Good morning. We're going to be looking at
Psalm 133 this morning, if you would like to turn with me there
in your Bibles. Glad y'all remembered to spring
forward. Psalm 133. Behold, how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious
ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's
beard, and went down to the skirts of his garment. As the dew of
Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for
there the Lord commanded the blessing even life forevermore. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father. We pray that you would unite
our hearts in Christ. That you would be pleased to.
To bless us with. That life everlasting that can
only be found in him. We pray for you to open the eyes
of our understanding. Enable us to set our affections
on things above where Christ is seated at thy right hand.
We pray Lord for your Holy Spirit to enable me to speak. We pray that you would enable
us to hear. Lord, that the voice that we
hear would be. Not the voice of a man. But the very voice
of God We would hear you speak to our hearts and give us hope
and rest in Christ. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. I've titled this message true,
true unity, true unity. We hear a lot of talk among the
men of this world about trying to achieve unity. And we know
that's never going to happen. Men are always going to be at
odds with one another. They're always going to be in
disagreement with one another. The best that they can achieve
is to agree to disagree. The unity that the Lord's speaking
of here is a unity that cannot be broken. It is a unity in Christ
that unites the heart to him and to one another in such a
way that we are able to put aside whatever differences we might
have in other areas of life for this unity that we have in Christ.
supersedes, it overrides, and it makes insignificant, it really
does make insignificant any differences that we might have in this world
in terms of, you know, likes and culture and habits and those
sort of things. This is a true, true unity. And that David begins by saying,
behold, Oh, take special notice of this. This is something the
world knows nothing about. This is something they can't
enter into. This is something they cannot
enjoy. This is something that's only for the brethren. Behold, behold how good and how
pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. This
word brethren means to be birthed from the same womb. and to have
the same father and the same mother. And that's where we stand
in Christ. If we've experienced the new
birth, then we have the same father and we have the same mother,
the church. We're birthed into the family
of God through the gospel ministry of the church. And all of God's
people in his church are united together in Christ. And he gets all the glory for
that. It's not that we've made some special effort or sacrifice,
it's the Lord. He prayed for our unity, didn't
he? Turn with me to John chapter
17. John chapter 17. The Lord begins this prayer. this intercessory high priestly
prayer where he is praying for his church. And you and I, when
we pray, we often pray amiss, as James says, not knowing what
we really need. We ask for things that gratify
the flesh, and the Lord has to say no to a lot of those things.
But when the Lord Jesus Christ prayed, he always prayed perfect
prayers. And every prayer that he prayed,
there was no way for it to be not answered. when the Lord told Peter that
he was going to deny him, he said, but be of good cheer. He
said, I've prayed for you. I prayed for you. And when you
are converted, not if you are converted, but when. My prayers
are effectual prayers. James put it like this. He said,
the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
righteous man. He is our righteous advocate.
And his prayers are always effectual. And so here in John chapter 17,
he's praying for his church. And he says, father, I pray not
for the world, but I pray for them, which thou hast given me
out of the world. And then look what he says in
verse 11. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in
the world. And I come to thee, Holy Father,
keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me that
they may be one as we are. Here's our Lord praying for us,
asking his Father to knit our hearts together as one, even
as he is one with his Father. Now look down with me at verse
19. And for their sakes, I sanctify myself. The Lord Jesus Christ,
the only one that could sanctify himself, he's the only one that
could set himself apart and declare himself to be holy. And so he
says, and for their sakes, I sanctify myself and that they also might
be sanctified through the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
is that truth and he says, I sanctify myself and I'm sanctifying them. Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on me through their word,
that they all may be one. Behold, how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Now we ought to be
cautious before we embrace someone in the gospel, because there's
a whole lot of people who will use our Lord's name in vain,
declaring, be a child of God who's not. And we are cautious
about that, aren't we? We don't just return the title
brother to everyone who wants to call us a brother. And we're
to be sure that they really believe on Christ and before we embrace
them. But we ought to even be more
cautious in breaking fellowship with someone. That's, you know, the only the
only reason to break fellowship is that the gospel has been broken.
