Well, here we are for another Tuesday evening study, and we're so glad that you're all with us. And a special welcome to those of you watching us over the live stream.
We never know exactly who that is, but we know that people do, and we're glad that you're with us as well. And a welcome to our guests, sometimes repeated guests, but we're glad that you're with us. And we have a wonderful time in God's Word tonight from Psalm 62 as we return to the Psalms after spending a few Tuesday evenings in the realm of theology. We come back to our exposition of the Psalms, and Psalm 62 is our text for this evening.
I'm going to read it as we begin, and then we will go through it in its entirety here this evening. Beginning with the inscription, it says, For the choir, director, according to Jeduthun, a psalm of David, my soul waits in silence for God only. From him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold. I shall not be greatly shaken. How long will you assail a man that you may murder him, all of you, like a leaning wall, like a tottering fence?
They have counseled only to thrust him down from his high position. They delight in falsehood. They bless with their mouth, but inwardly they curse. Selah. My soul wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold.
I shall not be shaken. On God my salvation and my glory rest. The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times, O people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Selah. Men of low degree are only vanity, and men of rank are a lie.
In the balances they go up, they are together lighter than breath. Do not trust in oppression and do not vainly hope in robbery. If riches increase, do not set your heart upon them. Once God has spoken, twice I have heard this, that power belongs to God, and loving kindness is yours, O Lord, for you recompense a man according to his works." David's Psalms always seem to have an enemy in the background, don't they?
Of one kind or another, and in that way they're not that much different from the things that we experience in life as we have difficult people or difficult circumstances in our own background, sometimes of long-standing nature. One writer says this about Psalm 62. He says, "...this is the psalm of someone who knows the destructive power of vicious and slanderous attacks upon his character and his standing in the community." Now, God brings trials to us in part for you to learn to depend upon him alone.
Your trials are ultimately never about the circumstances themselves or about the people themselves. They are always instruments in the hand of God designed to instruct you and to help you grow in a spiritual way that would teach you to depend upon him alone. And in some ways the key word in this psalm is the word only. You can't see it replicated perfectly in the English text, but in the Hebrew text the word only begins six different verses of this brief psalm, and four times it is used to isolate God as the sole purpose or the sole object of trust.
I just want you to see this as we start out in Psalm 62. In verse 1 you see, "...my soul waits in silence for God only." In verse 2, "...he only is my rock and my salvation." In verse 5, "...my soul waits in silence for God only." In verse 6, "...he only is my rock and my salvation." And so this psalm is particularly pointing us to the exclusive object of our trust, the exclusive place where we rest our confidence in times of opposition, in times of discouragement, in times of difficulty. This psalm is designed to teach you to trust in God alone. And the question is this, the question that frames the way that you would receive tonight's teaching, the way that you would respond to it, is whether you will commit yourself as you hear God's Word tonight to trust in Him alone, to trust not in what you can see might happen, not in the way that circumstances might work out, not the person that you could call and lean upon to help you or to strengthen you, but to settle your heart that you would trust in God alone in the midst of whatever it is that you are going through.
Now let's step back and take a kind of a New Testament perspective on this for just a moment and point something else out that will really, I think, help settle the way that we frame this as we move through our study tonight. Isn't it true that in Christian salvation, which is the only salvation that there is, there is no forgiveness of sin in anyone other than the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it true that for a person to be saved that they must understand that they must trust in Christ alone? That there is nothing that that you contribute to your salvation? It's not that Christ paid 80% of it and you add 20% through your good works, it's not that Christ died and forgave you of your past sins and now you have to be faithful to keep your salvation going forward. No, your salvation rests completely on something that is external to you.
It is outside of you. The basis of your righteousness before God is something that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the Lord Jesus Christ. For your reconciliation to God, for your access to God, you are resting completely alone in Christ and not in anything of yourself. There is nothing that you add to your salvation.
There is nothing that you could ever add to improve the righteousness of Christ. And so we understand that when it comes to entering into the salvation that we have with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, we are resting in Him alone. When we come to stand before God in judgment, we will not offer any good things that we have done. We will not even offer the sorrow for our sins. We will simply hide in Christ.
