Alright brethren, let's go to
Psalm 85. Now historically this psalm is
speaking about God delivering the nation of Israel. But it
speaks to far more than God delivering a physical nation out of national
Babylon. He speaks of God's spiritual
Israel and how He has delivered His people out of spiritual Babylon
by Christ our righteousness. Now I want to read each section
here, and I want you to notice the first section, these first
three verses, declare what God has done, what He has done. Six times He said, Lord, Thou
hast done. Verse 1, Lord, thou hast been
favorable unto thy land. Thou hast brought back the captivity
of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity
of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin. And then David asked God to do
a work in his people. We not only need a work done
for us, we need a work done in us. He says in verse 4, Turn us, O God, of our salvation. I'm sorry, let's read verse 3.
Thou hast taken away all thy wrath. Thou hast turned thyself
from the fierceness of thine anger. Turn us, O God, of our
salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease. Wilt thou
be angry with us forever? Wilt thou draw out thine anger
to all generations? Wilt thou not revive us again,
that thy people may rejoice in thee? Show us thy mercy, O Lord,
and grant us thy salvation. And then in verses 8 through
11, he declares that's exactly what God shall do. That's exactly
what God shall do. He says in verse 8, I will hear
what God the Lord will speak. How will I hear? He says that
with some certainty. I will hear what God the Lord
will speak. How will we hear? For He will
speak. For He will speak peace unto
His people and to His saints. but let them not turn again to
folly. Surely His salvation is nigh
them that fear Him, and that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed. Truth shall spring out of the
earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the
Lord shall give that which is good, and our land shall yield
her increase. Righteousness shall go before
Him, and shall set us in the way of His steps. Now do you
hear how a child of God speaks about God and His salvation?
Do you hear in this Psalm how a child of God speaks? God's
child speaks of what God has done for His people. He asks
God to work in His people. He declares what God shall do
for His people. What's absent in this psalm?
Any and all boasting of what a sinner has done. That's not
in this psalm. What has the Lord done? What
has He done for His people? Notice the past tense, Lord thou
hast. Everything that we're about to
see is done. It's finished. It is finished
by Jehovah in the person of His Son. He says here, what has the
Lord done? Verse 1, Lord thou has been favorable
unto or toward thy land. Lord is Jehovah, the existing
one. The triune God, He was manifested
in the flesh in Jehovah Jesus. The fullness of Godhead bodily
manifest in Christ. Well, what has he done? Lord,
thou hast been favorable unto thy land. This word favorable
is full of meaning. It's so full of meaning. Concerning
the sacrifices that God required, it's translated this way, accepted. Lord, thou hast accepted thy
people. In another place, it's translated
delighted. Lord, thou hast been delighted
unto thy land with thy people. You've been delighted. But the
best meaning for this passage is also the very first use of
it in the scripture. Lord, thou hast been favorable. It means well-pleased. You've been well-pleased unto
thy land towards your people. You've been well-pleased. What
has the Lord done? What has he done? He says there
in the second part, thou has brought back the captivity of
Jacob. You've been well pleased toward
your people and you've brought back the captivity of Jacob. Who's Jacob? Jacob is a multitude
in this world that no man can number. Jacob is a multitude
scattered in every nation in this world in every generation
beginning to end. is God's chosen people. Jacob. Jacob's a people God elected
under salvation by his free and his sovereign grace in Christ
simply because he loved us. Free means there was nothing
in us to make him choose us. Sovereign means it was God's
choice. He did the choosing. And he did
it simply because he loved his people. Now when you think of
Jacob, I always think of Esau, Jacob and Esau. They were twins,
they were conceived in the very same womb. They had done anything. Done neither good nor evil. And
it said that the purpose of God according to election might stand.
That the purpose of God, here's God's purpose, this is why he
elected a people. This is what he said, Jacob have
I loved and Esau have I hated. Somebody will speak astonished
and they'll say, well how could God hate Esau? The natural man
when he objects that way, he's saying God's not right to choose
me. That's what he's saying. I deserve
to be chosen. A better question is, How could
God be right to love a rotten sinner like Jacob? Nobody ever argues for that point.
