Well, we haven't got there quite
yet in the study, but I suspect next week we'll get to 1 Corinthians
chapter 10 and verse 11, which tells us that things that happened
in the Old Testament were examples to us for our admonition, to
teach us. And Psalm 74, this is becoming
a mini-series in the Psalms, I didn't ever intend it to be,
but this is where I felt led to bring us to this week, Psalm
74, What does this teach us from
the Old Testament about our situation today? This psalm which we read
earlier in the service is about the period, I think it is, there's
divided opinions of exactly when it was written, but I believe
it's from the period after the restoration of the temple, following
the Babylonian captivity, you know when they came back, we
did a series about 15 months ago in Nehemiah and Ezra, and
the prophecy of Haggai and Zechariah, and it's from that period when
the temple which was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in judgment
for Israel and Judah's idolatry, that that was restored. The letters
were sent, Artaxerxes, Cyrus, they were raised up for the purpose
of rebuilding this temple. This temple was not from David's
era. It wasn't. There was no temple
in David's era. David was not permitted to build
a house for the Lord. It was for his son, Solomon,
to build that house. And you'll see down in verse
8, it says, they have burned up all the synagogues of God
in the land. There were no synagogues in David's
day. So I don't think this speaks
of David's day. It doesn't speak of David's day
because this is about a temple being destroyed. not a tabernacle,
a temple. And there was no temple in David's
day. I think it comes from that period when the temple following
the Babylonian captivity was being restored, was being rebuilt. And after that, there were prophets
in those days, Zechariah, Haggai, Malachi. But after Malachi, there
were no more prophets for the best part of 500 years, well
over 400 years, up to John the Baptist. He was the next prophet
that came. There was no prophet in the land
at all. It was taken away. There was
no synagogue as the psalm laments. The temple had been ruined, made
a mess of. Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed
that first temple completely. And the first temple had five
signs of the presence of God with the people. And you read
about them from Exodus 25 onwards. We're not going to look at the
scriptures in detail. I'll just give you what those
five signs were of the presence of God in the Old Testament temple. They were the signs of the presence
of God in the tabernacle as they wandered the wilderness and then
when they had it set up when they came into the promised land
and they were taken into the temple of God in Jerusalem, Solomon's
temple. And these were the five signs
of the presence of God. the Ark of the Covenant, which
was that box that you read about that they carried. It was that
box of base wood, acacia wood, and it was overlaid with gold.
And on the top of it, it had a gold, solid gold mercy seat
with the cherubim figures over the mercy seat. And inside the
box were the tablets of the law. And there was a pot of the manna
that had been preserved from the wilderness wanderings. And
there was Aaron's rod, which was an old dead rod, but when
it was thrown on the ground, God made it bud with almond blossom. Aaron's rod that budded. That
was the first sign. The Ark of the Covenant was there
in that first temple. And you know, a lot's made about
it in Hollywood literature these days. Raiders of the Lost Ark,
that's what they're talking about. Harrison Ford and the films,
trying to find the lost Ark of the Covenant. It's lost. It was
lost when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it. That sign had gone. The fire was on the altar perpetually. It was miraculous. That fire
on the altar was a perpetual fire from God. You know when
Elijah met the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel? and challenge
them. This day we will see whose God is the Lord. Then we shall
see whose God is the Lord. Get you some bullocks and build
an altar and put no fire under and cry to your God and the God
that answers by fire let him be God. And of course the prophets
of Baal cut themselves and danced and wailed and screamed all day
long and Elijah mocked them and nothing happened. And then Elijah
said, go and get some barrels of water and pour barrels of
water and do it again and do it again. And there was a trough
around the edge of the altar and it filled the trough with
water and it was absolutely saturated. It could well have been sat outside
in the English countryside over the last two or three months.
It's so wet. And the fire of the Lord fell.
and however wet it was and however soaked it was. You just go out
today, for those that are not here with us today, I can tell
you it's pouring down again today and you go out through our lovely
woodland and it's like a quagmire, you're up to your knees in mud
very, very quickly and the hardest thing to do out in the woods
today would be to start a fire. It would be very, very difficult.
