David begins this psalm by recounting
the Lord's dealings with Israel. He calls them his people, but
this is God's dealings with his church. Israel, as we know, is
a typical of God's elect in all nations. God has been favorable. I like that word, favorable. Under his church, his kingdom,
his people, And what this is, is unmerited favor. God has been
favorable, not because of us, but in spite of us. In Christ, we merit all God's
blessings. But why are we in Christ? You
see, not because of anything we've done. No, but by unmerited,
undesired, unsought favor. And not only did we not merit
God's favor, but we Did everything possible to forfeit it. To be
disqualified from ever finding favor with God. Not only did
we not do anything to deserve it, in other words, but everything
we did made us undeserving. And yet he's been favorable because
God's favor is free. Free is a beautiful scriptural
word. That is not caused by anything
in the object of that favor. The word free in the book of
Romans where it says we're justified freely through the redemption
that's in Christ Jesus. That word means without a cause.
It simply means there was no cause in us that attracted God
to us or made him respond by favoring us. There's no cause
in the object. The cause of God's favor upon
his people is in God himself. And now I want you to notice
something very important in this first verse. Very, very important. Lord, thou hast been favorable
unto thy land, that is. And here's the difference now
between truth and pretend religion. The difference between the gospel
of Christ and the absolute disgrace that passes for a gospel in the
religion of this world. This is the difference right
here. The word favorable means to be pleased. God is pleased. To favor Israel. In other words,
his desire is toward Israel. That's what that word favor will
mean. It pleases God to do good to his people. And then, because
it does, we have the next phrase. Thou hast brought back the captivity
of Jacob. When God wants to do something,
he does it. You see that in that verse? He's
favorable, in other words, he's pleased, his desire is toward
them, and he's gonna do something about it. He's just not sitting
on the sidelines desiring that they be favored. He called, he
brought them back. He brought back the captivity
of Jacob. Psalm 30 verse five, his anger
endeareth but a moment, in his favor is life. Think about that. Psalm 30 verse
5, for his anger endureth but a moment, in his favor is life. It doesn't say in his favor is
the opportunity for life. In his favor is his best wishes
for us to live. In his favor is life. We need
to read the scriptures and see in them the power of God to save. When he is favorable unto you,
he's going to save you. He doesn't just desire, He does. In His favor is life. If God,
all He has to do is favor you, and you live. You see that? Weeping may endure for a night,
that same verse, Psalm 30, verse five. Weeping may endure for
a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Joy that I can't forfeit,
even if I wanted to. Certain and full joy is coming
because God has been favorable unto me. In other words, He's
pleased to do me good, not because I choose it, not because I deserve
it. I see these obnoxious self-help
things, just choose, you know, to be happy. If you're gonna
be happy, it's because you're blessed of God, and I guarantee
you this, if you ain't blessed of God, you don't know what happiness
is, and you're not gonna, until he blesses you. It's not because
I want to be favored, It's not because I deserve to be favored.
It's because of the free, full, forever favor of God Almighty
toward me. And his favor is not just a desire,
although that's what that word means. He desires to do me good.
But when he desires to do me good, he flat does me good. He
brought him back because he favored. You see that? In his favor is
life. God bringing back the captivity
of his people in spiritual terms is him bringing us back from
the bondage of sin, from the bondage of Satan, from the bondage
of self. And he did this on Calvary. Stand
fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you
free. He brought back the captivity.
He set them free and brought them back home. And be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. You're not ever going to be captive
again once He sets you free. If the Son, therefore, shall
make you free, you're free indeed. And then verse two, thou hast
forgiven the iniquity of thy people. Thou hast covered all
their sin. You see, this is the spiritual
side. This is not just a history lesson
about the Lord releasing the Jews from the Babylonian captivity.
or any other captivity. This is talking about spiritual
captivity. Sin is the cause of our spiritual
captivity. Satan and self are non-issues
without sin. We're in bondage to self, but
that's because of sin. We're in bondage to Satan, captive
by him at his will, by nature, but that's because of our sin.
Without sin, neither him nor my old nature is a problem. So sin is the root cause. Thou
hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people. Thou hast covered
all their sin. Now here are two beautiful words
used here in the word of God regarding our sin. Forgiven and
covered. The word translated forgiven
in the King James Bible is a telling word. It's a very instructive
word. It means to lift, to bear, to
carry, to take. Thou hast taken, thou hast carried,
thou hast borne the iniquity of thy people. That's how sin's forgiven. Christ
takes it upon himself. He doesn't just forgive arbitrarily.
