Psalm 34, starting at verse 18. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. He keepeth all his bones, not one of them is broken. evil shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate. The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants, and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate." Thus far the reading of God's Holy Word. May the Lord bless us in the reading and the preaching and the hearing of it. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you will cause your people never to be left alone in guilt and judgment, that we will never be desolate who trust in your name. We thank you, O God, for your son. We thank you that he was made sin for us and that not one of his bones was broken. but all was preserved so that we might see the greatness of our salvation. Have mercy upon us, bless and teach us through your word we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. For the last two weeks we've been considering Psalm 34. First, we looked at verses one through 10 in the catalog of praise, all the reasons why David would praise God for this deliverance when he was almost certainly to be put to death by the Philistines. We saw how thanksgiving or giving of thanks should seek to keep pace with all the blessings God continually gives us. His praise should continually be in our mouths. We saw the need to humble ourselves as God exalts the poor and we ought to magnify the name of God for it. We saw the need to seek the Lord, though we are both sinners and saints, as David was, and we seek him imperfectly, yet we must still seek him. We saw the joy and blessing of looking to Christ, how God gives light and joy to us in that, how we may live by looking to him. We saw how God's providence is not a cold mechanism for the people of God, but rather a fatherly course where God as our father teaches us in his fear. We saw that though we have seasons of setback, yet we gain the victory in due time as David did, and we grow in the assurance of our faith. We saw the duty to taste and see that the Lord is good, to clear our palates, as that means in the Hebrew, so that we might taste and see the goodness of God. We saw how God would supply all of our needs through his riches in Christ Jesus. Then last week we considered come you children from verses 11 through 17. We saw the school of fearing God. The father called us to his school to teach us the fear of the Lord. We saw the fear of the Lord is the only way to live a blessed life, both now and evermore. We saw that the natural man, though he desires life and good, will not seek it in God's way with a sufficient guide in scripture. We saw repentance as twofold, departing from evil and doing good. That we must put off the old man and put on the new, as it says in verse 14, depart from evil and do good. We saw the consolation, given the list of sins that are, by God's grace, open for repentance. In Ephesians 4, we saw all that list of evil things, and yet God in his grace calls us for forgiveness and repentance. We also saw the privileges of the godly, that his eyes are upon us for good, his ears are open to our cry, and the wicked, their misery, they have God's angry face against them. Now this afternoon, let's consider broken not broken, continuing in Psalm 34. As I mentioned previously, this is an alphabetical psalm. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet are at the beginning of the first word of each verse. Verse 18 is the letter kof. Karov is the Hebrew word for nigh, nigh the Lord. We'll look at that, nigh. Verse 19 is the Hebrew letter resh. Raboth, or many. Many are the afflictions. Raboth meaning many. Verse 20 is sheen. Shomer, where God keepeth, he keepeth. Shomer means he keepeth. Verse 21 is the letter tau. Temotheth, shall slay, as in evil shall slay. Temotheth. And then verse 22 returns to the letter pay since it finishes out. And that is the word podei, redeemeth, podei, redeemeth the Lord, the souls of his saints. First then, verse 18, the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and save as such as be of a contrite spirit. Again, the word karov means nigh or near to. Near emphatically, he says, the Lord to those of a crushed heart. Diodati on this broken heart says, a contrite and mortified heart by humility, by patience and by sufferings. It's not merely the inward disposition of humility, it's also the external circumstances where God crushes us in his providence. He gives us patience and causes us to suffer. But you might ask yourself, isn't the Lord near to everyone? Yes, he is. Let's open to Jeremiah 23, page 788. The prophet Jeremiah, inspired by the Holy Spirit, speaks of God's omnipresence. God is near to everyone, but not in the way that the psalm refers. Jeremiah 23, 23. Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord? Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? And in fact he does. Remember Solomon when he dedicated the temple in 1 Kings 8. He said, I built you this temple, but Lord, I can't contain you here. There's no house that can hold you. You fill the heaven of the heavens. God is everywhere. Is he a God? He asks, who is at hand? Am I just a close God? I'm not anywhere else besides right next to you? No, I'm everywhere, he says. He is present everywhere. Please turn over to Isaiah, back to page 755, Isaiah 57. Isaiah 57, verse 15. God has an omnipresence, the fullness of his being everywhere. And yet, let us note verse 15. For thus saith the high and lofty one, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Notice that. God does not humble us for the sake of humbling us. That's not the end. That's what he does to the wicked in hell. He humbles them forevermore for the sake of humbling them because they deserve it. But here, why does he humble those who are contrite in heart, who go down, who humble themselves, that he might do what? What does he say? The Lord has a good design for them, does he not? To give them new life, that's what revival is. You are dead and God brings you up to new life, revival. Psalm 51 reminds us that the sacrifices of God are this very thing, a broken spirit. God expects us to obey the external letter of his commands, but he also expects that along with it, there is some other sacrifice than just the external one. That is a broken and a contrite heart. God says he will not despise this. In fact, it's what will draw him down to revive you and to save you as we see in Psalm 34. David Dixon comments on this notion of God breaking us. Though the Lord so break the natural confidence of his own, and so empty them by trouble of all conceit of their own worth, wisdom, or ability to deliver themselves out of trouble, that they may rely on God only, yet will he not withdraw himself from them, nor suffer them to perish in discouragement. There is a form of religion, even of the Reformed faith, a distortion of our Reformed faith that says you ought to be crushed and humbled down into the dust. Game over. That's not the case. God humbles and crushes and brings us down so that he may revive us. so that He may save us, so that He may give us the joy of His salvation. Remember Paul, the prisoner, rotting in a prison cell, falsely accused, a conspiracy of 40 men to kill him? And what does the Lord say? Be of good cheer, Paul. I am nigh unto those of a broken heart. God does not want us to perish in discouragement. Though our circumstances crush us, though troubles come wave upon wave in our bodies, in our spirits, in our minds, in our relations, in our goods, God is working for our joy, for our revival and encouragement. I observe then that there is a twofold nearness of God, God is near to everything at all times. He is omnipresent. He fills heaven and earth in the fullness of his being and power. And yet he is not nigh to all for salvation. He is only nigh to those of a broken and a contrite heart. He comes to revive and to bless. He saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. That's the nearness that we want in God. We must draw near to him then, as James says, in repentance. Draw near to God, turn away from your wicked ways, humble yourselves, and God will exalt you in due time. What use then that there is this twofold nearness of God, first of encouragement, take heart. Christ draws us through sufferings to take from us the things we can't keep. That's what God is doing in our sanctification and in our sufferings in particular. He's stripping us of those things that weigh us down so that he can give us those things that we can never lose. Can faith or patience or humility be taken from us? No. Can our natural self-confidence, our pride, our belief in our own worth, our wisdom and our ability, can that be taken from us? Yes. And if we're going to heaven, we have to get rid of it. God has to take it away at our death, and he has to put it to death now during our life. These things can't go with us into heaven, so God's working to strip us of those things. Through our sufferings, God works an eternal weight of glory. So we may be encouraged even in the worst of circumstances, just as Paul's. Christ was there and called him to rejoice. The second use of admonition, be admonished, humble yourself. Let trials and tribulations work patience and humility rather than remember in Revelation, we'll look at this later, when the people are cursed and they have trials and troubles, they blaspheme God. They're hardened in their hearts. We are to humble ourselves under difficulties such as David experienced and such as which Psalm 34 discusses. Augustine says, God is high, let a Christian be lowly. God's up here, you be down here. That's the appropriate relationship. Let the Christian be lowly. If he would that the most high God draw nigh unto him, let him be lowly. A great mystery, brethren. God is above all. Thou raisest thyself and touchest not him. So there you are. You can raise yourself up in pride. You won't be able to touch God. He will resist you. He goes on. Thou humblest thyself, he descendeth unto thee. God will come down to you if you humble yourself. So we must humble ourselves. Would you have God be present with you in anger or in grace and salvation to revive you and give you his joy or to crush you in his wrath? Be humble and lowly and you will have God to revive you, to give you his joy, to give you his encouragement that Jesus Christ died for thee. Calvin says on this passage that God saves his people when they were brought low, even almost to the very death or half dead, he says. Die to yourself then that you may live unto God. Let's turn back to Psalm 34, looking at verse 19. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth them out of them all. Remember, we're in an alphabetic psalm, raboth, many, that is the Hebrew word for a lot of things. Many are the afflictions. Afflictions here is just the word for evil, like a sin, an evil deed. Here it is an evil suffering, a physical evil, an affliction, or a trouble that comes upon someone. Righteous people have a lot of these. The saints all suffer these things. But doesn't Psalm 3210 tell us that many are the afflictions, or many wicked people will get all these sorrows? Won't they have troubles and sorrows? But he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Don't the wicked have a lot of troubles and sufferings? Westminster Annotations answer this question. The difference is God sends them to the righteous as either cures or preservatives from spiritual evils, which would occasion far greater mischief. So when the righteous man is afflicted and troubled in his life, God is saving us from worse difficulties, from sins and evils of our soul that would destroy us. Please open to Psalm 119, page 654. We'll look at verse 67 and then verse 71. God brings evils and afflictions upon his people as cures. Verse 67. Before I was afflicted, so I had a good life, I had an easy life, I wasn't suffering these physical problems or these spiritual difficulties. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept thy word. When we are at ease, we tend to go to our own lust, we go astray. But here notice, he's in God's school, he's in God's family. God loves him and cares for him. So when God afflicts him, it's so that he can keep God's word. Look down at 71. It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes. There we see the way of man in his own sinfulness in verse 67. I went astray, now what? I've learned your statutes. And what came between those two is affliction. The oppression down with troubles and sorrows, that's literally what that means, affliction there, is to be pressed down or oppressed by some trouble. Like tribulation in the New Testament, like that wheel came down and crushed the grains in the New Testament language. Please turn over to Proverbs 24, verse 16. Again, concerning the godly man and his falls and troubles. Proverbs 24, 16. For a just man falleth seven times and riseth up again, but the wicked shall fall into mischief. Now there are two different verbs here in the Hebrew for fall. It says fall for both in our English Bibles. The first fall for the just man is when a person fails or is cast down or lies down or falls, that's the idea. The second fall is where someone stumbles, like a stumbling block is set for them and they trip over it, and they're thrown down to the ground, even nations. God said he would throw nations down, that's the word. Those nations would fall because God would judge them. They would stumble, in other words, from a divine stupor and judgment against them. God will cause even his people to fall in these instances. Why? For their good. He will raise them up again and cause them to depend on him in greater measure. I observed then that the way to God's kingdom is through much tribulation, much sorrow. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. If we desire to go to the heavenly city, there will be troubles upon our pathway. But our afflictions are good for us. What do they teach us? What did we see? We learn God's statutes. We keep his word. We draw near to him. We are crushed and humbled so that he might draw near to us and revive our spirits. Dixon says, thus will the Lord conform the redeemed to their head. Did Christ have troubles? Did he have afflictions? Did he have false accusations, hungers, toils? Did he have people who would nag him, people who would hate him, people who would lie about him? Did he have close friends that he went to the house of God with them and they betrayed him? He had all these and more. God wants to conform us to our head, our Lord Jesus Christ. Dixon goes on, he wants to try and train them up in faith and patient submission to God's will, teach them to pray and wait on and give proof of the sincerity of the grace given to them. God wants us to know, not for his sake, but for our sake to know the sincerity of our faith. And so he brings us into troubles. What will we do in those troubles? Will we call upon him and pray to him? or will we harden ourselves against him? Will we wait on him or impatiently deny him? This is why God brings many afflictions to his people. What use then? Take heart. If you are beloved by God, your sufferings are for your good. Your labors and sorrows now will produce joy then. Luke 6, 21, blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. There it is, you have sorrows now, then you will have laughter. Verse 25, our Lord says of that same passage, woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep. Our labors go first, our rest comes second. The wicked, their rest is now, that's it, their best life is now. What do they get at the end? Tribulation and anguish and sorrow. Augustine again. But after a few tribulations or none, these shall come to tribulation everlasting, whence they shall never be delivered. But the righteous, after many tribulations, shall come to peace everlasting, where they shall never suffer any evil. Christ's burden than his light, is it not? Though we may suffer much in this life and have many afflictions, yet the burden we have is one where Christ says, I will be with you, Paul, while you were there in that prison cell. I will be with you, servant of God, you who love the Lord, you who trust in him, I will be with you. I will be near to you to save you. Verse 20, let's turn back to Psalm 34, verse 20. He keepeth all his bones, not one of them is broken. Again, this is the Shomer, the Lord keepeth, he keepeth all his bones. Not one of them is broken, he says. Please open to Exodus chapter 12 concerning the institution of the Passover. Exodus 12, page 74 of your Pew Bibles. God is in process of preparing his people to leave Egypt. He's giving them instructions of what they should do on the very night that they leave and future observance of this Passover meal. We'll start reading at verse 43. And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the Passover. There shall no stranger eat thereof. But every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof. In one house shall it be eaten. Thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of thine house, neither shall you break a bone thereof. The integrity of the bones is maintained. Not one of his bones is broken. Turn over to John, chapter 19, page 1090 of your Pew Bibles, for the fulfillment of this mysterious passage in Exodus 12. Do you recall, kids, when our Lord was crucified, he had two thieves, one on either side? And when the Romans saw that the day was coming to an end, they would go and they would crack the legs of those crucified men so that they would sink down and they would die of suffocation. That was their merciful way of dispatching them. Verse 31. The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation that the body should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was an high day, besought Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. Then came the soldiers and break the legs of the first and of the other, which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they break not his legs. But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith there came out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he sayeth true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, a bone of him shall not be broken. There we see God, in a mystery, is preparing the people in the Passover itself and in the prophecy of David concerning the safety of God's people, the deliverance of the body of Christ, which is what? That is us. and the mystery of Christ's crucifixion shadowed forth in the Passover meal. Eat it in one house and do not break one bone of it. Why? Because not one bone of him shall be broken. These passages again prophesy to us concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. As they ate that Passover, they did not know it, but God was preaching the gospel to them in that mystery. We are bones of his bone of Christ's body. We are flesh of his flesh and none of us shall be broken. The stability will remain. We will not be crushed by these trials in other words, because our Lord delivered us and he has redeemed us and we will be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. This and this alone is what makes Psalm 34 so encouraging. How can we have a catalog of praises in verses 1 through 10? How can we have a school where the Father teaches us to fear the Lord only and in this way alone because Christ was crucified for us and not a bone of his would be broken? Christ atoned for us and therefore we will be humbled before God and receive his salvation. All the good that comes out of our afflictions is not because we have a stiff upper lip and we can grit and bear it and do it in our own strength. No, it's because Christ has redeemed us. Christ has taken the poison out of our affliction and he has put honey in its stead. That's why, though many are the afflictions of the righteous, the Lord shall save them and deliver them out of them all. That is the only means through our Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone. Verse 21, please turn back to Psalm 34, verse 21. Evil shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate. The verb here is shall slay, temotheph, temotheph, shall slay for the Hebrew letter tau. Evil shall slay the wicked. Now we talked about the afflictions. Many are the afflictions in verse 19. That's the same word as evil here. Rah, or rah-ah in this case. It's the same word for afflictions in verse 19. The meaning there is that the wicked are destroyed by their afflictions. Remember when the wicked fell in Proverbs 24, did he get up? No, it was the righteous who fell seven times and got up every single time. The wicked, they are pushed down and destroyed. They have no hope of recovery. Evil shall slay them. Now this word evil can mean both the evil of sin, moral evil, and it can mean the evil of suffering or the afflictions. So here I believe that the Holy Spirit chose this word because it could mean both and both are true. The moral evils of the wicked, they destroy them. The sufferings of the wicked, those destroy them as well. I observe then that the enemies of Christ, that is those who hate the righteous, Jesus Christ being the righteous one, Those who hate Christ and his people will be destroyed both by their sin and by their misery. Calvin says their wickedness with which they think themselves fortified shall fall upon their own heads. The wicked rolls a rock up a hill against the righteous and it falls back down on himself. He digs a pit to catch the righteous and he falls in it himself. Please open to Proverbs chapter 11, page 676. Proverbs 11. We'll look at verses three through six there. Starting at verse three. The integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them. Their moral evil will be their ruin. Verse four. Riches profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death. The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way, but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness. Wicked people, and all of us, are tempted to think that if I do this evil thing, it will be my joy, it will be my delight, it will be my deliverance. It will fortify me against the troubles of this life if I just lie. Remember the heathen Roman? Did some good things. What did he do that was wrong in his letter? He lied, didn't he? He embellished. He thought that if I sin, that will fortify my position in the world, that will make my life better. But is that the case, that if you embellish and lie, that your life will be better? Maybe for a time, there is the pleasure of sin for a season, the Bible acknowledges it. But what is the long-term effect? It will destroy you. The wicked shall fall by his own wickedness. Your sin will find you out, the Bible says. Verse six, the righteousness of the upright shall deliver him, but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness. Now if you've ever tried to split wood, and some of you I know have, do you notice what is the hardest wood to split? It's the ones with those big knots. The straight wood, you put your ax on it, it splits easy, easy as cake, right? And then you get that knotty wood. Does it work? Does it split? No, it doesn't. It says, I'm not gonna move. I'm not gonna let you cut me. I'm not gonna do what you want. I'm gonna do what I want. The wicked is naughty. He's filled with perversity and crookedness. And he thinks that his naughtiness will be his salvation. He thinks his perversity will make his life good. But it's actually a trap that he has set for himself that will take and destroy him. Evil shall slay the wicked. Their own sin will be their undoing. Please open to Revelation 16 concerning the evil of affliction. Not just their moral evil shall destroy them, but also the evil of afflictions. The poison of the affliction has not been removed by faith in Jesus Christ, so the affliction ruins them. Revelation 16, verses 10 and 11, and then we'll read verse 21. Verse 10. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast, and his kingdom was full of darkness, and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. What was the natural outcome of seeing a supernatural plague poured out on your kingdom and on the earth? Wouldn't it be to say, you know, there's some force here beyond my control. Can I be reconciled to that force? Can I please get right with this king? Is that what they said? Did they come to their senses? They didn't. The very tongue that they gnaw for pain they use to blaspheme the God who inflicted the pain. Verse 21. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent. And men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, for the plague thereof was exceeding great. Their afflictions ruined them, their sins ruined them. Do not then be one of these wicked enemies of Jesus Christ. And if you are Jesus' people, Be encouraged, take consolation from this. Do your enemies seek your destruction? Do they rage against the Lord and against his anointed? Do some seek to exterminate the human race? Life with man as the image of God, do you know that they think that man is a parasite on the earth? Mother Earth, their goddess, must be preserved from these horrible parasites who extract minerals and oil out of the earth. How awful of them. We need to return to nature, man. We need to be green. So we need to get rid of this parasite called man. We can take encouragement from this very thing. They will never succeed. Their trap that they lay is for themselves. Their pleasures in sin and their wicked purposes will be undone by the Lord. The Lord sits in heaven as they plot against him. And what does he do? Is he wringing his hands? Oh no, what's gonna happen to my kingdom? Oh no, are people gonna get saved anymore? Are they gonna realize it? No, he's laughing at them. What a joke. They think they can overcome the Lord and His anointed? They think they can break His bands and cast them away from them? What a joke! They will not have the victory. Their sorrows and their miseries will come upon them in due time. Their foot shall slip. God will cause their evil, their ill, to slay them. They think they fortify themselves with it. They bring themselves to destruction. Calvin again, let this be to us as a wall of brass and sure defense. Many ancient cities were made out of wood around the walls or stone and clay and sand. This is a wall of brass, you can't get through this. That however numerous the enemies which beset us may be, we should not be afraid because they are already devoted to destruction. Anthony Fauci's ticket is written. He's already devoted to destruction. Bill Gates cannot win. The Lord and his anointed will reign supremely over all the nations. His adversaries cannot overcome. George Soros will not control the future. This is our wall of brass and our sure and fearless protection. Christ is on his throne and evil shall slay the wicked. Verse 21, let's turn back. Psalm 34, verse 21. It says that evil shall slay the wicked and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate. This word desolation is like when a person is so bad and so wicked and found to be so guilty that everybody says, get out of here. We don't want you here. Remember Cain, a wanderer in the earth, cast out from the people of God? That's the idea of desolation. You suffer the punishment eternally of outer darkness if you hate the righteous, if you hate Christ or his members. You are all alone. No communion with God, no communion with man. That's desolation. among the dead in outer darkness. And we'll see this contrast with verse 22. Let's read it. The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants, and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate. Same word in the Hebrew. No desolation for the godly, for the faithful, nothing but desolation for those who hate Christ and his body, the church. Evil shall slay the wicked, they shall be desolate, and we shall not be desolate. Our hopes will never be confounded. Why? Because the Lord redeemeth the soul of his servant. This again is what Christ accomplished when none of his bones were broken. Notice he says, the soul is redeemed of his servants. Why the soul? The soul being the nobler part, this is common in scripture, the nobler part is put for the whole of man, both body and soul. Christ has redeemed us entirely. None of them, he says, that trust in him shall be desolate. Or the Geneva Bible reads, none that trust in him shall perish. Does that sound familiar? This is the same message as John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Remember, none of his bones will be broken. That whosoever believeth in him, that is, who trust in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. no desolation, no condemnation, no judgment. Note then the parallel. Here in this verse, verse 22, the Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants, and none of them that trust in him. Servants of God, his slaves, are those who trust him, those who have faith. To trust Christ is to be his slave. To be redeemed by Christ means you will not perish. That's how this verse does in parallels. The Lord redeemeth, they shall not be desolate. You are his slave, you trust in him. The haters of Christ, however, those who hate the righteous, they shall be desolate, whereas believers, none shall be desolate. I observed then that faith in Christ and redemption from destruction and desolation are inseparably joined together. If we believe in the Lord, if we trust in Christ, there is something that cannot get away from that that is inseparably joined together, and that is You will be redeemed and have no desolation. If you believe in Jesus, you shall never perish, he says. This is part of God's testament. This is what he has willed to everyone who believes. All the goods are yours. So then what use of this believe in Jesus Christ? whose bones were not broken, who fulfilled the Passover for our redemption from transgressions. Trust in him and you will never be desolate. His redemption produces and secures everlasting communion with God and with his people and with the holy angels in heaven. Believe then on this Christ, serve him. Don't just say, I believe, but do his bidding. Is he your master? The word doulos in Greek, the servant, Paul is a servant of Christ, he says, he's a doulos. It means he's got a chain that goes over to his master and his will is bound by that chain to the will of his master. That is what it means to be the slave of Christ. David Dixon again. As the wicked are servants of sin, and serve an ill master, and get an ill reward, so the godly are servants of righteousness, and have God for their master, and shall have delivery and salvation for their reward. What a better master. This is the yoke of Jesus Christ. This is that burden that is light and easy. Christ, though He breaks us, though He brings us down, He comes to revive and to give us new life, to give us redemption, an eternal reward of never being desolate. We must be broken of our own confidence in ourselves. That's vain anyways. We can't keep it for long. It eventually leaves us either in hell or when we go to heaven. You can't hold on to your own wisdom, your own strength, and your own righteousness. Lose those and gain it all in Jesus Christ. Place that faith in Christ and not in yourselves. God willing, next week, we will pick up with a survey for three or four weeks where we'll look at the rest of David's life all the way up until the sin with Bathsheba. Then after that, we'll look at Psalm 32. And God willing, following that, we'll return to Romans chapter four. We've seen the nearness of God, both in his omnipresence today, as well as in the presence of grace and salvation. We've seen that we have encouragement in our sufferings, that Christ is humbling us and drawing us near to himself. We saw our duty to humble ourselves since God is high. As we heard, let the Christian be lowly. We saw the way to God's kingdom is through many tribulations as God conforms us to our head, Jesus Christ. We saw our consolation that though we sorrow now, we shall laugh then. We saw the mystery of Christ in the Passover and in this prophecy in Psalm 34, none of his bones were broken. And that all the praises of this Psalm are through the redemption we have in Christ. The fear of God taught in this Psalm is through our Lord Jesus Christ. And our hope of redemption is all tied together in the mystery of the gospel. We saw how the enemies of Christ and his people will be destroyed by their own sin and misery. But this is a consolation to us, a wall of brass that our enemies will not prevail. And finally, we saw that redemption through faith in Christ's blood is the thing that secures all these blessings for us. And therefore, we have a duty to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to everyone who believes. Amen. Let's pray.