Psalm 65. We'll be looking at
verses 1 through 4 this evening, and the title of the message
is, The Blessed Choice. The Blessed Choice. This psalm
of David was most likely written immediately after a bloody rebellion. We can see these in verse 7 and
8. that he stealeth the noise of the seas, the noise of the
waves, and tumult of the people." There was an uprising in this
time where David had wrote this psalm, but the Lord had put down
that uprising. He had calmed it, like he had
calmed the sea of Galilee by his voice. He had sent in one
mighty victory, one mighty battle over this rebellion and put it
down. And not only had he done that, but the Lord provided for
the nation. He provided plenteously for them. He said, Thou visit the earth
and water it, and greatly enriches it with the river of God. Truly, they had plenteous, and
they were thankful. And this is a psalm of rejoicing. This is a psalm of praise. It's
a psalm of Jubilance, it's excitement. The Lord had delivered them and
given them plenty. And of course, we could preach
the gospel from these things. Who was rebellious but us? Who
was the rebel but us? And yet, by the mighty victory
of Christ, he had put down the rebellion in our hearts. And
truly, not deserving, yet we have plenteous. Plenteous grace
with thee is found. And definitely, That is true,
but I really want to concentrate on the first four verses this
evening, and I want to point out four things from these verses. I pray that God would take these
and give them as they're meant for your comfort, for your strength,
to calm your souls and give you peace. as you go through this
life, as you go through your days, that God would give you
comfort concerning his word, that even in the times of tumult,
even in the times of pain, that you might take comfort. Take comfort. Be at rest. Be at peace. And these four things
are this. First of all, it is God's praise
and vow. Second of all, the sinner's need,
the blessed man and a satisfied people. First of all, God's praise
and vow. It says in verse 1, praise waiteth
for thee, O God, in sign. Now, the word praise, as I've
said earlier, means silence. That was surprising to me. I
didn't know it meant that. I had to look it up. It means
silence. Praise in silence before your
God. I said this was a jubilant song,
but yet the first thing he mentions is praising in silence. What
does that mean? It's stand in awe of your God. Stand in silent awe at His majesty
and glory. How great is our God, and how
greatly to be praised. Praise him in silence. Now, this may teach us to see
the worthiness of God's praise. How worthy is God of our praise? How worthy? Now, if somebody
does something for us and we don't get a thank you, surely
we get offended. And yet, what did we do for them?
Probably nothing. probably didn't really even help
them at all, probably hurt them, whatever it was. We were trying
to help, and sure enough, we hurt them. What has God done
for us? What has God done for all men
in that He gives them life, He gives them breath, He gives them
liberty to move about and to buy and to sell and to do with
these things and have pleasure in the things of this life? Nobody
can have pleasure in this life without God. See, God gives all things. How
worthy is he of praise? And yet, think of it, if every
creature of God, all the men and women of this world that
ever existed were to gather together with all the angels and we were
to at one time sing praise to God, it would be a silence compared
to what he is worth. in praise. How feeble is our praise? How feeble is it? This afternoon
I was sitting in my office and I was praying. And sure enough,
where did my mind go? It went off on something and
I have no idea why. It just went out. It just goes
off into left field. And somehow I'm thinking about
something that has nothing to do with praising God. How is
that weak? That is weak praise. And yet,
how high and worthy is your praise? Our praise, if it is by itself,
if it is truly ours, it would not reach the ceiling. It's not
worth anything compared to what God is worth, but notice this.
Praise is silent for thee, O God." Where? In Zion. It is in Christ that he has the
fullness of praise. So when I praise him in my weakness,
it ascends perfectly to the presence of God through Christ. He has praised God in every bit
of what God is worth. He has given all praise to God,
all glory to God for us. So don't think little of your
praise, because it's through Christ and it reaches the throne,
even though we don't feel as though it does. God says it does
in Zion. Let us stand in awe of our God
and in contempt of ourselves, Christ said, in our weakness
is his strength perfected. It's in our weakness. His grace
is enough. His grace is enough. And God
has accepted his praise and accepts our praise. Even tonight, God
accepts your praise. Is that not great? How worthy
is he of praise? We should praise him. We should
praise him with everything. Second, we may learn this about
this praise of being silent before God. How many times have we been
in the presence of God and lost words? Just just standing there
and all you have nothing else to say. That's OK, it's praise. It's praise to be silent before
God. I think it's well that sometimes
we just sit and say nothing, bow in his presence and say nothing. God says that's praise. Truly,
our words could not praise him enough. As a matter of fact,
we should be thankful to God that he has closed our rebellious
mouths. The scripture says that the law
was given that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world
become guilty before God. I'm so glad he shut my mouth.
