My Wit's end

I want you to turn with me this morning in your Bibles to Psalms 107.

If you're here this morning, you do not have a worship guide.

Would you raise your hand?

Anyone that does not have a worship guide.

We are so glad to have Miss Patsy back.

Patsy stand.

Come on.

Come on.

Love you.

Good to have her back.

Woo! We have been praying for Patsy.

We've been just our hearts going out to her, praying for her, ministering to her.

And Lord, thank you.

We've got some troopers.

We've just got some troopers.

And uh I just thank the Lord.

When I've been going through this series, it's just been a blessing.

I've put faces with this points in this message, uh, in these messages of people that I know and what they're doing and what's going on in their lives.

It's just amazing.

It really is to see how God's word is being lived out in our church and in our people's lives.

And that's what it's supposed to be.

Can I get an amen?

Well, two more messages.

Next week, triumph.

How to be triumphant over trouble.

Psalms 46, one of my favorites.

Anytime anybody's in trouble, I tell them to go to Psalms actually 34 through 62, but Psalms 46 is one of my favorites.

God is my refuge and strength of every present help in time of trouble.

Can I get an amen?

So that's where we're going next week, your homework next week, Psalm 46.

Read it all week.

And then the last message: the best is yet to come.

The best is yet to come.

Psalm 16.

So that'll be the following week as we end this series of messages.

We're excited.

We got a lot fixing to happen here in October.

I want you to get excited.

Lights, need more lights, please.

Okay, they can't see.

All right.

The old up here.

Yeah, they need lights, Benji, or Jason over here to so they can fill in their their yes, that.

Yes, yes, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

But uh we got a lot coming up.

We've got uh our missionary, our own church planner from Africa is coming.

We're uh uh we're so excited about that from uh Dar Sararm Ruben, and uh he'll be with us for two weeks.

He'll be preaching on the second week Sunday in October.

So we're excited.

I end this series on the 6th.

So he'll be up the following Sunday to uh preach for us.

You don't want to miss Ruben.

God is so blessing the church.

They're running over 200 plus now.

Uh and uh we've had a part in literally helping start that and build that church.

So uh uh I and I'm pretty sure he'll be bringing some uh slides to show us, but it's just awesome to see him at work.

By the way, Deedra's mother's doing better.

Talk to her, uh so uh she'll be back this week too.

So it's good she's home now, so that's good.

But again, like I said, we've just had a lot going on.

And then we've got we've got truck or treat, friend day?

Okay, I meant we've got all kind of stuff that we're gonna want you to get involved.

And please, friend day, try to be here.

You know, I last couple of years we have not really pushed it like we should.

That's partly my fault, I think.

But bring somebody on that friend day.

We're gonna have the fireman here.

Uh I know Barry's bringing his group that's going to Costa Rica for a mission trip.

Uh we're gonna, we just we want to honor them, pray over them, and it's just gonna be a good day.

I want you to bring a friend.

Bring somebody, even if you have to pay them, bring them.

Anyway you can get them here.

Uh, and I'm gonna bring a message that morning on, hey, a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

So uh it's gonna be a good day.

It's gonna be a good day.

So make plans right now.

Start working on somebody in your family.

And here's what I hope.

Try to get someone that's not involved in a church, not going to church, and we know 80%'s not in this area.

So invite them to be your friend.

And that that will be awesome.

It really will.

So do that.

And then uh, I'll tell you, then Christmas, but now, what I do after after Reuben, we're gonna do four weeks on the lessons we learn from the school of faith.

It couldn't be more timely than right after this, and of what we're about to go into this next year.

I'm telling you, uh, when you do a building program, and I've done my share, it's just it takes faith.

Especially when you don't go out and just borrow it.

I was talking to a gentleman in a church this past week.

Their debt's$20 million.

Their debt pay every year is three million.

I couldn't go to sleep.

In fact, at Tennessee Temple, I didn't go to sleep.

My hours was$10 million that I had to raise minimum every year, and we were always in debt.

It was an old building, 50,000.

When we had an air conditioner go out, it was 50 to 75,000.

