For a scripture reading this
morning, turn with me to Psalm 123. Psalm 123. Unto thee lift
I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants
look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto
the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our
God, until that He have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us,
O Lord. Have mercy upon us, for we are
exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled
with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt
of the proud. I invite you to turn back with
me now to Psalm 123. I titled the message this morning,
A Song of Heavenly Eyes. I preached from Psalm 122, Tuesday
night, down in Lake Charles. And it's available to you on
Mixler or Free Grace Radio, either one. And I remind you afresh
that these Psalms, called Psalms of Degrees or Psalms of Ascension,
were sung by the Jewish pilgrims on their journey up to Jerusalem
from wherever their captivity had left them. And they were
going to Jerusalem to partake of the typical feast and by faith
to worship God, who is the God of their salvation. And these
psalms were sung recalling what the God of glory had done for
them and had done to their enemies. And this is still how believers
or true Jews prepare their hearts for worship. If the psalms we
sing do not speak of those things that God had done for us, then
why do we sing them? What purpose is there? Is it
just the beat that we're looking for? Is it just a catchy tone?
Music is one thing, understanding is another. And music with understanding
has a place in worship. But without a gospel content,
it's nothing but a hindrance. Paul said, I pray with the spirit
and I will pray with the understanding. I will sing with the Spirit. I will sing with the understanding. Believers in Old Testament times
were not ignorant of God or His Gospel. We want to see these
men just totally ignorant of everything. Oh my soul, no. No. They understood what those feasts
were all about. They knew that the prophecies
God had sent to them from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, all these
men, the prophecies that God had sent to them were concerning
the coming Redeemer. And even before that, our Lord
said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day. And he saw it. He saw it. And he was glad. He was glad. Hebrews 9.10 tells
us that these things were figures for the time then present, which
stood in meats, and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances
imposed on them until the day of reformation, or the day of
fulfillment and manifestation of Christ. They were patterns,
Paul says, of things in the heavens and shadows of good things to
come. And to sing contrary to what we preach is an unholy compromise. It's as bad as preaching a false
doctrine. And we cannot, no matter how
well it's sung, prepare our hearts for worship, singing things that
are just not so. The Psalms were sung with a gospel
understanding and they were sung in faith and sung in the Spirit
of God. And in so doing, they called
to memory all that God had done and was doing and yet would do
for them. And as we look at their inspired
content, I want us to understand as they did and for our souls
to be lifted up like theirs was. Psalm 123 is a song about heavenly
eyes. And anytime we read in the scripture
about believers' eyes, or believers looking, or believers seeing,
he's talking about the faith of God's elect, and in particular,
the understanding. Except ye be born again, ye cannot
see the kingdom of God. He that seeth the Son, and believeth
on Him, may have everlasting life. And our Lord said, Blessed
are your eyes, for they see. And what they see, the mind processes
and understands. It's the same with spiritual
eyes. I tell something about, be talking to somebody about
things that, in the Gospel, or how to do something, and I say, do you see? Do you see? I showed a man how to lay out
a rafter one time, and when I got done, I said, do you see? And
he said, yeah, I see. That's what I'm talking about.
And when he talks about these heavenly eyes, that's what he's
saying. Do you see? Do you understand? The Psalms can only be sung and
the right effect be had if we have eyes to see. Our Lord said,
His disciples said to Him first, they said, these men are master
theologians. Why are you talking to them in
parables? Why are you talking about the
farmer going out to sow seed? The dive was going down after
a pearl. Why do you speak to them in parables? You're talking
to them like they're little children. Here's the answer, he said. It's
given to you to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God,
but unto them it's not given. It's not given. Oh, thank God
for heavenly eyes. And notice all through these
psalms he's speaking in the first person of himself. He doesn't
until the following psalm, the very next psalm that we'll study,
he doesn't talk about the church or he doesn't talk about others,
he's talking about him. Him. He's all through him. Psalm 120, 121, 122, 123. Talk
about I, I, I. In my disgrace I cried, deliver
my soul, I lift up mine eyes to the hill. I was glad when
they said unto me, let's go up to the house of the Lord. And in this psalm, unto thee
lift I up mine eyes. What's he saying? He's saying
faith is an individual thing. He said, although it be not so
with my house. That was his dying testimony.
