Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 62. Psalm 62, and reading
from our text, verses 5 to 7. Verse 5, My soul, wait thou only
upon God, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock
and my salvation. He is my defence, I shall not
be moved. In God is my salvation and my
glory, the rock of my strength, and my refuge is in God. Psalm 62, verses 5, 6 and 7. And the word that is before us
is waiting upon God with expectation. We are not told over this psalm
when it was written, but we know it is a time when David had adversaries,
and it is thought that it is at the time when Absalom rose
up against him. The psalm begins with David stating
what he is doing. He says in verse 1, Truly my
soul waiteth upon God, from him cometh my salvation. And it is a statement of what
David is doing and what God is in verse 2. He only is my rock
and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be greatly moved. But then in verses 3 and 4, we
have the adversary coming in, imagining mischief and seeking
to consult the Lord down from His Excellency. The adversary
not only acting against God's children, but also undermining
their trust and their hope in God. Where a soul says, my soul
waiteth upon God, and from him cometh my salvation. So in comes
the adversary, in comes the enemy, and he questions that God will
come at all, and questions whether God is able to save at all. So when the adversary comes in
that way, then we have David acting again, and in the words
of our text, he communes with his own soul and seeks to strengthen
those very same things that he already had professed. Maybe with us, we have made profession
and confession of what the Lord is to us and how we're waiting
upon Him, and seek that help from Him. But then comes the
trials of tribulation, something of what we sang of in our first
hymn of the Church of God, the people of God. In the world you
shall have tribulation, we will have adversaries, and they tend
to shake our faith, they attack our foundations. And it is then
that we may, when we feel that shaking, need to reaffirm again
and to strengthen again what we believe. Not just go on as
if, well, we will be kept, but use that means that is set before
us here and is very instructive to us, the course that David
takes in this time when the adversary is attacking. May we remember
again, this is the inspired Word of God. This is God's Word to
the Church of God in the same life circumstances. It is also
the Word of one who is and was a man of God's own heart, David. Of course, David, this is the
time that he is serving his day and generation. He's now with
the Lord in heaven. But through the Word of God,
It serves us in our generation, every generation. So I want to
look with the Lord's help this morning at four exercises of
a living soul that are brought before us in these verses. And then lastly, just make a
word of application because David not only strengthens himself,
but then turns. to the people, trust in him at
all times, ye people. It's good for us to speak to
others from our own experience and for the helps that we have
received. So four exercises of our living
soul. I'll briefly mention them, then
we'll go over them. We have firstly, a charging one's
own soul. Our text begins with my soul. He is speaking to his own soul. He's communing with his own soul. And then secondly, waiting upon
God. The exercise of waiting upon
God, he says, wait thou only upon God. And then thirdly, there's
the expectation from God. For my expectation is from Him. And then fourthly, reminding
ourselves of what God is. In the verses that follow, He
only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defence. I shall not
be moved. In God is my salvation and my
glory. The rock of my strength and my
refuge is in God. and he is reminding himself,
and we need to remind ourselves of what God is. Firstly, a charging of one's
own soul, my soul. How much do we realize that we
do have a soul? A soul that lives for eternity,
that never ever will cease to exist, do we bring to bear that we ourselves
need salvation? No, nothing in the things of
God. Are we just standing as a bystander? The Apostle Paul
says, let us run the race that is set before us, looking unto
Jesus. When I was at school, I was never
good at sport. And I thought I could, I had
the willingness, but not the abilities. And so often I was
just standing on the sidelines, and I watched others run the
races, and I could comment on others, but that's not how it
is to be in the things of God. If we find ourselves just commenting
on others, knowing about the things of God, but never anything
applied to our own soul, and never walking through things
ourselves, then we really need to be alarmed. We really need
to question whether we do really know God for our own God, whether
He is our God at all, or whether we have just taken up with religion
and can comment on others, but it's never a personal thing.
