So we're going to read this evening
from Psalm 36. Psalm 36. This says, to the chief musician,
a Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord. The transgression
of the wicked saith within my heart that there is no fear of
God before his eyes. For he flattereth himself in
his own eyes until his iniquity be found to be hateful. The words
of his mouth are iniquity and deceit. He hath left off to be
wise and to do good. he diviseth mischief upon his
bed, he setteth himself in a way that is not good, he abhorreth
not evil. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the
heavens, and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. Thy
righteousness is like the great mountains, thy judgments are
a great deep. O Lord, thou preservest man and
beast, how excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children
of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They
shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house,
and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.
For with thee is the fountain of life, in thy light shall we
see light. O continue thy lovingkindness
unto them that know thee, and thy righteousness to the upright
in heart. Let not the foot of pride come
against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me. There
are the workers of iniquity fallen. They are cast down and shall
not be able to rise. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. You know, I sometimes think that
we fail. dreadfully as the people of God
to recognise the blessings of God that he gives us. We seem to pass over things almost
nonchalantly without any real thought about them that are good
and helpful and gracious to us and we forget to give God thanks. You know, if we truly understood
what it was to be a sinner in the presence of the Holy God,
we would realise that God could just blot us out immediately
and never give a second thought to the matter. Such is the awfulness
of sin, such is God's abhorrence of sin, that his righteousness
demands destruction and obliteration. and yet he doesn't do it. For
his loving kindness' sake, for his grace and his mercy, he yet
restrains that hand of judgment from against us. And that's a
blessing. That's a blessing. And I wonder
if, as we get up every morning and realize that we've been given
another day on the face of this world, whether we realize the
extent and the nature of the blessings of God to us. I want
to think about two blessings that the Lord gives to us this
evening as we gather together. The Lord Jesus Christ blesses
us heartily whenever he gives us these two things. He blesses us when he gives the
believer a glimpse of himself. That is, when he allows us to
have a glimpse of God. And the Lord Jesus Christ blesses
us when he gives us the opportunity to have a glimpse of ourself. If we see God in any way, if
God reveals himself to us, that is a blessing and a privilege.
And if we truly see ourselves, that too is a blessing and a
privilege. He gives us a blessing every
time we get a glimpse of ourself. And I believe that it's these
two insights that David has in mind when he writes this Psalm
36. The idea of both glimpsing God
and also glimpsing ourselves. And in the opening verses of
Psalm 36, David is speaking about those insights, those glimpses. And the first one he is thinking
about is seeing himself. So it's my hope this evening
that as we come to spend a little bit of time just thinking about
this Psalm 36, that the Lord will give us a blessing from
it as we catch a glimpse of him and perhaps catch a glimpse of
ourselves as well. Back in Montana, where I'm living
at the moment, we have one benefit that I have appreciated greatly
since moving to the state, and that is that they have great
big empty roads, and we get to drive down these big empty roads
with hardly another vehicle on them, and we can just enjoy the
scenery and enjoy the drive. And I was listening to a recording,
a music recording, the other day as we were driving down this
road. And it was from a lady, I think
she's maybe a country-western singer or something like that,
from a few years ago. Her name is Nancy Griffiths.
And I was listening to one of her songs, and she said in that
song, she said, No one ever knows the heart of anyone else. It's a sad love song. She said, no one ever knows the
heart of anyone else. Well, she's half right. She's
half right. The Bible tells us that we don't
even know our own hearts. So we don't know anyone else's
heart, but we don't know our own hearts either. The Bible
says that the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked. And here, another singer, although
this time it's the inspired singer, it is David. He is telling us
in these first few verses of Psalm 36 something about the
nature of a man's heart and a woman's heart. And I feel sure that some
of us will be able to relate to this description that he gives
here. He says, the transgression of
the wicked saith within my heart that there is no fear of God
before his eyes. I want to ask you a question. Do
you know anything in your life about a battle in your own soul? Do you know anything about a
conflict that goes on in your own soul? A warring that exists
between the flesh and the spirit? In truth, only a believer knows
about that war, because an unbeliever is dominated by the flesh. But
when God comes and illuminates a sinner's heart, when God comes
and breathes life into a dead soul, when God comes with quickening
power and the Holy Ghost regenerates and revives an individual and
makes that individual one of Christ's little ones, one of
Christ's people, and shows them the Lord Jesus Christ and comes
and enters into their heart and life. That isn't the beginning
of a life of ease and blessing and happiness. On the contrary,
it's the beginning of a life of trial and difficulty and spiritual
