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Psalm 141.
There's a lot of talk today about deeper,
the deeper life of Christ.
And the Lord is beginning to show me
some things about the deeper life of Christ.
Things that are hard to hear.
But if we have ears to hear, this
could be the beginning today, I believe, of
something very profound in many lives.
Those that are standing, I gather there's no
more room in our overflow rooms.
And those in the education annex and all
of the adjacent rooms listening to the gospel.
I do believe today that if you can
hear this, it can be the beginning of
something very, very profound.
As a matter of fact, it can be
the beginning of the most Christ-likeness in
your life that you've ever known.
But this, what I'm about to share with
you, can only happen by the power of
God.
You cannot do it in the natural man.
It's an impossibility.
It has to be something of Christ that
has worked into you and I to be
able to do this.
My message is entitled, Let the righteous smite
me.
Let the righteous smite me.
Father, I thank you, God, for the anointing
of your Holy Spirit.
I thank you for your presence.
Lord, it's about your presence.
It's about you being here in our midst.
Where you are, there's life.
Where you are, there's freedom.
Where you are, there's revelation.
If you're not here, then these are just
words and they fall to the ground.
And at best, we try to appropriate them,
but we can't.
Lord, it's you.
It's your life.
And we do bow.
I bow and I bend my knee before
you.
I declare that I have no resources apart
from you.
I have nothing to offer apart from what
you've already given to me.
And so I give back to you that
which you've given to me.
And I ask you, Lord, that you'd glorify
your name today.
I ask you, Lord, that you'd be lifted
up and honored and that your kingdom would
advance in the hearts of your people.
This is your church, your body on this
earth.
Let your kingdom come.
That's our cry.
And let your will be done.
What you desire us to be and you
desire to do in us and through us,
let that be accomplished in this house today.
All day I pray for it, not just
this morning, but all day.
Let your will be done.
Be with us.
Thank you, Holy Spirit, for so manifesting the
presence of Christ in our midst today.
We thank you in Jesus' mighty name.
Psalm 141.
David, the king.
He says, Lord, I cry unto thee, make
haste unto me and give ear unto my
voice when I cry unto thee.
Let my prayer be set forth before thee
as incense and the lifting up of my
hands as the evening sacrifice.
Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth.
Keep the door of my lips.
Incline not my heart to any evil thing,
to practice wicked works with men that work
iniquity.
And let me not eat of their dainties.
Let the righteous smite me.
It shall be a kindness.
And let him reprove me.
It shall be an excellent oil which shall
not break my head.
For yet my prayer shall also be in
their calamities.
When their judges are overthrown in stony places,
they shall hear my words, for they are
sweet.
Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth,
as when one cuts and cleaves wood upon
the earth.
But mine eyes are unto thee, O God
the Lord.
In thee is my trust.
Leave not my soul destitute.
Keep me from the snares which they have
laid for me and the gins of the
workers of iniquity.
Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
whilst that I withal escape."
Now, the Reiss Chronological Bible places this particular
Psalm 141 as being written at the time
when David had escaped from Saul into the
cave of Adula.
You find that in 1 Samuel chapter 22
and 1 Chronicles chapter 12.
Now, it's recorded that at this time of
the writing of this psalm that all of
David's father's house and the people of the
tribes, both of Benjamin and Judah, came to
him to profess their loyalty.
Now, we know that David had been wrongly
treated by the king of Israel, Saul.
Saul had allowed a spirit of jealousy to
come into his life, and he'd lost, in
a sense, a touch with God.
He began to resent this young man who
had an anointing on his life, and he
began to pursue him, wanting to kill him.
David had had to flee from his presence
for his very life.
And so, in this particular cave, came to
him his own family, many of his own
family, and many, not all, but out of
the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, came to
him to profess to him that we're loyal
to you.
We see the hand of God on you.
We know that God's called you, and we're
with you.
And now, at this same time, David also
pens Psalm 142, and in this psalm, he
makes a very, very curious statement about this
particular situation.
In Psalm 142, he says, when my spirit,
verse 3, was overwhelmed within me, then thou
knewest my path.
God, I was overwhelmed.
The circumstances were too much for me, but
you knew, and the word in the Hebrew
means that you caused me to know, you
informed me, you announced it to me, you
appointed it to me, you put it in
order.
David is saying it this way.
I had an inward knowledge that, even though
I didn't fully understand it, I knew that
this was an appointed pathway for my life.
And beloved, if you're going to walk with
God, I want to tell you today that
there are going to be appointed pathways for
your life that you don't understand.
You're going to be appointed to pathways, especially
if God wants to use your life in
any great measure.
Pathways where you don't understand what's happening, and
within yourself, you do not possess the resources
to win the victory.
There's nothing within you that could win it.
There's everything in you wants to go in
another direction or respond in a way other
than God would have you to respond.
And these are appointed pathways, and these pathways
are to open to us an understanding of
our inherent inability to be everything that God
calls us to be, to actually be anything
that God calls us to be.
We're unable.
The moment we begin to think we can
do something, God will appoint a pathway to
prove to us that we can't.
If we think we're very loving people, then
God will put somebody or something before us
to show us we're not, and we can't.
It's an appointed pathway.
Some of you are on that appointed pathway
right now.
