Book of Psalms - Psa. 18, Vs. 8-19 (07/30/2023)

Park Meadows Church

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Ah, yeah. You told me to stay away from those hairy -looking boys and I bring a great bunch of ants down in there.

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Wait, who said that? Mr. Tell. So are we starting?

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Are we ready? I'm ready. I don't know if he's got me on or not. Maybe he does.

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Well, good morning. We're in Psalm 18 again. We will be maybe for a couple of more weeks.

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It's kind of a long psalm. It goes 50 verses long. The first week we opened this psalm, we were one verse in because we did a lot of setup, a lot of backstory to the psalm.

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We looked at the things that were going on in David's life, all of the trouble he endured, and the fact that he wrote this psalm after overcoming his enemy's post -rise of Absalom.

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And we saw that in spite of all the trouble

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David had gone through, trouble that the Lord put him through, he started this psalm off with a resolution to love the

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Lord. And then last week we looked at the psalm kind of more deeply.

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We kind of went into some of the verses, and we saw that this psalm is not just about David because David is a type or picture of Christ.

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And so we were looking at this psalm through the eyes of Jesus and imagining him on the cross, having been betrayed by his people, his friends.

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We saw just like David, I mean, David had been betrayed by his people, his friends, even his own family.

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Christ had been betrayed by his people, the Jews, his friends like Judas, and also experienced the feeling of having his father turn his back on him.

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Very interesting parallels going on between Jesus and David.

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But we saw that Jesus was experiencing the sorrows of death. They were closing in on him.

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There was a rise of ungodly men, which caused him to be afraid.

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But instead of focusing on that fear, he focused on the Lord. The sorrows of hell compassed him about, making him feel a separation from God.

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The snares of death prevented him, meaning that death was just right at the doorstep.

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He could see that he was about to die. It was there, it was coming. It was in his immediate future.

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And in that moment of despair or distress, he called upon the Lord. He cried unto his

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God. And then we began to see God's reaction, the Father's reaction to the

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Son. Remember, it's David who's writing the psalm. He looks at this similarly as we should look at this, you know, from man's perspective, looking forward to Jesus' return and Jesus' deliverance.

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But Jesus, having lived this psalm out, is looking at it from man's perspective as well, but from the

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Son's perspective, right? And the Father is coming to save him. And so he says that he cried out unto his

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God, and God heard his voice. And we talked about all the hustle and bustle of heaven, all the noise coming from heaven and the noise coming from earth.

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And somehow our cries and our prayers make it up into the

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Lord's ears. And when we are crying in true desperation to the Lord, we have a confidence that he's going to hear us.

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Also, that when he hears us, he does not take his time in coming back. It feels that way to us.

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It feels like God's taking his time, he's tarrying. We talk about if the

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Lord tarries, that kind of thing, but he doesn't tarry. There's just an appointed time.

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And when that time comes, he's not going to waste one moment. And when he comes, it will feel like a very earth -shattering experience, similar to what we saw with David being delivered from his enemies.

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God just obliterated David's enemies for him. But then also,

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Jesus on the cross, crying out to his Father, and the skies darken and the earth shakes.

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All that happens because the Father is coming for the Son. And so we saw the earth shook and trembled, the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken because he was wrath, imagining the

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Father being wrath. And that's where we kind of started to wrap it up last week, is the picture of the

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Father being just wrathful. And we got all the way to verse 10, but I'm going to backtrack just a little bit.

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That's a good little recap there. We're going to pick up, we're going to start in verse 8, just to remind ourselves what the

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Father is kind of looking like. And then we're going to see if we can get all the way through to verse...

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I think we're going to verse 17. No, maybe 19 or 20. We'll see.

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Depends on how fast we can get through this. So we're in Psalm 18, verse 8.

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There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured.

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Coals were kindled by it. You'll remember last week I shared a story about Pop and how he came busting in the room because my friend and I, we had done something bad.

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We had snuck into the living room to steal a video game so that we could keep playing when we were supposed to go to sleep.

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And Pop was wrathful, and it was terrifying. And I just remember thinking...

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I mean, it's a moment that is eternally burned into my memory, just how wrathful

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Pop was. And so I've seen Pop get upset with other people, very seldomly, though.

