[0:00] Take your Bibles if you would and turn with me to Psalm 56. When you mess up, when you do wrong, when you put yourself in a place you shouldn't be, he's still for you.
[0:16] That's what I want you to see today. Now, that means you're born again. If you're not born again, the wrath of God abides on you. If you haven't come to know Jesus as your Savior, these promises aren't for you.
[0:31] You must realize that you've sinned against the Holy God. You must realize that your sin has separated you from God and that he died to pay your sin debt and you trust that he died for you and you believe him and you get saved.
[0:46] You can do that today. But I'm talking to you as believers. In the story today, David has allowed fear to take over his life and David has taken off running and gone to a place where he shouldn't be.
[1:02] And before the psalm is over, David will get out of the dump and out of the problem and back into being excited about the Lord Jesus. If you've got your Bible open in Psalm 56 and verse 1, or right above verse 1 in my Bible, right up here, it says to you that David writes this psalm when the Philistines took him in Gath.
[1:30] So here's the story. David has run away from Saul and he's run to a place called Gath.
[1:40] Gath. That's an exciting place to go because he killed the hero of Gath named Goliath. And on his side, he happens to be carrying Goliath's sword.
[1:52] If you can imagine that massive sword hanging on his body. Probably when he walked into town, everybody there would look at him and thought to themselves, that looks like Goliath's sword.
[2:02] Is that the guy killed Goliath? And he runs in a moment of fear, of faltering faith. And he steps outside the promises of God. In 1 Samuel chapter 21 and verse 10, the Bible says, David arose and fled that day for fear of Saul.
[2:22] And he went to Achish, the king of Gath. God never told him to run to Gath. He chose to do things his way. God never meant for his people to live in fear.
[2:36] And he goes from bad to worse. So when he gets to Gath, the servants of Achish, is not this David the king of the land?
[2:47] Did they not sing one to another of him in dances and say Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens thousands? God was David's true protector.
[3:00] He didn't need to run to the world. How often do we escape from where God has us because we feel like we can do better than God in taking care of ourselves?
[3:12] Children decide not to honor and respect their parents. They're convinced they know better. That's as foolish as David was that day. God's people leave the church and Bible preaching and reject spiritual authority God has placed in their lives because they know better.
[3:30] Everything David heard made him more afraid. When you read the Bible story, not all of it's included, obviously, when you're telling the story, you don't put in every detail.
[3:43] But evidently when David arrived in Gath, some of the guys grabbed him and took him and put him in a hole. And you can see that at the head of the song. They took him in Gath.
[3:55] They probably threw him in a cage and a sail. And they're marching around outside that sail and they're talking about what they're going to do to him. And he's wanting to get to the king and he'll eventually get to the king and he'll escape out to a cave.
[4:12] But as he listens, they're all talking. In 1 Samuel 21, 12, David laid up these words in his heart. And he was sore afraid of Achish.
[4:23] Now I need you to, I just need you, if you've read the psalm with me, I need you to see some things. By the end of the psalm, he's going to say, I praise his word. I praise his word.
[4:34] I praise his word. Because he'd been listening to wrong words. He'd been listening to wrong words. He'd been listening to words that said, we're going to kill him. We're going to take him out.
[4:45] But this guy's the one that killed thousands of our people, tens of thousands of our people. And now we have him. And so all of a sudden, David is living in abject terror.
[4:55] He is scared to death. He's trembling in fear. And somewhere in that cell, all of a sudden he remembered, I know what God said.
[5:08] I know what God said. God said, he's going to make me a king. And if God said it, I can trust God. And all of a sudden, he switched from listening to what the world said, to what God said.
[5:23] And he started praising the word of God. And by the end of the chapter, he gets happy and says stuff like this. What time I'm afraid. I'm trusting God. Because when you listen to the world, you get scared.
[5:38] He wasn't filling himself with the word of God at the moment. All of us can have these dark days and dark moments in our lives when we get scared.
[5:49] And when we get scared and we fail to listen to the word of God, we start thinking other things. David continues to hear the threats. And he just keeps piling them into his heart.
