All right, I want to begin by
reading through this psalm, Psalm 26. And as you read through this
psalm, always ask these kinds of questions. Don't be afraid
to ask questions that we should be asking, which is, why is this
psalm important? Why is it important to God? Why
is it important to me? What does it mean? Because when
we read it, it's easy to be intimidated by the words of this psalm. So
let's read it together. Beginning at verse 1, Psalm 26,
Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity. I have trusted also in the Lord,
therefore I shall not slide. Examine me, O Lord, and prove
me. Try my reins and my heart, for
Thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes, and I have walked
in Thy truth. I have not sat with vain persons,
neither will I go in with dissemblers. I have hated the congregation
of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. I will wash
mine hands in innocency, so will I compass thine altar, O Lord,
that I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all
thy wondrous works. Lord, I have loved the habitation
of thy house, and the place where thine honor dwelleth. Gather
not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men, in whose
hand is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes. But as
for me, I will walk in mine integrity. Redeem me, and be merciful unto
me. My foot standeth in an even place. In the congregations will I bless
the Lord." Now, I don't know about you, but when I first read
this psalm, I have a hard time relating to it because it seems
to be saying things in prayer to the Lord that I cannot honestly
apply to myself with any clear conscience. Judge me, O Lord,
it says in verse 1, for I have walked in mine integrity. We
all want to have integrity in our lives. We want to be truthful
in everything that we do, and yet we find a compromise in the
way that we speak and act, a compromise of the truth that we know. We
fail to say the right thing at the right time, and we say the
wrong things sometimes, and these things trouble us greatly. It
might be something we've spoken without love and kindness, or
it may have just been a blatant falsehood that we've spoken.
In all these things, we find it hard to say the words of this
Psalm, Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity. So I want to give you, first
of all, an overview of this Psalm. First of all, the first thing
is that the psalmist here appeals to God's justice in the consciousness
of his own integrity. That's the first thing we see
in verse one. And then secondly, in his prayer he implores or
he pleads with the Lord God not to gather him when God gathers
the wicked of the earth and brings them into condemnation in his
judgment. And you can see that in verse
nine where he says, gather not my soul with sinners. And then
thirdly, the psalm closes in a way that a lot of the Psalms
close and that is like this. He says, my foot standeth in
an even place in the congregations will I bless the Lord. So he
speaks here of the congregations. So now I want to ask this question
which the Ethiopian asked Philip when Philip came to him while
the Ethiopian was traveling from Jerusalem back to his place in
Ethiopia. Remember that in Acts chapter
8 As the Ethiopian asked Philip, he said, I pray thee, of whom
speaketh the prophet thus? Of himself or of some other man? This is in Acts chapter eight
and verse 34. And the Ethiopian had been reading from Isaiah
53, and he asked Philip, of whom is the prophet speaking? Is he
speaking of himself or of some other man? And you remember Philip
there explained to him that that that text of scripture was talking
about the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we also now must ask our
teacher, the Lord Jesus Christ, to answer the question for us,
Lord, concerning this psalm, of whom is David speaking as
a prophet, of himself or of some other man? Because we know David
was a prophet. Well, the answer to this question
comes from the prayer itself. First, notice that David himself
in scripture confessed his sin. If you remember, many times he
confessed his need for a savior and that God would forgive him.
For example, in Psalm 51, that most familiar psalm, he opens
that psalm by confessing his sin. He said, Have mercy upon
me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude of
thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. So David clearly
was a sinner, and he prayed as a sinner to God to forgive him,
and you can read that whole psalm yourself to see how he prayed
there. But then also, in Psalm 130,
David also said this, he said, If thou, Lord, shouldst mark
iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? So if God keeps track
and keeps an account of iniquities against David, he was speaking
out of his own experience, in his own mind, he said, who could
stand? He said, but there is forgiveness with thee that thou
mayest be feared. So we can see just in those two
references that David knew something, knew a lot about his own sin
and God's forgiveness. And then also in Psalm 143, David
said this in verse two of Psalm 143, he said, enter not into
judgment with thy servant for in thy sight shall no man living
be justified. So, David was justified by the
God of all grace, who out of His grace and in His righteousness
delivered up Christ, His only begotten Son, who washed His
people from their sins and justified them by His blood. That's the
way David was justified, and he knew that. He knew that. He
said in Psalm 32, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
and whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. Those words were quoted in Romans
chapter 4. It said, David describes the
blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without
works, saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven
and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. So, we can see in these texts
of scripture clearly that David was a sinner, that David didn't
plead in those texts of scripture for God to enter into judgment
with him according to his own integrity, but to forgive him
of his sins, not to enter into judgment with him, and that if
God were to mark his iniquities, no man could stand before him.