That word, when Isaiah writes in 53, Surely he hath borne our
griefs. It's the same word translated
forgiven right here in our text. He bore our iniquities. When God forgives sin, it's not
like we forgive somebody. Somebody does me a wrong and
I say, well, that's okay. It's okay. You know, and if it's
not too terrible of a wrong, I may actually forget about it.
But nothing's really done about it. When God forgives, God's
forgiveness is in Christ alone. He doesn't forgive outside of
Christ. And what that means is that if God is to forgive our
sin, my sin, it's got to be paid for. When Christ is said to bear
our guilt and sin, along with that comes bearing the penalty
for our sin. If he bears my iniquity, he's
going to bear the wrath of God for it. And he did. God forgives me based on satisfaction
made by Christ for me. the word cover it means just
what it says to cover or hide to hide the picture here is all
through scripture adam and eve in the garden their shame being
uncovered is symbolic of their sin before god they realized
they were naked they were naked before and it matter. But now it does. Why? Because
of sin. And they're shameful. They're ashamed of themselves
without a covering before God. And they tried to cover that
nakedness with aprons they made themselves, but they were still
naked to God. You see, I wonder, have you ever
wondered if those fig leaves made them feel better? You ever
thought about that? They probably, I think, and this
is just me thinking, which is probably wrong. Whichever. Doesn't
matter that much. But I know this, when we are
self-righteous, it makes us feel better, doesn't it? When we try
to, we do something ourselves to cover our sin, but we can't
cover our sin. We can't hide it, but he can.
And he did, he made them a coat from the skin of an animal. God
shed blood and covered them with the skins of animals or an animal.
And this teaches us as it taught them that if sin and shame are
to be covered, an innocent victim must die in the place of the
sinner. There's got to be shed blood. Picturing the blood of
the Lamb of God that takes away sin. That blood of that animal
didn't take away their sin, but it pictured him who does. This
is what God did because he was favorable unto us, because his
desire was toward us. Because it pleased, we pleased
him and it pleased him to do us good. He took, he covered
my sin. He took it upon himself and he
covered it. He's pleased that we should be
his. He's pleased that we should be
saved. And so he did something about it. That's what I want
us to see here tonight. Something costly. He did something
costly about it. The only thing that could do
the job. And this picture says more because when you put something
on, you not only can no longer see what you did before the shame,
the sin, but you can see something else. The covering. He not only
covered our sin, but we have. Clothing of God's design. That was purchased with blood. When God looks at us, he sees
the victim. He sees Christ crucified. He
sees the Son of God and the offering that He made, the atonement that
He made for our sin. We're not only not naked anymore,
but we're wearing the best robe. We are made now the righteousness
of God in Him, because He was made sin for us. The covering
is seen in the mercy seat also. There are many pictures through
the Scripture. What did the mercy seat do? It
covered something. It hid something. You remember
what it hid? The broken law. Aaron's rod that
butted the manna, pot of manna. The mercy seat covered that broken
law. We broke God's law. We're guilty. The actual Tables of stone that were in
the mercy seat were not the broken ones though. I used to think
that I probably said that a hundred times from the pulpit, but it
wasn't it was the law that God Wrote on a different set of stones
after Moses broke those the law is preserved In Christ and cover
you can't break it if you want to now You can't break it not
in the sight of God. You are sinless spotless pure
perfect in God's sight You can't mess it up Covered sealed by
the mercy seat Verse three thou has taken away
all my wrath now has turned myself from the fierceness of that anger
Do you see the simple gospel progression here? No sin That
was the previous verse now in this verse no wrath No sin, no
wrath God looks on us with favor. What's God going to do for us?
That's the very beginning. What's he going to do for us?
He's going to deliver us from bondage. He's going to set the
captives free. How's he going to do it? He's going to bear,
take our sin upon himself and give us a garment to wear, cover
us. And now that God finds no iniquity
in Jacob, there's no wrath of God toward us because God poured
out his wrath on Christ who took our sin. Now there's no wrath
left for us. All of his wrath is taken away.
