Psalm

[0:00] Speaking of the Lord's help, I attract your attention this evening to the Psalm 89 and verse 15. Psalm 89 and verse 15.

[0:18] This it is the people that know the joyful sound. They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.

[0:30] This it is the people that know the joyful sound. They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.

[0:51] And many of us here this evening understand what this means. And many of us know the voice of our God in our heart.

[1:09] We need to search our hearts. And the youngest, the oldest, is this a mystery to us?

[1:19] Is it a blank? Have we any grasp of what is meant here? I look, first of all, at two things.

[1:32] Two words in our text. Blessed. What does that mean? And a joyful sound. What is it? You know, they're closely coupled together.

[1:49] If God, in reality, blesses your soul, it will be because you've heard His voice. Because He's spoken to you.

[2:02] Because He's come to you. I'll give you an example of this. And those three men on the road to Emmaus were blessed.

[2:14] It was because the preaching of the cross was made to their souls a joyful sound. They were lifted out of their unbelief and brought to faith in the eternal Son of God.

[2:32] They knew Him. There's no joy in sin. There may be a sweet taste for a moment. But the only true joy is in the eternal Son of God.

[2:46] And to be brought to know Him. Because when He draws near and comes to us, when He blesses His Word, when He blesses the preaching of the Gospel, when He uses it in our hearts, and we enter into the experience of those men on the road to Emmaus, did not our heart burn with us?

[3:11] Burn with joy. joy. They rejoiced. Their unbelief, their temptations were taken away.

[3:25] Their darkness was removed. Their mourning was gone. Oh, when the Lord comes and blesses His people, it is through His divine, sovereign purposes of love and mercy toward them.

[3:43] So ask yourself tonight, has He ever blessed me? Have I ever been blessed under the preaching of the Gospel in this sanctuary of God? Has the Word ever touched my heart like it touched the men on the road to Emmaus?

[3:58] Have I ever listened to one sermon that has been made sweet to my taste? There's some strange ways in which the Lord will bless His people.

[4:11] I'll give you one example. When He took Abraham and Isaac to Mount Moriah. And it may be that some of you understand something about that.

[4:25] Some of our greatest sorrow are the places where the Lord has blessed our soul. some of our son of experiences in life's pathway have been in the hands of God made a blessing.

[4:46] And when Abraham was commanded to take Isaac to Mount Moriah, he couldn't see what was going to happen. But he was told to raise the knife over that which lay in his soul and that was this that God had promised him.

[5:05] Indeed, in thy siege shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. This child was a child of promise. And yet the Lord caused him to raise his knife over him. And he brought him into deep, dark sorrow.

[5:20] and yet he was kept quiet under him. He didn't rebel against God. He didn't refuse to go. The Lord drew near to him and enabled him by faith.

[5:36] We read in the Epistle of Paul to Hebrews by faith Abraham received Isaac as one raised from the dead. He believed that God was able.

[5:50] to raise him. And so he took him to Mount Moriah. What can we do is this? He obeyed. He went into the path in the solemn exercise of faith.

[6:02] And he raised the knife over Isaac. And then he saw the ram caught in the thicket. And then we're told that when he offered that sacrifice to the ram and as he left that scene Jesus himself speaks of it.

[6:26] He said Abraham saw my day on Mount Moriah. Oh the blessing in the darkest path. In the path of greatest trial of his faith.

[6:38] The Lord took him to that spot that he might see Christ and see and know him. Abraham saw my day and he was glad.

[6:52] And as he left Mount Moriah and came down the mount the Lord spoke to him. there will be many more of them I promise.

[7:06] And we look at Jacob the solemn path he walked in. The Lord met with him at battle after he deceived his old father.

[7:20] The Lord's blessings are sovereign. He dressed him with a view of heaven. He spoke to him. He gave him a promise. He deserved nothing.

[7:35] The Lord called him by his grace. And he had a solemn realization of the majesty of God.

[7:48] He felt it was the gate of heaven. The Lord told him I'll be with thee. in all places where the shall be ever and I will not leave thee till I have brought thee again to this place.

[8:05] What a blessing that was. Who here has the Lord begun with? Can you mark your vessel? Can you mark the spot where the Lord brought you out of nature's darkness and his marvelous life?

[8:21] you will never be able to assess the value of that glorious blessing until you are brought to glory to look back over the pathway and see Jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God.

[8:44] Oh that sacred blessing that Jacob knew at Bethel and he didn't deserve it. He deserved to be cast out but no it was Esau who was cast out.

[9:00] Jacob am I loved a sinner. When you look at this blessing a blessing is mercy extended to a hell deserving sinner.

[9:14] Do you know anything of it? Can you trace the hand of God in your life? Blessed.

[9:26] Highly favoured of God. Loved with everlasting love. Called out of Nietzsche. That was our one. I go now further. Sin?

[9:37] Yes. Guilty? Yes. Jacob was. And what happened? Whom the Lord loveth. He chastens.

[9:52] Oh the Lord chastens him for years and years and years. What he sowed he reaped. He sowed to the wind. He reaped to the whirlwind but the hand of God was in it for his good, for his blessing.

[10:09] And the Lord works in the hearts of his dear children to bless them by bringing them down, humbling them, teaching them. There was anything else but the joyful sound as he was deceived by his uncle Laban.

[10:30] The Lord dealt with him. And so he sowed and he reaped. What a solemn part it was. Can you trace it? He was brought to be deceived seven years for Leah and deceived for the cattle.

[10:54] Oh how he was deceived. Something like twenty years. He returned. What happened? The boys deceived him over Joseph.

[11:08] what a deception, what a vast deception that was. The coat, many colours with the blood on it. And Joseph was gone for another twenty years.

[11:27] Can we see the hand of God in this? No. Jacob felt himself that the Lord had gone against him.

[11:38] He would go down to his grave in sorrow. That wasn't the Lord's purpose. He was working as God does in a mysterious way.

[11:50] He was going to bring him to this sacred, divine, joyful sound. Bring him down under knowledge of his sins and his fallen condition.

[12:02] And eventually, when the wagons came, he learnt that Joseph was set alive, all that joyful sound, the Lord had not left him.

[12:19] The Lord was with him. And we hear from his own lips, those beautiful words, it's enough. It's enough. You see, the Lord would bring his dear people to value the light of his presence by leaving them, chastening them, dealing with them.

[12:41] But his purpose is to bless them. The good hand, as we read of in Nehemiah, was upon him in all his troubles.

[12:53] the good hand of my God upon me. Have you known it? Well, I put it like this to you tonight.

[13:05] I did to a dear friend who passed to glory only a few weeks ago. 98. Right at the end of a lie.

[13:15] Still longing for a token from a blessing. Still seeming far off. from the joyful sound in her soul.

[13:29] Still greatly exercised and tempted after a long life. I said to her now, just say before me, the Lord has never blessed me.

[13:45] And she looked up and she said to me, I can't say that. I can't say that. I say that to you tonight. tell me, say, the Lord has never blessed me.

[13:58] Can you say it? And what have you received of blessing? Crumbs of mercy? Has the Lord ever given you a sweet touch of this joyful sound in your soul?

[14:13] Can we me? Can we open that up a bit? Joyful sound? I believe that lying in this, in the deep mystery of it, there are tears.

[14:35] There's weeping. all poor sinners, brought down under great temptation, exercise of soul, may be saying here tonight, I really have no hope.

[14:49] I've sat in this chapel for years, and what can I say? I feel unprepared for eternity. I cannot look to one good thing.

[15:03] I'm not certain of anything. you mourn? Do you long for a word from the Lord in your soul?

[15:17] Do you long for a token of his love and mercy? Do you know it's a blessing to be a mourner?

[15:32] It's a blessing to shed tears, longing for that joyful sound. heart. It's a blessing to have a broken and a contrite heart.

[15:52] Oh, has the Lord permitted his servant David to fall? He permitted his servant Peter to fall. He permitted Thomas to walk in dreadful acts of unbelief.

[16:03] He permitted them to walk in dreadful acts he left them to know their own weakness, he left them to mourn over their sins, and he brought them to himself as lepers, condemned.

[16:20] Perhaps the Lord has left you long in darkness, but you see, there lies in our joyful sound a broken and a contrite heart.

[16:31] Oh, that's where there's joy in the soul, that was where there's divine deliverance, when the Lord breaks the hearts of his dear people, for Jacob's heart was broken, when he saw that the Lord's hand had been with him all the time, but it was a chastening hand.

[16:54] The covenant that is spoken of here in our chapter here tonight, blessed eternal covenant of God. My covenant will I not take from you, says the Lord here, he will establish you.

[17:14] Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail, my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips.

[17:28] Lord, loves his dear people with an everlasting love, but in such a way that he deals with them. His blessings are cross-handed blessings.

[17:43] They are done in love and mercy. They bring a poor sinner down on his knees to weep before his God in brokenness, nutrition of heart. We read that Peter went out and wept bitterly.

[17:56] What did he weep about? Oh, the solemn nature of his weakness, his sin, his guilt, but mark this, it was repentance, godly sorrow and repentance.

[18:15] And, you know, that joyful sound when the Lord draws near to a poor sinner in all his sorrows and his mourning and comes and sprinkles upon his heart and conscience that precious blood and guilt and condemnation is taken away and the peace of God flows into his soul.

[18:43] How blessed he is. Have you ever known it? What can you tell me tonight of your knowledge of the blood of Christ? what do you know of his love and blood upon your heart and conscience?

[18:58] How many times have you had to go to the throne of grace and plead with him, wash me? The psalmist went there, purge me.

[19:16] Do you feel your soul black? as the tents of Kedah? Has the Lord showed you something of the weakness of your heart?

[19:28] Myself I cannot keep, myself I cannot say. Or has the Lord shown you? Do you understand anything of the truth in that hymn, vile and full of sin I am?

[19:43] Blessed mercy if you're blessed. Oh sinners, can say and only they, they alone can speak how precious is the Saviour.

[19:58] Peter could speak of the precious blood of Christ that had touched his heart, who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree.

[20:11] And he knew that joyful sound. He came to one who was wounded by sin, brought down to an acknowledgement of his own weakness, the pride of his heart cut down by the Lord as he left him to Satan's devices to know his own weakness.

[20:34] I'll go with you even unto death. No. For the cock crow they shall deny me thrice. And he did. What was the effect? It was blessing.

[20:45] Remarkable blessing. Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree. For as much as ye know you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, but from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious, the blood of Christ precious to you, with the precious blood.

[21:10] sin. Oh, what a joyful sound in the heart of a poor sinner, when in guilt and condemnation he walks in the experience here in our time state of the blood of Christ applied upon his heart and conscience and he can truly say before his God, I'm clean just God, I'm clean.

[21:38] Jesus said to his disciples, ye are clean. Through the word that I have spoken unto you, now tonight examine your heart. Has that precious blood ever touched it?

[21:51] have you known what the effect of that is? Could you describe it? If you go into hospital and you have a major operation, treatment, and you come out better, remarkably strengthened, a different person, you know something of what healing is.

[22:29] When a guilty, as the hymn writer says, weak and helpless worm, on thy kind arms I fall in the knowledge of what that means, peace.

[22:47] Oh, the peace speaking blood of Christ has ever touched your heart. it's described in scripture as the blood of sprinkling. But, it is the very foundation of the experience of the psalmist here.

[23:06] When he says, annons to a knowledge of this blessed truth, he knew what the joyful sound was, and he could speak of what true blessing was, and he could speak of the whole church of God, blessed, blessed is the people that know the joyful sound.

[23:38] And then we go on to the second part of this text, they shall walk in the light of thy countenance. We've spoken of peace through the peace-speaking blood of Christ.

[23:53] You see, there are but two things here. we either walk in the light of his countenance, or else we walk under his divine wrath and judgment, or how solemnly different those two are.

[24:20] We either walk in darkness, or we walk in light. We either have a hope, or we have no hope.

[24:36] We're either brought nigh by the blood of Christ, or we are without hope, and without God in the world.

[24:50] And I say to you here tonight, where are you? Have you been brought nigh by the blood of Christ? Such a sinner is spoken of in God's word, ye who once were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

[25:17] For he is our peace. and remember this, if ever we know anything of the blood of Christ in our soul, it is of sovereign grace.

[25:37] We deserve nothing. We're born in sin and shaman in iniquity. born in darkness.

[25:50] And oh, how we need the mighty work of God's divine grace to bring us nigh to him.

[26:05] To open our ears, to open our eyes. the apostle Peter, when the Lord asked him, whom say men that I am, he responded, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

[26:23] The Lord then looked upon him and said, flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven.

[26:34] the Lord spoke of what had happened to him. That his eyes had been opened and that he had been brought to have those eyes to see.

[26:57] They were not blind anymore. Many times Jesus healed the blind. a beautiful figure so often of spiritual healing.

[27:11] Jesus, thou, Son of David, said, blind by Timur, have mercy on me. What wilt thou that I should do unto thee, Lord, that my eyes may be opened?

[27:27] And you know he saw Jesus and he knew, as the woman did, who touched the hem of his garment, the healing balm of Gilead in his soul.

[27:45] For the Lord said to her, after that, virtue flowed out of him. He said to her, thy sins are forgiven thee. And oh, when we look at the light of his countenance, the shining upon his dear people, it is in sovereign grace.

[28:05] Has it shone upon you? Has the Lord opened your eye, brought you to know where you stand before him? You may be far from being satisfied in your heart.

[28:22] You may be wanting in your soul the real light of his countenance to give you a sweet assurance. Blessed hope.

[28:36] You may be longing for him to speak a word into your heart, to hear his voice, to come where the writer of the Song of Solomon came, my beloved is mine and I am here.

[28:56] You may have waited long for this, you have waited long for the light of his countenance that you might walk in it, in the sweet comfort of the peace of God.

[29:10] We read of Jeremiah that the Lord said to him, I know the thoughts that I think towards you, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end.

[29:26] Oh, the God's dear exercise, tried and tempted people will never ever be able to rest satisfied without this sacred blessing, the light of his countenance to shine upon them.

[29:44] And how does that light shine? Through his precious blood. peace of God, there is the peace in their soul.

[29:58] Here is the only access to God. Here is the only avenue of pardon and peace. Oh, how his dear church are not let they go, said Jacob, at Peniel, are not let thee go, except thou bless me.

[30:24] And we read, he blessed him there. God's dear people come to those points. The prayer, their prayer is crying.

[30:42] Hezekiah's prayer was a cry, undertake for me. One might say he was desperate. Oh, how long the Lord calls his dear people sometimes to wait before he seals his peace and his pardon upon their hearts.

[31:03] And they walk in the light of his countenance. And there is not a cloud between their soul and their God. And they can come with the language of the apostle when he said, I know in whom I have believed.

[31:22] They can come with the Lord's dear servant Job, I know that my Redeemer liveth. Some I have known have had to wait to be to be to be with the hope.

[31:42] And to come where the apostle came in sweet peace when he could say, I'm now ready. Faith was given in the sweet assurance of him that it was well with him and he could leave all and go to be with his God which he said was far better blessed is the people that know the joyful sound they are the subjects of revelation the Lord has drawn near to them in mercy revealed himself to them as their God their Saviour he has spoken into their hearts the exceeding great and precious promises yea he said to Jeremiah

[32:47] I have loved thee for an everlasting love and therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee the bride of Christ could say my beloved is mine I found him who my soul loved why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions go thy way forth says the Lord by the footsteps of the flock path of trial and temptation but it is a path walking in the light of his countenance oh then the wrath of God is removed then we read he is the propitiation for our sin he himself has borne the wrath of God we do not bear it we dwell as we read in the 91st Psalm here he that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the almighty the heat of God's wrath know there is a shadow in between it is Christ he shields his dear people he is the propitiation says John for our sin the Lord in his rich mercy lets the light of his countenance shine upon his dear people and how is that that's because he looks upon his dear son who bore their sins in that vicarious sacrifice on Calvary's cross blessed is the people that knows the joyful sound they shall walk in the light

[34:49] O Lord in the light of thy countenance that doesn't say every day we read in scripture of God's dear children walking in darkness in the 50 years of Isaiah and having no light they don't walk in the felt experience of the light of his countenance it's like the sun shining behind the clouds his purposes of mercy and grace are unchanged toward them in his eternal covenant though he hide his face there are days when they walk when the sun of righteousness arises with healing in his wings ever known it moments of joy moments of peace

[35:53] I wonder how many of you have known such moments in this house of God but we don't walk constantly daily hourly in the light of his countenance there are many reasons why that is so but they're all to do with ourselves our sin our unbelief our worldly mindedness our carnality all drive him away but when he comes and brings his dear people down and humbles them brings them to his mercy and often he does it by crossing his thorns in the flesh did it to Peter did it to Paul with his thorn in the flesh then he said most gladly therefore

[36:57] I glory in my infirmity why that the power of Christ may rest upon me strange avenue was it not originally he prayed thrice that the thorn might be taken away but it wasn't taken away the Lord gave it to him with a purpose that he might walk in the light of his countenance and that he might prove the blessedness of the promise my grace is sufficient for thee it is when the Lord gives his dear people in an hour of need one of those exceeding great and precious promises that they walk in the light of his countenance when in weakness he comes to them as he did to Joshua as I was with Moses so will I be with thee I will not leave thee nor forsake thee then he walked in the light of his countenance oh I say to you here tonight have you got a promise do you remember how the Lord gave it to you in what circumstances he gave it to you do you remember the nature of it the fruit of it the effect of it the result of it were you strengthened with almighty the inner man by it oh when the Lord these promises cannot be taken they are given by God in your hour of need and they have spoken into your soul for a lifetime but when they are given we know something of the light of his countenance upon us and it will not be once in our lifetime we shall know this joyful saying from time to time in the Lord's divine purposes and in the right season and hour of need we shall walk in the light of his countenance when the gospel is made precious to us in our hearts we shall know something of the blessedness of this truth blessed are the people that know the joyful saying the gospel is made to them pound life it is sweet to their taste yea says scripture sweet as the honeycomb

[39:48] I was talking to a young friend some time ago and he spoke of a text I preached from some years before which I couldn't remember and he quoted it and he I said how did you remember that then and he said can you ever forget it I know that to be a truth because in my own experience there are particular times and seasons and sermons which the Lord's sermons preach which I should never forget and my heart was broken down and the truth was made sweet to my taste and I can look back to such occasions and remember that my thoughts that night were oh if you would go on preaching like the apostle

[40:55] Paul went on to midnight oh this his word is not a barren word it's not a fruitless word it is a fruitful word it is the word of God and what a stamp lies in this word of God how favoured eternally favoured are the people of God who know the joyful sound of the gospel and who have some sweet experience of what it is to walk in the light of his countenance the peace of God which passes all understanding the blood of Christ made precious to their souls Amen Amen Ouch our sound of mother co-challed