Here You May Safely Dwell (Through the Psalms) Psalms 90-92

Welcome to through the songs a weekend ministry of the truthful teaching God's people. God's word over time will study all 150 Psalms with pastor Don Breen from truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio were so glad you're with us. Let's open to the Psalms right now as we join our teacher in the truth open your taking notes tonight can title at the top of your page title it says here you may safely dwell here. You may safely dwell. I cannot explain some of the motions of my own mind I can only describe them.

I do so briefly tonight in a particular fact only because it helps introduce our study from God's word.

Charles Spurgeon died at the age of 57 years, seven months and 12 days. Yesterday I was 57 years, seven months and 12 days old. Henceforth, every day of my life is one that was denied to a better man and a better preacher you know Scripture reminds us of our mortality repeatedly in Job chapter 7 verse seven it says my days are but a breath in Psalm 39 verse five it says every man at his best, is a mere breath. Psalm 38 verse 39 says we are, but flesh, a window that passes and does not return.

Let me invite you to turn to the book of James for perhaps an even more familiar statement of the mortality of man James chapter 4 verse 13 says come now, you who say today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Beloved Scripture tells us repeatedly over and over again that our existence is a vapor that passes quickly and is just as quickly forgotten the sense that we carry of longevity and security in life are illusions. They are not real and it's not just you and I that are mortal. We could perhaps deal with that to some extent, but it set our loved ones are mortal as well.

Our friends or coworkers everyone around us is mortal we are. We are subject to death, and it is quick and it is passing by this life in which we live. One of Charles Spurgeon's many lasting works is called the treasury of David's commentary on the entire Psalter. I have 1/19 century version of it that six volumes along. There are shorter versions and I'm sure it's available online for free but it is a very precious contribution that he is made to the life of the church and in this time where my life has just past the end of his so to speak, in the providence of God. We are in Psalms 90 and 91 and 92 that deal with the mortality of life, but deal with it in a way that is constructive in a way that helps us to approach it realistically and yet brings us through to confident faith.

On the other side, and in some ways this gives us a whole philosophy of life in in these three songs. So what I want to do tonight is go through these three Psalms and fit them together for you in a way that perhaps and I've talked about it a little bit over the past couple weeks, I guess, but to bring all of this together into one place. And tonight I'm going to do something a little bit different. I guess in that. I'm going to do my best to share the truth community pulpit with Charles Spurgeon tonight" from him extensively on his works in these three Psalms. These three Psalms Psalms 9091 and 92 form a triad of sorts and should be studied together. Having preached many, many times over the past 15 years from Psalm 90 on never preach at the same way again. Having seen the things that I'm going to share with you this evening. Psalm 92 we read for those of you that are joining us now on the audio for eyes open. We read Psalms 90 and 91 in the service. Now I'm going to read Psalm 92 to read all three of them in their entirety. Dear in the course of our evening together. Psalm 92. Look at it with me a song. A song for the Sabbath day.

The inscription says, and then in verse one it says it is good to give thanks to the Lord and sing praises to your name. Almost hi to declare your lovingkindness in the morning and your faithfulness by night with the 10 stringed lute and with the heart with resounding music upon the liar for you, oh Lord, have made me glad by what you have done.

I will sing for joy at the works of your hands. How great are your works of the Lord. Your thoughts are very deep senseless man has no knowledge, nor does a stupid man.

Understand this, that when the wicked sprouted up like grass, and all he did iniquity flourished. It was only that they might be destroyed forever more. But you will Lord are on high forever. For behold your enemies, the Lord, for behold your enemies will perish all who do iniquity will be scattered, but you have insulted my horn like that of the wild ox. I've been anointed with fresh oil in my eye has looked exorbitantly upon my foes. My ears hear the evildoers who rise up against me. The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree, he will grow like a cedar in Lebanon planted in the house of the Lord they will flourish in the courts of our God, they will still yield fruit in old age. They will be full of sap and very green to declare that the Lord is upright, he is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him now. The overarching theme of Psalms 90 through 92 is that the Lord most high is the dwelling place of his people and it is so critical for us to see these connections. There are verbal links that join these three Psalms together like a a like a tightly constructed puzzler like links in a chain there that bind them together and to help us see that their placement means we are to understand them together and let them give us a fullness of interpretation rather than viewing them in isolation as the as is so easy to do. The overarching theme of the Psalms I said is that the Lord most high is the dwelling place of his people. Let's see that Psalm 90 verse one, Psalm 90, verse one. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Notice the word dwelling there as being key. Look at the opening of Psalm 91 verse one he who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the Almighty and then in verse nine.

You have made the Lord, my refuge, even the Most High Your Dwelling Pl. in Psalm 92 first one the connection continues when it says it is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name. Almost hi addressing God at the start of the song by the same title that had been used in two different places in Psalm 91, and so we look at the Psalms and we see that it is declaring at an overarching theme that is to define the worldview of the believing person is that the Lord God Yahweh in New Testament times, the Lord Jesus Christ is our dwelling place.

He is where we live and move and exist and have our being is where we find our comfort, our safety and our refuge. That is the spirit in the context of these three songs now here is that the key to to seeing these three Psalms and letting them inform and answer something very, very critical for us and what I introduced earlier, we saw the mortality of man and how Scripture repeatedly says that our lives are brief in brief and subject to death at any time that we grow like grass and then we wither like grass and were gone. And that is the reality of the life of man on earth we live in this world under a curse and it said there is a curse of death on this world ever sense. They need the sin of Adam and in our mortality and in our humanness. We cannot break out of that curse. We cannot escape it and no one can. No one can escape that curse of mortality and here's what Psalms 9091 92, taken together do for us is the truth that the Lord most high is the dwelling place of his people that truth is the answer to the suffocating reality of mortality, mortality will suffocate a man who thinks about it rightly and properly a man who sees the temporary nature of existence and how quickly we are. We live in an diet are quickly forgotten in the big scheme of things.

A man who understands that and understands that his own life is a is a wisp of smoke that is scattered in the win.

A man who seriously thinks about that is a man that is going to come to the point where Y starts to seem really futile and how do I get out from under this in Psalms 9091 92 deal with that problem of mortality in very honest ways.

There's five points for tonight. Point number one tonight is the problem of mortality.

The problem of mortality and remember that everything that we see tonight is going to be under that that broad umbrella of the Lord most high is the dwelling place of his people.

The Lord most high, himself, is where people find shelter and what is it that their finding shelter from preeminently their finding shelter from the suffocating reality of the mortality of man and that's what we want to look at.

First of all, the problem of mortality that these Psalms raise an answer for us and here's what we see as we go through the Psalms is that men, especially the wicked. The unsaved, they are only temporary grass in their existence. They are passing they flourish for a short period of time but then they are quickly gone. Psalm 90 verse three as this triad of Psalms opens up Psalm 90 verse three says you turn man back into dust and say return no children of men for a thousand years in your cider like yesterday when it passes by her as a watch in the night. God is eternal and he lives beyond time. But as for man, it's something completely different.

Verse five.

You have swept them away like a flood. They fall asleep in the morning.

They are like grass which sprouts a new in the morning. It flourishes and sprouts. A new board evening it fades and withers away the life of man your life. My life is like grass. It's green in the morning that suffers under the noonday sun, and is withered out by evening time. That is the perspective of mortality that Scripture teaches us a breath of fleeting vapor dust in the wind. Verse 10 of Psalm 90. As for the days of our life. They contain 70 years or if due to strength 80 years, yet their pride is but labor and sorrow for soon it is gone and we fly away. Psalm 92 verses six and seven. You see this theme repeated in these these interlocking themes are are so important for you to see to understand that these these three Psalms collectively teach us Psalm 92 verse six says a senseless man has no knowledge, nor does a stupid man understand this, but when the wicked sprouted up like grass, and all who did iniquity flourished.

It was only that they might be destroyed forever more man flourishes and quickly fades away dislike the springtime flowers.

We were enjoying a week or two or three weeks ago, where are they now in their beauty. We enjoy them but there withered and the shriveled up and are already gone. The early daffodils of spring here in our region about what I want to tell you something really critical something that is pressed on my mind for the past 30 years. In a way that makes all of this that I have the say tonight. Very refreshing to my own soul. Mortality is not just a problem. Mortality mortality is a problem. It is a problem in light of mortality in light of your mortality.

What is the purpose of life. Why do we even bother struggling with it all. If it's just going to pass so quickly and will be quickly forgotten in the end, what is the point of that. What was the point of the people that were living in 1850 to just pick a year at random in the millions of people that were living. We know the names of maybe a handful of them. If we read some pre-Civil War history. The rest of them are forgotten. Even in our own family lines. For most of us, this is a very big problem at what then is the purpose of life. If it is over so quickly and we go and were forgotten. Charles Spurgeon said this, he says as grass is green in the morning and turns to hay at night, so men are changed from health to corruption in a few hours. We are not cedars or oaks, but only poor grass which is vigorous in the spring, but lasts not a summer through what is there. Upon earth, more frail than we said earlier existence as a vapor, the passes and is quickly forgotten to just repeat myself without apology here this evening is not just you and me. It's like that it's our loved ones as well. For those that are closest to us. There is no lasting security. There is no lasting prominence to those relationships and the more tightly we cling to them, the sooner we will find out that we can't keep them in the end.

Now, no one I understand that no one likes to talk this way, but this is life, beloved, and this is the problem of mortality and if that was all that we had to go on if that was all that Scripture taught us about mortality, it would be very discouraging. It would be a very heavy thought, but here's the thing that I maybe have missed. From time to time more than I care to admit. Over these past 30 years is that the grasp of that mortality is the start of some spiritual maturity for you. It is the start of growing in Christ. It is the start of developing a philosophy of life that can actually stand the test and the winds of time, but it is only a start. The problem of mortality is not meant to be the place that you go to and you sit down and stop and you live and let that dominate your thinking you must come to grips with it and come to grips with it. Honestly, if for no other reason than the fact that Scripture tells us this repeatedly, and would have us contemplate our mortality in such terms, but it is not an in and of itself. If all that you did with mortality was to contemplate the brevity of life. You would soon become a morbid introspective person who would be quite the pain in the neck to be around and my friends could probably testify to that if they felt the freedom to be honest from time to time about me that's all right we all have to grow. What is mortality supposed to do for you mortality in the reality of mortality. The problem of mortality.

Beloved becomes an instructor for you, it becomes your teacher, it has something to teach you that you are to learn from it is something of a biblical taskmaster at a biblical biblical tutor to lead you to something else. You can't really start to live life properly and you certainly don't have a proper worldview. If you having recognized in time somehow come to grips with the problem of mortality. However, the songs the songs off. They are so precious they are so precious. These Psalms calm and take the trembling hand of the one who has been confronted with mortality and says come follow me.

Let me lead you out of the despair that mortality would already would naturally cause you. Let me bring you to a different place. That's what the Psalms do and what does the problem of mortality lead us to point number two here this evening in the Psalms. What does mortality do number two brings us to the prayer in mortality. The prayer in mortality a sober reflection on the brevity of life should lead any thinking person to flee to the God of the Bible, a sober reflection on the brevity of life should cause any thinking person to flee to the Lord Jesus Christ was actually resurrected from the dead and say somewhere in Christ somewhere in the resurrection is the answer to this mortality.

This one who is been raised from the dead has the answer to my mortality. If only he will share it with me in a sober reflection on the brevity of life should cause you to flee to God in earnest prayer we pointed this out two weeks ago. Look at Psalm 90 verse 12 won't spend much time here Psalm 90 verse 12 says in a prayer to God. Moses prays so teach us to number our days, that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. Here's the sense the essence of of the prayer of the person that has realized the biblical reality of mortality. Lord I see that I am under a curse. I see that this life is under a curse from which I cannot escape.

I do not have the power to burst out beyond the bonds of what this mortality places upon me Lord, your own words says that I am destined to die once and after this comes judgment. I am destined for the grade. This is what lies ahead of me.

Oh God.

And I don't have the power to overcome that on my own. I don't even have the power to process such a weighty burden of life in my own mortal flesh and in my own mortal mind. You can bear up under such such an existence, an existence that is short and existence that is difficult and in existence that will soon enough be forgotten by those who come after me now, I'll say it one more time I'm done saying I realize that a lot of people, including perhaps many of you know, like to think this way and you just assume like to just get up and walk out. I get that but to run away from it doesn't change the fact the doctor tells you you have cancer doesn't do any good to run out of his office with your fingers stuck in years and blah blah blah. Not gonna listen, this is the diagnosis of the Bible on life.

So we have to listen we have to deal with this earnestly in the prayer of Psalm 90 verse 12 comes on bended knee on humbled spirit that says Lord, I am mortal and I don't have the ability to solve this on my own. Oh God, oh God, who is been the dwelling place of your people teach me teach me what to do with this mortal life so that I might have something to give back to you to show for it.

In the end, Psalm 91 verse two you see a spirit of prayer as well here from a more trusting and more a more positive perspective. You might say, but the spirit of prayer flowing on he who dwells in the shelter of the most high, verse two says I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust God, teach me, God, I come to you as my refuge in the midst of this mortal life. I flee to you for safety because I can't find it and keep it on my own. Charles Spurgeon says this and I quote men are led by reflections upon the brevity of time to give their earnest attention to eternal things they become humble as they look into the grave, which is so soon to be there bed their passions cool in the presence of mortality they yield themselves up to the dictates of an airing wisdom" in other words the reality of the grave teaches a man and humbles a man, it extinguishes his pride. How can I be proud of anything in life.

How can I be boastful. How can I be arrogant when I know 100 years from now no one's going to remember my name, probably in less time than that. What is there about my life that that endures.

What is there about my wife that will continue. People say well live on in my friends and in the hearts of those who survive me. Okay great can gag on that kind of sentimentality fine enough you know we've all seen movies like that and shows like that that the talk in those sentimental terms. Okay, you're going to live on memories of your people. Let's assume that for arguments sake. Okay what happened then there also mortal right there going to die also write in sooner or later the ripples of the pond reach the shore and then they stop going out and were left with were left with the fact that it there's a sense in which our lives was like sticking a finger in a cup of water and you pull it out. There's no evidence it was there at the end.

Now let me just remind you so that you don't check out and give up on me here said that the Psalms are taking us by the hand and leading us to a better place. But we want to look at this, staring directly in the face and answer it and to come to an answer.

With this with this forbidding prospect of mortality in a way that sells it for us and helps us going forward so that its chains are left behind, and it's and its, fearful, stony, bony fingers can no longer grab us in and concern us and occupy our mind. There is an answer to this but the answer is only meaningful if we take it seriously now solve the problem of mortality.

We see this prayer in mortality. And here's the question why is prayer so essential in this meditation. Why is prayer so essential in the contemplation of the brutality of mortality is a reality to it and there is a brutality to it. Well, Charles Spurgeon says again he says that this meditation is only meaningful when the Lord himself is the teacher. He alone can teach to real and lasting profit. A short life should be wisely spent." In other words, we come to the Lord and we humble ourselves before him. We, as it were, to the Holy Spirit and we say please be my teacher here. Please give me understanding that transcends what I'm capable of in my natural man and in my natural mind please help me to overcome the blinders that are on my eyes. I live by site not by faith.

I go by what I see I live by my my passing feelings. I live by. By desire, rather than by truth when I'm left to myself. And so the prayer comes to God and says God help me. I am desperate here. This mortality would drive me to insanity. But for your help in the midst of it and so Psalm 90 closes as we've seen in a prayer Psalm 90 verse 13 where he says do return, oh Lord, how long will it be and be sorry for your servants. Hope God. Would you please have mercy on us. Look on us in our pitiable miserable condition. We need your help. We cannot escape this circle of mortality on our own.

So be sorry for us and help us. Verse 14 oh satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days make us glad. According to the days you have afflicted us in the years we have seen evil. Let your work appear to your servants and your majesty to their children. But the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and confirm for us the work of our hands. Yes, confirm the work of our hands on speaking metaphorically.

Here's an in a word picture that may or may not be helpful but here we go. The psalmist here is praying from within the realm of mortality and as it were. His hand reaches out and pierces through the bubble of mortality to grab hold of God and to bring him as it were into it and say, God, I invite you to come into my mortality and sort it out and make something useful out of this mess.

I can't possibly do on my own and humbly praise God I am desperate. Here I am appealing to you for grace for mercy for help that I do not deserve.

I'm asking you to be gracious to me in this condition of mortality in which I find myself now all of that sobers us.

None of us. I suppose really like to be brought to a face-to-face confrontation with our utter dependence and our utter spiritual bankruptcy, to 1° or another. We like to be in charge. We like to have control of things and yet what Scripture is teaching us in this brutal reality of mortality is, is it that's that's not the way that things really are and the sooner that we we see through that, the quicker that we can get to an answer to that mortality. But as long as were clinging to the sense of autonomy and self-sufficiency by which we are all naturally partakers long as we cling to that, the longer it is for us to get to an answer to it and you cling to it until the phone call comes in the night, there's been an accident you cling to it until the doctor comes in and says there's nothing more that I can do here and then under the press of the circumstances, you may not have the time to think through it in the way that you want to. And so that's why that's why we come to God in prayer we see God teach me now while I have strength.

While I have vitality. While I have a clear mind. Teach me now so that I can live in a proper way with the rest of the days I have which are going to be brave, but let them be found for your glory. Now see the problem of mortality and we cry out in prayer in in in a spiritually bankrupt way says God I need your help here in the midst of my mortality before willing to go down the path that far. Then we come over the hill and we look out on a beautiful valley with a broad view of Vista that is a valley of grace with bright blooming colors that invite us to comment and to smell into sniff of the wonder of the glory of the grace and the mercy and the kindness of God as you read Psalms 9091 and 92 together. The Psalms inject bright hope into the mortality that you would never find on your own and so on point number three here this evening we seen the problem in the prayer in mortality.

Point number three comes the promise in mortality the promise in mortality there is promise for the believing heart in the midst of our mortal lives now. Remember that at the end of Psalm 90, there has been this prayer, O God, be gracious to me. In light of my mortality with Psalm 91 does is this Psalm 91 meets that prayer with an answer and the answer is found in Yahweh himself in God himself. Look at Psalm 91 verse one. Remember Psalm 90 ended on this prayer.

God be sorry for your servants make us glad because were not in our own weakness here.

Now there is such a contrast as you go to Psalm 91 in verse one says he who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the Almighty half finally warns of relief. Words of hope words of promise to come to God for shelter in the midst of this mortality is defined shadow from the oppressive heat to find shelter to find rest to find protection in the midst of it verse two I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. For it is he who delivers you from the snare of the trapper from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his opinions and under his wings you may seek refuge, his faithfulness as a shield and a ball work.

Oh, beloved, do you see how Psalm 91 answers the question. The problem of mortality with promise. God invites the one who comes to him by faith with promise that says God in his grace and his mercy says I will I will protect you. I would be the answer to mortality for you.

I will care for you I will love you in meeting your soul can find prominent everlasting rest in peace. Mortality meets its match in the love and the faithfulness of the God of the Bible. Mortality meets its match mortality is defeated in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and this is the only place beloved, where there is an answer to your mortality. Everything else is an illusion. Everything else is a dead end but in Christ. Those who put their faith in Christ have a promise from beyond the curse from outside the curse from beyond the grave, that infuses hope into our mortality and look at what God himself says at the end of Psalm 91 to the man who humbly puts his faith in him in New Testament terms, the one who humbly puts his faith in Christ and surrenders all love and allegiance to the resurrected Lord. Look at Psalm 91 verse 14 because he is love to me. Therefore I will deliver him.

Look at all these I wills I think there's eight of them in these three verses. These are the promises of God to the man who puts his faith in him because he is loved me.

Therefore I will deliver him. I will set him securely on high, because he is known my name is known me all my character.

All that I have all that I've revealed myself to be.

He's known me therefore he's mine. He belongs to me how protect him and keep him. Verse 15 he will call upon me and I will answer him.

I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him with a long life I will satisfy him and let him see my salvation. Beloved in the midst of this transient passing subject to death life. Here is the God of the Bible, graciously promising refuge to all who will come and believe that Isaiah 55 verse one Isaiah 55 verse one step outside of the Psalms for just a moment.

Isaiah 55 verse one whole everyone who thirsts, come to the waters and you who have no money come by and eat.

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Everything that is necessary for your nourishment is available to you without cost. Just calm and find it in me.

Verse two. Why do you spend money for what is not bread in your wages for what does not satisfy listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to me.

Listen, that you may live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to David God invites mortal man to come to him by faith to step out from the realm of the curse to step into, as it were, the realm of Christ where full deliverance is made where life is given eternal life is promise and and and generously shared with all who come to Christ and humble faith. And so what we find is this is that even in the midst of this transient passing life. There is refuge to be found in Christ.

Charles Spurgeon again speaking about Psalm 91.

In an overview sense is this in the whole collection.

There is not a more cheering song, its tone is elevated and sustained throughout faith is at its best and speaks nobly.

He who can live in the spirit of Psalm 91 will be fearless even if the grave is engorged with corpses." To understand the promises, the grace that are offered to us in Christ. To understand what God does for his children and the I wills that are promised, here at the arms that at the end of Psalm 91 is to find the answer to mortality. All of a sudden all of a sudden you can look at the grave and say yes that's that will soon enough be my bed. But you know what I know my God, and he says he will deliver me.

I look at the grave but I looked beyond the grave in my Christ says that he will set me securely on high, because I've known him. I can look at the passing of my loved ones. I can be in the midst of trouble that would overwhelm and round me and call upon my Christ and know that he will answer me, he will be with me in trouble.

He will rescue me. He will honor me, he will satisfy me. He will let me see his salvation and all of a sudden from this context, the grave has utterly lost its power. Now, because there is a promise from beyond the grave from outside the realm of the curse of mortality that a gracious God is given to those who come to him and humble, repentant faith, and so yes, Spurgeon was exactly right when he said over a century ago here in Psalm 91 faith is at its best, and it speaks nobly the one who understands these things can be fearless and I would venture to say that one who projects confidence without faith in Christ. Simply wearing a mask that will be stripped away when mortality comes to his own home for us. Beloved for us in Christ were not errors of death, and wrath. We are not errors of of the labor and sorrow of so that's, of which Psalm 90 speaks.

That is not our lot that is not our final destiny in Christ we are heirs of life and grace. And we know that because he is said so because he is promise and he never breaks a promise. God cannot lie the things of which are spoken here at the end of Psalm 91. We can base our lives on them without fear that our trust is been misplaced without fear that our trust will be broken in those promises bring bring bring from flaming light to the otherwise overwhelmed soul to the parched and thirsty one who has been who is been crawling along in the desert looking for hope in the midst of the mortality.

Suddenly a fresh clear stream. An oasis is flowing from which you can freely drink that satisfies him so that he can get up and walk like a man again. That's what the Psalms do. There are no greater things to bring to a man who's been dwarfed by the reality of mortality. What is that do force then you walk through the problem with praying or mortality for help and it's met with this gracious promise from God. What then what then do we do that's not the point. Either you know the promise is wonderful. But that's not the endpoint, a promise like that from a great and gracious God like that compels a response from you and me. This compels requires invites a response from the one who finds the thirst of mortality answered in the flowing water of grace found in the promise of Christ that brings us to point number four this evening. The praise in mortality the praise in mortality. Beloved, I want to tell you, once again we come to we come to the walls of vocabulary and we find that and we we stretch our vocabulary to the uttermost outer limit suddenly find it inadequate to express what needs to be said in response to such great realities which was spoken here this evening.

We have to try beloved to have such a promise like that from the eternal God from the greatness of Christ in the midst of this person mortality in the midst of, and in the midst of a wrath that our own sin invites to call down upon us to have promise where judgment is due beloved. That's a great grace. A great treasure that calls forth praise from the depths. The innermost depths of your being. Psalm 92 verse one now it is good to give thanks to the Lord and sing praises to your name. Almost hi to declare your lovingkindness in the morning and your faithfulness by night with the 10 stringed lute and with the heart with resounding music upon the liar fire up the music.

Fire up the praise and answer to mortality is being given to us and and we must lift our voices and thanksgiving to this great God, it was done so much for us, who is rescued us from that from which we could not save ourselves.

Why do we praise verse four for explanatory introduction explanatory for for you, oh Lord, have made me glad by what you have done. I will sing for joy at the works of your hands. God, I am. I am so thrilled. I am so joyful. I am so glad that you and your kindness and grace have delivered me from this hopeless mortality that draped over me that you and your goodness and kindness and promise have have delivered me have taken me out from under the stormy black clouds and you brought me into the sunshine of your grace where I can see things clearly where I have beautiful vistas in front of me that are unhindered by mortality and my side is made clear. It is made clean. It is made it is made perceptive by the wonders of grace that you have given to me in Christ. So I go back to what I said earlier, beloved, yes a biblical mindset, a biblical worldview calculates in mortality. It takes mortality into account in our strength of positioning, Christ is such that we can staring straight into the face we could go and stand over the grade that had been done for our own course and we can mock the grave we can look staring straight in the face and say I have conquered you in Christ you hold no power over me.

My heart is aflame with hope in the grave will not extinguish it all.

It might extinguish my mortal, earthly life, they might put the shell of the body, and there but my soul will live on in triumph in Christ, and I will tell you I will I will depart and be with Christ and all find that to be very much better not out of any deserving of my own, not of any righteousness of my own.

Do I deserve anything like this but I belong to a Christ was promised me and he will not break his promise and his promise will not starter it will not stagger at the reality of the grave he will take me. It will take me by the hand in and take me straight through that grave out safe on the other side and I will be with him in glory and I'll look back as were in rather than the grave mocking me with scripture informed words will mock the grave, where is your victory over death. Where's your staying where's your victory will grave him on the other side and I'm safe in my God did exactly what he promised me to do.

He delivered me from you were intended to live in that victory by faith. Now that is our position now we are meant to appropriate the wonder of this now and no longer be intimidated by that mortality no longer to be afraid of what happens to our loved ones, but with a confident, humble trust in the one who said I will be with you in trouble to go forward like a man confident trusting, joyful clad giving praise to the one who made such a reaction possible. That's the praise in mortality. Beloved, if you are in Christ you have a context in which to overcome your mortality in this life, we will have to wait for the victory. On the other side of the grave that will be great. I'll be victory upon victory, but we have we have hope. Now we have comfort now this great God this gracious Christ, who loved us and gave himself up for us right now as we speak this great God is with us and he is with us forever. Let me just call to your attention briefly some passages that emphasize this aspect of it, God with us. Psalm 16 verse eight says he is at my right hand. Psalm 23 verse four. I fear no evil for you are with me. Psalm 73 verse 23 I am continually with you. Psalm 91 verse 15 I will be with him in trouble. Colossians 127 Christ in you the hope of glory.

Matthew 28 verse 20 low I am with you always, even to the end of the age were lost in wonder love and praise.

At this point.

This God who planned our salvation and appointed us for us. This Christ who suffered, and bled and gave his blessed righteous life blood for our sins.

This blessed brother who intercedes for us at the right hand of the father in heaven.

This blessed Holy Spirit who indwells us is a promise of our future inheritance that great God is with us and he is with us forever. See beloved. You don't look you cannot find within this earthly realm.

The answer to your mortality.

You can't find that which overturns the curse within the realm that expresses it.

There are no answers there. We look to around that is beyond the rent or earthly life that we see you look above you look beyond that, you look to Christ and find and when you do that lead you to praise Charles Spurgeon said this in a quote. When God reveals his work to a man and performs a work in his soul.

He makes his heart glad the natural consequence is continual praise.

What can we do beloved except to offer our most heartfelt. Our deepest worship and praise and honor to the God who has treated us so magnificently. Is this how can we render adequate thanks to a been delivered from sin and mortality into a realm of eternal life in grace and promise. They can never be broken. Tell me how we can adequately praise him, tell me how we can keep our sour dispositions in life such wonderful news. Yeah, life's hard God is provided the answer to it. And there's a point at which you're just overwhelmed by the majesty of it rightly informed your heart says I don't deserve any of this. Why am I on the receiving end of such magnificent graces. This why such kindness and goodness to a rebel to an ingrate one who flaunted immorality in the face of an immortal God. Why such grace, you bet were grateful last point, the provision in mortality. The provision in mortality.

The provision in mortality. The one who responds to mortality in the kind of faith of which we been speaking here tonight finds out this he finds that it's well with his soul. Look at verse 12 of Psalm 92.

Here is a man who is truly overcome it all, who is overcome and conquered mortality. This righteous man this righteous man who lives by faith is Habakkuk 2 says, Psalm 92 verse 12 the righteous man will flourish like the palm tree, he will grow like a cedar in Lebanon planted in the house of the Lord they will flourish in the courts of our God, they will still yield fruit in old age, they shall be full of sap and very green. Beloved connive point something out to you is really really cool. I mean, this is really cool. Psalm 90 spoke of man in his temporary, transient nature, and pointed to a plant grass here today gone by nighttime by the time you walk through Psalms 9091 92, the man of faith has been transformed into a different kind of plant if you will, to a towering palm tree to a towering oh.

These stately trees symbolize permanence and strength. You have been delivered from the realm of grass into a realm of lasting stately stability in ways that Psalm one even spoke of someone for just a moment I should go back and re-preach Psalm one. For those of you who weren't here five years ago when I first preached it probably won't someone verse three verse to his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither and in whatever he does, he prospers the man of faith, looking to Christ for eternal life informed by the eternal and errant infallible enduring word of God finds his life filled with such energy. Such vitality, such life that his life is actually fruitful and mortality in the grave no longer define the outcome of his earthly existence.

That's what the word of God does force that's what Christ gives to us.

That's why we praise him. This is the provision in our mortality is that God gives us a strength.

The towers over the transient mortality of the wicked know what that means loving speaking to some of you especially with gray hairs on your head. Nonpersonal God so blesses the righteous, who live by faith, that old age is no cause for fear even for you younger ones.

We can say this God so blesses you that sudden illness or even sudden death is no cause for fear for you either beloved the promise of God means this in the sovereignty of God means this it means that you will without doubt, you will certainly have all the days that the Lord has appointed for you. You will miss out on a single one of them, and through faith.

What our God does is he will bless those days he is given to you for your well-being. Think with me beloved was not so with our Christ is days were brief, brief 33 years and yet no one has ever dwelt more under the shadow of the Almighty.

His father's blessing was upon him every day of his life in his earthly affliction from the tumult of the cross he cried out father, into thy hand, I commit my spirit. What did God do he delivered him.

He resurrected him.

He brought him out from the grave and beloved what I want you to see is is that for you who are in Christ, you inherit that same protection you are in the same position before God as Christ himself was because we are united with him.

We are united in him by faith. So the protection that God gave to Christ to bring him through the grave and to resurrect him.

On the other side is ours in Christ we will pass through the grave and be with him in the end he said in John 1421 away. One way to prepare a place for us so we would be with him.

We who die in Christ will rise with Christ over our own mortality, beloved the blessing of God is not measured to you by counting earthly days as if the one who lives the longest on earth wins the race is not measured in terms of health is not measured in prosperity is measured by something better is measured by something lasting. It's measured by something of eternal value. Again, her brother Spurgeon says this in a quote he says aged believers possess a right to experience and by their mellow temperatures and sweet testimonies. They feed many, even if bedridden, they bear the fruit of patients if poor and obscure their lowly and contented spirit becomes the admiration of those who know how to appreciate modest grace does not leave the St. so sweet.

The promise is still sure when the eyes can no longer read it and the voice of the spirit and the soul is still melodious when the daughters of music are brought low."

Beloved you and I are not to fear or mortality.

In light of these things, but rather to have it lead us to mature and robust faith and then with trusting Christ we can rest unshaken in light of these things. We have no fear of the future. Spurgeon one final time, says whatever he may do with us. He is always in the right beloved, here in Christ the Lord most high. You can dwell safely. Psalm 92 verse 15. What we do is we dwell there we declare that the Lord is upright, he is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him. Beloved, we take these three songs and what they've taught us and we weave them into a crown which we gladly place on the head of our beloved who loved us and gave himself up for us, O Christ, you not only conquered the grave you conquered mortality itself, and you have conquered the fear and the dominating oppression of mortality for all who know you. I pray for each one hero God for those who are living in sin and in different to the brevity of life God that you would wake them up. While there's time that they might flee to Christ to be saved is ever willing and extends his hand to everyone who would hear and believe how great how wonderful you are safe for those of us in you father, for those of us in Christ find our rest and our satisfaction in and indeed God we offer up to you are most inadequate, but most sincerely, crown of praise to our beloved one who is loved us and gave himself up for us. Jesus over and thank you for joining us for through the Psalms, a weekly ministry of the truth pulpit and if you have the opportunity. We would love to invite you to join us on Sundays at 9 AM Eastern and Tuesdays 7 PM Eastern for our live stream from truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. You can find the link at the truth. Pulpit.com thanks Don and Fran through the Psalms is a weekend ministry of the truth sure to join us next week for our study is Don continues teaching God's people. God's word and we also invite you to join us on Sunday at 9 AM Eastern for our live stream from truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. You can find the link at the truth. Pulpit.com this message is copyrighted by Don Green. All rights reserved