Love to hear all the voices and the instruments.
Can you imagine what it's going to sound like around the throne
of God someday? Could you imagine what it must
have sounded like at the temple when they did all their
worshiping? And if you read, go back and
read into in the Old Testament and and hear how many
instruments they had that were that were part of that praise
song. And honestly, that's what we're
going to talk about a little bit this morning.
And Psalm 137, Psalm 137 is is is actually attributed to
Jeremiah the prophet during the time of obvious national sorrow.
And we're going to read this Psalm in just a second and
you'll understand exactly what we're talking about.
Not everyone can agree on the author, on who the author is,
because we we don't know. But they were carried away of
Cap as captives into Babylon because of their sin.
If you go into Jeremiah 29 and you read that whole story, God
told them that that's exactly what was going to happen.
If they didn't turn to him, they didn't turn to him.
They they didn't forsake their ways.
And God said, all right, I told you this was going to happen,
and now here it is, Babylon is coming.
They're going to overtake you and you're going to go into
captivity and you're going to be there for 70 years.
And when all that time is fulfilled, then I'll visit you
again. But obviously this, this Psalm
was written probably by Jeremiah, but by somebody who is
obviously a part of that whole scenario.
They they had been warned and they didn't heed that warning.
And so now God had to bring that judgment.
And this is such a sad Psalm and I I hope it.
I hope there's not a sad message this morning, but this was
written at a time when Babylon overtook Jerusalem. 10s of
thousands of of Israelites were taken captive, and Israel was
forced to live away from home as a punishment for their sin.
And we read here in verse #1 in Psalm 137 by the rivers of
Babylon. There we sat down.
Yay, we wept when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a
song. And they that wasted us required
of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
If I forget the O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her
cunning. If I do not remember the Let my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.
If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy, remember, O Lord,
the children of Edom, in the day of Jerusalem, who said, raise
it, raise it even to the foundation thereof.
O daughter of Babylon, who art thou?
Who who art to be destroyed? Happy shall he be that rewarded
thee as thou happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy
little ones against the stones. But we see what happens there,
especially at the beginning of this of this Psalm Israel is
forced to be carried away into a strange land.
They're kept, there's allowed them to triumph for a little
while. And then they mocked this
nation, and look what they said. They they said verse #3 for
their they that carried us away captive required of us a song.
They that wasted us, required of us mirth saying sing us one of
the songs of Zion be happy, Hey, we love the way Israel sings.
We love to hear your, your, your temple worship.
And I don't know if they actually heard it or not or if
they just heard about it, but either way, there they they're
saying we we want to hear you sing and there's and and Israel
sitting there crying and and and in desperation and saying how
can we sing the songs of Zion? How can we sing the Lord's song
when we're in this situation? How can we sing here when we're
in the middle of a strange land? This was something that broke
the writer's heart is very obvious.
He couldn't fix his mouth to sing holy songs in an unholy,
godforsaken land. In verse one, he paints the
picture of how devastated he and the others were.
He said beside by the rivers of Babylon.
There we sat down. Yay, we wept when we remembered
Zion. They were all just sitting
around. They were crying.
They were lamenting their situation.
Now, mind you, God had told them that this is what was going to
happen. God had given them fair warning
that you better turn back to me. And they they, I don't know if
they just didn't take God seriously.
How? How can you not?
After all the times they saw God follow through on what he said
he was going to do, but for whatever reason they decided
they weren't going to listen. And they didn't turn from their
wicked ways. And God sent them off into
captivity. And now here they are sitting by
the rivers of Babylon, weeping and crying and mourning and
probably looking at each other and saying, how are we ever
going to get out of this situation?
Now if you go into Jeremiah 29, which we're not going to do this
morning and read that that God told them they were going to be
there for 70 years, I would say that probably is a pretty good
reason. For lamenting, right?
I mean, if you're 60 years old. And you get carried off in the
Babylon. Guess what?
You're 130. When you come out.
You're probably not coming out of Babylon, right?
Let's say you're 20 years old when you got carried off in the
Babylon 70 years. You're 90.
You may be alive. You may not.
Of course, I underestimated Mr. Forbes.
If he got carried away in the Babylon, he'd probably still be
there when he's 130. But most of those people are not
coming out of Babylon. It was something that was worth
lamenting and weeping and crying over it if you, if you sit down
there and think about it. But one of the things that they
lost in that whole process was their praise.
Notice what the Bible says happened in version or two.
We hanged our harps upon the willows.
In the midst thereof, they stopped singing.
They lost their praise song. Let me tell you something.
The devil wants to steal your song.
