Pressing On - Five Aspects

[00:00:03] You are listening to a podcast by Lance Lambert Ministries. For more information on this ministry, visit lancelimbert.org or follow us on social media to receive all of our updates this evening. There's just a few thoughts particularly connected with these five Psalms that we have read sung together. [00:00:30] Psalms 130 to 134. [00:00:36] As you will see, these psalms belong to a small collection of psalms called the Songs of Degrees or the Songs of Ascents. [00:00:50] And there has been always very much discussion. There are few 15 of these special psalms, none of them very long, all of them very easy one way or another to memorize. [00:01:05] And they are sometimes referred to as the little Psalter. Within the whole books of the Psalms, every one of them has an especial message. They fall very naturally into three groups of five, and we are dealing with the last group of five. There has been much discussion as to why they are called Songs of Degrees or Songs of Ascents, or in Hebrew, Songs of Steps. [00:01:37] There are three suggestions made as to this title. One is that it is to do with. With Hezekiah's sundial, which you will find in 2 Kings, chapter 20. [00:01:54] You will remember that when Hezekiah, toward the end of his very fruitful and spiritually successful life, when he was very ill and it seemed that he would die, the Lord gave a word to Isaiah. He asked Isaiah to pray for him. You remember Isaiah said to him, by the Lord that the Lord would give him 15 more years. [00:02:23] And then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, what shall be the sign from the Lord that this is so? [00:02:32] And Isaiah said to him, well, you can have two things. The sun can go up this. The dial in Hebrew, the dial in 2Kings is literally steps. It was one of these dials, sun dials of steps. And the shadow of the sun upon them was the way you told the time. [00:02:54] And Isaiah said, you can either have it by going forward or you can have it going backward. [00:02:59] And Hezekiah said, well, it wouldn't be such a hard thing perhaps for it to go forward 10 degrees, but to go back 10 steps, that that would really be something. [00:03:11] And so he said, may the sun go back 10 steps or 10 degrees on the sundial? And that is exactly what happened. And of course, the Lord gave to Hezekiah 15 more years. Now we know, of course, from rabbinic sources that the time of Hezekiah was a time of tremendous literary activity. [00:03:34] Number of the books we have in the Old Testament were finally given to us in their. [00:03:39] Their present form at that time. And we know that he had. He and his men had much to do with the collecting of proverbs. [00:03:48] We know that from the book of Proverbs. And they had also much to do with the Psalter as we know it, the Psalms. [00:03:56] But it could be that these. The suggestion is that these songs of degrees, or songs of ascents, songs of the steps, are in fact to do with the 10 steps that the sun went back, the 10 degrees the sun went back, and the 15 years that the Lord gave to Hezekiah, so that he gave one psalm for every one of the years that the Lord gave him. Well, that's one suggestion, for what it's worth. Another suggestion is that these were collected together especially for the pilgrims coming up to Jerusalem for the three major festivals of the year. [00:04:41] And as they all journeyed up mostly from the Jericho road, going right up to Jerusalem, so they used to sing together these psalms. And that's why we are told they were short. They were called songs of ascent. As they went up from Jericho to Jerusalem. And they sang together these songs they were short in order to help them memorize them, and so on. Of course, those who came from the west side would also have gone up to Jerusalem, not quite so steeply as the other. This is another suggestion as to why they call songs of ascents. Because the whole way is steadily up, climbing, up and up and up some thousands of feet from Jericho to Jerusalem. So we are told they were called songs of ascent. [00:05:33] Another very interesting suggestion is a rabbinic one. And that was that these songs were sung on the 15 steps of the temple, of the court of the women, as you went up to the court of Israel and into the final holy place, there were 15 steps. And we're told by the rabbis that there's a very real possibility that the Levitical choirs used to stand upon these 15 steps at major festivals and sing these Psalms. Well, whatever it is, we can't tell you but one for sure. But one thing we can be certain is that spiritually we have here songs of ascent. [00:06:23] In other words, contained within these 15 Psalms, we have got principles of spiritual ascendancy. Or if you like, the climbing, as it were, up, going on, going higher, moving up, all the time, pressing on with the Lord, however you like to put it. [00:06:47] We have within these 15 Psalms the principles. For instance, if you turn to Psalm 84, we have that wonderful little word in verse five. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. Passing through the valley of weeping, they make it a place of Springs, yea, the early rain covereth it with blessings. They go from strength and to strength every one of them appeareth before God in Zion, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. In whose heart are the highways to Zion. And surely that's what is meant in Philippians 3 by the apostle Paul, when he also says this in verse 12. Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect, but I press on. [00:07:52] If so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold but one thing I do forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I I press on toward the goal, unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. [00:08:18] So we have within these Psalms really tremendous, profound spiritual truth concerning this pressing on unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And and I will leave it to you to find the principal theme or truth that is contained in the first ten of these Psalms. I would just like very lightly to touch upon the last five. And I believe they contain tremendous truth concerning are really being related to the purpose of God. [00:09:06] First of all, Psalm 130. 