Pray for me as I attempt to exalt
our Savior. We're going to start tonight
in the book of Psalms. Psalm 106. Psalm 106. Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks
unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Who can utter the mighty acts
of the Lord? Who can show forth all his praise? Blessed are they that keep judgments,
and he that doeth righteousness at all times. Remember me, O
Lord, with the favor that thou bearest unto thy people. O visit
me with thy salvation, that I may see the good of thy chosen, that
I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory
with thine inheritance. We have sinned with our fathers.
We have committed iniquity. We have done wickedly. Our fathers
understood not thy wonders in Egypt. They remembered not the
multitude of thy mercies. but provoked him at the sea,
even at the Red Sea. Nevertheless, he saved them for
his namesake, that he might make his mighty power to be known. He rebuked the Red Sea also,
and it was dried up. So he led them through the depths
as through the wilderness. And he saved them from the hand
of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.
And the waters covered their enemies. There was not one of
them left. Then believed they his words.
They sang his praise. They soon forgot his works. They
waited not for his counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness
and tempted God in the desert. And he gave them their request,
but sent leanness into their souls. They envied Moses also
in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the Lord. The earth opened
and swallowed up Dathan and covered the company of Abiram. A fire
was kindled in their company. The flame burned up the wicked.
They made a calf in Horeb and worshipped the molten image.
Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox
that eateth grass. They forgot God their Savior,
which had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the
land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red Sea. Therefore, He
said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood
before Him in the breach to turn away His wrath, lest He should
destroy them. Now, this is a brief history
of the nation of Israel at the time that the Lord brought them
out of Egypt through the Red Sea and destroyed the Egyptians
who would have destroyed His people. And we know that many
times in Scriptures, the nation of Israel is a type of the chosen
church of God, the true church that is made up of His elect
people. Now, verse 1 reminds us that
the Lord is good, that His mercy toward His chosen people endureth
forever. It is eternal, having no beginning
and no end. We've been in Christ, Ephesians
tells us, since the foundation of the world. Always we have
been in Him. As long as Christ has been, we
have been in Him. Therefore, His mercy endureth
forever. And verse 2 asks the question,
who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can show forth
all His praise? Now the mighty acts of the Lord
are without limit, so it is impossible for us to list them all, for
us to utter them. From the creation of a universe
so vast that man with all his high-tech telescopes has yet
to find the edges of, to the creation of probably the most
complex machine this world has ever seen, a human body. All of this was done by our great
God. And verse 3 mentions, He that
doeth righteousness at all times. It is referring to the perfection
of the God whom we serve. Psalm 18, verse 30 says, As for
God, His way is perfect. Deuteronomy 32, verse 4, He is
the rock. His work is perfect. For all His ways are justice.
A God of truth and without injustice. Righteous and upright as He. Anything that God does is done
in strict justice. He cannot violate His nature
nor His law. He cannot lie. He cannot fail
to do that which is right. But lost men like to say, well,
who can really say what's wrong or right? How many times have
you heard people say that? We can't judge. Who can really
say what's wrong or right? God can and does. And like it or not, that is the
standard to which men will be held in the day of judgment.
What God said is right or wrong. Romans 1 talks about how men
hold the truth in unrighteousness, perverting all that is right
and holy. We see it every day in our time. And it's been that way throughout
history. People say things have never been this bad. I say they
have been. And the reason I say that is
human history doesn't change because human nature never changes. We just see more of it. We can
watch it live nowadays, unfortunately. But men and women who God has
given over to reprobation declare that there's no normal behavior,
that each one has to decide what's right for them. And the rest
of us have to agree or be labeled bigots and haters. But verse 20 of that first chapter
of Romans tells us that those who twist the truth are without
excuse. Professing themselves to be wise,
the Scriptures tell us, they became fools. They became fools. And their foolish heart was darkened.
Mankind is born with a dark heart, but there is such a thing as
it being darkened, becoming even worse than it was by nature. giving themselves over to reprobation.
Things that would have made the men of Sodom blush are now considered
normal and mainstream in our day. And in Psalm 145, verse 17, we
read this, The Lord is perfect and righteous in all His ways
and holy in all His works. He is indeed perfect, righteous
at all times. In verse 4 of this Psalm 106
that we have before us, the psalmist says, God, to visit me with Thy
salvation. God eventually visits all men. Sadly, many He visits in wrath. But thankfully, for a number
that no man can number, He visits them in mercy. It is His sovereign
choice to do so with whom He will. To either make them vessels
of wrath or vessels of mercy. But for those whom God makes
the vessels of mercy, this verse 5 tells us that they will see
the goodness of Thy chosen. And that those chosen ones will
rejoice with gladness and glory with the heirs of salvation.
Then verse 6 tells us the entire history of mankind when it says
this, we have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity,
we have done wickedly. This pretty much sums it up. All that mankind has done since
the fall of our father Adam is wickedness. It's a history of
rebellion and unbelief against the God of heaven. Then from
verse 7 to verse 22, we have a description of all of the wickedness
of the nation of Israel in the face of the manifold blessings
of God. How He destroyed their enemies
before them again and again, and how they turned and sinned
against His goodness. But then we come to verse 23,
and this is where I want to spend the bulk of our time. Let's read
it together again. Verse 23, Therefore He said,
that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood before
Him in the breach to turn away His wrath, lest
He should destroy them. I have titled this message from
the words we find in this verse, to turn away His wrath. Now in
1 Chronicles 15, it tells us a story of how David planned
on bringing up the Ark of the Covenant to his palace. And verse two tells us that David
said that only the Levites should carry the ark because that is
the way that God had chosen and instructed. But before this,
in chapter 13, we have an account of the men bringing up the ark
out of Kirjath-Jerim on a cart. But this was not how God instructed
them to bring it. It was to be borne and carried
only by the Levites. And in chapter 13, this is where
we find God striking Uzzah dead. The ark started to fall off the
cart, and Uzzah, with good intentions, stuck his hand out to keep that
ark from falling on the ground, and God struck him dead. So in
verse 13 of chapter 15, we find David talking to the priest and
saying this, For because he did it not at the first, the Lord
our God made a breach upon us. for that we sought Him not after
the due order." Now, throughout human history, men have sought
other gods, not seeking the God of this universe according to
the due order. They've set up every imaginable
idol, and sometimes even going as far as to sacrifice their
own children to these imagined gods. But none of this was done after
the order which the Lord our God had instructed. And as a
result of the rebellion of mankind, which began with our father Adam
in the garden, God set a breach upon the human race. And that
breach was death, eternal death. God told Adam in Genesis 2, He
said, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree
of the garden thou mayest freely eat. but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." In Ezekiel
18, 20, that verse we're so familiar with, the soul that sinneth,
it shall die. And we find in Romans chapter
5 a description of exactly what took place in the garden and
the clear results of that action by our Father Adam Verse 12 says,
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death
by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. And here is why God said what
He said about the nation of Israel that we read a minute ago in
Psalm 23. Therefore, He said that He would
destroy them. Sin brings destruction, misery,
and death. But sin must be punished. Our
God must remain true to His law and His Word. He cannot wink
at sin. It must be punished. There are
no exceptions to this. But in verse 18 of this same
chapter of Romans 5, we find good reason to hope in the midst
of despair. It says, therefore, as by the
offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation,
even so, by the righteousness of one, The free gift came upon
all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. The God that we worship is a
just God. He arranged it so that one man, Adam, brought death
upon all that were in him. Those represented by him, which
obviously was the entire human race, But in the same way, life
is found in the obedience of one man, the Man, Christ Jesus. And all who are found in Him,
those who are represented by Him, which are His chosen elect
people, are now safe from the threat of death and destruction
that is promised here in this 23rd verse of Psalm 106. Now,
there have never been more mortal enemies and a thrice holy God
and wretched sinners. God cannot and will not tolerate
sin, and all upon whom it is found become the object of His
fierce wrath. But there was One who came forth,
who was sent forth to stand in the breach between God and man,
the man Christ Jesus. Galatians 4.4 tells us this in
the plainest terms possible. But when the fullness of time
was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sons. Not that we might earn the adoption
of sons. No, this is something that is
received by faith, and that faith is a gift of God. freely given
to His chosen people. Paul also made this claim when
he wrote to the Corinthians. And he asked the question, for
who maketh thee to differ? He didn't ask for what maketh
thee to differ. And he asked the question, and
what hast thou that thou did not receive? Now if thou didst
receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received
it? As if you did something. to earn it. One was found and
sent forth to stand in that breach and to halt the destruction of
God's chosen ones as we read in this 23rd verse of Psalm 106. It says, therefore He said that
He would destroy them. But wait, there's more. Had not
Moses, His chosen, stood before Him in the breach, Moses was
chosen by God, as was the God-man, our Savior. Now this story is
found over in Exodus 32. Turn there with me. Exodus 32. After Moses was delayed from
coming down from the mountain, the people had Aaron make them
a golden calf, which they worshiped. after which the wrath of God
was kindled against His people. Let's start reading in verse
7 of Exodus 32. We'll read through verse 16. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Go, get thee down, for thy people which thou broughtest out of
the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned
aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They
have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have
sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel,
which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And the
Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is
a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that
my wrath may wax hot against them, that I may consume them,
and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the
Lord, his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against
thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt
with great power and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians
speak and say, for mischief did he bring them out to slay them
in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?
Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against Thy
people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and
Israel, Thy servants, to whom Thou sware by Thine own self,
and said unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven,
and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your
seed, and they shall inherit it forever. And the Lord repented
of the evil which He thought to do unto His people. And Moses
turned and went down from the mount, and the two tables of
the testimony were in his hand. The tables were written on both
their sides. On the one side and on the other were they written.
And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was a
writing of God graven upon the tables." Now the only thing that
kept God from carrying out the promise destruction of that nation
of Israel was the fact that His chosen servant Moses stood in
that breach between an angry God and Israel and stayed the
wrath of God toward His people. What a picture we have here of
our Lord Jesus Christ. He stands in the breach between
an angry God and undeserving sinners to stay the wrath of
God toward His true Israel, His people. But that's where the
similarity ends. Because Moses merely pled that
God would not destroy Israel. But much more, our mighty Moses,
the Lord Jesus Christ, pled for the life of His elect, but He
went as far as to lay down His life for them. In Ezekiel 22,
there is an account of the many sins of Jerusalem against their
God. And at the end of the chapter in verse 30, we read this, And
I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge,
and stand in the gap, stand in the breach, stand in the gap
before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but
I found none. Therefore, have I poured out
mine indignation upon them. I have consumed them in the fire
of my wrath, Their own ways have I recompensed upon their heads,
saith the Lord God." In this account in Ezekiel, there was
not one found to stand in the gap, to stand in the breach as
did Moses and as did our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, the
wrath of God fell without mercy upon that place to destroy it.
This word indignation means anger. mingled with contempt, disgust,
and abhorrence. When God pours out His indignation
upon a people, it is a last resort. Because
our God is a God who delights in mercy. And He's longsuffering
toward His people. But there is a limit to God's
longsuffering when it comes to those who are not His people. But thank God that that is not
the case with the elect, because one was found to stand in the
breach, and to stay the wrath of an angry God, and to reconcile
chosen sinners to a holy God by the sacrifice of Himself. That One that we're told is mighty
to save. Now this is described in two
places in the book of Isaiah. In Isaiah 58, verse 12, it says, shall be as of thee, shall build
the old waste places. Thou shalt raise up the foundations
of many generations." And speaking of Christ, "...and thou shalt
be called the Repairer of the breach." The Restorer of paths
to dwell in. The Repairer of the breach. What
a perfect description of our gracious Savior. And in another
verse in Isaiah 30, 26, "...Moreover, the light of the moon shall be
as the light of the sun. And the light of the sun shall
be sevenfold as the light of seven days, in the day that the
Lord bindeth up the breach of His people and healeth the stroke
of their wound." As Christ healed that high priest's servant's
ear after Peter had sliced it off with a sword. But our wound
was much more severe than a cut ear. Sin had pierced us through
the heart. And we lay dead to all things
spiritual. Dead in trespasses and sins is
the way it's described in Ephesians 2. But our God proclaims in Psalm
919, Then thou spakest in a vision
to thy Holy One and saidst, I have laid help on one that is mighty,
I have exalted one chosen out of the people. He describes himself
thus, I am the Lord, mighty to save. And Job also describes
the condition of God's people before he comes to us in mercy
and grace. He says, yea, his soul draws
near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers. But that's not how it ends. Then
is he gracious unto them, and saith, Deliver him from going
down to the pit. You know the rest of the verse.
I have found a ransom. And our Lord Jesus Christ stated
that this was the very reason for His coming to earth. Because
we read in Matthew 20, 28, He said, even as the Son of Man
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His
life a ransom for many. This is how He stood in the breach
and brought peace between a holy God and worthless, helpless sinners. And for the same reason that
we are told in this 23rd verse of Psalm 106 that Moses stood
in the breach, so did our Lord Jesus Christ for this reason,
to turn away His wrath lest He should destroy them. Now this
word, turn, can mean many different things, but in this case it means
to sit in another direction, to change the course of something.
Now before the Spirit of God came to us and brought us saving
faith, we were standing directly in the path of God's wrath. And
if you doubt this, read Ephesians 2 again. And you hath he quickened
who were dead, in sins and trespasses, wherein in times past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation
in time past in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. Now, when you turn away something,
you change the course of it. You do not stop its forward progress. It's like a ricocheting bullet.
When a bullet is fired and it hits something besides its intended
target, it is turned, its course is changed. It's diverted in
another direction. And thus it was with the wrath
of God that was due our sins. The wrath of God that was bearing
down upon us like a freight train. It was diverted to another. It was turned away by, but also
turned upon, the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. That wrath
which would have been ours, which would have been carried out on
us for eternity, was turned upon Christ. Now, the blood of Christ
is a powerful thing. It changes vile sinners into
holy vessels of God's mercy. Romans 5.9, much more than being
now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through
Him. Psalm 85.6 puts it this way,
Thou hast taken away all thy wrath. Thou hast turned thyself
from the fierceness of thine anger. Christ Jesus pleads with the
Father, as Jeremiah did for the nation of Israel in Jeremiah
18. Shall evil be recompensed for
good? For they have digged a pit for
my soul. Remember that I stood before
thee to speak good for them and to turn away Thy wrath from them."
This describes perfectly how Christ pleads His precious blood
in His finished work for His chosen people. And the wrath
of God is turned away from us forever. Now, we like to talk
about how because of the finished work of Christ, we will never
know what it is to suffer the wrath of God, but how often Do
we actually stop to think about what that is? There are many places in God's
Word that talk about God's wrath that give us some idea of what
it is. Christ said in Luke 13, 28, describing
the fate of the damned in hell, there shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth. I don't know how many of you remember
it, but a year or two ago I read the account of Colonel William
Crawford being burned at the stake by the Shawnee. And they
made a day of it. And it's horrible to contemplate
and horrible to read. But it does not scratch the surface
of what awaits the damned in hell. Now, when extreme pain
is experienced, one tends to gnash their teeth or grind their
teeth. I don't know how many of you
have ever struck a thumb or a fingernail with a hammer, but the first
thing you do is like, ah! And the second thing you do,
unfortunately, is to sometimes speak some words that you ought
not to. But we've seen movies and things
where people are about to undergo surgery in days of old, maybe
in the Civil War, with no anesthetic, nothing to relieve the pain,
and the surgeon usually gives them something to bite on, Maybe
a piece of wood. Because if they don't, you can
literally crack your teeth from biting down so hard. And in Matthew
13, our Lord is telling of the end of the world when the wheat
shall be separated from the tares. And beginning in verse 40, He
says this, As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the
fire, so shall it be in the end of the world, the Son of Man
shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of
His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and
shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing
and gnashing of teeth." Now, I don't know about you,
but I can't dwell long. I'm thinking about what some
of my family members who have gone on, some of my friends, are enduring as we sit here this
night, and shall ever endure for eternity. I've just read to you a brief description of it. And
I'm sure as you have, I've read many times about the various
tortures that were used throughout history. A history of man's inhumanity
to man, And it's hard to even dwell on
some of those because they're too terrible to even contemplate.
But many of them had to do with the use of fire as a means of
torture. But if you could combine all of the horrors in the history
of this world, it would not begin to compare with what the damned
in hell experience. Under the wrath of an angry God,
it's inescapable. It's forever. Ten million years? It's not ten trillion years.
We cannot grasp the concept of anything being eternal because
everything that we've ever known has taken place in time. I've used the illustration before
of the folks in the Twin Towers on 9-11 jumping voluntarily to their
death. They weren't pushed. They didn't
slip. They were being cooked alive and chose to jump 80, 90
stories to their death. But sadly, most of them probably
jumped into a fire from which there is no escape. And this
is what our blessed Savior rescued us from when He stood in the
breach and He turned away the wrath of God on our behalf. I find it amazing that he knew what he was about
to endure, yet he willingly stood in that
breach between a holy God and vile sinners and turned the gruesome,
unimaginable wrath of God upon himself. And we cannot begin
to imagine what that wrath is, but this man Christ Jesus, who
is God, knew exactly what was in store. He is the One who created
all things, including this place called hell. He knew the horrific agony that
He was about to endure. But the love for His chosen people
was such that it exceeded the dread of what was about to be
inflicted upon him. Now, if I could make the choice
to die for one of my children, one of my grandchildren, I'm
pretty sure I would make that choice without hesitation. But I'll be honest with you.
This is something Darwin and I talked about a couple of years
ago. I know for a fact that if I were to see into the
pit of the damned and know the suffering that takes
place there, there's no way I would voluntarily die for any of my
family and willingly take their place And that place is suffering
for eternity. The human mind possesses no such
love. There has never been but one
man who loved that much. He who loved us from eternity
past willingly stood in the breach and stayed God's wrath on our
behalf. He's described in Hebrews 12, 2, looking unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set
before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God, where He will
one day present you faultless before the presence of His glory
with exceeding joy. that joy that was set before
Him that enabled Him to endure the cross. So let us give thanks
to our glorious Savior who stood in that breach between an angry
God and worthless sinners. And let us look forward to that
day, anticipating with delight when we shall at last see Him
as He is, and finally, be able to praise Him as we ought. Now,
a word to those who are sitting here tonight or may hear this
message in the future, who do not know the Lord in saving faith,
I would encourage you, if you are able, to plead with the God
of this universe to show you mercy, to give you saving faith,
which is a gift that He gives to some and does not give to
others, you need to realize you are shut up to His mercy and
to His will. And if you can do that, perhaps
this God who delights in mercy will be pleased to put you in this one who stood
in the breach and turned away the wrath of God from His chosen
people. I pray that He'll do that for
you today.