A Refuge Through The Ages

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0:12Well, good morning and welcome to this, uh, soon to be 87 degree October 1st. Uh, if you're visiting from down south, maybe you're here for Goward life, uh, checking out Bethlehem College Seminary. These temperatures are pretty consistent for us year round. Uh, so there's, pack your bags and, and move on up here. We'd love to have you. Um, well, my name's Scott. I'm a fourth year seminarian at Bethlehem, and it's my joy to open the word with you this morning. We're gonna be in Psalm 71 that's on page 484 of the blue Bibles in your chairs. And, um, but first I'd love for you to join me as we go to the Lord in prayer.

0:52Father God, we thank you for your church. God, thank you. What, what a wonder it is to come together, to gather together and to sing praises to your holy name. We thank you that you have qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints, that you have delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of your beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And so, father, we pray that you would come and by your spirit, you would meet us, that you would empower your word, uh, to be preached to, to speed ahead God, that you would help me to be faithful to your word and helpful to my friends here this morning. And we pray that you would give, give us hearts that are eager to receive and rejoice in your word, and to find refuge in King Jesus. We pray these things for his glory.

1:40Amen. Well, Jesus claimed me as his own when I was 17. And about a year later, I met my best friend who had become my bride, Nora, at this community college in Iowa. And part of the, the joy of that was getting to know her, 90 some year old grandma, Norma Jean, who was not only one of the sweetest people I've ever met in my life, but just an absolute stalwart of the faith. And so, so many stories of her. But one of the things that I remember, um, is sitting in her rural Iowa home and every time we'd go see her, I would sit with her in her chair, she'd have her Bible in her lap, and she'd, she'd grip my hand and she'd look at me in the eyes and she'd say, I pray for you every morning at 10:00 AM. And so early on, I just thought I was grandma's favorite. Like I had this primetime spot at, at 10:00 AM like every, I was on the daily list. And then after she passed away, uh, I was able to read some of her prayer prayer journals, and I found out that if this woman knew your name, like she was, she was laboring. She was bringing your name before the throne on, on a daily basis. And so from family members to neighbors or missionaries, professors at bible colleges, uh, random kids in the community like Jake from the grocery store, she'd write in there.

2:50There were even kids she had when she taught Sunday school in her thirties and forties, who she was still praying for in her nineties. And as a young 18 year old believer, there was something about her faith that was fortifying. This woman had lived my life literally five times over. She'd seen 70 years of marriage, four generations of family in her home, hundreds of circles of, of, of friends. And she'd also seen war and poverty and depression and, and betrayal and the rise and fall of world leaders and political systems and, and profound grief in her own life from personal losses that she had suffered.

3:28And yet, after nine decades, her tongue still testified to the goodness and the grace of her savior. And again, there, there's, there's something about that, that kind of faith that was fortifying to me. It was as if I could see in this aging saint, the power of God's grace in some sense subverting the effects of the fall. It it was as if her body was, as her body was lowering towards the grave, her hope in the resurrection just continued to rise unabated. Well, friends in our text this morning, God graciously gives us a window into where we get the resources to live that kind of life. We see in Psalm 71 what it looks like to grow up in the grace of God and to grow old to the glory of God. And so our main idea this morning is this, we have resolute hope in our righteous God who is a refuge through the ages, we have resolute hope in our righteous God who is a refuge through the ages.

4:28So with 24 verses in this glorious psalm, we're gonna have to keep moving, but the Psalm has about five or six stanzas. And broadly it, it unfolds in two main sections. So the first section we'll look at is the Psalmist refuge. That's verses one through 13. And the second section is the psalmist resolve. That's verses 14 through 24. And you'll notice that our psalm doesn't identify the author. Some suggest that Psalm 70 and 71 were originally one Psalm that David wrote in his old age, uh, maybe sometime during Absalom's revolt. And I think there are good reasons for that in the text. Uh, but we don't know definitively.

5:07But what we do know is that this is a psalm of an aging saint who has seen the faithfulness of God over a lifetime. So again and again, he rejoices in this righteous God who has been his refuge his entire life. And on that basis, he confidently cries out for the Lord to, to deliver him a rescue him from his present circumstances. And so we see that from the opening section. Uh, if you have your Bibles open, look with me please. Verse one Psalm says in you, oh, Lord, do I take refuge? Let me never be put to shame in your righteousness. Deliver me and rescue me. Incline your ear to me and save me. Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come. You have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.

5:59And so you'll notice in your cross references in your Bible that these, these first three verses are cited almost verbatim in Psalm 31, which David wrote earlier in his life, probably during the, the persecution of Saul. And so many who argue for Davidic authorship will point to Psalm 31 and many other echoes of David in this text and say that David adapted that psalm from earlier in his life. And now at the end of book two, he's, he's, uh, rewriting that or adapting that to the suffering that he's facing at the end of his life. And again, that's, that's possible, but we don't, we don't know. What we do know is that the author is saturated in scripture. In fact, one commentator said that in these short 24 verses, there's over 50 quotations or allusions to other psalms. And so the, the author knows the word of God and he knows the God of the word.

6:49And so we see this in verse one. You'll notice he declares that he's taken refuge in Yahweh, in his covenant keeping God. And this theme of refuge dominates the first half of the Psalm. We see it five times in the first seven verses alone, verse one. Uh, and you have taken refuge verse three, rock of refuge, rock fortress, strong refuge in verse seven. And so in his distress, there's something profoundly comforting about the fact that God is a refuge. It's not like an abstract idea to him. It strengthens him in his suffering. And so I wonder for you, what comes to mind when you think of the word refuge?

7:29I think something that we know intuitively is that a refuge is only beneficial for those who, who enter it. And so over the last 10 years, I've had the opportunity to spend a, a few different stints of time in the Middle East. And depending on when and where you're staying, it's not uncommon to be briefed on the bomb shelters. This little country we're in had over a million bomb shelters, um, inside. And so sometimes they'll just tell you where they're located, and then other times you'll get a full on tour and they'll say, this is the, here's the ration kits. Here's how you, you put on the gas mask.

8:01Here's how you properly close the door and like seal off the pressure. But one thing they never told us in any briefing was to go inside the shelter like they never stopped and said, you know, let's back up. Like first step one, when the sirens go off is to go, is to enter in the shelter, go inside the shelter. It was just assumed that the shelter would not be a refuge if you didn't enter it. And I think that's, that's how the image is functioning here. God is a refuge, he's a place of safety and security, not universally, but covenantal. God is a refuge for his people, for those who flee to him in faith, we see this all over the Psalm.

8:40Psalm two 12, blessed are all who take refuge in him. Psalm five 11. But let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy, spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exalt in you. Psalm 62, 8, trust in him at all times. O people pour out your heart before him. Why? Because God is a refuge for us. And so the implication for us friends this morning is to take refuge. That's the verb that opens up this whole psalm. So God is a covenantal refuge and he's also a continual refuge. You see that in verse three. He says, be to me a rock of refuge to which I may continually come.

9:23So God's not a temporary refuge. He's one. And this is huge for the psalmist as he's walking through the suffering to which he can continually come. That that word, uh, uh, is used more in Psalm 71 than any other Psalm. We see it in verse three. We'll see it again in verse six and verse 14, and then allusions to it in three other verses. And so I had quite a few conversations with high school students in the Middle East who lived in these areas where there was potential shelling from the rockets. And so one of the seasons I was there, it was normal for these students to have these sirens go off multiple times throughout a day.

9:58And so they'd be sitting in biology or government or or whatever, and the sirens would go off and they'd have 60 seconds to get into the schools shelter. It was a refuge to which they would continually come. That's the picture that we are seeing here in this, in this psalm. We saw in verse two that the author is under attack. So he cries out for God to deliver him, to rescue him, to save him. We're gonna see in a moment that these enemies aren't imagined. They speak, they malign, they they seek his life. And one of the weapons that he wields again and again is prayer. He just runs to the God who is his refuge.

10:38And so brother or sister in Christ, I just want on the front end of this sermon, if you're, if you're embattled this morning, if you're weighed down by sin, sorrow, suffering, you have a continual refuge, I wanna encourage you press your mind beyond the familiarity of, of these images to what they speak about, the the stunning reality of who our God is. He's unassailable, he's strong, he's steadfast. He's not weirded by our neediness. And he beckons us to come to him continually and find refuge for our souls. And we're gonna see in verse eight that, that for the psalmist, this has been a pattern for much of his life.

11:15Look at me in verses four through eight, this next section, the psalmist says, rescue me, oh my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man for you, oh Lord, are my hope, my trust, oh Lord, for my youth upon you, I have leaned from before my birth. You are he who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continually of you. I've been as important to many, but you are my strong refuge. My mouth is filled with your praise and with your glory all the day. And so the picture that's beginning to form is this older saint who's peering through the rear view mirror of his life.

11:56And as he presses his mind to the earliest memories of his life, he can't recall a single moment when God's mercy, when his faithfulness has failed him. And again, this doesn't mean that he's had a cush pain-free life. We see in verse one, he's facing shame in verses two and four, he's a target of wickedness, injustice, uh, cruelty. We see in verse seven, he's been important to to many. That word means a sign or a wonder. And so here it probably means that that many saw his suffering to be a sign of divine punishment. And so his life has been anything but pain-free. And yet the dominant note that he strikes over and over and over again in the psalm as he looks back in his life, is the faithfulness of God.

12:43Verse six, uh, the wording is literally verse six, be from the inward parts of my mother. You were the one cutting me loose. So the imagery is of God as the midwife who cuts the umbilical cord and is bringing him forth into the world. And, and again, this has profound implications, right on the sanctity of the unborn and the womb, the value and dignity and worth of our god's care for image bearers in the womb. But in this context, the Israelites would've sung this song as being born into the old covenant community, born into the Abrahamic wine. But I think how much, I mean, how much more can the new covenant community rejoice in this reality?

13:24One of my wife's earliest memories of God's pursuit of her heart was when she was four years old. And in this nightmarish moment, her younger brother ran into the kitchen and bumped into a family member who had this pot of boiling water and just spilled all over him. And so in the horror of that moment, as her parents are caring for him, getting ready to take him to the er, she just instinctively runs downstairs, gets into this chair that she always prayed, prayed in, and just starts crying out to God. Like the Lord had so formed her heart at four years old, that her first instinct when she felt scared or needy or helpless, was to run to the arms of her. God, isn't that beautiful?

14:04I think many of you can, can maybe resonate with that. Maybe you can trace the hand of God back to the earliest moments of your life. And I just wanna say, friends, if that's your story, that's powerful. That God not only saved me at a young age, but he's sustained me. He's, he's kept me as all the enchantments of the world have, have dangled before my eyes. He, by his grace, he still satisfies my soul, the battle rages. But he still has kept me, never downplay that kind of testimony. And I think others here have a different story. You'd just rather not press your mind to childhood. There were no Bibles open, there were no prayers spoken over your crib.

14:44There was no devotionals led by devoted dads. And so when you think of your childhood, these things don't come to mind. Maybe the name of Jesus was only evokes as a cuss word or as like the punchline to a joke. So may maybe you came to the Christ in your twenties or thirties or later. And so in one sense, you don't look back and say, the Lord has been my trust for my youth. But in another sense, we know that God's care for us didn't begin the moment that he opened our eyes to believe Ephesians one, four, he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. And so in that sense, we look back through the eyes of faith and, and we see, um, all the years that we were under God's wrath, we were cursing him, rebelling against him. Maybe we were indulging headlong into sin.

15:35And you see his abundant mercy sparing your life, restraining evil, not hardening your heart or giving you over to sin, placing people in your life to speak the gospel wooing you to himself. And so friends, I just wanna say, have, have you done that lately? Have you recalled the specifics of God's sovereign saving grace in your life? It's good for us to dwell on that. It fortifies us for the sufferings of this present moment. I want you to notice that as the psalmist does that, two things happen. First he worships. Look at verse six. It says, my praise is continually of you. Verse eight, my mouth is filled with your praise and with your glory all the day.

