Psalm 13:1-6

[0:00] Psalm 13 starting at verse 1 says, How long will thou forget me, O Lord? Forever, how long will thou have my face from me?

[0:12] How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

[0:22] Consider and hear me, O Lord, my God, lighten my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, I have prevailed against him, and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in thy mercy, my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.

[0:43] I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me. And I said it very short Psalm, very simply written. But when you back back up to the first two verses, and the first thing I'd like to point out is there's there's three different things that are that are addressed in this Psalm.

[1:08] The first two verses we see and we see morning, we see morning from from David from the writer, verses three and four we see prayer, and verses five and six we see praise.

[1:22] So we have three different things here, each one of them having two verses attributed to those three different things, and all those things fall in order. But the first two verses again he says, How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, forever?

[1:38] How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Folks, it's not necessarily that Almighty God had forgotten David. We have, we know the scripture well, it's quoted often that the Lord will never leave us nor forsake us. Jesus Christ said that himself, he said that he would go with us all the way even to the end of the world.

[2:11] We have these promises in scripture. One that we, another one that we find in the Bible is that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. So if he made those promises back when he walked with the disciples, back when he was resurrected, folks, those promises have not changed one bit.

[2:32] They haven't changed one eye out of, in the eyes of God. But however, in the minds of men, those promises, they seem to grow weak, when our faith grows weak, those promises seem to be weak. But my God is not a weakling and my God does not make promises that he cannot keep. When he says he will be with us always, he will be with us always. When the Bible says that he's the same yesterday, today and forever, he is the same yesterday, today and forever. Folks, my God will not lie, he cannot lie. Folks, if the Bible says to let God be true and every man a liar, my God is true to his word.

[3:17] The Psalmist here though, David, he asked the question, how long, how long are you going to keep your face hidden from me? How long will these things gonna, gonna take place in my life? Whatever it was that David was facing, whatever it was that was trying him, whatever it was that was, that was diving in and ruining his patience, Almighty God had a plan for it. I can assure you of that, if you look at the book of Job, you see Job, hey, when the first things happened in Job's life and when he lost his family, he lost all his livestock, lost everything that he had. He seemed to take that very well, he seemed to practice good patience, but when his friends came in and they started trying and it went on and on and on. Job, he started to slide just a little bit.

[4:13] Job, he started to go back just a little bit, started to sway just a little bit. Folks, sometimes it is not the trial that we face, but the length of the trial that we face. How many of us have prayed for months, prayed for maybe years, the same prayer and God still has not come through. My God hears my prayers, regardless if he enters the same day, the same week or the same decade, my God hears and he will answer. Amen. David here, this is the same David that made the covenant or that God made a covenant with.

[4:56] Yeah. He made a covenant with him. He said he was going to, he was going to have a king come from David's seed. He said there would be a king come from his lawn.

[5:06] He said the deliverer of Israel was going to come from David, from his royal bloodline. Now folks, that king was not Solomon and that king was not Epsilon and it was not any of David's other children.

[5:22] It wasn't any of his grandchildren, nothing along those lines. That king was King Jesus. He was the one that was promised to come. Why do we see in the gospels these people referring to him as the son of David?

[5:38] It's because they knew that he was the promised one. They knew that he was the Messiah. Even demons in the New Testament referred to Jesus Christ as the son of David. They knew that he was the seed.

[5:55] The Psalmist here says, How long, how long Lord, how long will they'll forget me? The Lord forgets. The Lord forgets how many of you has ever felt like the Lord's forgotten you. How many of you has ever felt like the Lord was nowhere? He wasn't even a blue billion miles close to you or within that distance. Folks, I've been there and you have to.

[6:19] All of us have been in that boat. It don't matter if you've been saved for a day or saved for 15 years. All of us have felt that way. But my God, he lives within me. The kingdom of God is set up in man.

[6:34] When God saved my unworthy soul, he moved in. He cleaned house. The Holy Ghost abides within me now. That's how close my God is. I have no reason to say how long before you don't hide your face from me anymore. How long before you show me yourself?

[6:56] Hey folks, the Bible says that no man can look upon God and live. It's mercy that we don't physically see the presence of God.

[7:07] It's mercy that we don't have that. But we know we have His presence with us. How long without forgetting me, O Lord, forever? How long without hiding your face from me?

[7:23] How long shall I take counsel of my soul having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Folks, how long?

[7:36] This can go on so many different levels. How long am I going to suffer? How long am I going to mourn this? How long am I going to have this sickness?

[7:46] How long am I going to have these financial problems? How long will all these things be in my life? Folks, that list could go on and on and on. But my God is there and He has a purpose for however short of a trial that we face or however alone of a trial that we face. My God has a purpose for that and His purpose for our ways. My desires for that trial to end as soon as possible.

[8:15] His purpose in that is likely to teach me patience, to teach me to trust in Him, just a little bit more. Maybe to teach me to pray a little bit more fervently. I don't know what His purpose is in every trial that comes my way, but I do know that He has a purpose and I praise God that His purpose is outweigh my own desires. My God, my God, the Bible says how long shall my enemy be exalted over me? What is our enemy?

[8:49] Well Satan for one, he's the very top of the list. Satan hates the children of God. Satan hates the world and they don't even care that he hates them. Satan hates everybody and everything.

[9:02] Anything that God created, I promise you Satan cannot stand it. So he's at the top of the list, but our enemy could be in that list that we just named off. It could be sickness, it could be financial problems, it could be mourning the loss of a loved one, it could be so many different things our enemy could and sometimes we feel like that enemy has been exalted above our head, been exalted, been exalted so far above us that we can in no way climb out of the pit that we are in. That enemy standing over top of that pit looking down at us, laughing at our situation, laughing at our grievances, laughing at our sickness, laughing at whatever it is and he stands above us.

[9:46] But my God, I promise you, stands above where the enemy is. He sits above where the enemy is on his throne that he has never left. My God will take care of that enemy one day after a while.

[9:59] My God, he will take care of these problems that we face one day for a born again Christian. We will not face problems, we will not face trials, we'll not face suffering or any of these things.

[10:13] My God will take care of those things. But sometimes it's the length of the trial that drags us down. You look over in the Gospels, you can find it in several of the Gospels including John in John's Gospel, I believe it's chapter six.

[10:34] It's right after thousands of people are fed and it says the disciples, they filed into a boat, they filed into a little ship and they set off across the sea towards Capernaum.

[10:47] They set off to sit off across the lake. Where was Jesus? He was up in the mountain praying. They filed into the boat. Now listen to the other Gospels, I believe Matthew's account, it says Jesus told them to get in that ship and told them to go on, he'd meet up with them later. But in John's account, that's not brought up, it just says they got into the ship and they took off and it says that it became dark and he still wasn't with them. It says it became dark and the winds started to rise up, the storm started to blow up, started to blow up. And folks, the Bible says that they had rode 25 or 30 furlongs out into that water. Folks, I know we don't use that terminology in today's modern English, but a furlong is about 660 feet. They had rode about 25 to 30 furlongs.

[11:39] Folks, that'd be somewhere between three and four miles out in the middle of that water they had gotten, but yet Jesus still wasn't with them. Jesus saw them though. Jesus sometimes, he will let us row just a little while and he'll let us row in the storms.

[11:55] He'll let us row in the rain and row in the wind, not because he's disgusted with us, not because he's disappointed, but it's to try our faith. It's to teach us patience.

[12:06] It's to teach us prayer. Hey, folks, when the gold goes into the, goes into the refiner's fire, the longer the gold is in there, the more dross can be taken off of the top, the longer we're in the fire, the more impurities that God can get off of us. God has a purpose for whatever dross, whether they be long, whether they be short, let God have his will in your life to refine you, to purify you, and to make you more into the image of his Son.

[12:44] Praise God. Consider and hear me into the prayer portions of Psalm 16 and Psalm 13. Consider and hear me, O Lord my God, lot in my night, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say I prevailed against him, and those that trouble me rejoice when I'm moved. Consider and hear me, listen, when this song first started, he's addressing God. He says, how long go Lord of me? You can't address anybody else when you call him Lord like that. He says, how long?

[13:26] How long? But here, it's changed. His prayer is changed. It's changed from murmuring, and it's changed from complaining about his situation. And folks, we're all guilty of that.

[13:39] I'm guilty of it. You're guilty of it. We'll find ourselves in a trial, find ourselves in a bad circumstance, and the first finger we want to point is an Almighty God for putting us there.

[13:50] That God Almighty for allowing us to be there, and we'll point our finger at God and we'll say, why me? Hey, the Psalmist was pretty much saying this in the first two verses of this scripture. Say, why me, Lord?

