Let us turn once more to God's
Word in the Psalm that we read, Psalm 37. And I'll read at verse
3. Psalm 37, verse 3. Trust in the Lord and do good,
so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. And I really want to take for
the text this morning that final clause of the verse, the words,
and verily thou shalt be fed. Here then, in Psalm 37, the end
of verse 3, and verily, or as the margin says, in truth, or
stableness, thou shalt be fed. There's a certainty in the works
that have been declared here by David. And how is it that
we feed upon the Word of God? It is by faith, of course. The
Christian believer lives by faith. And it is the Word of God that
feeds that faith and sustains his soul. And here in the psalm,
it's interesting that we have such a striking contrast between
these two things. On the one hand, faith, and on
the other, fretfulness. Here in the opening verses of
the psalm, fret not thyself. The word fret has the idea of
being greed, or being angry, worrying. fret not thyself because
of evil doers neither be thou envious against the workers of
iniquity for they shall soon be cut down like the grass and
wither as the green herb trust in the Lord and do good so shalt
thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed how different
then is the life of faith, that life in which there is a looking
to God and a trusting in God with that that is being contrasted
here, a life of anxiety, a life that's full of worries, of grief,
of anger. We think of the words of the
Lord Jesus when we come to the Gospel there in The familiar
opening words of John 14, you believe in God, believe also
in me, says the Lord Jesus. What is the context? It's one
surely of anxiety as the Lord speaks those words, let not your
heart be troubled, he says. Let not your heart be troubled,
you believe in God. believe also in birth. And oh, there is a certain emphasis
here in this psalm on the need for us to do that very thing,
to rest in the Lord. Verse 7, rest in the Lord and
wait patiently for him. Fret not thyself because of him
who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked
devices to pass. Cease from anger. And forsake
wrath, fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. And those words in verse 5, commit
thy way unto the Lord. Or as the margin says, the Hebrew
literally means roll thy way upon the Lord's. Trust also in
Him, and He shall bring it to pass. ought to be those then
who would draw our way, who would lean heavily upon the Lord our
God and be trusting in Him. Again, in verse 9, we read of
those that wait upon the Lord, how they shall inherit the earth. Those that wait upon the Lord. Again, when we come to the end
of the Psalm, verse 34, wait on the Lord and keep His way. What is it to be those then who
would be waiting on the Lord? Well, true waiting upon the Lord
is not something that would suggest any slothfulness, any fatalism,
any unbelief, but the very opposite of that. To wait upon the Lord
is to wait in faith. to come with hope and expectation,
to wait upon Him with a certain determination. It's not a passive
thing to be those then who are waiting upon the Lord. There
is much holy activity in the souls of those who know what
it is to be waiting upon the Lord, to be those who are resting
in Him. There's a certain determination.
They are the true Israel of God. Remember Jacob there at Penia
where his name is changed and he was a supplant and now becomes
a prince with God. And why so? Because we see his
faith. I will not let thee go, he says
to the angel. I will not let thee go, except
thou bless me. He wanted the Lord's blessing.
