If none of thee there succeed, he should
have fed them also with the finest of
the wheat, and was coming out of the
rock, should I have satisfied thee.
Did you notice in the title of this
81st psalm?
It's a repeat musician of one giveth.
Now, there are only three psalms, and all
the 150 of them have the title giveth,
or that word contained in the title.
And that's the 8th psalm, and the 81st
psalm, and the 84th psalm.
The meaning of the type is really not
known.
It may have been a musical instrument that
was originated in gas, it may have been
a song that was sung in gas.
It was used by the people of Israel.
But at least there are those three psalms
that contain this word giveth in the title.
The 8th psalm is taken up with God's
creation.
The 81st psalm is taken up with God's
redemption.
And the 84th psalm is taken up with
God's house.
In the 84th psalm, the psalmist was saying,
How any will I thy tabernacle, O Lord
of hosts.
But in this 81st psalm, he's occupying with
redemption, what God has done for his people
in delivering them out of the land of
Egypt, and bringing them into the good land
that he has promised them.
Going back to the 8th psalm, it's how
excellent is thy name in all the earth.
It's the psalm of creation.
And we learn to appreciate, once we're redeemed,
we learn to appreciate something of God's creation.
It was not without reason that the psalmist
had to pen those words, Heaven above is
softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green.
Something lives in every hue Christmas eyes have
never seen.
Birds with gladder songs o'erflow, Flowers with
deeper beauties shine, Since I know as now
I know, I am his, and he is
mine.
And well could we praise God for the
beauties of his creation.
But what is there to bring a song
out of the hearts of Christians, like the
joys and glories of the redemption that God
has wrought for us in the person of
his beloved Son.
The fact that we have salvation, the forgiveness
of sins, we possess eternal life, we've been
born into the family of God, we've been
redeemed.
And then you'll think in the 84th psalm,
we've been brought into the house of God.
The three psalms that are tied together, each
of them is addressed to the chief musicians.
Each of these three psalms.
And if we could take a word from
the second chapter of the epistle to the
heathens, the Lord Jesus Christ is going to
lead the assembled company of his saints in
this song of praise.
And if these are ascribed to the Lord
Jesus Christ, and I'm spiritualizing of course, for
there was a chief musician appointed in the
days of David.
But if these psalms are ascribed to the
Lord Jesus Christ, then in the eighth psalm
we see him as the firstborn of all
creation.
And you're aware of the fact that the
term firstborn is a title, more than a
description.
It doesn't have to do with birth, it
has to do with prominence.
It's the place that he occupies.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the firstborn of
all creation in Colossians chapter 1 because he
is the creator of all things.
He is the chief.
He is over all God's creation, creator and
sustainer of all things.
God's excellent one.
But in the 81st psalm, in redemption, we
see him as the firstborn from the dead.
The one who died once and was buried
and was raised again the third day.
It's in him that we have our redemption.
He's the firstborn from the dead.
And in the 84th psalm, which is the
psalm of God's house, he's seen as the
firstborn among many brethren.
When in that glorious coming day of which
we've been reminded, all God's people are at
home, and the fulfillment of God's purposes for
us is then seen.
We are conformed to the image of his
Son.
When that takes place, he will be seen.
There is that great pattern to which we
are all conformed.
And he's going to have that chief place
among many brethren.
The firstborn.
That in all things he might have the
three of us.
But you notice also those to whom this
psalm is ascribed, or who perhaps may have
written these three psalms.
David wrote the eighth psalm.
No wonder that David could praise the God
of creation if he kept the sheep out
on the hillside, looking up to the stars
in the universe that God has made.
He glorified the God who has put them
all there.
But in this 81st psalm, a psalm for
Asaph.
1 Chronicles 16, Asaph was appointed by David
to be the chief over those he should
send to give praise to God in the
service of the tabernacle.
The 84th psalm, the psalm of God's house,
perhaps the most precious of all, was for
the sons of Cain.
The sons of Cain.
