Let's turn in the Holy Scriptures to Psalm 73, and we'll read that. Truly, God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps had well nigh slipped, for I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death, but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore, pride compasseth them about as a chain. Violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness. They have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt and speak wickedly. Concerning oppression, they speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth. Therefore, his people return hither, and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them. And they say, how doth God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world. They increase in riches. Verily, I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocency, for all the day long have I been plagued and chastened every morning. If I say, I will speak thus. Behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then understood I their end. Surely thou did set them in slippery places, thou castest them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation? As in a moment, they are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream, when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins. So foolish was I and ignorant. I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless, I am continually with thee. Thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? There is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For lo, they that are far from thee shall perish. Thou hast destroyed all them that go a-whoring from thee. But it is good for me to draw near to God, I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all thy works." To understand the truth of the Word of God that we consider tonight, which is verse 26 my flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." To understand that, it would be helpful to imagine something. What we need to imagine is that at some point in our worship service this evening, a young man stumbles through the back door. And he begins to lurch and to stumble and fall and pick himself up as he's walking down the center aisle to grab the only seat left in the front here. Everyone can see he's in distress and trouble. His face is pale. He's gasping for air. He's clutching at his chest. And before he arrives to the front, he collapses in a spasm and then stops moving. The medical team is called in. The medical team grabs the defibrillator machine. They run down to the front. They attach the leads. They hit the button. The man is shocked. His body leaps in the air and lands again. His eyes open. He stands up. And he resumes his place in the front and not only continues to worship with the congregation, but he actually leads the congregation in worship. And what he leads the congregation in worship is with regard to the very thing that just happened to him, that he has the congregation sing. He tells the congregation, I just wrote a song about what happened to me. My heart and my flesh failed, but God, God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. That's exactly what happened to Asaph, but in a spiritual way. And that is exactly what Asaph was writing about. This Word of God is the first psalm in the third book of the Psalms. And the next number, I believe 11 Psalms, will be written by this man. And when you read them, you must read them first as him writing about his own experience, what happened to him. He does not hide it. He does not find it too embarrassing, but he understands it's good for the congregation. It's good for the people of God to know about what I went through, because surely they will go through it also, perhaps have gone through it. And my confession is their confession. And that confession is what we call the preservation of the saints. That's the wonderful great truth, one of the five great truths that we confess that are found in our canons. In fact, one whole head of the canons is devoted to this truth. It's one of these truths that we may have on our lips, may be in our mind, but we don't really sometimes understand what it really means. Perhaps we say to ourself, well, yes, I believe in the preservation of the saints, and it's a preservation such that I'm never in trouble. Oh yes, I know in that fifth head of the canons it speaks about melancholy falls and great sins. that can trouble me and trouble me such that it even interrupts my faith. But the doctrine of the preservation of the saints is more than that. It's a doctrine that says God revives me even when I fail, when I depart. When my flesh fails and my heart, even my spiritual heart fails, God is there, the strength of my heart. Consider with me this evening, God, the strength of my heart. And we notice in the first place, my heart failure. My heart failure, the thing that Asaph speaks about here that is the context. Secondly, my heart strength. What is the strength of my heart? What is especially the strength of my heart when it fails? and my heart testimony. This is a confession, a confession of faith. Some may suppose that the doctrine of the preservation of the saints is that the heart wherein faith is found The heart, which is in many instances virtually synonymous with faith when