Let us turn again to the Word
of God and the words to which I would call your attention and
your prayerful attention this morning are in Psalm number 61
and really the whole Psalm, but especially verse 2. The 61st Psalm, and in particular
verse 2, From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee. When my heart is overwhelmed,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Psalm 61, the whole psalm
really, but especially verse two, from the end of the earth
will I cry unto thee. When my heart is overwhelmed,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I. I don't know whether it's the
same for you, but these kinds of psalms, I find them quite
reassuring. Perhaps you know people in your
personal life, whether in your place of work or you can remember
people that you've met in the past, and they always seem to
be able to manage everything that comes their way. And they
seem so capable and they always seem to know the right words
to say and the right actions to take. And perhaps we can be
rather in awe of these people. And then one day perhaps we see
them and they're panicking over something and we discover they're
not quite so capable at all times as we had assumed. And there's
something reassuring about that. We discover they're not so very
different to us after all. Well it's like that with this
psalm, isn't it? It's the psalm of David. And you can read through
the life of David and perhaps you sometimes look at people
like David and you think, well, he seems such a capable person
and he obviously was a very capable man. A great deal of natural
ability coupled with a heart which was described as a man
after God's own heart, isn't he? And there are some places
where we can read of him and he seems to have such wisdom
and ability and grace that we almost are tempted to give up
and to think, well, heaven is for that kind of person but it's
not for the kinds of person like me. Well, in this psalm we see
David at the end of the earth. And we see him and he says his
heart is overwhelmed. Even he came to places like that. He was the man after God's own
heart, and he was a capable man, a wise man, a man with much grace
and ability, but he was not superhuman. He was a man really not so very
different to you and I, a human being with all the difficulties
and problems that come with our human nature. From the end of
the earth, he says, a place of desperation, really. A place
of almost despair. And his heart is overwhelmed. Well, you can probably think
of times in your life when you've come to a similar situation.
And perhaps you're in a situation like that today. A place when
you feel that life is almost too difficult. and the burdens
of life are too heavy and it's the constant pressure and the
grind of life, isn't it? We all come to places like that
from time to time. The important question this morning
is what do we do when we get there? David came there and surely if
we have the same faith as David had, If we have the same grace
as David has, if we worship the same God as David worshipped,
then our response when we come to those times of difficulty
will be similar to the response of David here. From the end of the earth, he
says, will I cry unto thee? When my heart is overwhelmed,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I. We don't know exactly
when it was that David wrote this psalm. But if you read through the commentaries,
you will find that most of them are agreed that the most likely
time of his life was that time when he had to deal with the
rebellion of his son Absalom. And you can read the history
of it back there in the second book of Samuel in chapter 17.
And no doubt, many of you, you can remember the the account
how Absalom seems to have been a very capable man, not so very
different to David in that way. A man of great ability and strength
and a good-looking man, it seems. And there's that time in the
life of David when Absalom conspires against him. And perhaps seeing
that David is coming to the end of his reign, he thinks, well,
I'm going to take steps to put myself in the best place to be
king after him. And he gradually steals away
the hearts of the men of Israel. And then he falls into open rebellion,
and he sends spies throughout all the land, and they are instructed
that when they hear the trumpet, they're to say, Absalom reigneth
in Hebron. And the conspiracy was strong,
we read, for the people increased continually with Absalom. And
David hears of this. And David has to flee from Jerusalem
for fear of his own son Absalom. And he crosses over the river. And he comes to a place where
really the end of the earth, as David speaks of it here, it
really could be understood in a very literal sense, couldn't
it? When David was far off from Jerusalem, far off from the temple,
from the tabernacle, far off from the place of sacrifice,
from the place of worship, it must have felt like the end of
the earth to him in a very real sense. And you can think of how
it would be with you if you were a long way from home or even
if you were just 10 miles from your house and you're out in
your car and then your car breaks down and you've got no mobile
phone reception and you don't know where to turn and there's
no houses around you. Well, it would feel like the
end of the earth, wouldn't it? You might almost be at the North
Pole. And no doubt David felt like that as he looked back at
Jerusalem and as he saw that city so distant from him. And he seemed to have no no prospect
of coming back into it through his own strength. And he cries
out, from the end of the earth, will I cry unto thee? He's a
little bit like Jonah, isn't he, in that sense? And pastor
has been bringing Jonah before us recently, hasn't he? And you
remember how Jonah prayed when he was in the belly of the fish. And he looks back towards the
temple, and again, just like David here, it must have seemed
almost like a lifetime away. From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the
rock that is higher than I. Well, when you come into those
places in your life, when your heart is overwhelmed, and when
you feel to be at the end of the earth at such a distance
from God, what kind of effect does it have upon you? And does
it bring you to the same kind of prayers as we see in David
here? And we see three things. concerning
David in this 61st Psalm. First of all, we see David's
prayer, or David's request, if you like. He asks for certain
things, doesn't he? He prays for certain things.
We see David's requests. And then we see David's remembrancy,
how David remembers certain things concerning God, concerning his
own past life, concerning his experience. And then we see David
resolving. He comes with certain resolutions,
doesn't he? He determines to do certain things,
that he's going to walk in a certain pathway. We see David's requesting,
we see David's remembrancing, and we see David's resolving. And I want to look at those three
aspects of David's response to this situation that he finds
himself in, here in this psalm. You think, first of all, of David's
requests. And that's the first thing, isn't
it? And perhaps the most important
thing, and the thing that we can easily take for granted and
overlook, David came into this situation, whatever the situation
was, whether it was at the time of Absalom or whether it was
at another time in David's life, he comes into this situation
and the first thing that we notice is that he prays about it. He
prays about it. Prayer is an essential, isn't
it? There's nobody in heaven today who didn't pray when they
were here on earth. And if we never pray here on
earth, then we show no sign of being prepared for that heaven
that is to come. Prayer is an essential part of
the pathway of the Christian. If you don't pray, if you've
never prayed, then there's no life in you. Prayer is as natural
to the Christian as the cry of a baby is when the baby is born.
And the Christian that stops praying is in danger of death,
just as the baby who stops crying or the person who stops breathing
is certain to be weakened and to die. David prays. And his prayer is fervent, isn't
it? And his prayer is heartfelt. He's not playing at prayer. He's
not pretending at prayer. He's not just putting on a pray-y
kind of voice and saying pray-y kind of words. His prayer is
real prayer. It's genuine prayer. And it comes
from his heart. Hear my cry, O God, he says.
Attend unto my prayer. And in this psalm, we see him
praying for four things. First of all, he asks God to
hear him. And he asks God, secondly, to
attend unto him. Now David knew that God was omnipresent. David would have known that God
was in all places, that God hears everything in a sense. God hears
every word that we speak. There's no word that we can say
in secret that he doesn't hear. And he attends unto them as well.
He pays attention to what we say. We say things carelessly
sometimes, don't we? We're told in one of the epistles
about the danger of idle words. And sometimes we don't attend
to what other people say, but God attends to what we say, and
God hears. And David knew this. Well, you
might say, well, if David knew that God always heard and God
always attended, why does he bother asking God to do these
things for him? Well, the thing is that this
time in David's life, he still knows that in theory. But he wants it to be true in
practice. And we can know, and we can know
in our heads that God always hears prayer. But when we really
know it, and when we really desire for our prayers to be heard,
it will be very different. And David cries out, doesn't
he? Hear my cry, O Lord. Attend unto my prayer. He wants
more than just to know in his head that God hears and that
God attends. He wants to experience God's
hearing. He wants to experience God's attending. He prays out
of need. There's no fatalism in David,
is there? David is not there, and again,
if it was at the time when Absalom is rebelling against him, David
doesn't just shrug his shoulders and say, well, yes, I'm far off
from Jerusalem, but I am the chosen king after all, and God
will bring me back again. And he'll do it in his own time,
and I needn't be really concerned about it. There's no fatalism in David,
and if your faith If your religion makes you fatalistic and careless
about your pathway and about God's hearing of your prayers,
well, it's not the religion of the Bible. Faith is not fatalism. Faith never leads to fatalism.
David is full of faith in this psalm, but that's coupled with
this urgent prayer. Hear my cry, O God. Attend unto
my prayer. Those are the first two things
that he prays for. He prays that God will hear.
and he prays that God will attend. And then in this second verse,
what does he pray for? He says, from the end of the
earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed, lead
me, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. David recognises
that he needs to be led, and doubtless again that was true
in a literal sense concerning the time of Absalom's rebellion, David went out of Jerusalem with
really a relatively small army at that time. And Absalom, he
seemed to have the whole nation of Israel following him, didn't
he? And there seemed very little
hope that David would ever be able to return and to beat Absalom
in a battle. He recognises that he needed
to be led back to Jerusalem. And again, when he speaks of
the rock that is higher than I, in the sense that David speaks
it, perhaps it had a very literal meaning that was true for him. This rock that is higher than
he, perhaps he's thinking of his return as something like
a great mountain, and sometimes there can come those things into
our lives that seem like great mountains, and we will never
get over them in our own strength, and we see it and we realise
it. And David prays to be led to that rock, But of course,
when we read of a rock in the Bible, it's very right that our
thoughts go to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the rock, isn't
he? And when we pray, if we pray
rightly, we will pray to be led to Christ. We will recognise
that that is our chief need. Whatever else we need in this
life, and there are many things that we do need, our daily bread,
Daily provision for all our daily needs, but chiefly we need to
be led to Christ. Christ is the rock. You can think
so many times of when the word rock is used in the Bible, and
it's always in reference to Christ. You can think of that time in
the journeys of the children of Israel when they're coming
through the wilderness. And they're thirsting because
there's no water. And they're complaining against
Moses and complaining against the Lord. And what does the Lord
tell Moses to do? Go on before the people and take
with thee of the elders of Israel and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest
the river. Take in thine hand and go. Behold,
I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb, and thou
shalt smite the rock. and there shall come water out
of it that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight
of the elders of Israel and he takes his rod and he smites the
rock and there is water for the people to drink to refresh them
and to enable them to continue. And Paul, when he writes to the
Corinthians, he looks back to that account, doesn't he? And
he speaks of the rock that they drank from He speaks of the way that they
drank of the spiritual rock that followed them. And that rock,
he says, was Christ. That rock was Christ. It was
a symbol of Christ. It was a picture of Christ. And
as Moses, who is the representative of the law, he takes his rod
and he smites the rock, even so Christ was smitten under the
law of God. And he took the punishment of
that law. And because he was smitten, there is living water
that flows out from him for the refreshment and the strengthening
of his people. Lead me to the rock that is higher
than I, says David. That's the third thing that he
prays for. And then in verse 7, he prays for mercy and truth,
doesn't he? Thou wilt prolong the king's
life, he says in verse 6, and his years as many generations.
He shall abide before God forever. And again, no doubt he is referring
to himself in a sense as the king, as the rightful king, as
the anointed king. And he puts his trust in God's
prolonging, in God's preserving. But equally there is something
of Christ set before us here as well, isn't there? He is the
king that abides before God forever. Oh, prepare mercy and truth,
says David. Mercy, kindness, undeserved kindness. That's what he desires when he
comes before God. He doesn't come before God and
say, give me what's rightfully mine. He doesn't come before
the Lord and say, well, I deserve to be restored to Jerusalem and
to be made king again. He comes before God on the grounds
of mercy and he comes before God pleading his faithfulness.
Prepare mercy and truth which may preserve him. Only these
things can preserve me, says David, God's mercy. I can't be
preserved on the grounds of my own deserving, on the grounds
of my own faithfulness. Though if I'm to be restored
to Jerusalem, it will be God's mercy and God's truth that brings
me there again. Only these things can preserve.
Hear my cry, attend unto my prayer, lead me to the rock, prepare
mercy and truth. These are the things that David
prays for. And perhaps there are times in your life when you
come and you say to the Lord, well, I don't know how to pray.
Well, when we come to those times, isn't that exactly why we have
this book of Psalms? We have these inspired prayers
of David and of others. And we know that they're inspired
prayers. They're good prayers, they're right prayers. We sometimes
can write a question mark over our own prayers, can't we? And
we come before the Lord and we ask for something and then we
go away and we can think, well, was I right to ask for that?
Were my motives right? Was I really seeking first his
kingdom and his glory? But when we come to these psalms,
we know that these psalms are right. We know that these prayers
are right. And if you ever find yourself
at the end of the earth and your heart is overwhelmed and you
can't find words to pray, use these words and pray for the
same things that David prays for, because they really are
prayers for all seasons, aren't they? There's never a time when
we will not need these things. There will be never a time in
our life here below when we don't need God to hear our cry, to
attend unto our prayer, to lead us to the rock, to Christ that
is higher than I, and to deal with us in mercy and truth. These
are the things that David prays for. He was a man of prayer. These
things drove him to pray. They drew him to pray. Well,
do your trials, do your troubles have the same effect upon you?
They can very often have the opposite effect, can't they?
And sometimes when things don't go the way that we expected,
and God doesn't work in the way that we thought he would, and
our plans are disrupted and turned upside down, If we're not careful,
we can fall into a spirit of complaining. And we say, well,
if this is the way that God is going to work, I'm not going
to ask him again. The hymn writer, John Newton,
wasn't it? There was a time in his life
when his prayer was not answered in the way that he expected. And he was asking for good things
in that hymn 295. He's asking God that he would
grow in faith and love and every grace. And he's expecting these
things to come as if, we might say, almost by magic. As if he's
just going to wake up one morning and find that his love has grown
and his faith has grown and his grace has increased and he's
going to be an altogether different Christian from now on. But how did God answer his prayer?
He answered it in the opposite way to what John Newton expected. And suddenly he sees more of
the hidden evils of his heart. And he feels to be more assaulted
by Satan. And even God's hand seems to
be against him. And all his fair designs, all
his plans, all his schemes, they're crossed. The doors are closed and he can't
go in the way that he thought he would be able to go in. And yet it does, it has a gracious
effect upon him, doesn't it? There in verse six, he comes
back to the Lord in prayer and he asks the Lord, why is this?
And the Lord answers him that this is the way that he works,
to answer prayers for grace and faith. John Newton doesn't say,
well, I prayed for more faith, more love and more grace, and
now I seem to have less of it. I'm certainly not going to make
that mistake again. So he comes back to the Lord
in prayer. And he sees that those things that he thought were damaging
to him, they were actually for his good. Hear my cry, attend unto my prayer,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I, prepare mercy and truth. We've seen David's prayer, David's
requesting. And David also remembers, doesn't
he, in the second place? David remembers. And what does
David remember? Well, again, he remembers four
things that I want to mention. He remembers first who he's praying
to. It's very easy sometimes to take
for granted, isn't it? And we make our prayers. But
if we don't remember who it is that we're praying to, well,
our prayers are very likely to fall short. Hear my cry, O God, says David. And then in verse 5, he again
calls him, O God. He's praying to God. Do you pray
to God? You think, well, that's a silly
question. Of course, we all pray to God, don't we? Well, it's
one thing to say that we pray to God. It's another thing to
actually pray to him. He reminds himself of God's strength. That really is the meaning of
the word God as we have it here in the Old Testament. It comes
from a Hebrew word for strength. for power. And you know, it's
not vain repetition when David uses the name of God. I'm sure
all of us, if we try and pray, especially if we're praying in
public, it's very easy to use the name of God. And sometimes
we sit down and we think, well, I've used the name of God so
many times in that prayer, but I'm not really sure that I've
used it properly. And we can take God's name in
vain just as much when we pray to him as those around us who
use his name as a swear word. But David is not just repeating
the name of God out of custom here. He does this to remind
himself, surely, of who it is that he's praying to. The God
of strength, the God of power, the God of all ability. Hear
my cry, O God. Attend unto my prayer. It's good
to remember this when we come before the Lord in prayer, isn't
it? To remind ourselves who it is that we're praying to. Isn't
that what the Lord Jesus taught his disciples in that pattern
prayer, the Lord's Prayer? How does he instruct them to
begin that prayer? Our Father, which art in heaven.
I know Pastor preached a series on the Lord's Prayer not so long
ago. I think it was over one of the lockdowns, wasn't it?
And as he said, when we come to God and we call him our Father,
it's not because he doesn't know that he's our Father. It's not
that we're reminding him of who he is. but we're reminding ourselves
of who he is. And if we are given that sense
of our sonship, that sense that he is our father, then it will
have a great effect upon our prayers, won't it? David remembers
in the first place who he is praying to. And secondly, he
remembers what God has been, in verse 3. for thou hast been
a shelter for me and a strong tower from the enemy. David looks
back to times in his own past when he's experienced God's protection
and he could do that, couldn't he? You can think of the time
when he was a shepherd and here is a lion and a bear coming to
take sheep away from his flock and he has to go out against
them and fight them. And God kept him safe in that
hour of need. You can think of his experience
with Goliath and how he goes out against Goliath with just
his sling and those five smooth stones that were taken from the
brook. And God kept him safe in that experience. He kept him
safe when he was chased all around the land of Israel by Saul, wasn't
he? And many times he had to prove
God's protection. Thou hast been a shelter for
me and a strong tower from the enemy. And David, he reminds
himself that God is the same now as he was then, that he still
has the same power, that he still is just as faithful, that he
is still just as long-suffering and kind and merciful as he was
in those past days. There has been a shelter, there
has been a strong tower from the enemy. Well, we might be ready to say,
well, it's all very well for David. He could look back on
that kind of experience and perhaps we might think, well, if I had
had to fight with Goliath and been able to kill him with one
stone from a sling, then I would be able to pray this prayer,
but God is not a refuge for people like me. Perhaps we can't look back upon
the same remarkable experiences as David had. And perhaps we
are troubled by this and we say, well, I'm not sure my experience
is adequate. Well, we sang that hymn, didn't we, that hymn 1097.
And what does the hymn writer say about the refuge that Christ
is in that opening verse of that hymn? He says the Gospel makes
known a refuge for sinners. A refuge for sinners, he says.
And really that is the only qualification that is needed. It's not the
righteous that are called to take refuge in Christ. They don't
need it. It's a refuge for sinners. in the merits of Jesus alone.
And what kind of person is it that the hymn writer says are
welcome to enter into that refuge? It's the weary, it's the tempted,
the burdened by sin. He's drawing on the words of
Christ, isn't he? The hymn writer is not just making these things
up. But Christ himself said, come unto me all ye that labour,
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The weary, the
burdened, the tempted. The hymn writer says they were
never exempted. They were never exempted. There was never a time
when they were excluded from this refuge. Don't be stumbled then by your
past experience. Don't be ready to say, well,
if I had more of an experience then I would find it easier to
come to Christ and to take refuge in Christ. He's a refuge for
sinners and He's a refuge for those who come with nothing.
The hymn writer said, nothing in my hand I bring. He didn't
come to the Lord and say, well, I've got all this experience,
so therefore, am I not worthy to be admitted into the refuge?
No, he said, I come with nothing. He is a refuge for sinners. Isaiah,
he speaks of Christ, doesn't he, in that 32nd chapter of his
prophecy. He says, a king shall reign in
righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment, and a man shall
be as an hiding place from the wind, and as a cover from the
tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of
a great rock in a weary land, and the eyes of them that see
shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.
