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Bro. Dave Huber II
Welcome everyone. I am filling in for me today.
I was supposed to be prepping for this Sunday school lesson and we had a, we had quite a week with our house trying to get things ready so that we can move in, running into all kinds of big problems which delayed things.
And so I was offered by Ben to be filled in by Ben to do the
Sunday school lesson. He was gonna have it all ready to go to just kind of take the pressure off of me.
But his babies are all sick and so I told him last night or this morning
I said, hey I've got a lesson ready to go and so if you need to stay home with those babies, you can.
And he said, well you are officially filling in for you now. I thought that was funny.
But we are going to be in chapter 18 of the
Psalms and I am now enjoying Ben's cappuccino that Matt brought for him, not knowing
Ben wasn't gonna be here. So Ben, thanks for the cappuccino as well. I will savor it.
I will do you proud. I'll savor it the way you would want me to savor it. So we're in Psalm 18 and last week we looked at the events leading up to David writing this
Psalm. So everything that was leading up to David writing the 18th Psalm, we looked at just the gauntlet of despair that he was going through, all the different things that occurred because as a result of sin, he was punished in a lot of ways.
We looked at how his oldest son violated one of his daughters, his third oldest son ends up killing his oldest son, and then later turning on him.
Prior to all of that, he had lost a child that practically birthed. Seven days into being alive, the child was taken.
And all of that was told to David. It's gonna happen. You're going to suffer because of your sin.
And knowing that the suffering was coming and enduring the suffering, there's so much of it,
Absalom ultimately rising up against his father, turning the whole nation against his father, turning his advisors against his father, his family, his friends, his people, all turning against him.
The Lord allows him to prevail against Absalom, but his men kill
Absalom. So now he has lost another child, this time in defiance to his father and to God.
And so this child is a much worse loss, at least with the child that was lost at childbirth.
David had hope of seeing that child again in the future. This one, it's just an absolute total loss and it's got
David at his wits end. He's reprimanded by Joab, one of his most loyal men, who has pretty much told him that if he doesn't stop crying and get to work, he's gonna experience a much worse fate.
So David does as he's advised and he gets to work. And that's when he starts writing the psalm.
And he started it with the resolve to love the very Lord who had taken so much from him.
He's truly a man after God's own heart. And so that's where kind of where we left off last week is
David's resolve to love the Lord and to praise him.
But this psalm is not just about David. Who else is it about?
Who do y 'all think? This happens a lot with the psalms.
Who else is this psalm about? Jesus. In fact,
David is a type or picture of Jesus. And while David committed the sin that he's being punished for, he also committed the sin that Jesus is going to be punished for.
So did many of us, right? Like all of us. We all sinned. And Jesus, just like David, is going to feel the punishment that David felt, but on a much deeper, much grander scale than David felt.
Jesus experienced betrayal by his people, just like David experienced betrayal by his.
The Jews cried out, crucify him! Crucify him! Asking instead for the murderer
Barabbas. And like David, Jesus was also betrayed by his close friend,
Judas Iscariot. We were talking about Judas on the way up here. Who, for 30 pieces of silver, delivered him unto his enemies.
David felt the bitter betrayal of his son. Jesus cried out to his father, my
God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now I want to be clear, the father did not betray the son, in this sense.
But I imagine the feelings were there when he's crying out to the father.
The father turns his back on the son. The feelings of hopelessness are there, similar to what
David felt when his own family turned their backs on him. So as David writes the 18th
Psalm, it is Jesus we should picture who is saying these words. All right?
And so the Psalm, of course, started off with a unshakable resolve to love the
Lord and to recognize that it is the Lord who is his strength.
And we went all through the different pictures of strength and shielding and rock and fortress and high tower from last week.
This week, we're going to pick up on the verse that we ended on last week, which is,
I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, so shall I be saved from mine enemies.
And so that's where we're starting. And I want us to think about Jesus hanging on the cross, saying those words.