Even though we all have seasons when there's plenty to smile
about, when there's plenty to be happy about, this isn't always
true. Things can change very quickly,
and now you can very quickly find yourself struggling and
hurting and mourning and weeping over over any number of
different things trying to keep your head above water.
Life can come at you fast, and when that happens, the pit of
depression is going to invite you to climb in.
Discouragement will volunteer to be your companion.
That's one of those things that you never know you never see it
coming in disillusionment is is going to offer to keep your
company. I don't know if you've if a lot
of you do play some type of instrument and and maybe maybe
after a little while it's it's been a while since you picked it
up and you're a little bit rusty and you pick that thing up and
you start playing and and you're trying to work your way through
a piece of music and it's just not going right.
You can't get the the notes to play what you wanted to play.
You can't hit the right notes on the piano or whatever it happens
to be, and eventually you just you just get frustrated and you
quit. Even if you're not a musician,
you like to walk around singing, even if you can't.
We like to do that sometimes, right?
We like to sing in the shower. We like to sing or hum while
we're working or whatever else. And we all we all do that from
time to time. But there comes a time when the
music just isn't motivating anymore.
It would sound pretty, but you just don't care.
You're over it. You used to love the songs, but
they don't inspire you anymore. You hung up your heart the way
that the Israelites did there by the rivers of Babylon.
You're not happy. No joyful music is coming out,
no beautiful song. When you're happy and you're
right with God, and you're looking forward to the future,
you have a song in your heart. And that's the way we all should
be as Christians. We all should have that.
Song in our heart. We all should be happy.
We all should be joyful. We all should be looking forward
to the future as Christians. But the devil with little
stings. You keep messing up.
Maybe you keep going back to the same sin over and over and over,
and you just can't seem to get victory over it.
You're tired of fighting it. The devil tries to steal our
song constantly. And so my challenge to you this
morning is this. Don't let the devil steal your
song. Don't let the devil steal your
song. What I want to share with you
this morning is some ways that we do allow the devil to steal
our song. And maybe one of these things
you'll find is the situation that you're in this morning.
Maybe you need to get your song back from the devil.
That's what we want to talk about for a few minutes this
morning. But let's pray and then we'll
look at a few of these things. Father, we love you.
Can we thank you so much for your goodness to us.
Thank you for an opportunity we have to be in your house this
morning. Got to thank you for the singing
that we heard, the fellowship that we have.
But, God, sometimes an outward display is not necessarily a
reflection of what's on the inside.
And sometimes we may be dying. Sometimes we may be hurting.
Sometimes we might not have that joy.
And that's certainly what the devil is trying to do to each
one of us. He wants to take that joy away.
So, God, I pray that maybe as we look through some of these
things this morning will help us to get to the root problem that
we might be facing in our lives and that you would use it to
help us to be what you need us and want us to be and help us to
have that joy in the Lord God. I pray that you would give me
the words to say this morning and we'll thank you for what you
do in Jesus name. Amen.
Now keep your finger there in Psalm 137, but turn over to
Proverbs Chapter 28. We're gonna get there in a
minute. Because I want you to
understand, first of all, that many times the devil is allowed
to steal our song because of unconfessed sin.
Unconfessed sin, That's one of the biggest things that the
devil will use to get you away from God.
That's honestly what led Israel into the condition that they
were in. We've already talked about it a
little bit, but they were in captivity to Babylon because
they refused to repent. They wouldn't give their lives
back to God. They wouldn't get the sin out.
They wouldn't live the way that God wanted them to live.
And God had to allow them to be taken captive into a land that
they never thought that they would go into, but they
certainly didn't want to be a part of, and had to make them
realize their need for him. She's straying away from God
makes you more and more and more miserable.
You find an angry person that that that claims to be a
Christian, that claims to know Jesus Christ is their savior.
More than likely that anger is stemming from the fact that they
have unconfessed sin in their life.
It get you get you angry because you want to have that joy, but
you can't because you've got that sin in there.
We sin and and and we think it's not a big deal.
We'll deal with it later. But unconfessed sin is the
number one thing that caused us to stray, causes us to stray
away from God. All you your circumstances can
change. Things might not be wonderful,
things may not be great because of those circumstances, but you
can still have the joy of the Lord.
But when you have unconfessed sin in your life, you can't have
the joy of Lord. Your fellowship with Him is
broken. Your relationship with Him is
not what He desires for it to be with you.
And of course, your relationship is not what you want it to be
either. But then it compounds and it
pushes us further from God. We stop reading our Bible, we
stop praying, we stop looking forward to church, and the devil
steals our joy. And that's what I'm saying, that
that so often maybe what we portray on the outside is a
facade that we want everybody to see, but it's not exactly what's
going on in the inside. I can't tell necessarily by
looking at you that you've stopped reading your Bible.
