Text for the sermon this evening is Psalm 89, verse 14. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Mercy and truth go before your face. Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, Psalm 89 elegantly describes God's covenant of grace made with Christ and his spiritual seed in him under the type of God's covenant with David as king and his posterity. Psalm 89 speaks of Christ, the true David, whom God promised to set as mediatorial king upon his holy hill of Zion and in whom David's family and kingdom shall be perpetual. This is the King who rules in righteousness and whose seed is to be established forever, whose throne shall be built up unto all generations. And here in this verse, verse 14 in Psalm 89, we see how these foundations of righteousness and justice were laid. When the throne of grace was to be erected for the benefit of poor criminal sinners. Righteousness and justice stood up in behalf of a holy but broken law and require the sinner to satisfy all its demands before there could be a throne of grace erected for the benefit of sinners. and the Lord Jesus Christ answers for the sinner. Scripture often speaks of Christ's throne. We read in Hebrews 1, verse 8, But to the Son the Father says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. Christ's throne is called a throne of glory in the Bible, which refers to the glory and majesty of the divine nature. Christ's throne is also called a throne of justice. where he judges sinners according to the holy justice of his law or the broken covenant made with Adam. At this throne of God's justice, every unbelieving sinner is condemned already. And from this throne, God will pronounce their final and irreversible judgment on that last day. Depart from me, you cursed. into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Psalm 130 verse 3 tells us, if you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Christ's throne is also called a throne of grace. Hebrews 4 verse 16 says, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. And this is the throne that our text in Psalm 89 verse 14 speaks of. Mercy and truth go before the face of God who sits on the throne and a joyful sound of peace and pardon and salvation issues forth from Christ to perishing sinners. The thrones of many earthly rulers are built with violence and with oppression, but the throne of God's kingdom of grace is established in righteousness and in justice. The Son of God, as the surety of sinners, submitted himself to satisfy God's holy justice and to undergo the judgment and the condemnation of God's holy but broken law, by which Christ brings in everlasting righteousness. And upon this sure foundation the throne of grace is established and shall ever stand. In order to establish a throne of grace for the benefit of poor criminal sinners, righteousness and justice stand up in behalf of God's holy but broken law and require every sinner to satisfy its demands. Christ answers for the sinner. First, righteousness requires of the sinner, on behalf of God's holy law, perfect obedience to its commands, pleading the truth of God. Otherwise, there could be no throne of grace erected for the benefit of sinners, since it cannot be set up on the ruins of the holy law of God. And therefore, righteousness says to the sinner in the words of Jesus in Matthew 19, verse 17, if you will enter into life, keep the commandments. But sinful man is not able to do this. And if the throne of grace can only stand on this foundation, then sinful man must lose the benefit of it forever. Alas, then must all perish? No, Jesus Christ answers for his own people. What they could not do, he did. He presents himself and whatever God's righteousness has to demand of sinners in order to lay this foundation of God's throne of grace, Christ provides. Hear the demands of God's righteousness. The first demand is your nature must be absolutely pure and holy. For if the fountain be poisoned with sin, how can the streams be anything but poisoned also? And that is why Job says in Job 14 verse four, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one. And the apostle John writes in Revelation chapter 21 verse 27, but there shall by no means enter it, that is heaven, anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. Without the law being satisfied in this point, there is no grace and there is no mercy for you and me. Alas, the sinner can never answer this. He has a corrupt nature. He cannot purify it. Proverbs 20, verse nine, who can say I've made my heart clean? I am pure from my sin. He was born in sin. Can he enter again into his mother's womb and be born over again without sin? No, but Christ answers this demand for his people. God's holy law shall have all that it asks. And therefore, the Son of God takes to himself a true body and soul, both without sin. The ancient of days becomes an infant of days. He is conceived. In the womb of the Virgin Mary, without spot or blemish, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and in due time born without sin, His nature was not in the least tainted, but absolutely free of the least seed of sin. Here is now such a birth, such a nature, as the law requires. So that demand is answered. Christ removes that bar in the sinner's way. The second demand is you must obey every command of the whole law of God. Your obedience must be as broad as the law of God itself. If you only obey some, not all, a curse shall come on you and not a blessing. Galatians 3 verse 10, cursed is everyone who continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. Alas, what can the sinner do with this? He has lost much of the knowledge of the law of God. Many of these commands he does not even know, and yet ignorance of the law excuses no one. Many are quite contrary to his grain, such as love your enemies, Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Forgive those who sin against you. There are many of God's commands that if his life were a thousand times depending on them, and he would set himself with the utmost diligence and watchfulness, he will break them at times, even by vain thoughts or by sinful lusts. Christ answers this too. He obeyed all the law. He fulfilled all righteousness. 1 Peter 2, verse 22, the apostle quotes Isaiah 53, verse nine, concerning the Lord Jesus, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. He made the law. He could not but know it in every point. It was the very transcript of his own holy nature. He fulfills it in every jot and every tittle. He says in Matthew chapter five, verse 17, do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. He obeyed the law both externally and also internally in his heart and in his life. He did not balk at its hardest commands. He loved his enemies and denied himself. Not one idle word ever dropped from his holy mouth. A vain thought could never run through his holy heart. The third demand is every part of your obedience must meet the highest pitch and degree. that the law requires. Jesus says in Matthew 22 verse 37, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. If the least of anything that God requires be wanting or missing, there can be no favor. even if you are sincere, even if you desire to do better, even if you are sorry from the heart for your sins, you cannot and you will not be accepted by God. Alas, the sinner shall as soon reach the clouds with his hands as reach this perfection to the highest degree that God's holy law requires. Let him do his best. Corruption clogs him so that he can never mount to the top. Let him be praying never so fervently there's still some coldness in him. His faith is mixed with unbelief. His very sincerity is not without a mixture of hypocrisy. Christ answers this too. His love to his father was most pure, most ardent, most intense. It flamed in his holy breast to the utmost point that the law of God could require. His love to men was incomparable. He went to the utmost boundaries of love with them. Every action of his was absolutely spotless, perfectly refined, and without the least mixture of imperfection. And the fourth demand, is all this must be continued to the end without the least trip in even the one jot or tittle. If you could live all your days in a course of perfect obedience, but at the hour of death, one vain thought ran through your heart, all is gone. Alas, the sinner can never answer this. He cannot keep perfectly right one year, one day, one hour, or even one minute. Even if a thousand hells depended upon it, Christ satisfied this demand too. The Apostle Paul writes in Philippians 2, verse 8, that Jesus became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. The first Adam started out well, but he tripped quickly and fell. The second Adam continued to the very end. The law could never, in its greatest rigor, convict him of the least sin from the womb to the grave by day or night, alone or in the company of others. His heart and his life shone in holiness. before His Father and the world in all its brilliant brightness without the least cloud or spot to stain it. And thus the first foundation of the throne of grace, God's righteousness, was laid. Second, before the throne can stand for all this, justice, for God's just judgment, On behalf of the broken law requires that the sinner satisfy for the wrong done to the honor and to the law of God. Justice or just judgment taking the sinner by the throat says pay what you owe. You are in debt to the justice of God for sins that you have committed. You must satisfy the just threats of God's holy law and bear the curse And without this satisfaction, there can be no grace, no mercy shown. Then the sinner might say in the words of Micah, chapter six, verse seven, will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, 10 thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? No. These are too lowly, too base, too unworthy to satisfy God's justice. Jesus says in Psalm 40 verse six, sacrifice and offering you did not desire, my ears you have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering you did not require. Can kings and rulers and royal treasuries filled with gold and silver and diamonds and jewels not satisfy for this debt? No, they cannot. If they would sell their crowns and sell their kingdoms and dig up all the gold in the earth and lay it down, it will not pay their own debt. Even kings themselves must have someone to take their place. and pay the debt for them, or else they are ruined. May not mighty angels undertake for their debt, rather than that sinful human beings be destroyed, be ruined forever? Alas, they cannot. They are not able. They would be broken with the payment of the thousandth part of it, and the debt would never be paid for us. No creature in heaven or earth can answer the high demands of God's justice, God's just judgment. And then the mediator Jesus Christ said in Psalm 40 verse seven, behold, I come in the scroll of the book it is written of me. What is God's justice or God's just judgment demand of the sinner? The first demand is, Sinner, you must suffer for the breaking of God's holy law. You must die the death, for the word has gone out of the Lord's mouth. In Genesis 2, verse 17, in the day that you eat of that tree, that forbidden fruit, you shall surely die. Alas, how shall this be answered? If the sinner give his own life for it, what does he have left? If death armed with law vengeance, once get him down, it will hold him down forever. Oh, will not bearing crosses do it? No, God's justice, God's just judgment requires that we bear curses, not crosses. May not tears for sin do it? No, God requires the shedding of blood, not the pouring out of water. The Lord says in Hebrews 9, verse 22, and without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. But Christ satisfies the demand. He presents himself to the sword of God's justice, and God's judgment is executed on him. The prophet Zechariah declares in chapter 13 of his book, verse 7, Awake, O sword against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion, says the Lord of hosts. Death armed with its sting and all the force a broken law gave it falls on him. sheds his precious blood, wounds him to the heart, separates soul and body, carries him prisoner to the grave, and lays him in the dust of death. Death gave him the first fall, but because he was God, he rises again. And death having received its due, he brings away the keys of hell and death with him. The second demand is more particular. Sinner, your sufferings must be universal in the whole man. That is just judgment, for your sinning has been universal in the whole man. That body of yours as the instrument of sin must suffer. That head that contrived the mischief against the law must be wounded. That heart, the spring of evil, must be pierced. These feet that have carried you to do so many sins and these hands that have wrought so much iniquity must be punished. And your soul must suffer chiefly, for it is the principal actor in all that you have done against the holy God. Who can endure this? It is a thousand deaths in one. Christ satisfies this demand also. He suffers in his body. His head is crowned with thorns. His heart is like wax. It is melted in the midst of his bowels, to use Jesus' own words in Psalm 22, verse 14. His feet and his hands are pierced. His tongue clings to his jaws. His bones are out of joint. His body has nothing but shame to cover it. His strength is dried up. The wrath of God fell upon his soul. He was troubled. amazed in the deepest agony. The arrows dipped in the curse were shot into his soul until the law had no more to require. The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3 verse 13, Christ has redeemed us. He's bought us back from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. The third demand is, Your sufferings, sinner, must be most exquisite. You shall have no pity, no sparing, but judgment without mercy. This is just judgment. This is justice. Ah, who is able to abide this? Who can dwell with the devouring fire? It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Hebrews 10, verse 31. But Christ satisfies this too. God did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all. Though his body was most refined in temperament, and so his senses were most sensitive, most exquisite, his death was a most tormenting death. In his death, he was denied benefits that are not refused to criminals. His eyes were denied the light of the sun. His ears were grated with mocking, scoffing, scorning, and cruel insults. He got vinegar to drink, mingled with gall. He was in intense pain, as of a woman in childbirth, the travail of his soul. He had no help in it, and he died in it. The fourth demand is, your sufferings, sinner, must be infinite. It is justice. It is just judgment. For it is infinite justice you have offended. Ah, who is able to endure this? Saddest of all, this is killing thousand times. Universal, exquisite, yet infinite. Who can dwell with everlasting burnings? It is the hell of hell and must fill a finite being with despair to the very brim and even running over. Christ answers this too. He was God and therefore infinite. His sufferings, though not infinite in duration, yet were infinite in value. What the creature could only have borne piecemeal, without end, Jesus bears all together. The fifth demand is, your sufferings must be voluntary. God hates robbery for burnt offering. If you murmur at all under your sufferings, it will be new sin and mar the acceptance of your sacrifice. And then God's holy justice, God's just judgment will repeat its demands all over again. What man can perform this? The weight of God's wrath makes the devils and the damned to roar. Man cannot bear the intense pain of gout or kidney stones, nor even a stitch in his side without impatience. But Christ satisfies this too. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent. So he opened not his mouth. Isaiah 53 verse seven. In all his sufferings, he never had the least wrong or unbecoming thought of God. He never murmured in the least. He willingly underwent all the suffering When his hour came, though he was able to rescue himself, he would not. He meekly prays for his murderers, even when he was in the worst agony. Thus, the demand of God's holy justice is satisfied. This is how Christ laid the foundations of righteousness and justice for the throne of God's grace to stand on. God's throne of grace stands on these two foundations for the benefit of poor, unworthy sinners. And what are some of the ways that we should apply this in our lives? First, sinners, come to God through Jesus Christ. And while God is on His throne of grace to you, settle your business for eternity. at this throne, the throne of His grace, not the throne of His justice. What is your business at the throne of grace? More generally, your great and comprehensive business at the throne of grace is to get God to be your God by a special covenant relation. Sinners, do you not know that you have lost God? that you are without God in the world? Sin has dissolved all the saving relation between God and Adam's lost posterity, and God's just and holy wrath abides on the rebels and the traitors who do not believe the Son, the Son of God. Hear good news from God's throne of grace to you who stand condemned at the bar of God's justice. Hebrews chapter 8, verse 10. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Incline your ear and come to me. Here and your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Isaiah 55, verse three. If you have that secured, your business for eternity is secured. How should we manage that business at the throne of God's grace? First, believe and apply to yourselves that this covenant of grace is offered to you from the throne of God's rich grace and mercy. The Lord has given His word that the offer of His covenant of grace and everlasting salvation in Jesus Christ comes to all to whom the gospel comes. The Lord declares in Isaiah 55, Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you have no money, come buy and eat. Yes, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for that which does not satisfy. Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to me. Herein your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the sure mercies of David. Indeed, I have given him as a witness to the people, a leader and commander for the people." If you had a voice from heaven calling and offering it to you by name. Would you not believe it? You have a more sure word of prophecy which reaches you wherever you are. Jesus says in Revelation 3 verse 20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me. Revelation 22, verse 17, whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. If you do not believe what God promises, you cannot be in covenant with Christ, and so you will surely perish without remedy. Perhaps you object, but how can I believe that God will ever be my God when I'm such a monstrous, vile sinner? Look to the foundations of God's throne of grace, and you will see a perfect righteousness and a complete satisfaction for all your sins. That is how God in Christ can erect this throne of grace and be your God, even though you are such a monstrous, vile sinner. This truth is written in the characters of the precious blood of the Son of God. To what purpose did Jesus Christ shed His blood if it could not secure the business of any poor sinner at the throne of God's grace? 1 John 1, verse 7, the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. The second way that we should manage our business at the throne of grace is consent sincerely and honestly to the covenant, and your business is done. Isaiah 44, verse 5, one will say, I am the Lord's. Another will call himself by the name of Jacob. Another will write with his hand, the Lord's, and name himself by the name of Israel. Let your souls and your hearts open this day to the offer and consent, agree that from henceforth God shall be your God in Christ and you shall be his. If you are sincere in taking him for your God, you will let other gods go, the devil, the world, sinful lusts, idols, whatever fondness you have had for something shall no more be your God. Cast it to the bats and to the moles. You will consent to be His only, His completely, His forever, to take part with Him and His people for better and for worse. What is your business at the throne of grace? More particularly, it is to obtain supply for all your wants, for all your needs, in that God of grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4, verse 16, let us come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Here at the throne of grace, God's throne of grace, in Jesus Christ is the place of supply. and do not think it strange, for here is the price of all our mercies, the obedience and the death of the Lord Jesus Himself. It is your business to get