The gospel. I didn't even have to make an
outline today. It was already there, wasn't it? And by the
way, there's a reason the name Jacob is used in verse one. What
verse of scripture do you think of when you think of Jacob? And
why, why did God do all of this? Why, verses one through three,
why, Jacob have I loved? Why does he, why does it please
him to do us good? Why does he look upon us with
pleasure and desire? Because he loves us. Why did
he take our sin upon himself? Because he loves us. Why is our
iniquity covered and our sins remembered no more? Because he
loves us. Why is there no more wrath? Why did it please God to bless
us? Because He loves us with an everlasting
love. Therefore, He did something about
it with loving kindness. He drew us. He didn't wait on
us. He took us from where we were
and brought us where He is. Herein is love. Greater love hath no man than
this. Christ and what He did. In verse 4, turn us, O God, of
our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease. Turn us and cause thine anger
toward us to cease. This is our experience of his
salvation. Repent, for what was the message
of the gospel? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. How is that gonna happen? God's
gonna have to turn us. If we're gonna turn, turn us,
oh Lord, and we shall be turned. And look at verse six. Wilt thou not revive us again,
that thy people may rejoice in thee? And again, this is our
experience now. Talking about before what God
did for us. Before we were ever born, he took our sins away,
didn't he? But now, what's our experience? We turn from, our
brother just prayed about that, turn us, turn our heads to look
to you. By nature, we go in that way,
God's gotta turn us around. Come back, come home. And I skipped verse five, but
look at verse five again. Will thou be angry with us forever?
Will thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Now God has
turned his wrath away from us in Christ. Because of Christ,
there's no wrath. But he says, Lord, cause that
anger to cease. Why would he do that if God's
anger is, if his wrath is gone, then why pray now in our experience,
Lord, cause that anger disease. Will you be angry with us forever?
Because this is our experience of salvation and it happens every
day, doesn't it? We experience it every day. It's
the same thing as praying, Lord, forgive us our sins. Didn't he
teach us to pray that way? Lord, forgive us our sins. But
wait a minute. Didn't he do that on Calvary? Of course he did.
We're not denying that when we say, Lord, forgive us our sins.
And this is the same thing. It doesn't mean that we think
our sins were not fully forgiven at Calvary. The work of salvation
was finished there, but it's also an ongoing work. We are
being saved. How can something be finished
and still be going on? Because we're talking about God.
That's why he's eternal. What's happening right now is
already done. As far as God's concerned, the
works were finished before the foundation of the world. We still
confess our sins to God, even though we don't have any in Christ.
You understand this. We still cry as David did here. God save us. Turn us. Don't be
mad at us. There is the consideration of
a salvation that is a finished work in and by Christ. And then
there is our daily experience of that salvation. And it amounts
to the same thing in that when we cry now for God to turn his
anger away from us, we know that the only way he can do that is
in Christ and because of Christ. Same characters, same problem,
same solution. And we need to understand also
that God's anger with Moses, when Moses, you remember when
Moses kept making excuses in Exodus 4 when we went through
that? And it says God's anger was kindled against him. That's
not the same as God's wrath against sin outside of Christ. There's
a difference in there. Listen to John 3, 36. He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not
the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Notice the word wrath is used in verse 4 but not in verse 5. I think I
said that right. It was used before when it talks
about all thy wrath is turned away. But here now, there's a difference between
his anger and his wrath in the sense that we experience God's
anger in life like Moses did there. I'm sure he knew that
God, I'm sure God made it real clear. He wasn't pleased with
Moses making a bunch of excuses. Don't you imagine? But even in
that, we understand that if we're in Christ, if we're his, his
wrath abideth not upon us. He poured it out on his son instead.
Verse six. Now, wilt thou not revive us
again that thy people may rejoice in the will not give us life
again. But this word also means refresh
or renew. And that's the that's the meaning
in this context. In his favor is life. We're alive. And once God makes you alive,
you're never dead again. But we may appear dead. And so
this could be reviving that sense. Lord, we're dead in a sense. There was a sense in which the
disciples had no faith when he said, where how is it that you
have no faith? Because it appeared that they
had no faith. But the gifts in calling of God are without repentance.
You don't give faith and then take it back. So we understand
it that way. But also this word means refresh
and renew. We're spiritually alive in every
way in Christ. There's no death in the believer
in any sense. But there is a need for refreshing,
for restoring, and the word has that meaning here. I believe
we need this often. I believe we need this daily,
don't you? Refresh, revive me, Lord. Will Thou not? If God will
grant this, we will rejoice in Him. You see that? That Thy people
may rejoice in Thee. That's what revival is. Now you
think about that. Are you rejoicing in Him tonight? If not, then you need to be revived. If you're bogged down in yourself,
in your own concerns and difficulties, you need to be revived. In other
words, you need to be rejoicing in him instead of worrying about
yourself. Verse seven, here now again,
we're talking about our experience now. Lord, show me, show me your
mercy. Isn't that beautiful? We know
of his mercy. We've heard of his mercy in the
gospel. We know that he's merciful in Christ. We know that his mercy
is everlasting without beginning or end. But here's our experience
of God's salvation. He had mercy on us in eternity.
