All right, let's read Psalm 81 together tonight. Psalm 81, it says in verse 1, sing aloud unto God our strength, make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. Take a psalm and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. blow up the trumpet in the new moon in the time appointed on our solemn feast day. For this was a statute for Israel and a law of the God of Jacob. This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony when he went out through the land of Egypt, where I heard a language that I understood not. I removed his shoulder from the burden, his hands were delivered from the pots. Thou callest in trouble, and I delivered thee, I answered thee in the secret place of thunder, I proved thee at the waters of Meribah, Selah. Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee, O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me. There shall no strange god be in thee, neither shalt thou worship any strange god. I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people would not hearken to my voice, and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust, and they walked in their own counsels. Oh, that my people had hearkened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued their iniquities, and turned my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him, but their time should have endured forever. He should have fed them also with the finest of wheat and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee. All right, so this psalm, you can see the first half of this psalm or so is talking about the praise that Israel ought to give to God. It says, sing aloud to God our strength, make a joyful noise to the God of Jacob. Take a psalm, bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery, and blow up the trumpet in the new moon. So that's the opening of the first half of this psalm. And then in the second half, it talks about the deliverance of Israel from Egypt and yet how they turned away from the Lord. He says, He told them, there shall no strange God be with them in verse 9. And then he says, I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, I will fill it, but my people would not hearken to my voice, and Israel would none of me. So you can see here that in this psalm there's these two big parts. The one is the praise and the joy that God's people ought to give to him in their song. And in the second part, of the psalm, the disappointing fact that Israel did not. They turned away from God and God gave them over to their own heart's lust. It says in verse 12, so I gave them up to their own heart's lust and they walked in their own counsels. So it's a very sad psalm in that sense. It even ends on a sad note. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee. But he didn't. He didn't, because they would none of him. And so in this psalm, there seems to be a disappointment. And I think, as I thought on this, what this psalm was saying here, I couldn't help but think of some places in scripture that I think are an excellent commentary on Psalm 81. And so that's what I want to consider here is some of these places in scripture. And the first one I want to look at is in Isaiah 65. If you look at Isaiah 65, it's helpful because it talks about how the Lord was found of those who did not seek him. In Isaiah 65 it says, I am sought of them that ask not for me. I am found of them that sought me not. I said, behold me, behold me to a nation that was not called by my name. So that's an amazing prophecy, a very bold prophecy that God would be found of those who didn't seek him. And he even says this, even though the Lord throughout scripture commands us to seek him. So that obviously in chapter 1, I'm sorry, chapter 65, Isaiah 65 verse 1, is talking about the grace of God to those who he saved. I'm going to also read verse 2 of that same chapter, Isaiah 65 verse 2. He said, I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people which walketh in a way that was not good after their own thoughts. Now that sounds like the second half of Psalm 81. He goes on in Isaiah 65 verse 3, he says, A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face, that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick, which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine's flesh and broth of abominable things is in their vessels, which say, stand by thyself, come not near me, for I am holier than thou. These are smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day." Okay, so that sets the context, doesn't it? In Isaiah 65, he opens with this amazing prophecy of grace that there would be those who found him who didn't seek for him. And those who didn't call on his name, he would say to them, behold me, behold me, to a nation that did not call on his name. or was not called by his name. But then in the rest of this, it talks about those who were smoke in God's nose, fire that burns all the day, they ate swine's flesh, they drank abominable things, and they thought themselves to be holier than others. Okay, so that's really kind of the prophecy that is used as some of the groundwork in Romans chapter 10. And so Romans chapter 10 also helps us to understand Psalm 81. But of course, the backdrop to Romans 10 is Romans 1. So let me read just a few verses to refresh our memory from Romans chapter 1. He says in Romans chapter 1 verse 18, he says, after he said in verse 16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed, as it is written, the just shall live by faith, and then he launches into this long condemning account of both jews and gentiles beginning with the gentiles and he says this for the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness that means they suppress it they know something about god but they don't