given a new heart, is that the heart never fails. But that is not the confession of Asaph. When you read those words, my flesh and my heart faileth, we can often read them this way. That it's talking about my physical heart and my physical flesh, and it's talking about the demise of them. That at some point in my life, my flesh shall give out. Maybe it gives out because of old age. Maybe it gives out because there's a bad accident that ruins my organs. But my heart and my flesh are going to fail. They're even failing now. They're in the process of failing. And this is a confession that God is the strength of my heart. One day when I die and my flesh is completely done and my heart is completely stopped, then I shall live and reign with God forever and ever. And that is not an incorrect understanding of the passage. It can be drawn from the passage, which is why this passage and this section are often preached at funerals. Funerals of believers who understand the context, especially where it talks about God guiding us through all of our life and afterward receiving us to glory. That's a reasonable interpretation. But the word actually used here is the word failed, past tense. The idea of faileth is that it has failed. And it's put in a sort of present tense, faileth, because this is something that has recently experienced, been the experience of Asaph. It's something that has just happened to him and that he's writing about. In fact, what he's talking about is The very thing that happened in the psalm. Talking about a specific incident. An occasion where his heart actually failed. Now, failed here means stopped. Stopped working. It means the same thing as what we mean if we would say Bob over there died of a heart attack. His heart failed. And that's the connection also to the flesh. You will notice that the psalmist here says something about the heart and the flesh, but the focus is on the heart. That should be easy to see even for the young children here. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart. Heart is the word that he repeats twice. That means that's the focus of what he is confessing. By flesh, he is referring to his earthly, physical life in the body. He's referring to everything concerning his life here on this earth, how he relates to the earth, his life of food and drink and of pleasure, his life that he lives every day in his body. Now by heart, he's referring to the spiritual side of himself. He's referring to his life spiritually. So that as he lives his life in the flesh, there is also a life in his heart. A life wherein he stands in relationship to God. And he stands in relationship to things unseen. The matters of heaven and hell. matters of righteousness and justice, matters of guilt or innocency, matters of desire and love, of pleasure, matters of patience and contentment and meekness. Those are all matters of the heart. And his focus is upon the heart. And his focus is upon the heart because The flesh failing is related to the heart failing. What he's speaking about is something very well known among us, which is that when the heart fails, the flesh fails. The idea that he's speaking about here is a situation where his flesh fails, it quits. It stops. It can no longer do what it's expected to do because his heart has failed. It has stopped. Now there's a reason for this that is even pictured by our physical heart. We all know this to be true. That the heart is absolutely central to the flesh. Without the heart, pumping blood and oxygen and nutrients throughout the body, the flesh fails, and it fails very, very quickly. That even when the heart is weak, the flesh fails. It slowly deteriorates until the organs shut down and someone dies, or the heart can just abruptly quit working. and within a very short period of time someone is dead unless that heart is revived. Now the psalmist is talking about what happened to him spiritually. He's not talking about his earthly physical heart as in the picture I gave in the introduction and I asked you to imagine. What he's referring to is a spiritual center. He's referring to the spiritual source of all of his life, of all of his strength and energy and ability to work and labor and think and act in the flesh. He's talking about where faith is. Do you believe? You believe in the heart. He's talking about faith failing. Do you trust in God? Then you trust God in your heart. And when your heart fails, you no longer trust in God. In the heart is where you feel love and compassion. The heart is where you will to do this or that, or you will not to do this or that. And it is the testimony of the inspired psalmist that his heart stopped. He didn't lose his heart. He didn't lose his faith. He didn't lose that faculty. It was still there, but it had stopped functioning as it should. And he says, such as the effect is that even his flesh failed. Now, how did that happen. And this makes clear that the psalmist doesn't really have in mind heart and flesh failing from natural causes, but spiritual ones. And we're going to focus upon especially the occasion that he writes about because that's when our heart can also fail. He tells us exactly what happened. With his heart and with his flesh, the psalmist Asaph began to look around. And keep