Okay, turn to Psalm chapter 9.
I want to look at this psalm with you tonight. Before we begin,
I want to read through the psalm with you. We're just going to
read through the entire psalm, and then I will begin at verse
1, and we'll just go through this. It says in my Bible, and
hopefully in yours, at the beginning before verse one, to the chief
musician upon Muthleben. I'm sure I'm not pronouncing
that quite right, but it's something like Muthleben. It says, it's
a Psalm of David. In verse one, I will praise thee,
O Lord, With my whole heart I will show forth all Thy marvelous
works. I will be glad and rejoice in
Thee. I will sing praise to Thy name,
O Thou Most High. When mine enemies are turned
back, they shall fall and perish at Thy presence. For thou hast
maintained my right and my cause. Thou sattest in the throne, judging
right. Thou hast rebuked the heathen.
Thou hast destroyed the wicked. Thou hast put out their name
forever and ever. O thou enemy, destructions are
come to a perpetual end, and thou hast destroyed cities, their
memorial is perished with them. But the Lord shall endure forever,
He has prepared His throne for judgment, and He shall judge
the world in righteousness. He shall minister judgment to
the people in uprightness. The Lord also will be a refuge
for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. And they that
know thy name will put their trust in thee, for thou, Lord,
hast not forsaken them that seek thee. Sing praises to the Lord,
which dwelleth in Zion. Declare among the people his
doings. When he maketh inquisition for
blood, he remembereth them. He forgetteth not the cry of
the humble. Have mercy upon me, O Lord. Consider my trouble, which I
suffer of them that hate me. Thou that liftest me up from
the gates of death, that I may show forth all thy praise in
the gates of the daughter of Zion. I will rejoice in thy salvation. The heathen are sunk down in
the pit that they made, in the net which they hid is their own
foot taken. The Lord is known by the judgment
which he executeth. The wicked is snared in the work
of his own hands. Hegion, Selah. The wicked shall
be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
For the needy shall not always be forgotten. The expectation
of the poor shall not perish forever. "'Arise, O Lord, let
not man prevail. "'Let the heathen be judged in
thy sight. "'Put them in fear, O Lord, "'that
the nations may know themselves to be but men.'" Selah. Now,
the first part of the Psalm that begins before verse one says,
"'To the chief musician on Muthleben.'" And the word Muthleben, according
to several that I read, such as Charles Spurgeon and
John Gill, may mean a couple of things. The first one is to
die for the sun. to die for the sun, or the death
of the sun, or concerning the death of the champion, such as
Goliath. Now, we could try to decide whether
or not any of those are the correct interpretation. I certainly don't
know for sure. I'm just going to have to take
the word of those who understand the original languages and take
these possible meanings of that word, muthlaban, to just focus
on the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and
it was His death that is the subject of all of Scripture.
And it is in His death that all of our enemies are put to death. And so we see this in the Psalm.
here. The Lord Jesus Christ, though
He were a Son, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered,
and because He suffered death, He became the author of eternal
salvation to all them that believe Him. That's what Hebrews 5, verses
7 through 9 say. All those who obey Him in believing
Him are those saved by Him, and for them He is the author of
eternal salvation, and this is only possible because in His
death He conquered death, in His death He put sin to death,
and He took away the reign of sin, which is death, and put
in its place the reign of His righteousness and grace unto
eternal life. That's from Romans chapter 5
and verse 21. Verse one of this psalm says, I will praise Thee,
O Lord, with my whole heart, I will show forth all Thy marvelous
works. Now, you and I, we want to praise
the Lord, don't we? I think I've spent my whole life
wishing that I could praise God as I ought to. That I could do
it with the amount of attention that I ought to and the amount
of understanding that I should. That I could do it without putting
anything else alongside of as a distraction or a desire that
would distract me from giving my full attention, my full heart,
mind and soul to this action of worshipping God and praising
God. But the fact of the matter is,
I have failed. I have failed, as it says in
Romans 3.23, all have fallen short of the glory of God. We've
all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We've fallen
short of bringing glory to God. We've fallen short of understanding
and seeing the glory of God. We've fallen short of giving
praise to God according to His glory in every way. We've fallen
short of the glory of God. So even though I would like to
be able to say I want to praise the Lord with all my heart and
I want to show forth His marvelous works, I know in truth I haven't. And I also know that in this
life I never will be able to do that thing that I desire with
all of my heart. At least not all of my being,
maybe in my new nature, but even that is always conflicted with
the old man. But there is someone who has.