Huge buildings.

I meant, it literally about killed me, didn't it, honey?

Uh you wouldn't believe it.

I'd gotten up to 230 pounds, my blood pressure.

It's just, I meant 100 people that I'm responsible for them getting a paycheck every other week.

A lot of pressure there, folks.

A lot of pressure.

Thank God we don't have that pressure here.

Can I get an amen?

Can we give Jesus a thousand?

Not gonna have it.

Not gonna go.

No, no.

But in order to do what we gotta do these next two to three years, to get everything out there built and finished, that's our goal.

We gotta have faith.

And let me tell you what kind.

There's four faith.

I'm convinced, and I ooh, I did a I did a master thesis, well, not a thesis paper, but a major paper on a presentation at a conference on the lessons of faith.

So I'm pulling my paper back out.

And I'm gonna be giving you the four types of faith that you gotta have.

One, the lessons of faith.

One, we learn to walk by faith.

Lesson two, we learn to wait by faith.

Amen.

And then lesson three, we learn, are you ready?

Walk, wait, war.

War with faith.

And then number four, we learn to work by faith.

It's gonna be good.

I promise you.

I've been reading it and I've just been getting all excited again about faith.

And I and I've been in major projects.

When we were at Open Door Baptist Church, we were$300,000 in debt when I took the church and it was two years old.

Long story short, when I left to go to Liberty, we had almost$700,000 in the bank and everything paid for.

When I left Tennessee Temple, I by selling the radio say everything was paid for.

So everywhere I've been, I've been able to help them get out of that kind of bondage.

Because I don't want to be in that bondage.

Amen.

I'm not in that kind of bondage.

Serve it to the bar.

So anyway, that's I wanted you to get excited and start inviting your people to come.

I'm telling you, God's growing us, folks.

Let me tell you what's going on right now.

God is growing us.

God is growing us.

He really is.

So with that said, Psalms 107, big chapter, the largest so far.

Not going to look at every verse, but I'm going to give you an overview.

But once I read about a construction worker who fell 110 feet into a pile of dirt.

Now, fortunately, the dirt was a big stack there, and it was loose dirt, so it gave when he hit.

So when the paramedics arrived, they carried him out on a stretcher to the hamlets.

He had to bruise lungs, bruised backs, and as they were taking him to the hamlets on the stretcher, you know what he said?

Please don't drop me.

Now think about this.

He had just fallen a hundred and ten feet.

And now he's worried about four feet.

Please don't drop me.

And I got to thinking about that.

Is that not the way we are sometimes?

I meant God takes us through these big things.

I meant major tragedies and circumstances and situations, and he pulls us through, he sees us through, he walks with us through it.

And then the little things just stumble us up all the time.

We fall and trip, and we kind of count on him for the big things.

But the little things we try to handle ourselves, and when we do, it messes us all up.

Kind of get an oh me.

Oh me.

So today we want to look at Psalms 107.

Reading through this Psalm from start to finish, you'll encounter four pictures of things that happen to God's people as they're making their own journey through life, basically.

Like you could even call it a pilgrim's journey.

And as I look at 107, I think about an art gallery.

I'm not a real big art gallery person, but I do appreciate fine art that tells a picture.

Is it Rembrandt?

Wasn't he?

Those beautiful.

I mean, you could just, well, the portraits, but I mean you could see every little detail and it really painted a picture of that person or that portrait that he was drawing.

So these four pictures in this long chapter really reveal to us the stages that we go through or that we're in in life.

They really do.

And so today we're going to look at four pictures of life.

If you look on your outline.

Four pictures, number one, of life.

And these four pictures, we're going to look at the first three pretty quickly, and then that fourth one is the real, real picture that I want us to delve into because it deals with what Benji was singing about the storms of life.

So let's look at it.

First of all, the desert.

In verses 7 through 9, this paragraph in Psalms 107, verses 4 through 9, this paragraph describes the experience of being lost in a desert.

Psalms 107:4–9

As you look, when he says in Psalms 107, verse 4, he says, They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way.

