Thank you, Joy. Good morning. Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 38 from your Spiral Gospel Hymnal, number
38. Come, every sinner, saved by
grace. That's the first line. Let's
all stand. Come every sinner saved by grace,
you who by faith God's Son embrace. Tell all who hear your voice
below, the debt of love to Christ you owe. Dear Lord, I lift my
praise to Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. He left His Father's throne above,
And came to earth on wings of love. For us He lived the perfect
man, And so fulfilled the Law's demand. Dear Lord, I lift my
praise to Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. Jesus endured His Father's ire
and died at the appointed hour. What He endured, no tongue can
tell, to save our souls from death and hell. Dear Lord, I
lift my praise to Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. From death's dark grave our King
arose, And triumphed over all our foes. Up through the skies
the victor rode, And reigns on high our Savior God. Dear Lord, I lift my praise to
Thee. All that I am, or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. From heaven Christ will quickly
come and bring his ransomed people home. There we shall see his
lovely face and chant the praises of his grace. Dear Lord, I lift
my praise to Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. Please be seated. Good morning. All I am or hope
to be, I owe O Christ to Thee, everything, everything. The truth
is, if a man ends up in hell, he's got no one to blame but
himself. We are without excuse for our unbelief. And if we end
up in heaven, we have no one to credit, no one to glory, no
one to praise but the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. Would you turn with me in your
Bibles to Psalm 45, please. Psalm 45. I want to thank Michael and Robert
for filling in and faithfully declaring the truth of God's
Word in Christ last Sunday. And thank you for your prayers. We had a good meeting in Nashville,
College Grove. I invited Chris Cunningham. Chris
was here two years ago and I invited him to come back and preach for
us in January. So if you look inside your bulletin,
there's some announcements in there and one of them has to
do with the conference and who's coming. And the other one has
to do with our anniversary, 22 years, 22 years the Lord has
kept us and how thankful we are for his faithfulness to us over
these years. The 11th of next month we'll
plan to stay together after service and have some time of fellowship
together, round a meal. So plan to bring some food and
stay for that. And then, can't remember the
date, but I think we have December the 2nd, is that right? Tricia
and I would love for you all to come Sunday afternoon over
to our home for open house, so. All right, let's ask the Lord's
blessings on our time together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
Oh, what great comfort and hope we have in knowing that you are
faithful to all your promises. Lord, you've said that where
two or three are gathered together in thy name, there you are in
the midst of them. Lord, how hopeful we are that
you would be pleased in this hour to open the windows of heaven
to allow a glimmer of light from the Lord Jesus Christ to shine
in our hearts to reveal to us more of his glory and to enable
us in this time to worship you. Lord, we do thank you for your
faithfulness in providing all that we've needed and continuing
to provide all that we shall need for this life and for the
life to come. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Scripture says that man looks
at the outward appearance and God looks at the heart. Now, we understand that in light
of the unbeliever looking at his outward appearance as the
hope of his salvation and God looking at the heart and seeing
his unbelief. But I want you to understand
this passage of Scripture in light of the believer. In light
of the believer, man We look at the outward appearance. And
in looking at the outward appearance we come to one conclusion. The
same conclusion Job came to, I am vile. The same conclusion
Isaiah came to, woe is me. That's all we can see. The scripture
says that Lord, here's a passage, the Lord we have sinned and in
that is continuance. And then the rest of that verse
says, and we shall be saved. There's our hope. We see our
outward appearance, don't we? Truth is that the child of God
has two natures. What the Lord sees is different
than what we see. He sees the faith that he has given to us.
