Alright, brethren, Psalm 74. Now, this maskul means instruction. Maskul, instruction. And this
is instruction for our day. We saw there verses 1-11 is a
cry of lamentation. And verses 12-17, he remembers
God's past works of grace. And the Lord will bring us to
remember past works of grace to strengthen our hope for his
current works, his present works of grace and works of grace for
the future. And then at the end, well, all
through the psalm there's prayer to God, but at the end, especially
verses 18 through 23, we find him asking God to save and to
save his church, his elect. Now that's the instruction for
our day. That really is the instruction
for our day in the present judgment that God's executing on this
nation and in this earth. He makes His child see how utterly
helpless we are. That's what we'll see through
this psalm, just total helplessness to do anything. And He draws
us nearer to God. He brings us nearer to worship
God. Cast all our care on Him. That's
where we need to be. And that's where God's going
to work. And He does it by making us lament our present state.
He makes us remember God's past works of grace. And so He brings
us to cast all our care on Him. Now, first of all, we see the
lament here. And we may not even get past
this tonight. What's going on in the world?
What is going on in this nation? In the visible church, God's
making his true people moment our present state. He's bringing
us to see our helplessness and our need, and that's what he's
doing. Only his people will see this.
When we behold our dire state, we began to speak emotionally,
and we sometimes use hyperbole. He says here in verse 1, O God,
why hast thou cast us off forever? Why does thine anger smoke against
the sheep of thy pasture? Now they thought this, the true
church of God in the midst of Israel thought this in that day
because God's judgment was upon their nation. It was upon Israel. And it was upon Israel for a
long time. They were taken into Babylonian
captivity for 70 years. And they saw this judgment of
God upon them for 70 years. And it was God's judgment upon
reprobate Israel. He was judging those that had
turned his religion into a religion of self-righteous works and idolatry. But it caused God's true elect
Israel to suffer and be oppressed. They suffered in the midst of
it. You know, when God pours out judgment and brings trouble
upon a people, God's people suffer it too. There was God's true
people in the middle of Israel and God's judgment was upon Israel
who had turned against Him. But God's people in their midst
suffered it too. And when that happens, we're
apt to exaggerate, use strong emotional language, never, always,
those kinds of things. But here's the truth of it. God
never casts off the people he foreknew. He foreknew us. He foreloved his people. He foreordained
his people. He never cast them off. Go over
to Romans 11. Remember Paul's word here. He
points us back to Elias and he said in Romans 11.2, God hath
not cast away his people which he foreknew. Our psalmist said,
Lord you cast us off forever. God's not cast away his people,
which he foreknew. You not know about Elias, what
the scripture says of Elias, how he made intercession to God
against Israel, saying, Lord, they've killed thy prophets.
They dig down on altars. I'm left alone, and they seek
my life. But what saith the answer of
God unto him? I have reserved to myself 7,000
men who've not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so,
at this present time also, there's a remnant according to the election
of grace. And that's true in our day. That's
true in our day. God has a people. And if it's
by grace, it's no more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. I've heard brethren everywhere
say that it seems like there's a spell cast over people in the
world today. What's God doing? What is He
doing? Well, He's doing what He did
in our Psalmist's day, and He's doing what He did in Paul's day.
Look down at Romans 11 verse 7. What then? Israel hath not
obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained
it, and the rest were blinded. According as it's written, God
hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should
not see, ears that they should not hear. You know, not every
church and people who claim to be Christians are God's true
church. They're not all true church. The visible church is
not the church of God's elect. The visible church is a bunch
of churches that go by the name Christian and a bunch of people
in churches that claim to go by the name Christian. The church
is God's elect. Just like there was an Israel
who was God's elect Israel within The nation Israel, not everybody
in that nation was Israel. God had some elect in that nation.
And God has an elect people in this world. Now all sinners are
born blind, all are spiritually dead. But God, He'll give a spirit
of slumber. He'll give a spirit of slumber
and He'll harden men's heart by that spirit of slumber so
that men cannot even recognize sin and self-righteousness that
they once could recognize as sin and self-righteousness. And
what will end up happening is they will condone the sin that
the world condones and they will receive it and accept it. And
that's the sure end of all will works religion. That's the end
of all of it. That's the end of all legal religion.
