Alright, back to Psalm 30. Now the title says that this
is a psalm and a song at the dedication of David. Whenever David's temple or the
house was raised, we're not sure if this was David's cedar house
that he built for himself or if it was the temple, and he's
speaking prophetically here, but they held a dedication. When
that house was built, they had a dedication. the raising up
of David's house. And the dedication was a time
of rejoicing. It was a time to sing and praise
God. And when we see that, when we
hear that, that this was a song at the dedication of the Lord's
house being raised, the temple of the Lord being raised, it
tells us what the spiritual meaning of this psalm is. The temple
or the house of David, raised up is a type of our Lord Jesus
Christ raised up from the dead. It's a picture of Him raised
from the dead and His people in Him. Look over at John 2.
John 2. Christ was speaking one day to
some Pharisees, and he said they were asking for a sign. How do
we know all these things are going to come to pass? And the
Lord said in verse 19, destroy this temple and in three days
I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, forty-six
years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three
days? But he spake of the temple of
his body. When therefore He was risen from
the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this unto them,
and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had
said. Look over to Hebrews chapter
8. Hebrews chapter 8. So when we read this as a dedication
of the raising of the house of David, we look to Christ. We look to Christ. Look at Hebrews
8 and verse 1. Now, of the things which we've
spoken, this is the sum. This is what the book of Hebrews
is all about. This is what it's been declaring.
This is the sum. We have such a high priest who
is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the
heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which
the Lord pitched and not man. Look at Acts 15. whenever Peter had been sent to the Gentiles,
you remember, and the Lord poured out the Holy Spirit on them.
And some men came down and were saying that they needed to put
the yoke of the law on these folks. And Peter stood up and
said, No. And he said, God sent me to them,
and he said, and we believe we'll be saved, us Jews will be saved
just like those Gentiles, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And after Paul and Barnabas spoke,
then James spoke. And here's what he said in Acts
15, 13. They had held their peace. James
answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me. Simeon, he's
talking about Apostle Peter, hath declared how God at the
first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people
for His name, and to disagree the words of the prophet, as
it is written. And he's quoting from Amos 9,
11, and 12. God had prophesied saying, after this I will return
and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down. And I will build again the ruins
thereof and I will set it up, now watch this, that the residue
of men might seek after the Lord. When the Scriptures tell us about
how in these last days men will all come to the house of the
Lord, They'll come to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of
the Lord. He's saying they'll come to Christ who's seated at
God's right hand. Because God has raised that temple. He's raised that temple from
the dead. And He's seated at God's right
hand and He said there, And all the Gentiles upon whom my name
is called sayeth the Lord who doeth all these things. Known
unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. He
said this is what Christ worked. Christ is that temple that's
been raised that men might seek unto Him and He's worked this
that you see here in these Gentiles. We're going to be saved by the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ just like these Gentiles have
been. So, when you look here now and you see this psalm is
a dedication when the house of the Lord was raised. That's telling
us this is a psalm of Christ whenever He was raised up from
the grave. That's what we have here. Now,
in this psalm, there are seven uses of the phrase, Thou hast. Thou hast. Now, in these seven
things, is what God did for Christ and what He did for His people
in Christ. Verse 7, Thou hast. First of
all, His salvation. He says in verse 1, I will extol
Thee, O Lord, for Thou hast lifted Me up and has not made My foes
to rejoice over Me. When Christ hung on the cross,
every foe that was the foe of His people became His foe. Every enemy that was the enemy
of His people became His enemy as He hung there on the cross.
The devil and all his self-righteous seed became His foe. The sin of His people was made
His foe. The broken law of God became
His foe. The wrath and justice of God
Himself became His foe. The weakness of human flesh became
His foe. There was nothing about human
flesh, even when our Christ was on that cross, that would be
able to help him in any way. Death and the grave became his
foe. And the second death, that judgment
of being cast out and forsaken, if we ever meet God outside of
Christ, that's the second death Scripture speaks of. That second
death became his foe. Christ had no help when He hung
on that cross. removed Himself, forsook Him
on that cross, and our Substitute hung on that cross with no help.
The only thing that was with Him on that cross were all these
foes striving against Him. He was separated from God and
yet He never ceased looking to God His Father. And His last
words even was, Father, into Thy hands. Commend I my spirit. And then his body was laid in
a tomb. We are talking about all the
foes, all the enemies of his people became his enemies. But what a mighty conquering
substitute we have. Because he defeated all those
foes. Everything he did, he defeated
all those foes because he paid all that his people owed and
he honored God and honored God's law and satisfied justice and
saved God's people by laying down his life in their room instead.
