May it please God to bless us
together this morning as we meditate in his word. Let's turn to the
book of Psalms and Psalm 68 and we'll read verse six. The book
of Psalms number 68 and reading verse six. God seteth the solitary
in families. He bringeth out those which are
bound with chains, but the rebellious dwell in a dry land." This is a statement by God's
servant, David, who had clearly much evidence to know and to
prove the truth of such words as we have read here in this
sixth verse. And we must recognize and realize
that it is only with the blessing and with the favor and with the
mercy and with the love of God that anything of true benefit
enters into our hearts into our souls we're told here that God setteth
the solitary in families and we may wonder perhaps you younger
people may wonder what actually that means well always remember
that although of course the Word of God does have a natural content
It also has a spiritual content. Everything in the Word of God
has a spiritual direction. And these words have a very clear
spiritual direction because it is addressing those who are solitary. That means those who are lonely,
those who are alone. And you may ask yourself the
question, am I Solitary? Well, the answer is you are solitary
if you are without God. You are solitary if you are without
God, and you may not realize that. And you may think that
you're not alone, you're not solitary. You may think you're
at home. Well, you may be at home in the world, but you know
that in itself is a very solitary condition because the time hastens
on when all of us will have to finish our life upon this earth. And then you see, we don't want
to be found with a world. We don't want to be found with
the things of time. We want men to be known and to
realize that God is with us. Now, how vital it is that all
of us, therefore, have this wonderful experience to know that God has
taken us. God sets us in families. God sets us in the church of
God. And it's a wonderful experience. And it's a wonderful blessing
to have the personal realization that therefore we are not solitary
because God is with us. God is with us day by day, hour
by hour, minute by minute, and God will be with us throughout
our little life on this earth. And God himself would indeed
bring us safe home into glory. And we shall indeed be then part
of the glorious family of God. So this morning, the question
must be, surely, has God, and it is God, has God set you, set
me in his family? Are we part of the blessed church
of God? Are we part of those for whom
that Lord Jesus Christ has had mercy? Are we part of those whom
He has loved in everlasting love? Are we part of those who will
spend eternity in glory with the Lord Jesus Christ? Or are
we still solitary and alone and separate from God? Now, there's only one person
They can answer that. And that's you. As you stand before God, as we
all do. To have the wonderful evidence
that God. Oh, let's not lose sight of that
fact. It's God. That has set us. In the church
of God. God's taken us from a solitary
position, a worldly position a position that we were content
with, really. And we didn't realise that we
were separate. We didn't realise we were solitary. We didn't realise that we were
alone. How few there are today in this
vast world who have the wonderful knowledge and wonderful privilege
and wonderful favour of the work of God set in them. in families, in the church of
God. And yet how true it is that it's God that does it and how
we love to see God's work appearing when this does occur. And the
effect really is the Lord draws us. Into these families, this
family of God. He draws us away from the vanities,
away from the vexations of spirit which this world brings with
it. And there is no true peace. There
is no true happiness in this world. We see it all around us,
don't we? We see how people are ever striving to achieve peace
and happiness in this world. And it matters not how much money
they have. It matters not how they think
they're enjoying themselves. There is in truth that empty
void which the world can never fill. And therefore, what a wonderful
favour it is to have the evidence, a spiritual evidence that God
has set us in the Church of God. And the amazing truth is it's
God's work and it's not something that you and I have been able
to do ourselves, because, as I often say, if we could, then
God would not receive the glory we were claiming ourselves. We
were claiming it because of the work that we'd done, because
of how we changed and how we turned ourselves. But you see,
God is a jealous God and God will have all the honour and
all the glory. And when the Lord shows us that
it's him that has taken us and set us in the church of God,
There's him that has done his great work of salvation in our
souls. Surely our hearts are filled
with thanksgiving and truth as these words declare, which we
already read, but let the righteous be glad. Are you glad this morning? Are you glad this morning that
God set you in the church of God? And as the psalmist goes on,
let them be glad. Let them rejoice. Before God,
yea, let them exceedingly rejoice. And surely that's true. You and
I have great reason to exceedingly rejoice if we find the blessed
work of God, which has entered into our hearts and has taken
us from the valleys of time into the secrets, into the blessings
of God and to realize the secret of the Lord is with them that
fear him and he will show them his covenant, that covenant of
grace to show us his wonderful work toward us, his wonderful
love toward us. Surely that is great cause for
rejoicing. Sure, it is great cause for exceedingly
rejoicing. I know it would be a good thing
if the Holy Spirit comes upon us in such a way to direct us
to the great favor of God, to such unworthy sinners who never
deserved anything. We deserve to be cut off. We
deserve to be left aside. What a mercy it is then to think
that here we have such a God, a God that setteth the solitary
in families. Well, let us then have the evidence
this morning in our souls that the Lord in His love has done
justice for us. How humbling it will be, how
very humbling. You and I will be very low And
Christ will be very high because of his mercies, which are new
every morning and great is his faithfulness. It is true. And
it is wonderful to think of the truth of that great word. You know, the apostle, when he
wrote to the Ephesians, he tells us, he says, therefore, now,
therefore, Now therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners,
but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of
God. Isn't that a blessing? If the Lord has set us in this
heavenly family to know that we are no more strangers. Well, Are you a stranger? Are you outside the family? Are you outside? Are you a stranger? Or is it true you are no more? You have been a stranger. There
was a time when you were a stranger to these things and you were
a foreigner. But now you enjoy fellowship
with the Church of God, fellow citizens with the saints and
of the household of God. And the apostle goes on to confirm
the evidence of this truth in the souls of his people. And
it's evidenced in this way and are built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets. What is that? Who is it? Jesus
Christ himself, the chief cornerstone. So are we on that foundation? If God has set us, brought us
from being a solitary one into God's family, it will be in this
way that you and I will be on that foundation, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he will be then a name which
is above every name. We've sung this morning in those
two hymns of the preciousness of Christ. And that will be a
glorious evidence in our lives that the Holy Spirit has come
and granted this wonderful favor, this wonderful blessing of setting
us in the families of God. And therefore we are on, and
our faith and our hope is built not on ourselves, but upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself
being the chief cornerstone. And the apostle goes on to a
wonderful statement, in whom all the building fitly framed
together. The church of God are framed
together. They grow together. They're part
of the blessed body of Christ. There's union. communion. It's not an alien country. They're part of the living church
of God. They're with the citizens of the household of faith. And
they have the evidence of it, of God, his great work in their
soul. And so they can rejoice to know
that although they feel the meanest, yet you see to feel part of this
great, wonderful building. in whom all the building fitly
framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in
whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through
the Spirit." Again, clearly set before us, it is the work of
the Spirit of God. And it's not something, therefore,
that you and I can boast of ourselves, but we will, we will boast of
what God has done, we will desire to praise Him for His great work
in coming to us and calling us out of darkness into the glorious
light of the everlasting gospel. God saith, remember, never forget,
it's God's work. And you will know it's God's
work because it's not something that you produced yourself. And
God sets us in these families in by his grace, by his work,
by his favour. And he brings to our attention
our great need of a saviour. And he leads us to none less
than the great saviour of sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ. And our
spiritual eyes are opened, whereas we were walking in darkness and
there was no light. and the light of the glorious
gospel shines into our hearts. What a time of rejoicing it is.
What a time of favour it is. How we bless God for his great
salvation. How we bless God for his great
mercy. How we bless God for his amazing
love to such an unworthy sinner. Well, then, may we be able to
come because the of the psalmist went on and he said, having realised
this wonderful rejoicing, he says, sing unto God. Sing praises to his name, extol
him that riders upon the heavens by his name Jah and rejoice before
him. You and I have great cause and
great reason to sing unto the Lord and to extol his great and
holy name, if he has looked upon us and set us, brought us out
of our loneliness, of our solitary condition into his family. Well, my friends, this morning,
the great important question is, of course, do we have do
we have the evidence of that in our hearts? We dare not trifle
with our souls. We dare not think it's irrelevant.
We dare not think it's unimportant. It is a vital question to have
the evidence that we are part of God's favoured, ever-blessed,
eternal family, those for whom he has laid down his life. Now, says the Psalmist, God setteth
the solitary in families. And what else does he do? He
does something else. He brings out those which are
bound with chains. Those which are bound with change,
you may say, well, what does that really mean? How am I to
understand that? Well, you know, the devil binds
us with chains. And he binds us with change and
tries to impress upon us that we have every right to save ourselves. And if we do this and if we do
that, then we shall do all that is necessary to save ourselves. The devil has been a liar from
the beginning. Never listen to the devil because
by nature we are under the law, the holy law of God. And we can never keep God's law. We can never meet the requirement
of God's law. It matters not how hard we may
try. The problem is we are conceived
in sin and shapen in iniquity. We therefore have a sinful nature. And however many things we may
try and improve, every time we try to improve something, we
will find something else crops up and we will find another problem. And we will find that we cannot
keep, therefore, the law of God. And the old devil wants us to
recognize that we can keep God's law. We can, therefore, be righteous
in ourselves. Well, let us never forget he
is a liar from the beginning. Now, I want to make a distinction
here because there are those chains which we are chained with,
bound with chains, which keeps us in prison and keeps us in
darkness. But there are also sometimes
those situations, like Jeremiah, when he was chained. But it was
a different chain, because God had chained him to keep him from
going into the worldly situation. And he tells us in the Lamentations
of his experience, and he speaks to us, speaking about God hand
upon him. And he says. He has hedged me
about that I cannot get out. He has made my chain heavy. Now, you see, this is God's chain
and God's chain, therefore, is keeping you away from walking
into a way which is contrary to the word and the way of God. And you may kick against that.