16:18Spurgeon says, word goodness has been unceasingly received praise should be unceasingly offered. So he worships. And then second, he prays, he prays that the God who has been his refuge his entire life would be his refuge. Right now, right in this moment, look at me at verse nine. It says, do not cast me off in time of old age. Forsake me not when my strength is spent for my enemy speak concerning me. Those who watch for my life consult together and say God has forsaken him. Pursue and seize him for there is none to deliver him. And so we're seeing more of the context. And verse nine, he's dealing with old age and failing strength. And in verse 10, we see that his enemies, they see that as an opportunity to exploit him.

17:07And they speak. Notice the nature of the accusation. This is really important. This is what they say. God has forsaken him. There's none to deliver him. And so he's hearing this voice of opposition that says, look at your God forsaken life. Where's your refuge at now? And we know this voice is an echo from the garden. Well actually see this in a couple weeks in Genesis three, how Satan tries to undermine God's word. First through confusion, did God actually say? And then second, through contradiction, you'll not surely die. That's the deception that the author's facing here. He knows God's word.

17:51He knows that God has promised never to leave or forsake his people. And yet, as a saying goes in this moment, he's tempting to doubt in the darkness what God has shown him in the light. The enemy is whispering through these conspirators that God that you've trusted from the womb. Where's he at now? He's a figment of your imagination. He wasn't there to reconcile your marriage. He wasn't there to return your prodigal. He wasn't there to restore you to health. He wasn't there to restore the, the, the, the conflict in your home. He wasn't there when the diagnosis came. He wasn't there when the money dried up. He's not there. He's gone.

18:36That's the nature of this accusation. There's none to deliver you. I just wanna say, if you're in Christ, you've probably heard that voice before because the enemy loves to accuse the children of God. And what we know is this isn't just a vo an echo from the garden. This is an echo from Golgotha. I want you guys to consider this as the sinless son of God. The one who who truly has only flawlessly, the only one to ever perfectly trust God from his youth as he hung on the cross, naked, shamed, covered in blood, covered in saliva because of his markers. This is the voice he heard. Matthew 27 43, he trusting God, let God deliver him. Now if he delights in him, you guys see that, that that's the exact accusation, almost verbatim of verse 13.

19:30God forsaken none to deliver. And friends, I want you to notice again how the psalmist responds. This is so hopeful. This is so instructive for us. He prays and he worships. So in verse 12, he prays be not far from me. So he's asking that God would not be far from him, not in terms of proximities, if God is far off, but empower. That's what he means by, uh, that's what he means by, um, make has to help me. And then in verse 13, he prays that in his power, God would vindicate him. He says this in verse 13, may my accusers be put to shame and consumed with scorn and disgrace. May they be covered who seek my hurt? And so this isn't a, a petty prayer for personal vengeance. He's trusting, uh, the Lord to judge. He's asking God to act according to his word, to uphold the sanctions of his covenant by delivering his people and by judging his enemies. So he prays, he runs to his refuge, and then he resolves to wield the weapon of worship.

20:36So we're gonna see in the second half of the psalm, we just saw that the author had found refuge in his God sources one through 13. And now on that basis, he resolves to act and he wields the weapon of worship. Look with me at verse 14. I want you to see three resolutions that flow from finding refuge in our God. The first is this, the psalmist resolves. We're gonna see this, this phrase, I will, I will, I will. As where this language of resolve comes from. The psalmist resolves to hope continually at verse 14. But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more. My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day for their number is past my knowledge with the mighty deeds of the Lord God. I will come, I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone. So friends, I want you to notice that, but I in verse 14, we just saw in verse seven, but you, and now he says, but I, that's subversive, that's his deliberate shift from the ridicule of his enemies to the refuge found in his God. And I love this one commentator, Derek Kidner.

21:44He describes this shift not as an escape from reality, but as an escape to reality. Isn't that good? I think there, there can be a temptation, I think especially in suffering when we read Psalms like this. And we can think that seems artificial. Like how, how serious can his suffering be? If he could resolve the tension just like that. Like if you could cry out to God to deliver me, and then in the same voice pray I will. You know, I will, I will worship you. I'll continue to worship you more and more. I'll praise you. Yet more and more we're tempted to think either his problems are minimal or that he's minimizing his problems to sound spiritual.

22:27And so we say it feels like an escape. And friends, I wanna say this is an escape. Psalm 71 is an escape, but it's not the kind that numbs our minds to reality. The psalmist doesn't look the sedatives like porn or liquor or work or gaming or hours of Netflix or football or shopping or anything else to numb his mind to the realities of life in a fallen world. Instead, he continually escapes to reality, to the God he draws near to his God, who is the very source and substance of reality. Each morning at 10:00 AM when Norma Jean cracked her Bible and her prayer journal, she wasn't escaping reality.

23:08She was reorienting her heart and her mind to the God who lives and speaks and saves and works all things according to the counsel of his will. So as this 94 year old sat in her rocker, worshiping, confessing, interceding, she was rocking the spiritual forces of evil. She was utterly in touch with reality. And so friends, I'd just say, I, I wonder if us if, if, if any of us need to escape to reality this morning, perhaps your own sin of the circumstances of your life have loomed so large over the past few days or months or weeks that, that you've, you've lost sight of the central defining reality of our life.

23:46Perhaps they've caused you to lose sight of the God who is a refuge for you, a continual rock of refuge for his people who wields his sovereign power only and ever for the glory of his name and the good of his children. I think as, as a spiritual and moral confusion in our culture amplifies the most reality orienting thing that we can do is align our hearts and minds continually with who God is, with what he's done, and with what he says about the world that he has created. And that's what the psalmist resolves to do here. His hope is not a probability, it's not untethered to reality. I hope the Vikings turn the season around his hope, you guys will see it's, it's anchored in God's word. And his works again, look again at at verse 15, he says this, my mouth will tell of your righteous acts, your deeds of salvation, the mighty deeds of the Lord God.

24:39He says this in verse 19 through 21, I want you to see this. He, he's moving from lament. Lament is his pathway to worship. He's moving from the accusation of his enemies to the adoration of his gods. We see in verse 19, it says, your righteousness, oh God reaches the high heavens you who have done great things, oh God, who is like you, you who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again from the depths of the earth, you will bring me up again. You'll increase my greatness and comfort me again. So he resolves to hope in the God who is acted in righteousness to save his people.

25:19He knows that his suffering is not behan beyond the sovereign hands of his good and gracious God who has made him see many troubles and calamities. And that's why he can pray with confidence that God will revive him again. Do you see that connection? It's poetic hyperbole when he says, revive me again in depths of the earth. So he's contrasting in verse 19, the heights of God's righteousness with the depth of his present suffering. And so he's probably thinking more in terms of spiritual resurrection than literal resurrection. But either way, we know that the full meaning of this text culminates in the living hope that we have through the resurrection of King Jesus.

26:01And so he resolves to hope continually in the God who is his refuge. The second resolve is this, he resolves to proclaim the works of God to the next generation. Look with me at verse 17. He says this, oh God, from my youth, you have taught me and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even the old age and gray hairs, oh God, do not forsake me until I proclaim your might to another generation. Your power to all those who come friends. If we were to lock in on a verse to pray constantly over our own kids or, or the kids in our midst, would it not be verse 17? I think this is the heart cry of every godly parent, pastor, nursery worker, next generation disciple maker, that our kids would come to the end of their life whenever that may be.

26:53And they would testify, oh God, from my youth, you have taught me, and I still, I still proclaim your wonder steeds. And if we were to lock in on a verse to pray perhaps over the older saints in our body, would it not be verse 18 that we would leverage however many years God gives us not to guard our weekends or to live comfortably in retirement, but to, to tell the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord? I think perhaps one of the most tragic statements in the Old Testament is judges two 10 in verse seven of chapter two of judges, we read, we read this, it says, the people serve the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elder who out elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel.

27:45And then in verse 10, we read this and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the book of Judges unfolds from there. And we know that again, that the dominant note through the Old Testament is not the rebellion of the people, but the faithfulness of the God who continues to redeem us from the messes we make. And one of the ways that he redeems his people is by redeeming and raising up saints like we see in, in Psalm 71, in verse 18, who look at the rising generation around them and plead with God and say, God over my dead body will the generation behind me rise up.

28:27Who doesn't know you, who who hasn't heard the glorious deeds of the Lord, the goodness of your grace and mercy, your gospel. And he pleads with God, preserve me God. So I can be, I can be a part of your work in, in, in this rising generation. It's not a beautiful prayer. You feel that urgency. He's not content for the praise of Yahweh to cease when his tongue lies silent in the grave. Instead, he prays that a thousand tongues in the rising generation would sing the great redeemer's praise. And so for instance, we think about application for this. I I think this starts in the home, right? Is is your home a place where the next generation hears the glorious deeds of the Lord? And I realize that there's, there's dads among us who hear that and they're like, I have no idea what that even means or where to start.

29:22That was never modeled for me in the home. I have no idea what that looks like. We're not in this rhythm. I've got teenage kids. We're not doing that right now. I don't know how to even start that. And I just wanna say, I wanna encourage your heart. There's, there's brothers in this body who would love to walk with you and to serve you as you shepherd your family. There's formal avenues for that. Like man on a mission. Who's that? That's starting here on, on Saturday and running for a number of weeks. There's tons of informal avenues just reaching out to a brother and say like, what does, what does family worship look like in your home?

29:53What does it look like to read and to pray and to sing? I just wanna encourage you, you meant to, to lean into that. And of course, godly moms, godly aunts, godly, godly grandmas, right? Timothy's faith first dwelt in his mother, yo uh, Eunice and his grandmother Lois. And then it dwelt in him. And so we, we start with the home. But I think beyond the home, many of you know God has graced our church with somewhere between eight and 900 kids, between zero and 18 friends. That's such a gift, isn't it? That's such a stewardship. And so I want to ask you and just exhort you, if you're not serving this body, what's hindering you from the joy of investing in some of these image bearers, some of these image bearers? What's hindering you from that?

30:46Could you imagine the Lord stirring in our body to the degree that we had to turn away volunteers in our children's ministry, in our youth ministry? Because there's so many adults who are eager to declare, proclaim the glory of God to the next generation. I think that can happen so beyond the church and the home, and just think through what avenues has the Lord given me or my family or my extended family, to share gospel hope with the next generation, wherever he's put us, wherever we live and work and play. So the psalmist resolves to continually hope to continually proclaim, and then he resolves. The last one we see is continually praise.

31:26The psalmist resolves to sing through suffering. Verse 22, he says, I will also praise you with a heart for your faithfulness. Oh my God, I will sing praises to you with a liar. Oh holy one of Israel, my lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you. My soul also, which you have redeemed and my tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day long for they have been put to shame and disappointed who sought to do me hurt. So a phrase that we often use in our house is sing it. Don't scream it. Um, our boys are enthusiastic worshipers. And so they're singing often escalates to screaming. But what's interesting here is that the psalmist sings it and he screams it.

32:10You see that in verse 22. He sings praises to God and he shouts for joy. I love that He's not worried about sounding dignified or refined or sophisticated. It's just this floodgate of worship in our high school ministry. We, we call this overflow. And so I want you to just glance back in your Psalm and see how God's grace overflows in worship. Just glance back in Psalm 71 verse six, my praise is continually of you. Verse eight, my mouth is filled with your praise and with your glory all the day. Verse 15, my mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day. Verse 17, I will remind them of your righteousness. Verse eight, uh, verse 18, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those who come. Verse 22, I'll also praise you with the harp.

33:01I'll sing praises to you. Verse 23, my lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you. So my lips, my tongue, my mouth, my soul, my harp, my liar, praise. Tell, remind, proclaim, sing, shout. It's like the psalmist is, um, is exhausting his vocabulary to put words to worship. One brother points out here that it's not just that the singing doesn't stop during the trial, it actually increases more and more. Do you see that the worship of God becomes that much more urgent in the midst of desperation? And so friends, that's the rhythm of the psalm is not prayer gives way to praise. Um, petition gives way to proclamation, cries for help give way to confident hope.

33:47And here at the end, suffering gives way to song. And again, this, this doesn't mean that suffering is trivialized or that it ceases in this life. Grief we know is complex and it often doesn't resolve itself quickly. And yet we see all throughout scripture that God delights to give his children songs in the night. Again. Look, look at verse 23. He says, my soul also, his soul sings like we, we can make our lips sing. We can't make our souls sing. Only the grace of God in a redeemed heart can make souls sing through suffering. And God delights to do that. That's why he says in verse 23, my soul also, which you have redeemed those redeemed by God, rejoice in God.

34:33Grace makes us sing, doesn't it? I recently read a, a book on lament and the author said this. He said, somebody, somebody once exhorted him to keep trusting the one who keeps you trusting. And I think that's what we see with these resolves. I think the psalmist resolves to keep hoping in the one who keeps him hoping He resolves to keep proclaiming the one who keeps him proclaiming and he resolves to keep singing to the one who keeps him singing. And friends, we know that that's, that's king Jesus. So as we close, I just want you to see how Psalm 71 ultimately points us to Christ and His gospel. We've seen echoes of it, but I think the central link is the five different times.

35:16The psalmist refers to the righteousness of God. That's verse two, verse 15 and 16, verse 19 and verse 24. He banks his hope on the fact that God is righteous. But that presents a problem, doesn't it? How can the righteousness of God be the anchor of our joy and our confidence? In fact, it's, it's on the basis that God is righteous, that you and I are dealing with a much bigger problem than aging or, or adversity. The fact that God is righteous means that his righteous wrath is being poured out and will be poured out against all unrighteousness. And so the ultimate refuge that we need is refuge from God and from from a righteous God and his wrath against our sin. And so friends, if you're here this morning, you're watching on the live stream and you've, you've not believed in Jesus.

36:10The Bible teaches that we are all born sinfully seeking refuge in the creation rather than the creator. And things that cannot protect us, cannot secure us, cannot anchor our hope. And the Bible also says that a day is coming when all humanity will either seek refuge in Jesus or they'll seek refuge from Jesus. Listen to John's words here in Revelation six. He says, the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone, slave and free hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb, for the great day of the wrath has come. And who can stand?

37:01And so friends, the question isn't whether we're seeking refuge, but where we're seeking refuge. We'll either seek refuge in Jesus or we'll seek refuge from Jesus. And the glorious news of the gospel is that the one from whom we need refuge becomes the one in whom we find refuge. Peter says that Christ suffered for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring us to God. And Paul says that God made him Jesus to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That's glorious. Good news for sinners who need refuge, isn't it? So friends, I invite you, if you haven't trusted in Christ, confess your sin, forsake your self salvation project and believe the gospel and you'll find life and joy and refuge in King Jesus who will never forsake you. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I thank you that we have an anchor for our soul, that you don't call us to manufacture hope you don't call us to manufacture a desire to proclaim your glory to the next generation.

38:15You don't call us to manufacture, uh, an ability to sing through suffering. You call us to come, to come to the one who saves us, sustains us, satisfies our soul, and outta the overflow of his grace and his love, we can resolve to act on that basis. And so, father, I pray for my friends in here this morning. May you be a refuge for them, a continual refuge when they, their head hits the pillow at night in the flood of anxieties, fear, shame, whatever it is comes to mind. That, that you would send their minds and their hearts, God, where that they would look to you by faith, turn from their sin and find refuge in you. Would that not be a, a, a, a, a, a vague image for us? God?

38:59Would that be rock solid hope for us this morning? Lord, we love you. Pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.

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Christ Has Come, He Will Come Again

The End Is Not Yet

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Christ Has Come, He Will Come Again

The End Is Not Yet

Woe To Hypocrites!

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Surpassing Worth Of Christ

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