But when Elijah poured 12 barrels of water over that sacrifice
and prayed to God, the fire of God miraculously fell. There
was that fire in the temple, perpetually, on the altar. There
was the Shekinah glory. This is number three, the Shekinah
glory. You won't find the word Shekinah
in the Bible, but it's in the Jewish histories. The Shekinah
glory, but the meaning of it is definitely in the scriptures.
It's the pillar of smoke and of fire. When they came out of
Egypt, there was a pillar of smoke by day, and there was a
pillar of fire by night. It was the presence of God with
them. It was the felt presence of God with his people. That
sign was there in the temple. The Shekinah glory was there
in the temple. How it manifested itself, I don't
know. But the priests knew about it.
It was there. There was these mysterious things. This is the
fourth sign. There was the Urim and the Thummim. What on earth is that? Look it
up in your concordance. There were jewels in the breastplate
of the priest, the high priest. They're called lights and perfections. there to do with the word of
God coming and being explained and being understood. There was
the Urim and the Thummim from the high priest's ephod that
was there. That's the fourth sign. And the
fifth sign was the spirit of prophecy. Always God had his
prophets to give his people his word. Those were the signs in
the old temple. When Nebuchadnezzar came, they
were completely destroyed. Whatever anybody might claim
regarding them, they have never been found since that time. Four
or five hundred years before Christ, they've never been found.
And this new temple was to be set up. This new temple was possibly
bigger than the first one. Possibly. And it caused rejoicing. When you read in Ezra, as we
did about 15 months ago, when you read in Ezra chapter 3, verses
12 and 13, when they'd set up the foundation stone, there was
huge rejoicing. There was great rejoicing. The
young people were delighted that they were doing this thing. They'd
been children in Babylon, and they'd come back from the captivity,
and they'd done this in the face of much opposition and enemies.
And they rejoiced at what they were doing. They rejoiced at
what they'd achieved. But there were old people there,
the ancients, who remembered the first temple from 70 years
and more before. And they remembered the first
temple with those five signs. And those five signs were not
there. And whilst the younger ones were rejoicing at what they'd
done, the older ones were weeping bitterly. Because it was not
the same as it was. It wasn't like it. It wasn't
like that first temple. Why did they weep? it's in Psalm
74. Look at it, this is why they
wept. And draw the parallels between
what calls itself Christianity today. You know Rome calls itself
Christianity. The whole world thinks Rome is
the the Christian church in the world
today. And then there's kind of amateur
Rome, which I call Anglicanism, DIY Rome. There's Presbyterianism. There's the lively, spirit-filled
megachurches all around. There's orthodox, Calvinistic
reform churches. And many people rejoice at the
magnificence of what they think they have built and what they
think they are building. But any who know anything of
the biblical gospel of true salvation in Christ, they weep at what
they see there. Or rather, they weep at what
they don't see there. Look at it. Oh God, why hast
thou cast us off forever? This is the people of God, the
true people of God, crying and lamenting of the situation. Why
doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? Look
how insignificant we are. Remember thy congregation. And
this is the psalmist being bold and coming before God with arguments
before God, but this is the inspired word of God. And he's saying,
look, remember thy congregation which thou hast purchased of
old. You've gone out and bought it. You know, you sometimes tell
somebody to take care of something. Don't you realize what you did?
You've gone and bought it. Take care of it. You've purchased
it. It's the rod of thine inheritance which thou hast redeemed. You've
bought it. You've paid for it. This Mount
Zion wherein thou hast dwelt, remember it. Look at the state
of it now. Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations because
he's seeing that it was in ruins. Even all that the enemy hath
done wickedly in the sanctuary. Thine enemies roar in the midst
of thy congregations. The enemies of God roar in the
midst of His congregations. They set up their ensigns for
signs. They set up their false signs
for God's true signs. Oh, is that not what we see in
religion all around us? men setting up their ensigns,
their false gospel signs in place of true gospel signs. A man was
famous according as he had lifted up axes upon thick trees. It
was an honor to cut wood for the building of the temple in
Jerusalem, the cedars of Lebanon. But now They with their axes
break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers.
