Psalm 61, I want to read through
these eight verses. It says in 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. 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 hast 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. O prepare mercy and truth which
may preserve him. So will I sing praise unto thy
name forever, that I may daily perform my vows. So I want to
give you, in these few verses, the historical setting, as far
as I can tell from this psalm. The historical setting seems
to be when Absalom led a coup to overthrow David as king. actually to kill his father David
and to make himself, Absalom make himself the king. And as
a result of this coup by Absalom, David fled for his life from
Jerusalem with a few of his loyal people. It seems that this was
the historical setting because David speaks in this psalm of
himself as the king. If you look in verse Six, thou
wilt prolong the king's life and his years as many generations. So historically it would have
to do with David as king because at this time Saul had already
died and David had been established on the throne in Jerusalem. And the psalm that we looked
at last time was from a context that was actually beyond the
reign of Saul too. Okay, so based on the fact that
David speaks of the king, and he's not speaking of King Saul,
and that he had a promise from God that God would establish
his kingdom, and that, of course, that God's promise concerned
Christ, And also in verse two, he says, from the ends of the
earth will I cry unto thee. Because when Absalom came into
Jerusalem and David and those loyal to David fled from Jerusalem,
David was far off. He was outside. In fact, they
crossed over Jordan. So he was a long way off and
his people, those loyal to him, which in proportion to all the
people with him, to those who were left in Israel and in Judah
were a small group. So a few that one of King David's
friends, Etai, I think his name was, was able to provide for
the party that was with David, so the men that were with him.
So for those reasons, it seems like the setting of this psalm
was when Absalom took over the palace, if you will, in Jerusalem.
And Absalom did some horrible things at that time, which I
don't want to get into right now. But since that was a historical
setting, we can see then how that this psalm would apply to
David historically. And I think it's helpful for
us to see that. It's helpful for me to see that
because whatever applies to David applies much more to the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is David's son. since he was running away
from Jerusalem to spare, to save his life and the lives of those
with him. And Absalom was trying to kill
him because if you remember Ahithophel, who was David's trusted counselor,
became loyal to Absalom in the coup. So then Ahithophel advised
Absalom to go after the king right away and to kill him. and
then all of the rest of the people with David would be scattered.
So it was clear that that was the motivation there is to not
just take over the king, the reign of king, but to get rid
of David so that it would establish Absalom on the king's throne
and over the entire nation without a rival. So if you understand
that historical context, it helps in this psalm. Why was David
in that predicament? Why did Absalom do this? Well,
if you remember back in 2 Samuel chapter 12, when Nathan confronted
David about his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah
the Hittite, At the end of that, God said, through Nathan, that
the Lord has put away your sin. Nevertheless, because of what
he did, God would cause David's house to be in
disarray. And so what David did in secret,
God said to him, God would do openly. And that's exactly what
Absalom did. He had a tent constructed and
he took the king's concubines and he went into the concubines
in that tent in public and so brought reproach on David and
his kingdom. It was a shameful thing, of course,
and a wicked thing that Absalom did, but it nevertheless fulfilled
what God told David he would do. So David was being chased,
and he was alienated, he was separated, he was banished from
the kingdom because of his son. He was hunted. And the hearts
of Israel, it says in 2 Samuel chapter 15 verse 13, that the
hearts of the people of Israel were after Absalom. So not only
was he running for his life, but he also knew that those who
were back in the nation of Israel and Jerusalem, they were loyal
now to Absalom, and he was cast out. And think about that. what
it felt like, what would it feel like where you have been given
by God a place over His people to serve God and to rule over
these people in order to secure to them God's promised inheritance
to them, and also to rule over them, to save them from their
enemies. David had risked his life, put
his life in danger in battles in order to fight for Israel. What would it be like if you
had, because of your sin, had been turned by God to have no
defense against your own son who tried to overthrow your kingdom.
So you were a failure. You're a failure now. And you're
being chased out. You're alienated. You're actually
out living outside without the comforts of home. And most especially,
he was apart from the temple. He couldn't go into the temple,
which he loved to do, to worship God. And in those days, of course,
the temple was the place of worship. even though true worship is in
the heart. Nevertheless, in those days,
that was the place where God made himself known to the people.
And so he was chased and alienated, banished and hunted, and the
hearts of Israel were after his son Absalom. He was separated
from the people of God, outside of the fellowship of the saints,
and he was separated from the temple where God is worshipped.
