Our text will be these eight
verses in Psalm 121. Now I read Hebrews 2.12 to you,
where the Lord said, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, and
in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. Now
let's hear the psalmist, Christ our Lord, sing praise of the
faithfulness of our God to us. Verse 1, it says, I will lift
up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My
help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth. He will
not suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord
is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee
by day nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The
Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this
time forth even forevermore. Now like the saints of old, We
travel across a desert land, and we're on our way to a holy
land, but our temple is not made with
hands. We lift up our eyes to heaven's
sign, and we see our mercy seat. the Lord God Almighty, and the
Lamb, who are the temple thereof, our shield, our defender, and
our strength. Like that ark sat in the temple
when they were going up to worship the Lord, traveling through a
wilderness of sand and desert, and they looked up towards that
hill where that ark sat, representing Christ, our mercy seat, who sits
now enthroned in glory. Our Lord Jesus Christ sings to
us and tells us of the faithfulness that He bears witness of as our
prophet, priest, and king, as He ministers to us in this earth
through His Spirit, through His Gospel, through His Word. And
He says to us here, I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from
what cometh my help. Now if He lifted up His eyes
to heaven when He walked this earth, Now that He's in heaven
and has accomplished His great work for His people, can you
hear Him sing to you and say, now you lift your eyes up. You
lift your eyes up there. Look and see. Look and see. I
pray that the Lord will use this to lift our eyes this morning.
Verse 2, He says, My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven
and earth. We see first of all where our
help comes from. Now the thing you see here first
of all is that this is personal help. It says my help. This is personal help. Help's
good. I like to see somebody helping
somebody. And help is extra good when I
need help. And it's my help. Mine personally. Somebody's helping me. Well this,
the Lord says, is our help. We read Hebrews 2. He came. He was made in the likeness of
his brethren. It behooved him to be made a partaker of flesh
and blood like unto his brethren that he might deliver them who
through the fear of bondage were all our lifetime subject to bondage,
slaves in bondage. We were fearful of death. He
came and by his one offering sacrificed laid his life down
and offered his life's blood to redeem his children and break
those chains of bondage and bring them out of the prison house
of our sin and corruption and bring us into heaven's glory
with him. And he's sending forth this word because He's going
to make sure all His elect know of the faithfulness of the Father
that He came to manifest, of the righteousness of the Father
that He came to manifest, of the holiness of the Father that
He came to manifest, of the longsuffering of God who He came to manifest.
And He's bearing witness through the gospel of our God in the
hearts of His people by the Holy Spirit, singing in our midst.
Every time... Did you just hear Him singing?
Did you just hear Him singing? I sit here on the front row and
I just closed my mouth and listened and I heard Him singing. I heard
Him singing. I heard Him sing, Be still my
soul, the Lord's on your side. I heard Him sing, the thorny
pathway is going to have a joyful end. That's what I heard Him
singing. He says, lift up your eyes. where
your help comes from, lift up your eyes. My help, my help. For in that he himself has suffered
being tempted, he's able to succor you that are tempted. Our young
people sat here and heard that word succor and they thought,
well, I don't want to be anybody's sucker. That's a bad thing. I
don't want to be a sucker. That word means help. He's able
to help you because he knows exactly where His people are
walking. He's been right there and He's
able to help. He's our help. He's our help. So we hear Him
now. We hear Him singing this to us.
He who was touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He who at
all points has been tempted like as we are yet without sin. He
who is our merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining
to God. Christ who made reconciliation
to God for the sins of His people. I'll lift up mine eyes. under
His holy hill of Zion from whence cometh my help for He is my help. He's my help. He's my help. And look at this word too. I
want you to turn over to Revelation. Well, read this first in verse
2. He said, My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and
earth. Now this This, as a man, when
he's the God-man mediator walking this earth, this is who helped
him. As he walked this earth, where
we walk, touched with the feelings of our infirmities, he's God,
we don't forget that. All things are in his hand. And
yet, as a man, he's He's the perfect man walking where we
walk, suffering the infirmities of our flesh, yet without sin,
helped from the Lord of heaven, Jehovah our God. And he says
he's the one that made the heavens and the earth. Now look over
at Revelation 21. We get amazed when we marvel
at the heavens and the earth. We see the Lord's name connected
with his promise in His name connected with Him making the
heavens and the earth. We see that all through the scriptures.
