Mike Bickle emphasizes the profound message of Psalm 23, particularly the idea that God prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. He explains that this table symbolizes God's provision and sustenance even amidst trials and adversities, encouraging believers to feast on God's goodness rather than focusing on their fears. Bickle highlights the importance of maintaining a close relationship with God through prayer and dialogue, especially during challenging times, as this connection leads to spiritual nourishment and victory over life's difficulties. He urges the congregation to actively engage with the Word of God and to recognize that their enemies are temporary, while God's goodness and mercy are ever-present and pursuing them.

Thank you, Clay. So, did you guys like it? I love Clay Edwards. Turn to Psalm 23. Father, we thank you for the Word of God. We ask you for your blessing, Lord, upon it. We ask you for the spirit of wisdom and revelation. We ask you for strength and might in the inner man, even now. In Jesus' name, amen. A couple weeks ago, while just sitting before the Lord, he spoke to me, paragraph A, a very, just a simple sentence. He said, I have prepared a table for you in the presence of your enemies. And I carried that in my heart every day. A couple weeks away, and meditated on that. And I knew it was a personal word for me, but I also knew it was a corporate word for the IHOP family. So, I came back and told Alan. He said, what did the Lord speak to you when you were away these last couple weeks? I said, well, several things, but very specifically, one sentence. I have prepared a table for you in the presence of your enemies. I go, you know, the well-known verse in Psalm 23, verse 5. And Alan, kind of his eyes got big. He goes, oh, that seems like there's an intense message in that. He says, that means the Lord's preparing us for enemies to rise up. And I, which I think that's right, but that didn't actually occur to me. I went, wow. I was thinking more of the table. I mean, for real. I was focused on the table. I went, and it's right to be focused on both. I said, but there is a message. Their enemies are, yeah, right, intense. But that's what the Lord's saying, is that I'm talking about not just our personal lives or IHOP as a spiritual family. I'm thinking of just our nation and the nations of the earth. The devil is raging, and he's mounting his attack against the body of Christ and just even against the nations in general. And the Lord's answer is, I have prepared a table for you in the presence of your enemies, right in eyesight of your enemies. I mean, now think about what that means. To be sitting at the dinner table, and you can see your enemy with an eyesight. That means they're close. So this isn't a future enemy. This is an enemy that's drawing near. That's what David was talking about. But the Lord, he was talking about how the Lord had prepared to feed his heart and to sustain him, to sustain him in the time of attack, where he would actually have victory and increase in his experience in God while in a time of attack to actually increase his experience and his encounter in God. He would grow in it. He would have more. It's an amazing thing that the attack comes, and our relationship with God is strengthened, and our experience of the Spirit is increased. Let's read Psalm 23. Most of you know it, but it's worth just going through just to kind of get the feel of it, and then we'll break it down just to make a few statements about each verse. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Paragraph B, for those that have the notes and those that want them, again, they're at a table at the back, and we always have them on the Internet as well. Psalm 23 is a description of David's experience in God. It's his confession before the Lord. David was called by God the man after God's own heart. So here we have the man after God's own heart opening his heart to us, and he lets us know how he talks to God and what God speaks to him about. I mean, Psalm 23 is a declaration of his faith, particularly in a time of trouble. It's how he lived before God. It's what he determined he would experience in God. There's about 10 or 15 different phrases, depending on how you group the phrases together, and they are confessions. They are statements that David made before God. They are statements we also speak against the attack of the devil when he comes against us. We say it is written, and we could speak any one of these 10 or 15 statements back to the devil. But we speak them to God. We declare before God how we understand we are to relate to him. So I want to encourage you to not allow Psalm 23 to be in just kind of a neat sentimental poetry kind of section in your thinking, like, oh yeah, Psalm 23, that's neat. That's for funerals. Everybody knows that one. It's almost like an Old Testament. It's almost like the Lord's Prayer in the Old Testament, meaning it's line upon line, very high impact statements that talk about our relationship with God at the heart level. I mean, as the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, every phrase is insight into prayer. Psalm 23 is very similar. Every phrase is insight into our prayer relationship and how we are to carry our heart before God. I want to encourage you to look at Psalm 23 as a must-read passage, a must-understand passage in your spiritual life. I want to encourage you to journal it. And journal, what I mean, journal it, is as you read it, keep a notebook and write down the phrases. As you say these phrases to God, like you'll just be reading and saying these phrases back to God because they're meant to be a confession of your heart to God. That's how David used them. He was actually revealing his heart confession. And as you speak these phrases back to God, the Holy Spirit will cause you to say them. Sometimes, I mean, a lot of times you'll just say them and you won't feel touched. But sometimes you'll feel a special touch when you say a sentence, when you're saying it back to God. Write that sentence down and use it over and over and over. Because as you speak it back to God, the Holy Spirit will, in a tailor-made way, help you understand what these passages, these verses mean to you in a very specific, tailor-made way, fit for your heart. And I tell you, it will enhance your relationship with God and your dialogue with Him. Now, when I pray through Psalm 23, I feel His pleasure. I don't mean every time. But I feel that He's looking at me, smiling, and He likes what I'm saying, that He likes that I'm agreeing with His heart in this way. I really feel His pleasure when I speak