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But I've never seen him really, truly get wrathful at other people.

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This was a time when it was like, ooh, I'm experiencing the wrath of the Father. And I've thought, what if this got turned on somebody else?

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At least Pop loves me. What if it was on somebody that he didn't love? So I used to think, man,

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Pop, you don't mess with him. Because he's a scary dude. I've got more

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Pop stories for today. So imagine the

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Father, the face of an angry Father. This is the Heavenly Father. And the way it describes it, just smoke out of His nostrils, fire out of His mouth, devoured.

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Coals were kindled by it. It's pretty intense heat.

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Verse 9, He bowed the heavens also, and came down, and darkness was under His feet.

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So He's not just very powerful, but He's immensely harrowing, the Father is. And I remember last week,

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I shared this quote from Spurge. And see how prayer moves earth and heaven, and raises storms to overthrow in a moment the foes of God's Israel.

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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.

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So when David prayed, he unleashed the wrath of God on his enemies. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, and He cried out to His Father, the wrath of God came down to obliterate sin.

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It's pretty cool. Now, of course, Jesus was standing between the

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Father and that sin. God had to go right through the Son to get to that sin. But it's a pretty crazy, visceral -type picture, if you think about it.

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I have this mental picture of sin trying to hide behind Jesus, like, ha -ha, you can't get us here, this is your boy.

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And then Jesus is like, come on, come and get it. And the Father just goes right through Him. So we'll pick up on verse 10 now.

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This is where we left off. We saw this visceral, angry reaction from the

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Father. Now we're going to see Him take action on those feelings.

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And He rode upon a cherub and did fly. Yea, He did fly upon the wings of the wind.

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What do you picture when you read this verse? What's it look like to you?

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I want you to imagine it for just a second. The Father's angry, and now He's coming.

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If you had to relate it to something, if you had to say, give me an example of what this might look like in something you would have seen or heard or felt or whatever here on earth, what would this look like to you?

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So Pop was caught in a, you call it a squall? Yea, so Pop's caught in the northern, out in the ocean.

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Look, you're giving me another Pop story. And he said the waves were so high that each time a wave would build up, they'd say, well, this is the one that would kill us.

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And they'd hit the boat, and they'd knock the boat way over, and then it'd come back up, and it was just a harrowing type feeling, wasn't it?

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Like, this is it, right? Well, I imagine for the enemy, that's how this feels, right?

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What about for the sun? What about for God's people? How would this feel? Okay, this is rescue, right?

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This is the superhero coming down from the sky, right? Like, it almost feels like that because he's literally flying, you know?

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I thought it was exhilarating, and frightening, and exciting, and frightening, and just with that everlasting hope, knowing that it's going to be okay, this is your victory.

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So when you read this, who are you thinking of? Who do you picture doing this?

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Jesus. Jesus, right? But Jesus is living this out and calling unto the Father. So who does

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Jesus picture in this psalm? He pictures his

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Father coming for him, which is really, it really makes this super cool because this second part of verse 10 is the part that I like the most.

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It says, he did fly upon the wings of the wind, right? Now we know that the

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Father's Son, Jesus, controls the wind and the seas.

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But where did he learn to do that? We know that he learned.

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We know that Jesus learned to do stuff. He learned it from his Father. John 8, 38 says,

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I speak that which I have seen with my Father, and ye do that which ye have seen with your

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Father. Now Jesus, in John 8 here, is talking with the religious leaders, the

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Jews, and they're sitting there challenging him and hating on him, and he's referencing their father, the devil, right?

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But here's what's really cool about John 8, 38. That word with, it says,

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I speak that which I have seen with my Father, and ye do that which ye have seen with your

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Father. This word with is a really cool word, which means besides, of, at, by, or from.

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And it's a perfectly descriptive word that to a son means a whole lot.

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It means a lot. I worked at Radio Shack.

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Never was on the payroll officially. I was six. I worked in sales with Pop.

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He was a Radio Shack sales manager. A darn good one at that.

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He taught me a whole lot about treating people with kindness. He taught me about making them laugh so that they'd feel comfortable telling them what their needs were.

