Victory in the Aging Years of Life

Victory in the Aging Years of Life

I'd like to ask you to take your Bibles with me and turn to Psalm 92. Please, Psalm 92 this morning. We'd like to read this entire Psalm, Psalm 92. Psalm or Psalm for the Sabbath day? It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High, to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning and thy faithfulness every night. Upon an instrument of ten strings and upon the psaltery, upon the harp with a solemn sound, for thou, O Lord, hast made me glad through thy work. I will triumph in the works of thy hands. O Lord, how great are thy works, and thy thoughts are very deep. A brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this. When the wicked spring as the grass and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed forever. But thou, Lord, art most high forevermore. For lo, thy enemies, O Lord, for lo thy enemies shall perish. All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. But my horn shalt thou exalt, like the horn of a unicorn. I shall be anointed with fresh oil. My eye also shall see my desire on my enemies, and my ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age. They shall be fat and flourishing to show that the Lord is upright. He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

In this mark, our Bibles, please, to that portion of Scripture for today, and let's bow our heads in acknowledgment of the Lord in prayer. Father, as we've opened our Bibles, we pray that you would break the bread of life to us and help us to behold wondrous things out of thy law, things that we can carry with us in the Lord. In our walk, the rest of this day and into this week, things that will help us to have a clearer picture of who you are and who we ought to be. Help us, Lord, as we have heard your word that we would make the application now, we pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.

So blessed to be in the Lord's house today, we are in Psalm 92, and before we get into the text this morning, I want to just take a few moments to just share a few things as the pastor of the church. I believe, I've taken the approach that I do, you'll notice on Sunday mornings, I usually reserve Sunday mornings just to let the Lord lead me on what specifically I'm to speak on for that particular Sunday, and I trust that the Lord is leading me in that. You know, on Wednesday nights right now we're working our way through a series on the Great Salvation we have in Christ and what even happens when we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and we become a child of His, we talked about the redemption, the pardon, the atonement, all of those things that were reconciled to God. We are new creatures in Christ, we are cleansed, we're baptized with Him, and yet we're raised to walk in newness of life. All those things, we're taking sort of a systematic approach to the theology of what it means to be born again.

And then on Sunday evenings we've been looking at sins of the Spirit, things that not only the actions that we partake in at times that may be sinful, but what the Lord looks at when He sees the heart. You know, in the Sunday school hour right now we're not particularly working through one book, but we're going through the kings of Israel, we're looking at the unfolding of those kings and how that applies to our lives. The lessons we can learn because all scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. There are times certainly, usually it's on Wednesday nights and on Sunday school that we go through books of the Bible, usually at those times. I know that I'm not perfectly balanced in this, but something I've appreciated about preachers that tend to be more expositional or expository in their preaching is, you know, something I found is that the Lord can use any of it.

And so, when we're giving an expository verse by verse, line upon line, it's amazing how when you're going through a book of the Bible, there are pertinent applications that are almost uncanny, I guess we can say, at the timing of when you come to it in the text that there's something it seems like you're going through in your life or in the church that the Holy Spirit just says, well, that's exactly what we need right now. As we're working our way through expository preaching, there's also a danger when a preacher preaches just to not be so, well, so God-led, you know, and sometimes that God leading me is I had this thought on my heart about three minutes before I got to the pulpit and you waver around and you waffle around and by the end of it, nobody even knows what in the world was he talking about. And he said a lot of things but he didn't say much at all. And so God help me not to, and even sometimes that tends to be what we call a lot of eisegesis going on, you kind of snatch something out of the context and don't respect the context in which that little verse, that little snippet is found, and then we're not, we don't have a better appreciation or understanding of what the scripture actually says. And so we just sort of, you know, that was a convenient phrase today. I tried to stay away from that in the preaching of God's word.

