Trust God’s abiding promises, not temporary appearances

     Seeing is believing is a popular phrase. We tend to trust anything we can see with our eyes. But if you’ve ever been to see a magician, then you know how easily our eyes can be fooled. If you’ve ever purchased a vehicle that looked good, only to discover it was an absolute mess then you know how easily our eyes can deceive us. If you’ve ever met someone who seemed genuine and kind, only to have them take advantage of you later, then you know appearances can deceive us fairly easily. But despite the mounting evidence that we’re not very good at judging things based on appearances, we still tend to trust our eyes.

There’s a story about King Saul in the Old Testament when he was deceived by appearances. The prophet Samuel had told King Saul he would come to offer a sacrifice for him before the battle began so that he could defeat his enemies. But Saul grew impatient waiting for Samuel and he offered the sacrifice himself. Immediately afterwards, Samuel shows up and rebukes him asking why he acted this way. Saul’s response was, “I saw that people were scattering from me. I saw that you weren’t coming. And I saw that the enemy's army was only getting bigger. I took matters into my own hands.”

He let what his eyes see, deceive him and he failed to trust in God’s promises. Each day our eyes see things that tell us the opposite of what God’s word tells us. Each day we’re tempted to believe what appears to be true against what God has promised to be true. This morning I want us to start doubting our eyes more.

Main Point – Trust God’s abiding promises, not temporary appearances

Prayer

     Typically in the Bible there are only two types of people presented. There are the righteous and the wicked. There are no other options. You are either one or the other. But in today’s psalm, there’s an interesting and unique third category, which we’ll discover later on. And I want to walk through all three of these categories and describe both who they are and what their future is.

Point #1 – Those who trust in the Lord abide forever (vs. 1-2)

READ VS 1-2

     We’ve talked frequently in this series about how Jerusalem is situated among the mountains. To get to Jerusalem from any direction you’ll have to walk up, which is why our collection of psalms are called the Songs of Ascents. And it is this geographical feature that our psalm is highlighting today. The mount on which the city is situated goes by multiple names, but in this psalm it is referred to as Mount Zion. Mount Zion isn’t a mountain isolated from all other mountains as if it’s the Lonely Mountain rising up in the middle of a flat plain. It is surrounded by other mountains as well.

The author of our psalm isn’t trying to give us a lesson on topography, but he’s highlighting these features for a reason. Like a good parable from Jesus, the author is using a physical thing that everyone is very well acquainted with and he’s connecting it to a spiritual truth. “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion which cannot be moved, but abides forever.”

How are the people who trust in the Lord like a mountain? How is it that they cannot be moved? The idea of moving a mountain here isn’t the image of transporting it from one place to another. Obviously, It is not suggesting that those who trust in the Lord can’t go from one place to another. But the word for “moved” here carries the idea of being shaken, removed, toppled, or overthrown. And this is what he’s emphasizing for those who trust in the Lord, they will not be shaken or overthrown.

Connected with that same idea is verse 2. The reason that those who trust in the Lord abide forever is because the Lord is surrounding his people. Think of these mountains as a wall that surrounds the inner mountain. Nothing and no one is going to get to Mount Zion without first passing through the mountains surrounding Jerusalem. And the psalmist says, this is the type of protection God gives to his people. If you want to get to them, you’ll have to go through him first.

Two beautiful truths - God’s people cannot be shaken and God protects his people. But you can see that what the author is emphasizing here is not necessarily the truths themselves, but the permanence of these truths. These truths are mountains. They will always be there. They abide forever, from this time forth and forevermore. You can orient your life around them.

     Have you ever been lost? It’s probably significantly less common today to be lost at all because of the abundance of GPS equipped devices. But there are still those rare occasions where we don’t have any sort of GPS with us and we get lost. What’s the first thing you do when you realize you're lost? You begin to look for something that you recognize. You look for some sort of landmark. If you’re hiking in the woods, you might say, “I know there was a signpost out here somewhere”. Or if you’re driving in a new city you might say, “Where is the major highway that I came in on?” If you can find the landmark, then you can reorient yourself and you will no longer be lost.

