In Psalm 123, this Psalm begins with, Unto thee
lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. The
Lord our God dwells in the heavens. Our Redeemer has power over all,
over every name that's named. All power, it was His as God, but now all
power is His as the God-man. And He's ruling over all. He's
always bringing glory to His name, and everything that comes
to pass, He's bringing it to pass. Ruling it. Bringing glory to His name, and
He's always working good for His people. We can't see the
good, we can't understand how it's working good, but He's always
working good for His people, always glorifying His name. He's our covenant-keeping God. That's what it means when it
says we wait upon the Lord our God. When you read the Lord our
God, it's talking about Him being a covenant-keeping God. And therefore,
God's saints, in all trouble, We lift up our eyes to Him, the
eye of faith, and we really and truly look to Christ in all our
troubles. I've titled this, Our Eyes Wait
on Thee. When we're scorned by men in
this world, God's grace makes His saints fix our eyes, the
eye of faith on Christ above, and wait on Him until He has
mercy on us. He will make it so that's the
only thing you can do. Fix your eye of faith upon Him,
wait on Him, ask Him to have mercy, and wait on Him until
He does. I want to look tonight, first
of all, at the trouble, why they're praying this in this song. Secondly,
an example of the trouble, several examples of this trouble, and
then the cure for this trouble. First of all, the trouble in
this Psalm is scorning. It's the scorner, the scorner. Verse three, he said, have mercy
upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we are exceedingly filled
with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled
with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the contempt
of the proud. I generally like to preach the
gospel in a positive way. Because you preach Christ the
light and it will expose the darkness. You preach the straight
and it will expose the crooked. But we come to a passage like
this sometimes and it does us good to look at what the scripture
says about the scorner. There's a lot said in scripture
about it, and I'm gonna look at some of this because we don't
want to ever be the scorner. You don't want to scorn somebody.
God's saints endure scorn from men of this world. Scorn is to
mock. If you're scorned, you're mocked
by men. It's to be laughed at. Worse,
it's to pour out contempt and disdain for another. Men, when it says here, were
exceedingly filled with contempt, it was from other people holding
them in contempt, filling them with contempt, filling them to
the full with contempt, scorning, mocking, laughing, holding them
in contempt. Men did this exceedingly, exceedingly
to them. scorn and contempt and mocking
for men who were essentially mocking our God, our Savior,
and they're pouring out their contempt upon us because of their
enmity toward our Savior. That's something that is so bitter
and so sorrowful to a believer, especially if you're being accused
falsely and there's nothing you can do about it. It just is a
bitter thing. It's a bitter, bitter thing to
bear. And we see here who scorns God's
saints. It says, verse 4, those that
are at ease. Those that are at ease. Unregenerate
sinners are at ease in this world. Yes, life is hard. It's hard
on everybody. But they're at ease, really.
They don't have a broken and contrite heart given to them
by the Lord. And you remember when, you know,
when you didn't have a new heart yet, when you didn't have a broken
and contrite heart, you were at ease compared to now. When
God gives you a new heart, that's when you start to mourn your
sin. That's when the The thing that's amazing is how
you have a conscience free from the guilt of sin, knowing Christ
put your sin away, but you see nothing but sin in yourself.
And you have trials in this world, and the Lord is sanctifying them
to you, so that a trouble in the world means more to a believer
than it does to other people. But for a scorner, it doesn't. He's got it easy. He thinks everything
is... He's blessed, he thinks, with
all his abundance and everything's going his way. And he's not in
sorrow like believers are. The scorner's proud and he's
haughty because of this. Verse 4 is spoken of the contempt
of the proud. Listen to Proverbs 21-24. Listen
to this. Proud and haughty scorner is
his name. who dealeth in proud wrath."
Unregenerate man, whether he's religious or he's irreligious,
is proud. He's proud. This is what you
and me as God's saints, what we struggle with more than anything
in our flesh is pride. But an unregenerate man who doesn't
have a new man, a new spirit, is nothing but pride. That's
what all the conflict in the world's about. Pride of face, Proud of place, proud of race,
and proud of what they call grace, their vain religion. An unregenerate sinner is never
so proud as he is of his self-made religion. because it's all of
Himself. He's proud of His wisdom in finding
out the things He thinks He knows. He's proud of His will by which
He thinks He does all and has accomplished all. He's proud
of His works where He thinks He's righteous and He thinks
He's holy. Therefore, when He hears the
gospel, When you speak the gospel of somebody and they hear you
give God all the glory, they hear that it's God who chose
His people. We didn't choose Him. He chose
us. We didn't choose Him. And He
chose whom He would freely by grace, not based on anything
in those He chose. And He passed by whom He would
because He's God and He has the right to do that. And you tell
folks this, and you tell folks that when Christ came down, He
didn't come down and die for the whole world. The Scripture
doesn't mean the whole world when it says world. When they
was accusing Christ, they said the whole world's gone after
Him. Well, there was people living in other nations that didn't
even know Him. They meant everybody in Jerusalem
and all the parts around there. They meant a whole bunch of people
they had gone after. They didn't mean everybody. And
when Christ came and laid down His life, God so loved the world.
In John 17, the Lord said, I pray not for the world, but for them
Thou hast given Me. For they are Thine. and you gave
Him to me." That's who He came and laid down His life for, is
His people. We declare that because He accomplished
something. He accomplished putting away
the sin of His people, and He accomplished making His people
righteous, and He didn't come and just arbitrarily lay down
His life and just make salvation available. He accomplished salvation. His name is Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sin. When He had by Himself purged
our sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. He entered
into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption. Brother Adam
just read it. By Him fulfilling the will of
God, we're sanctified by His one offering. He perfected forever
them that are sanctified. Now here's one offering. See,
he accomplished it. And you tell people that, you
know, they say, well, I don't believe that. And you say, well,
you can't believe it. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. None of us could. It's foolishness
to us. The Spirit of God has to come
and give us a new heart, and has to give us faith, and has
to give us all things that pertain to godliness. We can't boast
about anything from the beginning of the life of faith, all the
way through the life of faith, all the way to the end of the
life of faith. We cannot boast that we did anything. It is all
the gift of God. Accept it, be given from above.
A man can't do one thing. And you preach that, and you
speak that, and men come and hear that message, and because
their trust is in themselves, it fills them with contempt,
enmity rages, and they scorn, and they mock, and they laugh
at God's people. A scorner is doing just the opposite
of what God's people are doing in this psalm. God's people in
this psalm are lifting our eyes up to glory and depending on
the Lord for everything. We're waiting on Him to send
us mercy and save us by His mercy. And so we're crying out to Him,
Lord have mercy on us, have mercy on us. The proud scorner is doing
just the opposite. He's not looking to God, he's
looking to himself. He's not calling on God. He's
spilling out scorn. He's not waiting on the Lord.
He's trying to make it happen by the constraint of His hand.
Just the opposite of what God's people are doing. That's what
a scorner is. A scorner seeks wisdom everywhere
but where wisdom is, and that's in Christ. Listen to Proverbs
14.6. A scorner seeketh wisdom and
findeth it not. You know why? Because Paul said
in 1 Corinthians 1, the preaching of the cross is foolishness to
them that perish. That's why they don't find wisdom.
The preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that perish.
And so Proverbs said, so he findeth it not. He doesn't find wisdom.
But it says, the knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth.
Why is it easy to you that understand? Because the Son of God has come
and has given us an understanding that we might know Him that is
true and we're in Him that is true. This is the true God. The
truth is God. Christ is the truth. That's who
the truth is. Want to know who the truth is?
The truth is Christ. And we're in Him that's true.
That's how come understanding is easy for you. It's all of
the Lord. He's the wisdom and power of
God that gave you the understanding. knowing Christ was able to save
riches like us, when we're in trouble, when we're being scorned,
when men are way more powerful than we are, and it seemed like
Everything's against you and everybody's against you. Knowing
that He saved wretches like us who were spiritually dead and
unable to know Him and He came and gave you an understanding
and gave you faith and granted you repentance toward God and
made you cease from trusting yourself and trust Him alone.
Knowing He was able to do that in His power. We raise our eyes
to heaven and we look to Christ and we know He's the power and
wisdom of God and He'll save me from this. He'll have mercy
on me. I'll wait on Him to have mercy. Secondly, I want to show you
some examples of scorning. Let's see a few examples of this
trouble. Go over to 2nd Kings chapter 19. We see this in Sennacherib. He was the king of Assyria. You
remember last Thursday we were looking at Isaiah and the Lord
told King Ahaz that he said, you won't bow and believe me?
Trust me and wait on me to save? He said, I'm going to send them
out of your nation. I'm going to send the king of Assyria.
Well, in Hezekiah's reign, years later, that's exactly what the
Lord did. And Sennacherib, king of Assyria,
had conquered a whole bunch of nations and then they get to
Judah. And Sennacherib's at the gate
and he is boasting and he is just scorning Hezekiah, scorning
the children of Judah, boasting about how he's just going to
wipe them out. Listen to what the Lord said, verse 22, 2 Kings
19, 22. This is the Lord speaking. He
said, Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? He's speaking
to Sennacherib. That's what scorn is. Now, Sennacherib
was scorning Hezekiah, and he was scorning the children of
Jerudah, and he was reproaching them. But listen to what the
Lord said. He said, Whom hast thou reproached
and blasphemed? Against whom hast thou exalted
thy voice and lifted up thine eyes on high, even against the
Holy One of Israel? You see, you scorn one of God's
people, and you're scorning God Himself. You start boasting in
what you've accomplished yourself, and you blaspheme God who does
it all for His people and in His people. Look, verse 23, By
thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With
the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of
the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the
tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof,
and I will enter into the lodging of his borders, and into the
forest of his caramel. Now there's no difference in
what Sinocerbal was boasting about right there and a man boasting
that he made himself be born again, a man boasting that he
brought himself to bow to Christ, a man boasting that he sanctified
himself, a man boasting that he fulfilled the law himself.
A man putting any confidence in his works whatsoever is no
different than what Sennacherib was boasting about right here.
And look what God said, verse 25. Has thou not heard long ago
how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it?
God said way back there in King Ahaz's day he was going to do
this for this man. He purposed it from eternity.
Now have I brought it to pass, the Lord said, that thou shouldest
be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore
their inhabitants were of small power, and they were dismayed
and confounded. They were as the grass of the
field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops,
as corn blasted before it be grown up. That's the only reason
you conquered them, God said to Sennacherib. He said, but
I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy
rage against me, because thy rage against me, and thy tumults
come up into mine ears. Therefore I will put my hook
in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I'll turn thee
back by the way by which thou camest. Now who's really ruling
here? The Lord is. If you do anything
honoring to God, God gets the glory. And even with men who
do something that fulfills God's purpose like Sennacherib did,
and he didn't even know what he was doing, and didn't intend
to fulfill God's purpose, and yet God used him to fulfill His
purpose. To chasten Judah, to correct
them and teach them. You know what it caused Hezekiah
to do? It caused them to do just what they did in this psalm.
Hezekiah took this letter that Sennacherib had sent him, and
he took it into the house of the Lord, and he spread it out
before the Lord, and he lifted his eyes to heaven, to the Lord
above, and he prayed, Lord have mercy on us and come save us.
And that's what the Lord did. You see the example there in
Sennacherib of what scorn is. It's scorn against God. He was
doing it to men, but it's scorn against God. It's blaspheming
God. Alright? The Lord, He suffered
it when He walked this earth for men. He told us, He said,
if the world hates you, you know it hated me before it hated you.
He said, if you were of the world, the world would love its own.
There's nothing about you who are saints, there's nothing about
you that's of the world. Yes, you were born of your father
and him of his all the way back to Adam, and so you were born
dead in sin. But everything that's new about
a believer is of the Lord from above. You've been born from
above, there's a new spirit created within, you're a new creation
within. and nothing of this world had a part in it. You didn't
do anything to make it happen, nor did anybody else. It is of
the Lord. And so when He says you're not
of the world, you're not. Brethren, we're not of the world.
He says you're not of the world, and if you were, the world would
love His own. But because you're not of the world, but I've chosen
you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember
the word I said to you, the servant's not greater than his Lord, If
they persecuted me, they'll persecute you. If they've kept my saying,
they'll keep your saying. But all these things will they
do to you for my name's sake, because they know not him that
sent me." Well, he suffered it. So he tells me and you to be
prepared to suffer scorn and contempt. You remember when he
went to J. Iris' house. Jairus' daughter
is home sick and on the way he heals that woman with the issue
of blood. They come to him and they said, no need to trouble
the master anymore, your daughter died. And the Lord went on to
his house and it says, when he entered that house, it says,
all wept and bewailed her. But he said, weep not, she is
not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. knowing that she was dead. They
thought that was just an ignorant statement by an ignorant man. And they laughed him to scorn.
You know the scripture says, can you imagine the contention
that was in that room? when they started doing that.
Here's Jairus and his wife mourning, weeping, because their daughter
has died. And they've gone to get the master,
and he's come to their house, and they're looking to him, just
like in our psalm, they lifted up their eyes, begging for mercy
from the Lord. They're looking to the Lord Jesus
to have mercy and save their daughter. And these others that
are in the house, whoever they were, we don't really know, but
they started laughing the Lord to scorn. Do you know the contention
that caused in that house? Some believing in the Lord and
looking to Him and some laughing at Him. How is that contention going
to be removed? Scripture says, cast out the scorner and contention
shall go out, yea, strife and reproach shall cease. The Lord fulfills that Scripture.
You know what the Lord did? He put them all out. He put them
all out. All those that left Him to scorn
Him, He put them all out. He removed the scorner. And what
did He do next? He took her by the hand and He
called, He spoke the Word in power and He said, Maid, arise. and her spirit came again. And
she arose straightway, and he commanded to give her meat."
Oh, brethren, listen. Those who believe the Lord, when
Christ our life is formed in you, you believe He's life. That's
what Jairus believed. That's why they called Him their
daughter. You believe He's life. You believe
He's able to raise from the dead spiritually because you've experienced
that power. in regeneration. You believe
He's able to raise from the grave because you've experienced His
power in resurrection, in the new birth. And you believe He's
life and power who's able to raise up His servants when they
fall because you know why? You've fallen and He's raised
you up. And you know He has. You know
He's the only one that did it. And so, when you see anybody,
or when you yourself are scorned and the life's gone out of you,
just like Jairus' daughter, and you need Christ, you lift your
eyes to Him and you pray to Him to have mercy on you, you wait
on Him to have mercy, and you wait on Him to resurrect you
to life again. And you know what the Lord does?
Just what He did that day in Jairus' house. He cast the scorner
out, and He takes you by the hand, and He speaks the word
in power, and says, made arise. And He renews your spirit in
you again when He does that, and then He starts feeding you
Christ the bread. That's what He does for us. That's
why God's saints, that's why we pray that prayer in our song. We've experienced it, we keep
experiencing it, and we keep looking to Him to save us from
this corner. Psalm 22, let's go there just
a moment. Psalm 22, this is another example. This is when our Lord was on
the cross. You know brethren, I'm just showing
you a couple of examples, but everything that the Pharisees
ever said to our Lord, they said it in scorn and contempt. everything. Where did you get this authority?
Who do you think you are? That was scorning. That's an
example of scorning. I had a thought when I was sitting
there and I wanted to tell it to you and I can't remember. But here's an example right here.
Psalm 22.6. Our Lord is on the cross and
He said, I'm a worm and no man. A reproach of men, that's scorning,
reproaching, bearing reproach. I'm a reproach of men. I'm despised
of the people. All they that see me, laugh me
to scorn. Here's an example of scorn right
here. They shoot out the lip. They shake the head and they
say, He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver him. Let Him
deliver him, seeing ye delighted in Him. See that scorn? Just contempt. What did our Savior
do when He was scorned? What did He do? He did what our
Psalm says. He lifted up his eyes to God
the Father. Look here at verse 9. But thou
art he that took me out of the womb. Psalm 22, 9. But thou art
he that took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me whole when
I was on my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the
womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from
me, for trouble is near, for there's none to help. See what
our Lord did? That's how He redeemed His people,
brethren. He looked to the Father in perfect
faith while He was bearing the scorn and contempt and reproach
and laughing and mocking of men. He did that His whole life. So we come now to our last point. The cure for scorning. Here's
the cure when you're scorned and held in contempt by men of
this world. Verse 1, Psalm 123, 1. Unto thee
lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heaven. Brethren,
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came down and took flesh
and He's accomplished our redemption. He's accomplished it. He has
accomplished it and he's risen now and he has power over all. The very one who shed his blood
for you and me who he's given faith to trust him. The very
one who shed his blood for his people is the one that's ruling
every second of every day from the largest most powerful event
to the smallest microscopic germ that you can't even see and everything
in between. He's ruling it all. And He's
doing it for His glory and He's doing it for you that are His.
And by His grace, when you're scorned, who sent the scorner? When you're scorned, who permitted
the scorner to come and scorn you? Our Lord did. Why? Because when you're in a
place where you can't defend yourself, You see, Christ, you
got this saying in the world that says, God helps those that
help themselves. No, He doesn't. God helps those
that can in no way help themselves. Christ came down to help sinners
that can in no way help themselves. And to keep us knowing He's our
only Savior, He will put you in a position where you cannot
help yourself. And all you can do is lift your
eyes. Well, you can't even do that.
By His grace, He gently lifts your head and makes you look
with the eye of faith to Him and just put it all in His hand
and trust Him. That's the cure for scorn. He
makes us do this continually. He said, verse 2, Behold, as
the eyes of servants look into the hand of their masters, and
as the eyes of a maiden into the hand of her mistress, so
our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that He may have mercy
upon us. In those days, you had masters
and slaves, and you had mistresses and maidens. These were servants. These were slaves. that served
their master and served the maid. Well, a lot of times the master
or the maid or the mistress, I mean the master and the mistress,
they would give, they wouldn't say anything. They got a house
full of guests, they're not going to tell the servant to do something.
They would just give a hand gesture. And so that servant has got to
sit there the whole time with their eye focused on that master
or focused on that mistress. So if they can see whatever the
hand signal is that they give. That's the picture here. We wait
on the Lord continually. We have our eye of faith fixed
upon Him to see what He says to us. And He teaches us that. He teaches us to keep our eye
upon Him at all times. So our eyes wait upon the Lord
our God until that He have mercy on us. You see, He's the Lord
our God. That means every promise, He
saves by promise. You're children of promise. That's
what He said. And every promise He made and every promise He
fulfills and every promise is sure in Christ. He's the Lord
our God. He keeps His covenant. Turn to
Isaiah 29, I want to show you what He's promised you. Here's
our Lord's promise right here now, listen. The scorer is watching for iniquity. The scorner looks for some sin
in you to hold you in contempt due to it. But Christ promises,
He has already accomplished our redemption and He will defend
those He has justified. That's His promise. Watch this,
Isaiah 29, 20. For the terrible one is brought
to naught. You see that? The terrible one
is brought to naught. He's already conquered the devil's
head. The terrible one... is brought to naught, and the
scorner is consumed. And all that watch for iniquity
are cut off, that make a man an offender for a word, and lay
a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the
just for a thing of nothing." You see that? They're already
cut off. When Christ satisfied justice on the cross, He already
crushed the devil's head, He already cut off the scorner,
He already delivered His people completely. Now here's His promise
to you for whom He did that. He said, Therefore thus said
the Lord who redeemed Abraham concerning the house of Jacob,
Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax
pale. You see, the scorner is looking
for iniquity so he can expose your sin and embarrass you and
confound you and turn you aside from Christ to a thing of naught,
making you try to fix yourself and straighten up and all the
things he demands of you. A thing of naught, God said.
But this is what Christ said, I already cut the scorner off.
I already redeemed my people, and his promise to you is, I
will defend you and your face will not wax pale. You will not
be ashamed for trusting Christ. That's his promise to you. That's
his promise to you. Verse 23, but when he seeth his
children, the work of mine hands in the midst of him, they shall
sanctify my name. and sanctify the Holy One of
Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel. They also that err
in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmur shall learn
doctrine." Some of the scorners are God's elect, and He's going
to save them. That's what He's saying. They're
going to see what I'm doing with my people, and I'm going to save
them. They think they're saved. They're doing what they're doing
in God's name for Christ's sake, he said. He said, but I'm going
to save them. I'm going to sanctify it to their
heart and save them. But as far as you being confounded and turned
aside and your face being pale from embarrassment by this corner,
he said, I've redeemed you. It ain't going to happen. You
trust Christ. That's his promise. That's his promise. So believe
in Christ. We obey our master. You want
to talk about good works? Men want to talk about good works,
they just don't want to talk about the right ones. Let's talk
about trusting Christ. How about that good work? When
things are so bad that you don't see any way you're going to make
it through. He not only keeps our faith fixed
on Him above, He makes us wait on Him till He have mercy on
us. See there, our eyes wait upon
the Lord our God until that He have mercy on us. The Lord's
going to work in His time. He's not going to work in our
time. And He's going to make you wait on Him. That's what
faith is about, is waiting on the Lord to work. Why did they
build an idol and start dancing around a golden calf and throw
a big religious orgy when Moses was in the mountain? They got
tired of waiting on Moses to come down. What's going on in the world
today? Peter said, men say things just continue just like it's
always. The Lord hasn't come back so we're just going to do
what we please. And they turn religion into just
a play. But God's people are going to
wait on Him. You're going to wait on Him in this trial. You're
going to wait on Him in the next trial. You're going to wait on
Him in the next trial. You're going to keep waiting
on Him until He comes back. Turn to Isaiah 30, just a minute.
This is what He commands us, brethren. Our strength is to
sit still. Look here, Isaiah 30, verse 7. This was when they, again, this
was going to look, you know, Ahaz is not going to wait. They're
going to go down to Egypt and try to figure out, get Pharaoh
to help them and save them from men. Isaiah 30 verse 7, The Egyptians
shall help in vain, God said, and to no purpose. Therefore
I've cried concerning this, their strength is to sit still. Well, we can't just sit still.
Now you just can't sit still. It's not that you can't just
sit still. No, you just can't sit still. God's got to work that. Make
you trust him. A wise son heareth his father's
instruction, but a scorner heareth not rebuke. A scorner won't hear
this from God and say, my strength is to sit still and see God work. But a wise son will, one that
God speaks to will. So this is how it was in Israel. This is how it is in our day.
While the Lord is redeemed or being made to wait on Him by
grace, the scorner won't wait on the Lord. Look at verse 8.
Isaiah 30, verse 8. Now go write it before them in
a table and note it in a book that it may be for the time to
come forever and ever. That is, you record this right
here now, Isaiah, so that in 2024, in May 9th of 2024, my
people can hear it read and hear it preached from. That's what
God's saying. That this is a rebellious people, lying children that will
not hear the Word of the Lord. They wouldn't hear him say, sit
still. They said to the seers, to the preachers, see not, and
to the prophets, prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto
us smooth things, prophesy deceits, get you out of the way, turn
us out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from
before us. Now that's scorning right there.
That's contempt to the highest degree. Stop preaching Christ
and preach something that we want to hear. First, wherefore
thus saith the Holy One of Israel, because you despise this word,
you despise this gospel, it tells you to trust me to do the saving,
and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon. Therefore this
iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in
a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly in an instant, and he
shall break it as the breaking of the potter's vessel that's
broken in pieces, he shall not spare. so that there shall not
be found in the bursting of it a shard to take fire from the
hearth, or to take water will out of the pit." You get what
he said? He said, I'm going to bust them to pieces. Isn't that
what he said in Isaiah? We saw last time in Isaiah, you
look to other men and you make confederacy, associate yourself
and all that, you will be broken in pieces. That's what he said
right there. For thus saith the Lord God,
the Holy One of Israel, in returning in rest shall you be saved. Returning
to the Lord, resting in the Lord, waiting on the Lord, you'll be
saved. In quietness and confidence, trusting the Lord shall be your
strength. And you would not. You said, no, we'll flee upon
horses. Therefore shall you flee, God
said. And we'll ride upon the swift.
God said, therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. One
thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one, at the rebuke of five
shall you flee, till you be left as a beacon on the top of a mountain,
as an end zone of hills, till I have stripped you of all your
branches, and all your strength, and everything your glory in."
God said. And therefore will the Lord wait.
You would not wait. And therefore the Lord wait that
He may be gracious unto you. Therefore will He be exalted
that He may have mercy upon you. For the Lord is a God of judgment.
Blessed are all that wait for Him. You see that? Our eyes wait
upon the Lord our God by His grace until He comes and has
mercy on us. And if you won't wait on Him,
if you're not His, He'll let you run and He will bust you
to pieces. But if you are His, He'll wait
until He strips you of everything, everything you trust in, that
He might have mercy on you and be gracious to you, that He might
be exalted in your heart, that He might get all the glory. That's
what our Lord will do. But He's going to have you ask
Him now, back in our text, they said, have mercy on us, Lord,
have mercy on us. When trouble comes to God's people,
Men of this world reproach and scorn us, saying, oh, if you
were gods, he wouldn't permit such things to happen to you.
You go home tonight, I can't read it right now, I'm out of
time. You go home tonight, read Psalm 79, and see all the bad
things that were happening to God's people. And yet, in that Psalm, they're
calling on the Lord to have mercy on them and save them. And they
said, so will we give you all the thanks forever and all the
glory forever for saving us. Brethren, here's the point. I'm
going to end it with this. Never scorn others. Don't you
scorn others. Never hold them in contempt or
mock them. To do so against one of God's
people is to reproach God. And you never know that one who
might appear not to be His might be His elect. You just don't
know. Be not wise in your own conceits, Paul said. In other
words, don't get puffed up and think you're better than somebody. We are what we are by the grace
of God alone. We're kept by the power of God
alone. You'll do anything anybody else will do if God doesn't keep
you. Don't start scorning other people, especially when they
fall. That's what the love of God will make you do. You may
get on your soapbox for a little while, but He'll knock that soapbox
out of money, and you'll get down at Christ's feet and trust
Him. And when you're scorned, remember, our Savior endured
it far more, and He accomplished our redemption, and He told us
to expect it. And He sent it, and He rules
it, and He's doing it for your good, and He's doing it to strip
us of everything else we trust in, to turn us to Him, to sit
still, And so you lift your eyes to Christ. You look to Him. He's ruling the heavens. He's
ruling the earth. He's ruling everything. He's
our covenant keeping God. Every promise is sure in Him.
And He's doing it for our good. Look to Him. And you keep your
eye of faith fixed on Him like the servant does to his master.
And you wait on Him until He has mercy on us. Always do this. I'm giving you three commands
of God that are the very most vital works that He's gonna make
His people do. We're gonna lift our eyes to
Him from whom our help come and trust Him. Number two, we're
gonna keep our eyes fixed on Him until He has mercy on us.
We're gonna wait on Him, wait on Him. And number three, as
we do, He's gonna have you ask Him. We're gonna beg Him, Lord
have mercy on us, have mercy on us, have mercy on us, have
mercy on us. And when he does it, you're going
to give him all the glory. All the glory. And that's the
purpose. That's why he sits in this corner. That's the purpose. Amen.