The Lord will take care of us
as we go through this life. He said, I'll carry you even
to your old age. That means more to me now than
it did 40 years ago. He will take care of us. Psalm 119, starting in verse
81, I titled this, Fainting Yet Hoping. Fainting Yet Hoping. The Psalms are written of Christ. He said so. But they're also
written by men, mostly by David. But they are written by men who
believe God. and experience what they wrote
about. They were written by men of like
passion, like me and you. Now, this psalm here, I think,
first applies to the Lord Jesus Christ and His sufferings. They were real sufferings. Our
Lord suffered. I can't even put it into words.
But he suffered. He suffered more than we can
imagine. Now it says in verse 81, my soul, my very being, my
soul is who I am. It's the core, it's me, it's
the core of my being. My soul fainteth for thy salvation,
looking for thy salvation, waiting for thy salvation. But I hope
in thy word. Our Lord knew intimately soul trouble. He knew soul trouble. When he
was in the garden of Gethsemane, he cried, my soul is exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death. He knew soul agony like no other
person has ever known soul agony. He cried in Psalm 22, one, some
believe that he quoted this Psalm word for word on the cross. Now,
whether he did or not, I don't know, but it's a Psalm of the
cross. You know, that Psalm 22 and he cries out on the cross.
He did say this on the cross. He did cry this out. My God,
my God, Why hast thou forsaken me? Listen, why art thou so far
from helping me? This is our Lord as a man. This shows his manhood. This
shows his humanity. He was a man, a real man. Why
art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? Roaring. We haven't even began to understand
the soul agony of the Lord Jesus Christ. Suffering under the weight
of our sins. You know, we have, when God has
saved us, we have a conviction of sin. But we don't know it
like He knew it. He suffered so agony so much
so that he sweat great drops of blood. I haven't sweat one
drop of blood over any sin that I am and and I have sinned and
you have sinned and we've grieved over but we've never sweated
a drop of blood over it. He sweat great drops of blood.
From so agony. Listen to Isaiah 53 10 and this
really stood out to me today Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him he hath put him to grief When thou shalt make his soul
That just jumped out at me today his soul He had a human soul
And that soul was made, it says, an offering for sin. His soul was made an offering
for my sin, your sins who believe. And as members of His body, we
know something about soul trouble. Not as He knew it, but we know
it. We know something about soul
trouble. We struggle with indwelling sin. There's a warfare that goes
on within every child of God, struggling with that old nature,
that old Adamic nature that we still have. We still struggle
with sin. We struggle with principalities
and powers of darkness, forces we can't even see, but they're
real. They're real. We can't see them,
but they're real. Principalities and powers, and
we struggle with them day by day. We know something about
soul trouble. But as our Lord, listen, His
hope was in God's salvation, in God delivering Him, God keeping
Him, God protecting Him, God taking care of Him. He did not look to any other
source than His God, His Father. Our Lord in every situation looked
to His Father for salvation, for deliverance. When He was
tempted in the wilderness to turn the stones into bread, He
did not give in to that temptation. He trusted His Father to provide
in time. His Father would provide. He
knew that. He trusted Him. He trusted Him. In every situation, let us wait
for God's salvation, God's deliverance, whether it be something temporal
or eternal. We wait for His salvation, His
deliverance. We don't take it into our hands.
I know sometimes we try to, but our Lord never did. He never
did. He trusted in God. That's what
they said when he was hanging on the cross. He trusted in God.
Let's see if he'll have him. They knew he trusted in God. They knew. They said, well, let's
see if God will have him since he said he trusted in God. But now listen, this hope that
he has in God's salvation is based on God's word. It's not
a wish. It's not a wish, this is an expectation
of deliverance based on the word of God. He said, but I hope in
thy word. In his deepest despair, he hoped
in God's word. He never lost hope in God's word. And in our deepest trials, our
deepest despairs, which we may yet go through. Our hope is in God's Word. It's
the foundation of our hope, isn't it? Christ is the object of it.
