This world is not safe, so flee to the Lord

Did you know that the hymns in our hymnal are arranged in a specific order? They weren’t tossed in there all willy-nilly. They are arranged topically. They start with songs about the glory of God and his power in creation. Then they move to songs about the love of God through Jesus Christ, his coming as a baby and his death and resurrection on the cross. The last half is about what it means to be the people of God and it closes with songs about the people of God being on a mission for God. When the hymnal was arranged they weren’t just picking songs out of hat and giving them a number.
    Similarly, there is an arrangement to the way that the psalms in the Bible have been put together. They weren’t just picked out of a hat and given a number. They were placed in their position with some intentionality. Now, I’m not going to stand here and tell you that I can identify exactly why each psalm is placed where it is. Scholars continue to debate these. But for some psalms the reason becomes a bit more apparent. For instance, we are going through the Songs of Ascents right now. These 15 psalms were all placed side by side intentionally. We’ve talked about how they were songs that Jewish pilgrims would sing on their way to the temple in Jerusalem.
    Why am I telling you all of this? Because today we’re looking at Psalm 120 which is the first of the Songs of Ascents. And I believe there’s a reason this psalm has been placed as the first one. Because if you’re going to go on a pilgrimage to the temple, it helps to start with a desire to be in God’s presence. And that desire to be in God’s presence grows in your heart at the same time as a holy discontentment to be away from sin’s presence grows in your heart. And so the reason that the Songs of Ascents begin with Psalm 120 is because in this psalm, the pilgrim is awakened to the fact that he lives in a sinful and wicked world. He is surrounded by wickedness and sin. And he desires to leave it and be in God’s presence instead. He recognizes this world is not safe and so he wants to flee to the Lord.

Main Point – This world is not safe, so flee to the Lord

Prayer

Our points for the sermon this morning are just going to be the same exact words as the main point, but broken down into pieces. So the first is…

Point #1 – This world is not safe… (vs. 3-4)

   You’ll notice that there is a lot of talk of “deceitful tongues” in this psalm. The people whom the author lives amongst are always at war with one another and taking advantage of one another by deception. It’s every man for himself. Dog eat dog. Kill or be killed. And the psalmist takes a minute to discern what will be the end of this. Where is this dog eat dog world going? Let’s look at the middle of the psalm to see what he discerns.

READ VS 3-4

He stops for a minute and he thinks, “What’s going to happen to the people who fight amongst themselves like this?” Or as he says, “What will they be given?” His answer comes in verse 4. They will receive arrows and fire. The warrior’s sharp arrows are a sudden and sharp destruction. The glowing coals of a broom tree are a slow lingering destruction. The broom tree was known to be useful to harvest for coals that would continue to burn for a very long time.
    So we see the psalmist stopping and assessing the situation he’s living in. All of this stuff is leading to destruction. It might be sharp and sudden or it might be slow and lingering, but it will all be destroyed. And where does this destruction come from? It says in verse 3 it’s going to be given to them. Who will give the wicked destruction? Of course that’s the Lord. The world this man inhabits will someday certainly be destroyed by the Lord. It is not a safe place to be.

I’m reading a book with some of the men in the church called Pilgrim’s Progress. It’s an old book from the 1600’s and it’s written as an allegory of the Christian life. Of course the main character’s name is simply Christian. And the story opens with Christian in the City of Destruction where he lives with his family, but he begins reading his book (which of course is the Bible) and he becomes greatly distressed so that he is weeping and shaking with fear. He says to his family, “I love you all dearly but I feel I must share this miserable and heavy burden that I’ve been carrying. You see, I’ve been reading this book and learned that our town will be destroyed - burned with fire from heaven - and unless we find some way to escape, all of us will die.” This realization is what sets Christian on his journey that will eventually lead him to the Celestial City or heaven.

