All right, Psalm chapter 47,
I want to read this together with you. It says in the very
beginning of Psalm 47, verse 1, Oh, clap your hands, all ye
people, shout unto God with a voice of triumph. For the Lord Most
High is terrible. He is a great king over all the
earth. He shall subdue the people under
us and the nations under our feet. He shall choose our inheritance
for us, the excellency of Jacob, whom he loved, Selah. God is
gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
Sing praises to God. Sing praises. Sing praises unto
our King. Sing praises. For God is the
King of all the earth. Sing ye praises with understanding. God reigneth over the heathen. God sitteth upon the throne of
His holiness. The princes of the people are
gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham, For the
shields of the earth belong to God. He is greatly exalted. It's clear from this Psalm that
it is about giving praise to God. It's praise that is to be
given to God for his greatness and for his work. And so we see
that his work in this Psalm is the triumph, the victory he has
gained. over his people's enemies, and
that because of this, his people are to do all that he says here. He says, clap your hands. He
says, shout to God with the voice of triumph. He says in this Psalm
that we are to sing praises to God, singing praises. It's said,
let's see, one, two, three, four times in verse six, to sing praises. And then in verse seven, he says,
sing praises with understanding And he gives all the reasons
for all of this, because God reigns, because he has set up
princes of the people, they're gathered together, and because
he's the God of Abraham, and the shields of the earth belong
to him. He is greatly exalted. So this
psalm is really a psalm of praise to God, and it's a song that's
to be sung by the people of God. It declares that God has triumphed
as our God and our King. He tells us what we can only
know by revelation. We can't see that God is sitting
on the throne of His holiness. We can't see that He has triumphed
over our enemies, can we? It seems like when we look around
and we listen to news or read the news, It seems like that
there is no God. It seems like wickedness seems
to reign. But so we can't see this by our
own intellect or by our own determination. We can't see it by our own feelings. So there's something else that's
needed. And that's something else as God has to tell us. the
way things are. In Romans chapter 4 and verse
17, talking about God and the one that Abraham believed, he
says that God calls those things which be not as though they were. And he also raises the dead. He gives life to the dead. Those
things are both evidence that things aren't the way we think
they are by our physical perception. In fact, we can't even know these
things, even though it's written in scripture, truly know them
unless we know them in our spirit, and therefore we can know nothing
of God unless the Spirit of God makes it known to us. In 1 Corinthians
2, he says, no man knows the things of God but the Spirit
of God, and God has revealed them to us by His Spirit. So
there we, and he also says in the same section of scripture
in 1 Corinthians 2, that the natural man cannot know the things
of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. So
all these things teach us that this has to be revealed to us.
And God always reveals what He reveals to His people from Scripture. Scripture is the revelation that
God gives to us, and the Spirit of God has to make the Word of
God open to us. Remember Lydia's heart in Acts
16. The Lord opened her heart so
that she believed the message that God gave Paul to preach. So, in all these things, we understand
that even to take in what God is saying here about what we
are to do, to clap, to shout, to praise Him, to sing, all these
things, God has to give us this. He has to give us an understanding.
He has to put it in our hearts. Okay, so that's the first thing.
Here, in this Psalm, God declares to us His triumph. He says, because
of this, we are to shout, we are to clap, we are to praise
him. And we see this. by what he said here, that it's
a revelation to us from his word, by his spirit. In fact, this
fact in itself teaches us something wonderful beyond words. I want
you to look at Colossians chapter three with me, because this is
another example of God telling us what we only know by faith. And because we know it only by
faith, then we have to rely on what God has said and given to
us by His grace and be thankful for it. Let me show you this
in Colossians chapter 3. In verse 1, he says, if you then
be risen with Christ, There's another thing. Risen with Christ?
Christ rose from the dead. The people that Paul is writing
to had never yet died. And yet he's talking about a
resurrection. And so the resurrection he's speaking of here is a resurrection
of their spirit. They're raised in spirit and
they're risen with Christ. And not only were they raised
in spirit, but before that, When the Lord Jesus Christ rose from
the dead, every one of God's people were raised with Him,
in Him, as their representative. Whenever Christ did in His life,
in His sufferings, in His death, His people did in Him. Just like
when Abraham met Melchizedek, and in Hebrews 7 it says that
Levi, the son, or actually the great-grandson of Abraham, when
Abraham met Melchizedek and gave him tithes that Levi, Abraham's
great grandson through Jacob, actually paid tithes then to
Melchizedek. So these kinds of things in scripture
teach us that whatever Christ did, his people did also. So we were raised with Christ
when he accomplished our salvation and obtained our eternal redemption. There's no doubting of this.
There's no possibility that it didn't happen. And because we
were raised with him as our representative, being raised in him, we are also
raised with him in spirit when he took his throne on high and
sent his spirit into the world so that when we hear the gospel,
God, the Holy Spirit, gives us life and we're raised. We're
raised up. And this is spoken of in Ephesians
chapter 2. We were risen with Christ when
we were dead, and when we were enemies of God, even because
of God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith
he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ. He made us alive, for by grace
you are saved. And he goes on in Ephesians chapter
two to say, and we're seated with Christ in heavenly places. So that's something that we would
not know if God hadn't said it. And we can't even believe it
unless God gives us faith. But since it is revealed to us
from God's word and revealed to us in spirit by the spirit
of God to our spirit so that we know it by faith, therefore,
What do we know? We know that it is not part of
our physical self, not our natural self. And so these two things,
what we know by the revelation of God in our spirit, by the
Holy Spirit, because our spirit is joined to Christ's Holy Spirit,
and we're one with Him. It says this in 1 Corinthians
6, 17, that he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Okay, so this is wonderful because
we see by these things that we have a natural man, we have a
spiritual man. And that spiritual man is the
one God reveals himself to, the one that knows God, the one who
trusts Christ, and the one he's speaking about here. And this
is the way we are to see things and live based on what God has
said, by faith. Not because we feel it, not because
we can prove it, not because we can experience it, but because
God has said it and because God has given us faith to believe
what he said is the way things are. So he says here, Colossians
3, If you then be risen with Christ, which is not an if as
if it might not be, but it's a since you're risen with Christ,
since you are then risen with Christ, seek those things which
are above where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Again,
you can only know that by the revelation of God. Set your affections
on things above, not on things on the earth, for you are dead
Your sins, like a body, were put to death with Christ on the
cross. You died to sin when Christ died
on the cross because you were joined to Him. in God's electing,
in God's suretyship, in His standing for us as our Redeemer, and we
His redeemed, as the second and last Adam, all these things,
we were joined to Christ in His death, so that our sinful selves
died with Christ. He says, therefore, you're dead
and your life This life we now have, this life in our spirit,
the life of our essential life, which is Christ. Christ is our
life. He says, your life is hid with
Christ in God. What an intimacy here. What a
security that our life is in God, in Christ, and it is life
from God that is Christ. He says in the next verse, when
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear
with Him in glory. So I read that to show you the
nature of what God is saying in Psalm 47 is a declaration
of God about things that we can't see or know apart from His saying
it. We know it only by faith. That's
the only way we know it. That's the only way we know anything
about our redemption or anything about our life or God's election
or about the world to come. We don't know anything about
how the world was created except by faith. is known to us or can
be known by us, except it's revealed to us by God and revealed to
us with faith, that gift of God, which is a gift of His grace.
So when we read Psalm 47, oh, clap your hands, all you people,
shout unto God with the voice of triumph, He's declaring to
us things that are in the eternal, perspective, the things that
are in the truth of God's purpose and in God's judgments and in
God's work. And all of that is in Christ
for his people. And yet, when these words come
to us off the pages of the psalm, when we read them, we might find
ourselves feeling not like being joyful, as if we haven't yet
triumphed, because we feel the weight of our guilty conscience,
or the weight of indwelling sin, or the weight of trials, and
a failing body, and a failing mind, and memory, and all these
things combined to make us feel not what God is telling us here
to do, but he tells us that we are to praise, and sing, and
shout with triumph. because God himself tells us
we have the victory. He's given it. He's obtained
it. He's worked it out. And so this is the way God did
this even in the Old Testament. He spoke of a victory not yet
completed and yet he tells his people to act in ways and to
praise him in ways as if it's already done. Now let me show
you a couple of examples of that. If you look at 2 Chronicles,
the book of 2 Chronicles and chapter 20, And I like this particular
section of scripture, so it's easy for me to remember it. 2
Chronicles chapter 20, and the setting here is that the Ammonites
and the Moabites, both of which were descendants from Lot, And
also the children of Edom, or Mount Seir, were coming against
the people of Judah and Jerusalem, and the king over them was Jehoshaphat. And so it says here in verse
one of 2 Chronicles 20, it came to pass after this also that
the children of Moab and the children of Ammon and with them
other beside the Ammonites came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Okay, so that's the setting.
There's a battle coming. But he goes on, then there came
some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude
against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria. And behold,
they be in Hazazon Tamar, which is in Jedi. And Jehoshaphat feared
and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout
all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together to ask help
of the Lord. Even out of all the cities of
Judah, they came to seek the Lord because they were obviously
outnumbered. and they were terrified. And
Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem in the
house of the Lord before the new court, and he said, O Lord
God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? Notice, he's calling
on God and declaring who he is in relation to his people by
covenant that he made with them and who he is as the sovereign. That's the God of our fathers.
Art not thou God in heaven, and rulest not thou over all kingdoms
of the heathen? You see this? Not any excepted,
none left out. And in thine hand is there not
power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? We
know God can deal with these people. He has the power. We
are his people. He reigns over all. That's what
he says in verse six. And now in verse seven, and art
not thou our God? who didst drive out the inhabitants
of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the
seed of Abraham thy friend for ever." Notice how Jehoshaphat,
by the Spirit of God, is praying the will of God to save his people
according to his covenant, according to his nature and character as
their God, and according to his relation to them. And he says
in verse eight that God had, in verse seven, that he had brought
them into this land and drove out the people of that land and
gave it to them, the seed of Abraham. And they dwelt, in verse
eight, they dwelt therein and have built thee a sanctuary therein
for thy name, saying, if when evil cometh upon us as the sword,
judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and
in thy presence, for thy name is in this house, and cry unto
thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help. And
now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir,
whom thou wouldst not let Israel invade when they came out of
the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and destroyed them
not. Behold, I say, how they reward us to come to cast us
out of thy possession which thou hast given us to inherit." Verse
12. Notice what Jehoshaphat says.
Very important. You might want to highlight this
verse. O our God, wilt thou not judge
them? For we have no might against
this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what
to do, but our eyes are upon thee." He was left with all the
people utterly helpless and without any strength or knowledge against
this enemy. And yet he pleads all these things
with God. And he rests the entire case of their lives and their
salvation from their enemies on God's good will and good character. He says, and all Judah stood
before the Lord with their little ones, their wives and their children.
Then upon Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah,
the son of Jael, the son of Mataniah, a Levite of the house of Asaph,
came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation,
and he said, This is the Spirit of God speaking through this
man. Hearken ye, all Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and thou, King Jehoshaphat, thus saith the Lord to you, be not
afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude. All
right, now think about it before we go on here. God is telling
them, before it has come to pass, that even though their enemies
are many and stronger than they, and they have no might against
them, and they don't know what to do, their eyes are fixed on
the Lord. They're trusting in Him. God's
word comes to them in that condition. with them looking to him, and
he says, don't be afraid, don't be dismayed, by reason of this
multitude, and this is the reason, for the battle is not yours,
but God's. You see? Isn't that the truth? Even more so in our salvation? The enemy was much greater than
these puny men, the Ammonites, Moabites, and the Edomites, much
punier. then our enemy, our enemy is
sin against God that earned for us an eternal death and brought
upon us the bondage and enslavement of the murderous fiend of hell,
Satan himself. And all the world that was plunged
under the bondage and the rule of Satan by God's bringing the
judgment of our sins upon us. We were all absolutely helpless
and without strength and had no idea what to do. And the Lord sends his word to
his people, the Lord's people, and he says, the fight, the battle
is not yours, it is God's. Now notice verse 16. Tomorrow
go ye down against them. Behold, they come up by the cliff
of Ziz, and you shall find them at the end of the brook before
the wilderness of Jeruel. You shall not need to fight in
this battle. Set yourselves, stand still,
and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Fear not, nor be dismayed. Tomorrow
go out against them, for the Lord will be with you. Look at
verse 18. And Jehoshaphat, notice, what
was Jehoshaphat's response to what God said through the prophet
by his Holy Spirit? What was his response? Did he
start jumping and gyrating around, out of control, like a madman?
No. Jehoshaphat bowed his head with
his face to the ground, very reverentially, didn't he? He
was in control of his spirit. And it says this in the book
of 1 Corinthians, that the spirit of the prophets is subject to
the prophets. He says, he bowed his head with
his face to the ground and all Judah and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. That's the
posture. The outward posture of worship
was a bowed head. Prostrate before the Lord. He says in verse 19, and the
Levites of the children of the Kohathites And of the children
of the Korhites stood up to, what? Praise the Lord God of
Israel with a loud voice on high." They were praising God before
the battle had actually been won. Because the battle was the
Lord's, it had been won. When God says it, it is done. Isn't that what it says in Isaiah
46, 9-11? The Lord says, I have spoken
it, I will also do it. Those are powerful words. I delight
in that. And all of God's people do. And
therefore they praised the Lord. And they rose up early in the
morning and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa. And as they
went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and
you inhabitants of the Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God,
so shall you be established. Believe his prophets, so shall
you prosper. And when he had consulted with
the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, that they should
praise the beauty of holiness. As they went out before the army,
to say praise the Lord for his mercy endureth forever and of
course you know what happened when they began to sing and to
praise the Lord said Ambushments against the children of Ammon
Moab and Mount Seir which were come against Judah and they were
smitten Okay, so we see that and this is the pattern isn't
this the pattern didn't God speak to Abraham of having a son when
Abraham Abraham's body had no strength. He and Sarah were dead
to bearing children. And yet Abraham was fully persuaded. He wasn't persuaded of his own
righteousness. He said he was fully persuaded
that what God had promised, he was able also to perform. and therefore it was imputed
to him for righteousness. He attributed it to God's doing,
God's strength, God's integrity, His word, His promises. And that's
what we're to do. By this psalm he's saying, oh
clap your hands all you people, shout unto God with a voice of
triumph. Not because you feel triumphant,
not because you look triumphant. but because God said, you are,
that he has obtained a complete victory over his people. And
look at a couple of verses with me if you want to in the book
of 2 Corinthians chapter 2. because these things are brought
forward into the New Testament to teach us the same God, the
Lord Jesus Christ, is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He says in 2 Corinthians 2, verse
14, now thanks be unto God, 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14, thanks be unto God,
which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and makes manifest
the savor of his knowledge by us in every place." Okay? So everything the Apostle Paul
did, he says, God is causing us to triumph by Jesus Christ,
in Jesus Christ. Look at 1 Corinthians, we're
in 2 Corinthians, look back just a couple of pages to 1 Corinthians. He says in 1 Corinthians, verse
54, 1 Corinthians 15, I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians 15 verse 54, so
the chapter of 1 Corinthians on the resurrection, he says
in verse 54, so when this corruptible, meaning this body that we now
live in, this is corruptible by the way, this body is corrupting,
it's failing. Our bodies are failing. They're
not evolving and getting better. They're getting worse. They're
dying. The body is dead because of sin. There you have it, Romans 8 10.
But here he says, so when this corruptible shall have foot on
incorruption, something that cannot be corrupted, and this
mortal shall have foot on immortality, then shall be brought to pass
the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in what? Victory. Victory. The victory of our God
