======================================================================== A PROMISE FOR THOSE TRYING TO FLY AWAY by James Jennings ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon delves into Psalms 55, where David expresses his distress and desire to fly away from his troubles. Despite facing betrayal and overwhelming fear, David ultimately turns to God, casting his burdens upon Him. The sermon emphasizes the importance of trusting God to sustain us in trials, highlighting the promises of support and stability for those who cast their burdens on the Lord. It also addresses common wrong responses to trials, such as wanting to escape or wishing for tweaks in the situation, encouraging listeners to earnestly pray and rely on God's strength. Duration: 55:56 Topics: "Trusting God in Trials", "Casting Burdens on the Lord" Scripture References: Psalms 55:22, Matthew 11:28, 1 Peter 5:7, Philippians 4:6, Isaiah 41:10, James 1:2, 2 Samuel 22:7, 1 Corinthians 10:13, John 15:5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon delves into Psalms 55, where David expresses his distress and desire to fly away from his troubles. Despite facing betrayal and overwhelming fear, David ultimately turns to God, casting his burdens upon Him. The sermon emphasizes the importance of trusting God to sustain us in trials, highlighting the promises of support and stability for those who cast their burdens on the Lord. It also addresses common wrong responses to trials, such as wanting to escape or wishing for tweaks in the situation, encouraging listeners to earnestly pray and rely on God's strength. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Psalm 55. I was trying to come up with a title. Maybe you could title this A Promise for Those Trying to Fly Away. A Promise for Those Who Are Trying to Fly Away. That's one possibility. Let's read this. The very beginning next to that 55 in the superscript, it says, To the choirmaster with stringed instruments a mass gill of David. David wrote this psalm to the choirmaster. This assumes he'd take it and send it to music. In this case, stringed instruments. And it would be used maybe in temple services perhaps. Verse 1, Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not Yourself from my plea for mercy. Attend to me and answer me. I am restless in my complaint, and I moan. Because of the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked, for they drop trouble upon me, and in anger, they bear a grudge against me. My heart is in anguish within me. The terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling come upon me. And horror overwhelms me. And I say, oh, that I had wings like a dove. I would fly away and be at rest. Yes, I would wander far away. I would lodge in the wilderness. I would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest. Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues. For I see violence and strife in the city. Day and night, they go around it on its walls. And iniquity and trouble are within it. Ruin is in its midst. Oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace. For it is not an enemy who taunts me. Then, I could bear it. It is not an adversary who deals insolently with me. Then, I could hide from him. But it is You, a Man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together. Within God's house, we walked in the throne. Let death still over them. Let them go down to Sheol alive. For evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart. But I call to God, and the Lord will save me, evening and morning and at noon, I utter my complaint and moan. And He hears my voice. He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage. For many are arrayed against me. God will give ear and humble them. He who is enthroned from of old. Selah. Sorry, I think I missed the Selah in v. 7. I did not intend to do that. Selah. Because they do not change and do not fear God. My companion stretched out his hand against his friends. He violated his covenant. His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. But you, O God, will cast them down into the pit of destruction. Men of blood and treachery shall not live out half their days, but I will trust in You." Let's pray. Lord, but we do trust in You this morning. Father, we come to You as Your children, trusting in You, looking to You. Yes, even casting our burdens upon You this morning. And Lord, I just pray, would You make this psalm alive and the promises in it alive to my brothers and sisters here and to myself? Lord, we are waging our own battles as David was, and we need Your help. And Lord, we're here gathered together as saints today to get help from the truth of Your Word. And so, Lord, would You make it alive and active and sharper than any two-edged sword? Lord, that it would work deeply in our hearts. I ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Now, I'll start with a question. Question. Imagine this entire psalm being up on this projector and sun this morning. Accompanied by streamed instruments, which verse would stick out? Which verse sticks out to you? I'm actually just not rhetorical. Yeah, 22. If you read this whole psalm and you ask people which verse they've heard before, they would say 22. And this is with good reason. 