Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 38 from the Spiral Gospel Hymns
hymn book, number 38. Let's all stand together. Come, every sinner saved by grace,
You who by faith God's Son embraced, Tell all who hear your voice
below, The debt of love to Christ you owe. Dear Lord, I lift my
praise to Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. He left his father's throne above
and came to earth on wings of love. For us he lived the perfect
man and so fulfilled the law's demand. Dear Lord, I lift my
praise to Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. Jesus endured His Father's ire
and died at the appointed hour. What He endured, no tongue can
tell, to save our souls from death and hell. Dear Lord, I
lift my praise to Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. From death's dark grave our King
arose, And triumphed over all our foes. Up through the skies
the victor rode, And reigns on high our Savior God. Dear Lord, I lift my praise to
Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. From heaven Christ will quickly
come and bring his ransomed people home. There we shall see his
lovely face and chant the praises of his grace. Dear Lord, I lift
my praise to Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to
be in Psalm 84 this morning for our Study hour if you'd like
to turn with me there in your Bible Psalm 84. And I titled this the place of
blessing. The place of blessing. Couple of announcements we will
be having services this coming Wednesday in spite of what I
announced the last Wednesday night. So if you're able to be
here Wednesday. I'd recommend if you're coming
from that direction, stay away from 436, because cranes roost
would be going on Wednesday night, but you can get here. We will
have services on Wednesday night. Caleb. Michael, I'm so grateful
for those two men bringing faithful messages last Sunday. I don't
see the one on, but I think they're both here. There's Michael and
where Caleb's at. Send back OK. I was so encouraged to be able
to listen to both those messages Sunday afternoon in Crossville
and thank you for your prayers for the meeting in Tennessee. I thought went very well and
it was encouraging so. Alright, let's let's ask the
Lord's blessings on our time together. Our merciful and gracious Heavenly
Father, we come before Thy throne of grace, pleading the blood
and righteousness of Thy dear Son for our only acceptance in
Thy presence, and how hopeful and encouraged we are to know
that You are completely satisfied with Him, and all that are in
Him are as acceptable in Thy sight as is He. Lord, we Pray
for the blessing of your Holy Spirit. These two hours we ask
that you would open the windows of heaven, that you would be
pleased to come down and speak to our hearts and comfort our
souls with the gospel of thy free grace in the finished work
of thy dear son. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. We looked at verse one. Wednesday night, how amiable
are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts. And we saw from God's
word that there is but one tabernacle, and that's Christ, who was made
flesh and tabernacled among us. And yet there's many facets of
his glory and this scripture is really saying to us how beautiful,
how lovely are all the facets and aspects of thy dear son who
has tabernacled in our presence. And we looked at the different
parts of the physical tabernacle in the Old Testament and saw
how from the badger skin all the way into the holies of holies,
each thing in that tabernacle points us to something different
that's lovely about the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we know from
Ephesians chapter three, chapter one, verse three, that all the
blessings of God are given to us in Christ. The scripture says
that he has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. So when we speak of the blessings
of God, we're speaking of those spiritual things that are secure
and and that are sure in the work and the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We're thankful for the material
blessings that God gives us, but we can't really determine
whether or not the material things that we have in this world are
spiritually profitable for us. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes
they are distracting. But the spiritual blessings that
we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, the hope of eternal life, the
forgiveness of sin, the adoption as the children of God, the righteousness
of Christ, those things are secure in Christ in heavenly places. And the different means by which
the Lord reveals these things to us are beautiful in the sight
of God's people. Now, sometimes you'll hear people
speak of the means of grace and they'll speak of prayer and scripture
reading and worship and the ordinances as means of grace. They are not
means of grace. There is but one means to grace
and that's faith. For by grace are you saved through
faith, faith. Complete reliance upon the Lord
Jesus Christ for all of our justification and for all of our righteousness
before God in Christ. And that faith is a gift from
God. For by grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works.
