Alright, Psalm 64. I want to
read through it. There's 10 verses in this psalm,
so it's not a long one. But when we read through this,
I want you to try to hear what is being said and see if you
can get the the message from this psalm. I admit that whenever
I'm looking at the psalms or any place in scripture, I often
struggle a long time without much clarity, and so I'm always
glad when the Lord shines the light to give us clarity. So
let's ask, as we read through this, for that clarity. It says
in verse 1, Hear my voice, O God, And in my prayer, so hear my
voice, oh God, in my prayer, preserve my life from fear of
the enemy. Hide me from the secret counsel
of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity, who
whet their tongue like a sword, to whet means it's like you're
sharpening something, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows,
even bitter words, that they may shoot in secret at the perfect. Suddenly do they shoot at him
and fear not. They encourage themselves in
an evil matter. They commune of laying snares
privily. They say, who shall see them?
They search out iniquities. They accomplish a diligent search.
Both the inward thought of every one of them and the heart is
deep. But God shall shoot at them with an arrow, suddenly
shall they be wounded, so they shall make their own tongue to
fall upon themselves. All that see them shall flee
away, and all men shall fear and shall declare the work of
God, for they shall wisely consider of his doing. The righteous shall
be glad in the Lord and shall trust in him And all the upright in heart
shall glory. All right, when you read through
this psalm, it's clear that from the first six verses here, that
David is talking about those who speak against him. And he
calls them the wicked and workers of iniquity. And they are people
who take counsel together in order to plot against him. And then in verse two it says,
not only to hide me from the secret counsel of these, these
wicked, but the insurrection of the workers of iniquity, showing
that not only do they think these things, but they actually carry
out their plans. And then he goes on and talks
about that for the first six verses. And then in verse seven,
notice the change where the word but God is used. But God is a
common a way of transitioning from the deplorable condition
of whatever's going on to see things from God's saving perspective
in Scripture. And you remember in Genesis when
God looked down and saw that every imagination of the thoughts
of men was evil continually? And then after that it says,
but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So it's always the
but God or whatever God is doing that gives us the greatest encouragement
in the worst kinds of conditions. And Ephesians chapter two and
verse four is one of the most memorable where in the first
three verses The Apostle Paul is recounting what we were in
ourselves, that we were enemies of God in our mind and by wicked
works. We were like everyone else. And even when we were dead
in sins, God, for his great mercy and his grace, his love towards
us, even when we were like that, he saved us. And verse 4 of Ephesians
2 says, but God. All right, and that's what this
verse is doing, it's making a transition here in the most wonderful way.
He says, but God shall shoot at them with an arrow, suddenly
shall they be wounded. So now it seems like suddenly
God is taking vengeance on those who were speaking against David.
And of course, no one can resist his arrows and his spears. Verse eight, it says, so shall
they make their own tongue to fall upon themselves, all that
see them shall flee away. So here's the result of God doing
what he does, what they intended by their bitter words, their
words of destruction against David would be brought upon them. And then in verse 9, all men
shall fear and shall declare the work of God. So you see that
God's work has a result. And the result of that work is
that there is this fear of God that is produced. and they wisely
consider his doing, and then in verse 10 it closes, the righteous
shall be glad in the Lord, and shall trust in him, and all the
upright in heart shall glory. So this is like other Psalms,
isn't it? Where it seems like the first part of the Psalm is
a horrible condition, David is crying, and then there's a transition,
and then at the end we see an explanation that that brings
it all into focus so that we can see the result of first the
trouble, then the salvation, and then the purpose of God in
doing that is so that the righteous would be glad in the Lord and
trust in Him and the upright in heart shall glory. Okay, so
I'm just giving you that as a very high-level overview so that you
can see the way that this psalm is written and see then, like
it was in Psalm 63, God explains it by looking, as I like to say,
at the end of the book and see how it turns out at the end,
and then that tells us everything about what happened before, okay? So now I wanna ask some high-level
questions here at the beginning. Notice in the first part, hear
my voice, O God, in my prayer. Preserve my life from fear of
the enemy. So David is in a terrible case
here. And the reason is given in verses
two through six that there's a secret council of wicked against
him. There's this tumultuous uprising,
the insurrection of the workers of iniquity. Their tongue is
sharpened so that it's like a sword. In verse three, they bend their
bows to shoot. That's a metaphor to say that
their words are like arrows, and it says, even bitter words. And then in verse four, who are
they shooting at? Well, they're shooting in secret,
and they're shooting at the perfect, and they suddenly shoot at him,
and they don't fear. So these men are very crafty. Their words are very bitter.
They have the intent of destroying those with their words. And this
is done against David in a situation in his life. We're not quite
sure exactly what situation that was, and it doesn't really matter.
Some people think that this is a prophecy of another account
of others in history. It turns out that as I began
to think about this, Scripture is full of examples like this,
and as soon as I start to mention them, you'll probably recognize
the pattern. One of the cases that first comes
up is, in my thoughts on this, was when in the book of Exodus,
Pharaoh had become the ruler over Egypt, and he was a wicked
ruler, and he held God's people, the nation of Israel, in bondage
for 400 years, and God had brought them into Egypt. He had told
Abraham long before that they would be there, and they would
be there that length of time. But Pharaoh was wicked. He used
them to serve him as slaves. And of course, over many generations,
literally millions of them would have died. So that's a terrible
thing. And then when God sent Moses
to tell Pharaoh, let my people go, Pharaoh mocked Moses and
said, who's the Lord? I don't care. I'm not gonna let
them go. And then you remember, God brought
10 plagues. And at the end of all that, Pharaoh
is crying like a wimp under the afflictions of God. And he finally
agrees to let the people go. And it wasn't until God saved
them through the Passover. Remember, the Passover, the offering
up of the Passover lamb was that turning point where God came
through the entire land of Egypt And he killed all of the firstborn
in Egypt, from the throne to the servants behind the mill.
He even killed the beasts, they were the firstborn of the beasts.
So God did that because Israel, God called Israel, that nation,
His firstborn. And then, of course, when God
told Israel to offer up that Passover lamb, He said, you go
into your house, you sprinkle that blood of that lamb on the
doorposts, and you go into that house and you eat that Passover
lamb. You roast it with fire and you eat it. And the New Testament
tells us that Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. But you
can see in that event there that there's two kinds of people.
There's two cultures. There's those who were delivered
and then there were those who were destroyed. And the difference
between them was the blood of the Passover lamb. God made the
difference. He chose Israel and He told them
to offer up that lamb and to eat it. And when God seized the
blood, that judgment that they deserved, God passed over them. He did not destroy any in their
houses. But Pharaoh, of course, held
to his pride, even to the bitter end, even after his own firstborn
was killed that night. And after the dust settled, Israel
was let go, but he saw that they were trapped by the Red Sea.
And he, in his bitterness and in his lust for blood and also
for their service to him, he chased after them. But this was
according to the will of God. So that God hardened Pharaoh's
heart. He knew that Pharaoh would be
tempted by seeing Israel entangled by the Red Sea on one side and
Pharaoh's armies behind them. They had nowhere to go. And so
Pharaoh knew it was easy, they were an easy mark, and he went
after them to destroy them with his army. And of course, God
destroyed Pharaoh and his armies in the Red Sea. That's a similar
account to what we see here. Pharaoh spoke against God, he
spoke against God's people, and he would not hear God, and God
brought him to the destruction that Pharaoh had brought God's
people to, and utterly destroyed Pharaoh and his armies And it
was all by this turning point of the Passover lamb, just like
God's people are saved. So that's one example that comes
to mind, and there are many others. Another example that comes to
mind is, remember Daniel? In Daniel chapter 6, He was very
blessed by God. He had great wisdom, and he was
very honorable, had high integrity. He served God even in the land
of Darius, who was the king over the Medes and Persians. And while
he was there, he gained such respect by the king, King Darius,
that King Darius put Daniel as one of the three presidents over
the entire land. over his entire kingdom, and
thought to put Daniel over all of the land. But he had also
appointed, I think it was 70 other princes, and those princes
envied Daniel, and they knew that they couldn't find anything
wrong with Daniel, except they find something wrong with him
pertaining to God. So they devised a wicked scheme,
just like these men here. They consulted together, and
they tricked the king, King Darius, They got him to sign a decree
that would make it illegal for anyone to ask a petition of any
man or any God for 30 days. Of course, Daniel disregarded
that. He prayed every day, three times
a day towards Jerusalem. even in his captivity. And the
men took note of that. They went to the king. They said,
now you signed this decree, King Darius, and the law of the Medes
and Persians is that it can't be changed once it's put into
law. And the result of breaking that law was that whoever broke
it would be cast into the lion's den. So this den was full of
lions, and King Darius didn't want to. He was very sorry that
he had made that agreement and put that law into place, and
he labored all night. I mean, he actually gave the
order, according to the law, to cast Daniel into the den of
lions. But he told Daniel, when he went
in, he said, now your God will deliver you, Daniel. And so that
night, when Daniel was in that den of lions, King Darius, he
was unable to sleep. He tossed and turned all night.
And in the morning, very early, he ran to that den of lions and
he shouted to Daniel and he said, oh God, oh Daniel, is your God
able to deliver you? And Daniel said yes, he sent
his angel and he stopped the mouth of the lions. So this was
another example of where wicked men plotted and devised words
to destroy a righteous man, Daniel. And you recall how when David
was honorable in all the land of Israel having fought the Lord's
battles and even when he was king and his son Absalom rebelled
against him and men were after his life, that even David was
being falsely accused by his persecutors. Shimei was an example
of one. He came cursing and throwing
stones and David's men wanted to kill Shimei for that. He was
cursing the king and he was shaming him in front of all of his men
and his people. And Abishai, one of Joab's brother,
Abishai, was a very strong and capable man. He asked David,
do you want me to go take off his head? And David said, no,
no. Why would I do that? God sent
him. God told him to curse David.
And so David realized that Shimei's cursing was actually of the Lord,
and even though he was a wicked man, Shimei was a wicked man,
his accusations were not true, he still, nevertheless, David
trusted God. He didn't raise his hand against
him, just like this psalm says in verse one, hear my voice,
O God, in my prayer, preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
David in this psalm is not taking arms up himself against his enemy. He's not himself taking vengeance
against or revenge against his enemies. As it says in first
Peter, chapter two of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was reviled,
he reviled not again when he when he was threatened. I mean,
when he was spoken against, he did not threaten. But he trusted,
he committed himself into the hand of him who judges righteously.
And that's exactly what David is doing in this psalm. In fact,
this psalm is written by David about David's experience, but
we know that in scripture, God uses the experience as well as
the words of the prophet to communicate his message. So David, in his
words, reflecting on his own experience, is speaking here
prophetically of the Lord Jesus Christ. And who more than he
suffered at the hands of wicked men? Remember the Jews? They
plotted his entire ministry, the three and a half years of
his ministry, or however long it was, they plotted against
him. From that very outset, they hated
him. That example in Luke chapter
four where Jesus is telling them that he had come by the prophecy
in Isaiah and the spirit of the Lord was upon him to preach the
gospel to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to set at
liberty those who were captive and all that that he said. And
then he told them that in the days of Elijah, God sent him
only to one widow and she wasn't even an Israelite. And so also
in the days of Elisha, there were many lepers, but God only
sent Elisha to one, and it was a Syrian leper, Naaman. So all
these things are meant to show us the persecution that came
on Christ And it was not justified. He did nothing wrong. And yet
men hated him. And their hatred was out of envy
for him. They envied him that God was
with him, that they could find nothing wrong with him, and that
he told them that they were hypocrites. He revealed, he exposed them
as being hypocrites even though they really lusted after the
attention of the people and the praise of the people. So Christ
was the object of this kind of plotting and malicious slander
that they brought against him. Remember at his trial, That night
when he was taken, the Jews plotted together to secretly take him.
They didn't do it openly for fear of the people. They sent
soldiers at night to the Garden of Gethsemane to take him and
bind him up. And then they tried him at night before Caiaphas,
the high priest, and Annas. And they basically had already
convicted him before anyone knew about it. And it was all done
surreptitiously. It was done as a clandestine
way of murdering the Son of God because they hated him so much.
