Good morning. For those who don't know, Janet's
mother passed away late Thursday, or Friday, I think. And Frank
and Janet are still down there. So Aaron Greenleaf has come from
Lexington to bring us clad tidings. Before he comes up for Sunday
school, I'd like to just read briefly Psalm 117 and offer prayer. Psalm 117, O praise the Lord,
all ye nations. Praise him, all ye people, for
his merciful kindness is great toward us, and the truth of the
Lord endureth forever. Praise ye the Lord. Let's go
to the Lord in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you for the opportunity to meet here this morning. Lord, we pray
that you would not have us meet in vain, Lord, but that it might
be your will to send your spirit to be among us, to anoint the
word to our hearing ears and receiving hearts, Lord. We're
thankful that you've raised up men to proclaim the gospel, the
good news of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, that sinners
might have hope. Lord, we, once again, we pray
that you would bless this word this morning and be with your
people wherever they stand to proclaim the word this morning.
We, if we meet on our own, Lord, we meet in vain. And we pray
that you would bless, that you would guide. Lord, leave us not alone. We ask this
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Morning, everybody. It's good
to see you all again. I wish it was under different
circumstances, but nonetheless, it's great to see you. Everybody
from Lexington says hi. So on behalf of everyone, hi.
If you would turn to Psalm 61. Psalm 61. We'll read it one time through,
and we'll go back and see what David has to say here. Psalm 61 in verse one. David says, hear my cry, O God,
attend unto my prayer. Notice there's nothing generic
about how he begins here. He's not going through his daily
devotions. This isn't a sense of duty, a sense of responsibility
and praying, well, it's what I'm supposed to do. I guess I'll
do it. No, this comes from a distressed heart. This comes out of great
need. And he begins with this, Lord,
hear me. Listen to me. Incline your ear toward me. Remember
your son. Remember your promise you make
to me in him. Hear me. If you don't hear me,
I'll be lost. There's an agency in all this.
This is real. Verse one, hear my cry, oh God.
Attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will
I cry unto thee. When my heart is overwhelmed,
enveloped, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou
hast meant a shelter for me and a strong tower from the enemy. I love that concept of a strong
tower. And this is the gospel. It's
the theme of the gospel and the scriptures. The salvation is
in one place. It's in Christ. A strong tower, a fortress. his
people in him, and the nations come and they make war and they
launch the catapults and they shoot their arrows and it all
hits the fortress, but everybody in the tower in the fortress
is safe. That's what we have in Christ Jesus. Verse four,
I will abide in thy tabernacle forever, is what he wants. I
will trust in the covert of thy wings. For thou, O God, has heard
my vows, Thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy
name. Thou wilt prolong the king's
life and his years as many generations. He shall abide before God forever. Oh, prepare mercy and truth,
which may preserve him. So will I sing praise unto thy
name forever, that I may daily perform my vows. Now, we don't know exactly when
David wrote this psalm. And you read some of the old
writers, they hypothesize about it. Maybe it was when he was
fleeing from his son Absalom. Absalom tried to take his kingdom,
and he's fleeing. Because clearly David is stressed
here. He feels distressed and alone. And that may be the case. We
don't really know. What we do know is the condition
of David's heart at the time that he writes this. And it's
found down there in verse 2. His heart is overwhelmed. enveloped, full up. Now the believer knows something
about this of an overwhelmed heart, really in two respects,
two. Number one, in trouble. One of
the things we're promised in this life, trouble. We're sinful
people living in a sinful world. Our days, they're full of trouble.
We know there's something about being overwhelmed in trouble,
in distress. When we get in trouble, sound
just like David. He says, hear my cry, O God,
attend unto my prayer. There's nothing generic about
that. He's not going through his daily devotions. This isn't
out of a sense of duty and a sense of responsibility. He says, I've
got a problem. I'm in trouble. I can't help
myself. I can't change my circumstances.
I need you to come down and do something for me. Lord, hear
my cry. If you don't, I'll be lost. You know something about that,
don't you? There's sincerity that was born in David out of
great need. And I thought about this. I thought
about Peter in Matthew, Chapter seven or Matthew, Chapter 14.
Rather, Lord, come and he walked on the water. Peter said, Lord,
bid me. I come to you. He says, Come
on, come on up. Get out of the boat. Come walk to me. As long
as Peter kept his eyes on the Lord, he was fine. He walked
on that water just fine. Everything was okay. But as soon
as he took his eyes off Christ and he started looking around,
he saw the winds boisterous and he saw the waves. What happened?
