21. 21. OK, Ashton, it's all yours. God bless you and good morning. I'm on the pulpit, like Brother Bruce right here. So let's continue and have prayer. I appreciate your prayers for Doris Bittman. She has been in the hospital again and continues to need your prayers. I know she was discharged yesterday afternoon. I saw her yesterday morning. But keep Doris in your prayers. And then especially pray for my mother. Last night, we We did need to put her on oxygen. And they're continuing to give her comfort beds. I was able to stay with her and she's calm and not responsive, but she doesn't seem to be in any pain. Pray for her, for my sister and our family at this time. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Brother Ed, you lead us in prayers. Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you this morning. Father, we do thank you for this day that you've given to us. And Lord, we do pray for the doors to heaven that you might be there for us. We insist in thanking you, Lord, and we pray that you would watch over us and care for us. Father, we thank you for the many years that she's had. Faithful, Lord, we thank you. All right, we want to thank the auditorium class for your giving for Baptist faith missions in June. Our class gave $277. That's over and above what our church and our other designated giving may be. That's a significant amount, trust me, in the ministry of Baptist Faith Missions. Our total giving for our Synergical Class for Baptist Faith Missions in 2024 is $1,367. So very thankful for that. Pray for other churches to come alongside and help Baptist Faith Missions All right, our series is the first two books of the Psalms. Some of us looked at some of these during the midweek ministry, the midweek study that last year was in the Psalms. We didn't go through 150 of them, but we did go through several of them. But we're going to be looking at a section today in Psalm 31 through Psalm 36. Our author here is called Seeking the Lord. Seeking the Lord. The key verse, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts in Him. Father, I do pray that you would bless your Sunday school classes that meet today, every teacher and every student. Bless those that are traveling away from us. Bless the marriage of Greg and Charla that we witnessed yesterday. Bless their life together. And Father, we pray that you would bless the gospel that went out to all those that attended yesterday. We thank you for that service. We pray you would be with our ministries today, both the worship hour and in the Sunday evening service as our church sits at the Lord's table. Get the glory from it. Help us to seek you, truly to seek you today as this psalm invites us. In Jesus' name, amen. Searching the text, we're looking at Psalm 34. You can turn there in your Bibles, Psalm 34. He's got three sections here. Bless the Lord, verses one through three. Seek the Lord, verses four through eight. And fear the Lord, verses nine and 10. Psalm 34, one through three. This is one of the autobiographical psalms. How do we know that? Well, because it has an autobiographical title. Your English Bible says, A Psalm of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed in the desert, Psalm of Thanksgiving, which Ryrie says this is an acrostic psalm. I guess we looked at that before where letters of the Hebrew alphabet would begin each verse. So there are 34 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. How many verses in Psalm 34? There are 34 letters, no, 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. This is an acrostic Psalm. How many verses in Psalm 34? No. Yes, that's correct. That's correct. I've just seen if you're awake. But, so that means that verse one would begin with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and so forth and so on down to the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. We don't see that in English, but someday in heaven we'll not only, I like to think there'll be a reversal of Babel. I do think the languages will, be present there because the Bible says that there will be people there from every tongue and tribe. And I do think in some way God is going to sustain that. Language some people think we'll all speak one language That's all together possible, but it may be that we just understand each other. We just will have the ability to Understand whatever language somebody speaks in and we'll be able to hear these songs The Hebrew songs, we'll be able to hear them sung for the first time. We'll be able to hear the accompaniment as they were originally designed. I mean, we're going to have forever. We may hear every version of them. I think there are going to be other things to do in heaven, by the way. You won't be bored there. Don't worry about it. But this is an autobiographical song. The story of David and Abimelech is in 1 Samuel chapter 21. Let's read it. A song of David when he changed his behavior before Abimelech who drove him away and he departed. Does anyone know how David changed his behavior? Did he go from happy to sad? More like crazy, right? Is that a technical term? He feigned mental illness, we think. This is not really an ethical question, but is it ever right to deceive your enemy? That's sort of a rhetorical question, but is it ever OK to deceive an enemy? What do you think? Rahab did this. Well, there's plenty of cases in the Bible where somebody did. Who can think of a case that Steve mentioned Rahab already? She hid the spies, the two spies. Can you think of another deception in the Bible? I'm thinking of several in the Old Testament. How many of you remember the story of Gideon? How many men did Gideon have in his army, finally, when they went to battle? 