All right, brethren, let's turn
to Psalm 97. Psalm 97. I want to direct your
attention to the last verse. It says, Rejoice in the Lord,
ye righteous. and give thanks at the remembrance
of His holiness. The Spirit of God commands his
people, rejoice ye in the Lord, ye righteous. That's who God's
believing children are, the righteous. And we rejoice only in the Lord
because the Lord is our righteousness. He is who made us righteous.
And he did it by his holiness. He's the only one who's holy.
Our God, Christ Jesus, is called the Holy One. He is the Holy
One. It's His holiness by which we're
saved. Notice the next word there. He
says, give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. His holiness. And this psalm declares the Lord's
holiness. It shows us how that it was by
God's holiness that Christ came and established his throne in
righteousness by his righteous judgment on the cross. That's
his holiness. God is holy and he's going to
save his people in a way that's holy. And so he sent his son
and the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross and by his righteousness
He answered to His own judgment, settled judgment for His people.
And that's how He reigns. He reigns in holiness by what
He accomplished for His people. Now, the Psalms divided into
three sections. This time, we're just going to
look at verses 1 through 5. It declares God's holiness. And next time, the next hour,
we'll look at verses 6 through 7, which shows us the sin of
those who reject Christ. And then we'll look at verses
eight through 12, which show the rejoicing of the Lord's people. I'm just gonna go verse by verse.
We're gonna go through the first five verses in this hour. And
I pray God would give us grace to behold his holiness, to behold
the Lord Jesus Christ and his holiness. Now, beginning verse
one, he says, the Lord reigneth. The Lord reigneth. Let the earth
rejoice. Let the multitude of isles be
glad thereof. He's saying let his people, wherever
they are on the earth, rejoice. Wherever they are in the islands,
throughout the world, let them rejoice. Why? The Lord reigneth. Now let me say it again. The
Lord reigns in holiness. Our Lord Jesus Christ is seated
in glory on the throne of omnipotence as the God-man mediator because
he has reigned over sin, death, and hell, saving his people,
and he's reigned in righteousness, in judgment, and he's sitting
there now in his holiness, in his splendor. Now, first of all,
the Lord Jesus reigns in holiness because he settled judgment for
his people. Now look at verse two. It says,
clouds and darkness are round about him. Now God's described
here as dwelling in a cloud and dwelling in darkness because
his ways are mysterious to natural sinners. And his ways are mysterious
to you and I who believe as well. He said, my ways are not your
ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts.
God is holy, he's high, he's separate from sinners. Now it's
certain the Lord's providence is a mystery to us in many ways.
In his providence he works in a cloud and in darkness. He works
things in this life that we'll never understand. We won't understand
it in this life, but here's what we do understand and what we
rejoice in. It's our sovereign redeemer who's
working everything that's come in the past. Thy ways in the
sea and thy path in the great waters and thy footsteps are
not known. He does as he will in heaven
and in earth and no man can stay his hand or question him. But
the Lord reigneth in his holiness by his righteous judgment on
the cross. This is what our Psalm is showing
us. He reigns in holiness by his
righteous judgment accomplished on the cross. Let's read verses
2 through 5. Clouds and darkness are round about him. Righteousness
and judgment are the habitation of his throne. That's what he's
talking about. He started out saying the Lord
reigneth. He's the reigning king and he's
telling us here how he reigns. Righteousness and judgment are
the habitation of his throne. That's his dwelling in his throne. A fire goeth before him and burneth
up his enemies round about. His lightnings enlightened the
world. The earth saw and trembled. People
saw it and trembled. The hills melted like wax at
the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the
whole earth. Remember at Sinai, The Lord sent
word by Moses over in Exodus 20. He sent word by Moses, and
he told the children of Israel everything he commanded. And
the children of Israel said this, all the people answered together,
and they said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do. All that the Lord has spoken,
we will do. And the Lord told the children
of Israel to sanctify themselves, wash themselves, put on new raiment,
get themselves all fit as they could get themselves to be because
God was going to make His presence known on the third day. Well,
they did it. They went sanctified themselves.
