May it please God to bless us
together this evening as we meditate in his holy word. Let us turn
to the book of Psalms, Psalm 102, and we'll read verse 13. Psalm 102, and reading verse
13. Thou shalt arise and have mercy
upon Zion for the time to favor her Yea, the set time is come. There's a lot of truth in this
psalm, which we should be very thankful for. And the psalmist
describes his life really in the 11th verse when he says,
my days are like a shadow and declineth and I am withered like
grass. gives us a very clear picture
really of the frailty of the human race and it's good to recognise
that as we do journey on day by day to think and to have a
right understanding that we shall not live forever in our body
we shall each pass out of time into eternity And then he tells
us, but thou, O Lord, shalt endure forever. The complete opposite. We decline, we fade away, but
the Lord shalt endure forever. And our remembrance unto all
generations. Great truth is that God doesn't
forget. You see, God knows everything
which is going to occur, and He doesn't forget those things
which have occurred. Because we come before a great,
great God, who is all so powerful, so mighty, and in control of
everything. And so then, we come down to
this 13th verse, where the psalmist says, Thou shalt arise, Of course
referring to Almighty God and have mercy upon Zion. And of course refers to the Church
of God at large and to each member of that Church of God. So that
should be an encouragement to us to realize that we have a
God who will arise, thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion. The Lord does not deal with us
as our sins deserve. He does not deal with the church
of God as their sins deserve. But he is gracious and merciful. And what a blessing it is, therefore,
that we have such a God to deal with. And then he goes on, for
the time to favor her, yea the set time is come and that should
be an encouragement to us because the Lord here tells us without
any doubt for the time to favour her yea the set time is come
there is a time set by almighty God to favour each member of
his church And we are not, therefore, to become impatient. Remember David said in Psalm
40, I waited patiently for the Lord. It's a great gift that
God gives, patience. And it's good, therefore, to
realize that God has a set time, a time set down, a time to favor
her, yea, a set time to come. And it should be very encouraging
to us to realize that throughout scriptures there are so many
occasions when this very situation occurred. You may remember the
great occasion with Israel when they went down into Egypt and
the Lord had told Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, there was a
set time, that they would go down into Egypt and they would
be there for some 400 years and they would be delivered and they
would come into the land of Canaan. Well, you can imagine that was
spoken all those years before it finally came to pass. But
it did come to pass and the time did come, the set time, the set
time in God's view in God's program came to pass. And we should be
thankful, therefore, that we have such an illustration. And
then we have another illustration, again with Israel, the Israelites
in Jerusalem, when they were carried away captive down into
Babylon. And they were to spend 70 years
there. And it came to pass. They'd been
disobedient. they disobeyed God and God had
told them through his prophets what would occur and for the
time came then they were in Babylon to favor her the set time has
come to deliver them to bring them out of Babylon Babylon's
a long way from Jerusalem it's not just around the corner it's
many days journey it's not an easy journey either But God had
promised that they should come back and inherit once again Jerusalem
and it would be rebuilt. Now these things, no doubt to
the Israelites, seemed impossible. Especially as they looked at
themselves and realized that their own sins had brought it
upon them. It must have been very galling,
as we're told. They sat by the river and they
wept when they remembered Zion. They remembered the good days
there when they were able to go to the temple and worship
God. And yet, you see, they disobeyed
God, turned their back upon God, and God had brought that to pass,
which he said he would. And so now they were dependent
in Babylon upon God's mercy. But again, He had said there
would be a deliverance, and there was. And again, as we mentioned
recently, it was really very remarkable how that came to pass
when God ordained that, first of all, Cyrus should command
Israel to go back and restore Jerusalem, restore the temple
and the walls, and to actually pay for it. It was quite amazing,
wasn't it? What do we see? We see the Lord
having mercy upon Zion. We see the set time to favour
her come. And it did. And it came to pass. And not only Darius, but also,
not only Cyrus, but also Darius. Later on he did the same thing.
