6. Head & Heart Christian ‘Waiters’ Psalm 62:11-12

Text: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee.  Wherefore (a conclusion) I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job 42:5-6.

          “Therefore also NOW, saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil.  Who knoweth if He will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God?”

Joel 2:12-14.

Good morning, Christian ‘waiter’ in time of apparent Global plague!  In all my 75 years upon this earth, thirty-two as a sinful, unsaved worldling; and forty-three years as a redeemed, born-again Christian - Pastor, Missionary, and Bible Expositor/Teacher – I have NEVER seen a more serious and deadly plague, virus, pestilence (whatever you wish to call it!) sweeping across the Christ-rejecting, God-dishonouring nations of this entire planet.

Corona virus, or Covid 19 plague, seems to be causing widespread fatalities in every nation in the world today.  Humanistic societies, including Britain, which has apostatized, abandoned Bible-based Protestantism – and all other non-Christian nations steeped in gross ‘religious dread, superstition’, and idol worship – have found no answer to the spread and effects of what looks like a truly terrible unseen killer disease. It is clear to see that the Lord God is demanding our full attention; is demanding a global repentance from Christ-rejecting, Sodomy, and sin.

“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines (food banks?), and pestilences (Covid 19?), and earthquakes, in divers places.  All these are beginning of sorrows.”  (Matthew 24:7-8)

End times Scriptures are being fulfilled before our very eyes – yet the hearts of nations remain hard as steel against the Holy Christ of God.  Beware of His wrath to come!

“The planet is locked in containment. Barring lifestyle diseases, no other disease or infection has ever caught the grip of the globe in contemporary time — 176 countries, and over 200,000 patients spread in every continent, except Antarctica.

“Rich or poor, some 3 billion people are virtually in containment as 112 countries have closed their borders. We are in the midst of what is called the containment stage in the global protocol to fight a so-called pandemic.

“But the invisible foe — COVID-19 — reported to have escaped our radar. It is apparently spreading faster than anyone had expected.

“Between the period Down To Earth did its last cover story on corona virus in February, and now writing this unprecedented second cover closing on March 20 (2020), cases outside China — the origin of the pandemic — are reported to have increased by 15-fold.

“Our helplessness to control this first non-flu pandemic of the 21st century has resulted in panic and hysteria. Health experts are no more hopeful of containment because we still don’t know the real number of cases from poor and developing countries that are ill-equipped to screen and count such cases.

“We still don’t know how and when it transferred into a human host from an animal. But we know for sure now that it is a prolific jumper from human to human. Taking a clue from the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, we, the social animals, have been prescribed with social distancing — measurable to 3 feet — as the best way forward to delay transmission of COVID-19, not to stop it. 

“Corona virus is not new to us, but COVID-19 is. It is the third new human corona virus of the century. And its characteristics are not in line with this family of virus.

“Corona viruses were supposed to have evolved in humans just to widen their spread, thus, not to kill but just to sicken us. But that is not happening.

“COVID-19 has already killed more than the earlier two such infections together — SARS and MERS. When it infects also, the symptoms are not according to observed patterns. They are mild enough not to be noticed and, in many cases, even absent after being diagnosed… 

 “Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology with Harvard University, USA, says: “I think the likely outcome is that it will ultimately not be containable.” After China’s quarantining 100 million people in and around the epicentre, Hunan, COVID-19 spread to the rest of the world much faster. On March 6, we had 100,000 cases, which doubled by March 18.”  (Richard Mahapatra  of Down To Earth (online) Monday 30 March 2020)

God’s Word teaches us that: “…The curse causeless shall not come.  A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back.”  (Proverbs 26:2-3)

Yet, amidst all God’s chastening of the Christ-rejecting nations – including the United Kingdom – His grace continues to be shown wonderfully to ‘His people’, His redeemed elect.  As in the days of Moses, when Egypt and the wilful, ungodly Pharaoh were being plagued by the Living Lord God – His own chosen people were not affected to the same lethal degree as the disobedient idol-worshippers were!  

The Lord, in His Sovereign power, knows how to deliver ‘His people’, from the plagues He Himself sends upon the disobedient, or permits in His will.

Verse 11.  “Twice have I heard this. He hears twice in the best sense who hears with his heart as well as his/her ears.”  (C.H.Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 273)

Verse 11. “…Power belongeth unto God. God is much displeased, even with His own children, when His power is questioned by them…”Is the Lord’s hand waxen short?” (Numbers 11:23) (William Wisheart)

The Lord God sent 10 horrific plagues upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the day of Moses, to show His Sovereign power over all the so-called Egyptian ‘gods’ they worshipped.  I believe the Lord God has either sent, or permitted, this Covid 19 global plague for the same reason – to confound the 21^st Century nations for their setting up of countless ‘idols’; leaving the worship of Almighty God, Jehovah; and rejecting His dear Son’s Salvation, made at Calvary’s Cross.

Thought:  Verse 12. “…For Thou renderest to every man according to his work.”  We have sown unbelief, and rejection of Christ, the Holy Bible, and godly Government – now we must reap the whirlwind of God’s hot displeasure.  Repent, and receive His mercy!

5. Trust Not: Vanity, Flesh, Nor Riches! Psalm 62:9-10

Text: “Trust not in oppression, and become not vain in robbery: if riches increase, set not your heart upon them.”

Psalm 62:10.

Good morning, Spiritually strong Christian ‘waiter’!  You and I are Spiritually strong, when at all times we confess to the Lord God that we are so utterly weak in the flesh.  When we humble ourselves before the Almighty Lord God as we should, it is His strength that fully sustains our warfare for Christ in this sinful world.  Hallelujah!  In Christ, we have Victory!

“And lest I should be exalted above all measure through the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.  For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And He (The Lord God) said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness.  Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”  (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

Strong Christian ‘waiters’ are strong in the power of the Holy Ghost alone, we have no Supernatural power of our own, merely a natural fleshy power that is of no use to the Lord in seeking to do Spiritual warfare with the world, the flesh, and the Devil.  If we are not endued with power from Above, we can do nothing in Christ’s service as those who seek to ‘wait’ upon the souls of other sinners with the Gospel of God’s free and Sovereign grace.

“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses (‘waiters’) unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in al Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

The promises and instructions from God’s Word are just as totally relevant to true Christian believers today as they were when the Lord breathed them into the hearts/minds of His people in Old and New Testament times.  Claim God’s promises back to Him in fervent prayer.  He will hear and grant your petitions, yet at all times according to His own Sovereign will and Eternal purpose.  Wow!  What a gracious Lord God and Saviour we have in Christ Jesus!

“For all the promises of God IN HIM (Christ Jesus) are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.”  (2 Corinthians 1:20)

What this verse of Holy Scripture is clearly teaching us today is that, IF we are ‘…in Him…’, in Christ Jesus, then all God’s promises in our Bibles are ‘…Yea (or Yes)’ when we ask the Lord God for them in the correct motivation – to honour Christ Jesus our Saviour and Lord, and to further His Kingdom upon earth to His Glory.  Are YOU and I asking today?

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for everyone that asketh (asks, and continues to ask) receiveth (receives, and continues to receive); and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened… How much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask Him?”  (Matthew 7:7-11)

Therefore, on the subject of Christian trust, it is clear for us to see that, if we do NOT trust the Lord, we will not ask anything from Him; if we do not ask anything from Him, it proves to ourselves that we still do not trust Him and need to revisit the validity of our Eternal Salvation to check if we are truly ‘born again’, Spiritually regenerated, children of God.

Trust Not Vanity:  All that is not the Lord God, is not to be fully trusted.  All any less than trusting in the Lord God is sheer vanity – useless trusting in the undependable vanities of sinful flesh, riches, or natural oppression.  Trusting in God alone requires saving faith.

“In a word, trust in God is that high act of exercise of faith whereby the soul, looking upon God and casting itself on His goodness, power, promises, faithfulness, and providence, is lifted up above carnal fears and discouragements; above perplexing doubts and disquietments; either for the obtaining and continuance of that which is good, or for the preventing or removing of that which is evil.  (Thomas Lye, 1621-1684, in ‘The Morning Exercise at Cripplegate’)

If we, as would-be Christian ‘waiters’, are to be in any small manner successful in our service to Christ and to other souls for Christ – we have to be living in a manner that PLEASES the Lord God.  Our own children receive more from us when they are living in a manner that is pleasing unto us as parents – there is little difference when desiring to have our petitions before the Lord God Almighty, we have to be trying to live in obedience to His will, and this takes the vital exercise of true Christian FAITH.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen… But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he/she that cometh to God must believe that He is (that God actually exists!), and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”  (Hebrews 11:1;6)

“Trust in Him at all times, ye people, pour out your hearts before Him: God is a Refuge for us.”  (Psalm 62:8)

Trust in God: “According to our love, so is our faith and trust in God; and according to our trust, such is our freedom at the throne of grace.  Trust in Him and pour out your hearts before Him; pour them out like water, in joyful tears.  For when the stone in the heart is melted by mercy, the eyes will issue like a fountain of tears.”  (Samuel Lee 1625-1691)

Trust Not in Flesh:  I, personally, love the line in the Christian Hymn ‘Stand Up For Jesus’, which teaches us who sing it, ‘The arm of flesh will fail you, ye dare not trust your own…’.  There are no truer words, dear Christian friend, if, like the author, you have lived a life that has called for and saw much violence – prior to being graciously saved by King Jesus.  So often we are sorely tempted to try to promptly subdue aggressors and those seeking to torment our souls by Satanic oppressions.  Yet, as soon as we would succumb to such fleshy measures to subdue our tormentors – our Christian witness for the Master suffers ridicule.  No!  Trusting in our own flesh to work out problems with worldlings is a definite mistake.  The Sovereign Lord God Jehovah has His own way of dealing with those who oppress ‘His people’, and God is NOT MOCKED.  “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)

Trust Not in Riches: Verse 10. “…If riches increase, set not your heart upon them. To bow an immortal spirit to the constant contemplation of fading possessions is extreme folly.  Shall those who call the Lord their glory, glory in yellow earth?  Shall the image and superscription of Caesar deprive them of communion with Him Who is the image of the invisible God?  As we must not rest in men, so neither must we repose in money.  Gain and fame are only so much foam of the sea.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 273)

Thought:  Christian ‘waiters’ can only be strong and fruitful if we are fully trusting in the Lord God alone to empower us, direct us, protect us, and to make us prevail.

4. Christian ‘Waiters' Trust God Alone! Psalm 62:7-8

Text: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”

Proverbs 3:5-6.

Good morning, Trusting Christian ‘waiter!  The wise advice and counsel of other professing Christians is good to have; the direction of Pastors, Teachers, and Evangelists is a blessing for any Christian ‘waiter’ to seek – but God alone can be completely, and fully trusted in every direction in our lives of service to the risen Christ Jesus.  Glory to His Holy Name!

 Dictionary Definition:  Trust – (noun) worthiness of being relied on; fidelity; confidence in the truth of anything; confident expectation; a resting on the integrity, friendship, etc. of another; faith; hope; credit (especially sale on credit, or on promise to pay); ground of confidence; charge; responsibility; anything felt to impose moral obligations… (The Chambers Dictionary, page 1783)

Those of us who aspire to ‘wait’ upon the Lord, are not to be fully seen as Christians who are just waiting about for their Lord and Master to return to this world from Heaven. No.  Our ‘waiting’ is focused on service to King Jesus, as those who would take from the Bread of Life found in our KJV Bibles – the Living Word of God – and share it out among all with whom we meet daily and continually.  We are called of the Lord God to serve out His Word to all hearers we encounter.

“Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine…watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.”  (2 Timothy 4: 1-5)

Before asking others to put their heart’s trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we ourselves must, of course, have placed our own full trust in Him!  Others will very quickly discern our hearts, whether we have put our own faith and trust in Christ and will not listen to us for a moment if they perceive we are playing the hypocrite, by failing to put our full trust in Christ ourselves!  Therefore, to be a legitimate Christian ‘waiter’, one must be sanctified, set apart for service to the Lord, nothing held back from serving Him.

“…I am the Lord your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am Holy:…”  (Leviticus 11:44)

As the Levites were in the Old Testament times, so must all Christian ‘waiters’ be in this New Testament time.  As they were called to be sanctified and holy, so must you and I seek to be set apart for service to our Holy Lord God, in Christ Jesus.

“Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ (Christ’s Second Coming); as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as He which hath called you in Holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation (entire lifestyle); because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am Holy.”             (1 Peter 1:13-16)

If you and I, as professing Christians, have no zeal to be ‘like Christ’, we reveal ourselves as hypocrites – and the world can tell a hypocrite from a genuinely sanctified Christian.  Thus, we must continually trust in God to grant us the power of His Spirit, if we are to be strong against the power of our own fallen human nature.  Without Christ, we can do nothing good or profitable in the service of the Living Lord God Jehovah.

“I am the Vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him/her, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me (Jesus Christ) ye can do nothing.”  (John 15:5)

“They trust no God at all who trust Him not alone.  He that stands with one foot on a rock and another upon quicksand will sink and perish as certainly as he that standeth with both feet upon a quicksand.”  (John Trapp 1601-1699)

To more fully trust the Lord is to pray fervently to Him in humble worship and praise of Him, and to pray with the full expectation of receiving from His hand our prayed petition.  ‘Waiting’ upon the Lord God is not a light or fickly thing – it requires much strength, God-given, if we are to endeavour to persevere in constant service to Christ and, by His grace and Divine power, to the hearts and souls of others yet outside of His Body, the church, and indeed, those who are in need within it.

Verse 7. “In God is my Salvation and my glory.  Once we were blind, now we are blessed with Spiritual sight; once we were lost, now we are found, redeemed by Christ’s sinless Blood, and set on the narrow path to Heaven – and all because of God’s free and Sovereign grace to Hell-deserving sinners.  Our only Salvation glory is found in Him. Praise His Name!

“Neither is there Salvation in any other: for there is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”  (Acts 4:12)

Verse 7. “In God is my Salvation and my glory. Wherein should we glory but in Him Who saves us?  Our honour may well be left with Him who secures our souls.  To find all in God and to glory that it is so is one of the sure marks of an enlightened soul.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 271)

Christian ‘waiters’ are necessarily called to be Christian ‘soldiers’ – for many Spiritual battles are fought against the world, the flesh, and that old Devil as we ‘wait’ upon the souls of fallen men/women.

“Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.  No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please Him who hath called him to be a soldier.”              (2 Timothy 2:3-4)

We go to do Spiritual war carrying the Name of King Jesus Christ, on the shields of our faith.

“On the shields of the Greeks, Neptune was depicted; on the shields of the Trojans, Minerva; because in them they put their confidence, and in their protection deemed themselves secure.  Now, Christ is the insignia of our shields.”  (Thomas Le Blanc 1869)

“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name which is above every name: that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  (Philippians 2:9-11)

The way of the Cross of Christ can be a hard road to travel, when one is seeking to serve Christ in full commitment of service as a ‘waiter’ in the Word.  Full trust in Him is a must.

Verse 8. “Trust in Him at all times. Faith is an abiding duty, a perpetual privilege.  We should trust when we can see as well as when we are utterly in the dark.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 271)

Thought: Trust Christ the Lord at all times – good and bad – He will never fail us.