Good evening, everyone. It's good to be here again to worship with you and again to hear from the Word of the Lord. You can turn in your Bibles to Psalm 121. Psalm 121 will be our passage this evening.
I'll read the entire Psalm together and then we'll pray before the preaching of the Word. Psalm 121, it is a song of ascents.
Scripture Reading: Psalm 121
I will lift up my eyes to the hills, for whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Kept from Slipping
He will not allow your foot to be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper.
The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil. He shall preserve your soul.
The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth and even forevermore. Amen. Well, let us pray together.
Opening Prayer
O Lord, most high, again we do come before you. and we appeal to the power of your spirit to be here among us. Lord, that you might dwell with us. and that you might attend to the preaching of your word. Lord, I pray that you would reveal yourself through your word, by your spirit, to your people here. Lord, may you be glorified.
May it be for the edification of your people here. May it be for the salvation of sinners. Lord, we pray for the aid from on high to assist in the preaching of the word, so that we might hear from you now. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Introduction
So Psalm 121, if you notice at the top of the psalm, it gives us a title, Song of Ascents. And if you look, probably in your Bibles, at many psalms on the same page there, we have the same thing, a Song of Ascents. They're all called that. Or we might say a Song for Ascending, or even a Song for Climbing.
And we have to ask the question, what are we climbing? What is this talking about? Now, in this, these Psalms were Psalms that the children of Israel would sing as they were climbing, as they were returning to Jerusalem, and they were climbing the mountain that Jerusalem was on, working their way up, Mount Zion, the Bible calls it that. So, but in order for us to better understand what the significance of that is, we have to locate this psalm within the greater biblical context, the entire canon of scripture, so that we can better then see how it applies to us now in the 21st century.
We're not climbing hills on our way, we don't climb hills to go to church, those things. How are we trying to, or how do we need to understand this psalm here? So that's what we're gonna do.
The Greater Biblical Context
First, I'm gonna spend some time giving us a bit of a greater the greater biblical context that we need to understand in order to understand the psalm. Then we'll look at verses 1 and 2, the reminder of the Lord's identity, the identity of the psalmist's God. And then really the rest of the psalm is the practical application of that. When we know who our God is, there's a lot of practical applications for that.
So, 3 to 6, the climber's protection. 7 through 8, the climbers' preservation. So first, the biblical context.
Eden: The Garden on the Mountain
In order to understand this, we need to go back to the Garden of Eden, Genesis 1, Genesis 2. That's where most often we need to go back to, to get the context here. And I'm going to say, now, I'm going to pack a lot of information into probably not as much time as is needed for all that information. But I do trust that most of you are probably familiar with a lot of these concepts, covenant of works type things, things that are going on that are revealed to us in the creation narrative.
So in Genesis chapter 2, we read about the creation of man, and his unique role as God's image bearer in the physical realm on this earth. And we also read that God had planted a beautiful garden, and that garden was on a mountain. Now it doesn't tell us in Genesis it was on a mountain, but we can, because we know water flows downhill, we know it's on a mountain, because a spring flowed out of that garden and flowed down this mountain and then went throughout the four corners of the earth. Ezekiel 28 also calls Eden the holy mountain of God.
So, picture a garden on a mountain. God creates this garden. He places man in that garden. But Genesis 2 also tells us that the land around this garden was empty and barren.
And there was nothing growing in there. Genesis 2 verse 5, before any plant of the field was in the earth, or before any herb of the field had grown. So again, we have a garden on a mountain, and around that mountain is wilderness. And there is nothing growing in that wilderness, but God creates man to solve that problem.
Why was there nothing growing there? Because the Lord had not yet caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. So God then creates the mist, the rain cloud, that waters the earth, and then God forms man of the dust of the ground and breathes life into him. So God solves the problem of nothing in that earth by creating man.
Man as God's image-bearer is then to go and to fill that earth. It's an empty, barren earth. He is told to be fruitful and multiply and fill it with image-bearers. Also, he is then to turn that empty wilderness into a beautiful garden paradise.
He has to follow the pattern that God gave him on the mountain. You hear the temple building language there, too. So for this to happen, then, Adam would have to go down the mountain. He was created and placed in that garden, in the presence of God.
