All right, brethren, back there
now in Psalm 65. You know, as we go through this
world together as the church of God, and we face the tribulations
that Christ said we would face, and we face difficulties and
obstacles and different things, sometimes we wonder, how's it
gonna turn out? How's this going to end up? And
we have that answer tonight in the scriptures, not only for
each individual believer, but for each local church and for
the whole church. This is how it's going to turn
out. In every trial and every obstacle and everything that
appears to be hindering us, this is how it's going to end up every
time. Verse 1, praise waiteth for thee,
O God, in Zion, and unto thee shall the vow be performed. That's how it's always going
to end up. It's going to end up in praise. Zion is the church
of God. For every believer, the Hebrew
writer said, ye, speaking to believers, ye are come unto Mount
Zion, to Mount Zion. to the city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem. This is the church of God we're
talking about. And he says here, praise waits
for God in Zion. That word waits means praise
always continues. It always continues in his church. You know you found the true city
of God. You know you found the true Zion.
When you find a local church where God receives all the glory
and all the praise in the salvation of His people, Because all the
blessings we have from our God is by His free and sovereign
grace, freely given, freely worked out for us by Christ. And so
you're going to find God's people in the city of Zion praising
God, giving Him all the glory. And that's how you know you found
the true church of God. Psalm 84.4 says, Blessed are
they that dwell in thy house. That's His church. They will
be still praising Thee. Not anybody else, just Him. Isaiah 45, 25 says, In the Lord
shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory. We glory in the Lord. And we
glory only in the Lord. He is our glory at all times. Now, look at this next phrase.
The vow shall be performed. A vow is a voluntary, deliberate
promise made to God concerning things lawful, possible, and
pleasing to God. Voluntary, deliberate promise
made to God concerning things lawful, possible, and pleasing
to God. Now as Christ's bride, the church,
and each of us individually who make up that bride, our profession
of faith is a vow to Christ our husband. It is a vow to Christ
our husband. When we confess Christ, we're
giving God all the glory for our salvation. That's what we're
saying when we confess Christ. All our salvation is Christ.
And we're vowing that we will always give God all the glory.
We have nothing to glory in. Nothing to glory in. God's saints
shall perform this vow. We shall give Christ all the
glory in our salvation always. Listen, Psalm 56, 12. Thy vows
are upon me, O God. I will render praises unto thee. Vow and pay unto the Lord your
God. Let all that be round about him
bring presence unto him that ought to be feared. We're talking
about continually performing praise and glory to God. That's what our profession of
faith is. But now how is it so certain
that it can be said the vow shall be performed? Unto thee God the
vow shall be performed. How can you make such a dogmatic
statement? Well, we saw this a few Psalms
ago when David vowed, I will always praise thee, Lord. We
see it here even more clearly. It's not because of something
in us. Left to ourselves, we have no strength. Our strength
is Christ. But the vow shall be performed
because from eternity, Christ vowed to God the Father to pay
his vow, to perform his vow. to bring forth this praise in
his people. He vowed to perform his vow to
bring us to perform this vow of praise and thanksgiving to
God. And so we're looking at the vow shall be performed. By Christ performing his vow
to the Father, he causes his people to perform the vow of
giving God all glory, honor, and praise for our salvation. You get that? By Him performing
His vow to the Father, all the work He promised, He brings you
and me to perform the vow of giving God all the honor, praise,
and glory. Now let's see that. First of
all, Christ performs the vow of receiving all sinners who
come to God by Him. That's what He promised the Father.
In a covenant vow to the Father, He would receive all sinners
who come to God by Him. Now look at it in verse 2. O
thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come. Christ declared this vow when
He said this. He said, if I be lifted up from
the earth. He was talking about on the cross.
If I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me. He promised the Father he would
do that. That was his vow and he's going to perform the vow.
