We come together to consider
His Word. Let us turn to the book of Psalms,
Psalm 66, and we'll read verse 12. Verse 12 in Psalm 66. And this reads, Thou hast caused
men to ride over our heads. We went through fire and through
water, Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place. What we read together in this
account here in the Book of Psalms and in this psalm in particular
with regards to David And also we read in that 38th chapter
of Isaiah with regard to Hezekiah, what we notice is that the Lord
God brought them into a difficult situation. It was God's work. And God came and delivered them
out of that difficult situation. Now this verse may appear rather
difficult, this twelfth verse, because we read, Thou, that means
God, has caused men to ride over our heads. What it really means
is that the Lord allowed men to trample upon us in not so
much necessarily a physical way, but in a spiritual way. And that means to cast down and
cast away what we believe in, what we trust God for, and men
despise the things which God has done and spoken to us. And men do not count them of
any value. And the effect is that it seems
as though those things which God has done are of no value
and are trampled underfoot. You see, things which are of
no value are on the ground and people trample on them because
they do not have really any value. But here we find the situation
with David when he tells us these words, Thou hast caused men to
ride over our heads. That means that the Lord brought
them into this difficult position where they were being trampled
on. What they believed was being
trampled on. And we don't like, really, to
have that kind of result. But, you know, it didn't stop
there because what David tells us is, after that, he says, we
went through fire and through water. Well, that gives us a
little picture, doesn't it? You imagine what it's like to
walk through fire. We've seen some very fierce fires
recently in different parts of the world. And we can imagine
how painful it must be to have to walk through a fire. And not only then walking through
a fire, but also having to walk through floods, where the water
comes and almost drowns us. So, naturally we see difficult
situations. And this was just what David
tells us he had to pass through and Isaiah tells us in a later
chapter in his prophecy not referring to Hezekiah but referring to
his own testimony and his own experience and when he wrote
the 43rd chapter in Isaiah he tells us this But now, thus saith
the Lord, we must always remember that God, Almighty God, deals
and leads and directs His people in a way that is good. It may not seem good, but the
result will be good, because the result will be for the profit
of their souls. And the most important thing
in our life is that God comes and deals with our souls. And so Isaiah says here, but
now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he
that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine. Now, there cannot be really a
greater blessing to know that the Lord calls us, calls us by
our name as one of his children. And then to know that because
we are one of his children, we are amongst those who are redeemed. And that means we are delivered
from the punishment due because of our sins. And as the Holy
Spirit shows us something of how bad we are, then the great
truth of being redeemed is very real and very precious and very
wonderful and very glorious to us. and then to recognise what
the Prophet says, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine.
Now having made that statement, he then comes and tells us what
he had to endure. He tells us in the second verse,
when thou passest through the waters, again similar to what
David tells us in the 66th Psalm, when thou passest through the
waters, Will we be left alone? No. He tells us, I will be with
thee. And it's very comforting to know
that when we do pass through floods, and by that I don't mean
necessarily physical floods, but I mean spiritual floods,
when the devil tries to overthrow our faith. And that is a great
flood. when the devil comes and tries
to destroy our belief in what God has said. And so it will
be a flood to us, but what does Isaiah tell us? He says this,
when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee. The Lord doesn't leave us. He
doesn't leave his people. He's with them. He's with them. And in those situations, there
is one great benefit. And that is this. When we find
ourselves in these kind of scenes, what can we do? We can really
only do one thing. And that is to pray unto God. And it will be a wonderful relief
when we can come and cast all our care, cast all our burdens
upon God. You see, God brings us into these
situations and God delivers us from these situations. But God
brings us into these situations to prove to us that He is a merciful,
He is a kind, He is a loving, He is a gracious God. He is a
God that does not deal with us as our sins deserve. And the
result must be praise in our hearts to such a Saviour, to
such a God who has dealt so kindly, so graciously with such unworthy
sinners. And so here we have this statement,
I will be with thee. and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. Sometimes, of course, a river
can flow very fast and it might be very difficult to stand up
in. And yet, you see, if God is with
us, remember the words in the Romans, if God be for us, who
can be against us? That must be a wonderful strength
to us, to know that if God is for us, then God has brought
us into these situations to prove the greatness of God, the mercy
of God and the love of God. He says, they shall not overflow
thee. And then he says, when thou walkest
through the fire, thou shall not be burned. Now we know how
powerful fire is, don't we? And to think that walking through
a fire we shall not be burned. You perhaps can remember the
account in the book of Daniel. There were three men called Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego. And they would not bow down to
the idol that King Nebuchadnezzar had raised up. They wouldn't
bow down. And he had said that if the people
did not bow down, they would be cast into the burning fiery
furnace. And he said, who is the God that
can deliver out of such a situation? Well, these three men did not
obey the king. They were more concerned to obey
God. So what happened? They did not
obey the king. The king called them before him
and they told the king. They were not careful how they
answered the king because they wanted to be honest. And they
said they would not bow down to the idol that Nebuchadnezzar
had erected. So the result was, therefore
these three men were thrown into the burning fiery furnace. And it was heated seven times
hotter than normal. And what happened to these three
men? Nebuchadnezzar was amazed. Because what did he see? He saw
those three men in the furnace. They weren't burnt. They were
walking in the furnace. And what's more, he said, there's
another person with them. Another person. And that person
is like unto the Son of God. Well, the wonderful truth was
that God was with them. And in the same situation today,
as we may pass through difficult situations, because we've had
to stand firm for the truth of God, and they may be very hard
yet to know that God is with us. And God was with these men
to such an extent that when they came out of the fiery furnace,
there was no smell of burning on them. It was a wonderful miracle. Now, we know today we have a
God who is the same all-powerful God. Let us never underestimate
the power of God. He is so great, He is so mighty. Well, here we have then Isaiah
when he said, when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt
not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee, for
I am the Lord thy God. There can be no greater comfort,
surely, to know that the great God is our God. He is our Father. He is our Saviour. He is our Comforter. And He is the one that has brought
us into these situations to prove His greatness, to prove His wonderful
love toward us, His wonderful mercy. As God brings us into
these situations then, what will it do? It will encourage us. It will strengthen us. And then
we read in that 38th chapter in Isaiah about Hezekiah. Hezekiah was a good king, a blessed
king, and yet you see God saw fit to bring an illness upon
him such that he thought he was going to die. Well, what happened
then in Hezekiah's life? What he did was to pray to God. And it would be a great blessing
if you and I come into situations perhaps not as extreme as this
where we may fear for our life although sometimes we may But
it would be a wonderful blessing if God produces in our hearts
prayer, true prayer, not just mumbling a few words, but prayer
from our heart to Almighty God, to that God who does hear and
does answer prayer. Now, the result was that God
heard the prayers of Hezekiah and said he would add to his
life 15 years. And then when he was cured of
this disease, he then tells us what his experience was like.
how he was before God. And he tells us in verse 12,
my age is departed and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent. I am cut off like a weaver, my
life. He will cut me off with pining
sickness from day even to night, will to make an end of me. And
he says, I reckon till morning. that as a lion, so will you break
all my bones from day even to night. Will thou make an end
of me like a crane or a swallow? So did I chatter. I did mourn
as a dove. Mine eyes fail me looking upward. Oh Lord, I am oppressed. Undertake for me. Well, that
was King Hezekiah. brought down to a very low place. And then he says this. What shall
I say? What shall I say? What does he
say? This is what he says. He hath
both spoken unto me and himself hath done it. I shall go softly
all my years in the bitterness of my soul. And then he says
these great words. O Lord, by these things men live. And that means in a spiritual
sense. That means the life of God in
our souls. When the Lord comes and brings
us into times of need and makes us pray to Him, we realise then
that it's through these things, through these difficult things,
Perhaps these times of sickness naturally, perhaps times of sickness
spiritually, perhaps when we feel to be far off from God,
the Lord comes and blesses us, and we prove then it was needful
that the Lord dealt with us in such a way, because what did
it do? It brought us to God. It caused us to cry unto Him. and therefore we have the evidence
that we are amongst those who live. And he says, by these things
men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit. You
see, without these things there might not be any evidence of
life in our souls. And that's the great thing that
you and I need, to have the evidence that God has granted us spiritual
life. So they were able to say, once
I was blind, but now I see. Once I was dead, but now I have
life. And it's because of what God
has done for us. He tells us, behold for peace. We all like peace, we all like
nice and calm things, but Hezekiah didn't have it. He did have it
eventually, but not when he was ill. He said, Behold, for peace
I had great bitterness. The path that he was walking
was very bitter to him. The path that David walked was
very bitter to him. It wasn't a very pleasant path,
but it was a good path and it was a right path because it was
the path that God would come and deliver, that God would free
him. And it was quite clearly only
God who had done the work. And so he says, Behold, for peace
I had great bitterness. But then he says, But thou hast
in love, in love to my soul delivered it. from the pit of corruption. Isn't that a wonderful statement?
