Alright brethren, now in Psalm
81, I want to just read this and just make a few comments
as we go. It seems like it's the church
speaking in the first half, but it could very well be Christ
speaking because He is the prophet who teaches His church as well
as our Redeemer who saves us. But let's hear now the first
part of this. He says, sing aloud unto God
our strength. Make a joyful noise unto the
God of Jacob. That could read the God of sinners. That's who Jacob was and all
his children. He doesn't say Israel here and
he's reminding us of our sinful condition by nature. Sing aloud
unto God our strength. Make a joyful noise unto the
God of Jacob. Take a psalm and bring hither
the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. Blow up the
trumpet in the new moon in the time appointed on our solemn
feast day. For this was a statute for Israel,
a law of the God of Jacob. This he ordained in Joseph. That is, speaking of the same
in Israel. He ordained this for testimony,
for a witness, when he went out through the land of Egypt. This
solemn feast was appointed by God. It was worship in that day. It was the Passover and the Feast
of Tabernacles. Now, at the beginning of each
month, they blew the trumpet. At the beginning of each month,
they blew the trumpet. But then on the first day of
the seventh month, they blew the trumpet on the Sabbath to
remember how the Lord brought them out of Egypt, how He brought
them out of bondage. It's a type of God giving us
faith in Christ through the preaching of the gospel, that gospel trumpet.
And He gave us faith in Christ our Sabbath. It's what we come
here for, to be reminded of that redemption we have by Him. Then on the 14th day, they blew
the trumpet and Israel observed the Passover. Picture of Christ,
our Passover, remembering how God brought Him out of Egypt
by the blood of the Passover lamb. And then the next day,
after the Passover began, week-long feast of tabernacles, the feast
of booths. And that was to remind them how
God delivered them in Israel through the wilderness and provided
for them the whole time. Now that was their worship, that
was their ordained worship to give God all the glory. And in
our day, we're blowing this gospel trumpet, we're preaching Christ
our Passover, we're preaching Christ who is our tabernacle,
we're preaching Christ who brought us out of spiritual bondage,
who's providing for us as we travel through this wilderness.
And we sing to God our strength, to God our strength, to the God
of Jacob who saves his sinful Jacobs. We give Him all the glory
for this salvation that He's accomplished. All the glory. And then the psalm changes to
the Lord speaking. Now the Lord starts speaking
in the middle part of verse 5. I heard a language that I understood
not. He's talking about in Egypt.
He heard their groaning in bondage. I heard a language I understood
not. And I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were
delivered from the pots. And then at the Red Sea, thou
callest in trouble, and I delivered thee. I answered thee in the
secret place of thunder, in the cloud. Remember how the cloud
came between the children of Israel and Pharaoh? I answered
thee. You called on Me. They called
on Him in Egypt. They called on Him again at the
Red Sea. I answered you. He said, Then I proved thee at
the waters of Meribah. So we have the Lord here, He
says, I heard you in Egypt when you were in bondage, and I answered
you. I heard you at the Red Sea, I
answered you. And then He proved them at Meribah.
Proved thee at the waters of Meribah. That's where the rock
was smitten. That rock was Christ. That rock
pictured Christ. Remember they began to murmur. And this is always the proving
point, what think ye of Christ? That was where he proved him,
right there, the smitten rock. It's called Meribah because they
chided and there was strife and contention. They murmured against
the Lord and they murmured against Moses. Now what do we learn,
we've seen this before, but what do we learn from the rebellious
children in Israel? What was this lust of their flesh? Time and again, they judged only
by the seeing eye. They didn't have faith. They
didn't have faith. And when you don't have faith,
everything about your confidence in God is going to be based on
what you see or what you don't see. For instance, in Egypt,
God sent Moses and he began to work those plagues in Egypt. And when He did, Pharaoh made
their lives more bitter. And they told Moses, just go
on and leave us alone. Just let us stay here. Leave
us alone. Don't be doing this to us. But then when God brought
them out of Egypt, they went out with a high hand. God's for
us. God's for us. Then He brought
them to the Red Sea. He hemmed them in at the Red
Sea. They saw danger on all sides. No way to get out. And they went
to murmuring again. God brought us out here just
to kill us. But then God brought them through the Red Sea. They
sang to God. God is for us. They saw that. He brought them to the waters
of Mara. They wanted some water to drink.
They were thirsty. They didn't see any water. They
didn't call on God. When they didn't see that water,
this was their conclusion. God's against us. Now we know
He brought us out here to kill us. God sweetened the waters. He's for us. He brought us to
that oasis now. Twelve wells. We got twelve wells.