There is someone who loved God with all of his heart, mind,
soul, and strength. Someone actually honored God. with a full understanding of
God's word, with a full understanding of his glory and his character
as God. And that someone is the Lord
Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can say
in all truth and actually do it, that he will praise the Lord
with his whole heart. All right, so remember that in
verse one, I will praise Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart,
and in verse two, I will be glad and rejoice in Thee, that you
can see that these words must apply to the Lord Jesus Christ. And this isn't the only place
that this is seen here in the psalm when he speaks about what
he's going to do. He says in verse 14, for example,
that I may show forth all thy praise in the gates of the daughter
of Zion. And then he also speaks about
asking God to judge the wicked, to rebuke the heathen, and maintain
his cause. So all these things must apply,
ultimately, to the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, they were written
by David. Yes, David was inspired by the
Spirit of God. But in his writings, David was
a prophet, not only in his writings, but in his life, the history
of his life. And here he utters out these
words as a prophet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when did the
Lord Jesus Christ ever say, I will praise Thee, O Lord, and I will
show forth all Thy marvelous works? Well, in many ways, for
example, in Hebrews chapter 2, in verse 12, he says, I will
declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church will
I sing praise unto thee. And we know that applies to the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one in Hebrews chapter
2 who is being spoken of, the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus, who
tasted death for every son and is the one that God the Father
seemed pleased, was pleased to make the captain of our salvation. He's the one who said, I will
declare thy name unto my brethren. He's not ashamed to call them
brethren. He's not ashamed, not only that, but it was his love,
his desire. Of all things, he wanted to make
his father known to his people, and he did that by declaring
to them his will, his word, and his work. And that's what it
says here. He's going to show forth all
of thy marvelous works. in verse one, okay? So we see
that also we understand that, from other examples in scripture,
that this was the role of the Lord Jesus Christ. One thing
you notice in the New Testament, that when Christ made himself
known to others, or he was known, made known to others, as the
Christ and the Son of God, it was always God's work. And for
example, the woman at the well said this to Jesus, I know that
when Messiah comes, which is called Christ, he will tell us
all things. And Jesus said to her, I that
speak unto thee am he. So right there in those words,
Jesus revealed himself to the woman at the well. And then we
also hear this from Mark chapter 14, the enemy of Christ, who
was the high priest at that time, asked him and said, art thou
the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am. He admitted
he was both Christ and the Son of God, and you shall see the
Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the
clouds of heaven. So here the Lord Jesus Christ
is the one who makes himself known, and in doing so he makes
his Father known. If you were to look at John chapter
nine and verse 35, remember the man born blind that Jesus healed
and gave sight to him. Jesus came to him after he had
had an argument with the Pharisees and the blind man was teaching
the Pharisees. Jesus heard that they had cast
the blind man out in verse 35. When he found him, he said to
him, he said to the blind man, Dost thou believe on the Son
of God? And the blind man answered, Who is he, Lord, that I might
believe on him? Here Jesus had given him sight,
and yet he didn't know he was the Son of God. And Jesus said
to him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with
thee. And the blind man said, Lord,
I believe. And he worshipped him. So you
can see in all these things that the Lord Jesus Christ makes himself
known to his brethren. In Matthew 11, 27, he said, no
man knoweth the Son, but the Father, and no man knoweth the
Father, but the Son. And he to whomsoever the Son
will reveal him. And so we know that Christ has
to make himself known. Just like Joseph, remember his
name? Pharaoh gave him this name, Zaphnath-Paeonea. which means the one to whom secrets
are revealed or the revealer of secrets. And it also means
in the Egyptian language, the savior or the salvation of the
age. So it's clear from the words
of scripture that Pharaoh was speaking of Joseph as a type
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And no one could lift up their
hand or foot in all the land of Egypt without Joseph according
to Pharaoh's command. And Pharaoh said, can we find
such a one as this, a man in whom the spirit of God is? And
so all of Joseph's reputation was that he knew God's secrets
and he could make them known. And that was what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done. He is the one who makes known
his father to his people. All right. So only if God reveals
his son to us and only if Christ reveals himself by his spirit
to us can we actually know him. So the next verse of Psalm chapter
2 says, when mine enemies I'm sorry, it says, I will be glad
and rejoice in thee. I will sing praise to thy name,
O thou most high. Now this is amazing to think
that the Lord Jesus Christ is a man. It's not just amazing,
it's actually what we would expect when we understand what he came
to do. He was the man. no other man had ever been. No
other man will ever be a man who actually knew God and worshipped
God and served Him with a glad heart. And so he says in verse
two, I will be glad and rejoice in thee, I will sing praise to
thy name, O thou most high. He was glad to make his father
known. He was glad to show his father's glory. He was glad to
do his father's will. He was glad to explain to his
people that his father's will and his father's word and work
was his own will, his own word, and his own work. And so in all
that he said, and in all that he did, and in all that happened
to him, he was making known his father. And he was glad to do
that. And so he said, I will sing praise
to thy name, O thou most high. When we read the words of Christ
in Scripture, He's revealing His Father, revealing His own
mind, revealing His Father's will, revealing the work God
gave Him to do, and He's rejoicing in the things that His Father
gave Him to do. Remember Matthew 11 and verse
25, He says, I thank Thee. Father, O Father, Lord of heaven
and earth, because thou hast revealed these things, I mean
has hidden these things from the wise and prudent, but has
revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight. This was Christ rejoicing. He
rejoiced to save his people. He rejoiced to give himself for
his people. He thanked his Father when he
broke that bread in the upper room with his disciples. At the
Lord's Supper, he rejoiced and thanked his father that he could
give himself, that they might drink of the wine which was his
blood, that they might live that blood of the new covenant. He
rejoiced in everything his father had given him to do. It had been
in his heart from eternity to fulfill his father's will, to
save his people from their sins, and he rejoiced in that because
it was his father's business. He had to be about his father's
business. My meat and my drink is to do
my father's will and to finish his work. That's why he came.