in mind, he's looking around the nation of Israel. He's not looking out there in the world, even though He says that what they have to say goes out to the ends of the world. He's looking around right there in Jerusalem, the place where He worships, the place where He lives, the place where the people of God are found. And what He sees, first of all, is very ungodly, wicked people. He's not traveling over to the land of the Philistines. Not traveling up to Tyre and Sidon. He's just looking about. He sees in Jerusalem very wicked people. And then not only that, but they prosper. There's lots of them. They seem to be in the majority. They seem to be running the show. They're rich. They're wealthy. Their eyes are fat. They stand out with fatness. So wealthy are they, and so at ease is their life, that they become arrogant. They walk about in pride. They persecute the people of God. They oppress them. They take advantage of their poor situation. take advantage of who and what they are and their allegiance to God. Perhaps their even meekness of heart, their patience and long-suffering. And it's worse than that. They speak against God. When their sins are exposed, when their sins are brought to light, They say God doesn't really even see them. If He did, He'd do something about them. He's not doing something about them. Therefore, God doesn't really see, doesn't care. So prosperous are they in His eyes that they're not even afraid of death. You would expect that perhaps there would be pains of conscience as they themselves stand before God in their heart. But no, none of that. But then there's this, too. The psalmist is among those who knows their hatred, knows their scorn, knows their ridicule. He says to himself, I follow God's law. I wash my hands in innocency. I stand before God as righteous. And even worse, I'm plagued. I'm plagued. Perhaps he lost his wife at a young age in childbirth. Maybe he's had this sickness and that disease. Maybe he struggles to get by day after day, working and laboring. Anyway, that's the occasion for his heart failure. Now, you understand that the issue with his heart is not with the ungodly, nor is it really with himself as such. His issue is with God. The psalmist here admits what we often fail to admit when we have heart failure. We can stumble, and we can fall, and we can commit the same sin as Asaph. And let's take note that this is a sin. he himself acknowledges it. He comes to see the foolishness of his thinking, sees the foolishness of what he thought to himself, and was glad he didn't say it out loud to others. That's often the case with us, too. We may complain to others about our situation. We may even complain to others about ungodliness and wickedness that's going on, that we see things that aren't right in Zion. Point out what's wrong with this and what's with that. But if we're honest, we should admit that our real problem is with God as it was with Asaph. You see, his problem was he knew God was sovereign. He loved God. He trusted God. God was his God. God was the one that he worshipped. God was the one he wrote Psalms about. But God is a righteous God. God is a holy God. God is a just God. God is a God of love. And what is God doing? He has everything upside down. Everything's wrong. It's not right. I should be the one that's prospering. And those who are prospering should be suffering. Indeed, if I were God, they'd all be dead. And it's exactly that which was his heart stoppage. He says that's my heart failure. That was my heart failing. It quit. My heart was no longer trusting in God. My heart was no longer believing in God. So that I looked to God as I ought to look. So that I relied upon God as I ought to rely. It's as if I had had a heart attack and fell down dead. That's how much my heart and my flesh had failed. Now, the psalmist writes about this. He not only writes about it, but God has him write about it and then make it a song, one of the 150 that we sing and the church has always sung in the church. And take note that this is there. Take note that this is there for us because the Spirit wants us to ask the question, has my heart failed? Or if my heart has failed and it's no longer failed, why is that? Or has my heart failed and I need to recognize it as Asaph did? or at least to have the expectation that my heart could fail. And it can be as simple as seeing a situation like he saw, who has not had their heart fail. Is that our confession? That such is the preservation of the saints that my heart has never failed. It's never once stopped believing in God. It's never stopped trusting in Him. Everything's always been fine and well with me. I've never been put in a situation, a temptation, to question God. To say, what's going on here? Are you really in charge? Why are you doing this and why are you doing that? And if we do do that, do we recognize that our heart has stopped? That's a serious, serious situation. Because when your heart stops, you can't restart it. The man whose heart has stopped can't drive himself to the hospital. The man whose heart has failed. Can't reach for the medicine or the paddles. That's how serious is this situation. Now you understand that is the confession of the preservation of the saints. That God preserves and