psalm thirty seven fret not thyself because of evil doers neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity incidentally whenever the scripture speaks about something The Holy Spirit does not always give all the reasons for making the statement that is made. Now, in this particular case, he gives one reason, but there are many, many more reasons why a Christian shouldn't fret. But one of them is given here. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green earth. Trust in the Lord and do good. So shall thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord. and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass, and he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Incidentally, One of the things that you might have noticed about some of the servants of the Lord who are severely criticized by their opponents and their enemies, I think that one of the marks of a real servant of the Lord and a true servant of the Lord is that when they are criticized and lied about in the press and by their enemies, that they don't argue back. You ever notice that? In one sense they just ignore it. You know why? The Lord will vindicate him and his own time. And I think that one of the characteristics of a little man is that he'll fight back. Now that wasn't in my notes, but I just pass that on to you extra. It won't cost a thing extra. Incidentally, I had a very interesting experience last night. I got up to speak, and I opened my Bible and realized that my notes to my message were back in my room. Well, the Lord gave it to me the first time, and he gave it to me again last night, so we didn't really have to worry. But I just thought of this. I've never commented upon that right there, but I thought of that, and how very true that is. He shall bring forth our righteousness as the light. and thy judgment as the noon day. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him." You notice the Holy Spirit, even in the Old Testament, knew a great deal about teaching. You know they say one of the first principles in teaching is repetition. And then the second principle in teaching, you know what it is? Repetition. And what do you suppose the third one is? That's right. All right. And yet he comes with the same thought that he starts all with, and fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who brinketh wicked devices to pass. All right. Now jump down to verse twenty-five. Now here's talk of the palms. There's one word there in the middle of that verse. We have to change a little bit. I'm sure that King James won't mind. I have been young and now am older. Is that all right? All right. Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. And this, I must say, is one of the great verses in the Bible. I have been young and now am older, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor is seed begging bread. Now, in many of the Psalms of David, and this is one of the Psalms of David, we have some indication up just after the title or the name of the Psalm or the number of the Psalm as to when it was written. We don't have that in this Psalm, but we do know from this one verse that he wrote it, of course, in the latter years of his life. And he could say this. And, you know, foresight is always better than hindsight, but it certainly is good to have hindsight if we'll listen to those who've had experience. There are a lot of things that we learn in the Christian life. You can read them in books. You can hear them preach on the platform, but until you've experienced them. Really, you don't really don't believe them. And so this is true. in many of our lives. Now, someone has called the age in which we live the aspirin age. Well, I suppose now you might have to change it to the buffering age, or the exeteran age. I'm glad to say that my life has never been bothered much by pills. I was somebody talking about an aspirin the other night, well, I hardly ever take an aspirin. If I have a headache, I find out why I have a headache and do something about it, and I don't have to take an aspirin. Some people take pills to go to sleep, and then they take a pill to wake up, and then they take a pill to do this, and a pill to do this, and a pill to do this. And it's amazing to me how they know which pill to take. They take so many pills. Now, there are a lot of problems in the day and age in which we live. But you see, Christians are not supposed to react to problems the way that the world reacts. But it's very tragic that a lot of people who claim to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ seem to react the same way that unconverted people do when problems come in their lives. Now beloved, I'll tell you a little bit about yourself. The way you react when problems come in your life is a real good indicator of your relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the problem of the human heart is the greatest problem in the world. And there are a lot of different routes that people take when problems come in their lives. And many of the roots that Christian people take to get away from these problems or to handle these problems are definitely of the world and not of the Lord. What is your attitude to the problems? There are several here that are very worldly, and I'm going to mention them because some of us, on some occasions, have taken the roots. that I'm going to mention. One of them is the head in the sand out of you. Ask the brother, well, what about the problem you have? What problem? Didn't know I had one. Try to deny that they really have problems. Beloved, you showed me a man that doesn't have a problem, and I'll show you a man that's already with the Lord. Why, certainly we have problems. But praise the Lord, if we know and love Him and have learned to trust and obey it, oh, that puts quite an entirely different light on our problems. Another attitude that's quite prevalent of the day in which we live is the fire escape attitude. A problem arises and we say, where's the hat? Let me get out of here. Let me move away. I'm going to leave no problem. This young man at the Hullers led to the Lord. He was running. He lived up in the East and he was coming to Florida to have a good time and he's going to California to get away from his problems in the East. And the Lord found him and saved him. So what did he do? He went back right to where those problems were. Why? Because now he had someone that could enable him to meet the problems head on. Now the people who take the firescape attitude, I'll tell you what one of their favorite verses is. The trouble is they don't quote all the verse. You know that's one of the favorite tricks for some people is they quote part of the verse. And their favorite verse is There is no temptation taken you, but such as is common demand. But God is faithful. Who will I suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able? And they stop right there. That's not the verse. That's the same thing as saying all things work together for good to those that love God. No. The rest of that verse is that ye may be able to or rather that you may be able to bear it. The question is, when problems come in a Christian's life, are you going to hold up by God's grace, or are you going to hold up and dodge the question and the problem? And there's one more added to you. And a friend of mine who suggested this one to me said he calls this evangelical fatalism. I call it the grin and barrett out of here. Oh, well, we're Christians. Tighten your seatbelt, brethren. We'll go first. I'll do my best. After all, I'm a Christian, Paul says you got to endure hardness and You can expect persecution, and I'll take mine. Here it comes. These are not legitimate roots for a Christian to take. Now, all Christians have problems. They're not the same problems, but I'll tell you something wonderful. The answer to all your problems is the same. Because you see, the answer is all wrapped up on a person. That person is God's Son, Jesus Christ. When Mrs. Few and I were married, of course she was not Mrs. Few the last we married, but when Dottie Whitman and I were married, we chose as our wife's verse. One of those great little couplets of verses. in the Bible. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not under thine own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths Now, before I get to the couplet of verses here that we're going to consider, I want to say a word or two about problems. You know, I think it would help a lot of Christians if they take a real simple elementary course in logic. Or maybe in counseling. You see, a lot of people don't know how to really stop and clearly sum up what the nature of the problem is. We had a couple in Columbia, a father and a mother, and three children. And if you wanted to set your watch, I'll tell you how you could do it. Now, our Sunday school begins at nine forty-five. But if you wanted to set your watch and your watch had stopped, when they walked in the door, you could set your watch at five after ten, and you'd hit it. And you know, I'm one of those guys. I sometimes open my mouth and put my foot in it. Fortunately, sometimes the Lord keeps my foot out, and I'm glad. And I should it as long as I could. And this fellow, he's a good brother of mine. We love to work together and so forth, and I love him in the Lord. And about a few weeks ago, I said, Brother Gene, I said... Do you all have sickness or something at your house every Saturday night? I couldn't resist it. I just couldn't wait any longer. I said, you know, I just can't help. I said, now, if you just happen to be late one Sunday, you know, well, I can understand the clock wouldn't go off or you didn't have any loaf bread and you had to run and get some or the baby was sick or something. But I just happened to notice. I said, there's something must happen. Because I just happen to notice that about five out of ten you usually get in and you know, Brother Gene, the sun school starts at nine forty. You own sure? Yeah, yeah. I said, well, would it help if I would have called you up? About so. Well, let me see now. We get up at seven thirty on Sunday morning. Would it help if I called you up at seven thirty? He said, oh, we just have a hard time getting going. I said, Brother Gene, you get to work at bronze on time? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, Brother, I'm going to pray for you at seven-thirty next Sunday. I said, you got on a long plop? Oh, yeah, you got on? Well, anyway, to make a long story short, what do you suppose? Why, certainly. It never had dawned upon him that he was a regular Christian coming to the chapel every Sunday, and every Sunday he was twenty minutes late. The fellow just never had really faced up to the fact that he had a problem, and the simple problem was he didn't get up on time on Sunday morning. And yet he's a graduate of high school and forty-five years of age and has normal intelligence, and yet it never had occurred to him that he had a problem, and the problem was that he just plain didn't get up in time to get to Sunday school on time. Face up to the problem. Admit that you have a problem, and then ask God to enable you to do something about it. Sometimes I found that Christians have to ask themselves or ask the Lord, Lord, make me be willing to be willing to do your will. All right. Now, we have four divine commands right here in this wonderful song. And in this first one, in verse three, I want to tell you right now, there's a lot of sloppy thinking done regarding trusting. A lot of sloppy thinking done regarding trusting. A lot of people say, oh, what we need is faith. Beloved, let me tell you, trust in faith is absolutely no good by itself. Trust in the Lord. not in horses, not in chariots, not in men. We're to trust in the Lord. Now, trust demands a worthy object. Say that again. Trust demands a worthy object. Now, a few weeks ago, because of a very, very tight schedule, a number of meetings that I couldn't get out and a number of meetings that Dr. Fred Giles couldn't get out of in Columbia. We realized that we couldn't go to the Workers' Conference in Raleigh for the full three days. In fact, we realized that all we were going to be able to do is to get in a plane and fly up there on Wednesday and be there for Wednesday and come back early Thursday morning. And so Dr. Giles has his license and he has his pilot's card up to date and so forth. I can fly to, but I'm not certified right now. And so we went up to the airport on Wednesday, the middle day of the conference in Raleigh, and Dr. Giles, said, now you've got a plane that we can check out to take up the rally? Yes, sir. How much is that one? Well, this one here is about eighteen dollars an hour. But here's one over here that they used in World War I. We can let you have for about five dollars an hour. A little of a tail assembly is missing and part of the propeller is off, but it'd be much cheaper if you want to take this plane than this one. I'll say, okay, we'll take this one because we want to save the money, you know. You like we did that? No, we didn't. We took the one that cost eighteen dollars an hour because it had been checked out and it had been certified and it was an A-one condition. And if we'd taken that old beat-up Jitnik of World War I vintage with part of the tail assembly and part of the propeller mission, we'd have been fit for a straight jacket and for the mental institution. demand a worthy object. And faith is stupidity unless you have faith in the Lord God. Trust in the Lord. And you notice what else he says? And do good. Now there's a happy medium, beloved, between trusting and doing good. And one of the problems of the day in which we live is the fact that a lot of people try to put the doing good ahead of the trusting. And we need to ask the Lord to help us to have a happy medium in this respect. The very moment I stop trusting and start doing good, I think I'm getting out of the will of the Lord. You've got to mix them and have a happy medium. But a lot of people have not learned to really trust. in the Lord. Let me read what I have here in my notes. Worry is a disease that drains the soul of reality. It is a soul sucker that will drain the very power which faith itself will release in your heart and in your life. And I've seen this put into practice, and I'm sure that numbers of us here this morning have seen people put faith into practice but they put it into practice along with good common sense work. It's kind of like the gray big man and the little bitty dried up guy that we're out fishing one afternoon. And one of these five o'clock or three o'clock squalls or whatever you call it came up, they could see the cloud coming and they were about two miles from shore. And the little fella said to the big fella, he said, well, what should we do? Should we pray or should we roar? He said, let's mix them. He said, you pray in our Lord. He started towards the shore. It's a wonderful, blessed experience to see someone who's learned how to trust in the Lord and to do good. All right? Verse four. Delight thyself also in the Lord. There's a verse in Proverbs. A merry heart doing good, like a medicine. I never shall forget the five or six or seven days I spent in Bristol, England. That's where I got to know and love Brother Bob Willie. We went a lot of places that week. Borrowed a friend's car, even borrowed some gifts, took coupons from him. We went a lot of places. And one of them was we went to visit the mule orphanages. And I'll never forget, I had the privilege of kneeling down in a spot where George Mueller used to have his devotions every day. And I had read where George Mueller had made this statement, and it was a blessing to me. George Mueller said, in a little track or booklet that he has on the early morning quiet time, he said something to this effect, maybe not these exact words, but he said, My first duty to God and to myself every day is to make my soul merry in the Lord. Make my soul merry in the Lord. To rejoice in him. I have a friend in Columbia. He's the director of music in probably the largest Methodist church in Columbia. He found the Lord through the Minister of Intervosity while he was a student at Juilliard School of Music in New York. And he's a wonderful Christian. How he can stay there, I don't know. But anyway, he loves the Lord. He loves Jesus. And one day when he was over at the bookstore, I got to tell him about some of the hymns of the church that we use in the assemblies. And I happened to have a little black little flock kind of extra, you know. And I gave it to him. And every time I see him, he says, Sharper, you'll never know what that little book has done for me. He said, oh, I get up in the morning and I read those hymns and I read the Word of God and he says, oh, it nourishes and it's finished my soul. Christian, have you ever learned the blessing and the joy of feeding your soul? I'm not talking about when a man's in the pulpit feeding you. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about feeding your own soul out of the Word of God. And taking these hymns books, oh, I don't know. I thank God every day. for some of these hymns that the Lord has given the church. And you know, I praise the Lord that he's still given the church a few hymns. I noticed last week the first edition of the Favorites number seven from Zonovan came out, and there were seven, eight new, wonderful gospel songs in there, each talking about the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I praise the Lord that even today in this licentious age, God has still given hymns to the church. Have you learned the joy of getting a hymn book and just making your soul marry in the Lord as you're occupied with him? Delight thyself in the Lord. Now let me tell you about a problem about this. The problem is that many of the times we put the emphasis on the latter part of this verse. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Oh, isn't that wonderful? I can delight in the Lord, he'll give me anything I want. It doesn't say that. It says that if I'm delighting in the Lord, the desires of my heart is really going to be what the Lord wants me to have. That's what that's really said. If you abide in me... And my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. And so if I'm abiding in the Lord, and his word is abiding in me, the only thing that I'm going to desire is after all what the Lord wants. So see, that's the way this works. A man that's been a great blessing to me is a fellow by the name of Howard Hendricks. from Dallas Seminary. And I'm going to borrow an illustration from him to illustrate what I'm talking about. Howard Hendricks, apparently his parents were either divorced or they died or something, and in a way he was raised by his grandmother in northeast Philadelphia. And when he got up court in age, the girl that he was quoting that he later married lived way on the southwest section of Philadelphia. Now, you see how they know anything about Philadelphia? That's a long way. And this was fifteen or twenty years ago before they had the transit system they have now. And he said, in order to get to see his fiancée in the courthouse, he had to ride an elevated, a subway, and two trolley cars and one taxi. And it took him an hour and a half to get there and two hours to get back because of the train schedule. And many a night, he said, he's been running out the front door and his grandmother says, Hey, Howard! Did you forget the dishes? Oh, grandmother, I'm sorry, but I've got an important engagement, and I've got to go ahead. I'm sorry. I can't do it now. An hour and a half later, he gets to his fiancé's house. You know what he does? The dishes. And what in his grandmother's would be shed for a drink? is sheer delight because he loves that one that he's serving. That's what it's talking about. Delight yourself and the Lord and what you desire and what you want is going to be what he wants you to have and what he knows is best for you to have and he's going to give it to you. Let me tell you what Augustine said. He was one of the great men of the church. He said, listen, he said, do anything you want as long as you want God's will. I like that. Do anything you want as long as you want God's will. Oh, beloved, I wonder if we've learned to enjoy the Lord. I wonder if we've learned to delight in the Lord. I wonder if we've learned how to take the little detours in life as from the Lord, joyfully, carefully. And you know what? The people that know us, that don't know the Lord, they watch how we react when things don't go the way we wanted them to go. They say, hey, if that guy's a Christian, I don't want any of it. Some people act and live their Christian life as though they were bored still. Some people seem to be enduring the Christian life rather than enjoying the Christian life. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. All right, look at verse five. Now, I don't know much Hebrew. In fact, I just know a little Hebrew and it runs a clothing store. But if you have a Schofield Bible, if I'm not mistaken, verse five means roll thy way upon the Lord. In other words, Make a deposit on the Lord. Take your burden and roll your burden on the Lord. I think Peter was expressing it in First Peter five, seven, when he said, Cast in all your care upon him, for he carried for you. I remember when I was a little boy in Georgia, And before I knew the Lord, didn't even know I was lost. But I remember something. We used to have requests on Wednesday nights, and there was a little country girl there this particular night, and they were requesting the hymns, you know. He said, let's sing that song, take your burdens up to the Lord, and leave them up there. Well, that wasn't the exact title of the song, but what she said was true. We were supposed to take our burdens to the Lord and leave them up there. But you know, a lot of times we don't do that. We go to the Lord and we go through the pretense and the motion of leaving our burdens there and we come right away with them, still on our backs. Suppose I go down to the bank and make a ten dollar deposit and I come back and that night I turn and I toss and Dotty says, Shockless, what in the world is wrong with you? You must have eaten too much barbecue. No, no. But what is it? Oh, Donnie, sweet eye, I made a deposit today at the bank, and I just wondered, one of those fellows remembered to lock the doors on the banks. You're worried about a blockage? Yeah. Well, great day, no. How much did you deposit? Ten thousand dollars? I said, no, ten dollars. She said, well, forget it. And so the next day I go down there and the first thing when they open, I'm there, sir. I want to see the present. Sir, yesterday I deposited ten dollars here and you just want to know, is it still here? Did you lock the doors last night? Is it all right? Sir, do you want to see our balance sheet? Here it is right here. We have one hundred and eighty-five million dollars in assets and we have an automatic lock on those doors. They lock it so and so and so and so. You don't have to work. Do you want your money? We'll give it to you, but it's still here and it's safe. And yet you know, there are a lot of Christians, and they've committed their souls to the Lord, and yet they haven't learned to commit twenty-four hours to Him. They've committed their souls for eternity to the Lord, and yet they haven't learned to commit the next twenty-four hours to the Lord. That's something we need to learn. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. Now, just you remember, Christian, we do not have to be able to understand how the Lord is going to bring it to pass. Because the Lord doesn't do things the way we do them. And I think that this is one of the thrills of looking to the Lord. I never shall forget the time that Dottie and I, we've been living in Columbia probably three years, and we were there by faith, as we always have been. And on this particular day, Dottie had a ladies' meeting, and I had a men's meeting, the chapel. And we didn't have enough guests to drive the car to the meeting. Now I didn't have any money. And we didn't have any money to pay a babysitter. So we called some friends who were going to be the victims and keep gill for us. And then I took a knife and I took thirty cents out of his piggy bank. I borrowed it, you know, to buy a gallon of gas. And so we took Gil to these friends' house and took Dot into the latest meeting, and I went to a Bible class that I had that night. We came back, picked up Gil, came home, put him to bed, and the phone rang. And it was Clyde and Mural Dennis. And they were on their way from Jacksonville, Florida to Toledo, Ohio to the CBMCI Convention. And they said they'd come out of their way by Columbia just to see us. They said, we're out at the motel. Why don't you come down and let's get together and have some refreshments? I said, no, why don't you all come here? We've already put Gil to bed and we'd have to arrange, do something with him. So you just come see us. So they came back. They got there about nine and thirty. We sat up and talked about the Lord. for about two hours. Had a wonderful sweet time of fellowship. We had to pray. Of course, naturally, we didn't mention anything about the little time of testing we were going through. They left. And Dottie went into the bathroom. And right behind the spigot on the sink was a brand new Chris twenty dollar bill. And the next day we bought two or three big bags of groceries and a tank full of gas. And the Lord used that twenty dollar bill to see us through until he sent some money in somewhere else. And I could write a book about experiences just like that. From the most unexpected places. Praise the Lord, many times from people who don't meet as we do. I don't know what we've done sometimes. There hadn't been for people who don't meet like we do. But they love Jesus, and they love the Lord, and they know we look to him. And we don't look to letters of interest, and we don't look to assemblies, and we don't look to the fields. We don't look anywhere but to him. And that's what makes it work. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him, and he'll bring it to pass. He may not bring it to pass the way we think he'll do it, but bless your heart he'll do it. Okay, I'm going to have to go five minutes over time. I hope you don't kill me. All right. Turn to Acts chapter nine. Now, in verse seven, You know what that really says? What that's really saying, I've been told in verse seven, rest in the Lord. You know what that, and this is really hard for some of us. Be quiet. Oh, man, isn't that a deal? Be quiet. Some of us, this is excruciating. Be quiet. Acts chapter nine. You see, so many times we want to tell the Lord something that he wouldn't know. You know, we've got to fill him in on all the details. And here's a good example of what I'm talking about. Verse ten. This is after Paul or Saul had been converted. And there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I'm here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the street, which is called straight, and inquire in the house of Judas, for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold he prayeth. And it's seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him that he might receive his sight. Now Ananias had been talking to the Lord pretty good until now. Then Ananias answered, Lord, He wants to tell the Lord, see things that the Lord doesn't know, you know. Lord, I have heard by many of this man how much evil he has done to thy saint in Jerusalem, and yet he hath authority from the chief priest to bind all that call on thy name. And the Lord said unto him, Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel. And I will show him how great things he must suffer for thy name's sake. And I love the next five words. Ananias went his way. Now when the Lord tells us to do something, it may be different. It may be dangerous. But let's don't argue with it. If the Lord tells us to do something, let's do it. He went on his way, debated, no, convinced that if God had told him to do it, he'd do it. Do you remember when Jesus was walking on the water? Peter was in the ship. You remember what Peter said? I like this. Lord, if it be thou, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee. And Peter knew that if that was the Lord, And if the Lord bad him come, that was enough. That's all he needed.Bid me come under thee on the water. And I don't care what it is or where it is. If the Lord has bad us go, he will enable us to meet the needs of that particular moment. Oh, beloved Christians, too many times we take the short look instead of a long look. We don't gauge things as for eternity. We just think about what's going to be the immediate result of this thing. A friend of mine illustrates it like this, and with this I close. He grew up in the country, and I well remember this as I grew up in the country, and I remember from about the middle of July to the first of September, that was when you'd laid the corn by and you'd laid the cotton by, and that's when you went sainting and fishing, and you played marbles and checkers and sheets. And so this particular man lives in this community where there was a man that was recognized as an undisputed champion. And this teenage boy that lived in this community figured well, there's only one reason why he's the champion, that's because he's never played me. And so he hung around and he hung around and he hung around and finally one day, things got kind of slack. And this man sitting there on the other side of that nail keg, said, hey, bud, want to play me? Yeah, sure. And he hopped down and they put the checkers in place. And the undisputed champion said to the little adolescent, boy, you take the first move. Oh, man, this is good. Okay. Move again. Yeah. Jump me. Oh. Jump me again. Oh, this is easier than I saw, a great day. Hey, jump in again. Jump in again. And then pretty soon, King me. King me. And you know what he said? With that one king, he mopped off every checker on the board. You see, those one or two first little checkers didn't count. What counted was that one king. After he had that one king, he mopped off every checker on the board. He said he learned a lot that day that it wasn't what looks important right now. It's how is it going to look out there in eternity. In the light of eternity, what is what I'm doing today? How is it going to look? That's the important thing. Freat not. Trust. Delight. Commit. Be quiet to the Lord. Listen to him. And wait on the Lord. Our Father and our God, we thank thee for the wonderful gift of your book, the Bible. We thank you for the blessing it's been to our hearts today. We thank you that it's fresh and new every day. that it never becomes stale or old or commonplace, but that you give us things from it every day that we didn't see the day before. So dismiss us now with thy blessing and give us help the rest of this week to meet the needs of our own hearts from your word in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.