He bestowed mercy upon us at Calvary before we were born.
And though Lord, I need you now to show it to me. Is that why
you're here tonight? I hope so. Lord, show me. Show us that you are the God
who has mercy on whom he will have mercy. Show me the mercy
that is bestowed at your sovereign discretion, because that's the
only mercy there is for sinners. And that's wonderful mercy. That's
mercy indeed. Show us your sovereign mercy.
Show us the freeness of your mercy. Show us how that even
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Show us that your
mercy endureth forever. So we can rest in your mercy.
We can't forfeit your mercy even if we want to. Show us that.
Remind us of that. Grant us thy salvation. This
idea of getting saved is one of the most wretched things I've
ever heard. I'm going to get saved. Are you? Not by approaching
God like that. I've decided to get saved. That's
not how, David, that's not how anybody comes who receives God's
salvation. Lord, grant it to us. You don't
have to. You don't owe it to us. In fact,
you have every reason to leave us where we are. Lord, grant
us. People talk about, we're going
to have a revival. They put it on a sign. We're going to have
a revival. Here's the date. Are you? That's not, David said,
Lord, wilt thou not revive us again? Would you please? You
see the difference? We're talking about God now.
We're gonna have to come down off of our high horse and get
in the dust before God if we're gonna have his blessing. And
he delights to bless his people now. And he has a, he's pretty
good at bringing us down, isn't he? When he gets ready. Oh. We're going to have a revival. No, you're going to have a religious
sideshow unless God shows up and does something for you. If
a sinner is going to be saved or revived, he's going to have
to come to the feet of the master and Christ must freely bestow
it. Will thou not revive us or will you grant me your salvation? But how is God going to show
me his mercy? That's the cry there at the beginning of verse
seven. Lord, show me your mercy. How does he do that? I will hear
what the God, the Lord will speak. You're gonna have to hear him
speak if you're gonna see his mercy. Isn't that right? He's not gonna
give you a vision in the night. No, no, he's not gonna do that. I cannot overstate the importance
of you hearing from God. He'll speak peace to his people.
You see that? He will speak peace unto his
people. That's what we come here for, to hear God. To hear the
voice of the one who said, peace, be still. I want to hear him
say that to my heart. And God doesn't whisper peace
in your ear while you're mowing the grass. He speaks peace through
his gospel. In Romans 10, 15, it's called
the gospel of peace. How beautiful are the feet of
them which preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings
of good things. Christ has made peace through
the blood of his cross. So when we preach, what do we
preach? Christ and his cross crucified. Peace. We preach the gospel of
peace. And God speaks peace to the souls
of his people. Maybe for the first time. Or
maybe for the thousandth time. I need him as much now to speak
peace to my heart as I did the first time. And this is a necessity for us throughout this life.
Speak peace, Lord, to us. I want to hear what you have
to say. If you know the truth of God's mercy in Christ, you'll
say with David, Lord, show it to me in your word. And God does
that through the hearing of what he said. Mary chose that good
part. What's she doing? She's sitting
at his feet, hearing his word. Verse nine, surely his salvation
is nigh them that fear him, that glory may dwell in our land. Where do you see in this world
any reverence for God? Any fear? There's no fear of
God before their eyes. Do we want God's glory to dwell
in our land? If my people, which are called
by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and
turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven
and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Lord, turn us. What will cause us to fear God?
What will cause sinners to fear God? If we thunder His wrath
from the pulpit? If we speak of the terror of
the Lord and threaten sinners with eternal wrath and destruction?
No. Listen to what David said in
Psalm 130 verse 3. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark
iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness
with thee, that thou mayest be feared. Sinners will fear the Lord when
they see Christ in the forgiveness of sin, when they see his precious
blood shed, that God might be just and justify a wretched,
vile sinner like me. And here it is, here it is right
here. He just talked about it in verse
nine. How's God gonna do this? When are we gonna fear him? When
we understand this and see this and delight in this, mercy and
truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. If you understand that, you know
the gospel and you'll fear God. And he'll, he'll release you
from bondage because he's pleased in you, pleased with you. If
he wasn't, he wouldn't have shown you what he showed you. You wouldn't
understand that. If God were going to kill us,
he wouldn't have shown us what he showed us. These attributes of God, mercy,
truth, righteousness, peace, they are personified to create
a wonderful picture for us. How can the truth of who God
is, the truth of God, the truth of who God is, what is God's
truth concern? Him and us. How can the truth
of who God is and the truth of what I am allow for any mercy
for me? If I know who God is and I know
who I am, and that's all I know, I just see nothing but trouble
there. He's holy and I'm sin. How can
mercy meet with the truth? The answer is Christ. Christ
is called the mediator for a reason. A mediator is someone who brings
two parties who are irreconcilable together. On their own, Apart from the
mediator, these two parties are irreconcilable. If that wasn't
true, there'd be no need for a mediator. You see that? So
the two parties, without the mediator, they're irreconcilable.
