in Psalm 68. Now, I wanted to
back just a glance at a couple of places. In verse 8, if you
remember verse 8 of Psalm 68, it says, The earth shook, the
heavens also dropped at the presence of God. Even Sinai itself was
moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. Now, the Lord
Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh. And we know the
Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to fulfill the will of
God. And part of that will was to
be made under the law and to fulfill the law. He said, I didn't
come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. And no jot, not
even a jot or tittle of the law or the prophets would fail until
they were fulfilled. That's spoken of in Matthew chapter
five, verse 17 and 18. And so we know the Lord Jesus
Christ came to fulfill the law and he actually did fulfill it
for his people. Romans 10, four says, the Lord
Jesus is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that
believeth. So Christ came to fulfill the
law. He did fulfill it. He is the righteousness of God.
He fulfilled the righteousness of the law, and He fulfilled
the righteousness of the law in shedding His blood. And therefore
in Romans 5, 9 it says we're justified by His blood, where
in Romans 3, 24 It says that we are justified through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So His redeeming blood
justifies us, and this is the righteousness of God that's given
to us. And because His righteousness
is ours, we are also given many things, everything really, but
eternal life, for example, and we're given the Spirit of God
in us to enable us to reign in life, to reign in life, R-E-I-G-N,
not R-A-I-N, but to reign as kings and priests means that
by God's Spirit in us, we are enabled to trust Christ and to
live in victory in everything by looking to Him out of every
trouble and every trial and finding that He is our Savior. And as
God said of Abraham, though he didn't consider his own body,
he was fully persuaded that what God promised, He was able also
to perform. So we are enabled by God's grace,
by His Spirit in us, to walk in the newness of this life,
not depending on our flesh or our obedience to the law, or
our ability to undo the sin that we offended God with by anything
of our own, our sorrow, our tears, or some kind of repayment of
our own, but trusting Christ in everything. Because the Lord
Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God for us. And that righteousness
magnified the law and fulfilled it. Now here in Psalm 68, And
verse 8 where it says this about Sinai itself, shook and the heavens
also at the presence of God. So you could understand that
then of being about the Lord Jesus Christ. Sinai shook at
the presence of Christ because he is God and because in fulfillment
Christ magnified and answered the law. He magnified it in obedience. He magnified it in satisfaction.
All is shaken because all that men use by trusting their own
obedience to come to God, all that they use, or that they trusted
for life, because they trusted that the law would enable them
to have life, even though Galatians 3 and verse 21 says, if there
had been a law which could have given life, then righteousness
would have come by the law, but there wasn't. So because we're
sinners, not because the law wasn't good, but because the
law didn't give us any strength. And so Sinai itself shook because
Christ fulfilled it and magnified it and all that men trusted in
for their own life and acceptance before God and all that they
boast in by keeping the law, that That honor that belongs
to Christ only is what shook the mountain, I believe. Only
Christ, who is God, could and did fulfill and answer the God's
law in righteousness and justice. Only he could. And because only
he could, and he did, therefore the mountain shook at the presence
of God. No man could. And that's the
warning of the law is that we cannot, we can't keep it because
we're sinners. Under the law, our sin becomes
exceeding sinful, because we try to keep it in our own strength,
and we trust ourselves, and we trust that God will reward us
for something that we bring to God by our obedience, and we
judge others to be lower than ourselves, and are critical of
others, and we just have all kinds of problems when we live
under the law. But the Lord Jesus Christ has
set us free by fulfilling the law himself and giving us that
righteousness in which we appear before God as a free gift and
eternal life because of it. So that's the first thing I wanted
to say about verse 8 in summary. But also in verse 9 it says,
Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain whereby Thou didst confirm
Thine inheritance when it was weary. So the Lord, because Christ
fulfilled the law, also has given us an abundance of grace. And
I mentioned this when we were thinking about this the last
time, that where our sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And
how much more it abounded, didn't it? It abounded so much that
even our ability to know Christ and our ability to know that
Him as our Savior and our righteousness and our life before God and to
know that He is our strength and all that He is to us. He's
everything to us. That knowledge and that persuasion
that is given to us by the Spirit of God living in us, that's a
plentiful, that's an abundance of God's grace like rain coming
down on the earth. And that comes to us because
Christ did fulfill the law. So the two verses are connected
that way. It's an abundance of grace because
Christ has fulfilled the law for us and his grace towards
us because of that now much more abounds. Everything, all spiritual
and heavenly blessings are given to us in Christ, not in ourselves,
not in our obedience to what God requires of us, but what
God has freely given in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Christ is
all God requires from his people. That's it. And faith persuades
us. Faith is that persuasion that
this is God's own truth. OK. And then in verse 10 he says,
Thy congregation has dwelt therein, and is plentiful in inheritance.
O God, thou hast prepared thy goodness for the poor. Now the
poor are the poor in spirit, and we have nothing. We have
nothing. We are literally without strength
in ourselves. Jesus told his disciples in John
15, without me, you can do nothing. We couldn't believe God. We couldn't
love God. We couldn't repent. We couldn't
live. We couldn't do anything. We can't
do anything unless we're connected to the vine. And so he tells
us that. And so we are poor, but the poor
in spirit are given the kingdom of heaven. Amazing, isn't it?
We're given the kingdom of heaven who have nothing. It's the highest
possible reward to be given the Kingdom of Heaven, to be made
the children of God, to see Christ and to serve Him as His brethren,
even as His wife, submitting ourselves to Him in love. All
that is a gift to us, and so that's all given to us. And it's
God who makes us poor, and he uses our own failure to do that. And that's what Romans 7 teaches
us. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? That constant reminder is with
us continuously, and it's like, it seems like a cancer, but even
though it seems like a cancer, God, assures us that the life
of Christ in us will succeed, will allow us, enable us to continue
looking to Christ and not to ourselves in our obedience to
the law or our flesh or our strength or anything from ourselves. But
the weaker we feel, the stronger Christ is and is saving all sufficient
grace to us. OK, so I just want to mention
those two things. in passing. There's another verse
here, in verse 12, I wanted to touch on just briefly. He says,
kings of armies did flee apace, and she that tarried at home
divided the spoil. I think I mentioned this, but
I don't remember. When David was on the run from King Saul,
and he had I think 600 men at the time who were loyal to him,
and were his little army that were with him and still much
smaller than all the armies of Israel. And he was fighting for
them and for his family and for his children, his wife, his wives
and his children. and the men that were with him,
their wives, their children, and so on. And they were in the
company of the Philistines, but the king of Gath, whose name
was Achish, gave David a city called Ziklag. I think he gave
it to him. Anyway, so he and his family
were in Ziklag, and so were the families of these 600 men with
David. But the Amalekites came, and
they attacked Ziklag, they took all the people and took all the
goods that were there. And so David and his men went
after them. But when they were going after
them, 200 of the men that were with David were tired. They were
too weary to go to battle. So they stayed at a place and
there was all the stuff that David had. He left it with those
200 men. And he went on to fight the Amalekites with the 400 that
remained and they were victorious. They destroyed the Amalekites
and they came back. And when they came back, they
found the 200 men who were still there with the stuff, guarding
it. And it says when he came back to the 200 men, this is
in 1 Samuel chapter 30, that He saluted them, and they went
forth to meet him. And as they were exchanging their
greetings, wicked men in the company of David, who were men
of Satan, it says Belial means men of the devil, that were with
David said, because these men didn't go with us, we won't give
them anything from the spoil. So they took back not only the
stuff that belonged to them, but they also spoiled the Amalekites
and took much from the Amalekites. But David said, no, you shall
not do so, my brethren, with that which the Lord has given
us, who has preserved us and delivered the company that came
against us into our hand. These 400 men, or not these 400,
but these men of Belial, these wicked men, were attributing
to their strength the victory over the Amalekites. David said,
no way. No way. And so he told them,
God is the one who delivered us, he preserved us, he delivered
the army that were against us into our hand, that came against
us. And so he told them, he says,
who will hearken to you in this matter? But as his part is that
goes down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarries by the
stuff, they shall part alike. Now that's what I don't remember
if I told you when we covered this verse, but I want you to
consider that historical fact in David's history, because here
it says that kings of armies did flee apace, and she that
tarried at home divided the spoil. The ones who tarried at home,
in this case, she, a feminine, would represent the church. And
tearing it home means they didn't go out to do the battle. The
battle was done by someone else. And so they contributed nothing,
and yet they were given the spoils. They were also given. And so
it is with us. We are in Christ. We are His
bride. And everything that He has done,
we did nothing to overcome our enemy. We simply, as it were,
abide in Him who triumphs for us. And salvation is of the Lord. And we stand still as we see
Him fight. The Lord is our banner of victory. And He did the fight for us.
He overcame Satan and the world and our sin and even the law
in order for us to be free. And so everything is given to
us just because we're in Christ, not because we accomplished anything
for it. OK, so there's that verse. Now,
I'm going to go on now towards the end where we left off last
time. Let's see, we covered verse twenty
one and I think twenty two. Let's see, I'm getting to the
place of my notes. Says, I think we're on 23, if
I'm not mistaken. So verse 23 of Psalm 68 says
this. I should read the verse before
it, because it's connected. He says in Psalm 68, 22, the
Lord said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring my
people again from the depths of the sea. We saw last time
that had to do with bringing God's people, as it were, from
the grave. because the Red Sea was like a grave. It was a grave
for the Egyptians, but Israel passed through on dry land because
God brought them through judgment. And we know that we pass through
judgment safely because we were judged by God in Christ. So we see that. And also Beishan
is that place that was exalted and fruitful. And also there
was an enemy there, a king, Og of Beishan. They came out to
destroy God's people when they were coming into their inheritance. And so we saw there that Og,
the king of Bashan, and his people were destroyed because they thought
to take away, to take the lives and to kill the people of Israel
that God had given an inheritance to, which pictures our trouble
in this world because of our own sin And because of Satan
and all of our enemies that would war against us, God destroys
them. So then we get to the verse where
we left off in verse 23. He says, verse 23, that thy foot
may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies and the tongue
of thy dogs in the same. So here, the foot dipped in the
blood of the enemies means that he's utterly victorious. God's
enemies, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our enemies, they're all one
and the same. God's enemies, Christ's enemies,
and the enemies of God's church will all be destroyed. And so
that's the picture. The foot, thy foot may be dipped
in the blood of thine enemies and the tongue of thy dogs in
the same. In other words, the lowest enemies
of God, of the Lord's possessions would be represented by dogs.