And then in Acts chapter 2, Peter preaches that day on the day
of Pentecost and he says, you men, you took him and by wicked
hands you crucified and slew him, but it was all according
to God's predetermined counsel and foreknowledge. So all these
things show us how that wicked men throughout scripture have
always looked for a way to accuse God's people. and to slander
them. Sometimes their accusations are
unjustified. Sometimes they're accused and
slandered for things they did not do. And other times they
are accused for things that they did do wrong. But either way,
whether it's unjustified or justified, it is not for us to bring these
accusations and slanders against the Lord's people. And that's
what this psalm is teaching us in very bright terms. Remember,
for example, Daniel and remember David with Shimei. Those were
unjust accusations, and yet they endured them patiently, and God
was with them. The book of Hebrews in chapter
11 does a catalog of many who were They were delivered because
they trusted God. He said they stopped the mouths
of lions. They quenched the violence of
fire. And then there were others who suffered. They were sawn
asunder and they dwelt, they lived in dens in caves of the
earth. And the world wasn't worthy of
them. So you can see how that faith in God, faith in God, faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ, Whether we're accused falsely or whether
we're accused justly, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ rests on
Him whether or not we are actually delivered from that persecution. Remember Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego? The King Nebuchadnezzar threw them into that burning
fiery furnace. They were delivered. The Lord was with them. But there
were others who weren't delivered. All those who died, well, there were many who suffered
death. The apostles, all, I think all
of the apostles, were martyred, so many people suffered unjustly. And in the book of 1 Peter, in
chapter two, he uses the Lord Jesus Christ as the example of
what I just quoted a minute ago. When he was reviled, he reviled
not again. When he suffered, he threatened
not, but he committed himself into the hands of him who judges
righteously. All right? That's given to us.
David operated on that same principle and it's given to us and it's
brought to a climax in 1 Peter 2. It says in verse 24, who his
own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree. Now that
verse is often quoted without the context, but in the context
you see that Christ suffered malicious slanders and accusations,
which considering him alone by himself were unjust. But considering
the fact that he was bearing our sins, therefore God himself
brought this against him in order that he would bear our sins and
answer God for them and take away our sins. In other words,
that he would satisfy God, he would make propitiation for our
sins by his own blood. So the reproach that Christ bore
was not reproach for his own sins and the very opposite. They hated him without a cause.
But when he bore the reproach and the suffering and the shame
and the false accusations and slanders, it was for our sins. Now, because He did suffer for
our sins, therefore, what do we learn from the New Testament,
from the Gospel? What do we learn? We learn that
because Christ suffered for us, who His own self bear our sins
in His own body on the tree, by whose stripes we were healed. In other words, it was the beating
that He took that removed the beating from us. In fact, God
justified us. He was delivered up for our offenses,
but was raised again for our justification. And because we
are justified by God himself, therefore, accusations against
God's people are accusations against God who cleared them
for Christ's sake. And that's the greatest rebellion against
God that you can imagine, that He would offer up His Son, that
Christ would shed His blood, and that wicked men would find
fault with those for whom Christ died. And that's the warning
of Scripture here in Psalm 64. And David prays, Hear my voice,
O God, in my prayer. Preserve my life from fear of
the enemy. He describes all the wickedness
that they do in verses 2 through 6. And let me read that again. He says, Hide me from the secret
counsel of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of
iniquity. Verse 3, "...who whet their tongue like a sword and
bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words." It's
like these men are taking with their mouths and their secret
counsels, they're bending those things back like a bow, and they're
putting their words that they've devised, bitter words, into that
bow and shooting those words like arrows. And you know how
arrows fly. You don't hear them. They come
from nowhere. It seems like they come from
the sky. Those who are the enemy, the arrows are shot at, and those
arrows are sharp. You can't resist the arrows.
Men hold up shields, but ultimately some of those arrows are going
to get through. And so that's what words do. Now it turns out,
and you know this is true, When you're a child growing up,
you feel it acutely when someone makes fun of you. They point
out your physical differences, or the way you talk, or the way
you walk, or whatever it is that they do, and it's painful because
it causes you shame. You feel like that people are
looking at your weaknesses and it's not fun, is it? You'd like
to cover all that up. You want to be accepted. But
words have an effect on us, don't they? And even false accusations
can ruin the reputation of good men, if you will. This is commonly
seen. Politics is just hurling accusations
from one side to the other, and neither side is exempt in this. Both sides seem to look for nothing
more than to dig up dirt on their opponent. That's not God's way,
is it? That is not the way God, in fact,
that's, according to this Psalm, that's evil wickedness. And so
it shows you what God thinks about the political process.
It's full of wickedness, isn't it? But this is what children
do in the playground. This is what brothers and sisters
do in their own home. This is what men did to Christ.
This is what men did to David and Daniel. This is what men
do throughout history. And the worst enemy of all is
Satan. And you know what the word Satan
means? It means adversary. And you know
what the word devil means? It means accuser, slanderer. And so in Revelation chapter
12, if you look at that, Revelation chapter 12, this is the height
of it, is that the devil is spending his time and energy throughout
all of the time state of this earth doing nothing more than
trying to destroy Christ and the church. And so in Revelation
12 gives a metaphorical picture of this as a woman who gave birth
to a man-child and that man-child was caught up to God. And there
was war in heaven, and Michael and his angels, verse 7, fought
against the dragon and his angels and prevailed not, neither was
their place found anymore in heaven for the devil and his
angels. And the great dragon was cast out, that old servant
called the devil, accuser, slanderer, and Satan, adversary. which deceived
with the whole world. He was cast out into the earth
and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud
voice saying in heaven, now, this is because Christ cast Satan
out of heaven after the cross. He was caught up to heaven after
the cross, and because of the cross, he says in John 12, verse
31, now is the judgment of this world. Now is the prince of this
world cast out. Here he says in Revelation 12,
10, and I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now has come
salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power
of his Christ for the accuser of our brethren is cast down.
You see that word accuser? This all accusation against the
Lord's people Those God justified because of the blood of Christ,
that accusation comes from Satan and his kingdom. And that's what
he's saying here. The accuser of our brethren is
cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
And they, the accused, who are on earth, who live in this world
now, suffering this accusation, they overcame him by the blood
of the Lamb. You see, Christ is our righteousness.
Christ is our justification. He justified us by his own blood.
Romans chapter 5 verse 9. And by the word of their testimony,
which is the gospel, and they loved not their lives even unto
death. They didn't care about the praise
of men. They didn't care about the approval
of false religion. They had but one hope, it was
Christ and Him crucified. And they trusted Him and they
held forth the gospel as their own testimony. This is God's
declaration of my justification in Christ. This is my only hope
and this honors God, what Christ did and only what He did. And
so that's my only plea. And so throughout scripture,
you see these kinds of things happening. The Lord defends his
people. The Lord hears and he defends
them. Look at Psalm chapter 34. Psalm
chapter 34, he says in verse 15 of Psalm 34, the eyes of the
Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against
them that do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from
the earth. The righteous cry. And the Lord hears them and delivers
them out of all their troubles. If God hears, he will save. And so he goes to the next verse.
The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth
such as be of a contrite spirit. David was of a broken heart and
a contrite spirit. The lies, the accusations of
the enemy had come upon him. And he prays to the Lord. He
doesn't take up arms himself. He doesn't try to seek vengeance.
He doesn't revile again. He doesn't threaten those when
he suffered. But he takes his case to the
Lord. The Lord sits as the judge of
the supreme court in heaven. All matters on earth are decided
in that court. And we have an advocate with
the Father, Christ Jesus, the righteous, who sits at the right
hand of God with all power and authority. And he pleads his
own offering, his propitiation to God and his righteousness
in making in fulfilling the will of God and making his people
clean from their sins and pure before God, so that God can act
in holiness in all of his perfections for their salvation and magnify
himself in the highest possible degree in their salvation to
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God's will, this is what
God is saying throughout Scripture, and this is the way he carries
on the business of this world, is for the salvation of his people,
against the accusations of their enemies, all because of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so David prays. He lifts
up his voice and asks God to hear him in his prayer. Preserve
my life, he says, from the fear of the enemy. What does it mean
to be preserved? Well, in Jude, the book of Jude
chapter one, verse one, it says that he writes to those who were
sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Christ Jesus. We're preserved. God the Father
made sure that there would be nothing that would come upon
his people, either from their own sin or from their greatest
enemies, he would preserve them in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that's what David is praying here. Preserve my life from the
enemy. Preserve my life from the fear
of the enemy. And so it is. Our enemies are
stronger than us. What does God tell us to do?
when the enemies who are stronger than us come against us? Well,
he says that the battle is the Lord's. The battle is the Lord's. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. That's what God told Moses to
tell the people when Pharaoh came against them to destroy
them at the Red Sea. He said, no, you stand still.
Tell them to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.
