Good morning, everybody. If you
would turn to Psalm 121. Psalm 121. Once you get there, just pick
up in verse one, we'll read the whole Psalm. Psalm 121, verse one. I will lift up mine eyes unto
the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from
the Lord, which made heaven and earth. 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. 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. The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve
thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth and even
forevermore. Whether a man lives to be 100
years old or whether he dies at birth, There is one word that
the scripture uses to describe that life. And that word is vapor. James 4.14 says, for what is
your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth
for a little time and then vanisheth away. And we're all familiar
with a vapor. You had your cup of coffee this morning. You saw
that steam rising off that cup of coffee. That trail of steam
traveled up for about an inch. It took it about a second to
get there and then it vanished. And you never saw it again. And
folks, that's our life right there. Over very, very quickly. And I had three thoughts when
I first read this song. Here's the first one. Is that
our life, no matter what stage of our life we may think we are
in right now, all our lives, folks are just a vapor. They're
just very short and they're all going to be over very, very soon. That's the first thing I saw.
Here's the second thing. Being born, is very dangerous
business. It's dangerous because we are
born in trouble. Now, the psalmist is in trouble
here. Look back at verse one. He says, I will lift up mine
eyes unto the hills, whence cometh my help. Who needs help? A man who's in trouble. This
is what Job says in Job five, verse six. He says, although
affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble
spring out of the ground, yet man is born unto trouble, as
the sparks fly up. What kind of trouble are we born
into? Trouble with God. We're born in this world, dead
in trespasses and sins, born sinners, with this wicked, evil
nature, and it ensures that from the time we are born to the time
we die, we're going to do one thing, and that is sin against
God. That's it. And at the end of this life,
we're going to stand before Him in judgment. We are going to
stand before a just and a holy God, and He's going to stack
us next to His law and His holiness. And if there is any imperfection,
if there's any inequity whatsoever, His wrath is going to fall down
upon us. Now, we read Ezekiel 33. It said the watchman needs
to sound the alarm. Folks, I'm sounding the alarm. You're born,
you're born into trouble, trouble with God. Here's the third thing. Salvation. as far as our experience
is concerned, is found in a look. Now look back at verse one again.
Listen to the psalmist. He said, I will lift up mine
eyes under the hills. He does not say, listen, I'm
in trouble, so I'm going to devise a very wise and crafty plan to
get myself out of this. And it does not say I have a
very powerful enemy, but you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to strap on
my armor. I'm going to get my sword. I'm going to meet my troubles head on.
I'm going to, I'm going to fight him. He does not say he is going to work
his way out of this. He does not say he's going to lift a
finger. He is determined to do one thing. He is going to look.
He's going to look to the hills. You know what's in the hills?
The throne of God. You know who sits on that throne? The Lord
Jesus Christ. Salvation is found, folks, not
through working, not through doing. It is found in looking
and trusting and resting in the Lord Jesus Christ and his finished
work alone. And if you want a scripture for that, it's this. To him that
worketh not, he's not working, he's not trying to please God,
he knows he can't. To him that worketh not, but believeth on
him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith, his look is counted
for righteousness. Or rather, his faith is the evidence
that God has made that man righteous. Now what about this look? What
does this look look like? Turn over to Numbers chapter
21. Numbers 21, we'll begin in verse
7. This story picks up with the
children of Israel in the wilderness and they become discouraged and
they have warred against the providence of our Lord. They
have lied about Him and what He has provided for them along
the way. Now they're about to find themselves in trouble. Now
this is a story, make no mistake, this is a salvation story right
here. Look what happens, pick up in verse 7. I'm sorry for six. And the Lord sent fiery serpents
among the people and they bit the people and much people of
Israel died. I want you to think about this
for a second. Imagine that we are in here right now and there
are snakes all over the floor, all over the seats. And they
are so common, they are constantly biting everyone inside here,
but it's become so common that we're not even paying attention to
it. We're just having to live with it. That's what these people we're
dealing with right now. Fiery serpents came, and notice, who
did they bite? They bit the deep people. That
means everybody got bitten. What's the type here? What's
the picture? This is sin. And this is the sinful nature.