warfare, a conflict which goes on in the soul of a believer. And I'm not just talking about
natural things, like someone who knows that they've got something
to do, a job to do, a challenge that has to be undertaken and
they keep putting it off and they put it off and they sort
of have a fight within themselves because they know they've got
this job to do but they're too lazy to get it done. I'm not
talking about that kind of conflict that goes on in the minds of
people all the time. sort of procrastination, I'll
do it next week, I'll do it next month, oh there's time yet, I
can get to it. And we say we're having a fight
with ourselves because we know that we've got this job to do.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about something spiritual,
something that goes on in the soul, whereby we are aware that
we want to honour God, we have a desire to honour God, a desire
to live for God, to serve God, to worship God. And yet we feel
as if we're dragging around great weights. We're pulling a ball
and chain behind us, that there's something of the weight and the
trouble of this world, which we just can't relinquish. We
just can't let it go. And it holds us back like a bird
whose wings has been clipped. We have a desire to fly, but
we can't get off the ground. And there's a battle goes on
in our hearts, in our souls. This is a deep battle. It's a
struggle between a desire to please and to honour God and
to serve him and the reality that we find in this world. whereby
we're so sluggish and dull and slow and we feel as if we're
wading through syrup. We can't get moving at all. And that's not unique to you
if you feel that experience. Indeed, that experience I suggest
to you is the experience of every true born-again believer because
they are contending in their spirit with something that is
almost as powerful as that work of God in their life. And that
is the efforts of the natural man. That natural man that sat
upon the throne of their life for so many years and has been
deposed by the Holy Spirit, yet rises up again and seeks to reclaim
that throne, that place, that position of preeminence. And so there is a bitter conflict
takes place in the heart of an individual, a warring between
the spirit and the flesh. Paul knew about that. He speaks
in Romans chapter seven of the things that he wanted to do. He says, for that which I do,
I allow not. That is the things that I don't
want to do. That which I do, I allow not. For what I would, That do I not,
but what I hate, that I do. So Paul recognised in his life,
even the apostle, even a man of his experience, his depth,
his wisdom, his spiritual knowledge, he was aware that in his life
there was this contest This battle, the things that he didn't want
to do, the things that he didn't allow, those were the very things
he did. And the things that he wanted
to do were the very things that he found himself unable and incapable
of doing. And there is this disconnect,
there is this conflicting principle between an old man who yet is
alive and vigorous and seeking preeminence again, and the new
man of grace that has been implanted in the believer by God the Holy
Spirit, that which Peter calls the hidden man of the heart. Paul again says in the same context,
for I know that in me, that is in my flesh, in this body, in
this mind, these feelings that I have, these motivations, these
passions that are part of my identity, part of my character,
part of my personality, the person that I am. This fleshy body that
I exist in, it rails against and rivals the spirit that has
been recreated, born again, quickened in my soul. For I know that in
me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is
present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. That's a believer talking. That's
a Christian of standing, a man of experience, and yet that is
the reality of what he experiences. And David knew about it too.
That's what he's talking about in these opening verses. He's
a spiritual man and he knew enough about his own heart. He knew
enough about his own heart to realize that it was deceptive,
to realize that it was treacherous, to realize that it was deplicious.
He knew as a spiritual man that he couldn't trust himself. He
knew that in his own nature, in his flesh, there is no fear
of God before his eyes. This is the way in which the
devil enters in to attack a believer. This is the way in which Satan
seeks opportunity to draw us away from God, draw us away from
contemplating the things of God. And David is speaking about this
and he says in these opening verses, the transgression of
the wicked saith within my heart that there is no fear of God
before his eyes. He is speaking as the new man,
speaking of the old man and he is saying this wicked old man
has no fear of God before his eyes. He acts as if God doesn't
exist. He acts as if he doesn't have
to own and recognise the glory of God. This old man lives without
any fear or concern of God. And it grieves the new man. It
grieves that spiritual man. And he goes on in verse two to
say, for he flattereth himself in his own eyes. till his iniquity
be found to be hateful. What does it mean to flatter
yourself in your own eyes? It means that we hide the true
nature of our sin. It means that we go to extraordinary
lengths to pretend that we are something that we are not. It
means that we don't hate our sin. We love it. We cherish it. We feed it. We water it. We keep it alive. It means that
we ignore the effects of our sin and we live in a state of
self-deception. We deceive ourselves. And that's
what the old man does constantly. He is going around saying, it's
not that serious. It's not that bad. It's okay. You don't need to be a super
saint. You don't need to be an amazing
person. You just get on with your life.
You just do it the way that you're trying to do it. And the natural
man doesn't see a problem. He's not so bad. He's quite acceptable. But that's not the state of the
believer. He knows that this isn't right. And there's a war goes on in
his breast. There is a challenge that is
faced. He feels the heart of the weight
of this natural man. And that's why it is a blessing
when the Lord gives us a glimpse of ourself and our true nature. The flesh is not going to do
good. It is set to do evil. He goes on in verse three to
say, the words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit. He hath
left off to be wise and to do good. He deviseth mischief upon
his bed. He setteth himself in a way. He's content to travel on in
that way. And he's content to let things
be exactly as they are. But the new man isn't content
at that. The new man says, no, the new
man says, that's not God honouring. That's not the way that I should
live. And he knows that war and he
feels that hurt. The flesh isn't for changing.
the spirit won't relinquish that knowledge of God that has been
given. I think the psalmist's approach
here in the way in which he sets out this dilemma, this contrast,
this conflict that he has in his own soul is very interesting
in the way in which he immediately asks the question, what do I
do about that? How do I, as a believer, how
do I, as a young believer, come to terms with the dichotomy,
the contrast, the ambiguity that there is in my life? That I feel
as if I want to honour the Lord and yet I feel so stuck in this
situation. these problems that beset me.
How do I deal with this fleshy conflict? Well, what often happens when
we get into religion is that we see that there's a problem. And we think to ourselves, I'm
going to have to deal with this problem. I'm going to have to
sort and solve this issue. And we think to ourselves that
the way to do that is to bring to bear the law of God. Bring the law into the equation. Bring the works of our flesh
under the power of the law. And if we do that, if we're able
to suppress the flesh, if we're able to undermine the flesh,
if we're able to constrain the flesh, maybe wrap it up in some
Bible readings or put it down by some attendance at religious
services or in some way try to live a better life, then we'll
be able to suppress this old man and feel better and more
comfortable in the new man. And so we subdue the old man
and that's what the law is used to do in a believer's life. We try to whip the old man into
shape. We try to beat him down. We try
to win that war against him by calling on the help and the forces
of our own abilities. We want to alter his behaviour. and all it does is plays into
the trap of self-deceit. We think that we're better than
we are, and we succumb to self-righteousness. That, my friends, is the recipe
for a constant inward battle that will never be eased. We have to do what the psalmist
directs us to do in this psalm. And I love the way in which he
moves from verse four to verse five, having recognized the power
of the old man in his life. What does he do? Does he say,
I'm going to have to put that old man down? I'm going to have
to fight harder against that old man? No, it's not what he
does at all. In verse 6 he moves, or verse
5, he moves straight in to think about the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he says here in verse 5,
Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens, and thy faithfulness
reacheth unto the clouds. The psalmist turns his eyes away
from himself from his weaknesses, and he turns his eyes upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. He looks to the character of
Christ. He looks to the attributes of
Christ. He looks to the blessings of
Christ. He looks to the work of Christ. He looks to the words
of Christ. And from that look, from that
gaze, he finds his comfort and his joy and his peace. What I
want to do is just look at a few of these things that he highlights
in these middle verses of the psalm this evening, and show
us if the Lord will enable some of these principles from Christ
that will help us in this daily battle that the believer experiences. The first one that he quotes
is mercy in verse five, and he says, thy mercy is in the heavens. That mercy has to be the first
thing that a believer leans upon when he is hurting in the battle
of his soul. That's the first thing that we
go to because our hurt as believers is because of our sin. That's
what makes us grieve. That's what causes us to be so
disheartened and discouraged and discomforted in this life
because we realize that this body of sin is not something
that we can relinquish. And we have to have the mercy
of God. We have to have that mercy from
the Lord Jesus Christ. And David describes it as mercy
that comes from the heavens. The mercy of God is in the heavens.
And I see that as being a reference to the fact that the seat of
God is in heaven. So that's where God is and it
is God alone who can give mercy. It is God alone who can speak
to our hearts with those words of mercy which will comfort and
help us. Scripture talks about the sure
mercies of David and that means that David tasted the mercies
of God. He knew what those mercies were. These were mercies which came
from on high. No man could give him these mercies. No man could say, it doesn't
matter, David, it's okay, you're doing all right, you're playing
well, you're getting the job done. He knew in his own soul
that this wasn't right. He knew that battle. And therefore,
to find the help that he needed, he had to go to the Lord. And
that's what David does here. There is mercy with the Lord.
There is promised help from on high. And Isaiah 53 speaks about
this as well. Sorry, Isaiah 55 in verse 3. It says there, incline your ear
and come unto me. Here and your soul shall live. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with you. even the sure mercies of David. The everlasting covenant of God
is the demonstration of the mercy of God to a poor sinner. The second thing that David speaks
about is God's faithfulness. Thy faithfulness, he says in
verse five, reacheth unto the clouds. How high is that? I don't exactly know how high
we were flying yesterday when we came up from Seattle, but
it was pretty high. It was pretty high. And we were
going through the clouds. The clouds can be high. I know
they can be low, but they can be pretty high as well. So how
high is it? How high are the clouds? Well, I'll tell you how high
they are. they're high enough to overcome our troubles. No matter what our troubles might
be. Troubles often seem to overwhelm
us. And I don't know what they might
be. Maybe it's the relationships that we have. Maybe it's the
job that we have. Maybe it's the finances or our
health or any number of things that go on around our life. And the old man, the flesh, He
is the one that rises on those occasions, uses and employs those
occasions, those situations, in order to again assault and
assail the new man, the world, the devil, the earth, the circumstances
of our life. This verse tells us that God's
faithfulness is always higher than our problems. God's faithfulness
and God's promises will always be there. These mere trials,
they will bend and they will buckle under the faithfulness
of God, the promised blessings of God to his people. The mercy
that God has promised, with the certainty that it will be so,
speaks of a faithfulness that ascends to the clouds. The Lord is there to help us
as we go to Him. Numbers 23 verse 19 says, God
is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he
should repent. Hath he said and shall he not
do it? Or hath he spoken and shall he
not make it good? The mercy of God and the faithfulness
of God is that to which the believer turns. The third thing he mentions
here is righteousness. He says, thy righteousness is
like the great mountains. Now I know that here in Alaska
you know something about great mountains and you've got your
mountain ranges to the left and to the right and mighty they
are. Mountains speak of strength,
they speak of durability, they speak of security, they speak
of refreshment. cool places in a dry land. And the Lord's righteousness
stands like the mountains for endurance and power. These are the mountains which
rise up and displace the unrighteousness of the natural man, which break
into the heart of the natural man. And God sees us as a people
bestowed with his righteousness, and he makes us righteous with
himself. Romans chapter four, verse six
says, even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto
whom God imputeth righteousness without works. These are the
things that we are to look to. When we feel that battle in our
souls, when we feel that weight of the old man, when the flesh
seems to drag us down, we look to the righteousness of God.
We look to his gifts of blessing. We look to his faithfulness and
his mercy. The fourth thing that he points
out here is the judgments. In verse six, he says, the judgments,
thy judgments are a great deep, O Lord, thou preservest man and
beast. The judgments of God are the
providences of God. The judgments of God are the
ways of God. And sometimes we have that trial
in our lives, that problem in our lives where we see that things
going on around about us seem to be just too much for us to
handle. And it seems as if the ways in
which the Lord is leading us is ways that is not going to
let us enjoy life as we ought to enjoy it. And we have these
difficulties, we have these trials, and we think to ourselves, why
is the Lord taking me through this path? Why is the Lord taking
me along this road? Why is my life like this? Why
is the circumstances as such? And the judgments of the Lord
are deep, like an ocean. He takes us into areas of our
life, experiences of our life, which are too much for us, which
overwhelm us, overcome us. And we think to ourselves, I
can't go on. We wonder why things happen as
they do. The man of the world would think
that these things were random and unconnected. But the believer
sees beyond that. He knows that God is in control. And he knows that the people
of God learn from their Saviour's deep judgements how to trust
Him better, how to lean upon Him more. And they learn that
the Saviour's ways are right and good. Psalm 19 verse nine
says, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous. The judgments
of the Lord are his providences in life. The things that happen
to us, the apparently abstract and inconsequential random events
that affect and afflict us in our lives. These are the judgments
of God. but they are just and they are
true. They are helpful. They are good. Show me thy ways,
O Lord. Teach me thy paths. Teach me
in all of these circumstances how it is that I have to find
thee in the midst of my trials. The believer seeks the wisdom
of the ways of the Lord's judgments in his life. He sees his trials,
he sees his difficulties, he sees his problems and he sees
them as a way in which he can go closer to the Lord and for
that they are designed. Therein we are preserved. Therein we are sustained. Therein
we are helped. And the Lord upholds his people
in the midst of their tribulations. Why does one suffer and another
does not? Why does one work and another
does not? Why is one's health poor and another is not? It's
an ocean. It's an ocean of depth. these circumstances of life.
And I can't look at your circumstances of life and give you a word that
will help you or benefit you, but the Lord can. And it's for
that reason that he brings these profound, deep judgments upon
us that we might turn to him in our moments of need. The fifth
one that he points out here is loving kindness. Look at verse
seven. He says, how excellent is thy loving kindness, O God. He has spoken about the mercy
of God, the faithfulness of God. He has spoken about the righteousness
of God, the judgments of God, and now he speaks about the loving
kindness of God. You know, when we know that someone
loves us, when we've proved that person's love, then we can deal
with the small issues of life around about us. And when we
understand that the love of the Lord is excellent, then we see
that it excels everything else. It stands above everything else. The world speaks about love.
It speaks about love highly. It lifts up love. It says all
you need is love. But the love of God is a love
that is excellent. And the love that the world talks
about and sings about pales into insignificance in the light of
the love of God, which is everlasting for His people. Jeremiah 31,
verse three says, The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying,
Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore with
lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Do you know the battle of the
flesh against the spirit in your soul? Do you know the challenge
and the conflict of getting through this world as a believer? Look
to the mercy of God. Think on the mercy of God. Remind yourself of the faithfulness
of God. See him as the one who is righteous
and from whom all your righteousness is derived. See that in the judgments
of providence, God has a means and a way and a pattern of bringing
you closer to himself. See these things with the eye
of faith and understand them all. under the context of that
loving kindness which is forged in eternity for your soul and
will never let you go. Paul speaks of these great truths
and he says these are the things which are to uphold us and sustain
us and maintain us in our Christian walk and in our life. He speaks
of love. Look at Romans chapter eight
with me for a moment. Just turn in your Bibles to Romans
chapter eight. This is the love of which the
apostle speaks in verse 35. He says, who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? Romans 8, 35. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake
we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor 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. Shall not these things, these
promises, these gifts of grace and God's goodness to his people
encourage us in this battle, in this fight, in this war? Shall
not these things uphold us and strengthen our spirit? I love
the way that the psalmist ends this psalm. He gives us five
statements here, right at the end. In verse seven, he speaks
about our confidence because he says, therefore, because of
that loving kindness, the children of men put their trust. under
the shadow of thy wings. That's those who are believers
in Christ. Those who know the Lord Jesus,
they put their trust under the shadow of the wings of our Saviour. You remember the picture of the
mother hen that looks after her young, covers them up in the
face of the enemy. Maybe it's a bird of prey or
something that is coming to jeopardize her chicks. What does she do?
She covers them with her wings and there they remain safe. And
so it is with the people of God. We put our trust under the wings
of our Saviour. He goes on in verse 8, and they
shall be abundantly satisfied. We're looking for satisfaction
in this life. Some of you young people, you're
looking for satisfaction in this life. I understand that. but
you won't find satisfaction in this life as a believer. You
might find satisfaction if you're lucky in love, in marriage, in
your job, in your career, in popularity, in celebrity. Maybe
if you're lucky, you'll find some degree of satisfaction,
but not the believer. The believer has been changed.
The believer has been altered, and he knows that this flesh,
this world, is always going to be a battle and always going
to be a challenge. His satisfaction comes from somewhere
else. It comes from Christ. It comes
from God. It comes from that which he has
been given as a gift of grace. they shall be abundantly satisfied
with the fatness of thy house. The fatness of the house is the
blessings that come from the house of the Lord. And what is
the house of the Lord but the church of Jesus Christ? These
blessings come to the Lord's people through the preaching
of the gospel, through the gathering of the saints, through the blessedness
that we possess in that communal fellowship together in Christ. thou shalt make them drink of
the river of thy pleasure. For with thee is the fountain
of life, in thy light shall we see light. There is refreshment
to be had for the believer in Christ. In the midst of his challenges,
in the midst of his war, there is refreshment to be had in Christ. We drink at the fountainhead,
we drink where Christ's blessings flow freely. And like that water
that flowed in the wilderness for the people of Israel, when
Moses struck that rock and the water flowed out to sustain and
deliver the people over the years of their wilderness trial, the
believer drinks deeply at the fountain which is Christ, and
we are refreshed in him. There is abundant life in that
fountain. There is life to be had in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And there is revelation, divine
revelation, and he says, thy light, in thy light shall we
see light. You want the answers to life?
You want to see what it's all about? then look to Christ because
he is the light of the world and in thy light we see light. In thy light, in the Lord Jesus
Christ, the believer learns where his true peace lies, where his
true happiness lies, where contentment is to be found despite the warfare
of this body and this flesh and this world. I hope this has been
of some use to some of you this evening, that you'll have realised
that in the midst of that battle, there is to be had blessings
for a look to Christ and a satisfaction which he alone shall give in
that fountain of life and in the abundance of his graces towards
us. Thank you for your attention
and for listening this evening.