[0:00] We're going to look at Psalm 116 tonight. We read it earlier in the service. I won't read the entire chapter for you now, but as we walk through it, we will review those. Starting off with, I love the Lord because, and speaking about the fact that He has heard my prayers.
[0:16] G. Campbell Morgan said, in reference to this chapter, because in this passage in Psalms, this is a portion that we believe that Jesus would have sung with the disciples as He was headed to the cross.
[0:28] When you read Psalm 116 with that in mind, thinking about Jesus singing that with the disciples, knowing that He was headed to the cross, really helps you understand the Bible as you should in light of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.
[0:43] But G. Campbell Morgan says, whatever the local circumstances which gave rise to this song, it is evident that all of its rich meaning was fulfilled when in the midst of that little company of perplexed souls, the shadow of the one death already on Him.
[0:59] So among Jesus and the disciples, with the shadow of death headed His way, Jesus sang the song of prophetic triumph over the sharpness of the hour of passion to which He was passing.
[1:10] He has made it over to all His own as their triumph song over death. Consider that as we would sing. They would sing, I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my supplication.
[1:20] He has inclined my ear unto me. And then it says, verse 3, the sorrow of death can pass me and all the pains of hell got hold upon me. I found trouble and sorrow.
[1:32] And just Jesus singing that with the disciples, knowing where He was headed. There's a prayer here that David is giving, one unto the Lord and saying that God has heard them.
[1:44] And when we think about prayer, I always feel convicted about prayer when I hear it. I've shared with you before how in Bible college, if the man preaching didn't really make a whole lot of sense, the president of the college would go up there and his invitation was, how many of you feel like you don't pray enough?
[2:00] And we'd all go to the altar, all right? So no matter what the service was, there was one way that we all knew we needed to respond, probably because he was praying for the last 30 minutes while the chapel speaker was up there, you know?
[2:13] And so we know we should pray. And some of the obstacles we have is, there's no greater indicator of our dependency upon God than our prayer life. If you say, how are you doing?
[2:23] And I just say, I'm depending upon God. If I'm not spending time in prayer, then I'm not depending upon God. I may be telling you that I am. I may say that I should be depending upon God, but there's going to be a direct correlation between depending upon God and crying out to God for it.
[2:38] So that's one area, just too much self-dependency, right? Not knowing that we're broken and needing of Him, not seeing ourselves as simple ones, as David will refer to himself.
[2:49] Then another one comes down to the content of our prayer, is what should we be resigned to? We're just saying, God, that's how it is. I'm going to trust You in this. And also, I can come to God asking for something.
[3:01] In what areas should you just be content, say, God, that's how it is. I'm going to trust You. And then what areas can you come to God and petition Him? So maybe that's another reason that we don't engage in prayer as we should, because we're not really sure, can I ask for this?
[3:16] Am I supposed to ask for this? Or should I just say, God, this is what You brought into my life, and this is what I have. The prayer of Jesus in Matthew 26, 39. And He went a little further, and He fell on His face, praying, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
[3:31] Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt. And then Paul says something similar. But for this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. Talking about the thorn in the flesh that He had.
[3:43] But he comes back to the Lord, and he petitions the Lord. I find that I have a tendency to very quickly just to stop praying about something, and just to say, well, this is my lot in life.
[3:56] This is what's going on. This is what God has for me. But even when that is the case, Mark 11, 24. Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.
[4:12] So what are the two options? I can just say, nevertheless, as it is, or I can come to God with my petitions. And so those two things, they don't cancel each other out. It's not that one should cancel out the other one, we just stop praying.
[4:24] Because why should we be asking for things when there's just times where it's, nevertheless, thy will be done. We need to recognize that in different situations, we come to God by faith.
[4:36] Sometimes we will resign ourselves by faith, to trust Him as He takes us something. And other times by faith, we will take a risk, and we will ask God for something. But in every area of our life, we should be brought to the Lord.
[4:49] It should be brought to the Lord. It is in prayer that God will give you peace, peace needed when He calls upon you to resign yourself to something in life that is not choosing, that He is not choosing the change.
[5:01] When Jesus went to the Father, and He talks about the cup and the crucifixion, and that He knew He was headed to it, He's in prayer. And that God can give you the peace that is needed to resign yourself and be content and say, even before the circumstances all play out, God, I already have peace in this matter.
[5:18] And that's going to happen through coming to Him in prayer. And there are other times you come to Him with petitions, and He wants to hear from you, and you ask Him. You ask God for healing in your life. You ask God to change circumstances.
[5:30] And so in all matters, we should be bringing to God prayer and speaking to Him. And that's what we see an example here of David bringing something to the Lord, God bringing deliverance, and then the result is, not David not coming back again, but him coming back and saying, I'm going to do this the rest of my life.
[5:47] I'm going to come to you, God, all the time with my prayers. And that's what he says in verse 2. It says, I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my supplications, because He has inclined His ear unto me.
[6:00] Therefore, will I call upon Him as long as I live. I will love the Lord, and I will call upon the Lord as I live. And so we see He remembered His deliverance.
[6:13] One of the greatest weapons of spiritual warfare is that the Lord has placed in our hands is remembered deliverance, is looking back and saying, I know that God heard and answered my prayer.
[6:26] When Satan tries to be accused of the brethren and tries to tell us that God doesn't listen and God doesn't care, you could say, I have this in my hand that I'm never letting go of. I remember a time that God has worked on behalf of His people.
[6:39] I remember that God has answered a prayer. I remember being distraught and then God giving me a peace. And so has the Lord given you an answer to your prayer in your life that was life-altering, that you couldn't resist responding to Him in praise?
[6:54] Has God ever answered one of your prayers in such a way that you had no choice in the matter but to praise Him? Many of you probably have stories in here, and it would do us well to share them.
[7:05] The one that first came to mind in my own life, some years ago I was on 285, and a lady driver clipped me. I'm not saying ladies couldn't drive, I'm just saying this lady couldn't drive, okay?
[7:16] And she hit me in the back and turned me sideways, and I was doing about 65, and I just had a few seconds, maybe not even that, before I hit the wall on 285 and then bounced back, the airbag went off, I saw more cars coming at me, a black Escalade came in and slid in there and blocked for me.
[7:35] Two men jumped out, they looked like NFL players, they were just giant, just muscles everywhere, and they were just like, they looked tough, all right? I figured they could turn around and block a car if needed to be.
[7:45] And so they get to me, by the time they get to me, they open up the door and they're still talking to me, I still haven't caught my breath, and I can't breathe, but as soon as I catch my breath, I couldn't do anything but say, praise the Lord.
[8:01] Had no choice in the matter. There was no other thing my mouth could have said in that moment, and those men started high-fiving and jumping up and down. Said, that's right! And they were all excited, and we just had a great moment.
[8:13] As they say, we had church there on 285, and it was so special. Matthew, you'll get a kick out of this. Somebody was driving by in an ambulance, but not the emergency kind, those that would move people for dialysis, and they took my blood pressure, and they said, his blood pressure's out of the roof.
[8:29] There's something wrong. And the other EMT said, well, he just hit a wall, you know, going 65. That might be why his blood pressure is through the roof. But, you know, that was a moment I look back on where I get to praise the Lord, but my turmoil, my being loosed and the pains of death, that was just a moment.
[8:45] I didn't even have enough time to think about dying before I realized I wasn't going to die. That was not the greatest obstacle in my life. Here, he is remembering that he went through something.
[8:57] There's thousands of different ways that this can happen, and we don't know the situation for David. In verse 3, the sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell got hold upon me, and I found trouble and sorrow.
[9:11] But I was compassed, I was surrounded by death. The pain of hell was upon me, and I found trouble and sorrow, possibly disease, possibly something of physical harm in his life.
[9:24] But then you look at verse number 10, and it says, I believe, therefore, have I spoken, and I was greatly afflicted, and I said in my haste, all men are liars. So maybe it was disease, maybe it was his health, or maybe it was circumstances.
[9:39] And I am grateful that we don't know, because this psalm will be picked up by you when you're at a time of physical health, and you say, I feel surrounded by death, and I need deliverance, and I'm praying out to God for healing, or you might be in something that involves situations in your life that are going on, and you look to this, and the fact that we don't know what was going on in David helps us apply it in our lives in any time that you've been there.
[10:06] If you've lived any amount of time at all, I'm sure you've felt these words of sorrow and death compassing you, and the pain was not, it was felt beyond earthly. It was like, not the kind of pain that we just feel being human, but the kind of pain that comes from hell, right?
[10:22] That's something that's supernatural, that's afflicting your soul that's on you. So we don't know here what's going on, but whatever it was, physical or emotional, whatever was being felt, we know was felt by Jesus.
[10:37] Whatever David felt was felt by Jesus, and it was felt as he was headed to the cross. Peter uses the same expression in Acts 2.24 as Jesus is headed to the cross, and then through the resurrection it says, whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
[10:59] Peter using the same word here, this pains of death, they could not hold him, and in the resurrection he sheds all of that feeling, and all of those things. And just as in Jesus experienced whatever you can experience, he also through the resurrection overcame whatever you're experiencing as well.
[11:17] And so David remembers what God had done a work in his life, and he makes some resolutions. He calls on the name of the Lord, and he beseeches the Lord, deliver my soul. Delivered straight to God, he says, O Lord.
[11:29] He immediately knows the direction of his prayers. I beseech thee. That speaks about feeling it deeply. Deliver my soul, directly stating what is needed.
[11:43] God, I'm coming to you. I feel it deep in my bones. I need you to bring deliverance. It's not coming in any other place. Surgeon says about this passage, This form of petition is short, comprehensive, to the point, humble, and earnest.
[12:00] It were well if all our prayers were molded upon this model. Perhaps they would be if we were in similar circumstances to those of the psalmist, for real trouble produces real prayer.
[12:15] Real trouble produces real prayer. You might be in here and say, I've never been through anything like that. I've never been through real trouble that took me to real prayer.
[12:26] And I would think that it isn't that you've lived in some perfect bubble. It might be that you're living perfectly naive or innocent to the things that are going on in the world.
[12:36] That maybe as you're young, as you're growing older, you become more aware of that. And if you've never been to a place that you've had real prayer because of real trouble, might I encourage you to carry the burdens of your brothers and sisters.
[12:53] You could say, I don't have any real trouble, so I don't have any real prayer. Well, I could tell you, you could pray admissions and you could learn about a people group and that can make your heart so heavy that you could cry out to God for them and you could say, this is a real prayer because it's real trouble.
[13:06] You could talk to some of your brothers and sisters in the church that are going through some things and when they share their prayer requests to you, it isn't like we often do maybe in a life group where we just go around and nobody has much, but when they share their prayer requests with you, you hear a broken heart, you hear that something that's heavy upon them and that burden that they're carrying, you could carry it as well.
[13:26] And so your prayers become real because you're carrying real trouble to the Father. And his resolution to love the Lord and to pray all of his days. Answered prayer should lead us to more prayer and it should lead us to a greater time of prayer with the Lord.
[13:43] Answering our prayers should lead us to more prayer and to a greater love. And then we see this gratitude, verse 5, gracious says the Lord and righteous. Yea, our God is merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple I have brought low and he helped me.
[13:55] So here he lays out three things that he remembers. He remembers that God's gracious and that God is righteous and that God is merciful. Time in prayer should do that for you. It should remind you how gracious and righteous and merciful he is.
[14:10] Parents, you ever given a gift to your kids and before they went to the gift they came to you and gave you a hug that's the best gift, right? You give a gift and they go and they embrace the toy then you don't feel like that isn't how that was supposed to go, right?
[14:24] But when they look at what you're giving them and they turn their attention to you and they hug you that's what David is doing here is embracing his father. And he says in the answer to the prayer I am thankful to be delivered I'm thankful that my days are prolonged but more so than that I am thankful to know that I have a father that is gracious and that he is righteous and he is merciful and he embraces the father.
[14:47] He doesn't see the father as just an errand boy for the gift but he sees that he is the gift giver and that he is the one that deserves our worship and that the gift is secondary the deliverance is secondary to the relationship with a deliverer.
[15:01] And then rest comes to the simple the Lord preserveth the simple I was brought low and he helped me recognize the simpleness David includes himself among the simple he says the Lord preserves simple people and I was one of them and he helped me this whole experience had humbled the psalmist often like the joke and I'll say great minds think alike and so do ours right is to say that we aren't great minds even though we think alike Chris has heard me say that many times great minds think alike so here's David and says God takes care of the simple and I was one of those and he helped me the psalmist had been humbled because he believed how limited he is how his life hung in the balance and how he is entirely dependent upon God if you're here today and you recognize a time in your life where your hand was just your life was completely in the hand of God and you could do absolutely nothing about your circumstances of your and your life say praise God because many people have been there and they were completely oblivious to it because every one of you live in the hand of God every one of you get your breath from him every one of you are fully dependent upon him but there's moments in life where we realize it and we become simple enough just to realize
[16:14] I live from the hand of God it's amazing that David would see himself as simple being a king but it's more amazing that God would care for us simple people and then verse 7 return unto thy rest O my soul for the Lord has dealt bountifully with me what a prayer for you at night whenever a child of God loses the peace of mind he should be very concerned about gaining it back not from the world and not from his own ability but from the Lord alone rest is available and we should never settle for less not an hour of our time not a night at any point it is absolutely available for you God never runs out he never says I've given enough rest out to you and to this world and so you're going to have to come back it is always available and it's going to be found through prayer and speaking to him thou hast delivered my soul from death and mine eyes from tears and my feet from falling God you have preserved you have guided my steps you have taken the tears from my eyes you have delivered me from death then verse 9 it says
[17:17] I'm going to walk before the Lord in the land of the living he determined to live before the Lord I'm going to live in the light of God I'm not hiding but I'm going to live right out here in the open God I see that you that you love me and that you care for me and I am not going to hide I'm not going to become depressed I'm not going to hide in the dark but I'm going to just live right out here in the open God I know that you see me and I'm going to walk before you in the land of the living I'm not going to spend my life on the shadows I'm not going to live somewhere between the dead and the living I'm going to live my life living before you and then verse 10 it speaks of a faith that you might describe as small wouldn't be the best way to describe it maybe here in verse 10 it says I believe therefore have I spoken I was greatly afflicted I believe therefore I have spoken Paul takes this line of believing and speaking and he applies it when he's trusting in the Lord in verse 2 Corinthians 4 13 we have the same spirit of faith according as it is written
[18:20] I believe therefore have I spoken we also believe and therefore speak knowing that which was raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up also by Jesus raised up also by Jesus and shall present us with you prayer is an act of faith he said here I believe therefore I have spoken why do you go to God and pray for deliverance why do you go into him and cry out and say God I can't trust anybody I don't know where to turn I'm so discouraged death is all around me but I cry out to you because you believe that he hears you and that he answers prayer so sometimes your prayer is the greatest act of faith that you can have in that day it's not an action it's nothing that people can see but it's willing to go back and pray to God and say God I know you hear me he could not turn to anybody verse 11 in my haste meaning he shouldn't have said it and it wasn't true but in the moment he felt all men are liars I can't turn to anywhere but God I can turn to you in faith and then he renders praise the psalmist considers why
[19:24] God had been he doesn't just consider how God had been so good to him he considers why God had been so good to him and not just how God had all the problems that were in front of him that's not what he's rehearsing but he's rehearsing how good God had been to him verse 12 what shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me what should I give unto the Lord because of what he has done in my life Isaac wrote a hymn on this Psalm 116 and in the first stanza it says what shall I render to my God for all his kindness shown my feet shall visit thine abode my songs address thy throne what should we give and render for answered prayers it's praise towards the throne it is praising God and giving that verse 13 I will take the cup of salvation and I will call upon the name of the Lord it's profound here that the only way that we can repay God for everything that he has done is for something that he has given us we have to receive from him before we would ever give back to him
[20:31] I will take this cup of salvation think about that phrase I will take the cup of my salvation and I will call upon the name of the Lord think about saying that and think about Jesus in Luke verse 14 I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people I will pay my vows apparently he is it's a matter of something he wants to show publicly he had made a vow unto the Lord and now he wants to render it publicly in front of everybody in America especially people like to speak about their faith being a private matter that's just you know you a new car he would say
