Last week we had a very unusual
and thankfully unique experience where our service was interrupted
and in the midst of me endeavouring to bring a message about the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary and in
particular of what what was on his mind. We're looking at Psalm
31, because Psalm 31 contains that verse in verse 5, which
are the last recorded words of the Lord Jesus Christ before
he died, and they are in Psalm 31 verse 5, and into thine hand
I commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord
God of truth. I love the fact that our God
is a God of truth. I love the fact that our God
cannot lie. I love the fact that we have
scriptures that cannot be broken. But I was interrupted and we
all were interrupted by, as I read verse 36, Psalm 31 verse 6, the
Lord says, I have hated them that regard lying vanities, but
I trust in the Lord. And immediately when we read
of the Lord hating, we have to be mindful of the fact that the
Lord's hatred is a holy hatred, the Lord's hatred is a just hatred,
the Lord's hatred, like all of the activities of the Lord involve
all of the Lord's character all of the time. He is one, our God,
and so we hate, and like everything else we do, it's just full of
sin. But when the Lord God hates, and the Lord God, we read in
Psalm 69, the Lord God brings fearful, fearful judgment upon
those people who stand opposed to Him, and particularly He brings
that judgment upon those people who have had the extraordinary
privilege of witnessing His presence. and witnessing his word and witnessing
his acts. And that's why the destruction
of Jerusalem was so extraordinarily severe. But it is a lesson to
everyone that hears the gospel. the Gospels to be preached with
seriousness. Paul said, knowing therefore
the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. And so in the preaching
of the Gospel there is a declaration of the truth. So Ben read to
us Psalm 69, and I don't have time to look at it in any great
detail, but I want us to be reminded that these are These are descriptions
from God Almighty of how that the Lord Jesus Christ died for
our sins according to the scriptures. And I love thinking about those
little words like for, and it means that it's someone who hovers
over to guard and protect another, which is exactly what was happening
on the Cross of Calvary. the infinite wrath of God Almighty
in holy justice fell upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and in Him
were all of His bride, all of His elect, and the wrath of God
fell upon them. But in the wonder of redeeming
love, the Lord Jesus Christ bore the wrath consumed the fire and
came through it as a triumphant and victorious saviour. And in
preaching of the gospel, we're preaching again and again, a
God who is a saviour, a God who comes, in verse If you turn with
me to Psalm 69, I want us to look. Some years ago I brought a message on the 10 S's
of salvation. I don't know if any of you remember
it. I've often thought about it just as a way of helping us
to sort of Remember what was going on on the cross of Calvary
and I went looking again here a few weeks ago and I discovered
that there were another 10, there were 20 words to begin with S
that described the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.
And all of them, to some extent or another, are revealed in these
psalms from the cross and all of the passages of scripture
that give us what happened on the cross, the great transaction.
I don't like using that word, but in a sense it's a real word
of what happened, the transaction between God the Father and God
the Son on the cross of Calvary. And I love what verse 13 of Psalm
69 says. The Lord prays, as for me, my
prayer is unto thee, O Lord, in an acceptable time. O God, in the multitude of thy
mercy, hear me. in the truth of thy salvation. There is a truth about the salvation
of God Almighty. There is a truth and there is
an acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.
Now you're called upon and we call upon each other and myself
to come to the Lord Jesus Christ and to look to him with an acceptable
time. Don't you love the fact that
there is an acceptable time? Isaiah 49 speaks of the Lord
in this acceptable time. I love these passages that speak
of the Lord Jesus Christ as a covenant. A covenant is a promise. A covenant
is a contract. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
covenant. All of salvation is tied up in
an eternal covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But
the covenant is a person. Listen to what Isaiah 49 verse
8 says. Thus saith the Lord in an acceptable
time. I want this to be an acceptable
time. I want the Lord to deal with us in an acceptable way.
I want the God of truth to hear, the God of truth to deliver us. In an acceptable time I have
heard thee, in the day of salvation have I helped thee, and I will
preserve thee and give thee for a covenant of the people to establish
the earth, to cause, to inherit the desolate heritage that thou
mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth. To them that are in
darkness, show yourselves. They shall feed in the ways,
and their pastures shall be in all high places. I love thinking
about that sermon that the Lord Jesus Christ first preached to
his hometown in Nazareth. Turn with me back to Luke Chapter
4. We're talking about the glory
of God in the salvation of his people, but also the seriousness
of the preaching of the gospel. hear me in the truth of thy salvation. And you know the story well,
the Lord Jesus Christ went back to Nazareth and he went into
the synagogue as was his manner on the Sabbath day and he stood
up to read and he took the book of Isaiah verse 17 of Luke chapter
4 and this is what he said. This may not be his first sermon
but it's one of the very first. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. We just read about that in Isaiah
49. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. and to preach deliverance to
the captives, the recovering of sight to the blind, to set
at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year
of the Lord. The acceptable year of the Lord
is the Jubilee year. Once every 50 years in Israel,
everyone that had lost everything had been sold into slavery and
lost their property All the Jewish slaves were set
free. All that you had lost, all that
your family had lost in that time was all returned to you.