And so we can see even in the last words of David in 2 Samuel
chapter 23, he says this, now these be the last words of David,
the son of Jesse said, the man who was raised up on high, the
anointed of the God of Jacob and the sweet psalmist of Israel
said, the spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was
in my tongue, The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake
to me, he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear
of God. And then in verse five he says,
although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me
an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, ensure, and this
is all my salvation and all my desire, though he make it not
to grow. So if you take all these things
together, you'll see then that David was a sinner who relied
on the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ to justify him
according and out of the grace of God and according to God's
righteousness. So he was, though David himself
was definitely a man of integrity, he was a man of integrity in
comparison to other men. in large part, but he could never
stand before God and ask God to judge him according to his
integrity. When Abigail, remember the account
between Nabal and Abigail in 1 Samuel chapter 25, when David
and his men had been watching over Nabal's sheep and guarding
the shepherds for a long time, and then David sent message to
Nabal to give something to his young men for food, and he refused,
and David was so angry and wanted to take vengeance against him,
and Nabal had really offended David's pride, so he puts his
sword on and he swears that he's going to not leave any that belonged
to Nabal by the morning light. And then Abigail heard of that,
and she went out to David with his large present, with various
kinds of food and bread and wine and such, and she made an intercession. And she says this in 1 Samuel
chapter 25 and verse 30, and I'm bringing this up to show
you David's own heart. Listen, he says, Abigail said
to David, it shall come to pass when the Lord shall have done
to my Lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning
thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel, that
this shall be no grief to thee, nor offense of heart unto my
Lord, either, here's what I want to draw your attention to, either
that thou has shed innocent, or that thou has shed blood causeless,
or that my Lord has avenged himself, but when the Lord has dealt well
with my Lord, the Lord God has dealt well with David, her Lord. Then remember thine handmaid,
and David said to Abigail, listen to David's words, blessed be
the Lord God of Israel which sent thee this day to meet me,
and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou which has kept
me this day from coming to shed blood, in other words, murder,
from avenging myself with my own hand, for in very deed, as
the Lord God of Israel lives, which has kept me back from hurting
thee, except thou hast hasted and come to meet me, surely there
had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any." Alright,
so these words show that David would have committed murder in
revenge of his own self rather than leaving the matter with
God. And see how he said that God kept him back from doing
this. So that was not naturally in
his heart. He was ready to take vengeance.
and ready to take the lives of these people. All those people
there were not guilty of that, but he was going to do it causelessly. So you can see that in all these
things, David was a man who was a sinful man in his own person. And you know this is the case,
because what happened to David? He died. And why do men die? Because of sin. So David, no
doubt, is not the one speaking first of all in this psalm. We know he's not because he could
not stand before God in judgment in his own integrity. Now, since
David was a sinful man, and since there is not a just man upon
earth that does good, and since David as a prophet spoke of Christ,
And since the one speaking in this psalm pleads his own conformance,
his integrity, perfect conformance to God's righteousness in verses
1 and 3, and finally, since the psalmist professes that because
he is innocent, that he will compass the altar of the Lord,
and knowing that Christ alone could actually draw near in innocency
and offer upon the altar of the Lord, therefore we must conclude
from scripture that this psalm is the prophecy of David and
the heart, prayers that were uttered by Christ as the man
who was appointed by God to represent and appear before God. for his
people, okay? So I said all that just to say
this, this psalm is the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. It
was written here under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by David who
wrote it And David was not speaking of himself, but he was speaking
as a prophet, the words of Christ, in Christ's own prayers. He was
the only one who could appear before God out of his own integrity. And so, if we consider this now,
we can now go on with his background and look at verses one and following. Let's read verse one together.
It says, Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity,
I have trusted also in the Lord, therefore I shall not sly. Now
the prayer here is to the Lord that he would judge him. The
man praying is Christ and that God would judge him. And the
word judge in this verse means to pronounce a sentence for or
sentence against him or to either vindicate him or to punish him,
to justify and defend him or to condemn him. That's the judgment.
He's standing before his judge. And the evidence that he offers
in verse one, in prayer to the Lord, was that the Lord should
justify and defend him in his integrity. That's what he's asking.
He said, judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity.
He asks God to judge him on the basis of his own integrity. Do you see that? And so the word
here, integrity, if you look it up, it means a complete or
full uprightness or perfection. It means a simplicity. And by
that simplicity, I mean a singular. uncompromised and unmixed adherence
to what is right in the eyes of God. So this integrity here
means really that he has full and complete innocence because
he is perfectly conformed to the way God sees things. There's
no deviation from the straight, the line of God's own mind of
what is right and what is wrong. And so having in himself this
integrity, the psalmist here pleads to the Lord to judge him
on this basis as a man of integrity and of rightness. And then he
adds this. He says, judge me, O Lord, for
I have walked in mine integrity. I have trusted also in the Lord.
