SPEAKER_00: Appreciate Brother Jacob's prayer this morning and glad he's here.
SPEAKER_00: Um our hearts are with the Lavernia Church as they uh are getting prepared already for their time with the camp meeting next year.
SPEAKER_00: And as we well know that that's not a uh that's not a short-term thing that you have to work on.
SPEAKER_00: It's a long-term thing that you work on.
SPEAKER_00: So we're praying for that church to to be prepared for it and to go through the things that they need to to get prepared.
SPEAKER_00: This morning I want to bring before you some thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I have been thinking a lot about believing and unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And I tried to talk about it last weekend.
SPEAKER_00: About the man that said, Lord, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: And he was speaking about his child uh that was uh that was in peril.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And believing is what we find resulting from evidence of faith within us as we learn and are influenced by the Word of God through the interjection of the Holy Spirit that brings the realness of the truth to our hearts, and we go through the experiences that we go through in life as we run our race set before us, and everyone's race is their race, what comes in your path, what comes in your path may not come into my path, or vice versa.
SPEAKER_00: Even within my assistant's own household, our our race is different.
SPEAKER_00: One's obstacles are their obstacles, they're in their pathway.
SPEAKER_00: So we run the race set before us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not necessarily that we choose our obstacle course, it's thrown in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we do choose our obstacles, and we have to deal with the obstacles that we throw in front of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times the things that we choose to throw in front of ourselves are not from the outside, they're from the inside.
SPEAKER_00: They're the things that I go through that are from an internal situation in my own heart and mind.
SPEAKER_00: And so I have to deal with those two.
SPEAKER_00: The way that we uh resist unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: I think, Brother Steve, you talked about last week that we we should resist that unbelief and embrace, if I'm maybe I'm paraphrasing your words, but he he mentioned to me, yeah, we need to we need to resist against that unbelief, shun that unbelief, and embrace the things that we believe.
SPEAKER_00: And I found that kind of stirring, and it kind of moved me to think further drilling down into what is it that I can do to resist against unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Because unbelief comes from ignoring the evidence or trying to tamper with the evidence.
SPEAKER_00: We can tamper with evidence through our biases, the things that we make up in our mind, and we throw them at the principles that we would be in unbelief about.
SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest things that I throw in front of myself is I can't.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do this, I can't handle that.
SPEAKER_00: I resist against the principle of God because my very idea of I can't gets projected on God can't.
SPEAKER_00: I make him have the same in my mind, I make him have the same problem that I have.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do that because I'm not able, I'm too weak, I'm too out of touch, or whatever is stopping me from doing what I should do, I say I can't, and then I project that on God.
SPEAKER_00: That is one of the sources of unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: I'm tampering with evidence.
SPEAKER_00: What I want to throw before you this morning is some of the evidence that we should keep in our mind.
SPEAKER_00: Now, back to Hebrews, where it says, Let us run the race set before us, looking under Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.
SPEAKER_00: The author of our faith, and he's the finisher.
SPEAKER_00: And I've said this a lot of times here in other places, that that principle of finishing, I believe, has a that is a visual or a euphemism to uh or a type of idea that it's like I built a cabinet and it's built wonderfully.
SPEAKER_00: There's no flaws in it, but it still needs to be finished.
SPEAKER_00: It needs to be done with something on the outside.
SPEAKER_00: All the make the makings of it and the buildings of it is great.
SPEAKER_00: It's all put together right.
SPEAKER_00: There's no bad corners, there's no flaws in the wood.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is good.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way he authors our faith.
SPEAKER_00: He puts something in us that is perfect and not sinful.
SPEAKER_00: It is perfect as God is because it's born of God.
SPEAKER_00: It is fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But it still needs finishing.
SPEAKER_00: And what you do to a finish of a cabbet, that's why I think it fits so well, is that that finishing is not just throwing a throwing some uh paint on it or just covering it with stain.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times you have to rub it, you have to bring friction, it has to go through the process of finishing.
SPEAKER_00: Well, my friends, we as God's children have our faith authored within us by God, and it is perfect, but he is also the finisher of our faith.
SPEAKER_00: He'll take us through those things that we find friction, we find hard, rubbing, hard times that come upon it.
SPEAKER_00: Friction, the the finishing with sandpaper, it actually works on the wood.
