Trouble Has A Job Too!

Have you ever been in a scenario where you had to keep quiet, but inside you were angry? That is the position which the psalmist is in in Psalm 39, but in this prayer we learn to recognize that trouble has a job too! 

Always remember that prayer reaches every single situation!

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Transcript

Press means to apply force.

When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation.

He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through. And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us.

Greetings everybody.

Welcome to the Press to Pray podcast.

Thank you for joining me today.

We are going into the Book of Psalms, chapter 39, and today I'm going to read it and then we'll just talk about it a little bit. Prayerfully after these short podcasts, you're studying it, going back to it, looking at these scriptures more in depth because I'm not doing it justice in 12 to 15 minutes.

But this is like an appetizer, so let's get started.

Psalms 39.

I said, I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue. I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked is before me.

I was dumb with silence.

I held my peace even from good, and my sorrow was stirred. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned.

Then spake I with my tongue.

Lord, make me to know mine end and the measure of my days.

What it is that I may know how frail I am.

Behold, thou has made my days as an hand breadth, and mine ages as nothing before thee.

Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.

Selah.

Surely every man walketh in a vain show. Surely they are disquieted in vain.

He heapeth up riches and knoweth not who shall gather them.

And now, Lord, what wait I for?

My hope is in thee. Deliver me from all my transgressions.

Make me not the reproach of the foolish.

I was dumb.

I opened not my mouth because thou didst it.

Remove thy stroke away from me.

I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.

When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth.

Surely every man is vanity.

Hear my prayer, oh Lord, and give ear unto my cry. Hold not thy peace at my tears, for I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner as all my fathers were.

Oh spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more.

Looking at Psalms 39, it is presumed to be written by David. We don't know at what point it's written in his life.

So that kind of explains to me him even saying he's a stranger or a sojourner, but we'll get back to that.

When we start at the beginning, I think David is fairly easy to understand here.

I remember when I was in my early 20s and actually maybe my late teens, I was interning for a big organization here and they had me do a project. And I had to get data from a state department. Anyway, we published this whole project based on the data that the state department gave us and it made the state department look bad. It was in the news and everything. So they called us into a meeting and in the meeting they were accusing us of using false data. Well, I was the only one who had handled the data. And I'm sitting there going into the meeting, my boss had said to me, you know, don't say anything.

I'm like, okay.

We get in there and this lady, like I said, I had to be in my late teens at the time.

She was probably more than double my age. When I say she went off on me, she was like, she's a liar.

I had never been called a liar to my face by anybody older than me, but wow.

She wrecked me through the coals saying I lied, I made up this data, I made them look bad.

Like I said, it was in the news and everything that they were looking terrible. Come to find out about a week later, I found the documentation of the fact they actually did send it to me and they sent the wrong data. So they printed a small retraction in the newspaper. I mean, the bigger story is usually the conflict and then the smaller story is the retraction.

So they eventually did recognize I did not lie.

She never apologized or anything.

But I sat in that meeting listening to this lady call me a liar and I think I felt like David feels here because he goes into whatever scenario saying, look, I'm going to take heed to my ways. I'm not going to say nothing. I'm not going to sin with my tongue. I'm going to keep my mouth with a bridle.

That's what you see on horses.

I'm going to lock this mouth up.

Now, for some that may be easier than others. But for me, it was a challenge and it appears to be one for him, too.

He said, while they're in front of me, I'm not saying anything.

He says, I was dumb with silence.

I just sat there.

And dumb does not mean here ignorant or foolish.

But he went mute. He didn't say anything. He just stopped. He said, I held my peace even from good.

I didn't defend myself. Well, I didn't jump in and say anything positive or negative.

He said, and my soul was stirred. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned.

Then I spake with my tongue.

So he starts to tell us what's going on on the inside as he's sitting there quiet. And I understand that because sitting there with that woman calling me a liar to my face, I was quiet on the outside.

I didn't say anything.

But oh, while I was sitting there, the fire burned and my heart was hot within me.

He says, but then spake I with my tongue.

Lord, make me to know mine end. Instead of talking to them, the enemy or whoever's in front of you, David turned and went to the Lord.

And he says, Lord, let me know how frail I am. Let me know my end. Let me know the measure of my days. You've made all my days in a hand breadth and my age is nothing.

It's nothing before thee.

Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.

He begins to recognize the frailty of his own life. And I believe he did that one because perhaps this was a conflict where life could have been on the line.

We don't know. But two, when we put ourselves into perspective, when we recognize this is just a passing moment, we can make it a fight that's ongoing. We can make it something longer, but really it is just a passing moment. When we put things in that perspective, it is easier to breathe through it when you think I will get through it.

So he begins to say, okay, Lord, so what what am I waiting for? What am I doing?

My hope is in thee. Deliver me from my transgressions.

Make me not the reproach of the foolish.

God, don't let them win this. Even if I messed up, don't let them win this.

He said, I didn't open my mouth because you did it.

You're in this. I need you to remove the thing you're allowing to hurt me, break me, the stroke that's against me. He goes on to say, when you rebuke and you correct man for iniquity, you deal with things as they are. You make duty as consumed by a moth.

Like you're not dealing with the exterior, you're dealing with the interior. And I know what you find on the inside is that every man really is empty. Everybody is vanity.

But God, I want you to hear me.

Give ear unto my cry.

Don't hold your peace.

You know, some people have a problem with like verse 9, 10, 11, where you start to see the psalmist talking about being corrected or this is the hand of the Lord.

People tend to get mad about what God allows in their life.

And there are some things God allows that don't feel good. They don't feel well.

And yet, verse 11, he recognizes that when God is in the review, he knows how to correct man with it. He knows how to change me with it.

Trouble has changed more people for the better than we care to admit sometimes. It really was the fact that we had to make decisions that our back was against the wall, that we were broke, that we were disappointed. It's the fact that somebody let us down, somebody spoke of us ill, somebody failed to truly be there for us. In all of these things, in all of this trouble, when it makes you turn to God, it begins to make you better.

Trouble has a job, too.

And the scripture here recognizes that.

In verse 12, I don't know if this was in any way is prophetic, but it reminded me when he starts saying, give ear unto my cry.

Hold not thy peace at my tears, for I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner as all my fathers were.

It made me think, why would David say I'm a stranger?

And I say prophetic because when I look in Ephesians 2:18 and 19, the Bible says, for through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father.

This is speaking of Jesus if you look up a little further in chapter two.

But he also says, now therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord. In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the spirit.

Ephesians chapter two not only tells us how we're put together, but also recognizes we were strangers and foreigners before Jesus Christ.

And though David would have been a Hebrew and David would have been beloved of God, he recognizes there's a distance between me and you.

But even in the distance, he asks God for mercy.

Spare me. Let me recover strength before I go forward and I can't do it no more.

I love the honesty of that prayer, but I love the fact also that Jesus didn't leave the distance. For the Bible lets us know that he came to save us from our sins. He came to love us. He came to rescue us.

By one man's sin was brought into the world, but another, that is Jesus Christ, he gave us a way, the truth and became the light.

So we don't have to stay in sin anymore. We're no longer strangers when we take on Jesus Christ. The Bible lets us know that we put him on through baptism. In Galatians 3:26 and 27, through baptism in his name, in the name of Jesus.

Ephesians lets us know he is the cornerstone. He is what everything is built around.

You don't get Jesus without getting his name and you don't get his name without baptism.

So I'm grateful for the prayer of the psalmist because he had to talk about being a stranger, a sojourner, but that's not where we are today.

If we conclude our prayer as he did, oh spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more.

If we're at the place where we're so weak, we're about to die, we can't do this anymore.

I compel you, one, if you have not been baptized in Jesus' name, please feel free to contact us at press topray.com.

No matter where you are in the world, we will make this happen.

I thank God.

We just were able to baptize somebody who was in Japan about 2 weeks ago in an area where I didn't honestly know anybody, but the Lord helped and we had this young lady baptized within about a week's time.

So it doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter at all.

I remember another person.

I don't always comment on people's threads on Facebook, but I saw her comment and she said, I want to be baptized.

I did not know her.

Somebody else had commented before me, I'll help you.

But I felt pressed to just say, look, if you want to be baptized and they don't work out, just let me know.

And she was from Baltimore. She inboxed me and she inboxed me because the other person fell through. Within 24 48 hours, her and her two children were baptized in Jesus' name and she already had the Holy Ghost.

I am so grateful because God is able to do this.

He doesn't want you to be a stranger.

If you're worn out, tired, if you had the Holy Ghost, tap into the joy of the Lord.

Go back and listen how we praised them in Psalms eight a couple weeks ago.

That will give you strength. But if you don't have the Holy Ghost and you don't have the name, inbox us because he no longer wants you to be a stranger. He wants you to be a friend.

And as we conclude this prayer today, one of the main things I see as a pattern in the Psalms is that very rarely do they start out like they end up.

The psalmist may have started out telling himself, I can't sin with my tongue.

I got to be quiet. I got to be this.

But he didn't stay there. He got to the place where he needed God. He knew he needed God. And he just asked God, recover my strength. Help me to recover my strength. Spare me.

Have mercy.

And he recognized in his need that prayer reaches every single situation.

Have a blessed day.

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Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears?

I know some of us have prayed and we're wondering, how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows?

How will I know God is answering?

And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice.

It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have.

You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you. It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer, is designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith.

Visit press topray.com.