We're going to be starting a
new series of studies and they're called the Songs of Degrees. And these Songs of Degrees, history
says, were sung by the pilgrims on their way up to Jerusalem
to worship God during the feast days, that annual pilgrimage
from wherever they were up to Jerusalem, and they sang these
songs as they went. And these songs are songs reminding
them of who God is, and who they are, and what God's done for
them. And they're just beautiful, beautiful
songs. So let's begin. These songs of
degrees begin in Psalm 120. 120. In my distress, I cried unto
the Lord, and He heard me. Deliver my soul, O Lord, from
lying lips and from a deceitful tongue. What shall be given unto
thee, or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue? Sharp arrows of the mighty were
coals of Juniper. Woe is me that I sojourn in Meseth,
that I dwell in the tents of Kedar. My soul hath long dwelt
with him that hateth peace. I am for peace, but when I speak,
they are for you. The Lord add his blessing to
the reading of his work. I invite you to turn back with
me now to Psalm 120. I was preparing a message on
Psalm 128. And the more I studied and read
about it, the more I wanted to preach, from these passages. And long story short, I felt
led of God to preach a series of messages from Psalm 120 to
Psalm 134. And these 14 chapters are called
collectively Songs of Degrees or Songs of Ascent. And history
says that they were sung by Jewish pilgrims. on their way up to
Jerusalem to partake in the feast of God and worship God in those
typical sacrifices. So what's all that got to do
with us? What does this ancient people,
journeying up to Jerusalem, that temple is no more, that We know
that we are the children of God. What's all that got to do with
us? Why even go back there and read
those things? Well, are we not all pilgrims? Are
we not all pilgrims in this world scattered abroad yet called of
God to worship Him in some distinguished place? with his elect and according
to the means that he's ordained. We're just like them. We're just
like them. Are we not all pilgrims from
one end of the world to another called to partake of these feasts,
these typical feasts as they were fulfilled in Christ? Except
you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you have no part
with me. Should not you and I, on our
way to worship, prepare our hearts in holy remembrance of what God's
done for us? And that's my hope this morning,
that the Lord will use these things that I've prepared to
fix our hearts and minds upon our Savior and upon our God.
And all of this under the sweet influence of His Spirit to worship
Him. to sing His praise, to leave
here singing Psalms and spiritual songs in our hearts. I titled
this first message, The Song of the Crier. Of the Crier. In my distress, David said, I
cried unto the Lord. And I want to give you four things
this morning, four or five things, that my mind and heart need to
think about when I come to worship God. And the first is this, my
distress, my distress. Oh, how I pray for you that are
in this place that God will send you distress. Pastor, that's a strange prayer. Pray for your distress. What an awful prayer. Was not
according to the word of God. Distress is what prompted David
to cry unto the Lord. You're not going to cry unto
Him when everything's going good. Oh, you got plenty to eat and
plenty of nice car, income flowing in, everything going fine, all
fixed up. Got saved, I can tell you the
time and the place and everything. You ain't gonna call on God. If distress has killed its thousands,
happy contentment has slain its billions. It's happy contentment
that keeps men from grinding, not distress. This world offers
a happy contentment to all who will have it. Find home, a happy
family, a wonderful wife, a good job, sufficient bank account,
healthy body, and a long, disease-free life. Happy contentment. I was telling Brian last night,
I was thumbing through my Facebook and had this 105-year-old lady
who just qualified for a 100-yard dash in Elderly Olympics, 105
years old. You see what I'm talking about?
Happy contentment. Listen to this. This is in 1
John 2 beginning with verse 15. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not
in him. Not in him. He might say it is, but it's
not in Him. For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride
of life is not of the Father, it's of the world. And the world passes away. This
place that we want to love so dearly, is judged of God, condemned
of God, he's gonna burn it up. Somebody told Brother Barnard
one time, said, come look at my car, I'm gonna show you this
car. And boy, he walked around, he showed him that. It was an
old Buick, back in the 50s, built like an army tank, but walked
all around that car, showed him all these things. Barnard said,
boy, that's a nice car, shame the Lord gonna burn it up. Oh my soul, the world passes
away. And the lust thereof, all those
things you hungered for and wanted and worked so hard for, they're
going to pass away. But he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever. He abideth forever. David calls
it my distress. His neighbors didn't have it.
He tells us that later on in the song. Your neighbor didn't
have this distress, but he did. It used to make him mad. He said, I was angry. When I
saw the prosperity of the wicked, it angered me. They didn't love
God. They didn't worship God. They
didn't do anything. And they had perfect health and
good bank account and big families. And he said, then I went into
the tabernacle, went into to the temple, went into the synagogue,
and God showed me their end. That's what John's talking about
here. First John 2. He's talking about the end. The
world passeth away and all the lust thereof. What was his distress? He cried
out of his distress. What was his distress? Lying
lips and a deceitful tongue. Now nearly every writer I've
read applies this to those among whom we live, those in this world. And certainly as a believer,
I can enter into that. I can enter into that. This world
is filled with liars, and especially in the realm of religion. They
lie about God, they lie about Christ, they lie about the Gospel,
they lie about the Spirit, they lie about the purpose of God,
they lie about the present reign of Christ, and they lie about
their own conversion and the proselytes that they've made.
They lie, they're liars. And all those under sin, he says,
with their tongues have used deceit. And how distressful it
is to live among liars. They have to work with liars
all day long and listen to them. But because I'm also a believer,
I see a deeper form of distress here being confessed. David's
first intent was for his own lips and tongue. His own lips and tongue. God have mercy on me, the sinner. Ain't that what that man said?
He couldn't look up. He just looked down at the floor.
Oh, God have mercy on me. The sinner. Brethren, we are what we are
right now. It doesn't appear what we're
going to be. But we are what we are right now by the grace
of God. If you've never done such and
such, thank God for His restraining grace who kept you from sinning.
It wasn't you, it was God and God's providence. He probably
just took away the temptation. We are what we are by the grace
of God and if He were to lift His hand from us, we'd all perish. And realizing that awful plague
of sin, David cries out unto the Lord. Now listen to this.
Our Lord said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. To the Pharisees he said, O generation
of vipers, how can you be evil, speak good things? A good man
out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things. And an evil man out of the evil
treasure bringeth forth evil things. He can't talk about good
things. He don't know anything about
good things. He don't have any good things. He just got sin.
He's got sin. And he said, By thy words thou
shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. Your heart's going to tell on
you. One of the old preachers said,
it'll leak out on you what you are. It'll leak out. Remembering our great distress,
we cried unto the Lord. Every believer is a crier, is
he not? Israel cried unto the Lord in
their bondage, and their cry came up before the Lord, and
he heard them. He heard them. It says, we cried
unto the Lord God of our fathers and the Lord heard our voice
and looked on our affliction and our labor and oppression
and brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. We cried
unto the Lord. The Canaanite woman, it says,
cried unto the Lord. Oh, have mercy on my daughter.
Have mercy. Like you see, old blind Bartimaeus,
Sittin' by the wayside on that filthy old blanket. And people
goin' by and goin' by and goin' by his whole lifetime. But on
this day, the Lord of Glory passed by. And he found out. And he couldn't see him. Here
he sits in total darkness. He couldn't see anything. He
didn't have a friend in the place. But the Lord's passin' by just
this once. Just this one. Oh, he said, Thou son of David.
Thou son of David. He cried, didn't he? Jesus, Thou
son of David, have mercy on me. Hush Bartimaeus, this is the
Lord. He's ministering here. There's
things going on here. I know you can't see, but just
hush. And he cried out the more. You want to know why he cried
out and nobody else was? He was distressed in his blindness
and darkness and stink and ignorance. And he cried out. He cried out. He wasn't satisfied. He needed
something and this was the only one that could give it to him
and he cried out. Every believer's a crier. There were two blind men when
our Lord left Garrico. And he says, they cried unto
the Lord. Have mercy on us. You ever cried to the Lord? You ever been distressed? All
brought down to see there's nothing in there. It's just a big black
hole. Ain't nothing in there. Examine
your life and it's full of sin. Examine your religious life and
it's full of sin. Distress begins to set in. Doubt
begins to set in. And what happens? You cry to
the Lord. Any sinner, every sinner who
knows his sin cries unto the Lord in his distress. And then the second thing the
sinner is prompted to remember is what he asked for. He cried
in his distress, what'd he want? Lord, if I could just have a
new car. What'd he cry for? What does every sinner called
to God want? Now watch this, are you listening?
Deliver my soul. He ain't interested in his bank
account. He ain't interested in his marriage. He ain't interested
in any... All of those things don't have anything to do with
this. This has to do with my soul. Every offspring of Adam
has a soul and his soul is the seed of all that he is. Man's
soul is eternal. When a person dies, his body
is going to go back to the dust from which it was taken, but
not his soul. His soul is going to stand before
God. His soul goes up before God.
Eternal death, the second death, is the soul cast into outer darkness
for eternity. What would it profit a man to
gain the whole world, our Lord said, and lose his soul? He said, fear not man. All man
can do is destroy the body. I mean, at his worst, he'd come
up there and gnash on him with his teeth and stone him to death,
like they did Stephen. But he said, you better fear
God. He can destroy both soul and body in hell. Fear him. And it's only of a believer that
Paul was inspired of God to write, We are not of them that draw
back to perdition, but of them that believe. Now watch this. To the saving of the soul. Deliver my soul, O God. Don't leave me to my own understanding. Don't leave me to my fickle fallen
will. Don't leave me in the disability
of this condemned flesh. Deliver my soul. Save my soul. And nobody knows how helpless
and hopeless he is until the Lord reveals his sin to him. Lying lips and a deceitful tongue. That's all around. Go anywhere.
Go to any church this morning. Go there, I guarantee you, they
gonna talk about how good you are. Talk about how good you
are. Lying lips and deceitful tongues,
we lied ourselves and others under the spell of Satan who's
a liar and he's the father of lies. Oh, David said, deliver
my soul. And as your pastor, I may pray
for your deliverance. Because I've already been made
aware of mine. I know what it is. And I pray
for yours. And I'm graciously brought to
remember how I got here and how it came to be. I cried unto the
Lord in my distress. I asked for deliverance. And
that brings me to this. Here's the third thing. What
is this deliverance? Deliver my soul. What kind of
deliverance? Well, deliverance is the grace
and mercy of God in Christ. That's deliverance. That you
put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, that
fallen man in all his ways, that corrupt man, that deceitful man,
Ephesians 4.23. And be renewed in the spirit
of your mind Oh, that's not what I was told when I was a kid.
They told me the Holy Spirit was going to come down and fill
me up and I'd be supercharged. I could do anything. That's not what he's talking
about here. He's talking about being renewed in the Spirit of your
mind. And truth is what sets us free. And grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. I am the truth, he said. He's God who cannot lie. And
deliverance comes to the soul through the mind. Faith cometh by hearing. It don't stop in the head, but
it comes through the head. He's going to pour it in here
first, and then he'll go down here. Deliverance comes to the soul
through the mind and Paul tells us time and again we have the
mind of Christ. The mind of Christ. This present
evil world walks in the vanity of their minds. Having their
understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God
through the ignorance that's in them. Because of the blindness
of their heart. But in Christ all is exposed. All is condemned, and then all
is justified. When that happens, I've got nothing
to lie about. I've got no reason to lie. I'm
a sinner. That's why I used to lie, because I knew I was a sinner,
but I didn't want anybody else to know it. We lie. I have a full, free, and effectual
deliverance from sin. And it's the heart that feeds
the tongue. For the tongue to get deliverance,
I need a clean heart. Now let me see if I can put all
this together. Turn with me over to Jeremiah chapter 24. Jeremiah
24. Let me show you what this new heart
is all about. We're talking about deliverance
from distress, deliverance of the soul by way of the mind from
lying lips. and deceitful tongues. Now watch
this, Jeremiah 24 verse 5. Thus saith the Lord, the God
of Israel, Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that
are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this
place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. Oh, I thought
they were just being cursed. No, he sent them there for their
good. That's what I was trying to tell you. I prayed for your
distress. He sent them around there to get distressed. For I'll set mine eyes upon them
for good. And I'll bring them again to
this land, and I'll build them and not pull them down, and I'll
plant them and not pluck them up. Now watch this, verse 7.
And I'm going to give them a new heart to know Me. Ain't that
something? Comes right through your head
first, don't it? Then right into the heart. I'm going to give
you a heart to know Me. That I am the Lord. That's the
first thing you're going to learn. He's Lord. He's not trying to
be Lord. He's not asking you to be Lord.
He's Lord. And they shall be my people.
Well, maybe not. Oh yeah. They're going to be
His people. But what if? I know what if. I know what if. They're going
to be my people and I'm going to be their God. For they shall
return unto me, now watch this, with their whole heart. And then lastly, what causes
a man to journey all the way to Jerusalem to worship God?
What prompts folks to drive countless miles to attend the worship of
the saints? Why do they do that? Well, first
of all, they weary the world. Verse 5 of our text, he said,
Woe is me that I sojourn in Meshach, that I dwell in the tents of
Kedar. Without a lengthy explanation
of these places and people, let me just tell you that he was
vexed dwelling among the heathen. He was out in the wilderness.
Some believe that there was a time when Under Saul, David was driven
into the wilderness, and here he is, and he's out here with
a bunch of marauding gypsies, for lack of a better word, and
they lived in tents, and they were armed to the teeth. They
were warlike people, and they surrounded him. He hadn't lived
out there among them. And he wasn't at ease living
beside these lying neighbors. They were savages, idolaters,
promiscuous, God-hating rebels. And boy, when the occasion come
to worship God, he said, I was glad when they said to me, let's
go up to the house of the Lord. I was glad. His fear was that
his sojourn among them might turn into a permanent residence.
What if God were to lift his hand and make me just like that? Give me a heart for this world. Give me strong delusion to believe
a lie and be damned. What if God should lift his hand
from me? Be careful how you think about
this world. This world is fallen and condemned
of God and it's awaiting execution. They despise the truth and all
who preach it. And it doesn't matter if it's
your children or somebody else's. Your enemies shall be there in
your own household. I'm so glad when Sunday comes. I'm just filled with expectation. Maybe God will meet with us. Maybe he'll work today. Maybe
today he'll take out that stony heart and give me a heart to
know him. I've got a CD. It's about to
wear out. My wife made it for me years
ago. Great hymns of the faith in there. I just love every one
of them. And as I drive along, I find
myself singing. I know my heart, most of it.
I find myself just singing. I'm all by myself in the truck,
driving up the road. Can you and I do this, if we
read these wonderful songs? I look forward to seeing every
one of you And I truly miss you when I look out there and I don't
see your face. Sick of my surroundings. Sick
of the world I live in. I quit watching the news. I don't
even want to hear it anymore. And then the second reason he
gives. He gives this first reason. He's sick of the world. He's
tired of it. He's all just vexed his righteous soul. go up to
the house of the Lord. And the second reason he gives
is that those around him, all they wanted was war. Look down
there at verse 7. David said, I am for peace. I
love peace. Peace with God. I like to talk
about peace. I like to rejoice in His peace.
I love peace. Almost every epistle Paul wrote
began this way. Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace. Being justified
by faith, we have what? Peace with God. Peace. Oh, glorious peace. God
has called us to peace. The fruit of the Spirit is peace.
Let the peace of God, he said, rule in your hearts. I am peace. But when I speak, uh-oh, they
are for war. I tell you, when I first began
to get a little light on the things of God, I wanted to tell everybody. And
the first person I run to was my dad. Oh, I loved him. I know he read his Bible from
as far back as I can ever remember. He read it through. I don't have
any time. He could tell you about those
old patriarchs, and he could name all their sons. I mean,
he knew that Bible inside out. But he didn't know the Lord.
And I run to tell him about these things, expecting him to just,
wow! Wow! That ain't what I got. What I got was this. Where did you get that? He was ready to go to war. He
got red in the face. I didn't know how to talk to
him. I just knew what I saw. It was glorious to me. It gave peace in my heart, but
boy, when I spoke, That smile went to a stare. That
face turned red. Boy, from then on, any time I'd
come in the house, well, what about this? And he'd just weigh
into me like we're going to war. I finally told him. I said, Dad,
I'm not coming over here to argue. I'm coming over here because
you're my dad. And I want to visit with you. I want to know
that you're OK. I want to help you any way I
can help you. And if talking about it makes
you angry, let's quit talking about it. Let's just quit talking
about it. And he stomped off, and this
went on for I don't know how long. And then about a month
later, maybe longer than that, he started going up with me up
to 13th Street listening to Henry. About a month, six weeks later,
he comes to me one day with big tears rolling down his face. He said, for whatever it matters. He said, I believe what you're
telling me is right. But boy, that ain't what you
get when you first have it. Well, who's he think he is? He
thinks he's the only one in the world who knows anything about
God. Oh, I tell you, when I go up
to worship God, then I remember my distress, and I remember His
deliverance, and how I cried unto Him, and how I cry now. Deliver my soul. Deliver my soul from going down
to the pit. And so we have this precious
peace. May God preserve it. Don't ignore it. Don't ignore
one another. Don't do that. Prepare your hearts
to come here. Sit down and read a little bit.
Prepare your hearts. Read the Psalms. Wonderful, wonderful
promises of God. Read these things. Prepare your
heart to worship. And I tell you, I look forward
to seeing you. Can't see you too much. I never get weary of
the children of God. I got to use this first.