Let's stay there just a minute.
Let's look at this Psalm 121 just a minute. In verse 1 there, he says, I
will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. Now he's not talking about
earthly hills there. He's talking about metaphorically. He's saying I'm going to lift
up my eyes from looking at things down below. You know, we get
into trouble, we get into trials, and things start happening in
our lives. And it appears that everything's
out of control sometimes. And it appears like everybody's
against us. It appears like our own loved
ones have turned against us. It appears like we don't have
anybody to help us. We're all alone. And it's so
easy to look at things below. It's so easy to set your affection
and your eyes upon things below to try to find help from that.
You start thinking, this is what's going to help me out of this.
But he says here, I'm going to lift my eyes up higher than things
down below. I'm going to lift my eyes above
that. And this is a picture of the heart being lifted above
everything, all the troubles, all the trial, all the opposition,
all the stuff that we have opposing us. And looking to Christ. Looking to Christ above. You know Colossians 3.1, if you're
risen with Christ, Set your affection, set your heart, set your attention,
put your focus on things above where Christ sits. That's where
you sit. That's where the believer is
right now, with God in Christ at his right hand. Set your affection
on the hills. Look above, look there. Set your
affection on Christ from whence cometh your help. That's what
he says there, I lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence
cometh my help. Isn't he our help? What can help
you? You know, when you get to a point
in your life to where something you've, you've, you get into
situations sometimes where there's absolutely nothing you can do
to get relief. You just can't get relief. And
you just are in pain, and you're suffering, and there's just no
way to get relief from what you're going through. It's sorrow. It's
something you talk to your dearest friends, you talk to your pastor,
you talk to your mother, you talk to your father, you talk
to your sister, your brother. It doesn't matter, but they can't
comfort you. Do you know what we fail to do
so often? We fail to just stop looking
at things below and stop trying to get relief from things below
and just look to God and say, God, He healed blind men when
they walked this earth. He healed the sick and the lame
when He walked this earth. And more than that, He went to
the cross of Calvary and took the sin of His people, and bore
the justice of God for His people, and saved us from our sins. He's
our help. And everything in heaven and
earth is His. All power is His. Call on Him. Look up to Him and call on Him.
Lord, if You will, You can make me whole. And He can. When nobody else can help you,
and nobody else can ease your sorrow, and nobody else can give
you any comfort, you raise your eyes to Him. He is your help. Now look at that next verse.
My help cometh from the Lord, the Lord which made heaven and
earth. Now that's talking about His
power. That's showing us, brethren, that we're not talking about
I wouldn't tell you to look to somebody if they didn't have
the power to help you. It wouldn't do any good. I'm
not going to stand here and tell you to look to you. I'm not going
to stand here and tell you to look to some fleshly way of easing
your sorrows and your pain and your suffering or your sins or
anything else. Because in us dwells nothing
good. In us there is no way to comfort ourselves. There's no
way to put away our sins. There's no way. We can't even
lift our eyes to God unless He does it. That's the truth of
it. But He created the heavens and
the earth. This is God who created everything, who said, let there,
and there was. Spoke it, and it is. That's who
we're talking about. This one is God who yet came
and dwelt with us and became flesh like us. And so He knows. He's walked where we walk. It
says in the Hebrews, He's touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Now you think about that. Every
infirmity you and I have is from sin. That's what it's from. That's why we suffer what we
suffer. The infirmities, all the stuff that we have in our
bodies, in our flesh that causes us trouble. That comes from our
infirmities. Our sin. But he was touched with
the feeling of it, yet without sin. He knew no sin. He did know
sin. But God made him to feel everything
that we feel due to our sin. And more so than we can even
comprehend or explain on Calvary's cross. He found out what it was
to be forsaken because of our sin. So, it doesn't matter where
you're suffering. It doesn't matter if you're in
New York, or if you're somewhere in the South, or you're in the
West, or you're in the East. It doesn't matter where you are. The only one that can help you
The only one that knows the feeling of the infirmities of his people
is the same one who's God over all able to speak a word and
ease that pain and that trouble. He's able to speak and say, forgiveness,
your sins are forgiven. Man can't do that. You can go
to that man with a funny hat and confess your sin, and he
can say your sins have been absolved, and you're walking out of there
with the same sins you walked in there with. But that one who
is THE high priest, that one who is THE God of gods and Lord
of lords, he can say to you, your sins are forgiven. And they're
forgiven. He has the power to command it
because he shed his blood for everybody, who's going to be
drawn to Him and made to confess their sins, and He's going to
say, you're forgiven. Now He knows. He knows our feelings. He knows our infirmities. He's
experienced them. He's been there. He knows it.
