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ប្រតិចារិក
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Our scripture reading this evening comes from the Psalms. The book of Psalms 121. Psalm 121. That's page 656 in your Pew Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever more. Amen. Well, church family, there are times, aren't there, in our lives, as we walk the life path that God has set us on, when we become very aware of the dangers and the troubles and the sins that are present in our lives personally, perhaps, or in the lives of others around us, or in even our own culture and world. And as we become aware of these troubles and these problems, often we can feel anxious, we can feel stress building up in our hearts. And at times, we can even feel fearful. As an example of this, perhaps some of you saw that news article some weeks before the election took place. It was titled The Art of the Pandemic Meltdown. And then it had a subtitle that read in this way. It said, under stress from every front, we're having more meltdowns. Here's how to lose it in the right way. And then the article proceeded to give a number of really problematic directives on how to deal with stress. But although their directives, their advice was bad by and large, the article really tells us something about the state of our country, and the state, I think, even of many of us here today. And it's at times like this, times when we have this stress and this trouble in our hearts, that we need to hear not the words of secular wisdom, But the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, the comforting, the definitive words that tell us that despite the chaos and the pain around us, He will keep us safely through to the end. He will guide us on the path of our lives. And this is really in large part the purpose of this Psalm 121 that we have in front of us this evening. This is a psalm primarily for those who are Christians, for those who have put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, but whose minds are tossed and turned with worry as they look at the problems in front of them in their lives. And so as we study the psalm this evening, let's keep this in our minds. Now the first thing we should notice as we approach this psalm is that like many of the psalms, this psalm has a title fixed over top of it. So children, if you have your Bibles open, you can look above verse one. And if your Bible is the same as mine, you'll see the title there. And the title probably will read something like A Psalm of Ascents, or some translations put it A Song of Pilgrimage. And the reason that title is there is because these psalms were composed for or perhaps sung by travelers who were moving from all around Israel and Judah up into the mountain country of Jerusalem. They were heading to the temple to worship God. And so this psalm today that we're going to study is a psalm that's written for travelers. and for travelers who are going to face the danger of travel through what we might call wilderness territory perhaps. But then it's not just a psalm for travelers way back thousands of years ago. This psalm is also a psalm for us today, those of us who are walking the journeys of our lives through sometimes trying and difficult times. And we're heading on a road, if you will, to be with our Lord in heaven. And so with these things in mind, I want us to look at this psalm today with a traveler's perspective on life's journey here below. And we'll look at it under two main headings. First, the traveler's situation. The traveler's situation, his circumstances. And that's verses one and two. And then the second is the traveler's helper. Traveler's Helper, and that will be verses three all the way through the end of the psalm. Well, as we come to the first verse of the psalm, we're struck, aren't we, by the situation or the circumstances of the writer of the psalm. He begins with these words, I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, Now, perhaps the first question that comes into your mind, it was the question that came into my mind, is why? Why is this writer beginning this psalm by saying, I will lift up mine eyes to the hills? Well, perhaps you can already guess it because I've already talked about the context for which the psalm was written. And that is for travelers, for Israelites traveling from all over the country up into the mountains. And so this beginning statement, I will lift up my eyes to the hills, should really be understood as being taken from someone who's traveling, from the mouth of a traveler. And this traveler, it appears, has been directing his, has moved his eyes away from the other things of life, whatever they might be, and now he's got them directed up to the hills. This writer of the psalm is really doing what we do sometimes when we prepare for a vacation or for a journey somewhere. Often we'll go onto the internet and we'll look up pictures of the destination that we're going to. Or perhaps we have a guidebook that we look at and we look at pictures and descriptions in there. And often as we do that, as we look at our final destination, our minds become filled with excitement as we think about perhaps the beauty of the place that we're going to go to, or perhaps the adventure that's waiting for us there. Or perhaps we think about comfort and relaxation and rest. And whatever the case, often we get excited when we look at the destination to which we're traveling. And it's this excitement that tends to fill our minds with energy and it spurs us on to do the hard work of packing and preparing and beginning that journey towards our destination. But as we look at our psalm today, we recognize that this destination that's filling the eyes and the mind of this psalmist isn't really a comfortable beach or adventure-filled location or a museum filled with paintings. What fills the eyes and the mind of this psalmist are hills. And these hills, as the rest of the Psalms of Ascent make very clear, are not just any old hills. We read in the very next psalm, Psalm 122, and if you have your Bibles, you can look at it with me. We read there a very clear picture of our writer's final destination. And remember that these psalms are to be taken