A Different Perspective Official Podcast

It's tough when bad things happen to good people – especially when we see good things happening to bad people – God what is going on here?  Why are you letting this happen to me?
There are times in life when bad things happen to good people and perhaps you're someone who believes in Jesus and you've been living your life the best way you know how and just day after day walking with Him and all of a sudden – whamo! Something happens! The sky turns dark and all of a sudden you're in one of those dark, black times that we can go through in life.
A time of loss or pain or sickness or whatever it is and you kind of look around and think, "What is going on here God? I mean I know I'm not perfect but everyday I just get up and I just do my best and I walk with You; now this!"
My hunch is that there are a few people who relate to what I just talked about and so I want to deal with that today because when bad things happen to good people it's such a shock and it seems so unfair especially when we take a look around and we see that there's a whole bunch of good things happening to some really bad people out there that we know. What is going on God?
King David, as I've said over these last couple of weeks, is a man who went through a lot of dark times. You read about his life and sure he made some mistakes but right from the beginning God had him picked as a man after His own heart and yet he lived through so many dark and difficult times, scary times, on the run for his life. Battles with enemies that it looked like he was going to lose and God showed up just at the last minute.
You take a look at his life and if you weigh his life, kind of on our human scale of justice you'd probably come to the conclusion that, well David wasn't perfect but he was definitely one of the good guys. He tried with all his might to honour God even though some days he blew it big time. And I'm sure if David looked at his life he'd come up with the same conclusion and yet this man went through so many difficult things, so many dark and lonely times. Times when people criticised him, times when he was in fear of his life, times when he felt that God had deserted him.
So God, what's going on? Why is that? I mean this guy was a good guy, how come bad things happen to good people? Now I'm not sure I can answer all those questions, God is God and He decides those things but as we walk through Psalm 34, which is what we've been doing over the last couple of weeks, it's a Psalm where David looks back on those dark times with the benefit of hindsight. Let me share with you David's own wisdom, this is what he writes is Psalm 34, verses 15 to 19. It says that:
Eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry out and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers them from them all.
Well David doesn't even bother with the "why" question does he? When we're hit with those dark times the first question we utter is, "Why me God; why me?" Right, and the second one is, "How long is this going to go on for God; how long?" Well David doesn't carry on with any of that. He looks back, he accepts the sovereignty of God and after all he's been through in his life, he draws this obvious conclusion. Verse 19 of Psalm 34:
Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all.
In other words; stuff happens, it just does. Jesus kind of put it this way, He said:
Your Father in heaven causes His Son to rise on the evil and the good and He sends his rains on the righteous and the unrighteous.
In other words; good stuff and bad stuff happens to good people and bad people.
There you go, it's just the way it is and it seems to be a rule that the more a man or a woman turns their lives to following hard after God, to walking in the footsteps of Jesus, the more afflictions they suffer. It's such an incredible contradiction; on the one hand God wants to bless us, He does. All the way through His word, the Bible tells us, He wants to bless us. On the other, when we set our hearts like flint to follow after Him it seems like all hell breaks loose, the world just doesn't want us to do that.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous.
Many! One of the promises of God and you don't hear many people shouting hallelujah to that promise do you? But the Lord delivers us from them all, His eyes are on His people, His ears are attentive to their cry. We cry out; He hears us and He delivers us from our troubles.
You know what I've learnt, He doesn't always deliver me the way I expect Him to, the way I want Him to, when I want Him to. Sometimes we want Him to do one thing and He does almost exactly the opposite. Sometimes, you know, we cry out to Him and we even go to Him in faith and we say, "Lord, I believe you're here and I believe you're going to deliver me from this." And things go from bad to worse. Sometimes we want Him to do A and He gives us B. "What are you doing God?"
And sometimes it seems like His solution and His answer means that we lose and someone else wins but in the wondrous fabric of His mighty plan for our lives, He's so much more interested in our character and who we are and our relationship with Him than He is about our perceptions of comfort and need. He's so much more concerned about His glory shining out into this world than He is about some of the things that, at the time, we think are important but in the bigger scheme of things they're really not.
The apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans chapter 5, he says:
Suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and it's a hope that never disappoints us because Gods love has been poured into our hearts through His Holy Spirit.
And the longer we walk with God, the more afflictions we have to suffer, the more we discover the truth of King David's words in Psalm 34. The Lord hears our cry, He delivers us from our troubles, He is close to the broken hearted and He saves those who are crushed.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him from them all.
That is an awesome thing. Now I don't know what afflictions maybe you're walking through right now and can I just encourage you; put away the "why" question, put away the "how long" question and just listen to the word of God again.
The Lord is close to the broken hearted. He saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all.
I've only been walking with God now for just on 13 years but I look back and I see the things I've had to walk through, I see the afflictions. Even when those afflictions, can I tell you, have come from my own mistakes and I'm living out those consequences and just somehow, in His own good time, God works it so that I learn and that I heal and that He delivers me from this stuff and even if I have to lose my life serving Him I have all eternity to rejoice in Him.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all.

As we travel through those dark days in life – it's easy just to let go and compromise who we are and what we do – we sin to save our skin.  But I believe that God wants to challenge us about that very thing today.
Last week and again this week on the program we've been stepping our way through a series that I've called "Dark Night, Bright Light" because we all travel through dark patches in our lives. I certainly have and I know that you have too and maybe you're even in the middle of one right now and so we've been spending some time with King David in Psalm 34 where he shares some of the wisdom that he's discovered in the middle of his many, many dark days.
Yesterday we saw that it really makes a difference what we do in those dark places, it's so easy to give in and just let things slide and use our difficulties as an excuse for letting the darkness smear the way that we think and speak and behave.
Well today I'd just like to stick with that idea for a bit longer because David goes on to talk about that and he throws the gauntlet down to you and me with a challenge. A challenge about how you and I behave, how we live our lives when those storm clouds come rolling in over the horizon and it's a challenge that I'd like to share with you, for you to think about in your life.
Psalm 34, as I've said a few times over these last couple of weeks, is King David writing down the wisdom he learned from God in his dark times and as we've spent this time in that psalm over the last couple of weeks I hope that you've been blessed as I am as we work our way through the wondrous word of God. Imagine, the God who created the whole universe speaking to you and me through His word, through something that was written, well about 3,000 years ago.
We're going to move on with the next few verses of this Psalm today because they contain a specific challenge, a challenge to you and to me. Have a listen, Psalm 34 beginning at verse 11:
Come my children listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
See sometimes we wonder, well how do we live out this fear of the Lord? Do I just kind of sit in the corner and tremble? No, it's not that at all. David, remember this David who is speaking to us from his own difficult dark experience is throwing down a challenge. He's teaching us how to live out the fear of the Lord. Quite simply, if I were to paraphrase what he was saying it's this. He says, "Do you want to live a good life, I mean do you want to live a great life? Well, here's how to get it – by living out the fear of the Lord through what you say and what you do."
Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
Now you and I are different, we're all different; we're all prone to different forms of the same thing that God calls sin. For some people it's grumbling, others it's gambling or lying or stealing or carrying around hatred in our hearts and speaking it out behind peoples backs. Gossiping or sexual sin or, you name it the list goes on. Over eating, getting drunk, closing ourselves off from people that we love, over and over the list goes on and my hunch is that each one of us knows which one or two are our particular sins, the ones that we're prone to and here's the challenge.
If we're in a dark and fearful place, a place where there's a temptation to stop doing good and to do evil instead, the challenge that David is throwing down here is turn away from that, do good. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
You know that's what it means in practical terms to fear the Lord, that's how we live out the fear of our Lord, with our lives by living it out His way. See, we delude ourselves, we somehow imagine that in that dark place God can't see what's going. Well wake up; listen to what the apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Church, to Galatia in Galatians chapter 6, beginning at verse 7, he says:
Look, don't kid yourselves, God can't be mocked; you're going to reap what you sow. If you reap to please your sinful nature, from that nature you're going to reap destruction but if you reap to please the spirit then from the Holy Spirit you will reap eternal life.
