Psalm 84, love for the assembly

84th Psalm please, Psalm 84. Psalm 84 and verse 1, 84th Psalm verse 1. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yet even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.

Now I think it is significant to notice the order there. It is soul, heart, and flesh. Verse 3, Yea, the sparrow hath found a house and a swallow, and nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts.

My King, my God, and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in the house, they shall be still praising thee, Selah. Verse 5, Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, whose heart are in the ways of them, who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well.

The rain also filleth the pools, they go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. O Lord, God of hosts, hear my prayer, give ear, O God of Jacob, Selah. Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.

For a day in my courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord, God is a sun and shield, the Lord will give grace and glory.

No good thing, no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. I realize I got to flip this thing into high gear to be down here by 315 but we'll do the best we can and leave the rest for you to fill in the blanks as they say.

I think that we understand that the titles of our psalms are inspired as well and I think it's important to point out here that the title of this psalm is to the chief musician upon Gita it is a psalm not by but for the sons of Korah. The sons of Korah were those that had to live if you like under the name of an infamous past and I think we're aware of the fact of the Korah rebellion. I think it is a tremendous disservice to fellow believers because maybe in their family something has happened that they are ashamed about, that they're sorry that it happened and yet nature takes us often to what happened when we link it with that name.

This is a psalm for these people so it is really Gita which means the wine press. In other words the psalmist here is a man that experienced that the things of God bring greater joy than even the wine of men. That the things of God actually exceed the joy that even the wine produced by men can bring.

Better than gold, greater than raiment, higher than wisdom. Fellowship with the living God. Fellowship with God.

We speak of fellowship, fellowship one with another but fellowship with God. So it is a psalm of glory, it is a psalm of gladness and it is also a psalm of grace. The psalm could be looked at three different ways I think it's only fair to point that out.

It could be looked at historically, it could be looked at prophetically, and it can be looked at practically. I will take it this afternoon and look at it practically. Having said that when I think of it historically it's likely a picture of a godly Levite maybe in a family of Korah that those that had not shared necessarily in the rebellion that had taken place.

But at the same time possibly during the reign of Hezekiah with the Assyrian invasion which was over but there's always that fear of them coming back and what was precious to God as far as his house and his temple was concerned that that would never be again. It could be looked at prophetically. You know we can relate it to the coming millennial reign of Christ.

There's plenty in the psalm that that would relate obviously to that. We can picture the day when the scourge of the Antichrist is gone and the din and the noise of the Megiddo if you like has been stilled forever. The golden age has come.

Ezekiel's temple has been built. So it is prophetic in nature. But let's just look at it in a very practical sense.

Three times the word blessed. I think it's important. Notice verse number four blessed are they that dwell and that's not sojourn.

There's a different word for dwell and sojourn as you know in our Old Testament. Verse five, blessed is the man whose strength is in thee. And the last verse it's like the psalmist can't conclude the psalm without saying oh Lord of hosts blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

So he said verse four, blessed are they. It's the happy if you like I call it the happiness of the Levite. The happiness of the Levite.

He's serving. So there's the blessedness are they. Blessed is the man.

That's the happiness of the pilgrim that really we have in verse number five. He's the man that's traveling. He's the man that's going through if you like and there's a place for him to dwell.

Then verse number twelve, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. That's just the happiness of the believer. So three aspects of Christian living in which there is blessing.

First of all verse four is blessed are they. The happiness of the Levite. Verse five, blessed is the man whose strength.

Happiness of the pilgrim. And then verse number twelve, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. The happiness if you like of the believer.

There are seven references to Jehovah in the psalm but really in verse number two it is a different one. But overall what we're looking at is the secret of a happy life. Now would I be wrong at this juncture of the ministry meeting just to ask you today how happy are you? You know we sometimes have heard ministry that's wrong to be happy or to be joyful but happiness is kind of a word that's delegated to the world.

That's not so. Bible doesn't teach that. And that happiness is a result of just happenings and joy has got to be something that comes from inside.

I agree with that. But the Bible also teaches we can be happy believers. Can I just ask you today are you as happy in the assembly as you were a year ago? Honestly.

Are you enjoying the things of God? Am I enjoying the things of God as much as I was a year ago? Well you would say listen there are things that have come into our assembly that have been very very grieving. And somehow I understand that dear brother, dear sister. Things that happen.

Young couple came up to me at the Vancouver conference and said their hearts were breaking. Breaking. In an assembly here in this country and a couple of their close friends just kind of unbeknown to them.

They really sometimes we can see it coming but they couldn't. And they just left. Just up and left.

It's a hard day when anybody leaves the assembly especially when it is someone that we're very close to. It's very hard when the family leaves. That could be a dangerous one.

I am reminded of a man like Moses. Now listen here's a man that had to deal with his own relatives. Okay.

A sister and a brother and cousins. You know what he did? He took the family hat off and left it outside the gate and dealt with what he did in the fear of God. And God honored a man Moses as a result of that.

So for the sons of Korah there's the grace of God they had turned away from their father's sins. Okay. They just had turned away from their father's sins.

So we can see Korah of course in the Psalms. Obviously I can see Jacob in this psalm because he is in contrast to Esau. But three things.

We have the pilgrim and his passion. The pilgrim and his passion. We have the priest and his pursuits.

What does the priest want in life? Where's the pilgrim going? And then we have the porter. That's at the end of the psalm. I may not get there.

And his priorities. So it's the priest and his passions. The excuse me the pilgrim and his passions.

The priest and his pursuits. And the porter in his priorities. Verse number one it is what he loved for.

Thy tabernacles. God's dwelling place. That's what he loved for.

That's where he waited if you like. That's verse four. There's your Levite.

Verse two is what he longed for. Not so much the tabernacle but it was the courts. It was the courts he said.

He longed for them. That's where he worshipped. That's verse five.

That's the pilgrim. Then we have in verse number four what he lived for. The house.

It's where he worked. Really here he's the exile. So he's using the figure if you like of two birds.

The sparrow and the swallow. And he's using those two birds to illustrate you and I in spiritual life. So again what he longed, what he loved for.

Thy tabernacles. I had so many conferences lately I'm not sure. I was saying that boastingly which one I was telling that.

But you know we do not commit ourselves necessarily to what we love. Okay. But I love what I've committed myself to.

The commitment comes first. You ever come down the street where I live back in Eastern Canada you soon see by the toys that are, not condemning them, in the front yard there's a man on the way and fishing is everything. And he's got one of these big obviously being in a state like Wisconsin talking about fishing.

He's got his, if you've got a bass boat okay. I don't know the name of them okay. If nothing is fishing or a bass boat, that's his life.

That's what he is committed to. Why? Because he loves it. People that love the dwelling places of Jehovah are committed to it.

So it is what he loved for. And that is thy tabernacles where he longed for thy courts and where he lived the house. Now I put it out in the reading.

My soul longeth, yea even fainteth, verse two, for the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God. My soul spiritually. My soul spiritually.

My heart affectionately. My flesh physically. Now the significance of the order is this.

And we have to notice the order. Make the flesh a follower, never make it a leader. Okay.

Now I know and I'm not condemning brethren that my good friend Scott, we've discussed this this weekend, Scott McCloud and he talks about the wicked flesh, wicked flesh. Where do you have that in the Bible Scott? Where's the color of flesh wicked? Oh he said we know what's wicked. I said we know what's wicked.

Where do you have it? It's not what the Lord Jesus said. He said it's weak. It's weak.

Paul says he knew that in his flesh dwelt no good thing. Okay, understand that. But you will find that as you go through your New Testament or Old Testament, and not the same word, not always in the same context, you will not necessarily find it in a bad connotation.

