Let us turn to God's Word in
Psalm 23, directing you once again to the words that we find
here in verse 3. The 23rd Psalm at verse 3, He
restoreth my soul, He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
for His name's sake. Last week we were considering
what David says here with regards to the divine restoration, that
that he's spoken of in the opening clause of this third verse, he
restoreth my soul and in restoring his people we observed, how that
God causes them to be those who are looking forward and they're
looking upward. Remember how in the Psalms that
we read last time, Psalms 42 and 43, the Psalmist addresses
himself, we have that siloquy, He speaks to his own heart. Why art thou cast down, O my
soul? Why art thou disquieted within
me? Now he needed to know God's restoring
mercies and he comes to the place where God causes him to have
hope. Hope thou in God. We read it there in Psalm 42
at verse 5. and then again in the last verse of the psalm so
emphatic as he introduces that pronoun not just hope in God
that's what we have at the end of psalm 43 he says simply hope
in God but previously we have the pronoun hope thou in God,
how he would encourage himself, and isn't this part and parcel
of the way in which God is pleased to deal with his people in order
that they might know those restorings? Paul tells us that hope that
he's seen is not hope for what a man seeth, why doth he yet
hope for it? But if we hope for that that
we see not, then with patience do we wait for it. Always to be those then who are
not so much concerned with those things that are seen, those temporal
things, We are to be taken up with those blessed eternal things
that lie before us. We look not at the things that
are seen, says Paul, but at the things that are not seen, for
the things that are seen are temporal, and the unseen things
are eternal. We are brought then to that place
where we are made to see that we must be constantly looking
to God. We must be looking forward. We
must be looking upward, forgetting those things that are behind
us and stretching forth onto those things that are before
us. This is all part and parcel,
is it not, of God's way in restoring the souls of his people. My soul says, David, wait thou
only upon God, for my expectation is from him. We were thinking
then last Lord's Day evening of that way of God, in terms
of divine restorings. And now, I want us to consider
the remainder of the verse, this third verse, he goes on to speak
of divine righteousness. He restoreth my soul, says David,
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's
sake. the Divine Righteousness. What
are we to understand? What is it to have any true appreciation
of that Divine Righteousness? Well, we know that restoration
is that that is needed when we are in that condition where we're
downcast. And what is it that causes us
so often to be downcast, to be brought low? Is it not the sense
of our sinnership? those words you see that we were
thinking of from those Psalms 42 and 43, Why art thou cast
down? Why art thou cast down? Why art thou cast down? The refrain
is there repeated time and again. What is it that brings us to
be so low and so dejected? It is when we're made to feel
something of our sinnership and we have to know ourselves. And
this is what Paul was brought to, is it not? He says, I know
that in me, 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. He had such a
knowledge of himself, his impotence. He felt it. What could he do? He wanted to do good and yet
evil was there. Yeah, that old nature. Who shall
deliver me, he cries out. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? All that knowledge of ourselves. And we see it not only in the
experience of Paul, we see it also in the experiences of the
Psalmist. David and Paul, do they not speak
with one voice? Do we not see the same truth
brought out in the experiences of these godly men? Remember
the language of David in Psalm 38? And there at verse 6 he cries
out, I am trouble! 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, or the disquietness of my heart. Here is David in
this 23rd Psalm. Remember, he wants to know that
one who leads beside the still waters, leads beside the waters
of quietness, brings him into the green pastures. But looking
to himself, anything but. All that he feels there is disquietness,
trouble, grief, and that because of his sins. And yet, isn't this
the very man that the Lord Jesus Christ has come to minister to? Isn't this the very man that
the Lord Jesus Christ has come to say? Well, remember what we
are told concerning that blessed ministry of the Saviour. He himself
said it, they that are whole have no need of the physician,
but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners unto repentance." It is the sense of sinnership,
the sense of a man's very real needs that causes him to understand
what David is speaking of here in the text. to want to know
something of that divine righteousness that is altogether to be found
outside of himself in himself there is nothing in me Paul says
remember that is in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing
but ought to be brought to the place where we may to acknowledge
it and to confess it we see it so often in David do we not I
acknowledge my transgression he says My sin is ever before
me. Against thee, thee only, have
I sinned. And we must begin here, surely,
if we're going to know anything of the paths of righteousness.
We must see what we are, that we're altogether unrighteous,
that we're sinful. And it is instructive to observe
something of the language, the vocabulary, that David employs
in the Psalms. And I'm thinking in particular
of those two Psalms, Psalm 51, his great penitential Psalm,
the Psalm wherein he makes his confession, as we've just seen,
Those words of verse 3 acknowledge my transgression, my sin is ever
before me. The words of Psalm 51 and the
words of Psalm 32, the very words. We say that we believe in the
verbal inspiration of the Word of God. We believe that it is
inspired throughout, from Genesis to Revelation, all the books.
Every part is the Word of God. Plenary simply referring to all
the parts, every part. The totality of the Scriptures
is the Word of God. But then, in particular, we say
that the very words, the individual words, as we have them in the
original, be it the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the Greek
of the New Testament, we say it's verbally inspired. So, the words are important. Now, what are the words? We've
seen something of this on previous occasions. And I've said then
that with the Hebrew, of course, it's a very different language
to the language that we are familiar with in the West. It's a Semitic
language. And the people tend to think
more in concrete terms, whereas we often speak more abstractly. And so, when we consider the
particular words, we say how graphic the words are. the language,
the vocabulary. There's that word transgression.
We have it there, of course, in the opening words of our reading
earlier in Psalm 32, Blessed is he whose transgression is
forgiven. Again, we have it in Psalm 51,
David cries out there in the opening verse, Blot out my transgression. What of these particular words?
Well, it has the idea of rebellion, to transgress really. The root
of the word that is translated in that way is to be in a state
of rebellion. And that's man's state, is it
not? By nature he's a rebel. We see
it in the act of our first parents there in the Garden of Eden,
how they rebelled against the commandment of God. and they
follow the lie of the devil and they transgress. They transgress
by partaking of that that God had forbidden. Whosoever committeth
sin transgresseth also the law. Says John, for sin is the transgression
of the law. And this is what we have to be
brought to. We have to see that we are transgressors. We have
no righteousness of our own. But then also, of course, we
have that word sin. And we have it again in the psalm
that we read, the opening verse, the end of verse 1 of Psalm 32,
where he is a man whose sin is covered. And again it's there
at the beginning of Psalm 51. Cleanse me from my sin, is the
prayer of David. He wants to be cleansed, purged
from all his sins. And that is the most interesting
words, because the basic meaning of the word to sin is derived
from the verb that means to miss, to miss the mark. It's the idea
of falling short of the mark. If we're aiming at a particular
target, but instead of reaching that mark, we keep falling short
of it. all of sins and come short of
the glory of God. All man's chief end is to glorify
God and to enjoy Him forever, but how men fall so far short
of that and we who profess the name of God, we who call ourselves
Christians, do we not feel it? We fall short. We don't reach
that standard that He set before us here in the Word of God. We
don't delight in those holy precepts of the gospel as we ought to
delight in them. We are so often self-willed and
sinful we want our own way and not the ways of God. All this
awful word that we have then, this word sin, it has the idea
of falling short. It's not, you see, just sins
of commission. It's not overstepping the mark. It's not just transgression.
It's also sins of omission, not reaching the standard, falling
short. And then we have that word, iniquity. These words, you see, that we
find in David, as he comes before God, as he addresses God, and
so many of these Psalms, as we know, are in the form of prayers
to God, he's calling upon God, but what is he doing? He's acknowledging
what he is as a sinner. and there's a word iniquity.
Again we have it in both the Psalms, Psalm 51 and verse 2,
wash me throughly, he says, from mine iniquity. Cleanse me from
my sin. And again in the 32nd Psalm,
we see it in that second verse of the Psalm, the blessed man
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity."
Iniquity is not reckoned to his charge, he's a blessed man. But
it's the same word as David uses in Psalm 51. And what is this
word, when we examine the significance of it? Well, it has the idea
of that that is bent, that that is twisted, That's the basic
meaning, to be bent or twisted. Remember the language of the
preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes. Lo, he says this, only have I
found. God's made man upright, but they
have sought out many inventions. God made man upright, but what
is man is no more upright, he's now bent and twisted. He's following
his own inventions, departing from all the ways of God. All
the words you see, the language, so rich, so full, so potent. There's the word evil. Again
in Psalm 51, again, see, the only have I done this evil. He feels himself to be a sinner
before God. What does the word mean when
it has that idea of badness, rottenness, evil? But then there's another word
that we find in that 32nd Psalm. David speaks of the man in whose
spirit there is no guile. In whose spirit there is no guile. What a blessing to be those who
are guileless. Think of Nathanael. The Lord
says he's an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile. What
does this word, guile, suggest to us? Well, it reminds us, does
it not, that sin is really something that is inward. It's spiritual
in its very nature. It's not just a question of the
things that we do or the things that we say. Sin has to do with
the sort of people that we are, the heart of man. It's from the
heart that every sin proceeds, is it not? And the heart, we're
told in Jeremiah 17, is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. It's a deceitful heart, it's
full of guile. And how soon was this the case
after we read of the entrance of sin into God's creation, that
work that God had made? that he had pronounced to be
very good after the six days of creation and then we read
alas the history of man's transgression, the entrance of sin and then
when we come just to the opening part of Genesis chapter 6 we're
told concerning man that every imagination of the thought of
his heart was evil continually Remarkable words there in Genesis
6 verse 5. God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth and every imagination of the thought
of his heart was evil continually. And we have to come you see to
that where we know something of ourselves. Paul says it, I
know. Paul seems to love that word,
does he not? He has that desire as he expresses
it to the Philippians concerning Christ, that I may know Him.
He wants the knowledge of Christ. Why? Because he has such a knowledge
of himself. I know, he says, that he may,
that is in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing. We ought to know
ourselves, once we know ourselves. how we'll desire that the Lord
Himself would lead us. And David says here in the text,
He leads us in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. There is a salvation there. And
those who have a sense of their sinnership, do they not feel
their need of that salvation? We have to look to ourselves,
examine ourselves, prove ourselves, know ourselves. Are we those
who feel that we need to know this great salvation that is
in the Lord Jesus Christ? That we might be led of Him. He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness, says David, for His name's sake. Well, I want
to consider two aspects in particular of the salvation that the Lord
provides for the sinner. And we see it in terms of sanctification
and of justification. This word righteousness, the
powers of righteousness. We see here how it is God who
is active. It is God who makes the separation. It is God who sets a man in the
paths of righteousness. We cannot set ourselves in that
path. In that it is paths, is it not
right that we think in terms of not just one thing, but two
things. So I say again, here we have
sanctification and also justification. And thinking first of sanctification. This sanctification is of course
the great work of God. It's act that is involved when
a man is changed. The question is asked in Jeremiah
13, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may ye do good who are accustomed
to do evil. The implication in the questions
of course concerning the Ethiopian and concerning the leopard is
that they cannot change themselves. And then the conclusion is drawn
that those who are accustomed to do evil, they cannot change
themselves. We who have fallen natures, we
who love the very ways of sin, we cannot set ourselves in the
paths of righteousness. The work is God's. It is God
that sanctifies. Again, look at the language of
the Prophet Jeremiah there in chapter 10 and verses 23 and
24 he says, Oh Lord I know that the way of man is not in himself
it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps Oh Lord correct
me but with judgment not in thine anger lest thou bring me to nothing
Here is the Prophet and he sees that it is God who must do the
work. Man cannot do it of himself.
Jeremiah cannot do it of himself. He cannot direct his steps when
he walks. It is the Lord who must set him
in that right path and so he desires that the Lord would correct
him. That the Lord would set him in
that right way, even the way of righteousness. I was struck
by a statement in William Gurnall. We referred to Gurnall recently
when we were looking at that spiritual armour that the Lord
has supplied for his people, spoken of in Ephesians 6, and
the great work of that old Puritan, the Christian incomplete armour. And Goenel says this, God would
not rob so hard were it not to fetch out the dirt that is ingrained
in our nature. This is sanctification, you see.
God would not rob so hard were it not to fetch out the dirt
that is ingrained in our nature. He loves purity so well, he'd
rather see a hole than a spot. in his child's garments. He rubs
so hard because he would rather see a hole, says the Puritan,
than a spot in the garments of his child. And so what does God
do? What does that suggest to us
when God rubs and rubs so hard that he makes a hole? It reminds
us of God's chastenings, does it not? This is how God leads
his people in the paths of righteousness. He lays the rod upon them. He
robs hearts. They feel it. In order that they
might be pure and holy. We're told, are we not, in the
12th chapter of Hebrews where the Apostle is speaking of God's
dealings in the way of chastisement. though chastening for the present
seemeth to be joyous, says Paul, but grievous, nevertheless afterward
it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who
are exercised thereby." What is the fruit of the chastising? It's the peaceable fruit of righteousness. This is what God is about, you
see, when He chastises, when He corrects. It's to set His
people in the right path. How we're prone to wonder, how
we're prone to leave the God that we love. How God needs to
come and correct us, to bring us back into that straight, that
narrow way that leads to life. He speaks there in Hebrews 12,
does he not, of chastening in this sense. The aim, the object
is that we might be partakers of his holiness, he says. Hebrews
12, verse 10. He chastens us because He will
make us partakers of His holiness. We who are so unholy, how are
we made holy? Only by God's dealings. And when
God deals with us, and He's dealing with us all the time, and yet
so often we're unaware of the Lord's dealings. It's those who
are exercised, that's what it says. It yields the peaceable
fruit of righteousness to them who are exercised. Are we exercised
in these things? Are we concerned about these
things? Is sin to us a terrible thing, a grievous thing? Does
it cause us to cry much to God that he would deliver us? Deliver
us from ourselves really, the old nature within us. They would
make us conform more and more to the image of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Because all these things, are they not in Christ? Paul
writing to the Corinthians reminds him, he says, 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
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. It is the glory of the
Lord then. Or when the Lord restores us,
does He not restore us to that path of righteousness, that path
of sanctification? And in His restorings, how sometimes
He has to come in the way of chastisings and crosses and go
contrary to us. How all these things have a voice,
the Lord's voice says the Prophet, cry unto the sitter, the man
of wisdom, shall see thy name, hear the right, and do hath appointed
it. God's name is in it. It's all for his name's sake
as we see at the end of the verse. But this salvation that God has
provided for sinners is not only to be observed in the great truth
of our sanctification, but also in that great doctrine of justification. He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for his name's sake. Is it not principally this
path of justification that we need to be restored to? All that
expression at the end, for his name's sake. It's all for His
own glory. It's all to the prize of the
glory of His grace. There's no merit, no desert in
man. All that we deserve, of course,
is to be punished for our sins. that we deserve to suffer the
consequence of all that wicked rebellion that we saw in those
particular words that we saw just now to give some sort of
definition of this vocabulary that we find in God's word how
it finds us out we're sinners and as sinners we deserve the
wrath of God We considered those words this morning in Galatians
3 or made some reference to them. The accursed man, who is he?
He is that man who continues not in all things written in
the book of the law to do them. Or we are those who are under
the curse. And we deserve to suffer the wrath of God. But
God will save the sinner, why? For his namesake. For his namesake. It reminds us then of that great
doctrine of justification. The words of the hymn writer,
he says, Righteousness within thee rooted may appear to take
thy part, but let righteousness imputed be the breastplates of
thy heart. There's a difference you see
between sanctification and justification. where there is sanctification
there is that enrouting of holiness and righteousness and God makes
us what we are when the sinner is born again he's partaker of
a new nature a divine nature and it's a righteous nature but when it comes to justification
that is something altogether outside of ourselves. It's not
God making us holy and righteous, it's having someone else's righteousness
imputed to us, reckoned to our accounts. And there is in a sense,
we might say, a two-fold aspect to that justification. Those who are justified, they
are cleansed and cleared of all sin. And we have it of course there
in the Psalm. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Iniquity is not imputed. Iniquity is not reckoned to his
charge. Oh, he feels his sin. Certainly David did. He says
elsewhere, iniquities prevail against me. Now that sin that was in his
very nature was so prevalent and he couldn't deliver himself.
Iniquities prevail against me, as for our transgressions, He
says, they will purge them away. This is what God does when He
justifies His people, is it not? He purges them, He washes them,
He cleanses them. This is a vital part of our justification. It's the pardon of our sins.
It's in the Lord Jesus Christ, is it not? Because He is that
One who was wounded, who suffered, who bled, who died in the room
and in the stead of his people, wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquity, the chastisement of our peace, says
Isaiah, was upon him. He was the one who suffered there
upon the cross and shed his precious blood, and it is that blood,
of course, that is cleansing. It's that fountain that has been
opened for sin and uncleanness. And so the man's iniquity is
not imputed to him, it's not reckoned to his charge because
he has been washed clean. The sin has been removed. And
how has the sin been removed? It's been punished in the person
of another. even the Lord Jesus Christ by
His obedience there in dying upon the cross. That is one very
important aspect of the sinner's justification. He is cleansed
from all his sins. Iniquity is not imputed, nothing
is reckoned to his charge. He is now innocent. But something
more is required, is it not? Something more is required, and
we're reminded of that in those words at the end of Deuteronomy
chapter 6. What is it that God requires? It shall be our righteousness
if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord
our God as He has commanded us. Not enough, you see. That our
sin has been removed, that our iniquity is not imputed to us. We're free then from all the
guilt of sin, but we need a positive righteousness. That righteousness
that is spoken of there at the end of Deuteronomy chapter 6. And this is that other part of
the great work of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is, you see, in
a sense, what we might say is a double imputation. And Paul speaks of that in the
fifth chapter of that epistle to the Romans. In verse 19 he says, As by one
man's disobedience many were made sinners, So by the obedience
of one shall many be made righteous. He's speaking here, is he not,
of one man, that is the first man, Adam. By his disobedience
many were made sinners. And then he speaks of another,
another man. By the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous, that is the last Adam, that is the
second man, the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven. Adam's transgression is imputed
to us. He was the head of all the human
race and when he sinned, that sin is reckoned to our charge. But then there is his other man.
the Lord Jesus Christ and His obedience is that that He is
reckoned to the charge of all those who are in Him in the eternal
covenant all that the Father gave to Him. There is that, as
I say, in a sense that double imputation As we see in 2nd Corinthians
chapter 5 and verse 21, God hath made him to be sin for us, who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him. All that sin that was our sin,
is the sin that was imputed to the Lord Jesus Christ, reckoned
to his account, And in exchange, what does he do? Why we receive
his righteousness, his righteousness he's reckoned to our account,
imputed to us. That's what Paul is saying there
in that verse in 2nd Corinthians 5, "...he hath made him to be
sin for us who knew no sin." He was the sinless one, the innocent
one, and yet sin was charged upon him, reckoned to his account.
But there is that blessed exchange in the Gospel, all his righteousness
is then imputed to his people, reckoned to their account. That
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ might cover that
poor sinner. He is not only cleansing us now
from his sin. His sin is covered. There in
the Psalm, Psalm 32 and verse 2, whose sin is covered, it says,
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputed, not iniquity, but his sin is that that he is
now covered. And he is covered by the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, How is all of this experience? What is it to know these things? To know what it is to be clothed
in that righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. How is it
that it can become ours? Well it's here of course that
that grace of faith comes in. It's experienced by faith, is
it not? That's the very thing that Paul is saying in our reading
in Romans chapter 4. Romans 4 of course in many ways
is Paul's comment upon the opening words of Psalm 32. He actually refers to the words
of David does he not? He's speaking of Abraham and
he's speaking of Abraham who is the manner counted righteous. Abraham believed God and it was
counted unto him for righteousness it said. 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 justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. This Righteousness that Abraham
had, it wasn't something that he worked for, it was that that
came by faith. Even as David also described
of the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without work, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are
forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. How Paul makes it so clear, writing
there in Romans. As I said, it's an exposition
of what David has said in the opening part of the psalm. It's the imputation of Christ's
righteousness that came upon Abraham. The Lord says to the Jews in
John chapter 8, your father Abram rejoiced to see my day and he
saw it and was glad. And how did Abram see the day
of the Lord Jesus Christ? He saw it in Type. He saw it
in his son, Isaac, the son of promise as we were saying only
this morning. He sees it there in what's recorded
in Genesis chapter 22. when he's commanded to take his
son, his only son, there to the Mount Moriah and to make a sacrifice
of him. But it's not Isaac who is sacrificed,
it's that ram that was caught in the horn, caught in the thicket
by its horns. It's that ram that is sacrifice,
the substitute, in all of this he is able by faith to discern
the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, he looks to that promise,
the promise of the seed that was to come, a seed which is
Christ as we read in Galatians chapter 3. And all his salvation
was in Christ. and this is what we have here,
to be those who are led into the paths of righteousness is
to be led in the paths of the Lord Jesus Christ and to see
in Him all of our salvation in every part of that salvation
be it in our sanctification, be it in our justification it
is all in Christ and only in the Lord Jesus Christ who of
God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. It is Christ then who is all
and in all. But who are those who see their
need of this salvation? It is those who have that awful
sense of their sinnership. Or they need the Lord to come,
they need the Lord to appear, they need the Lord Himself to
act in their behalf. to work mightily and effectually
in their hearts. He restoreth my soul, He leadeth
me in the path of righteousness for His name's sake. May the Lord be pleased to bless
His Word to us.