You'll open your Bibles to the
89th Psalm. I've entitled this message, A
Psalm of the Christ. A Psalm of the Christ. And I
say a Psalm of the Christ instead of just a Psalm of Christ for
this reason. It's very easy for us to think
that Christ is simply part of the Lord's name. You know, we
say Lord Jesus Christ, as though that's his first, middle, and
last name. But actually, the only name of the Lord that we
know is Jesus. You shall call his name Jesus. Now, they might have called him
Jesus Ben-Joseph or Bar-Joseph, meaning son of Joseph. They may
have called him that, I don't know. But the only given name
that our Lord has, that we're aware of, is the name Jesus.
Yeshua, Joshua, Jehovah is my salvation. But he has two titles. Two titles which were given to
him by his Father. He has the title of Lord. He
is the Lord Jesus. Lord of all, Lord over all. Lord
everywhere. And he's also given the title
Christ. He is the Christ. Now, this morning's
message came about as a result of my preparation for a series
of messages I'm doing on the radio. Here several weeks ago,
I think back to the beginning of November, I preached a message. It was that time we had a Saturday
evening service, and I preached a message. What is a Christian? And I have divided that message
into four segments to preach on the radio. I think that's
an important subject that most people don't know the answer
to. What is a Christian? And of course, to understand
what is a Christian, you've got to know what is a Christ. What
is a Christ? What does it mean to be Christ?
And therefore, you can find out what it is to be a follower of
the Christ and in studying And trying to prepare to give a good
outline on the radio of what it means to be the Christ, I
was directed to this particular psalm, because three times it
refers to the Hebrew word, which is normally translated, or we
could translate it Messiah. And the Greek version of that
is the word Christ. Christ and Messiah mean exactly
the same thing. They just come from two different
languages. And it means, technically, the anointed one. It signifies someone who's been
chosen by God and given the necessary gifts and position to bring about
a work of salvation in behalf of God's people. Now, that's
a whole lot to cram into one word, but that's its significance in
the scriptures. All those in the Old Testament
who were called Messiahs or Christ's, and we would spell that with
a little C or a little M, they were the prophets, the priests,
and the kings whom God sent to Israel to bring them back from
error, to make sacrifices to put away their sin, and to destroy
their enemies, secure their borders, and bring them prosperity. And
each of those opposites, prophet, priest and king, a man entered
to them by being anointed. The prophets were anointed, it
says in the scriptures, to leave God's holy one alone.
And he says, do my prophets no harm. Touch not mine anointed and do
my prophets no harm. And those, the anointed and the
prophets, the same one. All the kings, remember David?
In fact, in our scripture it speaks of this, that God sent
Samuel to anoint David to be king. And all the priests, and
in particular the high priest, when they were put in office,
they were anointed with oil. And this was indicative that
God had anointed them with power and position to carry out his
purpose of grace for his chosen people. Now, David, more than
anyone else in the Bible, is a picture of Jesus as the Messiah. Time and again, David is referred
to as God's anointed one, God's Messiah. And this psalm speaks
of David as God's Messiah and relates some of David's experiences.
And I don't know the exact experience that was being spoken of here
in the life of David, You know, David, since he was chosen by
God to be one of the messiahs of the Old Testament, one of
the Christ's, God ordained a life for him which could picture and
typify the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. That meant David was
in for some real trouble. Our Lord Jesus, the Christ, the
Messiah, he was known as the man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. And anybody that was going to
rightly typify or picture him is going to have a life that
will be characterized by sorrows and griefs. And David ran upon
many troubles. Some of them he caused. Some
of them were because of his enemies. Evidently, this is referring
to an attack by some of David's enemies. But he is set forth
here. as God's Messiah, as God's Messiah
King. And he suffered many troubles.
And these are a picture of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to look at these three
instances where the Hebrew word for Messiah is used here and
apply them to our Lord Jesus Christ. Here, verse 20. Psalm 89, verse 20. This is a
long psalm, so we won't be reading the entirety of it by any means.
Psalm 20, I found David my servant, with my sacred oil I have anointed
him. With my sacred oil I have made
him Messiah. Now, it is God who makes a Messiah. We don't. And this might be a
good lesson to apply to our Lord's other office as Lord. You know,
we didn't make Jesus Christ, did we? And we don't make him
Lord either. I remember being told in my religious
experience, well, make Christ the Lord of your life. As one
preacher said, too late, it's already been done. Look over
here at Acts chapter two, I love this about the scriptures. I knew I'd find my bulletin eventually. And it was saving my place, Acts
chapter two. Acts chapter 2, verse 38. It says, Peter, not verse 38, I'm
sorry, verse 36. Therefore, let all Israel be
assured of this. God has made this Jesus. Now that's his name, that's his
one given name. God made this Jesus, whom you
crucified, God made him to be Lord and Now, who made David
king? Nobody but God. Why, the people,
they sought after a king, and they chose one named, sought
after Saul. And he was the people's king.
And Samuel eventually, or God eventually said to Samuel, Samuel,
I've already rejected Saul. The people chose him, but I rejected
him. And so you go down to the house
of Jesse, and I'll show you Him who is my choice. And he went
down to Jesse's household, and he said, Jesse, bring me all
your sons. God's going to make one of them to be king. And so
Jesse goes out, and of course he figures it must be the firstborn,
but if not, he gathers all of them together, the big ones,
the strong ones, all grown up, you know, in the prime of manhood. And he lines them up. And Saul
goes from one to the other. And everyone he looks at, the
Lord says, that's not my choice. That's not my choice. Well, it
was Jesse's choice. This is the ones Jesse thought
ought to be king. And he went through all those sons and God
said, that's not him. That's not him. I didn't pick
him. Not that one. Not that one. They run out of sons. Well, the
Lord has said it'd be a son of Jesse. And so he looks at Jesse
and he says, you got any more sons? He just said, well, yeah,
I got one more. He's just a kid. He's just a
young fella, teenager. He's out with his sheep. I didn't
even bring him in. Can't be him. Same as if bring
him. So they called David. They brought little old David
in. Now, David, when I say little old David, he wasn't a little
boy. But we get the impression he was probably 15, 16, something
like that. old enough to entrust with anything.
And he came up and God said to Samuel, that's him. That's him. Not the one you'd choose, not
the one you'd expect, but that's him. It's my choice. God chooses his Christ. He says back here in verse 3
of Psalm 89, you said, I have made a covenant with my
chosen one. David was no man's choice. If
it had been left up to men, if they had an election in Israel,
he would not have won. He would not have even been on
the ticket. He would not have even been given the office of
vice king. But God chose him and God made
a covenant with him. Look over here at Isaiah 42. And I tell you, we better be
glad that God did the choosing. Because we'd have chosen a man
like Saul, just like the Jews did. If we were in the business
of choosing saviors, choosing kings, choosing who would be
Christ, we'd have chosen somebody like Saul, big, as in Saul stood
head and shoulders above everybody else. But Saul was a man of flesh. From our fleshly minds, we would
have chosen a fleshly Christ. But God doesn't look on the outward
appearance. God looks on the heart. That's what he said to Samuel. And he chose the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says here in Isaiah 42,
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one, in whom I delight. I can tell you a way that you
can determine whether or not you've been born of God. It's
as simple as can be. Do you agree with God in this
verse? God chose Him. And you know, believers, I know
that He's not Christ because we choose Him, but believers
do choose Him. They are happy that Jesus is Christ. Do you
give the Amen to God's choice of who will be Savior, who will
be King? The Lord goes on to say, Whom I uphold. Do you uphold
Him? In your heart and mind and before
this world, do you uphold the Lord Jesus Christ? Is He to you
worthy to be on the throne and you think everybody else ought
to have the same opinion? My chosen one in whom I delight,
do you delight in the Lord Jesus Christ? You know, we gather like this
each week. What is it you want more than
anything else when you come here? Now, y'all come here, I love
to see you all. I do. I enjoy the talking we get to
do and all that. But isn't this your goal and
your real desire when you come? You want to meet Christ. You
want to see Him. It's good to see you all. It's
better to see Him. Do you delight in the Lord Jesus
Christ? I find this in my own experience,
and I'll bet you'll find it in yours too, that you can easily
be distracted by the world, and for a time, think that you're
enjoying it. But it will soon become tasteless
to you. The only thing that you can really
delight in and never grow weary of is Christ. There's no such thing as too
much Christ. I like pecan pie. But back here
at Thanksgiving, somebody gave me one. And as much as I like
it, I found out you can eat too much of it. And I spent all night
long tossing and turning with too much pecan pie. I have yet
to ever experience too much Christ. I've experienced too little,
but never too much. Do you delight in Him? God delights
in Him. It's the Lord's Christ. Osimian
came into the temple, you know, that day when they brought the
Lord Jesus. He was about 40 days old. Just a little fellow. And
they took him to the temple. to perform the rite, the custom
that was required of a woman who had given birth after 40
days. She goes for a rite of purification. And Jesus was there
with them, or they had Jesus along, you know, and as they
come into the temple, here they meet Simeon. And Simeon had been
given a promise, and the promise was stated this way, that he
would not die till he saw the Lord's Christ. And Simeon saw the Lord Jesus.
And he took that babe up in his arms and he said, Oh, let your
servant go now in peace. Let me die in peace because I've
seen the Lord's salvation. I've seen him in whom my soul
delights, who I have longed for. And having seen him come, I can
now lay down my head in peace and leave this world. All believers delight in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And if he's not a delight to
you, you're not reconciled to God because he is a delight to
God himself. God chose him. God made a covenant
with him. Now here's Messiah chosen by
God. God chose him. God made a covenant
with him. He says in verse 4, I will establish
your line forever and make your throne firm. through all generations. You know, when you read that,
that God has made a covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ, that
His line, that His lineage would forever be established, doesn't
that make it wonderful to hear our Lord say, I and the children
you've given me? You see, when God made a promise
to the Lord Jesus Christ, He made promise to everybody in
Christ. Because He said to the Lord,
I will establish you and your line forever. God established him, and he's
established by the supreme God. Look here at verse 6. Now, remember,
we say, well, there's only one God. How can you talk about the
supreme God? Well, there is truly only one
God, but there were many claiming to be God, and men claimed to
be worshiping many different gods. They're among the Israelites. That is, not so much among the
Israelite people, but they lived among idolaters so often. What
they had to say, what the Jews said is they exalted their God
and said, He's God among all gods. And it says here in verse
5, The heavens praise your wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness too
in the assembly of the holy ones. For who in the skies above can
compare with the Lord? Who is like the Lord among the
heavenly beings? See, a lot of them worship, you
know, these heavenly beings. And I'm not going to pretend
to understand everything about it, but I do know that there
are other spirits out there. And evidently, according to Paul,
they are the ones who have provided the shall we say that the reality
behind the false gods, these demons, false or evil spirits
have communicated with men and men have been impressed by what
they saw, what they experienced and made up gods to explain them. And he said, all these heavenly
beings, who like them can be compared
to the Lord? Who is like the Lord among the
heavenly beings? In the counsel of the holy ones,
and speaking there of all those beings that inhabit the heavens,
in the counsel of the holy ones, God is greatly feared. He is more awesome than all who
surround him. You know, I don't think that
there's anybody in this world that can make the devil tremble.