I can't tell that you stop having your prayer time.
I can't tell that you stop enjoying coming to church,
although sometimes those things are obvious on the outside.
But you can continue to pretend like everything is great,
everything's wonderful, and inside you have that unconfessed
sin, and your joy is gone. And you have no heart for the
Lord, and you have no desire to serve, and you have no desire to
even be in church. You just are going through the
motions. That unconfessed sin will keep
us from having that joy that we should be having in the Lord.
Got by the name of Evan Hopkins, wrote a book called The Law of
Liberty, and in that book he said this No child of God ever
fell into grievous sin who had not previously received divine
warnings of the approaching danger.
The warning, neglected, was the first step in the fall.
We have to watch for the Lord's leadings.
I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt
go. I will guide thee with mine eye,
he says in Psalm 32 of our state.
To be guided by God's eye is the most delicate of all kinds of
leading. You may guide by your hand
someone who is deaf, or you may guide by your voice someone who
is blind. But you cannot guide one with
your eye unless he can see and is willing to keep his eye on
your eye and understand your looks.
But this supposes intimate knowledge and personal
acquaintance. What a great statement.
But you know exactly what that is, because if your parents
didn't do it to you, then you did it to your kids and
probably. Both right.
You don't have to say anything to your kids a lot of times, and
my parents didn't have to say a lot to me.
I I'll be messing around and having a good old time and I
catch their eye and all the sudden it's like I'm in trouble.
They didn't have to say a word, they didn't have to lift the
finger. They just had to guide them with
their eye. Get over there and sit down.
That's all that you don't have to say it, right?
You know exactly what that means.
You better stop right this second, right?
And that's exactly what God is talking about when he says
guiding them with his eye. We we If brother Ryan did that
to me and he's looking at me like that, I'm going to say
what's wrong with him? Why is he staring at me like
that? If it's my dad, I'm going to say
I know exactly what that look means, right?
Because I know my dad and I know my dad in an intimate way, as
far as I understand what he's thinking.
I've been on the receiving end of that look before when I
didn't obey that look, right? And the same thing is true with
God. When we know him intimately in
that way, and he and he, he's, he's guiding us with his eye.
He doesn't have to say anything. He's have to do anything.
We know exactly what he means. But that does require that we
have that relationship with him, and that's exactly what he's
talking about. If you find that you've lost
hope that that's it, you've given up.
Maybe it's because you don't have something to live for.
God supplies the never ending fountain of hope and joy and
peace and that feeling of completeness that we all crave,
maybe without even realizing that you've taken too many steps
away from God. By the way, that's a drone.
If you fall asleep, it's going to sting you.
Josh is flying that thing around.
It's got a big Stinger on it too, so you better not fall
asleep, Curtis Hudson said. I would rather have a song and
no tune than a tune and no song. See, there's so much
Christianity going on around us, so much music being played.
There's there's who are joyful in the Lord.
But do you have that joy in the Lord?
If not, it very well may be that you've let the devil steal it
because you have unconfessed sin.
What do you have in your heart this morning that you're hiding
from everybody else? What do you have in your heart
this morning that you think you're hiding from God?
I can tell you this. You're not hiding anything from
him. He sees it.
He knows he's already there. You're not hiding anything from
him. You might as well confess it.
You might as well forsake. You might as well get that joy
back that the devil is trying to steal from you.
Christians were not made to live in sin.
Christians were not made to live defeated.
Christians were not made to live joyless.
God has promised us the victory. God has promised us joy.
God has promised us victory over our.
Sin like the Bible says in Psalm 40 and verse three.
He's put a new song in my mouth. What do you think that means?
He wants us to be happy. He wants us to be able to sing
his praises. I should be a joyful creation
with God's praise in my heart and his praise on my lips.
That's how God intended us to live.
But they're in Proverbs 28 and verse #13 the Bible says this.
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but who so confess
to them forsake at them shall have mercy.
I don't know if you're familiar at all with any kind of legal
language, but that word shall means it's not a question.
It's going to happen. You must do that.
That's what that word shall. And see that cover the sins will
not. No possible way that you can
prosper if you're covering your sins, but who so confesses and
forsaketh them shall have mercy. You confess your sin, you
forsake your sin. God will be merciful to you.
What a promise that He's given us.
There's two polar opposite extremes in that verse.
Living sin you're going to be. You're going to pay for it.
Confess and forsake, you'll have mercy.
I'll take the mercy side myself. I read a quote that said this I
can think of but one thing worse than losing your song in the
Christian life. And that's learning how to sing
while indulging in the pleasures of sin.
