In Psalm chapter 5, I want to
read this psalm to you. The psalm is divided up into
a couple of sections here, about three sections. The first three
verses are the righteous man in his prayer. And the verses
four and five and six speak about the character of God in his judgment
and justice against the wicked. And then in verses eight and
nine, the same man speaks again. about his trusting and his supplication
to God to guide him and lead him. And verses 9 and 10 actually
speak again about God's hatred and destruction against the wicked. And then verses 11 through 12
speak about all those who trust Christ. So I want to look at
this with you and let's read through it first of all. Psalm
chapter 5, verse 1. Give ear to my words, O Lord,
consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my
cry, my King and my God, for unto Thee will I pray. My voice
shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord, in the morning will I
direct my prayer unto Thee and will look up. For thou art not
a god that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with
thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight. Thou hatest all
workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that
speak leasing, or lies, lying. The Lord will abhor the bloody
and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into
thy house in the multitude of thy mercy, and in thy fear will
I worship toward thy holy temple. Lead me, O Lord, in Thy righteousness
because of mine enemies. Make Thy way straight before
my face. For there is no faithfulness
in their mouth. Their inward part is very wickedness. Their throat is an open sepulcher. They flatter with their tongue.
Destroy thou them, O God! Let them fall by their own counsels. Cast them out in the multitude
of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against Thee.
But let all those that put their trust in Thee rejoice. Let them
never shout for joy because Thou defendest them. Let them also
that love Thy name be joyful in Thee, for Thou, Lord, wilt
bless the righteous. With favor wilt Thou compass
him as with a shield. So as you can see, when we read
through this, there's the man speaking in prayer to the Lord
in verses one, two, and three, and he speaks here first in verse
one in his request for the Lord to give ear to his words and
to consider his meditation. And then in verse two, hearken
unto the voice of my cry, and he calls God my king and my God,
for unto thee will I pray. He is certain and confident and
pledges himself to pray. In verse three, he says, my voice
shalt thou hear in the morning, very early at the dawn of day,
at the first light, O Lord, in the morning will I direct my
prayer unto thee and will look up. And then, as I said in verses
four and five and six, God's hatred towards the wicked is
described. And then in verse seven, he says,
as for me, but as for me, the one who's praying here, he contrasts,
he draws a contrast between the wicked and himself. He says,
I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy, and
in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. You can see
here that he is confident, he is pledging himself, he is almost
making a vow that he will, without fail, come to God in prayer and
in fear and worship him toward his holy temple. And then he
adds this supplication, lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness
because of mine enemies, make thy way straight before my face.
And then again in verses 9 and 10, he speaks against the wicked.
So, in verse 11 and 12, he pronounces a blessing from God, he actually
asks God, and in asking it, he pronounces the blessing from
God in his prayer for all those who put their trust in the Lord.
So that's a general outline of this psalm, but I want to get
into the details of it in some detail here with you. Notice
in verse 1, he says, Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider
my meditation. Now, we know from scripture that
God will not hear sinners. John 9, verse, I think it's 41
or 39, the blind man said, now we know that God heareth not
sinners. So even the blind man knew that.
