As I said earlier this morning,
for the Sunday School message, me and Jamie are just honored
to be here, to be here with you all. I grew up here in Rupert.
I've always wanted to come down here and visit. It's just good
to be here with you all. If you would, turn to 2 Samuel
23. 2 Samuel 23. Our text this morning is going
to be the first five verses, and let's start by just reading those.
2 Samuel 23, verse 1. Now these
be the last words of David. David, the son of Jesse said,
and the man who is raised up on high, the anointed of the
God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel said, The Spirit of
the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. God of
Israel said, the rock of Israel spake to me, he that ruleth over
men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be
as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning
without clouds, as a tender grass springing out of the earth by
clear shining after rain. Although my house be not so with
God, Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered
in all things, ensure, for this is all my salvation and all my
desire, although he make it not to grow. Last words of David. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Seek his face in this. Lord, we come to you this day
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray for the
forgiveness of our sins. We beg, Lord, that you would
reveal yourself in our midst here this morning. Lord, that
your name would be high and lifted up. Lord, that you would glorify
yourself in our midst. And Lord, you would feed us.
Lord, we're needy, feeble sinners. And Lord, we pray that we would
be fed with your gospel here this morning. Lord, meet with
us. Grant us your presence here. Lord, it's all in vain if you
don't. Lord, we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, these would be the last
words of David. I have an interest in that. That first phrase catches
my interest, and I assume it does yours as well. Now, why?
Why do we have an interest in the last words of a dying saint?
Why would we find that interesting? Let's ask a few questions. So
the first one, I'm sure no one will fight me on. So is it safe
to say that everyone in this room right now is going to die?
Safe to say, right? No one's going to fight me on
that. Now, let me ask another question. Who here actually believes
it's going to be this afternoon? Now, maybe there is somebody.
Perhaps there's someone here who you talk to the doctors,
they said it's not going to be long. You're living in your last
days. Maybe someone here does actually fully expect to die
this afternoon. I'll tell you what, if there is someone here like that,
I hope after this you'd come and talk to me, because I would
just love to know what the Lord has laid on your heart and your
mind in these last days. I think it would be a great blessing
to all of us just to know what it is. What has the Lord given
you in your last hours? I think it would be a blessing.
But for the majority of us, right, we don't actually think it's
going to be today. We've evidenced that because we made plans. Tomorrow
we're going to go to work. Made plans for all this whole
week, stuff we're gonna do with our kids. We made plans for the
next week. We've made plans into the next years. We've got things
down on our calendars. We know we're gonna die, but
we don't actually think it's gonna be today. David's different. We see things like eternity,
the prospect of waking up in the presence of God as something
that's a far off. David sees them as something
that is going to happen right now. It's right around the corner. The glitz and glamour of this
world mean nothing to David anymore. He has no reputation to protect.
And above all else, he has no reason to lie. He's a man who
will soon be dead. Now let's listen to what he has
to say in this, his last words. Look at verse one. David is going
to begin by describing himself, but there's also someone else
he's going to describe as well. I want to bring this out to you.
Let me show you. Verse one, now these be the last words of David.
And here's the first descriptor David gives. David, the son of
Jesse. the son of Jesse. Now, what point
is David trying to relay there? What's he saying? He's saying,
listen, I'm going to die. Now, before you build a monument
to me, before you build a statue or something like that, and you
fall down and you worship it like an idol, you remember who my father is.
It's Jesse. I am the son of a man. I know
who my father is. I know who his father before
his was, and you can backtrack him all you want, and you're
going to end up with one man, and that's Adam of Edom. I'm a sinner,
just like you. Don't make any statutes, any
monuments, no worship of me. I'm just a man. That's what David
is conveying there. Who else is the son of Jesse?
Let me read you something, Isaiah 11 verse 10 says, in that day
the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples.
The nations will rally to him and his resting place will be
glorious. Who's he talking about there?
The Lord Jesus Christ. He's commonly referred to as
the son of David, that makes him the son of Jesse. Now, in
this description David's going to give as he goes on through
the first verse, you're going to see David is describing himself.
He's also describing who he's really talking about here and
who really is speaking here, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, verse
1, look at the next descriptor. David, the son of Jesse, said,
and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the
God of Jacob. Now, no doubt David's speaking
of himself. No doubt, right? What happened with David? David
was a shepherd boy. He was a nobody, an absolute
nobody. And Samuel, God goes to Samuel. He says, Samuel, you go down
to Jesse's house, the Bethlehemite. I'm going to pick out one of
his sons to be my king. So Samuel goes down to Jesse's
house. He says, Jesse, you grab your
boys. You come to the sacrifice. God's going to pick one of your
sons to be king. And Jesse sent seven of his sons to go before
Samuel. And Samuel said, God hadn't chosen any of these. Jesse,
you got any more sons? He says, yeah, I got one more,
but I never thought you'd choose him. He's the least of all of
them. He's the youngest. I left him
out to take care of the sheep. Samuel says, you go fetch him.