He sees a perfect man. We just sang about that perfect
man. And the Lord tells us in Psalm 37, mark the perfect man,
behold the one who is upright, for the end of that man is peace. And as the Lord enables us to
look to Christ and to believe what He says about what the Lord
Jesus Christ has done for us, He enables us, though we can't
see the new man, all we see is the old man. we have the great
hope of knowing that he sees the new man. He sees the man
who is fashioned in the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that's what Psalm 45 is about. The Lord is glorying in his bride. Now, the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ is likened unto his body. made up of different members,
some being an eye, some being a foot, some being a hand, but
all working together in obedience and conjunction to the head,
the Lord Jesus Christ. The scriptures likens the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ as a sheepfold under one shepherd and what a
blessed picture that is of our dependence upon him and his provisions
for us. The scripture refers to the church
as the brethren or the friend of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
said no longer do I call you servant for a servant doesn't
know what his master does but I call you friends. He has made us to be his friends
and Moses stood before the Lord and face to face as to a friend. And what a what a comfort we
have in knowing that we can come into the throne of grace with
confidence knowing that we have a friend. The scriptures refer
to the church as the habitation of God. This is the place where
he's pleased to make himself known that we know that our God
is omnipresent. He's in all places at all times.
And yet He manifests His grace. He manifests His glory. He makes
known His person to His people in His church where the gospel
is preached. This is the habitation of God. What a blessing it is to... One
of the verses in our text in Psalm 45, look at verse 3, gird
thy sword upon thy side. And we know that the sword is
a picture of the word of God. And we know that the thigh is
a picture of strength. You remember when Jacob wrestled
with the Lord that night and the Lord touched his thigh and
he halted on his thigh the rest of his life. Jacob, like every
one of us, had to be shown his weakness because only in our
weakness are we made strong. And here the believer is pleading
with the Lord. Lord, take the truth of thy word
and in thy strength apply it to my heart. Speak to me. This is your habitation. The church is referred to as
the seed of God. And we're gonna look at that
in just a moment. It's referred to as the temple
of God, it's referred to as a vineyard, it's referred to as a garden,
and it's referred to as the house of God. All of these images tell
us what God thinks about his church. In Psalm 45, the church
is seen as she often is seen throughout scripture as the bride
of Christ. No more beautiful or intimate
image is given of the church than as the bride of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Notice with me in verse 11. So
shall the king greatly desire thy beauty. I love, in the Proverbs, the
Lord is speaking to his church, well actually it's in Ecclesiastes
where he says, one look from your eye ravishes my heart. That means when God, when a believer
offers up just a, you know, our prayers, they seem so half-hearted,
don't they? And the Lord says, when you turn
your attention to me, it ravishes my heart. because of your beauty
because of my love for you this is the way you say well that's
the way god sees it but well the way god sees it is the way
it is isn't it it's just the way it is when you read the book
of hebrews and particularly read chapter eleven of hebrews and
read all those old testament saints nothing negative is said
about any of those old testament saints in hebrews chapter eleven
and you think Was the writer of Hebrews aware of how these
people really lived? Because, well, yeah, he was. The writer of Hebrews was the
Lord himself. And he's showing us the new man
in Hebrews chapter 11, the perfect man. And he's revealing to us
the sinful man in those acts recorded in the Old Testament.
But here it is, the way God sees us. What a beautiful thing to
know that God sees his church as a beautiful bride. Look what
he says. So shall the king greatly desire
thy beauty for he is thy Lord and worship thou him. and the
daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift. Even the rich among
the people shall entreat thy favor. The king's daughter is
all glorious within. Her clothing is of wrought gold."
