Psalm 62, we're gonna be talking
about the very thing we've been singing about this morning. We'll
be talking about our refuge. God is our refuge. Psalm 62, I'm gonna go ahead
and read through the whole entire psalm here, there's only 12 verses.
Let me read through this psalm and we'll ask the Lord to bless
the message today. Then we will begin to open it
up and see what God has to tell us about His being our refuge. It says, truly my soul waiteth
upon God and from Him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock
and my salvation. He is my defense, and I shall
not be greatly moved. How long will you imagine mischief
against a man? You shall be slain, all of you,
as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence. They
only consult to cast him down from his excellency. They delight
in lies, they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. My soul wait thou only upon God,
for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be moved. And God is my salvation and my
glory. The rock of my strength and my
refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, you
people. Pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us. Trust in him at all times, you
people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. I think that's what that word
Selah means. It says to think on these things, to pause and
think about these things. God is our refuge. Now, we're
talking about the people of God here, okay? God's a refuge to
the people of God. The wicked, who the psalmist
here is talking about, who's coming against him, is not included
in this, okay? He's talking about the people
of God. Verse nine, surely men of low degree are vanity and
men of high degree are a lie. To be laid to the balance, they
are altogether lighter than vanity. Trust not in oppression and become
not vain in robbery. If riches increase, set not your
heart upon them. God has spoken once, twice have
I heard this, that power belongeth unto God. And also, unto thee,
O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renderest to every man according
to his work. Heavenly Father, we come to you
this morning and we ask now, Lord, that you just might take
this word that you have given to us and that you might open
it up to our hearts and to our minds by the Spirit of God. Father,
I ask that you might help me to minister the word this morning,
that you might be my voice, that you might speak through me, that
you might give me understanding, give me clarity of thought and
mind. Father, I pray that you would
give me utterance of the things that you would have me to say.
I pray that the Spirit come and that he might give us all understanding
of the words of these passages, that you might give us understanding
of the application of those in our life. Not that we are to
apply them ourselves and that we can make anything happen of
our own, but as you in Providence are unfolding all these things
in the lives of your people and making them known and their experiences
coming to be and how they experienced the salvation that you have given
us. Father, may you increase our faith and that you might
increase our hope in you that we might be firmly grounded upon
Christ as our refuge. As we look to Him in all things,
whether it be for eternal things or whether it be for temporal
things, we pray that our sturdiness, our anchor, our foundation is
found in the rock of Jesus Christ. Father, we pray for your people. We pray that you would strengthen
them and that you would grow them in the grace and the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray for those who are downtrodden. We pray for those who are hurt
and find much persecution in this life, whether it be in the
natural realm because people that they are around are abusive
and bad, or whether it be in the spiritual realm for those
of us who know Christ. and are persecuted because of
our convictions and our beliefs and our faith in Christ alone
for our salvation and for our love for God and for looking
to Christ alone for all things. Father, we pray that those who
come against us, as we see so often in these Psalms, Father,
that you might be not only our refuge, and our defense, but
Father, that you might also be our vindicator, that you might
be our avenger, that you might be our defender that comes against
the wicked. And we know that you have said
in your word that you will not acquit iniquity, that you will
not justify the wicked, and that there will be a day that is being
stored up even now for those who are wicked and that they
will reap what they have sown, they will experience the wrath
of God for their sin and their rebellion. They will experience
all of the torment of hell and that you will pour out your vindication. You say in your word that vengeance
is yours and that we should trust and hope in you. and that we
should not avenge ourselves, but that you alone are our avenger. So we pray, Lord, that you might
bring that to our mind this morning as we read these passages, because
off we fall and off we struggle in these areas, Lord. And so
we ask that you might give us strength and that you might give
us understanding and that you might make this even more in
our lives that we might look to you in all things. And it's
in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. Well, brethren, my original plan
here, there's 12 verses here. I'm going to try to go through
the majority of them here this morning. Speak to you on God
being our refuge. Now it is snowing outside and
I don't plan to keep us too long before the snow starts piling
up or anything. which it don't look like it's
doing too much. The ground may be too warm to
pile it up, but it started to come down more heavy. But anyway,
that's neither here nor there. We'll go as long as the Lord
wants us to go. God is our refuge. Why did I
pick that this morning? Well, I Pick that this morning
because I feel that's the direction that the Lord wanted me to go
in these passages of scripture. We were meeting last week. Last week, I was looking at another
passage of scripture to preach on, and we ended up not being
here. I was ill last week, not feeling good Sunday morning,
and so we ended up not having services last Sunday. But this
morning, as I was reading through some passages, actually some
backup passages to the passages I was looking at last week, I
come across Psalm 62 again. It just really was speaking to
me this morning because I know that there are a lot of people
that struggle with acceptance. They struggle with people accepting
them. And we struggle with our personal
witness of standing for Christ. We struggle with people that
we work with, people that we know around us. We struggle with
friendships. We struggle with all these things.
And the psalmist here is no different, but the thing in view on the
radar here with the psalmist is the very fact that there are
those who are against God, against Christ, who are not his children,
who are not his people, and the way they live and move and work
You know, they are totally in disregard of God. The Bible says
that they are natural men and they don't have the Spirit of
God in them. And so all the things that are
spiritual, all the spiritual things are foreign to them. And so they don't have any kind
of reference to God in their life, whether looking to Him,
trusting in Him, honoring Him, praising Him, worshiping Him.
talking about Him, finding comfort in Him, rejoicing in Him, being
joyous and loving Him, they don't have that in them. And so for
us to think that we're gonna find that kind of communion with
those who don't have the Spirit of God in them, who have that
same love and affection for God, that same desire for God, and
finding in Him the same things that we find in Him, whenever
we are with people like that then, We can't expect them to
act and react the same way. They're gonna act differently.
