So Lord may graciously help me,
I return your prayer for attention to Psalm 61 and reading verse
2 for a text this morning. Psalm 61 and verse 2. From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the
rock that is higher than I. Psalm 61 and verse 2. We have in this Psalm of David,
it's clearly written in a time when David was in distress, when
he was overwhelmed and he prays first of all in the first verse,
hear my cry, He's concerned that God would hear him in his distress. He prays to God from his heart,
O God, attend unto my prayer. David was one that knew many
changes in his life. He had great sorrows as well
as great joys. And he came to God in the times
of joy, but also in the times of sorrow. He had those times
of praise, there's many psalms showing the praises of God that
David sang, and he was referred to as the sweet psalmist of Israel. But there were those times, and
this is one of them here in this psalm, that David was in great
distress. We don't know when it was written
in terms of what great distress it was. Was it when he was being
chased by saw the king mercifully as a partridge upon the mountains?
Or was it, some believe, that it was perhaps more likely to
be when Absalom, who was his son and rebelled against him,
had gone to overthrow him? And because it does speak in
verse 6, thou wilt prolong the king's life. So it seems that
perhaps David was a king at the time of writing this psalm. We do not know exactly the circumstances,
but we do know that David had many times when he came into
difficulties. And this has been left on record
for God's people. That when we come into our difficulties,
that we can realize that we're not the first ones that have
come there. We're not the first ones to have
experienced this. And David shows us what to do. You see, the end of this psalm
ends on a good note. It says in verse eight, so will
I sing praise unto thy name forever, that I may daily perform my vows. You see this in David's darkness
and difficulty and feeling overwhelmed. He then ends, you see, in praise
to God. And so may we, as we come into
our difficulties and come into those things which seem to overwhelm
us, that they may be used to bring us closer to God, and that
they may result in our singing praise to God. Because praise
waiteth for God in Zion. And that is what we as the people
of God are to be, is it is to be a people that praise Him.
This is going to be the occupation through a never-ending eternity
of God's people is to praise Him. And this is not to be a
praise without the understanding. This is going to be a praising
of God for what He has done. It is going to be out of what
God has done for His people that there is an issue in their hearts
to a response in their hearts is to praise this one. Hear my cry, O God. Attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee. So here we see that David felt
in his experience that he was at the end of the earth, as he
says in this psalm. Far away, far off, you see. If you think of David and what
was so central to the worship in David's time was the tabernacle,
the place where the Ark of God was, was in Jerusalem. Well,
certainly by the time David brought it there, it depends on when
this psalm was written. But you see, David clearly feels
far off. And we know that when he was
being chased by Saul, he was far off. He went, had to go far
away because Saul was chasing him as that partridge upon the
mountains. and he felt far off from the
tabernacle, far off as it were from God and so he describes
that from the end of the earth. Maybe this morning or what you've
been through in this last week or this recent times there can
be in the in the hearts of God's people this feeling of being
far off, far off from God, not being able to be close to him.