Okay? Now, all these things spoken
of in these first two verses of Psalm 9, about first the death
of the son or the the death of the champion, which we know was
death and sin, our sins and death that were put to death by the
death of the Son. What we see in these first two verses is
that Christ is praising His Father with His whole heart. As a man,
He's fulfilling, perfectly fulfilling and magnifying God's law and
fulfilling His will and rejoicing in His Father just as we also
do. Don't we? because we rejoice
in the fact that God gave this work to Christ to do. We rejoice
in the fact that God accepted all that Christ did and that
all that he did and said makes known God to us, giving us his
spirit because he accomplished the work. And so this is all
seen here in these first two verses. Then he makes a transition
and he speaks against his enemies in verse three. And he says,
when mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish
at thy presence. When mine enemies are turned
back. And so we wonder at this statement here that the Lord
Jesus Christ would speak against his enemies. Now, who are these
enemies? Well, if you read on a little
further in verse four, he says, thou hast rebuked the heathen,
thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name
for ever and ever. In verse six, O thou enemy, destructions
are come to a perpetual end, and thou hast destroyed cities,
their memorial is perished with them. And then he says in verse
eight, he shall judge the world in righteousness. And in contrast,
verse 10, they that know thy name will put their trust in
thee. And so you can see here that the enemies have to do with
the wicked. They have to do with those who
are in verse, let's see, where is it, verse, I think it is in
verse, verse 17, the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all
the nations that forget God. Whoever is in hell is wicked. That's what he's saying. All
the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that
forget God. So he's talking about those who
are outside of the saving mercy of God. And we're gonna see in
a minute here, as we read through this, that their destruction
is all their fault. Because he says, for example, in, let's see, where is it, verse
15, the heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made. In
the net which they hid is their own foot taken. You see that? And then, so you can see here
that the reason for their destruction, the reason for the wicked being
put in hell is, first of all, that they're wicked. And secondly,
because the very thing they thought to destroy Christ, because they
are his enemy, and to thwart his work and God's will to oppose
God, that very thing they thought to do is the very thing that
they were entrapped in. So now we can see here that the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, his delight was to praise God,
his Father, our God and our Father to rejoice in His name and to
speak of His name in praise, and then He refers to His enemies
who are not those who join Him in that praise. Verse 3, when
mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at
thy presence. You know, we first need to ask,
we can see that somehow these enemies have to do with real
people, right? Because the real somebody is
gonna go to hell in verse 17. Somebody laid a snare and they're
caught in their own trap. But in scripture, God uses enemies
in a sense where we can see God's goodness and mercy towards us
who are utterly sinful and utterly helpless in our sin. Let me read
you a couple verses. I love these verses and I've
read them before, but in Micah chapter 7, who is a God like
unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passes by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage? So God passes by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage. He retaineth not his anger forever
because he, God, delights in mercy. He will turn again. That seems strange to us, that
God would turn. We're told to turn, but why would
God turn? Well, because our sins offended
His justice, yet He's going to turn Himself again. He said He
will have compassion upon us, and He will subdue our iniquities. and that will cast all their
sins into the depths of the sea. And if you read before this in
Micah chapter seven, you can see references made to Egypt
and Assyria and other places. So he's referring in the Old
Testament to the destruction of peoples and nations, but we
see that in God's view of it, Christ actually destroyed our
enemy by destroying our sins. Because it was because of our
sins that God unleashed our enemies against us. Death. Death is the
wage, is the payback of sin in Romans 6.23. And it says in Romans
5.21 that sin has reigned unto death. So like a tyrant, a king,
an evil king, sin has reigned over us and brings us to death.
But Christ broke that enemy's strength. And what is the strength
of sin? It's the law. Remember, 1 Corinthians
chapter 15, around verse 56, the strength of sin is the law.
