Psalm chapter 60, let's begin.
In verse 1 it reads, O God, thou hast cast us off, thou hast scattered
us, thou hast been displeased, O turn thyself to us again. Verse 2, thou hast made the earth
to tremble, thou hast broken it, heal the breaches thereof,
for it shaketh. Thou hast showed thy people hard
things. Thou hast made them to drink
the wine of astonishment. Verse four. Thou hast given a
banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because
of the truth. Selah. That thy beloved may be
delivered. Save with thy right hand and
hear me. God has spoken in his holiness. I will rejoice. I will divide
Shechem. I will mete out the valley of
Sukkoth. Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine. Ephraim also
is the strength of mine head. Judah is my lawgiver. Moab is
my washpot. Over Edom will I cast out my
shoe. Philistia, triumph thou because
of me. And then in verse nine it says,
who will bring me into the strong city? Who will lead me into Edom? Wilt not thou, O God, which has
cast us off, and thou, O God, which didst not go out with our
armies, give us help from trouble? For vain is the help of man.
Through God we will do valiantly, for He it is that shall tread
down our enemies. Okay, so that's the 12 verses
in this psalm. And I want to just give you a
summary of the background of this psalm, first of all, and
then try to summarize what is said in this psalm so that you
can get the overview before we go into each verse. So if you
look at the beginning in your Bible, it says that this is to
the chief musician upon, I can't see that, I gotta look at my
notes because the words are too small in my Bible for my eyes.
It says, to the chief musician upon Shushan Aduth, or Shushan
Aduth, Mictam of David to teach when he strove with Armin, Harman Ahuraim and with Aram
Zoba when Joab returned and Smote of Edom in the Valley of Salt
12,000. Okay, so the chapter of the Bible where this occurs
is in 2 Samuel chapter eight. And if you were to go there,
which we're not gonna do, but in your free time you can do
this. In 2 Samuel chapter eight, what you find is that David,
with his men, obviously, fought against the Syrians in a couple
of places and another group of people, and there were some 30,000
people that were killed by David. He began to fight with one group,
another group rose up to try to attack and he beat them down
and then another and he beat them down. So there were several
victories there in 2 Samuel chapter 8. But what the time in David's
reign when he had those victories was that he couldn't, I'm sorry, I couldn't
see because my wife's light was shining in my eye and I was signaling
to her if she could turn it the other way. Saul had been king, and now David
was king. and Saul died in the battle with
the Philistines. And when Saul died and David
took the throne, at first, most of the people in the nation,
especially in the 10 tribes, were not submitting to David,
but there were lots of fragments of people who were loyal to King
Saul. And if you remember in the history
of Saul's reign, that the nation of Israel suffered greatly because
of Saul. What happened in history was
that Samuel was a prophet, he was the last of the judges, and
in the book of 1 Samuel, The people of Israel had struggles. They struggled with the Philistines.
The Philistines had come and fought against them on a number
of occasions. At one point, they took the Ark, Eli and his two
sons, Hophni and Phinehas. Hophni and Phinehas were killed.
The Ark was taken. Later, Eli heard that and died.