The battle is the Lord's. Jehoshaphat did the same thing
in 2 Chronicles chapter 20. He said, Lord, you see this great
host has come against us. They're greater than us. We have
no power against them, and we don't know what to do, but our
eyes are upon you. And God sent a prophet and told
Jehoshaphat and all the people, he said, You go out and watch
and see the salvation of God. He says, the battle is the Lord.
You won't need to fight in this battle. God's gonna do the work.
He's gonna do the saving. And this is what God tells us
to do. Don't take up defense. Don't start making a list of
all the sins of the enemy so that you can go against them
and hold them to account. No, there's one judge. There's
one law giver. It's not you. It's not me. It's
the Lord. The Lord will do that. He's the judge. So we leave it
to him. We commit ourselves into the hand of him who does righteously. So there's lots of questions
that come up about this psalm. And one of them is, one of the
questions that comes to mind is why does God allow this? Why
are God's people treated this way in the earth? I mean, wouldn't,
since they're the Lord's, why doesn't he just give them a fair
weather all the time? Why does he allow these wicked
men to do this against his people? You know, these men are wicked.
Why does he allow wicked people to have their way? And why would
he allow his own people to suffer because of this wickedness? Isn't
that a question that seems to come up over and over again?
You hear about calamities in the earth. Why does God allow
that? Well, let me turn you to, I really already answered it,
but I want to take you to Ecclesiastes chapter seven. Ecclesiastes is
after Proverbs and before Song of Solomon. And look at chapter
seven here, because we need to be humbled. We need to be humbled. And I can think of nothing, no
better way than to remember what we are, what we were, and how
the Lord saved us. Oh, in Ecclesiastes chapter 7,
verse 20, he says, there is not a just man on earth that doeth
good and sinneth not, not even one, not a single one. There's not a righteous man,
a just man, upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not. Also take
heed unto, oh, sorry, take no heed unto all the words that
are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee. You don't
want to be listening in on everybody's conversation. Believe me, you
don't want to hear what people are saying about you. He says
in verse 22, for oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that
thou thyself likewise has cursed others. Hmm. Oh, that hurts,
doesn't it? You mean the pain I'm feeling
because of someone's slander and accusation is something that
I've actually done myself to others? That makes me the object
of God's scorn? Yeah, that's the way it is. See, there's none righteous.
No, not one. There's none that understandeth. There's none that
seeketh after God. There's none that doeth good. No, not one.
We're all like an open sepulchre. Our throat is like an open sepulchre.
There's death within, and death and poison come to our lips and
to our throat and our tongue. And so these things are the poison
of asps is under their lips, he says in Romans chapter three.
So we're guilty here. And that's that's the surprising
part of this. When David is praying here, he's
not praying as a man who has a claim because of his own personal
righteousness. He has to recall to mind the
fact that he himself has also done things like this. In Romans
chapter 2, he says, who are you that judges others? You're guilty
of the same things. You that judge us, do us the
same things. In Matthew chapter 7, Jesus said,
take heed how you judge, for in the way that you judge, you
yourself shall be judged. Now that humbles us, doesn't
it? Doesn't that cause you to sit down and shut your mouth?
It does. Me, it causes a silence to come
over me, so I find that I myself am not able either to judge or
to advise God on how to deal with this wickedness. But what
do we do? What have we been taught by the
gospel? Look to the Lord Jesus Christ. He did suffer this unjustly. He was the perfect man who was
accused falsely. They searched. They beat the
bushes to find someone who could find something they could bring
to justify their murdering him. And they found nothing. So they
had to invent them. And men are inventors of evil
things. And so they did that, and that's what God is speaking
about here. You see, throughout the world, even though God's
people are no different than others, Yet the Lord has chosen them
in Christ and has seen fit to remove their sin by the Lord
Jesus Christ and to give them his Holy Spirit to take away
their stony heart and to give them a new heart to trust Christ
and glorify God for Christ's sake. And the rest he leaves
to themselves. And woe to us if the Lord were
to leave us to ourselves. Isn't that your cry? Lord, don't
leave me to myself. Have mercy upon me. Look upon
and receive Christ for my sake. Hear his answer and don't hear
my sin. Don't let my sins come up before
you. Look upon the Lord Jesus Christ
and receive him for me. See, that's going to God on the
basis of what God has said, what He's revealed about how He saves
His people. And that's what the Gospel teaches
us. God the Father teaches all of His children to come to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that what John 6, 44 and
45 say? They're all taught of God. They
all come to Christ. And what do we come for? For
that offering that he made for the sins of many by his own broken
body and his shed blood. And in doing so, what are we
doing? We're doing what God by His grace has given us to do.