And so even those who are despised would have victory over these
enemies. Every enemy of the Lord's people
has been defeated and shall be utterly defeated by Christ. The
Lord Jesus Christ is the captain of our salvation, the captain
in Hebrews chapter two and verse 10. It seemed good to God, the
Father, that the Lord Jesus Christ would be made the captain of
our salvation. And let me read that to you in
Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 10. So you see that it says, it became
him, speaking of God the Father, for whom are all things and by
whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory. to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. The Lord
Jesus Christ suffered. That was his victory over our
enemies. And so even though Satan bruised
the heel of Christ, meaning he died in his body, and suffered
in his soul at the hand of God and unjust cruel enemies. That was nothing compared to
the defeat given to Satan by Christ in his death. He utterly
defeated the devil and all of his kingdom. And that's what's
spoken of here. And it's spoken this way in order
to assure us that the victory is Christ's. It belongs to Him,
it's given to us, and in everything He gives us the victory. He always
causes us to triumph in Christ. In 2 Corinthians 2 verse 14 it
says so, and in 1 Corinthians 15 and verses 54 through 57 it
talks about how Christ has taken away the sting
of death and that he will, when he comes again, he will raise
his people and that will be his victory over the grave for his
people then. He has already triumphed over
death. He has already put death to death in that sense of His
death. He was raised from the dead and
therefore death has no more power over Him, it says in Romans 6,
verse 10. So He can't die and His people
also won't die. He said, I'm the resurrection
and the life. Whoever believes on me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall
never die. So they won't die in spirit,
and though their body dies, it will only be sleep. And so the
Lord will bring them with him again, and he shall raise their
bodies up on the last day. So there's a total victory, but
that victory won't be seen in our experience until Christ comes
again. And then his victory at the cross
and in the resurrection over death will be seen in its ultimate
sense and its consummate fulfillment. OK, and so going on. In verse 24, they have seen thy
goings, O God, even the goings of my God, my king in the sanctuary,
they have seen thy goings. and in the sanctuary and this
is God's goings and our King. So this again is speaking about
Christ who is our King and our God. He's the King of Kings and
the Lord of Lords. He's the Prince of Peace. He
is the Mighty God. He's the Everlasting Father. Everything is given to Him as
Christ. He's the King and He's God. And
as the son of David, the son to whom God promised he would
be given the throne over his people forever, that's the throne
of glory. And so he's the king and he is
God. The Lord said unto my Lord, David
said in Psalm 110 verse one, sit thou on my right hand until
I make thine enemies thy footstool. And so he is there. But he says,
they have seen thy goings, O God. So God is known in Christ. And this is a fact attested to. The New Testament says this over
and over again. In Hebrews 1, it says that he
is the brightness of God's glory and the exact image of his person.
And we see that in the cross because immediately following
that in Hebrews 1, 3, he says, who by himself purged our sins. When he did that, he sat down
on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens. This is seeing God in his great
glory. because he purged our sins, and
as a result of that, he took his place on the throne of majesty,
with all of his majesty in heaven. We imagine that there's some
kind of a throne there that God sits on, but it's just a way
of speaking that God is sovereign over all things. That's the throne. And he sits because he's at perfect
rest in his sovereignty. No one can challenge him, keep
him from doing his will, or question him. Everything he says is absolute
truth and justice and righteousness. And no one can lay any standard
to him to compare him because he himself is the standard in
everything, in holiness and truth and righteousness and justice
and judgment. and especially in grace and mercy. But all this
is true of God who sits on the throne, but we see it in the
Lord Jesus Christ. We would never know God were
it not for the Lord Jesus Christ coming into the world. God was
manifest in the flesh, it says in 1 Timothy 3, verse 16. So
God is known in Christ and Christ is known in his work of our salvation. This is another key point here.
We wouldn't know him. if he hadn't saved us from our
sins. The natural man doesn't know the things of God. We had
to be made spiritual. How were we made spiritual? We
were born of God. The Spirit of God gave us life
in our soul. The seed of God was implanted
in us, the divine nature. We became partakers of the divine
nature. We're born of God, God's own
seed. His spirit dwells in us by his
word given to us through the power of Christ who sits on the
throne. And all this speaks of the fact
that in our salvation, we can't know God. We can only know him. We can only believe Christ when
he gives us life and he makes us a spiritual person. And so
that's the way we know him, but even that, that spiritual man
within us that knows the things of God, knows Christ and knows
God in his salvation, as we just quoted from Hebrews 1. He's the
Prince of Peace, the King of Righteousness and the King of
Peace. Remember Melchizedek? This is the way we know Him.
In Revelation 1, all of the saints are crying out unto Him who loved
us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. And in Revelation
5, they're singing to their Redeemer. Thou hast redeemed us by Thy
blood out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation. So this is
Christ, our God. We know Him because He came into
the world, because He came to save us from our sins, because
He did that at the full cost to Himself in love and humility
and suffering humiliation. And this is all the righteousness
of God fulfilled and absolute triumph over our sins that were
against Him. He did this. What a God, what
a savior. We didn't know that until God
made himself known to us in the gospel. So we know God in his
work of our salvation. How would we know him? We would
be in terror. We would be cringing. We would
be like servants. What do I do in order to get
out of this problem? What do I do to satisfy you?
