We are in Psalm 83 tonight. Psalm 83, this is going to be
part two. Now, I want to go through the verses of Psalm 83 with you
tonight. Last week, I gave you an overview,
and in that overview, what we did was we asked the question,
what do all these wars in the Old Testament have to do with?
What are they teaching us? Because the Old Testament was
definitely given to teach us something. And we know that ultimately
it teaches us about the Lord Jesus Christ, because all of
scripture, all of the volume of the book, is about Him. Jesus said when He came into
the world in Psalm 40, verses 6-8, that God had prepared for
Him a body, and he came to sacrifice himself. And that was God's will. It's explained to us in Hebrews
chapter 10. And this is what the volume,
the entire volume of God's word is about. And Jesus expounded
the scriptures beginning at Moses and in the Psalms and the prophets
to those two on the road to Emmaus. And throughout all of scripture,
the word of God tells us about the Lamb of God. And this is
why John the Baptist was the greatest prophet that ever lived
is because he had one message. He did no miracles. He told us
and told those who heard him about Jesus Christ, the Lamb
of God. So we know that ultimately the
Old Testament is about Christ. But in Psalm 83, when we read
about this as a prayer to God, that he would judge his enemies,
who are identified as the enemies of his people, We wonder in a
larger question, as we consider the entire Old Testament, yeah,
what about all these people that are named in Psalm 83, such as
the Edomites or the Amalekites or the Ishmaelites or the Midianites? All these different people are
named in this chapter. And so what are all these wars
that the nation of Israel had with these people for years?
decades, hundreds of years, in the land of Canaan, the land
that God had promised to them. And so as we looked at that question,
then we considered what the New Testament says, because the New
Testament is the revelation of what was hidden in the Old Testament.
Then we learned that these enemies are the enemies of God. and they
are the enemies of His people, and they are those enemies identified
as our sins and the consequences of our sins against God, which
then naturally raises our surprise. It raises our awareness of the
amazingness of God's grace, that God would identify us and separate
between us and our sins and love us in spite of our sins and send
his son to reconcile us who were enemies in our minds and by our
wicked works. Reconcile us to himself and do
so at the price of the death of his son. And so that is the
gospel in miniature, in a very condensed way, that God has reconciled
us to himself by the death of his son. And so when we look
at the New Testament, as we're trying to understand Psalm 83,
we see that our sin is our enemy, first and foremost. And because
of our sin, God's wrath is against us. And therefore, because God's
wrath is brought upon us as the curse of God's law, then we have
also the curse of the law. God's law requires us to obey
perfectly all the time, and any failure brings us under the curse
of the law. So we're under that curse as
well. And then we have the corruptions of our sinful nature, and those
corruptions are with us even after the Lord saves us. In fact,
our corrupt sinful nature has no change. It undergoes no change
when the Lord saves us. We still have an old man, a carnal
nature, and this is with us, and the apostle Paul calls it
many things, old man, wretched man, carnal mind and flesh are
some of those names that he gives that old nature that we're still
bound to in this body of sin. And that's another thing, and
we talked about that, I believe, last time, that our own bodies
are bodies of sin, and the body is dead because of sin. It's
going to die, and we feel the suffering in our body to some
extent, at least, that is the consequence of a dying body.
And so that's where we are with our enemies. And the gospel comes
to us with a declaration of Christ's accomplishments. And the accomplishments
of the Lord Jesus were a complete victory over all of our enemies. His name is Jesus because he
shall save his people from their sins. And if you want to look
with me, just as another example, we didn't read this one last
time, but look at Luke chapter one, where John the Baptist's
father, Zacharias, is prophesying in Luke chapter one. And in verse
68, he says this, he says, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for
he has visited and redeemed his people. He speaks about it as
if it's past. because he is speaking about
the coming of Christ as a past event and his accomplishments
because it's the way God speaks in scripture. He always refers
to things in the future as though they are already past because
of the certainty of them. And so he says in verse 68, blessed
be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed
his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation
for us in the house of his servant David. That would be the Lord
Jesus. He's the horn, the strong one. as he spake by the mouth
of his holy prophets which have been since the world began. So
it wasn't new, God told about this in the Old Testament by
the prophets, that we should be saved from our enemies and
from the hand of all that hate us to perform the mercy promised
to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. the oath which
he swore to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us that
we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve
him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him
all the days of our life, And thou, child, shall be called
the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before the face
of the Lord to prepare his ways. So, you see, the prophecy has
to do with God saving his people from their enemies. And then
if you look at just one example, in Romans chapter five, where
it says, it describes his salvation, he says in Romans 5, 21, as sin,
sin hath reigned unto death, okay, so this is
a tyrant who's reigning, it's called sin, the tyrant, the king,
sin, reigning unto death, that's what sin brings without failure. Even so might now another king
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. All right, so now we see these
two enemies. We see the enemy and the victor.
We see the champion who is on the side of our enemies, and
we see the champion who is on the Lord's side, which is the
Lord Jesus Christ. That wicked champion is sin and
death. Sin brings death. But how did
God deliver us according to Romans 5.21? Well, it was through grace
reigning through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord. And this is the wonder of the
gospel, isn't it? Grace reigns, not sin. And it's
through righteousness, it's on the ground, on the foundation
of the obedience of Christ unto death. And because Christ obeyed,
because of His righteousness, then we're given eternal life.
Eternal life is the reward of righteousness. And that principle
is stated over and over in the New Testament. Life because of
righteousness. Just like sin, I mean death because
of sin, life because of righteousness. In the first case, we earned
it. It's our fault. Sin is our fault. Death is therefore
our due. But in the second case, Christ earned it and it's therefore
grace to us. His righteousness earned eternal
life for us as a gift of God and it's all by Him. So you can
see these enemies that Zacharias spoke about is the enemy of our
sin and Christ overcame our enemy, our great enemy, sin. Now that
enemy of sin is not just the guilt of sin, but it's also the
power of sin. In Romans 6, 14, as sin, he says,
for sin shall not have dominion over you. That's what, for example,
Pharaoh had over the Israelites in Egypt. He had dominion. He
had absolute rule over them. Sin shall not have dominion over
you, for you're not under the law, but under grace. The law,
it was used to hold us under this dominion of sin, because
we could do nothing but sin under the law, but under grace we're
able to trust Christ. We're able to look to Him who
fulfilled the law in verse 17 of Romans 6, but God be thanked
that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from
the heart. that form of doctrine which was
delivered to you. So here we have the faith that
God gives to us being given to us by grace in spite of our sin. And that's why we're to thank
God for it. Over and over again, notice this
when you read the New Testament epistles, that the apostle Paul
thanks God for the faith and for the love of God's people. And then he goes on to express
his prayer that God would increase those things, their faith, their
love, their hope, their understanding. and their patience and all the
things that go with those gifts of grace that come from God.
All right, so I'm just saying that in summary from last time,
that the New Testament reveals that the enemies that were in
the Old Testament, the physical enemies, those nations and people
in the Old Testament, that the Israelites were told by God,
you get them out of Canaan, you kick them out, You dispossess
them and you take their land. That is a picture of God giving
us in the body, in our body right now, His Holy Spirit. As we look
to Christ by faith, then therefore grace reigns in us. Sin has no more dominion. We're
able to trust Christ, who is our victor, our champion, just
like David was. Okay, so this body has been redeemed,
just like God had promised the Israelites the land of Canaan
as their inheritance, God has promised us an eternal inheritance,
and our redeemed body, we don't have it yet, but we look forward
to it, and while we're in this body, we are in a body that has
many enemies, and those enemies are inside of us. and they're
outside of us. The world on the outside and
our own sin nature on the inside. All right, so with that overview,
I want to go through some of these verses in Psalm 83. So
let's look at verse one. He says, keep not thou silence,
O God, hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. Now, given the context that we
just summarized, the New Testament explanation of the Old Testament
wars, spiritual enemies, the New Testament says, is the issue
here. Sin is our enemy. Death is our
enemy. The curse of God's law is upon
us. We have to be delivered from
that. The bondage of God's law It has to be delivered. Satan
and this world and all of our corruptions of our nature, all
those things, they're all our enemies. And we have to look
to Christ. The only way we can have the
victory is if the Lord Jesus Christ gives us the victory.
The only way we have the victory is faith in Christ. Remember
what that verse in 1 John 5 says, he says, Let me read that to you in 1
John chapter 5. In fact, I'll read a couple of
verses. In 1 John chapter 5, he says in verse 4, for whatever
is born of God overcomes the world. So everyone who is born
of God will overcome the world. And this is the victory that
overcomes the world. So what does everyone have who
is born of God? That's the way they're going
to overcome. What is it? He says, faith. This is the victory that
overcomes the world, even our faith. God has given us this
grace, faith in Christ, and faith in Christ means we find by what
God has said, we're persuaded by what God has said, that all
of the strength, all of the merit, all of the obedience, all of
the payment for sin, everything, all of our salvation is in Christ
alone. It's not in ourselves, it's in
Him. So, since that's the case, faith
says, it doesn't matter. My own weakness doesn't matter. My own strength doesn't matter.
It's what Christ has done. It's who Christ is, where he
is now. It's his ability. And so that's what faith is.
It's that persuasion, that God-given persuasion that he who promised
is able to do what he promised. And holding to that, we have
no reason to doubt, do we? And yet we have this sin of unbelief. But he says in verse 5, Who is
he that overcometh the world? But he that believeth that Jesus
is the Son of God. If the Lord Jesus, the one who
saves us from our sins, is the Son of God, then we cannot not
be saved. We cannot not be saved. Because
our enemy is our sin, and Christ has made our sin his enemy. In
fact, he has shed his blood in order to defeat our enemy and
death and all that goes with it. So, back in Psalm 83, verse
one, keep not thou silence, O God, hold not thy peace, and be not
still, O God. The Lord has to speak. For us
to be delivered from our enemies, God has to speak. First, He has
to speak for us. Second, He has to speak to us.
And third, He has to speak against our enemies. Remember the chapter
in John 8, where Jesus stooped down twice the first time. He
wrote on the ground, the enemies are the accusers of that woman
taken in adultery. She was guilty. But they accused
her to Christ, and he stooped down in silence and wrote on
the ground, and then he rose up and said, he that is without
sin, let him cast a stone at her first. And then he stooped
back down and wrote again, and they all went out, being convicted
of their conscience. And he was left alone with a
woman, and he asked her, where are your accusers? And she said,
there's no man, Lord. And he said, neither do I condemn
thee, go and sin no more. So he spoke for her. He says, neither do I condemn
thee. That's speaking for her, it's speaking to her. And he
told her enemies, if you have no sin, then cast a stone. And
he wrote on the ground, we know that what he wrote on the ground
convicted them and they went out one by one. And that had
to therefore be the law of God, because the law of God convicts
us of sin. It stops every mouth. And so
we need God to speak to us. We need him to speak to us what
he spoke for us in Christ and how he spoke for us against our
enemies. He spoke to God for us and he
spoke to God for us against our enemies. And where in scripture
can you think of? What is one place, for example,
in scripture where the Lord has spoken for his people? How about
Romans 8? If God be for us, who can be
against us? Isn't that speaking for us? He
says, who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Here's the answer. Here's God
speaking. It is God that justifieth. And who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died. Yea, rather, who is risen again,
who is seated at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession
for us. That's God speaking. We need
him to speak those words to our soul, don't we? Psalm 35, verse
three. In Psalm 35, verse three, he
says, Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. He said it in
the word. It's written. He's written it.
We know it's true. His name is Jesus. He shall save
His people from their sins. And we know He's able to save
them to the uttermost that come to God by Him. In Hebrews 7.25
it says so. And we know that if, when we
were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,
much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
We know those things, but we need Him to apply it to us day
by day, don't we? Keep not thou silence, O God,
hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. Do something. Do
something for me." And how does God act? Well, He tells us what
He does. He speaks His word. That's His
work. He tells us what He did, and
the work that He accomplished by His word is our salvation
by the word of God, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one
who did the will of God. So we say these things, speak
for me, speak to me, and speak against my adversary. No one
can lay anything to the charge and no one can condemn one for
whom Christ died because God has justified them. And every
enemy listed in Romans 8 is silenced. by what God says to his people
concerning what Christ did for them. And that's why this is
so wonderful. We need someone to justify us.
We need someone to silence our enemies. We need God not to be
silent and not to be, Inactive. We need him to do something
for us. And this is a bold request. God,
the Holy Spirit, has inspired the psalmist to speak it this
way. In Psalm 51, in verse 14, David, while he was confessing
his sin concerning Bathsheba, he says this, deliver me from
blood guiltiness, oh God, the sin of murder. Deliver me from
blood guiltiness, my own sin. And then he says, deliver me
from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and
my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. You see, that's
what we need God to do, to tell us about his righteousness, how
in his righteousness he has put away our sins. And that causes
us to sing aloud. When the Lord isn't silent, when
he does, when he tells us what he's done for us, then we aren't
silent. So, so the next verse in Psalm
83 says in verse 2, yea, let's see. I'm sorry, verse two. For lo,
thine enemies make a tumult, and they that hate thee have
lifted up the head. To lift up the head means to
be proud, like the Pharisee in Luke 18. He lifted up his eyes
to heaven. He lifted up the head. He was
not bowed, he was lifted up. And notice in this verse twice,
thine enemies, those that hate thee. So the prayer has force
because the prayer is against, it's asking God to judge his
own enemies. And if we thought that we were
God's enemies, we would be, that's the last thing we want to pray.
But by God's grace, through the Lord Jesus Christ, he has made
us not his enemies, but he has made us his children. And he
has reconciled us to himself through the death of his son.
He's taken away our sin, the thing that separated us from
him. He's removed it. And he's washed
us in the blood of Christ. He's sanctified us in the blood
of Jesus. He has made full remission by
the blood of Jesus. All these things, forgiveness
by the blood of Jesus. And therefore he's given us life
because of the blood of Jesus. And nothing but the blood. And
so he says, thine enemies make a tumult, they that hate thee
have lifted up the head. So notice, these are God's enemies. And so the prayer has force.
They that hate thee, that's the issue. That's the issue. Until
we're born of God, what are we? Haters of God. Doesn't that cause
you some level of sobriety of trembling that we would be naturally
as we are born naturally haters of God. It says in Romans chapter
130 that we are haters of God. In Romans chapter 8 verse 7 it
says the carnal mind is enmity, enmity, hostility against God. It's not subject to the law of
God. Neither indeed can be. We're incapable of submitting
to God's law. We're such enemies of God. And
so he talks about it here in verse two. Thine enemies make
a tumult. What is a tumult? It's an uproar,
open defiance, open hostility. These people that are clamoring
like this are those who claim to be the true people of God. Those were the people who crucified
Christ. They crucified him claiming to
be the Lord's people when they were haters of God. And so we
can see that who this is talking about here. The people who claim
to be the true Israel of God are part of the synagogue of
Satan. And it's not just the physical descendants of Israel
who make that false claim, but it's anyone in religion who claims
to be the Lord's but don't know the Lord and therefore we have
to come to him by Christ through his grace alone. And that's the
only way that we can be, in our mind, be turned from enemies
to lovers of God. Now think about this hatred of
God for a minute. You know the greatest evidence
of wickedness has to be that we hate God. God is good. Hatred of God is this murder
in our hearts. this desire to kill the only
one good. In every way he's good. And so
to be completely opposed to him who is all good and only good
is the very definition of wickedness, isn't it? And see, this is what
pride does, those that lift up the head. God didn't make this this way.
People say, well, I am what I am. I can't help it. Well, I know
you can't help it, but God's not the fault. And James chapter
1 verse 13 says, let no man say when he's tempted, I'm tempted
of God. God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he
any man, but every man is tempted when he's drawn away by his own
lust and enticed. Jesus said that it's from the
heart of man that we're, it's out of the heart of man that
come to perceive evil thoughts and fornications and all these
things. Out of our own hearts. That's what defiles us. It's
the carnal mind that's enmity against God. It can't be subject
to the law of God. So it's our own sinful nature
that is a hater of God. And so he says here in this verse,
he says, verse two, thine enemies make a tumult. They that hate
thee have lifted up the head. So we need God to do something
very, very Significant. We need him to change us from
hating him to loving him. And this is what he does when
he opens our eyes, gives us life and opens our eyes, gives us
spiritual sight to see Christ for us. All right. There's many things we could
say about that, but I want you to notice in verse two, these
that hate God. who hate God's people, therefore,
because they hate God. In this Psalm, look at verse
16. He says, fill their faces with shame that they may seek
thy name, O Lord. That's in verse 16 of Psalm 83.
So all of these things that are asked for in judgment against
the enemies of God, and yet, in verse 16, he says that they
may seek thy name, O Lord. And then in the last verse, that
men may know that thou whose name alone is Jehovah art the
most high over all the earth. So here we see that there's something,
there's light even in this dark judgment. And what is that light?
Well, it's the light of the gospel. That even though God is pronouncing
judgment and there's intercession made against the enemies of God,
yet God is sending forth this light of hope in Christ. that out from among the enemies
of God, out from among those who hate God, he would draw some
to seek him and they would find him. He would bring them to himself. And so that what we see is in
God's wrath, he remembers mercy. And that's what I see here in
this verse here, that those who hate thee, Thine enemies make
a tumult, they that hate thee have lifted up the head, and
yet, in God's wrath, he's going to remember mercy. I want you
to also look at verse three of Psalm 83. Psalm 83, verse three. He says, they have taken crafty
counsel against thy people and consulted against thy hidden
ones. All right, the word crafty here is the same word that God
uses to describe Satan in Genesis chapter three. He says, now the
serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field. The same
word is crafty. And it's a word that is used
here to show that they were taking counsel, crafty counsel against
God's people, against God's people. So what we learn from that is
that the enemies of God's people are the kingdom of Satan. That's
the first thing. The second thing we learn is
that therefore we must be translated out of the kingdom of Satan.
into the kingdom of God's dear son, which can only be done if
we're reconciled to God by the death of his son, and God has
to shine the light of the gospel, he has to command the light of
the gospel to shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So all these things are true,
that it's the kingdom of Satan who takes counsel against God's
people. And therefore the Lord himself
has to save us out of the clutches of Satan himself. And he does
this by the blood of Christ. Another thing we see here is
that though they take this crafty counsel against the Lord's people
and against his hidden ones, yet there is no victory. Ultimately, the very thing they
devise will be used by God to save His people. Isn't that true? It says in Proverbs 21 and verse
30, there is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord. No one can thwart His purposes.
No one can make His counsel come to nothing. God's will will be
done. And in fact, Peter, in Acts chapter
2, said that the death of Christ himself, being taken by wicked
hands and crucified and slain, was according to the determinate
counsel of God. a predetermined counsel and foreknowledge
of God, these men took Christ and put him to death, because
it was God's will all along. And so not only did they do that
by the predetermined counsel and foreknowledge of God, but
in Acts 4.28, it says that they did only what was God's, let
me read it to you, in Acts 4.28, to do whatever thy hand and thy
counsel determined before. to be done. So even though they
have what they think is this crafty counsel, they can't outwit
and they can't outmaneuver the Lord. He's going to accomplish
his will. And so that's why we have such
confidence. Now, there's something very important I want to point
out here too about this word crafty being attached to Satan. And this is something I think
that I've seen and I think it's wrong. We need to avoid it. And
that's this, if we're the Lord's, if we belong to the Lord, then
he is with us, right? And if he's with us, then he's
for us. And if the Lord is with us and
he's for us, then we have no need to fear what man shall do
to us, or the devil. So we shouldn't spend our days
looking, as it were, over our shoulder to see what Satan's
doing. Like, well, I wonder if Satan
did that, or I wonder if, no, no. Don't even spend one thought
on that. Now, don't spend your time wondering
whether Satan's doing this or that in your life. What you can
do, though, is you can look to Christ, keep your eyes on Him,
and looking to Him and what He's doing because of what the Gospel
says. That is our salvation. Remember,
faith is the victory. Faith overcomes the world. It's
the blood of Christ and faith in Him that we're able to overcome
Satan. Casting all your cares upon him
for he careth for you and were to resist the devil steadfast
in the faith That's what first Peter chapter 5 verses 7 through
9 talk about All right, so we overcome by faith looking to
the Lord Jesus who is the Son of God now in this verse in verse
3 he says They have taken crafty counsel against thy people. Now
the Lord has a people. These enemies hate God, but their
hatred towards God is also exercised against its scene because it's
against God's people. And Jesus told his disciples
that. He said, the servant is not greater than his master. If they have hated me, they're
going to hate you. In fact, they're going to hate
you because they hate me. And that's in John 15, you can
look at that. But the reason they hate his
people is because they hate the Lord himself. So it's actually
a joyful thing if we're hated for Christ's sake, isn't it?
It should be. And yet we're so, I'm talking
about my own way of thinking, we're so easily offended that
we take things personally. And we shouldn't. We should realize
that we're the Lord's. And if we stand or fall, it's
in the Lord's will and in His hand. And so let us live our
lives as unto the Lord in everything and let Him do what seems good
to Him and trust Him and keep our eyes on Christ because we're
His people. We can't make ourselves the Lord's
people, can we? We might wonder if we're the
Lord's, but we can't make ourselves the Lord's people. We may think, we may often think,
am I the Lord's? Has he chosen me? Did Christ
die for me? Is he in me? We might think those
things. And we have good reason to doubt,
but when we look at ourselves, we better doubt by looking at
ourselves. But we have to take all of these
thoughts to the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer, don't we? Whatever
the question, am I the Lord's? Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Make me yours indeed. Make me thine indeed. Did Christ
die for me? The Lord only knows, so we trust
him for it. He says, come unto me, all you
who labor. Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the
earth. So we take his word and say, Lord, here's your word.
Christ came into the world to save sinners, and I am a sinner. By your grace, I have some sense
of that, so please save me for Christ's sake. Don't trust your
own assessment of these things. Don't say, well, it seems like
I am. Therefore, I've got a 75% chance. No. No, that's trusting
your own assessment. Well, it seems like today, at
least, maybe yesterday it was. Today, I'm not sure. Tomorrow,
I'll do better. That's your own assessment. No,
don't trust your own assessment. At best, If you trust, if you
look to yourselves, you're going to find sin. You're going to
find yourselves to be a lost sinner if you start thinking
hard about yourself. But Christ came to save the lost.
He came to save sinners and so He came to save us from our sins
and that's what we're trusting Him. The one who came into the
world to save sinners, the one who died the just for the unjust,
died to justify the ungodly. That's the one we're trusting.
If He had other credentials. If his other credentials were,
well, he came to save those who can save themselves or help themselves,
or those who are obedient, or those who do this or that, we
would exclude ourselves, wouldn't we? But since he said he came
to save sinners, then he didn't exclude us, because we're sinners,
and we find that to be true. So the Lord's people, we can't
make ourselves the Lord's people, but we want to be his, don't
we? Take it to him in prayer. Lord, make me yours indeed. Remember
that God gave his son to save sinners and keep that in your
heart. Take his word to him and ask
him to receive you freely and to look for no cause in you.
Don't look for anything to recognize anything about me. Look to Christ,
recognize only him and recognize him for me. Remember me, Lord,
for Christ's sake. That's what we're praying. don't
regard my sin, take no consideration of my best works, but look to
Christ for everything." That's what we want to do. That's what
we want the Lord to do for us. And that's the big issue, isn't
it? All right, then he says, they take crafty counsel against
thy hidden ones. his hidden ones. God has hid
his people in Christ. Remember that verse in Colossians
chapter three? Let me read that to you, Colossians
chapter three. This verse, as I was studying
this psalm, made me go back and look at Colossians. It's a delightful
book. Colossians chapter three, he
says, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall
we also appear with him in glory. Now, before that, he says, you
are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. There you go. Who can lay, who
can do anything to the Lord Jesus Christ? Our life is hid with
Christ in God. We're hidden ones, aren't we?
God hid Moses in the cliff to the rock, he says, in Exodus. He said, I beseech thee, show
me thy glory. And God said, I'll make all my
goodness pass before thee. I will proclaim the name of the
Lord before thee. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious, and I'll show mercy to whom I will show mercy. And he said, you can't see my
face. There shall no man see my face
and live. Behold there is a place by me and thou shalt stand upon
a rock and it shall come to pass while my glory passes by I will
put thee in a cliff of the rock while my glory passes by and
I will put thee in a I'm sorry I will cover thee with my hand
while I pass by and I will take away my hand and thou shalt see
my back parts But my face shall not be seen And the Lord showed
him his glory. And so that's what he's saying
here. If we're in Christ, God sees Christ for us. That's what
being hid in Christ is. We're hid, our life is hid in
Christ with God. That's what he says. Your life
is hid with Christ in God. And so therefore God sees, when
he looks for us, he sees Christ. Don't you want to be hid in Christ? Is there any safer cliff, any
safer rock to hide in than the Lord Jesus Christ? There isn't. There's no hiding place except
Him. And so we want to be hidden in
Christ. That theme runs throughout all
of scripture. He says this in Psalm 17, keep me as the apple
of thine eye. Hide me under the shadow of thy
wings. That's Psalm 17, verse 8. In
Psalm 27, verse 5, he says, in the time of trouble, he shall
hide me in his pavilion. In the secret of his tabernacle
shall he hide me. He shall set me up upon a rock.
Or in Psalm 64, verse 2, hide me from the secret counsel of
the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity. And
then Psalm 143, deliver me, O Lord, from my enemies. I flee unto
thee to hide me. We're running to Christ, we're
looking to Him, we're asking God, Lord, hide me in Christ. I don't know if I'm the Lord's,
hide me in Christ. I don't know if the Lord is in
me, hide me in Christ. Isn't that a biblical prayer
to pray? All right. In verse four of Psalm
83, He says, they have said, come, let us cut them off from
being a nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. Now that's obviously pure hatred. They were not satisfied to kill
them. They wanted to blot out their memory as well. That's
what it means to hate God's people. To hate someone so much, I want
to not only destroy them, but I want no memory of them I don't
want anyone to remember them anymore. That's hatred, isn't
it? That's pretty high hatred. And that's what they wanted to
do to the Lord Jesus Christ, to blot him out of their minds
and out of the minds of the people. They wanted to kill the Lord
Jesus. But here's the thing. If the Lord thinks of us, then
it doesn't matter, does it? We can die, our body can decay,
and the Lord remembers us. And that's why the thief on the
cross said, Lord, remember me. In Psalm 79, which we went over,
it says in verse 8, Oh, remember not against us former iniquities. Let thy tender mercies speedily
Go before, prevent us, for we are brought very low. Help us,
O God of our salvation, for the glory of Thy name, and deliver
us, and purge away our sins for Thy name's sake. Don't remember
our iniquities. but remember us for your tender
mercy's sake. That's what he says there, remember
me for good. Psalm 106 says that, to remember
me for good with your people. So remember me for Christ's sake,
don't let me be forgotten. If God forgets, if God ever stops
thinking about anyone, no one can remember them. Remember that. God's thoughts are the only reason
you're here and I'm here because God is thinking about us. And that's true of everything
in the world. He sustains all things by the
word of his power. He has to consciously think about
everything, or it ceases to be. And if God ever ceases to think
about anything, then there won't be any record of it ever existing,
because God is out of God's mind. And that's the way our sins are.
I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more. There's
no record of them. Why? Because they're not there.
They've been put away. And so, this verse, verse 4,
they're trying to blot out the memory of God's people, but the
Lord will remember them. Therefore, they can't be blotted
out, and their sins will not be remembered. Therefore, their
sins will not be remembered, but they will be remembered by
the Lord forever. Because they're hid in Christ.
Verse 5 says, for they have consulted together with one consent. They are confederate against
thee. Now, here you can see that there's a lot of enemies and
they're all working together. They have a common goal. They
have a common counsel. They've joined together against
the Lord, as Psalm 2 says, and against his anointed. And in
Psalm 2, he says, he that sits in the heaven shall laugh. What
are they doing? And here, this word confederate,
it means they've covenanted together. It's the same word as covenant.
All who oppose God's purpose to save his people have made
a covenant to work in opposition, in hostility, coordinating together
to fulfill their evil desires. They're in league with hell.
They're trying to separate the souls of God's people from Christ
and from the love of God, which is in Christ. But, of course,
nothing can, because the Lord himself, they're in the Lord
Jesus Christ. They're his hidden ones, so they
can't be separated. Now I know the intent of my own
sinful nature is that sin would reign over me and bring me to
death. Isn't that what sin does? It's like a tyrant. And yet God
is greater than our sin, isn't it? He's greater than all of
our enemies. He says in 1 John 4, verse four,
greater is he that's in you than he that is in the world. And
that's our hope. And there's a verse in Proverbs
that says, though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be
unpunished, but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered.
That's Proverbs 11, verse 21. All of these enemies join hand
in hand together against God's people. But though hand join
in hand, The wicked shall not be unpunished. They might try
to prevent God's wrath overcoming them, his punishment, and they
might think that they can overthrow the righteous, but he says the
seed of the righteous shall be delivered. Delivered from God's
wrath, delivered from the hand of their enemies, and the enemies
shall not be delivered from the wrath of God. Our sin was put
away in Christ. It was put to death in the death
of Christ. And our old man was crucified
with him. That's what Romans 6 says. Now, even though the wicked have
covenanted against Christ and against his people, God has prevented
their evil design. He made an everlasting covenant
before they made their covenant, and that covenant was made in
Christ's blood. The Lord Jesus pledged his own blood to save
them from their sins. Therefore, they will be saved
forever. All right. Now, I don't want
to go beyond our time here, and so we're going to pick up in
verse 6 next time, and we'll complete this psalm hopefully
next time. We've got to go through these different people, the Edomites
and the Ishmaelites and all these people. We'll try to do that
in a summary way in order to get to the end of this psalm.
I really want to get to the last verse before we conclude this
psalm. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we pray
that you would be long-suffering with us. Forgive me for my many
sins. Forgive me for my insolence,
my indifference, my coldness of heart, and help us, Lord,
to know you truly, not pretend, but to come to you as those who
are desperately needy, and find the Lord Jesus Christ to be all-sufficient,
to save us from our sins to the uttermost, and so trust him and
call upon him, and not doubt His ability, though we know ourselves
to be completely unfaithful. Help us, Lord, to know that He
is faithful and true, and He cannot fail His word. These are
His enemies. Therefore, we can pray with confidence
that He will subdue our iniquities, and they will not prevail over
us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.