I'm so thankful that he shut down my rebellion. Praise God
for his accomplishment to keep us silent before him. I know we as his children, we
get unruly. I know we wonder, prone to wonder,
Lord, I feel it. But praise God that he always
brings us in silence before him. Praise God he chastens his children. Scripture says, if you are without
chastisement, then are you bastards and not sons. Praise his chastisement. Sit down before him, our Holy
Father, in silence. Believer, let us wait before
our God in patient silence, trusting his good providence. How many times do we speak out
against the providence of God? How arrogant the flesh is. to speak out against him as though
we would know what was better. You know, I like this saying.
I have it on my wall, and you've heard me say it many times, but
it never stops ringing in my ears. Let me not talk of sovereignty
and divine purpose and then complain of my lot in life. Let me not complain or murmur
about my trials and troubles. It is inconsistent with faith
in the sovereign Christ for me to question his good providence.
It's inconsistent. How can we say we trust the sovereign
God and question what he does? I pray that God would give us
grace to sit patiently and wait on the Lord, to be patient and
silent And I notice this, that by experience,
and I know some of you have probably seen this as well, usually when
we stop, that's usually when God works, is when we stop. I've seen people go after their
children and try to help them and try to bring them in and
do all of this work, and then when they finally raise their
hands and give up, they finally come in. I've seen that. That
is wonderful in our eyes. Let's not question God's providence. Second of all, God's vow is performed. He said in the second part, unto
thee shall the vow be performed. This is the vow of the covenant
of grace. Praise God in silence. Praise
God in awe for his covenant of grace that he himself has performed. in Christ has chosen us, redeemed
us by his blood, and called us by his grace. And this was his
vow from eternity. God had sworn. He said, when
I have sworn, I swore by myself, because there was none higher. We truly swear by higher authorities,
because we are not high. Surely there are other higher
authorities than ourselves, God being the chief. But yet, when
God looked around, there was nobody but him. And he said,
I'll swear by myself. Do you see what that means? You
know what that truly means? That if God were to save you
and lose you, he would lose his own deity. Is that not great? God will not lose his deity,
and he will not lose me. God is gracious. God is worthy
to be praised because he has performed the covenant of grace. If any man is to praise God,
it must be by the covenant of grace. It must be by grace through
faith in Christ alone that we can praise God. It's only in
Christ alone that the law is honored and an everlasting righteousness
has been brought in. So praise God for His great covenant
of grace, His vow to save His people from their sins. That's
His promise. And you know what it says? It
says it shall be performed. Well, 2,000 years ago it was. When Jesus Christ came into this
world, He did perform that which He had vowed in eternity, and
He died in our stead. Our salvation is accomplished Second of all, we can be comforted
in this by seeing the need of sinners. Look at verses 2 and 3. O thou that hearest prayer, unto
thee shall all flesh come. Iniquities prevail against me. As for our transgressions, thou
shalt purge them. What do the sinners need? Well, we first of all need to
confess our sinful and helpless estate. That's what a sinner
needs. He needs to understand that he
is absolutely unworthy of God's mercy, that in himself he is
helpless. to save himself. Sinners must understand how sinful
and how ruined man is. Consider this. How great was
the ruin of Adam? To understand that, you have
to understand how high Adam was. How far did he fall? Well, how
high was he? He was created perfect. He was
created without sin. He was created in the highest
form, in the image of God created him. God created him in his own
image. And as long as he obeyed God,
he would have maintained that image. But God said, in the day
thou eatest of this fruit, thou shalt surely die. Well, you want
to know how far he fell from that great, lofty place? Don't try to look at him, look
at us. Look at your heart and see how