Learning how to sing while indulging in the pleasures of
sin. If that doesn't describe the
majority of Christians in our good churches today, we've
learned how to sing while indulging in sin.
We can put that facade up. Listen, don't.
Just don't. Don't just do good as a
Christian. Be good as a Christian.
Stop just doing Christianity. Be a.
Christian It's so much easier to just be real.
So much easier to just be a Christian rather than is to just
try to do Christianity. There's a good number of people
who are just doing Christianity because they're not even
Christians. They've been in church a long
time. They've heard the gospel many
times, and so they've accepted it.
And now this is just what we do as Christians now.
I'm just trying to be as good as I can.
Now I'm just trying to do the things that Christians do.
And you're spinning wheels. And the rush is getting deeper
and deeper and deeper and there's no joy in it because
maybe it's because you're not even saved.
But once you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, once you
are sure that you're on your way to heaven.
Then you ought to have joy. And if you don't have joys
because you're digging that rut deeper and deeper and deeper
because of the unconfessed sin that's in your life, stop just
doing Christianity and be a Christian.
Get it right with God this morning, get your song back from
the devil. I don't know what sins you may
have in your life, but there's a good chance that you know what
it is. And there's 100% chance that God
knows what it is. Get it right with him this
morning. Stop.
Stop losing your song to the devil.
Stop losing your song for unconfessed sin.
It's not worth it. You'll spend the rest of your
life in that condition, and what a miserable life it is.
The devil will steal our song when we have unconfessed sin,
but #2 when we have unfulfilled service.
You're close to Psalm 137 with your bookmark, maybe, but turn
just a few pages back to Psalm 100.
See, because the unfulfilled service aspect usually is a step
that happens in the process of taking steps away from God, that
unconfessed sin is usually the first step.
That's what draws you back in your Bible reading.
That's what draws you back on your prayer time.
That's what draws you back on on on looking forward to going to
church. But the next thing that happens
is this unfulfilled service. As we move further away from
Him, we lose our desire to serve Him.
We lose that desire to serve Him.
We just stop serving him, and the devil takes that wonderful
opportunity to steal our joy. As Christians, God puts the
desire in each one of us to serve Him.
Psalm 100 is a very well known Psalm, but we see this in verse
#1. Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord all ye lands, and that's usually where we stop.
Right, but what is he saying? Verse two.
Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with
singing, but serve the Lord with gladness.
When you lose that joy, you don't have a desire to serve the
Lord anymore. We can't take the credit for our
desire to serve Him in our human flesh.
We don't have that natural desire.
But once we get saved and God changes our life that He puts
within us, that desire to live for Him and that desire to serve
him. Romans chapter 6 and verse #13
says neither yield you your members as instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as
those that are alive from the dead and your members as
instruments of of righteousness unto God.
If you've been revived, if you've gotten that second birth
right, you've been you've accepted Jesus Christ as you're
saving, you've been made a new creature in Jesus Christ, then
you were made to serve. And if you're not serving you,
you're not going to be fulfilling that joy that you
could have in living for Jesus Christ.
John chapter 12 and verse 26. If any man served me, let him
follow me, And where I am shall also my servant be.
If any man served me him, will my father honor Philippians
chapter 2 and verse 13? For it is God which worketh in
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
God could come down here on this earth and do all of the work
that He wants to have accomplished right now, but He
doesn't, because He uses us and He uses us as instruments and
He. Uses us so that he can bless us.
And when you're not available for God to use you, when you're
when you're a tool that's just sitting in the shed instead of
being out there being used, then you're going you're not
fulfilling the purpose that God designed for you to do as a
Christian. What's the point of of going to
buy a shovel and then sticking it up in the attic and leaving
it there and then going on digging the dirt with your
hands? All right.
A shovel was meant to be used as a shovel.
It was meant to be a tool. And that's what we were meant to
be as Christians. God saved us so that we can
serve. And if we if we're saved and
we're not serving, then we're going to be miserable.
And that unfulfilled service many times is what the devil
uses to steal our joy. God intends for us to have joy
in serving Jesus and in serving him with our lives.
When we stop serving God by witnessing for him, when we stop
serving God by being involved in ministries, when we stop serving
him by giving him our time, we lose the joy that comes from
serving Jesus. And there is a joy that can only
come in service. Oh, you can be happy on birthday
parties and and vacations. And there's a difference between
joy and happiness. Most people base everything on
happiness. We base it on joy in the Lord,
and he wants you to have that joy.
But you can't have that joy if you have that unfulfilled
service. One of the best ways for the
devil to come in and steal our joy is for us to allow sin to
pull us away from God, which causes us to lose our desire to
serve Him, which in turn takes that joy out of the Christian
life. There's so much joy in serving
Jesus. Turn back over to Psalm 137
because I'm going to show you another one that the devil uses
many times to steal our song. He'll use that unconfessed sin.
He'll use that unfulfilled service.
But also we'll see in in chapter 137, Psalm 137 and verse #5 that
he uses unthankfulness. Verse #5 says, if I forget the
Old Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember, they let my tongue cleave to the roof of
my mouth if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
One of the biggest, biggest Downers for the Israelites when
they were carried away captive is that they didn't realize what
they had until it was gone. They didn't realize how much
they had in Jerusalem. They didn't realize what they
had in being able to worship there in the Temple until it was
gone. They scolded themselves for
forgetting what they had in Jerusalem.
If I forget the Old Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her
cunning. I think that unthankfulness is
one of the things that caused them to lose their joy.
See when we. Lose our heart of gratitude.
We lose our joy. You might save a pastor.
You don't understand what I'm going through.
And I and I may not. And I'm not trying to have fun
of you or anything like that. But what if what?
What I want you to think about is everything you do have,
everything that's going right in your life.
Think about all the times when you've been blessed that you
didn't thank God for those things.
We like to focus so many times on the negative.
All we like to think about is all this is going so bad.
What about all this is going so good?
God's really blessed me in this. God's really giving me some
great things when it came to whatever.
Fill in the blank. We could we could sit here and
start counting our blessings and and and we'll be here through
the afternoon if we really stop to think about what God's done
for us. I heard somebody say one time,
if if you could bring all of your problems down to the altar
and set them there and pick up somebody else's problems, most
of us would be back here picking up our problems and taking them
back to our seats, right? Because if you actually think
about what you go through based and what other, somebody else
always has it worse than you. Now I've heard people say that
many times, but who's the one that actually does have it the
worst Because there's somebody that's at the end of the line,
right? Somebody does not have it worse
than somebody else. But especially in America, and
especially the way that God's blessed us there, there are
people out there who have it way worse than we do.
There are people who don't have the family and the fellowship
that we have. And and and listen, everybody's
dressed this morning, so I know you got at least one pair of
clothes, right? You got, you got the church this
morning, so most likely you got a car or at least somebody to
give you a ride in a car, right. Nobody slept outside last night
unless you did it on purpose, which we did the other night.
And I don't know why we did it the other night still.
Paying for that. From the other night.
But we have a house that we can live in, right?
I mean, those three things right there is a wonderful thing.
Yay, this morning most of us more than we should have, right?
And we do over and over and over and over that you see when you
shoot a gun into a pack of dogs, the one that's hit will howl,
right? Bob just howled back there.
I'm kidding. But you see what I'm saying?
We have so many things in our life that that that goes right
that we just take for granted. And then one thing gets off
track and we start complaining about it, and we start crying
about how difficult our life is and how horrible God is to us
and why would he put me through that?
And I understand sometimes the situations that we do go through
in life are not pleasant. They're not fun.
But how about thank God for the things that we do have.
Stop being so unthankful for the things that we always take for
granted. Psalm 138.
Look. Look at the next chapter there.
And verse #1. I will praise thee with my whole
heart before the gods will I sing praise unto thee.
I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for
the loving kindness and for thy truth.
For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.
In the day when I cried, thou answered, is me, and strengthens
me with strength in my soul. And he goes on and on.
But David wrote Psalm 138, And he started to list all the
things that he was thankful for. And if you read through the rest
of that bastion, it got him excited.
He started the list of things that got it done.
And listen, those are a lot of things that we don't think of.
The loving kindness, his truth, his word, his, he his answering
us, his strengthening, strengthening us.
Those are things that when we started to list all the
blessings, we're like, well, I got a house, I got a car, I got
this, I got that. But what about all those things,
the things that you can't grab in your hands?
David started to listen, list those things out, and he got
excited about what God was doing for him.
The truth is, it's hard to be sad when you're thankful for
what God's given you. It's hard to let unthankfulness
creep in when you're so thankful for what God has already done.
Well, it's just a little setback.
But you know what? Look at everything else that
God's done. There's a hundred good things
and one bad. I'll take the 99% right?
When you get that mindset, you get that attitude.
It's hard to be unthankful. Oh, thank you for another day of
life. Thank you for breath.
Thank you for showing yourself in my life.
Thank you for loving me. Thank you for your protection.
Thank you most of all for Jesus. Thank you for dying on the cross
from me. Well, we could go on and on and
on and on with all the list of things that we have to be
thankful for. When I was in high school, we
used to go downtown Chicago. I grew up not too far from there
to the Pacific Garden Mission and it's a very large homeless
shelter but they use it as an opportunity.