SPEAKER_00: There is a process of sanding and buffing.
SPEAKER_00: And there may even need to be a little chiseling here or there.
SPEAKER_00: There are some cuttings that have to be.
SPEAKER_00: There are some things to bring it to a perfective state, a complete.
SPEAKER_00: He is the finisher.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that he brings the trouble, but my friends, he carries us through the trouble.
SPEAKER_00: He is the very one that we can trust in our finishing, in our life as we go through.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want you to keep that visual in mind.
SPEAKER_00: I want to paint that thought of him finishing our fame.
SPEAKER_00: Because I want to go look at a song of David over in the, well, there's two places, 2 Samuel chapter 22, 2 Samuel chapter 22, and then Psalms chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: Those two locations are both the words of David, and they're even said to be the song of David.
SPEAKER_00: They're a song that David wrote, and we know, well, I think we're pretty sure, because of some evidence, that David writes this song very near the very end of his life.
SPEAKER_00: Because in the 23rd chapter of the book of 2 Samuel, it begins with, and these be the last words of David.
SPEAKER_00: So, Brother Jacob, I know this is at the end of David's life.
SPEAKER_00: He's looking back.
SPEAKER_00: He's looking back through his life as a servant of God, as the king of Israel, as the man after God's own heart, and what that, you'd think that would be a charmed life, a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_00: And well, there's, boy, if you're the man after God's own heart, you're not going to have any trouble.
SPEAKER_00: My friend, this song is all about the troubles that David has seen.
SPEAKER_00: Some, about maybe even the troubles David caused.
SPEAKER_00: David didn't just go, he didn't just go through the troubles that came at him and fell on him from the out like Saul, like the Philistines, like the giants, like all those things that he went through.
SPEAKER_00: He had gone through those external pressures and obstacles and great calamities that he had to deal with.
SPEAKER_00: But David also went through troubles of his own making, of Bathsheba.
SPEAKER_00: As a trouble David caused.
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't one that came from the outside.
SPEAKER_00: He did that from David's own lust of his own flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Got himself into those consequences.
SPEAKER_00: His numbering the people stirred up the wrath of God, cost 70,000 lives because of his action of numbering the people.
SPEAKER_00: Those were David's problems that he dealt with.
SPEAKER_00: This is all part of David's finish.
SPEAKER_00: This is all his the finishing work on his faith.
SPEAKER_00: And he looks back and he begins to talk about his trust in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Our greatest vision of trust in the Lord is when he's carried us through the lowest points of our life.
SPEAKER_00: I remember Brother Hilton Crane said one time he preached on, he preached on the valley and the hill.
SPEAKER_00: The valley and the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: Great sermon.
SPEAKER_00: One thing I definitely remember it was at Bethel.
SPEAKER_00: And he he mentioned about the how grand it is on the mountaintop when you can see the grandeur of all the things that God hath made.
SPEAKER_00: How wonderful that vision is.
SPEAKER_00: But then you go down in the valley, and it's nothing but down where the water seeks that lowest point.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a very, very low point.
SPEAKER_00: We can get to that valley.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what he said is that in the valley is where things grow the best.
SPEAKER_00: Is in the valley is where things grew the best.
SPEAKER_00: Down there where that water seeks that lowest point.
SPEAKER_00: Well, not only does the water seek the lowest point, but it waters the things in the valley.
SPEAKER_00: And he reminded us of the lily of the valley.
SPEAKER_00: That lily is in the valley.
SPEAKER_00: When you're down there, when you wind up at that lowest point, look for the lily of the valley.
SPEAKER_00: It's great to see the rose of Sharon, the rose of the mountain Sharon.
SPEAKER_00: That's great to see the rose up there.
SPEAKER_00: But look for the lily of the valley.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to see what David would be reminded of.
SPEAKER_00: The 20, let's go to the these two, these two accounts are almost identical.
SPEAKER_00: You go and read, and it's right up at the very beginnings of it, so you don't have to search very far.
SPEAKER_00: They're like in the second, first and second, third verse.
SPEAKER_00: They're very close to the very top.
SPEAKER_00: And David gives us a list.
SPEAKER_00: In both of them, there is a list.
SPEAKER_00: And in the 18th Psalm, there's a list of eight things.
