The reading of the scriptures comes from the book of Psalms, even though your bulletin says Psalm 91, I'll read both Psalm 90 and Psalm 91 for reasons that hopefully will become clear shortly. And then we'll turn over to the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew, and read Matthew chapter 4, verse 1 through 11. Perhaps you've heard, maybe you haven't at this time, that the work of the OPC, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, on a Psalter hymnal project is fast becoming the work of the URC as well. So I guess we're trying to get together on an ecumenical project, and I'm on that committee that's working on that project. As you'll well know, if the person in the back forgot to turn down the tune on this microphone, it's not for the sake of my musical gifts that I'm there. but for other reasons. So anyway, often when I'm asked to preach, I preach from the Psalms these days because I'm working very closely in the Psalms and thought that Psalm 91 would be a good place to meditate with you this morning. Let's turn to Psalm 90 and Psalm 91 and then we'll flip over to the New Testament. Congregation of God, this is the Lord's very word, infallible and inerrant. It's his word to you this morning. Give careful attention to it. A prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place through all generations. Before the mountains were born or you were brought forth, the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. You turn men back to the dust saying, return to dust, O sons of men, for a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by. are like the watch of a night. You sweep men away in the sleep of death. They are like the new grass of the morning, though in the morning it springs up new. By evening it is dry and withered. We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. You have set our iniquities before you. Our secret sins are in the light of your presence. All our days pass away under your wrath. We finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is 70 years or 80 if we have the strength, and yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass and we fly away. Who knows the power of your anger, for your wrath is as great as the fear that is due to you. Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Relent, O Lord, how long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love that we may sing for joy and be glad. all of our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us and for as many years as we have seen trouble. May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. May the favor of the Lord, our God, rest upon us. Establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands. Psalm 91. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High I will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. Surely He will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His feathers. And under His wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by the day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near to you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. If you make the Most High your dwelling, even the Lord who is my refuge, then no harm will befall you. No disaster will come near your tent. For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. And they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot. Against a stone, you will tread upon the lion and the cobra and you will trample the great lion and the serpent. Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him. I will protect him for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him with long life. I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. And then flipping over to the Gospel of Matthew, we read verses 1 through 11 of the Gospel of Matthew, the temptation of Jesus. And then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came to him and said, if you are the Son of God, then tell these stones to become bread. And Jesus answered, it is written, man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. And then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. If you are the son of God, he said, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. Jesus answered him, it is also written, do not put the Lord your God to the test. And again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and all their splendor. All this I will give to you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me. And Jesus said to him, away from me, Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him alone. And then the devil left him and the angels came and attended to him. Thus the reading of God's word. Let's pray before we hear the sermon and ask God to open our hearts and our minds. Almighty God, we thank you for your word. It is broader than all the heavens. We pray, O Lord, that you would take away now, even in this hour, the lackluster that so often covers our eyes, the hardness that so often covers our hearts, and grant us that reverence and humility before your holy word, without which no one can understand your truth, especially your word as revealed in Scripture. We ask this for Jesus' name's sake, and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing and acceptable in thy sight, O God, our rock and our Redeemer. Amen. Well, I mentioned to you I've been spending a lot of time in the Psalms, and recently I preached a sermon on Psalm 90. And the main point of that psalm, as you're reading, is the wages of sin are death. To echo the Apostle Paul's words, there's perhaps nowhere in the Hebrew Bible that teaches more clearly and in more vivid pictures the truth that Moses conveys to us in Psalm 90, namely that the wages of sin are death. I don't have the main points here, and I'm not going to belabor the main points of Psalm 90, but these are what they are before we turn to the main points of Psalm 91. The first point is that God is eternal. You see that in verses 1 and 2. And man is ephemeral. Verses 3 through 6 of Psalm 90. In other words, man is transitory. He's like a flower that passes away. But then it also teaches that all men are under God's wrath. Verses 7 through 12 of Psalm 90. All men are under God's wrath. Verses 13 to 17 of Psalm 90. But some men are under God's grace. But nevertheless, this psalm, Psalm 90, teaches clearly the wages of sin is death. And it also wants to communicate to you that you are under the common curse of this world. Now, you may have heard that second point and say all men are under God's wrath. But I know because I hear week in and week out from the faithful preaching of God's Word that I am vindicated from sin and God's wrath because of the work of Jesus Christ. And that's true. But you have not been taken out of this world. And that's a message the church needs to hear so that they may have right expectations for their pilgrim life in this world. Because you are still subject to disease and death and injury and slander and all the anxieties and vicissitudes that come because our federal representative head, Adam, cast the whole human race into sin and misery. So even though you be a Christian and it's true, there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, we all know, living in this life, that this is a sad world filled with pain and misery. Well, it was after hearing that psalm preached, Psalm 90, that my good friend, Dr. Van Drunen, drew my attention to a new book by Susan Jacoby, Never Say Die. Now, Susan Jacoby is on a mission. She is quite perplexed and bewildered by the fact that Americans and Western Europeans in general have a tendency to ignore the ravages and effects of death in this world. So she wrote this book, Never Say Die. And Mrs. Jacoby's reviewer says in the Wall Street Journal the following, quote, boomers and other death deniers find sucker, that is, consolation, in the all-heartening health news, and every television station and newspaper now has an editor or reporter or two purveying it that brings hopeful new cures for old diseases and successful longevity experiments on mice and all kinds of other critters. They, Americans, gobble up stories in the New York Times of a 90-year-old woman tossing javelins, Elliot Carter composing music at 100, etc., etc., close quote. But you see, Mrs. Jacoby wants everyone to face the stark realities of death and not have this false hope in modern medicine to alleviate our suffering. So she communicates in very real terms about the stark realities of chronic, degenerative, and irreversible diseases, about the effects, the profound effects on the great percentage of people who are able to reach 85 of Alzheimer's. She has a whole chapter on Alzheimer's and its debilitating effects. While with great sadness to me, Mrs. Jacoby does not hide her political and religious convictions, She was raised Roman Catholic, but long ago, facing the stark realities of death, she jettisoned her faith and now she has grown cynical because she looks around and she sees the effects of death upon our culture and especially women who are left behind because they often outlive men and they often have a very difficult time in their old age providing for themselves in the great wake of destruction that death leaves. So what's her answer to all this? Terribly sad. Doctor-assisted suicide. Tax the citizens so that the government might provide greater care for the old and the aged and the infirm, especially the women left behind in our society. And her book is characterized as an angry tirade full of cynicism and bitterness. Well, Psalm 90 does not teach that servants of the living God are to have that kind of response. And neither does Psalm 91. Because when you look at verses 1 and 2, notice right up front the drumbeat of trust and dependence upon God. Refuge, this huge theme in the Psalter. Perhaps one of the main themes. Look at verses 1 and 2. He who sits in the hiding place of the Most High abides in the protection of the Almighty. I say to the Lord, my refuge, my fortress, my God in whom I trust. And you may be wondering, why read Psalm 90 with Psalm 91? Because they're bound together as a pair, if you will. Psalm 90 is Moses taking us back and revealed religion to ancient times and saying the wages of sin is death. And people of God, even though church of the Old Testament, Under the Sinaitic Covenant, the wages of sin is death. Fear God and live, have faith. Psalm 91 uses titles for God going way back in patriarchal times. Maybe you noticed the term God Most High taken probably from Genesis 14, verses 18 to 20. Moreover, the name Shaddai, God the Provider, taken from Genesis 17. So we see these two psalms are very ancient. And the same rare word for this theme of refuge appears in both, ma'on. So you see in Psalm 90, verse 1, Lord God, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. And Psalm 91, verse 9, Because You have made the Lord your dwelling place, ma'on, the Most High, who is my refuge. Same word. So you see, these two psalms are to be bound together and considered together in their context. But now I ask the question and set up the tension, if you will, to keep your attention. Psalm 90 is all about teaching you the wages of sin is death. And even though you be saved by God, nevertheless, you are not free from the ravages of sin in this world completely. So does Psalm 91 promise too much? Can a Hebrew of the Old Testament, a Christian of the New, really affirm the statements in Psalm 91? Especially in light of the general truth that you're still subject to the common curse even though you'd be saved by grace? I mean, can we really say with the writer of Psalm 91 verses 9 and 10, Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, the Most High who is my refuge, No evil shall be allowed to befall you, and no plague will come near your tent or near your house. Can we really say with the author of Psalm 91, verse 7, May a Christian soldier on the front lines in Afghanistan really say, A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. Can he run out into harm's way without any fear of a bullet finding his way to his body? Can we really say with the psalmist, verse 16, with long life, I will satisfy him and show him my salvation? Now, some writers commenting on these psalms, and Psalm 91 in particular, find these statements to be so robust and so positive. They talk about a kind of theology of glory that's communicated here in Psalm 91. But if these promises are taken as communicating too much to you, And then you live your life and you don't see them really play out. If God cannot deliver on these statements, what are we left with? Do we end up like Mrs. Jacoby, cynical, sad, bitter, when the grim reaper comes knocking on our door or the door of our children or the door of our loved ones? Are we reduced to bitter anger? Shall we fall back on doctor-assisted suicide and heavier taxation of the citizens so the government can care for the old? Well, Psalm 91 has answers to those big questions. And God has a response to those tensions I set before you. So let us look at them briefly from Psalm 91. Three points. I don't usually take great pains to come up with three points, even though I'm a Presbyterian. Nor do I take great pains to come up with alliterative outlines. But nevertheless, this works. And it's pretty easy to remember. So since you didn't get it on the back, if you're taking notes, here it is. life's travails, life's afflictions, life's travails. Secondly, Israel fails, but thirdly, Christ prevails. So life's travails, Israel fails, but Christ prevails. Now, if you look at these opening verses, you're going to notice a lot of language about particular attacks and afflictions. And many commentators think the compositional context of the psalm had to do with disease that was afflicting the psalmist and he's writing about that. But sometimes even this language in these opening verses that has to do with so much disease and pestilence and illness really is a metaphor that's talking about enemies and the power of enemies, physical enemies. And then there's lines that are taken and have been traditionally taken as talking about physical enemies at the time of war. This is a warrior psalm. You know, many arrows will fly. But there's places even in the psalms where that kind of language is applied to disease and affliction and that kind of thing as well. So overall, I want to tell you, instead of getting bogged down in the details of trying to identify exactly what the psalmist is talking about here, which may even be lost to us by virtue of the distance of time, several thousand years, these metaphors in general have to do With all kinds of afflictions and all kinds of power which ultimately could result in death. Look at verse 3. For it is he who rescues you from the trap of the fowler, from the pestilence of destruction. And this metaphor designates the cunning powers of enemies in particular places in the Psalms. Psalm 124, verse 7. Ultimately, for the New Testament Christian, it can be the snare of the devil. Listen to 2 Timothy 2.26. That they, namely the Lord's servant, may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. And then look at verse 4. You have this wonderful imagery of being sheltered under the wings of the Most High. A common metaphor in the Hebrew Bible for eagle's wings protecting the young and sheltering them from marauders and enemies and people who would come and attack those young. With his wings he covers you, and under his wings you may seek refuge. Shield and buckler are his faithfulness. And then in verses 5 and 6, you reach a climax with regards to these enemies and the power of death surrounding. In 5 and 6, you see here the order of the climax where it's very noticeable. You shall not fear the dread by night, nor the arrow that flies by day, of the pestilence that walks by darkness, of the destruction that destroys at noonday. So here are the terrors that come upon the Old Testament believer. And there's all kinds of speculation about what they were and comparing this language with religions of the ancient Near East and other places in the Psalms. But what you need to realize what we have here is language that is metaphorical and designed to encompass a whole range of potential lethal happenings. Whether they actually be physical enemies who would slander you and destroy your reputation, which is a dreadful thing to lose your reputation and your name. Most likely whether it has to be indeed particularly with disease that would ravage you or your family. Well, they experienced cancers. They experienced all kinds of afflictions and diseases and had much less recourse to remedying those problems than we do in this age. But nevertheless, here is all this language having to do with the common curse, threatening, The grim reaper right there, tapping on the door, ready to destroy. Because even though you've been freed from sin, nevertheless, you're still subject to the ravages of sin that Adam and Eve cast us into by their dreadful first sin. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousands at your right hand, and yet it will not draw near to you. Life's travails. I'll get lost in the details. This is the point. Psalm 91 picks up right where Psalm 90 left off. The wages of sin is death. And though you be a faithful believer, though you be dependent upon God for all your sustenance in life, nevertheless, you and your loved ones are still exposed to disease and death, to being sinned against, and because of your own weak flesh sinning against others. Adam and Eve cast all the human race into abject sin and misery. So, how are we to understand the confident promises which I alluded to above in light of the fact that it just did not seem to match Israel's experience and nor does it match ours? Evil will never befall you? In this life, life is full of travails. We bring it upon ourselves by our own sins sometimes, but also we all know what it's like to be affected by the sins of others and by causes that are even beyond the horizon, the eclipse of the horizon which we can see. The ancient playwright said, the slings and darts of an outrageous fortune. I wish I could tell you, your children will not experience this. No matter how strong and how firm you are in raising them in a covenant home and sending them to a Christian school, I have no authority, based upon being a minister of God's Word, to tell you you will not experience that. That some drunk driver won't cross over the meridian on the way home and wipe out three generations of family and women in one fell swoop in one nanosecond, as happened to friends of my family. And he got off the hook because of the technicality in the law. A mother, a wife, and a daughter all at once. I have no authority to promise that to you. Life is full of travails. And the second point is Israel fails. So does this psalm promise too much? Well, the answer to that question lies in rightly interpreting the psalm. The vast promises of verses 3 through 13 of Psalm 91 must be understood in light of the covenant that God has made with his people. And this is the church of the old covenant. This is the people who were brought into covenant under the Sinaitic covenant. And yes, they're under the covenant of grace, but God made a particular covenant with this people at Sinai. And God had particular conditions in this covenant. And he said to the people of old, if you obey me, then what will happen? You will be blessed. Just go home and read your Bibles in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26. And you see that that's the nature of the Sinaitic covenant. If you obey me, you will be blessed. You will have many children and your enemies will be scattered and your agriculture will prosper. And you will live in the land, a symbol of the greatest blessing. But if you disobey me, you will be cursed. And you will be smitten by disease and pestilence. And you will not conquer your enemies. And the Canaanites will overrule you. And if you do not obey, then ultimately you will pollute the land and the land must vomit you out. And you will experience the curse of the covenant. The ultimate curse, Namely, being kicked out of the land, which is really just a symbol for being kicked out of the heavenly Jerusalem. Canaan is a symbol for the heavenly Jerusalem. And that's taught right here in this psalm. Look at verses 9 and 10. Notice the conditionality that's communicated to this church of the Old Covenant. Because, because, that's the language of condition. Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, the Most High who is my refuge, No evil shall be allowed to befall you. No plague shall come near your tent. In other words, God is saying, because you have made the Lord your own, your refuge, your dwelling place, therefore you will receive the covenant blessings. You will be blessed. Look at verse 14. Because He... Now you want to ask yourself who that He is. Because He holds fast to me in love, I will deliver Him. I will protect Him because He knows my name. That's the language of conditions. Blessings based upon the people's obedience or lack of obedience and disobedience. Now, it's not only clear from these verses, but it's also clear from the language that overlaps between this psalm and places like Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Israel fails. And there's all kinds of overlapping language and ideas between this psalm and Psalm 91 in places like Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 where God basically says, if you keep my word and my covenant, you will be blessed. If you don't keep my word, you'll be cursed and ultimately you'll be kicked out of the land. And guess what gets more airtime in the Hebrew Bible? The blessings or the curses. The curses. And there's a great lesson in anthropology for you. In other words, understanding mankind in the human condition. Leviticus 26, for example, 13 verses on blessing. Guess how many on cursing? 14 through 46. Math was never my strong suit. You do the math. They're going to fail. It's a fait accompli. They cannot keep God's law. Listen, if you will, to a few verses. You will not be afraid. Leviticus 26, 6. If you obey me. Leviticus 26, verses 78. You shall chase your enemies by the thousands. Leviticus 26 to 11, we're still in the blessing section. God's dwelling shall be in your midst. His presence shall be there in your midst. For obedience, the blessing of harmful beasts will be removed. Leviticus 26, 6. Ah, but for disobedience, verse 22, I will let loose harmful beasts to ravage you. Or just one passage from Deuteronomy 28, verse 21. The Lord will make the pestilence, the disease, stick to you if you do not obey. And of course, the ultimate curse that fell upon the Israelites was to be kicked out of the land of Canaan. But like the writer to Hebrews says, this is not the ultimate promise. Joshua couldn't lead them into that. The ultimate promise was the spiritual Canaan. And many gave that up because they did not have faith. So not only did they lose the physical land, that geopolitical entity, they lost their heavenly promise. They lost their heavenly reward. They lost their spiritual canon. Now I look out upon the sea of faces and I wonder, why is Professor Estelle drawing us through this lesson in redemptive history? We know he's excited about the Old Testament, but why this big grand picture? Because there's nothing more applicable to your life than this. Israel is all of humankind written in miniature. Israel is a picture of all humankind written in miniature. Church of God, you may not have been there melting the metal to form the golden calf when Moses came down upon Sinai and was so upset. You may not have gone whoring after the Baals and the other gods and laying underneath every single tree to go in spiritual idolatry and whoredom after other gods when indeed you were supposed to give soul allegiance and obeisance to the one true God. You may not have been offering up your children in fire to Moloch, but for the grace of God, you would go there. But for the grace of God, in a nanosecond, you would turn your heart to idols and false gods. You see, Israel is a picture of all humankind in miniature. And therefore, there is no covenant blessings that come through the mediation of any mere servant, any mere human being. Left to ourselves, we are all deserving of death and the wrath of God and the horrible slings and darts associated with this sad world. With diseases and irreversible afflictions because of our own sin, but also because of our federal representative head, Adam. And just as Adam failed to fulfill her probation, his probation, so too Israel fails. And there is no way that we can keep the law of God. I know it's stark language, but it's the language of the prophets. And I'm a minister of God. Israel committed spiritual adultery on her wedding night. She was deserving of nothing with regards to the mercy of God. The old covenant people forfeited the covenant blessings. They could not be won by a mere man because of her whoredom, because of her constant sin, because of her forsaking the faithful God who wanted to heal her, who time and time and time again sent prophets to proclaim the word of God and say, repent and turn and I will heal you and I will bless you. But she failed. Part of the reason for that failure, part of the reason for communicating that conditionality is to demonstrate to the people, the old and also the new, that there is no way we can measure up to the law of God and personally, perpetually, keep the law of God in and of ourselves. There's not one man, woman, or child in this room who can do that. We're all miserable failures before the law of God. What they needed was a penalty payer. What they needed was a probation keeper. So even though life is full of travails and even though you're all subjected to the common curse, And even though Israel fails, and even though you fail day in and day out, nevertheless, there is one, no mere man, but rather the God-man who prevails, namely Christ Jesus. You see, people of God, as we turn to this last section of Christ prevails, there must be positive righteousness to merit the covenant blessings before God. It's not good enough merely to have forgiveness of sins. You see, there must be penalty-paying substitution and blood shed for sins. but there also must be positive righteousness so that we may merit God's favor and approbation and approval. Without positive merited righteousness, we cannot stand before God and receive the pronouncement, well done, good and faithful servant. There's no way to live in this tragic and dangerous and hostile world in and of ourselves. But Christ prevails. Christ not only pays for the sins of his people he also merits that righteousness and stands before the father and if you be in christ he dresses you in that righteousness so that you're actually clothed in that righteousness and you can actually stand before god the father and receive the covenant blessings that he merited because of his righteousness on your behalf it's the glorious news of the gospel in light of these stark realities of the wages of sin or death listen to hebrews chapter 5 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. And although he was his son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all those who obey him. Being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. I'm merely communicating to you in words what Matthew already communicated to you from the red word of God. Did you notice the verses from Psalm 91 that were quoted? There's the tempter. There's the dragon of old who takes Christ, the second Adam, just like he tried to befool the first Adam, up upon a high point and gives him the apocryphal word of Satan and says, do this and you will be blessed. Take the short road out. And Christ says, no. It is written. And believe in the canonical Word of God. He is the canonical Word of God, so to speak. He trusts in His Father holy. He is dependent upon God, His Father holy. He trusts. And He obeys even at this dire point of temptation. Get behind Me, Satan. It is written. He fulfills all righteousness, not only at that turn, but at every turn after that. He offers forth positive righteousness. so that indeed he could receive the approval of the Father. Because in eternity past, God made a covenant with him that if he would fulfill all righteousness, he would give him an inheritance, namely his church, and they would live in glory and praise him forever and ever. And we see the workings out of that, even as we look upon the sea of faces here gathered this morning. Our Lord and Savior, the great head crusher God-man, recognized the bait and did not fall for the hook, But rather, he responds in confident trust in God, fully obeying, not turning back from his mission. And what was his mission? To destroy the works of the devil. To turn away God's wrath, to propitiate God's wrath so that God could look upon us with favor. To reverse all that the first Adam had done by sinking the whole human race into an abject condition of sin and misery. to be the captain of our faith and lead a whole captive train of captives before the Father that may praise and worship Him not only on this Lord's Day, but forever and ever if we are in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior, kept the conditions of the covenant perfectly. And now He's merited for you the blessings of the covenant. And although Israel fails to keep the terms of the covenant, And although you fail in the midst of all life's travails, nevertheless there is one who prevails, namely Christ. And now He offers a positive righteousness in the situation of demerit so that God the Father could say, well done, good and faithful servant, be blessed. And bless this host of captives that you bring in your train behind you. But then the question is raised again. Has not this psalm promised too much? We see the slings and darts of an outrageous fortune fall upon our congregation. We see death. We see disease. We see old age. We feel the effects of being sinned against and the sad sorrow of sinning against others, even our brothers and sisters in Christ. Has this all promised too much? No, the better question to ask, and you always want to ask right questions of Scripture is, When will we experience the fullness of these hard-won blessings? And in conclusion, the answer, of course, is not in this life alone. Jesus has come. He has inaugurated His kingdom. But there is no theology of glory yet. We look forward to a theology of glory when we're taken home to heaven. And you best not expect too much before you get there, or it will drive you crazy. And you will be sadly disappointed. And you will be tempted to become bitter and angry as well. But you see, this is the great antidote, church of God, for bitterness and angry tirades and cynicism and coming to foolish conclusions like doctor-assisted suicide to remedy old age. No, that's not what the saints of God are to do. They are to look to heaven, to look to Jesus Christ, who is merited on our behalf all the covenant blessings. You see, the blackness of sin, disease, death, the effects of the common curse, all the dismal effects of sin will pass away. Flock of God. But also, you need not fear in this life. No poison dart of chronic, degenerative, irreversible disease can ultimately, ultimately harm the child of God. The backbiting, slanderous remarks of folk cannot harm you, ultimately. Satan himself cannot touch you, ultimately. Your children are safe because they have a refuge ultimately if they trust in God. You have a secret place to hide. So when the slings and darts of an outrageous fortune come your way, whatever they may be, take your refuge in Christ. There will come a time and a day is coming when all this world with its betrayals, its ugliness, its slings and darts unexpected, its tyrants and its terrorists, they will all be no more because this life is full of travails. It's true. And though Israel fails and though you fail, nevertheless, Christ prevails. He is the faithful one. Listen to your own Heidelberg Catechism. It sums up so much more eloquently than I ever could what this psalm is trying to get you to feel and experience and sense this morning. Lord's Day 9, question and answer number 96. Of course, it's at the point where it's talking about the Apostles' Creed. Now listen afresh to these words in light of the exposition of God's word. What do you believe when you say, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth? Answer, that the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them, who still upholds and rules them by his eternal counsel and providence, is my God and Father because of Christ his Son. I trust Him so much that I do not doubt He will provide whatever I need for body and soul. And He will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this sad world. He is able to do this because He is an almighty God. And He desires to do this because He is a faithful Father. Let us pray. O Lord, we do give You great thanks and praise for Your Word. It is broader than all the heavens. And though our forefather did cast us into a horrible condition of abject misery, and, O Lord, though in our own ways, whether internally or externally, and even physically, we feel the effects in this life of death and all its ramifications, yet, O Lord, we thank you for our great penalty payer and probation keeper, namely the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that he has reversed all that the first Adam did. We thank You, O Lord, that He indeed draws us close to You so that indeed we may call You our Father. Father, we pray that You would seal the truths of these psalms and Your entire word upon our hearts, whether we be suffering now or whether we be suffering in the future. O Lord, seal it upon our memory. Seal it upon our heart. Write it indelibly there, O Lord, so that in due time we may recall it and by the assistance of Your Spirit we may call it forth and be strengthened in our most holy faith. We ask this in Jesus' name and for his name's sake. Amen.