We just sit back and drink. He's for us now. We know that.
God brought them into the wilderness of sin. No bread. They got hungry. God's killing us. God rained
down manna from heaven. For a little while, they said,
God's for us. Then they come to Rephidim. And
they were thirsty again. Seen all that. They've seen all
that. But again, they don't see anything to drink. Is God, is
He among us or not? That's what they said. That's
what they chided. Because they didn't see anything with His
eyes. He didn't feel it with these
five senses. God said, Osius, you go before
them. They can't see this. You take
twelve of their leaders and you go forward with them. And you
smite the rock and let them come back to it. And water came out
of the rock. Well, Moses and the other regenerated
children amongst them, they had plenty of unbelief. They had
sinful flesh too. And they had sin too. But here's
the difference. There's a difference in you and
the difference in the unregenerate who has not faith. Here's the
difference. God speaks in the heart. God
bears witness in the heart. And you see by faith. And you're
not looking at what He is doing for you or against you outwardly. You see what He's done for you
in Christ and you know He's for you no matter what's going on
presently. He's given you faith. That's
the difference. He bore witness in their heart.
They believed God by faith, they heard God by faith, they walked
by faith rather than sight. That's the difference between
a child of God's grace and a natural religious man. The Lord strengthened
them in faith, in the heart, and He saved them from all their
enemies, and He made them satisfied with Christ. That's the difference. That's the difference. This is
not salvation. This is not even anything but
just a stage on which God is working out to show us that He
is our salvation. And when He is done with it,
He is going to tear the stage up and throw it away and everything
in it. And if this is all we have, if
this is all we see, if this is our salvation and what we can
touch and taste and hear and smell and see and hold on to,
if this is all our salvation, when it is gone, our salvation
will be gone. Now listen to the next few verses
and hear the Word of the Lord. God give us grace to hear this.
Hear this with the ears of faith. Listen to it now, verse 8. Hear,
O my people, and I will testify unto thee. When God gives ears
to hear, when the Lord testifies, when He bears witness in the
heart through faith, He says to you, Hear, O my people, I
will testify unto thee. I bear witness in your heart.
And when you hear Him by faith and you hearken to Him, believing
on Christ, this next word is His promise to you through faith
in Christ. Oh Israel, verse 8, if thou wilt
hearken to Me, there shall no strange God be in thee, neither
shalt thou worship any strange God. I am the Lord thy God. which brought thee out of the
land of Egypt. Open thou mouth wide, and I will
fill it." That's His promise to you. Those He gives ears to
hear, they have the witness of the Lord in the heart. They have
the Spirit speaking in the heart. And the Lord testifies to you.
And His promise is this, read it again. O Israel, if thou wilt
hearken to Me, Believe on Christ. Walk by faith. Look to me alone. Hear me alone. Trust me alone. Look to Christ alone. There shall
be no strange God in you. Neither shall you worship any
strange God. I am the Lord thy God which brought
thee out of the land of Egypt. Open thou mouth wide, now fill
it. But what about those that don't have faith? What about
the rebellious children that didn't have faith? In every one
of those instances that we're talking about, you know what
they were doing? When they didn't see things going their way and
they began to murmur, you know what they were doing? They were
bowing down to the idol of self and worshipping themselves. Verse
11, But my people, the natural children, would not hearken to
my voice. and Israel would none of me."
They wouldn't believe God. They didn't believe God. He said,
they would none of me. You think about Christ that day
at the Feast of Tabernacles. He started out here talking about
the solemn day, the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles.
Think of Christ standing that day at the end of the Feast of
Tabernacles in John 7. He's standing there that day.
He's God that delivered their fathers from Egyptian bondage.
That's who Christ is. He is God who is the Passover
lamb. There He was standing in the
midst. He is God who is the tabernacle in whom all His people dwell.
He is the smitten rock who by His stripes have healed His people. There He is. And the Pharisees
and Jews were observing the very ceremony He talks about in this
psalm. The very one. And Christ cried out to them
In verse 8, here's what Christ cried that day. Hear, O my people,
and I will testify unto thee, O Israel, if thou will hearken
to me, there shall no strange god be in thee, neither shalt
thou worship any strange god. I am the Lord thy God which brought
thee out of the land of Egypt. Open thou mouth wide, and I will
fill it. When did Christ cry that? When
He said, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He
that believeth on Me, as the Scriptures said, out of his belly
shall flow rivers of living water. That's exactly what He was saying
to them. He says in verse 11, but my people would not hearken
to my voice. Israel would none of me. They
wouldn't look to Christ alone. They wouldn't leave off everything
else and turn from worshiping that idle self and worship Christ
alone and believe on Christ alone and trust Him alone to save them.