Lest any man should boast. Well, God has to give us saving
faith, or we will not look to Christ for all the hope of our
salvation. We'll mix, we'll call it grace,
but we'll mix grace with works and we'll destroy the gospel
of God's grace and rob Christ of his glory by inserting some
contribution on our part. And so faith is having complete
reliance on Christ for all the hope of our salvation. And that's
the blessing. That's the blessing. Now the
means by which God gives us faith are these things. Scripture,
Prayer, fellowship of believers. In Acts chapter 2, the scripture
says that those 3,000 that were converted on the day of Pentecost
continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, in fellowship,
in the breaking of bread, and in prayer. They continued steadfastly
in those things because those were the means by which God would
give them more faith. And that's what we're in need
of. The disciples said, Lord, increase our faith. We've got
to have more faith. Help thou mine unbelief. We've
just got so much unbelief in our old man, don't we, that we
carry around with us. So the blessings of God are given
to us by God, in Christ, through faith, through the means of scripture,
Scripture, it pleased God to save us through the foolishness
of preaching, the scripture says, of his own will. Begat he us,
birthed us into the family of God with the word of truth. We have a sure testimony. From God, we have his word, which
is sharper than any two-edged sword and able to divide us under
and expose the thoughts and intents of our hearts. That's the means
by which God points us to Christ. He sends his spirit in power
to anoint his word and to open the eyes of our understanding
and to take out the heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh.
The spirit of God is the one who regenerates us. So the psalmist
is saying, oh Lord, how beautiful, how beautiful. is Christ and
all the means by which you use to point me to Christ. For in
Him, in Him all the spiritual blessings of God are sure and
steadfast. Now that's what we've come here
this morning for. We've come here this morning in hopes that
God would open our hearts, that He would open His Word that he
would come down, rend the heavens, as Isaiah said, and come down
and make himself known to us. That's the blessing. I know the
Lord, we're gonna see one of the various means by which the
Lord blesses his people is trials. Troubles and sorrows in this
world. Causing us to to see our inabilities,
our weaknesses, causing us to to cast all our care upon him. And that's just another means
to faith. That's just another way in which
the Lord brings us to find all our hope in Christ. All our hope. Scripture says that we are the
true circumcision of God, which worship God in the spirit, rejoice
in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence whatsoever in the
flesh. We're so prone to put our confidence in the flesh.
And unless the Lord strips us of that confidence by showing
us that we've got problems we can't deal with, But if that's
as far as it goes, if that's as far as it goes, then we'll
not find our need for Christ until he shows us that we've
got a sin problem. We've got a sin problem, and
only the Lord Jesus Christ can take that away. And oh, how he
does. Puts them away from us as far
as the East is from the West, remembers them no more so that
in Christ we are without sin, without sin before God. And as
I said in my opening prayer, those who are in Christ are as
acceptable in the presence of God as is the Lord Jesus Christ
himself. That's why the Lord tells us
in Hebrews chapter 4, come before the throne of God, before the
throne of grace with boldness, with confidence, with confidence,
confident that the Lord Jesus Christ has in the rending of
his veil, the sacrifice of his flesh on Calvary's cross provided
the way. He is the way, isn't he? Into
the holies of holies. Psalmist is telling us how beautiful
are these dwelling places. That's what the word tabernacle
means. You remember in John chapter 14, when the Lord said to the
disciples, he said, let not your heart be troubled. In my father's
house are many tabernacles, many dwelling places, many mansions,
it says in the King James. There's plenty of places of rest
for your soul. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go and prepare a place for you. And now the psalmist
says, how beautiful, how amiable, how delightful, how lovely is
the rest that I'm able to have when God gives me faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. I can rest in knowing that all
the trials that I suffer in this life are given to me by God. They are ordained for my good. That's that's that's rest. That's
rest. Believing that all things work
together for good for them that love God and those that are the
called according to his purpose, being able to rest in Christ
knowing that well look at. Look at verse 11. I'm going to
bring a message on verse 11 sometime in the future but look at it
for right now. For the Lord God is the sun and
shield, is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and
glory. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk
uprightly. Now walking uprightly means that
I'm looking to Christ for my righteousness. It's walking in
faith. We walk by faith, not by sight. We're not looking to anything
that we've done. We're looking in faith to what
the Lord Jesus Christ has done. For all our acceptance before
God, that's what it means to walk uprightly. And the Lord