[14:05] Why have you turned your face from me? Why can't I feel you? Why are you nowhere to be found? But here, in these middle two verses, he begins on a whole different note. He says, consider and hear me, oh Lord my God, blind in my eyes, lest I sleep, the sleep of death. He says, consider and hear me, folks. It's not so much what he says there as the next line. Oh Lord my God, even though he found himself in turmoil, even though he found himself in bad circumstances, he still knew who his God was, and he could still revert to him as the Lord his God. He could still revert to Jehovah God as his own. Folks, we are the same way. It doesn't matter how much we face, how little we face, how long, how short, or anything. Yes, the Lord God is still my God. He is the God of God, and beside him there is no other, and He blessed God is mine. And I can call on Him.

[15:10] I can call on Him on all my trials. I can call on Him in my heartaches. And you know what? I can praise Him when He blesses me. I can praise Him when He blesses me just as much as I can call on Him when I'm in trouble. I can praise folks again when we consider the length of trials here. We can look at this and save people.

[15:34] We can also look at that as a lost person. I hope I went 33 years before God saved me. I was in trial that whole time and didn't even know it. I was in trial. I was being tempted, left and right. I was against God and yet though, yet now I couldn't call on the Lord my God at that point.

[15:55] He wasn't the Lord my God at that point. He was still Lord. Don't you get me wrong? He's Lord over everybody, whether they're saved or whether they're lost. He is the Lord over this universe, whether the universe accepted or not, whether the law center accepted or not.

[16:13] God is God. He is Lord. He is sovereign and no one is able to take those titles from Him. He is Lord but 33 years.

[16:27] I was out on that water like him, Disciple. 33 years. I was out there and he hadn't come. Yeah. But one day he showed up, John 6, that's when he comes walking on the water. Now John 6 ain't quite as dramatic as Matthew's account is because John 6, it says that the disciples just received him into the boat. They don't have Peter's Peter walking on the water with the Lord Jesus in John's account. But regardless, regardless, they were out on that lake. They were, I said, three to four miles out.

[17:01] Three to four miles out in the middle of a body of water, in the middle of the night. The gospel say it was the fourth watch of the night when Jesus came to folks. That was early morning hours.

[17:14] That was very early morning hours that Jesus finally came. But the point is Jesus finally came. Hey, in the other gospel, it says that he saw them toiling and they're rowing. He saw what they were going through. He saw how hard they were working. The Bible says that the wind was contrary to them. Hey folks, the temptations and the trials of this world will be contrary to you because you are a child of God. But God sees us toiling and rowing. He sees how hard we're working against them and God will show up in just a right amount of time to do what he needs to do.

[17:55] That's a promise. I promise you, my God, I'll show exactly what he needs to consider and hear of you, O Lord, gut my God. Lighten my eyes. This can be taken one or two different ways.

[18:09] Lighten my eyes. It says, unless I sleep the sleep of death. But lighten my eyes. That could mean make my eyelids lighter. I don't think that's what he was getting at though. Lighten my eyes.

[18:21] What is God? My Bible says God is light and in him is no darkness at all. It says lighten my eyes folks. Whenever we get in a situation like in the first two verses of this psalm, whenever we feel like our trials never gonna end, whenever we feel like the demons are never going to let up, how's it gonna make us feel? It's gonna make us feel like we're walking around in darkness. It's gonna make us feel like there's no hope to ever see light again. But here in this verse of prayer, here, the psalmist says, he says, lighten my eyes. Hey, let some light in here so that I can see you as my God. Let some light in here so I can see where you're taking me through this. What does the Bible say in Psalms 119?

[19:05] It says, our word is a lamp under my feet and a light under my path. The word of God will light our path. The word of God will be a lamp to our being. It will light our way folks. It'll help us in those darkest of times.

[19:20] This word of God is for you and for me, not as a shelf piece, but for us to read and to study and get closer to God. Amen. Now we can have some more light in that life. Lighten my eyes. Yeah.

[19:35] Consider and hear me, oh Lord, my God. Lighten my eyes, let's us sleep, the sleep of death. Lest my enemy say, I have prevailed against him.

[19:46] And those that trouble me rejoice when I'm moved. This sounds a lot like what Moses says over in the book of Exodus. God got fed up with the Israelites, got fed up with the murmuring, complaining exactly what was going on in the first two verses of this Psalm, murmuring and complaining.

[20:07] God got fed up with those Israelites though. And he said, that's it. I'm going to kill them all. I'm going to get rid of them. And I'll start somebody, I'll start a whole new nation with you, Moses. What did Moses say? What would the surrounding nations think?

