Psalm 83, another Psalm of Asaph. Keep not silence, O God, hold
not thy peace, and be not still, O God. For lo, thine enemies
make a tumult, and they that hate thee have lifted up the
head. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and
consulted against thy hidden ones. They have said, come and
let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel
may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together
with one consent, they are confederate against thee. The tabernacles
of Edom and the Ishmaelites of Moab and the Hagareens, Jebal
and Ammon and Amalek and the Philistines with the inhabitants
of Tyre, Assure also is joined with them, they of hope and the
children of Lot. Say, Lo, do unto them as unto
the Midianites, as unto Sisera, as to Jamin at the brook of Chison,
which perished at Endor, they became as dung for the earth. Nobles like Oreb and like Zeab,
Yea, all their princes, as Ziba and as Zalmunna, who said, Let
us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession. O my God,
make them like a wheel, as the stubble before the wind, as the
fire burneth the wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains
on fire. So persecute them with thy tempest,
and make them afraid with thy storm. Fill their faces with
shame, that they may seek thy name, O Lord. Let them be confounded
and troubled forever, yea, let them be put to shame and perish. That men may know that thou whose
name alone is Jehovah art the most high over all the earth. Now what a glorious beginning
and end to this Psalm as we read the cry of Asaph onto the Lord
and we believe as we have mentioned that the Psalms are the prayers
of Christ and so that this is the prayer of Christ. Keep not
silence, O God, hold not thy peace, be not still, O God. Now
the mysteries of the incarnation of Jesus Christ are unfathomable by men but we
know and do believe with all of our heart and mind that uh... he is God in the flesh that he
came and dwelt among men in a body just like other men uh... that he limited himself in that
fashion as a man now you know i can't quite wrap my mind around
that how that the eternal God who has no limitations, put himself
in the likeness of flesh and walked among men as a man with
those limitations. Now we know that at any time
he could have done anything he wanted to do, but what he wanted
to do was come into the world as redeemer of sinners and to
bear our sin, our griefs, our sorrows, to be acquainted with
our condition. Now he already knew our condition,
did he not? I mean, he made us. He made all
things and fashioned them like he would have it in his own time.
But yet, The glories of it, I mean again, I just, I'm amazed when
I consider this. You know, some people think that's
just such a simple thing, well, God came down and walked among
men, but when you consider all of the ramifications of all of
the things that are involved, and the fact that He went to
Calvary's cross, and hung upon that cross, and never at any
time was He any less than the eternal God. And yet, he was
never at any time less than mortal man. I mean, I'm amazed by it. I don't have any words to describe
it. No other man does either. I mean, many made attempts. to
tell us about these things, just like they would tell us about
the Trinity and how all of that works and how, you know, it's
just simple. You know, here it is, like this.
Well, no, it's not quite that simple. God is God. And Jesus Christ, his only begotten
Son, is the revelation of the Father unto men. And we'll never
see any other glimpse or have any other understanding or knowledge
of God, the mighty God, than that which He has shown us in
Jesus Christ. I mean, He is the revelation
of the Father. And no man has seen God at any
time, but Jesus Christ, He has declared Him. What a glorious
thing. And so He cries, Keep not thou silent, O God, hold
not thy peace, and be not still, O God. See, don't we We desire for God to move, do
we not? We desire to see Him. Now, all
men by nature want God to do something for them. Don't they? I mean, you know, everybody wants
the blessings of God. I mean, you know, even those
that claim they don't believe in God. You know, they want the
blessings to come down. You know, they want to have the
goodness. of things visited upon them. That's just the way that men
are by nature. But the prayer of Christ here
is not specifically that something good would happen unto him. All
men pray. Most men's prayers are just basically
consumed upon their own lusts. I mean, you know, they just,
we want this, we want that, Lord do this, Lord heal this and do
that and help us and all this. But what Christ is praying for
here is for the glory of God to be manifest. For God's sake,
for the glory of God. He said, keep not silence, O
Lord, be not still for thine enemies. See, he was zealous
for the glory of God. He was more concerned that the
name of the Lord was denigrated and was made a mocking in the
