Brethren, let's open our Bibles
to Psalm 28. Psalm 28. Verse 6 of Psalm 28 says, Blessed
be the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications. Blessed be the Lord, because
he's heard my prayer. He's heard the voice of my supplications. The psalmist here has been praying
to the Lord Jehovah. but the Lord has been silent.
He'd been praying to the Lord, but the Lord's been silent. Go
back up to verse 1. He said, Unto thee will I cry,
O Lord my rock, be not silent to me, lest if thou be silent
to me I become like them that go down into the pit. He wasn't
getting an answer from the Lord. The Lord was being silent to
him and he was praying, Lord, don't be silent to me. Who comes
to your mind when you hear of this one crying out to the Lord,
but the Lord has been silent to him? Who comes to your mind? What occasion comes to your mind
when you think of that? Christ on the cross. All the
Psalms. If you want to get the greatest
blessing out of the Psalms, read these Psalms beholding Christ. blessing the Father, praying
to the Father, serving the Father, rejoicing in the Father. And
here we have Christ on the cross, forsaken, crying out to the Father,
praying to the Father. You know, in the garden Adam
disobeyed God, and by his transgression, Adam was made a sinner. Well,
Christ obeyed God, and by His obedience, He made Him sin itself
for us. There's a big difference. A big
difference. There's all the difference in
the world between what Christ was doing and what Adam did.
Adam was dishonoring God by dishonoring His law. Adam was making his
people sin and thus making his people guilty and thus causing
death to come upon his people. Christ was honoring God by honoring
His law. He was burying His people's crime
itself as well as paying the debt, the punishment for the
crime. See, I can pay your debt in a
court of law in this life. I could do that. I could go and
take your place and pay your debt. I can't take your place
and put away your crime. I can't put that away off the
books. I can't blot out your sin. I
can't do that. This had to be such a transaction
that Christ had to stand as His people. So He took our sin, our
crime, as well as the punishment for His people's sins. And so
by that He blotted out our crime, our sin, from God's record books. And He justified us and made
us righteous so that eternal life now passed upon His people. Do you see what a huge difference
between what Adam did and what the last Adam did? When Adam
became a sinner by disobedience, you know what happened immediately?
The holy and just God took from Adam His Spirit. He withdrew
His Spirit from Adam. He withdrew the glory of His
presence from Adam. And that's when Adam first felt
the shame of sin. Before that, Adam was naked and
he wasn't ashamed. Because he was naked before God
and he had no sin. He had nothing to be ashamed
of. But the moment he sinned and God withdrew His presence
from him, Because God is holy, He had to do so. He withdrew
His presence from Him. And when He did, Adam knew he
was a sinner and he was ashamed. He was ashamed. And when he didn't
have the abiding presence of God's glory. You know what hell
will be? You know what the wages of sin
will be? It won't be just a death that ends and that's it for you.
It's over. No, no, no. It will be a constant,
everlasting, abiding, without the presence of God's glory. Listen to this, 2 Thessalonians
1.9 says, He's talking about those that go to hell, they shall
be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord and from the glory of His power. It's in thy presence,
the psalmist said, there is fullness of joy. In thy presence is fullness
of joy. The righteous pray, cast me not
away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
Why? Because in thy presence is joy. But the worm that ever dies,
the second death comes when God says, depart from me, ye workers
of iniquity. If we read the Psalms with an
eye to Christ and we'll see that when Christ was made sin, a holy
and just God, forsook Christ on the cross, taking from Him
the glory of His presence. What I just said beyond... everything
I've said up to now is beyond our comprehension. But that right
there is especially beyond our comprehension. God forsaking
God, I don't know. But it's true. That's why Christ
cried out, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me? When He was made sin for us,
God took from Him the presence of God's glory for three hours
on the cursed tree. You know what God's glory is?
I've said it to you. The way we can sort of understand
it is the first three letters of the word glory. G-L-O. It's the glow of God. It's the
light of God. It's the countenance of His face
shining upon us. When He took from Him the glory
of His presence, that's why it went dark for three hours on
that cross. Three hours all over the world.
You're going to see an eclipse Monday. You won't see darkness like that
was. That was total, complete, thorough darkness. And yet in those three hours,
our Lord Jesus was so perfectly obedient to the Father, He never
ceased praying to the Father. Now we know Psalm 40 is prophetic
of the Lord Jesus. Go there with me just a minute.