He would have to go down the mountain, And then he would procreate with his wife, they would fill this earth with image bearers, and they would cultivate this wilderness, turn it into a beautiful garden paradise. So what God had done on a cosmic scale, where God had taken what was empty and void and nothing and barren, and brought order to it, cosmos, from the chaos. God had done this on a cosmic scale. Adam, as God's image-bearer, was to do this on a global or a local scale, as God's image-bearer.
And then this is where we start seeing the connections. When this task is done, when Adam has done his task and he has all his children there and they've turned this wilderness into a beautiful garden. He would call his children and he would say, come children, we're going back up this mountain. We're going to climb up this mountain back into the presence of God.
And all the people would come, stream from the four corners of the earth, rejoicing, singing, into the presence of God in that garden. And then, and they would say, I finished, Adam would say, I finished my task, Lord. Here are all these children. And God would, God would then, and the result was that they would get to rest in God's presence.
They would get to enjoy the greatest possible reward that God could have offered man. To be in his presence, to enjoy his goodness, and to dwell with him. And also what we should know then, too, is that every seven days, Adam was given a little taste of that. Every seven days, he would have been, he was to call his children.
Even though the task wasn't done, every seven days they would get to climb back up that mountain. They would get to ascend into the, or they would climb up, enter that garden, and there they would meet with God, and there they would have one day of rest. And then they were to go down and continue the work. That day of rest is the Sabbath day.
Problem is, we know that none of that happened, did it? Adam and Eve didn't have one child before they sinned. Adam and Eve didn't even go down that mountain. They stayed in the midst of the garden.
What was in the midst of the garden? The tree of knowledge of good and evil that they were forbidden from eating from. So they violated, they broke God's law. They did not fulfill any of the righteous requirements of what they were supposed to do.
They violated the law. So we know that story. Adam was exiled out of the garden. He was sent out, sent into that barren wilderness.
And the curse takes over. Thorns and thistles now spring up that are gonna hinder them, prevent them from doing any gardening and being able to turn this into this paradise they were supposed to. Their children, when their children were born, they looked more like the liar, more like the murderer who had deceived them than they do their own creator. We know that from the story of Cain and Abel, who murdered his brother.
But we also know that's not the end of the story, is it? In fact, it's just the beginning.
The Last Adam Descends and Ascends
We had one man who was supposed to obey God's law, who was supposed to make a people, to present to God, to bring them into the presence of God. This first man failed, but we know another man was coming, another Adam, the last Adam, Paul calls him, who would come, who would undo, who would crush the head of the serpent, the serpent who had deceived Eve and Adam into violating this law. The serpent who had deceived them into bringing the curse upon them and upon the earth. This man who would come down the mountain and who would go rescue those broken image bearers.
People who no longer represent their creator. Who are tangled in the thorns and the thistles of sin and bondage and the curse. And he is there, and then he would go to the four corners of the earth. I'm not a flat earther, in case anyone's wondering.
I'm using biblical language, the imagery the Bible gives to us. He's going to the four corners of the earth. He's gathering his people who are in bondage, bondage to their sin. The Bible uses the imagery of being tangled in thorns.
We can't escape. He comes. He cuts us loose. He breaks us free.
He breaks our chains. He gathers them. He calls them and he says, come children, we're ascending the mountain. We're going, I'm going to bring you into God's presence.
And he brings us, he does that. And he says, here am I, here am I and the children you have given me. And then all those whom he has rescued, all those get to rest and enjoy God's presence forever. We know that's our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's what he does. He comes to this earth. Adam didn't want to go down the mountain. Adam didn't want to do his duty.
But Christ was willing to go down the mountain. Again, I'm using biblical language here. that's teaching us a point. Jesus didn't literally come down a mountain. Jesus came down from heaven down to earth, what that signifies.
You remember, even Genesis 1 and 2 is redemptive revelation. Dr. Barcelos taught on that at the conference last year. Even those chapters are revealing Christ to us, they're revealing the work of Christ What He came to do, we see that pattern already in Genesis.
