Psalm_84_-_T-esick_PsalmistE°ÌSE°ÌSBOOKMOBIKK¨ øø+ø;øKø[økø{ø‹ø ›ø «ø »ø Ëø Ûøëøûø øø+ø;øKø[økø{ø‹ø›ø«ø»øËøÛøëøûø  ø!ø"+ø#;ø$Kø%[ø&kø'{ø(‹ø)›ø*«ø+»ø,Ëø-Ûø.ëø/ûø0 ø1ø2+ø3;ø4Kø5[ø6kø7{ø8‹ø9›ø:«ø;»ø<Ëø=Ûø>ëø?ûø@ øAøB+øC;øDAEAF)ØG| H|ÄI|ðJ5DMOBIää§B®vÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿF, FRÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿGIHÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿEXTH8,,€ôíì¾Psalm 84 - The Lovesick Psalmist

Information. 2

Chapter 1 - The Lovesick Psalmist 3

Chapter 2 - Through The Valley. 11

Chapter 3 - Heaven Here And Hereafter 18

Chapter 4 - Make A Nest For Your Young. 25

Appendix A: A Time To Cry. 32

Appendix B: Draw Near To God. 40

Appendix C: The Malnutrition Of The Soul 48

David Legge studied at the Irish Baptist College, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He served as Assistant Pastor at Portadown Baptist Church before receiving a call to the pastorate of the Iron Hall Assembly. He now serves as pastor-teacher of the Iron Hall, and resides in Belfast with his wife Barbara and their daughter Lydia.

The audio for this series is available free of charge either on our website (www.preachtheword.co.uk) or by request from info@preachtheword.co.uk

All material by Pastor Legge is copyrighted.  However, these materials may be freely copied and distributed unaltered for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and the copyright is included. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold or used to solicit "donations" from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. This copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all.

Psalm 84: The Lovesick Psalmist  - Chapter 1

"The Lovesick Psalmist"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

All Rights Reserved

Now we're turning in our Bibles to our reading for this morning's message, Psalm 84. Thank you for your prayers while we've been away on holiday, we had a very blessed time of rest physically, emotionally and spiritually. Both the messages that I'll preach to you today, I was guided to them - not quite on the beach but almost there! - I hope, and believe, by the Holy Spirit of God. I want us to spend a wee bit of time on this Psalm in particular. As you know, I'm sure, in the few years that I've been with you here as Pastor, that I'm very fond of the Psalms and taking our time going over them. This is one of the most beautiful Psalms in the whole of the book, and in fact it is titled 'The Pearl of Psalms' by many scholars.

We'll read all of the Psalm today, but we're only going to deal with the first four verses because that's where David stops, and that's why you find that little word 'Selah', for a rest and a time of reflection. Then, God willing, next week we'll take on the next few verses. Beginning at verse 1 we'll read the whole Psalm this morning: "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah. Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee".

I have entitled this message, and perhaps even the series of messages: 'The Lovesick Psalmist', and if you want to lengthen that a little bit, 'The Lovesick Psalmist for the House of God'. The little title at the top of your Psalm is in the original scriptures, and it tells us a great deal about the reason why this Psalm was written. Now it doesn't always tell us everything about it, it doesn't always tells the author or indeed the occasion of the Psalm, but if you look at it for a moment you will read that it says: 'To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm for the sons of Korah'. If we were to take time, and we don't have the time today but you can do this at your own leisure, and go to Leviticus chapter 16, and even go to the book of Jude in our New Testament, you will find mentioned there the people of Korah, indeed, the man Korah and his descendants. They are chiefly known for what is called the rebellion of Korah, and you find that rebellion in Leviticus chapter 16. Really what happened was this man Korah, and a lot of other men - two of whom are Dathan and Abiram - are jealous of the spiritual authority and priesthood that both Aaron and Moses held. Because of that they led a rebellion, they wanted to take over, they wanted to be in charge spiritually - 'Why should Moses and Aaron have that privilege? Why can't we have it?'. They actually actively began to operate in a priestly capacity, and the Bible tells us - we don't have time to go into it all - that God judged Korah, and God judged the rebellion and the rebels of Korah, so much so that the ground cleft and opened up and swallowed them alive into hell!

It warms my heart today to know that such a beautiful Psalm, what I have told you already is called 'The Pearl of Psalms', is written for the sons of Korah. Although we are still in the Old Testament dispensation as we're looking in the Psalms today, isn't it wonderful to see even there the footprint of grace? To see, even there, the beginning of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ toward all men, no matter what dispensation they are in? He saves them by grace and not by law. We studied recently in Ezekiel 18 that the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father - if the son sees the sins of his father, if the son turns away from the sins of his father, he shall not bear them; but each man, each individual bears his own sins, and we see here what a beautiful song is given to the sons of this rebel Korah.

I say to you today, right at the beginning of our meeting, that there is grace for the taker. There is grace no matter what your father has done, no matter what your ancestors have done and been guilty of, no matter even what you have done - praise the name of the Lord Jesus, there is grace for you if you will come and take it. What a song is given to the sons of Korah! Then we see that the actual tune if you like, or the way that this Psalm is to be played, is said to be 'upon Gittith'. Now 'Gittith' literally means, we are led to believe, 'sweeter than the joy of the winepress'. This song, not so much the tune but the song itself, and the subject of the song, is said to be sweeter than the joy of the winepress. If you know anything about biblical imagery you will know that the winepress, the vine and the fruit of the vine, is said to be the greatest thing that this world can produce. It's the most affluent picture of wealth and luxury, satisfaction and joy. But this Psalm is to be played in a special way because the subject of the Psalm is sweeter even than the joy that the winepress gives.

That would lead us to ask the question why this Psalm is written, and even who wrote the Psalm. We don't really know who wrote this Psalm, and we don't know the specific occasion why it was written, but certainly I hope that you will agree with me as you read through this Psalm you will say with Spurgeon that 'it exhales Davidic perfume'. You can see David written all over this Psalm, you can savour the smells of the mountain heather as the young shepherd boy was out there in his youth, and now as the great king and warrior is out there in the tents of the king and the great shepherd there fighting for Israel. You can tell that David possibly wrote this Psalm.

I don't know what the occasion was of him writing it, but I imagine that he is reminiscing. Let me give you a bit of background: within Israel, and within the Jewish history, and indeed within the Jewish religion as we find it in the Old Testament, pilgrimages to the tabernacle were very common. It was a great festivity, it was a great time of celebration and rejoicing, and you would find that families would get together - the wider family circle would come together. They would pack their bags, they would gather picnics and foods, and they would travel towards the tabernacle of God for family worship. As they would travel along I'm sure that they would stop along the way, a little bit like pit stops, and just as you get pilgrimages today even to Mecca with the Islamic faith, you find that along the way of pilgrimages there'll be little inns, little stops and watering holes and places to refresh yourself. I'm sure that as they stopped at each of these little posts that more people joined their band, and they went along - a great company of people - to the house of God to worship God. As they went they would encamp in the sunny glades, they would go into the shaded vales. I can hear them, almost, singing in unison the songs of God and even the Psalms that they knew, and the Scriptures that they had. I can see them toiling together, pulling their horses, pulling all their luggage over every hill - working together through the swamps and through the valleys.

It was a great occasion, it was an occasion that the little children would remember right from their youth. It was an occasion that would give cherished and happy memories that would never ever be forgotten. It was a time of the year that everybody looked forward to, yet as we read this Psalm together today we see that he's mourning, we see that he's dejected and downhearted. Do you know why? Because for some reason, we don't know why, he is missing out on this great festivity. He's been debarred from it for an unknown reason to us, but he can't get there. His heart is longing after it, his heart is mourning the fact that he can't be with the people of God, that he can't go up to the house of God, and he can't enjoy the presence of God.

I don't know about you, but I feel within myself that one thing that marks my human nature is that the things that are most valuable to me, I only start missing them when I lose them. Isn't that right? We tend to take the most valuable things in our life for granted, but then when we lose them - we get a toothache, oh, we cherish and romanticise the time that we didn't have a toothache, when we didn't have the cold! We take so much for granted: it might be our health, it could be our wealth, and it could also be the worship of God. Those listening to my voice on tape today, who are shut in in their home or maybe in hospital, know exactly what I'm talking about. You maybe take it for granted coming here every Lord's Day to worship the Lord, but there are those who can't, and there are those who could and would give absolutely anything to be with us here today joining together in the great hymns and prayers to their God.

Well, this Psalmist was in the same position for whatever reason it was, he was homesick for the house of God, he was homesick for the place of worship that he had so many happy childhood memories of, he was homesick primarily and fundamentally for the presence of the living God. Now I want us to apply this Psalm, first of all, to David and understand what he's getting at in the first four verses of this Psalm, then I want us to apply it to ourselves - first to the Psalmist, and then to the saint of God. First let's look at the Psalmist, in verse 1 he describes this house of God, this worship, as his delight. He says: 'How amiable', or how lovely or beloved and dear, 'are thy tabernacles', or better translated, 'thy dwellings, O LORD of hosts'.

