We are once again looking at
Psalm 89. Psalm 89. We left off about verse 15 last
week. Begin reading in verse 14. It
says, justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne.
Mercy and truth shall go before thy face. Blessed is the people
that know the joyful sound. They shall walk, O Lord, in the
light of Thy countenance. In Thy name shall they rejoice
all the day, and in Thy righteousness shall they be exalted. For Thou
art the glory of their strength, and in Thy favor our horn shall
be exalted. For the Lord is our defense,
and the Holy One of Israel is our King. Then thou spakest in
vision to thy Holy One, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that
is mighty. I have exalted one chosen out
of the people. I have found David my servant.
With my holy oil have I anointed him. With whom my hand shall
be established, mine arm also shall strengthen him. The enemy
shall not exact upon him, nor the son of wickedness afflict
him. I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague them
that hate him. But my faithfulness and my mercy
shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. 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. And
I will make him 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 in his throne as the days of heaven." Now that
is a glorious declaration of Christ and the work which the
Lord has sent him into the world to perform. and our behalf, and
to be as that One who is exalted for our sake. Now He's exalted
because He's God. He didn't need us. He didn't
need to create the world to be exalted. He'd been the same yesterday,
today, and forever had He never purpose to create the world,
inhabit it with people. Now people think a lot of times
that they're so important that God just somehow or other couldn't
do without them, you know, and so that He kind of was more or
less the world was created because we needed to be created or something.
There's no necessity with God. He does according to His will,
an army of heaven among the inhabitants of the earth. There's nothing
that causes God to do something. He does what He wills. And He
has free will. You know, if you want to talk
about free will, God has free will. He does according to His
pleasure. Whatever pleases Him is that
which He does. Now we spoke a little bit last
week about the fact that justice and judgment are the habitation
of His throne and that is that you cannot have any understanding
or comprehension of the goodness and mercy of God if that is not
said against the backdrop of the fact that He is just and
holy. It is only then that man can
comprehend that. Now men You see the bumper stickers,
you know that God loves everybody, and that God is love, and all
of those things, there's a measure of truth in them. But the problem
is that when men in the flesh speak about God being love and
loving everybody, is that they do it from the standpoint of
human understanding and what love is. But they don't approach
it from the standpoint of comprehending how stark a contrast it is that
God loved sinners. Now they just think that, well,
what else could He do? I mean, He is love. I mean, so
He had to love people, didn't He? I mean, isn't He somehow
or other kind of obligated? But you see, that's the wrong
view of what the love of God is. The love of God is demonstrated
in contrast to His judgment and justice. Now one doesn't rule
out the other and one's not greater than the other, but we have no
comprehension of what it means when the scripture says God is
love if we do not have an understanding of the fact that God is holy,
that He's high and lifted up, that He will not look upon sin,
that judgment and justice are the habitation of His throne.
He will by no means clear the guilty. He will not at all acquit
the wicked. Now, what if that was the only
thing that we ever knew about the Lord? I mean, the goodness
of God is demonstrated in that He has shown us that there is
something other than that. He will by no means clear the
guilty. Now, there is a measure in which even though He does
forgive us of our sins, that it is true. He will not clear
the guilty. Because the guilty, there has
to be a payment made for the guilt of man's sin. The glory
and joy that we find in the gospel is that Christ has come as that
one who's our substitute. He's that one who has cleansed
us from sin. Apart from that, we wouldn't
have a hope. If God will by no means clear
the guilty, who could stand before Him? If there was not one who
said, I'll take their guilt. and I'll make them clean. And
I'll bring them before Thee, Father, as those who are guiltless.
