Now God sends his word to this
world and sends his servants around this world and like the
Lord Jesus Christ who is the word of God the word never returns
without having done its work. The Lord remind us in that parable
of the soils that so many things three-quarters of the of the
ground that the seed fell on in that parable was lost. But where the seed falls on good
ground, there is this bountiful harvest. And the bountiful harvest
is praise to our great God. Because he's the one that gathers
his people, and he's the one, as we've seen in our journeys
through Acts, he's the one that sends out his gospel, and he's
the one that works the power of that gospel in the lives of
his people. I'm often amazed as I read through
those sermons again in Acts what simple, simple sermons they were,
what simply Christ-exalting sermons they were, and yet In fulfilment
of those promises made throughout the scriptures, to him shall
the gathering of the people be, the Lord Jesus Christ, was revealed
by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those people, and they were
gathered together. And they were, in Acts chapter 4, they were
people who were of one mind, and they praised God with one
mind and one heart. and the multitude of them that
believed were of one heart and of one soul." That's the work
of God the Holy Spirit in our lives, and that's the work that
I trust you experienced in the joining of hearts together with
Greg and his family and friends. from all that way. The Lord sent
them here. The Lord calls there to be messages
proclaimed here in this town and the Lord's promised that
those messages will not go back to heaven and they will not be
void, they will not be fruitless activities. It is the joy of
God's people to be gathered together. It is the most important thing
that happens on this earth, isn't it? The worship of God together. He gathers his people together
and he causes them to be united as one together and he causes
them to not only delight in these things but to long for them.
The psalm before us is the psalm which is not declared to be attributed
to David, that it has all the hallmarks of one of David's psalms. And it's very interesting how
often the lives of the saints of God parallel the lives of
God's people in this world today. And David was anointed as a young
man and fought those great battles as the representative of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He went out, he went out to do
battle with Goliath on his own and all of the children of Israel
were there and they were all the recipients of a battle that
he has won. And yet David, like our Lord
Jesus Christ, was rejected by those people and he spent 20
years away from the worship of God in the tabernacle. He spent those long years battling
with enemies of all sorts, but particularly the very king of
Israel was his enemy. And so the Lord's people walked
through this world And so often, it says in verse 6, passing through
the valley of Bacca, they make it a well. The valley of Bacca
is a weeping place. We'll look at it more a little
bit later on. We walk through a wilderness world, but it's
when the Lord gathers his people together that there is a putting
away of the things of this world and it's one of the glories of
the gospel and it's one of the glories of church is that we
are gathered for this time for us to sit and to listen and to
hear from God and to have our eyes taken away from the things
of this world and placed yet again on the things of heaven.
I don't know if you recall but I do I do often journey with
David, and I'm sure you all do as well, in Psalm 73, he looks
around at the people of this world and all of their prosperity,
all of their prosperity and all of the things that they have.
And there are not even any bands in their death and their strength
is firm. Their pride can pass us about
them as a chain and violent, and their eyes stand out with
fatness. And then he was envious of them. He was envious of them
until, until I went into the sanctuary of God. And there in
the sanctuary of God, I understood all things. There was a perspective,
wasn't it? The people that have their pleasures
in this world and miss out on eternity are the recipients of
an awful judgment from our God. So let's pray as we come to this
psalm. I'd like it to be a reminder of the joy that we had in being
recipients of gospel messages and the joy of fellowship that
we had. And I pray that the Lord would give us sweet memories.