said, no good thing will I withhold from them. And when my providence
seems to be frowning, it's really good. It's really good. Verse two, my soul longeth, yea,
even fainteth for the courts of the Lord. That's every believer's
experience. Lord, I've got to find your presence. That's what the Lord said in
John chapter 17. He said, this is life. This is life. Not what the world says. You
know, you hear people in the world saying, Living the life. You know, I'm living the life
or I've got the good life or you know, the Lord said this
is life. Eternal. That they might know
thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent. Oh
brethren, don't be deceived by the lies of this world. Satan's name means deceiver. He's a liar and he's the father
of lies and he's been lying from day one to man. trying to get
us to look somewhere other than Christ for our rest, for our
comfort, for our salvation. And the child of God says, my
soul, my soul longeth. I can't find any satisfaction
for my soul in this world. And every time I drink from the
polluted waters of this world, I end up getting sick. I end
up getting sick. I get distracted, I get deceived,
I think well maybe there is something there and I taste it and try
it and it doesn't satisfy my soul. And then the second part of this
verse, look at the second part of it, my soul longeth yea even
fainteth for the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh crieth
out for the living God. Paul said in Romans chapter seven,
in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. He said in another
place, he said, we know that the law is spiritual, but I,
in my flesh, am carnal, sold under sin. He said there's nothing
good in my flesh. Now we've seen over and over
again in the study of the Psalms how these Psalms are first and
foremost to be understood in light of the life of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he's the only one, he's the
only one who was born in this world without sin. He came in
the likeness of sinful flesh. When other men looked at him,
they couldn't tell any difference between him and anybody else.
But he was completely without sin. His flesh was perfect. Tried in all ways that we are
yet without sin. The God man, the perfect man,
God's perfect man. And how we needed him to come
in the flesh in order for him to be able to bear our sins in
his flesh on Calvary's cross in order to put him away. God
demanded a man to die. And Christ died in our stead
as the sinner's substitute, satisfying the demands of God's holy justice.
And he's the only one that could say, not only does my soul long
for you, I wish we could say that more often than we do. We're
spiritually slumbering too much, aren't we? And our soul doesn't
even long for him as it ought, but his did. And his flesh longed
for the father, most especially when he was suspended between
heaven and earth on Calvary's cross. And he cried that when
the sky was blackened and his fellowship with the father was
cut off and he cried, my God, my God, whyst thou forsaken me?
His flesh, his flesh suffering the full wrath of God's justice
was longing for his father. And when he came forth out of
the grave, he told Mary, Mary, don't claim I'm not yet gone
to my, I'm going back to my father. I'm going to take my, and in
this body, you're going to see me and you're going to be made
like me. And we have a man now, the God
man, the one man who intercedes between God and sinners seated
at the right hand of God. What hope we have in him, but
it's all in him. It's all in him. So the Lord Jesus Christ says,
my soul longeth, yea, even fainted for the courts of the Lord, my
heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. How oftentimes
the Lord tells us to be still and know that I am God and how,
how disquieted we become because we don't, we don't believe God.
That's it. That's the, that's the sin that
does so easily beset us is the sin of unbelief. And so here
in verse three he says, yea, the sparrow hath found a house
and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young,
even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my king and my God. So the psalmist is in the temple
and he's worshiping and he looks and he sees a bird's nest. Now
you've found bird's nest in your home or in your tree. What do
we do? We leave them alone, don't we?
Don't touch a bird's nest. I remember a couple years ago
we had a nest, we had a bird that nested in our garage and
had to leave our garage door open. for like, I don't know,
six weeks. For those birds, you know, a
bird's got its nest and it's laid its eggs and you just want
to be careful not to disturb it. Why? Because it's resting
there. That's, you know, what a great picture. That's the way
the Lord, He's saying, the birds have a nest even here in your
temple, Lord. Could you give me a place of
rest? Could you allow my soul to be at rest from all the troubles
of this life and from the fear of death? And the judgment and
wrath of God? Could you give me rest? And then he tells us where that
rest is found in verse four. Look blessed are they that dwell
in thy house. They will be still. They will
be still. And you can put a comma after
that word still. They will be still. Pause. Praising
thee. Praising thee. That's where the
blessings are to be found. In the house of God. Yes, this
is the house of God, but Christ is the house of God, isn't he?
We abide in him and my word abides in you. Abiding in Christ is
the place of rest. He's our rest. He's our hope.
And he says, oh, how blessed it is, how blessed a man is to
be able to find his rest in the glorious person and finished
work of the sovereign God who rules and reigns over all things. He's my king. He's my Lord. You know what he said in verse
3? He's the Lord of hosts. He's
the Lord of hosts. How many times have you heard
someone talk about making Jesus Lord of their life? That's blasphemous. It really is. You can't make
him something that God's already made him to be. The Lord Jesus Christ reigns
sovereign over the lives and hearts of all men, all men, whether
they want him to or not. He's Lord of hosts, the armies
of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. And no man can
stay his hand and no man can say unto him, what doest thou?
He does whatsoever he wills. He does whatsoever, he is the
Lord of hosts. And those who by his grace have
come to have faith in Christ are blessed of God to rest and
be still in him, praising him. Lord, you get all the praise.
You get all the glory. I can't, I can't take any credit
for this rest, none whatsoever. Take my yoke upon you and what
the Lord said. My yoke is easy, my burden is
light, learn of me, learn of me. Blessed are they that dwell,
they just reside, they live right there. They're not visitors,
they're not coming and going, they're staying right there.
Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, they will be still
praising thee. Blessed is the man whose strength
is in thee, whose strength is in thee. What did the Lord say
to Abraham? Abraham? Abraham was looking
for a reward. Abraham was looking for a blessing.
And God said to Abraham, Abraham, I am thy shield and thine exceeding
great reward. I'm it, Abraham. All the blessings
are in me." And now the psalmist says, blessed is the man whose
strength, strength, the shield. When the scriptures in the book
of Ephesians speaks of that spiritual armor, what is the shield? It's
the shield of faith that quenches the fiery darts of the devil.
And God has given us, that's our strength. Our strength is
the shield of faith. Blessed is that man. Now notice
that it's just like the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of God. And the person who's looking
to their own strength and their own righteousness will say, I'll
be blessed of God if I can be poor in spirit, if I can be more
humble, then God will bless me. That's not what that's saying,
and that's not what this is saying. If you've discovered any humility,
true humility, which is a total denial of all your righteousness
and total dependence upon Christ for all the hope of your salvation,
it's because you've been blessed. You see, you don't earn blessings
by, you know, the world says, I'll believe God and he'll bless
me with salvation. And God says, no, I'm going to
bless you with salvation and you will believe me. You know, the world says, I'm
going to repent and God will forgive me. And God says, no,
I'm going to forgive you and you will repent. You see, they
get it just backwards. Why? Because they're looking
to something that they can do in order to turn the hand of
God. And God says, blessed, you are
blessed of God if your strength is in him. If all of your strength and all
of your righteousness and all the hope of your salvation is
bound up in the person and work of Christ, it's because God's
blessed you, blessed you with faith. Blessed is the man whose strength
is in thee, in whose heart are the ways of them. God put into our heart all these
means of faith. That's what the ways are to him.
Lord, you've caused me to see the absolute total inerrancy
of your inspired word. We have a word from God. And
these scriptures came not by private interpretation, but men
of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Or do you've given me access
to thy throne of grace through prayer? Prayer that's offered
in thy presence in the name of thy dear son. And you've given
me an intercessor who's praying for me and taking my feeble prayers
and offering them up so that they'll be acceptable in your
sight. You've given me the fellowship of the Saints. These are the.
These are the ways that the Lord puts into our hearts. We love
Christ, we love his people, we love his word. Why? Because he's put that love in
our hearts. He's caused us to want to. We tell folks all the
time, we're not here to shame people into coming to church.
You don't want to be here, don't come. It's the Lord's working in the
heart, isn't it? I know some young people, some
young person is going to say to mom and dad when they get
home this afternoon, preacher said not to come if they didn't want
to come. You're at home under the authority
of your parents. You do what they tell you. They have your
best interest at heart. Amen. Now, here's one of the means
of faith that the Lord gives to his people. It's trials. Look
at verse 6. Who passeth through the valley
of Baca and make it a well, the rain also filleth the pools. Now, Baca is the word for weeping. Weeping. Blessed are those who
the Lord takes through the valley of weeping. And this particularly
is a reference to the Kidron Valley. Now, the Brook Kidron,
which came from the Temple Mound through the Kidron Valley and
emptied into Gihanna, which was a garbage dump that was a perpetually
burning garbage dump. So there's the picture. And these
were cities that had open sewers. Maybe you've been to a city like
that. I've been to towns that have open sewers and that's the
way it would have been here. This Kidron, this Brook Kidron
was a sewer that came from the temple. And all the excrement
and all the blood and all the trash from that place would go
down through the Brook Kidron and it would empty into Gehenna. And there was a perpetual fire
burning in Gehenna, consuming the trash from the city of Jerusalem.
And Gehenna is used to represent hell. Hell. Now, in 2 Samuel
chapter 15, and I want to introduce this by saying that the only
person that can make you weep is the person that you love. That's the only person that can
make you weep. A person that you don't love or don't care
anything about can do or say anything they want to say about
you. You're not going to cry over it. But a person that you love,
who hurts you, will cause you to cry. Now, in 2 Samuel chapter
15, David was king. And David had a son, Absalom. And David loved Absalom. When
Absalom was killed, David grieved and mourned, where Joab had to
come and stop him and say, you know, David, you can't do this
anymore. You're destroying the people by your mourning. But
David mourned over the loss of his son. He cried, Absalom, Absalom.
What did Absalom do in 2 Samuel chapter 15? Scripture says that
he told the people, he said, if I was king, he said, I'd give
you justice. And he won the hearts of the
people over to himself against his father. And then he anointed
himself king in Hebron. And the scripture says the word
came back to David that Absalom had an army and that he had made
himself king and he was coming to take, to kill his father and
take the throne. And David got his men together
and he said, let us flee the city. lest the city be destroyed. David wasn't fleeing from Absalom
to save himself. David was fleeing from Absalom
to save the city. And the scripture says that David
and his men went across the Kidron Valley, the Brook Kidron, weeping
as they went. weeping as they went. David fled
the city, Absalom took over, and you know what happened after
that. Absalom was finally killed and David was... David's a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ because the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled
that same prophecy later on after the Lord celebrated the Last
Supper with the apostles in the upper room. The scripture says
they left there and they went across brook Kidron to the Mount
of Olives and there the Lord Jesus Christ wept before God
for the salvation of the city. And that brook Kidron is a picture
of our sin. And he crossed over that brook.
And he wept before God. Drops of blood. crying out to the father. Father,
if there be any way this cup can pass from me, let it be nevertheless,
not my will, but thine be done. And there was no other way. There
was no other way for sin to be put away. There was no other
way for the city to be saved. We can say the Lord Jesus Christ
was weeping because of those whom he loved. The father was
exercising his holy justice against his son. And so that's why he
cried from the cross, my God, my God, whilst thou forsaken
me. He was pouring out his soul to the father. He was weeping
for the city, Jerusalem, for his church, for his bride. And
all those things were being fulfilled. And now what the Lord is saying
here in our text, who passeth through the valley of weeping,
the valley, the brook Kidron, the valley of Kidron, as he weeps
along the way, weeping for his people. Now you remember when
he goes to the cross, the Via Della Rosa and the women, the
scripture says, were crying for him and the Lord stopped them
and said, don't weep for me. I'm weeping for you. You weep
for yourself. And what a blessing it is. What
a blessing it is when God gives us faith to see that what the
Lord Jesus Christ did in the Valley of Baca. Was it because
of his love for his father and his love for his bride? And what
a blessing it is when God gives his children the ability to weep
over their sin. And to cry out for his mercy.
Depending upon Christ alone, all the blessings of God. Are
in Christ in the heavenlies. And these holy tears that God
gives. Yeah, sometimes they come as
a result of trials and troubles, but if those tears are only for
the trials and troubles. Then. They've not profited us
at all. But if through that trial and
trouble, the Lord causes us to see the real problem, the root
of our problem, which is our sin, and what Christ did to put
it away, then we'll be able to say, who passeth through the
valley of Baca. He passed through it and he caused
me to pass through it and made it a well with fresh rain. Rain is like grace. Number one,
rain comes from God. You're not gonna decide when
it's gonna rain, when it's not gonna rain. That's all up to
God. It comes from above, doesn't it? It's refreshing. It comes
in whatever measure. Sometimes it's a soft, soft drizzle. Sometimes it's a torrent downpour,
but God's the one that determines how much rain and when the rain
and how the rain. And so the Lord says in the passing
through this valley of Baca, The Lord has opened up the windows
of heaven and provided the showers of his blessings for his people. All right, let's take a break.