All right? So now we'll be in verse 4, but I want you to start by thinking on verse 3 a little bit.
Remember, that's like a song that we've sung in church so many times. Verse 4, the sorrows of death compassed me.
The sorrows of death. The word sorrows means a cord, a rope, a territory, a band, or a company.
That's one sense of the word. Another sense of the word is pain, sorrow, travail.
And so when you put these two flavors, if you would, of the word together, it's like an encompassing pain, which is perfect of a word.
This is the word for sorrow, but it's the sorrows of death compassed me, right?
So if you can just imagine for David, this might be the paralyzing trauma of the loss of his son, right?
It's just this all -encompassing trauma, this pain that just completely surrounds and closes in on you.
For Jesus, the physical reality of death is actually closing in. So you have pain in the physical sense, but also in so many other senses, mental, emotional, spiritual pain that Jesus is experiencing, and it's just closing in on him like a rope being tied around somebody.
This is what Jesus is experiencing on the cross. And so as we read through this
Psalm, we imagine Jesus saying these words as if there's an internal mental process going on as he's looking around him and he's feeling all these things.
These sorrows of death have just compassed me. It's just closing in. It's a really terrifying thought.
There are not too many things I'm afraid of in life or that could cause me to panic. I do really well under pressure, and I've been in some scenarios where fights could easily break out.
I've been in some scenarios where fights did break out, and I tend to keep my calm and think through a situation.
But there is something that has always gotten me, even from childhood, and that is being pinned, being held down where I can't move.
I'm a little bit claustrophobic. I've learned to overcome that fear quite a bit and continue to think through a situation, but being pinned or trapped, it's probably my biggest fear.
I would rather burn to death or drown.
I'd love, I mean, if I had to die, drowning might be a great way to go because at least I'd be in water, and I love water.
But being pinned in rubble, I think of those people in 9 -11, right? They got trapped in the buildings, and I'm like, that is absolutely terrifying to me, to just be trapped and not being able to move.
And that is what the sorrows of death begin to feel like. For Jesus, He's pinned to the cross.
He's not able to move. And at the same time, there's this emotional and mental and spiritual trapping around Jesus that's just closing in on Him.
It's absolutely terrifying. It's the worst way to go. The floods of ungodly men made me afraid.
It is a fearful thing for evil to increase. Peter felt it when they took his
Lord and betrayed Him and started to flog
Him and stuff. Peter felt the floods of ungodly men rising, and he became afraid, just like God told him
He would. Jesus told him, you're going to deny Me. And ultimately, He did. He denied the
Lord three times. Elijah saw the rise of evil in Jezebel as she cut off the prophets of God.
He feared for his life, even though he had just done some amazing miracles, like defeated the prophets of Baal.
Call down fire from heaven. Let's see if it works for you. Nope. Oh, now you're cutting yourselves and you're dancing before your false
God and nothing's happening. Oops. Ha ha. Let me try. Hey, come douse this in water.
Lord, please burn it. It's an amazing story, and Elijah had just experienced that.
He'd also prophesied rain from a itty -bitty tiny cloud, and then this
Jezebel, this rising ungodliness, turned its attention towards him, and he got scared.
He ran and fled to a cave, you know, and he's like, I'm the last one left.
He felt the rise of evil. So it's a fearful thing. Adam and Eve experienced a rise of evil from within, like inside themselves.
Once they ate of the fruit of the knowledge... I always get this.
It's hard for me to say so many words. The fruit of the tree, the knowledge of good and evil. See, it's a whole lot to say. Once they ate of that fruit and their eyes were opened to both good and evil, they felt that rise of evil, and what did they do?
They ran and hid. So like when evil rises, it's a very fearful thing, especially to God's people, and these are all examples of God's people running and hiding, or even in Peter's case, denying
God. When we focus on the rise of evil, that's when we'll get scared, and we have to turn our attention from that rise of evil to the rule of God, because it doesn't matter if evil rises.
If God rules, evil will not rise to the level of God, period. It can't.
It does not have that capability. So when we take our eyes off of his rule and start looking at the world's rise, we will be fearful like these people, and Jesus was tempted in this point as well, even on the cross.
It says, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid, but watch what happens next.
We're definitely seeing, by the way, a rise in evil in America. The ungodly are increasing.
Crime is up. Drug use is up. Murder is up. Kidnapping is up. As many of you know, our family had a close brush with such a case.
We had someone who attempted to take Sam while we were in Bucky's and Ennis, and that definitely caused a little fear in our family.
Just the brazing, I don't even know how to explain it.
It's just like, it was a very brazen attempt. Broad daylight, bunch of people,
I'm gonna try and take your kid from you. That's pretty incredible.
Evil has risen to some, I would say, unprecedented levels, but not really.
You know, I mean, it may, the scripture tells us that in the last days, it'll be as in the days of Noah.
Oh, there were a lot of good things that were happening in the days of Noah, but a lot of bad things that happened in his day as well, and the
Lord ultimately just vanquished it all, which he'll do again, but that also tells me that we're not quite there yet, because he hasn't vanquished yet, so maybe we're not as evil as they were back then, but sure seems like, at least in our lifetime, it's unprecedented, the amount of evil that we're seeing around us.
David sees his nation rise against him, following an ungodly ruler.
Is that something that maybe we're seeing right now? Our nation rising against God's people, following ungodly rulers, and it even causes
David, a mighty man of war, the slayer of the giant Goliath, it causes him to become afraid.
The rightful king, he's afraid, so it's not like you can reach a point where you are immune to this.
Even Jesus was afraid at some point, but he brings that fear under submission and focuses on something else, because Jesus definitely experienced the fear of the most.
Ungodly men, not only rising up against him in rebellion to his message, but he faces this while simultaneously taking upon himself the sins of his people.
Millions of us, all at once, so all of us at one point were ungodly.
Truth, right? We were all ungodly until the Lord changed us. We're all worthy of eternal damnation, and he bore all of that as he climbed the hill to Calvary, being beaten, being bruised, throngs of persecutors just laughing and scorning him, soldiers mocking him as he hung on the tree.
I mean, there's a distinct rise of evil around him, right? But also, imagine the evil being placed upon him at the same time.
The amount of sins just being put, almost like Adam and Eve realizing or feeling what it felt like to have sin on them for the first time.
Jesus feeling that, though he didn't sin. He was innocent.
Adam and Eve were innocent. He was innocent, and yet he got to feel what they felt, but magnified times infinity, right?
And having that evil rise and just build upon him while evil is rising around him.
I can't imagine the weight. I can't imagine the feeling of trapped that he must have been experiencing there.
Verse 5, the sorrows of hell compassed me about. If the sorrows of death closing in on our
Lord and the floods of ungodly men demanding his demise are not enough, if the weight of the sins committed past, present, and future was all he had to bear, it would be too much.
I can't imagine even just that part, right? But he's experiencing the sorrow of hell itself.
Who cares to speculate what the sorrow of hell is as opposed to the sorrow of death or the rise of evil?
Okay, close, right? The sorrow of hell is an eternal feeling, right, of damnation.
Of course, we know that our Lord wasn't, he wasn't damned. He wasn't, he's not going to be there, but he is an infinite being experiencing an infinite feeling, and that feeling in the moment is separation from God.
When the Lord turns his back, that's what hell really is. When you are eternally separated from God, that's, it doesn't get worse than that.
Why? Because that is the most hopeless state anyone could ever be in. Whether things are good or bad, it is most hopeless if you don't have the
Lord. And so when you are in hell, obviously nothing's good, but there's also zero hope.
And so while Jesus is experiencing the sorrows of death, literally, like, creeping upon his body, he's also having his
God, my God, my God, why have thou forsaken me, turn his back, and experiencing a feeling that because he's an infinite being,
I don't even know how that works within the realm of time and space, but like, I have to think from a, from a logical perspective, and of course this is just man's little, like, baby logic.
