All right, let's open our Bibles
again to Psalm 39. Like all of the Psalms, this
Psalm will give a lot of comfort to the believer's heart if we
read these words first as the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
These are his words as he suffered for the sins of his people. I've
titled the message The Silent Savior Speaks. He begins, verse
one, I said I'll take heed to my ways that I sin not with my
tongue. I'll keep my mouth with a bridle
while the wicked is before me. I was dumb with silence. I held
my peace even from good and my sorrow was stirred. My heart
was hot within me while I was musing the fire burned. This
is the Savior suffering. Why open not his mouth? Fulfilling
the prophecy of Isaiah 53, He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He brought as a lamb to the slaughter
as a sheep before shears is done, so he opened not his mouth. It says here that I'll keep my
mouth with a bridle, but he didn't just keep his mouth with a bridle.
You know, he put that bridle in the horse's mouth, and you
can turn the horse's head whichever way you want, but you know, that
horse can still make a sound with that bridle there in his
mouth. That word bridle David uses here
means a muzzle. He kept a muzzle over his mouth,
so he kept silent as he suffered. As our Savior was in front of
the wicked, he suffered silently. He didn't speak a word to them.
He said almost nothing to those Jews in his mock trial. Almost
nothing. I want to show you this. Mark
chapter 14. This is very interesting. The only thing the Savior said
to them was to tell them who he is. But in answering the charges
brought against him, he stayed silent. Mark 14, verse 60. And the high priest stood up
in the midst and asked Jesus, saying, answerest thou nothing?
What is it which these witness against thee? But he held his
peace and answered nothing. Again, the high priest asked
him and said unto him, art thou the Christ, the son of the blessed?
And Jesus said, I am. He didn't answer any of those
charges, did he? They did tell him who he is.
I am. And you shall see the son of
man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds
of heaven. Our Lord told them in no uncertain
terms who he was and they crucified him for it. But he never one
time answered their charges. Herod for a long time had wanted
to see this man Jesus. He was excited when Pilate sent
Jesus to him. The Lord didn't say one word
to them. Not one word. He said very little to Pilate,
did he? When Pilate asked our Lord, are you a king then? Our
Lord did tell him who he is. He said, thou sayest. You said
it, buddy. I'm the king. He told Pilate,
I'm the king. My kingdom's not of this world.
It's a spiritual kingdom. What I'm accomplishing here is
spiritual. And Pilate kept pestering our
Lord, kept after him, kept after him, kept after him with questions.
And our Lord just didn't answer, so that Pilate marveled. And
he wouldn't quit until our Lord told him, you've got no power
here at all over me, except my Father has given it to you. And
when our Lord was before the wicked on Calvary's tree, he
said almost nothing. And what he did say was never
to them, because they couldn't have understood anything that
he said. Instead, he suffered the wrath of God silently, just
silently, taking and enduring all the father's wrath against
the sin of his people. See, it wasn't just his body
suffering. It was his soul. He said, while I was musing,
the fire burned, it burned in my heart was hot within me, it
burned in my soul, how he suffered. And he did it silently. Our Lord
Jesus Christ knew no sin. There's no guile found in his
mouth. He's the perfect the only righteous man to ever live. We
know the father is well pleased with him because the father said
so from heaven. Audibly he spoke from heaven.
He said, this is my beloved son to whom I am well pleased. But
here's the question. Why did he suffer more than any
other man? Why did he suffer so much? Why
did he suffer this silently? Why didn't he scream, I don't
deserve this? When they made all those charges
against him, why didn't he say, I didn't do that. I didn't say
that. I didn't do those things. Scripture gives us the answer.
Because the father had made him guilty. When the father made
his son sin for his people, he was guilty of every sin his people
ever committed. He couldn't say he never lied,
because I lied. He couldn't say he didn't commit insurrection
against the government, because I've committed insurrection against
the throne of God. He couldn't plead not guilty
because the Father made him guilty. Look at verse 9. He says, I was
dumb. I opened not my mouth because
thou didst it. Remove thy stroke away from me.
I am consumed by the blow of thy hand. See, the primary thing
going on in the Calvary wasn't what men was doing to our Lord.
The Father was punishing him. His real sorrow was his Father's
hand punishing him. His father's justice putting
him to death. He said, I'm suffering silently
because thou didst it. This is what God's doing. I'm
consumed by the blow, not of the hand of the Romans, not of
the hand of the Jews, but at the hand of the father. Killing
him in justice. Our Lord Jesus suffered silently
because he knew he deserved it. The father was giving him just
exactly what he deserved. He was giving Him everything
the Son agreed to suffer in order to save His people from their
sins. So He suffered silently. Now the real blessing to God's
people is these are the words of the Savior as He suffered
for our sin. But at the same time, these are
the words of David. Now only the Holy Spirit can
make that so, that these are the words of David and the words
of Christ. They're both. And the greatest blessing, we'll
look at this in some more detail in a minute, is how these are
the words of Christ. We'll get some very, very good instruction
if we look at these words first as the words of David. David
must have written this song when he was in a time of real trouble.
I don't know when he wrote it, but it seems like he was in real
trouble. And it seems like David felt like the Lord was dealing
justly with him for whatever. And that's why he says, I'm not
going to open my mouth about this thing. Here's lesson number
one for us. When we do not understand what
the Lord's doing, which is most of the time, right? Even when
we think we know what the Lord's doing, we usually don't. Well,
we don't know what the Lord's doing. We really should take
every opportunity to keep our mouth shut. I'm telling you,
we should just be silent because if we start popping off, we're
going to sing. We're going to say something
we're going to regret. Now listen, If you're going through something,
don't keep it silent to us. Let us know. I want to know.
We can't pray for you if we don't know. I love you. I want to know when these things
are going on with you. But if we open our mouth to talk
about what the Lord's doing and we don't understand, I can tell
you what we're going to do. We're going to question the providence
of the Lord. Look back at Psalm 4. Psalm 4. Verse 4. Stand in awe and sin not. Commune
with your own heart upon your bed. Be still. Be silent. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness
and put your trust in the Lord. You just stand in awe of him
and be still. Commune with your own heart upon
your bed, but you just be quiet and sin not. Look back at Job
1. You all know the story of Job,
how these Bears of bad news just kept coming, one right after
the other, after the other, after the other. Job 1, verse 22. You know all these things that
happened to Job. This is what the Word of God says, verse 22. In all this, Job sinned not,
nor charged God foolishly. He couldn't charge God foolishly
if he kept his mouth shut. If we find ourselves in that
situation, we should do the same. We'd be wise to do the same.
Because I tell you what else we could do. We could open our
mouth and complain. Complain about God's providence,
question God's providence, and we'll offend God's people. We'll
give them a reason to stumble. David discovered that in Psalm
73. He said, I don't know what's going on, but if I open my mouth
and start complaining about it, I'm going to cause God's people
to stumble. If we open our mouth and complain, question God's
providence before the wicked, we're going to give them a good
excuse to continue in their sin and their unbelief and their
rebellion and give them what they think is a reason not to
trust the Lord. So our prayer is that the Lord
enable us to keep our tongue. Boy, the tongue, this little
tongue can do a lot of damage. Our prayer is that the Lord let
us keep our tongue so we won't infect anybody else with our
bad attitude. Imagine somebody getting on a
cruise ship, getting some dread disease. and the ship's captain
finds out about it. What's the ship captain going
to do? Quarantine him in his room. He gets locked in his room
so he doesn't infect everybody else until that ship gets to
port. That's what we need to do. Pray that the Lord will enable
us to do to not openly question his providence. And here's a
second good lesson for us. David refrained from even saying
anything good. He says in verse 2, I was done
with silence. I held my peace. even from good. We'd be wise to take this into
consideration. If the Lord hasn't given you
something to say, don't say anything. Just don't. Now, if the Lord
has given you something to say, then you should say it for the
good of the church. You should teach, you should preach, you
should pray, you should do whatever, but if the Lord has given you
something to say. But if the Lord hasn't given you something
to say, then just keep your mouth shut. You know, in our day, everybody
wants to be a teacher. Everybody wants to be a counselor.
Everybody wants to appear wise. A couple Sundays ago, nobody
was here, it was early, a little, little wasp stood up here in
front of this chair here. He hopped up in that chair, put
his arms up there, and he said, I'm Frank. And he got up and
stood behind the pulpit and started talking into the microphone,
you know. Actually, I'll tell you what he said. He slaps his
head. He said, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. I thought, well, now I know what Noah thinks. See, here's
what I'm preaching, you know. But he said, you know, I'm frank.
He's like, just come up and stand behind the, and I thought, well,
son, there's days I like to give it to you. Everybody wants to be a teacher.