It's true that God will not hear sinners. But it's also true that
God does hear the righteous. And this is spoken of throughout
scripture. God does hear the righteous. And so we look at these words
here, give ear to my words, O Lord, and consider my meditation, and
we wonder how is it that we could take these words in our mouth
and pray them to God as borrowed words from scripture. Well, we
have to recognize first and foremost that these words are the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ as our mediator. He's speaking as a
man because he lived, he came into the world and lived as a
man, but not for himself, but for his people. So when he asks
the Lord to give ear to my words and to consider my meditation,
he's coming to God with certainty and with confidence that God
is going to hear his words and consider his meditation. But
realize here the word meditation means more than just what I think
about. The word meditation here actually
means groaning. It's my uttering in whisper what
I'm thinking about. Now it surprises me that, it
doesn't surprise me, but actually it should surprise us, that God
would consider the meditation of his people. But he foremost,
first and foremost, considers the meditation of their savior. See, we want to take these words
to ourselves, but really we need to stand as, for example, in
John chapter 17 when Jesus prayed to his Father for his disciples
and all those who would believe on him. We need to recognize
at times in scripture that we cannot really take these words
as ours personally. as ourselves speaking, but as
ours in our Savior, Christ speaking these words on our behalf. not only on our behalf but on
his behalf when he's joined to us in this purpose that God set
up where he would stand for us as the Christ or the Messiah,
the one who is our high priest and our king. Okay, so that's
the first part I wanted to point out here that these words are
first and foremost of Christ that the word meditation means
his groaning, the thoughts of his heart uttered in whispers,
so that throughout his life, he was constantly in communication
with his father. And he asks his father to give
ear, to consider what he's thinking. And we, as sinners, want God
to consider what he has to say. We want God to consider what
he's thinking about. Because what was his will? What
was his desire? Wasn't it for his people? Wasn't
it to save them from their sins? Wasn't it to offer Himself willingly
for them to give Himself in sacrifice to God for them? Therefore, we
want God to hear His words. We would prefer, in fact, we
want Him to stand in our place as our advocate and to plead
our cause. as His cause, and that's what
we are asking here in our heart when we read these words. And
we want to consider that these are His very thoughts, the whispers
of His mouth, and His heart, and the contemplations, but especially
in this groaning that He has here. Throughout scripture, God
says that He gave His Son to be a covenant for His people.
And I will read these words to you from Isaiah 42. It says,
I, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness. This is speaking
about God the Father calling His Son. the Lord Jesus Christ
to be our Savior. He says, I the Lord have called
thee in righteousness, and I will hold thine hand, and I will keep
thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of
the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners
from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison
house. I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I
not give to another, neither my praise to graven images."
So how will God not give his glory to another? And yet, he
will glorify his Son. Well, the Son of God is one with
the Father. God the Father glorifies his
Son, and in glorifying his Son, glorifies himself in his Son. And you can read about that in
John chapter 12, and John chapter 13, and John chapter 17, and
many other places. God's glory is seen in his son. He is, as it says in Hebrews
chapter 1, 3, he is the glory of God. He's the revelation of
God. And God gives him as a light
for the Gentiles to open blind eyes. And so God doesn't give
his glory to another by giving it to his son, by making known
himself in his son. and this is our salvation. He
gave him for a covenant of the people so that the arrangement
he made with his son and the conditions he made for that covenant
to be fulfilled, the promises in it, were given to Christ with
his people. That's what it means when he
says he's given as a covenant for his people. God dealt with
him on their behalf in order to bless them in him, in his
dealings with the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's Isaiah 42,
verses six through eight. And I'm going to refer you at
this time to the printout that I sent, or the notes that I sent
out in the Zoom meeting invitation, because there'll be a lot more
said there, and so I'm going to have to skim over that in
order to get through all of these things tonight. What I wanted to point out here
is that in these words here, give ear to my words, O Lord,
and consider my meditation. Notice here that this is claiming
that God hears our thoughts. give consider my meditation.
The Lord knows our thoughts." And that's both comforting and
assuring that God knows our thoughts. He knows and He hears not only
our thoughts but what lays in our heart and what we think is
often We only speak it in a whisper and sometimes in a groan, sometimes
in cries that are loud and lamenting, but God hears our thoughts and
whispers and the out loud, the words we speak aloud before we
ever speak them. In fact, before we know them,
he knows our thoughts from afar and before we think them, he
knows what we're going to say, what we're going to think in
our hearts ahead of time. And so that's a comforting thing.
The Lord knows us from afar. He knows our thoughts before
we know them, because He knows all things. And that's a comforting
thought, isn't it? It says in Psalm 69, verse 33,
the Lord hears the poor and he does not despise his prisoners. And he also says in Psalm 34,
verse 17, the righteous cry and the Lord hears them and delivers
them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to them that
are of a broken heart and saves such as be of a contrite spirit. And so we can go on through scripture. The Lord does hear the righteous,
but we need to consider how they are righteous by going on further
in this psalm, Psalm chapter 5. Okay? As I mentioned, God
doesn't hear sinners. In John chapter 9, verse 31,
it says that. And so we have to ask this question,
how then Do we have any hope here? Look at verse two of this
psalm. He says, hearken unto the voice
of my cry, my King and my God, for unto thee will I pray. Now,
the Lord Jesus Christ, as a man, let's say it this way, the Son
of God gladly humbled himself and became a man in order to
save his people from their sins, in order to be one with them.
Before God, he took their nature, He took the conditions of that
covenant I mentioned. He fulfilled all. He received
blessings from God for them. He did this gladly. It was the
delight of his heart. He speaks in Psalm 40. I refer
to this verse often in verse eight, that God's law was within
his heart. He delights to do God's will.
This is true of him. What he wanted most, what was
his food, what was his drink, was to do the will of his father. And throughout the book of John
and throughout other books of the Bible, it's clear that that
will was to save his people from their sins. I refer you to Hebrews
chapter 10 and John chapter six and many other places in scripture. So the Lord Jesus Christ is a
man happily humbled himself in submission to his father. Now
I want you to consider this just for a minute because Denise and
I were talking about this the other day. Sometimes we use words,
we read words in scripture especially, and we skip over them almost
as if we know what they mean even though we really don't understand
them. One of those words that I've
been thinking about lately is this word majesty. Now, it was
common in olden times when, and especially, for example, in the
English-speaking world, they had kings, and they still have,
you know, sort of people who stand in the place of a king
or a queen, but they really don't function very much as a king
or a queen in today's history. But one of the things you hear
people say if you watch movies where there's drama about kings
and queens, they always call them your majesty. Have you ever
thought about that? What does it mean, majesty? Now here's one example of what
that means. If you see someone who has a
great understanding and has a quality about them that's distinct from
others, that's prominent by its distinction, that draws your
attention to them in honor, doesn't it? they have a certain dignity
about them that's distinguishable from all other people because
they seem so much better in that quality that they have than others. It might be their ability to
reason. It might be their ability to
remain calm in turmoil and to chart the way for others to find
their way out of trouble. Whatever that quality is, we
admire it and we recognize it. You don't have to tell somebody
who the leader is when they have this quality of dignity and distinction,
do you? And so it is with a true king,
they have a certain majesty. The fact of the matter is, is
God is the only one who has majesty. And how do we see God's majesty? How do we see his glory? Well,
we see it in the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we see it in him? We see
it in this way, that as the son of God, he had all of the majesty
of God himself. He is God. And yet, he put aside,
he laid aside his own reputation, and he made himself a servant
of all his people. And then he came to them, and
even in their ignorance and their arrogance and their foolishness,
he put up with them, and he patiently taught them. And they were drawn
to him, even sinners and harlots and publicans, all kinds were
drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ. You didn't have to say, oh, I
want to introduce you to the master. to the king, because
he had a majesty about him that distinguished him from all others. And so when we see, hearken unto
the voice of my cry, my king and my God, Christ here as a
man speaks to his father in submission of obedience, in submission of
honor and worship as a man now, to his father, he worships his
father and he calls him my king, my God. Now this is a dignity
that belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, that he would so humble
himself in submission of obedience, glad obedience and trust into
his Father's hands, putting himself as a man completely and entirely
to do his will. to empty Himself, to give Himself
in sacrifice, in honor, and in satisfaction to His Father according
to His eternal will, that He might bring His people, who in
themselves were nothing, in fact the enemies of God, to bring
them to Himself, to God, and present them in the presence
of His glory, to God's great delight. That is majesty. And so we read it in Hebrews
chapter 1 verse 3, when he, Christ, had by himself purged our sins,
what did he do? He sat down on the right hand
of the majesty on high. I like to think about His Majesty. When you see majestic dignity
that's found in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're drawn to Him in
worship, especially as a sinner, because He puts up with He has
this great temperance, this dignity of long suffering and patience
with sinners in order to accomplish His will and save them by the
sacrifice of Himself in obedience of submission to His Father.
