Turn back with me if you would
to Psalm 123. Last Wednesday evening we looked
at Psalm 122. It says, I was glad when they
said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. That psalm
blessed me so much. So much. I enjoyed that so much. So when I got to the study Monday
morning, I thought, well, let's go to the next one. Psalm 123. And the Lord blessed this psalm
to me also. Let's read these first four verses
again. Unto thee, Lift I up mine eyes,
O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants
look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto
the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our
God until that he have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us,
O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we are exceedingly filled with
contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled
with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the contempt
of the proud. Now under the psalm title, it
says a song of degrees. You see that? a song of degrees,
meaning it goes from one step to another step, and then from
that step to the next step, a song of degrees. Usually when you
think of degrees, you think of them going higher and higher
and higher, right? But verse 1 starts out with us
lifting up our eyes to the One who dwells in the heavens. And then verse 2 is asking His
condescension to come down here and have mercy on us. And then verse 3 acknowledges
that we are filled with contempt, shame. And verse 4 says our souls
are exceedingly filled with scorning and contempt. The degrees of
a man that God goes to work on. There is nothing more enjoyable
to see. There's nothing more precious. There's no greater blessing that
we could experience ourselves or to see in somebody else than
when God goes to work on the heart of a man or a woman. And
you can see it. You can tell it. It's obvious
to everybody but him at first. And when God goes to work on
him, God sends him through these degrees and those degrees progressively
get lower and lower. Isn't that right? The longer
a man goes, the longer a man or a woman is worked on by our
Lord, the lower and lower his degree becomes. Look at a man
who knows absolutely nothing of the true and living God. Proud. Look at a man that God has sent
through some degrees. Humble, right? Our Lord said,
among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater
than John the Baptist. God said, John the Baptist is
the greatest earthly mortal man that has ever walked this earth.
And John the Baptist said, he must increase, I must decrease. Isn't that right? Now that ought
to give us some insight to the first phrase here in verse 1.
Unto thee lift I up mine eyes. When we lift our eyes toward
heaven, do you know what we see? If we're in this room, we see
the ceiling. If we're outside, you see the
sky, you see the clouds, you see the birds. If you have a
telescope, you see a dark outer space, you see the moon, you
see stars, you see planets. Mankind is looking for God with
these eyes, and he'll never find him. If that's all we ever do,
if that's the only way we ever look, we will never see our God. Never. Man is looking out there
trying to find God, trying to find the answers to God, and
he's never going to find Him that way. Never. How does a sinner
lift up his eyes to God Almighty? Verse 1 says, Unto thee lift
I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Look with me
over at 1 John chapter 1. 1 John chapter 1, just before Revelation. 1 John 1 verse 1 says, That which
was from the beginning, this is talking about our Lord, that
which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we
have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon." John said,
we have seen him with our eyes. The apostles, all of those men
and women who were on the earth when he was here, they saw him
with their eyes. But they said, that's not all
we did. He said, we looked upon him. We looked upon Him. There's a big difference. You
know that? There's a huge difference. How
many people saw Jesus Christ and never looked upon Him? Never. They said, we've seen Him, but
more importantly than that, we've looked upon Him. Not every believing
child of God, you know, the Lord has His elect and at some point
in His purpose, He calls them out and He gives them sight,
faith. Not every believing child of
God has seen the Lord Jesus Christ. But every single believing child
of God has looked upon Him. Every single one has looked upon
Him. We look upon Him with the eyes
of this heart. The eyes of this heart. How does
a heart that God has sent through some degrees truly look to Him? Our Lord said it's not through
a proud look. Not at all. Not through a proud
look. See if you can find the book of Ezra. It's in the Old
Testament, it's after 1 and 2 Chronicles, just before Job and the Psalms,
page 662 if your Bible is like mine. Ezra chapter 9. Ezra chapter 9 verse 5 says, And at the evening sacrifice
I arose up from my heaviness, and having rent my garment and
my mantle, I fell upon my knees and spread out my hands unto
the Lord my God. This sounds like a man that God
has put through some degrees. Verse 6, And said, O my God,
I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee. I'm too ashamed
to lift my face up to thee, my God. For our iniquities are increased
over our head and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.
Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass
unto this day. We can say the same thing, can't
we? Since the days of our fathers it's been nothing but sin. And
for our iniquities have we, our kings, our priests, been delivered
into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity,
to a spoil, and to confusion of face as it is this day. And
now for a little space, grace hath been showed from the Lord
our God to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail
in His holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes and give
us a little reviving in our bondage. For we were bondmen, yet our
God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy
unto us, in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a
reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the
desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem."
Ezra lifted up his eyes unto God, but he never left off looking to the ground.
His face never left looking to the ground. That publican in
Luke 18, he has the same story, doesn't he? That publican would
not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his
heart. Smote upon his breast. Crying,
God be merciful to me, a sinner. That is lifting up true God-given
spiritual eyes to the God of our salvation. That is truly
looking to Him. Now go with me back to our text
in Psalm 123. Verse 1 says, Unto thee, Lift I up mine eyes, O thou that
dwellest in the heavens. I thought about that for just
a minute. The heavens. He dwells in the
heavens. The heaven of heavens. The scripture
calls it the third heaven. Wherever that is. The new earth. You think about that. The new
earth. The place where God's glorified,
truly glorified saints are right now. Right now. The place where no sin is. No
sin. The place that has no need of
the sun for the glory of the Lamb is the light of it. No sadness,
no darkness. The place that has a throne in
the middle of it. Seraphims right there cry continually,
holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. The place where
we are physically going to be able to walk up to that throne,
and we're going to be joyfully received, and we're going to
be given every single thing that we could possibly have need of.
I was just thinking while we were singing that song, turn
your eyes upon the Lord Jesus Christ, look full in His wonderful
face. I was thinking while we were
singing that, I wonder what His face looks like. I don't really
want to put a picture there. That's almost a graven image
to me. I'll see it when He shows it to me. But how glorious. How glorious. The place where He will be with
us. He'll be with us. We will be
with Him. He will be our God. We will be
His people forever. forever. Verse 1 says, Unto thee
lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold,
as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters,
And as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so
our eyes wait upon the Lord our God." Our eyes wait upon Him. Servants do wait upon their masters. They do serve their masters,
but that means so much more than that. Servants look to their master's
hand for everything they need. every single thing they need,
not only for direction, not only for guidance, leadership. They
look to their master's hand to provide every single thing they
need. Their master provides them their
food, he provides them their clothes, he provides them the
house of shelter that they live in, a bed, protection, everything,
everything. They do serve their master's
needs, but they are completely dependent on him. totally dependent
on him for all their livelihood. David said that's how our eyes
wait upon the Lord our God. We have a cat named Gracie. Every single morning, whoever
gets up first, Hannah or I, whoever goes into the kitchen first,
every single morning, not only does she see us, she looks upon
us intently. Every move, she leans into it. It's so funny to me. She is so
interested in what we're doing. She physically looks at my hands. She looks at my head and my hands.
And what she's wanting to see is my hands grab her food and
set it down in front of her. David said, that's how God's
servants look to His hand intently. Every move completely dependent
on Him for exactly what I need. And David said, that's how we
look to His hand. The end of verse 2 says, until
that He have mercy upon us. God's saints, His willing servants. We are His servants, aren't we? We're willing servants. We're
His servants. He calls us His children. He calls us the bride of His
Son. But we are willing and happy
servants. But God's servants cannot and will not stop looking
to Him. We will not stop looking to His
hand and begging from Him until He has mercy on us. Isn't that
right? Until He shows mercy to us. I
know that we all love the account of Jacob. The Lord wrestled with
him, and if the Lord has never wrestled with a person, they
will have no idea what that means. No idea. But if the Lord ever
troubles a person, if he ever breaks a person, if he ever truly
forces that person to bow to him in submission, they'll know
exactly what it means that the Lord wrestled with Jacob. But
he wrestled with him, and this is what Jacob said, and this
is what every sinner that God wrestles with will say. Jacob
said, I will not let you go. Now Jacob knew, and we know, that we cannot let God do anything. If God wants to go, He will go. Isn't that right? What Jacob
was saying, and this is what we can all say, he said, since
you are being so kind to stay, since you in mercy have not left
me, I can't let go. I just cannot
let go. As long as you're willing to
stay, I can't let go. Verse 3, he said, have mercy
upon us. Oh Lord, have mercy upon us. For we are exceedingly filled
with contempt. The word contempt means disrespect
and it means shame. Lord, we are your servants, but
we know, we acknowledge to you that we are nothing but unprofitable
servants. That's all we are, unprofitable
servants. In our flesh, we're filled with
so much disrespect and so much shame. Have mercy on us, Lord,
have mercy on us. If we unprofitable, shameful,
wicked servants, If we look to the hands of our master, David
said, we look unto you as a servant looks to his master's hand. That's
how we're looking to you. If we look to the hand of our
master, do you know what we'll see? Nail prints. Nail prints. If we look to his
hands, as the eyes of servants look to the hands of their masters,
when we look to the hands of our Lord, that's exactly what
we see. Nail prints. There is a dear, old preacher
of the gospel. I knew him as a young child.
I didn't know him when I was older, but his name was Ed Hale. I really loved him and respected
him. He lived in Louisiana, and my
family's from Louisiana, and our families were close. He was
close with my grandparents, and he was a guitar player, and I
was fascinated with the guitar, and he showed me some things. But anyway, he was a songwriter. He wrote one of the songs we
sang Sunday morning, Oh How Merciful. Oh How Merciful. And you can tell what kind of man
he was and you can tell what his message was by the songs
he wrote. Oh, how merciful. But one of the other songs that
he wrote says this, I'll be looking for those scars up in heaven.
Scars that love held on the tree. Scars that turned judgment to
mercy for a hell-deserving sinner like me. God's people are the most honest
people on this earth. Who else will stand up in front
of God and man and say, I am nothing but a hell-deserving
sinner. Have mercy on me. Have mercy
on me. David said in verse 4, Our soul
is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at
ease and with the contempt of the proud. He's saying that they're
scorning me. I'm persecuted for the truth's
sake, but he's also saying I'm no better than they are. Our
souls are filled with the scorning of those that are at ease. Our
souls are filled with the contempt of the proud. And our only hope
is God's mercy. That's it, God's mercy. Our only
hope is those scars that we're looking to in the hands of our
Lord. We have not physically seen those
yet, but we're looking to them, aren't we? We're looking to them. With every ounce of visual faith
He gives us, we're looking to them. We're looking. Now we're
going to end on this note. This is a song. The Psalms are
a collection of 150 songs. Most songs are written with a
chorus. You know that? A chorus is a
part of the song that hammers the message of the song. It keeps
ringing it over and over and over. You keep coming back to
that chorus, right? I can see verse 1 being our chorus. We're going to end this the way
a song ends, okay? Unto thee lift I up mine eyes,
O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants
look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto
the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our
God until that he have mercy upon us. Unto thee lift I up
mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Have mercy upon
us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we are exceedingly filled
with contempt. Unto Thee lift I up mine eyes,
O Thou that dwellest in the heavens. Our soul is exceedingly filled
with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the contempt
of the proud. Unto Thee Lift I up mine eyes,
O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Our Lord said, Look unto me,
and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth, for
I am God, and there is none else. Look unto me, he said. Look unto
me. Lord, with your faith, by the
faith you've given us, through that faith, we look to you. We
look to you. You're our only hope. Completely
looking to you. Unto thee. Lift I up mine eyes,
O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Stand together with me, let's
turn to 359.