So he not only was a man who was obedient, to God's revealed,
and not only his revealed law, but was in God's heart, the heart
of God, the way God looks upon things, clear in God's eyes,
but he also trusted in the Lord. He trusted, he didn't do this
as someone who was reluctant, but he did it from the heart,
and he trusted God in all that he did. He considered God's upholding
care and provision for him to be the right, his will to be
the right way. And so he trusted in the Lord
to keep him. And not only in his integrity and unwavering,
stable, singular, unmixed view of right and wrong and the truth
without any error, this full and complete integrity, he also
trusts in the Lord. He lays himself in God's hand. Now that's a humble and obedient
man, isn't it? This is the heart of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He lays himself in God's hand,
he trusts him to do what is right in God's eyes, and he accepts
that what the Lord decides in his own case and in every other
matter will be right, will be what he himself wants. And so
he now pleads to the Lord in prayer for this, trusting himself
to God in all of his life, even in his suffering and in his death.
This is exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did. And finally,
he says he won't slide. He won't slide, he won't slip,
and the reason he gives is because of his integrity and because
of his uprightness and his singular unswerving obedience to the Lord
in all things. He gave complete allegiance to
him in trusting him. He did not give allegiance to
another God or to another person. He trusted God. He gave all of
his heart allegiance to him. He was faithful in all things,
and therefore he would not slide. because he was upright and he
trusted in the Lord. We can't fault him for praying
this way. If it's true, then it has to be so, because God
is going to save the righteous. So he's confident. He's confident
that God's judgment shall uphold him in his life and in his cause
in all of blessings. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
presented himself to the Lord in his life and under his sufferings
and in all opposition that was against him in his death. And
you can see this throughout the Psalms and the Scriptures. So
Christ as a man here is praying. He's praying as a man and as
the surety of his people. He pleads his cause before the
Lord on the basis of his own righteousness and his trust in
God to do right and to justify him, though these things in this
psalm come upon him. Now this is the heart of our
Savior. Now, I say all this, and we're building the case here
because the psalm builds the case, so I want to go to the
next verse before I draw some conclusions here for you. But
look at the next verse in verse 2. He says, Examine me, O Lord,
and prove me. Try my reins and my heart. So here he asks the Lord not
only to judge him because he walked in his integrity, because
he trusted in the Lord and he was therefore confident that
he would not slide, but he also says to the Lord, examine me
and prove me. Now examine here means to investigate,
to examine and prove by testing and trying him with trials to
prove him. And to prove means just that. It means to prove
like an assayer would prove gold or precious metal. And what do
they do? Well, they first need to determine the quality and
the purity of that metal. And they do that sometimes by
heating or sometimes by making measurements of weight and so
forth. And so they have their methods
for determining the purity of a gold sample. And this is what
he's asking God to do. Examine me. Determine my purity. Measure it by your own weight,
your justice. Determine the quality of my,
he says, he uses the words reins here, and the words reins, R-E-I-G-N-S,
It means his essential inward parts, like his organs, like
his kidneys. Those are what we think of our
reins, we think of that in our body, because they're essential
to our life. And that's where the scripture
often refers to, in my reins, in my inward parts, he's really
referring to the mind, a true inward man. He asks God to prove
him, to examine and prove him, in his inward man, in what he
is in his mind, his thoughts, his motives, his intentions.
And so in all that he's doing here, he's asking God to only
consider what is right in his eyes, because that's the only
way he can be approved by God. The heart here that's spoken
of in verse two, he says, my reins in my heart is the very
center of what a man is. It's his mind. The heart in scripture
is a synonym for our mind. It includes our will, our affections,
all that we are, the motives of our heart. Everything has
to do with the way we think about things, our attitude. At the
very bottom of it is our beliefs. And so you can see how he's asking
the Lord to examine him and prove him at the very core of who he
is as a man in his inward parts. This is corresponding to God's
measure. This is the way God does things.
God doesn't do anything partially when he examines and proves us.
In fact, he says he uses his word because he lays alongside
a man his own mind and he compares that man to his own mind, his
own truth, because he is truth. In Hebrews chapter four, well,
in John 17, 17, Jesus said, thy word is truth. In other words,
God's word is the expression of his own spirit, his own mind. That's what God thinks is what
he said, his expression of his heart. And so in Hebrews chapter
4 verse 12, the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit, of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner
of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any
creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things
are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have
to do. That's what God's word does. And the psalmist here is
asking God, examine me in the light, the bright light of your
word according to your own mind, the measure of your own righteousness. Do you see that? That's what
this prayer is doing here. In openness, in the presence
of God, judge me, O Lord. I have walked in mine integrity. I haven't just thought it, I've
actually performed it. I have trusted also in the Lord.
