Well, I want to speak to you this afternoon from Psalm 89. I'll be reading the first 18 verses of Psalm 89, and I'll be asking the question, do you know the joyful sound? So let's bow together for prayer before we begin. Father, thank you for gathering us here. This little band of believers this afternoon to hear your word and to glory in you, our Lord Jesus Christ, to realize the greatness of all that you have done for us in our redemption, to understand the greatness of your power towards us who believe. And so we pray to understand more of what this psalm teaches us, what we will learn about the joyful sound. Help us to take in this truth, and to rejoice in it this afternoon in Jesus' name. Amen. Psalm 89 and beginning in verse 1. This is a contemplation of Ethan. The Ezra Height. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. With my mouth will I make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, mercy shall be built up forever. your faithfulness you shall establish in the very heavens i have made a covenant with my chosen i have sworn to my servant david your seed i will establish forever and build up your throne to all generations say la and the heavens will praise your wonders oh lord your faithfulness also in the assembly of the saints for who in the heavens can be compared to the lord who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to the Lord. God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be held in reverence by all those around him. O Lord God of hosts, Who is mighty like you, O Lord? Your faithfulness also surrounds you. You rule the raging of the sea. When its waves rise, you still them. You have broken Rahab in pieces as one who is slain. You have scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. The heavens are yours. The earth also is yours. The world in all its fullness. You have founded them, the north and the south. You have created them. Tabor and Hermon rejoice in your name. You have a mighty arm. Strong is your hand, and high is your right hand. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Mercy and truth go before your face. Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound. They walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance. In your name they rejoice all the day. All day long, and in your righteousness, they are exalted. For you are the glory of their strength. And in your favor, our horn is exalted. For our shield belongs to the Lord, and our King to the Holy One of Israel. So this psalm was written, it says, in the inspired heading as a contemplation of Ethan, the Ezraite, probably at the time. of the great decline of the Davidic kingdom in the time of Rehoboam, Solomon's son. It was a time when Ethan and many in Israel were wondering whether the Lord's loving kindnesses had failed. As it says in verse 49, and whether God would continue to be merciful in relation to the covenant that he had made with David. The kingdom was divided and the people's loyalties were divided between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. It was kind of like the situation in our own country today. But these words show us that the Spirit revealed to Ethan that God's faithfulness would continue and that it would continue forever. And this truth of God's faithfulness is the joyful sound, which is talked about in verse 15. God's faithfulness is the joyful sound. which is talked about in verse 15, which is declared to God's people by God himself and to their minds and to their hearts. So at this time, I'd like to ask whether you personally have come to know this joyful sound of experientially knowing God's faithfulness to you and believing that it will be shown to you as well as to all generations. Let me give you three considerations of God's faithfulness, which are given to us here in these verses. First of all, the joyful sound of God's faithfulness to be merciful to his people forever. Verses one and two, I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. With my mouth will I make known your faithfulness. to all generations. For I have said, mercy shall be built up forever. Your faithfulness you shall establish in the very heaven." So I hope you see the importance of your personally declaring the faithfulness of God in his mercy to you personally. I want to remind you that if you are a Christian, that it was because of God's mercy that He saved you through Christ in the first place. You did not save yourself from your sins. You simply believed in the gospel. You didn't believe in what you were doing by your own works would change your heart without His working in your heart. You may have even heard the gospel over and over again before you really believed it and were saved. How then were you turned, dear Christian, to see the love of Jesus Christ? How were you turned? It was that God showed you your own sinfulness and He showed you the beauty of Christ. He turned you to behold in the gospel Christ's obedience and His sufferings in your place. Was this not His spirits working in you that caused this to come about in accordance with His mercy? Well, yes, it was. Remember what it says in Ephesians chapter two, And verses four to seven, but God who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places. in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us in Christ. Oh how merciful God is in the new birth when he causes you to be born again to a living hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. That's how it happens. How merciful God is. See, you as a Christian did not bring about your own conversion to Christ by your own free will. No, you were made willing to trust in Christ in the day of his power. The Lord being merciful to you. By His Spirit, He blew the wind of His gracious influences upon your heart according to the eternal purpose of God in the exact time of His purpose. And He mercifully illumined your darkness. You saw that you were a sinner and you saw that you needed Christ. It was that simple. You found God true. to His Word and the Gospel, and you found life in Jesus' name, because God was merciful to you personally, the sinner. And now you sing of His faithfulness, like we just did here a few minutes ago. So that's my first point to you. But let me give you another. Let's sing together about the joyful sound of God's faithfulness to His covenant. in all generations. Verse three says, I have made a covenant with my chosen. I have sworn to my servant, David, your seed I will establish forever and build up your throne to all generations. So we must ask ourselves this very sad question. How could David's seed, his descendants, be established forever when we find that Solomon was unfaithful to the Lord at certain critical points Solomon was unfaithful and his grandson Rehoboam lacked the wisdom to be able to keep the kingdom from becoming divided in his days. How did Israel in one generation go from the glory of Solomon's peaceable, peaceful reign to the fear and anguish and uncertainty of Rehoboam's reign? How then I'm asking, how then could mercy be built up forever to all succeeding generations with such unfaithful kings as were seen in Israel in that day? Well, we need to be clear that this unfaithfulness began with Solomon's sin during his peaceful And by the way, the Lord can give peace and make peace for a nation like He did with Solomon for many years, but Solomon was unfaithful and at the end of his reign, great trouble came to the kingdom. He was unfaithful to God in certain ways which he should not have been. He was unfaithful to God and unfaithful to the commandments of God's Word. which were specifically given to him as the king of Israel. He disobeyed God's express commands in Deuteronomy 17, 14 to 20, and I wanna read that for you, and you can turn there if you have a Bible. It says here, when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you and possess it and dwell in it and say, I will set a king over me, Like all the nations that are around me, you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses, one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you. You may not set a foreigner over you who is not your brother. But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses. For the Lord has said to you, you shall not return that way again. Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. And also it shall be when he sits on the throne of his kingdom that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book from the one before the priests, the Levites, and it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel." Now, this was a part of the Old Testament, Old Covenant law which was given to the kings of Israel. And these commands were negative to show Solomon what he should not do. He should not multiply horses. which is what he did. And he should not multiply wives for himself, which he did. And he should not multiply gold and silver in this very extensive way that he did for himself. He did these things in a very mighty way. And positively, he was told here that when he sat on the throne, that he should write for himself a copy of this law. the law of the old covenant and he should read it all the days of his life so that he would learn to fear the Lord and be careful to observe all the words of the law so that his heart would not be lifted up above his brethren and that he would multiply his days. This evidently Solomon did not do. Now, he may have written it down, but he did not read the book of the law all of his days of his life, and this is why he fell into the other sins which were forbidden for him to do. This great man, this godly man, fell into these sins, and so the Lord had to bring disciplinary judgments against him and against the kingdom. In fact, if you turn over to 1 Kings 11, if you have a Bible, I'm going to read this for you. 1 Kings 11, in verses 9 to 11, it says, So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. and commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods, but he did not keep. what the Lord had commanded. Therefore, the Lord said to Solomon, because you have done this and have not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from it and give it to your servant. That is to Jeroboam. The kingdom was given in Rehoboam's days. Rehoboam ended up with one of the tribes of Israel and then Jeroboam ended up with all the rest. But let me ask this, did these evil actions of Solomon's nullify the covenant that is mentioned in verse 3 of our text? The covenant made with David that his seed would be established forever to build up his throne to all generations? No, it did not. For God says in Psalm 89, the Psalm that we're studying, in verses 34 to 37, he says, my covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of my lips. Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David, his seed, including Solomon and including Rehoboam, And his throne shall endure as the sun before me. It shall be established forever, like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky. Selah. Selah means think about it. Now it's not David's literal throne. that would endure as the Son before God. It was Christ's spiritual throne, His rule over His church, which will endure forever. And although David's elect seed would endure forever. It's Christ's spiritual seed, his church, composed of all chosen people, all elect believers, Jew and Gentile, who shall endure forever. And so we need to see that the typical, that which is like David and the kingdom in those days, it does have a spiritual reality to it. David and Solomon experienced the fulfillment of all the promises of God to them. And so we should see that the typical in the Old Testament gives way to a greater spiritual reality in New Testament times, a much greater fulfillment in New Testament times to both Jews and Gentiles. So this joyful sound that we're talking about here, for the one who understands, can be spiritually applied in this way that we're studying to these truths that we're studying so that you and I can know personally of God's faithfulness to us. And then third, the joyful sound of God's faithfulness is to give you in your walk with Him the light of His countenance. Let me read you the verses 15 to 18 once again. Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound. They walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance. In your name they rejoice all day long, and in your righteousness they are exalted, for our shield belongs to the Lord and our King, to the Holy One of Israel. So sometimes our experience of going through national judgments, which I think we're going through in our country in these days, These judgments which God, by the way, brings is one that brings us personally great discouragement. In verse 49, Ethan says, Lord, where are your former loving kindnesses? which you swore to David in your truth." So he couldn't find God's blessings coming to him in the midst of all the difficulties. And what was just as bad, he mentions in verse 50 of Psalm 89, remember, Lord, the reproach that they're speaking against us, your servants, how I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the people with which your enemies have reproached you, O Lord, with which they have reproached the footsteps of your anointed." He means David, but he also means all of the people of Israel and also even God himself and the fact that he had appointed their king. In other words, there were many people who were blaming the king and those who supported him for all their troubles. And Ethan, who was a loyal citizen at that time, wanted to see good things come to the nation. He wanted to help to bring about good leadership decisions and initiate good things to strengthen the nation. But he wasn't seeing any progress forward in that at all. But he knew what you and I should know. that even in the most difficult times, when God's people cry to God, that He will hear them and He will answer them in His appointed time. He will be faithful to give you the light of His countenance. That is, His light shines upon your countenance to lift you up from your discouragements over the way things are around you and the political situation in your day to remember his faithfulness. This is what I want you to remember from this message here this afternoon. I want you to remember the joyful sound of God's faithfulness. That even though you personally might be walking sometimes as a child of light in the darkness, You still should know that if you trust in the name of the Lord and you rely upon your God, that He will come to you. He will visit your soul to comfort you, to encourage you, to strengthen you and to help you. Not only to see things rightly, as you look out at the political situation of this day, but not to be discouraged if things go against you, but to remember that God is for you. When you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, he is always for you. He is never against you. Even when difficult and hard political situations might come, you need to remember this, that God's faithfulness will endure to all generations. Even us here listening to this message this afternoon. If you trust in the name of the Lord, you rely upon your God, he will come to you. you who are waiting upon Him and waiting for Him. So I hope that you'll always remember that in the worst of situations, that God is always doing what is right. That's what I want you to see. That even again, when things are going against God's people and outwardly things look very dim, that God and what He is doing, what He permits, what He ordains, and what He brings to pass is always right. And so we shouldn't be questioning God, but what we should do is believe in His faithfulness to us in every situation so that we might then be lifted up in our heart to trust in Him, may not always to pray and not to faint. Jesus says in Luke 18 1 God always does What is right and he will lift up the light of his countenance upon you? It says it like it says number six and he will give you peace So do you know the sound of? God's faithfulness and will you look for it? in every situation that you find yourself in well, I hope that you will and for your faith will draw you closer to him. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this passage of scripture. We do praise you and thank you for your faithfulness. We entrust ourselves and all of our concerns, our very life to you. knowing that you always do what is right and that you will always care for us, your people, because of Jesus Christ, our Lord. You will not turn away from us, from doing us good, but you will always be there to walk with us and go before us and to hold us by the hand, spiritually speaking. So we pray that you would do that very thing for every troubled heart, every distressed spirit here today. And for all of us that you would cause us to rejoice in you today, it's your goodness and mercy to us, which will follow us all the days of our life. And we shall dwell in the house of you, our God, forevermore, as we trust in you. We pray, thanking you for this time. In Jesus' precious name, Father. Amen.