I want you to turn back this
morning again to that 65th Psalm. Psalm 65. There is a verse in this Psalm
that every person would do well to learn. And I say that because
I'm asking you a question this morning. And it seems to be a
subject that oftentimes arises when you talk with men and women. And my question is simply, are
you happy? Are you happy? Most people say
that happiness is what they want more than anything else. You ask them what they really
want in this life and they say, well, I just want to be happy. And yet, the things that they
get and the things that they do to make them happy, they don't
evidently make them happy. And what is so amazing is then
they go and they get more and they do more of the same, knowing
that what they've already gotten and done hasn't made them happy,
and they get more of the same and do more of the same, and
they're even the much more miserable. They're not happy. I want you
to look down at the fourth verse of Psalm 65, because that first word in Psalm
65 and verse 4 that we have translated as blessed, blessed, or as maybe
we southerners take and make a two-syllable word out of that,
blessed. Whichever way, that word, according
to Strong and others, means happy. As a matter of fact, what it
actually means is something like this, Oh, how happy! So the psalmist is led here by
the Spirit to begin in that statement of verse 4, using that word and
taking into consideration that thought of being happy. As a matter of fact, if you look
in the New Testament, You'll find that the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ is described in this way. It is the gospel of
the blessed God. Happy God? Absolutely right. Happy God. And God is the only
one, and by Him is the only way that, number one, we ever find
out what true happiness is, and number two, the only way we ever
are brought to true happiness. David here states what I would
call a statement of absolute truth. He doesn't bring this
up for discussion. He is led by the Spirit to make
this statement of absolute truth. And yet the Bible tells us, as
we in all those things demonstrate, that the natural man receives
not the things of God. He'll follow his own fallen heart
and understanding. He'll follow the advice of other
sinners as to what real happiness is about, but he will not and
he cannot of himself listen to God and believe what God says,
who is himself the happy You see, David says here that there
is a man, or a woman, he's using this in a general sense, there
is a person somewhere on this earth, he's writing in this song
and psalm, and he's saying there are some people on this earth
that are happy. They are absolutely happy, and
they are blessed of God, which means they're made happy by God
because they've been brought to be happy in God. Somebody said a long time ago
that the foot of man's soul never rests until it finds itself in
God. We only are happy being the sinners
that we are and being those who are created by God and for God. We are only happy in God and
only happy in that way that God says that He makes such as I
and you happy. And he gives us a number of things
here in just one verse. And he begins by saying that
this happiness is to be found and finds, if you would, an origin
in something that men by nature hate, which is the divine and
unconditional election of sinners to salvation. Look back at that
fourth verse. He says, "...blessed is the man
whom thou choosest." Now that's not what we hear in our day.
We hear people told again and again is the thing is if they
will choose God, then they'll be happy. That's not where everything
begins. You see, David goes back and
traces the stream of mercy and goodness and salvation and happiness
all the way back to the fountainhead, which is God himself. In other
words, if there were a stream running wonderful, clear, pure
water somewhere through this property, You and I would know
for sure that we could go back and follow that stream back to
its origin. It had to originate somewhere. There had to be a spring, and
likewise, all the blessings of God. He says, blessed is that
person that God chooses. In other words, it all begins
with God's sovereign choice of a people unto himself. It all begins with God. And it's just like a surveyor
who goes out and he begins to survey and map out a piece of
property. If he does not go and begin at
that point that is fixed and known to be true, if he doesn't
start there and measure and go from that point, he'll be wrong
at every point. And a salvation or even a happiness
that does not begin in God, it will be wrong in every point. You see, the question is not
whether a man or a woman has the ability or even the privilege
to choose. The question is always whose
choice is the first cause of the blessing of salvation? Whose choice originates all these
blessings from God? Now, I don't doubt one bit. that
man is a rational being, or even that he makes many choices, but
he only chooses on the basis of what he is himself by nature,
and he is, according to Scripture, a sinful fallen being, dead spiritually,
and therefore never of himself chooses the things of God. In that garden paradise where
there was not a mob of sinners, where there was not all this
bad environment and influence like men attribute as the cause
of sin in our day, but in a garden paradise, what did he choose? He chose sin. He chose not to
obey God. He chose not to believe God. And when he was faced with God
in human flesh, when the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son
of God, when he walked here on this earth, what did he choose? You go back to Matthew 23. And
our Lord says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets,
and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I
have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and you would not. As a matter of fact, our
Lord looked at those Pharisees, and they had been so diligently
studying the Scriptures they thought. He said, you search