130. Now I wonder what you would say is the teaching of this little psalm, only eight verses? What would you say really is the theme of this psalm? What is really the meaning of it? [00:09:33] Well, I think that I've called it brokenness. [00:09:38] Brokenness. [00:09:41] Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. [00:09:55] Brokenness. [00:09:58] If any of us are to know anything about pressing on to be with the Lord, then there will be depth, and there will be depth to which we shall come, and we shall sink in one way. And I'm not talking about depths of fullness. There'll be depths of fullness too. But here I'm speaking of the other kind of depths, the depths that the psalmist here obviously was experiencing when he said, out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. The fact that he pleads with the Lord to hear his voice is some little evidence of the degree of the depths, the measure of the darkness, the storm through which he was passing. These are depths. It's interesting that he doesn't tell us what it is. All he says is, lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. And and then in verse three and four, it is quite Clear that here in the depths he becomes the target for enemy activity. [00:11:01] He is very, very conscious of his unworthiness and his insignificance and his sinfulness. And he says, lord, if thou shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand, but there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. Brokenness, a quality we do not often hear much about. [00:11:28] Let me say this. If you are seeking a baptism in the spirit, if you are seeking to be empowered with the Spirit, to be anointed with the Spirit, let me tell you that it will also involve your brokenness. [00:11:45] Otherwise, you will, without any shadow of a doubt, go off the rails. I do not know any single person who's had an experience of the Holy Spirit who has not gone off the rails. [00:11:59] Sometimes not so clearly. [00:12:02] Sometimes it's just a question that they get stuck on their experience and think they've arrived. [00:12:08] And that's it. There's no more to be had. They've come to the zenith. They've come to the climax. [00:12:15] It says in the scripture about the baptism of the Spirit. It says that he will not only baptize us with the Spirit, but with fire. And it says he will thresh the wheat, separating the wheat from the chaff. [00:12:29] There is a brokenness that must come with any real experience of the Holy Spirit. [00:12:39] Out of the depths have I cried. [00:12:44] You can only swim about in the shallows. You can only sort of flounder about in the shallows spiritually with the Lord. When you're not prepared to be broken. [00:12:58] If you're prepared for God to break you, then you must know something of these depths. Now, another thing I want you to note is why is God interested in our being broken? Not because he wants to make us sort of unsound, unhealthy, sort of in that way at all. But because he knows that only when the outward is broken does the real fragrance that that is trapped within come out. It was only when Mary took the alabaster cruise and broke it that the house was filled with the ointment. It's only when the outer shell of the corn falling into the ground, dying, when it breaks up. When it's broken, then the real life in it starts to take over. [00:13:55] And a new plant develops with all the fruitfulness of a harvest. [00:14:01] There's got to be that brokenness. Why does God do it? Because it's the only way in the end, you and I can be truly whole. It is the only way you and I find our life in Him. It's the only way you and I find our provision in Him. It's the only way you and I exploit all that is ours, the fullness that is ours in Him. Otherwise you become self sufficient. Now do you see how even an experience of the Holy Spirit or any other kind of experience can make us self sufficient? I know people who've been converted and they're absolutely self sufficient. They believe they've got everything in their conversion and they're absolutely self sufficient. I don't need anything else. I got everything. Their lives are cold, dead, frozen, static, but they say they've got everything. [00:14:51] I know other people who've had a real experience of the Holy Spirit. And they tell me years afterwards that's all they can talk about, what happened then, and I hope everyone else comes into the same. But when you really get to it, there's no real fellowship. [00:15:04] It's static, frozen, dead. You see, any experience can make us self sufficient. We think we've got it now. I'm self sufficient. I'm okay. [00:15:14] I'm just here to tell everybody else how to get it and what to do. The steps. [00:15:20] But when we are broken, then the real value of our experience takes over and we begin to come into an experience of our Lord which breaks up all our little regulations and our steps and methods and techniques and everything else and brings us into the most marvelous relationship with our Lord where He and we are absolutely one brokenness. Out of the depths have I cried. Will you also notice that there is a sensitiveness here, how sensitive he is in this verse 3 and 4. If thou Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? [00:16:02] It's a mark of the one who is of a contrite and broken spirit that he is very, very sensitive to the Lord and very, very sensitive to this kind of thing. [00:16:15] We're not sensitive when we're unbroken. [00:16:18] We can trample over things. We can go forward like tanks doing our own work and all the rest of it. But once God has broken us, we become very, very sensitive. And one of the most beautiful things about anyone who is really walking with God and going on in this ascent, moving on, pressing on, is that they are sensitive people. Believe me. If not, you shall not hear the voice of the Lord behind you saying, this is the way, walk ye in it. [00:16:49] We can become just so routine, so well oiled in a wrong way, that we just can go rumbling forward. We just don't hear the voice of the Lord. We're no longer sensitive. But when the Lord's broken us, the slightest whisper from heaven Rings like a trumpet. In our spirit we know something's gone wrong. Something's gone wrong somewhere or other I've turned off the wrong way or there's something not right here. Another very good thing about this is that we often scent when something's wrong in others. [00:17:22] Not for criticism, but we know it. When these people come in amongst us who are supposed to be this and supposed to be that, supposed to be apostles or prophets or whatever they call themselves, we scent in instantly something funny here. [00:17:39] Whereas often when we're self sufficient, we can be taken in because we're not dependent upon the Lord. Will you notice another thing about this brokenness? It means we wait. [00:17:49] A man who has learnt patience is always a broken man. Remember Saul, Samuel said to him, wait. And he waited. [00:17:57] And Samuel deliberately waited. [00:18:00] And Saul waited another day. And then in the end, I think he waited almost a week, wasn't it? But in the end, Saul could wait no longer. Many people think it was very wicked of Samuel to do this. There's recently a book being written in Israel which makes out that Samuel was a wicked old man and that he hated Saul because Saul was a substitute for him, taken his place as sort of leader of the people of God. And so he