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He taught me how to identify those needs with them and how to help them in a way that made them feel cared for.

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Money, in the way that Pop did sales, it was always a secondary thing, and yet he was consistently one of the most profitable salesmen at Radio Shack in the country.

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Every store they'd put Pop in, he'd turn into a million -dollar store. He'd put me in a suit, a little plaid suit coat, gave me a

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Dave Huber Radio Shack name tag, because we have the same name, and he'd put me to work.

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And so I'd stand right next to him sometimes, and I can remember listening to his conversations.

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And I'd think that he's the coolest, the coolest guy on earth, because everyone thought that Pop was funny and they all seemed to like him, and I was like, man, he's super cool, you know?

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And then I'd watch him do things like control his temper, right? Like he'd have an irate customer, and he'd somehow not just control his temper.

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He'd take it a step further. He'd somehow flip them and make them happy, and then at the end of this irate customer experience,

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I couldn't believe, first off, that anyone would be mad at Dad. Like, why could anyone get mad at Dad?

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So that was kind of frightening at first. Like, this person comes in, he's like yelling at Pop, and somehow

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Pop makes him happy, and I'm like, well, see? That's how you were supposed to be with Pop, right?

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But then the weirdest thing would happen. They'd give him money. They would literally give Pop money, and I was like, they were mad at him, and now they're giving him money?

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It was like a superpower, right? I couldn't believe it. It also made the whole thing very confusing to a six -year -old.

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Like, why does somebody get mad and then give you money? I thought he was mad at you, but then he liked you, and then he gave you money.

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He'd bring home a computer that needed a new hard drive, and I'd sit there, and I'd watch him put a hard drive in the computer.

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He installed a modem once. I remember putting a modem in a computer with him.

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I'd sit right next to him, and I'd hand him the tools, and he'd be telling me the different parts of the computer, and he'd fire it up, and I remember him firing it up.

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I played this sound for Ben just before we started.

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Listen to this. You all remember that?

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Dial up. This is my favorite part. That was always my favorite part.

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So I remember hearing this, and then it would go to that, and then you'd be connected to the Internet, right?

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I'd be sitting there, and this was like really weird but cool stuff, and I would watch my dad make this stuff work.

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I was of act, I was besides, I was near him.

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The things that I know about, like how to help people, the things that I do when

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I help customers now, those things come from pop. And that's how

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Jesus is with his father. We've discussed many times what must it have been like for Jesus and for the father before they ever created stuff?

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They spent time together. Eternity, you can't even really almost, can you call it eternity?

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I don't know, like they spent time. We know there was time because Jesus had spiraled out of the father.

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So that requires, in a sense, it requires time and space because now there's a differentiation between the two.

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And so maybe they just spent eternity past with each other, Jesus next to his father, and his father saying, hey, check this out.

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Here's how you control the wind. Here's how you calm the seas.

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Now this is how you're going to ride on the wind, right? So like all the things that Jesus is picturing when he's crying out to his father, the father coming to his rescue, that's what

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Jesus is gonna be doing for us, but he learned it from the father. It all came from him. It's really cool, isn't it?

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The father in this verse is depicted as flying in with angels on the wind coming to rescue his boy.

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But it's that same boy that will be descending from the clouds when he comes to rescue us. Why? Because Jesus was of, at, besides, by, and from his father.

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Verse 11, back in Psalm 18. He made darkness his secret place, his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.

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All right, so imagine the father, right? Like he's angry and he's coming.

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Now, we get to picture Jesus in this because this is truly Jesus is gonna be coming for us.

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He's gonna be, he's going to be doing what he learned from his father, and he's gonna be coming in a miraculous return, but he's gonna look, in a sense, like this at first, or you can almost say he looks like this now, and then that look is gonna change at the moment of his arriving.

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Because we don't necessarily picture Jesus when he's coming. We don't picture it as darkness being the secret place, right, or his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.

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That's not how we picture it. Am I right? Like, how do we usually picture it? Brightness, right?

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Like light shining down and Jesus riding in. So what is this about?

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What's all this darkness, and how can darkness be a good thing? Anybody have an idea of how can darkness be a good thing?

