Turn to Psalm 36 if you haven't
already. We're going to read through that
psalm together. There's 12 verses there. And I want to get right
into this. Psalm 36, verse 1. The first
verse is a tricky verse. I say it's tricky because the
commentators that I read have a difficult time with this verse.
They admit that it's difficult to understand. And so here we
go. The transgression of the wicked.
God says in Psalm 36.1, the transgression of the wicked saith within my
heart that there is no fear of God before his eyes. For he flattereth
himself in his own eyes until his iniquity be found to be hateful. The words of his mouth are iniquity
and deceit. He hath left off to be wise and
to do good He diviseth mischief upon his bed. He setteth himself
in a way that is not good. He abhorreth not evil. He doesn't hate evil. Verse five,
a complete change now from that. He says in verse five, thy mercy,
O Lord, is in the heavens, and thy faithfulness reacheth unto
the clouds. Thy righteousness is like the
great mountains. Thy judgments are a great deep. O Lord, Thou preservest man and
beast. How excellent is Thy lovingkindness,
O God! Therefore the children of men
put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings. They shall be abundantly
satisfied with the fatness of Thy house, and Thou shalt make
them drink of the river of Thy pleasures. for with Thee is the
fountain of life. In Thy light shall we see light. O, continue Thy lovingkindness
unto them that know Thee, and Thy righteousness to the upright
in heart. Let not the foot of pride come
against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me. There
are the workers of iniquity fallen. They are cast down and shall
not be able to rise." That's the last verse of Psalm 36. Now,
this first verse is, let me first of all divide this chapter into
its parts as we have just read it. In verses one through four,
we see the wickedness of man. And the conclusion there is that
there is no fear of God before his eyes. And then in verses
five through seven, such a change, such a transition from that dark
contrast, in those verses we see the floodlight of God's own
character in his mercy, faithfulness, righteousness, and his judgments.
And then in the next verses, we see in verse verse 7 and 8, we see those that
put their trust in the Lord, in the Lord Jesus Christ, of
course. And then in verse 9, actually in verse 10, we see
that there is a fountain of life, that the Lord Himself is our
fountain And he asks the Lord, in verse 10, to continue his
loving kindness to those that know him. And then at the last,
in verse 11, he asks the Lord to keep him from the foot of
pride. And in verse 12, we see the judgment, the destruction
of the wicked, that the workers of iniquity are fallen, cast
down, and shall not be able to rise. So if we see those things
in the psalm, then it helps us to understand not only the whole
psalm in overview, but it helps us to understand the parts. First,
the wickedness of man. Now, in this first verse, it
says, the transgression of the wicked saith within my heart
that there is no fear of God before their eyes. The wickedness
of man is because he has no fear of God. And the fountain spring
of this man's heart is utterly corrupt. He's describing him
here, the transgression of, he calls them the wicked. Now this
is a key phrase throughout scripture, the wicked. The wicked. The heart
of the wicked, according to scripture, and this verse, is absent, absolutely
void of the fear of God. He has no fear of God before
his eyes. And we know from Proverbs that
the fear of God is the very beginning of wisdom. So without the fear
of God, He has no wisdom. And this fear that is spoken
of here must be put in us by God Himself. He talks about that
in Jeremiah 32, and I think it's around verse 40. He says that
God, according to His promise in the New Covenant, would put
His fear in the hearts of His people. So this fear of God must
be put in us. And the fear of God arises from
a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and
a trust in Him because He has washed us from our sins in His
own blood." Now that's a mouthful, but I want to repeat it and give
you a couple of verses of scripture on this. In Psalm 130, in verse
4, it says, that there is forgiveness with
thee that thou mayest be feared. And forgiveness comes to us only
one way. God forgives us for Christ's
sake. In Revelation chapter 1, he says,
unto him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. So the forgiveness of sins is
the only way, the knowledge of that is the only way we can fear
God. And the only way we can know the forgiveness of sins
is to know that our sins are forgiven us for Christ's sake,
because He shed His precious blood. It was by the blood of
Christ, according to Ephesians 1, 7, that God the Father redeemed
us. So He redeemed us. He made us
His children by Him. He made us accepted in the Beloved. And this was all to the praise
of the glory of His grace. Now, that knowledge that knowledge
of Christ and Him crucified when given by God causes us to trust
Him. Put simply, we look to Christ. The prophet here And the psalmist
finds this testimony of man's wickedness within himself. Notice
what he says here, the transgression of the wicked saith within my
heart. So here what we see is he doesn't
have any fear of God. If he did have fear of God, he
would be looking to Christ as a sinner and finding his salvation
in him alone. And I say that, I'm gonna actually
repeat it probably more than once here, because it's so essential
that we understand this part of the fear of the Lord. The
fear of God. brings us to this end. It puts
us in this frame of mind. It causes us to look to the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's necessary that that is the
result of the fear of God, because the fear of God teaches us that
God is high, that He is holy, and that we are sinful. and therefore
we can only find acceptance in his sight in the way that he
approves and has to provide and has accepted, which is in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so sinners are told by the
Lord himself, look to me and be ye saved, all the ends of
the earth. So the fear of God causes us
to be obedient to that. Now that, again, arises from
within us by the gift of God's own grace. When we're taught
the gospel by the Spirit of God, we're taught about our sin, we're
taught about God's righteousness, and we're taught that God's righteousness
was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus and therefore he was taken up
to heaven, he was raised from the dead. He completed that work
God gave him to do, which fulfilled our righteousness and put away
our sins. And by that work, he judged Satan and this world.