We are encouraged by God to set up Ebenezers to mark that thus
far the Lord has been faithful. And His faithfulness is a promise
of faithfulness in the future. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do thank you for gathering us together. We do thank you
for your work in revealing yourself to the hearts of your people
throughout this world and throughout time. That your promise is that
your gospel would go out into the ends of the earth. And you
promise, Heavenly Father, to raise up your servants to proclaim
the Lord Jesus Christ in faithfulness. And it is a work of your blessed
spirit, Heavenly Father, to take the things of the Lord Jesus,
to reveal the things promised of him, the things that he did
in his life on this earth, and the fulfilment of all those glorious
promises when our Saviour went to Calvary's tree and bore all
the sins of his people in his own body. and he was buried and
he was raised victorious and now he sits in heaven's throne
and his people are seated together with him and they do have his
care and protection in all the trials of this world. We do thank
you, Heavenly Father, for the glory of the Gospel. We thank
you for its power in the lives of your people. We thank you
for its sustaining power and its keeping power and its preserving
power and the fact, Heavenly Father, that you cause your people
to turn away from themselves and the things that they have
and the things that they do and have their eyes taken again and
again to our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that that might be our
portion here this morning. We do pray for Greg and as he
recovers from the weariness of all of his journeys that you
might give him mercy as he speaks to his people again tomorrow
morning, Heavenly Father, and that there would be a time of
refreshing and there would be a time of encouragement. of Your
people as we look again upon the works of Your dear and precious
Son. Grant us again, Heavenly Father,
that we might just look to Him and see Him gloriously arrayed
in majesty divine. We do pray for His glory, Heavenly
Father, and in His name. Amen. I'd like us to look before
we begin at verse 9. I wanted to spend the bulk of
my time on verse 9, but the great message of the Gospel is that
the Lord God, the transaction between God the Father, God the
Son and God the Holy Spirit is the great transaction that caused
this universe to exist and causes everything that happens in time
to exist. and the great comfort of the
souls of this man who was led by God the Holy Spirit to write
this, the great comfort of his soul, is he prays in verse 8,
he said, O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer, give ear, O God
of Jacob. And then he pauses, and then
he says, Behold, O God, our shield. He's calling on God to look upon
God the Son. And when God looks upon God the
Son, He is so, so pleased. I mean, God looks upon God the
Son. He sees all of his people at one with him. This is at the
centre of this psalm, isn't it? O God, behold, O God, our shield. That's the cry of the church,
isn't it? And look, look with care, look with attentiveness
upon the face of thine anointed. It's God looking upon the face
of his anointed, which is the great comfort of God's people
in this world. It is the reason that we are
gathered. It's the reason for the gathering
of God's people throughout time. It will be the reason for the
great gathering of God's people in eternity. We will look upon
him. We will see him face to face. That is salvation, isn't it?
That's what Jacob said after he had done wrestling, been in
a wrestling match with the Lord Jesus Christ at Peniel. And he
says, I have seen God face to face and my life has been preserved. Salvation is seeing God face
to face and having your life preserved. But the Lord has always
gathered his people for worship and gathered them together. So
let's begin this psalm, and I want to look briefly at the gathering
at either end and spend most of my time looking at the Lord
Jesus Christ, the one who does the gathering. To the chief musician
upon Githath, a psalm for the songs of Korah. How amiable are
thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts. How pleasant, how beautiful are
their tabernacles. And that Lord of hosts is the
Lord of the hosts of armies, the Lord who rules over all. Our God is not alone and our
God is not devoid of power. Our God reigns and rules with
absolute sovereignty over all things. But then the psalmist
cries out. And I trust it's the cry that
he puts on our hearts yet again and again. My soul longeth, even
fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and flesh Cry
out for the living God. The reason he's longing and the
reason he's fainting is because he has been in the courts of
the Lord and he has experienced the wonder of God speaking to
him and dealing with him and meeting with him in the worship. God promised, didn't he? He promised
in Exodus 20 when they were to be gathered, he says, I will
make a place for my name and where he makes a place. a place where he records his
name, where he declares his name, where he declares his character,
his true character as it's revealed in the scriptures. In all places
where I record my name, I will come to thee. I will come to
thee and I will bless thee. He records his name. If you go
on and look further in that, Section in Ezekiel 20 is that
you are not to make any altar. You are not to come. You are
not to come with any works of your hands. You're not to hew
those stones. You're not to go up on steps.