Don't become weary of doing good because just at the right time you're going to reap a harvest if you don't give up. Just so, as you have the opportunity, do good to everyone especially those who belong to Gods family.
Now this was written about 1,000 years after David and he's saying the same thing in a different way, he's saying look, in those dark places it's so easy to grow weary of doing good, it's so easy to deceive ourselves, to think that we can somehow pull one over God. Don't be deceived, God can't be mocked, a man reaps what he sows and if we don't grow tired of doing good; isn't it so easy to grow weary of doing good when life's tough. You know, when everything's against you and your emotions are down, when the whole world seems to come after you with a pick axe, you know.
The temptation is to behave badly but Paul's saying what King David said 1,000 years before; don't grow weary of doing good. Just keep doing good, just keep standing there for God, just keep living your life for Him. Don't use the difficult circumstances and the dark places as an excuse and just at the right time, just in Gods time we will reap a harvest if we don't give up.
You see it's very much in that dark place where the devil wants to tear us apart, that's the place where we need to be vigilant, to bow down our lives, to fear the Lord with our lives and just go on faithfully doing the right thing day after day after day. And His light will shine in that place, it has to, that's who He is.
God honours those who honour Him and in those dark places when we, step by step, just follow after His ways what we discover is His light shines in that place and that is such a precious and awesome and mighty thing, it changes us like nothing else on this earth. That's why David starts his Psalm off with such gusto and praise because he knows this stuff works through his own experience:
I will bless the Lord all the time; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; that all those who are afflicted will hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; lets exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. If we look to Him our faces will be radiant; never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them.
Come on taste, see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come my children listen to me; let me teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

When you're travelling through dark days in life – it's pretty normal to be afraid.  But something that King David discovered in his many dark days, is that a right fear – the fear of the Lord, has some real plusses.
When we're travelling through one of those dark patches in life, you know those difficult times we all go through, we're liable to experience fear and that fear can be debilitating. But on the other hand, there's a good side to fear, it's an inbuilt protection mechanism.
Last week on the program we spent some time with King David in one of the many psalms that he wrote, Psalm 34 and we're continuing on with that this week because this man David is telling us what he learned about God during all those dark and dangerous and fearful times he had throughout his life.
And without giving it all away, David discovers that the fear of God has some real benefits. Sounds kind of weird doesn't it? Christians talk about the "fear of the Lord" all the time but what does it really mean in those dark and fearful times and how can it possibly help me? They're good questions so stick with me over the next few minutes as we discover what David learned the hard way.
We're going to be taking a bit of a closer look at this, this part of Psalm 34 because that's how we learn what God's teaching us through David's wisdom. I'm going to pick it up, just 3 verses, beginning at verse 9. It says:
Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
I love this because it's a place where God gives us solutions to our problems. You see it's not good enough for Him to just wrap us over the knuckles with a ruler when we've done the wrong thing. We need to know how not to repeat the mistake and that's what this piece of wisdom is all about. Let's just look at verse 9 again, David writes:
Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want.
See, this fear of the Lord has two parts. The most obvious meaning is to be afraid but it also means to reverence and honour God. I want to talk about those today because they're important. You know it's really easy to imagine that somehow God is just our buddy, like any other friend and to be sure, He is our friend.
But God is also an awesome God and ultimately He will see justice done. There will be a day of judgement, there will be a day when we have to make an account before Him for all that we've done and all that we've said. Jesus made that really clear in Matthew chapter 10: 28 we can read what He said. He said this:
Do not be afraid of people who can kill you your body but can't kill your soul. Rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Let's never lose sight of that, there are consequences to rebelling against God. And if we just wantonly go on stealing or lying or grumbling or hating or undermining or whatever it is and think to ourselves, "Well that's okay, God's my buddy." Then let me make this clear; we are completely missing the point. Yes Jesus died for your sins and mine, absolutely and when I get something wrong I go to God and I admit it and I say, "Lord, I just got this wrong. I'm sorry, I don't want to go there again, please forgive me." And He does because of what Jesus did for me on the cross, He paid that price.