And there was a great trumpet blast. That's why in Psalm 69,
in verse 4, the Lord says at the end of that verse, he says,
I restored that which I took not away. Everything was restored. There was a trumpet blast. Do
you believe? As you can well imagine, the
Jews never did it. Because if I had you as a slave
and I had your land as well, there's absolutely no way in
the world I'm going to let you go. And it was never enacted, because
the Jubilee is the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Covenant is the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the prisoners are set free by Him in Covenant. Now, we read this verse often,
but I do love it. In Hebrews verse Hebrews chapter
13 verse 20. Now the God of peace, I just
love that description of our God. I want my God to be at peace
with me. I want him to make peace. I want
to live in peace with him. And the only way you can do that
is not to have any sin before him. Now the God of peace that
brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd
of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. That's what was happening on
the cross of Calvary. This was the blood that was shed
from before the foundation of the world, the Lamb's Loin. This
is the blood that was shed in the Garden of Eden when God slew
that Lamb and covered the shame and the nakedness of Adam and
Eve. This was that blood that Abel shed outside of the Garden. I love what Genesis 4 says. You
go and read it. God accepted Abel and his sacrifice. The two have to go together.
I love what it goes on to say in Hebrews 13 verse 21, this
God of peace, this God of peace and this great shepherd through
the blood of the everlasting covenant, listen to it, make
you perfect in every good work to do his will. Oh Lord, I want
that promise. I want that promise to be fulfilled
in my life now. I want to go from here into this
week with that promise being fulfilled. Working in you. Who does the work? God does the
work. Working in you, that which is
well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory
forever and ever. There is a God of Truth. There are such things as vain
lies, empty lies, empty lies about who God is, empty lies
about who man is, empty lies about how God saves sinners. religious. Satan came to our
parents in the garden speaking about religious things. He said
you'll be like God, knowing good and evil, and you can choose
the good over the evil. That God is withholding things
from you. That God is not telling you the
truth. You shall be as gods, knowing
good and evil. How sinners are saved from all
of that, from the captivity of Satan and all of his lies, which
pervade this world, in the truth of thy salvation. Verse 13 of
Psalm 69. What's the truth of God's salvation?
The truth is a person. I am the way. John 14.6, I am
the truth, I am the life, no man cometh unto the Father but
by me. And the wonder of wonders is that
little words mean so much in the Scriptures. That word by
means with. No one comes to the Father except
they're with me. It means in. No one comes to the Father but
in me. It means by means of. No one
comes to the Father but by means of me. No one comes to the Father
but by reason of me. No one comes to the Father but
on account of me. No one comes to the Father But
because of this reason, the only entrance into Heaven's glory
is in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what are
the lying vanities? I wanted to look at some of these
S's and I can give you the list later on. We might put them in
our bulletin next week, Lord willing. But I love Salvation's
S's. God hates lying vanities, but
I trust in the Lord. Firstly, I want us to look at
the fact that God is absolutely sovereign. Salvation is in the
hands of a sovereign God. In Luke chapter four, if we read
on, we would have found that those people were marveled at
the gracious words that he said. And then he described God in
salvation. He was describing a God who can
have mercy on whom he'll have mercy. And those same people
who had been with the Lord Jesus Christ for 25 to 30 years took
him off to that cliff and to throw him down and to kill him.
God is absolutely sovereign. Sovereign electing love of God
in salvation. The God who declares it is finished,
says everything is finished. All of the eternal purposes of
God Almighty are finished and yea and amen. All of the promises
of God are yea and amen in the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you
love the fact that God is sovereign? Nothing wriggles in this universe
outside of God's absolute and utter control. How can he work
all things for our good if anything's outside of his sovereign control?
I love what his prayer was in John 17. You've given me power
over all flesh. Thank God he has power over all
flesh. Look at the flesh that's going
on in this world at the moment. Thank God that one in heaven
is ruling and reigning over all of them. But salvation is in
the hands of a sovereign God, isn't it? Sovereign. He applies
his finished work to all of his people in absolute sovereignty.
The other S of salvation is that God, our Savior, is successful. The thought that the Lord Jesus
Christ could die for someone and they go to hell is a blasphemy
which has come straight from the pit of hell. Every person
that the Lord Jesus Christ died for was saved, will be saved,
and will be kept saved. He shall, what do you call his
name, Joseph? Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. He shall save his people from
their sins. Any denial of the sovereignty
of God is a lying vanity. Any denial of the success of
the Lord Jesus Christ, the thought that God Almighty could punish
his son on the cross of Calvary and then turn around and send
some of those people to hell and punish them for the same
sins again is something that we wouldn't allow in our courts
of justice. here. God is successful. Any message that hints that God
is not able to achieve his eternal purpose is talking about another
God. A God who wants, don't you hear
people saying God wants? A God who wants and fails is
not God. What stops him from doing what
he wants? Nothing. He will do as he will
in the armies of heaven and among the peoples. None can stay his
hand. Now under Isaiah it says that
so many people are praying to a God who cannot save. And the
God who cannot save is the God who wants to save and will save
if you do. God saved his people. They were
saved from the foundation of the world. They were one with
the Lord Jesus Christ from all eternity. They were one with
him on the cross of Calvary. He prayed for them in John 17
and all of these Psalms from the cross, Psalm 32 and 31 and
69, they finish in triumph. They speak of him coming. They
speak of his all of his cries from the cross
at Calvary, and they speak of what people did to him, and every
single one of them finishes in triumph. Every single one of
them finishes with, I will, and they shall. That's our God. I will, I will be their God,
and they shall be my people. We come into the presence of
God Almighty now exactly as we do on the day when we die and
leave this world, don't we? We come into this presence looking
to Him. Our God is absolutely sovereign
in salvation as He's sovereign in everything else. Our God is
absolutely successful. Our God is sufficient. There
is nothing else needed. I am the Alpha and the Omega. I'm the beginning and the end.
I'm the first and the last. All the false teaching and all
the false religion is Christ plus something that you do, or
Christ minus something. And it's not the truth. Listen
to what it says in Psalm 31 again. It's not the truth. Psalm 69,
sorry. It's not the truth of thy salvation. He's sovereign, he's successful,
he's sufficient. Just let me read something that
many of our friends quote often, and we've quoted it often. Everything that God requires
of us, God must provide. The only thing that God accepts
is that which he provides and everything God provides he has
provided in the person of his beloved son. Our God is sovereign. Our God is successful. Moses
was told not a hoof is going to be left behind. Not even a
hoof of one of those little sheep is going to be left behind in
Israel. David was set out against the Abalakites By God, David
did what? He recovered all. Not one. There won't be any empty chairs
in heaven. It's sufficient. Our God is sovereign.
Our God is sufficient. Our God is the object, the subject
of salvation. The Gospel is the Gospel of God. Romans 1 begins, Paul, a servant
of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the
Gospel of God. The Gospel is God's Gospel. It's
not my Gospel. It is my Gospel because it's
God's Gospel. But it comes from God, isn't
it? Which he had promised beforehand by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
What's the Gospel about? Verse 3. Concerning his Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh, and is declared to be the Son of God
with power according to the Spirit of holiness. Christ died, how
that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
He's the alone subject of salvation. He says, come unto me. Don't
go to religion, don't go to anyone else, don't go to man, come unto
me, all you that labour and heavy laden, Matthew 11, 28, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me. Learn of him. And for I, and
I love this description of our Saviour, I am meek and lowly. What a remarkable description
of God Almighty in human flesh. I'm meek and lowly in heart,
and you shall find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy. My yoke is easy and my burden
is light. He's solemn, he's successful,
he's sufficient, he's the subject of salvation, he's the subject
of all of our thoughts towards God. The other S is the S of
substitution. The Lord Jesus Christ bearing
the sins of his own people in his own body on the tree. If you have time, go back and
read Genesis chapter 22. They're going up that mountain
up there. Abraham is absolutely convinced that going up there
to sacrifice his son, he said, we're coming back again. Both
of us are coming back down this mountain. Isaac asked the best
question that anyone can ever ask when they're in any service
that speaks of God at all, where's the lamb? Where's the lamb? You've got the wood, we've got
the night, we've got the fire, where's the lamb? God says, Abraham
says, God will provide himself, the lamb. Substitution, you can
read about it in Isaiah chapter 53, substitution and satisfaction. Sovereign, successful, sufficient,
the subject of salvation, the substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ
dying in our place as our substitute. Where was the lamb? Where was
the ram? He was caught in the thicket
of our sin. The Lord Jesus Christ wore that
crown of that thicket. And where do you see him? Abraham
was told, you look behind. We always look behind. We look
back, and we look back, and we look back, and we look back,
and we look back to the cross of Calvary. We keep looking back,
and we look back, and we look back to all of the glorious pictures
of the Lord Jesus Christ in substitution all the way through. And we look
back into eternity. That's how far back we look.
People have too short a view of life and eternity. You go back as far as you possibly
can and you go as far ahead as you possibly can. Every single
person's going to be singing that song forever, aren't they?
You have redeemed us. You've brought us back to yourself
and washed us in your blood. The other thing that's absolutely
essential for the truth of salvation is that God is satisfied. Our
God is satisfied. For the joy set before him, the
Lord Jesus Christ, went to that cross and endured the shame. For the joy that was set before
him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the
right hand of God in heaven. Isaiah 53 says, God the Father
will see the travail of his soul. God the Son will know the travail
of his soul. God the Father will see the travail
of his soul, Isaiah 53, 11. He shall see the travail of his
soul. And what does God say? Satisfied. I'm satisfied. Satisfied. by his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities."
Substitution and satisfaction are at the very heart of the
gospel of the truth of God's salvation. Christ crucified has
satisfied all of the requirements of God's holy law. He's magnified
it and he's made it honourable. This is my beloved son. In whom
I'm well pleased. God is satisfied. All the in
whom he's well pleased with as well, isn't he? All of him. Christ satisfied God's divine
justice. And all those sins are justly
and perfectly and completely punished to the satisfaction
of God. sovereign, successful, sufficient,
the subject of salvation, the substitute, the satisfaction. And turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 4. I just love this passage of scripture. It is just so,
so glorious. The blood is to be applied. The blood has to be applied. Knowing about the blood doesn't
do me any good at all. God has to apply it to our hearts. But if our gospel be hid, it's
hid to them that are lost. in whom the God of this world
has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine upon them. For, because we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. for God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness. He's referring to the light that
shone in Genesis 1, a light that shone before there was sun and
moon and stars. This is the light of the glory
of the Gospel of God. The God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. And we have this treasure in
earthen vessels. The earthen vessels remain earthen
vessels with all of their cracks and all of their failings. That
the excellency of the power be of God and not of us. If we start shining ourselves,
the excellency, the power will be in what I am and what I've
done and what I don't do, but the shining light of God's glory
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you go back to verse 6
with me, And we leave out the part that's
in parenthesis almost. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness. That's a description of God,
but we can actually read this sentence as well. For God has
shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. There are millions
of lying vanities in this world. I love what one old preacher
said, if you want to find an error, you want to find a crooked
stick, you put a straight one beside it. The best way to find
out all the errors is to preach the truth. And then the errors
will be revealed. Any gospel that denies the absolute
sovereignty of our God, the absolute success of our God, the complete
and utter sufficiency of our God, that Christ is the subject
of all of our salvation, that on the cross of Calvary there
was a glorious substitution, and that glorious substitution
on the cross of Calvary provided the satisfaction of God, and
there is a shining light of God's glory. And I'll give you some
of the other S's, but there are so many of them, but I just want
you to... I pray that he's helpless to look, isn't it? He's the sacrifice
and the saviour and the surety and he's the same slain lamb. He's the safe one and the reconciler. He's the sanctified one. He's
the sanctifier. He's the scripture fulfilling.
He's the seal of the covenant. He's the secret revealed. He's
the sword sheathed in the sun. And you can go on. Our God reigns. Thank God he reigns. Hear me in the multitude of thy
mercy. Hear me in the truth of thy salvation. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank you that you are a God of truth, and we thank you that
you cannot lie, and we thank you that these words that we've
been reading this morning are the words that have come from
heaven, anointed Heavenly Father by the Blessed Holy Spirit, that
they may become a light that shines on the glory of your dear
and precious Son, that we might find our comfort and our peace
and our hope and all of their assurance in all the trials and
troubles in this world. In the glory of your dear and
precious Son, who cried from the cross at Calvary, it is finished. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
for a sovereign, successful, sufficient Saviour who is a substitute
for sinners, that you are satisfied. Heavenly Father, may you cause
us to look to him and find our satisfaction where you found
yours all that time ago. We might be endowed, Heavenly
Father, with the peace that comes from knowing you. Heavenly Father,
we do pray for those in this world that we love and care for.
We pray that this gospel will go forth in your power and reach
to the people that you have promised that will come to heavenly father
in the time of your love and your choosing we thank you heavenly
father that our times are in your hands and we praise you
heavenly father that all all of your children are in the hands
of christ and in your hands and we're perfectly safe there Help
us, Heavenly Father, to eat and drink in remembrance of him and
to declare his death until he come back again. May we do so
in faith and in love and in assurance and in a continual coming to
our Lord Jesus Christ. For we pray in his name and for
his glory and for your glory, our Father. Amen.