Nearly every verse in this great Psalm could be developed into sermon. Furthermore, we could take several verses and come up with thoughts for the beginning of a new year. For example there is verse 3 – “Thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake LEAD me, and GUIDE me.” Many of you use the navigation program in your car to tell you the best way to get from point A to B. But December 31, 2024 isn’t just a destination; it is the end of a three hundred sixty-six day journey. The road may lead through valleys and over mountains; it may include bogs and swamps. And as you know, that navigation system you use, probably will not tell you about the patches of ice, the recent avalanche, and whether or not a couple cars have collided up ahead. How important it is to have the omniscient Jehovah as our guide.
And then there is verse 8 – “Thou hast set my feet in a LARGE ROOM.” We don’t know exactly how large a room 2024 is going to be, but it could be 366 square yards. We can get a lot of stuff in a room that size. But what if it is only 366 square feet. If my math is correct that is less than 20 by 20. Relatively small. David was confident that the Lord had given him a large room in which to live and move and have his being.
Verse 19 – “Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast LAID UP for them that fear thee.” I believe that as the sovereign God, Jehovah, has already put some marvelous things in this room. They are “laid up,” that is, they are set aside as future gifts. But not everyone is wise enough to appreciate those blessings – even to know they are in that room. Oh, how we need the Lord – even to enjoy what He has for us.
Since we can’t dwell on all that is in this Psalm I’d like us to focus upon verse 15 – “My times are in thy hand.” David’s life was in the hand of his omnipotent, loving, Heavenly Father. And so is the life of every one of children of God who are here tonight.
In many ways, 2024 doesn’t look particularly bright. If the societal downward spiral continues, and we expect that it will, the desert that I spoke of this morning, will become more and more dry and deadly. There is a big federal election coming up, and we remember what happened the last time. With the economy the way it is, how many of us expect to be completely debt free sometime in this year? As we hear of more and more of our acquaintances going through severe tribulation, shouldn’t we expect to have it creep closer to our families? The older I get, the more I see that my peers are dying off. Some of us have looked disaster in the face this past year, and the next may be no different.
But… “my times are in the hand of the Lord.” This gives the Christian a decided advantage over the rest of the people of this globe. The materialist says, “My times are in the hand of evolution, education and the economy.” The atheist says, “My times are in the hands of chance or fate.” The Humanist says, ”My times are in my own hands.” And the average American says, “My times are in hands of governmentally controlled circumstances.” As Christians we know that these things are not true of us – our times are in the hands of the Lord. You probably know the old spiritual which says: “He’s got the whole world in his Hands…” Actually the Lord has a lot more than the whole world in His hands. We believe in the absolute sovereignty of our God over everything.
I read of a pastor whose garage was badly damaged in a wind storm. He had often talked to his neighbor about the Lord, and that same neighbor came over to see the damage. The man asked, “Is it right for God to send a costly disaster into the life of one of His best servants?” The Christian replied, “Well, I don’t really know. You see, I’m in sales not management.” And I am in sales this evening. Policy is not my department. I am here just to tell you what God has said.
David could rejoice because the Lord JEHOVAH was HIS GOD.
Verse 14 – “I trusted in thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my God.” And the God Whom David worshiped and served was a real and personal God. The god of so many people is like nothing more than the furnace in their house. Into every life a little snow must fall – along with sleet and cold temperatures. Into every life trouble comes along, like disease, financial loss, and even death. And when things get cold people reach for the thermostat which directs our furnace to add a little heat. Or they throw a few more pieces of wood onto the fire. Only when things go uncontrollably wrong in their lives do they think about turning to the Lord. For most of them, God is no better than an appliance to warm their hearts and hands. Every month they pay the utility company to keep the fuel pumping into their furnace. Every time it comes on there is a little shiver in the walls of the house, but they soon learn to ignore the noise and the shiver will pass. The heat pours out of the vent and they warm their bodies. But seldom do they thank the Creator, or the engineer who installed the thing, or even the gas company.
But the God of the Psalmist wasn’t just a thing to keep him warm or safe – He was his living God. “Thou art MY God” – verse 13. “O Lord, thou art my God, I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name, for thou hast done wonderful things.” Turn off all the electricity and gas in all world tonight, and the Lord could still give us a burning bush to keep us toasty and warm. Turn off the furnace at our house, and the Lord might send us into the burning fiery furnace of Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, where we could stay comfy and warm. Jehovah, the God of fire – He is MY God.
Furthermore, Jehovah is the ever present God – verses 1-2. “In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me.” Reading these verses, we get the impression that the Lord was right beside David. They were speaking face to face. And they could converse as friends. Verse 22 – “For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee.” It is almost as wrong to think of God as at our side as it is to picture him beyond the moon. “In Him we LIVE and move and have our being.” And “greater is He that is IN you than he that is in the world.”
And this God of David; this God of ours is omnipotent. Jehovah is powerful enough to deliver us from any difficulty. Verse 2 – “Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me. For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength. Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.” Verse 15 – “My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.” The Lord can deliver from the power of affliction, sorrow, bereavement, temptation, anxiety and much more. He has delivered others from lions, whales, furnaces, hurricanes, giants and from vast armies. He can deliver us as well – in 2023, 2024 or whenever.
How do I know that there is a God? Because only God could create this universe out of nothing. The order of the universe demands intelligence greater than the cosmos itself. We know that there is a God because lives are often completely changed by way of redemption. The God who holds my times in his hand is powerful enough to defeat any foe. Verses 17-18 – “Let me not be ashamed, O LORD; for I have called upon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave. Let the lying lips be put to silence; which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous.” The God that can defeat mighty Babylon and Assyria can defeat our petty adversaries. His power hasn’t diminished – or even been severely tested. A little girl asked her dad one day, “Daddy, how big is God?” His wise reply was, “Honey, God is twice as big as you will ever need him to be.” My times are in God’s powerful hands.
Because David had a God, he also the subject for faith – the substance for great faith.
The Lord was there before David had faith, and He was in fact the Creator of David’s faith. One of the great problems of this religious world is that men’s faith have created their gods. No wonder so many are so religiously confused. The faith of the Hindus has developed a god of, and through, reincarnation. The religion based in Rome has a female demigod, created by a false faith. The religions based in Utah and Mecca have fictitious gods designed after the grossest desires of human hearts. In David’s case, David’s God created David’s faith – not the other way around. And in that lays the size of David’s faith, because David’s God was huge. Much earlier in his life David looked at monstrous Goliath and pointed out that he was less than a midget in the sight of David’s infinite God.
I read of a little girl who was taking a long train trip all by herself. She was beside herself with excitement mixed, but there in the mix was just a bit of worry. For example, in one place where the track curved, out the window, she could see a big river ahead, and it looked like the train would fall into the water. But when it got to that point the train turned right and passed over the water on a bridge she hadn’t seen. Then the river was on the other side of the train, and the little girl ran over to the other side to see it. Again, the river disappeared ahead of the locomotive and it looked like disaster, but again there was a bridge. After the third or fourth time this happened the little girl concluded, “Somebody has put bridges everywhere I need to go.” That is exactly true.
Our times are in God’s “hands.” But of course that is an anthropomorphism – a human way of expressing something divine and beyond our comprehension. God has no “hands” per se, because deity, as such, isn’t confined to a body as we think of bodies. But even if that were true, the hands of God are infinitely superior to any hands which you might imagine. What are stronger, the hands on that clock back there, or the hands of Benjamin or Ellie? What are stronger, the hands of one of our little children or my hands? What are stronger, my hands or the hands of Steve Kjeldgaard.
Every once in a while my wife will grab something and wince. Judy has arthritis and it is getting worse. It not only weakens her hands, but causes them sharp pain sometimes. Thankfully, as dependent as I am on my wife, in reality, my times are in the omnipotent hands of the Lord.
Some time ago, Judy and I were watching a basketball game on the television, and the commentator mentioned that one of the players had soft hands. Judy said, “Soft hands?” I said that I know what the commentator meant, but I’m not sure that I could really describe it. Thankfully, she said that she thought that she knew. We can say that despite the Lord’s omnipotent grasp, He too has soft hands. They are kind; they are ready to bless and uplift His child; not to slap and smack us down. “Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; save me for thy mercies’ sake” – verse 16. Is that a reference to the soft hands of the Lord?
I don’t know what is headed my way in 2024, and I’m trying to tighten my belt as I go into it. Despite what I don’t know, here is something which I do know – “My times are in God’s hands.” And despite what I don’t know about the coming year, I’m not overly concerned, because “I (also) know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”