Circumstances have driven him away. And of course, when Absalom
tried to usurp the kingdom, David had to flee for his life across
the Kidron and over up the Mount of Olives, a way that great David's
greatest son would also walk. So many years later, when he
passed over the Kidron, as he then went into the Garden of
Gethsemane on behalf of his people. But you see, from the end of
the earth, will I cry unto thee. David, although he felt far off,
he cried. He didn't say, well, I'm a long
way away, so then I'll go and seek some other place of refuge,
some other thing to help me. because I'm a long way from God,
no. David says here, hear my cry, oh God, attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee. I will cry unto thee. And then
he tells us what he's feeling in his heart, when my heart is
overwhelmed. So here David is describing that
feeling of being overwhelmed with the circumstances, overwhelmed
with the pathway as it was, that it's as it were, if we think
of that in a flooding sense, if you're overwhelmed with a
flood, you're nigh to drowning. You're getting overwhelmed with
the flood. You're getting overwhelmed with
the water. And you see, it won't be long if you stay in that situation
where you're drowned. when my heart is overwhelmed. It seems, you see, that naturally,
well, if in this situation, this extremity, what can you do? Well, David shows us and tells
us and encourages us what we should do. And David was one
who came into great extremities, as you might remember, at one
of the times when he was being chased by Saul, and he was in
the land of the Philistines, Then he came back to Ziklag where
he had been staying at that time with his men and their families
and Ziklag was burnt with fire when he returned and the heart
of all the people was really grieved. He was their leader
and now all these things had befallen them and we read that
the people spake of stoning David. So he had lost his family it
seemed All these things seem to be so against him, and the
people spake of stoning him, but we read that David encouraged
himself in the Lord his God. You see, David had a place to
go to in his extremities. And so surely in our lives today,
this is a great lesson for us. Have we a place to go to? Do
we know where to go to when we feel overwhelmed? Do we despair? Or are we like David that encouraged
himself in the Lord his God? He had a place to go to. He had
one to cry to. He knew where to cry. He knew
that there was a place that he could come to in his extremity. I cry unto thee when my heart is
overwhelmed. And then we're told what his
cry is. You see here, we have that in
the end of the second verse. Lead me to the rock that is higher
than I. The Bible is so full of imagery,
so full of pictures here. And surely there's a picture
here of one that is, as it were, drowning in the sea with that
huge rock near them. And they look up to that rock
that's above the waves, a place of safety on that rock. and yet
they're not on that rock. Yes, the rock is safe, and if
they were on the rock, then they would feel very safe, but they're
not. They're in the sea. They're being
overwhelmed. So what is David's cry? Lead
me to the rock. Not a rock, the rock. You see, there's a specific place.
Lead me to the rock that is higher. And of course, throughout scripture,
this idea of the rock being a picture of Christ is so often referred
to. We know that it was the rock
that Moses was commanded to smite, and out of that rock poured that
water that was enough water for two million people and their
flocks and herds. But in the New Testament, that
rock that followed him and that rock was Christ, we read. So
we read that this smitten rock was actually a picture, a type,
as it were, of the Lord Jesus Christ, that rock, that refuge. And you see, what is... What
is so important about a rock? And if you're building, you need
a good foundation. And one of the aspects of a rock
is that it's immovable. Yes, we realize everything here
below is going to be passing away. So in one sense, this whole
world and everything about it has uncertainty stamped on it
because everything here is passing away. In terms of our daily lives,
rocks and things like that are things that are generally, they
stay for generations. There's some outcrops of rocks
that you see on our coastline and they've stood there for generations. Obviously some of the coastlines,
they erode quickly and they change from generation to generation.
But some of those, the granite outcrops, they've been there
for, for many, many generations. And they've got a stability about
them. They've seen many storms. They've been there through many
times of trial. And so here, you see, we have,
in the word of God, this picture that the Lord is a rock to his
people, a stability, a foundation, something that's secure, something
that will give them shade in the hotness. We had a hot day
yesterday. When you start to have those warmer days, sometimes
shade can be very precious. When it's cooler, we love, as
it were, to have the sun shining on us and warming us up. But
there comes a point when the heat gets hotter, then we look
for the shade. And the Lord Jesus is described,
you see, as that the great rock in a dry and thirsty land where
no water is. You see, and then a great rock
in a dry and thirsty land is a place where there is shelter
and shade from the heat of the sun, which of course is so welcome. And so the Bible is full of pictures
of how naturally things are precious. And yet there's a spiritual meaning
to this. There's a spiritual meaning.
And just as when one feels to be, let's say, in the sea and
drowning, overwhelmed by the depths of the sea and needing
to be rescued, my heart, from the end of the earth will I cry
unto thee when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher
than I am. What is it that overwhelms us?
Surely the providences in our lives sometimes overwhelm us.
Sudden providences change and things come into our pathway
that we look not for and we feel overwhelmed. We're taken off
guard and what we thought that would happen has now changed
and we feel overwhelmed. We don't know how we're going
to carry on. What are we to do in those situations?