300. 300. Started out with several thousand, correct? Now, I'm assuming by the time you get to the auditorium class, you've been through every other class we got. So I should have covered some of this. So Gideon has 300. How many men do you think the Midianites thought Gideon had when he came against them? They were terrified. You know what they did? Anybody know what their tactic was? What did Gideon's 300 do? They blew trumpets and they had some Coleman lanterns. They had some pictures and some lights, and they broke them open, and the lights shone, and the trumpets sounded, and the Midianites thought it was the end of the world. For some of them, it was. That was deception. That, by the way, that tactic has been repeated over and over again in military annals. If you read any military history, That has been used over and over again, surprise and distraction and deception. So, there's the Gideon. Anybody think of another case of deception? Jesus. He said, agree with thine adversary while thou art in way with him. Yeah, and I was thinking of another with Jesus, too, was there was a point in time when they were going to seize Jesus, And he passed through the crowd, and they couldn't find him. In other words, he was some kind of cloaking device. Now, if you don't know what that is, but in some way, he concealed himself. You know, in another sense, too, the parables are camouflaged truth. Are they not? Remember when Jesus' disciples asked him, why do you speak in parables? And he told them, I'm hiding some things from certain people. Now, there's a long story behind that. The disciples came and said, what does this parable of the sower mean? And Jesus explained it to them. But there are also some people that Jesus said, I'm not going to tell you. There are times when people come and ask Jesus, who are you? And sometimes Jesus says, I'm not going to tell you again or now. So in David's case here, You have two choices. Not everything the Bible records is acceptable or commendable behavior. In other words, the Bible's inherent record of it is true, but sometimes the Bible records bad things people do. It's one of the unique things about the Bible. It tells you the good, the bad, and the ugly of all the Bible actors, characters. It doesn't pull any punches. even the sweet psalmist of Israel, you can read in his biography in the Bible, and it tells you when David slew Goliath. It also tells you when David slew, murdered Uriah. One was good, one was bad, but the Bible tells both of those things. So just because someone uses a technique doesn't necessarily mean the Bible's commending it. But I think in David's case here, His feigning ignorance was an acceptable, actually quite clever tactic. Verse 1 says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. David is celebrating this victory. It was touch and go as it were. He was in a very difficult situation. He had sought protection and he was going to had to make some very difficult decisions here, and David feigns madness. It was actually a brilliant strategy. It had the desired consequence. In ancient times, and even in modern times, some people feared that forms of madness were contagious. or like a play that it would be catching. It's like, we don't want to catch what David has. And so it was actually quite clever. Verse 4, I sought the Lord and He heard me. Perhaps David prayed about this tactic, or perhaps he was led to do this. He says, the Lord delivered me from all my fears. They looked unto Him and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps round about them that fear him, and delivers them. Oh, here's our key verse. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts in him. I never read verse 7, but what I think of a testimony that James Dearmore, who was a First, a missionary in the Congo with his brother, Roy. Later on, Roy, when the Congo was closed to American missionaries, Roy Dearmore went to Brazil, and James Dearmore went to South Africa. He went to a region that God blessed, but while they were there, there was some civil unrest, and actually, massacres and murders, especially of British and European folk. There were riots and civil unrest. And one particular testimony that James, I still see the picture of James and his wife's name was George, Georgia, is that right? George. Okay, I still see the picture of the baptism. James is baptizing someone and there's his wife up on the bank. She's not holding towels, she's holding a submachine gun. That was for their protection, I guess. But there was one particular night where there was a raid where houses and compounds were being burned to the ground and people were being massacred. And somehow, the compound where the deer horses were was passed by. was not looted or attacked in any way. And later, when other authorities came and asked, they eventually did catch some of these people and bring some peace, they asked him, why did you skip this compound? And the testimony that they told, not just one of them, but several of them told, they said, we saw the army dressed in white around that compound. Now, I don't know what they saw. All I know is it sure sounds like a miracle that God performed. And by the way, James Dearmore didn't say, we didn't say, Lord, send angels to protect us. James says, we were actually, we were probably praying for God to watch over us, but he says, we didn't ask for some specific demonstration. We didn't summon angels. So, no, don't. Don't make that your strategy, say like, well, I'll