We come to God in the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly and completely. It's the place where he records
his name. David had experienced that, the
joy of fellowship, the joy of being in the place where God
reveals himself, where he exposes himself, where he shows himself
in all of that tabernacle. Everything about that tabernacle
is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything in those tabernacles,
the tabernacles refer to the fact that it had the place of
the Gentiles and the holy place and the holiest of all. And all
of it is a glorious picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and him
crucified. And that's what we long for,
don't we? The comfort of God's people is in the presence of
God when he reveals himself in his slain and risen Saviour. He longs and he faints, even
my soul faints for the courts of my Lord. My heart and my flesh
crieth out for the living God. The child of God, born afresh,
finds no comfort in this world. Because the greatest comfort
that he's ever had is the very presence of God himself. When
God comes and speaks and reveals to himself, my flesh cry out
for the living God. And in verse 3 and 4, he's envious
of those who dwell there. He's envious in verse 3 of the
sparrows. The sparrows found a house. Imagine
those sparrows. There they were. They had freedom
of access into that tabernacle all the time. The sparrow has
found a house, and to swallow a nest for herself where she
may lay her young. Even thine altars, O Lord of
hosts, my King and my God. In the Psalmist's absence from
that place of worship, he longs for that. He longs for it and
he faints for it, and he's envious of the little birds. Imagine
the sparrows. They get the crumbs that fall
from the showbread. Imagine the swallow. There they
are, able to look down upon all of the glory of that tabernacle
and see things that David the Psalmist longs to see. It's a place. It's a place for
the swallow to lay her young. It's a place for the swallow
to make her nest. It's a place for her to rear
her young in safety and freedom and protection. And so it is
with the Church of God, isn't it? So it is with the praise
of God's people in the Church of God. We find a refuge, we
find a hiding place, we find a covet, we find a place to hide
ourselves from the trials of this world. Blessed are they,
verse 4, blessed are they that dwell in thy house. They will
still be praising Thee." Those that dwell in the house of God
and dwell with God are praising Him. We read it in Revelation
Chapter 4. There is a congregation, a mighty congregation, beyond
number, thousands upon thousands, that are worshipping our God
right now. If praise is going to occur in
heaven, praise is going to begin here on earth. Those that think
that they can praise God in eternity, who haven't bowed and praised
him here, are deluded beyond measure. They are still praising
him. Their praises began here and
they continue praising him. He is worthy of all that praise. This is the wonder of what church
is, isn't it? This is the meeting place of
God. The Lord Jesus Christ came and
he tabernacled. The word in John is that he tabernacled
amongst us. He actually came to his people
And he came to them that received him. To them he gave power to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name,
which were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God. And the word was made flesh and
dwelt among us. He tabernacled amongst us. He dwelt with us and amongst
us. and we beheld his glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. And John bare witness of him
and crieth, saying, this is he of whom I spake, he that cometh
after me is preferred before me, because for he was before
me, and of his fullness, of his fullness have all we received. and grace for grace." That's
what God's children receive, don't they? The blessing of grace
is the blessing of being gathered together in the courts of our
God, to be praising Him. It is remarkable how the scriptures
describe it, and I know I repeat these verses, but they are worth
repeating. He says, He is our peace and
He's He's broken down the middle wall of petition and now in Christ
Jesus, Ephesians 2.13, now you who were sometimes afar off are
made nigh by the blood of Christ. In verse 19 it says, and now
therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens
with the saints and of the household of God. You're citizens of the
household of God. You dwell in thy house, as our
psalm says, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles
and the prophets, Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone,
in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth. unto an holy temple in the Lord."
