Psalm 75 is where we are tonight.
I want to read through this Psalm. It's only 10 verses. It begins
this way in verse 1. Unto thee, O God, do we give
thanks. Unto thee do we give thanks,
for that thy name is near, thy wondrous works declare. When
I shall receive the congregation, I will judge uprightly. The earth
and all the inhabitants are dissolved. I bear up the pillars of it,
Selah. I said unto the fools, deal not
foolishly, and to the wicked, lift not up the horn. Lift not
up your horn on high, speak not with a stiff neck, for promotion
cometh neither from the east nor from the west. nor from the
south, but God is the judge. He putteth down one, he setteth
up another, for in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and
the wine is red, it is full of mixture, and he poureth out of
the same, but the dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall
wring out and drink them. But I will declare forever, I
will sing praises to the God of Jacob. All the horns of the
wicked also will I cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall
be exalted. All right, so if you look at
this Psalm, especially when you look at verse three, which says,
the earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved, I bear
up the pillars of it, see law. In that verse, we see that this
chapter, this Psalm, is clearly not speaking about David who
would fulfill it, but of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only he, so
this psalm is about Christ, and I want to look at it in that
light, that it's purely about him, and he's speaking here. It's about his judgments. We
see in verse 2, when I shall receive the congregation, I will
judge uprightly. and it is about him upholding
his people in a world that otherwise would be utterly destroyed. As
he says in verse 3, the earth and all the inhabitants thereof
are dissolved, the word dissolved is like melted, I bear up the
pillars of it. So unless Christ bears the pillars
of the earth, unless he bears them up, then all of the earth
would be lost and destroyed. But because he does, his people
are saved. And so that's what this psalm
is about. The Lord Jesus Christ and his
judgments and him upholding his people in the earth and therefore
upholding the earth for them. So, in this psalm, obviously,
because this is scripture, the Spirit of God is speaking in
prophecy, and the words that He speaks are the words that
the Lord Jesus Christ speaks. Now here, as in many of the Psalms,
Christ is speaking as the mediator. He is God, He is man, and He
is the one mediator between God and men. He speaks as the Son
of Man, Christ. He speaks to God as with His
people, as one with His people. Verse 1, He says this, if you
look back at verse 1, My Bible has this across two pages, so
I keep flipping back. He says, unto thee, O God, do
we give thanks. So the psalm is Christ speaking
as one with his people. He takes the place of his people
and speaks to God for them. In that sense, this psalm is
a lot like Psalm 74, where we saw last week that the Lord Jesus
Christ is speaking as the advocate and the intercessor for his people.
So here we have the mediator, God's appointed mediator between
God and men. and speaking with his people,
as his people, because he uses that word, we, and he speaks
of a time when he shall receive the people. Look at verse two,
when I shall receive the congregation, I will judge uprightly. He tells
how all things that are in the earth and subject to man are
melting or dissolving, in verse 3, and they are coming to ruin.
And yet, even though that's the case with regard to man, that
everything in the earth is dissolving and melting and ruined, he upholds
the pillars of the earth by his word and by his work, his power,
to bring about his eternal will for the salvation of his people.
and give them what by pure sovereign grace God the Father prepared
to give them before the world was. I want to read a text of
scripture from Matthew on this, God the Father giving his people
this kingdom, preparing it for them before the world began. He says in Matthew 25 and verse
34, he says, The Lord Jesus Christ, as the
judge is speaking, he says, I was, let's see, I said 25, 34. Yes,
he says, then shall the king, Christ, say to them on his right
hand, notice, come, ye blessed of my father, Inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world. So that's a very
significant statement. It's saying that what God gives
his people, he prepared for them before the world's foundations
were laid. Back in this psalm, when he talks
about, I shall receive the congregation and the earth and the inhabitants
thereof are dissolved, but I bear up the pillars of it. We can
see that this is all designed by Christ in his words to be
consistent with God's eternal will to give his people that
kingdom. Everything in this psalm is testifying
by Christ's prayer in this psalm to fit together perfectly to
fulfill God's eternal will for his people. And that's why he's
praying this way. He's going to receive the kingdom. He's speaking in anticipation
of that in verse one. He's giving thanks to God for
that. He's saying that his name is near and his wondrous works
declare. And so all of this is going along
with that theme through the psalm that is Christ receiving the
kingdom. So we might ask, well, when does this apply? When is
the prophecy and the words of Christ here speaking about? Is it speaking about a particular
time? And the fact is, is that it's
speaking about the whole New Testament era. Because remember
when the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross and was buried in
the grave and then rose again, that then, as I think I mentioned,
it was either in the Bible study or Sunday, I can't remember which,
it was then that he received the kingdom. He ascended up on
high, he says in Hebrews 1.3, when he had by himself purged
our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on
high. And the sermons by Peter and
others in the book of Acts always speak of Christ as sitting on
the throne. God has made him both Lord and
Christ. Peter spoke of that in Acts chapter
2. And that was the fulfillment
of God's prophecy to David that he would sit on his throne his
own son, which would also be his Lord. And Psalm 110 verse
1 says, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit on my right hand until
I make thine enemies thy footstool. So it began at the ascension
of Christ. When the Lord Jesus Christ rose
from the dead, then he was already with his people in paradise.
