In his sermon on Psalm 119:73-80, Pooyan Mershahi explores the core principles of Christian life and faith. He begins by emphasizing the role of afflictions in drawing believers closer to God, highlighting the psalmist's acknowledgment that God made him and afflicts him in faithfulness. Mershahi discusses the need for understanding and discernment, urging believers to seek a deeper knowledge of God and His purposes, particularly in times of trial. He argues that growth in grace is an encouragement to others and that God's righteousness is evident in His judgments. The sermon also touches on the importance of seeking comfort from God's promises and understanding the necessity of God's mercy for survival. Mershahi concludes by encouraging believers to pursue a sincere heart, dedicated to God's statutes, as a remedy against the deceitfulness of the world.

Please turn to Psalm 119 and we shall commence from verse 65. We'll read from 65 to 88. I read from the authorized version, the King James Version. Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I have believed thy commandments.

Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept thy word. Thou art good, and doest good. Teach me thy statutes. The proud have forged a lie against me, but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart. Their heart is as fat as grease, but I delight in thy law.

It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me. Give me understanding that I may learn thy commandments. They that fear thee will be glad when they see me, because I have hoped in thy word.

I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me. Let I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant. Let thy tender mercies come unto me that I may live For thy law is my delight. Let the proud be ashamed, for they dealt perversely with me without a cause. But I will meditate in thy precepts.

Let those that fear thee turn unto me, and those that have known thy testimonies. Let my heart be sound in thy statutes, that I be not ashamed. My soul fainteth for thy salvation, but I hope in thy word. Mine eyes fail for thy word, saying, When wilt thou comfort me? For I am become'd like a bottle in the smoke, Yet do I not forget thy statutes.

How many are the days of thy servant? When wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me? The proud have digged pits for me, which are not after thy law. All thy commandments are faithful. They persecute me wrongfully.

Help thou me. They had almost consumed me upon earth, but I forsook not thy precepts. Quicken me after thy loving kindness. So shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth. Amen.

Please be seated. Well, I'm so grateful for your invitation and the kind words, Pastor Brown, and it is a joy to be amongst you for the first time here, and the greatest privilege of all to bring God's word. Well, we do remember you in prayer also, and I bring you greetings from Providence Baptist Chapel as well, and assure you that you are in our hearts and prayers. And it is an encouraging thing to be amongst the like-minded people. There are certain places that I go to only once, and I'm not asked to go again.

But I'm thankful for the fellowship and the encouragements that I have received, and this is the third time to the U.S. For the conference and then my first time here. May the Lord bless this time around His Word. But let us have the Word of God before us here. And I want to bring to you today that section from verses 73 to 80.

73 to 80. And then God willing next Lord's Day I hope to bring the next section that the Lord has laid upon my heart. This is the tenth section of this psalm. Each of the eight stanzas begin with the Hebrew letter Yod, which You will remember as you have read the Word of God and as you have considered these words, I trust in the past week, I am sure you have thought about the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm sure you've remembered what he said when he said that no jot or tittle of the law of God will fail, will pass away.

It will all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth will pass away, but not a jot or yod or tittle will pass away from the law of God. Here is the letter yod. Here is the tiniest letter of the Hebrew alphabet and each of the stanzas here begins with that yard in this tenth section. And the psalmist is teaching us about life.

It's teaching us about not mere life, but a Christian life, a believing life. I ask you this at the beginning, are you a believer in Jesus Christ? Do you know the author of this word? Or Are you merely a hearer of it, but you have never received it? Well it is our prayer that you would receive it today by the power of the Spirit.

It would work upon your heart. This section of the psalm takes us right back to the first truths, the foundations of the Christian faith and life. Here the psalmist speaks of his need. Friends, we are living in time of need. We are living in desperate times, times of great departures, times of great wickedness.

How are we to live? What will sustain us? What can we do? What will give us hope? Is there anything that we can anchor our soul to?

All the changes that are happening in United Kingdom every year. It seems to be every month there is something new, some new attack upon the family. Something new, a change that is coming, pressures, all kinds of distractions from every angle. It seems to be that we are living in times that we could say And we are going through a life at this period of time which John Bunyan described in his Pilgrim's Progress. I trust you all are familiar with Pilgrim's Progress because you will meet John Bunyan one day and you will have to say to him, I read your book.

So if you haven't studied it, please do so. But John Bennion, in that wonderful allegory, he spoke of the enchanted ground. The enchanted ground. The Christian at this time is walking through the Enchanted Ground. What was it?

I'm sure you remember that story of the Christian. The Enchanted Ground is the place of danger in the Christian's life. It is where we need to be most careful. It was the place where he became sleepy. It was the place that he heard whisperings.

It was a place that he felt very much tempted in different ways. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 6, he says, therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. The enchanted ground that we are walking on, This time, this season, this society, this culture in which we are living in that is trying to lull us to sleep. It's now a time to be sober. It is a time to be serious.

We need to be awake. We need to be watchful. And here we must see some key foundational fundamental truths of our life. So in this section of Psalm 119 it asks us to remember some basic things, some things that we have known from the beginning of our Christian pilgrimage, but which we need to relearn and to be reminded of as the apostle Paul or Peter, he wrote and said that I am writing these things for your remembrance. We must remember these things and we must grow deeper in and draw more comfort and encouragement and strength from.

It asks us to look at those first truths, and it asked us to stand and ponder them and study them and believe them and take them in and apply them in our own lives. So I would ask you, as I would go through, and I will just simply survey this section. I cannot, we will not have time. I only have ten points for this morning. I can do this when I'm away from home.

I only preach usually three-point sermons, but we shall see. I trust that we have time. We have till half past one until our brother comes. So this is more than our necessary food, as Job says. There are ten things I want to say.

I confess I think I will have to pass over some of them very quickly. But the first thing is, here The psalmist is saying the simplest of things, but the most essential things. Number one, God made me. God made me. The second thing that we will consider is that He says, give me understanding.

He wants understanding. That's what we need, understanding. We need discernment. He says then we must grow in grace. And he says this growing in grace is an encouragement to believers.

The fourth thing that he says is that God is righteous. What he does is right. The fifth thing that he says is that God afflicts in faithfulness. God afflicts in faithfulness. The sixth thing is that we must go to God to be comforted in our trials.

Seventhly, we will see that God knows your need and that your need is mercy to survive in this world. The eighth thing is that of God's humbling of the proud is necessary for salvation. The ninth thing that we will see is the study, the errors, the repentance, the afflictions, and God's mercy towards good men. And the 10th thing, we are called to go to the Lord for a sincere heart. So those are the ten things I'm going to try to bring before you this morning from this short passage.

Look at the first verse in this stanza, verse 73. The psalmist says, thy hands have made me and fashioned me. What is this saying? The first thing is that he's saying, God made me. You see this in this first phrase, God made me.

That's the first truth of the Christian life. That's our identity. We recognize this. God made me. The first question of the child's catechism for the little ones that we make them to memorize.

Who made you? God made me. What else did God make? God made all things. Why did God make you and all things?

For His own glory. Very simple. But you know, so much of the Christian life is caught up on those first three questions of that child's catechism. So much is caught up in that. There's so much in that.

God made me. If you could really believe those words of the psalmist, if we really believed what we teach our own children, If we really believe those, we would be a mighty army of witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Maker. Without Him was not anything made that was made, the scripture says in John chapter 1. He is not only our maker, he is our keeper, he is our savior. You are being kept by the power of God.

It is Jesus Christ who keeps you. Without him you can do nothing you are nothing God made me you see this is what the Psalmist is saying thy hands and that's interesting isn't it why does he say thy hands Why not just as usual we have in the Word of God the hand of God? Not the hands of God, the hand of God. The reason is the exegetes of this passage, they would say that the psalmist is describing here of the fact that God has specifically, in a very special way, has made man. In a way that he has not made anything else and that's why our soul is precious.

The soul of the unborn is precious. That's why it broke my heart yesterday at that abortion mill, yesterday morning. The Lord says, thy hands, here the psalmist says, thy hands have made me and fashioned me. This is the psalmist acknowledging that God is. God is the creator.

God is my creator, he says. God made me who I am. And that's the thing that people are so confused about. They don't know who they are. They don't know their identity.

In our culture, it changes. People's identity changes. Their thoughts about themselves changes. But yet the psalmist says, this is my rock. This is my foundation.

I didn't make myself. My parents didn't make me. God made me. Thy hands have fashioned me." Now that statement is so important because you'll notice by the time that we get to the further down in verse 75, you see the psalmist speaking of afflictions. He's saying, God you've made me but everything about me, my whole life is in your hand.

Everything that I have is because of you. You have engineered it and it hasn't been a haphazard thing. It hasn't been that you thought it was a good idea as you went along. No, it was all done. The decree of God went forth from eternity and these things have happened because of your wisdom and goodness.

My life is not a haphazard life. So the thoughts of our affliction, the thoughts of our pains that runs through this psalm. Lord, you have made me and all of these things. And that's what it says at the latter part of verse 75. Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.

You have in your faithfulness afflicted me. You have done it. Satan didn't do it. This person didn't do it. My family didn't do it.