And that's how we come before the Almighty God. If you come
before the Lord in your guilt, you will perish. You know, if
you come before the Lord in your wickedness, you'll perish. Because He will not clear the
guilty. He will not acquit the wicked. But Christ is that one
who's our mediator. He's that one in whom we stand
judged righteous before Almighty God because He's righteous. It's
in Him and Him alone. And so there's no place for any
man to stand before Almighty God who does not stand in the
righteousness of Christ. Blessed is the people that know
the joyful sound. See, that's the glorious thing
The blessing of God to the sons of men is that He has sent the
gospel into the world to bring life and immortality to light. Now the Lord could have saved
His people and never told them about it, could He not? I mean,
He could have went to the cross and died for us, paid for our
sins, and we never knew anything about it until we died and woke
up one day in His presence. And He said, you're clean. He
could have done that. But you see, in His mercy and
kindness, He sent the Gospel into the world, and He sent men
into the world to declare it unto men, to bring life and immortality
to light. The Gospel doesn't bring life.
I mean, a man can sit under the sound of the Gospel and stay
as dead as a doornail and die in his sins. But when the Lord
gives a man ears to hear it, It is to Him a joyful sound,
is it not? That Jesus Christ has come into
the world as the Savior of sinners. That's a glorious thing, and
that's what He says here. For blessed is that people that
know the joyful sound. What a glorious thing. See, don't
ever take for granted the blessing that is bestowed upon you, upon
me, upon all of us, that we have been put into a nation where
the gospel has had free course, at least in a measure, and it's
been set forth, and we've heard the joyful sound. Because there
are people who are raised in places of darkness, and they
live and die without having heard the joyful sound. Now all of
God's people shall hear it. All of those whom he has ordained
unto eternal life shall indeed hear that joyful sound and be
blessed by it. But there are nations and places
in the earth where it's not a common thing for the gospel to be declared. There are many places where people,
you know, they just go about their everyday lives without
any consideration of the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace.
Blessed is that people that know the joyful sound. They shall
walk, O Lord, in the light of Thy countenance. That is, we
shall see His face, as Brother Al pointed out there a moment
ago. God has shined in our hearts to give us the light and the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We see Him. And that's the only
place that you can see the glory of God is in the face of Jesus
Christ. The Lord said, you cannot look
on me and live. No man can look on me and live.
He hid Moses in the cliff of the rock. Now what was that cliff
of the rock? It was Christ. That's the only
way that the glory of God could be seen, was that Moses was hidden
there in Christ. And that's the only way that
we can see the glory of God is in Christ. But what a glory it
is, what a blessing it is. In thy name shall they rejoice
all the day. I mean, that is the place of
our greatest joy, is it not? I mean, does our consideration
of that which Christ has done in our behalf, is there something
that can fill our hearts with greater joy than that? I mean,
God's people rejoice in Him. In thy name shall they rejoice.
Knowing that He is that one. There is a name which is above
every name. And that's the name in which
we delight. In thy name shall they rejoice
all the day. It's not just a part-time thing. Some people just go about their
lives and then they figure, well, on Sundays we'll go down there
and we'll think about God. Today's God's day. You hear that
a lot, well this is the Lord's Day. Well there is, the scripture
does speak about the Lord's Day. And I believe there are many
things that we could say about the Lord's Day, but keep this
in mind, God's people rejoice in Him every day. They're not
just waiting and going about it in some kind of religious
ritual or way. In thy name shall they rejoice
all the day, not just every day, but all the day. It's not from
8 o'clock to 3 o'clock or whatever the time frame might be, but
it is a constant matter that is in the minds and hearts of
God's people. And in thy righteousness shall
they be exalted. In His righteousness. That's
the only place where we'll be lifted up. And it's a funny thing
if you stop and think about it. We're exalted in the righteousness
of Christ, yet we glory not in anything that we have, because
it's His. We give Him glory, but yet He
says you're exalted in it. But we're abased. as we come
before Him, because we know what we are by nature. But in Him,
you see, we are exalted. We are seated in heavenly places. We have a blessing that the world
knows nothing of. We're exalted above all men. The Lord said He would give men
for us and people for our life. because He loves His people and
He exalts them in His own mind and heart because they belong
to Him and we are exalted in Him. For the Lord is our defense
and the Holy One of Israel is our King. Now, you know, David, of course,
is a type of Christ and yet when the scripture speaks of David
it's often speaking of Christ and David and David's seed is
that which is Christ because the Lord raised up David as a
singular person I mean he gave him most of the Psalms that are
written he gave to him he communicated with him in a fashion in which
he communicated with no other until perhaps the Apostle Paul
came along, and the Lord, thou safe to him, gave him the gospel.