Psalms 107:4

They found no city to dwell in, hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.

Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.

Verse 7, and he led them forth by the right way that they might go to a city of habitation.

Verse 8, oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men.

In other words, what he's telling us here is that this paragraph describes the experience of being lost in the desert and reminds us that life can be that way at many times.

I mean, you're just you're lost.

You're in a desolate place.

You're in a discouraging place.

And you're there.

And life can seem desolate and barren and really like no hope.

There's just no hope anymore.

And our souls can be starving for that emotional and spiritual contentment that we all need and must have.

So the desert travelers represent many today who are lost in their ready wilderness of existence and cannot find their way out.

A lot of people today are hurting, they're down and out, and they don't know what to do.

They don't know where to turn, they don't know who to go to, and that's a very bad place to be.

Because that's where a lot of suicides take place.

That desert, wandering wilderness.

Today there are many who are lost in a wilderness of existence that are so lonely and have no purpose.

I wrote this to myself.

They have no purpose, they have no direction, they have no peace, they have no protection, they have no power over what's going on in their lives.

That's a desert place.

And the reason I wrote those things down, I counsel with people all the time that I see those characteristics in their lives.

No peace, no power, no protection, no direction, no comfort, no, feels like no one cares.

And then I also see those that are wandering in the wilderness of affluence, which is yielding up far less than they had anticipated.

Let me tell you, things of money will not satisfy your soul.

In fact, we see what satisfies our soul right there.

Verse 9, for he satisfies the longing soul.

He fills the hungry soul with goodness.

Can I get an amen?

I don't care how much you work, I don't care how much you gain, I don't care how much you're worth.

Isn't it amazing right now this what little bit of news I've watched?

This guy that ended up supposedly committing suicide in jail, which they really think he was murdered, and all the billions of dollars he had, and all the ungodlinesses he is involved in.

And look how he died.

It didn't do anything for him except kill him.

No hope, no happiness, no purpose.

Can I tell you something?

Gratifying the flesh is not God's purpose for your life.

That is Satan's purpose for your life and my life.

It's fulfill the lust of the flesh.

For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?

Proverbs, I meant Mark 8, 36.

Now, the desert.

Now look at the second thing.

Look at the prison.

Look at B, the prison.

Verses 10 through 16, but mainly verse 10, look at what it says.

Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron.

Whoa.

Bound, look at verse 10, in affliction and irons.

Many have exercised their freedom of choice in the wrong way.

So many times they have become enslaved to those wrong choices.

Ladies and gentlemen, we can make wrong choices that will enslave us.

Are you with me?

We make right or wrong choices every day that either help us or harm us, even by what we eat, and I'm not gonna go there.

Because I ate a brownie.

And it was good candy.

And I ate a cookie too.

I'm confessing, I'm confessing.

Y'all my priests, I'm confessing.

I know.

But but actually, but sugar diabetes killed my daddy.

It really did.

Sugar killed my daddy.

So I I'm not taking that lightly.

I really not.

So many have exercised the freedom of choice in the wrong way so many times, again, they become enslaved.

Drugs, alcohol, sex, food, fear, gambling, peer approval, emotional dependence.

All those things we see right now.

Everybody's taking pills for a lot of that stuff.

The number one drug addiction in America today, or maybe the world, is prescriptions.

I think about that.

The making of men's prisons is endless.

Some are locked into prisons.

Here's some other prisons they don't choose.

Prisons of abuse.

Prisons of abuse.

I thought about that.

Prisons of persecution that they didn't choose.

So we all have our prisons.

We all have our deserts.

And then thirdly, look at C.

I call it the hospital.

Verses 17 through 22.

Fools, because of their transgressions and because of their iniquities, are afflicted.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we make the wrong choices, we will be afflicted.

We will pay the consequences.

Be not deceived, God is not mocked, whatsoever man soweth, that shall he reap.

So please, I beg you, I beg all of us, by God's grace, make right choices.

Can I get an amen?

Make the right choices.

Verse 18, their souls abhor all manner of meat, and they draw near unto the gates of death.