We know that's prophetic of the Lord Jesus. Look at verse 8. It says, I delight to do thy
will, O God. I delight to do thy will, O God,
yea, thy law is within my heart. And the Hebrew writer tells us
plainly, this is Christ speaking. That's who's speaking. That's
the only one who came to do the will of God is Christ. Now look
down at verse 11. Listen to Christ. Withhold not
thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord. Hear Him praying,
asking for God's presence? He says, let thy loving kindness
and thy truth continually preserve me. Why is He praying this? For? Because He's bearing our
sin. And so he's bearing our separation
from the presence of the Lord. And he says, four, innumerable
evils have compassed me about. What do you reckon happened to
Adam when God removed his presence from Adam? Innumerable evils
compassed him about. Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me. He owned them as his own iniquities.
And he said, not only are they mine iniquities, they've grabbed
hold of me. In what way? Look at this. So
that I am not able to look up. I can't look up to you, God.
The Hebrew writer said He endured the cross despising the shame. Have you ever thought that despising
the shame was the fact that He was stripped naked and hung on
a cross? So what? Christ knew no sin. He could
be stripped naked and He wouldn't be ashamed before God. He's naked
before God. He had no sin before God. He
had nothing to be ashamed of before God in Himself. But when
He bore our iniquity, There was the shame of the cross. That
was the shame of the cross more than anything else that took
place on that cross. And having to bear God's forsaking
Him because of it. And God pouring out His wrath
on Him because of it. And so He says here, Lord, I'm
not able to look up to Thee. He says my iniquities are more
than the hairs of my head and therefore my heart faileth within
me. Isn't this a lot more than just
a declaration of guilt and just a dry, cut and dry legal transaction? This is Him saying these are
my iniquities and they've taken hold and my heart's failing because
of it. Do you remember when God first
made you to know your sin? Do you remember that? Do you
remember how they took hold of you, your sins took hold of you,
and for the first time you owned them as your iniquities? And
they were so heavy and it was so shameful that you couldn't
look up to God? and your heart was breaking and
failing because you were so ashamed? Was God just treating you as
if you were sin? No, God made you to know you
were. And that's what Christ was made
to know on the cross. It's all part of having to pay
the penalty, brethren. He had to be made His people
and stand in place of His people and bear the exact penalty His
people would have to bear. But look at this. Look at what
He did. When He bore that, look there
at Psalm 40 and verse 13, He still prayed, Be pleased, Lord. That's like saying, Lord, if
You're willing, be pleased, Lord, to deliver me. Oh Lord, make
haste to help me. He still prayed the Father. When God separated Himself from
Adam, and Adam felt the shame and guilt of his sin, you know
what Adam did? Adam hid himself from the presence of the Lord.
And that's what we did. That's exactly what we did. Listen
to this. Scripture says God was our enemy
in our minds. Why? By wicked works. By wicked works. Our wicked works
caused us to view God as our enemy. Because we had broken
God's law, it caused us to view God as our enemy. Christ said this is a condemnation.
Light has come into the world and men love darkness rather
than light because their deeds were evil. Why do they love darkness
more than light? Because their deeds were evil. This is the effect of their deeds
being evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light. He that doeth evil,
he that doeth evil, he that's the committer of sin, he hates
the light and he does not come to the light. Because If he does,
his deeds shall be reproved. What kept you from God? What
kept me from God? Why will not sinners come to
God now? They can say all they will about,
you know, not liking religion, this or that. I'll tell you why
they don't come. In their mind, God's their enemy because they
know they're guilty. That's why they won't come. And
if they come, they're going to say their very best righteousness
is guilt before God, sin before God, and they won't do it. But what did Christ do? He wasn't
a doer of evil on that cross. He that doeth truth. You ever
read that and thought, there ain't but one that ever did truth.
He that doeth truth cometh to the light. that His deeds may
be made manifest that they are wrought in God. When God separated
Himself from Christ on the cross, Christ our righteousness, as
He was justifying us from our sin, Christ our righteousness
was doing truth, and He came to the light the whole time.
He constantly cast His care upon God. He prayed to the Father
the whole time, saying, Cast me not away from Thy presence,
and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. And at last, God was
satisfied. God was satisfied. If you'd have
tried to suffer for your sins, you'd have suffered for eternity
and never satisfied. In three hours, He satisfied
our sins. He satisfied the sins of everybody
He represented and justified us and blotted out our crime
before God. He didn't just pardon us, He
made atonement for us. And so he cried a new cry. God
delivered him. God heard him. God delivered
him from the grave. God raised him and he sat down
at God's right hand. And so now he sings a new cry.