And so Samuel was basically the last judge. And the people of
Israel decided that it would be better for them if they had
a king. And so they asked Samuel for a king. And Samuel was extremely
upset because of that. And the Lord told Samuel, they
haven't rejected you, they've rejected me. They've been idolatrous
since I brought them out of Egypt. And so they've rejected me, they've
forsaken me. But the Lord told him, you go
ahead and give him a king, but you make sure and tell them what
their king will be like. And Samuel tells him all the
things that their king would be like. Basically, he was going
to make the people and their children and their servants serve
him. Now, all of that helps us to
understand the character of King Saul. He was a man who was consumed
with his own self. He was a man of flesh. And you
can see that he was a complete failure in his reign as king. And God told Saul that he was
going to take the kingdom from him and give it to another. And that other was David. And
so God sent Samuel to David's house and found David. And God
had Samuel anoint David with oil. And when he did, you can
read about this in 1 Samuel 16, that the Spirit of God came on
David from that point forward, and he was God's anointed. And
so eventually, over the course of time, after the end of 40
years of Saul's reign, the people of Israel were in terrible condition
because Saul was a terrible king. He served himself, and God did
not go out with Saul and his armies. And the people of Israel
were scattered. They were suffering the result
of their sin. And the best summary verse in
scripture I can find of this is in Hosea chapter 13 verse
9 where it says, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself. And this
is God's summary of all that went before. He says, thou hast
destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help. And in that same
verse and what follows in verses, Hosea 13 verses nine through
11, God tells them that he gave them a king in his anger and
took him away in his wrath because the people had rejected him as
their king. Now, combine that thought with
the fact that the Lord is God, and so the Lord God was king
over his people. But he also sent Samuel to anoint
David after King Saul because he was trying to show, and he
did show, among other things, that his king over his people
would be God himself, the Lord God, and he would be man, the
son of man. So in the texts of scripture
about King David in First Samuel 13, 14, it says that David was
a man after God's own heart. And so this is, everything that's
said of David became true in the ultimate sense in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Okay, so the setting then of
this psalm is that the people of Israel had historically, up
to this point in time, under the reign of Saul, had been given
over to all kinds of defeat at the hands of their enemies. Okay? And so, then when we read this
psalm, it's a little bit confusing, because if you read 2 Samuel
chapter 8, it seems like David is having victory after victory
over the enemies of his kingdom. But here in the first verse of
Psalm 60, he says, O God, thou hast cast us off, thou hast scattered
us, thou hast been displeased, O turn thyself to us again. OK,
so the psalm opens up with this lament that God has cast them
off, scattered them, has been displeased with them. And the
prayer goes up that the Lord would turn himself to them again. All right, so that needs some
explanation, then. Why would David, in the context
of multiple victories, be crying out to the Lord, O God, thou
hast cast us off? And then look at the next verse.
He says, thou hast made the earth to tremble, thou hast broken
it, heal the breaches thereof, for it shaketh. That's an earthquake,
right? If you just put it in simple
words, that trembling, that shaking and quaking, that's an earthquake.
And he says, "...thou hast showed thy people hard things, thou
hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment." So what's happening
here in the historical context is that David has taken the throne. God put him there. He's God's
anointed. He's there by God's choice. He's God's chosen, and he's God's
anointed. And he's there by the prophecy
of Samuel. Samuel is the one who said he
would be there. In fact, if you read before 2 Samuel chapter
eight, in 2 Samuel chapter seven, it's Nathan the prophet telling
David how God would establish his house forever And this would
be done in the Lord Jesus Christ. So on top of these great prophecies
from scripture that God had chosen and anointed David and made him
king over his people, and he would establish his kingdom forever,
on top of that word from God, that promise of God, And the
victories in 2 Samuel chapter 8, we wonder about these first
three verses of this psalm, that he's crying out about God forsaking
them. casting them off, scattering
them, being displeased with them, that he wanted God to turn to
them again. The earth had been trembling,
broken up, shaking, the people had been shown hard things, and
they were made to drink the wine of astonishment." So why would
David say that in light of the fact that he was having these
victories over so many enemies, especially the Syrians at this
time? And the way to understand this
is to read the whole psalm and to understand the larger context
of King Saul's reign, which preceded David's. Now, what had happened
is, because the people had been, under King Saul, decimated, The
kingdom was, think of it as a bunch of people who had been attacked
by their enemies and they didn't have a king and they were left
fragmented in ruins so that the kingdom was completely in shambles.