It's refreshing to me that David is not as cocksure as we sometimes are when it comes to theological truth and the word of God. We've it all worked out, don't we? At least we think we have it all worked out! We've everything pigeonholed and categorised and labelled and dispensationalised - you name it, we've done it! But this man of God knew what the house of God was like so much, and what the presence of God was like in the house of God, that he couldn't describe it! It was immeasurable, no language or no words - and you know some of the words that the Psalmist can use in this book - he couldn't find the words to express the wonder of it all!

Now let me stop there for a moment, because if you don't have the thirst that the Psalmist has for the house of God and for the people of God and the worship of God, I want to ask you right away, and ask my own heart: have you lost the wonder of it all? Have you? He couldn't describe it! We might be forgiven for thinking: 'Well, this must have been a tremendous structure. It must have had all the gems that you can imagine, all the gold and silver, and precious stones and vessels that you could conceive of must have made up this great structure, whatever it may be'. What was the structure? Well, if you think about it for a minute it couldn't have been the temple of Solomon, it couldn't have been Herod's temple, because David was before both of them. In fact, it couldn't be any temple! What it had to be was David reminiscing to his history, Jewish history, and looking back to what we know in the Old Testament to be the tabernacle. It was a tent, really, for pilgrims who wandered through the wilderness going from Egypt to the promised Canaan land. It was nothing attractive to look at, in fact if you had been uneducated with regards to the spiritual truth behind it all, you would have been forgiven for thinking it was a farmyard! It was just an old tent with badger skins over it, and there were farmyard animals wandering about in the courtyard. Yet David says that this place is so beautiful that I can't even describe it, its so lovely and beloved that I can't bring words to express it.

Now of course, we have to go further and say: 'How could David think that that was lovely?'. David thought the tabernacle was lovely, because David knew that the presence of God dwelt in it! That's why it was lovely to him, and we would do well to note that the saints of old didn't need great structures and cathedrals to say that the house of God was lovely, because the house of God was lovely because God was there! They could sing as well as us:

'We love the place, oh God,

Wherein Thine honour dwells.

The joy of Thine abode

All earthly joys excels'.

It was the fact that there, in that unlovely - even, I would go as far to say, ugly - structure, they were able to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. 'How lovely are thy tabernacles' - you'll note the little 's' at the end of that word, it's in the plural. It would be better translated 'thy dwellings', and what he is saying here is - if he's talking about the tabernacle - he's speaking of all the subdivisions of the tabernacle. You know that there were many rooms: there was the outer court, there was the inner court, there was the Holy Place, and there was the Holiest of All Places - the Holy of Holies. What David is saying here is that all of the cords, all of the curtains, all of the courts - no matter whether they're inner or outer - all of them are lovely to him! 'How lovely are thy dwelling places' - it wasn't the outside that was lovely, it couldn't have been the outside because it wasn't lovely to look at, it was the inside. He says they are amiable, they are lovely.

Now, if you've done the French language, you'll know that the verb, I think it's 'amore' if my memory serves me right, is the verb 'to love' - and 'amiable' comes from that in our English, it means to love, it means beloved - but in the Hebrew language here, the word that in English is 'amiable' is different than that, it means beloved, it means dear and cherished. So it's not just lovely to look upon, but lovely in my heart, beloved and dear to me. There was no beauty in this tabernacle that a man or a woman, or a boy or a girl should desire it. As this great festivity of Israelites came over the hill towards the tabernacle they didn't get blinded by the sparkling gold from the spires and the domes that came from it. They may have even missed it and thought that it was some Bedouins, some nomads going about their business. There was no beauty in it they should desire it, the beauty was inside.

I believe what David was thinking of were the golden vessels inside that tabernacle that held for a Jew, and even more for us in this dispensation, such spiritual truth and preciousness. I imagine that David is thinking that it is beloved to him because he can see the priests wandering around in all their sacred robes, going through their sacred service for God, offering up incense and sacrifice to God. I imagine it's lovely to him because he can see at certain times the High Priest coming in and doing the ministry that only he could do. I imagine he sees the sacrifice slain and offered to God. I imagine he's thinking about how that object lesson teaches the people of the seriousness of their sin, of the strictness of the justice of God towards sin, and of the great necessity of an efficacious sacrifice for their sin to atone and to cover it all. I imagine his senses are stimulated as he hears the Levites singing their songs, as maybe even the sons of Korah are lifting up the Psalms, as they're putting trumpets to their lips and blowing the sound for the glory of God!

Is it any wonder that he finds delight in this place? His delight leads to desire, because in verse 2, if you look at it, he says: 'My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God'. His delight led to desire, and we would be right to say that in all cases of life infinite delighting will lead to infinite desiring. He says: 'My soul longeth', he had a deep insatiable longing to be with the people of God in the house of God. The word, literally in the Hebrew, for 'longing' is 'growing pale'. He was growing pale! He goes further: 'even fainteth', literally the word is 'to be consumed with lovesickness'. The Latins used to say that they were dying of love, this is the sentiment that David is communicating here: 'I'm dying to be with these people, I love that place and those people so much', and he was inflamed with such a passion, such a desire and thirst, that he would have this object to gratify himself in the worship of God that he says: 'I'm wasting away!'.

I don't know whether you have teenage children, but maybe they go off their food, and they begin to behave all strange - I think maybe Cheryl and Stephen were like this, I don't know! - but you say to them: 'Is there something wrong, are you lovesick?'. That's the way David felt, lovesick for the house of God and for the people of God! I would say that it's not too strong a word to say that he was tormented to be away from the people of God. So much so that he says soul, heart, and flesh - what's that? Soul, heart, and flesh? It's the whole man. 'All of me, Lord, is crying out for the living God. I'm growing pale, I'm consuming within me, I'm becoming lovesick for the living God - I'm crying out for Him'. The word for 'crying out' is a word that would be used of an army, a captain in the army, saying 'Charge!' as they go into battle. It's the word that would be used at the end of a triumph parade when the army comes back from battle in victory, and they shout 'Victory!'. 'My voice cries out to You, Lord, like that for the living God'.

You and I both know, and I believe that David knew, and of course Solomon knew for God told him at the consecration of his temple, that God dwelleth not in temples made by the hands of men. David lets us know what his desire was after, it wasn't for the tabernacle, it was Who was in the tabernacle! It was for the presence of God, that's why he says: 'I cry for the living God!'. Turn to Psalm 63 and we find the same sentiment in verse 1: 'O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is'. His flesh was creeping and crying after God. I don't know whether you've gone for any length of time without water, but your flesh begins to crave it doesn't it? David was beginning to crave, physically. You remember the disciples, this came to me as I thought about this, in the garden of Gethsemane and the Lord leaves them - Peter, James and John - and He says: 'Pray that ye enter not into temptation. Watch and pray'. What did He say - why? - 'Because the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak'. You know all about that, don't you? You want to pray but you can't, you're too tired. You want to do great exploits for God, but you can't, your body doesn't seem to answer to the cry that is within the spirit. Well, look at this man: his flesh was answering to the cry that was in the spirit, his very flesh was crying out to God - the whole man! As Thomas Brooks, the great puritan, said: 'If you've ever seen a wee child crying for its milk, this is the way David was'. It's not just his voice cries, but the hands cry out, the legs cry out, the feet cries out, the whole babe cries out for its milk.

What a desire he had for the delight of his heart, but we find him here in this Psalm dejected. In verse 3, the reason being - and I tend to, with conjecture I must say, picture David sitting in the camp, missing and pining after the people of God and the house of God, and he sees a little sparrow fly and land in front of him. He says: 'The sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God'. Now I believe that David gets dejected, he gets a little bit depressed, if that's not too strong a word - and we know in Psalm 102 and verse 7 that he says in another place: 'I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top' - I feel alone! As he feels alone and cut off from the people of God and the house of God, he sees this little sparrow, and I believe that what is in his heart is envy - a sanctified, holy jealousy. He sees this sparrow, and he knows that in a split second that sparrow can get up, span its wings, and fly away, and can be himself with the people of God in a moment - but David can't do that.

In Psalm 55 we see David says: 'O that I could take the wings of a dove and dwell in the wilderness', but he's doing the opposite here, he's in the wilderness wishing he could take the wings of a sparrow and dwell with the people of God. 'Lord, how can a sparrow get to be with Your people but I'm stuck out here and cut off from them?'. He talks about the swallow, how they can build a nest, they can build a place even for their young - and I believe what he's saying here is that even in the houses and the tents of the tabernacle, and even later on in the temple, there were the eaves of the priest's houses round about the tabernacle, and swallows would make their nest underneath them. They were able to make a nest, not just for themselves but for their little young chicks, among the people of God and even on the very temple of God. Around the houses round about they have nests there, but I'm cut off from the people of God!