But this morning my heart has been drawn specifically to Psalm 92. So we've already read from this passage this morning and I want us to return to it here. Let's look back in verse number one once again, in verse number one it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High. We're coming up on that time of year where we observe the national holiday Thanksgiving, right? And we use that little phrase sometimes, we want to return thanks to the Lord. When we come to the Lord's house on Sunday every week we have a special high day of the Lord's day where we come together to corporately worship. But that doesn't mean that our worship is confined to Sunday. We worship the Lord every day. We should thank the Lord every day. We should give thanks, return thanks every day. In fact, we're commanded in many places in the scriptures to give thanks to the Lord.

But it is a good thing we're told here in this verse, and this morning as I think about this Psalm and what I want us to gain from this, I don't want to limit what the Lord may speak to us individually about through this Psalm, but what I really have a desire we have predominantly among our congregation. We have more seasoned saints, older saints in this church, and I think this Psalm beautifully, wonderfully highlights the fact that even as we grow older, and especially as we grow older, we do not have to be on the defensive and on the waning and on the woe's beside. This Psalm is absolutely a Psalm of victory, a Psalm of abundance, a Psalm that declares very clearly that we of all people, especially as we grow older, ought to be victorious in our Christian walk as Christians.

But here we see it is good to give thanks unto the Lord to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High. I think of Naomi and how she came back from Moab and she was bitter. She was a bitter woman. This is the natural course that life will take if we don't ever look to Jesus. We will become bitter with just life and the circumstances. How many times have I heard people say, I thought these were supposed to be the golden years of life. Everyone can attest to the fact that as you get older it might not be quite as golden from a physical health standpoint as you were hoping it was going to be. You have a new social circle and the doctors, all this. You are meeting all kinds of new doctors and physicians all the time that you probably didn't anticipate.

And here it is. We are going through the season of life right now where we are getting surprised all the time at realizing, wow, Esther will be graduating from high school. And what, six years, I mean, I did not even do the math ahead of time. You are not going to check me on that. But it is very short. We are talking about when the Bergman has come back next time she is going to be a senior in high school. I mean, in life it just comes at you fast and it hits you before you know it. You are at certain milestones and points that you didn't really anticipate getting there that quickly. But Naomi was a woman who felt like she had not been dealt a fair hand, I guess we can say, or whatever the term we want to use there. Life had not been fair to her. And yet we see that there are a number of examples. And even Naomi, it seems we never hear from her own lips in the record of the Book of Ruth. We never hear from her own lips directly. But the indication is that her heart came back around to a place of praise and thanks to the Lord. She found her place in the next chapter of her life in God's Providence. And even her friends were saying things to her. The women that gathered around her would say things like, blessed be the Lord which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman that his name may be famous in Israel. And she didn't contradict them. I think she was joining right in there with them.

You have Moses at 120 years old. Moses sang the song and wrote the song of praise to the Lord that he did in Deuteronomy 32 right at the end of his life. You have Jacob even on his deathbed praising and worshiping the Lord. You have David certainly praising; we've been, we went through in great detail recently in the Sunday School series of David and how he prepared abundantly for the worship and the building of the temple in Solomon's day. He prayed extensively and fervently for his son Solomon that the Lord would give him a perfect heart, a heart after God. And we see Anna, she gave thanks to the Lord even, I mean at the bare minimum she was 84 years old. It depends on how you interpret that, was she 84 years old, or was she a widow that was 84 years old. Well, she was at least 84 years old. She might have been a hundred plus. She was well up in age but she was faithful, and when the Lord, the Messiah appeared, she gave thanks unto the Lord and spoke to all those that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. You have Simeon, he waited and longed for and had received a promise that he would not die until he had seen the Lord's Christ. And when he saw him he says, but now he was just overjoyed and said let thy servant depart in peace because I have seen. I have seen it with my own eyes. These are examples, folks, of senior saints who were not complaining and bitter in the end of their lives but were thanking the Lord and rejoicing in the Lord.