the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life,
and they speak of Me, but you will not come to Me that you
might have life. And when confronted with this
very truth, And you can go back and you can read it there in
Luke's Gospel in the fourth chapter, when our Lord stood up there
in person, God in human flesh, and he's standing there in the
temple, he's read the Scriptures, and he's read the Scriptures
and he reminds them that God did not send a prophet to all
those people in Israel, but sent a prophet to a Gentile woman,
He reminds them how again and again God, in an act of divine
sovereignty, chose out one and left the others. And what did
they do in the face of this same truth and doctrine? They sought
to stone Him and to kill Him. And when a man stands up in our
day to preach the electing, choosing, sovereign grace of God Almighty
to men and women, If God has not done a work in our hearts,
if he has not brought us to be subdued before his throne of
power and grace, we will by nature rebel against the same blessed
truth that he says is the very basis for our happiness as sinners. Blessed is the man that God chooses. And these fall from the lips
of Christ again and again, as well as the Apostle saying it
in so many ways, such as he does in John 15, when he says, you
have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. If this was left
to your choice, left to you as you are in yourself by nature,
you would die in your sins, you would never choose me, but I
have chosen you." And I know you remember old Saul of Tarsus
when God met him there on that road to Damascus. And he interrupted
and he intercepted this man Saul of Tarsus, which was one of his
elect, that he purposed to save and determined to save, and that
Christ came into this world to die in order to save, when he
met him on that road and sent him down to the house of a man
by the name of Ananias. Ananias says to him in Acts 22,
"'The God of our fathers hath chosen you.'" Somebody said,
well, we need to sneak up on people with this doctrine. We
need to just kind of gently slip this in. This is the very first
thing that this man heard from Ananias. "'The God of our fathers
hath chosen you.'" that thou shouldest know his will, and
see that just one, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth."
You see, the truth of this book is that the Lord Jesus Christ
is Himself the very first of God's elect. Somebody wrote an
old hymn a long time ago, I read it, In this part, in a sermon,
I believe it was by Mr. Spurgeon, but this is what one
little verse in that hymn says. It says, Christ be my first elect,
he said, then chose our souls in Christ our head. That's what I'm talking about.
Blessed is that person. Happy is that person that the
Lord has chosen. And that choice, being in the
Lord Jesus Christ, when He says of Him in Isaiah 42, God says,
"...behold My servant, whom I uphold." mine elect, in whom my soul delights,
I have put my Spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles." God calls His Son before He ever comes into
this world. He calls Him His elect, and that
is because He is the one chosen of God and the one in whom all
His people are chosen. And so the stream of this happy
message. You know, the Bible is called
glad tidings. So what we find is that Paul,
writing to the church at Ephesus, begins in that first chapter
and the third verse with this same word, "...blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now think about this. Is it not amazing? And is it
not reflective of our state and condition as sinners? When the
very thing that it says made God very happy, or pleased God,
blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who
hath blessed us. blessed us. God, you could say
it like this, God was happy to make his people happy in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now listen to what he says, "...who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings, in heavenly places
in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world." He chose his people in Christ before the foundation
of the world. And Paul goes on to state when
he writes to those Thessalonians in that second epistle, and he
contrasts with them who are deluded and who receive not the love
of the truth. He says, "...but we are bound
to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of
the Lord." In other words, this is something that God did toward
his people as an act of love. He says, "'Brethren, beloved
of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you
to salvation.'" Now, I hear preachers and see writers all the time
who try to reverse this and make it something like this. God chose
in His grace to give everybody a chance. Or God chose to send
the gospel, and you can hear the gospel and make your decision.
Or God did this, or God did this, or God chose—it doesn't matter
what God did, it doesn't matter what God chose, if He did not,
in our state, choose us to salvation, choose to save us. not to make
us savable, but chose us to a free and full and salvation that is
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I just imagine that somewhere
on this weekend, some preacher is going to quote a verse to
you. And that verse will be in Psalm
32. Listen to what it says, "...blessed is the nation whose God is the
Lord." And somehow, I do not know how, but somehow they'll
try and twist that and make that nation to be the United States
of America, and they'll call us a Christian nation. We aren't
even close. to being a Christian nation.
The nation that he's talking about here is that elect church
of God which he chose in Christ before the world began, and he
can say, surely of them, happy is the nation whose God is the
Lord and the people he hath chosen for his own inheritance. I live amidst Americans. I've
lived amongst Americans almost 64 years, and I haven't found
them to be a very happy people at all. They're complaining.
