Brethren, we plan and we study
and I think we know what we're going to preach, but the Lord,
He's the only one that knows. He holds your place open right
there to Psalm 41. That just spoke to my heart and
I want to show you something that I see in this that I just
want to say it right now while it's on my heart. We know Psalm
41 is our Lord Jesus speaking. No doubt about it that this psalm
is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking. It says in verse 9, He says,
Yea, my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat
of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. We know that's
the Lord Jesus speaking about Judas. Judas was at the table
with him the night he gave him the sop. And he said, that thou
doest do quickly. Judas went out with betrayal
in his heart and betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver. So this
is the Lord Jesus speaking in this psalm. And we know it from
the very first verse. He is comforting His heart as
He is suffering the cross. That's the setting here that
I hear, and you can hear as He speaks here. Our Lord is suffering
the cross, either on His way to the cross, or on the cross,
or surrounded by His enemies, but our Lord is suffering. Already
made sin for His people, already bearing the suffering from the
hand of the enemy. And he's comforting himself and
he says in verse 1, blessed is he that considereth the poor.
And we know right there, here's what grabbed me. When you read
a verse of scripture, you want to see Christ in it. You want
to look for Christ in it and you want to see where is your
place in it. We're the poor. The poor is the weak. The poor
is the bankrupt. The poor is the utterly destitute,
poverty-stricken sinner that Christ came to save. That's me
and you, who he chose from eternity. The poor. Blessed is he that
considereth the poor. Who is he that considereth the
poor? That's what Christ was doing.
That's why He came down, the Son of God came down and took
flesh. What was He doing? He was considering His poor,
bankrupt, helpless, fallen people. When He walked this earth under
the law, perfect, obeying God in everything He ever did and
everything He ever thought, what was He doing? He was considering
the poor. His totally destitute people
that could not justify or save ourselves or make ourselves righteous.
What was He doing when He went to that cross and was willingly
gave Himself to suffer and sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane
and then went to that cross and had His hands pierced and His
feet pierced and was hung on that cross and was spit upon
and cussed and then bore the wrath of God in that darkness.
in the midday. Why did he do that? He was considering
his poor people who could not justify ourselves from our sin,
who could not make ourselves righteous, who could not reconcile
ourselves to God. That's what he was doing. And he knew this. This is how
he blessed his heart as he suffered that. He said, the Lord will
deliver him in time of trouble. Blessed is he that considereth
the poor. Is there anybody more blessed
than our Lord Jesus Christ? More blessed than him? And the
Lord God promised him from eternity he would deliver him in time
of trouble. Child of God, you do your best
to consider the poor all the time. And by that I mean every
opportunity you get to speak the truth of Christ to some poor,
destitute sinner. Do it. Do it in love. Do it in
mercy. Do it with the same compassion
and lowliness of heart as you wanted somebody to speak it to
you, knowing how you were when you were in that shape, when
you couldn't hear and you didn't understand the gospel. You know,
don't go and try to make them believe the doctrine of election
or make them believe limited atonement. Tell them what great
things the Lord's done for you. That's how you consider the poor.
If you can do that, you know why you can do that? You've been
blessed of God. Blessed is he that considered
the poor. He's blessed you and he has blessed us. He's given
us this gospel in our heart. He's blessed us. And you have this promise from
the Lord, just like our Savior did. The Lord will deliver you
in time of trouble. He'll deliver you in time of
trouble. Verse 2, the Lord will preserve him and keep him alive. And he shall be blessed upon
the earth. And thou will not deliver him unto the will of
his enemies. Now this is instructive for you
and me. When you think about our Lord Jesus, and you hear
Him speaking this, the Lord will preserve him. We understand God's
preserving us. We see Him preserve our Redeemer.
You keep Him alive. We hear that now. Is He going
to keep us alive? Did He keep our Savior alive?
Yeah, He kept Him alive. But He died on the cross. No,
He laid down His life on the cross. But He didn't die. He died physically, but He didn't
die. He shall be blessed upon the
earth. Was our Savior blessed upon the earth? None blessed
like Him. And He'll bless His people for
His sake. Thou wilt not deliver Him to the will of His enemies.
Now you read that. And you think, I see my Savior
on the cross and it looks like He was delivered to the will
of His enemies. Oh, no. No, no. Christ delivered Himself
to the will of His enemies. And He told Pilate that day,
you could have no power whatsoever except it were given you from
above. But did God deliver Christ to His enemies? Did He deliver
Him to His enemies? Well, think about what did his
enemies want to do? What did the devil want to do
to Christ? He wanted to kill him and blot
out his name forever. And those enemies, the Pharisees
and the self-righteous and the self-holy men, they wanted to
blot out his name from this world forever. Did God deliver them
to their will? No. No, He gave them just enough
of their will and it was the enmity of man's heart that put
Christ on the cross and nailed Him to that cross and rejected
Him. And you see right in that what's in our heart by nature.
