Well, let us turn again to the Word of God and the verse that we were considering earlier in the morning in Psalm 23 and verse 3. Psalm 23, verse 3. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. So we have this part of David's testimony concerning the one who is his good shepherd. Of course, David himself, as a youngster, was the shepherd boy. And he knew something of the work of the shepherd, caring for the sheep. And it's the most familiar of all the Psalms, really. Psalm 23. And here David declares how The Lord is his shepherd. And we consider now in verse 3, the first part of that verse, he makes mention of the restoring mercies of the Lord. We concentrated then on that opening clause. He restoreth my soul. Divine restoration. And as God is restoring his sheep. So they are brought to look forward, they are brought to look upwards. This morning, for our public reading of scripture, we read the two Psalms, 42 and 45. Psalms which really form a soliloquy, as the Psalmist addresses himself, addresses his own soul. Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted? With him the three times he puts that question to himself and then we observe how we have that very emphatic answer that he produces certainly in the 42nd Psalm verses 5 and 11 he says hope thou in God not just hope in God but he inserts the singular pronoun speaking to himself hope thou in God Now, the believer has to live not only the life of faith, but he lives by hope. He's looking forward, he's looking upward to God. What is hope? Well, the Apostle says something with regards to it there in Romans 8 and verse 24. He says hope that he's seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he get hope for it? But if we hope for that that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. There is a certain endurance when it comes to living that life of faith and knowing something of the hope of the Christian. We look not at the things that are seen but at the things that are not seen. The things that are seen are but the temporal things and the unseen things. are the eternal things. That's the life of faith. We see the invisible gods. Oh, there must be that constant looking then, looking upward, looking to God, calling upon God. The constant cry to Him. Oh my soul, wait now only upon God, for my expectation is from Him. We read in Psalm 62 and verse 5. Well, as I said this morning, having looked just at the opening clause, those four words, He restoreth my soul, and saying something with regards to divine restoration, I said we'd go on to consider the remaining part of the psalm tonight, if the Lord will. And now we've gathered together, and so I want to try to address the subject of the divine righteousness that is spoken of later in the same verse. He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake." He leads me in paths of righteousness and the reason for His name's sake. Restoration, we said, is needed because we're cast out. We only need to be restored because we're aware of the need of restoration, being in that state where we're low and in a sad, sorry state. There's that awful sense of sin. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within, where there's some knowledge of ourselves that causes us to be in such a state, in that sense of our sinnership and we remarked, didn't we, that Paul was very conscious of that as a true child of God he once thought he was the most religious man when he was full of self-righteousness, when He lived the life of a Pharisee being the son of a Pharisee. He trusted in himself and his own righteousness, his supposed righteousness. But when he was awakened, when he was born again of the Spirit of God, when he came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, he saw things so differently. I know that in me, it says, that is in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I do not. The evil that I would not, that I do. Remember the language that he employs throughout that remarkable seventh chapter in his epistles of the Romans. As I said this morning, he's He's writing there as one who is a true child of God, he's speaking of his present state, it's in the present tense. It's not him speaking of what he was before he was converted, but what he was after he was converted. And much the same as we see with regards to the experience of David, certainly the language that David employs, in that 38th Psalm, the Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance. David would remember these things, just as Paul would remember these things. David says, I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly, I go mourning all the day long. For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and sore broken. I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart. O Lord, all my desire is before Thee, my groaning is not hid from Thee, and these men are brought to that, they grow. Worse, he was a murderer. He'd not only stolen another man's wife, but he'd killed the man. He'd schemed in order to be rid of Uriah the Hittite that he might have Bathsheba for himself. What a wicked man was David. And yet, he's brought to his senses by the faithful words of the prophet, Nathan. Oh, he makes it so plain, David, thou art the man. Thou art the man, David. The prophet comes with the word of God and he fingers the conscience of the king and David feels it. For a prophet to go and speak such faithful words to that man who was in such authority in the land, King David, thou art the man. And he makes his confessions to God, doesn't he? There in Psalm 51 I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me. Against thee the only have I sinned and I'm deceived in thy sight, he says to God. Real sense of sinnership. And in order to know anything of divine righteousness, surely we must first of all know something of our sins. Why would we need another righteousness, a divine righteousness, the Lord himself to be leading us in those paths of righteousness for his namesake? If we already had a righteousness all of our own, something that would commend us to God, but we don't. we're all as an unclean thing and all our righteousness is hard as filthy rags and we fade like the leaves and our iniquities like the wind they carry us away says the prophets and though these things are so graphically explained here in the word of God and here in the in the book of Psalms. Look at the language, for example, that we find in those two Psalms. We read Psalm 32, and in many ways I think Psalm 32 forms a pair with Psalm 51. I know the penitential Psalm is the 51st, but I think in a way the 32nd Psalm can be put next to it. And the language that's used there, the vocabulary, to describe what sin is and what this sense of sin is. We say we believe that this book, the Bible, is the Word of God. And we say we believe that it's verbally inspired. And you know, I've said this many a time, that means that it's not just the ideas behind the words. It's not as if men are expressing certain ideas and employing their own words to explain these ideas that have been inspired in their minds by the Spirit of God. But we say no. The very words that they're employing have been inspired. They're inspired words.

