Let's turn to Psalm 25. Ever since the Lord revealed Himself
to me, there's been two things that have been constant. One
is by His grace, He's kept me looking to Him.
And there's much joy there, peace, comfort. And at the same time, the other
constant has been, I've constantly been a sinner, plagued
by sin, constantly had trouble in life. And those two constants have
been with me ever since. I spend so many nights awake thanking God, just so thankful
for what He's done to save a sinner like me. And at the same time, begging Him to stop me from sinning and to
forgive me of my sins. I hear men talk about getting
better. The only thing that I've gotten better at is seeing what a sinner I am. And by that I just mean my sin
just seems more and more and more present all the time. But then when I read the Psalms,
I see that I'm not the only one that felt that way. Every time
you pick up a Psalm and read it, David says the same things
over and over and over. He expresses his joy in the Lord
and his trouble in his flesh and in this world. That's what
we see tonight. Let's read this last part of
Psalm 25, beginning in verse 15. He says, mine eyes are ever toward
the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net. Turn
thee unto me and have mercy upon me, for I'm desolate. That word means I'm all alone. I'm only. I'm only. I'm alone. I'm desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are
enlarged. Oh, bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon my affliction and my
pain and forgive all my sins. Consider mine enemies, for there
are many, and they hate me with cruel hatred. Oh, keep my soul
and deliver me Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in
Thee. Let integrity and uprightness
preserve me, for I wait on Thee. Redeem Israel, O God, out of
all his troubles." Now the first thing we see here is where believers
look. And this is where we should always
look. This is where our affection should always be set. Verse 15,
mine eyes are ever toward the Lord. Mine eyes are ever toward
the Lord. The eyes represent the entire
new man that is created of God. That inward man that God is creating,
that God has put in His people, Christ in you. that new man born
of God. Because that's the only man with
which, the only part of us that looks to the Lord is that which
God's created and preserves and keeps looking to Him. Mine eyes
are ever toward the Lord. That's the only part of us that
looks away from us is the new man. Faith, looking to Christ,
trusting the Lord. And the only one who can save
us is the Lord. That's why we look to Him. He's the only one
that can save. You know, when you really see
what a sinner you are, and see what a sinner this whole
race is, that's when it becomes more apparent to you that the
Lord is the only one who can save us. He's the only one. David said in another Psalm,
I'll lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my
help. My help cometh from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth. The Holy Spirit says through
the Apostle Paul, he says to the believer, if you're risen
with Christ, set your affection on things above. Not on things
on this earth. Set your eyes above this earth. Set your affection on things
above, where Christ sits. Set your affection on Christ,
on His throne, where He sits. For you're dead, and your life
is hid with Christ in God. Do you believe you're dead? Do you believe God? Do you trust
the Lord's Word that He says you're dead? You know, the Scripture
says, he that is dead is freed from sin. And that's how it is before God.
By Christ's death, when He died, all God's elect died in Him.
And when He died, He died to sin. And when he died to sin,
all his people died to sin. He that's dead is freed from
sin. Now that's, we see it differently because we see our sin. That's
what God says. He that's dead is freed from
sin. God sees every one of his children that was in Christ when
he died. He sees us as being dead. Our
old body of sin, our old body of death is dead to God. And
he that's dead is dead to the law. That's a great blessing. The scripture says, my brethren,
you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ. That's
something else. He said, you also are become
dead to the law by the body of Christ. The law can't condemn
us anymore. Because when Christ died under
the law, all his people died under the law. When he died under
the penalty of divine justice and satisfied justice, God's
law said, I'm satisfied. And He said that towards me and
you and every other chosen child of God, dead to the law. Now see, when we look to God,
when we look to Christ, that's what we behold. That's when you
have some confidence in the Lord. That's when you have some joy
in the Lord. You look to Him and behold, I'm dead to sin.
