Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Psalm 71. Psalm 71. This is a good place to be on a New
Year's Eve. Psalm 71. I want to read the whole psalm.
I'm mainly going to preach out of the first three verses, but
let's read the whole psalm. David here is in a terrible,
terrible trial and some terrible trouble. It says in verse 1,
In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never be put to
confusion. Deliver me in thy righteousness
and cause me to escape. and climb Thine ear unto me and
save me. Be Thou my strong habitation,
whereunto I may continually resort. Thou hast given commandment to
save me, because Thou art my rock and my fortress. Deliver
me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand
of the unrighteous and cruel man, For Thou art my hope, O
Lord God. Thou art my trust from my youth. By Thee I've been holding up
from the womb. Thou art He that took me out
of my mother's bowels. My praise shall be continually
of Thee. I'm as a wonder unto many, but
Thou art my strong refuge. Let my mouth be filled with Thy
praise and with Thy honor all the day. Cast me not off in the
time of old age. Forsake me not when my strength
faileth, for mine enemies speak against me. They that lay wait
for my soul take counsel together, saying, God hath forsaken him.
Persecute and take him, for there is none to deliver him. O God,
be not far from me. O my God, make haste for my help. Let them be confounded and consumed
that are adversaries to my soul. Let them be covered with reproach
and dishonor that seek my hurt. But I will hope continually and
will yet praise Thee more and more. My mouth shall show forth
Thy righteousness and Thy salvation all the day, for I know not the
numbers thereof. I will go in the strength of
the Lord God I will make mention of Thy righteousness, even of
Thine only. O God, Thou hast taught me from
my youth, and hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works. Now also,
when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not, until
I have showed Thy strength unto this generation and Thy power
to everyone that is to come. Thy righteousness also, O God,
is very high. Who has done great things? O
God, who is like unto Thee? Thou which has shown me great
and sore troubles shall quicken me again and shall bring me up
again from the depths of the earth. Thou shalt increase my
greatness and comfort me on every side. I will also praise Thee
with the psaltery and even Thy truth, O my God. Unto thee will
I sing with the harp, O thou holy one of Israel. My lips shall
greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee, and my soul which thou
hast redeemed. My tongue also shall talk of
thy righteousness all the day long, for they are confounded,
for they are brought unto shame that seek my heart. Our great God and our Father,
Thank You for this year. We thank You for everything that
You've sent, for the way that You've ruled everything that
has come to pass this year. Lord, help us to understand why
You do what You do and why that You bring to pass the things
that You do. Help us to see it, Lord, in Your
Word. Help us to understand and Lord,
make us to pray with David. Make us to put our trust in you
and ask you to be our salvation. Lord, we pray now that you would
truly bless this word to our heart. Lord, give us a powerful
a powerful unction from your spirit. Don't let this just be
in word only. Lord, we ask you, we beg of you
to make this word go forth in power. Lord, make it, make it
alive in our hearts. Make it so that there's nothing
between us and Christ, that there's nothing hindering us from beholding
Him. Lord, You can do this, and You
can. Only You can. Lord, we thank You for this night. Thank You for this time. Thank
You for each of our brethren, and for these tender mercies
that You've given us, even in the things that we don't see
to be mercies. Lord, it all is mercy. We thank
You. Forgive us, Lord, for our sins.
Forgive us for thinking too little of our own
sins and too much of other sins. Forgive us, Lord, for not seeing what we are in ourselves
for not rejoicing more in what you've made us in Christ. Help
us to see this about one another. Help us, Lord, to truly understand
nothing, absolutely nothing, comes to pass except by your
hand. Lord, make us to know salvation
is far more than a doctrine. Make it real to us. Make it a
person. Make it our Savior. Lord, we
ask You, be with each one who is sick
and suffering. Be with those, Lord, that You've
given good news, and we thank You that You've given us good
news concerning Brother Cyril. We pray it should be with Donna.
She's hurting and in pain, and keep her. And Lord, keep us looking
to You. Keep us looking to You. We thank
You, Lord, in all of these blessings and all these things You've done.