deliberately did this to break Saul. It just shows. But the man's facing a problem. Who wrote the book. The problem is there. [00:18:34] Why did Samuel deliberately wait when he could have. He must have known that poor old Saul was a man who was rather weak in some ways. But you see, here's the whole question of brokenness. [00:18:46] Whole question of brokenness. [00:18:48] No one knows what it is to really wait on the Lord and wait for the Lord. Listen to this. I wait for for the Lord my soul doth wait. And in his word do I hope. [00:19:04] My soul waiteth for the Lord. More than watchmen wait for the morning. Yea, more than watchmen for the morning. Now will you mark? This is not just waiting on the Lord. This is waiting for the Lord. Some people find it very hard to wait on the Lord. But believe me, sometimes it's much harder to wait for the Lord, for the Lord when the Lord says, I will do so and so and so and so. And there we wait, and we wait and all our hands itch to get on with it and to do it. And then we think, well, it's not happening to so and so. And the Lord's promised me, as I prayed for so and that he's going to do this and this and it's not happening. So you itch. And so you send a little booklet through the post, and then a bit later, a telephone call which somehow or other gets around spontaneously to the subject or whatever it is. You can't wait for the Lord. Oh, we're all the same in this matter. We can't wait. We've got to help the Lord. We'll wait for a while and we'll wait even longer. We'll even wait a week. [00:20:05] But in the end, it finds us out. If we're not broken, we have to do something. We cannot wait for the Lord. We can wait on the Lord. [00:20:13] But waiting for the Lord is an even deeper level. [00:20:17] When you waited on the Lord and got the word of the Lord, then you must wait for the Lord. That was Saul's great failing. [00:20:25] The Lord had said, you must wait till Samuel comes. But he waited, and he could wait for the Lord no longer. And he said, well, what does it matter? Isn't it the sacrifice that matters? Get on with the job. Let's do it. [00:20:39] And he did it. And he lost the kingdom. As a result, many a child of God has lost their spiritual authority through not waiting for the Lord. Now, I want to tell you that you may have all the teaching in the whole wide world in your dear head. You may have been to every theological seminary it's possible to go through. You may have read all Watchman, Nee's Ministry, Austin Sparks Ministry, Mrs. Penn, Lewis Ministry, and everybody else's ministry that anything has got anything to say on anything. [00:21:13] And let me tell you that unless you're broken, you'll never wait for the Lord. That is the one thing the flesh cannot do, not even the most Christianized flesh in the whole wide world. You may have knowledgeable flesh, Christianized flesh, religious flesh, hymn singing flesh, Bible reading flesh, prayer making flesh. But believe me, if you are not broken, you will never wait for the Lord. Because it's impossible. It is impossible. [00:21:42] That's why we must be broken. Out of the depths have I cried. Have you ever asked God to really take you in hand? He will. [00:21:50] He's itching to do it. [00:21:53] But in this matter, the Lord will never break a person. I've never known a believer yet that the Lord will break till first of all they say, lord, break me. [00:22:04] That is the first essential. And then will you notice how the psalmist comes back to the matter of redemption? In verses seven and eight, he says, o Israel, hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is loving kindness, that wonderful word, steadfast love or mercy. And with him is plenteous redemption, not just redemption. But plenteous redemption, a full salvation, and he will redeem himself from all his iniquities. In other words, however much this brokenness, however deep it has to go, whatever the Lord has to use to do it, the fact is that there is a basis for us to come through, and the basis is our full salvation with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there's the first little psalm this evening, and there is the first principle. If you're going to press on to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus Christ, then you've got to know along the line, this brokenness. [00:23:05] You will go out of the waste, you will stop ascending, you will stop climbing, if you are not prepared for that. That's why it comes first in these last five, the second verse, Psalm 131. Now, what would you call this? And I've just called it weaning. [00:23:27] Weaning. [00:23:29] Now, this comes out of brokenness. You will never wean your soul until first you are broken. [00:23:39] Why is there such a mixture of soul and spirit in the people of God? [00:23:47] Now, let us be quite honest here. There is as much mixture of soul and spirit in these congregations that are as quiet as mice as there are in those very noisy ones where it is very obvious that the soul is thinking. Don't think that silence is spiritual. [00:24:05] Silence can be as fleshly as anything else. It's a question of the origin of that silence. I know places where the whole thing is a bondage and a rigidity and a frigidity, and it's just as much the soul as anything else. But. But of course, we don't like the noise side of it. The noise is the more obvious. If everyone's silent, well, they can get away with murder. But when they start shouting, we can see very clearly whether it's the soul or the spirit. [00:24:34] Now, soul and spirit here, listen to the psalmist. [00:24:39] Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty. Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too wonderful for me. [00:24:48] Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. [00:24:59] You have three parts to your spirit, soul and body. [00:25:04] 1 Thessalonians 5, and I think it's verse 16 or 17. [00:25:10] You are spirit, soul and body. [00:25:14] Hebrews 4 speaks about the word of God dividing between soul and spirit. Why do so many of the children of God who really have started this climb, who are really climbing, pressing on, why do they come unstuck? Why Are they waylaid? Why are they turned out? Because of this mixture of soul, spirit. [00:25:42] Whenever there is this mixture of soul and spirit, the end is almost definite. You can be dogmatic about the end. It will not reach heaven. [00:25:54] And whenever we look in Scripture, whenever there is a mixture like this, it never reaches heaven. That's why we must know a division between soul and spirit. Now will you notice again that it is interesting. What does the soul do? The soul is not always noisy and vulgar and crude. Believe me, some people's souls are very beautiful, musical, artistic, refined, sophisticated. [00:26:30] But you see from this psalm what it says. [00:26:35] It says, here is how