The 122nd Psalm is the third
of the Songs of Degrees, which were sung by the children of
Israel on their ascent unto Jerusalem. And that Psalm reads as follows,
the Song of Degrees of David. I was glad when they said unto
me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand
within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is builded as a city
that is compact together. Whither the tribes go up, the
tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give
thanks unto the name of the Lord. For there are set thrones of
judgment, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the
peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love
thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions'
sakes I will now say Peace be within thee because of the house
of the Lord our God I will seek thy good. In this third song of degrees
the gaze as it were has begun to be set upon the destination
to which the Lord's people head. Psalm 120 began, within my distress
I cried unto the Lord and He heard me. Psalm 121 began, I
will lift up my eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.
But now we have set before us that unto which the gaze is lifted. I was glad when they said unto
me, let us go into the house of the Lord. David here writes out of his
own heart and his own experience. He was glad when his brethren
came under him and said let us go into the house of the Lord.
He rejoiced to go with his brethren into God's house and to come
unto God and to bring worship and praise under him and to be
in the presence of the Lord with his people. There was no place
that David would rather be than to be with God's people in the
presence of his Lord, and to behold by faith his Savior, and
to bring worship and praise unto him, and to be one with the people
of God. So he cries out, I was glad when
they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. But David's words as we see repeatedly
in the Psalms and through the Scriptures are prophetic, are
a type, are a figure of Christ's. And throughout all these Psalms,
and particularly these Psalms of degrees, it is Christ who
is leading his people forth. It is Christ who is present with
them and it is Christ who speaks here. These are the words of
the Lord when he says, I was glad when they said unto me,
let us go into the house of the Lord. The Lord Jesus is glad
when his people say unto him, let us go into the house of the
Lord. It's he who leads his people
forth, it's he who leads his people into the Lord's presence,
into eternal glory, through Zion's gates, into New Jerusalem. It is he who is glad when his
people come unto him by faith and seek him and want to be with
him and want to be in the presence of the Lord in the house of the
Lord. It's he who's glad here. And he is glad when his people
desire to be in his house. He is glad when they cry out
for salvation. He's glad when they call upon
the Lord for mercy. He's glad when they long to gather
together with his people. Their cry, let us go into the
house of the Lord, encompasses all these things. Oh Lord, have
mercy upon me a sinner. Oh Lord, deliver me. O Lord,
save me. O Lord, show me thy salvation. O Lord, lead me forth by the
right way. O Lord, gather me with thy people. Lord, draw me into thy presence. Lord, bring me into the house
of the Lord. Oh, how Christ rejoices to hear
the cry of faith. and the desire of the hearts
of his people to be one together in the house of the Lord, in
his presence. Yes, it's Christ who speaks here
and I want us to see this throughout these Psalms that throughout
them Christ is the one leading his people. He's in the midst
of them. They're not on a journey on their
own. This is not mere instruction
for us to follow. But He's here, in the midst,
in our hearts, leading us forth. And nor is this a journey which
only finds its fulfilment in eternity when we part from this
world and enter into eternal glory and come into the everlasting
courts of God, into New Jerusalem. into that temple above, not only
does it find its fulfilment eternally, but it finds its fulfilment on
the pathway of the believer each and every day. In God's eyes,
spiritually speaking, we are already, as the children of God,
delivered from all our sins, delivered from all our enemies,
our every foe, We are already gathered in as one company around
the throne of Jesus Christ. We are already seated in heavenly
places. As Paul tells us in the epistles,
we're already sat there around the throne of the Lamb of God. There is an outworking in time. There is a pilgrimage which we
take through this world. until that day when we behold
the Savior with our own eyes and are drawn in into that company.
But spiritually we're already there. And this is something
which we taste of and experience in our pathway here below. Whenever God comes unto us by
his Spirit in the Gospel, and takes our gaze away from earthly
things and points us unto His Son, unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever the Gospel comes and
Christ is before us and we behold Him by faith, we come as one
company, as one people, into the house of the Lord with our
Saviour, knit together in Christ. wed unto Christ. We come as that
bride, arobed in her perfect garments of righteousness, to
behold the bridegroom who says, I was glad when they said unto
me, let us go into the house of the Lord. This is a journey,
this is a pathway we experience every day and we should long
to experience every day. Clearly our experience as believers
is full of ups and downs. There are mountaintops which
we're led up onto and there are valleys into which we descend.