They're gonna act the way the natural man acts. The Bible says
that we are wrathful people. Put your finger there in Psalm
62 and turn back with me to some passages we looked at a few weeks
ago in Ephesians chapter two. In Ephesians chapter two he says,
and you have be quickened who were dead in trespass and sin,
where in times past you walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among
whom also we had our conversation in times past in the lust of
the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. And
so we see here that by our nature we are children of wrath. We are ones who walk after the
lust of the flesh. We do what we want to do. I don't
care what anybody else thinks. I'm going to do what I want to
do. I don't care what God says about the, I don't care what
God says in his word. This is how I feel and this is
how I'm going to do it. You know, there's a lot of people
that they want to take revenge on somebody else because they've
done some harm towards them. or towards a loved one, and they
want to take revenge. And God says, you know, hey,
you know, that's his business, not yours. Now, I'm not saying
that we can't defend ourselves from evil. You know, if somebody
busts into my house and is trying to kill my I'm going to defend
myself and defend my family as best as I can. But if somebody
comes and smashes up my car or something like that, or does
something, I'm going to handle that in a legal and godly way. But those who are of the nature
of Adam, we just want to handle things in the lust of our flesh.
You know, we don't care about the redemption of the other person.
We don't care about the actions of somebody else and how it pertains
to God. We're just going to do what we
want to do. And a lot of times you see that Christians who are
professing Christians and they say, well, I know that the Bible
says that, but I don't care. I'm just going to do it anyway.
I mean, that's just the blatant disregard for God's word and
saying, you know, I don't care what God wants to do or wants
me to do in this situation. I'm just going to do it anyway.
That's fulfilling the lust of your flesh. You want to fulfill
the lust of your flesh and the desires of the flesh and of the
mind. And so that's how we are by nature.
By nature, we are people who want to get even. We are people
who want to Sorry about that. We are people who want to take
things into our own hands. But also, brethren, apart from
Christ, we are people that are wrathful against the things of
God because it goes against our nature. See, inherently in the
nature of Adam, We believe that there is a righteousness in ourselves,
that we have something that God will accept. Whether it be our
works, or whether it be our faith, or whether it will be our repentance,
or our accepting of him. We think that God will accept
the things that comes from the natural man. And God says, no,
he won't accept those things. And so whenever we look at the
Bible and we look at the God of the Bible and who he is, who
is completely sovereign over all things, who is in control
of all things, has determined all things, and we look at that
God, our nature is completely opposite of that and doesn't
want that kind of God. And so we become wrathful towards
God. And because of that, we become
wrathful to anybody who is a follower of him. We become wrathful towards
people who are not like us. We become wrathful towards people
who love the Lord. And so, Whenever we are born
from above, the Lord gives us another kind of love, not a fleshly
love, not a worldly love, not a temporal love, but he sheds
his love abroad in our hearts so that we can love God, the
things of God, the word of God, the people of God. We begin to
love that and we begin to be able to love our enemies. Now,
we can love our enemies and still be angry at the sin that is inherent
in them. David himself, if you read through
the Psalms, you'll see that David prayed many, here's a big word
for you, imprecatory, no, is that right? Precatory, precatory
prayers, the precatory prayers. He prayed prayers for God to
avenge the righteous by destroying the wicked. He prayed that God
would judge the wicked and destroy them, give them their just due. He prayed that, and that's fine
for us to pray those prayers in accordance to God's word.
We pray that because, as the Bible says, that there is a just
anger that we can have. We can have anger and sin not. Now, most of the time our anger
is fleshly anger. Give some examples when your
DIY project don't go according to plan. Okay? So you get mad and slam everything
down. There's also anger that we can
have over a lot of things, you know, because we're not elevated
to a certain position or because certain people doesn't care for
us. We can have an anger that is driven by lagging internet. Or because somebody didn't pick
up your whatever it is that you drink
Get your life back in your game there. We can get angry at so
many things, your wife, your children. We can get angry at
the world. We can get angry at all these
things. And whenever we do that, it throws
us in despair because we are not in control of things. We're
not in control. I cannot control the surrounding.
I can do the best that I can with what God has given me and
provided for me. to do but at the end of the day
I can't control anybody or anything. The only thing that can control
those things are God. He controls those things. And
so whenever we learn that we are not in control and whenever
we learn that by our nature we desire to flee to our lust of
the flesh and our lust of our minds And whenever we see that
there is always this drawing in us to handle things our own
way, then as the people of God, we need to realize that that
will always fail. That will always fail. Whenever
we put our hope in other people, we'll know that we always are
gonna be let down. I love my wife. She is a wonderful wife. She
does great, but there are times that she fails. Same thing with
me. I failed my wife. My kids are
great kids. They failed. My mom and dad are
great people, but they failed. My grandparents are great grandparents. They failed. I've been in churches
that have been great churches, but they failed. We cannot find
security, we cannot find hope, we cannot find defense in the
fallen man. Our only hope and our only refuge
is in Christ Jesus. And this is where the psalmist
has come. On every angle, at every side, he has been attacked. As the person of God, he's being
attacked. As the one who desires God, he
has found that even within himself, he has found attack. I mean,
we're talking about David here. Remember, this is the man that
the Bible says is the man after God's own heart. Yet David was
the one who failed to go and fight in the fight. When he should have been out
there on the battlefront, he was at home, lazy and around.
And because he was lazy and around, he just happened to be out on
his balcony and seeing Bathsheba out taking a bath, and he began
to lust after her. And then his lust turned into
calling her into his bedroom and laying with her. And then
that ended up being, she was with child, so to cover up his
adultery, what did he do? He called her husband back home
to try to get him to go lay with his wife so that it might look
like the child was his. And whenever Uriah wouldn't do
that, what did David do? He sent him to the front lines
to be killed so that it wouldn't be known. And just on and on. I mean, see,
even the men of God failed. And so we can't trust in them,
we can't trust in ourselves. Christ is the only one that we
can trust in. And this is where the psalm has
to come down. And not just in this psalm, but I mean, if you read
all these psalms, you'll find that David, or whoever the psalmist
is that's writing, is pouring out their heart to God. And that
is one thing that I really want to stress here before we even
really get into these verses, is the very fact that God, as
if we are His children, we can go to Him and pour out our heart
to Him and He will listen. He will hear us. If we are His
people, He will hear our prayer. He tells us to boldly come. to
the throne of God and to make our requests known. And so He
is the place that we go to when everybody else is against us
or we find no help anywhere else. He will always be there if we
are His people. He will always be there. And so the psalmist
here, David, he is going to the Lord and he is pouring out his
soul to God and praising Him because of what God is for him
in these times of trouble. Now, all of us have times of
trouble, don't we? We all have times whenever things don't go
our way, or people don't like us, or things go squirrelly,
and we get upset, or we get let down. Listen, God, the Lord Jesus
Christ, is our refuge. Now, look what he says here in
verse one. He says, truly, Truly my soul waiteth upon God,
or that phrase actually, that word truly, it means only. If
something's true, then it's the truth, right? Nothing else is
the truth about it. You know, if I say this is my
left pointer finger, that's the truth, right? This is a pointer
finger, but that's not my left one, so this is, I can't say
that this is this. Okay, this is only the truth. This is my left pointer finger.
