Alright, Psalm 119. This section is all concerning
God's righteousness. God's righteousness. I've titled
this, The Testimony of the Tried. Testimony of the Tried. David
was greatly tried, as all God's saints are. But David's affliction
in ours is very light in comparison to our Lord Jesus' affliction
when he walked this earth. And we hear Christ here, we hear
Christ in this section as we do throughout this psalm. Now
David, he was zealous for God, and so he was cut off by his
enemies. And he was grieved very much
by this. But our Lord Jesus Christ is
the only one who had a perfect zeal for God his Father. And
due to his zeal, he was cut off. It's why he went to the cross,
was because his enemies rejected him, and cut him off. We read
here in verse 139, David said, My zeal hath consumed me, because
mine enemies have forgotten thy words. And you can take that
verse and know this is speaking of the Lord Jesus. Psalm 69 said,
I am become a stranger unto my brethren. and an alien unto my
mother's children. For the zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproach thee are
fallen upon me." You know, when the Lord went to the temple,
and he walked in, and there was a lot of religious activity going
on. There's a lot of religious activity
going on in the world today. But it was men trying to come
to God by that activity. by their religious sacrifices,
and they had turned God's temple into a den of thieves, and they
were making merchandise of men. And there was no gospel, it was
just a message of works. And our Lord Jesus came into
that place, and you remember how he turned over the tables
of the money changers, and he said those that had doves there,
he was selling those doves, They were selling those doves so that
people didn't have to, they just made everything convenient. And
they were making money off of the convenience. And the Lord
said, take these things hence, make not my father's house a
house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered
that it was written, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me
up. And so when we see this Psalm say, my zeal hath consumed me,
the margin says it has cut me off. And it was the Lord's zeal
for God, for righteousness, for the Word of God that made his
enemies despise him. And they finally cut him off,
nailed him to a cursed tree according to the will and purpose of God. David's enemies held him in contempt
and they despised him. He said there in verse 141, I'm
small and despised. But Christ was far more than
David. We read in Isaiah 53, 3, he's
despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He
was despised and we esteemed him not. He said in Psalm 22,
6, I'm a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people. Do you hear Christ in this Psalm?
Do you hear Christ speaking here? David was troubled. He was filled
with anguish because of the trouble he was bearing. But Christ far
more. He said in verse 143, trouble
and anguish have taken hold on me. This is what our Lord Jesus
said in Psalm 18.4. The sorrows of death come past
me. Floods of ungodly men made me
afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed
me about. The snares of death went before
me." You remember when he went to the Garden of Gethsemane and
he was facing the cross and what he was about to bear and bearing
the sin and shame and curse in place of his people. And the
Lord said, He said he began to be sore amazed and to be very
heavy. He said, my soul is exceeding
sorrowful unto death. Nobody endured affliction and
rejection and being despised and anguish and trouble like
our Lord Jesus did. But what was Christ's comfort?
What was His comfort? What was His comfort in the midst
of everything our Lord did when He walked this earth and everything
He suffered? And how does our Redeemer comfort His saints?
What was His comfort and how has He comforted His redeemed? The righteousness of God. First, He declares in verse 137,
Righteous art thou, O Lord. Now, David, you can hear David.
This is what he falls back on in the midst of all his trouble.
Lord, you're righteous. You're righteous, Lord. Now you
hear Christ saying this, righteous art thou, O Lord. Verse 142,
thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. And then secondly,
he took comfort that God, because he is righteous, he's actively
working righteousness in this earth. In all that he does, in
all his providence, he's righteous. He said there in verse 137, and upright are thy judgments. That's all God's works, everything
God does, He's righteous in all His judgments. He's upright in
all His judgments. This is what comforted the Lord
Jesus. When He's rejected of men, when He despised, when the
zeal of His house ate Him up, when the reproach of men fell
on Him, when He's going to the cross, God is righteous and everything
God does is upright. All His judgments are righteous.
And thirdly, his comfort was God's word. He said in verse
138, thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteousness
and faithfulness. Verse 142, thy law, the whole
word of God is the truth. Verse 144, the righteousness
of thy testimonies is everlasting. Here was our Lord's comfort,
and this is what our Lord comforts His people with. God is immutably
righteous, unchangeably righteous, and all His works are immutably
righteous. Everything God does is right,
everything. And God's Word is immutably righteous. His Word's pure. It is pure to
itself. His Word is faithfulness. His
Word is righteousness. And it's given us the unchanging
record of God's righteousness. You think about, you know, in
the field of medicine, every so many years they have to revise
whatever it is that they said a few years back. You take the
countries and men are having to amend. We've amended the Constitution,
you know, how many times? And constantly have to redo things. God's Word is unchangeable. It's
stood the test of time. It's been proven. It's tried.