just summon the angels, because this may have been something that God did for this occasion. But the testimony was that they saw the angel of the Lord, well, they saw men in white, armed, surrounding that compound. David says, that's my experience. The angel of the Lord encamps round about them. Sometimes the angel, the Lord, generally in the Old Testament, it refers to God himself. You think, well, Jesus is not an angel. God's not an angel. Just remember that the word angel actually means messenger. Now, there are angelic beings Don't misunderstand, there are the holy angels, and once upon a time, there were all the angels, and then Lucifer rebelled, and one third of the angels rebelled with him, and they were cast out of heaven. They are now known as fallen angels. Some of them are already in bondage, Jude in 2 Peter tells us. Some are still doing the work and bidding of Satan, who also roams the earth seeking whom he may devour. That's the study of demonology, which the Bible tells us what we need to know about it, not idle curiosities to satisfy it, but it tells us about that. So you have these angels, The holy angels, sometimes called the elect angels, you know some of their names like Gabriel, Michael. They have specific roles in ministry. Angels appear throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. They're especially prominent in the book of Revelation. Billy Graham called them God's secret agents because they work in a realm in a region beyond our five senses. I do believe there's a very real sense of which God does have his angels watching over us. I wouldn't be surprised if we do have guardian angels that minister to us in realms that we don't understand. Now, don't try to figure it out. The angels know their job. You worry about your job. Don't be trying to figure out what the angels, the angels are, they know what they're supposed to be doing. So don't worry about whether the angels are watching over you. Some of you probably have three or four of them. But the angels are doing their watch care. But this word angel means messenger. So the holy angels certainly are God's messengers. But sometimes the word angel means messenger, like in the book of Revelation. When the letters are addressed to the seven churches, they are addressed to the angel of each church. Now, the word angel there, you could argue and say, well, I think it's talking about a holy, an elect angel. But it probably just means pastor there, the messenger of the church. So sometimes I've told you, you're never going to be an angel. Some of you had no shot at being an angel. Even when we die, we don't become angels. Don't settle for being an angel because we were created a little lower than the angel. Someday we're going to be exalted above the angels. So don't aim too low. Say, well, I'd like to be an angel in heaven. No. Aim for what you were created to be, in the image of God. We are in the image of God, unlike the angels. You don't want to be an angel because there's no plan of salvation for the angels who fell. There's a plan of salvation for fallen men, but not for angels. So in the Revelation you have these, I was telling you, so your pastor's an angel. Now I don't want you to start calling me angel. or anything. I'm a messenger. I'm a spokesman. I'm a teller of truth, a teacher. So here, I'm pretty sure, and Ryrie agrees with me, the angel of the Lord is the Lord himself. Whether or not that's an Old Testament appearance, The theologians call them theophanies. Theo is God. The narrow is to appear. Some kind of appearance of God in the Old Testament in a recognizable, seeable form. There was the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden. We don't often think of a voice walking. but there was some kind of physical awareness of God in the garden there. It's interesting, the word voice, and then later on in the New Testament, Jesus is called the word. So you have the appearance of God. Many think the Son of God there in the garden. Not in his incarnation, that happens when he is conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit, but some kind of pre-incarnate appearance. And there are some cases in the Old Testament where an angel appears One of the differences you recognize immediately, is this one of the holy angels or is this referring to God? It often has to do with whether or not that person receives worship. Angels are not to be worshiped. Gabriel, Michael, now they're very impressive, very powerful. But we are not supposed to worship angels. As a matter of fact, Colossians says that's a real heresy, teaching people to worship angels. But whenever you see the angel of the Lord appear, and someone falls down and worships, and it's not rebuked, that's a strong indication that it's not one of the holy angels, that it is a pre-incarnate theophany, Christophany, an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. So that could be what the angel of the Lord here is referring to in verse number seven. Verse nine, O fear the Lord, ye his saints, for there is no one to them that fear him. The young lions do lack, suffer hunger. But they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. Let's go back to the outline and look again at verses one through three. This psalm, like any good praise or prayer experience, begins with worship, begins with praise. Verse 34, verse one, his praise, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall be continually in my mouth. Every good prayer begins with adoration. Remember we talked about the acts, the A-C-T-S of prayer. Supplication is probably our favorite part, that's