There's an ancient law that is written that says that if there was nests built there, no matter how sacred the building being built around it, those nests couldn't be taken away and they couldn't be destroyed. He was jealous of the sparrow, envious of the swallow, who could rest on the altars of God. Now listen, I don't believe any swallow would have been allowed to nest on the altar of God, but what he is speaking of metaphorically is that just as these birds can fly right now and even nest around the tabernacle of God, I would long to go like a swallow and to nest in the altars of my God. What a desire! What a delight he had in the altars of God, but what a dejection that he couldn't get there. I think as he looked at those sparrows and at those swallows he was saying to the Lord: 'Why should those swallows be nearer the altars of God than I am?'. Do you know what I think God said to him? 'David, fear not, ye are of more value than many sparrows'. Do you know why? Because in verse 4 he says: 'Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee'. Still praising Thee!

You can still praise God if you're in the house of God or outside house of God. People who realise the delight that there is in the presence of God, people who have a desire after the presence of God, people who are dejected when they're out of the presence of God, can be able to praise God, worship God, and know God no matter where they are - even in the wilderness like David. Now listen: David stops, and he says 'Selah'. That wee Hebrew word simply means 'reflect', there may even have been a bit of a musical interlude, but there certainly was a pause, and it was created so that the people would just think about what David had just said. That's what I want you to do in closing minutes of our meeting. I want you to think about what David has just said - that is what this Psalm meant to the Psalmist, but I want to ask you: what does it mean to the saint? What does it mean to the saint in our earthly worship? How do we worship as the people of God? Do we love it? Do we desire it? Or do we take it for granted? Do we despise it? Does its familiarity breed contempt with us? Do we see it as a chore, or even - God forbid - as a bore? Can we say, like another Psalmist, 'I was glad when they said unto me, let us go up into the house of the Lord' - I was glad?

Those who can't get here would love to be here, but I wonder for some of you here today: is there no beauty in this that you should desire it? Maybe you're not saved, and you're here and you're thinking: 'Well, I don't know why these people come here once on a Sunday, twice on a Sunday, some of them even come three or four times a week for various things! I don't understand it!' - there's no beauty in it that you should desire it, because you're seeing the outward, you're just seeing the people gathering and singing hymns, and some man preaching too long. You see it all, and you think: 'What's in it?' - oh, that you could see like David, that the presence of God was in it. Maybe, to our detriment, it is not noised abroad as it used to be that the Lord is in this house - maybe there is the sense of God that there used to be. Well, let me say this, whether you're unsaved or whether you're saved, whether you see it or whether you don't, I'll tell you what it's all down to: it comes down to a matter of the heart. That's what it is: the whole nature, like David, ought to desire God; your flesh ought to cry to the spirit; you ought to be crying and weeping and pleading for the privilege of being here.

I saw a cartoon in a minister's magazine recently, and it was two little sparrows on a telegraph line and they were looking down on a big ornate, beautiful cathedral. Peter said to Paul: 'Yes, it's a lovely nest, but they only use it once a week'. We don't dwell in temples made with hands, do we? We don't go to a tabernacle or an ornate temple, we are the temple of the living God - and we have the greatest temple of all, yet we ought to desire to be in it and to be with the people of God. Isn't it wonderful to think: David didn't need to be forced to it, he didn't need an orchestra to get him there, he didn't need the best preacher in the world either! He didn't need a visit from the oversight, for it was in his heart, he wanted to be there. As old Spurgeon said: 'He needed no clatter of bells from the belfry to ring him in, because he carried his bell in his own bosom. He had a holy appetite, which is a better call to worship than a full chime'. His heart was in it, and you know that's what's missing today! That's what's missing here: heart in it!

Are you cold? Let me finish this, and I'm going five minutes extra because I don't want any of you going home and watching Brazil and Germany [in the World Cup Final]. His heart was in it, and if your heart's not in it do you know what you need to do? Do what he did, look what he says in verse 3: 'O for thine altars, even thine altars, O LORD'. He sought the altar of God! Now listen, we today as the church of God have more lovely tabernacles than David did - I'll tell you why: we have a Great High Priest! Isn't it wonderful? We have a finished efficacious sacrifice by One who is a High Priest in His glories of His Person, and in the fullness of His grace who is second to none, who has been crucified, who has been offered to God, who has been accepted by God and risen from the dead, and we are told to be priests robed in garments of salvation lifting up prayers and holy sacrifices and offerings to God, and blowing the trumpet of salvation. Ought we not to be more ecstatic than David?

There were two altars here that I believe David was talking about, one was a brazen altar and one was a golden altar, and both were made of shittim wood and were covered in gold and brass. But the shittim wood typologically speaks of the humanity of Christ, the holy humanity, the perfect manhood of Him who was made incarnate so that He might go to Calvary and bleed and die and be our sacrifice - does it not rejoice your heart? Should it not fire your heart to realise that it is upon His incarnation that we stand, that we ought to have rejoicing and delighting, that we ought to desire to be here, and it ought to deject us if we can't get to it? It was covered in brass and gold speaking of His deity in different aspects. We are the tabernacle of God, but what ought to delight our hearts is what John 1 and verse 14 says: 'The Word was made flesh', watch it, 'and tabernacled amongst us'.

Is He lovely to you today? Is His sacrifice lovely? Is your heart cold? I'll tell you where you need to get to today, listen: we all need to get to Calvary. David wanted to get, in the spirit, to Calvary for that's where the security was. We need to see the satisfaction of Christ at Calvary, satisfying the holy wrath of God and all His righteousness and indignation for sin. We need to see His intercession, one altar was for sacrifice, one altar was for intercession - we need to see it! We need to stand on it! We need to rejoice in it! We need to be enthused in it! We need to feel secure from it! Could there be one here in the gathering today, and they're afar off, they're not coming boldly to the cross, not coming boldly with the Gospel because they fear their sinfulness? My friend, your sin, root and branch, was burnt outside the camp - it's gone in Christ, and you can be free - and, blessed Redeemer, that we can come in Him, into the very Holiest Place of All.

You know I think, in prophetic spirit, that that was what David was rejoicing in. No wonder the hymnwriter could say:

'Sweet the moments rich in blessing

Which before the cross I spend.

Life, and health, and peace possessing

From the sinner's dying Friend.

Here I'll sit forever viewing

Mercy streams in streams of blood.

Precious drops my soul bedewing,

Plead and claim my peace with God'.

That's the place of peace, that's the place of blessing. How beloved is God's tabernacle to us? Isn't it? I wonder are you not saved today? The only place, my friend, that you will find refuge from the wrath of God is in the Saviour's bloody side. If you'll not have Christ, you'll not have heaven.

Let us pray: Father, we thank Thee for David's desire and delight to be where the altar of God was. Lord, that's our delight as the church of the living God today, to be at Calvary, and to be there much, and to be there long. We say with Count Zinzendorf in the song of the Moravian revival:

'I thirst, Thou wounded Lamb of God

To wash me in Thy cleansing blood,

To dwell within Thy wounds - then pain

Is sweet, and life or death is gain.

How blessed are they who still abide,

Close sheltered in Thy bleeding side,

Who life and strength from thence derive,

And by Thee move and in Thee live.

Take my poor heart and let it be

Forever closed to all but Thee.

Seal Thou my breast and let me bear

The pledge of love forever there'.

Lord, our one prayer is this: fire our hearts with Calvary's love, for Jesus sake. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - July 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Psalm 84: The Lovesick Psalmist - Chapter 2

"Through The Valley"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

All Rights Reserved

Psalm 84...I don't know how many of you have read 'Pilgrim's Progress' by John Bunyan, or at least are familiar with it, but you will know that there in that great book - and I have a copy of it with me here this morning - he has a character in it called 'Christian'. He writes an allegory, a dream that he had when he was in Bedford prison, shut up because he was a nonconformist and he was preaching the Gospel yet he didn't belong to the Church of England - and that's what happened to you in those days if you preached the Gospel and didn't belong to the established church. But there in that prison cell he had a dream, and out of that dream he wrote the wonderful Christian, indeed literary, classic 'Pilgrim's Progress'. The whole story, the whole book, details the journey of this man, Christian, from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. All it is is simply an allegory, a picture story, of what it is to be a sinner in sin, bound for hell and destruction; and to move as a sinner from the City of Destruction to the cross, to have your burden rolled away at the foot of the cross into the tomb where Christ died and was buried and put our sin away forever, eternally under the sod; and then to have your journey begin toward heaven, toward the Celestial City, until one day you reach that place and are forever at peace with the Lord in that eternal state.

On the front of this edition it simply has the title: 'From this world to that which is to come'. That is the Pilgrim's progress, that all who are saved are going on: we began in the world, yet through the calling effectually of grace in our lives we have been called out of the world as a people unto God and we're all journeying toward heaven - a pilgrimage toward the Celestial City. If you're familiar with the book you'll know what a varied experience John Bunyan's Christian had as he went toward that city. We could nearly say that his problems only really began once he trusted faith, once his burden fell off at Calvary, for he met so many varied characters, he went through so many different experiences - many of them extremely trying and perplexing.

I couldn't help thinking, as I was studying this Psalm, studying this particular section for you today, that the journey and the pilgrimage of the Jew that we have noted in this Psalm is going on here - the Jews are going down to Jerusalem, or down to the tabernacle, or down to whatever edifice they were worshipping God in, but they're all journeying in this pilgrimage toward their final destination. As they go toward that destination they find many varied experiences. Of course, I think the parallel is obvious between the Jew here in this Psalm going to the house of God, and the believer in Christ going toward the eternal city of God, going toward heaven - and that's the parallel that I want you to see today.

Last week in verses 1 to 4 we looked at the longing of the Psalmist to be with the people of God. We don't really know the background, we're not even sure of the author but we think it's David, it seems to be a Davidic Psalm. He has a deep desire, he has a delight - verse 1 tells us - in the house of God, because the presence of God is there. The house of God wasn't naturally beautiful on the outside, but it was the fact of what was inside the house of God that delighted his heart. Those holy things, the holy ornaments and instruments and furniture, the holy service that was going on among the priests, the holy sacrifice that was being shed because of men's sinfulness, yet that blood that was being shed would cover - temporarily, at least, for him - his sin, and allow him to come into the very presence of Almighty God. He delighted in the house of God! He desired to be in the house of God!

We saw that for some reason David was debarred from worshipping, he couldn't get there, he was probably in the tents of triumph and battle on the battlefield for his nation. But he longed to be in the tabernacle, he longed to be with the people of God, serving God, worshipping God, but he couldn't be there - but oh, the delight and the desire that we see: his flesh, his heart, cried out - verse 2 - for the living God. We saw how that word meant 'he grew pale', he was being consumed inwardly by a loving desire, a lovesickness, to be in the house of God, with the people of God, where the presence of God was. His whole man, his whole nature cried out to be with God and to be with God's people.

That is the longing, but we enter into verses 5 to 8 today, because you now have the journeying. And, at least in David's mind, he begins that journey to travel in his heart and mind towards the house of God, to be in the very presence of God. Now, my friends, I'm trusting most of us here today are saved by the grace of God, and we have began that Pilgrim's journey and progress on to heaven. I want us to meditate this morning at how this Psalm parallels the journey that many of us go through as we travel toward heaven. I'm sure some of you are familiar with that little chorus: 'It's not an easy road as we're travelling to heaven'. It wasn't an easy road for these Jews as they were travelling to the house of God, because - as we read in verse 6 - in order for them to get there, from their homes to their destination, they had to travel through the Valley of Baca. The Hebrew word 'Baca' simply means 'weeping', and there was a Valley of Weeping. Some translators think it can also mean a dry, arid, wilderness valley - a desert where there was no water. For them to get through to the place they where going to, Jerusalem or to the place to worship God, they had to pass through a dry valley of weeping.

We find this valley referred to in Judges chapter 2 and verses 1 and 5, only it's called the Valley of Bochim there. We read the story about how the children of Israel have now left Egypt and are about to enter into the promised land, but they have disobeyed some of the commands of God. God told them to destroy all the false idols of the people and drive the people out, to kill them all, to not make any covenants or agreements or political settlements with any of them, but they disobeyed God. In the Valley of Bochim, we find in Judges 2, there is an angel of God stands before the people of God, and He tells them that He will not drive out the nations any more, He will not drive and make the way clear of the Canaanites for the people of Israel, but they will be a thorn in their side for ever and their gods will judge them. We read in Judges 2 the people of Israel broke out into uncontrollable weeping and sobbing and lamentation. So this valley is called the Valley of Bochim, or the Valley of Baca.

I think in Jewish literature and language it has become a sort of byword for the experiences that all of us can go through in life that we could class as a Valley of Weeping. I think we can see right away the parallels, that as these Jews were travelling toward their worship they had to go through hardships. Oh yes, they delighted in the place they were going to, oh they desired to be there, but it was not an easy road that they were travelling along - and just like you and me as we are saved, we're sanctified, we're satisfied and enjoying the Lord, maybe even serving the Lord; and we're looking forward to a day when it will be absent from the body, but present with the Lord, but it's not easy. Maybe at this particular juncture in your spiritual journey toward heaven you find yourself passing, squeezing, constricting through a valley of tears and a valley of arid dryness and famine. It's not an easy road as we're travelling to heaven.

We pictured last week these Jews packing their bags, leaving their home, gathering together in their family clans, getting on the road, following the caravans. In the distance you could see them, like a swarm of flies, travelling toward their destination to worship God. You can hear their melodious happy singing, you can hear them helping one another and putting their shoulder to the wheel, pushing their carts and wagons over the little hills, trying to pull them through the sloughs of despond and the mud pits. But there is a valley that they enter into, when before they could stop at a well, at an oasis in the desert, but this valley has nothing in it - no water, no refreshment, no place where they can stop and chat and drink and find their strength coming back into their bones. It is a place of weeping, torment and tribulation - but they must pass through it, they have to go through it because it is part of the pilgrimage!

We find a valley exactly like that in the Pilgrim's Progress. I want to read it to you. Pilgrim comes to one valley where he meets the devil, who is called in the book 'Apollyon'. Then, when he gets out of that valley where he has fought the devil tooth and nail with the very armour of God on him, he enters into another valley. He would like a mountaintop at the end of that I think, but he enters into a second valley. He says, I read: "Now at the end of this Valley was another, called, The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death, and Christian must needs go through it, because the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it: Now this Valley is a very solitary place. The prophet Jeremiah thus describes it: A wilderness, a land of deserts, and of pits; a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, a land that no man (but a Christian) passeth through, and where no man dwelt. Now here Christian was worse put to it than in his fight with the devil himself; as by the sequel you can see. And I saw in my dream, That when Christian was got to the borders of the Shadow of Death, there met with him two men, children of them that brought up an evil report of the good land, and they made haste for Christian to go back and not go there. Christian said: 'Where are you going?'. They said: 'Back! Back! And we would have you do so too, if either Life or Peace is prized by you'. Christian says: 'Why! What's the matter?'. 'Matter?', they said, 'We were going that Way as you are going, and went as far as we dared; and indeed we were almost past coming back; for had we gone little further, we had not been here to bring the news to thee'. Christian says: 'But what have you met with?'. 'Why we were almost in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, but that by good hap we looked before us, and saw the danger before we came into it'. Christian says: 'But what have you seen?'". Listen now: "'Seen? Why the Valley itself, which is as dark as pitch: We also saw there the Hobgoblins, Satyrs, and Dragons of the Pit: We heard also in the Valley a continual howling and yelling, as of a people under unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction and irons; and over that Valley hangs a discouraging clouds of Confusion: Death also doth always spread his wings over it. In a word, it is every whit dreadful, being utterly without Order'. Christian said: 'I perceive not yet, by what you have said, but that this is my Way to the desired Haven'. 'Be it thy Way', they said, 'we will not choose it for ours'. So they parted, and Christian went on his Way, but still with his Sword drawn in his hand, for fear lest he should be assaulted".

Now, my friends today, it is called upon every Christian, I believe, at some time in their life's experience, to go through the Valley of Tears, to go through what men have called 'liquid pain', the distillation of heaven, the diamonds of heaven - where God has to record your tears by putting them in a bottle, it is part of the pilgrimage of God's children. Joseph, in his divine pilgrimage of God's providence, as he went through so many valleys, it is recorded of him in the book of Genesis that eight times he wept. We read of David, through all of his regal kingship and reigning in majesty, but yet through all of his heartache and trial seven times we read the great king wept. We read Jeremiah, he's the prophet of tears, the whole book of Lamentations is his writing of how he wished that his whole head were a river of waters that he could just continually weep for the breach of his people Israel. We read of David's men on one occasion that they wept sorely, to the extent that they had no more power or strength to weep. In Psalm 6 David says that he wept so much that his bed was swimming in his own tears. Remember Peter, after he betrayed the Lord, and the Lord Jesus gave him that glaring look, the guilt entered into his soul and it says that Peter went out and wept bitterly. None other person than our Lord Jesus Christ is recorded many times as weeping: standing over Jerusalem, unrepentant Jerusalem, unregenerate Jerusalem: 'Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens, but ye would not'. Standing by Lazarus' tomb weeping over sin, and what sin has done to men and women, He stands and it says: 'Jesus wept'. Then we see Him in Gethsemane, it says He is nigh even unto death, sweating as it were great drops of blood, and He is weeping for sin and for what sin will do to Him on the cross! Even our Saviour had to go through the Valley of Baca.

Friends, what I want to bring to you today from this Psalm is a message of good news. The message is simply this: the road of tears can be a blessed road, the road of tears can be a blessed road. Now the Psalmist gives us the ways in which that road of tears that we must go through will be made blessed. There are four things, and I want you to record them in your mind if not on a piece of paper, because if you don't need them now for what you're going through, you're going to need them in a day very shortly to come.

The first thing that David tells us to do is: this road will be blessed when your energy is in God, this journey will be blessed when your strength and your energy for it are in God. Look at verse 5, the first part: 'Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee'. If you're going to get through your Christian pilgrimage, and specifically squeeze through the Valley of Baca, and tears, and dryness, and famine, you're going to have to find your energy in God. You're not going to get through it unless God gives you that 'divine stickability'. You will need God's strength to believe that He's not going to let you go. You will need God's strength to obey Him, even though you seem to see that everything is contrary to what you would want, and what you think God would want for you. You need strength to obey and do what He tells you, even though the clouds seem to be dark above you. In fact, you need strength to suffer, that's the bottom line, isn't it? If any of us are to go through Valley of Tears, we will need the very strength of God to be our portion and to be our energy to get us through it.

Remember Paul in Ephesians 6? We were studying it not so long ago, he was telling us to put on the armour of God. The helmet of salvation, the breastplate of the righteousness of God, the belt of truth, our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace, the shield of faith to quench the fiery darts of the evil one, the sword of the Spirit, and all prayer, and we're to go in the battle. But before he enters into all the exposition of what those things are, and the fact that we should take them up by faith, he says to us: 'Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might'. If we're to go into the Christian battle, thank God that He's given us our armour, He's given us everything that we need, but if we stand in our own strength we'll fail! If we try to travel through the Valley of Baca in our own strength, that'll be the end!

We need strength for this pilgrimage, just like these Jews needed the strength for their pilgrimage to worship. There's no half-hearted people on this journey, because they couldn't have stuck it! They had to put everything into it, there was an intensity and an enthusiasm in their journey to go and worship God. You saw it last week, his delighting and his desire to be with the people of God. You know in your own worshipful life before God that in prayer, in worship, in praise, even in the study of the word of God, it's not pleasant or profitable unless you put your whole heart into it. Oh, it's a dirge and it's boring, and I say to you today I find some preaching boring, I find some praying puts me to sleep - because you can sense when a man or a woman is putting their heart into their worship. It's the same as we travel along to heaven: if we're to get through the Valley of Tears, you've got to have your whole heart in this journey, for only when you put your whole heart in it will you get all of the strength of God.

Can you imagine these pilgrims setting out, packing their bags, getting their family together, and they leave their hearts at home? Not a bit of it! They would be a caravan of corpses, and dead men and women would be unfit to move with the living saints of God to go and worship the Living God. As David says in verse 2, that his whole flesh, and heart, and body, and soul, and voice cry out for - it's the Living God! The New Testament mirror of what we're finding here, this spiritual truth, is simply this: set your affections on things that are above. Do you want strength to get through your trial? Well, where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be also! Where's your heart today? Is it in your job, is it in your family, is it in your home? What is it in? If you're to get through the journey and pilgrimage to heaven, your heart needs to be in heaven, and then your whole self will journey toward where your heart is.

When your energy is in God this road of tears will become a blessed road, but secondly: when God's directions are in you this road will become a blessed road. The second part of verse 5: 'in whose heart are the ways of them'. 'Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee', but also the man, 'in whose heart are the ways of them' - or literally 'the steeps', 'the steps' are on this man's heart. What's David trying to say? He's simply saying that the ways that lead to the house of God, the direction, if you like, is written upon the heart of a man whose strength is in God. The actual steeps - now I don't know whether this was the tabernacle, I think it probably was, on some kind of a causeway in the desert. He may be thinking of a temple, and maybe the steps up to the temple - either way there was a bit of a steep to climb. What David is saying: the climbing of those steeps to get into the presence of God and the house of God, and to be with God, are written upon the man's heart. In other words, he's determined to get there. The direction is on his heart, it leads him there, it drives him there, and that is what will get us through the Valley of Baca: that we have a desire to get through it, the very steeps are written on our heart, we're determined to climb it.

There is a highway of holiness that is being made in all our hearts, the Lord is preparing the way for Himself, He is making the valleys flat and straight, He is bringing the hills low, He's flattening it all out so that He may flood holiness into our hearts. My friend, as we go toward heaven, and if we're passing through trial as we speak, and God's ways are in our hearts, and our heart is in His ways, we are what we should be and we are in the place where we should be - and one day, the word of God tells us that we will be where He is. Do you want to get through? Is your energy in God? Is that where your strength is coming from? Is God's directions in your heart? I can't help think that when He was talking about the sparrows and the swallows, do you know that sparrows and swallows and many of the birds in nature have an in-built natural navigation system? It's just there from nature, and God has put there so that they know where to go in summer and they know where to go in winter, and David is saying that it's the same with the child of God. When he's born from above and he's a child of heaven, he lives for heaven, he lives toward heaven, and when he's going through the Valley of Baca the actual steeps and the mountains he's climbing and the valleys he's going down to, the direction's written on his heart to get him there!

When your energy is in God, when God's directions are in you, thirdly: when God turns your weeping valley into a well. Oh, I love this verse, verse 6: 'Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools'. Literally it could be translated: 'Passing through the Valley of Weeping, they make God the Fountain'. As they pass through the Valley of Weeping, all the water they have is tears, there's no fountains, there's no pools, there's no oasis, but by faith they make God their Fountain - they drink of God! There was no misery too great, there was no ground too barren that couldn't become a well of comfort to them because they were feeding upon the Living Bread, they were drinking at the Fountain Head. The most gloomy situation became the most bright, the most hopeful, because through their wilderness they made it, by faith, a valley of springs. You remember that was said of the children of Israel as they went through the wilderness, as they followed Moses, they did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and the Rock was Christ! Now listen: if you are on the Christian pilgrimage and you find yourself going through the Valley of Baca, if you get your strength from God, and if you put God's ways in your heart, I am telling you that He will turn your Valley of Weeping into a Well of Springs. If you have the goal of heaven in your heart, He will get you there! He will cause you to be able to endure any amount of sorrow and pain - why? Because these children of Israel, by faith, were able to extract water from rocks and sands because they fed upon God and drank from He who is the eternal Fountain.

This thrills my heart, Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:17, and you know what he went through: 'Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory'. Paul could go through what he went through, and you know it, and he could even call it light affliction - his Valley of Baca - why? Because he had his eye on the goal, on the destination, and the delight that would be there when he arrived. It makes all the discomforts of the road insignificant! This is even more beautiful, because in verse 6 it says that the Valley of Baca will be made a well, but the rain also fills the pools - do you know what that means? The wells are the water from beneath, the pools are from beneath, the natural resources - but when our natural resources from below fail us, God will intervene in supernatural providence and He will send down the rain from heaven! Isn't it wonderful?

My friend, when God directs you down a road it's not a dead end! When God leads you down a road, He will provide for you, He will give you the supplies that you need - and if that is the road heading toward heaven you can be sure that the very things that seem to be impediments in your way, mountains that you cannot move, God will move and He will level them to a plane! As He said to Isaiah, He will make the very mountains before you stepping stones for you to get to your destination! Though your outward man perish, as Paul says, your inward man can be renewed day by day. You know, this was a desert road, and there were inns along it, there were watering holes and wells along it - do you know why? There is only one reason why, because it was the road of pilgrimage to the house of God, and if it hadn't been the road of pilgrimage there wouldn't have been any wells or inns on it. If you're on that road, even though you're going through that Valley, God has His wells, God has His rain, God has His refreshment - and you know, many of you, that there is typology within the word of God. Wells can often speak of the word of God, and rain often speaks of the Spirit of God, and as we go through these valleys in our lives, as the tears are tripping us and our hearts are breaking, what more do we need and what else can get us through than the word of God and Spirit of God?

Finally, when your energy is in God, when God's directions are in you, when God turns your weeping valley into a well, the road will be blessed when you eventually arrive at your desired destination. Verse 7: 'They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God'. Now normally a Valley like this would be a place for us to waste away, a place for us to diminish, but David says that the child of God, as he goes through it and as he comes out of it, gets happier, their song gets brighter and sweeter, their heart gets fuller with joy and happiness! It gets better, why? Because they know that they're getting nearer their destination! The Hebrew literally means that they go 'from company to company', they grow as they go toward heaven. What a wonderful phrase: 'Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God'. Now listen: it's only every one of them with the characteristics that are in this Psalm. Don't you give to me some kind of hotchpotch of eternal security, that you just say that you're saved and you're going to go to heaven no matter what your life is like - your strength needs to be in God, God's ways need to be in your heart. As you go through that Valley, God says that He will get all of His children there and they'll be forever with the Lord, none of them will perish, none of them will be absolutely starved of food and die, none of them will die of thirst! No matter through the deepest, damndest valley that they may pass through, none of them will get eaten along the way by wild beasts, none of them will be assaulted by bandits and robbed, none of them will get afraid and turn back on the way - they'll all be there! Isn't that what it says? Every one of them will appear before God!

