Don't Let the Devil Steal Your Song

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

Proverbs 28 · chapter mention

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

Romans 6 · chapter mention

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

John 12 · chapter mention

follow me, And where I am shall also my servant be.

If any man served me him, will my father honor Philippians

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

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

Psalms 46:10

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.