it back to Him line by line. And I believe, again, I don't every time, all the time, but I do many times. And I think that you will find the same thing. But have your pencil out or whatever your way to capture a key sentence that you say that has life on it so you can say it over and over to the Lord through the weeks and months ahead. Now, in these next couple days in our three-day fast coming up, I want to encourage you to take Psalm 23 for two hours at a time at a prayer meeting and just read it and say it slowly back to God. And as you say it to God, add some description of what it means to you. When you say, The Lord is my shepherd, add another phrase of what that means to you. And again, you'll feel the presence of the Lord many times in doing that. Paragraph D. Now, the psalm is broken down in two main parts. Verse 1 to 4. It's a revelation of the Lord as the shepherd of His sheep. And now, as the shepherd, He is the affectionate, attentive leader over His people. And so that's what David lays out in four verses. The affectionate leader, the attentive leader, the one who's paying attention with a heart connect. And then verse 5 and 6, the second part of the psalm, David presents the Lord as the host providing a meal for a friend, for an honored friend. So the Lord is our shepherd and the Lord is the host providing a meal or hosting a banquet for a dear friend. And so those are the two different ways of which we understand the Lord in Psalm 23. Let's go to the main verse that the Lord's highlighted to me. Each of the verses are so important. And we'll only have a chance to spend a minute on each one. Verse 5. David said, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil and my cup runs over. So I'm looking at the Lord as the host of the banquet. He's spreading a feast on a table before an honored friend. It's more than a guest. It's a friend. It's a dear friend. But the Lord greatly honors and you are that dear friend that He is going to put a feast on the table before you. And when the enemy gets within eyesight, I mean it's that close to you, the enemy is coming. The Lord will feed you in a way that will cause you to have victory at the heart level as well as in circumstances as well. But the most important issue when the enemy comes is what happens in our heart. Because when we give up and give in and we just yield to despair, we give the enemy so much more authority in our life. But if we stay connected to the Lord, we stay in a place of confidence, we stay in a place of talking to the Lord, the enemy doesn't look near so powerful. But if we lose our dialogue with the Lord and our confidence in the Lord when the enemy comes, the enemy has so much more impact negatively in our life. So it really matters what happens in our heart when the enemy approaches, when he's coming near, when we're in his very presence. Paragraph A. Now the practical theme of Psalm 23 is this theme of feasting on God. That's the real takeaway in this Psalm. I mean the Lord's providing many things, but the real practical thing to do is understand that we are to feast upon God, even under pressure. Now this table is within the reach of every single believer. Yet many believers are suffering from spiritual malnutrition. The Lord has spread the table in front of them. They study the menu, but they don't actually eat. They sit at the table. The Lord will not force feed us. He will not make us eat. We're at the table. He puts a banquet in front of us. He says, now you must choose to eat the food and to drink the cup. You must do that. I will not make you do that, but if you do do it, there will be an anointing that will flow upon you in your life, and your cup will run over. But again, many people, I mean they could be going to a Bible school like a number of you here, or in a place in a full-time ministry context where the Word is being taught in many places, and they have many hours to read the Word, and they have access to the Word, but they never actually assimilate it. They never eat the Word. They never digest the Word. They never take it into their spiritual life. It's kind of like going to a fine restaurant and reading the menu, but never ordering the food and eating it, being a connoisseur of the menu, but never actually eating the food. And many believers are like that. They've got a Bible. They carry the menu around. They talk about how great the menu is, but they don't actually talk to God and assimilate it. Now let's look at this here in paragraph 8. Now the way that we feast on God's tables and we connect with God, and I just got a key sentence here in paragraph 8. We do this by prayer-reading the Word, by fellowshipping with the Spirit, with a spirit of gratitude and confidence. Now those are simple ideas, but they're very important, all four of those ideas. We pray-read the Word, or we prayer-read the Word. And what I mean by that, when we read the Bible, whether we're in a prayer room or studying in another place, whatever, what I have as a real priority in my personal life is when I'm preparing a handout, a message, just studying for another reason. I try to always make room. I don't always, but mostly I do to stop intermittent while I'm reading. And the verse I'm reading, I speak it back to the Lord. I talk to the Lord about that verse. So it's not just a Bible study, but it's a conversation with the Lord in context to that Bible study. And if you take your Bible study and move it out of the place where you're not dialoguing with the Lord, then really what you're doing is you're storing up food in a warehouse. You're not actually eating it. And many people who are students of the Bible, they don't actually connect with the Lord much at the heart level. Bible knowledge is not the same thing as dialogue with the Lord, talking to the Lord. Now some people, they just go to a prayer room and they just talk to the Lord the whole time, which I think is great. But I want to encourage you that in your dialogue with the Lord, your prayer, you're talking to the Lord. Use the Bible as a conversation material because you're reading verse by verse through it. Not every verse will have conversation material in it, but many verses will. As you read a certain verse, you talk to the Lord. And the details of that, if that's a new idea to you on the website, I have some different handouts just breaking down the practical mechanics of how to prayer read the Word. In other words, you read the Word and you turn it into prayer, to conversation. It is the most important facet of my spiritual life. And yet, many believers, I just can't imagine living without doing that. But many believers study