They're murmuring, they're bickering, they're fighting, they're arguing
about politics, they're debating about wars, they're doing this
and that and the other, they're getting more and more and more
and finding themselves unsatisfied, and now they're beginning to
have less and less and less, and they're still unsatisfied. This is that nation, that people,
Zion, Jerusalem, the church, which is His body. This is that
people that He, in sovereign grace, according to His own will,
and for a reason known only to Himself, chose out of Adam's
race that they might be His people and that they might be His own
inheritance. Happy is that person. chosen in electing grace to be
the objects of God's mercy. And like another hymn writer
wrote in his hymn, he said, "'Tis not that I did choose thee, for
Lord, that could not be. This heart would still refuse
thee, but thou hast chosen me.'" Then he goes on to make this
statement, And he shows us that happiness has to do with a mighty,
effectual calling of God. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causest to approach unto thee. In other words, rather
than being something left into the hands of man, He says, happy
is that person who experiences this blessing, this mighty and
effectual call of God, this divine summons. I suppose that if you
received a little invitation from me, and it was to invite
you to come to a party or to a supper or something like that,
You open that up, you receive it, you pick up the next envelope,
you've gotten the same thing, and it says, Mr. So-and-so, you are hereby summoned
to appear in court such and such and such a day. Now, are you
going to regard both of these letters the same? In other words, what is behind
each and every letter, or each of these letters, has to do with
whoever the authority and power is. You say, well, if I don't
go to Gary's party, it'll be all right. But if I don't go
to court, that's the judge, that's the law of the land behind that.
His might be an invitation, but this is undoubtedly a summons
to appear. I'll never forget a friend of
mine who was a detective, and he always had a lot of court
cases. He always had them in every court, just about. So he
had a court in Onslow County Criminal Court that involved
a murderer, and he thought that was very important. But on the
same day, he was also scheduled to appear in another case in
federal court in New Bern. And so he weighed out what he
thought was the most important and necessary, and so he went
to that trial that was taking place in Oslo County. And so
they called his name as a witness there in the federal court in
New Bern. And somebody stood up in his behalf and in his defense,
he said, well, Detective so-and-so, he's got an important case in
criminal court in Oslo County, that's why he's not here this
morning. That federal judge, he said to the marshal, he said,
you step right up here please, come up here. He said, you go
to Onslow County and you get Detective So-and-so, who's in
criminal court in Onslow County, and you bring him back. You bring
him back to appear in my court." He says, if the judge in Onslow
County puts him in jail at some later time for doing that, he
said, I can get him out. But if I put him in jail, nobody's
going to get him out. What's the difference? The power
of the summons. You see, here are these sinners
chosen of God's grace, but not just simply chosen and left to
their selves as they are when they come into this world, born
in sin and shaped in iniquity, come from their mother's womb,
speaking lies, totally in themselves unwilling with anything toward
God. But He calls us. He issues this
divine summons. And the will of man is not the
cause of any man coming to God in Christ. God Himself is the
cause. And if He chose before He calls,
then that choosing must have surely been unconditional. chosen on the base of what he
saw they would do, because so essential is his power in their
salvation, that he not only had to choose them, but call them,
call them, bring them. As a matter of fact, though they
are all together unwilling in their self, he as the father
has already said to his king, the son, thy people, shall be
willing in the day of thy power." All that God has to do to leave
us for a sinner to perish in their sins, to reject Him to
their death, and to die under His wrath and condemnation, is
leave that sinner to himself. But being the just God that He
is, these that are chosen in Christ and those that are redeemed
by Christ, that justice of God now requires that sin has not
only been paid for on their account, but now requires that they be
set free. Like that federal judge, go and
now set him free, bring him. I love what Jeremiah says, and
what is said of him as every sinner that God says, it's the
same thing. He said, "...the Lord hath appeared
of old unto me, saying, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love." That's what God's love is, everlasting love. If He loved
me in eternity, He loves me right now. If He loves me right now,
He loved me before the world ever was. And if He loves me
now, He's going to love me forever, and nothing I can do can change
His immutable love, which He said is in Christ Jesus. But notice what Jeremiah continues.
He says, "...the Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea,
I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving
kindness have I drawn thee, like velvet ropes, gentle but powerful,
overcoming every natural resistance in us, making us willing in the
day of His power, enabling us to believe what we never would
believe of ourselves, giving us understanding, giving us faith,
the gift of faith. He calls His sheep by His gospel,
in the power of His Spirit, taking this gospel truth and enabling
them to believe what they could not ever believe. Paul says,
as he continues to those Thessalonians, he said, you're not only beloved
of God and chosen to salvation, he says, but whereunto he called
you by our gospel. to the obtaining of the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, it's not my – I'm so
thankful of this – it's not my ability as a preacher. It's not
my communication skills. It's not my talents as an orator,
a storyteller, whatever it is. It's not my ability to do anything. But it is God who takes His Word,
His Gospel, and by His Spirit, He calls effectually and brings
these He's chosen to Christ in faith. He enables them to believe
it. The Lord Jesus says in that amazing
passage in John 6, "...all that the Father giveth me." shall
come to me, and him that comes to me I'll in no wise cast out."
When I preach the gospel, pitiful as it is, and I look at the face
of men and women, some of whom come one time and I never see
them again. Some who come a while, I never
see them again. But the Lord draws my mind back
to that verse. Christ says, "...all that the
Father giveth me shall come to me." He said, "...of the sheep
I have that are not of this foal, them also I must bring." You
see, the responsibility of saving lies with the Savior. He goes on in John 6, he says,
"...it is written in the prophets, and they," who? His sheep, his
elect ones, "...and they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me." He calls
us. You see, salvation is not a chance
thing left up to the wills and choices of rebels, but God mightily
saving some of these rebels by His almighty grace and power. He makes them willing. He brings
them. He calls them. He summons them. He draws them. And they're happy. Are you happy He did that to
you? Are you happy He chose you to that? I'm happy. Are you happy
that He overcame all your natural and religious inclinations of
the wrong kind, that He overcame you and made you willing in the
day of His birth? I'm happy about that. Then He
says this, He says, happy is that person who because God chose
him and causes him, He approaches him. He approaches him. Not somebody man his crown, not
some president that men have elected, but the living God. You'd be happy if Obama would
see you tomorrow morning. If you could get into his office,
and I don't know what you'd say, but you'd probably be happy anyway.
That somebody saw you going in there. This is access into the
presence of God. Blessed, happy is that person. who not only has been chosen
of God in Christ and calls to approach God in Christ, but who
has access to the living God. Now, how can a sinner approach
and come to God? If you remember, Israel was given
the design for a tent or a tabernacle, and there was only a larger area
on the outside, and then a tent within a tent, you might as well
say, a small one in the very middle, and that was called the
Holy of Holies. And that's where the Bible says
that God says, that's where He dwelt. In other words, he manifested
on this earth in what was called the Shekinah glory, a presence
in that Holy of Holies between those golden cherubims over the
Ark of the Covenant. Nobody could go in there except
one God-appointed high priest once a year with a God-appointed
sacrifice. In other words, the Apostle in
Hebrews says that Christ, like every one of those priests, He
could not go in without blood. But listen to what Paul writes
in Ephesians 2. He says, But now, in Christ Jesus,
ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh, near, by the blood
of Christ. You who are so far off in yourself,
you've been made nigh by the blood of Christ. That means through His death,
which is why He is called the Door, or also in John 14, the
Way, the way of righteousness, the
way that God can be just and yet accept us unto His Holy Self,
the way He can be a just God and a Savior. He's the Mediator. And this is Christ and all who
are in Christ we approach unto God. When our Lord Jesus died
on that cross as our substitute, as our Savior, and as our Head
and Representative, when He died, all His people died in Him, they
died to sin, they died to the law, but they were raised with
Him, and it says that they were seated in the heavenlies in Him. Where did he sit down? At the
right hand of the majesty on high. He went into that holy
place of heaven. He approached God as the head
and representative of his people, and God accepted both him and
all them in him. And they now have access by what
the apostle called, by a new and living way, into God's presence. How did that man get into the
wedding feast? By the giver of the feast providing
the wedding garment. How did the prodigal son, how
did he get received? Rebel like he was. Well, the
father had his servants to put on the best robe on him. That's
the robe of God's imputed righteousness. He says of that bride in Ezekiel,
he says, she was perfect and she was beautiful through my
comeliness which I had put on her. God had made His Son. as the Savior of his people,
made him to be sin for them, imputed their sin, laid their
iniquities on him, made them to meet on his head, that they
might be made the righteousness of God in him. But Paul says, for through him
we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. In whom? We have boldness and access with
confidence by faith in Him. Then he says, happy is that person
who dwells. You know, we always have that
saying, it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to
live here. I've been to a few places that I thought it's a
nice place to visit, and I certainly wouldn't mind living here. You
see, these who are chosen of God and caused to approach unto
Him through this crucified Christ, they don't come to visit God,
they dwell with Him. They're even dwelling with Him
if they have been brought to faith in Christ right now. They
dwell in Him in that great sense, in Him We live and move and have
our being. But we dwell with Him also in
His church, where He said, where I've gathered two or three together
in My name, there I'll be in the midst also. We dwell in Him
dwelling in Christ, who is that One who tabernacled among us.
He said, My sheep, they'll hear My voice. and they'll follow
me, I know them, and I'll give unto them eternal life, and they'll
never perish, and neither shall any man pluck them out of my
hand." This same psalmist, you remember? He said, surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I'll
dwell in the house of the Lord forever. He had just gathered
those material things to build that earthly temple. So that
can't be what he's talking about. He's talking about dwelling with
God in Christ. Then the last thing is this,
happy is that person that is satisfied. Remember where we
began? He says here, "'Blessed is the
man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee, that he
may dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.'" Now, men by
nature are unsatisfied and unsatisfiable. We always described it in this
way when I was growing up. You wouldn't be happy in a pie
factory eating every other pie. That's us. The writer of Proverbs
said, the eyes of man are never satisfied. The same man said,
he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor
he that loveth abundance with increase. Give him all he wants,
he will not be satisfied. that those who are chosen and
called, justified, kept, they are. They're never satisfied
with themselves. Somebody always says something
like this, well, I know, but, you know, I'm satisfied with
Christ and all that, but I'm not satisfied with myself. If
you ever get satisfied with yourself, then it's when you've got a real
problem. Nowhere in Scripture are we ever told or is it indicated
that we ought to, at any time, do anything wherein we'd find
satisfaction in ourselves. As a matter of fact, God has
not yet made us perfect in ourselves that every day we live here we
might be reminded that we had to be saved altogether by His
grace and power and the Lord Jesus. The fear of the Lord tendeth
to life, and he that hath it shall abide satisfied." Oh, they're
not satisfied with themselves. But he says, by Jeremiah, I will
satiate the souls of the priests with fatness, God's gospel preachers
are satisfied, though not with themselves or their preaching,
they're satisfied with this gospel. And my people shall be satisfied
with my goodness, saith the Lord, with my grace. I'm satisfied
with grace. I'm satisfied with Christ. I'm
satisfied with the gospel, the doctrines of this house. I'm
satisfied with the people of this house." You say, how can
you be satisfied with the Lord's people? Sometimes they kind of
kick up their heels and fall and flounder. I'm satisfied because
I'm satisfied with the one who saved them, who said, love them
for Christ's sake, forgive them for Christ's sake. When I found
perfection, when God showed me where perfection was, I quit
looking for it in anybody else. I'm happy with you. You're just
a bunch of sinners saved by grace like me. You may disappoint me
sometimes. I'm sure I disappoint you. But
I'm happy with you. Not only that, the psalmist says
in another place, he said, ask for me. O weak, fallen, failing
David, As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness." We're
going to see Him as He is and be like Him as He is. I'll behold
thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake
in thy likeness. Happy and satisfied. are the objects of God's grace
in Christ. And they're always going to be
that way. Always going to be that way.
The meek shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise the Lord that
seek Him. Your heart shall live forever. Why shouldn't they be satisfied?
They have Christ. And He's everything. He's everything. Are you happy? If you're not,
my prayer is that God will reveal the glad tidings of His sovereign
grace, the gospel of the blessed God, and make you happy. And all this other stuff, it
won't be nearly so important. Father, we ask in this day that
we might be partakers of this blessedness, of this happiness
that is in Christ Jesus. True, eternal, spiritual, unending,
real happiness. Happiness in you. Cause us to
see and to understand and to believe. Call us. Keep us. and give us more grace. Help us to live every moment
of every day in this realization of how blessed we are. Help us
not to fall into this foolishness that we see in religion in our
day when such words are just worn out clichés and phrases
and there's no knowledge of what true happiness and blessedness
is. Cause us to know that happiness
in Christ, that joy, that rejoicing in God our Savior. Help us to
praise You are right, thank You are right, for we pray in Christ's
name, Amen.