Latest / Reformed Thinking / God Alone Is My Rock and My Salvation (Psalm 62) | Charles Spurgeon

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God Alone Is My Rock and My Salvation (Psalm 62) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed thinking. I'm really glad you're here with
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  us. It's good to be here.
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  Today we're opening UAA stack of notes on the Psalms, but we're
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  going to be looking at them through a very specific lens.
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  That's Charles Spurgeon's huge commentary, The Treasury of
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  David. And that is absolutely the right
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  place to start, because it's not just one man's opinion, you see,
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  right, Spurgeon kind of acts like a curator.
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  He pulls in what he calls all these quaint sayings from Martin
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  Luther, John Donne, the Puritans, even medieval
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  commentators. So you get a view of the text
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  that's sort of been pressure tested over time.
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  It has a very long time. And we are focusing on one Psalm
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  today, Psalm 62. And I have to admit, when I
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  first read through the prep material, I was really taken by
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  the nickname Thomas Have for this text.
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  Oh yeah, they call it the only Psalm.
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  It is a striking title. It sounds so exclusive, you
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  know, like it's the VIP section of the Bible or something.
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  Well, in a way it is. The nickname comes from a single
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  Hebrew word. The word is AC.
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  It's just spelled AC. Now, in our English Bibles,
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  you'll see it translated a few different ways, like truly or
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  surely, sometimes only. Ah, so the translators are
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  mixing it up for flow. They are, but in the original
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  Hebrew, that one word AC acts like a hammer.
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  It's just striking the same nail over and over again.
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  It shows up six times in just 12 verses.
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  So in the original it would read more like only only only.
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  Correct. And the whole thesis of the
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  Psalm is that trust isn't a mixture.
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  It can't be, you know, 50% God and 50% my stock portfolio.
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  Or 80% God and 20% my own cleverness.
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  Exactly. Spurgeon had a quote in the
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  notes that really hit me on this.
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  He said a partly confidence is a vain confidence.
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  Which is the Reformed view in a nutshell, right?
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  It is if you add anything to your faith, you actually
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  subtract from its purity. This Psalm is the definition of
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  soulless Deus God alone. If you're relying on God and
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  something else, you aren't actually relying on God, you're
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  just hedging your bets. OK, so before we jump into the
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  verses themselves, I want to look at the little header.
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  It says to the chief musician to Judithan.
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  Now I see that name Juduthan pop up in the Psalm sometimes, but I
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  I usually just skip right over. It a lot of people do.
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  Who is this guy? He was a a pretty significant
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  figure. Along with Asaph and Himen,
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  Juduthan was one of the three great choir leaders that King
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  David set up, so he was at the very top of the musical food
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  chain in Israel. The celebrity worship leader of
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  his day. You could definitely say that,
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  but there's a fascinating little detail in the Book of Chronicles
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  that Spurgeon points out when it lists the duties of Judithan
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  Sons. They're not just listed as
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  singers, they're also listed as porters.
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  Porters. You mean like carrying luggage?
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  More like doorkeepers. Gatekeepers.
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  Wait, so the dad is the chief musician?
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  He's the headliner, but the family business includes manning
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  the doors. That's how it seems, and the
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  source material draws this beautiful application from it.
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  The idea is that, you know those who occupy the highest posts in
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  the choir shouldn't be ashamed to wait at the doors of the
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  Lord's house. Wow.
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  That's a check on the ego, isn't it?
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  It really is, and it sets the tone for this whole Psalm.
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  Before we even hear a word about trusting God, we get this
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  reminder that true service involves humility.
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  You sing the high notes, you open the doors.
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  It's all the same service. So keeping that humility in
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  mind, let's look at the first verse.
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  Truly my soul waiteth upon God, from Him cometh my salvation.
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  Now you said that only word is in here.
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  It is, and the literal translation is actually quite
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  jarring. It reads something like only to
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  God is my soul silence. Is my soul silence?
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  That's different. It's not.
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  My soul is quiet, but my soul is silence.
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  That sounds almost existential. It's a state of being.
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  The idea is that the presence of God has so awed the heart that
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  it just stops churning. It stops its own motion.
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  I have to be honest. Silence is not a word I would
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  normally associate with my own brain.
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  My internal monologue is usually running at 100 miles an hour.
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  I'm thinking about the grocery list, or that e-mail I forgot to
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  send, or an argument I had yesterday.
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  That's just the human condition. We are noisy creatures on the
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  inside. But Spurgeon uses a metaphor
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  here that I find incredibly helpful to visualize this.
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  He says the mind should be like the sea beneath the wind.
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  OK, help me picture that. The sea is, you know, rarely
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  quiet. Well, think about how the sea
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  moves. It doesn't decide to move on its
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  own. It doesn't have an engine.
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  It's moved by the wind, right? If the wind stops, the sea
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  settles. So the idea here is that our
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  souls should be responsive to God's breath, the Spirit, but
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  they should be free from all that self caused commotion.
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  So I shouldn't be generating my own waves of anxiety.
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  Exactly. We spend so, so much energy
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  churning up our own anxiety, our own plans, creating these storms
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  that don't need to exist. To say my soul is silence means
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  I've stopped trying to manipulate the outcome.
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  I'm just waiting for the wind of God to move me.
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  There was another phrase from the notes that stuck with me.
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  We should be waxed to the Lord, but adamant to every other
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  force. That's a great contrast.
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  Adamant is an old word related to diamond.
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  You know the hardest substance. So we should be hard as a rock.
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  To the world, yes. When the world tries to pressure
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  you or scare you or mold you into its image, you should be
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  unyielding like a diamond. But to God, you should be like
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  soft wax, ready to take his impression.
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  The problem is we so often get that backward.
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  We're stubborn with God and we're total pushovers for the
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  world. Precisely.
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  We argue with God's commands, but we collapse the moment our
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  boss gives us a funny look. This only Psalm is calling for a
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  complete reversal, soft to God, hard to the world.
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  Verse 2 continues this idea. He only is my rock and my
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  salvation. He is my defense.
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  I shall not be greatly moved do. You notice that little qualifier
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  in there? Yeah.
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  Greatly I shall not be greatly moved.
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  It's a surprisingly honest admission, isn't it?
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  David isn't saying I'm a statue. I feel absolutely.
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  Nothing. Well, that's comforting because
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  if the standard is I never feel a moment of worry, then I fail
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  that test every single day. The standard isn't stoicism.
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  The source material compares the believer to a ship at anchor.
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  Now when a big storm comes, does a ship at anchor sit perfectly
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  still on the water? No, of course not.
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  It bobs around, it swings with a tide, it gets hit by the waves.
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  It might pitch, it might roll, it might shake quite a bit, but
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  it's not removed from its station.
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  And that's the key distinction. The believer might shake like a
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  leaf in the wind, and that just admits how weak we really are.
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  But the root holds. So I can be moved, I can feel
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  the stress, I can feel the fear, but I'm not greatly moved in the
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  sense of being swept away from my anchor.
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  You're not lost, you're just shaking and that's permitted.
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  But then David, he shifts his focus completely and verses 3
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  and four, he stops looking up at God, and he starts looking at
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  his enemies, and he has some pretty choice words for them.
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  He does. How long will you imagine
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  mischief against a man? You shall be slain, all of you,
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  as a bowing wall shall you be, and as a tottering fence.
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  That image of the bowing wall is one of the most vivid in the
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  whole text. I've walked past construction
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  sites where you know a temporary fence or a wall is leaning way
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  out over the sidewalk and my first instinct is always to
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  cross the street. I don't want to be anywhere near
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  that thing, it looks dangerous. That's the initial reaction,
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  right? Fear.
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  It looks like it's about to crush you and the enemies of
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  David. And you know, our spiritual
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  enemies often look just like that.
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  They seem massive, looming, ready to fall on us and just
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  wipe us out. But Spurgeon kind of flips the
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  script on this image, doesn't he?
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  He. Does he asks us to think about
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  why the wall is bowing? It's bowing because it's
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  structurally unsound. That bulge is actually a sign of
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  failure. It's not a sign of strength,
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  it's a sign of imminent collapse.
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  So when I see the enemy looking big and scary, maybe swelling
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  with pride, I should actually see that as a sign that they're
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  about to break. Wickedness is inherently
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  self-destructive. It cannot stand upright on its
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  own. Moral gravity will eventually
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  bring it all down. So while that wall looks
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  threatening, it's really just a tottering fence.
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  And there's a warning here about where we choose to stand,
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  Spurgeon says. No one benefits from standing
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  near a falling wall. If you align yourself with that
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  kind of instability, you're going to get hurt.
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  I mean, even if it doesn't crush you, the dust from the collapse
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  will scifle you. It's a call to separate
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  ourselves from systems, from people who are building without
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  a proper foundation. The text also calls out the the
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  cowardice of these enemies. It asks How long will ye imagine
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  mischief against a man singular one man?
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  It's the classic mob mentality. They're all ganging up on one
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  person. It doesn't feel like a fair
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  fight. It never is.
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  The enemies of God do not have what we would call chivalry.
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  They rely on numbers. Spurgeon uses the example of
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  Job. I mean, think about what Satan
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  had to throw at Joe. Yeah, it wasn't a duel.
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  It was. It was.
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  Everything. Sabians, Chaldeans, lightning
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  from the sky, a whirlwind from the wilderness.
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  Satan had to Marshall an entire army and the forces of nature
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  just to try and break 1 righteous man.
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  That actually makes me feel a little better about feeling
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  overwhelmed. If I feel like the whole world
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  is against me, well, that's just standard operating procedure for
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  the enemy. Right.
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  Spurgeon phrases it so well he says there is no chivalrous
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  blood in the veins of hell. If you are looking for a fair
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  fight, you are in the wrong war. Verse 4 gives us the specific
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  tactics of this mob. They only consult to cast him
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  down from His Excellency. They delight in lies, They bless
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  with their mouth, but they curse inwardly.
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  That word Excellency is interesting.
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  It can mean elevation or a high position.
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  The wicked hate the fact that God has lifted the righteous up.
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  It eats at them. They want to pull him back down
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  to their level. And their method is flattery.
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  Blessed the mouth, curse inwardly.
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  Spurgeon uses this great old English term for this.
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  He calls it cozening. Cozening.
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  I like that word. It sounds just as slimy as it
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  is. It means to trick or deceive,
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  but usually with a smile. It's the you know, the colleague
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  who compliments your presentation to your face but
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  then dismantles your reputation in a private e-mail.
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  So how are we supposed to deal with cozening people?
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  If I try to confront them, they'll just deny it because
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  they're liars by nature. You can't win an argument with a
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  liar. It's impossible, and that's why
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  Spurgeon's advice here is so practical.
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  He says the only safe reply is silence.
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  We're back to silence again. We are you can't out talk them.
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  You can't out scheme them. You just have to retreat back to
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  that position from verse one. You let your soul be silent
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  before God and let Him handle your defense.
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  Which is exactly what happens in verse 5.
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  And I noticed a really interesting shift here in verse
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  one, David says my soul waits. It's a statement of fact, but in
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  verse 5 he says my soul wait thou only upon God.
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  He's ordering himself to do it. There's a self exhortation.
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  He's literally preaching to his own soul.
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  But why? Does he have to tell himself to
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  do something that he claims he's already doing?
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  Because we leak, that's why. The human soul is not a sealed
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  vessel. We might be full of faith at
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  8:00 in the morning during our quiet time, but then we hit
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  traffic, or we get a bill we weren't expecting, or someone's
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  rude to us at work. By noon, we've drifted.
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  So we have to constantly be resetting the anchor.
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  We do. We have to grab our own souls by
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  the caller metaphorically and say hey, get back in line, wait
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  on God. We have to stir ourselves up to
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  maintain that holy position. There's a key phrase in verse 5
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  for my expectation is from him, and Spurgeon calls expectation
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  the child of prayer and faith. That's a crucial insight.
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  If you pray for rain, you should probably carry an umbrella.
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  That's expectation. If we say we're waiting on God,
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  we should actually expect him to show up.
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  The problem is we often pray to God, but then we look to the
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  mailman for the answer We. Look to all the secondary
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  causes. Right.
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  We say we want God to provide, but we're obsessively checking
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  our bank balance or waiting for a specific person to call us
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  back. David is saying no.
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  My expectation is from Him. The deliverance might come
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  through a person, but the source is always God.
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  Now look at this, look at the progression that happens in
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  verse 6. Remember back in verse 2 he said
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  I shall not be greatly moved. Yes.
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  Now in verse 6 he says He only is my rock and my salvation.
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  He is my defense. I shall not be moved.
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  The adverb is gone. The greatly has just vanished.
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  This is the result of that self preaching we were just talking
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  about. He started with a realistic
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  admission. I might shake a little, but
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  after meditating on God, after talking to his own soul, his
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  faith has hardened. It's solidified.
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  Experience develops those spiritual models.
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  What started as a hope has now become absolute defiance.
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  He is now looking at that bowing wall and saying I am not moving,
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  not one inch. Then in verse 7 he just starts
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  piling up the names of God. In God is my salvation and my
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  glory. The rock of my strength and my
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  refuge is in God. It feels like he's just trying
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  to list every possible attribute he can think of.
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  Spurgeon uses an analogy here that involves bees.
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  And I think it's, it's just so profound.
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  Bees, yes. Think about how a bee approaches
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  a flower. Does it just land on the petal,
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  walk around for a bit and then fly off?
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  No, it swirls right inside. It gets covered in pollen.
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  It penetrates the flower to get to the nectar.
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  It has to go deep inside to extract the sweetness, Spurgeon
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  says. Our faith must act like that
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  bee. It's not enough to just say the
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  titles of God, rock, refuge, glory.
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  That's just landing on the petal.
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  So how do we Burrow into a title like that?
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  We'll take the word refuge. Don't just say it.
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  Stop and imagine a storm. Imagine the wind is howling, the
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  rain is lashing down. Now imagine a heavy stone door
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  slamming shut behind you and the sudden silence of a safe room.
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  You feel the safety that is burrowing.
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  You have to work the metaphor until it yields the honey of
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  comfort. And the key, according to the
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  notes, is that one little word my.
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  That little pronoun makes all the difference in the world.
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  It's not enough to know that God is a rock.
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  The devil's know that. Theology textbooks know that He
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  must be my. Rock.
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  It has to be a personal possession.
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  It's the difference between seeing a pile of gold in a
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  museum display and having that gold in your own pocket.
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  The wound my is what puts the honey in the comb for you.
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  So then in verse 8, David turns outward.
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  He's talked to God. He's talked to his enemies.
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  He's talked to himself. Now he's talking to the
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  congregation. Trust in him at all times.
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  The people. Pour out your heart before Him.
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  God is a refuge for us. Trust in him at all times.
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  That sounds like such a simple instruction, almost a cliche,
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  but if you stop and think about it, that is incredibly rigorous.
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  At all times, so that includes the good times.
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  Which I would argue can be even harder than the bad times.
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  You really think so? Absolutely.
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  When you're in a crisis, when the medical report is bad, you
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  are forced to trust God. You have no other option but
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  when the sun is shining, when the bank account is full, when
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  everybody likes you, it is so easy to start trusting in your
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  own success. Spurgeon notes that a day
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  without trust is a day of wrath, even if it happens to be a day
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  of mirth. We're always leaning on
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  something, and if we aren't leaning on God because we feel
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  strong, we're actually in a very, very dangerous position.
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  Then he gives this command, Pour out your heart.
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  The visual I get from that is taking a bucket and turning it
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  completely upside down, just emptying.
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  It that's the idea idea. Empty it all out, hide nothing
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  but I. Think a lot of us, especially
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  in, you know, religious circles, we feel like we need to edit our
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  prayers. We can't tell God that we're
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  angry, or that we're terrified, or that we have doubts.
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  The Westminster Assembly Annotations.
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  One of the sources Spurgeon quotes uses this striking image.
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  It says that our wicked nature tends to bite on the bridle.
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  Like a stubborn horse that just refuses to be LED.
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  Exactly. We clam up.
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  We hide our grief and sullenness.
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  We think we're being strong by holding it all in, but Spurgeon
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  has a name for that. He calls it Hoarding
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  Wretchedness. Hoarding wretchedness.
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  That's a clinical diagnosis right there.
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  Think about a stream. If you damn it up, what happens?
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  The water rises, It swells, it rages, it becomes destructive.
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  But if you clear the channel and just let it flow, it moves
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  peacefully. When we keep our griefs and our
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  fears inside, they turn toxic. They poison us.
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  So the pouring out is actually a safety valve.
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  It is essential mental and spiritual hygiene.
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  God is the only Father Confessor who can actually absolve and
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  heal us. Why would we hide anything from
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  him? He already knows it anyway.
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  Now we come to Section 5, verses 9 and 10.
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  This is where David pulls out the scales and starts weighing
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  humanity. And I have to say he is not very
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  complimentary. He is brutally realistic.
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  Verse 9. Surely men of low degree or
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  vanity and men of high degree are a lie to be laid in the
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  balance. They're all together lighter
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  than vanity. Let's break down the class
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  distinctions he's making. Their men of low degree.
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  This is the common man, right? The masses, right?
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  Spurgeon connects us to the idea of the crowd, or maybe democracy
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  in its rawest form. He calls them vanity, which
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  means vapor or breath because they are so fickle.
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  They're changeable. As mobile as waves on the ocean.
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  I mean, think of the crowd in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
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  They're shouting Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the
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  name of the Lord. They're throwing their coats on
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  the road for Jesus. And just five days later, it's.
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  Crucify him, the very same people.
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  So if you base yourself worth or your safety on popularity, on
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  the applause of the crowd, you are building on smoke.
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  OK, so the common man is fickle, but what about the men of high
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  degree? The elites, the people with
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  influence and money? David calls them a lot.
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  Well, why is the elite man a lie while the common man is just
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  vanity? It's because the powerful man
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  promises something. His position implies that he can
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  help you. He has patronage, he has
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  influence. He looks like a solid marble
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  column that you can lean on. But when you actually lean on
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  him? He yields disappointment.
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  He's too busy, or he changes his mind, or he loses his own
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  influence. A lie is worse than vanity
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  because it involves deception. The common man doesn't promise
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  you much. The powerful man promises
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  everything and delivers nothing. So David takes both groups and
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  puts them on the scale. The mass is on one side, the
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  elites on the other. And he says they are all
• 18:07
  together lighter than vanity. This is that mathematical
• 18:10
  absurdity we mentioned in the intro.
• 18:12
  I mean, think about the physics of that.
• 18:14
  A feather has some weight. It's incredibly light, but it
• 18:17
  has mass, vanity, emptiness. A vacuum has 0 weight, but
• 18:21
  creature confidence relying on other humans that has less
• 18:25
  weight than vanity. It's negative value.
• 18:27
  If you add human confidence to your equation, you are not just
• 18:30
  adding zero, you are subtracting.
• 18:32
  You are actually worse off than if you had started with nothing
• 18:35
  at all. And that leads him directly into
• 18:37
  verse 10, which tackles the other great rival to God, money,
• 18:42
  if Rich's increase set not your heart upon them.
• 18:46
  Spurging gives a really strong warning here.
• 18:48
  Obviously I'll gotten wealth. Money you stole or cheated for
• 18:52
  is full of canker. It's cursed, but he's actually
• 18:55
  more concerned with honest wealth.
• 18:57
  Why is that? Notice the phrasing.
• 18:59
  If Rich's increase, the Hebrew implies that they just sort of
• 19:03
  sprout up of their own accord. So this isn't somebody scheming
• 19:06
  to get rich, this is just business is good, the stock
• 19:09
  market is up, your house value just doubled.
• 19:11
  Exactly. It feels natural.
• 19:13
  It feels like a blessing. And that's precisely why it's so
• 19:15
  dangerous. It's easy to reject dirty money.
• 19:18
  It is very, very hard to reject the security that comes from
• 19:21
  honest success. Spurgeon quotes John Wesley
• 19:24
  here, and I love this little anecdote.
• 19:27
  Wesley said that in 50 years of ministry he rarely, if ever,
• 19:30
  convinced the miser that he was guilty of covetousness.
• 19:33
  It's a total blind spot. Everyone defines rich as someone
• 19:36
  who has more money than I do. If I make 50,000 a year, the
• 19:40
  rich man makes 100,000. If I make a million, the rich
• 19:44
  man is the one who makes 10 million.
• 19:46
  So nobody ever thinks this verse applies to them.
• 19:50
  Oh, I'm not setting my heart on riches.
• 19:51
  I'm just paying the bills. And all the while, the heart is
• 19:54
  slowly wrapping itself around that security.
• 19:57
  Spurgeon uses another bird analogy here.
• 20:00
  The Bible says riches make themselves wings, but Spurgeon
• 20:03
  notes they are not Sparrow wings.
• 20:06
  They are eagle wings. And eagle wings are strong.
• 20:08
  They are built for long distance flight and they fly toward
• 20:11
  heaven, that is, away from their owner.
• 20:13
  That's a haunting image. You think you're holding onto
• 20:16
  your belt, but it's actually growing wings specifically
• 20:19
  designed to leave you. So the theological conclusion is
• 20:21
  this. To bow an immortal spirit, a
• 20:24
  soul that will live forever, to the contemplation of fading
• 20:27
  possessions is, in Spurgeon's words, extreme folly.
• 20:30
  You are trying to feed an eternal fire with straps of
• 20:33
  paper. It just burns up and it's gone.
• 20:35
  We're heading into the final stretch of the Psalm now.
• 20:38
  Verses 11 and 12 give us the foundational reasons why we
• 20:42
  should trust God alone. Verse 11 God have spoken once,
• 20:46
  twice. Have I heard this, that power
• 20:48
  belongeth unto God? God spoke once, I heard twice
• 20:52
  because I was like when I tell my kids to clean their room and
• 20:54
  I have to say it five times before they hear me.
• 20:56
  It's quite the opposite, actually.
• 20:58
  It speaks to God's immutability, his efficiency.
• 21:01
  God doesn't stutter. He doesn't need to correct
• 21:04
  himself or issue a revision. He speaks once and reality is
• 21:07
  established. So why do we hear it twice?
• 21:10
  Well, the Puritans would say we hear it first in Revelation in
• 21:13
  the Bible, and then we heard the echo of it in Providence in our
• 21:16
  daily lives. We read in the Scripture that
• 21:18
  God is mighty, and then we see a thunderstorm or we see a changed
• 21:20
  life and we hear the echo. Yes, He is.
• 21:23
  And the message that we hear twice is power belongeth unto
• 21:27
  God. This is the first of two
• 21:28
  pillars. If All Might belongs to God,
• 21:31
  then it doesn't belong to the Wall Street banker.
• 21:33
  It doesn't belong to the politician.
• 21:35
  It certainly doesn't belong to the mob with the bowing wall.
• 21:38
  It belongs only to God. But you know, might by itself
• 21:42
  can be terrifying. If I know someone has absolute
• 21:44
  control, I might respect them, but I might also be scared to
• 21:48
  death of them. A tyrant has might.
• 21:50
  Which is exactly why verse 12 is so essential.
• 21:53
  It follows immediately also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy.
• 21:58
  This is the second pillar. Might without mercy is a
• 22:01
  monster, but mercy without might is just a nice weak sentiment.
• 22:06
  Imagine a friend who loves you dearly.
• 22:08
  That's mercy, but has no money and no influence to help you out
• 22:12
  of a jam and no might. They can weep with you, but they
• 22:14
  can't save you. But in God the 2 are perfectly
• 22:17
  blended. He has the infinite ability to
• 22:20
  save you and the infinite mercy to want to save you, and that is
• 22:23
  why we wait only on Him. Why would you wait on a human
• 22:26
  who might have a tiny bit of might but no mercy?
• 22:29
  Or maybe a little mercy, but no might.
• 22:31
  That brings us to the very final phrase, which I admit has always
• 22:34
  puzzled me, especially coming from a reformed perspective
• 22:37
  where we emphasize grace. It says For thou renders to
• 22:40
  every man according to his work. It sounds like the opposite of
• 22:43
  grace, doesn't it? Sounds like karma, you know you
• 22:45
  get what you earn. Right.
• 22:47
  If God gives me what I deserve according to my work, I am in
• 22:50
  serious trouble. My work is flawed.
• 22:53
  This is where we have to put on our theological thinking caps.
• 22:56
  If God dealt with us in strict justice, you are absolutely
• 23:00
  right, we would be consumed. But Spurgeon and the Reformed
• 23:03
  commentators argue that this rewarding of our works is in
• 23:06
  itself a supreme act of mercy. How so?
• 23:09
  Think about it. Our works are imperfect.
• 23:12
  Even our best prayers are distracted.
• 23:14
  Even our acts of charity are often tinged with pride.
• 23:17
  For God to look at those flawed efforts, accept them, and then
• 23:20
  reward them. That isn't debt.
• 23:22
  That is pure grace. So he's not paying us a wage
• 23:25
  that we earned, he's giving us a gift that's totally out of
• 23:28
  proportion. Spurgeon uses the illustration
• 23:30
  of a king who gives a man an entire Kingdom just for picking
• 23:33
  up a piece of straw for him. The reward has almost nothing to
• 23:36
  do with the action. And I suppose, if we go even
• 23:39
  deeper, who gave us the strength to pick up that straw in the
• 23:42
  first place? God did.
• 23:43
  Augustine said that when God rewards our merits, he is merely
• 23:47
  crowning his own gifts. He provides the strength for the
• 23:50
  work, He forgives the imperfection in the work, and
• 23:53
  then he lavishly rewards the result.
• 23:55
  That really brings it all full circle.
• 23:57
  Man neither helps us properly nor rewards us properly.
• 24:00
  God does both. Indeed.
• 24:03
  So let's try to summarize what we've unpacked today.
• 24:05
  It feels like we've traveled a long way from that first verse.
• 24:08
  We started with that core concept of the only that
• 24:11
  absolute refusal to mix our trust, and we looked at the
• 24:14
  silence of the soul, that state of being wax to God and adamant
• 24:18
  to the world. We looked at the enemies, that
• 24:20
  bowing wall that looks so scary but it's actually just falling
• 24:23
  down, and we saw the vanity of human status.
• 24:26
  Whether it's the mob or the elite, they're all lighter than
• 24:29
  a breath of air. And we saw how faith matures,
• 24:32
  how it moves from I shall not be greatly moved to the defiant I
• 24:35
  shall not be moved. And that happens through that
• 24:38
  hard work of preaching to our own souls and burrowing into
• 24:41
  God's titles like a bee looking for nectar.
• 24:43
  And finally we landed on those twin pillars, Might and Mercy.
• 24:49
  The reason we can be silent is that the one we are waiting for
• 24:52
  has both the muscle to help us and the heart to love us.
• 24:56
  It's a complete theology of trust packed into 12 short
• 24:59
  verses. I want to leave our listener
• 25:01
  with a final thought to Mull over this week.
• 25:03
  We spent a lot of time talking about the vanity of man, how
• 25:07
  people are literally later than nothing when you put them on the
• 25:10
  scales of reality. And yet be honest with yourself.
• 25:13
  How much of your mental energy this week was spent worrying
• 25:16
  about what those vanities think of you?
• 25:18
  We fear their criticism. We crave their applause.
• 25:21
  We let their opinions completely ruin our day.
• 25:24
  It's a fundamental calculation error.
• 25:26
  It is we are weighing the 0 weight opinion of man against
• 25:30
  the infinite weight of God's glory.
• 25:33
  If God is might and mercy, why are we trembling before a
• 25:36
  tottering fence? That is the question to carry
• 25:38
  with us. Thank you for helping us
• 25:40
  navigate this text. It's a real pleasure.
• 25:42
  And to you listening, I would just encourage you to find some
• 25:44
  moments of true silence before God this week.
• 25:47
  Try to turn off the noise and justice.
• 25:49
  Let your soul be waxed to the Lord.
• 25:52
  This has been reformed thinking.