It’s a very simple realization, but I fear it’s one that most people never arrive at. We live in a very peaceful time in world history. I’m not suggesting that there are no wars going on or that there is no violence anywhere in the world. But compared to the pervasive threat of war that existed in every part of the world in most of history before today, we are living in rather peaceful times, especially here in America. The fact that we can spend so much time planting flowers, watching movies, and going on vacation tells you that we are at relative ease. And for the most part, we all feel particularly safe.
    But as our psalm tells us, this is all deception. There is a fiery and destructive end coming to the world. “But surely,” we think. “That won’t be for a long time. We’ll be safe for many more years to come.” But the Bible nowhere ever even suggests that to be true. The Bible always speaks with urgency. If you remain in the City of Destruction, the judgment might arrive tomorrow. This very afternoon could be the time when God arrives with his arrows and his fiery coals.
    This psalm is a call for us to get up, to leave the city behind, and to begin our pilgrimage to heaven. Do not be deceived by those around you. They want you to join in the rat race with them. But we cannot sleep here. We cannot rest here. We cannot become comfortable in this world. The only future that these little things can offer is destruction. They won’t last. And those who love them will receive the same end. This world is not safe.

If we finally come to the realization that this world is not safe. What should we do?

Point #2 – …so flee… (vs. 5-7)

  READ VS 5

He mentions two place names here that we’re not familiar with. Meshech and Kedar. They are not the same place, they’re actually extremely far apart from one another. Meshech is far northwest of Israel near the Black Sea in modern day Turkey. Kedar is in the opposite direction. It’s southeast of Israel out in the Arabian desert. Both of these locations were potentially known for being filled with violent people. It’s unlikely that the psalmist has actually lived in both of these places that might be nearly a thousand miles apart. What’s more likely is that he’s using these locations as representative of living among a wicked and godless people.
    This is similar to how we might say, “I work with a bunch of people from a different planet.” We don’t actually think our coworkers are from Venus or Mars, but we’re signalling that they’re completely out of touch with reality. So the psalmist is saying, “The people around me are so violent and so far away from God, it’s as if they’re from the furthest, most violent places I know of.”
    Then look at verses 6-7.

READ VS 6-7

He says, I’ve been here for far too long. You can sense his longing to leave this place. “I don’t want to stay among these violent men any longer. I want to leave.” The text doesn’t explicitly state this, but it seems like this is the moment when he makes his decision to leave. You’ll notice that in verses 3-4, he was talking to his enemies. Now in verses 5-7, he’s talking to himself. He’s expressing his feelings. I want to flee from this place. I don’t want to be around when their end comes.

You can’t help but think of Sodom and Gomorrah here. God announces their destruction. And then literally tells Lot, “Escape for your life. Do not look back… Escape to the hills lest you be swept away.” And sure enough God gets him out of Sodom just in time before the city is destroyed.

When we read this scripture and we think to ourselves “How ought we to apply this?”  It’s a bit hard to see how it should matter to us. When you’re going through your Bible reading plan, you get to this psalm and you think, “I’m not sure about that one” and you just move on. But one of the things that this church firmly believes (and we believe it because the Bible explicitly teaches it) is that all scripture is breathed out by God. And all scripture is profitable for instruction and teaching. So sometimes we have to sit with a text and wrestle with it for a bit.
  When we read Psalm 120, what do we see? There’s no word in the psalm that tells us our author actually made a break for it. From what we see he’s still living among these wicked people. But you’ll notice that though he is among them, he is clearly distinct from them. He lives among people who hate peace and yet he is for peace. He lives among people who are for war and yet he wants to speak. The very reason that his soul is so troubled is because he has set himself apart from them with his character. In fact, if you choose to live differently than everyone else around you, that’s the only result for your soul. You will not feel comfortable. You will feel troubled. You will feel isolated. You will feel alone.
  Ah, see now we’ve come across something that makes sense of this text. Are you willing to live differently from everyone else, knowing that it will result in your soul being troubled? Can you imagine the psalmist’s life among these people? He’s probably being pushed around. His things are being stolen or destroyed. He’s laughed at by those around him. He continues to respond humbly and gently, but people just see that as all the more opportunity to take advantage of him.
  If you choose to live differently from those around you, there’s a good chance that it will not gain you an advantage over them. In fact, it may put you at a disadvantage. It may very well cause you to be looked down on. You may lose opportunities that others have. When you refuse to join in with others in the gossip they’re engaged in, when you refuse to speak crudely about others, when everyone is complaining about the boss and you instead choose to speak with some appreciation, it ought to be something you’re rewarded for, but instead will be something you’re punished for. You’ll speak peace and they will hate peace.
  However, by doing so, you’re separating yourself from a life that is headed for destruction. What’s the point of fighting to get to the top of the dumpster when it’s all going to be destroyed together? This man lived among people who were wicked, but he refused to participate in their game. He remained separate. He hadn’t fled physically from their presence, but he had fled far, far away from their attitudes and their speech.

