All right, Psalm chapter 30.
I want to look at this psalm with you. I was going through
this psalm today again and yesterday as I was trying to recall what
we had discussed last time and also to reenter into the blessing
of this psalm. So let's read it together. And
we'll just read it from verse one all the way through verse
12. And as you read it, as you read it with me and listen to
it, notice, try to understand what the man here praying in
this psalm is saying, and notice his experience, notice the way
he responds to his experience in all the things he mentions
here. Notice what he directs us to
and see if we can enter into the truth of how this is a benefit
to us, how we can take this to our own selves and find hope
in it. In Psalm chapter 30 in verse
one, it says, I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou has lifted me
up and has not made my foes to rejoice over me. So we see here
right away the man in the psalm is is praying to God and saying,
I will extol thee. I will ascribe praise to God,
greatness to God. I will I will consider God to
be great in every way. And here's why. Because he lifted
me up and he has not allowed my enemies to rejoice over me
in triumph. Verse two, Oh, Lord, my God,
I cried unto thee and thou hast healed me." So here the man praying
is asking the Lord to heal him. He says, I cried and he healed
me. So he answered the prayer and
the prayer he asked, what he asked for was healing. And let's
see how deep this healing needed to go, verse three. Oh Lord,
thou has brought up my soul from the grave. Thou has kept me alive
that I should not go down to the pit. So here we see that
the depth of his sickness was so great that it took him all
the way into death. And so we know the wages of sin
is death, and so we wonder about this man, how he could ask the
Lord to deliver him, to heal him, and that the Lord would
actually heal him, even from death and from the grave. He
didn't allow him to go down to the pit. And because of these
things, he's very thankful, very, very thankful and happy. Verse
four. Now he turns his attention to the saints. He says, sing
unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance
of his holiness. So here this phrase, his holiness,
refers to what came before in this psalm, the first couple
of verses here. And it's going to be developed
further, so we'll comment more on that in a minute. Verse 5
says, For his anger endureth for a moment, and his favor is
life. Weeping may endure for a night,
but joy comes in the morning. So God's anger is but for a moment,
according to this man who's praying in the psalm. And he's lifting
up his voice to the saints to give God thanks in remembrance
of his holiness because his anger is only for a moment. And though
we weep, we find cause for weeping. Our weeping only endures for
the night. Joy comes in the morning. This
conveys to us the great hope that we have. You know what it's
like to face things where there's no prospect of hope. If you have no prospect of hope
of things getting better, you become extremely discouraged
and depressed and distressed. And nobody wants to be without
hope. In fact, to be without hope is
the most darkest point in our life we could ever be brought
to, to be without hope. There's always some hope. I was
listening to someone just last night talking about, and they
were a complete unbeliever. They were saying, well, I have
hope, at least, that I'll see my husband in heaven. And they
had no basis for that. But they had this hope, even
though it was a false hope. But here the Lord is saying that
the one who is praying in the psalm is directing the saints
to God's holiness because his anger is turned away. It only
lasted for a short time. And there is favor. There's grace. In his grace, there is life.
So that's that's a great cause for hope and confidence. Verse
six, it says, And in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved. Now, it seems that in this particular
verse, verse six, in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved.
It seems like the man here is reflecting back on the time when
he presumed that things were all great and well. And he had
this attitude that nothing can shake me now. But that's not
what he found in his experience. It didn't continue that way.
It says in verse seven, Lord, by thy favor, thou hast made
my mountain to stand strong. A mountain here refers not just
to a mountain like we see when we climb a mountain or something,
but it refers to his kingdom. And we know this is King David's
psalm, and we know that he is speaking of Christ here, so it
really refers to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that God made that kingdom strong, and that's where
we stand. We stand within the dominion
of the king of heaven. And it's his kingdom that we
depend on to have dominion over the kingdom of darkness and of
hell. And so he's referring to that here in verse 7. Lord, by
thy favor, by your grace, you made my mountain to stand strong
my kingdom, to stand strong, and you did hide your face, and
I was troubled." So the previous verse, he was confident that
he would never be moved in his prosperity, but now he says,
you did hide your face, and I was troubled, and verse 8 What was
the result of God hiding his face? It says, I cried to thee,
O Lord, and unto the Lord I made my supplication. This is a very,
very fundamental principle, but something we all have to be taught
over and over again. When we're in trouble, when God
hides his face from us, turn to the Lord himself who hides
his face from us. Doesn't that make sense? If you
have a friend who seems cold and distant, would you go talk
to another person about them or would you go to them directly?