In other words, the choices they're making or leading them to death.

Is that exactly what Satan wants?

Absolutely.

For he's come to what?

Kill, steal, and destroy.

John 10, 10.

In verse 19, then they're crying to the Lord in their trouble.

And he saves them out of their distresses.

Verse 10, bound in affliction and irons.

Many have exercised their freedom of choice in the wrong way.

So many times they've become enslaved to what they chose.

We know that.

But here in verse 20, look at verse 20.

This is awesome.

I call it the intensive care unit of life.

Hanging on to their own life by a thread.

They need the word of healing that only God can serve.

Look at verse 20.

I'm about to have a spell here.

Oh, and he said his word and heal them and deliver them from their destructions.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's why the word of God is so powerful.

His word is with power.

Luke 4.32.

It is the word of God that's your sword.

It's the word of God that's your strength.

It's the word of God that's your security.

It's the word of God that's your source.

Never return void, but God says it will accomplish where I send it.

Isaiah 55, 11.

Oh, what a beautiful picture.

The word of God's our hospital.

Can I get an amen?

The B-I-B-L-E, that's the book for me.

Let her be in the word Bible, it brightens my life.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

Let her eye in the word Bible and instructs my life.

I will instruct thee and TC in the way that thou shall go.

I will guide thee with my eye.

Psalms 32, 8.

Letter B, second B in the word Bible.

It builds my life.

Acts 20 32.

And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of grace, which is able to build you up.

Letter L in the word Bible.

It liberates my life from sin and Satan.

Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.

And then letter E in the word.

Word Bible.

It's everlasting.

Matthew 24, 35, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away.

Amen.

The word of God is my hospital.

It's my intensive care.

Hallelujah.

And then the storm.

D.

Verses 23 through 32.

The final picture is the one we're going to focus on the rest of the message.

It is perhaps the most dramatic and dangerous sounding of all the four pictures.

We know if God can save us from the storms of life, we can trust him to save us from the high winds and the dark clouds of life.

Can I get an Amen?

Amen.

Think about that.

If He can save us from the storms of life, He can sure save us from the high winds and the dark clouds of life.

And that is so true.

So, number two, now let's get into it.

Number two, the place of the storm.

Look at verse 23 and 24.

They that go down to the sea in ships that do business in great waters.

Woo! Underline the word, two words, great waters.

These see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.

Read my lips, you'll never do anything in shallow waters.

Hello.

You gotta Jesus told the disciples, get in the boat and what?

In fact, turn over there real quick.

Go to Luke.

Man, this is awesome.

This is so good.

Luke 5.

Luke, Luke, Luke 5.

Let me find it too.

Here we go.

Here we go.

Got it.

Now this is right after they had fed 5,000 men, not counting the women, the feeding of the 15,000 plus.

I mean, they've been working all day.

And now Jesus said, okay, now here's what I want you to do, disciples.

Y'all gonna get in the boat, and you're going over to the other side.

You're going over the side.

No, that's my next example.

I'm getting ahead of the car.

Anyway, Jesus, but they had just got through feeding them.

And so now Jesus definitely tells them, look at what he says here in verse 45.

And straightway he constrained the disciples to get into the ship and go to the other side, and that's still not it.

Let me find it.

Wait a minute.

That's the end of that one.

Hang on.

I'll find it.

Hang on.

Here we go.

Well, I'm not in Luke.

That might help.

I knew that didn't look right.

All right, here we go.

Thank you, verse 4, Luke 4.

I'm in another story.

I've got two stories that I'm using for examples, and I went to the wrong story first.

Okay.

But it both fit anyway.

Now, when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a drought.

Okay?

For a big catch.

And Simon answered and said unto the master, We have toiled all night.

Now, I'm not telling you he's second-guessing, but he's trying to say, Lord, I'm a fisherman.

I do this all the time.

I know what we're doing, and we have fished all night, and we have not caught anything.

They're not biting tonight.

Now he wasn't dumb enough to say there's no fish out there.

But they're not biting tonight.

But now watch.

This is what's really good.

But nevertheless, here we go.