their Bible and they don't actually talk to God when they're in it, when they're studying. And I'm not saying that as a rebuke to them, I'm saying that as good news. And the good news is, if you will pause and talk to the Lord while you're studying, while you're doing your homework, you'll pause and say, I love you. And Lord, tell me about this. And I commit myself to you according to what this verse means. And Lord, touch me according to what you just said in this verse. I'm telling you, the Bible will come alive. Your heart will come alive. And the written Word and the living Word, we will find out they are the same, they are one. Well, we pray read the Word. Number two, we fellowship with the Spirit. We just talk to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in our spirit, but we talk to Him. But it's more than prayer reading the Word and talking to the Holy Spirit. And I'm just talking about talking to the Holy Spirit throughout the course of the day. The Holy Spirit is like a burning fire living in your belly. He's like a river, He's like a river, a fire, a light. Those are the different metaphors of the Holy Spirit. But He dwells inside of you. And I want to encourage you to just speak little sentences to Him. I don't mean it has to be an hour conversation, but just phrases through the day where you turn your attention to the Holy Spirit, living in your spirit, and just talk to Him as a friend. And then when you open your Bible, talk to Jesus, talk to the Father, talk to the Spirit. But do it with a spirit of gratitude. This is critical. With confidence as well, which we call faith. Spirit of gratitude is critical because a lot of people will talk to the Lord using their Bible, but they're mostly complaining. And a complaint has an element in the Bible. There is an element of a lament, of a complaint, but I'm talking about it's common to have a complaining spirit just bemoaning how everything is. And in essence, it's like, Lord, why aren't you leading my life a little better? That's in essence how it, that's how it comes across to the throne of heaven. Now that's not what we're saying, but that's what it means. Why aren't you leading my life better? Why are so many things bothering me and troubling me? And so with a spirit of gratitude, and I don't want to go into that right now, I just wanted to mention it, that when we prayer, read the Word, when we talk to the Holy Spirit, we have gratitude, and it's a dialogue that has a spirit of confidence in it, or faith. I'm telling you, your spirit will get built up. You will have a happy, buoyant spirit. I don't mean you're happy all day, every day, where you're just giddy all the time. That's not what I'm talking about. But you will have a, your spirit will be buoyant and vibrant. And you will not be thinking mostly of quitting or just yielding to sin or giving up or giving in. You will be daydreaming about being, going deeper in God. And that's the inheritance of every single believer. Every believer, but they have to feast at the table, not just sit at the table. They actually have to eat the Word in the way that I've just described. Very, very simple to do, but it must be done. Christianity is an ongoing relationship with a person. It's an ongoing encounter with a person. Christianity isn't just a mandate to go help people. Certainly, we do go help people, but it's an encounter with a person forever. Starts in this age, it goes on forever. Paragraph B, the Lord will not force feed us. He won't make us eat. He spread the table. He gave us the Word and He gave us the Spirit and He smiles over us. He has a happy heart towards us. And He says, I'll break in and help, but I want you to talk to Me. I want to relate to you. I want to have an ongoing dialogue with you. Now, when we feast on God in the presence of our enemies, we end up with victory over our fears and our anxieties. When we feast on God, our enemy looks different. When we feast on the Lord, our enemy looks different. Our enemy looks small and our enemy looks temporary. When we don't feast on God, but what we do, we feed our soul on our enemy. Our enemy looks powerful and permanent. And we end up with despair. It's like this problem's never going to go away. Whether it's a person or just a circumstance or an issue in your life, our enemy looks permanent and so powerful when we consume our thinking on our enemy. And that's what many do. They feed their soul on what the enemy's doing to them more than feeding at God's table. And it's critical that when the enemy rages and his increase and his attack even increases, it's critical that we eat more. We feed on the Lord more. Now, whatever we focus on is what we're feasting on. Whatever we're preoccupied with, that's what we're feeding our soul on. I mean, even if it's a problem, if it's an issue, a bondage in our life, we don't want to make that the primary point of our thinking. We want to feed on the Lord. The way that we get free of darkness is by turning on the light. We don't get free of darkness by staring at the darkness. You don't have, like if we, this room was dark, all the lights are off, you don't open the window and get buckets full of darkness and empty it out. The way you get rid of darkness is you turn light on. The way you get rid of bondage is by feasting on the Lord, not by staring at the bondage or staring, or maybe it's a person that is the enemy that's causing tremendous trouble in your life. Paragraph C. Now the enemy's close. He's within eyesight. He's in your very presence. You're right next to the enemy. Now the enemy could be pressures in society. I mean, our nation is just the acceleration of darkness. The enemy is raging. It could be people. It could be circumstances. In a kind of a simple definition, the enemy includes anything that hinders your connection with God. The enemy is anything that is seeking to hinder the will of God in your life from happening. Whether it's the mounting darkness in society, whether it's the earthquake, whether it's the famine, whether it's the drought, whether it's the person afflicting you, attacking you, whether it's an issue in your own soul, whatever it is, the enemy in just the most general sense is anything that's seeking to hinder your connection with God and to hinder the will of God in your life. Paragraph D. Now there are enemies that resist us. Now those are the ones that kind of create pain. They resist us. They're attacking us or they're resisting us in some way. It's people or circumstances. But there's a lesser enemy, but also, but this lesser enemy is very effective. It's the enemy that annoys us. So there's the resistance. You