22 should stand out. First reason is this. It's the only verse here in which David speaks directly to us. He says, cast your burden on the Lord. He says the Lord will sustain you. He's looking at us. Through this psalm, he's praying, he's talking about his trial, his situation. He's praying to God. And then in verse 22, it's like he looks at you. When this is sun, it's going right to you. You cast your burden on the Lord. And He will sustain you. David had found safety. David had found where to be sustained and he's relaying that to us. Think verse 22, it's safe to say, here's an answer of where David has been delivered. It was through looking to the Lord and casting his situation upon the Lord. The second reason this verse should stand out, the second reason this verse is on the cards out of all the verses in this psalm, when you get a card, it tends to have verse 22, is because this verse contains glorious promises for us to lay hold upon. He will? He will. Two things God will do if you cast your burdens upon Him. Glorious promises. So this verse should stick out. And a third reason verse 22 should stand out is that even in the early church, this verse stood out to Peter, who it appears borrowed similar language when he said in 1 Peter 5.7, casting all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you. We know that verse too. You can imagine Peter knew this psalm. It was on his mind. It's an assumption. But those are three reasons why verse 22 should stand out. David speaks directly to us. It contains promises. And it seems it stuck out to those in the early church. Now, this psalm has been referenced in many hymns. I was trying to research it yesterday on a hymn website. It said 120 hymns had reference to this psalm. Now, it must be a lot of hymns are named Cast Your Burdens on the Lord because like 20 of them, that was the title of the hymn, but it was by different people. So many people have tried to write a hymn based on this psalm. One is, If thou but suffer God to guide thee. The author wrote his psalm based on the psalm after he had been robbed by highwaymen as a student. He was left destitute with no prospect of earning a living. He cast his burden on the Lord the Lord provided. The Lord led him. And he says in his version of the psalm, he says, If thou but suffer, what's that mean? Trust? Allow? If thou but trust God to guide thee, allow God to guide thee, and hope in Him through all thy ways, He'll give thee strength whatever betide thee, and bear thee through the evil days. Who trust in God's unchanging love builds on the rock that not can move. Isaac Watts in Oh God, My Refuge, Hear My Cries, he refers to this verse. I cast my burdens on the Lord. The Lord sustains them all. My courage rests upon His Word. That saints shall never fall. And the sweet hour of prayer song. And since He bids me seek His face, believe His Word, and trust His grace, I'll cast on Him my every care and wait for Thee, sweet hour of prayer. And the last one to mention, what a friend we have in Jesus. What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. And he goes on, are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer. Do your friends despise, forsake you? That's what was happening to David. Friends forsook him. He says take it to the Lord in prayer. So there's a reason those four hymns and many others go to this verse 22. It's not accidental. It's because it has real, living truths and promises there that we need as Christians. Because like verse 18 says, the battle that I wage, we're in the midst of battles ourselves and we need God's help. So, my first point that I want to look at is this. What promises do we have if we cast our burden upon the Lord? What's God promised He will do if we cast our burdens upon the Lord? Look at v. 22. Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. If you go on a little, v. 23, but you, O God, will cast them down. But you see those two He wills. I like it when you get to the Bible and it says God will. He will. Something very comforting about that as a Christian. He will. Because who's responsible for the willing and the doing? Who's going to make it happen? Who's going to see it through? God is. So we can hope in Him. Let's look at the first one. Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. Sustain. Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. Sustain. In Psalm 33.19, you have the same word and it is rendered this way. He will keep them alive in famine. Sustain. Keep them alive in famine. In Nehemiah 9, same word. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness. And they lack nothing. Notice, the two other places it's used, they were sustained, kept alive in the midst of famine. In the midst of wilderness. This is not a promise that He's going to remove you completely from the trying circumstances. This is not a promise that if I cast my burden upon the Lord, He's going to resolve everything instantaneously. It's a promise He will sustain me in the midst of the trial. He'll keep me alive spiritually. Even physically. To sustain is the promise to have support, help, assistance, strength, provision from God. Support. Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will support you. That's the idea. He's going to support you. He's going to sustain you. Right there. He's going to keep you alive in the midst of this. And you think about being sustained. Obviously, David here, he needed to be sustained what? Physically and spiritually. Ultimately, the big issue is, as he says in v. 18, he redeems my soul in safety. The big thing we need to be sustained is our souls, right? But David here was also looking to the Lord to sustain him physically. Sorry about that. I'm sorry if I'm sniffling a lot. My nose is running. The big issue ultimately is soul safety. We need God to sustain us so that we're not overwhelmed by the horror and fears that we face. If you look at v. 5, fear and trembling come upon me and horror overwhelms me. David has something in his life that is overwhelming him. He's terrified. And here he says, you cast this on the Lord, He will not remove it. He will sustain you there in the midst of it. Some of you, maybe you feel like you can't go on. God promises to sustain, assist, support, and carry you. Even while having the world crushing in upon you. But it isn't crushing upon you any longer. See, if you've casted your cares on the Lord, guess who the burden is crushing in upon? Who's sustaining you? Who's bearing the burden? The Lord is. Edward Payson from Portland, Maine, known as Praying Payson, picked up the first volume of his memoirs, his whole works this week. I was skimming through it and found some nuggets in there. He says this, what God calls a man to do, He will carry him through. I would undertake to govern half a dozen worlds if God called me to do it. But I would not undertake to govern half a dozen sheep unless God called me to it. So if the Lord's called you to do it, whatever it is, if He's put you in this trial and you cast your burden upon Him, you can trust God will carry you through. He will support you. He will sustain you supernaturally. That's a promise for you. For me. In the midst of a trial, of suffering, of something overwhelming us, of the troubles of life at large, we can cast this upon the Lord and He promises to support us in the midst of this. That's the first promise David gives us. The righteous, the Christian here. Secondly, David says this, after he says he will sustain you, he says he will never permit the righteous to be moved. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. And that word moved there, it means to be shaken, to fall, to totter, to be overthrown. He will not permit the righteous to be overthrown, to fall. Now, not be permitted to move, be shaken from what? Is it, A, not be moved from our sure and happy state? If you cast this upon the Lord, is He not going to let you be moved from that state of the peace of God guarding you? Or B, not be moved from our hope in God and ultimately perish? And I think this is my understanding. Yes, it's true, if you are casting your burdens on the Lord, there should be peace in your life even in the midst of the storm. That's true. If you cast this on the Lord, yeah, He will not let you be moved from having peace even in the storm. But I believe here that not being moved is a promise that I will not be moved ultimately from my hope in God and perish. And why do I say that? Look at the very next verse. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. But in contrast, but you, O God, will cast them, His enemies, down into the pit of destruction. So the righteous is not moved. They're not cast down. But the wicked is cast down into the pit of destruction. We cast our burdens on the Lord. He sustains us, does not permit us to be moved. The wicked refuses to cast their burdens upon the Lord, refuses to cast their sin upon the Lord. They are moved. Not just moved, they're cast by God down into the pit of destruction. Our great need in trials is what? To keep the faith. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast when under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to all those who love Him. That's the ultimate thing in the trial is that my faith in the Lord not give way, and as that word moved means, that I not be overthrown and fall. I think in the ultimate sense. So what's the difference between the promise of being sustained and the promise of not being moved? I would put it like this. To be sustained is the promise for support to be given so you don't collapse in the specific trial. The promise to not be moved is the promise for God to ultimately keep you, not so you don't just collapse in the trial, but so that you don't collapse in the ultimate sense. And isn't that true? We're kept by the power of God. Isn't it true He began a good work in you and will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ? If God doesn't keep us, we're toast. But God does keep us. He does not permit the righteous to be overthrown and perish. Henry Martin, he translated the New Testament into Persian. He died at 31 years