Well, Davies says, lead me. to the rock that is higher than
I, to realize that there is one that is above us. Isn't that,
you see a rock in the stormy sea, a rock that's underneath
the sea, a bed doesn't help as much, does it? Standing on that
rock, we'll still get battered by the waves, but if that rock's
higher than us, if it's above us, if it's above the waves,
then standing on that rock, you see, will be a place that's safety,
that gives safety and security. Overwhelmed, when my heart is
overwhelmed, overwhelmed by providences. Job was overwhelmed by providence,
wasn't he? When suddenly all his goods were
taken away in one day and his family was swept away. Surely
Job must have felt so overwhelmed when my heart is overwhelmed. We come into circumstances, things
that are too great for us to handle. When my heart is overwhelmed,
lead me. Take me by the hand. You see,
if you're swimming in the sea and you have a great rock, how
are you going to get up that rock? Sometimes these rocks have
such vertical sides going out at the sea, you'd say, well,
yes, I see the safety on the rock, but I can't get I can't
get to the top of the rock. I can't get to safety. I can
see that safety would be on the rock, but I can't get there. Well, the prayer of the psalmist
is, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. One of our hymn writers picks
up and led me on with placid pace to Jesus as my hiding place. He leads his people to himself. He leads them to that place of
safety. He brings them to that place of safety. And you see,
it's the prayer of God's people in there feeling overwhelmed
to pray to God that he would do that for them and not leave
them, not leave them to sing, not leave them to perish. You see, we get into great extremities
as I spoke of the providences. And we read together of Jonah
and what a difficulty he got into. He was so cut off. You think about it. I experienced
it a little bit in a very minor way relative to Jonah, but this
last week, my mobile phone SIM stopped working. So it was on
the day when I was, traveling back from up north and I came
back and my phone wasn't working and then we ended up getting
stuck on the M25 with a fire in a vehicle and I couldn't contact
anybody and you really felt cut off. Normally we can phone people
and tell them where we are and how we are but I couldn't. My phone wasn't working, we were
in this stationary and eventually I managed to uh, speak to somebody
behind me, as it were in the car. And we were able to, uh,
in the car behind and able to phone from there. But Jonah,
you see, you think about it, how cutoff Jonah was. He was
inside the belly of a whale, no contact with anybody else. You think about it. There was
nobody he could contact. There was nobody he could cry
out to. There was nobody, physically, no human being could help him. You think about it. In that,
how could he give his destination? He couldn't communicate with
anybody. He was totally cut off. What does he do there? Does he
despair? No, he doesn't, you see. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord,
his God, out. of the fish's belly, out of that
extremity, out of that place which seems so far off. Inside
this fish in the sea, he didn't know where he was. He didn't
probably know where up and down was. Completely, we read, the
waters compassed about, even to the soul. The depths closed
me round about. The weeds were wrapped about
my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, the earth,
Bars was about me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life
from corruption. You see, he goes back to that
God, is in its extremity. But I will sacrifice unto thee
with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have
vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. And
we read, it seems that Jonah said salvation is of the Lord,
in the midst of that fish's belly. He hadn't yet been rescued, but
he believed that salvation was of the Lord. He believed that
his God was able to speak or appear for him in that tremendous
way and bring him out of that impossible situation, naturally
speaking. Of course, the Lord Jesus was
going to use this very impossibility and the possibility of being
in this depths of the belly of the whale. And the Lord Jesus
was going to use that as a very type of how he was going to be
three days and three nights in the earth. The impossibility
of rising from the dead, the depths, the death that Jesus
had passed into. He had died. and death, it seemed,
would feed upon him. But out of that extremity, the
Lord would bring him out. And you see, in Psalm 16, we
have those beautiful words of the Saviour. Psalm 16. For thou wilt not leave my soul
in hell, that is like the grave. Neither wilt thou suffer thy
Holy One, to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of
life. In thy presence is fullness of
joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures
for evermore. You see, Jonah was brought out of this
extremity. The Lord Jesus was brought out
of the grave. risen from the dead, and we particularly
think about that on the first day of the week, the Lord's day.