It makes sense that you would go to that person directly. Have
I offended you? What have I done? Is there something
I can do? You would find out from that
person exactly why they seem distant and cold. In Isaiah chapter
9, And verse 13, Isaiah 9, 13, it says, for the people turneth
not to him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord
of hosts. So God was afflicting the people of Israel and of Judah
for their sins, but they didn't turn to the Lord. They didn't
turn to the one who was smiting them. And here the psalmist does.
He says, you hid your face, I was troubled. And what happened?
I cried unto the Lord, I made my supplication. That's what
he says in verse seven. I was troubled, I cried to the
Lord, unto the Lord I made my supplication. What a fundamental
truth that is. And this is the spirit of God
instructing God's children, this is the way we are to come to
God. In trouble, cry. How simple is
that? Are you in trouble? Cry. What
does a baby do when they're feeling uneasy or they desire their mom's
comfort or they're hungry? It doesn't matter what it is.
Whatever that discomfort is, the baby cries. They cry for
their mom and mom hears and mom comes. And so it is with us in
the Lord. We are God's children. We cry
to our father, to our God and to our savior. And he hears us.
God said he would be a comfort to us even as a mother comforts
her children in Isaiah 63. What a comfort that is. And then
in verse nine, it says, I think it's actually Isaiah 65. In verse
9 it says, what profit is there in my blood when I go down to
the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth? So here there's a reasoning going
on. There's arguments being presented by this man to God. If you left
me to death and to the grave and to the pit, How could I praise
you? How could I declare your truth?
And so you see, this is like Moses, when he prayed to God,
he was always using these reasons why God should forgive, why he
should turn from his fierce anger, and he should not destroy the
people of Israel. And here the man praying in this
psalm is asking, what prophet is there in my blood? When I
go down to the pit, shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare
thy truth? What a very bold thing it is
for a man to say these things to God. But this is the way a
man who knows God or a woman who knows God would come to him
on this basis. And yet we're sinners. We have
no reason why as sinners we would have any reason to expect God
would hear us if we even had the wisdom to be so bold. to
know God and His desires and to pray according to His will,
as this man here does. But of course, we don't have
that wisdom, we don't know God that well, but we need one who
does and who will pray for us, and that's the key to unlocking
this psalm, is that the one who is praying here is the man, Christ
Jesus, and he's praying as one with his people, and that's what
we're gonna go through here in a minute. But then he says in
verse 10, hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me. Lord, be thou
my helper. Thou has turned for me my mourning
into dancing. Thou has put off my sackcloth
and girded me with gladness. Now he's showing after all the
trouble that he underwent here in this Psalm, he was brought
to death. He was brought to the grave.
God delivered him back from the grave. He delivered him from
the pit. He kept him alive. He heard him when he cried. when
God was silent and it seemed like he was distant, he had no
word, he cried to the Lord, and the Lord, he pleaded on the basis
of the fact that if God didn't save him from death, then he
wouldn't be able to declare his truth and he wouldn't be able
to sing his praise, because the dust can't praise thee. If I
die and I'm dead, I can't say anything, I can't reflect, I
can't think on, I can't utter any praise to God at all, I'm
dead. He reasons on that way. And God, he says, heard him.
He had mercy on him. And he helped him. And so he
turned his mourning, his sorrow, his deep sorrow, his mourning
as someone who's mourning for the dead, his mourning into dancing. And he put off his sackcloth.
The sackcloth was those old rough cloths that men would put on
when they were in their deepest sorrow. They would put on these
rough cloths because it reflected the great chafing of God's trouble
in their life and their sorrow. They didn't have nice clothes.
