(1) SOME HAVE HEALTH PROBLEMS
This is a wonderful age in which we live. We hear of some folks who have vision problems. They go to the doctor for some out-patient surgery, and in a few weeks they have 20-20 vision again.
Illus: I heard about an elderly retired gentleman that had severe hearing problems.
He went to the doctor, and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the man to hear better than he had ever heard before.
One month later, the elderly man went back again to the doctor. The doctor said, "Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased that you can hear again."
The gentleman said, "Oh, I haven't told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I've changed my will three times!"
(2) SOME FOLKS HAVE FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
Some folks are able to solve these problems easily enough, they are very shrewd when it comes to business.
Illus: A city boy moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the mule the next day.
The next day, the farmer drove up and said,
• "Sorry, but I have some bad news. The donkey died."
• "Well, then, just give me my money back."
• "Can't do that. I went and spent it already."
• "OK, then, just unload the donkey."
• "What ya gonna do with him?"
• "I'm going to raffle him off."
• "You can't raffle off a dead donkey!"
• "Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead, they will just think he is sleeping."
A month later the farmer met up with the city boy and asked:
• "What happened with that dead donkey?"
• "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars apiece and made a profit of $898."
• "Didn't anyone complain?"
• "Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back!"
The boy grew up to be a senior executive at ENRON.
But many of the problems we have, like David, are problems we brought on ourselves.
When people find themselves with these problems, they look for someone to blame them on. Rather than accept responsibility for these problems, sometimes we will even blame them on God.
Illus: This reminds me of growing up. We knew from a child that these bodies of ours need:
• Good nutrition
• Good rest
• Good exercise
We deprive these bodies of all three of these things, and then when we start to have serious health problems, we can not understand how the mean God of heaven can allow these terrible things to happen to us.
We start reading books on how “Bad things happen to good people.” The only problem with that is that we were not good. We do not want to take any responsibility for the problem, it is all God’s fault or someone else’s fault.
Illus: Some people who smoke cigarettes find that they have a terminal disease. They say that it is not their fault, it is those mean people who make and sell those cigarettes. They refuse to take any responsibility for the problem.
Illus: It is like these people who walk into McDonald’s restaurant and eat all kinds of junk food, then, when they have cholesterol in their veins instead of blood, and are facing a heart attack or stroke, they do not want to take the blame for the problem. It is McDonald’s fault for selling them food that they knew was junk food when they bought it.
King David had a lot of problems, and he brought most of them on himself. But David came to recognize that he was the problem. Generally, when people begin to recognize that they brought the problems on themselves, there is some hope for them.
Illus: David reminds us of the fellow that walked into a prison and began to go from cell to cell, trying to help the inmates in each cell. He asked each one why were they there:
• Some blamed a family member
• Some blamed a neighbor
• Some blamed society
Finally he came to a cell where a man replied, “I am here because of a crime I committed and I am paying for that crime.” The man said to the guard, “I want to talk to him, all the rest I can not help, but this man I can help!”
With all these problems, look how David began to get his life straightened out. It is something every one of us should do when life seems to cave in on us. Let’s look at -
I. DAVID’S PRAISE
Look at Psalm 34:1 2, we read, “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.”
Notice the word “all”. He was saying that he would bless the Lord at ALL TIMES.
Some folks do not have a hard time blessing the Lord when He is showering them with blessings, but when things are rough in their life they do not have anything good to say about anybody, and that includes God.
When hard times come, they start looking for someone they can blame their problem on. THEY CERTAINLY AREN’T THE BLAME!
Illus: They say we dads are the worst. We can be lost on a road trip, and you will never hear a dad say, “Well, how 'bout that?... I'm lost. Looks like we'll have to stop and ask for directions.”
No, it is those stupid road signs or that messed up map that caused them to be lost. IT’S NOT THEIR FAULT!
If we are ever going to get the help we need, we are going to have to recognize that we are the problem and quit our bellyaching.
Have you noticed that many professing Christians never seem to grow in the Lord? Why? It is because they never realize PROBLEMS ARE SOLVED BY SOLUTIONS, NOT BY BELLYACHING.
The only thing some folks know how to do is BELLYACHE!
Illus: Did you hear about the man on the airplane?
• Man: “Stewardess."
• Stewardess: "Yes, Sir?"
• Man: "I want to complain about this airline. Every time I fly, I get the same seat, I can't see the in-flight movie and there are no window blinds, so I can't sleep."
• Stewardess: "Captain, shut up and fly the plane."
We can gripe and grumble ‘til the cows come home’, but the best thing to do is turn the NEGATIVE INTO THE POSITIVE and begin to praise the Lord.
A. HE SOUGHT THE LORD IN PRAISE
Psalm 119:164 says, “Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments.”
Do you realize how much better life would be for us if we stopped to praise the Lord seven times a day?
Every young man needs to learn that if he wants to win A YOUNG LADY’S favor, he will do it faster with PRAISE and GIFTS, than with INSULTS!
Illus: After being away on business, Tim thought it would be nice to bring his wife a little gift.
• "How about some perfume?" he asked the cosmetics clerk.
• She showed him a bottle costing $50.00.
• "That's a bit much," said Tim, so she returned with a smaller bottle for $30.00.
• "That's still quite a bit," Tim complained.
Growing annoyed, the clerk brought out a tiny $15.00 bottle.
"What I mean," said Tim, "is I'd like to see something really cheap.” The clerk handed him a mirror.
Illus: Even an animal responds to kindness better then rudeness. There are some dogs that will bite your leg off if you approach them wrong.
The best way to approach the Lord Jesus is with PRAISE! Listen, anyone can complain, but we have more to PRAISE GOD FOR than we do to COMPLAIN ABOUT!
Notice in Psalm 34, he not only praised the Lord, but -
B. HE SOUGHT OTHERS TO PRAISE HIM
Look at verse 3, we read, “O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.”
Look at the word “Magnify”, we all know what a magnifying glass does, it enlarges something. God is pleased when we go around each day MAKING HIM BIGGER THAN anything else in our life. But God is very displeased when we walk around each day belittling Him before a lost world.
When problems come into some folks lives, you would think God is dead.
Illus: Martin Luther, the reformer, had a real problem with depression. Sometimes he would go into these deep depressions and it would take days for him to snap out of them. On one occasion, he was moping around the house and he saw his wife had a black dress on and a black scarf over her face going out the door. He said to her, “Where are you going?” She said, “I am going to the funeral.” “Whose funeral?” he asked. She said, “God’s funeral, I am assuming God must be dead by the way you are acting.”
It is absolutely disgraceful the way some folks go around griping and bellyaching. When problems came into the life of David, he not only PRAISED THE LORD, but the Word of God tells us that he encouraged others to MAGNIFY THE LORD.
Nobody, including God, likes to be PUT DOWN.
But some folks have never learned, “The more you stir trash, the more it stinks!” When problems confront us, we need solutions! Solutions solve problems.
Illus: if you are teaching a Sunday School Class and it is not growing, there is a reason it is not growing. If you look at the problem very closely, you may find that you as a teacher are the problem.
You can bellyache all you want, but it will never grow until you find out what needs to be done and DO IT!
Illus: Did you hear about the fifth grade teacher that stood before her class and said, “I want you to take turns telling the class about things that bother you, but I also want you to tell the class what the solution to your problem is.”
• One little boy said, “I live on a farm, and we have a lot of egg-laying hens. One time we were taking our eggs to market in a basket on the front seat of the pickup when we hit a big bump in the road. All the eggs went flying and broke and made a mess." The teacher said, “And what did you learn from that experience?” "Don't put all your eggs in one basket!" The teacher said "Very good!"
• Next, little Sarah raised her hand and said, "We are farmers too, but we raise chickens for the meat market. We had a dozen eggs one time, but when they hatched we only got ten live chicks, and the moral to this story is, ‘Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.’" The teacher said, “That was a fine story Sarah."
• "Michael, do you have a story to share?" "Yes, ma'am, my daddy told me this story about my Aunt Karen. Aunt Karen was a flight engineer in Desert Storm and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a bottle of whiskey, a machine gun and a machete. She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn't break and then she landed right in the middle of 100 enemy troops. She killed seventy of them with the machine gun until she ran out of bullets. Then she killed twenty more with the machete till the blade broke. And then she killed the last ten with her bare hands.” "Good heavens," said the horrified teacher, "What kind of lesson did you learn from that?” “You don’t mess with Aunt Karen when she is drunk!”
David knew that SUCCESS only comes when people face problems and they look for solutions to solve those problems.
Some folks can not comprehend that. You can tell them over and over again that problems are only solved when you have a solution. You can tell them this, but it is like you are saying one thing and they are hearing something different.
Illus: This reminds me of the man who knew his wife was going to have a birthday the next day. He asked her what she wanted.
She said she would like to be six again.
The next morning, he kissed her on the forehead, woke her up, wished her a happy birthday, and took her to Six Flags over Georgia.
When they arrived, he took her on every ride that they had. She was getting dizzy from all the rides.
He fed her hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs and everything that he could buy for her as if she were a six year old child.
He took her home that night, and she was so worn out that she fell into the first chair she came to.
He said, “Did you enjoy being six today?” She said, “You idiot I meant dress size!”
Some folks can not comprehend that SUCCESS IN LIFE ONLY COMES WHEN WE FIND THE RIGHT SOLUTION!
When some folks are facing a difficult time, they will go to someone else and get them bellyaching as if a bunch of them bellyaching will solve the problem. But all the bellyaching people in the world will not do any good.
In the midst of his problems, David began to focus in on God and began to praise Him. Instead of getting others to gripe and complain with him, he encouraged others to praise the Lord with him.
We looked at DAVID’S PRAISE, but also let’s look at-
II. DAVID’S PRAYER
Look at Psalm 34:4 6, we read, “I sought 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.”
Any time the Lord hears our prayers we should be most grateful, but especially when we face fearful times in our life. David said, “I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears…”
Notice, David said the Lord did two things:
• He heard me
• He Delivered me
It is simply amazing what the Lord can do if people will call upon Him in prayer, rather than gripe all the time. Regardless of the situation they find themselves in, He can help them.
Illus: Did you hear about the little girl that was praying for a cat, and her mother told her the only way she could get a cat would be for it to drop down from heaven? She knew it would take a miracle, but she prayed for God to provide a cat. Two houses below her a man was trying to get a cat out of a tree. He tried everything but the cat would not come down. He had an idea. He would tie his truck to the top of the tree, pull gently and bend the tree over so he could reach the cat. But during the process the rope broke and the cat when sailing through the air. “Out of heaven”, the cat landed in the yard of the little girl that was praying for a cat. Her mother could not say anything except that God had provided.
Listen, we can be in a situation that might require a miracle, but God can provide such a miracle if we will call upon Him.
In Jeremiah 33:3 He said, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”
We have looked at DAVID’S PRAISE and DAVID’S PRAYER, but let’s also look at-
III. DAVID’S PROTECTION
Look at verse 7, we read, “The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.”
Listen, the problems in life can surround us from all sides. The good news is that the angel of the Lord “…encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.”
Illus: Suppose you were in the desert and a whole pack of wild coyotes had gathered around you. From every direction they had you in the midst of a circle. HOW WOULD YOU FEEL?
You would be scared to death and have every right to be. You know you are going to be eaten alive in a matter of minutes!
But listen, many times we are surrounded by problems like David, but he said, GOD DELIVERED HIM FROM ALL HIS FEARS.
This is exactly how David must have felt:
• He began to praise the Lord
• He began to pray
And we see the PROTECTING HAND OF GOD AROUND HIM.
He said the angel of the lord, “…encampeth round about them (Him) that fear him, and delivereth them (Him).”
We have looked at DAVID’S PRAISE, DAVID’S PRAYER, and DAVID’S PROTECTION, but look also at-
IV. DAVID’S PROCLAMATION
Notice this, in Psalm 34, David was knee deep in trouble he has brought on himself.
He started off praising and praying, and now the God he serves has become bigger than the problems he has. In fact, God has become so real that he wants everyone to know about the great God he serves.
Look at verse 8, we read, “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.”
You can tell when God becomes precious to a Believer. They want to share Him with everyone they come into contact with.
Conclusion:
We have looked at -
I. DAVID’S PRAISE
II. DAVID’S PRAYER
III. DAVID’S PROTECTION
IV. DAVID’S PROCLAMATION