of age all alone in Turkey on his way back to England. He said, my soul rests in Him who is an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, which though not seen, keeps me fast. Everything in the world was moving around Him. And yet, the Lord kept His foot from being moved, from ultimately slipping. Our enemy wants these trials to move us from God to destruction. And we've seen it. There are some, they face a trial. They let a little bitterness get in against the brethren. Eventually, it leads them to be bitter against God. And before you know it, they don't believe God exists. We've seen that happen. Unwilling to cast this on the Lord. Unwilling to trust God. But rather, willing to be bitter and hold on to sin. And they were moved from the Lord. This psalm shows us this glorious truth that the Lord is a burden- bearer. The Lord is a burden-bearer believer. And David gave this promise in the Old Testament. But here for us in the New Testament, we see the greatest burden-bearing that ever took place being fulfilled in the Person and work of Jesus Christ bearing our sins upon Himself on the cross. If you believe Christ bore the burden of your sins entirely for you, then trust Him with all these things that are so much lesser. If as the hymn says, my sin not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. If you bear your sin no more, why not cast these other lighter burdens upon the Lord? Why say as a Christian, well, my sin was borne by Christ. He bore it all. These lesser things, I'm going to let their weight of these things crush me and drain my spiritual energy. No. Don't do that. David here actually, he's commanding us, cast your burden on the Lord. Go to the Lord. Through believing prayer, believe these promises. So, we have two promises here. Secondly, we have to consider this truth. That the Lord who says cast your burdens upon Him is the very Lord who gave you the burdens to begin with. Consider this verse in the literal rendering. And maybe if you have an NAS here, look at your margin in the NAS. In the NAS, or in Young's literal translation, this verse reads as this, "...cast on Jehovah that which He hath given thee." You hear that? Cast on God what He hath given thee. And He doth sustain thee. What a way to look at it. I'm just casting back upon the Lord that which He has cast upon me. And in the literal translation, that's how it reads. So, the Lord is the giver of this burden. And we see this reality throughout Scriptures, even in the New Testament. Philippians 1.29 It's been graciously given that for the sake of Christ, I should not only believe in Him, but also suffer. So God graciously gives us to suffer. How can I not cast the burden upon the Lord when the source of it even being there ultimately lay with Him? What are we thinking? Holding on to this? Not going to Him for support? I think part of why we don't cast things upon the Lord is because by casting it upon the Lord, we're ultimately saying, Lord, I am content and agree this is from You. But often the Christian, they're not willing to do that yet. They're not willing to give thanks. They're still willing to argue with God and try to get Him to reverse the whole situation rather than saying, blessed be the Lord. I was reading in my devotional Scripture reading the other day and Judges 3.1 stuck out. It says the nations that the Lord left to test Israel. The nations that who left? The Lord. The enemies who were gone, God took them. The enemies that stayed, God kept them. And with a purpose to test Israel. The same for us. The trials here are the ones God left. For you. For me. Trials are an opportunity to show to the Lord and the world that we are still loyal to Christ and devoted to Him. Trials are an opportunity for God to show to the world, look how powerful I am. I can sustain this weak creature whom I have saved through the blood of My Son. I can sustain Him through all these things. As Spurgeon said, the Christian, it's like a bird flying through thousands of arrows coming at them and they never get hit. They never ultimately fall. They're never ultimately moved. God keeps us. Conrad Murrell on Psalm 55, he said, God sent the storm to us and would have us weather it. Had we not needed the storm, there would be none. When we need one no longer, He will see that we have none. The storm. What is it in your life? What burdens, what trials are you facing? I doubt it's a former counselor of yours trying to kill you. But it could be a situation with spouse, with children. What has the Lord left to test you in order to see if you will obey Him and in order for you to go to Him for help? And thirdly, let's briefly consider David's storm that this psalm refers to. We read this, but look again how David felt in this trial. Verse 2, I'm restless in my complaint and I moan. Verse 4, my heart is in anguish within me. The terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling come upon me. And horror overwhelms me. And then v. 6-7, I would fly away. He goes on in v. 17, I utter my complaint and moan. And he hears my voice. Have any of you ever had that happen? Just laying on your carpet moaning? I've had that happen. It just feels so big. It's crushing me. And it's like, I know, Lord, You're the only hope. I've got to go to You. But there's this war waging. And as you read this psalm, you can feel that with David. Kind of back and forth in different areas and putting out different things. We wrestle. David had a serious trial. Terrors of death have fallen upon him. V. 23, he said men of blood and treachery were involved here. It seems this counselor of his was now trying to kill him. Take his life. The city was overtaken. Violence was upon him. What made this trial so difficult for David? Look at v. 12. David says, it's not an enemy who taunts me. Then, I could bear this. It's not an adversary who deals insolently with me. Then, I could hide from him. But what's the problem? V. 13, but it's you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together. Within God's house, we walked in the throne. And then look at v. 15. He makes an allusion to Korah. Let death steal over them. Let them go down to Sheol alive. He wishes that upon them. This is difficult for David. It's a deep struggle when someone has first killed their relationship with you in the personal sense that was once sweet. Now to top it off, they're seeking your life. I mean, I'd rather have enemies trying to kill me than my friends betraying me and turning upon me. Now, I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but we rightly could ask, who is this referring to? And I don't believe be dogmatic about who this is referring to, but if I read in 2 Samuel and looked at when absolution and this overtaking happened, David had a counselor who betrayed him. Ahithophel. And maybe this could refer to him. After David had fled Jerusalem, he heard of Ahithophel's betrayal, and the messengers came with the report to David, and in that report, no doubt, the counsel of Ahithophel was said, and Ahithophel's counsel was this, to Absalom, let me take 12,000 men right now, and we'll go and we'll just kill David. He'll be panicked. He'll be weary. He'll be discouraged. This man who gave David sweet counsel, now he wants to go kill him. Now he's involved in a conspiracy with David's own son. David already had a damaged relationship with his son. And the counselors told David, they said, do not stay tonight at the fords of the wilderness, but by all means pass over, lest the keen and all the people who are with him will be swallowed up. Swallowed up. And right at that point, David keeps on traveling. He's heard the report. He knows that Ahithophel was part of the conspiracy. He knows that on the walls, on the roof of Jerusalem, maybe the same roof where he lusted after Bathsheba and ultimately committed adultery with her, on that same roof, now his own son was sleeping with his ten concubines that were left in a tent in the sight of all of Israel as God had called to do. In this psalm, it says that in anger they bore a grudge against me. Would this in any way fit a description of Ahithophel? Maybe. Ahithophel was actually the grandfather of Bathsheba. Did he have a grudge against David for this? For what happened to his granddaughter and her husband Uriah? David killing Uriah? Ahithophel's first counsel to Absalom is set the tent up. Yes, God said that would happen in the sight of all. And sleep with his ten concubines. And Absalom did that. It was a stench to all of Israel. That was Ahithophel's counsel. In this psalm, maybe it could refer to Ahithophel because in v. 9, David said, O Lord, divide their tons. Or, it renders confound their speech. And in 2 Samuel 15, we see David pray something similar. He said, O Lord, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. Turn it into foolishness. And that ultimately happened. Hushai, David's friend, had went back. He said Ahithophel's wrong. He gave counsel to Absalom on David's behalf. Absalom not knowing Hushai was still loyal to David. And they didn't follow Ahithophel's counsel. They followed Hushai's, which ultimately led to David not dying. David prayed at the end of this psalm, May these men of blood and treachery not live out half their days. Well, what happened to these men of blood and treachery? They went out there and they got slaughtered. They did not live out half their days. What happened to Ahithophel? His counsel was rejected. He went home. Put his house in order. Then he went and he committed suicide and it says he hung himself. He didn't live out his days any longer. God took him out. God took these other men out. The rebellion failed. The conspiracy ended and David went back. So if that is what this is referring to, what a deliverance! The Lord blinded Absalom from following the good counsel of Ahithophel. And the Scriptures say Ahithophel's counsel was as if one had consulted God. This man had wisdom. He was David's counselor for all these years. His counsel is those from God. And yet, God blinded them from taking that counsel, went with Hushai's. It led to David being preserved in death. And here, his friend Ahithophel, his counselor, he knew David. He knew David would be weary and discouraged. Let's come upon him and kill him tonight. And if this is when it happened, David said, horror overwhelmed me. He was terrified. Yet, God preserved David. What a picture, whether this song refers to that time or not, what a picture of the steadfast love of God in keeping David, even though part of David's trial was brought on by his own sin. So, fourthly, I want to consider two wrong responses that we often want to take in our trials. Two wrong, sinful responses that I think we see here, David contemplating. Number one, or tempted with. Maybe contemplating is not the right thing, but tempted with. The first is this, if I had wings, I'd just get out of here. I'd fly away. Look at v. 5. Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me, so I go and cast my burden on the Lord? No. So I say, Lord help me? No. And I say, oh, oh, that I had wings and it's like a dove. If I did, I would fly away. I'd be at rest. I would wander far away. I would wander. I would lodge in the wilderness. I would hurry to find a shelter. I would do this. I would do that. I would do that. I would do all these things if I just had wings. Why don't I sit and think about if only this were true, I would, would, would, would do all those things. Is that a good way to approach our trials? No. We don't have wings. Those wings don't exist. Sticking our head in the sand and hopefully coming up and all the things have been resolved, that's not how it happens. Maybe sometimes it does because the Lord is so patient to us and He realizes that's all He can bear. So we'll let Him stick His head in the sand and I'll resolve everything for that weak Christian who's struggling. I mean, God is so loving. I'm sure He has done that a handful of times. Conrad Murrell said, you've got a little rabbit in your blood, haven't you? As soon as trouble pops up, you want to run from it. Trouble is not a call to move on. Think about the Lord Jesus Christ. He did have the ability to call down legions of angels to deliver Him from the cross. Did He use those wings? No. For our sake, He refused to do such and He bore our sin. So even if you had the power to sprout wings and fly away, that does not mean it's the right path. Nor can we seek to proudly confront our trials in our own power. If you feel like flying away, fly to the Lord in believing prayer. And God will sustain you in the midst of this trial, in the midst of this situation. Secondly, another temptation we face of how to respond in our trials is we sit and think and meditate on, boy, if I could just tweak one thing in the trial, all would be ok. Just tweak one thing. Everything's going to be good. If I can just tweak that one thing. V. 12, For it is not an enemy who taunts me. If it was, then I could bear it. I'd be able to bear this. It's not an adversary who deals insolently with me. Then, I could hide from him. So it's coming in David's mind. If this changed, then I would be ok. If this one thing was tweaked, if this was tweaked, then I could bear it. If it wasn't a friend, if it was just an enemy, I could handle this trial. If you just tweak that one aspect, make it not a hithephel if it is, but just a Philistine enemy, then I could bear it. It wouldn't be so bad. It wouldn't be crushing me as it is. Haven't you felt that before? You're sitting there wrestling. Rather than just committing it as it is to God, you analyze it and think about what could be changed in order for all to be ok. But we can't sprout wings and fly away. We can't tweak our trials to change the aspects about them that we most dread. Why waste our energy doing that? If it was just tweaked a little, then I'd bear it. Guess what? The tweaks in our trials that we want to untweak, that we want to reverse, those have been put there by God. We see this clearly in Job. God allowed Satan the little tweak of being able to touch Job's flesh and strike him with those boils. Just as before that was happening, God didn't give him permission to do such. We need to trust God. God wants us going to Him. I find it interesting. David said, then I could bear it. Can I ultimately bear up under any trial ultimately in my own power, in my own strength? John 15, apart from him, we can do nothing. Norris Groves, the missionary to Iraq and India, he said this, I often think I would not have gone through one trial less than I have. For I have felt that they were all necessary to make me able to minister at all to His church's edification. You see, every tweak in all of those trials has been put there by a heavenly Father who knows they're necessary to grow you and make you more like Christ in a certain way, to teach you greater endurance in a certain way, to break you of pride and make you more God-reliant in a certain way. Now, we don't want to think about this and go imagining all the trials that we could possibly face and start to think, oh no, the Lord will tweak this and make this happen and do all these things. Edward Payson says this, anticipated sorrows are harder to bear than real ones. Let me say that again. Anticipated, the ones you're thinking are coming, they're harder to bear than the real ones because Christ does not support us under them. Because they don't exist. He won't support you under them that don't even exist. So don't sit and anticipate what might come because that's actually a trial. Now you're actually sinning in anxiety and fear about what might come and you need to take that to the Lord. And then He will support you. He's not going to support you on all the what-ifs. It's not, well, if this changed, then God's grace would be sufficient. No, He did that change to make you rely on Him to show you that His grace is sufficient just as it has been handed to you. Fifthly, so you say, I have burdens, James. I want to be supported by the Lord. What do I do? How? How do you cast your burdens upon the Lord? Let's think of that word cast for a moment. In Numbers 35.20, it's rendered this way. Hurled. Something was hurled at Him. Hurled. 1 Kings 19, Elijah cast his cloak upon Him. The cloak? It went from who? Elijah onto who? Another person. You're casting your burdens on the Lord. Elijah, did he have the cloak anymore? Once he cast the cloak on someone else, did he still have the cloak? Did that guy have the cloak and Elijah have the cloak? No. Same thing, when I cast my burdens on the Lord, He's got them now. Unless I yank them back in anxiety and fear. In Psalm 22, that word cast, He says, on you I was cast from My birth. From My mother's womb you've been My God. Cast. Hurled. Thrown upon. Laid upon. Rest upon. How do you cast something on the Lord? I think it's that hymn says, you take it to the Lord in prayer. That's what David is doing here. He's praying. Verse 1, give ear to my prayer. Verse 10, come to me. Verse 16, I call to God. Verse 17, evening and morning and at noon, I utter my complaint. He hears my voice. David is communicating with God. He's calling to God. How do you cast your burden on the Lord? You go to God in prayer. And you bear it all upon Him. You hurl it upon Him. You don't even have to think about this as something gentle. Let's go set this burden on the Lord. Look, when you're in the midst of war, sometimes all you can do is just hurl it. Lord, I'm not making it. I'm just hurling this upon You. Take it. I can't bear it. I'm not surviving. I love what David says at the start. He says give ear, and then in verse 2, he says this, attend to me. Attend to me. Attend. Attend to me. Let's think about nurses. You're in a hospital and you have a nurse assigned to you and they're on their shift and you hit the button and the nurse attends to you. Sometimes they don't come that quickly. They've got other patients. Sometimes they come and you regret you hit the button because they don't show you compassion. That's not how it is with the Lord. He's not delaying. He's not going to lack showing compassion. And you don't have to sit there and explain all the intricacies necessarily, because He's the One who gave you the burden. He already knows about it. Attend to me. Lord, attend to me. I need Your help. Come help me. Who's He calling to? V. 19 says, Give ear and humble them. Who? He who is enthroned from of old. You know who attends to us, Christian? The One who's seated on the throne from of old. Before time began. The One who sustains all things, created all things. The One who's numbered your hair. Who better to ask for attention from? But God. Why would we ever prefer man than God? God will use man as a means for us to ultimately be sustained by God, but men cannot sustain us. Now, people will say, but I did pray. God didn't hear me. Or I didn't get help. What's wrong? And I know I read this years ago in a prayer meeting, but I think it's helpful. D. L. Moody recorded this in his book Prevailing Prayer. Teacher, said a bright, earnest-faced boy, why is it that so many prayers are unanswered? I do not understand. The Bible says, ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. But it seems to me a great many knocks are not admitted. Moody, the teacher says, did you never sit by your cheerful parlor fire? said the teacher, on some dark evening and hear a loud knocking at the door? Going to answer the summons, have you not sometimes looked out into the darkness, seeing nothing, but hearing the pattering feet of some mischievous boy who knocked, but did not wish to enter? Therefore ran away. Thus it is often with us. We ask for blessings, but do not really expect them. We knock, but do not mean to enter. We fear that Jesus will not hear us, will not fulfill His promises, will not admit us, and so we go away. Ah, I see, said the earnest-faced boy, his eyes shining with new light dawning in his soul. Jesus cannot be expected to answer runaway knocks. He has never promised it. I mean to keep knocking, knocking, until He cannot help opening the door. Moody says this, too often we knock at mercy's door and then run away instead of waiting for an entrance and an answer. I think that's why so many find themselves in a trial. They're not being sustained. Even though they say they've prayed and cast it on the Lord, because they're not really casting it on God. They might be saying the words, but kind of like that verse, they might be casting the cloak on the Lord and then yanking it right off of Him the next moment, that burden, and putting it back on themselves. You know, there's times we just pray because we know it's the right thing to do. But you know what? Take heart. This is David. A man after God's own heart. He's wrestling. He's praying. He's being honest with God. Horror overwhelms me. You should be able to say that to the Lord. He wants to know your heart. He wants to know what's going on. He already does. But He wants to hear it from you. So, are you casting your burden upon the Lord? Are you hurling it at Him? Or are you briefly knocking and leaving? So, in conclusion, our Lord is a burden-bearing Lord. We see this the most in His Son, who is the Lord, who every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Christ is Lord. We see it the most in His sacrificial death. He bore our sins. He'll bear all these other things that are so trite and small. We even see in a time when David was vulnerable, the Lord protected him. He'll do the same for you. We saw that the Lord is a burden-giver, but as 1 Corinthians 10-13 makes clear, He won't give you anything beyond what you can bear. He always has a way of escape where you can be sustained by trusting Him. So what burden has God given you that you've refused thus far to cast back upon Him? Answer that for yourself. What burden? What lot from God has He given you that you thus far have resisted to cast that upon Him? To be sustained upon Him? If you don't, brother or sister, you won't be sustained in your own power. You will crush and fall. George Mueller was asked how he could handle so many anxious moments in the orphanage. He said, I rolled 60 thanes onto the Lord this morning. Another encouragement. In David, in this psalm, we see it's an illusion that believers are always full of confidence and have perfect joy. And I'm not saying that to justify defeat, but being realistic. If you find you're condemned by the devil, or condemned by slanderous thoughts, you're not condemned by the devil, but condemned by slanderous thoughts, find comfort. Here David is, a man after God's own heart, and here he is, is wrestling in such a way as he is. This psalm speaks of persevering in the faith in the midst of trials, and the only way you or I will do that is if we cast and hurl our burdens upon the Lord. Then He will support us in the midst of that trial. His grace will be sufficient. His power will be made perfect in our weakness. Flying away is not an option. We don't have those wings. Don't try to force some to grow. And don't sit there thinking if this one thing was tweaked, I could handle it. Because that one thing's from God. And, he says the righteous will not be moved. If you're not a Christian here today, forget casting any burden in your life upon the Lord except that burden of your sin. Because that burden, the most crushing one in the world that will put you in hell for all of an eternity, on that cross, he who knew no sin became sin for us, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God and stand fully declared legally righteous before God based on Christ's perfect record being counted to our account. And I'll close with this. Edward Payson in volume 1, page 506 of his works, to all who are afflicted, either in body, mind, or state, all whose worldly hopes and prospects have been blasted by losses and disappointments, all who are weeping over the grave of some near and dear relative, the language of Christ is, cast your burden upon Me, and I will sustain thee. Come upon Me now in the day of trouble, and I will answer thee. You have found that earthly friends and relations die. Come then to Me, and I will give you treasures which never fail and make you heirs of heavenly inheritance. No longer spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which satisfieth not, but hearken diligently to Me and come unto Me here, and your souls shall live. And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." Let's pray. Lord, we thank You that the Lord Jesus says, come unto Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give You rest. And Lord, we cast our anxieties upon You, our burdens upon You this morning. Lord, would You sustain my brothers and sisters in the midst of their trials and me in the midst of my own? God, Your grace is sufficient. We're here asking this morning in faith, Lord, we're here knocking for You to come to help us, to support us. Lord, we want Your support. Lord, we take these burdens and we lay them upon You. Lord, they're no longer on us. They're upon You. And we thank You for Your infinite strength and power that nothing is too great for You. And Lord, we thank You and give thanks in the midst of our circumstances this morning, knowing that they are Your will. And so, Lord, would You help us to keep trusting You, to keep casting things upon You, hurling them at You in faith? In Jesus' name, Amen. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/LDcS1b1_niY.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/james-jennings/a-promise-for-those-trying-to-fly-away/ ========================================================================