Psalm 89, we're going to try
to do. This whole thing today. Brother Mike, so. Passionately put in our ears
this morning. It starts out by giving a synopsis
of 2 Samuel chapter 7, where God made an everlasting covenant
with David. We says the David. No longer
will you try to make me a house, but I will make you a house. And I'll set you against all
your enemies and you will be victorious. And he tells David, he says,
when your days are filled or fulfilled, you will lie down
with your fathers and I will raise up your offspring after
you who shall come from your body and I will establish his
kingdom. And then he shall build a house for my name." Now, in understanding what we're
about to do, I want to show you how it fits with the theme that
we've been on the last few weeks. It's seeing the face of Christ
in the Old Testament prophets. Not looking at the hidden message,
which is so often the case in our world. We don't have to dig
and wonder, oh, that means this and oh, that means that. It's
plain as day. It's not hidden. If I were to take some of what
we've taught over the last few weeks and give to New Testament
only people, if there is such a place where there are people
who have only heard the New Testament, they would assume it was New
Testament writing. Old Testament writing and New Testament writings
sound exactly the same. In the ears of the saints who
are tuned to hear it. But what we've done as a culture
is we've split it. We've taken it and we've divided
the covenants. We've divided the people. We've
divided the dispensations and we've created an incredibly neat
package of systematizing God's immutability and thus changing
him. Which eradicates the idea of
his immutability. And of all the things that I
worship about my father in heaven, his immutability is the breath
through which I worship at the mall. It is only because of God's
unchangedness and eternal unchangedness that I'm able to worship Him
through His promises, that I'm able to worship Him through His
affection, through His grace and mercy, that I'm able to worship
Him through His power and through His presence. For if He was not
immutable in all these things, then He would be no God at all,
not worthy of praise, much less worthy of salvation or trusting.
But He would be just a maniacal being set off To twist us and
direct us in a foreign way. As he laughed and scoffed on
our behalf. It's really interesting because
in saying things like that, it seems to it seems to set apart
those scholars who like to set the Old Testament away and it
sets apart those scholars who like to build it up. It likes
to set apart those scholars who would say, well, the Jewish people
as heritage, as lineage, are in fact something greater and
different when they're not. And so in doing so, it seems
to be polarizing and set me at odds with such people. But as
a shepherd of God's people. As understanding the word of
God is the shepherd to our souls. Then how is it that we can take
and divide God's word into applicable and non applicable expressions?
How can either we know God truly or we don't know him at all if
we know him partly in this way and partly in that way? And the
Old Testament writers teach us that the people of old, even
Paul, as he as the apostle of Christ, the mouth house of God,
to the fullness of God's decree to save humanity, says what he
says. about the Old Testament and about
Israel and about the Jews and about the gospel. So therefore,
that which we thought we knew about the Old Testament prophets
is. If it is not in line with what Paul and the apostles say,
then we are wrong. Because the apostolic authority
of the word of God reveals that which was hidden and misunderstood
in the Old Testament. Not in a shadow to bring a new
shadow, but the light and the truth. Who is Jesus Christ? which God
put forth before there was ever creation for the day and the
apex of history. Do you realize God created all
that there is that he might send Christ to die for sinners? God
did not create a utopic ideal and with his omnipotence and
and omniscience know that it would fail. God created before
he ever created a purpose eternally. to save a people who would not
be able to save themselves. Psalm 89. In my personal studies
and my personal academics is a troubling text, it's a troubling
text because it it it comes from second Samuel and it comes to
the understanding of God's faithfulness and his covenants. that are everlasting. And then in verse 38 and 39 of
that text of Psalm 89, you see these words and I'll point it
out to you so that we'll show what this text teaches. God says,
I will not violate my covenant in verse 34, even as the children
of you and your children violate my covenant, I will not violate
my covenant. But then in verse 38, the psalmist
says these words, Ethan writing this. But now you. Have cast off and rejected you
speaking to God are full of wrath and anger against your anointed,
you have renounced the covenant with your servant. You have defiled
his crown in the dust. You have breached his walls,
you have laid his strongholds in ruins. So we see this dichotomy. If God is faithful, then God
is faithful, if God is not, then he's not. You're either a liar
or you're not. You're either a truthful or you're
not. You're either integrable or you're
not. You're either healthy or you're
not. You can't be almost healthy, almost healthy sick. And you
could be less sick than you were, but you're still sick. If there's
a scale sick, healthy, you're sick. If you're rich, poor, and
there's all the scale in between. You're homeless, you're homeless,
no matter if you stay in a house tonight or not, you're homeless.
You're right, you're wrong, if you're almost right, you're wrong.
And so God is either faithful or he's faithless, which is he?
And in order to twist scripture to help us see God in a different
light, let's look at the scripture that we see before us today and
let's understand the reality of what God has promised. I thought
about a way of trying to visualize this, and there's no real way
through story, expression, metaphor or ideal for me to grasp in my
own mind a picture that expresses how God works because he's unknowable
in that way. It's hard to know the mind of
God. And I thought, well, maybe it's
like a little kid who every day his dad walks him from school
and he passes by this ice cream parlor and he says, oh, daddy,
daddy, I want some ice cream. And the dad says, one day, I
promise I'll give you more ice cream than you can handle. Very
poor example, but it sort of came into my mind as I envisioned
myself walking with my heavenly father. I feel like that's sometimes
the way I act around God. I want all the sweetness. I want
all the nice things in life. I want all the sweet things in
life. I have this childlike, we all have this childlike animation
of, oh God, give me, give me, give me, give me, give me, give
me, give me. And we like to use God's promises against Him. Oh
God, you said I'd have this. You said I'd have that. That's
why the Word of Faith movement is so particularly special to
so many people because they're able to push God in a corner
and say, now you have to. Well, see, we can't push God
in a corner. God doesn't have to do anything. But if he's promised
it and he doesn't, he's a liar. So he's not a liar because he's
God. So where's the problem? We're the problem. We're the
problem in how we perceive what God has promised because we see,
just as in the Gospel account of John, we see all the physical
things that everybody thought Jesus was talking about. I think
I went through this Tuesday in our Q&A. We see Jesus, they thought
about the physical wine at the wedding. They thought about the
physical temple. When Jesus was talking about
His body, they thought about physically being rebirthed when
Nicodemus says, am I supposed to go back into my mother and
come out again to be born again? Thought about physical water
when Jesus says to the woman at Sychar, if you knew who it
was who asked you for a drink, you'd ask Him and He'd give you
living water. In that same chapter, when the disciples came back
and were astonished He was speaking with her, a woman and a Gentile,
A Samaritan? And they said, hey, do you want
some food? You need to eat, teacher. And
he says, I have food that you know not of. My food is to do
the will of the One who sent me. They were thinking about
sandwiches or bread or fork and beans or whatever. And he was
talking about his satisfaction came from being obedient to the
Father's will. Jesus is the bread of life. And
they're like, give us this bread that we won't have to come see
miracles anymore. And so I think in the same way that humans acted
toward the toward Jesus in his teaching, that he says things
about relating to physical realities, but having spiritual, eternal,
supernatural realities. We do the same thing with the
Old Testament. How can God establish a kingdom with David on the throne
forever? How can God establish such a
thing and then turn around and the psalmist here writes, where
are you? You've you've forsaken us. You've forsaken your anointing.
So I want to show you that. Just like the little boy in the
ice cream shop and every day from the age of five, about the
age of 12, every day, Dad, can I have some ice cream? Not today,
but I promise you, I'll give you all the ice cream you could
ever want. One day, I promise I'm going to give you ice cream.
And the kid grows up, and he's like, my dad's a liar. And then
his dad dies, and the young man's in his 40s or 50s, and at the
reading of the will, they realize that the man owned all the ice
cream chains. And the son got them all. They didn't promise
him a lick, he promised it all. But in the humanity of this young
man, he sees, I want the cone. And the father promised him the
ice cream, and he gave him the kingdom. Now, that's a bad metaphor. There's no way of actually saying,
well, that's so explains it all. It's like the Trinity. You know
what an egg is. I mean, you just can't do it. It's just so it's
ridiculously impossible to explain the inevitability of God's absolute
decrees and his covenants with his people. But one thing we
know for sure that we can understand is that God does not lie. So
therefore, if we are misconstrued about the establishment of what
God has promised, we are the ones wrong. And we look to scholars
and commentaries when what we should do is just print out the
Scripture and scribble all over it. Just write out the Word of
God and just put all the other stuff away and just start looking
at it. And ask ourselves, what is it
that the Spirit of God has taught us about the truth of the Gospel?
And how do we see this applying in that direct way today? So
let's look at this psalm. Yeah, I hope to touch every point
in groups. And we see as it starts out here,
there's this theme. This theme that you see in the
first four verses. I will sing of the mercies of
the Lord forever. Or the translation, I will sing
of the steadfast love. With my mouth I will make known.
Do y'all know that? Your faithfulness of all generations.
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. I will sing. I will sing. I will sing. I will
sing. I mean, you know, you can do
puppets with it. Your faithfulness to all generations. And you do it again. And three
or four days later, you're still singing. That was a good song
in the 80s. VBS, you could clap your hands
and all sorts of stuff for us, expressive type that aren't frozen
with fear. We can banners and dancing or
whatever. You know, some Baptists do dance. David danced before
the Lord, but we've heard this. We've heard this song and the
song is a song. Keep in mind, this is not this.
The songs are not narratives. The songs are poetic expressions
of reality. Poetry, if you could dare say,
is the language of experience. And so when the when the psalmist
wrote, they were writing their experience, they were praising
God, they were expressing their understanding of who God is,
what he's done, quoting him and then saying how they feel about
it. That's what's happening in Psalm 89. But it's not just a
poem for their private collection. This stuff was put to music and
then song in the temple. by everybody. You imagine Psalm
51 being sung before the whole church? The psalm that David
wrote after he murdered, adulterated, lied, deceived, murdered, and
then covered it up? Oh, my sin is forever before
me. In my mother's womb was I a sinner. I mean, does that sound like
a good praise song? That's not going to get in the top 100 They're
not going to sell a lot of CDs in that. Oh, woe is me. Kill me. Lord, dump a mountain
on me. I mean, I've never seen us really...
I saw a call to worship. Let's dump a mountain on our
heads. But that's what they were. They were psalms. So understand
the genre of this writing. It's not historical narrative,
though it presses and pushes into the understanding of what
might be happening, just like in 2 Samuel chapter 7, the psalmist
here, Ethan, he is saying, I'm quoting now, I've made a covenant
with my chosen one. Verse three, I have sworn to
David, my servant, I will establish your offspring forever. Forever. and build your throne for all
generations. You know, I can confess to you
that as a child, when I sang that song, I will sing of the
mercies of... I had no idea it was talking
about establishing the kingdom of David forever. I thought it
was just something cool for me to sing about how happy Jesus
made me. See how easily we can just abuse
the Scripture? Oh, that's not abuse. Yes, it
is. It is. When we take a powerfully strong
theology, a strong doctrine, the teaching of who God is, and
we just water it down as a children's rhyme. That's OK. Children remember it, but then
when they grow up, teach them. But I'll be straight with you. Adult
choirs sing that song. Nothing wrong with the song,
but I didn't understand it. I played my own application to
it. Oh, God, so merciful, I got a
parking lot at Wal-Mart parking space at Wal-Mart. Yeah, I will
sing the mercies of the Lord. Well, my tire blew out and I
didn't burst into flames. Yeah, I'm not saying we shouldn't
be thankful for those things, but that's not what this text
is talking about. This text is talking about the mercies of
God and the steadfast love of God. Toward a man named David,
who was an absolute murderer. Who deserved everything but mercy. and whose enemies were the world,
and they were small. And God said, I will establish
you as a kingdom and all your enemies will be under your feet.
And not just you, when you have fulfilled your days, your descendants
will. And who are the descendants of
David? They died. Where are they? That's why so many people think
that there's going to be a temple in Jerusalem. And sacrifices
are going to start being given to God when they were all shadows
of Jesus Christ. What blasphemy. Let's think through
it for a minute. If that's true, then Christ is
a liar and a fraud. When he said it is finished,
he went, except for y'all. When John the Baptist said, behold,
the Lamb of God, he didn't really mean it. It's just poetic. So what we see here is we're
seeing the faithfulness of God brought to life. The faithfulness
of God brought to the forefront. The faithfulness of God is being
praised as this psalm begins by the very one who's about to
get to the point of saying, where are you, God? You appear to be
faithless and I just I'm worshiping you for your faithfulness. You
see it? And so here in these first four
verses, we see the singing in worship of the mercies of God's
faithfulness. God is faithful in his steadfast
love. God is faithful to all generations. God is faithful in his covenant.
God is faithful forever. Those are key words there forever.
Faithful forever. Faithful forever. Just in the
first four lines of this song. And then the second part of that,
verses five through eight, we said the heavens praise your
wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness is in the assembly of the holy
ones for you, for who in the skies can be compared to the
Lord, who among the heavenly beings is like, where is he talking
about? Heaven, the angels. the festal
gatherings of heavenly beings. So, oh, we praise you in the
temple, Lord. We praise you on the earth. Now
they praise you. They praise you in the heavens.
And so the second part that we see in Psalm 89 is that there's
there's There's praise for the faithfulness of God in Heaven.
There's praise for the faithfulness of God on Earth. And there's
praise for the faithfulness of God in Heaven. The Scripture
teaches us, the Apostles tell us, that angels look inquisitively
and excitedly into the things of salvation. Why? For they love
the Lord God with all they are. And everything the Lord loves
and everything the Lord does is interesting to them. And more
than interesting is absolutely an opportunity for worship. Now
ask yourself the question, is everything the Lord does and
is interesting and an opportunity for worship? Oh, I'm born again, but I'm bored
to tears in worship service. I'll tell you, for young people,
if it was a boyfriend or a girlfriend sitting up here talking about
their boring morning, they'd listen. Yeah, I brushed my teeth and
then I had something in my mouth and then I had to get my dental
floss out and be like, oh, that's so cool. Or if it was our most beloved
artist or guitar player or actor or athlete, there better not be some famous
person sticking his face in that window while I'm trying to teach
the Word of God because I'll probably kick him backwards like
that. Hey, y'all, get on back. You're getting in the way of
glory, man. Move your butt down there. Go down there and get
a tattoo. You see? Test ourselves. We're all like that. Where did
that come from? Grab that one on video. But the heavens. Are we amazed? Great is thy faithfulness. Great
is Thy faithfulness. Are we amazed at that? Are we
amazed that no matter what travels our life, no matter what river
we end up flowing, barely drowning into, that God is faithful to
save us? So God is praised for His faithfulness
on the earth. God is praised for His faithfulness
in the heavens. In verses 9-13, listen to these
words. You rule the sea. You rule the raging of the sea. You know what that means? Have
you ever seen a sea in a storm? You ever been out a little ways?
You ever been on a yacht or a fishing boat a little ways from the shore? You ever been just a calm sea
per se? It has the swells. I can't stand
it. Can't stand it. I can't stand
that a wall of water could come up beside the boat. And that's not a raging sea. It's like putting a bathtub full
of water and then putting a piece of pepper in it. And just taking
your hand and just whooshing it back in two and trying to
see where the pepper goes. You can't find it. Rules the raging sea. Places that our creation cannot
even go to because of the depths of the sea. You crushed Rahab
like a carcass. God is the God of the sea. You
scattered the enemies with your mighty arm. Crushed Rahab like
a carcass. What's that mean? Why would you
stick Rahab in there? Why would you do that? Because
God is the God of history. God is sovereign over the things
of man. The heavens are yours. The earth
is yours also. The world and all that is in
it, you have founded them. God, you own the cosmos. You own the universe. You own
everything in it. How dare the clay tell the potter
what to do? I use this illustration a lot
of times when I'm teaching young children, especially the chapels
of some of the private schools and kindergarten, first, second
grade to take a crayon. And I, as the master drawer,
are going to draw a cat. And the first time I ever tried
to illustrate this, I took it, I said, I'm going to draw a cat.
And on this piece of paper, I start to draw a cat and I draw a kite
real close. It's not what I wanted. Sounds
about the same? Cat. Kite. It's not what I wanted. And so
I try again to draw a cat and a kite comes out. And I take
the crayon and I break it into pieces and I throw it. Buzz your
minds. I said, that's how it is with
us and God. He owns you. You are not His
master. You don't tell Him what to do.
He does what He pleases. And that should horrify us that
God is the master of it all. He owns the north and the south. He owns Tabor and Hermon, the
highest places in Jerusalem. The mighty mountains, the sea. You have a mighty arm strong
as your hand, high as your right hand. You rule. That should horrify
us. But when we also know In verse 14, look at this. Righteousness
and justice are the foundation of your throne. So God, though
He is mighty and should be feared, is always just and is always
right. And your steadfast love and faithfulness
go before you. The reputation that you have,
O mighty God, is that we do not have to fear you because what
you do will be right and just. But we fear You with awe, and
we fear You with wonder, and we fear You with respect and
with reverence, for we know what we should see. Your absolute
justice. By Your grace and mercy, You
have placed that justice on the body of the Holy Anointed One,
and You have crushed Him that You might let us free. In the second portion, 14-18,
it teaches us that as God's people, He is faithful to us. God is
faithful to us. Blessed are the people who know
the festal shout, the battle cry, the celebration, the touchdown
victory. That it is finished. And those who not only know The
shadow of the Lord. But walk in the light of Your
face. You walk in the light of the
face of God that is seen only through Jesus Christ. Paul and
2 Corinthians use that exact wording twice in chapter 4. For if our gospel is veiled,
it is veiled to only those who are perishing. For the God of
this world has blinded the eyes of unbelievers to keep them from
seeing the light of the gospel. And then verse 6, God, who said,
let light shine out of darkness, a favorite text in all scripture,
has shown in our hearts what the knowledge, the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
John one, we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from
the father, full of grace and truth, the namesake of this congregation. And so we who are blessed know
the celebration. We know what is coming. We know
who you are. We know you intimately. And because
we know you, look at verse 16, we exult in your name. That means we have joy in your
name. Exaltation is adoration and praise. Exaltation is joy that comes
from it. We celebrate. We rejoice. Do you exult in the Lord because
of His favor? He knows His people and His people
know Him. Verses 19 and 20. We see the
sovereignty of God coming into a clear picture. We've seen God's
praise on earth and heaven. We've seen God's power over all
creation. And we've seen God's we've seen
God's people and his faithfulness to them. And now we see God's
choices, God's sovereignty over his people. He says, what does
he say in verse 19? of old you spoke in a vision
to your godly one and said, I have granted help to one who is mighty. I have exalted one chosen from
the people. I have found David, my servant,
with my holy oil I have anointed him. You see that? God chose
of all the people of the world, David. And do you realize that
when the prophet was selecting who would be the successor to
Saul, All the sons of Jesse were brought before him except David. And he says, none of these men,
none of these boys are fit. None of these God has put on
me to anoint as the new king. Don't you have another son? Oh,
yeah, a little David out there. Surely not David. Bring him here. He's not a king material, okay?
He's not kings. He's a hunter, gatherer, shepherd
type thing. He's a good guy, but he's not
king material. He's a poet for crying out loud.
He plays a harp. We don't need a soft, tenderfoot musician as
a king. One of these guys will do, bring
me the boy. He anointed him. This is him.
This is him. God's choice is sovereign. In
verse 21, God's power is sovereign over his choices. So that my
hand shall be established with him. My arm shall also strengthen
him. He's weak, but watch my strength.
He's he's not really fit, but watch me establish him as a ruler. Watch me. That's why it bugs
me so much when when people look at degrees and pedigree for ministry. When God shows the lowly things
of this world to dumbfound the wise and the nothings of the
world to bring to nothing the things that are. First Corinthians
chapter one being wise and more stupid. We think we know best
and we end up with Hagar's in our past. We end up with God's and I'm
not saying Hagar's the problem, I'm just saying you see the point. doing what God, against what
God has promised. Well, we'll just help God out.
There's a door. Sounds right. Go through it.
We fall on our face. Thank God for His faithfulness
in giving strength to His people. God's power with God's choices. Verse 22 shows us God's protection. God's protection. The enemy shall
not outwit Him. The enemy will not take Him out. The wicked shall not humble Him. In verse 23, the providence of
God's election, God's choices. I will crush his foes before
him and strike down those who hate him. You notice that had
nothing to do with what David would do. In Ephesians 6, when
we see Paul teaching to the Ephesian church, he doesn't say, you get
ready and fight this way. He says, you stand firm in the
fullness of the mighty hand of God with all the armor of God. Whose armor? God's. Who wears
it? God does. Put on the fullness
of who God is. And stand there. Stand there. For God is our victor. Christ is victorious over not
just the enemies of the world, though they slay us, Paul says,
we are not dead. Though we die, yet we live. That's
2 Corinthians chapter 4 too, by the way. I will crush your foes. Verses 24-27, My faithfulness
and my steadfast love shall be with him. This is God speaking.
And in my name shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand
on the sea. You see that? We already hear
that God rules over the raging sea with his mighty hand. Now
God is saying, I will set the hand of my chosen one on the
sea, and His right hand on the rivers. He shall cry to me, You
are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. And I will
make Him the firstborn and the highest of the kings of earth."
This is God's prominence with His choices. God sets men
in prominence so that He might be seen preeminent. Now, I want
you to, when you hear this language, do you hear Paul to the Colossians? Jesus Christ is the visible image
of the invisible God, the exact imprint of His nature, who holds
up the power, the cosmos, the world by the word of His power.
And all things were created by Him and through Him and for Him. He is before all things. He is the firstborn of all creation,
that in all things He might be preeminent. Jesus Christ is the
seed of David, is the Lion of Judah. He is the Chosen One. The word Christ, Christos, means
Holy, Anointed One. And so that even as God established
David's throne in the days of Israel and Judah, God's main
purpose was to show the shadow of the eternal David, who was
Jesus Christ the Lord. And it has no permanence, it
has no significance except to point to that little window as
we shop for the thing that we love the most, knowing that it's
just a small display. It's just a trailer. It's just
a teaser of the real that's about to come. And Jesus is the One. In verse 28 and 29, we see the
blessing of the prodigy. The children. The offspring.
God is faithful to continue to establish His offspring. The
church will not fail. My steadfast love I will keep
for Him forever, and my covenant will stand firm for Him, and
I will establish His offspring forever and His thrones as the
days of heaven." Do you really think that God is going to bring a
new world where Jesus is the King of kings and put a man on
a throne? What is that? What is that but
Roman Catholicism? Oh, it's to be a new kingdom
though, you know. What is that but the entryway to the cults?
To Mormonism? Jehovah's Witness? And the like. The only King is Christ. The
only throne is the throne of God. Holy is the Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb. And David
will be there on his face next to me and you. And he won't have a crown that
doesn't belong to the praises of his King. Verses 30 through 37. These eight
verses. shows God's faithfulness in a
new way. I'm faithful to sustain and establish blessing against
those future generations, but I will also show you that I'm
faithful to my righteousness and that I will discipline those
who are mine. If His children forsake my law
and do not walk according to my rules, if they violate my
statutes and do not keep my commands, I will punish their transgression
with the rod and their iniquities with stripes. We talked about
this last week, church. Don't sit in a passive way thinking
that just because you are the elect of God by faith alone in
Jesus Christ that you are not going to suffer when you sin
against God. You will not be condemned for
eternity, but God will bring discipline on you. The consequences
of sin are not death for us Christians, but we might as well wish it
was in the life. And that's a loaded statement
and it sounds dogmatic, but I want to show you the expression of
it. Don't build such deep theology there that it uproots the gospel
of grace. Do not ignore the commands of
Christ. Do not ignore the holiness without
which no one will see the Lord. Do not ignore the fact that without
faith we cannot please Him. Do not ignore the fact that your
faith is not private. It is personal, but it is for
the sense of the body alone. And sadly, sometimes we pray
for God to do things on our behalf. We say, Oh God, why don't You
do this when we are living in absolute disobedience? He will
not answer our prayers. He will not. But even though He will bring
discipline, verse 33 says, I will not remove from Him my steadfast
love. And I will not be a liar. I will
not be false to my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant
or alter the word that went forth from my lips. Once for all, I
have sworn by my holiness. I will not lie to David. His
offspring... See, here's the reiteration of
the covenant. His offspring shall endure forever
and his throne as long as the sun before me. Like the moon, it shall be there
forever, a faithful witness to the skies. And then the psalmist. Now this
is the words of God. Now the psalmist in verse 38, 39. These
are the troublesome ones. He's talking to God. God was
speaking. Now the psalmist is speaking.
Singing. He says, but now you, God, Have
cast off and rejected. You are full of wrath against
your anointed. You have renounced the covenant
with your servant. Some people talk. Maybe this is when the
kingdom divided, when Israel and Judah divided. There's a
lot of controversy about even the date of this or who's specifically
talking about. I don't think it really matters.
Because the point of the Davidic kingdom and the point of Israel
as a people who were not a people who God saved out of want. Babylon. Babylon. Abram was Babylonian. Abram was Chaldean from Ur. He wasn't. He wasn't Israel. God snatched out of paganism
a man and said, You're my anointed. You're my chosen. What is that
a picture of? Well, we keep going to Paul. Out of the domain of darkness,
God has transferred us into what? The light of the kingdom of His
glorious Son. He snatches us out of death. He snatches us
when we're dead in our sins. He snatches us when we're unable
to even see the light and we think that there's no hope and
despair and death. And He brings us out of darkness
into light and sets us to the side of the sun. But now the psalm is saying you've
cast off your debt, you're full of wrath. You've renounced the
covenant with your servant. You've defiled his crown in the
dust. You have breached his walls and
you've laid the strongholds to ruin. This is God's judgment. But I would say that in some
sense of a shadow, what happened to Christ? What happened to Jesus
the Christ, the King of Heaven, who came into this earth to be
born of a virgin, who left the glory of eternity and to become
like the creation, to lay Himself bare, to place Himself in the
hands of men He created in order to do worship and give Him worship
and praise and honor and glory? And they spat upon Him, they
beat Him, and they turned Him over for death. Oh my God, my
God, why have you forsaken me? When David cried those words
to God in the Psalms, Jesus cried them also. So if we make those parallels there,
and I don't know, it doesn't even take any study from me,
I just see it. I just see it. When I see this, I think that's
what God did to Christ. That's the righteousness and
the justice of God against the Son of God, Romans 3, whom He
put forward as propitiation, what? In order that He might
display His justice and His righteousness. It pleased God to crush the Son.
That's messed up. We think of that and go, why?
Because God's righteous. God is just. God is holy. And the psalmist is crying out
here, not necessarily knowing what's going on. David's kingdom
is gone. God, you promised it wouldn't
go. But our hope, if you want to put it in there, the hope
of us as human beings is in the earthly kingdoms. Our hope is
in our government. Our hope is in our communities.
Our hope is in our jobs. Our hope is in our economy. Our
Internet. We've had a tier two outage with
Comcast's Internet over the last three or four days here. And
there's businesses that haven't been able to do any business,
take any credit cards, do anything. It's been awful. And that's just
a snafu on a server. We put our trust in it. If a temperature variance on
a CPU can cause businesses to fail, we really need to make
sure our trust is in something. Imagine what it would be like
in your town if nobody picked up garbage for a week. If nobody
swept the streets for a month. If the sewers no longer worked
and the water didn't run. You couldn't flush the toilet. Don't put your trust in earthly
things or earthly kingdoms. God established them all and
Christ will bring them all to their knees as they cry, Jesus
is Lord. And then the psalmist begins
to cry out, look what's happened because of what you've done. The king
has scorned and plundered. You've exalted his enemies. You've
made joy in his enemies. You've turned back the edge of
his sword. You've not made him stand in battle. He no longer has slender because
of you. You've cast his throne to the ground. You've made him
old before his time. You cut short the days of his
youth. So that means he's old before his time. You've covered
him with shame. You might think, well, this is
a complaint, not a complaint. It's a it's an understanding about
the sovereignty of God, and instead of looking at the world and saying,
wow, look what they've done to us, look what our enemies have
accomplished, look what this world and this life have brought
to me. The psalmist looks to the heavens and says, oh, God,
you have established all of this by your mighty sovereign hand.
As you already said, we know that you are righteous and faithful
and just, and your steadfast love will endure forever. Don't
we see that? And he cries out, how long, O
Lord, will you hide? God, you are the cause of our despair,
you are the author of it, but there is a greater good for it.
We know that you are loving toward us. How long will you hide yourself? Will it be forever? Will your
wrath burn like fire? Remember, my life is short and
you've created me that way, so don't be slow to your promises.
Because no man can live and never see death. Who can deliver the
soul of man from the power of death? Oh, Lord, Where is your steadfast
love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David? Remember
how your servants were mocked and how I bear in my heart the
inserts of all the nations with which your enemies mock, with
which they mock the footsteps of your anointed." You see this? Even in the mockery, even in
the injustice, even in the destruction, The psalmist is praising God
and trusting in Him, even in despair. Lord, You have established
this. You can bring us through this.