When you’re surrounded by sinners, you can’t rely on a physical relocation to be the thing that saves you. You need a person to save you. When you recognize this world is not safe and you flee, it must be to the Lord.

Point #3 – …to the Lord (vs. 1-2)

READ VS 1-2

This man has done the only thing that he can do. He has called on the Lord for help. Why? Because God always answers. He asks God to deliver him. Why? Because God always delivers. He’s not taking things into his own hands. He’s asking God to be the one who does the saving work.

I had a friend I worked with who complained all the time about living in a big city and about being part of that rat race. He’d say things like, “We weren’t meant to look outside our windows and see concrete everywhere. We weren’t meant to be eating everything out of a can. We should be in the wilderness and we should be living off the land!” He was convinced that the answers to his problem were to physically move somewhere out in the country. But then you’ve encountered people who live here, which is much more rural, who sometimes think the opposite. “Here we are in these backwoods with nothing close by and with no fancy culture. If I could just get into the big city with lots of people, then I’d be able to start living.”
I’ve lived in enough different places to recognize that everyone everywhere suffers from a “the grass is always greener” complex. We find ourselves in distress and we think, if only I could change my circumstances then I would be saved. If I can just get my hands on something different than I have now, then I would be delivered. But here’s where our lives are significantly different from Lot’s life when he fled from Sodom. We may think, “If I can just get to the mountains then I will be saved.” But there’s no safety in the mountains. There’s only safety in the Lord.

Consider, what is it that the psalmist is asking God to deliver him from? He says, “Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips and a deceitful tongue.” He’s not asking God to deliver him from Meshech or save him from Kedar. He’s not asking to be delivered from a place. He’s asking that God would deliver him from sin. Because what happens if this man leaves the place he’s at and he makes his pilgrimage all the way to Jerusalem. Is he going to find a sinless utopia? Has he finally escaped from all lying lips? No. Absolutely not. If you’ve been joining us on Wednesday nights as we study the minor prophets then you know that Jerusalem was a city often filled with horrible sin.
So the conclusion of the matter is that deliverance isn’t found in a place. Deliverance isn’t found in a circumstance. Deliverance is only found in a person. So even in this psalm written 1,000 years before Jesus is born, we see a man calling out to the Lord recognizing that his greatest need isn’t new circumstances with more material blessings, but that his greatest need is actually deliverance from sin, which only the Lord can provide.

