The Divine Helper

Pastor Matt Davis – The Divine Helper – Psalm 121 *** This is a transcription and is not formatted like our normal messages are *** If you have your Bibles with you turn in them with me to Psalms 121. I, when I picked this I was like, "I've been on Psalms a lot the this month." In fact, this is the third straight week in Psalms. But the book of Psalms is just full of so much. So a lot that can help us, a lot that is relevant to us, and a lot that we should be praying or singing and like last week with Psalms 51. That's a prayer we should be doing. And so this will probably be the last week oi Psalms. I'm now reading in Isaiah and Jeremiah. But I wanted to do one more in Psalms. And the message today is titled, The Divine Helper, because this psalm talks of God who helps us, it talks of what he does, and where we can find help. So I'm going to read the entire psalm. And then we'll go over five items in here that the psalm discusses. So this is a song of decrees, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore." So there are five main things here that we need to discuss and pull from this, where we go for the help, who is doing the helping, and then in what ways he will be helping us, We'll go over. So verse one says, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." There are many experiences that can cause fear and concern today. A lot of Christians, I don't think we are concerned with this, but a lot of Christians are afraid of COVID a lot of the world is afraid of COVID depending on what cities you live on, we're afraid of riots right now. We're afraid of the looting. We're afraid of the muders, the rapes, everything that's going on in the world. There's... We're afraid of war, World Wars, we're afraid of losing our job. There's so much going on that can cause us to fear; that can cause us to concern. So we may ask it, there's so much that can make us fear, so much that can concern us, where can we turn? Where can we go for help? Where can we go to not fear. The Bible says frequently fear not or don't be afraid. So where do we go to get rid of this emotion? The first thing that we do is we need to look up. We need a look at his overshadowing wing. Look Up Psalms 91 verse four says that, "He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler." I think one of the biggest issues we have is when we get fearful we don't look to the right place. We don't look to the right person, to take care of our fear. We look to to the world. We look maybe to the police, maybe we look to friends, maybe we look to family, and they're great resources to go to; but they can't eliminate our fear; they can't eliminate our concern. We need to look up and see the shadow of the Lord. We need to cry out to God to help us. So we need to look to God and see Him not only as the Comforter, but we need to see Him as all sufficient. We need to see Him as our everything. In Ruth 2:12 we see an example of this, "The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust." The reward is given of the Lord. It's under His wings that we come to trust; under His wings we come into security. And there is no true security that is outside of the Lord God. We see another example here on Second Corinthians 12:9, "he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Sometimes we get going through life, when we... we have problems that nag at us, or we have... we have particular stuff that we just want out of our life. And maybe it's sin, maybe it's something else, maybe it's a particular fear we can't get over. Maybe it's a particular hardship at work. Maybe it's a particular person that gets to us, and we just want to rip their head off. There's people like that in my life, that if it weren't for God, I would do that. But God gives me the strength. Paul in Second Corinthians, he had an issue in his life. And we don't know what it is. He described it as a thorn in his flesh. And we could speculate all we want, but he goes to God. He goes to God and he's like, "God, take this from me. God, take this from me." And God says, "My grace is sufficient for thee." We need to come to a point where God's grace or God's power is sufficient for us. If we don't see God is all sufficient we're always going to be lacking, we're always going to be needing. Then He says, "My strength is made perfect in weakness." You know, when we're standing strong on our own, God has a hard time working with us. When we stand in our own strength, that's typically when we fight against God. All right, no, God, I want to do it this way. No, God, I want to do it that way. Or don't worry God, I've got this. Let me take the wheel. But in our weakness, while we see God is sufficient, His strength is perfect. That's when He is strong. I like what Paul says, I've, I've used this verse a lot in 21, already. He says, " I would rather glory in my infirmity, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. " So we need to come again to see that God is sufficient. We want God's glory upon us, God's strength upon us, not... our prayer should not be "Oh, God make me strong," but "Oh, God, be strong for me." We need to lift our eyes up in prayer. That's what... that's what we see in the first verses, David is saying, "I'll look up into the heavens." Our only hope is in God. We don't have hope in the government, we don't have hope in our education system, we don't have hope in the world. Our hope is in God, our hope is in the heavens, and the only way that we reach God is through prayer. We need to lift our eyes up in praise. Praise opens that communication line between God and man. When we praise God, we bring glory to Him. I'm going to say something where it will sound like I contradict myself in just a second, but as God's people, we should never be found looking down. 'Kay we shouldn't be found just looking to the ground and to our feet, gloomy, but we should always we should be looking up we should be looking to the heavens, we should be looking to God. That's where we find our help. Now, the second part of this though, is to look down at His ever lasting an arms. So I'm not saying look down gloomy here like you are down and cast out. But look to His arms that surround you. In Deuteronomy 33 the first portion of 27 says, "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." Now when we look down there's two things we can see and we need to be careful. When we look down, are we looking down at the arms of God that are holding us up? Or are we looking down at the troubled waters? In Matthew 14:30 Peter was out on the water and he looked down he saw waves, and actually he wasn't on the water here, I'm thinking way later in the book, but he looked down and what did he see? He saw waves. It says, " But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me." So we can look down and see our problems. Or we can look down, and we can see God's strong arms such as in Psalm 77:15. It Says, "Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph." We see, the same thing happened, Jesus and his children, Mark 10:16, "he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." We can look down on our problems, or we can look down at his arms, where he redeems, where he blesses. And we need to realize that we are His children. And now I'm talking about saved believers in Christ are his children. In the book of John, he says that you're either of your father, the devil, or of the Father in heaven. You're not that children are both. So for those of us who are children, Matthew 10:28-31 says, "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." I love this. He says, "the hairs on your head are numbered." We all have His children, He knows us. He knows us down to the hair on our head. So when we fear, whether we fear who's lurking in the shadow, or we fear that riot, or we feel that virus. We fear... We're told fear not that which could just kill our body. But we fear the one who can kill our body and our soul. He says you are more valuable than the birds. He says, "Does the bird not go down? Does it not fall to the ground without your father?" This is telling us that He takes care of the birds: they don't work but they eat. He takes care of the fish. He provides for the animals and we are more valuable than they. If we are more valuable than they we should look to the one who says you are so much more valuable to me. We find our help by looking around his encamping angels. Psalms 34:7 says, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them." This is where we find our help. We have several testimonies of this; personal experiences in the Bible. I think we even have testimonies here in the church of God delivering us. The biblical examples, David and Goliath. First Samuel 17:32-37, "And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine. And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God." There's the armies, the angels. "David said moreover, The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the Lord be with thee." When we look for help are we like David? We should be. David looked and he says, "The Lord and his armies will deliver me." This is... there's testimony of this. I'm not just saying, trust the invisible, we've seen it. I preached on this next one, about three months ago, Elisha and the servant from Second Kings 6:15-18, "And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the Lord, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha." Remember, he... he looks out and he says, "Elisha, Elisha, look at how many there are." He says, "Alas, I fear for my life, what shall we do?" And what does Elisha say? He says, "Look round about. Look to the host of the Lord around us." There's another example Daniel 6:22. Remember when Daniel gets cast into the lion's den? It says, and he... he doesn't get hurt, and he comes out and Nebuchadnezzar asks, how this can be. And he says, "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." Where do we look to for help? We can look all around us. We have one more example. Peter, when he was imprisoned in Acts, chapter five, verse 19, "The angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth." Peter looked to help, to God. He looked up and God sent his angel to lose him and let him out. And we need to look inside for is peace. Philippians 4:7 said, "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." President Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to feel is fear itself." And the reason for that is we have a God who is big and mighty. We have a God who is sovereign. We have a God, who is the commander of the heavenly army. Who says that we are the most valuable to him. He says, "Look to me and live." So when we get downcast, when we get fearful, or we get worried like that servant, we need to look up. We need to look to the heavens and to God. We need to look to his arms, and we need to see not the problem, when we look down. We need to see the strong arms of the Lord. We need to work round about because He is at work. One of... We got a Bible study that we still haven't gone through yet: Experiencing God. And if anyone is read through it on their own, or at least the first chapter, the first reality in experiencing God that they want us to know is that God is always out work around us. Always. So we need to look around us and everywhere we look, God is at work. And we need to let God's peace rule us. When we look to God and we look around, we then need to let his peace rule us. Paul wrote in Colossians 3:15 he said, "let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful." So we look to God and then we let peace in and we are thankful. We be thankful and God takes care of the rest. Verse two is the second point: the person. "My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth." So after we look to the heaven, what are we looking to? We are looking to God, that's where our help cometh from, is from God. Few things about God here: He is omnipotent. He is able to do all things. He is before all beings. Colossians 1:17 says, "he is before all things, and by him all things consist." This is who our helper is; where it comes from. Our help comes from the person of which all things were created, all things were made into being. David says in the psalm here, his help comes from the Lord which made a heaven and the earth. This is repeated in Hebrews 1:1012. It says, "And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." That is so reassuring. How reassuring that he was, in the beginning, he laid the foundations and even though the earth shall perish, even though it shall wax old, He shall not fail. He shall remain the same. This is who our help comes from. Our God is omnipresent, for he is able to be in all places at all times. For he is a spirit. In fact John 4:24 says, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." And I'm kind of rabbit trailing here, as I was writing this and read the scripture there was like an aha moment. Like I've always taught God's a spirit, God the Father is a spirit. And... and this is in relation to our predominant religion, neighbors here, who believe that He is flesh and bone. And I just, when I saw this, I was like, an aha moment like, finally a verse I can use. So off topic, but He's omnipresent. When we look to God, we don't look and go over, He's so far away. Well, He's probably got another problem on the other side of the world, another person. No. He is omnipresent, He is in all places at all times. And so we can look to Him now, we can look to Him an hour from now, or in a day from now, we can look to Him in any time and place a need and He will be there. And He is omniscient. This is also so reassuring to me, for He is the God who knows all things. Who else would we want help from? Now you can call me for help, and I will help you the best I can. But my knowledge is limited. I have the mind of a human and I have a comprehensive comprehension of a human. But who better than the omniscient God who knows all things. He holds all my answers, all wisdom, all knowledge. He knows all the inner workings of our bodies, of the world, and the universe. All problems are solvable in him for there is nothing He does not know. That's so reassuring to me that when I go to Him and and I'm like, "Oh God, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to solve this." He says, "But I do. And you just have to trust in me. You just have to give it to me." And often I think here's where we... we goof up. Wow my camera glitched. Majorly. Here's where we goof up. We say, "Oh, God just tell me how to fix everything. I want to go and do it." And then we're... But oftentimes the solution is letting God work it out in His timing. And we're like, "God, I still don't know. I still don't know." And He's like, "Because you're not waiting on me." We need to wait on Him. And let him work it out. Verses three to four talk about the protection of God. It says, "He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." So this is speaking sometimes of an unknown protection. Because many times He's unknown to us. Many times we go about, and there's a danger, a hazard that we don't even know we are in and God isolates us from it. I had this happen, when was it last year? Last spring? I called you guys on my way to church and canceled I said, I got sick. I said that I'm turning around and going home. And I came down the mountain and as I got to the bottom of the mountain and into the valley, my tire blew. And so in an unknown time, I was protected from an unknown danger. Now, I've seen it after the fact, but how many other times are we oblivious, are we just go on through life and there's unknown evil and... and danger that God isolates us from, that at the end of the day, when we look back, we don't even realize it. He is... He will not suffer our foot to be moved. He'll protect us, they'll protect us from the known and the unknown. Though we may not see him nor his hand, we stand in faith, that he will protect us. And we do this by putting on the armor of God. Ephesians 6:10-18, Paul tells us, "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. SStand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;" When we put on the armor of God daily, when we are armored up, we're protected even when it's unseen, we're protected when it's unknown. Verses five and six talk of God's power of which we'll be protected. It says, "The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night." Now, the person here is He's our keeper in verse five. And keeping means preserver. The Lord shall preserve you. He'll shade you from the sun so that it will not smite thee. He is personal. He's personal to each and every one of us. Oftentimes, I think in this world, we find the hard with the buisiness, with the... with all the craziness that we actually can seek that personal, intimate relationships, but God is personal to us. He can be felt, we can speak to Him, and we can depend upon Him at all times because He is our keeper. And He's our protection. from verse six. He talks about the sun. He says, the sun shall not smite me by day with a moon by night. But says that nothing can touch us or hurt us without His permission. Notice the clause: without his permission. Think Job. "Have you considered my servant Job?" Sometimes God allows us to go through those trials and through those temptations, but even through it, He's protecting us. It can only go as far as He will allow it to go. So we can stand in faith that as bad as it gets, no matter how fearful no matter how desolate no matter how chaotic, God is in