Alright, Psalm 89. We saw Sunday how God entered everlasting
covenant with His Son. Covenant of redemption between
the Father and the Son. And how David is a type of Christ. That covenant of redemption is
ordered and sure in Christ. But God did make a covenant.
He made this everlasting covenant with David, with the man. And
God promised in verse 34, He said, My covenant will not break,
nor alter the thing that's gone out of my lips, once I have sworn
by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall
endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall
be established forever as the moon and as a faithful witness
in heaven. But now the psalmist who's writing
this, the heading says it's a mascal of Ethan. He lived in the time
of King Rehoboam. And during that time, Israel
and Judah were divided against each other. It was nothing like
it was in David's reign. They were completely divided
against each other. Egypt had come up against them.
Later Babylon would come up and take them captive. And so, Ethan
probably experienced what we're reading in this psalm, and really
thought that God had broken his covenant with David. He said
in verse 38, but thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been
wroth with thine anointed. That is, with David. That's who
Ethan would be saying this about. Thou hast made void the covenant
of thy servant. Thou hast profaned his crown
by casting it to the ground. His thrones, you know, the kingdom's
divided. Thou hast broken down all his
hedges. Thou hast brought his strongholds
to ruin. All that pass by the way spoil
him. He's reproached to his neighbors.
Thou hast set up the right hand of his adversaries. Thou hast
made all his enemies to rejoice. All these enemy nations coming
against Israel and Judah. Thou hast also turned the edge
of His sword and has not made Him stand in the battle. They
retreated often during the battle. Thou hast made His glory to cease.
Thou hast cast His throne down to the ground. The days of His
youth hast Thou shortened. Thou hast covered Him with shame.
How long, Lord, wilt Thou hide Thyself forever? Shall Thy right
wrath burn like fire? And on he goes with those questions
concerning the reproach of the enemy and all those things. Now
looking at things with carnal eyes, Ethan thought God broke
His covenant with David. And he thought He broke His covenant
with His people. But what he was seeing was actually
God fulfilling His covenant. That was God fulfilling his covenant.
And this is my main point tonight. If we judge providence by carnal
sense, we're always gonna be cast down in unbelief. If we
judge providence with these eyes, with our carnal senses, we're
gonna be cast down in unbelief. But if we judge providence by
faith in God's everlasting covenant promise. If we remember God's
everlasting covenant promise, we'll see things as they really
are. See them as they really are. Now I want to look at this
in a few ways. I want to first go back to eternity. Let's go back to eternity. God
the Father and His Son entered covenant to save God's elect
before the world was ever made. This thing was ordered and shared
between God the Father and His Son in eternity. We saw this
all through this psalm last time. In that covenant of redemption,
it was between God who cannot lie and His Son who cannot fail. And so the works were finished
from the foundation of the world. God chose a people, gave them
to His Son, His Son entered covenant to honor the Father in all things,
fulfill all the law and the prophets, honor His justice and save His
people, justify His people, make them righteous and bring them
all to God and present them to the Father faultless. This was
the promise, and God the Father promised mercies to His Son.
He would not let the enemy exact upon Him more than was just. And God's eternal purpose of
redemption, it was founded, it was established, and really the
world was founded on that covenant promise. You know over in Hebrews
when we read of Christ and it says, He upholds all things by
the word of His power. That's even more than just His
sovereign power. That's His word of His everlasting
covenant. This everlasting covenant ensures
that all things are going to continue until He's called the
last one that He's redeemed. That's certain. But now what
happened? As soon as God made Adam, and
as soon as God put him in the garden and gave him the law,
Adam sinned and death entered. He made this covenant in eternity.
He created all things. He put Adam in the garden. And
as soon as he did this, Adam sinned and death entered and
passed upon all men. Now judging from carnal sins,
if we had seen that by carnal sins, it appeared that the covenant
failed. It would appear the covenant failed, but that's not so. The
fall in Adam, with sin entering, was part of God's covenant. It
was part of God's covenant. This cross of Christ is not plan
B. It was all part of God's covenant.
Christ was head of his elect from eternity and therefore he
made Adam after his image. He made him the head of his elect
to be a figure of Christ to come. So that when Adam as the head
of his house sinned and he brought sin and death upon all his house,
through that black backdrop we are going to have Christ come
into the world and reign through righteousness and show how grace
does much more abound through His righteousness unto eternal
life and how He saves His people. All that was purpose. So you
see what I'm saying? The covenant was made in eternity. But as soon as God made Adam,
what happened? Sin entered and death. But that
was all part of the covenant. It was all part of the covenant.
Now look to God's covenant with David. When God came to David,
He did for David what He does for all His people. He taught
him the gospel. He sends the gospel to us and
He teaches us Christ. He called David. He chose David
from eternity. He called him. He taught him
the gospel. He anointed David. He made him
a king. Anointed him with oil. God regenerates
His people, anoints us with the oil of the Spirit, the oil of
gladness, makes us kings and priests under God through the
blood of Christ. And just like God made an everlasting
covenant with David, showed him Christ, showed him all this is
fulfilled in Christ, and entered that everlasting covenant with
David, saying, David, this thing's not in your hands. It's all fulfilled
in my Son. That seed that's coming through
you, He's going to fulfill all things and make you righteous,
and it's His throne that's going to reign forever. It's going
to be forever. So God gives us faith to believe
the gospel of God's covenant promise. He gives us faith to
believe Him and trust this everlasting covenant's order to ensure in
all things by Christ. Christ Himself is the covenant.
Christ came and fulfilled the law for us, made us righteous
by His blood. And Christ is the righteousness
of His people. And He's all our salvation. You
are complete in Him. Now that's what God did with
David. But you know what happened? As
soon as he made that covenant with David, the son of David, Solomon, Solomon
sinned. And then there was a whole generation
after generation of kings in Israel that sinned. Sin entered. Sin came about. And we have this
carnal man with us. We have this earthly man that's
so bound to time and so bound to earthly things. Men give their
own meanings to God's promise. Give their own meanings to the
Word of God. And then they cast down with
things because things don't happen according to the meaning they've
given to the Word of God. The children of Israel thought
God's covenant with David meant David would always have an earthly
kingdom. They thought God meant there
would always be a member of David's house on an earthly throne in
earthly Israel. That's one reason the Jews rejected
Christ when he came. They were looking for a majestic
king to come and he was going to deliver them from temporal
bondage from the bondage of an earthly nation and set up a temporal
kingdom and reign on an earthly throne and they were just going
to have smooth sailing from then on and just be ruling over everybody
in the world. Even Christ's true disciples
thought it. There's multitudes today who
are looking for Christ to come again and set up an earthly kingdom
exactly like they were looking for Christ to do the first time.
People today are looking for that. They think He's going to
come and set up an earthly kingdom like they were looking for Him
to do the first time. That's man's carnal meaning given
to God's covenant promise. But that's not God's meaning.
God used material things and types to illustrate spiritual
truth. If we know God's meaning, then
we see God's Word is eternal. It's eternally true in and by
Christ. When we start regarding the spiritual
meaning and the spiritual fulfillment as preeminent, when are we going
to do that? When we regard Christ as preeminent.
When we see it's all about Christ. It's all about Him receiving
the glory and it's all about what He's accomplished for His
people. When that's our foundation and
that's our anchor and we start looking at everything in this
Word as it being a spiritual promise, a spiritual fulfillment
accomplished by Christ, That's when these things will become
spirit to us. Everything in this book is spiritual. Beginning
to end. The covenant was spiritual. It's
about spiritual promises. It's about a spiritual kingdom.
It's about what God works in spirit for His people. God's
salvation is spiritual. His blessings are spiritual.
His kingdom is spiritual. The Lord Jesus answered them
one day. He said, My kingdom is not of
this world. My kingdom is not of this world. That's about as clear as you
can say it. My kingdom were of this world, then would my servants
fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom
not from hence. He said another time, the Pharisees
demanded of him, they said, when should the kingdom of God come?
When is the kingdom of God coming? They were looking for an earthly
kingdom. They were looking at things with carnal sight, looking
for earthly blessings. When is the Kingdom coming? That's
what they demanded of Him. And He answered them and He said,
The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation. You're not going to see it with
carnal eyes. Neither shall they say, Lo here
or lo there. It's not going to be in this
earth here or there. Where is it? Behold, the kingdom
of God is within you. What does that mean? It means it's spiritual. It means
it's spiritual. When Christ warned us that we
cannot serve God in mammon, He's teaching us that His kingdom
and His blessings and His worship is spiritual. Our Heavenly Father
knows we have need of temporal things. He put us in a temporal
earth And we need some temporal things, because our bodies right
now are temporal. And He'll provide them. But these
things are not the important thing. They're not. Now to us, in this carnal life,
we think they're all important. But they're not the important
thing. That's what Christ was teaching when He said you can't
serve God in mammon. Christ said, seek ye first, pre-eminently,
the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. instead of mammon, instead of
temporal blessings, instead of temporal things, instead of having
our minds set on these things of time and sense. Seek first
the kingdom of God, that kingdom that's not of this earth, and
Christ our righteousness. These are the things he'll add,
but what he's saying to us is this, we cannot have confidence
in Christ and confidence in our flesh. Think about it. Circumcision doesn't avail nor
uncircumcision. It's not what you do or don't
do in this flesh that avails. What avails? Christ Jesus making
his people an entirely new spiritual creation by his doing. That's
the only thing that avails. This world's gospel is about
man. That's what it's about. It's
about man. It's about man keeping the law
for earthly blessings of health and wealth and prosperity in
the earth. And even people that preach against those televangelists
who talk about health and wealth and prosperity, even people that
preach against those still preach a gospel that minds carnal things
of man's doing and man's not doing for temporal blessings,
trying to indebt God for a heavenly reward. God provides temporal things
we need, but those that are born of God, we need to get this. We worship God in spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. We don't have any confidence
in the flesh. Not our own, not anybody else's.
Not what we do in a positive way or a negative way. This everlasting
covenant of grace does not change in Christ. If He's ever brought
you to seek Christ, and to know Christ, and believe Christ, and
have all your confidence in Christ alone, He's going to keep it
there. He is. We worship Him in spirit. In spirit. We walk by faith trusting
Christ our righteousness who shall keep us according to his
covenant promise. Our purpose is to spread this
gospel of Christ. That's our purpose. To use whatever
temporal things he gives to spread this gospel of Christ. far and
wide, until Christ calls out the last of his lost sheep, till
he creates that last earthy carnal sinner that's his, that he elected,
that he chose, that he redeemed, till he comes to them with this
gospel, and within that dead sinner, creates a new man in
spirit and unites him with Christ. When that last one is called,
everything we think is so important is going to be wrapped up. And
if our confidence is in these things and in our flesh, what
we have done, and we haven't been born of His
Spirit so that He alone is our confidence and we're vitally
united with Him, then not only is this world going to be wrapped
up and burned up, when this flesh dies, all our works are going
to vanish with it. And they won't do us any good.
What matters? Christ. We're going to go and
be with Him in that new creation that He's made. That's all His
creation. New Jerusalem. That He's made. And we're going to worship Christ
there. And everybody that's there is going to be holy and righteous
by only what Christ did. By only what Christ did. You
mean nothing we do is going to contribute to us being that new
Jerusalem? Absolutely nothing. Absolutely
nothing. All of Christ. Now I want you
to look at these promises concerning Christ. And I'm just going to
talk about some that we've seen in the past, but I want you to
think about these promises. Back there with Abraham. God
promised Abraham, he said, in thy seed shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed. Now Paul tells us plainly in
Galatians 3.16, he said not seeds as of many, but as of one, to
thy seed which is Christ. It's the same promise God made
to David. There's coming a seed through you, Abraham. He's the
seed of woman. He's Christ Jesus the Lord. And
in Him, all my elect scattered in every nation are going to
be blessed. with all spiritual blessings. His spiritual blessings
are given freely to those he redeemed by his blood, who he
gives new life and faith to trust him. And rest all our confidence
in Christ, trusting he has fulfilled everything for his people. Now
from Abraham, God, Abraham had several children, many children. But God produced Isaac, then
He produced Jacob, then He produced Judah. And God promised that
Christ would come through the tribe of Judah. Go over to Genesis
49 and verse 10. I'm going to come back to our
psalm, but I want to show you something here of the sovereignty
of God to fulfill His promise. Genesis 49.10. He said, the scepter, that is
the throne, the kingly throne, the scepter, shall not depart
from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh
come. And unto him, unto Shiloh shall
the gathering of the people be. It's to Shiloh that the gathering
of God's elect people are gonna be gathered. Binding his foal
into the vine and his ass's coat into the choice vine, he washed
his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes.
His eyes shall be red with wine and his teeth white with milk.
Now you know that's Christ. God assured Jacob and Judah and
all his elect that the government of earthly Judah would continue
until Christ the Messiah came. They would have somebody on their
throne until it came. That's what the Lord promised
David. Your throne is going to continue
until Shiloh comes. Now Shiloh means the son to whom
it belongs. That's what that means. He means
prosperous. He means peace. And Christ is
that. He is that son of God to whom
the government of His spiritual Israel belongs. On one occasion,
in Ezekiel 21-25, God said to one of the wicked
kings, he said, thou profane wicked prince of Israel, whose
day has come, when iniquity shall have an end, thus saith the Lord
God, remove the diadem and take off the crown. I will overturn,
overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more until he come
whose right it is, and I will give it to him. That's what Shiloh
means, him to whom it rightfully belongs. God said, I'm going
to overturn until he comes to whom it rightfully belongs. Now
when Christ was born king, and he was born king, the government
in Judah ended. It ended. Christ manifestly took
the throne as the King of kings and Lord of lords, and he must
reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. That's when the
reign began, when Christ came. That was the beginning of the
last day. Christ came and He finished the work, He went to
the cross, and He's the ruler now. Well, He always was. He was ruling Judah the whole
time, making sure that their throne was preserved until the
day He came, He who is shallow. Listen to this from Isaiah 9.6.
Let's go read it. Isaiah 9. in verse 6. Let's read this. You know this,
but let's read this. Isaiah 9, 6. Unto us a child is born, unto
us a son is given. There's the son to whom it belongs.
And the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall
be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace. And of the increase of his government
and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David and
upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment
and with justice from henceforth even forever. And the zeal of
the Lord of hosts will perform this." That was the everlasting
covenant promised to David in Christ right there. There it
was. There's things in that Psalm, in Psalm 89, that can't apply
to David. It begins with Christ saying,
I'm going to declare God's mercies from generation to generation.
David couldn't do that. God said, he said there in Psalm
89, look here, Psalm 89. Let me see if I can find it here. Verse 12, the north and the south,
thou hast created them. Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice
in thy name. That means north to south, east
to west, they're going to rejoice in Christ. Thou hast a mighty
arm, strong is thy hand, high is thy right hand. Justice and
judgment are the habitation of thy throne. Mercy and truth shall
go before thy face. That's Christ. And God said here, He said in verse 25, I will set
His hand also in the sea and His right hand in the rivers.
That means He's going to rule the islands, the Gentiles, His
elect among the Gentiles, and He's going to rule His elect
in the inward lands where the rivers provide the water. All
His people, north, south, east, and west, He's going to be the
ruler of them. That's only speaking of Christ.
That was His covenant. But now in our psalms, Ethan
sees these tribes and they're divided. Egypt has come and they've
come up against them. Babylon's going to take them
captive, labor on. And he thinks now, he thinks,
Lord, you've cast off the covenant you made with David. You've cast
his crown down. His throne's not going to last. That wasn't contrary to God's
covenant. That was part of God's covenant.
That was part of, just like the fall was part of it, that was
part of God's covenant. God promised He's gonna chasten
His elect the same as He does today. Look at verse 30. He said,
if His children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments,
if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then
I will visit their transgression with a rod and their iniquity
with stripes. Our Heavenly Father only chastens
those He loves. That's what Ethan was seeing
taking place in Israel. Nevertheless, my loving kindness
will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness
to fail. My covenant will I not break,
nor alter the thing that's gone out of my lips. Now what is this
law and this statute and these commandments that they forsook?
One of the old covenant gods elect were regenerated by the
Spirit. They were given faith and worshipped Christ like we
do in this gospel age. They didn't see Christ maybe
as we see Him now with all that we have revealed to us, but they
were given faith and worshipped Christ too. God gave them the
Ten Commandments to show them their sin, their need of Christ,
just like He has to us. And the ceremonies was their
way of worship. It typified Christ in whom all
the law is fulfilled, the high priest and the lamb. And so they
came to God, when they came to worship, they came to God confessing
their sins, confessing their inability. I'm talking about
God's true elect now. He's given faith. They came there
confessing their sin through the blood of a lamb, saying that's
what I deserve. And that high priest represented
them in the holiest of holies. And they were saying, that's
the only way I can come to God. In Christ the Lamb, Christ the
high priest. They believed him. But Israel forsook the law of
God's everlasting covenant in Christ. Now God's elect saw the
gospel in that. The gospel of the covenant of
redemption was the law they forsook. They'd already broken the law.
It wasn't that they forsook the Ten Commandments. They broke
those and were guilty of those from the beginning. What law
did they forsake? The everlasting covenant of grace
that He revealed to David. Just like men today do. What
statutes and commandments did they forsake? They'd already
broken the statutes and commandments of God. What did they forsake?
One of the kings said, it's too much trouble to go up to Jerusalem.
Let's make you some places out here you can worship. They forsook
the ceremonies that typified Christ the High Priest and Christ
the Lamb and started worshiping however they wanted to worship. And Ethan, what he saw was God
fulfilling His covenant. He saw God chastening His true
elect in their midst for their spiritual good, for Christ's
glory to keep them walking by faith in Christ. That's what
he saw. It was just like it is in our day. Natural sinners went
on worshiping their idols and God let them do it because he
wasn't trying to turn them. And there were some who returned
with God's elect who weren't God's elect and they were right
there by God's elect. But God effectually chastened
His elect through all that working with those nations and bringing
them up against them and carrying them into captivity and bringing
them back. He really chastened His elect in the heart and He
made them look to Christ alone and trust His righteousness alone
in spirit. I know it's hard to understand
they were worshipping in spirit when they had the ceremony, but
they were worshipping God in spirit. That was their form of
worship just like ours is right here today. The things we see
going on in this world, the things we see going on in our lives,
when things look like God's hand's heavy upon you, it's God's chastening
hand for our good. What's He doing? He's fulfilling
His everlasting covenant promise to us. That's part of His covenant.
Christ is going to fulfill our righteousness. And what is He
saying? If my children turn from Christ, if they turn from walking
by faith, being constrained by His love, and they turn to themselves,
or back to the law, or to their carnal lusts, I'll chase them.
Because I'm going to keep them worshiping Christ. I'm going
to keep them walking by faith. I'm going to draw them nearer
to me. I'm going to grow them in wisdom and knowledge and understanding.
I'm going to grow them up into Christ in all things. I'm going
to keep my people. That's part of his covenant.
And that fulfillment of that part of his covenant belongs
to Christ just like his cross work belongs to Christ. He's
the head of the church. He is the prophet, priest, and
king of his people. And he's teaching us through
earthen nobodies, earthen vessels who are nobody. And he's teaching
me and you who are nobody. And what's he teaching us? To
have no confidence in ourselves and have it all in Christ. He's going to turn us from our
temporal idols and our carnal lusts. He's going to keep us
walking by faith in Christ, worshiping in Spirit, and having no confidence
in the flesh. That's what He's going to do
for His people. Because He promised it in Christ.
My covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that's gone
out of my lip. Look to Christ on the cross now.
Now look to Him on the cross. It appeared to the disciples
just like it appeared to Ethan. You could read that last part
there, the whole thing, and hear Christ speaking on the cross.
And it appeared to them just like it appeared to Ethan, that
God made void His covenant when Christ was crucified. Remember
how down they got over that? After Christ went into the tomb,
oh, we thought this was Him that was going to redeem Israel. The
Christ on the cross is God fulfilling his everlasting covenant for
his people. There wasn't any disappointment
there. The whole thing he was doing
was settled from eternity. God didn't abhor his anointed.
That's what Ethan thought. You've abhorred your anointed.
That's what the disciples thought. You've abhorred your anointed.
He's pleased with Christ's one offering because he established
justice for his people. He established justice for his
father. He declared Him just, justifying Him. He didn't profane
His crown. The cross is His crowning glory. He let the hedges be broken down.
He did. He let the hedges be broken down
so His enemies could afflict Him. But by doing so, He destroyed
and conquered all His enemies and ours too. By that, He built up our eternal
walls of salvation so that We're protected in His righteousness. And all His enemies rejoiced
in His crucifixion. They all rejoiced in it. But
Christ conquered all our enemies by His death. Here's what He's
teaching us in this psalm. He teaches us to use spiritual
discernment. Spiritual discernment. What's
that? It has nothing to do with these
eyes. has to do with this word. It
has to do with the spirit of God in our heart. It has to do
with him pointing us to Christ Jesus, our righteousness. Judge God's providence by this
everlasting covenant promise. Judge it by what Christ has accomplished.
God doesn't chasten his children in wrath because Christ quenched
his wrath in justice and in truth. God's chastening is His love
fulfilling His covenant. It's keeping His redeemed walking
in His statutes of faith constrained by His love. That's what it is. Now, if I don't think Christ
can get that job done, I'll try to take His throne and I'll try
to do it myself. I'll try to work it in others.
It ain't gonna happen. It ain't gonna happen. When I'm
doing that, I'm not a keeper of His law. I'm not a doer of
His law. I've become a judge of it. He's
going to do that work. There's one lawgiver He's able
to save. Did He save you? Has He saved
you? Has He made you see your vileness? Has He made you see there's nothing
in you good? If He has, and He's shown you
mercy, you're going to rejoice in His mercy. He's going to keep
you looking to Christ. He's going to keep you worshiping
Christ in spirit. He's going to keep you having
no confidence in the flesh. He's going to keep His people
pointing one another to Him. And here's the thing. He satisfied
justice for His people so that we can rejoice in mercy toward
one another just like He does toward us every day. Do you need His mercy every day? She saved you in mercy every
day in spite of you. Pharisees didn't think so. Pharisees
didn't need His mercy. That's why they came with those
rocks in their hand, wanting to kill that adulterous woman. Christ
dealt with them, and He saved that adulterous woman. If we
need mercy, if we're the adulterer and we need mercy, Here's the
good news. He already poured out His judgment
on you. He settled it. It's settled.
So you know what He does to you? He shows you mercy every single
day for Christ's sake. You know what He's teaching you
and me to do? This is the gospel, brethren. This is what men miss
in this world. This is the gospel. The only
just thing to do with one another is to be merciful to one another.
He settled justice. He settled justice. And if we need mercy and we're
thankful for His mercy, that's what we're going to rejoice in,
His mercy. He's going to keep His gospel
going forth until the day He brings all His redeemed to stand
face to face with Him. And this is what we're going
to sing in that last verse, verse 52. We're going to sing and praise
Him and say, blessed be the Lord forevermore. Amen and amen. I pray He'll bless that. Brother
Greg.