2 Samuel 23 verses 1-7. Again this is God's holy word. These are the last words of David. Thus says David the son of Jesse, thus says the man raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob and the sweet psalmist of Israel. The spirit of the Lord spoke by me and his word was on my tongue. The God of Israel said, the rock of Israel spoke to me. He who rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, the morning without clouds, like the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Although my house is not so with God, yet He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure. For this is all my salvation and all my desire. Will He not make it increase? The sons of rebellion shall all be as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands. But the man who touches them must be armed with iron and the shaft of a spear. and they shall be utterly burned with fire in their place. Amen. Two years ago, we had the family camp at the Firs, and one of my memories is around the fire camp at night, the one night we have testimonials, and Psalm singing, and Buss gave a testimony. He told everyone, essentially, the most important thing that they could know. He told them about the gospel, and he told it through his own life. He gave a testimony of salvation, and he spoke from his own experience, how God had worked in him, and he challenged us. It was applicable to us as well, because it's not just a gospel for us, it's a gospel for us. And it was very important, the topic, the issues in that testimony. This passage tonight is a testimony. That's what it is. It's about something very important. David is reflecting back on his life. And he's not just saying what has happened. He's saying through his life as a king, what God has told him and what the grace God has shown him. And there is a sense of prophecy here in the last few verses, but he's giving a testimony. If you were to select three or four passages, or perhaps more than that, but there are certain passages in the Bible that really hold a lot of good doctrine, important doctrine, main things. You could pick a couple of chapters. John 3 would be one of them we read. Well, this would be one of them. There's a lot of doctrine here. There's gospel here. It's very important. This testimony, David chose wisely. These are his last words. The text says here that most likely to be understood by his last inspired words. He has something important for us to see. The principles here teach us that if anyone breaks God's revealed will, then he will be gracious to those who trust in his covenant promises, but judge those who rebel." Very important truth, children, to know this. If anyone breaks God's revealed will, he'll be gracious to those who trust in his covenant promise, but he judges those who rebel. I want to speak to you on this on four points. I want you to see God's revelation, God's will, God's grace, and God's judgment. verses 1 through 3, first part of verse 3. See God's revelation. God is a God who makes himself known. Now he did this to David a little bit differently than he does to us now, but it's still the case. He's a God that reveals himself. And in Revelation we have, it's interesting, we have a human author and a divine author. We want to look at this Bible. We can understand the Bible to have a human author. There are several human authors. It has one divine author as well. We have that here. God speaks to and through a man. David, son of Jesse. Normal man. In fact, he was the youngest of several boys. Jesse was his father. He was a shepherd. He was just kind of a little guy, really. It wasn't really that significant, but God had raised him up. He was not a self-made man, but a God-made man. He was the anointed of the God of Jacob. He was a king. He was anointed as a prophet as well. He was the sweet psalmist of Israel. He wrote psalms. He wrote songs to be sung in worship. It's noteworthy to realize that in the connection with prophecy, David says that he's a psalmist. If you read Calvin's commentaries, Calvin will refer to the psalmist not as a psalmist. He'll refer to him as a prophet. There's good reasons to think that because in order to write a song to be sung you had to be a prophet. First Chronicles 25.1. Moreover David and the captains of the army separated for the service some of the sons of Asaph. of Heman and Jedithan who should prophesy with harps, stringed instruments and cymbals. If you were to ask me what are the main logical steps to the practice of singing only the Psalms in worship, the first thing I would mention is this principle. In the Bible you have songwriters They were all, not just inspired, they were known to be prophets. And David mentions this in connection with his ability to be a prophet, for God to speak to him. Verse 2 we have the divine author of Revelation. Who's speaking? It's the Spirit of the Lord. It's David, but it's really the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me. His word was on my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me. And in Revelation, we have a human and a divine author. It's not like a lot of other religions. Muhammad dictated. He just dictated what Allah apparently told him. Well, in Revelation, God uses personality. Peter's epistles aren't the same thing as John. There's genres. There's human language here. One of the things we see. Notice that he says, his word was on my tongue. We believe in verbal plenary inspiration. What does that mean? Every word. We touched on that this morning a little bit. Every word. Man lives on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And this is what is inspired and given to us. And what this teaches us, before we get into the specifics, is we need to realize that God does reveal himself to us. Now he doesn't reveal himself to you and to me in this exact way anymore. Kids, you shouldn't be waiting for God to speak to you. But God does, like audibly, like I'm speaking to you now. He does speak to you. In fact, you have more revelation than David. Far more revelation. I want you to think about that for a moment. Something very precious has been given to you, and it's a complete and final word. We don't have prophets anymore because revelation in that sense has been, has ceased. This book, all of scripture is given by inspiration of God, it's profitable for doctrine, for proof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness of the man of God. You can understand that to be the Christian. The man of God is complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Yeah, we might have to go figure out how to be a doctor. But it comes to every good work. It comes to all that we need to know for salvation and godly living. It's right here. And we should cherish this book. It's God's revelation to us. I was reading recently a story of Adoniram Judson and his first wife Anne. They went to Burma. They translated the Bible into Burmese. And there was a time there where they were really worried that they were going to lose their translation. People came to their house, ransacked their house. They hid it under the ground. It's precious. It's precious. God's word is precious. He's revealed himself to us. You have this view of scripture. Do you read this book? God has revealed himself to you. Not just generally, in some sense that's, you know, nice to know. I mean, God's also created all these things. Creation speaks to us in some sense. He's revealed something specific to us. He's told us his will for our lives. We have something specific for David. God had a will, something specific for David to do. So secondly, I want you to see this. God's will, second part of verse three to verse four. What did God tell David as king of Israel? Here's my will for you, David. David's reflecting back on his life and he's summarizing what God has told him. He who rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. Here we have a precept. Verse 4 is a promise. Here is a precept. A righteous king is the idea. Now we know something about a corrupt judge. There is a case before a judge. And because of maybe some bribing going on, maybe because one of the defendants is wealthy, he perverts justice. Or kids, maybe one of your parents have misunderstood a quarrel you had with your sibling. And maybe your dad or your mom just punished both of you and didn't really look into what was going on. That's not right. It's not just. Well, of all the things that kings do, you could say that one of the most important things is that they would judge rightly. They would judge justly in the fear of God. Kings are to rule in the fear of God. We believe in the mediatorial kingship of Christ. All the kings, all the governments, they're under the authority of Christ. They're to rule, not in the fear of man, elders as well, rule in the fear of man. But it's not just some of God's laws, all of God's laws. Our government is to rule in the fear of God. And there's a promise here. There's a promise to David and generally a promise to Christians and other earthly kings. And verse four is essentially prosperity. Many of the verses in this section, verses one through seven, are translated a little bit differently. And if you have a different version than the New King James, you've noticed that. Essentially all the same. Verse 4 is a reference to prosperity. What's going to happen if you have a just government or a just king? There's prosperity. There's various images here. Light, sunshine, grass, rain. It will cause prosperity to the nation, to the people. One commentator says about this verse, Verse four, it depicts via imagery of light, sun, rain, and grass, the reviving, refreshing, renewing effects of this ruler's reign. Now, you're not a king, are you? I don't think there's a civil magistrate here at all. But God has a will for you. We should think about that. God has a will for all of us. I'm not gonna get into specifics, but think about this for a moment. Christ, The Lord Jesus is King. He's in charge. He's in charge of all of us. He saves his people, and he's their master. The Great Commission. Think about it from this perspective. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. I wanna speak to you for a moment about lordship. Christians can get excited, and they should, about salvation, Jesus being their savior. But some Christians, and I speak outward Christians, can confuse it, and they don't really like the fact of a Jesus that tells them what to do. What about you? Do you not like Jesus to tell you what to do? Lordship. Lordship. Now, one of the ways that Christians can go wrong here is they can say, okay, I don't have a problem with that, but they'll truncate the law. Notice he says all the things that I've commanded you. You can say to yourself, I haven't committed murder, I haven't committed adultery, I come to church on Sunday morning or whatnot, but everything else I can kind of figure out for myself. All of our life is to be submitted to the Lordship of Christ. We are to seek. See, what does God want me to do in my home, my work? What does he want me to do? His authority expands to all places. And we may not know everything that we are to do, but we should be willing to do. God has revealed his will to us in this word here. Are you seeking that? Are you following that? It's like, it's like his commandments. Yeah, there's some things about God's will that we don't know. They're not revealed to us. Okay, we don't know who the elect are. But He has revealed His will to us in this book. So His commandments, things that He knows that please Him. That's what I'm talking about. It's a good question, Michelle. Now, there's two other things I want you to see from this passage. Because if you're thinking, maybe Michelle had this in her mind, I don't know, I know I had this in my mind as I was studying. I don't always keep God's will. And there's grace here. I want you to see grace. Verse five, God's grace. I told you I would say to you important things, and this is important. Children, I want you to listen to me for a moment. God's gracious, and we need that. It's important, because we're not perfect, are we? David responds to this prophecy. If you notice, New King James, the quote ends at the end of verse 4. He continues with his last words, but he's commenting on this. He's giving a testimony. He says this, This is important. I want to make a comment about the translation here. This verse is Translated differently? Either way how you translate it, there's grace here. But I think it's natural for us to take it in this way because David's house is not right, is it? Absalom, Amnon, et cetera. Although my house is not so with God, yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant. Grace, there's promises here. The idea of a covenant can be very complicated. It can be summarized as this, God making promises to sinners. David's hope is not in himself. It's in the promise that God has given him. And it's the Davidic covenant, isn't it? 2 Samuel 7. And I won't read it, but essentially, 2 Samuel 7 is, I am not going to leave you, David. That's the promise. I left Saul. I forsook him, but I'm gonna make a covenant with you. I promise with you, I'm not going to leave you, I'm not going to forsake you. And that's David's hope, because he's sinned, he's murdered, he's committed adultery. And yet God is not going to leave him, that's his hope, that's his faith, that's what he's trusting in. We see later on in verse five, this covenant is ordered in all things and secure, I like the NID, arranged and secured in every part. It's a complete covenant for David, it was a complete covenant, it was ordered, And he's putting his faith in the promises of God. That's what the last part of verse five is saying. For this is all my salvation. What is this? The covenant. All my hope. Will not God make it increase? He's professing faith. All my desire, all my salvation is in God's promise. He's putting trust, he's exercising his faith. Not in himself, not in his goodness, but in God's promise. And God has made a promise to every single one of you. He's made a promise to every single one of you. Here's what I'm talking about. Here's God's promise. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's a promise. Whoever believes in Jesus Christ because he's died, because he was perfect and righteous, In the place of his people, God can forgive his people who have sinned and he can give him God's righteousness, Christ's righteousness, forgive them and save them. When I was in the study and I was preparing for this, I heard an illustration I wanna share with you. It was interesting, doctors wanna know your history. They want to know who your dad was. They want to know who your father was. They want to know when this started happening. They want to know what other things have been going on in your life. Preachers, evangelists, total opposite. I don't want to know anything about your history. It doesn't matter what you've done. It doesn't matter what sins you've committed. God has made a promise. Whoever believes, whoever believes, and his son will be saved. And that's hope. That is hope for sinners. And the question is, are you trusting? That's the response. That's the key thing that Buss wanted us to hear that night when he was sharing his testimony. Are you trusting? Are you relying upon Christ? When I was in the army, I've told you this before, I jumped out of airplanes. Okay, paratroopers. They don't think about this probably too much, but we're trusting in someone who's called a rigger. A rigger puts together the chute. It's the whole job. There's probably only about half a dozen of them in a whole battalion. All they do, more or less, is prepare these chutes. And chutes are very reliable. Parachutes are very, very reliable. And you jump out trusting, not in yourself. I never made a parachute. I never put it together. I was trusting in the rigger. And that's what you must do. You must trust, not in yourself, but in Jesus. That's what David's doing. For this is all my salvation and all my desire. Will he not make it increase? Will God not give me what he's promised me? He will. Because of Christ. Now this grace is made even more precious in light of verse six and seven. Because God, I want you to think about something. God is not nice. The Bible never says God is nice. He's gracious. He's merciful. He's just. He's just. I want you to see God's judgment, verses six through seven. God's judgment. Verses six through seven. The sons of rebellion shall all be as thorns thrust away. Now there's imagery here in this verse. And the image is this. It's actually not a military image. It's actually a farming image. You have a farmer with a shaft of iron, a shaft of a spear. These are actually farming utensils. It's like a winnowing fork or some kind of clipper. Kids, have you ever seen your parents out with clippers in the yard? And they're cutting down thorns. Thorns. You can't touch them with your hand. That's what verse, end of verse six says. Gathers them up and they're burned. They're burned. It's an image of judgment on those who rebel. Sons of rebellion. Perhaps he has in mind Absalom. And this is a warning to us. It's a warning. Have you ever gone to a restaurant, maybe into the bathroom, or maybe some hallway of a public building or a school or something, and there's a janitor mopping the floor, and he puts a sign, a yellow, do not, be careful, caution, wet floor. I appreciate that, because what happens? What happens? You walk normally, you slip and fall. If you see the warning, then you act appropriately, you take small steps so you don't slip and fall. God's warning you. Are you paying attention to the warning? God's not just gracious and merciful as if it's all he is. There is such a thing as grace and there is such a thing as mercy because God is holy and he's just. And those who rebel, those who don't put their faith in Jesus will burn, they'll be judged. Are you paying attention to the warning? Are you in rebellion? Have you turned to Christ? Children, do you trust in Christ? This is very important. Talking about life and death. Eternal life and eternal death. This is what David wants you to know. This is what he wants you to think about. This is what Buss was talking about when he gave his testimony to Furze. This passage of scripture speaks of important things. If anyone breaks God's revealed will, then he'll be gracious to those who trust in his covenant promise, but judge those who rebel. Are you trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ? Can you say in your heart, because of Christ, although my life is not right with God, it's not perfect, yet God has made to me a promise. Are you trusting in that promise? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. And we thank you for your son. And we thank you for loving sinners and sending him to die on the cross. Father, we ask that we would understand these important matters. that we would believe in Jesus. So we pray that you would encourage us all here who understand these things, to keep these in mind and to remember, to keep our life in perspective to these important things. Help us to walk, despite all the trials that we have in our life, with the joy of the Lord. We thank you for your gospel. We thank you for your son. Be with us now as we go to our house, spend the rest of our Sabbath day. Be with us this week and protect us. Give us this joy. Give us this reminder of the gospel in our hearts. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.