That would describe the nation at this point. When David took
control over the kingdom, Saul had been spending previous years
running around the countryside chasing David and Saul getting
beat up by the Philistines. And so he had been so concerned
about losing the kingdom to David that he lost the kingdom. So
his envy was his undoing. And so what you see here is what
led up to this reign of David was a complete ruined kingdom. And a king who was self-serving
and God had cast him off. And the people were suffering
because they had rejected God as their king. They had endured
40 years of miserable rule by King Saul, and now they were
wasted by their enemies. And this was God's doing. God
had brought this on them. So the first part of this psalm
is recounting from history how God had cast off and scattered
the people for their sin, okay? And the reason that David does
this, it seems, in this psalm is that he's setting up, he's
setting up the condition of the people so that when God's mercy
is shown to them, And then he's going to show them that that
mercy was always promised by God, that when God's mercy is
shown to them, they will then realize how great His grace towards
them was because of the horrible condition that they were in before
and now. they're being delivered under
David. Of course, all of this parallels
many things in Scripture. Number one, it shows us that
the reign of Christ, which came after all of the other kings
in the nation of Israel, and all of the other examples of
men in scripture, starting with Adam, all those things were complete
failures until Christ. And Christ came at a time when
the world was in ruin. and his people were under the
bondage of sin and sick, and he had to rescue them from their
enemies. So, in the first three verses
then, David is describing what happened historically, but it
parallels what happens in our own personal history when Christ
came into the world. We were without strength. We were sinners. We were enemies
of God. We were alienated from God. Our minds were hostile towards
Him. And all of this builds up to show that when Christ came,
the chosen of God, the anointed of God, the king over his people,
he would deliver them from their enemies. And notice, now, so
that helps us understand this, but there's another, there's
several other ways of looking at this, and they're all valid,
but I think this one that I just gave is probably the best way
to consider this. Another one is that this psalm
is really a prophecy that speaks of future times. when the nation
of Israel would be cast off, and when they would be then gathered
again under Christ. And if it's taken that way, this
is what John Gill suggests, and I think that's a reasonable way
of looking at it, but I don't think that's the main reason
to look at it. the main way that we should look at it. But if
you look at Romans 11, which we're not going to do, there
God tells us that because when Christ came, the nation of Israel
by and large rejected their own Messiah, they would not submit
to God's righteousness, but continued to try to establish their own,
promoting themselves and their false religion and their idolatrous
religion, really, that that the nation of Israel as a whole was
cast off, and they were scattered, and God was displeased with them,
and in AD 70, that nation was destroyed, and Jerusalem was
destroyed. So that is the condition of Israel,
because they rejected Christ, just like in 1 Samuel, the people
rejected God as their king. But then in Romans 11, God promises
that because their fall... was actually designed by God
to save Gentiles, because through their fall, the gospel went into
all the world and the Gentiles were saved, that God would also
use the salvation of the Gentiles in the salvation of his people
in that very nation of Israel, which had rejected him. Not all
of the people in that nation, but all of God's elect in that
nation So that in the end, all of the heavenly Israel, all of
the spiritual Israel would be saved as it says in Romans chapter
11 verses 25 through 26. So I give you those two things
that the first way to look at this is historically it parallels
Christ the King, the anointed of God who came and in his sin-atoning
redemptive work on the cross, he identifies with his people
in their in their ruin and pleads in intercession to God for them.
God then gives him the victory and he praises God at the end
of this psalm. So, if you look at this in that
way, then you would see in the first three verses God casting
off and scattering us for our sin. And then God, in verse 4,
look at verse 4. Thou hast given us a banner to
them that fear thee. I'm sorry, thou hast given a
banner to them that fear thee, that it might be displayed because
of the truth. I want to talk about that verse
quite a bit. In order that, he says in the next verse, thy beloved
may be delivered, save with thy right hand and hear me. So here
God is saying that even though there had been in the experience
of David and in scripture this fall of the nation of Israel
because they rejected Saul, I'm sorry, rejected God as their
king and desired a king like all the other nations around
them, which That statement in itself teaches us that what they
were looking for was a man, an ordinary man, a sinful man, a
man of the flesh to rule over them. They wanted someone like
Herod or Caesar or Saul or one of these. They looked at their
enemies and they saw they seemed to prosper. Why can't we have
one too? But that's used in history to
teach us that in Adam we fell. In Adam we rejected God. Our
fall in Adam left us hostile in our minds. The carnal mind
is enmity against God. We were helpless to recover ourselves. We were in ruin. We were without
strength. We were in our minds enemies
of God and yet What happened next is the gospel. God took
the initiative. God put into play his eternal
plan in Christ and Christ came into the world and delivered
his people from their enemies by delivering them from their
sins and all the consequences that their sins brought on them,
okay? So if we understand that, then
we can see that in this psalm. Then, in verse 4, that's what
it's speaking about, is the lifting up of this banner, which I'm
going to show you is really pointing to the cross of Christ. And then
if you look at verse 6, he says, God has spoken in His holiness,
I will rejoice. Now that phrase is so important
here, because what it's saying is that what God said, is the
basis of David's confidence, it's the ground of all that he
says and does, what God said. Now, what has God said? Well,
Jesus said this in John 5, 39, search the scriptures, for in
them you think you have eternal life, but these are they which
testify of me. and you will not come to me that
you might have life." So just by that one statement, and there's
many others that we could refer to, Jesus himself said scriptures
speak of Christ. Now, what he says here, God has
spoken in his holiness. What did he say? Whatever he
said was the gospel concerning his son. Remember, that's what
the gospel is. In fact, you might want to turn
to Romans chapter one. I'll read these first five verses
in Romans chapter one, because this is so pivotal in this verse. He says in Romans one, Paul,
a servant of Jesus Christ, Now, to say you're a servant of someone
means that you submit to their rule. And clearly, Paul is saying
to the Gentiles and to his countrymen, the Jews, this is my claim. This is my banner. I'm a servant
of Jesus Christ, okay? And by saying that, he's saying
Jesus Christ is God. He is the God of Israel, okay? Because you weren't supposed
to serve any but the Lord, your God. But anyway, he says, Paul,
a servant of Jesus Christ, He's called to be an apostle, separated
unto the gospel of God. This was Paul's mission, the
gospel of God. It's so important that we underscore
that this is what God sent Paul to do, to serve him in the gospel. Now, if we think of Paul as,
well, that was just one of the things that God needed to have
done, sent one servant to serve him in the gospel, we completely
miss it. This is the way God ministers to his people in time,
in all of our history, the gospel of God. Now, what is the gospel
of God? He says, This gospel of God which he had promised
to for by his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning, this
is the subject of the gospel, concerning his son, Jesus Christ
our Lord. Now notice how he immediately
holds up Christ as the divine son of God, our sovereign, which
was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. and declared,
not made, but declared to be the Son of God with power according
to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead,
he goes on in verse 5, by whom, by Christ, we have received grace
and apostleship for this reason, for obedience to the faith among
all nations for his name." So here we have a summary of Paul's
mission, which is the gospel, and we also have the word of
God, which is the gospel. According to the Spirit of Holiness,
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the Spirit
of God speaks of Christ. The Spirit of God is the one
who breathed out Scripture. So that whatever the Spirit of
God says, if it's concerning His Son, we know then that the
Gospel and Scripture is about Christ. And that he, so if we
go back and consider that now in Psalm chapter 60, in verse
six, God has spoken in his holiness, I will rejoice. It underscores
the fact that all of our faith, the only basis for faith is the
word of God that is preached to us by the gospel. First Peter chapter one, verse
25. This is the word which by the
gospel is preached unto you. The Word of God preached to us
is preached by the gospel. And if you remember in Romans
chapter 10, he quotes from Isaiah 53 and he says, but they have
not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah said, who has believed
our report? And the report that Isaiah was
talking about is Isaiah 53, how Christ would suffer as the substitute
for our sins in order to justify us before God. So the gospel
concerns Christ. It concerns him in who he is
as the son of God and the son of David, according to the flesh.