delivers His people even in that situation. But God. That's the contrast. The contrast isn't, well, when my heart is a little weak and my flesh is hurting a little bit, then God. Or God is the strength of my heart as opposed to my supposed contribution to the strength of my heart. But the psalmist is singing and confessing about a God who is the strength of our heart, such that when it stops, He restarts it. He strengthens it. He brings it back to where it's working and where it's doing what it ought to do. God is the strength of my heart. When the psalmist says this, he's saying nothing else is. Nothing. He's not saying simply that God is the strength of my heart when it stops, but God is the strength of my heart period. and only God is. And now you know why it is that the heart can fail. He's speaking here according to experience. He's speaking here according to what we know to be true. Let's imagine other things are the strength of our heart. Let's imagine we have made them that way. Let's simply look at what happened to the psalmist. What had he made the strength of his heart? Was it God when he was going through this? And he'll tell you no. No. That's what he means when my feet were almost gone, my steps were well nigh slipped. That was to the point where I had made other things my strength. What I expected to make me strong, what I expected to keep me going, what I expected was justice. I expected God being who He was, and me being who He was, and the wicked being who they were, that why there would be justice. There wouldn't be this kind of oppression and hurt to the people of God. I would expect the people of God to be treated a little better, and the ungodly and the wicked to pay a little bit more. That strength failed. Possessions can be the strength of our heart. We say to ourselves, possessions will make me happy. If I only have this and I only have that, and if I have this, if I only have that, and if I have a little bit more, if I just had this or I had that, then I would be strong. Or even, my heart is strong. I'm happy and everything's fine exactly because I have possessions. They fail. Is the wife that you have, the lovely, wonderful, even God-believing wife, you have the strength of your heart? She may not be. Not your wife, not your children, not your possessions, not your sense of justice. Not me. I may not be the strength of your heart. Not Trinity Protestant Reformed churches, not the Protestant Reformed denomination. They may not be the strength of your heart. And they may not be because they all fail. Everything fails but God. God, God of course is God. the all-powerful, all-mighty, all-wise, all-glorious, and all-good God. He alone never fails. Now, the original is very expressive. As opposed to heart failure, when it talks about God being the strength, the word there is literally my rock. God is my rock. And the translators properly get it as strength. But notice it's a certain kind of strength. It's the kind of strength which, like a rock, never ever tires. It never gets weary. Rocks simply do not tire. You tire. And I tire. Our hearts tire. But God is like a rock. It doesn't matter what's beating upon Him, what's blowing about Him. It simply does not give up. Now that's who God is. That's who God is to our heart. And only one who has God has such strength in their heart. Such strength that when their heart actually fails, God is still the strength of their heart. Now, why is that? Well, you can say it's because God is who He is, but we need to go a little deeper than that and we need to look at who God revealed himself to be in Jesus Christ. God is the strength of my heart because what I need is Jesus Christ and only God can give me Jesus Christ. That was true of Asaph and that was true of us and every child of God. God took a heart even a heart of flesh. God became flesh and dwelt among us. Such is our flesh failure and our heart failure that God must take our flesh and take our heart and come into our life. And there you see is God in our flesh and in our heart and living our life And his heart may not fail. If he fails, we all fail. We're all done. Now I want you to look at him. And I want you to see him looking about like Asaph looked. Now remember, Asaph was a godly man. No doubt, when Asaph even wrote this psalm, there were people of God scratching their heads saying, he can't be talking about himself. I know Asaph. He's a pillar in the church. He's one of the chief psalm writers beside David. He's a leader of worship. He's a man strong as a rock. He will never go down. He's someone we can rely on and trust on. Look at him. What an example of God's grace. Yet Esau says, when I looked around, I failed. My heart failed. But now you've got to see Jesus. When He looks around Zion, what does He see? Because He can see right into the heart. He knows who are His. He knows who's just pretending. He knows who's there just for the honor and glory of men. And the winds blow. And the rain beats down. And the slander starts. And the hatred comes to the surface. Talk about injustice. The righteous and perfect one. And they spit on him. And they hated him. And they beat him. They delivered him over to the Romans. And they crucified him. And never once did he look around like Asaph