You're in your workplace or your neighborhood, and
moved in next door to you or sitting
at the next desk is somebody that, without
the grace of God, you would rather strangle
them than ever see them come to the
saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
David said, I had this inward knowledge that
this was an appointed path, and how confusing
it must have been for him.
A young man coming in and Samuel anointing
him and telling him he's going to be
king of Israel and walking into the camp
knowing that God is with him.
He's won victories out in his own particular
seclusion with sheep in the wilderness.
Coming in and taking away or putting off
all the armor that Israel had learned to
trust in and walking down and confronting not
just Goliath but the whole of the armies
of the Philistines that were swallowing up God's
heritage and seeing this mighty victory.
Being called into Saul's court, a sweet psalmist
that when he began to worship God, the
evil spirit that troubled Saul had to flee
away.
The anointing was so strong upon this young
man's life only to find himself fleeing.
Only to find himself surrounded by people perhaps
for a season equally as confused as he
had been in the beginning.
But God will always call cause us to
have an inward knowledge that he has appointed
the path.
Have you ever been in a place like
that?
Where it seems like all hell is around
you.
You try to rebuke the devil, but there's
this inward, this inward understanding that this is
not the devil doing this.
And even if he's got somewhat of a
measure of a hand in it, it has
been allowed.
He's been allowed to touch my life.
God has put it, allowed it for a
reason, for a purpose that I don't yet
understand.
But yet David says, I know, I know
my path.
I know it has been ordained of God.
But then he goes on in verse three
and he says, in the way where I
walked, have they privily laid a snare for
me?
He says, now there are people around me
who have laid a snare for me in
this way that God has chosen for me
to walk in.
Now who are they?
Who are they?
We quite often want to point to Saul.
Obviously Saul was trying to kill him and
Saul's army's trying to kill him.
And there's others that are informers and evil
people all around.
But this is, I don't believe what David
is talking about because he also penned this
Psalm 142 at the time of trouble in
Adullam's cave.
Who are they?
And here they are in verse four.
He says, I looked on my right hand
and beheld, but there was no man that
would know me.
In other words, there was no man that
understood.
This is what David is saying.
I looked to the right in this cave.
The word know in the Hebrew text is
in that card, it means to perceive or
understand or give honor to something.
I looked on my right hand, David said,
and there's nobody that understood the pathway that
God had me on.
Refuge failed me.
No man cared for my soul.
The word is nefesh.
It means, I'm going to give you my
definition because it's a very long, long definition,
but it means my life, which had come
from my heartfelt love for the ways of
God.
Nobody cared for this.
God had appointed a path for me and
everybody's trying to counsel me.
Can you picture in this cave, everybody's there
saying, we're with you, David, and we're going
to conquer and how evil this regime of
Saul has become and how wrong spirited they
are and how wrong you've been treated.
And we're going to lash out and God's
going to put them in our hands and
we're going to get vengeance.
And David is, is, is, is there.
And that's why he prays in Psalm 141.
He said, Lord, I cry to you.
This is in the cave.
He said, make haste, come to me, give
ear unto my voice.
Let my prayer be set forth before you
as incense.
In other words, when I lift up my
voice, let it be a sweet perfume before
the throne of God.
And the lifting up of my hands is
the evening sacrifice.
David says in the morning and the evening,
oh God, let my prayer be right.
Let my words be right.
Let my heart be right.
Let it be acceptable.
And David said, set a watch, oh Lord,
before my mouth, keep the door of my
lips, incline not my heart to any evil
thing, to practice wicked works with men that
work iniquity.
And let me not eat of their dainties.
You see, there are men around David who
are speaking and desiring to act in the
heat of their spirit.
There are men that one day are going
to be mighty, but I have to remind
you that at the time they first came
to David, they were not mighty.
They were distressed and they were in debt
and they were discontent.
And that distress and that discontent is working
in them.
It's coming out of their mouths.
And David is sitting in the cave.
I can literally picture him leaning on the
wall saying, God, I don't understand it, but
I trust you and I know your hand
is in this.
I've not, I know my life is in
order and oh God, I, I sense that
this is your path.
I sense that your hand is in this.
God, your hand is still even on Saul.
I don't understand it, but your hand is
on him.
That's why I will not touch him.
I will not touch the Lord's anointed.
Very dangerous thing to touch any man or
woman whom God's spirit is on.
And he says, God, but I'm looking on
my right.
I look on my left and there's nobody
here that wants to, that even at this
point has a desire to understand that sometimes
there are ways of God that we don't
understand.
And they're speaking things and they're talking vengeance
and there's all this wrath pouring out of
their mouths.
And David is saying, don't let me eat
of their dainties.
They're partaking of a table that I don't
want to eat of.
I don't want to go there because I
know there's no victory in there.
David said, I've never seen victory there.
I've never known victory there.
I've only known victory in a pure to
right relationship with God.
In first Samuel 24, you see the situation
where Saul is led right into the cave.
And as the Bible says, he walked into
the cave to relieve himself and David and
his men are inside the cave.
And the men said to David, oh, David,
here's the thing that God spoke to you
of, that he was going to deliver your
enemies into your hand and you could do
with them whatsoever you wished.
Here he is.
They said, smite him, smite him, you know.