You know in the Revelation the lesser beast that looked like
a lamb represents false religion. And they were great miracles
and people saw them and they were deceived by them. But you
know what that lesser beast did? It gave power to the greater
beast, which is just the world and falsehood period. They all won. They were united.
But you know what Job saw after that? After he saw that vision,
you know what he saw? He saw Christ standing on Mount
Zion. And he saw an exact number standing
there with him, representing the exact number of God's elect
church. And they had their foreheads,
they had the name of the Father. And that's what God sends slumber
upon the reprobate, but he never casts off his people. He never
casts his people off who he foreknew. He everlastingly loved his people
and he loved his people and chose His people by grace and so nothing
shall ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ.
And so God's angry with the wicked every day. He is. But God's not
angry with His people. The psalmist said, why are you
angry with the sheep of your pastor? God's not angry with
the sheep of His pastor. The wrath of God abides on those
outside of Christ and justly so because all their sin comes
short of the glory of God. But God's not appointed his people
to wrath. He's appointed us to obtain salvation
by our Lord Jesus Christ. And the way he did that is he
appointed his only begotten son to come and take our place and
bear the wrath we deserve. So Christ came and he said, I
know my sheep and I lay down my life for the sheep. He said,
why are you angry against the sheep of your pastor? He's not,
because Christ came and laid down his life for the sheep.
He bore the fierce fury of God's just anger and wrath in place
of his people. That's why the world went black
for three hours. And he cried out, it is finished.
And he satisfied that justice. So now God says through his righteousness
and his blood, God says to his people, fury is not in me. He's
not angry with His people. He chastens us for our sins. And right now, while God is doing
the things He's doing in this world and is making us to suffer,
God sanctifies it to the heart of His child so that we see His
loving chastening hand in any trouble that comes upon us. And
by that chastening hand, makes you repent and he makes you broken
hearted. And he turns you to the Lord
and he draws you to himself. And that's what he's working.
So though the whole world suffers and doesn't know why they're
suffering and just try to get out from under the suffering and
it's God's judgment, God sanctifies it to the heart of his child
and makes it work for our good. And he drew him here to ask to
ask God to remember, and when he drew him here to ask God to
remember, it forced him to remember. It makes you remember. When he
brings you to ask God to remember some things that God has promised,
he makes you remember those things God has promised. And he said
here in verse 2, Remember thy congregation, which thou hast
purchased of old, the rod of thine inheritance, which thou
hast redeemed, this Mount Zion wherein thou hast dwelt. That's
God's elect church. That's God's congregation. It's
His congregation. He said, remember thy congregation.
And we're His purchased possession. He said, remember the congregation
which thou has purchased of old. How of old did He purchase His
church? Christ is a lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. And we can stand here today and
think over 2,000 years ago Christ purchased us. We've been His
a long time. There's never been a time we
weren't His. We're His. We're the rod of His inheritance.
That means His peculiar treasure and He's going to have His inheritance.
He's going to have His inheritance because He purchased us. We're
His. His true people is the Mount
Zion in whom Christ dwells. He doesn't dwell in every individual
sinner and He doesn't dwell in every church. His church is the Mount
Zion where he dwells. That's who his people are. So
God's hands upon the world to give a spirit of slumber and
to make you sit here and scratch your head and think, why is religion
condoning things that the world is pushing? And it just seems
sometimes like there's just a spirit come over the world. But God
will cause us to suffer in the midst of that. We're suffering
because of the things going on in the world, but God sanctifies
it to the heart of His child. What do we lament? What has the
enemy done? What's the cause of all the trouble
we see? What is it? Verse 3, lift up
thy feet unto the perpetual desolations, even all that the enemy hath
done wickedly in the sanctuary. God sent Nebuchadnezzar, king
of Babylon, who desolated Jerusalem and took everything out of the
temple and destroyed the temple and took it back to Babylon and
set it up in their false worship. And again, in 70 AD, God sent
Titus, the emperor of Rome, to destroy Jerusalem, wipe it off
the map and tear down the temple. And that's similar to what we
see going on in our day, and it's been going on for a long
time. It's been going on for over 70 years in this nation. Why? What's caused it? What's
the purpose? Where did it originate? What
has God allowed the enemy to do to put us in the shape we're
in today? It didn't start in the White
House. That's not the issue. What's the issue? Verse 4, Thine
enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations. They set up
their ensigns for signs. Their ensigns for signs. An ensign
is a banner. It's a flag. It's what armies
rally to in the heat of battle. Christ crucifies our banner.