In the name of our Lord and our Savior, our King, our Pope, Priest,
our Prophet, Christ Jesus. Amen. Alright brethren, Psalm 71. I want to speak on the subject
of why this year's trials? Why this year's trials? We're coming to the end of a
year in which we've seen trials unlike anything we've ever seen
in our lifetime. But nothing that we've seen this
year is new. Throughout the scripture, God
has brought similar trials and even worse. And it truly is God. There's nothing that comes to
pass in this world that is not coming to pass directly by the
hand of God. He does as He will in the army
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
His hand or say unto Him, What doest Thou? His counsel shall
stand. He will do all His pleasure. And we see in David here who's
suffering great, great trials. He's in the midst of a great
trouble that God had sent. And we see in David where the
Lord brings His child in trouble. This is where He brings us in
the trial. David says in verse 1, In thee,
O Lord, do I put my trust. In Thee, O Lord, do I put my
trust. If you look down at verse 5,
the Lord Himself is the believer's hope and He is our trust. He
said, Thou art my hope, O Lord God. Thou art my trust from my
youth. Now when the Lord sends trouble,
there's three things that David requests here in his first three
verses. And when the Lord sends trouble
to His child, These are three requests that His child makes. Whether we use these exact words
or not, this is our petition. These are the three requests
we make. And actually, by the Lord sending
the trial and by Him bringing us to ask these three requests,
He's actually giving us these three requests. Now here's the first request.
Let me never be put to confusion. He says, in thee, O Lord, do
I put my trust. Let me never be put to confusion. This is our request only when
the Lord has made us to know that in us is nothing but confusion
and shame. I'll only make this request when
I know that left to myself, I'm nothing but confusion and shame. That's all we are in our flesh.
That's all we are. We don't have any strength in
us, brethren. We couldn't create one spark
of spiritual life in us. We couldn't create faith in us. And here's the truth of the matter.
As believers, born of the Spirit of God, we're told to mortify
our flesh, but we can't mortify one sin of ourselves. Not one. When we begin to imagine
that we have some kind of strength in ourselves, and we do that
by a lot of different ways, but when we start thinking we have
some strength in ourselves, We're proving our sinful flesh is reigning
over us. When we think we have some strength
in ourselves, we're only proving that our sinful flesh is reigning
over us. Even the youth shall faint and
be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait
upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Because the Lord alone
can renew strength. Our resurrected Redeemer says
this from Hosea 14.8. He says, From me is thy fruit
found. That's the only place. It's only from Him. We're barren.
We're a desert land in ourselves. And just like the earth depends
on the sun to shine and the rain to water it before it can bring
forth fruit, we depend upon our Lord to bring forth fruit in
us. We'll never ask God to keep us
from confusion until He makes us see it, because we'll think
we're strong enough to keep ourselves from being ashamed. Oh, our faith
is strong. We will never fall away. It's
only when He makes you to see, you don't have any strength,
and I don't have any strength. But by sending the trial, that's
what He teaches us. He teaches us, He's not letting
us be put to confusion. He's not letting us be ashamed
for trusting Him by sending us a trial to show us we have nothing
good in us at all and no strength. He draws you to His self and
by making you see you're absolutely desolate and that's the only
time we'll call on Him. Paul said, now she that is a
widow indeed and desolate, desolate, She trusts in God. And that's
why David prays here and says, in thee, O Lord, do I put my
trust. Let me never be put to confusion.
He was desolate. He didn't have anybody else to
trust in but the Lord. Nobody else. God gives faith
to trust Him, and He won't let us be put to shame for trusting
Him. He won't. As it's written, Behold, I lay
in Zion a stumbling stone, a rock with a fence, and whosoever believeth
on him shall not be ashamed. In Joel 2.26, He said, You shall
eat in plenty, you'll be satisfied, you'll praise the name of the
Lord your God that hath dealt wondrously with you, and my people
shall never be ashamed. He said, thou shalt know that
I am the Lord. And by that, he says, they shall
not be ashamed that wait for me. But the way he's going to
never let us be put to confusion, the way he's never going to let
us be put to shame is by giving us trials to show us our total
inability. He may let others think you've
been put to shame. He may let others think you've
been put to confusion. But He gonna bring you to see,
He won't ever let you be put to confusion. Be of good courage,
He shall strengthen your heart. All ye that hope in the Lord,
trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting
strength. He's the only place we have strength.
Now here's the second request. And verse 2, deliver me in thy
righteousness and cause me to escape. Incline thine ear unto
me and save me. You don't pray that unless you
need to be delivered. You don't pray that unless you
need to escape. Now the Lord always inclines
his ear unto his child. He always hears those He's everlastingly
loved, those He chose in Christ, those that Christ came to redeem.
He hears His children when we cry. In fact, the only reason
we cry to Him is because He brings that cry out of us. And He's
going to hear it. He brings you to cry, deliver
me in thy righteousness and cause me to escape. The righteousness
of God is His Son. The righteousness of the Lord
Jehovah is Christ Jesus. And if we're going to be delivered,
He's going to deliver me in Thy righteousness, in Christ Thy
righteousness. That's how we're going to be
delivered. Now the Apostle Paul said in Galatians that we are
justified. Those Christ came to save are
justified by the faith of Christ. That means His trust in the Lord. His trust in God the Father.
When He took flesh, He totally trusted the Father. And He did
so perfectly. And He did so from a heart of
perfect love. And brethren, We see Christ's
perfect faith from a perfect heart of love when we hear David,
what he wrote here. He's a prophet and he's writing
of Christ and what Christ would say. And in verse 4, we can see
several things in here that show us Christ. He said, I've been
holding up from the womb, thou art he that took me out of my
mother's bowels. That's Christ. He's the only
one who from the womb was perfect. But here he is now, surrounded
by his enemies, and listen to what he prays in verse 4. He
says, deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out
of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. Look down at verse
10. He says, For mine enemies speak
against me, and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel
together." You'll see the margin, it says they watch, they observe. And they take counsel together,
saying, God hath forsaken him, persecute and take him, for there's
none to deliver him. Oh God, be not far from me. Oh my God, make haste for my
help. Now, the wicked. The unrighteous,
the cruel man that watched our Lord and opposed our substitute
was the devil and everybody over whom he had power. That's the
cruel man that watched our Lord. They watched him, they observed
him, they tried to find fault in him, and they counseled together. They got together and talked
about him when he wasn't around. And they counseled how they were
going to take him. Now they're fighting against God. They were
fighting against God of glory. They're fighting a losing battle.
That was a losing proposition. But that's what they were doing.
His enemies, they waited and they saw the hour. They saw this
hour when they thought God's forsaken him. Let's take him
now. Let's take him. God's forsaken
him. They persecuted him and they
took him and they said there's none to deliver him now. But
here's what they didn't realize. Christ is the deliverer. And
the only reason that He allowed them to think there was none
to deliver Him was so that they would take Him by their wicked
hands and do to Him what God had ordained from before the
world was made that they should do. God purposed it. He ordained
what they would do. And the only reason that He made
them think there was none to deliver Him was that He might
be nailed to that cross so that He might deliver His people in
perfect righteousness. Everything that they were doing
was fulfilling His eternal purpose. Every bit of it. Every bit of
it. They only did what God before
determined to be done. And on the cross, Christ delivered
all God's elect in His righteousness. He delivered them all in His
righteousness. But you see there, we hear Christ speaking here.
This whole Psalm we hear Christ speaking and we behold the faith
of Christ. We behold that love, that perfect
love of His heart. When He was undergoing all of
that, you know what He did? He committed it to the Father
that judges righteously. He didn't fight Him. He didn't
try to oppose Him. He committed it to the Father.
He trusted the Father and He did that perfectly. And that's
the faith by which we've been justified. That's the faith by
which we're saved, brethren. By Him perfectly, faithfully
committing His cause entirely to the Father. And He did so perfectly. He waited. His prayer was, Father, deliver
me in Thy righteousness. What did he mean by that? Deliver
me when your righteousness is established. Deliver me when
my blood has justified my people from all their sins, when I've
declared you just before this whole world, when I've fulfilled
your whole law, when I've brought in an everlasting righteousness
for my people. Don't deliver me till then. Deliver
me in your righteousness. And it's that perfect faith of
our Redeemer laying down His life that justified His people
from all things from which you could not be justified by your
works. And so now, by Him dying, we're dead to the law. And it's
that same faith of Christ that has to enter into us. by which
we live, by which we're guided, by which we're moved, by which
our flesh is subdued, by which our inner man is strengthened,
by which we're made to truly commit it all to Him. The same
faith of Christ. The same faith of Christ. So
remember this, when enemies oppose us, it's only at God's appointment. It's only at God's appointment.
They're doing what God determined before to be done. By God's hand,
Absalom and a lot of other enemies opposed David. God appointed
it. And so they came up against David.
But what was it? What was he doing? Look at what
David prayed there in Psalm 71 in verse 2. He prayed, deliver
me in thy righteousness and cause me to escape. And that's what
the Lord was doing. The Lord was causing David to
escape to Christ in faith. He was not letting David be put
to confusion by trusting himself. He caused David to cry out for
the Lord to deliver him in righteousness. Brethren, Christ has delivered
us from the curse of the law. And if you believe Him, He's
come and He's delivered you from the power of your adversary,
the devil, and He has, to a degree, delivered you from your sin nature,
in that He subdued it and given you a new man, created you anew,
and by His faith now you live. But in order to keep us trusting
Him, in order to keep us and cause us to escape everything
that would kill us and harm us. Our Lord is going to come with
trial and send trial and send opposition and He's going to
make you see your weakness by every adversary He sends against
you. First and foremost, the wicked, cruel, unrighteous man
is this old man of sin we carry around on our back all the time. He's the only one that's going
to make you escape him. And it's the devil and every adversary
we have, but when he sins against the adversary, when he opposes
you, It's God causing you to escape to Him. It's Christ causing
us to trust Him. It's Christ causing us to look
to Him to deliver us in His righteousness. That's what it is. Listen to
David. He depended upon the Lord to
lead him. He said in Psalm 5.8, Lead me,
O Lord, in Thy righteousness because of mine enemies. You
teach me Your way in Your righteousness. When he was harassed with Satan's
accusations in Psalm 35, 24, he said, Judge me, O Lord my
God, according to Thy righteousness. You know how the Lord's going
to judge His people when He judges you according to His righteousness?
The devil, the accuser of the brethren who's observing you
and trying to find fault in you, he stands at your side and he
says, He's filthy! And Christ doesn't bring a railing
rebuke against him. Christ says, he's robed in my
righteousness. Satan accuses you and says, look
at him. He's just a filthy, stinking
sinner. And Christ says, he's a brand
plucked out of the fire. He's robed in my righteousness.
He's perfect within and without. Listen to this, brethren, who
If God be for us, who shall be against us? You just get that
down in your heart. If God be for us, who shall be
against us? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? But you're guilty. I am. So are
you. But who's going to lay anything
to our charge? Not us all. Not us all. Listen to this. When Luke warmed in heart, he
said, quicken me in thy righteousness. When needing wisdom, he said,
answer me in thy righteousness. When he was overwhelmed with
cares and troubles, he said, for thy righteousness sake, bring
me out of my trouble. You see, the trials of this life
are sent to keep us escaping to Christ, our only righteousness,
and trusting Him to do everything for us in righteousness. If He left it to me, I'd fall
away in confusion and shame, because that's all that's in
me. If He left it to you, that's exactly what you'll do too. But
by sending trials, He's causing you, He's sweetly forcing you
to be hedged up with thorns on this side, hedged up with thorns
on this side, so you can't turn to the right or the left. There's
only one place you can go. That's to Christ your righteousness.
That's what He's doing in all these trials. And so He keeps
us saying with David in verse 15, My mouth shall show forth
thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day. For I know not the
numbers thereof." You see, He's talking about constant, constant
salvation. He has saved us, He is saving
us, He shall save us. Lord, I see Your righteousness
in everything You do. And I can't even count the number
of the righteousnesses You've shown me. I'll go in the strength
of the Lord God, I'll make mention of Thy righteousness, even of
Thine only. Verse 19, Thy righteousness also,
O God, is very high. Who has done great things, O
God, who is like unto thee? And so lastly, he brings you
to ask this third request. Be thou my strong habitation. whereunto I may continually resort. Thou hast given commandment to
save me, for thou art my rock and my fortress." Now, if we're
truthful, we don't like the trials. We don't like them. If we're
truthful, we think they're getting in our way and hindering us from
serving our Lord. That's what we think. But what are they really? What
are they really? Now, I know this is your request
if you trust the Lord. You want Him to be your strong
habitation. You want Him to be the one that
you continually resort to. Don't you? You want that. Well,
because the Lord is your rock, because He is your fortress,
because He is your strong habitation, He's going to give commandment.
He has. He's given commandment to save
you. Read it again there in verse
3, the second part. He says, Thou hast given commandment
to save me, for Thou art my rock and my fortress. He's given commandment
to save us because He's our rock and our fortress. We want Him
to be our rock and our fortress. We want to continually resort
to Him. And because He is our rock and
our fortress, He's given commandment to save us. The trial comes because
our all-powerful Savior has given commandment to save you. He's given commandment to keep
you knowing He's your strong habitation. He's your rock. He's
your fortress to keep you continually resorting to Him. He's given
commandment for that. Our Savior is the Lord of hosts. He is the Lord of hosts. That
means everything obeys His command. What we call the laws of nature
obey His commands. When He was ready to ascend up
into heaven, He just did it. Because everything obeys His
command. And He's given commandment to
save us because He's our rock. He gives His angels command to
keep us, to look over us and keep us. But He also commands
the whole universe to do His bidding. He commands the beasts
of the field and the stones of the field to save you. He commands
the virus and the politician and the king to save you. He
commands every enemy and every friend to save his people. That's
what he's doing, brethren. Where do you get that? Because
we know all things work together for good. They're being worked
together for good by Him. For the called, for them that
He's loved, and He's doing every bit of it on purpose. He's given
commandment to save you and me. To make us resort to our rock,
resort to our strong habitation, and stay in Him. He commands
the trial to come to us to save us. And these trials and these
troubles, they cause us to see we're not the rock. They cause
us to see our brethren are not the rock. They cause us to see
we're nothing but weakness and we only have one strong fortress,
and that's Christ. Look at verse 6. By thee have
I been holding up from the womb, thou art he that took me out
of my mother's bowels. My praise shall be continually
of thee. I was a wonder unto many, But thou art my strong refuge. Thou art my strong refuge. Look
at verse 9. Cast me not off in time of old
age. Forsake me not when my strength
faileth. Verse 16. I'll go in the strength
of the Lord God. Look at verse 18. Now also when
I'm old and gray headed, O God, forsake me not till I've showed
thy strength unto this generation and thy power to everyone that
is to come. Now this is something That everybody
knows who's experienced this. And we don't know it until we've
experienced it. So then it's a head knowledge and that's all
it really is. We only learn that Christ is the power of God. That He is our rock. That He
is our strength. That He is our fortress. That
He is the only one that we resort to when He makes us to know we
are weakness. That's all we are. That's all
you are, sinner. You're weakness. You've never
done one good thing. Not a thing. Everything you've
ever thought godly is so full of sin that it sends a thousand
sinners to hell. If it wasn't for Christ. That's
just so. We only learn this when He makes
you see how weak you are. What a sinner you are. And it's
only when Paul was weak that he saw Christ was a strength.
It's only when he, whatever that messenger of Satan was, it was
sent to buffet him. It was sent to be horrible to
him. Brother Don always thought it
was pride. But it was something to keep
him seeing that he had no strength in himself. He was totally weak
in himself. And when he brought him to see
that, he made him to see Christ as his strength. And here's what
the Lord did. He brought all men to forsake
Paul. And you know what happened when
he did that? The Lord stood with him and strengthened him. 2 Timothy
4.17 He said, When everybody else forsook me, the Lord stood
with me and strengthened me. What a mercy. What a blessing. God causing us to resort to Christ
the Rock. And put no trust anywhere else.
Not till we despair of all strength in ourselves and in all others. Who really is our Rock? Who really
is our rock? It's who we obey. It's who we
resort to. It's who we're forced to depend
upon and Him only. Because we're totally, totally
without strength in ourselves. And that's what He's doing, brethren.
That's the purpose of everything God is sending to us. That's
the purpose of it. That's the purpose of it. You're
not my life, Christ is. And I'm not your life, Christ
is. Your spouses are not your life, Christ is. Your brethren
are not your life, Christ is. And we need to learn we got one
life, that's Christ. So don't despise the trouble,
don't despise the trial, don't despise the heartache, don't
murmur against it, and don't murmur against your brethren
that are going through it. Because to do so is to fight
against God. You just don't know what God's
going to do. We just don't know. You know what's better to do?
Lord, in Thee do I put my trust. Don't let me be confused. Don't
let me be put to confusion. Lord, You're my rock. Keep me
resorting to You. Lord, deliver me in Thy righteousness. Cause me to flee to You and trust
You to do all righteously as You have for me. That's the best
thing. That's committing it to Him that
judges righteously. But in our weakness, the Spirit
strengthens us with all might according to His glorious power
unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. Just in our
weakness. In our weakness, He makes us
strong in the Lord and the power of His might. When He crucifies
us and He makes our old man of sin to perish in us so we see
we are without strength, He strengthens with might by His Spirit in the
inner man. If you go home, you read 2 Corinthians
4.8-18. Paul said that by the trials
that we suffer, The Lord makes you bear in your body the dying
of the Lord Jesus. Now what exactly does that mean?
I'll tell you one thing it means. He crucifies you. He brings you
flesh to nothing. And Paul said, I want to know
the fellowship of his suffering. I want my flesh to be crucified. That's what he... In these trials,
he's making you die in your old man of flesh. He's crucifying
him. And then he said, at the same time, he's renewing us in
spirit, making us know Christ is our life. And he said, and
by this, he's making us to stop looking with these eyes at these
things below and thinking this is salvation. Our salvation is from sin. Our salvation is from hell. Our
salvation is from ourselves. Our salvation is Christ. Remember me giving the illustration
a long time ago about coming home and the furniture in my
parents' house would be rearranged? But the house was still my father's
house. Things were still running right according to what he wanted
them, how he wanted them to run. The furniture was just rearranged. Well, one day God's going to
fold this up, take all the furniture away and show you this wasn't
even the house. He's the house. He's the rock. He's the fortress. He's the refuge. And then when he's done that,
this is what he brings you to, verse 20. Thou which has showed
me great and sore troubles. Get that? Thou, Lord, which has
showed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again. What
did he do after Christ was crucified? He quickened them, He rose. And
after He's crucified you by these trials, He's going to quicken
you again. And then what's He going to do? He says, and you'll
bring me up again from the depths of the earth and shall increase
my greatness. The end of the trial is always
better than the beginning. And you know what your greatness
is? It's Christ. And He increases you, beholding
Christ your greatness more and more through this trial. And
He comforts me on every side. Everywhere. And what does that
cause? It causes you to stop glorying
in you and start glorying in Him. He said, I'll also praise
Thee, even Thy truth, O my God, unto Thee will I sing, O Thou
Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice
when I sing unto Thee, and my soul which Thou hast redeemed,
my tongue also shall talk of Thy righteousness all the day
long. He never stops doing this to
the last trial when he shows you, you really never had any
strength in yourself. When you can't move a muscle,
and you can't bat an eye, and you can't mutter a word and murmuring
against him, you just have to trust him. And he shows you,
that's where you were the whole time. That's the strength you
had the whole time. I want to end with this hymn
by John Ryland. He said, sovereign ruler of the
skies, ever gracious, ever wise, all our times are in thy hand,
all events at thy command. He that formed us in the womb,
he shall guide us to the tomb. All our ways shall ever be ordered
by his wise decree. Times of sickness, times of health,
blighting, wanton, cheerful wealth, all our pleasures, all our pains,
Come and end as God ordains. May we always own thy hand. Still to thee surrendered stand. Know that thou art God alone. We and ours are all thy own. And I pray, brethren, that'll
help us understand the trials. Amen.