In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith teaches from Psalm 128, emphasizing the importance of fearing the Lord. He recounts the story of Jacob and Laban, highlighting how God protected Jacob from Laban's harm. Pastor Chuck emphasizes the significance of waiting on the Lord and trusting in His faithfulness. He concludes by reflecting on Jacob's journey and how God had blessed him abundantly, despite his humble beginnings with only a walking stick.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that hold you And His Spirit like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today Featuring the Bible teaching of the late Pastor Chuck Smith Founder of the Calvary Chapel Movement This radio program is a verse-by-verse study through the entire Bible And on today's edition of The Word for Today We'll be encouraged to fear the Lord As we pick up in the 128th Psalm Beginning with verse 1 And now with today's message Here's Pastor Chuck The next psalm goes on and it extols further the family life And the blessings of the family life But it begins with Blessed is everyone that fears the Lord So this is sort of a beatitude of blessedness To those who really reverence God Those who really serve the Lord, fear the Lord Have a reverence for God Who have the place for God in their lives Who have placed God in that priority spot of their lives Oh, how blessed is the man that has put God first The fear of the Lord Who walks in His ways Now, these are the blessings He will eat the labor of His hands It wasn't always that way, especially in those days Happy you will be, for it will be well with you He will be a happy man, the man that fears the Lord He's blessed Your wife will be as a fruitful vine by the side of your house Like a neat grape vine beside the house that's just filled with fruit Your wife will have lots of children And your children will be like little olive plants around your table I love that I just, I can see that, you know Here's the dad and the table and all these little kids around the table The olive plants around the table Behold, thus shall the man be blessed Who fears the Lord And so, the blessing is a large family The blessing is a lot of children The blessing is eating of your own labor The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion You will see the good of Jerusalem All the days of thy life And then finally, the ultimate supreme blessing You will see your grandchildren And I tell you, it's true, it's the ultimate blessing Your grandchildren And peace upon Israel So, the promise of God's blessing upon those that fear the Lord Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth I've gone through, I've experienced afflictions And let Israel say Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth Yet, they have not prevailed against me Paul said, I am cast down, but I'm not destroyed They haven't prevailed against me Yes, they have set their snares And I've been afflicted But they haven't prevailed The plowers have plowed upon my back And made long their furrows This could be a reference to the slavery Especially in Egypt When their taskmasters would lay across their back the whip The plowers have plowed on my back They've left the furrows on my back But the Lord is righteous And he has cut asunder the cords of the wicked Those cords of the wicked wherein they held me Wherein I was bound The Lord has cut them He has set me free Let them all be confounded and turn back that hate Israel Or that hate Zion And then let them be as grass upon the housetops Which withereth before it grows up Now, over there they have flat roofs And many times they cover the roofs with dirt So you have weeds growing on the roof of your house And so the weeds, though, that grow on the roof of the house Burns up quickly in the late spring, early summer When it starts getting hot, it just withers and dies quickly It never gets high enough to mow And so those that hate Zion, the wicked Let them be as grass upon the housetop Which withers before it really grows up Withers quickly and dies Wherewith the mower cannot fill his hand In other words, it never gets big enough to mow Nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom It never gets, it never is able to be harvested Neither do those that go by say The blessing of the Lord be upon you We bless you in the name of the Lord Now this was a very familiar phrase during harvest time When you would pass by a field And the people would be out there harvesting the field The familiar phrase is you see their harvest, see them harvesting You say the blessing of the Lord upon you And it was just a typical And even to the present day, typical As you see the man harvesting his field You'll see his friends walking by And he's out there harvesting They'll say the blessing of the Lord upon you And it's just the typical thing You remember when in the story of Ruth When Boaz came out to the field And his harvesters were there He said I bless you in the name of the Lord And they said the Lord bless thee They would usually say the Lord bless thee and thy seed But he didn't have any children So it's just typical as you are enjoying the fruit of harvest To recognize that God has blessed And to just pronounce the blessing of God upon the man As he harvests the fields Psalm 130 is a cry of the psalmist Who was going through some heavy, heavy trials Out of the depths, that is out of the depths of my being Out of the depths of my soul I cried unto thee O Lord And I'm sure that all of us can relate to this For there have been those times When we've been overwhelmed by the circumstances of our lives And out of the depths of our being Out of the depths of our soul Our prayers have come It's just we're so overwhelmed by these circumstances We cry unto God And so out of the depths of my being Have I cried unto thee O Lord Lord hear my voice Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications Oh God hear me I'm desperate For thou Lord if you should mark iniquities Who shall stand? Now usually when we are going through these Heavy, heavy things in life I mean those really deep waters Somehow we always seem to feel That this is God's judgment on me because And all of us have failed All of us have come short of what God would have us to be The Bible tells us that None of us have attained or achieved All that God would have us to be or do And we're aware of our shortcomings We're aware of our failures And whenever these heavy, heavy trials come And our soul is just weighted down The enemy takes advantage and says Yes you see because you did this God's getting even with you And thus the psalmist says Lord if you would mark iniquities no one would stand In other words he recognized that it isn't because of my iniquity He recognized that if God would Lay it on us because we had failed That no one would come out I mean we'd all be wiped out And thus recognizing in this situation That it isn't really a punishment And I think that that's so important That we not blame God Or think that God is some way punishing us It's so sad We were with a family As they were going through the deepest water The Lord took their little girl The joy of their life home And that's never easy And the dad was sort of blaming himself And that's always tragic Because it's not true But the enemy would say You see if you had only done this If you had done that If you, if you, if you And he torments a person With that if I had only And it can be a hell Now the psalmist was wise enough to recognize That these deep, heavy experiences Are not because of my failure And my iniquity Because Lord if you should mark iniquities Man who would stand? None of us have a chance For there is forgiveness with thee That you might be reverence That we might stand in awe and wonder of you And so I wait for the Lord My soul doth wait and in his word I hope Lord I'm waiting upon you And I'm just hoping in your word The promises of the word I'm hanging on to that And have you ever been at that place Where you just hang on to the word of God Lord you've said Jacob when he was, he was really facing I mean he had deceived his father And received the birthright That the father was wanting to give To his older brother Isaac Earlier he had Conned his brother out of the birthright Now he conned his father out of the blessing His older brother was so mad He says as soon as my dad dies I'm going to kill that rat I mean he made a vow I'm going to kill him I hate him I'm going to kill him I swear I'm going to kill him So Jacob knowing that his brother Had evil intentions As soon as his dad died to kill him When dad got real sick Thought he was going to die Jacob took off Running He didn't stop Until he got to Babylon 220 miles away And there he settled down in Babylon For 17 years Got married And of course Even as he had deceived his father His father-in-law deceived him And passed off The ugly duckling sister on him For the first bride And when the veil was lifted And all In the morning light He saw that he had the wrong sister And went complaining to the father-in-law Says sorry son Custom, custom You know the Younger sister can't get married Until her older sister has been married Tell you what though Serve me for another 7 years And you can have the younger one too So he served another 7 years And then he served 3 extra years In which they made agreements That were constantly being changed As to his wages Finally He was getting richer than his father-in-law His brothers-in-law were getting jealous And he could see that they weren't happy And they were ready to do something So now it's time to leave them I mean it's on the lamb once more And so he gathers up his wives His children And he decides to head back Towards home, towards his brother And As he's on his way back He takes off when his father-in-law And his brothers-in-law are away Shearing their sheep And word comes to him Hey Jacob's left He's taken all the cattle and everything That belonged to him with him You know his daughters and your grandkids And so Laban armed his men They came chasing after Jacob And the night before they caught up with Jacob The Lord said to Laban, his father-in-law Don't you lay a hand on him Or you're going to answer to me And so Laban felt frustrated The next day when he came to Jacob What's the big idea going off Taking my grandkids He's not even letting me say goodbye And kiss the grandkids That's not what he really had in mind He was going to really do Jacob in But the Lord had warned him not to Don't you know that I have the power To do you hurt and so forth And this big, big conflict I mean it was a big rhubarb really Yelling at each other and all And Jacob said You've changed my wages ten times And all of these accusations Yelling and it was really fierce Intense So they drew a line And he said if you come back over this line You're going to be in big trouble You know and if God hadn't really warned me You'd be in trouble right now But don't you cross over this line Coming back towards us And the Lord watch over you I can't watch anymore You snake in the grass May the Lord watch you While we are absent one from another You know you better take care of my girls And not mistreat them and so forth And so Jacob has this heavy, heavy Duty experience Big fight And it's always you know discomfiting Fights with relatives So that night In the evening His servants come back Who had gone out to scout in front of them And they said your brother Esau Is coming to meet you He has 200 armed men with him Well now that's not the way you go out to Greet your brother in peace And Jacob's in a quandary The angry father-in-law behind him In a line he can't go over And the angry brother-in-law Coming to meet him Or brother not brother-in-law Just the brother His brother, twin brother Esau And so Jacob is in this quandary Of what to