The foundation of it is the Word of God. It's God's Word. Our
Lord, according to the covenant of promise, hoped in the promises
of that covenant. He hoped in it. Let's hear in
Psalm 50 verse 15. And call upon me in the day of
trouble. I will deliver thee, thou shalt glorify me. That's
a promise. That's a promise. in God's Word,
and we take God at His Word. You think God will keep His Word?
You think He'll keep what He said there? He said, Call upon
Me in the day of trouble, I'll deliver thee, and thou shalt
glorify Me. He said in Psalm 86, 7, In the day of My trouble,
I will call upon thee, for thou wilt answer Me. Thou wilt answer Me. According
to His Word, He will answer. One writer wrote this, it had
no name on it, but it was good. As a man binds a tender sapling
to a stake, that the wind may not wrench it, or throws out
an anchor into the boiling sea, that the ship may be held by
it, so must we bind our wavering hearts to the support of the
word of God, and stay the storm-tossed ship of our souls with the anchor
of hope that they may not sink. We tie it to the Word of God.
We anchor it to the Word of God. It's the foundation of our hope.
And he says here, my eyes fail. They fail for thy Word. Looking
for the promise of thy Word, the promises that God has given
in his Word, he said, my eyes fail from looking, straining. When wilt thou comfort me? No
doubt our Lord felt this in the garden of Gethsemane, looking
for help from on high, but it doesn't come. Hanging on the
cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why are you
so far from helping me? He experienced this. There's
nothing you and I will go through He did not experience. Sometimes
deliverance seems long in coming. Anybody who's really been tried
knows what he's talking about here. I think of Martha and Mary
looking for Christ to come before Lazarus dies. You know, the servant
comes back and he said, the Lord said, this sickness is not unto
death. He said, it's not unto death,
but for the glory of God. You know, he told Martha and
Mary that. And you know, they hoped in his word. They hoped
in his word and they looked for him coming down the road. You
know, they went to the door and they would look and look and
look and look, waiting to see if he comes. But next thing they
know, Lazarus died. And here they are, I'm sure,
just baffled. He said it was not unto death,
his sickness was not unto death, but for the glory of God, and
Lazarus just died. My eyes fell for that word. They
fell for looking for him and looking and looking and looking
for him to deliver. But it just seems like it's never
gonna come. It's just like it's never gonna come. I think of
Job. Job, whose trial seemed to have no end. He wished several
times that he wasn't born. He's like, is this the rest of
my life? Is it going to end like this?
I look for help. Oh, he said that I knew where
I might find him. I go to the left, he's not there.
To the right, he's not there. Oh, mine eyes fail for thy word,
when wilt thou comfort me? You know, one of the greatest
trials of faith is a delay, what we think, anyway, is a delay
in answering prayers, in answering our prayers, when the Lord just
seems so long in coming and so long in helping, and it just
drags on and on and on. Solomon said this in Proverbs
13, 12, hope deferred maketh the heart sick. Hope deferred
maketh the heart sick. But when the desire cometh, it's
as a tree of life. But hope deferred, it just makes
the heart sick. It makes it despondent, despair. Does the Lord not hear me? Does
he not hear me? And at times we have to cry,
when wilt thou comfort me? When wilt thou come to my help?
When will you rescue me? You know, our Lord looked for
comfort from no one else but God. And we are to look for comfort
from no one else but God. He says here, when wilt thou
comfort me? He's looking for God to comfort
him and nobody else. You know, when the Lord puts
you through a trial, Nobody, nobody can really comfort you
except Him. Nobody can comfort you but Him.
He puts you through it, and He's the one who can comfort, and
the only one who can comfort. Listen here, 2 Corinthians 1,
3. Blessed be God and even the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God
of all comfort. He's the God of all comfort. it says in Psalm 50 35 3 draw
out also the spear and stop the way against them that persecute
me say unto my soul say unto my soul I am thy salvation because
that's where I get my comfort I get my comfort when God when
God's Spirit witnesses with my spirit that he's my salvation
You know, from time to time, and I mentioned this to somebody
here not long ago, from time to time, it astounds me. I mean,
it just hits me stronger than usual. It astounds me that God
has saved me. I mean, I'm like, it's too good
to be true. But it is. I take God at his
word. It just seems too good to be
true. That God has saved me. I had nothing to do with it.
I had zero to do with it. He loved me with an everlasting
love. Before the world was created, He loved me. Before the world
was created, He took care of me and everyone whom He saved. He took care of us. He thought
upon us. Thy thoughts to us can't be reckoned
up in order, it says. He gave us to His Son. He took
care of us. that God has said, it just amazes
me that when I die, that I'm going to go to be with the Lord,
that I'm going to live forever in his presence, in happiness,
real happiness, real joy. I'm telling you, there's times
that that just overwhelms me. Then there are times that I doubt and I have no reason because
I have God's word on it. But even in those times that
I seemed to doubt, I still take him at his word. I don't take
my feelings. When I was younger, I paid too
much attention to my feelings. Now I pay a whole lot more attention
to his word and a whole lot less to my feelings because his word
stands forever. And I take God at his word. Now listen here, and he's talking
about his troubles here, and this is our Lord speaking here,
and David in his situation, but he says, I have become like a
bottle, wineskin, that's what he's talking about, that's what
they used in that day, they used wineskin to put wine in. I'm
like a bottle in the smoke, yet do I not forget thy statutes.
John Trapp said this, and I read John Trapp quite often. He says,
shriveled, wrinkled, withered and dried up. My body, by long
suffering, is but a bag of bones, and that black and sooty, my
soul in danger of being bereaved of all spiritual moisture. I'm like a bottle in the smoke,
that's what I'm like. They used to hang those wineskins
up and that smoke would rise up and then over time it would
just get black and wrinkled and he said, from all these trials
and all this grief and all this sorrow, my body is just broken. My body, it looks like it's just
aged, aged a lot. Jesus Christ was a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief. I want you to listen to these
words here that I'm gonna read to you from the Psalms. Psalm
22, verse 14, 15. Listen here. This is what happened
to our Lord. This is what happened. I am poured
out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. I thought about that today. I
had to sit back and think about that. Have you ever had a bone
or something come out of joint? He said, all my bones, my shoulder,
when they dropped that cross into the ground, his shoulder
sockets, his leg, his hips, he said, they're all out of joint. The agony, just the physical
agony was painful. Not to even talk about the soul
agony of taking the wrath of God, but my, he said, all my
bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted
in the midst of my bowels. He hung there alone. Henry said one time, he said,
no one ever died as alone as Jesus Christ. My strength is
dried up like a pot shirt. I have no strength left. His
physical strength was gone. And my tongue cleaveth to my
jaw. And thou hast brought me into
the dust of death. He didn't say them, they, he
said thou. Lamentations 112, Is it nothing
to you, O ye that pass by? Behold, and see, if there be
any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith
the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. I am become like a bottle in
the smoke. But now listen, in all his agony, in all his grief,
in all his suffering, yet do I not forget thy statutes. When you and I get in trouble,
we forget the word of God. He has to bring it to our remembrance.
We do. We forget it at times. But our Lord, under the most
severe trials, He never forgot, He never quit keeping the statues
of God. And His obedience is our righteousness. Yet do I not forget thy statues. God's Word, listen, God's Word
is the believer's source of hope and comfort in time of affliction.
That's why He said over in 1 Thessalonians 4, we looked at here not long
ago, comfort one another with these words. comfort one another
with the Word of God that's why this is why we need to be in
the Word of God this is where we get our comfort from God takes
the word and applies it in power to our hearts he quickens it
and it lives in us how many are the days of thy servant Lord
you know my days are few and he's saying this I cannot live
long under this stress That's what our Lord said. My soul is
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. I'm going to die right
here if I don't get help. We know that our days on this
earth are numbered. We don't know what that number
is. We don't know whether it's old age, middle age, young age. We don't know. God knows. God knows. He's numbered our
days. Our times are in His hands. Even
our Lord's days were numbered on this earth, 33 years, right
down to the second, when He gave up the ghost, died. His days
were numbered. You know, the scripture says,
I didn't write this down, but it says, A short work will the Lord
make upon the earth, and He'll cut it short in righteousness.
That's paraphrasing, that's not the whole thing, but He said,
A short work will the Lord make upon the earth. Our days are
few. What is 6,000 years? What is
it? You know, the flood, I'm thinking,
I forget the number, but it's probably around 1,700 years after
the earth was created and Adam, that the flood came. I'm just
thinking for some reason that number. That's only been 4,000,
just a little over 4,000 years ago. This place was flooded. This place was underwater. Time
is so quick. It's just like that. It's been
6,000 years now. And he says this, when wilt thou
execute judgment on them that persecute me? When will justice
be executed on the ungodly? You know, I don't really know
exactly how to explain this, but I know this. The Lord said,
I pray not for the world. I don't want to be on that side
of his prayer. I want to be on the side of the
prayer where he says, I pray for them whom thou has given
me. I don't want to be on this side
where he says, when wilt thou execute judgment, justice, justice. When will you, when will I be
delivered from my enemies and vindicated? You know, there's
coming a day, there's coming a day when the whole world, everyone
that's ever lived is going to see Jesus Christ. Every knee's
gonna bow to him. Every tongue's gonna confess,
whether they like it or not. They're gonna confess that he's
Lord to the glory of God the Father. And I tell you this, when our
Lord executes judgment, when we, whenever, well, I'm thinking
that, Lord willing, I'm gonna preach from Psalm 2, kiss the
son. Tomorrow, the Kingsport. Kiss
the Son, listen, lest He be angry. You don't hear that side of Him
preaching today, do you? In modern day preaching, you
don't hear that. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and His wrath
be kindled and said, but what? A little. You perish from the
way. That's the Son of God. That's
who Jesus Christ is. And then he lays before God his
persecutors. The proud, he says, have digged
pits. Look over in Psalm 22. We see his persecutors in Psalm
22. Look in verse 12. Many bulls
have compassed me. Strong bulls of Bashan have beset
me round. They gaped upon me with their
mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. Look down at verse 16. For dogs have compassed me. The
assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and
my feet. They surround me like a pack
of dogs, a pack of hungry wolves. They surround me. He said, they
pierced my hands and my feet. And these are proud, they're
proud. And they dig pits, plural, many,
many pits. And they've done so deliberately.
The proud have dig pits and they did it deliberately. How many
times did they try to catch our Lord in His words? How many times
did they try to trip Him up? Here we see what we see here,
the proud have dig pits for me. Here we see the enmity of the
serpent's seed to the seed of the woman. Here we see this scripture
fulfilled. Which he says here, they dig
pits for me which are not after thy law, or which are not according
to thy law. You know, I looked this up today,
over in Exodus 21, 33 and 34, it was against the law to dig
a pit. And somebody fall in it, or an
ox to fall in, it was against God's law. He says, they dig
a pit which is not according to your law. They're breaking
your law by digging this pit to try to catch me, trip me up. But listen here, there are no
complaints against God's commandments. He complains against the proud,
the pits they have dug, but he does not complain against God.
He doesn't complain against God one time. You know, Satan said
to God concerning Job, he serves you because you bless him. He
said, let me at him, he'll curse you to your face. And he took
all he had. And he didn't curse him. He said,
well, skin for skin, let me touch his skin. I can get him to do
it that way. He touched his skin. He touched his health, took it
away. He didn't curse him. And here, our Lord, he says,
all thy commandments are faithfulness. I can trust your word. In my
deepest sorrow, I can trust your word. I can just stay on your
word. Stand on your word. Stand on
the word of God. God's commandments, someone said
this, God's commandments are an expression of the character
of God, in strong contrast to the falsehood with which his
persecutors assailed him. And his commandments can be relied
on. I can rely on God's Word. Sooner or later, He's going to
bring me out of it. Sooner or later, whatever the trouble is,
sooner or later, He's going to bring me out of it. Matthew Henry wrote this, I thought
this was good, where he says here in verse 86, Help thou me. Help thou me is an excellent
comprehensive prayer. That's one of the most comprehensive
prayers anyone can pray. Help thou me. You know, our prayers don't have
to be long. We don't have to try to sound
like theologians before God. He knows we're not. He knows
we don't know anything. Who is this that darkens knowledge
without counsel? He says to Job. Our prayers don't have to be
long, they just have to be sincere. Lord, help me. Help me out of
this trouble. I tell you what, when you're
in trouble, you're not going to be very worthy anyway. I assure you,
if you're in real trouble, if you're drowning, you're not going
to be very worthy. I've never heard a worthy person drown.
It's help, isn't it? It's just help. You don't need a bunch of words,
you just need help. Help me in trouble to walk in a manner that
glorifies thy name and help me out of this trouble. Help me
through it and help me out of it. He says here in verse 87, They
had almost consumed me upon earth, but I forsook not thy precepts.
They took him to the judgment hall. They beat him. They beat
him to where he was unrecognizable. It says his visage was so marred
more than any man. He was unrecognizable hanging
on that cross. They beat him that bad. They
had almost consumed me upon earth. Listen, let me give you a few
things here on how our Lord behaved Himself under this severe trial. First of all, the precepts of
God were His constant subject during this whole thing. During
the whole trial, He had the precepts, the Word of God before Him. As
a man, He did. And then He was careful to walk
in the way directed by the Word of God under His trouble. He
was careful to walk in the way directed by the word of God under
trouble. That's important. Then he patiently
submitted to the will of God in all his persecutions. When
he was in the hall, he opened not his mouth. He didn't defend
himself. He didn't try to get out of it. He submitted. He submitted. Wouldn't it be
something if we'd actually submit ourselves under trial? Lord,
your will be done. I'm just going to shut my mouth
and wait till you deliver me out of this." Our Lord opened
not His mouth. Then He maintained His righteousness
under all the temptations and persecutions. He maintained His
righteous character. He knew no sin. He never did
sin. When He was reviled, what's it say? He reviled not. That's
our Lord. That's our Lord. And then he
served God through all his trouble and tribulations, all his grief
and all his sorrows. He was a faithful servant. And he's our example in trouble. He's our example. And then last
of all, he says, quicken me after that loving kindness. So shall
I keep the testimony of thy mouth. Revive my spirit. You know, even
as a man, he needed that in the garden. He needed that when he
was being beaten. He needed that as a man. And
we need that. We need to be revived often,
really. God forbid that we become like
Laodicea, lukewarm, or Ephesus that left her first love. Revive
my spirit. Send help from on high. Do so
not after the letter, but after your loving kindness. You notice
David always appealed. And this is wise. This is wise. David always appealed to the
loving kindness of God. He never appealed to a law or
commandment. He appealed to the loving kindness
of God. He knew, he knew the character
of God. He knew God is love. He knew
God delighted to show mercy. And he says, deal with me in
your loving kindness and your tender mercy. And he says this, deal with me
after your loving kindness and I will show my gratitude by my
obedience. That's what he's saying. So shall
I keep the testimony of thy mouth. Lord, revive me, quicken me,
and I'll keep your word. I'll keep your word. Faint, yet hoping. Our Lord experienced this. And
we have and we will experience a measure, a measure of it until
the Lord takes us home. But we can stand on God's word. Eat this book. Be like the prophet,
eat this book. Digest this book. Because in
doing so, you'll eat and feed on the Lord Jesus Christ. All
right.