This is God's Word. Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law. When I think of Your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord. Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked who forsake Your law. Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning. I remember Your name in the night, O Lord, and keep Your law. This blessing has fallen to me that I've kept Your precepts. And then the grass withers and the flower falls off, but the Word of God endures forever. There we go. Well, Michael Plant was an experienced sailor. He had been around the world many times. He'd been involved in countless races long and far across the globe. But this one would be different. He was setting out from New York. It was October the 16th, 1992. And he had designed and built his $650,000 racing vessel. It was called the Coyote. lightweight fiberglass-coated hull with a foam core that was reputedly to be unsinkable. And it was also very fast because it was so light. And it was equipped with all of the latest technology. And he launched from New York and around the world racing. His first leg was from New York across to France. The race in total was 24,000 miles. It would take him four months to complete. But shortly as he began his trip, his first leg into the Atlantic Ocean, he fell into trouble. We don't know much about that trouble, just that he lost radio contact. And searches went out looking for him, a freighter crossing the sea, heard a brief emergency call from Plant telling the world he was in trouble, had some difficulties, but he was confident he could overcome them, and that they should tell his fiancée not to worry. That was the last direct communication anyone ever had with the man. 32 days later, the coyote was discovered by a Greek tanker. It was floating upside down. Its mainsail was straight down in the water, 85 feet in the water. And immediately, everybody could see what was wrong. The keel. which was a massive lead-filled structure that was 6,500 or 8,400 pounds, sorry, in weight, had been sheared off at the hull. No one knows what caused it, whether it was a freak ocean wave or maybe a whale hit it on the way past. They don't know. But whatever caused it, it separated the keel from the ship. And of course, the keel's function in a sailing boat is to give weight beneath to counteract the moment, the leverage of the sail above. And the one counteracts the other and keeps the boat upright in the water. But if you lose your keel, the boat will almost immediately capsize because the force of the wind against the wave will have no counteract from beneath, and the boat will flip over. And that's indeed what happened to Plant. And somehow he was washed off and was never seen of or heard of again. And hearing that story reminds me, I think, of the Christian in trials. We need ballast beneath us to keep us afloat in the often turbulent ocean of trial and tribulation that we face in this world. I wonder, do you have such a ballast beneath you, and where do you go to get it if you do? The psalmist this evening is a rare breed. He's a man who's found the secret of maintaining poise and stability in the storms of life. He's a man who has This awareness of God as the ballast of his soul and his hope stayed upon Jehovah and his Word. I didn't plan this, but it's very much a fitting kind of part two to this morning's sermon, this sense of God that we need in life to help us keep our heads when all about us are losing theirs and blaming it on us. as Kipling's famous poem of manliness describes. As we make our way through this paragraph this evening, I want to unpack for you The psalmist's testimony of steadfastness in trial, this awareness of God, and not just the awareness of God, but how this man is aware of God in trial that gives him such poise. And we'll see three things. First of all, the psalmist will tell you, I'm stable in trial because I have a faithful Master whose Word I trust. Then second, we'll see, I'm stable in trial because I have an eternal King whose rule never fails. And thirdly, I'm stable in trial because I have a kind Father who is with me always. Let's work through these together. First of all, I have a faithful Master whose word I trust, verse 49 and 50. Remember your word to your servant. in which you have made me, you have caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life." Well, obviously, the psalmist finds himself under the gun, as it were. He's afflicted, verse 15. Now, the word afflicted in Hebrew is ani, and it's built upon the Hebrew verb to force to force a person to give in, to force a person to submit. I'm reminded of the stress posture Enemy soldiers will sometimes put captives in. They'll make you stand 18 inches, two feet away from the wall, and they'll tie your hands behind your back, and they'll push you forward so the weight of your body is supported by your forehead against the wall. You've got to stay there. You can try that when you get home, children. It's not very pleasant. And you can't use your hands. Your hands are behind you, remember, so you're against the wall. And you stay there. And if you move off the wall, you'll get beaten by a jailer with a truncheon. And so it's kind of heads you lose, tails he wins. And you're stuck there. And as you lean against the wall, it's a stress position, and you'll start feeling the muscles in the back of your neck and then down your spine, across your shoulders, go into spasm. It's exhausting. It's painful. And all of that is wrapped up in the Hebrew idea of affliction being put in a position that makes you want to submit. You might say the psalmist feels himself ground down by the circumstances of life, and he feels strongly tempted to give up. Do you feel like that? I know some of you do. And if you don't, some of you perhaps ought to, because I know some of you are under tremendous pressure at the moment. And you feel ground down. You feel under pressure. You're in a stress position. And you go to sleep, you wake up, and you don't really feel very much refreshed, and you're exhausted, and one day rolls into the next, and you're just trudging along and trying to find something to hold on to. Well, the psalmist says, if you listen to me, I will give you something to hold on to. a golden strand, a titanium cord attached at the heart of God, reaching down into this world, and you can hold on to it, and it will never fail you. And that titanium strand, of course, is the Word of God. Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me to hope. It's amazing, the psalmist sees himself in this affliction as the servant of God. That's a wonderful thing. When so many are serving themselves, the psalmist enters affliction self-consciously as the servant of God, and that changes everything. God is my master. I am by His grace His servant. And even more than that, I find within me a supernatural, God-given, resilient faith that trusts His Word. And that faith doesn't come from within. It comes from above. It comes from God. Did you catch that? Remember your Word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. It's the Old Testament echo of this morning's sermon, you work in me to will and to do for your good pleasure. You work in me to will and to hope for your good pleasure. God is creating inside him the capacity to trust God. It's a wonderful thing when you look, you realize your faith, you know, it's a very powerful thing when someone looks at you and they say, you know, you've promised to help me, and I'm trusting you to help me." It's a conscience-grabbing thing. Well, the psalmist is looking to God and saying, I'm trusting you, O God, and you're the one who's made me trust you, and so I'm counting on you not to let me down. Is it conceivable that God would fail to be true to a trust that He Himself has created? And if any of you here this evening do trust God, that trust itself is a gift of God. As Paul says, for by grace we are saved through faith, and that faith is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God. It's wonderful how consistent the Bible is with itself. This is my comfort in my affliction. The psalmist has his own individual affliction. We all have our own individual ways of suffering. No one else's suffering, no one else's affliction is quite like yours. We have unique pressures, unique problems, unique burdens, and it feels personal because they are. Nobody else suffers quite the same way that we do, and the psalmist knows that. My affliction, he says, but he answers my affliction with an equally individual comfort. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. That's vital, because when you're going through affliction, the real stress of affliction is that the earthly sources of life are drying up, whether it be an affliction in your health, and you feel your body failing you, or an affliction in your marriage, your spouses failing you, or an affliction in your children or your parents, your family are failing you. or affliction in your job, your livelihood is failing you, your boss is failing you, your colleagues are failing you, affliction financially, your financial reserves are failing you. And if that's your only source of life in this world, then earthly affliction can sever you from your ballast, as it were, those things that keep you stable in trial. But the secret of the psalmist is to have a source of life beyond this life, a source of life beyond this earth, that He has a resource of life, a spring of life that this world cannot touch, a supernatural spring of life in the Word of God. Your promise Literally, your Word gives me life. It's like what the disciples said to Jesus, where else can we go? You alone have the words of everlasting life. Where do you look for life? I'm reminded of the rich fool or the parable, remember, Jesus is teaching about eternal judgment, and there's a man in the crowd, and he just can't listen to a word Christ has said because his pesky brother is the executor of his father's will, and he's refusing to give his brother the brother's share. And it's so unjust. It's so unfair. That brother had been longing for that income, maybe needing that income, It was His by right, His by law, His by His Father's promise. His brother has the power to hold it back from them. And He says to Jesus, you remember, speak to my brother. And Jesus says, who made me a judge between you and your brother? And then Jesus turns and looks to the crowd and His disciples and says, even when a man hath an abundance, his life does not consist in what he possesses. It doesn't matter how much stuff you have down here, how well-stocked your earthly sources of ballast are. If the best you can do is down here, then none of it matters. Even when you have an abundance down here, Jesus says, your life does not consist in what you possess. And then he tells that story of the rich fool who had this bumper harvest, you remember, and he said, what am I going to do? I have nowhere to store all of my stuff. I'll build bigger barns, and there I will store all of my stuff. And I will say to my soul, take your ease, for you have many goods let up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. And Jesus says, you fool, this very night your soul will be required of you. This man who believed those lies, that life's about finally getting enough to live off, that life's about having the security to safeguard all that stuff so your tomorrow is safe. And then life's about enjoying the simple pleasures of life, eating and drinking and being merry. And then the worst lie of all, life's about to go on for a very long time. And Jesus says, you fool, this night your soul is required of you. So is everyone, Jesus said, who is rich in himself and not rich toward God. Do you have a source of life beyond this life? Do you have a source of life that's out of this world, that's supernatural? The psalmist does. The psalmist did in the Word of God, in the promises of God that are all yea and amen in Christ Jesus. These are things that will never fail you. Your spouse will fail you. Your children will fail you. Your parents will fail you. Your career will fail you. Doesn't matter how successful you are, there'll come a day when you walk away from your job for the last time. And finally, the only things that you can really call your own, your health and your mind, they will fail you. And in that day, the great question will be, do you have a ballast that will not fail you? Will you be left floating upside down, dead in the water, like this boat in the middle of the storms of life. Remember your word to your servant, upon which you have made me hope. Why is that word so great? Oh, because it's my affliction, it's my comfort and my affliction, that your promise gives me life. When I'm asking you, do you believe that? Do you know that? I'm really asking, are you a Christian? And there's a thousand ways you can define a Christian. But one of the ways you can define a Christian, at least a healthy one is, he looks at this book, and the words of this book, and the promises of this book, and the covenant of this book, and he says, this is my life. The wise man doesn't boast in his wisdom. The rich man shouldn't boast in his wealth. But let him who boasts boast in this, that he knows and understands the God of this book and finds life in the promises and words of this book." That's the first thing, then, as to why this man is so stable in trial. I have a faithful master whose word I trust. Secondly, I have an eternal King whose rule never fails. An eternal King whose rule never fails. Now, I see that here if you look down. The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law. When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord. Now, that word, The ESV is right and it's wrong, right? Rules is a good translation, but English is such a confusing language. You look at the word rules and you think of, you know, a list of dos and don'ts. That's not the idea behind the Hebrew noun for mishpat. Some of your translations have judgments. That's also right and wrong, because we think of judgments as the judgments of a judge condemning people, all right? The Word is much kindlier than that. It describes the exercise of good government. When you have the kind of king ruling a land and everything is going well, like in the days of David or Solomon, unless you're one of his hired laborers, not so good for them, but in many ways there were good days when Solomon and David were in charge, right? Freddie Mercury is saying, can anybody find me somebody to love? In America today, I want to say, can anybody find me somebody to take charge of this mess? And the answer so far is moot. But anyway. The psalmist again finds comfort in looking beyond this world to one whose rule is sure, is steadfast, and is eternal, and will never fail him. The rules of a king who does according to his will in heaven and on earth, and in the seas and all deeps, and none can stay His hand." That's the idea behind the word rules, and it's plural. You have this picture of God's providential rule just firing out wisdom and wise providence, left, right, and center. God's works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful. Holy, they're always right, never wrong. They're wise. They're always smart, never stupid. Most holy, wise, and powerful. They're always strong and never weak, never limp-wristed. Strong, it's manly, it's virile. Most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions. It's my favorite Shorter Catechism question, I think. I have so many, though I can't, well, anyway. But it's top of the list, top shelf. from all creatures, actions, and things, from the least even to the greatest. God surrounds, controls, preserves, governs, directs according to His most holy and infallible foreknowledge and providence." It's a glorious doctrine, and if a Christian knows the ability to keep his head when all about them are losing theirs, By and large, he's a Christian, or she's a Christian, whose mind is stayed upon Jehovah and His providence. Like that time whenever Warfield, isn't it Warfield in his comments on the Shorter Catechism, I think it's during the siege of Fredericksburg, there were two Confederate officers walking through the city being shelled by the Yankees. There's explosions going off left, right, and center, and one of them is watching his colleague walking towards him, but he's very calm under fire. As he passes, he said, what's man's chief end? And quick as a flash, his companion said, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And as they kind of pass, he turned around and goes, I knew you were a shorter catechism boy. by his stability under trial, not because he had learned the questions or the answers, but because he knew the God of the catechism. That's the psalmist's testimony. When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord. Now, there's