Repeatedly we've seen it in Isaiah where He gives us a promise and
He says, I'm the Lord that made the heaven and the earth. And
we know from Psalm 8 3, when I consider the heavens and the
handiwork, His handiwork, the work of His fingers, the moon
and the stars which He's ordained, what is man that you're mindful
of Him? Or the Son of Man that you visited Him? But this heaven
and this earth that we look at now, Peter told us in 2 Peter
3.12, he said, all this is going to be dissolved. It's going to
melt away with a fervent heat. This is an amazing creation and
He made it. And we sit and marvel at it.
He made it. But there's a creation that He's made that's even more
marvelous than this creation, that He made through the blood
of His Son. That'll be the making of the
man Christ Jesus, our Lord, our Savior, our God in human flesh
who came, who made this through His blood. This will be the making
of righteousness. Look at Revelation 21. Let's
read these first six verses. I saw a new heaven and a new
earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.
They're gone. Burn up, just like Peter said.
Burn up. There was no more sea. And I,
John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. He's
the husband, and he prepared this bride. The Lord did by His
blood. I heard a great voice out of
heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will
dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself
shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,
for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the
throne said, Behold, I make all things new. I make all things
new. And he said unto me, Write, for
these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the end. I will give unto him that is
a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. You see this creating, now look
at Isaiah 66, 22. Isaiah 66, 22. This creating
is made by Christ Jesus. And He's declaring to us here
in these first few verses of our psalm, He's declaring to
us the faithfulness of our Lord, of Jehovah, who He came to glorify. And He's declaring to us who
He lifted up His eyes unto. And He declares unto us, now
lift your eyes up to Him. Because here's the assurance
we have. Our assurance that we have, the believer has of this
new heavens and this new earth. where all the former things are
passed away. This assurance, our assurance, is because of
what Christ accomplished for God, for his people. This is
the promise of God the Father to his people. Isaiah 66 verse
22. The new heavens and the new earth
which I will make shall remain before me, saith the Lord. And
this is his promise to his son. So shall your seed and your name
remain. His children and His name will
remain. Behold, in this kingdom, where we're going, where this
city is, these hills that we're looking to, this holy, I've set
my king in my holy hill of Zion, the Lord God Almighty and the
Lamb are the temple of it. They're the light of it. They're
the rejoicing of it. Everything in this new heavens
and new earth has been made by Him. So yes, we marvel, and it's
an amazing thing to us when we see the Lord say, I'm the Lord
that created the heaven and the earth. We look at this heaven
and earth and think, it's amazing. But if you look at that heaven
and earth, lift up your eyes past these natural hills. Lift
up your eyes past these hills that you can see with these carnal
eyes and look with the eye of faith to that Mount Zion and
look at those, look at that, those hills where there's nothing
there but righteousness. No division, no separation, just
righteousness. Look at those hills. We travel
through this world and we're going through a waste howling
wilderness. Let's go back to Psalm 121. We're going through a waste howling
wilderness, a dry and a thirsty land, and
we have some troubles. We have many troubles and we
have hard troubles. They're very tough troubles.
Puzzling providence, puzzling trials. It's just puzzling to
us. Yesterday I talked with Brother
Darvin, and there's his wife laying there. She just had a
brain tumor removed and a serious condition. And he said, Clay, he said, This
life's like somebody took a jigsaw puzzle and they just opened up
the box and poured out the pieces in the living room floor. And
he said, if you go over there and just pick up one piece and
you try to look at it and determine what the end's gonna look like,
he said, there ain't no way you can do it. He said, you just
can't pick up one piece and look at it and have any idea how it's
gonna end. He said, but by God's grace, I've seen the end. And he said, I know what the
puzzle, I know what the picture is on the puzzle. And he said,
it's all, it's all going to be good. All going to be good. Uh, look to that. Look at that.