He started to sink. He was in great need. He was
in great trouble. And he made the shortest prayer that is recorded
in scripture. Lord, save me. There's nothing generic about
that. He wasn't out of duty and obligation in his daily devotions.
No, he had a great need. He couldn't control his circumstances.
He was going under, he was going to die, and there was only one
person who could do anything for him, and it was the person,
that God-man who was standing in front of him, who he rightly
referred to as Lord. Lord, save me. It was out of
great need that he made that prayer. I love the Psalms. I appreciate mostly the ones
that David writes. And it's for this reason, the
things that David says in his Psalms, these things that he
prays and he writes in these Psalms, I identify with them. I know a couple of different
things about myself. I know this, number one, in trouble, in trial,
I'm not very patient. I don't want to wait. I say,
Lord, speedily, help me. Come do something for me right
now. Hear me, O God. Do this right now. Attend unto
my cry. The other thing is this. I can't handle the Lord's silence.
I ask, and if the answer is yes, bless me God, he heard my petition,
he granted my request. If the answer is no, bless me
God. He's a good God. Whatever I was
asking for, it clearly wasn't good for me, or he would have
given it. He withheld that thing that I foolishly asked for. Yes
or no, by his grace and content, I can't handle the silence. David
felt the same way. This is what he says in Psalm
102, verse 102, he says, Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my
cry come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in
the day when I am in trouble. He's saying, don't be silent
unto me. Don't leave me in silence. I can't stand that. Yes or no,
I can handle. I can't handle your silence. Incline thine ear
unto me in the day when I call. Answer me speedily. Do this right
now. I'm impatient. Make haste. Come
down here and help me. I can't handle your silence,
and I can't wait. Come down and do something for
me right now." And I would think, well, there's something wrong
with me. There's something going on with me. Unless David wrote
that, too. I'm like, oh, he feels the exact same way. And I think
about David in 2 Samuel 12, 22. Nathan comes to him, and he says,
that child you had with Bathsheba, he's going to die. It's your
fault, David. You know what you did. The child's
going to die. And David goes out, and he lays
himself on the ground, flat down. And for seven days, he won't
eat. He won't change his clothes. He won't get up. And all he does
is make a petition to the Lord for the child the entire time.
And he weeps, and he mourns. And his servants get worried
about him. They said, if this child dies, he may kill himself. Finally,
on the seventh day, the child dies. David's been laying there
an entire week. And they said, we can't tell
him. He'll commit suicide. We know it. And David intuitively
knows what's going on. He says, is the child dead? They
said, yeah. He's passed. You know what David did? He got
up, he went home, he washed his clothes, put on clean raiment,
he sat down, he ate some food. And the servants were perplexed.
They said, while the child was alive, he mourned and he wept
and he made his petition. But when the child died, now
he's okay? Now he gets up, now he washes
his clothes, now he eats? This is what's going on? That
doesn't make any sense to me. And so they asked him, and David
said this. He said, while the child was yet alive, I fasted
and wept, for I said, who can tell whether God will be gracious
to me that the child may live? But now he's dead. Wherefore
should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I
shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. Says he answered, and the answer
was no. The whole time that he was in
silence, when the Lord wasn't saying anything to him, he was
face down on the ground, mourning, weeping, asking the Lord for
what he wanted. But as soon as the Lord answered, no, David,
my will and not yours, he gets up, he cleans himself, and he
eats. Why? Because he trusted the good character
of his Savior, this one who is too kind to be cruel, too wise
to err, the one who has promised only good to his people. He says,
I trust his character. This is not what I wanted. This
was not my will. But his will and his want is greater than
mine. And I trust his character, and I get up, and I eat. I love
that. Absolutely love that. Now we
talked about being overwhelmed in heart in trouble. Every believer
knows something about that, but more so this overwhelming heart
experience that David's experiencing here. It's being overwhelmed
with sin and we all know something. Every believer knows something
of the heart being overwhelmed, enveloped in sin. David said
this, In Psalm 143, 4, he says, therefore is my spirit overwhelmed
within me. Same word. My heart within me
is desolate. You know what the word means?
