Now this afternoon, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 121. Psalm 121. We'll go ahead and read this psalm. It is a brief psalm. You will notice the caption right above it that this is a song of degrees. I think I explained that meaning some while back, that there are a number of psalms with that kind of designation. They are generally believed to be psalms that were sung or that were prayed when the children of Israel made their way to Jerusalem for the various feasts that they were called upon to attend. Jerusalem being elevated in a mountain, the closer you got, the more you would climb the hills, so to speak, by degrees. And hence the title here, A Song of Degrees. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth and even forevermore. Amen, may the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word for his name's sake. Let's seek the Lord in prayer before we think about this psalm. Let's all pray. Oh Lord, as we bow now in thy presence with thy word open before us, we pray that thou will open our hearts to hear it, to receive it, to respond to it, We ask, O Lord, that thou wilt encourage us and strengthen us. We pray that thou wilt build us up in the faith. We pray that thou wilt unite our hearts in the fear of God and love of Christ. And we ask, O Lord, that as we spend this time now in thy word, may we hear not so much the voice of a preacher as we do that still, small voice of thy spirit, bearing witness to the truth of thy word and bringing it home to our hearts. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I wonder this afternoon, similar line, I guess, to what we contemplated this morning, have you ever felt so perplexed and dismayed, so disquieted and wound up within that you don't even know how to bring your burdens to the Lord? At least not initially. There may be times when you have to just sit quietly in the Lord's presence and not even attempt to express yourself. You're not ready for it, and instead you have to sit in silence for a period of time so you can allow the Holy Spirit to enable you to unwind enough to sort things out before you can even utter a single petition to Christ. This state of heart anxiety and the cry that it eventually produces may be reflected by a single word that you find in numerous places in the Psalms. It's the simple cry and the word, help. Lord, help. You ever been brought there? We see that a number of times in the Psalms. Psalm 12 and verse 1, help, Lord, for the godly man seeth, for the faithful fail among the children of men. Psalm 38, verse 22, make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation. Psalm 40, verse 13, be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me, O Lord, make haste to help me. And this is but a sampling. of the references that utilize that word. These cries reflect deep needs and they reflect an urgency with which those needs must be met. Good to know in the light of this kind of urgency that the Lord is revealed as being a very present help in trouble. Psalm 46, one. The Lord is pleased to hear cries for help from his children. It's a mark, you see, of their dependency upon Him. Foolish men who are bound by their pride would sooner go to their doom than acknowledge their dependency upon Christ. We find an example of this kind of thing in the Old Testament, King Asa. who started so well and sensed his dependency on God and wrought great victories for Judah by his faith, nonetheless reached the place in later years where he thought he had to resort to his own means. And even in his old age with diseased feet, he still refused to call on God. I look at examples like that and I find them very striking. Yet you would think that a man who has proved the Lord in previous days would grow in grace, but instead we find him falling from grace, so to speak. Well, today I'd like for us just for a few moments to survey some of the occurrences in the Psalms in which the psalmists call on God for help. And in analyzing these occurrences, we may note, first of all, some of the occasions that lead to calls for help. The occasions that lead to them. I've cited one reference already that reflects the occasion for such a call, one we can readily relate to today in Psalm 12 and verse one. Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth. Help, for the godly man ceaseth. Can we relate? Does that one strike home today? A world of ungodliness provides countless occasions that lead us to call on the Lord for help. We need help from on high to maintain our walk with the Lord in a world that despises Christ. We need help from on high to keep us from being pulled into that ungodly world. I feel a constant need of calling on Christ for help because we know that where sin abounds, the love of many grows cold. And I know that not only from God's Word, I know it from my own experience. Lord, help me. We need help in an ungodly world in order to establish and maintain good spiritual habits. In a land like ours that is characterized still by so much affluence and ease, it becomes easy to grow careless in prayer, careless in Bible reading, careless in our service to Christ. And in such surroundings like these, spiritual dangers are veiled by a world of luxury and ease, and it becomes easy to think that all is well, when in fact the world around us is hostile to grace, and the devil targets our families and targets our children, and would divide and defile and destroy us. But in our worldliness, we're too at ease to notice or to care. A godless world led the psalmist to cry for help. We do well to make that cry our own. Help us, Lord, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil in these times when the godly man ceaseth. We find another occasion that leads to a call for help. Psalm 27 and verse 9, Hide not thy face far from me, Put not thy servant away in anger, Thou hast been my help, Leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. This verse reveals a consciousness on the part of the psalmist that he has displeased God. He acknowledges that God has just cause for dealing with him in anger, that God has just cause for hiding his face from him. But because God has been his help, he cries for God not to abandon him or forsake him. And you know, that is a good case to make before the Lord. Lord, thou has been my help in days gone by. Why do you suppose that was? Was it because in days gone by you were on a higher spiritual level than you were now, thus meriting the Lord's help? Oh no, the basis is always the same. It's on the basis of Christ. So the very fact that God has been your help becomes a source of assurance that he will be your help. There is no place so uncomfortable as the place of feeling that Christ has hidden his face and has forgotten his people or has left them to their own devices. And there's no denying that God is pleased at times to allow us to feel his absence. We've just gone through Reformation month. I don't think I touched upon that story of Martin Luther. The night before he was to appear for the second time, before the Diet of Worms, he had been given the task of owning the books that were on the table written by him, and he was called on to denounce them. And he asked for 24 hours to pray about it. And during that 24 hours, he had this awful sensation that God had forsaken him. He felt the weight of the world. He knew how heavy the load was and how important his appearance the next day would be. And historians record just great agony on the part of the reformer in the place of prayer that night, pleading with God not to desert him, not to abandon him, expressing a sense that God had done that very thing, which indeed God may well have done, just to impress upon him his dependency upon God. He would draw us to Himself by allowing us to feel our desolation. And in those times we have need to cry to Him for help and for deliverance. So these are but a couple of occasions which lead to cries for help. I'll leave it to your own study. It's a very easy study to do. Just take the word help and trace it through the Psalms. I'll leave it to you to come up with more occasions that call on us to call to the Lord for help. But let me move on to consider, secondly, the source from which we gain this help. In our text we read earlier, I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord. which made heaven and earth, from the 121st Psalm, that Psalm we just read. The Lord himself is the source, and he's the only source for our help. How easy it becomes to overlook this simple truth. Like King Asa I referenced a moment ago, we are often foolish enough to think that our source for help is found in methods of our own devising. It seems that the psalmist had to learn this lesson time and again, and they did learn it. For we read in Psalm 60, verse 11, give us help from trouble, for vain is the help of man. It seems like the psalmist had to learn that, doesn't it? And that he did learn it. Vain is the help of man. Give us help from trouble. Psalm 108 and verse 12, give us help from trouble for vain is the help of man. Same thing repeated. And then in Psalm 146 and verse three, put not your trust in princes nor in the son of man in whom there is no help. Oh, the Lord himself is our help. God is the source of our help. Indeed, Christ himself is revealed in the Psalms as being the source for our help. So we read in Psalm 89 in verse 19, Then thou spakest in vision to thy Holy One, and sayest, I have laid help upon one that is mighty, I have exalted one chosen out of the people. Christ, of course, is the one who is mighty. All power and authority has been committed to him. And he is the exalted one, exalted to the right hand of God. And he is the chosen one, God's chosen servant according to Isaiah. Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect and whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. That's in Isaiah 42 in verse one. So Christ must be the one we seek for help in any and in every circumstance. And the psalmists recognized this. You find them often referring to Jehovah as being their salvation when they call upon him for help. Psalm 79 and verse nine, help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name, and deliver us and purge away our sins for thy name's sake. And by the way, there's another powerful argument to take to the Lord in prayer. Do this, Lord, for thy name's sake. Psalm 38, verse 22, make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation. Psalm 27, verse 9, hide not thy face far from me, put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help, leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. So we see here, don't we, how we call on Christ. He's the source of our salvation. He's the one who accomplished it. He's the one who ministers help to us. Could we think for a moment, thirdly, on the form that this help takes? Psalm 42 and verse five. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me? Let me pause here to say something I probably say every time I cite this verse. What is the psalmist doing here? Who's he talking to? He's talking to himself. He's preaching to himself. Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. For the help of his countenance. Help for a soul that is cast down or a soul that is disquieted takes the form of God's countenance. If we can but know in our hearts that we have the smile of our Creator and Redeemer, then come what may, we'll be strong and we'll endure. I think I probably told you before, years ago when I lived down in Greenville, I worked as a janitor at Wade Hampton High School. Mark Allison and I worked there together. He was my boss. He was the one who beat the drum and tried to keep the slave ship going at ramming speed. And we used to ride there together, and I never have forgotten a prayer of his on the way to work, when he said, Lord, give me the needed grace to believe the gospel today, because if I believe the gospel today, then Lord, I'll be ready for whatever comes my way over the course of this day. The assurance that God is with us, that God is for us, provides the time we need in times when we're downcast and discouraged. We need the assurance ministered to our hearts that Christ has not forgotten us. So we read in Psalm 40 and verse 17, but I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Thou art my help and my deliverer. Make no tarrying, O my God. In a time of turmoil and ungodliness and apostasy, when judgment loomed over the land of Judah, the Lord nevertheless said to the prophet Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 29 and verse 11, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. What a precious text to keep in your heart. That's one to read, that's one to memorize, that's one to preach to yourself. I know the thoughts that I think toward you, sayeth the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end. Oh, there have been times when I've pled that verse before the Lord. And he's pleased to answer. And what that amounts to really is the help of his countenance coming through his word. So help takes the form of the Lord's presence. It takes the form of assurance ministered to our souls that Christ is for us. Along the same line, you could say it takes the form of assurance that our sins are truly forgiven. Psalm 79 and verse nine, help us, oh God of our salvation for the glory of thy name and deliver us and purge away our sins for thy name's sake. This text really brings everything I've said into very concise statement. We find in it the plea for help, the occasion for help, the grounds for help, and the form that the help takes. The occasion is a sense of unworthiness due to sin. The form that help takes is for our sins to be purged away. The grounds for that help is for the glory of God's name. That's the assurance we have, that He will hear and answer prayer. He is glorified to do so. He'll do so not only for your benefit, and we do benefit from it, don't we? But there's a cause that goes beyond how we benefit, and it is the glory of His name. He'll do it for His name's sake. Let me conclude then briefly with a word about the means for obtaining this help. Help us, O God of our salvation, And here again, what is the psalmist doing? He's crying to God. He's calling upon God in prayer. He is looking to God. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. This is prayer, a looking to Christ, a crying to Christ. This is what makes prayer so necessary so often for the believer. We are constantly in need of help. We are constantly in need of deliverance. We're in constant need of forgiveness. Or in other words, we're in constant need of salvation being ministered to our hearts time and again in the fullness of assurance that our sins are forgiven, that the light of God's countenance shines upon us, and that we are accepted by our God in Christ. I need that minister to my heart. I affirm it as part of my creed, but I need for the Spirit to minister the truth of it. I need for truth to be reality, and that comes from the Spirit of God. That's the ministry of the Holy Spirit, you know. And without these things, we're helpless. There is no substitution for the sense of God's grace and favor. But with that grace and favor, we're helped, we're strengthened, we're focused, and we're ready to serve. So I wonder this afternoon, what kind of help do you find yourself in need of today? Maybe you need the help of God's countenance. Does the Lord seem far from you? Do you labor under a sense of His displeasure because you're conscious of your sins? Lift up your eyes to Christ this day until you come away with a sense of assurance that His countenance shines brightly upon you because He has redeemed you. You belong to Him. Maybe you feel isolated and the pull of the flesh and the world pressing hard upon you. Again, cry to your Savior for the strength you need to live for Him and serve Him and enjoy Him in such a world that is hostile against Him. He'll prepare a table for you, a spiritual banqueting table, even in the midst of a Christ-rejecting world. Let's look to Him, then, for the help that we need to pray and to witness and to commune with Him and to live for Him and serve Him. Let's look to Him for forgiveness and deliverance and strength that we need to overcome the world and the flesh and the devil. He has given us the Psalms, you know, in order that we might be encouraged to know that others in days gone by have faced the same struggles that you and I do today, but they looked to Christ and sought him for help and received answers to their prayers. It's a pretty large word, isn't it, that word help, when you consider all that it embraces, and it's a prayer that we do well to make use of often. Let's close then in prayer. O Lord, as we bow now in thy presence and bring this meeting to a close, we thank you that Christ has been the constant source of our help. And because he has been, we can be assured that he continually will be. We thank thee, O Lord, that the help you provide is grounded in what thou hast done, and that it's grounded also in the purpose in redemption, which is the glory of thy name. For Lord, we pray today that for the honor of thy name, for the good of thy people, thou wilt search our hearts and minister the needed help in accordance with thy knowledge of every heart need here today. And may we be in constant communion with Thee, drawing from Thee the help that we need continually. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.