He knows what it is. Don't you like to talk to somebody
that knows what you've suffered? Well, He knows what we suffered.
He knows it better than we know it because He's without sin and
yet touched with it. So He knows it in a perfect way.
So He knows the answer. He knows the cure. He knows the
word to speak in season. Go to Him. Look to Him. Ask Him. He's able to save to
the uttermost all that come to God by Him. Alright, look at
this third verse. He will not suffer thy foot to
be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. He will not slumber. Now who's
this speaking to? This is speaking to those that
are His people. It's those God has chosen, that
Christ redeemed, that the Spirit has regenerated, that He's made
to trust Him, that He's made to put their confidence in Him.
It would be terrible if you put your confidence in the Lord, and the Lord betrayed your confidence. Nobody wants to be betrayed,
but He won't betray His people. He says here, He will not suffer
thy foot to be moved. Does that mean I'm not going
to stumble in this life? Does that mean I'm not going
to have trouble and fall into sin? No, that's going to happen. Because
you're a sinner and you're going to be a sinner until the day
you lay down this body of death. But He won't suffer your foot
to be moved away from Christ at all. You know, we talk about
not being separated from the love of Christ and men start
thinking that means you're just going to have this great life
and no trouble, no sorrow. No, you're going to have trouble
and sorrow. We are death, living in an earth
that is full of death around a bunch of people that's dying.
We're going to experience death. That's all we are and what we're
going to experience. It's going to be sad. And what the Lord
is teaching you and I is Hold on very loosely, because you are going to let
it go. That dearest loved one, that one you don't want to ever
see, let go. You are going to let it go. But,
He who is holding you, He says, will not suffer you to be moved
from Him. He's going to keep His people.
He's going to preserve His people. Now look at the next thing. He
that keepeth thee will not slumber. He will not slumber. You're going to slumber. I'm
going to slumber. We're going to become slumber,
full of slumber because of our sin, because it's weary to us. These things are weary to our
flesh. You know, we look at God's Word sometimes, we can't understand
it. We try to read it. It's just words on a page to
us sometimes. And then we go out into the world
and we face troubles in our jobs. We say things we shouldn't say. We do things we shouldn't do.
We slumber. We forget God sometimes. You
let, you mark my word, you let a man who can tell you the five
points of Calvinism, you let a man who can tell you the deepest
doctrine you want to know about God, and truthfully know God,
and truly believe God. But when it comes to that child
you love, you'll act like you don't even know God. That's right. If it comes between
taking up for them, and providing for them, and saving them, you'll
act like you don't even know God. Everything you've ever said
about God that was true from this Word, that you've said from
this Word, let something come home to you, come close to you,
come near to you, that you really love and hold on to and think
that is, I've got to keep this, And I'll tell you what'll happen.
You'll be so full of slumber, you'll speak and act like you
don't even know God to protect that earthly one. But he don't
slumber. He doesn't slumber. He never,
he never He's on the wall, and he's watching his church, and
he never ever slumbers. He knows no sin. He's put away
the sin of his people. He's above sin. He's ruling over
sin. That's what the slumber is. It's
sin. You and I slumber because of
sin. We envy. We are jealous, and
we love for vain reasons, and we want to protect for vain reasons,
and pride enters in, and all this sin, all that slumber. It's just like a man, his eyes
get so heavy, and he just can't keep his eyes open anymore. And
he's just asleep. He's sleepwalking. And that's
what we get. That's the way we get. But he
does not. He's put away the sin of his people. And he's risen
to the right hand of God. And he that's keeping his people
and preserving his people never slumbers. Now look at this. Behold, verse 4, he that keepeth
Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy keeper. Are you glad? Have you been experienced
who you are enough to know that you're not your keeper? If you know the Lord, you're
going to try to keep yourself. That's what John said. You're
going to try to keep yourself and we ought to try to keep ourselves.
