The first four verses of this
psalm, we saw established there that God has made a covenant,
the mercies of David. The covenant that he's established,
he made it, first of all, we saw with his chosen. That is
David in particular, but this is representative of the fact
that all who are included in God's covenant of grace are included
in that covenant by his choosing. And that's an important, important
thing to understand. And you see that in the beginning
of the psalm in verse three, I've made a covenant with my
chosen. That's what God always does. He chooses. Made a covenant with my elect.
And as I said, he's talking about David, particularly here. But
David is representative of Christ in whom all of his people are
chosen. Also, we know from Paul's writings
in the New Testament that all who believe on Christ, the way
that Abraham did, he said, those who are of the faith of Abraham,
the same God-given faith that Abraham had, are the seed of
Abraham. They are that seed mentioned in verse four. Thy seed will
I establish forever. They are counted for the seed,
Paul said, those who God chose, and gave faith as he gave Abraham. They are the beneficiaries of
God's covenant of grace with sinners. And we see in these
first four verses also that the covenant is established by God
in the heavens. In verse two, it's not a covenant
that's contingent upon man obeying or man meeting any of its conditions. It's an unconditional covenant
of grace. And when we say unconditional, you understand that to mean we
meet no condition in order to enjoy the benefits of that covenant.
There are conditions that are met by our Savior, but it's unconditional
to me. It's Christ's faithfulness that's
spoken of in connection with this covenant of mercy being
assured in verse two there. It says, thy faithfulness shalt
thou establish in the very heaven. And we know from the Word of
God that it's by the faithfulness of Christ that grace comes to
sinners. We'll see that in a minute. We
see that the Word of God is our source of information regarding
the covenant. How do you know that there's
a covenant? David said, it's all my salvation and all my desire.
How did he even know that? God spoke. God revealed it. We
see that also in our text and also God's word is our foundation
for believing it. Not only do we know about the
covenant because of God's word, and we see that in verse three,
let's look at it. I have made a covenant with my chosen. I've
sworn, I've spoken, I've sworn unto David, my servant. I made
a promise to him, spoke to him. I made a promise. So that's how
we know about the covenant, but also that's our foundation for
believing. on the covenant. We can be sure that it's true
and we can be sure that every aspect of that covenant will
be honored by God because it's God himself that spoke it. He
could swear by no greater, so he swore by himself. And we trust
him by his grace. The seed, of course, in these
first four verses in verse three, I believe it was the seed. Verse
four, that seed will establish forever. That also refers to
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the seed of David, the seed
of Abraham. He's the promised seed. He's the seed that was promised
in the beginning. The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's
head, crush, crush his head. So that refers to the Lord Jesus
himself and the throne of David being built up. here as we saw
in these verses also. He said, I will establish your
throne. I'll build it up forever. That
refers to Christ, the heir of the throne of David, being the
king of God's people. King Jesus is the one upon whose
mighty shoulders rests all of the success of this covenant.
Not upon us. It's not contingent upon us.
The new covenant, he said, is in my blood when he gave that
covenant. to his disciples in Luke 22,
20. And he said the covenant is in my blood because it is
his precious blood that washes us from sin and his obedience
unto the shedding of that blood. The scripture says he was obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. It's his obedience
unto that death, that shedding of that blood that secures all
of the blessings of the covenant for us. The covenant is sealed
by that blood. It's fulfilled in Christ crucified. And of course, the psalmist says
in the beginning, and we'll move on to verse five, but in the
first verse, he said, I'm going to sing about it. That's worth
singing about it. The grace of God and establishing
a covenant with sinners. We're in all the terms are met
by their savior. He says, I'm going to sing about
it and I'm going to make known the wonders of it to all generations,
to my children, to my grandchildren. And they'll, I pray, pass it
on to their children and grandchildren. That's how sinners are saved
by the hearing of this gospel, by those who are having interest
in that covenant, telling people about it. By the preaching of the gospel,
by the foolishness of preaching, what this world considers foolishness.
