Psalm 91. And our text will be
found in verse 14 through 16. The title of the message this
evening is Seven Faithful Promises. Seven Faithful Promises. Here in these verses we have
seven promises of God. Seven promises given. Verse 14
says, "...because He hath set His love upon me, therefore will
I deliver Him. I will set Him on high because
he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I
will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor
him. With long life will I satisfy
him and show him my salvation. And when believers in Christ
are in trouble, when we are in difficulty, and we often are,
when we find ourselves in suffering, it's then for strength, comfort,
and encouragement we turn to the Word of God. We turn to what? The promises of God. The promises
of God to the believer are the solace in our times of grief
and suffering. Promises mean everything to us. The promises of God. And we look
at these verses, we look at the verses of our text for hope that
God will deliver us. We look here in these verses
to know this, that God will lift us up. That God will answer our
prayers. We look for some hope that He
will save us and show us again His salvation. All of these promises
are here. But what begins to creep in is
doubt, fear. We read these promises and then
we begin to doubt them and say, are these promises mine? Are these promises of deliverance,
these promises of answering prayer, these promises of showing us
His salvation, are they mine? Are they my promises? Can I rightfully
claim these promises? I thought of this illustration
today. If I were to write my wife a letter, and in that letter I promise
to be there for her, I promise to hold her, I promise to comfort
her. She expresses her grief, her sorrow, her hurts, and then
I write and I promise her, I'll be there for you, I'll embrace
you, I'll love you, I'll care for you. And then suppose some
other woman were to get a hold of my letter. Could she then claim the promises
that I gave to my wife? Would it be possible for her
to expect me to hold her and love her? No. There's no promise
of that. That couldn't be hers. Why? Because
it was written to her. It was written to her and not
another. Listen, even so, the Word of
God. The Word of God and the promises of God are not for everyone. They're not for everyone. They're for the church. They're
for Christ and His bride. Like these in our text are not
meant for all men, but only those to whom they are given. Now before we go on to these
promises and claim them as our own, I want you to see to whom
these promises were first of all given. I want you to understand
these promises were not first of all given to us. They're not
first given to us. But rather, these are the promises
given by God to Christ. This is a messianic psalm. It is a messianic psalm. A psalm
of Christ. And we see this clearly in verses
1 and 2. Look at this. David says, or
the psalmist says, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most
High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord. He is
my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust. You notice the switch in pronouns
here? He that dwelleth in the secret
place. Well, this is the one to whom
the promises give. He shall abide under the shadow
of the Almighty. And what does the psalmist say?
He says, that's the one. That's the one in whom I trust. That's the one in whom is my
refuge. This one that dwells in the secret
place of the Most High. Now this secret place of the
Most High, in case you're wondering what that is, it has reference
to the Holy of Holies. It has reference to that place
inside the tabernacle where only the priest was allowed to go.
It was a secret place. It was a place where no other
man could go but the high priest. It was a place where God manifested
His presence. It was the only place where God
would meet with sinners above the mercy seat. above the mercy
seat. Well, who is this then that dwells
in the secret place? It is Christ. It is the Lord
Jesus Christ, who dwelt with God from eternity. John says,
in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. This One that is promised here
is Christ. The promises here are given to
Christ. This is the place where the Ark
of the Covenant, which we know is a picture of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And listen, as He came into the world, as He abode under
the shadow of the Almighty, look, that's what He says in verse
4, He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings
shalt thou trust. His truth is thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for
the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day,
nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction
that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy
side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not
come nigh thee." When our Lord Jesus Christ came into this world
as a man, think of all the arrows of accusations that flew at Him.