But nevertheless, here we go.

At thy word.

There's that word.

There's that intensive care.

There's that, hey, there's that power.

Luke 4.32.

His word is with power.

He said, but at thy word I'm going to do what you say.

Now, folks, you may not agree with what you know God's telling you to do.

You may not even not want to do what God's telling you to do, but you better do it.

I'm going to be honest with you.

I didn't want to come to Chelsea.

In fact, I put, I put David, David, I love David so much, and I just didn't want to hurt his feelings, but I just wasn't planning on coming.

So I just told him, I said, okay, okay, I'm he I'm David doesn't let up.

He never lets up.

He's still up there working on me sometimes.

Hey, hey, listen.

He said, I said, I tell you what, I'm coming, but here's what's got to happen.

I got to sell my house right now.

Well, I said, gotta sell him a house.

He said, no problem.

Let's pray about it.

I said, no, we've got to sell it this week.

See, I knew I was off the hook.

I was off the hook.

I'd go on and do what I wanted to do.

I had it all figured out.

My plan was I thought better than God.

I said, and I know you never think that.

I know, I know.

And on Friday we pray, Saturday morning, somebody walks in and buys my house.

Hello?

He said, What'd you do?

I said, Where's Chelsea?

I guess I'm going.

And David just smiling.

But that's not been the first thing that's happened like that when we got ready to go to Liberty University.

A guy walked in off the street in the church and bought a house.

Yeah, he did ask the secretary, said, Anybody got a house for sale?

And you know what my secretary just said?

She knew it wasn't God's will for me to leave.

And you know what she had said?

If it's God's will for pastor to leave because they loved us and God we loved them, she said, somebody will come in and buy his house.

And then next day he walks in and says, Anybody got a house for sale?

Probably God.

So don't tell me.

I've been doing this a long time, folks.

I know that I know.

His word, at his word, you move.

And then notice what he said.

And when they had done this, well, first of all, never let's say the word I will let down the net.

And when they had done this, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes and their nets break.

And not only that, they called their other buddies over with their ships and filled their ships up with fish too.

My, my, my.

Folks, all you gotta do is be obedient to God.

And God tells you to do it just, hey, Katie bars the door, press toward the mark, and he'll open every day.

Hey, how much?

A half a million dollars worth of dirt?

Oh yeah.

Dirt! Dirt.

See, people don't even think about that.

We would have had to pay over a half a million dollars for all that dirt out there.

But because God used daring with connections, and not only dirt, we get good dirt.

Amen.

Hello, okay out there.

At his word.

So what a what a picture right here.

What a picture.

Scripture teaches that the great the great works of faith are done in the deep waters, not in the shallow waters.

Near the shore.

You know why most people don't want to launch out deep?

They're afraid.

No faith.

They want to be secure.

And that's why, listen, one of two reasons a church I really believe doesn't grow.

One, there can be sin in the camp.

Hello, I'm just, I don't, I don't hold it in punches back.

Or secondly, they don't have the faith to move out.

And sometimes, let's say I'll put a third, I'll put a third reason.

But that goes back to faith.

But we get secure and we like our little church and we don't want anybody messing it up.

But launch you out into the deep.

Spurgeon said, if you I mean uh D.

L.

Moody said, if you really believe God is as great as he says he is, why don't you do something great for God?

Like the little elephant, I mean the little mouse and the elephant walking across that chain bridge, and the elephant's a boom, boom, and the bridge is going like this, and the elephant and the little mouse right there with him got to the other side.

That little mouse looked up to that big old elephant and said, Whoa! Boy, we shook that bridge, didn't we?

Amen.

Be a part of something great, folks.

Don't just sit back and do nothing.

Anybody can do that.

Most people do that.

Be different, do something different.

Jump out into the boat.

Or jump out of the boat, not into the boat.

Look at number three.

The producer of the storm.

Verse 25.

Look at verse 25.

Man, this is good.

Or he commanded and raises the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves thereof.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh, look here.

Did you see that?

Huh?

Who did it?

Talk to me, church.

Who did that?

Who?

God did it.

God, so God sent the storm, didn't he?

Or he allowed the storm, right?

In fact, he commanded and raised the stormy wind.

Who?

God did.

Now, a lot of us aren't comfortable with that idea that God causes storms in the lives of people.

We'd much prefer to think of them as the devil's work.

Amen?

Sure we would.

Now, it's not always true that the storms of our lives are caused by God, that's for sure.

Sometimes we are in storms of our own choosing and our own making, but God lets us proceed so that we can learn that He forgives and rescues and restores His body and His children.

Okay, Danny, you want to go that way?

Go ahead.

You're gonna learn.

I tried to give you the easy way, but you want to learn the hard way?

Go ahead.

Why am I so pickheaded?

And you know, sometimes I have to learn that way two or three times.

Now I can tell you what, I think honey will, I hope she would agree.

The older I've gotten, I've learned when I see those doors now of warning, I'm not quite as quick to rush in them as I once did.

Used to, I'd say, whoo, there's a door.

Uh-oh.

I didn't know that was on this side of that door.

Hello?

Really?

Yeah.

You kind of approach the door a little differently, don't you?

Okay, Lord.

Lord?

It's not gonna blow up if I open this thing, is it?

Start calling, where's Bob McKay?

Come here, Bob, will you take the hinges off this door for me?

Paul, come here.

Let's get my let me get my team here.

Let's what do y'all think about this door we kick it in?

That's why we're putting the team together now.

We're fixing a big door to open.

We gotta think through as much as we can.

You never think through it all, but you sure keep you from getting your teeth knocked in.

But that's what we're talking about.

And here we see the bottom of the line in scripture is this whether we create the storm by our sinful choices, whether the devil attacks us and creates a storm for us, or whether God designs a storm just to strengthen our roots in him and teach us some aspect of his truth, all storms are from God.

Wow.

He allows them.

Job said, He knows the way, he knows the way that I take.

When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

Is that not good?

What about Jonah?

Remember Jonah?

Jonah 1:4, he said, The Lord sent the storm.

Jonah 1:4

You with me, church?

Boy, that's good.

When we're being thrashed about and tossed about and turned upside down, and we can't see particular, the particular cause or reason for the storm we're in, we can trust God and know.

Here it is.

I wrote this to me.

He has caused or allowed the storm in order to do some work in me.

Why?

I am in this storm because God wants to do some work in me.

And sometimes it's to cleanse me up for me to get the sin out of my life.

Hello?

Because he loves me.

He chases the ones that he loves.

Sometimes it's to mature me, to get me ready and more mature, to try, to get my faith stronger.

Faith has to be tested before it can be trusted.

So that he can use me in a greater way.

That's good.

Number four.

Verses 26 and 27.

The peril of the storm.

Look at verse 26 and 27.

They mount up to the heaven.

They go down again to the depths.

Their soul dismelted because of trouble.

They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunkard man and art at thy wit ends.

You wonder where that title came from.

There it is.

There it is.

I'm at my wit's ends.

We've been there.

Each and every one of us have been there.

They describe exactly what you and I feel when we're in a hurricane-sized storm.

Now notice something here.

Notice the five descriptive expressions in the New King James.

Verse 26, they go down to the depths.

Their soul melts.

Then look at verse, that's two.

Then look at verse 27.

They feel, they, they reel to and fro.

They stagger like a drunken man.

And they are at their wits' ends.

When people use this expression, I'm at my wit's ends.

It literally is expressing their frustration.

But they don't realize they're using a biblical phrase, watch this, that originally referred to going all the way back to the 1600s of the King James Version.

Are you ready?

This expression was used to illustrate and to express the storms of life.

When I'm at my wits' ends, I'm in the storm.

Or I'm in storms.

I've just came through a storm.

Or I'm going into a storm.

Wow.

Powerful.

Unbelievable.

That's so good.

So, the storm.

Storm puts us in a place where we just don't know what to do.

The storm is in control and we're being tossed about like a chip of bark on the high seas.

There's no better time than, hey, a storm to pray.

