Let's open our Bibles to Psalm
89. We'll read the first 37 verses of Psalm
89. I will sing of the mercies of
the Lord forever with my mouth while I make known my faithfulness
to all generations. For I have said, mercy shall
be built up forever. Thy faithfulness shalt thou establish
in the very heavens. I have made a covenant with my
chosen. I have sworn unto David my servant. Thy seed will I establish
forever and build up thy throne to all generations. And the heavens
shall praise thy wonders. O Lord, thy faithfulness also
in the congregation of the saints. For who in the heaven can be
compared unto the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty
can be likened unto the Lord? God is greatly to be feared in
the assembly of the saints and to be had in reverence of all
them that are about him. Oh, Lord, God of hosts, who is
a strong Lord like unto thee or to thy faithfulness round
about thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea. When the waves thereof
arise, thou stillest them. Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces
as one that is slain. Thou scattered thine enemies
with thy strong arm. The heavens are thine. The earth
also is thine. As for the world and the fullness
thereof, thou hast founded them. The north and the south, thou
hast created them. Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice
in thy name. Thou hast a mighty arm, strong
as thy hand and high as thy right hand. Justice and judgment are
the habitation of thy throne. Mercy and truth shall shall go
before thy face. Blessed is the people that know
the joyful sound. They shall walk, O Lord, in the
light of thy countenance. 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 horns shall
be exalted. For the Lord is our defense,
and the Holy One of Israel is our King. Then thou spakest in
vision to thy Holy One, and saidest, I have laid help upon one that
is mighty. I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have
found David my servant. With my holy oil have I anointed
him, with whom my hand shall be established. Mine arm also
shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not exact upon
him, nor the sun of wickedness afflict him. And I will beat
down his foes before his face. and plague them that hate him.
But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him, and in my
name shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand also in the
sea, and his right hand in the rivers. He shall cry unto me,
thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. And
I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the
earth. My mercy will My mercy will I keep for him forevermore,
and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will
I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law
and walk not on my judgments, if they break my statutes and
keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression
with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my
loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my
faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break
nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips. Once have
I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed
shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before me.
It shall be established forever as the moon and as a faithful
witness in heaven." The writers put a seal out there. I never
know what that means. If that means, I don't know if
anybody knows, some people say it's a musical term that means
to repeat that. Some people say it means to stop
and pause and think about that. Well, either way, that's a good
thing to repeat and a good thing to stop and think about in it.
His seed shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before
me. It shall be established forever as the moon and as a faithful
witness in heaven. All right, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent, is your matchless name. Father, we bow before your
throne with hearts full of thanksgiving, awe, reverence, and worship. Father, I pray this evening that
you would give us a time of true worship, that you'd let us, for
this hour, gather together out of the dry and barren and dead
world in which we live and give us a time of refreshing, a time
of worship, true heart worship, worshiping Christ our Savior. Father, we thank you for your
countless many gifts to your people. How richly and abundantly
that you've blessed us physically, materially, but Father, especially
spiritually. Because of your faithfulness
and your goodness, because of the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, because of his sufficiency, you've given your people everything
that we need. Everything you require and everything
that we need. Father, we're thankful. And how
I pray for a grateful and thankful heart. They would not presume
upon your mercy. They would not presume upon your
faithfulness to your people. But Father, make us faithful
to look to Christ, faithful to worship you, faithful to preach
your gospel, faithful to one another. Father, we're so poor, so needy,
so weak. We need you to keep us every
hour. And how thankful we are that
our salvation does not depend upon our faithfulness, but on
your faithfulness. not upon our righteousness, but
upon the righteousness of Christ. Keep us in him, we pray. Father,
for those who are hurting and who are sick and need you especially,
Father, we pray for them. We pray for your hand of healing.
