Bible Devotion - 9/13/2021

September 15th, 2021

A Psalm of Great HELP!

One of the most powerful, strongest, yet despondent words in all the English language is the four-letter word H-E-L-P. It is the ultimate admission that a position of humility has finally been attained. Why? Because only the humble, not the proud, only the broken, not the arrogant, dare to use this word.

Help! - it is the cry of a college student who sits down to take his final exam, only to discover he has studied the wrong chapters.

Help! - it is the cry of a man sitting at a table surrounded by a stack of unpaid bills, hungry children, and an empty bank account with no job in sight.

Help! - it is the cry of a woman who has poured her life into family and home for twenty-five years only to have the husband she adores walk in and say, "I'm leaving. I have met someone else, and I don't love you anymore."

Help! - it is the cry of a teenage boy whose self esteem is found in a drug-induced stupor and whose best friends are a hypodermic needle and strong nostrils.

Have you ever been in a position where you needed help? More than that, have you ever been in a position where the only one who could possibly help you was God?

There is an old familiar story about a man who was walking along the edge of a cliff and he fell over. About a third of the way down the cliff he reached out and grabbed this vine that was growing out of the side of the rock. He was hanging there dangling thousands of feet from death, and he began to cry out, "Help! help! help! Somebody help me!" All of a sudden a deep voice was heard from heaven that said, "My son, I will help you." The man said, "Oh dear God, I am so glad to hear your voice. I'm so grateful that you will help me. Please get me out of this predicament." Then God said, "I will if you will do exactly what I ask you to do." The man replied desperately, "Oh God, I will do anything you ask me. Just get me out of this mess." God answered, "Let go of the vine." The man excitedly said, "What?" God repeated, "Let go of the vine." Panicked, the man responded, "You've got to be kidding." Then God said, "If you want me to save you, let go of that vine." The man pondered in deep thought for a moment, looked up into the heavens, and pleadingly asked, "Is there anybody else up there?"

I want to say to you that if you are in a position where your only help and your only hope is God, don't be discouraged, be encouraged. Because God has you right where He wants you!

In Psalms 121, the Psalmist was in dire need of help. Evidently, he was in such a position and a predicament that there was no other place to turn but God. And out of this experience God taught the Psalmist three lessons that he shares with us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; three lessons that I do not believe he ever forgot.

Here they are….
1. THE LORD IS OUR PROVIDER:

The Psalmist had done what all of us tend to do when we are in trouble. He had looked every place but the right place. He had tried everything but the right thing. He has asked every person but the right person. He had found every avenue a dead-end street.

Psalm 121:1-2 "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth."

The answer to the problems that we face in our personal life, family life, the answers to the problems that we face in our homes, churches, and our government, are not going to be found in the hills of humanistic living, nor in the halls of higher learning, but in the heaven of a holy Lord. The prophet Jeremiah had already warned the nation:

Jeremiah 3:23 "Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel."

When we feel the ground literally shaking beneath our feet, God will give us exactly the three things that all of us need to overcome. The first one is....

A). Security (vs. 2) - My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. Can you think of anyone you would rather have as your helper than the God who created this universe? I'm talking about the God who is higher than the hills, mightier than the mountains, above all the armies, greater than all the generals of this earth. I'm talking about the God who created this world with a word, and one day will cremate this world with a whisper. I am talking about the God of whom we are told in Proverbs 26:10 that he is, "The great God that formed all things..."

You see, the God who created this world controls this world, and can do anything in this world, through this world, for this world, or with this world He chooses to do.

Psalm 115:3 "But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased."

God is our help in time of trouble. God is our hope in time of tragedy.

If we only realized how powerful our great God is, when we come to those times when God is the only help we have, we would realize that God is the only help we need.

The next thing we all need to overcome trials is...

B). Stability (vs. 3a) - Psalm 121:3 "He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:"

Every now and then the adversities of life may land a round house right flush on your chin. You may stagger, but you will not fall because it is God who will not allow your foot to be moved. The word to be moved literally means "to slip."

There is a wonderful promise found in Proverbs 3:25-26, "Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken."

The feet that are standing on the solid rock of ages can neither slip nor stumble. When others are falling like flies, the man of God who stands on the Word of God, will not, and cannot fall.