Verse 2 of the text says to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning and thy faithfulness every night upon an instrument of 10 strings and upon the psaltery, upon the harp with a solemn sound. This is interesting here, David says every night, every single night he would show forth the Lord's faithfulness; every morning he would show forth the loving kindness and every night the faithfulness of the Lord. Morning and evening, in another place he would say morning, evening, and at noon that he would lift his voice and the Lord would hear from him. He would lift his prayers for the Lord, but this shows that David, when he woke up, David, when he went to bed at night, had a desire, even his way of expressing praise to the Lord, his way of, as it says here, showing forth the loving kindness and expressing how faithful the Lord had been to him. He did it on an instrument of 10 strings. You might not know how to play an instrument of 10 strings. I don't know how to play an instrument of 10 strings. I'm not skilled on any string instrument. We can certainly say that David, the Lord has given him and he's developed that gift.

But we notice that there are different ways that each one of us can express praise to the Lord every morning and every evening. Maybe you have a journal and you can write down the faithfulness of God to you that day. We'll talk about what the Lord has done in that day. Maybe it's certainly should be just stopping and praying for his goodness to us. We can begin the day, praise the Lord when we get up and ask him to guide us in that day. It is certainly, there are a number of different ways that we can individually. All of us may, we may do it in different ways. It might not be on an instrument. It may be we lift up our voice in song, and it doesn't mean the Bible says nothing about it has to be on pitch. It says make a joyful noise. That has to do with the Spirit, doesn't it? It's not so much the joyfulness doesn't come from how perfect the pitch is but how the Spirit is making melody in your heart to the Lord. Maybe you just imagine in your mind. If you sing in the back room, everybody is a great singer. You can imagine that you can sing well.

But we notice that it says every night and every morning, David would express on an instrument of ten strings. Charles Spurgeon said this, I like this. He says we talk as if really we were to be pitied for living, as if we were little better often than toads under a hollow or snails in a tub of salt. We whine as if our lives were martyrdoms and every breath of woe. But it is not so, such conduct slanders the good Lord. Wow, he didn't miss any words there today. He said we just tend to complain about our circumstances. We tend to complain. But we ought not to. We have so much to praise the Lord for. Let's not forget all of his faithfulness. Let's not forget his goodness. Let's not forget his character.

I remember Matthew Henry. I know I've shared this before. I think I put it in the bulletins at least once in the history of this church. But I'm also reminded of what Matthew Henry said. We need to have Matthew Henry's mindset. If we did, we would be able to find something about the Lord and his faithfulness to praise him for every evening. Because he said this when he wrote in his diary at the end of a day that he had been mugged. He had been robbed. He said let me be thankful first because I was never robbed before. Second, although they took my purse, they did not take my life. Third, because although they took my all, it was not much. And fourth, because it was I who was robbed and not I who robbed. That's what the hymn "Count Your Many Blessings, Name Them One by One" is talking about, isn't it? Count your blessings, not your troubles.

Verse 4 here, the text says, for thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work. That's what we need to focus on, his work. I will triumph in the work of thy hands. That hast made me glad. So we've seen, give thanks, express that in some form, whether it be a stringed instrument or writing it down in a journal like Matthew Henry did or whatever it may be. Express that thanksgiving in some form to the Lord and be glad. Verse 4, be glad. That hast made me glad through thy work. The psalmist here is speaking of triumphing, being victorious in what the Lord has done for him, not being defeated by circumstances and being defeated and complaining and bitter and upset about the hand dealt him. And the emphasis he places here is the emphasis we need to have, is on the Lord's work. Look at what the Lord's done. Look at the work of his hands. Look at what he's accomplished.

Maybe today I didn't have such a great day, but you know I'm thankful that the Lord brought me through it. I'm thankful that the Lord got me through that difficult doctor's appointment. I'm thankful that the Lord helped me with that conversation even though I may be still somewhat burned about some difficult conversation I had to have today with someone. But Lord, I'm going to leave that in your hands now. I can do nothing but worry about it. So let me leave it, commit and roll my burden upon the Lord and he will sustain me. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to triumph in this instead of miring down and worrying and pity and complaints about these things.