There are times and days when we're given a clear sight of
our Saviour. and there are many times when
the clouds seem to gather above us and we behold nothing but
the troubles and the trials through which we pass and the iniquity
of our own hearts by nature and we feel the flesh to triumph
and the doubts and the fears to come upon us and we feel like
God is afar off but every time he brings us to this point causes
us to fall and to stumble and discover again once more how
weak we are, how frail we are, how empty we are, how wicked
we are. When he shows us the poverty
within, the barrenness within our flesh, our utter inability
to do one right thing or think one right thought without Christ
and His mercy and His grace. When He brings us again to know
that we are nothing, then He comes again in the Gospel and
comes before us and lifts us up and kindles faith again and
we behold Him and we cry out unto our Saviour Let us go into
the house of the Lord. O Lord, lift us up, gather me
in, show me thy mercy. And he says, I was glad when
they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. David goes on, our feet shall
stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Our feet shall stand within thy
gates, O Jerusalem. We will stand there. We will
be brought there. The day is coming when we will
stand within the gates of Jerusalem. New Jerusalem. Eternal glory. Zion. That place where the Lamb
of God dwells, where His glory is seen. There's coming a day
when we will be there, when we shall stand there. It's coming,
in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye. These afflictions which
we pass through here below, which seem to go on, month after month,
year after year, are but light afflictions as Paul tells us
they're but for a moment, they're soon gone and then the day will
come when we will be there when we will be in Jerusalem in the
courts of the Lord, in the house of the Lord we will be there
in his very presence, we will see his face and we will behold his face forevermore,
for eternity. There will never be the setting
of the sun, there will never be night there, there will be
day forevermore. We will always be in His presence. In a place where there is no
more sorrow, no more sin, no more death, no more despair,
no more sickness, no more trouble, no more trial, no more doubts,
no more fears. where there is but eternal glory,
righteousness, peace. Yes, one day we will be there.
But there is a continual bringing in and a continual standing within
Jerusalem's gates by faith now. Whenever God comes unto us in
the gospel and leads us unto Christ, he brings us by faith
and we stand. We stand by faith. We stand in righteousness. Our standing is in Christ. He causes us to stand. We don't come prostrate on the
floor, he lifts us up. He causes us to stand, He sets
our feet there. Because there's no more sin.
He's taken it away, He's blotted it out. And He causes us to stand. Stand
in Jerusalem. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
He has set us free. Stand in the Lord. We go into
the house of the Lord with our Saviour now. Every time we turn
from self, every time we turn from our sin, every time we turn
from our own strength and behold Him as being our all in all,
our strength, our glory, our righteousness, our Redeemer,
the One who stands before us. with four wounds in his feet
and his hands and a fifth wound in his side, showing forth what
he did to bring us there, showing forth his everlasting love for
his own. When we stand and behold him
and see Christ crucified, when we see what his love cost him,
when we see what it cost him to deliver us and to bring us
there, when we see what his love brought upon him, the sufferings
of death, the sorrows of the grave, the
outpouring of God's wrath and judgment upon him as he bore
our sins, when we're brought to behold him crucified in our
place, stood in our place, us to one side who deserved to be
hanging there and he who deserved to be free nailed to the cross
in our place when we see him in our place exchanging places
with us dying that we might live for those who were dead washing away their sins in order
that in Him they might be made righteous. When we see Him in
our place, when we see Him crucified, when we see His blood, when we
see His love, His grace, His mercy, when we're brought by
faith to rest in His salvation alone, then our feet stand within
the gates of Jerusalem. What a place to be brought. What
a place that we will stand in eternally in days to come. But what a place to be brought
now, in the Gospel, when God leads us there. Jerusalem is
built as a city that is compact together. Wherever the tribes
go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel,
to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. This city Jerusalem
is built as a city that is compact together. But it's not a city
just built of stone. It's not a city like an earthly
city here below. Glorious in its architecture. Demonstrating the handiwork of
men in putting it together. But this is a city which shows
the work of God in taking men, taking women and children, sinners,
washing them clean, making them perfect in his son and taking
them as the very bricks, the very stones from which he builds
his city. This is a city built together
from God's people. Christ was glad when they said
unto him, let us go into the house of the Lord. This is a
people that come and together form the house that the Lord
dwells in. They are the house. They are
the house now that the Spirit of God enters into in each of
their hearts, that Christ enters into them and dwells within them. And gathered together they form
as one company, Jerusalem. Compact together. This is that
city, that heavenly city, that eternal city that Abraham looked
for. Though Abraham journeyed and
left Ur of the Chaldees and was brought into the promised land
and dwelt in tents and went whithersoever the Lord sent him, He never received
the fulfilment of the promises here below. He looked for that
which was to come. He entered into them by faith
as we do. But he knew that there was that
coming. That heavenly country, that eternal
city into which he would be brought one day. He looked for a city
which have foundations, whose builder and maker is God. This is a city built by God,
not by men. It owes nothing to the handiwork
of men. It owes nothing to the architecture
of men, to the wisdom of men, to the design of men, to the
efforts of men. It owes nothing to the works
of man. Man hasn't built this city. Man
doesn't build the church, no preacher. no teacher, no man
upon earth builds this city, no church upon earth, no gathering
upon earth that is true is built by men. It's not the fruit of
this man's ministry or that preacher's preaching that brings this city
into being or that adds to its number or that brings one saved
soul through the door. There is no glory that God will
share with any man or any soul in this earth, this is built
by God. Abraham looked for a city which
have foundations, whose builder and maker is God. It's entirely
God's work. He sent forth His Son in the
fullness of time to bring about and fulfil all the promises of
God that were sent by His prophets from the dawn of time. He said,
I will send a Saviour, I will send a sacrifice, I will send
My Son who will be both the King of His people, the Priest of
His people, and the Sacrifice of His people, and the Prophet
of His people. He will come and fulfil all things. and he sent his son and his son
went to the cross and took the sins of all his people and took
all his people upon his heart and led them unto Calvary, led
them unto the cross, led them unto Golgotha and there he and
they died under the wrath and the judgment of God. And all
that was wicked, all that was sinful, all that was rebellious,
all that was of man, was burnt up. And he and they were laid in
the grave. And early in the morning on the
first day of the week, he rose and they rose with him. And he
ascended and they ascended with him. And he, the chief cornerstone
of the house of God, was laid down, and each of his people,
as living stones in Christ, were set down with him to build this
city, this house, in which God will dwell forevermore. This
is the city that Abraham looked for. It's the city that we look
for. It's the city that we see built
whenever God comes in the gospel and preaches and opens the heart
of dead sinners like you and I. Opens our hearts to see and
behold a savior crucified in our place. This is how he builds
his city. By the preaching of his gospel through the Spirit of God, when
He draws us irresistibly by grace unto His Son and opens the heart,
when He brings us down to see we're nothing and to cry out
for mercy, when He brings us to call out unto the Son, let
us go in to the house of the Lord. O Lord, is there a place
there for me Oh Lord let me come in. Lord open the door and let
me in. How glad the Lord is when his
people are brought to cry unto him. In Ephesians 2 verse 19
Paul writes, Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners
but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household
of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone,
in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto
an holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together
for inhabitation of God through the Spirit. Oh, what a thing
this is. It's easy to read it. It's easy
to repeat it. But what a thing it is to be
built together as an holy temple in the Lord. To be made in habitation
of God through the Spirit. that God can say of us, sinful,
wretched, weak worms, creatures made out of the dust, who by
nature return to the dust, absolute nothings, that the almighty God
who created the heavens and the earth, who stretched out the
vast infinite universe, can come unto us and say that we will
be his dwelling place. that we will dwell in Him and
He will dwell in us, that He should come and be within us,
that He should make us His habitation, that He should take His people
and build them together, frame them together into an holy temple. Jesus Christ Himself being the
chief cornerstone, founded upon the apostles and the prophets,
that He should come and dwell with men, and come and dwell with us. Jerusalem is builded as a city
that is compact together. Whither the tribes go up, the
tribes of the Lord, the 12 tribes, the apostles and the prophets,
the 12 tribes, the 12 prophets, whither the tribes go up, the
tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give
thanks unto the name of the Lord. They're brought up, when we're
brought into this place, when we go into the house of the Lord,
when we come unto Christ our Saviour, we come unto the testimony
of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. We come
to the Gospel. We come to the declaration of
the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. We come under His testimony and
the testimony of His people concerning Him. There's nothing else to
gather unto. There's nothing else in this
world that lasts that's true. Everything outside of Christ
and His gospel is just a lie. deception, the deception of Satan
which will lead us astray and that deception is there whispering
in our ears every day. Outside of this house, outside
of this testimony, outside of this gospel, all you will hear
in this world is a whispering in your ear, come this way, go
that way, Lo, His riches! Lo, His pleasure! Indeed, Satan
will use every deception he can to lead us astray, including
deception in Israel, deception in religion. So he'll come and
he'll say unto us, Lo, here is Christ. Lo, there is Christ. Come and follow Christ here. Come over there and he'll come
in this church and that church and this so-called gospel and
that so-called message and he'll say, well here's Jesus, just
accept him. You can, you make the decision,
you choose to follow. He'll come and he'll say, well
you must be right before God, you must live righteously. Then
come here, follow the law. Work out your own righteousness,
then God will be pleased with you. He says, come, eat of the fruit
of this tree. And we may answer, but the day
in which we eat of that fruit, of the fruit of the knowledge
of good and evil, of the wisdom of this world and its religion,
of the free will of man and the works of man. The day I eat of
that food I shall surely die and Satan will come and whisper,
no you shall not surely die. Come eat. You shall be as gods,
you shall know all things. How easily he deceives. How close
he is at hand. How dependent we are. upon the
guiding of the Spirit of God, upon the voice of Jesus Christ
in the Gospel, upon our Saviour leading us and calling out unto
us to keep us from evil, to keep us from the deceptions of Satan,
especially in religion, especially in the churches, There are many
this day who will say they have gone into the house of the Lord. And that which they blasphemously
call the house of the Lord is but a building of man, a congregation
of men, gathered to hear the words of men. No matter how many
times they take Jesus' name upon their lips and speak of Him and
His salvation. if their Christ doesn't do it
all, if their Christ hasn't built the house, if their Christ hasn't
done all the work to save his people, if it isn't grace and
grace alone, if it isn't the electing grace of God the Father
in Jesus Christ, if it isn't God who builds the house and
only God who builds the house, then you've entered a synagogue
of Satan. but God be pleased to keep us
from it. If we, believer, are brought
by God's grace to stand within the walls of Jerusalem, even
here below by faith. If He's given us ears to hear
the truth in Jesus Christ, if He's brought us to see that we're
nothing and our works and our will count for nothing, but we
need Christ and Christ alone, we need Him to pick us up, Him
to lift us up, Him to guide us on the right way, Him to teach
us within, Him to do it all. If we need Him to cry out, it
is finished. If we're brought to see that
He is our all in all and outside of Him, we are nothing, nothing
but rebellious sinners. If He has opened our ears to
the truth, then we can but fall before Him and praise His name
and cry out, Lord keep me. have mercy upon me Lord I believe
help thou mine unbelief because left to myself I would drift
off there and drift off here I would go to the left hand and
to the right hand but it's but for his voice behind me saying
lo here is the way walk ye in it. It's the testimony of Israel
that keeps us in the way and causes us to give thanks unto
the name of the Lord with all that that name means. I am. I am the Lord. I am that I am. I am the bread of life. I am the good shepherd. I am
the light of the world. That's the Lord. He's sovereign. He saves, He rules over all,
and He comes in His Gospel where He pleases, when He pleases,
to lift up His Son and say unto fallen sinners like you and I,
behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.
Behold my Son, hear ye Him. O have you heard Him? Do you
hear Him? Will you hear Him? Do you desire
to hear Him? Do you care to hear Him? O sinner,
you need to hear Him. You need to hear the voice of
the Son of God. The day is coming, the hour is
coming and now is. When those who are in the graves,
the dead in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of
God and come forth and live. We need to hear Him. We need
His voice. We need His testimony. We need
the Gospel. What a mercy if He sends it our
way. and brings us to this place, into Jerusalem, into the house
of the Lord. For there are set thrones of
judgment, the thrones of the house of David there. In this
house, in this place, there are thrones of judgment. And one day we will be brought
before a throne of judgment. we're left to ourselves, left
to our sin, left to indulge all that we want, oh we say we want
this and we want that. And if God gives us our heart's
desire by nature and leaves us to it and never turns us from
it and never shows us the barrenness of it and the emptiness of it
and never shows us our depravity and our sin never shows us the
darkness in which we dwell if we're left in that then one day
we will be brought into the presence of God and we will stand before
a throne of judgment And the one who sits upon the throne
of judgment will go through our life. From the day we were born
until the day we died. Through every day, every hour
and every moment. Through every action, every deed,
every thought and every motive. And our sins will be laid bare.
And he will judge them according to righteousness. in perfect
righteousness, in perfect justice. He will be fair. He will be as
fair and as good as he can be. He will judge us righteously
and find us wanted. There are thrones of judgment. And if he finds us wanted, he
will say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity. No matter
how religious we may have been, no matter how confident we may
be when we come before Him, we may come crying out, Lord, Lord,
I worshipped in this church for so many years. Lord, Lord, I
preached in Thy name for so many years. Lord, Lord, I did this
good and I prayed and I read the Bible and I went here and
I went there and I served here and served there. If we know
not Him, If it wasn't His truth that we preached, if it wasn't
His gospel, if there was anything of us in our Lord, Lord, I've
done this and I've done that, if we come before Him full of
what we've done, rather than falling before Him and saying,
Lord, I'm nothing. Have mercy upon me, a sinner.
Receive me for Christ's sake. Wash me in his blood, else I
die. If there's anything of self,
he will say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity. Our Lord,
Lord, will count for nothing. But if he has mercy upon us,
If we are one that is brought to see our nothing before a holy
God. If in time now you're brought
under the gospel and see that you're nothing and see your state
and see his glory and see his righteousness and see the love
and mercy of God in Christ Jesus. If we're brought to call out
upon Christ and look under him then he will lead us into this
place. unto thrones of judgment and
he will make us kings and priests in his everlasting kingdom. There
are thrones, multiple thrones and he will cause his people
to sit down and to rule because they are one with him, they are
righteous, they are his chosen, they are his elect and they rule
over this world with him. Indeed this place into which
they are brought, this rule, this priesthood is something
which as believers we enter into now. this world is already judged,
this world is already ruled by our Lord and his people in Christ
are already kings and priests over it. It may not appear so
now. The wicked may seem to have the
upper hand. We may look in our trials and
tribulations through which we pass and feel like we're surrounded
by enemies who have all the strength and all the power and get to
do just what they will and we are nothing. And yet, like David, that weak
strapling, when he came before mighty Goliath and the might
of the Philistine army and what looked like defeat what looked
like an impossibility God used to bring a great victory Goliath
wasn't in charge the Philistines weren't in power God was And
through his gospel, through his mercy, through his son, he destroyed
all his people's enemies. They rule over all. There are set thrones of judgment,
the thrones of the house of David. This house into which we enter
is pictured as the house of David, the house of Christ, as Zacharias
prophesied when Christ was promised. In Luke chapter 1, Zacharias
said, being filled with the Holy Ghost, he prophesied, saying,
blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed
his people and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in
the house of his servant David. Christ was promised in the house
of David He was born of Mary and Joseph, the lineage of which
went back to David. He was born in the city of David,
Bethlehem, in fulfillment of all the promises. And Zechariah
saw his day and cried out, the Lord have visited and redeemed
his people. He have raised up a horn of salvation
for us. in the house of his servant David. And that redemption, that salvation
that came when Christ was born in Bethlehem is according to
righteousness. That babe, that promised child
that was brought forth in the city of David in Bethlehem came
to save his people from their sins. and that salvation was
according to righteousness there was only one way that he could
save his people from their sins by laying down his life under
the righteousness of God in judgment against their sins upon the cross
by laying down his life in their room and their stead in their
place by shedding his own blood as he bowed to the judgment of
God the Father which flowed down from God's throne on high. Christ came to show his people
mercy, to show them grace, to show them love, to deliver them,
but he could only do so. by bowing to the throne of judgment
and the righteousness of God. And that cost him his life. There are thrones of judgment
in this place. That throne of judgment will
either cost you your life, me my life, or it costs Christ his
life in our place. It's one or the other. God's
mercy, God's love, God's grace is not at the expense of righteousness.
At the cross, righteousness and mercy, judgment and mercy kissed
one another. They met in one place. They met in Christ. They met
in a dying Saviour who suffered because of the throne
of judgment on high. Revelation, John writes, John
to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace be unto you and
peace from him which is and which was and which is to come and
from the seven spirits which are before his throne and from
Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness and the first begotten
of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth and to
him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
and have made us kings and priests, unto God and his Father, to him
be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. He who loved
us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, proceeded forth
from the throne of God on high. He put himself under the axe
of God's justice and in taking away our sins and delivering
us from every judgment against us, he made us to be kings and
priests under God and his Father. Kings and priests who will sit
and reign upon those thrones in the house of David. What a
place to be brought. Psalmist David goes on, pray
for the peace of Jerusalem they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls and
prosperity within thy palaces for my brethren and companions
sakes I will now say peace be within thee. He prays for peace
in three ways. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem,
they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls
and prosperity within thy palaces. And for my brethren and companions'
sakes, I will now say, peace be within thee. Oh, what peace
God brings into his house. But David calls us to pray here
below for the peace of Jerusalem. Peace of Jerusalem as we journey
through this world. Pray that God would keep evil
from our door. Pray that the people of God might
be free to gather and to worship. Pray for their peace of Jerusalem
from outward enemies. The peace of Jerusalem. Pray
that there should be peace within Jerusalem. Peace be within thy
walls and prosperity within thy palaces. And pray, for my brethren and
companions' sakes, peace be within thee. May peace be within each
one of us. The peace of Jerusalem comes
because Christ loved his own and laid down his life for them.
Their love for him and for one another comes because he first
loved them. And because he loves them, he
will protect them from all their enemies. There are many foes,
many enemies which will do all that they can to disrupt Jerusalem. All that they can to stop the
people of God gathering and worshipping. All that they can to stop the
gospel going forth. There are many enemies that will
rage against this gospel and rage against God's house. But
Christ prays for the peace of Jerusalem. Christ watches over
his people. and seeks their good. He prays
and is heard and is answered and God keeps his church. He
keeps his house. He keeps Jerusalem. He keeps
his people from all evil. They cannot overcome them. They
cannot destroy. He will watch them. He will build
them. He will gather them. He will
preach his gospel within Jerusalem's walls. Peace be within thy walls
and prosperity within thy palaces. He prays for peace within Jerusalem. For Jerusalem to have peace,
peace must be within it, within the people, within their hearts. There must be peace between one
another. He prays for peace within his
people, within Jerusalem, that there might not be backbiting,
that there might not be strife, that there might not be warfare,
that there might not be one rising up above another, that there
might not be those judging their brother and judging each other.
but that they might love each other as they are in Christ.
This peace comes from knowing what we are before God and what
we are before each other. When we know we're nothing, when
we recognize we're nothing, when we recognize that we can sin
in the greatest of ways, that we have done and we can do, then
we're forgiving and loving of our brethren. When we're set
upon Christ and his gospel, there will be peace. Whenever you preach
another gospel, whenever you turn from Christ unto man, unto
the will of man or the works of man, whenever you turn to
the law and seek to keep peace within the walls of Jerusalem
by your efforts, by Exhorting believers to live a certain way
and to turn from sin by their own strength and to serve God
in their own strength. All you do is stir up strife. All you do is stir up enmity. All you do is stir up and encourage
the pride of men and all you get is trouble. We see this time and again in
the epistles. All they had at Corinth. All
they had at Galatia. Through the wisdom of men and
the whisperings of Satan's with his other Gospels and his mixing
of law and grace was trouble, was strife, was warfare. But
where the Gospels rage stuck, where the hearts of the people
are turned unto Christ, when we're laid low in the dust before
him, where Christ is all, there is peace within. Jerusalem. For my brethren and companions
sakes I will now say peace be within thee, within thee, within
Jerusalem, within the people, within each of us. This is to
the corporate gathered company and it's personal to each one
of us. Peace. We can only know this
peace when the warfare is over, when we stop fighting, when we
stop working, striving in our own strength to work out our
own righteousness and to solve our own problems and to seek
God by our own wisdom. When we're brought to an end
of ourselves, when we rest in Christ, finish work alone, then
we will know peace. There's a constant bringing of
each one of us to peace within for our brethren's sake. We are
most a blessing to one another when we are brought here. At
the end of John's Gospel in chapter 20, Christ having died, having
risen again, he comes and meets his people. They're gathered
together in Jerusalem. And we read in John 20 verse
19, Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week,
when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled
for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith
unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he showed
them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad
when they saw the Lord. Oh, what a fulfillment there
is there of all that we read here in this psalm. They were
gathered in Jerusalem on the first day of the week, Christ
having died for their sins, Christ having risen again, and they're
assembled for fear of the Jews. They're gathered, afraid of that
which is without. Afraid of certain death, perhaps,
from that which is without, the Jews slayed their Saviour. The
Jews, if they found them worshipping Him and preaching His gospel,
could slay them. They were assembled for fear
of the Jews, a very real fear of that which is without. But
Jesus came and stood in the midst. the doors being shut, the gates
of Jerusalem as it were, shut around them, their feet were
within Jerusalem and he comes in their midst and says unto
them, peace be unto you. And he showed them the cause
of that peace when he showed them his hands and his side. This is what brought peace to
you my brethren. And when they saw that, when
the disciples saw that, when they saw the Lord, they were
glad. I was glad when they said unto
me, let us go into the house of the Lord. They were glad when
the Lord came unto them and said, peace be unto you. Within the
gates, he pronounces peace. They were hid there. They had
no strength. They were separated from men
around. They were taking refuge from
the Jews round and about. And in this place Christ comes
to settle their fears. Peace be unto you. How we need
this. How we too need this. When we're
afraid of that which is without. When we're afraid of how men
may turn and rend us and put us to death because of the gospel
we believe. when our hearts are troubled
how we need Christ to come in the midst of us and say peace
be unto you and how this makes us glad when he does when we
see the Lord when we see the wounds in his hands and his feet
and his side when we see the Lord in the gospel How this makes
us glad, how the gospel makes us glad. It will do, it's glad
tidings. The gospel sent to make us glad. Luke 8, 1 reads, And it came
to pass afterward that Christ went throughout every city and
village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom
of God. And the twelve were with him.
he went with them and the twelve were with him preaching these
glad tidings i was glad when they said unto me let us go into
the house of the lord and again romans 10 15 how shall they preach
except they be sent as it is written how beautiful of the
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things And the gospel doesn't just make
us glad, it makes Christ glad. His joy is our joy, and our joy
is His joy. He's glad when we come unto Him,
and we're glad when He comes unto us. I was glad. we read of him in Hebrews 1.
Unto the Son the Father saith thy throne O God is forever and
ever a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom
thou has loved righteousness and hated iniquity therefore
God even thy God have anointed thee with the oil of gladness
above thy fellows. Do you seek happiness Do you
seek joy? What makes you glad? The only
true happiness, the only true joy, the only true gladness is
to be found in Christ, in the house of the Lord, with his people. He concludes by saying, because
of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good. Christ will seek His people's
good. He seeks our good. That's why
He came. That's why He came into this
sin-filled world. That's why He came into the darkness,
the light shining in the darkness. That's why He came to the grave.
That's why He came to the cross. That's why He came to Golgotha. That's why He was willing to
be rejected by all men. That's why He was willing to
suffer your hatred. to suffer the hatred of all men
against Him. That's why He was willing to
be cast out and despised. That's why He was willing to
lay down His life for His people. And if He was willing to do that,
if He was willing to go through those hours of darkness on the
cross, separated from man, separated from His Father, enduring the
outpouring of his wrath in the darkness, in the abyss, if he
was willing to go there, cast out forsaken, hated of all, will
he not be willing to come unto us as we journey through this
world to seek our good and to bring us safely into our eternal
rest? Will he not be glad when his
people say unto him, let us go into the house of the Lord? Is
he not glad as he leads his people, because of his shed blood, because
of his work of grace in saving them, safely into eternal glory? And is he not glad now, each
and every time, at each and every hour, that his people are brought
by faith, by the Spirit of God, under the gospel, through the
gospel, to behold their Lord. To behold his hands and his side,
and to be glad when they're one with him, knowing that they're
nothing. But knowing He's all, and He
rules upon a throne over all things, and loves them unto the
end. Amen.