Is this how you think when you are “In your distress”? When you find yourself like the psalmist, “in my distress” as he says in verse 1, where do you think your deliverance lies? Or maybe more importantly, what do you think you need to be delivered from? Because I’ll tell you that most people in this world think they know what they need to be delivered from and they’re wrong.
  What’s the easiest way to demonstrate this? What’s the easiest mistake people make in identifying what they need to be delivered from? “The reason I am in so much distress is because I don’t have enough money. If I could just be delivered from being poor, then I would be saved.” But money is such a deceptive idol. It always holds out the promise of salvation if you could just get enough of it, but history has proven that money does not save people. This has been recognized so much that a cliche has formed “Money can’t buy happiness”. If you ask anyone who is super rich, “Has money delivered you from your problems?” They will all say emphatically “No!” There’s another very popular cliche, “Mo’ money, mo’ problems”. We’ve all been told this time and time again. Money will not deliver you from your struggles. And yet even with so much warning, we all still instinctively think, “Yeah, but a little bit of money will still help me out right?” No! It can only buy you at best a band-aid for your soul’s disease. Your deliverance does not lie in money.
  Or what’s another easy example of hoping for deliverance in the wrong places? Relationships. Everyone is chasing after that perfect someone whom they think will complete them. If I could find the right husband or the right wife then I would be delivered from my problems. This desire for a spouse to satisfy you is so strong that there’s an entire economy built on this false hope that a romantic relationship will deliver you. The Apostle Paul specifically states in 1 Corinthians 7, that far from freeing you from struggles that marriage will actually increase your anxieties. Look it up. This is clear to many people who are married. They recognize that marriage isn’t the utopia they had hoped it would be, but here’s where this false hope is dangerous. Instead of recognizing that marriage can’t deliver them, so many people become convinced that they’ve simply married the wrong person. “Marriage is definitely what will be my salvation, but just not to this one. If I can get out of this one and find a new one, then I’ll really be fulfilled and delivered.” We find ourselves like the psalmist “in our distress”, but we think our greatest need is that we need to be delivered from loneliness.
  And the happily married people aren’t off the hook either. We can idolize our children in the same way. If I had a better relationship with my kids then I could finally be happy. Or if I just had some good friendships, my life would fall into place. But relationships cannot deliver you.
  There are an infinite number of wrong things we think we need to be delivered from. Last week we talked about falsely hoping in a vacation as the thing that would deliver us. But rest won’t save you either.
  What is it that we actually need deliverance from?! “Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips and a deceitful tongue.” We need deliverance from sin. This is the only deliverance that will truly save you. It will satisfy your soul. Because no matter what your circumstances are - you’re rich, you’re poor; you’re single, you’re married; you’re busy, you’re rested; you’re dwelling in Meshech and Kedar, you’re in Jerusalem at the temple - no matter what your circumstances are, sin will follow you there and it will wreck whatever things you have.
  How can we be delivered from sin? By calling on the Lord. “In my distress, I called to the Lord.” There is only one deliverer who can truly free you from the ache you feel in your heart because of your circumstances. To those who are poor, to those who are lonely or tired, to those who have ravaged their own lives because of sin, to those who have been sinned against horribly by others, there is the same hope. Regardless of the specifics of your situation, we all find ourselves trapped in a dark place, we understand what the psalmist means by dwelling among Meshech and Kedar. And we all need the deliverance from sins that can only be found in Jesus Christ. Listen to Colossians 1:13-14.
  “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
  In the kingdom of Christ, in the presence of the Lord, sin is defeated and our circumstances have no power over us. Last week, Joe Mack read Proverbs 31 for us, and speaking of the godly woman who fears the Lord it said, “Strength and dignity are her clothing, she laughs at the time to come.” She’s unafraid of any circumstances, because the Lord is her hope and deliverer.
  How can we get there? How can we become a people who laugh at the times to come? Well, what does the psalmist do? “I called to the Lord, and he answered me”. It’s actually that simple. It’s the invincible hope that is obtained through a simple child-like faith. Christians, we must daily place our faith in Christ as our only deliverer. Our hearts will keep searching for something else to be what saves. We will wake up every morning with sinful flesh that turns our eyes away from the Lord and back on to what we see immediately occurring around us. Pray! Call out to God! “Lord, today you are the only one who can save me. Confidence in you delivering me from sin is my only hope.” It’s not a prayer that you make once and can just coast on the rest of your life. It’s a daily battle. It’s an hourly battle, even minute by minute sometimes.

The world is not a safe place for us. We can’t become comfortable here and we will never be able to become comfortable here. There is no hope or deliverance in the things this world offers. The future of sin will only be a “warrior’s sharp arrows and coals of the broom tree”. We must flee from sin and those who love it. We must be separate and distinct from them. “Woe to us if we continue to dwell among those who love sin”. In our distress, we escape by calling on the Lord. He’s the only hope for our salvation.