Now, where does she get this beauty from? Well, I mentioned
that the scripture refers to the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ as the seed. In Isaiah chapter 53, God saw
his seed. We know that Isaiah chapter 53
is all about the Lord Jesus Christ's work on Calvary's cross. And
God saw his seed and God prolonged his days. In other words, all
those that were put in Christ in the covenant of grace before
the foundation of the world were in Christ when he went to Calvary's
cross. Some men want to debate whether
or not Christ was made to be sin and they say, well if you
say that Christ was made to be sin then you're defiling Christ,
you're defiling the sacrifice. That question doesn't even go
far enough. It's not whether or not Christ
was made sin, Christ bore us in his body upon that tree. The
body of Christ is the church and when the scripture says that
he bore our sins in his body, we are that body, we are that
seed. Now you remember in Daniel chapter
10 when we looked at that glorious picture that Daniel had in a
vision of the Lord Jesus Christ, his loins were of pure gold. And we know that the loins in
the scriptures are a picture of reproduction. There's where
the seed is, in our loins. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
not able to produce anything but that which is of pure gold,
pure gold. So everyone that he gives birth
to, the new birth, the new man, is perfect before God. How can that be? Well, Sin had
to be paid for. Let me show you another picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. Look with me to Psalm
38. We know that this psalm is all
about Christ on the cross. And this verse is glorious in
light of what we just saw with Daniel chapter 10, him being
Him having loins of pure gold, His seed being in Him, Him bearing
us on Calvary's cross. Look at verse 38. Now here's
the Lord Jesus Christ crying out to the Father from the cross
and He says, For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease
and there is no soundness in my flesh. Can you see yourself as a loathsome
disease in the Lord Jesus Christ? Can you see yourself as causing
him to have no soundness in his flesh? We're his body. Now he did that. He did that. He bore us in his
body on Calvary's cross, putting away our sin, to provide for
us a new birth of pure gold." And now he says, when I look
at my bride, I don't see all her ugliness. I don't see what
she sees. You know, it's genetic, isn't
it? We look at a person, a particularly
attractive person, we think, well, look at their parents.
And we see the genes being carried from one generation with the
genes of the Lord Jesus Christ. His seed, that's what he sees. When he looks at us, he sees
us in the same way that David saw Mephibosheth, poor crippled
Mephibosheth. When David looked at Mephibosheth,
he said, oh, Mephibosheth, Mephibosheth. You know that David saw the likeness
of Jonathan whom he loved. He loved. When the Lord Jesus
Christ, when God Almighty looks at His bride, He is ravished
by her beauty because of the beauty that He has put on her.
Turn to me to Ezekiel chapter 16, please. Ezekiel chapter 16. What did we just sing? Oh Lord,
I lift my praise to Thee. All I am or hope to be, I owe
alone, oh Lord, to Thee. Well, all we are in the new man
is Christ. Perfect. And we owe to Him everything,
don't we? Look at Ezekiel chapter 16 at At verse 14, and thy renown went
forth among the heathen for thy beauty, for it was perfect through
my comeliness, which I have put upon thee, saith the Lord God. The Lord's speaking to his bride. He says, I put my beauty upon
you. I put my righteousness upon you.
That's exactly what Jeremiah was talking about when he said
that his name shall be called the Lord our righteousness and
then just a few chapters later he says, and she shall be called
the Lord our righteousness. The Lord, it's the only hope
that we have of acceptance before God is to be made perfect in
Christ. It's not just that he stands
in our stead, yes he does. But we stand in Him. Scripture
says that we're already glorified. We're already glorified. Some people say, well, you know,
it's almost as if we're in heaven. No, we are in heaven. The new
man is in heaven, in Christ. And all the blessings of God
are in Christ, in heaven. It's what the scripture says. Go back with me to our text.
What is the means by which He gives us this beauty, the new
birth? It's the new birth. The new man. The man that's born of the spirit. That's the perfect man. So when
God says, mark the perfect man, behold the upright, for the end
of that man is peace. Yes, we're talking, it's talking
about the Lord Jesus Christ, but all that are in him. That's
why Paul said, oh, that I might be found in him, to be found
in him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that
righteousness which is by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I have made you comely. I have
made you beautiful. I have put my robe of righteousness
on you. This is our hope. Yeah, we still
look at the outward man, don't we? We see that old man. But you know what? The older
serves the younger, doesn't it? The older serves the younger.
It's the reminder of our sin that we see in the old man. It
causes us to long after that new man. To desire him. Man looks at the outward appearance.
God looks at the heart. And this is what God says, I've
been made you beautiful by the new birth. I've made you beautiful. I've made you comely. I put my
righteousness upon you. And what is the means by which
God gives the new birth? Well, faith. Faith is the means. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what faith is. Believing
God. Now all of us believe something. When God gives you faith, you
just can't not believe Him. You believe everything he says.
