Go with me, if you would, back
to Psalm 85. Psalm 85. Last weekend, we heard the gospel
declared so sweetly. I don't know if you noticed that
and recognized that, but we did. The gospel was declared right
here so sweetly. It was declared so clearly. It was declared so dogmatically. It was declared so truthfully,
but it was declared so tenderly and so sweetly. I listened to
some of those men thinking, boy, I want to preach like that. I was so blessed, honestly, I
was so blessed by the conference and by the
messages. I was so refreshed and revived. I was telling somebody on the
phone today, I am blessed in study, don't get me wrong. And
I am blessed in preaching. But I already know what I'm going
to say. Does that make sense? And when
I sit there and listen to a man and I don't have any idea what
text he's going to be in or what the title of the message is or
where he's going with all this, and I hear it for the first time,
I was blessed. I was blessed. I heard things
that just touched my heart and blessed my soul. And it was just
so good. I just felt so honestly in the
gospel as a believer, refreshed. That's what I felt. And Psalm
85 verse 6 says, will thou not revive us again that thy people
may rejoice in thee? Will thou not revive us again?
Lord, revive us again to your mercy. Is it, does it, Slay you,
how common these things become to us. We talk about mercy. We talk about mercy. I'm gonna
tell you the one thing that every child of God is gonna be eternally
thankful for in that day is mercy in the blood of Jesus Christ.
While judgment is happening, while justice is coming down,
and holiness and righteousness is making it stand. And that
last day, we are gonna be crying, thank God for mercy in the blood
of Jesus Christ. Lord, revive us again to your
mercy. Revive us again to your grace. Revive us again to your goodness. Revive us to your salvation.
Revive us to your purpose in all things. Revive us to the glory of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Revive us to Him. Verse six, wilt thou not revive
us again that thy people may rejoice in thee? What revives
the heart and the soul of a child of God? What revives the heart
and soul of a child of God? Here's the answer. Jesus Christ
does. The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ
does. The love of that cross. I was listening to some of those
men speak as they were just so clearly setting forth the love
of God toward his people in that cross. The love of the cross, the accomplishment
of the cross, the victory of the cross, meaning the one who
hung on that cross. the love and the accomplishment
and the victory of the one who hung on that cross. That's what
revives and encourages and blesses the heart and the soul of a child
of God. And that's what we heard this
weekend six times. And we were a blessed people.
Some human beings never get to hear it once. You know that. Some human beings are born into
this world and they spend a whole lifetime on this world and they
never get the opportunity to hear it once. We heard it six
times. And we were a blessed people.
We heard who Christ was. We heard what he did. And we
heard what that accomplished for us. And we were a blessed
people in hearing that. And in reflecting on the weekend
and, and this wonderful time of reviving, I believe in my
heart and in hearing, I think it was David Edmondson who quoted
verse 10 from this Psalm, which says mercy and truth are met
together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. All of that led me to this psalm.
And I want us to look at this psalm in light of the result
of the cross. That's what I want us to look
at this in light of the reviving, saving, blessed, result of the
cross. Each verse is a response to the
accomplishment of Christ on the cross. Or it's a plea for the
accomplishment of Christ on the cross. And let's just see if
we can enter into that as we read down through this. All right,
verse 1, it says, Thou hast been favorable unto
thy land. Thou hast brought back the captivity
of Jacob. That right there is the result
of the cross. As we read through this, let's
acknowledge who gets the glory for everything that's said in
this Psalm. Verse one says, Lord, thou hast. The middle of the verse says
thou hast. Verse two says thou hast. The middle of that verse says
thou hast. Verse three says thou hast. The middle of that verse says
thou hast. thou hast. Verse four says turn
us and cause in the middle it says
and cause you cause it you do the turning you cause it to happen
verse five says wilt thou and then it goes on to say wilt
thou Verse six says, wilt thou? Verse seven says, show us. Grant us. You show us, you grant
us. Verse eight says, I will. Hear
what God the Lord will speak. That's what I'll do. I'll just
listen to what God the Lord will speak. He will speak, it's Him. This whole thing is Him. So verse one says, Lord, thou
hast been favorable unto thy land. And he has, hasn't he?
He has. Again, as I was listening to
the men preach, that was the theme of the thoughts that kept
going through my mind. The Lord has been so good to
us. He has been so good to us. In Christ, he showed favor to
us before we ever even existed on this earth. He poured his
love and his favor to us from the beginning. Even though he knew we would
be so unlovely and so unfavorable for Christ's sake, for the cross
of Christ's sake, he loved us anyway. The cross of Christ,
that's where he loved us. The cross of Christ is how he
loved us. It was the only way he could
love us. Looking back on the cross, as
we stand here and look back on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we see and we say, verse one, Lord, Thou hast been favorable
unto thy land. Thou hast brought back the captivity
of Jacob. Lord, you set us free. You freely set us free. In what you did for us of your
own doing, by your free grace, you set us free. You did it. Thou has been favorable,
favorable unto thy land. Thou has brought back the captivity
of Jacob. Verse two says, Thou has forgiven
the iniquity of thy people. Thou has covered all their sin. This thought went through my
mind. I'm so glad that God's ways are not our ways. I have
done things in my life that I'm quite sure people cannot forgive
me for it. I am quite positive there are
things that I have done. That men and women on this earth
will never forgive me for. But God has. And if God has. That's all that
matters. That's all that matters. Thou
hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people. Thou hast covered
all their sin. That little word, Selah, means
stop right there for a minute and just think about that. Selah
is in the Psalms, that's like the end of a verse. That means
you're going to verse two, a higher place. And that ought to bring
us to a higher place. You've forgiven the iniquity
of your people and covered all their sin. Hold your place right here and
turn over to Psalm 32. Psalm 32 verse one says, blessed
is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth. That means when the Lord looks
at that person and acknowledges the reality of the condition
of that person, After a full, complete, total
inspection of that person, this is what God declares the reality
of that person to be. Verse two says, not iniquity. Iniquity is not there. There
is no guile in the spirit of that person, only holy, righteous
perfection. David said that's a blessed person.
