Good evening y'all join me again
in Psalm 116 Psalm 116 I love the Lord I because he hath heard my voice
and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his
ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. The sorrows of death come past
me, and the pains of hell get hold upon me. I found trouble
and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of
the Lord, O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is
the Lord, and righteous! Yea, our God is merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple.
I was brought low, and he helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my
soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. For thou
hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my
feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in
the land of the living. I read this psalm Thursday morning,
and of course we had gone over to see Mr. Bill on Tuesday, and
I knew Karen was over there, and they were all heavy on my
heart. Knowing that Mr. Bill's departure
was at hand, It seemed to give this psalm a certain power that
in times past it didn't speak to me like it did. And the verse
that really caught my attention was verse 9. I will walk before
the Lord in the land of the living. I read that and wanting to give
Karen a little encouragement, I sent her a text with that And
I said, Bill will certainly and surely soon be walking before
the Lord in the land of the living. And she replied, he's there. We say of our loved ones that
they died. At the cemetery yesterday, I
made note, looked again at the headstones. Almost every one
of them there had two dates on it, a date of birth and a date
of death. For the redeemed of the Lord,
though, the laying aside of this fleshly body for a while, our
Lord called sleep. When he spoke of Lazarus, he
said, our friend Lazarus sleepeth. And Paul, writing in 1 Corinthians
15, said, we shall not all sleep. Our friend, Karen's dad, these
girls' grandfather, we say by nature and by habit that on Thursday
morning, he died. He passed away. When he closed his eyes, he went
to sleep. And he woke, walking before the
Lord in the land of the living. Last time I visited with Bill,
there was a message he was telling everyone that would listen. He
said, I thought I had many months left before me. He said, we don't
know what tomorrow will bring. Our time on this earth is short.
David said in Psalm 39, Lord, make me to know mine end and
the measure of my days, not years, the measure of my days, what
it is that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made
my days as an handbreadth. The width of your hand, that's
all we are. And mine age is as nothing before
thee. Verily, every man at his best
state is altogether vanity. Nothing. Our time's so short, so fleeting,
In a very few days, it will be my turn, if the Lord lingers,
that I'll be laying on my bed saying, time's short. I hope when the day comes that
those who lay me in my final resting place will have some
confidence to say, he's walking with the Lord in the land of
the living. Because not everyone can have
this hope. We're all born sinners in this world. Sin is what we
are, and we prove it by what we do. Time is short. Do you have an interest? Do you
have an interest in seeing the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory? In the beauty of his holiness? Do you have an interest in when
that day comes, waking and walking with Him in the land of the living? May the Lord be pleased to give
us some encouragement and comfort from this psalm. Psalm 116, verse
1. I love the Lord. That is an amazing statement
for any child of Adam to be able to utter. It is a statement that
every part of creation should shout with great joy and great
confidence, for he's deserving of our love. We're also commanded
that we love the Lord. Deuteronomy 6, 5 says, Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy might. Do we? Do I? Do you? Have you? From every moment, waking, sleeping,
in joy, in sorrow, Do we love the Lord from conception until
this very moment? Or do you say with me, it's impossible? I can't do it. My heart doesn't
long after Him. I don't love Him as He rightfully
deserves to be loved. I can't fulfill the law. The
command says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. And I can't
do it. That means that I am a sinner. A rebellious soul that has lifted
my hand against the God of heaven and declared, I'll not submit
to your command. That is what I am by nature. by breaking this one command,
much less the multitude of others that I do daily. I stand condemned
before him. But there is a man, that is to
say, but God, who walked in this world through the valley of the
shadow of death And he loved the Lord with all his heart and
with all his soul and with all his might. And he did so not
for himself, but for a remnant of unworthy, rebellious sinners
who he set his love on and he gave himself for. Because he
loved us, Now we can say, I love the Lord. I love the Lord because he hath
heard my voice and my supplications, because he hath inclined his
ear unto me. Therefore will I call upon him
as long as I live. We've heard it said that the
scriptures are bifocaled. Sometimes you read a verse and
it's addressing two different time periods. Sometimes it might
be addressing our present state on this earth and a future state. But most often, particularly
in the Psalms, they're bifocaled in that they address the writer
of the Psalms current thoughts, current conditions as he was
writing this, and also reflecting the very words of our Lord Jesus
Christ as he walked in the flesh. I'm so thankful that we have
a Lord and a God who can hear the groanings of our voice and
our supplications. Our God is kindhearted to his
children so that he inclines his ear to us. But we also know
that He does so only because of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
sends His Spirit to make intercession for us with groanings which cannot
be uttered. Because He loved us, we can say,
I love the Lord. Because he is even at the right
hand of God and was heard, for he said to the Father, I knew
that thou hearest me always. Then we can say, the Lord has
heard my voice and my supplications and has inclined his ear unto
me. Verse three. The sorrows of death
come past me, and the pains of hell get hold upon me. I found
trouble and sorrow. Our Lord Jesus Christ, our life,
was pleased to take upon him the likeness of sinful flesh. He came as a man. He came from
the eternal glory and everlasting life with the Father to dwell
in the midst of us who are born dead in trespasses and sin. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He walked as a man
among us, doing good, fulfilling the law on our behalf. And what
did we do? We hid, as it were, our faces
from him. He was despised, and we esteemed
him not. What did we do? We, by wicked
hands, crucified the Lord of glory. As He hung on that cross
bearing the sin of His elect people, the pains of hell got
hold upon me. As the Father justly punished
the Son for the sin He bore in our stead, He came to His own
and found trouble and sorrow. Verse 4 says, Then called I upon
the name of the Lord, O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul."
Luke 23, 46 records that when He, our Lord, had cried with
a loud voice, He said, Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit. In every aspect of His life,
Jesus Christ fulfilled all that was written of Him. As I contemplated verse three
in the light of my Lord, what he left, what he did, and what
he suffered, can I enter into that verse? What do I know of sorrow? Have I ever experienced anything
close to truly knowing death compassing me? the pains of hell? When God sends his spirit to
a lost sinner, we are convinced of sin, of what we are. And we are convinced that we
deserve nothing but the eternal justice and damnation of God,
death. But thank God, he preserves us
to not show us more. As Christ hung upon the cross,
there was darkness over all the earth. We could not bear to see what
our sin actually deserves. And he in grace and mercy and
love blinds us. Trouble and sorrow I have found. It's not bad enough that it comes
to me. I go searching it out. I look
for it. I found it. I am born to it. It's all that I inherited from
my father's father all the way back to Adam himself. My sin
continues to find trouble and sorrow for me. Thankful is not the word for
it, but I need it. When trouble and sorrow is
not about, I become so complacent, so cold, so indifferent to the
words of Christ. But when trouble comes, I'm like
Israel of old. While I'm complacent, I'm content
to live in Egypt, even as a slave. I was provided everything I needed
to build my little bricks and perform what duties I needed
to do. And even when trouble comes,
even when the straw is taken away and I know those bricks
aren't going to hold together, I'm slow, I'm full of unbelief,
and I continue to try to make my bricks hold together. And then at last, the Lord in
mercy shows me, you've got nothing. You can do
nothing. You're empty. It's all vain.
And he brings me to an end of myself and those troubles which
plague me, turn me and cause me to cry unto the only one who
is able and the only one who is willing to help in the day
of trouble. In that day of trouble, when
we do cry unto the Lord, why on earth? Do we have any hope
that he will hear us, that he will incline his ear to us? Because of who he is. Verse five. Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Yea, our God is merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple. I was brought low, and he helped
me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul,
for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee." Who is the Lord our
God? What is His nature? Verse 5 declares,
He is gracious, He is righteous, He is merciful. Verse six, the
Lord preserveth the simple or the foolish. All of us, we like
to have some applause. We like to be thought of as knowing
something. But when we come and we see Christ
in his glory and in his true nature, and we're brought to
know that he is the wisdom of God, we must take our place as
foolish and low. Considering his nature, considering
the love which brought him down to man and the price that he
paid, what does he command of us? What payment do we owe him? What can we render to Him for
all that He has done to us? Verse 7, return unto thy rest,
O my soul. Return, you have left thy first
love, for a short time Man had walked and communed with God,
having a righteousness of his own. But we forsook the law of
God and, in rebellion, left the rest that we had to work out
our own righteousness. We made a covering of fig leaves,
and we thought that that would bring us in good stead with the
Lord our God. Isn't that our nature still today? We will toil and we will labor
to bring before God that which just decays. But in Christ, the labor is done. The work is finished. And our
payment for his finished work Return unto thy rest, O my soul,
for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. Have you ever found rest in this
world or from the things of this world? Whether we call a friend
or a family member or we happen across a stranger, How long does that conversation
last in rest and in peaceful conversation? How quickly that
conversation turns to things that are threatening us. Turn on the TV, and whether it's
a child's cartoon or a news broadcast, is there any rest to be found? The hymn writer summed it up
with change and decay in all around I see. Would you like some news to comfort
your heart? Would you like some words of
encouragement? May the Lord cause these to stay
in our heart. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, And I will give you rest." Think upon the absolute sovereignty
of our surety. There are men and women today
scared to death, afraid to leave their homes. In all things, our Lord is sovereign. He says, a thousand shall fall
at thy side and 10,000 at thy right hand, but it shall not
come nigh thee. And the more this world throws
us and causes us turmoil, may we find grace to cry out unto
him, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. Return unto thy rest, O my soul,
for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. In what way, specifically,
has the Lord dealt bountifully with his people? Verse 8. For thou hast delivered my soul
from death, mine eyes from tears and my feet from falling. Upon
the cross, Lord Jesus Christ took our sin, our sorrow, our
death, and he claimed it as his own. The blood that should have poured
out there was mine. The life that should have been
taken their mine. That life was owed for the wages
of sin that are mine. And he took them. He took my
sin. He took our debt. He made them his own. And he
shed his precious blood to deliver us from death. The tears of sorrow
that we cry over our sin, over our doubts, our unbelief, He
dries them, because He paid the debt owed, and He arose victoriously
from the grave. Romans 8.34 records, It is Christ
that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at
the right hand of God. who also maketh intercession
for us. Our feet so prone to wander,
he has set upon the sure foundation. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be moved. What great things God has done
for his people. Verse 9, I will walk before the Lord in
the land of the living. In the Garden of Eden, for his
glory and for the good of his elect, the Lord Jesus Christ
allowed Adam to fall in sin, and he died. Romans 5, 12, wherefore, as by
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. This
world that we are living in now is not the land of the living,
for death passed upon all men. Verse 9 speaks of Christ walking
before the Lord in the land of the living, not the world where
he was compassed about with sorrow and death. In Luke 20, 37, our Lord said,
now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush. When he calleth the Lord the
God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
for he is not a God of the dead, but of the living, for all live
unto him." Our Lord, because of His love
for the Father and for His Bride, For the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at
the right hand of the throne of God. Part of that joy that was set
before him is I walk before the Lord in the land of the living. Those that He has redeemed from
the bondage of sin and called from death unto everlasting life,
He walks with them. Our God has dealt bountifully
with us. He has redeemed us. He has justified
us. He has sanctified us. He has
preserved us. And as we heard this morning,
he has promised to be with us always. And he made another promise. He has promised that we will
be with him in the land of the living. I will walk before the Lord in
the land of the living. What is the land of the living? In short, the land of the living
is Christ. Paul said, when Christ, who is
our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear in glory. Turn over to Revelation 21. Revelation 21, verse 1. And I saw a new heaven and a
new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed
away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city,
new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as
a bride adored for her husband. There's a beauty there that I
can't describe. I remember when I got married,
The first time the doors opened and I saw my bride, she was beautifully adored. And that doesn't compare to New
Jerusalem. And I heard a great voice out
of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,
and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people,
and God himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow,
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former
things are passed away." The land of the living. In the land of the living, all
cry, I love the Lord. For thou wast slain and hast
redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred and tongue
and people and nation. And my prayer for you and for
me is that while we're in this world, the Lord will cause us
to cry out, I love the Lord.