The sermon text comes from Psalm 30, or is Psalm 30, may I say, Psalm 30. Once again, let us listen carefully as our God speaks to us through the Word. Psalm of David, and it reads this way. I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me. O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave, Thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. For His anger endureth but a moment, in His favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. But it's tied thy face, and I was troubled. I cried to thee, O Lord, and unto the Lord I made my supplication. What profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth? Hear, O Lord, and give mercy upon me. Have mercy upon me, Lord. Be thou my helper. Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing. Thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness. to the end, that my glory may sing praise to Thee, and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto Thee forever. Once again, briefly, let us pray. Our God in heaven, we praise You once again this day for what You have given to us, and the words that You have given to us to read the words that you have given to us to pray and you have given to us to sing. We pray that you would bless us by your spirit, make us mindful of our union with Jesus Christ and his death and his resurrection for us and for your glory. And we pray that you would hide these words away in our hearts, that we might not sin against you. It is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. I would point you to the heading, which is found in your Bibles. It should be found in your Bibles. If it's not there, let me just say, sorry about that. Should be the heading of many of your Bibles. We'll say Psalm 30. A psalm and song at the dedication of the house of David. A psalm for the dedication of the house of David. 2nd Samuel 5 12 which we read it says this David perceived That the Lord had established him king over Israel That is a profound sentence. That is a profound verse, 2 Samuel 5, 12. This is profound because of all of the things that David has gone through up to this point. The circumstances there in 2nd Samuel 5 are such that David is clearing out the Jebusites. He is going to make himself a home, and the Lord gives him a house of cedar, and that is in Jerusalem. And for david to reach that place to for david to reach that height is an astonishing thing When you consider all the things that david has been through He was just a shepherd of his father's sheep. You might remember And then he was called to be a harp player for the king a little after that David slays Goliath Saul is very very jealous at David for that Saul throws a spear at David trying to kill him Saul sends David out on a suicide mission to kill lots of Philistines for a time Saul pursues David And twice, David spares Saul's life. He has been through a lot. He has wept. He has struggled. Eventually, Saul dies. Saul loses the kingship. The kingship is given to David. He is the anointed one. And God establishes David's throne. It did not come easily. It came by blood, sweat, and tears. He has been through so much, and in that chapter that we read, that portion of the chapter that we read, he then finds himself having his house established and his throne established, and he being placed king over Israel. That is the context. That is the context of this psalm. And David, you might understand if you've read 1 Samuel, if you've read 2 Samuel, that there are interesting times ahead, are there not? You know that a little after this, all of his warriors are going to go off to war, but David is going to stay home. He is going to sin in an awful way against a woman. and against that woman's husband Bathsheba and Uriah. And after that, David is going to experience horrible things as a result of his sin. Absalom will come up, he will rise up, and he will seek to take the throne from David. But at this point, David is able to look around and see, God has established my throne. But David, you must understand, you must be reminded of the fact that David is a prophet, and he writes this, as I would understand, he writes this. And some of the things that go on in Psalm 30 that we're going to look into, some of these things are actually more profound to him in his life than even at the dedication of his house and the singing of Psalm 30. And is that not the case with all of us? Have we not had times where there were portions of God's Word which we affirm that they are true? With our minds, we say, yes, that is true. Why? Because it's in the Bible, and it comes to me from God and from His Spirit. But then you enter into certain times where your experience of these truths makes them more true to you than you had prior and previously understood. I think that is what is going on here. We can experience that when we realize that God's Word is more true than we had previously realized. What is going on here is the truths which are found in this psalm are even more profound to him later than at the time that he wrote it. Psalm 30, verse 5. Let me just focus upon that for a moment. For his anger endureth but a moment. In his favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. What a wonderful verse. There are many, many verses that we could have drawn out and focused our attention on, but it's right for us to consider this. It seems to me Psalm 30, verse 5, or verse 5 of 30, is the verse that describes or summarizes the whole of this psalm. I would like you to see, through this psalm, that God brings His people from brokenness to rejoicing. The Lord brings His people from brokenness to rejoicing. We should make it very clear. We should always remember that God is angry with sin. The Bible tells us that God is angry with sinners all the day. God is angry every day with sinners. But even among His people, there is a sense in which we can say that He is angry even at His own children for a time. when they are in great rebellious sin, when they fall away from Him. We read 2 Samuel chapter 5, and you see that verse, verse 12, that the Lord has established the house of David, and then what happens right after that? It seems as though David has almost forgotten the grace of God, and he takes to himself concubines. He is behaving like the other kings, the surrounding kings already. Is this not astonishing to us? We must see the importance, really, and the irony. One, God has established him, and then he immediately goes into doing things he ought not to have done. The Bible tells us in Ephesians not to grieve the Holy Spirit. This is what the Apostle Paul tells to Christian believers in Ephesus. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Jesus has taken away our sins. Because of His cross, we have been united to Him, and we have been forgiven And so for us, there's no condemnation. But there's a sense in which while we can never be out of communion with God, sometimes our sin can interrupt our communion with God. And for a time, we may be at odds with him. and for a time we might find ourselves under his fatherly chastisement and his displeasure, and that is some of what is going on with David here. And so, God does chide his people, but there is hope. As we opened, Psalm 103, verse 9, he will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. We must be reminded of the fact that, yes, God is angry with our sin, but we must also remember, we must be reminded of the fact that it is temporary, and it is not forever. The Lord leads us to repentance. That is what he does with David. David is acting, in a sense, worldly. and the worldly ways are going to creep into him more and more, to the point where he actually sins with Bathsheba, as you know that he does. But God is not angry forever. Nathan, the prophet, comes to David. Nathan tells this story that gets David so very angry. He says, this man must be punished, and Nathan says, you are that man. The Word of God is a great comfort to us. But if we only find comfort in God's Word, then we have not found all that God has to say to us, because God's Word challenges us, and sometimes God's Word rebukes us. Nights of sorrow, though, do give way to dawns of joy. Praise the Lord because of deliverance. Look what David begins with. I will extol Thee, O Lord, for Thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me. Think of all the things that David has been through. He has run away from enemies. He has needed to act insane. He has stood and stared death in the face, but God has delivered him. He was as a dead man, but the Lord has lifted David up. And that is true of you and me, is it not? Because of our sin, the sin of Adam, the first sin of Adam, and also because of our own actual sins. God has brought us from death to life. We were dead in our sins, and we have been brought to life. And the Lord is a healer. It says, thou hast healed me. O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave. Once again, picturing our deadness and David being as good as dead, but we have been brought to life, and he was brought out of the dead, and God conquers all of his and our enemies. Do you not treasure the shorter catechism, the way it talks about the kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fact that Jesus is a king, and he conquers all of his and all of our enemies. David has experienced this firsthand. David has experienced God the Lord who has delivered him, who has taken away the enemies from before him. If they had been able to kill David, oh, how they would have rejoiced. they would have rejoiced, and they would have published it to all of the nations. All of the surrounding nations would have found out, and they would have heard, and they would have rejoiced, and they would have said, that anointed one has been cut off. So, we consider Psalm chapter 2 First, when we consider David in Psalm chapter 2, in a sense, in its original context, God has said that all of the nations need to acknowledge David's kingship. And, of course, his son after him, and his son, and on and on. But, of course, the nations will not have David to rule over them. Oh, how they would have rejoiced if he had been cut off. But as Christian believers, obviously, we understand that that psalm, Psalm 2, is not ultimately about David. It is about the Lord Jesus. It is about great David's greater son. It is about Jesus, the chiefest among 10,000. It is about Jesus who would go and suffer and die for you. and who would be exalted and ascended, and who would go to sit in the heavens, and he would be a conquering king over all of the nations. If they had been able to cut off David, oh, they would have rejoiced. They were able, for a time, to cut off the Lord Jesus, and they thought that they had victory. But it was ultimately God who had victory in that. And Jesus has victory because he has gone to rule over and reign over the nations through that. So the Lord conquers all of his and all of our enemies. But look at verse 6. These are among the words that I would say may have been more true to David after he wrote them in his experience than when he wrote them. In verse 6 he says, And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. In his prosperity he said, I've got this. All of the struggles are behind me. Things should be relatively easy now. I have endured some turbulence, but it should be smooth flying from now on. Notice that it seems as hope is worldly at this point. He says, in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved. And then he talks about his mountain that will stand strong, something upon the earth. Now, we know that oftentimes God and his prophets will use earthly things to speak of heavenly things, but I don't think that's what's going on here. David has set his hopes on something that is earthly. In my prosperity, I said, I will not be moved. And this is what it says at the end of verse 6. Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. There are times when we do that too. We think, you know, I've been through some hard times. Sometimes we think, everything is going to be okay. And we begin to loosen the belt a little, to relax, and to take it easy, and to assume that things will always be as they are now. That is to say, David is saying, I began to take my situation for granted. I think sometimes people look at Christians and they think, These people are so weird. And are we not weird? Sometimes we do take that peculiar people in a way that is not intended. We can be peculiar, certainly, but think of it like this. What do we do in a day? Oftentimes we We thank Him for the sunshine and for the night, and we thank Him for the rain. We thank Him for the food that is before us, and we thank Him for health and all of these things. And some Christians, non-Christians, will stand back and they'll think, you know, I see someone who just prays before he eats, and he leads his family that way. And then I see this other family, and they don't do that. They seem to be both doing fine. Maybe these prayers don't work. Maybe they do nothing. Maybe you're just wasting your time. But when we truly consider why we thank God for each and every little thing is because we do not want to have that sort of hubris and that arrogance that David has to say, As things are, they shall continue to be. We must not take anything for granted. We must not take our health for granted, or the food which is before us, because any of these things, these wonderful blessings that God rains down upon us, they could be removed in an instant, in a moment. So, we do not take them for granted. by day, for the great things, for relationships, for salvation, and for the minor things, for hearts that beat and for lungs that breathe, and for food which is laid before us, But yet, even we as Christians, we can fall into that, where we become arrogant. Not outwardly arrogant, but we say, it will always be this way. I will be able to live with relative ease from here on out. And it can be in those times that God, haunting as these words are, can hide his face. That is when God can hide his face. Let's see what David does. "'Thou didst hide thy face,' it says, and I was troubled.' But David responds, he says, "'I cried to thee, O Lord, and unto the Lord I made supplication.'" And this, I would say, 9 and 10 are words you could probably have in quotation marks. This is his prayer. What prophet is there in my blood? When I go down to the pit, shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth here, O Lord, and have mercy upon me, Lord? Be thou my helper. Sometimes we go through times just like this. We begin to take things for granted, and then we fall into sin, or we have a sense of God's distance from us. Why does God bring us through these times? I think it is to take us away from our tendency to take these things for granted. God desires our prayers. God desires our worship. And when we begin to take things easy, we begin to pray less, we begin to praise less, we begin to sing less often. And then God brings us into situations like David's where God drives us to our knees and we cry. We cry for mercy, we cry for help, we cry for the return of his spirit and a sense of close communion and the face of God before us. But ultimately, we ought not only to see David in this psalm, because the psalms declare the Lord Jesus on the road to Emmaus. in the book of Luke. You understand those two who were blinded at that time, there they are walking with Jesus. And I would say they were those who were able to undergo or participate or listen to the greatest Bible study that was ever conducted upon the earth. Because Jesus says, listen, you do not realize that these things speak of me the words of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms. Jesus has not preserved for us that Bible study, but in a sense, he's given us the key to understand the Bible. And if all we see is David, and if all we see is ourselves, then these things are not sufficient. We must see Jesus in these things. that it's tied thy face, and I was troubled." Seemingly a description of Jesus. Psalm 22, verse 1, which we could have sung as well. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The book of Matthew quotes that when Jesus is upon the cross. The book of Mark quotes that when Jesus is upon the cross. He gives it to us in Aramaic, and then it interprets it for us right after that in Matthew and Mark's gospel. Children of God, people of God, do not take the blessings that come to you for granted. Not just because you can begin to get lazy in these things, but see the cost the cost of the blessings that come to you. They come at the cost of the blood of the Lamb of God. They come at the cost of Jesus Christ. They come at the cost of the Son of God, who has always existed, the eternally begotten Son of the Father, who has enjoyed communion and fellowship with His Father by the Spirit for all of eternity. The Father adoring the Son, and the Son adoring the Father, and them communing with one another in delight and heavenly joy. And then the Son of God comes into this world. He takes upon Himself human flesh, the likeness of sinful flesh. Romans 8.3 tells us, but that is key, the likeness of sinful flesh. He did not take upon himself sinful flesh. But you look at him, you look at anyone else, you would have seen someone who is a decaying person, who has begun to feel the effects of Adam and his first sin. You would not have looked at him and he looks like an angel or something like that. He looks like anyone else. But He comes that He might perfectly fulfill the Scriptures, that He might perfectly fulfill the law of God, where you and I and every man and every woman has failed. That is to keep God's law, God's perfect Word, perfectly. We have failed. But what has Jesus done? He's come into this world and He has fulfilled the law. And the Father would say to him, you are my only begotten Son. With you I am well pleased. This is the suffering, though, that he undergoes upon the cross. He who knew that fellowship for all of eternity has the face of the Father turned away from him. This ought to give us the chills it certainly does to me. God's favor is life, the Bible tells you, but God's disfavor is death, and so the one who is life himself, Jesus Christ, in him was life, the Bible tells us, and that life was the light of men. Darkness comes upon him, and life is snuffed out in the body, and it is awful. But we understand that what is true of David, what is true of us, is true of the Son of God as well. That the turning of the face of the Father away from the Son is only temporary. The wrath of god is poured out upon the son of god upon the cross For you and for me because jesus the glorious savior is able as a groom as a husbandman to choose a bride for himself and so jesus enters in this world, into this world with a mission that he might be pierced for his bride's transgressions, that he might wash her and cleanse her with that strange detergent, staining blood. Ordinarily we think of blood as this staining agent, but in fact the blood of Christ is a cleansing, washing agent, and so therefore may it flow down to each and every one of you. David has undergone many tears, and even the Lord Jesus underwent tears. Smallest verse in the Bible, John chapter 11, Jesus wept. The book of Hebrews tells us, seems to indicate that that was not the only time that the Son of God wept. And he wept and mourned over Jerusalem because of their hardness of heart. What do you think of tears? They will not always be. They will not always exist. There is a time coming when they will not exist anymore. Think back to the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant has certain objects placed in there, you might remember. The Ark of the Covenant that was moved around through the wilderness and finds its home in the tabernacle, that mobile tent, that mobile, almost like a temple, but it's mobile, Eventually, it will move its way into the temple when they are settled. There are certain objects that are placed there. One, the Ten Commandments. The bud, the budding rod of Aaron is placed in there. But ironically, manna is placed in there. because for 40 or so years, manna comes down from heaven while they were wandering in the wilderness. There is manna, and God feeds his people. This is a picture of bread from heaven. There's so much we could do with that, but we'll hold off for now. literal bread comes down from heaven. But once the Hebrews would enter into the land, there is an end to the manna. It's no longer to come down. Why? Because God is going to bless their crops. He's going to bless their herds within the land. And He gives them this covenant. where he will bless them for their obedience and curse them for their disobedience. Within the land, fruitful crops growing, but all the while there's this one piece of manna, or there is some manna placed in that ark. Why is that? This manna which will not decay after a day like the original manna did. Why does God do this? It's almost, take this in the sense it's intended, it's almost like a museum piece. That they look at this piece of bread and they say, that is an item, that is an element from a bygone era when God was faithful to us. We were very sinful, though. We took it for granted, but God was faithful to us before we entered into the land. And what will they say, or what did they see that as? They had that as a picture of the past. There is coming a day when Jesus will wipe all of the tears from your eyes. That is what Revelation chapter 21 tells us. But you see the words that we sang, the words that we sang from Psalm 56, how God has kept the psalmist David's tears in a bottle. Why is that? Because there is a day coming in which tears will be like that manna. They will be elements or pieces from a bygone era, and there will come a time in which we will behold the Lamb of God, and we will see the One who was pierced for us, and He will be all glorious on that day. And we will wonder at Him, and we will be astonished in that day. And we will truly understand with greater fullness the greatness of this psalm. And we will say that that time of weeping has come to pass. It has passed us. It is gone. And Jesus wipes tears from our eyes and these are held. And we look back at them and I think we will come to a time when we will say, do you remember weeping? And we will be so overcome with the glory of Jesus. so overcome with His glory that we will faintly remember the tears, faintly remember the sleepless nights and the tears that came in those times. And then we will see bottles of tears and we'll say, oh yes, I remember those times. But the Lord has delivered us from those times. The Lord has brought us out of that darkness And He has brought us into the light, the light of His dear Son. Revelation 21, 23, this is what it says, And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it for the glory of God did lighten it. And the Lamb is the light thereof. People of God, you will behold the Lamb, the Son of God, who will light your way. Weeping endures for the night, but joy comes in the morning. And God, God the Father, is preparing you for a time in which you will enter into the land of the eternal day. And that is for you. If Christ has already begun to rise in your hearts, if the sun has begun to rise in your hearts even now, then even now you have begun to experience what will ultimately be the land of eternal morning and eternal day and eternal light, and that light will be the glory of Jesus, and you will behold Him forever. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, many have been our days of wandering, wandering the face of the earth. in our minds and in our hearts. And we have questioned so many things, and we have wondered why certain things have happened. We have wondered at the suffering of some whom we love, and we have wondered at our own struggles as well. But we thank you that these things are brief. These things are temporary. And we thank you that This light momentary affliction will give way to an eternal weight of glory. And we thank you that Jesus has all of the glory. And we ask that we would worship him in spirit and in truth this day. And we pray that through our songs we would rejoice in the one who took such great suffering upon himself. And we pray that we would see the light of the glory in the face of Jesus Christ even now as we sing and as we rejoice throughout this day. In Jesus name we pray and may he have the glory.