Look at that. Holy hill. All right. Let's see
as we're going through this, through this wilderness, let's
see what the Lord's will not is to us. Verse three, he will
not suffer thy foot to be moved. How many times when we're walking
along, our feet are almost gone. Our steps are well now slipped,
aren't they? But this is what he does. He
gives his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy
ways and they'll bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash
thy foot against a stone. And when He makes us to behold,
when He gives us a glimpse and lets us look all round about
us past these lowly carnal hills and these lowly idolatrous hills
of this land, He gets our eyes lifted up to Him and we see a
heavenly host around us. We see a heavenly host that have
all the charge of us, just like when He said, go fetch Mephibosheth
and bring him to me. so that we can say, He only is
my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be greatly moved. My feet, they'll slip. They'll fall. But by His grace,
He won't let them fall away. He won't let them fall away from
Him. Then look at this next will not. The Lord said he will not
slumber nor sleep. Look at verse 3. Psalm 121.3. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep. The illustration that I've read
that this has reference to is whenever men would be traveling
in the desert they would have their portable, their tents,
you know, they would set up at night and they would have somebody
in the camp to watch, to set up and watch because, you know,
like camping on the side of an interstate highway. You never
know who's going to come along and rob you or whatever, you
know. And so they'd have somebody set up to watch, to look out,
to be a watchman for them. But that person they set there
to be a watchman was flesh and blood just like them. That person
they set there to be a watchman had been traveling the same trail
they've been traveling. That person that was set for
a watchman has got all the same infirmities they have. That person
who's sitting there for a watchman is suffering the same trials
and tribulations they're suffering. And it's hard to find somebody
that just stay awake. How many, how much, how much
trouble did the Lord Jesus Christ find in us fleshly creatures
with that? Some of the most holy ground
we read about. He's in the garden of Gethsemane
and his children beat her and sleep, sleep, couldn't, couldn't
stay away. But this is what he said, he
that keepeth thee will never slumber. He that keepeth Israel
shall neither sleep nor slumber. When he says behold right here,
that's a command and it's some command because he's saying behold
and he's giving us a word we can be sure of. And He says,
Behold Him. Behold He that keepeth Israel.
Behold Him. Behold Him that's keeping those
that He chose in His Son, His Israel. Behold Him who came in
human flesh where we are and redeemed His people for Himself
out of sin and bondage. He did it. He said, Behold Behold
Him who did this. He says, Behold Him who comes
in the power of the person of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit
and creates life and regenerates His people and keeps His people.
Behold Him. He keeps Israel, His children. He says, Behold He keeps Israel
and He shall neither slumber nor sleep. Not at night, not
during the day, not in good times and not in bad times. He's not
sleeping at all. God's eye is never weary of his
children. That's one thing it means that
he doesn't slumber. Never weary of his children.
Do you ever get weary of your children? We ever say we need some quiet
time? He never does. He never gets
weary of his children. Those eyes that closed upon the
cross now look down from the throne of power and grace and
wisdom and they never slumber and they never sleep. They never
sleep. God never forgets his children.