And so whenever David uses this word truly, truly this is my
pointer finger, or only this is my pointer finger. Okay, David
uses this word truly and it means only. Only my soul waiteth upon
God. Or my soul only waits upon God. See, God had brought David to
the place in his growth and maturity to know that he needs to wait
upon God. See, he tried to run ahead of
God many times in his life. He tried to run ahead of God.
And God had to teach him. And so now he knows, my soul
only waiteth upon God. Now what does that word waiteth
mean? It means it's silent before God. It is still before God. It brings to mind this place
of, I don't have any answers, so I'm just going to be quiet.
I'm going to sit here, and I'm going to wait until you tell
me. I'm not going to do anything until you tell me what to do. There's
a lot of times whenever I'm out working on a piece of equipment
for my work, and I may be working on a machine that I've never
worked on before. and I've never been to school
on, I don't have a manual for it, I don't have any understanding
of how the internal works of this machine might work. And
so what I do is I call up the tech support for the company
that makes this, and they have a guy that is able to walk me
through the troubleshooting process of this machine. And so what
I do is I see a problem. I see I can't fix the problem.
But instead of just jumping in there and trying to fix it myself,
I just sit and I wait. I call upon the tech support
guy and then I just sit and wait. I wait for him to come and help
me. And then he will guide me through the solution to this.
He will guide me through the problem and help me fix it. or help me learn to live with
it, one or the other. He might tell me, this is what
you can do to fix it, or he might say, lost cause, gonna have to
get another one. That's kind of the idea of this.
Truly my soul, or my soul only, waited upon God. So he's learned
all other course of action in times of distress, in times of
struggle, in times of problems, in times of rejection, in times
of persecution, When people are persecuting you, wait upon God. Be silent before Him. The Bible
says, be still and know that I am God. What does He mean by
that? What does He mean when He says,
be still and know that I am God? He's saying, be quiet and listen. Be quiet and still. Don't try
to go ahead. Don't try to go backwards. Just
be still. Stop what you're doing. And wait for me. I know what
I'm doing. See, this is what God is trying
to tell us, is to trust Him in His sovereignty, that He is carrying
out His purpose, His plan. He is carrying out the very thing
that He has decreed from the beginning of the creation. He
is carrying that out to perfection. And that if you're His child,
He has said, all things work together for good to them who
are of the called, to them who love the Lord, who are of the
called. That is what you are to do. Be
still and know that God is working out those things on your behalf. So don't run ahead of God. Don't
take things into your own hands for God. God wants you to be
still, to wait upon Him. Why? Because from Him cometh
my salvation. Look at that. From Him cometh
my salvation. See, the reason that we're to
wait, the reason we're to be still and know that I am God
is so that you might know that you're not God. You're not going
to change the situation. You're not going to change anything
by doing it your own way. God's will is going to be done. He's gonna do, the Bible says
that he's gonna do whatever he wants to do, and the armies of
heaven are the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
his hand. The Bible says that God has a purpose and a plan,
and no one can disannul it, no one can change that. God's work
is being done, and as your child, as you as his child, his purpose
is for your good. And so wait upon him. Be still, Because your salvation
coming from Him. Now that word salvation there
can mean not only your eternal salvation, which surely it does.
Our eternal salvation coming from God. We're not saved by
anything that we do in this lifetime. By any condition that we have
to keep. There is absolutely not one condition
that man has to do to be saved. The only condition that God has
made for our salvation is the condition of Jesus Christ fulfilling
what he is set to do. And that's what he did. He did
it. He fulfilled everything. So our eternal salvation surely
comes from God, but that's not what the psalmist is saying here.
The psalmist here is saying that in these distresses, in these
persecutions, in these times when the wicked seem to be coming
against us and to be bombarding us, we see our world today, we
see our country today, and how the wicked are rising up more
and more and more, and how God, it seems, is putting wicked men
in place of power over us as judgment to our country because
of our country turning its back upon God because our country
has let sin run rampant in our country. God has brought judgment
upon that. And the wicked are surrounding
us. And you look now, what are they wanting to do? They're wanting
to shut our churches down. They're wanting to shut our meetings
down. They're wanting to shut our voices down. Oh, no, you
can talk all you want about Muhammad. You can talk all that you want
about Buddha. You can talk all that you want
about, you know, new ageism and all that kind of stuff. You can
talk all you want about Mary and the Pope and all this stuff.
But if you start mentioning Jesus, You start mentioning a sovereign
God, you start mentioning those types of things, then no, you
don't have a place in the public square to talk about that. And
this persecution is coming from without. But we also see that
the persecution comes in personal ways. People just personally
coming because of who you are. They don't like what you are.
They don't like what you stand for. There are still wicked men
that don't like God and they don't like the people of God.
And because you're a Christian, they come against you. There's
a few Facebook groups that I'm in. that are particular subject
Facebooks, you know, different things, not necessarily Christian
Facebook groups, okay? It's not got anything to do with
Bible or church or anything like that. And in these Facebook groups,
there's a lot of people that whenever someone is talking about
whatever it is we're talking about, let's just say cosmology, whenever
we're talking about the cosmos in this group, There are those
that come in there that believe in the Bible and God, and there
are those that are not, that they're atheists. And the atheists,
they have a strong hatred towards the people who always want to
put forth biblical things. And, you know, and so they have
a hatred towards that, a vitriol. towards the people of God. So
we have these things coming from the outside, but also we have
those things coming from the inside. There are some times
that even the people of God can persecute other people of God. I know it shouldn't be that way.