They didn't look nice. They had on these old sackcloth
and ashes on their head. They were like those who were
ready to go down into the dust and the ashes. And so they wore
these sackcloths. And God put off his sackcloth,
the man's sackcloth who's praying in the psalm, and he clothed
him with gladness. He turned his sorrow into gladness. What a blessing that is. And
he said, and this is why this was the great purpose to the
end, that my glory may sing praise to thee and not be silent. Oh,
Lord, my God, I will give thanks unto thee forever. Now, well,
we need to go through this to understand what these things
mean. But I want you to I've sent out a paper on this. It's pretty long, I admit. But
you could probably read it more quickly than I can just tell
it to you. So I'm not going to go through it word by word, but
I want to draw your attention to some of the things that, as
I consider this psalm, I see here. First of all, the key that
unlocks this psalm is to see first that this man, that the
person speaking in this psalm is one man. Do you see that? It's just one man. And so, if
this psalm is spoken as a prayer of one man, which man is it? And what relation does this man
have to me? If we understand that, then it's
cause for great comfort. When I read, or at least when
I used to read the psalms, I don't so much now, I do, maybe that's
to my fault, but when I read the psalms, I used to think I
could take the words as my own words, first of all. But then
as I tried to do that, I found that in all honesty, I couldn't
say what was being said in the Psalms as if it was mine, because
he would say things like, you know, I, for example, he says,
sing unto the Lord, O you saints, and give thanks at the remembrance
of his holiness. I couldn't say that that was
me telling the saints on earth to do that. Nor could I say,
you have brought up my soul from the grave. I never went down
into the grave. So my soul, I mean, my body was
never in the grave. I know that God says we're dead
in our sins. So I tried to apply it to myself
in those ways. But the bottom line is that this
psalm is given as the prayer of one man. And I want to know
who that man is and what relationship this prayer of his and he has
to me. Because if I have a relationship
to this man in this psalm in some way, therefore, this psalm
can be a psalm for me and I can take the promises here and the
way God responded to him in this prayer to myself for my comfort,
for my salvation, and as the way I go to God. We all experience,
to some extent, some of the things in this psalm, as we can find
in all the psalms. Even those who don't know Christ
will find comfort in some of the words of the Bible. But the
problem is we need to understand how we can take all of scripture
to our comfort. And so that's the first question
here. The observation is that this psalm is a psalm of one
man. And who is this man? It's not spoken by a private
man. It is one man, but it's not a
private man. But it's spoken by a man who
speaks as one man for all of the saints. And that, I think,
is given to us in verse four. Sing to the Lord, O ye saints
of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.
So this man is speaking as a commander. or as a captain, as a champion,
as a king, if you will, because that's obviously who was written
by King David. It's the head of his people.
That's who's speaking here. The son of David, in fact, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And because he is speaking here
and we know he didn't speak as a private man, meaning he didn't
just pray for himself. When Jesus prayed, he didn't
just pray for himself. Even when he prayed for himself,
it was for himself with his people. And if we if we can if we can
grab a hold of this truth from scripture, then we can throw
a net around so much of the Bible and take great comfort from it
that the Lord Jesus Christ, when he prayed, he prayed for himself
as one with his people. And you see this, especially
in places like Ephesians chapter five, where it says, as Christ
loved the church, husbands are to love their wives. And so when
a husband loves his wife, he loves himself. And when because
a man and a woman are one flesh, one body, the Lord Jesus Christ
and his people are one body, one flesh, they're all members
of Christ. So we see in Ephesians chapter
five, just for example, that the Lord Jesus Christ is so intimately
connected and joined to his people in a way that God has established
and connected them, that when he came to the earth, he was
coming to the earth as the one who would stand for his people. and bear their burdens, he would
take them to himself and he would unburden them. And then in fulfillment
of that, taking of their burdens, he was doing an obedience to
God in submission to his will so that what he did in taking
their burdens was actually fulfilling requirements God placed on him
that God required. So think about it this way. Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. He is God. That means he can
represent all that God wants from us. All that God wants from
us. And you know that God wants perfection.
He wants a holy people. He doesn't tolerate sin. He wants people to understand,
to know him, and all the things that God requires of us. We could
go through the Bible and just start underlining everything
that God requires and desires of those that he seeks to worship
him. Now, that's what God wants. And
on the other hand, the Lord Jesus Christ is man, so he understands
all that man needs and desires. from God, but in the Lord Jesus
Christ, He perfectly can fulfill and understand, because He understands
and is God, He can perfectly represent all that God requires
and wants from us, and as man, He can perfectly understand and
provide all that we need in order that God would bless us. And
so in this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator, he acts
not only as a mediator to lay hold both on God and men, But
he acts as the one who would take all the responsibility of
those people and fulfill it as God requires. And he understands
what God requires. And the understanding is so perfect
that he doesn't fail to meet everything God requires as a
man and as God. He and he he can fulfill both
of these needs in one man and one person. the surety and the
mediator in the God man, the Lord Jesus Christ. So he is the
one here that's praying. He's the son of David. And so
when he prays, he directs the saints in verse three to give
thanks for four to give thanks to the Lord, to sing to the Lord
and to give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. But in his experience
in this song, what is his experience? Well, his experience in this
psalm is that, and look at it in verse one, God has lifted
him up. He's exalted him. And he didn't
allow his foes, his enemies, to rejoice over him. And verse
two, so much so that he healed him when he cried. And verse
three, the healing was to bring him up out of death. and to deliver
him from the grave, to keep him alive and not allow him to go
down to the pit. But why would the Lord Jesus
go down into the grave? Why, if he is holy and harmless
and undefiled and not a sinner, why would he go down to the grave?