It's all Christ. He is the refuge, He is the shelter,
He is the shadow of that great rock in a weary land, a refuge
for sinners. David remembers what God has
been, He remembers in the third place what God had done. Thou,
O God, hast heard my vows. Thou hast given me the heritage
of those that fear thy name. He could look back upon other
prayers that he'd prayed that God had heard. He can look back
upon God's mercy in giving him the heritage of those that fear
thy name in dealing with him according to the covenant that
was made with Abraham and with Isaac and with Jacob, those that
fear thy name. David isn't ready to boast about
his own fear of God's name. But he can look back upon those
who have been God-fearers in the past and he can look back
upon times when God has dealt with him in the same way as he
had dealt with them. Thou hast given me the heritage
of those that fear thy name. He remembers what God had done
and then in the fourth place he remembers what God would do.
Thou wilt preserve, prolong the king's life and his years as
many generations. How does he know that God would
prolong the king's life? Because God had promised. Because
God had promised. Hadn't God promised when Samuel
came to the house of Jesse and poured oil upon the head of David
and anointed him king over Israel? Hadn't God promised all through
those years when he was fleeing from Saul in the wilderness?
He knew he was destined for the throne. And God made those wonderful
promises to David, didn't he? When David was determined to
build the temple, And he calls Nathan and he says to Nathan,
it doesn't seem right that I dwell in a house of cedars, but the
Ark of God, it still remains under curtains. And he has this
plan to build a permanent resting place for the Ark. And Nathan
has to tell him, well, no, David, that's not going to be your job. But he also makes these promises
to David. The Lord makes these promises
through Nathan. It shall come to pass when thy days be expired
that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that I will raise
up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons, and I will
establish his kingdom. And David could plead these promises. He shall be in house and I will
establish his throne forever." And surely David, as he looked
upon Absalom, he would have known that he was not walking in that
pathway. His throne was not being established
by God. He was establishing his own throne.
So says David, he is not to be my successor. I will prolong
the king's life and his years as many generations because my
successor is not ready yet. He shall abide before God forever.
He reminds himself of what good God would do, and surely he also
looks forward to the coming of the Messiah, doesn't he? Really,
these words, they're true of David and of his successors in
a sense, but ultimately are only fulfilled in Christ, aren't they?
He is the one that will abide before God forever. He is the
one whose life shall be prolonged, his years as many generations,
because his goings forth are from everlasting, and they shall
have no end. David remembers what God would
do. We've seen something of David's
prayer, his requests. We've seen something of David's
memories, his reliance upon the faithfulness of God. And then
thirdly, look at David's resolution. Look at what David is determined
to do in this psalm. And it's very often as you read
through the psalms that you come across David and the other psalmists
coming with this kind of resolve. That psalm, I love that psalm
at 18, how it begins. The psalm of David, it tells
us, who spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day
that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and
from the hand of Saul. And how does he begin that 18th
psalm? I will love thee. I will love thee. O Lord, my
strength. I will trust in verse 2. I will
call upon the Lord in verse 3. This is David's set determination.
This is the pathway that he is determined to walk in. And you
can read through many other psalms and you find David coming with
the same kind of resolve. Do you ever know that same kind
of resolve in your own experience? when even though your heart is
overwhelmed and when you feel to be at the end of the earth,
you can say with David as he does here, I will, I will cry. From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee. He's determined to do this. It's
not easy to pray sometimes, is it? And especially when you feel
to be at the end of the earth and your heart is overwhelmed,
And perhaps there's that temptation to give up. And the hymn writer,
he speaks of it, doesn't he? Those times when the Christian
is far off from God and his prayer doesn't seem to be answered.
It's that hymn 1028. And he says, does Satan tempt
you to give up and call no more on Jesus' name? He speaks of
those who are distressed by sin, those who have these rising fears
which forbid them to exult and sing and their moments are passed
in sighs and tears and their guilt. It's felt to be a dreadful
sting. He says, does Satan tempt you
to give up and call no more on Jesus' name? And I'm sure Satan
tempted Satan to give up. I'm sure Satan tempted David
to give up. When David is far off from Jerusalem,
and no doubt there were those who would have said to him, well,
David, it's no use. Absalom has conquered the hearts of all the
men of Israel. You may as well just try and escape and live
out the rest of your days in as much peace and comfort as
you can. But don't expect to go back there and become king
again. The hymn writer says, does Satan
tempt you to give up and call no more on Jesus' name? Cast
not away your little hope. Come hither and behold the Lamb.
Come hither and behold the Lamb. And that was David's determination,
wasn't it? To look back towards the tabernacle, to look back
towards the place that God had chosen, just as Jonah did in
the belly of the whale. He says, yet will I look again,
yet will I look again unto thy holy temple. This is David's
determination. He says, I will cry. I will cry. Hard work to pray sometimes,
especially when you're at the end of the earth with an overwhelmed
heart. No, says David, I'm not going
to give up. I'm going to cry because I know that he can hear
and I know that he can help. I will cry. That's what he prays
for. That's his first determination.
And then look at verse 4. Look at his determination there.
Look at his resolve there. I will abide. I will abide in
thy tabernacle forever. Oh yes, he says, I'm far off
from it now. But I will abide there forever. That's where I
hope. That's where my confidence is.
I'm not giving up on that hope. I'm not going to say, well, the
tabernacle's not my portion anymore, it doesn't matter. I'll find
some other way. No, he says, it's the tabernacle,
I want to abide there, I will abide there. I will abide in
thy tabernacle forever, and no doubt again. He has this confidence
of returning to Jerusalem, but you think of the tabernacle that
he ultimately hoped to be found in. in heaven itself, a place
where God was, a place of closeness to God where His face is seen. He's looking again to the tabernacle,
the only tabernacle. There was only one tabernacle,
wasn't there? In the land of Israel, there wasn't many tabernacles.
And again, when the temple was built, it was one temple. And you know today, there is
only one Christ. There is only one place of refuge. or when your heart is overwhelmed,
do you come with the same determination, I will abide in thy tabernacle. It's Christ, isn't it, that the
sinner is determined to look to, determined to abide in. Even when they find themselves
far off, just as Charles Wesley did, when he was weary of wandering
from the Lord, and now made willing to return, willing to return. I will abide in thy tabernacle
forever, says David. I will trust. There's his third
resolution. I will trust, I will seek refuge,
I will flee for protection in the covet of thy wings. We read the following two Psalms
and you see David in a very similar spirit there. In Psalm 63, verse 7, because
there has been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings, will
I rejoice? Will I rejoice? That's his determination,
that's his resolve. He knows there is a place of
refuge there and he's determined to flee to it. The name of the
Lord, says the wise man in the Proverbs, the name of the Lord
is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it
and is safe. And here is David doing just
that. There's so many hymns I could
quote. This is one of those subjects
where it's not so difficult to find hymns to sing. It's more
of choosing the hymns not to sing. But John Kent in that hymn
113, he says, Jesus, my soul is compelled to flee. from all
its wrath and curse to thee. It's compelled to. It's not David's free will that's
driving him to this decision, is it? It's not David there balancing
up these two options and saying, well, shall I trust in the cover
of God's wings or shall I not? It's his resolve, it's his determination.
But he's drawn to it, isn't he? He's compelled to it. Jesus,
my soul is compelled to flee from all its wrath and curse
to thee. I will trust in the covet of thy wings. And then you look at David's
final resolve, and there's something so inevitable about it, isn't
there? I will cry, I will abide, I will trust, and then in verse
8, I will sing. And you know this psalm, there's
no evidence that it was not all written at the same time. It's
not that David wrote the first half and then many years later
came back and wrote the second half. And so when he speaks of
this singing of praise unto the name of God forever, really his
situation has not changed. He's still at the end of the
earth and his heart is still overwhelmed. But he comes with this determination,
I will, I will sing. I will sing praise unto thy name
forever. There's something inevitable
about it. You may not feel like singing
at the moment. Perhaps you're feeling to be
at the end of the earth and your heart is overwhelmed. You may
not feel like singing right now, but the path of faith is inevitably
the path to singing. I will cry, I will abide, I will
trust, I will sing. I will sing praise unto thy name
forever. It's all unto his name, isn't it? Every time when David
speaks of his resolve in this way, it's all bound up with God,
with the name of God. When he speaks of crying, he
says, I will cry unto thee. When he speaks of abiding, he
says, I will abide in thy tabernacle. When he speaks of trusting, he
says, I will trust in the cupboard of thy wings. And when he speaks
of singing, he says, I will sing praise unto thy name. Unto thy
name, the path of faith is the path to joy. There's that hymn,
isn't there? Trust and obey, said the hymn
writer, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but
to trust and obey. And how David, he exhorts us,
doesn't he, in that 34th Psalm? He says, oh, taste and see that
the Lord is good. He doesn't say see and taste.
