Turn back to Psalm 89. I want
to, as the Lord enables me, to preach Christ and Him crucified. And not only that, but this morning
I want to follow his example in preaching. We find that example
in his words in Luke 24. Let me read you two occasions. He says, first of all, And beginning
at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all
the Scriptures the things concerning himself." He did that with just
a couple of people after the resurrection when he met them
on the road to Emmaus. And then a little while after
that, in a larger group, It says, And he said unto them, These
are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law
of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning
me. Then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the Scriptures." The psalmist in this 89th Psalm speaks of a people who are said
to be blessed. I hear a lot of people today
telling me that they are blessed. But here are some people that
God Himself says are blessed. And that word means happy. They are happy. Oh, how happy are these people! And that is amazing because in
verse 14 it says, justice and judgment are the habitation of
thy throne. How in the world if judgment
and justice is what characterizes the throne of God. How in the
world could sinners who have sinned against God ever be said
to be happy or blessed? These are presently and unchangeably
and eternally happy. And he says they are happy because
of a reason. Look down with me in verse 15. He says, blessed is the people
that know the joyful sound. They're blessed and they're happy
Because they know the joyful sound. It's as if there is a
sound or a song or music that bears a certain distinction to
them that makes them truly rejoice. Well, we might ask ourselves
this question, and that's the title of my message. Have you
heard the joyful sound? Or do you know the joyful sound? I believe that this is a reference
to the jubilee trumpet, a particular sound of that jubilee trumpet. Because God told Moses on Mount
Sinai that when they settled in the land of promise, At the
end of seven of those Sabbath years, there was a rest. And then after seven sevenths
of those Sabbath years, that is, in the fiftieth year, There
was a trumpet to be sounded and it would mean to those people
something wonderful and glorious and a reason to rejoice. This was called the year of the
Jubilee. It was that 50th year. And you find it, as I said, I
want to follow Christ's example, because here we find it in the
Psalm, and I know it pertains to Christ, and then back over
in the Law, the Law of Moses, in Leviticus chapter 25. Turn back to Leviticus 25, and
hear what is said in verses 8 through 17. He says, and thou shalt number
seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years,
and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty
and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet
of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month. In the day of atonement shall
ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow
the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto
all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you,
and ye shall return every man unto his possession. and ye shall
return every man unto his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth
year be unto you, ye shall not sow, neither reap that which
groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy
vine undressed. For it is the jubilee, it shall
be holy unto you, ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the
field. In the year of this Jubilee,
ye shall return every man unto his possession. And if thou sell
aught unto thy neighbor, or buyest aught of thy neighbor's hand,
ye shall not oppress one another. According to the number of years
after the Jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and according
unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee. According to the multitude of
years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according
to the fewness of the years thou shalt diminish the price of it. For according to the number of
the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee, ye shall not
there oppress one another, but thou shalt fear thy God, for
I am the Lord thy God." Now this year of the Jubilee
is What we find elsewhere expressed in other terms. In Ezekiel, it
is called the year of liberty. In another place, it is called
the year of my redeem. In another place in Isaiah, he
calls it the acceptable year of the Lord. And the Hebrew word
here that means blast of a trumpet has also something to do with
restoration. There was a restoration that
was to take place. And all these things picture
this day of grace between the comings of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the blowing of this trumpet seems to be a picture of the
preaching of the gospel of the grace of God in the Lord Jesus
Christ. I say that because this trumpet
was actually what was called a shofar. It was a ram's horn
that was used to sound this sound on this day, and it simply was
just another picture of salvation by substitution. The gospel is
the sounding of a message of salvation through a substitute. If you remember when Abraham
