Turn in your Bibles this morning
to Psalm 73. This psalm bears the name of a man by the name of Asaph. which means that it was either
a psalm written by him or a psalm written for him by David. And by what we find in the Bible,
it could be either. In one place in 2 Chronicles,
it says, Moreover, Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded
the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David
and of Asaph the seer." It could have been written by either one. And then again in another place
in 1 Chronicles it says, Then on that day, David delivered
first this song to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and
his brethren. David may have written this for
Asaph and his brethren to sing. But regardless of whatever is
the case, We know that we have it and that they wrote it by
the Spirit of God. This is not a song written merely
by a man like the one we just sang that I wrote. No. This is the Spirit of God directing
them. But in either case, the psalmist
was like all the Lord's people in every age. He sometimes failed to remember
what God had said. He sometimes had fits of unbelief,
and he sometimes viewed the world with the natural eye rather than
the eye of faith. One thing I like about the Psalms
is when a man writes being led by the Spirit of God, he can't
be anything but honest and truthful. And oftentimes it's just like,
as we say in our expression, it's like the psalmist has been
reading my mail. Listen to what he says, "'Truly
God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me, my feet were almost
gone, my steps had well nigh slipped, for I was envious at
the foolish. when I saw the prosperity of
the wicked. For there are no bands in their
death, but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble
as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride compasseth them
about as a chain. covers them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness. They have more than the heart
could wish. They are corrupt and speak wickedly. Concerning oppression they speak
loftily. They set their mouth against
the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth. Therefore
his people return hither, and waters of a full cup are wrung
out to them. And they say, How doth God know? And is their knowledge in the
Most High?" That's what he begins to feel and to see and to think
with the natural eye. And when he takes his eyes off
God, and he sees the prosperity of the wicked in contrast to
the trials and troubles of God's people, he feels something like
this. Well, what's the use? Look down again in verse 12.
Behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world. They increase in riches. Verily, I have cleansed my heart
in vain and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long
have I been plagued and chastened every morning." He said, look
at them and look at me. What's the use? What benefit
is it believing God? If I say, I will speak thus,
behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children.
And when I thought to know this, it was too painful for me. It was too painful for me. But in every case, mark it down,
in every case, God brings His elect children back to the reality
and realization of faith. And He causes them to remember
His promises, And he reminds them of what they have been given
in him. Not just by him, but in him. Look again at verse 17. He said, All of this was until
I went into the sanctuary of God. Then understood I their
end. Surely thou didst set them in
slippery places. Thou castest them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation
as in a moment? They are utterly consumed with
terrors. As a dream when one awaketh,
so, O Lord, when Thou awakest, Thou shalt despise their image. Thus my heart was grieved, and
I was pricked in my reins. So foolish was I, and ignorant
I was as a beast before thee, nevertheless I am continually
with thee. Thou hast holden me by my right
hand, and thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." He did just like so many of the
Lord's people. He lost perspective. And it is
only when God the Spirit brings him to the remembrance of God,
and the remembrance of His promises, and the remembrance of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that he rightly views things as they are. And when God does this, He sees
again what He has been given of God in Christ, and He confesses
that all else, everything else is nothing compared to Him. Nothing. I don't mean that Jesus Christ
is greater simply than all things. But if He is everything, then
everything else is nothing. That's right. And so here are
all these people in the world, in every generation, the great
majority, that David and all the saints have viewed, and at
times even fallen into moments of envy of, at their prosperity. And they have nothing. Nothing. Hold your place there
and turn with me to I Corinthians and the second chapter. You see,
this realization, like I said, only comes by those who are directed
by the Spirit, led by the counsel of God, by His grace. I Corinthians chapter 2 and verse
11. Listen to what Paul says. For
what man knoweth the things of a man, save the Spirit of man
which is in him, even so the things of God." That's what I'm interested in.
