Let's open our Bibles again to
Psalm 48. I titled the message tonight, Mark
Well the Bulwarks. Mark Well the Bulwarks. I took
the title from verse 12 and 13. The psalmist says, walk about
Zion, go round about her, tell the towers thereof, mark ye well
her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that she may tell it to the generation
following. It's like the psalmist is telling
us to walk about the city Zion. Walk all about it. Inspect its
walls, its towers, its boards. Inspect the foundations. Inspect
the defenses. Make sure everything is as it
should be. And what this gives us a picture of is Zion representing
God's church. Representing all of God's people.
And he's telling us now, walk about God's people. Watch them. Talk to them. Be with them. Part
of talking to them is preaching the gospel to them. And when
we preach, what we're always doing is telling the towers,
pointing out the bulwarks of the gospel. The psalmist tells
us, you be sure you're teaching these things in the church. The
oldest ones need to be reminded those towers and bulwarks constantly
need to be strengthened. And the youngest, that generation
following he talks about here. They need to be taught. They
need to be taught the towers and the bulwarks of the gospel,
so that when their time comes, they're able to step up on them
and defend them. Those of you who are younger,
I thought about you as I was preparing this message, and I
thought when I was your age. It is amazing to me how fast
I went from 18 to 51. It just, it astounds me. Sometimes I wonder, what are
you doing? Well, this is the time the Lord's
given to us to get up on the bullpens and defend them, to
mark them, to teach them, so the next generation knows them,
to strengthen them. And the older believers have
been around a long time. I want to talk about from the,
just from, I'm gonna confine myself to the towers and bulwarks
of this song. I'll talk about some of the towers
and bulwarks of the gospel. When David says, tell the towers
of the gospel, that word tell means to intensively talk about,
to recount, constantly recount and to celebrate. I, uh, that,
that suits me cause I, by nature am kind of intense. intensively
and talk about the gospel. Constantly recount these things
and celebrate these truths of the gospel. And when he says,
mark ye well the bulwarks, that phrase, mark ye well, means set
your heart upon them. Mark these bulwarks, these foundational
truths of the gospel and set your heart on them. Don't let
anybody talk you into giving them up or abandoning your post
on these bulwarks. The first bulwark I want us to
see is the bulwark of this first bulwark of the gospel is God's
greatness. Psalm begins, great is the Lord
and greatly to be praised in the city of our God. Now the
Lord is great. Everything about God is great. So great. We really, we can never
fully comprehend it. Look over at Psalm 145. Psalm 145, verse three. Great is the Lord and greatly
to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. You just can't
find out how great God is. One generation shall praise thy
works to another and shall declare thy mighty acts. So everything
about the Lord is great. The Lord is great in his holiness. He's perfect. Everything about
Him and everything that He does is perfect. The Lord's great
in His sovereignty. He's in control of everything
that happens and nothing can happen that's not His will. That's great. His sovereignty
is great. His salvation is great. Salvation
in Christ is so great that He saves the chief of sinners to
the uttermost. Now don't ever abandon that bulwark.
The writer to the Hebrews said, how shall we escape if we neglect
so great salvation? If we neglect this great bulwark,
how shall we escape? There's no other salvation. There's
no other savior. God's great in his mercy. He
is rich in mercy for the most undeserving sinners. His mercy
is so great that it saves and cleanses the worst sinners without
any of their works or any of their help. He's great in mercy. You cannot be too great of a
sinner for God's mercy. However great of a sinner you
think you are, really you're greater. But no matter, God's
mercy is greater. He's great in mercy. He's great
in his election of sinners. God chose to save sinners. But that is so great, it's so
shocking that God would choose sinners, the worst of them. He
chose Jacob, he said. He chose the likes of you and
me. Oh, how great he is in his election of sinners. If it weren't
for that, no sinner would be saved. And he's great in his
suffering. For by one offering, he hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified. What an offering,
what a suffering. that put away the sin of His
people forever. He's great in His righteousness. The righteousness
of Christ is so great that He has made His people the righteousness
of God in Him. He's made His people as righteous
as the Son of God. He's great in the calling of
His people. He calls His people, and when
He calls, His call is so great, always come. They always come
willingly. My sheep hear my voice. They
know my voice and they follow me. And His calling is so great,
another will they not follow. Every time He calls, they come
running. He's great at His keeping power. He'll keep His people
to the end and never ever let one of them go. The very last
line of the psalm is, He'll be our guide. He'll be our keeper.
even unto death. He's great in his keeping power. The Lord is great in all of his
offices. He is our great God, our great savior, our great high
priest, the chief shepherd. And the gospel of God is great
because it's all about him. The gospel of God is so great
that it's a mystery that angels desire to look into. living beings
desire to look into this gospel and can't understand it. This
gospel is so great, it cannot be believed and it cannot be
understood by the greatest human mind ever. If it's going to be
understood and believed, it must be revealed because it's a great
gospel. The gospel declares who God is. The gospel declares who man is. and the gospel declares who the
Savior is. What a great message. And God
gives spiritual life to his people through the preaching of the
gospel. That's the only way he does it.
The only way he gives life is through the preaching of the
gospel. Then brethren, mark it well.
Mark it well. Take it to heart. Intensively
talk about it. Constantly recount it and celebrate
this gospel. Mark it well. The gospel is your
bulwark. It is the gospel of God. It's
God's gospel. But the apostle Paul also says
my gospel, didn't he? This bulwark of the gospel is
your bulwark. Don't ever abandon it. Don't
ever abandon your post, but stay with it and defend it. And you
might wonder, well, how do I do that? Simply by never compromising
the greatness of God. Don't ever put man in the place
of God. Don't ever put anything of salvation
up to something that man does. No. Don't ever compromise on
the greatness of God. And do that by worshiping Him.
You know, worship, true worship magnifies the difference. Or
at least starts to give us some understanding of the difference
between the greatness of God and our smallness. And that's
what makes us bow before Him. That's defending, that's keeping
on this bulwark of God's greatness. We mark this board by worshiping
God, by being where he is declared, by being where the gospel is
preached. You know, the Lord is great and he should be greatly
praised. I don't know if David or whoever
wrote the Psalms is great as the Lord and greatly to be praised.
The Lord is great. He should be greatly praised.
He should be praised with the very best that we've got. That's
the only kind of praise he deserves, is great praise. And that's my
prayer that this house will always be a house of true worship, where
this bulwark in the preaching of the gospel is constantly declared
the greatness of our God. All right, the second bulwark
is this, the Lord's holy. The end of verse two, he says,
greatly be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of
his holiness, beautiful for situation. The joy of the whole earth is
Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great
king. Now the Lord is holy. That means
he has no sin. He's incapable of sinning. He
is pure and God can only accept holiness. He can't even look
upon sin. He can only accept those who have no sin. God is holy. That is his chief
attribute. Every other attribute of God
hangs upon his holiness. Yes, God is love, but it's a
holy love. Yes, God is merciful. Yes, but
he only shows that mercy in holiness. God is just and his justice is
always in holiness. None of those attributes ever
compromise his holiness. And that's why David here refers
to his holiness as a mountain. It's the mountain of God's holiness.
God's holiness is a mountain that cannot be changed, that
cannot be moved. It can't be ignored. God's holiness
is a landmark that always identifies who God is and where he is. He's
holy. Now, here's the thing. Holiness
is the opposite of you and me. Holiness is the opposite of our
sin. And because of our sin, we've
caused a great divide between us and God that we cannot cross. We cannot go to God in the way
we are in this flesh because God's holy. Now that makes the
natural mind think, well, I don't like holiness then. If it's holiness,
if God's holiness is keeping me from coming to him as I am,
I don't like God's holiness. But nothing could be more wrong
than that. The psalmist here says God's holiness is beautiful. It's beautiful. Oh, worship the
Lord in the beauty of holiness. I tell you what's ugly is our
sin. God's holiness is beautiful. And God's holiness is not a reason
for us to be filled with sorrow or despair. God's holiness is
the joy of the whole earth. The whole earth is full of the
ugliness of sin. Our sin has ruined this creation. There came a day God sent holiness
personified into this world, filled with sin, filled with
corruption. God sent his son into this world
to make his people holy, to make his people beautiful with his
beauty, his holiness that he put upon them. He made them a
holy nation. And that's a beautiful thing
to a sinner. that God sent holiness into this
life, into this world to make his people what they're not,
to make them holy. Now don't ever abandon this board.
There can be no salvation for a sinner unless God stays holy
and he makes his people holy. There's no salvation unless the
Lord Jesus Christ has made his people holy. Not someday, right
now. No salvation without it. What
does scripture say? Without holiness, no man shall
see the Lord. So don't ever abandon this bulwark.
If sin is not completely put away under the blood of Christ,
and we're not made holy in him, there is no salvation and no
good news to preach for sinners. So don't ever abandon this bulwark,
but defend it, talk about it, celebrate it, Mark it well, take
it to heart. All right, the third bulwark
is this, that God is sovereign. The end of verse three says,
the city of the great king. Now I love the sovereignty of
God. God is sovereign over all things. God's sovereign over everything. And that means this, that God
has done And God has willed everything that's ever happened in the history
of this creation and everything that is yet to happen. God's
going to do it and God willed it. And he did it all to accomplish
one purpose, to accomplish his will and the redemption of his
people. God is sovereign and in control of every great detail
and every minute detail, working them all together in ways that
you and I could never comprehend. to bring about his purpose to
redeem his people from their sin. God's in control. The devil is not in control.
Men are not in control. There's no such thing as mother
nature. There's no such thing as luck. God is in control of
everything. Nothing happens by accident.
Nothing happens by chance. Everything that happens is God's
express will and purpose. This is what scripture tells
us. God's offering. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion. It's always been that way and
always will be that way. He's got an everlasting dominion.
He does according to his will everywhere in the armies of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth. And nobody can stop
him. Nobody can stay his hand and
nobody can ask him what you're doing. God's offering. Whatsoever the Lord please, that's
exactly what he did in heaven and the earth, the seas and all
deep places. God is in control. of everything
and everybody, everywhere. God's sovereign. And God is sovereign
in salvation. Now, do not ever abandon this
bulletin. God is sovereign in salvation. There's no good news for sinners
if God's not sovereign in salvation. That's why we never abandon it.
God, just because he would, Sovereignly elected, he chose a people to
save just because he would. He chose to save them. If he
didn't do that, no sinner could ever be saved because no one
in our nature would ever choose God. If God didn't choose us
first, we never would have chosen him. He did that in his sovereignty. That's why it is absurd to try
to talk people in the flesh into making a decision for Jesus.
I think about these false prophets, that's what they've got to do.
They've got to spend their life trying to talk people into flesh
into doing something that they really don't want to do. Doesn't
that sound like a miserable existence? I'd rather be a used car salesman.
I mean, this is just... Wouldn't you a whole lot rather
preach the gospel? Just declare the gospel. Watch God in His
sovereignty make His people willing in the day of His That's God's
sovereignty. Now someone will say, well, if
God's sovereign, that he will always do his purpose. God had
determined before time to do exactly what he would do. And
that just, he's going to do that, nothing else. Then why bother
to preach? Why bother to call on all men
to come to Christ? Because whoever God chose can
be saved and who's ever saved can be saved. So, you know, why
bother? Well, I got a lot to say about
that. Number one, we preach because God said, go into all the world
and preach the gospel. Number two, we call all men to
come to Christ because God has commanded all men everywhere
to repent and come to Christ. And thirdly, we preach the gospel
because the fact that God is sovereign in salvation gives
sinners a reason to come to God and beg for mercy to save their
sorry souls because God is sovereign. God is sovereign. He said he'd
do it. Then he'll do it because nobody
can stay his hand. God is sovereign in salvation
so we can confidently trust Christ to save. Salvation is not a decision
that we make for Jesus. Now, if that were so, there's
no surety in salvation because I could change my mind and probably
would. I do about everything else. I
probably would about that. Salvation is a work that God
does for His people and in His people. So they can't change
their mind. They can't change it. There's
nothing they can do to cause themselves to lose that salvation.
So we can confidently trust Christ to be all of our salvation. To save us, to call us, to keep
us, and in the end, to present us faultless before the presence
of His glory with exceeding joy. Now don't ever leave that bulwark.
Don't ever quit in believing this great truth, this great
bulwark of God's sovereignty. All right, here's the fourth
bulwark. The Lord is our refuge. Verse 3. God is known in her
palaces for a refuge. Now Spurgeon said we worship
no unknown God. And he is absolutely right. God
is known. in her palaces. God has made
himself known to his people. God's people know God. We don't know everything there
is to know about God, but we know God. And this is one thing
we know. God is our refuge. Look back
at page Psalm 46. God is our refuge and strength. A very present help in trouble. And because God's our refuge,
He's our strength. He's a very present help in trouble.
We will not fear. Though the earth be removed,
though the mountains be carried in the midst of the sea, though
the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains
shake with the swelling thereof. We're not going to be afraid.
We're not going to be moved because God is our refuge. There's two meanings here. God
is our refuge from the wrath of God against sin. Christ is
our shelter. He's our ark. Now remember that's
our second bulwark. God's holy. God must punish sin. So when God rained down His fiery
wrath against the sin of His people, Christ, our substitute,
stood in the way. He was our shelter. He took all
that wrath that was intended, that fell upon the sin of His
people, it all fell upon Him. He took all that wrath Himself.
And He shielded God's elect from that wrath. And He suffered and
died, being the refuge for the sin of his people. And in his
death, he satisfied God's justice and gave his people life. His
people have life because Christ died as their substitute. But
the story doesn't end there. Our refuge rose from the grave
and he lives to ensure the salvation of his people. Our refuge is
not dead. Our refuge is living. Now run
to him. Hide in him. What a refuge to
have. One that's already stood up to
the storm. One that's already stood up to
God's justice. And He lives, making intercession
for the sin of His people. He's our refuge. Run to Him. Run to Him for the salvation
of your soul. Here's a second way to look at this. Christ,
your God, is our refuge. He lives. Our refuge lives. And
He continues to be the refuge for His people. all the storms
and trials and troubles of this life. Brother, we need one, don't
we? We need a refuge. Believers have
many troubles in this life. God promised you will have trouble
in this life. Our days are going to be short
and full of trouble. This world is full of the enemies
of Christ, and because they're the enemies of Christ, they're
the enemies of you who believe. We've got a lot of trouble, a
lot of enemies. We need a refuge. God's our refuge. God our refuge
brushes those troubles and those enemies off just like you brush
crumbs off your sleeve. Look here at verse four. Lo,
the kings were assembled and they passed by together. It's
like they're coming. Now he told us earlier to walk
this city. Examine its walls, its bulwarks, its towers. Well,
here it's coming under siege. It's being surrounded by the
kings of the earth. They were assembled. They passed by together.
They saw it, and so they marveled. They were troubled and hasted
away. Fear took hold upon them there, and pain is of a woman
in travail. They came, they saw, but they
didn't conquer, did they? No, they left in fear and pain.
In verse eight, we got attacked from the sea. or verse seven,
excuse me, attack from the sea. Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish
with an east wind. This great armada has come up
against the city, a refuge that wasn't threatened. He just sent
a wind and destroyed the whole armada, the whole fleet. He's
our refuge. So verse eight, as we have heard,
so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts in the city
of our God, God will establish it forever. This is, this refuge
is established forever. We're safe in him, eternally
safe. Now rest in Christ. He's our
refuge. At any time of trouble, run to
him, run to him. Run to him as a refuge for your
sin and run to him at any time of trouble. Because he said,
if you're thirsty, if you're thirsty of life, if you're thirsty
of righteousness, come unto me and drink. I'll give you life.
I'll give you salvation. And the same one said, come unto
me and rest. Come unto me and find peace for
your souls. Come find deliverance from your
sin. And come unto me to find deliverance from your trial.
He will be the shelter in a time of storm. Our shelter comforts
the heart, heals the body, and he speaks peace to the soul like
no one else can. He's a refuge. God is our refuge. Now don't ever abandon this bulwark,
ever. Don't let the bulwark, don't
let our shelter, our refuge, become our works, or our decision,
or all the things that we've done for Jesus, because that's
going to leave sinners without any hope. Don't let our shelter
from trouble be our morality. Well, you know, if you hadn't
done all these things wrong, this wouldn't happen to you. Don't let that become
our shelter. Don't let it become our faithfulness,
or we'll leave the saints without any comfort and without any hope.
Don't ever abandon this bulwark. What a blessed privilege we have. God is our refuge. All right,
the fifth bulwark is God's love for his people. Verse nine. We
have thought of thy loving kindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple. What a thing to think about.
God's loving kindness. I wish I didn't have to say this,
but because of the world that we live in constantly inundating
our ears, I have to say this. God does not love everyone. God
does not want to save everybody. And God in the day of judgment
is not going to be so sad to send people to hell that he loved.
He loved them. He sent his son to die for them,
but You know, they refuse to bow to his will. So, you know,
as much as it's going to make him cry, he's going to send him
down. That's a lie. It's a lie. And no matter how
many times men say it, it's never going to be true. What does the
word say? God said, I hate Esau. God said
he hates the workers of iniquity. Then it's a lie to say God loves
everybody. Brethren, God loves his people.
God loves his people. God is love. But that doesn't
mean God loves everybody. What that means is that love
is the character of God. And since love is the character
of God, God has the capacity to love unlovable sinners like
you and me. And God's love means something. I love my wife. I can't stop
her from hurting. I can't stop plantar fasciitis.
How much I love you, I can't stop it. I love my daughters. Oh, I love them. I can't stop
them from going through all the difficulties. God's love means
something. God loves sinners. So God did
something about their sin. God sent his son to put their
sin away and to make them what God accepts. Oh, what love. What a joy to be able to just
stop and think about God's loving kindness to his people. I love
to think about God's electing love. Scripture says, because
he loved the fathers, he chose their seed after them. God chose
a people that he loved. I love to think about his redeeming
love Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends. It's overwhelming to think that
the son of God would love his people so much he'd give himself
a ransom for their souls because he loved them. A love is calling love. I don't
have to doubt he's gonna call this sheep. He will call this
sheep. He said, I've loved thee. with an everlasting love. Therefore,
with loving kindness, have I drawn you. And when He draws, you'll
come, you'll come. That's His drawing, His calling
love. I love His life-giving love. God who's rich in mercy. For His great love wherewith
He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ. His love gives life to the dead. And I love His tender love. Like
as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pities them with
fear. You're going through those times and you need a refuge.
Our father pitieth his children. He has a tender love for his
children. Paul said in Romans 8 that God's love for his people
is so great, absolutely nothing, not height nor depth nor any
other creature shall be able to separate us from the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. how I love God's loving
kindness. And if you look over a couple
of pages of Psalm 63, I'll show you how important the love of
God is. Psalm 63, verse three, because
thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise
thee. God's loving kindness is better
than life itself, better than this fleshly life. His love gives
eternal life to his people. Songwriters said the love of
God is greater far than tongue or pen could ever tell. I've
heard, we were talking, I was talking with Todd Nyberg a week
or two ago. He was talking about the message
that he preached. That's what you'd call it. What did you preach
on Sunday? What did you preach on Sunday? And he said, I just
felt like a fool. Just talking about something.
I can't remember what the subject was, but it could have been God's
love. How can I talk about God's love?
It's infinite. It's greater far than tongue
or pen could ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star.
It reaches to the lowest hell. We would think the ocean filled,
where the skies of parchment made, where every stalk on earth
a quill and every man a scribe by trade. To write the love of
God above would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain
the whole, though stretched from sky to sky. All think about God's
loving kindness to his people. And don't ever abandon this bulwark
of God's love for his people. Don't ever let it be said from
this pulpit that God loves everybody. Don't ever accept it. Because
if God loves everybody, and he still sends people to hell, that
God's love means nothing. God's love will never move him
to save or keep anyone. And don't let the glory of God
be taken away by saying God loves everybody. Don't let God's glory
be taken away by taking away his love for his people. Don't
let the precious hope that God's people have in thinking about
the loving kindness of our God be taken away from them. But
let that always be preached in this place. God's love First,
people. And then lastly, the last bulwark,
is the righteousness of God. Verse 10. Let me get the right
psalm here. Verse 10. According to thy name, O God,
so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth. Thy right hand
is full of righteousness. Now that right hand that's full
of righteousness can only be talking about our Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the right hand of God. He's
the power of God unto salvation that came down and did the work
and accomplished the salvation of his people. That's quite a
job. In order for a sinner to be saved,
their sin has to be put away so that it does not exist. If
a sinner is going to be saved, they've got to be justified.
And that's not just as if they'd never sinned. They've got to
be made so that they have never sinned. That's a problem, isn't
it? A problem we can't solve because
all we can do is sin. If a sinner is going to be saved,
they've got to be made righteous. They've got to be made holy.
And somebody else is going to have to do the work because they
can't do it. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ, the right
arm of God, came and accomplished for His people. And His name
tells us who He is and what He's accomplished for His people.
That's what the psalmist there is talking about when he says,
according to thy name, Oh God, one of the names of our God is
Jehovah Sidkenu. Jeremiah said in Jeremiah chapter
23, this is his name whereby he shall be called Jehovah Sidkenu. Lord, our righteousness, this
one is coming who is righteousness personified. This branch of David,
the branch of David, the root of Jesse, whatever, David and
Jesse are in there somewhere. This one's coming from the loins
of David. He's going to be a man, yet he's
God. He is the Lord, our righteousness. See, Christ doesn't just come
and give righteousness as a thing to his people, put it in a package
and wrap it up and give it to them. Christ is the righteousness
of his people. He is our righteousness. And
in him, his people are righteous, even though they've never done
anything but sin, because he is their righteousness. Now they're righteous. They're
perfectly righteous. Because 10 chapters later, Jeremiah
says, this is the name wherewith she shall be called Jehovah Sidkenu,
the Lord, our righteousness. God's elect are so much one with
Christ that they are what he is. They're righteous. Brethren, don't ever abandon
that bulwark. If we abandon this bulwark of God's righteousness,
that Christ is our righteousness, The people are going to have
to go about to establish their own righteousness. And the best they're
going to have is rags God will never accept. Don't take that
away from people. For whatever reason, if it's,
if it's, you know, a preacher's, if he's serving his own belly,
if it's just his own ignorance, I, I don't know what, what it
would, if you're trying to fill the pews, I don't know what it
is, but don't ever deny the righteousness of Christ. He is the righteousness
of his people. He made them righteous. If you
take that away from people, you've made them stand before Almighty
God in judgment, wearing rags, He'll never accept. God forbid
that be on our hands. Stand up on His bulwark and defend
it with all you've got. Remember, marquee well. Marquee
well, these bulwarks, means to set your heart to these truths.
Set your heart to seek Christ and His righteousness. All these
other things will be added to you. Now walk about Zion. Walk about God's church. Walk
about the gospel that's preached there and inspect it. Inspect
it closely. Listen carefully to the gospel
that's preached there. Constantly inspect the doctrine.
Be sure it's not crumbling. Be sure it's not falling into
error. Set your heart to these things. Set your heart to knowing
Christ and following Him. If you do that, you'll find salvation
for your soul. You'll find rest for your soul.
Verse 14. For this God is our God forever
and ever. He will be our guide even unto
death. Marker well, set your heart upon
those things. Go about and tell the towers
thereof. Intensively talk about constantly recount them and celebrate
these truths of the gospel. They're the bulwarks, the towers
of our salvation. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for this psalm, the towers and the bulwarks of our salvation. How we thank you that you are
our God. What a miracle of grace that
you would make this people, your people, that you would make yourself
our God. Oh, how we thank you. Father,
I pray that you would bless this message tonight to your glory,
to the hearts of your people, to cause us to seek after Christ
and to find him, to cause us to rest in him. What a Savior
we have. We have no reason for worry. What a Savior, what a refuge,
what a hope, what a righteousness. Father, how we thank you. As
we go back out into the world and back out tomorrow, cause
your word to take root in our hearts, to comfort us and encourage
us and feed us, to give us strength for the journey. It's in Christ's
blessed name we pray and give thanks.