So Adam was not willing to go down the mountain. He wanted to stay in the midst of the garden. But Jesus was willing, and Jesus does that in John 6, 38. For I have come down from heaven.
Not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all that He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up. Ascending, raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes on Him may have everlasting life.
And I will raise Him up at the last day. So that's Christ, the faithful Adam, the last Adam, the one who does what the first Adam failed to do, the one who comes, who his father has given him these children, he says. Of all that the father has given me, the father says, there's children, sons of Adam and Eve out there that I want as my children, adopted into my family, and you need to go, and you need to rescue them, and you need to raise them up and bring them into my presence. You need to go.
They're tangled in those thorns and thistles. They're in bondage to their sins. They're sitting there ready to die. You need to go redeem them, and that's what he does.
So in one sense, we could say that Christ has accomplished this work already. Came down from heaven. He didn't physically leave a place somewhere and come down. Coming down from heaven is incarnation language.
Taking to himself human nature. Assuming human nature. He became a man. And he lived, he died, he went down, down the mountain to earth.
We might, again playing on biblical imagery, he went down even lower into the valley of the shadow of death. But then he too, he rose up from the dead, he ascended into heaven. So in one sense, Christ has completed his work already in that he has overcome death and the curse. And he has ascended back into heaven, into the presence of God.
But in another sense, he's still working, and he's still building his church. And he's still, him and his bride, the church, as the church proclaims the gospel and brings that message that we heard this morning, brings God's gospel to the ends of the earth, he's still working. He's still building His kingdom. He's still calling sinners out of darkness, bringing them into this glorious company that we call the church.
And then He's still reigning. He's still taking dominion. Then as 1 Corinthians 15 says, when the task is complete and when the last of the children have been redeemed, that whole joyful company From every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and language is brought together rejoicing. And he says, here am I and the children you have given me, presents them to the Father.
The task is completed. The second Adam, the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ does what the first Adam failed to do. So that's the greater biblical context that we need to understand this in. And this idea of climbing mountains, what it signifies.
It signifies entering into the presence of the Lord.
Israel's Typological Ascent to Zion
So when we come to the nation of Israel, in this old covenant context that they are in with Yahweh, the creator, they experience this same thing in an outward, typological, very physical way. They had Jerusalem. Jerusalem was on Mount Zion. In Jerusalem was the temple, and in the temple was where God dwelled.
So the presence of God was on that top of that mountain in Jerusalem, in the temple. And they would go down the mountain, out of the city, and they would go and they would work in their fields, or perhaps they were fighting against their enemies, and they would go out And when either the work week was over, or if the situation was a battle, and the battle was done, then the king would call his people, and the king would say, would say, come, let us go up to Zion, let us go up to the house of the Lord. We see that in many of these psalms here. Psalm 122, I was glad, that joy, that rejoicing, I was glad when they said to me, come, let us go into the house of the Lord.
Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. So they would come into the presence of the Lord in that outward, physical, again, typological sense, pointing us to the Lord Jesus Christ. So this joyful procession coming, ascending the hill, singing these psalms, the psalms that we're going to look at today into the presence of God. So this psalm, then, is here to teach us or to be applied to the people of God in their life, in their journey into the presence of God at the end of the age, when they die and more so at the end when the Lord returns and the consummation of His kingdom.
So we apply it in that way, where we are all, in one sense, climbing a hill, climbing the mountain, on this journey that will end with us in the presence of the Lord, being presented to Him by our Savior, the Lord Jesus.
Verses 1–2: The Lord's Identity
So now let's imagine the context here. Perhaps it's David. I don't know. I'm going to assume it's David that wrote this psalm.
Let's picture David. He's in the plains below. David was the warrior king. The king went to come and conquer enemies.
He's down in the plains below, maybe he's just won a battle, perhaps, and it's time to return back to the city, back into Jerusalem. And he's standing in the plains. below these mountains, and he looks around, and he sees mountains all around him there. And he sees Mount Baal Hermon, sometimes called Mount Hermon or Mount Baal Hermon, in the north. And Baal was said to live there.
That was said to be Baal's mountain. And Baal lived at the top. And Mount Hermon, he saw Mount Hermon there. Maybe he looked and he saw Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, where the god Chemosh was worshiped on the top of that mountain.