know, King David was being attacked by different people at different times in his life. There were actual people trying to kill him. So the resistance could be intense. But there's another enemy that's more subtle but very, very destructive to our spiritual life. It's the enemy that annoys us because both of them cause our heart, if we focus on them, causes our heart to disconnect from God. And when we disconnect from God, and I mean as believers, I don't mean disconnect where we deny the faith. That's not what I mean. Where we just kind of get preoccupied with our enemy. Or whether that's an enemy of resistance or just an annoyance. And it actually causes a disconnect. And this disconnect, it causes the assignment of God or the will of God in our life to be minimized. It hinders our ability to do the will of God. And of course, that's what the devil's after. And Luke chapter 10, just a moment on this. It's the story of Mary and Martha. And most of us know the story of Luke 10. I'll just summarize it. Jesus comes to visit their house. Martha, the older sister, is in the kitchen. And Mary is in the living room kneeling at the feet of Jesus, talking to him. So Martha is troubled. And she says, Jesus, tell my little sister to get with it and come help me. And Jesus surprises Martha and rebukes Martha. In verse 40, Luke 10, Martha was distracted with much serving. Jesus answered to her because she was saying, tell my little sister to help me. In verse 41, he said, Martha, Martha, you are so worried, number one. But number two, you're troubled. You're annoyed so easily. One translation says you're bothered easily. Now worried is one issue. Annoyed is a second issue. And those are separate issues. He says, Martha, the real issue is the way you carry your spirit with me. He says, verse 42, your sister Mary has chosen the good part. Now this passage is not about the people who serve in the kitchen versus the people who serve in the prayer room. That's not what this passage is about. The whole body of Christ is called to serve in the kitchen and the whole body of Christ is called to be in the prayer room. And what I mean is to have a prayer life. I don't mean they have to have a prayer room. The whole body of Christ is to be involved in serving. Everybody is. Everybody does the work in the kitchen. And everybody has a prayer life. That's not what the issue was. Jesus wasn't putting down the people who work in the kitchen. He really esteems them. It wasn't her serving. It's that she was serving with the wrong spirit. That was the problem. She was serving out of anxiety, out of just kind of a whole lot of emotional storm on the inside. And she was annoyed. She was, again, I like the translation, she's bothered easily. Everything bothered her. And Jesus is, you know, looking at Martha. Martha, you're so bothered you cannot see what is in front of you. I mean, what was in front of Mary? I mean of Martha? God in the flesh was in her living room. Now, I don't mean just the presence of the Holy Spirit. That's really good. I'm talking about the Genesis 1 God with a human body is sitting in her living room. And she's doing the dishes, making sandwiches. Now, God in the flesh is not in the living room of very many people in all of human history. It's like, Martha, sit down. Be quiet right now. I gotta get stuff done. Martha! God in the flesh is in your living room talking. Shut up. Sit down. Can't you see who's in front of you? I got sandwiches to make and nobody's helping. The dishes and the neighbors. And God in the flesh is right next to her. Mary goes, you know what? I'll do the dishes later. I'll mow the lawn. I'll do everything, but not this minute. I may never have a moment like this again ever. This is amazing. Because see, when we're bothered, when that enemy comes and we get annoyed, we can't see the activity of God, the goodness of God right in front of our eyes. We cannot see it. Yes, these people are doing all these annoying things, but there's so many good things happening around your life and the people. And everyone says, what about all that? I don't know. I'm so bugged by this. I can't even appreciate that. I can't see what you're doing in other situations, even through the lives of these people that bug me. I can't even see the goodness of God in what you're doing. I'm only annoyed. But that's a real enemy. Now, it's not gonna only just be annoyance. There are real enemies. There are people that will resist. And some of you have those kind of folks in your life right now, but that's gonna increase more and more. Top of page two. Paragraph E. David, when David feasted, feasted, is that right? Feasted? When he ate at the table, he experienced something. When his enemies were approaching, but he threw his heart into God, he experienced something. The oil of the Lord increased in his life. There's a spiritual principle. There's a manifestation of the presence of God increases in our life when the enemy approaches and we respond to God in a right way. There is actually, it's an opportunity in the spirit for great increase. Peter is the one that said it the clearest. But David was referencing this principle in verse five of Psalm 23 when he said, he anoints my head with oil. The spiritual principle, Peter captured it. Here it is in 1 Peter 4, 14. It says, if you are reproached for the name of Christ, people are accusing you, putting you down because you're standing for something in the Lord or for the things of God, you're blessed because the spirit of glory will rest on you. Beloved, there is a measure of the spirit of glory. There's a certain measure that only comes when we respond right under persecution. Now we can have the spirit of glory to a certain measure in our everyday life. But there's a extra measure that only comes when the resistance is there and you respond right. Now David was tapping into this. And this is really what the Lord was whispering in my heart a few weeks ago when he said, I'm preparing a table. I have prepared a table in front of you. I want you to feast on it. In other words, I'm giving you and this spiritual family called IHOP an opportunity to increase in the glory of God. But you have to feast when the enemy mounts up. You cannot retreat. You cannot feast on the enemy. You cannot feed on what the enemy is doing. You have to feed on what I'm saying and I'm doing. You must shift your focus. Your natural focus is to focus on the enemy. You must shift it and receive and feast upon me. If you do, there will be an increased anointing upon your life. There will be a spirit of glory that will touch your heart and it will flow through your life to touch others. David was experiencing that. That's what he's talking about. It's a strange thing because when resistance comes, when people are resisting you and trying to stop the will of God in your life and you respond in godliness and humility, it actually is an opportunity for your increase in the spirit of glory. It actually results in you increasing beyond what you could have if that enemy went out and attacked you. It almost makes you want to send out your newsletter asking people to attack you. Don't do that. They'll come on their own. But Peter said, you're blessed. There's an opportunity in the spirit. More happens that would not have happened if you were not resistant. But you have to feed. You have to respond right. That's the key. Because if we fret and just yield to the despair that the enemy represents, then what happens is our heart gets bitter. We get offended. We actually lose out in God instead of going forward in a great way. Paragraph F. My cup runs over. David was talking about a vibrant heart in God. A vibrant heart. Psalm 16, verse 5. David said this. He defined the cup. He said, oh Lord, you are the portion of my inheritance. You are my cup. The cup that David was talking about was his connection to the Lord and the Lord's promises to David's life. It was both the Lord and the Lord's provision or the Lord's promises. And David said, my cup isn't half full. It's overflowing. When the enemy is attacking and we are feasting on God and we're responding right, there's an increased anointing and we find out that our cup is full and it's above full. It's flowing over. It's not half full. A lot of folks, they don't actually use this language, but they kind of conclude they have a half cup of salvation. Enough to get to heaven when they die, but there's got to kind of live in spiritual boredom between now and when they die and go to heaven. And they're kind of doing the best. They've got a kind of a half cup salvation mentality. Let me tell you, you feast on the Lord, particularly in the time of trouble, you will find out the cup is not full. It's overflowing. There's more than meets the eye, but we have to engage with the Lord consistently even in the time of trouble. It's critical. Paragraph H. Now our confession. We want to... See, this is David's confession. The Lord has spread a table for me. He's prepared a table for me. That's what he said to God. Lord, you put a table... Actually, he's talking directly to God in verse 5. He said, you put a table in front of me. You feed me. The anointing increases. My cup overflows. I find out in my walk with you there's more that you're giving me than I understood. There's more than meets the eye. Wow! How much more is there? The Lord says, you just keep feeding on me. I mean, David is excited. Now, I just gave you a couple sentences just kind of to jumpstart you on your journaling of this passage, but you want to declare, Lord, I will feast on you. I will feast on you in the presence of my enemies. And there's a number of different statements you could make, but you want to journal these. You want to write them down, the ones that touch you when you say them. I mean, even in the next couple days in the prayer room. As you declare these, say them. And again, if some of them will fill a little bit of the Lord's presence, write those down and say those phrases over and over. I mean, I love to do this. It's exciting. You'll find out your cup isn't half full. It really is an overflowing cup. But you don't know till you get in the midst of the conflict and you give yourself to Jesus with a spirit of gratitude and confidence, you find out you had more than you knew. Roman numeral three. So let's start with the, just a couple phrases for each one of these lines. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Paragraph A. David says, describes the Lord's affectionate, and I want to add attentive leadership as a shepherd. But he's recognizing, he's consciously recognizing Jesus as the leader of his life. He's not just saying, Lord, you are my forgiver. That's not what the shepherd is. Although there is forgiveness. He's saying, I am consciously submitting to your leadership. I am consciously transferring the ownership of my life into your hands. This is a statement of lordship. You are the shepherd. I am the sheep. You provide the direction. I follow you. Now this is a big statement. Again, it's a statement of commitment to consciously transfer the ownership of your life into his hands. We're talking about your time, your money, your words, your sexuality, your future, your destiny. Lord, I will obey your direction. I am coming under your leadership. That's what the first confession is. And when the Lord is my shepherd, he gives the next statement. I shall not want. Paragraph B. I won't lack anything. When he says, I shall not want, I shall not lack anything necessary to accomplish the will of God or the destiny of God, the assignment of God in my life. I won't lack anything that's needed for me to do the will of God in my life, to fulfill the destiny. Beloved, the destiny of God is in God's hands and your hands. It's not in the hands of your enemy. That was one of David's biggest points when you study the life of David, 1 and 2 Samuel, which is such dynamic stories. One of the great themes of David's life, there's several main themes, is that David understood that the will of God in his life to be king, it was not in the hands of the devil or the hands of his enemies trying to kill him. The devil could not stop David. Saul could not stop David. The armies around Israel could not stop David. The only man on the earth that could stop David was David. This is true. There is not a human being or a devil can stop you doing the will of God. The will of God in your life, they could come and hinder for a moment. But you respond to the Lord, that season will pass, and you will have victory in that issue and that resistance. Nobody can stop the will of God happening in your life. The will of God in your life is not dependent on the leaders finally finding out how anointed you are and finally they get it. Or finally the mean guy stops. Or finally the money comes. It's not about money. It's not about leaders discovering you. It's not about the mean guy stopping. The will of God is in your hands, in God's hands. You respond to God. The will of God will happen in your life. You lack nothing when He is your shepherd. And David had so much confidence in that. God will give you the emotional strengthening and He will give you the circumstances to do the will of God. You don't have to wait and long for people to finally open doors for you. You don't need to do that. Now the Lord will open doors, but it's not in the hands of people. The Lord Himself will do that. When the Lord is my shepherd, I won't lack anything. I won't lack anything that pertains to me fulfilling the will of God. It doesn't matter how mad or how unaware people are. Not how mad the bad guys are, or how unaware the other guys are about what I should be doing. Your destiny is in God's hands and in your hands you are the only human being with the power to stop it. That's a major confession David's making. Psalm 23, verse 2. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. Now the green pastures, that's what the sheep ate, and the still waters is what they drank. So he's talking about feasting here. Now this is talking about feasting when everything is going good, pretty good. Now if we feast when things are, when we're in an easy season, if we feast on God, then we're much more likely to feast on God when the enemy approaches. But if we don't feast on God in the easier seasons of life, chances are we'll just yield to despair when the enemy draws near. David said the green pastures, that's what the sheep would eat, and then the still waters, that's what they would drink. You make me lie down. Now the sheep, David knew this well because he was a shepherd. Sheep lie down. I have this in paragraph B. Only when they're satisfied after eating and only when they're not afraid. Sheep will not lie down if they're hungry or they're afraid. Under normal circumstances, they will not lie down. They are such fearful animals that until they're secure, they can't lie down. I mean, Matt, if there's a flock of sheep, you know, there's about 20 of them over there, and some young, you know, just a young kid just comes running by, they'll all scatter. They'll just flee. You know, the shepherd, get them back together, say, hey, just a little guy. He didn't even notice you were there. The sheep, ah, he's gonna get us. If there's any disturbance, those 20 will just all just start running. They cannot lie down if they're not satisfied and they're not at peace, if they're not free from fear. And David said, when the Lord's my shepherd, he feeds me in a way I have the ability to rest on the inside. I have an ability to have confidence in God. He satisfies my spirit in communion with him and he takes the anxiety level where I could actually have confidence with God. That's what it means to lie down. I could be at rest. Top of page three, paragraph D, he leads me by still waters. Now, still waters, that's interesting because you might miss what David's point is. Sheep cannot drink from a fast flowing stream. If you bring the sheep up to a river that's flowing or even a brook that's fast moving, they can't drink from it. There's like no way. They'll just die of thirst before they will do that. The water has to be gentle or they cannot assimilate it. They can't go near it to drink it. And David's making a statement, not about, the statement isn't it's peaceful. That's not the point. The statement is that the Lord, his leadership is so sensitive that these timid kind of easily scared sheep, he will feed them, he will give them drink in a way that suits their ability to receive. The Lord will give us drink, which speaks to the ministry of the spirit. He knows he has to do it at the level we can receive it. That's what this still water means. It means if he gives the drink, the brand new believer, he says I can meet the need of your heart. I can give you what you can receive according to the need and according to your abilities. That's what he's talking about, the sensitive leadership of the Lord. Some people might say, well, I'm just so new in the Lord and the Bible doesn't make sense and none of them make sense. I don't get it. The Lord says, I'll lead you by still waters, meaning I will bring you drink that you can actually partake of. So it's really a statement about the Lord's sensitive leadership that he'll give us drink that we can actually assimilate. That's what it's really talking about. Because if you brought the flock of sheep to a rushing river, again, they would die of thirst. They could not assimilate it. The Lord says, I know who you are. I know your needs. I know what you understand. I know the language of your heart. I can touch your heart. I can give you the ministry. I can release the ministry of the Spirit in that way to you. Paragraph E. This is an important one. He leads me. Sheep are very dependent by nature. They have to be guided. If there is not a shepherd, they can't find food and water on their own and they will run into the wild beasts and they'll fall over cliffs. They really will. Left to their own, they will starve. They'll get stuck in the thickets. The lion will get them and they'll run and fall over a cliff they didn't know was there. They'll go running. Ah, there's a cliff. No, I mean, it will just, it's a disaster for their life. This is true though. This is true. They have to have a shepherd or they will lose their way. In Isaiah 53, the prophet Isaiah says, we are all like sheep who go astray by nature. By nature, we lose our way. All of us. I mean, there isn't a human being on the earth who does not by nature lose their way. And spiritually, we all by nature get disconnected with God. We disconnect from the food. We disconnect from the right path by nature. And what David was saying, it was a humility statement. He goes, I call on his leadership. I know I am prone to get out of alignment. I'm prone to lose my focus. Don't beat yourself up. That is the nature of a fallen human being. David said, I take that into account. I call on his leadership. Lord, you have to feed me. You have to lead me to the pastors to feed me. I need you to intervene and come and touch my life right now. I mean, if a man with David's experience knew that need for the intervention, the whispers of God to give direction to his life. Verse three, he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness. Paragraph eight, we are constantly in need of our soul restored, our vitality in God restored, our peace restored, our purity strengthened. We need to get restored. I mean, daily, weekly, all the time. I don't care how great your life is in God the last year or 10 years. You have a proneness to lose your way. All of us. That is not a problem because we have an attentive shepherd. The problem is, will we give ourselves to that shepherd and say, hey, I'm in need. I constantly am losing my way. The Lord says, good, you lose your way. I'm the shepherd that knows your way. It's a match made in heaven. Let's do it together. But if the average believer just kind of, you know, they think, well, they don't really think about themselves that way. They don't really put it together. They moan when they lose their way, but they don't really think they're guaranteed to lose their way in the next week or two or three. Guaranteed. So if you know that, it changes your dialogue with the Lord. You're talking to him about restoring regularly. Lord, restore my passion, my vitality. Lord, last week, I felt connected. Next week, I might not, but you will restore me. Here I am. I'm constantly in the mode of you renewing me. You could put the word renewing. He leads me in paths of righteousness. Paragraph B. Now this righteousness doesn't just mean moral virtue. It does mean that, but it also means correct paths, right paths. We lose our focus. We lose our direction in our life, our family, our marriage, our ministry, our children, our money. We're constantly losing our focus and alignment. The Lord says, I will give you right paths. I will give you the hints. I will whisper. I'll give you many impressions. I will show you how to realign week after week. You know, one guy I talked to says, it feels like every week I have to realign my heart. I go, that's exactly how it works. If that's new to you, that means you've been in a little bit of deception for the years before that. And not deception, just kind of a little bit out of touch. Of course, you got to get realigned. They go, oh, okay, good. I never thought about that. I assume I will get out of focus and out of alignment. I assume it. Therefore, I talk to God according to these kind of truths. And I say, Lord, lead me, lead me. I'm in need of leadership. How many people, they get the word of the Lord, they come to IHOP, been here three months. I don't know why I'm in IHOP. I'm not talking about the interns. I'm talking about the staff and the main leaders. What am I doing in a Bible school? What am I doing in a worship team? I don't know why I'm here. That is a human, a very normal human response. They think they're the only one who doesn't know why they're here. And in the next months, almost everybody will ask that question a couple of times in the next couple of months. Because we are sheep, we lose our way. He says, I will realign you. I will refocus you. I will restore you. But you got to talk to me. You got to feed me. I mean, feed on me and I'll give you whispers. I'll realign you in small ways all the time if you know that you have need of it. Verse four, I walked through the valley of the shadow of death. Paragraph A, now the good news, it's not the valley of death, it's a shadow. A shadow can't kill us. A shadow means we're close to the substance. It's not the valley of death, it's the shadow of death. Now the devil tells us it's death, but it's only a shadow because Jesus is the victor over physical death, but he's also the victor over the devil. And the devil's attack. It appears like the valley of death, but it really isn't. It's a shadow. It's passing. It is not the substance. It actually will lead to greater life. It actually will lead to a greater experience in God. It isn't the valley of death. It's actually a valley that will lead to life. It only looks like a valley of death. But if you're feeding on the Lord, you see through the Lord's eyes, you see it different. He goes, I fear no evil. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Turn to page four, paragraph E. Your rod and your staff. These were two instruments that the shepherd used regularly. The rod was the club to fend off the wild beast. That's protection. But the staff was a different instrument. That was to guide the sheep. That was to nudge the sheep, to show them the sheep are going to the left, to the right, to the left. And they would nudge them with the staff to say, no, the water's that way. And they'd go, oh, okay. And they would go off track and get, no. And they would nudge them back to where the water and the food were and where the cliff wasn't. So the rod is protection. The staff is direction, the nudgings. And sometimes they're shouts from heaven, but mostly they're nudgings and whispers. And they're just small adjustments in our life regularly. The rod and the staff. What David says is when I'm in the valley of the shadow of death, I have confidence. I am comforted by this. He will fend off the wild beast, and he will give me the midcourse corrections constantly to get me through that period of time. I'm positive. I'm comforted knowing he will intervene. He will stop the wild beast from devouring me, from destroying me, and he will keep me from going right and left when I should go on the straight path. I'm positive of it. He goes, I don't know how to do it. I will get off the path, but his rod and his staff, they comfort me because I have the assurance God will constantly intervene to give me a midcourse correction. Then he goes on, his final statement in verse 6. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Paragraph A, goodness and mercy. Mercy is the forgiveness of the past. It's more than that. Goodness is provision for the present and the future. Beloved, mercy and goodness are following you all the days of your life. Now the word follow, paragraph B, is the Hebrew verb of an animal pursuing another animal. Mercy and goodness are pursuing you. They're running hard after you. Now here's the important thing. They are running hard after you. That's a fact. If you don't know it, then you live without the enjoyment and the assurance of that. Always wondering if the goodness is going to come or if mercy is going to be there. I'm just going to get wiped out. I've sinned too much. I'm over. David said to the Lord, I'm positive. Mercy is chasing me down in my past and future failures. Mercy is chasing me down when I repent. And goodness, the provision of the Lord, is chasing me down. Now if you can't feel it, you can't see it, and you can't enjoy it, you'll end up in despair and you'll end up canceling out some of the will of God in your life. We have to make this confession. When the devil says, there is no mercy and there is no goodness, you say, it is written. Mercy and goodness are chasing me down. I'm going to feel it. I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to see it. Because when you feel it and see it even a little bit, you make different choices. You stay connected to the Lord. If you don't feel it, you get into despair and you cancel yourself out. And the devil didn't actually defeat you. You're the one that took yourself out of the game. The number one temptation, I'm convinced, in the whole body of Christ, the whole human race, is the temptation to quit. Every human being, believer and unbeliever, faces that temptation many, many times. The temptation to quit whatever is before them. And the devil wants to convince us mercy and goodness is not chasing us down. David said, I don't care what it feels like. I'm in the valley of the shadow of death. I see death coming near me. The enemy is in eyesight. But my confession is this. Mercy and truth are chasing me down. And they will outrun the enemy and overtake me. That is his confession. And his final statement, he says, this will happen all the days of my life. Not just in the good seasons and when you feel like it. This is the truth of the Word when you don't feel it and you can't see it. It is the truth of God's Word. You must get this confession into your dialogue with the Lord. Paragraph D, David says, I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Now in David's day, I'm going to say it this way. The house of the Lord in the Bible is a big subject. But in David's day, in a very specific way, he met, in a very specific way, his engaging to minister to God in worship and prayer. Because the house of the Lord, the famous verse, or the verse that we've put so much time on, I mean, Psalm 27 4, where he's talking about beholding the beauty of God in the house of the Lord. Singers, musicians, it was a ministry to the Lord place. David said, I'm not going to get offended. I'm not going to get distracted. This is my confession. I will be engaged with God in a deep way all the days of my life. In this age, in the age to come, I'm not backing up. I'm not quitting. I'm engaged in the house of God. I'm going to live with the spirit of prayer and worship. I'm going to develop it. I'm not going to get distracted by it. Because when I do, I'm calling on the Lord regularly to correct me with his rod and his staff. He's feeding me. He's leading me. And I'm sure my testimony is this. I will stay connected to God in worship and prayer in this age, in the age to come, all the days of my life. That is my confession, David said. Those are the confessions of a man after God's own heart. And we can make those our own confessions. Amen. Let's stand. Oh, I just trust you'll go journal this. I don't mean journal my stuff. I'm talking about just an open notebook. And you'll go in the prayer room with Psalm 23. You might take a few notes to kind of get used to it if you're not familiar with what the phrases mean. Kind of take a day to get familiar with them. They're new to you. But you say these statements to God and you write what comes to you. I tell you the Lord will speak to your heart powerful ways. Let's just stand and just for a moment just put everything down for a minute. Let's just wait on the Lord for a minute. I want to ask the Lord to touch you right now. Holy Spirit, here we are. A people after your own heart. I just say that to the Lord just quietly. I want to be a woman, a man. I want to be a woman after your heart. See, I'm going to do this. Let's talk to the Lord. Let's go right to verse 6. I will dwell in your house. I will be engaged in worship and prayer. I'm not quitting no matter what. I'm not backing down. I'm not talking about being a part of IHOP. I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about a way to live before God. A deep commitment to worship and intercession and prayer. So just make that statement for a minute to the Lord. I will dwell in your house. The devil's not taking me out of the game. The enemy's not going to get me sidetracked. If I fail, I will repent and mercy will chase me down. If I come up short, goodness will chase me down and provide. I'm going to do this all the days of my life. Take a minute. Holy Spirit, I ask you to come and touch us. Lord, here we are. I ask you, Lord, just to release your glory right now. Release your fire. Release your wine. Release your wind. Touch us even now, Lord. We're going to wait for a few moments. I'm going to encourage you not just to kind of be looking around the room. Close your eyes for just a moment so you're not distracted. You and the Lord are talking. Here I am. Here I am, Lord. I set my heart. I'm not going to feast on the enemy. No, I'm going to feast on you. I'm not going to feed my soul on who's attacking me. Release your presence, Lord, right now, we ask. Release your glory. Release your wine. Release your fire right now. Release your wind. If you're feeling the Holy Spirit touching you right now, I want you to come up. I'm going to ask the Lord to increase it. Good. Lord, release your wine. Release your joy right now, Lord. Release your power right now, Lord, I ask you. And have folks come on up and pray for them too. Anyone in the room that wants to pray for people, just come on up. More, Lord. Release your presence now, Lord. Increase your presence right now. Release your wine. Release your fire right now across this room. All over the room. You don't have to be up at the front to receive from the Lord. Again, I want about 50 of you to come on up and pray for folks. More, Lord. More, Lord. Now, some of you are all over the room. The enemy is really pressing you with a temptation to quit. And quit means just draw back somehow. And it's a temptation common to every single one of us. Every believer knows that temptation. But if you've been the enemy has been hitting you with that, in the last couple days or week, I want you to raise your hand. If you would like prayer, I want you to raise your hand. Again, don't feel ashamed about that. It will leave and the enemy will come again. And you get prayer and ask the Lord to intervene. I want you to raise your hand. Let's get some folks around them. Everyone all over the room, too. Different ones that are raising their hand. Let's ask the Lord to strengthen them. Now, you do have to feed on the word, but the Lord will help you. The Lord will help you and he'll strengthen you. We just take authority right now over the works of the enemy. And we just silence right now. We silence. And we quench that flaming missile coming against your spirit. More, Lord. Release your fire. Release your fire right now. Release your wine, Lord. The Lord wants you to set in your heart. You will dwell in his house all the days of your life. More, Lord. Yes, Lord. More, Lord. Increase your glory. Increase your joy, Lord. Increase the fire. More. More, Lord. Release fire. Release power. More, Lord. More, Lord. Let your fire come. Let your fire. Let your presence be released in this room. Release your joy. The oil of joy. I will fear no. You are my shepherd. I will fear no evil. Surely goodness. Surely goodness and mercy cover me. All the days of my life. They cover me.