And I don't know, maybe one of them is a child of grace and
one of them isn't a child of grace. I don't know. But because
we're still in the flesh, we have those tendencies still in
us to be able to persecute another child of grace. And we might
be harsh with them. We might be rude towards them
or something to that degree. And so what the psalmist is talking
about is a salvation from these things. It's a temporal salvation. God is surely our eternal salvation,
but He is also the one who is a Savior to us in our temporal
times of trouble, in our everyday lives. He is our strength. He is our shelter. He is our
refuge, our rock. All these words that we've been
saying here and singing this morning, He is that in time. OK, now see, we don't need him
to be that in the future when everything that is of the curse
has been taken away and all the wicked has been taken away. At
that point, we no longer need a refuge because everything that
we need refuge from has been removed. It's right now he is
a refuge. He is a refuge for us now. And
so he says, wait upon God or be still before God because from
Him cometh your salvation. He is going to bring salvation
to you for whatever that is that you're going through. Whatever
it is that you're struggling through. Whatever it is you're
dealing with. He's your salvation. But what
do we want to do? We want it right now, don't we?
Okay, God will How long do I have to wait? I mean, you tell me
to wait, but how long do I have to wait? An hour? A day? A week? A month? A year? You remember Paul? The Bible
says that Paul had a thorn given to him by God in his side. That
he had a thorn in the flesh, not in his side. I don't know
where that came from. That he had a thorn in the flesh. Okay?
Now, that was a symbolic thing. He didn't actually have a thorn
in his flesh. He was speaking of there was
something that was a bother to him. There was something that
was causing him distress, that was causing him irritation. Have
you ever got a sticker or a thorn in your, and you can't really
see it, but every time you rub it, you feel it, and just kind
of, okay, that's what he's talking about. It's like this constant
agitation. And he prayed to God. He said,
man, I've prayed to God three times to remove this from me.
And God hasn't removed it from him. And what did God say? He
said, My grace is sufficient for thee. Now, we don't know
if God ever removed that from Paul. But we do know this, that
in the midst of our struggles, in the midst of our turmoil,
in the midst of our persecutions, God's grace is sufficient for
you. The fact that God has saved you
and given you mercy should be enough to get you through. And
I've said this before, if we were to live 80, 90, 100 years,
however old we end up being, and that we have to suffer persecution
every day for the rest of our lives. The very fact that if
God has saved us, when we get to heaven, when we get into eternity,
those 80, 100 years of persecution is going to seem like nothing
compared to the eternity that we're going to spend with Christ
Jesus. It's worth that. To be persecuted
in this life is worth a jillion, zillion, quadrillion, billion,
frillion, minillion, however many eternal years. of being
with Christ, apart from the curse, apart from our flesh, apart from
sin, apart from wickedness, in the presence of God alone. And
so God tells us, be still and know that I am God, that I am
your salvation. I will save you. But listen,
it's always in due time. God always has a time because
he has a purpose for your Suffering he has a purpose for your David
the same guy who sits in here saying listen. I know that God
is my refuge I know that God is my rock. I know that God is
my salvation I know that I am to be still before him and my
hope is in him is the same David who wrote it is good that God
afflict me Because before I was afflicted I went astray, but
now that God has afflicted me. I love thy word. I David wrote
those words. So David realizes that yes, affliction
is going to come and he's going to have to endure affliction.
You're going to have to endure affliction. You're going to have
to endure hardships. There's going to be people that's
going to be mean to you and that's not going to like you. And you're
going to have to go through rough things in this lifetime. But
God is your refuge. Go to Him for your refuge. Look at verse 2. It says, is
my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be greatly moved. He said I shall not be greatly
moved. He didn't say I shall not be moved. He said I shall
not be greatly moved. We're going to waver sometimes,
but we're not going to go away. God won't let us go away. We
can't go away. Matter of fact, the Bible says
that those who go away ultimately and finally and never come back,
they really never was there to begin with. But he says, he only
is my rock and my salvation. Brethren, you need to figure
that out. Your pastor is not your rock. Your mom and dad is
not your rock. Your church is not your rock. Now those are
places and people who should be trusted if they are trustworthy. And those people, as those people
ought to be faithful in being all they can be for you. Okay? We need to be right with each
other. I need to treat you correctly. I need to treat you with love
and respect. I need to not be rude to you.
I need to be loving towards you and think about your betterment. But the truth is, is sometimes
we don't do that, we fail. So in that case, we look to Christ
alone because he is our rock. What does that mean that he is
our rock? Well, a rock is, whenever we're talking about a rock is
something that can't be moved, you know, some big, like a big
stone or a boulder or something, you know, it's an anchor. You
know, a lot of times in the old days, if the guy didn't have
an anchor, they would get a big old block and they'd tie that
and when they're out in the boat, they'd throw that over and that
rock would be their anchor and keep their boat from going down
the stream. A rock can be an anchor. It can
be a foundation to hold everything up. Christ is the thing that
holds everything up for us. Christ is the one that keeps
us from sinking. The Bible talks about the man who built his house
on sand and the man who built his house on a firm foundation.
The man that built his house on sand, it collapsed. Why? Because
it didn't have a good foundation. The one who built his house on
the rock, it had a good foundation. Why? Because it don't move. Well,
Christ doesn't move. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. We can trust in him. We're not the same yesterday,
today, and forever. We falter and fail, but he doesn't. And so he is my rock. See, he's
the one that we can count on to not go anywhere, to not move,
to always be there as our foundation. But it says he is also my defense.
That word defense there is actually kind of funny. It can mean two
things. He's my defense, meaning he's the one that's going to
defend us. Ultimately, God's going to defend us. You know
that, right? The Bible says that as we pray about all the persecution,
all the things that's going on, those prayers are going up before
the Lord and they're being stored before the Lord. And there are
people who are being persecuted and even killed, martyred for
the cause of Christ. And those people, even themselves,
are praying before the Lord, how long, Lord, are you going
to let this continue on before you avenge us? And so those things are happening,
but He does say that He will destroy the wicked. So He is
our defense. He is going to be our shield.