And David got up and the Bible says
he just cut off a piece of his
garment, but his heart smote him.
He said, how could I touch the Lord's
anointed?
And with these words, the Bible says he
stayed the hand of those that wanted to
go farther.
He stayed the man, said, no, don't touch
him.
Don't touch him.
He's God's anointed.
And that had been David's cry way back
in the beginning.
God, don't let me eat of their David.
Don't let me eat of this bitter fruit,
this self-induced desire for vengeance.
God, don't let me eat of it.
Don't let me eat of the fruit of
the wounded human heart that wants to take
things into his or her own hands.
God, don't let me eat of that fruit.
Keep me from it.
Verse five, Psalm 141.
He says, let the righteous smite me, it
shall be a kindness.
Let him reprove me, it shall be an
excellent oil, which shall not break my head.
Let the righteous smite me.
Now, the word smite in the Hebrew is
helem, and it means to strike, to hammer,
to stamp, to beat to pieces, to dissolve,
to break up, to scatter.
I don't believe, David, this is not speaking
about righteous reproof.
This is speaking about David saying, God, let
the righteous smite me.
You see, there's quite a difference between when
the unrighteous smite you and the righteous smite
you.
It's an amazing thing.
It's easy for us to pray, oh God,
vanquish my enemies, get rid of my enemies,
let them fall into their own net and
let them fall into their pit, all the
rest of this.
But what do we do?
How do we respond when the righteous smite
us?
When people who are right in the sight
of God, who have the spirit of God
on them, they are children of God, but
for a season, they don't behave like it.
For a season, they give themselves to words
that they shouldn't speak.
And they lash out because they have yet
to understand the depths of walking in Jesus
Christ.
And they lash out to wound and to
hurt and to scatter and to stamp and
to beat to pieces their own brethren.
Amazing.
It happens all the time in the church
of Jesus Christ.
And then as David's men were in the
beginning, then others rise up and start to
lash back.
And there you have really, you have the
foundation of most church splits, most divisions in
the body.
A failure to understand some of the truths
that I'm about to, that the Holy Spirit's
about to open in these scriptures.
David said it shall be a kindness.
Let him reprove me.
It will be an excellent oil.
It won't break my head.
From my study, I come to this conclusion.
David is saying it will bring me into
the fullness of God's person, his purpose and
provision for and through my life.
In other words, David is saying it will
drive me deep into God.
If the righteous smite me, it will be
a kindness because it will drive me deep
into God, who alone can supply what I
need to keep his character and to fulfill
his purpose for my life.
When the righteous smite me, I have no
power to withstand this urge to eat of
the dainties of others around me.
God, you're going to have to come and
give me the ability to forgive.
You're going to have to come and give
me the ability to be gracious.
You're going to have to come.
You're going to have to drive me down
deep.
You see, those who are quick to respond,
quick to anger, never understand these truths.
You see, it's one thing, as I said
earlier, to be smitten by the evil.
It's another thing entirely to be smitten by
the righteous.
And I define righteous as those who are
accepted by God, even though they don't always
act or speak like it, accepted by God.
Think of Joseph in Genesis chapter 37, if
you go there with me very quickly.
Genesis chapter 37.
Think of Joseph heading out a call of
God on his life.
He's aware of this call of God.
And he heads out to greet his brothers
sent there by his father.
In Genesis 37, 23, it says it came
to pass when Joseph was coming to his
brethren that they stripped them out of his
coat.
In other words, I want you to just
go on this journey with me.
They're not just without speech doing these things.
They are saying things.
Hey, dreamer.
Hey, one who thinks he's got a call
of God.
Hey, one who thinks that God's going to
use his life greatly and for his glory.
And as they walk up to him, you
can see the malice in them.
Now, these are brethren.
These are co-inheritors of the blessing of
Abraham, co-inheritors of the promise.
And they're walking up to this young man
who's just in love with the Lord, in
love with God.
He's got all these promises that God is
speaking to his life.
But this envy rises up.
This envy rises up in the righteous.
Yes, they're behaving unrighteously, but they are co
-inheritors of Abraham's blessing.
You have to understand that.
And all of a sudden they're beginning to
act in a way they shouldn't act.
And they rise up and they stripped him
of his coat that was on him.
And they took him, verse 24, and cast
him into a pit.
And the pit was empty and there was
no water in it.
And they sat down to eat bread and
they lifted up their eyes and looked and
behold, a company of Israelites came from Gilead
with their camels, bearing spicery and balm, et
cetera, et cetera.
And Judah said to his brethren, what profits
it if we slay our brother and conceal
his blood?
Come and let us sell him to the
Israelites.
Let not our hand be upon him, for
he's our brother and our flesh and his
brethren were content.
And I want you to picture with me
the rough, the hard speech and the rough
treatment.
You've got to picture Joseph down in the
well.
And later on, when they stood before Joseph
in Egypt, they said, you see, the hand
of God is on us now because we
heard the cries of our brother and shut
our ears to it.
If they heard their brother's cries, I want
to conjecture, at least to some measure, Joseph
also heard their speech, heard their plans to
kill him, heard their plans to sell him
off as a slave.
And you can hear him crying out of
the well.
I'm your brother.
Why would you want to do these things
to me?
I've never harmed you all.
All I have is a call of God
on my life.