But did God deliver Him to the will of His enemies? Did God
let His enemies blot out His name forever? No. No. If you want to see what they
wanted to do, look over here. In verse 7, all that hate me
whisper together against me, against me do they devise my
hurt. They say, here it is, verse 5,
my enemy speak evil of me, when shall he die and his name perish? That's what was in the heart
of man. That's what the devil's desire is, and that's the heart
that's in every unregenerate, carnal man in this world, is
he wants the name of Christ blotted out. He wants his name to perish.
That was the will of his enemies. Did God deliver him to the will
of his enemies? We're still preaching his name, aren't we? His name's
not been blotted out. No, what took place on the cross
was not the enemies of Christ having their will. It was not
them getting their way. It was God who determined before
everything that they would do, permitting them to do exactly
what He purposed from eternity. God was in control of the whole
thing. So when you read here in verse 2 and you apply this
to me and you who Christ has saved, the Lord will preserve
him, keep him alive, he'll be blessed upon the earth that will
not deliver him to the will of his enemies. It doesn't mean
that you and me are not going to suffer, brethren. The Lord
Jesus said, you must, through much tribulation here in the
Kingdom of God, we're going to have to suffer some crosses in
this life. Painful trials. Heartbreaking trials. Loss of
family we love. Loss of ones that we thought
were brethren we loved. Loss of good friends that we
loved. Heartbreaking, heart-wrenching
things we're going to have to go through. But the Lord is not
going to let Your name be blotted out, because He wrote the name
of His people and the Lamb spoke alive. And He's not going to
let the enemy have their will, which would be to blot out your
name forever, so that you perish forever. Suffer, we might. We must. Die, we might. You might be martyred for preaching
the gospel. There's been a lot of saints
in the past that have. But that's not our life. This
body is not our life. This flesh is not our life. And
I just believe that if you have to suffer that, just like God
gives you grace when you suffer now and you're able to bear it
and get through it, He'll give you grace in that time too. But your soul won't be destroyed.
Your eternal life won't be destroyed because Christ has redeemed His
people and paid the price and purchased us and He'll never
let us go. And that's what we see with Christ
on the cross. He was not He was not delivered to His enemies,
the will of His enemies. He was in full control. Now look
at verse 3. The Lord will strengthen him
upon the bed of languishing, that will make all his bed in
his sickness. That's what I'm talking about.
Where was Christ's bed of languishing? Well, ultimately it was the cross. That was his bed of languishing.
That was his sick bed. That was the bed where he was
so weak he couldn't lift his head up. That's where we read
in Psalm 22 where he says, my tongue cleaves to my jaws and
to the roof of my mouth and my bones are like dust and my heart's
like wax melted in me. But we read here, the Lord will
strengthen him upon the bed of languishing. How did Christ bear
that? We see in the Garden of Gethsemane,
the Lord sent an angel down and strengthened him. Well, he's
God, he's holy God. Yes, he's holy God. But brethren,
there's something about what our Lord did in place of his
people. He had to be the perfect believer, suffering everything
his people suffer. He had to obey God perfectly,
the positive aspect of the law. He had to suffer the things we
suffer, be tempted like we're tempted in all points, and yet
do it without sin. Do it in perfect faithfulness,
looking to the Father. And He did that ultimately and
preeminently when He went to the cross and bore the sin of
His people and was forsaken of God on the cross. And God let
the enemies for a time lash out at Him and just vet every bit
of enmity they had in their hearts against Him. And the devil included. But the whole time, the Lord
was His strength. And our Savior was able to bear
that And He was suffering it because when you suffer, me and
you suffer, we're never going to suffer perfectly. We're never
going to suffer so that we could ever say, well I suffered that
so now I can stand before God because I suffered that faithfully.
Never a time. We're going to sin every time
we suffer because really and truly deep down we don't want
to suffer. We'd get out of it right now if we could. Our Lord,
when He was on the cross, I mean, when He was in the Garden of
Gethsemane and He said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me. I really don't think our Savior was asking to
be delivered from the cross. I don't think that's what He
meant at all. I think He was saying His flesh was so weak
in the Garden of Gethsemane when He was suffering, so He said,
even unto death, He was praying, Lord, let this cup pass. Let
me get past this so I can get to the cross. And the Lord sent
an angel and strengthened him. Our Lord, whatever it was, though,
I know when he said, Lord, if it be possible, let this cup
pass for me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thy will be done. He said that in perfect, righteous
faithfulness with a holy heart in perfection. No sin whatsoever. No, no, no. motive of wanting
to get out of it, but perfectly submitted to God's will. You
and I will never suffer anything like that. But when he suffered,
he said here he's comforting himself and he knows the Lord,
he's talking about himself here in the third person, he said
the Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing.
