Sermon by Bob Bradley

Transcription

1 Sermon by Bob Bradley COPYRIGHT 2017 CAMPBELL CHAPEL FREE WILL BAPTIST CHURCH 1709 Campbell Drive * Ironton, OH 45638

2 Pray to God and Receive His Direction Wednesday, December 27, 2017 Bob Bradley Psalms 5. A week or two ago, I mentioned Psalms, chapter 5. I read a verse or two maybe out of Psalms 5. Tonight, the Lord, has laid this on our heart and we want to talk about it just for a few moments. I m going to read the whole thing. I m sure we won t have time to talk about the whole thing tonight but we want to read all of Psalms 5. If you would read along with us. Psalm 5:1 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation. Psalm 5:2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. Psalm 5:3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. Psalm 5:4 For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. Psalm 5:5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Psalm 5:6 Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. Psalm 5:7 But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. Psalm 5:8 Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face. Psalm 5:9 For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue. Psalm 5:10 Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee. Psalm 5:11 But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. Psalm 5:12 For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield. David is writing in this Psalm. David has a lot to say. When you look at the Psalm and read the whole thing, I think one big thing that jumps out at you in this Psalm is that the difference that God makes between the wicked and the righteous. God does make a difference in those folks. Not that He loves one more than the other, but when you read verse 10, it is going to talk about those that have rebelled against God, those that have

3 known the right way, those that knew and knows what it means to live right and do right; yet they have rebelled against God. That is who David is writing about. We know that David was a guy that loved the Lord. We know that he was a guy that made a bunch of mistakes in life. Do you know what? We all made a bunch of mistakes in life, everyone of us have. There is none of us perfect. Yet, David is a fellow here this is true in my life too. The mistakes and sin that David committed had come home to David. The issues and problems that David was having in life was because of his sin and what he had done. We know that God had told him that. The great thing about David is that he understood that God loved him. Even though he had sinned, he asked God to forgive him. God cleansed him. We know that he did. David goes on with life. The events that we are talking about here tonight, probably happened sometime after David has repented here. If I understand things correctly, this is during the time that Absalom is going to try to take over the kingdom. David is on the run, moving around. He is being chased around by Absalom. I heard someone say one time; David was afraid of Absalom. David was not afraid of Absalom. Do you know why David did not want to get around where Absalom was at? He did not want to kill Absalom. Absalom was his son. It wasn t that he was afraid of him. He did not want to kill him. However, that is what happened. David did not kill him, but God took care of that in the end of the story. This is the time that we are talking about and the time that David was fleeing from Absalom. Probably, Absalom if I understand things correctly and as I read the scriptures he had a lot of folks that were doing a lot of slander and a lot of lying about David. He was trying to destroy David with words. David understood something; that it wasn t going to work. Do you know what David did? Instead of David being evil and wicked and trying to recompense evil for evil. David goes to praying. That is what you and I want to do. That is the thought of this whole lesson tonight. In life, we are going to have issues. We are all going to have problems. We are going to have sorrows. I thought about our brother that is going to be burying his wife here on Friday. We don t think about young people burying their wives, or parents burying their children. Those things happen to all of us. In society, that happens. Here is the thing I want you to understand. Issues are going to come. Problems are going to come in life. There are going to be people that are not going to like you. They are not going to like me. There are going to be people who are going to try to destroy us, and destroy you. I want you to understand that again, so many times we think that it is maybe something we have done or maybe something that we have committed. Sometimes that may be the case. A lot of times in life, the struggles that we have in life is because of who we are, because we are saved, because we are living a godly life. I m not saying that in every case because that is not the case in every case.