[20:21] What would these pagans or these heathens around us think? If you brought your chosen people out into the wilderness, just to let them die. What would they think? Now listen folks, that didn't catch God by surprise. God knew what he was going to say.

[20:37] He knew what Moses was going to say. And he knew how he was going to respond to what Moses said. Ain't none of it caught God by surprise. But hearing this Psalm, it says, Lest my enemy say, I have prevailed against him, folks. I'm a child of God. The enemy will not prevail against me.

[20:55] I preached this morning from Matthew 16. And then that verse where Peter makes the exclamation, thou art the cross, the son of the living God. And Jesus goes on to say that, yes, you said, well, Simon, Bar-Jonah, and flesh and blood hath not revealed this to you, but the Father, which is in heaven, he's the one that revealed it to you.

[21:15] Hey, God is the one that reveals things. God is light. He's the one that's got to show that light. But folks, hey, when after Jesus said that, unto Peter, when he say upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail. I've been a child of God. The gates of hell cannot and will not prevail against me.

[21:38] Lest my enemy should say, he has prevailed, he is overtaken, my God will not allow that to happen to his children. Praise God.

[21:52] My God's got me. He's got me. Praise God. Praise God. Lest my enemy say, I have prevailed against him. And those that trouble me rejoice when I move, folks. Demons will rejoice. Oh, yeah.

[22:08] Satan will rejoice when they move, when they stir us, when they cloud us up in that darkness I was talking about just a little while ago.

[22:19] They'll rejoice over there. That's all they got to rejoice about, though, is that they discouraged us. How does this, how's the first two verses of this sound? Sounds like David was discouraged. Oh, yeah.

[22:31] Even though he knew God and even though God had made covenant with him, even though God had made promises to him, he was still discouraged, folks. I've got promises in this Bible. You've got promises if you're going to get a child of God in this Bible. We've all got promises. There is nothing for us to be discouraged about. There is certainly no reason to think that an omniscient God is in danger of forgetting about me.

[23:00] Isaiah 49. Isaiah 49 says that Zion felt like God had forsaken him. He said, the Lord's forsaken him.

[23:12] Well, how does God respond to that? He said, could a sucking, or could a mother forget her sucking child? Could she forget and not have compassion on the son of her womb? And he goes on to tell Zion, he says, he says, I have you graven in the palms of my hands.

[23:31] I have you, hey, folks, I understand that was written to a bunch of Jews. I understand that, but folks, hey, my God's not going to forget me anymore. He will those Jews that he made that promise to in the Book of Isaiah.

[23:42] My God will not forget me. He cannot forget me. It is impossible for him to do so. My God has got me. That's all I have hoping. That's all I have faith in. He said, I got saved by the blood of Jesus Christ and the Almighty God is keeping me. He is holding me.

[23:59] He's got me on the path and he will not let me go. Hallelujah. But I have trusted in thy mercy. Never get to praise, praise God.

[24:11] I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord because he had dealt bountifully with me. So we have morning verses one and two. We have prayer verses three and four. Now we have praise. I have trusted. I have trusted. I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.

[24:38] In thy, not mine, but in thy God's salvation. I shall rejoice in thy salvation, folks. Salvation is not of us and it can never be of us and it doesn't matter what kind of what kind of walk that we have. It doesn't matter what kind of deeds that we have.

[25:00] Salvation is not and has never been of man. It has never been of man. It has always been of God. The Bible says that the Bible teaches that salvation is of the Lord and that the Lord is salvation. It is not of me. It's never been of me and it cannot be of me. No preacher is able to save.

[25:21] No teacher is able to save. No deacon is able to save. No lame members. No one is able to save. The pope ain't able to save. And bless God. Mary the mother of Jesus is not able to save.

[25:33] Only Jesus Christ, the fruit of her womb, is the one that is able to save. Only His shed blood is the one that washes away all sin and is the only one that is able to save or has ever been able to do so.

[25:48] Don't let the world tell you otherwise. I have trusted in thy mercy. He's trusted in thy mercy and God's mercy. The Bible gives us warning not to trust in princes, not to trust in men in general, but to trust in God.

[26:06] He says, I've trusted in thy mercy. Folks, God is mercy. God's all kinds of things and mercy is one of them. God is mercy. He's the epitome of what mercy is.

[26:21] He showed mercy in the death of Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. That was the greatest show of mercy that the world has ever known, that the world has ever seen. And people look at that picture and they'll see that bloody pulp that was hanging there on the cross. That is my Savior.