He is going to be the one that keeps us from destruction. But that word defense there in
the Hebrew, it actually means a high place. It means a high
place. We all know that in war or in
fights or battles and stuff like that, whoever has the higher
ground wins. Just ask Anakin Skywalker. Right? Whoever has the higher ground
wins. Why? Because they have the advantage.
They can see everything. Anything that's coming uphill
has to struggle to get uphill while everything that's already
up there, hey, they can see all things and they can surround,
I mean, they can battle from every side. And so a lot of times
forts and places of refuge was built upon high places. They
were built upon high peaks, on sides of mountains, upon tops
of mountains. And that way that they could
see everything surrounding them and know if an enemy's coming,
they can see them coming. Nobody's gonna sneak up on them.
The Bible here says, he is my high place. He is my defense. He's where we have the advantage,
is there. And so he says, I shall not be
greatly moved because Christ is my rock, because he is my
salvation, because he is my high place, my defense. Matter of
fact, doesn't the Bible say a city set upon the hills will not be
moved? I shall not be greatly moved. Verse three, how long will you
imagine mischief against a man? Now here he goes from speaking
to the Lord and he's speaking to those who are making attacks
at him. How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? Ye shall
be slain, all of you, as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering
fence. Now here the psalmist is telling
his adversaries. And we can say this about anybody,
a personal adversary that's wicked, that's throwing persecution at
us. We can say this about any kind of struggle in our life
that we're dealing with, sin in our life. All these things
we can put here as those that is the mischief that's coming
against us. How long would you imagine mischief
against a man? How long is it that you're going
to persecute? How long is it that you're going
to attack How long is it that you're going to make fun of?
How long is it that you're going to come against me? He said, ye shall be slain, all
of you. See, every enemy of God is going
to be put down. There's not going to be one person
of the wicked that will be left standing. Fleshly thing will be put down.
All of sin will be done with, including our flesh. He says,
look at it there, he says, as a bowing wall shall ye be and
as a tottering fence. Now that's kind of weird sounding
to us, but like a bowing wall. A bowing wall is basically a
wall that its foundations has either sunken or has come loose
and the wall doesn't have a good foundation and it's kind of,
you know, either bowing out or bowing in, and it's bad. You guys have seen, we've drove
by and seen lots of barns where you've seen, they're kinda, looks
like you just go over there and just push the whole barn down.
That's a bowing wall. Or a teetering fence, y'all have
seen fences, you know, that's stood straight up and strong
because of all the Uh, uh, fence, uh, uh, fence post that goes
along there. You'll see this and it may be,
you know, you may see this fence kind of leaning over to one direction.
You can just go over there and push it over. Why? Because the
fence post is either rotted at the bottom and it doesn't hold
it up anymore. They've come loose from the fence
post. They don't have a foundation. And so here we see that the Psalmist
is saying, listen, all of my enemies, all of you that are
coming against me, all of you that are bringing mischief against
this man himself, It's like a bowing wall. You don't have a foundation
or a teetering fence. You don't have any strength under
you. You don't have anything girding you up. There is nothing
holding you. There is something that is holding
us. That's the rock of our salvation. That's our high defense. But you don't have anything.
You don't have anything. Verse 4, they only consult to
cast him down from His excellency. They delight in lies. Now what does that mean? What
is he talking about there? They, they only consult. Who
is the they? Well, the they are those who
imagine mischief against the man, those who are bringing the
persecutions, the accusations, those who are bringing ridicule,
those who are the wicked, who are against God and against the
people of God, those who are going to be slain, they consult
to cast down His Excellency. Now that could be talking about
a couple of things here. And I'll be honest, I'm not for
sure exactly which One of these, and it may be for us to know
both of these things to be true. But it says here, they consult
to cast him down from his excellency. Is it the man who is Christ's? They desire to cast him down
from his place and position that he knows is in Christ? He is
hoping in Christ, but they're trying to get him to doubt in
Christ. He's hoping in the Lord, but
they're trying to get Him to hope in Himself. So they're trying
to bring the man down from the excellency of His hope in Christ,
of His looking to Him for salvation, of Him looking to Him for His
defense. Or it could be that they're talking
about God. These people are trying to cast down God from His excellency
and make Him look unworthy so that you might continue to waver
in your faith. that you might continue to waver
in your understanding, that you might not look to Christ. Why?
Because he's not that excellent. Now, we see that to be true today.
Like I said, with these atheists and people like that, what do
they try to do? They try to throw doubt upon
who God is or even even exists, but they try to throw doubt on
God. They take the Bible and try to throw doubt on the Bible.
The Bible is not true. or that God has done something
and he's just, you know, he's not righteous, he's not holy,
he's not, you know, why? Because they don't have the mind
of Christ, they don't understand spiritual things. So that could
mean either one. They only consult to cast him
down from his excellency, and they delight in lies. They bless
with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. They may even have
a show of religion. Look if you would with me at
Mark. Look at Mark. And look with me over to chapter
7. Start with me reading verse 1. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Matthew, Mark. Second book of
the New Testament. Mark chapter 7. It says, verse 1, Then came together
unto him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes which came from
Jerusalem. And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread
with defiled, that is to say, with unwashed hands, they found
fault. For the Pharisees and all the
Jews, except they wash their hands off, eat not, holding the
tradition of the elders." Now notice, holding to the tradition
of the elders, not the tradition of Christ. Tradition is good
if it's the tradition that's found in the Bible. But if it's
just traditions of men, those don't hold sway. And the traditions
of men isn't necessarily anything wrong with that. To have a tradition of man isn't
a sin, but for you to demand and hold judgment towards someone
else because of a tradition that you have made, man-made tradition,
that is not mandated and prescribed in scripture, then that's where
it becomes wrong, okay? I mean, we have a tradition here
every year to have a Thanksgiving dinner at Thanksgiving time as
a church, okay? The Bible doesn't mandate that
we do that in our worship time. The Bible doesn't mandate that,
but it doesn't prohibit that either. But if we would say,
well, all these other churches, because they don't have Thanksgiving
dinner, then they're wrong. They just don't have, you know,
they're not thankful to God. What's wrong with you? Now, see,
if we hold them to that standard because of our tradition, that's
not biblical, then we're in the wrong. And that's what these
Pharisees and scribes were doing. They had created, the elders
had created traditions and had created laws and rules that was
not given by God to Moses for the people to keep, but had laid
rules and stuff on top of those to try to get the people to keep
that. And so these were the tradition
of the elders. And so this washing your hands all the time before
eating was a tradition that these men had set up. And so they began
to look down on other people who weren't washing their hands
before they were eating and was deeming them unclean, defiled.
You're defiled if you don't do that. Well, the Bible didn't
teach that. Now the Bible does talk about
a lot of things that defile man. But one thing Jesus teaches is
it's not what's on the outside that defiles man, but what's
on the inside when it comes down to it. But there are things that
are bad that God had told the people, you know, don't eat this
or don't drink this or don't do this. If someone's sick, put
them outside the camp, you know, this kind of stuff that God had
told them to do. But look at verse four, it says,
and when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not.
And many other things there be which they had received to hold
as the washing of cups and pots and brazen vessels and of tables. Then the Pharisees and scribes
asked him, why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of
the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? So he's asking
Jesus, hey, what's wrong with your disciples? They're not following
our traditions. They're not doing what we're
doing. How come they're not doing what we're doing? Bringing shame and ridicule upon
them. you know, bringing doubt upon
them. Well, they can't be, you know, they can't be living right
because they're not following our traditions, or they can't
be in the truth because they're not following our tradition.
Well, how dare they not believe what we believe? How dare they
not hold to what we hold? And here's what Jesus said, well
have Isaiah, and that means Isaiah, prophesied of you hypocrites,
as it is written, this people, and here it is, this people honor
me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. How be it in vain do they worship
me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men? See, men
are taking the traditions of men and teaching that as doctrine.
Well, you have to believe this as an orthodox doctrine, but
if you can't find it in scripture and you can only find it in the
traditions of men, then, you know, we're not bound to believe
that, hold to that. It might be true. There might
be some truth to that, but if it's ambiguous, if there is no,
thus saith the Lord in the scripture that says, you know, this is
exactly how it is, then we need to give leeway to the brother
and sister in Christ as the Lord teaches them. But definitely
the traditions that we lay upon people, they're not binding.
How being in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men? For laying aside the commandment
of God, ye hold the tradition of men as the washing of pots
and cups and many other such like things ye do. And he said
unto them, full well ye reject the commandment of God, that
ye may keep your own tradition. Now, back to our passage of scripture. He says, they only consult to
cast him down from his excellency. They bless with their mouth,
but they curse inwardly. Isn't that what basically Jesus
paraphrased and said? Jesus said, they honor me with
their lips, but their heart is far from me. Listen, this persecution
can come from even those who are religious, who claim Christ,
Jesus. That's why we aren't to take
stock and trust and put our full trust in people, even the pastor. Now, let me just say, I'm not
saying, well, don't trust pastors anymore. But what I'm saying
is, is know that they're going to fail you. There's going to
be a time that I might fail you, that I might, you know, I might,
you might catch me on the day that I'm irritable and I might
bite your head off. That doesn't mean I don't love
you. It just means that I'm being sinfully in the flesh that day.
And I didn't want to be bothered by your problem. Just like all
of us, right? We go, we go to those places
in our flesh, right? But what I'm saying is the only
person that we can trust is Christ. We can always trust Christ. Never
will he fail us. Ever will he fail us. And so
he says here in verse five, my soul wait thou only upon God
for my expectation, or that word expectation means hope, for my
hope is from him. So don't worry about those who
are casting down God's excellency or trying to cast you down from
your excellency, not that you're excellent in and of yourself,
but from your trust in God. Those who are trying to cause
you to waver from your trust in God and His word, don't pay
no attention to them. Why? Let your soul wait upon
God. He'll give you the answer. He'll
show you the way. He'll be your escape. He'll be your defense. Let God
be your defender. You don't need to defend yourself.
That's the problem with a lot of us, you know. That's the problem
with Facebook a lot. And I'm beginning to learn that
more and more. I'm beginning to roll back out
of that as much as I can. That debate just doesn't do nothing.
You know, these men who want to argue and debate all the time,
that I don't mind friendly conversation, but the debate is worthless.
It ain't worth nothing. And so those men that want to
do that, those people that want to try to get you to, you know,
come down from your trust in Christ and His word, wait upon God. for my hope or
my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation. So there he's saying that again.
That's twice he said that now. He is my defense. I shall not
be moved. In God is my salvation and my
glory. See, your glory isn't in you.
Your glory is in Christ. In fact, Jesus prayed that in
John chapter 17. He prayed that God would give
us the glory that he had. In God is my salvation and my
glory. The rock of my strength and my
refuge is in God. So again, we see that now. Again,
what's a refuge? Well, a refuge is a safe place,
a place to hide, a place to run to for safety. It's a place where
when attacks are being made, you can go to, and it's something
that will shield you from attacks. Remember, again, the illustration
I had given you a while back when we were talking about a
refuge, it's like the old forts in the old days on the frontier.