We would never know him as father, never know Christ as our brother,
or as a near kinsman, a redeemer. We would never know him like
that unless he did that work for us and made it known to us
in the gospel of his grace. So God dwells, as we saw a few
weeks back, between the cherubim. Above the mercy seat, this is
where God makes himself known. That means that God makes himself
known to us in the Lord Jesus Christ, in his saving work. And the sanctuary, the sanctuary,
as it says in this verse, is where we see Christ in his saving
work. And we learn of God as he truly
is in his heart that is only made known to his people. God's own heart made known to
his people in the saving work of Christ, the Son of God. That's
what we're talking about here. Jeremiah chapter 17 and verse
12 says, Glorious high throne is the place
of our sanctuary. I think I've got that right.
Let me check to make sure that I'm giving that to you right.
Jeremiah is before Ezekiel and Lamentations in chapter 17 says
this, this is a wonderful verse, Jeremiah 17 verse 12, he says,
a glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our
sanctuary. Don't you feel the rest coming
over you, your shoulders relaxing? A glorious high throne. That
means Christ's successful atonement for us by his substitutionary
death as our surety and our redeemer and our savior and his exalted
place in glory because of that, is our sanctuary. Christ is our
sanctuary. And he has been our sanctuary
from the beginning. What a beautiful text of scripture
that is. So that helps us understand this
in verse 24 of Psalm 68. They have seen thy goings, O
God, even thy goings, the goings of my God, of my God, my King,
in the sanctuary where we see Christ. Okay? All right, let's
move on to the next one, verse 25. Now, if you remember, after
God brought Israel through the Red Sea, immediately after that,
they took up a song and they sang of God's triumph as the
man of war. and how he had destroyed their
enemies, he had brought them out of Egypt, they were so happy,
and they were giving glory to the Lord for that. And so we
see that here, since God went before us, since he has destroyed
our enemies as we saw in verse 23, has utterly defeated them,
and since he did all this because of his great love wherewith he
loved us, he brought us back from death, as it said about
the Baishan and the Red Sea, the verse there that, hold on, I lost my place, that
therefore God's people sing to Him. And singing is just an expression
of our gladness and joy because of what the Lord has done for
us, because of His goodness. Look at Jeremiah chapter 33. I want to look at this verse
with you. Jeremiah chapter 33. Notice this
verse here in Jeremiah 33 and verse 8. He says here, In verse, actually I'll read
verse seven also. He says, I will cause the captivity
of Judah. This is Jeremiah 33, verse seven.
I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel
to return and will build them as at the first. He's gonna bring
his people back and build them. He's talking about his salvation,
isn't he? Remember Acts four, eight, Acts four. I think it's
15, Acts 15, verse 14, where James explained that the Gentiles
who were believing on the Lord Jesus Christ was the fulfillment
from Amos about God building the tabernacle of David again. And so that interpretation of
that section of Amos is also echoed here in Jeremiah 33 verse
7, I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of
Israel to return and I will build them as at the first. The building
here is Christ building his church and how does he do that? Through
the preaching of the gospel. through the declaration that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And therefore he came
into the world and accomplished the will of God and ascended
back into glory. So it's all about the saving
work of the Son of God as our Christ, as God's Christ and our
Christ. He says, verse 8, Jeremiah 33,
verse 8, and I will cleanse them from all their iniquity whereby
they have sinned against me and I will pardon all their iniquities
whereby they have sinned and whereby they have transgressed
against me and it shall be to me a name of joy a praise and
an honor before all nations of the earth, which shall hear all
the good that I do to them, and they shall fear and tremble for
all the goodness, for all the prosperity that I procure unto
it. You see, when the Lord gives
us grace and takes our sins away, nothing in all of our experience
causes us to have a greater reverence for him than the forgiveness
of our sins. by pure free grace when we were
the most guilty and helpless in our sins. He himself bore
our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins
should live into righteousness by whose stripes we are healed.
