Psalm 119. I titled this message, God is our
safe place. He's our safe place. There are parents who provide
and teach their children where to go in trouble. They provide
them a safe place and teach them when you're in trouble, go to
this safe place and I'll know where you're at if you're in
trouble. God's children have a safe place
to go to in time of trouble. He has provided a safe place
and God himself is that safe place God is our safe place God
it says in psalm 46 1 God is our refuge in time of trouble
God's our refuge in time of trouble and those who know him know him
to be a safe place there's no safer place to be than in God. We could not be safer even though
we live in a world that hates God and hates his children. It's like Christ said, if they
hated me, they will hate you. So we should not be offending
when no one wants our company. We should actually be thinking,
why do they want my company if they do? Now he says here in Psalm 119
verse 113, we looked at this last week, so I'm not going to
say much about it. I hate vain thoughts. Or I hate the thoughts
of vain men, or I hate double-minded men. That's one of the translations. I hate the double-minded. But thou all do I love. we hate
vain thoughts our lord hated the vain thoughts of men and
we hate vain thoughts especially in ourselves i hate my thoughts
at times i do i hate my thoughts thoughts come into your mind
you think you know that's not of god you know the thoughts
that come in you know they're not of god and you hate them
if if you could you never have another bad thought would you
you never have an an ugly thought vain thought empty useless thought
one of these days we'll have the mind of christ that's what
the scripture says we'll have the mind of christ and we'll
never have a vain thought our lord never had one and one of
these days we'll never have another one they'll be gone over with
And God says here, I hate vain thoughts. And we know that. And
as I pointed out last week, there are things that God hates. And
vain thoughts is one of them. One of them. But he says in verse 114, here's
a declaration of faith. Thou. Thou. Are my hiding place and my shield. I hope in thy word thou art my
hiding place. Thou art my hiding place from
danger. We live in a dangerous world,
don't we? We do. But God's our hiding place from
danger. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ
as a man found God to be his hiding place at all times. And so do his people. scripture says in colossians
3 3 for ye are dead and your life is hid with christ in god
our real life is hid and where is it hid in god our hiding place
and the lord jesus christ himself is our hiding place It is written
in Isaiah 32 too, and a man shall be as a hiding place from the
wind and a covert from the tempest. The man, Christ Jesus, the God
man, is our hiding place. He's our hiding place. And Christ
is our hiding place from vain thoughts. I have learned when
my thoughts our vain thoughts, to go to the Lord and ask the
Lord to help me to think right. I've learned that. Lord, help
me to give me good thoughts of you. Help me to think upon you. Help me to think upon your word.
Help me to think upon your promises. Because you and I are going to
think of something. Have you ever tried just not to think
of anything? That's an impossibility. Just try not to think of anything.
Go blank. You can't do it. You have a constant, there's
a constant flow of thoughts. And we go to the Lord and we
ask Him to help us to think upon Him. To set our mind, set your
mind on things above. Where Christ sits, at God's right
hand. That's what I want to think of
as much as possible in this life. It's good to fly to God in such
times when our minds assail us. Let's flee to the Lord Jesus
Christ and ask Him for help. But he's my hiding place, and
listen, he's my shield. You see, a hiding place is a
place that's solid, it's safe, it's strong, it's durable, it
can withstand all attacks. But you know what? After a while,
you and I have to leave this place and go out into the world.
So not only is he our hiding place, he's our shield. He's
our shield. He's our shield in battle. We've
got to do battle. We wrestle not against flesh
and blood. Boy, I tell you what, when it dawns on us that we are
not wrestling against them, it's not them and us, you know, it's
not my neighbor. It's spiritual weakness in high
places. Our battle is spiritual battle. You can't see the foe. You can't
see the devil. You can't see these things. These
things we wrestle against. It's the spirit of darkness.
You can't see that. It's very real. You know, a spirit
is just as real as I am standing here in the flesh. It's just
as real. That's what we wrestle against.
That's what we fight against. Constantly. And we need this
shield over in Ephesians 6, I believe it is. It says, put on the whole
armor of God. You're in a battle. You are in
a warfare. That's why we are to put on the
whole armor of God. And it describes the armor. And it's a spiritual
description of faith and hope and these things. It's spiritual
armor. It's not fleshly armor. The flesh
is not going to arm you for this battle. No amount of education,
no amount of secular education is going to arm you for this
battle. The only one who can arm us is God. He's the only
one who can arm us for this battle. And listen, He's my shield, in
other words, surrounded by God. Shielded by God. Every believer
has an invisible shield around them. And that shield is God. Satan said concerning Job, you
put a hedge about him. I can't touch him. I can't touch
anything that he has. You have put a hedge about him.
There is a hedge about you. I'm telling you the truth. There's
a hedge about every one of God's children. You are hedged about
by angels. You're hedged about by God Himself.
The Spirit of Christ is in you. He's my hiding place, my safe
place, and He's my shield. And I hope in thy word, a good
hope, a good hope must have a foundation. If you have a real hope of eternal
life, you have a hope of forgiveness, a hope of pardon, there's got
to be a foundation for that hope. And we have a good hope and this
hope starts with God's Word. This is where we learned of God.
I didn't learn of God in elementary. I didn't learn of God in high
school. I didn't learn of God anywhere
but in His Word. Here's what I've learned of God.
And I heard God's preacher preaching from God's Word. He didn't stand
up and preach Calvinism to me. He stood and preached from God's
Word. Now, it's not a slam on Calvinism. I don't care to be
called a Calvinist. But it's the Word. It's the Word
that was preached to me. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the Word of God. By His Word. And a good hope
has this foundation, and it has God's Word for a foundation.
And this good hope is through grace, as it says in 2 Thessalonians
2, 16. And this good hope is Christ.
As Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1, verse 1, Christ our hope. My hope is seated at God's right
hand. My hope is not that I accepted
Christ as my personal Savior. My hope is not in repentance. My hope is not in that I believe.
My hope is in Jesus Christ Himself. That's where my hope is. My hope
is seated at God's right hand. I cannot have a better or more
sure hope than that. God Himself in the flesh incarnate. Now as this applies to our Lord,
now listen, Christ as a man, he hoped in the promises of God
the Father. He knew he'd not break his promise. See this is one of the strong
points of God's Word bringing our hope. God cannot lie. God
has exalted His Word above His name. He's only as good as His
Word. Christ rested on this, Thou wilt
not leave my soul in hell, neither shall I see corruption. Written
in the Psalms. He knew that applied to him.
And you know what? He won't leave our soul in hell
either. And neither will we see corruption. You see, this corruptible
must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
I'm not going to see corruption because the Lord Jesus Christ
did not see corruption. My substitute, my federal head,
my representative, my all in all didn't see corruption and
I'm not going to see it. I'm not going to taste it. I'm
not going to experience it. Then believers hope in Christ
the word. We hope in God's word. We hope
in his written word, but we hope in Christ the living word of
whom the written word is all about. it's a hymn book it's
all about him 2nd Corinthians 120 for all the
promises of God in him are yay and in him amen unto the glory
of God by us but all the promises of God in Christ are amen I like
the way that's written it doesn't say in all the promises of God
written in his word our amen they are but that's not self-written
All the promises of God in him. It's personal. It's in him. And then listen. It's evident. It's evident, you know, he says
here, I love your word. You're my safe place, you're
my hiding place, you're my shield. I hope in your word. And it's
evident who we love by the company we keep. You know that? It's evident who we love by the
company we keep. In verse 115, depart from me,
ye evildoers. Depart. Leave. Leave. That's what he's saying. Leave.
For I'll keep the commandments of my God. Now, he's not saying
that we are unfriendly. Someone gave this example. A
ship is in the sea, but the sea is not in the ship, or else it
will sink. We are in the world, but we are
not of the world. The world is not my companion.
It's not my company. I don't seek its friendship,
though we are friendly to those who we meet, courteous. but they're
not my friends. You are my friends. What the
Lord say, you are my friends. If you do what I say, you're
my friends. He said, who are my mother, sisters,
brothers? Who are they? They that do the
will of God. They that do the will of God.
Our Lord did not walk with evil doers. You know, some, some one,
one applies to the Lord Jesus Christ. First, first, then it
applies to the believer. Blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. No, depart from me, depart from
me, ye evildoers. There's going to come a time when men and women are going
to die. And they're going to stand before Jesus Christ, the
judge of the quick and the dead. And many of them, he's going
to say, you know what he's going to say? Depart from me. I never knew you. And they're
going to say, Lord, we preached in your name. We cast out devils
in your name. We've done many mighty works
in your name. See, that's their hope. he speaks here shortly about
not being ashamed of his hope they ended up ashamed because
their hope was in what they did what they did for him we were
we you know we we've done all these mighty things and the Lord
Jesus Christ says to those evildoers You know, people think of evildoers,
they're thinking of streetwalkers and drug addicts and alcoholics
and liars. No, it's those who lie on God. And I'll tell you something else. I'll give you another evidence
of an evildoer. One that does not believe God. You believe in somebody. You
believe in someone. If you don't believe God, you
believe in Satan. You believe in the spirit of darkness. That's
what you're going after. You're not your own. Depart from
me. I never knew you. We cannot walk
with God and the world. I think this is why so many will
not, they don't come to, they sit on the gospel, but they don't
come to Christ. They hear it and hear it and
hear it, but they don't come to Christ. And I've thought about
this. I've thought about this. I think
one of the reasons, there's a choice sin that they love more than
Christ. Another reason is, it's the friendship of the world.
They know, they know that they're going to have separate companies.
They know that. And they count the friendship
of the world more important than Jesus Christ. When the Lord Jesus
Christ becomes more important to you and to anyone whom God
saved, when He becomes more important than anyone else, that's when
they'll come. That's when they'll come. Until
then, they won't do it. But we cannot walk with God in
the world, and here's why. 1 Corinthians 15, 33, Be not
deceived, evil communications corrupt good manners. It does. How do I know that? The Word
of God just said so. That's how I know it. And I know
it by experience. And here's another reason. Sin
is infectious. You can't be around the wrong
crowd and not fall in with them sooner or later. You can't do
it. You can't do it. It's infectious. To hate vain thoughts and yet
keep company with evildoers is hypocritical in the highest degree. To say I hate vain thoughts and
then run with the vain? And I thought about this. I thought
our thoughts can be evildoers. Get out of here. Get out of here,
you vain thoughts. For I'll keep the commandments
of my God. Spurgeon wrote this. We cannot run with the hares
and the hounds at the same time. We cannot run with the hares
and the hounds at the same time. If one is going to keep the commandments
of God, you can't be in the wrong company.
You can't run with the wrong company. There's nothing that
destroys our witness or betters our witness than the company
we keep. You know that? It's so. Let's not keep company with vain
thoughts or vain men. James said in James 4.4, the
friendship of the world is enmity with God. One of the commandments is this,
in 2 Corinthians 6.14, Be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness? And after saying that, in this
verse, after saying that, he asked for help. He asked for help. He said, get
away from me, you evil doers. You're not my company. I will
keep the Lord's commandments. And then he turns around and
says, Lord, help me. Help me to do it. Help me to keep your
commandments. Help me to follow you. He says
here, uphold me. That word has the meaning. Prop
me up. Prop me up. Hold me up. You've
seen this, everybody's seen this. You have a baby, it's starting
to grow up, and it's just starting to walk, just starting to walk.
And you put your fingers out like this, and you're walking
with them just like this. Hold me up. That's the idea. I'm just, I'm so weak and frail. If you don't hold me up, I'm
going to fall right over and hit my head on the coffee table.
How many times have you seen that happen? Hold me up. According unto thy
word now. You see how, you see, this is
powerful prayer. When you take the word of God
to the throne of grace, When we take his word to him, I assure
you he'll spurge us in. It's like his promises of God,
like taking a check to the bank and getting it cashed. Our Lord prayed for this. As
a man, he looked to his heavenly father to uphold him, to hold
him up. He didn't rely on his own strength.
He relied on his father. As a man, he did. To sustain
him in the conflict. and to do so according to His
promise. And if He did that, how much
more ought we to do it? If He who knew no sin prayed,
uphold me, help me, bear me up, how much more ought we, who are
sinful and weak, how much more ought we to do it? We have many
promises given to us in the Word of God, and we should hope in
them as being from God, and we should take them to the Lord
in prayer. You know, this is a good reason
to study the Word of God, because you can't take what you don't
know, what you can't remember. How can you take the Word of
God to Him if you don't know it? You can't remember it. Someone said this, God's word
is the nail upon which we hang our hope. I thought that was
good. It's the nail upon which we hang
our hope. Lord, you said, you said. Fear thou not Isaiah 41, 10,
fear thou not for I am with thee, be not dismayed for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee. I'll prop you up. with the right hand of my righteousness.
We are holding on to his righteousness. And here's the reason why he
says, hold me up according to your word that I may live. You
know, our Lord knew how important it was for him to live. Is it really important that I
live? Really? If I die, it's not going to affect
you all. I mean, it may have a little effect, you have to
call another pastor. It'll have that effect, you know,
you may, you may, you might be a little sad, but it's not gonna,
there's no real effect on, there's no real effect. Christ said,
because I live, you shall live also. Because I live, you shall
live also. You see, if I can live or die,
it's not going to affect your life. It has no effect on your
life. But if Jesus Christ doesn't live, you're not going to live
either. You're not going to live either. For him to live is his and our
success and God's glory. What is it for us to live? He
says here, uphold me and we pray the same thing. According to
your word that I may live. What's the reason for me to live?
I see this now more than I've ever seen it in my life. The
reason for me to live is for God's glory. That's it. That's it. We live for God's glory. There's
no other reason for me to live other than for God's glory. We do not live unto ourselves
and we do not die unto ourselves. We live unto the Lord and it
says we die unto the Lord. Paul said this, for me to live
is Christ. It's not for me to make money.
It's not for me to have better this, better that, bigger this,
bigger that. It is not that. That's not for me to live. For me to live is Christ. To
die is gain. Do we really count dying as gain? It is. It is. And let me not be ashamed of
my hope, my hope of deliverance, my hope of salvation. As I said,
many are going to hear him say, depart from me. I never knew
you. They are ashamed of their hope. But he said, let me not
be ashamed of my hope. Let my hope in thy word. Now, listen, let my hope in thy
word be justified. I hope in your word, you said
you deliver me. You said you'd not leave my soul
in hell. You see how he takes the word
of God to God? Our Lord knew he would not be
ashamed of his hope of deliverance. He knew he would not see corruption.
He knew he'd be raised from the dead. He knew he'd be victorious. But he prays here, let me not
be ashamed of my hope. And we pray that too. And here is, this is one of the
things that I believe goes with this for me. Let me not be ashamed
of my hope. I pray, I pray all the time,
daily. Lord, I pray that my hope, my
faith, my repentance is genuine. It's real. It's not hypocritical. It's not all on the surface. I pray that all the time. Let me not be ashamed of my hope.
I pray that my hope, my faith, my confidence in you is of you. It's real. It's real. here's why he's saying here it's
a hope that is justified by its final reality it's a hope that
is justified by its final reality that's why you say it and then
again Christ prays to be held up all along the way see he says
uphold me that means prop that has to do with prop this this
this other word uh has to do with it has to do with uh establish
hold down me up you see the first time he says uphold me with your
word this right uphold me with your word and now he's saying
you personally god hold me up you hold me up establish me there is no time that we can
go go this alone or in the strength of the flesh at no time at any
time any time if for a split second the lord did not hold
me up or hold you up we will fall we will fall if the shepherd
doesn't hold us up a good shepherd And if God's holding us up, what
does He say? I'll be safe. Wouldn't you like
that? Hold thou me up, and I shall
be safe. If God's holding me up, if God
be for me, who can be against me? If God be for me. Safe. Safe from falling away. Safe from deception. safe in
the shepherd's foal, safe in the arms of omnipotent power,
safe while the ages roll, safe. And listen here, he says in verse
118, here's his confidence. The battle is the Lord's. Thou
hast trodden down all them that err from thy statutes. One of my prayers, Lord, don't
let me err. Don't let me hear from thy statutes,
your word, your truth. Because you and I will do it
if he lets us. Their deceit is falsehood. Our
enemies, our enemies have been defeated. Thou hast trodden down,
that's past tense. Thou hast trodden down all our
enemies. Our champion has slain Goliath.
He has slain the Goliath of our sins. He's slain them. In Christ
we have the victory over death, hell, and the grave, over Satan,
over this world, we have the victory, we have it. Those who
take God at his word will enjoy this victory. They will enjoy
it. But those who take the word of
God and twist it are trodden down by their own falsehood. They are tripped up by their
own falsehood. They are the ones who dig the ditch and end up
falling in it. And listen here in verse 119,
I'm going to wind this down. Thou puttest away all the wicked. You see, first, He's trodden
them down. Those who have erred, those who twisted the truth,
and they've erred from His statutes, His truth, His gospel, He's trodden
them down. And now He puts them away. They'll put us away all the wicked.
How many of you think, well, how many, well, I don't know
how many, you can't imagine, there's thousands that die a
day. How many were put away today that didn't expect it? How many
woke up this morning totally healthy and died before
the day's over with, completely surprised by it, didn't expect
to die today? Didn't expect that. Thou puttest
continually. He does it every day. Every day
God is putting away the wicked. Every day. Thou puttest away
all the wicked. of the earth, like dross. Now, since I own a machine shop
and I used to do bearings and I used to melt that liquid and
then pour it in the bearings. But before I did that, I had
to skim the dross off. The dross was the waste. It was
the dirt. It's the filth. And you take
it and you throw it away. You skim it off. And you throw
it away. It's worthless. It's worthless. And the wicked are spoken of
as draws, God calls them draws, useless, useless. That's what
he calls them. And someday the church will be
taken out of this world and the wicked will be cast into the
lake of fire. That's so, that's the truth. And here, listen, this is another
thought on this. Now put us away all the wicked.
Our wickedness is put away. He has put away our wickedness. And that's why he wrote, we get
to verse 120, but he said, therefore, I love thy testimonies. Christ
loved the righteousness of God's testimony, which means witness.
Testimony here has to do with witness. He loved the justice
of God as well as the mercy of God. You know that? Every child
of God loves the justice of God as well as the grace of God.
God's a just God. I'm glad he is. The God who will by no means
clear the guilty. is as much loved as the God of
all grace who delights to show mercy. We love God in His full
character. The God who delights to show
mercy to sinners is as much loved as the God who hateth the workers
of iniquity. It's one God. It's one God. There's no sin in God, there's
no sin in God hating the workers of iniquity. When I preached
here last week, last Thursday, on that first verse, when I got
home, I just kept thinking about it. And I thought of that scripture,
Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. There are some that
God hates. And the thought hit me, The reason
God loved Jacob is only found in God. The reason God hated
Esau was found in Esau. A worker of iniquity. Thou hatest
all workers of iniquity. You see, the reason God loved,
God loved me is found in God. And now if God hates a worker
of iniquity, the reason for that is found in that worker of iniquity.
God has the right to hate as much as he does love. And it's
holy. You see, that's what we can't
really grasp. It's holy. Man's hatred is vengeance. It's
just getting even. God is just satisfying justice. That's what he's doing. He's
doing right. He's doing right. And then last of all, my flesh trembleth, my body,
he said, my whole body, my flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and
I am afraid of thy judgments. There is a fear that perfect
love does not cast out. It's a right fear of God. God's
people truly are a God-fearing people. They really are. And God's children, listen, God's
children here are not afraid of being cast into hell. They're
not afraid of God's judgment falling upon them. It's already
fallen upon Christ. But I understand what he's saying. In Christ, listen, we are justified,
but we realize we stand by grace. We stand by grace. It could have
just as well been me. It could have just as well been
me cast into the lake of fire. But when I look at God's judgment,
he flooded the world, burned down Sodom and Gomorrah. When I think of loved ones, when I think of loved ones in
my family, you think of loved ones and God's judgment falling
upon them. God's sovereign now. He's sovereign.
I can't make God save any of mine. I bow to the will of God. I bow to the sovereignty of God.
The judge of the earth, as Abraham said, would do right. And it just shudders me. I mean,
it makes me shudder to think. One of them perishing under the
judgment of God. He said, it makes my flesh shake
when I consider the judgments of God, because only the children
of God understand the judgment of God. You see it at Calvary. If God would do that to his son,
what's he going to do to those who hate his son? My flesh trembleth for fear of
thee, and I'm afraid of thy judgment." Not falling on me, not falling
on me, falling on my loved ones. God's judgment just might do
it. It just might. I've seen it happen. I've seen
it happen. who is not afraid of God, has
never met Him. You have never met God if you
are not afraid of Him, if there is not a godly fear. Job, and
I close with this, Job 23, 13, 15, But he is in one mind, and
who can turn him? And what his soul desireth, even
that he doeth. What he has purposed, he is going
to do it. For he performeth a thing that is appointed for me, and
many such things are with him." He's appointed it for everybody. He's appointed their lot. Therefore,
I'm troubled at his presence. When I consider, when I consider
God, I am afraid of him. That's what Job said. When I
consider him, I'm afraid of him. And it's so heart-rending when
you see those whom you love unafraid of Him at all, as flippant about
God as they can be. That makes me shudder that He
doesn't just cut them off like that. God is our hiding place. We have
a good hiding place. And those who don't, I shudder
to think of what's coming. All right.