Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set
him on high, because he hath known my name (Psalm 91:14).
We read so often throughout scripture that the Lord will reward every man
according to his doings. Now there’s a great difference between a reward and
something you have purchased or merited. If you were able to do something that
had any merit to it then that is not a reward, but that is something you have
coming by right. A reward is something you have no right to but it is something
that has pleased the rewarder and therefore he rewards you even though you had
no right.
Now I want you to take notice of the word because in the beginning of our text.
The Lord is rewarding that which pleased Him—and what was it—having set our love
upon God. Now we can set our love upon God without merit because our best
righteousness are filthy rags in His sight as far as any merit is concerned.
However, the Lord is so pleased when the Lord Jesus Christ is our first love.
Take notice what it says in verse 15: “He shall call upon me, and I will answer
him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.”
See, the Lord is so pleased to see when our first love is the Lord Jesus Christ,
when our first love is the Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Now, it is a great blessing when we may be privileged to have a divine testimony
in the inspired Word that may be applied to our heart as we find in the previous
verses.
We read in verses 13 and 14: “Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the
young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his
love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he
hath known my name.”
Verse 11 says: “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in
all thy ways.”
Now I want you to turn back to verses 4 and 5: “He shall cover thee with his
feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield
and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow
that flieth by day.”
If the Lord comes with His Holy Spirit and the inspired testimony of the author
of that psalm is applied to your heart, it is a great blessing. Now I want you
to see here in Psalm 91:2: “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my
fortress: my God; in him will I trust.”
We have the testimony of the author of that psalm as a witness as the Spirit
applies it in our hearts that we may derive great comfort from.
Continuing in verse 3 we read: “Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of
the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.”
We can receive tremendous consolation from these promises. The inspired Word is
a divine testimony of those who have gone before us.
Let's take notice, though, of the words of our text, and we that there is a
change of speaker here Now we are not talking about the words of the psalmist,
we are talking about the words of God Himself. Now we are seeing the words of
the Speaker. The Lord Himself is speaking in His own name!
This is the Lord speaking: “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will
I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name” (Psalm
91:14). That is the word of the Almighty. Now think of the preciousness and the
blessedness when the Holy Spirit comes and speaks in our soul, Thus saith the
Lord. Now He is speaking to us personally, not only the divine testimony of one
who has gone before us, but now it comes with the power of the Holy Spirit and
it is the word of God spoken to you personally.
Beloved, it is a great blessing in time of trouble or calamity to have the
company of a faithful or compassionate friend. Have you ever noticed, when you
are going through a tremendous trial, and it seems like everyone has turned his
back on you and has forsaken you, but you have one friend who will be a
counselor to you and will share your grief?
Such friends are a gracious gift of God. Now you see what love is bestowed upon
you at such a time. This is such personal love because there is a sharing of
calamities, infirmities and weaknesses. You may be in a circumstance where you
are being overpowered and overrun, that you have no might against it. Yet the
Lord sends a friend who may be His instrument to put that enemy to flight.
All through this psalm, it talks about how we come under that protecting shadow
of the wing of God. Now, I want you to see this: How that we have such a person
that understands all of our problems. They understand our complaint. They
understand our calamity, and they become so close. Such friends, even though
they are a gracious gift of God, at times cannot help us, as we see with
Hezekiah.
The Lord is gracious in granting such a friend. We also see that the Lord sets
his love upon us. The Lord wants to be first place. He wants our love not to be
set on that friend. That friend comes to a place where he cannot help. Do you
know why? The Lord wants our heart to be set upon Him. He wants to be our first
love. He does not want us to make an idol of that friend.
Now I want you to see what happened to Hezekiah. We read in Isaiah 38:1: “In
those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz
came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order:
for thou shalt die, and not live.”
And then what happened? Verse 2 says: “Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the
wall, and prayed unto the LORD.” Do you understand what that means? Hezekiah had
to turn his back on every friend who had bestowed love on him. This message
brought him one to one with the Lord. Hezekiah had many friends. He had the
prophet Isaiah as a friend. Now his closest friends were no longer a source of
comfort.