But there is a third thing he gives us and that is...

C). Serenity (vs. 3b-4) - Psalm 121:3b-4 "....he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."

Now no human parent can watch their children twenty-four hours a day, but God does. Have you ever heard the old saying, "Out of sight, out of mind?" Well, you are never out of His sight and you are never off His mind.

You see, God is on watch twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, 365 days in every year. The reason why you should be able to go to sleep at night is because He doesn't. When David was being pursued by his own son, and there was a "Wanted Dead" poster on him, and he was to be shot on sight, he said in Psalm 4:8, "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety."

Back in the days of World War II when the Germans were bombing London all night, every night, after a particularly devastating run on a certain city the citizens began to search among the ruins for the dead and the dying and the missing. There was a Godly old grandmother they could not find, and they looked everywhere. Then someone finally found her soundly asleep in her little bedroom.

They came in and said, "Why Mrs. Smith, how could you sleep with all of that bombing going on?" She said, "Well, it says in the Bible 'He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.' So I figured there was no need for both of us to stay up all night and so I went to bed.'"

So when you reach those times in your life when the earth beneath is shaking remember that first of all....The Lord is Our Provider.

But secondly note that....

2. THE LORD IS OUR PROTECTOR (vs 5):

Psalm 121:5 "The LORD is thy keeper:"

Several times in these verses we read the word "keep." In fact, this word is used six different times in this one psalm. Three times it’s translated “keepeth” and 3 times it’s translated “preserve”. But It literally means "to protect" or "to guard." Not only is the Lord our provider, but the Lord is our protector. How does he protect us?

A). He Is Our Shield

Psalm 121:5 "The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand."

We are told specifically that the Lord stands at our right hand. Now why the right hand?

In ancient days a soldier had two primary weapons. He had a shield and he had a sword. But his most valued weapon was the shield because that was his only defense and the shield was always held in the left hand. So the most vulnerable part of a soldier was his right side. And guess what? That is exactly where God always stands, at our most vulnerable point. The Lord always puts His strength at our greatest point of weakness. He deliberately takes up a position so he can defend us no matter where an attack may come from. It may come from a definite foe like a Samsom. It may come from a deceitful friend like a Judas. But regardless of where it comes from we are promised that the Lord is our shield.

Psalm 84:11 reminds us that , "...the LORD God is a sun and shield:"
Psalm 18:30 says, "...he is a buckler to all those that trust in him."

A buckler is a shield or a defense. So God protects us by being our shield.

But it also says...

B). He Is Our Shade

Psalm 121:5-6 "The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night."

The trials that we go through so often are fiery trials. It sometimes gets hot in the kitchen of life. But God never puts you in the kitchen where you cannot stand the heat. You see, God is our shade. He protects us from the burning heat and the blinding light of fiery trials.

Verse 6 goes on to tell us, "The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night."

That simply means in both daytime and dark, God protects us. In both the bright light of the sun and the night light of the moon, the Lord is our shade and our shield that protects us from both heat and hurt. There is no need to sweat, shiver, or shake. God will take care of his own.

Paul Harvey told one time a remarkably fascinating true story from World War II about a B29 that took off from the Island of Guam for Kokura, Japan on a bombing mission. When it got to its primary target it circled above a gigantic cloud that covered that target for half an hour, then three quarters of an hour, and then fifty-five minutes until the gas supply began to dwindle to a dangerous point.

They did not want to pass up the primary target, but they had no choice. So with one more look back they had to head for their secondary target where they unleashed their terrible bomb.

Weeks later an officer received information from military intelligence that sent chill bumps down his spine. Thousands of allied prisoners of war, the biggest concentration of Americans in enemy hands, had been moved to Kokura a week before the suspended bombing.

That city, which they were to bomb, was a prison camp. Had they bombed it thousands of Americans would have died except for that single solitary cloud that shaded both the sun and the plane from its target.

What is even more fascinating is this: The secondary target that day was Nagasaki and the missile was the world's second atomic bomb.

I tell you that Satan and this world seeks to drop their fiery bomb of doubt, discouragement, depression, despair, and disappointment upon the people of God. But God is our shade and God is our shield, and we are promised God's wonderful protection.

