Looking at Psalm 89, we looked
at, read this last week and looked at part of it. Now we'll begin
in verse 8. It says, O Lord God of hosts,
who is a strong Lord like unto Thee, or Thy faithfulness round
about Thee? And of course last week we had
mentioned the fact that the faithfulness of God is demonstrated in many
ways in the earth, but primarily the Lord would demonstrate his
faithfulness to his people, which is love and an everlasting love.
And in type and foreshadow, he demonstrated that with the nation
of Israel. You know, it's a funny thing
to me, how that many men who will rail against the sovereign
election of God of a people, from before the foundation of
the world have no problem at all believing that he chose Israel
out of the nations of the earth and blessed them when they were
unthankful and unholy people. They don't have any problem believing
God chose them, but they can't somehow or other wrap their mind
around the fact that God chose His people from before the foundation
of the earth. and uh... like we sang in that
song ago a while ago is they don't have, men don't really
have a problem with the election they just have a problem with
God being the one that does the electing they don't mind election
as long as they're the one doing the choosing but uh... when you
talk about the fact that it's God that does the choosing then
they get worried about that uh... because men uh... think that
they can choose God as easy as they can choose what color pair
of socks to wear. But the truth is that no man
will seek the Lord unless the Lord seeks him. And oh Lord God
of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? He's mighty to
save. He is strong. He's not needing
anything from anybody. And I know they mean well in
what they say, but there's a sign in front of the meeting house
down here that it says, ask not what God
can do for you, but ask what you can do for God. Well, I can
tell you what you can do for God, and that's nothing. But men think in their prideful
mind that they can do something for God. And they set about to
do many wonderful things. I mean, that's what religion's
all about, doing something for God. But may the Lord give us
a mind to be daily crying out to Him that He might do something
for us. Because brethren, if He doesn't
do something for us, then we're in an awful shape, and not one
from which we can rescue ourselves. O Lord God of hosts, who is a
strong Lord like unto Thee? He is that one who is able to
deliver His people. And He will do that because to
thy faithfulness round about thee. The Lord is faithful to
His people. When He prayed in the garden,
He prayed for His people. He said, Father, I don't pray
for the world. I'm not just broadcasting out here something, but I'm praying
for those whom thou hast given me out of the world. And John
said there, and I believe it's chapter 13, it says, and Christ
having loved his own, he loved them to the end. When Peter,
the Lord told Peter, he said, Peter, I have prayed for thee,
that thy faith fail not. He's faithful. And even to the
very end, He's faithful to His mother. As He told John, even there in
the midst of His suffering on the cross, He said, take care
of my mother. He's a faithful Savior. And who can compare to the faithfulness
of the Lord? You know, faithfulness is a trait that is highly prized, humanly
speaking, but it's seldom found, you know, in something just as
simple as coming to work. You know, that's a thing that
if you can find somebody that will come to work, you have found
a wonderful employee. Now, there's plenty of them that'll
come on payday. You know, they won't miss that
day. But faithfulness, but the Lord, He is faithful. And the
faithfulness of men pales in comparison to the faithfulness
of the Lord. Thou rulest the raging of the
sea. When the waves thereof rise,
thou stillest them. Now, of course, you know, the
disciples saw that firsthand. That wasn't just something that
was kind of like a poetic bit of language, because he actually
stilled the sea. And you know, men talk about
the Lord doing all these things, but when the Lord actually does
something, it kind of takes their breath away. And the disciples
were no different. They said, what kind of a man
is this? that even the wind and the waves obey Him. He made them. He rules the raging of the sea. When the waves thereof arise,
thou stillest them. All these things. That's broken
Rahab in pieces. Now, when you read that word
Rahab, of course the most common thought that men have about the
word Rahab here is speaking, it would be, your mind would
go to Rahab the harlot. Now this actually is a different
word than the name Rahab. This word here is, it shares
some of the same syllables that the name Rahab does, and I'm
not gonna attempt to tell you the Hebrew word, uh... but they are completely different
words and uh... actually really have uh... has
reference to egypt this this word could be translated as faro
or egypt and that's of course what the reference is that broken
right hand in pieces that's destroyed faro in egypt this was a thing
uh... that was surely in the minds
of the of the Hebrews that he had broken Egypt as one that
is slain. Thou hast scattered thine enemies
with thy strong arm. And surely the Lord in the work
of redemption, He has scattered His enemies. He has made a show
of them openly. He has embarrassed them. See,
the Lord didn't just win a victory and allow the his foes to retreat
off and hide somewhere, but he sought out every one of them
and he destroyed them so that there was no army left. That's
what the scripture said about when his destruction of Pharaoh.