When Hezekiah received the message, “Set thine house in order: for thou shalt
die, and not live,” as a basis for his first plea for mercy he pleaded his labor
of love. I want to explain to you something. To plead for the Lord’s mercy to
spare your life is different than pleading for the salvation of your soul.
In Isaiah 38:3 we read: “And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I
have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that
which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.”
Hezekiah was pleading the law of love, the love he had for God: loving God with
his heart, his soul and his mind. Now he was not pleading that as the basis of
his salvation, but he was pleading that as the basis of his deliverance from
this trial.
He is referring to that reward. Do you see the difference? There is a difference
between that and pleading for our salvation on the basis of merit. He was
pleading for the reward.
In Isaiah 38:14 we read: “Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did
mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed;
undertake for me.”
No friend could help anymore. It was one to one between him and the Lord.
Verse 15 says: “What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath
done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.”
He said this because Isaiah had told him: “The Lord will add fifteen years to
your life.” Now he saw the wonder of God in having heard his plea and how that
God had said he would recover.
Verse 16 says: “O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the
life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live.”
By what things? By these trials and struggles the Lord brings us through. God’s
dear people, even those who have set their love upon Him, will be in trouble,
yet there is a reward for setting our heart, for setting our love upon the Lord.
Hezekiah knew that God would not deliver him for any righteousness in himself,
in other words, for any merit, but he confessed his deliverance was on the basis
of pardoning grace. He remembered he was a sinner—and his deliverance was on the
basis of pardoning grace and for God’s glory. He was pleading that God would be
glorified thereby.
I want you to see Isaiah 38:17: “Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but
thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou
hast cast all my sins behind thy back.”
He was not pleading perfection. He was not pleading as though he had merited
anything by his walk of life, but he was pleading the reward.
Verse 18 says: “For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee:
they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.”
Do you see what he is praying? He is praying that the Lord might spare his life
that he might be an instrument for the Lord’s praise, that he might be an
instrument of his glory.
He was pleading the pardoning grace of God, and he was pleading that the Lord
would spare him that he might be an instrument of His praise.
Verse 19 says: “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day:
the father to the children shall make known thy truth.”
That was the basis of his plea. That is what we have to examine in our hearts.
Are we living as instruments of his glory? Are we living to the honor and the
glory of God? Is there a basis upon which we can plead that for his name’s sake
that He would deliver, that it would be for his honor?
From generation to generation that name of God should be praised because he has
set his love upon Him.
Hezekiah had set his love upon the Lord, and because he had walked according to
the will of God, he was able to plead the reward that the Lord would spare him
that his mouth might praise Him.
FOR OUR FIRST POINT, let’s consider our heart’s supreme love, “Because he hath
set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him.”
What is our first love? Is it the Lord, or is our love set upon the things of
this world?
FOR OUR SECOND POINT, let's consider the source from which this love flows, “I
will set him on high, because he hath known my name.”
That is the source of that love: the fact that we have known His name.
Our text shows how the Lord delights in those whose heart is set upon Him:
“Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set
him on high, because he hath known my name.”
There is no merit in our best righteousness, but the Lord is so pleased that our
heart is humble, when our heart is tender in his fear, when our heart’s desire
is to do his will.
Such love in the heart of God’s dear children draws out the heart of our
Heavenly Father. I want you to understand: It is a two-way street. The heart of
our Heavenly Father is drawn out to those who love His name. His love is drawn
out to those who love Him.
I want you to see how the Father is so pleased with those who fear Him. I have
explained before what it means to fear the Lord, that is, to hate evil, to hate
every evil way, to hate pride, to hate all things that are displeasing to the
Lord.
Now, I want to turn with you to Psalm 103:12-13: “As far as the east is from the
west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father
pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.”
He pities those who fear Him, those whose heart is tender for the will of God.
We read in verse 14: “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are
dust.”
He knows every evil thought of our heart. He knows all the sin of our heart. He
remembers that we are dust. He remembers we are not capable of being perfect,
but He looks at where our love is set.
Is our love set upon His will in the fear of God? Where is our first love?
I want to explain to you how this love is a two-way street. One time when my
little daughter was ill, and my love was drawn out to her. Now if everything is
going well, you might go a whole day and never think about that child. Yet, when
that child is in distress, when that child is at the point of eternity, right on
the brink of passing into death, then the heart of a father is so drawn out.
It was just in such a case I was standing at the side of the cradle of my little
child, and I did not expect her to live. Then the Lord spoke in my heart from
Psalter 278, which is from Psalm 103.
Those words came to me just like they were sung with the angels in heaven: “The
tender love a Father has for all His children dear. Such love the Lord bestows
on them who worship Him in fear.”
Now I understood how the love of the Father of heaven and earth was drawn out
for those who worship Him in fear. I was able to stand at the side of that bed
and say to the Lord that I did not deserve for Him to spare her. I had to
confess that I deserved for Him to take her away. He knew I was worshiping Him
in my heart in fear, with a holy reverence for His will. It was so precious to
see how His heart was equally drawn out not only for that little child, but also
for those who worship Him in fear.
We do not realize how pleased our Lord is when He is our first love, when our
heart is so united to Him and His will.
Several words in Hebrew are translated as “love.” The word love in Hebrew is
translated in one instance “to fondle—to have compassion upon,” in other words,
to have a child in your arms, to fondle that child, to hold that child, to love
it. Another one means, “to have affection for—either sexually or otherwise.”
The word love in our text comes from the Hebrew word chashaq (khaw-shak), which
means “to cling to—to join—to delight in.”
Now ponder it: our text says, because He has set his love upon me—in other
words, because I delight in God, because it is my delight to do His will,
therefore will I deliver him.
He is looking at the state of mind. He is looking at the priority of the heart.
It means to delight in, to join. In other words, He is talking about the
marriage union. He is talking about to cling unto, to cleave unto, that our
heart is not divided. It means that we are not serving God on the one hand and
serving the world on the other hand. It means that we have a delight in God,
that He is our first love.
It is the type of love spoken of in Psalm 112:1, which causes the heart of our
Saviour and His sheep to cling to each other: “Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is
the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.”
This is that delight that brings that bond, that unity, that oneness of Spirit.
This is the man the Lord is speaking of, the man who has set His love upon God.
See what our Saviour said of those whose hearts are set upon upon Him, those who
cling to Him with such love, and how it binds the hearts together in the bond of
unity.
In John 14:23 we read: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father
will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
I want you to see the bonding effect. I want you to see how it makes that
clinging together in oneness. This happens when our first love is such a delight
in the Lord, when it is to delight in His holy will.
The love spoken of in our text is not a mere mild sort of complacency, but it is
the burning coals of love in the heart desiring to know the Father’s will.
If you say your love is set upon Him, this is not a second fiddle in case
something else is not tickling your fancy. It is first place. It is that burning
coals of love, delighting to know His will. If we say we delight greatly in His
commandments, we will have a heart’s desire to know His will.
Of those who truly fear the Lord, God says, “he hath set his love upon me ...
because he hath known my name.” This is where our affections are set. This is
our first love.
In John 17:3 we read: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
Now, I have to ask? What does it mean to know His name? If this is such an
essential element, that it is life eternal, then how do I know? I cannot take it
for granted. I cannot take someone’s translation or interpretation of this for
granted. I must know. What does it mean to know the Lord? Does this mean that we
have read about Him in a book?
I want to give an illustration; I was raised with a man. My mother and his
mother were personal friends. We got married, and he got married. We visited
each other and spent evenings together. Did I know that man? No. Do you know
why? I had never had any dealings with him. It was not until I started having
dealings with that man that I found out whether his word was good. That is when
I began to find out whether his yea was yea and his nay was nay.
Hearing about the Lord does not mean that we know Him. We have to have had a
personal relationship with Him, and we have to have known what it is to receive
His promises. Then we find out that His word is good, and that what He has
promised He is able to perform, and not only able to perform but that He will do
it in the day of His good pleasure. Then we start having a relationship with
Him. Then we can start setting our love on Him because we have had dealings with
Him. We have had an intimate relationship with Him, and we have learned to know
Him by having done business with Him.
