Psalm 92 and verse 1. The Scripture says a psalm, if
you'll notice the title, a psalm or song for the Sabbath day. It is a good thing to give thanks
unto the Lord. to sing praises unto Thy Name,
O Most High, to show forth Thy lovingkindness in the morning
and Thy faithfulness every night, upon an instrument of ten strings,
upon a psaltery, upon the harp with a solemn sound. This morning I want us to look
at just the title first. the title of this psalm. A psalm or song for the Sabbath
day. This no doubt was written to
be sung on the Sabbath day of worship under the old dispensation
under the Law of Moses. This day is called the Sabbath
day because it was a day that God had set aside when He rested
from His creation. You remember on the seventh day,
the Lord had created all things. And after He had created all
things on the sixth day, He created everything and said it was good.
On the seventh day, God rested from all His work of creation. He created nothing else. He was finished with His creation. And it was very good. It was
perfect. Therefore, in the Law of Moses,
because God set aside the seventh day, because He rested from all
His work, He gave Moses this commandment. Go over to Exodus
chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20 and verse 8. This is the law, the Ten Commandments,
that God gave Moses. Exodus chapter 20 and verse 8,
God said, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and
do all thy work, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord
thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work,
thou, nor thy sons, nor thy servant, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant,
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For
six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that
is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord
blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." This day, according to the
Law, according to the law was the seventh day what we call
saturday what we call saturday was the seventh day not sunday
not sunday saturday is the seventh day of the week and sunday we
know this sunday is the first day of the week Now there have
been some godly men who I often read who tried to transfer the
Sabbath day to Sunday. They've called the Sunday worship
the Sabbath day. But in doing so, what they have
neglected to see is they have tried to impose this law of the
Sabbath on the church of God. Therefore, they in doing so try
to convict the conscience of men that they should be faithful
to attend the worship of service. That's all it's for. They try
to transfer the Sabbath day and make it Sunday so that it would
convict men to be faithful. That is not the manner that we
are to treat the children of God. Believers in Christ, let us learn
that we should never mingle the letter of the Law with the Spirit
of Grace. Never. We should never mingle the two.
We should keep in mind what Paul said to the church of Corinth
in 2 Corinthians 3 and verse 6. Who made us? God made us able
ministers. Not of the Old Testament. He
said of the New Testament. The New Covenant. Not of the
letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth. but the
Spirit maketh alive." Spirit gives life. We must not and will
not preach the law of the Sabbath. Believers are not to preach the
law of the Sabbath to bind men to come and worship. But rather,
we who have come to worship, we come to worship on the Lord's
Day, what John calls the Lord's Day, which is the first day of
the week. We meet together on the first day of the week because
this is the day our Savior rose from the dead. We celebrate and
we worship on this day because this is the day our Savior rose. This is the day we celebrate
His resurrection. And we come not because of the
law of Moses. You don't come here because you
need to obey the Ten Commandments and honor the Sabbath day. That's
not the reason we come here. We come here because we love
Him. That's why. We don't come here
because of law. You come here because of grace.
We come here because it is the Lord's day. We don't obey, trying
to obey the law of Moses, but because of the law of faith.
The law of faith. That's the law we are under.
The law of faith. We're not lawless. We're not
without law. We have a law. It is not the
law of Moses, but it is the law of faith. It is the law of faith. The law of Moses tells it to
honor the Sabbath day, Saturday. But the law of faith, it doesn't
speak like that. Go to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3, verse 23, "...for all have sinned,
and come short of the glory of God." Being justified how? How are we justified? We are
justified freely. Freely. By His grace. Through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be the propitiation. Through faith in His blood. to declare His righteousness
for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God, to declare, I say at this time, His righteousness,
that He might be just and the justifier of him that believeth
in Jesus, where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? By works? No. but by the law of faith." The
law of faith excludes all boasting. Do you read that first part?