They have cast fire into the sanctuary. They have defiled
by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground."
It was totally destroyed. They said in their hearts, let
us destroy them together. It's reminiscent of Psalm 2.
Why do the heathen rage and imagine a vain thing against the Lord
and against his anointed? We will not have God to rule
over us. They have burned up all the synagogues of God in
the land. The truth, the teaching of the
truth is subdued. Now here's the verse I particularly
want to focus on, verse 9. We see not our signs, there is
no more any prophet. Neither is there any among us
that knoweth Neither is there among us any that knoweth how
long, that's able to discern the times and able to discern
what God has revealed in his word. We see not our signs, there
is no more any profit. that's what we look at you know
just as those signs of the first temple had been taken away and
lost and destroyed in the destruction that Nebuchadnezzar brought in
judgment which was as God's instrument of judgment on those people just
as that was the case so it is when we look around us we see
no more our signs we see not our signs there isn't a prophet
it seems like where the gospel of grace Yes, it was always a
minority, but the gospel of grace was widely preached in this land,
for example, and now look at it today. You can count on the
fingers of one hand those that you know that proclaim the true
gospel of grace. There's so much that tries to
portray itself as the truth, but yet it isn't. This new religious
edifice of this new temple lacked the five signs, and those that
remembered them wept over them, and those that never experienced
those signs rejoiced in what they had built. Let's look at
the signs. Let's look at these signs in
detail. First of all, the Ark of the Covenant. What is that
to us today in the church today? What is the Ark of the Covenant?
We don't have an Ark of the Covenant. We don't seek to find an Ark
of the Covenant. We know that if anybody ever
could find a piece of wood that was from archaeologically proven
that it was from the original Ark of the Covenant from Solomon's
Temple, from the Exodus wanderings, we know immediately what would
happen. People would idolize it, they'd make an idol out of
it, they'd bow down and worship it, they'd make a fortune out
of setting up shrines for people to go and worship. No, we don't
want that, but this is what we do want. We want to see Christ. We would see Jesus. We would
see our Lord Jesus Christ. Because it is Him that the Ark
of the Covenant symbolized. What was it for? All the things
in the Old Testament are for our admonition and for our learning,
upon whom the ends of the earth are come. All of them. They were
all there as pictures of God's means of saving his people from
their sins. And the Ark of the Covenant was
no different. It pictured Christ. That base
wood, overlaid with gold, speaks of his humanity, overlaid with
his divinity. God in man. The fullness of the
Godhead bodily is what the Ark of the Covenant speaks of. It
speaks of him covering the law for his people because the lid
covered the tablets of the law that were inside. It speaks of
him being that bread from heaven which God sent down, that manna,
that pot of manna that was in it. Christ is the bread which
comes down from heaven. That rod that budded, speaking
of the life that comes from God alone, in Him, in Christ, was
life. He is the life of His people. That mercy seat on the top of
the Ark of the Covenant, where the priest would go and sprinkle
the blood, and God said, there, on the basis of sprinkled blood,
the blood of an acceptable sacrifice, I will speak with you, face to
face, God. eternal, dwelling in unapproachable
light, on the basis of an acceptable sacrifice, would speak with his
people face to face, as it says of Moses, as a man speaketh with
his friend. In Christ, The living God speaks
to us as a man speaks to his friend. I call you no more my
servants, but I call you my friends. Our Lord Jesus Christ. And which
Christ is it? Because, you know, there are
many Christs. That's not me making it up. The Scriptures warn us.
Beware, there are many Christs. They will say, here is Christ,
there is Christ. No, there's only one. There's
only one true Christ of Scripture. try the spirits, test the spirits
whether they be of God, whether what they're saying is correct.
Is this God our savior that they're speaking of when they talk of
Jesus? Is it eternal God become man to save his people from their
sins? Is this the one who remains always
a just God an absolutely just God and yet the saviour of his
people a just God and a saviour the one who is just and the justifier
whose faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ is this the one who has
made full satisfaction for the sins of his people is it? full
satisfaction Is it? You know, you can listen to it.
