Alright, Psalm 65. I want to
read this together with you. There's actually a hymn. I had
to look it up today to confirm that it was not just something
I had made up in my head and that hymn is the first The title
of the hymn is the first words of this psalm. Praise waiteth
for thee, O God, in Zion. So you can look that up on your
own. Praise waits for thee, O God, in Zion. And see if you can find
that hymn and listen to it. And maybe you will benefit from
that as well. So the first verse opens up.
Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion. And unto thee shall
the vow be performed. O thou that hearest prayer, unto
thee shall all flesh come. Iniquities prevail against me. As for our transgressions, thou
shalt purge them away. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest, and cause us to approach unto thee that he may dwell in
thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. By terrible
things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our
salvation, who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth,
and of them that are afar off upon the sea, which by his strength
setteth fast the mountains, being girded with power, which stilleth
the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult
of the people, They also that dwell in the uttermost parts
are afraid at thy tokens. Thou makest the outgoings of
the morning and evening to rejoice. Thou visitest the earth and waterest
it, thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which
is full of water. Thou preparest them corn, when
thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof
abundantly, Thou settest the furrows thereof, or settlest
the furrows thereof, Thou makest it soft with showers, Thou blessest
the springing thereof, Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness and
Thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of
the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side.
The pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are
covered over with corn. They shout for joy, they also
sing." And those are the 13 verses of this psalm. Now, in this psalm, the first
part is a little bit, there's a couple of ways to understand
this, because the phrase, praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion,
is a phrase that has a word in it, translated wait, waiteth,
or is continually waiting. It also means silence. So another
translation reads it this way. To you, to the Lord, silence
is praise, O God. And it says, actually I'll read
it again. To you, silence is praise, O
God, in Zion. And then what's called the Young's
literal translation of the scripture reads it this way, to thee, silence,
praise, O God, is in Zion. So that's why I say that the
interpretation of this first verse causes us to have to consider,
really, what is the Lord saying here? Praise waits for God in
Zion, or To you, to thee, silence is praise, O God." In Zion. So, both of these cases, I think
we can understand it if we take it a little at a time. First
of all, Jesus Christ is our great God and Savior. He's called our
great God and Savior in the book of Titus. in chapter 1, in chapter
2, and in chapter 3. I will read these to you. You
can either listen or you can turn there. But in Titus chapter
1, get to that, he says this, He uses that phrase, our great
God and Savior. Titus chapter one of verse three,
God has in due time manifested his word through preaching, which
is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our
Savior. And then in chapter two of Titus,
in verse 13, he says, I'm sorry, in verse 10, he says, that servants
should not be purloining, which means to embezzle or to keep
back for themselves, not purloining, but showing all good fidelity
that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. And then chapter two of Titus
and verse 13, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious
appearing of the great God and our savior, Jesus Christ. So
Jesus Christ there is called the great God and our savior.
And then in chapter three of Titus, it says in verse four,
but after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward
man appeared. So in Titus, you can see the
apostle Paul frequently used that term, applied it to Christ
that he is our God and our Savior, our great God and Savior. And then in the book of second
Peter, chapter 1 and verse 1, the very first verse of 2nd Peter,
it reads this way, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus
Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through
the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. In the
King James it says, of God and our Savior. It actually has a
should be of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. And you can also
confirm that by looking at the literal translation of scripture.
So in all these cases, we can see that in Psalm 65, when it
says, Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion, he's referring,
really, to God our Savior. He's the one who is in Zion. Zion means the church. the people
of God, the elect of God, and those who are believers in Christ.
