All right, brethren, let's go
back here to Psalm 93. Let's read verses 3 through 5 here. The floods have lifted up, O
Lord. The floods have lifted up their
voice. The floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier
than the noise of many waters. Yea, than the mighty waves of
the sea. Thy testimonies are very sure. Holiness becometh thine house,
O Lord, forever. Our subject is God mightier than
the waves. God mightier than the waves.
And I've preached on this subject many times. But I really believe
that today I can preach on this subject with a little more experience
and a little more certainty that these things are true. We see here the life and the
cry of a believer. We see here our assurance and
our security. And we see here the end purpose
for which God gives trials. Now, at almost any point in a
believer's life, this is our cry. Verse 3, the floods have lifted
up, O Lord. The floods have lifted up their
voice. The floods lift up their waves. At any time that you talk to
a believer, we're either going into a trial, we are in a trial,
or we're coming out of a trial. That's pretty much the life of
a believer. Pretty much the life of a believer.
And that's how it's going to be as long as we live in a world
full of sin. That's how it's going to be as
long as we have a sin nature. That's how it's going to be as
long as we live amongst sinners. We're going to have wave upon
wave of trial. Job 5.7 says, Man is born into
trouble as the sparks fly upward. And our Lord has warned us that
we must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God.
It is a must. What kind of waves do we face?
We do face waves from without. Unregenerate sinners hate God
who is sovereign over all. They don't mind a God who does
what they allow Him to do, but they hate God who is sovereign
over all. Sinners by nature hate the God
who chooses whom He will and passes by whom He will. They
hate the God who does with His own whatsoever He is pleased
to do. They don't mind a Jesus who got
part of it done, but he needs your help to finish it. But they
don't want to hear about the God who came in human flesh and
accomplished salvation, accomplished redemption, and cried out, it
is finished. Nothing for the sinner to do.
They don't mind a God who is pleading with you and begging
you to please let Him have His way and let Him do something
with you if you'll just by your will give Him consent. But they
hate to hear about the God who regenerates and calls irresistibly
by His will in spite of your will. who has to make you have
a new will and give you a new will to come to Him. Sinners
don't like that God. And because of this, brethren,
we're going to face in this world waves of trial, being despised
and rejected of men. That's why we read about Christ
and we read that the heathen raged against Him. They raged
against Him. They were so angry against Him. He said, When death encompassed
me about, the floods of ungodly men came into my soul. Floods
of ungodly men that they cast out. You read in Revelation about
the devil casting out that flood to try to kill the woman, the
church. The floods of ungodliness, the
floods of ungodly men opposed Principalities and powers and
rulers of the darkness opposed to the truth, opposed to Christ. So we're going to have those
kinds of waves, despised and rejected. There's going to be
waves in the world, in our lives, from the world. Scripture says
the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose
waters constantly cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace,
saith my God, to the wicked. Just look at the world and you
see there's no peace in the world. They speak about peace and talk
about trying to make a world that's peaceful where everybody's
at peace, but you'll never have that by wicked men. There'll be no peace. It's just
mire and dirt being cast up constantly. The wicked will take vengeance
on other sinners. not look to God and trust God
to deal with judgment. No, they have to take it into
their own hands and exact it upon you now. They rage with enmity against
God and they try to destroy God's people. Just like a wicked man
will try to destroy anybody, but especially God's people.
They say things that are so hateful and so mean and just Keep coming
and keep coming and keep coming at you. And try to take whatever
they can take from you and leave you with absolutely nothing. But remember, the King of Kings
is ruling over all. He said, shall there be evil
in a city and the Lord hath not done it? He's ruling it all. He's ruling it all. We're going
to have waves of sickness in our bodies. due to sin. We're going to have waves of
heartache. We're going to have waves of loss. But remember, it's of the Lord
who promises, He healeth all thy diseases. It's of the Lord
who's promised, I'll never leave you and I'll never forsake you. But I believe the worst waves
that we're going to face, the worst waves of trial come from
within. Those are the worst. You know, we know the parable
of the four kinds of ground. And we know that by God's grace,
He's made you and I who believe to be the good ground. All the
fruit that is produced comes from our God. He's the great
cultivator and producer of fruit in His vineyard. It all comes
from Him. But I'll tell you something,
we have a sin nature. And because we have a sin nature,
we have a lot of trouble and a lot of trials with those problems
the other three kinds of ground had, too. We're like those other
three kinds of hearers, too, at times and in season. There's
the wayside hearer. He hears the gospel preached.