I was listening to a snippet of preaching earlier on today.
And some of the way that you would say that's orthodox and
that's absolutely straight down the line. And I'm telling you,
there was no full satisfaction for sin because it left so much
that the sinner still has to do in order to be right with
God, in order to get himself ready to be taken to heaven in
his own strength and in his own works. That's not the Christ
of scriptures. For Christ is made unto us wisdom from God,
and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. Now, where he
is missing, do you know what you can put over the door? Where
he preached and proclaimed as the Bible sets him forth is missing,
you can put a sign above the door, Ichabod. Ichabod means
departed glory. Do you know where it comes from?
In the days of Eli, first book of Samuel, in the days of Eli,
they'd gone out to fight the Philistines, and the Philistines
had captured the Ark of the Covenant. The people, the Israelites, thought
that they would take this box with them as a lucky charm. You
know, like people say, oh, I'm going to wear my four-leaf clover,
or I'm going to take my bit of shamrock with me, or whatever
other little, or my rabbit's foot, or any other stupid, superstitious
thing. I'm going to take it with me,
and it will give me good luck. I'm going on a journey, so I'll
have my little Saint Christopher pinned to my lapel and that will
keep me safe. You know, superstition. And they'd taken the Ark of the
Covenant as a superstitious thing. And God caused the Philistines
to rout them, absolutely. I think 30,000 killed was the
death toll. It was tremendous. And they brought
the news back to Eli. And Eli had some wicked sons,
Hophni and Phineas. And the wife of one of them,
I forget which one it was, was about to give birth. And when
they heard the news that the Ark of the Covenant had been
taken, Eli, who was a big man, fell backwards off his seat and
died. The wife of one of the, I think
it was Phineas, the wife of Phineas, giving birth, they said, what
are you going to call him? Surely you'll call him after
his father. And she said, no, he shall be called Ichabod. Why
on earth do you want to call him Ichabod? Departed glory.
The glory has departed. Why had the glory departed? The
Ark of the Covenant had gone. Why do I say that you can put
Ichabod above the doors of these churches where the Christ of
Scripture is not proclaimed? Because the glory has departed.
The glory of God is in the gospel of Christ. This is it. The glory
of God is there. And if he is missing, in any
of his aspects, if he is missing, Christ will profit you nothing.
If you add to him any of these things that people in religion
so much like to add, Christ will profit you nothing, is what the
scriptures say. Now, Christ mixed with works,
where they say Christ is good for justification but you must
have your own works for sanctification. In that situation Christ profits
you nothing. The Ark of the Covenant has gone,
the first sign has gone, the Gospel of Christ has gone. Christ
offering possibilities rather than declaring salvation accomplished. Ichabod, the glory has gone.
Oh, but we're saying that God is a God of election. No, you're
offering possibilities. You're offering possibilities
that what he did was good enough for the whole world should the
whole world only choose to believe him. and you're opening up the
offering of possibilities. Christ declares salvation completed
for his people. And if you compromise that doctrine,
if you mix that doctrine with the thinking of fallen flesh,
if you do that, then it's Ichabod, departed glory. We see not our
signs. The sign has gone. Secondly,
the fire had gone. There was not that perpetual
fire down on the altar. And if Christ is absent from
the preaching, from that which is believed, there will be no
fire from heaven. How do I bring that up to date?
If you remember the account of Pentecost when the disciples
were waiting in the upper room and they were waiting as God
had told them, as Christ had told them, go and wait and not
many days hence the Holy Spirit will come to you. And do you
remember what the manifestation of the Holy Spirit was on those
that waited in that room? It was tongues of flame on their
heads. It was a visible manifestation
of the presence of God with them. What's the fire now? It's Christ
being there. And how does it come? It's the
Holy Spirit coming when, as the scripture promises, there are
two or three of his people gathered together in the name of Christ.