Nobody ever argues and says, how on earth could God be righteous
to choose a rotten sinner like me? Here's the purpose of God according
to election. Jacob have I loved. That's the
purpose. Simply because God did it. That's
the end of it. That's the purpose. That's the
purpose. God does with his own what he
will. He's the Lord. He's Jehovah.
He said, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and whom
I will, I will harden. And this is why that's offensive.
It says it's not of our will, it's not of our works, but it's
of God that shows mercy. That's why it's offensive. Sinners
hear loud and clear what that means. It means salvations of
God choosing and saving whom he will. And that's offensive. But when God reveals what a sinner
we are, when he makes you know what a sinner you are, You have
a nature in you that does nothing but sin. Constantly. Can't do anything but sin. And
it'll be with you till the day you die. And he makes you know
that. That's when God's Jacob's rejoiced
that God chose us by grace. That's when God's Jacob's rejoiced
that he loved us simply because he would. Because notice what
we did. We went into captivity. We went
into captivity. Jacob means supplanter. That's
what we did. We did that in the garden. We
supplanted God. We tried to rob God of His glory. We do that every day of our lives. Do you know how much sin God
knows about you and me? Every bit of it. Aren't you thankful God chose
His people by grace and loves His people simply because He
will? And because He chose us by grace,
when we fell in Adam, that grace didn't change. It wasn't based
on something in us. That love was everlasting in
Christ. It wasn't based on anything in
His people. And if we know what sinners we are, oh, how you rejoice
in that. Oh, you have to rejoice in this. God knows every sin you've committed
today. And if He chose you, He doesn't
look at you any differently. He says in my son, I don't remember
them. Oh, that's good news. That's
good news. Because He chose us by grace,
because He loved us from everlasting to everlasting, He did what only
God could do when we went into captivity by our sin. Thou hast
brought back the captivity of Jacob. He brought us out of captivity. The Lord's been favorable. He's
been well pleased with His land. He brought back Jacob from captivity. How? How did He do this? Verse
2 says, thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people. Thou
has covered all their sin. This word forgiven means to lift
up and to bear and to carry away. That's what it means. To lift
up, to bear, and to carry away. That's what forgiven means. Thou
has lifted up. and born, and carried away the
iniquity of thy people." That's what the Lord did. Jehovah came
in the person of his Son. He came to where we are. He came to a sinful, wormy, rotten
sinner that you are. He came to where you are. He loves donating. changing everlasting,
he came to where you are. Rotten, polluted, cast out, aborted
in the fields, polluted in your blood. An illegitimate child. That's
the picture of that child cast out in the field. Nobody pitied
you, none of us pitied you, nobody had anything to do with you,
just passed you by. But he came to where you were. the spotless Lamb of God, the
sinless man, the God-man. He came to where we were in obedience
to God when the time came, and just try to, just today, let's
just try to enter into this, what he did. He grew up, he grew in a womb, Because you were a sinner in
your womb. And you had to be righteous in your mother's womb. So he came in the womb of a virgin,
sinless, and grew in the womb. He was born without sin. He did
not sin in birth. He was a perfect baby. He didn't have any sin when he
nursed his mother's breast. Because you did when you did,
and I did when I did. He never cried out in anger at
his mother. Because we did. We had to be
saved from that. We had to live that childhood
perfectly righteous before God. We didn't. He came up under his
father, his father never had, you know Joseph being a sinner,
Joseph, he probably did sin against him, many times. But our Lord
never sinned against his father. He did everything in the carpenter
shop perfectly righteous, never sinned against his father. Back there at eight days old,
He submitted to circumcision and became a debtor to do the
whole law of God. Because his people were debtors
to do the whole law of God. And he did it. He served God
faithfully, perfectly. Not just one God, one law in
the garden. He showed us how righteous he
really is. He served the whole 600 plus
laws perfectly before God. And then, He established His
church, because we couldn't establish a church in righteousness. He
called out His prophets, He called out His, and He taught His apostles,
and He sent them forth preaching the Word. And then when the time
came, so perfect, so patient, You see him just asking silly,
ignorant questions and just, I mean, if you took a thimble
and put, took all 12 of them, put everything they knew in a
thimble, you'd still have room left. And that's us. And you
see him just so patient and kind, dealing with them. And then, but our king, and he
goes to the Garden of Gethsemane, spotless. Perfect. In obedience to the Father, according
to the covenant He entered into before the foundation of the
world, the spotless Lamb of God presented Himself without spot
to God. He went there, He said before
He went, He said, except a corn of wheat fall in the ground and
die, it doesn't bring forth anything. He went there to the Garden of
Gethsemane, laying down His life, the just for the unjust. And
just like they did in the ceremony when the lamp brought the spotless
lamb, the great high priest laid on him, took all the sin off
his people and laid it on him and made him sin for his people. That ought to make every one
of us, it's like the reaction you'd
have if I just said something up here that was just so gross
and just would turn your stomach. That's the reaction that should
give us. Isn't it sad that it doesn't?
He was made a foul, loathsome thing he hated for us. So much so he owned our sin as
his own in the Psalms. He called them his own. And then he goes to the cross
and God pours out on him the fierceness of his wrath that we deserve. This one who
was perfect from the womb and now he didn't deserve anything
but commendation and glory and praise. He never sinned ever.
And for you and me, who've never done one thing honorable to him,
of ourself, he traded that and bore what we are and bore that
fierce anger of God's wrath in our place. I'll never boast of my love.
I'll never boast of my works. How can I? Look what he did. That's love. That's faith. That's the faith and the love
by which we're saved. We can't boast of our faith and
our love. All we like sheep have gone astray.
We've turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid
on him the iniquity of us all. Surely he hath borne our griefs,
carried our sorrows. That's the sin that caused it.
We esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, but he
was wounded for our transgression, bruised for our iniquities. The
chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes
we're healed. He's the scapegoat. The scapegoat
who took all the sin of all his people and carried it away to
where God remembers it no more. It's gone. Cast into the depth
of the sea. That's how God's been favorable.
That's how God is well pleased toward his people. The only way
he could be well pleased toward you and me, he's well pleased
in Christ. He's satisfied in Christ. It
pleased the Lord to bruise him. It satisfied God. He satisfied
His justice. He put Him to grieve. When He
shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed,
He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in His hand. That's what happened. Not only has He forgiven all
the iniquity of His people, He's covered all our sins. He's covered
all our sins. Covered means to clothe. He took all our sins off of us
and He covered us in His perfect righteousness. You remember the
blood on the mercy seat. That law that we broke, God said,
now you take that law and you bring it up here. He put it back
on stone and He said, now go put it in the ark, not broken,
because the law was in Christ. He fulfilled it. But over that
law was the mercy seat, perfect dimensions of that are. And that blood of that lamb covered
that mercy seat, covered that mercy seat. That's what He did
for all our sin. All of it. Not some of it. All
the sins of His people He covered. And you think about Adam and
Eve. He killed an innocent lamb in the place of Adam and Eve
and He took the skins and He covered them. He didn't just
take the skins and say, now I'm going to hang them up over here
if you're willing to come put them on. He went over there and
put them on them. Stripped them of their fig leaves
and put the covering on them. That's the only way He could
be well pleased with us. That's the only way He could
be favorable to you. Is to be well pleased with you. His perfect
righteousness. And thereby the Lord's taken
away all His wrath. All His wrath's taken away. Verse
3. Thou hast taken away all thy wrath. Thou hast turned thyself
from the fierceness of thine anger. Christ bore all of that. He bore it all. Thou hast taken away all Thy
wrath. Thou hast turned from the fierceness
of Thine anger. How has He done all this? How
has He been well pleased to His people? How has the Lord brought
back the captivity of His people? How has the Lord forgiven iniquity,
covered all our sin, and taken away all His wrath? How did He
do that? Look at verse 10. In His Son,
mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed. That'll never be undone. Never. Now seeing what he's done, it's
finished. It's finished. He did it for
a particular people. Will God have mercy? Will he
come and will he turn each of his people and continue to turn
us and continue to deliver us and save us from us? Absolutely. He'll make us experience His
grace. This is a cry. He's going to bring His child
to cry out to Him. God has turned Himself from the
fierceness of His anger, but we need God to turn us. Verse
4, Turn us, O God, of our salvation, and cause Thine anger toward
us to cease. Wilt Thou be angry with us forever?