This is powerful, for if you're truly saved this morning you will be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation to be revealed at the last time, and if your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life I assure you upon the word of God that the Lamb will do everything to get you there. On that day He will stand, and He will want to say as He said on the earth: 'Those whom Thou hast given me, I have kept and none is lost - they are all here before God!'. Can I ask you: will you be there? Are you on this pilgrimage? Are you on this journey? Will you, one day, reach the final destination of heaven?

Let me finish with verse 8: 'O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob'. Lord, if I can't be there today, will You at least hear my prayer? He addresses God as the God of hosts, in other words the God of the great company of hosts that is gathering around the house of God, worshipping God. But this is wonderful: He's also the God of Jacob, the individual, the wrestler, the one that is cut off from God, the rebellious one. David is saying: 'I know that You're the God of the great company that's worshipping You in Jerusalem, but You're also the God of the wrestler, the God of the individual, the God of the lonely'. Isn't it wonderful, as we are travelling to heaven, that if we can't be there now the Lord hears our prayers while we're here, isn't it? We can say:

'I've wrestled on toward heaven 'gainst storm and wind and tide,

Now like a weary traveller that leaneth on his guide

Amid the shades of evening, while sinks life's lingering sand,

I hail the glory dawning in Emmanuel's land'.

I read a story this week of an elderly woman who was dying. Her husband was holding her hand and, as he was comforting her and telling her how much he loved her, their eyes met. A tear flowed down her wrinkled cheek, and gently her husband wiped it away and with a quiver in his voice he said: 'Thank God, Mary, that's the last!'. Are you going through the Valley of Tears? There will come a day that you'll shed the last one.

'Not now, but in the coming years,

It may be in a better land,

We'll read the meaning of our tears,

And there, sometime, we'll understand.

God knows the way, He holds the key,

He guides us with unerring hand.

Sometime with tearless eyes we'll see,

Yes, there, there we'll understand'.

Father, we know that the road of the transgressor is hard, and You want to turn that into wells of salvation for someone here today. We know also, too well, that the road of Baca, the valley right through the midst of tears, is at times unbearable - but Lord, You have promised to turn it all for our good, that we may drink of Thee and be satisfied. We thank Thee that one day we will stand and appear before God, and then it'll be worth it all when we see Jesus. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - July 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Psalm 84: The Lovesick Psalmist - Chapter 3

"Heaven Here And Hereafter"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

All Rights Reserved

Let's read our Psalm [84] again this morning, we'll take time to read through the whole of it: "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah. Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee".

We want to deal this morning with the last few verses - verses 9, 10, 11 and 12 of our Psalm. I hope that you've noted as we've gone through the Psalm that we have taken the various pauses where David, the Psalmist, took them - where you find that little word 'Selah', is a musical interlude, or just a simple meditational pause, where we are instructed to stop for a moment and to really ponder and think about the truths that the Psalmist has been praying and singing. We've done that, and we do it again this week - verses 9 to 12 - I've entitled it: 'Heaven Here and Hereafter' - Heaven Here and Hereafter.

Of course, this Psalm is speaking of a pilgrimage of Jewish people to Jerusalem - whether it was to the old tabernacle or the new temple we're not too sure, but it seems to be reminiscent of the old tabernacle that was no beautiful thing to look at on the outward appearance, but the depths of the riches of the knowledge of wisdom and glory that were found in the emblems and furniture and typology of that tabernacle seemed to be so dear to the heart of David, and indeed to the heart of God. We've read about the great desire that this man had to be with the people of God, worshipping God, but what seems to come out of this Psalm to us is the Psalmist's desire to be at all times in the presence of God.

We paralleled last week how these Jew's pilgrimage to their 'mecca', to Jerusalem, to the tabernacle, to the temple, is so parallel and so much like our pilgrimage through this sinful wilderness going towards our heavenly home, where one day we will be in the presence of Christ and God for all eternity. But in the light of that, if we were asked today: where is heaven? Many would retort back the answer that you often hear: 'Heaven is wherever God is', or 'Heaven is wherever Christ is'. Of course, that is true, heaven is where the presence of God is, but we ask a secondary question to that one: well then, where is heaven because we learn from a very early age that God is everywhere, He's omnipresent, there is not a place that God isn't? We heard this morning, around the Table, Psalm 139 quoted, that even if we ascend into the heavens, God is there; if we take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there God's hand will be on us; and even if we make our bed in the depths of hell, God is there. You cannot escape the presence of God!

So we have a contrast: if God is in the depths of hell, does that mean that the depths of hell is heaven? Well, of course it doesn't, because what David is speaking of here is a special presence of God. When we say that heaven is wherever God's presence is, we usually mean a special presence of God, where God's home is. But if we were to come a little bit closer and more personal to individual Christians, we would have to say that the simplest child understands that God lives within its heart. Isn't that right? God's presence indwells us. So theoretically heaven is a place which we cannot find on a map of the universe, we do not know how to get there. We know it exists, it's real, it's not subjective, it's a living destination - yet heaven can be in the depths of the human heart, because heaven essentially is where the personal presence of God is. We believe He's in our heart.

So heaven can be a place on earth, if heaven is in our hearts. You might say that this is a lot of subjective nonsense, and you've no basis within the word of God to say such things, but I want you to know where I'm finding this by turning to Ephesians chapter 1 for a moment - right into the New Testament revelation of heaven and the church, and the various mysteries that were guarded to the Old Testament saints but were revealed to the New Testament saints and specifically here to Paul the apostle. Ephesians chapter 1 verses 13 and 14, Paul's prayer in verse 12 is that the saints in the church at Ephesus would be made to the praise of the glory of Christ, the praise of God and the glory of Christ: '...who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise'. So you see the progression here, Paul is praying that, now these Christians in Ephesus are saved, that they would become men and women to the glory and praise of God who saved them, the gospel of Christ that they heard and they believed, they have been sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. Now watch this in verse 14, that Holy Spirit of promise by which they were sealed: 'is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory'.

The gift of the Holy Spirit that we have as believers, or if you like - in the simple childish way of saying it - God dwelling in our heart by the Holy Spirit, is the earnest of our inheritance of things to come in heaven. Now I've often heard this preached on, and people say that this is just like a guarantee. If you imagine you're going into a jewellers to buy an engagement ring or something like that, and you go into the jewellers but you don't have enough money. People say: 'Well, you can leave your watch', maybe you have a very precious watch and you take it off - and you leave it on the counter and you tell the jeweller: 'Now I'm going to leave that with you as a guarantee that I will come back and pay you the rest of the bill that is due for that engagement ring'. That is what a guarantee is, isn't it? Or it might be a written guarantee, but that is not what Paul is speaking of here, because an earnest, specifically, has to be an advance of the same, an advance in measure of the same. So you couldn't go into the jewellers and take your watch off, you would have to pay him a certain amount of the money first of all, and then come and pay the rest of the money - you would have to give him an advance of the same. That is specifically what an earnest is.

So, when Paul is saying here that we, when we are saved and receive the Holy Spirit in our hearts, are given an advance of the same - he's not just saying that we are given a guarantee that one day we'll go to glory, but Paul is saying we're actually paid in advance a bit of heaven poured into our hearts to give us a taste of it! Do you see the difference? Paul is not talking about, and I'm not being disrespectful, about a load of dusty pages that we less than frequently read, that tell us that we are going to a place that Christ has prepared for us. Praise God for the word of God, but there's more than that, Paul says! There is not just a guarantee in the word of God, but there is an earnest, there is an advance payment of heaven that is to be poured into the soul of the child of God. We are to experience a little bit of heaven in our heart on earth!

Now, where are we when it comes to that? Franz Baker, a Dutch Christian, said these words: 'If we haven't personally learned what it is to pray, we will meet an unknown God after death'. John Owen, who was said by some to be the greatest theologian since Paul the apostle - I don't know about that, but certainly I know that he was a great puritan and a great theologian with the word of God - do you know what he said? In a little book, and I would urge you to read it, called 'The Glory of Christ' he says these words, now listen very carefully: 'No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight in heaven, who does not in some measure behold it by faith in this world'. Have you got that? 'No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight in heaven, who does not in some measure behold it by faith in this world'. He goes on: 'Faith is a necessary preparation for sight. The soul unprepared by grace and faith is not capable of seeing the glory of Christ in heaven' - you don't have eyes to see it if you don't have faith to see it down here!

'Many will say with confidence that they desire to be with Christ and to behold His glory, but when asked they can give no reason for this desire except that it would be better than going to hell. If a man claims to love and desire that which he never even saw, he is deceiving himself!'. What is the great man saying? He's simply saying: 'If you can't in any way taste heaven by seeing the glory of Christ by faith in your heart, the likelihood is that you'll never stand in heaven and see it with sight'. What he is saying is simply what the word of God is saying, and I believe what this Psalm is prophesying into a New Testament context, that the preparation for heaven is determined by our pilgrimage on earth. How we will spend heaven will be determined by how we have spent our time here on earth, and the inference is that we can taste of the sweetness of heaven in advance, here and now, before we ever get there!

An old Scot was asked on one occasion, as he lay on his deathbed: 'Are you going to heaven?'. His reply tells so much - so simple, but he simply said: 'I am living there!'. One of the great puritans, it was said of him that heaven was in him before he was in heaven. That's what we're talking about today in this Psalm, that if we don't get heaven in our hearts before we die we shall never get there afterwards! If you don't have a taste of the glory of Christ in your heart and this great life that you're living, eternal life, the likelihood is you'll never be in heaven. Now my question to every believer here - I know that you don't walk around every day as if you're living in heaven - but my question to you is: are there times when you can actually sense heaven in your heart?

I want to tell you how that's possible from the words of this Psalmist. Three points, the first is simply this: you will live in heaven on earth if you adhere to verse 9. Look to it: 'Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed'. If you live in the place of shelter here on earth, in your heart, you will actually physically and spiritually live in the place called heaven. Now this was a prayer that was prayed by the Jewish nation for David, their King - but I believe that what we see here through the Holy Spirit's inspiration and prophetic ministry, we see a little bit of a gleam of the Gospel through the Old Testament clouds in the Psalms. We see not just King David, but we see here a prayer, I believe, prophetically concerning David's Greater Son. Now if you look at it in the light of that, you could pray this prayer and say: 'Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of Thine Anointed' - God's anointed. It was David in the context, but who was David prophesying and pointing towards? Who have all the anointed of God been prophesying towards? It is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ! If you want to live in the experience of heaven in your heart, heaven on earth, the only place that you will live it is under the shelter of God's Son.

If God looks upon the Lord Jesus Christ, let me tell you upon the authority of the word of God: you will come to no harm! Isn't that our prayer? 'Lord, look upon the face of Thine Anointed' - and if God beholds the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be enabled to go into the very presence of God and behold the face of God with joy! Sure, isn't that what the Gospel is? That we, how many times do you read it in Paul's epistles, we are now in Christ, we are accepted in the Beloved. It's as if we're in a shield, as David literally says: 'O Lord our shield, look upon thine anointed', and when we come into the presence of God by faith and through the blood, He looks down and He sees Christ, for if He saw us we'd be destroyed! If He saw us we'd never get near to Him, but He sees Christ and He accepts us in Christ into His holy presence.

We looked not so long ago, I think it was last summer, this time last year, at Psalm 91 verse 1, and it simply says: 'He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty'. Where is the secret place of the most High? Is it not the very right hand of the throne of God? And who stands at the right hand of the throne of God only our Great High Priest, our great Saviour and Redeemer who is able to shelter us beneath His wings because He died for us? And when the Father looks at the Son He sees perfect righteousness. I don't know whether you're here today and you're satisfied with mere formalities of religion, or little Christian idiosyncrasies, or dots and crosses - I don't know. But let me tell you this: if what turns you on is the discussion of doctrines, and little petty squabbles of men, and foolish ramblings, vain wives tales, I want tell you that that is not God's desire. God's desire is that we, like Him, should be occupied by Christ Himself. For it is the knowledge of Christ, looking upon His face, that gives us strength and gives us joy.

God wants us to know today that Christ is all that we have and can have. In all of the times that we go through, in all of our circumstances, not once can you say: 'Lord, look at me! Look at what I'm doing! Look at how good I am! Look at what I've achieved!' - but every time, as we walk in our pilgrimage, we've got to say: 'Lord, look upon Him, look upon the face of Thine Anointed'. I tell you, that's what I have to do when I fail, when I sin, when I go through trial and my head falls - I can't say: 'Now Lord, look at me, look at how well I'm doing'. I've got to plead Christ! You see, that's the secret of salvation, it's the secret of sanctification, it's the secret of survival when going through suffering and trial and sickness and sorrow and death - it's simply pleading with God what Christ is! Is that not it?

'Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to Thy cross I cling'.

'Just as I am without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me'.

'Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness

My beauty are, my glorious dress.

Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed,

With joy shall I lift up my head'.

Not because God's looking at my head, but He's looking at the face of Christ. Oh, it's wonderful: God is ever pleased with His beloved Son since the day He opened the heavens and said: 'This is My beloved Son in whom is all My delight'. He has ever been occupied from that day with His crucifixion and the satisfaction of the blood of Christ. Oh, He could say in looking at Calvary: 'I'm well pleased with that, I'm satisfied with that', and He said it by putting a full stop to the whole event by raising Him from the dead. The Lord of heaven is continually occupied with the death, the resurrection, the ascension, the perfect life, the perfect intercession and mediatorial high priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ - He is ever occupied with that, and that is what He wants us to be occupied with! Why? Here it is now: because that is what we will be occupied with in heaven.

What are you occupied with now in your heart? Is it a preparation for heaven? Do you have true faith? What does true faith rest on? What does our position and place reserved in heaven rest on? It can only rest on God's estimate of Christ: that He was satisfied with Him, that He loves Him, and anyone in Him He loves also. It's not upon our inward thoughts or feelings, or what we feel about how worthy we are, or unworthy, how guilty or sinful - it's upon Christ, and I tell you: if upon Christ the solid rock you stand, you'll not get down in sinking sand! Now listen, that's what heaven's going to be: just Christ. Emmanuel's land, the light of heaven is going to be the face of Jesus; the joy of heaven is going to be the presence of Jesus; the melody of heaven will be the lovely name of Jesus; the harmony of heaven will be the praise of Jesus; the theme of heaven will be the finished sacrifice and work of Jesus; the employment of heaven will be His service for all eternity; the fullness of heaven will be the Lord Jesus Christ Himself full stop! I'll tell you, if you live underneath His shelter, if you ask God to look upon His face, and you in turn look upon it also, you will be living heaven on earth.

The second thing: it's a place of no comparison. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:9: 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him'. We find in this Psalm that there is a place of no comparison, and a person of no comparison. He says: 'For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand', and the inference is - we could nearly put in there 'somewhere else'. 'A day in the courts of God is better than a thousand days spent anywhere else, even in the most favourable palaces with the best of food, finery and wine'. The greatest things that earth's pleasures can give a man, one day in the presence of God, in the house of God, is not to be compared with all the delights that men in this world can offer. Is that the way we think? That serving God, one day in God's house, would be better than everything and anything that the world can offer? You wouldn't think so today, because we can hardly get anybody to do anything even in this church. We have turned everything on its head: 'One day spent somewhere else would be better than an hour or a minute spent in the service of God'.

David had something in his heart, he had a homesickness for the people of God and the presence of God and the house of God; so much so that he experienced in his very heart that it was better - even though he was the King, perhaps, of all kings that ever lived humanly speaking - he said that all the things that he was offered in royalty, in sensuality, in festivity, you name it financially, everything was nothing compared to one day serving God with His people in the house of God. One day to feel the joy and the love of His presence! One day just rejoicing in the glories and the beauties of the Son of God! One day taking His word and surveying all His wondrous promises, lifting them by faith and applying them to his life! One day experiencing, in prayer, the power of the Holy Ghost upon you!

David is saying that this is something that this world cannot understand - worldlings can't enter into this, but I fear that children of God today can't even enter into this! I would rather be here than anywhere else! If that's what a day in the courts of the Lord was like, what will a day in heaven be like? Better than that: what will an eternity in heaven be like? This is a place of no comparison, but David said it's a place that can be in your heart here and now.

There's also a person of no comparison, because he said: 'I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness'. I'd rather be in the lowest station serving the Lord than in the highest position among the godless in the tents of wickedness. Do you know what he's saying? 'I'd rather have God's worst than have the devil's best'. That's not what people are saying today, that's not what Christians are saying: 'I'd rather have the world's best than God's worst'. My friends, as one writer said: 'God's doorstep is a happier rest than downy couches within the pavilions of royal sinners, though we might lie there for a lifetime of luxury'. To wait at the house of God, and to peep through the curtains of God, and to see all the glories of the beautiful golden vessels, to see the priests lifting their incense to God, to see the sacrifice slain and offered that teaches us of the awfulness of sin and the justice of God and the necessity of an atonement by blood - to look at that, to see the glories of our Great High Priest, our Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ, to sing His praises, to offer up spiritual sacrifices unto God morning and evening in the church of Jesus Christ is better than anything that the world can offer!

Why are the churches empty then? Why is your seat empty at the Breaking of Bread and at the prayer meeting? Because heaven's not in your heart, and if it is it's buried under a load of debris and backsliding - but what a blessing to be singing, and remember who's singing this. It's the sons of Korah who we're told were actually porters at the doorposts of the temple - that was their duty! You remember, I told you two weeks ago, how they were rebels, how they wanted to be chief in the tents of wickedness. They led a rebellion, they didn't want Aaron's leadership or Moses' prophethood, they wanted to be their own men and they raised up, if you like, another denomination to worship God and another way to worship God. Yet God, in grace, is restoring them to the place of lowlihood, to the worst place in house of God - and they said: 'That's better than any of our forefathers could offer'.