Remember the thief on the cross? Today you will be with me in
paradise. So Christ was with his people
in paradise from that time. when he died on the cross, he
rose again, he ascended, and he took the throne, because he
finished the work God gave him to do. And he was glorified then
as God and man, as he had been glorified as the Son of God.
This is what he prays in John 17, verse 5. But I mention that
because that's the beginning of him taking the kingdom that
he acquired through his victory over Satan and sin and death
and the grave and all of the world and its false religions
and its service to Satan. He claimed the victory at the
cross, and then he rose and took the throne according to his father's
will and his father's good pleasure, and everything was put into his
hands. And he shall reign, according to 1 Corinthians 15, he shall
reign until he has put every enemy under his feet, and the
last enemy that shall be put under him is death. Okay, and
that death meaning the death of the bodies of the believers.
Our resurrection from the dead in our bodies will be the final
victory, the final triumph. Okay, so there's a whole period
of time then from the cross to the end of time, which the Lord
Jesus Christ has taken his throne and received the kingdom given
to him by his father. And that kingdom consists of
his people. What is the kingdom of God? Well, it's Christ ruling,
first of all, but it's Christ ruling on behalf of His people
and actually ruling in them. Christ lives in them. And the
life that we live in the flesh, we live upon the faith of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We're entirely looking to and
depending upon Him in everything. So he's not only our king, he's
our savior, he's our intercessor, our advocate, he's all these
things to us. He reveals God to us, he reveals the gospel
to us by his spirit living in us. And all these things are
true of him. So we see that the time of this
psalm then is talking about the time from his resurrection having
received the kingdom from his father until the end of time,
and actually it just goes on and on to eternity, but specifically
in this psalm he's speaking as our mediator throughout the New
Testament era. Now of course Christ reigns in
heaven before then, but that's as the Son of God. Here it's
explicit that he's reigning as Christ, the victorious Christ,
over sin and death for his people. So that's one thing I want to
point out here. The timing of this psalm is the New Testament
era. It's talking about Christ receiving
his people. And since we understand it this
way, then we can understand this verse here about him receiving
the congregation. And I'll get to that in a minute.
But first, before I do that, I want to also continue on in
the summary of this psalm. In this psalm, he also talks
about the proud. He says in verse four, I said
to the fools, deal not foolishly, and to the wicked, lift not up
the horn. The horn in scripture symbolizes
power and strength because animals with horns have great strength. You can't stop the horn. It's
pointed and it's firm. So he says to the fools, and
these are proud fools, he says, deal not foolishly, and to the
wicked, lift not up the horn. Verse five, lift not up your
horn on high, speak not with a stiff neck. You can imagine
this. My daughter, it turns out, who
lives in Tennessee, has got pigs, and pigs are kind of rude. And
I saw one pig pushing the other with his shoulder and his head,
and it wasn't showing any kindness to them. I thought, that's interesting. That's just like us, kind of
stiff neck and proud. So he tells them this. He says,
for promotion cometh neither from the east nor the west nor
the south, but God is the judge. He puts down one and he sets
up another. So this psalm not only is about
Christ receiving the kingdom, about him praying as an advocate
and intercessor, giving thanks to God with his people. But it's
about him judging, and it's about him judging and putting down
the proud. the proud who are exalted in
their own minds against him, in opposition to him. So as I
was thinking about this, I thought, there's nothing more unnatural
to a natural man than humility. Don't you find that to be true
in your own experience? There's nothing more unnatural
to me than to humble myself. And that can be seen in so many
ways. It starts out when we're just
little kids and we think we have to assert ourselves against our
parents' will. It happens in life when we can't
take correction without defending ourselves when we're on the wrong
side of an issue, just because we're proud. I mean, there's
so many ways, but it's especially seen in our self-righteousness,
and that's what this psalm is dealing with here. The proud
who exalt themselves, who lift themselves up against the Lord,
against Christ. And this pride that he's speaking
about in this psalm is exemplified in the Scribes and Pharisees
in the New Testament. And so you can look at the New
Testament. In every gospel, the Scribes
and Pharisees are the hostile enemies to Christ and to his
people. And so you see this is not only
in the Scribes and Pharisees, but the place in Jerusalem where
the Old Testament, I mean, the people of Israel worshiped. That
synagogue is called the synagogue of Satan because it holds the
doctrine of man's free will and man's works in salvation. And so you can see that this
pride, it's seen in its ugliness in man who opposes Christ and
his saving grace for a poor people who are in themselves unable
to do anything toward their salvation and yet he saves them. But it's
also seen in its epitome in Satan himself, because the place of
worship where these self-righteous do assemble and worship is called
the synagogue of Satan. And so this psalm is against
them. It's against all pride, and we're going to see that in
a minute here. So there's nothing more unnatural to the natural
man than humility, because humility requires us to do the greatest
act of humility, and that is to reject our own self, our own
righteousness, and to lay hold on Christ alone. That's humility. That's the fear of the Lord.
It's seeing the utter depravity and the bankruptcy of my own
righteousness, and seeing Christ as the only righteous one, and
then clinging to Him and honoring Him. Nothing is more unnatural
to a natural man than to desire and seek the glory of Christ
alone. It's okay, somehow, if we can
share glory with Him, to the natural man, but to give Him
all the glory, that's completely unnatural to us. And that's why
grace comes in such amazing power, to subdue that unnatural, natural
man, and to cause us to bow to Christ in faith. Because that's
what faith does. It submits itself to Christ and
is glad, it's glad to do so. All right, so that's the overview
I wanted to give of the psalm. Let's look at verse one. He says,
unto thee, O God, do we give thanks, unto thee do we give
thanks, for that thy name is near, thy wondrous works declare. All right, I talked about that
humility. It's entirely impossible for
us to produce that humility in us. in ourselves. We cannot renounce
our own merit. We cannot renounce our own works. We can't make ourselves believe
that our works are full of sin. We just can't do that. It takes
the grace of God to do that. And that's the very issue, that's
the very issue that we face because, and you see this throughout Christ's
teaching. In Matthew chapter 7, for example,
he says, narrow is the gate that leads to life and salvation and
heaven, but broad is the way that leads to destruction. And
he goes on to give the example of those who will. without fail
appear before him and they will call recognition to their own
works, trusting their works that this should merit them entrance
into heaven, entrance into life and salvation. And the Lord says
to them, he's going to tell them they're workers of iniquity.
He never knew them because they didn't do the will of his father.
That's in Matthew chapter seven. That's just one sample of the
entire New Testament teaching on this matter of man's natural
opposition to Christ, and how it's not possible for us to change
our minds. And yet the Lord commands us
to repent, and to repent means just that. It means to change
our mind, to change the very part of us that we can't change,
to give ourselves to, as it says in Deuteronomy 30, to circumcise
your heart, but we can't circumcise it. So these things are said
there in the New Testament and here, but God's grace causes
us to do just that. It causes us to see the utter
emptiness of ourselves so that we have only one to look to. We don't have another, and that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this process of being
humbled by God's grace It's a blessed thing, isn't it? And so the Lord
joins that in prayer here in verse one, and he says, unto
thee, O God, do we give thanks. Notice, it's a we. And unto thee
do we give thanks. He repeats it. For that thy name
is near, thy wondrous works declare. Now, What is near? Well, what's near
is God's wondrous works and his name. But what is his name? Well,
the name of the Lord is just who he is. It's just a way of
referring to the Lord as in his true character, his essence,
and all of the perfections of his person. That's his name. And also it speaks of his wondrous
works and that his works declare this. He says, for thy name is
near, thy wondrous works declare. When we see God's works, we know
the Lord is near. And where do we see those works?
