Psalm 84: The Kings House

[0:00] If you could, this evening, with the Lord's help, turn to Psalm 84. Book of Psalms, Psalm 84.

[0:13] And we'll just read again verse 1. Psalm 84, verse 1. The psalmist declares, How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!

[0:27] How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! Out of our 150 psalms, hymns and spiritual songs which have been gifted to us in the form of the book of Psalms, it's inevitable that there are some that we would describe as our favourite.

[0:52] Not that we would consider them more important or more inspired than any other part of Scripture or any other psalm. But there are particular psalms that stand out above the rest.

[1:05] Simply because of their beautiful use of language, their uplifting words, and the way in which they just resonate with us. They are precious to us. And without doubt, Psalm 84 is one of them.

[1:20] It's a favourite with many of the Lord's people. Maybe it's your favourite. But it was Spurgeon who said in his treasury of David, he said about Psalm 84, he said, This sacred ode is one of the choicest of the collection.

[1:36] It is a mild radiance about it, entitling it to be called the Pearl of Psalms. If the 23rd is the most popular, the 103rd the most joyful, the 119th the most deeply experimental, the 51st the most plaintive, And this is one of the most sweet of the psalms of peace.

[2:03] And I think Spurgeon captures the feeling of many of the Lord's people when he calls Psalm 84 the Pearl of Psalms. Because it truly is a pearl.

[2:16] A pearl which we often sing and meditate upon and set our face towards because it's a psalm which we can relate to. It's a psalm which describes our experience.

[2:27] It's a psalm which describes the longing, the deep desire that the Lord's people have in their heart when they consider the house of God.

[2:40] And with a psalm such as this one, we cannot help but view it in this two-fold light. Because it speaks about the now and the not yet.

[2:52] The now and the not yet. Because for the child of God, there are two dwelling places that we would refer to as lovely dwelling places. The dwelling place, of course, here, of the Lord's house.

[3:06] And the dwelling place of this life where we gather in his presence to worship him and to learn more about the Lord day by day. And there's also the place of many mansions, the not yet.

[3:20] The place of many mansions which we long for, which we are journeying towards. It's there that we will worship the Lord evermore and we will continue to learn about him more and more throughout the ages of eternity.

[3:35] And so for the Christian, there are two dwelling places which are lovely dwelling places. And that's the way in which we ought to view this psalm. That it speaks about the lovely dwelling place of God's house now and not yet.

[3:49] In the future. But as with many of the psalms, they employ the technical term, which I'm sure you noticed, the term selah. A word which we can often overlook, but it's actually an important word because it's telling us and stopping us in our tracks and saying that we are to exalt, we are to praise the Lord.

[4:10] And it's telling us to stop and consider what has just been said. And by considering what the psalmist is saying, it should cause us to exalt the Lord and praise him for his wondrous works.

[4:26] And as we can see from looking at this pearl in Psalm 84, the psalmist divides this psalm into three sections with the use of the word selah in verse 4 and then again in verse 8.

[4:41] And he does so in order to highlight, highlight for us three things which are blessed. Three things which are blessed. He tells us that the Lord's house, first of all, is the blessed place.

[4:55] The blessed place. In verse 4 he says, blessed are they that dwell in thy house. They will still be praising thee, selah. Then he points out to us that those who travel to the Lord's house are blessed pilgrims.

[5:11] They're blessed pilgrims because he says in verse 5, blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, in whose heart are the ways of them, or in whose heart is their pilgrimage.

[5:23] And then the psalmist concludes this pearl psalm with a prayer that everyone who trusts in the Lord is blessed. It's a blessed prayer. He says in verse 12, O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusts in thee.

[5:38] And so the psalmist sets before us a blessed place, a blessed, blessed pilgrims, and a blessed prayer. Blessed place, a blessed, blessed pilgrims, and the blessed prayer.

[5:51] So if we look first of all at the blessed place. The blessed place. He says, How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yea, even faints for the courts of the Lord.

[6:04] My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Yea, the sparrow has found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine own altar.

[6:16] O Lord of hosts, my King and my God, blessed are they that dwell in thy house. They will still be praising thee. Selah. And in these opening words, the psalmist expresses his longing, his earnest desire, which was to be in the house of the Lord.

[6:35] To be in the temple, with the Lord's people, worshipping the Lord. And as he declares, he says himself, that those who dwell in the house of the Lord, they are blessed.

[6:48] They are blessed. They are a privileged people. They are a people who receive the blessing of the Lord. And the psalmist longs to be in the place of blessing, because that's where the King is.

[7:00] That's where the King is. That's where his King is. Because in these opening verses, the psalmist describes who he is longing to see. And he refers to the Lord with all of these different names.

[7:15] He says, the Lord of hosts, the Lord, the living God, the Lord of hosts. And then he says, my King, at the end of verse 3, my King, and my God. And that's what the psalmist is declaring us.

[7:27] He's declaring that he's longing to be in the presence of his King. He desires to be in the palace of his King. Because that's where the blessing is.

[7:40] That's the place of blessing. The place of blessing is in the presence of the King. And this is significant because, I've probably mentioned to you this before, that the word bless is a loyal term, which literally means to kneel.

[7:59] In the sense of kneeling before a King, in reverence and honour. And the image which the word bless seeks to portray to us, it's the image of a King standing up from his throne.

[8:13] And those who are in the King's presence before him, they are kneeling. They're all kneeling to receive something from the gracious hand of the King.

[8:26] And what they're receiving from the hand of the King, is something that they don't deserve. And yet the King is graciously and freely giving to them what they don't deserve.

[8:38] He is blessing them. He's conferring upon them what they couldn't earn or manufacture for themselves. Because it only comes from the gracious and merciful hand of the King.

[8:50] And the psalmist knows that the blessed place, the place of blessing is to be found in the presence of the King. And that's why his longing is to be there.

[9:02] His desire is to be in the temple. And that's what he emphasises and re-emphasises all the way through the psalm, where he gives all these descriptions of the dwelling place to which he longs for.

[9:17] He calls it at the very beginning, the lovely dwelling place of God, the courts of the Lord. He says, the house of God, your house, your courts, the house of my God.

[9:29] And all these descriptions. And the psalmist is clear that he wants to be in the Lord's presence, praising Him and thanking Him and experiencing His blessing.

[9:41] That's his longing. That's his longing. And he says in verse 2, he goes on to say, My soul longs. Yes, even faints.

[9:53] Faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. And in that one verse, in verse 2, the psalmist gives this threefold description of his entire being.

[10:09] He says, My soul, my heart, my flesh, it's all crying out for the living God. He's saying to us, there's not one part of me that doesn't want to be in the king's house and in the place of blessing.

[10:24] My whole being longs. It faints to be in your dwelling place. And he longs to be there because he has this spiritual hunger and this intense desire to be in the place of blessing.

[10:40] And the psalmist's deep desire was such that he even envied the sparrows and the swallows. Those who made their home near the altar of the Lord.

[10:53] Because he says, The sparrow has found a house, to swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.

[11:05] And in these words, the psalmist considers two of the most insignificant birds. Small birds, insignificant, and yet he has envy towards them because they have found the Lord's house to be a place of shelter and refuge.

[11:23] Even the sparrows and the swallows have found the king's house to be a place of blessing. And yet he is still to get to the Lord's house. We don't know what it was that was holding him back.

[11:36] Maybe he's speaking about his pilgrimage, which he'll go on to talk about later on. But he's longing to be in the Lord's house. And he knew that the sparrow and the swallow would have made their dwelling place in the Lord's lovely dwelling place.

[11:54] But what the psalmist portrays for us with this imagery of the sparrow and the swallow is this beautiful picture of how the psalmist felt. Because a sparrow was a bird which was considered to be almost worthless.

[12:11] Almost worthless. Young boys in Jerusalem would often try and catch sparrows. And they would sell two of them. Sell two of them together for only a penny.

[12:25] Which was the least amount of money. In our currency and in their currency. Smallest and least valuable copper coin. And yet he says, the sparrow has found a home near God's altar.

[12:38] And the psalmist, in his own self-estimation, he says that he is worthless even than the sparrow. Because he hasn't found a home in the palace of the king.

[12:52] He hasn't reached there yet. And that's how we can often feel. We can feel so worthless, so insignificant to God when maybe we're looking around us and seeing others being blessed by the Lord.

[13:07] But we're not. But don't you just love what Jesus says about viewing ourselves as worthless and insignificant?

[13:18] Because in Matthew 10, Jesus gives his view of us. His view of us. He says, are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin?

[13:31] And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your father's will. Therefore do not fear. You are of more value than many sparrows.

[13:42] You are of more value than many sparrows. You're not worthless. You're not insignificant to the king. You are precious and valuable. Precious and valuable.

[13:54] But then he goes on in the description to give the description of a swallow. The sparrow was the image of worthlessness. The swallow, the image of restlessness.

[14:08] Because, if you're a keen bird watcher, which I'm not, you'll know that the swallow is always in the air. The swallow is always in the air. Always flying from point to point to point.

[14:19] Never idle. Flies all day long. From the earliest moment in the dawn till after sunset. This bird is always restless. Always on the go.

[14:31] But, when the time comes for the swallow to mate and to raise its young, the swallow settles down. And it finds a resting place. And it does so by building a nest and preparing the way for her young.

[14:48] And interesting, the swallows make their nest in large, open-fronted buildings, such as barns and stables, or, in this case, the temple.

[14:59] And once the nest is built, the swallow settles down to rest peacefully in the home which she has made for herself. And the psalmist knows that even the swallow is more blessed than him.

[15:11] Because the swallow has made her nest in the temple of the Lord, near the altar of the Lord. But he is still restless. He is still longing.

[15:22] He is still wanting to be in the house of the Lord. He is still going from place to place to place, longing to get to the Lord's house. Because those who dwell in the house, he knows that they are blessed and they will ever give praise to the Lord.

[15:39] That's what he's saying. And, you know, the psalmist description, it's what every Christian should be like. Because as the Lord's people, as sons and daughters of the King, our desire ought to be that we dwell in the palace of the King.

[15:58] Our desire ought to be in the place where we are reminded that we are not worthless like the sparrow. But in Christ, we have an inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled.

[16:11] But also our desire ought to be that we are restless like the sparrow with this longing to be in the Lord's house in the place of blessing, praising the God of Zion.

[16:23] My friend, our longing should be to be here in the Lord's house. This is where the Lord meets with us and blesses us.

[16:34] And this place should be to us a lovely dwelling place. The place where we come unto Jesus and take his yoke upon us because his yoke is easy and his burden is light and it's in him that we'll find rest for our souls.

[16:55] We should have a longing to be here, whether on a Wednesday or on the Lord's day, our heart should burn within us in our desire to gather together and worship the Lord under the preaching of his word.

[17:09] And I always, I always go back to the words which the Lord spoke to Moses in Exodus 34. On that occasion when the Lord called Moses to come up the mount to meet him, to see him face to face.

[17:26] And in that beautiful chapter in Exodus 34, Moses was, he was going to hear the Lord preach to him. And the Lord was going to proclaim a message to Moses about his grace and his mercy towards him.

[17:41] But prior to Moses going up the mount to meet the Lord, the Lord said to Moses, be ready in the morning and come up the mount.

[17:52] Be ready in the morning and come up the mount. And those words always challenge him. They've always challenged me to be prepared coming to church.

[18:04] Be prepared coming to the Lord's house. Not half-hearted, not to come with your mind taken up with the world, not to come tired, but to focus upon the Lord.

[18:16] To come prepared, to come focused, to come expectant, wanting to be blessed by the Lord. Be ready in the morning and come up the mount.

[18:28] And I know that circumstances and providences in our lives can often factor into all these things where there's a lot going on at home, maybe in our own particular providence.

[18:38] I know that there are parents with young children, those who don't keep well, or those who are elderly that they're only thankful to get out to church at all. But what I worry, and it's becoming more and more common amongst the Lord's people, is that worship is only maybe a morning or an evening activity on the Lord's day because when it comes to worship, some take the liberty of having the morning off or they want a lazy day, a lie-in.

[19:08] They want to have, they've had such a busy week and they're too tired to come and worship the Lord. Too tired to thank the Lord. Too tired and unprepared for giving our best on the best day of the week.

[19:21] And if that's the case, then we need to ask ourselves, ask ourselves, what are our priorities? What are our priorities? Because if there's too much going on in our life during the week, to the point that we waste our time and the result is that we're too tired to come to this lovely dwelling place, then we are not making this dwelling place the lovely dwelling place that it ought to be in our heart.

[19:50] If we're not coming, if we're not prepared for the Lord's house, we're showing our lack of love for the Lord of his house. And my friend, if you feel tired, and I know how it feels, not ignorant of it, if you feel tired and you think that the prayer meeting is the last place you should go, that's what Satan will tell you.

[20:13] you'll wrestle all day long. I used to wake up, the first thing I thought about on a Wednesday morning, the prayer meeting. Don't think I should go today, too tired.

[20:25] No, not tonight. But even if you think that you'll get nothing, come. Come. come because even if you're too tired and pray that the Lord will give you something because this is the place of blessing.

[20:41] This is his dwelling place and you are always blessed when you come whether you've heard something or not. Whether it's in the singing, the reading, the prayers, or the preaching, you will be blessed.

[20:55] And even the benediction, the end of the service, it's the Lord's blessing pronounced upon you. To come and receive the Lord's blessing is better for you and more benefit for you than to stay at home and get nothing.

[21:13] My friend, I don't think we realise how privileged we are until this privilege is taken away from us. Until we can't come.

[21:25] Because what you often find with those who are housebound is that their longing is to be here. Maybe the slightest thing would keep us at home. But our longing and our desire ought to be in the place of blessing because blessed are they that dwell in thy house.

[21:42] They will still be praising thee, Selah. The blessed place. The blessed place. But secondly, we see the blessed pilgrims. The blessed pilgrims.

[21:53] He says in verse 5, Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee and whose heart are the ways of him. Who passing through the valley of Becah make it a well. The rain also fills the pools.

[22:05] They go from strength to strength. Every one of them in Zion appears before God. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob.

[22:17] Selah. In this section, we see that the psalmist begins by declaring what the blessing is. In the previous section, the psalmist emphasized the place to which he longed to go.

[22:29] It was the place of blessing. But now he draws our attention to the people or to the pilgrims which are blessed because they desire to get to the king's palace.

[22:42] And in the first section, he spoke about his longing to be in the dwelling place. But now he speaks about the journey towards the dwelling place. He speaks about his pilgrimage towards the Lord's house.

[22:56] And his longing is to get to the place of blessing. But he also knew that he was a blessed pilgrim because he had the privilege of going to the Lord's house.

[23:07] He was a blessed man. He was a blessed man. That's what he says. Blessed is the man. Blessed is the man. But the word which the psalmist uses to describe himself with when he says blessed is the man.

[23:24] It's not the common word which is used to describe a male. But it's the word used to describe all of mankind. It's the word Adam.

[23:36] Adam. This is significant because the psalmist is highlighting that the gracious and merciful blessing of the king is a blessing which is bestowed upon Adam and all of his descendants.

[23:49] He is speaking about the fallen race of humanity which sinned in Adam and fell with him in his first transgression. And he's saying Adam has been blessed.

[24:01] Adam has been mankind has been blessed. Those who are in Adam have received from the king what they didn't deserve. What they didn't deserve. They have been blessed.

[24:13] The king has conferred upon them what they couldn't earn or manufacture for themselves. They received the blessing from the Lord. This gracious and merciful hand of the king.

[24:28] And I find that's the difference between someone who is still in Adam and someone who is now in Christ. We are blessed. We are blessed.

[24:39] We have received from the king as Paul says every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ. And the result of that blessing is that our strength is in the Lord and no other.

[24:55] The result is that our strength is in the Lord and no other. We have come to see the blessedness of trusting in a faithful saviour. And it's a beautiful way of describing a Christian.

[25:11] Because what is the Christian like? The Christian is someone whose strength is in the Lord. And tonight our strength is in the Lord because we've come to see the brokenness and the weakness and the poverty of our own condition in Adam.

[25:31] And by the gracious hand of the king we have found strength in him. We found shelter and protection and a refuge in the Lord. We've made God our fortress in which you could say with Martin Luther a mighty fortress is our God a bulwark never failing our shelter here amid the floods of mortal ills prevailing.

[25:56] The Lord is my strength. He is my song. He has become my salvation. Christian. My friend what is a Christian?

[26:06] A Christian is someone whose strength is in the Lord and their heart is set on the pilgrimage. That's what he's saying. Our heart is fixed on the highway towards Zion.

[26:20] It's fixed on the highway. Our desire and our longing is to be in the dwelling place of the king of glory. And this is where I believe that the psalmist is referring to both the now and the not yet.

[26:36] Because his heart longs to be in Zion. It longs to be in the city of Jerusalem which was built upon Mount Zion. That's where the temple was. That's where the Lord was.

[26:47] That's where the Lord's presence was to be known and felt and experienced. But the psalmist knows that every spiritual pilgrim whose strength is in the Lord and whose heart is fixed upon the glory of Zion, he knows that they are travelling towards that new Jerusalem wherein dwelleth righteousness.

[27:12] And that's the desire of every pilgrim. That's the longing of the soul and the heart and the flesh of every pilgrim. It's to be in the courts of the Lord's house forevermore.

[27:24] people. But the psalmist very quickly brings us home to the reality that getting to the celestial city and getting to the king's palace is not an easy journey.

[27:42] It's a long way until the pilgrim reaches their destination and it's a journey, he says, not for the faint-hearted. You need to be committed. You need to keep persevering.

[27:53] You can't turn back. You need to keep going on towards your destination. And the psalmist points out to us that we may have the strength of the Lord.

[28:05] We may have been given the strength of the Lord but that doesn't make us immune to the pains and the sorrows of this journey. The strength of the Lord doesn't leave us continually on the mountaintop and excuse us from going through the valleys.

[28:22] No, the strength of the Lord he says is for the valley. The strength of the Lord is to keep us going in the valley. The strength of the Lord is to prevent us from turning back from the valley.

[28:35] The strength of the Lord is to help us pass through the valley. And what a valley it is because he says in verse 6 who passing through the valley of Baca, they make it a well.

[28:51] The rain also fills the pools. And in these words the psalmist describes the valley which is very familiar to every pilgrim in their journey on the highway to Zion.

[29:07] Because the valley of Baca was a valley which every pilgrim had to pass through in order to reach the destination of Zion. Every pilgrim had to go through.

[29:19] And the valley of Baca, it was a very perilous valley to pass through. It posed many dangers to the travelling pilgrim.

[29:30] And one feature of the valley of Baca was the exposure to the heat of the sun. Because the valley was a dry valley. It was a dry parched land in which the burning sun from above scorched the pilgrims.

[29:47] and it parched the ground beneath the pilgrim. And at the time of year that the pilgrims would be travelling towards Zion. And through this valley it was the only way to get to Zion.

[30:01] Was to pass through the valley of Baca. You had to pass through Baca's vale in order to reach the king's palace. And the pain and the hardship and the difficulties and the dangers and all the sufferings which this valley caused.

[30:17] the pilgrim as they journeyed towards their destination. That was the reason why it was named the valley of Baca. Because the name means the valley of weeping.

[30:30] The valley of weeping. And the image which the psalmist is creating for us is that through a veil of tears they will reach the king's palace. Through a veil of tears they will reach the king's palace.

[30:45] And how true is that? My friend that in order to reach the king's palace we must first of all pass through the valley of weeping.

[30:59] And I know that for some of you in particular this journey has really been to you a Baca's veil. Zion. Because in the heat of illness, pain or sorrow in your family while the heat of the day scorched you and the drought of the land left you parched.

[31:18] Maybe you were left saying my tears shall unto me be meet both in the night and day. Because this valley which you've had to pass through it wasn't a valley that you wanted to pass through.

[31:30] It's a valley that you never expected to encounter on your journey towards Zion. a valley which you didn't see coming and yet it's a valley which you know will bring you like the swallow to find your final resting place.

[31:49] But what's a beautiful pearl in this psalmist that the psalmist says, he says that it's in the valley of Baca that the Lord provides wells of living water and the rain fills those wells, those pools.

[32:05] Literally, when you read it in the original, the psalmist is speaking about wells of blessing. The wells of blessing, the word pools could be translated blessing.

[32:19] The blessing which is undeserved, but it comes from the gracious hand of the king, provided in the valley. What the psalmist is saying is that it was in the valley of weeping, contrary to all thought and everyone else's thinking.

[32:34] it's there that the pilgrim experiences the rain of God's blessing showering down upon them. And maybe that has been your experience as you journeyed towards the king's palace.

[32:50] That's the things in your life which caused you to weep so much. And they have been there and yet were it not for the veil of tears.

[33:03] You would never have experienced such blessing. And that despite all that has gone on in your providence there has still been blessing. Even in the midst of sorrow and sadness.

[33:16] And the psalmist says to us that every pilgrim must go through the valley of Beka. Everyone must pass through it because it's in the valley of tears that this pilgrim is brought to see his weakness and that his strength is in the Lord.

[33:35] And my dear Christian pilgrim the purpose of the valley is not to weaken our faith in the Lord but to strengthen it.

[33:47] Because it's in the valley says the psalmist it's in the valley that the pilgrims go from strength to strength. And at the end of their journey every single one of them he says every one of them appears before God in Zion.

[34:05] And that's the promise of scripture. It's through much tribulation we will enter the kingdom of God. Our cup is different.

[34:18] Everybody's cup is different. But that's what the psalmist is encouraging us. They go from strength to strength in the valley through the presence of the Lord and the blessing of the Lord.

[34:31] And it's Paul that says our light affliction and in Beacar's Vale it seems anything but light affliction.

[34:43] But says Paul it's but for a moment and it's working in us. Working in us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. because in our pilgrimage in the valley of tears we do not look at the things which are seen.

[35:00] No our eyes are towards the highway to Zion. And we are looking to the things that are unseen. The things that are unseen. Because the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal.

[35:17] And as the psalmist concludes this section he he prays to his faithful covenant God and he longs for him to hear his voice and he says O Lord God of hosts hear my prayer give ear O God of Jacob.

[35:33] Selah. The psalmist desires that the Lord will listen to his prayer for blessing. His prayer for blessing. Which brings us to the final section of the blessed prayer.

[35:47] We've seen the blessed place, the blessed pilgrim. And lastly and more briefly the blessed prayer. The blessed prayer. Look at verse 9.

[35:58] He says Behold O God our shield and look upon the face of thine anointed. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.

[36:12] For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from them. that walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusts in thee.

[36:27] The prayer of blessing which the psalmist concludes with is a plea. A plea that others would see the blessedness of trusting in the Lord.

[36:39] Which is why he says in verse 12, O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusts in thee. But even though that's how the psalmist concludes his prayer, the way in which he commences his prayer in verse 9 is wonderful because he says, Behold, O God, our shield and look upon the face of thine anointed.

[37:00] The psalmist describes this portion as our shield and the Lord's anointed. Our shield and the Lord's anointed.

[37:12] And we may well ask, well, who is our shield and who is the Lord's anointed. Who is the Lord's Christ? But Jesus. Jesus is our shield in whom we find protection.

[37:28] And Jesus is the Lord's Christ. He is the Lord's anointed. He is the one whom the Lord has set apart. That's what we've been seeing the last few Lord's Day evenings.

[37:40] He set apart him to assume the office of our prophet, our priest and our king. He's been anointed. He is the one who's been anointed to act on our behalf and be the redeemer of God's precious people.

[37:55] And so in the psalmist's prayer we're given the reason as to why he had this longing to be in the king's house. And why his flesh and his heart were crying out for the living God.

[38:07] It's all because he wants to see Jesus. That's what he wants to see. He wants to see Jesus. He wants to look on the face of the Lord's anointed.

[38:19] He wants to see the source of his blessing and look upon the one who has been the fountain of strength throughout his journey, even through the valley of Baca.

[38:33] And his longing is to see the Lord's anointed. His longing is to see him. He says that even one day, one day in the presence of the Lord is better than a thousand elsewhere.

[38:48] And that he'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than dwell in tents of wickedness. And that's the psalmist's desire because he knows that blessing comes from nowhere else but the house of the king.

[39:04] Blessing doesn't come from dwelling in tents of wickedness. No, it can only be found by dwelling in the house of my God. And the doorkeeper, which the psalmist speaks of, wasn't a servant who stood at the door.

[39:20] Wasn't someone who manned the door. It was a worshipper. It was a pilgrim who had reached the end of the journey. And they had crossed over the threshold of the door into the house of God.

[39:36] In which they had finished their journey. They'd passed through the valley. They'd gone through the highway to Zion. And they'd crossed over the threshold into the house of God.

[39:50] And their sole purpose as a pilgrim, now at the conclusion of their journey, was to enter into the Lord's house and give their hallelujah to the Lord, to praise the Lord.

[40:03] And what's amazing is that the psalmist describes the king's palace as the eternal rest. He describes it as a place of even more blessing.

[40:14] Because in the king's palace, in the palace not yet, he's described the king's palace, he says, the Lord is a son.

[40:29] He's a son, he's the source of light, in which there is no more night there. he is the permanent light in the palace of the king. And he's the shield, the shield not only for the fight of this pilgrimage, but he's the protection that is required on the journey.

[40:49] But in the king's house, he's also to his people, this permanent shield of protection and safety, they are his. My king, my God. But even more than that, he says.

[41:03] Samus says that even though this king is in the business of blessing his people, he not only blesses his people with strength for the journey, but he also blesses his people, those who live uprightly in their lives, he blesses them, he says, with grace and glory.

[41:24] He blesses them with the privilege of seeing Jesus face to face. That's the wonder of it. Jesus is the grace and glory of God.

[41:37] He's the glory, as John said, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He's the express image of God's glory, said Paul.

[41:48] He is the God of all grace. And he promises this blessing to be poured out upon his people and he will not withhold it from them and he will give to them.

[42:01] He will not keep it to himself. No, for the pilgrims who have reached their destination, he will give to them their longing. He will give to them their heart's desire to look upon the face, face to face, the grace and the glory in Jesus Christ.

[42:23] My friend, is it any wonder to us then that the psalmist concludes his prayer and says, O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusts in thee.

[42:34] Blessed is the one in Adam who has come to trust in the Lord's anointed. We are blessed. We are blessed because there is no greater blessing in this journey than to know and to trust in Jesus Christ.

[42:52] And we are blessed because we can meet him in this dwelling place, this lovely dwelling place. But as we journey on, as we go from strength to strength, trusting in the promise that we have fought our good fight, that in the end we have fought the good fight, finished the course, kept the faith.

[43:17] We'll cross the threshold on the highway to Zion and we'll see Jesus face to face, the Lord's anointed.

[43:29] We are a blessed people, a blessed people. That's why the psalmist began saying how lovely is thy dwelling place.

[43:40] May the Lord bless these thoughts to us. Let's pray. O Lord, our gracious God, enable us to say like the psalmist did of old, O greatly blessed the people are, the joyful sound that know, in brightness of thy face, O Lord, they ever on shall go, that we, O Lord, would go from here and go from strength to strength, for as the psalmist reminds us that we might go from strength to strength and even appear in Zion.

[44:13] And O Lord, give to us, we plead, strength to keep going, the grace to know that thou art one who is upholding us, even when we go through the valley of Baca, that we would know thy presence with us, uphold thy people, we pray, encourage us and uplift us, that we would always know that thou art one who is an eternal refuge for us, and that underneath are the everlasting arms.

[44:40] Go before us then, we plead, and help us to keep looking to Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Cleanse us and do us good, for Jesus' sake.

[44:51] Amen. I shall conclude by singing in the closing verses of that Psalm, Psalm 84. Psalm 84, in the Scottish Psalter, page 339.

[45:18] In verse 7, so they from strength and wearied go, still forward unto strength, until in Zion they appear before the Lord at length. Down to the end of the Psalm, to God's praise.

[45:31] Amen. So they from strength and weary go, still forward unto strength, couldn't unto them now forth themşaeme, to an throne.

[46:03] B care of where they load in the Lord. In the morning, lords of hope, those of my sons and did not请 though o they hope the those of God give ear.

[46:22] Be God our shield. Look on the face. Of thy anointed ear.

[46:38] For in thy courts one day. Excelled a thousand brethren.

[46:55] My God's house will. I keep adore. And dwell in tents of sin.

[47:10] For God the Lord's a sun and shield. In grace and glory give.

[47:26] And will withhold no good from them. That thou uprightly do live.

[47:44] O thou, thou thou. Thou art the Lord of hosts. That man is truly blessed.

[48:00] Through my assured confidence. On thee I hold the cross.

[48:16] Amen. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The love of God the Father. And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Be with you all. Now and forevermore. Amen.