Latest / Grace Primitive Baptist Church - Houston, TX / God Overrules what Overwhelms Us - Psalm 142 & 143 | Elder James Moseley | 10-25-2026

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God Overrules what Overwhelms Us - Psalm 142 & 143 | Elder James Moseley | 10-25-2026 · Grace Primitive Baptist Church - Houston, TX

• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I sincerely seek your continued prayers.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I felt them thus far.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Turn with me if you would.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I like to look at if the Lord will continue to guide my mind.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that I have a thought, and if the Lord will open this up and get me out of the way, and that together we'll be in the way, look in his word.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I like to look at two Psalms in particular.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Two Psalms.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And conveniently, Brother Paul, they are sitting right next to each other.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And on in my Bible, they're actually on the same page, the same opening, so I'm just gonna try to stay right here.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 142 and Psalm 143.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 142 and 143.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking with a group of people who are looking around the room, like pretty much everybody that is in here, I think, will um know and appreciate this connection.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: But in this very sanctuary, we've had uh some singing schools, many singing schools that have been a wonderful blessing to us.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um and recently, over the last several years, we've had um Sister Julie lead a particular exercise on one of the days where uh she'll pick two songs in particular.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what we find is as we kind of go through that exercise, what she's doing is we're looking at the words, at the lyrics, and then there's these wonderful connections as we go through them of maybe like the the way that the music's written or who wrote it, when, why, uh the theme, that there's there's similarities to it, maybe there's some differences, but you're able to kind of see how these two kind of meld together.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's that's kind of I thought about that as I saw these two psalms, they they kind of do that.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you think about some of the connections, um it's interesting to see them, and obviously I'm gonna try to kind of throw out the things that I saw in them.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: They both were written by the same individual, by David, by King David.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: But they were written at different times in his life.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: But in both of them, as we read through some of the verses, what we'll see is he found himself in the same place, as it were, in a same low and dark place in his life, where there was uh worry and there's fear and doubt, and even the at the place where he was, where he was being his life itself was being uh sought after by somebody who was against him, that he had enemies in both of these two different times and in and periods of his life, um, but he looked to the same place in both of them.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: That whether he was in his younger years or whether he was older, there was the same answer in both of these things.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um we'll just kind of look at this.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: In 142, in the 142nd division of the Psalms, uh David writes, I cried unto the Lord.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, pause.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you what I found as a context of this.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um I believe, based off of what I read about this particular psalm, is that David wrote it at a time when he was being pursued by Saul, who was the king, who was actually his like father-in-law, he was sending forth people to try to kill David, to eliminate him.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And David finds himself in a cave.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: From my best um research there that I can do, I believe this is the in 1 Samuel chapter 22.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you wanted later to go and read that time when Saul was seeking David and he found himself in a cave, in your mind, and kind of as we read through this, picture David in that low place.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a place where he's like on his mountaintop, he's in the deepest of valleys.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And a cave is a dark, cold, um, worrisome, not comfortable place.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Physically, he is in that um that state.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then he writes I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: That word supplication is uh it means like hands up in prayer.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's at a time of need and looking to the Lord to provide for his needs.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sup.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think of anatomy physiology back in college, uh um, Brother Jay, when I did that, we learned about pronate and supinate.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Supinate are hands up and pronate is down.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: We find ourselves pronate at the very feet of our Lord, that's face down.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Supinate, there's a time for that too.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: We find ourselves in that place too, and that's a time of great need.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Looking to him, knowing that we are unable to supply that need, supply that comfort and presence that we need him, and we have hands up looking for him to provide for us.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So he goes in great supplication and prayer to his God, knowing he's not gonna find it from uh his strength within him, he's not gonna find it from the sides from somebody else.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: But there's only one place that the providence is gonna come from, the only one place that the deliverance is gonna come from, and that's gonna be from above, hands up in supplication to his God.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: With my voice unto the Lord did I make supplication.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I poured out my complaint before him, I showed before him my trouble.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, with us showing our trouble unto the Lord, it is does that mean that if we don't show him, if we don't express it to him that he wouldn't know, of course he knows it down to its deepest details.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that expression of pouring ourselves and our needs and our our our our state out to him, um uh that's a beautiful part of the process.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make him aware of it, but it put it puts us in a place where we know uh that he hears all of it.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's for us.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Showed before him my trouble.