But unto David is a peculiar and particular place, and he
is that one who is made the king of Israel. Now we know that Saul
was the first king, but Saul was not the king, because the
Lord took the kingdom from him, did he not? But the kingdom that
the Lord gave to David, He said, would be a kingdom which would
have no end. He said there will not be upon
the throne of David, or the seat of David will occupy the throne
of Israel forever. Now some people think that means
in some literal fashion, but that's not at all what the Lord
meant. He meant that there would be
one that would arise out of the lineage of David upon whom the
Lord would set His King upon His holy hill of Zion, and it
would be Christ. And there would be no other,
for thou art the glory. of their strength, that we rejoice
in him, and in thy favor our horn shall be exalted." Now,
the horn, when you read about the horn in the scriptures, it's
often, it has reference to nations. or the one who's seated upon
the throne of a nation. The horn of a nation would be
the king. And I guess that word, that illustration
comes from like the horns of a beast, the horns of a bull
or a goat or something. Those horns are given to those
animals so that they can inflict damage on other animals. You
see these nature documentaries and stuff, and you'll have these
antelopes and all these different kinds of horned animals. They
come together with one another and they fight, and their horns
are those things that they fight with. Well, Christ is our horn. And He, the Scripture says, shall
be exalted in thy favor. Our horn shall be exalted. Who
is our horn? It's Christ. And He shall be
lifted up. And every time that the Gospel
is preached, Christ is magnified. He said, if I be lifted up, I'll
draw men unto myself. And He does draw men through
the preaching of the Gospel. He calls men. through the preaching
of the gospel. It's a glorious message that
he sends, but it is a message that exalts Christ. It's not
a message that exalts men. Now you see, that's really the
natural religion of men is designed to lift men up, is it not? I mean, in a fleshly way, isn't
it? The idea is, well, you know,
we come and we preach the Bible and it helps folks out and they
can get their lives on track and we just lift humanity up.
But that's not at all what we're sent to do in the Declaration
of the Gospel. Now those things may occur as
a result of the gospel being preached. But that's not why
we preach the gospel. We preach the gospel to exalt
Christ. And our horn, our defender, He
is that one who is exalted. For the Lord is our defense,
and the Holy One of Israel is our King. He's that one who not
only rules, But he is a defender. Now you know that was back in
the early days among these nations. They wanted a king that had the
ability to fight. I mean that was, they liked Saul
because Saul was a great warrior. They like David because David
was a mighty warrior. Saul has slain his thousands,
but David has slain his ten thousands. I mean, he was a mighty man in
the earth. And so he was a defender of the
people. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
slain all of our enemies. He's defended us from every accuser. Even as that woman taken in the
than adultery. As guilty as anybody ever was.
Groveling in the dust before the Lord. Expecting rightly so
if she had a mind to the just seventh of the law that the stones
would come and destroy her. But yet the Lord was her defender. And when she woke up when she
realized that all the men were gone, the Lord said, where are
thine accusers? You see, the Lord defended her.
He sent them away. He put them in shame. He destroyed
them. He said, where are thine accusers?
And she said, no, there are none. He said, neither do I condemn
thee. Oh, what a great defender He
is of His people, because He is the deliverer of His people
out of the mouth of destruction. I mean, this woman, any minute
the stones could have rained down upon her head, but the Lord,
in His mercy, He stayed all of that. He stopped it. And there
was none that could harm her in the least. Then thou spakest
in vision to thy Holy One, And since I have laid help upon one
that is mighty, I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David my servant,
with my holy oil have I anointed him. Now again, this is speaking
not of David, although there is an application of it to David,
but this is speaking of Christ, the Holy One. I have laid help
upon one that is mighty. David had his might, did he not? But his might didn't last. He became an old man. Scripture
says that he was just cold all the time. The Scripture says
he'd get no heat. He was a frail and weak man.
I mean, what if the enemies of Israel had come in and they'd
have said, David, go fight! What could David have done? He
couldn't even hardly get out of bed. So this is not speaking
about David, because the Lord has put his strength in one whose
strength endures forever. I have found David my servant,
with my holy oil have I anointed him, with whom my hand shall
be established, mine arm also shall strengthen him. The enemy
shall not exact upon him, nor the son of wickedness afflict
him. I will beat down His foes before
His face and plague them that hate Him." Now, that's the promise
of God. The Lord said that He would give
the angels charge over Him so that men would not be able to
afflict Him in any way. But yet, He, in this measure, And this is, I don't know how
we could hardly explain this, because it's without explanation. While the holy angels of God
were poised to protect Him in every way, yet Christ willingly
stayed their hand and did His Father's bidding. Did He not say, you know, I've
got ten, I could call ten thousand angels right now. And he could
have, because that was their charge over him. And then this psalm says, I won't
let anything happen to him, but Christ in His purpose to redeem
His people underwent the very thing that could not have happened
to Him. How could Christ have been crucified
if it was not according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God? How could it have occurred except
it was the purpose of God, the purpose of the Savior to deliver
His people? The enemy shall not exact upon
Him, that is, He will not triumph over Him. Men did everything
in their power to triumph over Him, did they not? I mean, even
to the point of sealing the tomb and setting a guard. Now, I don't
know what happened to the Men there at the tomb, I mean, they
certainly weren't able to prevent the Lord's rising, were they
not? Of course, some have said, you
know, why was the stone rolled away? The Lord certainly could have
blasted the stone to a million pieces if He wanted to, and I
don't know if He rolled the stone back, you know, by His own hand
or the angels rolled it back or whatever, but I know this,
that the stone was moved in order that men might be able to see
the triumph of the Lord, to know and understand that He has risen. Now they didn't know that initially,
did they? They didn't know what had happened.
They said, somebody's come in here and took the body of the
Lord. This is some kind of a plot that's come in here. And the
scripture says that John, stooping down, looked in and he believed.
Now what did he believe? He didn't believe necessarily
that the Lord had risen, but he believed that the body was
gone. He couldn't comprehend it. He couldn't understand it.
I mean, how could they? I mean, even as those disciples
on the road to Emmaus, they couldn't comprehend it,
of what had happened. This thing was a mystery to them. But the Lord would have glory
in it. The enemy shall not exact upon
him. He will not triumph, nor the son of wickedness afflict
him ultimately. And I will beat down his foes
and plague them that hate him. which is exactly what he did.
But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him and in my name
shall his horn be exalted. He'd given him a name which is
above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee shall
bow and every tongue shall confess. I will set his hand also in the
sea and his right hand in the rivers. I thought about that
a little bit. Put his hand in the sea and his
hand in the rivers. Well, you know the rivers flow
into the sea, does he not? So in a measure you could say
that the rivers are the beginning of the sea, and the sea is where
the rivers wind up. So he's the beginning and the
end, is he not? His hand's in the rivers and
it's in the sea. He rules over all things. He
shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock
of my salvation. Christ did indeed fulfill that
very thing. As He commended Himself into
the hand of His Father, did He not? He said, O Lord, into Thy
hand I commend my spirit. He said, You are my salvation.
He said, I depend upon no other but Thee. Lord, help me. And the Lord did indeed hear
His prayer. My God, the rock of my salvation,
Also will I make him my firstborn higher than the kings of the
earth. Now, if you read that and you said, I will make him
my firstborn, as we understand language, that
might be a bit confusing because the Lord wasn't created, was
he? He wasn't made in that sense, but the Scriptures basically,
I believe what the essence of what this means is, is that I
will make Him who is my firstborn. I will, He is my firstborn. He's that one and I will make
Him higher than the kings of the earth. If you just read the
context of the passage, I will make Him who is my firstborn
higher than the kings of the earth. He is higher than the
kings of the earth. He's the King of kings, the scripture
says. He's the Lord of lords. Pilate
spoke to Him about his kingship. He said, Are you a king? See,
Pilate was in ignorance. If Pilate had had any understanding,
he would have fallen on his face and worshipped him as the king.