He never forgets anything, especially his children. You and I, you
ever put something somewhere, put it somewhere just, just in
a particular spot, just so you'd remember where you put it. And
then you can't remember where you put it. We can't remember
what to forget. And we keep forgetting what we
should remember. Isn't that so? This is what Paul
said in Philippians 3 in verse 13. Paul said, Brethren, he said,
I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting,
forgetting those things that are behind. Forgetting those
things which are behind and reaching forth into those things which
are before. I pressed toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus. But you know what we're
so tempted to do? In our flesh we're so tempted
to walk along and we're walking along and we come into these
troubling, puzzling providences and we start saying, but we remember
the fish and we remember that what we ate so freely in Egypt
and we remember the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks
and the onions and the garlic. We start, how come today, today's
just like those good old days? It's just like them. But when
we were in those good old days, we didn't call today the good
old days, but then when we come to today, we look back on that
and go, boy, those were the good old days. We would start pining
away trying to remember those things. He said, do you not understand? The Lord said to his disciples,
do you not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the
5,000 and how many baskets you took up? Neither the seven loaves
of the 4,000 and how many baskets you took? You don't remember
that? You're remembering something you had when you were in bondage
in Egypt and calling that good and you don't remember what I've
done and all the provision I've made and how I'm feeding you
right out of my hand every step of the way? forget those things
that are behind and reach forth to the things that are in front
of you. He says, remember the word which Moses, the servant
of the Lord, commanded you, saying, the Lord your God has given you
rest, and he's given you this land. That's what he says, remember. Oh, Lord, help us to stop remembering
things we ought to forget and stop forgetting the things we
ought to remember. But He doesn't ever forget. He doesn't forget
His child. He never forgets His grace, His
mercy, His love, His long-suffering to those that He's everlastingly
loved. He never forgets it. And I want you to look at this
Psalm 40 verse 17, and I really want you to think about this.
I got these last two or three little comments here I got from
Mr. Spurgeon. And he makes a statement
that I thought was outstanding. Psalm 40 verse 17 says, I am
poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. I am poor and
needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Now how poor and needy
are you? How poor and needy are we? We are so poor and needy that
We can't remember what we're supposed to remember. Keep forgetting
what to remember. That's how poor we are. But listen
to this statement that our former brother said. He said, he is
so great that his center, his center, he is so great that his
center is everywhere and his circumference is nowhere. Now think about what he just
said. There are none of his children ever on the outside of his circle. Every individual child that he
has everlastingly loved, wherever they are, at all times, this
God who never slumbers and does not sleep, that individual child
of grace is always at the center of his focus. Uh, we want to try to describe
our God? We want to try to enter into
what He's like? We can't. If I got my eye on
one, the other one's getting into something and I can't keep
my eye on that one. And when I got my eye on that one, I can't
keep my eye on the other one. He's got His eye on all of them.
I mean, He's keeping all of them. This is the Lord who never does
sleep. He never does slumber. That's... And I had to... I had to... I
was... I was just mining. I was just... Panning for gold. I had to bring you those those
nuggets because that just I thought man that oh That that gets you
out of you up on some tippy-toes right there all right This is
what we see now. We see what the Lord is look.
Here's the third thing we see in this psalm what the Lord is
What he is to his children? Psalm 121 5 121 verse 5 the Lord is thy keeper
The Lord is thy keeper My help is my keeper My personal help
and your personal help. You sitting here who he said
behold and spoke this word in your heart and given you life
to really see him with eyes and ears and a heart of faith. You
think about this. He who is your helper is your
keeper. You know what the word keeper
means? It means he's the one who guards, who has his eye on
you and charge of you. Because his name's behind it.
Behold the Lord is your guard. The Lord keeps his eye on you
to protect you. The Lord has charge of you. The
Lord thy keeper. That's who he is. Look at the
next thing it says what he is. The Lord is thy shade upon thy
right hand. We might have trouble entering
into how important shade is. The right hand is representative
of power, and shade in a desert, shade in a land where it's just
storms in the daytime and storms in the nighttime. The sun smites
you in the daytime, and the moon, storms at night come and smite
you in the nighttime. You know how important this shade
is, this covering is, this defense is? That's what we need. We need this covering. We need
this one who says, I'm the shade of thy right hand. Christ is
our defense. And he says, verse 6, the sun
shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The two
most powerful things that you and I really know, the sun and
the moon. There's two greatest lights,
one in the day and one at night. We're in a desert. We're walking
through a desert and we get, let's look at Isaiah 4. We get
to having trouble with storms and smitten by the sun. You ever been blistered by the
sun? I mean really blistered. I had that happen to me one time
when I was about 14 or 15 out in down in Galveston, Texas.