Is that not what the devil chose in the very beginning? He said: 'I would rather be chief of my kingdom than to serve God in the tents and the house of holiness'. Matthew Henry said that this could be translated: 'I'd rather be fixed to a post in the house of my God than to live in liberty'. I think he's thinking of Exodus 21, I don't know whether you know the story, we haven't got time to look at it, but in the seventh year all the slaves would be released, the year of emancipation. But say a slave had got on well with his master and made a home for himself in that particular farm or whatever it was, and he wanted to stay - maybe he had a family and his children and wife were there. Well, he was allowed, out of love for his master and devotion for him, to ask to stay on. If he was to stay on he was to be taken and his ear was to be put against a post, and an awl was to be hammered through it. Matthew Henry is saying that this is what the meaning is here: to spend service, it better to be in slavery of God than in the freedom of sins, to be in the bondage of duty than the liberty of iniquity - because there's nothing like, get this, the presence of God! Do you know it? Do you know heaven in your heart?

Thirdly: it is a place where God is for His people. Verse 11a: 'For the LORD God is a sun and shield'. I wish I had time to deal with this: the Lord is a sun and a shield. You know if you're travelling in a pilgrimage you need the sun and you need a shield. You need the sun so that the cold will not smite you, and you need a shield so that the foe will not slay you. Israel found, as they went through the wilderness, that God became their sun and shield. He was a sun by a pillar of fire, He was a sun by a cloud of smoke guiding them along their way. He was a shield to them as He defeated their enemies through the wilderness and right into Canaan. But it was the sign of God's presence; and friend today, as we travel on toward heaven, against storm and wind and tide, God is still the light, God is still the shelter, He still gives sun in our happy days, He still gives us a shield in our dangerous days. He is a sun above us, He is a shield around us, He shows us the way, He is a shield to ward off our enemies and the perils along our pilgrimage. He is our light, and you know that the source of all life in this whole planet is light. Whether it's the wind across the waves, whether it's the light that comes that makes the waves go to and fro, whether it's the little plant that grows up, whether it's your actual body - light is the source of all life, and it's still God who is the source of your life and mine.

But I'm thinking more, as we come into the presence of God through the altars of God, you remember that David wanted to delight and take his refuge and shelter in the altars of God and the shed blood of the lamb. My thoughts go to 1 John chapter 1 verse 7: 'But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light', what happens? All our sins are uncovered and we are made naked before Him, and all the dirt and dross is seen - but if we walk into the light of the sun, the sun of God's presence, He will uncover our sin, but praise God He has provided a shield, for 'the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanseth us from all sin'.

Our God is for His people as a sun and as a shield, our God gives to His people grace and glory when it's needed. Look at verse 11, the middle: 'He will give grace and glory'. Whenever you need it, He'll give it to you in the full in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ - and that's all you need. That's all that's in salvation: grace and glory. Grace to save you now, and it's like a little bud, a little seed of glory - for one day will be glorified, we will be without sin, but that grace in your heart is like a seed and you've got it now! Heaven's in your heart, grace is here, and glory is in the hereafter. Isn't it wonderful to say today: 'Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory'. And as You guide me with Your council, to testify: 'Thy grace is sufficient for me, for Thy strength is made perfect in weakness'. This is a place where God is for His people, where God gives to His people, and where God withholds from His people - no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. There's some things that seem apparently good to you and me and we don't get them because they're not good in essence and God withholds them. But how we can see in the book of Romans that if God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

Does it not rejoice your heart as you wrestle on toward heaven that all things - mark it - all things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's? If you're ready to receive anything - that means you're walking uprightly - He'll not withhold one good thing from you. Walk uprightly now, you must walk uprightly because it is the pure in heart that shall see God! Without holiness no man shall see God, and no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.

What's your condition this morning? Do you feel unfit for heaven? Oh, praise God, the Lord will give grace: grace to forgive, grace to remember your sins no more. Do you feel unworthy, even though you're forgiven, of standing before God in heaven? He will give glory when your time comes to stand, He will give you new garments! Do you have many needs as you sit in this great company today? No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.

What is the key to having heaven in your heart? Verse 12: 'O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee'. A life of real faith in God, that's it! Not of sight, but of faith, of faith in worship, of faith in God's Son, faith in God's house, faith in the ways of God, and faith that will take you to heaven and actually give you heaven in your heart now! You see, eternal life doesn't begin when you die, it begins when you have faith. A little faith will bring your soul to heaven but, my friend, great faith will bring heaven to your soul. Have you got it there? Matthew Henry said that we in this lifetime could be in the suburbs of heaven here and now. Do you have heaven in your heart? Do you know what my prayer is today, and I hope it's yours: that I'll walk so close with Christ on this earth, that when I die and go into eternity it will be no great change. Have you got heaven in your heart?

Father, we come to Thee today, and we covet a touch of heaven in our hearts, we covet a real sense of that earnest of the purchased possession. Lord, we long to sense that we are continually under the shelter of the face of Jesus Christ. You see Him, Lord. Lord, we long to know that You are with us, that You are for us, that You are withholding bad from us. Lord, we thank Thee for all these things, but Lord, help them to be in our heart, and help our hearts to be in heaven - for where our hearts are, there are treasure will be. Lord, for any in this gathering who have never beheld the glory of Christ in their hearts, they will never behold it by sight in heaven. May You shake them, may You awaken them to their need of Christ as their Saviour and Lord. May You warm all our hearts today as we travel towards our home, Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - July 2002

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Psalm 84: The Lovesick Psalmist - Chapter 4

"Make A Nest For Your Young"

Copyright 2002

by Pastor David Legge

All Rights Reserved

I want you to turn in your Bibles with me to the 84th Psalm that we were studying in the last three weeks. When seeking the Lord over what to bring to you today I felt led to come back to this Psalm, because there's a little phrase within it that I sought to deal with in the three studies over the last couple of weeks but have been unable to do it through lack of time and also it didn't really fit in, in a sense, with the theme that I was taking. I want to home in on it today and bring a few other Scriptures, some from the Old and some from the New Testament, to outline for you what I've called 'Making A Nest For Our Young' - making a nest for our young.

There's only one verse that I want to read from Psalm 84, it's verse 3: "Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God". Then, if you would turn with me to 2 Kings, the book of 2 Kings chapter 4. Keep your finger in Psalm 84, 2 Kings chapter 4, and if you've got a number of bookmarkers please do mark all these references because we will be taking time looking at all of them. Second Kings chapter 4, beginning to read at verse 29.

If you don't know the background of the story, let me just say that Elisha the prophet was walking the same road everyday as he went about his ministry. There was a woman that lived along the road, and she took pity on this man, in fact she perceived that he was a godly man even to look on him - oh, that men and women would see God in us, and see that we are godly men and women! She saw that there was something different about this man, and therefore she decided to invite him into her home. She set up in a little room various things: a bed, table, a footstool, and a candlestick; so that he might go into that room on his travels, be before God and pray, and even rest if need be. Because of her goodness to the prophet Elisha, Elisha turned to this woman one day and said to her: 'What can I do for you? Can I make you known before the King?'. She said: 'No, I'm quite happy among my own people'. Gehazi, the helper of the prophet Elisha, said to Elisha: 'This woman has no children, and her husband's very old, and I'm sure that she would love a child'. So Elisha went to God for this woman for a child, and then Elisha went to the woman and told her that about this season next year she would bear a child.

She did bear a child, she loved that child - as you would imagine - as her only child. One day that child was out in the field with its father, and it just cried out as it was helping its father: 'Oh, my head! My head!', and he fell to the ground. His father got his servants to rush the child home, and then the woman, the Shunammite woman, got some of her servants to go on horseback and fetch the man of God, Elisha, and bring him back to help her at the death of her only son.

We enter into the story at verse 29: "Then [Elisha] said to Gehazi, Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy way: if thou meet any man, salute him not; and if any salute thee, answer him not again: and lay my staff upon the face of the child. And the mother of the child said, As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And he arose, and followed her. And Gehazi passed on before them, and laid the staff upon the face of the child; but there was neither voice, nor hearing. Wherefore he went again to meet him, and told him, saying, The child is not awaked. And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed. He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the LORD. And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands: and he stretched himself upon the child; and the flesh of the child waxed warm. Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro; and went up, and stretched himself upon him: and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. And he called Gehazi, and said, Call this Shunammite. So he called her. And when she was come in unto him, he said, Take up thy son. Then she went in, and fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground, and took up her son, and went out".

Mark that passage and then turn with me, finally, to 2 Timothy - 2 Timothy chapter 1. Paul is writing to his child in the faith, Timothy, and in verse 3 he says of chapter 1: "I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day; Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy; When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also". One more verse, chapter 3 and verse 15, verse 14: "But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus".

Timothy, who we've just been reading about, we know a little bit about him from the Acts of the Apostles and from Paul's various epistles throughout the New Testament. He's called Timothy, and on occasions Timotheus, we know that he came from the city of Lystra