I know God's logic is so much better than ours, but like, from man's logical perspective, if an infinite being experiences this infinite feeling, it never really goes away to some degree.
Like, in other words, there's an infinite change. And that's the kind of sacrifice that Jesus was willing to make for us.
It doesn't mean that he's, that he's infinitely in hell or infinitely separated from the
Father. We know that's not the case. He is with the Father, right? Because he rose again and he is set down on the right hand side of the
Father. So he's reunited with him and he has reunited us with the Father. But because of the way time and space work, at least from our limited viewpoint, it may be different.
And I try to, I try to understand that just through, like, human interaction. Have you ever had something happen where maybe there was a break in a relationship and that relationship got mended and it was good again.
But because of that history, even though it was good and maybe to some, in some ways became better, it was different, right?
Like it could be different. It doesn't mean it has to be bad. It could be, it could be better in many ways, but it could just never quite be the same because there's something that happened, right?
So because we're dealing with infinite beings here, the Father and the Son, we know that they, they will always be closer and closer and closer and better and better and better with each other.
But it was all part of the plan that it would also be different. That's a,
I mean, imagine your best relationships and never wanting those relationships to change because you just love the way the relationship is right now.
And you don't want anything ever to change about it because it's in your mind, it's perfect the way it is in order to get to the point where you'd be willing to give that up and let it change for the good of someone else.
That's a big sacrifice. And that's what Jesus did for us. So the sorrows of hell compassed me about, he's, he's feeling not just the pain of death and the rise of evil, but the separation from God.
The snares of death prevented me. The word for prevented is kadam. I think
I said that right. It means to meet, come or be in front, confront, go before.
In other words, it's like right here. It's like right in front of you. So when he says the snares of death prevented me, it's like death is at the doorstep.
Here it is. We don't know what that feels like because we haven't experienced approaching our own death, but Jesus hanging on the cross is experiencing that.
It's right here. It's like he can, he can sense it. He can feel it. He can see it. It's the word prevented makes us think, well, it's keeping us from doing something.
Right. But really what it means is it's like before him, it's in front of him.
Almost, almost like it's preventing him from moving in life beyond this point.
But that makes sense. So that may be why they chose the word prevented because my life can't continue past this point of death.
I am prevented from living beyond that. And so Jesus is feeling that for David, the situation seems hopeless.
When your friends and family turn on you, trying to kill you, how do you survive for him?
He may be feeling like this is it. I'm about to die. My country's against me.
My friends are against me. My own family's against me. I'm toast. So for David, he may be feeling like death is at his doorstep, but for Jesus, the situation doesn't just feel hopeless.
It is hopeless. It's completely hopeless, at least until the point of death.
He knows he'll rise again, but the snare of death is more than just a possibility for, for Jesus.
Like it was for David. David, he's like, I'm, they could get me. I can possibly die.
Jesus is they've got me. I'm, I'm dying. I'm here.
I'm on the cross. It's happening. I'm not escaping, which is really interesting because we know even in that moment,
Jesus is all powerful. How do we know? Well, when Satan tempted
Jesus on the mountain, he told him to throw himself down. Uh, and the angels would save him lest he dash his foot upon the rock.
Y 'all remember that? Well, what does that mean about heaven? That means when heaven sees
God's son in trouble, they come a Russian, right? And so some people go, well, if Jesus was all powerful, then how could he die on the cross?
Jesus was holding back all of heaven while he's dying on the cross.
Every angel wanted to come and rescue him. That's how powerful he was. Not only is he taking on all of the sorrows of death and the rise of evil and the sorrows of hell and, and the snare of death is right at his doorstep at the same time, he's not allowing the angels to come and save him.
Very powerful. And so it's interesting that he's like, they've got me in a sense.
It's like, I'm, I'm about to die because he knows he's, he's giving that up.
And he does. He it's interesting how the scripture words it, that he gives up the spirit, you know, as if it was just something he let, they couldn't take it from him.
In other words, he had, he had to give it willingly. Um, it was imminent.
Death is there is just about to happen. And at that moment, when it's about to happen, we get verse six in my distress,
I called upon the Lord and cried into my God at the imminent threat of death.
What do people do? Like I'm about to die.
What do they tend to do? Maybe pray, right? What else? Cry, scream for help.
Right? First, right before that moment of I'm no one's coming right there, there are hopeful that maybe someone will come.
They all do this help anybody, anyone out there, the call, right?
And if the call comes unanswered, it turns into a cry, right?
A plead please anybody. And that's when people I think start to turn to God.
A lot of times if the Lord allows them time, they might start praying to a
God. They've never known even, and it's a desperation, right?
Well, look at how verse six is, is worded in my distress.
I called upon the Lord and cried into my God. There's like this calling out and then almost a point of desperation that we see.
And in the same verse, you get the answer. Check this out. He heard my voice out of his temple and my cry came before him, even into his ears.
The most amazing part of crying out to God is that he hears us.
And it's not like he hears about us, you know, like some, sometimes you might imagine like when you try to picture
God hearing you in heaven and him sitting on his throne. Sometimes I picture what we'd see in the movies, like a messenger running up,
Lord, Lord, Dave Huber's calling. Here's his message, you know, but that's not how it works.
Uh, it's not like someone's saying, David needs you, Lord. He actually hears the cry himself, the calls and the cries literally go right into his ears.
Now, somebody described to me, what sounds do you think you might hear in heaven?
If you just close your eyes and you imagine being in heaven, imagine what you've read about heaven.
Imagine what you've read about what goes on in heaven. What kind of sounds might you hear?
Singing, laughing, joyful noises, trumpets, music.
It's a kingdom with the greatest King. Imagine the work and the busyness and the hustle and the bustle.
And we know that Jesus is preparing a place for us. He's building things. I mean, does that mean there's hammers and nails and like,
I don't know, like things are going on up there and it's, it's construction zones and it's singing and it's trumpets and it's loud and it's noise.
And yet through all of that, your calls and your cries make it into God's ears.
Imagine what that must be like. Psalm 69 says, let heaven and earth praise him.
So not only do you have all of that noise going on in heaven, but you've got noise on earth that rises to heaven.
We know that Cornelius, his prayers and his tithes rose as a memorial in heaven.
Those were prayers and tithes that were acted on here on earth. Like he was doing that on earth and it rose as a memorial in heaven.
Scripture tells us that. So now you've got noise in heaven. You've got noise from earth, all the sounds and hustle and bustle of King, the
King of Kings, giant kingdom being expanded, being built.
And then all the noise on earth, all of the, the scripture tells us that he hears the cries of his people.
So you've got probably more than one person at a time, crying all that noise.
And his scripture, 1 John 5, 14 says, and this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything, according to his will, he hearth us.
So not only does it make it into his ears, you can have confident that he confidence that he heard you.
That's wild. But guess what? You get a type or picture of this on earth.
You can experience something similar to this on a very low level, like a human level and parents, you know what
I'm talking about? You're having fun. You're enjoying a great conversation with all the adult friends, laughing, joking, maybe playing a game, eating some chips, rustling of the bags, right?
You hear the kids playing in the back. That's way louder than the chips, jumping around, wrestling, chasing each other.
I'm always reminded of Matt and Ben when they were little, we are at war. I repeat, we are at war. They would always say that it was always loud.
And yet at some point a call or if they're younger, and then what do you wait for?
Right? Like everything stops through all the noise that you experience, like that cry, you hear it.
And sometimes it's just the parent, right? Like everybody else is still working and having fun and playing and talking.
Then all of a sudden they're talking with the parent and the parents focused and paying attention to everything that's being said.
And then all of a sudden they're completely diverted. And it's like, oh, and we hear it.
And when the parents attention gets diverted to the child, what happens to everyone else?