4 David here had some issues and some problems. He was going through a very difficult time now. Now he was going to do something that I want to encourage us to do when we are having in troubles in life, and when life is not going like it should, when there are issues and problems, when the enemy is using people to try to destroy us. I was talking to someone a couple of days ago, they were having some issues and problems about some different situations. They did not really understand that satan uses people. His greatest instruments are people. A lot of those people go to church. They did not understand that. They had the mentality. I was talking to immature Christian people; people that hadn t been saved very long. They couldn t believe that people sat in churches that satan would use. That is exactly who satan loves to use are people who sit in churches. David understood that the people who were causing him so much issues were Israelites. They were people of his own family. Absalom was his own son. The people that were causing him so much problems was coming from his own family. He understood that. Again, David faced this the right way. That is what I want to encourage us to do. When issues come in life, whether we cause them or whether we didn t, whether it is just because that we are human and life is going to bring problems. It may be different issues and different problems. It may be financial. It may be spiritual. It may be problems with family. It may be all kinds of things in life. What I want us to do, instead of having a get-back spirit about us is the greatest thing we can do is to do what David did is go to the Lord and pray about it. When we do that then God will help us. God will bless us. God will enlighten us. God will instruct us on what we need to do. Not only that that is what the enemy wants us to do, when someone is striking out at us, or when life is not dealing us the hand that we would like to have; it is easy to get bitter sometimes. It is easy to look at things and say, hey, where is God at. Why did this happen to me? What is going on? However, that is the wrong attitude. We need to be like David. We need to take and go to the Lord in prayer, when we will do that God will bless us. When we do get bitter, do you know what we do? We get on the same level of the issues or people that are trying to bring us down. We get on the same level that they are on. You don t want to do that. You don t want to ruin your testimony. You don t want to listen to stuff and get on the same level and have a spirit of revenge in your heart. Do you know what God will do? If you are saved, God will take care of you. As David here, he loved the Lord. God was going to take care of David and He did take care of David. However, David handled some things here in the right way and since David handled some things in the right way; then God did take care of him. When you look at what is going on here; David is going to teach us some valuable lessons, I think, on how to handle situations and how to handle things when problems come that we can handle them in the right way to make sure we have fellowship with God. As long as we have fellowship with God, then God will always take care of His people. When you look at verses 1-3, instead of David getting upset and there is no doubt he was hurting. As

5 I read the story and as I read about what was going on and what Absalom was doing and all the things that Absalom was saying; it would have had to of torn David s heart out. It was David s own flesh and blood that was instigating all that was going on, all the problems were coming from his own flesh and blood. Since that was the case, it would have had to have torn his heart out. I could only imagine how he felt when he was going and all these things were going on. David did something. David turned to the Lord for help. Psalm 5:1 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation. He makes just a very simple thing here. He says, Give ear to my words He is asking the Lord to hear his words, to hear what he had to say. Meditation is a word that means to mutter, to murmur, to whisper. Do you know what David was doing? David wasn t being loud. David wasn t screaming about what was happening to him and who was doing all of that. David wasn t doing all of that. He was just simply praying, or whispering what he had to say to the God of heaven. He was talking to Him. Do you know what God was doing? God was listening. That tells you a lot about David s state of mind, and David s spiritual state, in this time in his life. Even though people were trying to kill him, even though people were trying to tear his life apart, even though people were doing all kinds of things; David wasn t getting back at them. David wasn t slandering them. David wasn t talking to them or about them. David was talking to the God of heaven. Psalm 5:1 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation. Get this. When you look at the word consider in the Hebrew, in the original writings; it means this. It means to separate mentally. Get that. That is what the word means. As I read that today, I thought what could that mean? What could it mean to separate mentally. Here is what it means thought. He was asking the Lord to discern between what is being said about him that was wrong, and who David really was. That is what is saying here. Lord, you know who I am. You know that I am not who these people say I am. Lord, you know that. Lord, discern between that. Lord, you are God and you know everything. Actually, he uses the word Elohim here, for the all-powerful God, the God that has all strength, the God that is in control, that God that has all the power in heaven and in earth. He knows all things. He sees all things. David uses the word Elohim, in this verse. He is asking Him, Lord, you know what is going on. Lord, you know what is happening. You know that I am not who they say I am. He says, distinguish or discern between that. He uses the word here consider or separate mentally those things and thoughts people are saying. Psalm 5:2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. Psalm 5:3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

6 Do you know what David is saying? Lord, listen to me. Listen to my prayer as I pray. He is going to be totally and completely submitting himself to the Lord. He was His king. He was his God. He uses the word harken which means to listen, or give respect, it also means to listen to me. Do you know what God was going to do? God was going to listen to him. Do you know why God was going to listen to David? It wasn t that David was perfect. No. it wasn t that David was the king. That wasn t the reason that God was going to listen to him. The reason that God was going to listen him, because David had come to the place in life where he had repented. He had made things right with God. He had cleaned up his life. He had cleaned up his life. He was living as he should be living. When he sought the face of God, he knew that God was listening. David knew who he was. David hadn t deceived himself into thinking that he could sin and get by with. He knew he had messed up. He knew who he was. He knew that God had forgiven him. Since he knew that he knew God was going to be listening unto him. Get this. We can live in a way, if we don t deceive ourselves get this that we know who we are. We know whether we are saved, or whether we are not saved. We know where we are on our way to; heaven, or hell. I know this much. Some people have deceived themselves. I know that I could talk to people in my own family, who have never made a profession of faith. They scream. They lie. They drink. They do all kinds of world things. You can talk to them about making things right with God and do you know what they will say? I am saved. I am ready to go to heaven. We are not judging anybody when we say that. You can t live in sin and go to heaven. If you have not deceived yourself then you know where you are going. You know where you are headed. I m not saying well, we hope I m going to go, or one day I hope I wake up in heaven. If you are really saved today, living in the will of God today, God is answering prayer in your life; then you know that. You know who you are. David knew who he was. David knew his sins had been forgiven and he knew God was going to listen unto him. God was going to pay attention unto his prayer. David needed help. David needed to be delivered. David needs some help from what was going on in his life and since he knew who he was, he knew he had been forgiven. He is taking this thing to God and he knew that God was going to give him help. Do you know what that does in our lives? When we really get hold of that and when we really live do you know what that does? That gives me so much hope on the inside. That gives me so much encouragement every day when I wake up every day; I know who I am. I know I am not perfect, by no means. I have all kinds of issues and problems. However, I do know one thing. I know that I have been forgiven. I know where my stand is at. I know I am in Christ. I know that when I take my petitions before Him, He is listening unto me. Not only is He listening unto me but He is going to supply that which I need. That is great encouragement to know.

7 The problems may not stop. They may not go away at all. Do you know what I know? I know that God is going to help me through those things. I know that God is going to take me through any issue, any problem, that we have. I know that. Do you know what David knew? David knew that. Psalm 5:2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. Look what he does here. Psalm 5:2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. Do you know what he is saying? He is saying, you are my God. Lord, you are my king. Listen. The king of Israel was praying to the real king. Amen! The king of the universe; he says, Lord, you are my king. You are my God. You are Elohim You are the allpowerful one. You are the One in control. You are Him. Unto thee will I pray. Do we recognize who God really is? Do we recognize that He is the God of all eternity? Do we recognize that He is the Creator? Do we recognize that He is the only one and only God? There is not 10 of God. There is only one God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. There is only one God. There is only one true living God. Do you know where He is at tonight? He is on the throne in heaven. He is in control. He is listening to His people that are faithful who are living right, and have repented. God will listen to us. David knew that. He is recognizing, you are my God. You are my king. Get this. David also knew something else. If David was going to have authority to be able to deal with the issues that were coming, he had to put himself under the authority of Almighty God. You will never be able to do anything in life if you don t submit yourself to God. You will never be in a leadership position. You may hold a position, but you will never be able to lead anybody anywhere in life until, first of all, we submit ourselves under the authority of Almighty God. David recognized He is king. He is my Lord. He is Elohim. He is the one that has all the power. Not me. He says, I am going to cry unto Him. Psalm 5:3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. This is what got me thinking about all of this. He is talking to God. This is a song David is writing and he is writing it unto the one of the musicians that is going to play, probably on some flutes, when they go to the temple to worship, or the tabernacle to worship. He is saying here, Lord, in the morning you are going to hear my voice. There is no time anytime is a great time to pray. Anytime. Whether it is noon, morning, evening, or midnight; anytime is a great time to pray. The greatest time that

8 you will ever pray will be in the morning. It will be when you have hit your feet to the floor get this and before you get involved with Facebook, texting, tweeting, and so forth; before you get involved in your day, before you get involved in all the hustle and bustle the greatest time you will ever have to pray is in the morning. Before you get your mind on all of this stuff, before you get wrapped up in all this stuff everybody has a job. Everybody has places we have to be. Everybody has things we have to do. Everybody has that. Everybody does. But the time you spend in the early morning, will be time that will pay great dividends down through your day. I m going to tell you this much. I learned this a long time ago in life. When I pray, when I get up of the morning, when my feet hit the floor, when my eyes open, usually what I try to do every morning; Good morning, Lord. Thank you, for taking care of me down through the night. Because we are very vulnerable when we are asleep. Amen! With all things that goes on. When you are asleep, you don t know what is going on around you. However, God takes care of us and we need to be thankful for that. However, praying in the morning Many years ago, we studied about Psalms 23, if you remember. We studied about sheep and what a shepherd would do of the morning. He would take the sheep out very early in the morning before the sun comes up. He would lead them from the enclosure, from the barn they were in. He would lead them to where they were going to eat that day. He did that for a reason. He got up way before daylight. They have to walk a mile or two before they got to pasture where they were at, and the green grass they were going to eat, and the water they were going to drink that day. He did that for a reason. Do you know what he knew? He knew that when sun came up do you know what was going to happen? The bugs were going to come up. If you have ever been outside much, especially in the spring of the year; you don t have too much trouble with bugs of the night, or early morning. However, as soon as the sun starts coming up, the bugs come out. Do you know what bugs do? Bugs aggravate sheep. When they are aggravating sheep; they can t eat like they should eat and they won t drink like they should drink because they are getting aggravated by bugs. Get this. Everyone of us has a whole bunch of bugs. Everyone of us has things that when you wake up in the morning, I promise you as you start your day there is going to be something that will aggravate you. Something is going to try to get your attention off of what you are doing. Something is going to try to get your attention off of living right, doing right, and being right, and praying. Something is going to try to keep you from spending time with God. Something is going to try to keep you from taking time to read a chapter 2, 3, 4, or 5 in your Bible. Something, there is going to be a bug there somewhere along the line. I will guarantee you, the longer you sleep in and the longer you wait to spend time with God, the more bugs you are going to have. There are going to be more things that are going to keep you from reading your Bible, praying, and seeking the face of God. Do you know what happens sometimes? The bugs get so many, and they get to aggravating us so much do you know what we do? I ll just wait

9 until tomorrow. I will wait until this evening. I will wait until I get this done or that done. Do you know what will happen? You will be laying your head on a pillow of the night and you will remember, hey, I forgot that. I got so busy with all the stuff that was going on that I forgot about that. David understood what it meant to get up in the morning and pray. Psalm 5:3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. Do you know what he is saying? He is saying You are going to hear my voice in the morning. I am going to seek your face. I am going to pray unto you, in the morning. Psalm 5:3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. He is making that statement twice. Do you know why he was making that statement twice? He wanted God to understand; I am going to be praying to you every morning. I want to make sure you get that, Lord. I think in our lives if we would take that approach, if we would be that dedicated every morning, before we get involved in drinking coffee and I love to drink coffee in the morning before we look out the window and see whether it frosted or whether it snowed, or before we mess with our phone and see how many people texted us through the night, and see what is going on in the world; before we do any of that if we will take time, to talk, to pray to the God of heaven just try it. If you don t do this, just try it. Just try it in the morning. I m going to plant this in your head. When you wake up in the morning, if you don t do this, when you wake up in the morning, don t roll around in the bed. Don t flop around in the bed and lay there for three hours groaning and moaning. Hop up. Get down beside of your bed and take your petitions to the God of heaven. David was having all kinds of issues and all kinds of problems. People hated him. People were slandering him, saying all bad things about him. David even though that was the case David was praying to the Lord every morning. Do you know what David did? David went to the throne of grace every morning. Very early every morning. I think if we could teach our children something, very early in life; we need to teach our children how important it is to pray. If we will teach our children how important it is to pray, then when crisis come in life, when dad and mom are not there; do you know what they will be able to do? Do you know what the first thing they will do is? Hey, I have been taught I need to pray when I am in trouble. Do you know what kids will do? They will pray when they are in trouble. Do you know what God will do? God will hear them. God will answer their prayer. Psalm 5:3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