And that's what he's talking about here. The victory at the
Red Sea, the victory spoken of here in Jeremiah 33, all of these
victories are speaking of the victory of Christ on the cross.
And so it's no wonder that God's people, like the damsels, the
singers and the damsels are playing with timbrels and singing. The
Church of Christ sings and praises and gives thanks to God in their
hearts. That new spirit has been created
in them, not the old that served under the law as servants and
bondmen. We've been freed by the redeeming
blood of Christ. We've been set free. We've been
brought through the wilderness. Even though we're on our way
to the inheritance, we're still being brought through it. Yet
we have already received that inheritance in our forerunner
in Christ. And so we sing. We sing as those
who have been given everything in Christ. Okay? Verse 26. Bless ye God and the congregations,
even the Lord from the fountain of Israel. Well, the Lord Jesus
Christ is God and we see Him when we see the Father in Him
and we praise Him. So blessing God, we bless Him
because of what He's done for us. Remember Ephesians chapter
1? He says, blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And then he
goes on to describe that the eternal actions of God that chose
us in Christ in order that we should be holy and without blame
before Him and love how He predestinated us under the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself, and how He made us accepted in the
Beloved, and how He did this to the praise of the glory of
His grace, and He forgave us our sins by the redeeming work
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it just keeps piling one blessing
upon another, spiritual blessings in heavenly places, our forgiveness
of sins by the blood of Christ and everything given to us by
him. And that's what this means here. Bless ye God in the congregations,
even the Lord. Notice congregations is a plural
because God's people gather together throughout the world in little
groups. And those are his congregations
where true believers are found. All right, he says here, verse
27, we went over this last time, there's little Benjamin with
their ruler, Benjamin, the son of my right hand, the princes
of Judah, means praise, Christ is the one that we praise, that
God lifts up. to give him all the honor and
praise, and their counsel, the princes of Zebulun, which means
exalted, and the princes of Naphtali, which means wrestled. So we've
been given all these names and the blessings of these people
who were named in Israel because we are the Israel of God. We're
not physical descendants of Abraham, but we are his children spiritually
by the seed of Christ in us, his own spirit. All right, and
then in verse 28, he says, Thy God hath commanded thy strength,
strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought, or that which
thou hast done for us. Strengthen that which thou hast
done for us. Whatever God does, We know it's
going to be forever. Remember Ecclesiastes 3 verse
14? Christ is bruised. He's crushed
the head of the devil. He has put sin to death, as he
says in Romans chapter 8, that he condemns sin in the body. of death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we were without strength,
Christ died for us when we were ungodly, when we were sinners,
when we were even enemies of God. And that is God's work. That's what he has done for us.
Right. That's what God has wrought.
He has wrought all our works for us, Isaiah 26 verse 12, and
He works all of His works in us because we are His workmanship,
Ephesians 2 verse 10. Let me read Isaiah 26 to you
here. Isaiah 26 and verse 12. He says, Lord, thou wilt ordain
peace for us For thou also hast done or wrought all our works
in us. And my margin says, for us. So it could be either one. Because
Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, He also gives Himself
to us, and He gives Himself to live in us by His Spirit. So
you see that? And then in verse 13 of Isaiah
26, He goes on, O Lord our God, other lords beside Thee have
had dominion over us. But by Thee only will we make
mention of Thy name." You see, the result of Christ's work for
us and in us is that we give thanks to His name. We will make
mention of His name and His only. We trust only Christ, not the
idols we used to serve. Okay? So we ask God to strengthen
what He has done for us. We pray that according to His
eternal will in Christ, according to the finished work that Christ
accomplished, and according to that power given to Him, given
to the Lord Jesus in His exalted place in glory at God's right
hand, that He will strengthen us. See, we're asking the Lord
of glory who has been exalted because he reconciled us to God,
we're asking him by his life now to save us to the uttermost. Isn't that consistent with Romans
5 verse 10? Let me read that to you. In Romans
5, verse 9, it says, "...much more than being now justified
by his blood." Because we have been justified, we've been declared
righteous by God. by God who is holy has declared
us righteous because of the blood of Christ." This is verse 9 of
Romans 5. We shall be saved from wrath
through him. God's wrath has been taken away. He's the propitiation
for our sins. He justified us with his blood.