This brother or sister didn't do it. You have afflicted me. So it goes to the first cause, and that's so essential. It's like, if I remember correctly, in Job, Job, when he is so cast down, and I think it is chapter 23, that he says, I go forward, you are not there, I go backward. I cannot find you.

I go left. I go to the right I don't see you Lord. I pray and I don't hear you and I feel you don't hear me, it's all dark. If I could only find you, then I would be able to tell you all the things on my heart, but I don't find you." And then he says, I think it's verse 10 that it says, but he knoweth the way that I take. When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

So then he doesn't say, it was Satan who did these things to me. It's not Satan that afflicted me. But he goes to the first course. You know the way that I take. It doesn't matter if I don't know.

It doesn't matter if it's all dark to me. It doesn't matter if I'm so confused and I've got so many questions that are not answered. When everyone around me is telling me this and that and the other, it doesn't matter. The main thing is that you know. Thou knowest the way that I take.

I don't know where I'm going, but you know. And then he shall try me, I shall come forth as gold. I am not gold yet, but I shall come forth as gold." And here the Psalmist is speaking of similar things. He has been speaking of, that's why I read earlier on to get some context that he does bring through each section various aspects of afflictions and trials and pains. He wrestles with this subject.

He's real, you see, he's living a real life. He deals with issues of affliction in this life and as he reflects on his afflictions, he goes to the first cause. And what is that, the first truth? He says, you made me Lord. Now Lord, I am in the midst of affliction, but I know you made me.

And that's all that matters. You made me who I am. I don't have an issue with my identity. You've made me the way I am and all the things about me. And you didn't do these things to harm me harm my soul you didn't do this these things to hurt me You did this because you love me you did this because you are good.

You are right So he goes back to the first cause God made me Thy hands have made me and fashioned me. God is, God made everything that is and He made who I am, who you are. And if He made me who I am, He made me for this hour. Even the hour of things are designed by Him. That's why you were not born 100 years ago.

That's why you are not to be born in 200 years in future. You are born in this generation. For such a time as this, you are born. For this hour, you are born. So there's a purpose.

That's what he's saying. I have been made by you and the timing of everything in which I was made is from you. He's saying that there are no surprises to God. And so He has made us for now in this changing culture, in this apostate culture, in this wicked culture in which we are living in, in this enchanted ground that we are in, has made us. So this is the first principle of the Christian faith.

You must appreciate that. You must take that to your heart. It's not accidental that where you are, what family you are born in, the afflictions and the difficulties that you have, it's not accidental to you. So that's the first thing. Take that to your heart.

Meditate upon it throughout this week. The second thing is this, he says. He says, give me understanding. Give me understanding that I may learn thy commandments." So here's the psalmist. He's in the midst of affliction.

He goes on to talk about his afflictions. He has already talked about his afflictions before in the previous verses and he says, Lord, give me understanding. He's been meditating upon these things that God has made him. Now he says something as Lord, give me understanding. So first, God made me.

Second, give me understanding. I need to know you. I need to know you. I need to have discernment. I need to have that understanding of who you are.

That's what he says. Give me understanding is one of the prime prayers of the Christian life. That's how we begin. Lord, I don't know myself, But all I know I'm a sinner, poor sinner, an offense to you. But you have shown me, opened my eyes, to see something of the beauty and the glory of Jesus Christ that He's the only Savior.

And I have only come to see something, a small amount of him, but I love him. I want to know him. I want to grow in grace and knowledge of him. Give me understanding. That's what he's saying.

Give me understanding. What we really need in every circumstance of life is more understanding of who God is, more understanding of His purposes. What we really need in every circumstance of the Christian life is a deeper, more biblical understanding of who God is and what He is doing in this world. One commentator that I recommend to you on the whole of the Psalms, William Plummer, he says this, our chief concern even in our trials ought to be to understand more perfectly the divine will. Our chief concern, the main thing you should be thinking about even in our trials ought to be to understand more perfectly the divine will.

So easy to read it isn't it? So easy to say. That's wonderful. But then what do we do? Do we actually live it?

Do I live it? It's the last thing. It comes to the bottom of the pile on my list to think when I am in trials, when I am in all kinds of afflictions, to then pray, Lord, give me understanding. I need to know you more, Lord. Is that how you pray?

I must confess to my own shame, unless the Lord works in my heart, it's not the first thing that comes to my mind. And I've seen it in other people's lives, as a pastor, in my pastoral experience with the Lord's sheep. In our trials that's not the usual thing that comes to mind. Give me understanding. In our trials what do we say?

What usually comes to mind? Lord, get me out of it. Get me out of this situation. Remove this thing, Lord. Heal me.

Help me in this situation. This hurts. Lord, end it. Lord, this is damaging to me. This is damaging to my family.

The culture in which I'm living in and the pressures that we are facing every day and the changes that are happening and the whisperings of Satan and the compromises of men, all of these things Lord, remove it. Lord, relieve us of this trouble. And the psalmist says, no, No, no, that's not what you should be praying. That's not what we should be thinking of. In trials, the first question is, the first issue is, Lord, I want to understand.

I want to first know you more. I want to understand who you are. All of these things will pass away, but you are the same. You are the same. Yesterday and today and forever, Jesus is the same.

All else will fail. All else will be wiped away, but not one jot or tittle of the Word of God will pass away. And so I want to know the Lord more. That's what the psalmist says. I want to understand who you are.

This situation will pass. Whatever trial I'm going through, it will pass. Somehow, I don't know how, you will bring me through it. Hasn't been this your experience maybe two years ago, maybe three years ago. Some time ago, everything was black.

You didn't know what you were going to do. You'd lost your job, certain illnesses, various things happened, and you didn't know what to do. Certain temptations, certain changes within culture, certain laws that were being passed, certain seminaries that were going down, and you thought what is going to happen? How will we get out of this? But what has happened?

Hasn't God kept you? Hasn't God brought you through? Aren't you here by His grace? And the as-salmi says, Lord I want to understand your great purposes in this world. Not the world's purposes, but your purposes.

Even if I don't know the specific purposes of this trial in my life, in my church, in my family, in my culture, I know that the specific purposes of this attack, this trial, whatever they are, all ultimately are so that I will know you and your great purposes. That's the thing. In this trial, in this attack, in this discouraging time, give me understanding. I want to know you. Is this your prayer?

I hope it will be. I want to know what you're doing in this world. So teach me. Teach me Lord. Teach me that from your word.

Give me understanding. That's the prayer of the afflicted believer. It ought to be. It ought to be. That's the foundational truth.

That's something so fundamental. That's where we go wrong. We are trying to fix things, But we must first know the Lord. That's what we need. Don't try to fix things.

The Lord is not worried as we are. He's not sitting there, and I am being respectful here, and he is not there wringing his hands. Worry, what is going to happen to my church? What's going to happen? No, Christ reigns forever and ever.

He's sovereign over all things. There will be a witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world. At all times, there has always been. The church has never been destroyed. Oh, at times the local churches have diminished in certain regions, but there's always been the Church of Jesus Christ throughout the ages.

To understand something of the grace and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ to understand something of His afflictions. That's what you need to know. His afflictions, His sufferings, His trial, not yours and mine. And his affliction was for what? We were singing of that for our sins.

He went on the cross because of our sins. Give me a sight, O Savior, of thy wondrous love to me, of the love that brought thee down to earth to die on Calvary. I don't know if you know if you sing that hymn here. That's oftentimes we sing it at the Lord's table. Oh make me understand it.

Help me to take it in what it meant to thee the Holy One to bear away my sin. Now the third thing is this. He speaks of the growth. Growth in grace, he says, is an encouragement to believers. Growth in Grace is an encouragement to believers.

And that's what we find in verse 74. It says, they that fear thee will be glad when they see me because I have hoped in thy word. Think about this, Think about what he's saying. He says, the way I've been growing, the way you've led me, it encourages those who fear thee. They that fear thee will be glad.

It rejoices their heart. What will rejoice their heart? When they see me. Because this is what makes them glad. Because I have hoped in Thy word.

That's what it is. It's this hope in the Word of God. This hope that this Word of God will keep us. It is our only hope. It is sustaining us.

It is feeding us. It is making us grow. And others see it. What a wonder it is for me to see an old saint. It's a miracle.

It's a miracle that someone who's gone through all kinds of things, temptations and sins and they've fallen again and again and they've been confused about certain things, they have made wrong decisions at times and yet the Lord by His grace miraculously keeps them, has kept them. And I see a saint, 87, 89, 94, still going on, still rejoicing, still want to love God's people, be with God's people, still looking unto the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has kept them. That's a wonderful thing. It encourages us to see that.

Oftentimes as a pastor, I'm sure your pastors can say the same, we go to visit people to encourage them. But then we come home and we think, well, I have done nothing. I've just sat there, listened to the testimony, to the witness of this old saint, and I am so blessed. I'm so encouraged. That's what he's talking about.

So he's in affliction. He's in the midst of a trial and what is He saying? When they look at me in the midst of all of these things, they that fear Thee will be glad when they see me. Why is that? They see me in these trials.

They see my tears and yet what do they see? I'm hoping. I am hoping upon the Word of God in your word. What is this man going to do? What this woman going to do in this situation?

How will they get out of it? Oh, they may die. The cancer might eat them up. But what is happening? They're still hoping.

They're still believing. Nothing hinders them. They're still praising God. God's Word is sustaining them. It's comforting them.

God's word is true, it's doing what it says it will do. And so they are going to rejoice. History, our children and their children will look back at us. They look at our lives, look at our history, look at the heritage that is left. What will they say?

Will they be glad, my friends? Will they be glad when they see you, when they read about you, when they see your diary, when they remember the things, the family times and the family worship times and your service in the place where the name of the Lord is named. When they review your life, will they be glad? It's a challenge, isn't it? Because the Psalmist says, when those who fear you see me, they are glad, they rejoice.

When we read church history, doesn't it rejoices our heart to think that God worked in these people, saved these people, kept them. Oh yes, they were burnt at the stake. They went through all these trials, through waters, through fires. But God was with them, brought them through. We are encouraged.

They're going to see an afflicted man, woman, afflicted and in pain, and yet they continue to believe. They are not doubting. They are not complaining. They are not hopeless. They are not bitter.

They are not confounded. They are not angry with God. They are not angry with God's people. That's what they're seeing and it encourages them, it rejoices their hearts. Is that what our families see?

That's the culture that will be affecting our families more than the passing world. The cultures of the world. Think about it. The things that you're seeing right now, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, I was not here. Things have changed.

Things have come and gone. But the things that were happening in your home, in the local church, they have had more of an impact on the future generation that what laws were being passed. Are you doubting? Are you bitter? Is your tongue gossiping?

Are you complaining? It is this growth in grace, this hope in the Word of God that causes others who fear the Lord to rejoice and be glad. And so that is what the psalmist is saying here to us. Isn't this what you read in the Philippians? You read, well we will hear it preached this afternoon, a minister of God, that wonderful servant, the Apostle Paul, in chains and yet he's rejoicing.

He's speaking of joy unspeakable and full of glory in the middle of all his trials. He's yet hoping, he's yet praising. I read that and I think I'm the one who is in prison. He is free. I have hoped in thy word.

The fourth thing, Time is going fast. He says God is righteous. What he does is righteous. What he does is right. Look at it, verse 75.

I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right. If you have margins, it would say righteous or righteousness, literally from the Hebrew. Thy judgments are right, and thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me. I know, he says, I know. This is something that has been revealed to me.

I've come to see it. I didn't always see it like this, but now I see it. By God's grace, He's opened my eyes to see it. I've heard the voice of the Savior. He has taught me these things.

I've come to know, O Lord, that Thy judgments, that's the word for the Scriptures, but it is to do with the rules and the decisions. And it says, your rules, your decisions, your choices that you have revealed to me in the Scriptures, they are right and they are righteous. That's the fourth great truth of the Christian life that we learn from this passage. God is right. God is righteous.

That is part of his attribute. What he does is right. And that's a glorious confession of the psalmist faith. It's going to be the second half of this verse where the psalmist explicitly begins to talk about his affliction, but before he does any of that, what he says, Lord, you are righteous. You are right about everything, about everything that you do.

What I have experienced is not unjust. That's what he's saying. What I am experiencing is not an act or moral apathy on your part where you don't care about me, where you don't care about your church, where you don't care about your people. It is not because you have apathy towards us, and you don't care about what we are going through. What I am doing, what I am going through right now is not something that you have done wrong.

It's not any kind of bad decision from your point of view. It's not a lack of justice. We are getting what we deserve and what is right. In fact, I know, O Lord, that your rules, your decisions, your judgments are righteous. They are right.

Do you see what the psalmist is doing here? The psalmist is justifying God. That's what he's doing. He's putting himself in the place of God and says, God you are right. You are just.

And my friends this is a lesson for us. We must take that position all the time in our lives. When we are so discouraged it is because we are looking from a different angle. Look at it from the angle of God. That's what the psalmist is doing.

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, He has justified you in His Son through faith in Him, through His shed blood. The world looks at you And the world says, he is a sinner. And God says, I have declared him righteous. That's justification. And the world sometimes looks at your trials and the world will say to you, God must not be good.

Look at all these things, bad things that are happening in the world. God is not good if he exists at all. But the believer justifies God and says God is good all the time. God is just. God is right.

That's what we say. That's our confession of faith. In the hardest of times, God is just. I am receiving my just reward. And so that's what the psalmist is doing.

He's justifying God, he's declaring God to be righteous even in his trials. Oh no, my god is good all the time that's what he's saying the hymn writer puts it in the truth in this way whatever my god ordains is right I don't know if you know that hymn I'll read it to you whatever my god ordains is right holy his will abideth I will be still whatever He doth and follow where He guideth. He is my God, though dark my road. He holds me so that I shall not fall. Wherefore to him I leave it all." He says, I trust you in anything.

Whatever my God ordains is right. He never will deceive me. He leadeth me by the proper path. I know he will not leave me. I take content what he hath sent.

His hand can turn my griefs away, and patiently I wait his day. Whatever my God ordains is right, though now this cup in drinking may bitter seem to my faint heart. I take it all, unshrinking. Tears pass away. With dawn of day, sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart.

And Pain and sorrow shall depart. Whatever my God ordains is right. Here shall my stand be taken. Though sorrow, need or death be mine, yet I am not forsaken. My father's care is round me there." Do you see what the hymn writer says?

It's the same things he's saying. God is right. God does what is right. Because he is doing what is his character to do, it is his attribute to do. He can do nothing else other than what is right and what is just.

And so he says, Lord, you are right, you are righteous. May this be your prayer. In this time of confusion, in times of change, and the culture that is encrouching upon us and wanting to destroy us. Lord, you are right. You will always be right.

Let these people destroy themselves. Let these people be trapped in their own nets. Your word abides. I have my hope in it. Jesus Christ is true and real.

He's faithful forever. He's our Savior and Whatever you do is right. You haven't let me down. I'm held in the palm of your hand." And that's what he's saying. I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right.

The fifth thing is this. He says, God afflicts in faithfulness. God afflicts in faithfulness. Look again at verse 75. I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right and that thou in faithfulness has afflicted me.

Thou in faithfulness has afflicted me. Let me say it in another way. God afflicts because of his faithfulness. He afflicts because of his faithfulness. And let me say it another way.

God is faithful in our affliction. God afflicts us in our faithfulness. He afflicts us because of his faithfulness and he's faithful to us in his affliction of us. Do you get that? He's faithful from the beginning to the end.

That's what the psalmist is saying. If you back up to verse 67 that we read earlier, he says, before I was afflicted, I went astray. But now have I kept thy word. Lord, what is he saying there? Lord, I have seen how your affliction works in my life.

I have seen it. Before I was afflicted, I went astray. I didn't know what life was about. I did my own thing. I was so lost without the Lord.

I went from sin to sin. I fell from hole to hole and ditch to ditch. But then affliction came. Then trials came. Then all sorts of things came that God was pressing upon me.

I was going astray and you found me, but you pressed hard upon me. You brought me back. It took affliction to bring me back. You were faithful to me. It's like my old teacher used to say to me, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.

Sadly, it was often the hard way. I had to stand outside of the head teacher's room in my country of Iran. Anyway, I won't talk about those things. It was painful. Sometimes, sadly, oftentimes it is the hard way that teaches us much lessons.

But he brings us, He leads us, He brings us back. He doesn't forsake us, afflict us for nothing. And so He says, it is good. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Thy statutes. He's saying, Lord, I didn't like it.

It is painful for me. I didn't feel good at the time. Do you feel good when you're afflicted by God? No, you don't feel good if you're honest about it. It is hard.

You have sleepless nights. You shed tears. You might feel forsaken by God even though He's the closest to you at the time. As a father is chastising a child is the closest to the child. He's doing that out of love for the child.

And so our father does that. But at the time it does not feel good. Lord I didn't want to go through it and I don't want to go through that again but it was good for me and here in faithfulness you have afflicted me you've been faithful to me Lord in your affliction of me in my affliction you've been faithful to me and that's one of the great great truths of the Christian life and if you can get your heart around that if you can get your head around that You have learned one of the grand secrets of the Christian life. The sixth thing is this and I'll try to go a little faster now. It's in verse 76.

Let I pray thee thy merciful kindness be for my comfort according to thy word unto thy servant. He's saying go to God to be comforted in your trials. No one else can comfort you the same way our Lord does. Who said, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, also believe in me.

Go to God to be comforted in your trials. Let me expand that a bit. Go to God to be comforted in your trials. Let me expand that a bit. Go to God to be comforted in your trials by His promises.

It is by His promises. This scripture, this book is called the word of comfort. We are comforted by the scriptures the apostle says. Let I pray thee thy merciful kindness be for my comfort according to thy word unto thy servant. So it's not just that he acknowledges that the Lord is faithful to him in affliction.

Lord could you comfort me? No, it says let your merciful kindness, your steadfast love, let your loving kindness comfort me according to thy word. Let me derive my comfort and happiness from this diffusion of your love and mercy." And he does... How God does this. How does God comfort us?

By his promises that I pray thee thy merciful Kindness be for my comfort according to thy word unto thy servant." Go to the scriptures, meditate upon it, go through it. Take Psalm 27. We won't have time to go through it, but go through that psalm. In times of your trials, take it, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? Take that, go through it and see it is your comfort will be only in the Lord.

It's not in your husband, it's not in your wife, it's not in your children, it's not in the church. But those the Lord uses for your comfort, but the first is the Lord, is Jesus Christ, the only comfort. So he comforts us. God comforts you in your trial by his promises. Go to God.

Go to him. Go to Christ. Go to his cross. And ask for that comfort from Him in His promises. Do you do that?

The seventh thing is this. He says, God knows that you need mercy to survive. Look at verse 77. Let thy tender mercies come unto me that I may live, he says, so that I might live without it. I'm not alive.

I'm not actually living. I think I'm alive. But I need your tender mercies, for thy law is my delight." What's the principle of the Christian life? The mercies of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. You might feel dead, miserable.

If you are not a Christian you must be miserable. You must be miserable. How long will you carry on in that? How long will you go on being miserable and wretched and every sermon comes to you as a judgment to you. How long?

Go to the Lord Jesus Christ, call upon His for His tender mercies to come to you and then you will live. God knows you need his mercy to survive. The mercies of God are tender mercies. They are not just mercies, but they are tender mercies. They are the mercies of the father to his children.

They are the mercies of the compassionate God, like a mother over the son of a womb. And they come unto us, it says. We don't go to them. The psalmist says, let them come unto me. I can't go to it.

I am so weak I'm so helpless I have it is all dark and black I don't know how to get to the tender mercies of God but let them come to me let them find their way to come to me that's what it's saying again plumber says this if god is our enemy we be dead men that's what he says if god is our enemy we be dead men. God knows we need his mercy to survive, to live. So go to him call upon his mercy to come to you. He'll give it to you. He says that thy law is my delight.

Thomas Watson says this. A child of God though he cannot serve the Lord perfectly, yet he serves him willingly. His will is in the law of the Lord. He is not a pressed soldier but a volunteer. By the beating of this pulse we may judge whether there be spiritual life in us or no.

David professes that God's law was his delight. He had his crown to delight in, He had his music to delight in, but the love he had to God's law did drown all other delights as the joy of harvest and vintage exceeds the joy of gleaning. And then the eighth thing is this, verse 78, where we read that of God's humbling of the proud, which is necessary for salvation. Look at it. Let the proud be ashamed, for they dealt perversely with me without a cause.

But I will meditate in thy precepts." This is the eighth truth. This is the eighth foundation. God's humbling of the proud, he says, is a necessary part of their salvation. We are proud by nature. That's, we could say, our chiefest sin.

Pride. Pride. It's a respectable sin. People don't see it very much. We don't think it is such a big deal.

We don't see pride to be A great issue, but God sees it and God deals with it. Let the proud be ashamed. Sometimes it is the very humbling of the Insolent, the pride, the proud man that leads them to trust in God, that leads to their conversion. Isn't that what happened with you? God destroyed your pride.

God made you ashamed. You were ashamed in His sight. We were reading Romans 1 yesterday and it brought back to my memory all the things I read 20 years ago this year. And as I read Romans it convicted me it made me feel ashamed. This is me.

This is me I am the wretched sinner These are all about me God's humbling of the proud is Necessary for their salvation But get this my friends God's humbling of the proud is necessary to the salvation he is giving you. God is not going to let your oppressors triumph over you. He will not allow it. He will not save you without humbling your oppressors. Those who are his enemies and our enemies.

Jesus Christ is King. He preserves his kingdom. He preserves his cause. He defends us and he fights on our behalf. He is the one who is the captain of our salvation, the scripture says.

He will not allow any to triumph over his church. He will not save you without humbling your oppressors. They're either going to become the children of God and your brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ or they will be trodden down on that final day. They will be cast away on that final day and that is a fearful thing to think of. Those are the only two options.

They are going to be your brothers and sisters in Christ if they are humble to the conversion of their souls or they are going to be destroyed forever and ever. Now that thought ought not to make us proud. It ought to break our hearts to pray for the insolent and the proud. Lord, they have no idea what they are doing. They have no idea what they're up against.

They don't know who is their enemy. Oh God, may your humbling Bring them to faith. If it doesn't you are going to bring them to shame. If it doesn't Lord You're going to bring our children our neighbors our colleagues To shame one day. They'll be cast into the outer darkness Lord Lord bring them to shame now.

Lord destroy their pride now. So that they will not be ashamed on that final day. That should be our prayer. That's what is going on here. But I will meditate in thy precepts he will leave the proud in God's hands I can't do much about it other than praying for them but this is but this is what I need to do in this time.

This is what I need to do in this culture in which I'm in, in this hour in which I am living. I will meditate in thy precepts. He will give himself to what? To the study of God's holy word, to contemplating it, to obey the divine precepts and to obey it we need to know them and to think much of them. And this is what the persecuted saints felt that they must meditate upon the Word of God.

Old Tyndale in his prison, what did he ask for? For the parchments. That's what he wanted. And his Hebrew grammar book. But he wanted the Word of God.

That's our comfort. He's saying, the proud, we pray for them. But then our main thought, it is upon the truth, the thoughts of God. The worst injury that our enemies can do to us what is it the worst thing is not taking your life is distracting your mind from the Lord The worst thing people can do to you is to turn away your hearts and to view vanity. To turn away your hearts from devoting yourself, your devotions before God.

Thomas Manton says about this word meditate, he says truths lie hid in the heart without efficacy or power till improved by deep serious and pressing thoughts. A sudden carrying a candle through a room giveth us not so full a survey of the object as when you stand a while beholding it. A steady contemplation is a great advantage. He says take your candle from word to word and contemplate, observe, meditate, pray over. The ninth thing is this I'll just say it's based on verse 79.

He says, look, you must study the errors, the repentance, the afflictions, and God's mercy towards good men. Let those that fear thee, what should they do? Turn unto me. That word turning is the turning of the eye. It's a turning to see, to behold, to observe, to examine.

That's the word. Turning for examination. Let those that fear thee turn unto me, and those that have known thy testimonies. What is this turning? What is it that he's saying that people should be looking at and observing and examining?

He says you should go to good men, go to spiritually minded men, go to the men in whom God has been working and dealing with, go and look at their lives. Behold that, turn to that, study them, study their character. This is why we need to study the Word of God and the character of God's people in whom God has been working. That's why we need to read church history and study the lives of men and women whom God has used and see all their faults, warts and all, as Cromwell said. Everything about them.

Observe it. Pray that God would make you also useful. Pray that God would also keep you away from their weaknesses and their faults and their mistakes Only the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect Observe him you will find no fault with him, but in anyone else you will find fault with them But he says but turn Let those that fear thee turn unto me." He says, let them examine my life. Let them see my errors. Let them see the good things that you have done in my life.

Let them see my mistakes. Let them be discipled by observing my life as well. Study my repentance. Study the reflection. Study God's mercy as well.

How God rescued me when I was going astray. Let those that fear thee do this. What is this telling you? Indirectly it is saying that you should observe right people. You should ask God to choose your companions because you will be observing them and you will be influenced by them.

And he says, let them that fear thee turn unto me. Pray for what kind of a company you will keep. Mark what David said and did. He says in verse 63, he says, I am a companion of all them that fear the Lord. They are my companions.

They are the ones that I am turning to, observing, and seeing their lives. They are not perfect people, but at least this is the thing that is so important. They fear the Lord, and I am a companion of all of them. Let those that fear thee, O Lord, turn unto me and those that have known thy testimonies. And then finally, go to God for a sincere heart.

Verse 80, let my heart be sound in thy statutes, that I be not ashamed. Go to God for a sincere heart, friends. Do you have a sincere heart? Do you have a heart that is beating for God and is true and is faithful, that is honest? You're not pretending things.

You're not playing the hypocrite. Let my heart be sound in thy statutes. We are living in a deceitful world, friends. Our hearts are deceitful above all things. And the father of all deceit is the devil who is against us.

And in those circumstances we need to go to God and say, Lord give me a sincere, a sound heart. I live in a deceitful world. My own heart is so deceitful. I don't know myself. Lord give me a sound heart.

And that father of deceit, the father of lies is after me, is after my family, is after my church, Lord. Give me a whole heart. Give me a sound heart. Give me a heart that's just for you. That's the heart that I want.

A heart that loves the Lord Jesus Christ with sincerity and truth. That's the heart that I want. A heart that delights in your word. Give me that heart Lord. That's what he's saying.

Give me. Maybe someone needs to say, Lord give me a new heart. A new heart. That's what I need. I've never been born again.

This is so important. Here we are then, in an enchanted ground. Here we are living in a culture that causes us to be distracted, tempts us in certain ways, discourages us, and causes us to be drowsy. These are ten things that the psalmist says. These are the remedies.

The foundations of them is upon the Word of God which reveals to us the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him we find all of these things fulfilled. So friends I encourage you. I have given some words of challenge to let not your heart be troubled then in this day and age that we live in. May the Lord bless his word.

Amen.