together. These are all the psalms of ascent. There's 15 of them bunched together. And David writes in this Psalm in 122, he says, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. So these hills, which he's looking up towards are evidently the hills of Mount Zion, the hills in which lay Jerusalem and in which lay the temple of God. But then I think we need to note something further, and that is this, that it appears that this writer is attracted to something in the mountains. He wants to go to this destination in the hills. But it's not first and foremost the city of Jerusalem that draws him. He's not going there to see the beautiful city. Nor is it the temple that was in Jerusalem, as beautiful as that temple was. But we know from the rest of these Psalms of Ascent that this writer was a true Christian. He was one who had other things that attracted him more than the beauties of this world. And so I think we can say that what is really attracting the attention of this writer is not first and foremost the beauty, but is the presence of God in the temple in Jerusalem. And you see there in the temple, he would join together with hundreds, perhaps thousands of others who loved God, who worshiped God. And there in the temple, he would sing the praises of God and his heart would be filled with joy as he thought about the reality to which these things pointed, as he thought about heaven and where he would be after this life. And there he would see the sacrifices slain before him and the blood pointing to Jesus Christ. In many ways, just like us here today. And so, as our psalmist is lifting up his eyes to the hills, it's perhaps we could say because he sees in the hills the presence of God, the most wonderful destination in all the world. But then even as he's doing this, as he lifts his eyes up to the hills, we have to notice something else that becomes apparent from the rest of the psalm. And that is that he's also confronted immediately with the fact that these very hills that held his longed for destination were the hills that he would have to travel through to get there. And perhaps some of you have been to Israel or you've seen pictures of the hill country in Israel, and if you haven't, perhaps take some time after the service and look up pictures of the hill country of the mountains, and you'll see that this hill country, which this traveler would have had to travel through, was not easy travel. In fact, it would have posed a formidable challenge to pretty much anyone who wished to travel through them to Jerusalem. And so, although this wonderful destination is filling him with desire, he wants to be there, there's also, at the same time, this fear, this anxiety, this trouble, that he has to travel through these mountains to arrive there. And perhaps as we look at our own lives here today, that's where we're at too. Perhaps we're facing this dual reality. We long to be with Jesus. We long to do that journey, to be with Jesus in heaven. And yet at the same time, we feel overwhelmed by the difficulty of the journey that Christ is calling us to. Well, if this is you today, then this psalm calls you to follow in the footsteps of our traveler, not just by recognizing the dangers. not just by seeing the troubles, but also by allowing those troubles, by allowing those difficulties to pull out of you, if you will, a pressing question. And we can find that question also in verse one. We read it there, look at it with me. He says, from where does my help come? From where does my help come? And I think this is a question that can be on our hearts at times as well. If we've set our eyes and faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and if we've set our eyes upon that destination, we also know what the Apostle Paul said when he was speaking to the churches. He said, it's through much tribulation that you must enter into the kingdom of God. And for some of you here today, I think that this truth, this truth that it's through much tribulation that we enter into the kingdom of God, is not just some fact in your head or some assertion that you read from the Bible, but it's something you've experienced. You've experienced the dark times perhaps of pain, of sickness, or perhaps spiritual discouragement. or perhaps you've had family troubles or relational difficulties, or you've struggled with depression, or perhaps you have personal sins that eat away at you and trouble you. And so you know, as you read this question, from where does my help come from, you know this isn't a light question. This is a real pressing question, and it's a question, really, that all believers should be asking, whether they're young in the faith, or whether they've been on life's road for a long time. But then notice something else. Notice that this traveler doesn't just ask the question and then slip back into laziness and doubt or apathy. Nor does he ask the question and then get distracted by all the busyness of life. Nor does he, as it were, turn up the music of his life and drown out this question in his head. Nor does he give up in despair. What does he do? Well, he moves directly from the question to the answer. And that answer comes to us also in these words. He says, my help comes from the Lord. My help comes from the Lord. Notice that he doesn't say anything about the companions who would have likely gone with him on this journey to Jerusalem. And he doesn't say anything about his own ability or his own stamina. Perhaps he was an excellent hiker or a really good long distance runner or walker, but he doesn't say anything about that. And then he doesn't say anything about the traveling gear or the weapons that he would have probably carried with him on this journey. We read nothing of that. You see, these things were good and wise helps for this traveler, or they would have been good and wise helps, but that's not where he goes. He knew that in himself, even with all the things that he could bring along to help him, he was weak. But he knew where his help came from. His help came from the Lord. But then notice also that he not only gives the Lord as his help, he also describes who this covenant-keeping God is. My help comes from the Lord, how does he continue? Which made heaven and