Okay, not always. The psalmist here sees an order. See if the flesh, if physically what I'm drawn to, then I follow that in a spiritual way and in an affectionate way, that's very, very dangerous.

But when the spiritual is first, that makes all the difference. Okay, so the flesh follows, the flesh faints, the flesh fails. Three things that will always happen to the flesh.

Not always, but follows, it faints, and it fails. But he says, Psalm 23, you remember the psalmist Asaph in the 23rd Psalm, 73rd Psalm rather, said, my flesh and my heart, he says, failing. Flesh is first, it fails.

Notice the order? It's reversed. And notice what he's, he's looking at the ungodly around, he's seeing them blessed, and he's become a very discouraged believer, if you like, because flesh is the leader. Never make flesh the leader.

Never make the desires of the natural lead you. And of course, you can link that going back in the, with Amalek in the, further back in the Old Testament, if you liked as well. So, remember Matthew chapter 26, the Lord Jesus would enjoin his own, enjoined his own to watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation, for he said, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

The flesh is weak. So the flesh is not something that I have, I should have confidence in. Although unfortunately, the natural is to have confidence in the flesh.

The spiritual, what's the spirit going to be? My spirit rises up and I decide I'm going to pump myself up to be this strong Christian. No, the spirit gets its gleaning and the source of its strength comes from what delighted the psalmist here. And of course, it was in his tabernacles or in his word.

So the flesh is not automatically sinful, but it is weak. It is limited. And it is temporal.

The others are that which link us eternally with the one of whom we have come to love. So we don't notice that, but there's something else. No doubt he loved the place.

There's no doubt he loved the place. And I don't think you'd hardly be here at the Waukesha conference if you didn't love the place where his honor dwells, the place of his gathering. But above that, there's got to be a love for his person.

Okay? My love for the place never exceeds and should never exceed my love for the person. I mean, I've got neighbors that are very, very, in fact, better committed, I don't want to say that in an unkind way, better than some Christians are to going to meeting. They're very committed to their church.

Yeah, they love it. And a lady came out the other night to the Ontario Gospel Hall and just spoke so highly of that little church as she called it. And she came from a big church, and she says, whoa, I didn't know you could learn so much in this little place, she says in her German accent.

And she says the people are so friendly. Good for you people from Ontario, you other believers too. See, she said, I know what she wanted to say.

Where I go it's all about fashion. And that can creep amongst us too. I heartily endorse what we were hearing this morning about the commendable appearance of our sisters.

God bless you. Okay? May God further encourage you in that. But she was literally taken by it.

In fact, she was more taken likely by that than what she actually heard. That's the woman you're praying for that is in her 50s. If she walked in here, you'd never know that she is in stage four cancer of the lung.

Wants to be saved. Sat down with her in her home yesterday, Mr. McLeod and I did. She got off the track.

She says, I'm right on that road that's taking me down there. So is there something wrong with the plainness? Notice what he's talking about here. He's talking about Tabernacle.

I want to notice where these birds are actually dwelling. So it's what he loved. How amiable, passionately desired is the word.

That which is lovable. Oh Lord of hosts, the covenant keeping God is really the thought there. So it's what he loved.

What he longed for. My soul, my life, my appetite. Longed deeply.

In other words, when he says fainted, you know what he's saying? I can't live without it. Really brother? Really? Let's ask our hearts this afternoon, myself included. Could you live without the assembly? Could you live without God's assembly? Get up and go to work Monday like everybody else does? And go wherever and just live without it? If you can live without it, I'm sorry to have to tell you this.

You likely won't be too long for it. Remember I stepped into an elevator. I told us maybe these parts before.

I stepped into an elevator in Saugus one time. Sunday morning, my wife was with me, a couple of the grandchildren, and a man stepped on the elevator. You know he was respectfully dressed, and he looked at, but here's what he said.

He looked, he said, what day is it? I thought what day is it? It was the Lord's day. That's what I said. I said, sir, it's the Lord's day.