Think of all the pestilence of sin and condemnation that was
in this world, and yet none of it touched Him. He was the Holy
One, the Son of God. Why? He dwelt under the shadow
of the Almighty. God protected Him. And He was
not afraid, was He? He was not afraid of His enemies. How many times did they try to
kill Him? How many times did they try to
discredit him? And he said, 10,000 will fall
at thy right hand. Every one of us had failed at
that. The pestilence of sin had taken over us. The accusation
surely could strike us. It could not strike him. Could
not strike him. I like this. He said to those
Jews, which of you convinceth me of sin? Point, point. Which of you can convict me of
sin? You remember he had that woman
laid out there who was guilty of adultery, and they all wanted
to throw stones and kill her. And he said, He that is among
you that is without sin cast the first stone. Who alone could
have cast the stone at her? Only the Son of God could have
done that. You see, He alone was without sin. And no evil
could hurt Him. No danger could touch Him. Look at verse 11, and we can
see this very clearly. This is, remember when the Lord
was tempted of Satan in the wilderness, this is one of these Psalms that
the enemy would use against Him, try to anyway. For He shall give
His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their
hands, lest thou dash thy foot against the stone. You remember
he was at the top of that, the pinnacle of that mountain, and
Satan said, if you be the son of God, cast yourself off and
the angels will bear you up. And what did he say? Thou shalt,
it is also written, thou shalt not tempt or test the Lord thy
God. So we know this psalm is about
Christ. We know this is a psalm about
Christ. But what happened? Look at verse 13. This is what
he came to do. Satan didn't quote this part.
Notice how he missed this. Verse 13, Thou shalt tread upon
the lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt Thou
trample underfoot. Who is the adder? It is that
old serpent, the devil and Satan. He shall tread on him. He shall
tread him. Who is the lion that roars, seeking
whom he may devour? It is the devil. And who shall
tread on him? You or me? No, this is the promise
only reserved for Christ. He shall tread on him. He shall
tread on him. Now can you see why the psalmist
would say, this is my refuge? This is my refuge. This is my
fortress. This is my God in whom I trust. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. Is this your refuge? Is this the one in whom you trust? If you will have the promises
of God to be your own, then listen, you must be in union with this
refuge. Look at this building. We're
inside this building. And we are afforded all of the
protection of this building. Is it? Everything that comes
outside and goes against this building. We have this assurance
that We're protected by this building. And it's, you know,
I guess we would be under the... however strong this building
is. That would be our level of protection, right? Well, think
of Christ as our refuge. Think of the strength of our
protection. That we who are in Him are afforded
then all of the promises given to Him. You see, this is how
you can claim the promises and be sure, is to know this, are
you in Christ? If you are in Christ, then listen,
all of the promises that are Christ's, then belong to you. They're yours, because they were
first His. And you see now, if you base
the promises then on you, you know where the weakness comes
from, you know where the fear then comes from. It comes because
you don't deserve it. Because you have no strength.
Because you have no love. Consider this first promise that
we're going to be looking at. He says, because He set His love
on me, I will deliver Him. Now, do you want deliverance?
Now, would you have any comfort in your love for God as being
the grounds of your deliverance." No! No! Therefore, we must understand
the promises of God come to us in a representative man. A representative man. Let's think
of this. Remember, we were represented
by Adam. We all were represented by Adam. And when God gave a promise to
Adam, what was the promise? In the day thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. Now that was a promise. That
was a promise. And when Adam ate, he what? He died. And therefore, because
we were in Adam, we too received that same promise. Death. Death. Wherefore, as by one man
sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed
upon all men, for all have sinned. You see, when our representative
sinned, then we also received the just reward of who? Our representative. This is why we died. When we
were born, when we were conceived, we were conceived in sin. And
when we were born, we were born dead in sin. Why? Because of
our representative. But look then and see the confidence
of the psalmist is not in his work. This is why all works religion
is a refuge of lies. It is a refuge of lies. All those who trust in their
works and think they would die and wake up in heaven, they've
been promised something altogether different. They've been promised
hell. If you are only in Adam, you shall only receive the promise
of your representative. Hell. A just reward even from all your
sin. But look and see the confidence
of the psalmist was not in his work, but rather in his refuge. The solace of the promises of
the psalmist is in his refuge. His confidence is not in himself,
but rather in his representative. Because he had not the representative
Adam, he had another representative. even Jesus Christ. The scripture
says, therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all
men to condemnation. See, there's the promise. Condemnation
to those who are in Adam. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men to justification of life.
For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So, by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." You see,
the righteousness and justification of ours is only as we are in
the representative Jesus Christ, in the refuge. You know, it's always my heart's
desire that sinners would look to this refuge If you've never fled to Christ
for refuge, you should. You should. There's no hope anywhere
else. You won't find any peace. And
you definitely cannot have the promises of Scripture if you're
not in Christ. If you do not believe on the
only Son of God. Behold, the beauty and glory
of this is that God in love chose a people for Himself. That God
in love elected a people to save. And then what did he do with
these people of his love? He put them in Christ. And what
did they receive in Christ? All spiritual blessings. Isn't
that what it says in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3? Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, where? In
Christ. in Christ. That all those who are in Christ
then should receive all the blessings, all the promises of God. What about the promise of reconciliation? Listen to what Paul says in 2
Corinthians 5.19, to which God was in Christ. Reconciling the
world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. How was this reconciliation accomplished?
In Christ. It was accomplished in Christ.
What about righteousness? For He hath made Him to be sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God. Where? In Christ. In Him. So
where then are all the promises? Where then are all the comforts?
Wherein are all the assurances? They're in Christ. And if you
are in Christ, then you guess what? You get it all. You get
all the promises that are His are yours. Are yours. Romans 3, 24, being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ. Where's redemption? In Christ. Are you in Christ? Before I ever
go over these blessings, you should know, are you in Christ?
If you are in Christ, then you may definitely, definitely be
sure of these blessings. They're not questionable. If you're in Christ, they're
not questionable. Why? For all the promises of God in
Christ are what? Yes. And in Christ what? Amen. Not only are they yes,
are these promises mine? Yes. Can I be sure? Amen. They're yes and they're sure.
They're yes and they're sure. Why? Because God's immutable.
God who promised them cannot lie, and God who promised them
cannot change. So what does that say about your
promises? Are they movable? If they're dependent on you,
they would be. But they're not. Your promises
are not dependent on you. They're all dependent on Christ.
Every one of them. Now then, let's look at these
promises. The first promise is this deliverance. Deliverance
to those who love God. Because He has said His love
on me, therefore will I deliver Him. See, this pertains, first
of all, to Christ. He alone loved God. He alone
loved God with all of his heart, with all of his soul, with all
of his mind, and with all of his body. Only Jesus Christ loved
God in order to merit the promise
of deliverance. He alone loved God. He loved
God in every way, shape, and form. He loved God. And because
he loved God, this is the promise of God, I will deliver him. I will deliver him. How can we
tell that he loved God? Well, he did the will of God.
Isn't that love? Isn't that the greatest form
of love? How many of us say, I love God,
and yet we never obey God? Is that true love? No, that's
lip service. Christ did no such thing. When
He said, I love God, He did the will of God. And what was the
will of God? This is the will of God that
He has sent me. That of all He has given me, I should lose nothing. What was the greatest proof of
His love? His obedience, even unto death. I thought of Isaac
and Abraham. You know, there's no opposition
when Abraham went to offer Isaac, he gave no fight. He gave no
opposition. Obedience to his father, even
unto death, to lay and offer himself a sacrifice. How much greater then was the
love of Christ for us and for God, that He would glorify God
by offering Himself a sacrifice for sin, by having our sin, our
sin, imputed to Himself, and God pouring out His wrath on
His Son. Greater love hath no man than
this. And a man lay down his life,
for his friend. Can you find greater love? Can
you find a greater love that merited God's promise than his? Only his love merited this promise
of God. And what did we see when he offered
himself, when he became vile, when he was afflicted, when the
wrath of God fell on him? What is the result? God delivered
him. Isn't that so? Can't you see
that by the empty tomb? The tomb is empty because of
the promise of God. God said, look, that's my man.
That's the one I sent. And I'm pleased with his love.
I honor his love and I raise him from the dead. Raised him
from the dead. Now then, how does this promise
pertain to us? See now that because Christ has
so loved God and been delivered from the grave, this promise
then is given to us who love Him. I do not dare dissuade you
from loving God. You who believe, you love Him.
Isn't that what Peter said when he was convicted? The Lord said,
Lovest thou me more than these? And what did Peter say? Lord,
you know I love you. You know I love you. Believers
do have love for God. But our love never merits deliverance. So don't rest in it. Even though
you have it and you should nurture it, you should long for it to
grow, yet you should never depend on it to be delivered. You see,
we love Him because of what? He first loved us. That's why
we love Him. And I do love Him. And what does
he say? God says that everything works
together for good to them that love Him. To them that are called
according to His purpose. Do you love Him? If you're in
Christ, I know you do. Then this is His promise to you.
I will deliver you. I will deliver you. Isn't this
been true? He said, I will deliver you from
the penalty of sin. Guess what? You are delivered
from the penalty of sin. Forever. Forever. You are delivered from the power
of sin. You are. Why? Because you have
that new nature that cannot sin. You've been given a new nature
that cannot sin. That new man that resides in you. The old
man cannot do anything but sin. But the new man can do nothing
but righteousness. And therefore, that's why you
have this conflict That's why you have this struggle. But what
does God say? I'll deliver you. Is that not something you should
cling to and hold fast to? When you are convicted of your
sins, I will deliver you. And He will deliver us from death.
Didn't He deliver us from spiritual death? He raised us from spiritual
death. Why? Because of the love of Christ. Therefore, we love Him, and we
have this promise, I'll deliver you from death. Spiritual death. He raised us, but we have also
this promise, He shall deliver us from physical death. When
this body dies, we know this, that soon this body shall be
raised incorruptible. And we shall be, the whole man
that we are now will be without sin one day. Isn't that a wonderful
promise? I'm going to deliver you even
from the presence of sin one day. That's good if you hate sin.
If you love God, I know this, you despise yourself. And you
long to be like Him. He will deliver us. Second promise
is this. A promise of a throne. Look at
that in your text. He says, I will set him on high. I will set him on high. How did
that pertain to Christ? He set him on high because he
hath known my name. The scripture says, No man knoweth
the Father but the Son, neither knoweth any man the Father save
the Son, and to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. See, only Jesus knew the Father
from eternity, and only Jesus declares the Father. Therefore, God says, I will set
Him on high. Isn't that so? When He fulfilled
all of the promises of God, all of the righteousness of God,
all that God required of Him, what did God do? God set Him
on high. God hath given him a name that
is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father. Every knee shall bow
at this one. How high is that throne? He has
set Him on high. He has given Him power over all
flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as the Father
gave Him. You know what? Who's ruling and
running this show is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's moving everything
according to the counsel of His own will. Why? Because God set Him on high.
Well, how does this pertain to us? Because when God set Him
on high, He set you on high. That wherever Christ is, we are. You remember that Paul said,
I am crucified with Christ. You realize that? You were crucified
when He was crucified. Your sins were put away when
He nailed them to the tree. And when He died, you died. And
listen, when He rose again, so did you. So where are you? You. who know his name do you
know his name i don't know his name like i want to i don't know
his name like that should But I do know Him. Paul said that
I desire to know Him. Don't you, believer? You know
Him, but you long to know Him more. You see, my being exalted
is not dependent on my knowledge of Him, but rather Christ's knowledge
of Him. By the knowledge of my servant,
He shall justify many. And when He rose, so did we. When He's ascended, so are we.
You are seated with Him right now in heavenly places. Just
as sure of eternal glory as if you were there already. You are
there already in Him. He has exalted us and we are
in Christ on high. I like this, Job said to set
up on high those that be low. Are you low? You know God's purpose
is to set you up on high? Peter said, Humble thyself unto
the mighty hand of God, and in due time He will, what? Exalt
thee. He'll set you up on high. Why?
He promised. He promised. How are you sure of this? Because
my surety is exalted. My surety has been exalted Christ.
The third one is the promise of hearing. When our Lord prayed
At the resurrection of Lazarus, he said this, I know thou hearest
me always. I know thou hearest me always.
When Christ prayed, was there any doubt the Father would not
answer him? Any doubt? No. He always heard him. Why? He said, this is my beloved
Son in whom I am well pleased. God was always pleased and God
always heard him. Now you listen, believer. Does
God always hear you? I know what you think. You think
He doesn't. You feel He doesn't. That's because
you're basing the answer to your prayer on your merit. Don't do it. You see, God will
hear you because of your representative. God will hear you always because
He always hears His Son. Now, He will not always give
you what you think you need. He will give you what you need. Why didn't you get this? You
didn't need that. Otherwise, you would have got
it. You see, the Spirit of God maketh intercession for us with
prayers that cannot be uttered. You see, what we should pray
is, Lord, do this. Lord, Thy will be done. Thy will
be done. And you know what you have? You
have an answer. Yes, my will will be done. My will will be
done. This is His promise, that He
will always hear us. Look at this next promise. He
says this, I will be with Him in trouble. Was the Lord not
with Christ in His trouble, in His time of grief and sorrow?
He was always with Christ. Always with Christ. He always
helped Christ. In His greatest sorrow, He sustained
Him. Therefore, believer, are you
in trouble? Are you in trouble? Our Lord
said you would be. In this world you shall have
trouble. Tribulation. But ask yourself, was God with
Christ in His hour of need? Then you may grab a hold of this,
He will always be with you in your hour of need. What does
the scripture say? He is a very present help. When? In trouble. You get that? Not out of trouble,
but in trouble. Now look, if you can't bear something,
you should pray that the Lord would take it from you. You should. The Scriptures are full of references
where men were in trouble and they could not bear it anymore.
And they asked God, please take this from me. You have every
right to ask your Father for help to take these things. Either
remove me or remove the trouble. Lord, help me. But I'll tell you this. Whether
he does or he doesn't move you or the trouble, he will be with
you in it. Usually we don't see this till
the trouble has passed. Usually we don't see it till
the storm is over and then we look back and say, oh yes, he
was with me. There was no way I could have
ever bore that without him in it. But it doesn't matter how you
feel about that. He is always with you in trouble. Why? Because of your substitute.
Because of your representative. That's why you should expect
Him to be with you in trouble. In trouble. The next one is this, the promise
of honor. Honor. Is not our Lord honored? is honored. I just told you He
has given Him a name that is above every name. His name is
honored, honored of God. Isn't that what we come here
for, really? To worship Him? To honor Him? In heaven, what will we do? We
will honor Christ. We will magnify Christ. And so
then this is the promise of God. I will honor Him. But listen,
He has not only given our representative a name, He's given you a name.
A new name. Remember Jacob, that old supplanter,
he had a name. His name meant trickster. But
when he wrestled with the Lord, and you remember the Lord, he
came to him and broke him. What did he do? He gave him a
new name. Instead of supplanter, he gave
him Israel for a name. That means prince. Prince. You see, He honored Him. He honors
who? The humble, those He breaks,
those who are in His Son. He honors them. Look, you're
going to be dishonored by this world. But what do we care about them?
We seek not the praise of men. You know whose praise you have,
whose honor you have? You have God's honor. God says,
I'm going to honor you. I'm going to honor you. And the
last one is the promise of long life. Well, there's long life,
the second last, long life. This is not a long earthly life. Even that's very short. But this
long life that God promised is the same long life that our representative
has. You see, Christ is now seated
in heaven for eternity. And guess what? This same life
is ours. The same promise you have, I'll
give you eternal life. My sheep hear my voice, and they
follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hands. He gives you
long life. How can I be sure of that? Because
as long as my Savior lives, I live. When am I going to die? Whenever
He does. Never. Never. And the last one
is this, the promise to show the salvation of God. I like
this in Isaiah. It says this, He shall see His
seed. and prolong his days. And the
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. What is he saying?
I'm going to show my son his salvation. I'm going to save
those he saved, those he redeemed. And I'm going to show them to
him. He's going to see his seed. And because he has promised this,
that all that the Father had given Him, He should lose nothing.
And this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone that seeth
the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life. And
I will raise Him up at the last day." We can be sure of this,
believer. This is a promise. All that the Father chose, all
that the Son redeemed, will see the salvation of the Lord. And that includes me. That includes you who are in
Christ. Are you in Christ? Then God says,
I will deliver you. God says, I will hear you. God
says, I will honor you. God says, I will give you eternal
life. God says, I will show you my
salvation. God says, I will be with you
in trouble and be your present help. These promises are not
shady. These promises are not movable.
Why? Because they are firm in our
representative, yea and amen. Now may God give us such faith
to hold on to. I pray that God comfort us in
the midst of our troubles with these promises. and show us Christ our surety,
our salvation, our hope. Let's be dismissed in prayer.