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, my spirit was overwhelmed within me.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then thou knowest my path.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: In the way wherein I walked, have they privily laid laid a snare for me.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I looked on my right hand and beheld that there was no man that um would know me.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Refuge failed me, no man cared for my soul.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right there, he says, I was in a trouble and I was overwhelmed, and I tell you, I looked um for help, and there was none.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: There was none for my refuge.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's in a place where he feels completely um desperate and alone and nowhere to go.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Nowhere to go.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's a vulnerable, desperate place.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: In that cave, he felt like there was nothing for him except for when he turns his his eyes and his um look towards God.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: What I want to focus in on for just a little while this morning is that thought and that that word overwhelmed.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Overwhelmed.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Words are powerful, words have meaning.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Overwhelmed when I looked at it, it did not actually have the meaning that I I would have associated with it.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um what I found is that it has a meaning of turning aside.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: That thought of turning aside.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And as we look at it more, um, it actually is very fitting to the thought of being overwhelmed.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever felt overwhelmed in your life, in your trouble, in whatever season of life that you're in?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever felt this feeling that David is expressing in this cold, dark cave?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: This time of where when enemies are against him, when when there's people that are actively trying to end his life, and he knows that he has people against him.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then when he looks for help from others, he's like, I'm all alone.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's feeling overwhelmed.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, there's times in our lives where we feel overwhelmed by things, whether it's the circumstances of life or the things that are troubling our spirit and our souls, as we look at our loved ones and the things that they are going through, there's times in which we have that same feeling of being overwhelmed, and the turning aside is almost like turning within, like collapsing in.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um I tried to get a picture in my mind of like what this looks like or how this feels.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what came to mind was I think about there's in classrooms in schools, a lot of times um children will wear like hooded sweatshirts, right?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I remember being in a classroom for for many years, and and uh it was kind of a thing where they would have their hooded sweatshirts and they would get frustrated, and they would do the best they could, but there got to be a point where they were so emotionally just like it's just too much for them, they would throw on their hoodie, on their hood, and just kind of like sink and kind of collapse inside.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like they they just wanted to hide.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted to turn, and their turning aside was kind of turning within themselves and putting up um that that sense, that thought, that visual uh kind of struck a chord with me.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like they realized that all the all the things that might be there, their answer or their rescue are not there.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Being overwhelmed, turning aside, turning within.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um David felt this overwhelmed.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he tried the very best he could to stay positive, to stay up, but man, when when it just keeps coming, the attacks and the assaults just kept coming upon him.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: He just gets to this such a low place mentally, spiritually, maybe physically.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's just, I'm done.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm just it's just too much for me.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I've I have no more strength within me.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just feel so overwhelmed and just collapses within himself that he might hide.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: That whatever refuge that he's seeking, he has none.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just kind of, I'm gonna try to be my own refuge.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And even that's not enough.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's gotta be a refuge for me.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's gotta be a safe spot to land.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then he gets down here, verse 5, and you see a clear pivot in his mind, in his prayer, in his thought.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Where he's looking is not sideways, it's not even from with his own strength, because what he found in those places was emptiness and no answer and no deliverance, just overwhelming filling.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: As we start reading verse 5 on, he looks and he knows that his Lord is the answer.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I cried unto thee, O Lord.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Thou art my refuge.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: He said he had no refuge.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: All refuges failed him, all but the Lord.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is his refuge.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he knows that that place is solid and secure and consistent and doesn't fail him.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Oh Lord, I said, Thou art my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are stronger than I.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: We feel that in our in our troubles, that the persecutors, that the trouble is greater than us.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like one for one, like it's got its power, and I've got my power, and we're no, the things that go against us can just be overwhelming, and we feel so lost and so weak.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, we have a refuge in our Lord, who is stronger than all.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: He says that they um they are stronger than I, but bring my soul out of prison that I may praise thy name.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: The righteous shall pass me about, for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: He has a clear uh shift in this thought of being in that low, overwhelmed place.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: But then he looks upward and says, But you are my refuge.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: You've been my refuge throughout many troubles in his life before that.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: He had seen the Lord uh intervene and deliver him when he was in a scary place, even from a very young place when he was when he had he was watching over the sheep.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was watching over his father's sheep, and um uh a lion would come and the Lord would deliver him.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: A bear would come and the Lord would deliver him.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: He saw even in scary times, the Lord was his refuge and his deliverer, and he knew though times be uh scary and and and dark, and he feels like though there's persecutors against us, there's a place to look.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's looking up to his refuge.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then let's look at 143 and let's see some comparisons between where he was in this, he's younger in this chapter than we than he is in 143.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: From what I can find here, is um context would be that it was a time when his own son, grown man, uh son with um Absalom was trying to seek his life at that at that time.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: That he was uh had a um group of people that were out to take David's life, that Absalom would be in a place of power.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless, it says, um, hear my prayer, O Lord.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so thankful that um we have this example of David who knew and trusted in the avenue of prayer when he was younger, and he continued in that lifetime of prayer.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: He gets older, where does he go?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: To prayer.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's that constant life uh exercise of knowing that you have a direct access to God who's on his throne, who always um it who rules and reigns, who controls all things, upholds all things by the word of his power, and you have avenue to him, that you have the very ear of God at all times, at all seasons of our lives, and we could and should avail ourselves of that.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Paul tells us to pray without ceasing.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Pray without ceasing.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: What a tall task that feels like sometimes because um my own self gets in the way of that exercise of my prayer life, of continuing in prayer.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's times in our lives where we do better, that we do more consistently.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're never satisfied that I definitely pray enough.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's that when that's never going to be our answer.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: But there are times when I feel convicted that I'm not praying the way I should.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not praying nearly, I'm not enough.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go like a whole day, and I'm like, when did I when did I actually stop and pray?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: We do better when we pray without ceasing.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's a continual thing.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: David lived a life of knowing where to go, knowing unto whom he should speak.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, hear my prayer, O Lord.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Give ear to my supplications.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: In thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man be justified.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: He knows his place before his great God, and that's not, well, look in my resume and all the things I've done as king throughout the years.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I'm in a place where you kind of No, he knows that that he is in a in a low place, and he knows that the reverence that he has for his God who is he's going unto in prayer, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: For the enemies or sorry, for the enemy hath persecuted my soul, he hath smitten my life down to the ground, he hath made me to dwell in darkness as those who have been long dead.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Verse four it says, Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me, my heart within me is desolate.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the days of old, I meditate on all thy works, I muse on the works of thy hands, I stretch forth my hands unto thee, my soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Saila.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Such similar language, is it not?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Different circumstance, different time and chapter in his life, but yet he still has enemies.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: He still has persecution.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's still troubles in his life.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be troubles in our younger life, in our middle-aged life, and those troubles are gonna be different, but really they're gonna be the same.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be the symptoms, symptoms of the very fact that we live in this sin-cursed world, and there's things against the children of God.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there's there's even suffering that we'll we'll undergo in Christ for Christ's sake.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: That we suffer it for his very name's sake.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he's told us that, and he's promised that in this life you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I have overcome the world.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've overcome the world.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Second thought I'd like to think about this morning.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: We were thinking about that that picture and that image, and and I believe that I can identify with that place that David found himself in of feeling overwhelmed, overwhelmed by the things of life, of the chapters of life that we go through, the troubles, the enemies, the persecution, the suffering for Christ's sake, the symptoms of the very fact that we live in this world.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, the other word that we can consider this morning is the word overruled.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: That we have a Savior who overrules the things that would overwhelm the child of God.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: The very thought of the word overruled is some, it's it's a it's a it's a meaning of having power that supersedes something else that it feels very powerful.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Something that is very weighty, overruling is coming and superseding that, taking the place of and removing it out of the way.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Your God is an overruling God.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: He is of the greatest sovereign power that there is, and his power overrules the things that overwhelm the child of God, that are heavy on us, that weigh on our souls.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Your Lord overrules them.