the S, that's where we ask for stuff. When we ask for things or we ask for God to do something. T is thanksgiving, also a part of this psalm. That's always a good thing to thank God for the things he's already done for you. It's always good manners to thank someone for what they gave you before you ask for something else. that's good advice. So you have supplication, you have thanksgiving, you have C is what? Confession. When you talk to the Lord, it's always a good thing to admit that you're a sinner. And we do not have a confessional in a Baptist church. Now, If a brother offends a brother, they can admit that to them and be reconciled. But we don't have any, there's no New Testament example of you coming to a human being and saying, here's the 12 billion things I did wrong this week, or the things I failed to do. There's no confessional. Our mediator is Jesus Christ. one mediator between God and man. And we confess our sins through him and to him. So the C is confession. A, the acts of prayer comes first. A stands for adoration, praise, worship. I've never seen a better formula for how to begin your prayer Now, that doesn't mean you have to follow that. To make that a burdensome ritual and self-consciously be saying, oh, I've got to think of something nice to say about God. It's really kind of embarrassing if we have to stop and think of praise for God. Sometimes we do, because we're just so full of our request. But we should be able to worship God, look at creation. We recognize that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Praise God for His holiness. Admire God for His goodness, His grace. the wondrous things that God is and the things that God does. So the psalmist begins with adoration or praise or worship. There are many aspects of worship. One of the reasons Baptists and other groups have called these, well, not so much the Sunday school hour, The Sunday school hour we call the Sunday school hour, or Sunday school. You're in Sunday school right now. You went to school on Sunday. But the next hour, which starts around 1030, we call it the what hour? Worship hour, where did that come from? I know there's some tradition there, but it's actually a good tradition. I think it's a good thing to call that, what do we call the six o'clock service? The six o'clock, no. evening worship. Now why is it called evening worship? Because anything after six is the evening. Right? Just checking. Why is it called worship? You think, well, in the worship service, I guess it's worship because we sing. That's worship. But did you know that everything we do in the 1030 service is actually an act of worship? Gathering together is an act of worship. It's an act of devotion. It's an act of submission, of praying, listening to prayer. Not just the people who pray, but when you listen to public prayer, you are being called to worship God. You're being called to think about God. Brother Ed leads us in prayer just a few minutes ago. He's also inviting us to think about God and the things that we're asking God and thanking God for. He's helping us worship. And then well-giving is an act of worship. When the ushers move amongst you and you think, well, that's just how we pay the bills, and that's how we get our mission money, and that's how we keep the lights on and so forth and so on. Feed the ox, treads out the corn. Giving is an act of worship. That's why Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek. It was an act of praise or worship. So we have, first of all, worship. Verse two says, my soul shall make her boast in the Lord. Christians should be notorious for boasting about God. You say, is it ever right to boast? Well, if you boast about God, you can't go wrong. Now, I suppose you could say something untrue about God, and that would be wrong. But if you say God is the most powerful, the all-knowing, all-loving, all-gracious, creator, sustainer. He's the beginning of all things. He's the sustainer of all things. He's the receiver of all things. You would be right. You can. What was it Grandpa Sonnet said in the Guns of Will Sonnet? No brag. In fact, you watched that show, didn't you? Was that Walter Brennan? He wasn't Wilsonic, though. They were looking for Wilsonic. I'm just arguing. But that was Walter Brennan's line, because evidently they were very fast with their guns. And he said, well, that's, you're boasting. He says, no, no brag, just fact. If it's true, well, we have to be careful, because sometimes even when we say true things about ourselves, We're boasting. But not, can't, you can't, if you say true things about God, you go ahead and boast in God. It's very important that we. help people see how big our God is. Isaiah 40 is one of the most beautiful prophetic poems in the Old Testament about beholding God. How can we see God? God's a spirit. How can we know God? Well, we know him in the revelation of his written word, and we know him in the revelation the living word and our God is a big God and Isaiah 40 describes it in some beautiful figurative language like Holding all the waters of the earth What the earth is three-fifths water. Is that still true? That's what I've been taught three-fifths of the surface of the earth are covered covered by water some of the Waters in the ocean are incredibly deep. I'm told there are trenches like the Marianas Trench in the Pacific that we've never fathomed the depths of it. But Isaiah 40 says, God can take all the water on the globe, in the globe, and hold it in his hand. That's a big hand, because that's a lot of water. God can stretch out the firmament like you would hang a rod of curtains. You ever helped your wife hang draperies? Anybody? Anybody ever put up a curtain rod? Apparently, it's very important that it be level. Very important. You've all put up draperies, thank God. God hung the curtains of the firmament. And by the way, he didn't have anybody on the other end holding up the other end either. He did it. And God is to be praised. Number next, then we are to seek the Lord, verses four through eight. What does it mean to seek the Lord? 1 through 3, it seems like we already found Him, doesn't it? God is good, God is great, God is gracious. I praise Him, I worship Him. Let's sing about Him, let's tell others about Him. Verses 1 through 3, it seems to be like, well, He knows who God is. What is this seeking about? This isn't seeking to know who God is. I think this is seeking to find out what God wants. What God wants to do in us, through us, for us. It says, I saw the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears. David already knows who God is. He knows what God can do, but he says, I sought him. I think this is the asking part. This is the, in Matthew 7, Jesus says, ask, seek, and knock. I've heard some beautiful sermons about that, asking one thing, seeking another thing, knocking. And then I've heard some say, well, they're all just synonyms. Some of them are more persistent than others. But the seeking part is looking for what God will do for me. There's some trust involved in that. Patience involved in that. He says, I sought the Lord. Verse five, they looked unto him. It's one thing to know who God is. Sometimes it's another thing to trust him. I've heard illustrations of putting your faith in Christ rather like sort of a simple illustration, but how many know anything about aerodynamics? Anybody know anything about how planes get off the ground? Thrust, lift. We were up at Michigan for a meeting, and they took us over to the village there, and they had the Wright Brothers Bicycle Shop, which they moved piece by piece, board by board, from somewhere in Dayton, Ohio, they moved it to Detroit, and Henry Ford had it rebuilt there, and their original bicycle shops there, That's where they began to design the first heavier-than-air airplane. That's why Ohio gets credit for being first in flight, even though North Carolina thinks they had something to do with it, just because they have a bunch of sand dunes. And that's where they tested their plane. But all of you know about aerodynamics. You know about flight. But knowing about aerodynamics and actually boarding a plane, buckling up in the seat, and taking off in a plane, those are two different things. Knowing how a plane works and getting on a plane, two different aspects. You can know everything there is to know about flying. I don't know if you remember that Jimmy Stewart movie, one of his later movies, Flight of the Phoenix. It was remade, but the best one's the first one, Jimmy Stewart. They crash in the desert. Anybody know the story? Just nod your head. And their plane is ruined. And finally, they begin to think, maybe we could build something out of this wreckage. And just so happens, one of their passengers is an aeronautical engineer. He knows about building planes. Spoiler alert, they find out sort of halfway into the project that he is a model airplane. You remember this now? He designs and builds model airplanes. They're sort of disappointed when they find that out, that he doesn't build real passenger-carrying planes. But you know what they figure out? The principles are the same. And he does know how to design a plane. And he knows the formulas. Lift and thrust, and it's a pretty good story, actually. So they build it. But the real step of faith is when they get on the plane, take off, and they're strapped to the wings, and it's all, so you'll have to look it up. And it does fly. There's a difference between knowing God, knowing about God, and trusting God. Sometimes we know a great deal about God factually, but we lack faith. So, seeking the Lord is actually, verse 6, he says, the poor man cries and the Lord hears him and saves him out of all his troubles. Verse 8, taste and see the Lord is good. Then the last part, verses 9 and 10, fearing the Lord. And I thought as I went through the lesson, I'm thinking, I understand why he put this last, because there's blessing the Lord in the first stanza, seeking the Lord in the next stanza, and then fearing the Lord. I would have thought, maybe you should put fearing the Lord first. because there are verses that say the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And I do think the word fear here means reverential awe, not terror like running away from God or God is some kind of to be avoided. There's something here about this reverence and this awe that comes after we've learned about God, after we've leaned on God, and after we've lived to tell the story of what God did. And then we're in fear of Him. We're in awe of Him. We're in reverence of Him. I hope you're able to look over your life and say, that was an amazing thing God did for me. that God provided. At the very simplest level, we should be able to look at our salvation and say, that's an amazing thing that Jesus did for me on the cross. That God could be just and a justifier. We should have reverential awe and amazement for God. Let's pause here. We'll prepare for the worship service. Brother Steve, can you dismiss us? Lord, thank you for reminding us today that you are great, you are awesome, and we lift you up today. We worship you, and we seek to learn more about you. Bless in the service that follows.