Or maybe he looks more to the south and he sees the high, steep, red cliffs, dark red cliffs of Mount Seir. And he knows where the Edomites lived. But he also sees Mount Zion. And that's why he says here then in verse 1, I lift up my eyes to the hills.
Where does my help come from? So again, all the pagan nations around Jerusalem, they all claim that their gods lived on these mountains, and that's where they went to worship their gods. That's why Israel was always condemned for having those high places, because they went on high places or mountains where they thought they could worship all these other gods. So when David's looking at these mountains, these high places all around him, where all these other little g gods are worshipped, he looks at them and he says, where has my help come from?
Who's my helper, my God, my defender? He's the God who dwells in Mount Zion. Yahweh, the Lord. Verse 2, my help comes from Yahweh who made heaven and earth.
Yahweh, I'm sure you're familiar with it, it's just the Hebrew word name for God, whom we call God, the Lord. Capital L, capital O, R, and D. Yahweh, David knows who his God is. He knows his God is not like the gods of the nations at all.
This is Yahweh. Yahweh's name means I am. I am. and that there's none like this one. Just like Moses said back in Exodus 15, after they crossed the Red Sea and Pharaoh and his host were drowned in the sea, Moses says, who is like you, O Yahweh, among the gods?
Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? So this is Yahweh, this is the Holy One of Israel, Yahweh, I am, self-existent, eternal, infinite, in every way. The perfection of being. And who, the perfection of being, the one who is I don't get, I'll leave this for Cam.
The one who is ase, you can ask him for explanation later, who is from himself. If you've ever heard of divine aseity, means he is from himself, means he depends on nothing outside of himself to be who he is. He doesn't need anyone to exist or anything to exist, just as he is in his fullness and in the perfection of his being. That's who this God is.
And therefore, Everything else that exists is a creature, has been made by this one. That's what David reminds himself of here. My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. Sovereign, supreme, Lord, King of the universe.
See, Yahweh's not one God among equals. David's not looking at all these mountains and thinking, wow, I really hope my God is stronger than these ones. Yahweh's not one God among many gods. Yahweh is supreme, sovereign over all things, and everything else that exists is a creature, and therefore everything else that exists depends on this one, this Yahweh, for their very existence.
Without him, they would cease to exist. And this God is David's God, and this God is our God, creator of heaven and earth. Never forget that, brethren. If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus, if you belong, if you believe in Him, you belong to this God.
None like Him, none more powerful than Him. See, David could have looked around at all these mountains. He could have looked at them. He could have seen how tall Mount Hermon was.
The snow was on it all year round. It never melted. And the Canaanites said, our God is stronger than your God because his mountain's taller than your God's mountain. He could have worried about that.
He could have looked at those cliffs where the Edomites lived, and he knew how fierce those Edomites were and how much they harmed his people. He could have looked anywhere, become anxious and worried, but instead he looked to Zion, to Mount Zion, because that was the dwelling place of his God, and his God was not like these ones. He belongs to the creator of heaven and earth. Whom shall I fear, he says.
And that's the reminder that we need. When we look around us, we see evil in the world, and it seems very strong at times, and it seems very powerful, and it can be frightening. And maybe it's more personal. It's not out there, but it's in our own lives as we feel the effects of the curse on us.
We feel the thorns and the thistles of life in a sin-cursed world. Sickness and cancer and suffering and loss of life and trials. But we need to look to Zion like David. We need to remember who our God is.
Remember who it is that we belong to. It's so important that we know who our God is. It's so important. Every Lord's Day, you have the opportunity to come and hear from Him and to learn from Him as He reveals Himself through the preaching of the Word to His people.
And more so, here in this church, you have the Sunday school where you can really learn about who your God is. Take advantage of that. It's there for your good. I'll let you in on a little secret.
I don't think it's a secret. Last, at the conference, Dr. Barcelos said to me, he said, I've listened to these guys' confession studies on their website. He said, this church is so blessed.
You have two men here who can teach you all about God, about our God. Use it. When I say right now, we talk about divine aseity, you might not get it all. You spend some time learning about what divine aseity means.
