All right, we are in Psalm 78
again. Psalm 78, this is part two of
this psalm. This psalm is a psalm of history. It covers the history of the
nation of Israel. And it shows in this Psalm their
unbelief, their unfaithfulness to God. It's called unbelief
in verse 22. It says, they believed not in
God and they trusted not in his salvation. Now that's a summary
of the condition of the nation of Israel throughout their history,
from the time they were in Egypt to the time they came out of
Egypt before the Red Sea, through the Red Sea, in the wilderness,
into the land of Canaan, and then into their captivities after
they were in the land of Canaan, and then brought back to their
land. And finally, in the times of Christ even, in the times
of Christ, they were still a nation. By and large, the greatest proportion
of that nation remained in unbelief, and it was a sad, sad thing.
But this psalm is about that history. It covers the history
from Egypt when they were delivered from Egypt by the blood of the
Passover lamb and the other plagues, but that was the climactic plague
that took place, but then all the way from Egypt through the
Red Sea, through the wilderness, into Canaan, the land of promise,
the land of their inheritance, and then David was set up as
king eventually at the end of this psalm. So if we take that
entire history, We can see then that, not only from that, but
also from the opening words of this psalm, that this psalm is
the Lord Jesus Christ speaking through the prophet who is the
writer of this psalm, the prophet led by the Holy Spirit, He quotes,
I mean he speaks these words in the first two verses that
are then quoted in Matthew 13 verse 34 and 35 that the Lord
Jesus takes them and says that he is the one who fulfilled the
words of this psalm when he spoke to the people in parables. But
because he was the one this psalm was speaking of as a prophet,
he's the prophet who spoke in parables to the people, that
this psalm itself, being the history of the Israelites from
Egypt through David, is also a parable. It's a parable that
communicates to us the gospel, because that was what Jesus came
to bring, is the gospel. He came, he began his ministry,
it says, he began to preach the gospel. And his entire ministry
was the gospel. When he left to go back to his
father, he gave the gospel to his disciples to preach the gospel
in all the world. So this was the message of Christ
in his coming. This was the message that he
left with his apostles. And this, according to this psalm,
is the message of the history of Israel. Now, because this
is a parable, It's taking the things in the history of Israel
and it applies them in a spiritual way to those things that they
represent. And since it covers the nation
of Israel, we know then that this nation of Israel from other
places in scripture that talk about the true Israel, we know
that this physical nation of Israel was a type, was a picture,
a parable, if you will, of the true people of God, the elect
of God, those who were truly redeemed by God through the blood
of his Son. Okay, so now let's focus on the
history for a minute. The history, this interval of
time from Egypt to Canaan, in fact, to David and his reign,
therefore encompasses the entire history of the church. And if
you see this, it's helpful because it shows us that God is summarizing
things in a very large, broad brush way with the details of
the history of Israel. And one of the highlights here
is that the psalm begins with these two verses, Psalm 1 and
2. Give ear, O my people. And who's speaking here? The
Lord is speaking, the Lord Jesus. My people, to my law, incline
your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in
a parable. I will utter dark sayings of
old. So the Lord Jesus is the one
who is uttering the dark sayings of old, the parable. It's his
people he's speaking to. And so that also helps us to
see this is the Lord Jesus Christ explaining to us the history
of his people through the actual history of the nation of Israel. And it becomes a parable that
teaches us the gospel. In the last part of this Psalm,
again, I'm still summarizing from last week in verse 68, it
closes with David becoming king. In verse 68 of Psalm 78, it says, But God chose the tribe of Judah.
He refused the tabernacle of Joseph and chose not the tribe
of Ephraim from verse 67. But here in 68, he says, he chose
the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion, which he loved. Now, Mount
Zion brings to our thoughts, it draws from scripture, the
meaning behind that mountain. It was on Mount Zion that Jerusalem
was built. And it's in Hebrews chapter 12
that explains what all of this means. And not only Hebrews 12,
but Hebrews 12 does a very clear explanation of what Mount Zion
is. Because it contrasts in Hebrews the old covenant and the new
covenant. And Sinai, according to Hebrews
chapter 12 around verse 18, Sinai represents the old covenant.
You're not come to the mount, he says in Hebrews 12, that might
be touched or that burned with fire, nor into blackness and
darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice
of words, which voice they that heard entreated that the word
should not be spoken to them anymore. They begged God, they
begged Moses actually, that God wouldn't speak to them anymore.
And that's phenomenal that the people would consider it their
highest anxiety that God was speaking to them. But then he
says, but you are come unto Mount Zion. You are come unto the heavenly
Jerusalem, the city of the living God. And so many other things
he goes on to say there about a company, an innumerable company
of angels and to the spirits of just men made perfect and
to Jesus. the mediator of the new covenant,
and the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that
of Abel." So this contrast between the old covenant and the new
covenant is seen in the mountain called Zion. So here in this
verse, In verses 1 and 2 of this chapter, and I'm looking at the
wrong chapter, Psalm 78, he says, Give ear, O my people, to my
law. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open
my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of
old. But then at the end, when he talks about David, he says,
verse 68, he chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion, which
he loved. Then we can immediately see then,
since Zion represents the New Covenant Church, the place of
God's dwelling in Christ, that it's the city, it's where the
city, the heavenly city of Jerusalem is. We see immediately we're
being transported into not only a new covenant, but a heavenly
city, a heavenly mountain, a heavenly mediator, spiritual men whose
spirits have been made perfect, an innumerable company of angels.
and to this blood of sprinkling, to the God, the living God, and
so much more here we see in this account in Hebrews. The old covenant
contrasted with the new covenant And here we have, in Psalm 78,
the opening of the psalm begins with David. Well, it begins with
Christ, because it was quoted in Matthew 13 and 34 and 35. And then at the end of the psalm,
it closes with David, meaning Christ, who is the king in Zion. Remember, he came into the city
of Jerusalem on the donkey. And the people then were shouting,
Hosanna to the king, the son of David, meaning Christ. So
all of this lays on top of this psalm to explain it to us. This
parable is a New Testament church seen in the Old Testament type. Okay, so that's the point I wanted
to get to in our summary, going back and looking back at this.
And if we see this, then the history here also pops. You know that phrase, they use
that on design shows. I got that from my wife, likes
to watch those shows where they fix up houses and stuff. And
the designer will say, this really makes that pop. And what they
mean, it really adds contrast to it that is pleasing. And so
the history of Israel is laid out to us here, but the interpretation,
the gospel interpretation is what gives that history life
to us. Otherwise, it would just be dead
history, wouldn't it? What difference does it make
that Israel came out of Egypt or that they passed through the
Red Sea? You might say, well, that's a pretty big miracle.
And then we go on to the next thing, because it doesn't have
a spiritual application. But when you see that these things
in this psalm have a spiritual analogy, they have a spiritual
corresponding fulfillment, then Egypt then is that place out
of which, by the blood of the Passover lamb, who is Christ,
we were redeemed. And we know from the New Testament
that Christ redeemed us from all iniquity, Titus 2.14, 13
and 14. And he also redeemed us from
this present evil world, Galatians 1.4. And we know he redeemed
us from the power and the tyranny of the devil. He redeemed us
from the curse of the law. So we can see that Egypt represents
those things from which we were redeemed by the blood of Christ.
And then the Red Sea, as I pointed out last week, It's a place of
judgment on Israel's enemies, but it was a place where they
actually passed through the judgment. And in the New Testament, Jesus
says, whoever believes on me has everlasting life, and he
has passed from death to life. And he will not come under condemnation
because he's already passed from death to life. So being delivered
from death means you're delivered from judgment. You're delivered
from condemnation. And so that's what the Red Sea
reflects. It represents that. And throughout
the whole chapter here in Psalm 78, each of those things that
are mentioned, the wilderness, remember, The wilderness was
a desert. The desert does not support human
life. It doesn't support human life.
This world does not support spiritual life, does it? And our flesh
doesn't produce spiritual life. So the wilderness represents
this world and us living in this body while we're in this world.
And yet, even though that was the case, it was miraculous that
Israel could be able to survive the desert for a week, let alone
40 years. But yet, the way they were supported
is God had Moses smite the rock, and it split the rock, and out
of the rock came a river, literally a river of water, that followed
the Israelites through their entire journey for 40 years.
Amazing. And not only the water, but the
manna, the bread of heaven came down. God sent down the manna
every day. And we know that from the New
Testament that these things represent eternal life in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Christ himself is the bread of
life. Christ himself is the fountain
of living water. And he was smitten so that he
could give us the spirit of life the Spirit of Life in Christ
Jesus, by which we live to God and live upon Christ by faith. And living upon Christ by His
Spirit, what do we do? Well, we take, we drink, and
we eat of Christ and Him crucified. And that's our spiritual life.
And that's the way we live in this world, in this body. And
we're on our way to a promised land. And that land is in this
chapter is Canaan, but it was the land of promise. And that
land of promise was given to Israel after they endured that
long wilderness sojourn, just like we live by faith on Christ
until we enter heaven. And when we receive heaven, we
receive the promises of God, all of the blessings of God promised
to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. are given to us and they're given
to us because of Christ and we receive it because of Him and
in Him and so Canaan represents the land of salvation, the land
of God's spiritual blessings and it represents eternal inheritance
and eternal glory. It's the land of rest because
Christ did all the work and we enter into it God gives us faith
to come into this land where our enemies used to rule and
now they're put to flight by our captain, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is the captain of our eternal salvation. So we draw from the
New Testament the explanation of each of these Parabolic types,
I don't know if parabolic's the right word here, but it's the,
whatever. It just means, whatever the parable
means, that's what the New Testament gospel is explaining. And what
we find, because it's the first of the psalm and the last of
the psalm, the first begins with Christ, the last ends with Christ,
and throughout the psalm, there he is in the wilderness with
his people. He's in the cloud, he's in the
fire, he's the bread, he's the water, he's the rock that was
smitten. He's Joshua who brings them into
the land of Canaan. He's the one Moses was talking
about to the people their entire wilderness sojourn. And so we
see then that this psalm just explodes to us, doesn't it? It's
not dead history, it's life, it's the gospel, but it has to
be brought to us through the New Testament revelation. Okay,
so now that we've done some kind of a recap here, there were several
points that I brought out in this overview last time, and
I wanna just mention a couple here to bring your attention
to them. The first is, If you look at
this psalm, you could title a sermon on this psalm, An Unfaithful
People and a Faithful God, couldn't you? Because in every case, these
people were unfaithful. They wouldn't go into Canaan.
They were worshipping idols while they were in Egypt. They were
doubtful at the Red Sea. They were fearful then. They
complained at the bitter waters of Mara until Moses chopped down
a tree and cast it into the waters and made them sweet, which is
Christ and Him crucified. They complained when there was
no water. And Moses split the rock with his rod and waters
gushed out. Christ crucified from whom all
of the fountain open for sin and uncleanness flow for us. And the manna, the bread of life,
the Lord Jesus Christ come from his father to be our life and
all the things. All these things that were given
to them show that they were constantly speaking against God. They doubted
him in their heart. They served idols. Remember how
many times Moses prayed for them? And if he hadn't prayed for them,
God said he was going to destroy them. When they served that idol,
they bowed down and worshiped an idol that Aaron made for them.
Amazing that God didn't completely destroy them. But anyway, all
these plagues that came upon them because of their sin, there
was the plague of the serpents that bit them and they were dying
and many died and some were saved, but they were saved by that uplifted
serpent of brass that Moses hung on the pole to teach about Christ
and him crucified who would bear the curse of his people. and
to whom all who look would be given everlasting life. There
is so many other plagues, but you'll remember these as you
go through the Old Testament. But this psalm is summarizing
those things. And so, what we see there, the
unfaithful people, we see the Lord's faithfulness, His grace.
We see that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one about whom this psalm
is telling us His praises, His strength, His works, His mighty
works for His people. The history of this psalm is
the gospel. in a parable. The history covers
the entire history of the church, from its redemption by Christ's
blood to its entrance into eternal glory by the Lord Jesus Christ
reigning over them, typified by David. And then in the psalm
as well, we see the nation of Israel divided into two parts. And those two parts are also
seen in their enemies. On the one hand, there are those
who die in the plagues, and on the other hand, there are those
who actually go into the land of Canaan. So we see within this
one nation, there are people who are unbelieving, and they
refuse to hear. They refuse to believe God. They
refuse to trust Him and His salvation. And remember the Jews in Jesus'
day? Jesus told them, you will not
come to me that you might have life. You trust that you're going
to find eternal life in the scriptures, finding something there you can
do. But they were written about me and you will not come to me
that you might have life. And so even in Jesus day, the
Jews, there were most of them were unbelieving. But still there
was a remnant, a remnant that was saved. And that's what you
see also in this psalm through Israel's history. But I want to go on now to one
more point here, and this is actually in verses 1 and 2. And
I made a statement last week, and I think that if we spend
the rest of our time here expanding on that statement, I hope that
you will be strengthened, that you will be established, and
that this will enable you, when you read the Old Testament and
the New, to see God's fulfillment of His promises to His people
and how to understand this. All right, so let's read verses
one and verses two together of Psalm 78. I'm not going to take
as much time on the entire psalm as I take on these two verses
because I think by doing it, by focusing on these two verses,
it will allow us then to understand from this thumbnail sketch that
I've been giving the remainder of the psalm. He says in verse
one, give ear, O my people, to my law. Incline your ears to
the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable.
I will utter dark sayings of old." Alright. Now, here he says,
give ear, O my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the
words of my mouth. Last week I said this law, the
words of his mouth, is the same thing, and that this law and
the words of his mouth are the gospel. And that's a very big
statement, and I feel like I need to prove it from scripture so
that you just don't take a man's word for this, but you take what
God himself has said. So since I wanna do that, look
at Psalm 105. Psalm 105 because in this psalm
we're going to see this. And I want to read in Psalm 105,
we're just going to start from verse 1 and we'll read the first
10 verses. Psalm 105, verse 1 through 10. He says, O give thanks unto the
Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people. A lot of the Psalms talk like
this, make known God's works. Make known the works of Jehovah.
Call on his name and make known his works. Give him thanks. Verse
two, sing to him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his
wondrous works. So Before I was a Christian,
when I was in church, there was always somebody who was the leader. Maybe it was the preacher, maybe
it was a song leader. Somebody's trying to get people
excited. You've probably been in services
like that. They sing a song and they, come on you guys, you need
to get going in here. They sing another song, they
ask you questions, whatever it is, they're trying to get you
going. These verses here are not doing that. They're not trying
to just excite you to some emotional response. by just saying, praise
the Lord, give thanks to God. That's true, we should, but it's
not doing it in that way. He's saying, talk ye of all his
wondrous works. You see, when the Lord wants
us to thank him and to praise him, he's going to explain why,
on what basis. He does open with that, but then
he gives the reasons. Notice, he says in verse three,
Glory ye in his holy name. Let the heart of them rejoice
that seek the Lord. So his name is who he is. Glory in who Christ is. That's what he's saying. Glory,
give thanks and praise him for his work. Can we do that? Doesn't
the gospel do that for us? He tells us who the Lord Jesus
Christ is in the most tender terms. the greatest compassion
and humility and grace towards sinners, so much so that he can
save any sinner from his sin. If it's his will, he can do it. And you see throughout the New
Testament, sinners like sick people coming to him and asking
him to do for them what no man could do. to do the impossible
and he willingly and happily did it. That's what's going on
here. Look at verse four. Seek ye the Lord and his strength. Seek his face forevermore. Christ
is the Lord. Christ is our strength. Christ is the one whose face
we want to see and seek evermore. Verse five. Remember his marvelous
works that he hath done, his wonders and the judgments of
his mouth. All right, now we're going to
get to the verses that prove that the first verse of Psalm
78 is speaking about the gospel when it says the law and the
words of Christ's mouth. He says in verse six, oh, you
seed of Abraham, his servant, you children of Jacob, his chosen. All right, now apply this in
a gospel way. Abraham, his servant. Jacob,
his chosen. Just as a footnote, remember
in Romans 9 it was Jacob that God chose and not Esau. Jacob
that God loved, not Esau. And Abraham, we know that Abraham
was the one God Appeared to and promised him that in his seed
all the nations of the earth would be blessed right in Genesis
chapter 12, but let's read on here. So we see he's talking
to Abraham God's Servant and Jacob his chosen and he goes
on He is the Lord our God because he is the Lord of Abraham and
Jacob, isn't he? His judgments are in all the
earth and He has remembered his covenant forever, the word which
he commanded to a thousand generations, which covenant he made with Abraham,
and his oath unto Isaac, and confirmed the same to Jacob for
a law, and to Israel for an, notice, everlasting covenant. All right, who is he talking
about? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. And he talks about a covenant
God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now, I want you to
see that this is equivalent here. Notice in verse 10, he confirmed
the same unto Jacob for a law, a law. and to Israel for an everlasting
covenant. Okay? So you see how God himself
uses the word law and he defines it as the everlasting covenant. And don't be mistaken on this
because this is very important. It's important that we understand
this is not the law of Moses. God did not give Abraham the
law of Moses, did he? Moses came later. Moses was a
grandson, I think, of Jacob. Was he? It doesn't matter. He
was a great, great, he's several generations down even from Jacob.
But he certainly wasn't a peer, a historical peer of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. He was not their contemporary.
He was later in history. God did not give the law of Moses
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What did he give to Abraham?
He gave him a promise. He gave him a covenant of promise. He gave him a promise and made
the promise to him in a covenant. Later, God gave a covenant to
Moses for Israel, but it was not a promise. In fact, it says
in Galatians that the law is against, it's the law, how does
it put it there in Galatians 3? Turn with me to Galatians
chapter 3 and I'll read it there so we don't get it wrong, the
wording. Galatians chapter 3, he says in verse 12, for the
law is not of faith. Do you see that? It's very important. I don't know why. Well, I know
why. But the fact is that religion
stumbles at this. They stumble at this. The law
is not of faith. God did not give the law of Moses
to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob. Rather, he gave them the gospel. Look at Galatians 3. Since you're
in Galatians 3, look at verse 6. Even as Abraham, well I'll
read verse five, he therefore that ministers to you the spirit,
of course that's the spirit of God, he that ministers to you
the spirit and works miracles among you, does he do it by the
works of the law or, see these two are set in contrast, by the
hearing of faith. Works of the law on one side,
hearing of faith on the other. What do we hear in the hearing
of faith? The gospel of Christ. Look at verse one. O foolish
Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey
the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently, that
means apparently, set forth crucified among you. What is the truth?
According to verse one, Jesus Christ and him crucified. And
this was set before the Galatians through preaching and teaching,
obviously. And he says in verse five, the
one who does his service, ministering to you, ministers to you the
spirit. Preaching the gospel is ministering
the spirit of God. And that's not what the law does.
Preaching the gospel ministers the spirit, which is life. The law ministers what? Death. Death, not life. And there's
no spirit in it. It's death. And I'll show you
that in a minute. But let's keep reading in Galatians
3. It says in verse 6, even as Abraham... See, we're getting
back to Psalm 105. Even as Abraham believed God,
not law-keeping, but faith, and it was counted to him for righteousness.
Now, what was counted for righteousness to Abraham was the one he believed,
Christ. and his obedience. That's what
his faith looked to. He didn't look to his faith.
He looked to Christ. Otherwise, faith becomes circular.
Confidence in my faith, not confidence in Christ. But faith, by its
very nature, the very definition of faith is that it empties itself
of all worth and finds all of its worth in Christ. Okay, so
this is not a righteousness because he performed the act of believing. That's not the righteousness
of faith he's talking about here. It's the righteousness of Christ
that he sees by faith and lays hold on by faith and rests entirely
in him and in his work by faith. You see, that's completely different.
It's the object of our faith, not the subjective experience
of our faith that saves us. If you wanna know if you have
saving faith or not, don't look inwardly, look to Christ. And if you look to Christ, you
have saving faith. If you don't, then you never
believed. So going on in Galatians 3 verse
6, he says, his faith was counted to him for righteousness, or
it was counted, meaning his faith, the one he believed. Verse 7,
know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the
children of Abraham. All right, so this is such a
defining statement in Scripture. Who are the children of Abraham?
They which are of faith. This completely annihilates all
hope that anyone would think to have because they were born
a Jew. That doesn't get you anything.
He says later on, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything
but faith, which works by love. That's in Galatians 5, 6. But
here he says in verse 7, know ye therefore that they which
are of faith, in other words, those who look to Christ and
his righteousness, not to the law and their own performance,
they are the children of Abraham. That's what Abraham did. He goes
on to prove that. And the scripture, foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before
the gospel to Abraham, saying, Genesis 12, 3, in thee shall
all nations be blessed. All right. I wonder what he meant
by that. Well, he explains it. So then,
they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. If you believe Christ, you're
blessed with faithful Abraham. He goes on, he says, for as many
as are of the works of the law, this is the contrast now, if
you're not of faith, if you're of the works of the law, you're
under a curse, for it's written in the law, cursed is everyone
that continues not in all things which are written in the book
of the law to do them. That's the law. Verse 11, but that no
man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident for
the just, quoting from Habakkuk 2.4, shall live by faith. That's
not the only place it's said, but that is one. Verse 12, and
the law is not of faith. So don't pretend that you can
get yourself into an acceptable state and condition before God
by your own works. That's the law. But the man that
doeth them shall live in them. If you're going to try to come
to God by the law, you've got to keep it all, all the time.
and not fail once. Christ has redeemed us from the
curse of the law because we were under it, because we didn't keep
it. Being made a curse for us, that's substitution, he actually
was cursed for our sins because he bore our sins on the tree
in his own body. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive
the promise of the Spirit through faith. So again, he that ministers
to you the Spirit, the promise of the Spirit, this is the Spirit
of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is given
to every believer. And whoever is believing Christ
has the Spirit of God because we can't believe without him.
And so because Christ died for us and redeemed us from the curse
of the law, the Spirit of God is given to us and therefore
we believe. And that is the evidence that
we're the true children of Abraham. OK. And then he goes on, he says,
Brethren, This is verse 15 of Galatians 3. Galatians 3 15. Brethren, I speak after the manner
of men, though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed,
no man disannulleth or addeth thereto. Okay, so he's going
to start talking about a covenant now, and it's important that
we understand this, because he's going to show how the covenant
that God made with Abraham surpasses the law. And so he takes even
human covenants. He says, look, if a man makes
a covenant, if a man makes a covenant, verse 15, though it be but a
man's covenant, if it's confirmed, then no one can change it. It's
irrevocable. If you go down to a lawyer and
you make a trust, the trust is revocable, but when you die,
it becomes irrevocable. You can't change it. And so that's
what he's saying here. Verse 16, now to Abraham and
his seed were the promises made. He saith not unto seeds, plural,
as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, singular, which
is Christ. So who were the promises made
to? To Christ, to Abraham and to Christ, and therefore all
who are children of Abraham. He says in verse 17, and this
I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in
Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul
it, that it should make the promise of none effect. The law came
430 years after the promise God made to Abraham. The promise
God made to Abraham is that because Christ is his seed, that God
would bless all the nations, all Gentiles and Jews that were
elect of God by Christ in justifying them Through His blood, He would
die for them, redeem them from the curse of the law, give them
His Spirit. They would be justified, made
righteous. That's what it means to be righteous.
God justifies you on the basis of Christ's obedience. which
is eternal everlasting righteousness. So the promise that God made
to Abraham was a promise, a gospel declaration of Christ being our
righteousness and God justifying us because of his obedience unto
death. This is so important here. And
because it was that promise, the law that came later couldn't
make that promise. It couldn't invalidate it. It
couldn't take it away. It couldn't make it of no effect.
All right, so now, what we're seeing here then is that the
scripture in Genesis 12, three is called the message that God
gave to Abraham that he would be righteous and all of the heathen,
the Gentiles and all nations of the earth, not every person,
but from within them, out of every nation, God would have
a remnant and he would justify them, giving them the same righteousness
that God gave to Abraham and him receiving it through faith
by looking to Christ and not by doing something to get it,
not by trusting in his works to come or his works in the past
or his present works, but in Christ's work entirely. This
is the law. This is what Psalm 105, God said
he made this covenant with Abraham. I'm gonna read it again to you
from Psalm 105. He said, O ye seed of Abraham,
verse 6, his servant, ye children of Jacob, his chosen, the elect
of God, he is the Lord our God. His judgments are in all the
earth. He's the one who justifies and condemns. He has remembered
his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand
generations, meaning forever. Which covenant he made with Abraham
and his oath to Isaac. Do you know in the Old Testament,
Genesis, God repeated his words to Abraham, to Isaac, and again
to Jacob, in thy seed, all the nations of the earth will be
blessed. He repeated it because that was the gospel, the gospel
of righteousness through Christ, justified by his blood. Okay,
and then he says here in Psalm 105, which covenant he made with
Abraham, his oath to Isaac, and confirmed the same unto Jacob
for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant. Now we
know that the everlasting covenant is the covenant that Christ made
in his blood, don't we? Remember when he took the cup
and gave it to his disciples? This is the New Testament in
my blood. This makes it. This fulfills
it. The conditions of it are met
by my blood shed. In Hebrews 13, 20, he calls it
the everlasting covenant. Now the God of peace that brought
again from the dead, our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working
in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight. Do you see how
that covenant covers everything? Everything, because everything
was given to Christ, and Christ alone was required to fulfill
the conditions of it. In fact, in Hebrews chapter 9,
it says He's the testator. He's the one who made it. And
when He died, then it was put into force, like the willmaker. When you die, your will goes
into force. So that's what Psalm 78 is unfolding to us here. He
says, give ear, O my people, to my law, to the gospel. Incline your ears to the words
of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable.
I will utter dark sayings of old. And that's what he did here
in this psalm, didn't he? He did this. And there's so many
places in scripture where this is done. Let me show you one
in Romans chapter 10, and we'll close with this one. But I've
noted a few of them in our notes, but I will point this one out
to you because it's foundational. Remember what Paul told the Corinthians? I determine not to know anything
among you save what? Jesus Christ and him crucified.
That's the whole counsel of God, therefore, isn't it? If that's
the only thing, and later on in Acts 20, he said, I've not
shunned to tell you the whole counsel of God. We know that
Christ and Him crucified is the whole counsel of God. All right,
but I wanted to go to, let's see, where was I going?
Romans chapter 10, thank you. Romans chapter 10. In Romans
chapter 10, listen to these words here. He says in Romans chapter
10, first he's going to say how, in the first three verses, how
Israel refused to submit to Christ's righteousness. In verse 4 he
says, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believes. Same thing as we just read in
Galatians. For righteousness? Everyone who believes Christ
has the righteousness of God, and it's in Christ. And then
he goes on in verse 5, he says Moses talks about the righteousness,
he explains the righteousness of the law, but he also explains
the righteousness which is of faith. Moses did. Moses? Yeah, Moses. Moses testified
of this, like Abraham, like David, like Isaiah and Joel. Micah,
they all talked about the same thing, this righteousness which
is in Christ by faith. And then he says, In Romans 10,
he goes on. Now, he's going to say, in verse
9, "...if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. For the Scripture says, whoever
believes on him shall not be ashamed." That's from, well,
it doesn't matter. We can look it up later, but
it comes from Isaiah, I think. For there's no difference between
the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto
all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call on the
name of the Lord shall be saved. That's Joel. How then shall they
call on him whom they have not believed? How shall they believe
in him of whom they haven't heard? How shall they hear without a
preacher? So, you can't believe if you haven't heard. and you
won't hear without a preacher. He says, and how shall they preach
except they be sent? You won't preach unless you're
sent. As it is written, notice, how beautiful are the feet of
them that preach, what? The gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things, but they have not all obeyed
the gospel. They haven't obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah said, Lord, who has
believed our report? Do you know where that came from?
The report, Isaiah 53, and as soon as you hear Isaiah 53, you
understand that's the substitutionary sin offering of the Lord Jesus
Christ for the transgression of God's elect people. It's the
gospel. They didn't believe it, therefore
they didn't obey it. That's what he's saying. So that's
why it's called a law. It's the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus, from Romans 8, verse 2. It's the law in 2
Corinthians 3. It's the law of the Spirit that
gives life, but the law of Moses brings death. And there's lots
of other places like this. It teaches us that the gospel
is a different doctrine. It's a doctrine of Christ's work,
not our work. All right, let's pray. Father,
thank you for the wonderful glad tidings that was carried to our
ears by those beautiful feet of whoever brought the gospel
to us. They were sent by God, given
your word, concerning Christ to preach to us, and you opened
our hearts to hear it, and made the gospel of the Lord Jesus
so precious to us. Lord, we pray that we would be
given this grace to believe on you. The Israelites of old did
not. We pray for grace to believe
you. We pray, Lord, that you would
have mercy on us and save us for Christ's sake. Exalt him
in our eyes. Exalt him before all men. Give
him all the glory. In his name we pray. Amen.