SPEAKER_00: Eight things in a list that are greatly descriptive of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We're taught that search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And they are they that teach of or speak of me.
SPEAKER_00: Those things in the Old Testament speak of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The things in the New Testament speak of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In all the scriptures, we are to look for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And David here gives us descriptive things to see about this one that he trusts in.
SPEAKER_00: I want to take us first to 2 Corinthians, just to start with.
SPEAKER_00: Trusting in God.
SPEAKER_00: Our motto for the country is in God We Trust.
SPEAKER_00: And that's more than just a motto.
SPEAKER_00: That's a principle of life that we we must have.
SPEAKER_00: If we're going to resist unbelief, we have to do it through in God We Trust.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that we trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: And there's great reasons given why we're to trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see them in just a moment as we go through this list of eight things that he gives us.
SPEAKER_00: But before we do, I want to come over to 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians, 1 chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Let's start verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is talking to this church.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that, you know, Corinthian church had a lot of problems.
SPEAKER_00: They had a lot of corrective things that needed to be done.
SPEAKER_00: They had some finishing work that they had to go through.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of things taken out, a lot of things being brought back in.
SPEAKER_00: And it was maybe unpleasant to have to face the things that Paul would bring up.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul here in the second Corinthian letter is a follow-up.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a follow-up of love that look, I'll just put it in my own words.
SPEAKER_00: I know, church, that you've had troubles.
SPEAKER_00: I know there's been a lot of things that's impacted you as a church.
SPEAKER_00: And they've been unpleasant.
SPEAKER_00: They're hard to deal with.
SPEAKER_00: They're embarrassing.
SPEAKER_00: They're the things that nobody wants to think of when you talk about a church.
SPEAKER_00: Paul did not lose his love for these people of this church that he had lived with, worked with.
SPEAKER_00: He was a tent maker for almost a year, I guess a year, six months to a year.
SPEAKER_00: He had stayed there with them, working, making tents at Corinth.
SPEAKER_00: This place where it's situated just below Greece, in Greece, just below Athens, Greece, where he had spoken to that unknown monument, the monument to the unknown God, and he preached Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Here is that church Corinth, right below there, in that same vicinity, under the influence of all that intellectualism, all that stuff that goes on in Athens, Greece, a place where they always sought to hear something new.
SPEAKER_00: Here he is talking to this church that he's had to work with and bring things out of it that were not to be kept.
SPEAKER_00: And he is now writing a follow-up basically to tell him, I haven't lost my love for you.
SPEAKER_00: I've gone through a lot of things for you, on your behalf.
SPEAKER_00: And now listen, as he would let's go to the seventh verse.
SPEAKER_00: And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye also of the consolation.
SPEAKER_00: For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our troubles which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life.
SPEAKER_00: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, and that we but in God which raiseth the dead, not trusting ourselves, but in God which raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death.
SPEAKER_00: Who delivered us from so great a death.
SPEAKER_00: And doth deliver.
SPEAKER_00: That's present tense.
SPEAKER_00: You delivered us, that's past tense.
SPEAKER_00: You doth deliver, that's present tense, and whom in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.
SPEAKER_00: He being Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He being our mediator, he being our savior, our refuge.
SPEAKER_00: This, my friends, is speaking of a trust that is life delivering.
SPEAKER_00: Now you have delivered us from a great death.
SPEAKER_00: And that death, my friends, had hold on all of us.
SPEAKER_00: We're all dead in trespasses and sin.
SPEAKER_00: And he hath delivered us from that so great a death.
SPEAKER_00: That, my friends, is enough to believe in and trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: He has delivered us from death and trespasses and sin.
SPEAKER_00: That was a death that would have kept us separate from God for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: That would have been a death that would be a barrier that we could not unloose ourselves from.
SPEAKER_00: It was so great a death.
SPEAKER_00: It is spoken of in the Revelation letter as the second death.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just the first death, but the final death, the second death.
SPEAKER_00: But he hath delivered us from so great a death.
SPEAKER_00: And this, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: Is where we find us today and doth deliver us.
SPEAKER_00: He is one not only that we trust him for what he did in the past, but he does in today.
SPEAKER_00: He is the same God today as he was in the day of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Joseph, and all the way down the line.
SPEAKER_00: All the way from here.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll take it even further back.