Ruined. Laid waste to. Something interesting about that
word. It's inclined for this reason. It's something you've
done for yourself. My heart, this natural heart,
this natural man, it's ruined. It's no good. I've laid waste
to it. It's all my fault. I have a wicked,
sinful heart, and this is all my fault. That's a sinner. Somebody,
my sin is all my fault. I have a ruined heart, a heart
that's been laid waste to. There's nothing I can do. There's
nothing I can bring before God. He could accept everything I
think, everything I do, everything I say. You take my best motive
that is out there for my best deed. At the very least, there
is self-glory involved there. It's a ruined heart. He says,
I'm overwhelmed in this ruined heart. And this is the cry of
one whose heart is overwhelmed. Look at verse two. From the end
of the earth will I cry unto thee. When my heart is overwhelmed,
lead me to the rock that is higher than I. David says, this is my
position. This is where I'm at right now.
I'm at the end of the earth. You know what that literally
means? As far away as you can possibly be. David says, I'm
as far from God as I can possibly be. In all his holiness, in all
his righteousness and all his perfect sense of justice. I can't
even take a step toward him. I can't come into his presence.
All he will do is pour his condemnation down on me because he's a just
God and holy. All he can do is punish sin.
I can't take a step toward him. I can't do anything that would
please him. I'm simply a sinner with an overwhelmed heart, overwhelmed
in sin, enveloped in sin. I'm at the ends of the earth. That's where I'm at. I love the
scripture Isaiah 45 22. Look into me and be saved all
the ends of the earth for I am God and there is none else. What a reminder this great gospel,
this great Christ, his great death, his great law keeping.
Who's it for? People were at the ends of the
earth. People in a heart that is overwhelmed by sin, they can't
take one step toward God, not him and all his justice, can't
do anything to please him. He says, those people, only those
people, Christ is for you. Look unto me, all ye ends of
the earth, those sinners who are at the ends of the earth,
look unto me and be ye saved. That is a command and it's a
promise. If I'm a sinner with an overwhelmed
heart, I'm at the ends of the earth as far from God as I can
possibly be. He says, just look to me. Just
trust me. Don't bring anything. Come just
as you are in all your sin, in all your shame. I know every
single bit of it. You just look to me and I promise you this,
you'll be saved. That's a promise from a God who
can't lie. He says, from the end of the
earth will I crown thee. When my heart is overwhelmed,
and this is what he wants, lead me to the rock that is higher
than I. That is both a confession and
a petition. First, it's confession. I've
got to have Christ. And I can't get there unless
you lead me. Faith, naturally, is just out of our hands. It's
out of our ability. Our own faith. The command is
this. And this is his commandment that we should believe on the
name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave
us commandment. That's what I must do. Nobody
can believe for you. You must look to Christ. Lord,
unless you give me the ability, unless you lead me, you literally
drag me and bring me there and give me saving faith. I can't
do it. I am that inept. I am that unable. You have to lead me. bring me
to Christ. It's a confession but it's also
a petition. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. I thought about how the Lord
dealt with that man in John 9. He was a blind man. Blind his
whole life. The Lord put clay on his eyes and gave him sight.
And once organized religion had his way with him and kicked him
out of the synagogue, the Lord met him. This is what he said
to that man. He said, does thou believe on
the Son of God? And this is how the man replied.
Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? Lord, lead me. Dost thou believe on the Son
of God? Reveal yourself unto me. I'll believe on you. Give
me faith, and I'll believe on you. Do everything for me. We
say salvation is all of the Lord. We're talking about every aspect
of it. Bring me to repentance. Give me faith. Cause me to love
your Son. Cause me to love his people.
Do this work of grace in my heart. Birth me into your kingdom. It
all has to be You lead me to that rock. So that man said,
he goes, who is he Lord? Am I believe on him? That's a
great question. He's the rock. Go to Deuteronomy
32 for a minute. Deuteronomy 32. You can pick
up in verse one there. It says, give ear, O ye heavens,
and I'll speak. And hear, O earth, the words
of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the
rain. My speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain
upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. And I love this, this is really
twofold. The Lord's talking about his gospel, his word. He goes,
I fall it down upon my people. You know, what is rain to grass?
Gives it life. What is the gospel? What is the
message? The word preached to his people. It's our life. It's
our sustenance. Gives us life. But Christ came down. Christ
reigns upon his people. Christ is what gives us life.
That's what he's talking about here. Next verse, because I will
publish the name of the Lord, ascribe he greatness unto our
God. And he's going to introduce him.
