Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 42. Psalm 42 and part
of verse five. Verse five, the latter part,
for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. Especially for these words, for
the help of his countenance. The whole verse reads, And we
have in this psalm a linking together the help of the countenance of
the Lord, and the health of our own countenance. In the last
verse of this psalm, we have, Why art thou cast down, O my
soul? And 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. So the help of God's countenance
is the health of our countenance. The psalmist sets forth before
us here a great longing after the Lord. The whole psalm is
brimming with this. The beginning of it, his soul
is panting after God. In verse 2 his soul is thirsting
for God, for the living God, and it's aggravated by those
in verse 3 that are asking him, where is thy God? And yet this is one that is already
going with the multitude to the house of God, they already As
in verse 4, I went with them to the house of God with the
voice of joy and praise with a multitude that kept holy day. And yet still he is crying out
for God and for God's countenance. What a message that this is to
us. We can be in God's house. We can be with a multitude, not
just a few, but even with a multitude. and yet there is something missing. God is not felt there. His countenance
is not seen there. You know how dependent we are
upon reading someone's countenance. You know, since this time of
the pandemic, in the ministry, it has been very, very hard for
us. We've been used to the ministry,
you're standing, before our congregations and seeing our people and preaching
to them. And when this first happened
and we couldn't gather in the Lord's house and we gathered
preaching from our homes, our studies, then we couldn't see
our congregation at all. We couldn't see their faces,
we couldn't see and be able to judge how they were listening
at all. And you know with countenance,
it is by that way that we actually read someone's approval, disapproval,
or whether they are being held, whether they are not, whether
they are angry, whether they are pleased, whether they are
pleasant. We need to see someone's countenance. We can tell so much from that. But when we first started to
preach in that way, Just from our studies, we saw nothing of
that at all. Very often we didn't even hear
anything afterwards either. And now that we are back in the
places of worship, that we are also required to wear the masks. Again, we see each other, but
we cannot see They're countenance. We can see the eyes, we can read
the eyes, but the whole facial features are necessary. And again, it is difficult for
us in the ministry. And the times I've preached even
before, a multitude, as much as we could have in a chapel. And yet you see a sea of masks,
and it's so very different. and thinking of the word that
is before us here, we might see the Lord as it were in his sanctuary
and with his people, but he is so masked or so hidden that though
we do not believe that he is not there, we believe he is there,
we know his promises where two or three are gathered together
in his name. But we may not see clearly enough
to be able to actually see his countenance, actually to read
it. Is the Lord toward us? Is he angry with us? Is he hiding
his face from us because of our sins? Is he gone out against us? We want to see his countenance. We want even to see it, whatever
it is, just to be able to read it, to be able to see how God
is toward us. And this is the psalmist's trouble
and concern here, and even though he is in the house of God. You know, we might have been
to the house of God All of our days we might have been used
to worshipping with the people of God, but there may have come
that time that we have an aching void that the world cannot fill,
and the first time that just going to the house of God is
not satisfying the longings and desires and feelings of our soul
that doesn't meet our case that we are in at the present time. And if that is the case, may
we be able to join with the psalmist here and join with his desires,
his longings and the reason for his hope and expectation and
to lift him up from being so cast down as he asked again and
again, and you may have come and gathered this day and asking
and been asking yourself in this last week, why am I so cast down? Why am I discouraged? Why am
I despondent? And maybe you've gone over your
home, your house, your health, your loved ones and those all
around you, and you've tried to convince yourself, look, you've
no reason to be sorrowful or cast down at all, and yet you
still are. where the psalmist here sets
the reason as something quite apart from all of those things
I've mentioned, quite apart from those things in our life. It
may be that everything is all-pleasing but there is an aching void that
is not filled and not satisfied except by seeing the countenance
of the Lord. It may be at first, and certainly
when the Lord begins with his people, that they do not realise
what is missing. They do not know why they are
troubled. They do not know what is casting
them down. And maybe it is with you this
morning as well. You can't put your finger on
it, you don't know. But if the Lord is working in
your heart and mine, he knows, he knows the heart, he knows
what he's doing in his people, And that by nature, we are full
of this world. We have no room for God. There's
no room for the Lord in the inn. We do not seek him and we do
not miss him when he is drawn from us. In fact, by nature,
we are far off from God. We have no thoughts of him and
we are dead in trespasses and sins. And it is the work of God
first to put in the sinner's heart room for the Lord and many
a time that begins with trials and being heavy laden and burdened
and troubled and things that are laid upon us as to our sins
and our condition and our state before God that we never realised
and never knew before and may not even be able to put our finger
on those things that are troubling us. But hear the psalmist He
brings it down to one thing and that is a soul that is brought
to long and thirst and look after God. And really this is a great
blessing that when any poor sinner is brought to this place that
once had no desire for him, sought him not and never mourned his
absence, are now brought to pant in this way and to long in this
way and to be cast down when those desires of the soul and
longings of the soul are not satisfied and realised in the
Lord Jesus Christ and his countenance to be upon us. I shall yet praise him for the
help of his countenance. Our text is really the last one
of the 3. Blessings of the Aaronic Blessings
in Numbers 6 At the end of that chapter we have the Lord saying
to Moses, Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this
wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them,
The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face
shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. And then the last
one, the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. And they shall put my name, notice
one name, and yet we've had three blessings, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, and I will bless them. And it is this third blessing,
the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee. And if we associate
that with the work of the Holy Spirit, it is the work of the
Holy Spirit to take the things of Jesus and reveal them unto
the soul. And when the Lord sent forth
his disciples and bid them to go and to preach the gospel,
they were to tarry at Jerusalem until they were endued with power
from on high. If the Lord was to lift up his
countenance upon a people, if his face was to be seen, if there
was to be a blessing, then the power of God through the Holy
Spirit must be put forth with the word to do this. It wasn't
just something that men could bring about themselves, not even
by a multitude, and sometimes there are those that by having
a multitude that gather together and they sing and they praise
and emotions can be raised and solemnly some have mistaken the
work of God for being just that, just to be a stirred up emotion
and that that is the blessing of the Lord. But here is the
psalmist and that just brings a hollowness to him. If the Lord's
presence is not there, nothing else makes up. for it at all. So I want to look then with the
Lord's help this morning and seek to set before you firstly
a cast down and disquieted soul and then secondly what is the
hope of help and then thirdly the effect of this help, the
health and countenance of the soul, what is the effect of it? But firstly then we have a cast
down and disquieted soul. Really every blessing that God
brings to his church It has a counterpart to it. If there is to be the
knowledge of peace, then the counterpart of that is where
there is not peace, where there is trouble. Where there is the blessing of
love, the counterpart of that is to feel a hard, cold, unloving,
unfeeling heart. Where there is to be the receipt
of the forgiveness and pardon that comes through the Lord Jesus
Christ, the counterpart of that is to feel under condemnation
and guilt. There is always the balance when
we have the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. His name shall
be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And you have the two parts there,
the Saviour, and then you have a people, and they are sinners,
and they have sins. There's always the two parts.
You cannot say, well, we know the blessings of the gospel,
we know the Lord Jesus Christ, We have a blessed prospect of
heaven and yet never have known the other parts to it. There must be the two sides. If someone was to come to you
and say, I've been wonderfully, wonderfully cured of this evil
disease, I've got wonderful health, I've got wonderful strength,
And I've had this wonderful cure. And you said to them, well, what
was this disease like? What did you suffer under it?
How long were you under it? How many doctors did you go and
see? What hospitals did you go to? What was used in your treatment? And if they weren't able to tell
you any of that at all, you say, well, this cure that you've had,
were you really cured? Did you really have this illness
at all? The other part is very necessary. And if there are those that are
saying, well, we have a good hope of heaven, we believe in
God, we love God, We love his people, and yet cannot tell any
other side than that. There's not the other side to
it. We say, did you ever know yourself as a sinner? Were you
ever under condemnation? Were you ever dead in sins? Were
you ever alienated from God by wicked works? Were you ever blind? Could you ever say that you walked
the path that John Newton did? I once was blind, but now I see. There must be the other side. And if you don't have another
side, maybe a real cause of concern for you, as Bunyan puts it, that
you not come through the wicked gate or not come into the narrow
way, but tumbled over the wall and got amongst the multitude,
but there's never been the need. Our Lord was very clear that
it is the sick that need the physician, not the whole. And
in Christ's day, those that were labelled by him as whole were
the scribes and the Pharisees, that were religious, very religious,
and yet they had no need of the Saviour. They laid burdens on
other men and they did not have any need for the message that
the Lord Jesus Christ had to bring. A most solemn condition
that they were in and saw the Apostle Paul as he became. That's what he was in the beginning,
a Pharisee, of the Pharisees. And the Lord brought him to be
in want and brought him to be a feeling sinner and in need
of the Saviour and revealed the Saviour to him. And it is through
his letters, a major part of the New Testament, an illustration
of the grace of God that one who was a very religious person
without Christ was brought to be a poor sinner saved by Christ. He speaks of himself as the chiefest
of sinners. And it may be that there is one
that hears the word this morning that is like that. Religious, but not saved. A profession, but not really
of a possession. of the real work of God. But here we have the psalmist,
and it is very, very evident. He is not able to lift up his
own soul, and his being downcast is for one specific cause and
reason. And though I know, and as we
said in the introduction, there may be many things that God uses
to cast down a soul and to bring one to be in want and in need.
Our Lord spoke of the parable of the Good Samaritan. He spoke
of that one that was stripped of all his goods, his clothes,
and wounded and laid bare, and how unable the priests, the Levites
that passed by were to help him. But the Good Samaritan came right
where he was and lifted him up, and the Lord Told that parable,
who is my neighbour, was the really teaching of that parable. One that is nigh, one that is
in need next to us. And whatever that need is, a
temporal need, a need for food or clothing or wounded or whatever
it is, it shows us how that we are to walk towards our fellow
men. Also speaks in a spiritual way. and of the Lord Jesus Christ
as being that one that comes where his people are, that have
been stripped of all their fancied goodness and merits and righteousness
and brought to be in real need, of which the law is not able
to help them. But also the Lord told the parable
of the man with his two sons, the prodigal son is called, And
how that that son went and with his fill of all this world and
the things of it, he enjoyed himself. And then there came
a time that there was a famine in the land and he had exhausted
all of his riches and he was feeding swine. and he would easily
have eaten the husks that they did eat, no man gave him to eat. And it was through that that
he began to think of his father's house. I really desire during
this pandemic that there might be those that have been so full
of this world that through this that they are brought to be in
want and painful though it is maybe to lose health or lose
their job and lose their wealth, are brought again to think and
to look toward the Lord and to think of the needs of their soul
and to be in want and to be in need. And if that is you, if
that is me, we will bless the Lord for the path that he has
caused us to walk, that has brought us to know what it is to be in
want and need and no doubt very cast down, very despondent. And we may at first not have
discerned it anything to do with the things of God, but it is
towards the things of God. When the Lord first began to
work in my heart, he worked in two ways. One, through a felt
ignorance of the things of God and a felt condition of lostness
in my own soul and to make me seek and to desire the things
of God, a teachable spirit. But then on the other hand, he
worked in those things that I was taking pleasure in in this life
and took away that pleasure and took away that joy and made me
to have an aching void. that this world could not fill.
I couldn't see the link at first. I couldn't work out what was
wrong, why I couldn't enjoy the things I once enjoyed. But the
two things were together. The Lord takes away the love
of this world to prepare us for that which is to come. And he
brings us to be in want and fills that want and that need with
himself. makes room for himself. And so the psalmist here is in
a position where he does clearly know what he wants, what he longs
after, what is causing him sorrow and grief and need and what he
is dependent upon God supplying and he cannot just help himself
to it. He cannot lift up himself. For
him he has his tears, which he says in verse three, have been
my mate day and night, while they continually say unto me,
where is thy God? And it may be with the psalmist
that there was many things that were happening in his life, many
things that the world said, well, if you've got the God of heaven
and earth as your God, why doesn't he help you? Why doesn't He heal
you of your literal illness? Why doesn't He give you your
job back? Why doesn't He appear for you
in this matter and in this trial and deliver you from these things?