And I remember driving home and it was just I had Bubbles up
on my nose and on my head. I mean, I was truly blistered. I was burned in the sun. Smitten
by the sun. Smitten by it. This is what he
said, Isaiah 4-5. The Lord will create upon every
dwelling place of Mount Zion. That's the mountain we're looking
to. You see, these mountains that He's put in this earth.
They're in the earth. But they belong to Mount Zion.
They belong to Him who sits on the holy hill of Zion in heaven.
They belong to Christ the King. He says, I'll put on every dwelling
place that belongs to Mount Zion and upon her assemblies. That's
what a church is. Churches are assemblies. I'll
put it upon her assemblies. A cloud and smoke by day. a cloud
and smoke by day, cloud upon your right hand, shade upon the
right hand, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a
flaming fire by night. One is to protect you from the
sun during the day and one is to protect you to lead you in
the night. For upon all, look at this, upon
all, the glory, the glory, and that's what we're talking about
here. Our defense is the glory of God. It's the glory of our
Redeemer. and the glory shall be a defense, and there shall
be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat,
and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from
rain." And you know when He sings this song to us in our heart,
when our God, our Savior sings this song to us in our heart,
and He makes it effectual in our heart, you know what we do?
Chapter 5, verse 1, we sing right back to Him in our heart. Now
will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved touching
his vineyard. My well beloved hath a vineyard
and a very fruitful hill. A very fruitful hill. It's His.
That's what Christ is, our shade. He's bore the fiery wrath of
God's judgment for his children, and he's quenched the fiery darts
of Satan by delivering us so that he has nothing else to accuse
us with, and he will protect us from the fiery darts of that
one. And he says here that he's satisfied. You know, when they look to the,
when they're traveling, when the temple was actually in Mount
Zion, there was an ark there. There was the ark there where
the mercy seat was. That ark, that mercy seat, over
that broken law, where the blood in that holiest of holies, where
they went in and they put the blood in the holiest of holies
in that temple. Christ has entered into the holy
place not made with hands. He's entered into the presence
of God, not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with his
own blood. He entered in. He's the faithful
high priest who made reconciliation to God for the people. He's entered
in. And He's a faithful and merciful
high priest to you, His children, because He's been where you've
been. He's walked where you've walked. He's suffered what you've
suffered. There's not a step we can take that our Lord doesn't
know and be able to enter into what we suffer in this life.
Not any. And herein is His love. Not that we loved God, but that
God loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our
sins. It's that mercy seat. There he
is. That's why he says lift up your
eyes from here to where he sits and look at the mercy seat. Behold
the mercy seat. There's our shade from the smiting
of the sun, the covering that covers our right hand, and there's
the fire that leads us in the storms of the night. There is
the tabernacle from the storm and the rain. There is the refuge
for us where we can rest safe and secure. We've seen where
He is, where our help comes from. It comes from heaven's mountainside.
We've seen what the Lord will not do. what the Lord will not
do. He will not sleep. He will not
slumber. We've seen what the Lord is. He is. He is our keeper and He
is the shade upon your right hand. Now let's see what the
Lord shall do. What the Lord shall do. We need
to know what He shall do. Don't we? We still have some
steps to walk if He tarries and we have a tomorrow. We have some
steps to walk. What does He say He will do?
Verse 7, what he shall do. The Lord shall preserve thee. The Lord shall preserve thee.
