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.
O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.
I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
That’s Psalm 34.
That’s how they sung it.
The Honeybees which is a group of rescued, restored, revitalized, completely transformed lives of ladies and some men would travel around the country with this fella named the Evangelist Lester Roloff back in the early eighties.
He would get on his little Cessna plane and he would travel around this country and preach and sing in churches.
Sorry for the background noise, just don’t really have a studio.
Anyway, Psalm 34.
It’s amazing.
You know, it’s Thanksgiving season and it says here, I will bless the Lord at all times.
Now, when there’s a Psalm, it’s kind of rare that you know the surroundings, the settings, but here at the very beginning, there’s a preface put in there in our Bibles to explain that this is indeed a Psalm of David
When did it happen David?
What was happening in your life?
When he changed his behavior before Abimelech who wanted to kill him.
Who drove him away and he departed; meaning he faked being a madman.
So he let his, the Bible says he let his slobber, his dribble, his spittle run down his beard and he kind of acted insane.
And what did he do?
He sang a song.
He was so crazy-filled with excitement for God that the king was like, “You’re crazy.
Get out of here.”
Um, anyway, that was his strategy.
And what song did he sing?
This song.
So who knows how it’s really supposed to be sung, right?
You’re supposed to sing it like a crazy person.
Who knows?
But here’s David.
So excited about God.
I don’t have the greatest voice, but nobody really does.
God does.
He helps us.
He tells us to sing.
We’re supposed to sing.
We sing to Him.
And if anybody else wants to listen in, that’s fine.
But really, music is from the heart … for the Lord.
He’s the audience.
Amen.
So let’s go through the rest of Psalm 34 because it’s so glorious.
It’s so blessed.
The very next verse, which I’ll just read the first couple.
Let’s get a rolling start on it.
I will bless the Lord at all times.
And I do like the hymn.
I like the song.
Our fellow man on the team, his name is Mario Cuozzo, and he will say, “That which is learned in song is learned long.”
Should we sing it?
That way we can remember it more.
So I do definitely, I mean from decades ago, remember that song.
Of course it was sung by a choir, a lot better, a short choir, maybe eight ladies singing it.
But it starts off, 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.
O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name.
How together I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
The song stops there, but the Psalm continues.
They looked unto Him when they were lightened.
That’s awesome.
And their faces were not ashamed.
I think that means they were looking to Jesus.
I think that harmonizes with our New Testament verse that says, Look unto Jesus.
Here it is.
Ah, I sought Him, He heard me, 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.
That’s got to be on your list of memory verses.
I mean that’s got to be somewhere in the top 200 memory verses that you just know that you know that you know.
Ah, the angel of the Lord.
This one’s beautiful.
I heard the other day that
The Moon God, Aha-law, claims that he somehow superimposed authorship over all the Psalms.
He stole all the Psalms and claimed ownership of them as though he had inspired them and not the true God.
I just thought that was hilarious and inaccurate.
This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.
Next verse, The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him and delivereth them.
That’s awesome.
Next time you’re afraid, feel like there’s demon spirits, the angel of the Lord
How strong is that?
Encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.
Awe … blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.
Oh, taste and see.
That’s the next verse right there.
Now that verse, you can’t just say it.
You gotta sing it.
This is a song.
You can make up whatever music you want to it, but you can’t just say that verse.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
And then there’s an echo back and forth.
I would admonish you, the book in the Bible that has the most O’s is the Psalms.
The word O is a large container or it could be a small bucket.
And what you do is you fill that bucket with emotion.
You get a little bit of emotion.
You find it somewhere in your toenail, in your left ear lobe, and you fill up that little tiny
container with the emotion … oh just just try to get it out there … oh and you’ll find out that the words right after the oh they start to mean more: oh taste and see that the Lord is good oh taste and see that the Lord is good blessed is the man that trusteth in Him, a blessed is the man that trusteth in Him, oh taste and see! You see how you did that right there you just get excited about it?
God wrote it and He wants you to sing it.
Not sing it, saaaang it.
Put some swang on your sang.
All right.
Anyway, O fear the Lord, ye His saints.
O fear the Lord, ye His saints, for there is no want to them that fear Him.
See now, I don’t know about you, but I have probably too many wants.
and the solution for my wants is there in understanding the fear of the Lord, which evidently I don’t know it well enough because I still want stuff, not too many things, but there it is.
O fear the Lord, ye His saints, for there is no want to them that fear Him.
The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.
Those two verses are together.
Wow, young lions get hungry.
But they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.
Come, ye children, hearken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
Because at this point you’re like, what?
How do I get that?
I gotta get some of that.
Come, ye children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
What man is he that desireth life?
Anybody?
Raise your hand.
Anybody?
Loveth many days that he may see good.
Alright, I see your hand, Johnny.
You want to desire life.
You want to have many… You want to love many days.
You want to see much good.
Here it is.
Here’s the answer.
Keep thy tongue …
from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
Is this the first lesson in learning the fear of the Lord?
Is to hush ta, hush-taw, hush.
Clamp it, right?
What was Jed’s last name?
Clamp it.
Shut it down.
Know when to talk.
Know when to hold it.
All right, kids, let’s gather round.
Let’s get our first grade lesson on the fear of the Lord.
Number one, keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile.
Here it is.
Number two, depart from evil.
Wow.
So the fear of the Lord has to do with how we treat, how we do evil, how we address evil.
Depart from evil and do good.
Seek peace and pursue it.
Now that, …
Sounds really superficial, super simple, kindergarten level, but I want to tell you something.
As a person chooses to become disgusted with evil, as they choose to identify and regurgitate and become allergic to evil, as they choose to move away from or we’ll call it lean back, lean away from evil, did you know that they have to lean toward the Light?