That's a blessed person when God can look at that person and
honestly assess and say, there is no sin there. Don't you call
unclean what I have cleansed. Not iniquity, no sin. How can
that be said about a soul whose only existence has been sin against
God? The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The result of that transfer,
that substituting transfer of everything that I am in reality
to my Savior and to His cross. Everything I am in reality. and
the substituting transfer of everything that Jesus Christ
is, my righteous, holy, spotless Savior is. That transferred all
to me as I stand right now before God Almighty, right now. Lord, you've been so favorable
to us. That is just amazing. That's
amazing. Go back to Psalm 85. Verse 1 says, Lord, thou hast
been favorable unto thy land. Thou hast brought back the captivity
of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity
of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin. Thou hast taken away all thy
wrath. Thou hast turned thyself from
the fierceness of thine anger. That's the result of the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The cross of Christ took away
all the wrath of God against our sin. All of God's wrath against the
sin of his people was poured out on Christ. And in pouring
out all of his wrath and all of his judgment on Christ, the
substitute for his people, the middle of verse three says, thou
hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger. Lord, in satisfying your anger
through the cross of Christ, you turned yourself from it. Verse 4, He said, Turn us to,
turn us also. Lord, if we're going to be turned,
you're going to have to turn us. You turn us and we'll be
turned. Verse 4, Turn us, O God of our
salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease. I thought verse 3 said it already
has. It has. But the result of the
cross brings the cry of the cross. To the heart of a child of God,
verse four says, turn us, O God, of our salvation and cause that
anger toward us to cease. Will thou be angry with us forever? It's almost like David didn't
even read the first three verses he wrote. Wilt thou be angry with us forever?
Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Wilt thou
not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee? Show
us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation. Please, please,
Lord, please. We love that song. It is finished. The battle is over. It is finished,
there will be no more war. It is finished, the end of all
conflict. It is finished, and Jesus Christ
is Lord. But the song goes on to say, in my heart, the battle was still
raging. Because not all prisoners of
war had come home. They were battlefields of my
own making. I didn't know that the war had
been won. Then I heard that the king of
all ages had fought all my battles for me and that victory was mine
for the claiming. And now, oh, praise his name,
I am free. That's the result of the preaching
of the cross. That's what happens through the
preaching of the cross. The preaching of the cross answers
the cry of the cross. Through that preaching, every
child of God says in verse eight, I will hear what God the Lord
will speak. For he will speak peace unto
his people and to his saints. Lord, turn us and we'll be turned. Revive us and we'll be revived. Show mercy to us and we'll rejoice
in you. Speak to us, Lord, and we'll
hear. That's the result of the cross. The declaration of peace to God's
people. Peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God through the Lord
Jesus Christ. The life and the death, the body
and the blood, the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse eight
says, I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will
speak peace unto his people and to his saints but let them not
turn again to folly. Sounds like there's a condition
on that, doesn't it? He will speak peace unto his
people and to his saints, but let them not turn again to folly.
You know what the word folly means? Everybody here knows what
we think it means. We think it means sin. Well,
I'm still a sinner and I'm still committing sin, but that's not
what the word means. It means self-confidence. That's what
it means. He said, let us turn to the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ and let us never turn again to self-confidence. Never again. We are God's elect
people who worship God in the spirit and rejoice in the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ and have absolutely no confidence
in this flesh. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done. Verse nine says, surely his salvation
is nigh them that fear him. That means reverence him, look
to him, bow to him. that glory may dwell in our land. What is glory? Jesus Christ is
glory. God forbid that we glory save
in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. His cross is our glory.
Verse 10 says, mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness
and peace have kissed each other. Where? Cross of Christ. You just think about this. Truth
had something to say about us. You know what? At the cross,
truth had something to say about us. Thank God, mercy did too. Truth said this is everything
that the law has against them. Every sin against God. Here it is. Mercy said, lay it
all on Jesus Christ. God the Father laid it all on
him. And then God looked at his own
son and he assessed the reality of his condition. And in true
reality, God imputed sin. He said, that's what I see. That's
what is there on my son, sin. And in righteous judgment, all
of God's wrath was laid on Christ and peace was laid on His people. All right there at the cross.
That was the result of the cross. Verse 10 says, mercy and truth
met together. Righteousness and peace kissed
each other. And when the judgment of the
cross was finished and the wages of death was done, on the third
day, which happened to be the first day of the week, very early
in the morning, verse 11 says, truth sprang out of the earth. He was risen. And righteousness
himself ascended on high where He is right now seated on His
throne, looking down on all of His accomplished work. Verse
11 says, truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness
shall look down from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give that
which is good, and our land shall yield her increase. Christ will
be given to all of His people. Christ will be revealed to all
of His people, and all the fruit of His labor will come forth. And they will all be led in the
path of righteousness himself, all the way to glory. Verse 13
says, righteousness shall go before him and shall set us in
the way of his steps. What that means is he will carry
us there. He will carry us all the way
home. Why will he do that? The cross. That's why the cross. It's all the result of the cross.
Lord, thou hast been favorable to us. You have forgiven us. You have covered us. You have
saved us. Thank you for the cross. Thank
you for the cross. Thank you for the result of the
cross. All glory be to Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's all stand together.