I'm dead to the law. I'm dead to the curse and the
condemnation. God's not going to charge one
of His people with sin again because He laid it all on Christ
and Christ paid it all. That's why David said, mine eyes
are ever toward the Lord. It's only by God's quickening
grace, it's only by God's preserving grace, it's only by His keeping
grace that the Holy Spirit keeps us turned, looking to the Lord. That's going to be a constant
in a believer's life. He's going to always, by God's
grace, by the Spirit of God, he's going to be looking to the
Lord. When he says sin's not going to have the dominion over
you, I can't say that sin doesn't in some ways have a great power
over me. My sins in my members, I see
that. But one thing I do know, God's
never going to let one of His children fall away in the sin
of unbelief. He's never going to let you cease
looking to Him and beholding all your hope and confidence
in Him. He's never going to let that happen. He's going to keep
His people and you'll be looking to Him. We look to Him with a
dire need. All our need. We need Him. We look to Him believingly, trusting
Him. You can see that throughout this
passage we just read. David says there, he says, I
put my trust in thee. He says, I wait on thee. He's
looking to the Lord. That's what it is to look to
Him, to trust Him and to wait on Him. To trust Him and to wait
on Him. To look believingly is to look
with a broken and a contrite spirit. A broken, contrite spirit. Humbly. You don't come into a
king and march up to a king and speak. Even if you have welcome
access to a king, you don't come in all arrogant and haughty to
a king. You come into a king and bow.
And that's how we come before God. We come bowing in our heart. Broken and contrite with reference.
Our faith is not perfect. I don't even have to say anything
about that. But where He's given you faith, where it's the gift
of God, and it's preserved by God, and you're kept by God,
it doesn't matter if that faith is just like a grain of mustard
seed. Faith looks to the Lord. Faith
is ever looking to the Lord. Faith is the evidence and the
substance of things hoped for. Therefore, faith's looking to
the Lord. That's where faith's looking. Now, when we don't look
to the Lord, that's unbelief. That's our flesh. But that new
man, kept by God, preserved by God, made to look, the only part
of you that looks to the Lord and trusts the Lord is that part
that God's created, where He's given the faith and sustains
that faith, and that faith ever looks to the Lord. Sin distracts
it. Sin interferes with it. Sin causes
us sometimes to proceed very dimly. But God keeps His people
looking to Him and Him alone. Mine eyes are ever to the Lord. Ask God. This is what I pray. When I stay awake at night, I'm
constantly asking God, Lord, set my heart and my affection
more on You. Set the affection in the heart
of Your people on You. Make them look to You. Make them
look away from themselves and away from this world and away
from the troubles and look to You, Lord. We look to Him, we're
going to find... What did He say? In the world,
you're going to have tribulation. That's all you're going to find.
Look into your flesh, look into your works, look into anything
about you. And look into this world, you're
going to have tribulation. But He said, but in Me, in Me,
you'll find peace. Peace. Because He's overcome
the world. And He's overcome the world on behalf of His people.
So He said, My eyes are ever toward the Lord. But now look
at this. Just as that inward part, that
the eyes are ever on the Lord, our sinful nature, our flesh
is always in the net of sin. Look here. My eyes are ever toward
the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net. The eyes are the upper part of
our body. They're closer to the head. They're
in the head. And that's a good picture of
the new man that's in Christ, with Christ in you. That upper
part that's looking to the Lord. But where are your feet? It's
the lower part. And your feet are always in the
dust. And our old man of flesh is always in the dust of sin
and temptation and constantly we're needing to be plucked out
of that net. Isn't that so? Isn't that in
the picture of us? We're two men. We're two people. With our
eyes we're ever looking to the Lord. Why? Because we constantly
need Him to pluck us out of the net. The net Oh, that net. Now this is the conflicting condition
of a sinner. Always in this condition. That
net is the trap. That's used in Scripture to show
the trap that's set by our sin and by the sin of our enemies.
Of a wicked man, it says in Job 18.8, he is cast into a net by
his own feet and he walketh upon a snare. You ever come into a
net But you didn't have something
to do with it, walking into it. It says, the heathen in the net
which they hid is their own foot taken. Well, that's wicked people
though. That's the heathen. That's you
and me by nature. And the only way we have our
feet pulled out of that net is by the Lord, by His grace. That's why we're looking to Him
to pull us out of the net. Listen to this scripture. I tell
you what, turn over there, Psalm 10. I think it's Psalm 10. I
hope I wrote it down right. Nope, I didn't. I wrote it down,
but I didn't write it down right. Let me read it to you. See if I can find it. Our soul is escaped as a bird
out of the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken and we are
escaped. Our help is in the name of the
Lord who made heaven and earth. He is the one who delivered us
out of the snare, out of the net, out of the trap. And He
constantly has to deliver us out of it. We're like a bird. A bird don't see the net. A bird
doesn't see the trap. And he'll get in a trap very
easily. And that's us by nature. We've had this happen for two
years now. We've got these starlings nesting in the side of our house.
They come and peck the hole. The male pecks the hole. And
I read up on it because I was trying to figure out what this
bird is. They peck a hole. some colorful leaves and moss
and things to attract a mate. And they sing while they're doing
it. And they really do sing. And then the mate comes. And
they have their nest in. And she tears the nest all apart
and rebuilds it. And that seems kind of fitting,
doesn't it? And she has her eggs. We went out there. They've been
making all this noise. We went out there this weekend.
We've done it the past couple of years. Rob helped us. We put
these little metal plates over the hole. We went out there and
I put this little metal plate over the hole and come back in
the house. We wasn't there very long and
Melinda said, the baby's already hatched. I hear them in the house.
She said, go out there and take it apart. So I went out there
and I undid it, took it apart. And so that she could finish
raising the babies, you know. But see, they were trapped. If
I'd have left that there, they'd have been trapped. Just a silly
bird makes a nest in the side of a house where they can be
trapped. And that's us by nature. We build
our nest and we think we got us a nice safe nest. And we find
out we're in a trap. We're in a net. and it takes
God and him alone to deliver us out of it. Listen to these
things that were troubling David. Verse 16, he said, I'm desolate,
I'm alone and I'm afflicted. Most people think this was when
his son betrayed him and he led that big revolt against David,
against King David. So David was all alone. And you
know that made him just be so afflicted. His own flesh and
blood. Scripture says, a man's foes
will be they of his own household. It make him feel alone and afflicted. Verse 17, he said, the troubles
of my heart are enlarged. That's true trouble. Heart trouble.
Heart sin. Heart trouble. That's the worst. That's the worst. when you know
sin's not just in what you do. If it was just in what you do,
you can stop a lot of that. But you're fleeting thoughts
coming from that corrupt sinful flesh, and you see, my heart
is troubled. My heart's breaking. My heart's
burdened. The troubles of my heart are
enlarged, he said. Look at verse 17 there. Bring thou me out of my distresses. Not just distress, distresses. Verse 18, look upon my affliction
and my pain. Verse 18, forgive all my sins. I hear people sometimes speak
as if their sins were something in the past. You know, I sinned
so much when I was in my youth. Well, I did too. David did too. Earlier in this psalm, he said,
Lord, forgive the sins of my youth. Here he is now praying
in the present tense. Forgive all my sins. Paul didn't
say, O wretched man that I was. He said, O wretched man that
I am. Forgive my sins. All my sins. Verse 19, Consider
mine enemies, for they are many. They hate me with cruel hatred. That word means with the hatred
of violence. Violence that's our net brethren. That's the net that's that's
what we got to be plucked out of right there troubles of the
heart Loneliness affliction and pain all our sins all our enemies
all our troubles Now that right there is a description of all
I am in my flesh That's it All this that He needed to be saved
from, that's what I am in my flesh. That's all I am in my
flesh. And that's all you are. You who
believe, that's all you are in your flesh. And everybody here
that doesn't believe, that's all you are in your flesh. This
is all mankind is in our flesh. Sin, trouble, distress, pain,
affliction, that's all mankind is. It all comes from a fallen,
corrupt, depraved heart. That's what we are by nature.
You wonder why the Lord left His believing children in this?
Why did He leave us in this flesh? Why did He leave us in this world
so full of sin? Why didn't He just save us and
just take us to glory right then? Do you find that these things
that we're looking at here, do you find that these leave you
utterly helpless to deliver yourself. That's what I find myself...
I find myself constantly praying this. Hours on end. Lord, I can't deliver myself. If I could stop this, if I could
make myself be free from all my sins, I'd do it now. And I
can't. Do you know what it also makes
me do? Constantly. Do you find this true? Because
I can't deliver myself from my sin, do you find that you're
constantly calling on Him and saying, Lord, please save me.
Please deliver me. Please forgive me. Please keep
me. Please preserve me. All these
things David was praying. That's what we're constantly
praying because we can't do it. That's why He left us. That's
why He left you in that body of death. That's why He left
us in this sinful world to teach us to have our eyes ever toward
the Lord. I feel so sorry for people that,
you know, as awful as it is to see you sin and to have troubles
and affliction and pain and all these things, to have sleepless
nights where you... And it's not because I'm worried
that God's going to cast me off. I'm not worried that He's going
to forsake me. If He chose me and put me in
Christ and Christ died for me, He's going to keep me. He's going
to keep His people. I'm not worried about that. I
don't want to sin because it's against Him. I don't want to
sin because I want to honor Him. But you see, by keeping us in
this flesh, I feel sorry for people that don't feel that and
see that and know that because You don't have a need to be saved.
You don't have a need for the Lord if you don't see what an
awful sinner you are. Folks that are getting better
and better, are they able to walk without the Lord? If I was getting better and better,
I'd be getting more and more confident that I don't need the
Lord. I'm getting worse and worse and worse. And I'm needing Him
more and more and more. That's just how it is. What do we need the Lord to do?
Here's our prayer and our need and our expectation. Look at
verse 15. He shall pluck my feet out of
the net. I'm not going to do it. He's
going to do it. He shall. He shall pluck my feet
out of the net. Look at verse 17. Oh, bring thou
me out of my distresses. He's going to have to do that.
I can't do it. Verse 18, look upon my affliction
and my pain. I need Him to do that. Look at
verse 18, forgive. I certainly can't forgive my
sins. I need Him to forgive my sins.
Verse 19, I need Him to consider my enemies. Verse 20, I need Him to keep
my soul. I need Him to deliver me. I need
Him to keep me from being confounded and ashamed. Verse 21, let integrity
and uprightness preserve me. Now there is a, we are going
to see in the next Psalm. David, as far as men go, he walked
in integrity and uprightness and what he will say, What that
was, was the truth of the Lord. Trust in the Lord, looking to
the Lord. What we see right here is David's integrity and his
uprightness. He didn't try to hide his sin
and say he wasn't a sinner. He didn't try to say he was without
a need for mercy and God's grace and God's preserving and keeping.
In the integrity and uprightness that God created in his new heart,
he confessed his sin and confessed his need and looked to the Lord
and trusted the Lord. But I heard all these messages
and all these sermons on man's integrity and man's uprightness.
Let me show you something. Look here with me. Look here in verse 20. He says, Oh keep my soul and
deliver me and let me not be ashamed. Now who's he talking
to? He's talking to the Lord. He's
asking the Lord to keep his soul and deliver him and to let him
not be ashamed. Why? For I put my trust in thee. See who he's looking to? Now
look at the next verse. Let integrity and uprightness
preserve me. Who's he looking to to preserve
him? Who's the integrity and the uprightness he wants to preserve
him? For I wait on thee. He's still looking to the Lord.
He's saying, Lord, in your integrity and your uprightness preserve
me because I'm waiting on you. That word integrity and uprightness,
remember we saw before the Lord is good and upright to them that
trust in Him? That integrity includes all that
first catalog of attributes he told Moses where he said, my
loving kindness and my mercy and my long suffering, I reserve
this for thousands. And his uprightness, but I will
not clear the guilty. It's his righteousness, his justness,
his righteousness. He said, Lord, in your mercy
and your grace and in your righteousness, preserve me. That's what I need
to preserve me. That's preservation. The mercy
and righteousness of God. When they've met together in
truth, that's what preserves us. And that's what we're waiting
on. That's who we're waiting on.
Integrity and uprightness personified is who we're waiting on. The
Lord Jesus. Look here, verse 22, redeem Israel
out of all his troubles, O God. That's what we need. We need
Him to redeem us. We need Him to do it all. Everything. Because we can't do any of it.
That's why the Lord says this, look unto Me. Look unto Me. and help me save you look under
me and give me a hand saving you look under me and do your
part he says look under me and be ye saved how much more passive
could you that's your part he says you look under me and be
ye saved in other words you look to me I'll do the saving you'll
just be the one being saved Look unto me, and be ye saved, for
I am God, and there is none else." That's what David's saying right
here. Now, let me show you this one last thing. How do I know
He's going to save me if I look to Him? There's salvation in
the look. Look to Him. Trust Him. Confess
your sin to Him. Confess your need to Him. And
I ask Him to save you. He said, look unto Me and be
ye saved. But now let me tell you something.
I need something else besides just my looking to Him. I'll
only do that by His grace. That's the only way you're going
to look to Him is by His grace. But I need something besides
me looking to Him. I need Him to look to me. Look
here, verse 16. Turn thee unto Me and have mercy
upon Me. Turn thee unto Me and have mercy
upon Me." Remember who we saw it was the Lord looks to? I look
to this man, the Lord said, the man who is of a poor and contrite
spirit and trembles at My Word. How can I be sure the Lord, when
I'm poor and contrite and trembling at His Word by His mercy and
His grace and I see what what a need I have of Him to do it
all for me. How do I know He's going to save
me? How do I know He's going to hear me? How do I know He's
going to look unto me and have mercy on me? Well, Christ hung
upon a tree one time. When He hung on that tree, the
net that all His people deserved is the net He was in on that
tree. The troubles of our heart became
the troubles of His heart. The loneliness, that word there
where he says, my distresses, my distress and my affliction,
that word is a word that's used when it's only begotten Son.
That's the word used, only, alone, alone. He became alone. He was alone there. And all our
distresses were His distresses. And then all the sins that we
need to be forgiven of, they became His sins. All the sins
of all God's elect were made His. And He owned them as His. He owned them as His. All our
enemies became His enemies. All our troubles became His troubles.
And when God justly turned His back on him, when His people
had forsaken Him, when all the enemies were railing on Him,
and all hell was railing on Him, when He was alone, totally alone, you know what upheld Him? Integrity
and uprightness. He constantly, unwaveringly,
He could say this, My eyes are ever toward the Lord. David could be exaggerating a
little bit. Not the Lord. The Lord said,
My eyes are ever toward the Lord. Even when he hung on that tree.
Our faith is not perfect, but his faith was. As the servant
of God serving God. Mine eyes are ever toward the
Lord. Read it with me now. Let's just read it. And you think
of Christ on that cross. Think of Christ saying this on
that cross. When He was silent, no man could hear Him speaking
a word. When He was like a lamb led to the slaughter, wasn't
opening His mouth, yet He was in that hours of darkness. This
is Him speaking to the Father. Mine eyes are ever toward the
Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net. Turn thee unto
Me, and have mercy upon Me. For I'm desolate, I'm alone,
and I'm afflicted. The troubles of my heart are
enlarged. Oh, bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon my affliction and my
pain, and forgive all my sin." Would Christ say that? He had
none of his own, but our sins became his sins, so real that
he owned them as his own. He really did. Consider mine enemies for their
many, and they hate me with cruel hatred. O keep my soul, and deliver
me. Let me not be ashamed, for I
put my trust in thee. Let integrity and uprightness,
mercy and truth, the mercy and truth I'm fulfilling right here,
right now for my people, for God and my people. Let integrity
and uprightness preserve me, for I wait on thee. Redeem Israel,
O God, out of all his troubles." And I'll tell you what, as a
prince with God, he prevailed. He had power with God and with
men. Christ the Lord, our Israel, put away all the sins of His
people, purged our sins, and He justified His people, and
He made us righteous. He made mercy and truth, integrity
and uprightness to meet in perfect harmony. And He so fully satisfied
God, that God raised Him from the grave and set Him down at
His own right hand, so that now, when His suffering people taste
just a little bit of what he suffered. Not even anything nearly
to compare with what he suffered. But when we pray these things,
in the little way in which we are faced with them, the reason
God hears us, and the reason He will always hear us, and the
reason He will preserve us, and keep us, and deliver us, and
forgive us all our sins, is because Christ put them all away. And
He's there making intercession for His people and He'll never
let us go, ever. I tell you what, if I didn't
know what good God was bringing out of all my sin, it would just
bring me so down I'd just be... But I know, anything that brings
me to cast my care on Him and beg Him to save me is serving
its purpose. I pray He'll make us look to
Him, set our affection ever on the Lord, and constantly ask
Him to save us. And I'll tell you what, for Christ's
sake, He will. Let's pray together. Lord, we
thank You for this day. Thank You for the trouble. Thank
You for the affliction. Thank You for the pain and the
loneliness. We thank You for the making us
to see what an awful, wretched thing our sin is. Thank You,
Lord, for using all these things to make us see what helpless,
impotent sinners we are. And thank You, Lord, for turning
us and giving us faith, giving us a heart to look to You and
to ask You for mercy. That's what we need. That's what we need. Forgive
us, Lord, for all our sins. Forgive us for being puffed up. Keep us poor and broken and contrite. Keep us trembling at Your Word.
Lord, just keep us. Glorify Your name. Glorify Your
mercy and Your righteousness and all Your glorious attributes. glorify all in the person of
our Lord Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for Him. Thank
you for everything He's done for us. We ask you hear us now,
Lord, for His sake. It's in His name we pray. Amen.