SPEAKER_00: Before Abraham was, he said, I am.
SPEAKER_00: So he is the ancient of days, going all the way back to where it said, and God made all things that were made.
SPEAKER_00: God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
SPEAKER_00: My friend, we trust God as our great deliverer from so great a death.
SPEAKER_00: And he doth deliver us in our life right now.
SPEAKER_00: In the time that we're alive right now.
SPEAKER_00: You see, time is always in the present.
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday is gone.
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow hasn't got here yet.
SPEAKER_00: Time is a present thing.
SPEAKER_00: In a few minutes, it's going to be time is a present thing.
SPEAKER_00: So God doth deliver us in the present time.
SPEAKER_00: The things I'm going through right now, and the things you're going through right now, are in our present time.
SPEAKER_00: And we can trust God because He is.
SPEAKER_00: God is.
SPEAKER_00: He that cometh to God must believe that He is, that He exists and is sovereign in all of His ways.
SPEAKER_00: Believe God is.
SPEAKER_00: Not just believe that He exists, but believe that God is God.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I am God and there's none like me.
SPEAKER_00: There's none like God.
SPEAKER_00: None can stay His hand.
SPEAKER_00: None can say, What doest thou?
SPEAKER_00: God is always God, and God has never relinquished any authority, any power, any purpose.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing ever that God ever gave up.
SPEAKER_00: And he has not given up upon us.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, we trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: And he said not only that he doth deliver us, but yet he is.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read it again.
SPEAKER_00: In whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.
SPEAKER_00: Though tomorrow has not come yet, I can't do anything about tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to tell you, my friends, when we get there, he's there.
SPEAKER_00: He will yet deliver us.
SPEAKER_00: So, my friends, having that principle of trust involved now, that we might resist against unbelief, that we might throw that off, that we might mortify that unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Kill it.
SPEAKER_00: Kill unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And hold to belief, believing that God is.
SPEAKER_00: He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
SPEAKER_00: Diligently seek him.
SPEAKER_00: Let's come over to the 18th Psalm.
SPEAKER_00: And again, these are these are almost identical list that he gives us.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to know the eight things that I've that I have pulled out, it's in the second verse.
SPEAKER_00: All eight are in the second verse.
SPEAKER_00: Well, one one is doubled because it's uh the the word strength is mentioned in the first verse, but it's also mentioned in the second verse.
SPEAKER_00: I'll show you a couple of differences between this and the second Samuel one in a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Lord will it.
SPEAKER_00: You you pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: Pray for us together, and we can see the things here that David mentions that are the substance of things hoped for.
SPEAKER_00: I know that's faith, but faith is sourced from the living faith.
SPEAKER_00: The very source of faith is God Himself, and he gives you, Brother Van, the measure of faith.
SPEAKER_00: He gave you enough.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't give you more than enough because you can't get more than enough perfect.
SPEAKER_00: He gave you the perfect amount.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, he gave you, Sister Rosanna, the very same faith that he gave Abraham, and that he gave Sarah, and that he gave Isaac and Jacob and all the other old parents, the same faith that he gave Noah, the same faith that he gave Rahab, all of those in the Hebrews chapter 11 that are mentioned that by faith they obtained a good report.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he didn't say add faith to faith.
SPEAKER_00: He said, add to your faith those seven things that he said, that when they're added, they make you that you be neither barren nor unfruitful in the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: They, my friends, are a collection of perfectors.
SPEAKER_00: They do some of that finishing work.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here in this 18th song, the song of David.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you want to see some of the some of the details about what David was that he had gone through and that were compassing him and going before him or preventing him.
SPEAKER_00: When it says prevent me, it says that came before me, like death death did prevent before me.
SPEAKER_00: It came up in his face and it went before him.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, you can go and read the rest of 18 and 2 Samuel, and they're almost talking the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, by the way, and some of those verses of these two, the song, the song of David, are type and models of Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_00: Because he he mentions in a few places where he was complete in righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: There was no one righteousness in.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, that's a tickler to you that says, Oh, David, you're not talking about yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You're talking about one greater.
SPEAKER_00: You're talking about the greater David.
SPEAKER_00: But David puts it in a song.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the two differences in the songs is the 2 Samuel is kind of the life story of David.
SPEAKER_00: David then takes that song in 2 Samuel and he makes, he changes it just slightly and rewords it just a little bit for public consumption.
SPEAKER_00: To be sung because it says it was given to the chief musician that was to play it publicly to the people.
SPEAKER_00: It was to be put in the song book for every Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: Taking that good poem, the good story, and making it a song for public repetitive consumption.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't change the overall wording of it just slightly, just slightly, but my friends, that goes to show us that the scriptures are a commentary upon itself.
SPEAKER_00: We can find the commentary answers in the scripture because it's thorough furnished for that purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at these eight things in chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: This is at the end of David's life, and he's speaking.
SPEAKER_00: He said, he starts out in the song, chapter 18, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of overall.
SPEAKER_00: I'll not trust in myself, but my trust is in the one that hath delivered, doth deliver, and will yet deliver us.
SPEAKER_00: That's where my strength is.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what can be the fundamental principle of that strength?
SPEAKER_00: What kind of strength are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: What would be a thing that would make me think there's great strength in trusting and loving this God?
SPEAKER_00: Now remember we love God because he first loved us.
SPEAKER_00: That's a principle.
SPEAKER_00: So David's not, he didn't get it because he would go love God.
SPEAKER_00: He loved God because God first loved him, and he would trust in his strength, God's strength.
SPEAKER_00: The first one, the eight things.
SPEAKER_00: My rock.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my rock.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just go through all of them.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer.
SPEAKER_00: Those three, let's start with those three.
SPEAKER_00: Those three are wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: Well, one more.
SPEAKER_00: In whom I will trust.
SPEAKER_00: Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God.
SPEAKER_00: Those four things.
SPEAKER_00: I knew there were four.
SPEAKER_00: Four things that he would say that my strength in whom I will trust.
SPEAKER_00: My strength in whom I will trust.
SPEAKER_00: He would add in here, my buckler and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
SPEAKER_00: Eight things, my friends, that are the substance of that trust that he would have in the God that he believed in, that he followed after and inquired of and sought diligently to look to God for the strength and for the advice and for the uh, I might say the advisement, because a lot of times David would be faced with a great obstacle or a battle, and it would be not only necessary, but it's a good thing to go ask God first.
SPEAKER_00: To go get his advice and his approval and his mind in what that was.
SPEAKER_00: Shall I go up against those this particular it?
SPEAKER_00: And God would say, Go up, and David would go up, and there'd be victory.
SPEAKER_00: One time they were to go up against Ai, and he asked God, and God said, No, don't go up.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go up.
SPEAKER_00: And they went up anyway.
SPEAKER_00: And there was a great slaughter of Israelites.
SPEAKER_00: Though Ai, it's funny that's a I just it just hit me.
SPEAKER_00: That's a name of the ice was Ai, and that's a that may be a common obstacle we'll face someday.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Funny how things hit you right in the middle of something.
SPEAKER_00: Hadn't thought about that at all, but AI, it's not a new thing.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it may be a an old, very old thing here.
SPEAKER_00: But David mentions these eight things that begins with a rock.
SPEAKER_00: Rock being a foundational thing.
SPEAKER_00: Foundation, rocks don't change.
SPEAKER_00: Rocks don't move around a lot.
SPEAKER_00: They might move if they're they're small enough and somebody can pry them up and move them.
SPEAKER_00: There's been rocks movement.
SPEAKER_00: But rocks, my friends, they're the things that bring to our mind one of the most settled and strong things that we can trust in.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus even uses the rock.
SPEAKER_00: He's even called the rock, but he uses the rock to say a man that believeth these things is like a man that built his house upon a rock.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because a rock is bedrock, it's it's sturdy, it's firm, it's a good foundation, it's a good place to build on.
SPEAKER_00: Unlike it's the opposite is the one that builds his house upon the sand.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we've all been to the, probably most all of us been to the beach, and we've stepped on the sand, and the sand just moves whichever way our foot will push it.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't stand up.
SPEAKER_00: And some of the greatest collapses are because the foundation wasn't built on the right place, it was in the wrong substance.
SPEAKER_00: The rock is the first one that he mentions.
SPEAKER_00: The rock being our the foundation.
SPEAKER_00: We always start at the foundation.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, the the gospel is the foundation.
SPEAKER_00: It is the story of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is his word that is the very thing that holds us up and brings us full assurance.