it begins. My heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty. [00:26:45] Neither do I exercise myself in great matters or things too wonderful. You see, it's not always vulgarity and crudity of the soul that gets a person down sometimes. It's just the fact that the soul is inside, sensitive to the Lord, and because of that, it overreaches itself and uncovers a person, and in that moment, the enemy has got them. [00:27:11] You can uncover yourself by taking on a matter too big. I've heard people calling the devil names, rebuking him and so on, and think they can get away with. They never do. [00:27:21] Of course. Some greater servant of the Lord who's got a long experience and knows how to hide himself in the Lord, he can do it. But woven tide, any young believer who thinks because he heard a great servant of the Lord really rebuking the enemy, that he can just do it. [00:27:39] That's the soul, not the spirit. [00:27:41] The spirit in that person would have warned them like a great alarm bell. Be careful, Be careful. [00:27:52] When you wean a child, you know, there's a lot of crying, A lot of nursing, a lot of rocking to be done. [00:28:04] You see it here. He says, I weaned my soul. Isn't it interesting? Who's the psalmist talking about? Who does what? [00:28:12] Does his body rock his soul? [00:28:14] No, it's his spirit. You see, there's a division taking place in the psalmist's spirit and his soul. He says, now who's the I, Lord, My heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes glott. Neither do I exercise myself in great matters or in things too wonderful for me. Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul. How is he? Who is the I? What part of his being is the I that says, I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child? It's his spirit. His spirit has taken the ascendancy. His spirit has got into its place in union with the Lord and said, now I'm dealing with my soul, and we must first know a brokenness before we can come to this place. But the second great lesson if we're going to go on with the Lord, is that we've got to learn how to rule our own soul. [00:29:00] We must know the difference in ourselves between soul and spirit. In other words, I must be able to say, in my heart, that's me. That's the Lord in me. Can you do that? Can you say, that's the Lord in me. I do believe that's the Lord in me, that's me. [00:29:16] Distinguish between soul and spirit. Now, when you begin that you've started the weaning process, you've got your soul away, and there are times when your soul is very, very alive and full of boisterous and full of suggestions and ideas sort of giving you a kick. Get on with it, get on with it. Your soul is saying. And you sort of say, ah, this is the Lord. The Lord is saying to me, get on with it, get on with it. The Lord's not saying anything. Again, it's your soul. [00:29:43] And the more knowledgeable your soul is, the more dangerous it is. It may know the Bible inside out, and your soul may be saying, listen here, you need a kick. [00:29:52] Get on with this job. And you've got to say, shut up. [00:29:55] Be still. [00:29:57] I'll wean you. I'll quieten you. [00:30:01] I'm in charge here, not you. [00:30:04] Now, my soul, you be silent. Now, if you look through the Psalms, you will find this a very, very fruitful study. You will find in the Psalms that the psalmist is often talking to his own soul. Bless the Lord. O my soul. He says, another time he says, be silent, my soul. Or quite honestly, literally, shut up, my soul. Shut up. [00:30:26] Quieten down. [00:30:28] Be still, my soul. That's how we put it so beautifully in the be still, my soul. It's simply, shut up. [00:30:38] Cease. [00:30:40] Have you yet learned how to talk to your soul? [00:30:44] Now, this isn't. Don't think it's the first signs of you going mad. [00:30:49] I read the other day some psychologist who said that every human being talks with himself. This is the sure sign. We have a spirit and a soul. We talk with ourselves. You have to talk with your soul. There are times when you've got to say to your soul, now listen, you be still and quiet. [00:31:03] No more talk from you. [00:31:07] When the Lord says, we go forward, we go forward. [00:31:10] But until then, you shut up. [00:31:13] And we have to learn this in worship. We have to learn it in service. We have to learn it in fellowship. We have to learn it in work, our normal work in the office or wherever it is, or at home. We have to learn this. This is part of our great lesson, soul and spirit. And you see, arrogance or pride, or what is called here, haughtiness, loftiness will only lead us into tragedy. Now I'll give you an example of it. There was a marvelous kick in the old days. His name was Isaiah. [00:31:48] And from archaeology we know that Isaiah's reign was one of the most remarkable reigns in the whole history of the kings of Judah. It is sadly passed over in Scripture, almost in silence. [00:32:04] Why? Because this man, who did so much that was right and followed the Lord so greatly, came to a place where he could not distinguish between soul and spirit. And one of those days he went into the holiest place of all, in the temple. He went to the holy place, to the golden altar before the veil. And he took a censer full of incense. [00:32:28] This was forbidden in the scripture that he couldn't distinguish. And you see all the nations around the kings were priests, they were king priests. And Isaiah couldn't understand it. Why shall I be? I'm a king. Surely I'm also a priest. Didn't he say that the Lord say originally in Exodus, I will make them a kingdom of priests? [00:32:52] He couldn't distinguish between soul and spirit. And he forced his way into the prison. And the chief priest, the high priest, and the others, they stopped him with great courage, I might say. And they said, this does not pertain to you, King Isaiah. [00:33:05] Isaiah was furious with them, which is a sure sign of the soul. [00:33:12] And at that moment the leprosy broke out in his forehead. [00:33:16] And he went out of the house of the Lord a leper and had to live a social outcast in a separate house for the rest of his days. And was even buried in a separate sepulcher apart from the kings of Judah. What a tragedy. And the whole thing went back that he could not distinguish between soul and spirit. It's this haughtiness, this lofty eyes, this trying to push yourself in something that doesn't belong to you. Oh, what a need there is here. Then of this second thing, weaning. You must wean yourself. Weaning is a process. It doesn't happen overnight. You don't suddenly have a child one day, and the next night they're weaned. It's a process. [00:34:00] There'll be some crying involved. There'll be quite a lot of murmuring, quite a lot of sort of agitation. Oh, if you know anything about your soul, there'll be plenty