Okay, here in the book of Psalms,
we have the psalmist, and he talks about the courts of the
Lord. And verse number 9 is the verse
I wanted us to look at this morning. And as he comes on down, he says,
Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of Thine Anointed. As we think about this verse,
do we ask the Lord to look upon us or look upon Christ? That's
the point that the verse makes. And we can always say, look upon
Him, look upon Christ. See, God is pleased with Him.
He's always pleased with Him. He's occupied with Him. He's
the risen Savior. He's on the throne. He's at His
right hand. He's exalted. And God would have
us to be occupied with Him also. He's the grand object. And if you miss Christ in this
book, you've missed it all. I mean, He's from the beginning
to the end. If you miss Christ, you've missed it all. And true faith, it rests upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. True faith does. It's not upon
thoughts and feelings and creeds and things like that, but it's
upon Christ Jesus, upon Him. And here we find David, and he
longed for the courts of the Lord's house. And he says, how
amiable are they, or how friendly are they, or how lovely they
are. And there's his soul longing. Look at verse number 5 and verse
number 4. Blessed are they that dwell in
thy house, and they will still be praising thee. And again,
he says, blessed is a man whose strength is in thee, whose heart
are in the ways of them. So he declares blessed to those
that would worship, those that would worship in spirit and in
truth, he declares blessed, and those that would seek God. David
was a seeker of God, wasn't he? And he declares it blessed. Now
in verse number 9, he says, O God, our shield, And God is a shield
to His people. And you take a pilgrim, he needs
a sun and a shield. The cold would get him if it
wasn't for a sun. And, you know, they tell us even
today if the sun was farther away, we'd freeze to death. If
it was closer, we'd burn up. So we need the Son. And here,
as he says, Oh God, our shield, a pilgrim, the foes would get
him if it wasn't a shield, and God shields. And we'd look at
him as a son and a shield to us. We need his presence. That's
the wonderful thing, the presence of the Lord. And for this pilgrim's
journey that we have here, We need His presence, and that's
what David is speaking of here. He's our shield. We have Him. And a couple more things about
the sun, as we look at the sun and how important that it is,
and I'm talking about the S-U-N sun, that the vapor from the
ocean is gathered up by the sun, causes rain to fall upon these
hills, I was coming this while ago around by Hampton, Virginia,
and I got looking, and his heels on this side, and he was all
around there, and that's the way it is at home. You look towards
the mountain, we call the foothills, and that causes you rain. These vapors, if it's gathered
up, the sun gathers it up, causes it to come from the ocean. And
it finds its way back again. Now, even the oil and the coal
and things like this that we burn, we find it comes from the
forest, which is extinct now, but the sun grew it. So you see how important that
the sun is. And that if we go and we have
a steak. Now, if you have a steak, it
comes from a beef animal. And that beef animal eat grass,
or grain, which the sun grew. So you see how important that
the sun is. And even when we look at it,
we get our energy in a way, it's through the food that we eat,
which the sun has grown. And our actions, that we're able
to do what we do, and we contribute that, you know, to the sun. And
it's saying all of this, the Lord is a Son. He's the center
of attraction. He is. And He's the ultimate
source of power in this world. As we look at the Son, we see
what it does. We look at God, we see what He
does. The Bible says this, in Him we
live, move, and have our being. That's important, young people.
To learn that in Him we live, move, and have our being. Now
the great meaning of this text that I have here before us, and
this is what blesses my heart, is that the Lord Jesus Christ,
He is God's anointed. He is God's anointed. What I'm
going to preach to you today, a lot of people is in church,
a lifetime and never learn what I'm going to preach to you today.
I want you to follow that. I mean, they are. Those people
go to church, they never learn this. And the meaning is that
God's Christ, His anointed, He's the one that stands between us
and God who shields us. He's a shield to us. Christ is.
He's anointed as an intercessor. He's anointed as our mediator. And He's anointed as the Savior
of sinners. He is commissioned. God has commissioned
Him. He's anointed. He's acceptable. And we're accepted in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Accepted in Him. He is one that
is acceptable. God's anointing. Come in, come
in. The Bible says about the Lord
Jesus Christ, we're in Psalms 84 verse number 9, Brother Lonnie.
Psalms 84 verse number 9. The Bible says about the Lord
Jesus Christ, it said the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him. He's
anointed to be a preacher of righteousness. And here in our
very text, it says, look upon the face of thine anointed. Now,
we use this. He's the one that we look to.
Christ is. We look upon Him. And it's His
offering. It's His sacrifice. And what
we do, we go to the Lord. We say, look at the one that
died in my stead. Look at Him. Look at the One
that stood in my place. Look at the One that took my
punishment. Look upon the face of Thine Anointed.
Here's Thine Anointed. What has He done? He's died for
me. Took my place. Took my punishment. He's a complete Savior. Complete. And so look upon the Anointed.
This morning we say, look upon the anointed. Look upon His blood
that was shed. Look upon it. Now our plea is
Christ. Our plea is not anything else. It's Christ Jesus. It's the anointed. God, look upon the anointed.
Your anointed Son. Now you can make all kinds of
pleas of all kinds of things. Religious acts and religious
doings and works and all of this, but our plea is Christ Jesus. It's not these other things.
It's Christ. There's just one Savior, and
that's Christ. The desire of prayer, we, Lord,
look upon Christ. Now, when we pray, if we pray
correctly, what do we do? We say, in Christ's name, What
are we saying? Look upon the face of Thine Anointed. Look upon Christ. We don't say,
look upon us. Look upon Christ. We plead this
in Christ's name. Look upon Him. Look upon our
Savior. We are erring. We are prodigals,
aren't we? I'd like to say the Christian
life was just a straight way. I'm sort of like what Brother
Wallace said one time. He said it's sort of like a spring.
There's a lot of meandering going on. But he said that spring is
headed in one direction. But yet there's meandering going
on. And it's not just a straight
shot that's meandering, but we're headed in a direction. And so
we plead Christ. It's for Christ's sake. Now just
think about when we plead Christ. Oh, isn't that the Precious Son?
Isn't that the Precious One? Isn't that a powerful name? It's
a name above every name. It's a name that men are going
to bow to. If they don't bow in this life,
they'll bow sometime or another. I'll guarantee you that. They're
going to bow one day to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
a powerful name. Now just think about this name
this morning, and our Lord Jesus Christ at no time ever transgressed
any commandments. Have you ever tried to line yourself
up with just the ten commandments? You don't get too far, I'll tell
you that right now, if you start trying to line yourself up with
them. But our Lord Jesus Christ, now, say we plead His name, We
plead one that's kept all the Father's commandments, never
a transgression. We say, Lord, look upon You anointed. A perfect son. I remember reading
years ago Thomas Watson's Body of Divinity, and he had a section
on adoption, a wonderful portion of that book was on adoption.
And he's writing, and Thomas Watson, this old piercer, said,
He said he could understand Christ as his Son, a perfect Son, a
holy Son. For it says, Adopted us, that
he just couldn't understand that when he had a perfect Son and
a holy Son, Christ Jesus. And then it says, Look upon you
anointed, a perfect holy Son, a beloved Son, And we say, remember
us for His sake. Remember us. His sake. Regard
us. Over in the book of Ephesians,
it talks about this, that our access is by the Spirit of God
and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our access to God. The
Son is the one that made the way, wasn't it? It was the godly
for the ungodly, the just for the unjust, the Scripture says. And it's just as true today as
it was when it was written. In this Word, the Lord Jesus
Christ says, No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. Now that is just as true today,
and it's going to be just as true tomorrow as it was yesterday
and today. And yet I hear people all the
time, and I hear preachers say, and religious people say, well,
there's many ways. Many ways. He says, no man cometh
to the Father but by Me. Now, that may tire up your theology. I don't know. But that's what
the Scripture says. That's the Scripture. And that's
how we come to God. Now Christ, He's our representative,
He's our head. When God looked upon the race
and Adam, we see a fall. And we see that we failed. We
were in the loins of Adam. He was our representative. You
say, well, maybe that's not quite right. Well, it's the best man
that's ever been God made, wasn't it? You think you would have
done better than Adam? No, you would have done better
than Adam. It was best to come in God's hand, wasn't it? We'll
see a fall. Oh, that's what God saw when
He saw Adam. He saw a people fall in Him. But when He looks upon Christ,
He sees an elect people in Him. He sees a people in Him that
are chosen. He sees a people in Him that
are redeemed, justified, sanctified, and glorified. And He sees them
holy in Christ. He sees them in Him, perfect
and without blame in Christ Jesus. He sees a standing in Christ. There's a union, my friends,
in this union, and here it is, the Bible says, when Christ died,
we died. Now that has to be a union, doesn't
it? When He was buried, the Bible says we were buried. When He
was raised, the Bible says we were raised, doesn't it? There's
a union. We were raised up together to
sit in heavenlies in Christ Jesus. So there's a union. I said this
morning, Brother Lonnie, I said there's Calvary and there's what
the Lord has done in Calvary. He's done it on Calvary, then
again in time we come along, but it's still there. It's adjoined
to Calvary. If we could understand that,
it's all linked from eternity. That's something that people
cannot understand, but it's all linked together, one right after
another, all the way. Now, we see this in our anointed. We see the union of the Godhead,
the union of His people. And Paul speaks over the book
of Ephesians. He talks about the husband leaving
his father and mother and becoming one flesh with his bride. Now,
we use that passage to teach about marriage, but the passage
tells us that it's Christ teaching about His church, doesn't it? That's what it's teaching us
is His church. And we're joined to the Lord
Jesus Christ. All believers are. And it's indissolvable. I'm sure like Mr. Spurgeon said
one time, he said that the everlasting gospel and the gospel that saves
and saves for eternity, he said, that's the only one worth preaching.
Why spend your time preaching something else? That's the only
one worth preaching. And that is the gospel, the everlasting
gospel. There's this union. It's an eternal
union. Eternal love. It's a bond. And
it can't be broken. Now, what do we say? Lord, look
upon our Bridegroom's face. Look upon the Anointed. Look
upon our Bridegroom. Look upon His beauty. His beauty. Oh, He took us just as we are. And He made us like Himself.
That's what He's going to do, isn't it? He takes us as we are.
He took our sins. And He gives us His righteousness.
We do not say, look upon us, but upon Him. Look upon our head. Look upon our Master. Look upon
our Lord. Look upon His love. Now, here's
the face of Thine Anointed, Christ. Now what does God see when He
sees Christ? Over in the book of Hebrews,
doesn't it say something about His image? The visible image? It does. He sees the Son, the love. The Old Testament says
daily, He was His delight. This is where He came. You know,
there's still a lot of people believe that Christ, that was
His beginning when He was born in a manger. Christ is eternal
and one with God. And He says daily, He was my
delight. That's what He says. He says
His delight, affection, God can't see anything but that
which is well-pleasing when he looks at Christ. See, I said I'm telling you something
that a lot of people never find this out in all their years. But here he looks on Christ,
and everything that he sees is well-pleasing. He even said that from heaven,
didn't he? My son, my beloved son, whom I am well-pleased.
God can't see anything when He looks at Christ except perfection. Say, well, why don't we say,
Lord, look upon the anointed. Look upon perfection. See, here again, it's where we
get turned around. If we look upon ourselves, it's
a pretty miserable thing. See, that's where people, if
they look upon themselves, let's look upon Christ. Get our eyes
off ourselves on Christ. Upon Him. I tell you, you're not going
to have much peace looking at yourself, I don't believe. Yeah. Look upon Christ, who is our
peace. You know that peace doesn't change.
You know, sometimes we feel peace, and again, we don't feel peace.
It's us. That peace is still the same.
You ever thought about it? Christ is our peace. He's the
same. It's still the same. It's us. It's not Him. Oh, he sees that which is perfect.
Now, when the flood came, this flood, you know the Bible said
this? It said God repented and He made
man. Do you remember that? Man was ungrateful, vain, foolish,
sinful, you name it. But the Lord looks upon His Son
and He sees a perfect manhood. A perfect manhood. He sees a
man that has no taint of sin. Now you see the flood. There
was eight people that came through the flood. The rest of them drowned. Said their imagination was upon
evil continuously. There's all that sin, but when
He looks upon His Son, no taint of sin. No sin. Here's a manhood that never went
astray. All other manhood has gone astray. But this manhood has not. This
manhood has no flaws at all. It's a manhood that suffered
on the cross, and for God's glory, He suffered. It's a manhood,
a perfect manhood that went to the cross, that suffered unto
death. Oh, Lord, look upon Christ, look
upon the anointed, and he sees a perfect obedience, a perfect
life. He kept a complete law. He kept
that law. Now, he can't get that from his
people. None of us can keep that law
perfectly. He can't get it. But he sees it in Christ. He sees it in his own representative. That's where God sees it. Christ stands for his people.