Wilt Thou draw out Thy anger to all generations? We're captives
by nature. He has to come and turn us to
Him. God's turned Himself from His
anger toward us by the fury He poured out on His Son, but He
has to come and make us turn to Him and be reconciled to Him
and to know that His anger is turned away. Will He do so in
His people? It's a rhetorical question. Will
Thou be angry with us forever? No. His anger, will thou draw out
thy anger to all generations? No. Christ bore the fierceness
of God's wrath. He took the cup of fury out of
our hand and He drank it dry. His promises to His children
is, thou shalt no more drink it again. Fury is not in me. He'll turn each of His redeemed
to Him and He must turn us. He must turn us because He's
the God of our salvation. Here's another rhetorical question.
Will thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in
thee? David wouldn't be praying that
if he wasn't already regenerated. And he said us. He included himself, didn't he? We sing this. Revive us again. People say, we're going to have
this revival. We're going to have us a revival.
You can't have a revival. You can have a meeting and you
can put on a show, but you can't have a revival. God has to give
a revival. God has to revive. Only God can
revive. And this is our prayer every
day. When He first regenerates you,
you're regenerated. You have life. You're free. You're
free. But do you need Him to revive
you again? Every day. Every day we're crying
to Him, Lord, turn us again. Revive me again. Well, you probably don't need
that. You're probably just always vibrant and righteous and walking
and doing all good works all the time. Never a vain thought. We need Him, don't we? Revive
us. Turn us, Lord. Revive us. Revive
us. That's a continual need to be
revived again, to be revived over and over and over again.
He continues to revive us. This is our daily cry. We sing
it. Revive us again. Lord, Thine
is the glory. Revive us again. Though I walk
in the midst of trouble, David said, Thou wilt revive me. Thou
shalt stretch forth Thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies.
Thy right hand shall save me. Thus saith the High and Lofty
One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in
the High and Holy Place with Him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, to
revive the heart of the contrite ones. You know, that's the reason why
He gives us a need to be revived again, to keep us humble. to keep us contrite, to keep
us needing Him. Only one can revive us. Would Thou not revive us again
that Thy people may rejoice in Thee? If He doesn't do the reviving,
if I did the reviving, you know who I'd rejoice in? Me. But He
says, Would Thou revive us again that Thy people may rejoice in
Thee? He does the reviving and that's why we rejoice in Him.
We need God to show us and we need Him to grant unto us. Look
at this, verse 7. Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and
grant us thy salvation. You only need that one time.
You got that over with. Made a profession. We're done
with that. I don't need mercy anymore. Oh boy. Constantly. Constantly. And notice, this
depraved sinner is at the mercy of God. We need God to show us
His mercy. Show us Thy mercy, O Lord. We don't contribute to salvation.
We're the one needing to be saved. We need God to grant us his salvation. Look at that, grant us thy salvation. Lord, would you give us a grant?
We need a grant. We need you to grant us what
belongs to you, your salvation. Well, Lord, he said, thou hast. That's
how he started out. So he said, Lord, thou wilt.
Yes, Lord, thou shalt. He asked these questions. He
said, Lord, you have done all these. Then he said, he asked
these questions. He asked, will you do this for
us? And he's going to end up saying, yes, Lord, you shall.
Verse 8, I will hear what God the Lord will speak. Everybody's
got an opinion. Everybody's running their mouth
today just talking and telling you exactly what they think.
Everybody's a screen star on social media putting in our two
cents and ain't a soul listening. Here's where God brings us. I'll
shut up. and I'll hear what God the Lord
will speak. I'm gonna quit spouting off about
what I think and how I think things are. I'm gonna wait and
hear what God will speak. The Lord God. That's the place
for a sinner who needs salvation, at Christ's feet. Hearing what
Christ has to say. That's where we need to be, at
His feet, hearing what He has to say. He said, my sheep do
what? They hear my voice. Means we're
gonna have to stop and hear what He has to say. What's He gonna
speak to those who listen? For He will speak peace unto
His people and to His saints. His people and His saints, same
person. His people are His saints, sanctified by His word. He will
speak peace unto His people. The word which God sent unto
the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ. He's Lord of all. That's the
gospel. Paul said in Ephesians 2.17,
He came and preached peace to you which were far off and to
them that were nigh. If I'm not finding every bit
of my wisdom, every bit of my righteousness, every bit of my
holiness, every bit of my redemption, everything from Him and Him only
and in Him and Him only, He ain't speaking to me. He ain't speaking
to you. But if it's all in Him, if it's
all of Him, He said, I'm well pleased toward you and my son.
He said, I've brought you back from captivity. He said, I've
forgiven your iniquity. I've covered all your sin. He
said, my anger's turned away. I've reconciled you to myself.
My peace, I give unto you. That's what he says when he brings
you to his feet. And you know what we do when
he does that? You can't fight. You stop fighting. And you bow in peace. being reconciled. Be ye reconciled
to Him. You're in peace with Him. And by this He destroys all confidence
in our flesh. All confidence in our flesh.
This is the mortifying work. This is how it's done right here.
This is it. Verse 8, But let them not turn
again to folly. You know what folly means? Confidence. When he does this, when he began to chasten Israel,
rather than turn to the Lord, you know what they did? They
fled on horses, they went to Egypt, they went to places and
tried to make covenants and confederacies to try to save themselves. And
so the Lord just waited and brought them to nothing. And then he
was gracious to them. They couldn't even have horses
in Israel, you know that? Because that represented man
and man's power and man's confidence. Confidence in something besides
God. But when he works this, he makes Christ our first love. And he's going to keep himself
being our first love. And we ask Him to keep us, we
ask Him to turn us when He begins to work this. And we ask Him,
Lord, and let not Your people turn again to the vain confidence
of our flesh. To folly. Not the will, not the wisdom,
not the works, not the sins of our flesh. And He has to keep doing this
from the day He calls you to the end. Because you know what
you're going to do? As soon as we get through right
here, and we get up and go to that back, you know what we're
going to do? We're going to turn again to folly. And tomorrow, we're going to
get up and turn again to folly. But He's not going to let you
turn away from Him. He's going to keep turning you
and keep you set on Him. See, this is not saying, let
them not turn again to folly, as in, let them find some strength
in themselves so that they can turn themselves to you and keep
themselves turned to you and not turn again. No, it's saying,
Lord, you don't let us turn again to folly. We depend on you. What turned you from folly in
the first moment the Lord came to you? He did. You know who's going to turn
you from folly all the days of your life? Him. Him. Why does he let you even turn
to folly? Couldn't he just eradicate every
single enemy in the land of Canaan right now? Sure he could. One reason he doesn't save us
all like that thief on the cross is because the devil would say,
ah, if he hadn't saved them like that, I'd have got them. So God
said, well I'm going to leave them in these bodies of death
for a while and I'm going to show you, you can't get them.
I got them. And He over and over is teaching
you and me. Every single time you fall and
He turns you again from your folly, He's teaching you. Don't
trust you. That's the folly. Don't trust
you. That's the folly. Don't put confidence
in you. That's the folly. And He's going
to keep us looking to Him. And here's why we look only to
Him, because we're the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. No confidence in ourselves, only
in Him. Surely His salvation is nigh
them that fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land. His glory,
mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have
kissed each other, and therefore by the Spirit, this is a certainty
God promises in and by Christ. Right here, verse 11. Truth shall
spring out of the earth. Righteousness shall look down
from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give them
that which is good. That's what those first two verses
mean. Truth shall spring out of the earth. Righteousness shall
look down from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give that
which is good to his people. And our land shall yield her
increase. And righteousness shall go before
him and shall set us in the way of his steps. Beginning to end. That's all the work of the Lord.
Every bit of it, brethren. Every bit of it. That's what
He's going to do. That's what He has done. That's
what He is doing. And that's what He shall do.
And you know what He brings you and me to do? Call on Him to
do it. And trust Him to do it. And hear
what He said. And walk after Him. And give
Him all the glory and all the praise. That glory that's going
to be in the land, that's His glory. It's His glory. Let Him
that glory, glory in the Lord. Amen. All right. Brother Rob,
you and Adam, will y'all pass out the elements?