We have seen that the Lord Is Our Provider, He Is Our Protector, but the Psalmist also tell us that....

3. THE LORD IS OUR PRESERVER:

Psalm 121:7-8 "The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore."

Now the word translated "preserve" is the same Hebrew word used for the word keep. But it is still a good alternative translation. Because God does more than just protect us, He preserves us. We need him to do both! You see, protection is not the same thing as prevention.

The secret service have an extremely difficult job of protecting the President. But even the secret service cannot prevent a heckler from standing up during one of the President's speech and shouting out derogatory remarks toward the President.

And no amount of effort can always prevent an assassination attempt on a President's life. And likewise, God does not always prevent us from trouble, but He does promise to protect us in trouble, and preserve us through trouble.

In fact, the bible says that....

A). He Preserves Us From All Evil

Psalm 121:7 "The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul."

Now the word evil here in the Hebrew language does not refer to evil that is done to us. It refers rather to evil that is done by us. God promises us that if we will follow Him, love Him, serve Him, and obey Him, He will not lead us into temptation, but He will deliver us from evil.

But the bible says that he will also....

B). Preserves Us For All Eternity (7b-8)

Psalm 121:7b-8 ".....he shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore."

That is one of the greatest one-sentence statements of eternal security found in the Word of God. From the very moment that a person is saved and born into the kingdom of God, throughout all eternity, God promises to preserve and protect his soul.

Some of our brethren believe that they are not fully saved until they get to heaven. They have the idea that we are in a race with the Devil and he is chasing us and we have to run through the door of heaven before he “gets us". And then we can say, "Whew! made it, and now I can never fall from grace."

Well I've got some news for you. Those of you who think you can lose your salvation and fall from grace, and think that you are not totally secure until you get to heaven, did you know that the Devil fell from heaven? My dear friend, if you are not secure down here, you won't be secure up there. Somebody says, "Well what about those times when I am not faithful to God?" Let me give you some good news. Even when you are not faithful to God, He is always faithful to you. It is His faithfulness that matters.

2 Timothy 2:13 "If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself."

I want to tell you that our God will not only be faithful to the end, He will be faithful beyond the end. When you feel as if you are at the end of your rope, you've come to a dead-end in the journey, you cannot take another step, you remember who your hope is, and where your help is.

A few years ago a man left England and came to America. He was an Englishman but he became an American citizen. After a few years he decided to go to Cuba to see if he could find his fortune. After he had been in Cuba a little while civil war broke out there. This was in 1867. This man somehow was accidentally arrested by the Spanish government as a spy, though he was not a spy. He was tried by court martial, found guilty and ordered to be shot.

The entire trial was conducted in Spanish, and the poor man, not understanding Spanish, had no idea what was going on. When they told him the verdict that he had been found guilty of espionage and condemned to die, he sent for the American Consul and the English Consul and laid the whole case before them, proving his innocence and asked them to protect him.

After examining the case they found that this man whom the Spanish officers had condemned to be shot was perfectly innocent. So they went to the Spanish general and they said, "This man whom you have condemned to death is an innocent man. We demand he be released."

But the Spanish general said, "He has been tried by our law. He has been found guilty and he must die." This was back in the days when there was no electric cable, no modern communication system whatsoever. These men could not consult with their governments.

Well, the morning came on which this man was to be executed. He was brought out sitting on his own coffin in a cart and taken to the place where he was to be shot. A grave was dug. They took the coffin out of that cart, placed the young man upon it, took a black cap and pulled it down over his face, and he was awaiting the order for those Spanish soldiers to fire.

But about that time the American and English Consuls rode up. The English Consul sprang out of that carriage and took the Union Jack, the flag of Great Britain, and wrapped it around that man, and the American Consul jumped out, ran up to him and wrapped Old Glory around him, and then turning to the Spanish officers they said, "Fire upon those flags if you dare."

They lowered their guns and refused to fire because they knew that behind those flags were the two most powerful governments on earth.

I want to tell you today God has wrapped us in the flags of his grace and his love. When friends abandon you, remember God is your Provider. When foes attack you, remember God is your Protector. When fears assail you, remember God is your Preserver.

Bro. Jeff