Speaker 1
Would you like to be delivered from evil? Well, today is your day. Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.
Speaker 2
Job said, "This man who is born of woman is short-lived and full of trouble." Trouble is one of those things, and storms in life are just a part of it. It's something that we're either coming into, in the middle of, or just coming out of. When you think you've just come out of a storm, you might feel relieved, but then you find yourself entering another one. That's just the way life is.
David was a man after God's own heart, yet he experienced many downs, troubles, and trials in life. He shares with us in Psalm 34 how to handle the problems we face.
Speaker 1
No matter who you are or what stage of life that you're in, trouble is coming. It's all around you and me. It's unrelenting. That really is reality.
Well, how do we cope with the many troubles in our lives and in the lives of those we love and work with every day? This is from his heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. And thank you for joining us today.
The message is entitled "Deliver Us from Evil" from Pastor Jeff's eight-message series "Roller Coaster: Facing the Ups and Downs of Life." And Pastor, as you surely know, everybody wants to be delivered from evil, but that seems to always be just around the corner, ready to pounce.
So in this life, is it really possible to be delivered from evil?
Speaker 3
Well, David in Psalm 34 was facing some really difficult times. He was fleeing from Saul and he had gone to the Philistines. He thought, surely Saul won't look for me there. He went to Gath, which is the hometown of Goliath. But he had to act like a crazy man because the people recognized him. He went before the King of Gath, and David thought, that guy might kill me. So he acted like a madman. The king said, take this man away. And so David was spared. He was delivered from potential evil.
Psalm 34 is his thank you to God for delivering him. In that psalm, he says that the Lord will redeem us and deliver us from evil. He'll take care of us no matter what is happening in life.
This message, "deliver us from evil" from Psalm 34, is really designed to encourage people who are going through a very dark and difficult time. What do you do when you're going through those hard times? David tells us in Psalm 34. Well, thank you, Pastor.
Speaker 1
And it is encouragement that is needed for all of us. So listen today to our lesson and be sure to go to fromisheart.org to listen to the other timely messages from this series that have already aired. The series is called Facing the Ups and Downs of Life.
If you can now, though, open your Bible to the book of Psalms and turn to chapter 34. Here's Pastor Jeff to help us understand how God can and will deliver us from evil.
Speaker 2
Job said, "This man who is born of woman is short-lived and full of trouble. Full of trouble." Anybody say amen to full of trouble? Have you experienced some trouble? Maybe in the last week or two, maybe in the last day? Trouble is one of those things. And storms in life are just a thing that we're either coming into, in the middle of, or just coming out of. When you just come out, you think, "Man, I'm done with that." But then you go back in line, and you're back in, "Well, now I'm coming into another storm." That's just the way life is.
David was a man after God's own heart, but he experienced lots of downs in life, lots of hurts, lots of troubles and trials. He tells us in Psalm 34 how to handle the difficulties in life, how to handle the problems in life. Psalm 34 is a really cool psalm because it tells us the occasion upon which David wrote this psalm. The occasion was this: he was fleeing from King Saul. Remember, we've talked about the story of the life of David. God anointed him king through the prophet Samuel when he was just a kid. David was going to be the next king of Israel. Saul was the first king of Israel, but the Lord rejected Saul because Saul wasn't doing what God wanted him to do. If you're going to be the king of God's people, you better listen to God. Well, Saul wasn't listening to God. The Lord said, "I'm done with Saul, and Samuel, you anoint a new king. I'm going to choose for me a king, a man after my own heart." He chose David from the sheepfolds.
David, the little shepherd boy, was anointed king. Then we read about David; he kills Goliath, and wow! Saul puts David in his army because this guy has got faith, courage, and he's a warrior. It wasn't long before the people began singing the song, "Saul has slain his thousands, but David has slain his tens of thousands." Saul didn't like that song at all. He said, "What is this son of Jesse going to want except my kingdom?" He was jealous, jealous of David, and he wanted to kill David. David just wanted to serve Saul. He was trusting God for God's timing for him to be king. But Saul went out of his way to try and kill David and destroy him.
So David is on the run, thinking, "Where do I go? Where can I flee?" He thinks to himself, "I'll go to the Philistines. Saul won't look for me there." He goes to a place called Gath. There's a famous giant from the town of Gath; his name's Goliath. David killed Goliath of Gath. Well, he flees to Gath. We don't really know why he went there, other than he was thinking, "Where else can I go? I'll just go there." The king of Gath, Achish, is told by his servants, "Hey, this guy coming to town, that's David. That's the guy that killed Goliath." That's big news when you're the guy that kills the champion of the Philistines from the hometown of Gath.
David heard this and greatly feared King Achish because he thought, "What is he going to do to me? How am I going to get out of this jam? I'm in trouble. I thought I was in trouble with Saul coming to kill me, and now I ran to Gath, and now this king is probably going to kill me. What do I do?" No doubt he cried out to God. God gave him some wisdom. What David did was he pretended to be a nut job. He pretended to be a crazy man, letting the saliva run down into his beard. He began to scribble on the gates and on the doors and just acted like a nut. Achish saw him and said, "Hey, do I lack madmen in my kingdom? Why do you bring this nut job in here? Send him away." They sent David away.
David escaped about 10 miles to a place in the Valley of Elah, to a cave called the Cave of Adullam. It's from the Cave of Adullam that he writes Psalm 34. In Psalm 34, he says this: "Many are the afflictions, the evils, the miseries, the distresses, the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all." Psalm 34 is praise to the deliverer. Jesus told us to pray, "Deliver us from evil." Deliver us from evil, Lord, because God is a deliverer.
Here's the question: How are we to handle the many troubles of life? Because life is filled with many troubles. How do you handle the many troubles of life? By trusting in the deliverer, the God who saves, rescues, and delivers from trouble. The Bible says in Psalm 68, verse 20, "God is to us a God of deliverances, and to God the Lord belong escapes from death."
So in Psalm 34, David is going to give us a threefold action plan of what to do when you're going down, when you're experiencing the valley, the trouble, the tragedy, the misery, the evil, and it's all around you.
**Threefold Action Plan:**
**Action Number One:** In your trouble, take time to praise the Lord. Psalm 34, verse 1: "I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord; the humble shall hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together." Notice he says, "I will bless the Lord. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together." Those words are all synonyms; they're all talking about the same thing.
To bless means to kneel before the Lord and to exalt Him, to thank Him, to congratulate Him, and to salute Him. To praise means to give Him glory, to celebrate Him, to boast in Him. He says, "I'll boast in the Lord." That's bragging on God and praising Him. "I'll magnify Him." That's to increase Him, enlarge Him, promote Him, and lift Him up. "I'll exalt Him." That's to exalt the Lord and raise Him up on high. David was saying all those things about how he wanted to kneel before the Lord and bless the Lord and exalt the Lord because the Lord was worthy of his praise.
Now, it would have been easy for David to say, "You know, I escaped by the hair of my chinny chin chin here, Lord, and where were you? I had to come up with the plan of being a nut job, letting the saliva run down in my beard and winning that guy over, thinking, you know, my acting skills delivered me there, Lord. And man, I had to hot foot it down here to the Cave of Adullam. Now I'm all alone in the cave, and God, what's going on here?" David didn't do that. He praised the Lord, blessed the Lord, exalted the Lord. He realized that his deliverance came from God.
Praise is always appropriate in any and every situation. "I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth." Just think if we did that. Just think if we said that one verse, "I'm going to make that my life verse, and I'm going to bless the Lord how many times? At what time? At all times." Every time you listen to the words coming out of my mouth, they're coming out in terms of praise.
Now, oftentimes when life isn't going so well, the things coming out of our mouth can be grumbles, gripes, complaints, mutterings, and murmurings that are not pleasing to the Lord. That's fingernails on a chalkboard to God. He tells us to do all things without grumbling or arguing. Praise me and bless me. Why? Because God is worthy of it. The scripture says in Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 15, "Through Him, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name." God loves it when we thank Him.
Sometimes thanks and praise are a sacrifice to do because life isn't going good. The Bible says in Psalm 50, verse 23, "He who offers a sacrifice of praise honors me." It's an honor. When God, in the valley, in the hard times, in the tough times, when life has just knocked you down and you're sitting alone in the Cave of Adullam, and God hears you thank Him, bless Him, magnify Him, and extol Him, that honors God because that's the sacrifice.
It's hard to do. I mean, anybody can praise God when they win the lottery and say, "Whoa, I got $50 million coming to me, thank you God." That's not hard to do. How about when you lose your job? How about when you find out you have cancer, and you can still thank the Lord, praise the Lord, and bless the Lord? Praise is always appropriate because circumstances change. They go up and down. Circumstances can change on a dime, but the Lord never changes, and He's always worthy.
Praise changes our outlook by providing an uplook. That's why praise is so important. Praise blesses God, but it also does something to us because the tendency is to grumble and gripe. The Greek word that I like so much is "guguzmos," which means to grumble. It's an onomatopoeia; it sounds like what it is. You're just grumbling, muttering, whining about things. God says, "Don't do that." When you do that, you're focused all on the circumstances that are so bad that you don't like. But if you will start to praise me, it gets your eyes off your problems and on the problem solver.
It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, "Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, but faith looks up." When you look up, you praise God because He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He's worthy, worthy, worthy of all your praise and of all my praise, no matter what's going on.
It says in verse five, "They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed." The word for radiant means to shine. It's a countenance change that takes place when you look to God. Somebody described it this way: Radiance is the joyful countenance of a mother welcoming home her children. She's just so excited to see them. They've been distant from her and separated from her for a time, and she's welcoming them home and is so excited.
"They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed." When trouble comes, you trust the deliverer. God is the God who rescues. God is the God who saves. God is the God who delivers. God is to us a God of deliverances, and to God the Lord belong escapes from death. So in your trouble, as hard as it might be, take time to praise Him. "I will bless the Lord at all times, and His praise shall continually be in my mouth."
**Second Action:** Not only to praise Him, but in your trouble, take time to pray to Him. To pray to Him. Verse 4: "I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry."
