We're going to be looking at Psalm 63 this morning. This is the Psalm of David. There are two possibilities when he wrote this psalm. Possibly when he was in the wilderness. Because the title says the Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. Could be when he was trying to escape from Saul. as Saul was pursuing him to kill him. Or it could be when David was trying to escape from his own son, Absalom. Which I kind of lean that he wrote it then because he mentions in verse 11, the king shall rejoice in God. And he was king at that time. He wasn't officially king when Saul was pursuing him, although he was the Lord's anointed. So it's probably a Psalm he wrote while he was fleeing from his own son, Absalom, until the Lord brought judgment upon Absalom. So if you're able to stand, we're gonna look at these 11 verses from Psalm 63. O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you. as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live. In your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food. And my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. when I remember you upon my bed and meditate on you in the watches of the night. For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth. They shall be given over to the power of the sword. They shall be apportioned for jackals. But the king shall rejoice in God. All who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped. Let's pray. Father, we just thank you, Father, that David is able to express his heart, but also, Father, the truth of who you are, that you are faithful. And Father, you offer us your love and your protection your sustaining power, the reality, Father, that the wicked one day will give an account, and that, Father, all things will be made right when the Lord Jesus returns. So, Father, as we look at your word this morning, again, I pray your Holy Spirit to move in our hearts, to draw us to you, and, Father, to strengthen us in your word and in our faith. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Maybe seated. As we look at the psalm, we want to see that David starts out with a word of affirmation. And he uses, oh God, you are my God. That's, hell, you are my hell. This is one of the, Psalms that are recognized as focusing on God as Elohim. And Elohim is the plural of El. Israel, the people of Israel, hesitated to use the name El many times because it was the name of the Canaanite God. And they did not want to associate Yahweh's name with the Canaanite God. But most scholars say that this, oh God, you are my God, is equivalent to expressing David's understanding that he is dealing with the covenant God. And so he's acknowledging a faithful, loving covenant God that he's in relationship with. And he's affirming that he's in relationship with Yahweh. As we would go through the Old Testament, he is the creator of heaven and earth. He is the great king above all kings. He is the compassionate and forgiving God. His power is great. His righteousness and his righteous judgment of the wicked is right. and he protects the needy and the lowly. And so David is acknowledging, he's giving a word of affirmation that he's in relationship to the true and living God. Sometimes believers are maybe accused of being arrogant when we would confess that we know God. Now Paul said, I think it's in Galatians, it's more important that God knows us than that we know God. It's more important that he has come to us in his grace and his mercy and revealed himself to us. But that's why Jesus came. In fact, the last part of that chapter 12 that I read from John, Jesus' essence said, whatever I said to you is what the Father has told me to say. And he said over and over again, particularly in John's gospel, the miracles I do are the ones that the Father has commanded me to do. And we can know the true and living God through Jesus Christ. I think I've told you before, my mother-in-law had a running conversation with a retired Roman Catholic priest. And she would ask him, do you know if you're going to heaven when you die? And his answer was, I don't know. I don't know. Now, mostly that's because of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. You don't know if you've got enough merit for God to declare you righteous in your own merit. So we believe the gospel is this, that God declares us righteous in Christ by His merit and not by ours. But in the Roman Catholic Church, as I've studied their teaching about salvation, It's not exactly this, but it seems like they have sanctification and justification reversed. We're justified by God. We're declared righteous by God, by faith in Jesus Christ. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, Romans 5.1. Romans 8.1, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And so we're declared righteous and we're justified in faith, and then we experience sanctification. It seems that Roman Catholic doctrine is you have to cooperate with God's grace to produce enough merit for God then to declare you justified. And so I think they reverse the process of salvation and it's insufficient because they're relying upon their works and their cooperation with God to be righteous before God. David knew God. You know, John writes in 1 John 5.13, he says, I've written these things that you may know that you have eternal life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. I remember hearing Adrian Rogers say, we have a no soul salvation. We can know that we have eternal life because the promises of God's word, not because of our performance. You know, if I could lose my salvation, I would have already done that. But