he was in a situation where he was full of anxiety he was returning
home and what would be the reaction of the brother Esau whom he had
cheated out of the birthright and Esau was angry with him he
was fearful and fretful was Jacob but the angel wrestles with him
and he wrestles with the angel in prayer and he comes to that
I will not let thee go except thou, blessed Mary, an Israelite
indeed, in whom there is nothing of awful doubt and unbelief, one
who is truly trusting in the Lord Godless. Well, let us come
to consider the word that I said we would take up as our text
this morning. Verily, In truth thou shalt be
fed. God is the one who feeds his
people. And here we come then to the
food of faith. What is the food of that life
that we're to live, the life of faith? As I say, the statement
that we're considering is introduced by this word verily. It's a great
biblical word, isn't it, here in our authorized version? And
as I say, in the margin it's indicated that it's a very strong
Hebrew word in truth. There's stability here. There's a certainty here. And of course the word is used
many times in the In the Gospel according to St. John we think
of it there especially the Lord Jesus time and again prefixing
His great teachings sometimes with a single verily, oftentimes
with a double verily. And it is all derived from this
Hebrew word which is the Amen or their certainty, so be it. Gil comments that faith feeds
on the faithfulness of God. It feeds upon the truth. But
it can also suggest that it is by faith, and only by faith,
that we can feed upon God's faithfulness. And where is it that we see the
faithfulness of God? Well, we see it in a certain
sense, of course, in His providence. and we're to be those who would
observe his providences and feed us all upon his faithfulness
in the way in which he does make every provision for us and care
for us and David does that what does he say later at verse 25
I have been young and now I'm old yet have I not seen the righteous
forsaken nor his seed begging bread for there is a God of Providence. And that God of Providence does
make provision for His people, not necessarily giving them an
excess but certainly never failing them. Verse 16, A little, a little
to the righteous man's heart is better than the riches of
many wicked. Know that many are ensnared by
the riches of this world, and their covetous hearts, desiring
to find satisfaction in the things of time and of sense. What does
God do? He grants that that is necessary
for His children, which will observe these things. He grants
daily bread. He grants a sufficiency for each
day and every day. We remarked recently on the subtle
difference that we find in those two accounts of what we call
the Lord's Prayer. Remember how the Lord Jesus,
who himself was such a man of prayer, teaches his disciples
how to pray. We have it first there in the
Sermon on the Mount, that patterned prayer, and there in Matthew
6.11, the prayer concerning bread is, Give us this day our daily
bread. That's bread for the day, sufficient
for the day. But it is slightly different
in the other accounts. There's another occasion when
the Lord also gives that instruction in Luke 11. The opening verse
is there, and the petition is somewhat different in verse 3.
It's give us day by day our daily bread. Oh yes, they're sufficient for
the day, but there's that guarantee that God will make that provision
day by day and day after day. And the Lord Jesus again in the
Sermon on the Mount, those words that we have at the end of the
sixth chapter in Matthew, Matthew 6, verse 25, Therefore I say unto you, take
no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall
drink, nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Is not
the life more than meat, and the body than ravens? Behold
the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap,
nor gather into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them.
Are ye not much better than they? the fowls of the air. Why the
sparrow cannot fall to the ground without the will of the Heavenly
Father. And you know when the Lord says
that of the sparrow falling to the ground, He's not speaking
of the death of the sparrow. He's speaking about the sparrow
will continually be falling to the ground to find food. Food
for itself, food for its bites. And God is in all of those things.
Are ye not much better than they? says the Lord Jesus. Our God
makes every provision and we are to be mindful of God's providences. And of course that great 107th
Psalm that's full of providence you know the content I'm sure
you remember the content of that Psalm it's full of of God's over
rulings in all the circumstances and situations of our lives and
then we come to the end and that great closing statement of the
psalm. You shall be wise and will observe
these things even they shall understand the loving kindness
of the Lord. Are we wise? Are we observant? Are we those who are watching
the hand of God in providence? It's food for our souls. Verily
thou shalt be fed. But it's not only the food of
God's good providence. There's also more than that.
There's the food of God's grace. We feed on His faithfulness. That's what Dr. Gill says. It's
really mentioned in the statement that we have here in this part
of the verse. Verily thou shalt be fed. How so? Because God is faithful.
And who is that one who is the faithful God? It's that one who
has revealed himself. And where does God reveal himself?
He reveals himself here in his Word, of course. Primarily it's
in the Scriptures. We know there's a revelation
of God in, as we've said, in Providence. the way in which
He overrules every circumstance of our lives, but there's that
special revelation that we have here in Holy Scripture. And it
all comes to its climax when we come to the New Testament
and the coming of Him who is the Word of God, even our Lord
Jesus Christ. And what a revelation! The name
that's given to Him there at the end of Scripture in Revelation
3, in verse 14, is the Amen, and He is the faithful and true
witness. And it is Christ of course who
is here in this clause. Verily, Amen. He is the Amen.
He is the faithful one. And there He makes every provision.