They wouldn't. Why? Same reason children of
Israel wouldn't. If it wasn't seen with these
eyes and touched with these hands They couldn't see it. They couldn't
rejoice in it. So Christ did to the Pharisees
what He did to the rebellious in the wilderness. Verse 12.
So I gave them up to their own hearts' lust, and they walked
in their own counsels. Listen to what Christ would have
done had they believed on Him and walked by faith and love.
This is what He would have done. Verse 13. Oh, that my people
had argued to me, and Israel had walked in my ways. I should
soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their
adversaries. The haters of the Lord should
have submitted themselves unto Him. But their time, those that
would believe on Him, their time should have endured forever.
He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat
and with honey out of the rocks that I have satisfied thee. Christ
said that too in Matthew 23.37. He stood there looking out over
Jerusalem and he said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest
the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how
often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a
hen gathered her chickens under her wings, and you would not. Behold, your house is left unto
you desolate. He said, I've done all these
things for you, but you wouldn't simply believe on me alone. You know what Jonah said when
he tried to run from God? Why didn't the Lord just throw
him off and leave him? He rebelled just like they did.
It's called the grace of God. He just won't let some people
go. We deserve it, but He won't let us go. And what did He bring
Jonah to say? They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. But I'll sacrifice unto thee
with the voice of thanksgiving. I'll pay that I have vowed. Salvation
is of the Lord. Jonah found that out. He can
teach that to each of us. Now let me give you three things
for us to remember. It's in this psalm. One, let us remember that it
is God in Christ that we worship. We come together here and we
come to hear the gospel preached. We come to hear His name glorified. We come to hear this One who
delivered His people and who gets all the glory. He says there
in verse 1, Sing aloud unto God our strength. He's God our strength. Make a joyful noise unto the
God of us sinners. To God of Jacob, His covenant
people. And as we blow this trumpet,
Christ speaks in His gospel and He reminds us. When this gospel
is going forth, I think that's why you see here, it sounds like
a church speaking at first and then in the middle of it, it
switches over to the Lord speaking and declaring what He's done.
Because when this gospel is going forth, as it's going forth, Christ
begins to speak into our hearts and remind us what He's done
for us. And this is what he reminds us, verse 6, I removed your shoulder
from the burden. This is why we worship Him. I
removed your shoulder from the burden. I delivered your hands
from the flesh pots. He's the smitten rock. He bore
our stripes at Calvary, brethren. He delivered us from all our
sin and made us the righteousness of God in Him. And then He came
and He delivered us from the bondage of sin and self by quickening
us and giving us His Spirit. And He keeps delivering us all
through this wilderness. This is why we come. That's why
He gave that ordinance and that statute for them to worship Him,
to remember what He did for them. And we come here to hear this
gospel to be constantly reminded over and over and over, He's
the God of our strength. He's the one that delivered us
from the burden. And He reminds us of this in
verse 7, You called me in trouble. When you were in trouble, you
called me. And you call us in trouble. You don't stop calling
me in trouble. And I delivered thee. I answered
thee in the secret places of thunder. He comes in the secret
places in the heart between you and Him and He answers you through
the Word that He preaches in our heart. And so, that's the
first thing. We worship none but our Redeemer.
We're going to sing songs that glorify Him. We're going to open
our mouth wide to Him and pray unto Him. We're going to glorify
Him in the Gospel because He's the one we have to hear. We have
to be reminded continually what He's done for us. And then secondly,
Remember, it's God who brings us to every trial to prove us. That's the purpose of it. He
says, I proved them at Meribah. Now you think about that. I proved
them at Meribah. And I've said this before, we've
seen this before. Every one of those places He
brought them to, the Lord brought them there. He brought them there
on purpose. You know, in school the teacher
spends days teaching us. He said there, I ordained this
worship to remind you, I'm the one that delivered you. That's
what you're hearing, that's what you're seeing in this Passover
lamb. That's what you're hearing your fathers remind you of when
they tell you what this is all about. That's what we're hearing
in this gospel. The teacher teaches us for a
while. And then they give a test to see if we learn what we've
been taught. That's what the trial is. When
God brings us to the trial, it's proving time. It's just like
Rephidim was for Israel. Christ is always the proving
point. He's always the point of contention.