What a remarkable description of the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ in this world. In whom you also are builded
together. You're builded together. The
church is joined together and knitted together. It's a building
that is built by God. Build it together, verse 22,
for an habitation of God. Where's God living now? Where
does God live now? God lives in his church, in his
churches on this earth. That's where he's promised to
meet with them and to gather them together. There is just
this one mediator between man and God, 1 Timothy 3.15 talks
about Timothy being instructed as to how people are to behave
themselves in the house of God. It's a house of God which is
the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the
truth. Those who have been brought to
the Lord Jesus Christ by the truth come to find that the dwelling
of God with them is the place that they find the greatest joy
and comforts in this world. I often stand behind here and
I'm never fully aware of what's going on in the lives of the
people I'm speaking to. nor are you fully aware of what's
going on in my lives. But the wonder, the wonder of
being in the presence of God is he who knows us better than
any of us knows ourselves, knows as the great physician what we
need to hear, when we need to hear it, how it's to be applied
to our lives and our hearts. for His glory and for His good. That's the message of this psalm
and it's the message that I trust that we took away from our weeks
with our brethren there, that you would have, that God of hope
would fill you with all the joy and peace of believing and that
you may abound in the hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
There is a blessing in being gathered together. It's extraordinary,
isn't it? We think that we are alone here
and isolated from so many other so-called Christian churches,
and yet Greg is exactly the same in Florida. Florida has almost
the same population as New South Wales, as Australia, I'm sorry. And there is just one fellowship
of the Lord's people. Let's go back to our psalm. We
might be alone and we might be isolated and we might not see
as many as we'd like to see, but at the end of the day, when
we are gathered by God, nothing is done badly. He will cause
himself to be glorified by his gospel. And look at the blessed
man. The blessed man, of course, in
the scriptures, always the blessed man is the Lord Jesus Christ.
All those who are blessed are blessed in the beloved. They
are blessed because of him and they are blessed because of their
union with him. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee
and whose heart in whose heart are the ways of them. Blessed
is the man whose strength is in thee." The Lord Jesus Christ
came into this world as the ruler and the creator of this universe,
and yet never once did He exercise anything other than the power
that God the Father had given Him. His strength was in His
Father, wasn't it? I came to do my Father's will. He obeyed his father perfectly. Blessed is the man whose strength
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed is the servant who finds
himself in that master's house, who finds himself and all of
his strength is in him. The reality of God's people is
that we are weak and that we are frail. We are far more frail
than we can possibly imagine ourselves to be. We are far weaker. We are far more vulnerable than
we can imagine ourselves to be. Blessed is the man. Blessed is
the man whose strength is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed
is the man who looks to Him rather than having any resources of
himself. And blessed is the man, blessed is the man who passing
through the valley of Baca make it a well. Blessed is the man
who passes through this world. I think Greg pointed out to you,
but I've done it before, but it's remarkable in Matthew chapter
Five, when we have those beatitudes, the blessings. The blessings
are blessings. You are blessed before you receive. It's a blessed thing to be made
weak that you might find your strength in him. It's a blessed
thing to be brought low that we might find ourselves low. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
See, they're blessed when they're poor. They're blessed. The blessing is being poor. And
when God finds the poor and makes the poor, he causes them to know
that the kingdom of heaven is there. Blessed are they that
mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek. The blessing
is being made poor. The blessing is being made to
mourn over sin. The blessing is being made meek.
The blessing is to be made to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
The blessing comes in the need and God creates a need and God
fulfills that need. Blessed are they who passing
through the valley of Bacca. Blessed are they who when passing
through that place, that place which is a weeping place. God's
children in this world will pass through trials that the unregenerate
people will never be aware of. We suffer the same things that
they suffer, but we do weep. We do find so often this place
is a weeping place. We find ourselves weeping. We find ourselves grieving over
the blasphemies of the Lord Jesus Christ. We find ourselves weeping
over the sins that so easily entangle us. We find ourselves
weeping over the fact that we have people that we love and
care for very deeply to whom the word of the Lord has come. as if upon a stone, and we long
for there to be hearts that are softened and for this gospel
to make its home there. But when we pass through, just
look at what the psalmist says, you pass through this valley.