eyes of men than He was for anything that might come upon Him personally. And so He said, Hold not thy
peace and be not still, O God. See now, men like we, having
the law written upon our hearts, There's not a man, woman, boy,
girl that's ever been born into the world that does not believe
in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Everybody does. That law's just ingrained in
a man. You do something to me, and buddy,
I'm gonna do something back to you. I mean we'll spend our life
warring against that by the grace of God if He's moved us to see
what we are by nature and know that when that rises up within
us it's just an evidence of the sin that's in us. But He says here, Lord be not
still for thine enemies make a tumult. It's not for, He's
not has some personal vendetta against the wicked. See, a lot
of times we get mad at the wicked because they do something evil
to us. He said, pray for them that despise you. We don't have
any place to be angry at them. They're just acting according
to their nature, just like we would be if it wasn't for the
sake. So the prayer is not, Lord, get
back at them. Boy, I want to see some vengeance
here. You know, we want you to get
yours. No, that's not it. No, He's praying, Lord, let Your
name be magnified here. Lord, we're not asking You to
destroy the wicked for our sake, but we're asking that Your name
be magnified in the earth. And what He said, that men may
know that Thou whose name art alone is Jehovah. the mighty
God, that I am, that men might know that, and that thou art the most high
over all the earth. For lo, thine enemies make a
tumult, and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. They
have taken crafty counsel against thy people. Now when they have
lifted up the head, you know when I was, used to have some
cows, and Cows are funny creatures. They're a lot like people in
a lot of ways, but the cows, I can remember, you know, trying
to get the cows to come up. Maybe we was going to worm them
or something or whatever. And there was this one old cow
that she was kind of the lead cow, you know, and so she'd be
going along and you think, man, this is going to work out nice.
We're not going to have any problems, you know, getting them up. And
all of a sudden, she would lift up her head. And I thought about
that when I was reading that. She'd lift up her head. Now,
what was that? She said, wait a minute. I'm
not going to do this. And buddy, once she lifted up
her head and she took a turn, and then it was Katie barred
the door because every one of the other cows, they were right
behind her, you know. And so then you had to try to
work all that out. But that's what it means to lift
up the head. They have lifted up their head.
See, that's the way men are in rebellion against God by nature. They lift up their heads against
Him. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people and consulted
against thy hidden ones. Scripture says that we're hidden
in Christ. People of God have always been
hidden in Christ. He hid them in Christ before
the foundation of the world. When did it begin? I don't know.
I don't know. I know this, that the people
of God have been hidden in Christ from the beginning. And the men of this world are
the enemies of the people of God. The world is not our friend.
Now it tells us it's our friend. And we want to believe that it's
our friend. We want to get along with the world. We don't want
the world angry with us. But brethren, it's a thing that
cannot be avoided. We don't have to go out of our
way. Now some people in the name of the gospel, they go out of
their way to be confrontational and they go out of their way
to stir up trouble and cause men to be angry with them. You don't have to cause men to
be angry. All you have to do is preach Jesus Christ and Him
crucified as the only hope of men, unequivocal, that salvation
belongeth unto the Lord, that he shows mercy to whom he will
show mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth. And I guarantee
you that the world will hate you for it. They will not bow their knee
unto such a thing as that. Oh, now, if you want to tell
them, you know, that God's this nice little old grandpa type
figure and he's just hoping that everybody will do what he wants
to do and he's going to do good to everybody. Oh, people eat
that up. They love that. But men hate the people of God. They have consulted against thy
hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let
us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be
no more one remembers. Why did the nation of Israel
have so many enemies? Have you ever thought about it? I mean, they were hated in the
earth, all these nations. They would band themselves together
against the nation of Israel, and they said, We've got to destroy
these people. You know why? Because it was a threat. They
were a threat because of who their God is. See, they were
a threat as long as the Philistines, you know, had Dagon set up in
the temple and everything was great, they were fine. But when
the Ark of the Covenant was brought in there and Jehovah God showed
Himself to be God and Dagon fell on His face before Him, So that's
the essence of why the nations of the earth and the men of the
earth hate the people of God is because we are the people
of God, by the grace of God, not because of anything we've
done. And so men, men hate God. I mean, we're just kind of like
collateral damage. I mean, the argument and the
fight that men have against the gospel is against Almighty God. It's not against the people,
although they hate the people of God because they're in Christ. Let us cut them off from being
a nation. We want to destroy them. And
the Lord, in His gathering out of His remnant from among the
nation of Israel, He calls from time to time the nation of Israel
to go into bondage. In fact, He sent Nebuchadnezzar
into the land to completely destroy Israel and take them captive
where they stayed for many years that He might call out His people
from among them. See, the Lord will make His people
known. They have consulted together with one consent. They are confederate
against Thee. Now, a couple weeks ago I had
one of the Grace Gazettes was about the Confederacy and it
came from this particular verse here. And of course we all think
of, we haven't raised in the South, we think of the Southern
states and you remember the old sausage commercial with Colonel
Copeland. Copeland sausage, his deal was
the South's going to rise again. Well, you know, I'm glad that the, I couldn't
always say this, but I'm glad that the Confederacy was destroyed. uh... as you know now i'm not
and i'm not speaking evil of everything about it but the basic
concept and problem better calls that conflict who arrived terrible
and it is good uh... that such a place in our uh... culture has been removed and
such a you know the the uh... oppression of the people uh... was overturned. The unfortunate thing is that
many of those who became what they called free didn't realize
that what they thought was their freedom was really their bondage.
See, men don't ever really understand. The people in jail today, if
you ask them what's got them bound, they'd say it's these
walls. it's these bars on this place.
This is the man. That's who's got me bound. They
don't understand that what has them bound in prison is not the
walls. Because you can knock down all
the prison walls and they would be just as bound in sin as they
were before prison walls were built. So it's not those things. You know, it's not that while
slavery was an awful thing, it was a good thing in this respect. Think of the blessing. Now, I
know that a man, if he was in the midst of this, and he wouldn't
think this was true, but if he could look back on it in the
bigger picture of things, what a blessing was brought. to those among those Africans
brought into this world when they were brought under the sound
of the gospel. And many of them believed. The
Lord knows them that are His. And He'll bring His people by
a way which they knew not, and some of them that was to be on
a slave ship to come here. and that's in no wise to aggrandize
or sanitize or in any way make the wickedness of men and enslaving
men to be a good thing. But you see what men mean for
evil, God means for good. To them that love Him who are
the called according to His purpose. What a glorious thing it is to
think of the hand of God working A work in such a way through
the foulness of man's mind, and yet bringing his people unto
himself. A glorious thing. But they have,
see men don't mean these things for good, so that doesn't make
it good, what they did, any more than it made what Judas did a
good thing. But yet the Lord intended it
for good. Sure he did. And they are confederate
against thee, the tabernacles of Edom, the Ishmaelites of Moab,
the Haggadreens, Gebel, and Ammon, and Amalek, and the Philistines,
with the inhabitants of Tyre. Asher also is joined with them.
They have hope in the children of Lot. All of these people had
one purpose, and that was to destroy the people of God because
they hated God. And so they came together. do
unto them as unto the Midianites, as to Sisera, as to Jabin at
the brook of Chisholm, which perished at Endor, they became
as dung for the earth." And the Grace Gazette this week is about
Sisera. And Sisera was a great and mighty
warrior. He was the captain of Jabin, his whole host. The scripture
says of him that they had 900 chariots of iron. Now, that doesn't
sound like much today to us, but back then, I mean, that was
a formidable foe. That would be like, you know,
somebody with a raid with 100,000 tanks. I mean, you know, here
they are, what are you gonna do about it? I mean, here you're,
and the scripture says that they oppressed Israel for 20 years. 900 chariots of iron. But the Lord discomfited. That's a strange word, isn't
it? The Lord discomfited Cicero. That is, he put him in chaos.
And he caused those 900 chariots of iron to be overturned. And the scripture says that every
last man of his army was destroyed. And he alone was left, and what'd
he do? He jumped out of the chariot.
Because he realized that the chariot wasn't doing him any
good. He finally was brought to that place, and he fled. And
he was taken in by J.L., who was the wife of another man mentioned
in the scripture, Heber the Kenite. And I suppose you know the story. She brought him in there and
he was tired, weary from the battle and from running. She
had him to lay down there and she said, here, I'll take care
of you. Put a blanket on him, fed him some warm milk. And then
while he was sleeping, she took a tent peg and drove it through
his head. And so was the end of Cicero.
Now there was hardly any worse or shameful death that a mighty
man of war could experience than be slain at the hand of a woman.
I mean even now, you know, if a man, if he was to get in some
kind of a wrestling match or something and a woman beat him,
I mean he'd feel pretty bad. I'm sorry women, but that's just
the way men are. You know, it's just the way it
is. I mean, because actually, and
don't take this offensively, but God made the man to be the
head of the woman. I didn't make that up, and society
can't change it. It doesn't make any difference
what, you know, the protesters or the alphabet soup people say. That's just the truth, because
that's right. God made it. Oh, yeah. No, there's
nothing to be... I mean, a man, you know, when
he thinks of that, it ought to cause him some shame, really,
to think that he would be the head over actually a far more
noble creature than himself. But that's the way the Lord made
it. And I don't even know how I got off on that. But anyway,
the Lord killed, had Cicero slain. And at the same time, Deborah,
the only time that I can recall at least, I'm pretty sure this
is true, the only woman that ever ruled over Israel. was Deborah,
and she ruled over Israel at this time. And Barak would not
go into battle against Sisera unless she went with him. And
so it's an amazing thing how the Lord heaped shame, as men
would see it, upon those who considered themselves to be mighty,
as Sisera did, slain at the hand of a woman. by a woman leading
the army against him. And so he was destroyed, but
such is the case. And the Lord uses him as a specific
example of that destruction that he desires to see upon the people
of God for the glory of God. In this way, he said, who perished
at Endor. Now remember what Endor. Remember what happened there.
That's where Saul went down to visit the witch at Endor. And it was as a result, or following
that very thing, that Saul was slain. So this place Endor, that's
got a history because it is the place where Cicero was slain.
And it's the place where Saul, the mighty Saul, the leader of
Israel, the king, the one chosen by God, marked out among the
nation of Israel as the first king. The Lord destroyed him. The Lord raises up kings and
He puts them down. You know, thinking about that
in our presidential thing, you know, I know a lot of people,
they run around here and they're worried about who's going to
be the president, oh my, what's going to happen if Joe Biden
wins and all this kind of stuff. Now, you know, on the one hand,
I don't want to see Joe Biden win. But on the other hand, I
know this. that the Lord is going to be
the one that puts the one in there that he determines to be
in there. And it doesn't make a difference
if somebody's up in the polls or down in the polls. God is
going to put on the throne who he pleases to put on there, either
unto our good or unto our bad. I mean, it doesn't make a difference.
I mean, all leaders are wicked. You know, you can... There's
no such thing as, it's like the old fellow said, he didn't want
to, he didn't want to vote for the one he thought was the best
of the people, of the two people running because he didn't want
to ruin a good man. Because places of power ruin
men. And of course, you know, a lot
of them don't need any running, more than they already got when
they get there, but nonetheless, the Lord puts over the kingdoms
of the earth the basest of men. That's what the scripture says.
And so we need to understand that. That, you know, if you
expect the Sunday school teacher to be the president, you're sadly
mistaken. It won't happen. Because those
are not the people that God puts in places of office. Now, I know
we would desire that on the one hand, we think we would desire
that, but that's not what God, the God's purpose is much greater
than what we see. I mean, our thoughts about these
things are pretty simple, isn't it? I mean, we got A plus B equals
C. But the Lord, we're out back
here doing addition and he's doing calculus. You know, I mean,
we're content with checkers and he's playing chess. And so, These things are confounding
to men. We don't see how they work, but
nonetheless God means it for good to his people. But we can
be sure of this, that regardless of who is in places of leadership,
the Lord turns the heart of the king with his every will. And
all of these wicked kings that set themselves against the nations
of Israel, the Lord ultimately destroyed every one of them because
He would demonstrate that He's God. These men said, let us take to
ourselves the houses of God in possession. See, we can rule.
That's what the Pharisees said, didn't they? They said, let's
destroy this man, Jesus, and then we'll be in charge from
now on. I mean, He is an impediment unto
us, because He's going around here telling the people that
He's the Son of God. And they knew they didn't have
any argument against it. They couldn't stand against him.
Every time they came against him with some, oh, well, we got
him now. And he turned the tables on them
every time. And they were angry. They said,
we can't let this man rule over us. We'd rather have the Romans
to rule over us than we had this man. Isn't that foolish? I mean,
you know, knowing what we know, how foolish could they have been
to have turned aside the very one who was the Savior of sinners
and desire such thing. But that's the way it is with
men. They can't help it. Who said,
let us take to ourselves the house of God in possession. Oh
God, make them like a wheel. Just cause them to roll away. Make them like a wheel as the
stubble before the wind. As the fire burneth the wood,
and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire, so persecute
them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm. Destroy thine enemies, essentially
is what he's saying. Fill their faces with shame,
that they may seek thy name, O Lord. Because you see, among
every people, the Lord has a people. I mean the Scripture says that
out of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. It's impossible
that you can look out and determine who the sons of God are, who
the elect of God are. Now you can, there are things
that the Lord does in the lives of His people that that manifest
them to be the sons of God, believing in Him is the primary one. Faith in Christ is it. But I'm
talking about when you look out on a vast expanse of humanity,
you don't know who the elect of God are, but He does. and so we desire for the glory
of God that the enemies of God be destroyed but we desire at
the same time that in this destruction that the people of God in their
midst their hearts might be broken and they might come down and
fall upon their faces and worship the Lord. Now I don't hold out
any hope that every man in the world is going to worship the
Lord because the scripture says that they are Their faces are
set against Him. But the Lord has a people in
the earth who are going to hear His Word. And the same Christ
who came into the world and set the people's teeth on edge and
set these Pharisees to hate Him, He changed the hearts of some. Nicodemus came to Him by night. Joseph of Arimathea. They heard
the Word. Now why did they hear the Word?
Because of the mercy of God. Because of the grace of God.
Because the Lord called them out of the darkness and into
the light. And dear brethren, that's what
we desire, is to see men come to Christ. We desire for men
to hear the Gospel. We're not trying to hide the
gospel, we're trying to proclaim the gospel. But we want the gospel
that we proclaim to be the truth, and not something that's designed
to appeal to the natural inclinations and emotions of men, but the
truth of Almighty God that cannot be overturned. That's what he
says here. Make them afraid. Fill their
faces with shame that they may seek thy name. See, until a man
is ashamed, of himself, he'll never seek the Lord. As long
as a man thinks he's going along all right, he won't seek the
Lord. Now Job, the Scripture says,
was a man who eschewed evil, and he was upright among men. And if you'd have asked Job,
I mean, if you read his word through, I mean, he's pretty
confident. He's standing with the Lord. He believed in the
sovereignty of God. when he had a little bit late and so he was
brought to a place where he was ashamed because he had talked
all this big talk about all these things about God and most of
them I get everything he said basically was true and he had
talked to all these guys and they had argued and carried on
and I believe Job was more right than any of them But the scripture
says at the end, the Lord showed up and He spoke to Job out of
the whirlwind. He said, I want you to sit down
and shut up, Job, because where were you when I formed the earth
out of nothing? And he, for two chapters in there,
he set Job down, and what happened was Job was brought to shame.
And if you'd asked Job then what he knew, he said, Lord, I've
heard of thee by the hearing of the ear. But now mine eye
seeth thee, and I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.
So you see, Job was brought to a place of knowing that he didn't
know anything. men talk all about how much they
know and argue and carry on with one another, write books and
slander one another over this theological point and that. You
know, sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong.
Most times they're wrong because even if they're right by the
letter, they're wrong in the spirit of some of the things
that they write. Well, what do we know? I mean,
what do we really know? I think it was John Newton. Sitting
on his deathbed, someone asked him, what is the truth that's
most comfort to you right now? And he said, there's only two
things that I know. He said, number one, what a great
sinner I am. But he said, number two, what
a great Savior He is. Now brethren, when a man's brought
to that place, You know, He's brought to a place of salvation.
Because unless a man's face is filled with shame before Almighty
God, to know himself to be worthy of nothing but death and destruction,
then he cannot and he will not seek the Lord. He may seek religion,
and he may be satisfied with religion. A lot of folks are. I mean, the world's a religious
place. And those folks that go to church faithfully, I mean,
they're just as happy with their life as it could be. That have no knowledge of Christ.
They're not ashamed of what they are by nature. Fill their faces
with shame that they may seek thy name, O Lord. Let them be
confounded and troubled forever. Yea, let them put shame and perish.
Now he's speaking about those who will not seek the Lord. So
we desire to see men seek the Lord. But at the same time, we
desire the glory of God. And we desire to see the wicked
destroyed. Not so we can gloat about it,
but so that the name of Almighty God might be magnified. And that's
the manner in which He's pleased to do it. See, that's the reason
He raised up Pharaoh. was so that he might make his
name known, that he might show to men that the Lord shows mercy
to whom he will show mercy, and whom he will, he hardens. He
said, for this same cause that he raised up Pharaoh, that he
might destroy. Now brethren, if that doesn't
make a man appreciate the grace of God, then I don't know what
is, because that's the only thing that makes a difference. between
one man and another man. What have you got that you have
not received? You didn't figure anything out.
You didn't finally come to your senses and decide to do something. God, who is rich in mercy, called
you out of darkness and into the light and caused the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ
to shine upon you, even as He did the Apostle Paul on the road
to that men may know that thou,
whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the
earth. Now you know it's a, the United States is a religious
nation, and our money, on our money it says in God we trust. And I'm sure that many of the
founders of our nation, I believe from reading some of the things
that I've read about them and that they have written, they
were men who knew that the name of Jehovah alone was God and
to be worshiped. But just to say, well, we trust
in God. Well, which God are you trusting?
Because there are many gods. Now they're all, as we said last
week, they're all the gods of men's imaginations. See, men
can craft and design them a god that's just like they want him
to be. You know, there's people that have one that waits around
till they go to bed each night, and then he's waiting there by
the bedside for them to pray to him. There's men that have a God that's
there in the morning when they wake up. Now I'm not saying that
He's not there at night or He's not there in the morning, but
I'm saying He's not there because you designed Him to be or you
thought He would be or you expected Him to be. Our God's in the heavens. He has done whatsoever He has
pleased. And so you see, The name of Jehovah alone is the
most high over all the earth. And we desire that he be exalted.
And I'm not interested, particularly, you see these signs where people,
where they've put up, attend the church of your choice. Well,
most people do. You know, or either don't. I
mean, you know, but I don't want to be at the church my choice. I want to be among the saints
of God. You know, I want to be found
faithful, numbered among the people of God. He is the most high over all
the earth, a glorious God to be sure. And in fact, our salvation
depends on it. I mean, if he's not God over
all the earth, then brethren, we're in bad trouble. If he's not the absolute God,
then we're in trouble, not simply because things we say is not
true, but I mean, what is there? If he's not the absolute God,
who is? That's one I won't find out who he is. I'm confident
by the grace of God that Jehovah alone is that one. And He has
revealed Himself unto men in Jesus Christ, the only begotten
Son of God. May the Lord give us a mind and
heart to trust Him and to recognize the glory of God revealed in
the face of Jesus Christ.