It's true. It's perfect. No change to it. No change to it. So David looked
to the Lord alone, the righteous God alone, and he found his comfort
in God's word alone. He said this in verse 140, thy
word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it. You see,
David was in a place where all he had was the word of God. But
he knows the word of God is pure, it's true, it's righteous, and
it's declaring God's righteous, and all his judgments are righteous,
and he loved it. He loved it. He said in verse
41, I'm small, that's how he esteemed himself. I'm small,
but that's how his enemies esteemed him too. I'm small and despised,
yet it didn't make him forget the gospel. It didn't make him
forget God's word, yet I do not forget thy precept. Verse 143,
trouble and anguish have taken hold on me, yet thy commandments
are my delights. And so, with this being the case,
he did what God commands his children to do in the Word. He
cast all his care on the Lord Jesus, and he asked Him to give
him understanding. He said at the end, verse 144,
the righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting. Give me understanding,
and I shall live. When God's providence is painful
to us, Enemies are great. It's the righteousness of God
declared in God's righteous word that's showing us how all God's
judgment, all His ways, everything He's working in providence is
just, it's right. There's where you find your comfort.
When afflicted, this is our comfort and stay, the word of our Lord.
declaring His righteousness, His justice in all that He does.
The Word of God declares it so. Listen to Psalm 145, 17. The
Lord is righteous in all His ways and holy in all His works. When the Lord sends providence
your way, and it's so very painful. I read of an emperor who had
been captured. And before they executed him,
he had five sons. And before they executed him,
they murdered his five sons in front of him. And with every
blow, the fatal blow on every child, that emperor said, righteous
art thou, O Lord, and upright are thy judgments. That was what
he said. Every time they struck a fatal
blow to one of his sons, he said, righteous are you, Lord, and
upright in your judgment. You're doing what's right. That's
the grace of God. That's the grace of God. So I want to talk to you now
about God's righteousness and His righteous works, which is
declared throughout the Word. First of all, God is righteous,
and therefore God's eternal purpose to save in the way God determined
to save is righteous. It's righteous. God determined
to save by setting up a federal headship. He did this to declare
His righteousness. In eternity, God purposed that
Adam would represent the whole human race. Everybody that will
be born of Adam will be represented by that one man. And men will
say, well, that's not fair. I'm gonna be made guilty by another.
I'm gonna be made unrighteous by another. I'm gonna be conceived
in sin because of another. That's not righteous. Oh, it's
righteous, all right. God did it to declare his righteousness.
See, he set Adam up to be the federal head because Adam was
a picture of Christ the federal head. Go with me over to Romans
5.19. Romans 5.19. This was to declare God's righteousness,
Romans 5.19, for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,
so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover,
the law entered, not for us to try to be made righteous by it,
but that the offense might abound, that we might see just how badly
we sinned in Adam and just how unrighteous we are. But where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin hath
reigned unto death, Even so might grace reign through righteousness."
See that? The grace reigned through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. He's saying there,
just the same way that sin reigned unto death in a representative
head so that we died and became unrighteous and could not do
one thing about it. He said, So grace will reign
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord,
and there's nothing you can do to change it. And that's good
news. That's good news. God purposed
and arranged these two men to represent the whole human race. and to manifest his righteousness.
Everybody who's found in Adam by his disobedience will be guilty
in the day of judgment. But everybody found in Christ
Jesus will reign unto eternal life in righteousness by the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's why he set it up that
way, to show his righteousness. All right, go with me to Romans
chapter 9. This being the case, God was
righteous in choosing who He would save. This is the Word
of God's righteousness right here. Here's why we delight in
the Word. Here's why all His Word is our comfort in all our
affliction. This is God's righteousness and
this is showing us everything God does is just and right. God
was righteous to choose who He would save. He said in Romans
9, 6, They're not all Israel which are of Israel. Neither
because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children.
But in Isaac shall thy seed be called. Here's what that means.
They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the
children of God. Those that were born in Israel,
that came from Abraham in Israel, they're not the children of God
just because they were born in Israel. But the children of the
promised are counted for the seed. Those God promised Christ
in eternity. For this is the word of promise.
At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. And not
only this, but when Rebecca also is conceived by one, even by
our father Isaac, for the children being not yet born, neither having
done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand not of works, but of him that calleth. That's the
purpose. These children are born of the
same father, the same mother, conceived at the same time in
the same womb. But they hadn't done any good
or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand,
not of works, but of God that calleth. It was said to her,
the elder shall serve the younger. As it's written, Jacob have I
loved, but he so have I hated. Is God righteous? Let's know
what the Spirit moved Paul to say. What shall we say then?
Is there unrighteousness with God? This manifests God's righteousness. God forbid. Men will say, that's
unfair, God forbid. For he said to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then it's not of him that
willeth. It's not of him that runneth, worketh, that's what
it means. It's of God that shows mercy.
It's of God that shows mercy. When the Lord Jesus beheld his
temple full of people who had forgotten God's words, who took
his law and they had a zeal for it, but it was all in ignorance.
They didn't even know what the law was given for. They didn't
see their sin. They didn't see that they were
totally vile before God. They were going about doing all
the things in the law and worshiping their act of doing those things. And boasting about how they made
themselves holy and how they were bringing themselves to God
by what they had done. And they missed the will of God.
The will of God is to believe on His Son. The will of God is
to rest on Christ the solid rock. That's the will of God and they're
boasting in it. They're shifting sand they were
trusting in. And you know what the Lord Jesus
said? He thanked God for being righteous and hiding it from
Him and revealing it to His people. At that time Jesus answered and
said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight. It was righteous for you to do.
Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright are thy judgments. Everything
he does is righteous. Thy testimonies that thou hast
commanded are righteous and faithfulness. Now, thirdly, God sent his own
son to manifest his righteousness. He sent his son to make his people
righteous and manifest God's righteousness. Each one God elected
to salvation fell in Adam. We all became ruined in Adam. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. As it's written, there's none
righteous, no not one. There's none that understandeth.
There's none that seeketh after God. They're all gone out of
the way. They're together become unprofitable. There's none that
doeth good, no not one. The righteousness of God demands
we must die. The righteousness of God demands
we must die and suffer the curse and condemnation
of God. God's righteous, and all his
judgments are righteous, and that's what God commands. All
who God saves must die under the penalty of the law that we
broke. Everybody he saves must die under the penalty of the
law that we broke. But you said we did it in Adam.
That's right. We did it in Adam. And we've
had plenty of sin ourselves. That fall was for one transgression. Christ came to put away many
transgressions. All the transgressions of all
his people from the first moment you were conceived to the last
breath you draw. That's what Christ came to do.
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. God must punish the sinner. But righteous art thou, O Lord,
and upright are thy judgments. God's righteous word is pure. It must be fulfilled. It's not
good enough to just give it a shot. It's got to be fulfilled. It's pure as God is pure. This
Word is. This Word is as righteous as
God is righteous. Every single I's got to be dotted. Every single T's got to be crossed.
And God will accept nothing but righteousness and purity that
is equal to His own righteousness and purity. All the testimonies
of God in his word declare his righteousness is manifest one
place, in his son. That's where his righteousness
is manifest. God's word throughout declares that God sent his son
to fulfill the law and the prophets. That is all the commandments
of God, all the word of God. God sent his son to manifest
that he's a just God and a savior. a just God who will by no means
clear the guilty, and a Savior who's just to show His people
mercy. That's why Christ was sent. Now,
behold God's righteousness and how He dealt with the Lord Jesus.
God's Son became a man, but He wasn't born of Adam like we are.
He was that holy thing in the womb of the Holy Ghost, a body
prepared for Him. And so He came into the womb
of the Virgin, holy, spotless, the spotless Lamb of God, without
sin. And He came forth and He never
sinned. He never sinned. He came forth
obeying God in all points, sinless, righteous, perfect before God. God's righteous. He would not pour out justice
on his son while his son is a sinless, spotless lamb. Listen to this. He that justifieth the wicked
and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination
to the Lord. God is righteous. He's righteous. So Christ willingly presented
himself to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane as the spotless
Lamb of God. You remember how in those ceremonies
all those lambs had to be spotless? God never slew one of those spotless
lambs. Not one of those spotless lambs
was ever slain. Every one of them was slain.
only after ceremonially the sin of Israel had been put on them.
They weren't spotless when they were slain. They were slain because
they bore the sin of God's Israel. That's justice. And God would
not pour out wrath upon His Son before the spotless Lamb came,
the just, laying down His life for the unjust, and God did to
Him what only God can do. He had made Him sin for us who
knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. The righteousness of God in Him. Christ laid down His life for
God's elect. He hated sin. He abhorred sin
with everything in him. He laid down his life for God's
elect just in the fact that he gave himself to be made sin for
us. Bearing the shame of it that
he hated. He said, I laid down my life
for the sheep. He took all the sin of all God's
particular people and he died bearing their sin. This is how
righteous God is. I said this to you Thursday,
I've been working on this message already, and I got ahead of myself,
but it bears repeating. He would not pour out justice
and make his son a curse until he made him sin for his people,
but having made him sin for his people, he would not hold back
pouring out justice and wrath upon his son. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. You hear our Lord Jesus speak
in this psalm. Psalm 119, verse 141, I am small
and despised, yet do not I forget thy precepts. Thy righteousness
is an everlasting righteousness, and Thy law is the truth. Trouble
and anguish have taken hold on me, yet Thy commandments are
my delights. I have no idea what it would
be. You know how when you're sinned,
when you're convicted in your conscience of your sin, years,
not somebody else, years. And it troubles you. I mean,
it just weighs you down. Imagine bearing all the sin of
all God's elect at one time. I can't even imagine what that
was like for our Redeemer. And then he was made a curse.
He suffered the justice of God. God unsheathed the sword of justice
into his son. That's righteousness. And yet
as He's bearing that agony in the darkness on the cross, He
said, Yet I do not forget thy precepts. He said, Thou lost the truth. Trouble and anguish have taken
hold of me. unimaginable trouble and anguish
took hold of him. The margin says, cut me off. Yet thy commandments are my delights. How could our Lord Jesus bear
sin in His body on a tree, bear the curse and condemnation of
God's wrath, and yet at the same time in His holy heart delight
in everything God was doing. Because it was honoring to God's
law. It was declaring God just and
the justifier. It was justifying His people
from our sin. That's the perfect purity that
the incarnate Word is. That's the perfect righteousness
God is. That is the just judgment of
God Himself. And that's how He chose to manifest
it. Let's look at Isaiah 53. Verse 4. Surely He hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. You know what we thought? This
is what they did at the cross, and this is what we thought till
God saved us. He just got what he deserved.
That's what that means. We esteemed him, stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes
we are healed. What does that mean? Look down
at verse 10. It pleased the Lord. It satisfied the justice of God
to bruise him. He had put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed.
He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see the travail of his
soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall
divide the spoil with the strong, that's his people, because he
poured out his soul unto death, he was numbered with the transgressors,
he bare the sin of many, and he made intercession for the
transgressors. Paul said it was to declare,
I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and a justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus. That's what Christ did. That's
what Christ did. Now, God's righteous to show
his elect mercy, because God justified us. God's the one that
did the justifying. His judgments are right. Paul
said, he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up
for all his elect, how shall he not with Christ freely give
us all things? That's because he's righteous.
Christ died. He satisfied justice. He manifests
the righteousness of God. He fulfilled all the law and
the prophets. He did everything God sent him to do. How shall
God, who's righteous, not freely give us all his eternal purpose
because of what Christ did? But fourthly, since God is righteous
and Christ justified his people, It's righteous for God to regenerate
His people. It's just for Him to give us
faith. It's right for Him to be merciful
to us and save us, and it's not righteous for Him not to. David prayed, Lord, give me understanding
and I shall live. All who God saves come into this
world ignorant. Ignorant of God's righteousness.
Ignorant, going about to establish their own righteousness. Ignorant
of God's righteousness, that his son is the one who has performed
it all, and his son is the only one God will receive. Ignorant
of it. But God's righteous, and therefore,
for every one of them for whom Christ died, he will be longsuffering. He's been suffering long. He's
been suffering since Adam took that fruit in the garden. That's
how long God's been suffering with us. Because He's had a people,
and He's going to save every one of them. This is what Peter
said, He's long suffering to us-ward. It's to all His elect
who Christ justified. He's long suffering to us-ward.
He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance. He's the one who gives the life.
He's the one who gives the faith. He's the one who gives the repentance.
It's not like he's just wringing his hands and hoping somebody
will believe on him and somebody will repent. He's the one who
has to give spiritual life and give the faith and give the repentance.
So if he's not willing that any should perish but that he should
come to repentance, it means he shall bring them there. He
shall bring them there. He is righteous to regenerate
us. He is righteous to give us faith. He is righteous to grant
us repentance. He is righteous to bring us to
trust his Son alone. The Spirit of God regenerates
us to life, not we ourselves. That would not be righteous. That would be of him that willeth
or of him that runneth. It would not be of God that showeth
mercy. That would not be righteous. That would deny Christ and what
He accomplished at Calvary's cross. That would deny the righteousness
of God. That would exalt us over our
Lord Jesus. It's His glory to give you repentance. It's His glory to call His sheep.
The Spirit of God regenerates us to life. By grace are you
saved through faith and not of yourself. It's the gift of God,
lest any man should boast. I never have grown tired of hearing
that because it honors my God who gave me faith and who sustains
it and who keeps me trusting Him. He keeps, as David said,
give me understanding and I shall live. How? I'll live by faith
in my Lord Jesus Christ. When He gives you understanding
that Christ is the righteousness that God provided for His people,
He gives you faith to believe on Christ. cease from your works
of trying to come to God to believe on Christ and start following
Him. He makes you to know that He imputes the righteousness
of God to you because you are the righteousness of God in Christ
Jesus. Thy righteousness is an everlasting
righteousness, David said. You know what that means, brethren?
It means your righteousness is everlasting. That means your
righteousness is the righteousness of God, and it's as unchanging
and unchangeable as God is. He finished the transgression.
Christ made an end of sins. He made reconciliation for iniquity. He brought in everlasting righteousness
for His people. Everlasting. That's why God's
saints love His Word. That's why God at times brings
you into situations where you don't have anything else and
He won't let you have anything else to comfort you except to
go into His Word and hear what Christ has done and what He's
accomplished and how God's keeping you looking to Him and He gives
you an understanding and He makes you live. He makes you live. And you find all you delight
in this word. When trouble and anguish take
hold of you, you can't look up. This is how God's commandments
are our delights. This is how they are our delights
right here. Every word sends us straight to Christ. Every
word sends us straight to Christ, who continues to give us understanding
that He is our righteousness, our wisdom, our sanctification,
and our redemption, and we keep walking, looking to Him, following
Him alone. That's what makes you delight
in God's command. Now lastly, knowing God is righteous,
and beholding in Christ that all His judgments are righteous, having Christ as our everlasting
righteousness. In every affliction, in every
affliction, we know God is doing what's right for us. When we're
most sorely afflicted and you can't see the reason and we have
the most sure and certain fact right here by looking to the
cross that God's righteous. and His dealing with us are righteous. We behold it in Him sending His
Son to make us righteous. This is the ground of all the
comfort of God's people. The everlasting righteousness
of God's nature, He changes not, His purposes don't change. In
righteousness, He saved us. In righteousness, He shall preserve
us. This is what delights the hearts
of God's people. He said, I'm the Lord, I change
not, and therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. And this
is how we know that all things work together for good to them
that love God, to them who are the called, all according to
His purpose, because it's righteous. It's righteous. All these varied
circumstances, all the blessings, all the crosses, all the losses,
all of it's worked together in righteousness by our God for
one purpose, to keep you trusting His Son, Christ our righteousness,
alone. That's what they're for. So when
David suffered, he cleared the Lord of any injustice. He's bearing
all that he talks about here, and the anguish and the troubles
taking him over. And he said, but righteous art
thou, O Lord. Upright are your judgments. Thy
testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful.
This is how come God's people don't get so carried off and shaken and moved
and disturbed. He settles you back down, keeps
you remember. The Lord's righteous. He's right. I don't have to put my hand to
the ark. He's got it. He's got it. God never afflicts
but in faithfulness and love, and He only afflicts in faithfulness
and love those He everlastingly loved in His Son. His testimonies
are faithful, they're covenant promises, ratified, sealed in
the blood of His Son, and this is why His testimonies are our
delight. His Word's pure. Therefore, His
servants love it. You know what His Word's called?
It's called the Word of Christ because it's given to us by Him
and it bears witness of Him. It's called the word of His grace
because the message is all that salvation is by the grace of
God in Christ Jesus. It's called the word of the cross
because in the cross we behold Christ our righteousness. It's
called the Word of the Gospel because it brings glad tidings
of great joy to us when we see Christ. It's the Word of His
Kingdom because it gives the saints the hope of an everlasting
kingdom that God our Father appointed to us before the world was made. It's called the Word of Salvation
because it declares Christ is the salvation of sinners. It's
called the Word of Life because it keeps bringing us to Christ
our life so that we ask Him again and again. Verse 144, give me
understanding and I shall live. He's come and given us an understanding.
But when you have understanding, that's when you see how ignorant
you are. And you have to keep asking Him over and over, Lord,
give me understanding. Then I'll live. I'll live. that
just live by faith in our Lord Jesus and affliction only makes
us more dependent, more reliant upon the Lord Jesus to give us
understanding and keep us living to Him. That's what affliction
does for His people. Makes you want to obey Him more
and totally rely on Him for everything. Let's remember Him at His table. Brother Robbie, Brother Adam,