This morning will be a preliminary and introductory word to the main message of this conference. I want to strike the keynote to which all the hours will be tuned.
It arises out of the psalm which we have read, Psalm 118, which I would like you to have before you as we meditate.
The real title of this is The Passover Hosanna Psalm, and its theme is enlargement through adversity.
Martin Luther called this his psalm. He said, “That is my psalm,” and I think his life is a very good commentary upon the psalm. We know why he made it his psalm. Indeed, he might have been the originator of it; so true was his life to the word that is here.
There are two things which make this psalm live, because really it was born of experience. There is behind it a very deep history in two connections.
In the first place, this psalm, no one seems to know whether adapted or composed for the occasion, was connected with the Passover after the dedication of the second temple.
Most of you are acquainted with the history of the second temple. You have to turn, in that connection, to the Book of Ezra, and alongside of it the Book of Nehemiah, and then to the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah. When you read those four books, you have the setting of Psalm 118.
Read verses 5 to 16 again in the light of that. If you have any knowledge of those books, you will see what light is thrown upon these verses.
Take a fragment:
All nations compassed me about:
In the name of the Lord I will cut them off.
They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about:
In the name of the Lord I will cut them off.
Turn to Ezra 4:9-10. There you have a whole host of nations—and they are called nations there—the names of which can tie your tongue in knots very quickly. All gathered against Ezra and the building of the second temple. They compassed him about; all nations compassed him about. They compassed him about like bees.
Thus this description of adversity and opposition gives this psalm a very real, practical connection and application. In the building and dedication of that temple by a remnant which had escaped from captivity and returned to the land with that object in view, certain things spring into view.
If this psalm is the account or description of things as they were then, it is indeed the story of life out of death. We can understand the nation speaking in this personal way. You must remember that the “I” and the “me,” repeated in this 118th psalm, are the personification of the remnant, or of the nation. It is as though the nation were speaking as an individual; it is a collective “I.”
The nation is saying:
The Lord hath chastened me sore;
But He hath not given me over unto death.
I shall not die, but live,
And declare the works of the Lord.
That remnant, speaking in these words, embodies this great truth of life out of death, and life triumphant over death.
The Lord had told His people, before He sent them into exile and captivity, that He would open their graves and bring them out. Here they are, out of that grave of captivity—a grievous one.
There is no singing in the grave. “The dead praise Thee not” is a phrase of Scripture, and how true it was away there:
We hung our harps upon the willows.
How shall we sing the Lord’s song
In a strange land?
But the dead praise Thee not. Listen:
Oh give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good;
For His lovingkindness endureth for ever.
Four times repeated at the very beginning of the psalm, and then added as a crown at the end: a new song, a resurrection song. So the psalm, to begin with, is that of life out of death.
Then clearly it is a release from bondage. These people are rejoicing in that aspect of their position. By the lovingkindness of the Lord, they are reminded of this great deliverance.
You will see here in the psalm references to, and quotations from, the Book of Exodus: the great deliverance from Egypt. They bring the two together—deliverance from Egypt and deliverance from Babylon. Deliverance from Egypt is always, in Scripture terms, deliverance from the house of bondage: “Out of the house of bondage.”
Then the psalm is a release from bondage.
Brought right into the rebuilding of the second temple, you can see how these nations, represented by the people who had been brought into Samaria by the Persian authorities, made trouble in the rebuilding of the wall. They were pressing on every side. What a time Israel had! How those prophets suffered!
Indeed, the work was held up for more than a decade by reason of this opposition and adversity all around. But the point is: the temple was built and dedicated, and this psalm was sung at the dedication, or at the Passover which followed the dedication of the temple.
So the psalm says, in effect: “All right, let them do their worst. Let them press from every side. Let them oppose as they will. The thing is done. The Lord has done it in spite of everything, and we are out.”
The Lord answered me, and set me in a large place.
From death to life, from bondage to liberty, from limitation to enlargement—into a large place.
This represented a tremendous thing on the Lord’s part. Consider all that the Lord had to overcome. Of course, it is putting it wrongly to say that the Lord ever has to cope with anything; He is so supremely superior to every situation. Yet what happened against His people was no small thing.
To bring them out into this enlargement meant the overcoming of tremendous difficulties:
Thou causedst men to ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water;
But Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.
It is a psalm of triumph over limitation, bringing into enlargement.
As we have pointed out, it is so clearly the song of God’s faithfulness over His people’s unfaithfulness.
The version from which I have read uses the word “lovingkindness.” The version which perhaps you are using says, “His mercy endureth for ever.” God’s lovingkindness! I think there is a note about that in the margin.
When you think of the failure and unfaithfulness of His own people, what a story it is all the way along—and then right through the lives of the major prophets and the minor prophets. What a story of unfaithfulness and failure!
It would seem that, if ever the mercy of God, the lovingkindness of God, could have been exhausted, that would have been the case with these people. So terrible were their reactions to the mercy of God; how far they went against the Lord.
But here, in the end—and this is the end of the Old Testament period in which we are moving, with Nehemiah, the last book of the Old Testament in historical order—we have this great note: “His lovingkindness endureth for ever.”
These were people who knew what they were talking about when they used that language. It was not merely poetry or sentiment:
His mercy endureth for ever.
It is there for us—a tremendous consolation. We know our weakness. We know our unfaithfulness. We know how we have failed, and do fail, the Lord.
The end of the story is: “His lovingkindness endureth for ever.”
Well, you see, it is the experience—and out of the experience, the testimony—of a people who had proved the Lord to be faithful over against their own failure and unfaithfulness, and over against all that men could do against them. No wonder Luther said, “That is my psalm.”
But there is something even more than that. The second thing about this psalm is that it is believed to have been the psalm sung by the Lord Himself and His disciples on the Passover night.
I used to say, “I wish I knew what it was they sang,” when it says that after the supper, when they had sung a hymn, they went out. I used to say, “I wonder what it was they sang. I should like to know.”
I discovered that it is very strongly believed, on very good grounds, that this was the psalm they sang—the Lord Jesus and His disciples singing it with Him.
There is no doubt that this psalm is, very largely, if not altogether, related to the Lord Jesus, because it is quoted immediately in connection with Him in several places in the New Testament.
Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord:
We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord.
The title of the psalm is not based upon the incident of the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem—what we call Palm Sunday—when they cut down palms and went before Him singing out of this psalm:
Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord:
We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord.
Not based upon that incident, but on other grounds, the psalm is called the Passover Hosanna Psalm:
Hosanna to the Son of David:
Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.
That is related to the Lord Jesus and taken out of this psalm in part.
Then, on several occasions in the New Testament, the words are quoted:
The stone which the builders rejected
Is become the head of the corner.
This is the Lord’s doing;
It is marvellous in our eyes.
The Lord Jesus Himself used that concerning Himself. Peter used it concerning Christ. So this is, in a large sense, what is called a Messianic psalm. It is related to the Lord Jesus.
Now, if the Lord did sing this psalm on that dark night of the Passover, after the betrayal was arranged, look again. What a triumph of faith!
I shall not die, but live,
And declare the works of the Lord.
In faith, He has met the trial. He has met the Cross right through into the resurrection: “I shall not die.” What a triumphant faith!
What meaning this gives to Gethsemane. The supper is over:
This is My body which is for you.
This is My blood, which is shed for the remission of sins.
And they sing the hymn. After the hymn, the next thing is:
Bind the sacrifice with cords,
Even unto the horns of the altar.
At once, they bound Him. They bound Him and led Him away from the garden. But His interpretation of that binding was: “Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.” Not tied on the altar by the horns, but bound and being led toward the altar. That is the meaning: bind and lead to the altar.
It puts a new light upon Gethsemane, does it not? Upon the bond, the cords. This is not man prevailing. This is not man overcoming. This is not man’s triumph. This is the Son of God allowing Himself to be led to the altar.
That is the next thing after singing:
Bind the sacrifice with cords,
Even unto the horns of the altar.
And forthwith He goes next to Gethsemane, next to the betrayal, next to the judgment hall, and next to the Cross. But there is the divine side of all this. You see, taking hold of all this human side as men regard and interpret it, and turning it into the redemption of the world.
Then verse 5 again:
Out of my distress I called upon the Lord:
The Lord answered me and set me in a large place.
Are these words of the Lord Jesus? Yes: “Out of My distress I cry, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.’”
My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I drink it, Thy will be done.
“In My distress I cry.” Although it does not seem that the Lord answered and delivered, an apostle says that He was heard. How do we have proof that He was heard and answered?
The Lord answered me, and set me in a large place.
A large place—yes, a very large place indeed. Oh, how enlarged is our Lord through His Cross! “How am I straitened until it be accomplished!” What was the enlargement? The release from limitation, and the being put into a large place: enlargement through suffering.
It is the voice of faith. He is represented here as going to the Cross, and faith goes beyond the grave and claims the answer of life, not death; enlargement, not limitation.
We could dwell for a long time upon the enlargement which has come to the Lord Jesus through suffering. I think we shall speak much about that, possibly, in these days.
Here is the message, all leading up to its larger application. Here again, how the testimony is to the mercy of God.
This is the point I made a few minutes ago: this “I” is an inclusive and collective “I.” In the first place, it is the nation speaking in this personal way, using this personal pronoun, “I.” Now it is taken up in relation to the Lord Jesus: “I shall not die.”
But, you see, it is not just personal. We know that the Lord Jesus had no need to go to the Cross for Himself.
It has often been pointed out that those words used later by an apostle—
Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,
Despising shame,
And hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
—should be translated, “Who instead of the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising shame.” It takes you to the Mount of Transfiguration.
The Mount of Transfiguration was the seal to the perfection of His moral character. There is no transfiguration or glorification apart from moral perfection. God gave Him the great witness that He was perfect, that He saw no fault in Him.
He had passed the scrutiny of the eyes of divine holiness, and there was not a flaw or blemish in Him. He was perfect. Therefore, He had a right to go right through to glory.
On the Mount of Transfiguration, the glory was His. It was declared to be His; it was His by right. The joy was set before Him. He turned round and came down, and endured the Cross.
Look at the context of those words and you will see why. It was all because of us. He was not going to glory without us, bringing many sons to glory. This necessitated His coming down and, for the time being, foregoing His immediate right to glory and enduring the Cross.
Yes, to bring us. In that letter to the Hebrews, you know how it is put into the mouth of the Lord Himself:
Behold, I and the children whom God hath given Me.
Well, you see now this glorious psalm, with its background in the life of the Lord Jesus, gathers us in by the Cross of the Lord Jesus. We are in this collective “I.” We come into the good of this:
I shall not die, but live.
The Lord answered me, and set me in a large place.
Well, it is true, is it not? It is true. We have got that life triumphant over death. He has given that life to us.
Not only in that general way—“the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”—but as a testimony for all our lives, something for now, something which has come out of death, even His death, and has overcome death in Him, is for us.
Do not lose the force of that by familiarity. It is to be a testimony every day. Yes, the life which is in Christ has to be experienced and manifested every day, and it can be.
But then, upon this, we shall grow to know much more fully what enlargement we have in Christ. Oh, how great is the place into which we have been brought! How immeasurable the resources, how vast are the ranges, how potent are the forces into which we have come in Christ through His Cross.
Then I close by just reminding you of this. The whole is concluded in Him. Where He is concerned, there is nothing more to be done in this matter. It is full and final, and He has entered into His rest, has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens.
Nothing through which we go can add to that. Nothing which we experience can take from it.
Nevertheless, in a sense—not vicariously, not atoningly, not in the sense of His great redemptive work, but in the sense of fellowship with Him—while in this world He is still rejected and in humiliation, the principle still remains: life and enlargement come through adversity.
I am serious. It is a law of life. Adversity issues, with Him, in life and enlargement. We shall see, hopefully, how true that is. But it is very true—very true.
The Bible is full of that principle. Real tests of faith, much adversity and opposition, everything hemming in and circling around:
All nations compassed me about:
They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about.
You see, it is reiterated. It is very real. Nevertheless, it is not an approach to challenge faith; faith looks upon that as its opportunity.
Friends, faith comes out in this declaration over against all that and says:
I shall not die, but live,
And declare the works of the Lord.
Faith makes that declaration. That is the highway to a new experience of life, and a new range, a fullness, an enlargement—enlargement by way of faith’s challenge.