I will not slide because of this. So examine me, Lord, and prove
me. Try my reins in my heart. And he goes on in verse 3, he
says, for thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes, and I have
walked in thy truth. Now, lovingkindness in scripture
means God's favor, as Esther was found favor in the eyes of
King Ahasuerus, and that's the word, lovingkindness is translated
favor, which just means grace. And this favor is given out of
God's gracious goodness. The word goodness in scripture
is often the word also translated loving kindness. And so in Psalm
107, it says, oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness,
for his marvelous works to the children of men. And then at
the end of that Psalm, Psalm 107 and verse 21, he says, Whoso is wise and will observe
these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness
of the Lord. His kindness is what is spoken
of in Psalm 107 that turns men from their foolishness to himself
through trials and tribulations. And when they cry to the Lord,
he saves them out of their distresses. That's God's loving kindness.
In Psalm 63, 3 it says, because thy loving kindness is better
than life, my lips shall praise thee. So these are all the words
that the loving kindness has to do with in scripture. God's
grace, his undeserved favor, and His goodness and His kindness
towards us. And in Ephesians 2 verse 7, it
says that in the ages to come, the Lord will show His great
kindness. I'm going to look it up so I
get it right here in Ephesians 2 and verse 7. He says that in
the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
and his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. So the one praying
here in this psalm says, thy loving kindness is before my
eyes and I have walked in thy truth. Okay, so here he's bringing
alongside each other two things, God's grace His loving-kindness,
His grace, and His favor, and His goodness towards men who
are sinners, and His truth. And the Lord says here in this
psalm, Thy loving-kindness is before my eyes, and I have walked
in thy truth. So, this is really speaking about
how the Lord Jesus inwardly and outwardly was upright
in his intentions, and his motives, and in his works, in whatever
he did, his prayers, and whatever he said. He did all of this in
love, in kindness, in his goodness, and it was all right in the sight
of the Lord, because it was according to truth. Who can describe this? Who can match this description
except the Lord Jesus Christ? In fact, the Lord Jesus is describing
all these things about himself in prayer to God because he's
setting it up to show that he was, as it says in Hebrews chapter
seven, and I think it's in verse 27 or 26, he says, he was holy,
he was harmless, He was undefiled. He was separate from sinners.
And so this describes the man, Christ Jesus. And he fulfilled
all of God's law in precept. He did it from his heart. He
did it out of love for God and out of love for sinners. And
he did it, that love he had for sinners was according to perfect
truth. There was no deviation from God's
own mind and heart in all that he did. He did it in his integrity
and he pleads his own integrity that God would judge him and
that God would find him to be innocent in all this. He says
then in verse four, not only did he do what was right, but
he also refrained from what was wrong among the wicked. He says, I have not sat with
vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers. Now the
word vain means false and it means ruinous. those who leave
nothing but ruin in their wake, and it means those who seek after
other salvation, other gods, idolaters. That's what vain means
in this place. Those who are of the kingdom
of Satan. And so, the word dissemblers, that's not a word that we use,
at least I don't use it in my English. It says it means, in
this text of scripture, it means to conceal. to blind, to hide,
like a hypocrite or like a deceiver. He said, I have not sat with
vain, idolatrous, ruinous, false persons, neither will I go in
the way of those who are hypocrites, who conceal the truth, who pretend
to be one thing and are not. They are something else. I haven't
been with them. He says in verse five, I have
hated the congregation of evildoers and I will not sit with the wicked. Now, I want you to wonder about
this, first of all. First here, he says what he hates
and what he hasn't sat with these kinds of people. But doesn't
it say in scripture that the Lord Jesus Christ loves men and
women? Didn't he say that in John chapter
11, that Jesus loved Martha and loved Mary and loved Lazarus?
And didn't Paul say, the Son of God who loved me and gave
himself for me? And didn't it say in Ephesians
5.25 that Christ Jesus loved the church and gave himself for
it? So, we have to observe that if
Christ loved a man, and there is none righteous, then Christ
loved sinners, didn't he? If Christ loved sinners, then
we wonder about these words, because he speaks about vain
persons, dissemblers, liars, hypocrites, the congregation
of evildoers, and he won't sit with the wicked. How can we reconcile
these things? Do we as centers have any hope
then? Because we can find ourselves in this list and this company
of these people that when we read this at first glance, it
seems like we're part of that group. How can we have any confidence? Well, it is a wonder that Christ
would love any man, for if he loves a man, he must love a sinner,
because there are none righteous. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Remember what John said when
he leaned on Jesus' breast at supper? It says, there was leaning
on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. And he knew
when he said that, that Christ loved him as a sinner. He was
a sinful man, and the Lord Jesus Christ loved him. Isn't it wonderful
that Christ had this accusation against him in his earthly ministry
that he ate with publicans and sinners? and that he was called
the friend of publicans and sinners? That was the accusation the Pharisees
held against him? It says in Matthew 11, 19, the
Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a man gluttonous
and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners, And so
we can see the accusation that was against him. And the Pharisees
said to his disciples, why does your master eat with publicans
and sinners? And when Jesus heard it, he said,
they that behold don't need a physician, but they that are sick. And go
learn what this means, that I will have mercy and not sacrifice.