Well, because this is the big point of the gospel, that he
was smitten and stricken and beaten for the sins of his people. He died for our sins. Christ died for our sins according
to the scripture. That's why he died. It was because
of our sins, not because of his own. So his death, therefore,
is a representative substitutionary death. And his obedience also
is a representative obedience. He did what he did for us in
everything, even his prayers. So we read in Romans chapter
four, who is he that condemneth? Listen to these words. Who is
he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Yea,
rather, who is risen again, who is also at the right hand, who
is also not only risen, but is at the right hand of God, who
also makes intercession for us. He died, he rose, he makes intercession
for us. And so we see that here in this
psalm, don't we? And we see the intercession as what he does
after he was exalted by God, rewarded by God, put on the throne
as man, God and man, but as man put on the throne of heaven in
order to give to his people, his brethren, those God gave
to him, all of the eternal life that God gave him to give to
them. And so he's there now, exalted in throne and given all
authority as the king to do whatever you want. And he makes intercession
for them, pleading for them. But his pleading and his intercession
for them in his life was as one with them bearing their own burden. He prayed out of his own personal
experience. And that experience was a suffering
and obedience and a death and a resurrection as one with his
people. So that what he said, what he
experienced and all of his prayers were offered up as for himself
for them and for himself with them as joined to them. OK, so
if we see this, this is the key that unlocks this psalm and all
of the psalms and all of scripture that Christ died for our sins.
According to the scriptures, he was buried. He rose again
the third day, according to the scriptures, and then he was exalted
and he intercedes. That's his role is to advocate
for us as the lawyer advocates for the accused. Even the guilty. And he tells us, as someone pointed
out so appropriately, he tells us, you say nothing. I'll say
everything and I'll make the plea and I'll plead God's case
so that God's desires, God's will will be done and you will
be saved in righteousness. OK, so that's the key that unlocks
this psalm. The man here praying is the son
of God in his divine nature and the son of man in his human nature
and is spoken of him as one with his people. So now as we read
this, let's go through this as we read it together in that light.
Verse one, I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou has lifted me
up as one with his people. God gave to him life. And he is as as our captain,
as our forerunner, as our as the firstborn among many brethren,
as as the Lord's chosen and anointed. He's speaking now as our king.
He says, you've lifted me up, Lord, and you have not made my
foes to rejoice over me. And this applies to all of his
people with him. Let me read this to you. It's
so familiar, but we have to remind ourselves of these anchors. He
says in Romans 8, verse 32, listen to this. Speaking of God the
Father, he that spared not his own son, he didn't withhold the
chastening of his justice from him. He didn't spare him. When he was found with sin charged
to him, the sins of his people charged him, God did not spare
him. He had to endure all that God
required of a sinner. And he had to fulfill all that
God required for obedience for his people. He said, if God,
he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also not only deliver him up, but
freely give us all things with him? What a text of scripture. Here God is telling us if God
delivered up his son for this cause and Christ obviously offering
up himself in his life, in his obedience, in his sufferings,
in his death, in his resurrection, in his prayers, all these things
for his church, his people, those joined to him who without which
he would be incomplete as a husband and he loved them and gave himself
for them. So praying for them, he says, I will extol the old
Lord that has lifted me up. And he has an eye to them and
his and what God has given him because of his obedience and
suffering. And you have not made my foes to rejoice over me. Oh,
Lord, my God, I cry to thee and thou hast healed me. How did
how are we healed by his stripes? He was beaten. We were healed. He bore our burdens. We were
unburdened. And so we see that here. Then
he says, oh, Lord, thou has brought up my soul from the grave. Thou
has kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit. What
a what a. A surprise this is we are sinners,
yet God has found a king, one who could stand for us and pray
for us and be received again from the dead for us. And we
with him, even though we were sinners, because he took our
sins and bore all that God required for them. That's why he says
in the next verse, sing to the Lord, O ye saints of his, and
give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. How could God
in His holiness raise up a man from the dead if death is the
payback for sin? Well, because this man fully
satisfied God's justice. The curse of the law was fully
