Psalm 89. We've been looking at this now
for a couple of weeks. We had looked last week down
through about verse 25 and actually verse 27. I'm going to start
reading in verse 25. It says, I will set his hand
also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers, He shall
cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. I will make him, my firstborn,
or him who is my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.
My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant
shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to
endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his
children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, if they
break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then will I
visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with
stripes. Nevertheless, my lovingkindness
will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness
to fail. My covenant will I not break,
nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn
by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall
endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall
be established forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness
in the heavens. Selah. But thou hast cast off
and abhorred. Thou hast been wroth with thine
anointed. Thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant.
Thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground.
Thou hast broken down all his hedges, and thou hast brought
his strongholds to ruin. All that pass by the way spoil
him. He is a reproach to his neighbors.
Thou hast set up the right hand of his adversaries. Thou hast
made all his enemies to rejoice. Thou hast also turned the edge
of his sword and hast not made him to stand in the battle. Thou
hast made his glory to cease and cast his throne down to the
ground. The days of his youth hast thou
shortened. Thou hast covered him with shame. Selah. How long, Lord? Wilt thou hide thyself forever?
Shall thy wrath burn like fire? Remember how short my time is. Wherefore hast thou made all
men in vain? What man is he that liveth and
shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from
the hand of the grave? Say, Lord, where are thy former
loving-kindnesses which thou swarest unto David in thy truth?
Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants, how I do bear
in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people. Wherewith
thine enemies have reproached, O Lord, wherewith they have reproached
the footsteps of thine Anointed. Blessed be the Lord for evermore. Amen and Amen. A person reading this psalm without
a knowledge of the gospel and the fact that this is a true
picture of that which the Lord has done in His covenant which
He made with Jesus Christ. And He promised him that He would
give the angels charge over him that not a hair of his head would
be harmed, and all of those promises were given unto him in the fact
that he would be that one who would triumph. Now as the world
looks at him, and as the psalmist says, it does not appear that
that took place, does it? Because Christ became the laughing
stock of the world. He was despised and we esteemed
Him not. There was no beauty that we should
desire Him. And so He says, I will make Him
who is my firstborn higher than the kings of the earth. And indeed
He has. It has not appeared that way
at all times unto men. I was, as As we look further down, this
thought came to my mind. He said, His seed shall endure
forever in His throne as the sun before me. It shall be established
forever as the moon, as a faithful witness in heaven. Now, the unfolding
of the work of God in the earth is even as He says here, the
moon as a faithful witness in heaven. Right now, I think the
moon is in a pretty full state, isn't it? It seemed like I looked
the other night and saw the moon. And the moon is a faithful witness
in heaven, but the moon can't always be seen, can it? I mean,
there are certain times of the month when the moon is hidden.
Now, the moon is there. You just can't see it. But it
is a faithful witness in heaven. And then there are times when
the moon shines in its full brightness. And by the grace of God, we're
able to see the moon when it can't be seen. And then we're
able to see the moon when it shines in that brightness. What
a glorious Savior we have. Because it is in an understanding
of the fact that Jesus Christ became sin for us. He became an outcast before Almighty
God. He became that one who was cast
out. He became that one who, in one
sense of the word, you could say that the covenant was broken.
Because it appeared that way, did it not? I mean, when Christ
hung on the cross and He said, My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me? Why should God have forsaken
Him who was the apple of His eye, that One who was His elect,
that One who was His chosen, that One who was His firstborn,
whom He said He would make higher than the kings of the earth?
Yet the Lord was pleased in His purpose to redeem His people,
to hide His face from His own Son. and darkness came upon the
earth. And I'm sure that the angels
were in complete consternation. They desired to look into these
things and cannot. They don't get it. You see, the
angels saw God take those who kept not their first estate and
cast them out of heaven without so much as a trial. I mean, He just cast them out.
They know the justice of God. They know the power of God. They
know the holiness of God. But this is something that they
cannot quite get. And only those who by the grace
of God have been brought to a place of knowing themselves to be sinners
can have any appreciation for the fact that Christ died for
sinners. The world, they believe that
Christ is a good example to men. I mean, you know, the religion
of Christianity is one of the major religions in the world.
And many people, they look on with favor, as men do, upon the
religion of Christianity. And they see this man Jesus who
went about doing good, and they say that he did good. And many
of them say they want to be like Him. They want to walk and have
a forgiving spirit like He did. And all of that is good. I would
never speak against anybody that wanted to be like the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now I know, and you know, if
you've been taught anything about what man is by nature, that they
can't ever do that. But it is a noble quest, is it
not? I mean, for a man to desire that,
now it may be just an operation of his own self-righteousness
to think that he can do that. But nonetheless, we wouldn't
speak against somebody who wanted to forgive other people, would
we? Or wanted to do good to other men. I mean, we couldn't speak
against that. We would be in favor of that.
But as we understand, the whole purpose of the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ into the world, it is associated with the fact
that men are sinners in need of a Savior. And apart from that
work, then all of that other stuff doesn't mean anything. Because if a man could, if you
could somehow learn to be just like the Lord Jesus Christ and
go about doing good, and you could do all of those things,
you would still perish in your sin. And of course we know the
Scripture says there's none that doeth good, no not one. Now there
are a lot of people that go about doing good, aren't there? I mean
it's what men call good. I mean, when we say that there's
none good, we don't mean that everybody's just a low-life sorry
person. I mean, there's good upright
people. But the uprightness of men is but dung in the eyes of
God. Because it doesn't measure up.
Now, we measure ourselves. You don't have to go too high
to get above me. I mean, in this world, you don't
have to be very kind to be kinder than I am. But see, I'm not the
standard. Christ is the standard. And except
our righteousness exceed that, of the Pharisees, which were
morally upright. I mean, you see, at that time
in the earth when the Lord said that, ìExcept your righteousness
exceed that of the Pharisees,î that was like, ìWow!î I mean,
thereís no way we could ever make it in is basically what
they thought because, I mean, if we canít be more righteous
than they, but what the Lord was doing was showing that their
righteousness was not enough. Exactly correct. And so, as we
look at this psalm, and we look at the promise, and it's only
as we understand the purpose of God in redemption that we
can make heads or tails of what is being taught here. Because
apart from the redemptive work of Christ and the declaration
of that redemptive work, then all of the preaching of men is
to no avail. You know, start trying to stir
people up to good works. I'm not opposed to people producing
good works, are you? I mean, wouldn't we want people
to do good things in the earth? Of course we would. So we wouldn't
be opposed to that. But we just understand that all
of those good things that men have to offer are not good enough. So there is none good. But Christ
came not to save the good, the righteous, but He came to save
sinners. Now that brings gladness to the
heart of the man that knows himself to be a sinner, and it makes
a man that thinks himself to be righteous to be angry. Because
he says, well, why should they get, just like those men that
worked in the vineyard and some came in in the morning, And they
worked all day, and some came in at noon, and some came in
at three o'clock, and some came in right before quitting time.
And when the farmer went to pay them, he paid them all the same
thing. And those that came in at the
first, they said, man, we've labored all day. And here are
these people, they haven't done hardly anything, and why should
they get the same thing we do? We ought to get more, see, is
what they thought. They didn't think necessarily
that the other people ought to get less, but they just thought
they ought to get more. And that's usually kind of the
tag that most people take in preaching works and whatnot,
is that the more you do, the more you're going to benefit,
the more you're going to get. But you see, you can't ever earn
one bit of God's favor. There's not a thing in the world
you can do to earn the favor of God. Because in order to earn
the favor of God, you have got to be absolutely perfect in all
of your ways, thoughts, and desires. Who shall enter into the hill
of the Lord? He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor
sworn deceitfully. And so apart from the redemptive
work of Christ, We don't really have a message to preach. I'm
not interested in trying to stir people up to do good things because
I know that it's not worth a hell of beans. Ultimately, and many
times, people get satisfied when they're doing good things, do
they not? I'm not telling you to go out and do bad stuff. I'm
just saying don't get satisfied with what you think is good stuff.
But anyway, I got off on that. I don't even know how. It says, His seed, He said, My
mercy will I keep for Him forevermore, and My covenant shall stand fast
with Him. Now we need to understand when
you speak about the covenants that are found in the Scriptures,
the only covenant that is of any lasting value or was ever
intended to be of lasting value is the covenant that is made
between the Father and the Son. You and I weren't there. And
we didn't have anything to do with it. And it didn't concern
us. It concerned the promise that
was given to the son. He said, Ask of me and I'll give
thee the heathen for thine inheritance. He said, Yet have I set my king
upon my holy hill of Zion. And the father gave his people
unto Christ. He said, Thine they were and
thou hast given them to me. So they belong to Christ. And
He has made a covenant with His Father that He would redeem that
which was given unto Him. And so the covenant, it says,
His throne is the days of heaven. I will make Him to endure forever.
My covenant shall stand fast with Him. Brethren, that's the
place where we find our covenant standing with God. God had never
made a covenant with you except as He made the covenant with
you as you are in Christ. That's the only way in which
you have a part in the covenant. It's because you are in Christ
if you are in that covenant. He said, I will make His seed
to endure forever. Now the seed of the Lord are
those who were given to Him. They're His children. Now when
did they start being His children? I don't know. It was before the foundation
of the world. Now I'm not going to get into
all the ways men often try to dissect that and figure it out
and say this or the other about it, but I'm going to say this.
That there has never been a time, because you see, time is the
realm in which we are. God's children were created as
God's children. He didn't create men and then
go out and pick and choose which ones was His. He made His children
to be His children. Now, you know, that might not
satisfy your mind about that, but that's just the way it is.
And it might not be a thing that causes you any comfort. But to
those who know themselves to be sinners and desire to be included
in the riches and mercy of God, that's a delightful thing to
consider. That is not a thing in the world
that you can do to keep yourself out of that. See, men often say,
well, what if I wanted to get into heaven and I couldn't because
I wasn't one of the elect? Well, that's a foolish way to
think of it. Because men don't desire to be in the presence
of God, except the Lord gives a man that desire. And to every
man that He gives that desire, He has already included him in
that covenant. And our amazing thing ought to
be, Lord, how could we ever be cast out? if we be in Christ. Because if we be in Christ, are
not the promises of God absolute and sure? He'll never forsake
those that belong to Him. He loves them with an everlasting
love. And so he says this, if his children forsake my law and
walk not in my judgments, if they break my commandments and
keep not my commandments, if they break my statutes and keep
not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with
the rod and their iniquity with stripes. Now that's a blessing. See, that
sounds like a curse, doesn't it? But it's not a curse, it's
a blessing. Because the Lord said, those
that I love, I will chase. See, the people of God are going
to be subject to the chasing hand of Almighty God. Now, we
don't want to consider God's chastening as being like we're
sitting here trying to tow this line and if we move to this side,
God's, you know, hard hand comes down upon us. It's not like that.
God chastens His people. His chastening was as real to
David when David took the first step up that step to go up on
top of that rooftop. The Lord's chastening was begun
on David at that time, not just after he had committed the act,
because you see, the Lord would bring David to a place where
he knew himself to be nothing before Almighty God. And that's
what the chastening hand of God does. Now who is he among us
that sinneth not? There's none that sinneth not. All of sin comes short of the
glory of God. And the people of God, He chastens
them and teaches them through their sin. Now the sin of the
men in the world, that's just the thing that they live in.
They're not concerned with it. In fact, they're having a good
time with it. But you see, the Lord chastens
His people. And He breaks their heart because
of their sin. He causes them to see their sin.
Other people, they might look at something and say, oh, well,
that's no sin. But you see, the Lord works on
the hearts of His people. And He breaks the hearts and
He humbles the hearts of His people. And He visits their transgression
with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. But listen to this. Nevertheless, my lovingkindness
will I not utterly take from him." Now who is the him? It's the one to whom he made
his covenant. He said, now if those who are
your seed, if they transgress my laws, if they walk contrary
to this, I'm going to chase them. And so he is. But you see, He
said, for your sake, for my son's sake, my loving kindness will
I not utterly take away. Because you see, the Lord loves
His people so much that He would give unto them the kingdom. And
so, it's impossible that He should abandon His people. And nothing
would be a greater loss unto the Lord than to lose one of
His sheep. Would it not be? He gave that
parable of the shepherd that had the ninety and nine, but
one was lost in the wilderness. And he left the ninety and nine
and went to get the one. So he'll lose none that belonged
to him, because nothing would be of greater heartache unto
him than to do that, but he will keep his people. My covenant
will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my
lips, once I have sworn by my holiness that I will not lie
unto David. Now we know that David is a type
and foreshadow of Christ. He is that one when the Lord
speaks about David in his psalm, he's speaking about Christ. And
though David was a man who was chosen by God to be the king
over Israel, yet he's not that one whose kingdom would never
come to an end, because David's kingdom did come to an end. But
the kingdom of which the Lord spoke, it has not come to an
end and will never come to an end. Once I have sworn, I will
not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever,
and his throne is the sun before me. Of course, the seed of David
is Christ, but then the seed of Christ is His people. And
so there's a dual meaning here. It says, of course, speaking
about the seed of David, His seed shall endure forever. Christ
has eternal life within Him. And His throne as the sun before
Me. It shall be established forever
as the moon and as a faithful witness in the heavens, say,
And so, all of those promises are given to Christ, and the
Lord has sworn to him that his seed shall endure forever, even
as he swore to David that his seed would endure forever. And
of course, the seed of David was Christ, and the seed of Christ
is all of those who are chosen in him. We belong to him. And
just like Adam, was that one who was the father of all mankind,
the seed of all mankind was in Adam when he was created. Now
that's an amazing thing if you pause and think about it. I mean
the DNA of every individual person that's ever lived in the earth
was in Adam. Now we're not bound to Christ
in DNA, natural DNA, but we are bound to him in a greater bond
than we are given to Adam. Because that bond with Adam will
one day be taken away. When these bodies go into the
ground and the dust returns back to the dust from whence it came,
we will no longer have a connection with Adam. But in that day of the resurrection,
the Lord will gather His people unto Himself. And so shall we
ever be with the Lord. That's a glorious thing. You
see, the Lord is going to come back for His seed. He knows where
He planted each one. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of the saints. He knows where each one is. He
knows where Moses is. He buried Moses and no one to
this day knows where the Sepulchre of Moses is. But you know what? The Lord knows exactly where
He is. And in that day, He's going to come back and He's going
to raise everyone that belongs to Him to newness of life in
Him. His seed shall endure forever
as a faithful witness in heaven because indeed, that's the calling
of God's people. is to glorify His name forever.
Now what is the activity of men in the ages to come? I don't know. You know, people
speculate. Anybody that says anything about
such stuff as that is just speculating because we don't know. The Bible
does not tell us. But it does tell us that we shall
praise Him forever to the glory of His grace in the ages to come. Now what greater place could
those who love Him desire to be? And what place of greater
sorrow and sadness could there be to the man that has no love
for Christ? I mean, you remember when I was
a little kid, I didn't enjoy always going to church. I wanted
to be outside playing, and I didn't have any real desire to be there. That's the same way it would
be if a man that doesn't love Christ was brought into that
place. And so the Lord's going to prepare
a place for His people that where He is, there we may be also. What a glorious thing. What a
wondrous promise is given. The Lord said, if these things
were not so, I would have told you. That's a comforting thought,
is it not? The Lord wouldn't tell you something
that wasn't true. He said if it wasn't His way,
I'd have never even said anything to you. Oh, that the Lord might
teach us His truth.