We won't sit down until he gets back. And David walks in. Samuel
says, this is God's king. This one that no one else thought
it would be, this is God's king. He chose him. He raised him up
to that position of being king. And he took the oil, that horn
of oil, and he broke it and put it on David's head. And the Spirit
of the Lord fell on David from that day forward. That's the
story of David, no doubt. But truly, who is it that the
Father has raised up on high? Who are we talking about here?
Turn to Philippians 2 and look at verse 9. Philippians 2 verse 9, Who is
it that the Father has raised up on high? Wherefore God also
hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above
every name, that the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the
earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Who is it that the
Father has raised up on high? It's His darling Son, Jesus Christ.
Who is it that the Father has anointed? Turn to this, look
at Hebrews 1, verses 8 and 9. But unto the Son, he saith, thy
throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of righteousness
is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness
and hated iniquity. Therefore, God, even thy God,
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."
Who is it that's anointed of the Father? It's Christ. It's
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who he's talking about
here. Now, look at the final descriptor back in your text.
He refers to himself as the sweet psalmist of Israel. Now, what
are the psalms? The Psalms are beautiful poetry,
most of which David wrote, that glorify God. And we love those
Psalms, every believer does, because the Psalms talk about
what's actually in our hearts, the thoughts and the things of
our heart toward God better than we ever could. Have you ever
come to the point where you're praying and you just don't know
exactly how to say what it is you feel, but then you go to
read the Psalms and you're like, yeah, David, that's exactly what
I meant. We love the Psalms because they glorify God and they speak
of our new heart towards God. But understand, when David is
writing these Psalms, he's writing them under the inspiration of
the Spirit. He's writing them with the very heart and mind
and hand of Jesus Christ himself. And those Psalms, while they
are the words of David and the words of every believer, they
are the words, first and foremost, of the Lord Jesus Christ. This
whole first verse is given to show us one thing. Who's speaking? David's speaking. David, the
man after God's own heart. That's who's speaking here, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And everything that is said past this point
is speaking of Christ, just like the rest of this book. Now, pick
up in verse 2 of your text and look at this. David says, the spirit of the
Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. Now, that's
no doubt. David prophesied on behalf of the Lord. There's no
doubt about that. But when we look in verses 2 and 3, David
is going to address the Lord in his trinity. He's going to
address God, essentially, and he's going to mention three major
attributes of the triune God in these, his last words, just
three. Now, think of where David's at right now. He is dying. He
is on his deathbed. There is no room to mince words.
There's no time for toying around. Everything he says right now
must be exact. It must be of utmost importance,
because these are the last things he's ever going to get out. So
look at it. Verse two, the spirit of the
Lord spake by me. He addresses the Holy Spirit.
Verse three, the God of Israel said, God the Father, the Rock
of Israel spake to me. He addresses the Trinity, the
Spirit, the Father, and the Rock of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, what does he have to say about the essential God in his
last words? He that ruleth over men. That is the first thing he has
to say about this triune, essential God. He rules over men. Now, This has been a great sticking
point with men as long as men have been around. There is someone
who is in absolute and utter control. There is someone who
is the first cause behind everything. There is someone who has a will
and who has the power to make their will come to pass every
single time. It is either God or it's man. It cannot be a combination of
the two. Someone is the absolute sovereign. And there is an Old
Testament character who learned that the Lord is in absolute
and utter control, that he is the sovereign of the universe,
and he learned it the hard way. And I want to look at his story.
It's Nebuchadnezzar. Turn to Daniel chapter 4. Now, for the sake of time, I'm
going to give you the back story on Nebuchadnezzar. You all know
his story anyways. He's the Babylonian king that came to rule over Israel
and over Judah for a period of time. Nebuchadnezzar was a man
of dreams. He had dreams that were given
to him by the Lord. They meant something. And so one night,
Nebuchadnezzar has a dream. He dreams of a great big tree,
this huge tree coming out of the earth, and the branches are
reaching out in every direction. and reaching up towards heaven,
and the fowls of the air, the birds, they come, and they find
nests in the branches. And all the animals of the field,
they come and they find shade underneath this tree, and they're
fed from this tree, this great and mighty tree. And a voice
comes out, it says, hew the tree down, chop it down, but let the
roots remain. Nebuchadnezzar wakes up, he's
terrified, absolutely terrified. So he goes to the one person
he knows who can interpret this dream, Daniel. Daniel. Tells
Daniel, he says, tell me what this means. Daniel stews on it
for an hour and he comes back and says, King, you're not going
to like this. I treat you. You're mighty and you're powerful.