earth. You see, it's almost as if the psalmist is asking the question and he's got his eyes fixed on the mountains. He's thinking about these troubles that are in front of him. But then it's as if he lifts his eyes above the mountains and he surveys the beauty of creation and the magnificence of the stars. And he realizes that the one who made those stars, the one who made all of creation is also the one who is on his side, and he feels compelled to say, my help comes from the Lord, which made the heaven and the earth. Children, think with me for a minute about the incredible power that God must have. Think about the power he must have if he could just speak into existence galaxies and supernovas and countless number of stars, not to mention the earth in which we live, full of a complexity that we still haven't come anywhere close to understanding. But God did it all. He did it all in just a minute with the word of his mouth. And you see, that's what this psalmist grasps as he answers his own pressing question. He realizes that if God made all these things, if God made the mountains in front of him, then God could help him through them. You see, he doesn't dismiss the difficulties in front of him. He doesn't say, well, actually, those mountains aren't mountains. It's going to be an easy journey. He doesn't say that. He knows those mountains are going to be mountains. But it's as if he removes the blinders from his eyes, and he realizes that the God who is with him is far, far bigger than the mountains, and God could help him through them. And so as we look at our own lives, we really need to put ourselves in the psalmist's shoes. We need to think about our troubles and our worries in the same way this psalmist did. We need to remove the blinders from our eyes and realize that he who is with us is greater than he who is with them. Paul says it so well, doesn't he? He says, if God be for us, if God is for us, who can be against us? Well, this is a truth we need to lay a hold of time and time again. But then, having said these things, it's important to acknowledge one thing, and that is this, that although we have this all-powerful God on our side, God doesn't just hear our prayers and then immediately remove those mountains out of our way. He doesn't remove the troubles of our life just because he is able. Perhaps we have health concerns here today, or we have anxieties about the coronavirus, or we're worried about the political situation our country is in. And we pray to God, we ask. I think many of us have pleaded with God for help in our country in these last months. But God doesn't always answer us the way we wish He would answer us. But He does do one thing. He always provides the strength we need to keep on keeping on. And sometimes that strength can flow into our souls like a rushing river. And sometimes it can come trickling into our souls like a tiny stream. And sometimes we can feel like there's barely enough strength from God to keep on keeping on. But God always gives us exactly the amount that we need. What does he say to Paul? He says, my grace is sufficient. It's sufficient, it suffices for you. But then maybe this raises a question for you. Yes, you believe that God will help you. Your heart resonates with these things. You believe He's strong and He's able. But even as you're believing, even in that moment of faith, you find all the practical realities start to flood into your mind. And you think something like this. You say, Lord, I believe. I believe you'll help me through. But when I look at the problems, when I put them down on paper, I just don't see how you're gonna help me through this pain or this trouble or these problems in my life. or I just feel this temptation to sin is so strong, or these troubles, other troubles in my friends' lives are so strong. How can you help me? How can you help them continue walking down this path, this straight path, this narrow path, to be with you in paradise? Well, if you have these questions, the Lord, of course, could say nothing at all to you. He has every right to simply say, I will help you. That's it. He doesn't have to give us answers on all the details. But then as we look at these verses of our psalm, verses three through eight, we see that our desires are oftentimes desires for answers on the practical details don't go unanswered by God. In fact, I think we can see here six practical ways to help us through the difficulties of our Christian life. But before we begin to look at these six things, we need to observe something. And that is this, that although God could have spoken to this traveler with a thundering voice from heaven telling him these practical answers, or he could have given him a dream while he was asleep at night and told him these answers, or he could have given him a vision and given him these answers through those means, he doesn't do this, does he? Rather, it appears he speaks to this traveler, this first psalmist, if you will, through the words of an experienced traveler. Look at that change with me in verses two to verses three. In verse two, we read, my help, my help comes from the Lord. But then in verse three, what do we read? He will not suffer thy foot to be moved. There's a change in voice. So clearly there's someone else now speaking into the life of this first traveler. And something else we can notice from these last verses is that this traveler wasn't, it appears, an inexperienced traveler. He was someone who had seen something of this road to Jerusalem. He was someone who had seen something of the troubles of this life. And so these truths that he proceeds to give to our first traveler aren't some light truths that he's just speaking, reading out of a book. These, if we want to put it into cultural terms familiar to us today, these aren't some pithy statements from the latest self-help book, and they aren't some powerless principle from a secular psychologist's chair, or some feel-good encouragement from the latest Disney production. No, this second traveler presents our first traveler with a firm and the unshakable and the unmovable truths of God's word. Well, what are these words? Well, the first one comes to us at the beginning of verse three. Look at it with me. There