This is us and God. There's one God, and bless His
name, there's one mediator between God and men. Otherwise, the enmity
that we are by nature against God will go to hell, spitting
in His face. will cause us to despise him
all the way to hell and his wrath will be poured out on us. But
you see Christ, the one mediator between God and men, he solves
God's problem with me, which is what? Sin. Righteousness. God demands perfect obedience
and sinlessness and purity and honor. He demands to be honored. And served and obeyed. Christ
did that in my place. And paid for my sin on the cross.
So God has no problem with me now. And he solves my problem
with God. How? By giving me a new heart. By
giving me faith in him. Faith to see him as he is. Repentance
of my sin. God's not mad at me anymore.
And I'm not mad at him. Are you? The truth. The truth apart from
the sin atoning sacrifice of Christ allows no mercy for me. The woman of Canaan that came
to Christ, what did she cry for? Jesus said, have mercy on me. Lord, mercy, help me. She's crying
for mercy, but there's a problem. There's a problem that our Lord
confronts her with. You know what it is? You're a
dog and it wouldn't be right for me to give you any mercy.
What's that? Truth. That's what she called
it. What a truth, Lord. So there's
a need for mercy, but there's this truth. This irrefutable truth that we
deserve nothing from God. Worse, we actually deserve his
wrath. What's the solution? How can
mercy and truth meet together? She says truth, Lord, but even
the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table.
And Christ gives her what she needs. Why? He still didn't have
to, did he? He could have just said, not
from this table you don't. But no, he gives her what she needs.
Why? Because he loved her. He had compassion on her. And
God can have mercy on her in him, not because she deserves
it. She clearly doesn't. It wouldn't
be right in that sense for God to bless her. But because she's
his dog. And they're his crumbs. He bought it for her. He bought
that food for her. It's his food. And she's his
dog. If I throw my dog a crumb, it's
mine to throw. People say, well, you shouldn't
feed your dogs, you know, human food. Yeah, but I just can't
resist. Can you? They just want it so
bad. They don't have any other joy in life, do they? But to
get something from you that makes them feel good, that lets them
know that you love them. I just can't resist it. May make
them fat, I don't know. It's my crumb and it's my dog.
And I give them what they want because I love them. Christ is able to have mercy
on me because he bought the right to do so. It's his crown. It's
his food. It's his life. It's his mercy. And by his grace, I'm his dog
because he redeemed me on Calvary. To this end, Christ both died
and arose and revived that he might be Lord, both of the dead
and the living, that he might decide who dies and who lives,
that he might be sovereign and give life to whom he will. That's
why he died. And having died, he is Lord,
and he will give life and mercy to whomever he is pleased to
do so. And so mercy and truth are reconciled
in him. Righteousness and peace, how
can God be righteous and me have peace with him and he with me? Same answer, Christ and his precious
blood. God in his righteousness, having
poured out his wrath on his own son, in my stead, for my sin,
now is at peace with me. And he hasn't compromised his
righteousness, his justice, in any way whatsoever. All of my
sin was punished. I received of the Lord's hand
double for all my sins. How? In Christ. By nature in metis. But now Christ
has made peace by the blood of his cross, and righteousness
has no problem with that. In fact, righteousness sees what
Christ did, and sees the peace that he wrought by that precious
blood, and righteousness kisses peace. Righteousness is not only
satisfied, but it's in love with peace wrought by that. There's
never been a kiss like that. This is God kissing the sinner.
And the sinner kissing God. This is what the heavenly host
said upon the birth of our Savior. You listen to this, Luke 2, 14. Glory to God in the highest. God's glorified. And on earth,
peace. If God's going to be glorified,
if there's going to be glory to God in the highest, how can
there be peace on earth? Because the only thing that's
going to glorify God is if he throws every one of us right
straight in hell. Unless Christ comes where we
are and does for us what we cannot do for ourselves and pays for
everything we do and don't do with his precious sinatonic blood. Now there's both glory to God
in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill toward men. In Christ God is glorified and
I'm saved. Christ and his precious blood.
This announcement was made upon the birth of the one who would
make that peace. and glorify that God in making
it. No wonder we sing, O come, let
us adore Him. And may we do so. Christ the Lord. Let's pray.