For if he says in verse 10, Romans 5, 10, if when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more
being reconciled. Now we're friends. We've been
made the friends of God. Hostilities have been removed.
The barrier of God's justice and righteousness has been satisfied
and fulfilled. in his son and the death of his
son, much more being reconciled, we shall be what? Saved by his
life. This is talking about the Lord
Jesus Christ, who we're asking him to strengthen that which
he has done for us. The King of glory now. Because
he saved us by his precious blood, we're asking him by his reigning
life to save us to the uttermost, to bring to pass in our experience
and to bring us in our experience to himself to see his face in
righteousness. Then we shall be satisfied when
we awake in his likeness. OK, let's go on. We ask him also
to comfort us. We ask him to finish the work
that he started. not only the work at the cross,
but the work in us. And this faith he's given to
us, that he would give us what we hope for, what we're hoping
for, because we know that it's his work that procured it for
us. And then in verse 29, he says
this, because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents
to thee. Believers are made kings and
priests and the The thing that we bring to the Lord Jesus Christ
is praise. We bring ourselves, we bring
ourselves even though we know that in ourselves we have this
wretched man, yet by the Spirit of God in us, we look to Christ,
we trust Christ and we bring ourselves and we ask God. We
ask Him to accept our praise, our thanks and everything we
do to the praise and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ through
him, through Christ, that he would sanctify, he would make
all that we are and all that we do holy and to the praise
of Christ, to the praise of the glory of his grace. What a thing
that is. We offer this praise and thanksgiving
Even though we know in ourselves that we're so weak and sinful,
and yet we ask to be accepted for Christ's sake. That's what
this verse 29 is saying. Because of thy temple shall kings
bring presents to thee. It's our reasonable service,
but it's by the mercies of God that we offer ourselves a living
sacrifice. May God give us grace to do so.
He says in verse 30, Rebuke the company of spearmen, the multitude
of the bulls, with the calves of the people, till everyone
submit himself with pieces of silver. Scatter thou the people
that delight in war. So the bulls, again, refers to
those who are strong, those who are opposed to Christ. But here
he says, rebuke the spearmen, the multitude of the bulls, with
the calves of the people, the underlings, till every one submit
himself with pieces of silver. Scatter thou the people that
delight in war. To submit with silver. Now, in the Old Testament,
the people of Israel were required to bring one half shekel silver
redemption coin, every one of them, whether they were old or
young or rich or poor. Everyone had to bring the same
amount for every person. I don't think the young, but
certainly the adult people did. So what does that represent when
we bring the redemption money or the atonement money as silver? Well, it shows that we have this
persuasion given to us by God that the atonement of Christ
is absolutely necessary for our salvation. And until we are persuaded
of that, we're not submissive to Christ. But because we're
persuaded that what Christ has done is what's necessary to save
me, then we submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the submission
of a believer who trusts Christ for everything, His Word and
everything, His righteousness. what he said, the way things
are, everything. We trust that he has sanctified
his people by his own blood. We accept one another for Christ's
sake. Everything is based on what he did for us as our atoning
savior. All right, the next verse says,
princes shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out
her hands to God. We know what happened in the
New Testament in Acts chapter eight. Remember that Ethiopian
was going along and God sent Philip to him and he climbed
up in the chariot, asked the Ethiopian, what are you reading?
He said, I'm reading here in Isaiah 53. Do you know what you're
reading? No, how can I know it except
some man explain it? And then God gave Philip that
sermon that he gave to the Ethiopian to explain Isaiah 53 and the
Ethiopian believed and he was baptized and you know he went
home and he told all of the people in his country. That's the way
the gospel got down there to Ethiopia. And that's what this
is talking about here. The Gentiles in all these different
countries are coming to Christ. They're stretching out their
hands to God. They're coming to Him. That's
what faith is, coming to Christ. From every nation under heaven,
even from that nation that was the most ill-treated, the nation of Ethiopia, or Babylon,
or Assyria, or these countries that were those who most ill-treated
Israel, that physical nation, those countries have God's elect
in them. Remember, in the book of, I think
it's in 2 Peter, he says he wrote from Babylon, or Baghdad, not
Baghdad. Why did I say Baghdad? Babylon. Don't put modern history back
in. But Peter was writing from Babylon. At least my wife was paying attention. I'm always thankful when I give
her cause for laughter. Okay, moving on. He says, and
remember Egypt. Pharaoh was from Egypt and God
saved people from Egypt. The Ethiopians, amazing, isn't
it? Babylon, even in Herod's household
there were those who were saved of the household of Herod. These
are spoken of in various places in the in the New Testament.
I've got the references in the handout if you want to look at
them. The next verse in verse 32, Sing unto God ye kingdoms
of the earth, O sing praises to the Lord, Selah. So here we
go. All the nations, all the Gentiles,
they were not Israel by birth, but they were Israel by choice.
God made them his children by promise, promise made to Christ. He gave them to Christ to save.
Christ obligated himself to do so. He fulfilled what God laid
upon him, all the conditions for their salvation. And God
awarded him with the promised blessing. He saved his people.
And Jesus said in John 10, verse 16, them also I must bring. And that's what these people
are. Verse 33, "...to Him that rideth upon the heavens of heavens,
which were of old low, He doth send out His voice, and that
a mighty voice." This is the Gospel. Christ is Jehovah, the
Almighty God, riding on heaven, because He conquered all of our
enemies, and He sends out His mighty Gospel to save His people. That's what this is talking about
here. Verse 34, Ascribe ye strength to God, His excellency is over
Israel, and His strength is in the clouds. His excellency over
His people, and His strength is in the clouds. The clouds
is just another way for God's rule in the heavens, Christ's
rule. The Church of God is the true
Israel, and they give all, they ascribe all strength to the Lord
Jesus Christ. His strength is beyond the reach,
it's in the heavens, it's beyond the reach of any on earth, and
He gives strength to His people over their enemies. Therefore,
who can lay anything to our charge? Who can condemn us? Who can separate
us from the love of Christ? No one can, because Christ is
the sovereign Savior who rides on the heavens by His name, His
mighty voice. And verse 35, the last verse,
O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places. The God of
Israel is he that gives strength and power to his people. Blessed
be God. Oh, God, thou art terrible. What
a God for our Savior. He's called the God of Israel. He so identifies with his people
that he's the God of Israel. He calls himself by the name
of his people, these people that he has saved. He's the God of
the church, the God of His sheep, the God of His brethren, the
God of those given to Him, of His elect. He's the God of Israel. What a blessed name that is,
the God of the people of promise. Israel is that name given to
those who were the children of promise. Romans 9, verse 6, they're
not all of Israel. They're not all Israel who are
of Israel, not all spiritual Israel who are of the physical
nation, but the church is. And what a name God has given
to us, the God of His elect, His chosen, His redeemed, His
objects of everlasting love in Christ. We stand in awe. We reverence Him. That's what
it means, the terrible, out of thy holy places. We reverence
and adore Christ, who is God, as we have seen Him in heaven,
where He offered His precious blood for our atonement and our
eternal redemption. Christ, therefore, to us. as
He truly is, is the wisdom and the power of God. Strength and
power He is, and He gives that to His people. What a glorious
Savior. Let's pray.