[0:00] Right. Would you please join me in Psalm 119? What a beautiful song. I heard a pastor say that he named his cats goodness and mercy so that they would follow him wherever he went and remind him of that truth.
[0:13] I don't want any cats, but I wouldn't mind being reminded of that truth throughout the day. As you know, we're in Psalm 119 on Thursday nights. Hopefully your Bible doesn't fall straight open there because you're reading it throughout the week.
[0:25] But we'll continue in the 20th, 22 sections of that tonight. And I look forward to jumping into that and looking at some things to consider. We ask God to consider our afflictions.
[0:37] We ask him to deliver us. And we also ask him to consider our love for his precepts. That's how the beginning of this section starts and ends. But before I get to it, I'd like to say a few things.
[0:47] I shared with Brother Dotson how Mike and Deanna Staley, how God used the military ministry when they were in Germany, the same place that they're going. That's where Mike Staley was saved.
[0:59] And then as we know, God used them in many ministries here in the States. And now they're in Rota, Spain. And so we should be praying. That's how God uses them again to see disciples made.
[1:10] And we'll be praying. John's talking about purchasing a building or leasing a building that's going to need a lot of work. And so I would love for us to fill up our suitcases unless you fly on Frontier Airlines and they don't give you anything, all right?
[1:23] Which is the way I go to New York for like $12. But we could send some degreaser in advance up there. It would be a fun project to help make a building ready to be a church.
[1:35] And we'll be following that. Today I was on the phone with a man that works with a seed line. You know, we've done that last year. We tried to get to 40,000, but the John and Romans were a little more complicated.
[1:48] They were two languages. We only spent a day on it. We didn't get to our 40,000 goal. And so we're praying about what our goal could be for this year and possibly doing them in Portuguese.
[1:59] And I'll keep you updated on that. But we spoke to the seed line about that about a day in the middle of May. I know a lot of you love that. A couple weeks ago, a little group of minions, about five or six little girls walked up to me with a drawing of the seed line when they did it.
[2:17] And they said, we want to do this again. And I'm like, all right, we're Baptist Church. You're a committee. That's how decisions are made around here. And you're all about it. And so we need to make that happen. And then it's so good to see Annalise Jacobs for 16 more days.
[2:35] And then they will be Mr. and Mrs. Wilkerson. And he went to Togo. He has the suntan to prove it. He's been in Africa. And now he's back. And we're real excited for them. If you didn't see them, they're on the back.
[2:46] Be praying for them. They get married in 16 days. So excited for them. All right. How did Ben Cherry start off when he said his passage? He said, what? All right. He was quite excited about Genesis 1-1.
[2:57] All right. So we're now in Psalm 119. What? All right. Verse 1. Can't let him be more excited than I am about God's word tonight. It will be epic. All right. So as we've been going through this, we find the great benefit of God's word.
[3:13] Our love for it grows. And we see the great benefit. Here we're going to find that we get deliverance. The song was so beautiful that we'll sing. Song, because it's talking about walking through a shadow of death. You can be delivered out of the fear of evil as you're being walking through that shadow.
[3:28] We're going to talk about God as our deliverer tonight. So I want to read for you the passage and pray and we'll jump into it. Psalm 119 verses 153 through 160. It's our 20th portion here of Psalm 119.
[3:41] And some of you may notice we got a couple out of order. And so I skipped over the section before because I did it a few weeks ago. Most of you probably don't know what I'm talking about. So I'll just continue. Psalm 153.
[3:52] 119, 153. Consider mine affliction and deliver me. For I do not forget thy law. Plead my cause and deliver me. Quicken me according to thy word.
[4:04] Salvation is far from the wicked. For they seek not thy statutes. Great are thy tender mercies. O Lord, quicken me according to thy judgments.
[4:15] Quicken, make alive. Revive me according to thy judgments. Many are my persecutors and mine enemies. Yet do I not decline from thy testimonies. I beheld the transgressors and was grieved because they kept not thy word.
[4:28] Consider how I love thy precepts. Quicken me, O Lord, according to thy loving kindness. Thy word is true from the beginning. And every one of thy righteousness judgment endureth forever.
[4:39] Heavenly Father, we come tonight to rejoice in the fact that you are a deliverer. You are one that hears us and sees us in our afflictions. Father, you have been faithful all throughout your word to see those that were afflicted and to deliver them.
[4:55] And to plead. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Son pleading our cause on our behalf. Ask that you be with us tonight. That all the troubles and sorrows, Lord, that wait for us outside of the storm.
[5:09] Lord, that what we do in here tonight will strengthen us. That would help us, Lord, have a renewal of our mind. So be better prepared to live out the life you've called us to live. In Jesus' name I pray.
[5:20] Amen. First thing that we're seeing in this passage to consider is consider mine afflictions. Verse 155 speaks about being rescued from the wicked. That's what it needs rescuing from.
[5:33] And then verse 157 says that there's many persecutors. Through the scriptures, we see a lot of causes for affliction. If we were to take a survey in here, a family feud style, and ask you what was the number one cause of affliction, depending on your experience or what you're going through in life, you may say different things.
[5:51] Bible tells us in John 15, 18 that because they hated our Savior, they're going to hate us. And so that's a cause of affliction in this world that's brought on from a world that doesn't love our Savior.
[6:02] First Peter 5, 8 speaks about a restless enemy that's vexing us. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
[6:15] There's affliction there. We have a restless enemy that's often vexing us. First Corinthians 11, 32 tells us, But when we were judged, we were chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
[6:29] That there is a loving chastening that the Lord would do in our lives. When we as His children want to run away from Him, it would cause a restlessness that could lead to great peace. And then in Romans 7, 24, it speaks about this, Being burdened with the body of death.
[6:44] O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The next verse goes on to give us the answer, which is, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with this mind myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh of the law of sin.
[6:59] So there's four categories of affliction that we deal with in life. Hated by the world, vexed by the enemy, conviction that we'd be dealing with, chastening of the Lord, or just being burdened in this life that we live.
[7:10] And then there can be just a general sadness, or apathy, or just being tired. It's impossible for our hearts to ever be satisfied with these temporal conditions and earthly things, and we always want more.
[7:23] So we find ourselves just needing to be delivered. Sometimes the enemy is very clear. Sometimes the opposition is very intense. And sometimes in life we just get to a place where we just feel like we're going through the motions.
[7:35] There's an apathy there. There's no joy in our lives. And we just need to be delivered because we just feel stuck. We just feel like there's an overall sadness to our lives.
[7:46] And we have found from experience in life there is no comfort to be found. And Psalm 6920 says, Reproach has broken my heart, and I'm full of heaviness, and I've looked for some to take pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.
[8:03] The testimony of the psalmist could be the testimony of all of us in here. There's a time where there's something, there's an affliction, there's a loneliness, there's a sadness inside of us, and you can't find any comfort in anything in this world, or in anybody else, and no matter where you look, you don't find it.
[8:21] If you're married, sometimes you may find yourself, as Stephanie and I do, when I just say, I need you. It used to be I would say that she was like this, but it seems like the older we get, the more I become like the things that I make fun of in her, right?
[8:34] Sometimes I'll say, Stephanie, I just need you to listen to me, all right? I just need to tell you about what's going on and not fix it, which is for the first 20 years, it was the other way around, right? And so, but you find, and you want to tell it to somebody, and you feel a little bit better incrementally, like, okay, now more people know this, but you're like, it's still there, that I haven't been able to unload this.
[8:56] You know, we cast our cares upon the Lord because he's the only one that could handle them. He's the only one that can really take them, right? I can try to hand them to somebody else, but what I'm going to find is they're going to have to hand me something else, or they're going to hand it back to me, or they're going to come back a few weeks later and say, I can't do anything with this, right?
[9:11] I got to give this back to you. So the psalmist says, and we say with an amen and agreement that there was none, there was no comforters for us. I found none.
[9:22] But where should we look? Hebrews 7, 26 speaks of, For we have such a high priest became us. We have a high priest, and it says that he became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.
[9:39] In his becoming us, in his incarnation, and coming to earth, us. It tells us again in Hebrews 2, 18, that for in that he himself has suffered being tempted, that he is able to succor, which means assistance and support in times of hardship and distress, them that are tempted.
[9:59] He is able to provide assistance to us that are tempted, that are being tested, that are dealing with affliction. And I heard Phil Knight, the owner of Nike, I believe that's his name, he was giving a talk.
[10:14] Saw this online, not in person. My life's not near that interesting, all right? Phil Knight, he was speaking to a group of people, and he said, How many of you in here run for exercise, have ever run for exercise? I want to ask you to stand up, okay?
[10:25] A lot of people stood up. And then he said, How many of you run for exercise weekly? And then most people sat down, right? And he said, How many of you run three times a week, rain or snow, you're still running?
[10:37] And there's a group of people that were still standing. And he says, When you decide that you're going to run, we are that person standing under the light post that is cheering you on.
[10:48] That is Nike. You can do it. All right? So inspirational. Doesn't make me want to run, but I wouldn't mind buying some new shoes, all right? And so I think that's all he cares about. But it's that idea like, We're going to be there for you, right?
[11:00] When you make those hard decisions, we're going to be there for you. We're going to be that person in the distance cheering you on. So another story of a man that talked about, This is a good thing to acknowledge.
[11:12] He went to watch his daughter in some kind of athletic event. I don't know if it was gymnastics or soccer. And everybody around them had their phone. And they were looking at their phone, but his phone had died.
[11:24] And so he wasn't judging the other people. His phone had just died. And he counted that his daughter looked up at him 108 times during the game to see if he was watching. And he realized that the other kids were doing the same thing.
[11:37] And then their parents weren't paying attention. Let's have the piano player come now. All right? For an invitation here. But that idea that I want somebody to see this that can help me, It just lives inside of all of us.
[11:50] It lives inside of the runner. It lives inside of the kid playing the soccer game. It lives inside of us. And so we have a God, when we read Scripture, that we see that is, He doesn't turn a blind eye to our affliction, But He sees us, and He sees us, and He can deliver us.
[12:03] Exodus 3.7 says, And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people, which are in Egypt, And I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, For I know their sorrows.
[12:15] He says that I see it, I hear their cries, and I know their sorrows. Then it goes on to say in Judges that his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.
[12:26] And then Isaiah, it says, In all their affliction he was afflicted. And so we have a God who can see our affliction, And that can hear our cries, And that can know our sorrows.
[12:40] Jesus speaking to Philip in John 14, Where He says, We want to see the Father. And He says, What? If you've seen me, you have seen the Father. And so what is it that we find in Jesus in regards to this?
[12:50] We see that He is one that is capable of feeling the suffering. He is able to experience here. It's called the passability of God. God is that He is capable of feeling the suffering that we have here.
[13:05] And so it's described for us. In Hebrews, once again, He said that He is a high priest that has the feelings of our infirmities. When it speaks about prophecy about Him in Isaiah 53, He calls Him, He said He will be a man of sorrows that will be acquainted with our grief.
[13:19] He will know it firsthand. He will feel it. He will experience it. And so we can come confidently to God and ask Him to consider our afflictions. He has already said that He would see them.
[13:30] He already said that He is acquainted with them. And so they cry out and they say, Consider my afflictions and deliver me, for I do not forget thy law. So not only can we say that He would see our afflictions, and whatever it is, no matter how complicated it is, you try to explain it to your friend and you're like, I get it.
[13:48] Well, you just don't, right? You just can't. You can go through something that's almost exactly, it sounds on paper just like somebody else, but we can rarely tell somebody, I know what you're going through, or I know exactly how you feel, because every situation has different emotions and different struggles.
[14:04] But we have a God that hears our cries and sees us, but it doesn't stop there. It goes on to say, Consider my afflictions and deliver me. We can ask that of Him. Some years ago at a Christmas play, it was a really great Christmas play.
[14:18] I remember Uncle Sam Paxson. I remember him being in it. And the Lundy's had the little kids. They said, No more animal sacrifices. I remember that. They were all dressed up like animals, and they were celebrating that Jesus has come, and there would be no more animal sacrifices.
[14:33] And one of the songs was, My Deliverer is Coming, that they sung. And it said, this is what it says, Joseph took his wife and her child. They went to Africa and escaped the rage of a deadly king.
[14:46] There along the banks of the Nile, Jesus listened to the song that the captive children used to sing, and they were singing, My Deliverer is Coming, My Deliverer is Standing By, My Deliverer is Coming, My Deliverer is Standing By.
[15:00] What a great reminder, one that you can pray and sing. When you say, God, consider my afflictions, you can cry out and say, My Deliverer is Coming, Our Glorious Deliverer.
[15:11] Isaiah 63 says, Who is it that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozorah, this that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength, I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
[15:27] Our God is described as a God that delivers. If I was to ask you today, what is a famous story of God delivering, we'd have the Bible filled with them, right? Your life is filled with them as well.
[15:38] But I think of the story of Daniel, and in Daniel chapter number 6, verse 27, it says, He delivered and rescueth, he worked the signs and wonders. Then on to verse 23, it says that, So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God.