Everybody wants to be the one being heard, you know. Everybody
wants to appear wise. I like the internet. It's given
us a lot of good things. It lets me check up on college
basketball recruiting and college football recruiting 365 days
a year. It's just wonderful. But the
internet's given us a lot of bad things, too. And one thing
it's done is it's given everybody, I don't care who you are, it's
given everybody the opportunity to voice their opinion, not just
in their living room, but across the whole wide world. I've been
communicating this week via Facebook, our church Facebook page, with
a man from Kenya. I mean, how in this world could
I have ever talked to a man from Kenya without the internet, you
know? Well, everybody's entitled to their own opinion. But everybody's
not entitled to have to hear it now. If Lord hadn't given
us something to say, we ought to keep our mouths shut. But
so many people want to sound religious. They want to talk
about good things. I'm not saying they want to talk
about bad things. They want to talk about good things. They want
to talk about things of the Lord, good things. But their words
are not sound. And they might try to sound good
and religious to people. But I'm telling you, I've read
their comments. They do more harm than good.
If the Lord hasn't given us something to say, just keep our mouths
shut. David learned that the hard way.
He said, In this, I'm going to keep my mouth shut. All right,
that's the words of David. Our Savior has told us how he
suffered silently. But finally, at the end of verse
three, the Savior speaks. He said, then spake I with my
tongue. And when the Savior speaks, he
gives us three important lessons we learn from his suffering at
Calvary. Number one, the silent Savior, suffering. tells us that
our life on this earth is going to be very short. Verse four,
Lord, make me to know my end and the measure of my days, what
it is that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made
my days as a hand breath, and mine ages as nothing before thee.
Barely every man in his best state is altogether vanity. A man's life on this earth is
going to be very short, three score and 10, 70 years. And we
ran to open service. If by reason of strength, it's
80 years, those extra 10 years are going to be sorrow. That's
what they're going to be. Now, I know 70 years to young
people in Sydney, 70 years sounds like a long time. I mean, it
seems like, you know, you're going to be 15. 70. You're going
to be just utterly shocked how fast it goes. They just, oh,
so quickly. And if you live to be a hundred,
just if you live to be a hundred, that's nothing is it? That's
nothing in comparison to how long this earth has been here.
Nothing compared to the eternality of God. It's just nothing. It's
going to be over so fast. It has to be over quickly because
our bodies are frail. Just the slightest thing can
cause these bodies to die because they're so frail. A microscopic
germ. you never saw kill your body. Just quickly. A car you never
saw ended like that, couldn't it? And when we reach three score
and ten, the smallest weight is too much. We're too frail
to bear it. Solomon said, when you get to
be old and gray-headed, even the grasshopper is a burden.
We're so frail, we just can't expect to be here for long. We
can't expect life in these frail bodies to last for very long.
David here measured our life in days, not months, not years,
not decades, days. He said, we can measure our days
with our hand. He said, just a handprint, just
like that. We carry the measuring stick
of our life with us everywhere we go. When you stick out your
hand to shake hands with somebody, there's the measuring stick.
You go out to give somebody a high five, there it is. You two raise
your hand all the time in school. You always know the answer. Every
time you raise your hand. That's the measuring stick of
our life. Just so quickly? That's not very big. You can't
expect to be here very long. Our days on this earth are short. And the very best of men are
nothing but vanity. The word there means empty. We're
empty. is described in Scripture as
a vapor. What's more empty than a vapor?
There's just nothing to it and poof, it's gone. Now, that ought
to humble us. That's our life on this earth.
Now, that ought to humble us, shouldn't it? We're nothing.
And that ought to make us seek the Lord because of how much
we need Him. Oh, we need Him to fill us. We need Him to be our strength.
We need Him to be our life. This ought to make it obvious
to us. We can't rely upon ourselves. So we seek the Lord to rely on
him, to depend upon him. Now, I love this. This is what
David says here. I think this would be a blessing to you. David
says, Lord, make me to know mine end. He's not saying make me
know how quickly this life will end. What he means here is my
destination. How is this thing going to end?
There's a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof.
the ways of death. Well, that's not true for those
who trust in Christ is it? Christ is the end. He's the goal
for every believer. He's the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. Look back at page Psalm 37, verse
37. Here's the end I'm talking about.
Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that
man is peace. Peter said, first Peter one verse
nine, receiving the end of your faith. What is the end of your
faith? Even the salvation of your souls.
And that's what David's saying here. Lord, make me to know my
end, the salvation of my soul in Christ who suffered for me.
That's the end of everyone who believes in Christ, the salvation
of our souls. Speaking to believers here, those
of you who believe Christ. Since we know our end, It's the
salvation of our souls. And since we know how quickly
that glorious end is going to be here. Won't that encourage
us to bear these trials patiently, even silently? Knowing our end
and how quickly that glorious end is going to arrive. Doesn't
that encourage us to just wait? Just wait on the Lord. He will
deliver us. We know he will because he's
taught us our end. Our end is the salvation of our
souls. And that should also make us
a whole lot more diligent about seeking the Lord, because we
know our end is to seek the salvation of our soul. The end is going
to be here quickly. That end will be here quickly.
Our life on this earth is very short. All right, second, the
silent suffering Savior tells us that all we are is sin. Verse
six, surely every man walketh in a vain show. Surely they are
disquieted in vain. He keepeth up riches and knoweth
not who shall gather them. David describes our sin nature
here in three ways. First, he says, it's all a vain
show. He's talking about actors on
a stage or actors in a parade, you know, and that's every man. All of us were just a vain show,
actors on a stage. When Polly and Savannah were
little, they were so often in a play down at ACC. And there
was an older man, Al. Al was fantastic at that place. And before one of the plays,
he gathered all the children together. And he told them, he
said, now, enjoy this. Enjoy coming to practice. And
enjoy in the performances. Don't get nervous when those
seats are full of people. Just enjoy it. And enjoy the
practice, he said. He said, this is your chance
to come in here and be somebody else for a couple hours. Just
being an actor on stage. That's us by nature in religion.
We're pretending to be somebody we're not for a while. We come
on Sundays and pretend to be somebody we're not for a while.
We dress up like a righteous person, but we're not. And we
know it, and everybody else does too. We're not righteous before
God any more than old Al was really the ghost of Marley. He
was just Al in makeup. That's all he was. Now we're
pretending, but God will only accept true righteousness. Leviticus
22 verse 21 says it should be perfect to be accepted. There
should be no blemish therein. It must be righteous to be accepted. It can't be dressed up. It's
got to be real. But all we are is empty and vain. We're empty of righteousness.
We're just actors dressing the part, actors on a stage. And
second, David describes our nature of sin as disquieted. And it
means just what you think it means, disquiet, the opposite
of quiet. It means to make a loud noise.
Isn't that what we do in religion? We just make a loud noise of
religion, but never say anything. Greg Yonquist told me when he
was in false religion, he put on his notes, weak point, yell.
Just, you know, make a loud noise. You know, that's what we do.
But there's no substance to it. It's just as empty as the gong
on the gong show. It doesn't amount to anything
and never will. That's us by nature. Thirdly, David describes our
sin nature as disquieted in vain. And the word means unsatisfactory. See, God sees through our dress
up in the play. God sees through the loud noise
we make on the gong. Our attempts at being good are
just vain. God sees them as unsatisfactory. And he won't have them because
they're full of sin. Our attempts at being good and
righteous, they're vain. They're empty of anything good.
And we try to heap up religious silver and gold, don't we? But
there's no redemption in any of that stuff. We can't be redeemed
from our vain conversation received by tradition from our fathers
with corruptible things such as silver and gold. All we are
is sin. And you know what scripture says
about that? The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. The law of God demands death
for sin. Verse 11, and God will see to
it. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou
makest his beauty to consume away like a moth. Surely every
man is vanity. God rebukes for sin, and his
rebukes will eventually kill this body, because sin's in it.
I cannot take this body into God's presence and live. It can't
be done. It's full of sin. If you want
to see just how frail, just how vain and empty these bodies are,
consider the moth. David says a moth is all it takes
to consume our beauty away. Just a moth. God doesn't have
to put forth any great effort to put an end to these bodies.
The moth will do it. Just nothing. Because that's
all we are is nothing. Now all we are is sin. And I
can sit up here and talk about that and talk about that and
talk about that until I'm blue in the face. But we won't get any
idea how horrible, how wretched sin It really is, until we go
to Calvary and look at the silent, suffering Savior. Sin must be
horrible. Look what God did to take it
away, and He couldn't have done anything else. To take away the
sin of His people, God had to slaughter His only begotten Son. My life on this earth has got
to end quickly. because I'm a sinner. God didn't
spare his own son. When his son was made sin, he's
certainly not going to spare me. I'm going to die and die
soon because I'm a sinner. All right, here's the good news. Here's the third thing, the silent
suffering Savior. We look, this is what his silent
suffering tells us. It tells us that our only hope
is in Christ. Verse seven. And now, Lord, why
wait I for? My hope is in thee. Everybody in this room has heard
the gospel. You've heard Christ preached
many, many, many times. I have a question for you. After
all you've heard, I've got a question for you. What are you waiting
on? What are you waiting on? Put your
trust in Christ. We've heard who he is. We've
seen the results of his sacrifice. Put your trust in him and do
it right now because there can't be any other way a sinner can
be saved except through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. God
the Father is all wise, isn't he? He's all love. Is that right? Well, the father wouldn't have
put his son to such a horrible, shameful death if there was any
other way he could save a sinner. The sacrifice of Christ is the
only way our sin can be put away. Galatians chapter three, Paul
told us this, Galatians chapter three, verse 21. Is the law then against the promises
of God? God forbid. For if there had
been a law given which could have given life, fairly righteousness
should have been by the law. It's impossible for us to be
made righteous by our obedience to the law. It's impossible for
us to obey the law to do anything to put our sin away. But, verse
22, the scripture hath concluded all under sin. That's all of
us. We're all under sin. That's all we are is sin. The
scripture hath concluded we're all under sin. that the promise
by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. See, this is the only way God
could save sinners. It's through the sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that salvation is received.
Christ is received by faith, by believing Him, by resting
in Him, by depending on Him, by counting on Him. Now, what
are you waiting on? Believe. You know what God said? Believe on the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Why would we wait? Believe, believe. And look at
verse eight back in our text. Since the Savior suffered silently
for sinners, we can make this plea to God. Verse eight. Deliver
me from all my transgressions. Make me not the reproach of the
foolish. In verse 10, we can say with
our Savior, remove thy stroke away from me. I'm consumed by
the blow of thy hand. Father, deliver me for Christ's
sake. Your wrath would put me to death,
but deliver me for Christ's sake. Deliver me from my sin. Deliver
me from all the consequences of my sin, because you made Christ
my substitute. Sin for me. Deliver me from the
condemnation of sin, because you condemn Christ in my place,
because he died for me. Our plea is, Lord, deliver me
for Christ's sake. And the father will always hear
that plea and answer it because he's well pleased with his son.
So verse 12, this is a good conclusion to this psalm. Hear my prayer,
O Lord, and give ear unto my cry. Hold not thy peace in my
tears, for I'm a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all
my fathers were. Oh, spare me that I may recover
strength before I go hence and be no more. Here, David continues
to pray, Lord, hear me for Christ's sake. Spare me your wrath for
Christ's sake, because you poured out your wrath for my sin on
your son. And give me strength, strengthen
me the rest of my days here. They're just going to be a few.
So, Lord, give me strength for those days until you call me
home to be with you. And I'm not here anymore. Now
look at this, I got this this week, I think this is wonderful.
David doesn't say, I'm a stranger to you, does he? He doesn't say, Lord, I'm a stranger
to you, so the Lord doesn't know me. Oh no, the Lord knows everybody.
And he knows his people. He told those wicked, depart
from me, I never knew you. I never knew you in love. I never
knew you in mercy and grace. But he knows his people that
way. He knows them in love, in grace, in mercy. So we're not
a stranger to the Lord. David says, I'm a stranger with
thee. I'm not with you yet. I'm sojourning
down here below. So Lord, give me strength. Give
me strength for the sorrows, for the tears, for the journey
here below until you bring me home to be with you. And when
that's our plea, the Lord will grant it every time. He'll do
it because the Lord's not going to allow anyone for whom he died
to perish. Not one. He suffered and he died
for them. They're going to live with him
eternally. He will bring them all the way home. We sing it
often, but we can so confidently say, grace has brought me safe
thus far. And grace will lead me home.
It's not going to fail. It will not fail because of what
Christ, our suffering Savior, accomplished in his suffering.
All right, let's bow together. Our Father, how we thank you
for these the words of Christ our Savior. Father, apply these lessons that
he would teach us, that his sufferings would teach us, that we might
in wisdom number our days here below, that we might, you might
give us wisdom to not cling so tightly to the things of this
life, to cling tightly to this life at all, It's just passing. But set our affection on things
above. Cause us to seek Christ. All
we are is sin. We have no hope in ourselves.
Cause us to seek Christ. And oh, grant us faith to rest
in Him. To see the suffering Savior as
all it takes. Christ as all it takes to put
our sin away. Father, give us faith to rest
in Him. To put it all in Him and rest in Him. Give us strength. As many days as you have seen
fit to give us here in this life, give us strength to walk them,
to endure them, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. Give us wisdom to look to Christ,
who is our end. For it's in his precious name,
for his glory, we pray. Amen.