And Absalom had risen to favor with many in Israel because of
David's sin with Bathsheba and the adultery with her and the
murder of her husband, his faithful servant, David's faithful servant,
Uriah the Hittite. And so you can imagine what David
felt since he was driven out of Jerusalem as a criminal and
reproached by Absalom. It was a time for David of great
confusion and weakness And he knew that this all came upon
him from God's hand for his sin. God had forgiven his sin, but
God was not going to let his name suffer reproach because
the one he said he approved of had done this, and so God is
going to show that he was not approving of this. what David
did. God was not approving of it.
And so these consequences came upon him in order for God to
make that clear. So he must have felt utterly,
as an utter failure at this point. And you know what that feels
like. You have, I mean, all the years of his life up to this
point had led up, he was taken from being a shepherd to his
father's flock. And now through all the victories
because of that sin, he was a complete failure in leading the people
of God. It would have been a time of
great confusion, and he would have not only fled from Jerusalem
and hid from his son, but he would have been greatly discouraged.
Don't you know? He would have been very discouraged.
And the people that followed him also would have felt like
God had abandoned them and had allowed the enemies of David
to take over the kingdom. I mean, this wasn't like in the
days of Saul when Saul was hunting David around the rocks and mountains
and chasing him and David and his men were able to escape.
This is the people that David was king over. They had rejected
him because they had chosen Absalom. And these people now who were
loyal to David found themselves also to be bearing this reproach
of David. So they shared the reproach that
David shared. And of course, this was all at
the hand of Absalom. Now I mention all that because
it's not only the setting of this psalm, but it also parallels
in a small way the much greater significance of what happened
to the Lord Jesus Christ at the cross. Okay, so if we understand
that, I think it helps us. So turn to John chapter 14, if
you look at this Think about the setting of these words in
John chapter 14 verse 1. Jesus is going to the cross.
His disciples have been with him for three and a half years.
He has been teaching and saying that he is sent of God the Father,
obviously doing miracles to prove the word that he said was true.
And they believed Him. They had staked everything. Peter
said, where else are we going to go? We can't leave you. You
have the words of eternal life. They had left everything and
followed Christ. And now, Jesus is about to go
to the cross. And He knows what it's going
to be like. The soldiers will arrest Him. They will mock Him. They will make Him appear weak.
They will charge him with things and he won't defend himself. They will hurl insults at him
and he will not revile back. They will strip him. They will
beat him with whips. They'll put a crown of thorns
on his head. They'll hit him in the face with their hands.
Eventually, they will charge him in the court of the high
priest. Annas and Caiaphas. They will
take him to Pilate. He will go to Herod. Pilate and
Herod will agree together that he should be crucified. Pilate
will succumb to the will of the people. He will give him over
to the Jews who lusted after his death. And everything seems
like they have power over him. The disciples are terrified.
They're all forsake him and flee. And they're scared to death.
Okay, now that's what's about to come about here. Christ himself,
the king, he said, I am the king. I am the one son of God. I came
from heaven. I descended and I'm going to
go back to heaven. You'll see the son of man, he told them
in John 6, 62. You'll see the son of man ascend up where he
was before. And now Jesus says this to comfort
them. He says, let not your heart be
troubled. You believe in God. Believe also
in me. Now, Doesn't that parallel what
happened with David being chased by Absalom and fleeing from Jerusalem? It seemed like him and the few
that were with him were ostracized, were separated, were alienated,
were banished from the kingdom. And just exactly in the same
way, Christ also was hated, charged, tried, convicted, condemned,
and put to death. and his disciples were, even
at that point, remember, they went to the tomb not expecting
him to rise again. They didn't expect him. When Mary saw him, Mary Magdalene
saw him in the garden, she didn't recognize him because she wasn't
expecting him. She thought he was the gardener.
So all these things teach us the way that the disciples felt
and how they reacted when the Lord Jesus was taken and crucified
and suffered all that he did. And it seemed like he didn't
defend himself. What's going on? Well, this was
the outpouring of God's judgment for the sins of his people that
Christ took and bore and suffered for. And it was because of that
reproach that came upon him by the will of God that he prays
in Psalm 69. Let me read that to you in Psalm
69. He says, let not them that wait
on thee, verse six of Psalm 69, let not them that wait on thee,
O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Let not those that
seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel, because
for thy sake I have borne reproach. Shame has covered my face. Now,
in David's case, it was because of his sin, his own personal
sin. But in the Lord Jesus Christ's
case, it was not for his own personal sin, but it was for
the sins of his people that, by God, were made his. Not that
he committed them, but he was responsible for them. He became
responsible for them. He who his own self bear our
sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should
live unto righteousness by whose stripes we were healed. So that's
what the setting here is, okay, of Psalm 61. David in history,
running from his son Absalom, who was a weasel, a wicked man,
and he used wicked men to achieve his ends. And he pretended, he
was a pretender, he pretended to care for the people. And that's
the way he swayed them to have a loyalty to him. But David didn't
do that. God appointed David, and in the
same way, everybody who came. before Christ was a robber and
a thief. Only the Lord Jesus Christ is
the good shepherd of the sheepfold, okay? So in Psalm 61, the historical
setting is seen in its prophetic fulfillment in the Lord Jesus
Christ when he bore the reproach of his people for their sins,
even though in Psalm 61, it's David as the king of Israel and
Judah bearing reproach for his own sins. Our sins were made
to be Christ's so that they became so much His that He confessed
them as His own. They were taken from us. They
were really made His. God said He had made Him to be
sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. It says in Galatians 3.13 that
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us. And in John 3 in verse 14 and
15, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the
Son of Man must be lifted up. So all these things in Isaiah
53 and so many other places, Psalm 22 teaches that Christ
really did feel in himself being forsaken by God on the cross. And that's why he cried. On the
cross, the Lord Jesus Christ the son of God, the sinless one,
the one who actually was born without sin, who actually and
truly kept the law in his spirit and in his letter without any
failure at any time, not the smallest. He kept it completely
and perfectly. He thought the will of God, I
mean, the law of God was in his heart. He thought according to
God's law. That's just the way he was. And
then, not only did he perfectly fulfill God's law in his life,
but then in his death, out of love, immeasurable, incomprehensible,
he took the sins of those who were enemies of God as his own
sins in order to bring them to God. Now that's a stoop of love,
a selfless sacrifice that we can't even begin to comprehend. We can't even give a piece of
cake to people we love. We want a bigger piece. I'm talking
about myself now. So we see here that the Lord
Jesus Christ is the one who fulfilled God's law and then took our sins,
having fulfilled it, and in obedience that went beyond the law, took
our sins as his own and in service to God, gave his life a ransom
for us. We just need to rehearse that
in our minds and in our meditation over and over again. He died
for our sins. Christ died for our sins. Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures. He took them
from us. And he took his own blood having suffered the outpouring
of God's wrath in his body and soul. He took his own blood into
the very presence of God by the eternal spirit and he obtained
our eternal redemption. God accepted him and he actually
accomplished the atonement. So now, When we read these words
here, we not only can hear them from David, but in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Let's look at verse one. Hear
my cry. Oh God. Now, this cry, we normally
think of that as a shouting, something loud, audibly. But
it may have been inaudible. We don't know. I know the Lord
Jesus cried from the cross. He obviously cried when he said,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he cried with
a loud voice when he said, it is finished. So we know he did
cry. He wasn't ashamed to cry out
to God. But the cry here doesn't so much
signify the level of an audible voice, but the intensity of his
soul. Hear my cry, O God. Now realize that in David's case,
he's outside of Jerusalem as the object of scorn and reproach,
and he feels in himself to be an utter failure, and for his
sin, forsaken by his people, alienated and separated from
the place of God's worship, You would think that he would not
be so bold as to cry out to God. He would just own it and say,
okay, I guess I'm gonna die now. This is all over for me. I've
ruined everything. My people are in ruin, the nation's
in ruin, and I'm the one who is the king. It was my fault. But no, he doesn't do that, does
he? He doesn't devolve into self-pity. He says, hear my cry, O God. Because he knows something about
God. He knows that God can save sinners. And so he goes on, he says, attend
unto my prayer. He doesn't just think about these
things and talk to somebody in his kingdom about it. He goes
directly to the Lord. He's the king. He has no one
else to go to but the Lord. And so he does. And this is all
seen preeminently in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear my cry, O
God, attend unto my prayer. Notice in verse 2, from the end
of the earth. This is the description of a
location that's separated far off. from the place of God and
the people of God, from acceptance and approval. 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 there's no doubt,
but that the Lord himself is the rock that is higher than
I. And every believer can say that.
The Lord is the rock who is higher than I. But when we think about
the rock, we actually find that the rock of God's people is the
Lord Jesus Christ. Remember in 1 Corinthians chapter
10 where the Apostle Paul explains that in the wilderness when Moses
struck the rock with his rod as God commanded him to the first
time and water gushed out and that water gave water to the
Israelites so that they were able to drink of it throughout
their 40-year wilderness sojourn in the wilderness. It must have
been like a river running all over that area from that rock. It says in 1 Corinthians 10 that
that rock followed them. That rock followed them. And
let me read that to you in 1 Corinthians. chapter 10 he says moreover verse
1 1st Corinthians 10 verse 1 moreover brethren I would not that you
be that you should be ignorant how that all our fathers were
under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all
baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and did all eat
the same spiritual meat which we know was manna but it signified
Christ In verse four, and did all drink the same spiritual
drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed
them, and that rock was Christ. Do you see that? Unmistakable,
right? The rock that Moses struck And
by striking that rock, God gave water out of the rock to feed
his people. That was a spiritual rock. In other words, it had a spiritual
significance that Christ fulfilled, because that rock was Christ.
He's the bread. He's the rock. He's the cloud
that separates between us and our enemies. He gives us shade
by day and light by night, a fiery cloud. And all those things were
pointing to him. And so, in Psalm 61, the same
thing, the rock is speaking here of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
says, from the end of the earth will I cry unto thee. And it
signifies, by the description of this, of being far off, being
far off. Now, as believers, we sense this,
don't we, from time to time, or maybe not from time to time,
maybe most of the time. We sense this sense in ourselves
of not being close to God. Maybe because we don't pray as
we ought to. Maybe because we don't think
of God or think of Christ as we ought to. And it seems like
that we have to bring ourselves again under the hearing of the
gospel in order to even get our thoughts right. So we feel a
far off and we know what that feels like and sometimes our
own sins and the badness of our sins or the greatness of them
or whatever it is, the number of our sins are cause for us
to feel alienated, confused. discouraged, we feel like failures,
we never seem to do what we think we ought to do. All these things
are causes for us as believers to feel like we're a far off,
doesn't it? But here he says, That's where
I'm crying to you from, from the ends of the earth. From the
end of the earth will I cry into thee. David, completely far off,
he says, from the end of the earth will I cry to thee when
my heart is overwhelmed. Overwhelmed. The word overwhelmed here in
this particular verse is used some places or a number of places
in the Old Testament, and in some of those places it's translated
overwhelmed also. And I want to look at a couple
of those with you. In Psalm 77, In verse 3 it says, I remembered
God and was troubled. I complained and my spirit was
overwhelmed, Selah. Okay, so this is a time of great
trouble, right? He was overwhelmed by his trouble. In the Young's literal translation,
which is, you can use the Blue Letter Bible, the online is free,
if you want to, the Blue Letter Bible gives you that translation. It's a good translation because
it tries to be as just one for one, translating the original
into our language. He says that the word overwhelmed
means feeble and weak, and certainly it does, but it's an overwhelming
sense of weakness. And so that's what he's saying
here. In my trouble, I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed in my spirit.
And of course, you know that if you're overwhelmed in your
spirit, you lose physical strength as well. Like King Saul, when
he knew he was going to die, he didn't have any strength.
He laid on the ground And I didn't want to go out, and they had
to coerce him to do that. But anyway. And another psalm
where the same word is used is also in Psalm 142. I'm going
to turn to Psalm 142. And take a couple of these. In Psalm 142, it says in verse
three, I'll read those three verses. Verse one, Psalm 142,
I cried to the Lord with my voice, with my voice unto the Lord that
I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before
him. I showed before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed
within me, then thou knewest my path and the way wherein I
walked have they privily laid a snare for me. He was overwhelmed.