Then we can say: I cried and He answered me. I set my love upon Him, and He
delivered me. I can tell of times when the Lord has blessed me, when He has
heard my prayers, when He has delivered me. I have learned to know Him by the
intimate relationship I have had with Him.
The person God approves is one whose “love is set upon” God and His will—not on
self or the things of this life.
The man whose “love is set upon God” can well understand the words of the
Apostle Paul in Colossians 3:1: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those
things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.”
Are we risen with Christ unto a newness of life? Where is our heart set? Where
is our first love?
Continuing in verses 2 and 3 we read: “Set your affection on things above, not
on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in
God.”
What does it mean to be dead? This means we are dead to self, dead to sin, dead
to the world, dead to everything of the old man of sin. That is what it means to
set your love upon Him. Your affections are set on things above.
Our text says, “I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.” Is that
not precious: because he has known my name, because he has come into that
intimate relationship with God, because he has learned to know what it is to
have dealings with God.
The Apostle Paul spoke of this in verse 4: “When Christ, who is our life, shall
appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
We have known Him and have become like Him.
FOR OUR SECOND POINT, let’s consider the source from which this love flows, “I
will set him on high, because he hath known my name.”
Let’s consider the source from which this flows. This setting of God’s dear
children on high is not of anything in us. It is not of anything we have
merited. It is only because of God’s good pleasure. Our love is but the fruit of
God’s love for us.
I have set my love upon God because God loves me. He loved me first, and He
worked in me a new nature. He worked by the grace of His Spirit in my heart, and
He worked the work of sanctification in my soul. He worked that work of
regeneration and gave me new desires. He took away the enmity that was naturally
in my heart against God. When I was not able to keep the law of God, I was not
able by any means to do anything that pleased the Lord, the Lord came with His
Holy Spirit, and He worked in me to will and do of His good pleasure.
My love for God is only the fruit of His love for me. He loved me. He loved me
from all eternity. He loved me in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the
world, and now in His good time, He worked His grace in my soul, and I have
learned to love Him because He first loved me.
I want you to see in John 15:16: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,
and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit
should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may
give it you.”
This preaching about choosing Christ is not true. This was all of God’s
predestining love. It was because He loved me that He chose me, and ordained
that I should go forth and bring forth fruit. What is the fruit of the Spirit?
Galatians 5:22 tells us: Love, peace, joy, temperance. Are we missing that fruit
of the Spirit, which is love? If we are, then we cannot say that we love God. If
we say we love God and hate our brother, we are liars. This fruit should remain.
It is not just temporary.
This verse is saying that if you have a heart filled with bitterness, the Lord
will not give you what you ask. It would be a contradiction for Him to do so,
and in the Lord there is no contradiction. The Lord will not answer your prayer.
Look at Psalm 91:15: “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be
with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.”
Compare this with John 15:16: “That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my
name, he may give it you.” How? When that fruit of the Spirit, which is love
meekness, temperance, starts to come forward. Until that springs forth, we may
not come before the Lord and expect Him to answer our prayers.
His love is set upon me, and my love is set upon Him. It is all of grace. It is
all because the Lord loved me, and He chose me, and He gave me the fruits of the
Spirit.
In proportion as we are given faith to see God’s wrath upon sin in the atonement
of Christ, we will experience the Spirit’s constraint against the least
violation of God’s will.
As the Lord opens our understanding to see His love for us, as the Lord opens
our understanding to see His wrath upon sin, and how grievously sin displeases
Him, our heart’s desire will increase to do what pleases Him. Our heart’s love
will become set upon Him as we grow in the knowledge of His love upon us.
Colossians 3:3-7 says: “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in
God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with
him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth;
fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and
covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh
on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, when ye
lived in them.”
The children of disobedience, who walk in the things of the flesh, bring God’s
wrath upon themselves. The children of obedience, those whose love is set upon
God, bring His favor upon them. It is a wholly different thing to say we merit
something or to say that God’s favor has been brought upon us.
In the state of nature, before God works grace in our hearts, how often we have
to confess the uncleanness of our hearts. Oh how David pleaded before the Lord:
The sins of my youth remember not. As he grew in the knowledge of the Lord, as
he grew in the knowledge and the love of God, of what God had done for him, he
saw how grievous these sins were, these sins of his youth, when his heart was
filled with pride, and with inordinate affections, and with covetousness, and
with adultery. All these sins become so sinful.
Our text says, “I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.” Knowing
God’s name is to know Him as a sin-hating and sin-avenging God. God sends forth
His vengeance upon the children of disobedience, and He sends forth His love
upon the children of obedience.
This knowledge leads to a deep sense of one’s own personal corruption. The more
we see, and the more we receive the knowledge of God’s avenging hatred against
sin, the more we learn to see the corruption that is in our own hearts. It makes
sin exceedingly sinful and leads to a desire to serve Christ as king. It gives
us such a desire to do His will. It sets our love upon Him.
Therefore the Apostle Paul says in Colossians 3:8: “But now ye also put off all
these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your
mouth.”
You and I have these in our hearts by nature. As we examine our hearts from the
past, we see how often we have to look with shamed faces at what was in our
hearts in the way of bitterness toward our fellowman.
The Lord sends us a trial. He allows a certain person to do something, and our
heart starts to build with bitterness, and the end result is old Satan has won
the trial. You know what our trial of faith is? It is a trial of obedience. You
know what that is? Bless those who curse you. You know what that word bless
means? Speak well of them. How often do we speak well of those who are
slandering our name? How often do we try to set forth their name higher than
they put forth ours?
We read in verses 9 and 10: “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off
the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in
knowledge after the image of him that created him.”
When the Holy Spirit comes into our heart, and our love is set upon the Lord,
then we also have our love set upon our fellow man. Then we will not speak evil
of them even though they may be speaking evil of us. That is the trial of our
faith. That is the fiery trial that the Lord sends upon us as He allows these
people to do these things to us, to try us. Are we going to stand the test of
faith?
In the love of one who sees his transparency there is true gratitude,
admiration, a delightful submission to God’s will. I can see by faith how the
love of God is shed upon me, and I can see how He allowed His own Son to suffer
for my sins. I can see how my debt is so great by comparison to the little sin
that my brother has sinned against me. I see the size and the magnitude of the
debt that has been forgiven me. Now the debt I have with my brother becomes so
small.
Now I can see that my heart has to come into submission to the will of God. And
what is that? Forgive us our debts as we forgive. Do I want a clean slate? Do I
want my sin to be forgiven without reservations? Then I may not harbor any
malice against my brethren. I do not care what he did to me. It is a trifle
compared to what we have done to God.
A heart in holy submission to God’s will is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and
is therefore a house of prayer.
We read in Psalm 1:1-2: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of
the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he
meditate day and night.”
Why are they blessed? Our text says, “Because he hath set his love upon me,
therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my
name.”
I am not going to sit there and start bringing scorn upon my fellow man.
What did I say that word love means? It means to delight in the Lord, and his
delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law does he meditate day and night.
You see that meditating in the will of God, upon what would be pleasing to the
Lord. That is what causes us to cling together. That is the meaning of that word
love. Clinging together. That means delighting in each other. I think it is so
precious to see the harmony in the word of God when we start seeing how it
unfolds.
His meditation of the heart is what would be the will of God. That is not
legalism. Do you know what that is? That is salvation.
Our text says: Because he has set his love upon me. Because he has set his love
upon the Lord, therefore... I think that word therefore is so powerful. That is
the Lord’s deciding factor. Therefore, I will deliver him. I will set him on
high. What does it mean: I will set him on high? I want you to ponder this one.
Because he hath known my name.
He will not walk in the way of the ungodly, but the Lord says, I will set him on
high, and where do we see that?
In Psalm 1:3-5 we read: “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of
water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not
wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are
like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not
stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.”
Who are the godly? What is the difference between the godly and ungodly? Go back
to the law of love. Loving God with our heart, our soul and mind. That is the
godly. So who are the ungodly? Those who do not set their love upon God.
Is our walk of life immaterial? No. Do you have a religion that says that you
can go to heaven and it does not even preach repentance? That gospel comes right
out of the pit of hell. And I am sorry, it makes no difference who it is that
preaches it. He might be one of the most powerful preachers. He might be one of
the most renowned preachers, but if he is teaching a salvation without
repentance, without a person setting his love upon God, he is not preaching the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
When we are asked, as Peter was in John 21:15: “Lovest thou me more than these?”
can we answer with Peter as in verse 17, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou
knowest that I love thee”?
If we can answer with all our heart, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou
knowest that I love thee,” we must be constantly in prayer for the Lord to keep
us from pride, arrogance and every evil way.
Did you know there is such a thing as spiritual pride? Did you know that we can
become so proud of ourselves for being such Christians that we become an
abomination in the sight of God because of our pride? Did you know that you can
become proud of your humility? I saw a man one time who stood up to pray, and he
had a little faucet he could turn on and make his eyes run with water anytime he
wanted to. He would stand there, survey the audience, and make sure everyone was
standing at attention for him because now he was going to give a humble prayer.
That man was so filthy proud of his humility it stunk, not only before man but
before God.
When we come to where we know the love of God, we find that pride becomes such
an enemy in our hearts, because it is the natural thing for us after the fall.
Pride is what brought about the fall. Pride is what brought about rebellion.
That ugly monster I wants to stick up its ugly head, even in times when we come
into our most humble place before the Lord
I want you to see the caution we have in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4: “Moreover,
brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were
under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto
Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And
did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock
that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”
In other words, they were in the church. They were in the fellowship of the
church.
Continuing in verse 5 we read: “But with many of them God was not well pleased:
for they were overthrown in the wilderness.”
Oh that horrible word but. Why was He not pleased? Their love was not set upon
Him. That is why.
We read in verses 6 to 9: “Now these things were our examples, to the intent we
should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters,
as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink,
and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them
committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt
Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.”
What an admonition we have there for the church of God, for those who name the
name of Jesus Christ, for those who profess to be the believers of the church.
Verse 10 says: “Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were
destroyed of the destroyer.”
Did you ever know that that is a very dangerous thing? You and I have such a
tendency in our hearts to complain about what others do to us. They did not do
anything. They were just instruments of God. The Lord uses His instruments to
humble you and me before Him. The Lord sent His instruments, and He sent His
devices to prove us. Then we become bitter and start to murmur.
We read in verse 11: “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and
they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”
All of these things happened to the children of Israel in the wilderness for
examples, and they are written for our admonition to test us whether our love is
truly set upon the Lord.
Verse 12 says: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he
fall.” That is a tremendous admonition.
All of God’s family are tempted with these temptations, but the trial of our
faith is a trial of obedience as we see in the next verse. Are we able, and are
we willing, and is it our desire when the Lord sends these trials to bless those
who curse us. Is that the desire of our hearts? The Lord knows our hearts, and
that is what He is looking at. Is our love set upon Him?
Verse 13 says: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man:
but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are
able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be
able to bear it.”
The Lord will never allow you to have a temptation that is impossible to
overcome. We will have a way out. We will not be put in positions where we are
unable to resist it. Those temptations, those trials of our faith may become
severe, but the test is a test of faith, and any trial of our faith is a trial
of obedience.
We must daily obey our Saviour’s command that we find in Matthew 6:6: “But thou,
when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall
reward thee openly.”
Just as with Hezekiah, it is a matter of coming one to one with the Lord. We are
to enter our closet and not to pray to be seen of men so we can have an audience
to show how wonderful we can lay out our words. That is not what the Lord wants.
The Lord wants you by yourself, in seclusion, so it is just one to one between
you and the Lord. That is where we must pour out our hearts before the Lord.
That is what the Lord wants. He wants it to be personal between you and Him.
Our text in its context reveals how blessedly God’s love is proved to those who
set their love upon their Lord.
We read in Psalm 91:1-5: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my
refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver
thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall
cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth
shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by
night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.”
We know that the Lord has set His love upon us because He delivers us, because
He answers our prayers. He comes according to His precious promises that we see
in His word.
Continuing in verses 6 to 15 we read: “Nor for the pestilence that walketh in
darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall
at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh
thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy
habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh
thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all
thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot
against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and
the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon me,
therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my
name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in
trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.”
That is our evidence. That is our proof that the Lord has heard our prayers.
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