Although it be not so with my house, yet hath he made with
me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things insure. And this
is all my salvation and all my desire, though he make it not
to grow. Faith is an individual thing.
It has to do with you. Don't have to do it with your
family. It has to do with you. While we have a common faith,
the scripture said, and like precious faith, and the faith
of God's elect, it comes to the believer one at a time. God saves
sinners one at a time. One at a time. And while somebody
else's faith may have an effect on you, Only your faith can find
comfort and rest and joy and assurance in Christ. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. Now our song begins with these
words, Unto Thee, Unto Thee. Oh, I used to pray, and I'd start
out my prayer different ways. But most of the time, I just
say God. I had no more understanding of
what I said than anything. God. It's a word I'd heard since
the time I was little. The church I went to said they
worshiped God. They prayed to God. But nobody
ever, the whole time I went there, ever told me who God was. They
didn't tell me who he was because they didn't know. You can't tell
what you don't know. True faith looks to God and knows
to whom it looks. To know God is eternal life. You say, well, I'm born again. God's given me eternal life,
but I don't know God. Oh, you don't have eternal life
if you don't know God. Eternal life is to know God.
It's to know God. We know, John said, that the
Son of God hath come and given to us an understanding that we
may know Him that's true. And that we're in Him that's
true. Even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God
and eternal life. It's not about a place. It's not about What goes on in
a place, it's not about how long it lasts, it's about God. It's
about knowing God. The glory of God. And eternal
life is to know Him. In Ephesians 4, 17, He tells
us that he, the man, walks in the vanity of his mind. Every saved man here this morning,
and woman, knows what that is. Knows what that is. You did it
for years. You walked in the vanity of your
mind thinking this is the way it was. This is true. It has to be true. Too many people
believe it for it not to be true. They walk in the vanity of their
mind having their understanding darkened. They've been deceived.
And this is talking about religious men who have a hope built on
something other than Christ. Scripture said they're past feeling.
Their consciences are not pricked when they hear the truth. They're not wounded with the
arrows of truth. They're unaffected by the gospel.
They're past feeling. Giving themselves over to lasciviousness
to work all uncleanness with greediness. That word means,
lasciviousness means wantonness, lewdness, lustfulness, lovers
of pleasure more than lovers of God. And they talk about God
and faith and salvation, but they live and love this present
world. This present world is what dictates
every decision they make. The tenor of their life is dictated by this. And they walk in the
vanity of their minds. They have no clear understanding
of grace and mercy and love and don't seek to know it. They walk
in the vanity of their minds. Or they go to a shrine. They'll bow down before a shrine.
They'll put down a blanket and pray in a certain direction at
a certain time. They'll go to a cathedral on
occasion. Close their eyes and mumble some words every now and
then. They'll give their gifts and
sing their songs, but it's all just a vain show. They walk in
the vanity of their mind. Only eyes of faith will look
to the God of glory alone. Unto Thee. That's where the songwriter
starts. This is the first verse of the
song. Unto Thee. Oh my soul, let me tell you,
I'll warn you and I'll exhort you at the same time. If you
bow your head in prayer before you say a word, you think about
who it is you're praying to. Don't just bow your head and
spit out some words. Think about who it is you're
praying to. We're talking about the God of
glory. It ought to amaze us that we
can even talk to Him. I thought, what have we ever
did to earn the right to talk to Him? We didn't. It's the gift of God in Christ.
The privilege. Unto Thee. That's where the heart
of worship is born, bringing to mind that holy understanding
that only believers cherish and rejoice in. And with that godly
understanding, now he gets to the second thing. He lifts up
his eyes. I want you to hear me before
I say anything else. The whole of the work of salvation
is of the Lord. All of it. All of it. He said the preparations of the
heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. It's God Go ahead, Paul said,
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Fourth, it's
God who worketh in you both the will and the do of His good pleasure. Salvation is of the Lord in every
aspect of it. It's of the Lord. You and I are just clay in the
hands of the divine potter who will make of the same lump One
vessel to honor and another to dishonor. But when He does, you'll
raise up your eyes to Him as though you were doing that work
all by yourself. I'm going to sit here and wait
on God to lift up my eyes. I'm going to lift them up. Why? Because He gave me that ability
to discern the difference. That's why. Unto thee, he said, lift I up
mine eyes. The miracle of faith is that
you can now do things that you couldn't do before. Our Lord went down there. If
I understand right, there was five porches that went out into
this pool. And they took people down there
that was beyond help. They'd carry them down there
in stretchers or whatever, and they'd lay them there on them
porches. And then the angel of God would come down and trouble
those waters. And the first one in the pool,
he was healed. But here's a paralyzed man, and
he's laying there on his little bed, and he can't move. He can
see, but he can't move. He can't do nothing for himself.
But he has eyes. He can look. He sees. And the
Lord come over and He said, why ain't you in the pool? I have
nobody to help me. When the angel comes down and
troubles the water, I have nobody to help me in. I got no way to
get in the water. You ever been there? Huh? That's where God takes believers.
He takes them right up to the edge. Shows them salvation and
shows them that it's impossible for a man to get himself in the
water. God's going to put you in the
water. He told that man, he said, get
up, take up your bed and walk. This man had been years paralyzed.
He didn't have a muscle in his legs, just skin and bones, he
was laying there. Rise up, take up your bed and
walk. He couldn't. But he did. Huh? He did. The miracle of faith is that
you can now do things that you couldn't do before. He told Lazarus,
he's three days dead. Lazarus, come forth. He couldn't. He did. But he did. He did. He told that leper, be thou clean. He wasn't, and then he was. He couldn't, but he did. And he tells us, look unto me,
all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved. And we can't, but
we will. And when He calls us, we will. We will. Oh, thou that dwellest
in the heavens, our God's invisible. He's everywhere present at all
times, omnipresent. He stretches out the heavens
like a tent. But we look up because He tells
us to look up. He's everywhere, but we look
up. He said, I'll lift up mine eyes.
I'm going to look up. I don't know a whole lot about
heaven, do you? I don't know a whole lot about it. Christ
said I came down from heaven. Where is that? I don't know.
I know it's up. I know that. I know it's up because I'm down.
This is down. That's up. I come down from heaven not to
do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. We're taught to pray our Father
which art in heaven. We're blessed with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And I don't know a
great deal about heaven except that God uses the heavens, we
see, as a figure of where He dwells. When Paul got caught
up to heaven, he said, I was caught up to the third heaven.
You know what that means? Because I don't. I don't. David looks up because that's
where God told him to look. And then fourthly, how do heavenly
eyes look? Look at verse two of this song.
He said, Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand
of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand
of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until
that he have mercy upon us. Do you know every breath you
breathe? is the gift of God's mercy. Anything
this side of hell is mercy. It's mercy. Every breath we breathe,
every morsel we eat, I'm a self-made man. You're a liar, what you
are. Everything, like a servant. You know what we're talking about?
We don't have them in our days, but back in this day, when a
man was totally bankrupt, he had nothing. He sold himself
into servitude. He had nothing. He didn't have
a right. He didn't have anything. He sold
himself into servitude because of the great debt that he had. And his master assumed his debt,
paid it, and he worked it off. And he worked, and he worked,
and he worked, and he worked. That's how we look to the Lord.
We look to the Lord as a servant looks to the hand of his master
for everything. Why do we give thanks for the
food we eat? Because it comes from him. And I'm going to tell you something.
I know some of you are going to argue with me and I don't
care. Faith is a continual looking. Faith never stops looking. Every time you read the word,
it has to do with activity. It's going on, going on, going
on. Now let me ask you something. Are you alive in this world?
You're not a robot. You're alive. Do you have to
go back to where you were born to prove that? You're alive right
now, ain't you? That's how faith works. Faith
don't have to do with something 20 years ago. It has to do with
right now. Right now. And right now is gone,
and now we're right now again. Faith looks. It keeps on looking.
It looks. It constantly looks, looks, looks. Because our life is in a look.
I don't have anything. I can't be anything. Everything
I hope for is in Him and I look. I constantly look to Him. It's a continual looking. It'll
have a beginning, it'll have a birth, but it'll keep on looking
and it'll never quit looking. There wasn't a day that servant
didn't look to the hand of his master for a meal, for clothes
to be put on, for instruction. Sold under sin and bought with
the precious blood of Christ. We have nothing of ourselves.
Their master owns them 100%. And they being bought and made
servants in his house, they look to his hand and wait for his
mercy. Somebody said one time, grace
is God giving to you what you do not deserve. And mercy is
God not giving to you what you do deserve. That's mercy. And then 50. What is it that
we seek? We're raising up our eyes now.
We're preparing our hearts for worship. And we're recalling
everything that God has done for us. And we're thinking about
who God is. And we're seeing Him in His glory.
And if you see Him in His glory, you're going to have to look
up. You're not going to look around. And you ain't going to
look in here. You're going to look up. And you're going to
see Him for who He is. And we're looking, looking, looking
to Him. What are we hoping for? What are we hoping for? We're
looking for merciful affection. Isn't that what we're looking
for? I tell you, when I just looked at her, I knew my dad
loved me. But I wanted to hear it more
often than he told me. And I do things on purpose to
get him to smile. Just a smile at me. Just put
your arm around me. Good job. Ain't that what we're
looking for? We're looking for merciful affection.
Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we are exceeding
filled with contempt. Now there's a sense in which
every man's heart has contempt for the Lord. If you didn't,
you wouldn't sin. But that's not what he's talking
about here. His heart was filled with contempt.
Not our contempt for God. We love him because he first
loved us. But rather the contempt of all
those around us. What is contempt? Contempt is
a feeling or attitude that a person is totally beneath consideration. Not worth the time of day. Worthless. He's deserving scorn. It says our Lord was despised
and rejected of men. They didn't care what our Lord
preached as far as learning anything. When they listened to Him preach,
they were trying to find some reason to call Him an intruder,
an imposter. He was despised and rejected
of men. One of our folks invited somebody
over to the meeting, and he said, oh, y'all go over there to that
coat? Not worth the trip. Not worth
the trip. That's contempt. And you get
it all around. You get it in the grocery store.
You get it at work. You get it everywhere. I get
it from my relatives. I get it from, I stopped in and
seen one the other day. I haven't seen them in 20 years.
Stopped in to see them. And she was doing string bands. And she's sitting there doing
her bands. And she only looked at me twice the whole time I
sat there. Finally, I got up, told her I
had to go. We went back up to the motel. Not worth listening to. Not worth
listening to. Your enemies shall be they of
your own household. They don't know it. They don't
mean to be. But Satan uses them in just that way. He uses them
to keep you from doing what you know you ought to do. Any believer that does not publicly
identify with the Christ of God and live a life conducive to that faith, if he
does, he's going to be despised in this world. Now you keep your
mouth shut and don't say anything and don't do anything and you'll
get along. But boy, don't open your mouth. That'd be the end
of that. Early believers were treated,
the scripture says in Hebrews 11, as the offscouring of the
world. I'm not even going to tell you
what that means, it'll make you sick. They had trials, it says,
of cruel mockings. Publicly mocked them for what
they believed. Scourging, bans, imprisonment. They were stoned, sawn asunder. You ever read Fox's Book of Martyrs?
They had a wooden saw. They made a wooden crosscut saw. splinters in those teeth, and
they'd lay a man down, tie him down, and cut him in half with
a wooden saw. They were sawn asunder, slain
with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins
and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. They
wandered in deserts. They had to live in deserts.
and mountains, and lived in dens and caves of the earth, and without
doubt their hearts were filled with the contempt of this world.
That's where the psalmist is coming from. They just got delivered
from Babylonian captivity, and now here they are, wherever they
were left, penniless, living a life, being scorned by all
around them. And he starts his journey up
to worship, and his heart's filled with the contempt of this world.
And he said, oh God, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me. Why? Why? Well, when a man is held in contempt,
it's like an acid to his soul. What's he do? What does it breathe
in him? Contempt back. Isn't that right? Somebody hates you. Don't you just like them, at
least a little bit? I've had people talk to me and
I just, man, it's all I can do is just keep busting them in
the mouth. And this psalmist, he's preparing
his heart for worship and he don't want to go up there being
just like them. He wants to be like Christ. He
wants a heart free of that. He wants to love. Love one another. Isn't that what Scripture says?
Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another,
even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven us. He don't want
his heart filled with contempt. I need to hear my Savior say
to me, every ounce of my mercy and every ounce of my grace,
every ounce of my kindness and love to you is shown to you and
manifested to you to teach your soul to pray for your enemies. Do good to them that despitefully
use you. Oh, for a heart like Stephen.
Stephen told those men the truth. He told them the truth. Oh, in
his heart how he wanted them to be reconciled to God. And
the more he preached, the madder they got. Pretty soon they couldn't
stand it. And God gave him the face of
an angel. He's standing there with the
face of an angel before them. And they ran on him and won a
court and knifed on him with their teeth. Then they went over and began
to pile up grape. You know, when they stone somebody,
they ain't talking about these pebbles out in the parking lot.
They're talking about rocks this big around. Their aim was to
bash his brains out, kill him with stones. And they were piling
up those stones all around him. Self-righteous Apostle Paul over
there holding their coats. And here's Stephen. And he looks
at them while they're gathering the stones. And he raises up
his eyes to heaven. And he said, Lord, don't lay
this to their charge. Don't you want a heart like this?
Oh, my soul, I don't want this old
hard heart. I want to be able to, I was the
enemy. Christ committed his love, and
while we were yet enemies, he died for us. That's the heart
I want. And you know what you have to
have to have that heart? Mercy. Mercy teaches you how
to have that heart. Mercy. Oh, God, have mercy. He said it twice. Have mercy. God, have mercy on me. My heart's
filled with contempt. hanging between two thieves, just in a matter of a short time,
going to give up the ghost. And they were spitting in his
face. They were sticking vinegar and gall in his mouth. And our Lord said, forgive them,
Father, for they know not what they do. You remember that next time that
man in contempt is dressing you down from head to toe. They know
not what they do. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have
mercy upon us, for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul
is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those who are at
ease. and with the contempt of the
proud. Men and women at ease are those hiding in false refuges,
hiding in an experience, hiding in a profession or a decision.
People at ease, Isaiah said, are people who have made a covenant
with death and with hell they're at agreement. I'm not going to hell because
I changed my life. I turned myself around. I made
my pledge. But God said, you made lies your
refuge, and under falsehood you hid yourselves. And with those
spiritual weapons that God gives to us, those refuges are torn
down. And they're torn down by men
who have a heart for their enemies, and those that despitefully use
them. Oh, God, have mercy on us. Give us a heart. to know Him
and to wait. This is a great thing. We don't
pray for little things. We pray for great things. And
then we wait. We wait. You wait because you
can't produce it and nobody else has it. And so we wait on the
Lord. And the Lord delights to show
mercy. I'll teach this to them what
that is. Thank you.