far you are from that perfect state. Look at our hearts and
see how far we have fallen. We are unholy in every thought,
in every action, in every deed. Sin is all mixed in everything
we do. There is no holiness in us by
nature. The old man is full of sin. All we can do is sin. Even when
we purpose to do good, it's sin. Adam ruled all things, didn't
he? We rule nothing. We absolutely
have control over nothing. Now, then, God sometimes gives
us the illusion of control, and that's all it is. It's just an
illusion. We have control of absolutely
nothing. We determine to do a lot of things,
but how many of those actually get done? Only what God has determined
gets done, gets done. That's it. And all of this is because our
iniquities prevail against us. We are our own worst enemy. Look at that in verse 3. It says,
"...iniquities prevail against me." Can you not identify with
that? I can. I can identify with that. Iniquity, constantly prevailing,
seemed to be forcing me. overwhelming me at times. No son of Adam escapes this truth. Man by nature cannot overcome
sin, and we cannot obey the law of God, and we can by no means
please God in ourselves. Jesus said, No man can come unto
me. He didn't say may. He said can. That's ability. Not permission. He said, No man can come unto
me except the Father which hath sent me, Goliath. This is how
unable we are to approach God. This is how unable and feeble
the sinner is. He is dead in trespasses and
sins, and he needs life. So when we witness to the loss,
when we witness of Christ, we should understand that we are
speaking to bones. Don't be baffled that they can't
understand. Sinners may reform their habits
and get religious and do good things, but unless God raises
them from the dead, there is no hope. God must do the work. He must perform the work if it
is going to be done. Iniquities prevail against us. and man are in bondage. Are there
any souls in bondage and need of hope? Well, there's hope in
this text. There's hope for sinners. The
sinners have a need, but I tell you, sinners have a hope because
I'm a sinner and I have hope. Here it is. Look back at your
text. Thou shalt purge them away. Iniquities prevail, but thou. My transgressions, thou shalt
purge away." This word, to purge, sinners need to be purged of
sin. This means atonement. It means to make an offering,
to make an offering of atonement. So in other words, it could say
this, thou shalt atone them. away, thou shalt atone them away. Friends, if we are believers
in Jesus Christ, God did justify us freely. Scripture says, being
justified freely by his grace. But let's also be aware of this.
He freely justified us, but it was not free. Our justification cost God his
Son. His only begotten Son. God loved us in eternity, and
His love was immutable. It's unchangeable. He could not
do anything but love us, because He would love us. He's bound
to nothing but His own will, and He has chosen to love us.
But yet God, in His unchangeable, immutable love, also is immutably
just. He's unchangeably righteous.
And therefore, his righteousness and his love, he cannot love
at the expense of his justice or have justice at the expense
of his love. Therefore, God must atone. God must say God must pay for
our sins because we could not. We could not pay for our sins.
We could not justify ourselves. All our righteousness is ours,
filthy rags. But friend, the hope is in this,
that God has already atoned. Not that God shall atone. God
already has atoned for our sins. All the sins of all his people
was put on Christ, and he bore them all in his body on the tree. And he accomplished our atonement. He is atoned for our sins by
Christ and all who receive him by faith. All who receive him
by faith. Does God have an elect people?
Absolutely. Did Christ pay for those people?
Yes, He did. But they will come by faith,
every one of them. They will cling to Christ by
faith. They will believe. Faith is nothing
more than an empty hand receiving bread. That's all it is. A hungry
man receiving bread. A hungry man doesn't thank his
hand for receiving the bread. He thanks the giver of the bread. And God says, all who come with
an empty hand of faith, he will purge, atone for their sins. Is that not truly the need of
every sinner? Is that our need tonight? Even
we who have been purged, is it not still our need that our conscience
be purged? I know this, my sins are gone.