Well, first of all, what is God's name? God's name is Christ, Jesus,
the Lord. When we know his name, we know
the Lord. If you've seen me, Jesus told
Philip and Thomas, you've seen the Father. And in Acts chapter
four, verse 10 through 12, Peter tells those who were questioning
him and the apostle John about the man who was healed, who was
lame. He says, there's only one name under heaven, given among
men, whereby we must be saved, and that's the day by which this
man is made whole. And that name is Christ, Jesus,
the Lord. So, thy name is near is referring
to the Lord Jesus Christ, God's revelation of himself in his
son. And his works are near also. And so this is referring to the
person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? So he
says, there's three different ways we see God's works. We see
it in creation and in providence and in salvation. And here we
see that Christ is ever present in creation. I know, you know,
you go outside in the mornings in a spring day and you can't
help but your whole body responds in a way, takes the stress off,
doesn't it? Your shoulders lower and everything
just gets quiet and you're listening to the birds or whatever, the
blue sky, the fluffy clouds, it's all very pleasant, isn't
it? the Lord is present in creation. He made everything. He made them
for himself. He upholds everything in creation.
And that's by Colossians chapter 1. And God appointed him to do
that. He's the creator. Jesus Christ
is the creator. God created the world by Jesus
Christ. And so that's the first place
we see that the Lord is near, is in creation. But by nature,
we reject that, don't we? But when we're born of God, we
see it and we ascribe the glory to Christ for creation, don't
we? And then the second way that he nears in Providence, he orders
all things, doesn't he? Everything is ordered according
to His will and counsel and for His glory and for His people. Even the destruction of their
enemies is ordered for the exaltation of the Son of God. So everything
in Providence, whether it be what we would consider good or
what we would consider evil, is all according to God's perfect
will, Christ's. orders it according to his word
and by his power brings it all to pass. If he's the king and
the king rules over all things as he most assuredly does, as
scripture says he does, even principalities and powers in
heaven and in earth and under the earth, therefore he orders
everything according to his word and his will. And then most especially,
he's near in salvation. Remember in Romans chapter 10,
Paul the apostle quotes Moses from the book of Deuteronomy,
and I'll read that to you in Romans chapter 10. He says this,
he says, Moses describes the righteousness which is of the
law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
That's what the law says, do this and you live. If you don't,
you don't live, you die. But in verse 6, but the righteousness
which is of faith that's not the righteousness of the law,
it's the righteousness that's of faith, speaks on this wise,
say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven, that is to
bring Christ down from above, or who shall descend into the
deep, that is to bring up Christ again from the dead, but what
sayeth it, notice, the word is nigh thee, the word of salvation,
even in thy mouth, And in thy heart, that is the word of faith
which we preach. And then he goes on and he gives
us an account of the gospel. So, the gospel is in the mouth
of God's people and it's in their heart. It's very near to us,
isn't it? It's right there. It's not far
off. We don't have to say who's going
to get it for us way out yonder. No, it's been declared to us.
It's so near that the faith that God has deposited in our heart,
in the heart of a believing sinner, holds the truth of the gospel
of Christ forever. in their heart. That's how near
it is. It's near by that unfailing grace that gives us that faith
to hold on to Christ, clinging to him. We can't touch him, but
faith can. We can't see him, but faith does.
We can't hear him, but faith does, doesn't it? And that's
how near he is. It's the Lord speaking to us
in the gospel. When we hear his voice, then
we rise, don't we, from the dead. The dead shall hear the voice
of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. That's what
happens when we hear the gospel. And so it's very near. Okay? Then in verse 2 of Psalm 75,
he says, When I shall receive the kingdom, I will judge uprightly. Now, I'm sorry. When I shall receive the congregation.
Yes. We don't know the Lord when he
receives us, do we? We don't know him. In fact, we
receive Christ by his grace given to us. In John 1, verse 12, it
says, to as many as received him. We didn't know him. John
1, he says, he came to his own, his own didn't know him, didn't
receive him. He was in the world, the world was made by him, but
the world did not know him, but as many as received him. So we
didn't know the Lord, and yet we received him, and therefore
it was a reception given to us. He came to us, and he gave us
the grace to see him, to hear him, and to receive him. But
that means that he first received us, doesn't it? And that's the
wonder, I think. It's a wonder that we ever receive
Christ. That's a wonder of God's grace.
But I think it's a much greater wonder of His grace that He receives
us, isn't it? There's a verse in Romans chapter
15, Romans 15, verse seven. It says this, receive ye one
another as Christ also received us to the glory of God. That's phenomenal. Christ received
us, that's phenomenal, but that he would do it to the glory of
God. We're sinners. There's nothing
in us that Christ should receive, but he received us to the glory
of God because he bore our sins. He took us to himself in union
with himself, even before the foundation of the world, and
it was taking us to himself in love. He says in Ephesians 5,
Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. And that he's
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. So, obviously,
he loved the church before he was slain because he gave himself
for it. And obviously, if he was slain
from the foundation of the world, then he loved the church before
that time. So, it's an everlasting love
for his people. And that love speaks about his
love as being what cements us to Him. Nothing can separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, because it's
that bond of that union, which in Song of Solomon, chapter eight,
verse six says, love is stronger than death. So the love of Christ
is what cements and binds us to Him, and it's an everlasting
love, and it's that love that causes him to receive us, and
that's an amazing grace, isn't it? And he did this to the glory
of God. And it's this that he uses to
motivate us, to teach us. He said, you receive one another
as Christ received us to the glory of God. That's what he
says in Romans 15 verse 7. That's a blessed thing, isn't
it? What a gracious, what a blessed Savior that he would look upon
us who were so foul and revolting and nauseating to God and he
would love us because he saw us as those washed in his blood
and cleansed. and our sins removed and given
righteousness to appear before Him in all of the loveliness
of His own obedience and His own merits. That's a love, isn't
it, that we cannot comprehend. All right. So he's going to receive
the congregation. And when he received them, he
received them from his father, from eternity. They were given
to him by his father. And in time, when the Spirit
of God calls them, God the Father brings them to Christ. Remember
John 6, 44 and 45. They're taught of God. He draws
them to Christ. He gives it, God the Father gives
it to his people to come to Christ. He says in John 6.65 that no
man can come to me except it were given to him of my Father.
So this is the Father giving his people to Christ in time.
He gave them to him before time. Christ laid down his life according
to that gift. He received them from his father,
and he received them when the father drew them to him by his
spirit, when he effectually brought the gospel to them and called
them and translated them from the kingdom of darkness into
the kingdom of his dear son. He received them, and he received
them from his father. It's all grace, isn't it? You
can see that it's all magnificent, magnificent grace. And then he
says in the same verse, he says in verse 2, when I shall receive
the congregation, I will judge them uprightly. The Lord judges uprightly. Every time the Lord receives
his people, it's a judgment. He's judging them uprightly.
Remember the woman taken in adultery in John chapter 8? She was dragged
by her accusers into the presence of Christ. What did he do? He
defended her. He sent away her accusers. He said, I do not condemn thee.
That's the language of justification, isn't it? He received her because
he stooped. He stooped to answer God's law.
The first time he stooped was to accuse her accusers and to
send them away in their silence because their conscience convicted
them by his own words that he wrote on the ground. The second
time he stooped was to show that he had fulfilled that law in
answer to God in justice and fulfillment of righteousness
and so he stood up. And that standing up represents
his rising again from the dead in justification of his people.
But he was judging the woman, wasn't he? He judged her accusers,
but he judged her. In judging her accusers, they
were sent away in shame. But in judging her, he was justifying
her. You see his judgments? He judges
uprightly. Now when he judges the guilty,
it's easy to see that's upright, that's right. But it's harder
for us to believe that he's judging uprightly when he justifies sinners,
doesn't it? It's just too hard for us to
understand that. But we just take his word for it. We take
his word for it. By his blood he's justified us,
Romans 5 verse 9. As by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous." Romans 5 and verse 19. And in 2 Corinthians
5 it says, God has made him to be sin who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So Christ, by
taking us, receiving us from the Father, and bearing our sins
and bearing the punishment for our sins fulfilled righteousness
in order that he might give that righteousness to his people.
And it's no wonder then that he justifies us because that's
a true righteousness. That's the righteousness of God.
And this is what he accomplished when he was made sin by God,
and he took our sins and confessed them as his own, and did all
of this in obedience to God that establishes our everlasting righteousness. And so he gives us everlasting
life. We're joined to him. And so you can see here the Lord
judges uprightly, and that's a wonderful thing. The conscience
of his people is absolutely clear when they understand God justified
them. Remember Romans 8.33, who can
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justified. That should clear our conscience
right there. But he goes on to say, who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died. You see, so these things are
meant to give us great confidence in the Word of God and in the
Christ of God as our Redeemer who justified us by His precious
blood. All right, verse 3, Psalm 75, verse 3. He says, the earth
and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved, I bear up the
pillars of it." Now, unless Christ is God, he could not bear up
the pillars of the earth, could he? No one can bear the pillars
of the earth except God. But he is God, and that's what
we see here in our mediator, is that he's God himself. Not
only that, but Christ upholds God's covenant for his people.
Only God can do that. Only God can fulfill His promises.
And Christ is the Son of God, so He does that for them. Everything
that we touch is polluted by our sin. And since the earth
was put in subjection to man, when man fell in sin, what happened
to the earth? Well, it was made subject to
vanity. Romans chapter 8 talks about that. In Romans chapter
8 it says, creation groans. because creation was made subject
to vanity. But when the manifestation, when
God reveals his sons at the second coming of Christ in the resurrection,
then we see him, then we're like him, and all of creation then
will also be liberated because the creation that was subjected
to sinful men had to be cursed. But the creation that's going
to be subject to the sons of God is going to be liberated
with them. And so it's also set free. And
so that's also here intended. When the Lord receives the congregation,
he bears up the pillars of the earth. The earth would be wasted
in vanity. But you see, God determined before
to give a kingdom to a people chosen in Christ. And therefore,
the earth itself is delivered from the bondage of corruption.
Because Christ redeemed his people, he redeemed everything that belongs
to his people. This is a very important principle.
When the Lord Jesus Christ bought his people, he didn't just buy
their souls. He bought their bodies, but he
didn't just buy them. He bought also everything that
belonged to them. And read Ruth chapter two through
four, and you can see this in the picture of Boaz, the Redeemer. When he bought Ruth, he said,
let it be known today that I'm buying everything that belonged
to Elimelech. and I'm gonna buy Ruth too, her
lands and her, and she's gonna be my wife, and all of her children
will be my children. You see, this was such a picture
of Christ purchasing his people. When He gave Himself for them,
He not only obtained for us an eternal redemption, but everything
was His by the purchase of His blood. Everything in creation,
everything in heaven and everything in earth belongs to the Lord
Jesus Christ by virtue of what He did as our Redeemer. Everything
is given to Him. God is, He's the heir of all
things. He inherits everything, not only
because He's the Son, but because of His redeeming work as the
surety and the redeemer and the mediator. So this is fantastic,
isn't it? Everything that belongs to His
people is going to be redeemed, their body, their souls, and
the earth itself. And everything that's opposed
to them is going to be brought to desolation, which is Satan
and his kingdom. All right, let's go on to verse
four of Psalm 75. He says, I said to the fools,
deal not foolishly, and to the wicked, lift not up the horn.
Now, as I said before, fools here means those who are boastful. and who rage in their pride. That's what the word literally
means, boastful, raging, in pride. Again, the scribes and the Pharisees
were set up by God as an example of this. And you can think of
many people in scripture who are like this. Remember Cain?
God told him, if you do well, you'll be accepted. But he didn't. He said, no, no, I'm not going
to. He went out and killed his brother,
Abel. And why? Because God accepted Abel out
of pure grace for the sake of the sacrifice for Christ's sake.
But Cain wouldn't have Christ. He would not submit himself to
God's way to the Father. He wouldn't. He had to come by
his own works and his own will. And so he was rejected and he
killed Abel. And then after that he told the
Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Because that's
what the blindness of the natural man produces, is this antipathy,
this hostility towards God, this accusation that God is unjust,
and he's austere, he's too strong and mean, he's just a bully. That's the way the devil would
accuse God to us. But that's not the case. He's
full of compassion. But Cain never thought, it never
entered into his mind to ask God for mercy, because he rejected
Christ. So he rejected his own mercy.
And so, but that's just one example. There's so many other in scripture.
There's Pharaoh. There was Nebuchadnezzar, all
these men in scripture that were set up as examples of pride.
And the scribes and the Pharisees were just like that too. And
so he says this, I said to the fools, deal not foolishly, Don't
imagine that you have strength and power against God, against
his son. Remember Psalm 2? He said, kiss
the son lest he be angry with you and you perish when his wrath
is kindled but a little. Man has no power. Man has nothing
that God didn't give to him. His life is like a vapor, James
4.14 says. And his life is short. It's like
the wave of the sea. You see it and then it's gone.
Our breath and our life are in the Lord's hands. We only live
by what He's given us. It says in Acts 17, He gives
to everyone life and breath in all things. So it's the most
unreasonable thing conceivable that we should be proud, and
yet that's exactly what we are by nature. Pride seems to dominate
everything we do. There's nothing more natural
for a natural man than pride, and that pride is just a high
opinion of himself and a low opinion of Christ. In other words,
it's idolatry. It's setting up ourselves in
self-worship, and it's this attempt to make God and all of God's
creation bow to us. That's what entitlement means,
this sense of entitlement. I deserve this. No, you don't.
Yes, I do. No, you don't. God says there's
none righteous. There's none that doeth good.
They're all gone out of the way, and the wages of sin is death.
No, you don't. You're a wretched man. but we
can't see that, can we? Pride blinds our eyes. Our opinion
of ourselves is that we have something, or we can do something,
maybe we can become something someday that God will accept,
but it's not. No, stop, don't be so foolish. you'll be foolish to your own
destruction. Look at 2 Timothy chapter 2. 2 Timothy, let's see if I can find
it here, chapter 2. He says in 2 Timothy 2 verse
24, The servant of the Lord must
not strive. Don't go about arguing and picking fights and having
doctrinal disputations that don't amount to anything. The servant
of the Lord must not strive. That's not the way that people
will be converted. He says, but be gentle unto all
men, apt to teach, patient. in meekness, instructing those
that oppose themselves, in pride, obviously, if God, peradventure,
will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
You see, there's that humility that we're so unnatural to us. God has to give us that acknowledging
of the truth, which is faith, faith in Christ. And that they
may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are
taken captive by him at his will. You see, pride, enslaves us,
doesn't it, to Satan? And when we're enslaved to Satan,
you know what? We don't know it. We're content to be slaves
to Satan. And pride continues to feed us
that we're doing what we want. Well, that's the problem. You're
doing what you want. You have no interest in Christ,
no thirst, no hunger for Christ or the glory of God. And so he
says all these things here. All right, look at verse five.
Lift not up your horn on high, speak not with a stiff neck.
Again, don't lift up yourself, don't stiffen your resolve and
your foolish, boastful foolishness. How often I have found myself
holding firm to what was false because to change my opinion,
would admit that I was wrong and foolish and deceived. You
see, this is just, it's a hateful thing, isn't it? And yet the
Lord has to save us from that. Verse six, for promotion cometh
neither from the east nor from the west nor from the south.
Promotion is God's alone to give. God sets up one and he puts down
another. Have you seen that? He says,
in fact, it's in verse seven, He says, God is the judge. He
puts down one and he sets up another. Now, men exalt themselves,
but that's always an empty badge. That's an empty crown, isn't
it? To exalt ourselves, to put the crown on our own head? No. What is the principle, the spiritual
physics, if you will, of the kingdom of God? Well, the spiritual
physics of the Kingdom of God is that whoever exalts himself
will be abased, and he that humbles himself will be exalted. That's
the physics. It's not in seeking our own honor. or seeking others to serve us
or to praise us. That's the epitome of the opposite. That's hostility against God
and Christ. But it's giving glory to Christ
alone. It's abandoning and forsaking
all confidence in self and receiving one another to the glory of God
as Christ has received us. So in this thing of putting down
one and setting up another, I want you to consider some of these
things. How can a proud sinner, how can a proud sinner be made
humble? Well, let me ask this question
first. What does it mean when the Lord says he puts down one
and he sets up another? Think about this. Adam was first,
and then Christ. Remember? Adam was first, and
then Christ. But Adam was mortal. He was subject
to death, and he was subject to falling in sin, wasn't he? And his life was temporary. But
he was first. He was the natural man. He was
of the earth. He was earthy. He was the first,
wasn't he? Who was the last? The Lord Jesus
Christ. Remember what Jesus said in the
New Testament over and over again. He says, the first shall be what? Last. And the last first. So this is God's way. This is
that spiritual physics that we realize in the New Testament.
It's the one who is the lowest that's made the highest. And
that's what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. He made himself a servant. He made himself a servant to
all of his people. And it wasn't because he would,
by that service, get something for it. But that was his very
heart and nature, to become a servant. When it hears, he that humbles
himself shall be exalted, or if you want to be great, then
make yourself a servant to all. He's not saying, okay, I know
you want to be great, and great is good, because the way you
get there is by first serving, then you'll be great. That's
the wrong attitude, isn't it? Christ became a servant because
he was great, and his service, his humility, exhibits his greatness,
doesn't it? It says forth the glory of his
grace. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor, that you through his poverty might be made rich. It was all in service to his
people and in glad service. So that's why he was so exalted.
It wasn't like he was like Satan. Satan would do everything to
get that highest place. That wasn't, he wasn't grasping
after equality with God. He was God, but he made himself
of no reputation. So that's the first thing. Adam
was first, but he was abased. Christ was second and last, and
he was exalted. Satan was abased. Christ was
exalted. And here's something else. Our
old nature is the oldest part of us, but the new nature which
Christ has created, we're created in Christ Jesus, that new man,
the old man is first, he shall be last. The new man, which is
Christ in you, the hope of glory, he shall be first. He'll have
the preeminence over the old man because in Christ we receive
glory with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's amazing, isn't it? So
we can see this, the first shall be last. Those who promote themselves,
the scribes and the Pharisees, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Cain
and all those, they were made last, weren't they? But God's
people, the poor, those made poor by God's grace, to see that
they have nothing but what they have in Christ, and they now
desire that he receive all the glory, That's being made first,
even though they were last. And now notice, this is all according
to God's eternal will, because God didn't do this as a secondary
thought. It was always His will to have
His people in Christ, to be exalted with Christ. But it was through
humility, wasn't it? All right, now it says in verse
eight, in the hand of the Lord is there is a cup, the wine is
red, it is full of mixture, and he pours out the same, but the
dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring them
out and drink them. So this cup, what is this cup? Well, he says
it's wine, the wine is red, and the word red there doesn't mean
red like the color of red, but it means a boiling foaming, scum
that comes on top of it when it's all mixed together and it's
done processing. And the Lord is referring here
to a wrath that's fully filled up and will be given to sinners
to receive it as the punishment for their sins. It's the wrath
of God. And where God's wrath is against
sin, there's sin, isn't there? And he's saying here that that
cup is going to be given to all the wicked of the earth. They'll
wring them out. They're going to drink it all. They're not
going to be able to say no. You're going to drink it all
the way to the dregs. But this also shows us that the
cup that the Lord Jesus Christ took was a cup that was God's
wrath poured into his soul because sin was made to be his. Our sins were made to be His.
There's no wrath of God where there's no sin, therefore the
cup was not only a cup of wrath, but a cup of Him bearing our
sins. And what could be more, what
is the least imaginable thing that the Lord Jesus Christ would
be made sin for us? The one who was holy, harmless,
undefiled, made sin for us. And in the prime of his life,
after living a perfect life, then made sin for us. All of
this is beyond our comprehension. It shows that he himself bore
our curse. He took the sting of death. and
sin with it, and he put them to death in his own death. And
then the last verse, it says, I will declare forever, I will
sing praises to the God of Jacob. It's not the last verse, but
it's one of the last verses. So here, God identifies himself
with his people. He will sing praises to the God
of Jacob. Notice, not just God, but the
God of Jacob. And remember Exodus 315, God,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, And
who was Abraham? Well, he was God's friend. He
believed God, remember? Abraham is put forward in the
New Testament as the man who believed God. And then Isaac,
the God of Isaac. Who is Isaac? Well, Isaac was
the son of promise. And then he says Jacob, he's
the God of Jacob. Well, now who is Jacob? Well,
Jacob was the scoundrel. He was the cheat, the deceiver.
And God takes these to His name. He makes them so much a part
of His name that if He lets His people fail or fall due to sin
or any other enemy, then His name suffers loss, and that's
not going to happen. God is the God of the believer,
chosen in Christ, who in themselves were sinful, Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. And so you see this in this verse
and he says he will declare this forever. I'll sing praises to
God forever and ever because he's a savior of sinners. And
this is what Paul said, I was set up as an example of all who
would believe after me and Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners. He was an antagonist against
the Lord. The last verse, all the horns
of the wicked I cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall
be exalted. The wicked are those who stand before God in themselves,
in their own works. The righteous are those God has
clothed in the righteousness of Christ. There's no other way
for a man to be righteous. There is no other way for a person
to stand before God and to be accepted except in the righteousness
of Christ. But if we stand before God in
our own works, no matter how good those works are, in our
estimation, then we are wicked. And there's nothing more wicked
than not submitting yourself unto the righteousness of God,
which is Christ, who fulfilled the law for his people, all those
who believe him. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Let's pray. Father,
thank you for your word that tells us of our savior, of his
great name, his wonderful person, and his glorious works, whereby
he saved us from our sins and delivered us from the death that
was due to us by taking our sin and that death upon himself and
drinking it to the dregs, removing the sting of death from us and
overcoming death itself in the grave and bringing us into the
liberty of sons of God, giving us his own spirit grace to believe
on him, to see him in his glory, and to trust him, and to praise
his name forever and ever. Lord, by your grace, cause us
to love him more today and tomorrow than we've ever loved him before,
to believe and rest in him, to his glory more today and tomorrow
than we've ever trusted him before. Help us to hunger and thirst
for none but Christ, and to be satisfied with none but him,
and to be completely satisfied with the Lord Jesus Christ. In
his name we pray. Amen.