It's like seed falling by the wayside. on the paths, they're
just kind of scattered out. Sometimes we hear the word, we
hear the gospel preached, but immediately the devil comes and
takes the word that was sung. Aren't you amazed sometimes at
how quickly you can forget what you heard preached? I study it
and I preach it and sometimes the next day I can't remember
what scripture I preached from the day before. How quickly we just forget. The
stony ground hearer, he receives the word with gladness. And we
do. We receive the word with gladness
and it springs up and you think, I won't forget that. That's going
to be with me. But then sometimes comes affliction
or persecution for the word's sake. And we're offended. What does
that mean? It means we don't speak up when
we ought to speak up. You say, will a believer do that?
Listen, Peter denied the Lord three times standing before a
little damsel. Fear of affliction and persecution. Yes, we will suffer from that.
That's a wave. That's a serious wave of the
sea when you find yourself in that position. Then you have the, and this is
one we especially face, is the thorny ground here. And we can
have seasons where this is the wave of our child. We hear the
word, but the cares of this world. cares of this world. There's
so many cares that we have and we become cumbered about with
much serving and we get taken up with the cares of life and
the cares of the world. And that's a troubling wave of
trial. The deceitfulness of riches.
We're so easily tempted by the treasures of Egypt. There's nothing
this world can give you and me that's needful. Nothing this
world can give you and I that you're going to take out of this
world with you. Nothing. What's needful is Christ,
but we get so tempted and tried by the treasures of Egypt. And
you can have a season where that's a trial. It chokes the Word. And then the lusts of other things
entering in. Our sin nature is nothing but
lusts. It's nothing but sin. And Scripture
says our old nature lusts against the Holy Spirit of God. And the
Holy Spirit of God against the lusts of our flesh. And He's
the only reason we don't do the things we would do. But those
lusts, those cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches
and the lusts of other things entering in, they choke the Word
and it becomes unfruitful. And we can go seasons where that
takes place and there is no fruit. Now, thankfully our Lord made
us good ground and he's gonna make his child bring forth fruit.
He's not gonna leave you in that place. But I'm just saying, these
things can come upon us. These things can happen to us.
And when they do, it is a great wave of trial. Our love and our zeal can grow
lukewarm. Our Lord Jesus warned us about
this in his letters to the churches. Our zeal and our love can grow
lukewarm. We can leave our first love.
And this is a wave that we don't even notice has happened. It's
just so easy to become complacent. I'll read tomorrow. I'll listen to that message tomorrow.
It won't hurt if I miss this service. I really need to get this done.
This is really important. And you just become lukewarm,
neither hot nor cold, just lukewarm. We can start feeling sorry for
ourselves, feel like we worked, we're overworked and we're underappreciated,
and get to feeling sorry for ourselves. Great wave of trials. We can become self-righteous.
It creeps in. This is our worst wave of trial
here. This is something that we constantly
have to be on guard against. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,
our Lord said. It starts with just, you just
notice something in a brother or sister. And you start kind
of looking for that something and you see it some more. This starts with a little critical
eye. Next thing you know, there's
a critical tongue. Next thing you know, that's all
you can see. But you know the sad thing is,
when that's happening, all we see in ourselves is self-righteousness. Not the sin of self-righteousness,
we see ourselves as righteous. We see ourselves as having done
better than they're doing. Well, if they just do it the
way we did it. You know how self-righteous that is? Here's how we did it.
Well, let's see, what was that? You took a breath. How would
you have done that if God hadn't given it to you? What was it
you did? It's so boastful when we start
talking to people like that because without acknowledging we didn't
do anything but what God permitted us to do and God made us to do
because when we start speaking like that we make other people
feel judged and we're self-righteous in it. And we start thinking we did
things better. We did more. We've done this longer. All these
different things that you just think bigger, better, faster.