David says similar things in Psalm 23, doesn't he? Though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet I will
fear no ill. We actually walk through. It's
not as if we spend our time there, but this is a wilderness. In
the Song of Solomon, she comes up out of the wilderness leaning
on her beloved. She's been made to see that her
acts of righteousness and her doings are just but a wilderness,
and yet she finds all of her strength and all of her going
and all of her coming up out of that wilderness to be leaning
upon the Beloved. They go from strength to strength. Every one of them in Zion appears
before God. every one of them. Zion is the
Church of God. Every one of God's people will
appear before God. They will appear before God in
delight. They will appear before God.
How do they appear before God? How do you get ultimately to
appear before God? We read it in our passage before
Greg came. The Lord Jesus Christ and you who were sometime alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
in the body of his flesh through death. You come to God being
presented to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in his sight. All of the Church of God appears
before God the Father in the Lord Jesus Christ. Right now,
they have always, they did before the foundation of the world,
they were represented by him in his walk in this world where
for him it was a valley of bucca, it was a valley of weeping. He
had no place to lay his head. He was a man of suffering and
familiar with sufferings. He was tempted in all points
as we were. He's able, he's able to sympathise
with the failings and the weaknesses of our lives here. But all the
time, all of his Earth's life's work, he was there representing
us before his father. He appears before God, and when
he appears before God, all of his people appear before God
with him. O God, O Lord God, verse 8, of
Hosts, hear my prayer, give ear, O God, of Jacob. The prayer of the church in Song
of Solomon is a prayer that she finishes that remarkable book
with. He says, thou that dwellest in
the gardens, thou that dwellest amongst your people in their
churches, the companions hearken to thy voice. Your companions
are listening to the voice of God. They'll hear the shepherd's
voice and they won't hear a stranger's voice and they'll follow the
shepherd. Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions
hearken to thy voice. Cause me to hear it. Cause me
to hear it. All of our strength is in Him. All of our spiritual strength
is in Him and what He does. Hear my prayer, give ear, O God
of Jacob. Our Saviour was a man of prayer. He spent all night in prayers,
in prayer to His Father. He delighted in prayer. He delighted
in the communion with His Father. Hear my prayer. The wonder of
our Lord Jesus Christ is that the Father hears Him. He says,
He always hears me. He always hears His Son. He delights
in His Son's prayers. Our Saviour who had so little
need in so many ways of prayer was a man of prayer. It's a great
privilege of God's people, isn't it, to cry out to the Lord of
hosts. Our God who rules over all. Our God who is the God of
the hosts of heaven and the armies of heaven. Hear my prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob. There are so many people who
don't listen. that there is one place where
the child of God has a place where they'll be heard again
and again. They are heard because our God
is there in heaven. Our savior is there in heaven
and he's living there right now and he intercedes for us. And
so many of our prayers and our best prayers are but groans and
the Holy Spirit takes those groans and causes them to be heard and
to be answered according to the will of God. Now I'd like to
come to our verse that has been gripping me for some weeks now,
and I just love it. And this is the prayer, isn't
it? You rest. Selah, in verse 8. You hear my
prayer, give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah. And then, behold, O God,
our God. shield. Behold, O God, our shield. It's a remarkable picture of
our Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? What a picture of Him being
a shield over His people. He shall cover you, Psalm 91
verse 4 says, He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under
His wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield
and thy buckler. It's a great picture of the Church
of God, isn't it? That as soon as we hear the danger,
we hear like chickens, we hear the clucking and she raises up
her wings and it's just remarkable how secure and safe and how many
chickens can get under the wings of a hen. Behold our shield. Behold our saviour who is our
shield. For thou art my hiding place
and my shield, I hope in thy word. The children of God need a shield. We need a shield. We need a shield
from so many things in this world. The shield indicates two things,
doesn't it? It indicates that there is something
that can attack us. It indicates that we are vulnerable. We are vulnerable to all those
darts. We are vulnerable to all of the