took Isaac on Mount Moriah and was about to slay him and offer
him as a sacrifice as God had commanded him. Abraham was about
to slit his throat most likely and shed his blood when God stayed
his hand. And he told Abraham not to do
that, but rather to look. There in a thicket was a ram
whose horns were entangled in that thicket. God provided sacrifice. A God-provided substitute, and
he was to take that ram and in the place of Isaac, offer him
up to God as that God-provided and God-satisfying sacrifice. So every time that ram's horn
was blown and this jubilee trumpet was sounded, it was this sound
of salvation in a substitute. And that's the way the gospel
is. But not only that, but because
of the day that it was to be sounded on. Not only was this
to be done in that 50th year, not only was it to be done by
this trumpet, this jubilee trumpet, but it was to be done on a certain
day. And you read the text, it was
the day of atonement. And that atonement simply means
something about one being at one with God. There is only one
way that we could be at one with God. And that was on the Day of Atonement. You can read about it back in
Leviticus chapter 16. But on the Day of Atonement,
the high priest was to dress himself in a special way. He was to put on a certain garment
which signified a representation of Christ in His sinless, perfect
humanity. And also in the glory of His
divinity as God with all the gold and precious stones, He
was to go and to take two goats to this ceremony. They were to
cast lots on the goats, and whatever lot fell on the Lord's goat,
That goat was to be taken and slain, its blood shed, and offered
as a sin offering. But there was another goat, and
that lot that fell on that goat was the lot of the people represented. And they were to take, he was,
Aaron was to take that goat and put his hands on the head of
that goat and confess the iniquities of Israel. In other words, if there is a
better and more glorious picture of imputation in this book, I
don't know where you'd find it. When it says in Isaiah 53, the
Lord hath laid on him or made to meet on his head our iniquities,
that's what it's alluding to. The real and genuine transference
of the responsibility of all our sins to this sacrifice that
God has appointed. And whenever those things were
done, and the priest did that, laying his hands on the head
of this goat, which now becomes the scapegoat. You're familiar
with that term. Well, this is the scapegoat. This is the goat that represents
the people. And it says that when that took
place, he was to be taken by a fit man, And as a result of
a finished sacrifice, he was to be led out in the wilderness,
picturing sins forgiven and put away, never to be remembered
again. That's what takes place on the
cross. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquities of his people. He sheds his blood." Actually,
these two goats represent two aspects of the dying of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He dies as our substitute with
our sins imputed to Him, and as a result of that, we go free,
and our sins are never ever remembered by Him anymore. And if you think that that is
not an accurate a representation of what is being spoken of in
that text, just go to Hebrews 9 where Christ is the one compared
to Aaron or contrasted to Aaron in the very same things that
are represented. He did this and atonement was
made. And atonement has to do with
reconciliation. How in the world could this people
know the joyful sound? How could it be that God as He
is can enable them to rejoice in Him and find favor with Him? It is simply by this reconciliation. So on that 50th year, and on
this particular day, That priest was to take that shofar, that
ram's horn, that picture of salvation by substitution, and he was to
sound it out on the day of atonement. He was to sound out a message
of a finished work, of a finished salvation, of a complete work,
and it was to be the announcement of good news. Paul writes in Romans chapter
5, He says, "...for if, when we
were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,
much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only so, but we also
joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. But don't ever think for one
minute that atonement was a mere covering up of sin. The word in the Hebrew has to
do with a covering up. But when you get to the New Testament,
where this word is translated here in Romans 5, atonement,
the word is actually reconciliation. Paul is saying that in Jesus
Christ we have a full and complete reconciliation, that God was
in Christ reconciling us unto Himself. Hebrews 2 says, "...Wherefore
in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren,
that He might be a merciful, and a faithful high priest in
things pertaining to God." Who's he talking about there? He's
showing that in order for Christ to be the true high priest, He
must be associated with His brethren, and in that role as their great
High Priest, He would be a faithful and a merciful High Priest in
things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of
the people. What was He doing on that cross?
He was making reconciliation for the sins of His people. God was in Christ reconciling
them unto Himself. So now, on the basis of this
finished work, on the basis of this salvation accomplished,
just as it was in the picture, the trumpet is now to be sounded. Reconciliation has been made. The gospel to the Lord's people
now is called the gospel of peace. The message that goes out to
them as good news and glad tidings. Glad tidings. Isaiah had recorded, and it shall
come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown,
and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of
Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall
worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem." Well, if
you apply that literally to the nation of Israel, It just will
not work. It just has not come to pass. It just never will come to pass. But everyone that is taught of
the Spirit of God, knows that this has to do with the calling
out and the news being given to all of God's spiritual Israel
concerning what God in His infinite mercy and grace has done for
them in Christ. How are they described? They shall come which were ready
to perish. God brings us to an end of ourselves. He brings us to see that we have
nothing and can do nothing to save ourselves. They're described
as the outcasts of the land of Egypt. Jew, Gentile, Young, old,
rich, poor, learned and unlearned, this message so plain that a
wayfaring man shall not err therein so clear to those it was meant
for." And what will they do? They shall worship the Lord in
the holy mount at Jerusalem. That's His church. You look in
the Revelation. That New Jerusalem. That Mount
Zion. That's the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ. When they hear this joyful sound,
and it is good news to those who are ready to perish. It is
good news to those that from God are spiritual outcasts. And what will they do when they
hear this, that is, believe the truth? They're going to worship
Him. They're going to praise Him. And just as the sounding of this
jubilee trumpet, the gospel is going to mean to them some wonderful
things, some reasons to be glad in. Some reasons to rejoice in. What reasons for rejoicing does
the gospel, the gospel of free grace, the gospel of of finished
salvation, full salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. What reasons
for rejoicing does it bring? Just like this jubilee trumpet. Well, here's the first thing
it meant. You go back and you read there
in Leviticus chapter 25 and verse 10 again, and you'll find some
things. And the first thing you find
is that when that jubilee trumpet was sounded, that meant that
everyone was to cease from all their works and all their labors. I remember hearing some old folks
talk about some of the The WPA workers, they kind of cast a
reflection that maybe there was a possibility some of them didn't
quite have enthusiasm in their work. But they said that a WPA
worker might have been so lazy that if he lifted an axe to cut
a tree and the whistle blew, he just left the axe hanging
in the air. It was quitting time. I don't know about that. But
I know this, when that jubilee trumpet sounded all throughout
the land of Israel, what everyone was doing, whatever labor they
were engaged in, they were at that minute to stop, and from
that point on, the rest of that year, they were not to till or
sow or work. It was the jubilee. You wouldn't mind that, would
you? Whole year. Is that what they mean when they
say, we're going to take a sabbatical? I don't know. But it meant that
all works, all labors were ending. And that is exactly what the
gospel says. That's exactly the sweet sound
of the good news of the gospel of Christ is. Because it sounds
out salvation by grace, and the apostle says, for by grace are
ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. You know
why some people don't like the gospel? Because whether they
admit it or not, they are in themselves striving and laboring
and depending and thinking upon something that they have done
or something that they are doing or something that they intend
to do to recommend themselves to God and be a basis upon which
you justify. But Paul says again, "...but
to him that worketh not, but believes on him that justifieth
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." And since we're talking about
the psalmist, Paul goes back and mentions the psalmist. He
says, even as David also describes the blessedness of the man under
whom God imputes righteousness without works. I'll tell you a sinner who's
found out that every effort he has, everything he's tried to
do, All the reformations he's made have never given him peace
of conscience toward his sins in the sight of God. When he
finds out that this way that he thought was natural to him,
this way that religion always presented him that is to do and
be saved, that salvation is really the opposite of that. God saves by His free gift apart
from our works, and then we do. Writing to Titus, Paul says,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to His mercy He saved us. To Timothy he says, "...who has
saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." In other
words, Christ is our Sabbath. We rest in Him. We rest in Him,
and we shall have even greater rest in Him. He's our jubilee. His gospel sounds out this message,
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll
give you rest. If we weren't so blind, we'd know
that's the greatest reason to rejoice. He says, "...there remaineth
therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that entered into
his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did
from His." Why did God say at the end of creation that He rested? You think He got tired? No. That means He finished it. And
when our Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and lived that
perfect, holy, and sinless life to show Himself the perfect God
appointed and provided sacrifice, when He died on that cross, He
said it exactly the way it was. It is finished. This is the Sabbath. This is the rest. This is the
Jubilee year. And so we are to cease from every
effort to save ourselves, cease from laboring under the burden
of our sins, cease from working to gain satisfaction and happiness,
because grace has superabounded. An old preacher had something
to say about this grace that I couldn't resist bringing to
you this morning. He said, we are taught in this
God's power to provide. Now I want you to listen to this. God has power to provide. We're always worrying about things. He says, a plentiful harvest
depends not solely upon our prudent thought. God wills. and crops abound. He speaks and
garners are full. Thus through this year of rest,
need never came. This marvel is so marvelous because
the Jubilee succeeds a Sabbath year." Think about that. The Jubilee year, with this no
toil, no plant, no gather, no anything, it was on the heels
of a Sabbath year which said virtually the same thing. Well,
they'll starve to death, won't they? This news is too good to
be true. Don't you think it'd be more
prudent if we put a little and or but with it? Oh, I know that salvation is
by grace, but... or salvation is by grace and... no. He goes on, he says, "...in that
also seeding and reaping had not stirred, in that no grain
had been collected with precautionary care, but God gave forth a triple
harvest in each forty-eighth year, thus through the long repose,
Previous abundance ministered full food. As the poor widow's
meal and oil, it provided an unexhausted feast. And as Joseph's
well-replenished store, it fed the hungry and never failed." God can provide. And in the salvation of sinners
in Jesus Christ, He has provided. And just as these were announced
and declared to be engaged in ceasing of their labor, so does
the gospel say to us. Call it off. That's not to say that the Lord's
people do not do those good works He has ordained for them to do.
But they do no work to gain His favor and the salvation of their
souls. But not only that, when that
trumpet was sounded, it was a sound that said, every slave must go
free. Well, some slave owner says,
well, I just bought that one yesterday. It doesn't matter. And someone over here says, well,
I've just been a slave so long I don't know anything else. Go
free. All those in bondage, in servitude,
they were set free. And a certain aspect of our salvation
is liberation and deliverance from slavery. We're slaves to sin. We obey
that master. We're slaves by nature to Satan,
said to be captives at his will. We're slaves to this world. And
we're under a just condemnation from the law and justice of God. We're under the dominion of a
fallen nature. We have a will, but it's not
free. It's bound. We're like a man
in a prison cell. You know how a man in a prison
cell is? He's like a goldfish in a tank. You could say there's
a sense in which he's free. That little goldfish is free
to swim from one end of the tank to the other, and up and down,
but he's not free to get out of the tank. You could say, stretching
it, that a man in a prison cell has a liberty. Oh, he can walk
to one end of his cell of his others, he can bang on the bars,
he can do this and that, but he can't get out. That's the way we are as sinners. But in the Gospel, there's liberation. Paul said, now the Lord is that
Spirit? and where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there's liberty." Do you hear that? Where the Spirit of
the Lord is, there's liberty. What does that mean? Is that
a liberty to just do whatever you want? He says that where the Spirit
of God is, Christ said, where I send my Spirit, He will take
the things of mine and show them to you." Paul said, the Spirit
of God takes the things which are freely given to us and shows
them to us. That's why wherever you find
a gospel, where men and women, after they hear of it, are bound
more and more, enslaved more and more, under bondage more
and more, that is not the gospel. Christ said, And ye shall know
the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Somebody's always
worrying if someone will take that too far. The truth that liberates us never
makes us antinomians in the sense that men use that term. It sets
us free to serve the Lord Jesus. If the Son therefore shall make
you free, you shall be free indeed. Paul says, being then made free
from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ hath made us free from the law of sin and death. Stand fast, he says, therefore
in the liberty wherein Christ hath made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Christ came to set
the captives free. Free from the curse of the law.
Free from the condemnation of justice. Free in Christ. Can you just imagine some old
slave It's boiling hot. He's labored. He has no sense of doing anything
except it be because he has to. Because if he doesn't, his master
will crack him on the back, like a lot of so-called preachers
in our day. You don't do what they say, do
they? They'll crack you on the back. They'll put you on a guilt
trip. They'll talk about you. Single you out in a congregation
or something. You better get back to that. We serve the Lord as liberated
souls. Like that willing bond slave.
But just imagine this fellow, he's out in the fields, hot,
he's sweaty, he's tired, hadn't been given enough ration. He's
a slave. And all of a sudden that shofar
sound. I found a ransom. Let that sinner
go free. That's what the gospel says.
And you can bind me all you want to. And I have people that try
a lot of times. You can try to put me under a
guilt trip if you want to. You can try to put me under the
bondage of the law if you want to. You can try to put me back
under the curse if you want to. But I've already heard the joyful
sound. And then when that horn sounded,
it meant something else. It meant that everything that
had been sold off, all the property and everything like that, all
of that was to be restored. You ever stop and think about
what we lost in Adam? We lost original righteousness. We lost the favor of God in ourselves. We lost dominion over the earth. We lost fellowship with God.
And we don't even have sense enough to know what else more
we lost. Here's this old Israelite who's
lost his home and he's lost his land. He lost his possession
by one way or another. Some got tricked out of it. Some
had to sell it because of need. Some squandered it, I'm sure,
threw it all away. He got nothing. And one minute here he is, a
bankrupt, poverty-stricken fellow. And when that trumpet sounds,
He's got it all back. That's one of the things that
haunts me in my old age. It's what I've squandered all
my life. What I've not done with what
I should. But the glory of the gospel is,
The glory of the sound of Christ crucified is that we not only
gain everything that was lost in Adam, but in Jesus Christ
we got much more. We are given that imputed righteousness
which is called the everlasting righteousness. We didn't gain
simply a garden paradise somewhere. We got the glorious presence
of God's high and holy heaven in His presence. Unending presence. And we get the righteousness
of God. We get the most precious, valuable,
glorious thing that a created being could ever have. We have eternal life. Eternal
life. We have Christ, and so we have
it all. When that trumpet was sounded,
it meant also something else. It meant that every debt was
cancelled. Every debt was cancelled. The slate of indebtedness was
wiped clean. And if that be a wonderful thing
to experience physically and naturally, how much more spiritually? Because none of the debts that
any of them had could compare to what we owe to the law and
justice of God. We owe perfect obedience in thought
and word and deed. We owe a debt of eternal death
because of our sins. But that trumpet sounds, and
it sounds like something like this. Jesus paid it all. All the debt I owe. Sin had left
a grievous stain. He washed it white as snow. He became our surety and He stood
for the debt and He paid it in full. He redeemed us from the
curse. We're justified freely by His
grace through His sacrifice. We don't owe anything. And then lastly, it meant that
every lost inheritance was reinstated. You see, we're all like Esau's
who've sold our birthrights for a bowl of soup. All our dominion over the earth,
all our relationship with God, all the glorious things that
God has to give to a sinner belongs to those in Christ because it
says that He makes them joint heirs with Christ. You interested
in being a joint heir with Christ? Let me just tell you who he says
that he is. The Bible describes him as the
heir of all things. But when it says that in describing
him, it's describing him as the one that God has spoken to his
people in. Which means that His position
as the heir of all things in this sense is as our head and
mediator. So we have it all. Christ is
all. All that's good, all that God
in grace has purpose to give to us in all. If I have Him,
I have everything. I hear people describe some they
refer to as the man who has everything, the woman who has everything.
That will only fit one person, and that is the one who has Christ.
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated
according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the
counsel of His own will. He's given us grace and made
us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
light. He's given us a promised eternal
inheritance He describes as incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth
not away reserved in heaven for you. And all these things are just
the beginning. Hem of the garment. That's the glad tidings of the
gospel. Compare anything you want to
it, it won't be as good. Get everything else there is
in this world, it won't make your soul rejoice. Gain everything
you can gain in this world, have it. But if you have not Christ,
you're a beggar and a pauper, and you will be for eternity. Look back at Psalm 89. Psalm 89, in the next verse, these walk in the light of His
countenance, that is, they have His favor. And 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." God blesses this people who know
the joyful sound. He's given them an understanding
of this gospel. This gospel of His glory and
grace. and enable them to believe it,
and they rejoice. They live from day to day. They
suffer the pains of this life, the afflictions and the trials,
and they get low, and they feel poor, and they feel a lot of
things still as sinners. But then they'll come under the
sound of that trumpet again. This is my experience preaching.
I'm always preaching to me. And I hear again that sound. I'm not poor, I'm rich. I'm not
sick, I'm well. I'm not a pauper, I have an eternal
inheritance. Though I'm a sinner in myself,
I'm made the righteousness of God in Christ. I'm like that old Israelite somewhere
who may have suffered the loss of all these things. And the
Gospel comes back sweet and clear. I know it's the truth. It makes
me to rejoice. Do we know the joyful sound? He says, He that hath an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit saith. and to the churches. There's an old hymn that bears
this thought some. We have heard the joyful sound,
Jesus saves, Jesus saves. Spread the tidings all around,
Jesus saves, Jesus saves. Bear the news to every land. Climb the steeps and cross the
waves. Onward tis our Lord's command.
Jesus saved, Jesus saved. The only way I'd change that
would probably be, Jesus has saved. He saved us and now He
calls us. wafted on the rolling tide. Jesus
saved, Jesus saved. Tell to sinners far and wide,
Jesus saved, Jesus saved. Sing, ye echoes of the sea. Echo
back, ye ocean caves. Earth shall keep her jubilee. Jesus saves, Jesus saves. May you be found among that people
blessed of the Lord. Happy. because they know the
joyful sound, the gospel of free and full salvation in Christ
alone. Father, thank you this day for
your word, for the sweet remembrance of thy truth, for the blessed
Savior who loved us and gave himself for us, and for that
salvation he by himself alone accomplished on our behalf. We thank you. And we praise you
in Christ's name, Amen.