But I don't feel like my sins are gone. I don't feel that way. My conscience gets laid down
and heavy with my sin. I feel the weight and the guilt
of my sin, yet I need to be purged of that. And that's a constant
mercy that God gives us moment by moment. Looking to Christ,
we cry out to God in prayer. realizing our helpless estate
to even cleanse our conscience. We can't do it. You're not going
to be able to look at anything you've done to cleanse your conscience. Look to the cross. Look to the atonement that has
been made. Don't look to atone for your
sins. There's nothing we can do to
atone for them. Christ has done it all. Why,
then, should our conscience bother us? Praise God that he purges
our conscience from dead works so that we may serve him. The
Scripture says, So Christ was once offered to bear the sins
of many. How many times? Once. That was
it. Once. Who was to bear our atonements? Christ, and he bore them once
and satisfied God for many, for us. If we are to be relieved of our
sinful conscience and need of mercy, then we are to daily behold
the blessed man. Daily behold the blessed man,
and this is the third one. Behold the blessed man in verse
4. Blessed is the man whom thou choose. Now, the commentaries
that I read on this, most all of them point immediately
to us, to the elect. And truly, that is right. We
who are the elect of God, chosen of God, we are blessed with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places. We are blessed people. We are happy people. We have
been redeemed by the blood of Christ, but truly this speaks
more of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the blessed
man. Come thou fount of every blessing. Every blessing comes from Christ.
Remember, we were chosen in Christ. And it's from that fountain,
from Christ's righteousness and blood that flows the joy and
the happiness that we experience. Therefore, we're to look to him
as the blessed man. The Scripture says the joy of
the Lord is my strength. I'll tell you what, I've said
that many times, and look to my joy. That's just foolishness,
isn't it? There's no strength in my joy.
There's only strength that Christ is His joy. And because Christ
is God's joy, I am God's joy. And He rejoices over me with
singing. Is that not wonderful? You see,
I'm not rejoicing in my joy. I'm just glad he rejoices over
me, because I'll tell you what, I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy
of him to do that for me. He is the blessed man. First
of all, we can see he's the blessed man because he was chosen of
God. He's God's choice. He is the blessed choice of God. And praise God he has chosen
us to salvation. Praise God, because we would
have never chosen him. We would have never come to him. Jesus said, You have not chosen
me, but I have chosen you. Yet Christ was the first elect
of God. He was the first one elected
of God to be our Savior. We who believe and were chosen
in Christ, we know that he was first elected of God to be our
Savior. Go to Isaiah chapter 42 and look
at verse 1. The Scripture says, Behold, my
servant, whom I uphold, Mine elect, mine elect, in whom my
soul delighteth." Do you see that Christ was the delight of
the Father from eternity, that He was the one that God had chosen
to be the first servant? Behold, my servant! When was
He a servant? Oh, Christ was a servant from
eternity. He was the chosen servant of
God. He was chosen to serve God in our stead, in our place. God had chosen him and not any
of the sons of Adam's race. Ephesians chapter 1 tells us
of the election of God, but it also says this, we were redeemed
by his blood, the blood of the one that God trusted in. The
scripture says, who first trusted in Christ, which was God. God
first put His trust in Christ. He placed all of His eggs in
one basket, in Christ. He took all of His elect and
He gave them to His Son. And He entrusted our souls to His
Son. He was the elect. And friends,
because he was the elect of God, he could not fail. Scripture says he shall not fail. He shall not fail. He will save his people from
their sins. Those are prophecies. Those are
testimonies of the servitude, the obedience, the righteousness
and the blood of this blessed man. God chose him to be the
blessed man. And second of all, we know that
he is the blessed man because he approached, he alone approached
unto God with his own blood. Look at that in your text. Blessed
is the man thou choosest and causes to approach unto thee. Only Christ has approached unto
God with his own blood. None of us could have ever approached
God. This word, approach, it means
the offering of blood. That's what it means. That causes to approach with
blood. Friends, there is no approaching
God without blood. Moses had to tell Aaron, because
the Lord told him, he said, you go tell Aaron, don't come in
this room, don't come in the Holy of Holies without blood,
and don't go in there often. You go in there at the appointed
time, and not without blood. The Scripture says in Hebrews,
it testifies of this, that they were not to go in there without
blood. But friends, those priests, they
went in there with blood and blood and blood and blood and
blood and blood. There was blood all over the
place. Every day there was bloodshed.
