Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 116. Psalm 116, I'll
read for our text, verse 13. I will take the cup of salvation
and call upon the name of the Lord. Reading from verse 12,
What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward
me? I will take the cup of salvation
and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto
the Lord now in the presence of all his people. With our text,
Psalm 116 and verse 13. We read throughout scripture
of several cups. In the prophecy of Isaiah, we
read of the cup of the Lord's fury. We also read of the cup
of trembling. Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians
and referring to the Lord's supper, he speaks of the cup of blessing
that we bless and also the cup of the Lord. We read in Psalm
23 of David, and he says, My cup runneth over. In verse 5,
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil.
My cup runneth over. Our Lord in the garden, he prayed. Yet if it be possible, let this
cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thy will be done. We have a picture of a cup, a
familiar illustration, and into that cup is poured ingredients,
things of which the psalmist David, he says, that have been
poured so much into it that it runs over and he obviously is
referring to the blessings of the Lord that he has received. And in the psalm that is before
us here it is referred to as the cup of salvation. I will take the cup of salvation
and call upon the name of the Lord. In one sense there are
many different things that we could describe a cup, even for
the ungodly, that was put into their lives, those things they
experience, the blessings, in a natural sense, the Lord opens
His hands, satisfies the desire of every living thing, and also
bitter cups as well, those things that are not at all pleasant,
and Yet with the Lord's people and with our Lord, there is something
that is different in their cup, in their life, what is put into
their lives, and that makes it to be the cup of salvation. Those things that are working
together for good, to them that love God, to them that are the
called according to His purpose. I want to look with the Lord's
help this evening on the cup of salvation. Firstly, the need
of salvation. And then secondly, the cup of
salvation. Look at the cup that our Lord
had and that which the people of God have. And then lastly,
what is to be done with our cup. Now it says, I will take the
cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. And what
follows in the next verse. But firstly, the need of salvation. Saving from hell and saving to
heaven. As in the beginning when Man
rebelled against God, against His commandments. Sin entered
into the world, and death by sin. There is a need of being
saved from our sins. The beautiful name given to our
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. The name of Jesus, a name which
is above every name, the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
is given as the reason for it. he shall save his people from
their sins. It is through the Lord Jesus
Christ alone that salvation comes, and the need is a vital need
for everyone upon this earth. Everyone that is born, we're
born in sin and shapen in iniquity. It is not something we can look
upon another and say, Well, that belongs to them, but it doesn't
belong to us. When it comes to the cup of salvation,
then there is many different ingredients with all the people
of God. But regarding our need of salvation,
the need of everyone is the same, whether we're born into the royal
family, or whether we're born as a pauper, whether we're born
in this country, or some other country where the gospel is never
heard and not heard at all. Everyone needs salvation, for
all is under the sentence of death. The soul that sinneth
it shall die, and that sentence will be carried out, must be
carried out. And if we are to escape the consequences
after death, the judgment, to stand before God's throne, to
be condemned, condemned as guilty and banished forever in eternal
hellfire, then we need to be saved and we need the salvation
of the Bible, which is the only salvation. The God that we have
sinned against, rebelled against, whose law we have broken, who
has passed sentence upon all men in that all have sinned.
It is He that has provided salvation, a way of escape from the wrath
to come. He Himself has made that way,
and there is no other way. Our Lord says, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by Me. And how man shall be without
excuse, even those who have never, ever heard the Gospel, who are
told in Romans, that it is because of creation, because of man himself,
that the power of the Godhead is shown in us because we are
made in the image of God. We have a reasonable soul, we
are the pinnacle of creation, and what man can do in superior
to any animal, the wonder of our bodies, how wonderfully they
work together, in common you might say with the animal kingdom,
but then in a spiritual realm, in an intellectual realm, a reasoning
realm, able to learn to study, to apply that study, and the
wonderful things that man, though fallen, is still permitted to
do. It's an amazing thing that people
can see something that a man has made. They can see a car,
they can see a vehicle, and if you ask them, has someone made
that? They would say, of course they've
made it. It hasn't just happened, it didn't just appear. And yet
when it comes to creation, then immediately they say, well no,
it's just happened over millions of years. There's just no beginning,
it's just evolved. And yet our own bodies, anyone
who's had anything to do with the medical profession, know
that every part interacts, everything is dependent one on another.
We are fearfully and wonderfully made. And really the very fact
that man cannot see, refuses to see, and cannot see in the
wonderful creation, a creator, then it shows the fall and it
shows God's judgment that he has given wisdom so man can see
what He has made, He can see natural things, but anything
to do with God, He cannot see. It is shut out from Him, there
is a darkness, there is an unbelief there. And may the Lord be pleased
to open eyes to see that great disparity between what we can
understand naturally and what man can do and how there is just
a complete mind-block and impossibility when it comes to ascribing anything
to God or seeing God in things that truly are wonderful. And so our very ignorance is
a proof of the need of salvation. As Alma says, open thou my eyes,
that I might see wondrous things out of thy law. But we need our
eyes open to see wondrous things in our bodies, and in the world
around us, and in everything that testifies that there is
a God. In Him, says Paul, to those on
Mars Hill, we live and move and have our being, and we are accountable
to Him. And even that we'd say, well,
we believe there is a God. But they never bother to read
the Word of God, never see what His claims are upon us, never
read about what we actually are. Some, though, spend their lives
trying to discredit the Word of God, to unpick it, as if a
man that was drowning, a man that was in need of a lifeline,
spent his life trying to get a penknife and cut away at the
very rope that was to be the means of saving him. What a terrible
eternity may we be delivered from such a path to realize we've
been so close, we've seen so much, we've heard so much, and
yet we have spent so much effort to undo or discredit the very
way of salvation. When I read in the Word that
There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. There shall be great
distress in hell. And you know, I think sometimes
of those sins I committed in childhood and in youth, and those
sins that even now, though I believe they're forgiven, I can never
forget them. They cause me pain. They cause sorrow. and what it
must be for those in hell with a very clear view of all of their
lifetime, every time they've seen God's creation, every time
they've read the word, every time that they've heard the gospel,
every time they've been so close to a way of escape, every time
they've ridiculed it and ridiculed the people of God. You know,
the Apostle Paul, he says, that he was not made to be called
an apostle because I persecuted the people of God. And he could
never, never really forget that. In all his persecutions he endured
and everything he went through, he remembered what he had done
to the people of God. But he says, God showed me mercy. I did it in ignorance. But for
those who have gone right through their lives and Never found that
mercy, never been bestowed upon them. What a solemn, terrible
eternity. We need, personally, saving. We need salvation. And nothing
can be a substitute for that. And so, I want to look then,
secondly, at the cup of salvation. And I want to begin with the
cup of salvation as that which the Lord Jesus Christ has drunk
up. It's one of our hymns. It's a
beautiful hymn. I didn't select it this evening,
but it's hymn 307. And in that hymn, there's a speaking
of the two cups and thinking of our Lord Jesus Christ and
what he endured and we have him in verse 2 of that hymn. Though
our cup seems filled with gall, there's something secret sweetens
all. How hast thou e'er the way, dear
Saviour, still lead on? Nor leave us till we say, Father,
thy will be done. At most we do but taste the cup,
for thou alone hast drunk it up. And that is what our Lord
went through on this earth, went through especially at Calvary. The eternal God must be made
man with soul and body, that he may die, that he may suffer,
that he may stand in the place of his people, that as by man
came death, so by man must come deliverance from death. And so
our Lord had to become a man, and yet divine. And in the body
that was prepared him, in that body, he lived here below that
perfect life of obedience. And then in that body, soul and
body, he suffered, suffered in the garden, suffered upon the
accursed tree, suffered before Pontius Pilate in the Injudgment
Hall, mocked and scorned and whipped and scourged, and then
crucified, and to enter into death, and then rise again from
the dead. In Isaiah 53, we read of the
great sufferings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, some
of the Parts of the Old Testament show it so vividly. Psalm 129,
the plowers plowed upon my back. What a vivid description of one
that was being scourged like a plow going over our Lord's
back. And in Isaiah 53, surely he is
despised and rejected of men. a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. It's all describing the cut of
the Lord. What was his lot? What was his
portion here below? What was before him? Surely he
hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem
him stricken, smitten of God. and afflicted. That was his cup. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. And with his stripes we are healed. That was his cup. The wounds,
the bruises, the chastisement, the stripes. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. and the Lord had laid on him
the iniquity of us all. That was his cup, our iniquities
laid upon him. He was oppressed, he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, as a sheep before her shearers is done, so he opened
not his mouth. That was the cup of our Lord,
that what he had to endure in the place of his people. He was
taken from prison and from judgment. Who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the
land of the living, for the transgression of my people. Was he stricken? That was his cut, for the transgression
of his people. That's why he was dealt with
as he was. All his sufferings, all he went
through, making his grave with the death, because he had done
no violence, neither is any deceit in his mouth. And we read how
the Lord was pleased to bruise him, to put him to grief, and
make his soul an offering for sin. That is the cup of our Lord,
the cup of salvation, the cup given to him when he so willingly
took upon him the cause of his people to come and redeem them. Abraham said to Isaac, my son,
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. John Baptist
says, pointing to our Lord, behold the lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world. Our Lord made an atonement for
the sins of his people. Those whom the Father gave Him
to redeem. He laid down His life for the
sheep. He suffered in their place. He
endured the wrath of God instead of them. He paid the debt that
they owed. Those things He went through
for their salvation, for their sake. This is the cup that was
the Lord's cup, willingly, freely, lovingly taken up. knowing right
from the beginning, a lamb slain from the foundation of the world,
what it would cost. We are warned in the Word of
God to be very careful that we do not be a surety for a stranger,
because we could easily have to pay everything when they could
pay nothing. A surety only has to come in
for those that they're surety for, when that person cannot
pay anything. Judah was a surety for Benjamin. When Benjamin was going to be
locked up because of the cup found in his sack, then Judah
said that he would stand in his place, let Benjamin go back to
his father. I will stay. I will be a servant. That was not necessary. Joseph
revealed himself to them. But our Lord, when He became
surety for His people, He knew that He would pay. He knew that
He must pay. There was no possibility that
He would not escape having to fully pay what they owed. And
so the love that caused Him to willingly, freely take that people
for His own, thine they were and thou gavest them me, And
lo, in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight
to do thy will, O my God. So the Lord's cup, the cup of
salvation, if it be possible, it was not possible, let this
cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will, but thy will be
done. After this service we observe
the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, and the Lord instituted that,
ye do show forth the Lord's death till he come, and part of that
service is to partake of the cup, the New Testament in his
blood, and to but sip of that, but to remember that the Lord
hath fully drunk it up. But then we have the, not only the cup of the Lord,
but we have the cup for His people, the cup of salvation, that which
the psalmist says, I will take the cup of salvation. And what does that mean? what
is the cup of salvation for the people of God, the people's cup,
that in which David said that his cup ran over. Really, we could say in that
cup, it is everything that the Lord has done to bring that soul
to the saving knowledge of the Lord. Their calling, how they
were called, how they were quickened, how they were given eternal life,
the convictions the Lord gave them of their sin, those convictions
that led, led to seeking the Lord, those things that were
used for good, the blessings that the Lord gave them, providential
blessings, if so be that ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious,
Those blessings are spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. Those blessings, they're put
in that cup. Jacob, he put in his cup the
visit on the stones at Bethel. He put in that cup the 10 times
his wages were changed and yet the Lord overruled it for good.
He put in that cup. Esau coming, but then his wrestling
and prevailing with the angel and the blessing there. How often
in that cup would be the trials, providential trials, trials in
affliction, and yet in those trials, helps and blessings turned
about for good, working for good, chastening, correction of the
Lord in the cup, the Lord chastened every son whom he receiveth,
answers to prayer, being brought to pray, and to come with Hannah,
she'd have in her cup a Samuel. For this child I prayed, and
the Lord hath given me my petition that I have asked of him. In
that cup would come good hearing times under the word of God. We'd have Blessings that we'd
had in this chapel or in other chapels under this minister or
that minister. We'd have specific texts in the
Word of God that have been blessed to us, that are precious to us,
we go back to. When we read those portions of
scripture, immediately it brings back when they were preached
or when we heard it and the effect. It may revive in us that Prayer
that the Lord would bring about what he'd spoken to us then of. And these are the things that
make up the cup of the people of God. Really the all things
that work together for good to them that love God. They're the
things that the children of Israel had to remember all the way that
the Lord their God had led them these 40 years in the wilderness. All those things that the Lord
did to try them, to prove them, to know what was in their heart.
They're remembering the works of the Lord towards them. The things that the Lord has
done for them. It is a Christian experience. It is a Christian witness. It
is a Christian experience. Experience of the Word of God
being made life in the soul. and what they've been brought
to experience and know of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The cup of our salvation will,
marry art be, really inseparably joined with our Lord's cup to
have fellowship with Him in His sufferings, in His path. The hymn writer says, His way
was much rougher and darker than mine. Shall my Lord suffer, and
shall I repine? So it is a cup, and sometimes
I have in my mind's view this cup of life's journey, and the
things that are put into that cup, the things that make up
that cup, and each one has a very, very different path. Sometimes
we can look upon another's life and we think we know what's in
your cup, We've seen it, we see it outwardly, but you cannot
know what makes up that cup inwardly. Every heart knoweth its own bitterness,
and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joys. Those things are
personal to the people of God, what they have experienced, what
they have walked in. We're not to try and imagine
that we shall have the same as another, but one thing will be
the same. The things that we go through
will be used to draw us to the Saviour, make Him precious, make
Him known, reveal Him to us, and to give us a faith and a
trust in Him, and not our own righteousness, not ourselves,
but in the Lord. In reviewing that cart, it will
be a humbling path. Paul, he will see his persecution
to the people of God. But yes, the wonderful blessing
on the Damascus Road. David, he will see the murder,
the adultery, he will see his sin, and he'll realize the chastening
that the Lord said, the rod, the sword shall not depart from
thine house. But when he saw that happen,
And he had Absalom, he was delivered from him. When Shimei cursed,
let him curse, the Lord hath bidden him. It may be the Lord
will requite me good for his cursing this day. He was in his
cup. But David knew that the Lord
did and the Lord would deliver him out of all of his troubles
and all of his sorrows. The righteous crying, the Lord
heareth. The Lord delivers His people
out of all their troubles, and so their cup is often filled
with tribulation and triumphs. But our Lord says, In me ye shall
have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation,
but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. In that cup will be many triumphs,
but many deliverances. If that cup was Psalm 107, We'd
have many down sittings, many uprisings, many falling downs
when there was none to help, many prayers. And they cried
unto the Lord in their trouble and He saved them out of their
distresses. Oh, that man would praise the
Lord for his goodness and for his mercy, the children of men. And so the cup of salvation It
is not just a cup of those things we've passed through in life's
journey, but it's those things that have been the working for
good, revealing to us a precious Christ, making known to us his
thoughts towards us and our interest in his precious blood. I pass
by thee when thou wast in thy blood. When thou wast in thy
blood, I bid thee live. He which hath begun a good work
in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. There's
one aspect that is a lovely thought, really, with this cup, because
it is a gathering together. Often when the Lord's people
just look at one aspect in their lives, or an isolated aspect,
then they can't see very clearly. It's like someone making a puzzle
and you look at one piece of the puzzle and someone says,
what's that a picture of? And you say, I don't know. I
need to have more pieces and then I will tell you. And salvation
is like that. You might look at one point on
its own and it doesn't give the clear picture. But you put a
lot of things together and it does. You might be looking and
saying, if only I had a word from the Lord. If only I had
a blessing like this. You might be like Naaman and
saying that we thought this and that, how the Lord would work.
And you think that one great blessing, that that would be
a wonderful thing. But you know, you could be really
tried on one great blessing, where there is really right or
not, but if the Lord chose to give you a lot of things, a lot
of things, some of them in providence, his going before, when he putteth
forth his sheep he goeth before them, the working together for
good, those hearing times, those sweet times, a word here, a word
there, and you get all of those and you bring them all together
and you put them all in the cup together And then you can see
more clearly this is a cup of salvation. It's not just any
cup. It's not the cup of the world.
It's not the cup of those who do not know the Lord and not
subject to His work. It is a cup of salvation. It
is the Lord's working. You know, if Laban and Bethuel
could hear the servant, Abraham's servant, who'd gone to seek a
wife for Isaac, and hear what the Lord had done as he came
to the well, and say that the thing proceedeth from the Lord,
then there will be those times that those who gather together,
those blessings, maybe it's like Ruth, with her gleaning, just
one few ears of corn here, and then a few ears there, and then
a handful of purpose, but he gathered them all together. And
you see them all together, and Naomi sees them. She said, whose
field have you labored in today? Blessed be he of the Lord that
has taken knowledge of their youth. And if it had been just
a few on its own, not as remarkable, but put them all together. They're
working together for good. Remember all the way, not to
forget. And we have the Holy Spirit as
remembrance, to bring all these things to remembrance. Now dear,
Jacob, he goes through a path when he says, all these things
are against me. Yet we know, because we know
the end of the account, that even when he was saying that,
those things were not against him. He might be saying that
this evening. All these things are against
me. Well, when that time comes, you're able to look back and
say, they weren't against me, they were for me. Then those
things are to go in that cup together. The trials, but also
the turning about for good, the deliverances and the helps. Those things that the Lord has
done, they're all kept together. You know, the children of Israel,
when the Lord commanded them to make the Ark of the Covenant,
a beautiful time of our Lord, then there was put in that Ark,
the two tables of stone, completed, they went to forget that. Aaron's rod, that barbed, budded,
who the Lord had chosen, they went to forget that. The manna, the pot of manna,
They weren't to forget what they had fed on all the way through
the wilderness. These things are all laid up,
and they're laid up with the Ark, laid up with Christ, as
it were. The Lord knows every blessing
and everything that He's done for His people, and He'll never
say at the last day, depart from you, I never knew you, when He
it is that hath wrought all our works in us And He it is that
has done these things in our life and ordered our way before
Him. A cup of salvation. Maybe help, dear friends, to
look, to look at an overview of your life and what things
you would put in that cup, what would make up that cup, and are
there things that have the mark that is different than those
who never know the Lord would put in. Those things that have
the mark of salvation, the mark of conviction of sin, the mark
of a revelation of a saviour, the mark of an ordering God,
working things according to the counsel of His will, leading
forth by the right way, and has the mark of The Lord's work,
this is the Lord's work and it's marvellous in our eyes. The cup of salvation, his people's
cup. I want to look then lastly at
what is to be done with our cup. We may have as I've tried to
relate these things gone over in our mind and to put those
things in a cup or see them as viewed and gather them together. What are we to do with that?
What is the benefit of it? What is the help of it? We've
already said one benefit to gather them together is to clearly see
what they really are and what they point to. but we are given
very specific directions here, what we are to do with it. In
verse 12, the psalmist says, what shall I render unto the
Lord for all his benefits toward me? Really in the review of the
cart, he's mindful of these benefits toward him. Are we mindful of
the Lord's benefits toward us? Those things are freely given
us, the blessings, the helps, the answers to prayer, the things
that the Lord has done for us. And there's that desire to render,
what shall I render unto the Lord? And then comes this cup
of salvation. What shall be done with it? Well,
there's several things. Firstly, he says, I will take
the cup of salvation. So he's not just discarding it,
he's taking it, very conscious, holding it and looking at this
cup. While he's looking at it, while
he's taking it, while he's holding it, while he's mindful of all
what's in it, then things are being done. You know at the coronation
service, the King had to lay his hand upon the Holy Word of
God and then make solemn promises. And there was things that were
done while he was identifying with the Word of God, while he
was making those promises on it. And in a similar way, it
is as this cup is taken, then there are those things that are
done. The first thing that is said to be done here is to call
upon the name of the Lord, to pray. You know, Hannah, when
she was given her petition, and she comes and says, for this
child I prayed, the Lord hath given me my petition that I've
asked of Him. But in the next chapter, we read God. Samuel is not even mentioned. The Lord is extolled, and he
is blessed. And dear Hannah, she overlooked
the blessing itself, what that was, but the blessing of having
the Lord appear for her, and answer her prayer, and bless
her. It is not following the Lord
for the loaves and the fishes, and then just concentrating on
that, is looking at who gave it, who wrought these things,
what is bound up with it, the token of it. This isn't just
a matter of being given a job, for instance. It was an answer
to prayer, it's a token for good. It's not just a deliverance from
this affliction or this trial. You can't go to the Tyrophoenician
woman and say, look, all you've had, you've had your daughter
healed. She says, not that, it's not that. I heard from the lips
of the Lord, thy faith hath saved thee. I have heard from his own
lips, he appeared for me, he spoke to me. The blessing that
she had was more than the trial, the affliction that brought her
to the Lord. And so it is taking this cup
of salvation and calling upon the Lord. Hannah, at first, it
was a supplication in her prayer. And the second, it was praise.
It was thanksgiving. It was honoring to the Lord.
Like we had the ten lepers, the Lord healed all ten. But only
one returned to give thanks unto the Lord. Only one. entered into this path of taking
this cup, taking the blessings and returning to the Lord. There
is a blessing in that. Don't say, well, I'll wait until
I have another blessing and then I'll take the cup. The blessing
in the rendering to the Lord is taking that cup and coming,
calling upon the name of the Lord. He is honoured and glorified
when his people ascribe unto him the glory and honor due to
his name, and recognize his work, give him the glory of his work,
and speak of his work. And so there is the praise of
his name, that call upon the name of the Lord. He shall praise
the name of the Lord. Also there's a payment of vows,
I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his
people." Often, when the people of God are in trial, they make
solemn promises. They say, if this happens, then
I will do that. Hannah said, if I am given a
man-child of the Lord, I'll lend him unto the Lord for as long
as he liveth. And when the child was born,
at first, well, she wanted to wean him, But her husband said,
really, in effect, you be careful, you hold back and wean him, but
you must honour that vow. I've not disallowed it, I've
heard what it was, and you must fulfil it in its season. So she brought Samuel up. So there is a payment to those
vows, when there is the promises made, the things that we say. You know, when my father passed
away in Tasmania in 2008, and for many years before that time,
my passport had been lost. And so I was prevented from going
over and seeing him. And even when he came right to
the end, we said, well, if I'm meant to go, then the Lord will
show where that passport was. And within a few minutes, then
the passport was found. When I first saw it, I realised
all that was involved in the flights and going over there
and everything that had to be attended to, my heart sank. I was shrunk from it. And then
I remembered what I said. If the passport is found, then
I know that I must go. And I couldn't go back from that.
But we can, we can have that first thought, well, maybe we
won't follow up with what we have said. It's a good time,
it's a good thing when we've had trials to go back after we've
been delivered and put ourselves in the mindset of when we weren't
delivered and think, well, what happens if we hadn't have had
deliverance? So if we're still in the trial, still in the problem,
how would we feel then? So it is a paying of our vows,
And lastly, there is making a profession before the Lord. I pay my vows
unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people. So it is a
public profession. It is giving honour and glory
to the Lord in front of others. Come and hear all ye that fear
God, and I'll tell what he hath done for my soul. So may the Lord be pleased to
Bless this word, the cup of salvation, taking the cup of salvation. The Lord grant that we each may
have such a cup and deal rightly with that cup to the honour and
glory of God and to the strengthening and encouraging of the Church
of God. Amen.