Go back to our Psalm 28.6. This is it. Blessed be the Lord. because He hath heard the voice
of my supplications. You see brethren, everything
we learn in Scripture, we learn it by looking to Christ and particularly
to Christ on the cross. Everything. You want to know
how God hears prayer? Look to Christ on the cross.
Look to Christ. Here is what I want you to behold
in this text today. Beholding the Father, answer
our faithful Redeemer. We have assurance that for the
sake of Christ and by Christ Himself, God will hear the voice
of our supplication and He will help us in and by Christ. As you behold God answer Christ
after He suffered so on the Calvary and raised Him from the dead
and seat Him at His own right hand. There is where you find
the assurance to know that for Christ's sake and by Christ God
will hear us. And God for Christ's sake and
by Christ will come to us and answer our prayer. That is a
mediator going to God for us and God coming to us through
Him. That is a mediator. This is where
we see Him interceding on the cross. Now be sure to get this,
by the faithfulness of Christ who bore our sin away, who justified
us and made us righteous as we groan trying to pray. You think
if we were trying to come to God without a mediator based
on how good you and I can pray and how sinless we can pray and
how righteously and perfectly we can pray in perfect faith
and fidelity to God, do you think God would ever hear us? Never. Never. We can't get through a
prayer without either falling asleep or our mind going in 10,000
different directions and we have to stop and come back to where
we were. But Christ our mediator comes
to the Father on our behalf. And this is Christ's own perfect
praise. This is His perfect praise. This
is Him glorifying the Father on our behalf. While we're sitting
down here praying our little pivotly prayer, trying to come
up with something to say that maybe God will hear us, Christ
takes that prayer and He goes and He doesn't present that prayer
to God. He goes and He says to the Father, On our behalf, verse
7, the Lord is my strength and my shield. See, after God heard
him, he said, I'm going to praise God. The Lord is my strength
and my shield. Can anybody praise God more experimentally
and more knowingly and more perfectly with these words than Christ
can? Of course not. When God raised him and set him
at His own right hand, He said this in Psalm 20 and verse 6,
Now know I that the Lord saveth His anointed, and He will hear
him from His holy heaven with the saving strength of His right
hand. Now I know it by experience.
That's why Christ came. Read Hebrews 5. He came to experience
suffering. He came to experience grace.
He came to experience it as He was justifying and making His
people righteous so that He can be a merciful and faithful high
priest to us and things pertaining to God. Christ trusted the Father
perfectly with His heart saying, the Lord is my strength and my
shield. He did that when He walked this
earth. Remember Isaiah 50 verse 6, I gave my back to the smiters
and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face
from shame and spitting. We know that's Christ speaking.
Why did He do that? For the Lord God will help me. Therefore shall I not be confounded.
I won't be ashamed for trusting Him. Therefore have I set my
face like a flit, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
He is near that justifieth me. When I've justified His people,
He's going to justify me in that He's going to raise me from the
grave. Who's going to contend with me? Let us stand together.
Who's my adversary? Let him come to me. Behold, the
Lord God will help me. Who is He that shall condemn
me? Lo, they shall all wax old as a garment, and the moth shall
eat them up. That was Christ's confidence
in the Lord God. And as the servant of His Father,
He experienced the Father's faithfulness, who fulfilled that very Word,
who justified Him, and who contended with His enemies, and who delivered
Him from the grave, and who raised Him into glory, and set Him down
at His right hand. He experienced God helping Him. And now in God's presence, when
our little piddly prayer comes up and we're trying to praise
God, Christ stands there by the Father and He praises Him and
He brings His prayer to God as our intercession with perfect
admiration saying to God, look here, verse 7, My heart trusted
in Him and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth,
and with my song will I praise Him. The Lord is their strength,
He is the saving strength of His anointed. But not only does our Mediator
declare our name to the Father and praise God perfectly for
us as our Mediator, But our Mediator promised the Father this. He said in Hebrews 2, I will
declare thy name unto my brethren, and in the midst of the church
will I sing praise unto thee. He not only goes to the Father
for us and sings praise to the Father, He comes to us and sings
the praises of the Father to us. So at the same time that He praises
the Father at His right hand in intercession for you, believer,
Christ enters our hearts declaring God's name and singing God's
praises in our hearts. That's what a mediator does.
He goes to one on behalf of the other and he goes to the other
on behalf of the other. He's representing these two parties.
He's working in each of them to do something for each of them
to bring them together. And when He's done this in our
hearts, He makes you know your supplication has been heard.
Your prayer has been heard. And so He makes you sing that
comes out of your heart and out of your lips. The Lord is my
strength and my shield. My heart trusted in Him. I'm
helped, therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth. And with my song I'll
praise Him. The Lord's their strength. and
He's the saving strength of His anointed. You get what I'm saying? Well, why is it that you pray
sometimes and you just don't hear from God? He had to wait. He had to suffer. Sometimes we
have to suffer. But Christ makes intercession
for us with groanings that can't be uttered. and only He can utter
in perfect righteousness and perfect faithfulness. And then
He comes into your heart, brethren, and He speaks the words into
your heart, and He puts the Word in your heart, and it overflows
out of your lips, and you know without a doubt, the Lord's my
strength and my shield. That's Christ our mediator working.
Now let me praise God to you for what Christ has done for
me. That's what He's doing right here. Let me do that a little
while. Verse 7, The Lord is my strength. Let me tell you how
the Lord is my strength. He upholds me and He sustains
me. He upholds me and He sustains
me. Physically, the only reason I'm standing right here right
now is in Him I'll move and live and have my being. But spiritually,
The only reason I have a new man and I continue trusting Him
and looking to Him is because He upholds me and He sustains
me. The Lord is my strength. The
Lord is the strength of my life. He is the strength of my soul.
He is the strength of my heart. In all trouble and sorrow and
distress and trial, the Lord is my strength. And guess what? When I come to the hour of death,
the Lord shall be my strength then. How can you be so sure,
Clay? I've already experienced Him
being my strength. I'm telling you, you just don't
know. I would not be standing here
right now. I would not be preaching to you or even believe in Christ
if He wasn't my strength. I've experienced it. So I trust
when I come to death, He'll be my strength. And He's my shield. He's my shield. You know what
a shield does? A shield protects you from everything.
He's my shield. I'm protected and defended by
God my Father and my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. You think
you could get any better shield than that? The Lord Jesus Christ
Himself is my shield and in Him the triune God is my shield. All the infinite love of God,
all the infinite power of God, all the infinite all-knowing
of God, everything God is and all His infiniteness, He is for
me as my shield. and the blood and the righteousness
and the salvation of Christ Jesus my Lord is my shield so that
God will never ever be angry with me again. God Himself in
Christ has reconciled me to Himself and then come and put that word
of reconciliation in my heart to make me to be reconciled to
Him so that we're friends now and I won't ever have to worry
about being enemies with Him again. And look at this, my heart trusted
in Him. He brought me this faith and
brought me this new heart and He brought me to trust in Him.
And I trusted in Him. I don't trust myself. I don't
trust my thoughts. I don't trust my will. I don't
trust my works. I don't trust a thing about myself.
And I wish I could perfectly not trust myself. My heart trusts
in Him. He's the Lord my God. He's my
Savior. He's my Redeemer. He's the one
I'm trusting. All my eggs are in one basket. And look at this, and I am helped.
I am helped. This is the fruit which comes
to all who trust Christ. You want to be helped of God?
Trust Him. This is the fruit that comes
from trusting Him. I'm helped. I've trusted Him
and I'm helped by Him. Look at Christ. He trusted the
Father. Did the Father help Him? Yeah, He helped Him. We're helpless
in ourselves and when our souls are really in trouble, when we're
really in trouble, no man can help, not even ourselves. Isn't
that so? The Lord brings you into a trial
and He withdraws just enough to let you see that you're helpless
in yourself, and there's no man that can comfort you, and you
can't comfort you. But you know what? Scripture
says of Christ, He said, I've trodden the winepress alone of
the people, there was none with Me. God brings His child to be helpless
in ourselves to show us there is no man to help and not even
in ourselves. He is to bring us to see He is
our only help. Isn't that a mercy? Isn't that
a mercy? Unless the Lord had been my help,
my soul had almost dwelt in silence. My help cometh from the Lord
which made heaven and earth. Now look at the next word in
our psalm. Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth, and with my
song will I praise Him. Have you noticed in each of these
phrases here, there's something inward and then there's something
outward? Look here in verse 7. Verse 7. The Lord's my strength.
That's inward. and my shield. That's outward.
My heart trusted in Him. That's inward. And I'm helped. That's from outward. Therefore
my heart greatly rejoiceth. That's inward. And with my song
while I praise Him. That's outward. Everything Christ
does for us and in us is to create a new heart within so that outwardly
we truly praise and honor Him. You know, men want to try to
deal with the outward first. That's what religion does. You've
got to straighten up this, straighten up that, cut that out, cut the
other out, cut this thing out, cut out those people, cut this
other thing out. And all that is is circumcision.
That's cutting the flesh. You can cut the flesh away until
you've got nothing but a thumb left and it's still a sinful
thumb. God deals with the heart, the
inward. He puts a new heart in. And when
He puts a new heart in, it'll have some effect outward. It'll
have some effect outward. Our joy is from a holy heart
created by Christ in you, the hope of glory. And therefore
my heart greatly rejoiceth. I can't really express with these
lips what I'd like to express that's in my heart. My heart
greatly rejoices. It's not carnal, it's spiritual
joy. It's not in the flesh, it's in
the Spirit. It's not in material things,
it's in the Holy Ghost. And when God's made the inward
clean, then outward will be holy too. That's right. It will have
an effect on the outward. With my song will I praise Him. Now for the first time, this
mouth is going to speak what's in the heart. That's what man's
mouth always does. It always speaks what's in his
heart. That's why some men hate God and speak of Him hatefully.
That's what's in their heart. When He gives you this new heart,
you'll praise Him and rejoice in Him. You know, when we sing,
brethren, when we sing, we're singing praises to God. And when
we sing, we should not care what we sound like. We ought to sing
as loud as we can. He goes, I'm going to tell you
the truth of this. Nothing pleases and honors God like the praise
of the lips coming from a believing heart. Can I back that up? Psalm 69 verse 30 says, I will
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 bullock that hath horns and hooves. This
will please Him better than the very best sacrifice I could ever
make. praising Him. That's the whole
purpose of salvation. Do you know that? That's why
Christ comes. Ultimately, the very end cause for which Christ
came to this earth is every knee is going to bow and every tongue
is going to confess He's the Lord. They're going to praise
Him. Every one of us. Everybody. That's
the ultimate reason. So let me conclude as my Redeemer
concludes here in this Psalm, verse 8. He says this, the Lord
is their strength and He is the saving strength of His anointing.
Now up to this point He has been talking about what the Lord is
to Him. And I have told you up to this point what the Lord is
to me. Here He says the Lord is their strength and He is the
saving strength of His anointing. Here is what our Lord is saying.
Here is what I am saying to you. Christ is not only my strength.
He is not only my shield. He is yours too if you are His. He is yours too if you are His.
How do I know I am His? Do you want to know you are God's?
Do you want to know you are God's? I can tell you how you can know
you are God's. I can tell you how you can know God chose you
from before the foundation of the world. Do you trust Him? Do you trust Him? That is what
Paul told Thessalonians. We know you are an election of
God. Why? Because the Word came to you in power and you believed
God. Faith is the evidence. That is it. Name but one. Believe
God. If you try to look at my deeds
or anything I do and find evidences, you might see something and go,
yeah, I see that. That shows me he's a child of
God. Just wait around a little while. You'll see something that
says, oh, I spoke too soon. But all I know is in 30 something
years, I'm still sitting here trusting Him. That's the evidence. That's the evidence. That's how
you know you're His. He's the strength of everybody
that is His, and He's the strength of everybody who trusts Him.
Christ our mediator, the Lord's chosen, is the saving strength
of His people. He's the anointed. And everybody
God chose in Him are His anointed, and Christ is their saving strength.
He's going to deliver us from the power of death and the grave
and raise us and give us glory. He already has in Christ. And
now I know that the Lord saves His anointed. He's raised me.
I know it. He's raised me, gave me life.
I know He saves His anointed. I'm telling you He does. He'll
hear Him from His holy heaven with the saving strength of His
right hand. I'm telling you He will hear. I know He will. All who He brings to believe
on Him are His chosen. And the triune Jehovah in Christ
is their saving strength, the saving strength of His anointing.
And here's why. Because they trust Him to be.
Because they trust Him to be. So what I'm saying to you is
this. Trust in Him. Trust in Him. And He shall be
your help. He shall be your strength. Everything
He is here, He shall be for you. Trust Him. Trust Him. And you
who trust Him and pray to Him and don't hear Him, just wait.
You'll hear Him. Don't lose heart. He may let
you see your faith is non-existent so that you don't trust your
faith. But just remember, He suffered for three hours in silence. He suffered there praising God
and calling on God and waiting on God. And in due time, He said,
Bless me God, He heard my supplication. He'll hear you. Amen.