Special music is going to be
at the end of the service this evening, so hold your Bibles
open there, Psalm 121, and Isaac's going to close the service with
our song this evening. Now, I've titled the message
this evening, Look to the Hills. Our text this evening is another
one of the Psalms of degrees. These are the Psalms of going
up that people sang as they traveled from Jerusalem, up to Jerusalem
for the different feasts of the year they would travel there.
And in this Psalm, we look at this evening, the traveler, he's
going up, but he's starting out down in the valley. He's down
in the valley, he's looking up at the mountains as he travels. In verse one, he says, I will
lift up mine eyes into the hills, for whence cometh my help? Now,
when I was a boy, I really liked westerns. I mean, I loved western
movies, cowboys, and oh, I loved them. So when David here says,
I'll lift up mine eyes to the hills, I just can't help it's
ingrained in me. I get this picture in my mind
of soldiers or cowboys down here, you know, fighting. They're in
a fight and they're outnumbered. The battle's not looking good.
But they keep looking to the hills. They keep looking to see,
is that Calvary? You know, the bugle and the rider
carrying the flag of the Calvary running over the hill to come
to their rescue. That's what I get in my mind.
Maybe David had something like that in mind, but there's no
doubt he's thinking about looking to the hills. He's thinking about
some place of safety and refuge. More than likely, David's not
thinking about cowboys like I was. More than likely, he's thinking
about those mountains as places of safety that he could go hide
from an enemy. You know, David would often go
to a mountain stronghold and there was an enemy who was after
him. That's what he's thinking. He's looking to those things
as a place of safety where he can flee. Now that's just what
we needed. We need a place of safety and
refuge. Well, where can you and I look?
Where can we look for safety and refuge? Where can we look
for comfort? Well, salvation, you know, you've
been told many times, salvation's in a look. Look and live. Look and live. Look! But where
do we look? Where do we look? When David
talks about looking to the hills, I thought of three main mountains
that are listed in Scripture. The first one's Mount Sinai.
Mount Sinai, where God gave the law. Now scripture, that's what
Mount Sinai always represents. It represents the law. Well,
don't look there. I mean, it's a mountain. Boy,
it's an impressive mountain. But don't look there. Because
you're not going to find any comfort in the law. You're not
going to find any health in the law. You won't find any safety
or life in the law. When sinners look to the law,
all we find is condemnation for our sin. All we see is death
for our sin because of our guilt. So don't look to the law. You
can't keep God's law. And God requires perfection.
I mean, what if He could keep just one law? It wouldn't matter
would it? God requires perfection. So don't
look to the law. All the law can do is condemn
us. But the second mountain is Mount Calvary. Mount Calvary
where Christ was crucified. Now that's a place you can look.
You look to the Savior there on Mount Calvary and you will
be saved. You look to Christ crucified
as your salvation. Look to Christ crucified as your
justification. Look to Christ crucified as a
sacrifice for your sin. The law says we must be condemned.
Well, you look to Christ crucified, condemned for you. That's your
place of safety. That's your deliverance. Look
to the blood of Christ. The law, all it can do is point
out our sin. Well, you look to Christ crucified.
You look to his blood, that blood that'll cleanse you from all
of your sin. Look to Christ crucified. It's all that God requires of
you. Look to Him. Trust Him. When I say look to
Him, I mean look to Him in trust. Look to Him in complete confidence
that He is all it takes to save your sinful soul. Look to Him
like that and you'll be saved. Now look to Christ. Look and
keep looking. Keep looking. Look to Christ
and never turn away from Him. We're told in scripture to always
be looking, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. That's Christ crucified. Now
you can look there. And then the third mount is Mount
Zion. Mount Zion represents the church.
Mount Zion is where God dwells with his people. You come to
Mount Zion, and you know where they're going to point you to?
Mount Calvary. You come to the Mount Zion where
Christ is preached, where the gospel is preached. That's where
you'll find comfort for your heart. That's where you'll find
salvation to your heart, is where Christ is preached. Now, you
look there. You go there. You make it your business to
get to that mountain and hear that message of Christ. You'll
have safety for your soul. You'll have comfort for your
soul. Now, those are the three prominent mountains in Scripture.
Well, what do we see when we look to those two mountains that
are pictures of Christ? When we look to Mount Sinai,
we know we see our sin, we see our guilt, we see our failure.
But when we look to these other two mountains, Calvary and Zion,
these mountains are pictures of Christ. What do we see when
we look to those mountains? Now, I tell you all the time,
look to Christ, look to Christ, look to Christ. Well, if I look
to Christ, What will I see there? What will I find if I look to
Christ? Now, I'm going to give you four things from our text
this evening that we will see when we look to Christ. Number
one is this, look to Christ and we'll see our help. David says,
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh
my help. Now, if you're going to look
for help, don't look, like I said, don't look to Mount Sinai. You're
not going to find any help there. The law can't give you any help
to keep its commandments. All Mount Sinai can do is give
you more commandments that you've got to keep. More, more, more,
more. All Mount Sinai can say is you're
guilty. All Mount Sinai can do is be
a mirror that holds up so you can see what you look like. So
you see how guilty, how defiled by sin that you are. The law
can't give you any help. The law can show you you're guilty,
but can't give you any help. It can't clear your guilt. It
can't clear your sin. Oh, but if you look away from
Mount Sinai, look away from the law, and look to Mount Calvary,
there you'll find help. The sacrifice of Christ, it's
the only hope that we have. It's the only help that we have
because the sacrifice of Christ is the only way our sin can be
forgiven. So look to Christ. Look to His
blood. That blood that He shed on Calvary's
tree, you look to that blood. You trust His blood. And you
know what you'll find? You'll find your sins blotted
out. Sin is gone. Now, David talks here about help. Look, I need help. Now, we only
need help doing what we cannot do for ourselves. Early on in
this pandemic, my Janice refrigerator went out and I need to move the
refrigerator. I need to get a refrigerator,
move the refrigerator in there. And you know what? I couldn't
do it by myself. I can't move that refrigerator.
I had to call Eric. Can you give me some help? I had to get him
to come help me do what I can't do by myself. Well, the help
we're talking about is spiritual help. It's not like, okay, well,
you know, Eric, you bring a couple of guys, I can hold up one end
of that refrigerator. No, that's not the kind of help
we're talking about. It's not like I've done some things, you know. I've
produced some righteousness. I've done some things that are
worthy, you know, of God saving me, and I just need help to do
the rest. That's not the kind of help we're
talking about. That's not the kind of help we're talking about
because we are incapable of doing any spiritual good. We're incapable
of producing any righteousness at all. We can contribute zero. So when we talk about spiritual
help, I need help. We mean I need somebody to come
and do everything for me. I need somebody to come and do
all the work of salvation for me. That's the kind of help I
need. Is that the kind of help you need? Is it? Then look to
Christ at Calvary. Look to Him. His sacrifice is
all you need. Just look to Him for everything
you need. Look to Him for everything that the Father requires. Trust
Him to be everything the Father requires of you and you'll be
saved. Now look to Him. And then look to Mount Zion,
the church. Look to Mount Zion. Not because
of the buildings that they have, not because of the form of religion
that they have, not because of the particular brand of worship
that they have. You know, I see these signs that
we have a modern service and, you know, whatever that means,
I don't know. But that's not what you're looking for. Look
to that place where Christ is preached, where the gospel is
preached. Look to that gospel being preached
and you'll find help for your souls. You know, there's a lot
of different kinds of people here tonight. I mean, there's
one kind of people that are sinners, but I'm talking about worldly
speaking. You know, the people of different ages, different
backgrounds, different occupations, different education levels. You
got different things going on in your life. Older people have
something way different going on in their life than young people.
Yet the gospel of Christ fits every need. The same message
fits every need. The same message gives each heart
exactly what they need. You know why that is? Because
Christ is all we need. You preach Christ and you've
satisfied the need of every sinful heart. Just look there where
the gospel is preached. Be there, here, and God will
bless your soul. He'll comfort your heart. When
Christ is preached, we get help, the help that we need. When Christ
is preached, the souls of God's sheep are fed. They're fed Christ
the living bread, and they're helped, they're strengthened.
Y'all come in tonight from out there in the world, it's a dry,
parched place, isn't it? Well, nothing for your soul out
there, nothing but grief for your soul. Well, when Christ
is preached, those souls, those hearts of God's sheep that become
dry and parched because they're out there in the world, oh, they're
refreshed, they're helped because they drink, they hear of Christ,
the living water. When Christ is preached, the
souls of God's sheep are comforted. I promise you this, God's sheep
are going through a time of tribulation. They're being wrung out. But when Christ is preached,
their hearts are comforted because they're reminded, oh, Christ
is my Savior. It's all right. Christ is my
shield. Christ is my defense. Christ is my sustainer. When
we hear Christ preached, we know all is well. We're helped, aren't
we? So look to Christ and you'll find your help. Number two, look
to Christ and we'll see our creator. Verse two, David says, my help
cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. Now God is
the creator. Jehovah, our God, is the creator. And you know how he created everything?
Just by speaking. It wasn't hard work. Just by
speaking. He spoke creation into existence
from nothing, from thin air. God is so powerful, He spoke
and planets appeared in space out of thin air. They just appeared
in their orbits and there they've stayed ever since. Our God is
so powerful, He just spoke in dry land of people. He spoke
and grass and trees and animals appeared just at His Word. Our
Jehovah, our Savior is the Creator and the Creator is our Helper. See, not only does our God have
the power to create everything, our God has the power to rule
everything in His creation. He rules as sovereign over His
creation. Look back at Psalm 24. You know,
when David talked about the hill of the Lord, he talked about
that hill of the Lord as being the throne of God, where God
sovereignly sits, ruling and reigning His creation. Psalm
24, verse 1. The earth is the Lord's, and
the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein.
It all belongs to the Lord, because He created it. For He hath founded
it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. Now who shall
ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy
place? That hill of the Lord, the holy
place, that's God's throne in heaven. When David says, I'm
going to look under the hills, he's talking about looking to
the throne of God. This is where my God sovereignly
sits. He sits there ruling absolutely
everything. You can't think of something
too minute in this creation. and say, well, God's not ruling
that. I mean, the most minute thing
you can think of, God's ruling it. And the big things God's
ruling them do, He's ordained them to happen exactly the way
that they're happening. And He rules everything in creation
for this purpose, for the redemption of His people, to accomplish
the redemption of His people, to bring all of His people to
glory with Him. That is God's purpose in ruling
everything in this creation. Well, then I ask you, what enemy
can harm you? What enemy can do harm to you?
Not one, not one. I know they're all greater than
us, but our God is greater than every enemy. He overrules every
enemy. Our Creator not only has the
power to take care of our enemies from without, but the ones from
within. Our Creator has the power to
overcome our dead sin nature that refuses to believe on Him.
We're told in scripture, look and live, look and live. And
by nature, we refuse to look. We're told to look and live,
but by nature, we can't look. We're blind and we can't see.
So look at the book of second Corinthians. So this is what
our Creator does for His people. He uses the same power that He
used to create the universe. The same power He used to speak
the universe into existence is the power He uses to create a
new heart in His people. So that they will believe Him.
They will look to Him. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse
6. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. God has spoken that new heart
into His people to give them life, to give them the knowledge
of Christ, to give them the ability to believe Christ, to look to
Him, to rest in Him. And that life, when God speaks,
He puts that life in His people. That life He creates is eternal
life. Now I tell you what, life that cannot be lost, that'd be
pretty helpful, wouldn't you say? Well, that's what our Creator
and only our Creator can give. So look to Christ and you'll
see our Creator. All right, thirdly, look to Christ
and we'll see our Keeper. Verse three, He will not suffer
thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber
nor sleep. Now, the Lord keeps his people.
He keeps them. He keeps them. Scripture has
so many different ways of talking about how the Lord keeps his
people. He keeps them in his hand. The Lord said, they're
in my hand, in my father's hand. No man can pluck them out of
my hand. David talked about the Lord keeping his people by establishing
their feet on the rock Christ Jesus. Now, if our feet can't
slip off Christ, If our feet can't slip off Christ and fall
away, then the rest of us won't fall away either. If my feet
are founded, the rest of me is going to stay there too. That's
why David said in Psalm 62, he only is my rock and my salvation.
He is my defense. I shall not be moved. He won't
move and I won't move. I'm established on him, so I
cannot be moved. I won't be moved because my keeper
will not allow me to be moved away from Christ. I'm going to
stumble. I'm going to make a mess of things
often, unfortunately, but I won't be moved away from Christ. I'm
going to show my ignorance. I'm going to show my bad attitude.
I'm going to show my selfishness. I'm going to show my nature of
Adam often, unfortunately. But I won't fall away from Christ.
I won't fall away from Christ because I'm anchored on Christ.
He's my anchor. My anchor is already within the
veil. Then I cannot be moved. Now that's
helpful. That's how our keeper keeps us.
And our keeper is on watch all the time. He never slumbers or
sleeps. He doesn't get so sleepy and
he just can't even pay attention to what's going on. Jan and I
were finishing up watching our mini series on Grant yesterday.
And buddy, she went out to the world. She didn't know old President
Grant was running the country and stuff. She was out. Not our
God. He never slumbers. He doesn't
miss a thing. Even Mother Joy. You just can't
quantify a mother's love, can you? A mother with a sick little
one, sitting up just constantly, dripping that cloth into cool
water and bathing that fevered forehead. Even a mother falls
asleep sometimes. She just, her body just can't
do it. She just falls asleep sometimes, but not our keeper. He never slumbers nor sleeps.
And he can't be taken by surprise. The enemy can't come in and snatch
us away when our keeper's asleep or he's not watching because
he watches all the time. He stays awake all the time and
there's nothing ever more important to take his attention away from
his children. His eye is always on his children. His eye is always on them that
fear him. Our keeper's watching. Verse
five says, the Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade upon thy
right hand. The sun shall not smite thee
by day, nor the moon by night. Oh, what a blessing it is to
have the Lord Jehovah be our keeper. You know, the Lord calls
his people his peculiar treasure, his gemstones. The Lord keeps
those people better than a rich man keeps his treasure chest
full of his diamonds and gold and silver. The Lord keeps his
people. They're precious to him. The
Lord is our keeper because he's the great shepherd of the sheep
who keeps his sheep. His eye is always on his sheep. He's not going to let them wander
off the cliff. He uses his staff to pull them back in place. He's
not going to let them wander off. He uses his rod to whack
them on the side, keep them on the path. And his eyes always
on the wolf. The wolf can't sneak up on him.
He knows where the, he always knows where that wolf is. That
wolf is not going to come take one of his father's sheep. No,
his eyes on them. And our keeper doesn't just watch
over his people, but he shields them too. You know, our keeper
doesn't say now, it's a hot and dusty land, here's some shade
if you want. You know, if you want some shade, here's some
shade over here. No, he doesn't do that. Our keeper is the shade
for his people. Our keeper is that great rock
in a weary lane that provides shade for his people to rest
in. And just like he makes us lie down in those green pastures,
he leads us beside those still waters. He makes his people to
lie down and rest in his shade. And boy, we need that, don't
we? This world is a hot, dry, weary desert. Just a desert lane
for his sheep to wander through. There's nothing to eat. There's
nothing to drink. There's nothing to sustain your
soul. There's nothing that interests you. But then there's the heat
of sin and hatred. There's the heat of trials and
suffering that God sends His people. And it's exhausting. I mean, heat exhaustion. Well,
our Savior is the shade that gives His people rest, that keeps
them from heat exhaustion. Our Redeemer is able to shield
you. He's able to shield His people.
He's already shielded His people from the fire of God's wrath
against sin. Christ took all of that holy,
fiery heat, that fire of God's wrath, and He shielded His people
from it. He took every drop of it Himself. Well, then I believe if our Savior
can shield us from that heat, I believe He can shield us from
the heat of this world, don't you reckon? From trouble in this
world. David says, He won't let the sun smite you by day. He's
not going to let that heat overcome you. And He won't let the moon
smite you by night. Now, the moon is a powerful force. You think about the moon moves
oceans. I mean, just moves those oceans,
those tides go back and forth because of the moon. When there's
a full moon, people act funny. I mean, the moon affects people.
People in David's time, in this part of the world where he lived,
could get what they called a moon stroke. Being out at night and
not having your face covered from the moon would give you
a moon stroke. It would cause temporary paralysis
of your face or cause temporary blindness. And David said, now
the Lord's not going to let the moon smite you by night. You
know, and I thought, now I know about the sun. I know to worry
about getting burned by the sun. And if I would happen to forget,
I've got a faithful wife to remind me, wear sunscreen. If I would
forget, she won't. And I know I need protection
from the heat of the sun. I need to drink plenty of water
and those kind of things. I had no idea I needed to be protected
from the moon. I mean no idea whatsoever. How many dangers
are out there? I have no idea I need to be worried
about. How many things? I just got no
idea I need to be protected from those things. Our keeper knows. And that's
all that matters. That's all that matters. He knows. Those two gray lights up there.
Who put them there? God put him there. He put a great
light to rule the day and a great light to rule the night. Well,
who's ruling them? Our keeper. And he's ruling everything
underneath them too. All is well. All is well. All
right, here's the fourth thing. You look to Christ and you'll
see our preserver. Verse seven. The Lord shall preserve
thee from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. Now,
the Lord preserves his people from all evil. And I say this
often because, you know, when we what went through your mind
when we read that the Lord preserves you from all evil. More than
likely, what went through your mind was evil out there, evil. This world is full of evil people. Well, he protects us from that.
But you know what the other evil he protects his people from?
The evil from within. the evil of our sinful nature.
The Lord preserves his people from their own sin. And I'm telling
you, that's far more important than being protected from evil
people out there. The Lord preserves his people
from the evil, the wicked of their own sin by taking their
sin away from them and making them righteous in him. He takes
their sin away from them so it can't hurt them anymore. It can't
spoil them anymore. The Savior traded His righteousness
for the sin of His people, and He made them righteous. Now,
I don't really know all the technical thing there is to know about
canning. I've watched my mom can a lot of things, and I don't
know what you're cooking out of there. I don't know. But whatever
it is that was for those tomatoes is out of there, and it's sealed,
so whatever it is that was for them can't get in. That's what
our Savior's done for His people. He took the sin that was spoiling,
took them out, took it out again, and He sealed them. He sealed
them with His Spirit so they cannot be spoiled. They're preserved. They're preserved from all their
inward sin. They're preserved from condemnation
because Christ was already condemned for us as our substitute. The
Lord preserves His people. He washes them in His blood,
cleanses them from all of their sin so there's no sin left to
spoil them. Then the Lord preserves his people from falling away
from him. Aren't you thankful that the
Lord doesn't save his people and then set you down and say,
all right, now you keep on the straight and narrow and if you
make it, I'll see you in eternity. No, he doesn't do that. He preserves
his people from falling away from him. Now we've seen our
keeper. Our keeper keeps his people by
establishing our feet on Christ so we cannot slip off of him.
But he also preserves his people, keeps us from falling away from
him by giving us a nature that believes on Christ. He gives
his people a nature that won't believe anything but Christ.
It won't look away from Christ. That nature won't start trusting
the arm of the flesh. That nature will stay close to
Christ. So we're preserved. Preserved.
And the Lord, David says, preserves our souls. Our souls, huh? Not
necessarily our bodies. He'll preserve our bodies, I
know, for a time until we've accomplished his purpose. But
he shall preserve our soul. Someday he's gonna kill this
body, but not our soul, because the Lord preserves the soul of
his people. He preserves his people from
the dominion of sin, so we believe on Christ and our soul can't
be lost. He preserves us from the infection
of error so that we won't quit trusting Christ alone, and our
soul will be lost. He preserves us from the way
of this world. You're all out there in the world
every day. And you're out there long enough, and the way of the
world that starts playing on your mind, that starts playing
on that fleshly mind, starts thinking, maybe this is the way. Maybe this is the way to do things.
Maybe I want to start doing things the way the world's doing. Well,
go back to where we started, Al. Go back and look to Mount
Zion. Go back and look to the church.
Hear the gospel that they preached. Here's how the Lord preserves
His people so that we don't go away again. It's by giving us
a nature that trusts Christ, by reminding us over and over
and over again, Christ is all. He preserves us from our own
sinful flesh, from our own sinful lusts, so our soul is not lost. The Lord preserves our soul.
Now, if it's well with my soul, all is well, all is well. And
our preserver is the one who directs our steps. Look at verse
eight. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming
in from this time forth and even forevermore. The Lord preserves
our going out and our coming in. We got a lot of goings out
and a lot of comings in in our life, don't we? The Lord preserves
us, preserves His people. They go out in the morning, they
go out to work, they go out to school. I mean, I hate it. I just can't
even tell you how bad I hate it. Sending our children out
to school every morning. Usually, I was gone off to work
long before they went to school, but Janet was there. After summer
break and the summer break was over, I mean, I was depressed
for weeks. I had to send them back to that
school. I hated it. It always comforted, this verse always
came to help me while we remember it. The Lord preserves like going
out. He'll preserve them when they go out, and He'll preserve
them when they come back in. He'll be with them the whole
time in between. The Lord preserves His people. He preserves us when
we go out of this world, and we go back out into the world,
and He preserves us when we come back to the house of the Lord.
He preserves His people. And if you'll allow me, I thought
of something, how this verse applies particularly to three
of our own right now. I thought about Lucy and Jack
and Brady. I've watched you grow. I've watched
you grow. Prayed for you a long time. And
the Lord's preserved you. The Lord preserves His people
and their children. It's astounding a child ever
grows to adulthood. I mean, it's just astounding. The Lord preserves. When you're
children, the Lord preserves you. And now it comes time for
you to take a step out. You're not leaving your parents'
home. You're stepping out. You come back. You're stepping
out. It's time to step out a little bit further. It's time to test
your sea legs. It's time to leave for a while. It's time to leave
childhood and step out more into adulthood. And you're stepping
out. The Lord preserves His people. When you go out, the Lord preserves
His people. And I tell you, you go get your
education. Get your education. But don't
stay gone. Listen to Him. He doesn't take
on you. Come back. Come back here or someplace else, some
other mountain sign. You come back. You come back. The Lord preserves you. He preserves
you when you go out and He'll bring you back. He'll preserve
you as He brings you, but that is my prayer for you that the
Lord preserves you. I feel that's pretty good ground
since the Lord says that the Spirit moved David to write this.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in. I pray
He blesses you. Preserve you when you go out. And when you
come in, but that's a good reminder for every last one of us. The
Lord preserves the goings out and the comings in of his people.
There's going to be one for all of us. There's going to be one
final going out. We're finally come to that last time. And it's
time for us to go out. It's time for us to lay down
this body of flesh to die and to go out, to go out and leave
this world and go into eternity. At that last moment, the Lord's
not going to leave you alone. He hasn't left you alone up to
now, has He? But He's not going to leave you alone then either.
The Lord's going to preserve thy going out and thy coming
in. He'll preserve thy going out
of this life and going into the next life. And then it's going
to be so much better, isn't it? You're not going to need no more
help. You're going to need no more
keeping. You're going to need no more preserving. It'll be
perfect. perfect with the Lord Jesus Christ. He'll preserve thy going out
and thy coming in. And then when it's all over and
we're with the Lord, we're going to look back and the believer
will say, I see the whole story now. I see it from the right
perspective. And you know, the Lord was faithful
to me. every step of the way. The Lord
always did for me exactly what he said he'd do. He helped me
every step of the way. He helped me. He kept me. He
directed me. He preserved me every step of
the way. So until then, until then, keep
looking to the hills. Keep looking to Christ. All right,
let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, Oh, how we thank
you for your word. How we thank you for these precious,
precious promises of your word. How we thank you for this clear
revelation of Christ, our help, Christ, our creator, our keeper,
our preserver. Oh, how we thank you. And Father,
I pray you give us the faith, each one here tonight, I pray
you give us the faith to look to Christ, to look to him and
find in him everything that we need. Look to him and find salvation,
comfort, rest for our souls. Father, it's in his precious
name for the glory of our Savior, we pray and give thanks.