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It's often described in scripture as a bad thing. Yes? I think it leads you more focused on your thoughts because you don't have all the things around you that you see.

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You can't see everything around you, so there are no distractions, so you're more focused on yourself, what you're thinking, or your plans, or whatever it is that you're thinking of at that time.

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Okay, so darkness could, it could be? Changes your focus. It changes a focus.

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That's an interesting thought. I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, okay, that's a good answer. What else? How other ways can darkness be good?

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It provides contrast for anything light that comes into it. Okay, provides a contrast for anything light that comes into it.

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That's certainly true. Good answers. What else? Well, if you look up the word darkness, it means obscurity.

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That's weird. He made obscurity his secret place. And his pavilion, pavilion means a temporary shelter around about him were dark or obscure waters, thick clouds of the skies.

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So here's some other darkness type terms that we've heard that are good terms for darkness.

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We hear of the shadow of the Lord, right? So the shadow of the

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Lord typically represents what in scripture? A safe place, right?

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Like refuge, right? There are shadows of death, which this kind of speaks a little bit to what

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Mimi was talking about earlier. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

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I will fear no evil. Why for thou art with me. What is David doing in that Psalm?

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That Psalm 23, he's focusing on the Lord in this dark place.

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But here's where we can kind of get this weird picture of the

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Lord. He made darkness his secret place. His pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.

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We actually have a verse that kind of unlocks that for us and makes it make a little bit more sense.

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If you'll turn to Psalm 91, verse one, you got a really cool verse that'll make it make sense.

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Psalm 91, verse one. He that dwelleth in the secret place.

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Okay. The secret place. Of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the

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Almighty. That said, he made darkness his secret place.

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We're supposed to abide in the secret place of the Most High. So when you abide in the secret place of the

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Most High, you shall abide in his shadow, which is a place of refuge.

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Why is it a place of refuge? Because he is the Almighty. He is all powerful. And if you are under the protection of the all powerful, there's really nothing that can harm you.

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If God is for us, who can be against us, right? We've heard this term.

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It's always darkest before the dawn, right? Have you heard that? That's a saying.

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Just imagine this. Jesus is crying out to his father, right?

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Death is closing in. The enemy is scorning, laughing at our

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Lord. He's been beaten, bruised. Satan is already celebrating his victory.

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The fear that gripped his disciples as they went into hiding. Imagine that. Imagine the rising flood of ungodly men, terrorizing

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God's heavenly royal family. Jesus cries out at the moment of death, right before the, like death is preventing him.

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It's before him. It's right there. He cries out to God, not just feeling physical pain, but the mental anguish of betrayal, the weight of sin is on him.

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Sin that wasn't even his. The darkness of death begins to envelop him.

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He gives up the spirit. As Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale, so too our

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Lord was in the darkness of the earth three days. That same weight of sin dragged him down there.

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The sound of the stone rolling over his grave. Then silence, death, defeat.

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It's the darkest moment in all of human history. No noise.

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You ever been surprised by a storm at night? Has that ever happened to you?

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It's dark and all of a sudden a flash, right?

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Whoa, and then the crash of thunder. The next time you feel that, or you remember that,

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I want you to imagine this. Verse 12, at the brightness that was before him, his thick clouds passed, hailstones and coals of fire.

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It was super dark. And the Lord uses obscurity.

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He uses ways unknown to us in a sense to conceal his ways.

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Like he's the unseen God. You know, he's working in the spiritual realm.

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His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. And he surrounds himself with that obscurity.

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And to know him, you've got to get into his shadow. You've got to go and abide with him.

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If you're going to understand his ways, if you're going to make known the ways of God, you've got to get into his shadow.

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You've got to get closer to him. Because if you're not closer to him, it's just going to be obscurity to you.

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It's going to be terrifying to you, because that's how he looks. For those who are under the protection of that terrifying shadow, it's refuge.

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And just like Jesus going through this and then silence, the father, angry, standing up from his throne and coming to the rescue, breaks through the darkness.

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The clouds pass and there's brightness all of a sudden. That's what it's going to feel like when

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Jesus rips open the sky. When he rips open the sky and all of a sudden, like,

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I mean, imagine this. God created light before he created the sun.