And so the church is the place where praise is given to God. It's not given from the world,
certainly. And the church is where Christ
is. He is in the church. It's his body. And we praise
God through Jesus Christ. In fact, in 1 Peter 2, verse
5, it says our praise is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
So, if we take these things, what we've just looked at, that
Jesus Christ is our great God and Savior, that only believers
in Christ can praise Him from the heart, they are the Zion,
and our praise is acceptable to God only in Christ, then we
can see that because God has saved us by Jesus Christ and
has saved us to the praise of the glory of His grace, therefore,
We better understand now, praise waited for thee, O God, in Zion,
or as the other translation is, to thee, silence is praise, O
God. So, what is the essence of true
praise to God? Isn't it heart praise? And isn't
it praise that is according to truth? And isn't that truth that
we praise God by the truth of his salvation? Jesus told the
woman at the well that God is a spirit, or God is spirit. He's not a spirit, he is spirit. And they that worship him must
worship him in spirit and in truth, and then And that was
in response to her question, should we worship God in this
mountain, or should we worship God in Jerusalem? And that's
when Jesus uttered those words, you don't know what you worship,
we know what we worship for, and how I want to underline this,
for salvation. is of the Jews. So the worship
of God arises in the hearts of God's people because of salvation. And of course, they worship the
Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, Thomas, when he saw
the nail prints And the wound in Jesus' hands and feet and
side, he said, my Lord and my God. That's worship. That is
praise to the Lord Jesus Christ for his salvation. Now, so the
essence of true worship then begins with silence. And I want
to take you to some scriptures that show this. In Ecclesiastes
chapter 3, remember how it opens to everything. There is a time
under heaven. There's a time to be born, there's
a time to die, and so forth. You remember that in Ecclesiastes
chapter 3, but in verse 7 it says there is a time to keep
silence. There's a time to speak and there
is a time to keep silence. Now, we are silent when we hear
what God says. It's like my dad or my mom, they
would give me instruction. If I was talking while they were
talking, I couldn't hear them. First thing we need to do in
order to hear is to be silent. So that's the first thing, is
that silence begins. I mean, our praise to God begins
with silence. Not only that, but silence is
our first response when we see the Lord Jesus Christ in His
glory. I already mentioned Thomas in
John chapter 20, verse 28. But remember how Job responded
when God asked him to answer God. Job said, I lay my hand
upon my mouth. I am not going to speak. That
was silence. In Isaiah chapter 6, it says
that Isaiah saw the Lord, meaning the Lord Jesus Christ, high and
lifted up, and his train filled the temple, and the seraphim flew, and they cried to one another,
holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. I think that's the way it's worded
there. And this is explained in John, the book of John, the
Gospel of John, that Isaiah saw Christ in His glory. So this
was a view, Isaiah was given, of Jesus Christ in His ascended
and exalted glory having accomplished our salvation. And what Isaiah
said at that time was, woe is me, W-O-E, woe. He pronounced a woe on himself.
He said, woe is me, I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips. So he had nothing important to
say, nothing valid to say because he saw the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then also in Revelation chapter one and verse 17, the apostle
John says, when he saw him, he fell at his feet as dead. And
then the Lord Jesus Christ laid his hand upon him and raised
him up and told him, peace be unto you. So these show us that
our first response to the revelation of Jesus Christ in our hearts
from the word of God and the gospel is silence. And that silence
is spoken of in Habakkuk chapter 2. He says, let all the earth
keep silence before him. The Lord is in his holy temple. Habakkuk 2 verse 20. Let all
the earth keep silence before him. That's the first response
of worship to God and of praise is silence. Now, since silence
is the appropriate response, at least initially, then we can
also say that silence is praise in this sense that our silence
really is necessary because there's no amount of our own thoughts
and words that can even come close. to appropriately speaking
or thinking what is true about God as He truly is. In other
words, all of our thoughts, all of our words, all of our songs,
everything that is... we could take our best thoughts
and our best words and songs and put it all together and it
would amount to nothing compared to the true character will, work,
word, and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's beyond description. In 2 Corinthians 9, verse 15,
it says, thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift, remember? And that unspeakable gift, of
course, is the Lord Jesus Christ, given, delivered up, and not
spared by God for our sins. And then also in Ephesians chapter
3, the Apostle Paul prays that God would make known to us the
length and breadth and height and depth of the love of Christ
which passes knowledge. And then immediately following
that prayer request, the apostle Paul says, now unto him who is
able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,
to him be praise and glory in the church. So this silence is
another way of saying that we cannot begin to describe God
as he truly is worthy to be given praise and described, because
God has to give that to us. And this gets us to the next
point, is that everything that we think, truly, I mean that
we correctly think about the Lord Jesus Christ, is given to
us. Remember, if you were I had heard
on Sunday in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, when we were talking just
this last Sunday, it says this. Let me read this to you. In 1
Corinthians chapter 2, it's a very blessed verse. It says, He says,
now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the
spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that
are freely given to us of God. So that's the first thing. And
then he said at the beginning, we have received the spirit,
not the spirit of the world, but the spirit of God, that we
might know the things that are freely given to us of God. And in the verse before that,
he says, Let me see. Oh, in verse 14,
I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians 2, he says, the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to
him. He can't know them because they're spiritually discerned.
So the Lord has to give us the words. He has to give us the
understanding. He has to give us grace in order
to praise him. So that's another reason for
our silence. We cannot speak until he gives
us the words to speak that are true words. And how does he do
that? Well, as I mentioned before,
it's in the knowledge of his salvation. It's in the knowledge
that comes to us from the gospel. It's through the gospel that
God reveals Christ and his saving work. in understanding by the
gift of the Spirit of God, knowing that and receiving that what
freely is given to us by God through Christ, we receive that
as from God by His Spirit to ourselves, then we have the substance,
the subject matter with which to praise God. We understand
because we have been given by God to know Him. There is a hymn
that we sing, O love that will not let me go, and in that hymn
it says this, I give thee back the life I owe. Another verse
says, my life restores its borrowed ray. And so that sentiment that
we have nothing with which to praise God because we're ignorant,
we don't know it, God has to give it to us, and that, he gives
it to us by his spirit, and it's what he gives to us by his spirit
is to know the things that he has freely given to us, of course,
that's all by Jesus Christ, and so we receive them because he
has given us this spiritual life, this spiritual nature that is
given to us by Jesus Christ, We have that same sentiment that
we can't know, and therefore when we come to God to praise
Him, we come in silence until He gives us that revelation of
Himself in the Gospel. David in 1 Chronicles chapter
29 said, when he was dedicating the temple with all the gold
and silver and everything that he piled up, the jewels that
he stored up for building the temple. He said, who am I and
what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly
after this sort? He considered his ability to
give all that he did to be a great privilege that God had bestowed
upon them. He says, for all things come
of thee. and of thine own have we given
thee. Again, if David said that about
the gold and the jewels and all the things he prepared for building
the temple, how much more then we who have been given the spirit
of God and grace by his spirit to believe Christ, how much more
do we then owe all the praise that we bring to God to Him as
borrowed words, as borrowed praise. Our life is borrowed. His life and light in us is borrowed. It's given to us. If He were
to take it away, we would have nothing. And so we come in silence
and that silence is praise because it's only by His gift of grace
that we're enabled to praise Him according to truth. Okay? So I say all that and in kind
of an explanation of verse one, but I want to go on a little
bit further. Since it says praise in silence in that one translation,
it means first of all that we're unable to praise God as he truly
is, as I've already outlined. All of our praise is only acceptable
by Jesus Christ, and our greatest thoughts and words fall infinitely
short of the unspeakable grace and the love that passes knowledge,
the unspeakable grace of God in Christ and the love of Christ
to us. And secondly, we praise in silence because our praise
can only be accepted by Christ and at present, now at present
in our lives, our experience, our enemies prevail against us,
as he says in verse three of this psalm, our iniquities prevail
against us, but Christ is our deliverer. And yet there is in
that recognition that our iniquities prevail against us and that Christ
is our deliverer, there is an anticipation. awaiting for Him
to come and do His work or to reveal His work that is done
for us, which is, if you consider the saints of old before the
cross, they were waiting in anticipation of Christ to come and do His
work. And for us who are now on this
side of the cross, the cross is history, we are waiting for
God to reveal to us what Christ has already done in the gospel. And that anticipation, that looking
for what Christ has done, that's our case, the saints after the
cross, therefore that work of God for His people is a judgment
brought upon Christ and is a judgment to be brought on their enemies.
