All right, Psalm 72. I want to
read through up to the point where we're going to pick up
tonight. We spent a lot of time covering the overview of this
psalm and in the role the Lord Jesus Christ is assigned here
in this psalm as the king and the king's son. And then we moved
on to the judgments that are prayed for that would be given
to the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse one, give the king thy judgments,
O God, and thy righteousness to the king's son. He shall judge
thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgment. So
I want to pick up right there. He shall judge the people with
righteousness and thy poor with judgment. And then we'll move
on through the other verses of this psalm. Now, as we've discussed,
the judgments and the righteousness given to Christ are the things
by which God would rule his people were he to do that directly himself. But because the Lord Jesus Christ
is the mediator between God and men, then this is necessary that
God give him his mind and his will and his work. all these
things to do perfectly according to God's own mind and will and
work. The Lord Jesus Christ is able
to do that. He has the wisdom. He has everything
that God is because he is God and everything that we are in
this human nature in order for him to perform those assignments
that God has given to him to do. And so we see in these words,
number one, the blessing that God has given us that he would
give to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, his judgments and his
righteousness. And number two, that the way
that the Lord Jesus would rule over his people would be in judgment
and in righteousness and there would be no difference and then
if God himself ruled directly, except we have the Lord Jesus
Christ in our nature with all the mercy and compassion of a
man who knows our condition, our weaknesses, and our frailties
to rule over us. And so we're encouraged by this,
that God would find one so great and well suited to our needs,
perfectly suited that he would do everything that God requires
and do it all so that we would be given the salvation from our
enemies that is talked about here in this psalm and that we
so desperately need. Now, when it talks about the
judgments and the righteousness, it says in the second phrase,
give thy righteousness to the king's son. It means God's righteousness. It's clear that it's thy righteousness. Give thy righteousness to the
king's son. The righteousness of God is spoken
of in the New Testament. In Romans chapter 1 it says,
Paul the Apostle said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,
for it, the gospel, is the power of God unto salvation, for therein
the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. So the righteousness
of God is what's revealed in the gospel, and because his righteousness
is revealed in the gospel, he says that the gospel itself is
the power of God unto salvation. And then in the book of Romans,
the next couple of chapters are used to prove that there is no
righteousness among men. all have sinned. And the conclusion
of the matter in Romans 3, verses 10 through 12, is that there
is none righteous, none among men who are righteous. But then
in verse 21 of that same chapter, Romans 3, it says, but now the
righteousness of God is revealed and it's a righteousness that
is borne witness to by the law and the prophets. but it is a
righteousness of God and it's not by our keeping of the law
and the prophets. And so this righteousness that's
testified by God in the law and the prophets is called the righteousness
of God. And all of the prophets and all
of the law and the Psalms testify of this righteousness. And in
Romans chapter 3, that righteousness is given to us. He says, being
justified freely, in verse 24, being justified freely by His
grace, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. So we're justified by God's righteousness
and that righteousness is the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. So what we understand from Romans
chapters 1 through 3 and beyond those chapters is that the righteousness
of God is what Christ did in his redeeming work. So we could
put it very simply this way, the righteousness of God is what
God does. Whatever the Lord does is righteous. Psalm 145 and verse 17 says,
I'll read this to you so I don't misquote it. He says in Psalm
145, I'm turning there, in verse 17, he says, the Lord is righteous. in all his ways, and holy in
all his works." So whatever God does is righteous. It's clear
from that text of scripture. And this is the righteousness
that is given to the king. This is the righteousness that
is given to the king for the sake of his people. So the righteousness
of God is given to Christ for his people, and this is God's
work. It's God's work. That's what
the righteousness of God is. It's what God does. It's his
work. And so we understand this when
it says, give thy righteousness to the king's son. that it means
that God is giving to his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and who
is the son of David, the son of God, the son of man, that
he's given to the king's son, Christ, his work to do. And this is precisely what Jesus
said in the New Testament. For example, in John 4, 34, he
says, or actually even earlier than that, in Luke chapter 2,
at the end of the chapter, he says to his earthly parents,
he says, I must be about my father's business. I must be." So his
father's business was the work God gave him to do. And in John
4, 34, he spoke after his encounter with that woman at the well and
told his disciples, my meat is to do the will of him that sent
me and to finish his work. We could go on and on, quoting
these verses in the New Testament, that the work God gave Christ
to do is the work that he finished, and it is that work that is the
righteousness of God. Christ performed that work, and
he established, according to Daniel, chapter 9, verse 24,
an everlasting righteousness. And we understand that to be
an everlasting righteousness, because by that righteousness,
we're said in Romans 8.10, that the body is dead because of sin,
but the spirit is life because of righteousness. So life is
given to us because of righteousness, and that righteousness is Christ's
righteousness, which is the righteousness of God, which is the work God
gave him to do. And what he did is righteousness.