We pray for your hand of comfort, that you comfort the hearts of
your people, that when it could be thy will, that you'd provide
a way out. In all these things we ask, in that name which is
above every name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For His
glory we pray and give thanks. Amen. Is there anyone can help us? One who understands our hearts. when the thorns of life have
pierced them till they bleed. One who sympathizes with us,
who in wondrous love imparts just the very, very blessing
that we need. Sing it with me. Yes, there's
one, only one, the blessed, blessed Lord Jesus. He's the one. When afflictions crash your soul,
When the waves of trouble roll And you need a friend to help
you He's the one Is there anyone can help us When the load is
hard to bear? And we faint and fall beneath
it in alarm. Who in tenderness will lift us
and the heavy burden bear, and support us with an everlasting
arm. Is there anyone can help us,
who can give When his heart is burdened down
with pain and woe? Who can speak the word of pardon
that abhors a sweet release? and whose blood can wash and
make us white as snow. Yes, there's one, only one, the
blessed, blessed Lord Jesus. He's the one. When afflictions press your soul
When the waves of trouble roll And you need a friend to help
you He's the one Is there anyone can help us When the end is drawing
near Who will go through death's dark waters by our side? Who will light the way before
us And dispel all doubt and fear? and we'll bear our spirits safely
o'er the tide. Yes, there's one The blessed, blessed Lord Jesus,
He's the one. When afflictions press the soul,
When the waves of trouble roll, All right, let's open our Bibles
again to Psalm 89. I've titled the message this
evening, God's Faithfulness. I don't have time to preach verse
by verse and comment on each verse in particular throughout
this whole psalm because time won't permit it. But I want us
to see four points this evening from the theme of this psalm,
which is God's faithfulness. God's faithfulness runs all through
this psalm, and I can't think of a more comforting thought
for God's people as we trudge through this life in God's faithfulness. No matter what's happening, God's
faithful. When it all looks like it's going
against you and we don't understand, I like being a bank on this.
God's faithful. Remember when Jacob's sons came
back from Egypt And they said, we had to leave Simeon down there
in jail. The man said, he won't give us any more food unless
we bring our younger brother. Jacob said, why did you even
tell him you had a younger brother? He said, Joseph is not, Simeon's
not, and if you boys take Benjamin, I know what happens to my boys
when you all get along with them, Benjamin's gonna not be here
anymore either. Jacob said, everything's working
against me. But it wasn't, was it? No, God's
faithful. We do well to remember that.
How often do we think everything's against me? Well, it might look
that way. God's faithful. We may not see
the end of it. We may not see the end of God's
purpose in it like Jacob did. Nevertheless, God's faithful.
Charles Spurgeon said of this psalm, it's the covenant psalm.
God's faithfulness to his people is tied to his covenant. God's
covenant is his promise to his people. God is faithful to his
people because God, who cannot lie, promised his people redemption
in his son. A man named Ethan wrote this
psalm. Nobody knows who Ethan was, but
I know this. Ethan knew a good deal about
God's covenant mercies and God's faithfulness. Look what he says
in verse one. I will sing of the mercies of
the Lord forever. With my mouth will I make known
thy faithfulness to all generations. Now this is what we preach by
God's grace. We preach his faithfulness to
all generations. The gospel of God's grace in
Christ Jesus is going to be preached to all generations until Christ
returns. We'll be able to sing about the
mercies of the Lord forever because God is forever faithful. to show
mercy to sinners. I want to show you four truths
here about God's faithfulness. Number one is this, God is faithful
to show mercy to sinners because of God's covenant. In verse two
he says, for I have said, mercy shall be built up forever. Thy
faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. Now God's
covenant of grace is established in the very heavens. The covenant
of grace was made in heaven, and it was ratified in heaven.
God's covenant of grace was not between God and men. God's covenant
of grace was established in the heavens. It was made between
the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And in eternity,
the Father and the Son made a promise to one another. They entered
into this covenant of grace, and he tells us about it, verse
3. I've made a covenant with my chosen. I've sworn unto David
my servant. Now the David mentioned here
is not King David, David, the sweet psalmist of Israel. It's
the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of David. And in this covenant,
the father made a promise. He swore a promise to his son. The father chose a people to
save. That's what we call election.
The father chose a people out of the lump of Adam's fallen
race and God said, I love these people. I'm going to save these
people. And he gave them to his son. And the father promised
his son, I will see these people in you, in Christ their representative. He promised to accept the righteousness
of Christ as the righteousness of his people. He promised to
forgive the sin of those people and the sacrifice of his son. And the son made a promise. He
promised that he would become a man. He promised he would humiliate
himself to become a man. So that as a man, made under
the law, he could produce a perfect righteousness by his obedience
to the law that he could give to his elect. And he promised
he would take the sin of his people away from them and he
put it away with the sacrifice of himself. And the Holy Spirit
promised to give everyone for whom the son died to give them
life and faith in Christ. Christ's death will not be in
vain. Everyone for whom he died will
be given life and faith. Now that is a gracious, glorious
covenant. I just love to hear about this
covenant that's established in heaven, don't you? This is what
God did. Now the covenant was made in
heaven between the Godhead and it was also ratified in heaven
between the Father and the Son. The covenant of grace is ratified
with the blood of Christ. Now, He promised He'd do it,
but He had to come in time and physically do it. And that's
what He did. He came. He worked out a perfect
righteousness for His people. He took the sin of His people
away from them, and He suffered and He died for that sin. And
He took His blood behind the veil. In those three hours of
darkness, we couldn't see anything It's just like the high priest
of old going into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement.
Nobody could see him. That's what Christ the Savior
did. He took not the blood of bulls and goats, but His own
blood behind the veil into the very presence of the Father and
offered His blood on the altar before the Lord. And the covenant
was ratified. It was ratified in heaven. And
in this covenant, Christ is all. He's all of this covenant. It's
all done for the glory of Christ. And all of God's mercy to sinners
is tied to this covenant, this promise between the Father and
the Son. Hold your place there and look
over at Isaiah chapter 55. It's all in Christ. Isaiah 55 verse 1. Ho, everyone
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money,
come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and
eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto
me. Here, and your soul shall live,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David." God says, I'm going to give you all the
sure mercies that I promised to Christ to forgive you from
your sin. In verse 4, he says, Behold,
now this is all in Christ now. He says, I've given him for a
witness to the people. I've given him as a leader and
a commander to the people. Behold, thou shalt call a nation
that thou knowest not. And nations that knew not thee
shall run unto thee, because of the Lord thy God, and for
the Holy One of Israel, for He hath glorified thee." Now God's
going to call somebody to Christ. He's going to call and they're
going to come running to Christ. They're going to find salvation
in the Holy One of Israel. This is a sure thing. Surely,
I'll give you the sure mercies of David. God's going to call
somebody to Christ. Well, you know what I'm going
to do? I'm going to run to him. Verse six, seek ye the Lord while
he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is
near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous
man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he
will have mercy upon him. And to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon. Now Isaiah could tell us without
any hesitation whatsoever, you come to Christ, he'll have mercy
upon you. He will abundantly pardon because of God's covenant. His mercy to His people is sure
because of this covenant made between the Father and the Son.
See, the covenant was made between the Father and the Son, but it
was concerning men. Now, this covenant wasn't made
with men. It was concerning men. It was
concerning their salvation. And all those people shall be
saved. Verse 4, back in Psalm 89. Thy
seed will I establish forever and build up thy throne to all
generations. Now God's seed, the seed of Christ,
all of them shall be saved, eternally saved. They're going to be established
forever in Christ. And there's no doubt about it.
There's no doubt about their salvation. Because after the
Savior suffered and died for the sin of his people, he rose
again from the dead. That was proof positive His sacrifice
justified His people from all their sin. And justified means
made sinless. He made them sinless because
He took all their sin away. And then He ascended back on
high. And when He got there, He sat down on the throne of
heaven. That's the throne the psalmist
is talking about here. So the salvation of God's people
is sure. It's certain. It's secure. Because
Christ the Savior sits upon the throne of glory, ruling over
everything, for this purpose, to carry out the eternal redemption
of His people. And nothing on earth can stop
it, because Christ overrules it. He overrules everything that's
happening, because He's King. The King is the sovereign Savior,
saving whom He will, when he will, and nothing in creation
can stay his hand or ask him, what are you doing? Nothing,
because he's king, carrying out his purpose of the redemption
of his people. You know why? Because he's faithful. He's faithful. The salvation
of God's elect is sure, because God is faithful to his covenant.
God always keeps his promise. All right, here's the second
thing about God's faithfulness. It's praised in the church. Verse
5. And the heavens shall praise
thy wonders, O Lord, thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the
saints. Now, the church is not this building or other buildings
like it. These buildings are just places
of worship. Brother Henry used to say someday
they'll put a hotel here. Maybe not on this road, but you
know what I mean. It's just a building. The church
is the body of Christ. It's all the people that Christ
saved. The body of Christ is made up
of all believers everywhere, everywhere on earth. Lord willing,
next week, we're going to have a bunch of people coming from
different congregations all around the place. We're still one body. We're one body of Christ, whether
they're on earth or whether they're in heaven. And it doesn't matter
where they're at, earth or heaven or wherever, they're all singing
the same song. Those in heaven sing it perfectly,
we don't, but it's the same song. They all praise the wonders of
God's faithfulness to save his people. And he gives us a hint
here of some of the verses of the song. They sing, first of
all, that Jehovah cannot be compared to anyone. Verse six, for who
in the heavens can be compared unto the Lord? Who among the
sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord? Nobody in heaven
or earth can be compared to the Lord. The angels can't be compared
to them. They're mighty creative beings,
but they can't be compared to God, can they? All they can do
is use two of their wings to cover their feet, two to cover
their face, and two to fly around singing, holy, holy, holy is
the Lord God of hosts. They can't be compared to him.
No man can be compared to God. It shows you the deadness of
human nature that we even have to say that. Of course a man
can't be compared to God. We're creatures of the dust.
He's the creator. We're sinners. Nothing but sinners. And God is the savior of sinners.
There's no comparison. And then they sing in reverence
to Christ alone. Look at verse 7. God is greatly
to be feared in the assembly of the saints. and to be had
in reverence of all them that are about him. The Lord God of
hosts, O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee?
Or do thy faithfulness round about thee? God's church worships
God as God alone. And they do it reverently. Reverently. It's not like we're talking to
one another now. This is worship of God. They do it reverently.
And God's church worships Christ the Savior alone. And by that
I mean this, that Christ is the Savior alone. Without any of
our works, without any of our experiences being added to Him,
salvation is Christ alone. And there are a lot of different
man-made religions in this world, and everything they make up is
an idol. An idol. No idol can be compared to our
Savior. Idols are not faithful and they're
not merciful. Idols can only save people who
are faithful to them. Isn't that right? When you look
at idols, I mean, all throughout history, they saved people who
faithfully served them. But they better not step out
of line. Idols can't save the spiritually weak. They can't
save the lame. They can't save the blind. They
can't save the dead. Can't faithfully serve them.
And idols aren't merciful. They can't save people who sin
too much. Idols can only save people that
don't sin very much. Well, that's no help for me.
Is it for you? They can't save sinners. They're not merciful.
But our God is. He is faithful and just to forgive
sinners. Because He's faithful to His
covenant. He's faithful to see His people washed in the blood
of Christ, clothed in His righteousness. Our God has the strength to put
sin away because there's power in the blood. Our God is faithful
to save sinners just exactly like He promised He would in
Christ Jesus. I'm telling you, no one can be
compared to Him. Well, next, the church sings,
The Lord is King. Lift up your voice. Verse 9.
Thou rulest the raging of the sea. When the waters thereof
arise, thou stillest them. A God rules everything on earth. Everything. Even the tides and
the waves of the stormy ocean are under the direct control
of our God. But that's just a picture. I
started out talking about when you think everything's against
you. Well, those stormy trials that you think are going to overwhelm
you like the disciples out there in the boat think they're going
to perish, they're going to capsize, they're going to sink and drown.
You remember this. Our God's in control of that
storm. When He arises, they'll be still. And more importantly,
God's faithful to still the hearts of His people. How many times
a day do I need that to have my heart stilled? Our natural
heart is enmity against God. It's warfare against God. It's
anything but being stilled. But God arises and He stills
the hearts of His people by sovereignly giving them a new one. In verse
10, Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces as one that is slain.
Thou have scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm. Now we know
our God's faithful. He will faithfully defeat every
enemy. No opposition to God will ever
stand. And he talks about Rahab here.
He's talking about Egypt, which represents sin and bondage to
sin. Well, every son of Adam is born
in Egypt. We're born a natural born enemy. of God. To this day, people in
Egypt just hate somebody in Israel just because they're from Israel.
Natural born enemies. That's what we are by nature.
Born in sin. Born a natural born enemy of
God. That's what Adam made us in the
garden. And God's going to destroy every
enemy. Every son of Adam who rises up
as an In opposition to him, God's going to destroy him. Some, he'll
destroy in judgment. And thank God, some he delivers
in mercy by putting their sin away. But one way or another,
he's going to be faithful to do it. And there will be no threats
to his reign. There's no getting around his
reign. Look at verse 11. The heavens are thine. The earth
also is thine. As for the world and the fullness
thereof, Thou hast founded them, everything in the earth and everything
that happens in the earth, it all belongs to God. He's using
it all for His purpose. Satan's not using it for his
purpose. God's using it for His. He's overruling everything that
happens in this earth for His purpose. And it's a good thing
because you know God has a people from every planet, every nation
on this planet, and He's going to save every one of those people.
Verse 12, nothing's going to stop them, nothing's going to
keep them from Christ. The North and the South, thou
hast created them, and you'll call your people out of them.
Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name. Thou hast a mighty
arm. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's got a mighty arm. Strong is thy hand, and high
is thy right hand. Justice and judgment are the
habitation of thy throne. Mercy and truth shall go before
thy face. God has a people from every nation
on this earth, and he's going to save them all with his mighty
hand. He can reach to the farthest points and pull his people to
himself. And when he does, all God's people
sing this, God's blessed me. God has blessed me. Verse 15,
blessed is the people that know the joyful sound. They shall
walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance. Oh, if you know
this joyful sound, the joyful sound of God's mercy, God's grace,
oh, God's blessed you. You're a blessed person. And
God's people know this. All their salvation, every blessing
they have, it's all in Christ. Salvation's in Christ's obedience,
not ours. Verse 16. In thy name shall they
rejoice all the day, and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted. We're not going to be exalted
in our righteousness and our obedience and how well we did
things. It's only in Christ's righteousness. David says that's
the only righteousness I'm going to talk about. Because that's
the only righteousness there is. We're only saying of Christ's
righteousness. And in this salvation, Christ
is the glory of it and He's the power of it. Verse 17. For thou
art the glory of their strength. And in thy favor, our horn, our
power, shall be exalted. It's all exalted in Christ. Christ
is our Savior and our King, and all of God's people willingly
bow to Him. Verse 18. For the Lord is our
defense, and the Holy One of Israel is our King. He's the
King. We bow to Him. That's praising
the Lord. It's bowing to Him and worshiping
Him in reference. All right, here's the third thing
about God's faithfulness. The Lord Jesus Christ faithfully
carried out all of God's purpose in redemption. Verse 19. Then thou spakest in vision to
thy holy one and saidest, I've laid help upon one that is mighty.
I've exalted one chosen out of the people. I found David, my
servant with my holy oil. If I anointed him with whom my
hand should be established, mine arm also shall strengthen him. And the father chose his son
to be the savior of his people. He chose his son to be the mediator
of this covenant. The father is the one who chose
the people to save and he chose the savior to save them. And
he anointed his son with the oil of gladness above his fellows,
just like he anointed David king. When Samuel went down there and
anointed David king, that's how everybody knew that's God's king. Samuel anointed him. Well, the
father anointed his son with the oil of gladness above his
fellows that showed everyone the Lord Jesus Christ is God's
savior. He's God's king to rule over
his people. And the mighty one that God found,
the one who's mighty to save is his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the one who's mighty
enough to obey God's law. Christ is the one who's mighty
enough to be able to bear the sin of His people. It didn't
crush Him because He's strong enough to bear it. He's strong
enough to bear that awful load away from His people. He's mighty
enough to pay for that sin with His own blood. In verse 21, He
said, Now with whom My hand shall be established, Mine arm also
shall strengthen Him. You know, all through His earthly
ministry, The Lord Jesus looked like a failure, didn't he? I
mean, he really looked like a failure. You wonder, why were the scribes
and Pharisees so worried about this fella? His followers were
12 uneducated fishermen. The rest of his followers were
just a few women, some harlots, and some publicans. Now, at one
time, he had a pretty good following, but he ran them all off just
by preaching one message, and the only ones that stayed were
those 12, those few women, harlots, and publicans. And then when
he was taken to be crucified, when he was oppressed by the
enemy, then even that small band abandoned him. He was by himself.
He was left alone in the hands of the wicked, the wicked Jews
and the wicked Romans, the wicked heathen and the wicked religious
people. And they beat him and they mocked
him and they crucified him. Well now, I thought he said here
the enemy shall not exact upon him. Sounds to me like they are,
doesn't it to you? They beat him, they mocked him,
they crucified him, they put him to death, but their will
was not done. No, God's will was done. They
didn't destroy him. God was just using them all along,
not to accomplish their purpose, but to accomplish his purpose
of the redemption of his people through the cursed death of Christ
on the tree. And he says in verse 23, and
I will beat down his foes before his face and plague them that
hate him. Now you know why the father did
all that? Why he allowed them to crucify his son. And then
why he came and destroyed them. You know why he did that? Because
he's always faithful to do what he promised he would do. The
father promised that he would accept the sacrifice of Christ
His payment in full for all the sin of His elect. Then it's gone. The Father took the payment,
marked it, paid in full. And our Lord Jesus Christ was
faithful. He set His face like a flint.
He would not be deterred because He was faithful to give Himself
as a sacrifice for the sin of His people. And that sacrifice
was successful because of who died. He did what He came to
do He saved His people from their sin. And because of that, the
Father has exalted His Son above all, giving Him a name which
is above every name. Verse 24, But my faithfulness
and my mercy shall be with Him. I'm going to destroy His enemies,
but my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with Him. And in my
name shall His horn be exalted. I will set His hand also in the
sea, His right hand in the rivers, He shall cry unto me, Thou art
my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Also, I will
make him, my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.
My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant
shall stand fast with him." See, it's all in Christ. The Father
accepted the sacrifice of Christ. Christ was made sin. The father
turned his back on him, didn't he? But when the sacrifice was
finished, when atonement was made, the father accepted his
son back in his loving presence with open arms. And when the
father accepted the son, you know what else happened? He accepted
everybody in him. Everybody in Christ was accepted
by the father forever. Verse 29. His seed also will
I make to endure forever and his throne as the days of heaven. Now, we were cast out of God's
presence in Adam, but accepted back into God's presence in Christ
because God's faithful. The Lord Jesus Christ faithfully
carried out all of God's purpose of redemption, and the Father
faithfully accepted him. Now, here's one more thing that'll
be such a comfort to your heart, I believe. The sin and the weak
faith of God's elect will never make God become unfaithful. Our sin and our weak faith will
never change God's character and make him be unfaithful and
make him take his blessings back. Look at verse 30. If his children forsake my law,
if, if, if his children forsake my law and walk not on my judgments,
if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then
will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity
was stripes. But look over Hebrews chapter
12. You know, when God saves his people, we do not stop sinning. As a matter of fact, when God
saves somebody, you know what they think? They think, I've
sinned more than I ever used to. And the reason is now you've
got a new man to see the sin of the old man. And when it becomes
necessary, the father will correct his children. The writers of
the Hebrews talks about that in Hebrews chapter 12. But you
know, even this is done faithfully. Look at verse five. And ye have
forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children.
My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou
art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye
endure chastening, God dealeth with you as sons, and what son
is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, all the children are partakers, then
are you bastards and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers
of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.
Should we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father
of spirits and live? For they verily for a few days
chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit,
that we might be partakers of His holiness. No chastening for
the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable
fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. God faithfully will correct His
children when need be. The Father will correct His children. but he will never punish his
children. Never. I've lost track of how many times
someone has asked me when they're in the midst of it, well, has
God punished me because I did this or that or the other? Well,
I don't know. I mean, I don't know what the
Lord's doing. I never know why he's doing what
he's doing, ever. But I do know this, he's not
punishing Maybe he's correcting you, I don't know, but I know
he does not punish his children for their sins. God can only
punish sin with hell. He can only punish sin with eternal
death. So the father never punishes
his children for their sin because their sin's already been punished
in Christ our substitute. And God's faithful to be just.
If he punished us for our sin after he punished our substitute
for our sin, that would be unjust. But, I said all that to get to
this right here. Even all the unending sin of
His people. You think of our unending sin. God ought to chastise us more
than He does. Isn't that right? Our sin is unending. And it's willful sin. It's willful. Even all the unending sin of
His people. Even all of our weak faith will
not make God break his covenant. Even though his people are often
unfaithful to him, God will never be unfaithful to his people.
Look at verse 33. Nevertheless, as great as the
sin of my people is, my grace, my faithfulness is never less.
Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from
him. nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. His might, but mine
won't. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that
has gone out of my lips. Once I've sworn by my holiness."
God's sworn by his holiness. You reckon he's going to lie?
You reckon he's now going to become unfaithful? No. He's sworn
by my holiness. I will not lie unto David. Again, that's speaking of Christ.
His seed shall endure forever. and His throne as the sun before
me, it should be established forever, even as the moon, and
as a faithful witness in heaven." God's going to be faithful to
His covenant of grace, and He'll never become unfaithful to His
people, no matter how much we sin. Now, you know that's not
an excuse to sin, don't you? God's children know that. If
God saved you, you don't want to go out and be able to sin
more against our God. Hearing of God's faithfulness
to our unfaithfulness, that breaks our heart, doesn't it? Makes
us want to live in obedience, makes us want to live worshiping
him, not go out and sin more. The only person who thinks God's
faithfulness is an excuse to sin is an unregenerate person
that doesn't have any life. And God's children find comfort
in this. Our sin and our unfaithfulness will never make God unfaithful. And people say, boy, I sure would
like for God to give me a token, like for God to give me a sign.
I told you before, I am not a fan of that at all. But in this case,
God's given us one. As long as the sun endures, as
long as the moon endures, You're driving home this evening, if
it's not too cloudy, check. You know what's going to be there?
The moon. And you may have a sleepless,
dark, tortured night. But unless the Lord returns,
you know what you're going to find in the morning? The sun's
right up there in the sky. That ought to be a pretty good
reminder to us because we're faithful just people. All right. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, we thank you for
this portion of your word that shows us your faithfulness, your
faithfulness to your covenant, your faithfulness to your people. Father, human words can't be
found to express our thanksgiving and our awe and our wonder at
your faithfulness to such worms as we are. Father, we pray that
you'd forgive us of our sin, how we wish we could not sin. We pray you'd forgive us of our
sin. And the thought thrills our heart
that our sin will not cause you to become unfaithful to your
people because it's already been put away through the sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, enable us to walk through
our lives with thanksgiving and enjoying a confident hope in
our Lord Jesus Christ because of your faithfulness to your
covenant and your faithfulness to your people. It's in the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ we pray and give thanks.