They had built those big old forts with those walls, and up
on those walls, they had a catwalk that went around that had guys
that could walk around that they could see all the way around
that fort to see if anybody was coming. Then they had posts up
there where guys would with guns or bows and arrows and stuff
like that. They're called range defense. These guys would get
up there with bows and arrows. If you could see an enemy coming
from a long way, now this is before guns, remember, or when
guns were scarce. But if you see somebody way off
in the distance and everything, and as they're coming out in
the open, most of the time they put those forts out in the middle
of places with nothing around so you could see from out. But
you get all your archers up around the top of that thing. Castles
were the same way back in the medieval time. Castles were the
same way. And those archers, when you can
see people far off, you can start attacking them from far off and
defend your castle or defend your fort from afar off. Why? Because those people you can
clearly see them coming and because your place is elevated or because
your place is surrounded and if you are out there in the wilderness
somewhere and you've seen your enemies coming, you can always
run back to the fort, come into the fort and find refuge there. So that's kind of the idea that
the Lord has given us here, that he is our refuge, he's our place
to run to whenever we're attacked. He's our place to run to whenever
things are hard. He's our place to run to whenever
things get bad and it's frustrating. Disappointing, that's where we
go. When our flesh even, you know,
there's a lot of times, you know, I'm just so upset with myself
because of the sin that I still do. But God is my refuge, I go
to Him. Verse nine, surely men of low
degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie. What's
the saying? It doesn't matter if you're rich
or poor, of high status or low status. It doesn't matter if
you're a religious man or a non-religious man. Everything is vanity and is a
lie. So if we try to find our refuge,
our strength as a rock in men, we're gonna end up finding just
lies, worthlessness, because it's all vanity. We're all in
the flesh vanity. He said, to be laid in the balance,
they are altogether lighter than vanity. Vanity is always gonna outweigh
the man. It doesn't matter if you're a
good man or a bad man. It's still gonna be vanity. Vanity
is always gonna be there. What is vanity? Well, to us,
the word vanity means someone who is always looking in the
mirror at themselves and always prideful about how they look
and things like that. That's how we look at the word
vanity, but the word vanity in the scriptures means someone
who is sinful or wicked. It says, trust not in oppression
and become not vain in robbery. Listen, don't trust in people
putting oppression on you. They're going to try to oppress
you to do what they want them for you to do what they want
you to do. Don't trust in that just because
somebody is pressuring you to look away from Christ or looking
away from the scriptures. Don't listen to them. Now, listen to them if they're
speaking the truth of the scriptures, you know, Whenever somebody comes
and corrects and rebukes and reproves with the Word of God,
that's what the Word of God is for, is for correction. That
we should love when the brother does that. But if someone is
trying to get you to look away from Scripture and is oppressing
you, don't listen to them. Become not vain in robbery. If
riches increase, set not your heart upon them. If you begin
to see that you're beginning to be blessed, or the Lord begins
to give you more, or that you begin to profit in this life, maybe you're
going from the low degree man to the high degree man, as the
Lord has providentially brought you. Don't let that change who
you are. Don't set your heart upon that.
Don't think because you're getting everything given to you and blessed
with you that you're okay in and of yourself. You still need
to have God as your refuge. God has spoken once, twice have
I heard this. So the psalmist is saying that
God has said what he has said, and there is two times that he
has made this mention. And what are the two things that
he has said? One, that power belongeth unto God. That power belongeth unto God,
or strength belongeth unto God. Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth
mercy. So power and mercy belongs to
the Lord. So that means he is almighty,
Right? And that he is sovereign to give
mercy to whom he will give mercy and compassion to whom he will
give compassion. So the psalmist is realizing
that God alone has all power. So how can, why
is he saying this? Why is he giving you this information
at the end of this thing? Well, he's just now spent 10
verses pouring out his heart towards God and to you, to tell
you that God is your refuge if you're a child of grace. God
is your refuge. God is your strength. God is
your portion. God is your shield. God is your
buckler. Trust in Him and not in everything
else. And so he says, he girds that
with, here's the reason why. Because if all power belongs
to God, then he has the power to do anything he wants to protect
you, to shield you, to do what needs to be done to make good
on the promise that he has made as your refuge. Doesn't the Bible
say about Christ that all power has been given unto him in heaven
and on earth? Jesus said that the Father has given him power
over all flesh. He revealed himself to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty. I have all might, all power. So if God has all power, then
that means there's no enemies that could come against you and
defeat you. But he also says, O Lord, unto
thee belongeth mercy, for thou renderest to every man according
to his word. To the man who thinks that he
can do it himself, he's wicked. The man who is self-righteous
that thinks that he can do things his own way without God is self-righteous,
and God will render unto him according to his works. But those
who look to Christ alone as their refuge, trusting Christ alone
as their refuge, always looking to Christ as their refuge, God
will render also to them according to their works. Now, what's their
works? It's not their works, right?
It's the works of Christ that is rendered. Christ stands for
them. So brethren, look to Christ as
your refuge. We're going to go in this life,
we're going to have lots of problems. Wow, I didn't mean to do that.
I just want to read something out of that last hymn we sang.
What was it? Three or three. Nope, it was
136. I was gonna read out of that last hymn
that we wrote, or some. I didn't write it and still wrote
it. He says this. But oh, when gloomy doubts prevail,
I fear to call thee mine. There are going to be times that
even as a child of grace, you're going to have doubts that the
Lord is listening to you. You're going to have doubts that
God hears you. And just because he doesn't answer
you right away doesn't mean he doesn't hear you. There's a purpose
in that. He's teaching you something in
that, to wait upon him, to trust in him. See, if we don't, sometimes
if we don't go through hardships, we don't learn to trust in the
Lord. If everything is just given to, what do we call children
that their parents give them everything they want and do everything
they tell them to do? What do we call those kids? Spoiled
brats, right? We call them spoiled, right? Then whenever something bad happens
or hard happens to them, what happens? Just take a look at
what we see on TV today, all these little snowflakes out there. That every little thing that
you tell them no, what do they do? They throw a hissy fit. Remember
back whenever Trump was first elected in 2016, that all those
kids in the colleges, they began to wear diapers and go lay down
in their college campuses. They're putting diapers on and
laying down. They're getting out coloring books and coloring.
They were acting like children, like babies. They were throwing
hissy fits because they weren't getting their way. See, a child, whenever he's given
everything immediately, then that child becomes spoiled and
believes that he deserves it all. But whenever a child is
sometimes told no or sometimes told to wait, then that child
becomes dependent. If that child is told, just wait,
then what do they do? In expectation, they're waiting.
Hey, my parent has told me that just wait and he will do whatever. So what do they do? They wait
and they wait. They may even ask a million times,
is it time yet? Is it time yet? Is it time yet?
And the parents say, not yet. Just keep waiting. Just keep
waiting. Well, what does that do? Well, that keeps that child
looking to the parent. That's what God is telling us.
He is our refuge. There's no doubt about it. He
is our defender. There's no doubt about that.
He is our shield. There is no doubt about that.
He has all power. He has all authority. He has
mercy upon us. And listen, what you're going
through, he's going through to conform you to the image of Christ. And so he's saying, my child,
wait, endure with long suffering these hardships, because in the
end, They are going to make you like Christ. They're going to
keep you looking to Christ. And that's what this writer says. But oh, when gloomy doubts prevail,
I fear to call thee mine. I fear that I can even call God
mine because of all these doubts that's coming through my mind.
But it says the springs of comfort seem to fail and all my hopes
declined. I don't seem to be comforted.
It's not you're not making anything better for me, God. You may,
they may even have a friend that comes alongside of you and tries
to give you comfort, make you feel better. And you just, I
don't, that don't make me feel better. They may quote you 15,
25,000 scriptures to make you feel better. And guess what?
It doesn't do it. It doesn't come. That doesn't comfort me.
I'm not finding comfort in that. I'm not finding comfort in what
you're saying. People who now watching it on live stream or
listening to me by sermon audio, they might not be finding comfort
in this sermon. And their hope begins to decline.
But what does Jesus say here? He says that he is our refuge. Trust in him, and what does the
songwriter say here? Yet gracious God, where shall
I flee? Where am I gonna go? Everyone else is wicked, is sinful,
like me. Everyone else is like me. So
where am I gonna go? I can't go anywhere else. Remember
whenever Jesus was preaching and all, and it got hard, he's
preaching that hard doctrine, and he said many of his disciples
left him and walked no more with him, and Jesus turned to his
disciples and said, are you gonna go away too? What did Peter say? Where shall we go? You only have
the words of eternal life. You're the only one that can
give us life. You're the only one that can save us. You're
the only one that can shield us and protect us. You're the
only one who can do anything for us. Where else are we going
to go? And that's what the songwriter said. That's what the psalmist
is saying in the psalm. He's saying, yet gracious God,
where shall I flee? Thou art my only trust. And still
my soul would cleave to thee, though prostrate in the dust. Hast thou not bid me seek thy
face and shall I seek in vain? See, God tells us to come to
Him, but sometimes God doesn't answer. But are we seeking Him
in vain? No, absolutely not. When we go to the Lord as our
refuge and we pour out our heart as this psalmist did before the
Lord, and yet God is silent, He doesn't speak. Does that mean that we did it
in vain, for nothing? That God didn't hear us and doesn't
care? Not if we're His children. It's just that it's not time
yet. It's not time for him to speak to us. He says, hast thou
not bid me seek thy face, and shall I seek in vain? And can
the ear of sovereign grace? He's even pleading to the God
who's in control of it. God, you can control everything.
Why aren't you coming to my aid right now? And then he says,
be deaf when I complain. Is God deaf whenever we talk
to him? Has the sovereign grace of God Stopped? Is he not gonna give me mercy
and compassion anymore? But then he's reminded of what
the scriptures say. That's probably why the Psalms
that he wrote is up here. Those Psalms, Psalm 99, Psalm
46, 1. Those Psalms are there. This
Psalm that we're even looking at today is in the mind of this
songwriter. They say, no. Still the ear of
sovereign grace attends the mourner's prayer. Oh, may I ever find access
to breathe my sorrows there. Thy mercy seat is open still.
Here, let my soul retreat with humble hope. There's that word
again, hope. My expectation, I'm waiting,
expecting from you. With humble hope, attend thy
will and wait. beneath thy feet. We wait upon
the Lord. That's what the psalmist said
in this song. He said that we should wait. Truly, my soul waited
upon God from him come with my salvation. Does anyone have any
questions or any comments that you'd like to make? How great it is for us to have
a God who is our refuge In fact, the Bibles are still open there
in the 59th Psalm. I forgot to bring this up, but
in the 59th Psalm, the psalmist says the same thing. In verse
nine, he says, because of his strength will I wait upon thee
for God is my defense. We wait upon God because he has
all strength. In verse 16, he says, but I will
sing of thy power. Yea, I will sing aloud of thy
mercy in the morning, for thou hast been my defense and refuge
in the day of my trouble unto thee, O my strength, will I sing
for God is my defense and the God of my mercy. So let us always
be praising the Lord to be our strength and wait on him. Trust and obey. Trusting in the
Lord, right? We're trusting in him. And he
will come through for us, if not in this lifetime, in the
next. When all principalities and powers,
when sin, when death and hell and sin are done, he cast all
the wicked into the lake of fire. Then all of our trials, there's
a song about our trials in life will soon be over. So, let's thank the Lord for
that. All right, if nobody has any questions, let's pray. Father,
we come to you again, thanking you for being our refuge. And
Father, we pray that the Spirit help us in the times of doubt
and despair when we feel that you're not hearing us, not responding
to us. May you give us faith and hope
to continue to trust in you and look to you and not to our own
understanding, not to our own desires, to our own feelings,
but know that you are there for us and that you're working out
your perfect plan in us. That yes, we may have to endure
hardships in this lifetime, but oh, how much it's gonna be worth
the eternity that we're gonna get spending with you without
sin, without death, without temptation, without hardships. So Father,
Lord, I pray that this has been an encouragement to our brothers
and sisters here and anyone else that might be listening. Father,
I pray that this might be an encouragement for those who are
downtrodden, who are persecuted, for those who are struggling,
whatever the case might be, Lord, that they might find hope in
you. Father, we pray for our members
that are not here this morning, wherever they're at. Lord, we
pray that you might keep them. We thank you, Father, for your
protection over us, for your watch care over us. We continue
to pray for our country, Lord. We ask that if it be your will,
that you would give us a good leader, Father, that you might
change the heart of the people in this country to turn back
to you. Father, we pray for our town,
our city. We pray, Lord, that you might
Bless it. We pray that you might use us
to be the light of the gospel here. Be with us now as we gather
around the table to eat, that you might bless the food to the
nourishment of our bodies. For it's in Christ's name that
we pray, amen.