Address—C. Buchanan
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The 45th Psalm 1St 11 verses We will read Psalm.
45.
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.
That worked fairer than the children of men. Grace is poured into thy lips.
Therefore God hath blessed thee forever.
Gerdes soared upon thy thy O that 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 the 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.
O thy garment smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made the glad.
Kings daughters were among thy honorable women.
Upon thy right hand did stand the Queen in gold over hearken, O daughter, and consider.
An inclined 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.
This word worship.
Has come to us in the English language.
In this way.
That first it was called.
Worthy ship.
And then it was contracted to be called Worth Ship. Then it was contracted to be worshipped. A beautiful history.
Thou art worthy, we heard this morning read to us from Revelation 5. We know who the King is.
We're going to find words that state who he is when we leave this passage.
But there is here an application to make.
Concerning.
The two Psalms that precede this one and.
This one.
Notice in Psalm 43 there is a plea, there is a prayer in the middle of the Psalm. It says, oh, send out thy light and.
Thy truth.
Let them lead me, let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. Now the application is this.
Now, 160 years ago, this plea went out.
It was of God raising up an interest.
In the word of God and a desire for light and truth.
God answered that plea. He set the light.
The opening up of the revealed mind of God, which was not understood in the Bible.
Before 160 years ago, perhaps ever.
For even when the Bible was completed.
About 100 AD.
Few had it.
Very few had the written word, very few could read it if they had have had it. But God in his goodness.
It raised up an interest in the light and the truth.
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And he gave it.
And it has been largely written down as ministry giving the sense.
As our brother spoke here about the reading, reading and giving the sense.
Of the meaning of the Word of God.
So ably was a sense given the teaching.
That I believe.
It hasn't been improved upon in this century in which we live.
Now we come to the next Psalm.
44 and says we have heard with our ears.
Oh God, our fathers have told us what work thou didst in their days.
In the times of old.
We're not going to read anymore here.
You can read this 44th Psalm in your leisure.
But what it brings before is typically.
Is what the children?
Who heard the truth and the light?
Given to them have done with it.
And it's like a graph that just goes up and down and up and down and up and down.
Right across.
To the end of.
Psalm 44.
And there are those who do not forget.
Notice verse 20 if we have forgotten the name of our God.
Back further, it says in verse 17, All this has come upon us, yet have we not forgotten the forgotten thee?
Brethren, we can say that we remembered.
The Lord this morning.
And it was on the basis of the light of the truth.
That was given to us by our fathers.
But although the history is up and down.
And.
At the end of the Psalm.
There's this cry, verse 23 awake. Why sleepest thou? Oh Lord, arise, cast us not off forever. These are words that you and I need to feel.
Because of our state.
Verse 24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
Now God doesn't really do that.
But what are we brought to? I hope it's this.
Our soul is bowed down to the dust, our belly cleaveth under the earth.
And then the prayer Arise for our help. Redeem us for thy mercy's sake.
And then?
We get the tremendous change in the next Psalm.
The writer quits talking about Israel and her history. We.
Are quitting to refer to ourselves as brethren in our history, and we turn to the King and all is bright and beautiful in the 45th Psalm, so that the psalmist can say, my heart is indicting a good matter. The good person that we have and the good ministry about him that we have to consider.
Lovely, we had that this morning. Oh what a person we have to be occupied with.
And it affects the heart. The heart enjoys it. I speak of the things made touching the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
In the 15th of Romans we have this wonderful verse that says.
That he may with all that he may, with one mind and one mouth, glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God works.
And his people to get this expression out of praise.
And worship to his beloved Son. And it's so easy.
So beautiful, so lovely, in contrast to thinking about ourselves.
And so it goes on here. Thou art fairer than the children of men, none like him.
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That beautiful section of the Song of Solomon we heard this morning. None like him, the fairest of the myriads, the 10 thousands our fairer than the children of men.
Grace is poured in thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee forever.
When the Lord Jesus.
Came.
We're going to get to that.
But when he's reported in Luke's gospel and enters on his.
Ministry.
He goes into the synagogue.
Nazareth, where he'd been brought up.
And he reads a section out of the Bible. He found it.
And I'll read it to you.
It's in Isaiah, but I'm going to read from Luke 4 verse 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, says Jesus. Oh yes, everything he did was in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and stopped right in the middle of a verse. And he closed the book.
And gave it again to the minister and sat down. What a beautiful situation to contemplate, that Blessed one.
Who is the Creator and trainer of all things standing up before congregation reading out of Isaiah?
And stopping before he comes to judgment.
Because he couldn't have said what he says then.
He began to say unto them. Their eyes were all fastened on him this day.
Is this scripture fulfilled in your ears? And all bear him witness. And wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. Grace is poured into thy lips. He came in grace. What a wonderful message we had about grace yesterday.
Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and grace upon grace.
So the words he spoke were first grace, then.
Verse three it changes to warfare.
He is the king.
He's the king who came and was rejected.
But he's going to finish his work. He is the Lamb of God to taketh away the sin of the world. He's taken away my sins and your sins who have believed on Him.
He's going to enter into judgment and cleanse the earth.
Even the heavens, as we had in our chapter 12 of Hebrews, are not clean in His sight. He's going to clear them.
He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
But then we come down to verse 10.
To hasten on harken, O daughter, and consider and inclined 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, we want to take up something about worship this afternoon.
But how beautiful it is to come down to this and see what, at least for one dear sister that I knew turned out to be a personal verse to guide her to come to the Lord's table and break bread.
Lewis Beckwith who wrote the poems? Some of you have read her poems.
She was a double cousin of mine.
He's been gone now for 20 or 30 years.
But she got under exercise as to the truth.
She came to the gathering in Saint Louis. She lived in east Saint Louis.
And she knew her place, she saw it, she wanted it. But her parents?
Weren't ready. They came part of the time.
And she didn't know what to do. She picked up her Bible and read this verse. Hearken, O daughter.
And consider and incline thine ear. Forget also thine own people in thy Father's house. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, For he is thy Lord, and worship thou him. She asked for placement, was received at the Lord's table there in Saint Louis, and a few months later her parents came along. Well, that's beautiful to contemplate, but worship, oh, what a wonderful thing it is. Now we'll go to the book that tells us about the King in Matthew.
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Of the New Testament.
Matthew.
Is the first book in the New Testament.
And the subject?
Or privilege of most importance is taken up.
In Matthew, and that is worship.
He comes as king.
It's the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, the lineage.
The legal lineage of the King through Joseph up to David and on back to Abraham here.
And so he is conceived in Mary's room of the Holy Ghost, verse 21.
And she brought, and she shall bring forth a son. Thou shall call his name Jesus.
There is a name we love to hear.
That precious name of Jesus, for he shall save his people.
From their sins.
Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the Prophet. Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.
Which being interpreted, is God with us.
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. We've had wonderful ministry on that.
God manifest in the flesh, God with us. That's Jesus.
Then Joseph being raised from sleep, did as the Angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him and his wife, and knew her not, till she had brought forth her first born son, and he called his name Jesus.
Chapter 2.
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King.
Behold, there came wise men from the east, saying, Where is he that is?
Born King of the Jews, this is the king.
That the psalmist writes about.
That the one that's fairer than the children of men, That one in whose lips was poured grace, the one who stopped reading the prophet when he got to judgment before he came in grace. And so here were men that wanted to.
Find out where he was that was born king of the Jews, and they're wise men, and I'll say wise men still seek Jesus.
We have found them. We see Jesus by faith.
Well, they came.
And going down to verse 11.
When they were come into the house.
Notice they came into the house, they saw the young child.
With Mary's mother and fell down and worshiped him.
Now we've got the subject of worship.
In Matthew in chapter 2 by wise men who sought the king and came where he was.
And they worshipped him, and then what did they do when they had opened their treasures? They presented unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense and myrrh.
We have done that, I believe in a measure this morning.
Run out of the storehouse what we have treasured, Brethren, we didn't come empty this morning.
What a wonderful meeting we have enjoyed to sing those hymns of worship and praise, to express it, to read from the scripture.
And in the place where the Lord has put his name, we want to come to that.
See that none of you appear before me. Empty comes twice in the Old Testament as a reminder to us that we should fill up our treasures.
Our minds, our hearts. My heart is indicting a good matter with one mind. Get the word in here, let it get down into your heart, and then open your mouth and present to Him.
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Go now to Chapter 7.
Verse Chapter 7.
We're going to take up another thought.
But it's going to connect with what we'll have to say a little bit later.
The Lord came, He went out in his ministry and his teaching.
And we want to notice how it.
Had an effect upon people. The last verse of Chapter 7.
He came as a prophet, He came as an apostle sent one.
To bring the teaching.
Bring it personally.
The last verse says the last two verses. It came to pass verse 28.
When Jesus had entered these sayings that people were astonished at his doctrine.
For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Turn over now to the 21St chapter.
And we find a little bit more about what an effect the Lord's ministry had upon those.
Who heard him?
The 23rd verse of Matthew 21.
When he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders and the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things, and who gave thee this authority?
Now we in our intelligence and I would say fear of God.
Would sink that these people were.
Dumb, ignorant, or audacious to question.
Him.
And say, by what authority dost thou these things, and who gave thee this authority? Begins Matthew.
But Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us.
Power belongs to God.
He was the creator and sustainer of the whole universe, ministering. And they didn't.
Understand where he got his authority.
We do.
Now let's go back to.
Chapter 14 and run through a series of things that.
Will have an interest to us. We're going to find something about worship here in chapter 14 of Matthew.
We're not going to read the whole passage.
It begins with verse 22 when Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship and go to the other side.
Possibly in that voyage across that lake at sea.
We have a picture.
Of the time when Jesus followers are down here and he's not.
With them personally?
And they're in the ship and a storm comes up.
But first of all.
There is no storm.
They're in the ship, and the Lord comes.
In about the 4th watch of the night Jesus went unto them, verse 25 walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were trouble saying it's a spirit.
And they cried out for fear.
You know we see Jesus by faith.
In a spiritual sense, we see him very clearly. Perhaps that's the reason it comes in there. He thought it was a spirit.
You know, faith actually makes things more certain to us.
Than what we see with our eyes, because everything we see with our eyes is going to pass away, but what we see with the eye of the faith is eternal and abides forever.
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Well, Peter.
Is interested.
And.
Straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, verse 27, Be of good cheer it is I be not afraid. What a comfort it is when the Lord speaks to us and assures us of His presence. Did you enjoy His presence this morning?
Peter answered him, and said, Lord, if it be thou, bidden me, come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come.
One word to step out of the visible things that man had made, and to walk with the Lord.
Peter is the type of the little remnant that.
Has.
Done that in the vast visible things of a Judaized Christianity, when there's all this looking to men and mansions and ceremonies and rituals and creeds and doctrines.
Well, what a wonderful thing it is to see the Lord and to have the confidence to walk with Him.
With the little remnant gathered to his name, well, the storm comes, and Peter begins to sink, and he says, Lord save means. The Lord says, Oh thou little faith, why did wherefore didst thou doubt?
Verse 32 When they were come into the ship, the wind ceased, and then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying of a truth, Thou art the Son of God.
Well, here's worship again.
First it was in the house, now it's in the ship.
What a wonderful picture it is.
Of a little group of people.
We read in this 45th Psalm, that anointed him with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
We have fellowship as brethren.
But we have fellowship.
With the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
But here it's really a picture of fellowship together as brethren. And they worshiped him and and knew that Jesus was the Son of God.
Now let's go to chapter 15, the next one.
Chapter 15.
Verse 8.
The Lord.
Talking.
To those.
Pharisees, Scribes says to them.
This people 15-8 This people who draw it nigh unto me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men.
There's only one way of worship, and that's God's way.
There's only one assembly, and it's not a voluntary assembly. There's no such thing as voluntary association in the things of God.
In the last chapter of this book they found him at the place where he had appointed them.
Where will thou that we prepare? The Lord chooses the place.
We have no rights in this whatsoever.
It's of God.
Men have set up.
Hundreds.
Thousands of voluntary associations and call them churches.
It's not of God.
Well, how are we going to learn verse 10? He called the multitude and said to them, hear and understand.
Now let's go to verse 13. It's quite important, He answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. The Lord becomes a planter.
In this gospel on the breakdown came in Israel that vine.
That fig tree. That olive tree.
That was cut down and withered.
The Lord begins a new thing.
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Many souls in the 13th chapter and you have the Kingdom of heaven and he shows the good seed.
And the enemy comes along shows the bad seed.
Every plant.
Which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.
It's only that of the Lord's planting that goes through, that endures and brings fruit.
Now we go to the 16th chapter.
And we find that the Lord begins another thing.
The 16th chapter In the 16th verse Simon Peter answered and said thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Oh what a foundation this is. That was the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven. Peter, you got that by hearing and understanding what God has taught you. That's the way we get it too.
Then he says in verse 18, I say unto thee, that thou art Peter. A little stone, just a Little Rock, a little Pebble, like the boys throat.
And upon this rock, which is Christ, 1St Corinthians 10.
They drank of that rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ. Upon this rock the confessions downward to Christ the Son of the living God, I will build my church.
That's the only church there is in God's sight. It's what Christ builds.
It is all reality because it goes on and says the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The gates of hell got into the first creation.
We're part of the first creation, we had to be redeemed, we're a part of the new creation, and we have eternal life that will go on and on when we get into that city of the living God.
That heavenly Jerusalem.
Sin will never enter it.
He read of the wall of that city in the 21St of Revelation Exceeding High.
God is telling us that sin will never get in there.
How firm is our foundation?
Now this is what Christ does. Now we'll go to chapter 18 and give a little resume of it.
Because the next time we have the church mentioned is in this 18th chapter.
And it surrounds the 20th verse where you have where two or three are gathered together in my name. There am I, in the midst of them, the promise of the Lord Jesus.
This is a very important verse.
And we see that it's not a voluntary association.
There is a power to gather here.
Men have nothing to do with it in effect.
The Lord is building His church using the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. He's gone up on high and serving as our faithful and merciful high priest. He sent the Spirit down here to get the bride, and He's getting them.
Living stoned by living stones in the house.
And.
So.
It's where two or three are gathered together in my name. There am I in the midst of them.
He is there in that group that the Spirit of God has gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then in effect, he's telling us in this chapter that.
I'm going to turn responsibility over to you as men.
To maintain this position.
And it's going to take seven things. We'll just list them.
The 1St 5 verses take up humility.
You know, a person can be proud that he's humble, a voluntary humility that we're warned about in Colossians.
A truly humble person is a wonderful person to be with, and it's wonderful that God points us to little children about that. Then the next thing is self judgment. These things are necessary to maintain a people in association with Him as gathered through the Lord's name. And these qualities are found in that company, not as brightly as they ought to be, but they are there.
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Humility and then self judgment.
And then caring for the sheep. How blessed a work that is.
That little Sunday school this morning, he cares for the sheep and he permits us to enter into that, to have that privilege.
As under shepherds to care for the sheep, then you know little things come up.
Like between aureus and synteke.
And they were besought to be of the same mind as wonderful. It could just stop there. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Oh, that humble person, that meek and lowly person. If we can have the mind of Christ, offenses won't go. They just won't even come.
But there's a way to take care of them.
And it gets real serious because of our.
Selfishness.
Our hard hearts.
Our independence, our wanting our own way.
And others have to be brought in and help gotten from others, the two or three.
Seeking to bring into reconciliation to have the offenses taken care of.
And then last of all, the church comes in.
I think this is the most humbling thing you can think about.
That were so bad at times that the local assembly has to get involved in it.
And so there's power to take care of it.
Oh, the power that's there.
Where two or three are gathered together under my name, in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
And so authority is put here in verse 18. I say on you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, Whatsoever he shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Sealed just like that sail of Esau who despised his birth rate.
Sold it to his brother and God recognized it.
Let Israel go, my first born.
You know, if I give up the truth, God is going to have somebody else to take it in.
That's the reason it says.
To Philadelphia, pull that fast which thou hast that no man take thy crown. If I don't get my crown, God's going to give it to somebody else, yours too, just to hold fast. That's what you have to go on for God.
And whether it's power to regulate things.
And then there comes in prayer.
This is another characteristic of those gathered the Lord's name.
And then we have the divine center, the Lord, in the midst of those who are gathered to His name.
So the Lord has made a provision.
And it looks on down to the age in which you and I live.
It wasn't quite so necessary.
Even in the days of currents, it was necessary. Then of course it was.
But it wasn't as necessary It is now.
They're talking about dissension and they were ready to come, but they were still all together.
And when the exercise, discipline and the power of the Lord in the midst when he was there.
In one Corinthians 5, four brethren, power is there in the name of the Lord, because the Lord is there.
And when he puts a decision, it stands.
It's a dreadful thing to fight against.
What comes out of an assembly?
No matter.
How we may think some have misbehaved in that assembly.
Even Gamaliel had more sense than to do that. If this worked, be of God you cannot.
Fight against it. Let's happily be found even to fight against God. Now God is in the midst of the person of the Lord Jesus.
And by the Spirit and when they put a decision.
In Acts 15 there were bad doctrine. It had to go back up where it originated in Jerusalem and had to be taken care of by the apostles and elders.
God uses the older brothers.
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The apostles and elders and the decision began to come out of that.
Meeting of the brothers, the apostles and elders.
By Peter himself.
We are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone.
We don't have apostles in it now, but we do have elders.
And so.
They worked it out very well, but they had to pronounce a decision which was contrary to their Jewish way of thinking, and they did it in the power of the Holy Spirit. When they got done with it, they say it seemed too good unto us and the Holy Spirit to put upon the Gentiles none of the burden, and so on.
Well, the power is there to take care of these things, because the Lord is there.
And at the present time.
There are those that are telling us that Matthew 18.
Doesn't apply that this is not the church.
It is. It is the church.
If somebody jumps off the foundation, don't let them drag you off.
This is foundation truth built upon Christ the Rock.
This is not voluntary association. This is what God has.
Been able to maintain because of our failure in great weakness. We have gotten down to twos and threes literally in many places.
But like Paul's evident used to say to us.
Said I'm a 0.
EUR 0.
And the other person says zero. That's three zeros, but you put a big one in front of it, you've got 1000.
Now that's the Lord in the midst. He's everything.
Until there's no lack of power.
But we do get.
Trouble.
And there is a danger of a root of bitterness springing up and thereby many be defiled. We've had that.
So the last part of the chapter takes up forgiveness.
Let's read it personally because we haven't time to go into it.
And so.
The Lord is in the midst in verse 20.
And forgiveness is provided for brotherly forgiveness.
Let's be ready to forgive, to bear and the forebear.
Then we'll go on to the last chapter.
And conclude with worship as we find it.
In the end of Matthew's Gospel.
Think it's choice, but Matthew's Gospel begins with worship. It has worship in the middle and has worship at the end. May we spend our life that way, beginning and going right on through and ending up as worshippers in the place where the Lord has put his name. And brethren, there aren't two places like that.
I'll give you 2 verses. I want you to look at them.
First Corinthians.
Chapter One.
These are conclusive verses for me.
To agree with what we have heard in these meetings that.
Christ presents himself.
Only in one place.
And that's where, by the Spirit of God.
Those people are gathered.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the question arises in verse 13. Which is enough for me? Is Christ divided? Impossible. Impossible. Our God is one. He's the living God. Christ is God indivisible.
Now go to Second Timothy, chapter 2.