You see, there is going to be no perseverance of me and you
unless there is preservation of me and you. There's going
to be no taking another step by me and you in this walk. of faith without Him preserving
us and keeping us ever looking to our Redeemer. There just won't
be any way. But He, look, Ephesians 1, Ephesians
1.13. I'm going to have to, I want
to show you this. Ephesians 1.13. He sealed us so that we're preserved
in Him. Ephesians 1.13. In whom? in Christ, in whom ye also trusted,
after that ye heard the word of truth, after that ye heard
the word of truth, the gospel, the true good news of your salvation,
in whom also after that ye believed, You were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise. Sealed, preserved, kept by Him. Now hold you, keep your place
in Ephesians. I think we'll come back to it here in just a minute.
But I want to, let me go back over there to our psalm now.
Look at this. This right here is something that we need to
see. What's He going to preserve us from? What's He going to preserve
you from? Verse 7. The Lord shall preserve
thee from all evil. This thought came to my mind,
how many kinds of evil are there? How many kinds of evil are there? Just looking up the word evil. There's 569 references just to
that simple word evil. There's a lot of different forms
of that word translated in a different form than evil. But there's 569
references in this Bible just to that one word evil. Let me
give you some of them. There's the evil of the heart.
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. There's the evil of your doings. There's the evil report, bad
news, false news. There's the evil beast. There's
the evil congregation. There's the evil place. There's
the evil generation. There's evil diseases of Egypt. There's the evil name, slander. There's the evil spirit. There's
evil dealings. There are evil understanding. There's an evil time. And that's
just a few. But the Lord says, He shall preserve
thee from all evil, from all evil, from all evil. Oh, Job, I won't read this. You can go another time and look
at this, but you take your notes, you want to write this down.
Job 5. And when you read these, it says, He'll deliver thee in
six troubles, yea, in seven, there shall no evil touch thee.
It doesn't mean this is just seven evils, it means, remember
what Peter said, know that these same afflictions are accomplished
in your brethren. They're working exactly according
to God's purpose, just because He overrules all, everything,
all these evils. And they're working exactly according
to His, they have a perfect fulfillment, a perfect end, to bring us right
to where the believer needs to be, right to where his child
needs to be. But when you read it, it'll be Job 5 verses 19
through 27, and the last of that The last of that verse says,
Lo, this we have searched it, and so it is. Hear it and know
it for thy good, and the Lord will protect you from all evil.
That's what he said. The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. Now look at this next thing in
our text, Psalm 121.7. What's he preserving? The Lord shall preserve thy soul.
Verse 7. The Lord shall preserve thy soul.
He will raise the bodies, these vile bodies and fashion them
like unto His glorious body in the last day. He will do that.
But you know the soul, how important is the soul? The soul. What is a man profited if he
shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall
a man give in exchange for his soul? What price are you going
to give to buy your soul out of the bondage that it's in?
What are you going to give? What if you got the whole world
and you lost your soul? You ever thought about that?
Ever thought about that? What if you gain the whole world
and lose your soul? The redemption of an immortal
soul requires a greater price than gold and silver and corruptible
things. It requires the precious blood
of the lamb, as of a lamb without spot and
without blemish. Not corruptible things as silver
and gold, but incorruptible. I know, I know you'd lot rather
have mama and daddy give you the corruptible silver and gold. Because you can go buy stuff
with that. But I'm sitting here, this man that you don't want
to hear, this man that you're sitting there thinking, I don't
know why my mom and daddy makes me do this every week. because
they want you to hear about the incorruptible treasure, the unsearchable
riches of Christ. There's something exceedingly
greater than you obtaining things in this life, and it's that your
soul being saved by the blood and life of Christ Jesus. It's the only proper exchange,
a ransom prize for the soul. Today is the day of grace. Today,
right now, is the time of grace. There won't be any redemption
of your soul from the grave. The Lord will speak, when you
inhale, He'll speak like He did to the rich man. And He'll say,
you had your good things in your day. And you'll cry out and say,
send, just send somebody back from this place to my brothers
and my sisters so they don't come to this place. And the Lord
will say, they've got the gospel. They got what you had. If they
won't hear the gospel, they won't hear, though a man rose from
the dead. The gospel's all about a man who rose from the dead.