do And often times we find ourselves In the middle of a pressured situation We don't know which way to turn Jacob waited on the Lord In fact he wrestled with the Lord all night And so the psalmist Speaks about the depths Crying to the Lord Waiting on the Lord My soul waits And in His word do I hope Now Jacob prayed and he said Lord You remember when I left here 17 years ago I made a deal with you He was really overwhelmed with what God had done He said you know when I left here When I crossed this little stream He had come to the stream Jabbok He was back almost to the borders of the land He said when I crossed this little stream All I had was a walking stick That's all I had But you've been so faithful to me Great is thy faithfulness Each morning you've shown me new mercies When I crossed here 17 years ago I only had a stick Now I'm going to cross this stream again And look I've got two wives I've got these beautiful children I've got these hundreds of sheep and cattle You've blessed me so much Great has been your faithfulness Lord unto me And he was recounting What God had done But Lord you said You said Return unto your home And I will deal well with you I'm coming home but Lord Esau's on his way with 200 men But you told me you said And he's reminding the Lord of what he said Now a lot of times when I pray I do that too I remind the Lord of his promises Now not that he needs it but It helps me to remind the Lord That you said Lord I will supply all of your needs According to my riches in glory by Christ Jesus And you said that Lord And it helps me to remind the Lord of what he said So I wait in the Lord For the Lord My soul waits And in his word In the promises do I hope My soul waits for the Lord More than they that watch for the morning I say more than they that watch for the morning Now a night watchman's job Was a lonely Kind of a vigil Can you think of just all night long Walking on a wall looking out into the darkness And I imagine that just You know the hours probably drag And you can't wait for the light of the morning The dawn And so all night long as you're walking that wall Looking out in the darkness You keep looking over towards the east To see if there's any Dawn, any sign of the morning And so my soul waits for the Lord More than they that watch For the morning Yes I say more than they that watch For the morning That waiting upon God And sometimes it seems so long It seems like God Is not hearing me And it seems like I've been waiting so long For God to work But let Israel hope in the Lord For with the Lord There is mercy And with Him Is plenteous redemption Therefore put your hope in the Lord And He shall redeem Israel from all His iniquities Lord if you would mark iniquities None of us would stand But you will redeem Israel from all their iniquities The word Israel is governed A man of God or governed by God And the Lord redeems those who are governed By Him from all their iniquities Isn't that glorious? If God would mark iniquities none of us would stand But He's redeemed us From all our iniquities We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse study Through the Psalms in our next lesson As Pastor Chuck continues with Trust in the Lord And we do hope you'll make plans to join us But right now if you'd like to secure a copy Of today's message Simply order Psalm 128 verse 1 When visiting the wordfortoday.org And while there Be sure to browse through the many additional Biblical resources on our website You can also subscribe to the Word for Today podcast Or sign up for our email subscription Once again that's thewordfortoday.org For those of you wishing to call Our toll-free number is 1-800-272-WORD And our office hours are Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time Once again that's 1-800-272-9673 And if you prefer to write Our mailing address is And now on behalf of the Word for Today We'd like to thank all of you Who share in supporting this ministry With your prayers and financial support And be sure to join us again next time As Pastor Chuck continues his Verse-by-verse study through the Bible That's right here on the next edition of The Word for Today And now once again Here's Pastor Chuck Today's closing comments You know in these Psalms There's something for everybody Because they come out of life And life situations They're practical They're not some kind of Idealistic philosophy Or they don't deal with That unreal kind of ethereal Everything is beautiful, wonderful Never is anything wrong kind of a You know But it deals with the real issues of life And thus it can speak to us We can identify with the Psalmist With the situations that he was facing With the disappointments, with the hurts With the pressures With the excitement and the glory Of seeing God work With that difficult time of waiting For God sometimes to accomplish His purposes in our lives But there's always something for each of us And it's good to let the Word of God Minister to our hearts I've got some exciting news to share with you The Word for Today is releasing Pastor Chuck and Kay's books in e-book format For those who like to read books electronically You can now download Pastor Chuck's books To your Kindle reader, iPad, iPod Or even cell phone What a blessing to be able to have these resources With you at all times Especially when you're in a place to minister To another person If you have an e-reader Then you know the advantage of being able to Search, find and minister within seconds And with all of Pastor Chuck and Kay's insights Into biblical wisdom This is a great opportunity to be able to Gain from their books So you can share the good news with others If you would like more information On how to download Pastor Chuck and Kay's e-books You can call the Word for Today Customer Service Department At 1-800-272-WORD Or visit us online At thewordfortoday.org This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California