Psalm 28. This is a Psalm of David. And it is a prayer of David.
And what drew my attention to this for our message this morning
was the last verse. Verse nine, David requested four
things. He said, save thy people and
bless thine inheritance. Feed them also and lift them
up forever. What a prayer. What a request. In all four of those things,
David acknowledged, Lord, you are going to have to do this.
You're going to have to do this. That's how it is in everything
concerning God and man. That's how it is in everything
concerning God and man. If anything is going to be done
for sinful man, God is going to have to do it. That's the declaration of scripture.
That is the gospel message. That's our message every time
we preach it. Every time we preach it, we are
here for the purpose of standing up and declaring that if anything
is going to be done for sinful man, sinful men and women, God
is gonna have to do it. God is gonna have to do it. Now
let's look down at this Psalm here. Beginning in verse one,
it says, Unto thee will I cry, O Lord,
my rock. Be not silent to me, lest if
thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the
pit. What David is saying right here
is, Lord, I am at your mercy. All right. Do we hear that in
what he's saying? I'm at your mercy. Unto thee will I cry,
O Lord, my rock. Be not silent to me, lest if
thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down to the
pit. Lord, I'm at your mercy. I'm
at your mercy. We are at God's mercy. I wish that that was said in
more pulpits. Such a simple little sentence,
isn't it? We are at God's mercy. We're at God's mercy. We can't
make demands to God. We don't tell God what we're
gonna do. We don't tell God what we need him to do. We're at God's
mercy. God Almighty's mercy. Hold your
place right here and turn over to James 4. James chapter 4, verse 10 says, humble yourselves
in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up. Speak not evil one of another.
Brethren, he that speaketh evil of his brother and judgeth his
brother speaketh evil of the law and judgeth the law. But
if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a
judge. There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who art thou that judgest another? Go to now ye that say, today
or tomorrow, we will go into such a city and continue there
a year and buy and sell and get gain. Tell you what we're gonna
do. This is what we're gonna do. All right, we're gonna go
over into this city. We're gonna be there for a year.
We're gonna buy, we're gonna sell, we're gonna get gain. That's
what we're gonna do. Verse 14, whereas you know not
what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth
for a little time and then vanisheth away. For that you ought to say,
if the Lord will, We shall live. Number one, if he even wills
for us to live, if I'm even alive in a year, who determines whether
I'm alive in a year or not? He does. For that, you ought to say, if
the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now
you're rejoicing, you rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing
is evil. We would all be wise to realize
that we're at his mercy. We're at his mercy. If the Lord
wills, that's how it is with everything concerning God and man. If the Lord wills,
we would be wise to fear him and reverence him and wait on
him because we're at his mercy. Go back to Psalm 28. Verse one says, unto thee will
I cry, O Lord, my rock, my rock of stability, my rock of safety,
my rock of hiding, the cliff of the rock hiding in thee. He goes on to say, be not silent
to me, lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that
go down into the pit. Lord, if you don't speak to me,
if you don't speak grace and peace to me, I have no hope. Verse two, he said, hear the
voice of my supplications when I cry unto thee. When I lift
up my hands toward thy holy oracle, and that means the oracle of
thy sanctuary, your sanctuary in the heavens. When I lift up
my hands to your sanctuary in the heavens. Let me just say
something about lifting up hands to God, okay? Turn with me over
to Isaiah 1. The Lord here is condemning Israel
for their sin against him in forgetting who he is. They forgot
who he was. They forgot his holiness. They
forgot his demands. They lost their reverence and
their fear toward him. Verse three, Isaiah 1 verse three,
he said, the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib,
but Israel doth not know. My people do not consider. They've
forgotten. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden
with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors.
They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One
of Israel unto anger. They are gone away backwards. Verse nine, he said, except the
Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should
have been as Sodom and we should have been like unto Gomorrah,
burned up, consumed. Verse 10, hear the word of the
Lord, ye rulers of Sodom. Give ear unto the law of our
God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of burnt
offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight
not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he goats. When you come to appear before
me, who hath required this at your hand to tread my courts?
You're bringing all of these rituals and traditions. And verse
13, bring no more vain oblations, that's offerings. Incense is
an abomination unto me. Sometimes I like to carry incense
and, you know, smoke it all up to God. He said, that's an abomination
to me. The new moons and the Sabbaths,
the calling of assemblies, all of these ceremonies, I cannot
away with. It is iniquity, even the solemn
meeting. Your new moons and your appointed
feasts, my soul hateth. This is God speaking. They are a trouble unto me, I'm
weary to bear them. Verse 15, and when you spread
forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Yea, when you
make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of
blood. What he's saying is you need
to come before me with more fear. You need to come before me with
more reverence. You're coming to flippantly,
you're coming to boastfully, you're coming to pridefully and
arrogantly. And really when we get caught
up in all those religious things, what we're saying is, look at
me. That's what we're saying. You know, look at me. Look at
how holy I am. He said, I'll hide my eyes from
that. I just can't stand to look at
that. For that reason, I believe we
would be wise to keep our hands in our laps. And if any lifting
up of hands is done, let it be of the heart. Let it be in the
heart, out of the heart of the issues of life. God may hide
his eyes from outward religious things, but scripture says he
will look on the heart. especially a broken and contrite
heart. That's where everything from
us needs to come from, a broken and a contrite heart. Go back
to Psalm 28. Verse one says, unto thee will
I cry, O Lord, my rock, be not silent to me, lest if thou be
silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit. Hear
the voice of my supplications when I cry unto thee, when I
lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. Draw me not away with
the wicked, with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace
to their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts. Lord, keep
me. Draw me not away, keep me. Draw
me nearer to you, prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Let me tell
you something. All of you feel it too. I feel
it and you do too. Aren't we so prone to wander? Aren't our hearts so prone to
walk away from the God we love, just step by step? Boy, our minds
are prone to wander, aren't they? Lord, keep me in my flesh. That's what I am. I'm wicked. I'm a worker of iniquity. I have mischief in my heart.
Verse four, give them according to their deeds and according
to the wickedness of their endeavors. Give them after the work of their
hands, render to them their dessert. Even though that looks like desert,
that means what they deserve. That's what the word means. Give
to them what they deserve. Don't you want God to deal with
all sin? Don't you want God to judge and
do away with all sin, especially your own sin? Don't you pray that he has already
dealt with, judged, and done away with your sin on the cross
of Calvary? All sin is going to be dealt
with either in Christ or out of Christ. God must punish sin. He must punish the wicked and
their sin. And he's going to. Verse 5 says,
Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation
of his hands, he shall destroy them and not build them up. The whole world is going to have
to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, either in mercy
or wrath. David is pleading right here,
Lord, please let it be in mercy. Please let it be in the blood
of your mercy. Verse six, blessed be the Lord because he hath heard
the voice of my supplications. How do you know that, David?
How do you know he's heard the voice of your supplications?
He said, it's because he spoke peace to my heart. He's turned
my eyes to him. He's revealed to me that, verse
seven, he's my strength. He's my shield. He's caused me
to trust in him, not in myself, not in the law, in him. Not in my works, not in my decisions,
not in my religion, in him. Verse seven says, the Lord is
my strength and my shield. My heart trusted in him and I
am helped. Therefore, my heart greatly rejoiceth
And with my song will I praise him. He's caused me to rejoice
in him. Caused me to praise him. You know, you're going to find
yourself in a place where that's the only thing you can rejoice
in. Him. He's caused me to rejoice
in him. Calls me to praise him. Verse
eight, the Lord is their strength. He is the saving strength of
his anointed, his anointed people in Christ. Christ is God's anointed
one, but all of his elect people are anointed in him. And because
of that, David requested four things. All right. In these four
things, we can see our hope and we can see God's glory in these
four things. That's. why we're looking at
this this morning. It's for the purpose of seeing
our hope in God's glory. Verse nine, number one, David
said, save thy people. You know, I think about Peter.
He, in such great faith, wouldn't you like to have the faith that
Peter had for just, Peter had it for just one moment. Peter
was a sinful man like the rest of us. Lord, if that's you, let
me walk on water with you. Come on. And there he went walking
on the sea. And all of a sudden, he took
his eyes off of Christ, and he got afraid by what was around
him, what he was in the middle of, and he started to sink. and you've jumped in a pool before,
you've jumped in a lake before, you know how long it takes for
the water to get from your toe to your hair. It's not long. He had just enough time to say,
Lord, save me. You know, if the Lord, not with
lip service, But if the Lord would cause our hearts to truly
cry in belief, you're the only one who can, you're the only
hope I have. If the Lord would put those three words in our
heart, Lord, save me, he would. He would. If he did that, he
would. Save thy people. That's the only cry that a child
of God needs to have. Lord, save me. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is of the Lord. Start to finish. Salvation is
not of man. It's not in man's hands. It's
not in your hands. It's not in my hands. It's not
yours to accept or reject. It's in God's hands. to give
to whoever he's pleased to give it to. There's only one who can
save, and that's God's anointed, Jesus Christ the Lord. Call his
name Jesus, he shall save. The son of man is come to seek
and to save. This is a faithful saying. Christ
Jesus came into the world to save. Salvation is in no other. There's no other name given among
men whereby we must be saved. Christ is the Savior. Who did
He come to save? Verse 9 says, His people. Save thy people. God has a people. God has a particular people. He has a chosen people. In John
17, the Lord Jesus Christ said, Father, all thine are mine and
mine are thine. I pray not for the world, I pray
for them. I'm praying for them. God has
a particularly chosen people. Who is it? Sinners. It's sinners. Call his name Jesus for he shall
save his people from their sins. It's sinners. This message is
for sinners. I'm not a sinner. Well, then
this message is not for you. This message is for sinners.
Romans 5 says the ungodly That's who God's people are in
their nature, in their flesh. They're ungodly in themselves.