attacks of Satan. We are vulnerable to the sin
that entangles us so easily. We are vulnerable to this flesh
that assaults us and spends its entire being trying to undo faith
and simple trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a vulnerability,
there is a weakness, there is a failing and a fickleness, there
is an insecurity in this flesh. There is never anything in this
flesh that causes the child of God to say, now I have attained
to something. The child of God cannot go up
to God on steps. A shield indicates that that
flesh, without the protection of a shield, is going to be destroyed
and in an instant, and it can be attacked from all sorts of
things. The darts of the evil one. He knows us. He knows how
for us to be assaulted. He knows that we have in our
flesh no resources. He knows that we need a shield. We need a shield. One of the
wonderful pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ is that of Him being
one that hovers over His people, and He shields us. He shields
us from Satan. He protects us from God. our Saviour. He protects us from
the holiness of God. He protects us from the wrath
of God. Just like that ark, all, all
of the wrath of God upon that world fell upon that ark. And
it was that ark covered inside and out with that pitch which
represents propitiation, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that wrath-absorbing sacrifice. And those people in that ark
were safe. They were protected. They had
a shield. Throughout the New Testament,
we have little words that have such enormous meaning. One of
them is that word for. Again and again in the scriptures,
the Lord Jesus Christ is described as dying and coming and dying
for them. For I delivered unto you, says
Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, I delivered unto you first of all that which
I also received, how that Christ died for our sins. And the word for there, means
someone standing over, someone bending over the one he would
defend or shield. So this notion that somehow the
Lord Jesus Christ bore the sins of all the world in his body,
and all of the world, if they would exercise faith, would be
saved, is so contrary to the Word of God and the glory of
our Saviour. We need a shield. We are vulnerable and we have
a shield. We have a shield. We are We are
resting under that shield. What wounds has that shield withstood? When you think about that shield,
the Lord Jesus Christ, what wounds has he withstood? Because of
those covenant engagements he made before the foundation of
the world, where he said to his father effectively, you give
them to me and I'll take full responsibility and I will return
them to you. perfect and spotless and holy
and blameless and unapprovable. And ever since that moment, all
of what would have rightly fallen on us has fallen on our shield. the wounds from the fall and
all of the entailments of it. All that we see in this world
is a reflection of all of the evil that has perpetrated throughout
the human race and because of the human race, because of that
fall in Adam. When we said to Satan, We will
have your reward and we'll have you to rule over us. All the
wounds, all the wounds that that shield has suffered from that
evil one. It's remarkable the temerity,
isn't it, and the pride of Satan, that he would, acknowledging
that the Lord Jesus Christ was God over all, would have the
audacity to come before him and question him, if you are the
son of God. And he acknowledged that he was.
if you are the son of God. He bore all those wounds as our
shield. One of the pictures I love in
the Gospels is that never once, never once does the Lord Jesus
expect his disciples and those who are with him to defend themselves
from the attacks. You can imagine the attacks that
went on When they couldn't get to him, they got to those disciples
again and again and again. When they can't get to him today,
they get to his servants and his children. It's as close as
they can get to him. But never once, never once in
the Gospels did the Lord Jesus expect his people to defend themselves. Every single time that they were
attacked, he came and he stood between them and their attackers
and said, I'll deal with this. and so He has done throughout
all time. That shield has to bear all of
those wounds, all of those wounds from the accuser of the brethren,
all of those wounds from the accusation of the accuser's servants,
all of those wounds of his people as they turn to this world and
find their pleasure in the things of this world rather than finding
their pleasure in him. And most of all, of course, it's
all the wounds from the holy justice of God. these wounds that this shield
has borne. He says, Behold our shield. Behold
our shield. Don't look away. Look to yourself.
Look to your shield. Behold our shield, the shield
of all the church, and look upon the face of thine anointed. That's where we want our God
to look, because there's nothing in us. There's nothing of us. There's nothing that we can do.