You have this great kingdom and you have all this, this power
and you've built all this wealth and you sit on this throne, but
you think you sit on that throne in all this power because you've
put yourself on that throne. You don't know that it's the
Lord who put you on that throne. He put you on there. And at His
will and at His good pleasure, He can take you off and He can
bring you down to nothing. What's going to happen, Nebuchadnezzar,
is that you're going to lose your mind. Your heart's going
to be replaced with the heart of a beast. You're going to dwell
out in the field. The dew of the morning is going to fall
upon you. You're going to eat grass with the oxen. All this, this
great trial, that seven years later, you'll be restored. You'll
be restored back to your kingdom, and through that, you will know
that the heavens rule, that there is one who has a purpose and
whose purpose is always done. There is one who's sovereign
and puts kings on thrones and takes kings off thrones. There
is one who has a will, who's always done because he has the
power to make his will done, and that's God. That's God himself,
this essential God that David mentions here. Now, look at this. Daniel tells this to Nebuchadnezzar
with no uncertain terms, right? Plain language. Look at his response. Look at verses 29 and 30. One year has gone by. At the
end of 12 months, he walked in the palace of the kingdom of
Babylon. This is Nebuchadnezzar. The king spake and said, Is not
this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom
by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty."
Daniel tells him, all this is going to happen because you're
proud, because you think you're in control, because you think
you're the sovereign. And yet, this is his reply, my power,
my kingdom, my might. What happens? You all know the
story. Everything Daniel said comes true. Nebuchadnezzar loses
his mind. His hair grows out like eagle's
feathers. His nails grow out like talons. He dwells out with
the animals, all for seven years. Loses his mind. In seven years,
the Lord restores Nebuchadnezzar. It's a great trial. This is a
hard lesson learned. A very hard lesson learned. It's
hard for all of us to learn. At the end of seven years, though,
this is Nebuchadnezzar's response. Look at verse 35. And all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest
thou? Finally, Nebuchadnezzar gets
it. God is in control. He put me on this throne. He
can take me off and he can do it all over again. He is the
first cause behind everything. The good, the bad, the obedient,
the disobedient. He is the first cause behind
everything. Now, let's contrast that with
the preaching that we see in our day. What is the most common
preaching we hear in our day? Free will preaching, right? Salvation's
by grace, no doubt, right? Absolutely, it's all by grace,
the shed blood of Jesus Christ. But what you have to do, you
have to allow Christ to be your Savior. You have to accept Him
into your heart, and you have to allow Him to be the King of
your life, and you have to allow Him to save you. Am I right? Beautiful. Somebody gets it. No, it's not true. It's absolutely
not true. What kind of blasphemous language?
Is that how you talk to a sovereign? Is that how you talk to a king?
When Mephibosheth was standing before David, crippled and lame
in the middle of David's court, you think Mephibosheth was going
to say, well, David, I think what I'm going to allow you to
do is I'm going to allow you to be merciful to me. Come on down here. I'll put the crown on your head.
I'm going to make you the king of my life. Would Mephibosheth
ever say anything like that to David? Do you speak to a sovereign
like that and use words like allow? He doeth according to
his will. Whatever his will is, that's
what's going to be done, and you and I sit in the hands of
a sovereign, and here's the truth. He can save us or he can damn
us, and it is right, just, and fair, whatever it is he does. That's the sovereignty of God,
folks. He's not begging anybody to do anything. He's doing according
to His will. This thing of choosing God. Romans
8, 7 says, the carnal mind is at enmity against God. You know
what that means? That means by nature we have
made ourselves the enemy of God, not just wayward. Oftentimes
we're pictured in the Scriptures as as wayward people, beggars,
people who don't know any better, things like that. If you want
the right picture, the good picture, the carnal mind is enmity against
God. That means we have made ourselves
the enemy of God in the light of who He is truly. The natural
man wars against the sovereignty of God. He hates God by nature. And then free will comes along
and says, well, all you need to do is choose God and allow Him to be
your Savior. No man will choose God. He'll only war against them. And that's why you see people
get bent out of shape over things like election. So how could a
loving God choose to save some and pass by others? How is that
fair? Folks, for the believer, for
the elect, elections are our only hope. My only hope is that
before time began, He chose me outside my own experience. before
there's any good or evil. He chose me and elected me unto
salvation because that's the only way we would ever chose
him, is if he first chose us. For a believer, we don't squabble
over election. Election's our only hope. That he first came
to me, he first chose me, he first sought me out. Because
I never would have chose him and I never would have sought
him out. I would have remained his enemy. That's the truth about
you and me. Back in your text, 2 Samuel 23 and verse 5. I'm sorry, verse 3. The first
descriptor he gives or attribute of the essential God is he that
ruleth over men. Here's the second one, must be
just. He that ruleth the sovereign,
this same one also must be just." Now, what does that mean? We
talked about it a minute ago. It means that everything he does
is right, just, and fair, and it is that way simply because
of who he is. He's holy. He's holy. But understand this, for you
and me, it also means this. He's not going to let any sin
go unpunished. Not one sin is going to go unpunished.
Now, understand this. every man, woman and child on
the face of the earth right now. Our sins are in one of two places. They either have been punished
past tense over have been punished or they will be punished. Lord's
not gonna let any sin go unpunished. So sin is only in one of two
states right now. It either has been punished or
it will be punished for the elect. all that the Father gave to Christ
before the world began. For every believer, for everyone
who is looking to Christ alone, has his only hope of salvation.
Take this consolation. Your sins have already been punished. They were punished in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He bore your sins. This one,
this man who's looking to Christ right now is his only hope of
acceptance. I'm not looking to my walk. I'm not looking to my
works, my feelings, experiences, not Christ Anne. I'm talking
about a man who looks to Christ alone. He says, he's all my hope.
That's it. Only this man, this one, Christ
Jesus, not in a doctrine, but in a man, this one, he's my hope. If that's your hope, that man
bore your sins in his body on the tree, and he bled and died,
and he put those sins away, and they are no more. Your sins have
been punished, past tense, so much so that the father doesn't
remember them anymore. How could God not remember something
if they do not exist? That's how well they have been
put away. For every believer, for every member of the elect,
your sins have been punished. Any man who is not looking to
Christ alone, looking to Christ and looking to his walk, looking
to his works, looking for something inside himself, your sins will
be punished. They will be punished in the
person of that man. God is just, and he will not allow any sin
to go unpunished. But here's the consolation in
all this, this attribute of God that we find so comforting. He's
just, and that means he's not gonna let sin, or he's not gonna
punish sin twice. That means if the Lord Jesus
Christ really did bear my sins in his body, and the Father poured
out all his wrath for my sins upon Christ, he will not turn
around and charge me with those same sins. It would be absolutely
unjust. And it says right here, he must
be just. He won't punish Christ and then
turn around and punish me. It would be absolutely unjust.
And I tell you what, that's why the doctrine of universal redemption,
God loves you, Christ died for you, and he wants to save you.
You just have to do your part. That's why we hate that so much.
It's because it robs a believer of all his hope. My only hope
is that God loved me before the foundation of the world, that
Christ died for me in time and put away my sins, and that's
the only reason I am found acceptable, because of what he did. And if
you turn around and tell me that God can love me and Christ died
for me and I can go to hell anyways, you've robbed me of all my hope,
because all I have is Christ. That's it. He that ruleth over men must
be just, and he rules in the fear of God. And this speaks
of the son fearing the father. Turn if you would to Hebrews
5, look at verses 7 and 8. Who in the days of his flesh,
Hebrews 5 verse 7, when he had offered up prayers and supplications
with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save
him from death and was heard in that he feared. Though he were a son, yet learned
he obedience by the things which he suffered. Now did anybody
notice there the link between obedience and fear? how interconnected
those two things were in that passage of Scripture. The Lord
Jesus Christ had such an all-inspired, reverential, and respectful fear
of His Father that it was unto obedience. He lived His entire
life for one purpose, and it was to do His Father's will and
to only do His Father's will. You remember when the Lord's
parents, when He was 12 years old, they took Him on a pilgrimage
of sorts to Jerusalem, and they're coming back, and they think the
Lord's with them, but He's not. And finally they turn around
and they said, where is he? So they run back to Jerusalem
and they find him. And he said, why weren't you with us? We thought
you were with us. Where'd you go? This was his answer. Wist
ye not that I must be about my father's business. Lord at 12
years old. He lived for one purpose and
it was to do his father's will. Now my question is this, what
is, what was his father's will? Turn to John six and look at
verse 39. John 6, verse 39, and this is
the Father's will which is sent me, that of all which he hath
given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again
at the last day. He lived to do only his Father's
will, and what was his Father's will? Those that he gave him
in election. before the world began, that
He should live for them, live a perfect, righteous life, honoring
the law and honoring His Father in all things, that He should
live for them and establish a righteousness, that He should go to the cross,
be made their sin, and die for them, and justify them before
His Father, and to be resurrected again, proving and showing that
the Father accepted the sacrifice, that truly what He came to do
truly has been accomplished. His fear of His Father led to
His obedience. His obedience was unto His death,
and His death led to the eternal redemption of every member of
the elect, all that the Father gave Him. I'm so thankful that
Jesus Christ feared God. Now, go back to your text, 2 Samuel 23, and look at verse
4. Now, I'm going to tell you, The
verse of scripture here is beautiful, it's poetic, and I think you
could preach thousands of messages out of it and never scratch the
surface. It's just there's so much here, but I'm going to take
a stab at it. So let's read it real quick. And he shall be as
the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning
without clouds as the tender grass springing out of the earth
by clear shining after rain. speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ,
continuing with the Messianic theme. He is light. Simplify
it. He's light. Now, what does light
allow you to do? You see. Very good. You see.
That's it. In the light of who Jesus Christ
is, and particularly in the light of His cross, I see some things
very clearly. Very, very clearly. And not clearly
enough. Here's the first thing I see. At the cross, I see the
holiness of God the Father. The one time sin was found on
his darling son, that one he loved so much, did he spare him? No. He turned his back on him. He forsook him. He punished him
and he killed him because sin was found on his son and God
is holy and he will not accept sin. Folks, if you want to come
outside of Christ, based on your own merits, based on what I shall
do to inherit eternal life. Know this, you will meet with
an angry God, and He will not let sin go unpunished. He's holy,
and He will only accept what He is, holiness. That's the first
thing I see. I see the holiness of the Father.
Here's the second thing I see. I see the love and compassion
that Jesus Christ has for His people. There he hangs, suffering
and dying, the just for the unjust, a willing substitute. And who's
that for? For his elect, no doubt. But
who are his elect? What kind of people are them?
For sinners. For sinners. The love and compassion Jesus
Christ has for sinners, that he would hang there with his
father's frown upon him, bleeding and dying, suffering the wrath
those people deserve, because Jesus Christ is love. love for
his people, not for everybody. Here's the third thing I see.
At the cross, I see myself. I fit into that picture there,
and I know exactly where I stand. I'm down in the crowd. I am the
one who is mocking him as he bleeds and he dies. I am the
one who is driving the nails through his hands and his feet.
I'm the one who shoves the spear through his side, and I'm the
one who says, I will not have this man to reign over me. You
want to know where you and I fit in this picture, at this cross,
by nature? We fit in the crowd. We fit in
the ones who murdered him. It was us who nailed him to that
cross. Let's be honest about it right now. That's where we
fit into all this. How could a loving God save some
and pass by others? I can't. It's hard for me to
believe that he would save any of us. That's where we fit into
this whole thing, the enemies of God. And I'll never understand
this, but he died to save some of those same ones who drove
the nails through his hands and his feet, and shoved that same
spirit in his side." Hanging there, the just for the
unjust. He is the light of the morning. Now let's go down to
verse 5, and this is where we're going to spend the rest of our
time. David says, although my house
be not so with God. David's house was an absolute
mess, talking about his family. If you read through 1 and 2 Samuel,
I mean, his house was just a complete and utter mess. Here's some of
the lower points. He has a son named Amnon. He has a daughter
named Tamar. His son Amnon rapes his daughter Tamar, a full-out
rape. Now, imagine your son raping
your daughter. Now, let's bring another son to this, Absalom.
Absalom comes along. David really doesn't do anything
to Amnon when he rapes Tamar. He kind of brushes it off, puts
it under the cover. So Absalom comes along and says,
David's not going to do anything, I will. Absalom kills Amnon.
So you have one son who rapes your daughter, and then you have
another son who comes along and murders the first son who raped
your daughter. And those are just some of the
lower points in David's life. You can go on and on. David's
house was an absolute mess, and you put yourself in David's position.
Think about it for a second. He's laying there on his deathbed,
and he's surrounded by his court and his advisors and his family.
Amnon's not there. Tomorrow probably won't even
look him in the eye. She just looks down at the ground the
entire time. Absalom's gone. Absalom tried to usurp his throne.
He's later executed. What a mess David's house is.
You can go on and on. But you know what? That's not
the point at all, not in the least. When David is saying,
my house is not so with God, what's he really talking about?
He's talking about this house right here. He's talking about
his heart. My heart's no good. My house,
my within, it's not so with God. I have a friend in Lexington,
his name's John Walmsley, and he's been getting into teaching
Sunday school lessons and things like that. He taught one a couple
weeks ago and it was really good. And we had talked before and he said,
every time I bring one of these Sunday school lessons, he goes,
I can't help but use Genesis 6-5. God saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil and that continually. He says when I'm talking about
the natural man, I can't help but use that scripture because
that describes me and it does me too. Take that scripture. God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth and that every, not some, every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only, only, evil and that
continually. Get a good work for man out of
that. Get some glory for man in the
light of Genesis 6-5. You can't do it. That's me by
nature. What's the heart? It's the whole
man. It's every aspect of the man. It's what he does. It's
his deeds. It's his thoughts, the things
that run across his mind and across his heart. It's his affections.
It's what he loves. It's what he intends to do. It's
what motivates him to do those things. It's his will. It's the
entire man. And it's all evil. You and I
are incapable of good works because of the originating source of
that works. It's that old natural heart. And that's David's sigh
here, although my house Be not so with God, my heart. But he
begins with although. That means there's a consolation
here. Look at verse five again. Although my house be not so with
God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered
in all things and sure for this is all my salvation and all my
desire. David found all his hope and
all his consolation in a covenant. Now, there are many covenants
the Lord made with men in the Old Testament. He made a covenant
with Noah. He made a covenant with Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob. He made a covenant with David.
But right now, there's only two covenants I want us to concern
ourselves with. There is the Old Covenant, the
covenant of works, and there is the New Covenant, the covenant
of grace. The only two I want you to concern
yourself with right now. There's a story that tells about
these two covenants and what they're all about. Turn if you
would to Galatians 4 and look at verse 21. Galatians 4 and verse 21, let's
learn about these two covenants. Tell me, ye that desire to be
under the law, do you not hear the law? For it's written that
Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a
free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman
was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise,
which things are an allegory. For these are the two covenants,
the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth the bondage, which
is Hagar, for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth
to Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children."
That's a very strong language, Hagar is Sinai. So what's it
saying? Abraham, the story of Abraham
and Sarah and Isaac and Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael. These
are the stories that talk about the two covenants and it says
Hagar is Sinai. What was given to Sinai? You
remember? The law. Hagar's the law. She's salvation by works. Now,
what happened in this story? Abraham's speaking with the Lord.
He says, Lord, when are you going to give me an heir? When am I going to
have a son? The Lord takes Abraham outside.
He says, you look up at those stars. Can you number them? Abraham
says, no. He says, as many of those stars
are going to be, that's how much seed you're going to have. You're
going to have a rich and great heritage, many, many descendants
past this point. Don't you worry, Abraham. I'm
going to give you a son. It says, Abraham believed God and was
counted to him for righteousness. Time goes on. Abraham becomes
an old man. Sarah, his wife, becoming an
old woman. Sarah goes to Abraham and she
says, okay, Abraham, here's the deal. I know that God promised
us a son. I know this is the will of God and he's promised
this thing. The problem is we haven't done our part. We need
to do our part so that God's promise comes about. What you
need to do, you go into Hagar, you have a child with my bondwoman
Hagar, and that son, that'll be our son. But we're going to
have to do our part if we want God's promise to come about.
That, my friends, is salvation by works. God wants to save you. He's promised
to save you. But you have to do your part
to make the promise of God come about. A covenant hinged on a
man holding up his end of the bargain. And Abraham does just
that. He goes into Hagar and he has
Ishmael. And the Lord says, you cast out that bondwoman and her
son. That is not the child I promised
you. Now, she speaks of salvation
by works. Men trying to do their part to
accomplish their own salvation. This is given to show us this.
Any covenant between God and man where it's expected for man
to hold up his end of the bargain for the covenant to be fulfilled
is always a failure. always a failure. And every one
of the types that's given in the Scriptures is just to show
that if any part of a covenant with us is based on us holding
up our end of the bargain, it will always be a failure. Not
that there's anything wrong with the covenant, the problem is
with us. This is the first time I see it in the Scriptures and
maybe you'll get something from this. Turn to Genesis 2, look
at verse 16 and 17. This is the Lord in the Garden,
Genesis 2, 16. And the Lord God commanded the
man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat of it. For in the day thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. A covenant was made between God
and man with Adam, with an upright and an innocent man, not a sinful
evil man. Adam hadn't fallen at this point. God engaged in
a covenant with a man, an upright and innocent man, and he gave
him one commandment. You want to continue in this blessedness.
I have created you upright and innocent. I've given you this
garden. Everything has been freely provided for you. If you want
to continue in this blessedness, all you have to do is not eat
the fruit of that one tree. There's thousands of trees around
here with tons of beautiful fruit, but you just can't eat of that
one tree. One upright and innocent man with one commandment, and
what does he do? He breaks it. He's not a sinful,
evil creature yet like you and I are. If one upright and innocent
man with one commandment can't keep it, what's the chances of
people like you and me, sinners, keeping many commandments all
the time, every time, in every aspect of our being? None. Salvation by works. It's a complete
and utter failure. Any covenant that is dependent
on man holding up his end of the bargain in any way is a complete
and utter failure. Folks, what's the purpose of
the law? It's one purpose to show we can't keep it. That's
it. But then you have Abraham and
Sarah, the picture of salvation by grace. Time goes on. Time
goes on. Abraham is greater than 80 years
old. Sarah is an old woman. She is completely past the point
of menopause. Between the two of them, it is absolutely, with
men, impossible to create life. But yet they have Isaac. The
gift of God, the miracle of God, the same as salvation. They couldn't
aid in it. They couldn't cause the conception
of Isaac to be. With them, in and of themselves,
it was absolutely impossible. They couldn't aid in this thing.
They couldn't cause it to be. They couldn't force it into existence.
God, according to His purpose, gave them Isaac as a free gift,
and that is salvation for every believer. We can't aid in it.
We can't cause it to be. It is the purpose of God, and
it is the miracle of God. He gave to people who couldn't
conceive life, life. like a wicked sinner like me
is incapable of generating my own spiritual life. He freely
gave me life, and it cost me nothing. It cost the Lord Jesus
Christ everything, but it cost me nothing. The two covenants. Now, this covenant of grace,
when David says that he has confidence in a covenant, it is the covenant
of grace, the one that's depicted by Sarah. This covenant that
took place before the world began. David says it's an everlasting
covenant. That means it doesn't have a beginning. It doesn't
have an end. It means it's always been in existence. This covenant
has always stood, which means it truly is the old covenant.
The new covenant is older than the old. It's always been in
effect. There is a story that depicts
the conversation that happened between the father and the son
before the world began when this covenant was established. And
I want you to turn to it. Turn to Genesis 43. and look
at verse 8. This is going to be very familiar
for all y'all. I'll give you the back story
in this story. Joseph has become the most powerful man in Egypt
and there's a famine in the land. If you want corn from Egypt you
have to go through Joseph to get it. Joseph's brothers have
already been to Egypt once and they got corn from Joseph. Joseph
told them if you're going to come back and you want more corn
you have to bring your youngest brother Benjamin with you." So
his brothers go back. They go back to their father
Jacob. They run out of corn. Jacob says, all right, go back
to Egypt, get more corn. The brothers say, listen, the man
who gave it to us, he said if we don't bring Benjamin back
with us, we can't have any more corn. And Jacob's terrified.
He thinks he's already lost Joseph, and now he's afraid he's going
to lose Benjamin. But then Judah steps up. Now
let me give you the players in all this so we understand the
story. Jacob is a picture of the Father. Judah is a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Benjamin is a picture of
every believer. Now, let's read the story, Judah's
words being the words of the Lord Jesus Christ to his father.
Genesis 43, verse 8. And Judah said unto Israel, his
father, send the lad with me, and we will rise and go, that
we may live and not die, both we and thou, and also our little
ones. I will be surety for him. Of my hand shalt thou require
him. If I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee,
then let me bear the blame forever. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
said to his father before the world began concerning every
Benjamin, all of these elect people. I will be surety for
them at my hand, not their hand, at my hand, shalt thou require
them. Now, in this covenant, There's three questions I want
to ask. Number one, who did Jacob hold accountable for the fulfillment
of this covenant? Who's held accountable in all
this? Judah. Judah. Did Jacob go to Benjamin
and say, okay, Benjamin, here's the thing. I'm going to send
you with Judah. You better do what Judah says.
You better follow him everywhere he goes. You better stick right
next to him. You better be completely and utterly obedient to Judah.
Because if you don't, I'm not going to hold Judah accountable
for bringing you home. I'm going to hold you responsible. Is that
the conversation that took place? Absolutely not. In fact, Benjamin
probably wasn't even around when this conversation was taking
place. These are two very serious men, Jacob and Judah, and they
were having a very serious conversation. You don't have serious conversations
around children. No doubt Benjamin probably isn't
even in the same tent as where this conversation is taking place,
and it's just like what happened with us. This conversation took
place before we were in existence in our own experience. And the
Lord Jesus Christ was held accountable to be our surety. He didn't hold
Benjamin accountable. Jacob didn't. He said, Judah,
I'm looking to you. I hold you responsible to bring
my Benjamin back to me safe and sound. I'm looking only to you. Who is responsible? Judah was
held responsible. Second question, whose reputation
is on the line? Judah's. If Judah takes Benjamin and he
delivers him into Egypt and he comes back with Benjamin without
a scratch on him, Jacob loves Judah. Jacob would talk for the
rest of his days only about Judah. I bet after Judah brought Benjamin
back, you couldn't get within 10 feet of Jacob without him
saying, hey you, you, have I told you the story about how Judah
brought Benjamin back to me? Yeah, Jacob, you told me 10 times.