expended on him, fully exercised and poured out upon him. And
so that all the justice demanded was met by him. And all that
God's wrath demanded in order for his wrath to be appeased
was satisfied in him. And all that was done by him
in love, and love fulfilled the law. And so God's righteousness
was displayed in him. And so God's holiness is set
forth in that he justified the ungodly by the one godly man,
the Lord Jesus Christ. What a blessing that is. So we
give thanks to God for this holiness that would so magnify God's wisdom
to find this way. His grace and love that he would
do it for us who were so unworthy and deserving of such great wrath. And that he would do it in a
way that was consistent with his justice and righteousness
and his and his wisdom and loving kindness. And he would save us
without any contribution on our part. How we praise God for this
holiness that would so magnify God's character, his condescending
humility and his greatness in that with us. So we sing to the
Lord. Verse four, for his anger endureth
but for a moment. In his favor is life and his
grace. There's life. We know that weeping
may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Don't we
experience that in our life? We get we get discouraged. We
get depressed. We get. But we think. But if
we understand the gospel, we realize now I'll think about
this, that we were born into this world and God had appointed
the day of our death and all the time between our birth and
death. What happens? Well, By God's
grace, we're given sight to see that our salvation is in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And we're able, by God's grace,
to live upon him by faith so that we trust everything that
happens in our life is according to his will. It's conforming
us into his image as we look to Christ so that we see that
our entire life is the greatest privilege of any created being. any created being that we could
live this life depending on the Lord Jesus Christ to His glory
and our salvation. What a privilege that is, that
we would be able to give ourselves entirely in trust to the Lord
Jesus Christ, resting on him to save us from the very condemnation
we deserve for our sins. And we give God the glory for
that, the glory for it. What a privilege that is. So
his anger endures for a moment, in his grace and favor there's
life. Weeping does endure for a night,
or may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. That's
exactly the experience of everyone in the Lord Jesus Christ. He
suffered, it was for a short time, and joy came in the morning
when he was raised up. He said, and then verse six,
this is a puzzling verse. Now, when we hold these words
as the words of the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer with his people,
then when we read this verse, we might be a little confused.
And I and I thought about this a long time. He says, in my prosperity,
I said, I shall never be moved. Now, how can we say that this
is a presumption if these words are the words of the Lord Jesus
Christ? How could the Lord Jesus Christ ever have presumed in
an incorrect way on the Lord's goodness when he says, I shall
never be moved. But then later he says, by thy
favor, thou has made my mountain to stand strong. Thou did hide
thy face and I was troubled. So on the one hand, in verse
six, it looks like he's he's admitting the fact that he considered
things to be so well that he would never have any trouble.
But then in verse In verse seven, he has trouble
because God hides his face. So how can we reconcile this
if these are the words of the Lord Jesus? How could he presume,
on the one hand, incorrectly on God's favor? Well, we can
understand it again when we see this as the Lord Jesus Christ
being so united with his people that he not only declares God's
truth and his own love of God's commandments, but he confesses
our own sins. and so that he can take the wrong
of his people and confess it to God as his. And then the Lord
would receive his substitution and the answer of his own sacrifice
of himself as payment for us. And his love in that, and he
accepts that in spite of the fact that we are sinners. God
has taken, he has accepted the sacrifice for us. And so when
we read verse six, in my prosperity I said I shall never be moved.
That's what we do. in our presumption. We think
that all things are okay with us, but then when things get
bad, we find ourselves in trouble and we realize, yeah, I was being
presumptuous at that point. But the Lord himself, the Lord
Jesus Christ, is saying here, I believe that he's taking these
kinds of things that his people do incorrectly, and he's owning
it before God, and he's answering for it, and he's crying to the
Lord. In the next verse, he said, You did hide your face, and I
was troubled. And I cried to you, O Lord, and
unto the Lord I made my supplication. He bore our sins, he cried to
the Lord under our sins, confessing them as his and answering for
them to God, and God heard him. And then notice in verse 9, notice
how he reasons now. He says, What profit is there
in my blood when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise
thee? Shall it declare thy truth? What
if God were what if the Lord Jesus Christ had died and not
risen again? Remember First Corinthians 15?