To think that God, in love to our soul, deals with us in such
a way as to demonstrate so clearly He has delivered us because of
His love toward us, we who never deserved His love, and yet to
realise, yes, He has indeed loved me and so Hezekiah, who was of
course an important king, was brought right down in his own
view of himself. And he comes here to show and
to glorify the work of his God. And that must be the result in
our lives. The glorifying of our God as
he comes and delivers us. And Hezekiah says, Thou hast
in love to my soul delivered it. from the pit of corruption,
for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. You think of
that. Sins which have risen up perhaps,
and they seem as mountains, and it seems impossible that they
can ever be taken away. But here we have this confirmation
from good Hezekiah. who had this clear evidence of
God's work towards him. All his sins, all his sins, not
one remaining. God took them and cast them behind
him to be seen no more forever. Oh, how blessed then is the great
and glorious theme of redemption to know that we have been saved
from our sins The price has been paid to redeem us, and the price
has been paid by none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Will Thou
not make us true to desire, to praise and honour our God for
that which He has done in delivering us from the wrath to come? Hezekiah says, Thou hast cast
all my sins behind Thy back. And then he goes on, because
such wonderful blessing, such wonderful deliverance, needs
to be able to recognize the deliverance, and to recognize from whom the
deliverance has come. And so Hezekiah then tells us,
the grave cannot praise thee, because it's a place of death.
Death cannot celebrate thee, itself that cannot celebrate
thee. They that go down into the pit, those who are lost,
those who perish in their sins, they cannot hope for thy truth.
And then he tells us, the living, the living, those whom God has
made spiritually alive, those whom he has called by his grace
Yes, his wonderful favour, undeserved favour. He's called them. The
living, the living. He shall praise thee as I do
this day. Oh, he had reason, didn't he,
to praise God. What a mercy if you and I. have
reason to praise God. I hope we do. We need to have
reason to praise God if he's delivered us, if he saved our
soul, if he's cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. We
have great reason to praise our God. Hezekiah did so. That was the result, wasn't it?
He says, He shall praise thee as I do
this day. The Father to the children shall
make known thy truth. And it's good if the fathers,
if we as fathers, make known such truth to the children. Yes, for his honour and glory.
The Lord was ready to save me. Therefore we will sing my songs
to the stringed instruments all the days of our life. in the
house of the Lord. It was a wonderful experience,
wasn't it? It was a wonderful testimony
that Hezekiah was able to leave on record. And it's really very
similar to the testimony that David leaves on record here in
the psalm that he wrote when he came and he said, Thou hast
caused men to ride over my heads. We went through fire and through
water, Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place. And a wealthy place can be likened
to a place of water, a watering place. And how wonderful it is
when we see weary and tired animals struggling on through perhaps
a drought season, they come to a watering hole. And what a blessed
place it is for them. And so it is. spiritually for
the people of God when he brings them to a place of water. He brings them to a place of
spiritual blessing. He brings them to a place where
they've been brought out of their condition, out of the opposition. And God has come and shown them
that he has done it. And then they come to this watering
place Let us not forget they didn't bring themselves there
and you and I won't bring ourselves there. Especially as we realise
that God brings us into these difficult places in order to
bring us out of difficult places. You see, it is so that we might
praise our God. Oh friends today, how needful
it is that the Church of God praise God. They thank Him for
His wonderful mercy, for His glorious grace in being mindful
of them. Has the Lord dealt with us as
our sins deserve? The answer is no. He hasn't at
all. It's because of love to our soul. Very humbling. And if He has
shown His love to our soul, surely there's great cause and reason
to praise and to glorify His great and holy name. Well, David's
concern was then, when he was brought out of this condition,
he says, I will go into thy house with burnt offerings. That means
it was a sacrifice, that was the way that they acknowledged
God's goodness, and it was a sacrifice of thanksgiving. That was the
result. And my friends, it must be the
result really of those whom the Lord gloriously favours in their
souls with that freedom in Christ, that deliverance from the bondage
of sin. And so to be able to come, like
David did, he says, I will go into thy house with burnt offerings.
I will pay thee my vows, which my lips have uttered and my mouth
has spoken when I was in trouble. I will offer unto thee burnt
sacrifices of fattenings, with incense of rams, I will offer
bullocks with goat sealer. Come and hear all ye that fear
God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. Oh, a time of blessing, isn't
it? A time to rejoice when we see the wonderful work of God
in bringing into times of trouble and trial and temptation, and
then bringing them out into a wealthy place. And that wealthy place
must be to rejoice in what Christ has done. To be so thankful that
we haven't been left to ourselves, we haven't been cast off, but
the Lord has come and spoken comfort to our souls, that we
are amongst those who are redeemed amongst those whom he has loved
with an everlasting love, so that his name may be honoured
and glorified for ever. Amen.