like what they know they don't like god as he has revealed himself as he is verse nineteen because that because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it to them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." Now this is true of everyone, Jew and Gentile. But he's especially focusing on the Gentile because the Jews, as he is giving this account here, would naturally assume that he's talking only about the Gentiles. But a little later on, he's going to prove that he's actually talking about both. But in verse 21 of Romans 1 he says, which is exactly what it said in Psalm 81 verse 12. He gave them up to their own heart's lust. So that's the context, and I'm not going to read through it here, but if you go to the conclusion in the end of this section of scripture in chapter 3, Romans 3 and verse 8, 10, he says this, as it is written, there is none righteous, no not one, there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God, they are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no not one. And then in verse 19, now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God, therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Now, that was a necessary foundation in the book of Romans in order to bring the gospel to bear. Because, here's the fact, until we know we're sinners, the gospel is uninteresting to us. It makes no difference. We might use it for some kind of an intellectual badge or some kind of a theological arm wrestling match, but it won't mean anything to us unless we're sinners. And so that's why in the book of Romans, immediately after saying the gospel is the power of God to salvation because in it the righteousness of God is revealed, he then proves that man is unrighteous, universally unrighteous. Jews and Gentiles, not one is better than the other, all have sinned, all have come fallen short of the glory of God, and there's no hope by man's own obedience to the law for him to establish a righteousness. And so, in the book of Romans, this is the way it begins, and there's two righteousnesses that are set forth in the book of Romans. There's a righteousness called the righteousness of the law, and there's one that's called the righteousness which is of faith. And we know what that is in Romans chapter 10. He describes both of them. And he describes those who hold to these two different righteousnesses. And that's why I read Isaiah 65 verses 1 and following. Because the opening verse of Isaiah 65 is talking about those who found the Lord when they didn't seek him. And so in Romans 9, And verse 30, Romans 9, verse 30, it says, what shall we say then, and this is what we shall say, that the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. So that's the righteousness he's contrasting to the other righteousness, which is the righteousness which is of the law. And then he goes on, he says, but Israel, even though the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, they didn't follow after the righteousness of the law, yet they attained to the righteousness of faith, but Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, that's the other kind, has not attained to the law of righteousness, wherefore, because they sought it not by faith. But as it were, by the works of the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." So that was a quotation from Isaiah, I think chapter 28, or maybe it was chapter 8, but wherever it was in Isaiah, he's quoting that, in order to prove that Christ was set forth as the cornerstone and the foundation, and whoever believes on him would not be ashamed, but he would be a stumbling stone, because those who hold to the law of righteousness, meaning a righteousness that they can produce by their own personal obedience to the law. they would stumble at Christ. And so that's who he describes in the opening of chapter 10. Listen, he says, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. That's the Israel we were reading about in Psalm 81. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God. He's commending them for that, but not according to knowledge. In other words, even though they're zealous, it's a zealous zeal based on ignorance. And here's what they're ignorant of. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, so that we can see that the righteousness of faith, therefore, is God's righteousness, And that's contrasted with our own righteousness, which is what we produce by our own obedience. Those who are ignorant of God's righteousness and have gone about to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. And verse 4 tells us what that is. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. OK, so now we see what the righteousness of faith is. It's the righteousness of God. And we also see that the righteousness of God is Christ, who is the end of the law, as it says here. It means he's the consummate end. He's the one the law anticipated with all of its commands and all of its penalties. He would fulfill them all. and that would be the righteousness that he established, and it would be the righteousness of God, because God provided it in him, he fulfilled it in Christ, he approved it of Christ, and he gave it to his people, and he justified them by that righteousness. So this was all of God's doing and all to God's glory. But the other righteousness is all of man's doing and all to man's glory, if he could produce it, but he can't. And that's the next verse he's going to show it's impossible. He says in verse 5, For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law, that the men which do with those things shall live by them. But since no one keeps the laws he proved in Romans 3. They are all guilty, non-righteous, and so on. Therefore, no one can live. So it's impossible