I love this story. This is something that happened
many, many years ago, but there was a pastor who was on the radio
a long time ago, and someone heard him on the radio and called
the phone number given, and the pastor answered the phone. And
this woman was asking questions in regard to salvation. And this,
you know, pastor was trying to scripturally answer the questions
and they had this long conversation and he was encouraged by it. And he said to this woman, I
hope you'll come and meet with us. And she said, oh no, I couldn't
do that. And he said, why? And she said,
I'm a sinner. And he said, well, that's who
this message is to. And she said, no, you don't understand.
She said, I'm a real sinner. Like I'm the worst sinner. And he said to her, I actually
think you'd fit in nicely down here. And she said, really? She said, are there other centers
that go to your church? And he said, almost every single
one of them is a center. Really? You come on. You come on, you're fine. That's
who this message is for. Do you ever feel like in your
heart, I really am a sinner? Not just in word, but in deed
and in body. Well, that's who this message
is to. Sinners. That's who God's people
are. In the flesh, they're sinners.
But in Christ, they're blessed. In Christ, in themselves, they're
wretched and miserable and sinners, but in Christ, they're the blessed
ones. That's what the gospel says to them. In Christ, you're
the blessed ones. Wait a minute, you're a sinner?
Did I hear you right? You're a sinner? I have good news for you. You're
the blessed one. You're exactly who Christ came
for. You're the one who's redeemed. You're the one who's purified.
You're the one who's washed. You're the one who's sanctified. Verse nine, it says, save thy
people and bless thine inheritance. Bless your inheritance. Oh, how
blessed we are. Look at this with me. I think
you'll enjoy this. Go over to Psalm two. In Ephesians chapter 2, the Spirit
of God through Paul is speaking to all of God's people and it
tells them that in our natural condition before God, we're all
Gentiles in the flesh. That's what it says. You are
Gentiles in the flesh. Physically for us, we're all
Gentiles, but also spiritually for all of God's people, no matter
what the nationality is. Spiritual Gentiles, that means
spiritually before God, were uncircumcised, outside of the
covenant. Aliens, strangers to God. Heathens, that's what it means.
heathens before God. That's what we are in this flesh,
all right? But look at this, this is God the Father speaking
to God the Son. In verse six, God the Father
said, yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. That's
Christ. He said, I will declare the decree
the Lord hath set unto me. Thou art my son, this day have
I begotten thee. Ask of me and I shall give thee
the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possession. The father said to the son, if
you ask me, I will give you the heathen for your inheritance. And he must have asked, Christ
must have asked because he inherited us. We inherited him and he inherited
us. And because of that, David said
in our text, Lord bless your inheritance. Bless us, save us
and bless us. We're at your mercy. We're at
your mercy. Save us and bless us. We're at
your mercy. Go back to Psalm 28. Verse nine says, save thy people
and bless thine inheritance. Feed them also. Feed them also. We want to be fed. We do. We want to be fed. But the center
margin says that the word feed means rule. Lord, rule over us. Reign over
us. The greatest desire of all of
God's people is to have that man, Jesus Christ, reign over
us. I love how the scripture tells
us about Solomon's reign over Israel. Solomon, David's son,
Solomon was a picture of Christ. He was a wonderful picture of
Christ. And in his reign, there was peace on all sides. There were tables of plentiful
feasting, Solomon's table. You want to be fed, go to Solomon's
table. And it says, every man rested
under his own vine and his own fig tree. Every man had a place
reserved for him, for her. I would have been alive back
in those days and I would have been a heathen from his nation. I believe I would have come begging. King Solomon, reign over me. reign over me, feed me like you
feed your people, cover me, clothe me, provide victory and rest
to me like you do for every single one of your people. That's what Christ has done for
his people. By the blood of his cross, he
provided victory over sin and death and hell. By the sovereignty
of his resurrection and his ascension to his throne, he's provided
rest Peace, comfort, rest. Lord, do for me what you've done
for every single one of your people. Verse nine says, save thy people
and bless thine inheritance. Feed them also and lift them
up forever. That's our prayer. Lord, lift
us up forever. Lift us up with you. Lift us
up to be with you. That's our hope. That's his glory. That's our hope and that's his
glory. That's what he has done for his
people. He lifted us up from the dunghill
to set us among princes. He lifted us up on a cross with
him. He lifted us up from the grave with
him. And one day he's coming again
to lift us up into the clouds. into glory where all of his elect
people will be gathered together with him in newness of life. That's his promise to us. And
therefore, that's our hope. I'll close with this. Go over
to John 6. John 6, verse 39. And this is the Father's will
which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should
lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which
seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life
and I will raise him up at the last day. I will. Verse 44, he
said, no man can come to me except the father which hath sent me
draw him. And I will raise him up at the
last day. No man can come to me except
the father draw that man or woman, but if he does, If he draws a
sinner to me, I'll raise that sinner up. Any sinner that comes
to me, I won't cast him out. I'll raise him up at the last
day. That's our hope. And that's why we come to him.
Lord, I come to you unto thee, unto thee. We're at your mercy.
I'm at your mercy. I'm coming to you in hope that
you will receive me in your blood. and raise me up with you at the
last day. That's our hope. That's his glory.