Why does he speak like that? Why does he speak in the third
person? Because we can read that and see that it can apply to
me and you too. And that's what the Lord will do for you on your
bed of languishing. Thou will make all his bed in
his sickness. You know what that is? That's
turning you on your bed. That's like when a nurse will
come in when a man's bedridden and he can't even move. And if
he just laid there long enough, he'll get bedsore. And so they
come in and they did this with my father. They come in and they
pick up the sheet on the side and they turn you on your side
and set you up, put pillows under you and everything to get you
laid on a different part of your body. If you laid in the same place
long enough, me and you would just perish. But the Lord will
turn you. Even when you're on your bed
of languishing, when you're suffering, when you're in the trial, the
Lord will give you something to comfort you. He'll give you
something to comfort you. He'll keep you even when you're
on your bed of languishing. He'll keep you. I said, Lord,
verse 4, I said, Lord, be merciful unto me. Heal my soul, for I
have sinned against Thee. Is that Christ speaking? You know, Christ had to experience
every aspect of salvation that His people experience as He is
accomplishing our salvation. so that he is the perfect righteousness
of every aspect, every minute, every hour of everything we experience
as the Lord's saving us. He had to experience, he's the
righteousness of his people. Perfect faithful one from a perfectly
holy heart. Do you think that you've ever
confessed sin without there being enough sin in it to make it not
a confession at all, to make it nothing but sin. When you
and I confess our sin, there is enough sin in our confession
that it wouldn't be a confession at all if God just let you stand
in your confession. Do you get what I'm saying? There's enough sin in your confession
of your sin because you don't even know all your sin. I don't
either. We've never confessed all our sin. And there's enough
sin in our confession of sin to make it nothing but sin. But
our Lord Jesus Christ, there's so much more to the sinless,
holy, spotless Lord Jesus presenting Himself as the spotless Lamb
of God and the Lord making Him sin for us. There's so much more
to that than you and I can ever enter into. Our Lord Jesus really
and truly took our sins and they became his sins. And I don't
care about the, you know, it's for his glory. I'm speaking about
his glory. I'm speaking about the glory
of manifesting the righteousness of God and how God's perfectly
just to punish him as the one on whom wrath must fall in place
of his people because he was bearing our sin. It was a just
thing. God's showing He will not punish
the innocent and He will not acquit the wicked. That's what
God's showing on the Calvary's cross. The righteousness of God,
how He's just and how He's the justifier. But there's more even
than just the strict, pure, beautiful righteousness of God. Our Lord
Jesus Christ owned our sin to be His sin so much. that He called
them His sins. He called them His sins. He confessed
as the one who had... He didn't commit any sin and
wouldn't commit any sin. He's bearing our sin. But He
took our place so much so that He made confession to God as
if it was you doing it. As if it was me doing it. And
His confession was perfect. That's pretty deep, isn't it?
That's like trying to, you just can't, I know it is, but I'm
telling you, you and I have never believed so that we could just
stand in our faith without any sin mixed with it and say, well,
my faith saved me. No, your little faith that you
have as a grain of mustard seed will save you because it's laying
hold of Christ who had perfect faith. And even your confession
of your sin, it's not granting you something from God because
you were so good in confessing everything about yourself. No,
it's because Christ Jesus stood with all the sin of His people
on Him, and He's the one who made perfect confession to God
in place of His people. Everything that you and me experience,
even as we're being saved, confession of sin, repentance, faith, everything,
He did it all in perfection. Fulfilling the whole law of God,
bearing our curse that we deserve for all the ways we don't do
it in perfection. That's how perfectly He is our
righteousness. That's how come he's called the
faithful one, the holy one, the righteousness of his people. He said, my enemy speak evil
of me, verse 5. When shall he die and his name
perish? And if he come to see me, he
speaketh vanity. He speaks with his mouth but
in his heart, know how often they'd come to him and they would
say one thing to him, oh good master, but in their heart they're
trying to trick him and get something they can use against him. They
speak vanity. His heart gathers iniquity to
itself and when he goeth abroad he telleth it. Don't ever think
if somebody comes to you and sugar won't melt in their mouth,
they're so sweet to you, and then they go and start spreading
everything you talk to them about. You and I never experienced that
like our Master did. He experienced that in perfect
betrayal. That's how he experienced it.
And He knew their heart when they came to Him. You read that
all through the Scriptures where it says, and they came seeing
how they might entangle Him in His words, and it said, but He
knew their heart. All that hate me whisper together
against me. Against me do they devise my
hurt. This was going on the whole time when He began His public
ministry from the day He started preaching the gospel. They wanted
to throw him off a cliff. They started getting together,
the Pharisees, because they saw it was a threat to their power,
it was a threat to what they thought was their church, and
what they had built up, and what they had accomplished, and their
righteousness, and their holiness, and what they were constraining
men to do. In other words, they thought
they were the Christ. They thought they were the king
and they were the judge and they were the rulers. And when the
ruler came, the king came, the true righteousness and true holiness
came, the only thing they could do in response was to gather
together and see how can we kill him and get him out of here.
So if men do that to you, don't think it a strange thing. That's
what our Master told us. He said, they did it to me before
they did it to you. If they did it to me, they will
do it to you. An evil disease, say they, cleaveth
fast unto him, and now that he lieth, he shall rise up no more."
You see that? An evil disease cleaveth to him.
Remember what was said on the cross. Look at Isaiah 53. This is what, and if we're honest,
this is what me and you thought too when we were in our unbelief.
This is exactly what we thought about the Lord Jesus before God
gave us faith to believe. Verse 3, this is what we said
in our heart. He is despised and rejected.
Wait a minute, let me find it here. He is despised and rejected,
a man of sorrows and a quaint of grief. And we hid it, as it
were, our faces from Him. He was despised and we esteemed
Him not. We looked upon Him as if He was
getting what He deserved. He was just a sinner like anybody
else. That's what we thought in our unbelief. That's what
they thought. And they despised Him and they rejected Him. They
hid their faces from Him. And they accused Him of being
a blasphemer against God and of getting exactly what He deserved. And they said, surely He's borne
our griefs. What you see in Christ on the
cross is Him bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows. Yet
we did esteem him, here it is, we did esteem him stricken and
smitten of God and afflicted. We esteemed him as just somebody
who would sin against God, blasphemed against God, an imposter, getting
exactly from God what he deserved. That's what I thought in my unbelief. I didn't believe it. I didn't
believe, I thought that's just And that's what men did around
the cross. But surely, He hath borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgression.
He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and with His stripes we're healed. We're so ignorant
by nature. We don't even know our own good
by nature. God sent us a trial, it's the
best thing in the world for us, and because we suffer a little
pain and cry a few tears, we say, oh, get me out of this right
now, just deliver me out of it right now. Worst thing that could
possibly be for us is to get out of it right now. And God
will teach you that, and you go on through it, and He brings
you through it, and He teaches you so much through it. And what
would he do? We looked at Christ on Calvary's
cross and esteemed Him stricken and smitten of God and never
even realized that what He was doing was our salvation. What He was accomplishing was
righteousness for His people. Look here at Psalm 41. And then when He lied down, they
said, He lieth and He shall rise no more. Verse 8. They said,
Now that He lieth, He shall rise up no more. But look at verse 10, here was
where our Lord was, and when that darkness was on the face
of the earth, I thought of this during that eclipse the other
day. We didn't get as much of it as they did in other places,
but when our Lord was crucified, it went dark like nighttime for
three hours. For three hours. And that, something
in that is telling us something unspeakable and unviewable and
incomprehensible for us that our Lord was bearing between
God and our Savior at that time. He's forsaken, God forsaking
God, satisfying His own justice. But this is just as important
as Christ bearing the sin of His people, so that God is just
to make Him a curse for His people, so that God is just to declare
us righteous and show us mercy and give us faith and robe us
in His righteousness. Just as necessary, our Lord Jesus
Christ had to be perfectly holy and faithful in His heart, trusting
the Father. There is a positive side of the
law and a negative side of the law. The positive is perfect
faith, perfect fidelity to God, never wavering, looking to the
Father, trusting Him at all times. The negative side is the soul
that sinneth must die. And on Calvary's cross, as Christ
is bearing the sin of His people and He's dying the death that
His people deserved, at the same time fulfilling the negative
part of the law, He was perfectly in His heart, looking to the
Father, faithful to the Father, never wavering, in perfect fidelity
to God. And we see it right here in verse
10. During that time, this was His
heart, but thou, O Lord, Be merciful unto me. Raise me up that I may
requite them. By this I know that thou favourest
me because my enemy doth not triumph over me." Could Christ
say that while He was suffering on the cross, while they're dancing
around the cross thinking that they have triumphed over Him?
He was perfectly trusting the promise of the Father that when
He had satisfied justice, God would raise Him. That's what
He said in Isaiah 54, Isaiah 50. He said, He's near that justifies
me. Who will contend with me? I gave
my back to the spiders. I gave my face to them and plucked
off the hair of my beard. He's near. He'll justify me.
When He's satisfied, when justice is satisfied, He'll raise me.
And so while he suffered, he said, he looked to the Father
in perfect faithfulness and said, Lord, be merciful to me. Raise
me up that I may requite them. What does that mean? Does that mean raise me up, Lord,
so that I can give them what they deserve and pay them back?
You know what he did when he called you by his grace? He requited
you. He came to you. And He gave you
what He earned for you. Raise me up that I might go.
And His requiting wasn't giving us what we deserve. His requiting
was giving us what we had never merited and never earned and
never deserved. What He purchased for us by His
blood. His perfect righteousness, perfect
acceptance with God. And He knew that God favored
Him. He knew, He said, my enemy does
not triumph over me. Even when he was suffering, he
knew the enemy wasn't triumphant. Actually, when he was suffering
and right to the point when he said, Father, it's finished,
he was the one triumphing. And he triumphed over his enemy.
And I'll tell you this, when you suffer, when me and you suffer,
And you come to the place where you're just like Christ on the
cross, where you don't have any strength in your flesh anymore,
to where you can't do one thing in the strength of your flesh. You can't do one thing. And you
look only to the Lord. That's when you're triumphing.
That's when we're triumphing. What did Paul say? When I'm weak.
then am I strong. When I am so thoroughly weak
that I can't look to myself at all, I have to entirely trust
Christ and His grace and His power. That's when I'm strong,
that the power of Christ might rest upon me. And when His bodily
flesh appeared so dead on that cross and so helpless and so
incapable of doing anything on that cross, His enemies weren't
triumphing over Him. He was perfectly laying down
His life and He triumphed over every one of His enemies. Verse 12, And as for Me, thou
upholdest Me in Mine integrity. He saw His heart. God saw His
heart. You uphold Me in My integrity.
And Christ praised the Father for His integrity. Do you see
that? You uphold Me in My integrity. And settest Me before thy face
forever. Oh, blessed be the Lord God of
Israel from everlasting and to everlasting. Amen and Amen. Has
anybody ever praised and glorified God like Christ has? Hear that. Hear what He says. As for me,
Thou upholdest me in mine integrity. Christ is God. He is the one
who created the heavens and the earth. But when He took the place
of His people, And he remained faithful on that cross. He didn't
do like the self-sanctifiers do and poke out his chest and
say, well, I upheld myself in my integrity. I look how I kept
myself. No, he said, Lord, you upheld
me in my integrity. He gave the Father all the glory. You know what you're going to
do? If you're His and He's worked in your heart, He's going to
bring you to a place to where you're going to confess, Lord,
you upheld me in my integrity. The only reason I still believe
you, Father, the only reason I still believe you, Lord, is
you upheld me. It was your power alone. Blessed
be Your name forever. That's what His people are brought
to say. We'll never say it in perfection. We'll never say it
to where we can stand on our own merit and say, well, I've
praised the Lord so that He's just going to have to receive
me. No. No. Everything we suffer is going
to have sin mixed with it, but that's how perfectly Christ the
Lord served the Father. That's why He's all our wisdom,
all our righteousness, all our holiness, and all our redemption.
That's why He's all. You trust Him. He's working that
for you and me in just a little, bitty, small, Paul called it
a light affliction. It seems painful and hard and
troubling to us. So, so heavy to us. But in comparison to what Christ
did, and in the perfection He did it, Oh, we'll never do it
like that. But our affliction is light compared
to His. But it's working for us a far
more exceeding eternal weight of glory. In other words, the
good far outweighs whatever it is you suffer. That's what He's
saying. You know why? It turns you from all these things
that are seen that we think are so real and so lasting It turns
us in faith to Christ and the unseen things that He's accomplished
for us and to see Him by faith seated at God's right hand and
that our salvation is accomplished in Him. And those are the things
that are real. He's going to shake this heaven
and this earth one more time, and only the things that cannot
be shaken will remain. And those are only the things
created by His righteousness and His holiness, and those things
are you, His people. You can't be shaken, and you'll
remain. And that's what's real. The rest
of this, it ain't real. It's just here as a stage, and
when the play's over, He's going to tear the stage down. Look
to Christ and trust Him. I pray the Lord bless you. Amen.