In ancient times, what was the biggest and easiest landmark to orient yourself around? It was a mountain. The mountain isn’t going anywhere. It’s always in the same spot. Everything else in life has to work around the mountain. If you can find the mountain, you’re not lost. Our psalmist is telling his people, this is the truth you can orient your life around. These are the promises that are unmovable.

If you are a pilgrim walking up to Jerusalem, it doesn’t matter which direction you’re coming from, you're going to see that mountain as you approach. It doesn’t matter what time of day you’re walking or what the weather is like, that mountain is going to be there in the same spot. It doesn’t matter how you’re feeling on a particular day. It doesn’t matter what’s happening in world history, who’s conquering who, whether you’re being personally threatened or not. The mountain is going to be in exactly the same spot. Hundreds of generations have lived and died. World conquering empires have risen and fallen. Countless thunderstorms, droughts, freezings, famines, dust storms, and heat waves have blown through and yet the mountain remains.

      So I ask, “What unmovable truth is your life built around?” “What is the orienting landmark that you keep coming back to so that you’re not lost?” You can discover what it is pretty easily when you start to feel like you're lost. Because whatever the thing is you look toward is going to be the direction that you’re headed.

If you think to yourself, “I’m feeling a little nervous today about what’s going to happen to me,” do you turn on the news? Is this the place you’ll find hope? There is nothing stable at all about the news. If you’re feeling shame or feeling like you don’t measure up, do you turn to social media to help establish yourself? You can scroll for hours and still have no idea whether or not you have any value. Or perhaps worst of all, and very common among men, is when we’re overwhelmed with life we turn to escapism to help us. I’ll just ignore everything for a while. I’ll get away from everything to a place by myself. I’ll get sucked up into a hobby where I don’t have to think about stuff and after this I’ll feel better for a little bit. But that’s like realizing you're lost and just closing your eyes for a few minutes. “If I close my eyes, then I’m not lost.” Well eventually you have to reopen your eyes and you’re still lost.

     If you’re a sailor lost at sea and you need to find your way, you look up at the stars and use those unmoving things outside of yourself to show you where to go. You don’t look at your feet and say, “Here I am. I’m right where my feet are standing.” You’ll go nowhere! You’ll go in circles thinking that you’re making progress.

     And if you’re here this morning and you’re not a Christian, I must ask, is there anything in the world that can possibly be a landmark around which you can orient your life? What is the unchanging thing that you use to direct your life? It can’t be yourself. You know how impulsive, unreliable, and susceptible to change you are. It can’t be other people around you because even in your own experience they always let you down in some way. Your unmoving landmark can’t be the vague notion of loving people. We’ve seen in the last few decades even the definition of what it means to love someone is constantly shifting. And what is considered loving here, isn’t always considered loving on the other side of the globe. There is nothing you can anchor your life to that is guaranteed and stable.

But Christians, we have promises from God. As the chorus says, “We have ancient words, ever true. Changing me and changing you. In this world, where e'er we roam, ancient words will guide us home.” The promises that God gives do not shift or change and they abide forever. Those who trust in them will abide forever with them.

     

     Though we may believe this to be true. It doesn’t always seem that way. And we have to be reminded of this next truth…

Point #2 – Evildoers are temporary (vs. 3, 5)

     The pilgrims who sang this psalm on their way up to Jerusalem, undoubtedly continued to sing this during diverse periods of history. We’re not sure when this psalm was written, but it doesn’t matter much because Israel’s history throughout the entire Bible is an absolute rollercoaster ride. They’re doing great under the leadership of Joshua then horrible during the time of the Judges. They do great under Solomon and then split in half under his son. They have righteous rulers in David, Hezekiah, and Josiah then they have horribly wicked rulers like Athaliah, Mannaseh, and Ahaz. Sometimes they’re ruled by Assyria, sometimes Babylon, sometimes Rome. If you’re a traveler who regularly visits Jerusalem on a pilgrimage and is singing these songs, it is unlikely that you ever came twice under the same set of circumstances and world events. And there were many times that as you walked up the mountain to that city, you would be walking to a place that was ruled by some sort of wicked power. It might have been a wicked king of Israel or it might have been a wicked foreign power, but you were walking at a time when evildoers appeared to be in charge. Look at verse 3

READ VS 3

The scepter of wickedness, that is evil rulers who appear to be in charge, shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous. And by “rest on the land”, he means that it will not remain on the land. It’s temporary. The author is encouraging his reader. I know what it looks like. It looks like you were promised this land, but now it’s been given to wicked people. It appears as if God made a promise to you, but then he did not keep it. But don’t be deceived by appearances. This wicked scepter is only temporary. It will not stay here. What’s going to happen to it? Look at verse 5.

READ VS 5

When the time is right, God is going to lead the evildoers away. Their time here is only temporary. And history has proved that to be true over and over again. The wicked ruler simply didn’t last. They were removed. This is such an encouraging thing to tell this pilgrim as he’s walking. If things are bad now, I can rest assured that they will not stay like this. If it seems like the wicked person is on top, I know that he cannot stay there because God has promised otherwise. His time is only temporary.

This means that our greatest weapon against an evildoer is patience. Psalm 37 phrases it this way:

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;

fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way…

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;

though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.” - Psalm 37: 7, 10

They might be there now, they might look strong now, but they all fade eventually.

     You see this in athletes all the time. At one point, they are at the height of their career, they are the absolute greatest in their sport, and they are the most important person in any room they walk into. But eventually they all get old. They all become weak. And eventually they all die. It’s no different with emperors. They all seem powerful. They all seem invincible, but the day comes when they are thrown to the ground.

     Can I tell you that Satan and his kingdom are no different. He is setting up little pockets of wickedness throughout the world and it seems like he’s in charge. The scepter of wickedness appears to rest on the land allotted to the righteous. He makes it look like his kingdom is invincible. But the day will come when he likewise will be thrown to the ground.

Satan’s influences over this world are only temporary. For those who are righteous, for those who are members of Christ’s kingdom, the day comes when you will be freed. And I think this is important to remember in this passage. Because while some of us are worried about nations, kingdoms, and worldpowers and how much influence evildoers will have over the political scene, many more of us are worried about how much influence Satan will have over our own hearts. We’re fighting off the wicked one, but he just keeps returning. Those intrusive thoughts keep coming back into our head. That feeling of defeat keeps returning to our heart. That fear continues to cripple our decision making. We engage in the same battles every single day and the frustration with it just keeps mounting.

The Lord’s word to you is, “Hold on. Wait patiently. Be still. In just a little while, the wicked will be no more. I will not allow the scepter of wickedness to rest on you. I will lead evil away.”

No matter how great their strength appears right now. All evildoers will vanish. Every one of them is temporary. God alone is the immovable mountain. His Word and his promises are what will stand the test of time and nothing else.

Point #3 – Those who turn aside are deceived (3, 5)

     At the beginning of this message, I mentioned how there are generally two categories of people in the scripture. There is the righteous and there is the wicked. We’ve already encountered both of those, but here is that interesting third category. These are the people who turn aside. They appear to be among God’s people, but then they quit. Look at verse 5.

READ VS 5

They abandon the Lord’s commands. They join the evildoers and as a result, they are also swept away with the evildoers. If you join the wicked, you get the same consequences as the wicked. But why would they turn away? What caused these people to abandon their trust in the Lord?

READ VS 3

The scepter of the wicked when it rests long enough over the righteous causes them to stretch out their hand to do wrong. They live in a land where the wicked are the ones who are getting ahead. The righteous ones are being tread upon. Their patience seems like it’s for nothing. The promises of God are getting harder and harder to hold onto. I think there’s some level of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” going on here. It seems there are no consequences for their sins. It seems rather that they are living better off than we are. Perhaps, I’ll turn aside and engage in the same things they are. But it’s a trap. They are deceived. They get caught up in thinking only about the immediate moment instead of thinking long term. They focus on something that’s always changing instead of anchoring themselves in the thing that doesn’t change but may not feel true at the moment.