We will simply rest in Christ. We will depend on His righteousness to be that which God accepts in order to receive us into heaven. We trust in Christ alone and nothing of ourselves. Well, in the same way, here David is cultivating that principle a thousand years before the time of Christ, cultivating in his audience, in his readers, and in his own heart the idea that we trust in in God alone. We trust alone in Him.
We put no hope in other men. And beloved, oh, you must understand this if you are to be a Christian at all, that you put no hope in yourself either. You do not trust in the works of your own hands. You do not trust in your own righteousness.
Scripture forbids that. Scripture would teach you that that could never be the case, because Scripture says that your righteousness is like a filthy rag, that your righteousness is not acceptable to God. You need a righteousness outside of yourself, and you trust in that righteousness alone, the righteousness provided to you by the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, that's the perspective with which we come to this psalm. It's the perspective that David is teaching us, an exclusive confidence in the fidelity of God, just as we trust in the righteousness of Christ alone. And so we're going to see three aspects of the way that that exclusive trust works out here in this psalm. The first part that we're going to see if you're taking notes tonight is trust in the midst of the enemies.
Trust in the midst of the enemies. And in verse 1, David opens with a statement about his trusting heart. He says in verse 1, My soul waits in silence for God only.
From Him is my salvation. When David speaks of his silence here, he is speaking to that which immediately exposes us, I would venture to say, that lays before us the reality of our own anxious heart. Because the idea of silence in this verse is designed to point us to a patient spirit in the midst of danger or in the midst of enemies. When you're going through the trials, to wait on God in silence means that you are you are waiting for Him patiently, that you know who God is and you know that you belong to Him.
You know that He is a strong God, a powerful God, a faithful God, a loving God, and the fact that you are now in the midst of a storm does not change anything about the character or nature of who God is. And the fact that He is your God through covenant promise, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, means that He will certainly be faithful to you and will deliver you out of this in His own good time. And because, beloved, because that is the defining priority and that is the defining understanding of your heart, it frames the way that you understand everything that happens to you. You realize that through the physical difficulties, through the financial uncertainties, through the relational nightmares that some of you are going through or have gone through, you realize that in the midst of that, the Lord Jesus Christ is holding you in His hand, protecting you, guiding you, and will certainly bring you through safe on the other side. And because that is true, then you can step back and say, I can wait, I can be patient, I can persevere through this storm, I can persevere through this difficulty, I can take the long view on my difficult relationships because I know and I'm trusting in God alone to prove His faithfulness to me, which He will most certainly do. And David says, because that is the anchor of my heart, I can wait in silence without verbalizing a lot of anxiety or panic or reactions.
No, like a weaned child on its mother's chest, you can wait and rest patiently in this God. And so David's saying, I am submitted to my God and I am content with however God disposes of my circumstances. This is the idea of trusting God alone in the midst of your enemies. David uses the term salvation here, here in this context referring to to a deliverance from a threat. And this is a key term in the psalm, this idea of salvation, of deliverance from his enemies. In verse 2 he immediately repeats it. Verse 1 he said, look at it with me, said, from him is my salvation. In verse 2 he goes on, he only, referring to God, is my rock and my salvation. In verse 6 he repeats the theme, he only is my rock and my salvation.
On verse 7, in verse 7 I should say, on God my salvation and my glory rest. And so he's in the midst of his enemies, but his focus is centered on the reality of the loving kindness and the power of God which guarantees his ultimate deliverance. And because the ultimate deliverance is sure, he can be patient in the midst of the passing nature of the circumstances and the threat.
And yet as you read this psalm, as you read the way that David speaks of him, look at verse 2, he says, he only is my rock and my salvation. He equates salvation with God himself. Not simply deliverance from the circumstances, but God himself is his salvation. One older commentator said this, and I quote, he says, the being on whom he waits, the loving person in whom he trusts, the God whose arms compass him about, is to him all that is included in that great word, salvation.