He says, is that Sunday? I said, yeah, it's Sunday. He says, looks like you're going somewhere. I says, where do you think we're going? He says, it's got to be church.

Well, I says, I don't know if we're doing that, but we do gathers at church. We're going to remember the Lord. Yeah, he says, not me.

I'm going somewhere else. Now there's, as far as I know, an unregenerate man. Nor does sad when believers leave the company, and on Lord's day morning they go, and they go somewhere else.

I met a man not too far, and I know him, I know his trucks, I know his car. It was Lord's day morning. It would break your heart.

Once he went where we go. He was going somewhere. You know where he was going? Somewhere else.

May God preserve each and every one of us for his glory. May we find no other place to go to, and no other person to love. So it is what he longed for.

You remember it says that Jacob sawd potage, and Esau came in from the field, for he was faint. The field is the world, and the world will always take from you more than you want to give it. He likely would not have made the deal that he did if it hadn't been where he had been.

Jonathan likely would have been one of David's notable mentions, one of David's mighty men. Except when David went in one direction to the place of rejection, Jonathan went back into the city. Why? Why? Just read a few verses earlier.

It was who he was spending time with. Who you spend your time with, ultimately will who you will be with. There's two men in our Bibles, good men.

I wouldn't come down hard on them from any public platform, or any other private platform. Unfortunately, there was two men led astray by those two good men. One was John, because I think that Peter likely went with him into the palace of the high priest.

Peter was recovered. The other was a man by the name of Abraham. And Abraham went down into Egypt, and Lot got to see something he never forgot, and he was never recovered.

That's why I think that Peter references Lot when we read in him, and speaks of him about his righteous soul. Do you know what? Peter could relate with that man. Yet Peter was the one who would say, I go fishing.

By himself? No. Took somebody else with him. Took six with him.

It's bad when they go by themselves. It's worse when they take others with them. Look at a man just the opposite of that.

It's a bit of a sidetrack, I understand. Daniel, look at Daniel, would spend and risk what he did to seek three lives, saved and stand for God. In a moment of time, Peter as a result of that, will lead six astray.

Now I'm not being hard on Peter. I know there could be an argument the other way about those that went fishing and that sort of thing. But I don't think that's what the Lord had for them or for Peter that day.

So here's, coming back here to this man, we find the importance of staying as far as we can from the field. That's why when you come to the Hebrew epistle, it speaks of him. You know where it speaks of Esau? Right after it speaks of somebody bitter.

Has there been any root of bitterness? Esau was bitter. Bitter! Somehow he thought, after a few years, didn't realize it at the time, after a few years, he realized what had happened. Found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully for the tears.

I believe that he sought that in his father's heart. Tears streaming down his face, though they may be, will never change something that had been ratified by heaven. The psalmist wants to be clear of that, so it's what he lived for.

The sons of Korah, it's watchmen at the gates, it's worshipers in the house, it's warriors in the land. But come very quickly to these birds. The sparrow, loneliness, looks for a house.

The sparrow thinks of protection. Now sparrows usually aren't alone. I don't know much about birds, okay? But I never had my wife say, oh come here, there's a sparrow out on the windowsill, there's a sparrow here in the tree.

There's a whole bunch of them. This one's alone. This one is alone.

When we come to the swallow, it's not loneliness, but it's restlessness. She's not looking for a house, she's looking for a nest. The swallow, if you like, isn't thinking so much of protection, she is thinking of production.

Now we love to see, don't we, production in the assembly. Isn't it nice when they're bringing forth in our streets and there is blessing. Coming back to these.

So the house speaks of protection, it speaks of provision. And it states here, the sparrow, verse 3, have found a house in the swallow, a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine alters, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Now if you want to look at the alters here as being in such terrible, desecrated condition that the birds were building on, that's up to you.

I think there's really something higher than that. However, protection was much on Jacob's mind in Genesis 28, where he says, if thou wilt be with me, if thou wilt bring me in peace. He knew he had Esau to face.

That's what Jacob wanted. He wanted protection. So often that is our case.

But found a house. Found that which was lost. Found a family.

If you go to a house in Berber, you got a family there. And that's what this sparrow wanted. Company.

Company. Always a little nervous sometimes of loners. You know, no, and I'm not coming down on people that don't find it as easy to entertain as others, but don't be a loner.

Bring God's people into your home. Dear young believer today, I have been in apartments where there's hardly room for the two people that a young couple had rented it, let alone having two preachers in it. It was a little tight, okay? I'll tell you how tight it was.

Something happened with the cake. And at the table, it was a very small table, and he is saying, coming home from work, where's the cake? She wanted to kick him and tell him. No more questions about the cake.

It just didn't turn out. But she wasn't kicking him, she was kicking me. All I can tell you is we didn't have cake.

And I'll tell you something more, while I wasn't there, he likely got a good spanking that night. And really, he needed it. If you didn't see the cake, it's not there.

But haven't you heard it? Oh, you know, we used to have room to have people in. Oh, is that so? Yeah, I've seen those. And when they have the big place, they still don't have room.

Your house is as big as your heart is. I can't make it more simple or plainer than that. So, the sparrow, you remember in the 102nd Psalm, is alone on the housetop.

Doesn't enjoy that. Doesn't enjoy that. The sparrow was of little value in the world.

Remember, not two sparrows sold for a farthing. But in the eyes of God, in the eyes, opposite the eyes of the world, takes two of them to make any value. That's what the world says.

With God is just one. Found those belonging to the same house. Found something in common.

The sparrow had found a house. Found something in common. Nice to come into this metropolis part of Milwaukee and right along the lakeshore here and find those that have something in common.

Nice to be among fellow believers, fellow laborers. We've got something in common. One common goal, and that is to see the cause of the cross triumph.

To see assemblies flourished and thriving, not just surviving. And sometimes, of course, it is that. Very quickly, the swallow.

Now, the sparrow is loneliness. Looks for a house. The sparrow thinks of protection.

The swallow is restlessness. Looks for a nest. The swallow thinks of production.

The swallow is a loner. The sparrow is a social bird. One of our brethren back home, this is not mine.

He says, it's easy to find the brethren. Easy to find them. It's easy to find them? Yeah.

He says, I'll tell you what they're doing. They're either eating, sleeping, or at meeting. Well, that's one way of putting it.

That's not too bad, because I gotta admit, some of our waistlines prove that. And my own, I'm on a, I find it all the time. Eating, sleeping, or at meeting.

Are you at meeting? Pardon the expression. Not a bad place to be. Where she may lay her young, a place where there's plenty of room.

In her wisdom, the swallow wants her young with her. Isn't that something? Listen, and I do this, not just here. I want to encourage every believer, even though I don't know you, to come to this conference and bring your children with you.

That's God's desire. More than that, that is God's order. Right when he brought them out of Egypt.

Invariably, the people, now it doesn't always work that way. I know there's some here today, your hearts break because your family's not with you. Invariably, those that do that, those are the ones that populate the assembly in the coming day, saved and gathered to his name.

So coming back here, it says, a nest for herself. That's something where she's comfortable. A nest for herself.

It must be first for myself. What is not for me will never be for my little ones. Okay? Remember Joshua? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Where she may lay her young, a place with plenty of room. Isn't that the 144th Psalm again? That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store. That our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands.

Where? In our streets. In our streets. Local blessing.

In a place where she is comfortable. It's nice to be comfortable in God's assembly and to enjoy that. However, the opposite is seen of Lot.

He wanted to raise cattle. Abraham wanted to raise a family. What does God say about Abraham? He says, I know Abraham, that he will command his house after me.

Now, that's one third of it. Whether you ever hear the other two thirds of it or not, I'm not sure, but my time has actually passed.