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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] A very short word of prayer. Just bow a short word of prayer.
[00:00:07] Lord, we bow in thy presence. We thank thee for thy word. And we praise thee that the Holy Spirit is here to lead us into all the truth. And we commit ourselves, speaker and hearer alike, to thee. And we pray that here and wherever else thy people are found thou, Lord, wilt speak in a living, authoritative way into our hearts. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
[00:00:37] You would turn with me to the 42nd psalm. The 42nd psalm.
[00:00:48] As the harpeters after the waterbrooks, so penteth my soul after thee. O God, my soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night while they continually say unto me, where is thy God? These things I remember and pour out my soul within me. How I went with the throng and led them to the house of God. With the voice of joy and praise a multitude keeping holy day. Why art thou cast down, o my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore do I remember thee from the land of the Jordan and the hermons from the hill Mysar deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterfalls. All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime and in the night his song shall be with me. Even a prayer unto the God of my life. I will say unto God, my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning? Because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones mine adversaries reproach me. While they continually say unto me, where is thy God? Why art thou cast down, o my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him who is the help of my countenance and my God.
[00:02:37] I want this morning to bring a message to you in the time that we have that is centered in this psalm and in another verse in Isaiah, chapter 54. In fact, I think this psalm is an illustration of the word in Isaiah 54, verse eleven.
[00:03:05] O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted. Behold, I will set thy stones in fair colours and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy pinnacles of rubies and thy gates of carbuncles. And all thy border of precious stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, o disciples of the Lord. And great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established, thou shalt be far from oppression, for thou shalt not fear and from terror, for it shall not come near thee. Behold, they may gather together, but not by me. Whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall because of thee.
[00:03:56] This 42nd psalm is a very interesting psalm because normally we are always told that we can praise the Lord.
[00:04:08] And indeed, when sometimes we see some of our rather long faces, I am sure that we have no excuse. If we want to rejoice, we can rejoice. There is much to rejoice about. If we want peace, we can have peace. If we want joy, we can have joy. These things are for us, provided for us, and all we have to do is to take them. Nevertheless. I am not, of course, talking about that kind of tendency amongst some people to glory in a wrong way, in a miserable way in their troubles, but in the life of, of every true servant of God. And I'm thinking of us all as servants of God. There must come sometime or another, a period longer or shorter, when it really is impossible to praise.
[00:05:11] And here we have the experience of the psalmist. It was not sin that robbed him of praise.
[00:05:22] In fact, if you read through the psalm, you will see that it is not sin and it is not error and it is not failure. He has been one who has led the multitude, the throng to the house of God. He is one whose heart is absolutely devoted to the law. You have only to read through the psalm and you will find that this is a man who knows the Lord, whose life is centered upon the Lord, whose heart is utterly committed to the Lord.
[00:06:00] You will see, therefore, that it lies within the path of God's will that this one, the servant of the Lord, came into a deep, deep and trying experience where from what we gather, it seems that the Lord had forsaken him.
[00:06:25] If you look carefully, you will see that his enemies, they said to him, where is your God? Evidently it was so blatantly apparent that God had forsaken him. There was no evidence that the Lord was with him. There was no blessings, there was no provision.
[00:06:47] The servant of the Lord had gone into a terrible experience, a barrenness of something that he can only describe as a desert. As the heart panter after the water brook, so panteth my soul after thee, o God, my soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before the Lord? The psalmist's experience is that the Lord seems to be far off. The Lord has hidden himself. Somehow or other, he has withdrawn himself and left this dear child of God, this dear servant of the Lord, in a terrible trial by fire. He is in what doctor death used to call the crucible, the fiery crucible of experience.
[00:07:46] Here he was in the crucible of affliction. And he says, deep, calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterfalls. All thy waves and billows are gone over me. He attributes it all to the Lord. Thy waves, thy billows have gone over me. He sees it all as coming from the hand of God, all because he is being absolutely faithful to God. Therefore he can call the waves and the billows that are overwhelming him. Thy waves and thy billows. And he is unable to praise the Lord. What a position.
[00:08:28] Yet he does the next best thing. He tells his soul to hope in God, for I shall yet praise him.
[00:08:36] This is the deepest form of praise that God could ever require from one of his children.
[00:08:46] I shall yet praise him in that the psalmist praised the Lord more truly than many people who lightly and superficially praise the Lord. Now I'm not this morning for one moment trying to stop us from praising the Lord with our lips audibly, because there's far too little praise and worship amongst God's children. But I do want to speak for just a little while this morning upon the principle of travail.
[00:09:22] The principle of travail. Now I want you to turn to Isaiah 50 411.
[00:09:32] I want, first of all, I want you to look at the condition of God's servant. And I want you to think of yourself as a servant of the Lord. And if you haven't started to serve the Lord, I pray that you may soon start to serve the Lord, because you are really a servant of God. Every one of us are servants of the Lord. Now look at this condition of the servant. Verse eleven. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted. Afflicted. This is the condition of God's servant. At present he is afflicted. If you have any question about whether this is someone who is fallen away from the Lord, someone that is described in another chapter as being like the restless sea because of his wickedness, I want you to turn to verse 17, and you will see here that it says, no weapon that is formed against thee, the same man, the one who is afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted, no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper on every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment. Thou shalt condemn this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.
[00:10:56] Here then is the servant of the Lord and his condition is one of affliction, one of being tossed with tempest and one of being not comforted. First of all, he's afflicted. This is a very interesting word. It means he's lowered, he is humbled. He is hedged in. He, instead of being in the position of one who has absolutely everything at his fingertips, he's got everything under control. He is now lowered and humbled. He seems to be at the mercy of the elements. He seems to be at the mercy of his circumstances. Indeed, it would seem he is at the mercy of Satan himself for a little while. It's as if God has handed him over to Satan so that Satan may buffet him and may almost destroy him. His condition is one of affliction. If you turn to psalm 102 and the title of the psalm you will find here you have a little commentary on it. A prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed.
[00:12:10] A prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed. That's the same way word here is the servant of the Lord and he is afflicted. How is he afflicted? Well, he may be afflicted with problems, deep problems. I don't mean those little ones that some people make such a song and dance about, but real problems.
[00:12:35] Maybe his affliction is in the nature of circumstances. Maybe he has difficulties in his circumstances.
[00:12:44] Maybe it's a thorn that has been given to him in his flesh. This is a messenger of Satan. Some mysterious satanic agency sovereignly given to him by God to lower him, to humble him, to bring him down and keep him down continually. Here then is the condition of the servant. If you turn to Zephaniah and chapter three and verse twelve, we find the prophet says, the Lord says to the prophet, but I will leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people and they shall take refuge in the name of the Lord. Here then is the same word, an afflicted and poor people and they shall take refuge in the name of the Lord. This, the condition God's servant here described is one of being hedged in and broken up so that he has only one refuge, the name of the Lord. He has no resources in himself. He has nothing within that he can depend upon. And then again, I want you to note we have to move on quickly, although we could spend longer on some of these phrases.
[00:14:08] He is tossed with tempest.
[00:14:11] He is tossed with tempest. And again, it's a very, very interesting word because it really means he's wrapped about with the tempest. The tempest is, as it were, just simply enveloping him. It is all around and all over. He is lost within a tempest, tossed with it. Now, the picture is one of a boat in a tempestuous sea. When the waves come over and over. And when times the ship is lost in the tempest altogether. Here then, is the picture of God's servant. He is being swept about, swept about, and there is much conflict and much storm. And then, and this is the most remarkable thing of all, the condition that God's servant is. Not only that he's afflicted and tossed with tempers that we can all understand.
[00:15:16] For we are living in an evil world. And we can understand that Satan might make it difficult for us. But the third thing is this. He is not comforted.
[00:15:29] And this is the hardest thing of all for a child of God or a servant of God to experience, to go through affliction, to go through, attempt a storm and not be comforted. No word from the Lord, no outward support, no consciousness of the presence of the Lord, left absolutely as if he was alone, not comforted. Now, the Lord is absolutely clear here. He says, o thou afflicted, tossed with tempers and not comforted. The Lord knows exactly what he's doing. He says himself, you're not comforted. He's not spoken. He has not come near.
[00:16:17] He has deliberately allowed the elements, as it were, to submerge this servant of the Lord.
[00:16:28] This word comforted is very interesting. Interesting. It means to sigh with how we love someone, to sigh with us when we're in trouble. How descriptive the Hebrew is. We want someone to come, say we are.