And because the praise that we have comes out of that work that
Christ has done, because this is the way we know our Lord Jesus
Christ, then we wait for Him in silence until He completes
the work for us or reveals it to us so that we will have something
to praise Him about. So we see then throughout history
everyone, every believer looked forward to Christ coming and
after Christ came, since everyone who believes Him waits in the
expectation of the fulfillment of that promise in themselves
when they are given grace to know this and to rest upon it
and to have the assurance that since all is done by Christ and
He is the only condition needed for us to be saved, therefore
our salvation is complete and it is certain and sure, okay? All right, so that's the first
thing I want to say about verse one, that praise waits for Him
in silence, or praise waits for God in Zion. is that the church
is the only place where heart praise to God can come, and every
believer in the church is enabled by God's Spirit to know the things
freely given to them by Christ, therefore they do praise Him,
but it's given to them to praise Him, therefore they borrow the
subject matter, the words, the truth of that praise, and they
do so when it's been revealed to them what Christ has done,
okay? Does that help? I hope so. Then he goes on in
verse one, Psalm 65 in verse one. Let me get to my next page
here. He says, unto thee shall the vow be performed. Okay, so
this is finishing up in verse one. He says, unto thee shall
the vow be performed. Now there is a vow that saves
and there is a vow that destroys. And I want to read this to you
from Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy chapter 32. And beginning at
verse 36, it says this, for the Lord shall judge his people and
repent himself for his servants when he seeth that their power
is gone and there is none shut up or left. And he shall say,
where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted, which did
eat the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink
offerings, let them rise and help you, and be your protection.
So he's talking down to these people as idol worshippers, and
he's saying to them, you trusted in these idols. Let them help
you. You have no one to deliver you.
Let your idols help you. And then he goes on, he says,
see now that I, even I, am he and there is no God with me.
Now this is when they're at the end of their rope and God has
spoken to them about the complete vanity of their idols and the
emptiness and uselessness of trusting their idols. He says,
see now that I, even I am he, there's no God with me, I kill
and I make alive, I wound and I heal, neither is there any
that can deliver out of my hand, for I lift up my hand to heaven
and say, I live forever. This is a vow, this is an oath.
God is saying that He lifts up His hand to heaven, and this
is really speaking of Christ here, because He's the Son of
Man who lifted up His hand, and He says, I live forever. So in
that text of scripture, we see that God's vow can be both a
condemning, a judging vow, or a saving vow. So who made the
vow needed for our salvation? Because in Psalm 65 and verse
1 he says, unto thee shall the vow be performed unto God. Well,
there's only one vow that saves. And the vow that saves is the
Lord Jesus Christ who vowed with himself for his people. He vowed
to stand before God and he vowed to God in his justice He vowed
himself to God for his people. Remember the account of Benjamin
and Judah and Jacob? Judah made a vow. He pledged
himself to Jacob as the surety for his little brother, Benjamin. Now, Benjamin represents every
believer, and so when Judah pledged himself to his father Jacob to
be surety for Benjamin, he was really saying that, I pledge
myself for him. I'll do everything for him in
order to bring him back to you again. And he told his father
Jacob, Judah told Jacob, that if he did not bring Benjamin
back, then he would bear the blame forever. So that was a
vow. He took a vow and pledged himself. And when he stood before Joseph,
who was the governor, Judah answered Joseph concerning Benjamin. And
he answered with himself. And his plea to Joseph, the judge
and governor of all of Egypt, he said, take me instead of the
lad and let the lad go up to his father again with his brethren.
That's Christ. He pledged himself before time.
He pledged himself for his people. He pledged himself to God for
them. He obligated himself to do everything that was required
of them by God's own justice and judgment that had accused
them rightly so, and when he made that pledge, he pledged
himself to stand in their place so that they could go up again
to their father and to go up free with their brethren without
anything owed to Joseph the governor. And this is all descriptive of
our adoption When God the Father chose us in Christ, he predestinated
us to the adoption of children. That was before time. But in
time, Jesus Christ had to come and redeem us. in order that
we might receive that adoption. And because we were sons in God's
choice and in God's predestinating adoption, he says in Galatians
4, verses four through six, that God has sent forth the spirit
of his son, which is the spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit of
God. The spirit of his son is sent
into our hearts that we might receive the adoption that obviously
God had predestinated us to and chose us. In Benjamin's case,
he was already his father's son. And so when Judah pleaded for
Benjamin to Joseph, he was pleading on behalf of one, Benjamin, to
go back to his father again. And so we see that in that adoption
of God's people, Benjamin was representative of the adopted
children of God who were redeemed by Christ in order that they
might go back up to their father again. as children, as free from
all obligations. And Christ met those obligations
himself. And the same thing is represented
in the parable of the prodigal son. Remember, that boy was his
father's son. He demanded his inheritance.
The father gave him his inheritance. He went out from his father.
He was in a strange land and wasted it. That's what prodigal
means. He was wasteful. And he wasted
all that was his father's until he was left with nothing and
sold himself to feed pigs. And he thought to eat the husks
that the pigs ate and lived on and thrived on. They were fat
from eating that, but he couldn't eat it. It was not food for sons
because it was food for swine. And the man who owned the swine
had sent him to do that. And the son, now the son of his
father, realized his condition and said in his heart, even the
servants of my father have plenty to eat. I'll arise and go to
my father and say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven
and before you. I am not worthy to be called
your son. And that's when he did arise
and go, and when his father saw him afar off, remember his father
ran to him, he fell on his neck and kissed him, because that
was the receiving of the adoption of son that that boy experienced. When the Spirit of God comes
to us and preaches Christ to us as our Redeemer, we realize
that this was God's will from eternity. He predestinated us
to be his children by Jesus Christ. children to himself by the redeeming
blood of Christ, giving us his own spirit to know this." Now
all that is speaking of this vow, this pledge, this solemn
oath of Christ to stand for us as our surety, in order to make
us sure to our Father, Ephesians 1, 4, I keep referring to that. Let me read it exactly as it's
written so that you can appreciate the preciseness of Scripture
speaking of this. He says in Ephesians 1, verse
4, I'll read verses 4 and 5. He says, according as He has
chosen us, this is God the Father, according as He has chosen us
in Him, in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that's
when it happened, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love. In order to be God's children,
we had to be holy and we had to be without blame and it would
be a relationship of love, because the everlasting love of God for
his people is that cementing bond that keeps us so that nothing
can separate us from his love, and that love is in Christ. And
then in verse 5 he says, having predestinated us, we weren't
there yet, but the destination was known by God, so He arranged
absolutely everything in time in order to bring us to the adoption
of sons. He said, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will. Adoption happens outside of our
experience when the parents go to the orphanage, either physically
or by by legal documents and they request a child and they
make arrangements for that child. They are verified by the orphanage
to be qualified to adopt and the child is prepared for them
and they approve of the child. So all this is done ahead of
time. The child is not involved until They reach the agreement
and then the child, they pay whatever fees are owed and they
take responsibility for all the child's living and debt, if he
has any, or obligations, and then the child is given to them.
And this is exactly what happens in our adoption. God the Father
arranged for it. He arranged for it with Christ.
Christ pledged Himself to make us the sons of God, to bring
us back again by His own redeeming blood. And this was according
to the good pleasure of the will of the Father, to the praise
of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the
Beloved, in Christ, with all of his brethren." Okay? So that's what this vow has to
do with. Who made this vow? The Lord Jesus
Christ. In what role did he make this
vow? As our surety, as our redeemer. He pledged himself to the justice
of God, to God the Father, and then at the cross to the justice
of God, take me instead of the lad. All of God's adopted children,
his little ones, And then God's justice actually did take Christ
and required the obligation that we owed by our sin and extracted
the full penalty of that sin against God's justice, against
the governor, against the God of glory. And that was extracted
in the death of Christ. And Christ did that willingly.
He did it fully. God's justice wasn't compromised
at all. In fact, it was magnified. His
law was magnified. His judgment cannot be avoided,
by the way. God's judgment must fall on us. It may fall on us personally
or it may fall on us in our surety. It fell on Christ for his people.
So it did fall. And judgment is final. When judgment
falls, there's no turning it back. It falls until judgment
has extracted the full penalty. It fell on Christ. Christ paid
the full amount due to God's justice. Judgment came to an
end and judgment is passed from us. And God's wrath is appeased.
His wrath was poured out upon Christ and Christ endured it
and removed the wrath, reconciling us to God by his own death. And
that is the gospel. And so he says here, I'm sorry,
I'm referring back to this vow that Christ fulfilled this pledge,
this vow to stand before God and answer his justice with himself
for his people and he would not I'm sorry, that his people would
be let go to go back in peace to their father again, okay?
So that's the vow. All right, let's go on now. The
church is silent until Christ comes. When he comes, they are
no more silent. Their praise is accepted by Christ. It is because the vow Christ
made was performed in his blood. Do you see that in verse one?
Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion, that's the church, all
the redeemed. Unto thee shall the vow be performed.
Christ performed the vow, and what is the response? Christ's
people trust only in Him. They say, let me be found in
Him alone. And that is both their pledge
and their praise that Christ is all. He's all sufficient. God provided him. God received
him. God received sinners for Christ's
sake. That's the confession. That's how we identify with him
as sinners needing redemption and trusting his blood as our
complete redemption to God. All right. All right, I'm just
checking my time here. I realize that we're not going
to make it through, but let's look at the next verse here.
We'll continue with this psalm, even though we don't complete
it tonight. We'll continue next time. He says in verse two of
Psalm 65, O thou that hearest prayer. unto thee shall all flesh
come. Now, one of the themes in this
psalm is this notion of all flesh. In this verse, it calls it all
flesh. And then he says, in verse five,
if you happen to look at verse five, he says, by terrible things
in righteousness, what thou answer us, O God of our salvation, who
art the confidence Notice, of all the ends of the earth and
of them that are far off upon the sea. Now, clearly, this is
referring to God saving not just the Jews, but his people throughout
the world. And this is why in the New Testament
when the word world is used, It's used in fulfillment of this
kind of testimony from the Old Testament, that God would gather
his people throughout the world. That he had a people that was
outside of the nation of the Jews, and those people were throughout
the world. And so when he says in verse
two, O thou that hear his prayer unto thee shall all flesh come,
I believe that he's talking about all those who are God's people
of all different nations and kindred and tongue and nations. They are people throughout the
world, but they were chosen by God out of every kindred, tongue,
people and nation. And this is the song that they
sing in Revelation chapter 5. He says, in verse 9, thou hast
redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, tongue,
people and nation. That's the praise of these people
throughout the whole world. And so when God speaks about
the world in the New Testament, usually this is what he means,
not just the Jews. but Gentiles also, but not all
Jews and not all Gentiles, but all people of all kindred, tongue,
and nations, all people given to Christ by the electing work
and the predestinating work of God the Father in this pledge
that God arranged for Christ and that he made from eternity
before the foundation of the world. That's why he's called
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. But here in verse
2, I love the way that God describes himself here. He gives us his
name. Look at verse 2. O thou that hearest prayer. Now,
this is very significant. It's very significant to us,
very significant. God reveals his great grace here
in this, his name, God who hears, God who hears prayer. This is
the God who hears prayer. There is no other God that hears
prayer. You know what it's like when men trust in politicians.