But this attitude is one that comes, to tell you truthfully, out of the fear of the Lord. A casual attitude towards God, that thinks we can keep on sinning, is not on. He won't honour that, why? Well because if you believe in Jesus, His plan for you is to be holy, in other words clean and pure and set apart exclusively for His use. Listen again to verse 9 of Psalm 34:
Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want.
See, we are not our own; you put your faith in Jesus you are bought at a price and God has this awesome plan to use you just as He pleases and the devil knows that. That's why when times are tough, when we're travelling through a dark place the devil wants to smear us with his darkness. Here's the deception; things are difficult right now therefore I have to bend the rules to set things right.
Money's tight, well I have to lie on my tax return, I have to steal to provide for myself. The boss is giving me a hard time, well I have to go stab him in the back to get things right. A husband or wife isn't everything they should be, I have to start looking somewhere else to find someone who is everything they should be. The devil will play that rubbish over and over and over again until we swallow it hook, line and sinker.
Gods answer is exactly the opposite:
Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing.
God's way is to say, "Don't go out there and reject me and provide for yourself." God's way is to provide for us. Not all our wants but all our needs. Fear the Lord, fear His judgement and honour Him and reverence Him with what we think, what we say and what we do and God will make sure that we have what we need. That's a step of faith, it's so much easier to think I can just go out there and do it for myself.
What a huge opposite God's way is to our natural inclination. You know what He wants to hear us say? Yes, times are tough, yes, money is tight but I will fill out my tax return honestly. I won't claim expenses for my company that are really personal rather than company expenses. I don't care how tough things get financially I am going to fear the Lord because I am bought for a price and I am holy and I am set apart for Him and His word says that in those dark times, if I fear Him I will have no want. When I seek Him with all my heart I will lack no good thing.
Do you see how different God's way is, the way of faith, the way of putting our trust in Him. See how different that is from the world's way which is look after number one, do whatever it takes and remember David is teaching us this stuff having been on the run from King Saul who wanted to kill him for years, sleeping in dark caves fearing for his life. This is what he learned in this dark place and that's why he's telling us this stuff. Verse 11:
Come my children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord, living that out is what we choose to do when it's so tempting in those dark places to be smeared by the devil's darkness. The fear of the Lord is standing in the middle of this earth afraid but deciding to trust in God's provision.
Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him have no want. The lions may well grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing.

Sometimes we travel through dark patches in life – and in those difficult times, it's tempting to let that darkness smear how we think, what we say and what we do.  And yet how we behave on those dark days – is so very important
It's great to be with you again this week. I'm not sure if you were able to join me last week but we began a new series called, "Dark Night, Bright Light" and it's one that we're continuing on again this week on the program. We all travel through dark times in life, times of loss or loneliness or sickness or sadness or depression, the list goes on. Now I'm not suggesting that we're all a bunch of losers, I don't mean that, it's just one of the realities of life that dark times are something that we all have to travel through.
Jacqui, my wife, was talking to a long time friend of hers, her children are growing up and there's lots of challenges and problems and she's exhausted. A dear friend of mine whose son committed suicide, he and his wife are still reeling from that and another friend who's been retrenched, well he's in his fifties and it's hard for him to find a job.
This stuff happens; dark times are difficult because it's dark and so often we can't see where we are or where we're going. I've had them, you've had them, that's life and that's why we're talking about these dark times again this week on the program.
And it's not just about the darkness but also the bright light that shines in those dark places. Jesus said these amazing words:
I am the light of the world.
And one of the things we saw last week is that He is in the 'light' business and that's good news for anyone going through a dark patch. The very first thing that God created, Genesis chapter 1, was light, a trillion, trillion stars at least. That tells us something about Him; God is definitely in the "light" business, hallelujah don't you think?
Last week we spent some time with King David in Psalm 34 and we're going there again today. This man David had more than his fair share of dark, difficult and lonely and scary times. That's why what he has to say is so useful; his wisdom comes from what he learned about God. So this psalm is kind of a retrospective with a benefit of hindsight, he's looking back on the dark times, on his fear and when God showed up. Let's read the first part of that psalm again right now; this is what he says:
I will bless the Lord all the time; his praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let all those who are afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let's exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered in shame.
This poor man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him from all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
See, David's saying God is a god who shows up in the dark times and delivers us. Now David isn't telling us that off the top of his head, it's from his experience. He spent such a long time, so many years on the run from Saul who was trying to kill him. In dark caves, in lonely places. David had fought so many battles where he was hard pressed and he should have been killed but God was there for him and one of the things that we touched on last week was fear; bad fear and good fear.
Bad fear is the fear that David talks about in verse 4 of this psalm:
I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.
But he also goes on to talk about good fear in verse 7:
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them.
Fear of the Lord is something we're going to have a look at some more today because it's what this next part of Psalm 34 is all about. I want you to come with me now as we read just the next 5 verses of this psalm, verses 9 to 14 which is where we're going to spend a bit of time together today. He writes:
Fear the Lord, you His holy ones for those who will fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come my children, listen to me; I'll teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days; keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
This is a really important part of the psalm. The first part told us all about God and what He's like, it's fantastic, we looked at that last week. This second part though; it's about the part that we have to play during those dark times.
I want to tell you something about darkness; people will do things in the dark that they won't do in the light. Think about it, we're much more careful about where we walk and what we do out there in the dark, in the night time, than we are in the day time. Robberies, muggings, murder; they're all more likely to occur under the cover of darkness. And the same is true in our lives. Dark times, well they're the times we're far more likely to do things that we know are wrong.
Let me just give you a few practical examples. A husband and wife, they're going through some tough times in their marriage and their eyes start to wander, they start looking around. That's how adultery begins, instead of holding on to each other, holding close and working through the issues.
Or perhaps there's conflict at work; someone's just not treating us well and we're feeling under pressure, it's really getting to us, you know. The boss is just being horrible so we take that as an excuse to justify being lazy or stealing something or gossiping behind their back or not servicing a customer properly so that the company will lose some money.
Or perhaps money's really tight, we're under real financial pressure and we're tempted to lie and cheat on our tax return or when that shop attendant gives us too much change and makes a mistake; ah we just slip it into our pockets. Do you see how easy this stuff is?
In the dark times, in those hidden places the temptation to do wrong is far greater than when times are good. No-one notices it, after all times are tough, I have to look after number one, I have to look after me. I have to justify myself or protect myself or provide for myself and that's how we rationalise this stuff. Do you notice the central theme running through all that? Me, myself and I.
Darkness is a time when we're afraid and in those times we can end up being tempted to turn away from what we know is right because no-one will notice and besides we just have to. The devil loves it, he's so delighted by this. Have a listen to what the apostle John says:
This is the message we've heard from Him and declare to you. God is light; in Him there's no darkness at all. If we claim to be walking with Him and yet we walk in the darkness, we lie and don't live in the truth.
And so over this week we're going to look at the wisdom that comes from David's own experience in those dark times. What he learned about what to do when temptation comes in the darkness. You know how we rationalise this? I have to sin to save my skin; when I'm afraid I just think I have to do whatever it takes, no matter what the consequences are, to save my own skin.

You know – when we're travelling through one of life's dark patches, it's so easy for someone else to say – "Well, just take the problem to God."  But there's only one way to find out if that's good advice. Suck it and see.
Over these last few days on the program we've been looking at those dark patches in life, those times that we all travel through that we'd rather not and we've been sharing in some of the experiences of King David who had more than his share of dark times in life and as he writes about that in Psalm 34, looking back on what he's leaned in those times, he makes this simple yet profound statement:
I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.
And maybe, maybe you've been travelling through one of those dark times and you hear what David has to say and perhaps you've heard the little that I've shared of my own darkness's and you think to yourself, "Well that's okay for someone like David or for that guy on the radio. Maybe God would show up for them but I don't think this stuff is for me." Well here's the rub; unless we seek we never find out whether it is or not and so today I want to share a very specific invitation from God, an invitation that is seriously for you.