[26:37] And they'll look at that and they'll say, how was that merciful? Folks, it wasn't merciful to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ took the punishment for sin that you deserve and that I deserve. I deserve to be whipped.

[26:48] I deserve to be beaten. I deserve to have my beard plucked out. I deserve everything that Jesus Christ got, but Jesus Christ took it upon himself so that I would not have to. That's mercy.

[27:03] That's mercy. Says I have trusted in thy mercy. Now keep in mind this is David. This is a thousand years before Jesus Christ was born, but yet he understands that God is his only way of mercy and his only way of salvation. I have trusted in thy mercy.

[27:23] My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation because of his mercy shown through Jesus Christ. Shown through Jesus Christ we can rejoice in his salvation because of his God's mercy. We can rejoice in his God's salvation.

[27:43] Folks, it's not our mercy and it's no man allows mercy. It's no man dead. Mercy is none of those things. The only man dead has been resurrected that has anything to do with mercy.

[27:58] Mercy and he lives forever at the Father's right hand, making intercession for you and I and that is just an extension of the mercy of God. Amen. I have trusted in that mercy folks.

[28:12] That's what we got to do. Through these trials, through verses one and two, we trust in the mercy of God. We trust that those trials won't last forever. Hey those disciples, they were out there on that lake. They're out there in the middle of the night, the wee morning hours and he still hadn't come.

[28:30] But mercy made its way across the water. Oh yeah. Mercy made its way to where the disciples were and people say, hey that was disciples. That was his hand-picked crew that he went out there.

[28:43] Folks, we are his hand-picked crew. I don't know if you've ever read the terms in scripture what the elect is but we are the elect of God. If you're a saved born again child of God, you are the elect.

[28:55] You are the ones that receive his mercy. You're the ones that receive his grace. Folks, we are the elect of God and it's through his mercy that we can rejoice in his salvation. But it took that mercy first.

[29:10] It took God to be merciful to us but being cruel and bruising his own son on the cross of Calvary before we can rejoice in his salvation.

[29:21] But now we can rejoice. Now we can rejoice because we've received that salvation. The cause of the mercy shown and what does that lead to? That leads to praise. Yeah, verse 6, I will sing unto the Lord because he had dealt bountifully with me. Now folks, pay attention.

[29:42] Pay attention. Read verse 1 again. How long would thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long would thou hide thy face from me? Then read verse 6.

[29:52] I will sing unto the Lord because he had dealt bountifully with me. We've gone from questioning if God was even with us to say and I will sing unto the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. We've gone from doubting that God was even with us.

[30:11] The psalmist had, he had gone from doubting that God was anywhere near him, that God had done turn his back, turned his face, left him for dead. And in just a few verses, in just a few verses, we read, I will sing unto the Lord because he had dealt bountifully with me.

[30:30] Folks, what did it take for him to get there though? It took verses 4 and there verses 3 and verses 4. It took some, some fervent prayer under God. It took some, some prayer under the maker. It took some petitioning under God who was able to enter those prayers. But once those prayers got answered and once David remembered the mercy that he entrusted in, he remembered then that he could rejoice in the salvation and that caused him to praise God in song because that was God's faithful dealing with his servant.

[31:07] And it's no different for the church now. Absolutely no different for the church. All those get burdened down. All those have problems. All those have issues. Listen, some of them, some of them self-inflicted too. We get ourselves into a lot of messes.

[31:27] Oh yeah. And I, I ain't immune to that. I've gotten myself in more than I could probably count since I've been saved.

[31:38] Certainly did a lot before I got saved, but since I've been saved, I've gotten myself in some jams. And folks, that doesn't mean God turns his back on me. That doesn't give me any right to look up to the heaven and say, as the psalmist is here, how long without forget me, oh Lord. God didn't forget me. Maybe I just went straight a little bit to the left.

[32:02] Maybe I went straight a little bit to the right. Maybe though it was neither of those. Maybe it is God saying, you have told me to make me more and more into the image of my son.

[32:17] Now I'm going to do it. Now I'm going to mold you. Now you're going in that melting pot. You're going in that, that refiner's fire. And I got to heat you up for that to happen. You're going up on that potter's wheel and that clay, that clay that you're made out of, I'm going to have to form it.

[32:34] That means I'm going to have to squeeze it. I'm going to have to get the air bubbles out of it. I'm going to have to rub my hands up and down. And hey, if I ain't satisfied with the end result, I'm going to smash it down and I'm going to build you right back up again. Folks, that is how those things work. It is no different for the life of a Christian. The life of a child of God is no different.