Every night those who attended the service the church service
were allowed to to to get a shower and have a meal and spend
the night there and they would have hundreds and hundreds of
people come in and many, many people have been through there.
Billy Sunday was probably one of the most well known that that
got saved through the Pacific Garden Mission.
But many many many people that have gone on and do great things
for the Lord. It's been around for a long,
long time and when I was in high school we used to go down there
every so often and and sing and play instruments.
And you know we we had an orchestra and we had a lot of
different things that we do. And then whoever the youth
pastor was or whoever was leading us in that group would
go down there and preach. But every time we went and you
know, we'd go down there and do. Have you ever heard of
Unshackled? It's a radio program that
Unshackle this film or is is recorded there at the Pacific
Garden Mission just to kind of maybe put the the link together
for you. But there at the Pacific Garden
Mission, they would have a testimony time every every time,
kind of as part of the church service before they preach and
before we would do whatever we were going to do.
And it never failed that one of the men would stand up and say,
I thank the Lord for picking me up this morning.
A shame on us. We we make fun of that and think
that it was just, you know, they say and that, you know, they
just, they they just wanted to say something in the service.
And so we would, you know, we joke about that afterwards.
And it wasn't until quite a few years later that I realized that
those men were genuinely thankful that the Lord woke them
up this morning. Because they could have been on
the street. They could have been out there,
you know, under a bridge somewhere.
And they were able to spend the night in that, in that shelter
and and have a place to sleep and have, you know, some a
shower and some food and all of those other things.
And and I got to thinking about that later like.
How unthankful we are when we're going to sit there and make fun
of somebody who says thank the Lord for waking me up in the
morning. He didn't have to wake us up.
What a privilege it was that we all woke up this.
We didn't. We didn't have to be one of the
ones that got up and was able to get dressed and get out the door
and go to church, right? There's plenty of people who
would love the opportunity to do that, either because they're
laying in a casket or they're laying in a hospital bed
somewhere, right? What a tremendous privilege it
is for us to be able to get up and get out and go to church
this morning. And shame on us when we don't do
that, Shame on us when we let little tiny things get in the
way of us. Well, I'm a little run running a
little behind today, so I guess I'm just going to skip church.
You know, I'm true. I definitely got to make lunch.
I'll be there for lunch. But just church is one of those
things it's going to something's got to go.
I guess it's church. It's going to go this morning,
right? But there's so many things, so
many things that we could be thankful for.
Instead of counting your problems, how about stopping to
count your blessings? Maybe let's do that the next
time we start getting unthankful.
Maybe let's do that the next time we start getting down.
Realize that it could be 100 times worse.
And for a lot of people, that probably is reason we allow
unthankfulness to steal, steal our song is because we don't
realize how good we really have it.
I want you to look at one last thing with me.
The devil will steal our song when we have unconfessed sin.
He'll steal our steal our song through unfulfilled service.
He'll steal our song through unthankfulness.
And lastly, he'll steal our song through undisciplined time.
By that I mean busyness. Adrian Rogers was perhaps the
first preacher to coin the phrase If Satan can't make you
bad, he'll make you busy. A lot of other people have said
that. Since then, a lot of people have
echoed that statement, and for good reason.
If the devil can't make you bad, he'll make you busy.
See, I've seen the numbing effect of busyness on people,
especially in this day and age, and that's that's something that
I have to pay very close to myself.
King is, I said. That's a very to be in, and the
devil will use that to steal our song.
Busyness can harden our hearts as we work and perform without
enjoying the one who actually gave us that work to do.
Our busy lives can deceive us into thinking that we're
accomplishing a whole lot, but it matters.
What you're busy doing may or remind you that when you stand
for God, your job is going to count for nothing.
I've said it many times before, you're not a Carpenter who
happens to be a Christian. You're a Christian who happens
to be a Carpenter. You're not an electrician who
happens to be a Christian. You're a Christian who happens
to be an electrician. I understand that you have to go
to work. You have to make a living, but
don't let that be what you get wrapped up in the busyness of
life over. Let's get wrapped up in the
busyness of serving God. But the time that you spend on
Facebook and Instagram and whatever other social media
things that they have out there nowadays is going to count for
nothing. The time you spent in front of
the TV, the time you spend playing video games, The time
you spend just just throwing our time away is going to count for
nothing. The time you spend in sports and
entertainment is going to count for nothing someday when we
stand before God. I've said it many, many times,
but only one life will soon be passed.
Only what's done for Christ will last.
What are you doing for Christ? Only get one life to live for
it. Turn over to Psalm 46.
The busier we are, the less still we are, which is damaging
to our souls. Psalm 46 and verse #10 is a
verse that you could probably quote at least the beginning of
it, But he says that Psalm 46 verse 10 be still and know that
I am God, I will be exalted among the heat, and I will be
exalted in the earth. Be still and know that I am God.
You can't be busy and be still at the same time.
You either wrapped up in all the busyness or you're still before
God. There has to be times when you
just sit down, stop everything else that's going on around you,
and spend time with God. Busyness pushes out the things
that really matter, pushes out the things that are really
important, and it opens up the door for unconfessed sin, opens
up the door for unfulfilled service.
It opens up the door for unthankfulness because you got
busy, and many times it's busy doing good things.
It's busy doing things that are not unnecessary.
The busyness will drive the joy out of our lives over to Psalm
34. When you allow these things to
linger in your life and the devil is stolen your song when
you've allowed him to win. And as we draw it to a close
here this morning, I want to point out just a couple things.
And Psalm 34 is the one that we sang just a little bit ago.
Psalm 34 and verse #1 says this. I will bless the Lord at all
times. His praise shall continually be
in my mouth. Now if your Bible has headings
in psalms, it says a Psalm of David when he changed his
behavior before a Bemelech who drove him away and he departed.
Is your Bible say that this is David who wrote this song.
Now we've already talked about this on our Sunday night Bible
geography, so maybe this story will will sound familiar to you.
But David wrote this song while he was on the run.
He was hiding from King Song. He was trying to preserve his
life. Saul was trying to kill him.
And then he ends up in another situation because when we get
into this story, David was desperate for food.
He was desperate for protection. And so he goes to the priest
there at a place called Nob and he got there.
And a Bimalek was the high priest.
And he goes to a Bimalek and he says, listen, I need some food,
give me the food, give me the bread off the altar.
And a Bimalek did it. And he said, and I need
protection. And this is where the sword is
that I used to kill Goliath, give me Goliath sword.
And he gave it to him. And now David moves out of that
place and left and went to Acish.
One of the King's servants recognized David.
Now by that time I don't David. I don't know what David looked
like when he flew a lot of the Philistines and everything else.
The Bible says that he was, he was Ruddy.
He was a young man, so he probably didn't have a beard by
now. He probably did.
He's been on the run, right? I know he does because the Bible
says that he has a beard. So he probably looked very
different. His hair was probably scraggly
because he'd been living in these caves and everything else.
He probably did not really look like David, but somebody who
happened to be close enough to him at some point in his life
recognized this is the David. And he didn't have a last name,
but this is the David, right? And he goes and tells Akish,
hey, this is the guy that killed Goliath.
And Akish gets excited and he says, wait, this is this is the
David? Yeah, this is the David.
Bring him to me. And of course, now David
realizes that he's really in hot water.
He went down there because he was trying to get away from
salt. He jumped out of the frying pan
into the fire. Now he's in Akish's land, where
Akish, who realized that this is, you know, this is that the
arch enemy of the Philistines. He's got him exactly where he
wants him. So they bring David in.
You know what David does? He starts pretending to be mad,
starts slobbering all over his beard, starts acting crazy to
the point where Akish said this is not the David.
This may be a David. This is not the David.
There's no way in the world that this was the David slobbering
all over himself and pretending to be mad.
In fact, if you value your life, you better get this guy out of
here right now. And they took him out.
But this is when David writes the story.
That's what it says. When he changed his behavior
before a Bemelech who drove him away and he departed, this man
that God had promised was going to be a king someday was stuck
in the wilderness, living in and out of caves, drooling all over
himself and pretending to be mad.
That doesn't sound like the life that David thought he was going
to live when he got anointed by Samuel to be the next king of
Israel. Do you think what a tough time
it was to be David? He look like a wild man.
He was perfectly civilized. He was anointed to be the next
king of Israel. But here David was carrying
around that prophetic word in his heart that said he was going
to be the next king, running from King Saul, running from the
Philistines, living in a cave, scrabbling on his beard, and
pretending to be mad. And yet David writes Psalm 34
and verse #1. I will bless the Lord at all
times. His praise shall continually be
in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in
the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof,
and be glad. Oh magnify the Lord with me, and
let us exalt his name together. I saw the Lord, and he heard me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
They looked unto him, and were lightened, and their faces were
not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the
Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.
And it goes on. But how was it that David, who's
has his life in shambles? Why?
Why was Saul still on the throne in constant pursuit of David?
If he was supposed to be the next king, why didn't God stop
this? If he was annoying, why all the
trouble? Why all the heartache?