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He created the sun and the moon to rule over day and night, but he had already created light.

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He said, let there be light. And there was light and it was good. And later he creates the sun. So like the light that we experience now from the sun, it's just a representation of what true light will look like.

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I imagine when God rips open the sky and we see like real light, it's going to be blindingly bright.

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Like a flash of lightning when it catches you off guard, when it's dark and all of a sudden, you're like, he turned the lights on in a dark room and it hurts your eyes, right?

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Like it could be broad daylight, two o 'clock in the afternoon, it's 106 degrees outside in Texas, just sun blaring down on you.

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And then the Lord rips the sky open. And it's like, he turned the light on in a dark room. At the brightness that was before him, his thick clouds passed, hailstones and coals of fire.

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Ben has talked about the hailstones. This is his weapon of war, right? One of his weapons of war, coals of fire is another.

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The Lord also thundered in the heavens and the highest gave his voice, hailstones and coals of fire.

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Said it twice, did you see that? Like this isn't just God coming to battle like he did with Joshua, right?

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Like so Joshua is defeating enemies. He's fighting against multiple kings all at once.

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God comes and joins the fight and kills with hailstone and kills more with hailstone than are killed by the edge of the sword.

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So even though Joshua and the mighty men of valor are just slaying people left and right,

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God is outnumbering their kills with his kills just with his hailstorm.

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And it only mentions it once. Here it's mentioned twice. Imagine the visceral reaction from the father when his son is being killed.

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Like he is coming after whoever's in his way. Like nothing is going to stop him. That's how

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Jesus is with us. He is literally waiting at the doorstep for the father to say, and it's time.

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And as soon as he says it's time, Jesus will be coming with a visceral reaction.

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Like I am not going to let the world oppress my people for one moment, one microsecond longer.

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And he's gonna come with all of the fury and judgment that he can muster up, in which he doesn't really have to muster,

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I don't think. But like, that's just how I have to think about it. And so not only is there this bright rip in the sky and brightness and thick clouds pass and hailstones and coals of fire, double time, but the

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Lord also thundered in the heavens. As David writes this, he's thinking of Jesus.

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He's thinking of the Savior, right? The Messiah. That's why it's the

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Lord, all caps here. But Jesus hanging on the cross, he's thinking of his father.

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And everything he's gonna do when he comes for us are the things he's learned of his father and from his father.

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So he's gonna thunder from the clouds and from the heavens. Have you ever seen an animal like, let's say a lion roar, as soon as everybody's seen a lion roar, right?

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Maddie asked me about this yesterday, just listening to a song and in the song, it says lion and the lamb.

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She said, what does that mean, the lion and the lamb? I'm like, well, it's talking about Jesus. He's the lion of Judah and he's also the lamb of God.

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And when it depicts the lion of Judah, it's like this, you always think of the lion like roaring, right?

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I was reading this morning about just some political type stuff and reading about the visceral reaction that people had towards Donald Trump.

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Just how it was more than humans could really control.

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It was weird. It was like, oh, that guy, I hate that guy. I read something about like this one pastor, he was just going to buy what he called a marrying and burying suit.

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He was going to get a nice suit and he was talking with the salesman.

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Salesman was one of those people who just despised Donald Trump so much so that he was like, it was really quite interesting for hours while they're tailor making this suit for me and like measuring me and stuff.

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This guy was just berating me for having voted because I mentioned that I voted for Trump.

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He just berated me. And I just let him do it and just listened and every once in a while I would say, hey man, maybe you need to chill out a little bit.

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I didn't act like this when Obama was in office or anything like that. It was just this visceral reaction.

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I keep using that word because it's the best word I can think of. It's almost like this thing you can't control. It's a very like an overflowing of emotions, right?

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You guys may have seen that back when he was running and stuff. Why do

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I bring it up? It's something that just overflows from someone. Like you can tell the people who do that, they just can't help themselves.

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And it's not just people who hate Donald Trump. There are people who are similar to that on the

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Obama side and stuff. I wanna be clear. Like people have very like strong feelings about stuff and sometimes they just lack the ability to control the feelings.

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You've seen somebody who gets rageful, right? They're not just angry and going to stop the thing that's causing them rage.