for man to keep the righteousness, which is of the law. And yet, the Jews, who refused Christ, stubbornly held to their own personal obedience, and they rejected the obedience and the suffering and the death of Christ, which was the justification of his people. And he goes on and he talks about this righteousness that Christ established. And I'm not going to expound the rest of this chapter. But the point here is that in this chapter he talks about a righteousness which we now know is what Christ worked out. And the righteousness that Christ worked out is given to all those who believe, not because they believe, But because the righteousness given to them is a righteousness of faith, faith is God's ordained means by which we receive that righteousness and know and are persuaded that this is the righteousness of God and the one. in which God has provided for us to appear before him in Christ. And so faith lays hold of that, and that faith that lays hold of this righteousness in Christ is an allotment, a gift of God. Look at 2nd Peter, 2nd Peter chapter 1 and verse 1, I want you to see this, that word allotment is actually used there even though it doesn't appear in our King James Version. So 2nd Peter chapter 1, And verse one says, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained, like precious faith with us, in, it should say in, the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our God and Savior. His righteousness is what we trust in. And the faith given to us that to trust in Christ's righteousness is a precious gift. And we obtained it. We obtained it from God as an allotment. That's what the words here mean. Obtaining as an allotment. A gift. An inheritance. We were given this. And so God gave this gift of faith to us. That faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. and His righteousness, and He is our God and our Savior. So this is the New Testament. This is the Gospel, right? So we have here now, just at a real high-level thumbnail sketch, the contrast, the huge contrast between the Law and the Gospel. In the Law, God requires everything of us. In the gospel, everything He required of us under the law, He required of Christ and Christ provided it for us. He provided it to God for us. And so in the gospel, God provided for Himself in Christ. In fact, He provided for Himself His justice, He took away His wrath, He covered our sins and provided our righteousness all in the blood of His Son. And so God has provided all this, and this is not only what He provided as a righteousness, forgiveness of our sins, the remission of our sins, our reconciliation, our justification, our sanctification, everything has been provided in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But also, back in Psalm 81, where we were just reading here, what we see is this huge contrast between those in the wilderness and this blessing that comes on those who receive the righteousness that is in Christ alone through faith. All right, so going back to Psalm 81, what we're going to see then is that The teaching of the gospel that is revealed in the New Testament is that Israel, in fact, not only Israel, but every Gentile by nature, every person, every man, woman, and child by nature, have failed to keep God's holy law. And here in Psalm 81, it's highlighted in that nation that God brought out of Egypt and brought through the wilderness and brought into the land of Canaan. And whether it was in Egypt, or whether it was as they were walking from Egypt to the Red Sea, or when they passed through the Red Sea and went to the next stopping point, or whether it was the 40 years in the wilderness, whether the first time they came to Canaan or the second time. or the time when they were in Canaan, or all that time they were in Canaan and were finally carried away by their enemies because of their idolatry. Throughout that entire history of that nation, God records throughout the Old Testament that they were disobedient to Him. They failed. They failed. But they didn't fail alone. We also failed. We were no better than they. Romans 3 verse 9, the apostle asks, he says, What then? Are we better than they? No, in no wise. For we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin. As it is written, there's none righteous, no not one. And so he goes on in Romans 3, it says, there's none that understandeth, there's none that seeketh after God. They didn't seek none, no, not one that seeks after God. So now when we go back to Psalm 81 and we take that explanation given in the New Testament, contrasting our utter failure in the law to adhere to what God required of us, and yet Christ's unique and only, only Christ's obedience to the law in precept and the satisfaction to the justice of the law, enduring its penalty, so that all of the law is brought to perfect fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore it is utterly abolished, because it's only finished in Him, so that Christ Himself is the end of the law for righteousness. It had a terminal point in history. Christ established everlasting righteousness, therefore there's no need for a righteousness by the law because he finished that righteousness. He put away the iniquity and he completed the obedience necessary to glorify, to magnify God in the law. This he did in the salvation of his people. Okay, so that's the first thing we see here in Psalm 81. Israel and every Gentile, without mentioning them in that chapter, by nature failed to keep the law and they've also failed, notice this, they failed to believe Christ. In the law it says, children in whom is no faith. Remember those words from Deuteronomy? And then remember how Hebrews chapter 3 and 4, it goes on to show the reason that the people of Israel fell in the wilderness was because of their unbelief? And that is contrasted to those who do believe. So then you have this situation here now. We have everyone by nature has failed to keep the law. And everyone by nature is in this state of unbelief. We can't produce faith in Christ, even though faith in Christ is the way by which God enables us to receive the righteousness and the forgiveness of our sins in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet we can't produce that faith, can we? And the main impediment to that is the blindness of our pride. Because like the Israelites in Romans 10, we stubbornly hold to our own. We prefer to come to God by our own personal obedience and to take some comfort and find assurance in our own performance. So we're always checking to see how we're doing to see if it's good enough. And we feel good when we think we're doing well and we feel horrible when we think we're not doing so well. And this describes all of humanity. And that's why you have these predominant emphasis on man's self-esteem. Because self-esteem is essentially saying, I'm doing great, you know, and you watch sports, you watch entertainment, it doesn't matter what you watch, they're going to emphasize this, you need to have confidence in yourself. You know, that's basically the bottom line. You need to believe in yourself. And so the foolishness of that is seen in great contrast in the gospel. There's only one we can really trust, one who we can have confidence in, one who is our hope. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything else, total failure. We ourselves, total failure. And it's all our fault. So here in this psalm, What we're going to see is that we ought to. We ought to adhere to what is said in the beginning. The singing and the joy and the trumpets and all these things that were given to Israel to do. But like Israel of old who failed, we also by nature are going to fail. We're going to fall. And the gospel comes and pulls back this, you know, the fact that in ourselves we're filthy rags. All of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And there's no one among us that is clean. And we can't bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing. And that's what he's saying in the rest of Psalm 81 is that Israel didn't do that, even though God had done all these things for them. And they were set up then as a monument to the fact that man cannot save himself. He can't get himself out of his own ruin. He can't uncorrupt what he's corrupted and he can't reconcile what he wants caused by his sin. He can't remove his own offense to God. All right, so that's the first thing here. The only way that we can be saved is that the Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior, and that God reveals Him to us in the Gospel, and we are caused by that grace given to us to trust in Him. Only by God's electing grace, by Christ's redeeming blood, and by the regenerating grace of the Spirit of God can anyone come near and hear the gospel and the obedience of faith. That's the message of Romans, that the obedience of faith which is required for us to receive this righteousness of Christ and to stand justified before God. That gift of faith has to be given to us in order to believe on Christ, and it's called an obedience. And it's not our obedience to the law, it's Christ's obedience to the law that saves us. And this is what faith says. Faith abandons all confidence in self. Faith abandons all claims for recognition from God. Faith says there's only one sacrifice acceptable. It's the one that Christ made. There's only one obedience that God can accept. It's the obedience of his Son. And that's what faith does, and faith says, I only have one hope, and that hope is the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, he's not only my only hope, but he's an all-sufficient hope. He's a complete and perfect righteousness. All right, so Psalm 81, now let's go through this a little more in detail. I want to point out a couple more lessons from this psalm before we do. In verse 12, it says, I gave them over to their own heart's lust. There's nothing more horrifying to me than if God were to leave me to my own heart's lust, if he were to leave me in my sin. because we can't deliver ourselves. It's like all those people that Jesus healed in the New Testament, whether it was blindness, lameness, or any other disease, leprosy, or even death, they could not heal themselves. They couldn't open their own eyes. They couldn't raise themselves from the dead. They couldn't remove their leprosy. They couldn't get up and walk. All those things, they were completely unable to do any of those things. They were left to themselves until the Lord Jesus Christ came. And so there's nothing more horrible, more horrifying than if God were to leave us to our own sin. And that's what this chapter is teaching here. It's intended to heighten our awareness of our own wretchedness and dependence on Christ and to heighten the urgency and the earnestness with which we come to God looking to Christ. See, that's what the book of Hebrews is intended to do. He says, in contrast, the perfect work of Christ and those who trust Him, in contrast to those who trusted in the law and did everything that the law required, ceremonially and morally, and yet failed to come and to God's inheritance. They fell short of that rest, to enter into that rest. All right, so that's the second lesson. And the third lesson really is just an explanation of that, that is the righteousness of God is unattainable by any of the works of man. And then also, this psalm also proves that God must intervene to save us from ourselves. Otherwise, we will prove like the Israelites in the end. And then, fifth, we, if we see our own guilt and corruption and our impotence then we know that we are no better than the Israelites and that we are utterly dependent upon Christ so we have to look to Him, flee to Him, plead only Him and this is what the gospel teaches us and we can't bring a clean thing out of our unclean thing and so as this psalm opens up with this command to sing to the Lord we find ourselves the ones who are most we should be the ones who most sing to the Lord, because the Lord has done this for us in Christ. So those are some of the highlights from the lessons from this psalm, and I want to just go through it now with you. Look at verse one, it says, Sing aloud to God our strength, make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. Jacob was a conniving supplanter, a trickster, a cheat, we know that. In his life, that's what his name meant, but his name also meant one God had chosen. Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. So Jacob here represents God's chosen people, and he's telling them, sing aloud to God our strength. Who is our strength? The Lord Jesus Christ. We should publicly worship Him as our strength. This is why we should worship Him. We don't have anything to bring except what Christ is and has done for us. And so we worship Him. We worship Christ. We worship God the Father and God the Holy Spirit by Him. He is our strength. So let us make a joyful noise to the God of Jacob, sinners chosen in Christ. In verse 2 he says, take a psalm and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. Now these instruments in the psalms like the timbrel and the harp and the psaltery, these instruments signify the melodies that are made in the hearts of God's people. It's fine to have musical instruments in church. I don't have a problem with that as long as they don't become necessary or the central focus. I dislike, and I can't say that it's wrong, but I dislike it when churches have bands that sit up front and they play and then everyone sings. It's like the band becomes the all-controlling focus in whatever they call worship. But I dislike that very much because it's the words. It's the words, it's the doctrine, not the sound of those instruments. And what he's saying here is that that resonant melody in the hearts of God's people that is the instrument on which God is to be highly praised. In Ephesians 5 verse 19 it says, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, The emphasis here is heart singing. It's heart singing. You're comforted by that when you can't sing well because it's in the heart. And then he also says in Revelation 5, they sung a new song. saying thou art worthy to take the book and open the seals for thou was slain and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. So that's the song. The song of the redeemed. Song to Christ. Song to Christ who by his blood redeemed us to God out of all these different places. Amazing, isn't it? He was slain to redeem us to God out of all these other nations. And then it says in Revelation 14 verse 3, they sung as it were a new song before the throne and before the four beasts and the elders and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty-four thousand which were redeemed from the earth. So the hundred and forty-four thousand are those who are redeemed. That includes everyone redeemed by Christ. It represents all of God's elect, redeemed by Christ, in the New Testament age at least. But I think they're redeemed throughout all time. They're the ones who can learn this song. And they therefore sing from the heart. And that's why I emphasize the fact that the instrument is the heart instrument. And then he says in Revelation 15.3, they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. You see how these songs are to Christ? And Christ fulfilled the law, the song of Moses and of the Lamb. All right, now Psalm 81 verse 3. He says, blow up the trumpet in the new moon in the time appointed on our solemn feast day. Remember in Leviticus 23, perhaps you don't remember the chapter, but in that particular chapter of the book of Leviticus, God talks about the feasts. And there were three, mostly, besides the day of atonement. There was the feast of Passover, And remember the Passover, that was when God delivered Israel out of Egypt by the blood of the Passover lamb. And we know, without a shadow of doubt, the Passover Typical it typified it pictured. It's fulfilled in Christ our Passover who was sacrificed for us as Israel was redeemed out of Egypt Christ redeemed us as the lamb in in that day was slain in order to For God to see the blood and Passover Israel So Christ was slain and sacrificed to God so that when God saw his blood he would pass over us And as God brought Israel out of Egypt, because of the blood of the Passover lamb, God has redeemed us from sin, and from Satan, and from the law, and from all that comes through the curse of the law, death and hell, and the wrath of God. These things Christ redeemed us from by His own blood. And that's what this deliverance by the Passover lamb from Egypt signify Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. That's 1 Corinthians 5, verse 7. The second feast that was mentioned in Leviticus 23, that's significant with the blowing of trumpets here, is the Feast of Trumpets, strangely enough. And so, in the Feast of Trumpets, what God is signifying is that the gospel would be sent and proclaimed by Christ and his apostles and his entire church through the Spirit of God. And the proclamation of the gospel would be like the sounding of the trumpet. And there was a day in the Old Testament, in Leviticus 25, it describes it, called the Year of Jubilee. And they would blow a trumpet. And on that day, all the debts were forgiven, and the land was returned to the proper owner, and the slaves were set free. And when the Lord Jesus came in the book of Luke, chapter 4, verse 18, he picked up the scroll, he read from Isaiah 61.1, where it says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, the Jubilee year. That's what he's talking about here, where everything is set free. Christ said in that particular place in Luke chapter 4, he says, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your hearing, in your ears. He is our redeeming, liberating savior. He's the one who preached the true jubilee. And so that feast of trumpets now was the sending forth of the gospel of Christ and his redeeming work that set us free. Remember Galatians 5, stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has set us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Because to do anything to try to contribute or obtain salvation through what we do, through our own merits, is to make the grace of God meaningless to us. We're entirely going to come to God on our own works, and that's going to be ruin. All right, so that's the second feast. It was the Feast of Trumpets. So the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Trumpets. And then the third feast was the Feast of Tabernacles. And in the Feast of Tabernacles, the people were to dwell in what they called booths. B-O-O-T-H. It was like these little shelters they would make from palm branches. And they dwelt in those because when God brought Israel out of Egypt, the first thing they did was they, passing through the Red Sea, they dwelt in booths. And so that was to show them that they were dwelling in these little tabernacles, as the Feast suggests, the Feast of Tabernacles, and there was a blowing of the trumpet. And so all of this is fulfilled in the Gospel time as well. The Feast of Tabernacles was typical of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, God himself, who tabernacled among us. Not only did Christ tabernacle among us, but in the New Testament, Christ in you is the hope of glory. So He's in us. We're in Him. He's in us. He's our being in Christ. We are safe and we also enter into our inheritance. We have all things in Him. So that's what the Feast of Tabernacles is meant to teach us, that being in Christ, who took our nature and came and in that nature sacrificed himself to God and became our reward, our inheritance, and brought us to glory. We live in this world as in a tabernacle. We live by faith on Christ, and we look in expectation of our heavenly home. That's what it means to dwell now in this tabernacle, the tabernacle of this flesh, in this world, trusting Christ. This is our booth, if you will. We're in the Lord Jesus Christ by faith. All right, now, so you can see then in this third verse of Psalm 81, blow the trumpet in the new moon in the time appointed on our solemn feast day. God appointed these feasts. And in the New Testament, we must be in Christ. He must be our Passover. He must set us free by his own death on the cross and his obedience in that death. And we must dwell in him by faith. We must live in expectation of eternal glory during our sojourn in this world. If we do not, then we're not being obedient to these verses in this psalm. And so he says in verse four, for this was a statute for Israel and a law of the God of Jacob. And this he ordained in Joseph for a testimony when he went through the land of Egypt where I heard a language that I understood not. What was this language, and who didn't understand it? Well, if you look at a couple of verses, and I'll take you to a couple of them, you'll see that the language was the language of the Egyptians, which the Israelites didn't understand. In Psalm 114, in verse 1, he says, when Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob, from a people of strange language. They left Egypt, they went out of that place, the house of Jacob from a people of a strange language. They didn't understand their language. Well, I'm sure that over time, many of them learned that language and were able to communicate like Moses or like Joseph. Remember, his brothers came to him. He spoke to them through an interpreter because they didn't understand the Egyptian language. And it's interesting, if you want an interesting text of scripture, look at 1 Corinthians chapter 14. This is something I I've always been amazed at, 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Remember in 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul is correcting the Corinthians because they were greedy, I'll use the word greedy, they coveted these gifts to promote themselves. They were puffed up by their gifts and one of those was the gift of speaking in foreign languages. And he says in 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 21, he says, in the law it is written, with men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people, and yet for all that they will not hear me, saith the Lord. Now, in the law, that means in the Old Testament, because it doesn't just mean the law of Moses. And this is actually in Isaiah 28. I'm not going to go read it. It's basically the same as it says here. What he said in Isaiah was that with men of other tongues and other lips will I speak to this people. Now, what is he talking about here? Well, first of all, to the Corinthians he's saying, You're coveting this gift of tongues, but realize that when God gave that prophecy in Isaiah 28 about how he would speak to the Jews with men of other languages, it wasn't a good thing. It was a bad thing. It was showing that Israel had heard God sending prophets and had heard in the days of Jesus through the apostles through Jesus himself, they had heard the gospel. And because they refused, because they refused, God pronounces this warning to them. All right, I'm going to speak to you. through men of other languages, and yet you will not hear." And on the day of Pentecost, remember all the people there with other languages, hearing the gospel preached by Peter, hearing him in their own mother tongue. And so these languages that the Jews heard, they were hearing the gospel. And yet they did not believe it. And even though they saw this great sign, they didn't understand it. And so God is saying that because over those centuries when God spoke to you through the prophets and through the providences of going into captivity to the Assyrians or to the Babylonians or to the Egyptians and not understanding their languages, it would typify how that in the New Testament The same people, the children of those same Jews, would reject Christ because they held tenaciously to their own personal righteousness in preferment of that righteousness over Christ's own righteousness. Therefore, God would speak to them through people of different languages, like He did in their captivity to the Egyptians, the Syrians, and the Babylonians. and to whoever they were in captivity to. And then these languages in the Corinthian church that were being used this way, they were coveting this, and yet the apostles telling them, look, you're coveting something that God designed to be a sign of His displeasure of the Jews, casting them off. And they were really left, the Jews, and so are we as Gentiles, we're really left with only one hope. We've got to look to Christ. We have to trust Him. We have to obey the gospel. And how can we do that? Only through the grace of God. And the warning here is that if we don't, if we turn from Christ, then it'll become gibberish to us. We won't understand it. And I think that's a lot of what's happened in this whole movement of the Pentecostal movement. is that people who didn't believe Christ are now hearing it through this gibberish and they're hoping that by being able to do that, they've got some spiritual gift, but it's not true. It actually leaves them more in the dark, doesn't it? Okay, so Psalm 81 talks about this. He says, I heard a language that I did not understand. And so they were brought to Egypt like this. Joseph was there first. That's why he mentions Joseph. And in verse 6, I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were delivered from the pots. God brought them out of Egypt. He redeemed them. Now call us in trouble. I delivered thee. I answered thee in the secret place of thunder. it thundered when he parted the Red Sea, and I proved thee at the waters of Meribah." Remember, it was bitter, and he had to cut down and cast a tree into that bitter water. Will they complain? No. Yes, they would. And the only way the water was made sweet is by the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, I don't have time to get through all this tonight, but I want you to see The way that this is turning out here is that these people who had God's word in the law concerning Christ, they did not believe Him and they couldn't enter into the land of promise because of their unbelief and God is cataloging all of their disobedience in this unbelief here and He's warning not only them, But us, because we only have one thing, God has given us one thing, it's Christ, through the Gospel, and we have to hear Him. Otherwise, we will be turned over to our own lusts. And there's nothing worse than that. Nothing worse. And so, since faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, we have to give ourselves to hearing the Gospel, don't we? He says, seek the Lord while he may be found. We have to give ourselves to seeking the Lord. We have to also realize that seeking the Lord is not something we do naturally. There's none that seeketh after God. Understanding the gospel is something we don't have naturally. There's none that understandeth. And we certainly don't have obedience naturally. There's none that's righteous. But now the righteousness of God which is Christ. At the end of the law for righteousness, we're justified out of grace, freely, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ. And so we're brought to the end of our own sinful selves, and we're left with Christ alone. If we turn away from Christ, there's no hope for us. in much worse way than there was no hope for Israel. And just as there was necessary for them to seek the Lord through faith in Christ, it's necessary for us. And never take it for granted, but recognize that these things are necessary for us. We have to be saved. We have to be delivered from our sins and from our sinful self, from our unbelief and from everything else. And only Christ can do that. He is our strength. He's our song. He's the one we worship and so that's what this psalm here is teaching us and maybe next time I'll be able to complete it. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Help us not to turn away from the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to realize that he's given for sinners. He's given to save sinners and that we ourselves are sinners and we would not stubbornly hold to things that are not Christ but we would find him to be our all and we would find perfect sweetness and satisfaction in the Lord Jesus Christ because He is all and there's nothing more than Him that we need and having Him we have all things. And so we pray that you would teach us this in our heart so that in our hearts we would sing and make melody to the Lord because of the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ in all of His goodness and grace to sinners like us that He would fulfill and magnify your law and honor yourself in your name in our salvation, what a Savior. Grant us this allotment of faith that we might trust in Him alone. In His name we pray, amen.