We're justified freely by His grace through Jesus Christ, through
His blood. We're justified freely. And we
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. How? By grace you are saved through
faith, and that faith is not of yourself. Faith is a gift
of God, not of works. Lest any man should boast We're
not here to brag on ourselves, are we? No. There's no boasting
here. There's no boasting in me. I
did none of it. He did all of it. My boasting
is in God. My boasting is in Christ. And
this is the law believers live by. We live by the law of faith. We've been justified and redeemed
through the accomplished work of Christ quickened by the Holy
Spirit. We are saved by the free grace
of God, not by obedience to the law. Obedience to the law only
encourages boasting, does it not? Is that not true? Obedience to the law encourages
boasting and pride of the flesh, but the law of faith says we
are justified without the deeds of the law and therefore there
is no room for boasting in our works, our will, our religious
ceremony, or our faith, faithful exercise. Matter of fact, the Apostle Paul
says law and grace are mutually exclusive. We know water and oil don't mix. Neither do grace and works. They
don't mix. They don't mix. You can't mix
them. You're either saved by grace
or saved by works. There is no middle ground. Paul
said, but no man is justified by the law and the sight of God.
Evident. Isn't that evident? Isn't that
just plainly so, believer? You and I both know that's true.
For the just shall live how? Who wants to know how to live? You want to know how to live? You just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith.
The law is not of faith. That's what Paul says, Galatians
3.12. And the law is not of faith. But the man that doeth them shall
live in them. If you think this is the Sabbath
day and you're here to worship on the Sabbath day, then you
not only need to keep that law, but you need to keep the whole
law. We're not here because this is the Sabbath day. We are here
because this is the law of faith. We come to worship God as He
has commanded us. Not out of legalistic bondage,
but out of love. How does faith work? Faith worketh
by love. Love. This grace of faith that works
by love, we who believe on Christ, we continually believe on Christ
and obey His commands, not out of terror. Are you here because
you're terrified? did you come this morning trembling
as though you know you had to you had to do this this is just
when I go to the dentist it is the worst thing in the world
for me I don't know maybe you got a great kind dentist and
he's just gentle and loving but I've never been to one who's
just gentle and loving and I dread it I know I gotta go But it's
not something I want to do. You don't have to do that to
get me here. I do not come that way. And believer,
neither should you. We should never come in that
manner to worship God. The Sabbath day is a picture
for us. It's a picture of Christ. We
come to worship the Lord Jesus Christ on this day. We meet together
in worship of our great God and Savior because we love Him. We love Him. We do not forsake
His worship because Jesus has been raised from the dead and
He promised. May God give us grace to believe
his words where two or three are gathered together in my name.
There I am in the midst of that. What else do we need to motivate
us to be if he said he would be? Is our Lord Jesus Christ
so grotesque that we would have to cringe to be here? No. To you who believe, He is
altogether lovely. Altogether lovely. We don't cringe
to come because He said to come. He said He would be here. Today,
as we are assembled, we're not because it's the law of the Sabbath,
but because Jesus Christ is our Sabbath. He is our Sabbath. Our text said this is a song
for the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day is a picture
and type of our Lord Jesus Christ. So when you read that, when you
read that in the Old Testament, I want you to read it as you
would the Passover. Or you would the great day of
atonement. Any of those laws that we read in the Old Testament,
they were for a purpose. They're for a purpose to show
us Christ. To show us a picture of our Beloved
who is our rest. In Hebrews 11, It says, "...Moses by faith forsook
Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as
seeing Him who is invisible. Through faith kept the Passover
and sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first one
should touch them." Moses kept the Passover, why? Because it
pictured the coming of the Messiah. He by faith kept the Passover. By faith! We who have been saved by the
blood of Jesus Christ, who have had that blood sprinkled on the
doorpost of our hearts, we know that Christ is our Passover. Because of His blood, God passes
over us. Because all the judgment was
poured out on Him, on Christ, our Savior. So we see Him as
our Passover. Why should we not see Him as
our Sabbath? I know people also take the Lord's
Table and they try to impute that Passover to the Lord's Table. That's not right either. The
Lord's Table was not a transference of the Old Covenant into the
New. The New Covenant of His blood
is not continually offered like that Passover. How often did
they celebrate that Passover? They celebrated that once a year,
didn't they? And it was what? Perpetual. Continual. They had
to continually offer those sacrifices. But now that Christ has come,
He's offered how many sacrifices? One. So we at the Lord's Table, we
know that that's a picture, that is a type. of His blood and body. It doesn't become His blood and
body. That would say that Jesus is
dying every time that they have that Passover, that they have
that Lord's table. That's not so. My Lord Jesus
died once. His blood is not continually
shed. His body is not continually broken. Even so, the Sabbath law is not
to be imposed because it's a picture of our rest. in Christ. As God created the world and
finished His work on the Sabbath day, it was a picture of Jesus
Christ who was to come and finish His work. He said in John 17,
Father I have finished the work that you gave me to do. I've finished. Is that not a blessing to your
ears? Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all our salvation. Of all
our salvation. And yet we know this. We still
live in a very troubling world. Is that not so with you believer? Isaiah said, the wicked are like
the troubled sea when it cannot rest. Whose waters cast up mire
and dirt. Is that not so with your own
nature? Your old man, believer? Does it not still cast up the
dirt and mire of your own sin? Does it not cloud your judgment? Does it not mar your good deeds,
your good works? You know it does. How then are we to find rest? You find it the same way you
found it the first time. You find your rest in Jesus Christ. in Isaiah chapter 58. Look over
there with me just a second. Isaiah chapter 58. Isaiah chapter
58 in verses 3 through 7 the Lord shows the vanity of ceremonial
and legalistic observances of the Sabbath. I'm going to read
this in a different version than your King James. It says, Why
have we fasted, they ask? But you do not see. Why have
we humbled ourselves, but you did not take notice? Look! You fast only for quarreling
and for fighting and for hitting with wicked fists. You cannot
fast as you do today and have your voice heard on high. They're
asking, look, Lord, we fasted. We've really sacrificed on this
Sabbath day. We really did our best and there's
no rest. You haven't heard us. He said,
because you did it thinking that your fasting was going to make
me hear you. No. God will not hear us because
of our works, because of our religious ceremony. He said,
is this the kind of fast that I have chosen? Merely a day for
a person to humble himself? I hope this is not the only day
you rest in Christ. Matter of fact, in our psalm
it said that we are to give thanks. We are to give thanks both in
the day and every evening. In Psalm 92 it says, to show
forth thy lovingkindness in the morning and thy faithfulness
every evening. Believers, we're to live by faith
in Christ every day, every night. We're to live by faith. Showing
forth is kindness. Don't think just because you
come here that that's going to offer you any special favor with
God. That's not going to be any rest. You won't find any rest
in that. These Israelites thought God
should hear them because of their religious works. The Sabbath
day was never meant to be a yoke. Jesus Christ is not a yoke of
bondage. He said, take my yoke upon you
because my burden is light. My burden is light. Is it not a wonderful trade?
to trade the law of works and sin and death for the law of
faith and love and hope and salvation? Is that not a lighter burden?
You bet it is. You bet it is. And these who preach the law
of the Sabbath, they cannot ever enjoy their worship. If this is your duty, you'll
never enjoy it. You'll never enjoy it. How can
you enjoy this worship day? Remembering this, Christ is your
Sabbath. He is your rest. Therefore, we delight in Him. In verse 13, If thou turn away
thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy
day, and call the Sabbath If you call Christ a delight,
the Holy One of the Lord, honorable, and thou shalt honor Him, not
doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor seeking
thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord,
and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth,
and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father. For the
mouth of the Lord hath spoken, How can sinners call the Sabbath
a delight only if they see Christ as all their Sabbath? Jesus is the light that breaks
forth in the darkness. He is the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of the paths to dwell in. He is the finished
work of God's salvation and all who rest in Him delight. delight
in Him. Believer, we find in Christ not
rest in the law, but rest from the law. For Christ is the end
of the law for righteous. For this reason, we come and
worship God. Believer, therefore, Paul says,
let us labor to enter in to His rest. What is this laboring? Doesn't that sound like a contradiction?
Labor to rest! What to God? We could fully rest
in Christ like we're supposed to. Christ has finished our salvation
completely. There's nothing left for you
to do. Nothing. Nothing. And yet, why is it so hard for
us to just rest? It's the most difficult thing
in the world to do. For us to do nothing. Do nothing. That's what the Sabbath
is. It's a day of rest. Knowing that My acceptance with
God is not based on what I do. It affects everything I do. But
it has nothing to do with my relationship with God. In Jesus
Christ, I am accepted. Believer, in Jesus Christ, you
are accepted. Now, labor to put off all your
labors. Labor to stop trying to be loved
of God and see that you are loved of God. Stop laboring to sacrifice
for God and see that Jesus Christ is the only sacrifice acceptable. Just lay down at His feet and rest. I pray that God will bless this
to your hearts.