[15:56] He said, Well, we take a moment, and we rejoice, and we just say, Well, that's great for Daniel, right?
[16:08] I'm so glad that he made it out, but that is not my situation, and there's no way that I can be delivered without any manner of hurt, as it says in verse number 3, without no manner of hurt.
[16:20] But it is. There's no manner of hurt may seem impossible. I love this quote by Spurgeon. It says, So long as they cannot drive or draw us into a spiritual decline, our foes have done us no great harm, and they have accomplished nothing by their malice.
[16:41] If we do not decline, they are defeated. If they cannot make us sin, they have missed their mark. Faithfulness to the truth is victory over our enemies.
[16:52] And so you can be the liver of the day, out of your temptation, out of your affliction, with no manner of hurt, in the fact that you can decide that you will live in your integrity, and that you will be faithful to the truth of God's Word.
[17:06] Verse 157 of our passage, Many are my persecutors and mine enemies, yet do I not decline from thy testimonies. It doesn't matter if we're talking about the number of people out there, persecutors and mine enemies, nor does it matter how intense my emotion, or my sadness, or my discouragement, no matter what it is, I will not decline from the testimonies.
[17:29] And in doing that, you can be delivered in the same manner that Daniel is, without manner of hurt, because you're able to do what he has called you to do. And so we aren't delivered today from a dem, from temptation.
[17:41] That's none of our stories here today, and most likely will never be our story that will need to be delivered from a lion's den. We did get the carpenter's season passes to the zoo, and so maybe there could be a scenario where Thaddeus talks about into getting a better picture, you know, in the lion's den.
[17:58] But I don't expect that we'll find ourselves there. But we find ourselves often in a place of temptation that we need delivered. 2 Peter 2.9 says, The Lord knoweth, the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations.
[18:13] And we say amen to that. If you've ever been in a place and you say, I don't know how to get out of this, the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust until the day of judgment to be punished.
[18:24] He knows how to deliver you, and He knows how to judge those who have done unrighteously. And we have a God that delivers. 2 Corinthians 1.10, Who delivered us from so great a death and doth deliver, and whom we trust that yet deliver us.
[18:39] He has delivered us already positionally from the consequences of our sin, from the wages of sin and death. We have been delivered. The rest of our lives are celebrating the great deliverance that was made possible for us, the great exchange that's made possible for us.
[18:55] So why would we ever expect that He would not be able to deliver us from anything else? Because He doth deliver. And so, but why would He deliver? In Psalm 91 verse 14, the psalmist writes, as of God speaking, Psalm 91 verse 14, really love this.
[19:11] It says, as of God speaking, it says, because He has set His love upon me, therefore will I deliver Him. I will set Him on high because He hath known my name.
[19:23] God has delivered us. He has delivered us. And we have set our love towards Him. In the New Testament, it would be called our patience of hope.
[19:36] The psalmist knew where to apply for help. He knew who to call out to. Plead my cause and deliver me. He's speaking to the Lord. He's waiting for the Lord. He's pleading. He is pleading His cause, asking God to execute judgment.
[19:50] Our adversary had the law on his side. We could not deny the charge or offer any satisfaction. There is, there's just nothing that could be said. When the accuser of the brother gets on our shoulder, when he comes to us, he has the law on his side.
[20:05] He has the evidence on our side. But just like Job says in Job 33, 24, that he is gracious unto him and saith, deliver him from going down to a pit, for I have found a ransom.
[20:17] In Jesus Christ, He has made our plea according to His word. And there's nothing, no arsenal, that could match it. So when Satan accuses me or accuses you or my heart condemns me, I can look up to heaven and I can say, plead my cause and deliver me.
[20:34] I have an advocate in Christ. And so Jesus pleads His indeed, nothing favorable of you and me, but very much for us. He pleads on the merit of His own blood.
[20:47] There's nothing inside of myself that could be argued about the accuser. But what Jesus Christ has done, He can hear me in my affliction and He can deliver me.
[20:59] Would you turn back to our portion in Psalm 153, verse 160. It'll take you many places, but let us look together as we often do in looking at the words of God. I want to, as much as possible, we have two more sections.
[21:12] Every portion except for one verse in this whole Psalm 119 speaks to God's love. And so say it with me after I read the verse. Point out to me the part in which it speaks of God's word.
[21:25] Consider mine affliction and deliver me for I do not forget thy law. Great. Plead my cause and deliver me, quicken me according to thy word. Salvation is from the wicked for they seek not thy statutes.
