“Forgotten???” – FBC Morning Light (6/4/2024)

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good Tuesday morning to you. I hope your week got off to a good start yesterday. Before we look into our

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Bible reading today, I want to ask if you could do us a favor.

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If you're watching this live stream on Facebook, then we need your help, because Facebook is instituting a new policy beginning next

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Monday that if your Facebook page or site does not have a minimum number of followers, then you will not be able to live stream to Facebook anymore.

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And frankly, neither my personal Facebook page nor the church's

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Facebook page have nearly enough followers to meet that standard. So, if you're watching this on Facebook, then let me encourage you to go to either my personal

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Facebook page and, as well, the

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Faith Baptist Church Facebook page, and follow both of those. If you will, that will help us to be able to keep having the

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Morning Light Devotionals live streamed to Facebook. If we don't get enough followers, then after next

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Monday, we'll not be able to live stream to Facebook. So, if you could do that, that would be very helpful.

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Well, today we're reading in Psalm 71, Psalms 84 and 5, and then

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Psalm 87. And I want to focus on Psalm 71. Psalm 71 is a psalm that was written by a man later in life.

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And we don't know how old he was, but he prays in verse 9 to the

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Lord, he says, "...do not cast me off in the time of old age." And what's going on, apparently, is in his later years of life, things aren't going very well.

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There are enemies all around him, and he's feeling very much alone.

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So much so that even the enemies are concluding that God has forsaken him.

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So they say, for example, in verse 10, "...my enemies speak against me, and those who lie in wait for my life take counsel together, saying,

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God has forsaken him. Pursue and take him, for there is none to deliver him." You ever feel that way?

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You ever feel like you're basically swimming upstream all by yourself?

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And you know, the more challenging things get in our culture and in our world, it can seem that way sometimes.

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Maybe you're the only believer in your family, and everybody else is against you in your faith, and it feels like you're all alone.

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Well, the psalmist is feeling that. He feels like, you know, that he's fighting these battles by himself.

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So he cries out to the Lord, "...do not forsake me in the time of my old age." Well, how does he deal with that?

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What does he do to help him realize that God hasn't forsaken him?

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What he does is he looks to the past, and he reflects upon all that God has done, and how he has trusted the

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Lord from childhood. He says earlier in the psalm, he says in verse 1, he says, "...in

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you, O Lord, I put my trust, let me never be put to shame." In verse 5, he says, "...you

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are my hope, O Lord, you are my trust from my youth. By you

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I have been upheld from birth. You are he who took me out of my mother's womb. My praise shall continually be of you."

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So he looks back over his life at this stage, the winter months of life, and he says,

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I've put my trust in you all of my life. And I think what he's also doing here is reflecting on the

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Lord's steadfast love through all those years, that he has delivered him time after time after time.

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So in verse 12, he says, "...O God, do not be far from me. O my

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God, make haste to help me. Let them be confounded and consumed who are the adversaries of my life.

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Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor who seek my hurt. But I will hope continually, and I will praise you yet more and more."

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How can he do that when it seems that the Lord has forsaken him, when it seems that he is all alone?

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Because he can look back over his whole life and see how the Lord has been steadfast and righteous and faithful to his word.

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So verse 15, he says, "...my mouth shall tell of your righteousness and your salvation all the day, for I do not know their limits."

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He can reflect on his experiences of the

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Lord's righteousness and the Lord's salvation that he has experienced throughout his life, and realize that there's no limit to it.

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There's no limit to it. Therefore, he can confidently pray,

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O Lord, do not forsake me in my older years of life.

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Be faithful to me. Deliver me from the hand of these enemies. I don't know who your enemy is or enemies are that you face.

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It may be people who are very close to you. It may be something going on in your work life.

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It may be what you're feeling from the culture. It may be your own inner battles with your own besetting sins.

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But whatever those enemies are, look to the Lord who has been faithful to you, to the

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God of your salvation, to him who has been righteous to you through the years.

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Call upon him, O Lord, do not forsake me at this stage of my life, and find that he will answer that prayer.

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So let's pray. Our Father and our God, we do thank you that you are faithful to your word, faithful to your people, and true to those who are your own.

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We're grateful that throughout all of life, from youth to old age, we can be confident that you will not forsake your own.

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So bless these thoughts to our hearts today, and may we rest in confidence in them, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.