So all those things are spoken of in John chapter 16, verse
7 through 11. And so the Spirit of God convinces
us of these things. It directs us to the Lord Jesus
Christ and gives us His grace to both fear and look to the
Lord Jesus Christ. It speaks about this in Psalm
chapter two, which we talked about some weeks ago. But in
Psalm chapter two, let me read the last two verses there. He
says, serve the Lord with fear. There's the fear of God. Serve
the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. And the next
verse says, kiss the son. In other words, worship him like
that woman who came behind Jesus and poured out that alabaster
box of ointment on his head and washed his feet with her tears
and anointed his feet with her tears and used her hair to wash
his feet. That was an act of worship. She
kissed his feet. And it says here, kiss the son
lest he be angry. So here we have the contrast. If we don't worship Christ, if
we're not looking to him, if we don't look to him who as the
Holy One of God is the one through whom alone we can come to God
by him as sinners, then we will have every reason to fear his
anger, his justice. But we don't fear his justice
anymore because his justice now justifies us. We don't fear his
anger because Christ has taken away our sins in the cause of
God's anger. He's removed the offense between
us and God. He's reconciled us to God. So
he says, kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish from
the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all
they, notice, This is the way you serve the Lord with fear
and trembling. Blessed are all they that put their trust in
him. That's looking to Christ. OK, so back to Psalm 36, one,
the wicked have that they don't have this. They're completely
void of this kind of fear that leads them to trust Christ, to
look to him because they don't think of God as high. In contrast,
they think of themselves as high, and they think low thoughts of
God. They worship themselves. They don't worship the sun. And
so notice again in verse one, the transgression of the wicked.
Now, the psalmist is talking about these people here called
the wicked as a prophet. He's revealing, he's exposing,
he's pulling back the underlying condition of the wicked. He's showing that in their very
hearts, they're corrupt. and they have no fear of God.
Let me read these four verses again so you get them. The transgression
of the wicked saith within my heart there is no fear of God
before his eyes, for he flattereth himself. When we say flattereth
himself, what do you immediately think of? Well, I think of the
publican in Luke chapter 18. God You can almost hear the note
of superiority in his voice. God, I thank thee that I'm not
like these other men, like other men. And he goes on and he lists
all the things he doesn't do that they do do. So he flatters
himself in his own eyes. It says in the rest of verse
two, until his iniquity be found to be hateful. When you read Proverbs chapter
6, you find that God has a list of things He hates, and at the
top of the list is pride. Pride really is the root of all
of our sin. It was because of pride that
Satan said in his heart, I will be like the Most High. and he
fell. He fell from his place, and you
know the rest of that story. So pride is the hateful sin,
and pride is that heart of man that thinks low thoughts of God
and high thoughts of himself, flatters himself. In his pride,
he's blind to his own iniquity. But it's evident to God because
God hates pride and he despises a proud look, according to Proverbs
chapter 6. So his iniquity is found to be
hateful because he trusts in himself. The proud heart trusts
itself. It trusts that by its own works,
it can be right with God. In Romans 4, 4, it says to him
that worketh. is the reward not reckoned of
grace, but debt. Here, the iniquity of this man
is found to be hateful. It reminds me of Matthew 7, verse
21 through 23, when these people appear before Christ at judgment
day, and he tells them, you workers of iniquity, depart from me.
Their iniquity was found to be hateful. And if you rewind what
they said before he said that, They were boasting about all
that they did for Him in His name. We have prophesied in Your
name. We have done many wonderful works
in Your name. We have cast out devils in Your
name. And so they were at the head of the class in terms of
religious works. and we would think that they
were to be admired. But they never said what every
believer says first and foremost. I'm a great sinner and nothing
at all. And Jesus Christ is my all, in
all. And so that's looking to Christ.
It's in contrast to the self-righteous, proud heart. So verse two says,
he flatters himself in his own eyes until his iniquity be found
to be hateful. He's going to puff himself up
until he's brought to destruction. And scripture says that people
will be brought to a hurried, an unexpected, a sudden destruction
when they least expect it. And that's what is described
here. The wicked. This is a description of the
wicked. And verse three, the words of his mouth are iniquity
and deceit. All that comes out of his mouth
is sin. And all of it's done in deceit. There's no honesty. There's no
truth. He doesn't have right words. Everything he says is
attributed to him. It's counted. It's imputed to
him as guilt out of his corrupt heart. He hath left off to be
wise. He doesn't understand. And he
has left off to do good. There's none that doeth good.
Doesn't this sound like Romans chapter three, verse 10 through
19 and 20, where he begins, there's none righteous. No, not one.
There's none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. There's none that doeth good. Doesn't it sound like that?
The words of their mouth, he says in Romans chapter three,
their poison of asp is under their lips. Their throat is an
open sepulcher. It's like whenever they speak,
out of their throat comes the stench of death. And so that's
what he's talking about here. Notice in verse four, he diviseth
mischief upon his bed, he setteth himself in a way that is not
good, he abhorreth not evil. In Genesis 6-5 it says, the Lord
looked down upon the children of men to see if there were any
that didn't understand. And he said every imagination of the
thoughts of their heart was only evil continually, continually. And then he brought the flood,
destroyed everybody, but preserved Noah and his wife and his three
sons and their wives in the ark, which is a picture of Christ.
And they were preserved from the flood of God's wrath on the
wicked because they were in Christ. And so is every believer. But then in Genesis 8, 21, God
says he would no more destroy the earth because the thoughts
of man's heart are only evil from his youth. So even the flood
didn't purge man of his corrupt heart and nature. Now, we see
this all described here and wrapped up for us in these first four
verses, the wickedness of man. But the psalmist, who is a prophet
in this way, he finds this testimony, it says in the very first verse,
in the first part of the verse, he finds this testimony of man's
wickedness. Notice, the transgression of
the wicked saith within my heart. Now, we could understand that
in a couple of ways. The first way is that God revealed
to him the underlying cause of and the condition of man. Man
is a sinner and there's no good thing in him, as we just rehearsed
from Romans chapter 3 and Romans chapter 1. He does not like to
retain God in his knowledge. God has given him over to a reprobate
mind. He's full of all unrighteousness,
wickedness. And you can read Romans 1 and
there's a catalog there of all the things, 23 things God lists
there. that describe the natural heart of man, his condition before
God. And he concludes in Romans 1
that not only do they do these things that are listed there,
but they take pleasure in those who do them like they themselves. And so we find it in our day.
People are attracted to others who are equally of the same deceitful
mind, who imagine mischief on their beds and all these things
here. So that's one way to understand this, that this is the testimony
of God revealed to the psalmist because Christ searches the hearts
and tries the reigns of men. And he reveals it even in Mark
chapter seven, verse 21 and 23, where he says, it's not what
goes into a man that defiles a man. It's not your environment.
It's not what you eat. It's not what you drink. It's
what comes out of the man. Because from the heart of man,
and then the Lord Jesus also lists all these things, adulteries,
thefts, murders, fornication, all kinds of corrupt things,
lies. These things come out of the
heart of man. It's our fault. This is what
we are by nature. So that's the first way you could
understand this. But I think the right way to understand this
verse here is is as it just says it, like this, the transgression
of the wicked saith within my heart. So here, what we find
is that the description of the wicked is incorrigible. This is his condition. He's incorrigibly
corrupt, meaning he can't be fixed. The wicked cannot be fixed. God is not going to fix the wicked. God is going to bring the wicked
to destruction. In Matthew 23, Jesus describes
the Pharisees, he says, and he tells them that this wicked generation,
upon this wicked generation, all of the judgment that for
the way that the nation of Israel destroyed their prophets from
the blood of Abel all the way up to the New Testament would
come on this generation. He's describing the wicked, the
proud, the Pharisees there in Matthew 23. And you can read
that in Matthew 23 at another time. Matthew 23 is a woe, woe,
woe to the arrogant, proud heart of the self-righteous character
of man. And the Pharisees were in that
condition. And their wickedness was reprobate. They were left
to it. God did not save them. He didn't
determine to save them. Christ didn't die for them. He
pronounced woe upon them. Woe, woe, woe. W-O-E, woe, woe,
woe. But to the Lord's people, it's
a different story. And that's what we're trying
to understand here. The first four verses here are talking
about this wicked, the wicked. And the psalmist is saying the
transgression of the wicked saith within my heart. So what he's
saying here, as we understand from the New Testament, is that
we also were wicked. Right? We were wicked. In Titus
3.3, he says, you also were sometimes deceived, serving divers lusts
and pleasures, living in malice and envy, and you were even as
others. Let me read that to you. I'll
just read a few verses to you in Titus chapter 3, how he says
it. I gotta find Titus here. It's
after Timothy. He says, this, for we also, we
ourselves also, were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived,
serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful
and hating one another." Now that sounds like Psalm 36 verses
1 through 4, doesn't it? He was hateful, found to be hateful.
Let me read another text of scripture to you from the New Testament. In Ephesians chapter two, he
says it this way. This is the condition of believers. Believers, this is their condition
too. They're not exempt from this.
He says, and you, Hathi-quickened, who were dead in trespasses and
sins, wherein in time past you walked. This was the course of
your life. You walked according to the course
of this world. according to the prince of the
power of the air. You were the servants of Satan, the spirit
that now works in the children of disobedience, that would be
the wicked, among whom also we all, without exception, had our
conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. So now the prophet in
Psalm 36.1 is saying, the transgression of the wicked saith within my
heart. He's describing himself. How do we know what's going on
in the heart of the sinner? Because we're sinners. And how
was that revealed to us? How was it made known to us?
God had to reveal it to us. We just sang last Sunday that
song, a sinner is a sacred thing, the Holy Ghost has made him so.
So we didn't think that we were sinners, we flattered ourselves,
but God brought us down, didn't he? And how did he do that? He showed us that there was forgiveness
with him in Christ. And then the flood of confession
and the admission of what we are was able to freely flow from
us. Out of our heart, we were able
to say, I am all that God describes and so much more that I don't
even understand. And we thought back of our lifestyle. We thought, that's the way I
thought. That was the motive of my heart all the time. But
then, after that, we expect that washing of our conscience by
the blood of Christ, which we received by faith when we first
believed, we expect that that's going to have such a radical
change in us. that the problem of sin is somehow
going to be almost, at least, made nothing. But what we find
in our experience is what Paul says in Romans chapter 7. And
in Romans chapter 7, you know the story there. He says, in
Romans 7, we know that the law is good, but I am carnal, sold
under sin. What he's talking about there
is the effect that the law has on him it teaches two things. Number one, he's horrified by
the fact that he's such a sinner, because the law says don't covet.
And all I found in my motives was covetousness. So this covetousness
wasn't revealed until the law said don't do it. And when I
tried to fulfill that inward commandment, that commandment
that affects my inner heart, I realized that that part of
me was carnal and sold under sin. It was the wicked. It was that part of us that cannot
and will not be changed. It wants to be on the throne
of our life. It hates Christ. It is described in Romans chapter
eight in verse seven this way, the carnal mind is enmity against
God, hostility. The mind of the natural man is
the wicked. And it's described eloquently
in verses one through four of Psalm 36. He has no fear of God. That wicked man within us, that
natural part of us, Jesus said, that which is born of the flesh
is flesh. All that we have, from our natural
birth to our parents on earth, rises no higher than the wicked.
And this part of us is constantly at war with this other part,
which is gonna be described in a moment in Psalm 36. But we
see that this revelation comes and it's a hateful thing that's
described. And so we also find it to be
true, just like Paul did in Romans 7. He hated it. And he consented
to the law, that the law was right. The law condemns me. It's right to condemn me. I condemn
myself for this. I agree what the law says is
good, but I don't do it. And that made him miserable when
he considered that he wanted to, but he couldn't because of
this warfare. Every time he wanted to do good,
he said, I found that evil was present with me. And it was because
he said, sin dwelleth in me. That's the wicked here. That,
I believe, is what the psalmist is saying when he says, the transgression
of the wicked saith within my heart. He's describing his own
natural mind and heart that's opposed to God. We oppose, until
the Lord saves us, we oppose our own salvation. But then something
else is done. He doesn't improve that carnal
mind. He doesn't gradually make it
better and better. He doesn't make us acceptable
in our nature so that he can look upon us and say, see, I've
improved that man, therefore he's righteous in my eyes. No,
he actually looks to another who is righteous, Jesus Christ,
the righteous, 1 John 2 verse 1. There's only one good, Jesus
told the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, and that one good
is God, and the Lord Jesus Christ is that one who is God and good.
So we see then that that in order for us to have this fear of God,
God has to give it to us. And when he does give this fear
of himself to us, then he creates, he doesn't clean up, but he creates
a new creature in Christ Jesus. And that's what's spoken of in
Ephesians chapter 2. And if I read the rest of Ephesians
2, starting from verse 4, listen to this grace that flows from
the words of Scripture by the Holy Ghost here. He says in Ephesians
chapter 2, 4, But God, when we were by nature the children of
wrath, even as others, but God, who is rich in what? Mercy. God is rich in mercy for His
great love. Loving kindness is what it's
called in Psalm 36, for His great love, wherewith He loved us,
when? Even when we were dead in sins,
we had no life to God. We had no, we were not alive
to God. And so he says when we were dead,
he made us alive, he quickened us together with Christ. He created
us, in verse 10 he says, we are his workmanship created in Christ
Jesus. So he, when we were in this condition,
He had already provided Christ for us. Christ had washed us
from our sins in the sight of God. He had fulfilled righteousness
to God for us so that it became our righteousness when it says,
he who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him." So God made us righteous in Christ. He looked to Christ for us. And
having made us righteous, having justified us in Him, having raised
Him from the dead, what did He do? Well, He raised us from the
dead too because we were in Him. And that's what Ephesians 2,
4 and following is talking about. It was all of grace when we were
dead in sins, just like everyone else, when we were the wicked,
in the center of the bullseye of God's condemning justice and
judgments, and God quickened us together with Christ. He made
us alive and He created us. It's all spoken of as the same
thing. He birthed us. The Spirit of God made us a new
creature in Christ. He birthed us as God's children. He gave us his own spirit. We
became partakers of the divine nature. And in Titus 3, where
we read, he follows up verse 3 by saying that being justified
by faith, we were justified, therefore we had the washing
of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. So all these
things are really just what's revealed in the gospel, but we
can look upon the psalm here in Psalm 36 and we can understand
the psalm by viewing it in the light of the gospel. And that's
the way we have to do all of scripture, isn't it? We have
to we have to view the Old Testament according to the gospel. In first
Corinthians 15, it says that he says that Christ died for
our sins according to the scriptures. that he was buried, that he rose
again according to the scriptures. So the scriptures are all about
Christ, how he died for our sins, was buried and rose again according,
that's what the scriptures teach. And from first to last in the
Old Testament, we're gonna find this gospel revealed and that's
what's revealed here in Psalm 36. Okay, now enough with that
background in verses one through four. Find yourself there. and
see the wicked there. Not only are God's people by
their own nature found here, but all of those outside of Christ
are described here. We know it describes us in our
heart, but until God gives us this new nature, We will not
see this, will we? I like what Todd, I think I heard
Todd say this first, Todd Nyberg, he said that until we have a
new nature, we can't even see that we have an old nature. We
can't see our own corruption until God gives us a view of
Christ. And when we see Christ, we're
not only at liberty to own what we are, like the publican did
in Luke 18, when he cried, God be merciful, look upon Christ,
the propitiating sacrifice for me, the sinner. Not only do we
have that persuasion from God, but we're also convinced that
if God so crucified his son and delivered him up, that God must
be holy beyond all of our understanding. and that Christ must be obedient
and humble and suffered in love, willingly and out of grace, way
beyond our ability to understand or speak about. And all these
things put us in the dust so that we, like the psalmist said
in Psalm 2, we kiss the sun, we bow at his feet and pour out
our tears, and we want to anoint him and ascribe to him all credit
for our salvation, that he would get all the glory. We trust in
him. And that's what follows next. In Psalm 36, he says in
verse 5, In contrast to the wicked, which is what we are by nature,
which is what all of the people ever born into this world are
in themselves, and apart from Christ, they will remain the
wicked. And the wicked will be turned
into hell. All the wicked will be turned
into hell, it says. I can't remember which psalm it's in. I think
it's Psalm 10. But here we have it, here in verse five. We have
the great contrast. We now, we have heard God's description
of the corrupt nature of man, and now we're gonna hear God's
description from the heart of a saved sinner. We're gonna see
the adoring beauty of the Lord in his goodness. Listen to what
it says. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens. No one can touch
it. God's mercy to us is God's doing. It's sovereign. It's in the heavens.
Man on earth cannot take it from us. Man cannot influence it. God gives it according to His
sovereign will. A man is not merciful. God is
merciful. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the
heavens. Beyond our comprehension, that
God would be merciful to us, that He, for the God who is rich
in mercy, Ephesians 2, 4, for His great love wherewith He loved
us would make us alive together with Christ. For by grace you
are saved. That's mercy in the heavens,
isn't it? It's mercy that's eternal because
it's in the heavens. It's mercy that's everlasting. And it's mercy that's in Christ
because in heaven, the Son, the Lamb of God gets all the glory,
right? The Lamb on the throne. He, when
He had by Himself purged our sins, what did He do? He sat
down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. The Lord Jesus
Christ, the Lord and God, is the Savior. He is also man on
the throne. And so He says, Thy mercy, O
Lord, is in the heavens, and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto
the clouds. The clouds are also above us.