God has been pleased to save those that believe. And then in the next several
verses of this psalm that we'll see tonight, we have great praise
for God. He just, he just opens up and you see the magnitude
of the language, all that God has done, just praising for who
he is and for what he's done and praising because of that
covenant that he made. The grace of God that he would
come to sin to enter into a covenant with sinners Why would he have
any dealings with us at all much less the glorious? Covenant of
grace promise of his love and salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ And he's praising here the one
who is the champion of that covenant The Lord Jesus himself look at
verse 5 the heavens will praise. I Thy wonders, O Lord, the heavens
will praise. Notice he's talking about heaven
and earth in this verse. The heavens will praise your
wonders, and thy faithfulness also will be praised in the congregation
of the saints down here, right here. This is us right now. We've
congregated because God has set us apart. And let's take the heavens first. Even the angels will adore. Notice
the word wonder. Thy wonders, the angels wonder
at the things that they can't even fully enter into themselves.
An angel can never experience the forgiveness of sin because
an angel has never sinned and he took not on him the nature
of angels. They can't say that a Savior
came where they were and became bone of their bone and flesh
of their flesh. They can't celebrate that birth like we can. They
can't celebrate in exactly the same as any aspect of Christ's
salvation, but they can wonder at it and they can praise Him
for it. Probably better than us, wouldn't
you say? We take it for granted. They can never experience it,
but boy, they wonder at it, don't they? The angels desire to look
into these things, the scripture says. They praise the God who
loves so. They see him loving us so that
he's seen his only begotten son. And they know how to praise him
better than we do. I'll give them that. One of these days, we may praise
him better, praise him better than them, because we'll have,
we'll be perfect like them and have the voice they do, and we'll
be able to remember how he came to where we were. But you know what? It's not a
competition. We're all just going to be praising Him. And we're
going to be glad to be doing it together with Him. The Son of God. Don't you know
that was a marvel to them? They said, glory to God in the
highest. Look what God has done. Peace
on earth. Goodwill toward men like what
could have never been imagined. that God became a man, a babe, and He gave Himself, manifested
the love of God here in His love, that God sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. So the heavens praise His wonders,
but the congregation of the saints too, you know, here we are in
this flesh, we can't half worship, we can't half do anything right. And yet by God's grace, we've
experienced something. And we know mysteries, the mystery
of Christ that very few people know. And as I've said, even
angels have never experienced this revelation, this salvation. And so in the congregation of
the saints, it says His faithfulness, His faithfulness. That God is
steadfast, that he's faithful to his promises. And the congregation
of the saints extol the faithfulness of Christ for a very good reason. Turn to Romans chapter 3. Let
me remind us of this. This is a passage I read often,
but think of it in the context of our psalm. Romans 3, 19. He's talking about
the congregation of the saints praising the faithfulness of
God, the faithfulness of the Lord. Chapter 3, verse 19, now we know
that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are
under the law. God wrote the law for us. We're subject to the law of God.
And he wrote it not so that we would be good, He wrote it because
we weren't good. And look, here's the reason he
wrote it, that every mouth may be stopped, that we might quit
justifying ourselves, and all the world may become guilty before
God, acknowledge our guilt before God. The law doesn't make us
guilty, it just shows us how guilty we are, causes us to acknowledge
our guilt before God. Therefore by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. You're not going
to be acceptable to God on that basis the law Proves otherwise
you're not acceptable in any way to God on the basis of law For by the law is the knowledge
of sin not the remission of sin the knowledge of it the revelation
of it All right, but verse 21 now the righteousness of God
without the law is manifested in being witnessed by the law
and the prophets. There is a righteousness in which
I can stand before God without me keeping God's law. That's
what that's saying. Even the righteousness, verse
22, of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Now, the Lord Jesus believed
God as our representative. He believed God. But this word
here, Faithfulness. In verse 22. It means believing. And our Lord, as I say, he did
believe his father and he did that as our representative. Our
faith is not meritorious, but his is it was. But also that
word means fidelity, faithfulness. And here's what it means. The
character of one who can be relied upon. That's very revealing. Our justification before God
is not by our faithfulness to God's law, but his. Not by our
fidelity, not by our obedience, not by our character. We can't
be relied upon to serve God, to honor God, to obey God, but
he can. By Christ's faithfulness, his
obedience to the law, by his character upon which we can rely,
We can rely upon him to accomplish all that is his to accomplish
in this covenant. By him and all that he did as
our representative, we are righteous before God. By him, by what he
did, not by what we did. Because he did it as our representative. Just as in Adam all sinned and
all died, in the last Adam, those whom he represented are perfect,
without spot, without blemish, justified before God because
of what He did. We're sinners in Adam because
of what Adam did. And we're alive and righteous
in Christ because of what He accomplished. And we praise Him for it. We
congregate, we get together, and we praise Him. That's what
the psalmist said. It's beautiful, isn't it? Isn't
it wonderful to be in on that? We have no confidence in our
flesh, but boy, we rejoice in Christ Jesus. Have all confidence
in Him. Verse six, for who in heaven
can be compared unto the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty
can be likened unto the Lord? There again, we have heaven and
earth in that verse. Who in the heaven can be compared
to Him? And who among the sons of the mighty? Even the greatest
among the sons of the earth, the sons of men. Who can be like
and unto him? That's a question that Paul dealt
with in the book of Hebrews, wasn't it? And he answered it.
There's nobody like him. Nobody. He's worthy of more honor
than Moses inasmuch as the one who built the house is worthy
of more honor than the house. He's worthy of more honor than
all angels and all men. There's nobody like him in heaven
or on earth who is faithful like he's been faithful. We just talked
about his faithfulness. Have you ever known anybody to
be faithful like you? It's not our faithfulness to
Him that saves, and I'm glad of that. Who loves like He does? To whom would you compare Him
in love? Christ is going to know whether
or not we love Him, isn't He? Like with the Apostle Peter,
He's going to have it from us, isn't He? He's going to have
it out of us, whether we do or not. But it's His love for us
that's salvation. His love for us is salvation
because, you see, His love is the cause of our love for Him. If we love Him, it's because
He first loved us, 1 John 4, 19. And also, His love defines
what love is, not ours. 1 John 4, 10, herein is love,
not that we love God. If you want to know what love
is, don't look at your love for God, but that He loved us. That's where you need to look
if you want to know what love is. how he so loved that he gave, that
he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Who are you going
to compare him to? Verse seven, God is greatly to
be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be had in reverence
of all of them that are about him. Think about this. What has
he been talking about this whole time? Verses one through four,
the covenant mercies of God, the established covenant and
the faithfulness of him who is the the the angel of that covenant,
the messenger of that covenant, the one who fulfilled that covenant,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He'd been talking about covenant
mercies. He's been talking about God's grace and his greatness
and. And he talking about salvation,
talking about his love and power, his wonders, his faithfulness
to the to his people. And then he says, God is greatly
to be feared. What causes us to reverence God? Think about this with me for
a minute. Why do you reverence God? Because you're scared of
him? You might have good reason to
be scared of him. Is it the law that causes us to reverence God?
The law certainly provokes a kind of fear especially in those that
don't know him. The Israelites were afraid to
even look toward God, look in his direction when he thundered
from Mount Sinai. There's a fear in that, isn't
there? In his demands, in his righteous demands upon his people,
his creation. But this is not the reverence
that's spoken of here. He hasn't mentioned anything
about the law here, has he? Is it his authority to cast us
in hell if he's pleased to do so? We know that he can do that.
He's sovereign in that, at his discretion. He'll say live or
die. That certainly is a consideration
that would cause any sinner to tremble that really had any honesty
about it at all. The psalmist said, if, Lord,
if you mark iniquities, who could stand? He said to his disciples himself,
now in Luke 12, four, he said, I say unto you, my friends, be
not afraid of them that kill the body after that have no more
that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom
you shall fear, fear him, which after he has killed, hath power
to cast into hell. Yea, I say unto you, fear him.
So yes, there is an awe and a reverence of his power and his sovereign
authority and his right. to do with us what he will. But
here, there's only been mentioned thus far of his covenant mercies,
and yet we're called upon to fear God. Listen to Psalm 130
verse 3. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark
iniquities, O Lord, who should stand? But there's forgiveness
with thee that thou mayest be feared. How does the forgiveness
of God cause sinners to tremble? Well, Yes, God is to be feared
for His great power. He's to be feared because of
His wrath, which is mentioned later, by the way, in verse 10.
We'll see in a minute, Lord willing. But let's understand something
about the reverence of God for His mercy and forgiveness tonight. If you were dying an excruciating
death, and I was the only human being alive that could help you,
what would your attitude toward me be? Even if that was all you knew
about me. Was that I'm the only human that can save you. You probably. You probably approach
me. With some reverence. And that's
a pitiful illustration. This is the reverence that the
woman with the issue of blood had for Christ. who had been
to every doctor she knew and had spent every penny she had,
it was only worse. But she approached the Savior
and she wouldn't even address him directly, but she just said,
if I could just touch the hem of his garment, maybe I can just
touch him and then sneak away. And he turned and said, who touched
me? This is the reverence that that
leper in Matthew chapter 8 had for Christ and all he seems to
know. I'm sure he knew something of the power of Christ and something
about the wrath of God. But here, what he's experiencing
is a realization that that man right there is my only hope. If he just says the word, I'll
be clean. I'm a vile, wretched leper. If
he just speaks it, I'll be clean. And you know what he did? He
fell upon his face before him and worshiped him. He wasn't scared of him. That wouldn't exactly be the
right characterization of his approach to the Lord Jesus, but
he came and fell on his face before the one who holds life
and death in his hand. You see what we're talking about? His sovereign power to say live
and the sinner lives. How can we not be in awe of him? And this is where every sinner
needs to come. When you reverence Christ as
the sovereign dispenser of mercy, the one who needs say the word
only, and it's done, your soul shall live, then you're in the
right place to receive mercy from him. And not until. Verse eight, O Lord God of hosts,
Who is a strong Lord like unto thee? You see what he's doing
here? He said God is to be had in reverence. And he said that
as a natural process of what he had been saying before that.
That's what we're seeing. When you think of his covenant
mercies, when you think of the fact that there is forgiveness
with God, it causes us to fear him. But also now that he's used
the word reverence, He starts giving all these reasons for
us to revere God. Who's a strong Lord like unto
thee? We see this in the scripture too. Job, listen to Job 42, one. The Job answered the Lord and
said, I know that thou canst do everything and that no thought
can be withholden from thee. In other words, no thought of
thine can be hindered. All God has to do is just think
it. And it's done. That's what Job learned on the
ash heap. Thou canst do every thing. In other words, he learned
this, who is a strong Lord like unto thee. And you know what
it caused him to do? He said, I'm going to shut up.
I'm going to lay my hand on my mouth. I'm going to quit talking
about what I don't know anything about. I'm just going to be in
awe of God. Just going to worship him. When I was searching for this
verse in the Concordance, Job answered the Lord and said,
I know that thou canst do everything. I thought, you know, who acknowledges
the strength and power of God like Job when he said that? And
so I started looking for that verse. I knew it was in Job,
one of the later chapters, and right at the beginning of a chapter,
I could remember that. But I punched in, thou canst
do anything. It wasn't coming up. It was saying
no verses. And so I used fewer words. I
finally found it because I remembered some verses that were in that
same area. But then I saw the actual wording of this verse
and I realized it's not the same thing as what I was trying to
find. It's not that God can do anything. It's not just that there's nothing
God cannot do. The truth is that everything
that is done, God does it. Thou canst do everything. No wonder the psalmist said,
who is a strong Lord? Like unto thee. And when we see how strong God is,
we'll reference him. No question about that and his
faithfulness or to that faithfulness round about the his faithfulness
causes us to be in all David put it this way. God is my rock a Big old rock Where is that
rock it's right where it was yesterday The day before that
and the day before that and it looks pretty much the same as
it did then He's my rock And he said, because God can't
be moved, I can't be moved. God's my rock. In 2 Samuel 22
verse two, listen to this. The Lord is my rock and my fortress
and my savior, my deliverer. The God of my rock in him will
I trust. He is my high shield and the
horn, the power of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge,
my savior, thou savest me from violence, I will call on the
Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my enemies. He's doing right there just what
the psalmist in our text said we do. We're praising for his
faithfulness, his steadfastness. In a world that's characterized
by unreliability and disappointment, The Lord is our rock, our anchor,
an anchor for the soul. Verse nine, thou rulest the raging
of the sea, when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. You
know what verse I thought of when I read that. These are all reasons to be in
awe of God. You reckon there was a little
bit of reverence and awe on that little ship when they said, what
manner of man is this? that even the winds and the seas
obey his will. Verse 10, thou hast broken Rahab
in pieces as one that is slain. Thou hast scattered thine enemies
with thy strong arm. We saw this word Rahab recently
in another study. And remember, this is not the
same word as for Rahab the harlot. It's not the same word. This
is Egypt and everybody agrees on it. There's no, there's no,
speculation here, he's referring to Egypt. And you think about
it, we're talking about being in awe of God and reverencing
him, fearing him. Who can look at what God did
in Egypt? You remember our study in Exodus? Pharaoh puffed his chest out
and dared God to defy him. And he himself defied the God
of heaven and earth God said, you're gonna let my people go.
And Pharaoh refused and said, who are you? Who is your God,
Moses, that I should obey him? I'm God around these parts. And
God absolutely annihilated. He humiliated, you think about
what those different plagues, he humiliated them in every way
that a man could be humiliated. Made them stink. Matt took away
every convenience they had, took away all of their wealth, all
of their comfort, absolutely annihilated them. He gave them
a taste of hell and then dropped them in hell, didn't he? Absolutely,
humiliatingly, and utterly annihilated that entire country. And it says
in our text that he did it like he was just killing one person.
You see that there? Just one man. Now it's broken, rehabbing pieces
as one, and it's slain. The greatest country on earth
at that time. Just laid it to waste. There
wasn't a leaf left on a tree. The locusts ate them all. There
wasn't a place you could go that didn't stink from all the death
and the flies and the maggots. There wasn't a place to rest. absolutely destroyed him. And
what was he teaching there? You know, pretty much the same
thing he teaches all through this book. Who's on the throne? Who's going to be Pharaoh and
who's not? And the Israelites, they sat
on the far banks of that Red Sea as their enemies washed up
on the shore. And they sang a song. Listen to it. Exodus 15 one then
sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord
and spake saying and think about this now we're talking about
reverencing God. And he references Egypt. In the context of reverence
for God. Those who experienced it said
this, I will sing unto the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath
he thrown into the sea. Let me say this. What God was
teaching there was not just his sovereignty. Let me correct that. Not just teaching who's on the
throne and who's God and who's not. But he's establishing his
authority in the salvation of his people. He's establishing
himself as God, our Savior. And you'll see that in this psalm.