And what he did, which was to justify his people by his blood,
which is stated in much more detail in Isaiah 53, and that
report is the gospel, and hearing that, hearing the gospel, is
how God gives us faith. So that not only does faith come
by hearing and hearing by the Word of God concerning Christ,
but our faith is resting on the written Word of God. That is
the gospel of Christ. So that is so important that
I wanted to take time to point that out in verse six, because
when David in history has taken the kingdom and taken the throne
as God had appointed him to do and anointed him to do, had chosen
him for that purpose in order to depict and to prophesy of
what Christ would do when he took the throne of heaven for
his people, not only in the nation of Israel, but throughout the
world, all of his people, called the Israel of God, When Christ
would do that, David's whole history was a representation
of that, and Christ was the fulfillment of that. But in David's time,
he comes into this situation where the nation of Israel is
in terrible condition, and he, based on the Word of God now,
on the holiness of God. God has spoken in his holiness. He says, I will rejoice. Then
he goes on to tell how he would go and conquer and return and
bring back these people who had been scattered under Saul's reign. And also even people like Moab
and Edom would be and the Philistines would be made subject to him.
He says in verse 8 Moab is my washpot over Eden while I cast
out my shoe Philistia triumph thou because of me or he would
triumph over Philistia the Philistines Okay, so so again, let's let's
see if we can gather this together David's taking the throne Israel
is in disarray because of Saul's reign and their own idolatry
rejecting God David speaks of this in verses 1 through 3 the
ruin of the of the people and And then he talks about the cross
in verse 4, where the banner is lifted up by God to those
that fear Him, in order that it might be displayed because
of the truth, that's verse 4. And verse 5, that His beloved,
God's beloved people would be delivered and saved by His right
hand, which is Christ again. And then in verse 6, this is
all based on what God said. which is the gospel of our salvation.
So now in this, and then we see the next few verses, verses six
through eight, or six through nine, how David confidently,
based on what God said, by faith in God's word concerning Christ,
he went forward And in history, he brought back these people
mentioned in Shechem, and Succoth, and Gilead, and Manasseh, and
Ephraim, and Judah, but also what he would do to the enemies
of Israel, Moab, and Edom, and Philistia. Okay, so David is
acting out of faith in God's word, his prophecy in scripture
of how he would conquer these nations and he would rule over
Israel to typify and to prophesy of what Christ would do when
he by His death on the cross, would conquer our enemies and
take control of His people, bring them to Himself, and also defeat
our enemies. So in Psalm 110, verse 3, it
says, Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power. And
that's a good commentary on that. And then at the end of the psalm,
he says, verse 10, Not thou, O God, which hast cast us off,
and thou, O God, which didst not go out with our armies, art
thou going to bring us into this stronghold, this strong city,
and lead me into Edom? Verse 11, notice this, give us
help from trouble for vain is the help of man. Vain means useless,
completely useless. You could even say it's worse
than useless because it has negative value. And then in verse 12,
through God we shall do valiantly, for He it is that shall tread
down our enemies. Let me comment on that last verse
before we go back now and do some gathering of more detail. He says in verse 12, through
God we shall do valiantly. Four, he it is that shall tread
down our enemies. Who's doing the treading here?
God is. Well, who did the treading down
of our enemies? And when it says God did, we're
talking about God in Christ, aren't we? We're talking about
what God did to destroy, to take away our sin, to answer God's
justice, to fulfill God's everlasting righteousness, to justify his
people, to make them holy, to deliver them from the wrath of
God, to answer God's justice in satisfaction to God, to remove
his wrath, to overcome sin and death and hell and the grave
and Satan and the world. Christ did all those things at
the cross. Okay? So when he says here, God shall
tread down our enemies, this is only Christ's work. This is
not our work and his work. This is only his work. Okay? But it says, through God, we
shall do valiantly. Now, if you understand how God
delivers us, how we overcome, what does it say in 1 John 5?
Faith This is what overcomes the world.
Faith. Remember? I'll read that to you
in 1 John chapter 5. This is our last diversion before
we go into some of the details here in this psalm. 1 John and chapter 5 and verse
4. Notice he says, for whatsoever
is born of God overcomes the world. OK. Everyone born of the
Spirit of God, children of God, born of God, what do they do?
According to Jesus, they looked Him who was lifted up as the
serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, and they're looking
to Christ as their sin-atoning Savior. John 3, verse 14 and
15. They have eternal life. They're
the children of God, and they were made the children of God
because Christ suffered for them and sent His Spirit to birth
them and to teach them that He is the one who redeemed them.
He's the one that redeemed us to God, and it was by Him that
we're made the children of God. So in verse four he says, whatsoever
is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory,
we're gonna do valiantly now, this is the victory that overcomes
the world, even our faith. Do you see that? who is he that
overcomes the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son
of God." Now when David speaks of this, or more accurately,
when scripture speaks in Psalm 60 verse 12, that through God
we shall do valiantly, and that it is God who treads down our
enemies, it's teaching us that Christ is the one who alone defeated
our enemies. But when we come to the realization
of that through the Word of God preached to us by the Gospel,
Then we do what? We believe, yes, that's the way
my enemies are overcome by what Christ did, and that's it, right? We don't add to that. We don't
look for something in addition to that. We're not looking for
a greater victory. This is it. When Paul expressed
his frustration over the battle of his new man and his old man
in Romans chapter 7, he came to this conclusion. Who's going
to deliver me? And he says, I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. It all comes down to the Lord
Jesus Christ, but we do valiantly how? According to 1 John 5, verses
4 and 5, trusting Christ. We're looking to Him. We understand
through the gospel that Christ has done all, therefore we rely
on Him to have done all and we rest in Him and we ask Him to
do what He has said and accomplished, and give us the victory, as He
says and promised that He would do in 2 Corinthians 2 verse 14. God always gives us the victory. He always made to triumph in
Christ, okay? So now you see, hopefully, some
of the connection here between these things and the historical back setting. So since we don't
have much time, I want to just focus on the rest of our time
on verse 4, okay? Look at verse four. The first
three verses, you can look at those, and I've sent out some
notes, but it's basically the ruin that we brought ourselves
into by our own sin. Notice, though, in verse one,
you see that little word, U-S? It says, O God, thou hast cast
us off. When David was talking about
this, David wasn't on the side against his own throne, against
his own kingdom or God. But he identified with his people,
these people who had been part of Israel but were, under Saul,
scattered and loyal to Saul and disloyal at this time to David
in these different places, Shechem, Succoth, Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim,
and so on. Those people were part of the
us when David said, thou hast cast us off. He's talking about
himself with them. He identifies so closely with
them that he doesn't say, well, these people that I now rule
over, they're a bunch of, you know, Rascals and I you know,
I'm praying for them. That's not the way he talks He's
so identified because Christ identified with his people. He
became sin for us Who knew no sin that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him? Okay, I just point that out but
look at verse 4 now has given a banner to them that fear thee
that it might be displayed because of the truth to display the banner
is to lift it up now the banner is We know what a banner is,
a flag. That's what this is talking about,
like a symbol, something that sends a signal, a notice of something
great to all of the people. And this symbol, this notice,
this flag, if you will, this banner, what is it? Well, this
is the wonderful part. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
lifted up on the cross because he has won the victory over our
sin. He has brought us back to God.
OK, now the same word banner is used in two places. Actually,
I'm thinking of the third one. Oh, yeah. Third one. Three places
I want to mention real quick in Scripture. Look at Numbers
chapter 21. And as soon as I say that, you
probably know where I'm going. But Numbers chapter 21. This
word banner is used here in this verse in Numbers chapter 21 verse
4. It says, they journeyed, this
is Numbers chapter 21 verse 4, they journeyed from Mount Hor
by the way of the Red Sea to compass the land of Edom and
the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way.
So these people were very, very discouraged. It was hot. It was
dry. They were hungry. They were thirsty.
They were grumbling. They could only think that God
led them out to kill them. It was so nasty. In verse 5,
and the people spake against God. Of course, they were looking
at things through their eyes of their physical sense. Physical sense is never a good
way to look at our circumstances. How are we supposed to look?
Through the Word of God. We're supposed to look and interpret
our lives through the Word of God. But they weren't doing that.
Verse five, and the people spake against God and against Moses,
wherefore have you, they said, wherefore have you brought us
up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, for there is no bread,
neither is there any water, and our soul loatheth this light
bread. They said there was no bread
and no water. That's not true. God had given
them manna already. They ate it every morning. So
they obviously weren't talking about the lack of manna. What
was the problem was, is they were tired of it. It didn't do
anything for them anymore. It wasn't sufficient. It wasn't
adequate for them. It didn't satisfy them. And so
they said, we hate this light bread. And so they spoke against
God, and against Moses, and they spoke against Christ, the manna
from heaven. Verse six, and the Lord sent
fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and
much people of Israel died. So those people that died, no
hope. Notice how they died before the
remedy was given. Then verse seven, therefore the
people came to Moses and said, we have sinned. For we have spoken
against the Lord and against thee, praying to the Lord that
he take away the serpents from us." Notice the pattern here. The people have sinned against
God. Where do they go for help? There was nowhere else to go.
They had to go to God against whom they sinned. But they came
to him through Moses. And Moses prayed for the people.
That's intercession. And the Lord said to Moses, make
thee a fiery serpent, set it upon a pole, and it shall come
to pass that everyone that is bitten when he looks upon it
shall live. The pole, the word pole in the Bible is the same
word banner in Psalm chapter 60 and verse 4. The banner. He says there in Psalm 64, thou
hast given a banner to them that fear thee. What's the banner?
It's the serpent uplifted on the pole for the healing and
eternal life of God's people who were bitten because of their
sin, okay? And Jesus, of course, explains
this in John chapter three, verse 14 and 15, that as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be
lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have eternal life." Looking to Christ, the one lifted up, the
Son of Man who was in heaven, who came down from heaven, descended,
and accomplished the work God gave Him to do, which was to
be lifted up as that serpent, bearing the sins of His people,
bearing the curse of God they deserved, And then and then ascending
back up to heaven and being in heaven and sending his spirit
to to the world in order to bring his people to himself by faith
in him. That's the work of the spirit
of God to point us to Christ. And it's to Christ and him alone
that God's word speaks as our banner. Christ crucified is our
banner. He is our victory. He's he's
he's what we boast in is what we uphold, hold up. to our eyes,
and so look at this also in Exodus chapter 17, and we'll have to
go through this one quickly because of time, but in Exodus 17, a
similar thing, it says in the, in verse, let's say verse eight,
then it says in verse eight of Exodus 17, then came Amalek and
fought with Israel and Rephidim, And Moses said to Joshua, choose
us out men and go out and fight with Amalek. Now this was just
as the people of Israel had come out of Egypt. This is their first
battle. And so that teaches us that when
we first believe, that's when we face our true battle. The only time we are engaged
in this kind of a battle is when we have been redeemed out of
sin by the Lord Jesus Christ. Our battle that we enter into
when we believe on Christ is the battle between our new man
that's been raised by Christ and we live by Christ living
in us, that new man is now at war with the old man, our flesh. And so Amalek here represents
that, our old man, the flesh. It says, and Moses said to Joshua,
in the New Testament, that name is Jesus, So Moses said to Joshua,
choose us out men and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow
I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my
hand. So Joshua did as Moses said to him and fought with Amalek.
And Moses, Aaron, and Hur, H-U-R, went up to the top of the hill.