The great hope of our salvation is in this verse. This is a great
gospel verse, isn't it? That God would look upon the
face of thine anointed. He'd look upon the face of your
Messiah, is what it says in the original. Look upon the face
of your Christ. Look upon him. Unto us, says
Isaiah, they sing it at Christmastime, unto us a child is given. Unto us a son is born. Isaiah chapter 9. For unto us
a child is born, unto us a son is given. This is the Christ
of God. And the government shall be upon his shoulder. The government
of what? The government of all this world, for the good of his
church and the glory of his people, the government shall be upon
his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Councillor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, of the increase
of his government and peace, there shall be no end. And upon the throne of David
and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment
and with justice." Our shield bore that judgment and justice. It fell upon the Anointed One. Henceforth, even forever." And
I love how that verse 7 of Isaiah 9 finishes, the zeal of the Lord
of hosts will perform it. Look upon your Christ. Behold our shield. Look upon. I love what it says
when it says, look upon the face of thine anointed. God looked
upon the face of his anointed. before the foundation of the
world, and when he said, let us make man in our image, what
was the image that he made man in? It was in the image of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He looked upon that face, and
it's a look of delight. He looked upon holiness itself,
and holiness delights in holiness. He looked upon that face and
he says, I've entrusted all my glory and all my holy name into
your hands. He looked upon that face in eternity. He looked upon that face in the
garden. It was the Lord Jesus Christ
who walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. He looked
upon that face as the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
And after the fall, he looked upon that face and he saw in
that lamb that he clothed Adam and Eve with before he sent them
out into this world. He looked upon that lamb, the
face of his anointed. Abraham and Moses saw God face
to face. They saw the Lord Jesus Christ.
They met with him and he spoke with them. As he says to Moses,
as a man speaks to his friend, he spoke to them. Such is the
wonder of the incarnation, and such is the wonder of the union
between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people, that he who is
absolutely holy can speak to them face to face and be preserved."
That's what Jacob said, didn't he? I have seen God face to face,
and my life is preserved. He looked upon the face of the
anointed in the incarnation. It was the face of God. He looked
upon that face in this world. Our father was looking upon his
son. He said, this is my beloved son
in whom I'm well pleased. This is my beloved son. Hear
ye him. What a look it must have been
for God the father to look upon his son. And he looked upon that face.
in Gethsemane's garden when the sweat was squeezed from the pores
of his skin and blood dripped on Gethsemane's garden as the
weight of the sins of all of God's people crushed the heart
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He looked upon that face when
it was marred in Gabbathus Hall as those people took that crown
of thorns and drove it into his head and tore out his beard. One of the horrible things about
our world is that when we think about the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ, we are drawn so often, I am anyway, I hope you're not,
to those pictures of him that man has ever done. Every one
of them is a blasphemous lie. Every single one of them is a
blasphemous lie. I pray God would cause you to
hate them any time you ever see them, because all of them lie. And it's not for nothing that
the scriptures give us no description of him other than a description
in words. No pictures of him were ever
to be drawn. But his face, His face, his visage,
his face was marred beyond any man's, covered in blood, covered
in the spittle of men. God looked upon that face. It
was God who turned his face from his son in those dark hours on
Calvary's tree, that wounded and bloody face from which men
turned in horror. Our God looked upon that face
and saw His justice satisfied, and saw His wrath against His
holy justice, His holy character absorbed in that one. And he
saw his face, that face that couldn't be corrupted in that
term. He could not be corrupted because
there was nothing in him to be corrupted. The sin that corrupts
our bodies was gone forever. There was no corruption in our
Saviour's face. And what a face it was that Mary
saw on that resurrection morning. What a face. What a face. What a face that those disciples
saw when he chose to reveal himself to them. and they saw Him, and
He revealed Himself to them." What a face and what a voice
was revealed to the Church after the Lord Jesus Christ was revealed.