SPEAKER_00: Our full assurance in the word that has been given to us.
SPEAKER_00: Next being my fortress.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll have to say that this is the fortress on a rock.
SPEAKER_00: This is the fortress now.
SPEAKER_00: We've got walls that are put up.
SPEAKER_00: And walls are not only to keep bad things out, but they're to keep safe things that are within.
SPEAKER_00: A wall is there as a fortress.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the the very word preservation, we are preserved in Christ, means as you would put walls up and encase and hedge about something and then keeping it safe by keeping your eye upon it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the very meaning of preservation.
SPEAKER_00: Not only did he deliver us from our sins, we are kept by the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: This fortress, my friends, that we have is our very fulfillment of our sheltering in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We're built upon Christ and we're sheltered by his fortress of his strength and by his love.
SPEAKER_00: He will keep you by the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: So now an obstacle comes up.
SPEAKER_00: My feet are upon a rock.
SPEAKER_00: I'm hedged about with God's love.
SPEAKER_00: There's no place yet for unbelief in that.
SPEAKER_00: Then he mentions my deliverer.
SPEAKER_00: My deliverer.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing being my deliverer.
SPEAKER_00: That's a person.
SPEAKER_00: Deliverer is a personal.
SPEAKER_00: That's this is not an abstract thing out there, a non-living thing.
SPEAKER_00: We can think rock is a non-living thing.
SPEAKER_00: We can think a fortress, a wall, is a non-living thing.
SPEAKER_00: But I can't think that a deliverer is a non-living thing.
SPEAKER_00: This is a person.
SPEAKER_00: David mentions a person.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta hurry on here because I've got to get to 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's two things that we have to see that are different there.
SPEAKER_00: Wording is different, but it's encoded over here.
SPEAKER_00: He says this deliverer is his.
SPEAKER_00: This trust, this deliverer, one that I can trust.
SPEAKER_00: He not only purposed your eternal deliverance, but he came and saw to it.
SPEAKER_00: He came and finished that work.
SPEAKER_00: That deliverer came in the person of a man made of the of the seed of Abraham, made of the very man that behooved him to be made like us.
SPEAKER_00: This deliverer, this one that is a rock, and he is a uh he is a fortress.
SPEAKER_00: But he's my deliverer because he came in the flesh, in body.
SPEAKER_00: He would a body per made him, my friends, and he took upon him the likeness of sinful flesh because it was going to demand.
SPEAKER_00: God demanded the life of a man for man.
SPEAKER_00: Animals are not going to do because they're not men, but it would require a man, and the deliverer came man, came into this world, the deliverer.
SPEAKER_00: This is whom I'll trust.
SPEAKER_00: And then he mentions my God.
SPEAKER_00: Not just a man, and he was verily man.
SPEAKER_00: He was a deliverer, man, but he was also my God.
SPEAKER_00: My God came.
SPEAKER_00: Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: It was been prophesied that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, which means it interpreted God with us.
SPEAKER_00: God deliverer.
SPEAKER_00: So he was the God deliverer, the God of all sovereignty.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, he came in the likeness of sinful flesh, but dwelt within him was the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
SPEAKER_00: How wonderful David writes this song through the inspiration of the Spirit and absolutely shows the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, who had been his deliverer all alone, through thick and thin, through good and bad, through righteousness and unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: God had showed mercy to David.
SPEAKER_00: God had judged David.
SPEAKER_00: God had taken David through a lot of finishing work.
SPEAKER_00: But David also ends up with this view of his deliverer, his great God in whom he trusts.
SPEAKER_00: He mentions next, my strength, my strength.
SPEAKER_00: This is getting into a very personal thing, because now all that he is, all that God is, the rock, the fortress, the deliverer, my God, and all those four things, he now brings it down to those things, my strength.
SPEAKER_00: My strength.
SPEAKER_00: All of that in me, in me, in my life, in my yet doth deliver, and shall yet deliver me.
SPEAKER_00: This deliverer hasn't left me.
SPEAKER_00: He is with me.
SPEAKER_00: David is close to the day of his death.
SPEAKER_00: He sees back through his life and he sees the things that God had done.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the last four.
SPEAKER_00: My strength.
SPEAKER_00: My buckler.
SPEAKER_00: Have you?
SPEAKER_00: I had to look up.
SPEAKER_00: I had to Google buckler.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not a medieval person that knows what medieval armory was really all about.
SPEAKER_00: I know what a shield is because I've seen the pictures of shields where you strap the shield onto your arm and you hold it up.
SPEAKER_00: Even the armor of God says the shield of faith.
SPEAKER_00: You strap that shield on your arm and you hold it up here, covering your whole body.
SPEAKER_00: But what I found out here is that a buckler is not, it's not altogether like that.
SPEAKER_00: A buckler is a handheld shield.
SPEAKER_00: It's one that you hold here in your hand.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like a big pie plate scythe, and it's got a got a knob area here, but inside there's a handle for your hand.
SPEAKER_00: It's meant to punch.
SPEAKER_00: It's meant to hold out and defend yourself.
SPEAKER_00: It's one that you can, it's a handheld shield.
SPEAKER_00: It's small, but it's useful because it's meant for hand-to-hand combat.
SPEAKER_00: It's meant for daily combat.
SPEAKER_00: It's meant for the what might be seen as the close-up problems, not the fiery darts that fly from distance.
SPEAKER_00: But when we're in battle here against those things that are right up against me, I've got a buckler here.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the big things that will conquer us.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times, friends, it's the close up, smaller things that I have to punch against.
SPEAKER_00: That unbelief that would tell me I can't.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: No, friends, we've got a buckler.
SPEAKER_00: A buckler.
SPEAKER_00: Go look it up.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll see, my friends, it's made it's made for close action.
SPEAKER_00: It's more used to protect your hand if you're having to punch out against your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Not only a buckler, but the horn of my salvation.
SPEAKER_00: I had read this before and I kind of always had in my mind that it was a noise-making obstacle.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you haven't thought that, but that's quite a I always thought the horn to cry out and to make a sound about my salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my friend, this horn is actually an allusion to the horns of an animal that is depicting their power.
SPEAKER_00: I thought about Abraham upon that mountain where it says that that ram, and it mentions that as a ram with his horns caught in a thicket.
SPEAKER_00: And I have thought, and I've noticed, that's got to be talking about Christ and him caught in the thicket of his own promise.
SPEAKER_00: And I've always kind of had the illusion of that Ram didn't just run through and happen to get caught in that thicket.
SPEAKER_00: That Ram walked up and stuck his head in that thicket.
SPEAKER_00: I will do the work of my promise.
SPEAKER_00: I will do the work my father sends me to do.
SPEAKER_00: I've not let anything go.
SPEAKER_00: And God that cannot lie, had his horns caught in a thicket.
SPEAKER_00: That horn, as you see animals, I tell you, uh longhorn cows, whether you're haggy or whether you're longhorns, you look at a long horn, and I'll give it respect.
SPEAKER_00: Because that horn is meant for that cow for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: People step aside.
SPEAKER_00: People will not go rushing in where a bull has horns, because we all know that can end up in a bad consequence.
SPEAKER_00: Well, my friend David said he is the horn.
SPEAKER_00: He is the power of my salvation.
SPEAKER_00: He's the power of it being accomplished and finished.
SPEAKER_00: He's the power that not only got it done, he is the power that keeps it done.
SPEAKER_00: We are kept by the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: He's the horn of my salvation.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, he stands firm.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, my high tower.
SPEAKER_00: My high tower, that watchtower.
SPEAKER_00: Not only does he deliver us, not only has he delivered us, but doth deliver us and shall yet deliver us, he is our watchtower.
SPEAKER_00: He's our high tower.
SPEAKER_00: That's a, in military terms, that's a military advantage.
SPEAKER_00: Is to have the high ground.
SPEAKER_00: Is to have the place where you can observe and see the situation clearly of what's coming in.
SPEAKER_00: He is my high tower.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that stands watch, Brother Van.
SPEAKER_00: I don't, you know, I could worry about all the things that could happen, but I tell you, my friend, he is my high tower.
SPEAKER_00: He watches out for my soul.
SPEAKER_00: I want to I want to come back to 2 Samuel and just give you just a he.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost identical, but there's something I want you to see.
SPEAKER_00: In the third verse, 2 Samuel 22, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He mentions all these things in the other one.
SPEAKER_00: Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer.
SPEAKER_00: All that is over there in the song.
SPEAKER_00: God, the God of my rock, in him will I trust.
SPEAKER_00: He is my shield.
SPEAKER_00: Here he says it's a shield.
SPEAKER_00: And the horn of my salvation, my high tower.
SPEAKER_00: Sounds familiar over there.
SPEAKER_00: And my refuge.
SPEAKER_00: That's a different descriptor.
SPEAKER_00: It's really close to the fortress.
SPEAKER_00: But this has already said something about a fortress.
SPEAKER_00: But he is my refuge.
SPEAKER_00: You remember here not long ago, we talked about the six cities of refuge.
SPEAKER_00: And that those cities, those cities were established for the benefit of Israel, not more than a day's journey apart.
SPEAKER_00: From anywhere in Israel you could get to there, because if you had committed manslaughter, you could get to the safety and refuge of the city of refuge where the peace priest was, and where you would have safety until your trial came up and you were judged.
SPEAKER_00: And if found a murderer, well, you would suffer as a murderer.
SPEAKER_00: But if you were found guilty of only manslaughter, you could live safely as long as the priest, the high priest, each city of refuge had a high priest, as long as your high priest lives, you can live in that city of refuge in deliverance, in safety.
SPEAKER_00: That the revenger of blood would not have access to you, would not be legal to kill you.
SPEAKER_00: As long as the high priest is alive.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a very important point.
SPEAKER_00: Because my friends, David says in this 22nd Psalm, he is my refuge.
SPEAKER_00: And what I determined over there in the city is a refuge is that those cities of refuge were great for national Israel of that time.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord Jesus Christ is my city of refuge.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one, my friends, because of my manslaughter charge.
SPEAKER_00: Because of the fact that it was my sin that put him on that cross.
SPEAKER_00: My sins is what he bore to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't intend for that, but it happened.
SPEAKER_00: I'm guilty of manslaughter of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But I have a city of refuge.
SPEAKER_00: I have a place of safety as long as my high priest lives.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to tell you, friends, our high priest, the good news is that high priest is never going to die.
SPEAKER_00: That high priest has risen from the dead, become the first fruits of them that slept, and has entered into his father's glory, where he never will die again.
SPEAKER_00: Our city of refuge is forever.
SPEAKER_00: It's one I can trust in.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, not only our refuge, but he actually says in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: This is kind of important, because you don't find a lot of places where it talks about this in the Old Testament, but he says, And my Savior.
SPEAKER_00: My Savior.
SPEAKER_00: He is my city of refuge.
SPEAKER_00: He is my place of safety.
SPEAKER_00: And it's because he is my Savior.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm trusting Brother Lauren.
SPEAKER_00: I can run to him.
SPEAKER_00: I can access his throne.
SPEAKER_00: I can go.
SPEAKER_00: And Brother Jacob took us this morning to the throne of grace.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe the Lord hears those prayers of those.
SPEAKER_00: He says the fervent effectual prayer of the righteous man availeth much.
SPEAKER_00: And that one availed to God, our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Those are not in the 18th chapter, but they're over here.
SPEAKER_00: They're over here.
SPEAKER_00: And when it talks about my Savior, he's altogether, all of them, in one.
SPEAKER_00: He's all eight things.
SPEAKER_00: Now I guess I can say nine.
SPEAKER_00: He's all nine things.
SPEAKER_00: I guess I can say ten.
SPEAKER_00: He's all ten things.
SPEAKER_00: All in one.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're here, is to worship that one God.
SPEAKER_00: Who is three but yet one.
SPEAKER_00: And they both all three agree.
SPEAKER_00: There's no division among them.
SPEAKER_00: There's no there's no uh, as kind of the common saying is there's no light between them.
SPEAKER_00: There's no light separating them.
SPEAKER_00: They're all together one.
SPEAKER_00: But they're one God, yet three.
SPEAKER_00: And he is our savior, our refuge and our savior.
SPEAKER_00: And he still is worthy to be praised.
SPEAKER_00: He's worthy to be praised.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're here.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we want to continue to do these uh these things as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna tell you, my friends, the Lord will continue to have them that believe upon him somewhere in this world.
SPEAKER_00: He will reserve unto himself a witness of his greatness.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you for your attention this morning.