That's dignity. That's a majesty that commands
our worship, doesn't it? And so the Lord Jesus Christ
is praying here in submission to His Father, hearken unto the
voice of my cry, my King and my God, for unto Thee will I
pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the
morning, O Lord. In the morning will I direct
my prayer unto thee, and will look up." This is all the more
compelling to realize that it's the words of our Lord Jesus Christ
as us, as one with his people, as in our nature. standing before
God for us, bearing all of our obligations to honor God, something
we all fail to do because all have sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God. Yet He did not fall short. He
bore our obligations and He also made his people sure to God by
fulfilling all that God required of them. He did it for them. And so here he is now imploring
to the Lord, hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, my
God. He's crying now, crying out aloud. He's crying out of his heart.
out of his desire, his need for God, in submission, because he
speaks to him as his king and his God, for unto thee will I
pray. He doesn't pray to an idol, he
doesn't pray to a man, he prays to God only. And so he goes on,
my voice shalt thou hear in the morning. Not, I'm going to get
up and I'm going to go about my business and then say, well,
I forgot, now I need to pray. The Lord Jesus Christ at the
dawn of his awakening began in prayer to God and he never ceased. From morning until evening, even
at midnight, he says, at midnight I will rise to give thanks to
thee. And so here the Lord Jesus Christ is directing his prayer
and he's looking up. Remember in the ark? Noah was
told, you make one window in the ark, make it above. Because
all in the ark were to look up to God who does all things, who
performeth all things for us, right? We're to look as sinners,
to look to Christ only. And the Lord Jesus Christ looked
to his Father in all things to fulfill His will in Him for His
people. And so we see this here. In the
morning, from the beginning of the day all throughout the day
until the end of the day and even into the night, the first
look and the first cry of faith is looking to God who gives us
all things. And we have one object of our
hope, one object of our assurance. It is the Lord Jesus Christ,
our Savior. It's for His grace that we look
up. We have been weary of our life,
and by grace He has shown us our Savior, and so we no longer
despair of life, but we see that He is our life, that He answered
all, He fulfilled all, and He is God's glory to us in saving
such a wretch like we are. And so we look to Christ only.
Now, in Psalm chapter 5 and verse 4, it begins this way. For thou
art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall
evil dwell with thee. Here we see the righteous character
of God, that he opposes the wicked, he is against the wicked, and
he will destroy all those who speak lies. See what he says?
For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither
shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in
thy sight, thou hatest all workers of iniquity, thou shalt destroy
them that speak lies. The Lord will abhor the bloody
and deceitful man. Now, let's just ask a question.
First question that we have when you read this is, if this is
true, that God hates all workers of iniquity, then what hope do
I have? And the next question I would
ask is this, does God love all workers of iniquity or does he
hate them? because he isn't going to love
them and hate them at the same time. Aren't those two things
polar opposites? Does God love all men? He says
here, thou hatest all workers of iniquity. We know that God's
love for his people. Well, let me ask this question.
Was there ever a time when God hated his people? Now we naturally
think sometimes, I've even, I know that I've thought this in the
past, and I probably even tend to fall into this error even
now, that there was a time when God hated me. But is that the
case? Or does God actually hate his
people? The fact of the matter is, in
Jeremiah 31, verse 33, it says, yea, I have loved thee with an
everlasting love. Therefore, because of that everlasting
love, with loving kindness, I have drawn thee. God's love for his
people, like God himself, never changes. And if God loved us
from everlasting, then he loves us the same throughout everlasting. So God never hated his people. In fact, God's proclamation,
the revelation of his love for his people, mostly in scripture,
is greater before we ever knew God, before we were converted.
How many times in Scripture does it say that God commendeth His
love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us? That's love made known before,
when we were sinners. So God's love is revealed in
Scripture to be greater, at least in its manifestation, before
we even knew God. And then later on, of course,
we come to know God's love. And he says this about God's
love, here in his love, not that we love God, but that he loved
us and gave his son to be the propitiation for our sins. So
it had to be when we were sinners that God loved us, and if he
loved us when we were sinners, then when was the time when he
hated his people? The fact is that from scripture
we understand that God has always loved his people. But how could
he love his people when we know that in ourselves we're sinners?
that we don't have any strength to do what's right, and that
we are, we've made ourselves in our mind and by wicked works,
according to Colossians 1, verse 21, we've made ourselves the
enemies of God. We, in our minds, the carnal
mind is hostile, is enmity against God. On our part, we hated God,
but on his part, he didn't hate us, he always loved his people.
So that's what we learn from scripture, and we could look
at those verses in more detail over time. But the fact here
is that God says, thou hatest all workers of iniquity. So now
we have a conundrum. How could God hate them if he
loves them? The fact is, he always has hated
them. His hatred, like his love, is
eternal. He always hated them. Jacob have
I loved, and that was an eternal love, Esau have I hated before
either twin was born. And then we have to ask this
question, how could God hate a child before he was born, before
he had done any good or evil? Well, let me answer that question
the simplest way possible. If God says that all he does
is holy and right, isn't it enough that God says he hated Esau to
know that it was right? Do we have to understand God's
hatred toward Esau to be able to believe that God is still
good and right and just when his hatred of the wicked of Esau
and here he says all workers of iniquity? Wouldn't it be best
if all we had was God's plain declarations and we believed
it? Rather than trying to enable ourselves to be able to explain
it to our satisfaction, to our perception of what is good and
right, wouldn't it be best if we left what is good and right
to God's mind and will and works and His Word? That would be the
best thing, wouldn't it? And so I'm going to leave it
right there. Because I think it's best for us to simply worship
God for who he is as he has revealed himself in his word. If he says
he hated Esau, I'm content to leave it with God to justify
his hatred of Esau. But here we know that God's hatred
is warranted, don't we? Because he says, thou hatest
all workers of iniquity. Now his love for his people is
not warranted in them. He finds no cause in them. He
loved them freely. That means without a cause found
in them. But his love for his people,
though it's not found in them, is found in himself and therefore
it is a holy love and it has warrant, it has a basis, it has
a ground, a foundation for it, a righteous and a holy foundation. And what is that? Well, it says
in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 4, I'll read this to you. In
Ephesians chapter 1, you probably can quote it, but I want to make
sure I get it right. Ephesians 1 verse 4, he says,
according as he hath chosen us in Christ, or in him, before,
this is before we were ever created, before the foundation of the
world, he chose us in Christ, that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love. When did God love us? Before
the foundation of the world. How did He love us before the
foundation of the world? He loved us in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He chose us in Him in order that
we should be holy before Him and without blame before Him
in love. How could we be in love, before
God in love, who is holy? Because he loved us in Christ.
And so we see that though there is grounds and warrant for God
to hate the workers of iniquity, the only ground and warrant for
God to love his people is his own purpose in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He loves his son and There's
good warrant to love his son, and because he chose us in him
as our covenant head, therefore he looks upon us and he sees
his son, he looks upon his son and he sees us, and he gives
us all things on the basis of who he is and what he has done.
But back to Psalm chapter 5 and verse 5. The foolish shall not
stand in thy sight, thou hatest all workers of iniquity. God
has these things we call attributes. His character, what he's like,
and we can name some of them. Love, for example, or justice,
for example, or truth. But all these things about God
are simply our way of understanding God. God is just, He's not a
complex, what's the word, composite of
these different pieces that put together to make up God. God
is not an aggregate of things. He's just singularly God. So that if something about God
were to change, He wouldn't be God. I say that with a pause
on purpose to let that sink in. If God didn't hate all workers
of iniquity, he wouldn't be the same God, would he? If God wasn't
just, then he wouldn't be God, because God is just. If God wasn't
holy, if he wasn't righteous, if he wasn't all wise, if he
wasn't almighty, if he wasn't unchanging, if he wasn't eternal,
he couldn't be God. Someone else would be God. Aren't
you glad that God is holy? Aren't you glad that he is just?
And yet, what we find is there are certain attributes about
God that cause us to recoil, that cause us to shrink back,
like when the snail is exposed to the salt or to the sun or
something like that. It shrinks, doesn't it? That's
the way we are. But think about this. If God
is a God of truth, and if he finds me to be a liar, then which
one of us is true? Well, of course, God is, right?
Let God be true, but every man a liar. Romans 3, verse 3 and
through 5. So here we see that even though
we are discovered to be liars, it doesn't mean that God is somehow
false. It means, in fact, that we are
in the wrong because God is true. God is truth. Let's take another
one. If God is a God of justice, if
he is just, we could simply say, if God is just, and if he finds
me to be a transgressor and worthy of death, then which of us is
right? Well, the fact is, is God is
always right, and I'm the one that's wrong. If I find myself
the object of His judgments, I'm in the wrong. It's just plain
and simple, and we have to own that. If God is a God of wrath,
and if He's angry with me, which one of us is good? God is good,
even though He's a God of wrath. And so, I will quote from Romans
11, behold therefore then the goodness and the severity of
God. God is both good and he's also
severe. He's gracious and he's forgiving,
but he's also just and holy. He will hold men to account.
But if I know God to be true and just, and I know that when
he is angry with the wicked, that it is a just anger, And
I therefore know that his anger means that the wicked are wrong
and therefore deserve his wrath because God is only good. And
further, since I know that I myself am a liar, am a transgressor,
and deserve his wrath, then isn't it only right for me to first
own that God is good and holy in all his ways? And then second,
that I am not like him. because he is holy, and I'm not
holy, I'm not like him, that therefore I need him. more than
ever to find a reason in himself alone and to find a way by himself
alone to save me from his justice and his wrath that I deserve. Isn't that what we ought to do?
And therefore, doesn't that glorify God because we come back to God
according to the revelation of his word that says he's not only
just and true, but he's also gracious and merciful? And we
could look at many scriptures that support that, but I want
to leave you with those thoughts. Shouldn't I always bow to Him
and honor Him and justify Him? because he is right, and my own
wrong discovers that, and therefore I should agree that, as Paul
did in Romans 7, that the law is just and holy and good, and
I'm the one. It's my sin that has deceived
me, my sin that has killed me. It's me I need to be saved from,
my own self, and therefore I have to go to him to save me first
from his own character, that would destroy me if left all
by myself in the presence of his justice, and also my own
sin that brought me under his wrath." You see? So we have to
go to the one who is God alone to provide for us what he himself
requires of us, and he has done that in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So when we look at these words here, for thou art not a God
that has pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with
thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight. Thou hatest all
workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that
speak lies. The Lord will abhor the bloody
and deceitful men. We find ourselves in the target.
We find ourselves described there. And yet, what are we to do? Justify
God and go to Him for our salvation, for our deliverance. Okay, so
let me go on here. I want to say this about this,
will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. Throughout scripture, you
see that the deceitful man is the one who lies and who's bloody
is someone who lies in wait and by deceit tries to murder the
unsuspecting. And so this describes the devil,
doesn't it? He is, above all, the bloody and deceitful one.
And men in the kingdom of Satan are themselves deceitful with
this goal to, I'm going to, whatever it takes, I'm going to deceive
this person in order to get something at their expense, even if it
means their harm. the taking away of their property,
their honor, even their life. It doesn't matter. We serve ourselves
by trying to cheat others and deceive others. That describes
us by nature. That's what we are. And so the
Lord hates all that. He will destroy them that speak
lies. And whenever we think about the way that God describes a
liar in scripture, often it's best described by false gospels. Because what's more deceitful
than to pretend that we can please God by our own works? What's
more deceitful than to say that we have control, we can manipulate
God and get Him to save us? Instead of honoring Him that
He is sovereign and that He must save us of His own will and by
His own work and to His own glory by the work of His Son. by His
grace alone. You see the contrast here? That
is a lie that brings men into eternal death through the preaching
of a false gospel. And so here the bloody and deceitful
man is best described by a preacher of false religion. But look at
verse 7 now. In verse 7 he says, So here we
have a contrast to what he said about the wicked The one speaking here, which
I am telling you from scripture, is the Lord Jesus Christ as our
mediator, our surety, standing before God for us. He says, but
as for me. Now, it would be false, it would
be hypocritical of us to go back and read these words here about
how God doesn't take pleasure in wickedness, neither shall
evil dwell with him, the foolish shall not stand in his sight,
thou hatest all workers of iniquity, thou shalt destroy them that
speak lies, and the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful
man. It would be deceiving of us, of our own selves, and hypocritical
before men and God to claim that we were not described by those
words from verses four through six. And so when you read verse
7, but as for me, we cannot really personally put ourselves in that
place except in the words and in the place of Christ for us. But as for me, he says, I will
come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy and in thy fear
will I worship toward thy holy temple. In contrast to those
that practice evil and wickedness, in contrast to the foolish and
the workers of iniquity and the liars who teach and preach false
doctrine, in contrast to the bloody and deceitful men who
seek by deception to bring others into death, we have in contrast
to them the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. The psalmist is
speaking here by the Holy Spirit of God. The Spirit of God cannot
lie. His revelation is pure light
and truth and what he says of this man in prophecy must be
true. He, unlike the wicked, will come
into the house of the Lord in the multitude of his mercy. Notice
how he speaks and the way he will come with certainty. It's
not a maybe thing. He will certainly come. I will come into thy house. He
speaks confidently. He's making a promise as if it
were a promise, a vow, I'm going to keep this. So can each of
us and any one of us honestly say in the same way, I will come
into the house of the Lord. We don't even know how to come
to God. There's only one way to come,
it's by Jesus Christ. So these words have to be spoken
in the first place of the Lord Jesus Christ who comes in his
prayer into the house of the Lord as a man worshiping God
as His God and His King. Okay? Does that make sense? We have to be brought. We can't
bring ourselves. Only He can come into the Lord's
house and into His temple, God's dwelling. So I wanted to point
that out. Notice also that he says, though
Christ is holy here, we know that there's no sin in him, we
know he did no sin, he knew no sin, in him there is no sin,
and yet, he says, he comes by the multitude of God's mercy. Why does he say, I will come
by the multitude of your mercies if he himself doesn't need mercy? Well, the fact is he did need
mercy. Why? Because he put himself with our
sins in the place of judgment. And he trusted God under that
judgment. He committed the keeping of his
souls to God the Father. It says so in 1 Peter 2, for
example. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter
and as a sheep before her shearers. He opened not his mouth. He trusted
his God to do what's right. He says, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? He rolled himself upon Jehovah,
his father, and he said, thou art holy. He didn't have any
doubt. He was absolutely speaking the
truth from his heart that God was holy in what he was doing
to him. We spoke about God's love and
God's hatred. Did God love his son? Most definitely. But did he pour out his wrath
upon him? Most assuredly. How could he have poured out
his wrath upon him if he loved him? Isn't wrath the pouring
out of God's justice on those he hates? but he loves his son. Why then did he pour his wrath
out upon him if he loved him? Because the Lord Jesus Christ
stood in obedience to his Father, trusting his Father with our
sins, owning our sins according to the will of God. He sacrificed
himself with our sins in order to make atonement to God. to
appease His wrath and to satisfy His justice. And this honored
God's law. This honored God's character.
So even though the wrath of God was poured out upon Him for our
sins, He always loved His Son. And so he comes into the presence
of God, not presuming, but as one who stood in our place. Have
mercy in the multitude of thy mercies. We saw this when we
looked at Psalm 51 a few weeks back. Christ never presumed on
God's goodness that he could, with our sins, be accepted. No,
he asked for God's mercy. He cries out in a number of places,
as the Lord Jesus Christ, save me. Save me. And you can read
about that, for example, in Psalm 109. So he committed himself
into the hands of his father as his king and his God, and
gladly and lovingly and willingly he submitted to him in all things.
And he prayed, he poured out his desire according to the holy
will of God, that he would accept him with his people as he had
from eternity, appointed him to do that, to stand for them.
in life and death and he delivered them from Satan and the world
and all this was according to God's will and to God's glory
so the Lord Jesus Christ says this also in the same verse he
says I will worship toward I will in thy fear will I worship toward
thy holy temple one man truly worship God one man truly feared
God in the way that God must be feared, and it was the Lord
Jesus Christ. He so reverenced his Father in
all things that he trusted him under judgment, and he obeyed
him under his own death. This is the way he worshiped
his Father. He counted it an honor to serve him for his people,
to save them from their sins. And so now we want to go on to
the next verse, verse nine. but there is no faithfulness
in their mouth. For their inward part is very wickedness. Their
throat is an open sepulcher. They flatter with their tongue.
Destroy thou them, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Cast them out in the multitude
of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against thee."
Now, if you look at Romans chapter 3, you see this quoted in Romans
chapter 3. Their throat is an open sepulcher. What is a sepulcher? What is
a sepulcher? A sepulcher is the place where
you put dead people, isn't it? I'm looking for the, yeah, it's
in verse nine where it says that the throat is an open sepulcher.
What is God saying here about the nature of man, the nature
of men, all men, that out of our mouth we speak as if from
one dead in sins? That's all we can say. Our throat
is an open sepulcher. We speak things that have no
life in them. We speak things that are full
of death because they're false and they're self-deceiving. But what hope do we have? Again, let's go on. In contrast to that, we see here
a promise and a blessing. In verse 11, let's read this.
But let all those, in contrast, but let all those that put their
trust in thee rejoice. Now, this is a prayer of Christ.
He casts judgment and condemnation on the wicked over and over,
and prays in intercession against them. And yet, he says, but let
all those who put their trust in thee rejoice. Let them ever
shout for joy, because thou defendest them. Let them also that love
thy name be joyful in thee, for thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous. With favor wilt thou compass
him as with a shield. Now, we know from Romans 3.10
how many righteous are there. There's none righteous, no not
one. There's none that understandeth. There's none that doeth good,
right? So how can God make promises
to the righteous? Wouldn't it be like, wouldn't
it be... What good would that do if there
aren't any righteous to make a promise to the righteous, you
would think. But there are righteous, and
who are they? Verse 11, again, let all those who put their trust
in thee rejoice. You see, all those who trust
Christ are righteous, but not in themselves. In themselves,
they're sinners, as they are in their father Adam. As in Adam,
all die. But in Christ, all are made alive. So they're alive because they're
righteous in him. By one man's disobedience, many
were made sinners. By another man's obedience, many
are made righteous. Romans 5, verse 19. So these
things teach us that our righteousness before God can only be the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only one. He says
in Psalm 71 verse 16, I will make mention of thy righteousness,
even thine only. So there's only one righteous,
it's the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 John chapter 2 and verse
1, he's called Jesus Christ the righteous. He's the righteous
one, and all of his people are righteous in him. God has made
him unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
Of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. In Christ, we
have the very wisdom of Christ. the righteousness of Christ,
the holiness of Christ, and we are redeemed and shall be redeemed
ultimately, just like he has been redeemed from death and
from all things. And so we see this, all the promises
of God are given to those who put their trust in Christ, aren't
they? They should therefore rejoice
because God accepts them for Christ's sake. Isn't this the
glad news of the gospel? That not for our sakes, but when
we were sinners, God received us for Christ's sake. that it
was his work alone, and this is what the psalmist is saying
here. The Lord Jesus Christ pronounces judgments upon the wicked in
the psalm, he himself prays his prayers, he asks God to hear
his prayers, he worships in fear, he is not like the wicked, he
comes into the Lord by his mercies, and then he pronounces the blessing
on all those who put their trust in the Lord. And we trust in
the Lord when we trust in God, in Jesus Christ. Let me read
this to you, one last verse, and we'll close. Acts chapter
20 and verse 21. Listen to this verse in Acts
chapter 20 and verse 21. He says, Paul says, I kept back nothing
that was profitable to you, but have showed you and have taught
you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to the
Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith
toward our Lord, Jesus Christ. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's what God tells us to do. Blessed are all they who put
their trust in Thee. Who is the Thee? The Lord Jesus
Christ. We trust God when we trust Him.
And trusting Him, we're trusting God. And when we trust Christ,
we trust Him to be our all. Let's pray. Father, thank you
that salvation is in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that
he prayed and was heard, he feared and he worshipped. As man, and
in his prayers, we were heard. You appointed him for this purpose. You anointed him to do this.
You upheld him in it. You gave him as a covenant for
the people, a light to the Gentiles. so that you would make your glory
known through him and not give your glory to another, so that
we would find all of our boasting and confidence in the Lord Jesus
Christ and we would abhor and shun and repudiate and abandon
and forsake all confidence in ourselves and never look or desire
this attention to ourselves, this deceitful thought that we
could be accepted for anything in us, but help us to always
come to you only in the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is righteous,
and our righteousness is in Him. And we thank you for that. His
justification, our justification, His life, our life, His blessings,
our blessings, all that you've given Him, you've given to Him
for the church, and it is for them, your people, your chosen
people, redeemed by His blood, that you've given all things
with our Savior. In His name we pray, amen.