Everybody got bitten. Every man born of a woman is
born with this sinful, fallen, evil nature. My son is born with
the same nature. I bit him. I'm born with that
nature. My father bit me. His father
before him bit him. And we trace it back to Adam.
We all sinned in Adam. We've been passing that bite down for
every single man. And what is the consequence?
Death. Much people died. A spiritual death. We cannot
do that which is pleasing to God. Look at the consequences
of this. Look at verse seven. Therefore the people came to
Moses and said, we have sinned. For we have spoken against the
Lord and against thee. Pray unto the Lord that he take away the
serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
Now notice the consequences of their sin. They can no longer
approach unto God. They can't come into his presence.
They can't approach him on their own. They must have an intercessor.
They must have a mediator. They must have someone who has
favor and power with God to plead their case. They come to Moses.
He's the type of Christ here. They say, pray the Lord will
take these serpents away. He's the great intercessor. He
is the man who has power with God that anything he wants from
him, anything he asks, he gets. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, look at the remedy, verse eight. And the Lord said unto
Moses, make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole, and it
shall come to pass that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh
upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass
and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent
had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. Now three questions. Number one,
who is allowed to look to the serpent of brass? What was the
one prerequisite to looking to the serpent of brass and living?
You had to have been bitten. That's it. The only prerequisite
of looking to that serpent of brass and living was having been
bit. Are you a sinner? I'm talking
about you can't do anything for yourself. You can't add to this
thing. There's nothing you can bring to God on your own. Nothing
about you that is pleasing to him. If that is your case, You
have every right, in fact you're commanded, to look to the Lord
Jesus Christ and live. Secondly, what were they to look
to? A serpent of brass. Now this
is an interesting type of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it?
The brass is kind of easy, right? A mixture of copper and tin,
the Lord Jesus Christ, altogether God, and yet altogether man.
God became a man. Believe that? He was born of
a woman, born into this world, and there is a man in glory right
now. His name is Jesus Christ. He is a real man, the God-man.
But why a serpent? Why not a lamb? Why not a shepherd's
crook? This is a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Why a brass serpent? Because the serpent is the problem.
The serpent represents the sin. Why a serpent? Because it's the
problem. What did God the Father see on
the cross on Golgotha's Hill? He solved the problem. He saw
our sin. Second Corinthians 521, for he
hath made him to be sin. For us, the elect, who knew no
sin, that we might be made the very righteousness of God in
him. Why was it a serpent? Because
on that cross, the Lord Jesus Christ became the sins of every
one of his elect. That's exactly what the Father
saw on that cross, and that's why he poured his wrath down
upon him. But folks, that's our hope. Our hope is that my sin
became his sin, that he owned it, that it was in his body,
that the Father poured down that wrath upon him that was reserved
for me, that he swallowed it up, and when he was risen again
after having died, it is the evidence that we are justified,
that that sin has been put away, every one he laid down his life
for truly has no sin. We are the very righteousness
of God in Christ. Now my last thing, what was the
success rate of this look? 100%. Everybody who looked lived without
exception. Now, I want you to understand
something here. There has never been any man, woman, or child
who ever looked to the Lord Jesus Christ and trusted every aspect
of their salvation in him that has ever perished. Every one
of them have always been saved. 100% success rate. Look and live. Now, for the rest
of the message, I wanna go through Numbers 21,
or I'm sorry, Psalm 121. In here I see six promises. Six
promises to those looking. That's the title of the message,
promises to those looking. So I want you to pick up back
in your text, Psalm 121, look at verse two. Here's the first
promise. Psalm 121, two, he says, my help
cometh from the Lord. Here's the first promise. To
those who are looking, he is your help. Now, when I think
of help, what I think of is a cooperative effort. So let's say I wanted
to build a deck in my backyard, right? I may ask some of you
to help me, right? And the understanding would be,
the contract between us would be, I'm going to do some work,
and you're going to do some work, and then together, through that
cooperative effort, we would meet the end goal. We would build
a deck, right? Great analogy for false religion. False religion
says you gotta go to work, right? You want something, you gotta
work for it, right? Do something. Do something to inspire God to
do something for you, right? Whatever they may prescribe.