He says in verse four, he is the rock. I love that. Lead me to the rock. that is
higher than I says he is the rock. I love the debt of definite
article there. He's not one of many rocks. He's not rocks. Plural. He is the rock. There's only
one rock. What's a rock strong, immovable,
something you build on something that's sturdy, something that
won't wash away. Remember Matthew chapter seven
speaks of two different types of men, a wise man and a foolish
man or the foolish men do. He built his house on sand, that
which is soft, that which is mutable. It just washes away.
As soon as the storm comes, it washes everything away. And the
house he built could be a beautiful house, an immaculate house, a
mansion, builds it on the sand. And when the storm comes, it
just completely and utterly washes away because it's not built on
the rock. That foolish man is that man
who trusts in his own words. He builds his house. He builds
his hope of salvation, this beautiful mansion, on all the things I've
done. I made my decision. And compared to these other people,
you know, God grades on the curve. I'm doing pretty well. I got
a beautiful mansion here. It's all built on the foundation
of his own works. And when God's judgment comes,
it washes all away, destroys that mansion. But the wise man,
where did he build? He built on the rock, that rock
Christ Jesus, the rock singular, his choice, his will, his covenant,
his righteousness, his blood, his calling, his preservation,
his priesthood. One thing, the rock. That's the
hope of every believer. We built our house on the rock.
In him, singular, that's our hope. And that foundation stands
every single time when the wrath of God comes down and says, ain't
gonna wash away this house. That house is built on that rock,
that foundation, Christ Jesus, Christ in him crucified. He is
the rock. And he says this, look back at
verse four. He is the rock and his work is perfect. And that really means two things,
that we're perfect. It means it's complete and it's
flawless. Another thing about his work
is perfect. His father gave him work. His father sent him to
this earth and he said, here's what you're going to do. You're
going to be surety for them. All my elect, all my people, you're
going to do everything that is necessary to save them. That's
your work, that's your calling, that's the purpose for which
you've been sent. And it says his work, that work
that he did, is perfect. It's complete. It's flawless.
He left nothing undone. He bore the sins of his people
in his body on the tree. Flawlessly, completely put them
away. He honored God's law perfectly. Kept the law, every jot and every
tittle, flawlessly, perfectly. And now, because we're in him,
just like that strong tower we were talking about, being in
the strong tower, the arrows hit, the catapults hit, it never
touches us. because we're in that strong
tower, Christ Jesus. His work's perfect. It's complete.
You know what that means? If you're a sinner at the ends
of the earth, your only hope is in Christ. That's it. Just
look into Him for Him to do everything. There's nothing for you to do.
His work is complete. It's perfect. It's done. That
means you're perfect. His work is flawless. He made
no errors in all this. He's God. He can't make an error.
You are complete. You are flawless in him. He says his work is perfect and
he follows it up with this curious statement. For all his ways are
judgment. Justice and judgment is his name.
A God of truth and without iniquity. A perfectly just God. Won't accept
any iniquity whatsoever. Deals only in complete and perfect
truth. He'll never call something what it is not. He'll never look
at a man that has sin on him and say, He's innocent. He will
never look at a man who is without sin and say he's guilty. He only
calls it what it is. He says, for all his ways are
judgment, a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right
is he. What's that talking about? It's
talking about what happened on the cross. On the cross, justice
and mercy for the first time faced each other face to faith
and held hands in perfect brotherhood and perfect harmony. I have no
doubt that's what David's talking about in verse 4 of our text.
He says, I will trust in the covert of thy wings. And we can actually use the Ark
of the Covenant as an illustration on this. Turn for a moment over
to Exodus 37. I think you'd like to see this. Exodus 37, we're dealing with
the Ark of the Covenant. This is talking about how it
was constructed. It's going to deal with the cherubims that
sat on top of the mercy seat. And listen to what David said.
He could, I will trust in the covert of thy wings. Now let's read about these cherubims
that sat on the mercy seat. Verse seven. And he made two
cherubims of gold beaten Out of one piece made he them on
the two ends of the mercy seat. Out of one piece, one piece of
gold out of the mercy seat, that one piece, it was beaten, it
was beaten, it was beaten, and out of that one piece, these
two come up and they faced each other in perfect harmony and
perfect brotherhood. What happened on the cross? Justice
and mercy met. They were beaten out of one,
out of Christ. Him be made our sin, the wrath of God falling
down upon him, him putting it all away through his suffering
deaths. So much so now that for the people of God, the Lord opens
the shower gates of his mercy upon us, and he does it in a
manner that does no damage to his perfect sense of justice.
You think justice and mercy in the human realm, we can't do
that. We're incapable of doing both. If we do justice, it's
always at the expense of mercy. If we do mercy, it's always at
the expense of justice. But in one, in Christ Jesus,
beaten, slain, justice and mercy come together in one. Now look
what else happens. Look at verse eight. One cherub
on the end of this side and another cherub on the other end on the
other side. Out of the mercy seat may he
the cherubims on the two ends thereof. And the cherubim spread
out their wings on high and covered with their wings over the mercy
seat with their faces one to another, even to the mercy seat
word where the faces of the cherubims, these two cherubims that sat
on the ends of the mercy seat there said they spread their
wings out on high. And when it says they covered
over the mercy seat, what that literally means is their wings
came out and intertwined. They became one. A covering was
created of justice and mercy being beaten out of one. You
understand what David says now when he says, I will trust in
the covert of that wings. The only way I can be saved before
God as he is, is that his perfect justice be honored on my behalf
so that when he is doing mercy to me, it does no damage to his
perfect sense of justice. Anything else would be unjust.
Anything else could be walked back or to be impossible with
God because God is a God of justice and truth, but because in Christ,
mercy and truth were beaten out of them. They face each other
in harmony and brotherhood. And that covering was created.
And this is not a covering that just covers my guilt. It's a
covering that takes away my guilt. To where when the father looks
at us, all he sees is his darling son, just perfect righteousness,
the very righteousness of Christ. Now, go back to your text in
Psalm 61. In verse four, David says this,
he says, I will abide in thy tabernacle forever. Now, these
people whom Christ died for, these people he gives life to,
what do they want? They want what David wants here. He said,
I just want to abide in your tabernacle forever. Listen to
this. This is Psalm 27, 4. David says,
one thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after. that I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of
the Lord and to inquire in his temple." What do you want? I ask you to
ponder that question for a second. What do you want? This is what
David wanted, and this is what every believer wants. I just
want to abide in his tabernacle. I just want to be in Christ. I don't want the father to see
me at all. When he looks at me, all I want him to see is the
perfect work and merits in person of his son, me to be completely
excluded and covered. You think about the night of
the Passover. The Lord says, I'm going to pass through Egypt.
I'm going to kill all the firstborn of the Egyptian houses. And here's
what you're going to do. You kill the lamb, you put the
blood over the doorpost on the sides, you get in the house.
And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Those Hebrews
in those houses, how close do you think they got to windows
and doors? I dare say they're huddled in
the middle of the house. Did they want the Lord to see them
at all? All they wanted him to see was that house with the blood
over the door. You know, we take our eyes off
Christ and we start looking into him. We ask silly questions.
Am I elect? We ask silly questions. Am I real? Am I deceiving myself?
What do you want? I just want to be found in the
Lord Jesus Christ. I want him to see him and not
me. That is the desire of a saved
man or woman. That's what all the Lord's people
want simply to be found in Christ. Now, verse 5 of your text. I noticed this, that in verse
5, the tone of David changes. In the beginning, he's distressed.
He's kind of manic. Lord, hear me. Hear my cry. Give
an ear to this. Hear what I have to say. I'm
in great distress. He's got an overwhelmed heart. Heart overwhelmed
in sin. And he has great needs. He said,
Lord, be my shelter. Be my covert. Be my hiding place. And none of that changes. He
still has an overwhelmed heart. And he still needs all these
same things from the Lord. But the Lord changes his countenance
mid-song. This is a prayer. And mid-prayer, the Lord says,
I'm gonna change your countenance on this. You're distressed, you're
worried, you're sad. We're gonna change that, and
I'm gonna turn it to gratefulness. And I'm gonna turn it to remembrance
of how great a God I am, how gracious I am to sinners. Look
what he says in verse five. He says, for thou, O God, has
heard my vows, Thou has given me the heritage of those that
fear thy name. He says, you put me in that number.
You gave me the inheritance of those that fear thy name. He's
identifying the Lord's people. How do you identify the Lord's
people? Well, they fear his name. They're afraid to look anywhere
but Christ alone. They won't look at themselves for anything.
They won't look at their works, look at their walk. They are
afraid to look anywhere But Christ alone, he says, you've given
me that inheritance. You've put me in that heritage and into
that family. He's grateful at this time. He's
giving thanks to God. But notice what he attributed
to. Look at verse five again. He says, for thou, O God, has
heard my vows. What does that mean? Is he saying I made a vow and
I honored it. So because of that, you're going
to give me what I want. God forbid. No, that's not what
he means at all. Thou hast heard my vows. We're
not going to turn there because it's a long story, but I'll tell you about
it. Back in Numbers chapter 30, there's a law on the books with
the Hebrews. You can call it the law of the
foolish vow, if you will. Essentially this, if you were
a married female and your husband was in the house with you and
that married female, that wife, she made a foolish vow before
the Lord. She said, Lord, I'm going to do this. If her husband
hears that, He has a decision to make. If he's silent to her,
she's on the hook to carry out that vow. Whatever she promised,
she has to come up with. And if she doesn't come up with
the goods, condemnation is what she suffers. If he's silent to
her, she's on the hook. But if he hears that vow and
he knows that's a foolish vow, she can't come up with the goods.
She can't do what she said she was going to do. Her husband
can stand up and he can disallow that vow. He says, I make that
null and void. I disallow the vow. There's a
caveat, though. If he disallows that vow, he
has to do whatever she said she was going to do. He has to take
on her debt, and he has to pay it. Furthermore, since she makes
the vow in the first place, and she knows she can't keep it,
he's got to suffer the condemnation. He's got to come up with goods,
and he has to suffer. Vow, a covenant. We all broke
our vow in Adam. The Lord entered into a covenant
with us. Don't eat the fruit. We ate the fruit. We broke our
vow in Adam. We break our vows. We're born
in this world, sinful, wicked, fallen nature, and all we do
is break God's holy law time and time again. And here's the
most foolish part about it. The natural man, what he does,
he breaks God's holy law, and then he tries to make recompense
for it by trying to keep God's holy law. That same law he keeps
on breaking. Foolish vows after foolish vows
after foolish vows. But the Lord Jesus Christ for
his people stood up, our good husband, and said, I disallow
the vow. He can't come up with the goods.
He can't please God. His debt's on me. That means
you gotta come up with a perfect righteousness. I'll do it. You
have to take on his sin, and you have to suffer in his place.
I'll do it. Bad vow, I disallow his vow. Forgive him, put it
on me. Now read verse five again. For
thou, O God, hast heard my vows. My foolish ones, the ones I could
not keep, and you stood up and you were my representative and
my husband, and you took on my debt, and you took on my punishment,
and you put all my vows away. And that's why you've given me
the heritage of those that fear thy name for one reason, because
you're a gracious God and merciful. Now, verse six. Thou wilt prolong
the king's life and his years as many generations, He shall
abide before God forever. Oh, prepare mercy and truth,
which may preserve him. David speaks first of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He says that will prolong the king's life. God, the father sent the Lord
Jesus Christ to come to disallow our vows, to take on responsibility
for us to pay the debt in full. And when he died, he said, it
is finished. What the father do three days
later, He prolonged the king's life. He raised him from the
dead. Why? Because he did exactly what
the father sent him to do. And now he abides forever, eternally,
our savior, our mediator, our great high priest at the right
hand of the father in truth, representing all his people in
truth. He says, look at them, take a
look, your eye of holiness, look them all over. I made them all
perfect and beautiful. All you will see is me. And you know what folks, That,
just as easily, can be said of David and every other believer.
That will prolong the king's life. David's talking about himself.
We are eternally secure in the Lord Jesus Christ. We will abide
with God forever. Why? Because the truth concerning
us is justified, without guilt, wholly in Christ. His final statement
here, David's first statement, He says, so I will sing praise
unto the nine named forever that I may daily perform my vows. We already dealt with the idea
of vows. We're not good with those. So what's he talking about
here? Let me read you this. This is Psalm 50, 14 and 15.
Daily vows. It says, offer unto God thanksgiving
and pay thy vows unto the most high. There's a colon there,
so it tells us what it means. and call upon me in the day of
trouble. I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Folks,
that's a vow we keep, isn't it? Every day's the day of trouble
for us, because we're sinners, and we stand before a holy and
a sovereign and just God. And every day, what do we do?
At all times, call upon his name. Lord, save me. Your name, by
all your attributes, by your sovereignty, by your holiness,
by your good purpose and will, by your mercy and your grace,
by your blood, by who you are and what you've done, save me.
Day in, day out, at all times, just like David did in this psalm,
we are calling upon his name. And that's a vow we actually
keep. By his grace, we call on his name. Lord, leave me out
of it, save me, and do it all by yourself. Just put me in Christ
and keep me there. We'll end there. Sounds good.