[6:00] But you got to remember, faith comes by hearing. And hearing by the word of God. Fear comes from hearing too. I hope you caught that.
[6:12] Faith comes by hearing. But so does fear. Fear comes from hearing what self and sin and the world would contribute. David is so bad off.
[6:24] He shouldn't be with the Philistines. He shouldn't have run down there. But that's where he is. And in 1 Samuel 21, 13, he changed his behavior, pretended to be crazy, scrabbled on the doors of the gate, let the spit, the spittle, fall down on his beard.
[6:43] And the king of Achish said, or Achish, the king of these Philistines said, this man's mad. He's crazy. Why'd y'all bring him to me?
[6:54] Do I need other mad men? Self got David into trouble. Self got David into trouble. And he ends up embarrassing himself.
[7:04] Sin steals dignity. It's better to stay where you're supposed to be and allow God to work than to jump out of the frying pan into the fire to defend yourself.
[7:23] I'm going to go into the psalm now, but I want to tell you, some of you do that. I've watched you do it. You run like David and you run to the Philistines and you listen, but you're not listening to the word of God.
[7:39] You listen to what the world says. You listen to what some worldly counselor says, what some lost man has to say. And you begin to come up with other ideas.
[7:51] Sin will steal your dignity. Better to stay where you're supposed to be and let God work it out. Go with me to Psalm 56.1. Starts off with David crying out for mercy.
[8:05] He needs to cry out for mercy. He stepped out of the will of God. He needs God to forgive him again. Says in verse one, Be merciful unto me, O God.
[8:17] The amazing thing is that no matter what we do, no matter where we go, we know something about our God, we can go to him and say, be merciful. I mean, you know, he could have just said, well, God will never have mercy.
[8:31] But David's like, I messed up. I need to go talk to God. He wouldn't walk into God like some cocky guy. He walks in and says, oh God, be merciful.
[8:43] When you mess up, just come back and expect God to bless. He needs God because this is the first and the only time we ever see David afraid of a man.
[8:54] Psalm 56, 1, Be merciful unto me, O God, for man would swallow me up. He fighting daily oppresses me. Don't forget, this is the guy who killed Goliath.
[9:07] And Goliath was nearly 10 foot tall. He's over 9 foot tall. And Goliath is the champion of their entire army. What is he doing? Letting a puny king scare him.
[9:18] But because of fear of winning, he is tormented and tortured. And he's alone. He's probably locked up. He's waiting to see what's going to happen to him.
[9:29] In verse 2, Mine enemies would daily swallow me up. Psychological warfare. For they be many that fight against me, O thou most high.
[9:41] And it looks like he must have been in that cell. And those guys are out there talking and they're laughing and they're planning his demise. Maybe they're planning to do to him something like what happened to Samson.
[9:52] Gouge out his eyes and put him to plow in for their God. They're talking all this stuff out there and David's in his cell waiting to find out what's going to happen to him. And he is being swallowed up every day.
[10:05] Every day, he's deeper and deeper in the pit. And he says, God, you need to know something. A lot of people are against me. But like all good believers do, we get to verse 3.
[10:21] Now he admits where he's at. He admits he's in bad shape. He admits he's being messed with. But in the middle of his fear, David knows what he needs to do and he returns to God to trust him.
[10:33] Verse 3, What time I am afraid I will trust in thee. David's spiritual sense kicks in. He decides to trust God. Real faith is living without scheming.
[10:47] It's not you figuring out what to do. It's you trusting God to do what he will do. And all of a sudden, David switches from what everybody else is saying to what God says. And in verse 4, he says, In God, I will praise his word.
[11:03] I'll not listen to what men say. I'll listen to what the word of God says. When he gets back to thinking on the word, he's back to trusting God. I want you to focus on this.
[11:15] Now listen to what I'm fixing to tell you. You can't trust God without the Bible. Because you don't know nothing about God without the Bible. I mean, I'll tell you this, you can look up at the trees and the sky and the clouds and you can learn a little bit about God by nature.
[11:29] But God revealed himself in the word. If you want to know him, you've got to know the book. And it's amazing even how David writes this. He says, In God, I will praise what he said.
[11:43] I'll praise his word. In God have I put my trust. I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. Do you understand what happened there?
[11:54] Somehow this, he said, I think he's still in that same cell. I think he's still locked up there. I don't know what's happened. But somewhere between the time he's spitting out on his beard and scrabbling on the wall and acting like a crazy man, somewhere in there, David goes, God told me something.
[12:17] God told me he's going to make me a king. God anointed me. I'm going to go back to what it says. Now David heard it audibly, but you and I got it written. You have in your hands the word of God.
[12:29] And when you're scared and when you're afraid and when you want to trust God, you don't just say something stupid like, at what time I'm afraid I'll trust in God. What you do is you find a promise.
[12:40] What you do is you get in the book. What you do is you put this book in your heart so that you will be able to stand. What he's doing is saying, in God I have put my trust because I'm remembering what he said.
[12:52] God said he would take care of me. Then he says in verse 4, the last part, I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. Now that's not who he was.
[13:05] Just a few minutes ago he was swallowed up daily. Just a few minutes ago he was living in abject terror. I want you to notice in this psalm and I wish you'd underline it, I wish you'd even number them, how many times he says this, praise his word.
[13:23] Underline it, praise his word. Where did David get his comfort? His word. whose word?
[13:34] The word of God. He trusted God. When you trust God, that's not some Facebook saying, it's not some dumb thing like, I just trust God, I'm sending my good thoughts your way.
[13:51] What in the world is that? I read that kind of joke on Facebook, I'm like, they let any moron on here that wants to be on here, don't they? Amen. You know what we get on to? We find what the word of God says.
[14:03] We find out what the Bible says and we apply that to our lives. David began to believe and said again that God was for him. He got his focus back.
[14:15] He got his focus back. Look at Psalm 56 5. Every day they rest my words, they wrestle my words, they twist my words. All their thoughts are against me for evil.
[14:27] They gather themselves together. They hide themselves. They mark my steps. They watch where I go. They watch what I do and they wait for my soul. They're looking at every way possible to hurt me.
[14:42] They twist my words. They figure out how to hurt me. They want me to live in fear. They want me to be tortured. They watch for every opportunity and David knows that he will win and his enemies won't escape because he got back to the word.
[14:59] He got back to the word. It was the word that helped him stand against Goliath. It was listening to the world that made him be afraid and gaff. It was getting back to the word that gave him power.
[15:11] Psalm 56 7. Shall they escape by iniquity? Do you really think sinners are going to get away with their sin and they're going to win over me with sin?
[15:21] No way. I trust in the word. I praise the word of God. In thine anger, God, in your anger, cast down the people, God. I know it's you.
[15:33] All of a sudden, David is trusting that God will work it out. I must admit, I can't hardly read Psalm 56 8 without wanting to put some of those tears in that bottle.
[15:48] He's afraid. He's scared. He's brought it on himself. God's not angry. He says to him, hey, thou tell us my wanderings, listen to this, put my tears in your bottle.
[16:07] When they've done some diggings, archaeologists have found little tear bottles in the graves of Jewish people. He said, are they not in that book?
[16:21] You realize what happens here. David is afraid, and David's alone in a cell. David's been crying, and God doesn't look at him and go, you earned it.
[16:34] You deserve it. You're dumb. You do wrong. I've had it with you. That's not what you do with your child. Say amen. God looks out and says, I love you, buddy.
[16:46] I never wanted this to happen to you. Let me collect those tears. Let me put them in my bottle. Let me write it in my book. Let me let you know I love you. I know how you feel. I keep a record of it.
[16:58] I care when you're hurting. That has to be the sweetest thing. It has to be you and I do wrong and walk away from our God. We do things we shouldn't do.
[17:09] We're over with the Philistines and gath and we're locked in a torment chamber by the idiots and got ourselves there and in the middle of that place all of a sudden we're crying and we're hurting and we're scared and God says I'm keeping a record of that.
[17:32] I love you. He didn't turn on him. He loved him. You say I think you're misinterpreting that. 2 Kings 20 verse 5.
[17:45] Turn again and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people. Thus said the Lord God of David thy father I've heard your prayer I've seen your tears I've seen your tears I'll heal you.
[18:03] And on the third day you'll go up to the house of God. He heard his prayers he saw his tears he knew God cared.
[18:18] You're hurting today if you let sin get you off track have you gone down to gaff huh are you locked in a cage there have you gone cold you think God's mad at you I think he's saying coming to me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest I think he's saying to you I have a tear in my because I hurt for you I think he's saying to you I'll take your tears I'll remember what you're going through I'll remember that my granddaughter Abby is always coming upstairs and giving me stuff and you know it's what a six or eight year old gives you you know and so I save them on the bedside table and she come and give me something and she said I see you still got the last thing I gave you like I do you know what God's got the last time you were hurt you know what God's doing you're alone in that cave and you're in that jail cell and you're surrounded and you're crying and you're hurting and you wonder if God cares and David said no he's got you tears go to verse nine just getting better guys this is the guy who's in the cell scared slapped to death and he's fearing what man can do to him and he's eaten up with it and in verse nine he said when I cry unto thee that's when my enemies turn back and then he says this this
[19:54] I know God is for me this I know for God is for me you understand that is he still in the jail cell is he still getting tormented is he still there with all that junk going around him has he already seen the achish and already gone out to the cave I'm not sure where he's at but I can tell you what David's got in mind I messed up and he never left me I messed up and he never quit on me I walked away and did things I shouldn't do and he was there collecting my tears when I was away from him and doing what I shouldn't do he was just waiting on me to cry to him and he turned my enemies back David knows that God answers when he cries and prays he knows God answers and you need to know something he'll give you power he will answer your prayers he will do things in your life at the funeral home this week and an older gentleman was there he's 82 years old he's a guy running the funeral home that day while we were there and he saw me sitting over there and he'd seen us talking about the Bible and talking and so he just walked over and kind of stood there and kind of interrupted things and he said you know
[21:18] I was a heavy drinker and a heavy smoker I got saved when I was 42 and I just quit all that drinking he said but I kept smoking he said the last 50 and I got really sick and had to have gallbladder surgery he said I quit that smoking he said Jesus changed my life and I'm 82 when you cry out I don't care if it's the drink or the porn or the king of gath he has power he answers he gives victory anger can't control you jealousy can't control you have victory he knows something more than that he knows not that only God answers he knows God is for him I was preaching in Iquitos and there were like 3,000 people sitting in the bleachers and it's like 110 degrees in the room the sound system doesn't work worth a flip and I'm in the middle of what would be a basketball court and they're all up there and I was terrified
[22:33] I looked up to all those people and I was afraid of my language I was afraid of the sound system I was afraid of what they might think about me you know where I got comfort I knew there was one lady in the room that was for me and so I said in English can you hear me and she shook her head and I said can you understand me and she shook her head and I had confidence to go on when David's in trouble he didn't look for his wife he looked up and saw God and he said he's for me victory is his because of his relationship with God he knows God is for him look at Psalm 56 10 in God will I praise his word in the Lord will I praise his word what David's saying is what got him victory there wasn't Goliath's sword it wasn't how smart he was it wasn't positive thinking it was
[23:36] I believe the promises of God what he said his word in God have I put my trust I will not be afraid what man can do to me the secret to success for David is he believes God's word praise his word God made him a promise and God keeps his word praise his word David won't take credit for it Psalm 56 12 he said thy vows are upon me oh God I have made promises to you and I will keep them and I would question you every time you get in trouble when you're alone in the prison cell in Gath you make promises to God you say oh God you get me out of this you'll never have to worry about me tithing oh God you get me out of this I won't miss any church services oh God you get me out of this and I'll do this and I'll do that and you make all these vows and David ends up and says I know I made a lot of promises and I'm planning on keeping them say man won't you keep them one of his promises verse 12
[24:38] I will render praises unto thee what you did how often you and I take credit for what God's done God's the one that gave me a good wife God's the one that saved my kids God's the one that blessed this church it's God God he knows that it is God that delivered him verse 13 thou has delivered my soul wilt not thou deliver my feet God I don't want to die now I want you to keep me alive so I can do something I want to serve you that I may walk before God in the light of the living let me end by giving you how you put these truths to work in your life I wish you'd listen this is me summing up this whole psalm and telling you what I think it means for you to take home don't let fear get you out of the place faith puts you don't let fear get you out of the place faith puts you God told David he would take care of him he didn't have to go to the