The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. So there can be no way that you
or me or David or anybody else will ever know the things of
God, His grace, His mercy, His goodness, His salvation, His
Son, apart from the Spirit of God. All right, look again. Paul writes to these Corinthians
who were, according to history and according to what we read
in these epistles, at one time a rowdy bunch, if we could say
so. immoral, ungodly. And yet Paul says to them now
as believers, now we have received not the Spirit of the world,
but the Spirit which is of God. Why? So we could speak in tongues? so we can shout and cry and utter
gibberish? No. He says that we might know
the things that are freely given to us of God. When the Spirit of God gives
us new birth and reveals Christ to us, we are enabled by His
Spirit to see in His Word the things that He has freely given
to us. Somebody said, He shows us what
to do. No, He shows us. He takes the
things of Christ and shows them to us. Freely given unto us. He says, which things also we
speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which
the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man, that's what
we are when we come into this world. That's what we are in
ourselves. That's what we are apart from
the grace and Spirit of God. The natural man. receives not
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto
him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned." But when the Spirit of God takes the things of God, the
things of God in Jesus Christ and shows them to us, we come to a particular conclusion. And we make a spiritual comparison
of God and every other thing in heaven and earth. What is his conclusion here?
Well, look back here in Psalm 73 at verse 25. The psalmist says, having made by God's grace a
spiritual comparison to what those without Christ have, and
of what he has by the grace of God. And he says this, "'Whom
have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth
that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth,
but God But God is my strength, the strength
of my heart and my portion forever. Not only is this the confession
of this psalmist, but it is the confession of every
one of the Lord's people And anything less is simply idolatry. The Lord, the Lord God, Jehovah
Jesus is all I have and all I desire in heaven and in earth. Under the law even, as it was
given to Moses, there was in that law this expression
from God, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Absolutely not. And not only
that, but God says in another place, not only is I am God alone
and there is none beside me, He said, I am a jealous God. A jealous God. And though, like the psalmist,
we may temporarily be distracted from the reality of these very
things, and our affections for a time be drawn to something
or someone else, God will bring all His people to see the foolishness
of being envious of those who really have nothing and what
their final and eternal end will be. I don't care who we are. The most faithful believer in
this flesh, we will be found looking out at this world and
the people of this world who seem outwardly to fare much better
than us. And there arises, David says,
an envy in us. But when the Lord brought him
to see again anew the truth, he said, I was a stupid, foolish,
brute beast. Absolutely. He said, So foolish was I, and
ignorant I was as a beast before thee. And whom have I in heaven? And I desire none other in earth
but the living God." Turn over to Psalm 89. Psalm
89, and look down at verse 6. Or verse 5, really first of all,
where he says, And the heavens shall praise thy wonders, O Lord,
thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints. Why? For who in heaven can be
compared unto the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty
can be likened unto the Lord. I guess we could regard this
as a spiritual comparison and evaluation. Because David is brought by the
Spirit to list on one side of the profit and loss what all
men outside of Christ have, which winds up being zero, and what
all men and women in Christ have on the other side, what they
have, and it's all everything. God does not even have a close
equal. And like it was expressed by
two men who are set forth in the Bible as, one, the object
of God's grace and mercy, and the other as one that God bypassed,
Jacob and Esau. Esau said this when he met his
brother Jacob again. He said, I have enough. And then Jacob expresses to Esau
what sounds to be the same thing. He says, I have enough. But in the original, it's two
different words. What Esau expresses is this,
I have sufficient. What Jacob expresses is, I have
everything. I have everything. And that's
what every believer has by the grace of God. They have everything. And they are like the Levites,
the priests of old. As a matter of fact, we're called
kings and priests under God. But listen to what was said of
the priests, the Levites. The priests, the Levites, and
all the tribe of Levi shall have no part nor inheritance with
Israel." They got no land. That would be kind of hard, wouldn't
it, looking around you, and here's this tribe, they're getting all
this land, they're getting all this going on, and here they
are over here, they didn't get any land. They shall eat the offerings
of the Lord made by fire and His inheritance. Therefore shall
they have no inheritance among their brethren." But now listen
to this. The Lord is their inheritance. As a matter of fact, all these
other tribes When they worshipped God, when they came as God commanded
and brought all the offerings, and they were offered and sacrificed,
those priests were told of God to eat of those things. And that's the way it is in this
world. Here we have a world that has all these things, that has
all these outward and physical and material things, and yet
God provides in all these things for His people physically. But their inheritance is the
Lord Himself. Their inheritance is all that
God has to give in grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's their
portion. That's what David is saying.
And that's what the bride expresses in Song of Solomon, chapter 6. When she expresses this, she
says, I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine. Is that too much to say? No,
no. Because this is exactly what
the Scripture says. It says that the Lord's people
are His portion, and it says that He is our portion. I delight to be my Beloved's. Oh, but I delight that my Beloved
is mine. And God's believing elect, they
desire and they delight in the God-man, the man Christ Jesus. The prophet Haggai spoke the
words of God when he said this, he said, and I will shake the
nations and the desire of all nations. The desire of all nations shall
come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of
Hosts." Who is the desire of all nations? That is Christ. And what he means by that is
not every person in every nation is going to desire Christ, but
he is talking about a people He's talking about that people
that he loved and chose and gave to Christ before the world began,
a people, he says, is out of every nation, tribe, kindred,
and tongue. Their desire came, and He's all
their desire. You ever stop and think of what
you could do without? Well, we're so fat and sassy
in our day, we could just name off a few things that would be
amazingly excessive, and we could say, well, I could do without
this and that and the other, and we'd go down more and more
and more, and we'd get down to the things that are more near
and dear and precious to our heart. Well, we could do without
our job, I suppose, or we could, people do do without their spouses
and their children and all these things. What about your life? You see, God's people not only
can, they do without their life. Why? Because they've got another
one, a better one. They have life in Christ. That's
why the Lord's people are brought to cast off everything, which
is exactly what that old hymn writer was talking about when
he talked about casting aside everything, their own righteousness,
their own works, their own hopes, their own experiences. Repentance
is a casting off of all these things because we found something
better. And it's all in the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's all in our God. Paul writes
to the Colossians, and he says this, "'Lie not one to another,
seeing that you put off the old man with his deeds, and have
put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the
image of him that created him, where there is neither Greek
nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor
free, But Christ is all." Do you believe that? He said,
all these things are nothing, but Christ is all. The news came this week of a
famous preacher's wife dying. Here is a man who has preached
to millions of people. And he's talking about seeing
her and being with her in heaven as his wife when the Bible says
in heaven they are neither marrying or giving in marriage. How ridiculous. There are not going to be any
distractions from the King of glory. Not your wife, not my
wife, as good as I love her and appreciate, thank God for. There's
not going to be any distractions from family members or anything
else. They'll be there if they're God's
children. They'll be there if He brings
them to believe the truth of the gospel. And if not, they
won't be there. But brother, there won't be anything
lacking there. Because He's all. He's all. Paul, he expressed it this way
so clearly. Here's this man who had reputation
and position and pedigree and knowledge and degrees and everything
else. He said, Yea, doubtless, and
I count all things but loss. for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things, and do count them but done, that I may win Christ." He's everything. And you've got
nothing if you don't have Him. The Bible says that God If He
gave us His only begotten well-beloved Son, if everyone to whom He has
given His Son, if He has given His Son and given Him to come
and die in our place on the cross, will He not also with Him freely
give us all things? The psalmist said for a minute
there, I thought I was missing something. till I remembered
I had all things." You see, God in Christ is everything
to His people. He is the sum total of all our
salvation. When men get to bickering and
fighting and discussing and debating all the details of doctrine concerning
Christ, it still comes back to this. He's our salvation. He is our only righteousness,
being the Lord our righteousness. He is our only peace as the one
who made peace with God by the blood of His cross. He is our
only hope because the good hope of grace is in Him. He is our
one and only joy, and all other joys are but temporary and will
at some point be our sorrows. I don't care what you've got
in this world. I don't care if you've got the best wife, the
best husband, the best children, the best job, whatever. At some point, that joy will
become sorrow. If nothing else, when it ends,
when it ends, it's just going to become sorrow one day. And
all the precious doctrines of God's grace They are glorious
and they are to be preached and believed because they're in Him. We preach election because it
says that we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the
world. We preach predestination not with reservation but with
delight because it says that we are predestinated to be conformed
to the image of God's Son. We preach justification, which
is to be justified by grace, justified by His blood in Him. We preach sanctification, delight
in the fact that all His people are sanctified in Him, set apart
and made holy in the Lord Jesus Christ. We preach perseverance,
which is simply to be preserved by God in Him and by Him. He's everything. Paul expressed it like this.
What shall we say then to these things if God be for us? Who
can be against us? We believe His gospel, which
is the means by which God uses to reveal Him. We know Christ
by what He has done. We receive the gift and therefore
we love the giver. I'm not talking about some mystical
Jesus. I'm talking about the one who
is revealed so clearly in this book by all that we find, the
doctrine of Christ as the gospel is called, which reveals and
distinguishes and singles Him out from every other. that His
people might believe on Him. We love Him because He first
loved us and gave Himself for us. We contend for the faith
once delivered to the saints. We seek to set forth clearly
all the doctrines of God's grace in Scripture. But they're like
stepping stones or steps that lead us to love and to trust
the Lord Jesus Christ. And let men and women fight about
what's most important, the person of Christ, the work of Christ.
Thank goodness they can't be separated. And all who truly
have the one have the other. It's kind of like this. I delight,
pretty soon now, about 42 years ago, this lady sitting on the
front pew, I married her. And somewhere, it would probably
take us a long time to find it, but somewhere I got, we got a
certificate, an authentic marriage license wherein, in the eyes
of the law of the state of North Carolina, we were legally, clearly
married. But I never take that out and
look at it, because I love her. I like to hug her and grace her. And you see, the gospel that
does not bring us to this reality of love, this spiritual bond
to the Lord God Himself in Christ, that's not really the gospel. The doctrine of Christ is just
that, the revelation of Christ and all that is in Him. And all
these people who say they love Jesus and yet they do not know
Him as He reveals Himself in Scripture, Paul said they just
love another Jesus. Do I love the Christ of the Gospel? If I have Him, I have all. I have all of God. In Him dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Every covenant blessing
is in Him. And when David went to lay down
on his deathbed and face reality, go out to meet God, He said,
although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me
an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. And this is all my salvation
and all my desire. The only people in this world
who have their heart's desire are those that God has given
this heart to desire Christ. And desiring Christ, they have
all that any sinner could desire. In Isaiah it says, "...Yea, in
the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee." The
desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of
thee." And so the psalmist looked around
him. He said, well, I got to feeling down. I got
to looking. With the eyes of unbelief, I
got to seeing the prosperity of everybody around me who didn't
have any regard for God and didn't care about the gospel and mocked
me for believing it, despised me for preaching it and all this
kind of thing. I looked all around until he
brought me back into his house. What did they do in the Lord's
house? Well, the priests served and served the offerings and
they made this. All that was typical of the gospel. You see, the gospel of Jesus
Christ is the declaration, the proclamation, the announcement,
the telling to God's people of all that they have been given
by the grace of God in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. What do you have? Everything. As a matter of fact, one of the
glories of this is, I don't even know all I have. I don't have the capacity to
understand it all or to know or even to believe it all if
I were shown it all. The light of His glory is so
brilliant, I don't have an eye that can see it. The weight of all the glories
of His blessings are so, there's no way I could hold them, contain
them, weigh them. But the psalmist's words here,
they also show the allegiance. I guess you could say the exclusivity. I can't even say it now. I typed
it and can't even say it. The loyalty and the singularity
of God with all His people. There's one man, one mediator between God and
men, the man Christ Jesus. There is one name given unto
heaven whereby we must be saved. There are not lots of gods. There
are not lots of faith. There are not lots of saviors.
There are not lots of ways. There are not lots of truth.
There is one, the man Christ Jesus. What does he say? Whom have I
in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth
that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." God will allow no rival to Himself. You see, the same one who said,
Honor your father and mother without any contradiction also
said, If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother
and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own
life also, He cannot be my disciple. Cannot be. What does he mean
by that? He just got through saying, honor
your father and mother. And now he says, if you don't
hate your father and mother, your sister, your brother, your
husband, your wife, whoever it is, whatever person it is, you
can't be my disciple. He means by comparison. We love these. We love our friends. We love
our wives, our husbands. We love our children. We love
them. But he said you better hate them
by comparison. If it comes down to a choice
between them or me, you better be found with me. Absolutely. You see, by comparison, there
is none more important than God, none to compare to Christ, none
that we are to love more. He that loveth father and mother
more than me is not worthy of me. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none on earth that
I desire. But likewise, there is not only
not any one, but not anything more important than Him. He has the preeminence in all
things. Because He's not an important
part of our life, He is our life. And the world's trifles are not
important. It's approval, it's applause,
it's attractions, it's fast fading fleshly offerings going fast, fast. He said, if any man loved the
world, The love of the Father is not in him. And if any man
love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha. Let him die the death, bear the
curse at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Luke chapter 10, there was
a woman by the name of Martha. And she was taking care of so
many things, and her sister Mary was just sitting down there listening
to what Christ said. And Martha wanted Christ to tell
Mary to get with it, help with the serving and such. It says that Mary sat at his
feet and heard his word. Well, the crowd could have starved
to death. So what? He's all. And our Lord said, Martha, Mary's
chosen the better thing, the one thing needful. That's me. Me. The psalmist, according to one
translation or one comment, said, �Earth carries away the desires
of most men, and yet I have none on earth, no persons, no things,
no possessions, no delights that I desire besides thee or with
thee in comparison or competition with thee.� You see, the Lord's people, all
believers, delight in the fact that God is their salvation more
than the fact that He saves them. You think about that one a little
bit. They delight in the fact that
God is their Savior. more than in the fact that he
saves them. As a matter of fact, the Lord's
people would not have Him to change even to save them. They delight in God more than
all that is God's. They delight in Him More than
what is His. He has everything. But He's greater than everything
He has. Is that right? I'm telling you
it's the truth. He's everything. When all that has revealed Him
to us is gone, He'll still be. The faith by
which we believed on Him will one day, Paul said, be no more.
But we'll see Him face to face. You see, all who would take heaven
without Christ will have hell. Because the glory of heaven is
his presence, and the absence of his presence
is hell. And if he's done all this for
us, how could we be otherwise? Or how could he be less than
this? Whom have I in heaven beside
thee? And there is none upon the earth
that I desire beside thee. Thank you, Lord, for my wife,
my family, my friends. Thank you for my job. Thank you
for bread in the morning and water to drink and air to breathe.
Thank you for all these things. But you're the one I need. You're the one I love more than
all these things. And there's none that can compare
to you. God's people hunger and thirst
for God himself. The psalmist says, as the heart
panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee. O God, my soul thirsteth for
God, the living God. They hunger and thirst for the
Word of God, and they know that man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.
And they hunger and thirst for the worship of God. He said,
I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house
of the Lord. Why? Because we're going to hear
about our God. And they hunger and thirst for
the people of God, for the fellowship of those of
like precious faith, the people of God. And they say as those in Scripture, the Lord is my portion, saith
my soul, therefore will I hope in him. And they exclaim as the old prophet
Habakkuk. who says, although the fig tree
shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor
of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat,
the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be
no herd in the stalls." It's kind of bad, isn't it? Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord,
and I will joy in the God of my salvation." Why? You've lost everything. I've
lost nothing. I still have everything. One day when David came back
after his exile, Remember Mephibosheth? Well, if you remember, Mephibosheth
was a lame man. And there went out quite a number
of men to David in his exile. But Mephibosheth's servants,
evidently didn't tell Mephibosheth everything about what was taking
place, and he himself was not able to do that. And so when David came back,
there was evidently some feeling of Mephibosheth's servant that
because he rather than Mephibosheth went to David, that he ought
to have the possessions of the house of Saul. And David, he seemed to be kind
of ready to get all that behind him. He said, well, you just
take it all and just divide it between you. That's fine. And Mephibosheth said unto the
king, Let him take all, forasmuch as
my lord the king is come again in peace unto his own house." That's just things, land. Let
him have it all. My delight is that my king has
come back in peace to his house. And everything else just really
doesn't matter. Is God your desire and your portion? To be able to truly say, I can truly say I've experienced
all this other stuff. I can. But to be able to say from the
heart, Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon
earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth,
but God is the strength of my heart. and my portion forever."
If you look back to verse 24, before he says that, he says, "... thou shalt guide
me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me unto glory." If you have Christ, You have all. If you don't have
Him, you don't have anything, because He is all. Not only in
Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead body, but every blessing
of that Godhead is in Him. Father, this day we pray that
you would take your Word and make this Gospel to be good
news to someone in this place this day, or to someone who will
hear this message wherever they are. May they be brought to rejoice
in all the fullness of your grace in Jesus Christ. which you have
given in him and accomplished on our behalf by him through
his suffering and death on the cross. We come, Lord, only to worship
you when we acknowledge you as all. and as having given us in
Christ by your grace all things. Bless your word to the glory
and honor of your name and to the comfort, salvation, and joy
of your people. For we thank you and pray in
Christ. Amen.