It is a mysterious thing, really, divine inspiration of the scriptures because it's not that they're sort of automatons and it's that the spirit just dictates the words and they write the words down as they're being dictated. I command my employer, a person, an amanuensis to be a secretary and he dictates something and they write it down for him. It's not that sort of inspiration. There's something of the writers in the things that they write. They have different styles, different ways of expressing themselves. But we believe that the very words that they employ are inspired. High doctrine of Holy Scripture.

And that's why we love our authorized version because it tries to give a formal equivalent in the translation of words. Many modern versions would have a modern approach, what they call a dynamic equivalent, almost going the way of a sort of paraphrase. The authorised version is as literal as can possibly be. So it's important then that we take account of the very words that are used.

And look at the words that are used in those two Psalms, 32 and 31. We have the word transgression, don't we? The opening words of Psalm 32. Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven. And again, in the opening words of the 51st Psalm, David says, blot out my transgressions. What are we to make of that word transgression? What does it mean? What is it to transgress? Well, the word really has the idea of being in a state of rebellion. That's our condition before God. We're rebelling against Him. We're alienating. We're enemies. We are not obeying His commandments, we are transgressing His laws. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth the law, for sin is the transgression of the law, says the Apostle, there in 1 John 3 and verse 4. to transgress then is to break the commandment of God, to overstep the mark that God has set for us. And these words are used several times in those two psalms, and other psalms of course.

But then another word that we find being used is that word sin. And again it's said in the opening verse of Psalm 32 Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. So he uses the word transgression and he immediately uses the word sin. And similarly in Psalm 51, in the second verse, David says, cleanse me from my sin. What is sin? Well, interestingly, the Hebrew word for sin is derived from the verb that means to miss. And so we can think in sort of very concrete terms really. What is sin? It's missing. It's missing the mark. It's the archer and he's practicing his archery and he is aiming at the target but he keeps falling short. He doesn't quite reach the mark. And that's what sin is, it's a falling short.

If transgressing is overstepping the mark, rebelling against the commandment of God, why sin is that idea of falling short of what God has said before us and all have sinned. That's what the Bible says. Romans 3 verse 23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We're God's creation, we should live our lives to the honour and glory of God. But we don't do that. We live to ourselves, and we fall short of the glory of God. And then there's the other word, isn't there? There's that word, iniquity. Iniquity. Again, in Psalm 32, blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity. To impute is to reckon to him or to account to him. And that man is blessed who the Lord doesn't account to have been guilty of iniquity. In Psalm 51, David says, wash me throughly from mine iniquity. Well, what's the significance of this word? What does it tell us about ourselves? Well, again, it's interesting because it has the basic idea, iniquity, of being bent and twisted. And that's what we are as sinners, we're bent and twisted. Have you got make-man? Well, the wise man. In Ecclesiastes 7.29 says, Lo, this only have I found, God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. God made man upright. What was his posture as he came from the hand of his great Creator? He stood erect, upright. He was so, that was his physical posture, so that was the state of his soul, he was upright. But now he's bent and twisted, warped. He's a fallen creature. He's in a state of alienation from his God. He was made in God's image, in God's likeness, and that's been destroyed. Iniquity is an awful word. These are the various words that scripture employs to describe what we are as sinners. And of course there's the word evil, isn't there? There's the word evil. And David says there in the 51st Psalm against thee, only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Well, what is evil? It's being a bad person. A bad person, not a good person. A wicked person. An evil person is that. He's in a state of wickedness. Oh, there are so many different words to be used, but thinking of those two Psalms in particular, there's one more word I would remarkable, and that's the word guile. We have it there in the 32nd Sámi New Spirit, there is no guile. No guile. And the word here, the idea is, you see, that the fault is something inward and spiritual. It's the very nature of this man. This is what's at fault. The heart. deceitful above all things full of guile craftiness, cunning deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it? I the Lord try the hearts or know the heart, try the reins says the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet and how soon we see it in that wonderful creation that we're told of in the opening chapters of Genesis, a creation that God pronounced very good, and then the fall in the third chapter, and then before long we're in chapter six, and we're coming up to the great judgment of God in the universal floods, and God's sword God looks and sees what the state of things are with men. Every imagination of the thought of man's heart, evil continually. He's full of guile. Every imagination of the thought of his heart, just evil all the time. Well, that's the sinner. And he has no righteousness of his own. We're all an unclean thing by nature. All our righteousness is our best deeds. our filthy rags and we fade like the leaves on the trees and our iniquities they're just carrying us away headlong all the time what does this person need? this person needs salvation and that's what's being spoken of here surely in the second part of this verse when God restores the souls of his people. What does he do? He leads them in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. And I want just briefly to consider two aspects of the salvation that this sinful person stands in need of. Two aspects. I want to say something with regards to his sanctification and then something with regards to his justification. These two works and how important they are with regards to any right understanding of what salvation is because we are sanctified if we are saved we are those who are both sanctified and justified

what does it say then? well it is God you see who separates his people and sets them in the right paths He leads me in the paths of righteousness, it says. And this sanctification is altogether the work of God. And it is the work of God in terms of all the persons in the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It's the work of the Trinity. God is a Trinity. And sanctification is the work of of the Trinity, it's the work of the Father. And when we think of sanctification in terms of eternity, we're to think of the work of the Father. And the language that we have there in the opening words of the Epistle of Jude, sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. There's the three persons you see.

What does the Father do? He has sanctified the people. What is the basic meaning of the word to sanctify? It's to set a thing or a person apart. When they are told of the various materials and all else, various ointments and so forth that are to be employed in the worship of God in the tabernacle all those things have to be set apart they can only be used for the worship of the Holy One of Israel they can't be put to general use they are consecrated they are set apart they are sanctified and God has set apart a people to himself from all eternity they are sanctified by God the Father in election.

Henry Cole, Church of England minister back in the earlier part of the 19th century said that's the highest form of sanctification, election. God the Father has set a people apart for himself. Well that's one aspect of sanctification. But there's also a sanctification that takes place in time. And that's the work of God the Son. He is, of course, the salvation of His people. He's all their salvation. You remember the language we have at the end of 1 Corinthians 1? Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that as it is written he that glory hath let him glory in the Lord

how has Christ become the sanctification of his people by the work that he accomplished on the cross it was there that he sanctified the people by the shedding of his blood that's what it says there in Hebrews 13.12 he sanctified the people by the shedding of His blood. Their sanctification is in Christ. He is their sanctification. But then, also there's a sanctification by the Holy Ghost Himself. Romans 15, 16, sanctified by the Holy Ghost. How are they sanctified by the Holy Ghost? When He comes, He works effectually, graciously in the souls of His people. He changes them.

All these various great doctrines, of course, they all relate one to the other. The sinner must be born again. He's born from above. The great doctrine of regeneration. He has a new nature. Isn't that, in a sense, the beginning of the work of the Spirit in the way of sanctification in the hearts of His people? How can those who are dead in trespasses and sins live holy lives? Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Ask the Prophet Jeremiah, then might you who do evil, know how to do good. We can't change ourselves. You must be born again, says the Lord Jesus Christ. That that he's born of the flesh, is flesh. That that he's born of the spirit, is spirit. And where there is the new birth, there's a new nature. There's that seed that can never sin. And so there's that conflict between the old nature and the new nature. the old nature never improves, never changes but there is that blessed work of the Spirit look at the language again that we have in Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 10 and there in verses 23 and 24 O LORD I know that the way of man is not in himself It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps, O Lord, correct me, but with judgment, not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing. And doesn't this tell us something about the way in which the Spirit is working, in the way of correction? In the language of our Psalm, He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness. What are these parts of righteousness? It's the believer's experience now by the working of the spirit. In his soul, the corrections, the chastenings. He chastises with his rod, doesn't he? We read later in the Psalm of the Rod, they rod and they starve, he says. they comfort me but God chastises with his wrath no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who exercise thereby as the peaceable fruit of righteousness again concerning those chastenings it's a produce His holiness. There in Hebrews 12.10 that we might be partakers of His holiness. That's why He chastens us. He chastens that we might be partakers of His holiness. And so He instructs us in the way that we are to go. This is all the work of the Spirit. It's not that the old nature is improving. The old nature is what it is. It's always The old nature, it's always sin. It's born of the flesh, but there's this conflict. It's all bound up with the believer's experience now. I like the remark of William Gurnall, one of the old Puritans of course, he says concerning these dealings of the Lord with his people in the way of sanctification, God would not rub so hard were it not to fetch out the dirt that is ingrained in our nature. He loves purity so well that he'd rather see a hole than a spot in his child's garments. So sometimes the Lord's ways with us seem to be severe and hard and bitter to experience. But it's all part and parcel of the life of faith. The child of God is called to live and to walk in and the Spirit is leading us then in this path He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His namesake but then also there's that great doctrine of justification as well it's for His namesake it's for His own glory that the Lord does these things. When we pray, of course, we are to seek first and foremost the honor of His name, hallowed be thy name. It's all to the praise of His grace. There's no merit in man, there's no deserts in man at all. We rest in that righteousness that has come from another. That's our standing before God, the Lord Jesus Christ. I know we can't base our theology on the hymns, but you know there's wonderful theology in the hymns we sing. Wonderful theology in the hymns. We're not to despise them. And I think of the language of Joseph Hart in 270, righteousness within thee rooted may appear to take thy part, but let righteousness imputed be the breastplates of thy heart. And he's contrasting there, you see, sanctification and justification. The righteousness within thee rooted at work of the Spirit of God may appear to take thy part. No, let's look to what Christ has done. but let righteousness impute it. Or the righteousness of another, that's our chief place of safety. And what a blessed thing justification is.

You know there's two aspects to our justification. Because first of all we're cleansed, we're clean, We are cleansed and clear of all our sins. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. All our iniquity is gone. There's nothing to reckon to our account. There's no sin there anymore. Iniquities prevail against me, we read in another Psalms. And they do prevail. But, but, thou shalt purge them away. They're gone. They're gone, they're removed.

How are they removed? Because Christ has borne the punishment that was due to the sins of his people. He has suffered in their room and in their stead. He has died as their substitute. He was wounded for our transgression. He was brewed for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. With His stripes we are healed, we read in Isaiah 53. The Lord has done it. He paid the debt, the tremendous debt that the sinner owed to the broken Lord of God. Because the law demands it's just payment, the soul that sinneth it shall die. the wages of sin is death but Christ has died and he's died there for the unjust the great truth of substitutionary atonement that's part of our justification sin has gone so far as that person whose faith is altogether centered in Christ he's got no sin It's buried in the depths of the sea, it's removed as far as the east is from the west, it's gone.

But more than that, the other part of justification is that he is covered now, he's clothed with righteousness. As by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous we read in Romans 5.19 the disobedience of one Adam in the garden of Eden sins and the whole human race sinned in Adam and Adam's transgression is imputed to us all he was our head but there's another Adam the last Adam the second man the Lord from heaven and He has come and those who are in Christ. All they are now covered with His obedience, robe of righteousness.

You see this in the sense of double imputation, the sins of His people have all been accounted or reckoned, imputed to Christ, and His righteousness has been imputed, accounted, reckoned to them. There's the exchange. He's taken their sins. He's nailed them to the cross. In exchange, He gives them His righteousness. God has made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made a righteousness of God in Him. These are so fundamental, these truths, aren't they? Basic truths of the Gospel. And we need to know them. understand them, love them, delight in them, whose sin is covered.

And how is it experienced? It's all experienced by faith. And that's why I read that passage in Romans 4. It's a sort of commentary really on Psalm 32. The New Testament explanation of what's being said there in Psalm 32. And we read there, of course, Abraham, who is the father of all believers. And what are we told concerning Abraham and the faith of Abraham? It's a wonderful chapter, isn't it, Romans? Chapter 4. Not a very long chapter, but well worth reading and thinking upon and meditating in and studying. What saith the Scripture? Verse 3, Abram believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. What is he saying here? Well, he's making a distinction between grace and works.

To him that worketh, a man works in order to obtain something. To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt. He's worked, he's owed something. He's working for his salvation. But that's not the way of salvation, because salvation is not of works, but of grace, to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly.

That's the man who sees that there's no hope at all in his own works. He's looking to God, he's looking to the work that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished when he died upon the cross. And this is the faith of Abraham. Abraham believed God, he believed God's promise. This is what he goes on to say at the end of the chapter.

In verse 20 concerning Abram, he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. God had promised that he would have a son, that Sarah would bear that son. The promised son, the promised seed, that was Isaac of course. But now he had to wait, he was 100 years old. And Sarah was long past the age of childbearing, and yet he waits and he waits, and the child is born, the son of promise.

He staggered not to the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. What was imputed? The promise. the promised seed. And it says in Galatians concerning that seed, it's not really Isaac, that seed is Christ, of whom Isaac is but a type.

Abraham is saved by faith in Christ. Abraham is justified by faith in Christ. That's what he's saying throughout that fourth chapter. That's the only way of justification. By grace, through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast. It's all by the grace of God. This is the path that God is pleased to lead his children in. He doesn't just restore the souls of his people, he leads them in these blessed paths, the paths of righteousness, and he does it for his namesake.

All the glory belongs to God. All the glory of any sinner's salvation belongs to God. because salvation is not of man salvation is of the Lord and that's what we glory in or that we might have a glory in that and see that all of it every part of it our sanctification our justification our redemption every part all that's involved in the salvation of our souls is to be found in our Lord Jesus Christ

May the Lord then be pleased to open our eyes to the wonder of that that Christ has accomplished for sinners. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the path of righteousness for His name's sake. Amen.

Let us conclude our worship today as we sing the hymn 681. And the tune is Saxby, 409.

Blessed are they whose guilt is gone,
whose sins are washed away with blood,
whose hope is fixed on Christ alone,
whom Christ has reconciled to God.

Though travelling through this vale of tears,
in many a sore temptation meet,
The Holy Ghost is witness bears he stands in Jesus still complete.

681 TUNE 409 are they whose guilt is gone?
Their sins are washed, and the lame they fall.
Their tongue is raised from Christ their Lord,
and Christ's prayer becomes holy call.