Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 37. Psalm 37 and the
first four words in verse 7. Rest in the Lord. The whole verse reads, Rest in
the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not thyself because
of him who prospereth in his way. because of the man who bringeth
wicked devices to pass. Psalm 37 and verse 7. The Lord's people will always
be surrounded by those that do evil and by the wicked. They will see them round about
their habitations, round about the churches, also see them in
even the assemblies of the saints. And in this psalm we have again
and again the contrast between the wicked and the righteous,
God's people and those that are not. It is acknowledging how
there may be seen them spreading like a Green Bay Tree, they're
getting on well, they have all that heart could wish. And sometimes
very much opposite with the people of God, with their tribulations
and trials and troubles. And it has struck me how many
times this theme comes through the psalms. Psalm 73, the psalmist
there, his steps were well nigh slipped when he saw the prosperity
of the wicked, and even that there were no bans in their death,
they could approach death without any trouble at all. And it wasn't
until he went into the sanctuary, then he understood their end,
then he realized what was beyond the grave, what a terrible shock
they would get when they realized the truth, when they met the
Lord, when they saw Him on His judgment throne. And we are to
be reminded that this world is in darkness and the judicial
sentence in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die, has passed upon all men. And men are incapable of themselves
to believe or to understand the things of God. We read in Hebrews
11 that it is by faith that we believe in God. that we believe
that He is. By faith we understand the worlds
were formed out of things which do not appear. And yet sometimes
we get surprised, we wonder why, why men cannot see the beauty
of the Lord in creation, why they cannot be brought to believe
through that means. And yet when we think of when
our Lord was upon the earth and He were the many miracles, he
fed the thousands, they ate of the loaves, they saw what was
left, he raised the dead, the widow of Nain and Lazarus and
others from the dead, he opened the eyes of the blind, and yet
they still could not believe, they would not believe, and in
the end crucified him as an imposter, and yet he'd done so many marvellous
works and wondrous things, It really shows us the hardness
of the heart of man. Our Lord, when He told about
the rich man and Lazarus, and the rich man, when he lifted
up his eyes in hell, and he saw Lazarus afar off in Abraham's
bosom, and he prayed that he might have a drop of water to
quench the burning in his tongue, and it was not possible to pass
from one to another And then he desired that Abraham would
be sent to his five brethren, that they might not come into
that place of torment. And the Lord said, they have
Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And he said, no, but
if one rose from the dead, Then they would believe. But the Lord
said, if they did not hear Moses and the prophets, neither would
they believe, though one rose from the dead. It is not arguments. It is not miracles. Those things
in themselves do not move the heart of man. None of the signs
and wonders that God wrought in Egypt ever moved the heart
of Pharaoh. Yes, while there upon him it
did, but then he hardened his heart again. And that is the
natural heart of man. It is only through the bloodshed,
the Passover lamb, it is only through the gift of eternal life,
it is only the Lord opening the eyes and giving eternal life
that will ever bring one out of nature's darkness and into
the Lord's marvellous light. And we need to remember that,
otherwise we get so low, so despondent, We think, well, it's only because
of those who have been brought up under the sound of the truth.
It's only those who have been brainwashed and all sorts of
things like that. You know, I really bless the
Lord. You know, I was brought up under the sound of the truth,
been solemn, sad though it was, brought up in that way and yet
to rebel and to hate the things of God, want to run away from
them. And I can clearly say, I clearly
know that it was the Lord that stopped me, the Lord that opened
my eyes, the Lord that made the change. And I bless the Lord
for that, especially for one that must stand in the Lord's
name and proclaim His name to have a personal witness of the
reality of the power of God. And it's not only personal, because
I've seen it in my parents, I've seen it in other loved ones,
I've seen it in dear brethren, seen the life of God, the reality
of God in life and in death. But here we have the psalmist
David constantly through this psalm comparing the wicked and
comparing the righteous and setting before us the blessedness of
the people of God, though it may seem for a time that the
wicked are prospering and are doing well. Really, many of the
psalms, they are to encourage, they are to lift up. Why art
thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within
me? Hope thou in God, for I shall
yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God. In this psalm, there is an exhortation
in the First verses, several things. In verse 3, it is to
trust in the Lord. In verse 4, it's to delight thyself
also in the Lord. In verse 5, it's to commit thy
way unto the Lord. In our text, it is to rest in
the Lord. And it is the exhortations to bring us out
of self away from the wicked and direct our gaze unto the
Lord and to the Lord and particularly that is upon my spirit this evening
is these first four words in verse seven rest in the Lord
and yes it is added to it and wait patiently for him but i
want to emphasise firstly and to look at these first words
and rest in the Lord. So I want to look at seven ways
in which we are to rest in the Lord. And the first one is in
his person, in the Lord. Now the word here is Jehovah. and His Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. And of course, this is the God
of our salvation, Emmanuel, God with us, our Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ. It is to rest in His person who
He is. Right through the Scriptures,
we are set before us that He is a good God, a gracious God,
a long-suffering God, a God who has not dealt with us after our
sins deserve. And we also have that this very
trade is what the wicked will take hold of, because sentence
against an evil work is not executed speedily, then the heart of man
is fully set in him to do evil. Because he gets away with it,
because God is silent, then he thinks that nothing will come.
We read of the nations that were in Canaan, now they knew In Abraham's
day, they knew in all of those years of the true and living
God, but they turned to idols and many transgressions and many
evil ways. And we read in the Word that
that time of ignorance God winked at. He turned a blind eye to
it. But that nation was under a curse. It was coming, a time that they
would be completely destroyed. It was said the iniquity of the
Amorites is not yet full. They were just letting go, adding
sin to sin and wickedness to wickedness, until suddenly the
judgment came. It was in the days before Noah,
it was in the days before Lot, in the days of Lot, and it will
be and it is now, and the end of the world and the judgment
to come is still to come. A man shall give an account and
all things shall be brought before God. The person of our Lord Jesus
Christ in these gospel days is not set forth as what Satan is,
as a deceiver, as an evil, treacherous person, a vile person. He is set forth as meek and lowly,
as good and holy and gracious and long-suffering and forbearing
and everything about the Lord. is good. He is good to all. His tender mercies are over all
his works. He opens his hand. He satisfies
the desire of every living thing. And in the context here with
the wicked, he's even good to them. He gives them their food,
their wealth, their riches, things that they are happy with and
things that they never give him thanks for. But the Lord is good
to all. He opened His hand, satisfies
the desire of every living thing. And so it is a rest in the person
of our Lord, and especially in His coming to this world, that
He is truly God and truly man, that as by death, by man, sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, even so by man came eternal
life, and it must be that our Lord was to take a human nature,
be made of the seed of Abraham so that he could die, so that
he could fulfill the law in that nature as man, so that he could
suffer, so that he could pay the debt that we owed. And in his person, in his complex
person, great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in
the flesh. We are to rest in that. And really,
when we look at all the Old Testament prophecies of the seed of the
woman that should bruise the serpent's head, his name that
should be called Immanuel, God with us, all of these things,
the virgin shall be with child, those things that were pointed
and spoken of here in the Psalms, Psalm 22 and 69, of the Lord's
sufferings. And in the person of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, this is fulfilled and settled. The
main theme of the Gospel according to John is that he might believe
that Jesus is the Christ and that in believing he might have
life through his name. So may we rest in his person. He cannot deny himself. He is what he is. Jesus Christ,
the same yesterday and today and forever. So different to
us. This psalm is a psalm of contrast. So different, our Lord, is from
the evildoers and the wicked, but so different than us. The
pure, the holy, the spotless Lamb of God, and working out
a righteousness for us. And He is the author of our salvation. We should never, we can never,
doubt what he has said, what he has done. He is a good, a
gracious God. And yet, the wicked, very often,
they'll point to all the evils done in the world. They'll point
to famines. They'll point to terrible things
that are being done. And they'll blame God for that.
They don't believe in him. They don't pray to him. They
don't trust him. But if there's anything that
is evil being done, they lay that to his charge, and one day
that shall all be laid to their account. How terrible it will
be to be laying to the charge of the Lord that which comes
because of sin and because of wicked man. How often the things
that are done in the world, it is man on man, and man brings
about his own trials and own judgment. We reap what we sow
again and again. So the first thing is to rest
in the Lord, rest in his person. The second is to rest in his
finished work. When thinking of this, I thought
of an illustration So if we owed a great amount of money to someone,
we'd either done something wrong or we'd purchased something,
and we had no means whatsoever of paying that money. And it caused us many anxious
nights, sleepless nights, we worried about it continually,
we had no rest in our mind, because of this great debt that was hanging
over us. Now if someone came along and
they said to us, we have paid the debt, here is the receipt,
here is the letter from the firm that you owe the money to, you
do not have to pay that. Now if we viewed that and we
believed that, we knew that that debt was no longer over us, then
we wouldn't worry anymore. We'd rest in what that person
had done in paying the debt. We'd rest in that which had been
accomplished. It might have been yesterday,
or a week ago, or a month ago. It didn't matter. The debt was paid. And if several
years went by, and Someone said, well, what about that debt? You
didn't pay it. And we'd turn around and we'd
say, no, we didn't pay it, but this person paid it for us, and
here's the proof of it. And we could rest in that. We
wouldn't be, the more that we believed and realized that that
had been done, we wouldn't have all that worry and anxiousness.
And if we knew the person that had done it was a very upright
person, you know there was no deceit in what they'd done, they'd
done it rightly, honourably, and the receipt was there, then
we could really rest. And so to rest in the finished
work of the Lord is to view what the Lord has done. The Lord said,
it is, I came to do my Father's will, wished ye not that I must
be about my Father's business. My meat is to do the will of
Him that sent me and to finish His work." And that work was
done at Calvary. It was done with His perfect
life of obedience to impute to His people His righteousness
given to them that believe. The debt that He paid at Calvary
was the debt that we owed. The sins that we committed were
laid upon Him. and the debt was paid. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
upon a tree. He hung upon the tree. He shed
his precious, sin-atoning blood, the blood of God, the perfect,
spotless blood that did not need to be shed for himself, but was
freely laid down for his people. And we are to rest in that. We
are reminded in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper all the
time of the finished work, as if this is the receipt, this
is the payment, this is what you've got to remember, the last
testament in my blood, this is the evidence that I want the
church to always remember, that we might rest in that finished
work, not think it's got to be offered again, not think that
it's not sufficient, And that applies in many things, concerning
ourselves, concerning our loved ones, concerning others when
we would do evangelistic work. It doesn't rely on our arguments. It doesn't rely on us being able
to convince others. It is God's work. Except the
Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Doesn't
mean to say that we don't. actively spread the word of God
and speak to everyone we can, because the Lord uses those means. And it is a testimony against
those that see our lives and hear our words. And the Lord
uses these things. It is to his honour and glory.
We are his witnesses here below. But we are always to remember,
however many discouragements we have, however many people
we speak to, that salvation is of the Lord, and He may use the
word that we have spoken today and bring it back to remembrance
years later to a person. The Lord is very careful that
man does not get the honour and glory, and we soon would. If
we saw the Lord was using us greatly, we would get filled
with pride, we would take the honour and glory, but salvation
is of the Lord. It's not us. Someone called out
to William Gadsby as he was walking down the street. He said, Mr.
Gadsby, you look at that run lying in the gutter. There's
the product of your work. And he looked. He said, yes,
that does look like my work. He said, if it was God's, then
he would no longer be in the gutter. And William Gadsby knew
very well that God's work is effectual. Man's work will not
be effectual. Though a man convinced against
his will is of the same opinion still, but God's work is to change
the heart, renew the will, and turn the feet to Zion's hill,
as the hymn writer says. There may be help and day-to-day
to rest in the finished work of the Lord. The Lord rests in
it. He's not wondering, should I
have done a bit more? Should I have been a bit more
careful over this point or that point? We do that, don't we?
After we've done things, after we've done a work, after we've
hoped we've done the right thing, we go back over it and we try
and redo it in our mind, and we regret saying this, or not
saying that, or doing this. The law's not like that. This
work is perfect, it's finished work. And so, When we read of
our text, rest in the Lord. May we rest in His finished work. The third thing is to rest in
His love. He rests in His love. He loved
His people from eternity. Yea, I have loved thee with an
everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
thee. And His love does have no variation
for His people. Ours has many changes. We read at the end of Psalm 107
concerning the love of God. Sometimes it needs to be understood.
Whoso is wise and will understand these things, observe these things,
even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. And we're to rest in His love.
Now what would you be if there was a child with a parent, and
all the time they were thinking, Does my parent really love me?
When they correct me, is it in love? Or husband and wife, all
the time thinking, well, do they really love me? It'd be no rest,
would it? But if we are certain of it,
if we have those tokens, daily, hourly, and we know that, we
can rest in that. the worry, the anxiousness. And
it's the same with the love of God. Instead of, as it were,
being churned up day by day, does the Lord really love me?
Am I his child? These tribulations, these troubles
that are coming, if he loved me, why would he bring those
things into my life? All of these thoughts, these
anxious thoughts, No, it is certain that in the world we shall have
tribulation. It's not an if or it's not might. It's something we must expect.
And the Lord has forewarned us of that. He said, in me you shall
have peace or rest. In the world you shall have tribulation. And that's why we're directed
here to the Lord, to rest in the Lord. They have peace in
the Lord, rest in His love. He loves even with a cloud between. It's like with the sun still
shines, though there might come clouds in between. Sometimes
we've gone up in an aeroplane, you go through the clouds and
suddenly you burst out into beautiful bright sunshine. Underneath it's
dark, might even be raining. But above the clouds it's beautiful
white billowing clouds and beautiful bright sunshine. No cloud in
between. And that's a lovely thing to
see. The sun is always the same, the
Lord is the same. The fourth thing is to rest in
the Lord, in His will. Yes, God does have a will. He does have a counsel, a purpose. He's not just going, doing things
in the earth with no purpose and that things are not being
done according to His will. Nations are not rising up I speak
with reverence, the Lord is not saying, oh dear, I didn't plan
on that, I didn't want him to do that, or the people of God,
well, they haven't done what I wanted them to do and that's
ruined my plans, I've got to do something different. The Lord
always rests in his will, he knows his will is done. The nun
can stay his hand and say, what doest thou? It is a mystery,
we know. But that the wrath of man shall
appraise thee, the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain. And who is he that saith, and
he cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? All nations
are in his hand. All hearts of men are in his
hand. And he hath put it into their
hearts to fulfil his will. and that will will be performed
and will be done. And we know concerning His people,
the Lord says, I know the thoughts that I think towards you, thoughts
of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. The Lord's will concerning His
people is already made known when He quickens them into spiritual
life. Father, I will, He says, that
they whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they
may behold my glory. May we then rest in His will
as being perfect for us, and right for us, and good for us. What would we be if it Lord said,
look, I'm going to lay aside my will, I'm just going to leave
you to your own. You plan out your life. I'm not
going to have a hand in it at all. Just be your will. If we knew our own hearts, we
wouldn't have rest, would we? How worried we'd be, how concerned
we would be, lest we did something wrong. But when the Lord has his will,
thy will be done. If the Lord will, we will do
this. or that, or if the Lord permits,
the Lord's will is what the people of God can rest in. But then fifthly, there's the
providence of God, that is His performing of that will, the
ordering of the lives of His people. You think of some of
the strange providences that some of the Lord's dear people
have walked through. We think of the case of Naomi
and her husband going into Moab to escape the famine in Bethlehem
and then she loses her husband and two sons and is left of their
two wives, three widows. And yet the Lord brings Ruth
back to Bethlehem, causes her to cleave to Naomi, and we find
Ruth then married to Boaz and in the line to Christ. But what sorrows, what griefs,
what a dark path at first. We think of dear Job, which Satan
accused that the only reason why Job feared and followed the
Lord was because he had set a hedge about him, protected everything
he had. So Satan said, you touch what
he has and he'll turn and curse thee to thy face. So the Lord
permitted him to touch everything. And he touched all his goods,
his children, even his health. And yet, dear Job, he said, the
Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name
of the Lord. It was a very severe trial that
lasted, we don't know how long, but a good period of time. And
even those that came to comfort him, he said, miserable, comforters,
i.e. all, they misapplied and made
out that there was some reason, some wickedness in him. And yet
God very clearly said there was not a reason. why those things
came upon him. And yet they're very difficult
providences to walk through. We have dear Joseph and his father
Jacob before him in many things that he went and bound up with
Joseph. Jacob is saying, all these things
are against me. Joseph is thrown into a pit,
hated of his brothers, false accused, cast into prison, and
forgotten. And then at last he's shown God's
purpose, so he's able clearly to say to his brethren, you sent
me not hither but God. God was over those providences. He was ordering it for good,
making it work together. We read in Romans 8, 28, we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them that are the called according to his purpose. And so God's
purposes, his providence, those things that he works in the earth. In Psalm 57, we read of the Lord
ordering and performing those things even for his people. In
verse two, I will cry unto God most high, unto God that performeth
all things for me. He shall send from heaven and
save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up,
Selah. God shall send forth his mercy
and his truth. And my life's minutest circumstance
is subject to his eye." Nebuchadnezzar was able to, in
the end, extol God of heaven, one who did according to his
will in the armies of heaven. His will and providence, they
go hand in hand together. Who so will watch providence
will never lack a providence to watch. We're watching the
timing. We're watching the Lord going
before. We're watching what men would
say is coincidences. We're watching those things that
those who've gone before us have seen and they said, the thing
proceedeth from the Lord, or it is the Lord's doing and marvellous
in our eyes. Those things that so have the
wonderful mark and stamp of the wonder working hand of our God. to maybe rest in his providence.
I believe some of us, we can look back over our lives, we
tend to our own confusion, forget, but if we go back and we think
of many times that the Lord has brought these things about, providences
in bringing us together, providences in employment, providences in
the house of God, those things that he has wrought in the earth
for our good that have touched and affect many others, and sometimes
they've testified it, marveled at it, even seen it so, the ungodly
have seen it, that the Lord has worked for us. And these things
we must not forget, and we must rest in His providence. He's
still the same. His hand is not shortened, it
cannot say. There's nothing too hard for
the Lord. So may we rest in the Lord, rest
in his ordering of providence. The sixth thing is to rest in
his people. You can hardly separate between
the Lord and his people. He says, Behold I and the children
whom thou hast given me. This people have I formed for
myself, then to him shall the gathering of the people be. And in heaven there is an innumerable
multitude that shall be all about him. And here below, the disciples
being let go, they went unto their own company. We've already
mentioned Ruth, and how Ruth though said to Naomi, thy people
shall be my people, thy God my God, and arresting in that the
Lord does have a people, He does have a flock, a flock that He
goes before, a flock that He feeds, that He looks after, He
cares for. Then they that feared the Lord
spake often one to another. One of the beautiful evidences
of passing from death unto life is that we love the brethren. In this shall all men know that
ye are my disciples indeed, in that ye love one another. And
I know there are those conflicts, and I know there are those strains
between the brethren. But some of us have had very
dear brethren that we've walked with, we've seen their lives,
we've seen their death. They've been very precious to
us, and the remembrance of them is very precious. And so when
we rest, In the Lord we rest in his people, in that he does
have a people, and that he has saved them and will save them.
That long cloud of witnesses, that we see that people. Now
sometimes when we get very low and down and tempted, sometimes
the Lord will lift us up by showing us his creation. Other times
by showing us some of those things we've mentioned tonight. other
times by bringing to our remembrance this soul and that soul, and
what the Lord has done for them, and what we have seen, and what
we have heard, and their testimony. And that has been so comforting,
and we can rest in that. The Lord does have a people. The wicked will make out, well,
they're a peculiar people. Yes, they are. They're a blood-bought
family. But the Lord knows them. In His
temple we read, everyone shall speak of His glory. If you go in a football stadium,
there's not likelihood of any speaking of the glory of God. But if you go into the house
of God, then you'll find those that speak of His glory. If we
go into different places, then we can expect different responses
to things, don't you? If you went into the political
assemblies of the Tory party here in England, you wouldn't
get them speaking highly of the Labour party, or if you went
into the Labour party, they wouldn't speak very well of the Tory party. And so the Lord highlights, if
you want to hear the Lord well spoken of, and his glory extolled,
and to feel a union with people, then you go where the people
of God are. You don't mix with the ungodly,
come out from among them, and touch not the unclean thing.
And I will receive you. You shall be my sons and my daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty." What? Communion, have light with darkness,
is a great blessing if we can rest. in the people of God and
with the people of God, the Lord does have a blood-bought multitude,
and each one, and really Hebrews 11, it speaks of all of those
that lived and died by faith, and the whole chapter is given
to encourage and strengthen the people of God through those who
have gone before them, those who have entered into glory,
And may we rest in that as well, to be followers of them, who
through faith and patience have inherited the promises. I want to think lastly of a rest
in the hope of heaven. Rest in the Lord. Our Lord, he
suffered bad and died here and rose up on high He sitteth in
the middle of the throne, upon the throne in heaven, henceforth
expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. His prayer
that his people be with them will be fulfilled. And the church
of God here below, like the Thessalonian church, are called to wait for
his Son from heaven. And we are to rest in that hope,
believing that it is there. There is a rest that remaineth
to the people of God. There is an inheritance, incorruptible,
undefiled, that fadeth not away, and it is reserved in heaven
for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto
salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. And so it is
a resting in that hope that remains out of reach of the scoffer,
out of reach of Satan, out of reach of the worldling, cannot
be taken away. It is where Christ is, and we
are to run the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus. And we are to rest in that. Are we tossing to and fro? Are
we full of many anxious thoughts and troubles and trials. The
Lord says to those who are weary and heavy laden, come unto me,
all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I meek and lowly in heart, ye shall find rest unto
your souls. And our Lord's word accord exactly,
with the words of our text, to rest in Him, rest in the Lord. And where it is providence, where
it is heaven, where it is His will that is being unfolded and
worked out, to wait patiently for Him. And if there is the
wicked around about, prospering in His way and bringing wicked
devices to pass, we're not to fret ourselves because of those. but to rest in the Lord.