It said that he destroyed a whole lot of them, a whole bunch. Now,
you know, they claim, some people claim that they found some chariots
in the bottom of the Red Sea somewhere, I don't remember if
I was reading about it and what not. And of course this makes
a lot of people really stand up and take notice that they
found something like that. And it'd be a marvelous thing
if they did, but like Lester Roloff said one time about when
they were having one of these expeditions to go over and they
thought they had found the Ark somewhere. And somebody, some
reporter or something said, well, Brother Roloff says that if they
go and find that ark, will that increase your faith? And he said,
honey, he said, if they load that thing up and drag it up
here in my backyard, it won't make me believe it any more than
I already do. And so it is that the work of
the Lord is that which the Lord applies to the hearts of His
people and causes us to rejoice in Him. And you know, whether
we see His hand presently in some miraculous way in which
like He steals the seas and that, we know that He is at work. And from time to time He does
give us a glimpse of how he works. But he has broken Rahab in pieces,
is one that is slain. That is, they shall not rise
again. Thou scattered thine enemies
with thy strong arm. The heavens are thine, the earth
also is thine. As for the world and the fullness
thereof, thou hast founded them. Now when men you know it's an
amazing thing course it's just natural that me and would uh... be in rebellion against god that
just the way that human nature is and it doesn't like the fact
of some of the things that god does i mean people are all about
that well i don't know why that happened why did that have to
happen now and all of these things and men grumble and complain
about this that and the other But the psalmist plainly said,
the heavens are thine, the earth is thine, as for the world in
the fullness thereof, thou hast founded them. So what basis does
any man ever have to question anything in this world? Or why the Lord would do something
a certain way. Or why the Lord would create
one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor, as it hath pleased
him. Why? Because it's his. Hath not the potter power over
the clay to make one vessel unto honor and one unto dishonor?
And you know, that's such a simple truth, but yet such a hard thing
for the natural man to just bow down to and say, you know, that
is right, he's right. I mean, if God created the world
simply for the purpose of destroying it, just like a friend of mine,
he was telling the other day about, he lives down in the Virgin
Islands and he went to put his trousers on and he just happened
to look in there and said, there's a big old scorpion in there.
And you know so he shook the scorpion out and he said he just
crushed him beneath his foot. And you know he didn't think
anything about it. But you realize he had less reason
to crush that scorpion to death than the Lord would have if he
just crushed us all and just made us back to dust from whence
we came. I mean, what could any man say?
There wouldn't be a thing in the world we could do, I mean,
or say about it. Surely we couldn't do anything
about it, but what could we say about it? Job said, though he
slay me, yet will I trust him. I mean, and why would Job say
a thing like that, except that the Lord gave it to him to do
so? Because the natural man can't trust the Lord. He'd be mad at
God. I mean, over in the book of Revelation speaks about those,
you know, they curse God. God's raining down the hailstones
on their head, and yet they're blaspheming the name of God.
That's just the way men are by nature. There's no natural Repentance
that comes up before God. The only repentance that's true
repentance is that which God gives to men. And in his mercy
and kindness. But the world is the Lord's.
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Thou hast founded
them. He made them out of nothing,
the scripture says. The north and the south, thou
hast created them. tabor and herman shall rejoice
in thine name now tabor and herman are two mountains that are mentioned
several times in the scriptures you often read about the dues
of herman But Hermon was a mountain that lay to the east and Tabor
was a mountain that lay to the west. So what actually the psalmist
is saying here is the north and the south thou hast created them,
the east and the west shall rejoice in thy right hand. I mean everything
that you see The scope is that which is encompassed by the Lord,
the North and the South. You know, over in the book of
Job, I think it's in 26, it's interesting. Let me look here. I can't remember the exact. I should have wrote that down,
but I was thinking about that just now. Let me see if I can
see it. Yeah, speaking about the north,
Job says this, Job answered this, he says, He stretcheth out the north over
the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing. Just think
about that. He stretcheth out the earth over
an empty place. Scripture says that the earth
was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of
the deep. And the Lord said, let there
be light. He hung the earth in the empty
place upon nothing. now you know that the the astronauts
and all of that stuff they go up in the heaven and they can
see that to be true i mean it is hanging out there in the middle
of nowhere but it belongs to the lord, he made the north,
what is the north? don't men speak about the north
like it's something that is uh... just well it's just there, well
why is it? because the lord made it You
know, the North's not the North because it's the North, the North's
the North because the Lord made it to be the North. And if he
wants to turn it into the South, he can. Now, I've read some things
about over time that the North and the South poles of the Earth
have shifted. And of course, the North, it's
in a different place, the North Pole of the Earth. I don't know
how they determined none of this, but I'm just telling you some
stuff I've read, that it's actually moved several feet in our lifetime. Now, what if the Lord just turns
everything upside down? What would men do about it? What
would the great scientists do to prevent it? I mean, how would
they do it? They think they're in control
of things. They're talking about controlling the weather and whatnot.
And the Lord might give them some means whereby to do some
things, but don't forget, He's the one that stills the winds
and the waves. And He sends those things according
to the good pleasure of His will. The north and the south, the
east and the west, they shall rejoice in thy name. Thou hast
a mighty arm, strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand."
Now, the mighty arm of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ is the
arm of the Lord. You'll never know anything about
God that is not revealed to us in Jesus Christ. I mean, He is
the revelation of the Father unto us. He is the fullness of
the Godhead bodily. And so that He has a mighty arm. Who's He speaking about? Christ.
He's the mighty arm. He's that one who's mighty to
save. He's that one who has triumphed over all of His enemies. He's
that one who's brought salvation. and high as our right hand. Where
does the scripture say that the Lord Jesus Christ is seated? At the right hand of the Father.
Absolutely. That is the place of power. The
place of acceptance. That one who is pleasing unto
Him and no place else. Justice and judgment are the
habitation of thy throne. Mercy and truth shall go before
thy face. Now, justice is the very basis
upon which the Lord would reveal himself unto men. Now, whenever
he showed himself to Moses, he revealed unto him his mercy. He said, I'll show mercy to whom
I will show mercy. He said, that's who I am. But
you see, that was after he had established the fact that he
was a just God in the earth. See, men, you cannot have any
comprehension of what mercy is unless it is laid out against
the backdrop of the justice of God. It's like when you go into
a jewelry store and they've got diamonds and gold and that, what
have they got it, how do they have it displayed? I mean, do
they have red and white backgrounds for these things? Is that what
they lay them out on? No, they put it on that which
is black and then when that diamond is laid on that which is black,
you can see it for what it is. And apart from having an understanding
of the fact that God is absolutely just, He will by no means clear
the guilty, He will not at all acquit the wicked, then you cannot
have any comprehension of the mercy of God and the fact that
the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. It's
impossible. Because you see, He would be
just and the justifier. And it is because of His justice
that He demanded that a justifier come into the world. Now the
Lord could have created the world and there never been any sin. He could have created the world
any way He wanted to, but in order to display His majesty
and the glory of His grace, He created the world as He did.
He put man in it and He gave a law that would manifest His
justice and His judgment. And it is in contrast to that
that we see the mercy of God set forth. Justice and judgment
are the habitation of Thy throne. That is the very basis. What
is it that the angels Those that surround the throne that Isaiah
saw in the year that King Uzziah died and he said, I saw the Lord
high and lifted up. And he said, there were those
creatures that surrounded this throne and they ceased not day
and night to cry out, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. Now we understand that primarily
has reference to the fact that he is set apart from all of his
creation because of the very fact that he is eternal, he is
immortal and all that he has created is finite and so the
contrast between the creature and the creator is many fold
for sure but the primary difference is that he has life And we don't,
except that which He gives us. See, men lost a lot of times,
they think they have life. They think they're just gonna
live on somewhere forever. That's kind of the natural thing.
I mean, everybody, when they die, they go to heaven, don't
they? I mean, if you go to a funeral nowadays, you won't, that's where
everybody's in a better place. I mean, because people just gotta
live on somewhere. But you see, the only way that
a man has life is if God gives it to him. Now Jesus Christ,
the Scripture says that He has life in Himself. He is the life. He is the way, the truth, and
the life. And so He is that one that possesses
life. But you and I, the only life
that we have is the life that is given to us. And we live in
Him because of the fact that He has given us life. Oh, what
a glorious thing, but justice and judgment are the habitation
of His throne, because it is the fact that He is that just
God upon which everything that we come to know and understand
about Him is reflected. And then He says here, mercy
and truth shall go before thy face. But see, men can have no
appreciation of God's mercy and His kindness and His goodness
unless they first have an understanding of His hatred of sin. I mean, people think that the
Lord's just, you know, they think they have some corner on the
goodness of God, but they don't see the goodness of God as it
is because they don't see it contrasted to what they deserve. See, men just think God is good,
and God is good. But they consider it in kind
of a generic fashion. You see all these bumper stickers
and what? God is love. And the Scripture says God is
love. But dear brethren, apart from
understanding the justice and judgment and holiness of God,
when we speak about the love of God, it doesn't really have
any meaning. It's just kind of a maudlin sentimentality. But when we read that God is
love, and we know who He is, that's an amazing thing. That
God would show love. We love Him because He first
loved us. What a glorious thing that is.
Mercy and truth shall go before thy face. Where do we see mercy
and truth? Revealed in the face of Jesus
Christ. They shall go before thy face.
He is the face of God unto men. Like I say, a man can never know
God. He can never see God. He can
never come into the presence of God except through and in
Jesus Christ. He is that one who comes to reveal
the Father unto men. What a glorious thing it is.
Well, that's a good place to stop. Blessed is the people that
know the joyful sound. What a glorious thing it is,
is it not? To know that joyful sound. The gospel sent forth
into earth and it brings life and immortality to light. That is, it is that which illuminates
men to see the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ. What a glorious
thing it is.