[21:49] I don't need your cars alright he would say have you seen gas prices no he wouldn't say that he would say I don't need your car there be nothing you could give so what would you be saying to God to say God if you prolong my days he's not negotiating he's just making a vow with his life if you give me breath again his saints this was kind of an off speed pitch to me a little bit when we got to this verse I never I don't know that I ever knew the context of that verse when it was shared but when David says God I didn't want to die I cried out to you and you prolonged my days and I'm going to praise you but let me tell you that if I the remaining of the death of his saints because we have been reconciled unto him by the death of his son and here are some things
[23:13] David says I'm going to be a servant I am thy servant the son of thy hand may thou have more than a first generation servant I want to give my life to serving you and what type of service was it verse 17 what kind of service will David be involved in I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and I will call upon the name of the Lord he was a servant who was going to give his extended days the praising the Lord I will pay my vows verse 18 unto the
[24:14] Lord now in the presence of all the people and he continues praising and then verse 19 in the courts of the Lord's house in the midst of the O Jerusalem praise ye the Lord or saying hallelujah in the court of the Lord's house in the midst of these people I say praise the Lord both the declaration of personal praise but also an invitation to everybody around him in on what God has done what an incredible psalm you've been there before and you have you ought to go back and look at it and say I remember being delivered and I remember my response coming out of it for me that moment at 285 that's how I should live my life I should live every moment of my life knowing that I can't but praise the Lord because he has given me yet another day I should wake up every day just like I was in that moment and says this is the day the Lord has made I will rejoice in him and I'm going to praise the
[25:14] Lord with what he has done he has delivered me and he has delivered you and if you don't have a story about 285 you've never dealt with a health issue let me tell and delivered me every believer in here you had a near death experience you had a near death for all eternity experience and he has now delivered you and so you can always go back to that and you can praise the Lord and the answer to those prayers ought to bring more prayer unto the Lord and you ought to love him and you to sing his praises and if God has delivered you and he has given you more time he has done it so that you would be a servant and that you would sing praises unto the Lord I'm going to pray for us I'm going to pray through this psalm as we often do and then when I'm done we'll sing that song together or at least we'll listen to the ladies that sung it earlier and then we'll end our service together would you join me as we sing through psalm 116 oh
[26:21] Lord I love you and I thank you so much Lord I can't count the ways for which I love you but I want to express tonight that I love you because you have heard my voice and my supplications Lord you have inclined your ear Lord we could never speak loud enough if you did not incline your ear but you have chosen Lord to listen to us and as long as I live Lord I want to take the matters of my heart to you Lord there have been moments because of physical illness and because of circumstances life that I felt surrounded by death I felt a pain Lord that felt greater than what this earth would have for me I felt the pain that comes from hell and Lord I called upon you you deliver me because you're gracious you're merciful and you're righteous Lord you preserve me as a simple person I was brought low and you humbled me but you still love me in my simple state and you gave me rest so many restless nights and so many restless moments but you delivered my soul and you gave that back to me you have dealt bountifully
[27:21] Lord with me abundantly with me you delivered my soul from death and you took the tears from my eyes and you kept my feet Lord from slipping and falling and now Lord because you have set my feet from falling Lord I want to use those feet to walk in the days of in the land of the living I believe Lord and I've spoken my prayer Lord it felt like a grain of wheat Lord it felt like a mustard seed it felt like nothing but Lord with the faith that I had I called out to you and you heard me what I felt and I said when it wasn't true and I was so discouraged and I thought that nobody cared about me I felt that everybody around me Lord had turned away from you and Lord that wasn't true but Lord even as I believed that lie I knew that I could come to you and that you would hear me and so now Lord what can I give back to you what could I give back to you that would be of any value what I take from you you you've given me salvation I've called on the name of the Lord and
[28:22] Lord now I want to live out my commitment hospital bed at 16 Lord if I had been overcome by discouragement and just walked away Lord if I would have died that day you would have seen it Lord you would have seen me and you consider me precious that you nothing separates me from your love Lord I am your servant I've always been your servant and I choose Lord and I'm grateful this opportunity and I want to offer the Lord among me there are so many stories of deliverance in so many different ways where we constantly find ourselves in need of deliverance we constantly find our place where you alone can deliver us and if you don't deliver us we will not be delivered and so
[29:25] Lord we stand here as a group of people that have been delivered and as a result of your deliverance upon our lives we want to praise your holy name in Jesus name I pray Amen