If you will, turn back with me
in your Bibles to Acts chapter 13. And this morning, I want
to speak to us from a phrase that is found in verse 34, the
sure mercies of David. That's the title of the message,
the sure mercies of David. This phrase is only found in
one other scripture, and that is in Isaiah chapter 55 in verse
3, where we read, incline your ear and come unto me. Here and your soul shall live,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David. the sure mercies of David. What does that mean? Well, I
trust as we study this morning, all of us will have a good understanding
of what this means, the sure mercies of David. And the way
I want us to look at it, to study from it, is to look at three
words, three words in this phrase. The first word is the name David. The first word that we will consider
is the word David. I will give thee the sure mercies
of David. Now, to whom does this refer? We all know, or at least we should
know, that the Bible teaches that this is the Lord Jesus Christ. If you look back here in our
text to verses 22 and 23, We see that it was not David
that is the king of Israel, David, that Paul meant, but it was rather
David's seed. And when he had removed him,
this is verse 22, he had removed, God had removed Saul from being
king. He raised up unto them, that
is Israel, David to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony
and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after
mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. Now notice, of this
man's seed, hath God, according to his promise, raised unto Israel
a Savior, Jesus. I want you to notice the scripture
here tells us that God raised David up to be Israel's king,
but it is David's seed, the Lord Jesus Christ, that God raised
up to be Israel's Savior. In Romans chapter one, where
the apostle Paul begins to write the great letter of Romans, he
begins by speaking of the gospel of God, and he tells us that
the gospel of God concerns his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now listen, which was made of
the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be
the son of God according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection
of the dead. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ,
He was not made the Son of God. He is the eternal Son of God. He is the only begotten of the
Father. He is eternal as the Father and
the Spirit are eternal. but he was made of the seed of
David, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God and he is man in this
one person. Him hath God raised up to be
a prince and a savior. Have you ever noticed the way
the New Testament begins? Matthew chapter one and verse
one. This is the book of the generation
of Jesus Christ, the son of David. So this speaks of David, the
sure mercies of David. It is David's son. It is the
Lord Jesus Christ. But I want us to think for just
a moment how David may serve as a type. of the Savior. You know, God revealed the Lord
Jesus Christ in the Old Testament through many types, many shadows,
many patterns. The manna, the manna with which
God fed Israel for those 40 days was a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ who is the true bread of God, the bread which giveth
life. The water that came out of that
rock was a type of Jesus Christ. He is the water of life. And so there's many types. The
ark in which Noah and his family were saved was a picture, was
a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, all the scriptures from
the beginning, Genesis 1 to the end, Revelation 22, they all
speak to us of Jesus Christ, our Lord. And David, here's three
ways I want to point out that he may serve as a type of his
son, the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, his name, the name
David, what does that mean? It means beloved. That's what
the name itself means, beloved. And this is typical of the Lord
Jesus because we know that at least two times The Lord spoke
from heaven at his baptism and at the Mount of Transfiguration,
and what did God say from heaven? He said, ìThis is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased.î You see, God the Father has loved
Him, the Eternal Son, from all eternity. In John chapter 17,
in the Lord Jesus' prayer, when He is praying to the Father,
in verse 24, He said, Thou lovest Me. Speaking to His Father, the
Lord Jesus Christ said, Thou lovest Me from before the foundation
of the world. In other words, from old eternity. And in John chapter 3 and verse
25, listen to this. We read here, the father loveth
the son and hath put all things into his hands. The father loveth
the son. The name David means beloved
and he is the father's beloved. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. That verse there in John 3 and
verse 25 says, the father loveth the son and hath put all things
into his hand. Now, when we think of things
being put into the hands of Christ, the scripture here says all things,
and we know that so, but we especially think of the sheep, his sheep,
those who were given unto him as his sheep, because in John
chapter 10, He said this concerning his sheep and his hands. He said,
I give unto them eternal life. You see, eternal life is not
merited. It's not earned. You can't work
for it. You never could deserve it. Eternal
life is a gift. And Jesus Christ our Lord said
concerning his sheep, I give unto them eternal life, and they
shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my
hands." The hand, all things are given into His hand. The
Father loveth the Lord Jesus Christ and hath given all things
into His hand. The father loves the son, he's
the father's beloved, and the sheep, they love him. If you're one of his sheep today,
and you know that, then you love him. Now the scripture says,
we love him, the sheep love him, because he first loved us. He first loved us. He loved his
people from eternity past. There never has been a time,
I know this is, I'm starting to say difficult, I know it's
impossible, for us to fully comprehend what it means to be loved of
God from old eternity. But that's what the scripture
says, as the father loveth the son, even so, He loves his people. But that's one way that David
may serve as a type of Christ that is his name. It means beloved. And Jesus Christ is the father's
beloved son. A second way, the family tree. You know, David was the son of
Jesse. This is what the scripture says
here, the son of Jesse. And in the prophecy in Isaiah
chapter 14, We read this two places there in Isaiah 14, I
want to quote from. In verse one, the scripture says,
there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, the
stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, out of
the roots of Jesse. They both come from the same
root, that is, David was the son of Jesse, so the Lord Jesus
Christ is the son of David, is the son of Jesse. And then in
verse 10 it says, And in that day there shall be a root of
Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people. To it
shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious. You
know what an ensign is? I think of it as the colors that
an army unit might have. And everybody assembles and follows
and gathers around that flag, if you please. The Lord Jesus
Christ, he's that ensign of the people. And it is for the Gentiles
as well as the Jews. And notice it says, and his rest
shall be glorious. He said, come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. When
God the Holy Spirit brings men and women to recognize and feel
the guilt of their sin. Where will they find relief?
Where will they find rest? There's only rest, and His rest
is glorious, and it is in Jesus Christ, the son of Jesse, the
seed of Jesse. And then a third way, David's
greatest exploit. His greatest exploit was conquering
or killing the giant. You know, people who really don't
know that much about the scripture, who are not that interested in
the Word of God, even they use the term of David and Goliath. People think of some big corporation
and some small business, and the small business is David,
and they go up against this big corporation. It's just a term
that people have come to use. David's greatest exploit was
his conquering, his defeating the giant. The giant had all
of the armies of Israel cowed down. They couldn't move. They
were paralyzed with fear. And David appears on the scene. And he goes out against the giant. And you know, he brought that
giant down with one stone. With one stone. He had five stones. One of my friends years ago,
I remember, He spoke of those five stones as the five points
of grace. And the first point, the depravity,
the total depravity of man. That brings man down. You know
what those five points are. It is total depravity, we come
into this world totally depraved. Paul said, in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing, no good thing, totally depraved. We can't even
think a good thought, my friends, of ourselves. But then second,
unconditional election. God has chosen a people for himself. And third, limited atonement
or specific atonement. The Lord Jesus Christ paid the
sin debt of those who were chosen by the Father. And then fourth,
Irresistible grace in the day of his power, his people shall
be made willing. And then that fifth point, the
preservation or the perseverance of the saints. So the giant was
brought down with one stone, but David didn't have a weapon.
And so he cuts off the giant's head with the giant's sword. The Lord Jesus Christ, he too,
he killed two giants. That is, the giant of sin and
the giant of death. And he did both by using the
giant's own weapon, which was death. Satan was a murderer from
the beginning. And the Lord Jesus Christ, by
his death, By His death, He defeated that old giant sin that has all
of His people bound. And death, He took the fear of
death away. So that's the first word, David.
Now, the second word in this phrase, the sure mercies of David,
we see who David is. It is the Lord Jesus Christ.
But now the second word I want us to think about is the word
sure. The word sure. What does that
refer to? The word sure. Well, it refers
to the fact. The fact. The scripture teaches
this. That Jesus Christ is the surety
of the everlasting covenant. The Lord Jesus Christ. You know
in Isaiah chapter 42 that begins, Behold my servant. Mine elect
whom I uphold, stop, behold, look at Christ my servant. And later in that chapter in
verse 6, God says this, I will give thee, that is Christ, I
will give thee for a covenant of the people. You see, the Lord's,
the covenant is all about Christ. He's the messenger of the covenant. That means he came to reveal
the covenant, to speak and teach and show out the everlasting
covenant. But he's also the mediator of
this covenant. He's the one mediator between
God Almighty and man. And as mediator, he has these
three offices. He's a prophet, he's a priest,
he's a king. And not only is he the messenger
and the mediator, but he's also the surety, the surety of this
everlasting covenant. Now, what does that mean? What
does that word surety mean? Well, I believe we can understand
it and explain it with the word responsible, by using the word
responsible. The first time that we have the
word surety in our Bibles, if we will look at that and think
about that we get some idea of what it means this word surety
you know jacob had twelve sons and ten of his sons were jealous
of joseph and they sold him and he went down into egypt and you
know the story he ended up as a Prime Minister, we might say,
of Egypt. He was second in command, and
he got there by interpreting Pharaoh's dream. God revealed
to Pharaoh, in a dream, what he was going to do. He was going
to bring seven years of great plenty upon Egypt, and then he
was going to bring seven years of great drought. Now Joseph
interpreted the dream of Pharaoh And so Pharaoh, you've got to
see God in this. If you don't see God's hand in
the life of Joseph, shame on you. Shame on you, my friend. We just see the providence of
God and we see it in the life of Joseph, but the same is true
in your life and my life of every child of God. God's good providence. From the time we, well, even
when we come into this world, our birth, our upbringing, and
bringing us under the gospel, oh, the providence of God. We rest and trust in God Almighty
because He is our kind and good Father. I love that passage in
Matthew chapter six. I believe two times there we
read, your heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of.
Isn't that a blessing? He knows what you have need.
He knows what I have need of every day, every day. But anyway,
let me get back to illustrating what the word surety means. You
know, there was no grain in Canaan. So Jacob sends 10 of his sons
down to Egypt. He heard there was some grain
there in Egypt. He sends 10 of his sons down.
to buy grain in Egypt, and there they come before Joseph. They
don't recognize him, but he recognizes them. And in their conversation,
they tell him that they have yet a brother at home. And so
Joseph tells them, no need you ever come back here if you don't
bring your brother Benjamin with you. That's the way you're going
to prove that you're telling the truth. Well, they get back
and they tell Jacob that, and Jacob says, no way, no way. You're not going to take my Benjamin.
This is his baby, son of his right hand. You're not going
to take him. Well, there's no need for us
to go, Father. His son's telling him. The man clearly told us,
you'll never see my face unless you bring Benjamin back. And
so Judah, Jacob's son Judah, he He enters into a surety ship
agreement. This is where we see and understand
the meaning of the word surety. Now listen to what Judah told
his dad. He said, I will be a surety for
him. You let Benjamin, you let us
take Benjamin with us. And I will be a surety for him
of my hand thou shalt require him. If I bring him not unto
thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame forever. Oh, what a picture, the suretyship
of Christ. When he became in that, the word
surety literally means one who draws near. And in that council
before eternity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit, The Son drew near and agreed in that covenant to be
the surety, to be responsible for all of God's chosen people,
all of those that the Father gave unto Him. And I think about
those words of Judah, and you know, he didn't have the power,
of course, to do that, but the Lord Jesus Christ does. And he
told his father, he told Jacob, If I bring him not unto thee
and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame forever. And I tell you what, folks, if
the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't bring each and every one of those
for whom he is a surety, then he would bear the blame forever. That's not going to happen. That's
not going to happen. But let me mention four things
that this required upon the part of the eternal son of God as
a surety. Number one, his incarnation. He had to become a man. There
had to be a sacrifice in order to bring those who were given
unto him to restore them, bring them back to the father. There
had to be a blood sacrifice without the shedding of blood. There
is no remission. Number two, he must honor God's
law. He must honor God's law. He said,
thank not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I'm
not come to destroy, but to fulfill. And yes, every jot and every
piddle of the law, the Lord Jesus Christ as a surety fulfilled. He honored God's law. His thoughts, his words, his
actions, he honored God's law. Number three, the surety not
only had to become incarnate, he had to honor God's law, but
he had to pay the debt, the debt, the sin debt. And he did that,
of course, through his death. And number four, he had to rise
from the grave. Because you see, the Apostle
Paul in Hebrew speaks of the covenant as a testament, as a
man's last will and testament. He had to rise from the dead
so that all the benefits, all the blessings in that covenant
would be sure, would be sure to all the seed, all the spiritual
seed of Abraham. The hymn writer said, in my surety
I am free. His dear hands were pierced for
me. With his spotless vesture on,
I'm holy as the Holy One. So first of all, the word David,
that refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. The word sure, the sure
mercies of David, refers to that everlasting covenant that Jesus
Christ was the surety. And let me say this before I
go on to that third. You know David, when he came
to die, 2 Samuel chapter 23, and it says these be the last
words of David. Part of what he said was, though
my house be not so with God. David recognized he wasn't all
that he wanted to be, all that he should be. He was like you
and me. He was a sinner. Yet he hath
made with me. an everlasting covenant, ordered
in all things and sure, and this is all my salvation. That's it, this is all my salvation. Now the third word, the third
word is the word mercies, the sure mercies of David. What is this? These are the covenant
blessings, the covenant blessings. Let me mention them to us. There
are three. And you find all of these in
Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 10. The first mercy is that God will
be to us a God. Now this is different. Now God
is the God of everyone. I recognize that. You know that.
There's only one God. He's the God of everyone. Just
like He told the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, you only
of all the peoples of the earth have I known. God knew all the
nations. He knew all the peoples of all
the nations. But Israel was a peculiar people
or nation unto God. And this is what this promise
is. I will be unto them a God. It means He will be our God. You know, He will be our God.
Now listen, this will help you hear what this means. He will
be our God in the sense that He is the God of the Lord Jesus
Christ. On the day of His resurrection,
or shortly after that, maybe the second time He appeared to
His disciples, but He told them, I send unto my Father and your
Father, my God and your God. Let me read you a quote by an
author that I appreciate a whole lot, John Gill. He said, happy are they that
are interested in this blessing of the covenant, which is preferable
to everything else. They have everything and can
want no good thing. They need fear no enemy, all
things work together for their good. And God continues to be
their God in life and in death, so that they may depend on his
love, be secure of his power, expect every needful supply of
grace, and to be carried through every duty and trial, and to
share in the first resurrection, and to enjoy eternal happiness. I will be to them a God. When God promises to be our God,
and He does, if you know Christ as your Lord and Savior, He promises
to be your God. This is one of the sure mercies
of David. And when God promises to be our
God, it means that He promises His care, His care, His watch
care over us. He promises not only His care,
but His protection and His preservation. Now, the second sure mercy of
David, that first one, I will be unto them a God. Number two,
the second mercy is that God will be merciful to their unrighteousness. Now, what does that mean? Well,
it means the forgiveness of our sins. It means the forgiveness
of all our sins. But it even means more than that. More than that. You say, how
can it be more than that? Well, I think it's more than
that in this sense. It means, listen, it means that
the blood of Jesus Christ has so put away. And he said, I will
remember their sins and their iniquities no more. Many times
as children of God, we can't forget what God will not remember. But I'm telling you, what this
means is that the blood of Jesus Christ has so put away the sins
of His people that they can never be found. God uses such terms
as casting them behind His back. Now where is behind His back? He's everywhere. That's the point. The sins are gone, gone, gone,
washed away in the blood of Jesus Christ, never to be remembered
against us again. The third mercy is that God will
give us a new heart. That's what he said, a new heart.
A new creature. I will put my laws into their
mind and write them in their hearts. Listen to the way that
is stated in Jeremiah, this same promise in Jeremiah 32 in verse
40. I will make an everlasting covenant
with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good,
but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart
from me. Can anyone deny that this is
what men need? that this is what all men need.
We need a new heart. We don't need a reformation.
We don't need to turn over a new leaf. Well, that might help society,
people become more moral, but what man needs is a new nature. He needs a new heart. He needs a heart to love God
and to love his neighbor as himself. That's what we need. And I want
to close this message. I hope you still have your Bibles
open there to Acts chapter 13. But I want you to look down to
verses 38 and 39. And you notice that phrase we've
been looking at is God speaking to His Son that He raised from
the dead. And He said, I will give thee
the sure mercies of David. These sure mercies are in the
hands of Jesus Christ. You see, salvation is in Him. It's not in a plan. It's not
in walking down a church aisle and repeating a prayer that some
man puts into your mouth. And then he tells you you're
sure for heaven. What a lie, my friends. What
a deceit. What an awful thing goes on under
the name of Christ in our day. Salvation is a hard work and
it's a personal work. It's a relationship with his
son, Jesus Christ. These sure mercies are in his
hands. I will give thee the sure mercies
of David. And what a privilege it is as
a preacher to be able to preach this wonderful salvation, this
free salvation, like the apostle Paul did. Look at it there in
verse 38 and 39. Now he was in a synagogue and
these were not necessarily his friends, but Paul preached the
gospel to them. And he ended this message, be
it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through
this man, what man? The God man. David's son, through
this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. Now
watch, and by him, by Christ, by his work, his finished work,
his work of redemption, his work which satisfied the father, by
him, all that believe are justified from all things from which you
could not be justified by the law of Moses. They knew the law
just like Paul had known the law. And Paul thought he actually
believed that he kept the law. He really did. But when God the
Holy Spirit caused that law to come to him in power, And he
recognized just the very beginning of lust, of desire for something
evil, that's sin. And he realized the law is spiritual. It's not just the fact that a
person doesn't tell a lie or doesn't murder someone, but does
he hate someone? He may not actually commit the
act of adultery, but does he have lust in his heart? The law
is spiritual, and it condemns men. But the gospel shows us
that through this man, through Jesus Christ, he's got the sure
mercies of David in his hands. Let me close by saying, look
to Christ, look to him only, and be ye saved. We're gonna
sing this hymn. Brother Bill's going to come
again, now I belong to Jesus and Jesus belongs to me. What
could be better than that? Nothing, nothing, nothing. Number 487 in our hymn books,
number 487, now I belong to Jesus.