We think about Christ the Lord is risen today. He's risen from
the dead. He's conquered sin, death, hell,
and the grave. There's been that which he has
done. And you see, as we think of that,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I. This place of security,
this place of supply, you see, As I mentioned in the wilderness,
the rock was that rock that was smitten, smitten by Moses at
God's command. The second time Moses said it
was not at God's command, but the first time God commanded
him to smite the rock and out of that smitten rock flowed that
water to give water in the desert for the entire two million people
or so. of the children of Israel. Tremendous
supply of water, tremendous supply of water. So you see the rock
was a supply. When my heart is overwhelmed,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Do we need the supply? We need the foundation, you see,
of this rock. We need the security of this
rock from the waves and lifting us above it, from the shelter
of the heat of the sun, the security, but we also need the supply of
this rock. This rock was able to supply
them with water through their 40 years in the wilderness. You
think about it, a supply, a water supply for the children of Israel
through those 40 years. Think of the manna, how the manna
was provided for them Day by day, tremendous provision, totally
supernaturally. This is our God. From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee. When my heart is overwhelmed,
overwhelmed with circumstances, overwhelmed with the need of
provision and perhaps the feeling lack of that provision. When
my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher
than I. The rock that is exalted. You
see this was a smitten rock. Christ was a smitten rock. Smite
the rock. And of course it's a picture
of how God the Father would smite God the Son to make a provision
for his people. And his people would be provided
out of that smiting of the shepherd. As we read of in Zechariah, smite
the shepherd and the sheep should be scattered, but there would
be a provision then of all God's people. Lead me to the rock,
the rock, not just any rock, but the rock. This is the rock. This rock was Christ. There's
no other. I am, I am the good shepherd. No one comes to me except And
no one comes to the Father but by me. I am the way, the truth,
the life, says Jesus. Lead me to the rock. And you
see, when the Lord's people are in their extremities, they want
that rock. They need Christ. No other will
do them good. You think of Mary, when she was
so distressed at the grave. The angels were there, but she
wasn't interested in the angel. She wanted to know where her
master was. She wanted to know where the
rock was, and that rock was Christ. Because she needed, you see,
when we spoke of providential things that come into our pathways,
that then there is the health, our health. When we feel overwhelmed
with our health, our weaknesses, our ailments, our difficulties,
and it seems it's going to overwhelm us. From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee. When my heart is overwhelmed,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I. There's a place of refuge,
there's a place of health, there's a place of security in Christ.
Yes, our bodies have their ailments, have their feebleness, and ultimately
we will not live here forever. But if we are in Christ, we have
a life beyond the grave. We have life in this rock. We
have life in what he has provided. Lead me to the rock that is higher
than I. In our health then. But then
if we think another time, another place where the Lord's people,
if we think of Job, Job had troubles with his family. He lost his
family members. He lost his business. He then
lost his health. But if you analyse the Book of
Job, the majority of the Book of Job is not to do with his
family, his health, or his business. It's to do with his relationship
with God. That was the thing that for most
of the book of Job is speaking of the attack of Satan on that
principle of grace, and trying to, as it were, Satan trying
to overturn Job's faith, to try and get him to curse God and die, as it were,
as his wife was suggesting he should do. You see, it was his faith. This is a thing that was so under
attack. And this is a thing that was, of course, we think of as
the Lord Jesus Christ, that one that ultimately Job pointed to. Job was, as it were, an innocent
sufferer, wasn't he? In the sense that he was an upright
man who eschewed evil. We do not read that he came into
his troubles because he had done some great evil. But he came
into those troubles as innocent in one sense, and how this was
picturing one that would come into all those sorrows of death
as an innocent sufferer, as one who had never disobeyed God's
law. It was a picture of Christ. But
you see, it was his relationship with his God that was the crux
of the book of Job. And I believe that it was the
crux of the trial of Christ. It was a thing that made him
cry out on the cross, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken
me? He doesn't cry out, why have
these nails been driven through my hands? Why am I in such agonies
with this crucifixion? Those he did not cry over. He did not cry out over those
things. But he did cry out, my God, my God. Why has thou forsaken
me? This was the soul of his sufferings,
was the sufferings of his soul. Well, God's people know that
too. In Psalm 42, we read, Psalm 42 verse five says, Why
art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within
me? Hope thou in God, for I shall
yet praise thee. But I was thinking particularly
of verse three, My tears have been my meat day and night, while
they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? Where is thy God? That was the
center of the trial. Where is thy God? If God was
your God, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be in this problem.
