Psalm 17, I want you to notice
in verses 13 and 14, that David speaks of the wicked, the men
of this world, which have their portion in this world. Verse 13 and 14, arise, O Lord,
disappoint him, cast him down. Deliver my soul from the wicked,
which is thy sword, from men which are thy hand, O Lord, for
men of the world. which have their portion in this
life and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure. They are
full of children and leave the rest of their substance to their
babes. But then notice in verse 15,
David was not envious. He was not jealous of the man
of this world who have their portion in this world. He says, yet, as for me, I will
behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake
with thy likeness. Everyone who is born again, and
the Lord Jesus Christ said it is an absolute necessity for
a person to be born again if he is to enter the kingdom of
God. There's no question about that.
But everyone who is born again of the Spirit of God, the Word
of God, is begotten again unto a living hope, the Apostle Peter
tells us. A living hope. Begotten again
unto a living or lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. To an inheritance. We're begotten
again to a living hope, expectation. of an inheritance which is incorruptible,
undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved for you in heaven."
Every child of God has this hope, this expectation of eternal life,
of being with the Lord forever. That's what David says in the
verse. As for me, I will behold thy
face in righteousness, I shall be satisfied when I awake with
thy likeness." This tells me that a true child of God will
never experience complete, perfect satisfaction in this world. When you stop and think about
that, how can he? How is it possible, seeing that
every child of God still has an old nature, still has that
old man that is part of us, We will never experience, God's
people will never experience complete satisfaction in this
world. That doesn't mean we're not satisfied,
but it's not a complete satisfaction for God's children in this world.
The apostle Paul made the statement when he said, I find then a law,
Romans chapter seven, that when I would do good, evil is present
with me. Well, how can you be satisfied?
Satisfied with Christ, satisfied with the work of God, yes, but
I'm speaking of us being satisfied. A true child of God will never
be completely satisfied in this world. One of the old writers
likened this, the new birth, a person is given 10 graces,
he said, 10 graces, graces of the Holy Spirit. And he likened
these graces to a necklace, a pearl necklace, and each one of these
graces represents one pearl, or one pearl represents each
one of these graces, or he called it a golden chain with ten links. Now most of us here today, when
we hear about a golden chain, I think we think of Romans 8
and verse 30. It has those four links, predestination,
calling, justification, glorification. And one old writer put it like
this, we've got these two links in eternity past and eternity
future. For whom He did foreknow, He
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. And
whom He did predestinate, now here's a link in time during
our life, them He also called. Here's another link in time.
Them He also justified. Those that He called, He also
justified. And then that final link is in
eternity. Then he also glorified, but this
is a link. This is a chain rather than has
10 links, 10 graces that are like a chain, a golden chain
that every child of God receives when born again of the spirit
of God. Now I'm going to give us the
names of these 10 links, but before I do, I want you to turn
in your Bibles with me to the book of Ezekiel, the prophet
Ezekiel, chapter 16. Here in this 16th chapter of
Ezekiel, the prophet, speaking for God, gives an allegory of
the nation of Israel, their beginning and how they were decked out. how they became very prosperous,
and then how they went away from God. So it is speaking of the
nation of Israel, primarily. Notice again, the word of the
Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know
her abominations, and say, thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem,
thy birth and thy nativity. Talking about the beginning of
this nation, Abraham and Sarah. And out of those two came this
great nation, a nation that God blessed and gave them a land. And yet in prosperity, they went
away from the Lord. They turned away from God, turned
to idols. But I want us to say that this
also may refer to individuals. There are things that are said
here about the nation that are certainly true of individuals
that God saves. First of all, notice in verses
four and five. And as for thy nativity, in the
day thou was born, thy navel was not cut, neither was thou
washed in water to supple thee, thou was not salted at all, nor
swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee to do any
of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee, but thou was cast
out in the open field. to the loathing of thy person
in the day that thou wast born. The newborn babe is cast out,
comes into this world and for whatever reason is cast out into
the open field. What is more helpless than a
newborn babe? I held one in my arms just two
days ago. It was two days old. So helpless,
so helpless. Someone else must do everything
for that newborn babe. But here's a newborn babe that's
just cast out. No one cared for it. What a picture
this is of all of us as we come into this world. We are helpless
to make ourselves right with God. This is a thing that that
the proverb says, there is a way which seemeth right unto man,
but the end thereof are the ways of death. Men think that by their
doing, they can make themselves right with God. They can make
themselves acceptable to God. But men, all of us by nature,
are helpless in that sense. We're like a babe that's just
cast out. And God must, here's the point,
God must do something for us. It's not what you will do for
God, not what you will do with Christ, what will you do with
Christ, but what will God do with you? What will Christ do
for you? This babe's not going to do anything. It's helpless. We'll notice in
verse six. And when I passed by thee, and
saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, this
is God speaking, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood,
live, live. Who gives life, eternal life,
or physical life, natural life, yes, but eternal life? He does. The wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The picture here is that God passes by and sees this infant
cast out in the field, not washed, not salted, not swaddled, nothing
done for this child, and He says, live! Oh, He's the one that gives the
command to live. The new birth is the work of
God. It's the work of God the Holy Spirit. And then notice
on if you will, in verses nine and 10. Then washed I thee with water,
yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil. And here's the point. I clothed
thee also with brodered work, and shod thee with badger skins,
and I girded thee about with fine linen, And I covered thee
with silk, I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets
upon thy hands, and a chain, we're going to mention this chain
with ten links, a chain on thy neck. That word broadered means needlework. I have a needlework that one
of the ladies in our church did for me back in my office on the
wall years ago. And it says, sir, we would see
Jesus. And I look at that on the wall
and I have here on the pulpit here, preach Christ, embroidered
work. You know, needlework, that's,
I've never done any, but I assume that's very tedious work. But
the needlework here, this, this robe that, that our Lord puts
upon every saved person, that's the needlework that was stitched
by the, by the obedience of Jesus Christ, by his perfect obedience
for those years that he was here in the world. his thoughts, his
words, his actions, he was stitching that robe, embroidered robe,
to put upon his people. And that's his righteousness.
And that righteousness is your righteousness if you are a child
of God. And there's no other way to be
a child of God without this righteousness. And it is imputed unto everyone. It's charged to everyone's account. There's an exchange, isn't there?
Our sins were laid upon Him, imputed to Him, and He had to
suffer and pay for them. And He did, and satisfy God's
justice, and He did. But His perfect righteousness,
that robe, is charged to us, imputed to us. But He puts this
chain of gold upon her neck. Now, I want to give you the ten
links to the chain. First of all, and these first
three are very familiar to all of us, faith, hope, love. Faith, hope, love. Before I go
on to the others, I want to read this verse from 1 Thessalonians
1. Paul is writing back to this
church. He was only there a short time and had to leave town, and
he writes back to them, Verse two, he says, we give thanks
to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers,
remembering without ceasing, now notice, your work of faith,
your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope
in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father.
So three of those links we're very familiar with. 1 Corinthians
13, now abideth faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these
is love. But according to this author,
humility is number four. The link, humility. Number five,
patience. Number six, self-denial. Contentment,
the saving knowledge of Christ. Forbearance, and the last one
is sincerity. Now, I started off by asking
or saying that how could a child of God be completely satisfied
in this world? How could he? When none of these
graces, they're all graces that God the Holy Spirit works in
the hearts of his people, but none of these graces are perfect
in this life. Every child of God has faith,
He believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, but how often do we have
to say, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. He has the grace of hope, but
it's not always lively, not always living and lively, our hope of
eternal life, our hope of heaven. He has the grace of love. But
sometimes he wonders if he even has a drop of love for the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he has the grace of humility,
but sometimes that old ugly head of pride raises up in his life. He has the grace of sincerity,
which runs through all of these races. So David says, I. As for me, here's my testimony. Here's a man who was a man after
God's own heart. As for me, I will behold thy
face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied. When, David? I shall be satisfied, perfectly
satisfied, completely satisfied. When? When I awake with thy likeness. Two parts to the message. What
is meant by when I awake? What does David mean? The word
sleep is used in two different ways, at least in the scripture.
Awake, of course, has reference to sleep. We all awoke this morning
and we're here. But the Bible uses sleep to refer
to death. It's a very gentle way of speaking
of the death of a believer, of a child of God. The Lord Jesus
Christ used that word when he spoke of Lazarus, remember in
John chapter 11. I love those few words there,
when he told his disciples, our friend, Lazarus sleepeth. Can you imagine that? to be a
friend for the Lord Jesus Christ to call someone like you and
me our friend. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.
The disciples thought, well, if he's sleeping, he's been sick
and that's good for him. No, no, the Lord said, he's passed
out of this world. And then when Paul wrote back
to the church at Thessalonica, They questioned him because some
of the believers had passed away, they'd died. Here they were,
they'd all started off together, I guess, as a church family,
and some had passed out of this life, and Paul refers to those,
they questioned, what about them? They're not going to be alive
when Christ comes back, they've already died. And Paul says,
them that sleep in Jesus. He uses the word sleep there
to refer to physical death. Now, the soul doesn't sleep,
you understand that. The soul doesn't sleep, but the
body, the believer's body does sleep in the earth. The apostle
Paul called the believer's death his departure, his departure. and his departure was to be with
Christ. It's not to be sleeping in the
earth. The body, yes, but the soul returns unto God. So, awaking has to do with sleep,
but it also has to do with the resurrection of the body. For
instance, in Daniel chapter 12 and verse 2, we read, and many
of them that sleep in the dust of the earth, They sleep, their
bodies sleep in the dust of the earth. Turn back to dust. Dust
to dust. God made our bodies from the
dust, didn't he? And they're going to return to
the dust. Many, we read there in Daniel,
shall awake out of the dust, sleep in the dust of the earth,
shall awake Some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting
contempt. Now, as David here in our text,
when he says, I shall be satisfied when I awake, is he talking about
waking up from a night's sleep? Or is he speaking about waking
up in the morning of the resurrection? Well, obviously he's talking
about the resurrection day. In 1 John chapter 3, John said,
Beloved, now are we the sons of God. Now, today, we're God's
children, if we know Christ. Now are we the sons of God, and
it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know, we know,
when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see
him as he is. I think, as I thought about this
this past week, I think it's safe for me to say that this
perfect satisfaction, this perfect, complete satisfaction for every
believer will begin at his death. It will, because we will leave
that old nature behind us. It will begin at his death when
we awaken his presence. We close our eyes here in death,
we open them. We awake, we open them, looking
into the face of Jesus Christ, face to face. Amen? What a hope
we have. What a hope we have. The first
face we want to see is Christ our Lord. He that loved us and
washed us from our sins in his own blood. We want to see him,
don't we? So the satisfaction for the believer
begins at death when we awake in his presence and it will be
consummated at the resurrection when we shall be raised in his
likeness. It does not yet appear what we
shall be, but when he shall appear, we will see him and we shall
be like him. Now, What is included in perfect satisfaction? I've said that a believer will
only be satisfied in the morning of the resurrection, in the morning
when Christ comes again, when the soul that is with Christ
shall return, the body shall be raised and joined together,
soul and body, and the believers who are still here If he were
to come today, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the
Apostle Paul tells us, all this would take place. You say, well
that, I don't know if I remember who's doing this. Remember who's
doing this. If it was up to men, it'd take
them 30 years to get some kind of committee up. We're not talking
about the work of a committee, we're talking about the work
of God Almighty. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, the dead in Christ shall rise, and we which are
alive and remain shall be changed. In a moment, we'll be changed. And we will have perfect, absolute
satisfaction. Now I have six things I want
to give us. I'll be very brief on these. but six things that
has to be included in perfect satisfaction. Number one, we
will be like Christ. We will awake with his likeness. That's the first thing. We will
awake with his likeness. We will be like Christ in body
and in soul. His body. was a glorious body,
his resurrected body. You know, the apostle Paul refers
to our earthly tabernacle as this vile, vile body. But when we see him, we will
receive a body like unto his glorious body. A body raised
in incorruption, glory, and power. And It'll be a spiritual body. We
can't understand that. A spiritual body. Our Lord said,
like unto the angels, a spiritual body. It'll be flesh and bones. He had flesh and bones, but it's
still a spiritual body that we will have in that day. We will
be like Christ, we will awake with his likeness. That's satisfaction,
isn't it? To be like Christ, to be perfectly
like him. Remember, for whom he did foreknow,
he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his
son. We will be like Christ. Number
two, we will be like Christ, we will have perfect knowledge
of God. perfect knowledge of God. Paul
said, for now we see through a glass darkly, but then face
to face. Now I know in part, but then
shall I know even as also I am known. We shall see him face
to face. And we shall then comprehend
him or apprehend him clearly, but not fully comprehend God
because God is infinite and we still will be finite beings,
but we will apprehend him. Almost 27 years ago, the Lord
took our grandsons. And I remember at the time, he
was four years old, thinking he immediately has more knowledge
of God than I do after these years of studying. We will have
perfect knowledge. We will be satisfied, complete,
perfect satisfaction. Number three. We will be like
Christ. We will have perfect rest, perfect
rest. Being a child of God does not
exempt one from troubles, from afflictions, from problems, from
trials and difficulties in this life. This life is full of change. And anytime you have change,
you have the liability of problems, difficulties. I understand that. And being a child of God does
not exempt you from them. We will have rest, perfect rest. We can't have perfect rest in
this world. We rest in Christ, absolutely. He gives us rest. He is our Sabbath. But listen, we're running a race. We're running a race. You ever
see in the Olympics these men riding? You ever see them? Stop. Let's take a rest. Let's take
a break here. Oh, no. We're in a race. So we don't have perfect rest
here. We're in a battle. You ever see soldiers? Think
of soldiers out on the battlefield. They say, well, I think I'm going
to take a break here, coffee break. No, no. We're in a battle. and of warfare. And not only
that, but we are pilgrims, pilgrims and strangers in this world.
Do you ever see a pilgrim or think of a pilgrim as someone
who's laying down, resting? Remember Pilgrim, or Christian
rather, in Pilgrim's Progress, what happened to him when he
laid down in that shelter and went to sleep? He lost his role,
didn't he? He lost that role that he'd been
given that gave him entrance, which assured him entrance at
the Celestial City. And when he woke up, he went
down the hill and he realized he didn't have that role. He
had to turn around and go back to get that role. Yes, a pilgrim
is a pilgrim. It's not a place of rest. Number
four, we will be like Christ. We will have fullness of joy,
fullness of joy. The joy of heaven is pure joy. Remember what that man said at
that wedding feast when the Lord turned that water into wine.
He told that man, everyone else saves or gives the best wine
first and then the inferior wine second. But God doesn't work
that way. He gives the best wine last. And the joy, we rejoice today
in Christ, we have joy. But to have complete, perfect
joy, that's reserved for heaven. Look in chapter 16 of Psalms
and verse 11. David says, thou wilt show me
the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of
joy. And at thy right hand there are
pleasures forevermore." We will be like Christ. We will
be near the Father. That's the fifth thing. We will
be near the Father. Remember he told his disciples,
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive
you unto myself. Now listen. I will receive you
unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. Well, where is he? Where is he? He's at the Father's right hand.
That's what the scripture says. We will be near God. We sang
that hymn a few minutes ago, near my God to thee. And that's
the cry, that's the song of believers in this world every day, isn't
it? Near, near my God to thee. Well, when we awake in eternity,
we will be near to God. And the last thing, we will be
like Christ. We will be heirs of God. Heirs
of God. That's overwhelming, isn't it? To be an heir of God. Everything's His. Everything. and to be one of his heirs and
a joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's what the scripture
says, but it also adds, if so be that we suffer with him, that
we may also be glorified together. This life, there's that suffering. You know, one of Martin Luther
made this comment about a Christian. A Christian is a cross bearer. A Christian is a cross bearer. Remember he said, take up thy
cross and follow me. And in this world, no doubt,
we have problems and trials and afflictions, but we will one
day be glorified and we will be heirs of God and join heirs
with Christ. If so be that we suffer with
him, that we may also be glorified together. I pray that the Lord would bless
this word to all of us here today, make us a little anxious, a little anxious for going home,
going to be with the Lord.