The gospel's all about a Redeemer who came and saved His people
from their sin and is risen and reigning right now, supreme in
the hearts and lives of His people. That's the good news. The Lord
redeemeth the soul of His servants, and none of them that trust in
Him shall be desolate. I pray the Lord this morning,
lift up your eyes out of that dead, sinful, corrupt flesh and
cause you to really consider what are you going to give for
your soul? What deal are you willing to make with this world
in exchange for your soul? We're standing at the crossroads
right now. What deal are you going to make in exchange for
your soul? Well, look at this last word
to those that He gives this great peace. He says this to the Lord,
verse 8, we're still looking at the Lord shall. The Lord shall
preserve thy going out and thy coming in. What does that mean?
My going out and my coming in is all my ways. I'm either going
out or coming in all the time." He said, those who come to me,
he said, the good shepherd, any man entering by the door, he'll
enter in and find pasture and he'll go in and out and find
pasture. Whether you're going in or going
out, this is what he said, in all thy ways acknowledge him.
He'll direct your paths. He is directing the paths of
his children. He tells us, in all ways acknowledge
Lord, are you willing? Is this your will, Lord? He said
he's directing our paths. When's he going to start doing
this? Look at verse 8. The Lord shall preserve thy going
out and thy coming in from this time forth. From this time. What time is that? Right now.
Right now. From this time forward. this
time forward. That's what I need the Lord to
do. I need Him to preserve me right now. I need Him to preserve
me right now. Matthew 6, 31. This is our anxiety
medicine. Matthew 6, 31. Therefore take
no thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink
or wherewithal shall we be clothed. Everybody in this world is concerned
and worried over that and exchanging their souls for that. This is
what God said. Your heavenly Father knoweth
that you have need of all these things. This is what God said.
This is what He said when He walked this earth in human flesh.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
These things will be added to you as you need them. Take therefore
no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow will take thought for
the things of itself. Sufficient today is the evil
thereof. What does all that mean? Cast
all your worries and cares away, God provides for today." He said,
from this time forward, I'm doing it. There's no rest for the heart
anywhere else, but there's rest in the heart if we simply believe
the word of God who cannot lie. There's rest, rest if we believe
the word of God who cannot lie from this time forward. From
this time forward, keep your mind on the Lord's business and
He'll take care of your business. That's what He's telling us.
Keep your mind on His business, He'll take care of your business.
Well, can you hear Him? Are you hearing? Anybody here
hearing the Lord Jesus sing this song? You're hearing God our
Savior sing this song? You see the faithfulness of the
Lord? You see His faithfulness? Whether you're hearing, you've
never seen Him, you don't know Him, and you look, Look, I pray
it comes forth and makes you look, makes you look. And if
you have seen it, and you just, you just cast down and you have
it laden and you're going through these thorns and briars and they're
pulling at you and tugging at you, these earthly hills won't
afford us any peace. Look to the holy hill of Zion.
Look up, look up to where Christ Jesus is, Christ our righteousness,
out of the heart into Him and believe Him. Well, but all these
troubles, all this, all this that I'm going through, I know
he said he'll do it from this time forward, but what if, what
if I have a long time to have to walk through this? He said,
verse eight, how long is he going to do this? Even forevermore,
even forevermore. You know, the end, the end is
the beginning. The end's the beginning. You
know what happens in the end? You know what happens in the
end? Blessed are the pure in heart, those that He's created
to do, those that He's purified by the Spirit of God to enter
in. You know what they're going to do? They know what they're
going to do at the end of all this road of desert land, at
the end of this road of thorns and briars, you know what they're
going to do? The Lord Jesus sang this song to us. He said, the
pure in heart are going to be happy. They're going to be happy
because they're going to see God. How long? Even forevermore. Even forevermore. That's a God
to be trusted. That's a Savior to be trusted.
Amen.