control of it. It'll never get so bad that God's hand comes off and we spiral down into the abyss. And then the preservation, verses seven and eight. "The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore." So it says that He'll keep us from evil. And what a great promise. Now, He'll preserve us from that, however, He can only preserve us from evil if we cooperate with Him. From last week's sermon, Psalms 51 verse 12, David prayed, he said, "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit." He will freely uphold us freely preserve us from evil, if we will allow Him to. When we are looking for help The worst thing we can do is look for help and then take back the reins. That's why we keep getting deeper and deeper and trouble when we find ourself there's, we cry out to God and then like an hour later, for me, sometimes it's two minutes later, just being honest. It's like, Okay, give me back the reins, I'm ready again. And we find ourselves in that sin, and that temptation, and that bad situation. And then we'll say, "Oh, God, you said you will preserve us from evil. And He says, "But you didn't let me. You took that from me." So He will preserve us if we cooperate. And He will preserve us eternally. He says, "From this time forth, even forever more." I love how Paul saw this, how he talked about it. He says in Romans 8:35-39 He says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness," or Puril, or sorelled, swore, sword. Wow. Peril. "peril, or sword?" I'm... my tongue is not working again. "As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." He preserves us eternally, for not even death can separate us from Him. How great of a promise. But we can not be separated. It is impossible to separate us from His love. It is impossible to separate us from His protection. We're told how... how this has happened. It says in verse... First Peter 1:5, that we are kept by the power of God through faith, unto salvation ready to be revealed, and the last time. Through faith guys. So as we get fearful as... as whatever happens in this crazy world, whatever virus, whatever war or whatever craziness comes our way, when we stand through faith in God, we are kept by His power. To recap, we can find help, by looking to His overshadowing wings and looking down to His everlasting arms. We can find Him looking all around us. He has His angels working around us everywhere. And then letting His peace rule and govern in our hearts. The Lord is the creator of the universe. This is who our helper is: The Creator. He is omnipotent. He is able to do all things. He's omnipresent. He is never too far away to help you, when you call out, for He is always near, and He is omniscient, knowing all things. There's no problem in your life too complicated for Him, for He knows all things. And as we put on that full armor of God, we will stand strong in faith and we will trust and know that He is protecting us even if we don't see it. We know that He's doing it. Something interesting that someone pointed out to me and I didn't see it because the English word here we have keep and preserve. But that's the same word. So the word keeper or preserve shows up six times in the chapter. Here's the ways in which God keeps or preserves us: He keeps so soul in verse seven, He keeps us from oppression, He is our shade in verses five and six, He will keep us from evil again in verse seven. And when we don't take the reins from Him, when we let Him, He keeps us while we are in the routine of our daily businesses, we are going in and coming out. He keeps us in our routine, He protects us, even then. And He keeps us to the end, even forevermore. To the believer, if you... If you find yourself fearful, if you find yourself struggling and we do, We can look to the Lord. We can call upon his name. Proverbs says that the name of the Lord is a strong tower and the righteous runneth to it and is safe. We have a strong tower, we have a refuge. And that's available to us that fast as fast as you can blink. That's how close He is. To the unbeliever to the... to the person who looks upon us and says, "With all the craziness in this world, how are you not scared? How are you not worried? How are you not panicking?" I say to you, it's because I have a God who is sovereign. I have a God who is in control. And as long as He is in control, I have nothing to fear. I have nothing to worry about. Because nothing can happen to me that He doesn't allow. And because when I get fearful, He gives me peace. He gives me comfort. When I have a problem He takes it from me, He resolves it. So if you're looking for that, if you want to say I'm tired of living in fear it... it wears me down. And I'll tell you that it does. I know it. If you're saying I'm weary of this. Then I say look to the Lord and live. I'm gonna tell you who the Lord is: He is Jesus Christ, He is God in the flesh, the maker of the heavens and the earth. So if you can believe that God stepped foot into the world, and died upon the cross because of our sins; because we were condemned to death and to... condemned to hell because of our sinful ways. And if you can be willing to say I know that now I know that I'm a sinner. And believe that He died for that and that He didn't just die but rose again. If you would call upon His name, you would be saved. He would be your helper. So I'm gonna give me the option to invite Him into your life now. After that He says if you confess some before man He'll confession before the Father. So part of inviting Him in your life is publicly declaring Him as your Lord. Before we pray and... and get ready to end this message of one last exhortation for you. I want to wish that the Lord would give you peace today. Second Thessalonians 2:16 says, "Now our Lord God Christ himself... our... Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace." ***Prayer***