Encouraged Israel to go and continue with this work. And what we find
is the heart of all men are in the
hands of God. And that should be a support
to us in the day and age in which we live. We may have difficulties
which arise in our lives. We may not know how to cope with
them. We may not know how to deal with
them. We may not know what the outcome
will be. What a mercy it is to realise we have a merciful God
who has said He will arise. The statement is, Thou shalt
arise and have mercy upon Zion. I think in our lives Almighty
God arises on our behalf. arises on our behalf and has
mercy upon the Church of God. It's very wonderful, isn't it?
That God so many years ago spoke into
the hearts of godly men to write down the Scriptures And here
we have this psalm written down to encourage us. Thou shalt arise
and have mercy upon Zion, because God does have mercy. We only have to look back in
our own history, don't we, as a nation and see how God has
had mercy upon the churches. God hasn't dealt with us as we
deserved. And in his time, A time has come,
a time to favour her. Yea, the set time is come. Well, in our little lives, perhaps
we're waiting. Perhaps we're waiting patiently
for God to come. We may think, has God heard my
prayer? Has God turned His back upon
me? Has God forgotten me? Well, be encouraged by such a
word as this, because we're told, for the time to favour her, yea,
the set time is come. And you see, the Lord never comes
before His time. but also, as the hymn writer
says, he never is behind. And it's good if you and I are
able to ponder and realize that we have such a great God who
has planned every detail that this world will behold. Nothing occurs without the divine
permission of Almighty God. but everything does and will
come to pass. We can also think, can't we,
perhaps more especially, of none other than the great and glorious
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. His birth, His life, His death,
His resurrection were all clearly prophesied and written down in
various parts of the Old Testament. And if you remember, that first
prophecy commenced in the Garden of Eden when God spoke to Adam
and Eve that the seed of the woman would bruise serpent's
head. A clear picture there of what
would occur. And so it came to pass Many years
later, some 4,000 years, the Church of God waited, waited
for that to come. But the set time came, and the
set time came with all the detail that had been prophesied, with
Mary being the chosen person to be the mother of Jesus The
glory of the virgin birth. The humble situation that the
Savior was to be born into. And so we can recognize the set
time came. The set time came when the Savior
should come into the world. And that time came. What a glorious
time it was. What a joyous time it was. You
can remember, I'm sure, how the angels appeared to those shepherds
when they were looking after their sheep by night and what
a glorious time that was and what a revelation it was and
what a promise was fulfilled and then of course the Lord lived
those 33 years and he died not a second before the appointed
time, the set time came. And you see, in order for that
set time to come to pass, we see what had to occur. He had
to be judged. He had to be crucified. The thieves
had to be born. They had to live. They had to
commit offenses. They had to be crucified at the
same time with the Saviour so that his justice could be so
clearly set forth, the judgment on one and the glorious salvation
on the other. And the wonderful confession
and the wonderful request by that thief that was saved. You see, the set time had come.
Everything had to work together. It wasn't any haphazard occurrence. It didn't just occur. No, it
was all part of the divine plan of Almighty God. And as we see
these things being worked out and following the great plan
of Almighty God that should encourage you and me in our little life
to think that we haven't entered into things unknown to God. The set time has come in our
lives and we're told here for the time to favour her. yea the
set time has come and we might perhaps think well the set time
in my life didn't seem to favour me well we don't always know
when we think such things how the outworking of situations
which developed in our life will be fulfilled because the Word
of God tells us your time is always my time is not yet it's
hard for us To look into the future, to trust God for the
future. We tend to want everything to
happen now. Your time is always, but my time
is not yet. And we might say, very positively,
God has a perfect time for everything that occurs in our life. Right
down to the time when you and I will pass out of time into
eternity. That's not something which is
haphazard. That's not something that God
suddenly thinks about. It's all been meticulously planned. And it doesn't occur until His
work in our life, in our soul, if we are His children, has been
completed. so that we then come down to
the day of our death as a shock of corn, fully ripe, as we have
that illustration. What a mercy it is. The set time. The Lord has a set time for you
and me to leave this earth. He has a set time. When we were
born in this earth, it didn't come before God's time. There
wasn't any mistake. It came in accordance with God's
timing. And in everything in our lives,
everything in our lives was and is ordained by Almighty God. This wonderful favour, for the
time to favour her, yea, the set time is come. A time when
the Lord will put his hand to that great work of salvation
in our souls. The first time when we prayed. The first time when we were brought
to consider where we would spend eternity. The first time when
we perhaps started school, perhaps started college, perhaps started
work. All those times are known by
God. And what a mercy it is if those
times are times when God will favour us. You see, the Lord
knows His purpose. He knows when He will bring about
these times in our lives. And there will be, if He's to
favour us, there will be times when His name is honoured and
glorified. Those times will occur when we
will bow down before our God and say, it is the Lord, let
him do what seemeth him good. What is that? It's a humble submission
to the will and purpose of Almighty God. And what has happened? The time to favour her, the set
time has come. When the Lord has come and touched
our hearts, and made us winning in the day of His power. You
know we can be very rebellious sometimes in our hearts and that
rebellion can really lead to us saying we'll not have this
man to reign over me. Well what a mercy it is when
God does have mercy when He arises on our behalf. Thou shalt arise
and have mercy upon Zion at large and have mercy upon each member
of Zion. What a blessing, isn't it, to
think that we have such a God who is favourable and merciful
to us as individuals. You ponder the life of Joseph. There's no doubt that Joseph
was a man of God. Joseph was blessed, but Joseph
had to passed through were very trying times, didn't it, didn't
he? You know, the Lord had given him dreams, quite clear dreams
really, as to what would happen in the future. And no doubt,
he expected it to happen quite rapidly. And yet, you see, a
lot had to pass before it came to pass. A lot had to occur before
the set time came. And the set time, of course,
for deliverance was when he was in prison and when the butler
remembered his faults and spoke to Pharaoh who had a need to
have his dreams revealed. And he then remembered what Joseph
had done. But Joseph had been, I think
it was either 13 or 17 years away from his father in that place
where he lived. And all those years were testing
times. Testing times. But you see, the
Lord had a favour to him. He had a time to bless him. He had a time to fulfil the promises
which he had said. And that's the same in our lives. And it's wonderful, really, and
very humbling to think that we as little unworthy sinners form
part of God's wonderful plan, and that he is dealing with us.
We may not observe it at the moment. We may think, perhaps,
that God ignores us. We may think God takes no notice
of us. But we can be sure that God does
know about us. Yes, and he waits to be gracious. If we are his children, he waits
to be gracious. And my friends, that waiting
time is a testing time. The testing time for our faith. And we prove that faith is the
gift of God. It's not something that you and
I can generate ourselves. God gives faith. God gives living
faith. Faith to wait upon the Lord. Faith to commit our way unto
the Lord. And remember that if we are God's
children, our life, our life, is a preparation for our eternal
life. And in order for us to be prepared,
God brings us into situations to test us, to try us. And we have to say, yes, there
is a time, a time to favor us, a time perhaps when he comes
and brings us into what we term gospel liberty, freedom with
our God, to have the comfort of knowing that we are one of
God's children. And he is dealing with us, not
as enemies, but with sons and daughters of the Most High God. And the Lord knows how to do
that and when He will do it and the detail of it. He works out
in our lives. We may not understand it at the
time. We may perhaps think that God's dealing with us very hardly. Well, we must remember that all
God's dealings with us if we are as children are in love to
our soul in love to our soul, whatever that may entail we may
think is this really God's favour towards me for the time to favour
her well it's all part of the direction and all part of the
leading so that we are indeed favoured by God the set time
is come. And when God does come and blesses
us, you may say, well, when is that? It's when God comes and
sets our feet upon a rock and establishes our goings and puts
a new song in our heart, even praise to our God. Yes, the Lord's
time to favor us has come. We may have walked a rocky road. We may have walked a hard road. I mean, David here, and we're
not actually told it is David, but it would seem it is, and
the heading is, a prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed
and pours out his complaint before the Lord. And again, it's worth
noting, He pours out his complaint before the Lord. He doesn't burden
other people with the complaints. He doesn't go around trying to
get favour from this one and that one and to try and gain
sympathy. No. It comes from the Lord. And what a mercy that is. The
Lord knows how to deal with us. Because we're His children. As
parents, parents know how to deal with their children. They
desire the best for them. Exactly the same with Almighty
God. He knows how to deal with us. He knows what we need to
bring us near to Himself. It's very easy to wander away
from God. It's very easy to be consumed
with the poor things of this world and almost forget God. Well, my friends, God is very
merciful. He doesn't cut us off. He deals
with us in love to our soul. To think that God on our behalf
then at the set time arises and has mercy upon us because of
his love, which is there, which is set there. Sometimes we don't
always observe it. We don't always see it. We might
say, has God forgotten to be gracious? God has not forgotten
to be gracious, but we have forgotten God days without number. We carried
on our own little world, our own little sphere. And now we
see God dealing with us in love to our souls. And when we realize
that, in a personal way, because it is a personal way, that Almighty
God, the Great God, we might say takes pains to deal with
us. in a right way, in a way which
will end for our benefit and our profit. When God does then,
he arises on our behalf. He has mercy upon us. Humbling, isn't it? As we realize
this great and glorious God. And as we look at ourselves,
brought to a right consideration, we fall down before God confessing
our sins, confessing our waywardness yes and pleading for God's mercy
and love to be renewed to us to come to us with divine power
so that we have and enjoy that which Isaiah speaks of when he
says the words of God, come for Jee, come for Jee, my people,
saith your God, speak comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her
that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned,
for she hath received the Lord's hand double for all her sins. Well, my friends, it's a great
truth, isn't it? And we see here, surely, the
compassion of God. Just think of that. To think
the Lord speaks, and He instructs, speaks comfortably to Jerusalem,
and crying to her, that her warfare is accomplished. Because the
Lord has fought the battle on our behalf. Yes, and He's conquered
on our behalf. He's gained the victory on our
behalf and is able therefore to say her warfare is accomplished,
her iniquity is pardoned. All her iniquity, every sin washed
away. taken away and then to see the
amazing love of God for she, the church, you and me, for his
children, hath received the Lord's hand double for all her sins. What a kind and gracious God
we have to think that he gives us the wonderful blessing from
his own hand In his way, in his time. Yes, in his way and in
his time. For the time to favor her, yea,
the set time is come. It's a glorious promise, isn't
it? It's a wonderful truth to realize
that Isaiah was directed to write such words. And as we come right
down to the end of that 40th chapter, we see again the goodness
of God. We're told this. We may feel
overwhelmed. We may feel perhaps faint, ready
to give up. What does He say? Even the youths
shall faint and be weary. Before that He says, He giveth
power to the faint. God give him power. He giveth
power to the faint and to them that have no might. We might
sometimes think we have no power and we have no might. We feel
very inadequate for the battle, for the life ahead. Very inadequate. Well, this is the promise of
God. Promise of God and he speaks,
let me just read the previous verse, hast thou not known, hast
thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of
the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary, there
is no searching of his understanding. That's a very succinct and very
wonderful description of Almighty God and he comes on to say, give
his power to the faint and to them that have no mighty, increase
its strength. That should be an encouragement.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall
utterly fall, ready to give up. But, I've said sometimes and
I'll say it again, there are some beautiful buts in the word
of God. But they that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength. Again, there's no doubt about
it. Shall renew their strength. They shall mount up the wings
as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. and they shall walk and not faint. This is the glorious promise
of Almighty God. It's really a fulfillment in
explaining such a statement as this. Thou shalt arise and have
mercy upon Zion for the time to favor her. Yea, the set time
is come. And you know, all of our little
pathway, all of our little life on this earth is really to make
us conformable unto His image, to make us like unto Him. And let me assure you, left to
ourselves, we would never be like Christ. We would never be
a true follower of the Saviour, but it's His great and glorious
work in our hearts, in our soul, which produces this true desire
to follow and to worship a despised and crucified man and to rejoice
in a promise like this, that she ought to rise and have mercy
upon Zion for the time to favor her, yea, the set time is come. And as I've already read in that
40th Isaiah, waited patiently God has a set time that set time
may not correlate with yours and mine but you see it will
work out well because we're told as for God his way his way is
perfect let me just come back to that great truth that our
life is a preparation for our eternal life that's why God's
way is perfect because you and I don't understand it fully. God knows the end from the beginning,
you and I don't. He knows what he will do. He
knows how he will do it. But the mercy is, we'll be prepared
for that great day when time for us will be no more. And then
to be found in glory with a saviour. Indeed, we read towards the end
of this 102nd Psalm. Of old hast thou laid the foundation
of the earth. Yes, the foundation of the earth.
And also he's laid the foundation for you and me. And that foundation
is Christ. And the heavens are the work
of thy hands. They shall perish. But thou shalt endure. Yea, all of them shall wax old
like a garment. As a vesture shalt thou change
them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy
years shall have no end. This is the eternal God that
we are gloriously privileged. to deal with and to have this
great glorious God deal with us in his way to bring us safely
home to glory. It puts everything else in a
right perspective when we consider the Lord is dealing with us in
love to our soul, in a gracious and glorious preparation for
our eternal home. We'll have to come and praise
God from whom all blessings flow, that God has not left us, that
God hasn't deserted us, that God's been mindful of us, His
hand's been upon us. He's guided and directed us.
Our steps have been ordained by Almighty God. How humbling
to think that every step of our little life has been ordained
by Almighty God. We're not there for to get impatient. Sometimes perhaps we want to
put our hand to God's work. We want to move it on a bit.
we get impatient God's time is always the right time as for
God His way is perfect, His time is perfect He doesn't make any
mistakes and He will give us that grace and bring us to that
situation where we are willing in the day of His power to submit
ourselves under the mighty hand of God How really humbling it
is to think that this great God deals with us in love to our
souls, takes us in hand as his children, guides us day by day,
never leaves us nor forsakes us. For the time to favour her, yea,
the set time is come. Yes, it's a great blessing, isn't
it, to know that God has his time, which will come for our
blessing, for our eternal good, so that we may grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If you and I were left to ourselves,
We would never grow in grace and we would never have a greater
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. No, we'd be very
self-centred and we'd make sure that our life was, as far as
we thought, would be nice and smooth and wouldn't enter into
any difficulty. But the Lord leads them in the
right way. You only have to think and meditate
upon Israel of old. how the Lord led them about,
He instructed them, He kept them as the apple of His eye, amazing
as it may seem, that's the same today, for you and me are worthy
sinners, He leads us about, yes, He instructs us, He keeps us
as the apple of His eye, those who are near and dear to Him. Well, my friends, may God truly
lead us into all truth as it is in Jesus. There's the glory,
the truth that is in Jesus. Oh, be not weary in reading the
word of God. Be not weary in studying the
life of Jesus. Be not weary in committing our
way unto him, believing that he's gone before, and as he gloriously
promised, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare
a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself. Yes, this set time when you'll
come again and receive us unto himself, that where I am, there
shall you be with the Lord. forever. It's a great prospect,
isn't it? It puts everything you know in
a right perspective and in a right order and it gives us that submission
to realise that we have a Father in heaven who is our Great Father
who's looking upon us and has watched over us and is dealing
with us for our Eternal good. Well, may the Lord direct us
to think upon these great truths. But thou, O Lord, shalt endure
forever just to make sure we have a right view of God and
thy remembrance unto all generations. Thou shalt arise and have mercy
upon Zion. For the time to favour her, yea,
the set time is come. Let us not forget, in each of
our little lives there is a set time to favour us. Amen.