6 addresses on the Maschil Psalms

… Let us turn to Psalm 42. To the chief musician, Maskell, for the sons of Korah. As the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat, day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me. For I have gone with the multitude. I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar, deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water spouts. All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime and in the night. His song shall be with me and my prayer unto the God of my life. I will say unto God, my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me, while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him who is the help of my countenance and my God. We'll also read the 43rd Psalm. Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man, for thou art the God of my strength. Why dost thou cast me off? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? O send out thy light and thy truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy. Yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God, my God. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him who is the help of my countenance and my God. The last time that I had the privilege to speak here, we spoke on the 32nd Psalm, which is the first of the Masculine Psalms. Now we have, as we mentioned then, this series of Psalms known as the Masculine Psalms. And the word Masculine means giving instruction. And we connected that somewhat up with the thought of, in the Book of Daniel, it mentions those that would be wise in the last days. And remember that in the 24th of Matthew, where the Lord is giving instruction about what the godly remnant of Israel is to do in the day when Antichrist is there in Jerusalem, when they see the abomination of desolation set up, it says, He that readeth, let him understand. There will be those who will have understanding as to what they should do. And that is a similar word to the word Masculine, those who have understanding, those who are wise, that is, wise in a spiritual sense. And so we have this series of Masculine Psalms. There are altogether 13 of them, or if we count the 43rd Psalm as being in with them, it makes 14. And... And it's our purpose to take up this series, as we have opportunity, and go through these series of the Masculine Psalms, because they give instruction for us. To give instruction for God's saints in the coming day, there are principles in them that give instruction for us today. In fact, as we go through this series, we'll see that the condition of God's testimony today in the world is somewhat similar to what the condition of His testimony will be then. And so we learn precious lessons. Now, this 42nd Psalm is, and the 43rd, 44th, and 45th, are rather peculiar, in that they're not only Masculine Psalms, but they're also Psalms for the Sons of Korah. And the Psalms for the Sons of Korah are also a special set of Psalms. And the fact that four of the Psalms for the Sons of Korah are also Masculine Psalms makes it, as it were, doubly interesting. This 42nd is the first of the Psalms for the Sons of Korah. Now, going back to the 32nd Psalm that we spoke of last time, we saw there that we have the foundation laid down for us in connection with salvation. The 32nd Psalm is the Psalm quoted in the 4th chapter of Romans, and it speaks about the blessedness of the man whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. That's where we all have to begin. And unless we begin there, we haven't taken the first step toward what it is being instructed and being wise in the things of God. Because no one can understand God's things and can be wise in the things of God unless he first of all knows what it is to be justified, unless he knows the value of the work of the Lord Jesus on Calvary's cross, as we have predicted in that 32nd Psalm. And David there could speak of the blessedness of one who knew the value of the work that he looked forward to that would be finished at the cross just as we look back to it. Now, with regard to the sons of Korah, that itself is a very interesting study. And we don't purpose to go into that in any detail except to say this. Korah, as we know, was the leader of a rebellion against Moses and Aaron, especially against Aaron. He was the leader of the rebellion. Moses was a cousin to Moses and Aaron, and he was a Levite. But he wasn't content with being a Levite. He wanted to be a priest. He wanted to take upon himself things that God had not given to him and had not given to everyone in the Old Testament. When we come to the New Testament, we don't find that there are any special categories in approaching God among God's people. Every believer is a priest, and every believer is a Levite in the sense that every believer has some service to do for the Lord. In the Old Testament, we find there were the priests, and over them was the high priest. There were the Levites, and there were the common people, the soldiers and others. And the ordinary people, they could only come to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. The Levites had access into the holy place, and so did the priests. And the Levites were, in a sense, assisted the priests. The only one who was able to go into the Holy of Holies was the high priest once every year, and that not without blood. He had to go in there with the blood of the goat, first of all the blood of the bullock, or first of all he went in with the sweet incense, then he took in the blood of the bullock for himself and his house, finally the blood of the goat, which he offered for the sins of the people. And that was only once a year that he could go in. Now every believer is a priest and has access into the very presence of God, as we have brought out in the 10th chapter of Hebrews, and we're exhorted to draw near, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Korah led this rebellion, and the Lord said he would show who was the priest that he had chosen, the high priest he had chosen. And he showed it by causing Aaron's rod to bud of all the rods for the different tribes. Then also he showed his judgment by causing the earth to open up and swallow Korah and his company alive. They went down into the pit, it says. And Moses gave a call to those that were standing with Korah and Dathan and Abirah. He says, Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men. Well, we're told later on, we're not told there who departed, but we're told later on, when the account was given of this, that the children of Korah died not. And we find, as we go through the genealogies, that Korah had three sons, and these were those who did not die when their father died. Now, why did they not die? I believe the reason was that they took a stand for God, even though it was against their parents. It must have been a very hard thing to do for these three boys. Their names are given. It's Asser, Elkanah, and Abiasath. And these three young men must have deliberately left the side of their father and gone over and stood with Moses when Moses says, Depart from the tents of these wicked men. They took a stand for God, and that's always a hard thing to do when a stand has to be taken even against one's loved ones. Many have had to do that, whether it be in conversion or whether it be after conversion in taking a stand for the truth of God. As they've seen it, they've even had to take a stand against those that they love, that they have their own family and their loved ones. But it becomes a question of who comes first, the Lord or those who are the nearest and dearest to us otherwise. They took a stand for God. And they became, they were not only Levites, as I said before, but they became singers in the house of God, and they were also appointed as doorkeepers. And there's no doubt a reference to them. In one of the Psalms for the sons of Korah, the 84th Psalm, we find them saying, I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. Their father dwelt in the tents of wickedness, and they chose to take the humble place of being a doorkeeper. Well, we might think that to be a doorkeeper was a very humble work. It was the work of a servant. But it was a very honored work because the doorkeeper, you know, was responsible to see that the right people were let in and the wrong people were kept out. And that was a very responsible job. And I'm sure that when they took a stand, even against their own parent, their own father, because he'd opposed the things of God, they would not be liable to be led away by any favoritism in letting those in who shouldn't have come in or keeping those out who should have been let in. So you see, they were prepared, as it were, for this place of being doorkeepers in the house of God. That's a work that still is needed. We still need doorkeepers in the house of God. Well, these two, then, thoughts are put together. The Masculine Psalm and for the Sons of Korah. As we think of it as a Masculine Psalm, this psalm, we get instruction. And as we think of it as being a psalm for the Sons of Korah, we learn that we should always put God first, no matter what the consequences. And we've called this psalm the psalm of the longing soul. The longing soul. It starts off with, As the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. We can imagine the heart, a species of deer, in a drought, panting after the water brooks. You know, when there comes a time of drought and there's no rain and the grass all dries up, the first to suffer are the animals out in the forest. They're looking for water. And you can imagine the heart panting for water. And some have thought that this sets forth the thought that there is an underground watercourse and that they can even hear the water bubbling along there, but they can't get to it. So the heart's panting after the water brooks. And the psalmist says, My soul panteth after God. This is a longing soul. This is a thirsty soul. Do we know what it is to be thirsty after God? If you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior tonight, we do trust there's a thirst in your soul. You know, the Lord said to the woman at the well in the fourth of John, Whoso drinketh of this water shall thirst again. The water of the well, there, Jacob's well. And referring, no doubt, to the wells of this world where people try to slake their thirst. He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But he that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, the Lord said. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. That's where we find true satisfaction when we drink of the spiritual well that the Lord gives us. Come to know the Lord Jesus as our personal Savior. And so we have the thirst, the longing soul, and the thirsty soul. This psalm, by the way, is the first psalm in the second book of psalms. And in the second book of psalms we have the thought that the godly remnant have been driven out of Jerusalem and because Antichrist is there and they're longing to be back where they can enjoy fellowship with God as they did before. He says, My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? He's thirsting for God. He's longing for the presence of God. And you know, when there's a thirsty soul, God always meets the need of that soul. Augustine, known sometimes as Saint Augustine, who was one of the prominent men in the early church in the early centuries, in a prayer of his that has come down to us, he prayed this prayer to the Lord. Lord, he said, our souls are made for thee and cannot be satisfied until they find their rest in thee. And how true that is. God has made the soul of man for himself. And the soul of man cannot be satisfied until he finds his rest in the Lord. And that's why people are going after all kinds of things to try and satisfy their souls. Some go after pleasure. We live in a day when pleasure seems to be that which is put before people more than anything else to meet their needs. But beloved, this world's pleasure will never meet the need of the soul and never fully satisfy. As one of our hymns says, I tried the broken systems, Lord, but ah, the waters failed. Even as I stooped to drink, they fled and mocked me as I wailed. And the chorus says, none but Christ can satisfy. None other name for me. There's love and life and lasting joy, Lord Jesus, found in me. Only Christ can fully meet the need of the heart. He can satisfy. Only he can fully satisfy the human heart. And those who try to quench their spiritual thirst at any other fountain are doomed to failure. We all have to make that experience. Even though we know these things. I was brought up in a Christian home. I knew these things from my childhood. But I had to learn myself in my own experience that the world cannot satisfy and the Lord Jesus is the only one who can truly meet the need of the human heart. He says in verse 3, my tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me where is thy God? Who are the they? They are the enemies. I've no doubt that when God takes up his people Israel again there will be a great mass of the nation who will be opposed to the things of God. And there will be a few who will be seeking to serve the Lord. And the they no doubt are the ungodly ones who are saying to these godly ones where's your God now? You were trusting in God. Where's your God now? Look what he's allowed to happen. He's allowed you to be driven out of the sanctuary. You're not there anymore. You can't worship God. The sanctuary has been defiled. Where's your God now? Why doesn't he step in and help you? We remember what they said to the Lord Jesus when he was hanging on the cross. If thou be the Son of God come down from the cross. That's why one of our hymns says by all obscene defeat he won the Medan crown. Trod all our foes beneath his feet by being trodden down. God wins his victories through what seems to be defeat. Didn't it seem to be a great defeat? When the Son of God was crucified on Calvary's cross and when they could taunt him and say if thou be the Son of God come down from the cross and he didn't come down and when he was taken down off that cross and buried and the tomb was sealed and Pilate saw to it that the Roman seal was put on it as if to make sure that he wasn't going to rise again. It looked as if God's program had come to an end. I suppose in those days they didn't have that term that you read about today that God is dead but I'm sure that some people must have thought that when the Lord Jesus was put in the grave. No beloved friends God isn't dead and never will be. He's still the sovereign ruler of the universe but God works in mysterious ways in what he does and three days later the Lord Jesus comes forth out of the grave the mighty victor and he can say in the words that we have in the first chapter of Revelation I'm he that liveth and was dead and behold I'm alive forevermore and I have the keys of Hades and of death. He has the keys. He's conquered. He's conquered the unseen world. He's conquered death. He's the victor and all who trust in him will be the victors. We have the similar thing here. God's people are driven out and their enemies are taunting them and they say where is your God and you know there's a measure in which that's true today. Those who seek to be faithful to the Lord in honoring his word and meeting together in the scriptural way they're a minority. Others often say to them well you're just a little few. Why look what we have. There are people today even in this city they claim they have all the apostolic gifts. They claim that they can heal the sick and they can talk in tongues and I don't know what they can't do and they look to us and they say well what have you got? You can't do all those things. We don't claim that we can. We don't believe that God has given us those things. We believe that those who claim those things have something spurious that's not of God. We're just a handful, just a few seeking to meet together in a scriptural way and the question might be asked where is your God? The beloved God's testimony that God isn't manifesting himself today with great multitudes. God is manifesting himself today with a few who will seek who are seeking to obey his word and honor his name and to be with the few who are seeking to obey the word of God is what we should desire to do and desire to be. So we find here it's the same thing. They say where is your God? God isn't manifesting himself among you and that must have been a real trial to the psalmist and he says in verse 4 when I remember these things I pour out my soul in me for I had gone with the multitude I went with them to the house of God with a voice of joy and praise with a multitude that kept a holy day or a festive multitude as the new translation says. He looks back upon that that was past. There was a time when we were really rejoicing in spiritual things but now we're not able to do it and you notice what he says further down he says in verse 6 Oh my God my soul is cast down within me therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites from the hill Mizah. You see he's away from Jerusalem he's over in Jordan he's in the land of Hermon that's quite at a distance and yet he remembers the Lord he hasn't forgotten the Lord but it seems that he's he's seeking to be satisfied and he doesn't quite yet know the answer in this 42nd Psalm. He says in verse although he does say to his soul in verse 5 Why art thou cast down oh my soul and why art thou disquieted in me hope thou in God he puts his trust in the Lord hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance and I noticed in studying this that the word help there really means salvations for the salvations of his countenance as much as to say the Lord comes in and gives us the help when we need it isn't that a wonderful thing the Lord is the one who gives his salvations when his people need it if it's a question of the salvation of the soul the Lord gives it if it's a question of help in difficulties and trials as we go along the pathway the Lord's the one that gives it the Lord gives his salvations as it says here and I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance or for the salvations of his countenance now notice verse 7 I believe verse 7 is a very important verse in this psalm deep call of unto deep at the noise of thy water spouts all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me now you know the second part of this verse all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me that was prophetic of the Lord Jesus Christ that's what the Lord Jesus Christ could say on the cross all the waves and the billows of the wrath of God rolled over him on the cross and you know if we don't know the Lord as our saviour the waves and billows of God's wrath will roll over us and if there are any of you listening to me who don't know the Lord as their saviour beloved friend that's the portion of those who refuse Christ but those of us who know him as our saviour can say that the waves and the billows of God's wrath rolled over his beloved son when he died there on Calvary's cross when he took our place went there as our substitute he bore the judgment of God what does the first part mean? deep call of unto deep at the noise of thy water spouts I believe this speaks of the two great depths God's judgment and God's mercy can we fathom the judgment of God? or can we fathom the mercy of God? we can't do one calls to the other the judgment of God says I must judge sin God is a holy God he can't overlook sin he must judge it and if he must judge sin he must judge the sinner you know some people have a wrong idea of God they think that God it's just as if God sees someone who's done something wrong and he comes along and pats him on the back and says poor fellow you really couldn't help it so I'll just overlook what you've done that's not what God does that's not the gospel that's not the way that God is presented in the scriptures God is presented in his word as a holy God who must judge sin and who cannot overlook it how then if that is true can God show mercy to us? because this is the other side that's the other depth as it were the mercy of God can we fathom the mercy or the loving kindness of God as it's often rendered in the scriptures? can we fathom the depths of that? no and yet the fact that God is a God of judgment on the one hand and mercy on the other it looks as if they're in contradiction does it not? if God must judge sin how can he show mercy? the cross is the only answer that God judged the Lord Jesus Christ for our sins and because he bore our sins God can show mercy to us it's not that the debt hasn't been paid one paid it who didn't have to pay it for himself he voluntarily went to the cross and paid it for us because the sinless savior died my sinful soul is counted free for God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me and so God's judgment on the one hand and his mercy on the other are reconciled at the cross and they could not be reconciled anywhere else it was only through the death of his beloved son that God could judge sin and yet pardon the sinner and so the psalmist says and then as if the Lord himself is saying all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me I bore the judgment the Lord Jesus says and if you trust in me God will give you a full and free forgiveness what a wonderful thing that the Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime and in the night his song shall be with me and my prayer unto the God of my life and yet he's still not not in the full knowledge of what it is to have his soul satisfied with the Lord he's reminded again of what the enemies say in verse 10 it says while they daily say as with a sword in my bones my enemies reproach me while they daily say unto me where is thy God where is your God why doesn't he manifest himself and so he says to his soul again why art thou cast down oh my soul and why art thou disquieted within me hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God now we notice that there's no there's no title to the 43rd psalm it's the most remarkable it's most remarkable because the 43rd psalm is very evidently linked up with the 42nd especially what we have in verse 11 we have the that same question repeated and so I believe that we've got to count the 43rd psalm as one of the psalms one of the masculine psalms and also one of the psalms for the sons of Korah it's been put in there by the Holy Spirit you know the we know that the division of our Bible into chapters and verses is not part of inspiration the division of the chapters and verses is very useful but it was done by man not so the psalms the division of the psalms into the various psalms and into the separate verses is divinely inspired David and those who wrote these psalms were led to write them that way and so this and the arrangement of the psalms when you go through them you see what a wonderful arrangement has been given psalms that are not in chronological order are placed together because there's a moral order connected with them they're placed together because of their moral and spiritual importance and so we see this 43rd psalm how it naturally fits in with the 42nd and in the 43rd psalm we still find him saying speaking to God about his position he says judge me oh God and plead my cause against an ungodly nation deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man who's the deceitful and unjust man you see these psalms are prophetic I've no doubt that as far as David was concerned the deceitful and unjust man was King Saul who was persecuting him but when we think of the prophetic side of it the deceitful and unjust man will be the antichrist who will be who will be in charge of things in this day and when the godly remnant will be cast out and he asks God to deliver him thou art the God of my strength he says why dost thou cast me off why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy and then we have something that I believe gives the answer and in the third and fourth verses I think we can see that the purpose of these two psalms isn't just only the blessing of the psalmist as an individual but his blessing as connected with the company of God's people you know that's true today that's what we find today in God's dealings with us it's true that God saves us as individuals every one of us must come to the Lord and trust him as our savior as an individual God blesses us as individuals God blesses us as families God blesses us as assemblies of his people as congregations of his people and God blesses nations in the measure in which they follow his precious word but even with regard to the family even though we might be born in a Christian home we each of us must take a stand for the Lord ourselves and I say this because we have children of Christian parents who need to be exercised that they themselves must seek to be right with God it's an individual matter but when God saves us as individuals it's with a view to a collective blessing God sets the solitary in families the psalmist says God sets his people in assemblies and that's the way we render a collective testimony to the Lord and so we find the psalmist saying here in verse 3 O send out thy light and thy truth let them lead me send out thy light and thy truth has God sent out his light and his truth? yes he has but where do we get the light of God and the truth of God? God has given his Holy Spirit and God has given us his precious word and beloved if we want light and truth we get God's truth in the scriptures God has given us his precious word and that's where his light is and that's where his truth is if we go outside of the word of God and try and get answers to the questions of man's need and man's soul if we go outside of the word of God we're not going to find them we're only going to find help in what is in accordance with the word of God because God has revealed his truth to us here and he's not revealed his truth anywhere else except that God has revealed himself in creation as we look around in creation we see the power of God but we don't learn the mind of God there we learn his power creation tells us of God's power the cross of Christ tells us of his love we learn God's power in the creation but we only learn his character when we read the bible there we learn the character of God we find he's a holy God we find he's a loving God we find he's a God who hates sin and he's a God who loves the sinner and as we said before he worked out that plan at Calvary's cross whereby his holiness could be vindicated and his love and mercy could be manifest to those who trusted his beloved son so the psalmist says send out thy light and my truth and let them lead me let them bring me unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles he's trusting in God now he's putting his trust in the Lord he says I'm going to trust in the Lord that he will bring me in his own time to the place where I can worship him because you see in those days again they will have the tabernacle set or the temple built and there'll be the place there to worship God but for us this speaks of coming together around the Lord himself to give him the praise and the worship of our hearts thy holy tabernacles or thy habitation God had a dwelling place for Israel he put his name he says they were to offer their sacrifices in the place where he put his name and of course it was there when the temple was built in the temple in Jerusalem God has a place where he's put his name today he says where two or three are gathered together unto my name there am I in the midst of them it's not a physical location but it is it is when God's people gather together what I mean is that God doesn't recognize any place any building as a holy building today but he does wherever there are those who are gathered together to the name of the Lord Jesus the Lord says there am I in the midst of them it's a spiritual understanding as we gather together to remember him and to honor him then he says in verse 4 then will I go unto the altar of God unto God my exceeding joy yea upon the harp will I praise thee O God my God have you noticed how many times in this these two Psalms we have God mentioned I think we only have the Lord mentioned once and that is in the 8th verse of Psalm 42 but 12 times in Psalm 42 we have the word God now you know there's a reason for this the names of God are not used indiscriminately in scripture Israel came to know God as Jehovah the Lord we know him as Father you know Jehovah was the name by which God revealed himself in the Old Testament in the New Testament God has revealed himself as Father I was visiting a woman once and she tried to tell me that she knew what the name of the Lord was and that she finally came round to say that the name of the Lord by which he should be known today is Jehovah oh I said you're too late I said that was in the Old Testament God made himself known as Jehovah but I says for the New Testament God has gone further than that God has revealed himself to us in the name that speaks of relationship and that is as Father and the Lord said when he rose from the dead I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God and if people go back to only know God as Jehovah they're going back to know him as the Old Testament but when the psalmist is outside of the place where he can honour the Lord he speaks of him as God that is God is not as it were publicly manifesting himself at that time that's why they had to their enemies were saying where is your God and they could say well it doesn't appear to be acting on our behalf but down in his heart he knew that he was and so that he says in verse 8 yet the Lord will command his loving kindness he still calls him Lord and so we can do that even in times of when it seems that everything is against us as it is with these people we know that God is still for us and as the apostle Paul could say in writing to the Romans in the 8th chapter if God be for us who can be against us he that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things so he says I will go unto the altar of God verse 4 unto God my exceeding joy or the God the gladness of my joy it's a remarkable expression you know we usually think that the word glad and the word joy that they're similar in meaning and the real expression here is the God the gladness of my joy as much as to say that he's now come into a place even though he's there at a distance from where he can gather together with God's people and worship collectively with the Lord's people the Lord has put his joy in his heart circumstances are against him but the joy of the Lord in his heart do we know that? is our Christianity is our Christianity such that we're only happy when our circumstances are right and we're unhappy when our circumstances are not right or not as we'd like them then we don't have any more than the world it's a sad condition for a Christian to get into you know what the apostle Paul says when he's writing to the Philippians he's in a dungeon he's in jail in Rome and in those days jails weren't like they are today you know I've read about prisoners today that when they get out of jail they go and commit a crime so that they'll get back into jail because they get so well treated there so they want to get back in there again because it's a place where they know that they get a bed to sleep and three meals a day and if they don't want to work of course they think that's alright but in those days to be in jail where the apostle Paul was was to be in a dank and damp dungeon probably full of vermin and you get a little glimpse of it when Paul writes to Timothy and he says the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus bring with thee when thou comest and do thy diligence to come before winter as he was thinking of another cold winter in that dungeon and how he'd like to have that cloak to wrap around him and yet that's practically the only indication that you get of the physical discomfort that Paul was going through writing to the Philippians he says I've learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content he says I've learned it you know that's something that doesn't come to us naturally Paul had learned it and why was it that he could be content in whatsoever state he was because the Lord filled his heart his circumstances didn't dampen his joy he was full of the joy of the Lord he could say rejoice in the Lord and again I say rejoice here's a man writing from a dungeon like he was writing and comforting the Philippians and telling them to rejoice because he was rejoicing that's the proof of Christianity and we should be that how often we allow our circumstances to affect us and when everything's going well we're happy and when things are not going so well with us we get discouraged and downhearted it's because Christ doesn't fill our hearts as he should and I speak to myself beloved brethren as well as to all of us if the Lord filled our hearts more we wouldn't allow our circumstances to affect us but so often we do now the psalmist has got to the point in this psalm where he says I will go unto the altar of God unto God my exceeding joy the gladness of my joy he's now got the Lord before him the Lord's filling his heart the Lord is satisfying you see he starts off with saying that he's like the heart panting after the water brooks he's seeking satisfaction here in this 43rd psalm he's found it and that's why the 43rd psalm has it's rightful places following the 42nd the psalmist ends up with really finding his joy in the Lord yea upon the harp will I praise thee O God my God he's even praising the Lord and you know that's the height that we get to I believe that the highest point we reach in our Christian destiny down here on earth is when we come together collectively to praise and worship the Lord when the saints gather together to remember the Lord and pour out their hearts in praise and worship I believe that's the highest point we reach this side of heaven it's a little foretaste of what we have in the 5th of Revelation where you have the whole redeemed company of every kindred and tongue and people and nation gathered around the Lamb saying thou art worthy for thou was slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood and that's what we have a picture of here and so he can end up with saying why art thou cast down O my soul and why art thou disquieted within me hope in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God he doesn't say for the health of his countenance anymore you notice in the 42nd psalm he says I shall praise him for the health or the salvation of his countenance and but in the 11th verse of Psalm 42 he says I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and again in the 43rd psalm he's the health of my countenance if we get help from the Lord he'll be our health the health of his countenance he's occupied with Christ he's occupied with the Lord he's the one that he's praising and worshiping and beloved that will be our portion if we know the Lord as our saviour and we know him as the one who fills our every need as we go along in the Christian pathway God grant that it might be true for each one of us should there be any here tonight that still don't have the assurance of salvation beloved friend may you find Christ as your only and all sufficient saviour and for each one of us who knows him may we may Christ so fill our hearts that we'll rise above the circumstances that surround us the circumstances in which we find ourselves from day to day and be more occupied with the Lord Jesus the man of God's right hand let us pray gracious God our father we thank thee for thy precious word we thank thee that thou art the one who fills the need of every soul even as the Lord Jesus could say to the woman at the well he that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life we pray thy blessing on thy precious word our God and we commit us to thee in the precious and worthy name of the Lord and saviour Jesus Christ Amen …

… Let us turn to Psalm 44, to the chief musician for the Sons of Korah, Maskell. As we know, these headings in these Psalms are part of the inspiration of the Psalm. We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us what work Thou didst in their days in the times of old. How Thou didst drive out the heathen with Thy hand, and plantest them. How Thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out. For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arms save them. But Thy right hand, and Thine arm, and the light of Thy countenance, because Thou hadst a favour unto them. Thou art my King, O God. Command deliverance is for Jacob. Through Thee will we push down our enemies. Through Thy name will we tread the munda that rise up against us. For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me. But Thou hast saved us from our enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us. In God we boast all the day long, and praise Thy name forever. But Thou hast cast off and put us to shame, and goest not forth with our armies. Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy, and they which hate us spoil for themselves. Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat, and hast scattered us among the heathen. Thou sellest Thy people for naught, and dost not increase Thy wealth by their price. Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us. Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people. My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me. For the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth by reason of the enemy and avenger. All this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten Thee, neither have we dealt falsely in my covenant. Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from Thy way. Though Thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we've forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange God, shall not God search this out? For He knoweth the secrets of the heart. Yea, for Thy sake we're killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Awake, why sleepest Thou, O Lord? Arise, cast us not off forever. Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression. For our soul is bowed down to the dust, our belly cleaveth unto the earth. Arise for our help, and redeem us for Thy mercy's sake. We've been speaking on the Masculine Psalms. The word Masculine meaning to give instruction. And we've seen that these Psalms have a special application to the days of the yet future, when God will again be acting on behalf of his people Israel. But when Antichrist will have risen up, and the godly Israelites will have been driven out of the land, and will be in great reproach in that day. But there will be those among them who will be instructed of the Lord. They are the wise ones that are referred to in Daniel. We notice that also, that in these Psalms, verses Psalm 42 and 43, and this Psalm tonight 44, and also the next Psalm, which follows 45. They're not only Masculine Psalms, they're Psalms for the sons of Korah. And we know that the sons of Korah were those who stood for God when their father was in rebellion. And God honored them and gave them a place in his service. And so there are special lessons in connection with this Psalm for those two reasons. It's a Masculine Psalm, and it's a Psalm for the sons of Korah. Those who stood for God, when they even had to take a stand against those who were very closest to them. And the lesson, one of the lessons we learn as we go through these Psalms is, that God must come first. Even when it's a question of our loved ones, even when it's a question of our nation, if any are opposed to the Lord, we must put the Lord first. And even though it seems sometimes that God has forgotten, as we have expressed in this Psalm that we read tonight, God hasn't forgotten. When it seems that God has hidden his face, it's like the cloud that covers the sun. The sun is still there. Only the cloud covers us, covers it. But the day comes when the cloud passes and the sun is seen again. I've called this Psalm, given it a title, the Exercise Psalm. Because we have the Psalmist in this Psalm really exercised. And you know it's a good thing for us to be exercised. To be exercised is to be concerned and to be before the Lord about conditions. Whether it be our own condition or whether it be the conditions around us. And the Psalm is naturally divided up into four sections. From verses 1 down through verse 8. Then beginning with verse 9 down to the 16th verse. Then 17 to 22. And then the last four verses, 23 to 26, we have the close. And we might call this first section a retrospect. The Psalmist, he is looking back to the past. He's really concerned about it as he looks back to the past. He says, we've heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old. What he's saying is, our fathers have told us this has been passed down from father to son. And we have learned how God worked on behalf of his people in the past. An Israelite would be thinking of the great deliverance from Egypt for instance. How God brought them out with a high hand and an outstretched arm. How he brought them through the wilderness. How he took them into the land. In fact it says here in verse 3, they got not the land in possession by their own sword. Neither did their own arm save them, but thy right hand and thine arm. God went before them. And it's really marvelous as we read the conquest of the land of Canaan. How it was just with the exception of that defection at Ai because of sins had been allowed with Achan. It was one glorious triumph as they went right through and conquered city after city. Until the whole land was subdued. And if some of the original inhabitants were not subdued. It was because the children of Israel rested on their laurels and didn't have the spiritual strength to go forward. And to take complete possession. But they did take possession of the land. And so they look back and they see that God was with them. And I think we learn lessons from this. Perhaps there are two lessons we see here. We see here that in Israel these things weren't allowed to be forgotten. The history of the past was handed down. And so I believe it is among us that the history of the past should not be forgotten. This is recognized even in a national way among the nations. No matter what country you live in when you go to school you have to study not only the general history of the countries. But the history of your particular country. All of us know that we have to study history. And isn't it true that patriotism is stirred up when we read of the exploits of those who were the pioneers in the country. And who at great odds won victories. Or that went into the wilderness and carved out homes for themselves. You see history and biography has a certain value. We look back and we see that certain things were stood for that were right. And we're encouraged to continue to do that. If that's true even in a national sense how much more in a spiritual sense. Don't we learn something. And aren't we encouraged as we read in the word of God how that God worked in the past. Think of the history of the early church. As we read there the preaching of the apostles and how souls were saved. And how assemblies were formed. And how the church of God grew in those days. That's an encouragement to us. It's true that like the psalmist we might say well we don't see these things today. But even then the very reading of these things helps us. And I believe in a certain sense also we should make it our business to study church history. To look back in the past. Aren't we encouraged as we see for instance as we read the history of the protestant reformation. How God worked there in great deliverance in those days in the days of Martin Luther and Calvin and others. We should read those things. We learn what they stood for. We won't easily be led to be taken up with some of the ideas that Rome is putting forward. If we see what our forefathers stood for in those days. How many of us know anything about the history of men like J.N. Darby and C.H. Macintosh. We should make it our business to read these things. To see the history of how souls were led to gather to the Lord's name. So we have two thoughts I think here. The one is the fathers passed these things on to their children. And that should be done today. And also we should study God's word ourselves. And we should study history ourselves. We should make it our business to learn how God worked in the past. And so we find the psalmist as it were is going over the past and seeing how God worked. And he is very exercised as he thinks of all this because he sees how God worked then. And it causes him to say in verse 6. I will not trust in my bow neither shall my sword save me. But thou hast saved us from our enemies and hast put them to shame that hated us. In God we boast all the day long and praise thy name forever. And it ends up with the word Selah. And we know that this word Selah it seems it was originally put in as a pause in the music. Because these psalms were the psalms you know the book of psalms were Israel's hymn book. They sang the psalms. And they often it seems that they sang them they were sung accompanied by various musical instruments. And this was a pause. And it's been allowed to be preserved to us in the scriptures. I believe that it might be for us a spiritual pause. Just as much as if God is saying to us after he said something and then we get the word Selah. Now that's something to meditate on. Just think on that. That's something to pause about. You know these pauses are good. When we have the breaking of bread we have our pauses. A brother gives out a hymn. He's led of the Lord by the spirit to give out a hymn. And we have a pause. I think sometimes perhaps there are longer pauses than there should be. But it's good to have pauses. We don't want but we don't want pauses just for the sake of pauses. Sometimes I think we're inclined to pause too long or perhaps to wait a little too long. But there are places where a pause is very necessary. We have to wait for the Lord's leading. And I think so in our lives too. God gives us pauses. God says to us to stop and to wait sometimes. He that believeth shall not make haste. And so we find here we have the pause. As much as to say now this is something to meditate on. And then the psalmist goes on to the next section. Beginning with verse 9. I think this section we can call concern. He's concerned. He sees now that what happened in the past isn't happening now. And so he says, You know, if we understand the prophetic scriptures are right, we believe that this is going to be true for the godly revenant of Israel during the great tribulation. There's going to be that great tribulation that will come upon the land of Israel. It'll come on the whole world. But the land of Israel will be the center of it after the rapture of the church. The great event that Christians are looking for now is the Lord's coming. To take his church out of this scene. Then God will take up Israel. And he'll take up Israel and there will be those among them who will turn to the Lord. Even though the majority will not turn to the Lord. But there will be those among them who will. And there will arise up among them a man that scripture calls Antichrist. And he will be in Jerusalem. And he will force the people to worship the image of the beast. And to receive the mark of the beast in their hand or their forehead. And those who won't receive it will be killed. And to avoid being killed, they'll flee. And this is the language of those who have fled. They fled to across the river Jordan. They fled to other countries. And they're exercised about it. They're in reproach. And they're looking to the Lord as to why he's allowed this reproach. Isn't that true sometimes, beloved, among us? We find ourselves in reproach. You know, to be faithful to the Lord has never been a popular thing in the world. To be faithful to the Lord is never popular with the world. It's true that the people of the world admire the results of Christianity. For instance, if a man who wants people to work for him, he wants to have conscientious people working for him. He likes to have a Christian working for him because he's conscientious in his work. But if he's really a man of the world, he doesn't have much interest in the Christian's message. He's not willing to accept it for himself. People want to see the results of Christianity in others. But they don't want to take the truth home to their hearts because they might have to give up something of their sinful life. So we find that the Lord himself says in the first epistle of John, if you were of the world, the world would love his own. Or rather, he said that to the apostles in John's gospel. But he mentions the world also in the epistle. If you're of the world, the world would love his own. But because you're not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore does the world hate you. These people in that day will realize that. And we realize it too. And so we have, this is the concern of the psalmist. He says, as much as to say, God is not with us, openly. God's not accrediting us in an open way. No, Satan's the God of this world. Satan is the prince of this world. This world doesn't want the Lord Jesus Christ. It wants him less and less. Sad to say, even in this country, in the early days God was honored in the schools. Today it's forbidden to mention his name almost in the schools because the world wants to cast him out and doesn't want him to be brought in. So let's just see that the world goes on to its judgment and the Christian is under reproach. Just the same as these people will be under reproach. Thou makest us of reproach to our neighbors, it says in verse 13, a scorn of the vision that liveth around about us. Thou makest us a byword among the heathen and the shaking of head among the people. And so forth and so on. You see, the psalmist, he is really concerned as to why God is not intervening on behalf of his people. He has to come to realize that it's not the time for God to intervene. God will intervene in his own time. And so it is for us today, beloved. God doesn't publicly intervene on behalf of his people generally today. There are occasions when he does and manifests his power and makes it seem very much where he is. I remember reading that a number of years ago down in Argentina, in a city there, there was an earthquake. And in that city, there had been a Roman Catholic bishop who had persecuted the Christians, the evangelical Christians in that city. Well, there came a great earthquake into that city and this bishop was in the church celebrating mass when the earthquake came. And he perished. They said they could hear his groans and they couldn't get him out because he was buried under the rubbish and he died there. Yet only two Christians in that whole city were hurt. And that was just a minor injury. One woman, I think, got her foot hurt and the other one got her arm hurt. Very, very little. It was a wonderful testimony to the people of the city because they all knew that this man had so opposed the gospel to see that those who opposed the gospel, that God allowed a judgment to come upon them and that those who were following the gospel, practically nothing had happened to them. Now, God allows that sometimes. He allows a manifestation like that at times. But very often, that doesn't happen. And the Lord's people are under reproach. God does that on special occasions. It's just like some of the miracles we see in the early days of the church. God brought miracles to attest the gospel. You usually see that in new places. I believe that in places where the gospel is new, where it's not been preached before, we can expect there to be some miraculous happenings. In places where the gospel has been preached for years and people have heard it and continue to refuse it, God doesn't usually manifest himself in special ways like that. People have his word and they're responsible to listen to the word of God. And so in these days of this, as the psalmist is referring to here, God is not openly manifesting himself yet. They look on to the day when he will. Now he says in verse 17, he's examining himself. He says, Is the psalmist boasting when he says this? No, I don't believe he's boasting. He is exercised to speak the truth. He's saying, Thou hast allowed all this to happen to us, but we can truly say we haven't forgotten thee. We can say that, beloved, couldn't we? Under these circumstances, we could say to the Lord, Well, Lord, we don't forget thee. We gather together from week to week to remember the Lord. We gather together to his name. We haven't forgotten him. He says, Where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them. He says, The Lord says to us, Don't forget me. Remember me. We remember what the chief butler said to Joseph. You remember when Joseph was in jail in Egypt and he told the chief butler the meaning of his dream? And after he told him the meaning of the dream, he says, Remember me when it shall be well with thee. For I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and even here I've done nothing that they should put me in this dungeon. Remember me, says Joseph. When you get out, don't forget to remember me. You just tell Pharaoh about me. Because he was suffering in that dungeon. And I think it's lovely that he doesn't find fault with his brothers. He says, I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews. He could have said, I had some wicked brothers who sold me into Egypt, and a wicked woman raised a false report against me, and that's why I'm in jail. He doesn't say anything of that. But he says, Remember me. Did the chief butler remember him? It tells us he forgot him. He did remember him later, and Joseph eventually got out. But he conveniently forgot Joseph. And the Lord has asked us to remember him. Because it's true he's not beloved. It's well with us. It's well with our souls. One of our hymns says, It is well. It is well with my soul. And for we who can say that it's well with our souls, the Lord asks us to remember him. And from week to week. And it's a wonderful privilege for us to do it. Well, the psalmist here could say, We've not forgotten thee. Our heart is not turned back. Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons and covered us with the shadow of death. If we've forgotten the name of our God or stretched out our hands to a strange God, shall not God search this out? For he knoweth the secrets of the heart. He says, Lord, we've not forgotten thee. But even then, we still don't see God working openly on our path. In fact, he says something here in verse 22 that we have quoted in the New Testament. Yea, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted the sheep for the slaughter. And I believe that's going to be true in that day. The godly Israelites of that day will be killed as sheep for the slaughter. And those who can escape, they'll escape. But let's, don't lose the place here because I want to turn back to this 45th Psalm and just let's turn over for a minute to the 8th chapter of Romans where this verse is quoted. Because even though we have it here with a Jewish application or finally a Jewish fulfillment we might say, we find it applied in the 8th of Romans to Christians. You see it's quoted there in verse 36. As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted the sheep for the slaughter. But we need to go back in this in this 8th chapter of Romans a little to get the connection here. And we go back now to verse 29. Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? And now we get what we might call or what have been called three triumphant challenges. We have three questions asked to which the answer is in every case nothing. The first one is in verse 31. If God be for us, who could be against us? What's the answer beloved? If God be for us, who can be against us? Nobody. The second is in verse 33. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Nobody. Nobody can lay anything to the charge of God's elect. This is what he says. It's God that justifies us. Who is he that condemns us? And the third challenge is who shall separate us from the love of Christ in verse 35. And he raises a whole list. Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or parent, or sword. Seven things. And then the quotation from the psalm as it is written. For thy sake we're killed all the day long. We're a count of the sheep for the slaughter. Are the Christians going through trials? Yes. Perhaps we don't know what trials are in this country to what they have in some countries. But we know in some countries of the world today the Lord's people are under great pressure. They're in great trial. It's really literally true of them in some cases that they're killed all the day long and they're counted the sheep for the slaughter. And we, even we here, every Christian has his trials and his difficulties. And so we could ask the question who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall these things, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, parent, or sword? No. If a person is truly born again, a person is really the Lord's, nothing can separate that person from the love of Christ. If God is for us, nothing can be against us. No one can lay anything to the charge of God's elect because it's God that justifies. You know, when the people of Israel came out of Egypt and they were getting near the borders of Canaan, Balak hired Balaam to curse them. And as Balaam looked upon them, God made him bless them. And God made him say, I have not seen iniquity in Israel. Did that mean to say that they were faultless? No. God himself had to deal with them later because of their defection. But God saw them under the shelter of the blood. And that's how he sees us, beloved. That's why it says, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is that God sees us in all the value of the precious blood of his beloved Son. And he will not allow anyone, even Satan himself, to lay anything to our charge. And so we find that this 36th verse that will be true of God's faithful remnant in the coming day, it's true for Christians today. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. He goes on a little further. He says, I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature. Ten things. We have seven things mentioned in verse 35 and we have ten more things here in verse 38 and 39. None of these ten things shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Oh, how wonderful it is to see the value of the work of God's beloved Son. That so great is that value that nothing in the whole universe can separate a person from the love of Christ. You know, it has been pointed out on how true it is. A person could be a Buddhist without having any personal connection with Buddha. A person can be a Mohammedan without having any personal connection with Mohammed. A person can belong to any religion of the world without having any personal connection with its founder. And of all these great religions the founders of them are all dead anyhow. But no one can be a Christian without having a personal connection with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's just the big difference. Because he's a living Savior and it's because he lives that he's able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is to have a living connection with the one who died and rose again and who now lives at God's right hand to be able to say he's my Savior. I know him. I'm in fellowship with him. I have communion with him from day to day. Nothing can separate us from him. And how true that is. Even though we might be killed all the day long on account of the sheep for the slaughter. Even though the greatest of calamities might come upon God's people. Nothing can separate them from the love of Christ. What a comfort that's going to be for God's remnant in that day. What a comfort today to God's people who are going through trials and difficulties in many parts of the world. What a comfort for us beloved when trials come upon us. And to be able to turn to the Lord because if our Christianity is going to be swayed by our circumstances we don't have anything very deep. But if we know the Lord is our Savior then no matter what the circumstances we'll continue to join him. Now we go on to verse 23 and we find the psalmist says there Wherefore hide us... Verse 23 Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, cast us not off forever. Wherefore hide us now thy face and forget us now affliction and our oppression. For our soul is bowed down to the dust. Our belly cleaveth to the earth. Arise for our help and redeem us for thy mercy's sake. Now you notice we have two words used here and one is used twice. In verse 23 it says awake and it says arise and we have the word arise again in verse 26. Is God asleep? You know we have people today that are saying God is dead. I've no doubt that their God is dead because the God that they have never was alive. But the God of the scriptures and the God of Christians is the supreme ruler of the universe and he is still in control of things but the people who say God is dead I've no doubt that their God is dead because they never had the true God. But sometimes it does seem as if God has hidden himself. It does seem that God's asleep. God doesn't answer the prayers of his people when they ask. But you know God always answers prayer. It's true that sometimes he doesn't answer our prayers when we ask them. Or he doesn't answer us in the way we expect. Or he doesn't always say yes. Even parents when their children ask them something sometimes they say yes and sometimes they say no and sometimes they say wait. And so it is with God when his people ask sometimes the Lord grants what we've requested. Sometimes the Lord's answer is no and sometimes the Lord's answer is not yet. You have to wait a while. I remember reading about a little girl and she'd asked for something and she didn't get it. And her mother thought she'd be disappointed and she said to her well she said the Lord didn't answer your prayer. Oh yes mummy he did. He said no. Well that little girl had learned something. She learned that sometimes God says no when we ask him for something. And perhaps there are many more much more mature Christians than that little girl that haven't learned that lesson. They haven't learned that sometimes the Lord says no. And if the Lord says no should we be disappointed? No. We should take his answer as that which is best. Well here it seems to the psalmist that God's forgotten. So he says Lord awake. Arise he says. Cast us not off forever. God wasn't going to cast them off forever. Those very verses that we read in Romans 8 show that God never casts his people off. In John's gospel we read them that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. God doesn't cast his he never casts his people off. He'll allow the Godly remnant to be cast out of Jerusalem but he's going to bring them back in again in his own time. He'll allow us beloved to go through tests and trials but he allows them for our spiritual good. And when we come through them we'll find that we've learned some lessons that perhaps otherwise we'd not have learned. Arise for our help and redeem us for thy mercy's sake. Now we don't get the answer to this in this psalm but we get the answer in the next psalm. And I just want to briefly refer to it because the next time the Lord gives me the privilege of speaking I want to take up this 45th psalm. And the 45th psalm is in such wonderful contrast to what we've had in these psalms from Psalm 42 right through Psalm 44. And you notice what it says My heart is indicting a good matter. I speak of the things which I have made touching the King. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. And this 45th psalm is all about the Lord Jesus Christ. The 45th psalm brings Christ in as the answer and to be occupied with him. Oh how lovely it is that this psalm is brought in right here in this portion following on this 44th. In the 44th psalm as it were he's hiding his face. But in the 45th psalm he's come out it's just as if the cloud has gone and the psalmist is occupied he's there in the blaze of sunlight as it were occupied with the Lord Jesus himself. He's so occupied with him that he says my heart is bubbling over because that's what that my heart is indicting a good matter means my heart's bubbling over. It's something like the same thought that we have in the 23rd psalm My cup runneth over. You know when a cup runs over it's because it's full and you pour more in it can't help running over. My cup runneth over. That's what the psalmist says here. I'm so full of Christ that I'm just bubbling over. I can't help myself. I'm occupied with him. The Lord has been brought in as the portion of his heart. And so beloved may that be true of us. May we know the Lord Jesus as the one who has saved our souls and satisfied us as our hymn said that we were singing none but Christ can satisfy none other name for me does love and life and lasting joy Lord Jesus found in me. Lord there's one here tonight that's not yet found that joy and peace. May you find it tonight beloved friend in the Lord Jesus Christ because the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one that can satisfy the human heart. Why is it that people are running around seeking all kinds of pleasures in this life and things it's because they're not satisfied. They're seeking satisfaction in the things of this earth and you know you'll never find satisfaction in the things of this earth. The Lord said to the woman at the well he that drinketh of this water shall thirst again. I read of someone recently visited Palestine and they said that they visited Syke as well and they had a drink of the water of Syke as well. This was a Christian person who said this and they realized that that was the well that was the water of the well that could never satisfy. It was that person that found satisfaction in the Lord Jesus himself. But that not only applies to the water of Syke as well but to everything on this earth that people seek occupation with to satisfy their souls. But the Lord Jesus is the one who satisfies and the psalmist comes out to realize that. So may we realize it too in a fuller measure to be occupied more with the Lord Jesus Christ to be in that sense Christians who give a good testimony to those around us because Christ has met our every need and we're occupied with him. God granted it might be so for his name's sake. Gracious God our Father we thank thee for the lessons that we learn in this portion of thy precious word. We pray that thou would enable us to take them home to our hearts. We pray our God that should there be any tonight still outside of Christ or that they might come to trust in him who died that they might live to receive the Lord Jesus as their personal saviour and that each one of us thy people may be more occupied with our Lord Jesus and with his interests day by day as we await his return. We thank thee for the day that thou hast given us. We pray very especially tonight again our God for our dear young brother David Howland that thou be pleased to lay thy healing hand upon him and raise him up to health and strength and we commit us each one into thy loving care those not with us and some our God too that are not feeling well we commit each one to thee in the precious and worthy name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. …

… Let us turn to Psalm 45. Psalm 45, to the chief musician, upon Shoshanim, for the sons of Korah, masculine, a song of loves, or as it should read, I believe, a song of the Beloved. My heart is indicting a good matter. I speak of the things which I have made touching the King. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the children of men. Grace is poured into thy lips. Therefore God hath blessed thee forever. Lord, thy sword upon thy thigh, O Most Mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty, and in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness. And thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies, whereby the people fall under thee. Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is a right scepter. Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness. Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. All thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia. Out of the ivory palaces stringed instruments have made thee glad. I'm reading as it is in the new translation there. King's daughters were among thy honourable women. Upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir. Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear. Forget also thine own people and thy father's house. So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty, for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him. And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift. Even the rich among the people shall entreat thy favour. The King's daughter is all glorious within. Her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework. The virgins, her companions that follow her, shall be brought unto thee. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought. They shall enter into the King's palace. Instead of thy father shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth. I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations. Therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever. This is another one of the Masculine Psalms. And as we saw in speaking of the previous Psalms, the word Masculine means giving instruction. They're Psalms to instruct. This is also a Psalm for the sons of Korah. And we have noticed that several of the Masculine Psalms are also Psalms for the sons of Korah. These two series cross as it were here. This is the last one of the Masculine Psalms that is also for the sons of Korah. Now as a Masculine Psalm, it's a Psalm to give us instruction, for us to learn something from. As a Psalm for the sons of Korah, it speaks to us of God's grace to those sons of Korah who died not when their father died, because they stood for God. They departed from the tents of those wicked men, and God gave them the privilege of, because they were Levites, of being doorkeepers in his house, and of being singers also. The sons of Korah stand out in the history of Israel as singers and doorkeepers. A privilege that God gives to each one of us who knows the Lord Jesus as our Savior. Then it is, it's called a Song of the Beloved. I suppose of all the Psalms in the Book of Psalms, the language of this Psalm comes nearer than any other to the language that is used in the Song of Solomon. Because in this Psalm we have the Bridegroom, who is the King, and then we have the Bride, the Queen we might say, as we go further down. In fact this Psalm is divided up between the two. We have the King first, in the first eight verses we have the King. Then from verse 9 down through verse 15 we have the Queen, and the last two verses give the summing up. So it's a Song of the Beloved, and the King comes first, and of course we know who the King is. The King is the Lord Jesus Christ. And this Psalm is really the answer to the exercises of God's people, especially prophetic of the exercises of the Godly remnant of Israel in the time of the Great Tribulation. It's the answer to the exercises that we have expressed in Psalms 42, 43, and 44. We saw in going through these Psalms great exercise, people under great pressure, and truly concerned as to why it was that God in the past went forth with their fathers, and now he's not going forth with them, and they're in trouble, and they're raising questions. Why isn't God openly with us like he used to be? Now the answer in this Psalm is that the person of the Lord Jesus Christ is brought in. And beloved, that's a very important point for us to see. Christ is the answer. I remember seeing a little tract once, it says Christ is the answer, and that's very true. Christ is the answer to every problem. If you're unsaved, if you haven't yet trusted in the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, my dear friend tonight, Christ is the answer. And you never will be satisfied until you trust in him. And for the Lord's people, for every difficulty that comes up in our lives, Christ is the answer. We have to face many problems as Christians in our lives. Things come up and sometimes we don't know what to do. Christ is the answer. We turn to him. We have his precious word. We come before him in prayer. We seek his guidance. He's the answer. And here we have Christ brought before us as the one as it were to be occupied with. As much as to say, if you get occupied with the beloved, everything else will fall into its right place. And how true that is. You know, in the Scriptures, and we often like to speak of this, especially those of us who know the blessed truth of gathering to the Lord's name, we have the great truth that Christ is the centre. And God has made Christ the centre of the universe. God has made Christ the centre for his people. But you know, man doesn't want Christ as the centre. Man makes self the centre. That's Satan's effort, to make man the centre, to make self the centre. When the Lord put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he said he planted in the garden every tree, and he planted in the midst of the garden, that is in the centre of the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or rather the tree of life. The tree of life was planted in the centre of the garden, in the midst of the garden. But it also said that there was in that garden the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Well, when Satan came to tempt our first parents, we find that when he says to Eve, can you eat of every tree of the garden? She says, no, she says, we can eat of every tree, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that's in the midst of the garden, we may not eat. Now, God hadn't said that. God hadn't said that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was in the midst of the garden. God had said that the tree of life was in the midst. But you see, Eve had unconsciously got her eye on the wrong centre. She'd taken her eyes off the tree of life and got her eyes put on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. She'd made that her centre. And that's where sin came in. Now, you know, we have in our English language a word, it's called eccentric. And you know what an eccentric person is? Something that's eccentric means something that's out of centre. Well, you know, the world thinks Christians are eccentric. They think we're eccentric. But the point is, we're not eccentric. We have Christ as the centre. It's those who don't have Christ are eccentric, but the sad thing is they don't know it. They don't know it. And we can well afford to let them think that we're eccentric. We need no need to worry about that. Let them think that we are. They think we're Christians are square and that we're odd and all the rest of it. We don't have to worry about that. We just have to keep our eyes on the Lord Jesus and seek to please him. That's the important thing. Now, this psalm brings before us Christ as the centre. And so the psalmist starts off with saying, my heart's bubbling over. That's really what that verse said. My heart's indicting a good matter. My heart is bubbling up. It's boiling over. Something like the 23rd psalm, you know, it says, my cup runneth over. That's what the psalmist says. I'm so full, I just have to speak. Like Jeremiah said, God's word was within him like a fire. And he just had to say something. He couldn't contain it. That's what the psalmist is saying here. My heart's just bubbling over. You know, it's not hard for us to speak to a person about Christ, is it? If Christ is filling our hearts. It's not hard for us in the meeting to get up and give the Lord thanks, if the Lord's filling our hearts. I sometimes wonder why there's such a lot of silence in the meeting for the breaking of bread. And I believe brethren, Christ isn't filling our hearts as we should. I believe that there'd be more spontaneous action in giving the Lord praise, if the Lord really filled our hearts as he should fill them. I thought this morning that after our brother ministered the word, that someone should have given out a hymn of praise. But I've already taken part twice in the meeting, and in the meeting as large as ours, I don't think that a brother should need to take part so many times, when there are so many who could take part. We should have had another hymn of praise and a prayer of someone on their feet to give a word of praise to, to close the meeting. And we should exercise this. And if Christ is really filling our hearts, we have to say something. And why is it that we don't? Do we wait for one another? Perhaps we wait too much for one another. I think it's good to wait. But it's not good to wait too long. Let us see that the Lord is so filling our hearts, that our hearts will overflow. And we have that in the fourth of John and the seventh of John. In the fourth of John we have the water flowing up in praise and worship to the Lord. The living water. And in the seventh of John, we have it flowing out to the world. And that's what it should be. If our hearts are full of Christ, one of our hymns says, our hearts are full of Christ and long their glorious matter to declare. We long to declare it to the Father, what we think of his Son. And we long to tell the Son what our hearts think of him. And we long to tell sinners too, about this one who fills our hearts. Well, that's what the psalmist is here. He says, I speak of the things which I've made touching the King. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Then he goes on to describe the one, he says, of the Lord Jesus. Thou art fairer far, that's really what it is, it's a superlative. Thou art fairer far than the children of men. Grace is poured into thy lips. Therefore God hath blessed thee forever. Now, he's speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ as a man on earth. We might say, well, what did, what did, what did the psalmist? 700 odd years before the Lord, maybe around a thousand years before Christ. What did the psalmist know about the Lord Jesus Christ? He was led to say this by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He's looking on to the one who was going to come, as we look back to him. So he says, thou art fairer than the children of men, far fairer than the children of men. Grace is poured into thy lips. It's like the, the bride in the, in the Song of Solomon, she says, my, my beloved is, is altogether lovely. He's the cheapest among 10,000. Grace was poured into his lips. Therefore God hath blessed thee forever. We had before us this morning that verse in the, in the fourth chapter of Luke, where it says they wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. Grace was poured into his lips and grace came out of his mouth. There we have the Lord in his life. This sets forth, this verse sets forth what we might call the moral glories of the Lord Jesus. If you haven't read that book by Brother Bellet, J.G. Bellet, The Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus, I believe every brother and sister should read that book because he points out the various glories of Christ. We have them all here. We have Christ's moral glories. We have his personal glories and we have his official glories, but he specially dwells on his moral glories and that's what we have here. The glories with it was seen in Christ as the man, how he acted, his love and his grace and his, his loving kindness on the one hand and his rebuke of the sinner on the other. That perfect blending of righteousness and grace that we see in the person of the Lord Jesus. Yes, he was the perfect one. Every moral beauty shines out in the Lord Jesus and so the psalmist speaks of that here. Therefore God has blessed thee forever. Something like it says in the, in the second chapter of Philippians. It says the Lord, it speaks of him taking all those steps down and then it says, wherefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name. Because he took the humble place here, God has given him the high place there. Because grace was poured into his lips here, it says therefore God has blessed thee forever there, in the place that he has in the glory. Further down we get in verse four, it speaks of his truth and meekness and righteousness. There again we have his moral glories. In the sixth verse, and we'll come back to these other verses, in the sixth verse we have his personal glory. It says in the sixth verse, thy throne O God is forever and ever. A scepter of thy kingdom is a right scepter. These sixth and seventh verses are quoted in the, in the first chapter of Hebrews. And the sixth verse speaks of the Lord Jesus as God. Thy throne O God. I know that those who deny the deity of the Lord Jesus have tried to undermine this verse. I have a false translation put out by those known as Jehovah's Witnesses of the New Testament. I've got it well marked up in the front, unsound, for reference only. So if anyone gets hold of it they'll know that why I got that book there, it's just for reference. But they say, they give the translation of this as if it's just saying that God's throne is forever and ever, but not applying it to the Lord Jesus. Not applying it to the Lord Jesus. That it's the throne of God that's forever and ever. But here it says, here the Lord Jesus is addressed as God. Says thy throne O God is forever and ever. And that's exactly how it is in Hebrews. In Hebrews, it points out in the first chapter of Hebrews, the Holy Spirit is pointing out that the first chapter of Hebrews says, God has spoken unto us in his Son. And it re-quotes this verse to prove the deity of the Son, that this one is God. So it says, thy throne O God is forever and ever. That's the Lord's personal glory, beloved. That's the glory that was his and his alone from all eternity past. He doesn't share that glory with anyone. You know, the Lord's moral glories, we can imitate them. The Lord was gracious, the Lord was loving, the Lord was holy. We can be gracious, we can be loving, we can be holy. We can imitate those persons, those moral glories. But the Lord's personal glory was his alone. That was something it was his alone. We might say, he is a man in a country where they have the royal family. He is a man who's born into the family of the sovereign. Like Prince Charles in England. He is now being invested as the Prince of Wales. He is the future heir to the British throne. He has a glory in that kingdom that is his alone. Nobody else has exactly the same position that he has. And he has that because of his birth. He was born into it. It was something that he came into and it's his alone. And no one else can share that with him. And that is the nearest picture we can get to the personal glory of the Lord Jesus. The glory as the Son of God. The glory of deity. The glory of being the creator of the universe. These are the Lord's personal glories. They're his. We worship him because of who he is. When we think of the of the gloriousness of his person, that draws out our hearts in praise and in worship. Because worship is what we give to someone who is superior to us. So we have the Lord's personal glory. Then in verse 7 it says thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness. Therefore God thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Here again we have his moral glory. He loved righteousness and hated wickedness. But it brings in the thought of his official glory. You see it says therefore God has exalted him. We have it the same thought in verse 2. Therefore God has blessed thee forever. The Lord has a glory in heaven that he gained by becoming a man. When we think of the Lord Jesus now in the glory, we think of him as our great high priest. We think of him as our advocate. We think of him as the head of his church. We think of him as the son of man who's going to judge and reign. These were glories that he didn't have before he came to earth. These were glories that were not manifested while he was here on earth. They're official glories. We might say if to use the example that we used before, here is the king's son and because he's the king's son he has the glory of being the prince. But then supposing he becomes a captain of an army and he goes out and he's successful in a very important battle and he gains great fame for himself by the way he acted and he's given special decoration and promotion because of that. That's an official glory. That's something he gained and the Lord Jesus has something that he gained. Think of what he gained by becoming a man. He now has titles that he never had before. He wasn't the head of the church until he died and rose again. He wasn't he's not our great wasn't he couldn't act as our great high priest until he'd finished the work of redemption and taken his place on high. He couldn't be our advocate until he'd returned there after having died for us. Although he was recognized as the son of man on earth he's only officially the son of man when he takes his place as the judge and when he reigns over this scene. These are these are official glories of the Lord. How lovely it is beloved to see these glories in Christ. Doesn't it draw out our hearts to him to want to worship him as we think of his moral his personal and his official glories. Now I want to point out something else in those third and fifth verses. It says there it mentions there the sword gird thy sword upon thy thigh oh most mighty. In verse four it says thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Verse five thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. What are those expressions referred to? Ah they refer to judgment. As you know beloved it's often been pointed out we either know the Lord Jesus we either come to know him now in this the day of grace or else we have to meet him in the day of judgment. We either have to know the Lord as as the one who on earth manifested meekness and righteousness and meekness and truth and meekness and righteousness in his grace or else we'll have to know him as the one who girds on the sword in judgment. As the one whose right hand teaches terrible things and as the one whose arrows are sharp I wonder if everyone here tonight is sure of where they stand in this. Are you willing to meet the Lord as the one who showed his love to you at the cross? Think of that love or you're going to have to meet him as the one who has the sword in his right hand who will be the judge. I read about two young men who grew up together they were very great friends. They were almost inseparable as friends when they were young. Each went their way one of them finally arrived he became a lawyer he finally got to the point where he was a judge on the court. The other one lived a dissolute life. He went down last of all he went down last of all he was taken in a crime and it just happened that he was finally brought before his old friend and he was the he were these two men who had been such such bosom friends. The one was a prisoner in the dock charged with a very serious crime. The other was the judge who was there to judge him and he appealed to his old friend the prisoner did to to to be lenient to him for the sake of their friendship. He said to him calling him by his first name he said how sorry I am that I cannot I can't I don't stand before you today as a friend much as I look back and rejoice in the friendship we had in the past I'm here as your judge and I would be unfaithful to my trust if I did not pass the sentence that the law requires and he had to pass the sentence on him. It must have been a very sad thing for that judge to have to do that and how sad it's going to be for the Lord Jesus to have to pass sentence on those who to whom he's shown his grace and to whom he's given every opportunity of salvation and they refused when they had the opportunity to put their trust in the Lord Jesus. Yes today beloved friends Jesus is the friend of sinners and he's offering salvation but the day will come when he'll be the judge and he won't be able to manifest his friendship any longer then he'll be as the judgment must pass the sentence. So we have here on the one hand the Lord with the sword we have on the other hand the Lord showing his grace and it's for each of us to make a decision before God in that don't we see here that this is truly a masculine psalm it's a psalm that gives instruction instruction to the sinner that he might come to Christ as well as instruction for those of us who are saved that we might follow Christ. Then we have a wonderful statement in verse eight it says all thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces stringed instruments have made thee glad that's how it reads in the new translation. I know that there's a hymn that's based on this verse but the hymn I don't think expresses the thing expresses this verse exactly as it was intended. The hymn gives the thought that the Lord came out of the ivory palaces to come to this world to die for us and that the ivory palaces were the heaven that he came out of. Now I'm very sorry that I'm not able to agree with the author of the hymn much as there's much that's precious within that hymn it's a very precious hymn and it contains some very precious thoughts concerning what the myrrh and aloes and cassia mean but I think that this is referring to the fact the very fact that it says the ivory palaces it's referring to the the coming day when the Lord is going to reign. It says that Solomon king Solomon had a throne of ivory that was overlaid with pure gold and the ivory palaces seem to refer to the Lord's taking his place in the kingdom and reigning as the king and then you say well why do we get these spices brought in because the Lord still carries the fragrance that goes back to his death the myrrh and the aloes and the cassia refer to the death of the Lord Jesus we know that when the Lord was buried and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus came it says that they brought the they brought the spices of myrrh and aloes and if we go back to the 30th chapter of exodus we'll find myrrh and cassia ingredients in the holy anointing oil and these things all speak of Christ the fragrance I understand that myrrh is obtained by the crushing of a plant and it's only when the plant is crushed that the fragrance comes out I've mentioned before but I think there are some here who haven't heard me say this that the first time I was in no not the second time that I passed through Los Angeles before we came to live here we happened to be over in Burbank visiting someone it was a hot summer's day and we had to walk down the street to catch the streetcar and there were trees planted along this street and just unconsciously I I plucked a leaf off one of these trees and as I was walking along without thinking I I crumpled this leaf up in my hand all of a sudden I thought to me where's the smell of camphor coming from I didn't realize that I had plucked the leaf of a camphor tree and the smell of camphor came from the crushing of that leaf now you couldn't smell any camphor walking down the street it needed the crushing to bring out the fragrance and that's what the means it was through the lord being crushed on the cross that the fragrance came out when they when the wise men came and gave the lord offered the lord presents gold frankincense and myrrh no doubt the myrrh was intended to be a picture of his death and the fragrance would come forth from his death myrrh and aloes and cassia they're all they're all uh uh they're sweet spices they have a fragrance about them but the fragrance comes out by the crushing or by the pounding that's how the fragrance comes and so the lord it said he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we're healed and beloved even when the lord comes forth in that coming day to set up his kingdom his garments will still smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia and i don't believe his people will ever be allowed to forget even if they would want to which they never will of course through all eternity what it costs the lord to redeem us the lord doesn't want us to forget here that's why he wants us week by week to remember him to come together to remember him we might not be forgetful of what he suffered for our sake we might be occupied with him and our hearts go out in praise and thanksgiving and our brother was reminding us this morning we don't come together to be occupied with our sins we come together because we are so thankful that that work is passed but we never we're never allowed to forget the cost that he paid to bring us to himself and so we look back as the hymn says our souls look back to see the burden thou didst bear when hanging on the accursed tree for all our guilt was there and we could also say with heart and conscience now set free not coming to be occupied with our sins but without because we are free from with our heart heart and conscience free it is our joy to think of thee and to pour out our hearts in praise and worship then it's then we we uh in verse nine we go on to the second section of the psalm and you notice here that we have a number of women mentioned we have king's daughters mentioned in verse nine and we have the queen at the end of the verse we have it says of the queen harkin o daughter in verse 10 we have the daughter of tyre mentioned in verse 12 and we have the king's daughter who is the queen of course mentioned again in verse 13 and in verse 14 we have the virgins you say well who are all these first of all we have the queen i suppose the queen is jerusalem the queen is god's people israel here now back in verse 7 we did we do find some an expression there that i should have referred to a little more in verse 7 it says the lord was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows above his companions and that's referred to in the first of the in the first chapter of hebrews 2 and if the queen as we have her here in this sixth ninth verse refers to israel who are the fellows or the companions that we have in verse 7 they are the church that's where we come in the companions of christ isn't it a wonderful thing that the lord takes us into union with himself and calls us his companions but the day is coming beloved when he's going to take up israel again and she will be the queen and so we have the queen brought before us here she's she stands before him in gold of ophir she's a king's daughter she's owned as the king's daughter but she makes her the queen now notice what he says to her harken oh daughter and in and consider and incline thine ear forget also thine own people in my father's house so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty for he is thy lord and worship thou him we can't read this with what we think of rebecca abraham's servant goes across the desert to get a bride for isaac and you know he makes known his mission and this is accepted her family recognized this as the hand of god and then he's anxious to get back and take the bride back to isaac and so he says send me away that i may go to my master oh no let the damsel stay a little longer let us play some more days longer so they finally turn to her he turns to they turn to her and they say will thou go with this man the parents leave the choice to her will thou go with this man are you willing to leave your father and your mother and your own people and your father's house and take a long journey across the desert to marry a man that you've never seen are you willing to do that she said yes i will go the servant had so presented isaac to her that her heart was drawn out to him there was a wonderful servant that he hadn't presented himself he presented his master and you know beloved that's what we should do i heard a brother say once a good preacher is one who paints a big christian a big picture of christ and hides himself behind it you know if people get occupied with the preacher they're getting occupied with the wrong person it's the lord jesus that we want souls to be occupied with and so that's what abraham's servant did he presented isaac and she so had isaac before he says will thou go with this man she says i will go so it says here forget all so i'll forget also thine own people in my father's house so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty there's a measure in which every bride has to forget her own people in her father's house you know some husbands take their wives away and other to foreign countries even right away from their own people and they go with them because after all they're married to them and they love them and they said that god enables them to establish a new center in a new home but that but this is also true spiritually there is a spiritual sense in which every one of us has to get our own people in our father's house we have to leave all to follow christ we have to be willing to leave things behind because we see the lord it's what is called the the the expulsive power of a new affection you know if we have a new affection the old affections they have to take a subordinate place that doesn't mean i'm sure that rebecca loved her father and mother and her brothers any less no the love that she had for them had its place but she was drawn to isaac to be his bride and to be his wife she went after him and so we have we have the queen here and so we have the soul that sees has the lord jesus before him and is willing to leave all to follow the lord realizing who the lord is and realizing what he's done then we have the daughter of tyre say well why is the daughter of tyre brought in well you know it says it mentions in the uh in the ninth verse king's daughters were among thy honorable women maybe there were other princesses that were there but the king only chose one there have been many nations in this world but god took up israel he chose israel has his special people for earth and uh but when the lord establishes his kingdom in the coming day all other nations will come into blessing and i think this is why the daughter of tires brought in you see tire in those days was the great commercial city in the days of solomon uh king hyrum of tire was a was a friend of david and solomon's he was a lover of david it says and he's the one who furnished all the the cedar trees for solomon to build the temple but later on tire and i believe in those days the king of tire was a god-fearing man but later on tire became very rich commercially the leading nation tire was the capital of phoenicia and the phoenicians were the great trading people they even mined tin in britain when i was over in britain there and down visiting cornwall there we could there's we see the remains of the old tin mines all over the place there and the mining of that tin goes right away back into old testament times when they went there to mine tin and the place is still full of tin but they say it doesn't pay them to mine it any longer because they can get it cheaper from bolivia and from the malay states so they don't they mine very little tin in britain at the present time but the phoenicians became a great commercial nation but the daughter of god had to judge them we get the judgment on tire mentioned in the old testament but the day is coming when the nations around about even the very nations that today are opposed to israel when god takes up jerusalem again and owns israel as his people the nations around the daughter of tire will be there with a gift i think there's a little foretaste of this we might say when that syrophoenician woman came to the lord you know matthew tells us that she was from the coasts of fire and siding there was a daughter of tire and she came to the lord about her daughter because she was ill and what did the lord say not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs she was a gentile dog and what did she say yes lord but even the dogs take the crumbs from under the children's table the whole great is thy faith the lord said to he hadn't seen such faith even in israel as that as that daughter of tire showed she came you know i've no doubt that the daughters of tire away back in those trading times they wouldn't have come with a gift they'd have come expecting to strike a bargain but now they come with a gift the daughter of tire shall be there with a gift to something to give the lord and why do people want to give something to the lord because the lord has already given something to him why do we give to the lord why do we give to the lord our praise and our worship when we come together or why do we give to the lord our substance because the lord's already given much more to us and we can only say as david says of thine own have we given thee and very little of his own do we give him in comparison to all that he's given us in that coming day the nations all around as the hymn says that the king shall fall down before him and golden incense bring and the representatives of every nation are going to come and recognize the lord as king over all the earth in that day and that's our privilege to own him as our center today then it mentions the queen herself it says the king's birth verse 13 the king's daughter is all glorious within her clothing is of wrought gold she shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework i think we have two things here first of all we have the garment that the queen wears and that's what's provided it we're weaving like the woman she's don't do the women don't do that so much as they used to years ago they used to spend a lot of time in needlework you know and and working patterns on things and that well there's a sense in which we're all weaving a robe to wear in that day and the value of it's going to come out of the judgment seat of christ and everything that we've done for the lord's glory the lord will be pleased to say well done and let us see that we're occupied with him because the more we're occupied with christ the more of christ is going to be put into that weaving and after all it's all to redound to his praise and to his honor and glory then it mentions the virgins that follow her it says in verse 14 also with gladness and rejoicing say shall be brought they shall enter into the king's palace i think this gives the thought that because the queen is really pleasing the king these virgins that follow her are also pleasing him she has an influence on others and so do we if we're if we're really weaving a robe for christ it'll have a good effect on others and give them a desire that they might follow the lord too now the last two verses are a summing up i think the 16th verse is the answer to what we have in the previous chapters where they're looking back to the fathers you remember back in psalm 45 of psalm 44 it says verse one with our ears oh god our fathers have told us what worked out didst in their days in times of old and then they go on and say in verse nine but thou hast cast off and put us to shame and goeth not forth with our armies now psalm 45 has brought in christ christ has been brought in and now what does he say instead of thy father shall be thy children as much as to say well you're looking back to the fathers and you're wondering why you're not getting the uh the great victories uh that the that that occurred in the days of the fathers but if you get occupied with christ instead of the fathers will be the children you know there's a wonderful lesson in that for us too is there not it's true that that's what's going to happen for israel they look back to the fathers and the victories in the days of the fathers but god's going to give them children and as we read in isaiah they're going to be the the seed that are the blessed of the lord and god will signal the own them and their children that follow after them will be owned of god but god expects us to have children we thank god for the fathers and as we look back in history the history of the church we can we read about the fathers we look back to the apostles we look back to god's servants right down through the ages and we read of many faithful servants of god and they serve the lord faithfully in their generation but you know god expects that in every generation there should be those coming on the normal thing when people get married is that they have families all don't have families god doesn't give families to everyone but the normal thing is that people have families they have those they have the children who are going to follow on after them and that's what god expects spiritually and in an assembly where that's not being added to that there's not having any spiritual children that there's not new ones coming in under the sound of the word there there's something wrong you know there are assemblies of the lord's people that die out and they die out because there's no effort made to reach out after others and so they die out that's a very sad thing there are others where the the saints have got into such a bad state of soul and quarreling that god has removed the candlestick and they're not any testimony anymore that's another sad thing but here in this psalm we have christ put before us and if the lord jesus christ really has the place in each one of our lives individually if he has the place in our families that he should have if he has the place in our assembly that they should have it'll be true what it says here in verse 16 instead of thy fathers shall be thy children who now may us make princes in all the earth god says if you're occupied with christ there's going to be blessing you remember what paul said to timothy the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also how many generations do you have there four generations we have paul taught timothy timothy's to teach others he's to teach faithful men who shall be able to teach others also and so the words to go on instead of thy father shall be thy children not a great human effort although we should put forth effort but what i mean is we can do a lot of things in the power of the flesh but we should do faithfully the work of god in the power of the spirit of god and then just to close i see our time has gone the last verse i will make thy name to be remembered unto all in all generations therefore shall the people praise thee forever now i just want to refer back to psalm 41 and verse 5 in psalm 41 and verse 5 we have prophetic of the lord saying my enemies speak evil of me when shall he die in his name perish when shall he die in his name perish i've no doubt that's what they said of the lord when he was on earth when shall he die in his name perish and when they nailed him on the cross they thought his name was going to perish has his name perished this is god's answer i will make thy name to be remembered in all generations therefore shall the people praise thee forever and ever the name of the blessed name of jesus is going to be remembered for all generations god has made it the highest name in heaven and ordained that every knee shall bow and beloved every one of us is going to bow to the name of blessed name of jesus we either bow in god's grace now or else in the coming day we'll have to bow in judgment with each one here is the choice whether you take the lord as your savior now and if you do not how sad it would be that you'd have to bow the knee to him when you stand before him as your judge who will have to say to you i'm not now here is your friend i'm here as your judge accept him while it's still the day of his wondrous grace let us pray gracious god our father we thank thee for thy precious word and we thank thee for this psalm that brings before us thy beloved son in all his his various glories and as the one our god who so glorified thee we pray that thou bless these meditations to each one of our hearts and should there be any our god still with doubts as to their soul salvation we do pray indeed that they might trust in the lord jesus as their personal savior tonight so we ask all and give thanks and thanking thee for this day that thou has given us in his precious and worthy name amen …

… Psalm 52 and we've noticed that there are a number of masculine Psalms. The word masculine meaning instruction beginning with the 32nd Psalm also the 42nd through 44, 45 and now tonight we have Psalm 52, 53, 54 and 55 which are also masculine Psalms. Then there are four others further on in the book of Psalms but tonight beginning with 52 we'll read this Psalm to the chief musician masculine and masculine means giving instruction. They contain special instruction that will be especially for God's people in the days of the Great Tribulation but there are great instruction in them for us today. A Psalm of David when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul and said unto him David is come to the house of Ahimelech. We have this this recorded in the first book of Samuel of course when David at the time when Doeg killed off killed the prophets that were there in the house of Ahimelech. Why boastest thou thyself in mischief O mighty man? The goodness or the loving kindness of God endureth continually. Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs like a sharp razor working deceitfully. Thou lovest evil more than good and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Selah. Thou lovest all devouring words O thou deceitful tongue. God shall likewise destroy thee forever. He shall take thee away and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah. The righteous also shall see and fear and shall laugh at him. Lo this is the man that made not God his strength but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself in his wickedness. But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the mercy of God forever and that word mercy the same as the goodness in verse 1 really should be translated loving kindness. I trust in the loving kindness of God forever and ever. I will praise thee forever because thou hast done it and I and I will wait on thy name for it is good before thy saints. It's very noticeable that this psalm this Masculine Psalm follows the 51st psalm which is the psalm of David's restoration. I thought it rather striking that the very first of the Masculine Psalms that we looked at some evenings ago is the 32nd psalm where we get David's conversion and it's the psalm that's quoted the 32nd. Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. It's quoted in the fourth of Romans. That's laying the foundation and it's only as we know that foundation that we can receive instruction from God. The 51st psalm which is the one prior to this that we've just read is the psalm of David's restoration after his fall. We know that David had a very grievous fall but God David confessed his sin and he was restored and the 51st psalm is the psalm of David's restoration and so immediately following that we have four more Masculine Psalms and this is the first one. Now if we apply these to the as they will be applied to the godly remnant of Israel in the coming day the 51st psalm which gives David's restoration is one that is very necessary for them to experience. What David went through and was restored is what they'll go through. They will recognize, just as David had been guilty of grievous sin, he had killed a man and he'd committed adultery with the man's wife, so the nation of Israel will come to see their grievous sin in having refused the Lord Jesus and they were charged with killing him. They were responsible for having him nailed on the cross and in rejecting him as the one sent of God. So they will go through a similar experience to what David went through in the 51st psalm, an experience of true repentance and to be restored again as God's people to be in his favor as his people. So then the psalms that follow, these four psalms that follow that we're going to look at tonight, give their experiences after they have been brought into that position and this psalm sets before us really in type the Antichrist. This man Doeg was an Edomite and you know he was one of Saul's herdsmen and he was not an Israelite, he was a herdsman of Saul but he was a servant of Saul. King Saul was the man after the flesh and he was his servant. He was not a spiritual man in any way whatsoever and he was responsible for slaying the priests of the Lord and David was greatly grieved when he realized that through going there to the house of a vile of a priest he felt he'd been responsible for these priests being slain. Well David wasn't really responsible for that, that was the that was the full responsibility of this wicked man who had put them to the sword. But here we find David in this psalm referring to this man, Antichrist, who is a type of Antichrist, one who opposes the things of God and yet he puts himself into a place as being, we might say, a religious zealot. That's what this man Doeg was. He thought he was acting to please Saul and acting in the religious way and yet he was really opposing the truth of God. Now that's what Antichrist does and that's why in the, especially in John's epistle, in John's first epistle and in his second epistle, we find the spirit of Antichrist referred to. John says the spirit of Antichrist, there are many Antichrists and the spirit of Antichrist is in the world. It was in John's day. It's here. It's becoming more manifest as we get nearer the time when a person who will be known as Antichrist will be manifested. It may be that that man's alive today because we believe that we're getting very near the return of the Lord to take his church away and when the Lord comes and takes his church away, then it is that Antichrist will be revealed in the person who opposes himself above all that is called God, all that is worshipped, as it says in 2nd Thessalonians 2, so that he as God will sit in the temple of God showing himself that he is God. And the mass of apostate Jews will worship him. But there will be these godly ones who will recognize who he is and who will not worship him. And so David's language with regard to Doeg is similar, is prophetic of the language of that godly remnant in that day. They'll say, why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? And yet then that, but yet they'll also say, the loving-kindness of God endures continually. That is, the godly will find their comfort in the fact that even though it seems that man and this man in particular is having things all his own way, they recognize that God is still on the throne and God's loving-kindness is still being shown to all these people. We find that he says there, referring to this man, he says, God shall destroy thee forever, there in verse 5. And in the second verse, he refers to his character, he has a tongue that deviseth mischief like a sharp razor working deceitfully, loving evil more than good, and lying rather than to speak righteousness. You know, even though these things apply to the coming day, this is what we find all around us today. And we find it in a religious way. I think that the thought, whenever we think of Antichrist, as applied to the day in which we live, we see that it refers to a wrong false teaching done in a religious way. And that's just what we have today. You know, you find, we find all kinds of religions. And there are people who think, well, if anything has thing to do with religion, there's something good about it. You know, perhaps the the greatest deceivers today are those who are religious, and yet opposed to the Lord. Religion without Christ is really worse than open atheism. If a person openly says he's an atheist and he doesn't believe in God, at least you know where he stands. But if a person professes that they have something that appears to be based on the Bible, and appears to honor in a certain, to a certain extent, the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet all the while, all the time it's undermining the Scriptures, and it's falsifying the Lord Jesus as he's presented in the Word, that is more dangerous. And that is the spirit of Antichrist. It was in the world in John's day, it's even more manifest today. And I think we can say, we who live in Southern California, that if there's any place where false religions have been multiplied, it's right here in this area where we live. Does that mean that the God's people have to be led away by all of these things? No. God has given us his precious Word, and as we as we keep close to the Scriptures, and seek to exalt the Lord Jesus as presented in the Word, we're safe. And David was safe as he looked around and saw this man who was seeking to carry all before him. He trusted in the loving kindness of the Lord. This was a great test of faith for David. He is David, he's been anointed to be king, yet Saul's on the throne persecuting him. And here is this man, Doeg, killing off the priests. And David might have been tempted to throw up his hands and say, what's the good of going on? Everything's against me. God's not on my side. It looks as if he's allowing Saul, and now he's allowing Doeg, and who knows else, to just oppose the truth of God. I wonder if after all I haven't made a big mistake, and I misunderstood Samuel when he's anointed me to be king. You know, if David had been guided by just natural thoughts, he might have said that. We don't find that he was. These Psalms were written at the time of David's exercise. It was when this happened that David wrote this psalm. And twice here, in the New Translation, in verse 1 and in verse 8, we have, he refers to the loving kindness of the Lord. So David rested on that. God's loving kindness. And beloved, we can do that. No matter what the circumstances are, we must not allow ourselves to be discouraged. But we must go on for the Lord. You know, discouragement is Satan's greatest weapon. If he can get people discouraged, he has gained a great victory, and he seeks to use that with the people of God. But let us never forget, discouragement never comes from God. I remember a dear brother, he's now with the Lord these many years, and he was very discouraged and downhearted over some difficulties that had taken place. Things weren't so well in his home as they might have been, and it seems that everything was against him. And he happened to call upon a dear old brother, and this old brother by way was a Presbyterian minister, but he was a real man of God. And he said to him, brother, discouragement never comes from God. And if it doesn't come from God, it comes from the devil. That's his weapon. And the brother told me afterwards, he says, you know, he says, that was a great encouragement to me, that old brother said that, just at the time when I needed it. Now, true it is. So we find David here. You know, it says of David in other places, it says, at the time when Ziklag was taken, and he lost all of his, his wives were taken, and all of his goods, it says, David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. Even his own men talked of stoning him at that time. He encouraged himself in the Lord his God. So that's what David's doing here. He doesn't, he doesn't minimize what Doeg is doing. He says, God shall destroy thee because of what thou hast done. And you notice what he says in verse 7, it's remarkable. Though this is the man, and I understand that this could be read, this is the strong man. There are two words used for men in the Old Testament. One is man in the sense of his frailty and his weakness. The other is man in the sense of one who is strong. And the word that's used here is the word for a strong man. This is the strong man that made not God his strength. That's a remarkable statement, isn't it? This is the strong man that made not God his strength. Doeg was a strong man. Oh, he was Saul's chief herdsman. He was a very important man, but he was the strong man that gave, made not God his strength. When Antichrist rises up, he'll be looked on as a strong man. And though the world's looking for strong men, and the world will get some strong men from their point of view too. They're going to get the, the beast who will be the political head in Rome, and they'll get the Antichrist who will be the religious head in Jerusalem, and they'll be looked on as strong men. And the religious leaders in this coming day will look upon Antichrist as a strong man. But he's going to be a strong man that made not God his strength. Strong in his own strength, in his own fancied strength, in the strength that the people think they see in him. But really a very weak person because he didn't make God his strength. With God, our strength is made perfect in weakness. And it's when we're weak, and realize that we have nothing of ourselves, that we're strong. And even we Christians, if we start thinking we're strong, God has to say something to us, and cause us to realize that in ourselves we're nothing but poor failing creatures. And God can only use us if we're broken vessels that he can take up, so that all the glory will be him. This is a strong man that made not God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness. Now, verse 8 gives us a lovely expression. Here's David. This will be the godly remnant. And beloved, this can apply to us. What does David say here? I'm like a green olive tree in the house of God. A green olive tree. Well you know if you want to have a green olive tree, you must have a tree that's planted where it is going to receive the nourishment to be continually green. That's true of any kind of a tree. We read of the tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth fruit in its season. And so David says, I'm like a green olive tree in the house of God. And it's an olive tree. And the olive tree produces olives. And we know that the olive tree is noted because it produces oil. Olive oil. And the oil in scripture is a type of the Holy Spirit. So David could say, I'm like a green olive tree in the house of God. That was where God had put David, in his house. David realized that the Lord was with him, and he could receive his nourishment from him. So may this be true of us, beloved. May we take instruction from this instructive psalm, this masculine psalm, to realize that no matter what the conditions are, and even though the false teachings and and and errors abound on every hand, that God is the resource of his people. We can rest on his loving kindness, and we can flourish for him, if we receive our nourishment from him. And then he can use us to be a blessing to others. Because the thought of the oil is that it's that which brings blessing to others. Others receive the value from it. I trust in the loving kindness of God forever. I will praise thee forever because thou hast done it. And will wait on my name, for it is good before thy saints. Now we'll go on to the next psalm, 53. It's just a short psalm, so we'll read it. And this psalm, by the way, is almost the same as the 14th psalm. It seems to be a repetition. Not quite though, because we have the word Lord used, or Jehovah, in the 14th psalm. Whereas here, it's not used at all. It always uses the name God in the 53rd. But otherwise, the psalm's the same. To the cheap musician upon mailath, mass killed. A psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart there is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done a vulnerable iniquity. There is none that doeth good. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back. They are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good, no not one. And you know this, by the way, is quoted in the third of Romans. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread? They have not called upon God. There were they in great fear, where no fear was. For God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee. Thou hast put them to shame, because God hath despised them. Oh that salvation, the salvation of Israel, were come out of Zion. When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. Now I believe that if the 52nd psalm gives us what we might say, the religious opposition to the truth of God, here we have the atheistic opposition to the truth of God. You know when the Lord Jesus was here, there were two parties among the Jews. There were the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees were the ritualists, and the Sadducees were the rationalists. And we have those, we have those two lines of things today. The the thought of Phariseeism, that leads to ritualism, and a religion without Christ. And the thought of the Sadducees, who denied everything it was miraculous, really leads to atheism. We have that today. See we have these two lines today. We have those who are religious without Christ on the one hand, and we have those who give up all pretense of any kind of religion whatsoever, and openly proclaim that there is no God. We have heard in recent years, even some ministers who have said that God is dead. Well I've no doubt that the God that they believed in is dead, because he never was alive, the one they believe in. But certainly the God of the scriptures is still the sovereign ruler of the universe, and he has everything under his control. He makes the wrath of man to praise him, and restrains the remainder of it. And he is behind the scenes, and as Mr. Darby says, God works behind the scenes, and he moves the scenes that he is behind. So here we have the atheist. The fool the psalmist calls him twice, the 14th psalmist here he says, the fool has said in his heart there is no God. And someone says if the fool says in his heart, it's a bigger fool that blabs it out. And they only show what fools they are, when they say that according to the scriptures. But of course they think they're very wise persons. But this comes in here because it shows, beloved, that the godly remnant of Israel in the coming day, after the Lord takes his church away, will not only have to face in their own country, will not only have to face Antichrist and his blasphemous position, they'll have to face those who openly want to deny any responsibility to God. We know that there are nations such as Russia, and the communistic nations, that as nations have already taken that stand. And I believe among the Jewish people there is a certain percentage who follow that line of thinking. And they, no doubt, that element among them will become more vocal perhaps, after the Lord takes the church away. And the God's faithful ones, the godly remnant, who will be standing for him, will have to face this too. The fool has said in his heart there is no God. And David of course knew that there were those who said that in his day. And he gives a true account of them. And he says, they've gone back, they're all together become filthy, there is none that doeth good, no not one. But now verse 6 brings in a wonderful statement. The sixth verse says, oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion. Why does it say, oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion? Why does it say Zion? Because that's where God's salvation has to come. This is in contrast to the Lord's first coming. When the Lord Jesus came, as we have in the fifth chapter of Micah, he came out of Bethlehem. And when the wise men from the east went to Herod to inquire where the Lord should be born, and Herod called the priests to say where Christ should come from, what did they say? Well the Prophet says he's to be born in Bethlehem. And when the Lord Jesus presented himself to the people, and they thought of course he was born in Nazareth, they said well he can't be the Messiah because the Messiah has to come out of Bethlehem. That was true. He was to come out of Bethlehem and he did. But he came out of Bethlehem, or he came by way of Bethlehem, that he might go to the cross. But this isn't referring to that. This is referring to the fact of something as yet future. Salvation is going to come out of Zion. And Zion is Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus is going to come the next time, not to Bethlehem, beloved. He's going to come to Mount Zion. He's going to come to Jerusalem. His feet are going to stand upon the mouth of olives. He's going to enter in through the gates into the city. And just as in the past he came in and was acclaimed Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. But he was not received, because when they asked the question who is, they said oh this is Jesus the Prophet of Galilee. The next time he comes he'll come as the conquering King. Salvation will come out of Zion. And so the Prophet, the Psalmist says that. Oh that salvation will come out of Zion. When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad. And David was in saying this, was in line with what we get in the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah refers to salvation coming out of Zion. And in our studies in the 11th chapter of Romans, it distinctly refers to this salvation coming out of Zion. Because that gives, refers to the blessings that God has for the people of Israel. And so as we see this, we're looking on. We in this day needn't be surprised at what's happening around us. Whether it be the things that are heading up in false religions, that are going to head up in Babylon the Great, that will be destroyed by the Lord, or that Lord will allow the the ten kings to destroy, as we have in Revelation 17 and 18. Or whether it be in the atheist, the blatant atheism that we see growing all around us in the world. We needn't be surprised at all these things happening. God is going to fulfill his purposes. He'll fulfill his purposes for his people Israel. And we can be encouraged, beloved, that he's going to fill his, fulfill his purposes for us. Of course we are not with the church. We who belong to the Lord now, we know that for us he's not coming out of Zion. For us he's coming to the air. That's what we're looking forward to. But he's coming to the air to take us to be with himself, is just the prelude to his coming again, when salvation will come out of Zion. And the Lord will then judge the people and take his great power and reign. Now we pass on to the next psalm, the 55th. I'm not going to read the whole psalm, because it's a rather long psalm. And we want to, the 54th rather. I'll read this, excuse me, I've jumped over one. The 54th is next, and then the 55th. I'll read the 54th. To the chief musician of Pon Neginov, Maskell, a psalm of David. When the Zipfims came and said to Saul, doth not David hide himself with us? Save me, O God, with thy name, and judge me by thy strength. Hear my prayer, O God, give ear to the words of my mouth. For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul. They have not set God before them, see thou. Behold, God is mine helper. The Lord is with them that uphold my soul. He shall reward evil unto mine enemies. Cut them off in thy truth. I will freely sacrifice unto thee. I will praise thy name, O Lord, for it is good. For he hath delivered me out of all trouble, and mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine enemies. This also is a Maskell psalm, as it says there, to the chief musician on Neginov, which I understand Neginov really means stringed instruments. You remember, in fact, these two psalms, 44 and 55, are psalms that were sung by playing string, when they sang them, they played the stringed instruments. And you remember when we spoke on the 45th psalm, it says there, out of the ivory palaces, stringed instruments have made thee glad. And whenever I read of the stringed instruments, I like to think that an assembly of God's people is like a stringed instrument. You know, you need to have, there are two things that are very necessary in a stringed instrument, like a harp, or any stringed instrument for that matter. You must have, you must have the chords in tune, they must be in tune. And second is, they must respond when they're touched. And that's what the assembly of God is like, it's like a stringed instrument. The Saints come together as we do Lord's Day mornings, and we're all there as chords on God's stringed instrument. The Holy Spirit is the player, and how important that each chord should be in tune. Each brother and each sister should be in tune. The second thing is, that the chord should respond when touched. You know, sometimes the Holy Spirit touches the chord, but you don't hear any, any, any, you don't hear any tune, because this chord isn't responding. And of course, when it's a stringed instrument, the player touches it, the chord responds, but then you hear, hear the note. And this is important. Well, how important this is for us to be exercised, that there may go up harmony to the Father and the Son, from his gathered people, from the stringed instrument. So these were two Psalms that were to be played on the stringed instruments. Now this 54th Psalm, it's just in keeping with what we've already seen. He says, he starts, it's a prayer, it starts off as a prayer. He says, Save me, O God, by thy name, and judge me by thy strength. Hear my prayer, O God. What is the reason that he specially prayed? Strangers are risen up against me. Oppressors seek after my soul. They've not set God before them. You see, it's a kind of a summing up of what we've had in the two previous Psalms. These people haven't set God before them, and they're oppressing my soul. You know, sometimes we get oppressed. We can become oppressed, as we see these things around us. But then what does he go on and say? God is my helper, in verse 4. The Lord is with them that uphold my soul. He shall reward evil unto mine enemies, and cut them off in, and then he says, cut them off in thy truth. Now, the special point that I want to make in this Psalm, is what we have in verse 6. I believe in verse 6, after having gone through what we have in Psalm 52 and 53, and up to this point in 54, the Psalmist has arrived at the point where he's able to say, in spite of all that's going on around me, I'm not going to allow this to hinder my spirit of worship. You see, this fits in with the thought of the stringed instrument, doesn't it? So he says, I will freely sacrifice unto thee. And in Israel, a sacrifice, a sacrifice was connected with worship. Especially the burnt offering. The burnt offering, the meat offering, and the peace offering, were the sweet savor offerings. And they especially were connected with worship. The sin offering and the trespass offering, were the non-sweet savor offerings. They represented the bitterness, we might say, of the Lord's bearing our sins in his own body on the tree. In the burnt offering, it all went up to God. The burnt offering represented what the death of Christ was to the Father. The meat offering represented what the life of Christ was to the Father. And the peace offering, is the fellowship offering. And it represents the fellowship that we have with the Father and the Son and with one another. Because all got a portion. And I believe that all of these offerings enter in when we come together to remember the Lord. And so that's what the psalmist says here. I will freely sacrifice unto thee. He's going to give the Lord that which will go up to him, as an expression of the worship of his heart. Why? It goes back somewhat to what we saw in the 45th psalm. You see, if we have in the 45th in the 45th psalm, we have the Lord Jesus. In the 52nd psalm, we saw we had Antichrist. These two are in opposition to one another. And in the 45th psalm, the Lord is brought before us. Now the psalmist has been a little bit somewhat occupied with the fact, here's Antichrist come in. And here's the atheistic view come in. And all these things are oppressing his soul. So he finally, as it were, thinks back and he gets occupied with the Lord himself again, as we have him in the 45th psalm. So he says, I'm going to send up my sacrifice to the Lord. I'm going to forget all these things. Something like Abraham, you know, when he was told to go up and offer Isaac. And he gets to the place where he sees the mountain afar off. And what does he say to the young men? He says, tarry here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. He was going to worship God. He must have a lot of, must have been a lot of troubled thoughts going through Abraham's mind, and up to that point. But he got to the point where he didn't allow anything to trouble him. He went forward trusting in God. He says, I and the lad will go yonder and worship. And the full sense of it is somewhat lost in our English version. But it really means this. I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and we will come again to you. He didn't say, I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and I'm coming back to you, because I'm going to offer him up as a sacrifice and leave him there. We're coming back to you. That's really what it is. And it's very plain in the Spanish. It's not quite so plain in English. But the Hebrew, it's we'll come back. We're going to worship, and we're coming back. And that's why the writer in Hebrew says, he counted that God was able to give it to him back from the dead from whence also he received him in the figure. Abraham had got beyond the point of worrying. He got to the point where he was going up to worship God. And after all, he was just going to do what God told him. And that was worship. Regardless of the consequences, he was going to obey the Lord, and he was going to worship God. What a lovely spirit. You know, perhaps we never reach that as we should. We'd be, if we'd have been us, we'd have probably been worrying all the way up there to the mountain. Abraham wasn't. From the point where he said, tarry here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, Abraham had left all that worrying behind. Well, that's what the psalmist has done here. He gets to the point where he says, I will freely sacrifice unto thee, I will praise thy name, O Lord, for it is good. That's a lovely spirit, and I believe that's the spirit in which we should come along to the meeting. You love it? How easy it is for us to bring along our business with us on Lord's Day. In our minds, I mean. In our minds. Or for the sisters who are worrying about their home, and what they're going to cook for dinner, and perhaps many other things that the enemy of our souls would seek to crowd in on our minds, and we get occupied with these things instead of with the Lord. The psalmist says, no, all these things that would worry me, I'll leave them behind. I'm going to offer up my thanks and praise to the Lord. Well, now we'll go on to the 55th. This is also the Masculine Psalm. It's the one that's rather long. I won't read it all, but there are one or two very important points in this. To the chief musician on Meginoth, or stringed instruments, Masculine, a Psalm of David. See, these are all David Psalms. These Psalms were written by David as expressing the very experiences David went through when he was the rejected one. And that's why they apply to the godly remnant, because the godly remnant will be the ones in that day who will be faithful to the rejected Christ. And that's why there's instruction in them for us, beloved, because we live in the day of the rejected Christ. Christ is rejected. There's a hymn we used to sing when I was a boy, Our Lord is now rejected and by the world disowned, by the many still neglected and by the few enthroned. And that's still true. The world doesn't want the Lord. Christ is a rejected one, and we are those who seek to be faithful to the rejected Christ. That's why the experiences of David and the experiences of the godly remnant are so instructive for us. So, it's a Psalm of David. And he says, Give ear to my prayer, O God, hide not thyself from my supplication. Now, I believe that this Psalm, this 55th Psalm, we might say it brings us, in the 45th Psalm, we get up to the apex, as it were, of worshiping the Lord. But in Psalm 50, 55, we are reminded that we're still down here. It's something like, you know, we come along to the meeting, and we gather to remember the Lord, to the worship meeting, and the Lord gives us a very precious season together. We gather together, and our hearts are led out in praise, and worship, and thanksgiving, and we're in the Lord's presence, and we're in the fellowship of the Lord's people, and we're enjoying the company of the saints, and, but we have to leave that. We have to go back home, and next day, Monday, we've got to go back to work, and we've got to rub shoulders with ungodly men, and the sisters are in their homes, and they've got sick children, and, or they have some other worries that they're worried about, and perhaps some of the family's not acting as they should, and there's a hundred and one things to distract us. You see, we sort of have to realize that we're still down here, and have to face the realities of daily life. That's what I believe we have in this Psalm, reminding us that we're still here. It doesn't mean to say for one minute that we need to let down on the fort that we have in the 54th Psalm of praise and worship, not one bit, but we're not in heaven yet. We're not in the perfect state yet. I believe the nearest we get to it is the breaking of bread. I don't think there's any higher point that we reach, beloved, in this scene, than when we come together to remember the Lord. Collectively, the saints together. I think it's where we reach the highest point, this side of heaven, and in one sense it should be a wonderful incentive to us, as we think, well now I have six days in the week still to go before next Lord's Day, and I want to be ready to come and meet my Lord again next Lord's Day. And it should be that the fact that we're in the Lord's presence today should carry us on for another week, to serve him faithfully in the affairs of daily life. So David, in this Psalm, he takes up a number of things that he's reminded that there's still, he's still in a world of imperfections and difficulties. Notice what he says in verse 6, and I said, oh that I had the wings of a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest. Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever got into some circumstance when you felt that I just wish I had the wings of a bird that I could fly away somewhere else and get out of this whole thing? You know what I think is the, perhaps the greatest trial that God's people, as those who gather to the Lord's name, have to face in this scene, that might give them a desire to do that, is when troubles come into the assemblies. You know some of us that have had a few years behind us, have been through some very trying times among the assemblies of the Saints, and I'm sure that there have been times with every one of us when we've just felt like that, when there were difficulties among the Lord's people. Perhaps the greatest trial that the Saints have to face are not those that come from outside, and not those that come from the world, not those that come from those that are not the Lord's, they come when we have trials among the Lord's people. It's one of the greatest trials, and no doubt David felt like that here many times, and we have that in this chapter, because in this very chapter we have one of David's special friends turned against him. You notice what he says further there, or rather, first of all he mentions in verse 9, destroy O Lord and divide their tongues, for I have seen violence and strife in the city, in the city. He is not violence and strife from Doeg the Edomite, or of those that said that they didn't believe in God, or those that were at a distance. Here right in the city of Jerusalem was violence and strife, right in David's own city. Things weren't going well. Absalom, his own son, had risen up against him, and that carried off a great insurrection, and if that wasn't bad enough, David's own familiar friend Ahithophel had turned against him and had gone after Absalom, because it says in verse 12, it was not an enemy that reproached me, then could I have borne it, neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me, then I would have hid myself from him, but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide and mine acquaintance, we took sweet counsel together and walked unto the house of God in company. And if we turn back to 2nd Samuel 15, we'll find that that's exactly what happened with Ahithophel. Ahithophel turned against David. He'd been David's counselor, the one that was closest to David, giving him advice, and they'd walked up to God's house together. I believe we have a clue to what caused Ahithophel to turn against David. It seems, if we study the genealogies, that Ahithophel was the grandfather of Bathsheba, and you know what happened with David and Bathsheba, and it seems that David never, that Ahithophel never really forgave David for what happened with, what David did with Bathsheba, and he allowed his personal feelings to carry him away, instead of his faithfulness to the Lord. No doubt that would have been a hard thing for him to have recognized that, after all, David was the Lord's anointed. David was the rightful king. David had made a grievous personal mistake, but Ahithophel shouldn't have allowed his personal feelings and his family feelings against David, against Ahithophel, or rather, Ahithophel shouldn't have allowed his family feelings against David to have caused him to act like he did. Ahithophel goes after Absalom. He gives Absalom some advice as to what to do, and from Absalom's point of view, Ahithophel's advice was the best, but it was not followed, and what does Ahithophel do? He goes out, puts his house in order, and hangs himself. What would have happened if Ahithophel had not hanged himself? If Ahithophel had remained loyal to David, in spite of what David had done, he would have lived to see his grandson on the throne of Israel, or his great-grandson. He'd have lived to see his great-grandson on the throne of Israel, because his great-grandson was Solomon, but he allowed feelings to come in, and you know that happens among the Saints sometimes. Instead of recognizing that a brother is a brother, or a sister is a sister, and in spite of their failures they're the Lord's, they allow personal feelings to come in, and then they allow, that becomes a great hindrance to the Lord's work. That's what happened here, and David is almost overwhelmed by it, as he thinks he is Ahithophel turned against him. David had a little excuse, a little fault, in the fact that Ahithophel turned against him, because it didn't make what Ahithophel did right, and it must have been a very grievous thing for David, and so he's facing these trials that come in, in the city, difficulties that come in among the Saints, troubles in the assembly. How do we face them brethren? Do we say, I'm not going to stay in this assembly, there's too much trouble here, I'm going to go off somewhere else. That's what some people do, that's what some have done, and maybe sometimes we might feel like that too. You know, sometimes we allow ourselves, our feelings to run away with us, and when difficulties come we think, oh I'm not going to go along there any longer. Is that what we should do? Why do we come to the meeting? We should come to the meeting brethren, because that's where the Lord has brought us, where the Lord has placed us. It's true we come to the meeting because the Saints are there. We come to the meeting to see our brethren, we shouldn't do that. We come to the meeting because we love our brethren, but the first reason why we come is because the Lord has shown us that this is where he wants us to be. And I've said to people sometimes when they're coming in from outside, if you're going to come in among us just because you think we're a nice lot of people, don't come, because after you do get in you'll find that perhaps we're not as nice as you thought we were. That we're no different as people from people anywhere else. We're just people with faults and failings like others. But if you see that this the way we gather is scriptural and this is the place where the Lord has shown you you should be, then whether the brethren are what personally what you think that they should be or whether they're not, you'll stay there for the Lord's sake. And if God allows some difficulties to come up you'll seek together with your brethren to face the difficulty in the Lord's presence and to seek to overcome it. And the Lord gives grace to do it. So that's what we find in this chapter. But how does David end up with this? And this is a lesson for us too. He says verse 16, as for me I will call upon God and the Lord shall save me. Evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. No, David says I'm not going to even allow what the Hippophels done. I'm not even going to allow the trouble in the city to turn me aside. And the godly remnant will say the same thing in the coming day. They'll have plenty of enemies in their midst and plenty who will be unfaithful and plenty who will be willing to give up. But the faithful ones will say no, we'll call upon God and we'll call upon him three times a day. That's what Daniel did. Three times a day he had his windows open toward Jerusalem. This was his habit. And it shows that the men do that, they recognize the need of regular seasons of prayer before the Lord. They took these things to the Lord. They walked in fellowship with the Lord. And that's what David did. And then he ends up with a lovely expression in the 22nd verse, cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Isn't that a lovely statement? Cast thy burden upon the Lord. Do we have burdens? Yes, we all have some types of burdens. David certainly had burdens in this chapter. But he learned to cast them upon the Lord. And that's the advice he gives us. That's the advice he's going to give the godly remnant in the future from this time. And that's the advice that's still for us, beloved brethren. Cast thy burden upon the Lord. You know, so often we say we're casting our burden upon the Lord and then we carry it ourselves. But if we cast it on the Lord, we let the Lord carry it for us. Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain me. That's what he did with David. And you know, in spite of all David's failures, he remained faithful to the Lord. We never find David allowing idolatry in Israel. We never find David turning aside in anything in what was due to the Lord. There was a little failure in David's personal life as far as that, but that was that was not in the question of his loyalty to the Lord. It was, it was, it was a, it matters of his weakness in his personal life. The sad thing about Solomon is that he allowed idolatry to come in. And he set up, he allowed idols to be set up to these foreign women that he took as wives. And God was displaced in Israel. And that's why the Lord found fault with Solomon over that. But never with David. And whenever we find a faithful king who put down idolatry and said that the people to worship the Lord alone, it says they walked in the ways of, they walked in the ways of David his father. Because that's what David did. He was faithful. And when the troubles came for David, he cast his burdens upon the Lord. And so beloved we can do that. So we wrought back as it were in this psalm to the realities of daily life. The realities of assembly life even. Where we are from time to time may be faced with trouble. But how blessed to, to learn the lesson of being able to cast our burdens upon the Lord. And I just like to say, should there be any here tonight unsaved, beloved friend, may the Lord lead you to trust in him as your own personal Savior. David knew the blessedness of salvation through the Lord. And that's God's only way of salvation is through the Lord Jesus Christ. And having accepted Christ as Savior, God gives us his Holy Spirit. And he gives us the enablement to go on from day to day. In spite of the difficulties that we find ourselves surrounded with. And even the failures that we find within ourselves. Because if we look in, look within we'll see failure. If we look around we'll be discouraged. But if we look up and keep our eyes on the Lord Jesus, there we'll find the one who is perfect. Let us pray. Gracious God our Father, we thank thee for thy precious word. We thank thee our Father for the instruction that we get in these mascal psalms. Instruction for thy people in the coming day. And surely instruction for us as we have to face the realities our God and Father of the life around us today. We thank thee that thou hast not left us without a guide. Thy precious word has so much in it to instruct us. So we pray Father that each one of us may receive something from the precious scriptures of truth. We thank thee for this day that thou has given us. We commit into thy hand each brother and sister, each family represented in the assembly. We pray that thou will give us grace to continue on faithfully for thee and in my service. We pray our God that thou will save precious souls. Bring those who still do not know the Lord Jesus to trust in him as their personal Savior. So we now just commit us into thy care as we give thanks in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. …

… Let us turn to Psalm 74. I want to speak tonight on two Masculine Psalms, the 74th and the 78th. So we'll read Psalm 74, Masculine of Asaph. O God, why hast thou cast us off forever? Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old, the rod of thine inheritance which thou hast redeemed, this Mount Zion wherein thou hast dwelt. Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations, even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. Thy enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations. They set up their ensigns for signs. A man was famous, according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers. They have cast fire into thy sanctuary. They have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground. They said in their hearts, let us destroy them together. They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land. We see not our signs. There is no more any prophet. Neither is there among us any that knoweth how long. O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name forever? Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? Pluck it out of thy bosom. For God is my King of all, working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength. Thou breakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou breakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood. Thou dryest up the rivers. The day is thine, the night also is thine. Thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth. Thou hast made summer and winter. Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached, O Lord, and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name. Deliver not the soul of thy turtle dove unto the multitude of the wicked. Forget not the congregation of thy poor forever. Have respect unto the covenant, for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. O let not the oppressed return ashamed. Let the poor and the needy praise thy name. Arise, O God, plead thine own cause. Remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily. Forget not the voice of thine enemies. The tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth continually. In the book of Psalms, this portion is in the third book. We know the Psalms are divided into five books, and this is the third book. And this section really gives, prophetically, the deliverance of Israel as a nation. How God is going to come in for them and deliver them. But in this Psalm, we have the exercises of the godly remnant before the deliverance, as they're suffering under the hand of the Antichrist, who is reigning in the land. And also, it seems, they're now in the time of the great tribulation, when their enemies have come into the land and are seeking to destroy them as a nation. And so we can see, as we go through the Psalm, how the language of this Psalm fits in with that time. This Psalm fits in, to a certain extent, with the 83rd Psalm, where we also have the invasion of the king of the north, seeking to destroy the people of Israel. We notice in this third section, very few Psalms of David. We have Psalms of Asaph. Quite a number of Psalms of Asaph here, as we go along. And two in this section, the 74th and the 78th, are Masculine Psalms. And as we've seen, the Masculine Psalms are the Psalms that give us instruction. They will be instruction for God's earthly people in that day, and they give instruction for us. And so we have an exercise here, as it starts off. Why hast thou cast us off forever? The godly remnant of Israel, as they see the enemy on the rampage, and seemingly unchecked, and destroying the land, there is a kind of a feeling among them, well, has God really cast us off? You know, even today, sometimes the Lord's people, when they're called upon to go through a great trial, attempted to ask the same question. It seems sometimes that God has forgotten. The Lord's people, under different circumstances, at different times, are called upon to go through great trials. There are the Lord's people in some countries who are going through trials that we know nothing about. And I suppose every Christian, and every Christian family, has its trials that come upon it. And sometimes it seems that, no matter how much there is a looking to the Lord, there is a kind of a feeling that God is not answering the prayer. Of course, we know that that is not true. God always answers the prayers of his people. But sometimes he doesn't answer the prayer in the way that his people expect. It's often been said that God answers our prayers in three ways. He answers them by saying yes. Or he answers them by saying no. And sometimes he answers them by saying wait. And sometimes we have to wait for the answer. Now it seems that God is not hearing his people at this time, and he's not intervening on their behalf. But we find that eventually God comes in and gives them deliverance. And the experiences that they go through in this trial, they're for the purpose of drawing these godly ones closer to the Lord. And of course that's what it is with us too. We have the word here several times used in this psalm, the congregation. Verse 2, remember thy congregation which thou hast purchased of old. I notice that in Mr. Darby's version, that is translated thy assembly. The godly remnant in that day will be God's assembly, God's congregation. They will be God's people. We know that we today who belong to the Lord, who have been saved and brought into the church, or as the more scriptural term is, into the assembly of God. So in that sense we can say that there are things here that can apply to us as God's assembly today. Remember thy congregation which thou hast purchased. God had purchased his people. And God had purchased them that they might be a witness for him. And so beloved God has purchased us. We are those that have been purchased with a price, with the precious blood of Christ. And he's purchased us that we might be to his praise and glory here and through all eternity. But also that while we are here, that we might be a witness to those around us. The only testimony of Christ that the world sees is what it sees in the Christian, is what it sees in us. There's a little poem that says, what is the gospel according to you? We can read the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. But as the world sees us and the world reads us, what is the gospel according to us? Sometimes the gospel according to us is not what it should be. I remember reading about a boy in the service who was under deep exercise and someone spoke to him about the gospel. And he said, well, he says, I don't know a great deal, he said, about the gospels as we have them in the Bible. But he says, I do know what the gospel was lived in by my mother. He says, I know what the gospel was according to her. His mother had been such a good testimony. And that spoke volumes to him. And of course that's what it should be. Now we notice here that the godly remnant are lamenting the fact that the sanctuary has been destroyed. We had the sanctuary before us this morning. And it was very precious. And the various thoughts that came out, the veil is rent and we enter right into the holy place. That is our place. As one of our hymns says, the sanctuary is our place where now we dwell before the Father's face. But when God takes up Israel again, the sanctuary will be in Jerusalem. The temple will be rebuilt. And there the sacrifices will be offered again. And that will be recognized as God's sanctuary as it was of old. God chose Jerusalem as the place to set his name. And God is going to set his name on earth again in Jerusalem after he takes the church away. That will be his sanctuary. But what happens? The enemy has come in from the north. And they have destroyed, it says. Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations. Even all of the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. Apparently they're going in there to defile the sanctuary. It's something like Belshazzar in the book of Daniel. You remember? In that drunken feast when he's married with wine and he thought how he could show his despite against the Lord, the God of Israel and the God of heaven and earth, the true God. So he says, bring the vessels that my grandfather brought out of Jerusalem, out of Judea, and we'll drink out of them. So they brought the gold and silver vessels that had been dedicated to the service of God in Jerusalem. And they filled them with wine and as they drank it, they praised the gods of gold and the gods of silver. It was an act of blasphemy against God. That man was really shaking his fist at God. And I believe that these who will come into the sanctuary in Jerusalem in that coming day will be the same people. They'll say, these people, they say they're worshipping God. We want to destroy his name. We know that there are nations on earth today who are out to destroy the name of God from the earth. And this will be, I believe, what will be in their heart when they come down against Israel. God will allow it. God is allowing this invasion, will allow this invasion in that day as his judgment on the people of Israel for worshipping the image of the beast and for worshipping the beast. But what God allows and what the people that he uses as instruments intend to do are often two different things. God allows wicked men to do things to fulfill his will but then he also has to deal with them because they do these things with wickedness in their hearts. And God will allow them to come down and to defile the sanctuary. And the psalmist says, a man was famous according as he lifted up axes upon thick trees but now they break down the card work thereof at once with hammers and axes. They have cast fire into thy sanctuary. They defile by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground. A man used to be famous, they say, according as to how he could cut down big trees with axes. But now they're seeking to show their great prowess, we might say by chopping down the sanctuary of the Lord. Apparently they will invade the temple with their hammers and their axes and they'll just seek to smash it up. But all with a view of defying God. And that's why the godly remnant are concerned, they say, Lord, art thou not concerned that the enemies are destroying the very place where thou hast put thy name? Why does God allow it? That's the question. One thing is sure. God is still the God of his people. And it may be a lesson that they might have to learn in those days that is true for us in these days is that God dwelleth not in temples made with hands but God is the sanctuary of his people because he's in their hearts and not necessarily because they have a beautiful temple with which to honour God. Although I believe the fact that they have a material temple will be in keeping with God's purpose for that day. But it's something more than that. David desired to dwell in the Lord's temple but we know that David never actually dwelt never actually entered into the physical temple because it wasn't built in David's day. But David had the Lord in his heart and David was serving, David knew what it was spiritually to enter into the Lord's temple and that's what it should be with us too. It's a spiritual thing. And so they say in verse 8 they said in their hearts let us destroy them together they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land apparently Israel will have the meeting places in those days and their enemies will burn them up they'll seek to blot out the name of God and so we have from down to verse 11 the cry of the godly in that day. Now we have from verse 12 on another thought it seems now as if they have asked the Lord to come in and now from verse 12 down to verse 17 we find that they're looking at the Lord himself and they're occupied with him and so we find in verse 12 they say God is my king of all working salvation in the midst of the earth and they go back and they think of what the Lord has done and notice how many times we have the word thou and it's emphatic this word thou thou didst divide the sea thou breakest the heads of the dragons thou breakest the heads of Leviathan thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood thou dryest up the mighty streams the day is thine, the night also is thine thou hast prepared the light and the sun thou hast set all the borders of the earth thou hast made summer and winter they're looking away from self you know if we look within someone has said if we look within we're going to be discouraged if we look around us we'll be disheartened but if we look up and get our eyes on the Lord there's nothing but encouragement in the first part of this psalm God's people are looking around and they're very discouraged but then they come to the point when they look up and they get their eyes on the Lord and how precious it is and they look back as they remember Israel's history they remember how God brought them out of Egypt thou didst divide the sea God is my King of all they remember that God was the King of Israel in the past and how he delivered them and that's an encouragement to them and then they say in verse 18 remember this, that the enemy hath reproached O Lord, that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name it's just as if they've got to the point where they're saying Lord, it's not a question of what they're doing to us it's a question of what they're doing to thee what are they doing to the Lord's people? well they're doing a great deal to the Lord's people they're persecuting them but what are they doing to the Lord? and as the Lord's people realise that this is not a controversy between them and the enemy but between God and the enemy that makes all the difference isn't that so with us beloved? when there's trials and difficulties come supposing there are those who oppose us for the Lord's sake we don't have to oppose them we have to leave them in the Lord this then becomes a question that the Lord deals with it's the Lord, they put it in the Lord's hand and so that's what Israel does so this really, this psalm in this sense is an instruction to us it teaches us how we should act in certain circumstances they blaspheme thy name we have those who blaspheme the Lord's name today they don't have a controversy with us but they do have a controversy with the Lord and then they say deliver not the soul of thy turtle dove to the multitude of the wicked or to the wild beast forget not the congregation of thy poor forever no the Lord doesn't forget his people and he won't have respect unto the covenant God made a promise to Israel that he was yet going to bring them into blessing and he'll do it and so we have in verse 21 it says let the poor and needy praise thy name and then we're reminded in verse 22 remember how the foolish man reproaches thee daily I believe the foolish man and the evil man in the psalms is antichrist he reproaches the Lord Israel at this time will have two enemies they'll have the antichrist for pretending to be Christ and reproaching the Lord's name in the land they'll have the enemy from the north that'll come in seeking to destroy them they'll have two enemies but they'll have the Lord on their side and God is above all enemies and they'll eventually triumph forget not the voice of thy enemies the tumult of those that rise up against thee increases continually so I think the great lesson we learn in this psalm before we go on to the 78th is this we have the cry of the godly in their great trouble in the beginning but then we find that they turn away from themselves and they get their eyes on the Lord we've seen this theme many times in the psalms how the God, when his people are in trouble he turns them away from their circumstances he turns them away from themselves and he turns them to himself now we go on to the 78th psalm I'm not going to read this psalm, read all this psalm because it's a very long psalm it has 72 verses but we're going to read a few verses of it as we go along it also is a maskill of Asaph a psalm of Asaph giving instruction and we notice first of all that we have here a statement that the Lord quotes in the 13th chapter of Matthew give ye, O my people, to my law incline your ears to the words of my mouth I will open my mouth in a parable I will utter dark sayings of old which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us now if we turn over without losing the place a minute to the 13th chapter of Matthew we find that this psalm is quoted there in Matthew 13 and that gives it really a great importance, you know any part of the scripture that the Lord himself quoted is enhanced in its importance although all scripture is important but I believe that the verses when we find the Lord quoting from some passage in the Old Testament it's because it falls into a very important place and so when the Lord gives the parables in the 13th of Matthew it says in verse 34 all these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables and without a parable spake he not unto them that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet you see Asaph is called the prophet saying I will open my mouth in parables I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world so here the Lord quotes from this this very second verse I will open my mouth in a parable will utter dark sayings of old he quotes this very verse that we have in the 78th psalm now in the parable, in the 13th of Matthew where we have the parables the first parable as we know is of the sower sowing the seed then we have the man that sowed good seed in the field and the enemy came and sowed tares and so on the Lord goes on and gives other parables which we are not going to take the time to go into now but just to say this that the parables that continue they give in this parabolic form the future events they cover the period of what is known as the times of the kingdom of heaven right down through the present time until the Lord sets up his kingdom and so we have two thoughts we have the Lord taking up like the sowing of the seed and all of these things incidents that happen every day the woman hiding the yeast in the measures of meal and the net cast into the sea and the sower sowing the seed the Lord uses these everyday events that were taking place at that time in Israel to set forth what was going to happen in the future and he uses this psalm as the basis for that so as we come back to this 78th psalm we ask ourselves the question what is the lesson then that the Lord is teaching us in this 78th psalm why does this psalm call the parable the lesson I believe is this in this psalm we have a recounting of the history of Israel the psalmist goes back over Israel's history and he wants the generation that is reading this to learn the lessons that are to be learned symbolically from the history of Israel the Lord took up these incidents when he was here to teach spiritual lessons as to the future and that's what we are to learn in this psalm this lets us see beloved that the Lord has many ways of teaching lessons he teaches lessons from history he teaches his people lessons by what has happened to them in the past he teaches us lessons even from the things that are happening around us today that's what a parable is it's a taking up of something that happens and learning a spiritual lesson do we have lessons to learn from Israel's history Israel in the future will have lessons to learn from their past history and we have still lessons to learn from their history so that's what we get here we get the parable and we get lessons that God wants us to learn from it and notice as we come to our psalm now he says in verse 3 which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us we will not hide them from their children showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he hath done for he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children that the generation to come might know them even the children which should be born who should arise and declare them to their children how many generations do we have there we have the Lord commanded our fathers that they should make the known to their children there's the second generation that the generation to come might know them even the children which should be born that's another generation that's the third generation who should arise and declare them unto their children so there you have four generations God's word being handed on generation after generation it reminds us something of what the apostle Paul says to Timothy the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who should be able to teach others also talk about apostolic succession that's the true apostolic succession that God's people Timothy learned the truth from Paul Timothy was to teach other men who in their turn would hand it on to others and so God's truth has come right down to us today and we today have our responsibility it's not just only looking back to the past we should thank God for history we should thank God as we read the history of God's servants in the New Testament and even back in the Old Testament we should thank God as we read the histories of his faithful people down through the Christian era as we read of the Reformation and men like Luther and Tyndale and others who stood for God and some of them even burned at the stake and Wycliffe as we know even after he was buried they dug up his bones and burned them and scattered the ashes on the sea so great was their rage against those who would bring people back to the word of God we should thank God as we read of the history of men like Jay and Darby and others through whom much precious truth has been recovered but we don't want to stop there God wants us to learn our lessons and to learn his precious truth that we might learn from those who've gone before and that we might be able to pass these things on to those who are coming after and God expects that to continue I believe beloved brethren as long as he has his church here on earth so we have a responsibility the children of Israel when they asked when the Passover was kept each year and they asked what mean ye by this service what did the Jews have to do they had to explain to them why they kept the Passover and maybe one of the things that has kept the Jews together as a people even though in great unbelief even to the present day is that right down through the ages they have kept the Passover and from year to year the Jewish fathers have explained to their children what the Passover meant God has no doubt used it even though they've done it in unbelief to give them in that sense a national identity and what a privilege we have as we have the breaking of bread and our children ask what mean ye by this service why do we do this to explain to them that this is the memorial that God has given us what a precious privilege it is from week to week to be able to gather together so how much we have not only to learn from the past but to pass on to the future and so that's what we find here it's a parable in that sense that God expects us to learn from the past but he also expects us to pass it on to the future and you notice what he says in verse 8 and that they might not be as their fathers a stubborn and rebellious generation a generation that set not their heart alight whose spirit was not steadfast with God we can't help but notice as we read Israel's history how stiff-necked they were and stubborn and we're reminded there in verse 9 the children of Israel being armed and carrying bows turned back in the day of battle they kept not the covenant of God and refused to walk in his law and forget his works and his wonders that he had showed them I believe this is what's referred to in the 17th and 2nd Kings when the Lord is reminding the northern kingdom they're called Ephraim here the kingdom of Israel the northern kingdom of the reason why he was sending them into captivity the king of Assyria came down and led them into captivity and the Lord there tells them why he says you've departed from my truth and that's why I'm allowing you to be carried away captive the children of Ephraim being armed and carrying bows turned back in the day of battle God had put into their hands the means of being his testimony they had turned away to idols they'd refused to be God's testimony and so this is a lesson for us you know I believe that the many of us know of those who have been used of God as a testimony but they have become lax and they've turned away from the truth and God is not using them anymore we read in the letters to the seven churches that the Lord threatens to remove the candlestick and you know there are places where there have been flourishing assemblies of those gathered to the Lord's name at one time and now there's no testimony there anymore the Lord has removed the candlestick some assemblies have become completely broken up through internal strife others have completely ceased to exist because of false teachings that were allowed among them and God in his judgment has allowed them to be broken up God can remove the candlestick and I don't believe that any assembly of God's people should think that these things couldn't happen to us they could happen, they have happened and they can happen, we need to walk humbly before the Lord the Lord can remove the candlestick if his people are not seeking to walk according to his truth and so he has to make this statement here of what happened to Ephraim and why he sent them into captivity, why he couldn't use them as his testimony in spite of all the truth they had they first of all turned and worshipped Jeroboam's false calves and finally they became so bad that the Lord had to send them away into captivity, they kept not his covenant and he reminds them here of all that he did, they forget his works, marvellous things did he in the sight of their fathers in the land of Egypt and in the field of Zoan and so in this whole psalm it goes right through the history of God's people Israel it's a concise recounting of the various important steps in the history of God's people Israel, he reminds them there that he opened the doors of heaven and rain manna down upon them in the 24th verse, man did eat angels food and so forth and that he sent them the quails as we have in verse 27 and so forth and so on, how that they turned away from God and yet in spite of all their departure we are told in verse 38 he being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not yea many a time turned he his anger away and did not stir up his wrath for he remembered that they were but flesh a wind that passeth away and cometh not again how oft did they provoke him in the wilderness and grieve him in the desert yea they turned back and tempted God and limited the holy one of Israel even in spite of all that says God remembered God it says he remembered his covenant he was full of compassion and forgave their iniquity and he remembered that they were but flesh what a wonderful gracious God we have that in spite of all his people did yet he remembered the promises that he made to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and he forgave them and still gave them opportunities so this is instruction here for us as we see that God is reminding us this is the parable that in that in spite of all of his people's failures God is still going to carry out his purposes man seeks to thwart the purposes of God have you ever thought how many times we have in the scriptures how Satan has sought to hinder the working out of God's purposes time and time again we find that he sought to destroy the people of Israel I believe to prevent Christ being born and we know that when the Lord was born Satan stirred up Herod to even kill all the children so that he could kill Christ and the Lord Jesus is taken into into Egypt by Joseph as the Lord sent him Satan seeks to thwart the purposes of God but he never can God carries out his purposes and even the failures of God's people do not set aside God's purposes if we fail we'll be the losers we'll lose something but God's purposes are still going to be carried out and if we are not those that God can use in carrying on his work he'll take up others with less light than we have and use them often he's done that but these things should not be cause us to be discouraged but rather that we might be encouraged to go on for the Lord and seek to be faithful because of the Lord's grace now as we come further down in the chapter uh in this psalm um still referring to how the children of Israel turned away from the Lord down in verse 59 or 58 they provoked him to anger with their high places and moved him to jealousy with their graven images when God heard this he was wrath and greatly abhorred Israel so he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh the tent which he placed among men and delivered his strength into captivity and his glory into the enemy's hand now I believe this is referring to the fact that when the people of Israel first came into the land of Canaan the tribe that became prominent was the tribe of Ephraim and it was there that the Lord set up the tabernacle Shiloh was in the territory of the tribe of Ephraim and Shiloh was the place where the tabernacle was set up after the land was conquered by Joshua under Joshua and so Ephraim being the leading tribe the other tribes naturally gathered around them but it wasn't God's final intention that his testimony should remain in Ephraim but he gives them the opportunity of being his testimony but we find that they turn back and this seems to be the great parable in this psalm is God is showing the reason why he set aside the northern kingdom and he chose Judah and Jerusalem he allowed his testimony first of all to be in the northern kingdom before it was a separate kingdom before there came the division between the ten tribes and two tribes God's testimony was in Ephraim God's center was Ephraim the place where the Lord set his name was there in Shiloh but what happened at Shiloh Shiloh became a corrupt place we know what happened in the days of Eli and how Eli's sons dishonored the Lord and instead of being a place where God was honored it was a place where God was dishonored and so when comes the battle with the Philistines and the ark is taken out into the battle God allows the ark to be taken and from the moment the ark was taken the moment the ark was taken out by the people from the tabernacle and taken out into the battle and was allowed to be captured by the Philistines God set aside Shiloh he set aside Eli Eli was Eli died and finally although it takes a few generations but finally all of Eli's descendants perished and the priesthood was taken away from him when the ark finally comes back it doesn't come back to Shiloh and eventually where is the ark taken to it's eventually taken to Jerusalem by David he tried to bring it up in the wrong way first of all and God was not pleased with that because David should have known better he brings it on a cart it was alright for the Philistines to send it back on a new cart they didn't know any better but God wouldn't allow his people to do that they were not supposed to bring it that way the priest was supposed to carry it that's what the instructions were given that the priest was to carry the ark and so finally after David learned his lesson the ark is brought up with great rejoicing and it's established in Jerusalem we have a account of it given in the 132nd Psalm and the 133rd Psalm we have the brethren dwelling together in unity I believe that looks on to the time when the whole nation of Israel Judah Ephraim and Judah Israel and Judah will be united there in Jerusalem so here we have the reason why God set aside Ephraim was unfaithful so the Lord sets aside he abhors Israel that's the ten tribes he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh the tent which he placed among men he delivered his strength into captivity and his glory into the enemy's hand he allowed the ark to be taken he gave his people over to the sword and was wroth with his inheritance and we find that eventually the ten tribes were carried away captive away to Assyria but then after looking at all that we find that God comes in in verse 67 verse 65 then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep and like a mighty man he shouted by reason of wine and smote his enemies in behind the paths he put them to a perpetual reproach moreover he refused the tabernacle of Joseph and chose not the tribe of Ephraim but chose the tribe of Judah the Mount Zion which he loved and he built his sanctuary like high places like high palaces like the earth which he has established forever he chose David also his servant and took him from the sheepfolds from following the youths he was great with young he brought him to feed Jacob his people and Israel his inheritance so he fed them that's David, fed them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands why is this brought in? what an encouragement beloved, this is going to be to the godly remnant in the coming day it's just as if the Lord is saying I set aside Shiloh because of the unfaithfulness of my people and I have set aside Israel these hundreds of years because of their unfaithfulness but my purposes were ultimately fulfilled because even though I set aside Ephraim and I set aside Shiloh in my sovereignty I chose Judah and I chose Jerusalem and I eventually brought my ark into Jerusalem and I eventually allowed the man to be in Jerusalem whom I chose to be king and that was David the man after my own heart and I placed him on the throne and we know that David of course prepared the materials for the building of the temple and his son Solomon built the temple and finally Solomon reigned there instead of his father David no enemy or evil was occurrent and we have a wonderful picture of the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, so this is the parable beloved, that God is speaking to his people Israel who will go through the great tribulation, he's letting them see that his purposes will ultimately be fulfilled, as they were fulfilled in the past by his choosing Jerusalem and causing his ark to be there and causing his king to be there, that's what he's going to do in the future the Mount Zion which he loved God is going to set up the kingdom there in Jerusalem there on Mount Zion the world has just been remembering the Lord as the one who came to Bethlehem but we know that when the Lord reigns his reign is going to be from Zion, Bethlehem was we might say, it was the guest house by the way, the Lord had to come into this world, he had to be born into this world in order that he might die and so his birth was one step, his death was the great step that laid the foundation of all that's to follow but the final step is yet to come, the Lord himself is going to come and stand upon the Mount of Olives and he's the one who's going to ride in through the gates, there's that gate there's that gate in the wall of Jerusalem that many years ago, hundreds of years ago was sealed up by an unbelieving prince just because he decided it ought to be sealed up, but God is going to have that gate open when the King of Kings rides in there and the Lord Jesus is going to reign in Jerusalem and the poor godly remnant who will go through this great tribulation are finally going to be come out of it with the Lord Jesus as the one who reigns and all their enemies put down, the Lord will finally triumph man cannot thwart the purposes of God God is going to set his son on the throne of this earth and all nations will have to own his sway as he reigns over them so it's lovely that the Lord has let us see this in the scriptures of truth this is a sign of instruction for us and what are we looking for? we're not looking for the Lord to come and establish his kingdom, but we of his church, we're looking for him to come first before that for Israel he'll come as the son of righteousness that will arise with healing in his wings as we have it in the last chapter of Malachi but for us, as we have in the last chapter of Revelation he is the bright morning star and the morning star comes before the sun and so before the Lord comes as the son of righteousness to reign over this scene he'll come for his assembly as the morning star and that's what we should be looking for, looking for his coming as the hymn says in hope we lift our wishful longing eyes waiting to see the morning star arise, how bright how gladsome will his advent be before the sun shines forth in majesty, let us pray gracious God our father we thank thee that we see in thy precious word the ultimate triumph of thy beloved son, the Lord Jesus Christ, thou hast ordained that he shall sit upon the throne and reign over this scene and our God we know that thou hast ordained that we shall reign with him there from the glory and that he will receive the universal homage, not only of the heavenly sphere but also of the earthly sphere we thank thee our God that as thy people Israel thy godly remnant will go through trials that thou hast caused them to look on to the ultimate triumph and we thank thee too for the encouragement that this gives us as we go through our trials in this life and the ups and downs of the daily scene, going through the wilderness, our God we thank thee for the vision that thou hast given us of the ultimate triumph of our blessed saviour and of our being with him and so we seek grace to go on from day to day, we pray our God that for thy gospel as it's been preached today that thou bless it and should there be any here still outside of Christ that they might turn to him and trust in him as their personal saviour, we ask it our God as we thank thee for this day and commit us to thee in the precious name of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, Amen Thank you for watching! …

… Let us turn to Psalm 88, a song or psalm for the sons of Korah, to the chief musician upon Mahalath, Leonoth, Maskil of Heman, the Ezraite, O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee, let my prayer come before thee and incline thine ear unto my cry, for my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh unto the grave, I am counted with them that go down into the pit, I am as a man that hath no strength, free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, who now remember us no more, and they are cut off from thy hand, thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deep, thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy ways, Selah, thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me, thou hast made me an abomination unto them, I am shut up and I cannot come forth, mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction, Lord I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee, wilt thou show wonders to the dead, shall the dead arise and praise thee, Selah, shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction, shall thy wonders be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness, but unto thee have I cried, O Lord, and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee, Lord why castest thou off my soul, why hidest thou thy face from me, I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up, while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted, thy fierce wrath goes over me, thy terrors have cut me off, they came round about me daily like water, they compass me about together, lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness. Tonight we're going to take up the last three of the Masculine Psalms, we've been going through the Masculine Psalms, and the word Masculine means giving instruction, and the last three that we have are this Psalm 88, the following Psalm 89, and finally Psalm 142. It's noticeable that this Psalm also is the last Psalm, this 88, is the last one that's dedicated to the sons of Korah, and we saw that one of the other Psalms that we looked at also, that the Masculine Psalm was, there was some of them, were Psalms for the sons of Korah, and Masculine, the word Masculine means giving instruction, and these Psalms really are instruction for the godly remnant of Israel in the coming day. We know that the day is coming after the Lord takes the church away, when he will take up Israel, and Israel will be his people, but the mass of the nation in that day will go after Antichrist, but there's going to be a godly remnant, the Lord is going to save souls out of Israel, a godly remnant will be his testimony, and they'll be under a great time of testing, especially that part of it that is called in Scripture the Great Tribulation, the last three and a half years of the 70th week of Daniel 9, and these Psalms give the experiences of those faithful people of God who are going through this time of testing then. But the reason why they are instructive to us is that we as God's people have to go through our times of testing today. Maybe in some parts of the world God's people today are going through testings somewhat similar to what that godly remnant will go through then. We received a magazine in the German language on the Lord's work in different parts of the country, and our sister Miss Joseph was telling us that in this particular one that came just a few days ago, there are letters there written by some of our beloved brethren in Russia, telling of the tests that they're going through in that country, those who are seeking to be faithful to the Lord, and they have managed to, by secret means, to get some of these letters out of the country, and they have been published in this paper called Meitelungen, which gives news of the Lord's work around the world. So that there are parts of the world even today when those who are in the Church of God are being greatly tested, these saints of God in this coming day also will be tested. Now this Psalm is a rather remarkable Psalm, this 88th Psalm, because there's not one word of comfort in it. In fact I understand that our late brother J.N. Darby, at one time in his experience, when he was seeking for the truth, and he was in despondency and despair, and he didn't have any peace in his heart, this Psalm was a comfort to him, because he found that someone else, that the author of this Psalm was in somewhat similar condition to what he found himself in then. There's no comfort in this Psalm. It's the Psalm of a saint of God in despair, you might say. In a certain sense this Psalm is prophetic of the Lord Jesus. You notice that it says there in the 7th verse, Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy ways. We know that the Lord himself said elsewhere, All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me. The waves and billows of the wrath of God went over him on the cross. And he says in verse 18, Lover and friend hast thou put far from me. How true that was of the Lord. So we find that as God's people in the coming day are going through this time of trial, they're made to feel in a certain sense that the Lord himself, as a man on earth, went through this time of trial. The Lord will be, they'll truly be able to think of the Lord as sympathizing with them in their trial. And you know, beloved, when we're called upon to go through trials, that is an encouragement to us. When you think of the Lord as a man on earth, scripture says in Hebrews, He was tempted in all points like as we are, sin upon. That is, the Lord wasn't tempted by sin from within as we are, but in all things that come from outside where we might be tempted and tested, the Lord was. And that's why he now is able to sympathize with us. He's our great high priest in the glory. And he's been through this scene himself. If we find that we're misunderstood even by our loved ones, the Lord was misunderstood by those that were closest to him. They couldn't understand that he was here to do the will of God. And so forth. There's nothing that we're called upon to go through but what the Lord himself has been through it. And so that's what we find in this psalm, a saint of God in great trial and difficulty. God has put this psalm, this has been put in the book, as a masculine psalm, as a psalm from which we learn instruction. And we notice that in verse 11 he says, Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction? As much as to say that God, it seems to the psalmist that God had forgotten his lovingkindness and he'd forgotten his faithfulness. God hadn't forgotten. You know, we might be tempted to think because the sun's behind the clouds that there is no sun. But it's not that the sun's not there. The sun is there. It's just that the cloud has obscured the sun. And we don't want to think because the Lord sometimes hides his face that he's forgotten us. God never forgets his people. And when the Godly remnant of Israel are going through their greatest trial, the Lord is taking notice of it all. He's not forgetting. It's just sometimes that it seems that he forgets. But he really hasn't forgotten. And what encouragement that should be to us. If God's allowing us to go through a time of trial and testing, it's because he's going to bring forth some good out of it. We're going to learn something. Perhaps that there was no other way in which we could have learned it. Now when we come on to the next psalm, the 89th psalm, we find it's very different. We find that in the 89th psalm, seven times we have the word loving-kindness and seven times we have the word faithfulness in the new translation. It's got mercy in the authorized version. But the new translation where we have mercy translate that loving-kindness. The Lord's loving-kindness and his faithfulness. It's been said that the 88th psalm corresponds somewhat to the 7th of Romans. And the 89th psalm to the 8th of Romans. And you know what the 7th of Romans is? There's not a ray of hope in the 7th of Romans, as it were, until you get to the end. And the apostle there in the 7th of Romans says, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And then he says, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. But as we go right through the 7th of Romans, it's something like this psalm. It's a believer who has not got free, who's still trying to bring forth fruit for God under the law. And no one can bring forth fruit for God by the law. It's only when we come to the 8th chapter that we find that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. And in the 8th chapter of Romans, it ends with no condemnation, it begins rather with no condemnation, and it ends with no separation. So there's all the difference in the world between Romans 7 and Romans 8. Romans 7 is despair. Romans 8 is encouragement and occupation with Christ. With Romans 7, it's all I and me. In Romans 8, it's the Lord and it's the Holy Spirit occupying us with Christ. And so we have in the 88th psalm, it's despair. But in the 89th psalm, we are reminded of the Lord's lovingkindness and of the Lord's faithfulness. He starts off with, I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. And that's the Lord's lovingkindness. And he also says, with my mouth I will make known thy faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, lovingkindness shall be built up forever. Thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. And right through, you notice there in verse 5, we have the Lord's faithfulness. Then in verse 8, and so on we go through the chapter, we find it refers to his lovingkindness and his faithfulness. Those two are together again in the 24th verse. Thy faithfulness and thy mercy, or lovingkindness, shall be with him. And in my name shall his horn be exalted. Again we have the Lord's lovingkindness in the 28th verse. In the 33rd verse, and again his faithfulness. So it's lovely to see these two things. Now I believe the Lord's lovingkindness reminds us that he's with us in spite of our failures and our weakness. We think of ourselves as failing and weak creatures. We are. Were it not for the Lord's lovingkindness, where would we be? On the other hand, we see the Lord's faithfulness. And his faithfulness here is his faithfulness to his promise. Because in this chapter, it's just as if God is reminding these ones that we read of in the 88th Psalm, he's reminding them that he made a promise to David, and he's going to fulfill it. When God makes a promise, he fulfills his promise. God made a covenant with his people Israel, and God never breaks his word. There are covenants in scripture that were two-sided. That is, there was God's side and man's side, and man broke his side, and therefore the covenant was null and void. That was the covenant God made with them at Mount Sinai. They didn't keep it. They said, all that the Lord has spoken will we do, but they weren't able to do it. But when God makes the new covenant that's going to be made in the coming day with Israel, God says, I will. And he pledges himself to do it. And so God's promises to Israel and God's promises to David are going to be fulfilled. And David in this Psalm, of course, as right through scripture, is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we find that he says in the third verse, I've made a covenant with my chosen, and have sworn unto David my servant. Thy seed will I establish forever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Now what a comfort this is going to be to the godly remnant of Israel in the coming day. When the Antichrist is reigning, and when the mass of the people are against them, and they're under great pressure, and they're in great reproach, and they're almost discouraged for the Lord to say, things are not going to continue like this forever. I have made a promise that I'm going to set my king on the throne, and he's not going to be Antichrist. He's going to be Christ. He's going to be the one who's going to reign. That's a great encouragement. You think of a godly Israelite, right in the midst of the great tribulation, of those three and a half years of great tribulation, with all this pressure put upon them, and it seems that God's forgotten. It seems that the devil's having all his own way. Some people act as if they think that's already happened now. It seems sometimes that God has forgotten. He hasn't. He has his time, though, for the fulfillment of his purposes, and we know that the Lord has his time. God has his time for the Lord Jesus to come and take his church away, and the way things are going, it seems that this is going to take place very soon. God has his time to deal with his people Israel, and even the great tribulation, God is going to shorten even the time of that, it says, for no flesh would be saved. You know, the Lord said to the church at Smyrna, thou shalt have tribulation ten days. If the tribulation was to be ten days, it means that it wouldn't be eleven days. God saw what his people could bear, and he didn't put on them above what they could bear. And so that is with us, when we are called upon to go through trials, the Lord never puts a trial upon us, beloved, but what he gives us the strength to bear it. I remember many years ago, we used to get at that time a calendar called the Cheering Words Calendar, I think it's still published in England, and the first day of this particular year it had this verse on it, in every trial sent this year, no good thing wilt thou lack, the Lord himself the Lord will bear, or else make strong thy back. And how true that is, if the Lord sends us a trial, he'll give us the strength, he'll bear the load himself, or he'll give us the strength to bear it, but he'll never leave his people. And so that's what the godly remnant are going to prove in that day, and that's, beloved, it's our privilege to prove true, that God is faithful, he's loving kindness, he shows his loving kindness to us, considering our failure and our weakness, but he shows his faithfulness in that he keeps his word that he has promised, and he doesn't fail. We get down there again, just to go ahead a little, in the twentieth verse, or rather verse nineteen, Then thou spakest in vision to thy Holy One, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty, I have exalted one chosen out of the people, I have found David my servant, with my holy oil have I anointed him, with whom my hand shall be established, mine arm also shall strengthen him. You see, this is a prophecy of the fact that David was going to sit upon the throne, and as God encouraged David when he was being persecuted, and we especially see that in the last Psalm, the hundred and forty second that we'll come to after we go through this, as God had promised David he would sit on the throne, yet David went through a great trial being persecuted by Saul. He was the Lord's anointed, but he was rejected, and so God has promised that Christ is going to sit on the throne of this earth, and God's people in the coming day, when they're going through the trial, will be encouraged by taking home to themselves these promises of God's Word. I've laid help on one that is mighty. Are God's people mighty in themselves? No. They have no strength. You know, if we think we're strong in ourselves, then we have to learn that we're nothing in ourselves. That's what the Lord said to Philadelphia, thou hast a little strength, thou hast kept my word and not denied my name, and if they had boasted that they had great strength, well then they would not have had strength, but because there was the recognition of a little strength, God was able to come in and use them as his testimony, and so it is with us. Then also he says in verse twenty-seven, I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth, and that's prophetic of Christ, it's God's firstborn, he's going to be higher than the kings of the earth. As we read elsewhere, he's going to be owned as king of kings and lord of lords, king of those that reign, and lord of those that exercise lordship. Even in the millennium, there will be those who will reign in the different countries. Each country will have its government, and each country will have its head in its government, but there is going to be one who is going to be over them all, and that is going to be the Lord Jesus himself. He is going to be recognized as rightful king and lord of all. What a comfort to that despised remnant of Israel in that coming day. There's antichrist in the land, there's the king of the north coming down and threatening them from the north, there is the political head, the beast in Rome, and they are being persecuted and tested and tried. It seems that Satan, with his trinity of evil, has everything his own way, but no, God has the last word. So we need to be encouraged, beloved brethren, in a day like we live in, when we see many things around us going on that we know are completely contrary to the word of God, encouraged to know that God has the last word, and he would have us to go on faithful to himself. Notice what it says in the 5th verse. The heaven shall praise thy wonders, O Lord, thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints. Where is the congregation of the saints today? The same as we have down there in verse 7. God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him. Israel in that day will be God's congregation. In that sense, Israel in that day will be God's assembly here on earth. They will be God's testimony. Today God's testimony is in the church, and the congregation of the saints, or the assembly of the saints, is the gathering of the Lord's people, the assembly of his people, and that's where the Lord works. That's where the Lord is working today. God is working in the assembly of his people. It's the place where the Lord is to be feared. You know, when we think of the assembly, if we think of a gathering of God's godly saints in that coming day of his earthly people, or whether we think of ourselves today as God's heavenly people, it's a wonderful privilege to belong to the church of God, when we think that the Lord has saved our souls, and given us his Holy Spirit, and given us a place in his church. It's even a greater privilege, beloved, I believe, to be gathered to the name of the Lord, because there are many Christians who are in the church of God, but they haven't realized the truth, and the precious privilege of being gathered to the Lord's name. It's a wonderful privilege. What a privilege it is to be able to gather together as we did this morning, to pour out our hearts to the Lord in praise and worship. Sometimes, just because we're used to this, just because we come along every Lord's day, and perhaps we've grown up in it, we don't realize how much we have to thank the Lord for, in contrast to many Christians who know nothing about the precious privilege. We had our brother McAllister with us this morning, he's not here tonight because he thinks he's coming down with the flu, otherwise he'd have been here. This was the first time he'd ever been present at the worship meeting according to Scripture, and he was really greatly impressed with this precious privilege, the Lord has exercised him about this. It's a precious privilege, he's never known it, but he's come to have an exercise about it to realize that this is something that has been lacking in his Christian life. Do we really appreciate this precious privilege? It's a wonderful privilege, but beloved, it's also a great responsibility. It says God is great to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are around about him. We gather to his precious name, we gather round about him as it were, and while it's a privilege, it's a responsibility. We're called upon to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called, and to give a testimony in our lives for the Lord Jesus, both individually, as families, and as assemblies of his people, to realize that the privilege carries with it a responsibility. We go down to verse 14, it's impossible in the time that we have to take up verse by verse exposition of the chapter, but notice what it says in verse 14, "...justice and judgment of the habitation of thy throne, mercy and truth shall go before thy face. Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound. They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance. In thy name shall they rejoice all the day, and in my righteousness shall they be exalted." How is God's throne upheld? It's upheld by justice and judgment. There's a habitation of his throne, and mercy and truth go before his face. You know with God everything is balanced. When we look around upon things in the world today, we find that there's a great imbalance in many things. In government we find that there's a letting down of standards. People are proved guilty in court of terrible crimes, and instead of punishment being meted out to them, they're just given some token punishment and let go free to go and commit the same crimes again. Many people are complaining about it, and they say, well what's gone wrong? Criminals are proved guilty, and they're not being dealt with. It's because man is leaving God out in these things. But when God rules, when the Lord rules, he rules everything in a right measure. The Lord, God is a God of holiness, he's a God that must punish sin, and yet he's a God that is a loving God who's willing to forgive. But God never overlooks. God never can overlook. He can't overlook sin in the unsaved, and he cannot overlook sin in his people. If God's people go on in the course that's displeasing to him, God deals with them. If the unsaved continue to go on in their course, leaving God out of their lives, they'll end up with having to hear the Lord say, depart into everlasting fire. God must punish sin. That's why he sent his beloved son. And if we want to learn what sin really is, we see, we meditate on the distance that the Lord Jesus had to go to redeem our precious souls. Think of him having to go down into death, and that cry to be rung from his heart as it was on the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? There's the depth that sin leads people to, away from God. And he went there that we might, that God's claims might be met, so that he could come out in grace to a guilty world and save souls. And if there should be one here tonight that's still unsaved, beloved friend, just think of what the Lord Jesus went through to save your precious soul. If there was only one sinner on earth to be saved, if I were the only sinner, for me to be saved, the Lord Jesus would have had to go to the cross and suffer as he did. Of course, he suffered that many might be saved, and thank God there are going to be millions in the glory as the result of that work. But for one single soul to be saved, the Lord would have had to die and shed his precious blood and suffer as he did. There we see the enormity of sin in God's sight, when we see the distance that our blessed Saviour had to go, leaving the glory and coming down to the cross, and going there down into the depths, in order that we might be lifted up out of the depths of sin, and to be made fit for the presence of a holy God. Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne, mercy and truth go before thy face. And then it says, blessed is the people that know the joyful sound. That's the position we brought into. This godly revenant in the coming day will realize that, and we do it now. We walk in the light of his countenance, and it says in verse 16, in thy name shall they rejoice all the day. What a privilege it is to rejoice in the name of the Lord. You know, the name of the Lord is all sufficient for the salvation of the sinner. There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. The name of the Lord is all sufficient for the saint, because when two or three are gathered together unto his name, there he is in the midst of them. The name of the precious name of Jesus, that name that was despised on earth, that God has made the highest name in heaven, that name is sufficient for every soul, sufficient for the sinner and sufficient for the saint. We need no other name. Then we come down to the 33rd verse, my loving kindness will not, I will not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and he is thrown as the sun before me. You know, David is a type in scripture of the Lord Jesus Christ. But David in himself was a failing man, and I believe that's just the reason why the mercy and the loving kindness and the faithfulness both come in here. You see the Lord says there in verse 33, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. I think that's the reminder of David's failures in his person. That's not true of the Lord Jesus. David is a type of Christ as the one who is going to sit on the throne. But David, we've got to distinguish in scripture, when we see a person who's a type, between the failures of that person as a person, and the typical teaching of the person. David was a failing man. We know that he committed a grievous sin. He committed two grievous sins. And David was a sinner as we all are. But as the one who sat on the throne of Israel, he was a type of God's king. Solomon also was a type of God's king. The one who's going to reign in the millennium, Solomon's a type of that. And yet we know there were even greater failures in Solomon's personal life than there were in David's. So this is a reminder of David's own failures. And yet in God's loving kindness, he wasn't going to take away his mercy from him. But he was, in his faithfulness, going to carry out the promise. And David did sit on Israel's throne. And David's greater son is going to sit on the throne. The Lord Jesus is going to sit on the throne of his father David, because he's David's son as well as David's Lord. And he is going to reign and be owned as rightful king in this scene. So the Lord reminds that he's not going to break his covenant, and that he's made the promise that he's going to fulfill. You know, back in Psalm 88, if you just turn, notice back for a minute in the 11th verse, we find the psalmist there saying, Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction? He's raising the question, where is God's loving kindness and his faithfulness, as if God's forgotten both his loving kindness and his faithfulness. But in this psalm, as I said, they're both mentioned seven times. The 89th psalm is the answer to the prayer in the 88th psalm. God says, No, I have not forgotten my faithfulness, I've not forgotten my loving kindness, and I've not forgotten my faithfulness. I'm going to carry out my promises exactly as I said. Now in the latter part of this psalm, from verse 38 on, we find the psalmist, as it were, after this time of being lifted up and being occupied with the promises of God, he's brought back to the reality that they're still going through testing. They're still going through a time of trial. And so he reminds the Lord that his people are being under-tested, thou hast broken down his hedges, it says in verse 40. He speaks about the Lord has been wrought with his anointed, in verse 38. And I believe the anointed here is not the Lord. This is referring to the fact that God's people, his anointed people, are going through a time of testing. But the psalm ends, you notice, in the 52nd verse, Blessed be the Lord for evermore, Amen and Amen. And this is the end, really, of this section of the psalms. It's the end of the third book, the third book end. Every section of the book of Psalms, there are five books in the book of Psalms, and every section ends with a doxology. It ends with an Amen. And so the psalm ends, as the book ends with, Blessed be the Lord, blessed be Jehovah for evermore. God is going to carry out his purposes. Now let us turn over to the 142nd psalm, which is the last of these masculine psalms. It's just a short psalm, so we'll read it. This is when David was in the cave of Adullam, and after reading the psalm, I want to turn back to 1 Samuel and to read a few verses there. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before him, I showed before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privately laid a snare for me. I looked on my right hand and beheld. But there was no man that would know me, refuge failed me, no man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O Lord, I said thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living. I said unto my cry, for I am brought very low, deliver me from my persecutors, for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name. The righteous shall compass me about, for thou shalt deal bountifully with me. Now without losing the place there, just let's turn back for a minute to 1 Samuel 22, because this gives us, this sound fits in with what we have here in 1 Samuel 22. In 1 Samuel 22 it says, David departed therefore thence, and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him. And everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him. And he became a captain over them. And there were with him about four hundred men. Now as we said, this prayer, the 142nd Psalm, David prayed when he was in the cave. And this was the cave, the cave of Adullam. Why had David fled to the cave of Adullam? Because he was being persecuted by Saul. Saul was hunting David. David was the Lord's anointed. God had sent Samuel to anoint David as king, the shepherd boy. The youngest of Jesse's sons, he'd been anointed. But when Saul found out that David was going to be king, he began a terrible persecution. He was out to kill David. And David was hunted as he himself said, as a partridge upon the mountains. And here he is in the cave of Adullam. And he prays this prayer. He cries to the Lord with his voice. It seems as if after reading that 89th Psalm, and all of the reminders of the Lord's loving kindness and his faithfulness, as if this Psalm is in a certain sense a kind of a letdown, doesn't it? But beloved, this brings us back to the practical reality. You know, we read some portions of scripture, and we're encouraged by them, and we're lifted up. And we're occupied with the Lord Jesus. And we feel as if we can go on and faithfully serve the Lord. And then we're brought back to the fact that we're still down here in this scene. You know, the children of Israel, after they crossed the Red Sea, they so had the Lord before them, that they saw themselves marching through the wilderness and going into the land of Canaan, and all the inhabitants of the land of Canaan melting away. And there they were going to, the Lord was going to take them into the land that he promised them. That's what we get in the 15th of Exodus, in the song that they sang. But you know, it was only three days afterwards, and we find them murmuring. You see, the realities of the daily life down here have to be faced. And that's so often where we fail. We get occupied with the Lord's things, and we should be occupied with them. But we allow the circumstances down here so to occupy us that our vision becomes dimmed sometimes. And so this brings us back to the reality, as it were. David's in the cave. And as he's in the cave, the Lord's anointed rejected, and Saul, who's a type of Antichrist on the throne, so the godly remnant will pray a prayer like this. But you know, the encouraging thing about this is, when we turn back to this 22nd chapter of 1 Samuel, if you go through it carefully, you'll notice, we might just call attention to it, it says in the 5th verse, And the prophet Gad said to David, Abide not in the hole, depart and get thee to the land of Judah. Then David departed and came into the forest of Harath. So of these 400 that gathered themselves to David, there was the prophet Gad. He had the prophet with him. And then, further down in verse 20, it says, One of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahithob, named Abiathel, escaped and fled to David. So here's David, the king, he's the rightful king, even though he is in a cave, even though he is in rejection, even though he is being hunted, he is the king, he has the prophet with him, and he has the priest with him. The prophet was able to make known the mind of God to him, through the prophet God spoke to him, and through the priest he approached God. And so David, even though he was cast out and rejected, he had all that he needed. God had provided him with the means of communion. God spoke through the prophet, he communicated his mind, and David was able to approach the Lord through the priest, because in those days a man had to approach God through a priest. And so here we find David, the king, the prophet, and the priest. God provides for him. So the answer to this prayer is, in the cave, David calls upon the Lord, and the Lord answers his prayer. God never leaves his people, but he encourages them to go on for himself. Now beloved, we have the prophet, and we have the priest. That is, as far as we are concerned, as the Lord's people, God speaks to us through his word, he speaks to us in ministry through his people. And as priests, as we were reminded at our conference, we ourselves are both holy and royal priests. We have the privilege of approaching God. Or if we think of our priesthood as the privilege of approaching God, and the privilege of living for him before others as the royal priesthood, we think also that God has given us the privilege of prophecy, of making known his mind to others, and to those around us. You see, God never leaves his people. In the greatest of difficulties, and in the greatest of trials, God never forsakes his people. If there's a loss, it's because we have turned away. God has made a full provision for us. That's why I believe we have these masculine Psalms. They're Psalms of instruction. And in that coming day, it's the wise will understand, as we read in Daniel, the book of Daniel, there will be godly ones in Israel who will have a right understanding of these Psalms, and will be able to instruct the others and encourage them. Shouldn't we encourage one another along in the pathway? The days are not going to get easier, I don't believe, for the people of God. They are going to get more difficult. And we never know how soon it might be, beloved, that we might have to stand up and be counted for the Lord, and take a stand against things that we know are not pleasing to him. But the Lord is not going to forsake us. He is with his people, and he's with them to the end. So let us seek to learn lessons from these masculine Psalms that God has put in the scriptures for his people in the future, and learn the lessons that he has for them for us today. This is part, these Psalms are part of the Old Testament pasture. You know in the 10th of John it says, the Lord says there when he calls his own sheep, he puts forth his own sheep, and he goes before and the sheep follow him. And then it says that they shall go in and out and find pasture. What does that mean? I believe it means that God in those days, he was going to call his people out of the Jewish fold, then he said that he had other sheep that were not of this fold, the Gentile sheep, he was going to call them out of the Gentile fold, to make one flock, not fold as it is in the authorized version, one flock and one shepherd. But why does it say that he lets them go in and out and find pasture? Does that mean that we go back to Judaism? No, but it means we go back to the Jewish pastures. The Old Testament was God's pasture for his people of old, and we still go back there for spiritual food. God has given us his whole word, but we have liberty. Every man that is a householder, or every scribe instructed into the kingdom of God, the Lord says in the 13th of Matthew, is like a man who is a householder who brings forth out of his treasures things new and old, and God gives us things new and old. You know the sisters in the kitchen there, they always like to try the latest recipes as to how they can make the food palatable, you know, and then they fall back on the old recipes that their grandmothers gave them, you see, things new and old. And so we find that right through, and when you go to people's homes they like to bring out the old, show you the oldest things they have in the house, and the very latest thing that they just bought yesterday. You see, that's a human characteristic, and exactly what God does to us. He gives us things new and old, and this precious word, it's old, but it's ever new. And we have the Old Testament, and we have the New Testament, and all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that God has, and that are here, that are in the Lord Jesus Christ, are in this word for us to take advantage of. We should be encouraged, and I believe we are beloved, let us be encouraged to go on for the Lord, in spite of the difficulties that might present themselves. And as I said, we're going to have difficulties, difficulties even come in among the saints sometimes. Are we going to give up because there are difficulties? No. Difficulties are only made to be overcome. Let us go on with the Lord. The Lord gives grace to overcome. And again, should there be one unsaved here who doesn't know the Lord or Savior, dear friend, the one that we've been speaking about, the Lord Jesus, he died to be your Savior. Put your faith and trust in him, and you will be happy both for time and for eternity. Let us pray. Gracious God, our Father, we thank thee for the instruction that we get in these psalms that thou dost give to thy people Israel. It's part of thy precious word that thou hast given to us. And we thank thee that we can take lessons from these things, our gracious God, and apply them to ourselves in the day in which we live, to be encouraged and to be spiritually fed. We pray that thou bless thy word as it has been preached tonight in many places. And O our God, we pray that where there have been those under the sound of thy word still outside of Christ, that thou would bring them to put their trust in him and to know him as their personal Savior. We give thee our thanks and commit us now to thee in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. …