Jehovah Nisi means the Lord our banner. He's our banner. Christ crucified. Believers are
united by Christ. It's through His gospel that
declares Him and His works and what He has done and is doing
and shall do. It's through His blood. We're
robed in one righteousness. We have one inheritance. He makes
His people one. He brings you into unity in the
bond of peace and that bond of peace is Christ crucified. There's one body. Christ is the
one head of that body. There's one Spirit, each born
of the same Spirit of God. If you're born of God and know
God, you have the same Spirit in you that I have in me, and
that your brethren have in them. Born of one Spirit, and Christ
sent that Spirit to declare Him and point us to Him. You're called in one hope if
you call it. Who's that one hope? Christ is that one hope. Our
hope's entered into the veil, into the holy place. Jesus Christ,
the high priest after the order of Melchizedek. He's our hope.
We got one hope. See why we're one? We have one
body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord. Christ is our God. He's our king. We have one faith. Who's that one faith in? Christ
alone. We have one baptism. What do
we all who were truly baptized, what do we confess in baptism?
That we were, we died in Christ, we were buried in Christ, and
we rose in Christ. It's all in Christ, every bit
of this. We have one God and Father of all, and you know who
He's manifest in? He's manifest in Christ, who
is our God, and who is our everlasting Father. And He is above all,
and through all, and in you all. in you, in me, in each of our
brethren. And so we have one ensign, we
have Christ crucified, we have one banner, we lift up one banner,
we preach one message, Christ Jesus the Lord. But in order
to create a following, and men are going to create a following
after themselves, they've got to raise up a different banner. And they've got to make that
banner the rallying point. He said they've set up their
ensign. And they've created another rallying point. For some, it's
certain laws. I've never heard of a church
that said you had to keep all 613 laws that God gave at Mount
Sinai. Usually there's one or two. Sabbath
keeping. Tithing. Others have other teachings or
works that only God can do, but they credit man with it, like
the so-called Church of Christ that Alexander Campbell formed.
Their banner is baptismal regeneration. When you are baptized, physically
baptized in water, they say you are born again and you wash away
your sins that way, by something you did, by baptism. Peter wasn't
saying be baptized in order to remit your sins. He was saying
be baptized because your sins have been remitted. That's what
you confess in baptism, something that's already done. You see
signs that say the free will church, that's their banner.
They're going to preach free will. Man has a free will. That's
their banner. Whatever man's church's banner
is, and here's the thing about the banner. It doesn't matter
really what the doctrine is or what men are saying or what standard
they're lifting up. What they're saying is, there's
something you've got to do. The banner is man. You look over
there in Revelation and everybody's worried about the mark of the
beast. The number of the beast is man. It's the number of man.
What's Antichrist? What is Antichrist? Antichrist
is every sinner that stands in the house of God and glories
in what man did and attributes a work to man that only God can
do and that God must do for his people. This is what Paul said,
they oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God
or that is worshiped so that he as God sits in the temple
of God showing himself that he is God. They wouldn't say, I'm
God, but they say, I saved myself by my will. I
did something to be born again. That's the work of God. I did
something to make the blood effect. Sure, that's the work of God.