of that. Your soul will cry as if it's being murdered. [00:34:13] It will plead with you. Most of us are so sorry for our souls. Oh, you think, poor little thing. Listen to it crying, screaming, saying it's being murdered. Oh, this terrible doctrine, this wicked teaching, this heaviness at Halford House which is destroyed, destroying us. You know your soul will scream about it. Don't take the slightest notice of your soul. [00:34:34] Wean it. Don't be stupid, don't be severe, but just wean your soul. Be firm like a good parent. Really be firm and definite about this. This has got to be. And your soul will, in the end, when it finds it can't get anything out of you, will finally say, right, right, okay, and will fall into line. It's the only way through weaning. It's a process. You'll have a lot of agitation, a lot of murmuring, a lot of bickering, a lot of sort of niggle, kind of niggling all the time. Take no notice of it. It's your soul. Get to know your soul. Get to know the temperament of your soul. Get to know what your soul don't and don't despise your soul. [00:35:17] Your soul is your soul. [00:35:19] And in the end, when you've got the ascendancy, your soul will find its real place and you will be a full person with a true person, an original personality. Right. Psalm 132. [00:35:31] Psalm 132. What is this really? Well, I think the word that we could say about this psalm is purpose. Purpose. [00:35:40] I think that's the one word that describes the whole of this wonderful Psalm. Psalm 132. First of all, the purpose of God. Verses 13 and 14. For the Lord hath chosen Zion. He hath desired it for his habitation. This is my resting place forever. Here will I dwell, for I have desired it. Purpose. What is the purpose of God? If you're going to press on onto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, you must know what the purpose of God is. [00:36:15] How few believers really can tell us what is the purpose of God for the people of God? What is the purpose of God for us all? For all of us, for us believers? It is that we might become the habitation of God in the Spirit. That we might become the home of God in the Spirit. That we might grow into a holy temple in the Lord. That is the habit. That that is the purpose of the Lord. A habitation for him. Here it is. The Lord hath chosen Zion. [00:36:47] Chosen Zion. Oh, how wonderful it is that behind this whole great matter of your salvation and my salvation is the election of God. Don't ask me to explain it. All I know is that behind our coming together is the predestinating power, power of God. That's all I know. I know he has predestined that there should be a habitation for himself in the Spirit. [00:37:15] I know that he has foreordained that living stones should be built together in Christ to form a holy temple in the Lord. I only know that out of the blood and water that flowed from the open side of our Lord a bride is to be formed and brought to him his flesh and bone. [00:37:43] Well, now there is the purpose of the Lord. Do you understand it, or are you just sort of a Christian? Full stop. All you know is that you've been forgiven. You've been cleansed, full stop. Or you may go further than that. You know something of what it is to be filled with the Spirit. Full stop. And that's as far as you go. That's the end of everything. My dear child of God. God is interested in you being built together with other living stones into a habitation of God in the Spirit. [00:38:12] And here we've got it in this wonderful psalm. Here is the purpose. Now begin to see the results. [00:38:18] What wonderful results there are when the building work takes place. When the temple of the Lord begins to develop and grow. I will abundantly bless her provision. [00:38:31] I will satisfy her poor with bread. [00:38:34] Her priests also will I clothe with salvation. And her saints shall shout aloud for joy. [00:38:41] There will I make the horn of David to bud. I've ordained a lamp for mine. Anointed his enemies will I clothe with shame. But upon himself shall the crown flourish. What marvelous results. What consequences mark you. They all come from this building work. It reminds me of Haggai that says, consider your ways. You have gained, you have bought in so much, you've earned so much and gained so little. You are earning wages to put into a bag with holes in it. I always think that's the most marvelous picture of someone who's working till the sweat runs down their face. And then they get their wages and they pop them in this little pur and walk along and the whole lot drops out. And when they get there, there were 10 shekels, and now they've got one. [00:39:32] Where did it all go? Didn't I work? [00:39:35] Christian work is filled with this kind of thing. Oh, so much activity, so much Work. [00:39:42] So much zeal, sometimes quite a bit of knowledge. It's all there. And yet what of the result? [00:39:49] It's put into a bag and it all drains away. And at the end of it, what have you got a tiny minute little bit left. There's no preservation of life. [00:40:00] There's no marvelous provision. There's no growth and going on. [00:40:06] How marvelous it is when there's a building work. How quickly young ones, when they find the Lord, start to grow in the Lord and develop in the Lord and find their place in the family. How marvelous it is. It's all here, you see. I will abundantly bless her provision and I will satisfy her poor with bread. There will be food in his house. Her priests also will I clothe with some wonderful garments of priests to be able to come into the presence of the Lord and not be ashamed boldly into the presence of the Lord to praise him and worship him, serve him and serve one another. [00:40:43] And her saints shall shout aloud for joy. There's a bit of worship for you, the right kind of shouting aloud this time. Oh, there's such a work in them that their spirits just let go and their souls let out a yell. [00:41:01] There will I make the horn of David. To bud the horn of David is just simply the authority, or Christ, if you like. It's to do with the Messiah, the authority of our Lord. There it would blossom bud vindication of authority, the manifestation of authority and the vindication of authority. Remember Aaron's rod that bud it and a lamp for mine. Anointed his enemies will I clothe with shame. But upon himself shall the crown flourish. Now there it is again. Now first we have the purpose of God. Then we have the consequences when that purpose starts to be realized amongst us. But now we have the determination. [00:41:47] Now you've got it from verse one. The Lord remember for David all his affliction, how he swear unto the Lord and vowed unto the Mighty One of Jacob. Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed. [00:42:02] I will not give sleep to mine eyes, nor slumber to mine eyelids until I find out a place for the Lord. [00:42:11] A tabernacle for the Mighty One of Jacob. [00:42:16] There's a determination. [00:42:18] This man, something got into him. [00:42:21] David was like this. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. If the rabbinic tradition that Psalm 23 comes from the childhood of David, how wonderful it is that in his earliest days As a shepherd lad, he wrote something about surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. [00:42:46] It seems something as a boy, certainly all through David's life there was a passion in his heart and here it's contained in this wonderful psalm. He wouldn't go into his own house, he wouldn't go up into his own bed. He wouldn't give slumber to his eyelids, rest to himself until he found out a resting place for the Lord. [00:43:08] What is the Lord's resting place? The Lord doesn't rest in a denomination. The Lord doesn't rest in an organization. [00:43:15] The Lord doesn't rest in a mission. The Lord doesn't rest in a congregation. The Lord only finds his resting place in living stones built together. And that requires discipline and it requires a life laid down if we're to be built together. Only in that way, determination have you got that determination, my dear child of God? Mark the apostle's words. [00:43:42] I press on. He says it again and again and again in those verses. I press on. I don't think I've already got there. I don't feel I've already laid hold, but I press on. I press on. I press on. There's a determination there in this man. He says, I count everything but loss. He was very proud of his background, very proud of his ancestry, proud of the fact that he was a Pharisee, that he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews and all that. He said, I count the whole thing but loss. [00:44:12] And I press on. [00:44:14] Oh, what a determination is there. [00:44:17] What a determination. Dear child of God, you will never climb, you will never go on climbing unless there is a determination. And this determination is not just Churchillian grit. It's not just a question of saying, now I'm going to get this thing that I've seen through. [00:44:36] No, what you need is to see what God's purpose is and be wholly identified with it. Then you'll come through. Shall I tell you why? [00:44:45] I'll tell you why. [00:44:46] Because behind the purpose of God is the sovereign, predestinating power of God. [00:44:56] Now, supposing you will to do the will of God, what happens to you? Behind you comes the sovereign, predestinating power of God. All be good Calvinists in this matter. Let this thing get right behind you. Don't you want it? My word, I can't. The Marxists speak speak of the sort of inexorable onward march of human history. I'll tell you something much more wonderful than that. There's the inexorable onward march of God. [00:45:25] Well, get into the march. [00:45:28] Get into it. Let the power of God get behind you. [00:45:32] Christendom is filled with dear little believers, all doing their own thing. [00:45:37] Someone over here in this corner. Someone over there in that corner. There's this label and that label, labor and this damnation and that damnation all over the place, all doing their own thing. I'm not saying that God isn't amongst them or doesn't bless them in this place or that place. But the fact of the matter is that you can't say that the onward march of God is there. [00:45:59] They've come into a little side pool in so many places, just whirling round. But, oh, how wonderful it is when we see the purpose of God and are identified with the purpose of God and committed to the purpose of God. Then the pur. Predestinating power of God comes behind us. Suddenly we find ourselves in the center of the inexorable onward march of God. [00:46:22] He's going to do it. It's a marvelous thing. Why don't you get into that? [00:46:27] Your weakness, swallowed up in his power. Your insignificance, swallowed up in eternal significance. Your littleness, Phil, sort of just simply overwhelmed with his infinity. It's just tremendous. Let go while we hang on to our own little thing, our own little work for the Lord. Our own little circle. We are outside of the main swing. We're saved. We can know the Lord. We can grow. [00:46:52] But once we let go of all that and we see the purpose of God and say, lord, I'm committed to it. All hell may stand against us. But we've got someone far greater than all hell. [00:47:03] And his purpose is going to be fulfilled. The top stone is going to be brought forth with shouts of grace. Grace unto it. [00:47:09] Oh, wonderful. And of course, there are these. [00:47:13] This spirit, listen to it. Verse 7. We will go into his tabernacles. We will worship at his footstool. Arise, O Lord, into thy resting place. Down the ark of Thy strength. Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness. Let thy saints shout for joy. Do you notice these almost are exactly what the Lord says later. I will do. [00:47:33] It's exactly what the Lord said. I will do This. [00:47:36] I have entered my resting places. Listen to it. [00:47:40] The Lord hath chosen Zion. He desired it for his habitation. This is my resting place forever. Here will I dwell, for I have desired. I will abundantly bless her provision. I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests also will I clothe with salvation. And her Saints shall shout aloud for joy the very prayer of the psalmist. The Lord, word for word, answers even the prayer about David and David's seed. He goes on and says it. The horn of David shall bud there. [00:48:09] Don't you get it? Now see, what I'm trying to get at here is the purpose of God. You can try to take that purpose of God and relate it to your little thing. [00:48:18] Don't do it that way. First see the purpose of God and bring your little thing to the purpose of God and say, now, Lord, if some of this little thing of mine's got to go, let it go. [00:48:29] My little ministry, my little work, my let it go. [00:48:35] Bring it. Don't bring the purpose of God to it. [00:48:38] Bring it to the purpose of God. [00:48:42] And then what will happen? You will find the predestinating power of God like a tremendous onward flow behind you. [00:48:54] Right. [00:48:55] Well, now let's look at Psalm 133. Well, of course, I don't think. I hardly need to say. What is the theme of Psalm 133? Small Psalm, three verses, but profound, absolutely profound. Well, of course the theme of this psalm is oneness, isn't it? Unity, Dear child of God, if you're going to really go on with the Lord, then we've got to keep the unity of the Spirit. [00:49:24] Again, you must know this, that if once the Lord can split you from others, you're finished as far as any pressing on. [00:49:36] That's why the Lord Jesus said in that great prayer about when we were taught in the pattern prayer, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us. The Lord said it in two ways. He said, for if you forgive others their trespass against you, your Father will forgive you. But then he put it the other way. But if you do not forgive them, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you. The surest way to be put out of this onward march of this climbing, of this pressing on, is to fall out with your brothers and sisters. [00:50:14] We must keep the oneness. [00:50:18] And this keeping of the unity is the greatest discipline of all. Because in order to maintain it, we have to know discipline. [00:50:26] We have to know discipline. For instance, if someone, some of the saints say this, this and this about you, either you just absolutely hit them square on the chin and leave in high dudgeon, or you've got to get through. And it might be that you'll have to be open and to the possibility that there is truth in what they've said. [00:50:49] Someone says you're sloppy, all right? You don't like that, but maybe there's truth in it. Someone says you don't wash over much. You don't like it, but maybe there's truth in it. This is all part of the way. Someone says, you're lazy. You don't like that. But that's. [00:51:08] The church is very impolite. [00:51:11] If you've got corns, it will tread on them. [00:51:15] But, oh, our way of salvation lies just here. Where else do we learn these things about ourselves? Where else do we really get dealt with? Where else do we get shaped? Where else do the corners get knocked off? Where else are we dressed and fitted together? It all has to be here. So here we have this wonderful psalm. You will notice it says how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. [00:51:42] How good and how pleasant it is Something beautiful, something pleasant, something that is sort of harmonious and wonderful about dwelling together in unity. You will notice that it is dwelling together in unity. It's not just a visitation, not once a week on Sunday morning when we're one together, but it is in fact a dwelling together in unity. That is, I suppose, the most ultimate word one could use, really, dwelling together. It just means that we're. We're sort of all living together in this thing. [00:52:23] We're not just visiting each other now and again or experiencing it at high points in our experience. [00:52:32] But this is something we're dwelling together in. Now will you notice two other marvelous things? Verse 2, oil, and verse 3, dew. [00:52:43] And the oil, of course, is the oil that came upon Aaron. Now, Aaron was the high priest, and in Exodus we read very careful instructions about the anointing of the high priest. First, we're told about the oil, that it must be a spirit, special kind of oil. And anyone who makes an oil like it shall be stoned to death. [00:53:04] That's how sacred the oil is. [00:53:07] Nothing counterfeit, nothing mixed. It is absolutely holy. Secondly, the oil shall never come upon the flesh of man. [00:53:20] And that's why it says when it was poured the upon his head, it ran down his beard and onto his high priestly garment and down to the very skirt of the garment. [00:53:34] Now, what does this mean? [00:53:35] It means this, that if you and I are going to know anything about dwelling together in unity, we must know something about the anointing of the Holy Spirit. [00:53:46] We'll never have power to stay together otherwise. [00:53:50] Now, I realize that so often it appears that when people have an experience of the Holy Spirit, they become quite divisive. [00:53:57] And I think we can say straight away that such an Experience is very suspect indeed. [00:54:04] For whenever anyone is ever filled with the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one thing that is manifested is unity. [00:54:13] Unity. [00:54:14] Because the Holy Spirit is the custodian and guardian of the oneness of the Lord Jesus Christ. [00:54:21] This anointing comes onto the head. [00:54:24] Not just a little mark, but a real pouring of it. No doubt some of you have read about dear Wigglesworth. The first time he ever was forced to anoint somebody. You remember, he asked someone to come along, two people to come over the hut. The woman was dying, and he couldn't get anyone to come along to support him. He'd never done it before in his life. And so he asked this man to come along who he knew had a ministry of prayer. So he thought when he asked him to pray, all he prayed for was that the Lord would support the husband and the children when the wife had gone. So Wigglesworth shut him up halfway through his prayer and said, thank you, brother, that's enough. And in desperation, because he felt he hadn't got the prayer of faith, he turned round to the husband and thought, well, surely he wants his wife to live. So he said to him, would you pray? And he prayed too. Oh, Lord, help me and the children when so and so's gone. So with that, you've heard the story, Wigglesworth shut them all outside the door, took the bottle of oil, didn't quite know what to do and thought, well, I don't know what to do. So he poured the whole lot on her from head to foot, whole bottle of olive oil, then prayed for her. And she was, amazingly healed from her deathbed. They brought the undertaker and everybody to measure her and everything. You've all read the story. I'm sure many of you have. [00:55:45] Well, this is the kind of real anointing when quite a lot of oil is poured on the person and down it comes. I mean, right down, it comes down to the hem of the garment. What does it mean? It means this. Now, listen, dear child of God. This anointing is not for the elite. It. It is for every member of the body. [00:56:03] It comes right from the head, which is the Lord Jesus, right down to the hem of the garment, to the skirt. And includes every one of us. Every one of us has an anointing to stand into. [00:56:13] An anointing of the Holy Spirit. Isn't that marvellous? You can stand into that anointing of the Holy Spirit for yourself. It's yours because the Lord Jesus has died to give it to you. And then the second thing about this is dew. Now, dew is the most amazing thing. You've never heard the dew drop. [00:56:34] You've never woken up in the night because the dew has suddenly dropped on the lawn or the trees. [00:56:42] You have never heard the dew drop. You've never even seen it drop. It comes so silently, so quietly, and before you know it's there. [00:56:56] Don't always think that everything to do with the Holy Spirit is very obvious and very sort of outwardly powerful and sort of wordy. [00:57:08] There is a continual experience of the Holy Spirit when he comes to us as Jew. Now, the wonderful thing about Jerusalem is this, that even in the heat of the summer, all through the dry season, Jerusalem is kept alive by dew every night. Because something I understood it, something to do with the counteraction of