And yet they were never finished. Oh, but this man, this man, blessed
man, entered into the very presence of God, not with the blood of
others, but with his own precious blood. Christ by His blood hath
obtained eternal redemption. Oh, that God would help us to
know that. You know, I hope one day that
God would help me to truly believe. I mean, I want to believe that
more. I want to trust in that more. That He actually obtained redemption. Not made it possible, but obtained
it. obtained it, finished it. He finished it for his people. I like that scripture that says
he is the anchor of our souls within the veil. Isn't that it? He entered in with his blood
and he's the anchor of our souls. He's the anchor. And he's the blessed man because
he dwells in the courts of God. Look at this. He said, "...that
causes to approach unto thee that he may dwell in thy courts."
Now, remember, the courts were the outside after where the people
were. That's where everybody waited
for the high priest to come out. He went in there with the blood,
had little bells, making sure they had the rope in case he
died, and they're not offering the blood. But they waited for
him to come out! And when he came out, the atonement
was received. Friends, Christ has went in and
came out. He's risen from the dead. He
came out. And where is he now? In the courts
with his people. He is with us even now. In our presence, in this very
minute, our Savior has sent his Spirit to be among us, to bless
us, to keep us, to bind us to his heart, to show us his love,
his mercy, his grace, his kindness. He's always with us. He said,
I'll never leave you nor forsake you. And he has kept his promise,
and he always will, where two or three are gathered in my name,
there I am in the middle of them." Zephaniah 3, verse 17, says,
"...the Lord thy God is in the midst of thee, he is mighty."
Is that not great? He's mighty. He will save. Now, is that not
a definite thing? Is that not a definite thing?
He said he will save. He will rejoice over thee with
joy. He shall rest in his love. He will joy over thee with singing. Your God sings for you. I know
when I was courting my wife, I would, I can't sing, but I'd
love to sing to her. She made my heart glad. I enjoyed
being around her. Friends, God sings for us. Stars
in the heavens sing because we are one with Christ.
We are in union with Him. And blessed is His Church. He approached into heaven for
us, and He secured all these things, and now He dwells with
us, and also He dwells in the court of heaven for us. He intercedes. He intercedes for us daily. Every
moment His hands speak, His feet, His sides speak. Every time we sin, every time
we fall, His hands speak and say, pay for. paid for, paid
for, paid for, paid for, and he ever liveth, saying, paid
for, ever liveth. I'm so thankful that he lives
forever, because I'll tell you what, there's not a minute in
my breath that I have not sinned and stand in need of his mercy. Not a minute. Thank God he ever
liveth in the courts of heaven. Third, the blessed, satisfied
church. his blessed, satisfied church.
Notice this, it changes from he to we. Notice that? He is the blessed man. He is
chosen. He has approached unto God. He
dwells in the courts, and we shall be satisfied. Are you content with Christ? Are you satisfied? Is Christ
enough? Is Christ enough? I mean, there's
the answer to religion. They say Christ is not enough.
They've got to add to Christ. I've known men that seem to be
very faithful, but after a while they get tired of hearing the
same message. Christ is not enough. To me, he's enough. to you who
believe he's enough. As a matter of fact, he's more
than we can possibly comprehend. He's more than we can handle. He's a satisfied God. Why should I not be satisfied
with him? He is precious. We desire to hear his word preached,
and his church is satisfied in him. And also we are satisfied
by his good providence. There is nothing in our experience
that we can ever point to that God has not worked out for our
good. Nothing. Nothing. If you can find one
thing, just wait, because it's going to work to your good. It
will. It will. God's promised it. Trust
His good providence. Lean on Him. Sometimes I think we think it's
a sin to lean on Him. If we're not up doing it ourselves,
if we're not up grabbing ourselves by the bootstraps and pulling
ourselves up, we think we're sinning. No, he said, lean on
me. He can handle it. We can't. He's enough. I don't need anything
else. I need him. If God would help
us to be content with him, how happy would we be? If we're not
always wanting this and wanting that and wanting this, and just
be satisfied with what he gives us, we'd be a lot happier people. Christ is the blessed man, and
we should be happy in him. God was happy with him. And praise
God, he's made me happy in him. Let's stand and we'll be dismissed
in prayer.