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They're letting the feelings like come out with that rage. And when you think of what they look like, they don't just, there's no reservation.

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It's like this, right? Well, imagine a righteous rage that has a feeling that is not going to be controlled.

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And the father is going to, like when the father obliterated sin, it says it pleased him to bruise him, right?

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Like he just let all of his wrath, just let it all go on the son to go through the son and obliterate sin.

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And when David writes this song, he's imagining his savior, but he's imagining his savior,

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God, obliterating his enemies, but not just obliterating them, coming down with authority and power and his harrowing presence.

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And also in a sense, like screaming, like, ah, I'm coming at you.

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There is no part of God that reserves, he does not, his wrath for sin is not held in reserve.

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I think that's what I'm trying to say. His wrath for your enemies is not held in reserve. It feels like that to us.

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It feels like, well, God's gonna hold back his wrath a little bit for my enemies.

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That's why I'm having to go through this. No, there's an appointed time for the wrath to come. And when it comes, the enemy is obliterated.

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The enemy runs, the enemy is scattered. And he even shows us in verse 14, yea, he sent out his arrows and scattered them.

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And he shot out lightnings and discomfited them. So just imagine the picture of God, not just coming to the rescue and being like, here

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I come guys, I'm on my way, I'm here.

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Hey, you stay away from my people. Like, it's not gonna be like that, right?

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It's gonna be like the most terrifying thing man has ever witnessed, the most terrifying thing the spiritual realm has ever witnessed.

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And we are gonna be glad that we are in the refuge of his shadow, like we're just watching it.

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I think it's gonna be terrifying to us, even though like it's gonna be comforting to us at the same time, we're gonna be like, oh my goodness, that just happened.

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It's gonna be just massive, yes. Makes me think of the old

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Morse warriors called the Berserkers, that's where we get the word Berserk, which means out of control and furious with violence.

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Right, and I wanna be careful because God never loses control.

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This isn't a loss of control, this is a release, a total release, a purposeful total release of wrath on his enemies.

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So he doesn't lose control, he's always in control but it is not reserved or held back.

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It is, I don't know a better word other than it's just total release. Pop may have a better word, what you got

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Pop? It's the ultimate shock and awe. Yeah, well, it will be definitely the ultimate shock and awe for those who witness it.

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Just like a storm that starts with a burst of light and a thundering growl, followed by billions of projectiles from heaven, rain, right?

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The father breaks forth from his place of secrecy, ripping open the sky, shaking the earth and concentrating the most fearsome display of wrath ever experienced in time.

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The enemy is not yet slain in time. Like we haven't seen the enemy slain but he certainly ran at the sight of this, right?

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So like just the idea, like when Jesus dies on the cross and the father thundered from heaven,

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Satan, I believe his exuberance and excitement for what was happening very quickly turned into an uh -oh moment, you know?

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And David has told a story about this little family that was singing at a church and the little girl said and Satan trembled and she went like this.

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Like all of a sudden Satan went from yeah, I'm winning to oh my goodness what just happened, you know?

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Like he's discomfited when the father roared from heaven at this.

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Our enemies will be discomfited big time. They will scatter, they will run and there will be no place to run.

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That's why it says they'll want the mountains to close in on them because they won't be able to get away.

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And arrows, like so it's not just that God is thundering and yelling and coming like with the battle charge, ah, like he's got hailstone and coals of fire and now arrows and lightning all at once.

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I mean, yikes. Yes? Notice when

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I read it earlier, when I read this it said discomfited.

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I read it first as discomfited but this is so much more when you look at the word, it's moved noisily, confused, making noise, discomfited, break, consume, crush, destroy, trouble, and vex.

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Yeah. So I mean this is a whole lot more than just being discomfited. That's a great thought there.

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Pop looked up the word discomfited and it is different than discomforted. We read that like oh, they're uncomfortable.

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No, it's like beyond discomfort. It is crushing, destroying, vexing, like it is the most devastating feeling even before they are struck with any of this stuff.

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Like just the, what is it, the lightnings from heaven, just that alone is devastating.

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Then you have arrows, coals of fire, and hailstones. Then the channels, verse 15, then the channels of waters were seen and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke.

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Oh Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. This reminds me of a different story in scripture a little bit.

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Y 'all remember when Elijah was battling the prophets of Baal, right?

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And Elijah calls down fire from heaven, right? And it must have been a shocking event.

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The amount of heat that would have scorched the earth in that event or in the general vicinity of the sacrifice, like it literally evaporated.

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All the water that he had people pour on the sacrifice, around the sacrifice, in a ditch or like, it was like there was lots of water on his sacrifice.

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The other guys, they can't get fire to come down from heaven. And one of the best depictions of the

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Elijah story here that I've seen was actually a little cartoon. It's this little cartoon where all the prophets of Baal are like jumping around and screaming.

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And Elijah, this little cartoon Elijah is laughing at them. And he's like, ha, ha, ha, right? And nothing's happening.

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And he's like, ha, ha. And then they all stop and they look at him. And then he like whistles or something and people come and pour a whole bunch of water.

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It's just a little cartoon, all the water like pouring. And then all of a sudden, Elijah goes like this and then like rocket fired.

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Like, it's shocking how fast it comes. It's not like this fire comes down or it consumes.

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And then like, it looks like a rocket from heaven, just, and then it's instantly gone.

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Like everything's gone. And there's like this little black smoke coming up. And it's just a cartoon, but it's one of the best depictions

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I think of what it is because it's a shocking moment that makes you kind of laugh in the cartoon. There'd be no laughing matter in the real story though.

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Right? Like for it to lap up the water means it was an extremely intense heat.

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I've been to a rocket test. And one of the rocket tests that we did, the rocket's on its side.

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They're just firing the engine. And it had been a rainy day and there were puddles of water out on this parking lot that the rocket was sitting on.

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And they'd got it on this great big truck. And one of the rocket scientists said, hey

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Dave, you see those puddles of water? I said, yeah. He said, they're not gonna be there for long.

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And I mean, it was like, it was kind of deep. It was like a low point and it was deep water.

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Like if I went and jumped in it, it would have been big splashes. And so we fired up that rocket.

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And by the time the rocket was done burning over, just over, it wasn't touching it. It was just over it.

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There was zero water. It was bone dry. Just evaporated all the water. Like, and that rocket was a shocking event.

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Like just to have it come. And it was a small rocket, you know? Like it's a small rocket. It's just, and you feel it in your stomach.

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Right? So like, in the story of Elijah, I imagine it was like this rocket fire that came down and just.

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It must have been terrifying. Well, verse 15 of Psalm 18, then the channels of waters were seen.

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The channels of waters. That's the thing that the waters are in. How can you see those unless the water is removed?

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Right? And the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke. So like, just at the rebuke of God, imagine like water being evaporated.

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Right? What this is showing, it's not necessarily meaning that when God rebukes, all the rivers are gonna go poof or anything like that.

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But it's giving you a picture of just how powerful this rebuke is. Similar to how powerful the rocket was to evaporate water that was just in the general vicinity.

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Like when God rebukes, the foundations of the world are shaken.

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Like to the point where like, you see things. Like maybe it's shaken to the point where we do see the rivers go dry for a sec.

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The foundations of the world, like, what is that? You know, like, is it the bedrock below the dirt?

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Like, is it the mantle of the earth? All of a sudden you start to see the mantle. Like that'd be, that's way down deep, by the way.

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Getting to the mantle of the earth, they were discovered at thy rebuke.

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Ooh, talk about devastating. At the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

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See, like even just the blast of the breath of God's nostrils is like rocket fire. That's wild.

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He doesn't just hear us from heaven. He comes running. And not out of desperation, but out of an expectation to destroy our enemies.

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He comes with mighty power and a fearsome presence. Just his rebuke shakes creation.

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And guess what? The world, the flesh, and the devil are all part of creation. Verse 16, he sent from above, he took me and drew me out of many waters.

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It's the moment of rescue. That it's the point at which the one in distress is taken up or rescued.

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David felt it from his savior. Jesus was raised from the dead, out of that dark place, out of the many dark waters, right?

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He's raised from the dead by his father. Spurgeon notes that David here is much like Moses being drawn out of the river as a baby.

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He was rescued. It was the act of someone else pulling Moses out of the river.

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It was the act of the savior pulling David out of trouble from his enemies. It was the act of the father to resurrect the son.

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He delivered me from my strong enemy and from them which hated me for they were too strong for me.

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David ascribes all the glory to his rescuer. Jesus gives the glory to his father.

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We too, when we cry out to God and are rescued from a bad situation or those who hate us, we should remember to recognize our weakness, our inability to save ourselves.

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We have to be desperate for God. We have to be dependent on him. They prevented me in the day of my calamity but the

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Lord was my stay. When the enemy prevents you, when it stands in front of you in an attempt to discomfort you, to vex you, to cause you to be devastated, the thing that stays you, the thing that, what's the word

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I'm looking for? Preserves, the thing that preserves you isn't a thing, it's a person.

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It's our savior. The Lord is my stay. He brought me forth also into a large place.

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He delivered me because he delighted in me. Why was David rescued?

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Why was Jesus raised? Because they were delighted in. Jesus delights in his people.

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The father delights in his son. We'll finish it off here because we're about out of time.

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Psalm 18, verse 20. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.

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We're gonna unpack that next week, Lord willing, because it seems to be a shift.

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Like this is all the work of God, right? So what's this about he rewarded me according to my righteousness?

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How does that fit into the play here? It's one of those things where David has always shown us the sovereignty of God.

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It's always brought in at the same time as the responsibility of man. Those two things, they coexist.

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It's always the work of God, the rescuing, but we also have a responsibility.

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We have something that we do in response to the rescue. Because the terminology here changes from rescue to reward.

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Yes, sir. Also a messianic psalm, so it switches to talk about Jesus. Yeah, which it's, yeah, it's a messianic psalm.

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So it's also talking about Jesus. Like it's been, we should have been picturing Jesus throughout the whole psalm, right?

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David is writing it. He's picturing the Messiah, but Jesus is also living it out on the cross.

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And so everything that Jesus talks about, he's seen of the Father, he's heard of the Father.

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He spent time with the Father. He was with, at, of, or of, at, beside, by, and from the

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Father. And so all of this might and glory and power and harrowingness, like all of this, this really incredible depiction that we see from Jesus, he learned from the

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Father. And we can take refuge in that because the very thing that gives us refuge is the thing that causes the enemy to tremble.

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Any other thoughts before we wrap it up? Great thoughts. Yeah, my righteousness here is

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Jesus. Yup. It's not my righteousness, my righteousness.

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So you're trying to get to the answer for next week. All right, any other thoughts?

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We'll do a prayer. Yes, ma 'am. Seeing as you're describing your relationship with your dad, and seeing,

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I was thinking about the moment, I don't know if I can articulate this that far. I was thinking about the moment when

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Jesus said, my God, what is this that you're saying to me? Hmm. Thinking about the moment when

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Jesus said, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Picturing all those times you spent with the

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Father. Yeah, that's a tough one. It's devastating, right?

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But the Father didn't actually forsake him, did he? Which we learn about that in a later

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Psalm. Cool, good thought, kind of a sad thought, but also, the whole thing that was happening during this was a pretty sad thing.

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It's the darkest moment in history, but it ends in light, right? It ends in victory. It ends in vengeance for the

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Lord, because vengeance is the Lord's. All right, well, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for just your presence.

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We thank you for your power. We thank you that you rescue us.

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We experience rescue on a small scale at times, and we forget to thank you for it.

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We experience rescue on a larger scale at times, and sometimes we think of you in those moments, but Father, help us always to think of you.

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You rescue us from everyday things. You rescue us financially.

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You rescue us relationally with others. You rescue us just professionally at work, and physically every day.

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We don't even know all the times you've rescued us. We tend to think of your rescue as something that is coming, but it's been here.

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We've been experiencing it in so many ways. You have already rescued us from our sins through the work that you did on the cross, and we thank you for that work.

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Father, help us to be more mindful of that. Help us to think of that more often, as it will put us in a thankful state, and it will help us to not sin as often as we sometimes do.

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Lord, we love you. We thank you for the Psalms, and we thank you for David who wrote them. In Jesus' name, we ask these things in him.