the heirs of Mount Hermon and the colder high peaks of the north with the lower mountains of Zion. [00:57:35] In some way or other, this produces a very, very heavy dew. And even in the hottest part of the year, that dew in the very, very early hours of the morning keeps everything alive all the way through. Do you know anything like that? [00:57:51] You'll never know what it is to dwell together in unity unless you have a continual experience of life in Christ. [00:58:01] There it is, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. [00:58:06] Oh, that's a wonderful thing. Then. And then lastly, Psalm 134. What would you say is the key to this psalm? [00:58:17] I would say worship or blessing. I don't know how, which way to put it. Worship or blessing, or worship and blessing. [00:58:30] That's the theme to this last little psalm of three verses. [00:58:35] And it's interesting that this is the psalm that closes the Songs of Ascend. [00:58:42] Will you notice that worship here is something to do with the night? [00:58:48] It says, all ye servants of the Lord that stand by night in the house of the Lord. [00:58:56] I think it's much easier to be on the day shift than the night shift, don't you? [00:59:04] Much, much easier to be on the day shift than the night shift. [00:59:07] The hardest thing of all is to be on the night shift. [00:59:10] And just when your time clock in your body is saying sleep, you start your night watch and go all through the night. [00:59:22] Now, worship is not something just natural. [00:59:26] In the end, the highest and deepest levels of worship are when God does something in us that means we can do what does not come naturally. [00:59:39] We stand by night. How much easier it would be to lie down and sleep. After all, we could say, doesn't the scripture say, he giveth his beloved sleep? [00:59:50] And doesn't it also Say it's vain for you to stay up late or to get up early. [00:59:57] There's a scripture for everything, you know. [01:00:01] There's a scripture for everything. If you want one, there it is. You can get it. It's there for you. [01:00:08] But worship is something here in this particular psalm that is connected with standing by night in the house of the Lord. These, in fact, were the courses of Levites and priests who stood all through the night in the house of the Lord watching and praising and praying. [01:00:28] Will you notice they lift up their hands when you're very weary. It's not so easy to lift up your hands. Of course, we sometimes lift up our hands just now and again. [01:00:39] But think of these. All through the night they lifted their hands. Of course, this is the Old Testament way of praying, was to lift up your hands. [01:00:48] You weren't really praying until you were lifting up your hand to the Lord. [01:00:53] And so they stood, their hands lifted up all through the night. Well, of course not. They couldn't have obviously stood with their hands up the whole night. But nevertheless, you've got a picture here of people who know something about worship, true worship. [01:01:11] There's a night sometimes that we have to endure. [01:01:16] And you know, worship is not. [01:01:20] It's most sweet to the Lord till we learn to worship in the night. Now, I'm not talking about the actual night, literal night, although sometimes it could mean that. But I'm talking about a spiritual night. [01:01:34] When we learn in the dark parts of our experience, when we learn in the sort of night time that we have in experience to worship the Lord. There's true worship. Lift up your hands to the sanctuary or in the house, in the sanctuary and bless ye the Lord. [01:01:56] And why did I say worship and blessing? [01:02:00] Why does These Psalms, these 15 Psalms end with worship? [01:02:05] Because worship in the end, the most full and ultimate experience of all. [01:02:17] We were made to worship. [01:02:21] And in the end, when all God's work has been done, we shall worship and worship and worship. [01:02:30] There's nothing like the joy of true worship. Nothing like the. [01:02:35] The satisfaction, genuine satisfaction that comes through true worship, worship. [01:02:42] But then you become a blessing to others. And that's how the psalm ends. The Lord blessed you out of Zion. These people in standing before the Lord through the night in the house of the Lord. Here they are, the house of the Lord. They've seen the purpose of God. They're in the purpose of God. They're wholly committed. Now they've gone even beyond the building. [01:03:04] Now they're going on to those sacrifices of praise that this priesthood this holy priesthood is offering up to the Lord. As the apostle Peter says. They're not only the house that's built, but they're the priesthood that are offering up the praises to the Lord. Here they are. They've known what it is to be one in the Lord, to dwell together in unity. And finally, the last picture is this, that in worshipping the Lord, the they learn to become a blessing to others. [01:03:31] The Lord blessed thee out of Zion. [01:03:39] The Lord blessed thee out of Zion. Even he that made heaven and earth the whole universe blessed by the one who made it. What a queer idea sometimes we get when we think that the reason why the Lord is forming his church is for some kind of introspective inverted thing, that we're just to be turned in, as it were. Not at all. On the one hand, we learn to worship the Lord and praise him and glorify him and exalt together in Him. But in so doing we become in ourselves the means and instrument of blessing to the ends of the earth. [01:04:21] Why has the Lord chosen Zion not as something in itself, but that it might become his means of blessing the whole earth? [01:04:32] May the Lord help us. One day when the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven, having the glory of God, there will be a blessing that will go to the ends of the universe all the nations will walk into in the light of it. There will be a blessing that will stream out of it, radiate out of Zion the habitation of the Lord. And that habitation is nothing other than you and me built together in him. [01:05:07] Shall we pray? [01:05:16] O Lord, make these five little psalms precious to us. [01:05:20] We pray that we may learn from them. [01:05:23] Surely, Lord, every one of us wants to go right on with Thee. We want to press on with Thee, Lord. [01:05:29] We know that there are many things that would trip us up, that would somehow divert us, sidetrack us. [01:05:36] But Lord, we praise Thee that thou art able in Thine own wonderful and marvelous way to take us on. Help us to learn then the lesson of each of these psalms. [01:05:49] Write it in our hearts, Lord. Cause it to dwell there richly in all wisdom. And we shall give to Thee all the praise and the worship. [01:06:00] In the name of our Lord Jesus was. [01:06:10] From the.