Life?s Ups and Downs - Part 2

Going tonight and we want you like a runaway train rod you can think of birth it's never out of control and sicken you will not want to get along well. Poor Dr. David Jeremiah offers a welcome reminder that God is always with us, just as he was working driving through the highs and lows of his life. This listener is the conclusion of this message lives ups and down. And thank you for joining us today would have been making the case for the title of this message being very appropriate for where we are because every day is different. One moment, were up. The next moment were down and we wonder if this is ever going to smooth out and get straight again. I know it will you know well, but in the midst of it. God has a word for us and that word particularly today is from Psalm number 30 so get your Bible right now were going to go back to part two of life's ups and downs. It's from Psalm 30 and we will finish up some 30 days teaching session for somebody.

The second God raises them up. It's just as much their responsibility to praise God for the healing as it was for them to pray for the healing in the first place. And I know that for many of you. You pray for those who been ill but have you always been careful to give praise to God when he has healed. And sometimes when the healing comes the pressures often we forget were so careful to say Lord if you do this I give you price but then we don't often do it. So David exhorts the people sing praise to his saints and give thanks to God and remember his goodness because of his healing. Now you see the first contrast is one of going from hurting or ill health, to healing and it's kind of a long way between the two.

He goes secondly to another contrast from hurting to healing and now from leaping to joy.

Notice what verse five says it says weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning from weeping to join up most of the time, weeping and joy don't go together. I noticed one exception, and that is that sometimes women cry when they're happy I don't understand that completely. But I've seen them sans you know what I'm trying to figure that out. I can understand it but most of the time. Weeping goes with sadness and joy goes with gladness and David Knaus talking about this big chasm that exists between the ups and downs of weeping and joy and you know you can experience those things in just a moment of time. You can be filled with joy. One moment, and in tears. The next because events change and things happen. I want you to notice two things about this little expression this little contrast between weeping and joy. First of all, this is an everyday truth. This doesn't even necessarily have to come from the Bible to be true, but it is true it's good common sense that when a person is going to a difficult thing you can usually say to that person with meaning and not be false in doing it. You know what, it's not going to be like this forever. Just hang on. It's going to get better. Just hang on, you'll get through this. One of the great verses of the Bible which is been a bit misinterpreted with this little phrases but I like this misinterpretation. Some guy was asked what his favorite verse in the Bible was and he said his favorite verse in the Bible was this and it came to pass income this day came to pass, no less, the way it is. A lot of people think you know when you go through trouble.

It's forever, but the Bible says weeping comes in the nighttime, but joy comes in the morning and it is true. This is an everyday truth and I see this all the time as a pastor sometimes when were paying tribute to someone that we've love to. It's gone on to be with the Lord, and you look at the sadness and the faces of the family members and you think it'll never ever be all right with them within a year later. So you see that somehow God is healed over the open wound and is brought back some gladness and joy. I was talking with a pastor friend of mine just recently just gone through some tragic things with one of their children and his wife said. I looked at my husband the other day and I said I wonder if will ever smile again.

Some of you been through her so awful that you actually wondered if you'd ever be able to smile again because it hurt so much.

At that moment in time but you know what, generally speaking, God restores it and you move through that time of weeping and God brings back the joy he just has a way of healing.

But you know this is not just an everyday truth.

This is an eternal truth and I want to explain this to you because this is a precious thought. How many of you remember in reading the Old Testament account of creation, that the Bible says something if you think about it this rather strange. After describing the creative work every day. The Bible says this and the evening and the morning were the first day know what's wrong with that class is not upside down is that backwards isn't it morning and evening is the first day, but in God's calendar. It's not like that in God's calendar. He says it's the evening and the morning. That's the first day and you know what, there's a wonderful little practical thought there. If you just grab hold of it. How many of you know that if you start the day the night before and the thought process in the planning process and the thinking process.