[00:16:45] And how nice it is to someone else to come.
[00:16:49] Someone's going to sigh with you, someone sit beside you and commiserate with you and say how terrible it all really is, the way you're going through. And in, just listening to you pouring out everything and all your woes and your troubles, you feel suddenly lifted up. Someone has sighed with you.
[00:17:10] Someone has come alongside and just taken your place. But the condition of this servant of the Lord is that there is no one to sigh with him, not even the Lord.
[00:17:24] There is no comfort. There is no word at all from the Lord. Now, what is this all about?
[00:17:36] This kind of suffering, this kind of travail, belongs to those who really are in the heart of God's work.
[00:17:50] It cannot be understood by those who are babes in Christ.
[00:17:55] And it cannot be understood by those who are growing up but still adolescent.
[00:18:03] This is something that belongs to spiritual adulthood, spiritual maturity.
[00:18:11] It is something that belongs to the very heart and the centre of God's word.
[00:18:19] If you turn with me to Timothy and chapter two and verse three, it says, suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Jesus of Christ. Jesus. Here is Paul's advice as a servant of the Lord to another servant of the Lord, upon whom, when Paul was just about to go, upon whom all the great responsibility was suddenly to come, suffer hardship with me. Away with this idea of so many comforts, of so much mollycoddling, of the Lord being at your beck and call, suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And then if you turn back to Philippians and chapter three and verse ten, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. The fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. Now Paul says a little further on, verse 15. Let us therefore, as many as are mature or full grown, perfect, be thus minded. He says, if we understand these things, we are grown up.
[00:19:47] We are spiritually adult.
[00:19:51] Now. The Lord is exceedingly gracious, is he not, when we're in a trial and when we're in, when we're young in the Lord, how near the Lord is. I remember when I was first, say, the visions and the dreams and the voices I had when I was first saved. I lived in a pagan home. I would never have come through if the Lord hadn't been beside me and kept me and then my sister after me in that pagan, anti christian home. It was because the Lord was nearby, whispering, speaking in all kinds of vivid ways. And so, as one has gone on with the Lord, one has discovered the Lord is so gracious, how gracious he is to you, how when you're in a trial, the Lord will speak to you. He will bring a word to you that will just lift you up out of the trial and give you a new look at everything. You can go on because God has spoken to you, or perhaps some friend will suddenly come to you. The Lord's book. It's a comfort. It's a comfort.
[00:20:54] But, my dear friends, at the heart of God's work, there have to be those that the Lord can trust without any comfort, people who are absolutely rock like and who can go through without any word from the Lord, without any comfort from the Lord, without any blessings from the Lord, without any feelings from the Lord. I feel so worried at times when I hear people say, I feel this. I feel that I need, I need, I need. What is it you are expecting?
[00:21:25] Because when you and I grow up spiritually, my dear friends, we are going to be in the front line of a terrible, bloody battle more and more and more. So we have got to learn to be soldier.
[00:21:41] There are things for the nursery. There are little toys, there are dummies, there are beads. There are all kinds of things for the nursery. God has them in abundance and he scatters them lovingly around his little children. We've all got men. We need them. It's not wrong. And I remember, I think I ought to say this. We hadn't given this kind of word for a long time for fear that you all might feel it so heavy and so on. But you see, there is a place for the nursery. There's a place for the kindergarten.
[00:22:15] There's a place where you have lessons, but they're all so sweet.
[00:22:20] I remember our old kindergarten teacher going out and cutting the flowers and taking us children with her, gathered round her skirts. And then she didn't went. Oh, it was all so lovely. I think those were lovely days. We came back and pressed flowers in books and watched newts and tadpoles in jars. And all those carefree days, how we were first instructed, a. A great big apple. And a. And teacher kept on saying, a for apple.
[00:22:52] A for apple. And, you know, God does this with us. There's a kindergarten. And he comes to us again. He gazes away and he says, a for apple.
[00:23:02] He has these wonderful ways of instructing us and teaching us in his way. But, you know, there must come a time when we've gone as it turns to a spiritual college. There must come a time when suddenly the whole weight of responsibility in the work of God comes onto our shoulders. And for the first time, we're right in the front line. And in the front line there's no place for nappy canteens or little sort of knitting circles or anything else like that. It's blood and fire and sweat and the possibility of death on every side. And this is the kind of person the Lord is looking for. Where are they?