And it came to pass when Moses held up his hand that Israel
prevailed. When he let down his hand, Amalek
prevailed. Now there's no question but that
God's people always triumph in Christ. Now, this is a fact. We will not fail. But it pleases
God to work through this struggle so that in the fight, we only
realize our success and our victory, as it says in 1 John 5, verse
4 and 5. We only realize that we overcome
in looking to Christ, in believing Him. As it says there, faith
overcomes the world. So when Moses lifted up his hands,
it says, Israel prevailed. When he let them down, Amalek
prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy,
and they took a stone and put it under him. And this is teaching
us that Moses' uplifted hands, Joshua was winning. Joshua was
winning when Moses' hands were lifted up. Joshua was not, Amalek
was prevailing when Moses' hands were let down. So just in the
same way, when we're struggling with our own sin, we realize
the victory when we trust Christ. And when we don't, when we don't
look to Christ, then our sinful self seems to win. But he goes
on, so he's sitting there on the stone, his arms are up, Aaron's
on one side, Hur is on the other, his name is Hur, and that name
means light. They stayed up his hands, the
one on the one side, the other on the other side, and his hands
were steady till the going down of the sun. And Joshua discomfited
Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. So what was
the success here? Aaron the high priest on one
side, her, this one whose name means light, on the other side.
Because in Christ our high priest who makes intercession for us,
interceding for us to God on the basis of his own offering
of himself, he answers God for us with the offering of himself.
And her, on the other side, the Holy Spirit, the light, shining
on the work of Christ, and His person, and His offices in the
Gospel, these are the things that enable us to see the victory
that Joshua was winning then against Amalek. Okay? And then
it says here, and notice, Joshua discomfited Amalek, that means
to weaken him. He continued to remain, he didn't
utterly destroy him. In verse 14, the Lord said to
Moses, write this for a memorial in a book and rehearse it in
the ears of Joshua, for I will, notice God says, I will utterly
put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And when the
Lord brings us to Himself in glory, then our flesh will no
more be remembered. We won't remember this struggle
then. All we'll remember is that Christ loved us and washed us
from our sins in His own blood. Because that's what we're looking
to. That's the one we are seeing, trusting, and love. Verse 15,
And Moses built an altar, and he called the name of the altar
Jehovah Nisi, which means Jehovah, our banner, or our victory banner. Okay? And so I have to close
with this one verse in Galatians chapter six now, because this
helps us to tie this down in conclusion. In Ephesians, I'm
sorry, Galatians, Chapter 6, the Apostle Paul wrestling with
these Judaizers who were telling the Galatians, tempting them,
you need to go beyond just that Christ died and that you trust
him and you're justified. You need to go on. The only way
you can really be perfect is if you're circumcised. You've
got to add something to that. Baloney, Paul says this in answer
to them in Galatians chapter six. He says, because these Judaizers
were boasting in the fact that they were getting the Galatians
to do this, and the Galatians were thinking, well, you know,
they're commending us for doing this and so on. This is the way
Paul answers them in verse 14. But God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. by whom the
world is crucified to me and I to the world. So on the cross,
we die. The world considers us dead.
The world has no interest in someone who has only Christ as
their hope and salvation. They can't do anything with a
person like that because their heavenly home is their home,
not this world. And their hope is in Christ,
it's not in themselves. They can't commend the false
teachers of this world by submitting to their ordinances and their
experiences and their meetings where they get all excited and
all this stuff in order to try to drum up some kind of spiritual
thing. But Paul says, I died in Christ
to the world and the world is dead to me. That's what he's
saying. And how this has come about? Through the cross. The cross
is what I boast in. It's what I glory in. And that's
it. God forbid that I should preach anything except Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. That's the way Paul saw it. He
was sent as a servant of Jesus Christ, separated into the gospel
of God. And so in Psalm 60, he's saying,
God has lived up a banner. He's lived up the Lord Jesus
Christ, crucified for us to save us from our sins. And God in
His holiness has spoken of Him. That is the foundation and basis
of all of our faith in salvation and our victory in this world.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your
wonderful word, for the Lord Jesus Christ, whose name is wonderful,
and our salvation in him, which is so great that you have delivered
us from so great a death. We are brought to remember these
things of how you saved us from our horrible sin condition and
the wrath of God we deserved and our utter helplessness under
this to do one thing about it. And yet you visited us, you took
the initiative from eternity, fulfilled in time this reconciliation
at the cost to yourself by the death of your own son. What a
glorious, glorious God you are to us. And we find all of our
boasting in the Lord Jesus Christ who loved us and washed us from
our sins in his own blood, conquering our enemies according to your
holy word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.