Can I get an amen?

No better time than a storm to really start praying.

And that brings me to the number six.

I'm at number five.

The prayer in the storm.

Prayer in the storm is like prayer in the other three pictures.

Look, that we looked at.

Remember the wonders in the desert?

Look at verse six.

Cried out to the Lord.

Remember the captives in the prison?

Verses 13 and 14.

They cried to the Lord.

And the patient in the hospital, verses 19 and 20.

They cried to the Lord.

No matter what the problem is, what kind of situation you're in, including storms, the way out is the way up.

Looking unto the, I will lift up my eyes unto the hills from which my help cometh.

My help cometh from what?

The Lord, from the heavens above.

Psalms 121, verse 1 and 2.

Psalms 121:1

So, what a picture.

What it means is, and I really believe this, that when we lift up our hands in the midst of this unbelievable storm or storms we're in or going through, we're saying, I am no longer sufficient in myself, but my sufficiency is in you, O God.

2 Corinthians 3.5.

I can't do this.

You have to do it, it's yours.

Casting all my care upon you, Lord, you care for me.

1 Peter 5, 7.

Which brings me to number 6, verses 29 and 30.

The peace in the storm.

Look at it.

He makes the storm a calm, so that the waves therefore are still.

Then are they glad because they be quiet.

So he bringeth them into their desired haven.

Whoo, I love that.

Their desired haven.

Isn't that awesome?

Not surprisingly, it is after those in the storm pray.

Well, look, that the peace comes.

There it is.

Prayer results in a glad's heart of guidance and peace through the storm.

And he's the one that can take us through the storm.

You remember the story in the Gospels about Jesus and the disciples in the boat on the Sea of Galilee?

You gotta see this.

Matthew 8, and I will turn there correctly.

Matthew 8.

I want you to see this.

Matthew chapter 8.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

This is so good.

I love this story.

I've preached this story.

Matthew chapter 8, verse 22, but Jesus said unto him, Follow me.

Matthew 8:22

And let the dead bury the dead.

And then he said to the disciples, and when he was entered into the ship, his disciples followed him.

And behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that their ship was covered with the waves, but he was asleep.

Now, folks, if you had a picture, this is not a real big boat.

Okay?

It's a boat that probably holds about, I've been in them.

I've been in one when we were at the Sea of Galilee.

Because I had the picture when I read this before I went over to the Sea of Galilee.

It's a big boat.

It's not a big boat.

It's a rowing boat.

Which means there's three rowers on each side.

Okay?

And you got a place for at least six.

But then you may have one in the front and one sitting in the besides.

So I don't know how many they had, but that's the size boat it was.

Probably about a 12-footer, maybe 14-foot, probably 14-foot, I think.

I didn't I didn't remember.

But what I'm saying is this is not a big boat.

And this boat is going up and down.

I have been on the Sea of Galilee literally when it was calm.

And the next thing you know, a major storm came up on the northern side.

There's a mountain range goes all the way around the Sea of Galilee, except I think it's on the north of the north side.

And there's a valley.

So literally, when a storm comes up, it usually comes from the north and it comes directly through that valley right on top of the Sea of Galilee.

So it's like a direct hit with a missile.

We've been on there.

And we came across, we're at, we're at the hotel that night eating.

I'll never forget it as long as I live.

They brought us Simon Peter's fish.

That fish was so big, and it had eyes looking right at me.

I went, ooh.

And I looked on the menu and they said, beef.

I said, I'll take the beef.

Don't ever order beef till you ask what kind of beef.

Next thing you know, they bring a big plate with a big cow tongue on it.

All I could see is that cow going.

Then I said, you know what?

God's laid on my heart to fast.

I'm serious.

That night we were in bed, I heard something going, somebody opened the door, knocked on the door, said preacher, preacher, preacher.

I said, What, blah, blah.

Look! The sea was in roaring form.

Waves ten, eleven feet coming over the embankment.

So much, so forceful that the pool, we were there in February, it was empty.

It had filled the pool with water.