[21:39] Great are thy tender mercies, O Lord, quicken me according to thy judgments. Many are my persecutors and mine enemies, yet do I not decline from thy testimonies. I beheld the transgressors and was grieved because they kept not thy word.
[21:55] Consider how I love thy precepts, quicken me, O Lord, according to thy loving kindness. Thy word is true from the beginning and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever. Thy words, judgments.
[22:08] All right, that was a hard one, wasn't it? I think I voted thy words. Give you nine out of, six out of seven, all right? And on that, but every one of these portions referencing and bringing back how central the word of God was to the psalmist, how necessary that he was going to be.
[22:25] We plead for his cause, we also plead to know his word. Recognizing the truth of God's word is the ground of all of our peace and comfort. You said in verse 160, thy word is true from the beginning.
[22:37] Every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever. As Ben shared with us tonight, there's so much to see out of Genesis 1-1, but we find a God who is going to create nothing from his spoken word.
[22:50] And that's where we will start. Not just merely portions of the word, but entirely and eternally, it says here. His entire word. And not in a generic belief that God's word will have no influence on our life, but when there's an individual application.
[23:04] We don't just say we believe God's word. We say we believe all of God's word. And we say we don't just believe some of God's word. And then we don't say that we just believe God's word in some kind of generic sense. We believe that it makes application to our lives.
[23:17] Two of them. In believing God, we have given access to Him. So do you believe that you have boldness and access with confidence of faith to go before Him as it says in Ephesians 3.12?
[23:28] Well, the application of that is you going to the Lord in prayer. Do you believe that you no longer stand condemned, that there's no longer any condemnation before Him? The feelings of believing that you're condemned, the question is will you believe?
[23:42] Do you believe in a generic or a general sense or do you believe it to really be true that make application of God's word to your life? It's not just enough to say that it is but we must feed upon it.
[23:53] In Exodus 16, when manna comes from heaven and T. Wayne has a whole message about manna coming from heaven. You know, his wife's name's Manna. We could tell the other night he had about a dozen messages that were about to come out, everything that he said.
[24:08] But he talks about manna from heaven and it says, we which not know where it comes from. They hadn't seen this before, right? This was something that was new. Some of y'all think it's Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
[24:18] I'm not certain that it is but I would put that as an option, alright? And so this is coming from heaven and they see it. They inquired about what it is. They stated that it was from heaven.
[24:29] They knew that it was God's provision and then they gathered it but that was not enough. They had to feed upon it daily. And so to say that we know that God's word can be trusted is not to say that I trust it and I'm going to make application to my life.
[24:46] We gather it. We recognize that it's from heaven. We recognize this for our provision. We inquire about it. We study it. But we must feed upon it daily. And it's referred to God as he extends his great and tender mercies unto us.
[25:02] Psalm 119, 156. Greater thy tender mercies, O Lord, quicken me according to thy judgments. Estimate his mercy by the debt of sin we have owed. Estimate his mercy by the hell that he saved us from.
[25:15] Estimate his mercy by the eternal reward that he provides. And you would know why the psalmist would say, great are thy tender mercies. Would you look at Psalm 103, verse 1 with me?
[25:27] As we would consider his tender mercies, we should be able to say this all together tonight. Read this with me. Psalm 103, verse 1. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.
[25:39] Bless his holy name. We ought to be people that in his words we have found his tender mercies available to us for whatever is afflicting you at this time.
[25:50] And it goes on to say the deliverance comes from the wicked. I beheld, verse 158, I beheld the transgressors and was grieved because they kept not thy word. If you get to a place in life where you're more grieved about the sin of this world and how it disobeys God than you are bothered about your own personal difficulty, then you know the grace of God has visited you in your life.
[26:14] Here it says, I'm not just upset about my own difficulty, but I am grieved because you have won against God's word. Being grieved by the wicked and not envious takes a work of God in our hearts.
[26:25] When you are envious of the wicked, which Asaph speaks about, there's a lot of portions in scripture about that, you are two steps away from where God would want you to be. So not only would you need to, as it says in 1 Thessalonians, to stop stealing and give, but if you are envious today of the wicked, you need to stop that immediately, and then you need to get to a place where you have sorrow for them, where you are grieved over the fact that people would disobey such a holy and loving God.
[26:55] Charles Bridges in his commentary of this passage says, A fellowship with the joys of angels over repenting sinners will be accompanied with a bitterness of godly sorrow over the hardness of those who keep not the word of God.
[27:10] We should certainly be people that rejoice with the angels in heaven when people get saved. But that same heart that would do that is the same heart that would have sorrow over sin in our lives or in the lives of those that we love.
[27:25] And then lastly here, we ask God to consider our afflictions. And then at the end of this section here, it says, Consider how I love thy precepts. Quicken me. Revive me, O Lord, according to thy loving kindness.
[27:36] Remember, it started with afflictions, but now it speaks about this love for God's word. And the same prayer that the psalmist would say, Review my afflictions, Lord. Look down here and see what I'm dealing with. See this mess that I'm in.
[27:48] He would also say, God, would you review, would you consider my love for your word? That's a harder question, isn't it, to ask? Is it one that you and I would be ready to ask him to evaluate?
[28:01] Would we say, Search my heart, O God. See if there'd be anything in me. Would we be wanting to be evaluated in the same way? And this is what brings revival. Revival is never deserved, and I'm taking, using the word revival here for quicken me, to make me alive.
[28:17] You saw me in my afflictions, in the emotional state, the state that I was in. Now I need you, Lord, to quicken me, to bring me from this. It's never deserved or earned. But it's given from the loving kindness of God.
[28:29] Revival itself is according to God's word. This concept of revival both personally and corporate, as a church, it's a biblical desire, and it's a genuine revival will honor and promote God's word, as we see throughout this section in all of Psalms, Psalm 119.
[28:49] So we don't say, as a publican would, in Luke 18, I am thankful I'm not as other men, but what we cry out as believers that love God's word is we say, God, quicken me. And if you don't revive me, then I won't be.
[29:02] If you don't do a work, and I'm asking you to do it, not based on my own merit, but just because of your loving kindness, just because you have put your love upon me, because you have first loved me.
[29:13] So we cry out for His loving kindness. And this prayer to be quickened by God's loving kindness has been repeated now nine times in Psalm 119. Just continually crying out, God, would you quicken me by your loving kindness.
[29:27] As we close tonight, I would like to recommend that we should cry out a tenth time and a personal time that this should be our prayer. Consider how I love thy precepts and quicken me, O Lord, according to thy loving kindness.
[29:42] God is the giver of life, and so if you need life, then ask for it. We started off asking God to consider our afflictions, and in our afflictions, God brought deliverance from His Word.
[29:53] And in the deliverance, we found something that was greater than our hatred for our difficulty. We found a love for God's presence in our lives. And we now long, we now no longer have an anger about our circumstances or our enemies, but we are grieved, but we're not running away from them anymore, but we're headed to our Lord and His incredible voice that we hear from His Word.
[30:20] The difficulties of life brings us to a place, an affliction, a place that we don't want to get to, but it also brings us to the place where we cry out to God, a God that hears us and that delivers us.
[30:31] And so I would like to encourage you tonight to take a moment, I will pray through our psalm together, but I don't know what the type of affliction that you have, but there's no reason that we live anything less this joyful, victorious Christian life.
[30:45] We should settle for nothing less than that. So whatever it is that's weighing you down, whatever that type of affliction that's very much real in your life, be aware of the fact that God very much sees this and that He hears from you and He is able to deliver you and He desires to.
[31:02] And the words that we hold in our hand in making application to them, to our lives, believing that they are true, whatever lie which has you to so discourage the day, whatever lie has you going in a direction that's contrary to God can be met by the Word of God that would tell you the truth, that would liberate you and find freedom from that.
[31:24] And so tonight I would encourage you to cry out to Him, to plead with Him and ask Him to quicken you because He loves you and ask Him to quicken you according to His loving kindness.
[31:35] Ask somebody to come to the piano as we begin the prayer. here in a moment and I'm going to pray throughout this psalm pausing to give you a chance to reflect on the passages. Heavenly Father, Lord, as we have looked at Your Word tonight, Lord, I pray that inside of this room that many in here would do what the psalmist has done which is to ask You to consider their afflictions and that the day that they would cry out for deliverance.
[32:06] Lord, You know exactly the place that they are at and Lord, and You know that they are not moving from that place without You doing a work in their hearts.
[32:17] So I pray that this is what would happen at this time. My brothers and sisters in this room would ask You to consider their afflictions and then they would ask You to deliver them from it because they are people that are not forgetting Your law tonight.
[32:31] They have heard in Your Word tonight, Lord, that You will do this. So that's what we ask.