Now if you take your Bibles,
turn back with me to Psalm 45. Psalm 45, you're looking at verses 4 and 5, mainly
the end of verse 4 and the complete verse of verse 5. The scripture
says, in thy majesty, ride prosperously because of truth and meekness
and righteousness. and thy right hand shall teach
thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the
heart of the king's enemies, whereby the people fall under
thee." I've entitled this message, A Piercing Gospel. A Piercing Gospel. Now the scriptures we know clearly
teach us that because of Adam's sin, all of our race, all of
our race became enemies of God. All of our race became captives
to sin. The day he ate what God forbid
him to eat. The day our father sought to
rob God of his glory. Darkness covered his heart. Darkness covered the very depths
of his being. And so great was this darkness
that Adam thought he could hide his sin from the omniscient God,
the omnipresent, all-knowing God. Adam assumed he could hide
his sin. It was by sin of this one man
that sin entered into the world, and as a result, death by sin,
and death passed, death passed upon all men. Later in that chapter
of Romans 5 it says, By one man's disobedience many were made sinners. How were you made a sinner? Were
you made a sinner by your commission of sin? No. Your commission of
sin just manifested what you are. What you were made when
our Father sinned. Galatians 3 22 the scripture
hath concluded. I don't care what men think the
scripture hath concluded this all Under sin all under its dominion
under its power They're captive to it. We are born captive And
because of this captivity, we know, according to the word of
God, that no man can free himself. You cannot free yourself. No
man can obey the law of God. This one thing is true of us
all by nature. We love our chains. We love our
sins. We may not like the consequences
of it, but I'll tell you this, we sure love seeing. I don't know if you've ever had
any in your family, I have, drug addicts or alcoholics. You would
think that's the most ridiculous thing in the world, that they
would, that you could teach them, you can instruct them, you can
educate them. You can give them money, you
can do all of these things and yet they knowingly know it's
death and they will pursue it. Unless God intervenes, they'll
just pursue it. But this is true of all of us.
Not just about drugs, it's about sin. We know this, sin, the wages
of sin is death and yet we run to it as though it were a great
treasure. This is our nature. We as believers
understand this about ourselves. There's no difference between
us and the lost world naturally. What would happen to you if God
moved His hand from you? Just give you to yourself for
one minute. What would you do? Would you
be any different than them? Would you supposed to have any
power over your own flesh to keep yourself from sin? Believers know we can't. A man could try to cover his
guilt before God and reform his life. He may become moral and
leave even the appearance of evil. He may get a good religious
education. He may put on a good show. A lot of people are. A lot of people putting on a
good religious show. You know, I talk to a lot of
people When they find out I'm a pastor, you see, they just
sort of straighten up, but they try not to cuss as much, try
not to drink as much, you know, they feel miserable around me,
I think. It's as though them stopping or starting something
is going to make them more acceptable with God. You don't have to worry
about me. It's God. So it may even put on a good
show, but unless, unless Christ comes and delivers you from the
guilt of sin, the power of sin, and the presence of sin, there's
no hope for you to deliver yourself. There is no way for a man to
deliver himself. Friends, this is just how it
is. This is how it is. This is how
ruined and captive every man is. But in this psalm, that's
a bad situation. That's a bad condition. You run
to death as though it were life. You run from God and run to hell. You're ruined. You can't change
it even if you wanted to. But this psalm, God says, I'm
indicting something good. I'm going to indict a good matter
of my heart. This is my heart. A heart of
grace towards sinners. It is a good matter. What's the
matter of the text? What is the matter of Scripture?
What is the whole of God's indictment? It is simply His Son. It is Jesus Christ! This is the
good matter. He said, things that I have made
touching the King. Therefore God has purposed and
sent His Son into the world. When Adam sinned, you remember
God's first indictment. His first indictment is overflowing
heart of grace. to Adam. What was it? It was
this, the seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent. That one who tempted our mother,
that one who started this matter of sin, the father of sin, he
said, I'm going to go to the root and I'm going to crush his
head. Adam, I imagine, thought that
was a, man, that's the best idea I've heard. That's so good after
hearing his condemnation after God condemning him and cursing
the world because of him And God says I got a good matter
though It's a matter about my son the seed of the woman Jesus
is What we call the second Adam We call him that because Adam
represented a people As I told you, you didn't become a sinner
because you sinned, you became a sinner because of Adam. By the disobedience of one, many
were made what? Sinners. But I've got a good matter. By
the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous. He said, I don't like that, man.
Adam, you know, it's not fair that I'm a sinner and Adam, you
know what's really not fair, but gracious. I'm righteous because
of the obedience of Christ. I like that. I like this matter
of a representative, don't you? One that does everything for
me, where I'm not included in the process. I'm just a recipient. of it. But how is He going to
do this? How is this Sekhmet going to
deliver us from the curse of sin, the bondage of Satan, the
justice of the law of God? How? He shall bruise His heel. Only by the death of the cross
has Jesus freed His people. It was by the cross He crushed
all of His enemies that enslaved His people and separated them
from God. It was only by his one offering,
only by this one offering, was the justice of God forever satisfied
for our sins. By his one offering. By that
one offering, scripture says he hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified. How? By his one offering. by
his one offering. So then Jesus Christ is the good
matter of God to all who are enslaved, to all who are captives,
to sin, dead in trespasses. Listen, he came, he came to set
the captives free. You know who that's good news
to? Captives. I like that remember when Jesus
was talking to those Pharisees and he said if the Son shall
set you free you shall be free indeed Now was that exciting
to the Pharisees one Well, we've not ever been captive to any
man So if you're not If you can free
yourself from sin, if you can free yourself by your religious
deeds, if you can free yourself by your good works, this is not
talking to you. This good matter is not for you.
This good matter is only for those who are chained to their
sin, those who cannot break free, those who cannot satisfy the
justice of God. Anybody? If anybody cannot satisfy
the justice of God by anything they can do, will do, or ever
do, then this good matter is for you. God has sent his son
to be a conqueror, a deliverer in thy majesty. Ride prosperously, successfully,
triumphantly to do what? To deliver your people. That's
what he's come to do, deliver his captives. You see, God the Father having
given his elect into the hands of his son, he says, ride prosperously. And even so, by these things,
Jesus Christ has triumphed over his enemies. God purposed that
his son Christ should be victorious And he trusted all of his people. When God chose a people and loved
them, who did he trust to save them? He trusted Christ. Look down
in Ephesians chapter 1, it says, who first trusted in Christ? Who first trusted in Christ?
Who first had faith in Christ? Look what the Father did by giving
us to Christ. He trusted Him. And listen, when
He comes to ride prosperously, now look down at the last part
of this verse, when He comes, this is what God says will happen
to Christ. He says, Thy right hand shall
teach thee terrible things. This is speaking to us of the
experience of our Lord Jesus Christ as he came into this world. As he came to deliver us, this
speaks of the experience of Christ. It's hard to say this. If scripture
hadn't said it, I wouldn't say it. Christ learned something. Thy right hand shall what? Teach
thee. Christ learned, listen, learned
obedience by the experience of suffering. Jesus was not taught by any man
to be obedient to God. You and I have to be taught obedience,
right? Don't do that. Son, stop. No,
don't. That's bad. That's not good.
We were taught. Christ wasn't taught to be obedient
to God. That was natural for him. He received the truth and
meekness and righteousness as it was by nature and by the revelation of God. Remember when he was 12 years
old? 12 years old, where was he? Only portion of Scripture
we got in his youth other than his circumcision and his birth. Where was he? His parents went
back, they traveled, and they thought it with him, and he's
back there in the temple teaching the doctors. The doctors of the
law, he was teaching them. Can you imagine this? His mom and dad look around,
said, where's Jesus? We don't know where he's at.
We must have left him. And so now then, they're hot,
they're mad. I mean, I can only imagine. Well,
when I get ahold of that boy, I would have teach him a thing
or two, leaving us like that, making us worry. They got in
there and said, where have you been? Can you imagine that? Speaking
to the son of God. What were they mad at him for? He said, didn't my father tell
you what I was here for? Wish you not to be about my father's
business. Don't you? And those wicked people snatched
him up, took him home, and you know what? He submitted to them. Our Lord Jesus subjected himself to those he created and sustained. to those people who were sinning
and angry against Him for no good cause. He experienced suffering. He learned. It was in humility
and subjection to the will of God and the suffering of the
flesh that Christ learned the terror of sin and the justice
of God's wrath. You can see this again, I'm gonna
just show it to you, Hebrews five, Hebrews five. That's where
this scripture is found. Verse seven, who in the days
of his flesh after he'd offered up prayers and supplications
with strong crying and tears unto him that able to save him
from death and was heard in that he feared, though he were a son
yet learned he obedience by the things he suffered. Christ was truly the Son of God
and yet learned obedience by suffering. He learned this by,
as the Son of God, never did he experience suffering. Only
was he always continuously joyful in the presence of his Father,
always in exceeding joy and praise of his creation. Yet for our
sakes he experienced suffering Now listen he had knowledge of
suffering matter of fact he made it Isn't suffering made by him.
I mean it's just all things are made by him. He is totally in
control of all things and Yet now he subjects himself under
this suffering personally experiences all the
pains and hardships of sin, and much more than that, he experienced
the terror of the justice of God against sin. When Christ was made sin for
us, it was then the full measure of God's wrath. The full measure
of God's wrath fell on him. This is something that not any
man could know in this life. And even consider this, if you
were to die and go to hell, you would never experience the same
measure that Christ did. He suffered for all of the sins
of all his people. It's not something we can learn
by our power. The terror of sin under the strict
justice of God was something that our Savior experienced. As our High Priest, He offered
a sacrifice under the full measure of God's justice. He bore the
guilt and suffered as no man ever suffered. He was the spotless
Lamb of God and yet He bore our sin in His own body on the tree. Again, these words, they come
out, but we really can't grab a hold of them. This is what
we must believe by faith and trust this to be so. And it was by this suffering
for sin in the place of his people that Christ has brought eternal
salvation. Look at that text in Hebrews
5, 9. It says, and being made perfect, having earned, having
merited perfection by his obedience and death, having made perfect,
he became the author of what? Eternal salvation. Who is the author of this? Jesus
Christ. He is the author of eternal salvation
unto all that obey him, all who believe on him. He is the author
and finisher of our salvation. And he did this by the experience. And like I said, can we even
begin to fathom the terror, the terrible things Christ experienced? I'll tell you what, there's a
lot of things that I'm just totally ignorant of. There may be terrors
on every corner around me and I'm just oblivious of what's
happening. God said there was a storm coming
tonight. I was just oblivious until he told me. I would have never known until
the storm just came along, there it is. We're oblivious to many
things, Christ wasn't. He knew everything that was going
on around Him. He knew the hatred of men, how
they despised Him, how they ridiculed Him, how they would persecute
His people, how they would crucify Him. He knew all of these things.
Can you imagine having the knowledge of all the terrors that you're
going to face in the next... Just say you could know everything
in the next coming week. You think you'd be a little anxious?
But he knew all of this. He suffered many things for us.
And we see the experience then of every child of God in the
next verse. This is the experience of Christ
in his prosperous ride. And I want you to know this,
he's successful. This experience of terror that
he was taught, by this he saved us from the terror. He saved
us from the wrath of God. I know this. I will never experience
the wrath of God because of Him. Isn't that wonderful? He did this for all of His elect.
Now then, secondly, see the experience of every child of God in verse
5. This is when He has ridden prosperously for us. But this
is the experience in verse 5 of everyone he has saved. It says
this, Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemy,
whereby the people fall under thee. As Christ, by his experience,
learned the terror of the Lord and bore the full weight of our
sin, even so every one of his children must learn the obedience
of faith. experimentally. Christ, when God purposed you
to salvation, that was not yet. Christ must experience that terror. Christ must have died for our
sins, and he did. Even so, everyone he has died
for must be born again. They must come to Christ by faith. They must experience it. Just as true as God purposed
the salvation of His elect, just as sure as Christ died for the
elect, Even so, everyone he has chosen shall be set free through
faith in him. Free. All of his saints, all
of them. I remember seeing a World War
II, it was a movie but basically a documentary. One portion of
this, they had the soldiers were out on a patrol and they came
across this one of these concentration camps.
It was horrible. They described the condition
of these Jews. They were all skeletons, walking
skeletons, so malnourished with no food. that the Germans had
already lost. The war was over and yet these
people were enslaved. They just left them there to
die. What a picture of us by nature.
Christ, our King, has already won the war. But when we're born into this
world, we're born as those Jews in that concentration camp. We
are born dead. We are born without hope. There was no hope
for those guys. They had no strength, couldn't
even climb over the fence. You imagine if there was no guards
there, they can get over the fence. Had no strength. I had no strength. I was mean. Until one day Christ came to
me in my prison, opened the doors, and laid bread at my feet. He came and delivered us. This is what He will do with
His people. He will always come and deliver
them. How does he do this? How does
he do this? Well, look at this. The arrows
of the king. What is this arrow of the king?
It is simply this. It is the gospel. The arrow of
the king is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the gospel of Jesus
Christ by nature to man is offensive. It is abhorrent. What is the
gospel of Christ? It is simply salvation without
works. Salvation by grace, salvation
by the merits of Christ alone, by the blood of Christ alone,
without your help. That's salvation by grace. The natural man receiveth not
the things of God. The natural man despises the
things of God. Why? They're foolishness to him.
You mean salvation is completely in the will and hands of God?
Yep. You mean Jesus Christ came to
save only and elect people and died only for them? Exactly. He was completely successful
to save them and he's only going to call them. Yes, that's right. Absolutely. I don't like that. That's foolish. Okay. I didn't
either. Neither can he know them. Don't
get mad at people because they can't know this. They just can't. Because they're spiritually disturbed. And because of this, they will
mock the gospel we preach. They will despise it. I thought
of the illustration of David and Goliath. Here's Goliath, a monumental
man, nine foot at some measurements, some taller. And here comes David,
little handsome ruddy boy. with a sling in his hand. And
here, you remember what happened, as soon as he came out, he didn't
have no armor, he didn't have no weapon, he had a little child's
toy in his hand. And what did Goliath do? He began
to mock him. Am I a dog that you'd come out
here with me with a stick? That's all you are, boy, is a
stick. I'm gonna feed your flesh to the fowls of the air today,
I'm gonna kill you. Here's Goliath, nine foot so
or more, I read this way, armor weighed 270 pounds. His spear,
in proportion to his height, some said, was at 26 feet. I measured this today, that's
16 feet. 26 foot long beam. The weight of the head of that
spear was 18 pounds. Not to mention he had a shield
and a sword. Giant of a man. He was well defended,
wouldn't you say? Pretty well defended. I bet he
felt real confident in his success. This is exactly how the natural
man feels against the gospel. When you preach a gospel, that's
how he feels. He feels nine foot tall. He looks at you and you
are nothing. Your gospel is nothing. And they mock. Men see the gospel of Christ
as nothing but foolishness. They mock Christ, they mock the
Savior of Israel, they mock His message, they mock His servants,
they despise and oppose the true gospel with their false freewill
works religion. So your message, I want you to
know this, when you preach it is less than nothing to them.
Vanity. Your message is vanity to them. But David being a type of Christ,
what a picture. That's how they looked at your
Savior, too. What a picture! He trusted God to be his armor,
his strength to slay his enemies, and as David ran toward his foe
in faith, it was only by a smooth stone he defeated his enemy,
his well-armed enemy. Even so does the gospel that
seems small to men, We know this, it is the power of God that bypasses
all of man's defenses. Then you put up a fight, then
you have a defense. How'd that work out for you?
When the gospel came to you, did it not pierce through every
objection you had? The gospel of Christ is sharp. It is sharp. The gospel arrow
of Christ pierces through the heart of sinners. This gospel
that appears powerless and foolish to man, as David was to Goliath,
with that sling and a rock. But this arrow, this arrow in
the hands of Christ is sharp and always hits its mark. What's the mark? Every time Christ
pulls the bow of his gospel, what is his mark? It's the heart. It's not the mind. It's not the will. What men spend
a lot of time trying to change, right? Change your mind. Change
your will. Christ doesn't try to change
your mind or change your will. He changes your heart and then
your mind and will are changed. Before any sinner comes to life
in faith, he must be struck in the heart by the gospel. The arrow must cut through his
defenses of earthly wisdom, through the weakness of his flesh, break
the bones of his pride. When Christ, when he is struck
by Christ, that man lays dead at the feet of Christ. When that man is hit by this,
the king's arrow, he sees this, he's dead. He sees that there is nothing
he can do to save himself. Have you seen this? Have you
been struck to see that you are the sinner? I remember being a Pharisee.
I remember looking around the room when he would preach about
sinners and I would look over and say, yeah, that's talking
about that guy. Surely it's talking about you. But when the king
struck me, when he said sinner, he was talking about me. I don't
know about you. Lord, be merciful to me, thee,
sinner. You know, that publican didn't
look over at that self-righteous Pharisee and say, oh, look, Lord,
there's a sinner. He said, I'm the sinner. And so Christ doesn't strike
the man's will or his mind, his heart. The gospel goes to the
root of the problem. What's the root of man's problem?
Is it his environment? His socio-economic status, is
that it? That's what men think. If they
could just change that, some dude in Florida just won a billion
dollars. I guarantee you it didn't change
his heart. Whatever his heart is, is what it's going to be. When the king strikes, he strikes
the heart. Remember the covenant of God's
grace? Look at that in Ezekiel 36 for
me. When the king strikes, this is
what the king reveals. He reveals his covenant. His
covenant of grace that he made before he struck you. Before
he came to you with the gospel. Before he aimed his arrow at
you. Ezekiel 36. Get there. Look at verse 24, I will take
you from among what? The heathen. Isn't that where
he found you? I was sitting in the middle of
a sovereign grace church and I was a heathen, a godless man. I will take you from among the
heathen and gather you out of all countries and I will bring
you into your own land. And I will sprinkle, listen,
I will sprinkle clean water upon you. And you shall be clean. For what? Your filthiness. All your filthiness. And from
all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I
give you and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh,
a heart of affection, a heart of feeling, a heart of faith. And I will put
My Spirit in you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you
shall keep My judgments and do them. God has, when He strikes
a man, He takes him from among the heathen. And what does he
do with that man? He cleanses him. He cleans him. From what? All your filth. Remember those people in that
concentration camp, how filthy. You not think it was refreshing
to be cleaned? These people, to be fed? That's
how we felt when we came to Christ, when He struck us in the heart,
pierced us, we fell at His feet as dead. He gives us life and He gives
us faith. Praise God that Christ is so
skilled that He never misses His target. And I want you to know this,
Arrows are sharp go back to your text real fast. I know I've got
to go It's on 45 the arrows are sharp
in the heart of the Kings enemies Who's wielding the arrows Whose arrows are they they're
the Kings This is very important When I
preach the gospel, I know this, I am not going to do anything
for you. I am not trying to aim this gospel
at anyone. That belongs only to Christ. He said, my word goes forth out
of my mouth. It shall prosper in the thing
where unto I send it. When Christ aims his arrows,
it always hits the mark. I'm not the archer. I'm just The messenger. I may
be the bow or whatever, but what is that? You know? It's Christ's
hand. It's Christ's hand that aims
it. And it's Christ's hand that always hits the mark. And notice
this. The people fall under the... What happens to everyone Christ
hits with the gospel? What do they do? They subject
themselves under His feet. He is our King. We were His enemies. But now, we are His friends. Is that not astounding? All His
people fall under Him. Every sinner hit by the gospel
falls under the yoke and dominion of Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior. They bow to Him in love and faith. So all who are hit by Christ
bow to Christ. And we are not, we who believe
on Christ as sovereign ruler, we understand that He rules everything. That He rules everything. That
He is sovereign and all things are in His hands. He gives to
us and takes from us as He pleases. and it is by his gospel that
men are saved, fed, and sustained to eternal life. We that believe on Christ, therefore
we are now where we were enemies, but now we are constrained. Sin is no longer the love of
our life, but the bane of our existence. We see Christ as the
love of our life. We see Christ as our hope. We
see Christ as our king. And what constrains you? What
keeps you? We know this, that we are kept
by his power. He who saved us, called us. He keeps us. He keeps us. How is it that we are constrained
then from the sin of this flesh only by His love? Remember, it
is the love of Christ that constrains us. The love of Christ that constrains
us. We believe that by His grace
we were saved and it's by His grace we shall endure to the
end. Therefore, we are confident that
every one Christ pierces with this gospel will fall under Him.
Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. We have been given a heart now,
a new nature of righteousness, and it is our desire to be righteous. Our affections are no longer
toward the earth, but By faith, we look for a city whose builder
and maker is God. We've been given a change of
mind and will because He has pierced us. We have fallen under
His feet. And therefore, everyone who has
true faith, we know this, true faith always comes with repentance.
It always does. We hear that scripture. Let the
wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
And let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy on him
to our God and he will abundantly pardon. Isn't that what happened
when he pierced you and you fell under his feet? Did you not forsake
your way? I had a way to heaven. But when
he came to me, I abandoned that way. I abandoned my thoughts
of God, my thoughts of salvation, and I fell under his feet. And
you know what? He had mercy upon me, and he
has abundantly pardoned. He said, My thoughts are not
your thoughts, neither my ways your ways, saith the Lord. For
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher
than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. So as a believer gladly forsakes
all of his thoughts and ways, he clings only to Christ for
all his salvation. Was this not our experience?
Is this not what happened to us? Were we not captives? Were
we not enemies of God? We were. Until when? Until Christ
came and shot the arrow of his gospel into our hearts and we
fell under We became subjects of Christ. I know Don used to
talk about that a lot, that Appomattox Courthouse and how
the South had surrendered and how they'd stack their arms when
they signed that surrender. When Christ come to me, I stack
my arms. I'm no longer at war. with God,
because Christ has made peace for me, for me. And I gladly fall under his rule.
Is that not so with you? You believe, I'm so glad he was
prosperous in his ride, so glad he was prosperous to pierce me
all through my defenses, so that I should fall under him. and
be saved. Would to God He'd do that now.
Show man their sin, show them their need, and then show them
Christ is the only hope.