We trust in You. And look what he says. Blessed
be the Lord forever. Your enemies are laughing. And something's got to give.
Are you faithful, God? God is faithful, church. And I think God is faithful because
He's eternally immutable. Let me give you some things in
closing to think about as we recap this. God is eternally immutable. He's forever unchanging in His
love for people. And so, therefore, He's eternally
immutable in His creating of a people. Adam and Eve and all the inhabitants
of the earth And God is eternally immutable in establishing a covenant
of salvation for a people before they fell. God's covenant for
salvation was established before Adam and Eve fell. God's covenant
with Abram and with David was established before they ever
were born. Because God's immutable. You know what's amazing about
the immutability of God? is that every attribute of God
is unchanging and eternal. So God's love is forever, always
has been, and never will change. So if God loves you, church,
God has forever loved you, even when you hated Him. God is eternally immutable in
the pulling out of a people from the world as a measure of His
faithfulness. He clothes Adam and Eve. He promises
a Savior. He pulls Noah. He pulls Joseph. He pulls Abram. He pulls David. God is faithful to pull a people
from the world. God is eternally immutable in
showing the shadow of grace to the world. through Israel. God made promises from the beginning
days and He showed them effectively in the people of Israel. Even
in their sin when they were disciplined, He kept a remnant there. Though
they have destroyed their testimony, though they have defiled My name,
though they have come in and laid down with idols, I will
not forsake them. So that means God is eternally
immutable through His means and His methods of salvation. They're
equally immutable. That means there is no different
covenant that establishes the possibility of salvation outside
Jesus Christ alone. And there is no different people
groups through which God will work differently or God has to
be a liar. When God said through Abram,
through your descendants, all the world will be blessed." What
did he mean? Every nation and tongue and tribe. And behold, I looked, John says,
and I saw a myriad of myriad and thousands of thousands from
every nation, tongue and tribe crying, Holy, Holy, Holy is the
Lord God Almighty. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.
And for all of eternity, They worshiped. Do you know what heaven's
like? A never-ending worship of Christ. If you've got to have baseball,
picnics in the park, shopping, cool clothes, big mansion, if
you're looking for all that for eternity, my choice words for
you is to please consider your highest joy and repent of that
idolatry and believe the gospel of Jesus. Heaven isn't going to be like
earth without problems. It's going to put to death the
ways of the earth so we can worship God without time. Because God is eternally immutable,
therefore, His message is unchanging. And His message is sent to His
only people. First, to Adam and Eve. to Israel,
and as Paul says very clearly, not all who are the descendants
of Abraham are Israel, but those that are in Christ are Israel. God is eternally immutable in the rise and the fall of Israel
through history, as well as in the prosperity and the persecution
of the church of Jesus Christ. Equally unchanging. And in the end, because God is
eternally immutable, we need to see that the true anointed
one of God, even as spoken of in this song, is Jesus Christ. The forever king of kings. Is Jesus Christ. The satisfaction
of your soul. Is he the king of your life,
the lord of your passion, the master of your day, the treasure
of your heart, the bread of your stomach, and the water of your
thirst. If He's not, cry out that He
might be. Pray that God would bring clear
vision and hope and faith and salvation to your soul. Let's
pray. Lord, we praise You with all
that we are, all that we're able to, Lord, and it's not enough. We long for the day when Your
kingdom will set forever upon the horizon of eternity. And our one true King of the
lineage of David, born of a woman, Most beloved, Jesus Christ. As the King sat in this world,
hated by men, washing the feet of His disciples, dying on the
cross for His enemies. And Lord, in eternity, He will
serve us at the banquet of His own wedding. What a Savior. What faithfulness. Prepare our
hearts to see and to be satisfied in Christ alone. Save those among
us, Lord. Plant the gospel in the hearts
of our children that they may inquire and seek salvation and
come to faith in Christ. Undergird us in our trials and
in this life because we cannot stand without You. that though
we think You have departed, Your faithfulness is forever. And
though we suffer sometimes because of our sin and disobedience,
Lord, help us to realize sometimes we suffer when we're walking
straight with You. But through it all, we trust
in You. In Jesus' name, Amen.