God's faithfulness is impenetrable by us. We couldn't see the beginning
of it. It will never change. God will
never be unfaithful to his word, to himself, to his son, and to
his people. He swore by himself, he cannot
change, he cannot lie. God staked all of the covenant
promises in Christ on his own character. He didn't need to,
but he did it to assure us that this is God's faithfulness. Because
he's faithful, his mercies never fail. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. Lamentations
22-24. And then he says here in verse
6, thy righteousness is like the great mountains. I remember
as I was thinking about this, looking at a man who was climbing
a mountain. And I was on the ground and he
was up on the mountain, but I couldn't find him with my naked eye because
he was so puny. He was like a little dot in the
middle of a huge picture. I couldn't find him. I had to
use binoculars. Then I saw him. I took away the
binoculars. I could barely see him. And that
was just a little mountain. The great mountains, God's righteousness
so dwarfs man's. There's no comparison because
there is no righteousness in man. But God's righteousness
is like the great mountains, immovable, everlasting, higher
than man. It's beyond our comprehension. And we look at those mountains.
And we're to remember that God's righteousness is like that. He
says here, thy judgments are great deep. Who could fathom,
who could penetrate the mind of God that he could be both
holy and just and yet justify the ungodly? Me. How could God
do that? The Lord Jesus Christ is the
wisdom of God. He's the answer. And then he
goes on in verse six. Oh Lord, thou preservest man
and beast. God upholds all people. And he's the one to whom we therefore
need to, we owe everything. If he upholds us, he doesn't
need us, but we need him, don't we? We're utterly dependent upon
him, because he upholds us. Verse seven, how excellent is
thy loving kindness. And we say amen to that, don't
we? That's true. We believe that, don't we? God's
love, it says in 1 John 3, one and two, he says, Behold, what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should
be called the sons of God. He goes on to talk about the
love of God throughout scripture. Ephesians 2, where we just read
in verse 4, he says, the love of God found us when we were
dead in sins. So it has no dependence upon
our merit or our works whatsoever. God's love is, God is love. God doesn't depend on us. Okay? We got to get that through our
little proud hearts, our big proud hearts. That God doesn't
depend on us. His love is outside of our influence.
We don't impede it. We don't direct it, we don't
influence it, we don't cause it to happen, we don't uphold
it, it's in God. And it's in the Lord Jesus Christ. Unchanging, immovable, never
ending, faithful. His loving kindness, how excellent
is His loving kindness. It's not only all those things,
but it is a holy love. God's love above all things is
holy. Because all of God's attributes, all that God is, all of his characteristics
that we think of like love and mercy and justice and wrath and
anger and hatred, all these things, they're all comprised in God
as one being. not just all these parts added
together, but this is God, so that He is utterly uncompromised
and harmonious. And all of this is made known
to us in the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we look at His love and
we say, God, His loving kindness is excellent, like God. It's
lifted up and exalted and honored and magnified. to us in our salvation. He says, how excellent is thy
loving kindness, O God. Therefore, the children of men
put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. God protects. He's a refuge for his people.
He's their hiding place. And we flee to him. And it's
his loving kindness that causes us to trust him. In First John,
chapter four and verse 16, he says, perfect love casts out
all fear. There's no fear in love. And
we love Him because He first loved us, and His love toward
us that we believe, that we rely on, is that love that gave His
Son to be the propitiation for our sins. That's what 1 John
4 is talking about there. So we put our trust in Him. Who
wouldn't trust Him when their eyes are opened by God to see
that they were sinners even when they were dead in sins, God quickened
them together with Christ. This draws out the love of God
is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given
to us, isn't it? Romans chapter five, for when
we were without strength, Christ died for us. For a righteous
man, one might perhaps die, but not for a sinner. And yet God
commended His love toward us while we were yet sinners. Christ
died for us. And when we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. We were justified
by the blood of Christ. This is what Romans 5 is telling
us. so that the love of God is abundantly lavished upon us in
our hearts to understand the loving kindness of God, and therefore
we put our trust in Him. Doesn't reading Romans chapter
8, verses 28 through 39, doesn't that evoke in you a trust in
God? When He says, when He deals first
with our sins, when He says, who can lay anything to the charge
of God's elect? God foreknew them. He predestinated
them to be conformed to the image of His Son. He called them. He justified them. He glorified
them. He did all this even before they
had a being in Christ. And He works all things together
for their good. If God is 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
free to give us all things? And who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It's God who justifies. Who is
he that condemneth? It's Christ that died. And he
goes on to convince us through all the comforting words in Romans
chapter 8 that nothing can separate us from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The whole basis for it, the holy
basis for it, the eternal basis for it is because of Christ.
We had nothing to do with that. We're the objects of it, and
nothing can separate us from that love which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. That causes us to trust Him, doesn't it? It
causes us to say in our heart, if it all depends on God, If
it's all in Christ, then I have nothing to doubt. Because I don't
doubt God is faithful and true and holy and eternal and that
Christ fulfilled these things and God has received him for
his people. I don't doubt that. Why would
I doubt then that I can trust him as a sinner? Because it all
depends on him. I look away from myself to him. And that's what trust is. And
so he says here, in verse eight, these people who put their trust
in the Lord, they shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of
thy house. Now in Hebrews chapter three,
it says, we are Christ's household. We are his house. He also says
that every house is built by some man, but God built all things.
He that built all things is God. So we know that the Lord Jesus
Christ is God because we're his household. And because we are
His household, and He says that those who trust Him will be abundantly
satisfied with the fatness of His house, we understand then
that God Himself is building His people, He's putting them
into this dwelling place of God, what He calls His tabernacle,
His temple. his dwelling place, where Christ
is revealed, where God himself dwells, the many mansions that
Jesus spoke about in John 14, that he's prepared for us when
he went to the cross, a place in God as our God and Father,
who would dwell with us in these houses, which is ourselves, Christ
in you, the hope of glory, and we'll receive a heavenly body,
which will be the permanent dwelling place of God and we in him. So
this is describing here the abundance of God's blessing on his people
in the Lord Jesus Christ. The fatness of thy house. There's
fatness in this house because the lamb was offered. Isaiah
55 says, hearken diligently unto me and delight thyself in fatness. fatness because of Christ's sacrifice. God has lavished us with all
the blessings that are in heavenly places, the spiritual blessings
that are in Christ Jesus. He's abundantly shed abroad in
our hearts his own spirit to tell us about the love of God.
And he said he would give us all things with Christ because
he didn't withhold him, but delivered him up for us all. In 1 Corinthians
3, 21 and 23, he says, all things are yours, whether things present
or things to come, or life or death, the apostles, the world,
everything, everything is yours because you're Christ's and Christ
is God's. So this is describing the over
the unspeakable blessings that are in Christ Jesus the Lord.
All things are ours. In fact, the fullness of the
Godhead dwells in him bodily and we are complete in him. He's the the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge are in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're in him. All
things that pertain to life and godliness are given to us through
the knowledge of Him, it says in 2 Peter 1, verse 3. So all
these things are teaching us the fatness of His house because
of Christ. The fatness refers to the...
riches and the abundance. It's like a king's mansion, only
indescribably higher. He says, and thou shalt make
them drink of the river of thy pleasures. Now, throughout scripture,
the reference is made to rivers in Revelation 22, verse one. He talks about the river. Let
me read it to you in Revelation 22, verse one here. Listen to this description of
the throne of God, which what comes out of this throne, the
throne of God and of the Lamb. He showed me a pure river of
water of life. So in this river is the water
of life. Clear as crystal. Proceeding
out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. One sovereign rule, God the Father,
God the Son, and out of this throne flows this river that's
full of the water of life. And so this river then has to
do with the everlasting love of God, which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord, that flows to his people in abundance. It's a river. It
never ends. It flows out of God's throne.
In the wilderness, When the people of Israel came
out of Egypt in the wilderness, remember what happened? They
were out of water, and God told Moses to strike the rock, and
what came out was water. And in 1 Corinthians chapter
10, in verse 3 and 4, it says that that water, that rock out
of which the water came that Moses had smitten with his rod,
That rock followed them throughout their wilderness sojourn. So
believers are the Israel pictured there, and the wilderness is
our life in this flesh and in this world. And in this flesh
and in this world, we drink of Christ crucified. Like Moses
with the rod, the law smoked Christ. He was lifted up like
that serpent on the cross on the pole in Numbers 21. He was
lifted up on the cross. We look to him, our substitute,
our surety, who bore that curse for us because he bore our sin.
And in so looking, we drink in the water of life by faith now. He's the bread of life. He's
the water of life. He told the woman at the well
in John 4.10, if you knew the gift of God and who speaks to
you, he would have given you, you would have asked him, he
would have given you living waters. And then in John 7, he said,
if any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. We come to Christ
for this thirst-quenching, soul-refreshing water of life. It flows to us
even in this life now. We receive it by faith. We live
upon Christ by faith in His both bread and water, His meat and
drink to us. It's His broken body and His
shed blood, taken into our souls by faith, given to us by God,
the Holy Spirit. And in us, the Spirit of God
is in us because Christ is in us as a river, a well of water,
springing up unto eternal life. So this is all talking about
the river and the fountain, which Christ is to us, and He is to
us because of His cross, in breaking His body, shedding His blood,
and it's given to us through the Spirit of God, which He gives
to us, so that His words become to us spirit and life. Now here
in Psalm chapter 36 he says, they shall be abundantly satisfied
with the fatness of thy house, and thou shalt make them drink
of the river of thy pleasures, for with thee is the fountain
of life, in thy light shall we see light. We can't see light,
we are in the dark until we see the light of God, and the light
of God is Christ and him crucified. Remember in John chapter 8 how
the woman was taken in adultery and Jesus, He silences all of
her accusers and justifies her and then He says in verse 12,
I am the light of the world. He is the light. He's the light
that teaches us how God is just and justifies sinners in Himself. He's the righteousness of God
because He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might
be made that righteousness in Him. So we see light. We see
light in His light. That's the only way we can see
light. All the light we see is Christ and Him crucified. He's
the light of the world. He's the one that the Spirit
of God shines into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, as he says in
2 Corinthians 4, 6. And then in verse 10 of Psalm
36, he says, O continue thy lovingkindness to them that know thee, and thy
righteousness to the upright in heart. Here's a prayer that
God will most certainly answer. He put the prayer by the Spirit
of God here in the Psalms for us to pray and borrow. Continue
your love. Well, of course, Jesus, he loved
his own which were in the world. He loved them to the end. God's
love is everlasting, from everlasting to everlasting. Nothing shall
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus,
our Lord. So the prayer to continue is
our own sense of need for God's love. We want to know the love
of God. The apostle Paul prayed in Ephesians
chapter three, that we would know the love of Christ, which
passes knowledge. Louis would understand the height
and depth and length and breadth of the love of God which is in
Christ. And so that's what he's saying here. Lord, continue.
Grow it in me. Give it to me. Make it known
to me. Teach me of your love in the
Lord Jesus Christ to sinners. and your righteousness to the
upright in heart." Notice, in the first part, the first four
verses, there was the wicked, but now it's talking about the
upright in heart. In verse 11, he says, let not
the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the
wicked remove me. Now he's thinking about the fact
that there is this proud wicked that are in the world, and it
even resides in me, in this old man, this flesh. We don't put
any confidence in it. We're constantly at war with
it, and at wars against the Spirit, and we cannot do the things we
want. And so he prays that God would not let that proud, wicked
nature be against me and don't let the hand of the wicked remove
me. Don't let this old man have the dominion. Don't let him take
me from Christ. Keep me in Christ. Preserve me
in Christ Jesus by faith through your spirit. Verse 12, there
are the workers of iniquity fallen they are cast down and shall
not be able to rise. Because of his prayer in verse
11, he sees that the wicked will have an end and their end will
be their destruction. And we know that when our body
dies, we go to be with the Lord. That's our victory. Christ, he
thanks be unto God who always gives us the victory in our Lord
Jesus Christ. We are a wretched man in our
old nature, but I thank God through Jesus Christ. He always gives
us the victory. And our victory is by the blood
of the Lamb. by the gospel, which is the word of our testimony,
and because we do not love our life in this world. We don't
love the old man. We hate him. He's our worst enemy. So he says here, there are the
workers of iniquity under the judgment of God. They're fallen.
They're cast down. They shall not be able to rise
because in the Lord Jesus Christ they were condemned to death.
The body is dead. because of sin, but the Spirit
is life because of righteousness. So Christ gives us the victory.
And as sin reigned to death, even so grace reigns through
His righteousness unto eternal life. It's all through Jesus
Christ, our Lord. Romans chapter 5, verse 21. Let's
pray. Father, thank you for the Lord
Jesus Christ, our Savior, who saves us from our sins, the guilt
of sin, the body of sin, the corruption of our sinful nature. He saves us from sin in this
world. He saves us from the kingdom of Satan. He saves us from everything
to do with sin, even the punishment of sin and the curse of God's
law. against us because of our sins.
He saves us from the separation that our sins cause. He brings
us to himself. He gives us all things so that
nothing is lost in all of our life. We're saved to the uttermost. God is glorified and the Lord
Jesus Christ on the throne is given all the glory and we're
made to serve him in fear, this fear of love and trust in him
who so loved us and gave himself for us. Because of your forgiveness,
Lord, we can now fear the Lord. And this new nature in us does
actually trust you. This new nature is called upright
and righteous and holy because it was created by God. It's of
the divine nature. It's born of God. What a blessing
this revelation is to us. We pray, Lord, that it would
be true of us. We would not be found outside of Christ. We would
be found trusting Him at all times. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.