You remember the history of Caul, David, and
Abel, who raised a rebellion against Moses and
the Arabs, and told that they were just
as holy as either Moses or Aaron, and
that Moses and Aaron had no more right
to the presence of God than David.
And you remember the subsequent judgment of God
upon them when Moses told the people of
Israel to separate themselves from the testimony of
these ungodly men, and to demonstrate to whom
God had chosen.
That God was speaking through Moses, and unusual
death would be visited upon Caul, David, and
Abel, and all that appertained to them.
And the earth opened her mouth and swallowed
them alive down into the pit.
One moment standing in the sunlight of that
glorious day, with all its possessions around them,
and in the door they came out.
The next moment the earth had swallowed them
alive, Of course.
Rebel against God.
And yet we read in the 26th chapter
of that same book, the sons of Korah
perished not.
And the sons of Korah have the 84th
Psalm.
How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord God.
Were not you and I in a similar
condition?
Were we not by nature and practice rebels
against God?
And to think of it, to be brought
into the house of God.
Which house are we?
Like the apostles of the Hebrews.
To be brought into the house of God.
Have you grasped something of the privilege of
that?
Have we time this afternoon to trace the
experience of Israel as they came out of
Egypt?
You're aware of the fact that they were
redeemed by the blood of the Lamb in
the land of Egypt.
They were redeemed by the power of God
through the Red Sea, delivered from their slavery
in the land of Egypt.
And in the song that they sang in
the 15th of Exodus, we have a word,
I will prepare him a habitation.
They never said that at all.
Actually, what they said is, I will pray.
It never dawned upon their mind.
It was not until the 25th of Exodus
that God gave instructions that a house should
be prepared for him where he would dwell
in the midst of his people.
It was not that the people were causing
God to dwell in their midst.
It was God who, in his gracious manner,
moved to dwell in the midst of his
people.
And as a result of the covenant of
Exodus, chapter 24, the sacrifice offered there, the
relationship into which he has brought the people
of God, God has brought Israel among them.
And because of that covenant relationship, Israel had
the house of God.
And was a privileged, a living God dwelling
in their midst.
A sinful people.
Conscious of their iniquity.
Aggravated and provoking God for 40 years in
the wilderness.
And yet here they are with the presence
of God in their midst.
You talk about the sons of Cork.
They had every reason to praise the goodness
and glory of God.
And you're aware in New Testament language, we're
not talking about a literal building of bricks
and stones.
In the work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
there are different aspects.
And redemption from the penalty of sin is
typified in the Passover.
In Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.
In that Passover which redeemed them from the
penalty, death, there was no provision in itself
for their entry into the presence of God.
Now it's one thing to have your sins
forgiven.
It's one thing to be cleared of every
charge that's against you before the face of
a righteous judge.
But it's another thing to live in the
presence of that Savior.
Or to use the illustration I constantly refer
to, it's a Robert Anderson music.
If the Queen of England pardoned a criminal
from the death penalty in the jail, he
could walk the streets of any city a
free man, knowing that that sentence will never
be executed upon him.
But that in itself does not give him
the right to enter into the palace and
sit down and dinner with the Queen.
But God said to the people of Israel
he wanted to bring them to his death.
And God is not satisfied just to deliver
us from the penalty of our sins.
God is not satisfied just to remove condemnation
from us.
God is not satisfied just to clear us
of all charges, but to bring us to
himself, the house of God.
Do we grasp this?
Hasn't a lot of the scripture lost its
meaning for us?
We have said it so often where two
or three are gathered in my name, there
am I in the midst.
Is he?
Is that God's house?
Are we in any sense conscious of the
presence of the Lord Jesus Christ this afternoon
in the midst of his people?
How would it change our attitude in this
service?
How different would we be if we knew
that he was here?
How eagerly we would come to meet with
him, God's house.
What a privilege.
Until the execution of that covenant in Exodus
24, the people were forbidden to draw near
to the presence of God.
But it was all changed because of the
blood of the covenant.
Because of the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, we have access into the presence of
God.
But very briefly in this 81st Psalm, redemption
in the 81st Psalm is occupied with three
things.
First of all is salvation itself.
In the sixth verse, God says, I remove
his shoulder from the burden, his hands were
delivered from the pot.
There is salvation itself.
In verse 9 there is sanctification.
Now I am aware that what God is
saying is that you ought to be taken
into captivity when you hear, Worship of strange
gods in your ears.
There be kept from all that.
Kept from it very practically, there is sanctification.
And in verse 10, Open thy mouth wide
and I will fill it.
And there is satisfaction.
And in the salvation of the Lord Jesus
Christ has provided for us from his finished
work upon the cross, from his first and
unfinished ministry at the right hand of God.
All these three are for us.
What do we know of them?
To remove thy shoulder from the burden.
Is there only what it meant?
Labeling of slaves in the land of Egypt.
Under the lash of a taskmaster.
Their lives made miserable by reason of hard
bondage.
There only was it meant that thy shoulder
removed of that burden.
What do we know?
In practical experience of delivering from the power
of sin.
Do we speak of it as a doctrine?
And yet persist in slavery to habits and
quirks of temperament that bring no glory to
God.
What do we know of delivering from the
power of sin?
Or what do we know of practical sanctification
of being set apart to God?
What do we know of this redemption?
That is called for such rejoicing in the
first five verses of this 81st Psalm.
And finally, what do we know of satisfaction?
Have we all had to speak of how
true it is what we've been hearing this
afternoon that materialism has come into the lives
of the people of God almost as much
as it has into the world and our
cheap occupation so often becomes things.
And yet God has opened my mouth wide
and I will fill it.
There's satisfaction.
And I suppose in one sense, as Mr.
Thatcher was speaking in Florence this past week,
there's a difference between contentment and satisfaction, but
I'm going to leave it as it is.
What do we know of being satisfied with
the Lord Jesus Christ?
What do we know?
I'm going to suggest to you in this
81st Psalm there are two keys to this
threefold redemption.
The first of them is found in verse
8.
Hear, O my people.
And the second one is found in verse
10.
Open thy mouth wide.
Could I speak of them as obedience and
faith?
Hear, O my people.
And yet we are not to be just
hearers of the word, but we are to
be doers of it.
God gave us ears and we delight in
the sounds that we can hear.
Thank God for hearing.
But the chief purpose for which He gave
us ears was to hear His word and
do it.
And listen to the Lord Jesus Christ in
the 40th Psalm, that God had digged His
ears.
God had formed an ear.
And why did God form an ear?
That there might be obedience to His word.
I'm not sure that the 40th Psalm has
anything to do with the perpetual sermon of
Exodus 21 or Jerusalem 15.
There, when a slave decided that he did
not want to leave his solitude either out
of love for his wife or out of
love for his master, his angel, good woman,
Jew, his ear was bored through with it
all.
And it was at times the outward symbol
of perpetual servitude.
Nor am I sure it had reference to
the 50th of Isaiah that God opened the
ear of the Lord Jesus.
But it seems to me it's the very
formation of the ear.
Why did God give a man an ear?
To hear His word.
And the fact that you and I have
physically is the forms of God that we
are to hear with our body's words.
Now when you come to the Tent of
Hebrews, that quotation is changed.
The body has now been prepared.
Why did God serve a body by the
action of the Spirit of God in the
womb of a virgin?
Why that His Son might take the place
of a virgin?
Why did God the Son move around this
earth in the land of Palestine?
Why did He move around a human body?
What is the purpose of that body?
That He might be obedient.
Even as far as death.
And that's the cross kind of thing.
He came as a servant.
And the body that was formed for Him
was represented by the ears of a 40
-strong, a perfected boat to serve God, to
serve man.
And I'm reminded that in a glorified body
He is at the right hand of God
this afternoon to meet our needs.
Still serving.
What then was the key to God's blessing
for His people long ago?
The same key to His blessing for us
today.
Obedience.
Heart.
Listen.
And obey.
Now to be very practical.
What do I do with the word as
I read it?
What do I do with it?
I may outline it, exegete it if I
can, and preach it.
But God gave that word to be obeyed.
Not to be outlined primarily.
To be obeyed.
And I am fully persuaded the key to
the blessing of God, the first key in
the life of an individual or the life
of a local church is implicit obedience to
what God says.
And it's a searching thing.
It will not do for me to take
the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount
and brush them aside.
No, I am persuaded there will be no
laws in a coming kingdom age.
Are there not things there that I must
learn to obey?
I was stopped short in Florence some time
ago by an intelligent young couple.
College graduates.
And though later on they confessed they were
not entirely sincere, they had had a bad
day and were somewhat cynical to start with,
when I went to visit them about the
things of God and about the gospel, I
began to open my Bible with various scriptures
about the gospel, and they stopped me saying,
now wait a minute.
You want us to become what you call
a Christian.
You are persuaded of what we are now.
We are not Christians.
Now they said, we've been reading our Bibles,
and before we become Christians as you want
us to be, we want you to do
one thing for us.
Show us one Christian in the city of
Florence.
Oh, that would be easy.
Until they began to turn to certain passages
in the New Testament.
Now they said, show us a person that
goes out to the chapel that's doing that.
And before I was through, before they were
through, I had closed my Bible and gone
home.
Obedience.
We weren't doing it.
Heart.
How do you read the Bible in your
devotion?
When God speaks.
Is there the desire to obey?
Remember the word of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If any man were to do his will,
he shall know of this doctrine, whether it
be of God or whether I speak of
myself.
Now he did not say if any man
desires to know God's will.
We are always so concerned with knowing the
will of God.
But God doesn't say anything about that.
The Lord Jesus said if any man desires
to do his will.
And I have half an idea that the
reason I want to know God's will is
not to decide whether or not I'll obey
him.
If it suits me.
But the Lord says if any man desires
to do his will, Obedience.
The second key.
Our letting hold of what God is.
Why?
Do you really expect God to do great
things in your life or in your local
assembly?
Do you really think he can or will?
Do you actually expect him to do anything?
I personally believe we make no real ventures
for God if we have no faith in
God.
I've asked myself many a time, why is
it you sat here in Florida and the
assembly is grown as an ass, why is
it there aren't other assemblies planted around Florida?
Why haven't you made a venture?
It may well be the time has not
been right when we were ready.
That may well be.
But I would like to suspect we've never
had the faith to open our mouths.
Obedience and faith.
Now look at the result.
The result in the last section of the
81st Psalm.
First of all, there would be subjection on
the part of God's enemy.
Verse 14, I would soon have subdued their
enemy and turned my hand against their adversary.
And the second result would have been satisfaction.
He should have fed them also with the
finest of the wheat.
Now this is what could have been.
This psalm is divided into three sections.
There is first of all the call to
rejoice in the first five verses.
There is second the word of redemption in
verses 6 through 10.
The last section is the cry of regret.
This God says is what might have been
if Israel had hearkened and opened their
mouth.
As you read the history of the people
of Israel in the Old Testament, as you
go through the books of Samuel, Kings, and
Chronicles, as you listen to the prophets in
those days warning the people what would happen
if they persisted in their quest, you sit
and read and wonder, Israel, how could you
have been so blind?
And when you read of the warnings and
the exhortations and the encouragements of the prophets,
what God would do for them if they
would obey Him.
But it never came to pass.
But I wonder one day when we stand
at the judgment seat of Christ, if God
is not going to say, now this is
what could have been if you had been
willing to obey.
This is what your life might have been.
This is what that local church could have
been in that city If you had been
willing to obey, hearken, O my people, hear
His word, not just to read it and
know it.
O God, keep us from the attitude of
those who came to Jeremiah professing a sincere
desire to know the will of God as
to whether they should stay in the land
or go down to Egypt.
And when they got the word of the
Lord, they refused to obey Him.
God keep us from a curiosity.
Just to know.
God give us a hope.