10 Get this. Lord, I am not going to pray unto anybody else. I am not going to direct my prayers unto anybody else. I m going to direct my prayer unto thee. Psalm 5:3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. He says, I will look up. Do you know what David is saying? I want to get up in the morning and the first thing I am going to do; I am going to pray. I am going to direct my prayers unto you, Lord. When I get through praying, I am going to look up because I know you are going to hear me. I know you are going to answer me. The answer is going to be coming from heaven. I am going to look up. I know Lord, I am praying in expectation. I know that when I pray and ask you to do something, Lord, you are going to give me the help that I need. You are going to give me the deliverance that I need. I know that you are going to do that. Therefore, I am going to look up and expect God to do something. Do we live that way? When we pray, do we think that God is going to answer our prayer? I hope you do. Listen. If we don t expect God to answer our prayer then don t waste your time. It is not going to happen. David understood, hey, I know God is going to answer my prayer. I know who I am. I know that I am living right. I am going to come to the throne of grace every morning. I am going to direct my prayer to Him. When I do that and when I finish then I am going to be looking for the answer coming Do you know what that is? That is confidence in the God of heaven. He is claiming the promises of God. Get this. He told Abraham. Abraham, I am going to bless them that bless you, and I am going to curse them that curse you. Truth! That is what He told Abraham in Genesis 12. David is a descendant of Abraham. He was claiming the promises here that God had already made years before. Lord, you promised that you were going to bless them that blesses me, and you were going to curse them that curses me. Do you know what David understood? Hey, I m just claiming the promises of God. I know that God is going to answer. I know that God is going to do something. I know He is going to do that. Do you know what God did? God did do that. He is submissive. He gives allegiance unto the God of heaven. He is king, but he is bowing before the great king. David addressed Him as who He was as the great and awesome and powerful God. He sought Him in the morning. I can t overstate that enough. I don t think. In life, I don t know what is going to happen tomorrow. I don t know what is going to happen tonight. We don t know whether we will ever see 9 o clock or not. We really don t know. We hope that we do. We are planning on that. But we really don t know whether we will or not. Since that is the case, we had better be directing our prayers to the God of heaven. We don t know the disasters. We don t know the problems that

11 may arise in our life. I have said this many times. With just one phone call, our whole life changes. Truth! Just one phone call; we get a message that will change our whole life. That has happened to me many times over the years. I know that has happened to many of you all over the years. Just with one phone call and one word, completely changes everything here in life. Psalm 5:4 For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. When you look at verses 4-6; do you know what David is going to confess? He is going to confess how holy and righteous God really is. He is also going to agree with God, how separated God is from sinners and how much God hates sin, and how much God hates wickedness, evilness, and wickedness. You might say surely God doesn t do that? God does hate those things. If you read the Bible, you will find out that there are some things that God hates when you read the book of Proverbs chapter 6 I believe it is in chapter 6 you will find out there are some things that God absolutely hates. Wickedness is there. Since God hates wickedness, David is going to confess it. God, I know you hate wickedness. I know you hate wickedness. Psalm 5:4 For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. In other words, he is saying; I know you don t have pleasure in what is going on. I know that you don t have pleasure in all the things that is surrounding me and going on; Lord, I know you take no pleasure in none of those things. I understand that. Neither shall evil dwell with thee. Get that. Evil does not dwell with God. Wicked evil people, God does not indwell. Amen! God does not indwell. God does not lead you. God doesn t bless you. God doesn t answer your prayer, if you are living a life of wickedness and evilness and sinfulness; God is not listening to you. Somebody may be speaking to you and you may be hearing all kinds of voices, but it is not the God of heaven. It is satan that is speaking to you. David understood that. Psalm 5:4 For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. David understands that evil does not dwell with God. Wickedness and all the things that were going on around David. Psalm 5:5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. The Bible definition of foolish or foolishness is someone that says in their heart that there is no God. A lot of folks I don t think says that with words, but I think we say that with how that we live. We live in a way that we think we are never going to die. We live in a way that we think we are never going to be judged by Almighty God. We live in a way that we think that God that we are never going to stand before a holy and righteous God. In living that way, we are really saying that I really don t think that there is a God. I really don t think that there is going to be a time that I am going to stand before God like that. That is what David understands.

12 Psalm 5:5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. It cannot be done. Wickedness, foolishness, and foolish people, those that say there is no God; you can t stand in the sight of God. Psalm 5:5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. David was making it very plain. Lord, I know that you hate all these things. Lord, I know that wickedness, evilness, corruptness and sinfulness you cannot stand and you hate, Lord. Psalm 5:6 Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. Those that are deceitful, those that use deception, those that says one thing and does something else, those that says things to try to make David look bad here, those that were slandering David, those that were spreading all the gossip about David; do you know what is going to happen to them? David understood that God was going to take care of them. It wasn t going to be fun. The Bible says here that God was going to destroy them. Again, that is not a happy time. David understood that. David understood who he was. David understood what God was going to do. David understood that God was going to take care of him. God hates wrong doers. John the Baptist, when you read about what John said. We don t hear much about that side of God now. We want to talk about how good God is. We want to talk about everybody is going to go to heaven. We want to talk about that you can just sin and sin and everything is going to be fine and God is going to that is not the God of the Bible. God hates sin. God is going to destroy those that slander. When you read the book of Proverbs, chapter 6; God abhors deceit, those that uses deceit and deception. Listen. The wrath of God has been clearly revealed unto heaven, when you read Romans, chapter 1, verse 18; Against all unrighteousness and all ungodliness, the wrath of God has been revealed from heaven. Do you know what that means? That means that God is not only going to judge but God has already judged the sin and unrighteousness of men. I want you to understand something. Whatever comes in life, don t get so mixed up in it if you are a Christian, that we allow it to bring us down here. That is what the enemy wants to do. the enemy wants to get us involved in slander. The enemy wants to get us, when someone slanders us or someone does us wrong; the enemy wants us to get back at them. The enemy wants us to retaliate. That is the old Adamic nature. You get me. I ll get you. That is the wrong attitude to have. David took the approach, Hey, I know who God is. I know who I am. I know God hates sin. God hates deception. God hates foolish people. God hates those that is doing all of this stuff. Do you know what David knew? He knew that God was going to take care of him, and He did that. Do you know what Absalom? The fellow that was running the charge, the fellow that was doing so much wickedness here and trying to get his father killed so he could take over the throne; do you know what happened to him? He was

13 riding down through a field one day, chasing, running he had long blonde hair. I would say Absalom was a good-looking guy. He had real long hair. Probably was just a great looking guy. Probably strong, healthy, loud mouth, bully; but he was someone that drawn a lot of attention. He was running. He was going. He was riding one day. He never thought this was going to happen. Do you know what happened? The long hair that probably had got him so much attention; it got caught in a tree and jerked him off of his animal. Do you remember reading that? Do you know what happened? Some other fellows came along and killed him there. God has a way to take care of His own people. Absalom probably never thought that would happen to him. He probably thought he may die in a battle. He probably never thought of dying at all. Do you know what he thought about? He thought about being king, getting rid of his daddy so that he could be king, rule and reign and he could be just so happy. Do you know what? Listen. He figured out, too late, that you can t fight against God and win. Amen! The thing I want us to remember is this. When problems, issues, and things come; let s take them to God. Let s seek His face. Let s take them there and leave them there. Let s do this in the morning. Let s start in the morning. If you don t do this, I know some of you gets up real early and have to be at work. I know that you do. I promise you that your day will be better tomorrow if you get up in the morning and before you drink your coffee, check your messages on your phone, before you go see this and do that; before you get the day started, spend some time with God. Take your requests to God. Direct your prayers to God. Talk to God. Do you know what God will do? God will direct you. I promise you something. Tomorrow will be a lot better day, than today was. Come and pray