Now does he mean that every sinner on this earth throughout time
shall come to Christ? Well, there's no doubt every
sinner shall die and come before Christ in judgment. Romans 14.10
says we shall all, that's every sinner, we shall all stand before
the judgment seat of Christ. So then every one of us shall
give account of himself to God. That's certain. And then we know
this, every knee's gonna bow and every tongue's gonna confess
that Christ is who he says he is. At the name of Jesus, every
knee shall bow. And every tongue shall confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
But now you look around. And it's obvious that not every
sinner in this world comes to Christ. Not everybody comes to
Christ. And it's obvious too that most
in religion don't perform the vow of giving all the glory and
honor to God for salvation. And if you don't give God all
the glory and all the honor and all the praise for salvation,
that's not performing the vow. And it's obvious from this psalm
right here that he's not talking about all sinners without exception.
It means all who Christ came to save shall all come. They shall all come. And Christ
shall receive all who come, asking mercy. You remember John 6 verse
37. He said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. That's what he said in our song.
For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the
will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will
which is sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should
lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
That's what he means by all flesh. All guilty sinners that the Father
gave to Christ shall come to Christ. And all that come to
Christ guilty and begging mercy, Christ shall receive them and
he will not lose one of them. He will not lose one of them.
If he allowed just one, if he turned one away, or if he allowed
one to perish, then he would not be performing the vow. And
he, unto thee, O God, shall the vow be performed. He will perform
the vow. And our text means this too.
Verse two, when he says all flesh shall come unto thee, he means
all kinds of sinners. All kinds of sinners shall come.
Zion's made up of all kinds of sinners. They sung a new song
saying thou art worthy to take the book and open the seals thereof
for thou was slain and redeemed us to God by thy blood out of
every kindred and tongue and people. and nation. Not everybody
in every kindred tongue people and nation, but he has a people
that he saves out of every kindred tongue people and nation. And
some are rich and some are poor. Some are kings and some are paupers.
That's why Paul said, I exhort therefore that first of all supplications
and prayers and intercessions and giving of thanks be made
for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that
we, you and me who are not kings, from kings to paupers, from kings
to nobodies, that we may lead a quiet, peaceable life in all
godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable
in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved,
who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge
of the truth. Now you know this, if God our Savior wills it, he
does it. That's what the rest of the Psalm
65 we're going to look at, Lord willing, next time to show us.
All this is coming to pass because He's sovereign. He does what
He will. And if He wills it, He's doing
it. And so if He willed that all men be saved and come to
the knowledge of the truth, it has to mean kings. Some will be kings, some will
be those in authority, some will be nobody. Some will be rich,
some will be poor, some will be male, some will be female,
some will be Jews, some will be Gentiles. He's talking about
all kinds of men. Because there's one God and one
mediator between God and man? If it was talking about all men
without exception, it would say man. But it says between God
and men. Because it's not talking about
all people without exception. He's the mediator of his people.
And here's another way we know it's not all people without exception.
He gave Himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. Christ paid a ransom for all
His people. And a ransom is a price that's
owed for a particular person. And when that ransom is paid
for that particular person, they're free. And Christ paid the ransom
for all kinds of sinners. And they're free. They're free.
And then Paul says, listen to this, where unto I am ordained
a preacher and apostle, I speak the truth in Christ and lie not,
I'm a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity. The Jews
thought they were the only ones gonna be saved. He said not the
Jews only, but the Gentiles too. He has a people out of all kindred
tongue people on this earth. And that's what he says here.
The point here is, the only qualification to come to Christ is to be a
sinner. That's it. To be a sinner. It doesn't matter who you are,
because Christ is no respecter of persons. All who come confessing
their ruined sinners, all who come begging for mercy, Christ
shall receive us and intercede for us with God. And for all
who come to Him that way, all who come to God by Christ Jesus,
look at this name of God, Thou that hearest prayer. How does
God hear the prayer of a sinner? Any kind of sinner, no matter
how vile he might be. If he comes to God by Christ,
confessing his sin, asking mercy, God hears him through Christ. Listen, He will regard the prayer
of the destitute and not despise their prayer. That's Psalm 102
verse 17. He will regard the prayer of
the destitute and He will not despise their prayer. Now if
there's a sinner listening to this and you think you're too
much of a sinner to come to God, listen to this. He says, let
the wicked forsake his way and let the unrighteous man his thoughts
and let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him
and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. The vow shall be performed
because all who come to Christ from among every kind of people
on this earth shall be received by Christ and Christ shall intercede
for us with God. And we all shall pay the vow
by giving God all the glory for it. We'll give Him all the glory
when it's done. You saw in the golden altar of
incense how this happens. How does God hear the prayer
of a sinner? Because our prayers they ascend to God when we're
asking God for mercy and we're confessing our sin, it ascends
to God perfect in Christ so that God hears us. And then when we
perform the vow of thanksgiving, giving God all the glory for
this, that too, a sin. And so we give God the glory
for even hearing our prayer because it's all in Christ our intercessor
by his sin atoning blood. Listen to this. He's able to
save them to the uttermost that come to God by Him, seeing He
ever liveth to make intercession for them on their behalf. Now secondly, Christ performs
the vow by purging the sin of His people. Not only does He
receive every sinner that comes to Him, but He performs the vow
because He purged all the sin of His people. Look at verse
3. Iniquities prevail against me. As for our transgressions,
thou shalt purge them away. A sinner, a true sinner, comes
to Christ confessing, Iniquities prevail against me. Iniquities
prevail against me. My own iniquities prevail against
me and the iniquities of what others say about me prevail against
me. I have no power against iniquity,
mine or anybody else's. And that's what a sinner's coming
to God confessing. And listen, we don't ever stop
coming to God confessing this, because they never stop prevailing
over us if we're left to ourselves. A true mercy-beggar comes confessing
we're nothing but sinful flesh. Iniquities prevail, making us
think we're righteous so that we justify ourselves Iniquities
prevail to make us unacceptable to a holy God, except Christ
make us righteous. And we'll go on thinking we're
righteous and that we're justified until Christ subdues our flesh. And when His Spirit of God makes
us sinner, behold, His iniquities are prevailing against Him. Then
He comes to Christ, confessing His sins, and Christ causes Him
to know that Christ has put away all his sin. He's purged all
his people's sins. He did it. He did it on Calvary's
cross. Thou shalt purge them away. On the cross, Christ died for
a particular people and purged all our sins away. Hebrews 1.3
says when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the
right hand of the majesty on high. You see, I said the context
is going to show you that all flesh doesn't mean all sinners
without exception. The context here means Christ died for and
purged the sins of His people. And that's who's going to come
to Him. That's who He's going to make to come to Him. And because
Christ purged the sin of His people, God won't pour out justice
on them a second time. He already poured out justice
on Christ in our stead. He won't do it on His people
a second time. So that sinner that's made to come to Christ,
confessing his sin, confessing iniquities are prevailing against
me. I can't overcome my sin. I can't make myself accepted
with God. I can't make God hear my prayer.
I can't put down my sinful flesh. Christ is going to make him know
first of all he's purged all his sins. And when he does that,
Christ makes him perform the vow of giving God all the glory
for that work. We give Christ all the glory
for purging our sin and making us righteous and accepted before
God. It means our old man of flesh
was crucified when Christ laid down his life on the cross so
that now that old man of flesh before God's judgment seat is
dead and buried and God remembers our sins no more. Now that'll
make you perform the vow of giving God all the glory because he
sent his only begotten son who accomplished it. Now thirdly,
Christ performs the vow by choosing His people and making us know
He did the choosing. Verse 4, blessed, happy is the
man whom thou choosest. These are all ways the vow shall
be performed. Christ performs the vow, bringing
us to perform the vow of glorifying God alone. Christ brings His
people to know that we're saved by God's sovereign, free, electing
grace. First of all, God chose Christ.
He's the first elect. He said in Isaiah 42, 1, Behold
my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. God the Father chose a multitude
of people in His Son, not based on anything in us. It was God's
free and sovereign grace alone. Why? That the purpose of God
according to election might stand, not of works, but of God the
He told Moses, I'll have compassion on whom I'll have compassion.
So then it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that shows mercy. Salvation is of God. He did the
choosing. And there's coming a season for
every elect child of God, everyone Christ purged. There's coming
a season when Christ is going to make them know that they've
been chosen by God. Christ is going to make us know
Christ chose us. We didn't choose him. He said
in John 15, 16, you've not chosen me, but I've chosen you and ordained
you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit
should remain that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in
my name, he may give it to you. And then he said, if you were
of the world, the world would love his own. Why are we not
of the world? Well, I made my decision for
Christ. That ain't why we're not of the
world. If we're really His and we're really not of the world,
that's not how we're not of the world and you won't hear God's
people saying that. That's not performing the vow,
that's giving ourselves glory. Christ performs the vow of making
us know He chose us, we didn't choose Him. He said this, but
because you're not of the world, but I have chosen you out of
the world, therefore the world hateth you. And He's going to
make you know that. Why do all kind of sinners come
to Christ? Because God our Father chose
us in Christ and Christ makes us know that He did the choosing. God's people do not glory in
our flesh, and say well that's why God chose me. He saw something
good in me. We don't glory in our will, we don't glory in our
works, we don't glory in our faith, we don't glory in anything
saying that's why God chose me. We glory in God saying He chose
me by His free, unmerited, sovereign grace simply because He would.
That's how Christ brings you to it. That's a vow performed
by every chosen saved sinner. gives God the glory and Christ
is the one that performed the vow to make you perform that
vow and give Him that glory. Now let's look at this fourth
thing. How's the vow going to be performed? How's it so sure
this vow be performed? Christ performs the vow of causing
each of His redeemed to come to God by Him. Now here's how
all flesh shall come to Him. If anybody comes to Christ in
truth, this is what they're going to say. This is how they're going
to say they came to Christ right here. Verse 4, Blessed is the
man whom thou causest to approach unto thee. We're not called to
faith in Christ by our will and our work. We didn't come to Christ
by our will, by our sinful nature. It's by God's eternal immutable
purpose that each child that He chose is irresistibly caused
to approach unto God only through faith in Christ. God has to do
that. Christ performs that. The Lord
hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn
thee. That's the same word that's over
there where Peter drew his sword. He drew his fisherman's knife
and he cut off the soldier's ear. Just like he drew that out,
Christ drew you out and brought you to him. We will not, we cannot
come to Christ unless God the Father and His Son, Christ Jesus,
make us willing. And He makes us willing by making
us be born again, by giving us a new nature that's willing to
come to God, to come to Christ. And we don't have anything to
do with that either. We're born not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, God our Father. And His Son, the Lord Jesus,
draws us to Christ. Jesus answered and said to that.
There was a whole bunch of disciples following Him. And people would
come to church for all different sorts of reasons. They were following
Christ because they saw Him work a miracle and they ate the loaves
and the fish and that's why they followed Him. But when they heard
Him preaching, they heard Him preach and they began to murmur. And He said, don't murmur amongst
yourselves. No man can come to Me except the Father which has
sent Me. Draw him. and I will raise him up at the
last day. I won't reject him. And it's written in the prophets,
they shall be all taught of God. And here's the result, when God's
your teacher, therefore every man that hath heard and hath
learned of the Father cometh unto me. That's how we're made. They were with Christ, they were
walking with Christ, they were in Christ's presence, but they
had never come to Christ. You can do all the things believers
do and still have not come to Christ. How will we come to it? The Father must draw us. And
Christ gets glory for this because God the Father said, thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power. And those truly drawn to Christ,
they're made to know that God did the drawing. You experience
the power, you know God did the drawing. You know one day I hated
him and didn't want anything to do with him and didn't want
to hear the gospel and then something happened over time and I found
I wanted to hear the gospel. I delighted in the gospel and
rejoiced in the gospel. Who made the difference? God
the Father and His Son Christ drew me to Him. That's why we
perform the vow of giving God all the glory because Christ
performed that vow of drawing us to Him. That's what he promised
the Father to do. That's what he does. And when
he does that, then we say this, we're bound to give thanks all
the way to God. Not to anybody else. To God. That's performing the vow. That's
you and me performing that. We're bound to give thanks all
the way to God for you. Beloved, brethren, beloved of
the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the Spirit, belief of the truth,
whereunto He called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the
glory of the Lord Jesus. And so we give Him all the glory. We perform the vow unto God,
giving Him all the praise. Now fifthly, Christ performs
the vow. This is my last point here. Christ performs the vow that
He promised the Father, making us dwell under the preaching
of His gospel the rest of our days. Look at verse 4 at the
end. He does all this that He may
dwell in thy courts, we shall be satisfied with the goodness
of thy house, even of thy holy temple. Christ makes His people
dwell in His courts. Where is that? That's where we
are right now. It's in his house of worship.
It's where his people are gathered, whether it's through the internet
or whatever, we're right now gathered together in the house
of God. And this is a special circumstance. Normally, it's assembling together
as his church. So you get what I'm saying. He
does that, and he does it through the goodness of his house. That's
the preaching of His works, the preaching of God's works, of
Christ's works, of His finished, accomplished redemption. That's
the goodness of His house. as the preaching of the gospel
of Christ to him crucified. Now listen to this, it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching because this is the children's
bread. This gospel we preach, this is
our bread, this is our life. We have to hear God's works. We hear through this message
that God the Father is satisfied with Christ. He's satisfied with
us in Christ. That's what it means when it
said it pleased God to bruise Him. It satisfied God. It satisfied
His justice. It honored His justice. And it
justified His people. And that satisfied God. God's
got nothing else against His people in Christ. God's satisfied
with His people in Christ. And when you hear that message,
you know what that does? When God, the Spirit of God works
in your heart, that makes you satisfied with Christ. And you're
satisfied with hearing about Him all the time. Aren't you? Don't you? That's your breath. That's what you want to hear.
And that's the message that makes his newborn children satisfied. That makes us dwell in his courts. Because these are words of eternal
life. And we have to hear Christ our
Head, Christ our High Priest, Christ our King, Christ our Prophet. We have to hear Him preach these
words to us through the preaching of the Gospel. Because they're
the words of eternal life. They're our bread. This is where
we eat and how we feed and how we're satisfied and kept satisfied
with Christ. And this is what keeps us dwelling
in His courts. You remember after those disciples murmured, those
vain disciples, after they murmured against Christ and they went
away. He turned to his disciples and he said, are you going to
go away too? Remember what they said? To whom
shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. You got the bread. You got the
spiritual food, Lord. And they're the words that give
us our eternal life and sustain us in that eternal life. We've
got to have it. To whom shall we go? We're sure
thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. There was
nowhere else to go. But why did those vain disciples
cease assembling with the church? Why did they leave? They weren't
satisfied with Christ. They took fault with His gospel
because they weren't satisfied with Christ only. They were waiting
on Christ to tell them how they could feed multitudes. They wanted to hear Christ tell
them how they could work miracles. They wanted to hear Christ tell
them something they could do. And he wouldn't. He told them,
I'm the bread. Unless you eat of me and eat
of my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. And
they said, that's a hard saying. Who can hear it? What was the
problem? They were not satisfied with
the gospel of Christ. They weren't satisfied with the
goodness of his house. Sinners give every kind of excuse
under the sun for leaving the gospel, for not assembling with
God's people. Every excuse under the sun. But
you know what they never say? I've never experienced anybody
say this. I've never had anybody leave that professed to believe.
I've never had anybody that professed to believe because they said,
I have a problem with the gospel of Christ. Sinners won't admit that's the
problem. They don't think that's the problem.
But when you become dissatisfied with the gospel of Christ and
you become dissatisfied with what you're hearing, that's when
you'll start taking fault with everything else and looking at
other things that offend you and you'll start taking fault
with them. But through the preaching of
the gospel, through the Holy Spirit, Christ makes His people
satisfied with Him. He keeps you satisfied with Him. He keeps you wanting to hear
of Him and His finished work because God the Father is satisfied
with Him. He is satisfied with you in Him.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of
thy holy temple. And sinners satisfied with Christ
are content to dwell in Christ's church under the sound of the
gospel of Christ because it gives God all the glory. All the glory. We have to have Christ our life.
We have to have the words of eternal life. Why did God choose
to save through this foolishness of preaching? Why did He choose
to save this way? Why did Christ our Head promise
the Father that He would perform the vow of providing pastors
after His own heart which would feed His church with knowledge
and understanding? Christ promised to perform that
vow. Why? Because Christ also promised
to perform the vow of bringing His people through the preaching
of His gospel to not glory in ourselves but give all the glory
to Him. How is this vow going to be performed,
this vow of you and me giving God all the glory? Christ is
going to send the gospel to us and through that gospel He is
going to feed us and keep us satisfied, keep us dwelling in
His court so that we give all the glory to Him. Remember, that's
what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1, why did he choose these base
things? That no flesh should glory in
his presence, but of God are you in Christ, who of God has
made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,
that as it's written, he that glorieth, let him do what? Let
him pay the vow, let him perform the vow, let him glory in the
Lord. And the only way we're brought to perform that vow is
because Christ performed his vow to the Father to bring us
to do it through the preaching of this word. That's why he gives
the glorious Christ our prophet. He's the one that did it. No
man does it. He does it. He might use vessels,
but we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the power
may be of God, not of us. He does it. He does it. So this is how it can be said
so dogmatically. Verse 1, praise waiteth for thee,
O God, in Zion, and unto thee shall the vow be performed. How's
it going to turn out? How's the trials and the troubles
and the obstacles, how are they going to end up? They're going
to end up always this way. Christ performing the vow. He's
going to keep performing the vow. He's going to make His sinful
people from all walks of life come to Him and He's going to
receive them and He's going to intercede for us with God. He's
going to make us to know He's purged away all our sins. He's
going to make us to know God chose us freely by His grace.
He never stops making you know this. He's going to make us know
that He's the one that caused us to come to God by Him. Not
just in the first hour, but when you got all sideways and you
was like the Apostle Peter and everybody thought you had left
the gospel. He's the one that caused you to come to God by
Him. He said, I pray for you that your faith fail not. That's
the only reason our faith don't fail in this trial. And he's
gonna make us satisfied with himself through his gospel so
that we dwell in his courts forever. And so we're gonna praise God.
We're gonna give God all the glory and that's how the vow
shall be performed. I pray that's a blessing. Let's
go to the Lord in prayer and we'll be dismissed. Father, we
thank you that you haven't left this work in the hands of your
people. We're sinners and we would mess it up. Lord, we can't
even make ourselves perform the vow, much less anybody else.
But we're thankful that Christ performs His vow and that He
works the works in His people and by His faithfulness He brings
us to praise You and give You all the glory and honor. Thank
You, Father. That's what we're trying to do
here tonight. We're trying to give You all the praise all the
honor, all the glory. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto thy name be the glory. We ask it in Christ's
name, amen. There is forgiveness through
the blood, forgiveness with the Lord. Would you be righteous
in God's sight, forgiven of all sin? Then trust the Savior crucified,
who