The Holy Spirit comes, that fire from heaven taking of the things
of Christ, and showing them to his people. He will take of mine,
said Christ, and reveal them to you. That fire had gone, and
so it is. Now, when Christ is not there,
central in the preaching of his word, central in the gospel of
his grace, that sign has gone. It's an empty shell. It's Ichabod. The Shekinah glory, number three,
was missing. the Shekinah glory, that missing
pillar of cloud and pillar of fire. It's Christ who is missing
in the preaching, in the false preaching of this so-called gospel
that is no gospel at all. Where the grace of God is overshadowed
by the law that is preached, the glory is absent. The glory
is not there. How do I know that? If you turn
to second Corinthians chapter three and verse nine, Paul is
talking there about comparing the Old Testament legal dispensation
with that covenant of grace which is in the gospel of grace and
in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verse 9 he says this for if the ministration
of condemnation be glory so the law given at Sinai was glorious
in its way it was a fearful place to be It was a terrible manifestation
of the presence of an offended, holy, all-consuming fire who
is God. It was glorious. But if the ministration
of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of
righteousness exceeding glory. How much more glorious is the
gospel of grace that declares how a man is just with God. When that is gone, the Shekinah
glory is gone. The presence of God is gone.
His people hear it. His people know it. You go and
you hear some preaching and it's not there. And you can say, you
can weep with those ancients of those days of the temple when
they saw in Ezra, when they saw those things happening and that
the younger ones rejoiced and the ancients wept. Because you
can see there is no Christ here. I'm not hearing any Christ in
what I'm hearing. Christ is the manifestation of
the glory of God. He is. In all his fullness, he's
the manifestation of the glory of God. And he said, I, if I
be lifted up, will draw all men, meaning all his people, to himself.
This is what must be done. Christ must be preached. In him
dwells the fullness of the Godhead, bodily. He has been restored
to the glory for which he prayed in John 17. Restore to me the
glory that I had with you before the beginning of time. And he's
been successful in his mission. And fourthly, the Urim and the
Thummim, the lights and perfections, these mysterious things of the
Old Testament. But these were the perception
and interpretation of divine truth. In Deuteronomy 33 and
verse 8, Moses talked about this Urim and Thummim when he's giving
his dying blessings on the people of God. And about the Urim and
the Thummim, this is what he said. it would be with God's
Holy One. Who is God's Holy One? Christ
is God's Holy One. In Christ are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. The light of the knowledge of
the glory of God is where? In the face of Jesus Christ.
The Urim and the Thummim is Christ preached clearly. Christ who
is the key to all the Scriptures. How do I understand the Scriptures?
It is Christ in all the Scriptures. Christ and Him alone. Christ
and nothing else. Christ above all else. We only
understand the Scriptures fully in the light of the Lord Jesus
Christ. As Paul said, we have the mind of Christ. And he talks
about rightly dividing the word of truth when Christ is set forth. And then fifthly, the spirit
of prophecy. After Malachi, there were no
more prophets until John the Baptist. Best part of 500 years,
Revelation chapter 19 and verse 10 says this, The testimony of
Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. The spirit of prophecy, the fifth
sign from the temple, that they said in verse 9, we see not our
signs, we don't see the spirit of prophecy. In this new temple,
we don't see the spirit of prophecy. There are no more prophets, Malachi
has gone, there's no more prophets, we don't see the spirit of prophecy.
Revelation 19 verse 10, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Those who talk much about the
gift of prophecy in these days and they major on the Holy Spirit,
they know nothing of the Holy Spirit's work. What's the Holy
Spirit's work? To major on himself and these
gifts of first century Christianity? No. The work of the Holy Spirit
is this, to take of the things of Christ and show it to his
people. These Old Testament temple signs
was symbolical of biblical gospel preaching. Now look at Christianity
all around us. Look at it. It's lacking any
sign, much sign at all, of a biblical Christ. There's no glory. Ichabod
can be pronounced over it. It leads to a lament, the lament
like this psalm. You look at it and you lament
what you see. The glory has departed. It's been taken away. So can
we feel smug about it? Oh, well, you know, we try to
keep things pure and true. We try to stay true to the scriptures
here. Oh, we're all right. They're
all around us. They might have abandoned the true gospel. They
might have thrown it overboard, but we're staying true to the
true gospel. Signs of the true gospel, signs
of gospel truth need to produce inward signs of gospel blessing. Do they produce inward signs?