The next day will always go better if you sit down at night and read just a little bit from the word of God before you go to bed, look over the things you're going to do the next day and say Lord. These are the thoughts that I have is I look at tomorrow and just bless them you know will happen, you go to bed that night, God will organize those things in your mind while you're sleeping and you get up the next day in the evening in the morning will be the day I think it's important to start early with God. But maybe we should start even earlier. Maybe we should start the night before. But here's the precious truth about eternity right now you and I are living in the evening time of life. But the Bible says there's going to be a morning that Dawn will someday and all of the sorrow and the sadness and the difficulty that we have known in our nighttime of life is going to be all gone. In the dawning of that new day when the Lord comes back. And just like when he returns there's not going to be anymore ups and downs. There's not going to be anymore weeping in sorrow, difficulty, and challenges was going to heal every hurt, take away every sickness and restore every blemish and there is going to be joy in the morning.

Weeping may be ours for now and it is probably artisan that's right for the wonderful thing that God so here's this contrast from weeping to join. I noticed the third one this every day. Eternal truth is followed in the text by number three and that is from prosperity to poverty. Notice what David says in verse six. Once again he takes us on this roller coaster experience.

He says now in my prosperity I said I shall never be moved Lord by your favor. You have made my mountain stand strong you hit your face and I was in trouble. Not if I can take this out of the new King James language and just put it down in practical terms what David is saying is this, I look back on my life and there was a time in my life when I was very prosperous and the foolishness of his prosperity is illustrated in what he said at such a time.

Watch carefully and look at your Bibles.

He said in my prosperity I said watch this.

I shall never be moved to.

In other words, I have now become invulnerable. Nothing can touch me. I am so prosperous that I am now in control of my life. You say what a foolish thing that you know what that is where a lot of people get when they get very wealthy. They get to the place where they think you know I've got my life in control of got all the money I'll ever need and nothing can touch me, but then how many of you know the cycle that goes people giving up their health to get their wealth and when they get their wealth they have to get there wealth to get their health back. You know I got goes like that doesn't, but you know it's kind of foolish isn't it to think that prosperity would make you totally and perfectly secure and yet that's what David said and it reminds me of first Corinthians 1012 where we read led him to think if you stand take you lest he fall. What a foolish thing to thank you because you have resources that you are perfectly safe.

You get one phone call from the doctor to blow that right out the window not I'm not against having what you need and not being successful. What you do with the whole point of it is if you think that makes you safe from any of the ills of life.

You just not thinking straight. I'm reminded of a man in the Old Testament who got this mixed up pretty good. His name was Nebuchadnezzar and he was the king of Babylon the great empire of the Babylonians and one day according to the book of Daniel. He was walking through his palace.

Daniel chapter 4 verse 29 and he was walking through the palace and babbling, and this is what he said watch this.

And the king spoke, saying, is not this great battle, and that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my Majesty and while the word was still in the king's mouth, a voice fell from heaven saying King Nebuchadnezzar to you, it is spoken, the kingdom has departed from Hartford that he was walking along and just monitoring everything is as you know, this is what I built what I did I do this you know what I did for me and do it for anybody else I did for my Majesty and while the word was in his mouth. Kevin spoke and said, you just lost the king and son it's over and you remember the rest of the story, God wasn't finished with Nebuchadnezzar because he was going to use them as an illustration for all of us. And if you don't believe the store you go back and read in the book of Daniel, because this is really in the Bible.

Nebuchadnezzar became the world's first Wolfman. Did you know that he was translated into a Wolfman so that he spent the next seven years eating grass out of the field like a beast. Guess what happened at the end of seven years. He was restored just as the prophecy had been told I want to read to you what he said. Daniel 437 now I Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven. All of those works are truth, and his ways justice and watch this and those who walk in pride he is able to put down right on King Nebuchadnezzar meeting anyone to write what he learned that coming seven years of eating grass got a teacher something right and here. How is that what he had learned was that when you get puffed up with who you are. Prosperity God can bring you down in a moment, and David's talking about that very thing going from prosperity to poverty and one day the ups and downs of life. Did you know there's a wonderful prayer in the Bible and was going through this in for free. It's a wonderful prayer that maybe all of us to pray more and I think about this prayer once in a while and I need to remind you of it often. It's found in Proverbs chapter 30 verses eight and nine and this is what it says remove falsehood and livestock for me. Now watch this. Give me neither poverty nor riches feed me with the food allotted to me, lest I be full and deny you and say who is the Lord or lest I be poor and steel and profane the name of my God is and that an interesting prayer. It's a prayer for balance and in our world today. It would be simply this, Lord me everything that I need everything you blessed me with.

That won't get in the way of my relationship with you. But don't give me any more than that. Because it's not worth having the things of this life if they end up keeping you from knowing God and having eternal life forever and ever. The contrast of prosperity and poverty. Let me give you forth when that's in the Psalm. The contrast from morning to dancing. Verse 11 watch this. David says you have turned for me my morning into dancing. You have put off my sackcloth and called me with gladness in verse 11 is one of the main reasons why scholars believe that this Psalm goes with second Samuel because let me tell you the rest of the story of bringing back the ark to remember that story David's coming back into the city with the ark of the covenant and he's got the band playing and people rejoicing and he's wearing his clerical rolled his linen E fonts, as the Scripture and then the Bible says this, that David danced with all his might before the Lord and you know what, that's a really troubling passage to a lot of people and I spent a lot of time in that Old Testament text and I looked up the word danced and you know it means. It means, danced, but I want to tell you this wasn't dancing socially. This wasn't dancing, line dance or whatever they do in the country-western stuff.

This was David dancing before the Lord in exhilaration is what God had done.

He just got so overwhelmed with God's blessing and the beauty and majesty that moment that he couldn't contain himself.

David went from morning and wearing sackcloth to dancing in the robe of gladness is a life full of ups and downs. His life overwhelmingly a life of extremes.

Some days it is almost more than you can handle in the context of 24 hours the extreme emotions that we go through and then there's one last window cover quickly.

It's in the last verse, and that is from silence to singing to the end that my glory may sing praise to you and not be silent. This is a reminder of how many of us keep silence in spite of the fact that God has blessed us so much and the great lesson here is the lesson of God's wonderful blessing upon us when things are going well, and yet God is still there when things aren't going so well.

God is in the room when you get news of some great accomplishments on the Lord. But God is also in the hospital room when you get news of some difficult situation that you have to face is always with you in the ups and downs and that's why the things that were told to do here at the end of the song is whether it's up or down work to praise God. Notice all my God, I will give thanks to you forever if you go back in your Bibles to the fourth verse. The thing is said again sing praise to the Lord you Saints of his and give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name, but one thought that you don't want to lose from Psalm 30 is this what you're going through, weeping, or joy, give thanks to God one here in time or downtime, give thanks to God. If you're experiencing prosperity or poverty thanks to God. If you're in times of dancing or morning. Give thanks to God. Don't ever forget that the one constant in all of it is that God is there. He understand, don't be afraid when you're in the pit to lift up your hands and your voices to God and said I don't understand is going to give you price and I give you thanks one of the things that happens to us when we go through a downtime is that we forget all of the other things that are good, you know, we lose a loved one in death and is the most difficult thing and it often times when that happens, God has left us with others to comfort and encourage your hearts and we need to give thanks we start giving thanks to God. He puts it in perspective. You know all the things about life that I have the hardest time with.

It's this cycle stuff this up-and-down stuff and I just get myself gearing up for a good you know a good run and then something happens that turns it in another direction. I've got to learn and I think God is teaching me. Maybe he's teaching you that all of these things are for his glory and his purpose and he's got a reason why he allows the things into our lives.

The sometimes we don't understand. I feel a lot better about this after reading something that I want to share with your closing. I'm not much of a scientist, though, I'd like to read the accomplishments of scientists, but I learned something that is one of the most amazing stories that I've ever heard from the animal kingdom. One of the most unique animals that God ever created is the giraffe a strange looking creature is I don't know if you've ever read about the birthing of giraffe caps, but I want to tell you that story as we close, I read this and something written by a guy named Jerry Richmond and I'll read it tell you and some of it in his words, but I don't think you forget this because I know I never will. He been invited to a zoo where they had a captive giraffe that was about to give birth, so that he could watch the process. He said the moment we had anticipated was not a disappointment. A calf, a plucky male hold forth, falling 10 feet and landing on his back. The mother giraffe gives birth to its young standing up and the distance from the birth canal to the ground is about 10 feet now I don't know if you know how high that is. But that's how high you have to jump if you can dunk a basketball so this calf fell out of its mother 10 feet above ground and landed on its back and it lays there for a few moments and then according to the story it scrambles over and gets up on its legs with its legs underneath it so that it can look out and see what's going on. Well, the mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look.

Then she positions yourself, though, so she standing directly over the calf. She waits for about a minute and then she does this most unreasonable thing I listen to this. She swings her pendulous leg outward and kicks her baby so that it is sense falling head over heels on the ground. Gary turned to the zoologist he said let's howl about will zoologist said she wanted to get out and if it doesn't get out. She's going to do it again and sure enough, the process was repeated again and again and the struggle to rise was momentous, and as the baby grew tired of trying the mother would again stimulate its effort with a hearty kick amidst the chairs of the animal care staff. The calf stood up. Finally, for the first time wobbly for sure, but there it stood on its little spindly legs. Then we were struck silent when the mother kicked it off its feet again and Gary's friend was the only one not astonished by the females brutal treatment of the newborn calf she wants it to remember how it got up. He said that's why she knocked it down again in the wild. It would need to get up as soon as possible to follow the herd not listen carefully. The mother needs the herd to for safety because out there. There are lions and hyenas and leopards and hunting dogs, all that would enjoy having a young giraffe for dinner and they get it to the mother didn't teach her baby so quickly to get up and get on with it and I'm reminded that one of the reasons we have some of the challenges in our lives is that God toughening us up and preparing us so that we don't get chewed up by those things out there that are really trying to destroy us. I don't know if you've ever felt it but I felt the foot of the Lord on an occasion kicking me back and saying you know, get with it preparing you toughening you up the ups and downs of life are not always just happenstance.

Sometimes God brings those things into our life for a purpose. You might strengthen us and make us the kind of people that he can trust and use in the days that are before us. I'm glad my father is more gentle than the giraffe.

But nonetheless, he's the one often who was behind the ups and downs of our life.

And the thing that so precious about that is he's always there, so give him praise saints. Don't be afraid to lift your heart and say Lord I don't know what this is all about I give you praise and I thank you. You're up to something God and I don't need to know what it is right now but I give you praise one day you'll be up on your feet walking protected when the moment comes that you needed to learn some new words silently these days. Learn words like coronavirus I can say that right for several days, studied little bit and Kovic 19 flatten the curve flatten a curve shelter in place words that held no meaning only a few months ago I become signpost marking out a sobering new reality for all of us healthcare systems have stumbled retirements have crumbled on heard today that there is now 110,000 businesses that will not open ever again. They just never open again. They're done there finished the one certain foundations of modern society have cracked in ways we never thought possible, leaving us with many difficult questions.

Were you go.

When everything seems like it's falling apart. I have only one resource to suggest to you God and I have a special place in the word of God. I wanted to. It's called the Psalms. It's the songbook of the Old Testament. The writings of David the psalmist's wisdom cold out of the experiences of life very much like your experience in line of great message comes from Shadow Mountain Community Church with Dr. David Jeremiah serves as senior pastor is ministering to you. Let us know Turning Point PO Box 3838, San Diego, CA 92163 visit our website at David Jeremiah/radio cost shown on sure to encourage you in this unprecedented thought was you could also download the free Turning Point mobile app for your smart phone and tablet was searching the app store for the keyword Turning Point ministry exit program and resources to visit Jim on the radio. Gary, who join us tomorrow as we continue the series renewal calls upon Tehran to Jeremiah.

Thanks for taking time to listen to a friend. He's in question