[25:39] Philistines do not run when God wants you to stand trust and faith means you quit scheming doing things the way you want to do them a famous old preacher has been dead many years I never met just heard about him all my life said every time you run you lose something know know that even when you mess up you can come back to your father and ask for mercy got a story in the New Testament kind of tells you that don't you the boy said give me my inheritance and he takes all the money and he loses it all and he's about to eat pig slop and he's in a bad place and he comes to his head I think I'll get up and go back to my daddy I'll just tell him I can't be a son but if he just let me be a day laborer I'd come back and all the way home he practiced it I'll tell his daddy you ever notice his daddy never listened to a word he said his daddy got up and took off running towards him hugged him and his nasty filthy pig stink and put a party on for him you can come back you can get right you shouldn't stay away when you're afraid you really need to focus on the Lord verse 3 what time
[27:01] I'm afraid I'll trust in thee I need you to understand what that means you trust in him by trusting what the word says it's not some ambiguous ethereal floating idea in the sky it is nailed down in the book so you get you some verses you write them on that verse you stick that verse in your pocket you walk around and every time you get afraid you pull out the word and say that's what he said I'm trusting that you do that and God will get you through you reach in there and say this is what God said because it's easy to be afraid God doesn't want you to be afraid the secret to your walk with God will be your attitude towards the word of God I wish you would hear that you're lazy with your Bible and I'm afraid your apps have made you more lazy you don't read it you don't mark it you don't meditate on it the old timers
[28:03] Bible was stained with tears you won't have success if you don't praise his word never doubt that God really cares about you he put the tears in a bottle never doubt that God is for you this I know for God is for me give God all the glory and praise for what he does publicly and in your heart now you listen to me I know some of you you've grown cold your Bible is dusty your work has become more important than Jesus I need to tell you that he's a jealous God he doesn't like it a bit he doesn't like it that you say to him
[29:07] I'll get to you on the weekend I'll get you when I get time I got to make money right now you got to know there's more to life than just reading the Bible yeah that's what the wrong time say man so that's what the lost guy is saying that's what the back slitting Christian I don't have time for the next psalm Thursday night he's actually going to say I wake up the dawn to get in the book only guy I know does that around here John Pearson I let the dawn wake me up say amen but David said I wake up the dawn it's an interesting little turn of phrase I think what's your relationship with the Bible I want to challenge you are you reading the Bible through are you spending a little bit of time in it every day are you memorizing it because you see when you're in a jail cell in
[30:14] Gath and the men are marching back and forth outside your cell you might not even have a copy of the book with you but what's in your heart can come out we ought to be people of the book praise his word praise his word praise his word I don't mean to be childish when I say this but he didn't need to say that three times unless he wanted to go I'm emphasizing he was emphasizing do your children see you read the Bible your wife see you read the Bible your husband see you read the Bible you have to look for it on Sunday dust it off are you just glad you got a phone you can claim you looking at it there come on so down there in
[31:15] Gath David's hurting and he's afraid God's with him though and David down there has been listening to these Philistines as they mock our God and mock David talk about what you're going to do to him and he's terrified because you get afraid because you listen to the wrong stuff and then all of a sudden David thinks back and says wait a minute I need to remember the word I need to remember what God said and all of a sudden David is like I got victory I'm going to win he's still in the land of gaff even after he squabbles and spits on himself and run they send him to a cave he's still a loser but he knows he's not because he knows God's with him you can know that he won't get you out of your problem overnight but you'll have victory overnight you might not be king it's going to be years before David makes it to king but David won't be afraid of a man again it's the last time we're going to say I'm afraid you know why the word father in heaven
[32:32] I ask you to help your people commit to the word today I ask you to help us believe you no matter where we are what's happening in our lives I give you praise for what you're going to do I mean you're going to diverse in areas that to be here how to do