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord
is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. He
is my God and I will prepare him in habitation. My father's
God and I'm going to exalt him. And then if you skip down to
verse nine in that same song, all of it's good. I'm not skipping
some of it because it's not good, but because I wanted to see particularly
what applies to our tech. Verse nine, the enemy said, I
will pursue, I will overtake, I will. The enemy said, I will,
I will, I will. And he said it again, I will
draw my sword. Four times in the text, the enemy
said, I will. God did blow with his wind and
the sea covered him. They sank as lead in the mighty
waters. Who is like unto thee, O Lord,
among the gods? who is like the glorious in holiness,
fearful in praises. That's our text, isn't it? Fearful. Doing wonders, doing wonders. What wonder? Saving his people,
and in doing so, establishing his authority and sovereignty
for every creature to see. And a wonder at. The last four verses of our text,
verse 11. We'll just read these four together
and comment briefly on them. The heavens are yours. The earth
also is yours. Thou hast founded them. The north
and the south, that's how has created them. Tabor and Herman
shall rejoice in thy name. Thou hast a mighty arm, strong
is thy hand and high is thy right hand. justice and judgment are
the habitation of thy throne, mercy and truth shall go before
thy face. Think about verse 11 for just
a second. The heavens are yours and the earth also is yours and
the world and the fullness thereof, God established them. Would you
have, let me ask you a question, would you have a little bit more
reverence for God and maybe a little bit less personal pride, which
goes hand in hand? As God increases, you're gonna
decrease. Me too. Would that be so? Would that
happen if we truly understood all the time that everything
is his? Everything belongs to God. You're
living in his house, you're eating his food, you're breathing his
air. Would that bring you down if you thought about that all
the time? And would that exalt him in your eyes? We're talking
about reverence in God. It's all his. We talk about giving
something to God. You know what David said about
that? Lord, who are we to just give you back what you gave us? In verse 12, he talks about north
and south and then Tabor and Hermon represent east and west
because of their situation to Jordan. And so all points of
the compass are established by God and his dominion is universal. He said, I'm gonna say to the
North and to the South and to the East and to the West, give
up my people, give them to me, they're mine. In verse 13, let me just reiterate
that this is the difference between God and all pretenders. Verse
13 is the difference. It's the difference between the
Lord Jesus Christ and all false Christs. You know what the difference
is? They try and he does. They want, he gets. That's the
difference. Verse 14. If you take away any
one of these attributes, it mentions four there, doesn't it? Justice, judgment, the habitation
of his throne, he rules in justice and judgment. Justice being everything,
every high place is going to be made low, every valley is
going to be exalted. There's so much injustice in
the world, isn't there? Maybe right now, maybe temporarily. But justice is done ultimately.
Everything's going to be made right because He is on the throne,
that's why. And judgment, the one who decides
every case, every matter, that's to be decided. Mercy and truth
shall go before thy face. So when he's on his throne, judgment
and justice, when he's going about doing what he does, he
does it in mercy and in truth. And of course, all of those,
everything he does, if you take one of those attributes away,
we have no hope. God is our savior in all of his
attributes. And all of these are essential
to the covenant. And we could spend a lot of time on this.
It's probably worthy of it. But let me just ask a few questions.
What good to us is justice with no mercy? We don't want that. What about
mercy with no truth? There can't be mercy without
truth. Truth without judgment. Let me just close with this thought.
It has been said, and I believe rightly so, that God's chief
attribute is his holiness. I think that's the truth. But
let me try to say that in a little bit different way that might
be helpful. Rather than think of his holiness
as a separate attribute, and whenever we think of God, it
helps sometimes to to separate things and to, you know, categorize
things because our mind is so weak. But God just is who he
is. None of his attributes are true
at the expense of any of his other attributes. But when you
think of his holiness, rather than thinking of that as a separate
chief attribute, I believe, I believe God's holiness is all of his
attributes combined. And here's why I say that. The
word holy means a part. It means separate. It's what
God is referring to when he says, there's none like me. I'm apart
from all others. I'm separate from all others.
I'm higher. I'm exalted above all others. I'm apart. And it is all that God is that makes
him like no other. You can't mention a single attribute
that you can compare anyone to him with regard to. We've talked
about his love. His power, His judgment, His
justice, His truth, His mercy. You can't compare Him to anybody
and it's in all of His attributes that that's true. And for all of these reasons
and many more that we can never even explore, we are by His grace
in awe. And may He cause us more and
more. The more we see, the more He reveals Himself to us. You
see, that's really all we need to see, is Him. By His grace, we're still seeing
Him. And may He cause us to reverence
Him more and more, as we do. Let's pray.