But you know who your keeper is? The Lord Jesus Christ is
your keeper. That's who's going to keep you. You see, He so put away the sin
of His people, and He so made His people complete in Him, that
God is satisfied with His people. God has nothing... God is the
law, God is the authority, God is the power, and God has nothing
ill to say toward His people. He's as pleased with His people
as He is with Christ. And when He's called you and
made you to know that, that's how He makes you know He's your
keeper. God will have to turn to His Son and cast His Son out
of heaven and separate and forsake His Son again before you can
cease to be kept. That's not happening. He's our
keeper because He satisfied God. He's our keeper because He's
the righteousness of His people. He's our keeper because He's
our sanctification and our redemption and our wisdom and our completion
and our acceptance before God. That's why He's our keeper. Not to mention the fact that
He can turn the heart of every person you come in contact with
and everything that's going on in this world, every leaf you've
seen falling. And let me tell you, I got a
lot of them falling in my yard. And every one of them are laying
exactly where God had them lay. And they ain't moved an inch
further, not even a hair from that spot from where God would
have them be. If a wind comes along and they
roll down the road, He'd have them be down there. You mean
God's in that much control over everything? He's in that much
control over everything. Yes, sir. If that's the case,
or the wind's in control, or the leaf's in control, or something
else is in control, which one would you rather it be? God's
in control. That's who's in control. He's
the keeper of his people. Now look at this. The Lord, verse
5, the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall
not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. Now, the sun and
the moon here smiting you. Isn't that an odd metaphor? But you think about it. The sun
smiting you. The sun smites you by shining
on you so hard that it burns you, right? Well, how does the
moon smite you? If the moon disappears and you've
got no light at all, but you're in complete and total darkness,
you've been smitten by the moon. Now you've got no light in the
middle of the dark night. So either it's so much light
bearing down on you that you just burn up by it, or it's to
be totally without the light so that you're in total, complete
darkness. Well, he says here, the Lord
is the shade upon your right hand. The sun shall not smite
thee by day. What's a shade? A shade is what
comes between the sun and that object that the sun's shining
on. That's the shade. It might be a tree standing there. And you're in the shade. That
tree is your shade between you and that sun. He's standing between
you and that Son. That Son is the justice of God. That Son, if God just shined
His light into your life, more than you've ever had light, and
let you see just how sinful you are. You know what happened to
me and you? It'd be worse than laying out. One time, me and
my uncle went to Galveston with my grandparents. And we went
out one night, one day. We're going to cruise the chicks,
that's what we said. And we left at about 8, 30, 9
o'clock in the morning. And we walked the beach all day
long to about 3.30 in the afternoon. I am a snow white boy from South
Arkansas. By the end of the day, I had
blisters on me. I was so burnt by the sun. I
couldn't move. I could just lay there. It hurt
so bad. All the way back. We cut the
trip short because we had to come home. Me and my uncle both
were just burnt up. We had to come home. You imagine
if God shined His light, His light of justice, His light of
holiness, His light of pure perfection on you. That's the justice of
God. To have God's presence You can't come into God's presence.
No man's ever seen God and lived. God's too pure. And imagine that. Imagine that light shining. It'd
be worse than the sun. He says, Christ says, I'm your
shade. I'm the one that comes between
you and that justice. I'm the one that's going to shade
you from that. I'm the one that's preserving you from that. And
He says here, Nor the moon by night." Now look at the next
verse. It tells you what that means.
Nor the moon by night. I said to you, the other thing
we don't want, nor do we not want, we don't want so much the
light of God shining on us in such perfection that it would
consume us. Christ said, I'm between you
and God. He's reconciled His people to God. He's the shade
upon our right hand. Now He says, the moon's not going
to smite you either by night. How would that be? It would be
that the moon would go behind the clouds. You're out there
somewhere. You don't have a light. You don't
have any way of giving yourself light. That light goes away.
You've got no way of seeing where you're going. You're smitten
by the moon. You're in darkness. Can't see. Don't know where to
go. Look at the next word. Verse 7. The Lord shall preserve
thee from all evil. He shall preserve your soul. He's not only going to stand
between us and God and be our perfection of righteousness,
He says, I'm also going to be your light and preserve you so
that when your natural light's gone and you've got no light,
I'll be your light. I'll preserve you. I'll preserve
you. I'll preserve you. And look at
this, I'll preserve you from all evil. Preacher, you just
don't know what I'm going through. No, I don't. He does. Is there any evil that He can't
preserve us from? He says, I'm going to preserve
you from all evil. All evil. And then look at this.
And He shall preserve thy soul. Now look. I want you to have
a comfortable life. I want to have a comfortable
life. I want my children to have a comfortable life. I want our
children here to have a comfortable life. That's not the most important
thing. I want you to be saved. I want
you to be eternally saved. I want your eternal spirit to
be saved. And that's what he says to his people. This is not
just talking about things that are natural. This is not just
talking about the physical. He says, I'm talking about something
way more valuable. I'm talking about your soul.
I'm going to save your soul. I'm going to be the shade upon
your soul and I'm going to be the light of your soul. That's
what he is. Now look at this, verse 8. the
Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this
time forth even forever." When I think of going out and
coming in, the only thing I can think about is the access that
we have that's revealed in Hebrews 10. When he says that Christ
being our high priest and Christ by His flesh making a new way
into God's presence for us, we have access. We can come into
God's holy presence now. And when we, you and I, are brought
to the end of ourselves by God, by His grace, by His providence,
by His hand, that's when we go in. And we really don't any other
time. We try to pray and we do mean
it and I understand that. And God hears our prayers even
though He is feeble and without heart as they often are. But
when you are brought to the end of yourself, You can't comfort
yourself. You can't comfort your loved
ones. You can't preserve yourself. You can't put any shade between
you and the justice of God. You can't give yourself any light
in this dark sinful world, in the sinfulness of your flesh.
There's nothing you can do. Who's going to bring you in to
God's presence? Who's going to preserve you to
bring you into God's presence and make you bow down before
God and say, Lord, would you please help me? Christ is. And then when you go out comforted,
clothed, robed, washed, and you walk out from His presence, from
praying to Him, from seeking Him in your heart, He's going
to preserve you going out, just like He preserved you coming
in. So that even when I'm without, and I'm out, and I'm not seeking
Him, not calling on Him, I think everything's wonderful. I don't
have any troubles. We don't really call on Him then. He says, I'm going to preserve
you then too. I'm going to preserve you going in and going out. That
means all the time. I'm going to preserve you. Now
look at this, verse 5, Let's just begin up here in verse
3. He said, He will not suffer thy
foot to be moved. He will not slumber. He says,
He that keepeth this will neither slumber nor sleep. He says there, Verse 6, the Lord's thy keeper.
I mean, verse 5, the Lord's thy keeper. Verse 6, so the sun shall
not smite thee, the moon by night. Then he says, verse 7, the Lord
shall preserve thee from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. Then he says in verse 8, the
Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this
time forth and even for evermore. There's no, there's no, you know,
if you get to a certain point and you, you, You know, we have
expectations for one another. And here's what we do. You didn't
meet my expectations, so I think you're bad. You reach the point
where that's it, your chances are over. Aren't you glad God
don't deal with us that way? How many times have we come to
the point where God would have every right to say, that's it
with you, buddy. You've send it away completely.
But there's none of that in here. There's no word in here of you're
going to get to a point now where God's going to let you go. That's
not, there's nothing, there's no ifs, ands, or maybes in there.
It's just shall and will. Shall and will. You know what
that means? Am I going to sin? Yes. Am I going to disappoint
God? I disappoint me. If I'm disappointed in me, what I think God is. But he's
looking at Christ. He's looking at perfection. He's
looking at my righteousness. He's looking at my holiness.
And for that, he says, I will not, I shall never forsake you. But I'll preserve you. I'll be
your shade and I'll be your light. I'll keep you going out and going
in from this time forevermore. I would tell you something. If
you don't have that in your life, if you do not have Christ telling
you this in every situation you face, when you disobey your mother
and your father and you know you've sinned and you know you're
covered up with guilt, that's nothing compared to where you
stand before God. And if you don't have Christ
saying, I'm your shade from the justice of God, When you're in
total darkness, and if you don't have Christ saying, I'm your
light, so that the moon's not gonna smite you, I'm gonna tell
you something, I don't know how you make it. Dr. Phil's gonna be a poor comfort.
Your strength's not gonna be able to help you. Every drug
they give you just gonna wear your butt out and make your body
just wanna die before it's over with. The only place you're going
to get any help is Christ. That's the only place. You talk
my ear off, and I can tell you everything I know to tell you.
The only thing I'm going to tell you that's going to help you
is go to Christ. He can help you. He can help
you. I pray He'll make us go to Him.
And I pray He'll make us bow to Him and trust Him and cast
our care into His hands. He will help His people. He's
the help of His people. Let's pray together. Let's stand
together. Father, thank You for Your Word. What a confidence we have in
a God who cannot lie, in salvation that's certain and sure, in redemption
that's accomplished, in holiness that is perfect at God's right
hand, in a wall that is so solid and secure that no enemy can
penetrate it and ever harm us. in a preserver who's the sovereign
God of all heaven and earth that's going to promise to keep us going
in and going out from this time forevermore. Lord, forgive us
for doubting, forgive us for failing to look up above this
earthly cesspool below. Forgive us for not looking to
that holy heavenly hill above where you sit and rule everything
and everybody. It's painful. It's sorrowful. It hurts us. We're in a bind. We can't get out of it in this
life. Lord, teach us just to bear it and teach us that the
glory that you're going to reveal in us when you come is nothing
compared to this suffering right now. It's nothing compared to
what you've suffered and it's nothing compared to what the
glory that's going to be revealed in us. and make us to know You're
our comfort all the time, our salvation, our God, our Savior. And make us look away from us
and our flesh and all the opposition we face. Make us look to You,
Lord. And we ask, Father, that You
would comfort us in Christ, by Christ, for Christ's sake. We
ask this in His holy name. Amen.