pardon and peace with God, and that is weighty business that can be done nowhere else. Everywhere else but at the throne of grace you will meet the flaming sword holding you off from pardon and peace. Pardoned sin will be a sinking weight to your soul. Lack of peace with God will hide peace from your eyes forever. If your eyes are opened, come and ply your business at the throne of God's grace. It is also your business to get the sanctifying spirit and his grace to make you holy. Without holiness, there is no happiness. Without the Holy Spirit, there is no holiness. As the fire that burned the incense was taken from the altar of burnt offering in the Old Testament temple, so the Holy Spirit comes to us from a crucified Christ. It is also your business to get a right to heaven and eternal life, that you may be happy in the world to come for all eternity. This business is absolutely necessary. Do not leave it until you are dying. Do it now and it will be a comfort to you on your deathbed. It is also your business to get a settled communication between the Lord and you so that you may come to the Lord in all the exigencies, in all the needs of your life. You have a ill world to go through. You will need prayer both for life and for godliness, and here you are to make the settlement for both. You may come to see sad days of public calamity in which those who cannot draw comfort from heaven must go without any comfort. and live in constant fear and distress and misery as so many are in our day, settle the communication with God that you might have comfort and peace. What are some motives to press this home to us tonight? First, God is on a throne of grace to transact with you in this place today. For there the throne of grace is wherever gospel ordinances are set up. He has covenanted once more with you here today. What shall be the result? Shall the business between heaven and you now be settled? If not, you will slight the king. enthroned again. And what will be the end of that? Second, it cost the Redeemer His precious blood to erect this throne of grace. If He had not died, we would have had no throne of grace to come to any more than the devils have. Do not slight the glorious and costly throne of God's grace. Third, your business at the throne is most weighty and most necessary. It is soul business, business for eternity, business that can be done nowhere else. If it be slighted or mismanaged here, it is gone. And if so, nothing can make up the loss. Jesus said in Matthew 16, verse 26, for what does it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? And lastly, it is a movable throne. It will not stand always for you. It has stood in some places where now it stands no more. Some churches that once were churches are now no more gospel churches of Jesus Christ. At death, you will have no more access to this throne of grace, if you slight it now, you do not know how soon the Lord may remove it. Christians, come believingly. Come with expectation of good, that when you hear the word, when you partake of the sacraments, God will bless you richly. Here, faith has the most firm foundation, righteousness and justice executed against sin in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator. He has answered all the demands. And therefore, the children are free, free from God's wrath, free to enjoy all the benefits of his purchase. Come with repenting, broken, bleeding hearts for sin, filled with the hatred of sin. See what Christ suffered for your sins. See the malignant nature of sin. Come with love. Remembering his love more than wine, behold how the Redeemer purchased the throne of his grace for you with his precious blood. When none in heaven or on earth was able to prevent your ruin, he stepped in. and lastly come with thankfulness. Thankfulness for the glorious work of redemption and admiration for that glorious work. Behold justice satisfied, truth preserved inviolate, and yet mercy and free amazing love magnified by God in infinite wisdom finding out this way. Amen. Heavenly Father, we are debtors to you and to your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to your grace, to your throne of grace, to your covenant of grace, that you should covenant with your Son to take our place. and to do all that we are unable to do and that we have failed to do and that we shall forever fail to do apart from your grace. To keep all of your law perfectly, completely, entirely, without the least sin or blemish or stain, and to satisfy all the holy demands of your justice, paying in full every aspect of that debt that we have incurred by our total depravity, by our rebellion against you, by our daily sins and transgressions of your holy law. Father, we are indebted to you, but we come boldly to your throne of grace tonight and pray, Lord God, that by the power and working of your Holy Spirit, our hearts may be melted our eyes may be opened, we may have faith to believe and to rest in Jesus Christ alone for salvation and to repent of our sins, to hate our sin, to turn from our sins unto you. Oh, Lord, exalt and glorify yourself, we pray, in the salvation of even the least and the greatest and all who are in between of sinners. We pray it in Jesus name. Amen.