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we have not only a few examples in his word, but it is the consistent theme throughout all scripture.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is the consistent theme in your experience and in my experience that we find ourselves in dark, cold caves of this world.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: That we find ourselves in 143, he's not in a physical cave.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: I believe he's in a maybe an emotional and then mental dark place.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I can't help but think when he's going through this time, that his mind went back to 142 when he wrote that song.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: When he wrote about that experience, he's like, man, the the the years have gone on, but here we are again.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here it's like full cycle, and now my son is after me.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: My my father-in-law was after me.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now my all over this place of power and and control over the kingdom.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now my son's after my life.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: But yet he knew that he had a refuge, that he had a place, and he went to that same one who would hear his voice, hear his supplication, know that need, and be the only one who could deliver to that exact need that he had.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, he says, Hear me speedily.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you, your Lord hears you speedily.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hear me speedily, O Lord, my spirit faileth.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 8, we start seeing.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the things that he knows and that you know and that I know your Lord can and does do for us.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord's actions, these are the overruling actions of our Lord.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: For in thee do I trust.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Cause me to hear.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Cause me to know the way within I should walk.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: For I lift up my soul unto thee.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: I flee unto thee to hide me.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Teach me to do thy will, for thou art God.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thy spirit is good.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Lead me into the land of uprightness.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And quicken me, O Lord, for thy name's sake, for the righteousness' sake, bring my soul out of trouble.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: He lists right there, I don't remember how many that was, seven or eight different things.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Cause me to hear, cause me to know, deliver me, teach me, lead me.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: These are the things that we don't find within our own selves.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: These are the things that we find empty on this side of us.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: But when we look up, we'll find one who does do all of these things for us.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: We feel overwhelmed, and it's like we look for help, and there's nothing here, but there's one thing that we can look to an answer that will overrule the places where we feel overwhelmed, and that's God who does these things for us in every time and in every circumstance.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's always following the same pattern, is that God comes and intervenes in the situation.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, better to say this, he's always there.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's always there before the trouble, while we're in the trouble, and after the trouble.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's always there.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: But we see him working, we see and experience him moving in our lives, and we we know that he's the one who's causing us to hear his word and hear him tell us it's all gonna be okay.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here with you.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: That still small voice that reminds us and comforts us that he'll never leave us, never forsake us, that he um he knows the very states that we're in.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he causes us to know that.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: He delivers us through all the trials that we go through and tells us about it, and that we might understand and be strengthened in our patience and our experience, that we might have a continued strength and hope, looking forward to him.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: He teaches us those things.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this quicken me.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: I like this thought.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Quicken me, O Lord.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: This does not mean quicken me to uh a life from dead in trespasses and sins to a life in Christ Jesus.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: He does that by his work, and we are um once that happens, work, that's done.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: This quickening me is like a reviving of my emotional and spiritual state.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like he talks about being um like being dead in um this hard, dark, cold cave.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's like he's just expired.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: That overwhelming state, it's like he has nothing left within him, but God can quicken him or bring him out of that just really bad place that he's in, reviving him, strengthening him.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name's sake.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he gets down there and says, And of thy mercy cut off mine enemies and destroy all of them that afflict my soul, for I am thy servant.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: He knows that of where he stands, and that is the servant of the Most High God.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And as he goes through these troubles in his life, he has one place and one place only to look, that is refuge, and that is his Lord.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um that should, and I believe is, our pattern.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: When we're going through our troubles in our life, through our trials, through our dark caves that we're in, you have the same place that David has, and that's God, and God alone, who hears, delivers, and um reminds us and teaches us that there is no other place to go but Him.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let's we'll spend a few minutes thinking of um that pattern as it goes through Scripture of how the Lord uh will take an overwhelming thing and will overrule it by his power because that is consistent with how he operates in that manner.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Go to the very um beginning of scripture, um, and we find Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and God making Adam good and very good, and by disobedience of one man, Adam, he found himself plunged into death and a sentence of death and sin in this world with a consequence not only on himself but of this world.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Adam, in just a very moment, where did he find himself?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: He found himself overwhelmed, nowhere to turn, and he felt that nowhere to turn.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: He knew that he was naked in that garden.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: He knew that he was exposed and helpless.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: He had no help of anything, and he just felt open and exposed and just in that place.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what did he try to do?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: He tried to hide, but he knew that he couldn't hide.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: He felt overwhelmed by that.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the pattern follows: He had an overruling God who would show forth the first um that sacrifice of that animal that he might clothe Adam and Eve's neckedness.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Their overwhelming state that they were, God overruled it by the sacrifice of one and covered there.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's an overruling that they experienced there at even the very first couple chapters of scripture.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think about Jonah.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Jonah was in a dark place.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: I often have thought about that those those days that Jonah felt when he had disobeyed his God sometimes are overwhelming that that I go through, that I've gone through in my life, that state of feeling just so low, was because of my waywardness, because of my turning away from the direction that my Lord has told me you're gonna go that way.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm like, no, I got I got a better idea, and I'm going wayward from him.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the Lord, by his mercy, um Jonah found some overruling that happened.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: That he even prepared that great fish.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as he was cast over into the sea, that that the great fish swallowed him up and he spent three days.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: How low of a place that was for Jonah, for the prophet that he in all his time, how how low, not only like I think physically he must have gone low in the in the belly of that great fish, down to the deepest depths, but I think emotionally and spiritually, mentally, he was in a dark, low place.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think as dark as that was, I think David felt that same lowness in the cave.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And when he was running from Absalom, we shouldn't compare our dark, cold places.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: We'll say this the answer's always the same.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: The trouble will happen, the answer is still the same.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yet Joe Jonah was in that place, and uh I can just imagine uh the constraint that he was in that place, the the awfulness of the environment, uh, with the seaweed just wrapped around his head and just probably went through all kinds of mental anguish.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, by the end of it, the Lord, by his grace and mercy, would give Jonah some clarity of thinking.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: That he would he would be in this place of prayer.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Jonah was in prayer when he was in that dark place of praying to God who was in heaven, who would hear his prayer from even the darkest, deepest depths of the sea.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Jonah would come to the realization that salvation comes from nowhere else, from no one else but God.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Salvation is of the Lord.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: And God, by his power, would cause that great fish to bring Jonah up out of that the depths of that dark place, of that dark state of being, and he would vomit Jonah out onto the very uh land, and he would go and preach that word to Nineveh that they might repent and turn to the Lord.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: What a fitting example of how one individual would feel so overwhelmed with no help of themselves, no help of this world, turning aside and just saying, I can almost retreat, but God would overrule it by his power.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And not only he would overrule it by his power, but he would overrule it with understanding again that he would he would see that it was God who saves the sinner.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think in the New Testament, man, there's so many great examples.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: One of uh the episodes that I've I go to often is thinking about an individual, um a woman who was caught in a very act of adultery, and uh there was those that that brought her to like to be um like judged and and then ultimately that she would be uh declared guilty, and then they would by the law they would stone her to death.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: They she wasn't denying the fact that she was caught and and she felt in that place as those that were gathered around her ready to take up stones and stone her and execute the very uh sentence of death upon her, the sins that she had committed.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, she was guilty of that sin.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, she knew that she was in in um guilty and there was there was no defense for herself.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: They would bring her before Christ and um he would make it clear that if there's any individual here that is without sin, let that individual first cast a stone at her.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And one by one, as he knelt down and wrote into the ground, into the dirt of the ground, one by one they went away.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And by the end of all that, Brother Cooper, you know who was left to have the right to cast judgment upon her?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was only one, and it was Christ Himself.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: He would uh ask unto the woman, Um, Woman, where are thine accusers?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: And she would say, There are none.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Neither do I, go and sin no more.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why I believe that um sticks in my mind a lot of times is I think it so perfectly sums up my experience that I know my sin, I feel my shortcomings, I know that there's no righteousness in and of myself outside of his imputed righteousness.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I when I focus in on me, I feel overwhelmed because I know that as Paul, the Apostle Paul, would claim that that title of the chief of sinners, I'm like, hold up, Paul.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know me, and I just feel empty.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: I feel helpless.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: I feel overwhelmed by my sin.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: I have no defense.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's only one thing that I can claim, and it's the song uh that we sing, mercy is my only plea.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I have but one defense, and it's mercy.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's that I have one who's who stands in my stead.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: There is the overruling that this woman uh finds, and it's the one who has knelt down, writing in the ground, and says, Neither do I.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: He overrules that that that sin that she finds herself in, that that um sentence of neither do I, go and sin no more to me.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: He sees me, God sees me through the uh finished work of Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: And following that up so beautifully, now go and sin no more.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Go and attempt to walk as good examples and disciples of Christ, examples of light in this world.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: That must have been an overwhelming um experience followed by her going away different, knowing that her Lord was there on her behalf and for her.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's a dark um chapter in Peter's life that I believe stuck with him to the very end.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: I believe as he as Peter hung on the cross crucified upside down, I can't help but think that there was a remembrance of the time when he had promised, he had, he had he had boldly stated that he would even go to death for Christ.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: He he was a follower and he loved Jesus and he told him I'd even go to death for you.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: But then as they took Christ and He would be put under judgment and all those things, um what he would experience was exactly what Christ had told him was going to happen.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Peter, before the um cock crows twice, you will deny me thrice.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Christ told him would happen.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter found himself denying the Lord in that hour, in that hour when Peter was in a place that he was pretty confident and bold and saying, No, I'll go to death for you, he had denied him.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, pretty forcefully denied him.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then he did it a second time, and he did it the third time, and then he heard that cockrow, and he knew.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Just for a moment, allow your minds to be that place where that that deep uh condemnation that I we feel in our minds of having the times that's overwhelming.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there is nothing, there's there there's no answer for it.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's just helpless.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: But Christ would show his overruling love for Peter, and I believe he does that there on the shore after Christ rose from the grave and showed himself unto his disciple.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: I believe when he was there on that shore, when he would uh have that conversation with Peter, do you love me more than these?
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he asked him that three times, three times, do you love me?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter says, Lord, you know I love you.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um feed my lambs, feed my sheep, feed my sheep.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was a sweet chapter in Peter's life where he was able to be brought out of such a low place that he was in.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Such a guilty place that he was in when he knew that he had done the exact thing the Lord told him he would do in denying him, when he had committed himself to follow the Lord, he found himself denying him, and the Lord would overrule that by by giving him that sweet um message.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do you love me?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Feed my sheep.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: To entrust Peter to feed his sheep.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Paul had an overwhelming experience in that he was uh given a messenger, messenger of Satan to buffet him in a thorn of the flesh, and we don't know what that thorn was.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: But nonetheless, Paul had a trouble that that was so much for him that he continually went to the Lord in prayer three times, praying, Lord, please remove this trouble, this thorn, this thing that um afflicts me.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, remove it.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now I believe the Lord had the power to overrule it in the manner of which he would remove the thorn.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord had that power to overrule it in the way that maybe the apostle Paul would hope that he would have overruled it.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: I believe the apostle Paul believed that the Lord could could remove that thorn and overrule in it that way, but uh what he finds is that the that was not the will of the Lord, but rather that the Lord would give him an understanding that the grace that the Lord had for um that he would give Paul to endure that, to live with that, to walk with that, whatever that thorn was, he would tell him that my grace is sufficient for thee.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you this is the answer of the Lord that his grace is sufficient through our trials, through our tribulations, that we're able to endure that trouble and continue on, and that he'll give us grace to be able to stand and to continue.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is that an overruling power?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: I submit to you, it absolutely is, because it's not a non-answer.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: My grace is sufficient for thee, that this is the way it's going to go, it's not saying just deal with it.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what the answer is of grace, my grace is sufficient for thee.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: I believe the answer of my grace is sufficient for thee is I am literally giving you the strength to endure it.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: I am literally giving you the power and the courage and the comfort to go on with it.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is an overruling power, and the answer is when the answer is my grace is sufficient for thee.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think about uh the scripture that talks about where sin did abound, grace did much more abound.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds a lot like where sin did overwhelm, grace did much more overrule.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's not one-for-one.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: It is a much more power.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a much more strength.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's coming directly from God and through him to us through our trials, and he is with Paul, and he is with us, and we ought to pray.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: We need, uh we're in our the best place for us to pray, Lord, if it be thy will.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: Does he have the power to deliver in the way that we would hope or we would think?
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, but he his ways are always better than our ways, and his grace, if that's the answer, it that's an overruling power.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's an overruling answer to that prayer.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Our troubles are great in this life, and at times they can and do overwhelm the mind and the spirit and the stance of the child of God, and it and it it challenges our very faith as we go through these things, as we're going into them, as we're in the middle of them.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, we're in a place where we can be low and we find ourselves slipping and sliding even lower than that, and we get to that place where you're like, man, I feel rock bottom of this thing, and there's nowhere I can turn.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, it's like this is the end of it.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: There, that's not the end of it.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's um there's always always has been through that trial, and at that very moment that you have an overruling power in God who right now sits on his throne and is in charge of all of it, who has all that power.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: So let us be in those times, whether we're in them right now, whether we just went through them, right?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Whether your loved one's going through them, where maybe, well.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: It gets us in a place where we're like, Lord, I could take it it's a sweet deliverance that they not suffer.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: And at the moment of that deliverance, that is the greatest, sweetest, overruling gift.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: They might be overwhelmed.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: We are going to be in a place where I pray that we don't mourn as those who have no hope.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: We are people who have hope and trust and know that He take Him.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Be with them at that very moment.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: That they'll be in glory and see their Savior.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's a comforting thought unto the child of God.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Our trials in this life, through the episodes, through the seasons, I'm telling you, if you haven't had that overwhelming feeling, you will.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's the world that we live in.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: But as David's answer and Jonah's answer and Adam's answer and Paul and Peter and on and on, it's consistently the same.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: We have a refuge in God who overrules the things of this world.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Christ says, Be of cheer, I have overcome the world.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, sin is something that has overwhelmed the child of God collectively in this life.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: That has been valleys of darkness.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: But he tells us that he walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we are now, is the overwhelming world that we don't find any refuge in and of this world.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: But he walks with his sheep through that valley.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he leads us by the still waters, and he causes us to sit in the lush grass and to eat of his pasture and for him to keep us safe and to tend to the sheep.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: See, he tells us, you're in this valley of the shadow of death, but I'm right there with you, and I'm your shepherd.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: And as we go through this overwhelming life, through this overwhelming experience in this world, we have one who not just one day will overrule this experience, but he already has.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: When your Savior, when your Lord has uh conquered death, hell, and the grave by his work on Calvary's cross, what he did was he overruled sin in its very self.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: The apostle Paul talks about that.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: He comes to that crescendo as he as he goes through that.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: He says, death where it is thy sting.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: Death has lost all of its overwhelming power that has brought a fear and heaviness into the child of God, for he has overruled it by his death on Calvary.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: He has rescued us out of that dark, cold cave of death, hell in the grave.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: Out of that pit, he has reached down by his strong right arm, and he has stretched it forth, and he has brought us out of that dark place.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: That each one of these examples, and even through our experience, he brought us out of that death pit and rescued us unto a life in Christ Jesus and to a place where we stand right now, um, holding without blame before God in heaven.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: He sees you right this very moment through the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: He sees you as righteous because of where we are.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: We are in his son, and you have an inheritance laid up for you in heaven of mortal glory.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: What an overruling power that that is for the child of God.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: What a hope that we have in heaven that we know in one sweet and final day, your um Savior Jesus Christ, with his own power will come and he will put down this world.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: See, it it that this um it's not a continued battle back and forth.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: He has already won the victory, and he has made us more than conquerors through him.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Through him who loves us, who guides us, who is our refuge, and that gives us the very comfort and consolation.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is there another overwhelming season of your life?
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: Probably.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, probably.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: How good it is for us to know and rehearse these things, to look up, to go to him in supplication, to pray without ceasing, to draw comfort in knowing that He is our only overruling power through our troubles.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um my prayer is this has been good and comforting to you.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's always my prayer, is that the words that I give will be comforting.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um there God is consistent in the way that He deals and handles and delivers His children.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's been my experience.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that that resonates with you.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you uh have benefited from that, give God all the honor, the glory.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh if you desire to join with Grace Church, um when we start singing and shaking hands, all you have to do is come forward and ask for a home in the church and we'll wait upon you.