because we're secure in the work of Christ, we have that security. And David had this sense of security that he knew the true and living God. And then there's this word of aspiration, this desire in his heart. He was desiring God with his whole being. He said, oh God, you are my God, earnestly. Some translate, I think King James translates that, early will I seek you. And it could be because the root there is for the word dawn in Hebrew. So that's why some translators translate that early. Early will I seek you. Now most, I've read Spurgeon, he takes that that we should do that every morning. We should do that as early as we can in our life. When I was 15, I surrendered to the ministry when I was nine years old. I had a real sense of call to ministry when I was nine. And I've never deviated from that. I've never doubted that. It was on a Wednesday night at Watertower Baptist Church during prayer meeting. There was just a handful of us kids at prayer meeting, the rest was adults. And I don't even remember what my pastor said that night, but I had a real sense that God called me to ministry. And I went up after the prayer meeting and pulled on his coattail and told him, And he's my pastor that baptized me. He just recently passed away this past year at the age of, I think Kerry was 92 years old. And he affirmed me. He didn't say, oh, nice little boy, Sonny. You know, yeah, sure. But he affirmed me. And then when I was 15, I refined that call. I thank God refined that call in my life to the preaching and teaching ministry. And so I started thinking, if I'm gonna be preaching the Bible, I better learn the Bible. And so I think that was a real pivoting point in my life as when I was 15 years old, that I made a commitment to try to be a serious student of God's word. David said, earnestly, I seek you. God says, if you seek me with your whole heart, what will happen? If we seek God with our whole heart, God says we'll find Him. Not half-hearted, not just once a week or twice a week, but it's a process in our life and David understood that. He was desiring God in the wilderness. Now he's fleeing, he left, with Absalom, he's left the palace. He's been king for years. He's left the palace and he's fleeing into the wilderness. And he goes, what's wrong here? Something's wrong here. I'm the king and I'm out here in the wilderness. And my rebellious son is in the house there in Jerusalem, in the palace, if you want to call it a palace. but he was seeking him in the wilderness. I've said that, and one reason we're trying to study the Psalms, I've told people over again when they go through a tragedy, whether it's a death, or it's an illness, or relational, or financial, get in the Psalms. Because the Psalms were written out of struggles. And David said, I desire God, and I'm going to seek after him. And it doesn't matter my, I think somebody, I read somebody said, though he was in the desert, there was no desert in his heart. There was no barrenness in his heart. There was the presence of God. There was a presence of God's word in his heart. And that was what was sustaining him in the midst of the desert. And he was desiring God in the midnight of his soul. He says here, my flesh faints for you in the dry and weary land where there is no water. And then verse five, my soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food. My mouth will praise you with joyful lips when I remember you upon my bed and meditate on you in the watches of the night. I don't know about you, but many times it's in those moments in the midnight of my soul, and generally it's in the midnight, it's in the nighttime, that you really begin to contemplate what's in your heart, what's going on in your life. And David said, that's when I meditate upon the Lord. That's when I turn my face towards Zion. We're going to talk about that in just a moment. We turn our face to the sanctuary. We turn our face to what God can do with his power. We turn our face to what God can do as he reveals his glory to us. And ultimately, that glory is in Christ, and we'll see that in just a moment. But he has this desire. That's generally when we sin. When a desire for lesser things than a desire for God invade our heart and we yield to those desires. That's when we are placing an idol in front of our eyes. And it can be a good thing. And by itself, it can be, even serving God can become an idol to us. If we're looking to find purpose in that serving, or we're looking to find accolades in that service, or praise in that service, that can become a God. Many are looking for healing instead of the healer. They're looking for resources instead of the one who has all the resources. That's where some of this preaching is so inadequate and in many ways unbiblical. We're to seek after the Lord. And there's a word of acknowledgement. He looks upon his holiness. That's a picture of when he says, I look to the sanctuary. In David's time, this was the tabernacle. This is where God had designated that he would manifest his presence in the Shekinah glory. When the tabernacle was set up and the children of Israel got in their prescribed places surrounding the outer part of the tabernacle and they were in their positions, where did God's glory rest? Anybody remember? Pardon me? On the mercy seat. Now that's very significant. I think that's why I read from John 12. Jesus said, my hour has come to be glorified. And God is glorified. He says, I have glorified and I will glorify it again. Where God manifested his glory was at the cross. Now we view the cross many times as a place of something very, well, God covered it with darkness. we see as a place of great suffering, but God was glorified on that mercy seat. Now the mercy seat was the lid to what? What was it covering? What was the box called? The Ark of the Covenant, okay? What was inside the Ark of the Covenant? Three things. The manna, jar of manna, Ten Commandments, and Aaron's blood and rod, right? I've always viewed those three things, being in the Ark of the Covenant, representing the sins of the people. They rejected the authority of God in the commandments. They rejected the provision of God with a jar of manna. They were dissatisfied. David says here, my soul is satisfied like it's satisfied with the riches of food. Only God can satisfy my soul. But they weren't satisfied with the manna. They weren't satisfied with the doves in the wilderness. And they complained and griped. They weren't satisfied with the water that God provided. And then Aaron's blooded rod is they rejected the leadership of God in their life. And so I think those three items in the Ark of the Covenant represented the sins of the people. And so it took the mercy seed and the blood that was sprinkled on the mercy seed to cover the sins of the people. And that's where God glorified himself. God, I think I tried to emphasize this last week, God is not obligated to give mercy. He's not obligated to give grace. If it was an obligation, it wouldn't be mercy and it wouldn't be grace. It's just out of His pure nature that He has offered this mercy and offered this grace. Also in His nature, He must bring judgment, a sin. God would violate His holiness and His very being if He did not deal with sin. And so He must judge sin. And when He judges sin, He is righteous in His judgment. He is just in His judgment. And so those two aspects of judgment and mercy, judgment and grace, are the opportunity or the reality of all mankind. Either we'll experience the judgment of God, or we've experienced the grace of God. The reason we can experience the grace of God, because God didn't wink at our sins, he judged our sins in Christ, and he offers the forgiveness of sin. And so, David said, look to your sanctuary. And he sees the holiness of God. He sees the, like Isaiah, he sees God high and lifted up, and he sees God's holiness. And when he sees God's holiness, he recognizes that he needs the power of God in his life. He has a longing for the power of God in his life. And we don't long for the power of God just for the power of God. We long for the power of God because without his power, we can't be who God's called us to be. Now in the Old Testament, God's power was demonstrated at Mount Sinai. It was demonstrated in, in fact, I just read this this week. I'm reading a chronological process of reading through the Bible this year. And so in this passage, Deal here, you read the first 11 chapters of Genesis, then you jump over and read the whole book of Job, and then you come back to Genesis, and now I've been in Exodus, and God has just delivered his people, and with those 10 plagues, and God's power was demonstrated to deliver his people. And so in the Old Testament, the focus of God's power was in the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, and at Mount Sinai, where God revealed himself to his people. In the New Testament, God's power is focused where? You got a guess? At the cross, okay? And when Paul prays, when Paul prays for the Ephesian believers and the Colossian believers, and he prays really for us and we pray for each other, we pray for the resurrected power of who? Jesus to be in our life. And in the picture there is the resurrected power of Jesus enables us to walk in newness of life. It enables us to break old patterns in our life. It enables us to experience victory over sins and habits and what we used to be. Now we can become that new creation. And David is longing for the power of God to work in this situation. He's longing for the power of God to work in his life. He's living for the glory of God. He says, I look upon you in the sanctuary. I see you in your holiness. I see you in your justice and your righteousness. I behold your power and I behold your glory. Paul tells us that whatever we do in Word ID, we're to do what? For the glory of God. For God to get the glory. For God to... See, if my life and your life is pointing people to us, something's out of whack there. God's desire is to work in us and through us so that our lives point people where? to Jesus. Even when the disciples in Acts were preaching with boldness and God was using them, they said, these guys are uneducated country hayseeds. They've not gone to the synagogues. The only one that did was Paul. But one thing they said about him, they had been with who? Starts with a J and ends with a S. What they recognize is these men had been with Jesus. And a transformation of their life was because they had been with Jesus. And because what's going on in their life, it was pointing, even those that opposed them, it was pointing them to Jesus. David is desiring God to work in his life, to manifest his holiness, J.C. Ryle, that's R-Y-L-E, I think, has written a book called The Holiness of God. I would recommend you try to find that book and read that book. He really deals with the reality of God's holiness and how it relates to us and how we are to pursue it and to seek it, that our lives might be holy. And he's loving God in praise and worship. Unfortunately, many church people, and I'm not talking about people out there in the world, I'm just talking about in-house church people, a lot of times we think more highly of ourselves than we should. as I mentioned last week from David's Psalm 51, our life is to have a brokenness before us. And, you know, Paul in his writings, and part of it might be explained because of the audience they was writing to, but I think there was another aspect of it. In his early writings, I think it's in Galatians, he identified himself as least of the apostles. And then, I think it was writing to the Corinthians, he identifies himself as least of all the saints. And then when he writes his final letter to Timothy in 2 Timothy, when he knows he's gonna step into eternity because he's finished the race, he's faced the course, he's fought the battles, he identifies himself as the chief of what? Starts with an S and ends with an R. Or maybe an S. Sinners. And it's in the present tense. Now part of my take on that through the years has been, the closer Paul walked with the Lord, the more he realized how sinful he was as a man. The closer he got to Jesus, the more he realized the great grace that God has bestowed upon him. That's why John Newton wrote Amazing Grace. He says, that saved a wretch like me. They said of John Newton that he was probably the champion cursor on the ships. That his mouth was so foul that it even offended people that were lost. He became a captain of a slave ship. He had sunk deep into sin until God began to bring the verses of scripture that his mother had planted in his heart as a young boy. And as he feared for his life on an ocean voyage, thought he was going to die. As he spent time in Africa, the slave of a slave trader and his African wife, I think I told you before, would abuse Newton, beat him, would throw his food in the dirt and make him eat out of the dirt. And it wasn't until he was able to escape on a ship that he was able to escape that situation. But Newton says, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. David was worshiping God in song and praise, and he says, my lips are full of joy, because he knew the depth of what he was. If this is when he's in a wilderness with Absalom, this is post Bathsheba. This is post Nathan the prophet saying, thou art the man. This is post his confession of his sin. And he's realizing that God is not obligated, but out of his grace and mercy, he has come to David. He is David's God. He has forgiven David and he is offering David protection. That's part of what David understood. Verse seven, you have been my help in the shadow of your wings. I will sing for joy. Our gratitude toward God. Our thankfulness toward God, our joy toward God, our love toward him, is in relationship to understanding how wretched we really are. I can't remember the song, I think it's... There's a song, I can't remember the song now, but it's Saved... No, it's Saved a Wrench. For such a worm as I, what song is that? At Calvary, no, at the cross, at the cross. Do you know a lot of heminals have taken that out because they think that's offensive for such a worm as I? That God in His grace reached down in rich mercy, in rich grace, and we were worms. We were unworthy of His grace and His love. That's why these writers would write words like that. because they're trying to convey really how lost we are, how desperate we are. And David was loving God in praise and worship. That was a word of accountability. There is gonna be a day of reckoning. This is why the Bible says, and God says, vengeance is mine, I will repay. I remember reading the biography of George Whitefield. And he was attacked over and over again, just in almost entire ministry, particularly here in America. He was attacked by religious leaders, by pastors and others, because he was preaching the gospel and calling sinners to repentance. And people said, why don't you answer back? Why don't you defend yourself? And over and over again, Whitefield would say, God is my defender. God will vindicate me. And so he put his faith in the Lord. And that's part of what David is saying here. For you are my help in the shadow of your wings. I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth. That day is coming. Now, we're not to anticipate it with glee. Really, we're to anticipate it with sorrow in our heart, with tears in our eyes. But those who have rebelled against God will face a holy and righteous God. And as I mentioned last week, there's going to be a day of separation. And in all reality, every person up and down the street, every person across this metropolitan area, across this nation, around the world, either will be on the right hand of Christ or will be on the left hand of Christ. Those on his right will spend all eternity with him. Those on his left will be cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20, 11. Then I saw a great white throne and he who sat upon it From his presence, earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. Now see, this won't sell in a lot of churches. You won't hear Joel Osteen reading this passage of scripture. Because his false gospel is a focus on making your life better here by what you say and what you think. But the reality is, this is the reality. That there's going to be a day of accountability. That there's going to be a day of judgment. And the books were open. Then another book was open, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire, Gehenna. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. David knew a day of accountability was coming. It was a day of reckoning. It was a day of righteous judgment. One of the Psalms that intrigues me is Psalm 10. Why, oh Lord, do you stand afar off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In arrogance, the wicked hotly pursue the poor. Let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised. For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul. And the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord. In the pride of his face, the wicked does not seek him. All his thoughts are, there is no God. His ways prosper at all times. Your judgments are high out of his sight. As for all his foes, he puffs at them. He says in his heart, I shall not be moved. Therefore, throughout all generations, I shall not meet adversity. His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression. Under his tongue are mischief and iniquity. He sits in ambush in the villages and hiding places. He murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless. He lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket. He lurks when he may seize the poor. He seizes the poor when he draws them into his net. The helpless are crushed and sink down and fall by his might. He says in his heart, God has forgotten. He has hidden his face, he will never see it. Arise, O God, lift up your hand, forget not the afflicted. Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, you will not call to account? But do you see, for you note mischief and vexation that you may take it into your hands? To him the helpless commits himself. You have been the helper of the fatherless. Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer. Call his wickedness to account till you find none. The Lord is king forever and ever. The nations perish from his hand. O Lord, you hear the desires of the afflicted. You will strengthen their heart. You will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more. Now, Silas was asking, why isn't that happening now? But David knew that a day was coming that was going to happen. And so there's going to be a day of accountability. And we can rest assured in that. And it's going to be a righteous judgment. People say, well, God's a God of love. He's not going to allow anybody to go to hell. That's a lie from the pit of hell. It's a day of recompense. For those who seek my life, The seeds that destroy my life shall go down to the depths of the earth. They shall be given over to the power of the sword. They shall be a portion for the jackals. And I've always believed, it may be true, may not be true, but I think it's true. I think there's different depths of hell. I think a guy like Hitler is gonna be way down in the depths of hell. And the wrath of God fall upon him. That may not be true, but I just think that there's got to be proportion to the wickedness of man's heart. And so God is going to bring this judgment and punishment. And it's not out of anger. It is out of his wrath. We cannot equate God's wrath with our type of anger. Our type of anger comes from the Greek word thumos. which we get the word thunder, kind of explosive anger. The wrath of God that deals with sin is orge. I still hear my Greek and New Testament professor, Dr. Skazing, give his definition of orge. Orge is the eternal disposition of God because of his holiness, of his opposition to sin and for its destruction. And so out of God's holiness comes his righteous judgment to deal with sin, to punish sin, and destroy sin. And so there's going to be a recompense to these that have rebelled against God. It's a day of vindication. That's what Whitfield believed, that God was going to vindicate him who's going to vindicate his faith, who's going to vindicate his love for Christ, who's going to vindicate his proclamation of the truth. We can trust God for that. We don't have to defend. In some ways, you know, I believe in apologetics, and there's a lot of good apologetics out there that examine truth claims and demonstrate how false they would be according to the Word of God. But in all respects, in all reality, I don't have to defend the Word of God. Because it's going to do what? It's going to endure forever. God's Word is God's Word. It's going to endure forever because it's God's Word. Because God endures forever. And so we can trust the vindication of God's Word. We can trust the vindication of our lives. We can trust the vindication of the gospel. Because that day is coming when there's going to be an accountability. What this psalm says to me is I need to examine my heart to see how I am seeking after the Lord. I need to examine my heart to see if I am longing for His holiness and His power and His glory in my life. And it doesn't matter in what circumstances. You know, it's easy to do that on a mountain, but David said, I'm doing this in the wilderness. Again, though he was in the desert, there was no desert in his heart. There was no dryness in his heart because the Spirit of God was moving and restoring him and sustaining him. And he was recognizing that God was his helper. God was his sustainer. God is the source of our life. The Lord Jesus is the essence of our life. He's the giver of life. He's our sustainer of life. He is our righteous judge of life. And he does all that even in a dry and weary land. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you, Father, for your faithfulness to us. Lord, help us look at our heart to see how we are pursuing and what we are pursuing. Father, our only source of joy is seeking You. Our only source of life is in seeking You. And so, Father, stir our hearts. If they're dry, Father, water our hearts with Your Holy Spirit and with Your Word. And Father, help us to drink deeply from the well that only Jesus offers. Help us to feast from the table that's set before us by your grace in the Lord Jesus as the bread of life. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.