no surprise to find that comfort in verse 52, slap dab in the middle of trouble. Look at verse 51, the insolent The arrogant, puffed-up buffoon, full of himself, empty of God, utterly deride me. Literally, it says, they mock me unto veriness, is the Hebrew. They mock me to the very end. Jesus Christ always lives to make intercession for us. Therefore, he's able to save us to the uttermost. Well, these insolent, proud buffoons are mocking this man, scorning him, deriding him to the uttermost. but from your Torah I do not turn." He's lockstep. I've always wanted a dog with a bulletproof down stay. You know the kind of dog, you see them on TV sometimes, when the master will say, down, stay, and the dog's down, and it stays there, and it just doesn't move. Doesn't matter what you do, you can throw a stake down before the dog, but the dog's been told, down, stay, and the dog stays. He's been made bulletproof from distraction. And I'm told, though I've never had success, but I'm told you get a dog to do that by distracting them. And by rewarding them for staying still despite distraction, a few more seconds, then a minute, and gradually, eventually, the dog will down stay and will not move until you tell him to go, until you release him. Well, the psalmist is like that. It doesn't matter that men are mocking him and deriding him. He will not turn away. He's locked on to the law of God. What's that look like in a marriage, whenever your spouse loses their head and blames it on you? Ever happen to you? What do you do? You want to give them back as richly as they have given to you. But if you like the psalmist, you remember, the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you along with all malice. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ has forgiven You remember Jesus, who when He suffered, He did not threaten, and when He was slandered, He did not slander in return, but committed Himself to God who judges righteously. Oh, I wish I was a man of a bulletproof down stay in my own soul, and my mind was so focused on God and His law that I wouldn't be distracted by temptation. And then verse 53, hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked who deride me constantly. No, because of the wicked who forsake your law. Interestingly, he's more concerned about the wicked's attitude towards God than he is about the wicked's attitude towards him. He's such a God-awareness. All he can see is God. That's a challenge, isn't it? Ladies, when your husbands are losing their heads and blaming it on you, what's your first thought? How dare he speak to me like that? Or is your first thought, Lord, I'm angry, but not because he's hurting me, but because he's defying you? That's what it looks like. That's what it feels like to be so caught up with the providence of God. And I'm not there, but I want to be. And the secrets found in that middle verse, when I think of your rules, your providential from the days of eternity, literally. I take comfort, O Lord God, You've always been in control. You were in control yesterday, and You're in control today, and You'll be in control tomorrow. There's not a maverick molecule in the universe, and this is my comfort. And that really is, I think, the secret to domestic happiness. Children, do you get comforted when your parents let you do whatever you want? Shame on them. Or do you get comfort when you remember that God rules? And God's rule for me right now is honor mother and father. And while mom and dad might not always be just, your heart's focused upon God, you'll remember it's a poor strategy to sin against your parents because they are sinning against you. That helps no one, especially yourself. But you focus upon God. God has put me here. And God in His providence is allowing mom or dad to be too harsh with me, too strict with me, too nitty-gritty, persnickety with me, and God's testing me in the school of disappointment, and I want to respond well to God. And you're more concerned about doing what's right in God's eyes than by getting what you want in your own. I have an eternal King whose rule never fails." And thirdly and lastly, I have a kind Father who's with me always. Now, where do I find that? Well, it's in the word torah in verse 55. The word torah is not the rules of the legislative branch of government, right? It's actually the instruction of a father in In Proverbs again and again, his early chapters, it'll say, some, forsake not the Torah, the instruction of your father. It's the kindly instruction of the friend of your happiness, your father, a man who loves you more than life itself, a man who gets things wrong, sometimes on a colossal level, but he wants what's best for you. And the psalmist's torture-giver is God Himself. A kind Father is with me always. And therefore, in his affliction, the psalmist has a reason to sing, Your statutes have been my songs. The word statutes means written in stone. It undergirds the abiding nature of God's law, that it never changes. It's written once. It's written always. never changes. Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning." The psalmist is aware that this world is not his home. He feels like a man walking from Egypt to the promised land, and he's stuck in the desert, and there's not enough water. There's not enough food. Lots of reasons to grumble and complain, but he has a reason to sing. because he finds joy in the statutes of God. I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law. The name Yahweh, it's the pilgrim name of God. If you turn quickly to Exodus 6, and we're finishing now, but Exodus 6 quickly, you'll see a wonderful explication of the name of God, Yahweh. But the Lord said to Moses, Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land. God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am Yahweh. I appear to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, God Almighty. But by my name Yahweh, I did not make myself known to them." Now, the word Yahweh is used earlier in the Pentateuch. What God is saying is, principally, my name was God Almighty. to them. But like a jeweler turning the facets of a diamond, and each facet, each face shines with a different color in the light, God is twisting His character around. And in the days of Moses, the days of the Exodus, principally the facet of Yahweh was seen and known and experienced. And what is that name? And he goes on, I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Same word as in Psalm 119. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians sold as, wholed as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of mishpat, judgment, or rule. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am Yahweh." And that whole passage is an explication of what it means to have Yahweh as your God. And He's a God who redeems us from burden, from bondage. And He takes us from the land of bondage, the land of slavery, and brings us home to the land of Canaan. And in between, He is with us as the abiding presence. He never forsakes us. And you remember the name Yahweh is built upon the Hebrew word to be. I will be whatever I will be, God says in Exodus 3. Again, a commentary on the word Yahweh. And I've said this before, but I'll say it again. Yahweh means, essentially, to a pilgrim people, I will be whatever I need to be to bring you from their home to the promised land. I will be whatever you need me to be to bring you home to heaven. I will not fail you. I will not forsake you. I will not abandon you. I will not cast you out, but I will bring you home, no matter what you deserve, no matter how long it takes, and no matter how much it costs me. All of that is bound up in the beautiful name of Yahweh. And the psalmist finds comfort in thinking about the name of God. I remember your name in the night, in the darkness, O Lord. and keep your law." Verse 56. I think a better translation is, this has come to me—there's no blessing, actually, in the blessing that's supplied by the ESV—this has come to me, the very fact that Yahweh is my God and I can No, he is with me. This has come to me because your precepts I have kept." And the word because is in the Hebrew, and you'd understand why the ESV has taken it out. This blessing has come to me that I have kept your precepts. And that's a possible translation, and I think the ASV is trying to guard against any sense of salvation by works, okay? But you've got to remember, as I said before, that you don't need to worry about parts of the psalm that seems to sound as if we are saved by works, because we are, just not our own works. Remember, the Psalter is the book of Jesus' songs before they're the book of your songs. Answer me, O God, according to my righteousness. Who can sing that? Well, your elder brother can sing that. perfectly, personally, and perpetually. Answer me, O God, according to my righteousness. And so by the same logic that allows him to sing, my sins are more in number than the hairs of my head, because your sins are more in number than the hairs of his head, and your sins become his, we can sing these verses without shame. Answer me, O God, according to my righteousness, which is the same as saying, answer me, O God, according to Christ's righteousness, because Christ is mine, and all that belongs to Christ is mine. And so this blessing of having Yahweh as my God could only come to a person who's personally, perpetually, and perfectly obeyed God, which none of us have in ourselves, but all of us have in Christ who are trusting Him. And so you can sing that verse, this blessing has fallen to me because I have kept your precepts. And you sing those words with Jesus' arm round about you. You sing that in Him, and because of Him. And if you prefer the ESV translation, you could say, as an Old Testament echo of a verse this morning, I'm obeying God's commandments because I'm working out because He has been working in me to will and to do for His good pleasure. Both translations are orthodox. And both translations are true in Jesus. I have a kind Father who's with me always, so concerned to be with you that He abandoned His own Son to hell to have you home in heaven with Him forever. Those are three thoughts of God, three aspects of a godly God-awareness to give you and me poise in trial. I have a faithful Master whose word I trust. I have an eternal King whose rule never fails, and I have a kind Father who is with me always. There'll be times in life, and that's all you can say as a Christian, when that's all you can say, you're saying a very great deal indeed. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your Word At times I come to this psalm, O God, despairing of seeing anything new, and yet there's always something wonderful and new here, and I thank You for opening my eyes to see treasures in this Word to share with Your people. Then I pray for myself and all of my brothers and sisters here, O God, make us not like that boat with no keel. Make us and give us a ballast beneath us that will never fail us. and out of this world ballast that will keep us stable and upright in the worst storm of life. For Jesus' sake, that your Son might see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied in us. For Jesus' sake. Amen.