And now you're talking about slaying me and
selling me off and taking away the coat
that's on me and concealing my blood and
selling me off as a slave.
And Joseph begins to cry out, but their
hard speeches drown out his plaintive cry to
be released from the grip of their evil.
Now, it's at this place, it's at this
juncture that many of God's people's destinies are
decided.
It's at this juncture that many people fail.
It's at this place that many people in
the body of Jesus Christ, having a call
and a love for God, run into righteous
brethren who are for a season behaving unrighteously.
They run into them and they become the
recipients of hard treatment and harsh words and
unjust accusation and everything else that can come
out of an evilly gripped heart for that
moment.
And they become bitter.
And they become useless in the kingdom of
God.
And they begin to respond like these discontented
men who are on the left and right
of David.
And they begin to lash out and talk
about vengeance and stand up and try to
justify themselves and argue the point and create
all kinds of strife and division, not realizing
that both have fallen into the devil's trap.
The trap being to destroy the effectiveness of
the anointing of God on both sides, on
all lives combined.
Every church split, every split between brother and
brother robs you of the anointing of God.
If you have an issue with a brother
or sister in Christ that is unresolved, you
are robbed to a great measure of what
God wants to do in and through your
life.
Study the Bible all you want, but you
will never go down deep into Christ until
the truths that this psalm begin to be
realized in your heart.
It's so easy to go with the shallow
crowd.
It doesn't require any strength to go with
the shallow.
The shallow crowd rarely see anything beyond their
immediate circumstance.
The shallow crowd have no sense that this
could be the hand of God.
They have no sense that this might be
God's meeting causing me to have to go
to him.
As David said, let the righteous smite me.
It'll be an excellent oil.
Let him smite me.
It's going to be a kindness because when
the righteous smite me, I've got to go
down deep.
I've got to go down deep to find
the resources of God to be able to
be a channel of his blessing in this
situation.
The shallow react quickly and untemperedly.
Somebody says an unkind word and they snap
right back right away.
There's half of the marriages in the church
of Jesus Christ are destroyed by shallow Christianity.
People who say, I love God, but don't
want to ever go down deep.
Don't ever want to find the resource it
takes to be the husband or wife that
God calls us to be to our mate.
Those that are shallow seek relief through vengeance.
The shallow crowd, they said, all right, he
did it to me.
I'm going to do it to him.
He's slandering my character.
I'm going to slander his.
We'll see who gets the best of this.
And never understanding that God may want you
just to hold your peace, just to be
quiet and see that God will always vindicate.
Always.
I say, always vindicate those that are his
always, always.
And tell, let me tell you, it's hard
to be quiet sometimes.
I remember one time years ago, I was
facing an accusation from somebody that I knew
I could literally blow right out of the
water before the congregation.
The Holy Spirit said, be quiet.
It will hurt some of the young people.
It will hurt others in the church.
Say nothing.
So I had to endure being misunderstood for
a season.
It's hard not to speak, but God ultimately
vindicated me.
Ultimately, the truth began to arise because God
will, the anointing does not work with those
who are not walking in right relationship with
him.
God's spirit does not bear witness to a
lie.
The shallow seek relief through vengeance, even though
Jesus says in Matthew 5, 38 and 39,
you've heard that it's been said an eye
for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth.
But I say to you that you resist
not evil.
He's not talking about Christian passivity.
He's talking about these very issues that I'm
talking about.
Don't resist evil.
If someone smites you on your right cheek,
turn to him the other also follow the
pathway.
Christ was saying that I'm going to example
for you.
The shallow rarely understand that all things work
together for good to those who love God
and are called according to his purpose.
But thanks be to God that neither Joseph
nor David did these things.
Instead, they chose to trust.
And so they became inheritors of the deep
resources of God.
In Psalm 145 verses two and three, David
says it this way.
Great is the Lord and greatly to be
praised.
And his greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall praise thy works to another
and shall declare thy mighty acts.
David said, oh, God, I have found you
and I have found your ways and your
greatness to be unsearchable.
It's like a man who says, God, I
have I have dropped down a line with
a lead ball on it to try to
find the depth of this well.
And the world does not contain enough rope
for me to tie together to get to
the bottom.
I cannot find the bottom of this resource.
Just when I think it's run out, it
goes and I find another level and goes
deeper and deeper.
Oh, beloved, when you lay hold of this,
this is the very basis of an exciting
Christian life.
It's the basis of true Christianity.
When you say, oh, God, I have no
resources, I'm absolutely bankrupt.
But you have all the resources of eternity
and beyond.
And God, no matter how much I cry,
no matter how down I get or how
deep I dig, I never get to the
bottom.
Paul said to the Ephesians, unto me, who
I'm the less than the least of all
saints, is this grace given that I should
preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of
Jesus Christ?
Unsearchable.
In other words, they cannot be found out.
You can never get to the end of
it.
You will never get to the end of
God's strength or God's resource or God's supply.
Unsearchable greatness.
Hallelujah.
David says again in Psalm 141, verse six,
he said, when their judges I was talking
about, let the righteous smite me.
He said, my prayer, though, will be in
their calamity.
You see, there's a calamity coming.
Those who use their tongues on inadvisedly will
face the calamity.
You can be sure of it because God
is with them.