And so, and the sting of death is sin. So sin is the issue. And that's why he says here in
Psalm 65, 3, iniquities prevail against me. They're actually
overcoming me. They prevail against me. They're
constantly at war with me. As for our transgressions, when
I'm talking about these enemies called my iniquities and my transgressions,
thou shalt purge them away. And what is it to purge away
our iniquities? When did that happen? Well, in
Hebrews chapter one, he says, when he had by himself purged
our sins. So here we see a picture of our
enemies as our own sins. And you would think that God
would just hold us accountable for our sins. He couldn't separate
between the sinner and the sin. It was the sinner who committed
the sins. But this is God's tremendous mercy to his people, that in
his law, he not only made known our sin, but he made known the
propitiation for our sins, the satisfaction he would require,
and he did provide in the Lord Jesus Christ. He made atonement. for our sins, he made satisfaction
to himself, he took the obligation, our sins, the obligation for
making amends for the offense we created by our sins and taking
them away. So our iniquities, our transgressions,
our iniquities in Micah 7 and our sins in Micah 7, all of them
were done away in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you can see this in Luke
chapter 1, Luke chapter 1 verse 68, Zechariah is prophesying,
he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited
and redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation
for us in the house of his servant David, as he spake by the mouth
of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that
we, notice, should be saved from our enemies and from the hand
of all that hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our
father Abraham that he would grant unto us that we, being
delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him
without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all
the days of our life. How can we do that? we had to
be crucified with Christ. We had to fulfill the demands
of God's law for our death. The curse of the law had to be
borne. Our sins had to be borne, and he who his own self bare
our sins in his own body in the tree, and by his stripes we are
healed. So our sins, our enemy, our sins
cause our sickness, our sickness of our soul, the plague of our
soul, as Solomon said, the man who knows the plague of his own
heart, And so all these things are, our sin is the cause of
every problem in our life. Our sin is the reason we were
made subject to Satan as a tyrant over us. While we are in darkness,
Christ had to break the power of sin. And is sin like this
persona that lives that Christ had to meet up with? Is that
the way it worked? No. Sin, what is sin? Sin is transgression of the law,
1 John chapter three. And so if sin is against God,
then God is the one who has to be propitiated, an offering has
to be made to God in order to put away our sin. Because it's
because of our sin that God has brought against us our enemies,
all the consequences of sin, the death, grave, hell, Satan,
the world, Even the curse of his own law, God's wrath against
us is taken away because our sins are taken away. So in the
court of heaven, God required, according to the law of Moses
in the book of Leviticus, a satisfactory payment, a compensation to be
made to God in blood in sacrifice of an innocent victim. where
our sins were put on the head of that victim and the sacrifice
was first killed and then burnt up, offered to God. God had to
receive. The offering, the offering had
to be made to Him and Christ offered Himself to God for our
sins. This is what Hebrews chapter
9 and chapter 10 and Hebrews chapter 7, it's all about this.
Offering of Christ as our High Priest of Himself to God. He
offered Himself. What did He offer? Himself. He
offered himself in life, in sufferings, in death, in humiliation. He
humbled himself. He was made a servant. He took
our nature. He did everything. He not only suffered for us,
but he obeyed for us. So that he who knew no sin was
made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. So our enemies are subdued because our sins are
dealt with. In Isaiah 38, verse 17, Hezekiah
said, Behold, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast
in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption,
for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. How are we delivered
from the pit of corruption? God has to cast our sins behind
His back, and how does He do that? through the Lord Jesus
Christ. Christ died for our sins according
to the scripture. He was delivered for our offenses,
but he was raised again for our justification. And this is what
he's rejoicing in. This is how God's name is known.
This is what he's praising his Father for. This is what he's
declaring to his brethren, God's name. How do we know his name?
He's all the things that God has said of his name in scripture.
Let me give you just a quick summary of some of those. He
says, he's Jehovah. Shalom, our peace. And you know
how he made peace, don't you? Through the blood of his cross.
And he's also called Jehovah that healeth thee, or Jehovah
Rapha. In Exodus 15, which we talked about in rescue, the tree
was cast into the bitter waters. Christ was cut down and cast
into the bitterness of all that our sin brought upon us in order
that he might make reparation to God. And not only to God,
but he might bring peace to our souls so that we would no more
be at enmity with God. He would reconcile us. He's Jehovah
Rapha, the one who heals us by his stripes. He's Jehovah Sidkenu,
our righteousness, the Lord my righteousness. He's the Lord
my shepherd, Jehovah Ra'ah. He's Jehovah Jireh, the one who
will provide, who sees our need and sees to our need. And when
he sees to our need and seen our need, we see his person and
his character and his grace. He's Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord
of Hosts. He's Jehovah Medo-Mishkem, which
is the Lord who sanctifies us in Exodus 31, 13. Jehovah Medo-Dishkem,
the Lord who sanctifies. A lot of people talked about
sanctification. God says He's the Lord who sanctifies
us. He's Jehovah Shama, the Lord
is there, he's always with us. He is, all these names, Jehovah
Nisi, the Lord, my banner, because he has the victory over our enemies,
all of our enemies, like the people of the Amalekites. So
all these things teach us God's name in those words, Jehovah,
with the hyphenated word, our banner, our peace, our shepherd,
our righteousness, our sanctifier, everything. The Lord is that
to us. So, what are our enemies? Well,
first and foremost, ourselves, our sin. God has to destroy,
He has to put to death the old man. Our sins, like a body, a
body of sin, were laid on Christ. It says in Romans 6, verse 3,
as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into his death. Therefore, we are buried with
him by baptism into death. Reckon ye also yourselves to
be dead indeed unto sins, but alive unto God. We died. We died
because of our sins with Christ. We died to the law in our death
because the law cannot hold power over anyone unless they are both
the husband and the wife are alive. And so we died, and our
marriage to the law, and that bondage was broken in our death
with Christ. Our sins, our enemies, were all
destroyed in the death of God's Son. But not only are these our
sins, and Satan, and the world, and the curse of God's law against
us, all our enemies, which Christ broke us out of, he led captivity
captive, he brought those who were held in captivity, free,
and he put into captivity those that held them in captivity.
He did this in his own resurrection. But he also goes on in verse
4 of Psalm 9, he says, for thou hast maintained my right and
my cause, thou sattest in the throne judging right. Okay, so
first of all, God the Father did right in all of his judgments
in the life and in the sufferings and the death of his son. He
was delivered for our offenses and he was raised again for our
justification. Christ's deliverance for our
offenses seemed right to God to do that. God did that. We
couldn't have thought of that. We couldn't transfer our sins
to the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no possibility that anyone
can impute their sins to Christ. Only God the Father can do that.
He alone could charge another for our sins. In fact, it was
his wisdom that devised this scheme from eternity, that he
would set him up as the head in this covenant so that all
that needed to be done to fulfill that covenant would be borne
by the one who was the head in that covenant. just as Adam was
the head of that first covenant in creation where in Adam we
all died by his sin. We committed that sin and we
died for that sin and we are judged for that sin. We came
under the law, I mean under the the rule of sin in our lives
because of that consequence. But just in the same way, Christ
is the head over his people, and so all that God did to him,
for us, was done right, and it was just. God always does right. But he says here, thou hast maintained
my right and my cause. What is the cause of Christ?
What is the right? Thou saddest in the throne, judging
right, he says. Well, the cause of the son is
the cause of the father. The will of the son is the same
will as the father. He came to do his father's will.
His law was within his heart. It was within his heart to do
his father's will from eternity. That was his meat and drink.
He came to fulfill it and finish it, and he did. He did that will. He came in a body God, His Father,
prepared for Him, and He came to do that will. And so He says,
maintain My cause. Maintain My right and My cause.
His cause was to save His people from their sins. That was His
purpose in coming. He loved the church and gave
himself for it. So that was his cause, to deliver
them from their enemies. He went into war. He went into
the pit, as it were, with a lion on a snowy day, like one of David's
servants did, and he overcame that lion. the Lord Jesus Christ
did. That lion was Satan and that
pit was the sin that we brought ourselves into and the curse
of God and Christ entered into that and he bore that bitter
cup that was our drink and he drank it full so that we drink
it no more. The sword entered into him that it might not enter
into us. He was pierced. He was beaten.
The crown of thorns was put on his head that we might be healed
by his stripes and we might not bear that curse. So, that was
his cause. That was what God gave him to
do. And he's asking his Father to
maintain him in this right and in this cause. Thou saddest in
the throne, judging right. God the Father will do right.
He is the only justice in the Supreme Court of Heaven. God
the Father. So when the Lord Jesus Christ,
as our mediator and as our high priest, offered himself to God,
and God received his blood and received his death as peace,
as peace being made between himself and justice and sinners in their
sin, when he did that, he was fulfilling God the Father's will.
It wasn't something that he wanted that God the Father didn't want.
They were both united in this. They were both united in the
purpose, in the word, in the promise, and in the work. It
was the work of the Father, and Christ did that work, just like
in creation. It was God the Father's will,
and it was Christ's work. And so we see this in all of
salvation. It's the will and the work of
the Son that are the same as the will and the work of the
Father, and that is to save His people from their sins, to destroy
their enemies, and to bring them to Himself. to bring many sons
to glory. And so in verse five, we see
this. Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked,
and has put out their name forever and ever. O thou enemy, destructions
are come to a perpetual end, and thou hast destroyed cities,
their memorial is perished with them. Okay, so here we see something
spoken as in the past, don't we? Something is done as done
in the past. It's spoken here in the past,
in the prophecy, it was done in time, but it's spoken here
that in the context of time, when Christ spoke these words,
it would be viewed as in the past. So let's look at this in
John chapter 12, what Jesus said about this. And I'll read these
words to you in John chapter 12, beginning at verse 23. He
says in verse 23 of John chapter 12, Jesus answered Andrew and Philip
who said that there were people, Greeks, who wanted to come and
see him. And they came up to worship at
the feast and they wanted to see Jesus. And in verse 23, Jesus
answered them when Andrew and Philip told them these things.
The hour has come that the son of man should be glorified. How
was he glorified? How was the son of man going
to be glorified? Well, let's read on. He says, verily, verily,
I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground
and die, it abides alone. But if it die, it brings forth
much fruit. He would be glorified by bringing
forth fruit in his death, like a corn of wheat. Verse 25. He
that loveth his life shall lose it. He that hates his life in
this world shall keep it unto life eternal. He is preeminently
that one who hated his life, He didn't love his life, but
in this world, he didn't have anything in this world or in
Satan that was of importance to him. He came to do his father's
will. Everything else in the world
was hateful to him. The world hated him, and it wasn't
There was nothing in the world that he needed or wanted. He
came to do his father's will and save his people. So he gave
his life. He hated his life in this world,
and he kept it into life eternal. Verse 26. If any man serve me,
let him follow me. Where I am, there shall also
my servant be. If any man serve me, him will
my father honor. Verse 27. Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father,
save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto
this hour. This is why I came, for this
hour. Father, glorify thy name. The Lord Jesus required his father
to glorify his own name. But how would he do that? Well,
read on. Then came there a voice from
heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. When did he glorify it? Well,
from the beginning in promise, he glorified his name by telling
how he would save his people by his son in all the prophecies
of Old Testament scripture. So in promise, he glorified it.
But then when his son came into the world, the angels declared
his glory, glory to God in the highest. And then when the Lord
Jesus was baptized, the Spirit of God descended from heaven
like a dove and the Father spoke from heaven, this is my beloved
Son in whom I'm well pleased. And then at the Mount of Transfiguration,
He said, this is my beloved Son, hear ye Him. So the Father glorified
Himself in speaking of His Son. because his son was all of his
desire and delight. He says in verse 29, the people
therefore that stood by and heard it said that it thundered. Others
said an angel spake to him. Verse 30, Jesus answered and
said, this voice came not because of me, not that I needed to hear
this to know what God was thinking, but for your sakes. And here
it is. Here's how the son was glorified.
This is how he, as it said back in Psalm chapter 9, where it
says, thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked,
thou hast put out their names forever and ever. O thou enemy,
destructions are come to a perpetual end. And thou hast destroyed
cities, their memorial is perished forever, but the Lord shall endure
forever." Now, this is where this is accomplished here. He's
speaking of it as in the past in Psalm 9, but here he's saying,
in verse 30, And verse 31, now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying
what death he should die. What do we learn from this? That
the judgment of this world and the prince of this world occurred
at the cross. You see that? It occurred at
the cross. I was looking over here at John
chapter 13. He says in verse 32, he said,
verse 31, when he was gone out, after he had washed his disciples'
feet, of course, he's going to the cross. At this time, physically,
he's walking toward the cross. Jesus said, now is the Son of
Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. So how did God the Father
glorify himself here? in His Son, in the death of His
Son, in the justification of His Son in raising Him from the
dead. Because when, as the Supreme
Judge of the Supreme Court in heaven, Christ entered into heaven
as our High Priest and presented to His Father His own blood,
He actually obtained our eternal redemption. And when He obtained
our redemption, what was that? That was the release of us from
the captivity our sins brought us into. The debt was paid, the
ransom paid, the redeemed were released, and their enemies were
judged. The world and the prince of this
world were judged in the death of Christ. So what we see here
is that in one event in history, Christ's death on the cross,
not only were his people saved from their sins, from death,
from hell, but their enemies, sin, death, hell, and the grave,
All their enemies, whatever they might be, even their own flesh,
the body of this death, all were judged in the death of Christ.
We died, we were no longer under the law. Our sins, like a body,
died in Christ's body. We're no longer condemned because
of that body of sins. It's already suffered death.
Payment has been made. God has executed judgment on
the body of our sins. We're free. Christ has redeemed
us from our own iniquities. from the hell we deserve and
the death we deserve. And so not only those abstract
things, sin, death, hell, and so on, that are the result of
our sins, but the heathen, the world, and the kingdom of Satan
are judged. So here we read it over in 2
Corinthians 2, the same principle. In 2 Corinthians, chapter 2,
when the apostle Paul was talking about preaching the gospel, the
gospel is being preached. Now, what happens, notice, as
a result of what Christ did on the cross, If I can get the page
to turn. He says in chapter two, verse
14, now, thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph
in Christ and makes manifest the savor of his knowledge by
us in every place. What is the savor of his knowledge?
That's the savor of the gospel. And notice in verse 15, for we
are unto God a sweet savor of Christ. As they preach the gospel,
the apostles, the ministers of Christ are a sweet saver to God. Why? Because, he says, in them
that are saved and in them that perish. First of all, to the
one, those who are saved, there is a sweet saver unto life. He
goes on, to the one we are the saver of death to death and to
the other the saver of life to life. And who is sufficient for
these things? We who bring the gospel, we're not sufficient.
We are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity,
but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ." We're
talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who conquered
death and our sins and everything else. And as we bring the gospel
of what Christ has done, the result of that preaching and
teaching is that God's people hear it, and it becomes the sweetest
thing to their souls, because it was the sweetest thing to
God. But to the wicked, they have no interest in it, and it
becomes the savor of, a foretaste of death to death. They're in
death, and they're going to suffer the consequences of death. And
this is a fearful thing, isn't it? back to Psalm chapter nine,
verse seven, but the Lord shall endure forever. He has prepared
his throne for judgment. God is the judge, he's going
to do right. He always does right. And there was never a time he
did right more, if you could call it that, than at the cross.
Never a time when the judgment occurred more than at the cross.
That was when he prophesied in Genesis 3.15 that the seed of
the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. That was a judgment,
and that was executed at the cross. Our offenses were removed,
God judged our enemies, He released us, He raised us with Christ,
He justified us in the justification of Christ, He sanctified us,
He sent His Spirit, He brought the gospel of Christ's accomplishments,
and He made us to know it, and believe it, and love it. And
so he says in verse 8, and he shall judge the world in righteousness.
He shall minister judgment to his people in uprightness. The
Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in time
of trouble. You see how 8 and 9, verses 8
and 9, are contrasts? He will judge the world in righteousness. All of us are going to get exactly
what we deserve. If we end up in hell, we're going
to get exactly what we deserve. And if we end up in heaven, we're
going to get exactly what God would credit to us for what Christ
deserved. Justice will be served in both
cases. Never was justice more satisfied than in the death of
Christ. And God's justice will be poured out upon those outside
of Christ. So in verse 8, again, he will
judge the world in righteousness, and this is quoted in Acts chapter
17, verses 30 and 31. When the gospel was preached
by Paul to those at Athens, he told them, for God has appointed
a day when he's going to judge the world in righteousness by
that man that he has appointed, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
So not only does the gospel come like it did in Acts chapter 2
by Peter when he spoke of Christ being put to death by those men
with their wicked hands who were right there hearing him preach.
They were the ones who physically put Christ to death. He says,
not only did you put him to death, but it was by the will of God.
And now that the accomplishments of his death is proclaimed to
you, that it was for the remission of the sins of his people. And
God has set him on his throne and put all enemies under his
foot. He has made him both Lord and Christ. And he immediately
follows that with when they said, well, what should we do? They
were pricked in their hearts. What should we do? He said, repent
and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive
the gift of the Holy Spirit. So they heard the gospel and
for them that gospel was to bring the good news of Christ's accomplishments
and his victory over our enemies. But he also was in there was
a warning that if they didn't repent, If they didn't have a
change from unbelief to faith in Christ and gladly put their
trust in Him and submit to Him as the Lord of all, like Thomas
when he saw the nail prints in his hands and the pierced place
in his side, he said, my God, my Lord. If that blessing didn't
come upon them, if the Lord didn't call them, they would be left
in their sins, and they would be like those here, he shall
judge the world in righteousness, but the Lord will be a refuge
for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. Look at verse
10, Psalm 9, verse 10. And they that know thy name will
put their trust in thee, for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken
them that seek thee. Now, I'd like to take just a
minute here to look at this verse, and we might not finish this
chapter by doing this, but I think it's worth it. First of all,
look at this, they that know thy name will put their trust
in thee. This is speaking about those
who put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, they
know thy name. They put their trust in him.
What does it mean to know his name? Well, remember Nabal's
wife, Abigail, that eventually married David. She spoke to David
about her husband, Nabal, and she said, as is his name, so
is he. His name is Nabal, and Phali
is with him. So what she was explaining there,
and what God the Holy Spirit is saying there, is that the
name, someone's name, is just a handle, just a short epithet
of who they are, what they are in their character, in their
person. Navel was his name, folly is with him. He's a fool, that's
what his name means, and he acts the fool's part. When the Lord
says, they that know thy name, he's saying to know the name
of the Lord is to know him in his person and in his character.
It's not just to know that his name is Jesus and that his name
is Jehovah Nissi and Jehovah Jireh and all these other names.
It's to know the meaning of those names in terms of his character
so that we put our trust in him as the one who he is. He is Jesus,
he shall save his people from their sins and I trust him to
save me from my sins. He's the one who sees and provides. I trust Him that He saw my need
and saw Christ to meet that need, and I see Him in the meeting
of that need in the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that He's the
one who, by the blood of Jesus, gives me boldness to enter into
the holiest of all, through His blood, through His torn flesh. the veil of his flesh. I believe
those things about God, that he's merciful and gracious because
of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he provided him and because he
received him for his people. And as a sinner, I have nowhere
else to seek refuge. They that know thy name will
put their trust in thee. You are a refuge for the oppressed,
and I am oppressed by my sin. Come unto me all you who labor
and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. I believe the Lord
Jesus Christ said that to all who are heavy laden and labor,
so I do. And all who trust him do. If
you know his name, if you know he's the savior of sinners and
you're a sinner, you're going to put your trust in him. Romans
chapter 10 says, whosoever shall confess with the mouth the Lord
Jesus and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from
the dead shall be saved. So we put our trust in him because
we know his name, the name of the Lord Jesus. Okay? But when we do that, what is
it saying? We know Him. Do you see? When
we trust Him, it means that we know Him. We know who He is as
He's revealed Himself. And so, we are acting in trust
because of our knowledge of Him, because of what we know about
Him and believe about Him. Now, why do we believe? We believe
because He Himself made Himself known to us, don't we? We don't
know His name, we don't know Him until He makes Himself known.
Christ has to reveal Himself. So there is an intercourse between
the Lord Jesus Christ and His people here in this verse. On
His part, He makes Himself known in His saving work, in His, the
Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. On our part,
we say, I died with Christ. I have nothing of my own. I don't
live except that Christ lives in me, and I can't live to God
unless He is my life. He's my answer to God. He's my
righteousness. He's all of the blessings God
has for me, and I can come to God because of Him. So this dependency
upon Christ by a sinner in faith is because he knows Christ and
it's because he is known of Christ. So that on the judgment day when
Jesus spoke to those men in Matthew chapter 7 verse 21 through 23,
he says, Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never
knew you. What was he saying? You evidenced
by your words, you're dependent upon your works. You never knew
me as a sinner trusting me for all of your salvation. You never
knew me in that way, and I never knew you. Virtue never left me
because you laid hold on the robe of my righteousness like
that woman with the issue of blood. You never said, Lord,
evermore give me this drink, this water of life that I do
not come here to draw. And Jesus made himself known
to her and gave her that living water. So there was never this
giving on Christ's part to us to know him and therefore trust
him on our part to draw from him, to receive from him the
salvation that we have to have to live the life we need. We
come to God by him. We come to him and in coming
to him, we come to God by him. This is what it means to know
Christ. It's to depend on Him by faith for life, for salvation,
for every grace, for faith, for everything. And someone who trusts
Christ is, as it were, hanging on Him and drawing life from
Him. And Christ knows that. He knows that virtue has left
Him and entered into them according to His desire to save His people
from their sins, to give Himself for them. This is pictured in the relationship
between a husband and wife, isn't it? That love between a husband
and wife. The man gives himself to his
wife and the woman draws her life from the man and there's
fruit born out of that. It's children. You know how that
works. And so we hear about this throughout
scripture. Okay, so I'm gonna have to bring
this to a close tonight because of what follows is gonna take
us too much time to go through it. But let me see. Let's look at one more verse
here. In verse 17, the wicked shall be turned into hell and
all the nations that forget God. Now, I've been on every side
of this verse, I think. I've been on the side that says,
yeah, The wicked are going to be turned into hell and all the
nations that forget God. And I look at, you know, whoever,
Hillary Clinton or some, you know, crazy murderer or something
like that and say, the wicked are going to be turned into hell.
You know, I can see their sin and their wickedness. They're
going to be turned into hell. But notice, in this psalm, God never,
he's not portraying the attitude of his people as saying, yeah,
the wicked are gonna be turned into hell. This is the judgment
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who says this, the
wicked are gonna be turned into hell. Because in this life, We
do not hold people to the fires of hell in judgment. That's not
our desire. That's not what our goal is.
Jesus said when he came into the world, I didn't come to judge
the world, but to save it. And that's our mission in this
life. As we bear the gospel of Christ, we declare Christ as
the salvation for sinners. Yes, we warn men. But we don't
single them out and say, you're going to hell, buddy, because
you're such a wicked sinner. Because to do so would be to
put the finger towards our own face, wouldn't it? Because we
are no different than they are. The only difference is the difference
God made, and he made that difference in Christ. But here what we see
is the severity of God, don't we? The judgment of God is always
perfectly proportionate to the crime. And we can't understand
that. Hell to us is too big, it's too
much. It seems like too harsh, doesn't it? And eternity? Never, ever. Relief from the
torments of hell. Separated from God forever. Without
hope? That seems too big, doesn't it?
But the problem is that we view things from a human perspective.
Remember when God told the children of Israel in Exodus 19, Now,
everything that I've done for you, you've seen it, and if you'll
keep my commandments, then you'll be special people to me." And
they said, everything the Lord said, we're going to do it. And
immediately, there was a thick cloud of darkness. The mountain
was on fire, smoking. The trumpet blared. The mountain
shook. The people were terrified. They
were told, don't you come near, don't you touch, and don't you
look. And what was that? And then Moses is up there after
God had told him to make sure the people don't touch the mountain.
He comes up to the mountain and God said, go back down and tell
those people not to come near the mountain. And he said, well,
you already told them. He said, away with you. Go down
and tell them. So what you get a sense of here
is the unapproachable light of God, don't you? In the Ten Commandments,
in all of the giving of the law. You see this terror and this
fear placed upon the people because God is really holy, but we can't
understand that until we see him reveal himself in that light. And we can't really understand
that from the law even. So what we see it is, is in the
death of Christ. If God didn't spare His Son and
delivered Him up for us all, is He going to spare the wicked
who refuse His Son? He says, of how much sore punishment
suppose ye shall they be thought worthy who have trodden underfoot
the Son of God and put Him to an open shame? When we reject
Christ as the only sacrifice, the only way of coming to God,
that's a willful sin. And God, He says in Hebrews chapter
10, if you sin willfully after you receive the knowledge of
the truth, if you try to think that there's gonna be another salvation,
another sacrifice, another Jesus, another mediator, another high
priest, another covenant, no, you're wrong. This is the only
one. If you seek another, then you're gonna put the Son of,
you're putting to shame the Son of God. You're trampling Him
underfoot. Is God gonna be merciful? No, God is holy. The measure
of God's punishment is the measure of God's holiness. So the punishment
fits the crime in the eyes of the one we've offended. Sin is
bad because of the greatness of the one we sinned against,
and the punishment therefore has to be in proportion to God.
That's why he pleads with sinners. God was in Christ reconciling
the world to himself, the world of the elect, and not imputing
their sins to them, and he has sent forth his people as ambassadors
to tell them, be ye reconciled to God. Look to Christ. Yes,
all the wicked shall be turned into hell. But here's the good
news. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus. Those who are in Christ have
already experienced that condemnation. Jesus said, anyone who hears
my words and believes on him that sent me shall not come into
condemnation. He has everlasting life. He has
already passed from death to life. Let's pray. Lord, we read
about the judgments pronounced on the wicked. We read about
how the wicked will be turned into hell and all the nations
that forget God. We read about the heathen and we tremble to
think that we ourselves were like them. We also were sometimes
foolish and disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures,
hateful and hating one another. and we're without God in this
world. But after that, the kindness and love of God our Savior toward
man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to your mercy, you saved us by the washing of
regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. which you shed
on us abundantly, because the Lord Jesus Christ, apart from
our works, justified us in his own blood. And this is something
you did. We therefore can only claim your
goodness and bless your name and sing of your praise and not
our own. And so we join wholeheartedly with our Savior to say, you are
worthy, O Lord, our God, our Savior, and you will judge the
wicked And may we be found as those who take refuge in your
name. Help us to know your name, to
know the Lord Jesus Christ, and put our trust in him, to draw
from him this life we need to live, and receive from him this
grace that you give by your spirit. And so, know that you know us
in this saving grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.