What a comfort that is. A comfort for the people of God to know who our God is. Because when we know Him, we can trust Him. We can be assured of His protection over us. and his preservation of us,
Verses 3–6: The Climber's Protection
and that's the rest of the psalm here, verses three and four. He will not allow your foot to be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
You will not allow your foot to be moved. Think of climbing a mountain. Think of our life as a mountain, climbing. It's steep.
It could be slippery. We could lose our footing. We can slip. First of all, remember, if you're looking up, you're looking ahead, you're looking to your God, is a sure way to keep you from slipping, or to be kept from slipping when you know Him.
If you're looking over your shoulder, if you're looking down, if you're dangling from a cliff and you're looking down as opposed to looking upward, you may slip. But look to the top. There's our God. He's waiting at the top of the mountain.
Our Christ is there, seated in glory at His right hand. That's the means God uses to prevent us from slipping. We see our Christ there. We know what our Christ did.
He's climbed that same mountain. He has suffered. He came down the mountain first by becoming man. And he took that same path. that you're currently on.
It's a path of suffering and trials and difficulties, but it's a path that leads to glory in His presence at the end. So when we know our God, we can be strong in the battle, strong in the race, strong in that ascent of our life into His presence. And we can trust Him for the strength to keep us from slipping and to be able to put one foot in front of the other. in our walk through this life. Because there may be times when your path of life up this mountain is a gentle winding path through green pastures beside still waters, but often the path of life is hard and it's arduous and it's tiring at times.
And you might feel like that today, that tired, that weariness of life. There's so much opposition. There's so much trials and setbacks and difficulties. You feel those thorns and those thistles, you know, tangled around you, trying to pull you down, as it were.
But he promises here that he will not allow that to happen. He will not allow your foot to be moved, your foot to slip. And again, if you know Him, you can better trust Him. And that's the means by which He keeps your feet from slipping.
Isaiah chapter 40 says, with wings like eagles. See, it doesn't mean when you trust in the Lord, it doesn't mean the path suddenly becomes easy, and suddenly every path is through green pastures and by still waters. It's not like that. It still may be steep, treacherous, difficult, but when we know who he is, we can persevere, we can trust him, we can go in his strength, to keep one foot in front of the other and keep pressing on to glory where he's waiting.
He watches over us. He knows us. He cares for us. We may be tired and we may be weary, but he never slumbers or sleeps, he tells us here.
He never grows weary. He watches over his people, all his people. He never has to take a nap, or he's never too busy somewhere else and gets tired from taking care of an orphanage in Myanmar that he's too busy over there to take care of you here today. He knows all things.
He knows his people. He knows his own people. There's people that He has released from bondage and has sent on that journey up this mountain. He knows them.
Nahum 1 verse 7, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who trust in Him. He knows them. He's the keeper of Israel. Behold, he who keeps Israel, the Shumer Yisrael, the keeper of Israel, watching over his people, keeping them, protector.
That's what keep means, to protect. He protects them. You may be weary, but he never is weary. He never ceases doing what he promised he will do to protect you. to give you the strength to keep going, even when the path may be very hard.
You can put one foot in front of the other and you can keep going up this mountain. Glory awaits you at the top. He's your keeper. He never slumbers nor sleeps.
Yahweh as Shade and Shadow
In verse 5, the Yahweh is your keeper. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord is your keeper." Again, go back to the garden.
Adam was to be the keeper of the garden, Genesis 2.15. The protector. He was to protect not only the garden, but he was to protect his wife and to protect his offspring, had he followed through. from anything evil, anything that would seek to ruin the goodness that he enjoyed. But Adam didn't protect his bride, his wife.
He should have grabbed that serpent. The moment he sensed what that serpent was up to, he should have grabbed that serpent by the scruff of its neck. And I don't know if serpents have necks. I guess they're all neck.
He should have grabbed them by its neck and put it out of the garden, back into the wilderness where it came from. But he didn't. And now, as Peter says, that the serpent, the devil, he still goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He's still out there.
We saw in Thessalonians, we didn't really see it too much, but Satan was hindering Paul on his mission, on his life. And Satan is still out there seeking to hinder, seeking whom he may devour. But we have a promise here from Yahweh for his people that are on this journey and he will be our keeper. He, Yahweh himself, keeping us from the mouth of that roaring lion, from the devil, swallowing us up and taking us back for himself.
Yahweh himself, as the second person of the Trinity takes upon Himself, our humanity, to come to rescue His bride, to free them from the clutches of our captor, and to protect us from Him, so we never need to fear being captured again by Satan. In simple terms, When the Lord saves His people, He does not lose them. No one can snatch them out of my hands, He says. We don't need to fear.
The Lord will protect us. Yes, we may face His hindrances, the hindrances of Satan. Yes, we may face the effects of the curse all around us, the thorns and thistles of life, but none of that can keep us from arriving at our destination in glory. He always is our protector.
He's our keeper. He promises to be there with us as well. He's waiting for us in glory, but He's also there with us as we go through this life. He is your shade at your right hand.
There's two ways in which we can understand this here. is that he's like your shadow. He's your shade at your right hand. He's your shadow that never leaves you. You think of David climbing that mountain, and the sun is beating upon him, and as he looks down, he sees his shadow, and his shadow takes a step with him.
Every time he steps another foot in front of the other, the shadow is with him. Yahweh is like that shadow with him every step of the way, bringing him into his presence in the temple in Jerusalem. It's like that for us. Yahweh is there every step of the way, ensuring we arrive in His presence.
And more so, God is not only like the shadow that's being cast at our side, but He's also casting a shadow over us or a shade over us to protect us and to give us a reprieve from the heat. So whatever it is in our life, maybe right now, you're facing something that feels like it's sapping your energy. It's drying you out like the blistering heat of the sun. Whatever trial it may be, whatever it is, whatever we're facing, and it doesn't matter how small it is either.
There's no trial in life. too small, where God says, you're on your own, you can take care of that one yourself. He never says that. Every trial, everything that we face, everything we go through in this life, He knows, He cares, He protects, He keeps us. He's promised to shade us here.
It may still be hot, it may still be difficult, but it will not overcome you. It will not cause you to die of heat exhaustion before you reach the top. It cannot overcome you. He promises, he who began a good work in you will complete it to the day of Christ.
He promises you will make it, not on your own strength, but on the strength that he gives his people. No matter how steep the path is, No matter the trial, you'll never slip and fall to your spiritual death. He promises, neither height, nor depth, nor any created thing will separate you from the love that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Verses 7–8: The Climber's Preservation
And that brings us to the preservation, the climber's preservation. Verse 7, the Lord shall preserve you From all evil, he shall preserve your soul. He shall preserve your soul. See, David knows.
This wasn't ultimately about him climbing up this hill into Jerusalem. He knows that he's writing this, pointing us on that greater scale concerning our souls, our spiritual life, and entering into the presence of Yahweh for real, not just the temple. in Jerusalem. He will preserve your soul. It's not about a physical climb up a physical mountain to a physical city.
It's a spiritual journey. He promises to preserve our souls. Again, it's not easy. There's so much opposition, thorns trying to entangle us, trying to impale us, trying to trip us, lions roaring, fiery serpents trying to bite us, so to speak.
We face the curse. We face the curse in so many different ways through this life. As we go through this life living in a creation, as Paul says, groaning, waiting for the redemption, we face the curse. But God promises, none of that, none of that will cause you to lose your soul.
Matthew Henry says, even that which kills you won't hurt you, because He will preserve your soul. Because He has made that path. He has blazed the trail into the presence of God. He came down that mountain, our Lord.
He walked through the valley of the shadow of death. He died for our sin, but He was raised back up, and then He ascended into the presence of His Father. He made the way. He blazed the trail.
And that's the confidence that we can have, that we will be kept, we will be preserved to that day, those who are in Christ, those who believe in Him. You will. You will be brought to glory because our Lord rose from the dead. He had conquered that curse.
He had overcome it, paid for it in full, crushed the head of the serpent, overcome the curse, power over it. He has the keys of death and Hades now in His hand. He will bring us to glory. The outcome is certain.
And why is that? He says He will preserve us from all evil. In the Hebrew, he will preserve us from all calamity or judgment is perhaps a better understanding of that. He will preserve us from judgment.
The judgment that we deserve for our sins. The judgment, the calamity coming upon mankind. for their rebellion against their creator. You sin against Yahweh, this one who made heaven and earth, that means all things therein, that means you're sinning against your creator. And you deserve calamity, judgment, because of that sin.
You can't break the law of your creator, the one whose existence you depend upon, and expect to get away with it. Sin must be punished. Judgment must be meted out. But he says he will preserve your soul.
See, because he has provided a shade for you. He's your shade at your right hand. He's provided a shade for you from that judgment. He will preserve us from that because he's protected us from that.
And that shade, that protection, is Christ. Christ took the heat of the wrath of God for us. In our place, condemned, he stood. We sing that song, I'm sure you still, you sang it last week probably, after communion.
In our place condemned, He stood. He took the wrath of God. He shields us from the wrath of God so that our soul may be preserved and so that our soul, so that we may be brought to glory. So, for the believer here, if you're struggling, your life is hard, it's difficult, and again, nothing is too small for the Lord to care about.
But remember this, if you're feeling weary and struggling, you've been shielded from the wrath of God that you deserved for violating His laws. Because you're no different than that first Adam in the garden who didn't listen to God, who didn't obey God's command, and chose the lie of the devil instead of to believe and trust in the goodness of God. He thought the devil's way seemed so much better, that fruit looked so tasty. And maybe it was, for a second, as he swallowed it, as he ate it, it might have tasted good, but immediately he was abandoned.
And immediately he realized, when I say abandoned, I say abandoned by the devil, who had no interest, did not have his best interest in mind, Adams, even though he said he did. But we're no different. We have all sinned. We all thought sin was the better option, and it looked good, and maybe for a moment it tasted good when we engaged in sin and violated His law.
But it leaves us all in the same place as Adam, out from God, cut off, exiled, in bondage. But God came down the mountain, Christ came to rescue us, and he did so by shielding us from the wrath, by dying in our place, bearing the wrath of God for us, so that we can be forgiven. That's one of the greatest, greatest encouragements for the Christian, to press on. And to keep running that race, to put another foot in front of the other, no matter how tired you may feel.
He promises to give you the strength, and He promises to be with you, but He's forgiven your sin. Was it the one that we sang, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part, but the whole? is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. It's amazing when we think about that.
Full atonement, as we sing in Man of Sorrows. Full atonement, can it be? Can it really be? Full atonement, every one of our sins forgiven.
And it can be, and it is. Because we've been shielded because of our Savior. And therefore we've been forgiven. Forgiven by Yahweh, the Great I Am, our Creator, the Creator of heaven and earth has forgiven us because of Christ and we are His.
We belong to Him. What an encouragement that is.
Application: Going Out and Coming In
And that's our conclusion, the final encouragement and conclusion to this psalm here in verse 8. The Lord shall preserve. You're going out and you're coming in from this time forth and forevermore. This is what we need, week in and week out, to hear from our God, to be reminded of our Christ, of what He has done for us.
And that gives us the strength to go out again, another week. Think of David and the Israelites in this context here. They ascended, just like I said in the beginning, Adam, he was given every day He got to, before the task was done, but he would get one day where he could, he was to go back up that mountain and go back into the garden with him, with his children. He would get to rest for a day, and he would get to enjoy God's presence for a day.
But it was just a day, and it was just a taste of what was to come when he finished that task. And for Israel, they had the same thing. Every Sabbath day, every seven days, they would come in out of their fields. where they had been living their lives and doing their thing and they're working in their fields and hoeing the thistles and pulling out thorns and thistles and laboring. But every Sabbath day they would get to come back singing these songs and they would get to come into Jerusalem and they would get to meet with God in the temple.
But then the next day, the first day, Or the next day, then they would descend. They would go out, back out of the city, back into those plains again. And they would continue their work, fighting enemies, fighting thorns and thistles in their garden. And in Christ, when we are in Christ, we again are offered a weekly taste of what is to come.
And that weekly taste is what keeps us pressing on. Every Sunday, every Lord's Day, is a Sabbath day where we get to stream in. You get to stream in from the four corners of the Fraser Valley and stream into this place here and meet with God in his presence. Remember what I said earlier, the greatest gift that God could have offered man as a reward for his work was eternal rest in his presence.
There's nothing better than that, to be in the immediate presence of God with our Savior in glory forever. The best gift God could have ever offered man. And I would argue then the second best gift is a weekly taste of that in His presence on the Lord's Day. Don't undervalue that, brethren.
Take the Lord's Day seriously. You get to come in and learn and hear from this God as He speaks to you through the preaching of the Word and He reveals Himself to you through His Word by the power of His Spirit. And you get a taste, just a small taste, of what is to come. I know that's not the point of this sermon so much the Sabbath day concept, but yet we can't miss that.
We can't miss that reality that every Lord's Day we get to come into His presence. We get to come, we sing, we rejoice, we gather with His people in this small local expression of that greater church. And we come and we meet with Him. We hear from Him.
And then on Monday, tomorrow, we go back out. Back out down the mountain, so to speak, back into the fields of our life where we work. And we do our callings and our duties and our responsibilities, and we are contending with the thorns and the thistles of life in this lower world. But God promises here, He will preserve your going out and your coming in.
From this time forth, now, as each week goes by, each week, week after week, but then one day, that journey will be done. One day, we'll have reached the top. And when we pass into his presence, and now that happens in a sense when we die, but in the fullest sense of that last day, when our Lord returns, And his kingdom is complete. And he presents us to the Father.
And as Hebrews says, he quotes, or he says there, here am I and the children you have given me. And Christ presents us to his Father. Christ, the faithful Adam, the faithful man who did the Father's desires and obeyed his will. And he presents us to God. and says, look, Father, I've rescued them all.
Every single one of those children you gave me, I've rescued them, and here they are. And then we'll hear the Father say to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You've done, you've done my will, you've done the will of your Father. Enter into the joy of your Lord.
You and all of those children whom you have brought here. That's what we have. in our future, for those who are God's people, those who believe on Christ, in the Lord Jesus as their Savior. We have glory awaiting us, and be encouraged by this. This psalm was written by a man in the thick of it, so to speak, a man dealing with the cares of life, It's written by a man in the thick of it for us in the thick of it.
The busyness, the cares, the trials, the overwhelm, struggles, disappointments. He knows what you're going through. He's not too weary. He never gets tired.
He knows. He's never too busy. He's bringing you to glory. He guarantees that.
He guarantees that protection over you. You have nothing to fear in this life. Look to Zion. Behold your God.
You have nothing to fear. He promises to preserve you till that day, to bring you to glory, to be with Him forevermore. There's nothing greater than that. If you're here this evening, this afternoon, and you are not a believer in this one, this morning we looked at 1 Thessalonians, the freeness, 1 Thessalonians 2, the freeness of the gospel.
It costs nothing. It costs nothing to believe in this one. You have nothing to lose. Nothing to lose.
You have everything to gain. to be in His presence, to enjoy His goodness, abundance, life eternal with Him. So believe on Him, trust in Him, repent, acknowledge you've sinned against the Creator who made heaven and earth, and that you deserve the calamity of verse 7. You deserve the judgment for your sin. But God is offering you this now, free, to believe on Him.
And He will, right now, picture yourself as though, to use the imagery we've seen here, as though you're tangled in thorns. You're caught in the thicket. You can't get out. Judgment's coming.
But if you look to Him, He releases you from that. Your chains What does the hymn writer say? My chains fell off, my heart was free, a rose went forth and followed thee. When you believe on Him, that's what happens.
You're freed from that punishment. You're free and you follow Him. And you're on that journey now up the mountain to where He is in glory. There's nothing better.
So believe on Him and you'll be saved. I hope we're encouraged by this psalm here. May we, as we go out into our weeks tomorrow, The Lord will preserve you week after week until he brings you home to glory with him. Let's close there in prayer.
Closing Prayer
Our Father, I do pray that you would take your word and bring it to bear upon the hearts of your people. Lord, may the sheep of this flock be greatly encouraged today. Lord, may you use this word however you have ordained it to be used. For Your glory we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.