But there's somebody in heaven who can. It's so silly these preachers
get on TV and talk about casting out demons and the devil laughs
at them. Those seven sons of Seba, I think it was, they thought
that they could Cast out demons, you know, and they said in the
name of Jesus whom Paul preached, you know, be ye cast out. The
demon said, well, I know the name of Jesus. I've heard that
one and I've heard the name of Paul, but who in the world are
you? The demon jumped out and all seven of those men ran out
of the house, scared to death with naked, all scratched up. Men cannot make demons tremble,
but there is one who can. God is greatly feared by all
heavenly beings, good and evil. Gabriel himself bows before this
God and trembles in his presence. And this is the God that made
Jesus to be Christ. God in all his power, beginning
here in verse 8, O Lord Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty,
O Lord, and your faithfulness surrounds you. You rule over
the surging sea. When its waves mount up, you
still them. Do you remember our Lord Jesus
there on that, I believe it was the Sea of Galilee, but they
were out there on the boat and the waves came up. They say that
a lot of times on the lake they'll have these squalls, these real
quick storms come up and a lot of wind. It doesn't last long,
but it's enough to sink one of those little fishing boats. And
those disciples were rowing hard to get to shore, doing all they
could. And the Lord Jesus was asleep in the front. And they
said, Lord, don't you care that we perish? And he woke up. He looked out at that sea. And
there's the heaving waves. Disciples doing all they can
to keep the boat on the top side of the water. And the Lord says,
Peace, be still in the waves. Lay down. And the sea becomes
like glass. This is the Lord. You rule over
the surging sea. When its waves mount up, you
still them. You crush Rahab. I read that Rahab is not talking
there about a person or even necessarily a country. That was
a name given to a beast like Leviathan. Huge. Men couldn't do anything
with it. He said, you crushed Rahab like one of the slain.
With your strong arm you scattered your enemies. The heavens are
yours and yours also the earth. You founded the world and all
that is in it. You created the north and the south. Tabor and
Hermon sing for joy at your name. Your arm is endued with power.
Your hand is strong. Your right hand exalted. And then men say, God would like
to save you if you'd only let Him. Did the Lord Jesus stand and
bow that bow and say, now, God would like to steal you if you'll
let him. Did God speak into the nothingness
before creation and say, oh, earth, I'd like to make you if
you'd let me. Did he say to the light, light,
I would like to bring you into existence if you'd let me. God does what he wants, doesn't
he? He speaks, and things come into being. He commands, and
things stand firm and cannot be changed. And he says, this is my Christ. This is my anointed one. And nobody's going to change
that. God did this in His justice and righteousness, verse 14.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.
Love and faithfulness go before you. What our Lord did, He did righteously.
Jesus Christ is no usurper to the throne. He did not come to
the throne by even His own will. Just like David would not snatch
the throne from Saul. I find that to be so A remarkable
characteristic of David. God's anointed him through the
prophet Samuel. God's told him, you're going
to be king. And then God puts him in the service to Saul, the
present king. And then Saul becomes jealous
and Saul tries to kill David. But David will not lift his hand
against Saul. Why? He will be king when God
makes him king. And likewise, our Lord Jesus
Christ. did not grasp the throne. It was given to him. And he endured
whatever God sent his way until such time as it is written, God
highly exalted him and gave him a name above every name, that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess. Our Lord sits upon his throne.
Securely, and that security comes in part because he sits there
by God's appointment. If you and I put him on that
throne, then somebody stronger than us can take him off. But
God said, sit here at my right hand until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet. And he whom God has sat at his
right hand, cannot be moved. He is the Christ. He is the anointed
one. We need to move along. There's
much more that can be said on this point. You read on there,
how God sustains him, that no enemy would subject him to How
Christ, and to hear such a clear picture of Christ, and how Christ
submitted to God, and called on Him as God, and worshipped
Him and trusted Him as God. But you get down here to verse
38, and something startling is said. Look at verse 38. But you have rejected. You have
spurned. You have been very angry. with
your anointed one." Back here we read that God had
chosen David and sworn to David that he would establish his line
forever and make his throne firm through
all generations and that his love would never depart from
David. And now he says, you have rejected. You have spurned. You've been
very angry with your anointed one. You have renounced the covenant
with your servant and have defiled his crown in the dust. How can this be? This just seems, doesn't it to
us, just out of character for God. God doesn't welch on a covenant. God doesn't ever withdraw His
love. God doesn't reject those He's received and chosen. He did it once. He sure did. And He did it for this reason.
So that you and I, who deserve to be rejected, wouldn't be rejected. So that you and I who deserved
to be spurned, wouldn't be spurned. So that you and I, who deserve
the Lord's anger, would never experience it. You see, it would be a very unjust
thing for God to do if he were to simply take you and me to
his bosom and call us his sons. He'd be unjust. He'd have to
deny his just nature to do that. Unless, unless one who fully
deserved and to whom had been promised all these good things
that we get in salvation, unless one who deserved them was denied
them, so that we who didn't deserve them might have them. Our Lord Jesus Christ, and this
is an awesome thing to consider. He who was chosen by the Lord,
upheld by the Lord, in whom the Lord so delighted, was rejected,
was cast off and cast out. He expressed that himself in
the words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I don't know, I really, I wish
I somehow or another could convey to you what that means, but of
course I don't know it all together myself, and I can't even get
out what I do know of it. But I want you to think on that
a minute. The Lord Jesus, who was worthy of every good thing
from God, was cast out of the presence of God as though he
were the worst sinner that ever walked the face of the earth. He was treated by God as though
he was every scandalous thing that you can think of. He was
dealt with by God as though all the evil things that you have
done were done by him. In fact, if you belong to Christ,
that's exactly what happened. God dealt with him as though
he had been the one who did all the things that you have done. Hence the one who is called Messiah,
the one who is called the Christ, is rejected, cast out. What would you feel like if you went to your home, the
home of your parents, whom you loved and who loved you, and
with whom you had spent many years in a blessed child-parent
relationship and they met you at the door
and said, get out. Get out. I don't ever want to
see you again. You are odious to me. You are
disgusting. How did you figure You probably would say, I can't
think of anything that would hurt me more than to be rejected
by my parents. And that's exactly what happened
to the Lord Jesus Christ. His father, and he said this,
I do always those things which please my father. And yet at the door of his father's
household, his father said, get out. I want to be very careful here,
but the Scriptures do present this in the likeness of a father
and a son. And it's so that we might learn.
And we all understand the theology behind this. But as our Lord
was going through this, this was not merely a theological
exercise. He was rejected by His Father.
He was turned out. His Father looked upon Him with the eye of disgust. And why? Because all the disgustingness
of sinners like you and me had been laid to his charge. And
he was before the Father as a son unworthy of the name. That's amazing. We have said
before, that the Lord suffered all the pangs of hell, and that
He did. But I cannot imagine that there
was any greater suffering on the part of our Lord than to
look into His Father's face and not see a Father's eye. To feel bereft of the privilege
of calling Him Father. He does not say, Father, Father.
Abba, Father, why have you forsaken me? At that point, when God turns
him out, when his father no longer owns him as his son, he cannot
say, Abba, Father. He says, My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? These are deeps too deep for
us. Heights too high for us to reach.
To think about what it means when it says, you have rejected,
you have spurned, you've been very angry with your anointed
one. You have renounced the covenant
with your servant. Our Lord Jesus Christ was born
under the law and that law was a covenant. And that law said,
best do and live. And our Lord Jesus Christ did
all those things and died. It says that he who does these
things shall live by them. And cursed is everyone that continues
not at every point in the law to do them. And the blessings
which were rightly his were taken from him. And the curse that
didn't belong to him was laid on him. So that the blessings that don't
belong to us might be laid on us. And the curse that was rightly
ours might be taken away. You have rejected Him. You have defiled His crown in
the dust. Our Lord Jesus Christ deserved
to be taken right there from Nazareth into glory and crowned
with glory and honor. He deserved that. But instead,
His crown was removed from His head. The crown of glory was
taken off and a crown of thorns, a crown of the curse, was laid
upon Him. He says, you've broken through
all His walls, like the walls around the city which defended
the city. He said, you've broken through
them. The devil couldn't get through, men couldn't get through
them, but God could. You've reduced His strongholds
to ruins. All who pass by have plundered
Him and He's become the scorn of His neighbors. One of the things I can't stand.