"I sought the Lord," David said, "and He answered me and delivered me from what? From my fears." Isn't that wonderful? It's wonderful to know that David, who was a guy who could stand up to the giant when everyone else was afraid of him, who stood up before 9-foot-9-inch Goliath, still got afraid. David says in Psalm 56, verse 3, "When I am afraid, I will put my trust." He didn't say, "If I am afraid," as if he were different from everybody else. He said, "When I am afraid," because he got afraid.
It says very clearly in the account in 1 Samuel, chapter 21, that when David heard them say to King Achish, "This is David, the one whom they sang, this is the guy that killed Goliath," he greatly feared Achish, king of Gath. His heart was filled with fear, and he sought the Lord and cried out to the Lord. The Lord heard this poor man, and the Lord heard his prayer, and the Lord delivered him from all his fears.
You know, when we talk about going back to school, going back to school can be a fearful thing. I remember when I was going from eighth grade to ninth grade; it was one of those things that the Cy Fair school district, where I was going to school, was building a new school. All the students used to have to go from Blyle Junior High, where I went, to Cy Fair Senior High. But then they decided, "We're going to build a new school." They drew the lines of where the new school was going to go, and I was on the other side of the creek.
So all my friends pretty much were going to the new school, and I was going to the old school, Cy Fair High School. Bobcat fight never dies! I was a little nervous about going to Cy Fair because it's a new school, a bigger school, and you have all these kids older than you. I had heard stories about what happened at Cy Fair High School in the bathrooms. You know how guys will talk and tell you all these outlandish stories, scare you to death? It's like, "Well, you don't ever want to go to the bathroom in high school." It's like, "You don't want to go there because I'm going to be there for four years. I may have to go sometimes, you know."
No, you don't want to go there because there are things that happen there. There are fights that take place in the bathroom.
Speaker 3
Oh, gosh, I don't want to go.
Speaker 2
There and get beat up. And you gotta be careful when you go to the lunchroom because some of the older students, some of the juniors and seniors, they'll steal your lunch money. Like, good night. Steal my lunch money? Yeah, they look for the weak. Anyway, I'm a little nervous, you know, and I'm thinking I'm going to get beat up going to the bathroom, and then I don't have any lunch money. And it's just so this big place I'm going to find my way around. And there's fear there. It's normal, natural to have fear. It's natural for teachers to have some fear.
First teaching job. I'm a little nervous. I don't know what to expect. Man, little kids can be tough. They put the whoop on Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop. I mean, he is scared to death. They're pushing me around, you know, it's hard. We have lots of fears in life. Start a new job. There's fear, all sorts of fears.
The Lord says, I'll deliver you from your fears if you'll call upon me. If you'll call upon me. His ear is open to your cry now. God is listening for your voice in prayer. He's listening for you to cry out to him. David calls himself this poor man. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him. He heard a poor man. Just like in the New Testament when poor blind Bartimaeus cried out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." And the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Glory, stopped for a poor blind beggar because he heard that poor man cry.
God is waiting to hear your voice. And you know what the sad reality is for some in this room? This is what God hears, just white noise. It's like turning on a TV station and, well, there's no station there. It's out, and on your station, God tuned into your station and there's nothing coming to him. It's just white noise. Because you're not calling on him. You're not praising him. You're not praying to him.
The Lord says, I'm listening to your voice. Psalm 116. The Psalmist says this: "I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my supplications, because he has inclined his ear to me. Therefore I shall call upon him as long as I live." He's inclined his ear. He's listening for your voice. God forbid that he should hear white noise from you or from me. Oh, we need to call upon him because God is listening.
Speaker 1
We are reminded today that God is there and He is listening. But that means that we have to listen to Him. He is the way, the truth, and the life, which is found in John 14:6. The phrase "light" can, in practical terms, mean He gives us enlightenment and guidance in this evil world in which we live. Are you listening to God? Are you hearing the truth? Are you obeying the truth that will deliver you from evil and give you the purpose and power to help others and bring glory to God?
We want to help you do that this month by sending you Pastor Jeff's series "Nothing but the Truth" and his booklet "Sticks" and "What to Do When the Going Gets Tough," both for your support from his heart this month of any amount. You can get the series on a USB flash drive, immediate MP3 download, CDs, or DVDs—your choice. Simply call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or go to fromhishheart.org and request the series "Nothing but the Truth" and the booklet "Sticks and Stones" for your gift today of any amount. God bless you.
Well, we're out of time for part one of the lesson today, "Deliver Me from Evil," from Pastor Jeff Shreve's series "Roller Coaster: Facing the Ups and Downs of Life." But we trust that you'll be here tomorrow as Pastor Jeff Shreve continues this impactful message of truth, love, and hope. Join us next time for part two of the message "Deliver Us From Evil" when we open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope. From His heart.
Speaker 4
There is truth There is hope that you always dream Love he can heal every scars of real truth, Real love, Real hope From His Heart.
Speaker 1
From His Heart is the listener supported Broadcast Ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve speaking the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world. Remember, no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more@fromisheart.org.
Learn How