[32:55] We pray these things all the time. Lord God, please guide and direct me. God make me more in the image of Jesus Christ. Lord, make me a better Christian than if we're asking God to do those things when he starts to refine us, when he starts to scrape the dross off the top, when he starts to mold us on the wheel, we need to let him and not jump off the wheel.

[33:19] No. Not jump out of the pot. Yeah, it hurts. Yeah, it hurts, but folks, once again, this almost here, it wasn't the child he was facing. It was the length of the trial that he was facing. It was the length of the trial that he was going through, whatever it was. Listen, Saul chased David for a long time. Saul wanted David dead. Oh yeah. Saul in his army, David and his 600 men, but God still came through with David. Why was that? Because David was God's chosen.

[33:59] Saul was not. No. Saul, now people will say, God God made Saul king. He did. Yeah. He gave Israel a king when they whined and complained, said, we want a king like all these nations around us, but the Bible says he gave him that king in anger. Yeah.

[34:16] He gave him that king in his fury. He gave him that king in his discontent with how they were acting. Saul was not the chosen one of God. David was. And David saw all these days and he saw Saul coming after him. Hey, Saul tried to try to kill David. Had two opportunities in the scripture. He could have killed Saul, but he said, I won't touch the Lord's anointed. Yeah, God had put him in that position, but God had anointed David as king over Israel.

[34:46] And after that second time, Saul even acknowledged that. He said, he said, surely you are, you are the Lord's anointed. You are the one to be king over Israel and not me, but that's a whole other sermon.

[35:01] I will sing unto the Lord because he had dealt bountifully with me. Folks, God has dealt more than bountifully with us. If we're saved, he has dealt more than bountifully with us.

[35:13] Hey, if anybody sitting in here lost tonight, he's still dealing bountifully with you because you ain't in hell right now. That's still bountiful dealings. That's still mercy that is available. That's still a way of escape that's available. That's still bountiful dealings from Almighty God that is still there for the taking.

[35:33] But David here, after his morning and after his prayer, he saw reason to praise God. Folks, all we need to do is look back at how many times God has delivered us. How many times has God opened the red sea for us in our own lives? How many lines then has God brought us up out of? How many of these trials and these temptations and these problems that we've had in our life? Has God made deliverance on? Why do we doubt for a second that he will continue to do so? My God will not forget me.

[36:06] My God is mine and I am his praise God. So the last verse, I will sing praise. I will sing praise now. Folks who read that will say I will sing unto the Lord because he had dealt bountifully with me. Folks who read that will say well I can't sing. We said it just this morning. Make a joyful noise. I can't sing with my noses in this kind of shape but that didn't stop me from doing it.

[36:35] And there's some people out there, hey I've heard people, y'all probably heard them too, in church services couldn't carry a tune in a book, couldn't play a radio. But they'll get up and they'll try and sing one of the hymns of Zion and it's got more spirit in it than I've ever dreamed of having in my own singing and some of the best singers that I've ever heard in my life. It's got more spirit. Why? Because they ain't worried about their voice. They've been through this morning in verses one and two and they've been through the prayer in verses three and four and they and they've seen God answer those prayers and they've moved on to five and six and to praise and God.

[37:14] Regardless of who's around, regardless of who says what, they'll still get up and they'll sing the songs of Zion, they'll praise God, they'll lift the holy hands. Why? Because they have trusted in his mercy and they are rejoicing in his salvation. And that's all it takes.

[37:33] That's all it takes for any of us is to trust in his mercy that he showed us through Jesus Christ and through rejoice and his salvation that he is imparted into us through Jesus Christ and we can sing praises unto the Lord because through Jesus Christ, folks, it's all through Jesus Christ and it's all through Jesus Christ.

[37:58] Through Jesus Christ, he has dealt bountifully with us. Folks, it's a whole lot better than how he could have dealt with us. In fact, it's a whole lot better than how he should have dealt with us.

[38:11] If you're honest with yourself and I'm honest with myself, I deserve hell and you do too and you're not the only ones either. Your children deserve it, your parents deserve it, your brothers and sisters deserve it, we all deserve it but because we can rejoice in the salvation of the what is salvation, that's saving us. That's saving us and keeping us.

[38:35] That's God imparting something to us by grace, by grace that we don't deserve and by his mercy, we don't deserve those things.

[38:48] So he has dealt bountifully with us therefore we can sing unto him.