They washed themselves. They got themselves ready. And
they thought they were ready to meet God. Ready to do all
that God commanded them to do. And then God's presence made
Mount Sinai quake with fire and thunder and lightning. Verse
4, His lightnings enlightened the world. The earth saw and
trembled. All the children of Israel saw
it and they began to tremble. The hills melted like wax at
the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the
whole earth. They saw, they could not meet God. by any of their
self-sanctifying work. They could not wash themselves
and make themselves fit to meet holy God. This fire, this consuming
fire of God we're talking about, especially when he was giving
the law at Mount Sinai, is to declare to us God is perfectly
holy, perfectly righteous, and you and me are sinners. How are
we going to come to God? They saw they couldn't meet God
by washing themselves, and it said, Exodus 20, 18, if you want
to look at it, it said, all the people saw the thunderings and
the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountains
smoking. And when the people saw, they
were moved and stood afar off. And they said to Moses, speak
thou with us, and we will hear. But let not God speak with us,
lest we die. They wanted an intercessor. They
wanted a mediator. They wanted somebody to go between
them and God. They saw they couldn't speak
with God on their own. They needed somebody to go between
them and God. And that's exactly what God was
declaring when he gave the law and brought that to pass. We
must have Christ our intercessor. We must have a mediator between
us and God. And so that's what Moses did.
Exodus 20, 21 says, the people stood afar off. And Moses drew
near unto the thick darkness where God was. It says in Exodus
24, 16, the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai. That's
what all the fire and the consuming fire was about, the glory of
the Lord, His holiness. It abode on the Mount Sinai,
and the cloud covered it six days. Our text says he dwells
in thick cloud and darkness. That's declaring his righteousness,
his holiness, his perfection. And it abode on the mountain
six days, and in the seventh day the Lord called Moses up
to him. And it says, and the sight of the glory of the Lord
was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes
of the children of Israel. And Moses went into the midst
of the cloud and got up into the mountain. And Moses was in
the mountain forty days and forty nights. What is all that picture?
Look to the cross. Look to the cross. Look to Calvary's
cross. The Lord Jesus is the intercessor
between God and His people. He's the mediator between God
and His people, just like Moses was that day. And when you look
to the cross, you see clouds and darkness. Darkness fell over
the world. You see righteousness and judgment
going forth. You see a fire going before Him
and devouring up His enemies round about. That's what was
taking place on the cross. The fire of God's righteous judgment
devoured His enemies on the cross. Get what I'm saying? The fire
of God's righteous judgment, His righteousness toward those
who had sinned against Him, He devoured His enemies on the cross
at Calvary. The good news for His people
is this. Christ bore that righteous judgment in place of His people
and He put away the fire, the devouring fire of God's people. But now that fire devoured His
people on the cross. That fire, Romans 6 tells us,
our old man of sin is crucified with Christ. That sin should
no more reign over us because when you're dead, you are freed
from sin. That means justified from sin. And that's what Christ was doing
on that cross. Righteousness and judgment are
the habitation of His throne. If He's going to receive us into
glory, it's going to have to be in righteousness. And He poured
out judgment on His Son in place of all God's elect people. Turn
with me to 1 Kings 8. When he declares in the first
verse of our psalm, the Lord reigneth, he's talking about
the Lord Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, the triune God in
Christ Jesus, and he's not simply saying he reigns in sovereignty,
though he does. He's sovereign over all. He's
omnipotent. He rules everything in heaven
and earth. He's God. But it's declaring
to us, brethren, that He was risen, triumphant over sin, and
that His people are more than conquerors in Him that loved
us. Now look here in 1 Kings 8. Solomon
is a type of Christ. You know that. He's the son of
David. Christ is the son of David. Solomon built the house of God.
The Lord Jesus built the house of God. He built up his people
by laying down his life on the cross. Now, after Solomon built
the temple, they brought the ark into the holiest of holies. That ark's a picture of Christ.
It had the mercy seat on top of it. Christ is our mercy seat.
His shed blood on the mercy seat covering the law that was in
the ark. That's all picturing Christ,
our propitiation. who propitiated God for the sins
of His people. Now, they brought it into the
holiest of holies and there was an ark in the house that Solomon
built. Now listen to this, verse 9.
1 Kings 8 and 9. There was nothing in the ark
save the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb
when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel when
they came out of the land of Egypt. You remember when Christ
came, he said in Hebrews 10, quoting the Psalms, he said,
Thy law, O God, is within my heart. He came and served God
in place of his people with his people in him under the law,
serving God perfectly because his people couldn't do it. And
he went to the cross and bore that judgment to put away our
sin so that we died in him. Now watch. Verse 10, and it came
to pass when the priests were come out of the holy place that
the cloud filled the house of the Lord. Our Psalms talk about
him dwelling in a cloud. This cloud filled the house of
the Lord so that the priests could not stand to minister because
of the cloud for the glory of the Lord had filled the house
of the Lord. Now hold your place right there
just a minute. Christ is the ark. He's the mercy seat. It's His blood that was shed.
It's Christ that propitiated God for His people. And Christ's
glory is this cloud that filled the house. Our Lord Jesus Christ,
our ark, our mercy seat, has ascended up now into the holiest
of holies in the presence of God. That's where He is. And
He's there alone. And the law You know, God gave
the law and they broke it. And God, he brought Moses up,
he wrote it on those stones and he told Moses, you put this in
the ark. Don't put it in the hands of the people. And he put
it in the ark. And that's the only thing that
was in that ark was the tables of stone. And the law is only
fulfilled by Christ. He's the one who fulfilled it.
And he's ascended there now into the holiest of holies. And when
that ark went into that holiest of holies, That cloud filled
the holy place and the priests could not minister anymore. They
couldn't do what God had given them to do anymore under the
law. They couldn't do it. They could not do anything because
the glory of the Lord filled the house. Brethren, Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Because
Christ fulfilled the law, because he satisfied justice, he is reigning
now, he's risen. That's his reward of his inheritance
from God the Father in covenant. with Him because of His accomplished
redemption. And His glory fills the house. He put an end to all the old
covenant law. He put an end to the curse that
was against His people. He put an end to the old covenant
priesthood. He is our High Priest so that
now the work is finished. That's what you have pictured
there. When He entered that Holy of Holies, the priests couldn't
even minister anymore. And He did away with the law.
He is the end of the law for righteousness to His people.
Now I want you to hear Christ speaking. Solomon is going to
speak now. But I want you to hear Christ
speaking. Look at verse 12. 1 Kings 8 verse 12. Then spake Solomon. Now you hear
Christ speaking. He is the son of David. Christ
is the son of David. He built the house of God by
His blood and righteousness. Now listen to hear Christ speaking.
The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. They saw
that ark go in and they saw that thick cloud and Solomon turned
and said, this is what the Lord said. He would dwell in thick
darkness. Christ dwells, that's his glory
we're seeing. He dwells in his glory. The Lord
reigneth. Now watch. Solomon speaking,
but here Christ speaking. I have surely built thee a house
to dwell in a settled place for thee to abide in forever That's
what Christ accomplished at Catherine. He built us a house He built
us a settled place where we can dwell in forever and he is that
place verse 14 and the king of Our text says the Lord reigneth,
Christ reigneth. The king turned his face about
and blessed the congregation of Israel. And all the congregation
of Israel stood. When Christ turns his face to
us and he blesses us and makes us behold him in his holiness,
He comes to us like He did to Isaiah and He puts the live coal
on our tongue. He puts the gospel in our heart.
He comes and puts these words of life in our heart. He makes
an everlasting covenant with us in our heart. And He makes
us to know that He established His people in His holiness. His
righteous judgment is settled for His people. He has made us
a place to dwell in, a house in the heavens not made with
hands. And He is that house. He is that tabernacle in whom
we dwell. Look at verse 18. Now hear Christ
speaking. And the Lord said to David, My
father, You can just hear Christ saying that. The Lord said to
David, my father. Christ could say that. After
the flesh, he's the son of David. The Lord came through the lineage
of David. And the Lord says, the Lord said to David, my father,
where it was in thine heart to build a house under my name,
thou didst well that it was in thine heart. Nevertheless, thou
shalt not build the house, but thy son. Look beyond Solomon,
that's Christ the Son. Thy son that shall come forth
out of thy loins, he shall build a house unto my name. And Christ
has done it. The Lord reigns, and I hear him
speak from heaven. And the Lord hath performed his
word that he spake, and I am risen up in the room of David
my father. and sit on the throne of Israel
as the Lord promised, and have built a house for the name of
the Lord God of Israel. And I've set there a place for
the ark wherein is the covenant of the Lord, which he made with
our fathers when he brought them out of the land of Egypt." Christ
Jesus has performed the word that he spoke to David. He is
arisen, he's entered in, he's the ark that's entered in, the
covenant's established, the everlasting covenant of grace is established
in him, and he sits there on his throne in Israel. That's
what our Psalm is telling us when it says the Lord reigneth.
He dwells in a thick cloud, in darkness, in the righteous Throne
in his righteous throne a throne of righteousness and judgment.
That's what we behold when we believe Christ That's what we
behold when he brings us to see him Now go with me to Isaiah
6 Isaiah chapter 6 I Want you to see Our text begins and it says,
the Lord reigns, the Lord reigneth. And it says, let all the earth
rejoice, let the isles be glad. Now, how is it we're brought
to rejoice? How is it we're brought to be
glad? The Lord sends forth his messenger. And you remember what
the message is? When he told him in Isaiah 40
to go forth and preach the gospel, he said, first of all, declare
all flesh is grass. You and I are sinners. That's
it. End of story. The only thing
we contribute to this thing of salvation is we have sinned. That's it. But then he said,
tell them, behold, thy God reigneth. Thy God reigneth. And he began
to declare who God is. He's the great shepherd of the
sheep. He's the great shepherd of the sheep. His works before
him. He came and accomplished the
work. And his glory followed him to heaven. And he's gathering
the lambs with his arm. How are we going to be made to
bow to him and rejoice in him and cast all our care into Christ's
hand? He's gonna have to make us see
Christ reigning as the king Triumphant in redemption in all his holiness
And he makes you see that by making you see what he accomplished
on the cross. That's why he's risen to his
throne That's why he's risen now. That's what Isaiah saw Isaiah
6 1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting
upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the
temple." Isaiah saw Christ. That's who he saw. That's who
he saw. He saw Christ. He was woeing
everybody else and condemning everybody else, but God brought
him right here and he saw Christ and something changed. Watch
this. He said, above the throne, Stood the seraphims, each one
had six wings, with twain he covered his face, and with twain
he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried
unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his
glory. Our psalm says, Rejoice in the
Lord our righteousness. Remember His holiness. He's reigning because He's holy.
He's reigning because He accomplished redemption. Now watch this. And
when He heard this, the posts of the door moved at the voice
of Him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. There
it is again. Him dwelling in that thick cloud.
That's His glory. Then said I, this is what happens
when you see him high and lifted up, see what it took to put away
the sin of his people. Then said I, woe is me. Not woe is somebody else, not
woe are the others, woe is me. For I am undone. Because I am
a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips. For mine eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of hosts." That's what the psalmist is singing about,
the Lord reigneth. He said, I've seen the Lord of
hosts, I've seen Christ my Redeemer, He reigneth. His throne is a
habitation of righteousness and judgment. He's in that thick
cloud of His glory because He accomplished it for His people.
Well, there He is. He's on His face before the Lord. He's mourning His sin now, hating
the evil He is. Now what's the Lord going to
do for Him? He's where the children of Israel were when they saw
the Lord in all His holy righteousness on Mount Sinai and saw the fire
and the thunder and the lightning and they fell on their faces
and said we can't approach Him. That's where Isaiah is right
now. That's where He's going to bring you and me. That's where
He always brings us and keeps bringing us there so that we
see We can't come to God any other way but Him. He's our only
righteousness. And when He does that, He brings
you to hit your face, makes you to see, woe is me, I'm undone,
I'm the sinner. What does He do? Verse 6, Then
flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his
hand, which he had taken with tongs from off the altar. Christ
is our altar. And this gospel of redemption,
this gospel we preach is the fire. It's the fire that burns
up. It's the fire that warms the
heart of His people. And He laid it upon my mouth
and He said, Lo, this has touched thy lips. Thine iniquity is taken
away and thy sin is purged. You know what iniquity is? Why
does it always say your iniquity is taken away and your sin is
purged? Why does it say that? Iniquity
is our so-called goodness and our so-called merit and our so-called
law-keeping and the things that we think is going to commend
us to God. It's inequitable. It does not equal the righteousness
and holiness of God. And God says to make you know,
I've taken it away. I've taken away your iniquity.
And your sin is everything we are by nature, everything we
think and do that comes from our sin nature is nothing but
sin. He takes away all our righteousnesses and all our sins, purges it all
away because it's all just sin. And makes us see that Christ
accomplished it. And when that happens, brethren,
we behold Christ reigning in holiness and the result is always
the same. The effect is always the same. In your heart, sometimes in your
body, but in your heart, you hit your face before the Lord
and say, woe is me, I'm undone. And he brings you that sentence
from on high with the live coal and makes you know in your heart,
your iniquity is put away, your sin is purged by the blood of
Christ. I'm gonna tell you, recently,
The reason that God's preachers always say that we don't glory
in anything but the gospel of Christ, we preach Christ and
Him crucified. Why do you keep doing it? You know, I think people
get, they don't understand, you know, something happens and you
need to preach to that. You preach to that and I guarantee
you're going to make it worse. Brother Walter Grover used to
say, you let a cow patty, when it's fresh, you try to move it,
you're getting it all over you, but you let the sun dry it out
real good and you can throw it like a frisbee. That's a crude
illustration, but it's so. It's so. You know it's so. If
I was to start naming names and calling out things right now,
you know it's so. You can't hear it. But here's
the truth. You preach Christ and Him crucified,
and the Lord turns you to Christ and makes you see what it took
to put away your iniquity, your self-righteousness, and your
sin, and that He's reigning, and you're reigning there with
Him. And that will do the work. Christ will do the work in the
heart of his people, whatever it is, and he'll apply it to
every situation that the preacher and nobody else knows anything
about. And he'll make you hit your faith and make you know
what he's done for you so that you'll follow him. That's so.
That's why his preachers preach the gospel. And I'll tell you,
I can prove to you that's always the case. That's always what
happens when he makes you hear his gospel and see him high and
reigning on his throne as triumphant over sin and death. It always
happens that way. You know how I can tell you?
In Revelation chapter 11, the angel sounded and the angel declared
this. Now they're in heaven. John sees
them in glory. And the angel sounded, and he
declared, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms
of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and
ever. They beheld Christ the King on
the throne. And you know what the four and
twenty elders did? They were seated in those seats
of judgment around the throne, and when that proclamation went
forth, you know what the elders in heaven did? It says they fell
upon their faces and worshiped God. From the first hour he calls
you, it makes you see Christ high and lifted up. In every
season of trouble and every season when you need to be chastened,
corrected, and strengthened, whatever you need, He does it
the same way with this same gospel, making you behold Christ all
the way till you get in glory. When we hear that proclamation
of Christ our King reigning and we behold Him on His throne,
it doesn't matter if it's the first hour or if you're in glory,
you hit your face and worship Him. That's so. Now why would we preach anything
else? Why would we preach anything? The Pharisee don't get that.
The worldly religion does not get that. That's why they preach
what they preach. Thank God he saved you out of
that. Now that's how He keeps us partaking
of His holiness, of His holiness. When the Hebrew writer said in
Hebrews 12, lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets
us, rather than the sin that so easily besets us, is looking
to anybody and anything else but Christ the Lord. That's how
you turn out of the way. Whether it's sinning you or sinning
another or an idol or whatever it is, that's how we turn out
of the way. And our faithful Father chastens
His people, and this is His chastening. What I'm preaching to you today,
this is His rod of correction. It's the gospel of Christ's name
crucified. And when He chastens His people,
who He loves, He turns you to Christ, back to Christ. You know
why? Remember why I said? To keep
you partaking of His holiness. He's the holiness. He's the holiness. All self-righteous, proud sinners
won't talk about their holiness. He's the holiness. And when He's
made your holiness, we'll stop talking about our holiness. We'll
stop talking about our holiness. We'll talk about Him. That's
what our psalmist tells us. Remember His holiness, brethren. Verse 1, the Lord reigneth. Let the earth rejoice. Let the
multitude of the isles be glad therefore. And here's what we're
glad about. You saw that mountain quaking
on Mount Sinai and the fire of God's wrath and His judgment
and the habitation of His throne and righteousness and judgment?
Because Christ went to the cross and bore that for His people.
Hebrews 12 tells you who believe, you've not come to that mountain.
You've not come to that mountain that quaked and trembled, and
it was such a sight that even Moses trembled and quaked. Ourselves
said the people saw it, and they trembled, the earth trembled.
Moses trembled and quaked, they said. You've not come to that
mountain. Oh, that's where religion will take you to Calvary and
they'll give lip service to Christ, but then they take you right
back to that mountain. And they want to start firing
that on you with the law. You've not come to that mountain.
You've not come to that mountain. You've come to a mountain that
can't be touched. You've come to Mount Zion. You come to the
city of God. You come to heavenly Jerusalem.
You come to God the judge. That's good news to God's people.
Why? Because our judgment was settled at Calvary in Christ. You come to God the judge and
now he says not guilty. not guilty, righteous in my Son. Why? Because you've come to Christ
Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, whose blood speaks
better things than the old covenant blood. His blood speaks and says
righteous. His blood says justified. His
blood says forgiven. That's the mountain we've come
to, brethren. And so we rejoice that the Lord
reigneth. We rejoice in His holiness. He
creates a new man in us in His righteousness and in His holiness,
but it's His holiness we're partaking of. It's His holiness we're partaking
of. He's robed us in His righteousness
and we rejoice in Christ alone. So look at verse 12 again in
our psalm. Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous,
and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. Let's go to
Him. Our God and our Father, how we
thank You. Oh, we're thankful, Lord, that You
have sent Your Son and that You, in righteousness, have settled
judgment for Your people. Thank you, Father, for giving
us a sight of Christ reigning on his throne. Make us to know,
Lord, how truly we sit there in Christ at your right hand.
Lord, use this word to quicken our hearts. Use it to chasten. Use it to turn us from everything
except Christ alone. Lord, bring us to rejoice in
the Lord. Bring us to rejoice in His righteousness
at the remembrance of His holiness manifest on the cross. Lord,
keep us right there. Keep us, keep us right there. We pray, we ask it. We'll pray
for your people everywhere, Lord, that you do the same this morning
for them. In Christ's name we pray, amen.