Do something. We know, though, you're sinners,
right? Nobody's perfect. So Jesus Christ offers you his
help, right? So if you do your part, he will
offer you his help, and through a cooperative effort, right,
your work and his work, you'll reach the end goal. You'll be
saved. And that's the biggest lie anyone has ever been told.
Let me give you three things here. Number one, the Lord Jesus
Christ makes absolutely no offers. If he chooses and purposes to
help a man, and that man is helped, he can't help but be helped.
That's the way it is. And if he chooses and he purposes
to pass a man by and not intervene and not help a man, then that
man will not be helped. But his help is not up to me
accepting it, you accepting it or rejecting it. It's up to him.
Second thing, his help is only for the helpless. You will stand
either completely on the person and work and merits of Jesus
Christ alone, or you stand on your own merits, dressed in your
own filthy rags, but there is no middle ground. The only man
who can stand on the person and the merits of Jesus Christ alone
is the man who can't stand on his own, who has absolutely nothing,
who has no merit before God. That is the only man that can
stand before God dressed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ,
standing on His work and His merits alone. His help is only
for the helpless. And here's the third thing. His
help is a complete help. When He helps a man, His help
is this. His help satisfies everything
that the Father has against that man. Everything that the Father
requires of that man, the help of the Lord Jesus Christ satisfies
every bit of it, and He leaves absolutely nothing undone. Those
three things are the tenets of every other promise we have inside
here. But what does that help look
like? How can we describe that? I'm gonna read you something.
This is Deuteronomy 33 verse 29. It says, happy art thou,
O Israel, who is like unto thee, O people, saved by the Lord,
the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency.
Right there, the Lord's help is referred to as a shield, and
it's not the first time that it's used. It's several times
in the scripture. It makes that same analogy. It's a shield, it's a shield.
What does a shield do? takes the blows. The attacker
comes, he's got the sword, he's coming for it, he's gonna hit
a man. He wants to slay a man. His intention is to take his
wrath and put it upon a man, to destroy that man. And that
man raises up that shield. The shield bearer raises up that
shield, and the force of that blow, all that wrath, all that
anger, all that intention of killing that man, it comes and
it hits the shield, and the shield takes the blow. And the shield
bearer escapes unscathed. And that's exactly what happened
on the cross. The wrath of God was coming for us. We'd earned
it. It was our sin that he bore in his body, but he was our shield.
He was our barrier. He stood up and he took the blow.
And we escaped unscathed. Salvation is something that's
historical. It's already done. The blow has already been absorbed.
How do you know if you have a good shield? When the battle is over,
the shield has to still stand. Well, you know what? He's been
resurrected. And he sits at the right hand of his father right
now, pleading our case. That means he's a good shield.
He took the blows, and he came back, ascended back to his father.
That means we've all been justified. Everybody looking to him. Promise
one, he's your help. Look at verse two. My help cometh from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth. Promise two to those looking,
he is absolutely trustworthy. Colossians 1.16 says, For by
him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are
in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers. All things were created by him
and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things
consist. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
creator of everything that's ever been created. The heavens,
the earth, everything we see, everything that is, he created
it. And as its creator, he exercises
sovereign control over his creation. Nothing happens without him having
first purposed it and caused it to be and set it into motion.
He has control over all things, all men, at all times. That's
the way it is. You know what that means? What
does that translate to? Except for us, those looking, he's absolutely
trustworthy. Now, I want to be good to my
word, right? If I say something, I want you
to be able to believe me. I want to follow through with
what I say. That way I can be believed, right? And you do too,
I'm sure. But here's the problem. I'm not trustworthy, and neither
are you, because we cannot ensure that our will comes to pass.
I cannot assure you that if I promise you something, it's going to
come to pass. Internal and external forces can work on us to keep
us from having our way, from our will coming to pass. Not
to mention we're a bunch of evil, wicked people who might renege
on our words just because we don't want to. We don't want
to keep it. But that's not him. He is always
good to his word. You can always take what he says
at face value and believe it and trust it simply because of
who he is. He's the sovereign. He's the one who's in control.