When we die, we must die personally. Our soul will leave the body
and return to God that gave it. And it is a walking a path that
is very, very personal path, and that we cannot walk as with
another in it. We may have fellowship with others,
but it must be personal, and it must not be clouded as well
with outward things, especially as a minister. We cannot trust
in our ministry, in our calling in that way, in those who have
been blessed under the ministry. personal faith and a personal
walk with God. And David had that. And though
he was king, and though he was a leader of the people of God,
he had dealings with God with his own soul. And so he begins
in this, our text, with charging his own soul. You might ask,
have we also done that? communed with our own soul, had
a talk, as it were, with ourselves, a reasoning with our own heart
and ourselves. The Psalms are full of these
things. It's not just this one Psalm. If we went back to Psalm 4 and
verse 4, we find that as well. Stand in awe and sin not, commune
with your own hearts upon your bed, and be still, Selah. The word Selah, the pause, and
to consider, comes often, comes twice in this Psalm, Psalm 62. And it is that we are to stop
and to consider, to think of those things that we've read
and heard. If we were to go further on to
Psalm 77, we find then in verse six of that Psalm, I call to
remembrance my song in the night, I commune with mine own heart,
and my spirit made diligent search. And many of the songs, they speak
of not talking to someone else, but to our own soul, and meditating,
going over the things that have happened, what we believe, where
our hope is, where our refuge is, and it is going on between
our own soul. If we were to go back to the
42nd and 43rd Psalm, we have the psalmist there in a low place,
and Psalm 42 twice in verse 5, and then at the end, Why art
thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in
me? Hope thou in God, for I shall
yet praise Him, for the health of his countenance. And again,
he is speaking with his own soul, communing with his own soul. At the end of Psalm 43, we have
a similar word. Why art thou cast down, O my
soul? Why art thou disquieted within
me? Hope in God, for I shall yet
praise him. who is the health of my countenance
and my God. We have David when he came to
Ziklag and found it burned with fire and those that were round
about him were speaking of stoning him because they were very distressed
for their loved ones as well. Then we read that David encouraged
himself in the Lord his God. It's a similar thing where there's
a speaking with one's own soul and communing with one's own
soul. It needs to be feared. Many will never, never do that. The hymn writer is not even content
with that. In hymn 1085, Annie Steele said,
Slaughter, search my heart, try its real state to find. The secret springs of thought
explore, call my words and actions o'er. But in this with David
here, he's searching or communing with his own soul. It's a good
thing to ask that the Lord also searches our own heart and tries
our own soul. So David here, the exercise of
a living soul, recharges one's own soul. And may we ask ourselves
the question, night watches, do we when we
have troubles and adversaries go over what we do believe, why
we believe it, we do meditate on that, we speak to ourselves,
ask ourselves the questions, searching questions, don't let
it be left to others but search in questions ourselves that need
to be answered. So the first then of exercise,
my soul. The second is awaiting upon God. Waiting upon God. Wait thou only
upon God. The word only comes here in the
waiting and also in the hoping as well in God. It is a a word
that comes up often for the people of God not to have some other
refuge or other one that they're looking to, but only the Lord,
one only. It's one of the distinctives
of the Christian faith. It is by faith alone, not by
works, but by faith in Christ alone. So here is the psalmist
waiting upon the Lord. We know what it is, of course,
to wait, say, for a bus. And if we're at a bus stop and
we're waiting for that bus, there's nothing that we can do to hasten
it. We want it to come. We want it
to be able to take us to a certain place. And there's a basis for
that waiting, how we can wait. On the post is a list of the
bus times and however much we might rely on that timetable
and rely on it being a correct indication when the bus was come
will help us to wait. Sometimes we've waited for a
bus and it may not have been on time and we get very agitated,
very worried. Is that reliable timetable? Can
we rely on it? But when we're thinking about
the things of God, Then we are to rely upon the Word of God,
we are to trust in what God has said, and that which we wait
upon Him for, that He will truly do it. When Ruth had put in her
petition to Boaz, then Naomi gave her the advice to sit still,
my daughter, she was to wait, wait. Boaz was going to do the
work. And in chapter four of the book
of Ruth, we don't read of Ruth doing anything. Boaz is doing
everything on her behalf, and she's waiting for him to do it
and to accomplish it. Waiting will be, in a spiritual
way, an exercise of solace we have here. It won't be just,
well, it just doesn't matter. If the Lord blesses, He will.
If He comes, He will. If it is so, in this case with
Absalom, It was a very anxious time with David. Was the kingdom
to be overturned? Had not God given him that kingdom? Wasn't it a time, too, of searching
back his own sin? The sword shall not depart from
thy house. And also later on, in Absalom,
he takes David's wives, his concubines, and lays with them in the sight
of their son. That's what God said would happen. And so there's much that David
would have had to go over in his own soul, but here was to
be a deliverance. And we think of David waiting
for that news in the battle. How was it going? Of course,
his desire was, he wanted deliverance, but he didn't want his son killed.
Really, he was in a very, very difficult position. Sometimes
we can be like that too. We wait for the Lord to appear,
but we don't know how he will appear. of all the alternatives
and all the ways we shrink at them. And some of them we don't
want the Lord to appear for. I mean, poor David, how distressed
he was when Absalom was slain. But it'll be the anxious waiting
and be watching in prayer, watching, watching providence, looking
where the Lord is likely to come. Where will the Lord likely to
come? As we read His Word, as we wait upon Him in prayer, as
we listen to the Word preached, we'll be waiting, waiting for
the Lord to come through that way. You know, in Elijah's day
when the Lord had withheld rain from the earth for those three
years and six months, Elijah only had to pray once and the
fire came down from heaven. But then when they were to have
rain, Elijah was praying and praying and his servant go and
go again seven times. But where was the servant looking? He was not looking towards the
land because that's not where the expectation was. If you're waiting for a bus,
you're not looking one way down the road when the bus is going
to come the other way around the road. you're looking where
you are expecting the bus to come from. And so Elijah's servant
was looking out to the sea. Where is it likely a cloud would
arise? From the sea. And the rain would
then form there from the sea and come over the land. And so
with us, if we are waiting upon God, then we are looking unto
him. Perhaps to put it to an extreme,
If we are said that we're waiting upon God but we spend our time
going to worldly amusements or going amongst the people of the
world where we never hear the word of God and never amongst
the Lord's people, that wouldn't be indicating that we're waiting
upon the Lord. If the Lord has said that you
come amongst his people, visit them, you think of dear Thomas
who was not with the disciples when the Lord came When He rose
from the dead, He had to wait another eight days before the
Lord appeared to Him. And so waiting upon God, it is
only upon Him, using means, looking to the Lord that He would appear
for us. And it indicates that those times
are in the Lord's hand, not ours. How often the Lord said that
my time is not yet. Your time is always ready. But
my time is not yet. There is a set time to favour
Zion. You know there are some that
say, we don't need to wait. You just need to accept the Lord.
You just need to believe tonight. You just need to read the word
and give assent to it. The time of your salvation, the
time of your believing, the time of your deliverance, the time
of your blessing is in your hand. The scriptures say our times
are in thy hand. And the Lord is a sovereign when
he will come and when you appear for his people. And that is why
there's so much in the word of God of waiting upon God, waiting
for him to come in his time. And often there is a real trial
in awaiting in that way that we don't go to some other ways. One of the ways that King Saul
failed when the Philistines invaded the land And he was to offer
a sacrifice, and he's waiting for Samuel. Samuel said when
he would come. And Samuel did come at the appointed
time, but a lot later, right at the end of that time. But
Saul was getting very edgy, upset, and he forced himself and offered
the sacrifice. And then Samuel came, and he
said, that was done foolishly. The king had no right to offer
the sacrifices. And so that trial of waiting,
was a real test and Saul was not waiting only on God. If God
didn't come when he wanted him to, then don't worry, I'll do
it instead. I'll find some other way. I won't
just rest alone on him. I'll have some other scheme and
insurance just in case. So the exercise of waiting upon
God must have this word only in it as well. for Him to appear
to help us, to appear for us, to deliver us from our adversaries,
to bless our souls. My soul, wait Thou only upon
God. The third exercise is the expectation,
and it is an expectation from God, a reason, for waiting. He mentioned regarding the illustration
of the bus stop, there is a basis upon what the waiting is. There's an expectation according
to what is written in the timetable that it will come. And that expectation
for the Christian, for the people of God, is upon the word of God. We may Again, really search your
own heart on what is our expectation based. Not just on the Word of God,
but on the application of it to our own soul and for the blessing
that the Lord has given us. Really it comes in several aspects. One will be on the Word of God,
not on any visions or personal experiences separate from the
Word of God. It will be based upon what God
has said that we expect He will do and He will perform. Hath
He said and shall He not do it? God is faithful. He will not
suffer you to be tempted above that which ye are able, but will
with the temptation make a way of escape that ye be able to
bear it. And then we have the promise.
that when the enemy shall come in like a flood, I'll lift up
a standard against him. And those promises, all the promises
of God are yay and amen in Christ Jesus. And it's a good thing
in our waiting, in our prayer, that we remind the Lord of what
He is and what He has promised us. But not only is it God's
Word, but it's our experience of God's Word. We think of the
word that was given to Abraham that he would have a son, and
yet 25 years or so went by before he had that son, and it was a
great trial. At one time he hearkened to Sarah,
took his maid, and had Ishmael, but that was not to be the promised
seed. He was to wait only upon God
and God would provide him a seed. But he waited upon the Lord and
we are told in Hebrews that both he and Sarah, they had faith
and they were given a child in the appointed time. So they had
that expectation and the child came. We think of Jacob that
was given the word when he left his father and mother's home.
that the Lord would be with him in all places, with us wherever
he went, and that he would bring him again to that land. The Lord
would not leave him until he had done that which he had spoken
to him of. And the Lord did bring him back
to that land. But great trials he had with
Laban, and then as he came back, the threat of Esau destroying
him, and the wrestlings with prayer which he put the Lord
in remembrance, thou says, return unto this land and I will surely
do thee good. And so we have these things that
in the lives of the people of God, they had the word, they
walked them out, and it was a personal exercise to them. They'd been
given the word, given a word of promise, given the hope of
a child, given the hope of returning to a land, and they had to wait
for the Lord's time and the Lord's way, to bring it about, but they
had an expectation it would be brought about and it would happen. You think of Noah building the
ark. Did not he have an expectation
that God would bring the flood? He did, and he was a preacher
of righteousness. Did not Daniel have an expectation
that after 70 years God would accomplish the captivity in Babylon
and would then bring them up out of Babylon? and the Lord
did. And so, we have the list of those
that in the Word, they walked out this waiting with an expectation
based upon what God had said to them. And in these Gospel
days, we have these cases recorded for us. We are shown their lives,
what they waited upon the Lord for, what their expectation was
based upon, And we have again and again a witness, like that
long cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11, those that walked by faith,
those that trusted the Lord would come and had a real expectation
of Him. And of course with the greatest
thing, the greatest expectation of the Old Testament church was
that the seed of the woman should come and should bruise the serpent's
hand. The hopes and fears of all the
years are met in thee tonight, the Christmas carol sings. And it is the hopes and fears
of the people of God through the centuries were all met in
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is a great strength
to the Church of God today to view the Old Testament Church
in its waiting, in its expectation, that the Lord truly did come.