This is how I am. And you start feeling better
than others. And that's an awful, awful, awful
place to be because what happens is when that's happening you
stop seeing yourself as needing God's mercy. And we stop being merciful. Brethren, the devil does not
care what you look to, just so he can get you to stop
looking to Christ. He doesn't care what it is, just
so he can turn you from Christ. What happens when we turn our
eye from Christ and we start looking at these waves of trial? Remember that, what Ben just
read, when the apostle Peter that night on that stormy sea.
And Peter saw the Lord walking on the water. He saw the Lord
walking on the waves. And he wanted to go to the Lord.
And that was a sincere desire. When you're in a trial, don't
you want to go to the Lord? Don't you want to be with the
Lord? Don't you want to be in fellowship with the Lord? That's
the heart of the new man. I want to be back in fellowship
with Christ. And you want to go to Him. And
so Christ bid Peter come. And for a while Peter walked
on the water. For a little while he walked
on the waves. He was looking to Christ, headed
to Christ, and he was walking on the waves. But then it says, when he saw
the wind, He looked away. And he saw the
wind boisterous. He was afraid. You know you can't
fear the Lord and fear something else. When you're fearing the
Lord, looking on the Lord and fearing the Lord, you're not
fearful of anything else. But when you fear something else,
you're not fearful of the Lord. Not believing the Lord. You're
doubting the Lord. And that's what happened. And
he began to sink. He became afraid and he began
to sink. Brethren, we become afraid when
we look to the wind and the waves instead of looking to Christ.
That's when we become afraid. When you're in a trial, do you
become afraid? When you're in a trial, do you
start doubting and become fearful and become troubled? Our Lord's telling us what the
problem is in what happened to Peter. We're looking at the waves. We're looking at the trouble.
And you do. We do. We become fearful. But
the Lord does it to bring forth fruit in us. He lets that happen
to us. He sends the waves and He sends
the trial, but He does it to bring forth that fruit in the
good ground. Do you know how that fruit starts? Peter cried out, Lord, save me. That's the first of that fruit
that he produces. He brings you to cry out, Lord,
save me. You ever been where that's all
you could say? Lord, save me. You don't know what else to ask. But you know this is something
good to ask. Lord, save me. You save me. Look at verse 3. Here's what
we cry. The floods have lifted up, O Lord. The floods have lifted
up their voice. The floods lift up their waves. But here's the assurance and
the security of a believer. Doesn't matter what our condition,
what state we're in, this is the security and the assurance
of the believer. Right here, verse 4. The Lord
on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than
the mighty waves of the sea. He's mightier. Our triune God
In Christ, in that man, Christ Jesus, our triune God, is reigning
over everything. He's reigning over all. That's
what we mean when we say He's sovereign. He rules everything. Look back at verse 1. The Lord
reigneth. That's what the song is over
in Revelation 19.6. Hallelujah! For the Lord God
omnipotent reigneth. That's what we're sent to preach.
Remember He said, the voice said, cry. What shall I cry? Thy God
reigneth. He reigns. He's clothed with
majesty. The Lord is clothed with strength.
Wherewith He hath girded Himself. It's His own majesty. It's His own strength. It's inherent
in Him. It's who He is. Christ Jesus,
our God, our Savior, He is majesty and strength. That's who He is. He's the creator of all things
and He owns all things and all persons. You included. Me included. And listen, He's directing and
disposing of all His creatures and all the actions we take. He's directing it all and making
it all bring His will to pass. Every bit of it. Even the sin
that's against Him. Even the sin that's our own fault
and is direct rebellion against God. It's only doing what He
purposed for it to do. And He's doing it especially
for you who are His people. Look at the next word. The world
also established that it cannot be moved. God's people are going
to be found worrying about the climate and worrying about saving
the world and all that stuff. Why? Because the Lord has established
it. It can't be moved. Now one day
he's going to shake everything that can be shaken. And it's
going to be shaken. Everything except what he's created,
what he's made in righteousness can be shaken. And one day it
will. But until then, you don't have
to worry about it because he established it. It can't be moved. Thy throne is established of
old. Thou art from everlasting. That's why the world can't be
moved. Because his throne can't be moved. Our Lord, before this
world was made, He entered into an everlasting covenant of redemption
with Himself. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit entered into an eternal covenant called a
Council of Peace. to save a chosen people for Himself,
for His glory, to honor His Son and exalt His Son. His throne,
it was established right then. The works were finished from
the foundation of the world. There's never been a time when
Christ has not been King of Kings and Lord of Lords. People start
wanting to look at this thing and dissect, now when did He
start becoming King? He's always been King. Where is he that was born king
of the Jews? He's always been king. He came
down and took the form of a servant to serve God for his people. But his throne was established
before this world was made. Yeah, I've spoken it, I'll bring
it to pass, I've purposed it, I will also do it, he said. He
shall not fail nor be discouraged till he has set judgment in the
earth and the isles shall wait for his law. After He established
His eternal covenant and established His throne, then He came into
this world. He made this world and He purposed
for man to fall in this world. So He would come forth into this
world and take the form of a man and come forth and put Himself
under the law and work out a perfect righteousness for His people,
exalt His holy character, exalt His name, exalt His dominion. And he accomplished it, every
bit of it. He accomplished eternal redemption. You know why? Because that man
Christ Jesus is eternal God. And what he did was eternal.
He eternally reconciles every child of God that he draws to
faith in Christ and makes you be reconciled to God. He eternally
reconciles you because the man Christ Jesus is eternal God and
he did the reconciling. justified for eternity. We were
justified in eternity when He chose us. He's the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. We were justified when He came
and He laid down His life on the cross and said it's finished.
We're justified in our experience of it when He brings you to faith
in Christ and declares to you in the court of your conscience
that you're justified. And one of these days we're going
to stand before His great throne of judgment and He's going to
declare us justified before everybody. He's eternal. He doesn't think
in time. He says it and it's done. He
just came forth to show us it's done. It's finished. And now He's gone back to that
throne and He's established on His throne and He's reigning
and ruling everything as the God-man mediator. So remember, brethren, the Lord
on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than
the mighty waves of the sea. He is the Lord that sitteth upon
the flood, yea, the Lord sitteth king forever. The Lord will give
strength to His people. Our Savior walks upon the waves
of the sea. That night when we saw Him walk
upon the waves of the sea, In front of his apostles, he's declaring
he's God. Because the scripture says, Christ
our God stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their
waves, and the tumult of the people. He walks on the waves. That includes our sin nature
and every other rebellious sinner. He quiets the tumult of the people
just like the waves. When he said, peace be still,
what happened? The waves became like glass. And that's who He
is. That's what He's able to do.
He sends a trial to His child, but He says what He says to the
physical seas. Hitherto shalt thou come, but
no further. Here shalt thou, proud waves,
be stayed. He only lets the waves go so
far with His people. He chose us by grace. He won't
allow any sin to separate you again. He justified us by His
blood. He won't pour out justice on
His people a second time. That means He can't not let you
fall away from trusting Him. You've got to be found in Christ
having His righteousness. Because His justice will not
be poured out a second time. He's going to keep all that He
justified trusting Him. He bought you who are children
of God. He bought you with His precious
blood. You're His possession. And He said, I will not lose
one. The Lord on high is mightier
than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of
the sea. So, here's the last thing. Why does he send trials then?
Why does he send a trial then? It's to bring us to know this
sure end that he brings us to right here. To know this, verse
5. Thy testimonies are very sure. Holiness becometh thine house,
O Lord, forever. His testimonies are His covenant
promises. That's what His testimonies are.
His covenant promises. His everlasting testament of
grace to keep us safe and to give us the victory. That's His
testimony. And He can't lie. God cannot
lie. He keeps us believing that all
His promises are very sure. All His testimonies are very
sure. His New Testament testimonies
are written in the blood of His Son, Christ Jesus. They are very
sure. He fulfilled all the law. He
fulfilled all the testimony of the Old Covenant. He fulfilled
it all. So His testimonies are very sure. It can't be undone. And He brings
you through the trial to remind you that He is our holiness. And holiness becomes his house
forever. How did you get that, Clay? Because he's the only one
who separated us from this world. He's the only one who gave us
a new holy nature and made us know him. And he said when he
gave the Sabbath day, he said the proof, he said when a man
will rest in this day, he's manifesting, I'm the one who separated him
out. And when you're brought to rest
in Christ our Sabbath, and trust Him for righteousness and Him
for holiness. That's the sure sign that God
has sanctified you out of this world and made you holy. You're in holiness, you are holy,
and it's becoming of His house. And when you're in a trial, you
go through these seasons, overcome by the floods of your sin nature,
and He's going to show you, you can't keep yourself holy, much
less make yourself holy. You become overflowed with the
sins of your sin nature and with self-righteousness. Scripture
said, when any man sin, you do, I do, we all do, and we shall. And when that happens, God won't
allow His child to go on in it. He won't allow His child to continue
in it. He won't let you keep going in
that. keep turn you from excusing yourself
while you accuse others. He's going to turn you from being
merciless and unforgiving. He's going to turn you from being
self-righteous and self-exalting. He's going to turn you from loving
your sin and your immoral behavior and whatever else it is. He's
going to turn you from that. But He's going to do it in such
a way that you're going to know He's your holiness. And if He
wasn't keeping you sanctified, you wouldn't be sanctified. And
He's going to bring you to see holiness is very becoming. I
love His holiness because He keeps me separated from me and
from this world. And I love it. It's beautiful.
He's the beauty of holiness. He brings you to remember how
He had mercy on you. He brings you to see how He came
lowly and worked out a righteousness for you. And how He went to the
cross and bore your sins. And how He did all this for you
when you hated Him and you were ungodly and you You couldn't
stand God and He came to you and showed you what He'd done
for you and separated you out from your former rebellion. And
He reminds you of that all over again and that breaks your heart,
that gives you a contract heart and that's when you say His testimonies
are sure. He promised me He was going to
do that. And I think holiness is so beautiful because He's
the one keeping me separated. He's the one keeping me holy.
He makes you repent. He makes you hate your sins.
He makes you mourn your sin. He makes you confess your sins
to God. He makes you beg God for forgiveness. And he turns
you to whoever it is you've offended. He makes you make amends with
your brother. He makes you love his testimonies that Christ fulfilled
and his holiness that Christ works. He makes you love it.
You think it's beautiful. A false professor can't fake
this. He can fake the outward form, but this is the power he
denies. He can't conjure this up. Because
only God can turn you from what you love. Only God can turn you
from what feels so good in your sinful flesh. Only God can turn
you from that and make you abhor it. Why does he do this through waves
of trial? to teach us our utter weakness,
to teach us our inability to do this. He tells you in the
Word, you've left your first love, do the first works. And
you hear that and you think, I'm going to do that. And if
you're honest, you can't make yourself do it. You have to have His Spirit enabling
you, making you love Him like you did at the first. He comes
to you and He says, mortify the deeds of the flesh. You hear
it preached. He says, mortify the deeds of the flesh. Put off
the old man. Put on the new man. But every believer here will
say, I can't mortify the deeds of my flesh. I can't put off
my old sin nature and put on the new man. Well, why does God
say do it? To show you, you can't do it.
But what he tells you to do when he commands you in power, he
gives you the ability to do it. And then you realize, oh his
testimonies are sure, he promised me he'd do this. I love holiness
when it's him that does the sanctifying. Because I see I can't make it,
I can't do it. Sometimes he waits a long time.
You know, He didn't go to them when that storm... They left
in the middle of the afternoon, early evening, because He had
fed the multitude. They got in the ship and took
off. They set sail probably just about dusk and the storm came. And our Lord waited to the fourth
watch of the night. That's like 3 o'clock in the
morning before He went to them. He let them be in those waves
a while. He lets you be in the waves and
let some rage until you think he's going to kill you. You think
he's turned against you. You think he's left me and I'm
not his child anymore. But it's not to kill you, it's
to save you. I heard this story about this
record producer named David Foster. He's a famous record producer.
He was coming home from studio late one night and rounds a curve,
and he sees a man standing in the road flailing his arms around.
And before he could register what it was, he hit the guy.
And he got out, went back there, and the guy had blood coming
out of his ears, out of his nose, out of his mouth. He wasn't moving.
So he calls 911, and he told them, he said, I think I killed
this man. So they send life flight there, and they get there, and
they pulled out a body bag at first, and they went over and
checked the guy, and he was alive. So they rush him to the hospital,
and they start examining him, and the guy's got broken legs,
broken arms, broken ribs. He's got internal injuries. His
spine is all messed up. I mean, he's tore up from the
floor up. This man is messed up. But in
the course of examining him, they also found out he had a
brain aneurysm, and it was bleeding. And he was hallucinating, and
that's what was causing him to be out in that road flailing
his hands around in the middle of the road. And the doctor said
if he hadn't got brought to this hospital, he would have died
within a couple of hours because of that brain aneurysm. Turned
out that man's, the actor Ben Vereen, and he lived. And he was commonly, him and
David Foster got to be friends and he was commonly heard saying,
David Foster saved my life by running over me with his car. God sends you a trial and you
think he's going to kill you. But it's not to kill you. It's
to save your life. It's to save your life. So He
leaves you in the trial a little while until He accomplishes His
purpose to save you. He brings you to cry to Him.
Brings you to worship Him alone. Ain't that what Peter did? Lord,
save me. It says the first time they had
that storm, He came and He said, peace be still. And when He did
that, the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And they feared
exceedingly and said one to another, what manner of man is this that
even the sea obeys him and the wind? Whenever he came to Peter
and when he came into the ship, the wind ceased. When he comes
into fellowship with you in the trial, the wind ceases. There's
peace then. And it says, And then they that
were in the ship came and worshipped Him, saying of a truth, Thou
art the Son of God. That's why He does this. He does
this to bring you to cry to Him instead of looking to yourself,
instead of looking to the waves. He brings you to fear Him. He brings you to worship Him.
And hence, He hasn't killed you with the trial, He saved you
with the trial. Because that's life. And He makes
you see, these are the testimonies He promised me. They're sure. He's not going to stop. And I
love His holiness that's keeping me in Him. Separated out from
my sin in this world. And you love Him. And He makes
you see that anybody that opposes you, and anything that opposes
you is as impotent as waves crashing against the rocks. Job said he's
wise in heart, he's mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself
against him and has prospered? I feel sorry for people who harden
themselves against God and and attack God's people or just rebel
against God because you can't harden yourself against him and
prosper. Many waters cannot quench Christ's
love. Neither can all the floods drown
it. And when all these waters come
and all these floods come, He shows you that not the flood
of your corruption of your nature could stop His love. He shows
you not the flood of the travail that He had to endure on your
behalf could stop His love. Not the flood of wrath He bore
in our room instead from God's hand could stop His love. Not
the flood of your rebellion and the flood of your sin since you've
known Him could stop His love. And not the flood of any raging
sea from any men or any enemies of His could stop His love for
you. And He shows you that in this
trial. And you realize, His testimonies are sure. He said He loved me
with an everlasting love. That's sure. That's sure. He said He's my sanctification
and my sanctifier. That's sure. I love His holiness. It's beautiful. Because He keeps
me. So brethren, just remember the
Lord on high is mightier than the noise of the waves. He's
mightier than the winds. He's mightier than those waves.
He knows the very hairs of your head are numbered. And if He's
taking care of the lily in the field and the little tiny sparrow,
He will take care of you. And He knows what you need, when
you need it, and He knows just what to do to make sure you get
it. And he's mighty to make it happen. God mightier than the waves. That comforted me, and I pray
that comforts you. I was comforted studying this,
and I pray God will comfort you with it. I'm telling you from
certainty. I'm telling you from experience.
This is true. His testimonies are sure. This
is true. Amen.