That's the only reason. Whatever other differences we
might have, we're not to break fellowship over them. It's only
over differences relating to the person and work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Look at verse 21, that they all
may be one as thou father art in me and I in thee, that they
also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast
sent me. Now the Lord brings this out
several times, that the world may believe that thou hast sent
me. Let's read on. And the glory
which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be
one, even as we are one. You see the theme of this prayer? The Lord is praying for the unity
of his church. And if we have unity in Christ,
then we'll have unity in the body of Christ. When was the
last time your hand said to your foot, I don't need you? Or your
eye said to your ear, you're not important to me? No. You
see, if we have unity with the head, then we're just like the
members of our body. We have unity one with the other. And when one is in need, the
other members of the body minister to that need. Look at verse 23,
I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one. Can there be any mistake of what
the Lord is praying for here? And that the world may know that
thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. So
this matter of unity not only glorifies God in that it in that
it gives the Lord Jesus Christ preeminence in the body of Christ,
but it also glorifies him in that it declares clearly to the
world the truth of the gospel. God's people all see eye to eye
when it comes to the gospel. They do. They have the same Spirit
of God, they have the same Gospel, they've got the same Christ,
they've got the same Word, and they're all taught the same thing.
The Lord doesn't teach one of His children one thing and another
one something else. And because of that, there's
no contentions among them when it comes to the Gospel. You know why goats butt one another
while they get in butting contests? To establish dominance. That's
what they're doing, isn't it? When two goats get together and
they start butting heads, one is eventually going to give up
and the other one's going to have dominance over that other
goat when the conflict is over with. I've watched people over
the years that come in here And they think this is just another
religious gathering like the ones they've been to in the past.
And they try to involve you in head-butting. And they come to
find out very quickly that you don't have an interest in getting
preeminence over them or getting dominance over them. And they'll
move around until finally they realize, you know what? I've
got to go somewhere else. And they leave. And then others will come in.
And they'll say, how simple these people speak. There's no double
talk here. They're not saying one thing
and meaning something else. They mean what they say, and
they say what they mean, and they keep pointing to the Lord
Jesus Christ as the head of the body of Christ. They don't say
God loves everybody, and yet most of the people that he loves
he's gonna torture in a devil's hell for all eternity. They don't
say that. How can we make sense of that?
They don't say that God loves everybody. They don't say that
Christ died for everybody, and yet most of the people he died
for are not going to be saved because they won't believe. They
don't say that God is sovereign. and yet contradict the sovereignty
with the free will of man. You see, these people are speaking
the same voice. They're saying the same thing.
It's not complicated. It's not convoluted. It's not
confusing. It's a clear gospel message. And they just keep playing the
same note over and over again. I read a story a brother told
about one of those triangular dinner bells that he had on the
farm. And he said, you know, that thing
only played one note. It just played one note. And
if you got near that thing and he just kept ringing it and ringing
and ringing, you'd just get tired of that one note. But if you
were out in the field working and you were hungry, And you
heard that one note being wrong you you came to the dinner table
didn't you? You know in in religion men have
a oh they have an orchestra of notes don't they? And they say
this, and they say that, and they say the other. And what's
the Lord saying? Lord, he's praying for us to be one together in
Christ, to declare the same message about who the Lord Jesus Christ
is and about what he's accomplished in saving his people. And when
someone out of the world comes in, they're gonna have one or
two reactions to this. They're either going to go around
trying to headbutt until they realize there's nobody's going
to cooperate with them and they leave. Or they're going to sit
down and they're going to hear and they're going to say, this
is different. God is among these people. You see in religion, they will
say that the Bible is the word of God. They will say that it's
inspired, that it's inerrant. And yet they will either deny
passages of scripture altogether and ignore them, or they will
come up with some complicated explanation for them that's not
consistent with the rest of the Bible. And yet when the world
comes here, they hear the same message. And we don't try to
complicate the scriptures. All the scriptures point to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so we're not ignoring passages. We're declaring the word of God
for what it is, a revelation, a revelation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I in them, And thou, beloved,
the world knows nothing of this. No place in the world will you
find this. In the irreligious world or in
the religious world. Some of you have been in the
religious world. You know how men love to debate and they love
to butt heads over things. They love to pretend that they
know something that they don't know. And we don't do that here. Why? Behold, how good and how
pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Look at verse 24. This unity
is because the Lord Jesus Christ prayed for us, died for us, bought
us with his precious blood, called us by his grace, gave us a new
heart. Father, I will that they also
whom thou hast given me be with me where I am. Somebody out of the world comes
here, they're gonna hear about election, aren't they? They're gonna hear
about predestination. That's essential to the gospel.
God in his sovereign grace chose a particular people before the
foundation of the world according to his own will and purpose. Our God is a God of purpose,
isn't he? whom thou has given me be with
me where I am that they may behold my glory which thou has given
me for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world the Lord Jesus Christ he's that
lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world The salvation
of God's people was secure in the covenant of grace made between
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Before anything
else came into being, before the angels were created, before
the stars were cast into the sky, before the earth was made,
before Adam was fashioned from the dust of the earth, God chose
a people. And the Lord Jesus is praying
at his people. See, we don't try to take the
edge off of that, do we? We don't try to compromise that
in a way that will make it palatable to anybody. We just declare what
God has said. And how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. God's people are all
in their hearts. Amen. That's my hope. My hope
is that he chose me. My hope is that salvation is
all of him. My hope is that the Lord Jesus
Christ did everything necessary to secure my salvation. Because
if he didn't do it all, I've got no hope. I have no other
place to go. Look at verse 25, O righteous
father, the world hath not known this. The world doesn't know
what we're talking about. If you were of the world, the
world would love its own, but because you're not of the world,
therefore the world hateth you. The world hates what we're talking
about right now. They hate this. The world hath not known thee,
but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent
me. What did Philip say? Lord, show
us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Oh, Philip, do you not know
that if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, for I and the
Father are one? And every believer is satisfied in seeing the glory
of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, in religion,
men make empty promises. They speak pious platitudes. They make contradictions that
cannot be understood. And when God's people are united
in the gospel, they just all say the same thing, don't they?
They all believe the same thing. How good and how pleasant it
is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Look at verse 26. And I have declared unto them
thy name and will declare it that the love wherewith thou
hast loved me may be in them and I in them. There's our unity. Christ in you, your hope of glory,
your hope of glory. Go back with me to our text,
let's look at these. The first verse establishes the truth of
unity among God's people, and then the second verse and the
third verse illustrate that unity. So let's look at these two verses
quickly. It is like the precious ointment
upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard,
and went down to the skirts of his garment. Now in Exodus chapter
30, the Lord gave to Moses and Aaron a very specific formula
that was to be followed by the apothecary or the perfumer in
putting this, you can read it in Exodus 30, in putting this
precious ointment together. And in that ointment, there was
myrrh There was cinnamon, there was calamus, there was cassia,
and there was olive oil. And exactly how much of each
one of those things were to be put together in that ointment
was the ointment that was to be used in anointing Aaron and
all the vessels in the tabernacle. That ointment had a very specific
aroma to it that nothing else smelt like it. And those five
elements that were in the ointment, you know what they all have in
common? They're all trees. They're the bark or the sap of
a tree or the oil of a tree. All five of those things are
trees. And the Lord told Aaron and Moses,
he said, if any man uses this ointment outside of the tabernacle
for his own personal use, if you smell this smell anywhere
other than in the tabernacle where the sacrificial system
is made, then that man is to be cut off. And what is the point of this?
Well, that anointing oil, that's the gospel of God's grace, isn't
it? I determined, Paul said, not
to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now what is the Christ? The Christ
is the anointed one, the Christ is the Messiah, the Christ is
the one who was sent of the Father in the full anointing of the
Holy Spirit to die on Calvary's cross to bear the burden of sin
and justice in order to satisfy God's holy justice and earn the
salvation of his people. What's the Lord saying to us?
It's like that precious ointment that was poured on the head and
went down the beard and dripped off of the hem of Aaron's garment. You remember the woman with the
issue of blood? Oh, if I could but touch the hem of his garment,
I'd be made whole. You see, this is where the anointing
oil drips off, isn't it? It drips off at the at the hem
of his garment. And what was that woman doing?