[00:23:43] Where are they? We have gone back to the generation which is perpetually seeking for signs all the time wanting for something. Something, something. God is a God who hides himself, said Isaiah, the prophet. He is one who sometimes when we are old, we can be let go. Now, my friends, I know a little of this. Even here in this house. I mean, we all know it, don't we? There are people that we can't leave.
[00:24:11] There are people. You've often heard it said oh, I ought to write so and so a letter. And then you say, I'm too busy. It doesn't matter. That person can understand.
[00:24:22] They will go through thick and thin.
[00:24:27] You see, they're growing up.
[00:24:29] But those that we've always got to watch our P's and Q's with, you know, we've all got to be very careful with all the times. They've got to comfort and encourage and draw out. They need attention, they need care. You see, this is the kind. It's as if the Lord is saying, now, who can I put into the front line?
[00:24:48] Who can I put in the front line now the sister so and so. No, put her in the front line. She traps the first hour.
[00:24:57] Brother so and so. Can I put him in the front line? No, no. He wouldn't know what had hit him. If I put him in the front line. No, you see, this is absolutely true. Absolutely true. There are people who don't know. They wouldn't know what had hit them. If they were in the front line, they would know where to turn, what to do. They would think everything had finished. The foundation had been swept from under their feet. But listen to God's word. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted.
[00:25:26] This is God's word. Travail has to lie at the heart of God's work. There is the need of such, of such travail in his servant. The work of God is not cheaply done.
[00:25:41] It is not easily done. It may appear to be so wonderful. Yes. Whenever I see a living and mighty work which God has done and we all marvel at the outside, so many people being saved, so much has so much spiritual life, we think, oh, isn't it wonder? It seems so easy. What is the secret of it? What is the secret? How many times people ask those who are in such what is the secret? What is the secret? They think that somehow or other, like Simon the sorcerer, they can buy the secret.
[00:26:15] Give me. I will give you money. Give me this secret of the power of the Holy Spirit. Let me know.
[00:26:23] It is not like that.
[00:26:25] If you went today to Taipei and saw those great companies of believers meeting thousands and thousands strong all over that city, if you went to Hong Kong and saw that church of some four or 5000 gathering together and if you knew that all over the mainland of China in every town and city there were those that before the communists came were gathering together, some in their thousands, some in their hundreds, some in 20, you would say, oh, what God has done in 20 years. But at the heart of it all, there were a group of people who suffered indescribably.
[00:27:09] And one of them, a number of them, have given their lives, and a number of them this very moment, are in concentration camp, year after year after year.
[00:27:26] You see, who is as blind as my servant said the Lord, who can walk in the darkness like my servant said the Lord, you see, there has to be a place where there is the need of such travel. Now, unless we're going to go on like last week, I think we shall have to stop here. But I will stop with this comment that at the heart of every living work and ministry, if there is eternal value, there is the cross.
[00:28:02] Avoid the cross and you have superficiality.
[00:28:08] The path always to anything of eternal value is the cross.
[00:28:16] And this means that there has to be this principle of travail working. In other words, for new life there must be travail. There can be no new life without Travail.
[00:28:30] There must be travail for there to be new life.
[00:28:35] And so it is here. Precious stone. Listen, all thou afflicted tost with tempest and not comforted, I will set thy stones in fair colour.
[00:28:50] What were the stones the Lord is talking about? Well, it will leave it to another another week. But what the stones that the Lord is talking about, are they not the stones, the precious stones of the city?
[00:29:06] Are not these stones without price that have gone into the foundations of the walls of the city of God, the new Jerusalem.
[00:29:18] Here is a travail that was seen in our Lord Jesus.
[00:29:23] Here is a travail you can see in the apostle Paul when he said, my little children, I travail afresh over you until Christ is fully formed in you. He was putting gold and silver and precious stones into them through his travail.
[00:29:41] And so you and I, if we would know anything about this, we also must learn what it is to walk with the Lord.
[00:29:51] Sometimes it means to be afflicted, to be tossed with tempest and not to be comforted.
[00:30:00] But it is the last and ultimate thing in faith to go through without any outward blessing, without any inward voice, without any sign of the Lord being near at all, to go through knowing this simple thing, that when the Lord says, I will set thy stones with fair colors, he will do it.
[00:30:35] Shall we pray.