Sit down, I'm gonna tell you again. Judah, Judah, Judah, all
glory goes to Judah because it's Judah's reputation who's on the
line. And if Judah comes back with Benjamin safe and sound,
he honors his word, he gets all the glory in this thing, and
Benjamin doesn't get any. But if Judah returns, and he
doesn't have Benjamin with him, he would get no glory. He would
be despised by his father. But doesn't David say that this
covenant is sure? It's absolutely sure, because
it rests on the shoulders of one who is incapable of failure,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Judah was held responsible. It was Judah's reputation that
was on the line. Finally, let me ask you this. What were Benjamin's
responsibilities in this covenant? None. Somebody says, what about
faith? Doesn't the Lord demand faith
from a man? Do you mean faith that is the
gift of God? God-given faith that's given
in the regeneration? Yes, absolutely. The Lord demands
faith of every believer. But understand this, any man
who will say he has faith will turn around and tell you he came
about that faith naturally. That he mustered it of his own
free will and came about it by his own hand. That man doesn't
have faith and he's not looking to Christ, he's looking to himself.
Every believer knows, we do, we look to Christ as all in our
salvation. That's faith. Clinging and looking
to him alone. And I know I wouldn't have that
faith unless he first gave it to me. I get no credit for it. All right, turn back to your
text. In closing, there's a couple things I want to do. Number one,
I want to read verse five as the words of the Lord Jesus Christ
to his father. I want you to listen to it and
read it in that light. Although my house be not so with
God. Now, what's he talking about?
His people, His elect people. Somebody says, in Christ are
we not holy and blameless and unapprovable and righteous right
now? We absolutely are. Now let me ask you, how do you
see yourself in your experience? Are we not a wayward house? In
and of ourselves are we not a rebellious house? Although my house be not
so with God, yet He hath made with me. This is the Christ speaking. Yet he, the Father, hath made
with me, the Son, an everlasting covenant. He didn't make it with
them. He made it with me. You hold me accountable. Yet
he hath made with me an everlasting covenant that was ordered. The
Father ordered this thing in divine election. It's ordered
in all things And it's sure, it's sure because it rests on
my shoulders. I am the Christ. I am the one
who cannot fail. Their salvation is absolutely
sure. It was sure as soon as the father and the son struck
hands in eternity and ratified this covenant, the salvation
of every believer was accomplished. It had to be accomplished in
time by Christ coming and living and dying for his people. But
as soon as God, the father and God, the son ratified it, It
was done. It was accomplished. It's ordered
in all things. The Father ordered it. And it's
sure because it rests on my shoulders, the Christ, that one who cannot
fail. And he says, this is all my salvation. Every portion of
salvation is what I have provided. It is all my salvation. It is the salvation of my providing. And this is all my desire simply
to do my Father's will. Isn't that beautiful to read
that as the words of the Christ? Does not that give you some confidence,
some comfort. Now, finally, let's ask this
question. Which covenant am I in? I need to know, right? Which
covenant am I in? The covenant of works or the
covenant of grace? Because if I'm in the covenant
of grace, Judah is my surety. I have nothing to worry about.
We can know. Look in verse five, David says,
although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me
an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, for this
is all my salvation and all my desire. You find all your hope in this
covenant and in this one who fulfilled the covenant. the Lord
Jesus Christ. Are you looking to Him alone,
not looking anywhere else? For this is all, this Judah,
this Christ, and the salvation of His providing, it is all my
salvation. It is finished. It's accomplished. There's nothing left for me to
do. Is He all in your salvation? Let's talk about your desire.
Do you desire that He gets all the glory in this thing of salvation? Are you content with being a
trophy of His power and His grace? Are you content? Is this your
desire that His name would be lifted up on high? That He would
be worshipped, that His name would be praised? Is this your
desire to be saved by grace alone, Christ alone? Is it all your
salvation and is it all your desire? Not looking anywhere
else. Not desiring to have Christ and complete in Christ. Folks, if He's all your salvation,
if He's all your desire, you're in the new covenant. That means
Judah has agreed to be your surety, and he cannot fail. And that
means, just like David, you can die with nothing but peace. You're
found in him. I'll stop there.