What a face our God sees when He brings His Son to be born in them and to be revealed
in them. For God, this is salvation, for
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. My Father, hear my prayer. Give
ear, O God of Jacob. Behold our shield and look upon
the face of thine anointed. When he looks upon the face of
his anointed, he sees his anointed and his children as one. 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, we have this treasure, but we have this treasure in
earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. When he shines the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,
in earthen treasures, they will not have anything in themselves
to boast of. There will be these people that
have passed through the valley of Bucca. There will be these
people that they go from strength to strength because their strength
is in him. and they will cry out to their
God, you look at my sheild, you look at your anointed one, you
look at your anointed one for all of my holiness, you look
at your anointed one for all of my law keeping, you look at
your anointed one for all of my righteousness, for everything
I need to meet the holy God, you look to him, you look to
him, My God, look to him and I will be at peace. Because that's
what the Psalmist goes on to say, doesn't he? I will be at
peace and I will rejoice in you when you look to your anointed
one and see me in him. Because, or for, in verse 10,
a day and night court is better than a thousand. I love God's
arithmetic. He's very good at mathematics, our God. It's wonderful
arithmetic. A day in thy courts is better
than a thousand. And I'd rather be a doorkeeper
in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
I'd rather be there opening and closing the door and seeing who
comes in and who comes out and guiding them and directing those
people to the table of the master there and knowing where the master
lives and knowing who the master servants. I'd rather be a doorkeeper
You can walk all over me and you can walk past me, but I'd
rather be a doorkeeper than to dwell in all the habitations
of wickedness, whatever that wickedness might be. For the
Lord God is a sun and a shield. He's a light, as we saw in 1
Corinthians 4, verse 6. The Lord will give grace and
glory. We have received from Him grace
upon grace. He will give. It's a great promise,
isn't it? When He looks upon His anointed,
the Lord God will be a sun and a shield, and He will give grace
and glory. No good thing will He withhold
from them that walk uprightly. And the Pharisees would think
that walking uprightly is walking according to their moral obedience
and their rectitude in all things in this world. What is it to
walk uprightly? What is it to have grace? and glory. So you can't have
grace without glory. You can't be a recipient of the
grace of God and not receive the glory of God. You can read
about it in Romans chapter 8. For those he foreknew, them he
predestinated. Them he also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be
the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified,
and whom he justified, them he also glorified. You cannot have
one without the other. You cannot have grace without
glory. But what is it to walk uprightly? The next verse tells
us what it is to walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, Blessed is the
man that trusteth in thee. To walk uprightly, according
to this psalm, is to pray that our God would look upon our shield,
look upon the face of your anointed one. And simply to trust. Ephesians
6 talks about the armour of God. The shield, the shield. is the shield of faith. That's what it is to be the blessed
man whose strength is in our God. Blessed is the man that
trusts, trusts in Him and not in anything else we've done.
Blessed is the man that can say to my God, you look away from
anything in me and you look to your son. in your son, you find
delight and satisfaction. He's pleased with his son, and
the children of God find their pleasure where God finds his
pleasure. He's pleased with his son, very,
very, very pleased with his son, and I'm very thankful I pray
that you might be as well. Let's simply trust. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do praise you for the gathering of your people throughout this
world. It was promised in Genesis 49
that of your Christ, Judah, David's great son, that unto him shall
the gathering of the people be. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
that he has been gathering his people from eternity. The great
shepherd of the sheep goes out. over hill and dale and finds
his own and he brings them to himself and he nurtures them
and cares for them and protects them and he brings them, Heavenly
Father, to a place where his people gather around his word.
And may we, Heavenly Father, continue to be a blessed people
who find our strength in him and call upon you to hear our
cry and hear our prayer, Heavenly Father. that you might behold
our shield, that you might look upon the face of thine anointed. May you cause us to remember
him, Heavenly Father, as we take these elements that remind us
of that broken body and that shed blood. and that we might
find Him to be our all in all. Make us to rest, to rest all
of our life and all of our eternity in Him and Him alone. For we
pray in His name, Amen.