He said, Are you a king? He said, You say that I am a
king. See, men say that. Do they not? Men talk about,
especially around Easter time, they talk about the king of kings
and all that stuff, you know, and they pay lip service to it. But you see, if he had known
he was the king, he would have worshipped him. But he is higher
than the kings of the earth. And he said this to Pilate, when
Pilate asked him if he was the king, he said, for this cause,
came I into the world, not to be a king, he said, although
he was a king. He said, for this cause came
I into the world to bear witness to the truth. Because the truth
bears witness to the fact that he is the king. But you see,
he didn't come to declare he's the king. Could he not have stood
up in the midst of the Jews and says, I am the king? But he didn't
come to do that. He came to humble himself to
be made an offering for sin, even though he was the king,
but he did bear witness of the truth. Every word that he spoke
was true. If these things were not so,
he said, I would have told you. He's trustworthy. We can believe
him. because He is that One who is
higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for
Him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with Him." See,
the covenant of the Father is made with the Son. To Christ
are all the promises of God made. Now some people get all worked
up about these covenants and they go through the Bible and
they define all these covenants and they tell you you've got
the covenant of this and the covenant of that. I'm telling you there's
a covenant that supersedes every covenant that you can find spoken
of in the Bible. And it's that covenant which
the Lord made with the Son. And He said, Yet have I set my
King upon my holy hill of Zion. ask of me, and I will give thee
the heathen for thine inheritance." And he has. And he has gained
that possession. And he purchased it. Not only
was it his. See, it's like the old preacher
said, you can't redeem something that ain't been deemed in the
first place. He redeemed his people. They
were his from the beginning. And he bought them back out of
slavery. where they had willingly sold
themselves. He redeemed His people. He bought
them back. They're His. You know, just from
a logical standpoint, if a man didn't know anything else about
what Christ did, if he heard that Christ purchased a people,
or that He bought sinners, He would have to believe, would
he not, that those centers were bought. I mean, if you go to the store
and you buy a sack of groceries, you put them in the sack and
you pay the price, they are your groceries. Nobody deny that. Now if you steal them, they've
got a reason to put you in jail. But if you pay for them, and
you go out to your car and put them in your car, they can't
come out there and get them back. Why? Because they belong to you. Christ has purchased His people.
They were His from the beginning and He bought them back. And
they belong to Him. And He loves them with an everlasting
love. His seed also will I make to
endure forever, and His throne is the days of heaven." The seed
of Christ. Christ didn't have any physical
seed, but He does have a seed. The Lord said that the promise
was made to Abraham and his seed, not being as of many, but as
of one Christ. See, the Jews think that the
promises were given to them. Well, the Lord didn't give the
promises to the Jews as a people, as a natural people. He gave
the promise to Christ, the seed of Abraham, and to his seed after
him, which are in Christ. What a glorious thing to consider. What a glorious Savior that we
have. And it is that Savior that we
come today to remember. in taking the bread and the wine,
because these are the symbols that the Lord gave us to remember.
He said to do this. This isn't something that we
just thought up. He said to do it. And if a man balks at doing this,
Then I believe he balks at doing what the Lord said. The Lord
said, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you
do show the Lord's death till he comes. And we, there's no
right or wrong way of doing this in so far as how we administer
it or how it's taken by people, but it is in the importance of
what we do here this morning is in what it is. He said, this
is my body, which is broken for you. This is my blood. which
is shed. Now we know it's just bread and
it's just wine, but in the purpose of Almighty God, in the working
that this has to cause us to remember Christ, these things
are real. The bread and the wine, the body
and the blood of Jesus Christ. May the Lord help us.