God calls for it. Christ stands and he presents
it. God calls for a perfect obedience.
That's what the law was. It says, this is due. If you
don't, death, isn't it? Every jot and tittle of it. God
calls for it. There's a race, but the race
can't answer. But Christ answers it for His
people. He says, I stand. I present it. And I'm telling
you this morning, all that God asks, Christ gives. Aren't you glad? That's why I
look upon the face of Thine Anointed. God looks upon Christ. When He
looks upon Him, He sees a full atonement. It's a shame that
we live in the day that you've got to specify what you mean
when you say atonement. But we do. That's why I'm saying
it's a full atonement. It's a full atonement. It is
an atonement that atones. I mean, let's just, I try to
be as simple as I can. I don't have to be any other
way, really, but I believe in atonement that atones. Now, if
you believe in all this other stuff, it's not atonement that
atones. This one atones. This one takes
care of sins. And when God looks upon Christ,
that's what He sees. He sees an atonement that atones. He sees an atonement that puts
away sin. He sees an atonement that puts
it away as far as the east is from the west. He sees an atonement
that puts away sin in a way that he doesn't remember it anymore. Christ offered one sacrifice
for sins. One sacrifice. That's all that
is needed. Christ done it. Now, look upon
the face of Thine Anointed. Look upon Him. God sees atonement. A one sacrifice. You know, we
have in the Old Testament all those sacrifices. All that came
about. But here is that one sacrifice.
Those that look toward this one sacrifice, That's what they look
to. That's what he sees, this full
atonement. The Bible says, after he made this sacrifice, he sat
down on the right hand of God forever. And this offering perfected
forever those that are set apart. That's what God sees when he
looks upon the face of his anointed. He sees an offering. He sees
an atonement that has perfected perfected forever those that
are set apart. The suffering, the sacrifice
is such that God sees no sin in His people. Look upon the face of thine anointed.
Look upon Christ. He sees them washed in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Look upon Christ. And when he
looks upon the face of his anointed, he sees his people. God sees
his people. He sees Calvary. He sees Christ's
hands. When he looks upon Christ, he
sees his scars. He sees his feet, the wounds,
his side. He sees a lamb slain. Look upon thine anointed, and
he sees a lamb slain. He sees a perfect sacrifice. Now, young people, when they
offered sacrifices in the Old Testament, they couldn't just
go out and just grab something up and give it. They had to pick
out the very best in the flock. Because it was representative,
going to be a representative of this perfect sacrifice. They
couldn't go out and say, well, here's one that's got three legs
and I'm just going to give it. No. They couldn't do stuff like
that. Here's that perfect sacrifice. So he sees a full atonement.
I'm glad of that. He sees a perfect obedience.
I'm glad of that. He sees a perfect man, a perfect
nature. See, we have none of that, but
that's what he sees when he sees Christ. He sees our justification. The Bible says Christ died for
our offenses. He's raised again for our justification. So, He sees our justification.
He sees it's all been paid. It's all been paid. 100% paid. He took our wrath. The Lord uses a chastening hand
But it's not the same thing as wrath. Do you follow me? Christ took our wrath. He took that. And we find that
the Bible says we are justified from all things. In other words,
look upon the face of the anointed, God is satisfied. All that he's needed has been
satisfied when he looks upon Christ. When he looks upon Him,
he's been satisfied. He sees the covenant. There's
a covenant made of eternity which Christ would come and go to the
cross, and he sees it being carried out. That covenant of grace being
carried out. He sees a seal, and that is that
there is a sacrifice and the blood ratified the covenant.
He sees in Christ ever promises, all the promises, yea and amen
in Christ, all secured in Christ. There is this covenant that Christ
will save. There is the covenant that He
will preserve. And there is the covenant that
He will bring us to glory. It says right here, in this very
passage of Scripture, the Lord will give grace and glory. Now, salvation this morning,
or this afternoon, it might be just a little tangled up, but
this afternoon, salvation. It rests upon God seeing Christ. Now, did you get this? It rests
upon God seeing Christ. Salvation does. It's the foundation. There's
the rest. Do you remember in the Old Testament
it says, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. When I see
the blood. Now, there's the people, and
they didn't have the blood in their house, but it was on the
blood lentils there as they come out of Egypt. And he says, when
I see the blood, So salvation rests upon God seeing Christ. It's also necessary that we see
Christ too, that we see Him. And one's not saved if they never
see Christ. If they don't see Christ and
who He is, they're not saved. But it's necessary. But when
God looks upon Christ, There's mercy. Mercy. I'm a needer of mercy. I'm a needer of grace. God looks
upon Christ. There's His love, His delight
in His people. He delights in His people when
He sees them in Christ. You know, that's what we plead.
To be saved, we first plead, look upon the anointed, look
upon Christ. When we backslide, what do we
plead? Look upon Christ. Look upon Him. Look upon Christ. When we work
and what we do, it ought to be our plea to look upon the Lord
Jesus Christ. Look upon the anointed for conversion
of sinners. What is our plea? You know, Mr. Spurgeon had a pretty good saying
about this. He said, man's a whole lot better
in his theology when he's on his knees and when he's not. He said, when you're on your
knees, what do men pray for? We pray for God to save people. Doesn't he? That's what he prays. Christ died for sinners. We see Him weeping over Jerusalem.
Didn't He weep over Jerusalem? The Bible said. So His heart
and His blood was poured out. And when we pray for conversions,
we look upon the face of Thine Anointed. We look upon Christ. Look upon His work. Look upon
His redemption. Look upon His grace. Now, in conclusion of all of
this, What about the last plea? The last prayer on earth? We are put here for a period
of time. What about the last plea and
the last prayer that we would make? What about this, O God our shield? Oh God, our shield. Look upon Thine anointing. Look
upon Thine anointing. You see it? Look upon Him. Look upon the face of our anointing. You know, for the child of God, The one that says, O God, our
shield, and look upon the face of the unanointed. Here's his last prayer. And you
know what? He'll see the anointed. Absent from the body is present
with the Lord. He'll see the anointed. God,
look upon the unanointed. And He has seen the One that
sits upon the throne, the One that took not on Him the nature
of angels, but the seed of Abraham. There be no gap between God and
man and the man Christ Jesus. Behold, O God, our shield. and look upon the face of thine
anointed. That's it. That's the gospel. And yet, a multitude of people
has never understood this. They say, look to me. Look to my doings. Look to my
ways. Look to my so-called good works. Look, I'm a pretty good person.
I try to help my neighbor. Look at this, I attend church.
Look at these things. No, my plea. Look upon the face
of Thine Anointed. Look upon Christ. Christ, when
you see Christ, look at the blessings. You know, when you look upon
Christ, God looks upon Christ. You have all the blessings. Doesn't
it say there in Ephesians? It says, He hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. I was listening to one
of these so-called TV evangelists one time, and he read that verse. It says that He has blessed us
with all spiritual... He hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And he read
the verse, and he turned around and said, If you will let Him, He's already, says He has, blessed
us with all spiritual blessings. Look upon the face of our Anointed.
All of them come through Him. Everything comes through Him. He's the Mediator. The one Mediator
between God and man. Look upon my Mediator. Look upon
my Intercessor. Look upon my advocate. You know, there's a beautiful
picture. I've been amazed over the years at the shepherd. What
it plays. The shepherd was, throughout
the Old Testament and all, was a very important position in
the Bible. It talks about shepherds. Look
at Christ. He is my shepherd. There's the Anointed. Look upon
Him. He's my Shepherd. I did about, I don't have any
sermons on, Psalms 23 one time, and one of the things that stood
out, it says, the Shepherd and the Sheep. It said some of the
Sheep would sort of, they'd follow, and they'd be back here, and
some might be a little closer. But it said some of the sheep
would just want to nuzzle right around the shepherd's legs. They wanted to be right there.
It said there was a follower in him, but it said some of them
would be a little back a little ways and some behind him. But
it said some of them just wanted to be right there and nuzzle
his legs. Wanted to be close to his jaw.
Boy, he laid upon his breast, didn't he? Our Father, take the
message. We thank You for Thy anointed
Son. Blessed Son. Precious Son. Perfect Son. And oh, that You
see us in Him. Oh, what a difference it makes
when we're in Christ. We're thankful. Bless these people. It's a joy to be with them. We're
thankful for them. And we just ask Your blessings
be upon them. lead and guide, direct them in your service. In Christ's name, amen.