That's the miracle of faith. And what's the means of faith? Sometimes you hear religious
people talk about means of grace and they talk about the Lord's
table being a means of grace or preaching being a means of
grace or studying the scriptures being a means of grace or baptism
being a means of grace. Those things are not means of
grace. There's but one means of grace, and that's faith. That's
the only means of grace. Now God has given these other
things as a means to faith. The preaching of the gospel is
the means of faith. God uses the foolishness of preaching
to save them which believe. Of his own will begat he us with
the word of truth. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
comes by the word of God. But there's one means to grace,
one. And that's faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that's a gift of God and
he's given us these means that we exercise constantly in the
church that we might have faith. When we hear what God says, we
just believe God. And so God says, so shall the
king greatly desire thy beauty. Well, if God says it, then that's
the way it is. I can't see it that way, but
I believe it. I believe it. Look at verse 10. Hearken, O
daughter, and consider. The means to irresistible grace
is the word of God. God says to his bride, hearken
unto me, listen to me, consider, incline thine ear. And the bride
says, oh Lord, give me ears to hear, give me eyes to see, Lord
speak, Lord, rend the heavens, Lord, come down, speak to my
heart, cause me to hear what you said effectually and to believe
it. Peter put it like this in 1 Peter
chapter 1, he said, and this is the word of God. We know that
the word of God is the means by which God gives faith, and
this is the word of God, which by the gospel is preached unto
you. Now the gospel is a person. The gospel is everything there
is to know about the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the good news. And so if Christ is not being
preached from the scriptures, then the word of God is not being
preached. People say, well, I believe the Bible is the word of God.
Do you? Do you? You believe everything
it says? You believe everything it says
about Christ? I was thinking, if we talk about ourselves, It's
because we're full of pride, isn't it? I mean, it's because
we're self-absorbed. You just want to get away from
a person who talks about himself, don't you? Young men, don't try
to impress a girl by talking about yourself. I'm going to
tell you what she's going to be thinking just after a few
minutes. Get over yourself. You're not that important. You're
not that interesting. And that's just the way it is
when someone talks about themselves, isn't it? You're just not that
interesting. I'm not that interesting. But
when the Lord Jesus Christ is wooing his bride to himself,
you know who he talks about? He talks about himself. And she's
drawn irresistibly to him. Don't you love it in the Song
of Solomon when the daughters of Jerusalem say, what's so special
about your husband? Oh, and then she begins to tell
him. Oh, he's so wonderful. He's so beautiful. He's so able. And a woman's irresistibly drawn
to a man that's able to provide for her everything she needs.
A man who's infinitely confident. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ,
and we're irresistibly drawn to him, aren't we? A man who
is all powerful? Isaiah chapter 65 verse 1, you
don't have to turn there. They shall be found or he shall
be found of them who knew him not. And he shall say unto them,
behold me, behold me. The Lord Jesus Christ is not
like us in any way. We walk around saying, hey, look
at me. I could say something about that
right now, about the way we are in our culture today, aren't
we? It's all about look at me, isn't it? We're so full of ourselves. You know, that's exactly what
God said. God says, look at me, look at me. Behold me, hearken, O daughter,
and consider and incline thine ear. Calling attention to himself.
Now here's the glorious gospel truth. His greatest glory is
our greatest good. when he's glorified, when he's
lifted up. That's what he said, he said,
and I, if I be lifted up, I'll draw men to myself. If he didn't draw attention to
himself, we would never notice him. We would have no interest
in him. Isaiah chapter 53 says he has
no beauty in him that we should desire him. The natural man has
no interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has no desire for
Him. God has to draw attention to
Himself and then give us eyes to see and ears to hear and make
us to believe upon Him. And then when we do, what's He
say? Hearken, O daughter, and consider
and incline thine ear. We would never see how able he
is unless he said to us, is anything too hard for me? Is anything
too hard for me? I'm able to save to the uttermost. Look at the rest of verse 10.
Forget also thine own house and thy father's people. I remember in Genesis chapter
24, Abraham, Isaac had reached the age of needing a wife. There
were no wives in Canaan where Abraham lived that believed God. They were all pagans and so Abraham
got his servant Eleazar and said, I want you to go back to my homeland
and I want you to find from my kinsmen a wife for Isaac. And Eleazar made a covenant with
Abraham to make sure that he brought back a wife for Isaac. And Eleazar said, well, what
if she won't come? What if she won't come? And Abraham
said, if she won't come, then you're free from your oath. But
do not get a wife for my son from the Canaanites. And so Eleazar
went with gifts, bearing gifts, back to Ur. Remember who he met at the well? Rebecca. The scripture speaks
of Rebecca's beauty and Rebecca takes Eleazar to her home and
Eleazar explains to Rebecca's father, who is Abraham's brother, about Abraham and about Isaac
and Rebekah's brother Laban, Rebekah's
brother Laban, he's interested in the gifts that Eleazar's got
to bring. And he said, well, we've got
to speak to Rebekah and see whether she's willing to go. And so they
went to Rebekah and they said, will you go with the man? And Rebekah answered that question
with three words. Yes, I will go. Four words. I will, I don't think
she said yes actually, I will go is what she said. I will go. The irresistible draw. Now Rebecca
is a picture of the church. Isaac is a picture of Christ.
He sends out his Holy Spirit and he woos his bride to himself. He says, hearken unto me, listen,
these are the gifts that I have for you. and he makes of himself
irresistible so that every single one of them are made willing
in the day of his power and they say with Rebecca, I will go,
I will go. Rebecca left her family and everything
she had to be with Isaac. Now, The Lord Jesus Christ said, if
any man come unto me and hate not his father and his mother
and his wife and his children and his brothers and his sisters. Now here's the part some people
forget and his own life also. He cannot be my disciple. Now
does that mean when the Lord calls us to himself that we have
to break off all relations with our family members? No more than
you break off relations with yourself. Of course you don't. You do everything possible to
be the best member of your family you can be. You love them. You do whatever you can to help
them. You maintain a relationship with
them as best you can. But I'm going to tell you what's
going to happen. Those family members that are unbelievers,
at some point, at some point, they're going to make you choose
between them or Christ. And when that choice is made
or when that choice is given, you have but one place to go,
one place to go. That's what the Lord means. And that's what he's saying here,
forget also thine own people and thy father's house. A man shall leave his father
and his mother and cleave unto his wife and the two shall become
one flesh. So shall the king greatly desire
thy beauty for he is thy lord. Worship thou him. Worship thou
him. Reverence him. You know, I was thinking if a
man has to remind his wife that he's the head of his home, he's
not. It's just that simple. If a man
has to remind his wife that he is the head of his home, he's
not the head of his home. He's lost all authority as the
head of his home. You think about it. Respect is
something that's earned, not something that's insisted upon. Respect is earned by loving sacrificial
service. That's how it's earned. And a
man who loves his wife and sacrifices for his wife and serves his wife
and family and provides for her. She's going to reverence him.
She's going to respect him. She's going to be thankful for
him. And he never has to say to her, I'm the head of this
home. We're going to do it this way.
Never. Soon as you have to say that,
it's only because you're trying to get something that you don't
have. And that's not the way to get
it. Now, I say all that in order to say that the Lord Jesus Christ,
He's earned our respect, hasn't He? He's earned our reverence. How has He earned it? By loving,
sacrificial service. He's laid down his life for his
bride. He took her in his loins and
suffered for all of her loathsome disease that he might bring to
birth a new bride. And she's a pure gold and he
sees her beauty. He sees his beauty in her and
he loves her. and she loves him in return that's
what i think that's what you know it people read ephesians
chapter five and they say husbands uh... love your wives christ
also love the church games yes wives obey your husband's you
have to tell you what to obey me you've lost something along
the way what's the lord say at the end of that passage of scripture
And this is a great mystery and I speak of Christ and his church. Christ and his church. There's
the pattern. There's the pattern. And so the Lord says, so shall
the king greatly desire thy beauty for he is thy Lord. Worship him. Bow to him. Reverence him. Let's leave it there.