I heard someone say this recently that an individual said that his greatest fear, raised in California, his greatest fear growing up was getting caught in an earthquake and the building collapsing on him. Well, that's probably a legitimate odds there that something like that could happen to you in California, right? And he said, but I had to get a grip and deal with this anxiety that I had that was continually resurfacing in this fear that I had. And he said, that's the worst thing that I can think of that could happen to me. And he said, I had to come to the conclusion in my own heart that if that's what the Lord wants to happen to me, what's the worst thing? I'll die? And I'll go to be with him. That's the worst thing that could happen to me is that I die in an earthquake in a horrible way. Well, in light of eternity, it's still a very short thing and it'll be all right. He said, and when I came to the realization and I came to the understanding that if the Lord wants that to happen to me, then I will be fine with it. Then I was able to move forward. I was able to move forward because the Lord just put that peace and that gladness in my heart knowing that it's going to be okay. It's going to be all right.

We need to be on the offensive as Christians through the Lord's grace. Be strong in the grace of our Lord. Let's be strong in his grace and not be on the defensive, so to speak. Look in Romans 8:35, this certainly talks about the worst thing that could happen to us. Romans 8:35. In Romans chapter 8 and verse number 35, here is this beautiful passage, wonderful passage. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? We do well to stop and just think through all of those different scenarios. That's a lot that could be said about each one of those. As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things—tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword—we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The worst thing that can happen to you cannot separate you from the love of God in Christ. That should make us glad. That should put gladness in our heart more than in the time that the wicked's corn and wine increases. We have eternal blessedness, eternal gladness, not just temporary gladness.

And we notice in verse 5 it says there, verse 5, O Lord, how great are thy works and thy thoughts are very deep. A brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this. I believe this is encouraging us, pointing us, no matter what age we are, but certainly as we grow older, that meditating on God's word and studying God's word and asking the Spirit of God to teach us more of Christ. I know this is Old Testament, but the understanding here is the fool is like a, what does it say here, the brutish man knoweth not. Well, that's all of us in our natural condition. We're like beasts, right? We don't naturally understand. We don't seek after God. No, that's our natural condition. But having been, having tasted that the Lord is good, having tasted of his wonderful salvation and received his life, we see as his people here it says in verse 5 how great are thy works. That's what our conclusion should be, and thy thoughts are very deep. David prayed that the Lord would open his eyes and he might behold wondrous things in his law, in his word. Remember Asaph in Psalm 73 compared himself, was that Psalm 73, compared himself there when he became envious. He set his eyes on the wicked and how they were seeming to prosper, and he said I was foolish, like a beast. I just completely forgot the eternal perspective about all of this, and I got my eyes on the temporal things and the tangible things, and I was envious of the wicked, but I was foolish in my way of thinking about that.

But God's ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and yet even though we don't know everything, and we're just going to take an eternity to show us so many things, it is true what we read in 1 Corinthians 2:9. Let's look over there, 1 Corinthians 2:9. Even though the things of God are deep, they're high, they're unfathomable in a sense, it tells us here in 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 9, but as it is written, 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. Pause. We were saying this morning that anybody can pick up a Bible, but only God's people can have discernment. Only God's people can have true wisdom that believe the record that He's given to us, and the Holy Spirit will illuminate our understanding, help us to see things that we would not have otherwise seen. It says here, but God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, the deep things of God. And that's what the psalmist says here. He says in verse 5 that the thoughts of God are very deep. But He's given us His Spirit. We can't exhaust the Word of God. The more you know, the more you know you're just scratching the surface of all there is to know of what God has for us. But thank God for the sight that He gives us.