and say, you know, I wished I were like those people. This is unjust. Talk about one who truly washed his hands in innocency, not like that hypocrite Pilate. And his heart was as firm as a rock. In all of that, he never once stopped trusting in God. And keep in mind now, he knows God. And he knows that God is visiting him with the iniquity of all of our failures, all of our sins, all the times we questioned God, all the times we shook our fists at God, every time that we said, God has it all wrong. But he himself personally did not deserve any of it. If there was anyone that had the right, had the right there, in the midst of it all to say, I don't deserve this. This is all wrong. It was him. You see, the turning point in the whole psalm, what happened to the psalmist happened in the sanctuary. He tells us that. He was in dire straits. His heart had virtually quit until he went to church. He went to the sanctuary and then he was reminded about God, and he was reminded about God's Christ. And he was revived. This is where he learned God was a strength. How did he do that? And the answer is, when he confessed. When he noticed that his heart had quit, when it had failed. And then he heard God speak to him, why your sins are forgiven. Do you not know who I am? Do you not know my Christ? Do you not trust him? And he heard God say to him, your sins are forgiven. And those words of God were a shock to his heart, woke him out of his deathly slumber, revived him, strengthened him. And he went forth from the sanctuary a new man, a different man, strong heart. So strong he said, I'm going to write about this. I need to tell the people of God about this. Surely they've gone through this too. Surely they will go through this. And they need to be reminded who God is. And that's why he moves on to say what he does. Not only is God the strength of my heart, but he's my portion forever. Now, in Scripture, the portion refers to the allotment that God gives to someone of the blessings of salvation that He has determined. Every man, every woman, every child has their portion pictured in Scripture as the piece of land that they were given in Zion. It was the place that they were given within the worship, within the community Asaph had quite the portion. His portion was to lead in worship. His portion was to labor there in the temple, to teach the people of God, to write songs. But notice what he says is his portion, God is. And notice forever, what he has in mind now is something that perhaps came to our mind right in the beginning. With his heart failure, he began to think about what lies ahead in the future. And he does what every man needs to do sooner or later, preferably sooner. And that is, like the children of Israel, place himself at the doorway of his grave That's what the grave is, it's a doorway. It's an unknown dark thing, a yawning chasm that all of human experience says leads to hell. And it is indeed a doorway to hell. But not only that, but whether one walks through that doorway and it leads to heaven or to hell, it's a doorway in which they lead behind everything else. This is the reason why God must be the strength of our heart. And why, when God is the strength of our heart, he is our portion forever. See, if your portion is anything here, and likely that which you find to be the strength of your heart will also be your portion. Many men, many women have made the strength of their heart this or that thing, this or that person, this or that desirous concept. or goal, or end. But at the grave, it all gets left behind. At the grave, a man must let go of all his gold and silver. He must say goodbye to all his children. He must leave his wife forever. Behind is his house and his property. And keep in mind now, this is true not simply of the ungodly, but all men, the child of God. He has no more portion. And if his portion is any of those things, then his heart will fail. God is our portion. And the man who stands at the grave and who has God as their portion, has an easy goodbye to all those things, and can easily walk through that door. I say easily, of course, by the grace of God, because his eye is focused on what lies ahead, which is God. God who has been with me, God who has guided me by his counsel, God who is my life and my strength, and the one who even revived my failing heart. And keep in mind that means that that's really what we look forward to also. When our heart fails, then even our concept of what lies ahead is all sorts of things. While I hope my portion in heaven is that I get to see my wife and family again and talk to Moses, I hope I can play this or that and do this or that, but God, God, You see, if you have God, if God is your portion, then there is nothing else. Everything else is in him and from him and through him. And this is what faith confesses. This is what a heart strengthened by God says. He is my strength and he is my portion forever. Amen, let us pray. O Lord our God, we thank Thee that Thou art our God, the strength of our heart, so that when flesh and heart fail, which they do, Thou art our strength and our portion forever. Be with us, O Lord, and strengthen our faith so that we trust in Thee and never let Thee go. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.