Yes, they may be anointed.
Yes, they may be touched of God, but
they will be they will face a calamity.
God will see to it that they face
one.
And David said, my prayer will, yes, they
will try to destroy me, but my prayer
will be for them and their calamities.
Remember David's cry for Jonathan and for Saul.
He said they were stronger than lions and
swifter than eagles.
The genuine compassion that was in his heart,
even after hearing of the death of of
one who had pursued him and tried to
kill him.
He said, when their judges are overthrown in
stony places, then they shall hear my words
for they are sweet.
Verse six.
Now, the judges get the concept of judges
are those truths.
You remember in the Old Testament we had
the book of Judges.
That means those raised up to to bring
to this generation an understanding of God.
In other words, when their understanding is overthrown
in stony places.
In Matthew, chapter 13, Jesus said there are
people who receive the word on stony ground.
They receive it with great joy, but they
have no depth in themselves.
And when they are opposed, they become quickly
offended.
These are people who have received the word
on very stony ground.
There's no depth to them.
And David says their judges are going to
be overthrown in stony places.
Their truths that they're standing on, when they
are opposed themselves, are going to fail them
because there's no depth to what they believe.
There's no depth to the Christ that they
preach or espouse in their heart.
They've never found the depth of mercy.
They've never released the depth of God's mercy.
They've never walked in the depth of God's
covering.
And so when difficult times come to them,
they're going to be their whole truth system
is going to be overthrown.
That's why you find many 15, 20 years
in the church walking away.
I've had enough with God.
I've had enough with his church.
I'll go home and read my Bible by
myself.
They're overthrown in their stony understanding of God.
You see, the righteous, when given to quick
and impulsive action and quick and hurtful speaking,
are showing that they are very shallow partakers
of Christ.
If you have an uncontrolled tongue, you are
very shallow in experience of Jesus Christ in
your life.
Yes, you may have a knowledge of Christ,
but you're very shallow in his presence.
When you are very quick to action, very
quick to anger, very quick to vengeance, very
quick to respond, there's this shallowness in you
that will cause you eventually, if you don't
let God deal with it, will cause you
to be overthrown.
Their standards of truth are thrown down.
And David said, my prayer will be in
their calamities and they will hear my words
for they are sweet.
David says, when they hit the bottom, even
those who tried to hurt me, I'll be
there and I'll be there to encourage them.
I'll be there to pick them up.
I'll be there to help them.
I'll be there to lift them.
You see, this is the evidence of true
Christian character.
So many can profess that I'm living the
deeper life.
And of course, it's generally if you're from
that persuasion, quite often it boils down to,
you know, you have a big bank account.
But the evidence of true Christian character is
the sign that Christ's life is in you
is that when you and I have a
desire to go back as Jesus did and
be kind in whatever way we can to
those who have been responsible for our wounds.
This is Christ.
Christ was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
But on the third day, he rose and
came back and he came back to Peter
who had failed him.
He came back to others who had so
learned truth from him and gotten into such
confusion.
And no doubt there were many who had
said things that they shouldn't have said in
the heat of the moment, in their anger,
in their misunderstanding, quite conceivably said things even
to one another.
But he came back.
And you see, I fail him.
David said, Lord, if you marked iniquities, who
could stand?
When we get to heaven, we're going to
see how many times we failed him in
a day.
But you see, if you're a Christian, it's
not marked against you.
There's no record in heaven.
The blood of Christ covers all of our
sin.
It's an amazing thing.
It's an amazing truth.
And he keeps coming back.
And if I fail him, he comes back.
And if my character fails him, he comes
back.
He keeps coming back, even when I wound
him.
In the way it may be I treat
somebody else in the body of Jesus Christ
or in the way I respond to a
certain situation, he comes back to me.
Thank God he does.
I thank God we don't serve a one
-time God.
Here's your chance.
Blow it and you've lost for eternity.
Blow it, I'll never come back.
But that's the evidence of Christian character.
When I can go back to somebody who
has wounded me and be the channel of
God's blessing to that person, be the channel
of God's encouragement when their situation has come
and they have fallen, when they've finally fallen
into their own trap, when they've finally stepped
on their own tongue and fallen over and
finally they have come to the end of
their resources to find me or you, whoever
it has been that has been victimized by
their speech or victimized.
I'm talking about the righteous.
First, to find you or me at their
doorstep saying, I heard something happen.
I've come to see if I can do
something to help you.
To find a card in the mail that
says, I just want you to know I've
been praying for you and I thank God
for you and I do pray that God
use your life for his glory.
You don't have to go into old wounds.
There's no need for that.
Just words of encouragement.
They pick it up.
You see, that's what the Bible says.
If somebody hurts you, like do a good
deed and you heap coals and fire, that's
not judgment.
That's conscience.
When you do something good to those that
have done evil to you, you are pricking
their conscience to come back to God.
Those are the coals of fire that the
scripture that Christ himself speaks about so that
they may come back and begin to live
for the Lord.
In Genesis 50, you find one day Joseph's
brethren now, after all their hard words and
everything coming into hard times.
Remember, David said, my prayer will be for
them and their calamities.
And when they hit bottom, they will hear
my words.
I'll be there for them and my words
will be sweet.
And Joseph's brethren come before him after their
father has died.
And he says to them in chapter 50,
he says, but as for you, you thought
evil against me, but God meant it to
good to bring to pass as it is
this day and to save much people alive.
In verse 21, he says, now, therefore, fear,
fear you not.
I will nourish you.
This is exactly what David is talking about.
When they hit rock bottom, I will be
there because I've made a choice to go
deep in God.
And I know that those who go deep
in God will have a supply when everyone
around hits rock bottom.
I'll be there and God's supply will be
in my life.
And I will be a representative of Jesus
Christ, who is always merciful, kind and compassionate
to those who are out of the way.
He said, don't be afraid.
I will nourish you.
In other words, God has given me the
supply and I will feed you.
I will help you and your little ones.
It's not just you, but your family.
And he comforted them and he spoke kindly
to them.
He said there will be provision through my
life for you and for your families.
And he spoke kindly.
What did David said?
My words shall be sweet when they hit
when those that have set out to wound
me have hit rock bottom.
I will be there for them not to
rejoice at their downfall, but to pick them
up again.
This is Christ.
This is his church.
This is this is Christian character.
The rest is just empty religion.
This is Christ.
David said in Second Samuel, chapter nine, after
it's all over, after Saul and Jonathan have
fallen, after the armies of Israel have been
vanquished by their enemies, after finally God, his
anointing has brought him to that place where
the people finally recognize that he is for
a season called to be the king of
Israel.
And instead of gloating, instead of sitting at
a banquet table saying, well, it's all got
what he deserved and that all that followed.
So I like Jonathan one time, but he
had to make his choice.
It was me or Saul.
He chose Saul when he got what he
deserved as well and Jonathan's house and all
of his family and the rest of them
and let them all be damned.
Every every one of them.
You see that that would not be the
heart of Christ, that would be David looking
to the left or to the right in
that cave and taking on the spirit of
those men at that time who were with
him.
David cried.
He said, oh, God, don't let me to
their days.
Don't let this be what I feast on.
Don't let this be what motivates me in
the battle.
God, help me to put this away.
I want your life.
I want your spirit.
That was always David's cry.
Psalm 51, he said, oh, God, don't take
your spirit from me.
Oh, God, it's been your presence.
You've always proven yourself to me.
You've always kept me.
You've always held me in the palm of
your hand.
Oh, God, don't let me start to take
control of my own life.
Don't let me start to eat something that's
not you.
Oh, God, keep out of my heart issues
that will destroy your testimony through me and
destroy other people around me that you died
for.
God, keep it out of my life.
Let the righteous spite me, David says.
Let them spite me.
Let them try to destroy me.
It will be a kindness.
It will drive me deep into God.
And when they fail, I will have the
resource that they need.
David's response.
Is there any yet of the house of
Saul that I may show the kindness of
God to him?
I want to show the kindness of God
to the house of Saul.
That was the end result.
Remember, he said my prayer shall be in
their calamity.
And when they fail, when they fall, when
they're overthrown in stony places, they will hear
my words for their sweet.
And then they found one called Mephibosheth, the
lame son of Jonathan's.
And David brought him to himself and said,
fear not, I will show you kindness for
Jonathan, your father's sake, and I will restore
to you all the land of Saul, your
father or actually your grandfather.
And you will eat bread at my table
continually.
Hallelujah.
What a privilege it would be to to
be a man or woman of God who
who who was able to give provision, even
sometimes you can't go back.
Sometimes it's too late.
In Joseph's case, his brethren were still alive
and he spoke while they were living.
In David's case, it was too late.
There's nothing he could do for Saul or
Jonathan, but he could bless his house, their
homes.
And what a wonderful privilege if God someday
even allowed us to bless the children of
those who have wounded our lives, those who
maybe misused their position in Christ and hurt
us.
And we could be used of God to
bless their children, that we could have that
kind of a spirit upon us, which can
only come from Christ.
There's nowhere else you can get it.
It has to come from God.
Now, David, Psalm 141.
Let's let's finish off with Psalm 141, verse
7.
David says, now here's his he's back now
to his present position, really.
And he says, our bones are scattered at
the grave's mouth, as when one cuts and
cleaves wood upon the earth.
David says that we're like a bunch of
people are chopped to pieces by our enemies.
And here we are without strength.
But my eyes are unto thee, O God,
the Lord, and thee is my trust.
Leave not my soul destitute.
Keep me from the snares which they've laid
for me.
Now, I personally believe when he says they,
he's talking about the men in his own
cave.
Keep me from the snares which they've laid
for me and from the djinns of the
workers of iniquity.
If you read on further in David's life,
there were mighty men, but there were also
sons of Belial, wicked men.
They were not all mighty and they were
not all righteous.
There were many mighty, but there were also
wicked men.
And David says, keep me from the snares
which they've laid for me and the djinns
of the workers of iniquity.
Let the wicked fall into their own nets.
But, O God, while I with all escape,
let me escape.
That's got to be the cry of your
heart today.
Oh, God, let me escape.
Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
but let me escape.
God, you've got to come and give me
a heart that natural men can't possess without
God.
You have to give me a supernatural ability
to forgive.
It has to be supernatural.
You have to give me a supernatural desire
to be kind to even those that are
the most unkind to me.
You have to have helped me to see
everything in eternity's perspective.
You have to help me understand that all
things work together for good.
I love you, God, and I'm called according
to your purpose.
So whatever has come into my life, you
have allowed it for a reason.
You have allowed it.
It couldn't come if you didn't allow it.
You are the God of my life, the
God of the universe, so you've allowed it
to come.
You've allowed it to come to me to
drive me deep, O God, into you.
Give me understanding.
Give me the ability.
You see, you can't escape before you have
a new heart and a new nature.
There is no escape in natural ability.
Your natural ability and mine will always fail
us.
We will never get out.
It has to come from God.
It has to be supernatural.
You have to be born again.
You have to have a new spirit, a
new mind, a new heart.
It has to be God-breathed, God-given.
Remember David said, nobody cares for this breath
of God that's on me.
Everybody wants to do their own thing, but
I have a breath of God on me
that tells me I need to be responding
another way.
And I believe in God for the strength
to do it.
I shared in communion time today that unless
you're born again, you cannot see the kingdom
of God.
And today, if you're here without Christ, I
want you to know he died for your
sin, to forgive you, give you an eternity
in heaven with him, and to give you
power to be a new person on this
side of eternity.
I believe there are many backsliders in the
church of Jesus Christ, and perhaps some even
here today who have fallen because your standard
of truth has been shallow.
You've had a standard of Christ, but it's
been a very shallow standard.
And when you face difficulty, you're easily offended,
easily offended.
People come to you and slight you, overlook
some little pet project that you have or
something that you think you should be recognized
for or other things such like.
And you're offended because you're very shallow in
Jesus Christ, very shallow.
Easily take offense and begin to lash back.
Whether or not it's verbal, it's in your
heart, it's in your spirit.
You begin to lash back.
And many backslide because of this.
Backslide because they fail to understand that God
will allow things to deepen you.
You'll never deepen.
We won't naturally deepen.
We are spiritually lazy, every last one of
us in this building.
We're lazy.
We will settle into Canaan's land.
We will build a tent on a tabernacle
on the mountain.
We will just live there in glory land
for the rest of our days.
God says, well, it would be nice.
And it's coming one day.
You're going to live there one day.
But till that day, I'm going to just
allow a few things to come your way
because you've been asking for me.
You've been wanting my nature.
You've been wanting my life.
So I'm just going to send some things
to you that are going to cause you
to have to go down deep.
And that's where you're going to find.
That's the only way we learn, folks.
We just don't learn any other way.
You don't get it all out of a
Bible study.
I heard a young preacher one time get
up and talk about all the things he
suffered.
He used to be like about 20 years
old.
Oh, God.
I'm only 50, and I don't look forward
to the suffering that's coming.
There's been a lot already.
But I remember thinking this young fellow's got
a lot of Bible knowledge, but a very
little experience yet.
But I felt God's going to be with
him.
It's going to.
I remember sitting in my seat thinking this
is really going to hurt.
It's really going to hurt.
He's going to go down deep and God's
going to send something that's going to make
him really go down deep and where it
won't be theology anymore.
Be life experience.
That's why I share with Pastor Neil quite
often that he and I feel oftentimes we're
like woodpeckers trying to peck down an oak
and Pastor Dave steps up here is like
a mighty chainsaw just one sweep down.
It goes because of the life experience.
You know, he's been very wounded.
Those that were here several years ago.
You know, I've never seen a man deeper
wounded in my entire life.
I feared for his life at one point.
I've never seen a man so betrayed or
so hurt in all of my life.
And yet the Holy Spirit told him, say
nothing and do nothing but be kind.
I remember him.
I remember seeing his enemies come with hat
in hand.
Broke, destitute because their calamities had come to
them because of the wrong dealings.
And I remember seeing the kindness.
I wanted to throw them out the back
door.
I kid you not.
I grabbed him by the back of the
pants and say, out you go.
You want it out?
You're out.
But he was kind.
The law of kindness is in him.
And it's life experience that gives you the
power to stand and represent God.
And those that never go through the experience
have a knowledge of God, but they never
know God.
And so I'm very thankful for the furnace.
I'm very thankful for the drive down deep
times.
I'm very thankful.
And I'm even aware of my need, because
if I wasn't, it would be bad for
me and you.
We can escape by allowing him to draw
us into the depth of his comfort.
That's really what allows us to forgive.
He draws us into his comfort and he
comforts us and says, yes, they've hurt you,
but I haven't and I forgive them.
So won't you join with me?
Won't you be the channel of my life
to to those that have wounded you?
Won't you be the channel blessing to them?
I want to have vessels, you see, because
I believe there are many men and women
of God over the years that have been
called of God, but they're sidelined because they
can't get through the the gauntlet of criticism,
the gauntlet of evil speaking gets them.
They can't make it through.
They become bitter.
I remember one time going to visiting a
church when I was in Texas and the
pastor got up and preached on the love
of God.
And he was so angry.
It was such a paradox.
It was like I sit in my seat
like, what is this?
I mean, how we should love one another.
And he's just angry.
He's literally frothing at the mouth and he's
talking about how we should.
He was obviously very angry.
He was very angry at the church and
he was he was bashing them with a
love sermon.
But there's no love in him.
It was not the channel of God's supply.
It was it was one of those messages
like it was just, thank God it's over.
I don't want my life to be like
that.
Imagine you finally die and people say, thank
God it's over.
I have I have preached funerals, folks of
Christians, where the Holy Spirit told me not
to honor the people.
I remember one time the Lord said this.
I've taken this person home, but don't honor
them.
Don't honor them.
You'll confuse their whole family.
You confuse everybody they work with.
They had an uncontrolled tongue.
Don't honor this person because you will you
will mar Christ.
You will mar the testimony of Christ if
you honor them.
It's a very hard place to be sometimes.
David said, let them fall into their nets,
but let me escape.
And he escaped.
He did escape.
God gave him the grace.
And today in the education annex and overflow
rooms, and I know you can't all come
to the sanctuary and in the main sanctuary.
If you are caught, first of all, if
you're unsaved, I want to invite you to
give your life to Christ.
But if you if you are backslidden because
you refuse to forgive a wound or you
are now caught in a snare.
Or you want to lash out, you want
to respond in like kind.
God says, if you'll just draw to me,
I'll give you the grace.
And when they have a need, you'll become
their supply.
If that's in your heart today, I'm going
to ask us to sing a song, the
orchestra would come to the choir.
I'm going to ask you to come and
meet me at the Psalter, and I have
a word for you, and we're going to
pray together this morning.
Would you do that now?
Let's all stand together.
The Holy Spirit drawing you, speaking to you,
you're backslidden.
Come back to God, come back to God,
learn to forgive.
Come back.
Those that are far away from God, come
home, come home to God.
He'll forgive you and teach you how to
forgive those that have wronged you.
Every sinner in this house.
I want you to make your way down
here and say, God, I'm far from you.
I need a new heart.
I need a new nature.
I'm so foreign to everything I just heard.
It's so much not part of me.
I want you to save me today.
And I'm sure that you've been hurt deeply,
but you need to be comforted by God.
And that comfort will give you the power
to forgive.
Let me read to you Psalm 124.
This is David's writing.
He said, if it had not been the
Lord who was on our side, if it
had not been the Lord who was on
our side, when men rose up against us,
then they had swallowed us up quick when
all their wrath was kindled against us.
Then the waters had overwhelmed us.
Now, the waters is always it always symbolizes
the words that are spoken.
The waters would have overwhelmed us and the
stream had gone over our soul.
The proud waters had gone over our soul.
These are proud words, David said, and they
were against the knowledge of God and they
would have overwhelmed us.
But blessed be the Lord who has not
given us as a prey to their teeth.
Our soul is escaped as a bird out
of the snare of the fowlers.
The snare is broken and we are escaped
and our help is in the name of
the Lord who made heaven and earth.
Hallelujah.
The snare is broken.
You see, it's important to understand something.
The snare is not what people have spoken
over your life.
It's what the devil wanted to do to
you because of it.
That's the snare.
And David said, the snare is broken and
we are escaped and we can go back
to a banquet table and invite the children
even of those that have wounded us and
feed them and nurture them and cover their
lameness.
Those that have come to this altar this
morning, you're going to be able to say
you can say actually right now the snare
is broken and I'm escaped.
I'm out of the snare.
The devil tried to put a net on
me, tried to draw me into iniquity and
make me become a vessel of unrighteousness.
But the snare is broken and I'm out.
By God's grace, I'm out.
Hallelujah.
Education annex and overflow here at the altar.
Let's let's all pray a simple prayer together.
Lord Jesus, I cry to you and make
haste to come to me.
Let my prayer be set forth as incense
and the lifting up of my hands as
the evening sacrifice set a watch.
Oh, Lord, before my mouth, keep the door
of my lips.
Help me not to practice evil.
Help me not to do wicked works with
those who do.
Help me not to eat at the same
table.
Now, Jesus, I thank you that you have
forgiven me for the wrong things I have
done.
I confess you alone as my Lord and
Savior, as the source of my life and
my strength.
I ask today that your kindness to those
who wounded you.
I wounded you.
You've been kind to me.
You came back to me.
I ask today that in your strength, in
your strength alone, I might be kind in
my thoughts, in my words and in my
deeds to those who have wounded me.
To those who have wounded me.
I know this can only happen by the
strength of the Holy Spirit.
But you have promised to give me what
I need to be everything that you've called
me to be.
I confess this day that I believe the
snare is broken and I am escaped.
I am escaped by the grace of God.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Thank you, Jesus.
Hallelujah, Lamb of God.
We praise you.
We bless you, God.
We bless you, Lord.
We bless you, God.
I'm free.
I'm free!
By the grace of God, I am free
for the rest of my days.
Hallelujah!
Oh, give Him a shout of glory!
Give Him a shout of glory!
Hallelujah!
Mighty Savior!
Mighty God!
Mighty Lord!
Thank you, Jesus!
3 o'clock, 6 o'clock, we meet
here for prayer before every service.
We're going to go singing today, I'm free,
I'm free.
Jesus broke the chains that bound me, I
am free.
You're free!
You can dance out on Broadway if you
want.
You can shout to God out on the
street, I'm free!
I'm free from the snare of the devil.
Thanks be to God, I'm free.
Let's go singing it today.
God bless you.
This is the conclusion of the message.