End quote. So it's not simply that God will take me out of these problems and deliver me to a place of more peaceful circumstances. The idea is that God himself is my deliverance.
God himself is my provider. God himself is the one in whom I rest. And Christian brother and sister, when you are in your right frame of mind and thinking rightly, isn't that the way that you think about the Lord Jesus Christ?
It should be. That it's not simply that Christ provides something external, something outside him that is our salvation. Christ himself is our salvation. We are in Christ. We are united with him. We are in Christ, and he is our ultimate hope and our ultimate glory, and he himself will be our ultimate deliverance. We are waiting. We are waiting for him to return from heaven and bring this world age to a conclusion and be our salvation.
Well, it's in that sense. It's in that sense, my friends, that David is speaking of of his God, saying, God himself is my salvation. He alone is the one that I look to. And therefore, he goes on in in verse 2 and he says, he only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold.
I shall not be greatly shaken. And so the whole point, the whole point of this psalm, is that David is saying, even though I have enemies about me, God is set apart in my mind. God is exclusive. He holds a revered place that no one else has, and he alone is my help. He alone is the one that is the object of my trust. And so even in the midst of his struggles, David is looking at this and saying, and it's clear in his mind, where his hope is. He's not looking for an earthly source of deliverance.
God is set apart as the object of his trust, and that is where his confidence is, that is where his hope is, that is where his trust lies, is in God and in God alone. Now, let's approach this from a different perspective as we think about how we work this out in our in our own lives and how we think about these things. The Lord brings us, doesn't he, into positions where there is no earthly answer to the dilemma that you're facing. The doctors don't have an answer. The attorneys can't solve the issue for you. Your family is removed and far away, maybe alienated, and there's no earthly object to turn to for your trust. The bank has said no, and all of a sudden you have nowhere to turn. You have no human method for help.
The doctors aren't giving you answers, can't give you answers, and you're left and you say, I don't know where to turn. Well, understand that in that time as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has brought you to a place where you can enter into the spirit of a psalm like this and know by your own experience that God is sufficient, that Christ is enough for you. As we've said multiple times from this pulpit, you will not know that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you've got. And so rather than the whole point of God bringing you into a circumstance like that is obviously not to bring you to a point where you panic and you're stricken with anxiety day and night and tossing and turning on your bed without relief, that couldn't possibly be the spiritual result that God intends for you, could it?
That's not possible what the intent of that is. Rather, what the intent of that is is that having stripped away every source of earthly comfort and earthly refuge, having stripped it all away so that there's nothing earthly for you to rely on, you now are in a position where you have to look to God only, to God exclusively, and ultimately the idea is that you would find the same kind of security that David does here in Psalm 62. The entire purpose of God stripping everything away from you, ultimately, beloved, and in the midst of the very difficult circumstances that I know some of you are walking through tonight, is for you to find the sufficiency of Christ in the midst of that. Beloved, this is the reality of Christian salvation. This is what biblical faith really looks like, because anyone in the earth, if they have an answer to all of their earthly circumstances, all of their earthly problems, they can go to sleep at night.
Anybody could do that. You don't need to be a Christian if you had an answer to all of your dilemmas. What distinguishes you, what distinguishes the people of Christ from the world is is that we sleep at night even when the circumstances have no answer, and that is the idea here when David says, he only is my rock and my salvation. The rock being a place of defense.
The stronghold picturing a refuge set on high where enemies cannot reach it. And what you have in Christ, what you have in the Lord Jesus, who gave himself on the cross to save you from all of your sins, who set his eternal love on you before time began, what you have in Christ is a unassailable defense that your opponents and that your circumstances can never overthrow. Think about it, beloved. Think about who Christ is. Think about what he's done.
You young people that are just starting on the path of walking with Christ, maybe some of you needing to turn to him and actually give your lives to him for the first time on the front end of this, understand what Christ is and what he has done. Christ is so great, so powerful, so magnificent that death itself could not restrain him. Death itself could not hold him. He conquered death itself. He conquered demons. He conquered nature in his earthly life. And his resurrection and ascension shows him to be the victorious Lord over all.
Now beloved, beloved, deal with your own heart and speak to yourself and preach to yourself in light of that. Isn't it true that if you belong to that great and magnificent Christ, and his love was so great that he did not deny his own blood but gladly shed it on the cross, that your sins might be forgiven? If he is like that, if he is so great and powerful to conquer death, to conquer nature, to conquer demons in his earthly life, and to rise again and now holds the the supreme place in the universe at the right hand of God the Father, if that's who Christ is and that's who you belong to, isn't it obvious that you're secure? Isn't it obvious that you're safe no matter what's happening right now? Isn't it obvious that what's happening in this life, even if it is long and even if it is difficult and even if there are no solutions, isn't it obvious that this could only be a passing chapter in life where the final chapter ends in victory and glory for you at the right hand of Christ?
That's the only way it can come out for us, because it depends. It depends not on you, not on your efforts, not on your righteousness. It depends entirely on the righteousness and faithfulness of Christ, and he will never fail us, he will never leave us, he will never ever forsake us. And if that's true, then can't your heart be at peace? Can't you rest in him?
Can't you trust in him in the midst of it all and find the satisfaction for your soul? David says, look at the end of verse 2, this is where this is where you need to come. And beloved, it's not just that you need to come to where David is at at the end of verse 2, it's that you can come to this conclusion in your soul. Because Christ is my rock, because Christ is my salvation, because Christ is my stronghold, then I know the outcome of this, I will not be greatly shaken. The winds may batter against me, I get that.
The water may get deep, I may not know where the next mortgage payment is going to come from, but you know what? My soul is secure. I will not be greatly shaken, because there is no way that Christ will let me go. And that's not because, beloved, oh please get this, that is not because you are so faithful to Christ, because at your best you're weak and faltering and failing in your fidelity to Christ, aren't you?
No, it's not about your faithfulness to Christ, it's that Christ is faithful to you. And you rest in that and you say, because Christ is faithful to me, because his blood is already as a shed and accomplished fact, then I will not be greatly shaken. And therefore you can be calm in the midst of your enemies.
That's what David's pointing us to here in Psalm 62. You know, beloved, it's not just, it's not just present circumstances, it's looking forward into the future. It's not just that this means there's deliverance in your present circumstances, it means that you can live life without fear of the future. You can live life without fear of death, because so great is the power of Christ, so great is the salvation that he has given to you, so great is his faithfulness that whatever comes, he will be with you in the midst of it, to be your rock, to be your stronghold, to be your salvation. And therefore, you go through life with a completely different perspective.
No longer one bound by fear, no longer asking what if, no longer bound by past regrets or fear of the future. Christ is your all and you are in him and you're safe no matter what comes. And if death knocks on your door far sooner than you expected, suddenly an accident comes and you're, I've only got a little bit of time to live here. Even then, in the midst of that extremity, Christ will be faithful to you. Christ will be with you. Christ will carry you through the final crisis and land you safe on the other side.
And so the question is then, since all of those things are unarguably true about who Christ is, then the question is, will you simply trust him alone for whatever comes? David here in Psalm 62 turns to those who are trying to tear him down in the midst of his enemies, remember, in verse 3. Look at it with me. He says, how long will you assail a man that you may murder him, all of you, like a leaning wall, like a tottering fence? What's he saying there? What's a leaning wall or a tottering fence except something that looks easy to push over? It's easy to knock down. And David here is apparently in some kind of vulnerable position and his enemies are taking advantage of that, pressing in, trying to bring about his downfall. David from a position of faith and trust says, how long are you going to try to do that? Don't you realize that God is my strength? God is my stronghold? Don't you realize that your efforts to cast me down are doomed to failure?
Verse 4, they've counseled only to thrust him down from his high position. They delight in falsehood. They bless with their mouth, but inwardly they curse. Leaning walls and tottering fences can be knocked down so easily, and his enemies thought David was an easy target and they used their lies to try to undermine him, writing here as in his position as the king, his enemies using lies to try to undermine his public position and his public support. It's the nature. It's the nature of wicked people to go after those that they think are vulnerable. It is the nature of them to lie and to undermine those who are in leadership.
It's what's happening. It's what's happening to David in this psalm. It's why scams so often target the elderly, isolate those from their family and they're vulnerable and they go after them because they seem weak. Conversely, there are those that are jealous of those that are in positions of leadership that want what someone else has and tries to undermine them through their lies. And haven't you found it to be true? Haven't you found it to be true that there are those who will speak kindly to you, to your face, while when you're out of the room they're lying and tearing you down and trying to destroy everything that you stand for? Haven't you experienced that in life, whether it's a relative or someone else?
This is the nature of wicked people, that outwardly they fawn, outwardly they might give you gifts, but behind their back they're seeking to undermine you. David experienced this. And here's the thing, the focus here is not so much on the enemies, but the fact that David is confident even though there are people around him that are like that trying to tear him down. And the whole point of that is, as he says, how long are you going to do this? His whole point in this is that what you're trying to do is futile.
You are wasting your time. There is no possibility of success for your efforts to try to tear me down, David says, because God is my strength, God is my stronghold, God is my defense. Ultimately your battle is not against me, it is about the God that I belong to.
And so how long are you going to waste your time? Because ultimately, though I look like a tottering fence, ultimately you are banging your head against a solid concrete wall. God will not be moved and he will not be unfaithful to me to leave me to your devices. David says, God is protecting me and so I'm not afraid. God is protecting me and therefore the outcome is sure. There at the end of verse 4, you see the word selah, it's a word that that causes us to stop and meditate and to think about what we've just heard.
And the question would just come to this. In the midst of your enemies, in the midst of your difficulties, in the midst of your uncertainties, will you trust God alone to be the faithful God that David describes him to be? And will you therefore rest in silence and wait on him and not count on deliverance from a human source, from a human help, but to say, no, God I'm going to trust in you and I will look to you alone for the help that I need. Is that where you will go in response to God's Word tonight? It's a blessed place to be.
It's a blessed place to be. And so David teaches us to trust God alone in the midst of our enemies. Well that brings us to the second section of the Psalm, which we could title this way, trusting God in the in the midst of God's person, in the midst of God's person. And as you pivot into verses 5 through 8 here, there's something very wonderful that happens as you read along in the Psalm. David, as it were, leaves his enemies in the rearview mirror.
They are no longer in his peripheral vision. His focus is now consumed with the person of God, and that becomes his exclusive hope. It's not God protecting him from his enemies, it's who God is himself that is producing his trust in the second stanza of the Psalm. Look at verses 5 through 6 with me. He says, "...my soul," he's preaching to himself, "...wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold. I shall not be shaken." Notice the word hope there in verse 5. My hope is from him. What he's saying is is that I am looking to my God to provide the intervention and the help that I need in the situation.
My focus is exclusively on him. You would take this, and you would apply it something like this, and look, beloved, we're all of like common flesh, and this is a, you know, this is a battle for me from time to time as well. You know, you get so consumed in the in the human faces of the problem, and you just get wrapped up in thinking about that. Well, what we have to do, we have to preach to ourselves, we have to call ourselves to remember who our God is, and to think on him alone that God will provide, God will intervene, God will not leave me in this place of vulnerability forever, and therefore I will wait on him. David here, as he says these things in these two verses, verses 5 and 6, is expressing a heart that is in submission to his God, and he preaches to himself, and he says, because God is who he is, because God is faithful to me, because God is my God, I will not be shaken. I will not be knocked off my course. I will not be cast down in the midst of this. And he's saying, I will trust in God alone.
I'm not looking for help from men. He only is my rock. Look at verse 6 there with me. He only is my rock and my salvation. He only is my defense, my stronghold.
I will not be moved. And isn't it true, those of you that have been Christians any length of time at all, isn't it true that you have many experiences in your past where you seem to have an unsolvable problem where there was no human help to be had, and somehow the Lord in his providence that God brought help from unexpected places, God did something that was just so magnificent and so unplanned and so outside of your control and provided the deliverance that you needed in that time? Don't you know things like that? Didn't God bring a spouse to you when it seemed like you would never have one? Didn't God bring help in the midst of your financial crisis when you had nowhere to turn? Isn't it true that God opened a door when there seemed to be no doors to be open? Isn't that true?
Don't you know something of that in your past? Well, then just remember that and say, well this is no different. God has not changed and his power is still unlimited. God has... when God delivered you in the past, he did not exhaust his power to save and deliver you. His power today is the same as it was back then when he did what you thought was not possible. And and now today in the situation that you say, I see no way out of this, God is still ruling supreme over it all in undiminished sovereignty, in undiminished omnipotence, with the same power and ability to deliver you. With the love of God manifested perfectly for all time established at the cross of Calvary, love and power meeting to bring the forgiveness of your sins. Isn't it... isn't it unthinkable to think that God would withhold lesser things from you when he's already given you the greater? And so you have to remind yourself of these things and you say, those things are true and therefore I will trust in God alone.
My hope is not from man. And that kind of meditation on the protection and the power of God increases your confidence, but beloved, you have to remind yourself of these things. You have to preach to yourself.
You have to remind yourself of what it is that you believe. And in verse 7 David says... look at verse 7 with me... he says, on God my salvation and my glory rest, the rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. One writer said this... very encouraging words. I'd encourage you to adopt them as your own as you respond to God's Word here this evening.
I quote, because I could never be this eloquent. He says, if God is my refuge, what enemy can pursue me? If God is my defense, what temptation shall wound me? If God is my rock, what storm shall shake me? If God is my salvation, what sorrow shall deject me? If God is my glory, what slander shall defame me?
End quote. If these things about God are true, if what we proclaim about Christ is true, and it is, and if you belong to Christ, and most of you do, then don't you see that because those first principles are true and established and unalterable that the consequences of life flow out of that. This is the fountain that determines the outcome of every trial and sorrow that you could ever face. And so you draw strength from that. You draw strength from the person of who God is. And now David, having strengthened his own soul, exhorts those who would hear him to follow in his trust. Look at verse 8. He says, trust in him at all times, O people.
Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Selah. He invites his readers, which is us tonight. Three thousand years later, the invitation goes out to us as well.
It goes out to you in the midst of your circumstances. And David says, look at this God that I have laid out before you in Scripture. Look at him and his power and his glory and his love and his covenant faithfulness.
Look at it! Drink it in! Soak it in, he says. And then trust him at all times. Let that be the defining cornerstone of your heart.
And you can pour out your heart before him. You can lay it all before him, trusting him to deal with you as he dealt with David, as he has dealt with the Saints throughout the course of history. Isn't in one sense, isn't the 66 books of the Bible, isn't the 11th chapter of Hebrews just an ongoing testimony of the faithfulness of God to his people? My beloved, nothing's changed. God hasn't changed. The God who is faithful to them is being faithful to us now. The God who is faithful to David is faithful to you now. You can rest in him.
You can trust in him. You can be at peace. You say, but I'm lonely. I'm alone in life, and this is hard and discouraging.
And the people that I most want to love me reject me, despise me, and want nothing to do with me. Well, that's sad. That's hard.
That's difficult. And doesn't that make it all the more sweeter that someone more wonderful than anyone on earth would love you and be faithful to you, whose arms would be open to you at all times? Ever a faithful friend, remembering the words of the hymn that we sing at times, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sorrows and griefs to bear. Isn't it wonderful that though men despise us, that the supreme king, that you have an audience, that you have a place at the table with the king? You see, those truths make Christ precious to you.
Those truths show us how wonderful and marvelous it is to belong to Christ, that he loves us and that he will never leave us and he will never turn us away. And every earthly betrayal that you have ever gone through just becomes a reminder that Christ will never do that to you, that his faithfulness will never fail you. He will never fail you. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. And that is more precious than any human love could ever be. And you learn to treasure that above all else, you learn to trust that above all else, and you say, I can rest in that, I am content in that.
That is enough for my soul to be composed. You know, close to 30 years ago, Nancy and I used to go and minister in a nursing home in Skokie, Illinois, kind of on the lower end of nursing homes, you know, and the smells and all of that. But there was one guy, I can't even remember his name as I stand here, but I remember his sweet spirit so much we'd go in and lead little worship services.
Nancy'd play and I would teach as I taught back then. Sam, that was his name, and Sam met us at the door one time. He was a disheveled mess.
Gravy stains on his shirt, but his mind was good, but it was just, you know, how it gets when you reach that stage of life and you're not as able to take care of yourself and maybe the staff is too busy to clean him up or whatever. But Sam saw us and he knew why he was there, and with a beaming face, the first words out of his mouth was, isn't Jesus wonderful? Isn't Jesus wonderful?
I've never forgotten that. The sweet spirit that loved Christ and understood that Christ was with him even in those degraded circumstances, and he was content. That was enough to bring him peace and that was enough to bring him joy. Dear Sam, can't wait to see him in heaven.
Well, beloved, can't you in far better circumstances, far better external trappings than what Sam knew, far better far better circumstances than those that were martyred for the faith, in far better circumstances, catch you rise up in your own heart, in all of the uncertainty even, and find contentment and find composure for your soul with the reality that says, isn't Jesus wonderful? Isn't God great? Isn't God good? Isn't it wonderful that Christ died for my sins? Isn't it wonderful that I'm going to heaven one day? Isn't it wonderful that all of these earthly sorrows are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us?
Isn't that wonderful? And if all of those things are true in your heart, then can't you trust God alone for whatever it is that you're facing? Third section of the psalm shows us we've looked at trust in the midst of our enemies, trust in the midst of God's person or God's character, might have been a better way to say that. Thirdly, to trust God in the midst of life, to trust God in the midst of life. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to remember Sam, that just cheers my heart.
I hadn't thought of him in preparing for this, he just came to mind. But anyway, trusting God in the midst of life. What happens here in the remaining section of this psalm is this, David steps back and he reflects on what this means for a philosophy of life, for a worldview, for the way that you think about all of life. These are the broader lessons of life from the way that he has exercised his trust in Psalm 62. In verse 9, he comes back to the human dimension, and in verse 9 he says, men of low degree are only vanity, and men of rank are a lie.
In the balances they go up, they are together lighter than breath. In light of who this God is, in light of who God is, then whether you're talking about men of no degree or men of the highest degree, no matter who you're looking at, they are weak and puny by comparison. There is no comparison between the men that are around us on a horizontal level with the God in whom alone we trust, whose character we have reviewed and strengthened ourselves in. All of a sudden, we realize that the threats from men or the threats from women are absolutely meaningless in comparison. What can man do to us in light of who this God is?
You could put them on a scale and they're lighter than a breath compared to the other side of the scale where the great faithful character of God is found, where his great power is displayed. Men are intrinsically weak, especially compared to the rock. And so, two aspects to this as I see it. One is that there is no reason for us to fear men or to fear our circumstances.
There's no reason for that. There's no allowance for that in our hearts, no reason to fear them, and also to realize that that's a poor place to look for help and deliverance. Now we understand that deliverance will sometimes come through the hands of men, but we don't put our trust in men to be the ones who deliver us, the ones who bring our help. And not only are men a hopeless source of deliverance, so are riches. Look at verse 10. David says, "'Do not trust in oppression, do not vainly hope in robbery.
If riches increase, do not set your heart upon them.'" What David is saying here is don't rest your hope in anything human. Don't rest your hope in anything that man or circumstances can supply. In the same way that you do not count on anything human for your salvation from sin, there is no human mediator other than Christ who could ever do anything to bring you to God. There is no human help.
There is nothing. You cannot set your hope in man is the whole point of this. And beloved, let's put it this way. In terms of trusting in God alone, let's think about it this way when we think about deliverance from man and where we put our hope and our aspirations. Even the best of your human relationships, even your most faithful spouse and your most faithful children or siblings or parents, beloved, don't you see that you cannot put your ultimate hope in them either?
Isn't it true that they are frail creatures of dust? Isn't it true that one day you'll part ways at death from them as well? Then they can't be the ultimate source of your trust, your ultimate source of comfort, the ultimate rock of your soul. Oh, we can thank God for faithful family members. We can love them. We can give thanks to God. We can enjoy them as the gifts that they are, but beloved, they were never intended to be your ultimate hope.
The ultimate source of your satisfaction. And some of you know by bitter experience having children disappoint you. Some of you know by bitter experience having a spouse betray you.
You know that from personal experience. The person that you loved and had high hopes for, walking away. Those of you that have aspirations for ministry, ministry is the same way.
The people that you thought would be beside you walk away so many times. And in all of that, the Lord would teach us not to put our final hope, our final love, our highest hope in anything human. That is always to be secondary to resting your highest hope, your highest security, your deepest love, your deepest affection, your highest aspiration for your God who has now made himself known in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the way that you are to think about life and human relationships.
You could say, I love you so much, but it is settled in your heart. There is a throne in your inner man that is reserved for Christ and for Christ alone. Because even if your loved ones are faithful to you all the way, you're going to say goodbye in death. And so this psalm teaches us not to trust in anything human. In contrast to men, in contrast to material things, put your trust in Christ alone. It is better to trust in Christ than to trust in men. Now, how could you know, how can you know, that your trust in Christ alone is well placed? How can you know that the God of the Bible is worthy of that repose of your soul? Especially when your trust in humans has been violated so many times.
Well, see, the problem isn't trust and the problem isn't vulnerability per se, it's just putting your trust in the right place. And David here closes the psalm by saying that trust in this God is well placed and will come out well. Verse 11. In verse 11 he says, once God has spoken, twice I have heard this.
There has been repetition in David's experience. He's emphasizing this, and he says there at the end of verse 11, power belongs to God and loving kindness is yours, O Lord. Look, God's power means that he has the ability to save his people, and God's love means that he has the motivation to save his people. Power and motivation come together in a benevolent disposition toward his people that will never fail us. God keeps his promises, and he always will. Beloved, he always will. He will never fail you. He is true, he is dependable, and he will have the last word, and he will not forget us. Look at verse 12. You recompense a man according to his work. Those who serve a faithful God will find that he is more than faithful in the end.
You look to God alone and give him undivided trust, obedience, and worship. Beloved, do you know what the past hour has done? Do you know what we have done in this past hour? Do you know what Scripture has given to you in the past 60 minutes?
Do you know what it has done? It has given you the answer to all of your anxieties, all of your panic, all of your sorrows, all of your heartbreak from the past. James Montgomery Boice says, and I'll close with this, he says, do not place your deepest hope in man. Instead, trust in him who is eternal and unchanging, and you will never be shaken when people disappoint you. Close quote. God in his love and God in his power will keep you.
Trust him and trust him alone. Let's pray together. Our Father, great is your faithfulness, great is your power, great is your love.
All manifested for us supremely at the cross of Calvary where our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and bled voluntarily for the forgiveness of our sins. We thank you that you are with us, and we thank you that you will never ever ever ever forsake us, and you will never ever ever ever leave us. You are with us always, Lord Jesus, you said, even to the end of the age. In Psalm 23, I fear no evil for you are with me. You are with us in life, you are with us in death, you will be with us if judgment would come upon this world. You will not forget us but carry us safely through it all. Through death, through judgment, through it all, we will be delivered safe to your side. And Lord Jesus, that is all a result of the of the triune love that you manifested as you walked on this earth and as you gave yourself on the cross for our sins. And so yes, Lord, in light of all that you are, we trust you. We not only trust you, we trust you alone. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to Pastor Don Green from Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. You can find church information, Don's complete sermon library, and other helpful materials at thetruthpulpit.com. This message is copyrighted by Don Green. All rights reserved.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-06-12 06:21:59 / 2023-06-12 06:42:12 / 20