is to be considered wrong when I know I'm right. Doesn't that
really get under your skin? To be held up to public ridicule
when really you deserve a pat on the back. It happens, but
I'll tell you it happens nothing like our Lord. Can you imagine
being the Lord of Glory stretched out there on a cross and those
self-righteous dogs Down there, well, we'll just see if God loves
him. Told you we were right and he was wrong. Told you that we're
the accepted ones and he's the rejected one. And have to put
up with that humiliation? And yet our Lord did that. God
did that to him for his chosen people. Verse 44, you put an end to his
splendor. and cast his throne to the ground.
You've cut short the days of his youth. You've covered him
with a mantle of shame. Our Lord was loved by the people. They did, many of them. He had
multitudes following him. Our Lord could have set up a
kingdom right there in Israel. He could have put him up a throne.
He did have a throne, so to speak, a throne in the hearts of many
who followed him around and listened to him. And he could have established
an earthly kingdom and ruled over all men. But for the salvation of his
people, God threw him down. God put him in the dust. God
deprived him of his splendor and glory. So that all who passed
by were shocked and amazed and thought in their hearts, surely
this man is a sinner, for look what God has done to him. Verse 46, How long, O Lord,
will you hide yourself forever? Our Lord was on the cross for
but six hours, but I'll tell you that that six hours must
have seemed like an eternity. We go through our days and we
don't think about God, and we go through our week and we don't
think about God till Sunday morning, and it doesn't seem to bother
us much. But here is one who a moment
without his God is an eternity. A moment outside his favor is
an eternity. O God, O Lord, will you hide
yourself forever. Remember how fleeting is my life,
for what futility you have created all men. What man can live and
not see death, or save himself from the power of the grave?
Christ could have, but he refused to do it. O Lord, where is your
former great love, which in your faithfulness you swore to David? So we've seen Messiah chosen
and exalted by God. We've seen Messiah rejected by
God. Now let's look at Messiah, the
Christ, remembered by God. Verse 50, Remember, Lord, how
your servant has been mocked, how I bear in my heart the taunts
of all the nations, the taunts with which your enemies have
mocked, O Lord, with which they have mocked every step of your
anointed one." Our Lord Jesus Christ pleads
his sufferings. You know that thief on the cross,
he said there, remember me, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
And the Lord Jesus says to God his Father, Remember me and all
my sufferings, which you through your enemies visited on me. The scriptures say that he is
able to save to the uttermost them that come to God by him,
seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them. What do
you think his intercession is? Do you think the Lord Jesus says,
well, Father, cut him some slack? You think he says, well, Lord,
Father, you can let that one go. I mean, after all, it wasn't
that big. Here's our Lord's intercession.
Remember, Lord, how your servant has been mocked. How I bear in
my heart the taunts of all the nations. He said he was the Lord's
Christ, let's just say. He says, you remember, I bore
that in my heart. I put up with not being treated
like the Christ by them and by you. Remember, Lord, remember, Father,
my sufferings. And for the sake of what I have
borne, forgive their sins. That's the plea that the Lord
Jesus makes on behalf of his people. It's the only plea he
has. It's the only plea that he knows
will carry any weight with the judge of all the earth. He doesn't
say, Father, remember their efforts they're trying. He doesn't say,
Father, remember their successes, because once in a while they
get it right. He says, Father, remember my sufferings. Remember
when you rejected me. Remember when you turned me over
to the enemies. Remember when you took the crown
off of my head and put it on theirs. Remember when you poured
out your anger on me, withhold it from them. Remember me, Lord. And from that memory, save them. And what is the response to all
this? Verse 52. Praise be to Jehovah forever. Amen and amen.