You wouldn't be overwhelmed in this way. If God was really your
God, then why are you overwhelmed? That's what the devil would love
to say whenever the Lord's people come into difficulties. If God
was your God, you wouldn't be here. That's what they said to
Job. God wouldn't do this to an innocent
man. Look at what they said to Job.
It was very, very, very sad and very hard for Job to... If I just take the words of Bildad
the Shuhite, Job chapter eight, verse six, if thou were pure
and upright, surely now he would await for thee and make the habitation
of thy righteousness prosperous. Bildad the Shuhite was saying,
if God really, if you were one of God's people, if you really
had God with you, then if thou were pure and upright, surely
now he would await for thee and make the habitation of thy righteousness
prosperous. And the fact that you're still
in your trouble, the fact that you're still in your difficulty,
is a sure sign that God is not your God. From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee when my heart is overwhelmed. I've come into
all these difficulties and now I'm overwhelmed because they're
trying to take away my faith in God. They're questioning whether
I'm a child of God. Lead me to the rock that is higher
than I. And you see, Some of the times
if you think of David, if this was written with David when he
was being chased by Saul, this was a time when David was, we
read many times, was acting really honourably. David behaved himself
wisely, we read that many times, that he behaved himself in an
honourable way and Saul realised that and was frightened of him. And he realised that God was
with him He was acting honorably, and yet he was overwhelmed at
times, and yet there was times when he could say, but I have
been, as it were, following the Lord, I have been acting honorably.
But there was other times in David's life, you see. Other
times when he was overwhelmed, when really he could look back
and say, this is a direct result of my sin. You think of all that
took place with Absalom, with Amnon first, forcing his sister,
half-sister Tamar, and then Absalom killing Ammon, and then Absalom
rising up against David to usurp the throne. And it was all an
outworking of this prophecy that Nathan had given David, the sword
shall not depart from thy house. And so surely David could look
back and say, all these things are happening to me as a result
of my sin. From the ends of the earth will
I cry unto thee. And my heart is overwhelmed. It's my sin. The problem is mine. I've caused this. If you look
back in my actions years ago, this is all an outworking, it's
all a fruit of that, my sin. My heart is overwhelmed. Lead
me to the rock that is higher than I. You see, God's people,
sometimes they've been upheld and kept and they feel that,
as it were, that they acted honourably like David had in his early days.
He'd really been honourable and yet he was overwhelmed and God
appeared for him and upheld him. But there were other times when
he'd acted quite wrongly. And yet he still went back to
God. Isn't that a lesson for us? We'd say, well, if the sword
shall not depart from my house, if this is God's hand against
me, how can I go back to God? How can I go back and ask him
for help? Because he's the one that's bringing
these circumstances to my pathway. Because of my sin. We read in Jonah chapter two,
didn't we? Why was Jonah in the sea anyway? Because he was disobedient. Because he'd run away from God.
Because he hadn't done what God had told him to do. And so he
could In that belly of the whale, he could really feel the only
reason I'm here is because I've been disobedient. I've rebelled
against the God who rules the skies. So you might say, well, and the
only person that can help you is the one that you've rebelled
against? You really are in a trouble. You really are in an extremity. But Jonah, you see, he goes back
to that God. And this is the nature of the
mercy of God, that we are to go back to that God that we have
rebelled against and plead for mercy, as Jonah did. But I will sacrifice unto thee
with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have
vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. Jonah in the extremity, David
in his extremity. When he had sinned with Bathsheba
and Uriah the Hittite, he'd sinned against his God greatly, solemnly. This is not to give license to
sin, but it is to give hope. When my heart is overwhelmed, don't despair. Lead me to the
rock that is higher than I. Lead me to that one that is able
to have mercy, able to say unto the uttermost. We may think that
we have sinned too much. But you see here there are examples
with David and others with Jonah who was left to sin, Peter left
to deny his Lord. And yet there are examples of
how God had mercy, and yet there's other examples in the word of
God where there was those that sinned and they were cut off.