And we ought not to be, as we grow older in Christ, we ought not to be blind and foolish and like a beast. We ought to, in fact, quite the opposite. We ought to be like the passage tells us that the path of the just shines more and more unto that perfect day, brighter and brighter, more understanding. You know, and not, I can't say that everybody has the same opportunity, but I've noticed that, you know, I mean talking to different ones of you here in the church, you have more time on your hands than you used to when you were maybe raising children or working a full-time job or whatever the case may be. You've got more time to think on the deep things of God, right? To think on and to meditate on the things of the Lord. And that can be, and the overflow of what God shows you can be a blessing to others as you share with them.

Verse 7 says, when the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it says that it is that they shall be destroyed forever. It's like fireworks, right? Boom, and they're gone. Just for a moment, like the herb of the field that's here in the morning and it's gone in the afternoon. It wilts under the heat. It's just very temporary. But thou, Lord, art most high forevermore. And because he lives, because his life is eternal, our life will be eternal. Our life is eternal because we are in Christ, right? We're in Christ. We're not any longer, even though our body is corruptible, our spirit will live on forever with the Lord.

We notice in verse 9, for lo, thy enemies, O Lord, for lo thy enemies shall perish. All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. But my horn, shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn. I shall be anointed with fresh oil. Here we see the contrast once again. The enemies, those who do not put their trust in the Lord, at times they can seem to be very strong against David, right? They can be seen to be very powerful, prosperous. But it says, and the psalmist here, he says, they shall perish. They're going to come to an end. They're not going to always prosper as they may seem to at the moment. But thou shalt, my horn, thou shalt exalt like the horn of a unicorn. We read about a horn in the Bible. This is a symbol of power, strength. Though they seem to be strong, they'll be scattered. They'll be judged. They'll, what is the word they gave here? They shall perish. And all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. They'll be scattered. But you're going to exalt me and strengthen me, right?

The unicorn, I didn't do all the research on this, but I looked up what brother David Cloud had done as far as research on this. And he's not giving a definitive. I thought it was very interesting. It may be interesting to you just to share for about 120 seconds what he had to say about the unicorn. It's not the mythical horse with the horn on the front of it. It's more likely it was a rhinoceros-type creature, very likely. Unicorn appears nine times in the Bible, had one large horn as we see here in this passage today. Thou shalt exalt my horn, shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn. It's a horn. It's interesting that the Siberian unicorn, which is extinct, had a 33-inch long skull, more than three times, it was more than three times the size of the body, I guess of that unicorn was three times larger than the other rhinoceroses that we have today. It's said to have been about 16 feet long, seven to eight feet at the shoulder, weighed three and a half to five tons. The horn was said to be three feet long or more. It's interesting that actually, the Greek word for rhinoceros is "rhino," speaking of nose, and "keras," speaking of horn. Nose horn or the rhinoceros. That means that actually the Indian rhinoceros, I thought this was interesting. The Indian rhinoceros, rhinoceros unicornis, is actually the Latin name for the Indian rhinoceros. That's just another interesting fact. It's very likely it was some type of rhinoceros in the rhinoceros family. This unicorn was, and if you think about, I mean, I wouldn't meet up with a modern-day rhinoceros to say nothing of this one. This may be three times as big, a three-foot tall horn. That is strength for sure. That's pure raw power there. This is talking about the saints. The Lord will strengthen us like the unicorn.

Then we notice also, if you look down in verse 11, mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies. My ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. It says, the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Once again, it's just continuing the thought that the wicked are going to diminish and the righteous are going to grow stronger and stronger. We are missing out if we are getting more grumpy, complaining, ho-hum, and just down in the mouth, generally speaking, as we grow older in Christ, we ought to be growing stronger and stronger in the Lord. Maybe the outward man is perishing, but the inward man should be flourishing, right? The inward man should be growing stronger in the Lord. That doesn't mean we're perfect, that we don't ever stumble, that we can't sin. I'm not saying that, but we ought to be living victorious lives. That's what the Lord is telling us here. We ought to be like a palm tree. Palm trees are straight, strong, tall, green, even in dry places, right? You have the cedars of Lebanon. Those were used in the building of the tabernacle or of the temple. They were very useful, very strong, high-quality wood. Those trees were looked to from various ends of the earth for their high quality, those trees of Lebanon.

Those that be planted, it says in verse 13, in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. Well, what is this even talking about? Being planted like a tree, well, we have the parallel of Psalm 1, right? Psalm 1 talks about, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. It goes on to say, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. The obvious implication there is that while he meditates in God's Word day and night, he meditates, he studies, he worships God, he delights in God. And an extension of that certainly would be that you would want to be in the house of God with God's people. Love God and love His people. Be with God's people. Not forsake the assembling of ourselves together if at all possible. Sometimes it's not possible, but we want to be planted in the house of the Lord. We want to be flourishing in the courts of our God. This is always in His presence and certainly living daily in the presence of the Lord. It includes being with His people, doesn't it? It includes being with those of like faith. We want to be around them.

And so we see that they shall still bring forth fruit in old age. Verse 14, they shall be fat and flourishing. This is a picture of David. No matter what his failures were with Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite, we see that he ended his life well, he ended strong. He was praying, Lord, forsake me not till I show thy strength to this generation, thy power to everyone that is to come. And the Lord did enable him to do so many things with those remaining years of his life, those final years of life. We see that the final years of life, even from this passage, the later years, the aged years of our life should be given to praise, study, and meditation, strength in the inward man, even though the outward man may be failing. And there should be certainly an increased humility and gratitude toward God for all that he's done for us, gladness in his work, meditating on his work.

And then verse 15, to show what is the purpose of all of this, of all of this, to show that the Lord is upright. I don't serve an anemic savior. I don't serve a weak master; I serve a great master, a great savior, a great Lord. To show that he's upright, he is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him. David was one of the, we have the most transparent view, probably of David as we do of anybody in the scriptures. I mean, he's beginning a lot of these psalms, I've been distressed, weak, I don't know what to do, help me desperately. And the Lord does. He just keeps crying out to the Lord. We sing it as children, right? We are weak, but he is strong. And you know, that's really the test of our strength is going to be, do we rely on the Lord? Do we look to the Lord, look ever to Jesus and he'll carry you through. He's the one that's called us out of darkness into his marvelous light, and we ought to show forth his praises. We ought to show forth the praises of him to show that he is upright, to show that we serve a great God. And the world ought to know about it. Our brethren, we ought to be able to encourage one another. If that vertical fellowship, once again, as we mentioned recently, is right, then the horizontal fellowship will take care of itself.

May God help us in these things. Gracious heavenly Father, thank you for these moments we've had together. We're all aging. We're all older than we were last week. We're all going through things that are in a new chapter of life that are different than what we were facing even last year at this time, or certainly five to ten years ago. We are certainly in a different season of life now than we were then. And yet, Lord, you're the same. Your faithfulness doesn't fail. We thank you, Lord, that we can draw near as we heard the ladies sing this morning, "Nearer, My God, to Thee." We pray that you'll help us to realize that no matter what comes in our lives, even though it be a cross that raises me, we want to be nearer. What's the worst thing that could happen to us, Lord? We might, we could fear growing older. We could fear. And sometimes those fearful thoughts may come. Or what am I going to do? What if I have to be put in a nursing home at some point before I pass off this earth's scene? What if, what if, what if, what if? Your rod and your staff will comfort us. You will always go with us, Lord. Help us to just dwell on that wonderful reality. Help us to meditate and talk of all thy wondrous works as we saw this morning. Help us to be glad in your safekeeping. Help us to be truly ready to tell others about what a great and wonderful Lord that we serve. Bless us now as we conclude this service with a final hymn. And in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.