Let a man examine himself. Look at these for inward signs. What signs do you see? We see
not our signs. Do you see signs of the gospel
of grace in your soul? We live in a land that's barren
of biblical truth. There's very, very little of
it around, but where it is preached, don't be smug, examine yourself.
What about in your own soul? Do you see these signs of the
biblical gospel of grace, of the truth of Christ? Paul said
in Philippians chapter 3, he said, I know whom I have believed. Do you? Do I, in my soul, do
I know whom I have believed? What do I mean? Do I know that
I'm chosen of God from before the beginning of time because
of His grace? Do I know that I'm redeemed by
the blood of the Lamb who has redeemed me from the curse of
the law by being made a curse for me? Do I know that the Holy
Spirit has come and where others around me remain dead in trespasses
and sins with no spiritual light that he has lit a flame in my
heart and shown me the truth of his word? Is there there this
sign? Is there the sign of the fear
of God? Because the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, the
beginning of knowledge. Is there that fear of God? I'm
not talking about that terror of judgment to come because in
Christ that is taken away, but I'm talking about that filial
fear. that respect, that reverence
for who God is, the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom.
Is there that in your heart? We see not our signs. Do you
see these signs in your soul? Is there a sign of repentance
in your soul? Not that repentance that the
world knows about, that the flesh knows about. That repentance
that the world knows about is repentance that just works death.
It's the remorse of the flesh. You can imagine there are murderers,
child murderers, who are serving life sentences in prisons and
no doubt they have a deep, deep remorse for what they've done.
In most cases, I'd be surprised if not, but that isn't the repentance
of God. That's the repentance which works
death. But the repentance which is of God is that which is the
gift of God. As the Apostle said in Acts,
talking about the Gentiles, God had granted to the Gentiles repentance. Do you know this gift, this sign
in your heart, the sign of faith, is that sign there? Is there
trust? Is there real, genuine trust
in his finished work? He is able, this is what Paul
said, in that same chapter, Philippians chapter three, he says, I know
whom I have believed, and that he is able to keep that which
I've committed unto him against that day, against that day of
judgment, when we must stand before the judgment seat of Christ,
where we must have that righteousness that God requires, without which
no man shall see the Lord. No man shall stand in that day
without that righteousness of God, but does my faith tell me
that gift from God that he is able. I trust him. He's done
everything. He's able to keep that which
I've committed unto him. My eternal soul I've committed
into his keeping. He came to save me from my sins.
I trust him. I believe he's done everything
that's necessary. I can put it in his hands against
that day of judgment, that day of reckoning, that I will be
found in him, not having my own righteousness which is from the
law, but that which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Do I have this
sign in my heart? Yes, it's one thing to hear gospel
preaching that is true gospel preaching and such a blessing
in the place of that which is all around which is Ichabod,
departed glory. But do I have love to God's people? Oh, is that sign there in the
heart? Is that sign there as a fruit
of the message that has been believed? 1 John chapter 3 verse
14, we know that we have passed from death unto life How do we
know? John tells us. Because we love
the brethren. We love those whom Christ has
also saved in addition to ourselves. We love the brethren. Is that
not the case? There are those that are your
brethren in Christ. And you might not see them for
years. You might speak only very rarely. But when you're in one
another's company, you're immediately the closest, warmest, dearest
friends. You love the brethren. You love
Christ. Is love for Christ there? Here's
a sign that is of the true gospel doing its work in the innermost
man. Paul writes to the Corinthians, if any man love not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. Those that are truly saved, those
that are truly taken out of the judgment that is to come, they
love the Lord Jesus Christ because of what he's done for them, because
of what they see of who he is and what he's done. Do you have
the spirits in a witness within? That spirit of grace and supplication. Romans 8 16, the spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
Is there that sign? Remember, he's saying we see
not our signs and there's no more profit. And is there a walk? I'm not
talking about do you feel you've done enough, I'm not talking
about do you feel that your works are good enough for God, but
I'm talking about this. Is there a demeanor of life?
Is there a walk that is in agreement with gospel principles? Because
whilst what we do makes no difference to our standing with God, our
standing with God makes an enormous difference to what we do and
the way we think and the way we act. A walk in agreement with
gospel principles, gospel precepts. Are the signs there? Can you
see them? You can only see them if there
is light from God. Psalm 36 verse 9 says this, for
with thee is the fountain of life, and in thy light we see
light. You only see true light in the
light that God gives. This is why reasoning with fallen
flesh is so futile. Unless God gives light, unless
God's spirit comes and gives light, we don't see the light
of God. And we can confuse the true light
that is from God with all sorts of other religious light. Philpott
calls it the moonlight of speculation. It's not the full-orbed sun of
the brilliance of the light of God. He calls it the cold northern
lights, the aurora borealis of cold doctrine. That which may
be strictly correct, but there's no light from the sun in it.
That which is just hard, flinty hearts sparking off one another. No, we need God's light to show
us true light. So this is a prayer for gospel
restoration. Look at verses 19 to 22. This is a prayer. Oh, deliver
not the soul of thy turtle dove unto the multitude of the wicked.
Forget not the congregation of thy poor forever. The turtle
dove, it's from the Song of Solomon. It's speaking of the people of
God. It's a prayer for God to keep his people. Verse 20, have
respect unto the covenant, the covenant of grace, the covenant
of gospel grace. For the dark places of the earth
are full of the habitations of cruelty. There's all this religious
falsehood all around, full of the habitations of cruelty. O
let not the oppressed return ashamed, because their prayer
isn't answered. Don't let them return ashamed. Let the poor and needy praise
thy name. Arise, O God, plead thine own
cause. Remember how the foolish man
reproacheth thee daily. Forget not the voice of thine
enemies. The tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth
continually. What does God's word promise
about the latter temple? Just turn to Haggai chapter two
and verses six to nine. It's a little book, Haggai, only
two chapters, verses six to nine. If you can't find it, don't worry,
I'll read it out to you. For thus saith the Lord of hosts,
Yet once it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens,
and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land. And I will shake
all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come. And I
will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The
silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.
The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the
former, saith the Lord of hosts. And in this place will I give
peace, saith the Lord of hosts. Here they are in Psalm 74 lamenting
the state of what I think they're doing is lamenting the state
of the second temple. They're lamenting the fact that
the signs of the presence of God are gone. They're lamenting
the fact that there's no more any prophet, that you can hang
Ichabod above the door because the glory has departed. And yet,
The prophet Haggai gives this word from God. The glory of this
latter house, this second temple, shall be greater than of the
former temple. How is that accomplished? Well,
we know literally it was accomplished in Jerusalem when Christ was
born and he came to the temple. The Lord shall suddenly come
to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant. He walked the
courts of that temple. He, the messenger of the covenant,
walked the courts of that second temple. In that respect undoubtedly,
literally, the prophecy of Haggai is fulfilled. But God's temple
now is not in Jerusalem. That second temple was destroyed
in A.D. 70 and has never been rebuilt. God's temple now is in his church. It is his church. It's in the
hearts of his people, the living stones that he has cut out of
the quarry. Wherever they are, irrespective
of numbers, irrespective of location, he has promised to fill his church
with his glory. This latter house shall be filled
with the glory of God, with the gospel of his grace. His enemies
cannot succeed. Pray in accordance with God's
word. We pray that our God will come and do that which he has
said. He has promised to save his people
He's promised to save his people from their sins. He's promised
to be victorious over his enemies. We see not our signs in the religious
world all around us, but we can pray to him. We should pray to
him to accomplish that which he has promised to do, which
is to be glorified in his church as his people are called out
under the sound of the preaching of his gospel. Amen.