And I looked up and I saw that, remember that little bitty boat, and I thought to myself, no wonder they said, wake him up.

For some reason, they had not made the connection yet.

That the man asleep in the when I get to him, my mom asked Jesus how he could sleep like that.

But anyway, that's just a question I got.

But but they had not made that connection that the man in the back of the boat was the man who controlled the waves and the sea.

But at least they knew where to go.

They cried out to the master.

And the master stood and he said to the waves and to the wind, peace be still.

And that was a calm.

There was a calm.

So what is he telling us here?

The prayer in the storm.

The peace in the storm.

That we forget.

That we know the very one who allowed the storm in the first place, and that he can cause it to stop or see it, or see us through it.

God led those to peace in each of the three other pictures.

Verse 7, verse 14, verse 20.

He delivers them.

And he will lead us through.

And then number seven, the purpose of the storm, verse 30.

Then are they glad because they be quiet?

So he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

Wow.

Here's the purpose.

God's purpose in this storm that we encounter are always to guide us to a haven.

Isn't that great?

Look at it.

Think about it.

We don't just go out on the sea to sit there.

We go for a purpose.

We launch out into the deep for a purpose.

If a storm interrupts that purpose, God will direct you through it, or he may change the purpose of your trip altogether.

You know what I thought about that?

I've learned this about storms.

You know what I've learned about storms?

That when I'm going into a storm, I think the reason I'm going in is for this purpose, but yet when I come through that storm, I realize God had a whole new direction for me to go.

Is that not something?

That's happened a couple of times to me and Susan.

We went through a storm thinking that we're going to do this.

And God turned us to do that.

Thank God for the hey, thank God for his storms.

Which brings me to that last point.

By the way, Jonah went into a storm, didn't he?

Thinking he was going one way.

And he gladly, after three days in the big fish, hello.

Son, when he hit the beach, he hit it running.

Woo! Repent.

They had to repent.

Why?

He was hollering, but he was stinking.

How'd you like that?

Which brings us to the last thing, the praise after the storm.

Look at verse 31 and 32.

Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men.

Let them exalt him also in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

Is that not beautiful?

In the four pictures here we've looked at in this psalm, in all four incidents, watch this.

Praise is the role is the result of God's deliverance.

Hey, when people are led out of the wilderness, look, they praise God, verses 8 and 9.

When they are released from prison, they praise God, verse 15 and 16.

When they are held, I mean when they are healed of illness and released from the hospital, they praise God.

Verse 20 and 22.

It is wonderful to hear the praises of them whom God has rescued.

Verses 31 and 32 speak of the goodness and the wonderful works of God.

Look at it here, and how we should give thanks to Him.

I love verse 32.

Look, in the assembly of the people and praise Him in the company of the elders.

I hope that this will be our regular practice to give public praise for the goodness of God.

I was thinking of all that God's done in seven years here.

Folks, it's been miraculous.

We're talking about 200 people.

Oh, maybe two.

On a Sunday morning and Wednesday, because we have a lot of people on Wednesday, don't come on Sunday, different people.

I'd say 250, 300 people, counting kids.

It's amazing.

We've broken all the charts for this size of a church.

And that's not because of us.

Not at all.

Because uh, there's nothing good about us.

Hello.

Oh, my righteousness is filthy rags, Isaiah 64, 6.

But it's all about God's goodness.

That's what it's about.

All about God's goodness.

God has chosen because there's a group of people here that I really believe have a hunger to be a lighthouse to this community.

Nothing more, nothing less.

But just a lighthouse to this community.

Red, yellow, black, and white, they're all precious in his sight.

We don't judge people for who they are, what color they are, what position they hold, how much money they got, how much they don't have.

You know what we do?

We just love God and we love people.

Wherever they are.

We're not interested in your past, we're interested in your future.

God's got a fantastic future for you.

Fantastic future.

Not just a future, a fantastic future.

He really does.

Are you in a storm right now?

Many of you are.

I know y'all.

We're in a storm with our brother.

I know that.

But I know this.

I know God's in charge.

And I know God's gonna see us through these storms.

I know that.

And if we