The Lord's countenance seems to be so much against us. He's not going and helping us
in these things. And our thoughts and the thoughts
of the adversary the thoughts of Satan, the thoughts of those
that would despise our hope and trust in the Lord, they say it
is, because his countenance is towards you for evil. And yet
you know the Lord says of the Church of God, when they think
that they have forgotten of God, can a woman forget her sucking
child, the son of whom, yea, they may forget, yet will I not
forget thee? He says, those that think that
he's thinking evil towards them, I know the thoughts that I think
towards you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you
an expected end. We can misread those things very
often, before our face, misread the Lord's countenance because
we don't see his countenance and don't see it clearly as to
what he is doing. and where his mercy and where
his help is. And so the soul is then cast
down and those especially that the Lord brings under the law
of God must be cast down. Law and terrors, the hymn writer
says, do but harden all the while they work alone. By the law is
the knowledge of sin, and the law can only condemn. When we
are sent to the law, it says, do, do, and if you do not, then
you are condemned. He that offendeth in one point
is guilty of all. He knows no mercy. The scribes and Pharisees, they
brought a woman who was taken in adultery to the Lord in the
very act, and they said to him, The law, Moses in the law, commands
that such a one be stoned, but what sayest thou? Well, the law
of Moses did command that. But what the Lord said, and he
wrote on the ground, he didn't answer them first. And he said
to them, O so is without sin among you, let him first cast
a stone at her. And then he ignored them, writing
on the ground again. And they all went out, beginning
at the eldest, right to the youngest, convicted in their own consciences. They were all guilty. And when there was none left,
the Lord said to the woman, hath no man condemned thee? She said,
no man, Lord. The Lord said, neither do I condemn
thee. Go and sin no more. Mercy, it
would seem opposite to the law, contrary to the law, and yet
that is what the gospel is. But it's not just mercy, it's
mercy because the wrath of God due to that sin was to be laid
upon the Lord Jesus Christ, justice would be done, but not on the
one that had sinned, on the substitute. But that, dear woman, would have
known what mercy was and what a wonderful thing it was to hear
something different than the law. But the Apostle Paul says
the law is a schoolmaster unto Christ. And there is lessons
that are to be learned under the law. And that is by the deeds
of the law, no man living shall be justified. that those that
are under the law are under condemnation. And under that condemnation,
all that is seen is the frown of God, cursed be he that continueth
not in all points of the law to do them. There is a curse
and we are under that curse and under the sentence of death.
God is angry with the wicked every day. All have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. And if we are under that, and
if that is all we see, then there is sorrow. Then there is a casting
down. Then there must be that which
lays that soul low. And if we cannot see a remedy
and cannot see a way of escape, then we will be low and cast
down. And if once we have known that
way of escape, and then we lose sight of that way, that will
also cast us down again. And so with the Samasthita, we
have a soul that is cast down, cast down within him, and yet
does have a hope, does say of something that there is a hope
of help. And may the word this morning
be a message to those that are cast down, a message of hope,
a message of hope, of help, a message that will give a prospect of
lifting up. And that message is in the It
may be at this point you've had many times over the last months
or days that you've had an expectation of help in this thing and in something else. and all that's brought to be
disappointed. Well, here we have an expectation
of the psalmist in the help of God's countenance. He says, I
shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. He says
to his soul, hope thou in God, hope thou in God. I shall yet
praise him for the help of his countenance. In other words,
his hope is, God will lift up his countenance upon me. I will see his countenance, and
that shall be a help to my soul. Now, the apostle, when he writes
to the Corinthians, the second epistle of Corinthians and chapter
four, He says this, we preach not ourselves, it's in verse
five, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants for
Jesus' sake. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. There the countenance of God
is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. You see how it was when
our Lord was to be born into this world and the shepherds
were feeding their flocks by night and the angels came and
they heralded his coming, his birth. And they said, on earth
peace, goodwill toward men. Where was that seen? In that
bay that was seen at Bethlehem. And what is he? Emmanuel, God
with us. You think of how it was with
Simeon. Simeon had been told that he
would not see death until he had seen the Lord's Christ, and
he came into the temple at the very time that Mary and Joseph
brought in the Lord Jesus to do after him according to the
law, and he takes this babe up in his arms, and he says, Lord,
now lettest thou my thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes
have seen thy salvation. That is what the word of the
Lord was, he would see that. And he says, according to thy
word I have seen thy salvation. And Anna, who was there as well,
she spake of him to all them that look for redemption in Jerusalem. In the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ, in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, is seen the countenance
of God. Our Lord in John 3, He said,
The Son of Man is come not to destroy men's lives, but to save
them. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but should
have eternal life. And the countenance of the Lord
towards sinners, towards men, is seen in a revelation of Jesus
Christ. When we see him, you think of
the two on the way to Emmaus. They'd seen the Lord crucified
and slain. When the Lord drew near to them,
they couldn't see who it was. And the Lord said to them, what
manner of communications is this that you have as you walk and
are sad? And they said, aren't they a
stranger in Jerusalem? Knowest thou not the things that
are done there in these days? We trusted that it should have
been he that should have redeemed Israel, and they were cast down.
They'd seen him crucified. He was dead, he was buried, they
couldn't see him. And the Lord then said, O fools
and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken,
or not Christ, who has suffered these things, and to enter into
his glory. Beginning at Moses, all the prophets
expounded in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
And you know, they said afterwards, did not our heart burn within
us while he talked with us by the way? He was showing his countenance,
he was showing God's countenance in all the scriptures, the things
concerning Christ. At the end of that journey, he
revealed himself to them. He showed who He was, and yet
they'd known the effect through the preaching of the Word. At the end of that day, when
the disciples were gathered together, And they were saying, the Lord
is risen indeed. They were gathered for fear of
the Jews. And the Lord came and stood in
the midst of them. Then were the disciples glad
when they saw the Lord. At first, they were fearful and
frightened. They thought they'd seen a spirit.
But then when he showed them his hands, he showed them his
side, he ate, he drank with them. They were glad. They saw his
countenance, they saw that assurance in that God hath raised the Lord
from the dead. He hath given assurance unto
all men in that he hath raised him from the dead. The countenance
of God towards his people is shown in that empty tomb, not
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The blessing of the gospel is
to set forth that way of escape through the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he is seen, when the
gospel is seen, the good news of salvation is seen, when it
is seen this is God's plan and this is God's way, this is the
countenance of the Lord, and it's more than that, dear friends.
It is when it is seen toward us, You might have all around
us in the house of God, and they say, we see the Lord. You know,
on that first Lord's Day, that first day of the week, there
were those that came with reports, we've seen the Lord, we've seen
the Lord. But many were hearing those reports
and they hadn't seen him. Thomas, in that first Lord's
Day, He didn't see, he had to wait another eight days. All
the disciples said, we've seen the Lord, but Thomas wasn't with
them. He said, except I shall see in his hands the print of
the nails and put my finger in that print and put my hand in
this side, I will not believe. But you know, when the Lord did
reveal himself to him, All he needed with his countenance,
all he needed was to see and recognise him, my Lord and my
God. We need it personally, dear friends. The psalmist here needed it personally. He needed to see the Lord's countenance. He needed to be shown, and this
is the blessing of the Gospel, the work of the Holy Spirit,
to show poor downcast sinners the Lord Jesus Christ, to show
him through the preachings, through the Word of God, reveal him to
your soul. And when he does, and the hope
of that he will do that, that is what shall lift up the soul. Now in the margin of our Bibles,
There is another word in this fifth verse here. Instead of, for the
help of his countenance, it says, or his presence is salvation. And is not that, in all sense,
it is the same thing? In the face of Jesus Christ,
his presence is salvation. His presence is saving from sin. and saving from hell and saving
to heaven. Do you know what his presence
is? Do you desire his presence? The
secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. They know the
sweets, the blessings of the revelation of Christ to their
souls by the Holy Spirit through the word of God into their souls. When they can see clearly their
interest in Christ, clearly see his dealings with them, clearly
see his goodwill toward them, and feel the blessing of the
Lord in their soul. You know, if we had one that
we thought was angry toward us, and their face was away from
us, They turned away from us, and we're thinking they're angry
for sure. And if they then turned around
toward us, and as they turned toward us, we saw their face,
and we saw their smile, and we saw the love in their look and
their eyes. What a difference that would
make with us. What a difference it would make.