I'm not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So
the Lord Jesus Christ sought out, found, and brought back,
and then delighted in sinners. He called sinners, men who were
sinners, to be his disciples, to follow him, and he named them
and made them his apostles. So we see all these things, and
over and over again in Scripture the Lord Jesus Christ speaks
of sinners with an approving word. The publican who stood
far off in the temple and wouldn't lift up even as much as his eyes
to heaven and beat upon his breast and said, God be merciful to
me the sinner, Jesus said that man went down to his house justified. So it's a good thing that the
Lord Jesus Christ loves sinners, because if he didn't, then we
would be desolate without hope, right? But in this verse, what
the Lord is referring to here is that there are those that
God hates. In Psalm 5 and verse 5, it says,
the foolish shall not stand in thy sight, thou hatest all workers
of iniquity. And so Christ's sheep, if you
look at scripture, Christ's sheep do not hate Jesus Christ, do
they? Jesus said they hear his voice,
they follow him, he knows them, and they know him. And therefore,
they love him. In Ephesians 6, in verse 24,
it says, grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity. So there are those Christ loves,
and they love him. And why do they love him? Well,
because he first loved them, of course. In Psalm 139, it says
in verse 19, Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God. Depart
from me therefore, you bloody men, murderers. For they speak
against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? So you can see here
that the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking about those who hate
the Lord Jesus Christ, who hate God. Now that's what we were
once, isn't it? Doesn't Romans chapter 1 verse
30 say that we once hated God, we were haters of God? And in
Titus chapter 3, he says, we ourselves also were sometimes
foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures,
living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. We were
hateful when we were considered by God. We were hateful in ourselves,
and we hated one another. So there we have it. We were
those kinds of people, weren't we? But God saved us by His grace. It says in Romans chapter 5 that
when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And when we were
enemies, God reconciled us to Himself by the death of His Son.
That's the difference here, is that there are those, which includes
all of us by nature, who naturally hate God and hate others, and
we are therefore hateful. But God, in his mercy, in Christ,
loved his people, and he loved them in Christ, and the Lord
Jesus Christ loved them and gave himself for them when they were
vile, helplessly sinful, helplessly evil, and without strength to
do anything, and God sent his son to die for them. But there
are those who remain in their hatred of Christ, and that's
what he's speaking about here, those who hate Christ and hate
his people, and they're left in that way. So he says, I have
avoided them. I hate them. I hate them with
a perfect hatred. This is what the Lord says. So,
the next verse in verse six, we're still speaking here, we're
still following this as the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
said, I will wash my hands in innocency, so will I compass
thine altar, O Lord. Now this particular verse is
near the center of the psalm, but it's also such a pivotal
verse that it really explains the whole psalm. Notice, I will
wash my hands in innocency. Remember this washing of hands
as if innocent? Pilate did that. He said, I am
innocent of the blood of this man, and he washed his hands
in water. as if to clear himself. He was the judge and governor
and he was going to clear himself right there. But it didn't clear
Pilate. He did not clear himself. So
there's only one who could really wash his hands in innocency. which was one who was innocent,
one who had clean hands, and that's the only one who could
compass thine altar, O Lord. So all that goes before in verses
one through five is describing the righteous character of the
Lord Jesus Christ, his love for God, and his love for God's law
and his fulfillment of it, his adherence to it, his integrity
in that, and his avoidance, his hatred of all that opposes God's
truth and his salvation. That's the one who compasses
thine altar, O Lord. And what is this teaching? But
that the Lord Jesus Christ, when he offered himself for our sins,
was without sin himself. that he did not have any sin. He knew no sin. There was in
him, there was no sin. And so we see this about the
Lord Jesus Christ, and that's why His offering for His people
obtained their eternal redemption. Because He was holy, harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners. And He gave Himself
for our sins. Only He could bear our sins because
He had no sin of His own, and because as the Son of God, He
was able to bear all the sins of all of His people in that
one nature of that one man on the cross. an amazing truth this is, that
the Lord Jesus Christ offered himself to God and his offering
was accepted because he was holy in God's sight. He was in perfect
conformance to God. He had kept God's law. He had
honored it. He had fulfilled it, not only
in precept, but also in its penalty. And I want you to consider this
in Isaiah chapter 50. In Isaiah chapter 50, in the
offering of himself, he says this, In verse 5 of Isaiah 50,
he says, the Lord God has opened my ear. I was not rebellious,
neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters
and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face
from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help me,
therefore shall I not be confounded, therefore have I set my face
like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is
near that justifieth me. Who will contend with me? Let
us stand together. And who is mine adversary? Let
him come near before me. Behold, the Lord God will help
me. Who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they shall wax old as
a garment. The moth shall eat them up. So
the Lord Jesus Christ alone stands before God accepted. And all
those who bring their accusations against him find themselves booted
out. the judge of all judges in favor
of Christ. It says when he was baptized
and when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration, God said
of his son, he said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well
pleased. All right, so here we see the
one who was well-pleasing to God gave himself for sinners
according to the will of God. And he was not rebellious in
this. He gave himself for it. He gave his back to the smiters,
his face, his beard to those who pluck it off, and he trusted
in the Lord and he was justified by him in that. Now, I say all
this not only because that's the case here in this psalm and
throughout scripture, because that's what the scriptures are
about. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The sufferings of Christ and
the glory that would follow. But I want you to notice now
as we go on here, how the psalm begins to turn to show how the
Lord Jesus Christ, in praying for Himself, it becomes evident
that He's not praying, as they say, as a private man, not as
an individual, but as a man who is a representative man. This is very, very important.
Think of some of the most basic scriptures that you know. For
example, in 1 Corinthians 15, what does it say? Christ died,
why? For our sins, according to the
scriptures. Remember? Just take that one
little verse, that one gospel negative truth that gleams brightly
across the pages of all of scripture and stands on the mountain of
God's revelation, that Christ Jesus died for our sins. You
see that He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
From before the foundation of the world, God ordained to take
the precious blood of His Son, the offering up of His Son, in
sacrifice to Him with the sins and for the sins of His people,
and to accept His sacrifice for them, and to justify them on
the basis of what He received from Christ. Now, the implications
of this are monumental, enormous, incomprehensibly huge. Because
when Christ, when God laid upon Him the case of His people, He
laid them so much upon Him that if He succeeded, then they were
saved. But if He did not succeed, then they would not be saved.
Our life rested upon the success of Christ, and God's justice
rested upon the success of Christ, because He had passed over their
sins already. God's glory rested upon the humility
and the obedience and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for
people who were naturally enemies of God, that He would save them
and make them holy before God. God's glory All of this rested
upon the success of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He came, the
Son of God came, He took our nature, and as a man, not just
a man, but as God-man, as a man, though, He endured all of this
for His people in their place. And his prayers to God were not
just as a private person, but there can be no separation between
what he said and what he did, and all that he bore, and the
reward of his righteousness, and those for whom he did it.
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried,
and the third day rose again according to the scriptures.
God justified him, and he did it for us who were sinners. And
so we can pull all the scriptures that have to do with Christ's
death being by the will of God out of the pure grace of God,
the sovereign will and grace of God, and established on the
very bedrock of God's own righteousness. in Christ, who was holy, harmless,
undefiled, and even as that holy, harmless, undefiled man, willingly
in love, gave himself in death for his people, bearing their
sins before God, enduring the full justice outpoured upon him,
and taking away the curse of God, in order that all the blessings
of God would be poured out upon them, God's Spirit would be given
to them, they would live to God. Okay? So I say all that to try
to impress upon you to realize that when God says things like,
for He made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him, He's showing us that
relationship, that tight, inseparable union between Christ's people
from eternity and Himself so that There was never a time when
he did or said anything, or bore sufferings, or died, or rose,
or ascended, or was seated and enthroned in glory that was done
for himself alone, but his people were always there with him."
Now, with that as sort of the glass through which we're going
to look at these next verses. Look at this with me here. He
says, I will wash my hands in innocency, so will I compass
thine altar. That means that God is going
to accept him. He's holy, and he's taking the sins of his people.
Remember the high priest? He laid his hands on that goat,
that scapegoat, and he confessed over that goat's head all the
sins of the people of Israel, and he sent that goat out into
the wilderness. That was our Lord Jesus. the
high priest who confessed our sins upon the head of himself,
the Lamb of God, and sent those sins out with himself in death
and burial to put them away." God has removed our transgressions
from us as far as the east is from the west. So he has forgotten
them as a dead man, out of mind. I will remember them no more.