As a person chooses to reject, refuse,
define and make steps away from evil, they are choosing the light because here it is.
This is another lesson in the fear of the Lord.
Depart from evil.
You can’t depart from that which you don’t know.
You can’t leave a place where you don’t even know where it’s at.
If you don’t know you’re in evil, if you don’t know what evil is, how are you going to leave it?
So it’s okay to first define evil.
It’s okay to react to evil.
So departing is a reaction.
You have to realize where we’re at, why it’s evil, and then you have to choose to leave, depart from evil.
What’s the result?
And do good.
How do I do good?
Well, first find out what evil is and get away from it.
Leave it.
Depart from evil and do good.
Seek peace and pursue it.
I thought that’s the same thing.
No, to seek it means to look around.
I’m just looking around.
Pursue it means to physically go after it.
Chase it down.
Pursue.
Hunt.
Dig for it.
Wow, that’s good.
The eyes of the Lord …
See, this sounds like learning the fear of the Lord, right?
I got to be aware that He’s aware.
He’s right there.
The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous.
and His ears are open unto their cry.
I’ve heard one definition of the fear of the Lord is the intense awareness of His immediate presence.
Whoa, He’s right there.
That’s that’s a pretty good, pretty good basic understanding.
The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open unto their cry.
The face of the Lord is against them that do evil.
See, we’re just, there’s the word evil again.
So is God against some of the people that I’m kind of facing?
If His face is against them, maybe I should mimic and mirror His reaction.
Possibly.
The face of the Lord is against them that do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
We’ll leave that up to Him.
The righteous cry and the Lord heareth and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
Remember above he said, he delivered me from all my fears.
Here it says, when the righteous cry, those who qualify as righteous, truly righteous, which you cannot do righteousness alone.
It’s impossible.
Righteousness must be a team sport, team effort.
God has to help somebody do fully right.
Right, all right, all the time must be assisted.
So Divinely-assisted righteousness
Notice, the righteous were in trouble.
I thought if I did right, I got a free pass.
No.
Righteous get oppressed.
They get in trouble.
There’s going to be serious, you know, problems are going to happen to all of us, but those who are righteous, they get delivered.
God’s time, God’s pathway.
The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.
That means there might be another tough day tomorrow.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, and it’s still okay to be righteous.
Many are the afflictions… [interrupted by seeing a friend] Hello, sir!
How are you doing?
You wanted to give me a gospel tract?
It’s What Must I Do to Be Saved by Dr. John R. Rice.
The plan of salvation made plain to sinners from the Word of God.
This is great.
I’m reading Psalm 34.
Have you heard of Psalm 34?
No.
Can I sing it to you?
Sure.
It’s great.
You should hop in.
Come on over to this other side.
My friend is waiting on me, so go ahead.
I’m going to sing at three.
I’m going to start at the beginning here.
This is David when he acted crazy in front of King Abimelech.
He sang this song.
He started pretty low.
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.
Oh! magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and hH heard me and delivered me from all my fears.
That’s it.
That’s Psalm 34.
It’s good, right?
I didn’t come up with that.
That was the Lester Roloff honeybees and I’m just doing a little commentary on the rest of the chapter because it’s pretty phenomenal.
We’re going to get to it.
There’s a premonition of Christ right here.
He keepeth all His bones and not one of them is broken.
It’s almost like when God’s looking at us and he looks at His Son.
He looks at us, looks at His Son.
He’s talking about the righteous.
He’s like, you know, I know who the most righteous person is.
He’s the one that’s going to get His body mangled, but I’m going to protect His bones.
I’m going to deliver Him out of all his troubles too.
But He’s going to be in trouble.
I mean, talk about a Person who… Anyway, we’re having fun.
Finishing off the last couple verses of this chapter, it’s a reference to Christ, which they’re interlaced throughout the entirety of the Old Testament.
He, that’s now we know, the Heavenly Father, keepeth all His bones.
This is a prophecy of the Messiah that none of His bones will be broken on the cross.
Not one of them, that’s His bones, is broken.
They would come out of joint, but they would not break.
Wow.
Evil shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.
So there’s a hidden definition in that verse.
I’ll read it again.
You can listen with the Holy Spirit’s assistance.
Turn on your Bose Surround Sound 4K Ultra speakers and listen to this one.
Evil shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.
Did you hear it?
Evil hates.
One way to identify what evil is, evil has an intense hatred for those who they identify as righteous.
You’ll know it’s time to turn the page when you hear the chimes ring like this.
You’ll know a person is identified as evil by whom they hate.
Evil hates the righteous, and evil itself shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.
The Lord redeemeth means He buys back, makes valuable again.
The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants, and none of them that trust in Him shall be desolate.
Notice it doesn’t say He redeems the body, which that’s part of it, but I would, if I had to choose between the two of them, I’d like to have my soul redeemed.
The Lord makes valuable again, puts redemption
Redeem, repurchase for a purpose.
The Lord redeems the soul of His servants.
Do I qualify?
Am I a servant to God?
Am I willing to do any instructions that He gives me?
And none of them that trust, none of them who?
None of the servants that TRUST in Him shall be desolate.
If I trust Him, I’ll serve Him.
A guy named, ah,
Mover of man and of mountains.
I forget his name now.
Stink.
He said, To know God, to know Christ, is to love Him.
And to love Him is to serve Him.
The implication is: we cannot, once we know enough about Him, it’s impossible not to love Him.
And once we love Him, it’s impossible not to serve Him.
And here this verse takes it even farther that those who serve Him, they have to exercise trust.
None of the [redeemed servants] that TRUST in Him shall be desolate.
There we go.
Psalm 34,
You want to feel thankful?
Resonate with one of the Psalms. 🙂
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