Why all the pain for David? David could have taken out the
victim mentality, could have folded his hands, gave up, quit
believing, walked away, stop worshipping altogether.
And who would have blamed him? But that's not what David does.
David makes a decision, and David's decision is that I will
bless the Lord at all times. His praise continually be in my
mouth. In trouble.
He still had praise on his lips. And he still had a heart after
God. His thoughts I can imagine where
while I'm on the run. I'll bless the heart when
prophecy looks like it's not coming true.
I'll bless the Lord when my enemies are pursuing me.
I will bless the Lord when I'm hungry.
I'll bless the Lord when I'm thirsty.
I will bless the Lord when the when the when the times get
harder than I ever imagined they would.
Be I will bless the Lord. That's what it means.
I'll bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
Friend, be like David when you're going through a tough
time. I know life's not easy.
I know there's a lot of things that that get us discouraged.
There's a lot of things that get us down.
There's a lot of things that we feel are setbacks in our life.
But you have to refuse to allow the devil to steal your joy.
And if you've lost it, it's time to get it back.
It's time to get it back. How do you do that?
You make sure you have no one. Confess.
Sin. Sin in our life that's allowed
to fester will keep us from being anything that God wants us
to be. Confess it.
Forsake it. Get mercy.
Get that unconfessed sin out. Make sure you're serving the
Lord faithfully and fully. Don't have any unfulfilled
service. One of these days, we're going
to stand before God, and I can imagine, and I think about this
often. I I I don't think this is the
way it's going to be. The Bible doesn't say this, this
is this is extra biblical. But this is the way that I I see
it in my mind. But one of these days, we're
going to stand before God. And when we stand before him,
he's going to say look at all those things.
These are, these are all the blessings I wanted to give you.
These are all the things that I wanted to use you to do.
These are all the things that I wanted you to accomplish.
And I couldn't. I I I never got the chance to
use them. Because you had unconfessed sin.
Because you were unthankful. Because you just didn't have
that desire to serve. Because you were too busy to
serve me. This is.
Everything I wanted to do. Look all the way around the
room. Look at all these things I
wanted to do through you. Look at all these things that I
wanted to accomplish through you.
Look at all the blessings that I had to give you.
The Bible says that he wants to open up the windows of heaven
and pour us out of blessing, that there's not even room
enough to receive it. Can't tell me there's not rooms
full of blessings that God wants to give us, and yet how much do
we miss out on? Because we have allowed the
devil to steal the joy that God wants us to have.
Because we've got this one little sin that we just can't
let go of. Because we just, well, I'm a
little bit too busy right now and life is a little.
I've got a lot going on in my life right now.
And so there'll be time to serve later.
And I will. I will just, I got to get
through this time first. How about give God the best and
you take what's left instead of you getting the best and giving
God what's left? That's the way we want to give
to God so often. Well God, I'm going to take the
the the 1st 90% and you can have the little 10% that's left over
and the God says no, I want the first fruits.
You give me the 10%, you you can have the 90%, but I want the I
want the best 10% first. That's how.
That's how we got to give to God, That's how.
That's how we have to be when it comes to confessing our sin.
That's how it has to be When we decide we're going to serve him.
That's how it has to be When we decide if we're going to be
thankful or not. How can we get that joy back?
Get rid of that unconfessed in get rid of the unfulfilled
service, get rid of the unthankfulness, get rid of the
undisciplined time, and allow God to give you the joy back to
the devil's stole. Back in Psalm 137, verse #2, we
hanged our harps upon the willows.
In the midst thereof, they gave up.
They allowed the devil to steal their song.
Don't set down your heart. Don't allow the devil to steal
your song. When God wants to hear you say,
Let's pray, Father, we love you again.
We thank you so much for your goodness to us.
I thank you for the joy that we have in the Lord and God.
I do pray that if there is anybody in here this morning
that does not know for sure that they're on their way to heaven,
but they'd get that settled this morning.
You have every single person that's in this room this morning
here for a reason. I don't know if it's because
they're not saved. I don't know if it's because we
needed to hear this message this morning and we have some of
these things that we need to work on.
I don't know what it is, but you've got everybody here for a
reason. And so, God, I pray that you'd
help us to allow the Holy Spirit to have free reign in our hearts
this morning and that whatever the Holy Spirit is impressing on
our hearts to make a decision about.
But we do that this morning. We would hold nothing back from
you, but we would not miss out on one little speck of joy that
you want us to have. That we wouldn't allow the devil
to steal our song. And God, where you've spoken to
our hearts this morning, I pray that you give us the courage and
the boldness to take the step to move in your direction to live
for you. Well, thank you for all that you
do for us. In Jesus name, Amen.
If you would.