them be ashamed at my deliverance. I think Job's friends were ashamed when God showed up in the whirlwind and said, you have no clue what you're talking about. I think that's what we're talking about here. And these last few verses are a great source of comfort to the believer for a few reasons and I'm done. This is very comforting. Number one, I love how David's whole perspective changed here. He knew that the Lord had heard him and that he would receive his prayer. By the way, this is a great example of how prayer is such a powerful weapon for the Christian because at this point the Lord hadn't changed his circumstances. Don't we bargain with God? Lord, if you would just deliver me, then I could be happy. Lord, if you would get me out of this, then I could sleep at night. I could be better. I could praise you then. No, David's praising him not because his circumstances have been changed, but because he's been changed on the inside. If God would change us on the inside, if He would change our heart about our situation, then changing our situation doesn't become such a big deal. His joy was renewed. He had changed him. I left out in verse 8 that God heard the voice of his weeping. Look at verse 8. For the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. I've often heard it asked, do you think God hears heart prayers? I think He does. There's been times where I've been so out of it, all I could do was cry. Couldn't even make audible words. I surely couldn't make a conversation. Y'all ever been there before? It literally says He heard the voice of my weeping. I think about another example in Genesis 16 and verse 11 when Hagar had been cast out from Abraham's household and the Lord showed up and said, I have heard thy affliction. I'm glad, there's an old song that Isaac sang. It says, when no one else cares, he understands my tears. I love that. I believe he understands that. We have a God. We have a high priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. That makes him personal. We find that in Hebrews 4 about Christ as our high priest. And I know that it's bad to sometimes get scared to talk about feelings, but they are all real and we do have them. And I'm glad we've got a God that understands not only our infirmity, not only our weakness, not only our heartache, but the feelings that are associated with those things. He's a personal Savior. But then lastly, I think this is how we should sum this whole thing up. And I absolutely love this. This is amazing to me. You know that Jesus actually quotes from this psalm? And John, we'll be there soon enough. John chapter 12 and verse 27, Jesus quotes from this psalm. He quotes from verse 3 where it says, My soul is sore vexed. Jesus said, My soul is troubled. And it was in the context of the cross. He said he was troubled by this hour. The cross. And so he was troubled about the cross and about all the things that that entailed. And you know, most of the time we don't choose our suffering. Probably never. But Christ not only chose suffering, He chose to enter into our suffering. He chose to enter into our sin and die for our sin. And this is our hope. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That one day suffering and sin will be over. And that God will wipe every tear from our eyes. And that everything that was crooked will be made straight. And that every wrong will be made right. This has to be our focus in our suffering. We have to have our eyes upon Christ. And the only way to be delivered from self and circumstances is to have an eternal perspective. Again, I'll close with this. How long do you think eternity is compared to this life? It's nothing. It's nothing. And we get hung up on the nothing and forget about the eternity with Him. in perfect peace with no more pain, no more suffering, no more sin, no more dying, no more parting? Are you getting happier just thinking about it? It could be today. It could be tomorrow. We don't know. But we know that we need to be delivered from ourselves in times of suffering. We need to be delivered from our perspective, our fleshly perspective, our pain and our pessimist. Where are you at with that today? Can you say with David, the Lord's heard me and He's going to deliver me and He's going to help me. We need that kind of confidence. His grace is sufficient for us.