And surely there's a warning here. We're not to trifle with
sin. We're not to think of sin but
lightly. But surely there's a message
here of David is saying, hear my cry, oh God. Attend unto my
prayer from the end of the earth. from the extremity, and you see,
you might have your definition of the end of the earth last
year, perhaps. You think, well, that was an
end of the earth experience. Perhaps you go on in your pathway
and you've come further now. Now you feel further from God
than you did last year, perhaps. You've traveled further. Surely
David, in his early days, would have never imagined the depths
that he would have fallen into later on in his life. His ends
of the earth in his early days, I'm sure wouldn't have been as
far from God as they were towards his latter end. He had to experience
how far off he felt from God in a greater way than he'd experienced
before. Hear my cry, O God. Tend unto
my prayer from the end of the earth. Will I cry unto thee where
my heart is overwhelmed. I don't know what to do. Lead me to the rock that is higher
than I. That's what he's to do. That's
what his prayer is. And then David looks back in
verse three, for thou hast been a shelter for me and a strong
tower from the enemy. You see, he's now rehearsing
what God has done for him in the past. This is not the first
time he's been overwhelmed. This is not the first time he's
been in an extremity. He looks back and he says, I
was an extremity before and I fled for refuge to Christ. For there
has been a shelter for me and a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in thy tabernacle
forever. He knows that there is a place
of safety in Christ. I will trust in the covet of
thy winged sealer. For thou, O God, hast heard me,
heard my vows, hast given me the heritage of those that fear
thy name. Here you see David's encouraging himself in the Lord
is God. And as I said, the end result of this psalmist, so will
I sing praise unto thy name forever that I may daily perform my vows. But that same psalmist that say
in these words is also saying verse two, from the end of the
earth will I cry unto thee. when my heart is overwhelmed.
Not, I'll cry when things are a bit better. Well, I'll cry
when I've got into a nicer position. If Jonah had cried when he got
into a nicer position than in the belly of the whale, he'd
have never come out, would he? It was when he was in the belly
of the whale, that's when he cried. That's when he cried unto
God in the depths of his affliction, in the most hopeless, place it
seemed, picturing what would be the body of the Lord Jesus
when he would pass, be in that tomb, the lifeless body of the
Saviour. But you see, up from the tomb
he arose with a mighty conquest of all his foes. There were to
be a deliverance, there was to be salvation, there was to be
what we read of in Philippians, in the humiliation of Christ. Philippians chapter two, who being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself
of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, was made
in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he
humbled himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross. This was the extremity This was
the, all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me. But then you
see, wherefore God also hath highly exhorted him, and given
him a name which is above every name, that the name of Jesus
every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth,
and things under the earth. You see, this rock is an exhorted,
it's a smitten rock, but it's now an exhorted rock. It was
smitten, but now it's an exhorted rock.
The rock, this is now a strong tower. This is one who is able
to save unto the uttermost, but it's also one that understands
the weakness of those that are oppressed. He understands because
he's been there. He was smitten, stricken and
afflicted. Not for his own sins, but for
the sins of his church. Well, may we then be amongst
those in our difficulties that are able to come as David did
and learn. What should we do in these overwhelmed
times? What should we do when all around
my soul gives way? What should we do? Lead me to
the rock that is higher than I. And David makes it clear.
that God had been his shelter in time past, and he was not
disappointed. The Lord did lead him to one
that was higher than he was, and so will he bring his people
out of their extremities to be able to say salvation is of the
Lord. Salvation. You see, there was
a confession, as it were, of their sin, of their shortcomings,
and a realisation of the salvation needed in God. and then a declaration
that salvation is of the Lord. This rock is salvation. This
is being saved from our sins, and this is the one that I seek
to serve. May the Lord have his blessing,
amen.