What think ye of Christ? He is the one by whom the rebellious
and the believer are going to be separated. It's always going
to be Christ. At the heart of it, it's always
Christ. For you who believe the gospel, He's life. You've got
to have it. You've got to have His Word.
The Spirit of life flows into you. Christ is your rock. But the rebellious only see with
carnal eyes. A natural man cannot, he will
not hear the Lord. He's going to chide against God.
He's going to chide against his people. He's going to accuse
God of not doing what's right. May not do it out loud, but he's
going to do it in his heart. The devil's desire, brother,
and listen to me, in every trial and every situation, the devil
has one desire. His desire and his motive is
to turn you from looking only to Christ. That's his desire.
To turn us from hearing only Christ to something else. He
don't care what it is. Just don't look only to Christ. Don't trust Christ alone. He'll
come and whisper in your ear. But it won't be, look to Christ. It will be something else. The only way that we do not fail
is because God makes us hear Christ speak. I'm telling you,
brethren, this is the crucible. The only way that you're going
to survive and I'm going to survive and we're going to be saved is
if we hear Christ and look to Christ only. That's the only
way. This is what he did for Moses.
Moses at first, he would be overcome. He'd speak things that weren't
honorable, but here's what the Lord does for his child. He goes,
speaking to our heart, verse 8, Here, O my people, I testify
unto you, I'm going to bear witness in you, O Israel. If you hearken
unto me, there will be no strange God in you. Neither shalt thou
worship any strange God. I'm the Lord thy God. which brought
you out of the bondage, open your mouth wide. I will fill
it. Oh God, help us hear Christ speak
this. I mean, hear Christ telling you
that, believer. Hear Him saying to you, if you
trust Me, if you hearken to Me, if you believe Me, there won't
be a strange God with you. You can't look to Me and believe
on Me and trust the arm of the flesh too. Moses at times trusted the arm
of the flesh, but you know what God did? Turned Him back, hearken
unto me. And he heard Him, and he listened
to Him, because His grace is irresistible. He makes you hearken
to Him. And you can't worship another
God, you can't worship this idol of self, when you look into Christ
and know that He's filling your heart with His Spirit, and He's
making you know, I am your salvation. I've got this all under control,
I've got you in the palm of my hand, and I'm carrying you all
the way to glory. Can't worship anything else or
look to anything else or be distracted by anything else when that's
going on. Moses was certain. He knew for certain when he was
in that wilderness. God is the God of salvation.
It didn't matter what the millions of people were saying. Brethren, hear only Christ. Look only to Christ. Immerse
yourself in the gospel of Christ. The harder the trial gets, laser
focus more in on Christ and His Word. Immerse yourself in some
good messages that point you straight to Christ. Here is what He says to you and
me. We want to obey Him. Here is what He says to us. There
is no God else beside me, a just God and a Savior. There's none
beside me. Look unto me and be you saved. All the ends of the earth, for
I'm God and there's none else. In every trial, He is going to
remind us Christ alone is our Savior, He is our Redeemer, He
is our Righteousness. He provided salvation by His
precious blood and He will provide everything else. He will not
lose one of His people. We are saved by His power and
His ability alone. He will keep you looking to Him. And whatever you need, here is
what He says to you. Whatever you need, He says, open
your mouth wide and I will fill it. That's his promise to you. Open your mouth wide and I will
fill it. Go to him and open your mouth
and pour out everything you need. And he says, I will fill it.
You picture the little birds in the nest and Robin comes in
there and she's got a big old fat juicy worm and every one
of them mouths just, I mean, as wide as they can get it. That's
what He's saying. Why are you here now? Why are
you here right now? The Lord has given you a heart
to where you have a hunger and a thirst to hear Christ exalted
and know He is all your salvation. You have a hunger and thirst
for Him. He didn't give you that hunger and thirst and then let
you starve. He's going to feed you. Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. They
shall be filled. Call for Him. Open your mouth
wide and call for Him. He'll make His presence known
in the heart of His people. He gives us desperate times to
keep His child crying to Him and to keep us knowing He alone
is our God. Remember, that's why He gave
them the trouble in the wilderness. He said in Deuteronomy 8.3, He
humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with
manna, which you didn't know what it was, neither did your
fathers know, that He might make thee know that man does not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the
mouth of the Lord does man live. That's it. That's the life. When
He creates sorrow in our heart and the times are so desperate
that you can't eat physical food. That's a real fast. He says,
clean your face up. Don't go around letting everybody
see you down and out. But He does this. He says, I'm
going to feed you with manna from heaven and your soul is
going to live. And that's the bread that matters.
That's the bread that matters. God's trials are God's mercies
to His children. That's what they are. God's trials
are His mercies to us, brethren. It's His chastening love. He
only scourges those He loves. Let's don't do this. If a brother goes through some
awful, terrible thing, Just know, God only scourges
those He loves. If He's going to be brought to
behold Christ in you, and you're going to be brought to behold
Him, that's how God's going to do it. He'll burn up everything
by fire if He has to. But He's going to keep you looking
to Him. Opportunities. That's what trials are. They're
opportunities that He gives to drive you to His throne of grace,
to open your mouth wide, to find out that He'll fill it, just
like He said He would. Hungry and thirsty, their soul
fainted in them. And then they cried unto the
Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses.
That's what He's showing us. And that's what He's going to
do for us. Now look here at the last thing. This is the last
thing. He'll deliver us from all our enemies and make us endure
walking by faith in Him. That's what He's going to do.
Verse 14. He said, You hearken to Me, and
I shall soon subdue your enemies and turn My hand against your
adversaries. The haters of the Lord shall
submit themselves to the Lord's hand, but your time shall endure
forever. What's he going to do by bringing
us to the end of ourselves? He's keeping us trusting him
alone. He's saving us from that enemy, number one, that one that
is in us, that is a hater of God, that would worship nothing
but the idol called S-E-L-F, if he didn't keep him subdued. And every other enemy that would
try to separate you from Christ, your sin, your self-righteousness, hardship in life, whatever it
is, He's going to separate you from it. Keep you looking to
Christ only. If you hear Him and you walk
by faith looking to Christ alone, you'll not have that strange
guy. He's going to see to it we don't worship that idol. What
else is He going to do? Verse 16, He shall feed you also
with the finest of the wheat, and with honey out of the rock
shall I satisfy thee. Christ is the finest wheat. You
can't get finer wheat than Christ. He's the bread from heaven. He
is the rock that gives us honey out of the rock. They say that
land of Canaan was just full of rocks and the mountains full
of bees. And you could go up and just
go into where those crevices are and you see bees coming out
of there and it'd just be full of honey just dripping out of
those rocks in those mountains. You know, that's what they, when
they sent spies into Canaan, that's what they come back complaining
about. All they saw was the bees and
the stingers. That's all this world sees when
they look at Christ. They don't see anything good.
But you know what you're going to find in Christ the Rock? He's
going to give you honey, sweet to the taste. The fool soul loathes
the honeycomb. The man that thinks he's fool
and has need of nothing, he doesn't need Christ. But you that he
keeps empty, he's going to feed you with the finest wheat and
the honey out of the rock, Christ Jesus. And not only feeds you
the best, He's going to make you satisfied. You'll be satisfied. He says to you who believe, Song
of Solomon chapter 5 verse 1, He says, I'm coming to my garden,
my sister, my spouse. I've gathered my myrrh with my
spice. I've eaten my honeycomb with
my honey. I've drunk my wine with my milk. Now He says to
you, eat, old friends. Drink! Drink abundantly, O Beloved. Just drink and eat. He says,
I shall satisfy thee. He satisfied the longing soul
and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. Are we going to hearken
to Christ? Will we hearken to Him? Well,
we see in the rebellious children of Israel, we will not if He
leaves us to ourselves. Absolutely we will not. We see
in the Pharisees and the scribes, the finest men that walked the
face of the earth in that day. They had everything about their
religion in order. They were missing one thing,
Christ. But if we're His, He will, He
will work in the heart of His people and He will save us from
us and from anything else that separates us from Him. He will. Call upon me in the day of trouble,
I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. That's what
he said. David did. You know what David
said? In the day when I cried, thou
answeredest me, and you strengthened me with strength in my soul. There's where it matters. That's
where this food is, in the soul. where nobody can see it, is between
you and God and He's going to feed you in your soul. And one
day when you lay off this old idolater, that man's going to
be healthy and well and completely whole and go be with the Lord
forever. He's our salvation. I pray, hear
Him alone. Hearken to Him alone. Look to
Him alone. If that's wrong, And that's leading
you astray to tell you to look to Christ only. I don't know what's right there.
He's the only one who saves. He's the only one who saves.
Amen.