And we're looking at Psalm 129
today. And this is another of the Song
of Degrees. And you know it is, I was thinking
of this, that it is by degrees that the
Lord is pleased to bring his people to himself. Now, we look
at the Apostle Paul and we see a miraculous conversion experience
that took place on the road to Damascus. But it is evident that
that wasn't the first time that the Lord had spoken to the Apostle
Paul. But it was the first time that
the Lord gave him ears to hear it. And so it is by degrees that
the Lord is pleased to bring his people to himself. And his
hand's not shortened, say, by many or by few. He doesn't need
to do things in a hurry. You know, we get in a hurry to
do things. We want to see something happen
quickly, and we wonder why it doesn't happen. But the Lord
in his time brings his people to himself. Think of the thief
on the cross. It's possible that the first
time that the Spirit of God ever whispered in his ear was when
he was hanging on that cross. But it's also very likely that
he had heard the scriptures read when he was a child. And as a
child, they went in one ear and out the other, or did they? You know, I think of all the
things I was taught as I was growing up, and very few of them
ever took much root at the time, but I think now of all those
things that God was pleased to implant within me, even though
I had no concern or love for it. But yet, you know, is there ever a time
in the life of the child of God when the Lord is not with him?
I mean, you know, is not his mercy surrounding us? If we belong
to him, is it not surrounding us from the very moment that
we drew our first breath? And even though our feet strayed
from the pathway that we now know is the right way, yet the
Lord never forsook us. He watched over us and he guided
our steps to bring us to the place where he'd have us to be.
What a glorious thing. And it is by degrees that the
Lord brings his people to himself. And he manifests his mercy in
his own time. And that's why it is that we
should be very slow to speak harsh words. to me and as we walk through
this world we you know you don't know what the lord might be doing
in life i mean the most uh... fowl center that you know you
don't know but what when he lays his head down on the pellet night
god may be putting piercing arrows into his heart uh... i remember brother barnard uh... relating how that uh... whenever he went, oh, he was
raised, of course, in a godly home, and he went off to a Baptist
school, and he, while there, he became the president of the
Infidels Club. And yet, he said every night,
when he laid down, while he was in rebellion against God. Every
night when he laid down, he said, oh God, don't kill me. Now, can you explain that? I
can't explain that, except that I know this, that the Lord has
his hand on his people. And he'll bring them to himself
in his own time. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. in him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. What a glorious thing it is to
consider that the Lord is full of mercy to all that call upon
his name and his mercy is demonstrated to them even when they don't
know it before they ever have any appreciation for it. He is
glorious in his work. You know you think of Peter And
Peter was a rough-hewn sort of a guy. But yet the Lord loved
him. And Peter had to go through many
heartaches and troubles, not the least of which was his denial
of the Lord Jesus. And he went out and wept bitter
tears. And he did so because the Lord loved him. Because the
Lord said, I've prayed for thee, Peter. that thy faith fail not. Satan has desired to sift you
as wheat, but he said he will not have you. The Lord said of
Job brought Satan, or Satan came before him. The Lord said, have
you thought about my servant Job? Now a lot of times people
get that wrong. They think that Satan brought
Job up to the Lord, but the Lord brought Job up to Satan. He said,
have you thought about him? Satan said, well, you just give
him to me for a little while and I'll show you. But the Lord
loved Job. And the whole book of Job, Job
knew a lot about the Lord. Job knew a lot about God. and corrected his friends who
were physicians of no value. They were those who were miserable
comforters, he said. They couldn't bring him any comfort
or help in his time. But you see, Job was yet in ignorance
as to who God was. I mean, he knew some stuff. He
could talk about the doctrine. I mean, he could tell you, you
know, all these things, and he was right in most of what he
said. But when the Lord showed up at the end of the book, Job
said, I've only heard about you. He says, but now mine eye seeth
thee and I repent, I abhor myself and I repent in dust and ashes.