This week on the program we've been looking at some of the debilitating darkness's we travel through in life, you know those really tough times when we're hurting or we've lost something or someone's hurt us. You know those dark times in life and we've discovered that God is very much in the "light" business, He's in the business of shining His light into our darkness's, taking our fear and replacing it with His radiance. Perhaps that's why King David writes – it's in Psalm 18, verse 28:
It is you O Lord who lights my lamp. The Lord my God lights up my darkness.
And again in Psalm 139, verses 11 and 12. He writes:
If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me', even the darkness will not be dark to you O God. The night will shine like day for darkness is as light to you.
See, you get this impression that David is an incredibly seasoned traveller through the darkness's of life and we know that he spent years on the run from King Saul who was trying to kill him, we know that David went through so many wars and battles where he could have died and where he would have been afraid and the people grumbled and sometimes turned against him.
He's been through dark places and then some and he's learned some stuff that God would have us learn, each in our own way because you're not David, I'm not David. So let's head back to this psalm that we've been looking at, Psalm 34, verses 7 and 8 just to see what it is that David learned. This is what he writes, he says:
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.
Now there are two things in here that we need to get into. The first is that bit about the angel of the Lord, look at verse 7 again:
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them.
Angels have a bit of a funny symbology these days in our society, we stick them on our cards and they're fluffy little creatures with wings but you just take a short study of the angels that God describes in the Bible and what you discover is they are a fearsome lot.
Often God uses them as messengers and He sends them to talk to someone and invariably when an angel confronts a person the very first thing they say is, "Don't be afraid." And then they deliver a specific message to Gods people to protect them from trouble and often they appear as fearsome beings to protect Gods people. I'm going to read you a little passage from 2 Chronicles chapter 32, verse 20. It says this:
King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out in prayer to heaven about this and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated all the fighting men and the leaders and the officers in the camp of the Assyrian king. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace and he went to the temple of his god and some of his sons cut him down with a sword.
See, get it? This angel equals serious protection. You see presidents and prime ministers and kings and queens, they get around with their bullet proof glass cars and they're security contingents. They got nothing on an angel of the Lord and you might say, "Berni, do you seriously believe in angels?" Absolutely! We can't see them but when we fear God, when we reverence Him and we belong to Him, He sends His angels, listen to what David says:
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him.
He sends His angels literally to lay siege around us to protect us. How does David know that? Because he's experienced it and that's exactly what he says in the next verse. He says:
Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.
This is an often quoted scripture and often out of context, this "taste and see", "suck it and see" scripture. When you're in the darkness, when you're afraid try this thing, this thing that David is talking about. It's like an invitation to you and me from God today. For goodness sake taste and see that the Lord is good. You can stand back in your darkness and say, "Well you know I just don't believe that God's going to do anything for me."
David said, "I turned to the Lord and He answered me, He delivered me from all his fears and now He is giving us the invitation of God." Go on, taste and see for yourself that the Lord is good. You will be blessed when you take refuge in Him. "Come on try it!" I can hear the spirit of God saying through His word today. "Come on try it because when you take refuge in Me you will be blessed", is what God's saying.
I don't know about you but God has seriously spoken to me and I encourage you to take Him at His word today. He is in the light business and it's something that David discovered through long hard experiences in darkness. You know the last thing we want to do is to turn to God. "Taste and see that the Lord is good", He is in the light business and David knew that and David travelled through dark times and he cried out to God and God always delivered him and that's why he comes out the other side of that singing Gods praises specifically for you and me to hear.
I will bless the Lord at all times (he sings), His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in God; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Come and glorify God with me; let's exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. When we look on Him our faces are radiant; never covered in shame.
This poor man called and the Lord heard Him and He saved him from all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. (Come on) Taste and see that the Lord is good for blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him."
I want to encourage you to join me in taking God at His word. If you're going through a dark time at the moment, cry out to God, go and see Him and He will answer and maybe one day you'll be travelling through a dark time and the Holy Spirit will just remind you of what you heard today. You see it's no coincidence that you and I are together today. When He does, follow that call, open your heart.
I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.