We're trusting Christ. And when we trust Christ, it
brings honor to God because it's siding with God against ourselves,
but also siding with God in the way that he saw in his holiness
how to deal with our sins, to magnify not only his grace and
mercy, but his own justice and his righteousness and truth.
In all of his wisdom, he did all that out of his goodness,
out of that humility of stooping God on his part, taking the initiative
to reconcile us at the highest cost, the death of his son. And
we were the ones who accused and slandered our Savior, and
therefore He bore the reproach of that. We read, I think it
was Sunday, when the Lord Jesus Christ, in His humiliation, He
was despised and rejected of men. We hid, as it were, our
faces from Him. We turned our backs to Him. We
didn't turn our faces. God should turn his back on us,
but we turned our back on him. And so you can see this, how
the Lord is teaching us here, the humility that comes by seeing
what we are, what we were, and how the Lord had to save us in
spite of all of that. And these enemies who come against
us now, God has to deal with them. And how does he do it?
It's God that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. That's the answer. We keep going
back to that, don't we? Romans 8, chapter 8, verse 33
and 34. If we haven't memorized those
by now, just hang on. We'll probably say it enough
times that we all remember that. Who can lay anything to the charge
of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, ye rather,
who was risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. That's my hope. Isn't it
yours? Isn't it the glad news of the
people of God? Now, look on down here. I'll
let you go through the verses. Verse 4 says they shoot in secret
at the perfect. That would be Christ. And that
would be His people. He perfected them forever in
His one offering, didn't He? All right, notice in verse 6,
they search out iniquities. The wicked are looking for what
they can find in order to destroy God's people. Remember the Pharisees
in John chapter 8? They said this woman was caught
in the very act of adultery and they thought they were doing
a great service, bringing her to Christ. What are you going
to do with her? Are you going to side with Moses and condemn
her and stone her? Or are you going to side with
the wicked and let her go? And Jesus did neither one. He
sided with God. He stooped down. He wrote the
law. And then he stooped again and
fulfilled it and told her, neither do I condemn thee. No man is
left. No man without sin. No one can
therefore cast a stone at you. And I myself don't condemn you.
And so that was an example. Here was an accusation that was
deserved, and yet the Lord cleared her because she was one of his.
All right, and we could go on and on. So they search out iniquities.
But look at verse seven. But God shall shoot at them with
an arrow, suddenly shall they be wounded. Now when the Lord
shoots, he always hits his mark. And when he shoots his word,
it's like a sharp sword. Remember Hebrews chapter four?
The word of God is quick and powerful. sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and
of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature
that is not manifest in his sight. All are open and all things are
open and naked under the eyes of him with whom we have to do."
God sees and God's word is sharp and his arrows find their mark. In Psalm chapter 45, In Psalm
chapter 45, this is a prophecy of Christ, it says in verse 5,
Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies,
whereby the people fall under thee. I was reading John Gill
on that verse, he says, Scripture is the quiver. The bow is the
gospel. And the arrows are the truths
of the gospel, and those who draw the bow and fire that bow
are the ministers of the gospel. And they shoot, as it were, at
adventure, they just preach the gospel, and God always finds
His mark. And so that's what he's saying
there. His word accomplishes his will. And when people rise
up, the devil himself rises up, when anyone rises up in accusation
and slander, it's really coming from the kingdom of Satan, coming
against Christ and his people. It's unlawful to accuse one for
whom Christ died. Woe to us if we do so. Jesus
said, it's better that a millstone were hanged about your neck than
if you offend one of these little ones, one of my little ones.
And I can go on and on about that, but he says, God shall
shoot at them with an arrow, suddenly shall they be wounded,
so they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves.
Remember Haman? Look, we need to kill Mordecai
and all of his people. And at the end of it, Haman was
hanging on the gallows. His own device against Mordecai,
who was righteous, came on Haman. And that's what God is saying.
When God unleashes his arrows, he brings the judgment that we
thought to bring on his son. And that's a horrible judgment,
don't you know? He says in Hebrews chapter 10, how shall we escape?
If we've heard these things and we've heard about Christ and
him crucified, and we turn away from it, and how are we going
to escape? Let me read that to you in Hebrews
chapter 10. 25, I'm sorry, verse 26, he says,
if we sin willfully after that we've received the knowledge
of the truth, that would be the gospel. If we disobey in unbelief
after we've received that knowledge, there remaineth no more sacrifice
for sins. There's no other Savior and no
other sacrifice but Christ. But since we don't trust him,
a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation
which shall devour the adversaries And then he contrasts, he that
despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses.
Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought
worthy who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted
the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy
thing, and has done despite to the Spirit of grace. If we say
that Christ's blood was unholy, he said, I'm going to sanctify
myself that I might sanctify them. If that blood is unholy,
and we're saying that, we reject Christ, then we get what we have
brought on ourselves. And there's another question
I have about Psalm 64. Who started this fight anyway?
Who opened this war? Who got this whole thing started?
It was the wicked, wasn't it? It was Satan and his kingdom.
Who finished it? Well, it was the Lord. The Lord
brought it to an end. He brought a close to the the
sin of his people in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will bring
a close to the enemies of his people in the day of judgment.
So, he goes on in Psalm 64. So they shall make their own
tongue to fall upon themselves, all that see them shall flee
away. And verse 9, and all men shall fear and shall declare
the work of God, for they shall wisely consider of his doing.
Who are these that fear? Well, it's the Lord's people.
There are those who fear and run in terror. But those who
fear according to the fear of God, they're the ones who consider
wisely what God has done. And what do we do when we wisely
consider what the Lord has done? We trust Christ. Look at the
next verse. The righteous shall be glad in
the Lord, and shall trust in him, and all the upright in heart
shall glory. The righteous are not righteous
by their own works. There is none righteous among
men. There is one righteous, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we
make mention of His righteousness alone. But here he's saying the
righteous are those that God has worked out a righteousness
for them. They didn't work it out on their
own and it was given to them and that righteousness worked
out for them is the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ in offering
himself to God for our sins. That's the righteousness of God.
God hath made him sin for us who knew no sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him because He was obedient
in bearing the weight of our sins and the wrath due to us.
God has counted that to be his own righteousness that he worked
out to be given to his people is the very righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. So they're righteous or righteous
in Christ. They shall be glad in the Lord
because in Christ is the only place where we have any blessing.
and all salvation, and they shall trust in Him, all the upright
in heart shall glory." The upright in heart are those God has given
His fear to trust Christ. Because that's what truly the
fear of the Lord is. It's knowing that God is holy.
Knowing that He's good. Knowing all that gospel has revealed
about God and trusting Christ. Fearing everything but to be
found in Christ. If we look to any other, that's
not the fear of God. But if we look to Christ alone,
it's because we have the true fear of God. And so they fear
Him, they trust Him, synonyms, and they're upright in heart.
God gave them that heart. He gave them the grace. He gave
them the life out of which that grace enables them. to believe
on Christ. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live, yet not I, Christ lives in me, and the life that I now
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me. It's faith in Christ that
is the result of Christ living in us. So they're upright in
heart by God's doing. And what a thing that is. He said in the first verse, hear
my voice, O God, in my prayer. Preserve my life from fear of
the enemy. In Colossians 3 and verse 3, it says, our life is
hid. with God in Christ, or hid with
Christ in God. I can't remember exactly how
it is, but in any case, our life is in the Lord. No one can touch
us. The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my
life. Of whom shall I be afraid? You see, that's Psalm 27. So
this is what David is doing here. He has his eyes fixed on God
as judge, and because of Christ, he is righteous, he is perfect
because of Christ and his one offering, and he speaks, first
of all, of Christ and then of all of his people. All of the
enemies of the Lord will be put to shame and put to silence.
but the righteous will be glad in the Lord and they shall trust
in him. Let's pray. Father, thank you
that you've given us your word. The gospel explains the prophets. It explains the law. It explains
the Psalms. We're so thankful that you have
chosen in your in your great grace and also your truth and
righteousness to exalt your son and to do so to the highest possible
way because He has redeemed us by His own blood. What a Savior,
what a price He paid, how good He is. He is truly very great. And He is robed with honor and
majesty because by Himself He purged us of our sins. Help us
to know these things truly in our heart. Give us this heart
that's upright to trust Christ only and to praise our God and
Savior for his sake. Amen.