So are we those who as we come together Lord's Day by Lord's
Day as we have God's Word open before us As we read it, as we
hear the ministry of the Word of God, are we those who have
an appetite, a hunger? We want to feed. And we want
to feed upon Him who is the faithful and true witness. Him who says,
Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be fed. And we feel that we want to feed
upon that righteousness that is in the faithful. who has executed
all the good will of his father, obedient to every commandment
that he undertook in that eternal covenant and obedient to the
death of the cross. We have no righteousness of our
own, we want to feed upon all that the Lord Jesus Christ is. And remember how the Lord himself
reminds us of what that means. Many a time we've referred to
those words of Christ in the 6th chapter of John's Gospel. You know the passage there at
the end of that long chapter. Verse 53 of John 6, and again,
here we have it you see, the double verily. Verily, verily,
I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man,
and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Who so eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will
raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him." Oh, there is a union
here. where there is a true communing
with the Lord Jesus Christ and of course it has nothing this
passage to do with the blasphemies of the Romish mass it has nothing
to do with the idolatry of Rome and the exalting of a wafer and the
worship of a wafer nothing to do with that it's a spiritual
feeding upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that what we desire as we
come under the sound of God's Word? Or we want to feed, and
we want to feed upon the grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, when we look at this
passage, isn't it God's promise that really lies at the heart
of our text? Look at the context. Trust in
the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily
thou shalt be fed. It's dwelling in the land. It's God's promise. It's the
promise that God made first of all, of course, to Abraham. We have to see the Psalm
in the context of the Old Testament Scriptures. And Israel is a typical
people. And Abraham is that one who is
the father of all the faithful. And the promise is given to Abraham
concerning that land of promise back in Genesis chapter 15. And there at the passage from
verse 18 through 21. You can read the passage. It's
a land flowing with milk and honey. And in Deuteronomy 19 verse 8,
Moses speaks of it, the land which he promised to give unto
thy fathers, he says. The promise to Abraham, and to
Isaac, and to Jacob, that centered in that land And the words that
we have in Deuteronomy 8, Deuteronomy 8, at verse 7, Moses says here, The Lord thy
God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks, of water,
of fountains, and depths, that spring out of valleys and hills,
a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees, and pomegranates,
a land of oil-olive and honey, a land wherein thou shalt eat
bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it,
a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest
dig brass." Oh, what a land this is that is being promised. It
is, of course, the land of Canaan. And when we think of that, that
land of Canaan, we tend to think oftentimes in terms of heaven. We have that lovely hymn of Isaac
Watts, 1022, in the hymn book, Land of Pure Delight. You know,
it's said that Watts of course was a Southampton man that he
wrote that particular hymn as he was standing there looking
over Southampton water towards the new forest and all the lushness
of the forest and he writes there in 1022 of A Land of Pure Delight
interpreting Canaan in terms of heaven We have it also in
the hymn that we're going to sing at the close of our service.
Guide me, O thou great Jehovah. In that verse, when I tread the
verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside, death of death
and house destruction land me safe on Canaan's side. And so
we do tend, certainly the hymn writers have this tendency to
think of the land that was promised to the children of Israel in
terms of ultimately reaching that blessed place which is heaven
above and so here in the text so shalt thou dwell in the land
and verily thou shalt be fed however having said all of that
having said all of that if we really examine the significance
of the promised land, surely we're to see it not so much as
a type of heavenly rest, but more especially a type of resting
in the Gospel. And I think that is made abundantly
clear in what we read in Hebrews. There in Hebrews chapter 4 verse
6 following, verse 6 through to verse 11, You read that passage,
it is quite clear that the Apostle, when he speaks of the lands and
the rest, he is speaking principally of the Gospel. And when you come
back into the Old Testament and read the accounts as we have
it in the book of Joshua, as they enter into the lands, Initially
it's not a place of rest, it's a place of conflict and warfare. And in a sense that never ceases,
all the days that the children of Israel are living in that
land. In the very opening chapter of
the Book of Judges we're told the Canaanites, the Canaanite
would dwell in that land. They were never free from their
enemies, it's more a type then not of complete and utter rest,
which is heaven itself, but that rest that is in the gospel, where
there's that strange paradox of the life of faith. There is
a resting in Christ and yet there's a continual warfare, there's
a good fight of faith to be fought. And yet in the midst of all that
conflict, oh the Lord God does make provision for his people,
how he feeds them. Again, look at the language of
Isaiah, Isaiah 25 and verse 6. How the prophecy of that man
is full of Gospel truth. And what does Isaiah say there,
in this mountain? He's speaking of the Promised
Land. In this mountain shall the Lord
of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast
of wine on the leaves, of fat things full of marrow. of wines
on the leaves, well refined. Oh, it's the Gospel. And it's
that Gospel that really feeds the souls of the Lord's people. Which you understand then in
the context here, yes, it's the land that was promised unto the
fathers of the nation. It's the land of Canaan. But
all of that is typical of that land that we enter into when
we come to fight in the Lord Jesus Christ. So shalt thou dwell in the land
and verily thou shalt be fed. And so we see here again it's
a true word in that it is God's promise and it's God's promise
in the Gospel And there's a certainty to the language that is being
used. It is very much the language of promise. So shalt thou dwell
in the land, verily, truly thou shalt be fed. These promises are all in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And all the promises of God in
him are God. and in Him are men to the glory
of God by us. The opening words, the opening
words of the verse, trust in the Lord. And we see immediately
that it is the covenant name that's being used. It's our blessed
name, it's Jehovah. It's the God who when He made
promise to Abraham because he could swear by no greater, he
swore by himself. How he has magnified his word
above all his name. His very name as God is tied
up with the accomplishment of the thing that he has promised.
He must be true to himself, therefore he must keep his word of promise. It's not just a promise, it's
an oath God has taken an oath that's what we see in the covenant
and that covenant of course ultimately accomplished in him who is the
mediator and the mediator of the covenant is the same who
is the testator of the New Testament and the testator has died and
his testament stands This is what we have here, you see. It's
the Gospel. And that Gospel that centers
so much in our Lord Jesus Christ. Think of the words of Peter,
writing there in the opening chapter of his second epistle.
He says, We have not followed cunningly devised fables when
we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. We're not dealing with fictions
and fables. We're dealing with the Word of
God, the promise of God, and that promise in our Lord Jesus
Christ. It's a more sure word of prophecy,
Peter goes on to say in that chapter. A more sure word of
prophecy. Everything seals by the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is how God feeds His people. We're not only to be aware of
His dealings with us with regards to temporal things in the way
of His faithful providence, as long as the earth remaineth,
sea time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day
and night, shall not cease. That's our guarantee. But does
it then what Unbelieving men might say, with regards to global
warming and all that sort of thing. We look higher than men.
We know that God is that one who is sovereign. We seek to
be wise stewards of all that God has given to us. We recognize
that. That God has put his creation
into the hands of man. To subdue the earth. To make
use of the earth. We trust in God. But it's not
just the God of providence, it is the God of grace, and that
that He has given to us in our Lord Jesus Christ, and the blessed
revelation that He sets before us here in the Scriptures of
truth. And here we discover of course
the wonders of the person and work of the Lord Jesus, or remember
how Jacob again recognized that he was not worthy of the least
of God's mercies he says and all the truth that thou hast
shown me or what truth has God shown you here in his word Are
we those who want to, as it were, ransack the Word of God because
we want to search out and find these exceeding great and precious
promises? We want our souls to be fed with
the finest of the wheat. We want to feed upon the Lord
Jesus. We want to understand something
more of the wonder, of the mystery, of godliness, how God was manifest
in the flesh. or we want to enter into the
significance of all that he did in the course of his life. And
then that's that death that he died. We want to understand these
things that we might feed our souls upon them. How do we feed? Oh, we feed ultimately
of course by faith. And what is this faith that is
being spoken of? Well, here in the text, the opening
words, it's a faith that involves trust, trust in the Lord, and
do good. It's interesting, isn't it? There's
a connection, surely there, between each part of that statement. There's trusting in the Lord,
and it goes hand in hand with doing Good. We see it again later
in verse 34. Wait on the Lord and keep His
way. If we're waiting on Him, we're
keeping His way. If we're trusting in Him, we're
doing good. There's a connection here, surely,
between faith and doing good faith and works, you might say. What does Paul say when he writes
to those Thessalonians? Remembering without ceasing your
work of faith, he says, and labour of love. There's a work of faith and there's a labour of love
and a patience or an endurance of hope he goes on also to speak
of. We need to recognize then that
faith is evidenced by good works. By grace are ye saved through
faith, and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. No, we know that works have nothing
to do with salvation. By grace, are you saying. God of works. If by grace it
is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. The apostle
says to the Romans, and yet, that grace of faith is a working
grace. It's a working grace. Work out your own salvation,
says Paul to the Philippians. Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you, both
to will and to do of His good pleasure. If we have that faith that is
true, genuine and real, it will be evidence. Let your light so
shine before me, that they may see your good works and glorify
your Father which is in heaven." No glory to man. The glory is
God's. Trust in the Lord and do good. Remember how it's James in his
epistle, he shows us the importance of these things. Show me thy
face without thy works, he says, I will show me my faith by my
will. It's that faith which worketh,
and it works by love. Faith which worketh by love. When we see it, or we see it
surely here in the psalm, verse 30, David says, the mouth
of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment.
