Well, good morning. If you care
to open your Bibles to Psalm 121, that's where our lesson
will be from this morning. Psalm 121. Before we begin, let's
bow in prayer. Our great God, our eternal, sovereign,
merciful Heavenly Father, we bow in your courts this morning. Father, we bow with hearts that
are both rejoicing in our Lord Jesus Christ and broken at this
time of loss and sorrow. Father, I pray that you would
meet with us this morning as we attempt to worship you. Father,
make this an hour of true worship where by your mercy, by your
grace, by your spirit, You enable us to set our affection on things
above, on eternal things, on the things of our Lord Jesus
Christ, our great Savior. Let us set our affection on those
things, our mind, our heart on those things and little less
on the things of this world for just this hour where we pray
you'd speak to our hearts. Father, deliver your people who
gathered here this morning from simply hearing the voice of a
man. We know that won't do us any
good. But Father, speak to us, speak
to our heart by your spirit, we pray. Open your word to our
hearts this morning that it might comfort us by showing us again
our Lord Jesus Christ and all of his glory, all of his sufficiency,
that we might rest in him, knowing that Christ is all we need. Father,
I pray that you'd bless this dear family at this time. We
pray that you'd bless our congregation at a time of loss and sorrow,
the loss of our dear brother. Bless us, Father. Bless us, we
pray, for your great namesake. Cause the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ to be exalted and magnified. And let his name be on our hearts
as we leave this place this morning. Go with us through this week.
Be with us and lead and guide, we pray. It's in the precious
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we give thanks and we ask these
blessings. Amen. Now, this morning, I asked Tara
and Eric if it would be all right if they brought their classes
out into my class this morning. I felt like it would be a good
time for all the family to be together. I believe the Lord
has given me something that will be helpful to us. You know, when
our Lord called Dale Simpson home this week, Dale's family
lost a great leader, didn't you? And our church family lost a
very special man, a very special leader, too. And all of us are
affected, even our children. That's why I wanted you all out
here this morning. Either you're one of Dale's grandchildren
or you're one of their friends. And we're sad. We feel sad this
morning. And do you know that's just fine?
It's just fine to be sad and to mourn. Abraham, the father
of the faithful, Abraham mourned and wept when Sarah died. Israel
wept for 30 days when Moses was taken home. So it's fine for
us to mourn. I want you to know that it's
fine to be sad. And that's what I want to talk to you about for
a little bit this morning, just a few minutes. A lot of you haven't
experience, haven't gone through this experience of loss and grief
before. And you might wonder, what am
I supposed to do with this feeling, this loss and this grief and
this sadness? What am I supposed to do with
this change in my life? I feel so sad. Well, the answer
to that is what I tell us all the time. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Let's see if
we don't see that and find some comfort as we look to Christ,
our Savior, in this Psalm 121. Now, they call Psalm 121 a psalm
of degrees, because in this psalm, we gradually rise from down here
in the valley where we feel this morning. We gradually rise up
to the mountaintop. This psalm ends at the mountaintop. That's where I pray the Lord
will take us this morning. Verse 1, David says, I will lift
up mine eyes unto the hills, for whence cometh my help? David
says, lift up your eyes to the hills. Lift them up. You know,
people in that day would have a place of refuge up in the hills
or up in the mountains. You know, if you're up there
in the hills and the mountains, you can see the enemy coming
from a long way away. And it's hard for them to get
up to the hill. You know, if you're on top of the hill, You
can see them coming from every direction, and you'd be protected.
If you're up in a mountain, a high mountain, you can protect this
side a whole lot easier, because nobody can come from behind you.
They would have well-defended places up there, because they
got the military advantage, the tactical advantage, if they got
to high ground. But David said, when this matter gets serious,
and we're in trouble, we're in sorrow, we're in heartache, don't
just lift up your eyes to earthly reckoning. to earthly place. There ain't any help there. There's
just no help there. David says, look up, lift up
your eyes and look to Christ our refuge. I believe he's making
reference here to the temple. You all know well, you've been
taught well. You've gone through the lessons we've had on the
temple and then tabernacle several times. They built that temple. That's a picture of Christ. They
built that up on top of Mount Zion. Everybody in the city could
look up and see that temple. They're looking up to that picture
of Christ. That's what David's telling us to do. Lift up your
eyes and look to Christ. Isn't that what Jonah did? Jonah's
down there in the belly of that fish. He couldn't tell which
end was up. He couldn't tell the difference between north
and east. He had no idea where he was. But scripture says he
looked toward thy holy temple in his heart. He looked toward
Christ. And when he did, you know what
he said? Down there in the bottom of that whale, there were fish's
bellies, darkness and seaweed all around him. When he looked
to that temple, when he looked in his heart to Christ, you know
what he determined? Salvation is up in the Lord.
And he was delivered. Same thing will happen to you
if you look up. Lift up your eyes and look to
Christ. Look up to him. Lift up your eyes and look to
him. The only help you'll ever find comes from Him. Don't let
the guilt of sin keep your head hanging down, your eyes looking
down here. Lift up your eyes and look to Christ at Calvary,
where His sacrifice put away the sin of His people. Mourn. Mourn. It's okay to mourn. You
mourn, but don't cast your eyes down like you don't have any
hope. Now, we've got a good hope. Good hope. Lift up your eyes
to Christ, who is our hope. When you're born and you're in
trouble and you need answers, don't keep your eyes down looking
down here on the earth, what you can do, what somebody else
can do. You know, don't go buy your self-help
book on mourning some man road. They're not going to do you any
good. It'll just depress you really. Lift up your eyes and
look to Christ. We're going to see this in a
minute. David says he's our helper. He's our keeper. That's the whole
cry of the gospel, isn't it? In that verse, David gives us
the whole cry of the gospel, look and live. Look! Look to
Christ and you'll live. Look to Christ and you'll find
comfort and strength and salvation. Look to Him, expecting to find
salvation in Him. It's not any other. Look to Him,
expecting Him to comfort your heart. He promised He would. And look to Him. You lift your
eyes up to Christ. Your heart will be lifted up
to Him. Look to Him. He's got the power to help in
every situation. Look at verse 2. My help cometh
from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. Lift up your eyes
to Christ. He's the creator. You think of
His power. He one day spoke. And this world
came into existence from nothing. You talk about power. If He could
do that, you reckon He could speak to my puny heart and give
me comfort? He can. There's power in His
Word. Power. If you'd find comfort,
it's in Christ speaking to you. You're holding His words to you
in your lap. Open it up and read it. You'll find comfort there.
Christ is the creator and he's the ruler of his creation. All
of creation is at his disposal to use to help and comfort his
people. And he will, he promised he would.
Charles Spurgeon made this statement. He says, it's wise to look to
the strong to find strength. And I would add to that, it's
wise for the weak to look to the strong to find strength.
That's where it's at. And our Lord has promised us
days like this are coming. He promised that to us. Trials
and tribulation and difficulties. And when those storms of life
come, it's a blow to us. And even though we know it's
not so, this is what we think. We think this storm is going
to blow me over. Just like those disciples on
that ship. Lord, don't you care? We're going down with the ship.
Don't you care? We think we're going to sink. You look to Christ,
lift up your eyes now and look to him. We'll stand in him. Look at the verse three. He will
not suffer thy foot to be moved. Now, Christ is the shepherd of
the sheep. It's Christ. who leads His sheep
where they should go. He leads His sheep to the green
pastures of His Word. But you know, poor sheep like
me is going to worry. As Lord's leading me on a narrow,
rocky, slippery path. I know He's leading me to the
green pastures, but I'm afraid on this narrow, slippery path
that I'm going to fall. My foot will slip and I'll fall
and I'll just fall down into the ravine and die. Well, Christ
not only leads His sheep, as He's leading His sheep, He keeps
their feet so they cannot fall. They can't fall. If your foot's
kept safe, your whole body's kept safe from falling in it.
I've been to the Grand Canyon, and this was remarkable to me.
They've got a narrow path that winds down that thing all the
way to the bottom. And I saw people saddling up
and getting on top, sitting on a mule to go down to the bottom
of that thing. And I thought, You know, I know
mules are sure-footed. But if that mule slips, I'm going
down to the bottom of that canyon. They say from the top of the
canyon, it takes 13 seconds to hit the bottom. I'd just assume
not have that 13 seconds, wouldn't you? But you can walk down the
canyon if you want to. I don't know how many miles it
is. But if you meet one of those mule trains, you know what you've
got to do? You've got to step to the outside. The mule gets
the inside. What happens if the mule's slips or sneezes or something,
my foot slipping, and I'm going to bomb that canyon. This is
what David, what the Lord is telling his people. That's never
going to happen to God's people. He will keep your foot from slipping. Well, how can I be so sure my
foot won't slip? I mean, I'm uncoordinated. I'm
weak. How can I be sure? It's because,
now you're listening to me, The strength's not in you. The strength's
not in your foot. The strength is where God put
your foot. Let me show you that. Psalm 40. Verse one. I waited patiently
for the Lord. He inclined unto me and heard
my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of
the miry clay. And he set my feet upon a rock
and established my goings. My goings are established because
God set my feet on Christ, the rock of ages. I'm not going to
slip and fall because Christ will never fall, because he'll
never be shaken. If Christ, my foundation, can't
be moved, I can't either. That's our strength. And no matter
how much we change, over the course of our life, how much
we change, no matter how much, our world changes. And you can
bank on this. Days like this are going to keep
coming until the Lord returns. Our world is going to keep changing.
But our foundation will never change. Christ is our foundation
at home. So lift up your eyes and look.
Look to Him. There are times we feel like,
I'm looking but I can't see Him. I'm looking but I can't find
Him. Will you rest? You just take rest and comfort
in this. He sees you. Look at the end
of verse 3 here. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord's eye is always upon
His people. He always sees His people. There's
an article in the bulletin about this this morning. When the darkness
is so thick and you, there's no way you can see. You can't
see your hand in front of your face. You just take comfort in
this. He sees you. His eyes open. He didn't close his eye. He doesn't
even shut his eye, take a nap and take his eye off his people.
His eyes always open on his people. You know a loving mother. and
willing to stay up all night with that sick child. She doesn't
want to miss a second of what's going on so she can help that
child if that baby needs her. But you know, through the weariness
of the flesh, she could fall asleep, couldn't she? A valiant
soldier. He could be standing night guard,
three o'clock in the morning, and he's valiant. He's determined. No harm's going to come to his
sleeping comrades while he's on guard duty. But just through
the weariness of the flesh, suffering through the battle, he might
fall asleep. That'll never happen to our God.
There's nothing to wear him out. There's nothing to make him tired.
He's never weary. So he always sees his people.
But more than seeing what's going on. He's in control of what's
going on. A person may need to drive all
night. They need to get somewhere very important and they just
don't have time to stop and they got to drive all night, clear
through the night to get there. And no matter how focused they
are, no matter how badly they want to get where they're going
as fast as they possibly can, just through the weakness of
this flesh, they might fall asleep at the wheel, lose control and
die in a car wreck. There's just a limit to how much
our flesh can do. But you know, that never happens
to our God. He's not asleep at the wheel.
He has never fallen asleep at the wheel, and He never will.
You know, I was surprised when we got this news about our brother
Dale. I was surprised. I just was not expecting it.
But God wasn't surprised. He's in control. This was His
will for His child. And we can rest in that. I read
a story in Spurgeon's Treasury of David about a woman. She's a poor woman. Didn't have
much. She lived in one of those eastern countries. She didn't
have much. But one night, some robbers broke
in while she was sleeping and took what little she had. Everything
she had was taken by these robbers. And she went to the sultan to
ask for help. And the sultan was there looking
at her. Go watch you fall asleep. Give those robbers the opportunity
to take everything you had. She told that sultan, I went
to sleep because I thought you were awake. That answer honored
him so much, he restored everything she lost. I pray God give us
the faith to honor him that much. And just lay down and go to sleep.
Rest in him. He's in control. He's got the
will. You lift up your eyes and look
to Christ. He protects his people from dangers that we know of
and those that we don't know of. Look at verse five. 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. And here's a precious title of
our Lord. Keeper. David said in verse four,
he that keepeth Israel, he that keepeth spiritual Israel, he
that keepeth his elect. But here, now David gets personal. He said, the Lord is biting.
He's biting. I love how the Lord personally
keeps every one of his people. It's just not like he's the shepherd
of this big old mass of sheep, you know, and he just kind of
keeps the whole mash, you know, together. No, he keeps each one
of his sheep personal. He calls every one of them by
name. He keeps them. He keeps every
one of them as the apple of his eye. So there can be no danger
come to them. Look at John chapter 17. Our Lord fulfilled this prophecy.
He's the keeper of his people. He'll never fail them. Not one
of them can ever be lost because he keeps them. John 17 verse 11. And now I am
no more in the world, but these are in the world and I come to
thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou
hast given me that they may be one as we are. While I was with
them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou
gavest me, I have kept. And none of them is lost, but
the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled.
The only reason that son of perdition was not kept, our Lord says he
was never mine in the first place. With all those that you gave
me, I've kept. And not one of them is lost.
He's kept his people. He preserves his people from
dangers that we know of and those that we don't know of. David
says, Lord is our shade on our right hand. He's the shade in
a hot and barren land. This land's awful barren. It's
awful barren. And shade's important. In these
desert lands where David lived, shade was awful important. You
could die without it. It was so hot there. Well, Christ
is the shade for his people. He's a place we can find rest.
He shades his people from the fiery wrath of God Almighty against
our sin. He shades his people from that.
He bore it. He took it. And his people will never feel
a drop of that wrath. He's our shade. And he shades
his people from the heat of the fiery trial. It seems hot, but
he'll shield you from it. He'll give you rest from it.
He'll make it bearable. Now we know the sun can do a lot of
damage, don't we? We know about sunstroke, heatstroke. The Lord
protects us from dangers we know about. But you know He protects
us from dangers we don't have any idea is around us. Who worries that the moon could
hurt us? Have you ever worried about that?
But you know what can? The moon is so powerful, it moves
the ocean. The ocean tides are controlled
by the moon. That's power, that's power. People
act crazy when there's a full moon. There's some effect here.
Well, this is what I read in David's country this time. The
moon was known to do a lot of damage to people. People would
sleep out in the open at night. They'd cover their head with
something because the moon could cause damage. It could, even
though they're sleeping, their eyes are closed, it could damage
their eyes. cause him to be blind temporarily or maybe permanent. The moon rays could cause that
while a person was sleeping could cause the brain to swell and
cause a moon stroke. Who knew I needed to worry about
that? I didn't even know such a thing existed. How many other
things do I need to worry about, you know? If you're one of those
worry warts, don't try to think up something you need to worry
about. The Lord protects his people. from dangers we know
nothing about, nothing about. We don't need to worry that something
is going to happen and catch us off guard and destroy us. We're not expecting it, but the
Lord is, because he's the one directing it. It's like I told
you last Tuesday afternoon, I did not expect Gene to call me and
tell me, Dales and I see you, and that he wouldn't recover.
I did not expect that. You didn't either, did you? But
we get that unexpected news. Our faith is not shaken because
our faith is in Christ. Listen, we enjoy the blessings
that God gives us, but our faith is not in the blessings, is it?
Our faith is in Christ. It's in him. So you lift up your
eyes and look to him. He preserves the soul of his
people from all evil. So he says here in verse seven,
the Lord shall preserve thee from all evil. He shall preserve
thy soul. He preserves from all evil. Christ preserves his people from
the evil that's in them, from our own sin that's in us. How
does he preserve us from that? By taking our sin away from us,
taking it into his own body on the tree and putting it away
by his sacrifice. He preserves his The sin that's
in us cannot harm us. Oh, it's evil, how evil it is. There is nobody on this planet
who's ever lived on this planet that's got a more evil heart
than me and you. But the Lord protects his people
from all evil. He put it away by the blood of
his sacrifice. Sin can never harm our soul if
Christ died for us. Lift up your eyes and look to
me. The Lord preserves his people from all evil. In this life,
you think of the evil doctrine of man that they preach. Boy,
it's big business, isn't it? I mean, they get a big following.
How come you aren't following? The Lord preserves his people
from all evil. They would deceive the very elect if they could,
but they can't because the Lord preserves his people from all
evil. There's a lot of evil in this world, but you don't need
to worry that it'll harm your soul. The Lord preserves his
people from it. Even the suffering of this body
is not evil to his people. No, it's not. That evil cannot
touch your soul. It'll cause pain to the body.
But David said, this is the key to this verse. He shall preserve
thy soul. If a disease kills this body,
that disease is not evil to the believer. Really, it's kindness
to the believer. to deliver us from being trapped
in this body of sin and setting us free to be with the Lord.
So wherever you're at, whatever you're doing, whatever is going
on around you, whatever the circumstance, now lift up your eyes and look
to Christ. He preserves his people at all times. Verse eight, the
Lord shall preserve by going out and by coming in from this
time forth and even forevermore. The Lord preserves His people
by going out and by coming in. Where are you going? Where are
you coming from? The Lord preserves His people.
When you children go out tomorrow, you're going to have to go out
and go back to school. The Lord's going to be with you. You hear me? The Lord's going
to be with you. When you come back in, you come
back in the morning, the Lord's going to be with you. He'll preserve
you. When you go out to work in the morning, and your world
is totally different. Everything's changed. The Lord's
going to preserve you. He can go with you. And when
you come back in in the evening, He's going to be with you. As
we grow from children to young adults, and we go out of our
parents' home and into our own home, The Lord's gonna go with
them. When we go from youth to middle age to old age, the Lord's
gonna be with us. He preserves his people when
we go out of the womb. It amazes me any baby can survive
coming out of the womb. What a traumatic experience.
You know, the kid never wants to come out. It's got a nice
comfortable place. The kid never wants to come out. But they do,
don't they? The Lord preserves his people
when they come out of the womb. and he will preserve them every
second till the body goes into the grave. Every second. Continually,
at all times, in all seasons, eternally, the Lord preserves
his people. There's never a moment that we
have to stand on our own. There's never a moment the Lord's
not preserving and keeping his people. In his song, Amazing
Grace, John Newton, summed up the experience of every believer.
This has been our experience right up to this very second.
And it will be our experience to the moment we die. Through
many dangers, toils and snares, I've already come. Lord kept
me, He's preserved me, He's brought me through them all. And that
same grace, His grace, has brought me safe thus far. And that same
grace will lead me home. Now we started out way down there
in the valley, didn't we? Through this psalm of the grave, look
where we've ended up. We've ended up in glory with Christ. I hope
the Lord has caused our hearts to be lifted up. Lifted up for
just a minute to the mountaintop. You know, this psalm was meant
to be sung. So if the Lord lifted up our
heart to the mountaintop, it'd be a good time to sing, wouldn't
it? So Mike's going to come and lead us in singing this psalm. Someone put it to music, and
I like it. So let's sing it together as
Mike leads us in singing. Afterwards, we'll be dismissed. Frank Sweeney wrote the music
to this scripture. I will lift up my eyes unto the
hills. From whence cometh my help? My help cometh from which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to
be moved. He that keepeth thee O ye that keepeth Israel shall
neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper, the Lord
is thy shade upon thy right hand. The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. I'll preserve thy going out and
thy coming in from this time forth and even forevermore. Even forevermore. you