God is so well pleased with him that as the Father promised,
He raised him up from the grave. And when He raised him up, He
set him on high so that Christ could cry out, Thou has lifted
me up and has not made my foes to rejoice over me. He was lifted
up triumphant over all His enemies. And in Him, every single elect
child of God was lifted up and all our enemies were put down. God did not allow any of our
enemies to defeat us because they could not defeat Christ.
In Christ we were raised up. The devil and all his self-righteous
seed and every wicked spirit. Our sin. Sin we don't even know
about. The broken law of God. God Himself. His justice and His wrath. our
sinful flesh, death and the grave, and the second death. All our
foes were not allowed to triumph over us. God is pleased with
His people and His Son. God is not an enemy to His people
in Christ at all. God's lifted me and He's not
made my foes to rejoice over me. When will a sinner extol
God? You know, we come into this world
and we go through life and our chief motive left in our sin,
our chief motive is to extol ourselves, exalt ourselves, lift
ourselves up before men. When will a sinner stop extolling
himself and start extolling God? When will he start lifting God
up, praising God? When God makes him to see that
in Christ, God lifted him up and would not
let his enemies reign over him. Defeated all his enemies. That's
when a man will stop extolling himself and start extolling God.
That's what I want to see happen to somebody who doesn't know
the Lord and is not believing on Christ. That's what I want.
I want to see God make this known to them. So the first thing that
thou hast is thou hast saved me. God has given us salvation
in Christ. Now the second thing here is
sanctification. Verse 2, O Lord my God, I cried
unto thee and thou hast healed me. Thou hast healed me. That's what sanctification is.
Sanctification is being made whole. being made whole. What did Christ cry to the Lord?
What was His cry to the Lord? Now listen to this plea. You can't do better than this.
This is the best plea with God right here. Look at verse 8.
I cried to thee, O Lord, and unto the Lord I made supplication.
What profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit? Shall
the dust praise Thee? Shall it declare Thy truth? Hear,
O Lord, and have mercy upon me. Lord, be Thou my helper." Do
you know why that's such a good plea? Because the reason the
blood of Christ is profitable to show and declare God's righteousness
and to save His people from our sins, the reason His blood is
profitable is because Christ was not left in the tomb. Christ
came out of that tomb and He's the high priest now who ever
liveth to make intercession for His people. And He does that
with His blood. That's why His blood is profitable.
It's a living Redeemer that praises God. that glorifies God, that
brings all glory to God. This is why men want to, the
devil and his seed want to try to make out that Christ died
and that was it. Because it's a living Redeemer.
It's one who died and arose again three days later that is profitable
to God and His people. It's Christ who promised to praise
God and declare His truth in the great congregation. He said
there, who's going to praise thee? Christ is the one who promised
to do that. That's why He came. He came to
praise God, to extol God, to glorify God in His holiness. He came to do it in His life,
in His death, in His resurrection, in His gospel, and in His people. And that's what He does. He's
praising His people in the great congregation. And God heard him
because of this plea. He says, Thou hast healed me. God raised Christ healed. You say, well, I didn't know
He was sick. If you could have seen Him on
that cross, and what we know of what He bore on that cross,
you can see that's not how He came out of the tomb. He came
out of that tomb whole. He came out of that tomb holy. Christ our High Priest did not
enter into the holiest bearing sin. He didn't enter the holiest
of holies in God's presence bearing sin. He entered perfectly holy,
sanctified, without sin, with His own blood. Look at Hebrews
7.26. Hebrews 7.26. He says, such a high priest became
us. Now when you see that word, such
a high priest became us, it's not meaning that he became this
kind of high priest. It means this was the kind of
high priest it was necessary for us to have. It was becoming
for us because of our sin and our inability to enter into God's
presence to have this kind of high priest. What kind of high
priest? Holy. harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, made higher than the heavens. You know, under
the ceremonial law, they brought a lamb. And this lamb, this was
picturing Christ. The lamb was brought and the
hands were put on the lamb and all the sins of all Israel, just
Israel, picturing the elect of God, that lamb was made to be
that sin. When you read in the Old Testament,
it will say it was a sin offering. When you read in the New Testament,
2 Corinthians 5.21 says Christ was made sin. Most people want
to take the Old Testament sin offering and interpret the New
Testament made sin as a sin offering. It says Christ was He who knew
no sin was made sin for us. That first word sin, that second
word the same word sin. He who knew no sin offering was
made a sin offering? No. Take that New Testament,
the exact picture I mean, the exact image of what it truly
is. And that's how you interpret
the Old. That lamb was made sin. Before God, when the sin of the
people were put on that lamb, it was made sin. And so, justice
demanded it be slain. And that lamb was slain. And
then the high priest, another picture of Christ, he went into
the holiest of holies. But he didn't go into the holiest
of holies with a lamb bearing sin. That lamb that had bore
the sin had died. And the sin was paid for. And then the high priest entered
into the holiest of holies with the blood of that lamb and sprinkled
it on the mercy seat. Well, Christ is that Lamb. And
He died. He put away the sin of His people.
But when He commended His Spirit to God and He entered into the
holiest of holies, He didn't enter into the holiest of holies
with sin. That was the purpose of Him dying. God is too pure. He cannot have anything to do
with sin. He put sin away and He entered with His own blood.
Look at Hebrews 9.11, Christ being come a high priest of good
things to come by a greater but perfect tabernacle not made with
hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by the
blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood. He entered
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. For if the blood of bulls and
of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies
to the purifying of the flesh, that's all the picture did. But
watch this, how much more shall the blood of Christ, now watch
this word, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without
spot to God. purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God. He entered in that holiest of
holies without spite, having already put away the sin of His
people. And just like He entered into
that holy place and sprinkled His blood, He enters into the
heart through the gospel and the Holy Spirit sprinkles that
blood in the heart. And look at what happened. Hebrews
10.14 He heals us within in sanctification. By one offering He hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. That's the sanctifying work He
did on the cross. Perfected us. Whereof the Holy
Ghost also is a witness to us. Now this is what happens within.
For after that He had said before, this is the covenant that I will
make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put My
laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them,
and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now
where remission of these is, there is no more offering for
sin. What's the outcome of that sanctifying work? That work He
did on the cross and the work He does in the heart of His child.
Verse 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Where do
you have that boldness? You have it in your new heart.
You have it now, because there's been a sanctifying work done.
It's made you whole to have liberty, to understand you have liberty,
that now you can approach God in the holiest of holies. You
can do it by the blood of Jesus, by a new and a living way. which
He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His
flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us
draw near with a true heart, that's a sanctified heart, that's
a heart that's healed, in full assurance of faith, having our
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed
with pure water. So not only did He justify us
by His blood, that was the blood He spilled, but the water that
came out of His wounded sides, a picture of the sanctifying
work whereby He made us holy and perfect. When is a sinner
going to know, when is Christ going to be made sanctification
unto me? When will that happen? It will
happen whenever Christ is entered in and healed the man in sanctification,
in the work of sanctification. and made him whole so that now
he can truly hear the Gospel and believe the Gospel and understand
the Gospel. And then he'll behold, Christ
is my sanctifier and He's my sanctification. He's the one
that did the work and He is the one who is my holiness. When
the Hebrew writer speaks of that holiness without which no man
shall see the Lord, that holiness is Christ. That holiness is Christ. This is the work Christ does.
So thou hast healed me. You have sanctified me. You've
made me whole. Here's the third thing. Resurrection. Resurrection. Psalm 30 verse 3. O Lord, thou
hast brought up my soul from the grave. Now when Christ arose
from the dead, He arose to die no more. He arose to die no more
and so did all His people in Him. We just read that song and
I was reading the words there where it says no mortal can understand
or believe or I forget what it said. No mortal can understand
how our sins so black can be white as snow. And I thought,
I don't know if that's a good statement. But then I thought,
well no mortal can know. Your mortal flesh is not how
you know God. It's in the immortal new man
that He's put in you that you know Him and understand the gospel.
No mortal can. It's in that new man that we
understand and believe God. Because when He arose from the
dead, He ended death completely. That was the end of death for
Him and for His people. Listen to Romans 6, 9. Knowing
that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more. Death has no more dominion over
Him. No more. It did once. It did
one time. He gave Himself to death. He
said, Death, this is your hour. And He gave Himself to death
and it had dominion over Him. But He was dying for His people
to justify His people. And because He satisfied God
and put away our sin, There is no more power with death. So now it can't have dominion
over him anymore. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise
reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but
alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Look at Ephesians
2. Ephesians chapter 2. You mean
that's what happened to me when Christ arose? I became dead to
death? Death has no more dominion over
me? Look at Ephesians 2. He raised me up just like He
raised up Christ. He brought up my soul from the
grave. Ephesians 2 verse 4. God who
is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, even
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace you are saved. And He
raised us up together. This is when He raised Christ.
That's what He was saying at the end of Ephesians 1. He was
saying this is the power God wrought toward us. When He raised Christ from the
grave, He raised us with Him. Right then. He raised us up together
and He made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus
that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of
His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. And
so all who are resurrected in Christ, when He was resurrected,
will be resurrected in the new birth and they'll be resurrected
in the last day. 1 Corinthians 15, 20 says, ìNow
is Christ risen from the dead.î And He became the first fruits
of them that slept, or them that were dead. Whatís the first fruit? Thatís the first fruit when you
get that first tomato off the tomato plant every year. Thatís
just the first fruit to let you know thereís coming a whole bunch
more behind it. Christ is the first fruit. of
His people. For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all
died, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Everybody
He represented died to death when Christ went in that tomb
and came out of it. Death has no more dominion over
us. And so because He put away sin, we're not going to die,
believer. Listen to this, the sting of
death is sin. and the strength of sin is the
law. He satisfied the law and He put away our sin. Death's
got no more strength for those He represented. Thanks be to
God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
If somebody asks you and they say, what's your hope? Or what
is your gospel? I'll give you one verse you can
give them that sums it all up. It's Colossians 3.3. God has
said this to me. You are dead. And your life is hid with Christ
in God. And when Christ who is our life
shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory. We are not dying. Those of you
who have been born of God, born again, born anew, resurrected
with Christ, you will never die. You will never die. Alright,
here is the fourth thing. Preservation. Preservation. Psalm 30 verse 3. Thou hast kept
me alive that I should not go down to the pit. See, Christ
honored God and honored the law of God. And so Holy God, now
listen to me carefully, Holy God had to preserve His life. Because Christ honored God and
satisfied justice, holy God had to preserve His life and not
allow Him to see corruption. He had to. Men will say, well,
God doesn't have to do anything. Yes, He does. He has to do everything
that's in accordance with His holiness. He has to. Because he's holy. That's why
Psalm 16.10 said, Christ says, Thou wilt not leave my soul in
hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption. That doesn't mean Christ went
to hell. He's talking about the grave. He won't suffer thy holy
one, and that's the key, thy holy one to suffer corruption. God's holiness and His righteousness
His holiness demanded the preservation of the holy and righteous Lord
Jesus Christ. Now listen to this carefully.
If you don't get anything else, get this. It is God's own holiness
and righteousness that is God's preserving power. When we read
that we're kept by the power of God, what is that power? It's more
than just sheer strength. It's His holiness. Because Christ
satisfied divine justice, His holiness demands that His people
must be preserved in and by Christ. That's why Christ could say,
Thou hast kept me. You wouldn't suffer me to see
corruption. And you can say that, believer,
because of Christ. God's holy. Look here at this
fifth thing. It's establishment. Verse 7,
Lord, by Thy favor, Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. God's so pleased with His Son
that He raised Him above all and seated Him at His own right
hand. Lord Jesus Christ is immovable.
He'll never be moved. He's the rock. He'll never be
moved. That's what He was saying in
Ephesians 1.20. He raised Him from the dead, set Him at His
own right hand in heavenly places. That is an immovable place at
God's own right hand. And He put Him there above, far
above all principality and power and might and dominion and every
name that's named. Not only in this world, but in
the world to come. And He hath put all things under
His feet. and gave Him to be the head over
all things to the church. Now do you know what the purpose
of that is? Do you know why He's giving us that verse? Let me
read it to you here real quick. I didn't write it down, but let
me read this. Here's why He's telling you that. Look, He's
saying, O that the eyes of your understanding might be enlightened,
that you might know what is the hope of His calling, what is
the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, And
listen, what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward
who believe? According to the working of His
mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead and did all that right there. He's saying He raised
Him up showing that His power in establishing Christ immovable
is His holiness because Christ satisfied justice. He's raised
Him immovably anchored in a rock solid place that cannot be moved
and by that same power He established His people just that immovable.
Just that immovable. So we can say what Christ our
Rock said, He brought me up out of the horrible pit, out of the
miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings. It seems difficult for us to
say things like that concerning Christ because Christ is God.
He is God our Savior. But when He came, He came to
be the head of His people, to be the man representing all His
fellows. The elder brother representing
all his people. The head of the family. And so
he was trusting the father to do these things the father promised
once he had satisfied justice for his people. And God did it.
God set him on a rock. That means he can't be moved.
And because he set him on a rock, he set his people on a rock.
We can't be moved. Don't fret about it. Don't start
worrying and think that I'm going to fall out of God's favor and
my salvation is... I'm going to perish after all. No! No. If we're Christ and it's not
about anything we've done, if we're His and He's all our hope,
He's the only one we're trusting in, You're set on a rock because
Christ can't be moved. And nobody, none of His people
in Him can be moved. And so, established us. He has
established us. Here's the sixth thing. Worship. He's made us to worship. Look
at verse 11. Thou hast turned for me my mourning
into dancing. Now you think about this mourning.
Now listen to Christ speaking this. Thou hast turned for me
my mourning. Christ paid such a tremendous
price that there was no other sorrow like His sorrow. He said
in Lamentations 1.12, Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by?
The man who just comes in and sits down and hears the gospel
and he's just like talking about the stock market to him. And
he goes out, Is it nothing to you that are just passing by? Behold, and see if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the
Lord hath afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger. But
now His mourning is turned into dancing. You know what dancing
represents in the Scripture? Praise and joy. Rejoicing. And that praise and
joy in God is true worship. Look down at verse 12. He said,
He did all this to the end that my glory, that is, the one I'm
going to glory in, may sing praise to Thee and not be silent. O
Lord my God, I'll give thanks unto Thee forever. See, this
is for him to be praised, for God to be praised. That's true
worship. When you're praising God, singing
praises to God, your heart's filled with dancing before God,
that's over what He's done for you. That's true worship. Listen
to this verse, or you can turn to it if you want, Psalm 27.6. Now shall mine head be lifted
up above mine enemies round about me. Therefore will I offer in
His tabernacle sacrifices of joy. You see that? Praise. Sacrifices of joy. I will sing. Yea, I will sing
praises unto the Lord. Why does he call that sacrifices? Because the old way of worshipping
God was to offer a sacrifice. But the new everlasting covenant
way of worshipping God is to sing and praise the Lord for
what He's done. Christ is even the preeminent
worshipper of God. That's right, He is. He said
in Hebrews 2, the Spirit of God tells us to apply all these things
about singing in the Psalms to Christ. He said there, Both he
that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one,
for which cause it is not ashamed to call them brethren. Saying,
and he quotes Psalm 22 and Psalm 40, and this goes for everywhere
in the psalm, I will declare thy name unto my brethren in
the midst of the church, will I sing praise unto thee. And
he is telling us in this psalm right here, all this was done
that God might truly, perfectly be worshipped. He turned all
my sorrow into perfect worship of God, praising God. Christ
is the preeminent worshiper of God because He is the preeminent
praiser of God. But He commands the hearts of
His people and He tells us this in verse 7. Sing unto the Lord,
O ye saints of His. Give thanks at the remembrance
of His holiness. That is what we are talking about
all in this psalm, His holiness. This is what He commands us in
our heart. That's when we'll start singing to the Lord. He
says, take with you words and turn to the Lord and say unto
Him, take away all iniquity and receive us graciously, so will
we render the calves of our lips. Instead of offering real bullocks
and real calves, we praise God. That's worship. I'll praise the
name of God with a song and will magnify Him with thanksgiving.
This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or a bullet
that hath horns and hooves." Hadn't God done that for us,
brethren? You didn't know sorrow until He started teaching you
your sin. And then you began to sorrow.
You began to mourn. But when He showed you Christ
and showed you what He's done for you, showed you His holiness
manifest in Christ, He turns your mourning into dancing. And
he started worshipping God. Now here's the last thing. He's given us strength. Verse
11, Thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness. Now when God raised Christ, He
put off the sackcloth of sin, shame, and sorrow that He was
bearing for His people on the cross. He put that off. Now he
is girded with gladness. Girded signifies strength. And
gladness is strength. Listen to Nehemiah 8.10. Then
he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweets,
and portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared. For this
day is holy unto our Lord. Neither be ye sorry, for the
joy of the Lord is your strength. Now think about that statement,
the joy of the Lord is your strength. Christ is our strength. He is
perfectly girded with perfect joy, with perfect gladness in
the Father. Perfect. He is the perfection
of gladness for His people, really. That is why He is our strength.
And He girds us with this gladness of strength. He girds you with
gladness in the Father, and that's your strength. What's the opposite
of this gladness in God our Father? Enmity. Was there any strength
in enmity? No. No. But in joy, when you're at peace
with God and you have joy in the Father and gladness in the
Father, that's your strength. That's your strength. Isaiah
61.3, He said, He came to appoint unto them
that mourn in Zion. He says here, He has turned my
mourning, He has put that sackcloth off and He has girded me with
gladness. He came to give unto them beauty for ashes, oil of joy for mourning, the
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, so that you might
have strength. so that you might be trees of
righteousness. Like those big old cedars in
front of my house that are just anchored, trees of righteousness. See, He's given you joy, He's
given you beauty and the oil of joy and the garment of praise. Praise in God, worship in God
now for the first time so that you might have strength with
God and be truly planted like a tree of righteousness with
God. the planting of the Lord, that
He might be glorified. Is that point getting across?
I mean, He's girded us, girded His strength. He's girded us
with... He's clothed me with the garments of salvation, covered
me with the robe of righteousness. And so He says in Ephesians 6,
verse 14, Stand therefore... That's what you do when you have
strength. Stand therefore, having your loins gird about with truth. There's our gladness. The truth. We are glad in Christ and God
is glad with us in Christ. And there is our strength. He
has given us everlasting strength. Now let me send you home with
this one last thing. Let us obey Christ. He says there
in verse 4, Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of His, and give
thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. singing to the
Lord and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. Everything we've
been reading about here and everything we've been hearing our Lord Jesus
sing about in this psalm has been all about God's holiness.
That's His chief attribute. When Isaiah saw the Lord high
and lifted up, he didn't hear the angels. They weren't singing
a Beatles song. They weren't singing Love, Love,
Love. They were singing Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts. That's His number one attribute. Everything He does has got to
be in accordance with His holiness. So we sing to the Lord. When
we see Christ and we believe on Christ, we're singing to the
Lord of His holiness. That's where we see His holiness.
He wouldn't spare His own Son. And now we know by that same
holiness that would not spare Christ, He will not pour out
justice a second time. This is His holiness. So we sing
and we rejoice in it. You that have been sanctified,
made holy. He says sing. Sing unto the Lord,
O ye saints of His. You've been sanctified. You've
been made whole by His holiness. When you think about His holiness,
thank God for His holiness. And remember this thing too.
When you see Christ suffering on the cross, followed by this
eternal exultation, God raising Him up, Remember this, verse
5. His anger endureth but a moment. In His favor is life. Weeping
may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Now it
is true, brethren, that our present trials just endure but for a
moment. They are just here for a moment.
And afterward they yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Joy comes in the morning. When the trial has worked its
purpose, He turns you to Christ. And He girds you, He strengthens
you with gladness in Christ and His holiness and there's your
strength. And then there's joy. And this is His favor, this is
His grace and His favor is life. His grace is what makes us alive,
makes us live and keeps us living. But better than all of that,
brethren, better than any of that, When you see that His anger
is but for a moment and weeping is for a night, just remember,
that's a beautiful illustration of the everlasting day of light
and joy that we have because Christ endured the darkness of
being forsaken in place of His people. Go to Isaiah 54. Before you go there, read that
one more time. Read verse 5. His anger endures but a moment.
In His favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night,
but joy comes in the morning. Now, we go over to Isaiah 54
and let's end with this. I want you to contrast that with
this. That, you know, people read that
and they talk about our trials and things. There's something
better being spoken about right there. Look at Isaiah 54, 7. For a small moment, This is what
God says to Christ and this is what God says to His people in
Christ. For a small moment have I forsaken
thee on the cross, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In
a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with
everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord
thy Redeemer. You see how you can compare those
two? There is sorrow in the night
just for a moment. God forsook Christ for three
hours on the cross and then the light came in the morning. And
that light that He has given us is everlasting kindness. He will always have mercy on
us. So when you go through a trial and you suffer for a little while
and then you have joy in the morning, remember, this is just
a little bitty glimpse. of what Christ endured for me
so that I have an everlasting light and joy forevermore. And
when you think of that, sing unto the Lord, praise Him and
thank God that He is holy. That He is holy. That is what
we love, His holiness. Alright.