And then he says in Romans chapter 10 verse 4 that Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. So
the righteousness of God is his work which he gave Christ to
do and Christ did that work and established everlasting righteousness
by which we are given everlasting life and this righteousness is
the very righteousness given to all those that God would have
it given to, all those in Christ, and we know that they are Christ
and that they have his righteousness because they believe on him.
Romans 10, 4, again, that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. So now we see a lot here about
what is said in Psalm 72. God gave to his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, in our nature, a work to do. That work was to
save his people from their sins. In order to do that work, Christ
had to give himself. He had to lay down his life,
Remember John 10, verse 17 and 18? My father has given me a
commandment to lay down my life and to take it up again. That
was the work. And he finished that work. And having finished
that work, he made a purchase with his own blood. He purchased
the church with his own blood. And so later on, we read in Philippians
chapter two, for example, that he was obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. So the work that God, his father,
gave him to do, Christ was obedient, perfectly obedient, and fulfilled
all of it. There wasn't anything left out.
And having fulfilled it and completed it, he gave everything to his
people because of that work. God gave his people all of the
blessings of eternal life and eternal glory because of the
righteousness that Christ worked out. It was his obedience that
caused him to shed his precious blood, to sacrifice, to offer
himself to God in sacrifice for the sins of his people, a sacrifice
that he made in love. And you can read about that in
Ephesians chapter 5 verse 2 and Revelation 1 verse 5. Everything
Christ did, He did in love for His people, in love to His Father,
and that love compelled Him to obey His Father in perfect submission
so that He completed the work God gave Him to do. And that
is the righteousness of God. So back in Romans chapter 3 verse
24, being justified freely because of that righteousness, being
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. That's the work God gave him
to do, to redeem his people from their sins, from death, from
Satan, from everything, that because of their sins they had
sold themselves under. And this is a glorious thing.
Someone so capable, someone so wise, someone as capable as the
perfect man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we know that he completed
his work because God raised him from the dead. Romans 4.25 says
he was delivered for our offenses and he was raised again for our
justification. We know that his obedience in
shedding his blood justified as Romans 5.9 says, being now
justified by his blood. Then again in Romans 5.19 he
says, for as by one man One man's disobedience, many
were made sinners. Even so, by the obedience of
one, shall many be made righteous." So there you have it. And then
finally, in Romans chapter 5 and verse 20, he says, where sin
abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin has reigned
unto death, sin brought death because the wages of sin is death.
God pays his debtors what they owe, what he owes to them, and
that's death for sinning God renders to us in proportion to
our sins. But then he says, though as sin
has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign as a king,
sovereign, through righteousness unto eternal life, all by Jesus
Christ our Lord. So you see the wonder here, and
no wonder back in Psalm 71, where we were before this psalm, it
says, I will go in the strength of the Lord God, I will make
mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only. There is
none righteous among men, but the Lord Jesus Christ is righteous.
the righteous. He says in 1 John 2 verse 1,
Christ Jesus the righteous. So what a wonderful blessing
it is here that God has given his son his righteousness, his
work to do, the work he completed, which is our righteousness, our
redemption, which he accomplished when he offered himself to God.
This is the way he sanctified his people. This is the way he
perfects his people. It's through his obedience in
offering himself. All right, so I want to go on
then in verse, let's see now where I'm at, in verse two. So as God will
give his judgments and his righteousness to Christ, even so the Lord Jesus
perfectly judges his people in righteousness by all that, by
his judgments and by his righteousness, by God's righteousness. And when
we think about that, We see then that everything Christ did and
does, everything the Lord Jesus Christ does and gives to his
people, he gives them out of this righteousness, out of these
judgments. And so we see then that, for
example, God justifies his people freely because of Christ's righteousness. And all of this then fits together
from the revelation given in the New Testament of the Lord
Jesus Christ and his accomplishments and his complete and perfect
fulfilling of God's will by which he saved us from our sins. That's
why he came. He became lower than the angels
for a while in order that he might taste death for every son
and bring every son to glory. That's it. That's the work God
gave him to do. He will bring every child of God, every one
of his sheep, all those given to him by the Father, his brethren,
his church, his bride. his congregation. He'll bring
them all, those he sanctified by his blood. He'll bring them
to glory. Not one of them will be lacking. And this is the way
he reigns. He shall judge thy people with
righteousness and thy poor with judgment. So our all-blessed
Savior, by his life and death and resurrection for his people
and by his reign over all angels and devils and men and everything
in creation, shall save his people from all of their enemies. This
is the way he does it in righteousness because he fulfilled, because
he accomplished the work. He didn't, as I was, I think
I was saying on Sunday, I can't remember for sure, he didn't
go out with a big hammer or a nuclear bomb to overthrow his enemies.
He did the will of God. He obeyed in all things. He submitted,
he gave himself. He gave Himself in self-sacrifice
and in love for His people who were sinners in order to glorify
His Father and magnify His justice and His law and fulfill His righteousness
and to make known His grace and to make known His truth and all
these things. This is what Christ came to do and this is the way
He overthrew our enemies. The Lord Jesus Christ will be
successful. He'll present his people to himself in the presence
of God. He shall present his people to
God himself and they shall be there in the presence of God
without any shame and without any blame. In Jude chapter, there's
only one chapter, but in Jude verse 24 he says, Now unto him
that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. To the only
wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power
both now and ever." And to all that, the church says, Amen. Amen. Let it be so, even as the
Lord has said, truth, this is what we want. And that's the
right that we want to be brought about. And so that's what Psalm
72 is saying. Then in Psalm 72 and verse 3,
it says, the mountains shall bring peace to the people, and
the little hills by righteousness. Again, we have this righteousness
being mentioned here, just like the apostle Paul loved to talk
about the righteousness of God, which Christ worked out for his
people. So, consider now these mountains
and the hills. Now, I've noticed this, that
God often, as he does here, speaks by comparisons. He uses familiar
things, things familiar to us, that are earthly to illustrate
his truth, which is spiritual. And that comparison that he makes
with those earthly things makes the truth come alive to us. Just
like when you read a children's book to a child and it has pictures
on the page, it helps the child to understand what's being said
and it captures their attention. We are children. Physical things
we know and welcome in this world point us to spiritual things
by the Word of God. Spiritual things teach us by
these spiritual things in God's Word. Christ teaches us to to
welcome more in comparison than we welcome the physical things
that we're familiar with. We understand physical blessings.
We receive them every day and we tend to take them for granted,
don't we? And God uses our comfort by that
familiarity with these physical things and are delighted in those
physical things, to open our eyes to things that are much
greater, they're unseen, and much more to be desired and to
be delighted in, which are spiritual blessings. So here This is what
the Lord is doing here. He's using physical things that
are familiar to us, things that we enjoy, things that we look
upon with delight, mountains and little hills. The mountains
here and the little hills are said in this verse, verse three,
to bring peace to the people. But literal mountains and physical
hills are not intended here. It's not that the mountains and
the hills are going to actually bring the peace. What is meant
by these comparisons are God's messengers. that are sent to
us from Christ who proclaim the gospel of Christ across the entire
world. So it says in Isaiah 52 verse
7, he says, now notice how it says this here, how beautiful
upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings,
that publishes peace, that bring good tidings of good, that publishes
salvation, that says to Zion, thy God reigneth. This is a very
significant verse to understand Psalm 72 verse 3, because it's
talking about Christ's messengers being sent and their feet are
beautiful because of the gospel they bring, and they walk on
the mountains that cover the territory Christ has given to
them to go and preach the gospel to people who are far off, even
on mountains and hills. And the message is salvation. They publish salvation. And in
that message, they say the same thing, Psalm 72 is, thy God reigneth. And they say this to Zion. He
says, say to Zion, thy God reigneth. Of course, the God who reigns
is not only God the Father, but the Lord Jesus Christ. He reigns.
He must reign. According to 1 Corinthians 15,
he must reign. And this message, the gospel,
the good tidings that they bring, of course, is expounded in Isaiah
53, which is the gospel. It's about Christ's sufferings
in our place under the wrath of God and delivering us from
that wrath and delivering us from our sins because he was
made an offering for sin for us. And so his success in offering
himself for our sins, having taken our sins away, that's the
gospel. Such that Romans chapter 10 refers
to that very chapter and it says that the Jews, the unbelieving
Jews, did not believe the gospel. They have not obeyed the gospel. The gospel meaning what is spoken
of in Isaiah 53, Christ's substitutionary work. to save his people from
their sins, bearing their sins instead of them, bearing God's
wrath against them for their sins instead of them bearing
it. Him rising from the dead and they rising with him so that
all of sin and death and Satan are defeated and overthrown by
the Lord Jesus Christ in his own sacrifice for their sins. in obedience to God. That's the
gospel. And the Jews were not obedient. And it says, and in
Romans 10, 16, and 17, he goes back to Isaiah 53, and he quotes
it. He says, they have not all obeyed
the gospel, for Isaiah said, Lord, who hath believed our report? And that was from Isaiah 53,
verse one. So you can see here that the
report, the gospel, the good news, is about Christ and him
crucified, as Isaiah 53 prophesies, and with certainty that he shall. That he was, for the transgression
of my people, was he stricken, it says in Isaiah 53, verse 8.
So all of this is the same message that Isaiah 52 7 is talking about,
these who bring the gospel. And this began with the Lord
Jesus himself. Remember in Luke chapter 4 verse
18, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor. And then it wasn't him only,
but here in Isaiah 52, 7, it says, blessed how beautiful upon
the mountains are the feet of him, plural, I mean singular,
the feet of him that brings good tidings. So Christ first, but
in Romans 10, verse 15, he talks about them. It's a plural there. So we understand then that the
Lord Jesus Christ first, then his apostles, and every gift
As he says in Ephesians 4 verses 8 and following, every gift that
Christ from his ascended, exalted throne and glory has given to
his church, the apostles and prophets and preachers and teachers,
all these are given for the perfection of the church, that they would
all come into the unity of the faith and the understanding of
Christ as he's given to us in the gospel. And so what we see
here then is that in verse 3 of Psalm 72, the mountains shall
bring peace to the people on the little hills. By righteousness,
he's referring to those who come on the mountains and the gospel
given to them by Christ who reigns, and Christ himself bringing that
gospel in his own time on earth, his own earthly ministry. All
right, I hope that makes sense to you now. So what is meant
by the mountains and little hills, therefore, is that under Christ's
sovereign rule of grace, he declares to his people, which are Zion,
that he saves his people from their sins and that he reigns
over all things in heaven and earth, because thy God reigneth,
he reigns for them And from his throne he sends to them the news
of his salvation of them, and all of this is for their peace.
And that's what it says here. The mountain shall bring peace
to the people and the little hills by righteousness. So that
the gospel, as we know, is called the gospel of peace, the gospel
of peace. And back to Romans 1.16, Paul
was not ashamed of the gospel, because it's the power of God
unto salvation to everyone that believeth, for therein is the
righteousness of God revealed. All right. Now, I want to go
on to, oh, actually I do want to cover something else. There's
peace because of this righteousness. Let me give you a verse in Isaiah
32. I might have given this to you
already once before, but I want to mention it again because I
don't remember. Isaiah 32 and verse 17 says,
the work of righteousness, the work of righteousness shall be
peace. I'll just let those words soak
in for a while. What Christ has done to fulfill
the will of God in the offering of himself for our sins, in sanctifying
us by his own blood, in forever perfecting us by that one offering
of himself, that brings peace. In other words, it's what Christ
did that brings peace to us. He says the work of righteousness
shall be peace, And then in Isaiah 32, he goes on, and the effect
of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever. The objective
peace or the objective righteousness and peace that Christ made in
his blood has an effect on us. And that effect on us is this
quietness. We no longer are thrashing about
in our own attempts to either hide our sins or hide from God
or produce the righteousness required just to stand before
God or to wash away our sins. None of those things are things
that we're working to accomplish. We see it accomplished in Christ
and we rest in what he's done. And that effect on us is quietness
and assurance forever. All right, so this is what the
Lord is teaching us. We have peace with God, peace
because Christ has overcome our enemies, our sin has been taken
away, righteousness has been given to us, we've been clothed
completely in the beauty of Christ before God, and the Lord himself
says, I see no spot in thee. Thou art all fair, my love, I
see no spot in thee. That's from Song of Solomon,
chapter four and verse seven. All right, so you see this echoed
again, this peace that comes by righteousness being justified
by faith. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. Now I want to talk just a brief
moment about the differences between what we call subjective
faith and what we call objective faith. And this is important.
I've said this before, this is not new, but subjective faith
is our act of believing and trusting Christ. It's never perfect, is
it? The poor father whose son was
tormented by a devil when Jesus said, if you can believe, all
things are possible to him that believeth. And he cried out,
Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. So our
faith is never perfect. The disciples in Luke 17 5 prayed
that the Lord would increase their faith. So Christ has to
give us more and more. He has to increase it. It's never perfect
in this life. We do believe on Christ, and
that is the gift of God. And even though our subjective
faith, that act of trusting Christ, and our perception, that God-given
perception, that Christ is enough, and that persuasion that comes
over us when we understand from the gospel that everything that
would give us boldness in the presence of God is found in the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. His offering of himself in sacrifice
in obedience to God which God provided and accepted for us
and raised him from the dead and this is all of our salvation.
So that That persuasion, that perception of that, that act
of embracing and trust, all those things are described as what
we call subjective faith. That's our act of believing.
And it is ours, but God gives it to us. It's God who works
in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. So that
faith we have is because of God's work in us. But what I want to
point out here is that it's not our subjective faith that is
the cause of our salvation, but our subjective faith is the effect
of Christ's righteousness and his redeeming work. So what we
do in believing is we are seeing with God-given spiritual eyes,
and with God-given persuasion, and with God-given trust, we're
laying hold of and holding and clinging fast to the truth revealed,
and that truth itself is the objective truth. That's what's
called the faith of God's elect. in Titus chapter 1 and verses
1 and 2. And that's the faith that saves.
It's the objective truth. It's the objective accomplishments.
It's the objective fact that Christ's blood has redeemed us
from our sins. That's the objective faith. So
what's the difference then? You hear this question raised
sometimes. What's the difference between faith that saves, or
saving faith, and faith that does not save? Well, it's as
simple as this. Faith that saves, saving faith,
holds the correct objective faith as its object of faith. In other
words, we look to Christ alone. And because Christ is able to
save, because he is the only Savior, and he's able and has
accomplished the work, therefore we come to God by him. We don't
look to our confidence as our confidence in coming. We look
to Christ as all of our confidence in coming to God. And so I mention
that because this This faith that we have, we're justified
by faith in Romans 5.1. This faith is the faith that's
given to us to see that Christ is all in our salvation and not
our subjective faith. And we can see then that our
subjective faith is the result of His work, which is the objective
truth and the object of our faith, Christ and Him crucified. I hope
that helps. Now, in Psalm 72, in verse 4,
he says, he shall judge the poor, the people, he shall save the
children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. The poor and the needy. Now,
four times in this Psalm, God's people are called poor and needy. To be poor is to have nothing.
Nothing spiritual. Nothing to pay. No spiritual
money we can use to buy forgiveness or obtain righteousness from
God. Nothing that God could credit to us for anything. We're spiritually
bankrupt. We have no spiritual or heavenly
blessings of our own. We don't bring anything in our
hand because we have nothing to bring. If we brought anything,
it would be rejected. It would be utterly condemned,
as it says in Song of Solomon. If a man were to give all the
substance of his house for love, it would be utterly condemned. You can see that in Song of Solomon,
chapter 8, verses 6 through 8. But here, the poor and the needy
are those who are in need. Now, Jesus pointed this out in
Matthew, chapter 9, verses 11 through 13. The Pharisees saw
that Christ allowed and even ate with publicans and sinners,
and they spoke against him for that. And Jesus said, It's not
the healthy, it's not those who are whole that need a doctor,
a physician, but the sick. And I came to, not to call the
righteous, that would be like the healthy people, but sinners,
the sick, to repentance. In other words, Christ came to
save sinners. And those who need a doctor are sinners. Those who
need the doctor of our souls are sinners. And so the poor
and the needy, then, are those who need Christ, who is rich
in mercy. When sin is all of our fault,
then mercy is incredibly sweet to us, isn't it? It's something
we have to have. We have to have righteousness.
If we have no righteousness, we hunger and thirst for it.
And when we learn that it's in Christ alone, we hunger and thirst
even more to have His righteousness as all and our only righteousness. All right, so Christ is the physician,
and he will judge the poor, the people. He will save the children
of the needy. He shall break in pieces the
oppressor. Now, who is the oppressor? Well,
Satan is the oppressor, and Christ broke Satan's dominion in pieces. He will break in pieces the oppressor. And it says in Revelation 20
that Christ is going to destroy Satan and his kingdom by throwing
them into the lake of fire at the end of time. And Christ also,
it says in 1 John 3, verse 8, this is the reason he was revealed,
manifest, was that he should destroy the works of the devil,
which is our sin and which is death and everything that comes
because of our sin. Also, it says in Revelation chapter
12, and verses 10 through 11, that the Lord Jesus Christ cast
Satan out of heaven. And so we can see that he came
to destroy the works of the devil. He cast Satan out of heaven.
At the last, he will cast Satan and his kingdom into the lake
of fire. And we also learn that the Lord Jesus Christ, when he
came to the earth, the spirit of God sent him into the wilderness,
actually drove him into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. But
in that temptation, the Lord Jesus Christ commanded Satan
to depart from him and he departed because Christ had the victory. The second man, the second Adam,
Christ, the Lord from heaven, obtained the victory over Satan
in his temptations, unlike the first man. So that also was a
victory. And then while he was on earth,
the Lord Jesus Christ sent his disciples and they returned after
he sent them. They said, Lord, even the devils
are subject to us. And then Jesus said, I beheld
Satan fall as lightning from heaven. So he referred to his
victory over Satan that would be accomplished in his death.
In John chapter 12 and verse 31, he says this about his coming
death on the cross. He says, now Is the prince of
this world judged? Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. You see that? And what was the
reason for that? Christ going to the cross. So
in all these things, we want to see clearly that the oppressor
here is Satan himself, and the Lord Jesus Christ cast him out.
And I think I mentioned this also, but I want you to see the
contrast here between the way in which Christ overcame Satan
and the way in which Satan usurped his authority to rule over men
by their sin. We know that Satan is the deceiver.
He's a liar from the beginning, Jesus said. He did not abide
in the truth. And so he's a deceiver. He's
the father of lies. But who is the Lord Jesus Christ?
Christ is the truth. Remember, I am the way, Jesus
said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Now, we also know
this, that by his deception, Satan murders. In fact, he was
a murderer from the beginning, Jesus said. And yet, in contrast
to that, the Lord Jesus Christ is life, and he gives life to
the dead. He's the resurrection and the
life, so completely opposite. And this is the way he overcame
and broke in pieces the oppressor. Now we also know this, that Satan
seized what was not his unlawfully. He took it away, but Christ,
according to Psalm 69, 4, restored what he did not take away. Let
me just go on with these things that I was considering as I was
thinking about this particular verse. Remember how Satan rebelled
against God? And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
humbled himself and submitted himself to God in all things
and committed himself in everything God would have him to do. It
didn't matter what was going to come, he committed himself
to God to do it, and he put himself in the hands of his God and Father,
trusting himself. It says in Psalm 22, verse 8,
that he rolled upon Jehovah. The word trusted in Psalm 22,
verse 8, really just means rolled upon Jehovah. It's a very graphic
picture of what trust means. That's what Christ did, unlike
Satan, who rebelled. In rebellion, instead of submission,
Christ gave himself in total submission and trust. Satan sought
through his wickedness to enrich himself, but the Lord Jesus Christ,
out of his riches, he humbled himself. You know the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor, that we, through his poverty, might be made rich.
This was entirely the opposite, of course, of what Satan did.
Satan was but a created spirit, and that spirit, who was created
by Christ, exalted himself. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
the creator, God over all, and he humbled himself, he made himself
of no reputation. Satan afflicts Christ's people
with fear of death to hold them in bondage and stir up their
terror, their cavil fear, their slavish fear of Christ, and they're
accusing him in their conscience and therefore hating him, like
the man Jesus said, was given one talent, but hid it in the
earth. And when his Lord came back to him and asked him what
he did with it, he said, well, I was afraid because I knew you
are an austere man. You take up what you didn't lay
down. You reap what you didn't sow. So I hid it in the earth.
And the Lord said to that man, he says, thou wicked servant,
thou wicked servant, you knew that I take up what I didn't
lay down and reap what I didn't sow. Why didn't you give that
talent to the lenders so that you could at least get interest
on it? And so he said, the Lord judged
that servant. And that's what happens. Because
of Satan's deception, he accuses to us, he accuses Christ as being
someone we should be against. And by nature, we're all on board
with that. But the Lord isn't like that
at all. He doesn't hold that over us.
In fact, he opens the eyes of the blind. He releases us from
the bondage of Satan. He preaches the gospel and convinces
chosen sinners of His righteousness that He established and God accepted,
and with His own judgments that He accomplished at the cross
over our sin and Satan. That's what Christ does. He does
everything for His people, and He doesn't cause us to hate and
slavishly fear God, but He causes us to love Him and reverence
Him. And then also Satan sought to exalt himself above God, but
the Lord Jesus Christ lived and died for one reason, to glorify
his father. Satan's great purpose was to
destroy Christ and his people, but the Lord Jesus gave himself
and he lives again to save his people from all their sins and
death that all came by Satan. So here we have our Redeemer. All right, let me see, just checking
time. Let me go to verse five. He says in verse five of Psalm
72, they shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure throughout
all generations. He's talking here about the poor
and the needy. He said in verse four, he shall
judge the poor, the people, he shall save the children of the
needy and shall break in pieces the oppressor. Then he says,
they shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endures throughout
all generations. So here he's speaking about this
fearing of Christ throughout all of time. Throughout all time,
the sun and the moon, as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout
all generations. Now, they, therefore, refers
to thy people. Notice how he says in verse four,
he shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children
of the needy and break in pieces, they shall fear thee as long
as the sun and moon endure throughout all generations. And in verse
two, he shall judge thy people. He's talking about the Lord's
people here. Those are the they in verse five. And they are the
poor and the needy, right? They're the ones that Christ
will deliver from the oppressor. Now, these are the ones who are
going to fear the Lord. What does it mean to fear the
Lord? I have to admit, this is one of those ubiquitous phrases
in scripture that seems elusive to understand. And I don't know
why that is. I think it's because there's
this contrast made between the fear that ungodly men have of
God, which is terror, and the fear that God's people have,
which is not terror. In 1 John chapter 4, he says
that perfect love casts out all fear. And there's no fear in,
how does he say that there? In 1 John chapter 4 is where
I'm referring to now, he says in verse, 18, there is no fear in love, but
perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He
that feareth is not made perfect in love. So you can see here
that the love of God, which is towards his people, God loves
his people. This is a fundamental truth in
scripture. His love is unchanging. It has
no beginning, it has no end. It's never taken back. It doesn't
increase or decrease. It's in Christ. It's everlasting,
from everlasting to everlasting. And it is a saving love. And
God loves his people. He does not love all people. Because He doesn't save all people.
If God loves a people, He saves them. And His love never changes.
He doesn't love those who are in hell. Otherwise, God's love
would have some change to it. But God's love doesn't change.
Because God's love is in Christ. And that's what is taught throughout
the New Testament. There's no fear in love. There's
no fear in the love of God. And if you go back to 1 John
4, he tells us what the love of God is. It's the love that
sent His Son that we might live by Him. Verse 9, and this was
manifested, the love of God toward us, because that God sent His
only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him.