Such is the place that the Lord will ultimately bring those whom
he loves down to his feet to sue for mercy. What a glorious
God he is. Psalm 129 says, Many a time have
they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say. Many a time
have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed
against me. The plowers plowed upon my back,
they made long their furrows. The Lord is righteous, he hath
cut asunder the cords of the wicked. But let them all be confounded
and turn back that hate Zion. Let them be as the grass upon
the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up. Wherewith
the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his
bosom. Neither do they which go by say,
the blessing of the Lord be upon you. We bless you in the name
of the Lord. Now, This is a psalm really goes
right along with what I've saying in my opening remarks. Many a time have they afflicted
me from my youth, may Israel now say. There's a lot of troubles
that come into the lives of God's people on their journey. And those are mostly self-induced. You know, most of our problems
are caused by our own self. We like to blame other people
for them. We like to get angry at other
people for doing certain things, but by and large, most of our
heartaches come on us because of our own self. If not by our
own provocations, by our own unwillingness to look at our
own selves and see ourselves for what we are. But so many
a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now
say, may the people of God say, we have had many troubles, most
of them caused by our own self. Many a time have they afflicted
me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me. Now,
That's the glorious thing, is that none of the things that
happen in our lives, whether they be what we would call good,
or whether they be what we call bad, whether they be righteous
as men would look at it, or whether they be evil. God has meant all
of these things for our good to bring us to the place that
he wants us to be. Now that doesn't excuse us in
any wise from any of those things that we have done, does it? You
know, man's a fool that thinks because God has ordered something
to occur that he can then sit back and say, well, it's all
right to do it. I mean, did the Lord mark out
Adam? in the garden and say, Adam,
in the day you eat this, you're gonna die. He didn't say, Adam,
if you eat it. Now, Adam, I don't want you to
eat it, but please don't eat it, but if you do, this is what's
gonna happen. No, he didn't say that. He said, Adam, in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die. Now, could Adam say, well, Lord,
you caused me to do it? No, the Lord told him not to
do it. The Lord put him in a surroundings
that would get, why would he have done that? The reason that
he did that's because he chose to do it. You see Eve, the scripture
says, was deceived. She had some mitigation, some
mitigation in her, but she was deceived. Adam wasn't deceived.
He said, hey, that sounds like a pretty good idea to me. And
he embraced it. And so it is that the Lord has
determined our end and our beginning and all the things in between
according to the good pleasure of His will. Now a man can balk
at that, but what good is it going to do? See, Nebuchadnezzar
understood that. He said, the most high ruleth
in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and there is none that can stay his hand, or say, what doest
thou? Not right. See, that's what the
philosophers tell us. Oh, well, your view of that is
all wrong. That couldn't be right. I mean,
how could God hold Adam accountable, and yet have marked out the path
that Adam was going to take? because he's God. Because it
pleased him to do so. Now the man that has a problem
with that has a problem with God. Because, see, we're not
dealing with a God that's waiting on men to see what they're going
to do. We're dealing with a God who causes all things to occur
in the earth. And the one that Paul said, name
an old man who thou that replyest against God. Why did he say that?
Because men will say, well, wait a minute, if God's in control
of all things, and nobody's resisted his will, everybody's just doing
what God wanted them to do. So what can they say? We'll just
go on our way and do what we want to do. And it's all God's
fault. Nay, but O man, who art thou
that replyest against God, shall the thing formed say to him that
formed it, whyst thou made me thus? No. See, the Lord will bring his
people down to a place of worship. at his feet. The things that occur in this
world, though they are meant by the men of this world, and
by our enemies, and even by ourselves, things that we do are often meant
not for our benefit. We know it's not for our benefit
when we enter into them. Now, You see, as Joseph told
his brothers, you meant it for evil, but he said God meant it
for good. And so it is with much of the
course of our life. And these things cannot prevail
against the people of God. They cannot. Now we see this
most, and I want to turn, of course, to the emphasis of the
Psalm, which I believe all the Psalms come here. that this is about the Lord Jesus
Christ. I mean, has there ever been a
man that lived in the earth whom the world in general was set
against any more readily and vehemently than they were against
Christ? I mean, usually, you know, if
somebody goes about doing good things, people would pat them
on the back, give them an award. I mean, think of Mother Teresa.
I mean, who can say a bad thing about Mother Teresa? You know,
I'm not up here to commend her or accuse her of anything. But people usually think of somebody
that's going about doing good things in a good light. I mean,
you wouldn't speak bad about the things that they were doing.
Well, the Lord Jesus Christ, he went about doing more good
than anybody had ever come before him or has done since. I mean,
that's all that he did was good. I mean, he was kind, he was merciful,
he went about, he spoke the Word of God. I mean, what can anybody
say against him? And yet, the world hated him. They despised him. And they crucified
him according to the purpose of Almighty God. And though it
appeared that they had prevailed against him, yet the Lord said
that he would not he would not even have his foot would not
be mashed against a stone. Now what he meant by that was
these things would not happen to him apart from the appointed
end that the Lord had for him. Now when we look at the Lord
Jesus Christ and we see what befell him, We understand that
that is what should have befallen us, because what befell him was
because of us. And his suffering was brought
about because of our sin. And so it is that even then,
the powers of darkness could not prevail against Christ, even
though the powers of darkness sought to destroy him, yet he
triumphed over them. And they could not keep him back
from that which he set forth to do. The plowers plowed upon
my back. Now how can a man read this and
not understand as we consider the sufferings that the Lord
Jesus Christ went through physically? As they plowed furrows in his
back with the whip as they beat him unmercifully. They plowed
his back. They plowed upon my back. They
made long their furrows. There was no shortening of it.
Now, whenever I was a kid and we would be working in the field,
in the tobacco field, They would sometimes, if a man planted his
tobacco, and they had planted too much, the powers that be,
I forget what they called that outfit that came out anyway,
they'd measure your field. And if you had too much, they
would cut down some of the tobacco, or they'd have you cut it down.
And so sometimes you had a field that had short rows in it. That
was the ones you always wanted to get to, you know, because
you could look at one of those rows and it just stretched out.
It was a long furrow, but when you could look over there and
see those short rows, you wanted to get over there to them because
that would be good because you could get down that row quicker. But how long the furrows were. Now a man that's been in a long
furrow, he knows, you know, what a heartache that is when the
sun's beating down and it doesn't seem like you're ever
gonna get to the other end. But that's that which came upon
the Lord. It was not an easy thing. Now,
you know, I was thinking about this this morning. We often,
in thinking about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, I don't
think we enter into it in the consideration of the humanity
of Christ. Because we think, well, he was
able to overcome it because of his deity. Well, indeed, his
deity cannot be separated from his humanity, but he suffered
in the flesh. I mean, God, as God, there's
no suffering with God. He can't be in any wise wounded,
but yet Christ was for our sake. and you know that, Isaac Watts
wrote a hymn and a lot of people tried to change it. He wrote
the hymn, Last and Did My Savior Bleed and Did My Sovereign Die,
Would He Devote That Sacred Head for Such a Worm as I? And let's
see, what was the verse I'm trying to get to is the one where it
says, When God the Mighty Maker Died for Man the Creature's Sin. Now, a lot of people say, oh
well wait, that can't be true, but it was true. I can't explain
how it was true, but it was true. I mean, the Lord Jesus Christ
never ceased to be God, and He died for sinners, did He not?
But having that understanding, we must understand also the fact
that He died as a human being with human emotions, with human
feelings, with everything that would course through the mind
and heart of a man as a human, not as a sinful human, but as
a human, he underwent. And in that suffering is how
he bore it as a man. And so, when we consider these
things, it is an awful thing to think, not just of the physical
suffering, but of the soul suffering. Now, if you knew, you as an enlightened child of
God, if it was brought to your awareness that you were going
to be separated from God, that you were actually going
to be cast out. Can you think of any greater
grief that could fill your heart? I mean, isn't the greatest desire
of the people of God to be numbered among the elect of God, to be
found in the presence of Christ? Is that not our desire? I mean,
can we think of anything that would be worse than to be separated? from almighty God, and yet Jesus
Christ as a man underwent that very thing. How do we know? He said, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Oh, You know, the wonder
of those words never ceases to amaze me as I think about how
can that be, how could that be? And yet the scripture says that
for our sakes he bore our griefs, carried our sorrows. Is that
not the greatest sorrow that a man could endure, could even
see? And yet he prevailed. The Lord
is righteous. He hath cut asunder the cords
of the wicked. Let them all be confounded and
turn back that hate Zion. Now this is the prayer of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is set against the enemies
of his people. The Zion is the kingdom of God. And all of the people that are
his are those whom he loves, and all of those who are set
against the people of God, he hates. Now the scripture says
that he's angry with the wicked every day. Now you hear, of course,
especially coming up in this season, that's coming up before
us, you're gonna hear a lot. Well, you know, love, love, love,
love, love. God just loves everybody and
everything's wonderful. And that whole idea permeates
the thoughts of men. But the Lord doesn't love everybody.
Now, as stark and hard as that is to the human mind to consider,
it is a fact. I mean, the scripture plainly
says, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. He hates the wicked. Now, that causes me to tremble
when I think about it. That he hates the wicked. And
it causes me to say, oh Lord, don't let me be numbered with
the wicked. Because I know that he does.
I know that he will destroy the wicked. And this is his prayer,
let them all be confounded and turn back that hate Zion, that
hate the people of God. How do we know if we are of the
Lord? If we love the brethren. Now
has there ever been anybody that loved the brethren any more plainly
and clearly and completely than the Lord Jesus Christ? The scripture
John says, and having loved his own, he loved them to the end. There's no mitigation in it.
Now sometimes we do things that cause people not to love us,
even among the saints of God, but yet we're to love one another,
even as Christ loved us. Let them all be confounded and
turn back that hate and zion. Anybody that stands against the
people of God are to be destroyed. That's what he says. Let them
be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth up afore it groweth
up." Now that, we don't, it's hard for us to consider that
because we don't, in that time and the place, the houses mostly
had flat roofs on them. And of course you can ride around
and from time to time you will see on maybe a neglected house
or something that's got a low roof. I remember down in Branford
there was one of those buildings there that my son renovated and
up on the front parapet wall for a long time there was weeds
growing up there. Now, they didn't last long because
when it was wet weather, they would sprout up, but when it
was dry weather, they'd kind of die back. But that's what
he's speaking about here. Let them be as grass upon the
housetops. Now, the grass upon the housetop
doesn't have any root, because it's got no place to go. And
so it's going to wither. And he said, that's what I want
it to happen. It withereth before it groweth
up, wherewith the mower filleth not his hand. You know, a bird
may drop a grass seed up on top of the roof, and it might sprout,
but it will not grow, even as the Lord said the sower sowed
the seed. Now, who's the sower? The Lord
is the sower, and he sows the seed. And some of it, he said,
falls by the wayside, doesn't do anything. Some falls on stony
ground. And the hearers hear it, and
with joy, they rise up. That's what we've got today.
The stony ground is that which, by and large, fills these cathedrals
of tomorrow all around us, is that it springs up with joy,
but it doesn't have any basis. It falls away after a while.
I mean, unless you can keep it stirred up. And I said, you know,
back on the Ed Sullivan show years ago, every now and then,
they'd have these guys that would have these poles, and they'd
spin plates on these poles, and they'd have these poles and these
plates spinning, and they'd go around, and they'd keep them
plates spinning. And they might wind up with 25
or 30 of them, and you'd be thinking, oh, any minute one's gonna fall,
you know, because it would be just about to fall off. And the
guy would run around there, and he'd keep them all going. And
that's kind of the way that modern religion is. You've got to keep
plates spinning, so you've got to keep everybody happy, and
you've got to keep everybody entertained, and everything's
going to be okay. Not so in the Kingdom of God,
because the Lord calls the people of God to love His Word and to
love His people. And all those other things are
kind of superfluous. They really get more in the way
than they are those things that are of benefit to the kingdom
of God. Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth
cheeves his bosom. There's nothing there. You know,
when you go, you guys that send the lawn business, nobody's ever
called you out to go mow the roof, did they? Because even
if there happened to be a little weed or something growing up
there, they knew it wasn't going to be there very long. And so
that's what he says. There's nothing to them. You're not going to gather a
crop, nor are you going to have anything to mow down. Neither do they which go by say
the blessing of the Lord be upon you. We bless you in the name
of the Lord. See, we live in a day and age
when it has become fashionable to say have a nice day. Now I
don't mind people saying to me have a nice day. But most of
the time I'd rather they'd say have a nice day than have a crummy
day or something like that. But the idea is born out of the
thinking that we have the ability to Give somebody a blessed day. Now, I agree that there are,
you know, it's nice to have kind words spoken to us. But you know,
the greatest blessing that can come to a man is when somebody
speaks to him the word of God, is it not? I mean, to the children
of God. I mean, I don't mind somebody
wanting to cheer me up in the flesh, that's fine. But that's
not really what I want, is it? Because all that stuff fades
away. It's not lasting. It doesn't feed the soul. It's
not that upon which we desire. And so, some go by and say the
blessing of the Lord be with you, but they don't mean it. They might say it, but they don't
understand it. Because how can the people of
God be blessed except it be in Christ? And except they understand
that Christ is the Savior of sinners. And that He saved His
people. You know, not just He might.
We hope He will. Maybe He will. Maybe the Lord
can do something for you today. May the Lord give us grace that
we might be a people if we do desire the blessing of the Lord
upon somebody's head. that it is we desire that they
would know Christ. Not just that they'd be happy
in this world. I mean, because what good is
that? That a man's happy in this world,
it fades away. But oh, that the Lord might make
of us a people that bear testimony to the word of God as we go through
this life. To be ready to give to every
man that asks us a reason of the hope that's within us. What
is the hope that's within you? What's the hope that's within
me? Is it Christ? Because that alone is that which
is a blessing for the people of God. May the Lord show us
his truth and help us. Many a time have they afflicted
me from my youth. May Israel now say, but may it
let Israel now say that the Lord has borne our griefs and carried
our sorrows. And regardless of any sufferings
that we might endure, and I have endured very few sufferings in
my life. You know, I've, my life, I've
been very blessed in outward things. I mean, I can't, you
know, sorrow and heartache has been something I'm very little
acquainted with. I mean, not to say that I hadn't
had sorrow and heartache, But you know, when we consider our
sorrows and heartaches compared to that which the Lord bore for
us, they don't really, it doesn't really matter, does it? I mean,
regardless of what it might be. How glorious it is that the Lord
can show us His suffering and thereby teach us that our suffering
is but for a moment, because His was an eternal suffering. Not that He eternally suffers
in a time sense or in an ongoing sense, but if that who is eternal
suffered for us, and that is an eternal suffering, is it not?