What did the Apostle Paul say to the Corinthians? If there's
no resurrection, then Christ didn't rise. And if Christ didn't
rise, you are yet in your sins. And furthermore, we who have
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ have believed in vain and we've
preached in vain. And we're of all men most miserable
because we have trusted that the Lord Jesus Christ is our
resurrection. And we've held communion with
him in our hearts. And we found that this deep communion
and grace and love of God is all false because there's no
resurrection. So such things are most troubling.
So the Lord Jesus in his prayer is reasoning, what good would
it do? Would Christ die in vain? What
could be more impossible than that? That God would require
his own son to die and then not deliver him up from death? If
it was a death that God required, he said, he has commanded me
to lay down my life and take it up again. And if God didn't
raise him from the dead, What would there be for that? He wouldn't
be able to declare his truth. He would not be able to praise
him, would he? He wouldn't be able to say, as
he said in Hebrews chapter two, in the midst of the church, I
will sing praise to thee. He wouldn't be able to say that
in the midst of the church. I'll sing praise to thee if he
was left in the grave. So he's reasoning on the basis
not only of his own righteousness, but on God's glory. And this
is the way the man who knows God prays, the Lord Jesus Christ,
just as Moses prayed. And throughout the Old Testament,
when he asked God, he said, well, if you destroy these people,
If you destroy these people, what about your covenant? What
about your power? Your power was limited. You couldn't
actually save them from sin. Your enemies are going to laugh
at you and mock you because you weren't able to do what you said
you could do to bring these people into the land. So this way of
reasoning with God is simply expressing God's own mind in
prayer, God's own will in prayer. And God's will is a powerful
argument that silences His enemies because He puts them to shame
and He shows that by His power and by His will of grace to save
a people from their sins, even what's required of God's own
justice and His righteousness is met by God's own doing. He took the responsibility. to deliver his people, and he
is not going to fail. And so he says here, what profit
is there in my blood? And so he prays this for all
of his people. What profit would it be if I died for them and
they weren't risen? And what profit would it be for
them? Because they would I mean, for you, because they would not
be able to praise you. They would not be able to give
you thanks and declare your truth of your salvation. You see, So
the Lord Jesus Christ is reasoning on this in his prayer and for
his people. And what a powerful prayer it
is. In verse 10, listen, it's a very humble prayer, a very
humble prayer. I want to read a verse to you
to underscore this in a minute. But look at this in verse 10.
Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me. Lord, be thou my helper. He has no strength. He asked
the Lord to help him. What can he do? I don't have
any strength. And so he comes to God as a man
who has nothing and needs God to step in and save. And so listen to this in Isaiah
chapter 57. I've read this a lot before and wondered about it.
Look at this in Isaiah chapter 57 and verse 15, he says, for thus saith the high
and lofty one that inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in
the high and holy place, this is God now, obviously, the one
whose name is holy, who inhabits eternity, and who dwells in the
holy place, the high and holy one. He says, I dwell in the
high and holy place, notice, with him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive
the heart of the contrite ones. Who is the humble one? Who is
the one who had the contrite and humble spirit but the Lord
Jesus Christ? and who are the contrite ones,
but those whose hearts have been made contrite, not for any merit
in them, not because their contrition adds anything to God or or draws
from God some kind of a reward, but because in their in their
head, their covenant head, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was contrite
and humble They were brought near to God and they were exalted
with him and in him and they were made low to see they were
nothing and Christ is everything. You see, I was listening to a
sermon by Gabe Stoniker and he was commenting on Matthew chapter
five and he quoted Arthur Pink who said this about what it means
to be poor in spirit. He says, the man who is poor
in spirit is a man who is nothing, who knows nothing, who has nothing
and therefore everything has to be given to him freely. He's
a beggar only. He needs everything and he has
nothing but what God can give and will give of his grace. What
a comfort that is. That's what he's saying here.
The Lord Jesus Christ never acted arrogantly in his prayer. He
always took the place of the lowest. Right. Remember what
he told his disciples, if you enter the kingdom of heaven,
you're going to have to become you're going to be converted
and become as little children. And then he said, and he that
is least in the kingdom of God, he's greater than all. So the
greatest is the least. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
So here we have it right here in front of us. He says, What
profit is there, verse nine, what profit is there in my blood
when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall
it declare thy truth? He speaks for himself with his
people. There won't be any profit to
God's glory. We won't be able to give praise.
I won't be able to declare your truth and your saving grace unless
you raise me from the dead. And they won't be able to declare
to the praise of the glory of your grace what you did for sinners
who had nothing and did it all in Christ. They won't be able
to give glory to your son because you didn't raise them from the
dead. Now look at verse 10. Here, O Lord, and have mercy
upon me. Lord, be thou my helper. Verse 11. Thou hast turned from
me my mourning into dancing. Thou hast put off my sackcloth
and girded me with gladness. He's taken off the robes that
were the mourning robes and the sorrowful robes. He was in despair
of life. He had no helpers, he had no
friends, he was forsaken. Everyone accused him falsely.
He had done only right and everybody still found him to be wrong. He had no helper but God, the
Lord, and then the Lord took off the sorrow and he took it
off of his people and he replaced their sorrow with gladness. It
says in First Peter one, as we've been going through there, he
says, we have this. Let me read it to you in First
Peter, chapter one. We have this unspeakable joy in this salvation
that we anticipate with confidence. In First Peter one, he says,
verse Verse 6, wherein this salvation you greatly rejoice, though now
for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold
temptations. We have both joy and heaviness
at the same time. Great joy because we anticipate
with confidence that because of Christ, God is going to accept
us into glory. And we won't be condemned. And
then in verse seven, that the trial of your faith being much
more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried
with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at
the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love
and whom, though now you see him not yet believing, you rejoice
with joy, unspeakable and full of glory. That's what he's saying
here. You have taken off my rags of mourning. You've lifted my
sin from me. You've received me in the very
righteousness of your son. You have blessed me with all
that he deserves. And you haven't given me what
I deserve. You've put me in Christ and given
me everything that's his. And now you've given me a life
to live with all the sorrows of life and all the troubles
of life. And you've given me this precious faith to consider
everything in life as but a temporary trial. and given me this confidence
to trust Christ to be received into glory for his sake alone
and to to know that I have the forgiveness of sins and the access
to God and the the present ability to stand in his presence of his
glory with with confidence because of Christ. It's not what God
sees in me, but what he finds in his son, you see. And so the
Lord Jesus Christ is rejoicing in this, that God has delivered
him and his people from the dead, from the grave, from the pit.
He's given us life. He's shown forth his holiness. He has heard his prayer. He's
answered him. He has become his helper. He's
taken off his sackcloth. He's given him gladness. And
he says in verse end, to the end, to this final purpose that
my glory may sing praise to thee and not be silent. Oh, Lord,
my God, I will give thanks to thee forever. You see. With his
glory it means the very best ability that God would give a
man to express his delight and his admiration and adoration
to God for his mercy and grace in Christ. God has given us this
glory that my glory may sing praise to thee. I can't sing.
I mean, I feel frustrated that I can't even sing well enough
to please myself, let alone sing well enough not to offend other
people. But here it's not about the quality of our voice. It's
the quality of the praise because of the salvation that has been
given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he himself, the Lord
Jesus Christ, is taking up as our captain to the end that my
glory may sing praise to thee. And I I will read this again.
And I, I quoted it earlier. Let me read this to you from
Hebrews chapter two. He says in Hebrews two, this
is amazing. He says in Hebrews two, he says,
for both he that sanctified and they who are sanctified are all
of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. They're all of one. He calls
them brethren. He's not ashamed of them saying,
notice, I will declare thy name to my brethren. In the midst
of the church will I sing praise to thee. Isn't that what he's
doing here? And again, I will put my trust in him. Did the
Lord Jesus Christ trust in God? And again, behold, I and the
children which God has given me. That's him. You have taken
away my sackcloth, you've turned my mourning into dancing, and
you've girded me with gladness, you've clothed me with gladness,
unspeakable joy. For the joy set before Him, He
endured the cross to the end that my glory may sing praise
to Thee. All that Christ did, all that
God has given him to do is to exalt his father and his God
in the midst of the church through his words, through his work,
by making himself known to them. And what is it? If you think
of what glory would be to you, what would it be if you could
define what it is to enter into eternal glory? Well, the Bible
itself lets us know what it is. It's to see the Lord Jesus Christ. That's glory. To see Christ in
glory is glory for every believer. When we see him, we shall be
like him, for we shall see him as he is. Let's pray.