Psalm 45 Publications

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Jesus: The Savior From Satan’s Bonds – Mark 9:14-29

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Introduction: Bondage to Satan Then and Now

Last time, we looked at the account of Jairus and the woman with the flow of blood, and saw the compassion of Jesus, and his readiness to heal the hurts of all who come to him, however weak they may be. This week, we will examine another account that likewise has its fullest expression in Mark’s gospel, which affirms the point we made, that Jesus is willing to heal the very weakest and most trembling of souls; but it also adds these further points, that he both can and will heal even when it is not just sickness, but the devil’s chains that bind the soul, and even when his own disciples have been unable, and the case seems beyond hope. If anyone has been so enchained by a devilish snare of unconquered sin, despair at some inexplicable disease, or anything else at all, that he feels beyond the reach of any salvation, then God grant that this account may stir up even a mustard seed of faith to topple the soaring mountains of unbelief, and cast them into the sea. Continue Reading

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Jesus: The Healer of Human Hurts

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INTRODUCTION

In the past months at Trinity Church, we have spent much time in the Old Testament, and have found it very abundant in gospel riches. In Proverbs, we have seen in the manifold wisdom of God a portrait of One through whom and for whom the worlds were made, who would be sent down for our salvation and sanctification. In Isaiah, we learned that the God who from the beginning speaks the entire course of history into existence has spoken the promise of eternal redemption for his people in Immanuel, who would be born of the virgin. In Hosea was a portrait of the utterly faithful Bridegroom of an unworthy bride, whose resurrection power would vivify his people; and most recently, in Micah, we have discovered that God’s unchanging desire for mercy would one day spring forth from little Bethlehem-Ephratah. These, as all the other scriptures, are richly satisfying pastures, because they point the faithful reader to One whose origins are from of old and whose coming forth to his people wrought eternal salvation and unending glory to God. But this means that the only value the precious promises of the Old Testament have is encapsulated in the Gospels, which bring them all to fruition, accomplish all their promises, and make their coffers burst beyond any bounds that prophets and holy men of old could possibly have conceived of. Continue Reading

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The Fullness of the Law Provides the Gospel – Matthew 5:17-20 (Second Sermon)

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I. The Goodness of the Law and the Weakness of the Flesh

As we looked into this central text of the Sermon on the Mount last week, we learned, even as the apostle Paul would express it, that the Law is holy, and just, and good (Rom. 7:12); and that Christ in no wise came to abolish it, but rather to establish it forever, in all its fullness. If we would enter the Kingdom of heaven, we must have a measure of the righteousness which the Law prescribes that exceeds the external righteousness of the pharisees. We must not only obey the Law, but we must obey it in all its fullness, in a way that is consonant with the very heart of the Law, viz., to love God supremely and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Continue Reading

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The Fullness of the Law Demands the Gospel – Matthew 5:17-20 (First Sermon)

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Of all the prophets in Israel’s history, the greatest was certainly Moses, who spoke with God face-to-face (see Deut. 34:10-12); and of the teaching ministry of Moses, the great climax was the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai (Ex. 20). This event was the most solemn and fearful in all the history of God’s people, and was attended with thick smoke, and thunders and lightnings, so that all the people were terrified, and even Moses said, “I quake with exceeding fear” (Heb. 12:18-21); and furthermore, it testified against the people terrible threats of judgment if they failed to observe its statutes (Deut. 28:15-68). And yet, God did not leave his people without comfort, in that, before uttering the decalogue, he reminded them of his Covenant of Grace that he had made with their fathers, and of his great work of redemption that they had just seen with their own eyes, when he took them by the hand to lead them through the Red Sea (Ex. 20:1-2). Also, he was pleased to typify for their assurance the substitutionary work of the coming Lamb of God more clearly than ever before, in the intricate rituals of the ceremonial laws. Continue Reading

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Strangers in a Hostile Land – 1 Peter 2:11

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Throughout the first epistle of Peter, the apostle is addressing a group of believers who are manifestly different from the citizens of the lands in which they find themselves compelled to live, and who are therefore misunderstood, maligned, and persecuted. Although at one time these believers were at home in their places of earthly residence, they have now been vastly transformed by the great power of the gospel. They were formerly not a people of God, but have now become a people (2:10). They had been full of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander, but were now constrained as newborn infants to desire something altogether different, that is, the true milk of the Word of God (2:1). In times past they had carried out the will of the Gentiles, giving themselves over to debauchery, sensuality, drunkenness, idolatry, etc., but that time has all passed, and now their former compatriots consider them strange and alien, and mock and slander them, because they no longer do those wicked things (4:-3-4; 1:14). Because of this great change, they who had once been citizens of this world, and loved by their own, and partners with them in this world’s lusts, are now exiles and sojourners, whether in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, or any other place they may live (1:1-3). Hence, Peter exhorts them to live in accordance with their new character as temporary pilgrims in this world, and not according to their former futile ways (1:17-18). Continue Reading

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The Greatness of the Love of Christ – Ephesian 3:14-19

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At the beginning of the third chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul begins to formulate an intercessory prayer for the church in Ephesus, upon the basis of the rich truths of the gospel which he had just been revealing to them in the first two chapters; but before he is able to express his prayer, he is drawn aside again to the greatness of the gospel mystery, and exults in the message which he has been entrusted with bringing to the Gentiles. This message is the gospel of the unsearchable riches of Christ, which in their depths and expansiveness had been hidden from the previous ages, but were finally being made known to all the world, viz., how all the nations of men, according to God’s eternal purpose, were now being brought in to become full heirs of all the promises made to the saints, and how they had even more direct access to God the Father, and boldness to approach him such as even Abraham and Moses and other great men of God had never known. It is Paul’s joy and passion to proclaim so great a gospel to every creature under heaven, not just so that many sinful men could come to know the free grace and boundless goodness of God, but so that, through this Church of redeemed sinners, the infinite and manifold wisdom of God might be displayed even before the highest angels and authorities in all creation. Continue Reading

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The Superiority of Christ – Hebrews 1:1-4

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In his letter to the Hebrews, the author goes to some lengths to describe the superior position, and the many greater blessings and assurances, that God’s people enjoy today, which their fathers did not possess to nearly so great a degree; and everywhere throughout the letter, he makes considerable effort to show how that superior position is founded upon the coming of an eminently superior person, and in consequence of the eminently superior office which he has entered into. In the first four verses of his letter, which in the original comprise a single introductory sentence, he accordingly lays out the basic premise which will take the rest of the letter to unfold, viz., that God has never dealt so well with the saints before the coming of Christ as he has with those who lived afterward; and that the coming of Christ itself is the sole factor by which this latter superiority of blessedness has come about. From these verses, we may derive the two following heads of doctrine:

1. That the dispensation and gifts of God to mankind are better in this age than in all ages previous, by as much as that which is perfect is better than that which is desultory and incomplete;

2. That the sole reason for this culminative advance in blessedness is the coming of the eternal Son of God, and his entering into his redemptive office.

Both of these propositions in turn we will now demonstrate by an examination of the text before us. Continue Reading