over our death. The death that God brings because
of our sin, now death, that consequence of our sin, is swallowed up in
victory. Now apply this back to Psalm
47. Clap your hands. Don't leave 1 Corinthians 15.
All you people, shout unto God with a voice of triumph. Can
we be joyful? Can we sing? Can we praise God
for this? Can we even shout? Can we have
this spontaneous response of great approval, of joyful delight,
which is expressed by physical clapping? Can we have that? Okay,
listen to what it says. When this corruptible shall have
put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality,
then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death
is swallowed up in victory. Notice, the saying was in the
present. Death is swallowed up in victory. But the fulfillment of it will
not come until the final resurrection. And yet God is telling us, You,
you who believe God, count these things that he has said as done
and shout and clap and sing and praise him. And then he says
in verse fifty five, oh, death. Notice he's he's he's talking
to death as a personification of our enemy. Oh, death. Where
is thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. And the strength of sin is the
law. Notice how the law makes sin
stronger. And sin is what causes death
to have a sting. But God has dealt with both,
hasn't he? That's the reason we can be raised
up, is because both sin and the law have been dealt with. God
has magnified his law, fulfilled his law in all righteousness
and he has cleansed us and washed us and put away our sins in the
blood of Christ. But verse 57, but thanks be to
God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So there's two verses. Let's
look at another one back in Romans, Romans chapter five. Notice in verse 12, Romans 5,
verse 12, he says, as by one man, wherefore, as by one man
sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned. I was, this last week,
I've been listening to the Bible reading in the book of Genesis,
and when I got to Genesis chapter three, A lot of thoughts occurred
to me, but one of them was concentration on the event that
when God was heard, when the voice of the Lord God came walking
in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam heard the voice
of the Lord, what did Adam do? He and Eve hid. They hid behind
trees. Why did they hide? Well, because
they were naked. But the interesting thing is,
they had already made for themselves fig leaves. So they were clothed,
but just with their own fig leaves. Their fig leaves represented
their own righteousness. When we appear before God in
our own works, you know what we'll be? Naked and ashamed,
and we will hide. But what happened after that?
What happened after that is that God pronounced the curse on Satan,
the serpent, and promised that Christ would come and bruise
the head, crush the head of the serpent, though his own heel
in that process would be bruised, but he would undo the works of
the devil. He would not just undo them to
restore us to our state that we had in the garden with Adam,
but to a much greater, a much greater, infinitely greater place
with God as children of God, as the brethren of the Lord Jesus
Christ, as those who have a spirit joined in union with the Spirit
of Christ, those who have eternal life, those who have this gift
of faith to live upon Christ in this life and in whom Christ
therefore lives and they live in Him. All these things are
true. But in Genesis chapter 3 and
verse 21, it says, the Lord God clothed Adam and Eve with skins. Now, those skins were their covering.
And they were naked before he clothed them. But in order to
clothe them, to hide their nakedness, he had to kill that animal, that
lamb, no doubt. that sheep or whatever it was,
and the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to clothe us in a perfect
righteousness, had to be offered. He had to sacrifice himself.
on the altar of his divine nature with our sins confessed over
his own head as our high priest and bore those sins before God
and he bore the punishment of them in order that we might be
clothed in his righteousness and washed from our sins." Now,
I bring all these things up In order for us to draw out from
Psalm 47 why God tells us to clap and shout and sing and praise,
it's because of the triumph we have in Christ. God always causes
us to triumph in the Lord Jesus Christ at the cross, in the garden,
at Judgment Day. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? So here in Romans chapter 5,
notice verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and what a sad thing that was, and yet
it was also according to the will of God. Notice verse 21, Romans 5, 21.
That as sin hath reigned unto death. Now, here's the victory,
listen to it. Even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ, our Lord. That's our God and Savior. That's
the victory. And in Romans 8, 37, he says
that we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. And
he catalogs in Romans chapter eight, all those things that
were mentioned back in Second Chronicles 20, in the battle
of the Ammonites and Moabites and Edomites against Judah and
Jerusalem to, in history, set them up as almost like these
tin soldiers to see the reality of them in Romans 8. that God
in Christ delivers us from all of our enemies, beginning with
our sin, taking us out of the kingdom of darkness, delivering
it from us, delivering us from that kingdom of darkness, and
delivering us into the glorious liberty of the children of God,
into the kingdom of His own dear Son. That is the victory. That's the triumph. What an amazing
God. You see here? Oh, clap your hands,
all you people. Shout unto God with the voice
of triumph. Psalm 47, verse one. This is
the declaration of the gospel, isn't it? Christ's triumph over
our enemies to the glory of God for our eternal salvation. But
notice in Psalm 47, and we're going to read through these here
because we're running out of time. Look at verse two. This is why
we're to clap and shout, he says, because of this triumph. For
or because the Lord Most High is terrible. He is a great king
over all the earth. Terrible. The word terrible there
doesn't mean awful. As we might think, but it means
It's actually a verb. It's not an adjective of the
Lord. It's a verb. It means it's something that happens to us
because of who God is. It's awe-inspiring, in other
words. It inspires awe. God's person
inspires awe in us. That's the meaning of this word
terrible. It inspires this reverential
awe and fear, as the Bible puts it. The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom. So this is why we're to do this.
The Lord, Jehovah, and who is Jehovah? It says in Isaiah 12,
The Lord Jehovah has become my salvation. Isaiah chapter 12,
verses 1 through 2. The Lord Jehovah. I now praise
him. He was angry with me, but he
has taken away his wrath and he has become my salvation. And
Psalm 27 says the same thing. The Lord is my salvation. Whom
shall I fear? So the Lord is the Lord Jehovah,
Jesus. He shall save his people from
their sins. God with us. Now he says here
that the Lord Jehovah, Jesus, is most high and terrible awe-inspiring. Inspiring reverential awe. He
does inspire reverential awe in his children, but in his enemies
he inspires fear, dread. Okay, so that's the difference.
Not the fear of a slave who tries to avert punishment from his
master because he understands his master has his life in his
hand and can do whatever he wants with him. Not that kind of fear.
But the fear of children that they have in reverence of their
father, because they know, because their father loves them, he will
not let them go unchastised. For whom the Lord loveth, he
chasteneth. Remember Hebrews chapter 12?
Now, the Lord is awe-inspiring to his people, but fear-inspiring,
terror-inspiring, dread-inspiring to his enemies. In either case,
this is why that we are to shout in triumph because of this. He inspires fear in our enemies,
Satan himself, and all of our enemies, death, sin, everything. And he inspires awe in his people. Isn't that wonderful? The effect
of God's salvation is the redemption of his people, but the destruction
of their enemies. Look at verse three. He shall
subdue the people under us. Who are the us? Those are the
people of God. They're the elect, the church.
He shall subdue the people under us. Obviously, they're not all
people. because some are being subdued under us and the nations
under our feet. So that's the second reason.
He's going to bring into subjection those who oppose our salvation,
and that includes our old man, doesn't it? Our old man. Isn't
he one of those who gets subdued by the Lord? Verse four. Notice
what it says, not only is God, in the Lord Jesus Christ, in
his person, the reason why this reverential awe is to be had,
and also because of the blessing that he's going to subdue our
enemies unto us, he shall choose our inheritance for us. We just
read back in 2 Chronicles 20 how Jehoshaphat said, Lord, you
drove out the inhabitants of this land and you gave it to
us. This is what he's talking about here. He chose, God chose. We didn't, we had no idea what
God's gifts to us would be. Eye has not seen, ear has not
heard the things God has prepared for them that love him. God is
able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.
We can't bring our own intellect into this. We don't limit God. We say, Lord, do what pleases
you. Do. That's what he's going to
do. Like David in 2 Samuel 7, he says, Lord, do as you have
said. I have no basis for expecting
you to do good to me, except you said it and you're good.
And I'm going to expect you to do what seems good in your eyes.
When the Lord says that he delivered up his son for us, he's also
going to give us with Christ all things. Who could have ever
imagined that? That we would be heirs of God
and joint heirs with Christ. He shall choose our inheritance
for us and he's going to bring us into that inheritance. Not
one of his sheep will be left out. And he says here, the excellency
of Jacob whom he loved. These are the people he loved.
This is what he does for those he loves. He gives them this
inheritance. He chooses it for them. We're
gonna have to stop here because obviously we're taking up more
time than will get us through this psalm in one time. But think
about these things and read this psalm over. Next week we'll try
to complete it. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your goodness in every way. The goodness of your own person.
your nature, your character, your mind, your counsel, your
will, your judgments, your work, your son, your spirit, your word,
your people. Everything that you've done is
very good. Help us, Lord, to be satisfied
with what you say about things so that we might be satisfied
and see this is not just OK, this is the very best that God
himself would do or could do. He has not left anything partially
done. He has not left anything less
than perfect or holy. He has done all for his people
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is complete. It is triumphant. And they did nothing to do this
because the battle is the Lord's and He is the one who fought
for His people. Help us, Lord, give us this grace
to understand, to truly reverence our Lord Jesus Christ, to worship
Him in spirit and in truth, and to live by faith upon Him from
day to day. In His name we pray, amen.