I did something to preserve myself. That's the work of God. I produced
some fruit myself. That's the work of God. That's
standing in the temple of God and exalting oneself as if he's
God. That's Antichrist. That's anti-Christ,
that's being totally against Christ. And he lamented this,
that men who once used their abilities that God had given
them, they used them to build the house of God, and now they
use those same abilities and means to tear the house down.
Look here, verse 5. A man was famous according as
he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. When they built
the temple, men used axes to cut down the cedars of Lebanon
to build the house of God and they did it giving God the glory
because they wanted to see his house built and they wanted to
see his people worshiping in the house. He said, but now they
break down the card work thereof at one time with axes and hammers.
They used the same means, same abilities, whereas once they
were glorifying God with them, now they're breaking the house
down with them. And he said this, they cast fire into the sanctuary. Once God cast fire down from
heaven and consumed the sacrifice to typify the fact that when
Christ was made sin for us, The fire of God's wrath came down
upon him and Christ consumed the wrath for his people. That
was the picture of the fire coming down and consuming the sacrifice.
But they imitated what God alone could do. They've cast fire into
the sanctuary. That's the same as a man standing
up and saying, I made Christ's blood effectual for me by my
decision for Christ." That's casting fire into the sanctuary,
your fire, rather than it being God's fire. He says, they defiled
by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground. They said in their hearts, let
us destroy them together. Let's destroy Christ's work and
replace him with man's works. They burned up all the synagogues
of God in the land. We see not our signs. We see
not our signs. There's no more any prophet.
Few and far between in their day and in our day do you see
God's preacher preaching Christ and Him crucified and giving
all the glory to God and none to man. Very few. It's a rare thing. A rare thing. It's a precious thing. We're in the shape we're in because
sinners have been lied to and told they're good, told they're
not sinners, told that there's some work they can do for God
and that they can come to God and believe God anytime they
get ready to. Anytime they want to make a decision
for God. It all starts with God. and a nation that's not built,
a people that's not looking to God and trusting God and believing
God and getting all their wisdom from God and waiting on God and
wanting him to have the glory and to work in the heart of his
people and to do it through the message of Christ and him crucified
and not from man's finagling and urging and turning and all
those things. A nation of people that's not
in that, on that foundation has no foundation. Neither is there among us any
that knoweth how long. And so he's brought to ask this.
He's brought to pray. He's brought to, he sees he don't
have power. You don't have power to save
your own self, much less to save us from the enemy. So what does
he do? Where does God bring you when
you see these things and you lament these things? Oh God,
how long shall the adversary reproach? He called out to God. Shall the enemy blaspheme thy
name forever? Why withdrawest thou thy hand,
even thy right hand? Pluck it out of thy bosom. You
find yourself asking God, Lord, would you come? Come in spirit,
come work in the heart of your people, or just come. Come return. Look at this second thing. He
makes us remember His works of old. And when He makes you remember
His works of old, it gives you hope for His work that He is
working now. Look here in verse 12. He says,
ìFor God is my King of old.î Hereís my sign. These are our
signs right here. Heís about to talk about our
banner and our sign, why we want to see our signs. We want to
hear our message. ìFor God is my King of old, working
salvation in the midst of the earth.î You know, our Lord said,
When He brings us into glory, He's going to say, inherit the
kingdom prepared of my Father for you from the foundation of
the world. You can't have a kingdom without a king. And God prepared
this kingdom from the foundation of the world and Christ has been
the king from the foundation of the world. They came saying,
where is He that is born King of the Jews, King of His people?
And He is the King right now and He is working everything.
He has been working everything and He is still working everything
in the midst of this world. Notice all the works are His
works and they are His works right now. Verse 13, Thou didst
divide the sea by Thy strength. Thou breakest the heads of the
dragons in the waters. Thou breakest the heads of Leviathan
in pieces and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting
the wilderness. Thou didst cleave the fountain
and the flood. Thou dried up mighty rivers.
Christ divided the Red Sea by His strength. They came to that
sea and God on purpose shut them in on every side and had Pharaoh
and his army barreling down on them. Why would God bring a people
to be that helpless and not know what to do? Moses said, the Lord
told Moses, tell them to stand still and see the salvation of
the Lord. That's why. And what did he do? He split the sea wide open and
he delivered his people across and then he destroyed Pharaoh
and his army. And when he did that, he took
the possessions of the Egyptians and provided them for his people
so his people had full provision. And brethren, that's what Christ
did on the cross. He delivered us by His blood. He destroyed
the devil. He destroyed all our enemies.
And He's made full provision for us and He's given us that
provision and He's providing everything for us. Just like
He's been doing from the foundation of the world. Christ is the smitten
rock from which the fountain of water flowed when they went
through that wilderness. And He's the smitten rock right
now. who gives the water of life and who sustains that life in
us and who continues to provide everything we need in this life.
He dried up the Jordan. He said there, you dried up mighty
rivers. Remember how He dried up the
Jordan? Do you remember how He dried that Jordan up? He brought
them to the Jordan during the flood season when it was out
of its banks and raging. And He said, now go across that
river. The promised land is right on the other side. Just go across
it. Why'd he do that? To show them, you can't go across
it. You can't get across it. How am I going to get across
this? Whatever that sea of death is that you come to, whatever
that river of death is we come to in this life, God's the only
one that's going to bring us across it. And the last one,
he'll have to bring us across that one. How'd he do it? Tell
those priests to stand in the edge of that water. Put their
feet in the edge of that water and hold the ark up. And He told
the people, you stand back far enough to where all of you, millions
of you, can see that ark. And you just keep your eye on
that ark. And they just stood there and looked at that ark.
That's all they did. And God dried the river up completely
and said, now go across. And they went across. What's
He teaching us? He provides His priests, His
ministers, and all they're to do is hold up Christ's ark. That's it. Just hold Him up.
Before the people, and the people, what are they to do? Surely they
need to get some buckets and start bailing water, build a
dam, do something. Nope, just look at the art. Just
look at the art. Run the race that God set before
you with all the mighty rivers and the floods that you can't
cross or do nothing about. Run it one way, looking straight
ahead to Christ, who is the author and the finisher of your faith,
who's saving you by His grace. And when He says, go forward,
you'll find the river's dried up. You'll go right forward.
Every river of death, He dries it up. Look into Him. Look into
Him. That's the only way. So remember,
this is all of Christ's hand. Everything that was taking place
there, it was all of His hand. And look where He's brought to.
Now think about this. Look at this, verse 16. The day
is thine. The night also is thine. Thou hast prepared the light
and the sun, thou hast set all the borders of the earth, and
thou hast made summer and winter." Now, if we know that all the
things of nature are His, that He made them, He set the bounds,
He controls them, everything's doing His will. Exactly. And has been. Think about it.
Think of the audacity of man in our day to think that we can
change what God has been doing for thousands of years since
He made this world and He's been controlling the sun and the night
and the day and the waters and all the different things that
He's done. If He's doing that and has done
that for all this time, and He has the rule of all nature, then
you and I can rest assured everything in this world is His. He created
it for His glory. He's ruling it for His glory.
He created the wicked for the day of evil. It's all for His
glory, and He's working His will in it, and He's doing it to show
you and me He's got it all under control. Every bit of it. Every bit of it. And he's working
it. I don't need to know it. I don't
need to know the details. I don't need to know the secret
workings of whatever's going on behind. I don't need to know
it. I don't care about knowing it. I don't even need to know
how it's working out for good when I can't even see it's working
out for good. You know where my comfort is?
He's working it. That's all I need to know. I had my TV disconnected for
about two months before the election and didn't have it connected
for about a month after the election. I didn't even know if we had
a president. And I didn't know who we had for a president. And
it's one of the most peaceful times of my life. And you know,
when I reconnected it and turned it back on, it was like I just
turned it off an hour ago. And the same junk was still going
on. They was arguing about the same
mess. And you know what? Me knowing about it didn't change
it. All it would have done was just make me twisted and turned
and upset about it. I don't have to know about it.
God's ruling it. So I can just flip it off and
get in His Word and be reminded God's got it. He's got it. So it brings you here at the
end. He says, verse 18, Oh, remember this, that the enemies reproached,
O Lord, the foolish people blasphemed thy name. Oh, deliver not the
soul of thy turtle dove into the multitude of the wicked.
Forget not the congregation of thy poor forever. These are all
things God has promised to do for His people, but God's going
to have us ask Him to do them. And so He'll bring you here.
God's promised us we're His dove and He will not forget us. He's
engraving us on the palms of His hand, but He's going to bring
you to ask Him, Lord, don't forget us. That's a good place to be,
to be at His feet. Lord, don't forget us. Have respect
to the covenant, for the dark places of the earth are full
of the habitations of cruelty. He promised, I won't ever forget
my covenant. He came and fulfilled all His
promises. He does everything according
to covenant promise, the promise of God. He could swear by no
greater and He promised, brethren, immutable, unchangeable promise
of God. Blessing, I will bless, surely
blessing, I will bless thee. Multiplying, I will multiply
thee. That's God swearing by himself. And he's promised us,
and all the promises in Christ are yes, and in him, amen, to
the praise of the glory of God. He won't fail, but he's gonna
have us ask him, Lord, plead everything based on your promise.
Remember your promise. And then look, oh, let not the
oppressed return ashamed. Let the poor and needy praise
thy name. You see who we are in this? We're the poor, we're
the needy, we're the oppressed, we're the helpless. Don't let
us be ashamed. He says, you'll never be ashamed
for trusting me. You'll never be confounded for
trusting me. But you're going to have to ask him, Lord, don't
let us be ashamed. Arise, O God, plead thy own cause. And he just does what he does
because of his own cause. He told them in Ezekiel 36, I'm
not doing this because of you. I'm doing it for my glory. I'm
doing it for my name. But he's going to have us ask,
Lord, you plead your cause. Do it for your sake, Lord. Do
it for your namesake. Remember how the foolish man
reproaches thee daily. Forget not the voice of thine
enemies, the tumult of those that rise up against thee increases
continually. That's the instruction for the
day in which we live right there. Is it not? He brought us to lament. We are in a bad shape. We are. We're always in a bad shape.
We just don't see it. Personally, we're always in a
bad shape. We just don't see it. He brings this to us personally
sometimes for the same reason, to lament the state we're in,
to see we're helpless and we need God. He brings you to remember
His mighty works of old so that you know He's been working salvation
for His people a lot longer than I've even been alive. He can
work mine. He was working mine forever.
He knew He was working mine. He can work it today. And that
gives you strength and hope knowing He's working in my midst. He's
working for me. And He's going to work for me
in the future. You know that, believer. And it brings you to
cast it all on Him. Lord, don't forget us. Save us. Remember your covenant. Plead your cause. And that's
instruction for us, is it not? Is that where the trouble has
brought us? Anything else is vanity. That's
where the trouble brings you, right there. I pray God will
bless it. Father, we ask you to bless this
word to our hearts and make it, make it effectual. We know you
would do that in the hearts of your people. And Lord, we do
ask you, see the trouble and know the trouble and And Lord,
we are in a sad state. We ask you to work your works
of old and continue to give us that hope that you are in the
midst of your elect church and you are working for the good
of your people. Lord, we do ask you, put down
the enemy. Put down the enemy in our flesh.
Put down the enemy that would separate your people from Christ
and that would injure your church and it would cause us to look anywhere but to you. Lord calls us to look to you
and you only. Make this word effectual. Make
us hear you speak this word. And Lord, we ask you to remember
your covenant. Remember your weak and oppressed
turtle dove. And we ask you, Father, to plead
your cause. This is what we need. Help your
people to gather under the preaching of the word and not be afraid
of things. Not be afraid of men and things. We need the gospel. Anything
that separates from the gospel is not good. And Lord, we ask
you to make us sanctify you in our hearts and see you are ruling
everything and make us get under your gospel, set aside anything
else and not make anything else an issue and make us worship
you under your word. And Lord, we pray this is what
you're working in this world right now and in your church.
Thank you, Father. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen.