May it please God to bless us
together this evening as we consider his word. Let's turn to the book
of Psalms, Psalm 89 and we'll read verse 19. Psalm 89 and reading
verse 19. Then thou spakest in vision to
thy Holy One and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty. I have exalted one chosen out
of the people. We know of course that this was
in a good measure true of God's servant David. And we're thankful that David
was raised up and was made a blessing to the people at the time in
which he lived. But surely As we read the Word
of God, we desire always to have those spiritual eyes to behold
that one who is a greater than David. And therefore this must
indeed have that glorious reference to none other than our Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is indeed The Holy One of
Israel, the previous verse says, for the Lord is our defense and
the Holy One of Israel is our King. And so then it reads, then
thou spakest in vision to thy Holy One and saidst, I have laid
help upon one that is mighty. And that's really the words that
I desire to concentrate on this evening. I have laid help upon
one that is mighty. the shortest prayer recorded
in the Word of God is, Lord, help me. And how needful it is
for us continually to realise that we have a mighty God that
we can go to in every time of need. And whatever that need
may be, the Lord is there to help us. Let us never forget
that This help comes from the mighty God, the true God, the
ever-living God. What a favour then to realise
that this is so. The Word of God tells us, we
read it this evening, blessed is the people that know the joyful
sound. They shall walk, O Lord, in the
light of thy countenance. And surely the joyful sound is
to know that the Lord Jesus Christ is our helper. Is that not a
joyful sound to the Church of God as they journey on to realise
we have such a kind and gracious God who is our helper? And this word is therefore so
appropriate, I have laid help upon one that is mighty. And
the Lord does dispense that help to us continually, day by day. Mostly we do not appreciate the
help that we received. You look back day by day in your
life and think of the help you received. Look back through just
today, perhaps the last few hours in your life and think, well,
the Lord has helped me. Helped me to think upon his name. It's not something that comes
naturally to us, not in a real sense anyway. It may be perhaps
in a theoretical way, but to be able to think upon the Lord's
name, we need the help of Almighty God. And why do we need that? Because the devil is at our elbow
to distract us, to take our attention away from the things of God,
so that we do not think upon his name, so that we do not meditate
upon his name. That's the last thing the devil
wants you and me to do. And that's why he endeavours
to bring many things into our hearts and minds to distract
us, so that instead of worshipping the Lord, we find ourselves following
some other avenue. Well, here we have this encouragement
to know that the Lord God is that One who helps. What a mercy, I have laid help
upon One that is mighty. You know Isaiah speaks of this
great God, isn't it? It's good for us always to have
a right understanding of who God is. The God is on the throne. And so the prophet Isaiah, he
tells us, he says, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son
is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and
his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God. everlasting Father, the Prince
of Peace, and his name is the Mighty God. And it's a blessing
if you and I have a right view of the greatness of this God,
and yet the wonderful compassion of this God, who bows down to
help us in our every time of need. And that help extends through
all our providential situations and all our spiritual situations,
there's nothing that comes into our lives but what the Lord will
come and help us. And he'll help us to understand
his word, understand his way. How often we perhaps find that
we don't understand. We find we're mystified. Things
appear to difficult? Well, the Lord can help us to
understand. When the Lord helps you and me
to understand the truth of His Word, it's a wonderful provision
because He comes, as it were, alongside us and He opens the
Word. He shows us the truth of His
Word. He shows us the glory of his
Word, shows us the simplicity of his Word, shows us the appropriateness
of his Word. And to realise that God gives
us that right understanding, so that we then come to some
knowledge of the way the Lord is leading us. And what does
the Word tell us? He led them forth by the right
way. And I believe the Lord helps
us to understand the truth of that, the right way, especially
when things appear to be going contrary to what we would understand
naturally, to realise that the Lord is on the throne. The Lord
is directing us in the right way. He's leading us in the right
way. He's helping us to understand
things that are too difficult for us perhaps to appreciate. The Lord comes and helps us,
gives us that right understanding, to realise that the way he's
leading us is the right way. It's the way that we need it.
Perhaps we don't like it. Perhaps it's not good for our
flesh. My friends, it's good for our
spirit. And it's because the Lord helps us in these things. We're not left then to our own
understanding, to our own natural understanding. We're so we're
so very easily misled in our own understanding. But to realise
we have a God that helps us to understand, a God that comes
alongside us and directs us. And I believe in that understanding.
He comes and directs us to show us that we are being led to the
Saviour himself. Really, all that our help in
our spiritual life, and also in good measure in our natural
life, is to direct us to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why
it's this mighty God, with His great and glorious help, that
helps us then to understand the Lord's dealings with us, and
He's dealing with us in love to our souls, to bring us nearer
to Himself. If there was no leading If there
was no dealing, you and I would just wander on in a helpless
situation. Well, the Lord thankfully doesn't
leave us. He's told us, I would never leave
thee, nor forsake thee. Therefore we may boldly say,
the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what man can
do unto me. It's a great word of encouragement
to realise that the Lord is our helper. Our helper in spiritual
things. That brings us to a greater personal
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord gives us that faith
to believe. It's not that which we understand
in a natural way. We walk by faith and not by sight. Spiritual things are not tangible
to our natural, to our spiritual mind. And we might try to find
them and make them tangible naturally, but the Lord leads us by his
Spirit so that we are dependent upon his help, his help. Sometimes it may be that you've
read the Word of God and you've read a part of it and you really
haven't understood it and you haven't really known what you've
read. And you may not have concentrated on it very well. And you recognise
that, and then you think, well I'd better start again and read
it again, and the same thing has happened. And then perhaps
you realise you needed God to help you to read the Word of
God, so that you're able to concentrate upon the things that you read.
What a blessing it is to have a God who helps us in that way. And then how comforting it is
to know the Lord has helped us. Yes, we've been left perhaps
to our own strength, our own way. It's very easy to be left
to our own selves, but to have the evidence that the Lord is
helping us, to direct us in that right path. And that right path
must be to lead us to the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. To
lead us into all truth as it is in Jesus. We do need his help,
don't we, for this. You know, we can't produce it
ourselves. No man can keep alive his own soul. No man can produce
any blessing himself. We need God to help us. And that's why we have here such
an encouraging statement. He says, I have laid help upon
one that is mighty. See, God is able to help us in
every need. Nothing that comes into our life,
the Lord is not able to help us and he's a mighty God. And
when we think of all the vast multitudes in the world, the
Lord is able to help all his people in all their varied and
different situations. He doesn't cast them off, he
doesn't forget them, he doesn't leave them. He remembers them
in their lowest state, for his mercy endureth forever. Sometimes
when we may come to a lowest state in our own estimation,
and that's a good thing when the Spirit of God leads us to
see our foolishness and our ignorance and our need of the Lord's help. The Lord's help in everything. Well, we're thankful then to
know that we have this great and glorious God and the Psalms
are really full of the help that God gives to his people. Remember that well-known Psalm,
Psalm 121, where the Psalmist tells us, he says, I will lift
up my eyes unto the hills from whence cometh My help, my help
cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth." Well, it's
words, aren't they, which are probably familiar to us, but
you know, so often we seem to forget, don't we? The Lord is
our helper. And to think that our help in
everything comes from the Lord, day by day. We come through the
day, as we mentioned earlier, we come to the end of the day,
And do we say, do we thank our God for the help he's given us?
It may not have been a day when there were tremendous issues
at stake, but nonetheless, to just be able to come and thank
God for the help he's given. For the help he's given, because
if he hadn't given help, could have been left to ourselves to
make hideous mistakes and do wrong things, because it's his
help that keeps us. It's his help that holds us on.
Without his help, without his support, without his strength,
we would be wandering away, away from the fold of Christ. And
so how Wonderful it is to realize that this is the great God. My help cometh from the Lord. Well, have we proved that? Have
we proved it in our lives? Have we proved it perhaps today?
To be able to look back and say, yes, the Lord has helped me. He's helped me to worship. Helped me to worship. We mentioned
helped to be reading the Word of God. That's so important.
We also need the Lord to help us to worship. We gather together, don't we?
In a familiar form, week by week. And again, do we plead and pray
that the Lord will help us to worship? Help us to worship? You can't worship by yourself. Our strength is very insufficient.
Our ability is insufficient. It's sinful left to ourselves
and we need the Lord to help us. Help us to worship, to bow
down and acknowledge the greatness of our God. He is worthy of all
praise. The Lord helps us to praise his
name. Often we forget, don't we, to
praise God. Praise God for whom all blessings
flow. We need the Lord to help us in
this respect. How much then we need God's help,
don't we? I have, he says, laid help upon
one that is mighty. I believe we need to come to
our God seeking for that help, recognising that he is a mighty
God. He's not a little God. He's a
great God. He's a holy God. And yet he encourages
us in our condition to come unto him, to seek his face, that he
will help us. How necessary it is to be found
in prayer, seeking for God's help. We have so many evidences,
don't we? in the Word of God when the Lord
helped his people. You know he helped Joseph, didn't
he? He helped Joseph to stand firm against the enticements
of that woman, and to turn away from her, and
to keep away from her as she endeavoured to entice him to
lay with her. God helped him. My friends, don't
think that temptations like that don't exist today. The devil
was very active. My friends, if he could, he would
bring us all to situations which are so sinful and wicked. Well,
Joseph experienced the help of his God, the keeping help that
helped him to turn away from all the advances of that woman. And you see, God helped him then
in the prison. Helped him to be upright and
to be faithful in those things that he had to do so that he
found favour with the jailers. The Lord helped him. We don't
read that Joseph was rebellious. We do read that the Word of God
tried him. And no doubt he prayed to God
on many occasions to help him to still trust in his God. When there were that promise,
or that dream given to him, that vision given to him, that his
family would bow down to him, and there he was in prison, how
far from that scene it seemed it would ever come to pass. Well,
Joseph was given that help from God to continue in that position. And it's good to receive help
from God to bear that, which the Lord sees fit to lay upon
us. It's not always an easy path. It's very seldom an easy path.
It's usually a hard path. But we read, he giveth more grace. What is that? The help of God. He helps us to continue. Paul
desired the Lord would take away that thought in the flesh. He
prayed three times and it would seem quite earnestly and fervently
that God would deliver him from it. Well, God didn't see fit
to deliver him from it. There was a needs be. There was
a needs be. We don't always understand sometimes
that the Lord doesn't deliver us from situations, but he gives
us grace and he helps us in it. It gives us the support we need. It's His help. And then we realise
how wonderful it is to receive help from one that is mighty. That this great God condescends
to come where we are and help us to continue in the journey
of life amidst all the conflict and all the opposition and all
the trials and all the temptations. He does not leave us, he helps
us because he is mighty. My friends, let us never underestimate
the goodness and the greatness of our God. I have laid help
upon one that is mighty. The Lord has it and he dispenses
his help to his people and we do receive it. And as we do receive
it, to acknowledge the Lord has helped me, The Lord has helped
me. And well, there are so many cases,
you think of Gideon. Gideon, when he had to fight
the enemy. Well, he was fearful, wasn't
he? He wasn't very great in his own eyes. He was just the least
in his own eyes. But God helped him. And God helped
him so much that reduced his army just to 300 soldiers and
they didn't have to fight. You see, the Lord helped Gideon.
The enemy seemed impossible. God helped him. God brought about
a great deliverance. God helped him. In the same way
today, the Lord still appears for his people and brings about
a great deliverance as he helps them. In Gideon's case, he helped
him to trust in the Lord when everything appeared against him.
He helped him to trust. We don't receive trust by itself. God helps us to trust in the
Lord. And it's a blessed position because
what we're doing, we're resting as it were in the arms of our
God. We're trusting His help. We realise
the situation's too difficult, too involved for us, but yet
we have a God who helps us, a God who is mighty. Let's not lose
sight of the greatness of our God, and yet how condescending
He is to come to us in our lowest state for the smallest thing,
small things perhaps, you might lose something perhaps, and perhaps
you can't find it. And you pray to God, mighty as
he is, he helps you to find it. Isn't that a confirmation? Isn't
that an encouragement of the goodness of God and the greatness
of God? and the mercy of God. And then
there may be, as it may seem to you, great things. And my
friends, they're all the same with our God. He helps in what
we think little things. He helps in what we think are
big things. He is a mighty God. Nothing is too hard for Him. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. And of course, the greatest blessing
is to have His help in directing us to view the Saviour, the Lord
Jesus Christ, and to view Him in all that He endured so that
our souls might be safely secured. And the great cost of our salvation.
It's a wonderful mercy when the Lord helps us to consider him."
It's a gracious word, isn't it? That Paul instructed the Hebrews,
he said, consider him. Well, it's a very simple word,
isn't it? But you know, you and I will need help to consider
him, to consider the Lord Jesus Christ in all that he's done. Otherwise, we will find we'll
be distracted and we won't really appreciate what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done. Consider him help in that matter. Well, to pray for it, but here
we have the great word which tells us this truth, I have laid
help upon one that is mighty. There is all the help, therefore,
that we need, all the help that we need for the Lord to come
and to give us that spiritual understanding of what he has
done in order to redeem our souls. When we first enter into the
spiritual race, into that path, that narrow way, we may think,
well, this is This is quite simple. Well, the Lord leads us and the
Lord directs us as we journey on. And we need then the help
of the Lord to show us what we're being taught, what we're being
taught. Because the Lord does teach us
and he teaches us about ourselves and he teaches us about himself. And we need his help to understand
the Lord's teaching and the Lord's dealings. Sometimes when the
Lord is teaching, we don't always recognise it immediately. We
wonder why things are happening as they are, they're going as
they are. The Lord is teaching us and we need his help to understand
it. The Lord does not afflict willingly.
Sometimes we need help to understand why the Lord does bring afflictions
upon us. Naturally, perhaps, and spiritually,
the Lord brings afflictions so that we might be made conformable
unto his image. And that's a wonderful work the
Lord grants to his people. And we need help to understand
it. that the Lord is dealing with us as sons and daughters
of the Most High God. It's not just a random life.
Every step we take is ordained by Almighty God. Remember the
words spoken to Israel. He led them forth by the right
way that they might go to a city of habitation. To the natural
mind it was a strange way. It wasn't a way that they could
appreciate as being good, or right, or beneficial, but nonetheless,
the word was so true, he led them forth by the right way,
that they might go to a city of habitation, and to be blessed
with a spiritual help to understand the leading of the Lord, the
leading of our gracious God, in not leaving us to wander on,
but every step ordained by our gracious, kind and almighty God. Yes, it's a wonderful favour
to have such a God who deals with us in love to our soul. Isaiah, as I said, is very full
of great and blessed and encouraging words to our soul. And in Isaiah
42 we read, Behold, my servant whom I uphold, my elect, in whom
my soul delighteth, I put my spirit upon him, and he shall
bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry nor lift up,
nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised ridge
shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench. shall
bring forth judgments unto truth. To have that help from Almighty
God, to realise that no, he's dealing with us in love. We might
be bruised, we might be a smoking flax, but it won't be quenched
and it won't be broken. The Lord will be with us, the
Lord will help us to understand his great and glorious truth. Sometimes we might think, well,
I seem to be knocked down, I seem to be squashed, I seem to be
in a sad place. The Lord deals with his children
to encourage them and to strengthen them and to help them so they
may indeed be able to hold on their way. And in the previous
chapter, we read about this, for I the Lord, thy God, will
hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not, I will help thee. Fear not, thou worm Jacob." What
it means is really to understand God's gracious help is to be
brought down so that we're low in our own eyes, our own estimation. You see, when we're proud and
lifted up, we don't need any help, do we? We're self-sufficient. We carry on our own strength,
so we think. But when the Lord graciously
deals with us in love to our soul, it's then that he brings
us down to this situation, thou worm Jacob. Not something we'd
like to be called naturally, is it? It's a very low condition,
isn't it? But in such a place, The Lord
helps us. The Lord comes and he helps us.
Because he says, fear not to such, for either Lord thy God
will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not, I will help
thee. That's the promise of God. That's
the promise of God. So when we're low, the Lord brings
us low. We don't get low ourselves. The
Lord brings us low so that we may be dependent then upon his
help. We then go, how do we go? In
the strength of the Lord God. I will make mention of thy righteousness,
even of thine only. There's no self-righteousness
then. We're looking out of ourself,
we're realising the help that we have received from the good
hand of almighty God. What a favour it is then to have
such a God who deals with us in love to our souls. Hosea touches on the same situation. The 13th chapter, the 9th verse,
he says, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself. Well, that's
a hard lesson to learn, isn't it? To think that by our pride
and our ignorance and our foolishness, we've destroyed ourselves, but
in me is thine help. That's our secret. The help comes
from God. We may have destroyed ourselves,
we may have been foolish and ignorant, and yet here we have
God who tells us, He's saying this, There's no help in you. You've got no help in yourself
that is of any value, but in me is thine help. In me. The great and glorious
God. What a favour then to have a
God who encourages us to come unto him and to seek for his
help. And remember the word tells us,
those that seek shall find. As we seek, for the help of Almighty
God. By His gracious spirit we shall
indeed find it. And we may come to this position
as the Apostle Paul says when he writes to the Hebrews, he
says, let your conversation be without covetousness. It's not
easy to not to be covetous, is it? If you and I analyse our
own minds, we're very easy Think, well I could do with that, I
could do with that. Let your conversation be without covetousness
and be content with such things as you have. What have you got? What spiritual blessings have
you got? Have you got any spiritual blessings? Be content with such
things as you have. For he has said, I will never
leave thee, nor forsake thee. Come back to this verse that
we quoted earlier. So that we may boldly say, the
Lord is my Helper. Is my Helper. No one else. The Lord is my Helper and I will
not fear what man shall do unto me. Yes, not fear. Because God
is our Helper. That's me. What does this mean?
It means total dependence upon Almighty God. casting all our
care upon him, for he careth for us. That means we're in a
helpless condition and we're looking to almighty God for the
help we need. And here is this soul strengthening
truth, I have laid help upon one that is mighty. And he goes
on, I have exalted one chosen out of the people. And when the
Lord helps us, and we're made to realise it is God that's helped
us, what's the effect, what's the result? Surely we desire
to exalt his name. We desire to thank him for the
help he's given. We realise how we haven't deserved
it. And yet God has been our helper. He's answered that very simple
prayer, Lord, help me. He's come to us. He's helped
us. Maybe he's delivered us. Maybe
he's brought us out into a wealthy place. And we can come and thank
our God that we have such a mighty God. Well, may we meditate and
think upon these great truths because they are. I have laid
help upon one that is mighty. I have exalted one chosen out
of the people. Amen.