What does everybody else do? We, we all, yeah, we all go, oh, wait, huh?
And all of our attention gets diverted too. So I imagine that kind of thing happens in heaven. Think about that.
The Lord doing the work, having fun with his people, conversations, teaching.
No, that's not how it worked on earth. Let me show you how it actually worked. You know, having these deep theological discussions.
He's right now, he's getting tons of questions from brother Otis, brother Bill, he's deep in conversation.
They're all drinking coffee. And then all of a sudden brother Bill and brother
Otis are like, oh, his attention's diverted. What's going on? You know, like that kind of stuff's happening.
It's really cool. Dads, you know what the feeling is like? Cause it's not just like a, it enters into your ear because when you have that feeling and you come running to the rescue, you're going to see the dad feeling described here in just a minute.
Verse seven, then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken because he was wroth.
What? Wroth. Now, Ben, you're going to enjoy this. Ben and I talk about this all the time.
He's not here. I'm drinking his cappuccino and loving every drop. Thank you,
Ben. But he and I talk about this a lot. Like when, when that cry comes out, something has happened.
We almost immediately just get angry. Like why is my kid hurt?
You know, like we stand up and sometimes we're a little upset at the kid. Like I told you not to do this and you did it anyway and now you're hurt.
But like the immediate reaction for a father, David and I have talked about this too.
He's like, it almost makes you mad when your kids get hurt. Right? Like you stand up and it's like, ah,
I got to go take care of this. Right? Well, that's what we see here. Then the earth shook and trembled and the foundations.
Also the hills moved and were shaken because he was wroth. Now I want you also to notice how quickly
God responds. Spurgeon says the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, but is swift to rescue his afflicted.
I like the way he says that. But also my question is, why does it feel like so often we are left waiting for the
Lord to rescue us? Any ideas? Why does it feel like we were having to wait for the
Lord to rescue us when clearly the way this is written, it sounds like the cry comes into his ear and he gets up and he's angry and he's going to go take care of it.
Why does it feel like it takes so long from the human perspective? What do you guys think? I have a theory.
Don't hear it. Here's my theory. It goes back to a couple of verses before when it says, or maybe the previous verse was previous verse.
I think it's the previous verse. Yeah. Previous verse. In my distress, I called upon the
Lord and cried unto my God, which comes first, the caller, the cry, the call comes first.
And we often will call for help before we are willing to actually rely on help.
Now, I'm not saying this is what Jesus was doing in this scenario. I think Jesus was always fully reliant on the
Lord, which is why it seems like no time passes between Jesus's call and cry and the
Lord being Roth. But for us, it's a little different. Have you ever called for help when you felt like you don't really need it, but you just want to avoid a little bit of, of a toil?
Like, I mean, I can handle this, but I'm going to, I'm going to ask for some help anyway. How many of us have ever done that?
I've done that, right? Like I'm just going to get a hand and if they don't show up, I'm just going to do it.
And maybe I'll even complain that they didn't show up. Right. Come, come help me. I'm going to pick on Noah.
Noah, come help me. I'm going to go do this. And if I thinking I'm can pretty much handle it on my own, but I just don't want to do it on my, on my own.
No, it doesn't show up. Maybe I'll even tease him for it. Like, ah, come on, Noah, stop being so, so lazy. Right?
Like there is, there are times in our life when we call for help and we don't really mean the desperation of,
I need help. And yet that's the kind of call for help the Lord wants from us. Full reliance.
How many times do we go, Lord, please help me with this. And then we're going to act on our own wisdom.
We're going to act on our own strength. And we're just going to invoke the name of the Lord because hopefully that empowers us to do it all.
And we take versus like, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me out of context.
And we feel like we're actually going to do it all on our own, but we're going to get our superpower from God.
That's not how it works. It's God does the work through us, which is a complete different picture than us doing the work because God gave us some superpower, right?
Like he does the work. He gets the credit. He gets the glory. And we are completely dependent on him.
So like, what do y 'all do parents when your kids get hurt or fall or something, there's that moment of pause, like, wait, let's see.
And then there's the, the moment of desperation from the kid. And that's when it's like, all right,
I'm getting up. I'm going right. Like God wants complete and utter dependence from his people.
He wants it from the start. And that's not to say that he won't come when you call. It's just when you call, have a heart of dependence, right?
Have a heart of, I am completely depending on you when I call. And it's okay to call sooner rather than later.
I'm not saying that calling on the Lord is a last resort. It's just when you call on the Lord, remind yourself, he's the only resort.
He's not the last resort. He's the only resort. And that complete and utter dependence,
I think is the thing that, that kind of makes something happen in a, in a sense from our viewpoint.
In other words, desperation for his salvation is the thing that gets the fastest reaction.
You know, like I am desperate for the Lord to help. That's the place he wants us because we're told to come to him as little children.
Children are completely dependent. They're desperate for help from mommy and daddy.
And we often will come to help like way sooner than they may even really truly need it because we feel the desperation that they have for us.
We feel the, the, uh, the dependency that they have on us. That's the relationship we're supposed to have with God.
So when it feels like we are waiting on the Lord, maybe what's happening is he's waiting on us to actually get dependent on him.
Don't just pray and ask me for stuff. I'm not a genie in the bottle. Put your faith and your trust in me and learn my will so that you ask within my will.
And that will, that will cause instant movement. I'm not saying that you have the power to move
God. It's really, it's a fine walk, a fine rope. You have to walk there because he is sovereign.
You don't control him by any means, but he allowed, he, he exalted his word above his very name.
So like he is the only God who ever made the rules and subjected himself to the rules.
Right. And so when he says, you ask in my name or ask, according to my will,
I will hear you. Then you've got to get really dependent on that word to get where you ask within his will, so that it'll be done his way.
That makes sense. And it will happen. Um, so anyway, there's my, my theory.
We're not dependent enough on God. And so it feels like we're waiting on him.
When in reality, he's using the situation to get us more dependent on him. Um, so let's just look at, let's continue to look at this father's response.
When the father does here verse eight, there went up a smoke out of his nostrils.
There it is. Dad's kid is hurt. You know, fire out of his mouth, devoured coals were kindled by it.
This is the face of an angry father. Anybody seen your dad get angry?
Maybe at you before, right? I remember this one time I was probably 11, 12 years old.
I had this friend over and he had a Sega Genesis. Those of you might not know what a
Sega Genesis is. It's a video game machine, man. We played that thing for hours.
And one time we were told it's go to bed. And at the time mom and dad were having their, their room remodeled or something.
So they were sleeping in the living room where the video game machine was. And so they put us to bed and it was a little earlier than we normally had to go to bed because you know, they needed to go to sleep.
And so we were thinking, well, we can get in bed, but we can still like hang out and stuff. So let's hang out.
And mom and dad even made it like, they were like, just be quiet in there, you know, but go to bed.
So we're like, okay. So my friend was sleeping over. His name's Chris. And we're hanging out and we're like, man, we almost, we almost had that level beat.
We just got to beat that level. How about we go get it and bring it in here. That way we're not disturbing anybody.
By this time, mom and dad are asleep. So we crawl into the living room. We could unhook this thing with our eyes closed.
We'd done it so many times. So it was pitch black and we're just reaching around very quietly, getting all the pieces.
And the way the, the way the house was at the time, this was a, the living room was here. And then there was a, uh, an adjacent room.
It was like the dining room. And you could crawl through the living room, get the video game machine, and then crawl out through the dining room and back to the hallway.
That was the whole plan. So we did that. We got it. And we went through the living room. We're real quiet.
And the moon was shining. I remember the moon shining into the living room and my friend,
Chris bumped something and mom, she sat up.
It looked like something out of a horror flick. Sorry, mom, if you're listening, but mom, she sat up in that moonlight like this, like this.
And her hair was like, and it was really kind of scary. And my friend goes, it's something really, you know, real quietly skimpering off into our bedroom.
Terrified. My friend, he was like, what was that? So that was my mom. She woke up.
Shh. Next thing I know, the door's like getting kicked in. Here's dad smoke coming out of his nostrils, fire coming out of his mouth.
He's got his arms like this. And for those of y 'all know, poppies cross -eyed too.
It just made him way scarier, but pop came in. He's literally doing this. And he looked at, he flipped that light on and looked at us.
We just like melted. Hardly said a thing, took the video game machine, walked back out.
I got grounded for like, I don't know how long it was terrible. But that, that angry face on pop.
I remember in the moment thinking this is the most terrifying moment of my life.
I can't imagine what my friend thought because at least I knew pop loved me, right? But this is just some kid.
He might've been even more terrified. First he saw mom like this, you know, and then he saw dad like fire coming out of his mouth and stuff.
He didn't come over for a while. And, uh, it was,
I can remember, I I've talked about that moment a lot of times and how scary my dad looked.
And I have thought about like, if my dad turned on a bad guy, that bad guy would have seen that look.
Now pop has had a couple of times, like when he was working at radio shack where he caught vandals and like body, like body slammed them and pops, pops a beast.
He looks like a gentle soul, but you wouldn't believe like he's, he's super strong. Back in the day, he took out some bad guys.
And, uh, I just imagine what he must've looked like when he did that, you know, he's terrifying.
That's what is, did Matt magnify that, that vision of your dad at his angriest times a million or a billion or infinity.
That's the father in standing up and going after your enemies. When we focus on the rise of evil and we forget about the rule of our
Lord, we will not be comforted by that. So we should focus on the rule of our
Lord because it doesn't just look angry. He looks powerful.
He bowed the heavens also and came down and darkness was under his feet. Not just a very angry look, but an immensely powerful and harrowing look.
Spurgeon said this, see how prayer moves earth and heaven and raises storms to overthrow in a moment.
The foes of God's Israel things were bad for David before he prayed, but they were much worse for his foes.
So soon as the petition had gone up to heaven, I love the way he put that, like things were bad for David, but they got a whole lot worse for those who were against him because he turned the wrath of God on his enemies.
So, wow. Um, that might be a good place to stop.
We're at verse 10. We will see next week, Lord willing, uh, we'll see, uh, the
Lord actually coming to the rescue, not just standing up and getting angry and, you know, bowing the heavens and stuff, but we'll actually see him coming to the rescue here.
So the thing, the big takeaway I want you to, to have from this, uh, lesson is focus on the rule of God, focus on the fact that he is king of Kings.
He is Lord of Lords. He is on his throne. And when it seems as though things are closing in on you, and it seems as though death is knocking on your doorstep and the rise of ungodly men has you a little bit scared when all seems hopeless and there's no escape, cry out, allow yourself to be desperate for God sooner than you feel like you should be desperate for God.
Because when you do that, it gets him moving. We see that very clearly.
So imagine what our Lord Jesus was going through on that cross when he called out to his father and then cried out to him.
Uh, he was experiencing all of that, the sorrows of death, the sorrows of hell, the rise of the ungodly, the weight of sin.
And yet he knew what to do. He knew to change his focus from the rise of evil to the rule of his
Lord. Um, let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for the perfect example we have in your son. We ask that you help us to follow that example, to get more desperate, uh, to have you imminently coming to our rescue, help us not to rely on our own intellect or our own, um, power.
We know that we're supposed to use those things. We're supposed to act. We're supposed to use logic, but help us to do so in on you at the same time.
We thank you for the fact that you love us and that you hear us even above all of the noise that's going on around you.
You hear us. And that is an incredible thing. We ask that you help us to hear you a little more often by reading your word, by praying, by being watchful for your leading.
And it's in your name. We ask these things. Amen. I think
Maddie is planning on singing something. Um, oh, she's doing offer.
Okay. She's singing too.
Okay. Um, here though.