She had an issue of blood. That's our issue. Our sin is in the blood. It's
a blood problem. And his blood was sufficient
and satisfactory to God because it was without sin. He wasn't
born of the seed of Adam like we were. He had no sin in his
blood. So his blood was called precious
blood. It was holy blood. It was perfect
blood. And what did this woman say? She crawled on her hands
and knees to get through the crowd, to get to where he was,
just to be able to touch the hem of his garment. And that's
what the Lord is saying. This is every believer's experience. And when the message, when Christ
and Him crucified is used by men outside of the gospel, they
are to be cut off. We hear lots of people talk about
Jesus Christ. We hear lots of people talk about
the cross. Lots of people talk about the crucifixion of Christ.
But it's not in the anointing of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
see, Someone might be tempted to take this precious ointment
and use it as a perfume to promote themselves. Why do men put perfume
on? To smell pleasant in the presence
of another person. And what's the Lord saying? saying
they use that precious ointment that's to be poured out on Christ
and on his gospel, and they use it on themselves to get glory
to themselves, then they're to be cut off. But that's what they
do. They say, oh yeah, we believe in Jesus. But bless his heart. He's really not able to save
anybody unless they let him. Unless they let him have his
way. You know, he's got to have my cooperation. And what's the
Lord say there? They're using the precious ointment
to promote and to glorify themselves. And the Lord says there to be
cut off. You don't, you won't give it a second thought, will
you? You listen to somebody using the God, using the Lord's name
in vain to glorify themselves and rob from him his glory and
salvation. You don't, you cut them off,
don't you? I don't mean you, you, you just
don't want anything. You don't want to carry on that
conversation. We're not going to go sit and listen to someone
tell lies about Christ. We're not going to let them promote
themselves with the anointing oil of the gospel. We're not
gonna do it. We're not gonna be a part of
that. So here's the Lord using this precious ointment as an
illustration for what it's like for brethren to have unity together. How good and how pleasant it
is for brethren to have unity, to dwell together in unity. All right, now what's the second
illustration? Look at verse three. As the dew of Hermon. Now notice
the next four words are in italics. Hermon is a mountain, a snow-capped
mountain on the northern edges of Palestine. And Every morning,
the mist from the dew of that mountain would come down the
mountain and water the valleys of Israel. And it was one mountain. That mountain also was provided,
as that snow melted, it would provide the headwaters for the
Jordan River. and the Sea of Galilee, which
was teeming with life, and it ended up where? Where did that
water all end up? It ended up in the Dead Sea,
didn't it? And then the Dead Sea, the water cycle began again
through evaporation and condensation and precipitation. And that continued
water cycle is a picture of the gospel and the unity that we
have together in Christ. Let me show you, look what he
says. Leave out those next four words, they don't really belong
there. As the dew of Hermon that descended upon the mountains
of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. There the Lord commanded The
blessing, the blessing. What is the blessing? Is it a
blessing to have good health? Well, yeah, it is. Is it a blessing
to have peace in a home? Yeah. What is the blessing? What is the blessing that without No other blessing amounts to
anything. What is it? It's life evermore. It's eternal life. It's the forgiveness
of sin. It's to be found in Christ, having
life eternal. This is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent. You see, if we don't have Thee blessing, if we don't
have life eternal, then nothing else really matters. Matter of
fact, whatever else we might enjoy in this world, if we don't
have that, ultimately and eternally will not be a blessing. It'll
be a curse. It'll be a curse. For God will
hold us guilty for all eternity for not bowing to Him and believing
on him in the midst of the fact that we enjoyed his benefits
from his hand in this life. There's only one blessing. The
blessing is life eternal. Where does the Lord give that?
Right where the dew comes down from Mount Hermon. And it gently
waters the fields of Zion. And then it's offered back up
in the form of prayer. What is, you see, this is the
water cycle. It's offered up in prayer as it evaporates back
into heaven. And then the Lord condenses that
prayer and sends more blessings as the dew continues to descend
upon the valleys of Zion from Mount Hermon. And what's not used ends up in
the Dead Sea, doesn't it? Just like that manna. Well, the
manna, the scripture says, was like the dew that landed upon
the earth. And they went out every morning,
and as the dew went up, there was the manna, there was the
bread of life. And the Lord sent it by dew. Here's the encouraging point
of this, brethren. Every child of God knows what
it means to want to grow spiritually quickly. If you're a believer,
you'd like to just be so much more mature and spiritually progressed
than you are, wouldn't you? I know you would. I would. And
we think, well, Lord, if you would just open the heavens and
send a torrent of rain upon me and cause me to grow. But the
thing is, God's people don't grow that way. They don't grow
that way. They grow. Do you become impatient
with how slowly you are growing? Do you? You know what? Every child of God that just
heard that is saying, amen, that's my experience. That's my experience. That's our unity. That's our
unity together. It ought to cause us to be patient
with one another, realizing that, you know, they're not, I'm not
growing any faster than they are. And I need to be, you know,
I need to be forgiving and patient with one another, even as God
for Christ's sake has forgiven me. And, and, uh, And then I
need to realize that this growth in grace is a very slow process. Weeds grow fast. Hardwoods grow
real slow, don't they? And the dew, there's so many
references to that in The scriptures, that water in
the Dead Sea cannot sustain life. As the water evaporates, the
Dead Sea becomes more and more and more concentrated with minerals. You know the Dead Sea is the
lowest place on the face of the earth. By elevation from the ocean, what do you call it, the
ocean level? I'm trying to think of a word,
I can't. It's 660 feet below sea level. Below sea level. And it can't sustain life. And
that's what happens with this water. It just, you know, it
does its work, feeds our soul. And then it evaporates back up
into glory. We can't go to the Dead Sea any
more than we can go to yesterday's manna. Lord, feed us, give us
this day our daily bread. This is the water cycle that
the Lord has illustrated in nature to show what our spiritual life
and our unity together in Christ is. As the mist. descended from heaven,
from Hermon. It's the same thing that Elijah
experienced when he was running from Jezebel, you remember, and
he went up on the mountain of the law, Mount Horeb. And there
was an earthquake, but God was not in it. And there was a fire,
but God was not in it. And there was a great, mighty
wind, and God was not in it. Isn't that what we want? We want
an earthquake. We want a fire. We want a mighty,
rushing wind to grow us and get us further than what we are.
And then there was the still, small voice. That's how God speaks, little
by little, as the dew that collects on the tender grass. He grows
us very gradually with a still, small voice, like the dew that
descended from heaven and watered the valleys. It's those droplets of water
that collect on the tender blades of grass. Turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter
32. Deuteronomy chapter 32. You know, we want a megaphone from
heaven, don't we? We want something to fix everything
in our lives just right now. It's not going to happen that
way. Hadn't happened yet, it's not going to happen. It's going
to be a slow process for the rest of your life. Give ear, chapter 32, verse 1. Give ear, O ye heavens, and I
will speak. And hear, O earth, the words
of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the
rain. My speech shall distill as the
dew, as the small rain upon the tender grass and as the showers
upon the grass. Just small rain. Proverbs chapter 19 verse 12
says, the king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion, but his
favor is as the dew upon the grass. This anointing of oil, this dew
that the Lord sent. We see it illustrated in Gideon's
experience. They say, well, I'm going to
put out a fleece in order to determine God's will. Don't do
that. It's already been done. That fleece was Christ. And when
Gideon prayed and said, Lord, if this is what you want, then
let the fleece be, be, be, let the dew fall on the fleece and
not the ground around it. And that's exactly what happened.
Matter of fact, so much dew fell on that fleece that the next
morning Gideon got up and rang out bowls of water from that
fleece, didn't he? Gideon, not yet convinced, put
the fleece back out and said, oh Lord, forgive me, but this
time let the dew be around on the ground, but not on the fleece.
And the next morning he got up and all the ground around the
fleece was wet and the fleece was dry. That's the dew that fell from
heaven. That's the anointing of the oil. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, though he was anointed with the oil of gladness above
his fellows, lo, this holy anointing oil dripped off of him. He was wrung out on Calvary's
cross. He was wrung out. And he was left dry and dead. in order that the ground around
him might enjoy the dew that falls from heaven. That's his church. We're all
in agreement on that, aren't we? How good and how pleasant it
is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It's like the anointing
of the oil that went on Aaron's head and down his beard and dripped
off his It's like the dew that came down from Mount Hermon and
watered all of Israel, the church. That the blessing, the blessing,
life everlasting might be given. There's our hope. All right,
let's take a break. th th