Psalm 61, I'll go ahead and read
the whole psalm and then we'll pick it up at verse 6. It says
in the very beginning, verse 1, Hear my cry, O God, attend
unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee. When my heart is overwhelmed,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Now we saw last week
that the setting of this psalm appears to be when Absalom had
raised a number of people in the nation of Israel and overtook
the thrown from David. David and a small portion of
the people in that country were loyal to him and they fled. And
so this psalm is about that situation. And we saw how that parallels
the same setting in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ, who
was hounded and hunted by those who hated him with his disciples,
just a few men. And in his own experience, he
cries out, in his prayer to God from the cross when he says,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And so here in these
first two verses it says, from the end of the earth will I cry
unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher
than I. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
our rock, but when the Lord Jesus Christ was on earth as man, though
he was God as man, he trusted in God and so he cried to the
Lord as his rock. We're gonna read verse three
now. He says, for thou has been a shelter for me and a strong
tower from the enemy. I will abide in thy tabernacle
forever. I will trust in the covert of
thy wings, Selah. For thou, O God, hast heard my
vows. Thou has given me the heritage
of those that fear thy name. thou wilt prolong the king's
life and his years as many generations. He shall abide before God forever.
Oh, prepare mercy and truth which may preserve him. So will I sing
praise unto thy name forever that I may daily perform my vows. Now we want to pick up in verse
five, which is where we left off last time. He says, thou,
O God, has heard my vows. Thou has given me the heritage
of those that fear thy name. So the first question that we
might ask here is, what is a vow? And didn't the Lord Jesus say
that we are not to swear, that we can't make one hair of our
head white or black, and that if we say anything more than
yay for yes and nay for no, that we do evil? And so what does
this mean here when he says in verse five, for thou, O God,
has heard my vows? Well, first of all, when I began
to look at this, I realized that the first time in scripture that
the word vow is used is when Jacob was fleeing from Esau,
his brother, to go to Laban. His mother, Jacob's mother, Rebecca,
had sent him away, and he was running, really, for his life.
But while he was running, the Lord appeared to him. When the Lord appeared to him,
the Lord appeared to him in a dream, and he saw a ladder reaching
from heaven to earth, and on that ladder the angels of God
were ascending and descending. Now, so that's the setting, and
so I want to look at that verse in Genesis 28. In that verse,
Jacob said this, he said, Jacob vowed a vow. So that's the first
time the word vow is used in Genesis 28. In verse 20, he said,
Jacob vowed a vow saying, if God will be with me and will
keep me in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat
and raiment to put on, and then he goes on. Let me pick it up
because I'm just reading from my page here and I only put out
that one verse. So in Genesis 28, let me turn
to that with you. Jacob, this is the context here,
he says, and then in verse 21, he's continuing his vow, he says,
so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the
Lord be my God. And this stone, Jacob continues,
which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house, and of
all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth
to thee. So that was the context of Jacob's
vow. Now, It sounds like, when you
read that, that Jacob was trying to say, if God will do this for
me, then I will do that for God. And so it sounds like he was
bargaining, like Jacob was prone to do. And he was saying that
he could fulfill something, a promise that he made, if God would fulfill
the promise that he made. So, it helps to realize that
God had promised Jacob certain things in that same text of scripture. And Jacob's vow is really in
the context of God's promise. And in fact, if you look at that,
it says in verse 12 of Genesis chapter 28, he says, He dreamed
a dream, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the
top of it reached heaven. And behold, the angels of God
ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above
it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the
God of Isaac, the land wherein thou liest, to thee will I give
it, and to thy seed, and thy seed shall be as the dust of
the earth, thou shalt spread abroad to the west, to the east,
to the north, to the south, and in thee, and in thy seed, shall
all the families of the earth be blessed. And behold, I am
with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest,
and will bring thee again to this land, for I will not leave
thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." The
context of Jacob's vow was God's promise, and in that promise,
the central theme of that promise is that in thee and in thy seed
shall all the families of the earth be blessed. That's exactly
the same promise God made to Abraham and to Isaac And now
to Jacob. It's the promise of the gospel
that God would justify his people in the Lord Jesus Christ, because
that was the blessing in Galatians chapter three, verses six through
nine. If you were to read that, that's
the blessing that God promised Abraham when he spoke those words
that in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the
earth be blessed. So if we realize that the promise
of God to justify his people in Christ was the promised blessing
God gave to Jacob, and not only that, but this additional promise
to give his physical children the land of Canaan, that we see
then that God promised and therefore it was a done deal. There's no
conditions placed on God's promise. If we understand that, then Jacob's
vow isn't so much Jacob pledging that if God will keep his promise,
then he will do certain things for God, and that would motivate
God to keep his promise. That's what's called a mercenary
spirit. You know what a mercenary is?
A mercenary is someone who for pay will do things for their
master. In most cases, it's like a soldier
who will, a military person who will do things as a mercenary. That's the way we normally think
of it. So someone who is really hired And Jacob wasn't saying,
I will be, you can hire me to do this and I'll fulfill my vow
to you and that will be the reason why you can keep your promises
to me. He wasn't doing that. Although it does seem like that.
But it's often the case that we have been either tempted to
do this or we've actually done this in some time in the course
of our life where we've done something and we are in trouble,
and we need God to help us, and we cannot get ourselves out of
it, and we may be tempted. to say, Lord, if you'll do this,
then I'll do that. So it's kind of a, what do they
say, quid pro quo, where we do something and then God responds
to what we've done for him. That's works, religion, isn't
it? That's making ourselves a debtor,
really, to do the whole law. To him that worketh, Romans chapter
four, verse four, to him that worketh, the reward is not of
grace, but debt. And God is never going to be
any man's debtor. And we indebt ourselves to God
by pledging that if we fulfill certain things, then God can
do what he wants in response to our promise. That's the way
we normally think of a vow. But that's not what's meant here
when God is speaking in Psalm 61, when he says, for thou, O
God, has heard my vows. For the believer, we are not
to vow. We are not to make any pledge
that on the condition of our fulfilling a pledge, God would
do something for us. That's completely against the
gospel. Why is it against the gospel?
Well, number one, God is no one's debtor. No one first gives to
God, it says in Acts 17, that he will give to them. Or it's
actually in Romans 11 that he says that. God is the one who's
the source of everything. He doesn't need us. We need him. And he gives to all life and
breath and all things. So, of him and through him and
to him are all things. All things are of God. So, those
are quotes from scripture. So, there's no possibility that
God will ever become a debtor to a man, okay? So, that's the
reason Jesus says, let your yes be yes and your no be no, because
to say more than that is wrong, it's sin. But then we have to
ask, then what was Jacob doing here? John Gill said the meaning
of this is that he would not only continue to own God as his
God and worship him, but he would have fresh obligations upon him
and be stirred up more and more eagerly to serve him in a manner
because of what he expressed here in his promises, what God
said in his promises. Okay, so realize that in this
vow, Jacob is as much as saying this, if the Lord Jesus Christ
will fulfill his gracious promise to me, then I will own and worship
him as my God. You see, that's essentially what
Jacob is saying, because God had promised and Jacob is saying,
if God do that, according to his promise, then he will be
my God. Jacob pledged that if God would
be gracious to him to do all that he promised, and those promises
we know are in Christ alone, right? All the promises of God
in him are yes, and in him, amen. Therefore, because they're in
Christ alone, when God made this promise to Jacob and repeated
that he had made that promise to Abraham in Christ, and all
the promises of God in Christ are to all of his elect. Therefore,
Jacob is saying that he is dependent upon God to fulfill his promises
to us in Christ in order for him to serve the Lord his God. If that helps, I hope that it
does, because it's consistent with what God says, for example,
in Philippians 2, verse 12 and 13. It's God who is at work in
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. We will neither
will nor will we do God's good pleasure unless God works in
us. So we would say something like
this, we can only believe Christ, we can only receive all that
is in Christ if God fulfills his promise in Christ to us. Isn't that true? We can't do
anything unless God does all that he has promised in Christ.
and he must give us life and he must give us faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ and all spiritual and heavenly blessings in him
according to his electing grace and according to his promises
in Christ and according to the gospel concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ. We have nothing but what we have
in Christ. Okay, if we understand that,
that we have nothing except that God is faithful to us for Christ's
sake, and that we have nothing unless God gives us faith in
Christ, then we won't desire and we will not will or do anything
unless God does it, works this in us, then what we were going
to say is that by God's grace I vow that if God is gracious
to me, If Christ is truly my all, then by his grace I will
look to Christ as my all for all things. OK, does that make
sense? The gospel teaches us, look to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not attempt to come to God
by your works or with anything. Faith comes empty. Faith comes
with its own sin, needing a savior. And unless we come empty as sinners
needing a savior, that's the only way we can come in which
Christ will be all to us because that's what he is. He's a savior
of sinners. So we come to him based on that
saying, Lord, my vow is that if you give me grace, I will
look to Christ only. Does that make sense? So that's
consistent with Jacob saying, that if God will fulfill his
promises to me in Christ, as he promised to Abraham and to
Isaac, which is the gospel, if God will fulfill his promises
in the gospel, which are all in Christ, then the Lord will
be my God and I will return to this place and I will worship
Him. So for me, that helps to understand in Psalm 61, for thou,
O God, has heard my vows. My vow is that if God does for
me in Christ everything for my salvation, then I will be His. and he will be mine, okay? I
can't fulfill that vow. God has to be faithful. He has
to be true. I can't do it. I'm coming to
God for him to fulfill all of his promises. So that's the first
thing we see here. The second thing is is that in
the Old Testament, there were two things about, and you could
see this in Leviticus 22 if you want to look at it later, but
in Leviticus 22, he talks about two things. One is a free will
offering. And the other one is a vow, and
the two were connected. So that the first thing about
a vow is that they were to be offered out of a person's own
willingness. They were not to be constrained
by some kind of unwelcome compulsion. as a servant or a mercenary person,
I got to do this or else I'm doomed, that would be an unwillingness. But a willingness, a happy free
will offering, that's what it was called, a free will offering.
The other thing about this kind of an offering and a vow is that
the offering that was given must be without blemish. In Leviticus
22, verse 21, he says, it shall be perfect to be accepted. So if you understand that, then
when the vow was made and a freewill offering was given, that it had
to be of a person's own free will, uncoerced free will, and
it had to be a perfect offering, then it causes us to understand
this verse in verse five of Psalm 61 to really pertain to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because really only one ever
lived who could actually promise and keep his promise. Right? There's only one who could actually
keep his promise. And we also understand that when
the Lord Jesus Christ is said in scripture to be our surety,
that he entered into an engagement. He inclined his heart to engage
with God, his Father, as a surety. to the Father for his people. He pledged himself to be our
surety. And what that means is that he
took our obligations as his own. He obligated himself for us. And so, as we see in the case
of Judah, answering Joseph with himself on behalf of Benjamin,
the Lord Jesus Christ answered God's justice with himself on
our behalf in order to bring us again to our Father with our
brethren. And that's the story of assurity
in Genesis 43 and Genesis 44. It's a heart-moving, heart-rending
account of assurity-ship. It's also given in the book of
Philemon, where the Apostle Paul writes a letter to Philemon,
whose slave, Onesimus, had run away. And the Apostle Paul asks
Philemon to receive Onesimus as as Paul himself. He says, receive him, Paul told
Philemon concerning Onesimus, he said, receive him as myself. Now, where in scripture can we
read of God doing that for his people except in the Lord Jesus
Christ, our surety? Christ has spoken to God for
us under the obligations that we owe to God for our sins and
for our obedience, and he says, receive him. Receive every one
of your children, as myself." What a blessed thing that is.
And Paul goes on to tell Philemon, if he has wronged thee or owes
you anything, put that on my account. I will repay it. So
what a beautiful account here we have in the book of Genesis
and Philemon of assurity. Now, assurity really is pledging.
And in that pledge, it's a vow. And the Lord Jesus Christ made
a pledge to his father for his people as their surety to bring
them again to his father because God the father entrusted them
into his hand as Jacob entrusted Benjamin into the hand of Judah
when they went to stand before Joseph. And Judah did bring Benjamin
back. And if Joseph hadn't released
Judah, then Judah would have had to be a slave to Joseph forever. But because Joseph, if you remember
that account, was so moved, he was so moved out of love for
his father, for Benjamin, his brother, and that Judah would
in love give himself in order to ensure Benjamin returned to
Jacob, his father, that Joseph now found in Judah's pleading
a heart just like his own heart. And in all of that, we see, of
course, the heart of God in both his justice and his saving grace
of love that he would save us in Christ and that Christ's pleadings
for his people as their surety would resonate with God's own
heart because his heart is one with God. You see, okay, so now
all that is to teach us the nature of the vow of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He pledged himself to God for
us. What a vow. So he says in verse
5 of Psalm 61, For thou, O God, hast heard my vows, thou hast
given me the heritage of those that fear thy name. What is this
heritage? What is this heritage? Well,
he says the heritage of those that fear thy name. Well, the
heritage that God has, what heritage has God given his son? What heritage
has God given his son? Well, there's no limit to what
God has given his son, is there? Is there anything that he hasn't
given his son? No, he's given everything to
his son. I want to read this text of scripture
in John chapter three, verse 35 to you. Listen to this. He says, the father loveth the
son and hath given all things into his hand. Everything is
given to the Son. Why? Because the Father loves
His Son. And then also in John chapter
16, listen to these words, starting at verse 13, John 16 verse 13,
he says, Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He
will guide you into all truth. For He shall not speak of Himself,
but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak. And He will
show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall
receive of mine and shall show it to you. All things that the
Father has are mine, therefore said I that he shall take of
mine and shall show it to you." What do we have? What has Christ
shown to us? Well, He's shown to us the will
of His Father accomplished, and the promises of God in the everlasting
covenant of His grace, wherein He has given us everlasting life,
eternal glory, sonship. He's given us all blessings,
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He's
given us everything. And Romans 8, 32 says, if God
did not spare his son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall
he not also with him freely give us all things? So everything
God has given his son, he's given to him for his people. Okay, so when he says, thou,
O God, has heard my vows, thou has given me the heritage of
those that fear thy name, he's including his people with himself. And we see that the heritage
that God has given his son is heaven itself, all of power in
heaven and earth to reign in order to save his people and
give them every promised blessing in the everlasting covenant of
his grace. What an unlimited, immeasurable
blessing God has given His Son. And everything He's given to
His Son, He has given to us in Him. He has given Him the heritage. He has made the vows. He has
kept those vows. And God has given Him, therefore,
the heritage of those that fear Thy name. those that fear thy
name. What does it mean to fear the
name of the Lord? Let me be as brief and as clear
as I can. To fear the Lord is to believe
the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope that is that clear to
you. How would we how would we reverence God? How would we stand
in awe of God? How would we respect him as our
father in the most exemplary manner? This is the work of God
that you believe on him whom he has sent. That's the work.
And we find in that that it's not even a work that we do, but
it is giving credit, we're ascribing
to Christ all of the accomplishment of our salvation. The work that
God's interested in is the work he accomplished, and faith in
him is ascribing everything to Christ. It's that empty-handed
sinner coming for all to the Lord Jesus Christ according to
the will of God. That's the will of the Father,
isn't it? This is the will of him who sent me that of all who
see the Son and believe Him should have everlasting life and I will
raise Him up at the last day. So God's will for us, look to
Christ, believe on Him. And the Lord Jesus Christ says
that's the heritage, the heritage of eternal salvation, eternal
glory. Eternal glory is given to us.
Eternal glory is given to us because of the Lord Jesus Christ
who fulfilled His vows for us. It says in 2 Timothy 2, verse
10, therefore, Paul says, I endure all things for the elect's sake. Okay? He endures everything for
the elect's sakes. He says that they may also obtain
the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Why did Paul do all that he did?
Why did he endure the beatings and the stonings and the being
cast out at sea and the imprisonment and reproach of the vilest religious
hypocrites? Why did he endure all that? For
the elect's sake. And why for the elect's sake?
How did what he suffered, Paul, benefit them? That they might
obtain the salvation which is in Christ with eternal glory?
That's the heritage of God's people. Christ is our reward. That's our heritage, isn't it?
And everything, salvation and eternal glory is in Him. We can't think of being in heaven
without Christ. We can't think of going there
and having a party, swimming and having a picnic under a tree
in heaven and Christ not be there. Christ is heaven. and everything
that we have, we have in Him. And our desire, our desire is
to be found in Him, to hear His words, words of eternal life,
to know Him, and to constantly and continually live upon Him,
and know Him to be our life and our all, and to give Him all
of the thanks and praise and glory that He deserves. And everlasting days will be
too short to do that. Okay. Now we're going to go on
to verse six. Verse six says, thou will prolong
the king's life and his years as many generations. Who is the
king? The Lord Jesus Christ. And what
does it say in Hebrews chapter seven? He's the king of righteousness
and he's the king of peace. As Melchizedek, he has no beginning
of days and no end of, no beginning of life and no end of life. He
is the high priest forever. And he is the king. And his king,
according to God's promise and oath that he made in the Psalms,
is an everlasting kingdom. It shall have no end. His dominion
is an everlasting dominion. Daniel chapter seven and verse
13 and 14. And his throne shall endure forever, God says in Psalm
89. And you can read Psalm 89 to
find that. So the king's life is prolonged.
And because the king's life is prolonged, what does that mean
to us? Well, Jesus said, because I live, you shall live also.
So because his life, because he lives, we live. Because Christ
lives, we live. Those simple statements in scripture
like that, that Jesus made, Christ is our life. If his life is prolonged,
our life is prolonged because he lives. And so that's why he
says we have eternal life, because he himself is eternal life, and
our life is in him. So this prayer is, thou wilt
prolong the king's life in his years as many generations, he
will be given all that God promised he would be given. Jesus said,
I am the resurrection and the life. And so many times in scripture,
we see that Jesus Christ is the life. I am the way, the truth,
and the life. And we know life when we know
Him. And we have life when we trust
Him. That's a wonderful thing, isn't it? All right, verse 7
of Psalm 61, he says this, he shall abide before God forever,
Oh, prepare mercy and truth which may preserve him. Now, in Isaiah
9 and verse 6, very familiar verse of scripture, especially
at Christmas time, it says, His name shall be called Wonderful. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ
is Wonderful. That's the first name given to
him in Isaiah 9, verse 6. His name shall be called Wonderful. So we have it here, don't we?
Everything is wonderful in these words. He shall abide before
God forever. O prepare mercy and truth which
may preserve him. Because these words are wonderful
because they speak of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, who
is wonderful. Now I want to read a text of
scripture in Hebrews chapter 9 to show you how wonderful the
Lord Jesus Christ is. In Hebrews chapter 9, listen
to these words beginning at verse 24 and see how wonderful Christ
is to us. He says, Christ is not entered
into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures
of the true, but into heaven itself, Listen to this, now to
appear in the presence of God for us. What is the Lord Jesus
Christ doing in heaven? He's in the presence of God and
he appears there for us. What could be more wonderful
than that? And then he says in verse 25, nor yet that he should
offer himself often as a high priest enters into the holy place
every year with blood of others, but then must he often have suffered
since the foundation of the world. But now, listen to this wonderful
statement, once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to
put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed
unto man once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ
was once offered to bear the sins of many. And unto them that
look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto
salvation. The first time he came he bore
our sins and suffered for them and offered himself to God. The
second time he will appear without sin unto our eternal salvation. No wonder we look for him. We
want the Lord Jesus Christ to come. We want him who died and
who now reigns as the absolute sovereign over all things to
appear for our salvation. He's in heaven now. He appears
in the presence of God for us. He put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. Only one sacrifice was needed
because he offered himself and there's nothing that could equate
to Him. All of heaven could be emptied.
It still would not amount to the offering Christ made when
He offered Himself to God. That's wonderful. That is wonderful. And also, it says in Psalm 89,
14, where he says, we have just read in Psalm 61, prepare mercy
and truth which may preserve him. In Psalm 89, in verse 14,
it says, justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne.
God's throne is established on God's justice and God's judgment. And then he goes on in the same
verse, he says, mercy and truth shall go before thy face. Because
God rules in justice and judgment, and because mercy and truth goes
before his face, then God is able to justify the ungodly because
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's no better news in
all the world than that. That's wonderful, isn't it? Christ
is wonderful. He also says this in Psalm 85,
10, mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. What is that describing? That's
describing the cross, isn't it? That's the cross where mercy
and truth met together and righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
And then in Proverbs 20, verse 28, it says, Mercy and truth
preserve the king, and his throne is upholden by mercy. It's easy for us to understand
that God's throne is upheld by justice. And we think of God
as being austere, like that unbelieving servant who was only given one
talent and hid it in the earth and accused his master of being
austere. That's the way we think of God. He takes up what he didn't put
down, and he reaps what he didn't sow. But that's wrong. It's wrong
for us to think of God that way, because his throne is established
on justice and judgment. But because it is, when he declares
to us that he has justified his people for Christ's sake, as
he does in the gospel, then we know it's just and it's his judgment. And therefore, this is his mercy
and truth. And his throne is upheld by that. Can we worship
God unless we know that he has had mercy on us in Christ? He
says, in Psalm 130 and verse 4, that, let's see, I'm trying
to remember what it says exactly. I have to turn there to find
it. Psalm 130 and verse 4, he says, there is, oh, if thou,
Lord, verse 3, he says, if thou, Lord, should mark iniquities,
oh, Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with
thee. And that, of course, is in Christ alone. There's forgiveness
with thee that thou mayest be feared. That's the way we worship
God, is because he's forgiven us, because his throne is upheld
by mercy. And that mercy is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. God is not just. He's not only
just. He's not only the God of judgment,
but he is those things in such a way that his justice and his
judgment are magnified to the highest possible extent in the
mercy he has obtained for his people according to the truth
of his throne declared to us in the gospel, in the cross of
Christ. What a glorious thing that is.
So in Christ's life and death and on his throne of grace, God
has made a way in his son to establish his throne in mercy
and his truth of his grace to sinners according to his justice
and according to his righteousness. And that's the cross. That's
the message of the cross, isn't it? And we're not surprised to
find the message of the cross in the Psalms, are we? Jesus
in Luke 24 explained to the two on the road to Emmaus how in
the law and the prophets and the Psalms they spoke of him.
All right, look at verse eight of Psalm chapter 61, Psalm 61
verse eight. He says, so will I sing praise
unto thy name forever that I may daily perform my vows. We do
all that we do because Christ has done all that he has done. We live because He lives. We believe Him because of His
gift of grace to us to find our all in Him. And so finding our
all in Him, we could never be happier, right? Nothing makes
me happier. Nothing puts me at peace more
than to know everything that God is, He is to me in Christ,
who is my surety, who is my redeemer. the one who stood before God
with all my sins to answer God in all of his righteousness and
to do it with a view towards my eternal salvation to bring
me to himself. This is beyond words, isn't it? So he says here, so will I sing
praise unto thy name forever that I may daily perform my vows
because Christ has done all for us because he has given his life
that we might live, and live now by faith upon him, he also
gives us that faith. Therefore we sing praise to his
name, and we shall not only in this life sing praise to his
name, and that by faith, but we forever shall forevermore
sing to his name, and sing to Him in all that He is. We will see Him, we will be known,
I mean, we will know even now as we are known, and we will
sing according to the truth of God's loving kindness to us in
the Lord Jesus Christ. So he asked in prayer, so will
I sing praise to thy name forever and ever that I may daily perform
my vows. We look forward to that, don't
we? What a wonderful day that will be when unfettered and unencumbered
by sin, we are unable to sing as we really want to sing to
the Lord Jesus Christ. What will that be like? In that
day, the Lord Jesus, our head, will be lifted up above our enemies. And as Hannah's voice in 1 Samuel
chapter two was lifted up above her adversary, so we will be
granted this great desire and to lift up our voice in the victory
of the Lord Jesus Christ over our enemies. He will absolutely
annihilate our sin, Satan, and all of Satan's kingdom. against
us. Death and hell will be cast into
the lake of fire and we will be redeemed. There will be no
more curse, no more tears, no more sorrow, no more crying.
Everything will be joy in the Lord. And you know who will be
most joyful in that day? The Lord Jesus himself. He says
in Zephaniah, if you want to turn to Zephaniah, we'll close
with this. In Zephaniah, which is just before
Haggai, which is after Habakkuk and after Nahum. I know it's
hard to find these little minor prophets, but if you find Zephaniah,
it's before Zechariah, which is the last book, or not the
last book, but nearly the last book. Zephaniah chapter 3, listen
to this verse, I know you know this. It says in verse 14 of
Zephaniah chapter 3, listen to this. Sing, this is God the Holy
Spirit speaking on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ to his
church. He says, sing, O daughter of Zion. Sing, O daughter of
Zion. Who is the daughter of Zion?
It's the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the great purpose
of God the Father throughout time and eternity? It's the marriage
supper of His Son. It's the joining of His people
to the Lord Jesus Christ, and by Him, to Himself, as His children. He says, sing, O daughter of
Zion. Shout, O Israel. Be glad. and rejoice with all the heart,
O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord hath taken away thy
judgments. He hath cast out thine enemy. The King of Israel, even the
Lord, is in the midst of thee. Thou shalt not see evil any more. This is all speaking of what
Christ accomplished. He says in verse 16, In that
day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not, and to Zion, Let
not thine hands be slack. The Lord thy God in the midst
of thee, that's Christ, is mighty. He will save. He will rejoice
over thee with joy. He will rest in his love. He
will joy over thee with singing. What joy that will be when we're
able and able to sing to the Lord Jesus Christ. When we're
known, when as we're known, we shall know him and we will in
knowing him have that eternal life that he describes. Words
just don't seem adequate, do they? The Lord Jesus Christ,
our wonderful Savior. Let's pray. Thank you, Father,
for telling us about the wonderful words, the wonderful person,
the wonderful works of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We look
forward with expectation. And yet, even as we say this,
we realize that in our In our weakness, we have some measure
of unbelief. So we pray, Lord, that you would
teach us in our very heart and soul that the Lord Jesus Christ
is our salvation. He himself. So that we have no
reason to doubt. We have no reason to halt. We
have no reason to be reluctant because He is our all, and because
He is our all, then we have no reason to doubt anything that
God has promised. All will be given to us because
it's all sure and amen in him. Help us to realize that everything
we have is of you, and that we can do nothing but what you give
to us by your grace, so that we would even say, by your grace,
I'm looking to Christ, and I will continue to look to Christ alone
by your grace. This is what we desire, to be
found in him, and to see his face, and to know him, and to
sing his praise. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.