That's love. Love that gives life. And verse
10, herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved
us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. The
love of God made propitiation for our sins. I know that free
will works religion, teaches that God loves everybody, Christ
died for everybody, which would require them to also admit that
Jesus made propitiation for the sins of those who die in hell. And what does that mean? That
means that the propitiation Christ made wasn't true, because their
sins are still there and they have to bear eternal wrath for
those sins. So, getting back now to what
does it mean to fear the Lord? Well, it means to stand in awe
of him. In Psalm 33, we went over this
when, we went over Psalm 33, but I don't expect you to remember.
He says, by the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all
the host of them by the breath of his mouth. In verse eight,
let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the earth fear the Lord.
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. And then again in Psalm 89 and
verse 7, God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the
saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him."
So reverence and awe, that's what it's talking about, this
fear of the Lord. And it's the same fear that a
son has for his father. And that's not the kind of fear
that strikes terror, but it is a fear that produces trust. And
this is really important for us to understand. In Psalm 31.9
it says this, Oh, how great is thy goodness which thou has laid
up for them that fear thee, which thou has wrought or worked out
for them that trust in thee before the sons of men. You see how
God puts fear that's in the hearts of his people, on the same plane,
if you will, or in the same equation that he puts trust, because godly
fear causes us to trust in Christ. the honor and the worship that
men owe God the Father shall be given to Christ, and that
is God's will. So how do we fear him? How do
we fear the Lord? Well, we fear the Lord when we
fear to be found by God in ourselves and in our sins and not in Christ. We don't want to be found in
our sins or in ourselves. We want to be found in Christ.
That's what the fear of God produces in a believer. We fear the Lord
when we fear being found in our own works, in our own righteousness,
instead of only in Christ's works and His righteousness. We fear
the Lord when Christ is our only hope. and our trust in our conscience
and in the day of judgment. That's true fear. Why is that
true fear? Because true fear of God honors
God according to truth. The fear of God causes us to
fear not being aligned with the truth, the mind of Christ, which
is what? The gospel. And so we fear the
Lord to hold our own views. We fear to trust anyone but Christ
alone. And we fear to not love his gospel. We fear to have any view of righteousness
but his view of his righteousness and his judgments that save sinners.
In other words, we fear not to have the mind of Christ. We want
to see things like he sees things and believe what he says, don't
we? This is something that God has put in the hearts of his
people. He shall put it in our hearts,
he says in the New Covenants, to fear him. So we see here that
we could distill it down this way. If we truly fear the Lord
by His grace, then we're going to trust Christ for everything. We're going to trust Him for
our salvation. In spite of our sin, we're going to confess our
sin to God, looking to Christ. We fear not to, because to do
so would be to alienate ourselves from the truth. to be hide from
God. And every time I feel that tendency
in myself to hide, I think, I don't want to do that. I want to be
completely transparent and come to the Lord in this confessing
and looking to Christ. So to think or to imagine or
trust or hope anything or anyone, but Christ is to not fear the
Lord, but to call on Christ. to save me and to trust him and
honor and love him. That is the fear of the Lord,
isn't it? And true fear of the Lord submits to Christ willingly
and gladly in all things because submission to Christ is the fruit
of faith. There is a fear of man, but it's
not the fear of God. And there's a bondage of fear
in the fear of death. And there is also a fear that
casts out all other fears, and that's the fear of the Lord in
trusting Christ. What a wonderful thing it is
here. The promise is made, they shall fear as long as the as
the sun and moon endure throughout all generations. And so that's
God's promise. The God's people throughout all
time are going to come to trust Christ. And that's the result
of this godly fear that he has instilled in their hearts. A
blessing of the new covenant. And I want to pick it up next
week in verse six. We'll pick up here in verse six
next week and try to finish this psalm next week. Let's pray.
Father, we pray that you would give us such a heart to love
the Lord Jesus Christ because we would see from the gospel
that you've revealed that he is all truth and all grace and
all righteousness and all that is required to save us from our
sins, to save us from our sins to the uttermost and bring us
to God so that to the uttermost you will show yourself to be
almighty, to save your people from their sins, the very thing
that would separate us you have taken upon yourself to deliver
us from. We did it, it's our fault, we
have no strength against it, and we can do nothing about it,
but you delivered us by your will, a will established from
before time began, a will that will be completed without fail
in all things, because the Lord Jesus Christ is the King of glory. You've given your judgments and
your righteousness to him, and we trust him. Thank you for this
grace, in his name we pray, amen.