He did appear. He did come. And the expectation
of the church today is that He would come again. When the Lord
ascended up into heaven, the angels stood by them and testified
that they had seen ascending to heaven would come again in
like manner, with power and with great glory. And the church looks
for that, the Thessalonian church, were not only converted, the
Word was not only in Word only, but demonstration of the Spirit
and of power, that they were called to wait for His Son from
Heaven. And whether the Lord comes a
second time, or whether He comes in the day of our death, there
is that expectation that it will certainly come to pass. The Lord
will come and will appear. It is good for us in every trial,
like David here, The trials, the adversaries, the things that
come upon us, that the Lord will appear, that he'll help us, that
he'll deliver us, that he'll save us. Always value the remembering
of the pathway, a dear sister in faith in Australia. And when
I saw her in the nursing home in her old age, especially two
blessings I saw her have. greatly blessed and favoured
how the Lord came to her, and then the Lord withdrew. And to
see her demeanour after he'd withdrew. You know, there wasn't
a rushing hither and thither. There was such a spirit. She knew the Lord would come
again. She knew he would bless her again. She mourned, she missed his presence. She longed after him. But everything
in her stated so clearly God was in control. She couldn't
bring him. He would come. He would not leave
her. He would not forsake her. And
he did come, and he did bless her. It's a wonderful thing to
see the Lord's people with such a trust, with such a faith, with
such a quiet resting. Now, if you picture it, Two people
waiting for someone to come. One pacing up and down. One restless. One keep looking at their watch.
One keep saying, are they coming? Are they really coming? The other
one just sitting quietly. And every now and again they
say, don't worry. They will come. They will appear. And that expectation
joined with the waiting gives that quietness and belief and
trust and resting upon the Lord. And David, he is stating and
he's saying to his own soul, my soul wait thou only upon God,
for my expectation is from Him. There's two aspects of that from
Him, that the Lord will come But also his expectation came
from him. God gave him the expectation. God gave Abraham the expectation
in the word he spoke to him. God gave Jacob the expectation
from the word that he spoke to him when he saw the vision of
the ladder set up on earth and extending up into heaven. We
may ask ourselves, where has our expectation come from. And we go back, like dear Jacob,
and said, Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good. Thou saidst,
return unto this land. There's a basis of expectation,
and it comes from the Lord, from what the Lord has said, from
what the Lord has done. So this then is the third exercise
of the soul. The fourth one is reminding ourselves
of what God is. We can so forget the Lord says
at one time, Thou thoughtest that I was altogether one like
unto thyself. And here is David and he is reminding
himself, and may we do the same. Two words again, I'd emphasis
in these two verses, six and seven, is the word my. comes again and again. My rock,
my salvation, my defense, my salvation, my glory, my strength,
my refuge goes right through it. How personal our faith needs
to be. He is not just the rock, the
God of salvation, the defense of His people, but it's mine. The second word is the only. He only. Only is my rock and
my salvation. And there is no other. And that
is a vital thing too. Other refuge have I none, says
the hymn writer, hangs my helpless soul on thee. So in the first
verse there, verse six, he's stating three things, that God
is, to him, my rock, my salvation, my defense. And because of those
three things, then David says that he shall not be moved. It's a blessed thing not to be
tossed to and fro on every wind of doctrine, to be moved away
from the hope of the gospel, to be moved away from the law. There are many that will, they
have fallen away. We only have the parable of the
sower to show how three of those hearers, they were moved away
from the word that they first heard. It did not profit them,
did not bring forth fruit. But David says that having the
Lord as his rock, his salvation and defense, he will not be moved. Of course, we think of the rock,
a rock at sea, those great big rocks and the waves beat upon
them, and the rock doesn't move, it is stayed, it doesn't change.
And this is the picture that we have of the Lord for David. And so he reminds himself of
this. The Lord has said, heaven and
earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away, that
shall not move. His counsel shall stand, that
shall not move. Hath he said and shall he not
do it, that shall not move. The rock of our salvation, rock
of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. One of the great blessed truths
to the people of God is that the Lord does not change, does
not move himself. And because the Lord doesn't
move, his people that rest on him will not move either. He
only is my rock and my salvation. Salvation is deliverance from
hell and deliverance to heaven. And whatever happens upon earth,
we need the blessing and the salvation of the Lord in His
beloved Son. And David, as well as Abraham,
saw Christ's day and rejoiced at it. And the salvation of the
Lord is central in the coming of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ. in His life of perfect obedience
and sinlessness, and His sacrificial death so willingly offering Himself
a sacrifice for sin. It is vital that our salvation we
view in the Lord Jesus Christ, what He has done. It is Christ
that has died, yea, rather risen again, and ascendeth and appeareth
in the right hand of God. Without the shedding of blood
there is no remission. Our sins in Adam bring about
the existence of death and the sentence of death, spiritually
and literally. We are all born into this world
under that sentence and under that condemnation, whose no man
living shall not see death, or the equivalent of it when the
Lord returns. And so it is that in our lives
we come forth from the womb speaking lies. And those sins need to
be atoned for. Those sins need to be put away,
either with their own blood or with another's. And it is the
provision in the Lord Jesus Christ that he has put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself. And a soul who can say with David
that he only is my salvation is one that has looked upon the
Lord Jesus Christ, and is trusting not upon their own works and
their own deeds, but solely upon what Christ has done in bearing
the wrath of God, in putting away sin by the sacrifice of
Himself, and making a way into the holiest of all through His
own precious blood." And so David, he is able to testify of this. May we never be in any doubt
that all the Old Testament saints from Abel's day, as he offered
a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, right to the end, all have
been saved in the same way, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those in the Old Testament, faith
in Him that should come and die, and with us, faith in Him who
has come and who has died. And it is that one salvation,
the salvation of the people of God, and yet it is to be made
personal to each one. For me, Christ died. For me,
he laid down his life. I lay down my life for the sheep. And in that beautiful chapter,
John 10, we have as well the security, the defense of the
people of God. No man shall pluck them out of
my hand. My Father that is greater than
me, no man is able to pluck them out of his hand. And so David,
he is reaffirming what the Lord is to him. And then in verse
seven, we have very similar but we may say putting to a finer
point, in God is my salvation. and my glory, the rock of my
strength and my refuge is in God. And the way I see it is
this, God doesn't say when he converts a soul, I'm going to
put my salvation in you. It's up to you how you regulate
your faith, how you regulate your life, it is in your hand. No, David said that is in God.
It's like our Lord saying to Peter, Satan had desired to have
thee, to shift thee as wheat, but I prayed for you that thy
faith fail not. And Peter's security was in the
Lord's prayer, in what the Lord would do. And David is in effect
saying, my salvation is not in my hand, but it is in God. And my salvation is that which
is bound up in Him, secure and safe, and cannot be assailed,
cannot be wrenched from Him at all. It is actually in God. Another aspect is of being found
in Him, as the Apostle says to the Philippines, to be found
in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is of faith, through the Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps another
simple illustration is with the ark, Noah's ark. What would the
salvation for Noah be if he wasn't in the ark? When the destruction
came, his security was being found in the ark. And so with
us, it's to be in Christ. And so David says, in God is
my salvation. As I am found in him, There is
my deliverance, there's my salvation. My salvation, my glory, the rock
of my strength and my refuge is in God. No flesh shall glory
in themselves, but only shall glory in the Lord. Where's lastly, just briefly
with David, after reaffirming this of himself, his own soul,
then he turns to the people. Trust in him at all times, ye
people. Pour out your heart before him.
God is a refuge for us, Selah. You know, if we don't really
believe in something ourselves, if we are filled with doubts
and fears, then that will come across if we try and reassure
and help others as well. But where we have first attended,
as David had here, to his own song, and before he speaks to
others, even though he begins his psalm with a real statement
of what he believes in and trusting in, he really strengthens and
confirms himself, and then he speaks to others. And may we
be the same, a blessing, to the people of God, strengthened ourselves,
and be able to speak the language that David speaks here, summed
up really in verse five, my soul wait thou only upon God, for
my expectation is from him. The Lord add his blessings.