Now look at Psalm 143. In Psalm 143 in verse 1, listen
to this, it sounds very similar to Psalm 61. He says, give ear to my supplications,
in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness." Now,
it's often the case that when David or the psalmist is praying
here, he refers, he asks God to hear him, to answer him, or
to help him based on a quality in God himself, okay? And you can see that here. He
says, in thy faithfulness, answer me. God is faithful. My unfaithfulness doesn't change
God's faithfulness. So this is resorting, this is
taking refuge and appealing to God's own character. Answer me
for this reason, because you're faithful in your faithfulness
and in thy righteousness. Now, there is no way that God
will hear a sinner because of his righteousness unless God
provides his righteousness for that sinner as his own righteousness. And this is the only way that
God will hear sinners. And so we understand this first
verse of Psalm 143 to be talking about God's faithfulness. in
himself because of his righteousness or his faithfulness is seen in
his own righteousness. It's a righteous act of God to
be faithful and show faithfulness towards those who call upon him. because he himself gives them
the righteousness that he can approve of, that he can accept
them by. And that righteousness, of course,
is the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is just talking about
the gospel, isn't it? Verse 2, Psalm 143. He said,
And enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight
shall no man living be justified. Don't judge me for what I am,
because no one can be justified that way. For the enemy hath
persecuted my soul. He hath spitten my life down
to the ground. He has made me to dwell in darkness
as those that have been long dead." That's pretty bleak, isn't
it? As those long dead in darkness,
the enemy has done that. And he's talking about being
justified by God. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed
within me. My heart within me is desolate. I remember the days of old. I
meditate on all thy works. I muse on the works of thy hands. I stretch forth my hands unto
thee. My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land. Hear
me speedily, O Lord. My spirit faileth. Hide not thy
face from me, lest I be like those that go down to the pit. cause me to hear by loving kindness
in the morning for in thee do I trust. You see that in thee
do I trust. He's looking to God to save him,
not for things found in himself, but for what God finds in himself. And the only way that anyone
can call on God in this way is if they call upon him in the
Lord Jesus Christ. There's only one name. only one
that God has given that men may call upon Him, and that's the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So in the Psalms, whether it
be David or us, in our lives now, the only way we can pray
these things is looking to Christ, God's faithfulness and righteousness
in Him, that God will not justify me for, or will not even examine
me for what He finds in me, but will look upon Christ and consider
Him and consider me in him. And that's my only hope. And
that's what faith does, doesn't it? Like Abraham, he considered
not his own body. He didn't consider the weakness
of his own body to produce the promise. He considered God's
promise that he was faithful and that he calls those things
which be not as though they were and that he raises the dead.
And so we don't consider ourselves and we ask God not to consider
ourselves, we ask Him to consider Christ, and we want to consider
only Christ. Of course, that prayer itself
is revealed to us in scripture as the only way we can come to
God, back in Psalm 61. So overwhelmed, it means a feeling
of great feebleness and weakness, extreme weakness, and he asked
God to hear him when he felt faint in this way. In fact, it's used in that way
in Jonah chapter 2. He says, when my soul fainted
within me, and that's what it means is being overwhelmed. His
soul, his spirit fainted. And that's what... That's what
we feel, that's what the Lord Jesus Christ experienced as our
Savior. He himself felt utterly weak
before God with our sins and he cried out to the Lord. Now
when we cry, we cry this way, lead me to the rock that is higher
than I. Can you get yourself to Christ?
Jesus said, come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden.
Can we come to Christ? Well, we have to, don't we? No one's gonna come for us. No
one's gonna believe on the Lord Jesus for us. We have to have
faith. Each one of us have to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. But how can we believe when faith
is not of ourselves? God has to give it to us. And
how does He do that? By preaching from His Word. And
the Word that He preaches to us is the Gospel. The Gospel
preached from God's Word, from Scripture, is the way God gives
us faith. That's why it's so essential
that we hear the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing, hearing
by the word of God. It's essential that we personally
do, and our children, if they're going to be saved, they must
hear God's word, and so we bring our children under the hearing
of the gospel. We bring ourselves under the
hearing of the gospel. Not as a law, but because we
ask God to give us this life. that He gives through hearing
of Christ and Him crucified. When we hear of Christ and Him
crucified, we're hearing how God Himself has put away our
sins, and in Christ has justified us, and with Christ has raised
us to life, and hearing that, being persuaded that this is
God's work and this is the way He saves us, we rest in Him. that our acceptance and approval,
our reconciliation, the remission of our sins, our redemption,
our sanctification, everything is by the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Nothing but the blood, but all
sufficient blood, the all sufficient blood of Christ. So we pray,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I, because God has to bring
us to Christ. I have thought this from the
text of scripture that I've read, where it says, for example, in
Acts chapter two, that as many as the Lord called, called on
him. Let me look that text of scripture
up in Acts chapter two, where on the day of Pentecost, Peter
was preaching and he says, let me get there. in verse 39, for the promise
is to you and to your children and to all that are far off,
even as many as the Lord our God shall call. When I read that,
you know what, I think, Lord, call me. Call me. If you call me, then I'll call
on you. And that's the only way we call,
isn't it? We'll cry when the Lord calls us and when he draws
us. Jesus said, no man can come to
me except the Father which has sent me. Draw him and they shall
all be taught of God. All who have learned of the Father
come to me. So I want to learn from the Father.
I want to be drawn by the Father because He teaches us to come
to Christ and brings us to Him. And that's God's work. So lead
me to the rock. Do for me. what is necessary
to bring me to Christ. And Lord Jesus, do for me what
is necessary to save me from my sins and to bring me to yourself. That's what we want, isn't it?
All right, let's look at the next verse in Psalm 61. For thou
has been a shelter for me and a strong tower from the enemy. A shelter and a strong tower. Now, let me read this verse to
you from Proverbs 18 and verse 10. In Proverbs chapter 18 and verse
10 it says, the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous
runneth into it and is safe. All right, the name of the Lord
is a strong tower, the righteous runneth into it and is safe. So the Lord is a shelter and
a strong tower from the enemy. That's our God. That's our rock,
the Lord Jesus Christ. His name is the name we call
on. He's the one we run to. We ask that God would bring us
to him. And here he says, he has been
a shelter for me, a strong tower from the enemy. Now, what is
the name of the Lord? Well, To put it in the simplest
and clearest terms, the Lord Jesus Christ is the name of the
Lord. Remember in Romans chapter 10,
whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. You
remember that verse? And you'll also note that in
that same text of scripture, it tells us who the Lord is that
we're supposed to call on. Not only do we know from Acts
4, verse 12, that only one name under heaven is given to us to
call, and that name is Christ, but in Romans chapter 10, where
he's talking about calling on the name of the Lord, he's talking
about the Lord Jesus, whosoever shall confess that Jesus is Lord,
is what it says there, and believes in his heart that God raised
him from the dead shall be saved for whosoever shall call on the
name of the Lord shall be saved. So he's talking about the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so he's our shelter. He's our strong tower. He's our
rock. And the name of the Lord is who
he is. And who he is, is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the one we call on, the
one we run to. This is hard for us to get a
hold of because the Lord often says things that you feel like
need an extensive amount of explanation. But we have to say them anyway.
Jesus said, I am. the way, the truth, and the life. We want a definition for those
things, don't we? But He is that. I was thinking
the other day how it says in Scripture that God is from everlasting
to everlasting. We often say God is eternal,
as if eternal is some kind of a unending existence of time,
we can't really get our heads wrapped around it. And the reason
why is because Jesus Christ is eternal life. So, to even define
eternity, we can only define it in terms of who Christ is. We can't say, well, there's this
mathematical concept called infinity and Christ is that. No. we have
to define infinity in terms of Him. He's the one who's infinite.
He's eternal. So I say that because when we
talk about a shelter and a strong tower, the Lord is that for me. We see that He's our salvation. He's everything. And if you wanna
bring it together and sum it up, you could say it this way.
Everything that God is, He is in Christ. to his people, okay? Everything that God is, everything
that God is, he is in Christ to his people. And everything
that Christ is, he is to God for his people. So he's the mediator. So if we understand that, then
we see that basically Christ is all. The fullness of the Godhead
dwells in him and we're complete in him. Now God's name is given
to us in scripture in such a way as to expand our understanding
of his all comprehensive sufficiency to us. that there's
nothing that we need that Christ is not to us, so that we are
always looking to Him for everything. For example, the names of God
in Scripture, Jehovah-Jireh, which means God will see to it.