This is what Christ did. And so when he compassed the
altar, the altar is his divine nature, which sanctifies the
gift and is greater than the gift. He laid himself on his
divine nature, as it were, and offered himself to God. It says
in Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 14, let me read it to you there,
so you can connect these things and see how God reveals things
that we can't comprehend really, but he says it and we get some
sense of it. It says in Hebrews chapter 9
verse 14, how much more shall the blood of Christ, listen,
who through the eternal spirit offered himself, well how did
he offer himself? Through the eternal spirit. What
is the eternal spirit? It's God the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus
Christ's own spirit. His nature as God. as the Spirit
of Christ, He offered Himself in His divine nature, I mean
in His human nature, was offered by the virtue and the power and
the holiness of His divine nature, so that when He offered Himself
to God, how much more would He purge our conscience from dead
works? It's beyond our comprehension. but we can believe it, we can
see it by faith here. The Lord Jesus Christ offered
himself, he's the altar, he's the sacrifice, God accepted him
because he washed his hands in innocency and his integrity,
he was holy before God. Now look at verse 7. He's going
to do this sacrifice on the altar and God will receive it. He says
that I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all
thy wondrous works. Now this is nothing but the gospel,
is it? Isn't it? The gospel is the declaration
of Jesus Christ and Him crucified for the salvation of God's elect
and to the glory of God in Christ. Isn't it? And that's what He's
saying here. God is known by His works. This is the work of
God. This was God's doing. It arose
out of His own eternal heart, His will, His mind, His holiness. When you see the cross, you're
looking at God's own heart and mind. His justice, His wisdom,
His grace, His faithfulness, everything about God is seen
in the cross. And so Christ is declaring His Father, He says
in John 17, I have declared unto them Thy name. His person, His
attributes, His will, His work, all of His righteousness. And
that's what we keep saying over and over again. The justification
of God's people is on the ground of the righteousness of God,
which was evidently made known in the sacrifice of Christ and
in the justification of sinners by his sacrifice. Romans chapter
3 and verse 21 through 26. You can read it there. So he's
going to declare God's wondrous works, God's wondrous works. All of salvation is his work.
Verse 8, Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house and the
place where thine honor dwelleth. What is God's house? Well, we
know that the Lord Christ's body is the dwelling place of God.
We know God dwells in heaven, but here the Lord is speaking
of his people. Christ liveth in me, the Apostle
Paul said in Galatians 2.20. The life that I now live in the
flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and
gave himself for me. It's not I who live, but Christ
liveth in me. So in every individual believer,
Christ dwells by his spirit. If Christ be not in you, then
you're none of his, it says in Romans 8, verse 9 through 11. So all these things are true
of every believer. Christ lives in them. And it's
also true of the church, collectively, as a body. Every member in whom
Christ dwells, also Christ dwells in them as a body, as a building,
as a temple, as a sanctuary. And we see this throughout scripture.
Christ not only loved me, but he also loved the church and
gave himself for it. So everybody who is a believer
in Christ can say this, that it's true of him, Christ loved
me, and every member of Christ's church can say Christ loved the
church. And so the Lord Jesus Christ says, and I love the habitation
of thy house. He loves those he dwells in.
He loves to be with his people. And he loves it because God's
glory is made known there, the place where thine honor dwelleth. What do God's people say? Every
one of them, what do they say? My salvation is in Christ alone. Isn't that it? It says in Psalm
29 and verse 9, it says, in his temple doth everyone speak of
his glory. Do you know why everyone in God's
temple speaks, in Christ's temple speaks of his glory? Because
if Christ didn't save us by himself entirely, without our contribution,
so that he gets all the glory, we have no hope. You see? So
we gladly say, yes, he gets all the glory. And so let him that
glorieth glory in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 1.30 it says, of
him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us, and
it lists all those things. Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption, that as it is written, let him that glorieth
glory in the Lord. So we say that because Christ
is all my salvation, then this is the place where his honor
dwells. God's honor is seen in Christ,
and Christ loves to be in his people. And then he says in verse
9, gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men.
Now the word gather here means like you would gather a harvest
in to uproot, in this case for judgment, because he's saying
don't gather me with sinners. Like Jesus said in Matthew 13,
30 about the tares that were sown among the wheat, He says,
until the end of time, let them grow together till the harvest,
and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, gather ye
together first the tares and bind them in bundles and burn
them, but gather the wheat into my barn. So the Lord Jesus is
pleading here, don't gather me with the wicked, with sinners,
nor my life with bloody men. Don't condemn me with the unjust." And he uses the personal pronoun,
my soul. Go on to the next verse. "...in
whose hand is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes."
Now, the wicked use bribes to pervert judgment. I was looking at a text of scripture
here. Let's see. Remember Eli's two
sons, Hophni and Phinehas? It says that they perverted judgment
because they took bribes. And it says in Proverbs 17, 23,
a wicked man takes a gift out of the bosom, out of the bosom
of the one who's trying to bribe him to pervert the ways of judgment. So wicked men accept bribes to
pervert judgment. This goes on all the time in
the world. But the Lord Jesus Christ was not so influenced. Now, I want you to consider this.
Jesus Christ didn't take any gift. Remember what he said about
the devil in John 14, 30? He says, the devil or the prince
of this world cometh, and he said, and he has nothing in me. He can't bribe me. He can't pervert
judgment. He can't distract me from the
way. He can't divert me from the course I've set on. I'm running this race, I'm going
to finish it, and the devil finds nothing in me by which he can
divert me or attract me, to tempt me. because he can't be perverted,
his judgment. He could find nothing in Christ.
He couldn't commit sin. But notice also in this world
that the religion of men is a religion of bribery. Have you ever noticed
that? We get you to do things by bribing
you. I remember our kids went to Sunday school and they wanted
to get the kids to remember Bible verses and they would bribe them
with gifts. If you remember them, we're going
to give you some gifts. Well, you might think that that's kind
of being too persnickety, that you shouldn't be so exacting.
Let the kids have the gifts. I mean, it encourages them to
learn the verses, after all. But it's just the way the man's religion
is. If you do these things, you'll get something. Look at Catholicism
or Mormonism. If you die, you end up in this
place. You're not in heaven. Not anybody goes there, really,
except a couple of saints. But you're like in the fifth
level down, and you can work your way up after so many eons
of time, or if somebody gives money to the church and the church
prays for you, they'll move you, they'll bump you up. Eventually,
you'll get there. That's called bribery. That's man's religion. It's about bribing men. If you
do something for God, God will do something for you. And this
is the total lie of false religion. But Christ says, these men, these
bloody men who will be receiving judgment and condemnation, their
right hand is full of bribes. But notice verse 11. But as for
me, I will walk in mine integrity, he repeats from verse one, and
then he says these words, redeem me and be merciful unto me. Now, if this is talking about
the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to ask this question. Did God
redeem Jesus? Why? How? He didn't need redeeming,
did he? But it all makes sense if you
stand back and consider what I was trying to say before, that
you can't separate Christ from his people. What he says, he
says with reference to God and them. When he speaks of himself,
he speaks as them before God. Remember what Paul told Philemon
in his letter regarding Onesimus? He said, receive him, Onesimus,
that is mine own bowels. And in a later verse he said
to Philemon, he says, receive him as myself. Now that's the
way Paul spoke to Philemon, because he learned that that's the way
God and the Lord Jesus Christ spoke of his people to God for
them. He spoke of them. And in John
17, it says as much. He says, in John 17, he says, He's praying to his father, he
says, the glory, which he's speaking about there is the spirit of
life in Christ, the gospel applied to our hearts, the glory which
thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even
as we are one, I in them, thou in me, that they may be made
one. may be made perfect in one, that the world may know thou
hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me."
Do you see that inseparability there? That Christ is speaking
about himself and his people before his Father as one. So
if this is the way the Lord Jesus Christ bore our burdens, our
sins and our sicknesses and all of our burdens, if this is the
way He not only bore our case, but He took on the burden of
all of God's requirements for us that were laid on Him, the
law and the will of God to redeem us, to make us holy by His precious
blood, He did all that, so when He prays here, redeem me, What
is he saying? Give me that eternal redemption
which I have purchased by my blood, give it to me for my people. He's praying for them. Redeem
me, redeem my people. Be merciful to me, be merciful
to them for my sake. And then he says, my foot standeth
in an even place, which means not a place of instability, a
place of solid, uncompromising truth. This is a just place,
a place of judgment and justice. In the congregation will I bless
the Lord. And notice how in a lot of these
psalms we see here that when he ends the psalm he is speaking
about himself personally and then he pulls back and he speaks
about the congregation of the Lord, the Lord's people. And
you can see this in several places. I had them
written down here, but I don't see them right now, but I'll
take you to just a couple. In Psalm 3, I'll read this to
you. I know it's probably wearing
out, but in Psalm 3, he ends this way. After talking about
himself, Lord, how they are increased that trouble me, He goes on,
verse 7, Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God, Thou hast smitten
all my enemies upon the cheekbone, Thou hast broken the teeth of
the ungodly. And now the last verse of Psalm 3, he says, Salvation
belongs to the Lord, Thy blessing is upon Thy people. So in all
these Psalms, we saw this in Psalm 25 last week, it ends this
way, Psalm 25, Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.
And so many psalms in this way where the psalmist is speaking
about himself personally and at the end he brings the whole
congregation into his prayer. And so this confirms to us that
what Christ did, he did for his people in all that he thought
and said before God as their surety and as their mediator,
as their high priest and as their king. As the prophet from God
to them, he spoke of his own accomplishments, of his own glory,
and his salvation of them by the will of God, by his own redeeming
blood. And that his plea to God as a
righteous man, and as our mediator, as our high priest, and as the
Lamb of God, is our plea before God because he offered it to
God for us. Now every believer who in themselves
has nothing but sin, But in Christ is holy and righteous before
God. Every believer takes great comfort in this. And that's why
this psalm is not only important to God because it makes known
his glory, but it's ultimately important to us because it's
all of our salvation. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
your grace and your goodness, your loving kindness, your righteousness
and truth, your holiness, your justice. Everything about you
is glorious to us in the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself
in life and in death. He gave in his integrity of his
own person, in his whole life. He lived separate from sinners,
and yet the friend of sinners, to save sinners and to bring
sinners to God, according to God's loving kindness and according
to God's strict righteousness and justice and truth. And we
thank you that he in his own person has reconciled us to God. He has made peace in the blood
of his cross. He has established our righteousness. He has done everything for God
and to God's glory for his people. What a Savior. Let us from our
hearts Give honor and glory to Him. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.