we read these words. He will not suffer your foot to be moved. He will not suffer your foot to be moved. You see, one of the difficulties that would have come into the mind of this traveler as he's looking towards the mountains, as he's looking towards this journey that he's going to take, is the simple fact that he could stumble and fall off the pathway to his destruction below. Now here in America, perhaps that doesn't make so much sense to us because most of our trails, unless you're going really back country, are well marked. And they often have signs if there's been a landslide lately or if there's some problem in the trail ahead. And so we have ways to be safe on our trails today that he, this traveler, wouldn't so much have had. And then also, if we stumble and fall and hurt ourselves badly so that we can't move, help is usually just a phone call away. But this traveler didn't have that. And so the first thing that this second traveler says to the first traveler is that God will not permit his foot to be moved. And this is really the case also in our day-to-day lives here in the 21st century. for all of us here who have put our trust in Jesus Christ, who are, if you will, pilgrims, who are, in Bunyan's terms, we're pilgrims who are walking the king's road to the king's city. It's true, isn't it, that as we walk this pathway, so often our eyes look ahead, and we look ahead and we see all the problems that we might face, and we often find that our minds get filled with worry. And yet God says to us also today that He will not permit our foot to slip off the pathway of the life that He's set us on. But perhaps there's some of you here who are in a place where when I say this truth to you, you say, I really don't believe that. Perhaps you're in a place where you feel like your feet are about to slip from under you to destruction. You've begun to follow the Lord, you've put your trust in him, but you feel as if you're about to slip. Well, perhaps this will help you. It's important to remember that God doesn't promise us in this psalm that we won't at times trip and fall on our face. We read that verse in Proverbs that says, a just man falls seven times, the number of completion, he falls seven times, but what? He rises again. But then this proverb finishes, it says, but the wicked shall fall into mischief. So there's a difference, isn't there, in how God's people fall and how the wicked fall? You see, the Lord sometimes permits us to fall flat on our face, not because he wants us to be destroyed, but because he wants us to put our hope for salvation only in God alone. And He sometimes permits us to lie on our faces for a little while, and then He raises us again through repentance, through faith, and new obedience, and He enables us to walk, to continue our journey towards heaven. But the wicked fall in a different way, don't they? There's really a great deal of difference between backsliding and apostasy. Between something like David's sin, where he repented, and something like Saul's sin, where he persevered in unbelief to his own destruction. Or perhaps you think of Peter. Remember how Peter betrayed the Lord. What a terrible thing for Peter to do. And yet the Lord restored him. The Lord brought him back. Because Peter wept over his sin. And yet look at Judas. Judas was one of the disciples also, but what did he do? He betrayed the Lord. And then he went and he hung himself. He destroyed himself because he wasn't a true believer. And so the Lord assures us even here today that even if we're weak in faith, even if we feel like we're about to slip, he won't let us be utterly cast down. You know, there's the psalm writer Asaph, who has written a number of psalms in our 150 psalms. And he's given some of really the most wonderful psalms in the Bible. Absolutely beautiful. So helpful for believers. And in one of his Psalms, I think one that we know well, Psalm 73, he says, as he's looking at his life, he says, as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps had well nigh slipped. So he's in the same position that perhaps you are today, but then how does he finish the psalm? He says that he goes into the house of God, and there he sees that there's a great distinction between the righteous and the wicked. The wicked had been set by God, we read, in slippery places, such that they fall into destruction. But then what does he say as he looks at himself? He says, nevertheless, I am continually with you. You have held me by my right hand. You will guide me with your counsel and afterwards receive me into glory. And so this, dear believers, is what we must remember if we're in a time of trial and temptation, that the Lord will never permit our feet to slip to full destruction. He will always raise us back through repentance, through faith, to walking in his path of life. But our experienced guide, this second traveler, doesn't just stop with this first encouragement, as wonderful as it is. He goes on to give a second piece of biblically seasoned advice to this first traveler. And you can read that with me in the second part of verse three through verse four. There we read these words. He that keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he that keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." Now, I don't know how many of you here, perhaps a number of you, have spent nights out in the wilderness or on a mountain trail. And if this is you, if you've done that, I think you will understand why the second traveler would have said this to the first traveler. Because when you're hiking through wilderness territory, there's dangers that you face, particularly at night, particularly when you're sleeping. Now, of course, Michigan isn't, I don't believe, I'm not from here originally, but I don't believe Michigan is populated with many dangerous animals. But in Israel, there were certainly a number of dangerous animals that if you had to sleep on a mountain trail at night, you would be worried about. For example, think about David. What did David do? He killed a lion and a bear. Those are two animals that I think we would be worried about at night. And then we read also of scorpions and of other dangerous animals in the hill country of Judea. And so this first traveler would have had at least some anxiety and stress as he looks towards his pathway and he thinks about what he's going to have to encounter. And so this second traveler, who appears to have been down these roads before, is very quick to address this worry. He says these words, And that word, behold, is a bit of It's got an exclamation mark behind it, if you will, in the original language. It's really saying, pay attention, wake up! If you will, get rid of your sleepy conceptions of who God is. God doesn't sleep when we sleep. God stays awake at all times. God is our guard at all times. And so, perhaps as we think about our lives, we think about the times that we sleep at night, and really we don't We don't have a lot of fears. We've got safe homes. We don't have wild animals in the communities we live. And so we don't worry so much about the literal meaning of what this traveler had to deal with. But think about our lives. Think about the number of times where we reach places in our lives where, like this traveler perhaps, we've worked hard. We've done all we can for a certain situation. And we're finding ourselves getting stressed out. And we feel like we can't continue on. We need a break. Well, if we're in that situation today, it's really similar to this traveler. And we need to hear the words that the second traveler said to this first traveler. We need to, if you will, rest in God with these troubles. We need to say, Lord, I'm going to leave these troubles of my life, this situation that I can't deal with in your hands, and I'm going to rest. Now perhaps some of you here today need to hear this particularly. Perhaps you're a father and a mother and you've got children who have troubles. Perhaps they're not obeying you. Perhaps they're backsliding. Perhaps they're dealing with dangers. Perhaps they have bad friends. I don't know your situation. But perhaps you're thinking about them and you worry constantly about them and you're stressed out over them and you plead with God for them day and night and you just feel exhausted as you're struggling before God with this situation. Well, it's a good thing, just as Jesus taught, to plead with God, just like the widow pleaded with the unjust judge. We need to plead vigorously with God for our children and for other problems in our lives. But there's also times when God calls us to leave things in His hands in peace, to trust Him that He will do what He will do. In fact, God is a better guardian of our children, isn't he, than we are ourselves. And the Lord knows that our frames are dust. We need rest, we need sleep, we need to leave our burdens in the Lord's hands. Think about that picture in Mark, where Jesus has sent his 12 disciples out and they've gone around the surrounding territory and They've preached the gospel. And then they come back to Jesus, and they tell him everything that they've done. And how does Jesus react to them? Well, we know, we see that he doesn't tell them to get back out to work right away. There's work to do. He doesn't do that. He doesn't critique them for not doing a good enough job. He doesn't call them to some sort of celebration time. No, it's as if he looks at their faces and he sees the fatigue on their faces, and he calls them aside for a time of rest. We read in that passage these words. Pardon me. So, Jesus not only calls us to times of rest, But he also calls not only parents to times of rest, but also those of you here today who are perhaps teens or young people. Perhaps you are in a time in your life where you have many worries filling your mind. And I think, if I remember correctly, teenage years were certainly times where you had a lot of stresses. Perhaps you have a friendship that's slipping away. Or perhaps you have a relationship that you feel is really not going well. Or perhaps you just feel that your future is kind of confusing and blurry and you can't see past the next couple months or years and you don't really know where you're going. Or perhaps your life just feels gray and cold and kind of depressing. Perhaps you even feel like your life is hardly worth living anymore. Well, if this is you, if you're in this situation today, this psalm, if you will, reaches out to you with a calm and with a kind hand, and it calls you to times of rest. Rest in the sleepless watch of your God. It reminds you that sometimes the burdens that we carry in life aren't best dealt with by constantly wrestling with the troubles, not by constantly trying to change the circumstances, but by resting in God. And then, children, perhaps I can speak also to you. It's true, isn't it, that when we're young, when we're very little, that sometimes, very literally, nighttime can be a scary time. It can be a time when the darkness hides things from our view, and we feel like we imagine perhaps certain things at night, and we become very worried and stressed out and anxious. And yet, let me remind you, children, that God is just as wide awake at night as He is during the day. And He's guarding you just as carefully at night as He does during the day. David really, the psalmist David, really understood this when he wrote these words in Psalm 4. Perhaps these are verses that you know very well. He says, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. Well, whatever position we are in life, whether we're an older person or we're a young child, this is what the sleepless care of God calls us to do this evening. But perhaps you really don't have a lot of fear about these kind of things, and you're not so much worried about stumbling on your life path. But you do have a great fear of one thing, and that is you have a fear of enemies in your life, people who are out to hurt you. And as you think about these enemies in your lives, whoever they might be, you begin to become worried and anxious. Well, this second traveler has a word of truth for you also. And that is this, in verse five, the Lord is your keeper. Or perhaps we could say it even more precisely, the Lord is your guard. You see, in times in Israel when they traveled these long roads, some people would have guards who would walk beside them and protect them. Perhaps they were trained in warfare. And the reason they would have these guards is because it was somewhat normal for people to become attacked and robbed on these roads. Perhaps you think about that parable where there's the man who the Good Samaritan sees the man lying by the side of the road and he's left for dead. He was robbed on the road to wherever he was going. Well, this second traveler thinks about this worry, and he thinks about this reality, and it's almost as if he walks to this first traveler, and he puts his arm around his shoulder, and he says, yes, friend, there are going to be enemies on your road. This is a reality of life. But don't worry, the Lord is your guard. And as we think about this idea of the Lord being our guard, children, perhaps you remember that story of the prophet Elisha, when he found himself surrounded in that city by the enemy armies. And his servant one morning woke up early and he went to the city walls and he looked out and he saw this army and he ran back to his master and he said, what are we going to do? These people were seeking to kill him and his master. Well, how does Elisha respond? Well, Elisha prays, and he says, Lord, please open my servant's eyes. And what does the Lord do? The Lord opens his servant's eyes, and the servant looks, and in the hills surrounding this city, what does he see? He sees chariots of fire. The mountains are filled with chariots of fire. What an incredible scene to see. And this is the same idea that the second traveler wants to give to the first traveler, that the Lord is his guard, the Lord of armies that are uncountable, of armies that are far, far stronger than any military that we could even put together today. And if this Lord of Hosts, this Lord of Armies is your guard, is your personal guard, then really it's almost laughable to be worried about enemies in our life. So perhaps it's a coworker that you're worried about who seems to be out to get you, who seems to be backstabbing you or making you look bad in front of other people. Or perhaps it's a fellow student and for some reason they have it out for you and they're trying to hurt you or your reputation. Or perhaps it's a boss who just doesn't like you or a sibling who really irritates you and tries to get at you. Well, whatever the case, perhaps your enemies seem mighty, but they seemed mighty to this traveler too. And they seemed mighty to Elisha's servant too. But the Lord is on your side. And so we really have every right to walk down the path of life with a completely fearless heart. Now, before we move on from this point, I want to say a word briefly to those of you, perhaps, who have experienced very difficult things in your lives, things that, as you hear this truth about the guardianship of God, your heart responds in anger, and you say, if God is my guard, then why did God allow these things to happen to me? Well, that's a valid question, and there's no really easy answers or quick answers to it. But let me give you just one quick thing from 2 Corinthians 4 that may help you. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 17. And in this passage, the apostle Paul has been speaking about the troubles and the trials that Christians face. And he's told the Corinthians that although you might be cast down in this life, you won't be utterly destroyed. And then he comes to verse 17, and he says these incredible words. He says, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. You see, our sufferings in this life, even if they're from enemies, are not, as one pastor put it some years ago, they're not meaningless. God didn't permit these enemies, perhaps, into your life for no reason at all, or because he was incapable of stopping them. Paul is saying that God permitted these sufferings to happen to you because from eternity past, he looked at your life and he knew that this is what you needed to work in you an eternal weight of glory for you when you arrived in heaven. And so perhaps one day, if you're today, you're hurting badly from enemies in your life, perhaps one day you will be in heaven and you'll look back and you'll see these things, these afflictions in your life, and you'll realize, oh, there was a purpose for these. They're working for me an eternal weight of glory. And so bringing that together back with the Psalm that we're studying, even if there's times when it seems like the Lord isn't your guard, even if it seems like there's times in life when the Lord seems to be not present and not protecting you, the Lord is permitting these things to happen to you because they're doing something in your life, something very important. And the Lord is permitting it for your good. But then, perhaps you hear this and you say, well, this sounds like a wonderful reality. I would love to have this, but I don't know the Lord Jesus Christ. And these sufferings that I have in my life, they're not helping me. They're not working in me an eternal weight of glory. In fact, they feel like they're destroying me. They're bringing me down. Well, if this is you, perhaps I can ask you, if God isn't perhaps calling to you through these sufferings to run from the greater suffering of a life without God, a life of torment without God. You know, it may sound cruel to say that, but think about what we do with our children. Oftentimes, we permit our children to take measured risks, and sometimes they get hurt because we want them to learn that they need to guard themselves from these things so that they're saved from greater dangers, from greater hurts later on. And this may be what God is also doing in your life today. Now, although this truth concerning the guardianship of God is really at the very center of this psalm, Our second traveler doesn't stop here, but he continues in verses five and six. Look at those verses with me. He continues to teach us that the Lord is also our protector from the elements, from the environment in which we live. He puts it this way. The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by night, nor the moon by day, nor the moon by night. OK, well, we live in Michigan. And Michigan, we know the importance of sunscreen. We know the importance of hats. We know the importance of protecting our face from the sun. And if that's the case in Michigan, well, it's even more the case in Israel, particularly in places where they didn't have the modern medicine that we had. You couldn't risk getting sunstroke out on the trail. You may not survive. And so the psalmist, the second traveler, he says to the first traveler, yes, you're going to face these troubles in the environment, but the Lord will be your shade. And then perhaps this is something you've wondered about when you've read this psalm. He doesn't just say from the sun by day, he says also from the moon by night. Why does he say that? Well, it's interesting to note that in Palestine, even today, there are some doctors who hold that the moon's rays are actually damaging to people. And particularly, this is the case, they say, in areas near the equator. And now that may be the case, but I think the most important thing that this traveler is trying to get at is that both the very largest thing that could hurt us in this environment, the sun, and the very smallest thing that could hurt us in our environment, the moon. God will protect us from these things. And that's something the Hebrews often did. They would write, as they wrote their poems, their psalms, they would give the biggest thing and the smallest thing. And their point was, God will protect you from everything in between. And so what about us today as we think about our environment? Well, that simply means, very practically, that we don't have to be worried about things like tornadoes, or ice storms, or icy roads, or blizzards, or anything like that. We can trust that the Lord will protect us from these things. And that doesn't mean that we're foolhardy about how we live. We don't go driving out on icy roads just to test the protection of the Lord. But it does mean that God is watching over us and He will never permit these things to hurt us eternally. And it also means, if you think about it very practically, that as you're driving out there, perhaps this winter, and you hit a snowstorm, or you hit a rainstorm, or perhaps you hit something else that you are fearful of, God designed that specifically for your life as you walk down this journey to be with Him in paradise. And so, as we think about this truth, we can full-heartedly confess with this second psalmist that the sun will not smite us by day, nor the moon by night. But then the psalmist doesn't stop there. He doesn't stop with physical things. He goes to verse seven and there he says, the Lord shall preserve thee from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. Well, these are comforting words, aren't they? You know, some of us are very fearful about things out in our environment. We get very worried about physical danger. But some of us are very fearful about our souls, about our spiritual wealth, or we think about the fact that there's spiritual powers in high places that we have no control over. And we fear, we get anxious, we get troubled. But again, it's as if the Lord reads your mind, if you're in this place today, and he says, dear traveler on the road to heaven, do not think that I will let your soul slip out of my hand at this point in your journey. Do not think that I'm going to let the forces of darkness attack you and pull you out of my hand. Remember those words of Jesus. Concerning his sheep. He says they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand But perhaps you hear these words of Jesus and you struggle to trust them How do I know that I can trust Jesus to protect me you say? Well, let me turn our eyes for just a moment upon Jesus Christ. Think about what Jesus Christ has already done for you. He left the glories of heaven, the comforts, the pleasures, the beauties of heaven to come to this sinful earth, to be constrained by a human body, to deal with pain and suffering and agony even. all because of his love for us and his love for his father. You see, he also faced those dangers at night. He faced wild animals, we read. He was tempted by the devil. He walked those same roads that we read about in this psalm to the hill city of Jerusalem. And he had enemies who tried to take away first his reputation and then his very life. And then on the cross, he saw not only his own friends forsake him, but he saw his own father forsake him. And he said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But all through it, all through it, he never once let any of those who were his slip out of his hands. We read in John these words, having loved his own, he loved them to the end. And now Jesus Christ stands in glory. He stands in perfection, where there's no more trouble, no more trials that he has to face. And do we think now that he will let us slip out of his hands, or now he's going to let spiritual powers in high places get at us? It certainly cannot be. And that's why Paul, as he looks back in the book of Romans at all the things God has done for us, this is why Paul concludes with these words. He says, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That is the assertion we need to have in our hearts and our minds. And we need to be able to say also with the psalmist that the Lord will preserve you from all evil. The Lord will preserve your soul. And you know, if we were writing the psalm, perhaps we would, we might end the psalm there. We might think that's the end of the psalm. That's the most important thing. But the psalmist continues with two other things. He says not only that God will protect us in all these other ways, but also that God will protect us in all different areas of our lives. He says the Lord will preserve your going out and your coming in. And that means whether we're at work or at home or at school or wherever we happen to be on vacation, on a work trip, the Lord's protecting hand will find us and cover us and be over us no matter where we are. And then he also says these words, he says, he will preserve us also from this time forth, from right now, and even forevermore, all the way into eternity. You see, God's protection over our lives doesn't have an asterisk with small print below saying there's an expiry date on his protection of us. There's no end to the wonderful protection and guardian care of God. And so as we come to the close of this psalm, let me ask you a question. Is the Christian journey difficult? Is it a hard journey here below? I think we can answer yes, and for some of us we can say it really is, it's really very difficult. But what a comfort, what a wonderful comfort that every morning we can wake up and if you will, turn our eyes to heaven and confess with this psalmist that the Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth and even forever more. Now as I close, I want to close with four quick applications First, we need to think about something that's serious. And that is that this psalm has been directed to those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ. But if you haven't put your trust in Jesus this morning, this protection of God is not for you. In fact, we read in the scriptures that there's actually two paths. There's the narrow path that goes to eternal life, and there's the broad road that goes to destruction. And some of you perhaps are on this road today. You haven't turned and looked to be in trust, in faith towards Jesus Christ. But let me encourage you if you're in this place today, that even if you're on this road to destruction and you're living a life of sin and you're not trusting in Jesus Christ, you can always turn your eyes to look towards the hills where God is. You can always look to heaven. You can always look to God himself. And you can put your trust in Him. He calls you to put your trust in Him. And then secondly, to those of you who have been on this pathway for some time, perhaps you're older in the faith, perhaps you've seen the same things this second traveler has seen. Well, are you doing what this second traveler did? Are you, if you will, looking over your shoulder back towards other people behind you and saying, oh, there's someone who's struggling. There's someone who's a new traveler. There's someone who's fearful. And are you coming beside them and putting your arm around their shoulder and saying, listen, the road is hard, but God is a good guard. And are you teaching them of the goodness of God and of his faithfulness? If you are, wonderful. Please continue doing that. And if you aren't, well, I think I can say for your church family as well as mine and other churches around here, that we really have a big need of people who are experienced in the Christian walk to help other people along. So please be encouraged to do that if you're not already today. And then thirdly, let me say to those of you who are maybe more like the first traveler and you're more beginning in this journey of faith, perhaps you're young and you've only made confession of faith recently. Or perhaps you haven't made confession of faith but you are a believer. Let me say to you, don't be afraid to humbly seek the advice of those who are older and more experienced. Don't be afraid. They're not going to hurt you. They will give you good advice. In fact, I think if we look at this world around us, we can say that those who've experienced things in life have many things to offer to those who haven't. In fact, many painful things have been avoided by those who have just had the wisdom to go to others with more experience and seek their counsel. So let me encourage you to do that. And then lastly, and more broadly, if you're here today and you're in a place where you're full of fear about the journey in front of you, let me encourage you with the fact that I've really been talking about this whole time, the Lord will not let your foot slip. The Lord's not going to let you stumble. Yes, you may slip, but he will not let you stumble. We read those wonderful words in the book of Jude, and I think we all know these words, that God is the one who is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. So may that be our comfort this evening, that even as we continue to walk this life path, whatever our struggles are this evening, God is our helper. God is our guardian. He will not permit your foot to be moved. He will bring you safely home to an eternity of joyful praise of him in heaven. And what a day that will be when all our troubles, all our sorrows, all our tears, all our sicknesses, all our secret troubles that no one else knows but ourselves and God are wiped away and we will forever be with the Lord. That will be the wonderful day that we all look forward to. So may we trust God, even in these strange times, to do just that, to bring us safely home. Amen. Let's close in prayer. Gracious God and Father in heaven, we confess that so often as we look at our life paths in front of us, we look at ourselves and we We become worried and anxious, and we are not certain if we can make it through these paths. Yet, Lord, as we look to Jesus Christ, as we look to the wonderful life that he lived, to the death that he died, to him reigning now in power and glory, we know, we confess, we believe that he will not permit our foot to be moved. So strengthen us, Lord, this day, and be with those, Lord, who are carrying secret burdens Strengthen them, may they look to the Lord their God for all their help. And Lord, if there are any here who do not know the comfort of a God who will strengthen them and protect them through their life path, may they turn even tonight to seek their help in this God in the mountains, this Jehovah God, who is our guardian God. We pray all these things also, Lord, asking for forgiveness of our sins, even in this time of worship. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
A Psalm For Anxious Travelers - Rev. Isaac Epp
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Drawing from Psalm 121, the sermon explores the comforting assurance that help and protection come from the Lord, particularly for those facing life's challenges and uncertainties. It emphasizes the importance of shifting focus from worldly anxieties to a steadfast trust in God's unwavering presence, drawing parallels between the ancient traveler's journey to Jerusalem and the Christian's pilgrimage to Heaven. The message highlights God's role as a guardian, shielding from both physical and spiritual dangers, and encourages Believers to seek guidance from experienced Christians while maintaining a hopeful outlook, knowing that God will ultimately preserve and bring them safely to eternal glory.
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