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Greg Elmquist

Declaring The Word of God

Psalm 146:5-10
Greg Elmquist October, 10 2021 Audio
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Declaring The Word of God

In Greg Elmquist's sermon titled "Declaring the Word of God", the principal theological focus is on the work of God in redemption, specifically highlighting the total depravity of humanity and the sovereignty of God's grace in salvation. Elmquist argues that true comfort comes from recognizing human inability and dependence on Christ, as emphasized through passages like Psalm 146:5-10 and Ephesians 2. He illustrates these points with Scripture, especially referencing the contrast between human frailty and God's eternal faithfulness, underscoring total reliance on Christ as the sole source of righteousness. The sermon calls believers to declare God's works, recognizing that election and mercy are pivotal for salvation, which profoundly shapes their worship and Christian life, distinguishing grace from self-reliance.

Key Quotes

“Our comfort, our hope is that as He’s lifted up, He might do a work of grace in our hearts.”

“If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that is the work of God.”

“Aren't you thankful for the 'but God'? You know, you tell the unbeliever about the gospel and they say, yeah, but...”

“The reason for everything took place on Calvary's cross 2,000 years ago. That was the reason for everything.”

Sermon Transcript

Auto-generated transcript • May contain errors

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I am very thankful to be reminded
already this morning that we have no righteousness whatsoever
outside of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm reminded of what the Lord
told the prophet Isaiah when Isaiah asked him, where do I
begin the message of comfort? How do I comfort your people?
And the Lord said, tell them they're grass. That'll be a comfort
to them. Tell them they don't have anything,
they can't do anything, they don't know anything, they're
completely dependent upon me for everything. That'll be a
comfort to them. That is God's people's comfort,
isn't it? To be able to look away from
ourselves and find all the hope of our salvation bound up in
the glorious person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What comfort, what hope. I pray the Lord will enable us
to do that. This morning, we're going to
begin in Psalm 64. By way of introduction, I wanna
read two verses of scripture in Psalm 64, and then we'll be
moving over to Psalm 146, where we were Wednesday night. So let's
go to the Lord and ask his blessings on our time together. Our gracious, glorious, and merciful
Heavenly Father, we are thankful to be able to
confess that we have no righteousness whatsoever in and of ourselves,
that Christ Jesus the Lord is Jehovah Sidkenu, that he is all
our acceptance, all our justification, all the hope of our salvation.
And Father, we pray that you would be pleased this morning
to send your Holy Spirit in power, that you would open the eyes
of our understanding, that you would open the windows of heaven,
that you would open your word and open our hearts and enable
us to set our affections on things above where Christ is seated
at thy right hand. Lord, we confess to you that
we are so prone to wonder. We are so prone to set our affections
on the things of this world. Lord, we thank you for your grace
and for your forgiveness and for your mercy. We pray, Lord,
that you would comfort our hearts in Christ. For it's in his name
we pray, amen. Psalm 64, David is speaking prophetically
of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the work that he will do when
he comes and accomplishes the salvation of his people by his
redemptive work on Calvary's cross. And after making this
declaration, he says in verse nine, and all men shall fear,
fear God. What is it to fear God? of the
simplest definition I know of fearing God is the fear that's
in the hearts of God's people of the thought of standing in
his holy presence without the Lord Jesus Christ as their advocate
and as their righteousness. That is a thought that we want
to perish from our minds. And so, This is that perfect love that
casteth out fleshly and worldly fear and gives us a humble dependence
and reverence for our God. And he says, all men shall fear
and shall declare the work of God and they shall wisely consider
his doings. That's what we do every time
we come together. We declare the work of God and
we wisely consider his doings. Man-made religion and And self-righteous
men are always declaring their works for God. Kind of like the
man who said, what can we do to work the works of God? You
know, we want to work the works of God. God's people do work
his works. God works in them, causing them
to will and to do after his good pleasure, but they don't take
notice of that. They want to glory in the work of God. Paul asked this question in Romans.
He says, where is boasting? It is excluded. We have nothing
to boast in. We're here to declare the work
of God. And our Lord answered that man
when he wanted to know, what can I do to work the works of
God? And our Lord said, this is the work of God, that you
believe on him whom he has sent. And what the Lord wasn't saying,
you want to do the work of God, then you believe. No, what he
was saying is, if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that
is the work of God. It is the work of God that gave
you faith to believe on Christ. And that's our hope every time
we come together, to declare his works and to be wise in considering
his doings, that as Christ is lifted up, he might do a work
of grace in our hearts. Look at the next verse, the righteous
shall be glad in the Lord, in the Lord. Those who are found in Christ
and have all their righteousness in him. That's what that's what
Paul said. Oh, that I might be found in
him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
righteousness, which is by the faith and faithfulness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the righteous shall be glad
in the Lord and shall trust in him. And all the upright in heart
shall glory. Glory in Christ. That's who we
glory in. It is by grace that he might
get all the glory. So in preaching Christ, we are
declaring the work of God. His work of redemption, His work
of salvation. And our hope is that as He's
lifted up, that He will cause us to be drawn to Him and that
we will find our hope in Him. All right, turn with me over,
because that's the title, that's the title of this message, declaring
the work of God. The wise will consider His ways. God be pleased to make us wise
men that we will consider the work of God. Turn with me to
Psalm 146, if you will, please. Now, I'll just read the first
few verses because we covered them Wednesday night, but David,
in this psalm of praise, is saying, praise ye the Lord, praise the
Lord, O my soul. This praise comes from the heart.
We praise him because of his work, his accomplished work,
his successful work, in putting away the sins of his people all
by himself. While I live, while I praise
the Lord, I will sing praises unto my God while I have any
being. Only the living can praise God. Only those who have been
made spiritually alive have the grace in their hearts to be able
to praise God. All other worship is feigned. It really is. It's just pretended
worship. Put not your trust in princes
nor in the son of man in whom there is no help. Man can't help
me. I can't help myself. There's not a man on the earth
that can help me. I need the God-man, the one mediator
between God and man to put away my sins. He's the only one that
can help me. Man's breath. Look at what he
says. Man can't help you. His breath
goeth forth and he returneth to the earth and that very day
his thoughts perish. Oh, men love boasting in their
beauty and in their strength and in their intelligence and
in their abilities. But what God is saying is that
man is his frail as his next breath. Now, what can you do
with your breath? Blow out a candle? You know,
our breath is not very strong, is it? It doesn't do much, but
it gives us life. And all we have to do, all the
Lord has to do is cut off our breath and we die. And our thoughts
perish with us. And then he contrasts all of
that by saying in verse five, happy is he that hath the God
of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord, his God."
There's true blessedness, there's true happiness, there's true
satisfaction when we have the God of Jacob as our help. When
we think about the God of Jacob, we're reminded of what the Lord
tells us in Romans chapter 9, when he says, speaking of Jacob
and Esau, before the children were born, or before they had
done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God, according
to election, might stand not of works, not of works. For as it is written, Jacob I
loved and Esau I hated, before they were ever born. And you
know the Lord goes on in Romans chapter 9 to say, is there unrighteousness
with God? Is this not fair? And God goes
on to say, no, I have the sovereign right to have mercy upon whom
I will have mercy and to have compassion upon whom I have compassion. And God's people don't say what
the unbeliever says about God's sovereignty in election. They
don't say, well, that's not fair. They're just humbled that God
would be pleased to choose them. Lord, why would you have mercy
upon me? A sinner like me. And yet that's the God that,
that's the God of Jacob. The God of Jacob is a God who
is absolutely sovereign in salvation, who has mercy upon whom he will
have mercy. So that Paul goes on in Romans
chapter nine to say, it is not of him that willeth nor of him
that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Are we going to
charge God with wrongdoing? Oh no, no. We're just so very
thankful if God didn't have, if God didn't choose Jacob, no
one would be saved. Election is not a closed door
to the unbeliever. It's an open door. It's the only
open door that there is to heaven. If God didn't choose a people,
no one would be saved. And Election doesn't condemn
unbelievers. Election saves those whom God
has chosen. Unbelievers are condemned by
God, just leaving them to themselves. All the Lord has to do for any
of us is just leave us alone. Leave us alone. We're born into
this world spiritually dead and will remain spiritually dead.
If the Lord doesn't open the door of mercy and call us by
our name and bring us into his presence. That's the God of Jacob. And the God of Jacob is also
a God of sinners. Jacob was a supplanter. He was a deceiver. What a sinful
man Jacob was. And what an extraordinary love
our God has towards sinners. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. The God of Jacob saves sinners. What a glorious miracle it is
when we find one who has been made a sinner, one who is able
to say, I have no righteousness. I have no means of acceptance
apart from the mercy and grace of God. If Christ doesn't stand
in my stead, if he didn't put away my sin, if he's not my surety,
if he didn't successfully save me at Calvary's Cross, I won't
be saved because all I have about me is sin. Most men think that sin is just
the bad things that we do and they don't understand. We do
the bad things that we do because we're sinners. We don't become
a sinner because we do bad things. Sinfulness is the nature that
we're born with. Separation from God. And what
all does that mean? I don't know. I'm so accustomed
to sin, I don't really understand the gravity of it, but I know
the Lord Jesus Christ did. He understood it and he felt
the sorrow and the weight of it as only he could. And God
saw the travail of his soul and God was satisfied. God was pleased
with the Lord Jesus Christ being made sin that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
two. Ephesians chapter two. Our Lord said the whole, the
whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. And those self-righteous Pharisees
looked at our Lord sitting with publicans and sinners and said,
why does your master eat with publicans and sinners? Oh, child
of God, aren't you glad that the son of God eats with publicans
and sinners? Look at Ephesians chapter two. And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins. Now to be quickened is to be
made alive. That's the new birth. That's the miraculous work of
God's grace, whereby he takes out our heart of stone and puts
in a heart of flesh and gives us faith to believe on Christ.
He gives us eyes to see and hearts to believe. He makes us alive. Our Lord said, except a man be
born again, he shall not see the kingdom of God. You hath
he quickened, he's made alive. Wherein in times past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. That word disobedience can also
be translated unbelief. That's really the root of all
sin, isn't it? among whom also we had our conversations
in times past, and the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. Our nature And the Lord's saying
we were by nature, not on the side of God, but by our very
nature, we were just like every other unbeliever. And had the
Lord left us to ourselves, we would have remained that way. But here he says, but God, but
God, aren't you thankful for the but God? You know, you tell
the unbeliever about the gospel and they say, yeah, but, And
they'll deny the gospel with their butts. But here God says,
but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith
he loved us for when we were dead in sins has quickened us
together with Christ for by grace are you saved. Oh, he's quickened
us together with Christ. When was the Lord Jesus Christ
quickened? When was he quickened? When he
was raised from the dead. And what our Lord is telling
us there is that everyone that Christ died for raised with him
and were made alive. And our regeneration is just
the fulfilling in time what God had already accomplished in eternity.
And so here, Here we glory in the God of Jacob. Go back with
me to our text. The God of Jacob is a God who
loves sinners. That's my point. The God of Jacob
is a God who loves sinners. And he loves them, he loved them,
the scripture says, with an everlasting love. Never a time he didn't
love them. Never a time he didn't view them
and see them in Christ. Look at verse six. Our God made
the heavens and the earth and the seas and all therein that
is, which keepeth truth forever. Now, when you find a word in
your Bible that ends with E-T-H, that's not just 16th century
King's English. It has a meaning to it. It's
usually attached to either a verb or an adjective, and the meaning
of it is that it is a continual action. It's not just something
that happens now and quits, or something that's going to happen
in the future, or something that happened in the past. It speaks of that non-stop, continual
action, unbroken continuity. And so when we read these words,
we're reminded of when they relate to the acts of God. Our God is
immutable. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. He hasn't changed. The cross
wasn't a plan B. Well, look what's happened. We're
going to have to fix this problem. No, no. Our God has never changed. He's always has everything settled
in all eternity. And so when the scripture says,
which keepeth truth forever, this is an eternal work, isn't
it? It's not that God just started keeping truth at some point.
It's a continuation of his work. It's the Lord Jesus Christ being
set in contrast to Satan, who the scripture says is a liar
and who is the father of lies. And our Bible tells us that our
God cannot lie. He keepeth truth forever. You're reminded of When our Lord
was standing before Pilate and Pilate asked him, he said, are
you, is it true what they say that you're the King of the Jews?
And our Lord said, for this cause came I into the world. For this
purpose was I born to bear witness unto the truth. And they that are of the truth
hear my voice and they follow me. Pilate, I can just see him
now throwing his arms up in frustration, said, truth, truth, what is truth? No such thing as truth. Don't
you know that everything is relative? There are no absolute truths.
And as soon as the scripture says, as soon as he made that
statement, he didn't, he wasn't asking the Lord a question, what
is truth? He was making a statement, truth. Because the scripture
says, and immediately he left the room. He got up and walked
out. He didn't wait for an answer.
He didn't believe that there was any such thing as truth.
And the very truth was standing before him. Our God keepeth truth forever. He has kept his son forever. And all those that he placed
in his son, in the covenant of grace from eternity past, he
keepeth. He keepeth truth forever. Our Lord said in John chapter
eight, he said to the Pharisees, he said, you seek to kill me
because I tell you the truth. The older I get, the more I realize
men don't really want to know the truth. Not just about the
gospel, they don't really want to know the truth about anything.
Unless it suits them, unless it's to their advantage. Otherwise,
tell me lies, tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies and I'll
be happy and I can just rest my laurels in the lies that men
tell. I would encourage each of us to come before God and as sincerely
as you are able, ask the Lord to show you the truth, to show
you the truth. Lord, if I'm holding to anything
that's not true, take it away. I want to know the truth. And
our Lord said, if you know the truth, the truth will set you
free. Christ Jesus, the Lord is the
way, the truth, and the life. No man can come to the Father
except by him. He's the truth of God. And here's
the work of God. He keepeth, he keepeth, E-T-H,
truth forever. Forever. Always has, always will. Look at verse seven in our text,
which executeth judgment for the oppressed. Now, who are the
oppressed? Who are the oppressed? Are you oppressed? God made you to be a sinner.
There's a certain amount of oppression that you experience every day. When you cry out for mercy, oh
God, Have mercy upon me, the sinner, the sinner. I've got
such unbelief left in my flesh, Lord. It's the sin that doth
so easily beset me. I am so prone to wander from
the God that I love. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? Thanks be to God. Through Christ Jesus, I am free.
Lord, if you don't set me free, I'm going to be oppressed. I'm
going to bear the burden of my sin. That's why the Lord said,
come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. A lot of
people laboring to deliver themselves from the weight of their sin,
but they haven't yet become heavy laden. The heavy laden means
you can't labor anymore. It means you have a weight on
you that you can't, that's disabled you. You are completely unable
to do anything about your sin problem. And here's what our
Lord says, look, he executed judgment for the oppressed. Now here again, we find this
ETH at the end of a verb. Our Lord didn't just do it one
time. He did it on the cross, accomplishing
in time what he had already purposed in all eternity. The Lord Jesus
Christ put away the sins of his people. He suffered the full
punishment of the wrath of God. He satisfied God's law. He fulfilled
the law and justice of God on Calvary's cross when he bowed
his head and said, it is finished. God executed judgment at Calvary's
cross. Past tense, but that's not what
this says here. It says he executeth judgment. What the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
on Calvary's cross had been purposed of God from eternity past. That's
why the Lord Jesus is called the Lamb that was slain before
the foundation of the world. God executed in time what he
executed in eternity. And he continues to execute it.
that work of grace. Every time one of his children
come before his throne of grace, seeking help and mercy and grace
in their time of need. Every single time we come, he
executed judgment. He reminds us of what the Lord
Jesus Christ accomplished on Calvary's cross. And he gives
us the hope of our sin having been put away. It's already forgiven. His justice is already satisfied.
His law is already fulfilled. Our God continues to execute
judgment. Aren't you thankful for that? The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ
has always been the reason for everything. God didn't find man falling in
the garden and think, well, now I've got to come up with a plan.
You know, religious people love to talk about a plan of salvation.
God doesn't have plans. He doesn't have plans. He's not
like me and you. He has a purpose. And he's always
had a purpose. And his purpose has always been
to glorify himself through the death of his son on Calvary's
cross for sinners. That's always been his purpose.
You know, men talk about theories, don't they? They talk about the
theory of evolution or the theory of relativity, or they've got
their string theory or their quantum theory. And now if you
listen to scientists, they're looking for the theory of everything.
Have you heard that? They're looking for the theory
of everything, something that'll tie it all together. And all
they have is theories. The child of God knows the reason
for everything. We don't live on theories. We
have the very infallible word of God to tell us what the reason
for everything is. And the reason for everything
took place on Calvary's cross 2,000 years ago. That was the
reason for everything. And it was God's purpose and
God's reason from eternity past. And it will be God's purpose
and God's reason for eternity future. He executeth eternally. You know, you think about it
like this, particularly here, not every time the ETH is mentioned
is it in the eternal tense, but here it is. Here it is. It's not past, present, or future.
It's the eternal tense. He executeth judgment. No, no fear of the wrath of God. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ, the
scripture says, is our propitiation. He's made God propitious. There's
no more fury, no more fire, no more judgment, no more justice
to be exacted. The Lord Jesus Christ has satisfied
all of that. God continues to execute judgment
the hearts of his people every time they find themselves struggling
with sin. They come before the throne of
grace and they find their hope in God having executed judgment. Notice also in this verse, these
are the works of God, brethren. the wise man consider what he
has done. What do we have to do with God
executing judgment? Nothing. We don't have anything
to do with that. It was God's purpose from eternity
past. It was God's pleasure to accomplish
it at Calvary's cross. It is God's grace that makes
it effectual to our hearts even now. And it'll be to God's glory
for all eternity that he executeth judgment. And notice, notice
next in this same verse, which giveth food to the hungry. Again, again, we have this ETH. He continues to do an unending
continual action. He giveth food to the hungry. those who hunger and thirst after
righteousness, those who have been made hungry by the grace
of God, those who like the prodigal have tried eating the husk that
the swine do eat in man-made religion and found it to be dry
and tasteless and hard to chew and harder yet to swallow. You
tried that, haven't you? Some of you have. God did for
you what he did for that prodigal son when you came to yourself
and you said, oh, I've got to go home to my father's house.
His servants have bread to eat. He giveth food to the hungry,
those who have tried the sweets of this world and have found
them to provide nothing but a sugar high and then after that a crash.
Oh, the bling of this world, the glitter of it, fades quickly,
doesn't it? When God makes you hungry for
Christ, those things cannot feed your soul. Those who have and
continue to try satisfying their soul by eating on rotten flesh
and only to find out themselves to be to be sick of loathe themselves. That's what God said. When God's
people find themselves in sin, they loathe themselves. They
say, oh, God have mercy. You see, these are the hungry,
aren't they? They've tried religion. They've tried the things that
the world has to offer in terms of material possessions. And
they've tried sin and they come up hungry. I can't find any satisfaction. That's a work of grace because
your friends and your family members are perfectly content
with that, aren't they? They're content with the husk
that the swine do eat. They're content with accumulating
material wealth. They're content with the indulging
in the pleasures of their flesh. They're not hungry. They're not
hungry. Only God's people would not be
filled with those things. And the Lord gives grace to those
whom He makes to be hungry. He makes them hungry so He can
feed them is what He does. He does that. He makes them hungry
so He can feed them. And how does He feed us? He feeds
us with Christ. My body is your meat indeed. He feeds us when we're able through
the eyes of faith to look at the life of the Lord Jesus Christ
and know that that is all my righteousness before God. To
look at the death, my blood is your drink indeed. Unless you
eat of my body and drink of my blood, there's no life in you.
And we come to the Lord Jesus Christ and we look to his sacrificial
death on Calvary's cross as the only covering of our sin before
God. and all souls are, oh Lord, there's
where my peace is. Christ is my all. He's my life. He's my satisfaction. He's... And this is a paradox that only
the child of God can understand. I think there might be an article
in your bulletin this morning to this effect, but we're hungry
and we're full at the same time, aren't we? We're content to have
the Lord Jesus Christ as all our righteousness before God,
and we dare not look anywhere else, and we dare not listen
to anyone else. Christ is everything we need,
and yet we desire for more of him. We look through a glass
darkly now, the scripture says in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. But then face to face, and I
will be satisfied, David said, when I awake in his likeness. In the meantime, I wanna know
him more. I wanna know more about him.
I wanna be more faithful to him. I want a clearer understanding
of who he is and what he's done. And we live our lives forgetting
those things which are behind and pressing towards the mark
for the prize. For the prize. The Lord Jesus
Christ himself is that prize. And this is a work of grace in
the heart. He giveth food to the hungry. He makes us hungry. And then he reveals Christ to
us. And then he feeds our souls with the bread of life, that
bread that came down from heaven, the Son of God. And notice he
giveth. He doesn't sell this. Why do
you spend money for that which is, which satisfies not? And
you eat that which doesn't fulfill you. Why? That's what Isaiah
said. The Lord giveth food to the hungry. You can't buy it. You can't deserve
it. You can't barter with God. You have to be made humble enough
to receive it as a free gift. It's hard to be on the receiving
end of a gift from another man, isn't it? It really is. you'd rather be giving than receiving,
wouldn't you? In terms of your relationship.
Now, I'm not talking about our children, that's different, but
you'd rather be on the giving end. It is more blessed, it's
more happy to give than it is to receive. And when somebody
gives us something, we feel obligated. We feel like, well, you know,
I need to do something and show my appreciation. And you know,
when we have that attitude towards
God, it's all from pride, isn't it? We, Lord, if you don't give
it to me, I won't have it. I won't have it. That's why the
Lord calls us poor and needy. That's why we're always mercy
beggars, because the Lord has to give it to us. And what humility
he puts in our hearts when he makes us willing to receive the
gift of God as a free gift, a free gift. The Lord said, a man can receive
nothing except it be given to him from heaven. That means the
breath that you and I draw is given to us from heaven. That
means whatever health we enjoy is given to us from heaven. Whatever
pleasures we have in this life are given to us from heaven.
And most importantly, most importantly, the gift of eternal life. is
given to us from heaven. And he keeps giving. Aren't you
glad? It's a participle is what it
is. That little word that has the ETH on the end of it, and
you lose the meaning of it in every other translation. That's
why I love the King James, because it preserves the meaning of those
words. It's a continual work. When the
Lord, when John said, behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sins of the world. That's a continual, eternal work
of grace, where God took away the sins of His people in Christ
and the covenant of grace, and He continues to take them away. Look at the third part of verse
7. The Lord looseth the prisoners,
those who are in prison to their sin. He breaks the chains of
unbelief. All men are by nature prisoners
to sin. Scriptures are clear. You're
either a prisoner to sin or you're a prisoner to Christ. One way
or the other. Well, not me, I'm free. No, you're
just deceived. You're incarcerated, you just
don't know it. You don't know it. That's the
worst place to be of all places. The Lord said, he looseth the
prisoner. And he continues to looseneth
them. every time we become subject
to the accuser of the brethren, every time we find ourselves
in fear, and the Lord looseneth, he sets the prisoner free, he
does for his children what he did for Paul and Silas in Acts
16 that we've been looking at lately in that Roman dungeon
in Philippi. And look at what, listen to what
Paul said in this, Paul in 2 Corinthians 7, he said, when we came unto
Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every
side without fighting and within fears. We found ourselves being
caught up in these fearful circumstances. And then in the next verse, he
says, nevertheless, God, that comfortive, God, that comforteth
those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus. The
Lord comforted those that are cast down. Aren't you thankful? He looseneth the prisoner. Makes us completely dependent
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. for our all in all. Let's just read these last couple
of verses quickly. Look at verse eight. The Lord
openeth the eyes of the blind and continues to open them. The
Lord raiseth them that are bowed down and continues to raise them
up. The Lord loveth the righteous. He loveth us. The Lord preserveth
the stranger. How strange we are to this world
and how strange this world is to us. We speak a different language,
we have different values. Scripture calls us pilgrims and
foreigners in a foreign land. He relieveth the fatherless and
the widow, and the fatherless and the widow are the ones who
are completely dependent upon another to care for them. And
that's what his people have been made to be, the fatherless and
the widow. But the way of the wicked, he
turneth upside down. You remember the accusation that
was made against the apostles when they preached the gospel
right there at the very beginning on the day of Pentecost. And
they were brought before the Sanhedrin and said, these men
have turned the world upside down. No, the world was already
upside down. They were turning it right side
up. The Bible says that men will call evil good and they'll call
good evil and they still do that. Now I'm not talking about just
the sins of the flesh. I'm talking about the gospel. Men will accuse this gospel of
being evil and they will call their gospel good when it's just
the opposite. And the Lord, when he sends the
gospel, he shakes the foundation of those things which can be
shaken in order that those things which cannot be shaken might
remain. The way of the wicked are turned upside down by the
gospel. They're turned upside down. God
rocks the world of the wicked, causes them to either reject and resent the
gospel or he brings them to repentance. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for your word and thank you for your works of grace. We pray
that you would accomplish them in our hearts. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen.
Greg Elmquist
About Greg Elmquist
Greg Elmquist is the pastor of Grace Gospel Church in Orlando, Florida.
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