The tasting must come before the seeing. And the abiding and
the trusting must come before the singing. So will I sing praise
unto thy name forever, that I may daily perform my vows." And no
doubt David looked forward to a day when he would return to
the physical tabernacle and sing again in the physical tabernacle,
praises unto the name of God. And there is a singing even in
the middle of the trial, isn't there? And no doubt you can think
of those in church history who have been through the most terrible
trials and yet they sing in the midst of them. There is a sense
in which we sing when we come out the end of the trial. But then you think of heaven.
How would you characterize heaven? How would you describe the noise
that you would hear in heaven? It's a place of singing, isn't
it? And on more than one occasion, as John has that vision of the
glorified church above, what does he see them doing? He sees
them singing. In Revelation chapter 5, verse
9, They sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book
and to open the seals thereof, for Thou wast slain and hast
redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred and tongue
and people and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and
priests, and we shall reign on the earth. They sung a new song
there in chapter 5 of Revelation. Then later on in chapter 14,
He sees the Lamb standing on Mount Zion and with Him 140,000
and 4,000 having His Father's name written in their foreheads.
And what are they doing? They sung a new song before the
throne and before the four beasts and the elders. And no man could
learn that song but the 140,000 and 4,000 which were redeemed
from the earth. It's not a song that can be learned
by the natural man. It's the song of the redeemed.
And then in the next chapter, in chapter 15, when John sees
the sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had gotten
the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his
mark, and over the number of his name, standing on the sea
of glass having the harps of God, and they sing. And they
sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.
saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Have you learnt
that song? Can you sing that song, Great
and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true
are thy ways, thou King of saints. There is singing in heaven, And we have that, the hymn writer,
he has that glimpse of it, doesn't he, in hymn 477, we sang it just
a moment ago. And he prays for the wings of
faith to rise within the veil and see the saints above, how
great their joys, how bright their glories be, and they are
a people that sing. So will I sing praise unto thy
name forever, that I may daily perform my vows. This was David's
resolve. Is it your resolve? Are you determined
to sing praise to God forever? Even though you may feel to be
at the end of the earth, even though your heart may feel to
be overwhelmed, is there this fixed and settled determination
So will I sing praise unto thy name forever, that I may daily
perform my vows. There's another hymn. I don't
think I've ever sung it in a service. It's not in Gatsby's hymn book.
I don't think it's in gospel hymns either. It's John Kent, one of John Kent's
hymns, and he often sings of heaven, doesn't he, John Kent?
And he says, on Zion's glorious summit stood a numerous host,
redeemed with blood, They hymned their king in strains divine. I heard the song and strove to
join. You strive to join that song,
those strains divine that is sung by the redeemed host in
heaven. From the end of the earth when
I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed, says David, He
feels to be a far off, he feels to be, his heart is overwhelmed,
it's covered. That's really what the word overwhelmed
means. His prayer doesn't seem to be
able to get out. His heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock
that is higher than I, and he comes with his prayer. He comes
with his request, he comes with his remembrance. He reminds himself
of who God is, of what he has done, of what he has promised
to do. And he comes with these resolutions, I will cry, I will
abide, I will trust, I will sing. May God grant us the same prayer,
the same faith and the same determination. Amen.