He'll see it, and He'll see the need, and He'll see to the need,
and He will provide Himself a Lamb. The Lamb is Christ. He's our
Lamb. He's the one who provides. And
so the Lord, remember how He broke the bread? Remember how
He broke the fish? Remember how He said He would
break His body and shed His blood for us, for our life? He's the
one who is the author of eternal salvation. He is the salvation,
so Jehovah-Jireh. Jehovah-Rabba, he's the Lord
who heals you, we're healed by his stripes. Jehovah-Nisi, he's
our banner of victory over our enemy, over our flesh. Jehovah-Kadash,
he's the one who sanctifies us with his own blood. Jehovah Shalom,
our peace. Christ is our peace. He made
peace through the blood of His cross. Jehovah Ra'ah, our shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. Jehovah
Tzedkinu, the Lord our righteousness. You see how everything that Christ
is, He is to His people. in things pertaining to God,
and everything that God is, he is to his people in Christ, so
that Christ is all. He's Jehovah's Psalm in Ezekiel
48, where it says the Lord is there, he's always with his people,
and in his work, in his word, in his person. He's Jehovah Yeshua,
which means the Lord is salvation. Jehovah is Joshua, Jesus is the
one who will save his people from their sins. He's the wonderful
counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince
of Peace. We could just go on and on. See,
these are the names of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in 1 Samuel
25, verse 25, Abigail said about her husband, Nabal, who was a
fool, he said, as is his name, so is he. He's a fool. But as
is His name, the Lord Jesus Christ, so is He also. The salvation
of His people, our peace with God, He's everything, you see,
our righteousness. And so here, when he says, thou
has been a shelter for me, a strong tower, the righteous, the name
of the Lord is a strong tower, a high tower, and the righteous
run into it and are safe. We're saved. We run to the Lord
Jesus Christ. When the Lord teaches us that
Christ is all, and he gives us enough sense of our own sin that
we need him, then we run, we don't think, well, I've got to
evaluate this after a few years, I'll figure it out and I'll get
back to you. Not at all. Right away, we're
trusting Christ, aren't we? Okay, so that's a blessed thing. The name of the Lord is who Christ
is. And all that he is, is God. to
us in a man, in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's phenomenal. God has spoken to us in these
last days. How? He has spoken his son. This is who he is. The brightness of his glory,
the express image of his person. So I'm just about out of time
here, so unfortunately I didn't pace myself well enough to get
you through this, but this entire thing, I probably should pick
it up next time. But look at the next verse here
in verse four, and I'll just spend a moment on this. I will
abide in thy tabernacle forever. I will trust in the covert of
thy wings, Selah. To be in the tabernacle? What
is the tabernacle anyway? Well, the tabernacle is where
God dwells. So to be in the tabernacle is
to be in the presence of God, to be in the presence of God.
And how is it that the Lord is with his people? Well, I hate
to sound like a broken record, but I don't get tired of saying
it, really. Christ was meant, the Word of God, it says in John
chapter 1, it says in verse 14, the Word was made flesh and tabernacled
or dwelt among us. That's what it means there. He
dwelt among us. He tabernacled. What this is
saying is that to be in the tabernacle is to be in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in Christ, and that's
why the people of God who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are
called His, what? Body. His body. We are bone of His bone, flesh
of His flesh. It says in Ephesians 5, verse
30, members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. We're
His body. Get your head around that because
he dwells in his people. Christ, by his spirit, dwells
in his people. Paul said, I'm crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ lives in me. Christ himself. So the Lord is
our tabernacle. God has tabernacled amongst us. We dwell in him. He's the temple. We're members of his body. We're
one in spirit with Him. We've been joined to Him, 1 Corinthians
6, 17. He purchased us, our members,
the members of our body are the members of Christ. That's how
one we are with Him. And so He says here, I will abide
in thy tabernacle forever. It's speaking of the most intimate
relationship that we have with God in Christ. In Psalm 27 he
says, one thing have I desired, and that will I seek after, that
I may dwell in the house of the Lord. and inquire in His temple. Remember those words from Psalm
27? In other words, this is my desire
to be found in Christ and to hear His words and to hear His
words as eternal life, revealing Himself to me as a sinner to
find my all in Him and daily taking from Him His words in
order that I might live. Live in the truth, live the life
that Christ is and all that goes with that, the righteousness
that he provides, that we might have that life and everything
that comes from him. So I'm gonna have to stop there,
but notice how verse four is speaking about the certainty
of being in the Lord Jesus Christ and being in the presence of
God and hearing from God there. That's where God makes himself
known is in the tabernacle. Let's pray. Lord, we so much
need you to explain your words to us. We know they speak of
our Savior. We know they speak of his greatness
and his goodness to us and all of our life, our spiritual life,
heavenly blessings. our salvation, the forgiveness
of our sins, the clothing of our nakedness in His righteousness,
our entering into the presence of God by His grace and by His
blood, and appearing in the presence of God without spot, holy before
Him, in love. All of this is speaking of our
relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ and our salvation and
our spiritual life and blessings in Him. Help us, Lord, to see
that these things are not uncertain, but they are absolutely
sure because it's the name of the Lord. It's who He is. He's
given His word and His word cannot fail. He cannot lie. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen.