In Psalm 143, it says in verse
two, enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy
sight, no man living shall be justified. Now, if we turn to
Psalm 43 for our study tonight, I want to read this Psalm to
you. There's only five verses. So it actually, because of the
few number of verses in it, it actually makes those verses more
powerful And I was reminded as I was thinking about this, sometimes
less is more. So let's read this. It says in
verse 1 of Psalm 43, Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against
an ungodly nation. O deliver me from the deceitful
and unjust man. For thou art the God of my strength. Why dost thou cast me off? Why
go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? O send
out thy light and thy truth, and let them lead me, let them
bring me unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles. Then will
I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy. Yea, upon
the harp will I praise thee, O God, my God. And the last verse,
why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted
within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet
praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God.
All right, so let's look at this in overview. Sometimes if we
just dive right into the individual phrases within the psalm, we
lose the overview of what's being said here. Because it's only
five verses, it almost provides us with that outline in the five
verses itself. Notice in verse one, David, the
psalmist here, asks the Lord, judge me, oh God. So that's the
first request that he makes in his prayer. And consistent with
that and complimenting that cry for God to judge him, he says,
plead my cause against an ungodly nation. Oh, deliver me from the
deceitful and unjust man. So you can see right at the outset
of this psalm David is asking God to judge him and to plead
his case against an ungodly nation and against the deceitful and
the unjust man. So that's the outset. That lays
down the situation at work. My boss would always ask, what
is the situation? and we would have to capture
a good description of what the problem was that we were facing.
The second verse says, having declared in his prayer, in his
supplication, his desire that God would judge him, and to plead
his cause against this ungodly nation and deceitful and unjust
man. He says in verse two, for thou
art the God of my strength. Okay, so here's a declaration
of his confidence, his faith. God is the God of his strength. In other words, my strength is
in God. The measure of my strength is
God. And then he says, why dost thou cast me off? Why go I mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy? So if God is my strength,
why is he cast me off? And why am I continually mourning? M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G. So it's not mourning like in
the day, but mourning like in sorrow. And then he makes a request. He doesn't just describe the
situation and ask the question, why, if the Lord is my strength? uh... has he cast me off and
I go on mourning because of the oppression of the enemy he asked
this question he asked the Lord to do something he says send
out thy light and thy truth and here's the effect here's the
result if God would do that and answer his prayer he says let
them lead me and guide me or bring me rather let them lead
me and bring me unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles So
if God does send out his light and his truth, the result will
be he will be led and he will be brought to God's holy hill
and to his tabernacles. So you can see what's the outline
so far is first asking God to judge him and plead his case,
his cause, against this nation, this ungodly nation, and the
deceitful and unjust man. And then he also asks in verse
two, since God is his strength, why does he cast him off? And
why does he go on because of the oppression of the enemy,
mourning all the time? And he asks God to send out his
light and truth, and when he does, he asks him to use his
light and truth to lead him and bring him to God, his holy hill,
and to his tabernacle. And then in verse four he says,
then, this is the result of being brought to God, to the holy hill
and tabernacles of the Lord, he said, then will I go to the
altar of God, So you can see within the tabernacles at the
holy hill, within the tabernacles, there's an altar, the altar of
God. And I will go to the altar of
God. And he describes God as unto God, my exceeding joy. So he has said first that God
is his strength in verse two. And then he says here, God is
his God of his exceeding joy. And he goes on, he says, being
brought to the altar unto God, his exceeding strength. He says,
then upon the harp will I praise thee, O God. And now notice he
calls God, my God. So God, my strength, God, my
exceeding joy, my God. All right, and how he's going
to come to him at the altar, and how he's going to use the
harp to praise his God, okay? And then in verse five, he addresses
his own soul. He speaks to his soul. As we
saw in Psalm 42, he doesn't let his soul direct him, but he directs
his own soul outward to God. He says, why art thou cast down,
O my soul? And why art thou disquieted without
quiet? completely out of unrest and
without peace, why are you disquieted within me?" And here's what he
tells his soul to do, hope in God, for I shall yet praise him. So he's looking forward with
expectation that he will yet praise God, who is the health
of my countenance and my God. All right, so now God is not
only his strength, and his exceeding joy, his God, my God, but he
repeats this about him being my God, and he says he's the
health of my countenance. And this is the same words we
saw last week in Psalm 42. Those words mean the salvation
of my face, okay? So we learn a lot from this Psalm
just at the outset by just looking at it in a very obvious way. First of all, we see that David,
being a believer, we see that believers are not without trouble,
and that we should not be surprised by trouble in our lives, and
the trouble that we experience arises mostly from an inner unrest
because of the enemy of our souls, and the enemy of our souls would
separate us, oppress us, would separate us from God, from the
comfort, because he says in verse 2, why have you cast me off? That's exactly what the intention
of the enemy is. So believers have trouble. It's
to be expected We find this trouble arising from within us, he speaks
to his soul, and this trouble comes from our enemies oppressing
us, and this oppression of the enemy is an attempt by them to
separate us from God, that God would cast us off and that we
would go on in our sorrow. But against all of this, against
all sense of being cast off and against this inner mourning of
his soul, we are to take our case to our God. That's what
David does here. He takes his case to God. And
he speaks to him as his savior, his strength, his exceeding joy
at the altar, which all obviously is for sacrifice, therefore he
is his savior. And he speaks of him as the salvation
of his face or the health of his countenance and his God.
And when he uses the words, my God, It's a very intimate relationship
he has to God, which God himself has established because of a
covenant. This is a covenant term, my God. God promised that his people
would, that he would be a God to them. they would, He would
call them His people and they would call Him their God. And this is exactly what's happening
here. And that's the promise of God's covenant, the New Testament,
which was made by Christ's blood. Okay, so if you hold those things,
therefore we see in this Psalm that we believers are to ask
God to bring us to Himself through what is called here the light
and truth the light and truth to bring us to himself, which
is the light and the truth is what? Well, it's the light of
the gospel, the gospel of Christ. So in other words, through the
gospel, bring us, lead us and bring us to yourself. And then
we are assured by this Psalm that God will do that because
even in verse two, when he says, you've cast me off and he asked
the question, why do I go mourning? And these next verses in verse
three and four and five, He doesn't see himself as being cast off
anymore. In fact, he sees, he's confident,
he's assured of an expected blessing from God to be brought to God,
to be brought to the holy hill, his tabernacles, and to God himself
at the altar. Okay, so that's what he's assured
of because he pours out his heart to God out of his trouble. And
this is the experience of believers, we pour out our heart. God brings
trouble. We are completely out. We can't
be quiet because we have this unrest. It's inside of us. It's
because of the oppression of our enemy. It causes us to cry
out to God, to ask and to confess, why have you cast me off? Why
am I constantly mourning because of my enemies? And then we confess
also that God is our strength and He is the exceeding joy of
our heart. He's the one who's going to save
us, the salvation of our face, and He is our God. Okay? So we
are assured that God will do these things. We are to know
that when He does, we will have Him. as our exceeding joy, and
we will be compelled by his grace to praise him." That's what he
talks about here in verse four. He's going to praise him with
a harp. And we're going to worship God in this way. we're going
to be worshiping God in spirit by His Holy Spirit who operates
in us and shows us at the altar who God is and that of course
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He causes us at the altar to
live upon Him who was crucified for us, whose body was broken
and whose blood was shed and it is in Christ that we worship
God. In other words, we worship Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Okay, is that clear? When we
come to the altar of God, we are worshiping God in Christ.
We are worshiping the one who was crucified to take away our
sins, the one in whom God has made us accepted to him by his
shed blood and his offering of himself. Now, the New Testament
scriptures help us to apply these words to ourselves because they
apply these words to the Lord Jesus Christ. They help us, those
scriptures are given to us by Christ to help us apply this
psalm to ourselves because this psalm, this psalm, and most psalms
preeminently apply to the Lord Jesus Christ and his church. Now that's just a fact of scripture.
It's revealed so many places, and I've mentioned it so many
times before, that I would refer you to those things spoken of
throughout Scripture about that. Now, learning the lesson of this
psalm will cause us to take this very psalm, these words from
God, as our own personal warrant. from God and will take it as
God's call to us to cry to Him in trouble. To cry to Him as
our God, as our strength, as our exceeding joy, in order that
He would deliver us, that He would judge us, and He would
plead our cause against our enemies, and that we might know that in
Christ He has and He will yet deliver us, as He says in 2 Corinthians
1. Chapter 1, verse 9 and 10. The
Lord Jesus Christ, according to God's promise, has, he is,
and shall yet deliver us from so great a death. Alright, so
in John 16, verse 33, the last verse of John 16, Jesus told
his disciples something that really summarizes
what verse one says here. He says, these things have I
spoken to you that in me you might have peace. In the world
you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. Notice, I have
overcome the world. So what is it? How do we overcome
the world? Because the Lord Jesus Christ
overcame the world and we believe Him. That's what John 16, 33
is teaching. So we also see that though the
battle of sin rages within us, in our members, the Lord Jesus
Christ shall, without fail, give us the victory. Now this is the
hope. This is what we expect, isn't it? This is spoken of throughout
scripture, but a couple places I know you're most familiar with
is Romans chapter 7, where the Apostle Paul says, O wretched
man that I am, he asks the question, who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? And the answer he gives is, I
thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And in so many other
places, he says, if God reconciled us to his son, reconciled us
to himself through the death of his son, the death of his
son, how much more shall we be saved by his life? So there's
a connection between Christ's death, our salvation in his death,
and our assurance of salvation in his resurrected life and his
intercession for us. That's in Romans chapter five,
verse nine and 10. And then, of course, in Hebrews
chapter 7 and verse 25, Jesus Christ is said to be the high
priest who is able to save us to the uttermost who come to
God by him. So these promises of God are
stacked up on top of each other in the New Testament to help
us to take the words of this psalm in Psalm 43 and apply them
to ourselves and come to God as those who, like here in verse
one, he pleads to God to plead against his enemies and to judge
him. And to judge him now, to judge
him means to justify him, not to judge him as to condemn, but
to judge him as to justify. Now, there's a lot of other verses
that I've given in the handout I sent out with the invitation
to the meeting here, but I want to ask this question in verse
2, where it says, Thou art the God of my strength. Why dost
Thou cast me off? So here's the question. Why does
he say, Lord, why did you cast me off? Does God cast off his
people? That's the question. Does he?
Does God cast off his people? If he does, don't we have everything
to be concerned about that he has cast us off? But what does
scripture say? Well, in Romans chapter 11, this
same question is asked. Has God cast away his people?
And that's in Romans chapter 11 verse 1. The answer the apostle
gives is God has not cast away his people which he foreknew.
So all of God's people are people God knew in love before the foundation
of the world. He knew them in the Lord Jesus
Christ and he has not cast them off. God has not, and he will
not cast them off. He will never, Jesus says, I
will never forsake you. No, never. That's in Hebrews
13 verse 5. So the answer here is no, he
has not cast off his people. But this verse is teaching us
something about casting off, as believers, our sense that
we have been cast off. And the first thing is just that.
God will not cast off his people. We have to find that in scripture. We have to take that promise
as a promise made not only by Christ, but by God Himself in
Christ. In other words, the promise was
made by God the Father to the Lord Jesus Christ that He would
not cast off any of the people of the Lord Jesus. And that promise
we know is given to him because it says in 2 Corinthians 1.20,
all the promises of God in him are yes and amen. And in Galatians
3.16-19, we know the promises of God were made to Christ in
a covenant, and that covenant with Christ was made for his
people. Okay, so that establishes the fact that God has made a
promise not to cast off his people. He made it to his son for his
people. In John 10, verse 27 through
29, Jesus said, no one is able to take my sheep out of my hand.
And my father is greater than I, and no one, certainly no one
can take them out of his hand. So we have double assurance that
God the Son and God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, will not
let any take his people from him. Besides that, the gifts
and callings of God, according to Romans 11, 29, are without
repentance. God is not a man that he should
lie, nor the son of man that he should repent, as it says
in Numbers 23, 19, but he cannot change He cannot change and he will
not fail and he cannot lie. And he has promised that he will
not let one of his sheep perish. And therefore we see him in Luke
15 going out to find and to carry back and bring back his sheep
to his fold and to rejoice over them because that one sheep was
lost and he found it and brought it back. And all of heaven rejoices
with him. So that's the first point here. No, God does not cast off his
people. And yet, here it says, why have
you cast me off? So why did God ask, why is the
psalmist, why is David in the first person here asking this
question, why have you cast me off? Well, the second reason
that we find in scripture is that when scripture speaks about
God casting off his people, it's always for a moment, a moment. In other words, it appears, the
present circumstances appear as if Christ is on the cross,
as if the enemies of God have triumphed, but it's just a short
moment. As soon as that moment is done
and God's will is done, it will be made clear that God always
gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And this
is the testimony of scripture throughout. Look at the fall,
for example. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden
fruit from the tree of knowledge and good and evil, and what happened?
Adam immediately hid when he heard the voice of the Lord God
walking in the cool of the garden. And so it seemed like he was
cast off, but God immediately comes with a promise that the
seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent and then
later clothed Adam and Eve with skins himself to show that there
was a way to be brought back to God and that he would cover
their sin and their shame. Okay, so throughout scripture
we see this. God appears to cast off, but
it's always only for a moment and is for a greater purpose.
And the flood of Noah is used as an example of this from Isaiah
54. And in Isaiah 54, It says in
verse 10, now this is a summary, you should really read the whole
chapter, I really encourage you to read it all. But he says in
verse 10 of Isaiah 54, the mountains shall depart, the hills shall
be removed. Now that seems like a permanent
destruction, doesn't it? But, he says in Isaiah 54 verse
10, my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the
covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy
on thee. And then in Isaiah 54, the same
chapter just before that, I want to read this to you. because
he speaks about this moment here, which is where I got this. He
says in Isaiah 54, for thy maker is thine husband, the Lord of
hosts is his name, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God
of the whole earth, shall he be called, verse six, for the
Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit,
and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God,
for a small moment, have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies
will I gather thee." Okay, there's the promise. For a small moment,
have I forsaken thee. So we see here in this verse
two of Psalm 43 that this casting off, first of all, God does not
cast off his people. Secondly, when it appears that
he has cast them off, it's but for a moment. And then thirdly,
and this is probably the most significant part of this, is
that this psalm is undoubtedly not only a psalm of David, but
of David's son and David's Lord, even the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we see this in Psalm 89, we see this in Psalm 44, where the first
part and the largest portion of the Psalm is given to recall
and reaffirm God's goodness and His immutable covenant and promises
to His people. And yet, at the end of both of
those Psalms, Psalm 89, beginning at verse 38, and Psalm 44, around
verse nine, We see that it seems as if the
psalm abruptly turns, and God's people are treated as if God
has broken His covenant, and yet the psalm, at least in Psalm
44, closes with a reassurance that this is not the permanent
state. It appears in our life as if
we're losing much of the time. But God promises that we are
more than conquerors through him that loved us. And he also
assures us that God always gives us, causes us to triumph in Jesus
Christ. That's 2 Corinthians 2 verse
14. And in 1 Corinthians 15, he says Christ died for our sins
according to the scriptures. He was buried and raised again
the third day according to the scriptures. But then in verse
54, he shows how the effect of that is that he's going to say
to death, And the grave, because he has put away our sins in his
death, he will say to the grave, oh, death, where is thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory?
And he goes on to say that God always gives us the victory in
our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, so now we have a full review,
a summary of how God does not cast off his people, When it
appears as if he's cast them off, it's but for a moment. And
that moment appeared in history most prominently when the Lord
Jesus Christ took our sins and he himself was forsaken for a
moment, but with great mercies God has gathered his people in
him. And that's typified by the flood of Noah's day as it says
in Isaiah 54. So, just like when Paul says,
O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body
of this death? It's but for a moment, because he says, I thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. God always causes us to triumph
in Jesus Christ. He shall give us the victory
in Jesus Christ. We're more than conquerors in
Jesus Christ. And this is repeated throughout
scripture to assure God's people to come with your complaints,
this inner turmoil that is the continuous struggle of God's
people to look to the Lord Jesus Christ and come to God by Him
and asking Him to do what? Judge me. Who can survive that
judgment? Not us, not in ourselves, because
he says in Psalm 143, 2, enter not into judgment with thy servant,
for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. Not a single
person on earth can withstand the judgment of God except the
Lord Jesus Christ, and he withstood it. And so we ask God not to
judge us in ourselves, but to judge us in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our hope. So now we're
brought to Romans chapter 8, which we're frequently brought
to in the truth of the gospel, where he says, In Romans 8, verse
28, all things work together for good to them who love God,
to them who are the called according to his purpose. And it goes on,
he says, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his son. And whom he did predestinate,
then he also called, then he justified, then he glorified.
And then he goes on, he says, if God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? If God gave his son for us, he'll
give us everything. He'll give us the victory over
our enemies if he delivered us from our sins. And from death
at the cross, he's going to deliver us in every way. And he goes
on in verse 34 of Romans 8, who shall lay anything to the charge
of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather,
who is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also makes intercession for us. Now take the first words of this
psalm and apply them. to yourself, believer, asking
God to judge you in Christ and to find you in Christ, holy,
without blame, without fault, unreprovable, without spot in
his sight. because of him. Christ can withstand
and did withstand the judgment of God and he came out justified. Romans chapter 4 verse 25, he
is delivered for our offenses, raised again for our justification.
Okay, so now we see how these things connect in this psalm.
The first verse is asking God to justify me. The believer is
asking God, justify me in the Lord Jesus Christ. Plead against
my enemies. Plead what? Plead that God has
justified his elect, that Christ has died for them and Christ
is risen. Therefore, he overcame their
sin and death and all the accusations that could be brought against
them. In the very presence of God, they've been justified.
And there's no enemy who can assault God's justice and holiness
because he justified them. No one can lay a charge to them.
No one can accuse. No one can condemn them. They're
without condemnation. This is the words of scripture.
And that's why this first verse is so comforting. He's asking
God, judge me in Christ. And if they're applied to Christ,
if these words are applied to Christ, he's asking God to accept
his offering of himself by his obedience, by his love for his
father, and to accept that offering and justify his people, which
he did. All right. Then he says in verse
2, Oh deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man. First in verse
1 he says the ungodly nation. What is the ungodly nation? Well,
it helps to understand who the godly nation is. And in 1 Peter
chapter 2 verse 9 he says that we are the holy nation. Remember that? He calls the church
the holy nation. So the ungodly nation would be
all those who are not in the kingdom of God. Those who are
outside of Christ, those who are actually in the kingdom of
Satan, the kingdom of darkness. And so now it fits together when
we read verse one this way, judge me, plead my cause against an
ungodly nation. In other words, the world of
ungodly men and women. who hate Christ and oppose his
salvation and hate the church. Jesus said, my church, I will
build my church, but the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it in Matthew 16, verse 18. So here, plead my cause against
this ungodly nation. And he says, deliver me from
the deceitful and unjust man. And who is a deceiver? but Antichrist. Who is a liar but Satan? And who speaks as their father
but those who are the children of Satan, the children of perdition,
as it says in John chapter 8. So we know that these things
apply to Satan, first and foremost. He's the liar, the deceiver.
Antichrist, who is energized by Satan, that's all a false
religion. And then there's the whole world
of false religion, and even the Gentile world, which is in league
with false religion against God's truth, against God, against His
throne, and against His people. And so he's asking them, in the
supreme court of heaven, rule in my favor, because of Christ's
righteousness and His blood, The Lord Jesus himself pleads
this way. And because of the decision of the court of heaven,
all of the enemies have to stand in silence and in shame for attempting
to do what Haman did in the book of Esther, which is to bring
a charge against Mordecai and Esther and all the Jews, which
reflect the church of God and Christ, and to try to bring them
to death on this gallows that he had set up. Now, now it fits,
doesn't it? God is my strength. Jesus said,
without me, you can do nothing. He says in Matthew 19 and other
places, salvation for us is impossible, and yet it's possible, and God
does it. He says that I can do all things
through Christ which strengtheneth me. And it is God who's at work
in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. The Lord
is my strength, it says in Psalm 27, verse one. He's the light,
my light and my salvation, and he's my strength. If the Lord
is my strength, no one can win. Not Satan, not his kingdom, no
one can win. Jesus is the one who is stronger
than the strong man. And he bound him, and then he
spoiled his goods in Luke chapter 11, verse 20 through 22. And so Christ overcame Satan.
He overcame him in the wilderness temptation. He overcame him when
he cast him out of heaven. He overcame him at the cross
when he says in John chapter 12 and verse 31, now is the judgment
of this world, now is the prince of this world cast out. All right,
so he is the deceitful and unjust man, and yet, like the apostle
Paul cried, not only is Satan and false religion talked about
in verses one and two, but his own inner sinful self, his wretched
man. And that's why he says, Oh, wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
And then he thanks Jesus Christ, our Lord, his strength, okay?
All right, now, let me just go a little bit further here. Look
at verse three. Verse three is a request made
to God because of verse two, where he says he's cast off and
he goes on because of the oppression of the enemy, mourning all the
day. He says in verse three, here's
what he asked him to do, send your light, send your truth,
and let them lead me and bring me to your holy hill and to your
tabernacles. What is the holy hill? Well,
that's the holy hill of Zion, isn't it? It's the dwelling place
of God, it's where God's throne is. not just where God's throne
is in an absolute sense, but where God's throne is for his
people, where he rules as king in the church. This is depicted
in the images in Revelation 21, where the beautiful city and
the lamb is in the midst of that city, ruling. the Lamb of God,
and God rules there in her, and God is with them. This is the
holy hill of Zion. Hebrews 12, verse 22, it says,
we're not come to the mount that might be touched, but we're come
to Mount Zion and to the heavenly Jerusalem. And then also in Psalm
2, we see Christ in this holy hill first in Psalm 2, and let
me get there so I can read it. He says in verse six, yet have
I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. When did God set Christ
on a holy hill of Zion? When he raised him from the dead,
when he ascended, when he took his place at the right hand of
God in all the majesty of God, in the majesty of God on the
throne because of his victory, his obedience unto death at the
cross. Okay, so he says, your light,
your truth, the gospel will lead me to Christ, seated on the throne,
will bring me to Christ on the throne, to Mount Zion, and will
bring me to your tabernacles. The tabernacle is where God dwells. He dwells in his people, doesn't
he? We're the temple of the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians chapter
3. And our bodies, in 1 Corinthians
6, our bodies are members of Christ, because Christ dwells
in us. In the Gospel of John, chapter
14, verse 20, it says, I in you. So the Lord Jesus Christ dwells
in his people. And this is true not only at
the end of time, it's true now in our lives. The Spirit of God,
the Spirit of Christ dwells in us. In fact, if we don't have
the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us, we're none of his. He says in Romans 8 9-11. Okay, but here the cry, the prayer
is, Lord, considering the fact that you're my strength and yet
you cast me off and I'm mourning because of the oppression of
the enemy, send your light and your truth and lead me and bring
me to your holy hill and to your tabernacles. He's asking God
to shine the gospel of what Christ has done and allow me to enter
in now by faith and ultimately in its consummation where Christ
is. So that I can go in by faith
now into the holy place where God dwells, where Christ dwells,
where he appears before God for us. Allow me by faith to go there. And then notice in verse four,
then when God does this for me, when he sends his spirit to make
the gospel make me alive and give me that truth not only at
conversion but also throughout my life by faith to bring me
to live upon Christ. By faith, he says, then will
I go unto the altar of God. Now the altar of God is where
the sacrifice is made. And the sacrifice is offered
by the high priest. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
the high priest. He offered himself. It says in
Hebrews 9.26, he says, he entered once and offered himself once
to bear the sins of many, to take away their sins. And so
the high priest Christ offered himself, the sacrifice, to God
on the altar, which is his divine nature. He bore our sins in his
own body on the tree, and in his own eternal spirit, he offered
himself to God, and he obtained our eternal redemption. Let me
read that to you in Hebrews chapter 9, so you can see how closely
that overlaps. In Hebrews, just before James,
he says in Hebrews chapter 9, verse 12, verse 11, Christ being
come in high priest of good things to come by a greater and more
perfect tabernacle, that would be his body, not made with hands,
that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of goats
and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once, into the
holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. He says in
verse 14, after verse 13, says, for if the blood of bulls and
of goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies
to the purifying of the flesh, that would be in the Old Testament
law, how much more shall the blood of Christ who, Jesus Christ,
through the eternal spirit, his own Holy Spirit, offered himself,
now you can see it, without spot to God, purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God. And look at chapter
13, Hebrews 13, he says this in verse 10, We have an altar
whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. The altar we have is Jesus Christ
and him crucified. He is God. He is man. He is the sacrifice that made
atonement for our sins. He's the high priest who offered
himself, who laid his hands on himself and confessed our sins
over himself and bore them away to a land uninhabited. He's everything
in the sacrifice, in our atonement. And the altar is where they went
to take the sacrifice that was offered and eat it in order that
they might take it to themselves. So we go to the Lord Jesus Christ
to receive from Him the faith to believe Him that in His work
on the cross as our substitute and surety, He made full redemption
for our sins. He purged us of our sins. We're
to do that daily, every moment, every moment of our life, continuously
in prayer, depending on Christ, looking for the expected hope
because of Him. All right. And then in verse
four also, he says, I will go to the altar of God, unto God
my exceeding joy. It's in the altar. It's in Christ
that God is to us our exceeding joy. He goes on, I'm not going
to take too much time on that, although you should think about
that and look at that in the handout. He says, upon the harp
will I praise thee, O God, my God. Now, why does he mention
the harp? Well, because if you remember,
David as king designated the harp to be used in praise to
God throughout the Old Testament. But also remember that King Saul,
when he learned of David that he could play with a harp, and
Saul was troubled by an evil spirit from the Lord. When David
came and played the harp, the evil spirit from the Lord departed
from Saul, and Saul was at peace." Okay? So, think about that, that
it was by the playing of the harp that the evil spirit departed,
and Saul was put at peace by David playing. And think about
this, excuse me, that the Lord Jesus said that we worship God
in spirit and in truth. So that the harp here, after
referring to being brought to the altar through the gospel,
the light and truth of the gospel concerning Christ, where Christ
reigns now, having offered himself and obtained a redemption to
thy tabernacles, to the altar, to God my exceeding joy, he says,
yea, upon the harp will I praise thee. Oh God, my God. What is he saying here? Remember
Thomas, when he saw Jesus' hands inside, at least when Jesus asked
him to put your hands here, he said, my Lord, my God. He was looking at Christ crucified.
So we see the Lord Jesus Christ, our exceeding joy, having risen
from the dead, accomplishing our salvation, we take of Him
by faith, we live upon Him in our souls, and have life to God,
that just live by faith, upon the harp, by the Spirit of God,
the operations of God, the Holy Spirit, applying the things of
Christ to us, we praise God and worship God in spirit and in
truth. And then he goes on in verse
five, why art thou cast down on my soul? Considering these
things, why are you disquieted? Hope in God. And the Lord Jesus
Christ is our God. Notice, for I shall yet praise
him who is the health of my countenance and my God. Now real quickly,
what is this? The salvation of my face. The
salvation of my face. As I was thinking about this,
I realized that the salvation of my face has to do with these
things. First, It is, if you recall,
Adam, when he hid, when he sinned, he hid in shame. What did he
do? He hid his face. Didn't he? And it says in Isaiah
53, considering the Lord Jesus Christ and his sin-atoning work
as our substitute, when he bore the sins of his people in his
own body, we hid, as it were, our faces from him. And then
in Jeremiah 32, 33, he says, we have turned the back and not
the face, though the Lord has taught us. So what are we inclined
to do by nature? To turn away. To turn away from
God because of our sin and our shame. To turn away from Christ,
the one who is the only Savior of men, and the one we've turned
against, we turn the back and not the face. But notice, Also,
in Isaiah 50, verse 6, the Lord Jesus says He did not hide His
face from shame and spitting. And why not? That He might bring
us, that He might be the salvation of our face. So the salvation
of my face means that God might behold me in Christ, in the presence
of His glory, without any compromise to His truth, But in all of his
truth and righteousness and justice, God isn't compromising. He can
look me in the face because of Christ. And because Christ removed
my sin that offended his law and his name, God not only is
not ashamed of me, But for Christ's sake, he magnifies all of the
perfections in his goodness in the highest possible degree,
all to his great glory. That's the first thing this means,
the salvation of my face. God is pleased with me for Christ's
sake. There's nothing about this receiving
me into the presence of his glory that would bring any shame to
God, but in fact the opposite, great glory. And secondly, The
salvation of my face is that I might look upon the face of
my Savior, on my God, as my Savior. In Revelation 22, they shall
see his face. Because he didn't hide his face
from shame and spitting, bearing our sins, we're brought to look
upon God in the face. That's beyond our ability to
understand or appreciate. But he did this so that we might
know his favor in the Lord Jesus Christ. We might know all that
he's done for us in his loving kindness. And by his grace alone,
because of Christ alone, we might have eternal life and know God
in him. And thirdly, that God might approve
of me in Christ in opposition to my enemies to the shame of
their face. I will uphold my face because
of Christ before God and before my enemies. And in the presence
of my enemies, the Lord will, he will cause me to lie down
in rest, in peace, in satisfaction, all because he brought me to
himself through the Lord Jesus Christ. What a psalm, let's pray.
Dear Lord, we thank you for Christ. We thank you for him who underwent
the casting off and the oppression of the enemy and the attacks
of an ungodly nation and a deceitful and unjust man. in order that
he might bring us to God. And having done this, Lord, as
your people, we plead the same thing. We plead, our Lord Jesus
Christ, that you appointed him and gave him this will to do,
and he fulfilled it, and you accepted him, and now you seated
him in glory and made him judge over all, and all must bow the
knee to him. And Lord, we ourselves are happy
to submit to His righteousness. We're glad for His salvation.
We trust Him. He is all of our strength. He
is our exceeding joy. He is our God and our Savior,
and we trust Him. He is everything to us. And we
pray, Lord, that you would apply these things to our hearts. In
Jesus' name, amen.