If you would like to turn in
the word of God to Psalm 121, because that's where we're going
to be concentrating our thoughts this morning. And the subject
this morning is the preservation or perseverance of the saints. And I was looking up our Strict
Baptist articles this morning and it was article number 9,
of course, where this is stated. We believe in the final perseverance
in the state of grace of all those who have been elected by
the Father, redeemed by the Son, and regenerated by the Holy Spirit,
so that they shall never perish, but have eternal life." So it's
expressed very clearly there. This is a great truth, and it's
an area that often causes some doubt and confusion. And you
know we often refer to the doctrines of free and sovereign grace,
and we often refer to that famous acrostic, the tulip, and of course
the P in that stands for the perseverance or the preservation
of the saints. And you know these doctrines
even in our day are still very controversial. People will argue
against this. They will argue that it is possible
for someone to become a Christian and then to fall away from being
a Christian. I was certainly taught that as
a young believer and had some fear of it. We've been reading
in Romans 8 and we take great encouragement that nothing will
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,
says Paul. Nothing. God's desire is towards
us and God is going to save us, he will save us. And in the psalm,
we don't know who the psalmist is, he doesn't say it was David.
In this lovely Psalm 121, we see a clarity of thought, we
see a deep experience of God, a deep knowledge that God is
the one who keeps us. He uses this word, preserve. Verse 7, He shall preserve thy
soul. In verse 8, the Lord shall preserve
thy going out and thy coming in. We want to look in this particular
area this morning. how God preserves the saints.
In the life of David, if you study that, you see how the Lord
kept him physically, but the Lord particularly kept him spiritually. He was a man after God's own
heart, and yet we also see warts and all with David. We see his
sins and failings as we see in the scriptures of other saints. The scriptures are the truth. It's so vital for us to understand
this. These doctrines that we believe,
they all hang together. There are some people who want
to say, well I find difficulty in believing certain parts of
the truth, but it is a whole package, it is a perfect system
that we read because it is that which God has set before us.
We do believe in the total depravity of man. We do believe in Unconditional
election, we believe that God's favour is towards people because
He loves them, not because of anything in them. We believe
in a limited atonement, that not all are saved. The scriptures
declare to us that there will be those lost. Those who believe
in man's free will, of course, also believe in a limited atonement,
because they believe it's limited to their efforts at trying to
convert people. But we believe that God saves.
Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. They are
his sheep. There is a divine purpose in
salvation. We believe that God's grace is
irresistible and God comes to a person he will save them because
he has loved them for eternity in Christ and we also love this
doctrine that when we are saved we are kept we are preserved
in the Lord Jesus Christ and it's a great comfort it should
be to every believer we must understand these great truths
we're not lost we don't fall away and we know that they're
alas we can read of those who do seem to fall away and there
are one or two scriptures that people find difficult to read
I'm certainly going to turn to one of them it's always been
controversial but if you read the scripture carefully it's
actually quite quite clear John chapter 6 we just read some verses
there from verse 37 this is what Christ says all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out and we could stop there and base the whole
sermon on that verse of the Lord Jesus Christ and if you're familiar
with John chapter 6 you know that it tells a lot about God's
purposes for I came down from heaven not to do mine own will
but the will of him that sent me and this is the will the Father's
will which has sent me that of all which he hath given me I
should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last
day." This is what Christ says. All that God has given him, all
the people that God has given him, he will lose none of them.
They will be kept. And this is the will of him that
sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on
him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the
last day. The teaching of our dear Lord
and Saviour is very clear. The passage, of course, that
people often turn to Hebrews and chapter 6 and I can remember
even in my student days and subsequently debating this with people and
people were always pulling this verse out and saying see you
can't all the way it says so here in Hebrews 6 but if we look
at Hebrews 6 I think we have to again read it in the context
that there is no difficulty at all. We read that it is in verse
4, it is impossible for those who are once enlightened and
have tasted of the heavenly gifts and were made partakers of the
Holy Ghost and have tasted of the good word of God and the
powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away. People
say, well, he's obviously fully a Christian, and then if they
fall away from that, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing
that they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put
him to an open shame. So they think that's absolutely
clear, this is talking about people who are saved and then
they fell. But you read on, the earth which drinketh in the rain,
that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs, meet for
them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God. There are
those, like the earth, receive blessing from God. But that which
beareth thorns and briars is rejected. We know the parable
of the sower. There are those who don't bring
forth herbs and good fruit. there are people who remain as
it were sadly as thorns and briars and as nines of cursing whose
end is to be burnt he says in comparison but beloved we are
persuaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation
though we speak thus you see there's a parallel there's a
comparison there are those who seem to go on just like in the
parable of the sower there seems to be some life a growth but
they fell away and there was a bearing of fruit there was
the seed that fell in the good soil and we know that this was
a born again person because it didn't just spring up as it were
and look like it had life it brought forth fruit 30 fold 60
fold 100 fold And this is what we read here in Paul. We are
persuaded better things of you. You're not one who's fallen away.
Not one who's like the sun has come out and beaten down on that
plant and it's come to nothing. You are those who have borne
fruit. We have to read all these verses
in the context of all the truth of scripture. And so that scripture
not being in any way a problem for us is actually part of our
normal explanation of this truth. God says and God keeps. Now we
have to say that we are not robots, because I've had people say to
me, I can't tolerate your sort of Calvinistic teaching. You
just teach that people are robots and automated. And that is not
the case. God loves us as we are. He's
given us our personalities. for the good Lord and His mercy
comes and saves people. He uses that personality. He
doesn't change them. He uses us as we are. He uses the gifts
that we have. Maybe they are enhanced. Maybe
we need to acquire new things. But there are religious feelings. You know, we often say and we
sing something must be known and felt. But we talk about experimental
religion. It's not just a head religion.
The great danger, I've found, again amongst those who hold
to these doctrines is their There's a logic to them. It can appeal
to a certain mentality. People can like it. They can
see it like a complex puzzle or jigsaw. They can see how the
different bits fit together. But it's not that. It's perfect
because it comes from God. But we have to know it. And it
affects the whole person. It affects our minds. It affects
our emotions, our feelings. We are totally involved when
salvation comes to us. We talk about an experimental
religion. We talk about a profound religion. It can certainly touch us. Our
religion is moving. I'm sure for those of us who
know the law, when we read the scriptures at times, it brings
us to tears. We're deeply, deeply moved by
what we read, and at the times when God brings that to us with
great power. But we see in all of this that
matchless love of Christ, that eternal love of Christ. of God
in Christ for the saints. This paternal salvation, God's
wonderful plan in Christ, is that he should have a people
for himself, as we read, in all righteousness. And we thank God
for that. It's God's work. God sets forth
his masterpiece. which is salvation in Christ.
Men want to erect all their other religions, and their sex, and
their different views, and the rest of it. They want to dwell
in wonderful temples, and wear wonderful robes, and have titles,
and they want to swing incense, and be seen to be doing wonderful
things. God wants none of these things. God just wants to come
to us as we are. and reveal Christ to our souls. This is what we need to know.
We don't need people, so-called priests, interceding for us today.
We need to know Christ for ourselves, and we need to bow the knee to
Him. Psalms are lovely, as I was saying on Thursday, as we were
looking at another lovely psalm, Psalm 25. This isn't poetry. This isn't literature. There
are people who love the Bible, love the authorised version,
because it's beautifully written. And it's very memorable in the
way it's written. But that's not all it is. If that's all
it is to you, then you know nothing. You know nothing. But it's the
Word of God. That's what's precious. It's
good that it's written carefully. We know that there are some strange
expressions in it and we need to understand. But we read this
version of the Bible, not because it's nicest to read and we love
the language, because it's the most accurate and faithful. You
read the modern versions and they are full of errors, they
have parts of the scripture, often whole verses missing from
it. And that's a great, great sadness.
I seem to remember dear Mr. Matronolo telling us he went
to preach, I think it was at Cardiff, Betty will correct me
if I've got it wrong, and I think he gave forth his verse and preached
and many of the people in the congregation were using the New
International Version and they didn't have the verse in their
Bibles. They couldn't follow the preaching.
They were scratching their heads. They didn't have this verse.
We have all that preserved, accurate text of the New Testament that's
been translated faithfully before us. There is no other version
in the English Bible that can compare with this. And so we
love it. We love it also because of the
prayer and the diligence that went behind putting this version
of the Bible together. Now, saints, we must be doctrinal. And I had a little quote at the
back of the chapel, again by Mr Matronola on that, which is
a wonderful quote saying that saints have to be theologians.
It doesn't mean we've got to be scholars, but we have to think
in terms of doctrine, because that's how our faith works. It's
not all emotion. Some people just I've heard people
say, I can't be doing that, we just want to have emotional experience,
we want to be in the charismatics or whatever. We need to know
our doctrine, that will keep our feet on the ground, it will
keep us knowing how to live, how to pray, knowing how it is
that God works. And we need to understand what
it is to have a close walk with God, just like the psalmist had.
This psalmist again, the psalmist is wonderful because of that
deep understanding that the psalmist has of God and God's mind and
how God deals with us and how God keeps us. And it's a wonderful
revelation of this doctrine that we're looking at this morning.
So we're thinking of that preservation, that keeping. God will keep the
saints. He doesn't just save us, He keeps
us. And I wish as a young Christian
I had known this, and people had taught me. But by His grace
I came into knowing these things, came at a relatively early age
into a knowledge of the doctrines of free and sovereign grace.
And we're talking of 50 years that the Lord has been revealing
these things, and I thank Him for that. We don't believe in
free will doctrines. We don't believe that it's up
to us to keep ourselves. That's the religion of man. That's
the religion of so many churches, isn't it? You say, you've got
to keep yourself. You've got to do this. You've got to do
that. That's the spirit of other religions, aren't they? They're
all works religion. They're all, in a sense, you
do certain things to appease whatever your view of God or
the Almighty Being is. That's not the case. All that's
being done is necessary for salvation. has been done by Christ on behalf
of the believer. We cannot add to that. Salvation
is a perfect thing perfected in Christ. We are called to walk
in faith and to walk that way that Christ has set before us
and to know his truth. So we are thinking here of that
preservation and the basis for our assurance of a comfort for
us and his precious blood and righteousness. I can remember
being in a Baptist church and we were having Bible studies
and somebody got very fed up with me. That's happened I think. People do get fed up and they
say, the trouble with you, you're always talking about blood religion.
I've heard Mr. Sands talk about that and I think
Mr. Macronola did also. But we read
in Ephesians 1 and verse 7 that we have been made accepted in
the beloved in verse 6, in whom we have redemption through his
blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his
grace. We have redemption through his blood. We are redeemed. It's
a reality. It's something that we have in
eternity in Christ. It's a work that he has done
through his blood and righteousness, once offered. It's such a wicked
thing that people still think they can offer a sacrifice and
a mass. When Christ was once offered
the book of Hebrews, there is now no more offering. If you've
had the perfect offering, why do you need to offer anything
else? Rather, we need to put ourselves under all that God
has done. And in this context, the Scriptures
are very helpful. The Lord Jesus Christ, as you
know, taught in the most wonderful way. He taught in everyday things.
People say, oh well he tried to keep it very simple. I've
heard people say, well the Lord Jesus talked to people as though
they were Sunday school children. And of course that is utter nonsense. But what he did use were things
that people would have been familiar with. And it's a challenge when
you hold forth the word of God, you've got to try and make it
comprehensible to people. You must speak in terms that
they can understand. And the Lord was very profound
in some of the things. In John's Gospel where he, those
I am expressions, he said, I am the good shepherd. And that's
such a helpful concept in the context of this particular teaching. John, I think it's chapter 10
we want to be in here. He says in John chapter 10 that
he's the good shepherd. He says in verse 3, he comes
to the door and the porter openeth and the sheep hear his voice
and he calleth his own sheep by name. and leadeth them out. This is what our Saviour does.
He comes to people, individuals. Not just a person in a crowd
at a rally. I've been there in the past where
you have a football stadium with the evangelist and people have
to be processed, have to fill up a card and go in the decision
queue. No, the Lord Jesus calls them
by name. And when he put forth his own
sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for
they know his voice. We live in urban areas, I'm sure
some of you will know that if you go out and watch a shepherd
in a wilderness place, the Yorkshire Dales or somewhere, they know
that shepherd's voice. They follow that shepherd. We've
been in Cyprus and there have been flocks of goats, and you
see them following the shepherd. The shepherd has a bell. and
they just stay close to him. And of course in days gone by
that would have been necessary because there might have been
wolves or bears. I think I've told you in the
past, I'll tell it again, a story when I was hiking in Yugoslavia
many many years ago and I was on my own up on a high place
and I suddenly saw two shapes running towards me, and I had
been told there were walls and other things around. I didn't
know what they were. There were two creatures, two
dots, and I walked sideways, and as I changed my direction,
these things changed direction. I thought, oh dear. There was
no cover, no trees to go in, I didn't know what it was, and
you begin to think, oh dear, I hope it's nothing nasty. And
then I saw there were two sheep, and they were running towards
me, and they got about 30 or 40 yards away and suddenly I
heard a bell. And immediately they turned and down in the valley
was the shepherd with the sheep. He said, is anyone interested
in me? As soon as they heard, that's where they went. And that's
how it is with the believer. When you hear Christ's voice,
when he calls you, when he comes in his mercy and grace, you flee
to the shepherd. That's what God puts within us.
That's the irresistible grace that comes to us. That's part
of that process that we call salvation. It goes on. God works
in our soul. He brings us to bow before Him.
He brings us to see sin. He brings us to repentance. For they know His voice. Have
we heard the Saviour's voice? We can't talk about preserving
and keeping until we know we're in Christ. But we must seek Him.
With all our heart I get told that that's preaching Arminianism.
I want to tell you it's not. It's preaching the Word of God.
That's what the Word of God said. We seek Him. If God puts such
a thought within our heart. And verse 11, he says, I am the
good shepherd, the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
We have such a one who watches over us, who is like that shepherd. The shepherd would lay down his
life for his sheep. Such is the love of Christ for
his children. Verse 14, I am the good shepherd,
and know my sheep, and am known of mine. He knows us. By God's
grace we know him. by faith, because he works in
our hearts. In verse 15, as the Father knoweth
me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the
sheep. You see, Christ gave his life.
People say, oh he gave his life, that people might be saved, I've
heard them say. No, no, no. Christ laid down
his life for the sheep. He purchased a people with his
own blood, and he will have that people. He says, other sheep
I have which are not of this fold. There are others, he says.
There also I must bring and they shall hear my voice and there
shall be one fold and one shepherd. Have we heard his voice? Oh,
he comes and he calls us, calls us particularly through his word.
He brings his word and it resonates in our hearts and it grips us
and then we feel moved by it. and we feel moved to turn to
him that we might know him that we might become his people and
this is God's purpose and it's set for wonderfully by Peter
in his first epistle in chapter 2 again these are lovely words
in this context you see there are people of God a building
of God he says there are set 4th and in verse 9 of 1 Peter
2 he says that you are a chosen generation a royal priesthood
and holy nation a peculiar people this is what the people of God
called in Christ are that you should so forth the praises of
him who have called you out of darkness into his marvellous
light this is what Christ as he takes us of course as a sheep
he takes us from light darkness into light and Our hope is wonderful. In time past we were not a people.
Outside of Christ we had no hope. We were nothing. But are now
the people of God which have not obtained mercy, but now have
obtained mercy. And he goes on to say that we
are as strangers and pilgrims in this world. The Lord will
be there. He will keep us. And the wonderful
thing about this psalm, and we read this kind of theme often
in the psalms, is that deep understanding of this great doctrine. And there
are those famous words, we read them this morning. Again, these
are words for the believer. We read in verse 27 of Romans
8 that there is that work of the Spirit, making intercession
for the saints. There's one making intercession
for us, as it were, here, with us, as we know that Christ is
in heaven, ever living and interceding for us. And we know following
that, because we have this intercession, verse 28, we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God. to them who are
the called according to his purpose. All things work together for
good. And people say, do you mean if I'm unwell? If I lose
my job? And so on. I crash my car. Whatever
it is. And the answer is yes. That's the life of faith. We
might find it very hard. But God, that's God's plan and
purpose in us. That we might know these truths.
So we look as we come forward now to this lovely psalm. some
of the thoughts that we've had and we'll see how they're manifested
in this lovely psalm. Remember the psalmists, again,
are not writing poetry, they're writing of that which God has
shown to them. We do believe this is the Word
of God, this is inspired writing. The writer has a deep experience
of God and that's why this has been kept, it was seen and understood.
that God had revealed wonderful truths, and these are truths
for us, as I was saying on Thursday. We can take some of these psalms
and we can use them as our own prayers. They're very helpful
to us. It's quite good to use, as it
were, the Psalter as a prayer book, and to try and share in
some of those thoughts and own them for ourselves in our own
experience. I love this. The psalmist says,
I lift up my eyes unto the hills, as we were singing also in that
lovely psalm, one, two, three, unto thee I lift up my eyes.
And I was thinking, why lift up? Why are we lifting up our
eyes unto the hills? And people would say, oh well
that's not looking to God, that's almost idolatrous, isn't it?
From whence cometh my help? How can my help come from the
hills? If you read the commentators, they will say, well, perhaps
he's referring particularly to Mount Zion. Mount Moriah, he's
looking to Jerusalem. And they're sensing that that
was the place of worship. As it were, that's where God
would presence himself and own that worship. And therefore,
is it looking up to the hills, looking up to Jerusalem? Well,
it may be, in part. We read of my help coming from
the Lord, which made heaven and earth. And there has always been
that sense that we look up to God. Why? Why should we look
up to God? Where is God? And if he draws
in eternity, how can that be up? You could argue. But we look
up and we know that when Christ rose, he went up into heaven. And so there's a mystery there.
And we read in Psalm 3 and verse 4 that the Psalmist, this is
David, cried unto the Lord with his voice and he heard me out
of his holy hill. And I think there David is thinking
holy hill, he's thinking of perhaps Mount Zion. And so there it's
specific perhaps to the prayer of David that he is thinking
of that holy place. But it may not be in every case
and we have to read all the Psalms carefully. David says in Psalm
5 and verse 3, My voice shall I hear in the morning, O Lord,
in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will
look up says David, I will look up. And there's always been that
sense that we look up to God. And Jesus says, look up, your
salvation draws nigh. And when he was taken, he was
taken up, wasn't he, by the angels. They took him up and he disappeared
as he were into heaven before their sight. So there is a mystery
in these things. We won't entirely unravel that. Jesus said, I came down from
heaven, he said. And if there's a down, there
must be an up. And so we look up to God. I'm sure you've had
this experience. Perhaps you've been in somewhere
grand, on holiday somewhere, where there are mountains. And
your eyes are caused to look up and sometimes they are a wondrous
sight. Perhaps some tall mountain peaks with ice and snow on top
of them. And they do take your breath
away sometimes. And I trust if you're a believer you and maybe
it leads you to pray and to worship the God who made such things. I remember when I used to live
in Southsea, on Sunday morning I would get on my bicycle early
and I would go down to the beach and sit on the beach and just
sit there quietly praying and looking at the Solent and the
Isle of Wight and the sea and somehow looking not just at a
wall in a room but looking into the distance, somehow help me
to pray. And when I read things like this,
I sort of know that they lived in land where there were mountains.
And the psalmist is trying to say, look away from yourself,
don't look down. Look up to God. And of course,
they then wouldn't understand us. We don't really understand
where is God. He dwells in eternity. And where does our help come?
He says, where does my help ultimately come? It comes from the Lord.
who made heaven and earth, he has to understand that God made
all things, or orders all things, and that he will help. And it's
more than that. What is that help? What's it
going to be like? We see a God who does not suffer
our feet to be moved. Well, we know that we walk certain
ways and we might get into trouble, but God is watching over us.
We may not see it. God defends us. God protects
us. He cares about how it is we walk. He cares about what we do. And
we have a God who doesn't sleep. Remember Elijah, the prophets
of Baal, and they were leaping and jumping, weren't they, on
that pagan altar, all their imprecations, they were cutting themselves
through the heat of the day, and Elijah said he was a bit
cynical with them. He said, perhaps your God is
sleeping. He's at rest. Because Baal didn't
appear. But God appeared. After Elijah
had filled all the trenches with water and put water all over
the offering. And then the fire of God appeared
and consumed all of it. He neither slumbers nor sleeps. God does not rest. He watches
over us constantly. He's a God who doesn't need to
rest. Of course we don't understand God. God is a spirit. And we
see that same truth expressed again in the verse 4. He that keepeth Israel. See the
word keep? God is a keeper. Not a keeper
like a zoo keeper, but when we were children, I was talking
yesterday about jobs that we wanted to do when we were young.
When I was at school, about ten, we were all going to be train
drivers, because the Golden Arrow used to come past the school
field. Or we were going to be bus drivers, and I had a friend
who was going to be a zoo keeper, because he liked animals. in
those days. But the Lord isn't just keeping,
isn't kind of watching over us with like a stick and herding
us. He's keeping us in the totality
of all that could mean, that we stay in the faith. He watches
over us. He cares for us. He wants us
to grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants us
to grow in the faith. He wants us to grow and to be
real people. He wants us to be really mature
people. He wants us to be people who
give something to the church. Give something to society. People
who are able to exercise gifts and bring forth fruit to the
glory of God. That's what we mean by keeping.
The Lord is watching over us for good. There are those who
might think that being a Christian is you go through a process and
then you're baptised, you become a church member, then you sit
in the pew and your job is to make sure you're in your pew
every Sunday, singing the hymns, putting something in the box
at the back. That's all you've got to do. If that's what you
think, you are totally wrong and totally misled. God wants
us to go on in the faith. He wants us to be something in
Christ. He wants us to grow. And it's
in our articles. Article 19, I think it is, or
20. It says when we are Christian
there's a real change in a person. We're not what we were. And it
says here we want to go on and grow in a knowledge of God. God does not slumber. There's
a sense in which, yes, we have to rest, but spiritually we should
not slumber either. We should be alert, awake, in
the glorious service of our God, because the Lord is our keeper. And I love that. It's not our
effort. Ultimately, it's God's going
to take us to heaven. If we think we're going to get
into glory like so many do, it's because we are faithful members
of the church. I remember I had a friend who
was a Roman Catholic, and I used to try and talk to him about
my faith and he got a bit exasperated with me and he said, it's all
very well, he said, I understand, it's your religion, it's all
personal. You've got to talk about it all the time. He said,
my religion, I'm a Catholic, is I trust the church and I leave
it to the church. My job is to be a faithful member
of the church and to support the church. That was his religion.
His religion was to go to Mass and like the church, because
in the Roman church they do it all for you. They have all their
sacraments and they basically dispense grace. They hand out
salvation but you've got to stay in the church. But it's not true.
It comes from God. Our salvation is in Christ. It's
by the Spirit. It's not any church. It's not
the work of any man. It's the work of God and God
will keep us. And we see here, the Lord is
thy shade upon thy right hand. We don't see it. If I said to
you, are you a believer? Can you see that shade that God
has put at your right hand? You wouldn't see anything. But
in a hot country, in a land with burning sun in the summer, if
you've been anywhere that's very hot, you'll know what I mean.
You're desperate for shade. to get out of the sun. The Lord
is thy shade. He says here, the sun shall not
smite thee by day. It's not just, it is the, as
it were, the heat of the sun is taken for the things of the
daytime. Those things of the day, the works of men that they
do in the day, the matters of life, they can come and they
could smite thee. So during the daytime there are
dangers that the Lord will watch over thee. Likewise, we read
here this strange expression, nor the moon by night. How can
the moon strike anybody? How can that be? And yet we know
at night often there are dangerous and grave things that happen.
When do people do burglaries and robberies? When is thieving
done? Many things. are done by night. What we read here is that in
the day and in the night the Lord does not slumber or sleep.
He will preserve us from all the matters of the day, all the
matters of life. I've quoted part of that verse
from Hebrews. I'll read that now. Hebrews chapter
7 and verse 25. It's a lovely verse. It's one
that should be a tremendous comfort to us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We read of him, Jesus, who is able to save them to the uttermost
that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession
for them. We have such a high priest, we're
told, who's standing for us, and we read he's higher than
the heavens. Christ is there interceding. Our keeping is because there
are the prayers of Christ upholding us. God's purpose and favour
is toward us in this wonderful doctrine. We see God's desire
in verse 7 to preserve thee from all evil. And I don't need to
tell you of evil. In our day there are so many
evils. There seem to be so many more
than when I was a younger man. Our society has become so foul,
vile, corrupt and these things are held up as good to us. And
we've got to believe in them or we won't. And they hate us.
Believe me, they hate us because we will not go along with the
agenda. All of us, every single one of us has to know where we
stand today. Are you for the things of God?
Are you going to go along with the world and all their foulness
and vileness that's portrayed and put through our statute books?
And for speaking such things in public, you know, you can
be arrested and be in all sorts of trouble. And it may be we
won't be able to say them in our churches soon, because they
may well move against churches, because we will not go along
with a corrupt agenda. We go along with that which God
has set before us. Then we will have to prove, in
a life of faith, the keeping of God, the preservation of God,
maybe through trial. that the Lord will keep us. He
will preserve our souls. These things are essentially
spiritual. Of course in the flesh we fell
no trials. You can go to some churches and
they have what is known as the Peace and Prosperity Gospel.
You may have heard or read some of this stuff. Come to God. I
worked with a chap who went to one of these meetings and he
was told, you come to God, God is like an extra resource, he
was told, and he'll help you sort all your problems out, you
know, you come to him and you'll be healthy, you'll be rich, and
all this, and you need to buy my book, my DVD, and you need
to send your standing order to my society every month, so you
keep up to date on all these glorious truths, and if you've
ever looked at the God channel on television, you know what
I'm saying is exactly what these people do. They want to control
you and manipulate you. But that's not the word of God.
I'm sorry, I can't hear say, come to Jesus and you'll never
be ill, you'll never have a trouble. That's not the case. Rather,
you will live the life of faith, but you will have the resources
that God gives you to cope with life as it is, the reality of
pain as we get older, the pains, the difficulties. Then that proves
the life of faith, that we can cope. And we shall know trials
and troubles, but God will keep them through us. I'm sure many
here have a testimony to that. They've been through some severe
trial, illness, cancer. God has kept them. God will keep
us. God is true to his word. We cannot
believe anything man tells us. Whatever that man is, they lie.
But we can believe God, what God tells us in Christ. That's
why the psalmist had that confidence. He proved it in his life. We
don't know who this is. It may have been David, he doesn't
tell us. But certainly David proved in his life he was kept,
kept from Saul, the Philistines, anything that was thrown at him,
he was kept by the power and the grace of God. This is the
word of God saying what is God's truth? but it is God's truth
as proven in human experience and therefore the experienced
believer can say with confidence the Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil this is the important thing, he shall preserve thy
soul our bodies will decay, they will get old, we will die we
know that there have been dear saints many perhaps working in
the cause of the gospel have given their lives for the truth
and you might say well they won't care They died young. We know of many wonderful people
in the ministry who died young. Why should that be? Or died on
the mission field. But they were kept as long as
God intended to keep them. God used them. They were prepared
to die for the cause of Christ. You will preserve thy soul. Your
soul will not be lost. That's what we read in Romans
8. That great intercession for us. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus. And what are we kept from? We
are kept from ourselves, and the evil, the old man, the evil
thoughts and desires, the lusts that lurk within us still. There
is a war, as Paul says in Romans 7, waiting within us. Who will
save us from this body of death? It's the love of God. In Christ
Jesus we are saved. And we certainly need to be saved
from man, and the plans of man, the machinations of man, the
will of man. And today, all the The arrogant lies that are pushed
upon us, the lifestyles that are set before us, and the way
people try to live these lifestyles, and all the terrible things people
do around us. It's like almost living in a
strange world. The world has changed so rapidly.
We need to be kept from it. We need to be kept from our doubts.
And we can all have doubts, but we need to know the word. We
need to be kept from unbelief, a terrible thing. And we need
to be kept from evil. We have to believe there is evil.
There is an evil one who wants to undermine the believer, who
wants to thwart the purposes of God. He will fail. But he
has powers. He can appear as an angel of
light. We have those now who worship
him. And now, if you are in the armed
forces, you can be a Satanist and you can have a Satanist chaplain.
in our armed forces, and we as a nation will fund that. This
is what our country has come to. We need to be kept from such
evil and spiritualism which is closely related to it. We need
to be kept by God. If we don't believe we need to
be kept, we need to have our eyes open. You need to be kept. You
might feel very confident, you might feel you understand what
you're doing or where you're going, you might feel you might
understand the problems you might face, but be very careful. We
do, every one of us, we need to be kept. We can only be kept
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord, we read again,
this preserving, this keeping, it's like going out and like
coming in. It's a lovely expression, isn't
it? Whatever we do, I think it's
the matters of life. Whatever it is that we're about,
God is with us. From this time, he says, fourth
and even furthermore now and furthermore there is no end to
the keeping and it hints doesn't it that evermore hints at that
eternal state that the the believer truly hopes for, not the vain
hopes of this world, but that true hope of faith, what we have
in our Lord Jesus Christ. So we love this doctrine. It's a doctrine not just to be
sort of filed as it were, oh yes, I now understand that bit,
I'll put that on my theology shelf. It's to be known, isn't
it? It's to be experienced. It's
to be lived. This is how we stand. We love
these doctrines because that's how we stand. And as Paul says
in Ephesians 6, in heaven down all we stand, because we need
that whole armour of God. So we thank God for this precious
truth. As the psalmist says, I will
lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. We thank God for his word of
truth. We're going to sing our last
praise now. It's hymn number 667. And it's Gatsby's great hymn,
Immortal Honours rest on Jesus' head. My God, my portion and
my living bread. In Him I live, upon Him cast
my care. He saves from death, destruction
and despair. And the second verse, He is my
refuge.