Give your politician a call. See if he calls you back. He
doesn't. She doesn't. Politicians can't
help you. They can make promises. They
can make deals with others, but they are not going to talk directly
to you. They don't hear prayer. Or what
about religious leaders in false churches? Do they hear prayer? The Catholic priests claim to
hear prayer and hear your confession. What good is that? What good
is that for a man to claim your sins are forgiven? If you trust
in such a claim, if you trust in such a man, your sins are
still on you. They are not forgiven. So that
man can't hear prayer. He can't answer it. To hear means
not to just hear it spoken. It means to do something about
it. So hear God's name, God's name. He has staked Himself on this
title, God who hears prayer. Our God and Savior is described
by His grace and His power. It's unique to Him. It's unique
to the true and living God, Thou that hearest prayer. We should
always think of God as the God who hears our prayers. And how
does He hear us? He hears the prayers of His people.
He hears their prayers for Christ's sake. He hears their prayers
for his name's sake, because he has staked himself to this.
When we say he's staked himself to this, God doesn't need to
stake himself to anything to make it happen. It's not like
God's going to change his nature, or his character, or his ways,
or his word, or his work, God's not going to change. He is immutable. He can't change. He can't lie. He can't not be God. So when
God says that he staked or he swore by himself, he's really
saying that if it were possible for God to change, then his word
that he has claimed would be fulfilled won't be fulfilled.
It gives us the greatest assurance of faith that God cannot change,
that his counsel cannot change, and therefore his word that he
pledges on himself and his counsel cannot fail. He's the God who
hears prayers. That's what God has said here.
Here's a promise for us, isn't it? God who hears prayer. What should that make us do?
If God hears me, then I should pray all the time, shouldn't
I? God hears. And it's phenomenal
to even think that God could hear the thoughts of people,
especially the thoughts of all the people at all time. It's
no sweat. I mean, it's not difficult for
Him. It doesn't cause Him to have
to labor in order to do this. Like sometimes we stress mentally
or physically to accomplish some work, God doesn't have to stress
about this. He hears, but He only hears us
for Christ's sake. God is uncompromising in His
holiness. He can't hear us because our
prayers are faulty and our character is full of sin and we don't know
the will of God, really, do we? in any matter. But what we can
say is, like Jesus taught us to say, Thy will be done. Thy will be done on earth as
it is in heaven. God's will is already done in
heaven. Let it be done on earth. And why do we pray that way?
We don't want anything else except God's will to be done. We don't
want our will to be done. We know how foolish and ignorant
we are and sinful and misdirected. We would ruin the whole thing.
How would you like to be in charge of the government of the United
States? Man, I don't want that job. I do not want that job. I don't want to be in charge
of a business, let alone an entire government. One decision could
ruin people's lives, thousands, millions of people's lives. I
don't want that. The responsibility for that is
beyond our ability to comprehend. It's not something anyone should
rush into, especially not to rush into without utter dependence
on God. in Jesus Christ. So here we have
only God hears prayers, only He's capable. We don't trust
in people. We don't trust in great people.
We don't trust in small people. We don't trust anyone except
God. That's why we take our concerns
to the Lord. Now, when I was younger, before
I knew the Lord, all I knew about God only intimidated me. Scripture
said He was good, but I had to force myself to make that claim
because I couldn't see His goodness. But then, when I couldn't see
it, I only saw my sin and his requirements, it seemed that
he required me to stop sinning in order for him to be gracious
to me. He required me to do what he said in order for him to hear
my prayers. And I was intimidated. and I
think that you probably know what I'm talking about, but when
the gospel came the first time and every time since it came,
now I see that God delights in mercy, that God hears prayer,
that God is gracious in Christ, and that he's provided everything
and provided it all in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has already
accomplished everything God requires in order to give me life, eternal
life, and to bring me into relation with himself as a holy and unblameable
son in love. God has done this. And so the
intimidation has been taken away because of the gospel, because
of God giving this to us. Isn't that the way that is? So
these words here, God hears prayer, are the confession of a believer.
He's the God who hears prayer. And prayer expresses The lesson
of grace, the lesson of grace is that God's will is best. Prayer
expresses that lesson and also expresses our dependence on God's
will contained in his promises. For example, in Hebrews chapter
7 it says, Christ is able to save to the uttermost all who
come to God by him. That's a promise, isn't it? God
made promise to Abraham that in Christ all of God's people
would be justified. Therefore, it's all in Christ. Therefore, Christ saves to the
uttermost. He said in Hebrews 10, 19, having
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Those
are God's own words. The truth of God is contained
in that text of scripture that by the blood of Jesus, only by
his blood, it's all sufficient to give us access with boldness
into the holiest, that means in the very presence of God.
When you think of the intimidation of God, think of the blood of
Christ. God has accepted his blood for
his people. God has said that his blood gives
us boldness to enter into the holiest by that blood alone,
by faith in his blood. So we come to God trusting Christ
and his precious blood. We don't need anything else.
We don't have to look to ourselves or take confidence in our confidence. We have confidence in Christ
and Christ is enough. And so these precious promises
in scripture teach us and have given us this lesson that we
can come to God by Jesus Christ knowing his will is best since
he's done all that he said he did in Christ to save us from
our sins. What an infinite blessing that
is to know that. And so he goes on to encourage
us in this, in first Peter he says, casting all your care upon
him for he careth for you. These are promises. God hears
prayer, he cares for you, therefore cast all your cares upon him.
Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil is a
roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour, whom resist
steadfast in the faith. In other words, looking to Christ.
That's the way you resist the devil, is you look to Christ.
You think, well, I got to take out my devil gun and shoot him.
I got to confess my sins and get myself right with God. I
got to do something. I got to rebuke the devil. All
these stupid things that religious people have said. God says, resist
him in the faith. You trust in Christ. And that's
it. That's it. Christ is the one
who who overcomes him, knowing that the same afflictions are
accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the
God of all grace highlight, highlight, highlight the God of all grace
who have called us to his eternal glory by Jesus Christ. After
you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen,
settle you. He opened it, casting all your
cares upon Him, for He careth for you. That means that we're
strengthened and settled and made perfect, looking to Christ
and casting our cares upon Him, knowing that God is the God who
answers prayer. the God who cares, because obviously
if he gave Christ for us, he's going to give us all things with
him. So for now, I'm going to stop there tonight because we've
run out of time. But I want to go on with this
psalm and our next time together, we'll pick it up here where it
says unto thee all flesh shall come or shall all flesh come.
And we'll go on to verses three and following from there. Let's
pray. Father, we thank you so much
for your great grace and your everlasting love and your kindness
to us. Thank you that you hear prayer.
We know that we can't be accepted by you except in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We know that we're sinners and
we confess by your grace freely that we are sinners, though we
are ashamed of it in the worst kind of way. But we know, Lord,
that you sent your Son to deliver us from our sins and so we trust
you. And we know that when you show
us from your word the gospel that you have delivered us by
Jesus Christ, then our silence will be opened and our lips will
be freed and we will be given a heart to freely praise and
sing praise to your name. Thank you for this grace. We
pray, Lord, that you would make your word true, real to us, that
you would do what you've said, the promises you've given about
saving all to the uttermost who come to Christ and and justifying
your people by him alone and giving us access with boldness
into the very presence of God by the blood of Jesus. We pray
that these and so many other promises would be those things
you teach us to lean upon you and to constantly know that we
can cast our cares upon you, for you care for us. We don't
have any reason in ourselves to expect grace, but you've given
us your word that all of our reason for trusting you is found
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we come by him because
you've given him to be the way to the Father. What a great Savior. What a great salvation. What
a great God. Let this praise be from our hearts
borrowed from you and brought back to you by your grace. In
Jesus' name we pray, amen.