Therefore, if he says it, it must come to pass. It already
is. We give you a scripture here. John 6 verse 37 says, all that
the father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to
me I will in no wise cast out. Now I make no bones about it
this morning. What I am doing is trying to point you to the
Lord Jesus Christ. I'm hoping you will believe upon him, that
you will abandon any hope in yourself and you will look to
him solely. But here's the thing, I'm not worried about it. I know
exactly who's going to look. I know exactly who's going to
believe. Everyone the Father gave him. Everybody that the
Father loved before the world ever began, everyone he elected
in Christ, everyone of those people that share that eternal
union with the Lord Jesus Christ, everyone the Father gave him
in the covenant of grace, where the Lord Jesus Christ agreed
to be our surety, all those people will come. Absolutely, there's
no doubt about it. It's been purposed, therefore
it will happen. But listen to the promise. In him that cometh
to me, I will in no wise cast out. Now perhaps someone is shy
about this thing. If I look to him, if I trust
him, will I be accepted? Can I come to him and I can rest
all my hope of salvation on him? Can I lay all my sins at his
feet and say, I need this taken care of? I'm looking to you for
every aspect of it. Do I have the right to do that?
It says it right here. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out. And because he is the sovereign
ruler of all things, he is absolutely trustworthy and he can be taken
at his word. So take him at his word. Verse 3 of your text. He will not suffer thy foot to
be moved. To those looking, in Christ you
have stability. Now I want you to turn to Hebrews
chapter 6 and look at the scripture. Hebrews chapter six, and look
at verse 19. We're talking about stability.
Hebrews 6, 19, which hope we have as an anchor. Keying on that word, we're talking
about stability, we're talking about not being moved. Which
hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
and which entereth into that within the veil. Whether the
forerunner is Forrest Ennard, even Jesus made a high priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now you all remember the veil,
right? Remember the tabernacle, later the temple? You had the
holy place and you had the holy of holies. There was a veil that
separated the two. Nobody could go into the holy
of holies except the high priest one day a year on the day of
atonement and he had to have blood with him or he would have
been killed. And as those priests performed their work in the holy
place, that veil was the constant reminder, your sins have separated
you from your God. In that holy place, the Holy
of Holies, that's where the Shekinah glory of God dwelt, and there
was a veil that separated us. It said, because you've sinned,
you have separated yourself from your God. You can't go in there,
you don't have access. But when the Lord Jesus Christ
laid down his life and he gave up the ghost, what happened to
that veil? that veil was rent from the top to the bottom, signifying
that everyone the Lord Jesus Christ died for has free access,
full access to the Father, because the sin had been removed. Just
as the veil was rent from the top to the bottom, the sin had
been swallowed up. It had been paid for, it had been put away,
therefore there's free access. Come boldly now to the throne
of grace to find mercy and grace to help in time of need. It's
better than that, though. It's better than just having
free access. It says here He is our anchor. He is our stability.
That means not only do we have free access to the Father, we
are there, we have all the acceptance that Jesus Christ has. We can't
be moved from it. Because He is our anchor, because
He is anchored to Christ, as long as He is acceptable to His
Father, I will be acceptable to His Father. As long as He
is righteous, I will be righteous. As long as He is sinless, I will
be sinless. Now think about this for a second. You ever seen a
boat that's been anchored? You drop the anchor. The boat
will stay in the same place. Its face will turn. It will rotate,
but it never moves its spot. That anchor keeps it in place.
Now, there's gonna be days when we are going to have the courage
and the faith of David when he was charging toward Goliath with
those stones. And there's gonna be days we're
gonna be as cowardly and faithless as Peter was when he was confronted
by that little mate. But you know what's not gonna
change? Our position. We are anchored within that veil.
Because He is our surety, because our salvation is based on Him
and what He has done, we're not gonna be moved. As long as He
is acceptable to His Father, as long as He is accepted by
His Father, as long as He is loved by His Father, we are too,
because He is our anchor within that veil. Look at verse four, your text. Psalm 121 verse 4, Behold, he
that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. Promise four. To those looking, he is both
attentive and effective. Now, turn to 1 Kings chapter
18. I'll give you the back story
here for what we're about to read. The children of Israel had fallen
into Baal worship. Baal was their false god of their
generation. Now make no mistake, every generation
makes a false god. They do not like the god of the
Bible. They do not like the Lord Jesus Christ nor his father as
he is. Therefore, they make a god that they're more comfortable
with. I want you to explain what I mean, though. That doesn't
mean that every man has read the Bible and said, no, no, I don't agree
with that. I'm going to make a false god. The light of nature alone
can show us something about God. It can show us that there is
a divine creator here, that this is an intellectual design, that
someone created all this, and that someone is incredibly powerful.
And when a man, he may think he's in control, but when a tornado
starts coming down the alley, and you see it ripping up trees
and tearing up trailers next to your house, how much control
does a man feel like he has? Absolutely none. And he sees
that and he says, you know what, someone's in control of that.
And right now it ain't me. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
create a God that's in control of that, but it's a God I create,
or it's a God I control. I can tell him what to do, and
then he's gonna do what I tell him to do. It's the same false
God, he just gets repackaged in every generation. Not that
I would give these prophets of Baal any credit whatsoever, but
I will say this, at least they called him Baal. Because the
prophets of false religion in our day call him Jesus Christ.
He is not the Jesus Christ in the Scriptures. He is not the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior that is presented in this word.
He is a weak, impotent Jesus Christ, a Jesus Christ who shed
his blood for all men, who wants to save all men, but can't. He
can't have his way unless a man allows him to have his way or
does something to make his work effectual. That is the false
God. That is the Baal of our generation. At least these guys
have the courtesy to call him Baal and not call him by our
Savior's name, Jesus Christ. Well, listen to what Elijah is
going to do about this. Look at verse 21. And Elijah came unto all the
people and said, how long halt ye between two opinions? If the
Lord be God, follow him, but if Baal, then follow him. And
the people answered him not a word. Then said Elijah unto the people,
I, even I, only remember the prophet of the Lord, but Baal's
prophets are 450. Let them therefore give us two
bullocks, and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and
cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under
it. And I will dress the other bulk, and lay it on wood, and
put no fire under. And call ye on the name of your
gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord. And the God
that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered
and said, it is well spoken." So here's the deal. Elijah says,
we're not going to hold between two opinions anymore. You boys
of Baal, take a sacrifice, put it on wood, don't put any fire
under it. I'm going to do the same thing. You call on your
gods, little g, I'll call on the name of the Lord, Jehovah.
The God that answers by fire, that rains down fire here, let
him be God. Now, imagine how intimidated the prophets of Baal
probably were at this time. Time to put your money where your
mouth is, right? We're gonna see who's gonna answer here, right? He
says, you boys can go first. Look down at verse 26. And they
took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and
they called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying,
O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor anything
answered, and they leaped upon the altar which was made. What
happened? Why was there no answer here?
Why didn't their God, little G, answer them? It's because
he's not real. Same as this false Jesus that
is preached in our day who can't have his way, who shed his blood
for all men, and yet some men end up in hell anyways. He's
not real, that's why he didn't answer. Now, look at verse 27.
This may be one of my favorite passages in the scripture. And
it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them, It said,
cry aloud, for he is a God. Either he is talking, or he is
pursuing, that means using the bathroom. Or he's in a journey,
or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awake. Now this is what
we're talking about, right? Our text says he shall neither slumber
nor sleep, and Elijah's throwing that back in their face. He says,
where's your God? Is he on a journey? Maybe he's taking a nap. Why
isn't your God answering? Because he's not real. He can't
save one person because he's not real. Verse 36, it's Elijah's
turn. And it came to pass at the time
of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet
came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,
let it be known this day that thou art a God in Israel, and
I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy
word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that
thou art the Lord God. that thou hast turned their heart
back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the
burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust,
and licked up the water that was in the trench. Now here's
the point. To those looking, he is both
attentive and he is effective. Just as Elijah came, he said,
Lord, hear me. His ear is open. He is attentive to the cry of
any sinner in need of mercy. He is not this false God who
cannot save. He is not this false God that cannot answer because
he does not exist. He's real. I can't stress this enough. There's
a man in glory right now. His name is Jesus Christ. He is the
God man. And any sinner in need of mercy, his ear is attentive
to that cry. He delights to show mercy. I
don't know how much we really believe that. He delights to
show mercy. It's his favorite thing to do.
Is there a sinner in need of mercy? His ear is attentive to
it. And just like that fire came down and it got rid of everything.
It licked up the dust. It took care of the sacrifice.
It got rid of the wood. All you could see after Elijah was done
was scorched earth. That was it. To everybody looking,
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is such. When he came down, he
satisfied every demand his father had against us. He licked it
all up. There is absolutely nothing.
When God the Father looks at the ledger that says, what must
be done for my people to be saved, it is an empty column because
it's nothing but scorched earth. Absolutely everything has been
done and there's nothing left undone. Back to your text, look at verse
five. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord
is thy shade upon thy right hand. Now, what is shade? It's a barrier
from light. Now, first and foremost, this
is talking about this. It is the hot, burning light of God's
justice. Remember, we talked about that
shield earlier on, right? On the cross, he became our shield.
He took the blows. He's our shade. The fire of God's
justice was coming for us, but he was our shade. He blocked
us. He was that barrier. He absorbed all that justice, all that wrath.
He swallowed it all up, and we remain in the shade, unscathed.
But what else does light do? it exposes. Now, let me read
this to you. Saul speaks of Christ, it's 1
Timothy 6.15, which in his times he shall show who is the blessed
and only potentate, that means unchallenged sovereign, the king
of kings and lord of lords who only hath immortality, dwelling
in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath
seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting,
amen. Now there is one man who can
stand in the light of God's holiness, that exposing light that searches
out the hidden secrets of the heart. It is that light that
if it finds any imperfection whatsoever, it says wrath must
fall. That's it. This man can. The Lord Jesus
Christ can stand in that light and the light of God's holiness
overlooks him and it looks for any imperfection whatsoever and
he finds absolutely none in him. It finds only perfection. But
it's not just this, it's not just that He is our shade, that
He's our barrier. His work is such, and our union with Him
is such, that as He stands in that light, the light of God's
holiness, we stand there too in Him. And when God the Father
looks us over and that light shines upon us, it finds absolutely
no imperfection. It sees nothing but perfect righteousness,
sinlessness, blameless. because of this union we share.
The bride cannot be separated from the bridegroom. Therefore,
we can stand in the light of God's holiness without fear,
without doubt, because we stand in our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Interesting. Look at verse six of your text.
This is an interesting addition. The psalmist says, the sun shall
not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. Now I find that
statement interesting. I've thought a lot about the
sun smiting me, right? Heat exhaustion, sunburn, things
like that. I've certainly considered the
sun smiting me. You know what I've never considered or thought
about? The moon smiting me. Never occurred to me. Never even
thought of something I was supposed to be worried about, right? Here's my point.
I know something of my sin. I know a little bit of it. Every
believer does. We see a little bit of our sin, but we don't
see the whole picture. And we don't want to know. There's only
one person who knows how much sin we actually are, and that's
the Lord Jesus Christ and His Father. It was a transaction
that took place between Him and His Father. He knows how bad
we really are. I have some knowledge of my need.
some knowledge of my need. I know I need the Lord Jesus
Christ to do everything for me, but there's so much need out
there that I am not conscious of. Just as much, so I'm not
conscious of being smitten by the moon, there was so much need
and so much sin out there that I am not conscious of, but the
Lord Jesus Christ, the salvation for his people is so complete,
so comprehensive, those things I'm not even aware needing taking
care of, he took care of. Every aspect of salvation he
completed, it is done. Even those things I didn't even
need, knew needed to be done. All right, look at verse seven
of your text. The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve
thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth. and
even forevermore. While we're here, we're going
to be preserved from evil. We're going to be preserved from the
evil of this world. Now, on the night of the Passover, Moses
went to the people, and he told them what was going to happen.
He said, the Lord's going to pass through Egypt. Everybody who's not in
the house with the blood over the door, they're going to be
killed. He explained this to them. But here's what he said
to them. It's Exodus 11-7. He said, but against any of the
children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against
man or beast, that ye may know how the Lord doth put a difference
between the Egyptians and Israel." Now, first and foremost, this
applies to salvation. If the Lord Jesus Christ shed his precious
blood for you, absolutely nothing can touch you. There is nothing
the Father holds against you. But we can take this to ourselves
as we walk through this world. Folks, while we walk here, no
evil is going to touch you. Not a dog is going to move his
tongue against you without the Lord Jesus Christ first having
purposed it and allowed it to happen. That's the truth. But
trouble does come, doesn't it? Sometimes it sure does feel like
the evil of this world is having their way with us. And I thought
of somebody who would probably felt like that the majority of
his life. Joseph. Joseph, remember his brother
sold him into slavery? That's probably pretty terrible. I bet
when he was sold into slavery, he felt like evil of this world
was having its way with him. But then the Lord brings him
out of that and he puts him in Potiphar's house and he thinks, okay, things are getting
better, we're coming through this. Then all of a sudden, Potiphar's
wife lies on him and he ends up in prison. And his whole life
is just a series of these ups and downs. And it wasn't until
the very end of his life when the Lord had put him in his final
spot where he was the most powerful man in Egypt. If you wanted to
eat in that region, you had to go to Joseph for that. And he
finally has the opportunity to confront his brothers who sold
him into slavery to begin with. You know what he said? But as
for you, You thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good
to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive. He's saying, you meant it for
evil. You meant evil unto me, but God meant it for good. It
wasn't evil having its way with me. It was the goodness of God
having its way with me. How are we to live while we're
here? Live without fear. Scripture says right here in
our text, the Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming
in. So do that. Go out and come in. Live your
life. Try to live a quiet life in all
peacefulness and godly honesty. Live your life and do it without
fear. Not a dog is going to wag its tongue against you without
the Lord Jesus Christ giving the go ahead. Also need to preserve from me
the evil that is in this heart. the evil that would distract
me, and try to pull me to look inside here to find some hope
of salvation, to find something in here that God could be pleased
with. But we have this scripture, Romans
6, 14, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you not
under the law, but under grace. Now it sure feels like sin has
dominion over me most of the time. The sinful things I think
that run through my heart, that come out my mouth, that I do,
sure feels like it has dominion over me, but that's not what
this means. When sin has complete dominion over a man, he can't
believe, and he doesn't want to. He cannot trust Christ, and
he does not want to. Those two things always go hand
in hand, inability and unwillingness. But when a man can, he can look
to the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants to. That's the only
place he wants to look. That's a sign that sin does not
have dominion over him. That means he has a new man,
a holy man, he's been given a new nature. Don't misunderstand me,
this old man is still here, and he's just as big a sinner as
he ever was, and he's gonna be with us to the day we die. But
if you're looking to the Lord Jesus Christ, understand, that
is the evidence that there is a new man inside you, a holy
man, a partaker of the divine nature, and that is a man who's
going to be preserved to the very day he dies, and he's gonna
continue on. He's going to persevere, he's gonna be preserved. All right. What I've just given you are
six promises to those looking. You can take all these home.
If you want to summarize all of them, to those looking to
Christ alone, there's nothing left to do. It's all been done.
But perhaps someone is shy about looking. Perhaps one still, at
the end of this, is saying, do I have the right to? Am I allowed?
Will he accept me? Well, remember Numbers 21, what
was the one prerequisite to looking to that brazen serpent? You had
to have been bitten. That was it. Folks, if you're
a sinner in need of mercy and you can't do anything for yourself,
today you are commanded to look to the Lord Jesus Christ and
live. I'm gonna leave you there.