And you may not want to walk in God's ways. And you may try
to avoid it. You may want to carry on and
be involved in the things of this vain world. And you may
think that there is happiness. You may think that you'll enjoy
the situation. Well, be assured of this. If
you are a true child of God, you will not be allowed to continue
in such a path. And you will find the Lord will
Put a chain upon you in one way or another. May sometimes be
in your health. God sometimes puts a chain of
our health upon us and that stops us doing things. Things that
we wanted to do, things that we enjoyed perhaps doing, but
it was not in accordance, it was not God glorifying in the
things that we were involving ourselves in. And therefore,
what has God done? He puts a chain upon us. He makes it heavy, a heavy chain,
made my chain heavy. And you see, you can think of
it, can't you? You can just imagine, can't you? With a chain around
your ankle, you can't make much progress. You can't run very
fast, probably can't even walk. When you see when God does it,
the benefit is for our soul. The benefit is for our soul. And Jeremiah was to prove it,
of course. Jeremiah was to prove it. And
he said, also, when I cry and shout it out, my prayer. Well,
we need to pray, of course, in accordance with God's will and
for God's blessing. And so here we have. the position
of God's servant Jeremiah, with a heavy chain, which of course
the Lord did take off, but when his work was done, and so it
will be in our lives. You may have a chain today, I
don't know, a chain of something, and you wish you didn't have
it. Well, it'll be a blessing if God has put a chain to keep
you perhaps, from some worldly enterprise that you wanted to
get involved in. And the Lord did not allow it. And you may kick and you may
rebel, but be assured of this. If God's hand is upon you, it'll
be for your eternal good. And you will then come and say,
it was good that I was afflicted. It was good. that this chain
did come upon me because it halted me in my mad career. It put a
stop on things. Well, I wanted to just make that
clarification because that is God's chain. But you see, the
devil puts chains upon us to endeavor to make us recognize
that we are to do those things which He will have us to do. And the effect will be, like
the psalmist tells us here, that we shall be bound with chains. And in that situation, you and
I cannot free ourselves. We cannot free ourselves. We
are there under the law, we cannot keep the law, and therefore We
are condemned by God's law. And when we're under that condemnation
for the holy law of God, you know, we are, as it were, in
prison. There's no freedom. There's no freedom. We are in
prison. And so we have this statement.
He bringeth out those which are bound in chains. Now, that's a wonderful blessing.
If God then comes to us in our situation and delivers us. He bringeth out those which are
bound with chains. And you may have been bound for
a long time. You may have been bound and you haven't got any
freedom. And you can't seem to make any
headway and The position is very hazy and it's very dark. And what do you need? You need
God to come. You need God to come. And what
does that mean? I'll tell you what it means. We are by God's grace to submit
ourselves under the mighty hand of God. that he may exalt us
in due time, casting all our care upon him, believing he cares
for us. And that means what it says.
It means that you and I need that grace to come and to cast
all our care upon him. To leave all our own works behind. to come humbly, submissively
to the Saviour. And again, think in those great
and glorious words of the Saviour Himself, which is so apt and
so appropriate in our lives, as a Lord in that condition of
great suffering. Talking about Paul the Apostle,
Paul and his situation, when he was on that Damascus road
and the Lord came and spoke to him, what did he say? Lord, what
will thou have me to do? And the saviour, of course, going
on, he said, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And there we see the blessed,
blessed work of God. And so my you and I, if we are
in prison, if we are chained, if we are bound with chains to
be blessed with that willingness. Indeed, not the apostle. The
apostle had been bound with change. He didn't realise it. He was
striding along as he thought the reality was he was in chains. Until the Lord came. And they
came and what did the Lord do? He brought him out. Of those
chains and made him willing on that great day of the power of
God. Yes, how willing it was. What a change, my friends. What
a change. And there is a change in the
life of the Church of God and the people of God. When the Lord
comes, there is a change. There is a change and it's a
submission to God's will, just like it was with the apostle. Lord, what will now have me to
do? Well, let's ask ourselves the
question. Have we been there? Have you
been there? Just like that, very simply saying,
Lord, what will they have me to do? And that means you don't
look around at anyone else. You just before God, a holy God,
and you are moved by his spirit into a humble submission to come
and say, Lord, What will thou have me to do now? What occurs?
Deliverance. Deliverance. Deliverance to the
apostle Paul, wasn't it? Yes, he set him on his feet.
My friend, it's a blessed deliverance when God comes, because what
does he do? What does the Lord do? He brings
us into gospel liberty. And what is gospel liberty? Gospel
liberty is this, depending upon what Christ has done. Because what has Christ done?
He's freed his people from the condemnation of the law. If the son, therefore, shall
set you free, you shall be free indeed. Oh, what freedom there
is. Freedom is Christ and there in
Christ and there we've been chained up until the blessed time, the
blessed day, the blessed hour, when the Lord comes and brings
us out of that condition of bondage. Well, this morning, my friends,
you and I are in one or two conditions, aren't we? We've either been
brought out or we're still in bondage. And my friends, we don't
want to end our life in bondage, in chains. We want to know that
by the grace of God, we have been set free, we've been brought
out of darkness and we will know what it is and we will be concerned.
Indeed, like the psalmist tells us in one in Psalm 25, where
he says, turn the unto me. And have mercy upon me, for I
am desolate and afflicted. Now, you see, that's the work
of the Holy Spirit when he causes you and causes me to cry unto
him from our heart, not a theory from our hearts, a real effect
that we pray to God and we seek that he will have mercy upon
us, that he will turn unto me. We may fear that he will never
turn upon us. Turn thee unto me, says the psalmist. Turn thee unto me and have mercy
upon me, for I am desolate and afflicted. What do we see there?
We see confession. Blessed be God when he gives
us confession. And blessed be God when he gives
us faith. to look to Him. And that's what the Psalmist
had here, faith to look to the Lord in prayer, true prayer. What a mercy if you and I are
blessed with that condition and blessed with that situation.
Well, we're no doubt familiar with the 107th Psalm, which expounds
so much the feelings and the realizations of the work of God. And in the 107th Psalm, we read, For he satisfieth the longing
soul, and filleth the hungry soul with darkness, such as sit
in darkness, and in the shadow of death being bound in affliction
and iron. bring such out of that condition. He delivers them. Now, this word
then goes on and says, but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. And this word goes on in the
107th Psalm and tells us, going back to what I've just read,
such sit in darkness and in the shadow of death being bound in
affliction and iron, and the Psalmist gives the reason for
that. Because, because, listen to this, because they rebelled against the words of God and
contend the counsel of the Most High. Now, by nature, we all
rebel against God. We all rebel against God. But
what a blessing if the Holy Spirit shows us our rebellion. And as the psalmist tells us
here, therefore, he brought down their heart with labour, they
fell down and there was none to help. None to help. Desolate. None to help. What happened then? Did they
give up? No, it was a spirit of God working
in their hearts. Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses,
he brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and break
their bands in sunder. Freedom in Christ. Deliverance. Blessed day. blessed time when
King Jesus comes into view. So the Psalmist goes on. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord. For his goodness and for his
wonderful works to the children of men, for he has broken the
gates of brass and cut the bars of iron in sunder. Oh, the blessed
work of God, something you and I can't do ourselves, but bless
God when he brings us to that condition to cry unto him. And so here we have this statement
about the rebellious dwell in a dry land. And my friends, it
is a dry land. If you and I rebel against God,
you might think I don't rebel against God. Well, if you think
that, You probably without any doubt do. Because what you're
trying to do is to excuse yourself. What you're trying to do is to
justify yourself. My friends, when the Holy Spirit
shows us that we have rebelled against God. We have, as it were,
tried to go the opposite way. We've tried perhaps to run away
from God. We try to plan our own little
life, organise our own path. There is a way that seemeth right
to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. We don't
want to be found there, do we? Don't go in the way that seems
right. Go in the way that is right. That is right. And the way that is right is
never an easy way. The way that is right is always
a costly way to our flesh, because it brings us into union and communion
with a despised and crucified Saviour. And such a path will
never be an easy path, but it'll be a blessed path, and it'll
end up well. It'll end in glory. So may you and I be blessed with
this wonderful favour of walking in the right way and not be found
like this, rebelling and dwelling in a dry land. And, you know,
sometimes we don't realise it's a dry land until the Lord comes
and sends the showers of blessing. Yes, and there is that enlivening
water to our souls. And there we've been thirsty
and we haven't really realized it. But there the Lord's come
in his love and mercy and looked upon us. Well, we have these
words here this morning and they're very instructive to us. The whole
song is very instructive. And remember, it is all the work
of God. So you will have to you will
have to give honour and glory to God for what he's done. His
great work, his glorious work, his amazing work to such a wretched
sinner. God setteth the solitary and
families. He bringeth out those which are
bound with chains, but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. Amen.