And that's what we need with the Lord, that we see His smile,
And we see his goodwill, and we see love inscribed on all. Psalm 107, it speaks of the many
changes in the people of God, and the down-sitting and how
they fell down so often. There was none to help, then
they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them. He sent his word and healed them,
and delivered them from all their distresses. And at the end of
that psalm, we read, Whoso is wise and will, observe these things, even they
shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. It's a blessed thing
to discern and to realise the Lord's love, mercy, kindness
and goodness toward us, that is stamped upon all that he does. And you see, and all the way
that he's led us that there's been mercy and kindness and goodness
in leading us to view that one name given among men whereby
we must be saved, to view Christ, the Lord Jesus, suffering in
our place, to view the wrath of God upon him, to view the
empty tomb as a seal of that sacrifice that put away sin as
accepted by God. This is the way of salvation.
This is the only thing that will make a sinner glad, that to see
that justice is satisfied and that God is satisfied with that
sacrifice and that his peace and mercy and blessing is upon
us through the Lord Jesus Christ. So the psalmist says that he
shall hope in God And of course, this was the hope of the whole
Old Testament church, that Christ would come. And it's the hope
of every poor downcast sinner, that the Lord will come and lift
up his light of his countenance upon them. Is that your hope? Is that mine? That he will do
this for us, that we will so clearly see the Lord's blessing
and goodness and mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ toward us,
that it might be that we see his smile and we'll know it when
we do, because, and this is our last point just briefly, the
effect of this help will be the health of our countenance. The
two go together. How much does go together? What
is bound up with the Lord Jesus Christ? We are told in 1 John,
we love him because he first loved us. The love of Christ
to us is what kindles our love to him. Our Lord says, without
me you can do nothing. Helpless. And yet with the Lord,
we say with the Apostle Paul, I can do all things through Christ,
which strengtheneth me. And so with this, here is one
whose countenance is all cast down. The Lord shows his countenance
to that cast down soul, and their countenance is lifted up. The
illustration that we used before That person turning round, you
see their countenance. You see their smile, their love.
Is that going to cast you down? Or is that going to make you
happy? Won't it change your countenance to see their countenance? Of
course it will. And that is what is said here.
Who is the health of my countenance? What a witness. How shall we know that God loves
us when he sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God? How shall
we know as well as a double evidence that the reality of his countenance
toward us is when we are given health of
countenance as well? When our souls have the love
of God in our heart, when we joy in the things of God, when
we are no longer cast down, but lifted up and joyed. I remember the first time the
Lord ever blessed my soul, and it was no words at all, and I'd
been in my study over in Australia, and so bowed down with my sin,
and so, head and my hands crying unto the Lord on my desk, And
the Lord came and he gave me such peace in my soul. And you
know, it was such a difference, such a contrast from what I'd
been labouring under for days. And I got up and I looked out
that window and I went outside. And it was just as if everything
was so bright, so lovely, a great weight off me. Everything was
joyful. You know, the Lord says that
he makes all things new. All things are passed away, all
things become new. The blessing of the Lord it maketh
rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. And when the countenance
is changed like this, why the Lord said of those that saw his
countenance coming into Jerusalem, They said, these that are crying
hosanna to him that cometh in the name of the Lord, master,
restrain them. He said, if these should hold
their peace, the very stone should cry out. Their joy, their gladness
comes from me. What they see in the gospel. And that will be the same with
us. The Lord but smile our darkness into day. The Lord but shine
upon us. Let his countenance be seen,
or change our countenance. Who is the health of my countenance? And that then will result in
that praise. The psalmist knew it, I believe,
as the psalmist walks this path. He'd known these effects before,
and I believe some of you have known it as well. You know what
it is to be cast down. You know what it is for the Lord
to come. and to show you his countenance
again. And you know what it is then
to praise him. And what a help that is. What
a help in everything. Help in our families and help
in the Church of God and help to bear the cross and help to
bear our afflictions. If the Lord smile, if we see
our interest in him and a hope in heaven in the Lord Jesus Christ,
What a difference that makes. It is the help of His countenance. May the Lord grant us that. May
He give us, in the meantime, the hope of it, the expectation
of it like the psalmist had, and then have the help of His
countenance, and realise the health of our countenance has
been so, been blessed, and we are so different, so changed,
so blessed. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen.