Alright, we're in Psalm 73 again
tonight. This is part two of this psalm. And we're going to be, we went through pretty much the
first half of the psalm. And I wanna go through the next
half of it tonight. I'm not dividing it by the number
of verses necessarily, but I wanna focus especially tonight on verse
25 and 26. So we'll probably spend most
of our time there. I wanna go through some of the
verses before that though. I wanna go look at verse five,
first of all. It says in verse five, Psalm
73, speaking about those the psalmist observed didn't appear
to have trouble, and their life was without all the afflictions
that he had, and so it became a reason that caused him, attempted
him to envy them, and this was the result of his unbelief. He
had a lapse in faith, it seems, and he confesses this, and we
talked about that last time. But in verse five it says, they
are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like
other men. And so, if you think about scripture,
you'll notice right away that God works in the lives of his
people, and he works in their lives in order for them to call
upon him. Remember, whosoever shall call
on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And this calling on
the Lord is a gift of God's grace. But God works in our lives through
trouble in order to cause this to happen. I imagine you have
read Psalm 107. In Psalm 107, there are several repetitious examples given of
how God sends trouble, and through that trouble men are at their
wits end, and they call on the Lord, and the Lord saves them.
And then at the end of each of those stanzas in that psalm,
it says, O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, for
his marvelous works to the children of men. So this is done deliberately
to show in a repetitive way how God deals with his people for
their good through trouble. Let me just read on Psalm 107
from verse 17 to 21. He says, fools because of their
transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted.
Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat, and they draw near unto
the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in
their trouble, and He saveth them out of their distresses.
He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from
their destructions. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children
of men. So you can see there, in just
that one selected section, it's because of our sin, God sends
trouble, He saves us by His word, and then He does it in order
that we would praise the Lord for His goodness, for His marvelous
works to His children, the children of men. And then in the very
last verse of that same Psalm, Psalm 107, verse 43, it says,
Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall
understand the loving kindness of the Lord. So we can see then
that God chastens his people. In Revelation 3, verse 19, it
says, Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. He doesn't leave
his people to go their own way. And so back in this verse, though,
in Psalm 73, verse 5, it says, They are not in trouble as other
men, neither are they plagued like other men. So this is in
contrast to the Lord's people. The Lord's people are in trouble.
They may not be in physical trouble, but generally they are also in
physical trouble of some sort. And not continuously, but some
are continuously in physical trouble. But they're all going
to experience the kind of trouble that causes them to cry to the
Lord. In Psalm 34, verse 17, it says,
The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivers them out
of all their troubles. The Lord is nigh unto them that
are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
Now, this is God's work in us. He causes us, as we've noticed
many times before, God causes us to know Him as our Savior
and as our Lord. When trouble comes, and the cause
of that trouble in our heart is our sin against God. Remember
Psalm 51, when David prayed? It was in that psalm when he
said, created me a clean heart, O God. And then also in that
psalm he says, when the Lord does this, when he forgives my
sin, then will I speak of his salvation. And let me look at
that just quickly. to give you the reference here,
in Psalm 51, and in verse 10, he says, I'm sorry, verse 9,
hide thy face from my sins, blot out all my iniquities, create
in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
So you can see the matter here is David's sin. That's what caused
him to cry. He says in verse 11, Psalm 51
verse 11, cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy
Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of thy
salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I
teach transgressors thy ways and sinners shall be converted
to thee. So in the next verse, verse 14, deliver me from blood
guiltiness, from murder, O God, thou God of my salvation, and
my tongue shall do what? Shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. So that's the result of God's
affliction of his people. That chastening hand of God causes
us to feel the weight of our sins and our offenses against
the Lord and cry to Him to remove that, because grace teaches us
that only God can remove our sins. We've sinned against God.
God Himself must remove that sin. All right, but that's not
the case with the wicked. In verse five of Psalm 73, Psalm
73, five says, they are not in trouble as other men, neither
are they plagued like other men. There's a hymn I really like.
It's by a man named Robert Murray Machine. He only lived, I think,
29 years old, but he wrote this hymn. It's called, When This
Passing World Is Done. And there's one stanza in that
hymn. It says, when I hear the wicked
call on the rocks and hills to fall, when I see them start and
shrink on the fiery deluge brink, then, Lord, shall I fully know,
not till then how much I owe. You see, it's this awareness
that God has been merciful to me to save me from my sins, bringing
my sins to a point of unbearable trouble and calling and finding. Through the gospel, God reveals
my salvation is in Christ, and therefore, finding that gospel,
that good news of salvation in Christ from my sins against God,
and trusting Him, knowing that He alone is my Savior, that's
what causes me then to appreciate what I owe, and I won't know
the extent of it until I see him in glory. The same song goes
like this, When this passing world is done, when has sunk
yon glaring sun, when we stand with Christ on high looking o'er
life's history, then, Lord, shall I fully know, not till then how
much I owe. And so in this psalm you can
hear the psalmist is doing this, he's reviewing his the history
of his life and he's seen how God, out of his unbelief and
envy of the wicked, he taught him and he brought him like this
to see that the Lord was merciful to him, unlike others who he
left. in the rebellion of their hearts. He says, in the last verse of
that hymn, he says, even on earth as through a glass darkly let
thy glory pass. Make forgiveness feel so sweet.
Make thy spirit's help so meet, so fitting. Even on earth, Lord,
make me know something of how much I owe. So this is what the
Lord teaches us. And he says, this is the cry
of the righteous. We don't have what we ought to
have. We are not what we ought to be.
And we see that this is a separation between us and God. We don't,
our hearts are cold, our hearts are hard. We find unbelief in
us and we cry out to the Lord to take away our sin, to cover
it, to give us, to find us in Christ, to put us in Christ,
to find us in Christ and to teach us that All of our salvation
is in Him, but there are those who don't ever experience that,
and it's because of that that they never cry to the Lord. The
Lord will not leave the righteous to themselves. That's the message
here. He will not do it. Because they
are His children, and because they are therefore the children
of promise, He is not going to leave them. They were given to
Him, given to Christ. The Father will draw all of His
children to Christ. He will teach them. He will make
them hunger and thirst for the Lord Jesus. And though we don't
know our need until we hear the gospel, then we are brought to
Him. And haven't you found that to
be the case? When we lived in false religion, we were reasonably
content to be that way, because we were told that if we did certain
things, all would be well, and we imagined that we could fulfill
whatever the requirement was. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow,
but eventually we'd get there. And so we continually in our
pride held out this hope that we were going to become right
with God by what we did, either in part or in whole. But the
Lord showed us through his law, he showed us two things. Number
one, he showed us our complete inability to come to God by what
we are and what we do. And number two, he showed us
by his law, also, that only Christ could. Only Christ could, and
the gospel tells us that's what he did. He kept God's law. He honored it. in his blood,
with his obedience, and we are given that righteousness freely
by his grace. And so this is what's spoken
of here in verse five. Verse five says, because they
are not in trouble, because God hasn't afflicted them like this,
therefore, in verse six he says, therefore pride compasses them
about as a chain. So the result of being left to
ourselves is our pride becomes a blinding condition. In John chapter 9, Jesus spoke
to the Pharisees. He says, if you were blind, you
would have no sin, but because you say, we see, therefore your
sin remains. And that's what pride does. No,
I see, I'm fine, I'm okay. No, you're not. No, you're not.
There's only one way you can be okay. You can only be fine
if God has opened your eyes to find Christ to be the only one
God can accept and our acceptance must be in Him alone. So the
Lord sees to it. He makes sure that his people
cry, and he does that through this soul affliction, and he
uses his gospel to do that. Remember, in John 16, in verse
eight, Jesus said, when the Spirit of God comes, he will convince,
he will convict the world of sin because of unbelief, of righteousness,
because Christ has completed and fulfilled God's law and ascended,
and of judgment because the prince of this world has cast out Christ,
executed judgment in his cross. So those are the things the gospel
teaches us and God by his spirit persuades us of them. So until
God afflicts us, we don't call, but according to Psalm 107, that's
the way God works. And knowing God's way of salvation,
therefore, what causes us the most trouble? What do you find
the most troubling in your own heart? Is it the lack of money
for groceries? That might be a troubling thing.
or you can't pay your mortgage, those things trouble us. But
what troubles a child of God most of all is that our heart
seems to be unmoved by the truth of the gospel. And we're able
to go on presumptuously without this thirst, this hunger for
Christ and his righteousness held and continuously the subject
of our communion with God himself. So that's what troubles us, is
when our unbelief rises up like that. Then in verse 7 of Psalm
73, it says, their eyes stand out with fatness, they have more
than heart could wish. It's a very graphic picture,
isn't it? It's like a frog blowing his cheeks out. Their eyes are
popping out because they are full of themselves in self-righteousness. They feel content by their accomplishments
in the world. They feel emboldened by their
possessions. God must be for me. Everything's
going well. And so that causes them to presume
on God's goodness. But grace teaches us something
else. Grace teaches us to never presume by looking at ourselves. Grace teaches us that when we
look at ourselves, that's when we're the worst off. And God's
grace causes His people to be concerned over their own selves
and to not be satisfied with anything except Christ. And so
that's what this verse is talking about. Remember Matthew chapter
seven, how God will, how the Lord Jesus Christ will have all
those people before Him who will be in terror because they trusted
in their own righteousness. They called their own works to
remembrance, hoping for recognition from God, from Christ, because
of their own accomplishments. And he says, depart. Depart from
me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you, because they
didn't do the will of the Father. And the will of the Father is
to trust in Christ, to believe on Him. Verse 8 of Psalm 73 says,
they are corrupt, they speak wickedly concerning oppression,
they speak loftily. Now, the picture here is someone
who is so proud that they are against God. They speak loftily,
they speak wickedly, they're corrupt. They speak against God
and Christ, and they're lifted up by their own opinion of themselves
and of their life. They look at their life, they
look at themselves, they find everything is rosy and happy,
and in this self-exalted frame of mind, they act against God
with impunity. There's no restraint. In their
mind, they continue to idolize themselves, and their worth,
and their works, and their will. But the gospel knocks those things
out from under us. Our own worth, we're nothing.
Jesus told his disciples, when you've done everything that you're
commanded to do, say this, we are unprofitable servants. We've
only done what we've been told to do. And that's the best we
can do, but we haven't done that. And so even if we could, we'd
still be unprofitable servants. So the Lord knocks that out,
that prop out. He knocks out the prop of our free will. We
don't have it. It's not of him that willeth.
It's not of him that runneth. It's of God who shows mercy.
So we're utterly dependent. Our eternity hangs on God's will,
not our will. By our will, we've offended God.
And only by God's will can he find in his wisdom a way to honor
his righteousness and to exalt his His own name in His Son through
our salvation. This is what happens when we're
lifted up with pride because we think of ourselves more highly
than we ought to think. Remember the Pharisee in Luke
chapter seven when he saw the woman who was a known sinner
coming and touching Jesus by weeping over him and pouring
out that alabaster box and wiping his feet, washing them with her
tears and wiping them with her hair. And he was indignant But
he didn't say anything, he just thought it in his heart. And
so in his mind he was lifted up and she was nothing, she was
ugly. She was irredeemable, as they
say. But the Lord looked upon, asked
him a question, and then he compared those two debtors. One owed 50,
or one owed 500, I think, and one owed 50. There was a 10 times
difference between the two. And the one who owed the most,
the Pharisee had to admit, would love the most when he was forgiven. And so this woman was the one
who was loving him the most because she knew she had been forgiven
the most. And so it was with God's people.
When we know what we've been forgiven, that's when we love
Christ. And the problem with us is in our pride, we don't
think we have a need for forgiveness, so we don't love Christ. So that's
what this is talking about. They're corrupt, they speak wickedly
concerning oppression, they speak loftily. They're like those who
who see themselves on a throne looking down and judging others
with a just condemnation of others by the measure of their own estimation
of their own righteousness. Okay? Now, in verse nine, he
says, these same people set their mouth against the heavens and
their tongue walketh through the earth. So you can see that
without faith, man's pride knows no bounds. What could possibly
be the greater folly than this, than to speak against God, to
speak against His Son, to speak against the Spirit of God? That's
what they do. They set their mouth against
the heavens, and their tongue walks through the earth. You
can sort of see this, I don't know, this... cartoon of someone
wagging their head and hands on their hips speaking against
God and their arrogance. But unless God himself restrains
and turns us, we're going to be exactly the same way. We will
oppose our own salvation. And this is spoken of throughout
scripture. In 2 Timothy 2, verse 25, he
says that the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be
gentle unto all men. and meekness instructing those
that oppose themselves if God per venture would grant them
repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. That's what we
need, isn't it? God needs to grant us repentance.
So we need to take our place, don't we? Our place is below
the measurement line. It's below that because we've
sinned against God. We have fallen short of the glory
of God. Then in verse 10 he says this,
therefore his people return hither and waters of a full cup are
wrung out to them. Now this is a difficult verse
because the words his people, it's not clear to me whether
it's his people meaning the wicked and the ungodly or God's people. One commentator will say one
thing, another commentator will say another thing and they give
their reasons for it. But as for my opinion here is
because This psalm, during this part
of the psalm, is talking about and condemning the ungodly for
their pride, for their sense of presumption against God by
their possessions or their righteousness. I'm inclined to retain the emphasis
here on them. their people, in other words,
referring to the ungodly. They live at ease in this world
and their ease and their prosperity is a temptation to the people
of God. But it says here in verse 10,
his people return hither and waters of a full cup are wrung
out to them. So I think that this is the trouble
that comes upon them. God's going to bring judgment
upon them. And so that's the way I understand it, although
this is understood differently by different people, different
commentators. The people about the wicked,
will flatter them, they'll honor them, they'll praise them because
they seem prosperous, they'll even try to benefit from their
prosperity and their popularity, but that becomes a stumbling
block to them, and it becomes a stumbling block to many who
profess to be the Lord's people by that temptation. We're easily
tempted by seeing people prosperous. Have you ever thought, well,
how come that church over there, let's say, It's funny, where
we meet, the number of people that meet with us is probably
less than one-tenth of the people that meet at the Mormon tabernacle
that's like two blocks away. And this place is a monstrosity.
It must have cost $10 million if it cost a nickel. They got
all sorts of landscaping and buildings and parking lots, et
cetera. Fancy cars are parked in the
place, and we know it's a cult. And yet, there's just a few people
who meet where we meet. And so, it's a temptation, isn't
it? You think, wow, these guys are
doing well. What's going on there? Well, you know, according to
this psalm, it's not because of the truth that they have.
It's because God has put them, as he says a little later, in
slippery places. Prosperity is a curse. It's a curse. Our sense of accomplishment
and our sense of well-being because of our own performance or our
possessions, that is a curse. God has to rescue us from that
frame of mind. All right, and then in verse
11, they say, how does God know and is there knowledge in the
Most High? So unbelief presumes to live independently of God. It presumes to interpret events
in light of my own performance or faithfulness. But faith always
sees from God's view, because we're looking from God's view
by His word. Faith takes the scripture as
its foundation, not its own sense and sight. Faith interprets all
things by the gospel of Christ, Christ crucified, risen and reigning.
He was successful, but he looked to be the most unsuccessful.
Remember the thief on the cross hanging there by Jesus and said,
Lord, speaking of him as the sovereign. He says, remember
me when you come into your kingdom. He knew he was coming. He knew
he was successful. That's what faith does. We see
what God has said and we see things through his perspective,
which is Christ and him crucified. He's the one God has exalted,
not us, except we are in him. So God exalted him. That's God's
purpose is to glorify his son and to glorify his people with
him and only by him. So faith enables us to know that
God knows, and to know that since he gave his only begotten son
to save his sinful people, therefore the true interpretation of things
is what Christ has said, what Christ has done, and where Christ
is now. Jesus said, heaven and earth
may pass away, or shall pass away, but my word shall never
pass away. And so we know that that's true.
So his word is our foundation. Then, in verse 12 of Psalm 73,
behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world. they
increase in riches. That's a summary of all that
we've said before, isn't it? Verse 13, verily I have cleansed
my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocency. Now here,
the psalmist is confessing his view, his false view of things,
this unbelief, and he's doing this for instruction of God's
people. No one, he says, I have cleansed
my heart in vain, but no one can cleanse their own heart,
can they? And Jeremiah, it says, can the Ethiopian change his
skin? Can the leopard change his spots? No, no more than can
you who are accustomed to doing evil do good. You can't change
your heart. God has to cleanse our heart.
He has to give us a new heart. That's the promise of the new
covenant. In Ezekiel 36, he says, a new heart also will I give
you, and a new spirit will I put within you. He has to, as he
did with Lydia, he has to open our heart, doesn't he? And so
we know this. And so in verse 14, Psalm 73,
he says, for all the day long have I been plagued and chastened
every morning. God does not correct the ungodly. and bring them to repentance,
does he? It says in Job, their houses are safe from fear, neither
is the rod of God upon them. That's Job 21, verse nine. So
God doesn't chasten the ungodly to bring them to repentance,
but he does chasten his people. He says in Psalm 119, verse 75,
I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right and that thou in faithfulness
has afflicted me. And as I said before, nowhere
is this faithfulness of God felt more than in the affliction of
our souls under the sense of our sin and our need for Christ. That's why Jesus said, whoever
hungers and thirsts after righteousness, shall be filled. Remember in
John 6, it was all about Jesus as the bread of heaven, the bread
sent from God, the one whose body was broken, whose blood
was poured out, and his body broken and blood poured out is
our meat and drink because we're hungry in our souls for him.
So chastisement is the blessing of God the Father upon his children,
whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he
receives. And in Revelation, I mentioned
this before, Revelation 3 verse 19, as many as I love, I rebuke
and chasten. So does God love everybody? Does
he chasten everybody? Does he bring them to repentance
with his chastening? According to that verse, no,
no. He doesn't chasten everyone,
he only chastens those he loves. And he does chasten those he
loves, so therefore God doesn't love everybody. He loves his
people. It says in Job 34, surely it
is neat to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I
will not offend any more. And this was spoken by, what
was his name, Eliphaz, or whatever the man in the book of Job, who
corrected Job, was sent by God to correct Job. And he spoke
to him, isn't it right that through the chastisement God has brought
to you, you would say, I won't offend anymore? God has corrected
my frame of mind, my point of view. He's changed my mind. He's brought me to repentance.
That's what repentance means. It means a change of mind. All
right. One more verse. In Psalm 119,
verse 155, he says, salvation is far from the wicked. Far from
the wicked, you see. Salvation is far from the wicked,
for they seek not thy statutes. And how do we seek God's statutes?
How do we seek them? Well, if we are under the law,
then we seek to do them that we might fulfill them for God's
blessings for life. But if we are instructed, we
know that the law is established by Christ doing it, not by our
doing it. And so we seek God's statutes
when we trust Christ as all of our righteousness. Remember in
Romans chapter 3 he says, do we then make void the law through
faith? No, we establish the law. That's the only way the law can
be established, is by faith we see Christ has fulfilled it,
both for justice and for righteousness. But the wicked don't know that. God hasn't taught them. He hasn't
brought them to the end of themselves in order that they might be brought
to Christ. And so what we need then is to
be brought to Christ. And this is what he's going on
to say. In verse 15, if I say, I will speak thus, the psalmist
says in verse 15, behold, I should offend against the generation
of thy children, against the Lord's people, God's children.
If I utter these words that I'm thinking in my heart in unbelief,
envious of the wicked, and thinking that these people who live without
God are prospering and somehow I'm messing out, that view, if
I echo that with my words in the congregation of God's people,
I'm going to offend them. I'm going to cause them to stumble,
aren't I? And this teaches us an important
lesson, doesn't it? Number one, it teaches us not
to echo everything that we think in our heart. It's not profitable. Number two, it teaches us to
be careful what we say, especially when we're with the Lord's people.
Now, this is true of parents. We don't say everything that
comes to mind to our children. That's not wise. That's not prudent,
is it? Why would we do that with the
Lord's children? We're even more careful, aren't we? We don't
want to offend one of these little ones. these that belong to Christ. Jesus told his disciples to do
that. Be careful that you don't offend one of these little ones.
And so we want to be guarded with our words. We don't just
talk about nonsense when we're with the Lord's people. We don't
want to, we do, but we shouldn't. We should always be striving
to exhort one another, to exhort one another to love and to good
works, which we can only do by pointing one another to Christ.
So this is important. When he was about to say these
things, he said, if I should speak thus, I should offend against
the generation of thy children. And then in verse 16, when I
thought to know this, it was too painful for me. You see,
it's utterly foolish for us to envy the wicked, isn't it? Most
especially, it's utterly foolish for Christ's people to think
the wicked have it better than they do. Isn't that crazy? I mean, that's so opposed to
what the Lord has revealed. And we live by faith, not by
sight, don't we? So, it's only this slip of the
psalmist in unbelief that produced this thought of foolishness,
isn't it? It's very painful when we recognize
how foolish we are in our thinking. Jesus said, it's not what goes
into a man that defiles a man, it's what comes out of him. It's
out of the heart that all these things come. Fornication and
wickedness and murder and all these things, these horrible,
horrible things, they come from our heart. And so it's painful
to recognize this. It even hurts to confess it,
to say what I really am to God in prayer. It hurts, doesn't
it? It's painful. But it is also helpful to know
that we're foolish because it shows that we're utterly dependent
on God's grace to save us from the foolishness of our own sinful
hearts and our own thoughts and our words and our motives. Everything
has to be corrected. And then he says in verse 17,
until I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I their
end. Well, what is the sanctuary?
We know it has to do with Christ. He is God incarnate. The fullness
of the Godhead dwells in Him. He's God with us. The Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us. He tabernacled among us. So Christ
ultimately is the temple of the Holy Spirit. But not just Christ,
but we are His body. So those who are in Christ also
are part of that sanctuary. But what scripture says, like
for example in Psalm 80 verse 1, it says that God dwells between
what? The cherubims. Remember in the
Old Testament over the ark of the testimony was that mercy
seat and there were two cherubim that were made of pure gold and
they looked down on that that lid on the ark where the blood
was sprinkled and they saw that mercy seat where the blood was
sprinkled. God dwells there, that's what he's saying in Psalm
80 verse 1. So God dwells, that's his sanctuary
where Christ was crucified, where the gospel is preached, where
the gospel is believed, where Christ is held by faith in the
hearts of his people. God dwells in the hearts of his
people. He dwells amongst his people, the church, and he dwells
amongst them through the gospel of Christ in him crucified. So
that God's sanctuary, therefore, that what the psalmist is saying
in verse 17 is that when he went in to the sanctuary, when he
saw who God is in the crucifixion of Christ, in his obedience,
in his humility, in his justice, and righteousness, and wisdom,
and grace, and mercy, and all that God is in his faithfulness
and his love and all these things. Then he learned, you see, God
teaches us when he makes Christ known. He makes himself known
in his son. Jesus said, I give unto them
eternal life, and this is life eternal, that they might know
thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent. That's in John 17. So the sanctuary here is where
he went in, in other words, he heard again from God in his heart
of Christ and him crucified. And he held communion with God
over what God has said. In the context of that, he was
dwelling in Christ, Christ was dwelling in him as he was eating
and drinking of Christ and him crucified, as John 6 verse 56
tells us. So here, we see that it was there
that God taught him, and this is where he teaches all of us.
This is how he corrects us from our sin, doesn't it? He always
brings us to this frightful and desperate distress of soul, so
that we're crying out to the Lord, and then we see, oh, oh,
I see, it's all of grace, it's all in Christ. It's not in me. I was foolish, like the psalmist
says about himself here. He goes on in verse 18 of Psalm
73. He says, So again, we see that when God leaves us to our pride and
doesn't restrain us with this arresting truth of the gospel penetrating our
thick, our hard heart and opening our
heart and giving us his grace, until he does that, then we're
going to be in a slippery place. God would leave us to ourselves
and that would be a slippery place. We would fall into destruction,
but he doesn't do that, does it? Because nothing can save
us except his grace and nothing is more blinding than our ignorance
of grace, our lack of dependence on Christ, and our sense of pride
in our own self-righteousness. Okay, verse 19, how are they
brought to desolation as in a moment they are utterly consumed? I
think I've talked about that when I was mentioning about Matthew
7, so I'm going to go over that. I'm trying to get to verse 25
here. In verse 20, he says, as a dream,
when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt
despise their image. I talked about that last time.
When we sleep, we often wake up and think, man, what a stupid
dream. What's wrong with me? And so
we despise that dream. Well, the Lord will despise these
who presume against him in their self-righteousness. In verse
21, thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins,
because there's no greater disappointment, there's no greater shame than
when we realize our shamefulness in our arrogance of our own unbelief,
thinking that we are missing something when Christ is our
all. So foolish was I and ignorant,
I was as a beast before thee. It hurts, doesn't it, to know
what we are in ourselves. He goes on in verse 23. Nevertheless,
I am continually with thee, thou hast holden me by my right hand.
Now, I'm slowing down a little bit here. Notice in verse 23,
thou art continually with me. Jesus said, I will never leave
you nor forsake you. And this is in Hebrews chapter
13, where he says that, verse five. And when you look at that,
it's not just, I will never leave you. is I will never leave you
nor forsake you. There's two negatives, and actually
in the original there's three negatives there. I will never
leave you. No, never. And so he's emphatic about this. He will never leave his people.
The gifts and callings of God, according to Romans 11, 29, are
without repentance. God doesn't take them back. When
he calls someone to salvation by Christ through the gospel
and his spirit, he doesn't retract that call because his call is
efficacious. It gets done, God's intent in
the call. All those he calls, he says in
Romans 8, 29, he justified. And those he justified, he glorified. So, that's in Romans 8, 29, and
30. So God doesn't take back his
call. He doesn't take back his gifts.
And that's what he's saying here. He is ever with his people. He
told his disciples in John 14, verse 18, I will not leave you
orphans. I will come to you. I'm going
to come to you. Because I live, you shall live
also. And so these are meant to bolster our confidence in
God's grace because of Christ's righteousness, having seen our
own horrible failures and our sin, even in our minds, as the
psalmist does here. He says, nevertheless, nevertheless,
in spite of all my sin, he's continually with me. How could
it be? That's grace incomprehensible,
isn't it? He's holding me by my right hand.
And I could go on and on about this, but I want to go to the
next verse. He says, thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and
afterward receive me to glory. And his counsel is, of course,
his will, his saving will for his people in Christ, who is
the way, the truth, and the life. But in verse 25, here we go,
he says, whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon
earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Now, I want you to see in this
verse, this is phenomenal, isn't it? This verse, I think, captures
the apex. This is the pinnacle, the high
point in this psalm. This is the point we're trying
to get to. Whom have I in heaven but thee? There's none upon earth I desire
beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Now, I would like to take you to those verses that show us
that we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. We who believe on him
belong to him. Why do we belong to him? Well,
he chose us. God chose us in Christ, and Christ
chose us. You didn't choose me, Jesus told
his disciples in John 15, 26, but I've chosen you. I think
it was verse 26, it might be a different verse, but whatever.
In John 15, you did not choose me, I have chosen you. So Christ
chose his people, God the Father chose. That's the first thing.
The second thing is, he chose them because he loved them. It
was in love that he chose us in Christ, and he chose us to
be holy and without blame before him in Christ and in that love. This is Ephesians chapter 1.
So what he's saying here in verse 25 and 26 is what is expounded in the New
Testament. And that is this, that the Lord's
people, and this is important, the Lord's people are His inheritance. God's inheritance is His people.
And the other thing is, is that the Lord Himself is our inheritance. This is phenomenal, isn't it?
And I've got a lot of verses to talk to you about this, but
there's one verse I want to take you to, and again, it's in Ephesians
chapter 1. Take a look at that. In Ephesians
chapter 1, this inheritance of God's people is the Lord himself. He says in Ephesians 1, And verse
three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. Okay, so we have nothing but
what we have in Christ. But because we have Christ, then
we have all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. That's what
he's saying. Verse four, according as he hath chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. So he's going to make us holy
in Christ. He's going to make it so that
we're blameless in Christ and therefore in love before him
in Christ. He goes on, verse 5, "...having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself." God has taken us to himself as his own children by
Jesus Christ. Now, this is a promise of God. This is speaking about something
God did before time. God knew he was going to do this.
In his will, he did it, and he predestinated it. He decreed
it. He foreordained it to be so.
He predetermined it to be so, that we would be his children
by Jesus Christ. So this is a covenant, isn't
it? In the covenant, he said, I will be their God. They shall
be my people. So that was obligated himself
to give himself as God to them and to be their God, to be their
sovereign, to be their savior, to be their redeemer, their surety,
their everything in Christ. And this was according to the
good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his
grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, in Christ,
with his people, the beloved. In whom, in Christ, we have redemption
through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace." Amazing, isn't it? Just placing on top of one
blessing another blessing of an incomprehensible magnitude.
And then look in verse 11, Ephesians 1, 11. In whom, Christ still,
also we have obtained an inheritance So our portion, our inheritance,
in Christ, being predestinated according to the purpose of him
who works all things after the counsel of his own will, that
we should be to the praise of his glory. Now, do you see this? God has given us everything in
Christ. And then look at verse 23, Ephesians 1, 23. I'll read 22, he says, and he
has put all things under his feet, under Christ, and given
him, gave him to be the head over all things to the church.
See, he gave Christ to be the head to the church for their
benefit, which is his body, notice the very last phrase, the fullness
of him that filleth all in all. Amazing. How can we understand
this? God is saying that he gave his
people to Christ to be his inheritance and they would fulfill him as
Christ. just as he is our inheritance
and he has given all things to him for our sake. So no wonder
the psalmist says, whom have I in heaven but thee? There's
none upon earth I desire beside thee. He's saying this, Christ
is my heaven. Heaven is Christ to me. If I
had everything without Christ, it would be nothing. But having
Christ and having nothing but him, I have all things. This
is so important for us to get hold of. He says in Psalm 73
verse 26, he says, My flesh and my heart faileth. You see, God's work in the lives
of his people, as he demonstrates to the psalmist in Psalm 73,
is to divest them, to remove from them any desire for anything
in this world, or anything in themselves, and to have one desire,
to be found in Christ, to be found of God in Christ, and that's
enough. Because if we're His, then He's
our Redeemer. If we're Christ, then He's our
Savior. He's our King. He's our Sovereign. He's our
Life. He's our Righteousness. He's our Wisdom. He's everything
if Christ, if we belong to Him, because He's made us His people.
He's given everything in Him. Look at one more verse, and then
we will close for the night. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, one
more verse. In 1 Corinthians 3, Whom have
I in heaven but thee? He says in chapter three, in
verse 21, the Corinthians, they had all kinds of problems, and
the Apostle Paul fixes all their temptation to judge themselves
by comparing one another, themselves to one another. And one of the
things they were doing is they were saying, oh, I'm of Paul.
No, I'm of Apollos. I'm of Peter. I heard the gospel
through Peter. You know, I'm somehow better
than you. He says in verse 21, let no man glory in men. That's
foolish. Don't glory in men, for all things
are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life,
or death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours. You are Christ's, and Christ
is God's. We belong to Christ. He chose
us. He purchased us with his own
blood. And if God gave his son for us, he's going to give us
all things with him. If we have Christ, we are complete
in him. The fullness of the Godhead bodily
dwells in him. There's nothing that can be added.
Nothing can be taken away. We belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. God has given everything to him,
not for himself alone, but for himself with his people. And
that's the concluding remarks of the psalmist here. Whom have
I in heaven but thee? There's none on earth I desire
beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the
strength of my heart and of my soul forever here, however he
puts it there, and my portion forever. He's my inheritance.
My inheritance. What grace that God would make
himself, give himself for his people in Christ and give himself
to his people in Christ. Can anything more be given? God
emptied heaven and the poor in spirit received the kingdom of
heaven. What an amazing message the gospel
is, isn't it? Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your incomprehensible, immeasurable grace in the Lord Jesus Christ,
our Savior and our Lord. We long to have in our heart
this persuasion that you must give us to turn us from our own
sense of our accomplishments or our lack thereof. or our own
acquisition of your favor and blessings in this world help
us to have no other desire but to be found in Christ and to
know by the gospel that you've given to us that we have Christ
and having him we have all things. by faith. We don't have anything
we can point to in ourselves. You've given us a persuasion
called faith, that everything is in Him. And we know, Lord,
that even that faith itself is your gift, and we don't look
to our faith. We look to Christ, the one our faith that you gave
to us looks to. And so we pray, Lord, bless us
for His sake. Find us in Him, and exalt your
Son. Help us not to desire anything,
especially by comparison to men, but also not to seek any glory,
but to glorify our Savior for all He's done for us. And He's
given Himself, what amazing grace. In His name we pray, amen.