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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.
Broken... Not Broken
Series Life of David
| Sermon ID | 12422015516655 |
| Duration | 46:16 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Exodus 12:43-46; Psalm 34:18-22 |
| Language | English |
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