The law of his God is in his heart, none of his steps shall
slide. He has God's law in his heart.
That's the promise of the New Covenant. It's not a law that's
written on tables of stone, but on the fleshly tables of the
heart. It will be evidenced in the way in which these people
conduct themselves. Again, in another psalm, David
says of this righteous man, he sweareth to his own hurt and
changeth not. He's a man who is true, true
to his word. How different to the ungodly.
Verse 21, we read, the wicked borroweth and payeth not a gain,
but the righteous showeth mercy and giveth. There's a practicality
to the life of faith. And we need to recognize that
very simple truth. All the ways of this man, you
see, they conform to the Word of God. Verse 23, The steps of
a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delighteth in His
way. Do we delight in the Lord's way? We want to be obedient to
His commandments as we walk by faith. as we live this life of
faith. Again, we have that word in the
Prophet Habakkuk. The just shall live by his faith. The just shall live by his faith.
And three times, three times in the New Testament, Paul makes
reference to those words of the Prophet. Romans 1.17 Galatians 3.11 and Hebrews 10.38. That three-fold cord in the New
Testament is not easily broken, is it? How do they just live? They live by faith. How do they
feed? They feed by faith. But they
feed upon the Word of God. And they feed upon the Word of
God in its entirety. They're not partial in God's
law, in God's words. they delight in the promises,
or they feed upon the promises, but they do not despise the precepts. In Malachi 2 the prophet is rebuking
the priests in Israel because they were partial in the law
of God. We're not to be partial. It's all the Word of God. from Genesis through to Revelation
we embrace the entirety of it and we feed upon it and we want
our lives to conform more and more to it but we're not trusting
in our own works those words of Isaiah 26.13 Father Lord besides
thee have had dominion over us but by thee only will we make
mention of thy name for Thou hast worked all our works within
us. It's only by the grace of God
that we can make mention of His name. And we feel our complete
and utter dependence upon Him. We are those who are the true
seed of Abraham. And Abraham was saved by grace
without works. Remember again how the apostle
brings it out writing in that fourth chapter of the Epistle
to the Romans, a great chapter, what does he say? Verse 2 of Romans 4, If Abram
were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before
God. For what saith the Scripture,
Abram believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the
reward, not reckoned of grace, but of death. But to him that
worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly,
is faith, is counted for righteousness. It's Abraham's faith. But it's
not the grace of faith, it's the object of his faith. And
what is the object of his faith? It's the promise. Verse 20, He's taken not of the
promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving
glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He had promised
He was able also to perform. What had God promised the Son?
Isaac, the seed of promise. And He believed that God was
able to perform that promise. But Isaac, of course, the type
of Christ. But it's the object. And it's
the object that is imputed for righteousness. All we feed all
together upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He is all our salvation. But if we're those who have the
faith of Father Abraham, that will be evidence. And it will
be evidence by those good works that give glory to God. because
our lives will increasingly conform to the Word of God, as we feed
upon the Word of God. Will it not be the mark, then,
of the very manner of our living? Trust in the Lord, and do good,
so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. O God, grant them that we might
be those who know what it is to feed, to feed upon God as
He has revealed Himself here in His Word, to feed upon His
promises, to feed upon His precepts, to feed upon the person and the
work of our Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord be pleased to bless
this Word to us for His namesake and as we come to close the service
we're going to sing as our concluding praise That's him I made some
reference to, 462, thy will thou great Jehovah. Pilgrim through this barren land,
I am weak but thou art mighty. Hold me with thy powerful hand,
bread of heaven. Feed me now and evermore. We sing to the tune Dismissal
671, the tune 462, the tune 671.