     The cockpit of an airplane is equipped with an abundance of instruments and gauges for a reason. It would be extremely dangerous for a pilot to just look at the window and “eyeball” it. In fact there is something that is frighteningly common among inexperienced pilots of small aircrafts. It’s called a death spiral. And what happens is that the plane enters a fog or some sort of inclement weather and the pilot will become disoriented. His sense of which direction is up and down becomes confused. His eyes can’t see anything clearly as a means of orienting himself. And while he may feel like the plane is perfectly level and heading straight, he is nonetheless spiraling out of control and heading for the ground. Their body keeps saying “This is what’s true” but it’s not. And sadly it ends in their death. But if they trust their instruments they can avoid this fiery end. It may feel as if they’re upside down, but if the gauge says that they are level it can be trusted. And once they exit the cloud, they’ll see that the gauge was right all along.

     You can see how easily appearances can discourage us from the truth of God’s Word. God says he will surround me and protect me forever, but I sure don’t feel protected. God says there is more joy in following him than in chasing after the world, but it sure seems like living for pleasure is a more enjoyable life than aiming at holiness. We look at the gauge of God’s Word and we say, I know it’s instructing me in this way, but it sure feels like I ought to be oriented a little differently. And we adjust our course just a little bit. But if we keep adjusting our course just a little bit over and over, where will it lead us? We’ll crash. It’s a certainty.

If you’re surrounded by a world living wickedly (and we are) and if you’re surrounded by people who seem to live prosperously without following Christ (and we are), then the tendency will always be to drift away from obedience. This is why repentance is so important for every single Christian. Sometimes we think of repentance as merely the notion of someone who is involved in gross immorality and needs to give it up and turn around 180 degrees to start following Christ. But oftentimes the course correction we need isn’t a full 180 degrees. We may have turned just 3 or 4 degrees off course, and we have to repent. We have to turn back to trusting every promise of God and living in obedience to every aspect of his word. The author of Hebrews warns us of this very drift we’re prone to:

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. - Hebrews 2:1

“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” All of us have this tendency to slowly drift away, to begin to turn aside. We see how the world lives and we drift slowly towards it. That’s why it’s so important to be in God’s Word regularly. I know often we think to ourselves, “I’ve read the Bible before. I already know basically what it says and what I’m supposed to do. I’m sure I’ll be fine.” But the truth is that the Bible is the instrument on our panel we need to keep referring to. It’s the compass that we have to keep checking. You cannot take very many steps before you have to look back down at the compass to make sure you’re flying straight.

     There’s one final verse that I don’t want to skip over.

READ VS 4

     He’s asking God to prove his promises. God, prove that you are reliable and that your truths are secure. Demonstrate how you can be trusted so that we don’t drift away. Keep our hearts firmly fixed on you. The author of our psalm knows how difficult it is to maintain your eyes on the gauge when it feels like it’s broken. So he asks for God to clear up the fog and give us a view of his goodness so that we can know we’re heading in the right direction. And I pray that God would do that for each of us occasionally to remind us of where we’re going and remind us of the truth of his Word.

     I’m convinced that because God is good he will reveal his goodness at different intervals throughout our life. But if he doesn’t, if the fog remains heavy, will we keep trusting? This psalm is both an encouragement and a warning.

     Don’t be deceived by appearances. Don't live your life just based on how you feel from day to day and simply trusting your intuitions. We will be deceived. We will turn aside. Instead of trusting in temporary appearances, trust in God’s promises. This is the core of what it looks like to be a Christian. To be a Christian is to place your faith in something that absolutely appears worthless. Being a Christian is trusting in something that doesn’t look in any way like it will lead to victory. We believe in a God that nobody can see. We trust in a man who died two thousand years ago. We follow a book that was written two thousand years ago. Instead of working hard to earn our way into God’s pleasure, we simply are trusting that someone else has done all the work for us.

None of this appears to be strong. None of this appears at first glance to lead to success. And it might not have any appearance of victory for the entirety of your life, but we’re not trusting in appearances. We’re trusting in truth. Truth that never changes like the mountains.  And Jesus Christ proved that he can be trusted when he appeared to be defeated in the tomb, but he rose in victory. Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved.