Psalm 17. We had a good trip to Mexico. The brethren there send their
greetings. Cody said to tell everybody hello.
Lord willing, he'll be with us sometime in the spring. I told
him to send me the dates and we definitely wanted him to come
up and preach for us. The Lord willing, He'll be here
sometime in March, I think, or April. We'll see. My subject
this morning is satisfaction. Has anything in this world ever
satisfied you? I mean satisfied you. There are
some whose satisfaction is in this world. They're described
here in Psalm 17, verse 14. They're described as men of the
world which have their portion in this life and whose belly
God fills with His hid treasure. They're full of children and
leave the rest of their substance to their babes. They're men of
the world. They're worldly men. They belong
to the world. They're satisfied with the world.
Their portion is in this life. They have their good things in
this life. It says here, whose belly thou
fillest with thy hid treasure. These are men that live for their
belly. And God gives them his hid treasure. Treasures like
silver and gold. Things that have to be dug out
of the earth. Hid treasure. Diamonds. Things like that. And
they're full of children. And they have all this inheritance
they leave to their children. And some people would hear that
and say, well, that sounds pretty good to me. I would like to have
that, be wealthy, have a big family, have plenty of worldly
goods. But you notice here, David doesn't
pray to be one of these men. He prays to be saved from these
men. Nothing is worse than to be satisfied
with this world. When we were dead in sin, we
were satisfied with the world. That was what we wanted. That's
what we sought. But now that God has given us
life, this world doesn't satisfy the believer. We're looking for
something else. Look here at verse 15. As for
me, I will behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied
when I awake with thy likeness. You see the contrast? between
men of the world and the believer. One day every believer shall
awake in the likeness of our God. And then we'll be satisfied. That's when we'll be satisfied.
First we see the object of our satisfaction. Verse 15 says,
I will behold thy face. That's the object of our satisfaction. Right now, every believer beholds
God's face through faith. The Scriptures, look at Psalm
80. It's only when God causes His
face to shine into our hearts that we're saved. Look at Psalm
80, verse 3. Turn us again, O God. That's
how we repent. God turns us. Turn us again,
O God, and cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. It's in the light of His presence.
Look over at 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Look at verse 6. God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness. You know what that's referring
to. Genesis 1-2 says, The earth was without form and void, and
darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light,
and there was light. Now that void, formless darkness,
is what we are by nature. That's what we are as we're born
into this world. But look at verse 6 again. God,
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God hath shined into our hearts.
Just like in the beginning when He said, let there be light,
and there was light. God says, you could be sitting
there dark, total darkness, dead. And God says, let there be light.
And you'll see, you'll have light when He commands the light. He's
given us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. What is
that? That's a spiritual knowledge
of the Gospel. That's a spiritual understanding
of the Gospel. And where do we behold this glory?
When He gives you an understanding of the Gospel, where are you
going to see it? In the face of Jesus Christ.
in His face. God's made us to behold His glory,
the glory of His gospel, the glory of our salvation, and it's
all in the face of Jesus Christ. He is the head. Let's look at
this, Colossians 118. Colossians 118. This whole gospel is Christ.
Christ is our gospel. Look at Colossians 1.18. It says,
He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have
the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that
in Him should all fullness dwell. Now that's what pleased God.
It pleased God for all fullness to dwell in Christ. It pleased
God for Christ to have all the preeminence. Now the invisible
God, it manifests His glory, His person, who He is in the
God-man. That's how we see God is in this
man who is God, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him, look at Colossians
2.9. In Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. You have God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Where are you going to see the
triune God? You're going to see the triune
God in Christ. The fullness of the Godhead dwells
in a body, in a human body in Christ. Hebrews 1.3 says, He's
the brightness of His glory. He's the express image of His
person. That's where we see God is in
Christ. Everything that we have to say,
everything God has to say, and everything that where we're brought
to, where we're brought to bow is Christ. Before time existed,
God chose a people in Christ. God blessed us with all spiritual
blessings according as He chose us in Christ. predestinated His
children to be adopted to Himself. And He did that by Jesus Christ. And we've been made accepted
in Jesus Christ, in whom we have redemption through His precious
blood. So everything that God has to
say to us about this gospel is Christ. He's the light. He's the life. That's how we
have life, is when Christ is formed in us, when His Spirit
is in us. And Paul said in Romans 1, God's
gospel is concerning His Son, Christ our Lord. That is our
gospel. If you think of salvation, and
salvation is not a thing. Salvation is a person. Salvation
is Christ. The scripture says He is our
wisdom. And it's by His knowledge the
righteous servant of God that God's people are justified. Not
by our wisdom, by His wisdom. He's made unto us righteousness
through faith in Christ. The believer is the only person
in this world that establishes the law in perfect righteousness. There's no other way to establish
it. We can't establish it by our doing. If we could, God wouldn't
have sent His Son. That's why He sent His Son, was
to establish His law. And we only establish it through
faith in Him. We trust Him to have established
the law for us. He is our righteousness. And
then Christ is our sanctification, our new man. We're dead in sin. We come forth from our mother's
womb speaking lies. The new man that Scripture says
is created in true holiness, You know, I've said this to you
before. Righteousness is your deeds. Righteousness is before
the law, doing. Holiness, sanctification, is
the nature. That's the new man. That's the
inward man. And that new man is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. When the Spirit enters in, there's
a new man created. and we're one with Christ in
that new man. That's where our holiness is,
is in Christ dwelling in us. And then He's our redemption.
We've been bought with a price, the price of His precious blood
so that we've been freed now from the curse of the law. We've
been freed from sin's dominion. We've been freed from death and
hell. If the Son shall make you free,
you shall be free indeed. We've been redeemed. redeemed. And we shall be redeemed. We've been redeemed and we're
going to be redeemed out of this world into His presence. That's
what Romans 8 tells us. Now we see. We do see. We see by faith. Look at 1 Corinthians
13. We do see right now. I will behold
thy face, our text says. We do see. But we see like looking
into a mirror. And it's a Sometimes you can
see more clearly and then sometimes you just barely can see. But
we do see. Look here in our 1 Corinthians
13 verse 12. Now we see through a glass darkly. We see through a glass darkly.
But then face to face. Now I know in part. That's what
we mean by we see through a glass darkly. Now I know in part. The
best we know right now is in part. But then shall I know even
as also I am known. We're going to know Him fully
then. Now, we're going to see the living God with these eyes. That's an amazing thought. We're
going to see God. Everybody's going to see Him.
There's going to be a resurrection of the just and a resurrection
of the damned. Everybody is going to see Him
and every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to
confess that He is Lord of lords and King of kings. But believer,
we are going to see Him. We are going to see Him. Job
said, I know that my Redeemer liveth and that He shall stand
at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms
destroy this body, after this body is destroyed, yet in my
flesh shall I see God. whom I shall see for myself,
mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed
within me." So the triune God in the face of Jesus Christ is
the object of our faith now, and He'll be the object of our
satisfaction then. He's the object of our satisfaction
now, but nothing like what it'll be then. Then, as for me, I will
behold thy face. Here's the second thing. Look
back there in Psalm 17. This is the state in which we
will be satisfied. The state in which we will be
satisfied. The next word in verse 15 says,
in righteousness. In righteousness. We shall be
righteous with no more sin. Righteous with no more sin. I
shall behold thy face in righteousness." Now, the guilt of sin has been
put away. The guilt of sin is removed from
us now by the blood of Christ. That's what the cross is about.
You know, when Christ went to the cross, His people were guilty. And He went to the cross to take
the place of His people and to pay the debt that His people
owed to justice. You have a man who deserves the
death penalty. And somebody says, I'm going
to take his place. Christ took the place of his
people on the cross. And he paid with his own blood
and satisfied justice for each and every person for whom he
died. And God is just. God will not
pour out justice twice. That's double jeopardy. He won't
do that. So justice is satisfied for those for whom Christ died.
So the guilt of our sin is put away. And then the dominion of
sin has been dethroned by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in
us. But when we stand before God's
throne, when we stand there, we're going to be completely
free from sin. We're not free from it now because
that's all our flesh is, is sin. And in our flesh dwells nothing
good. But in that day, we're going
to be free. We're going to be free from it.
We're going to be made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. That's why Christ died. He hath
made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him. Look over at Ephesians
5, Ephesians 5.25. Husbands, love your wives. Now listen to this. Even as Christ
also loved the church and gave Himself for it, that He might
sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word,
that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and
without blemish." That's how we're going to stand before God.
Every believer born of His Spirit, washed in His blood, we're going
to stand there in that day. We're going to be Holy, we're
going to be unblameable, unreprovable in His sight. In the all-knowing,
all-seeing sight of God, we're going to be unreprovable, unblameable
and holy. To the end, Paul told the Thessalonians,
to the end, Christ will establish your hearts unblameable in holiness
before God even our Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ with all his saints. And all of this is the work of
God. None of this is our work. We
did not do any of this. The only thing that we can say
we did to contribute to anything that has to do with salvation
is we did the sinning. That's it. We got ourselves in
the position where we needed to be saved. But God did everything
else. God did all the saving. And it's
to the praise of the glory of His grace. It's to praise Him. It's to glorify Him. It's to
applaud Him. It's to give Him all the honor
and all the glory for doing the work. You ever wonder, you ever
think, you know, why is it that I come in here and I sit down
and I listen and all you ever do is talk about Christ? You
talk about God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit
in the face of Christ Jesus and what He's accomplished. Why is
it that He's the only one you ever talk about? Well, He's the
only one we're supposed to talk about. He's the one we're going
to talk about for eternity. I mean, He did everything. That's
the whole purpose. That's what worship is. And if
we're not talking about Him, if we're gathering together talking
about us, we're not worshipping God. Worshipping God is hearing
what great things He's done. That's worshipping God. Alright,
let's go back now. Psalm 17. Here's the time of our satisfaction. We saw the object. I'm going
to behold His face. And we saw the We saw the state
we'll be in. We'll be perfectly righteous.
Now here's the time of our satisfaction. When are we going to be satisfied?
Verse 15 says, I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. When I wake up with his likeness. The scriptures describe death
for a believer as sleeping. As sleeping. You go to sleep
at night. And some nights are shorter than
others. And you just wake up that fast. It's time to wake up. Well, for
a believer, we're going to close our eyes and go to sleep. And we're going to open our eyes
immediately. And we're going to be with the
Lord. We're going to be with Him. That thief on the cross
that had been regenerated, that believed on Christ, he said,
Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today, today,
shalt thou be with me in paradise. He went to sleep that day. He
went to sleep on the cross that day. And that day he woke up. And he woke up with Christ in
paradise that day. We're confident, I say, Paul
said, willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present
with the Lord. When you leave this body, we're
going to be present with the Lord. Now, look over 1 Corinthians
15. In the resurrection, our body
shall awake, and our body is going to be a glorified body.
Now look, here's what I mean by that. Look here, 1 Corinthians
15 and verse 50. Now this I say, brethren, that
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. We can't
go into God's presence in glory in these defiled bodies that
we're in right now, in this flesh and blood. Now look, neither
doth corruption inherit incorruption. See, our bodies are dying. Nothing has been done to our
bodies. The atom is still in our bodies and it's going to
go to the dust. But our soul is going to be with
the Lord immediately, but our body is going to be raised too.
Now look at this. Behold, I show you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep. But we shall all be changed. When it says sleep there, it
means die. We shall not all die. And it
says sleep because that's what our text is saying. I'm going
to sleep. It's not described as... Peter
said my departure. It's a departing. It's not death
for a believer. It's sleep. We shall not all
sleep. But, he says, we shall all be
changed. in a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye. That means it's going to be like
that. At the last trump, when that jubilee trumpet blows, it
says, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible and we shall be changed. That means the dead,
those that are already, their bodies are in the grave, they're
going to be raised. And then we, he's talking about
us, if we're alive when Christ returns, we shall be changed
as well. Our bodies shall be changed.
And he says, for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and
this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. And
Christ took it away. Christ took sin away. So death
has no sting for a believer. Now, if you meet God, you meet
your dying day without Christ. Death is going to have a sting
to it. But for a believer that's in Christ, death has no more
sting. Christ has put our sin away.
So we have nothing to be tormented about, nothing to be fearful
about that day. It'll be the best day of our
life. Now listen, he says, the strength
of sin is the law. Christ satisfied that. He fully
satisfied the law. And he says, but thanks be to
God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So we have the victory. We shall awake with His likeness
conformed to Christ. Our text says, I shall be satisfied
when I awake with Thy likeness. Look at Romans chapter 8. Am I certain that we're going
to Every elect child is going to awaken his likeness. I'm certain
of it. Look here, Romans 8 verse 29. For whom he did foreknow, this
is speaking of God, for whom he did foreknow, he also did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. God did this for
His Son. And He predestinated all of those
He chose, all of those Christ redeemed, He predestinated us
to be conformed to the image of His Son. That His Son might
be the firstborn among many brethren. That means there is no possibility
that this shall not happen. It shall happen. It shall happen.
Now look back over there at 2 Corinthians 3 with me. 2 Corinthians 3. Right now, we're changed into
His glory in the inner man. In the inner man. And it's done by sight of Him.
Not a physical sight, but a spiritual sight. It's done through faith.
2 Corinthians 3.18, But we all, with open face, beholding as
in a glass... There's that mirror again. Beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Whenever the Spirit of the Lord, when God says, let there be light,
and He shows us His glory in the face of Christ Jesus, in
our inner man, we're conformed to the image of Christ. He says
in one place, we're recreated after His image. He created Adam
in His image. But then when we're born of God
in the inner man, it's after His image. We conform to His
image. But then look at 1 John 3 now.
1 John 3. So this is why our spirit can
go be with the Lord immediately. You never read anything in the
scriptures about any change being done to our spirit when we die,
we go to be with the Lord immediately. But you do read of a change that
takes place with our bodies because nothing has been done to our
body yet. But it shall be. Watch this. 1 John 3 verse 2.
Beloved, Now are we the sons of God, and
it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when
He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him
as He is." You see, both of these changes that take place are by
seeing Him. The first one is done in spirit
when we see Him through faith. When God shines the light and
we see the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus, we're changed
in the inward man. And then when we see Him face
to face, in the end, our bodies are going to be like Him. This
is from seeing Him. This is from seeing Him. Alright,
now, here's the last thing in our text. Go back there with
me to Psalm 17. The measure, the measure of our
satisfaction. How satisfied are we going to
be? Fully satisfied. I'll give you
a measure of how satisfied we're going to be. First of all, God
our Father shall be satisfied. He's going to be satisfied because
Christ his Son shall deliver up every elect child that God
the Father entrusted into his care. The Scripture says Christ
is going to say, Behold, I and the children which thou hast
given me. Here they are, Father. I promised
you before the foundation of the world I'd bring them all
to you. Perfectly righteous, perfectly holy. Here they are.
There's not one left. Do you think God the Father is
going to be satisfied? Satisfied. And then, secondly,
Christ shall be satisfied. Isaiah 53, 11 says, He shall
see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. You know
what that means, see the travail of his soul. You ladies travail
when you're having your babies, and oh, it was painful, and you're
about to squeeze your husband's hand off if he was anywhere near
you. But then when it was all over
with, they set the baby in your arms, and you saw the travail,
that you saw what you travailed for and you were satisfied. Well,
Christ travailed on the cross and He's going to see all of
His children perfected and He's going to see the travail of His
soul and be satisfied. God the Father will be fully
satisfied and God the Son will be fully satisfied. And every
child of glory shall be just that satisfied. That's what he
means here in verse 15. As for me, I will behold thy
face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake
with thy likeness. I like to You know, when we read
over in Revelation and we read about, you know, there'll be
no more curse, there'll be no more tears, we won't be in this
body of death anymore. I mean, there's a lot of things
you read about in Revelation and it's good. All that stuff
sounds good and we'll enjoy that. But this is going to be the satisfaction.
We're going to see our Redeemer. We don't even know what He looks
like. We see these pictures that they have. We don't know what
he looks like. We're going to see him. That's
where we're going to be satisfied. We're going to see him. Now look
at 2 Peter 3. I'm done. 2 Peter 3. Just one
verse here. 2 Peter 3 verse 14. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that
you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found
of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. Amen.