Good morning. Let's open this
morning with one of our favorite hymns, number 21 from the Spiral
Gospel Hymns hymn book, The Covenant, Ordered and Sure. Let's all stand
together, number 21. of the Father and the Son and
the Spirit, three in one. In eternal ages past, made a
covenant sure and fast, God my Father chose His own in the person
of His Son, and ordained that I should be ? One with Him eternally
? God the Son agreed to come ? In the flesh to bring me home
? He would keep God's holy law ? And retrieve me from the fall
Christ in love so willingly stood as my great surety, for my price
He offered blood to appease the wrath of God. God the Spirit, heavenly dove,
promised to come down in love. Bringing life and peace and grace
to the chosen, purchased race. He seeks the lost, heals the
lame, and he brings us to the Lamb. By his mighty sovereign
call, God's elect are gathered all. This poor sinner is secure. ? For God's covenant will endure
? ? It is sealed by God's own word ? ? By his spirit and his
blood ? ? Blessed holy covenant God ? ? I am yours by ties of
blood ? Ties of grace and ties of love, hold me to my God above. Please be seated. Good morning. Thank the Lord
for that. Eternal covenant of grace, whereby
we are elected by the father, redeemed by the son and regenerated
by the spirit. David said, this is all my salvation
and all my desire. We're going to be in Psalm 102
this morning for the first hour. If you'd like to turn with me
there in your Bibles, and I've titled this the prayer of the
destitute. the prayer of the destitute.
And so unless you're destitute this morning, there's really
not any word from God for you. But if you're destitute, and
that word destitute means to be stripped naked. You have no
righteousness. You have nothing to offer God. You're completely dependent upon
Him for everything. You're poor and you're needy.
That's who the gospel's for. That's why we're here this morning.
Lord, I don't know anything. I can't do anything. I don't
have anything. Everything God requires, God
must provide. And everything He provides, He
provides in the person of His Son. And He only accepts that
which He provides in Christ. This is a glorious prayer for
those who are in need and for the destitute. Let's confess our need to the
Lord and ask for his mercy on his word together. Let's bow.
Our heavenly father, We come into thy holy presence, daring not to offer you anything
that would merit your favor or your blessings other than that
which is in thy dear son. But what hope and what comfort
you've given us to know that all that you require is in the
Lord Jesus Christ and that we are accepted and loved and blessed
in the beloved. Lord, we pray that you'd be pleased
this morning to reveal Christ to our hearts. We pray that you
would give us faith to rest our hope in him. We pray that we
would leave this place rejoicing and knowing that we have life
eternal through the knowledge of thee and thy dear son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we thank you for your
temporal blessings and for all the provisions that you give
to us in this world. We thank you for. The successful
surgery that you gave to Jennifer this week and. Lord, we pray
for your continued hand of healing to strengthen her. To restore
her. Father, we pray for our brother
Don Fortner and we ask Lord for your mercy and grace to be upon
him and Shelby and the church there in Danville. We pray Lord
that. that you'd give him strength
to continue to declaring your gospel until that appointed time. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. I'm sure that most of you have
heard that the doctors decided this past week that they would
not be able to do surgery on Don Fortner. That he has congestive
heart failure and We each have an appointed time. It is appointed unto man, once
to die. And Lord may take you, may take
me, before he takes Don. But Don's situation is, physically
speaking, as far as we can tell, is very tenuous right now. Physically, and humanly, and
earthly-wise. Spiritually, not at all. spiritually
as a good hope. And I've talked to him and he's
resting and rejoicing in Christ. So we're very, very thankful
for that. All right. Do you have your Bibles open
to Psalm 102? We started this Psalm Wednesday
night. So if you'd like to go back and
hear about the first eight or nine verses, you can listen to
the message from Wednesday night. But I wanted to begin with verse
17 and then we'll go back and pick up where we left off. Verse
17, he, speaking of the Lord, will regard the prayer of the
destitute and not despise their prayer. Now that's a promise
from God. He will regard the prayer of
the destitute. God's people rejoice in being
reminded that they are destitute. You remember in Isaiah chapter
40 when the Lord told the prophet, comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. Tell them their warfare is accomplished.
Tell them their sin is purged, take it away. And the prophet
asked the Lord, he said, Lord, where do I begin this message?
What do I tell them? And the Lord said, tell them
their grass. Tell them they're grass and their life is like
the flower of the field, it blooms for a moment and then it's gone.
And here in our text we're reminded of God that we're but smoke.
How long does smoke last? It's just there for a moment
and then it fadeth away. That's the believer's hope. The
believer's hope is that he has nothing. The believer's hope
is that he can do nothing. The believer's hope is that he
knows nothing. He's completely dependent upon
the Lord for everything. Lord, the knowledge that I have
you gave me, and if you don't, you say, well, I know some truth
about, God's revealed some things to me. Yes, he has, and you know
them because he has revealed them, and if he doesn't continue
to remind you of those things, you'll lose what you have, won't
you? You'll be like that seed that fell on the wayside soil
that was plucked away by the birds of the air. We're dependent
upon him for any knowledge of the gospel or of God. This is
life. This is life eternal that they
might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou
sent. And what did Paul say? Oh, that I might know him. The
power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering.
This one thing I do for getting those things which are behind
a press towards the mark for the prize. The prize of the high
calling. the knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord, make yourself known to me. I'm destitute. I'm but grass. I'm poor and I'm
needy. You see, the gospel's for sinners.
It's for sinners. Blessed, blessed are the poor
in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of
God. Now that word poor means to be destitute. It means you
don't have anything. And that's how we come into the
presence of God. Isn't it? That's how we always come stripped,
stripped naked of our righteousness. Like blind Bartimaeus Bartimaeus be of good cheer. He call us for the son of David. Have mercy upon
me. Have mercy upon me. A blind, naked, dirty, poor,
mercy beggar. And the Lord said, I will not.
Let's go look at, look at verse 17 again. I will regard, I will
regard the prayer of the destitute. That's the only way you can come
into the presence of God is destitute. Look at verse 9, for I have eaten
ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping. Now, always
we understand these words to be the words of the Lord Jesus
Christ first and foremost. And I would say this to you,
child of God, next time, next time you feel like you're eating
ashes for bread, next time you feel like you're drinking a cup
of your own tears, know that the Lord Jesus Christ ate the
ashes of God's judgment, of God's wrath, and he drank dry the bitter
dregs of God's holy wrath when he bore our sins on Calvary's
cross. He, God, made him the Lord Jesus
Christ for us. the one who knew no sin to be
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Here's our hope. He knows our sorrows. He knows
our needs. He knows when our bread is like
ashes and our drink is like tears. Oh, he knows better than we could
possibly know. He's ordained those things for
us, but the but the real ashes and the real tears in terms of
being, you see, he was cursed by God. He was cut off. So that we would not be cursed
and we would not be cut off the ashes that we drink that we eat
and the tears that we drink are but temporal ashes and tears. The scripture says. that he was
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities
and the chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes
we are healed. Cast all your care upon him,
why? Because he cares for you. How
do we know he cares for you? No man, no greater love has any
man than this and he laid down his life for his friend. Hearing
his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave
his son as a propitiation for our sins. He makes God propitious. In other words, he, I noticed
again yesterday, the billboard out here on I-4, God is not angry.
And it's interesting that it's a grace church that puts that,
that puts that sign up. Psalm 711 says that God is angry
with the wicked every day. Every day. And, uh, Logan, you
read from Amos chapter nine about the wrath and anger of God towards
the unbeliever. Uh, and Hebrew says it's a fearful
thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. Don't say God,
you can't just publicize to the community and to the world. God's
not angry. It's not true. It's not true,
but you can say to the child of God, he's not angry. You can only say that to a believer.
You can't publicize that to the world. But you can say it to
a believer. Why? Because Christ is our propitiation. Christ has bore the burden of
God's wrath and quenched the fire of his justice. He has eaten
the ashes and drank the tears of justice and put away all of
God's wrath. So if we're looking in faith
to the Lord Jesus Christ, resting our hope in his finished work
of redemption, then we can rejoice in knowing that when he serves
us ashes for bread, and he often does, and he serves us tears
for drink, and he often does, Lord, this is good. This is good. I know you know what ashes really
are. You know what tears really are. I have eaten ashes like bread, mingled my drink with weeping. Because of thine indignation
and thy wrath, for thou hast lifted me up and cast me down."
It pleased God to bruise him. It was God that put the Lord
Jesus Christ on the cross. It was God that imputed to him
our sin. It was God that drew the sword
of his justice and sheathed it into the heart of his own darling
son. It was God that did that. And
here's he saying, because of the indignation of thy wrath,
what was his wrath for? It wasn't for his sin, it was
for the sins of his people. is for all the sins of all of
God's elect that he bore in his body upon that tree and he suffered
the full wrath of God's justice by God lifting him up on Calvary's
cross and casting him down into the grave. So next time you feel
like you've been cast down from where you were lifted up, remember
again, The Lord Jesus Christ knows what it's like to be lifted
up. He was suspended between heaven and earth. He's the only
one. He's the only one who's able
to take one hand and touch God without being consumed and take
the other hand and touch sinners without being defiled. He's the God man. He's the savior of sinners and
he says, I'll, I'll hear the prayer of the destitute. I heard his prayer. He cried
out unto me on Calvary's cross. He was destitute. I left him
that way. I cut him off and he cried out
father. My God, my God, why is that forsaken
me? He knew why the Lord forsake
forsook him. And he knew. that the father
would not allow his holy one to see corruption. He knew that
when he went into that tomb, that three days later, God was
going to reward him for his work of redemption. And that in fact,
Jesus Christ obligated the father to raise him from the dead. And
you and I can't obligate God to do anything, anything. Christ obligated the father. When in the fullness of time, when the fullness of time was
come, Galatians chapter four, verse four, God sent forth his
son made of a woman made under the law to redeem them which
are under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. You see, when Christ died, all
of God's people died in him. We were lifted up. You remember
when Peter, when James and John were asking the Lord if they
could sit on the right hand and on the left hand of the Lord
Jesus, they wanted a place of prominence. And the Lord said,
you don't know what you're asking. I have a baptism to be baptized
with. that you know not of. Are you
able to be baptized with the baptism I'm baptized with? What
was he talking about? He wasn't talking about water
baptism. He was talking about the baptism of fire that he would
suffer on Calvary's cross when God poured out the full fury
of his wrath for the sins of his people. And Peter, not knowing
what the Lord was talking about, Peter said, I am. Whatever you're
going to do, Lord, I'm right there with you. And the Lord
said, and you will. And you will. Because you're
going to be in me. And you're going to be baptized
with the full fury of God's wrath. And he's going to purge you of
your sin. What a gospel. What hope. We have no hope. Apart from that,
we're destitute. What do we have in this world?
It's just temporal stuff. Before God, we're talking about
standing before God. We're not talking about standing
before men. In our culture and in our economy, it'd be a shameful
thing to stand out on the street corner and be a beggar, wouldn't
it? I mean, you ought to get up and go to work. And scripture
says if a man, I'm just saying in our culture and our time because
maybe there's a time when, you know, when poverty is so bad
among some people that that's all they could do. But the Lord
says, if a man doesn't work, he's worse than an infidel. We
provide for our families, don't we? So we're not talking about
being destitute before men or being, you know, taking that
beggar position before men. We ought not to do that. We're
talking about before God, standing before God, naked, stripped. Look at, um, look at verse 11. My days are like a shadow that
decline if, and I am withered like grass, like a shadow that decline is
that evening shadow. There it goes. There it goes.
It's going, it's going, it's gone. Our Lord's days were like
a shadow. So are yours and mine. We're
all, if we only knew. If we only knew how brief this
life was, if we could just believe God, we would number our days. We'd be a little more cautious,
wouldn't we? Be a little more humble. And it's a good thing. See, the world just goes about
their way. They don't think about dying. I've watched people die. You've watched people die. They
don't think about it until 10 seconds before it happens. It's
like they're in total denial that it's ever going to even
happen until right when they're looking down the throat of death. God's people think about it all
the time. Not in a morose, depressing way,
but in a hopeful way. Lord, this body is, the outer
man's perishing. Life is a smoke, it's a vapor,
it's a shadow. It's just a flower, it's grass.
Comfort my people, tell them they're grass. Oh Lord, that's
what I need to be reminded. Otherwise, I will invest everything
I've got in this life. I'll put down roots in this world
and I'll be lost. and I'll have no hope before
God. It's a good thing to be reminded. When Paul wrote, and he said,
the trump of God will sound and the dead in Christ will be raised
and those of us which are alive should be caught up together
with them in the air. When he wrote about the coming of Christ,
And I would say this, Christ is coming in your lifetime if
you count the millisecond of your death as part of your life.
You see, he comes for each one. He's coming physically, no question
about it. Oh, I hope he comes today. Wouldn't
that be glorious? But he's coming for each one
of us. And after he said the Lord's coming, here's the next
phrase. Comfort ye one another with these
words. That's a great comfort, isn't
it? It's a great comfort to be reminded that the Lord is coming. Verse 12, but thou O Lord shall
endure forever. Yes. This life is temporal. Yes,
Lord. You're shaking it. Yes, Lord.
Often I have to eat the ashes. of trouble and drink the tears
of tribulation. The Lord, I know, I know that
thou shall endure forever. And, uh, you will remember your
mercies and your grace and your covenant promises to every generation. He can't lie and he can't forget.
He's never learned anything. He's never changed his mind.
We saw that last week from, from Malachi chapter three, verse
six, I am the Lord and I change not. And therefore you sons of
Jacob are not consumed. Oh, we have an immutable God.
And that's what, that's what the Lord saying with all these
changes that are taking place in my life, Lord, you change
not. He's going to repeat that again
at the end of this psalm. Look at, look at verse, um, look
at verse 12, but thou Lord shall endure forever and thy remembrance
unto all generations. Thou shall arise. The Lord Jesus Christ rose on
the third day, victorious, having conquered death. And he said,
where two or three have met together in my name, there I am in the
midst of them. And when he rose from the dead and ascended into
heaven and took his rightful place at the right hand of the
majesty on high, he said, I'm gonna send my spirit and he's
going to reveal me and my presence in your heart through the preaching
of the gospel in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nowhere
else, nowhere else. Look, look, look at what he says.
Thou shalt rise and have mercy upon Zion. Where Christ is lifted up. Where
God's people, destitute people, people that are dependent upon
the Lord for everything. People that are looking in faith
to the Lord Jesus Christ for all their righteousness before
God and for all their justification. Zion, you know, Zion, you can look
up the word, it means a parched place. And apart from the Lord Jesus
Christ, we're just, we live in a dry and thirsty land, don't
we? And he says, I'm going to come to that place, that parched
place, that desert. And, uh, for the time to favor
her. I love that the time to favor
her. The set time. Is come. The time of her love has come. When the Lord Jesus Christ ascended
back into glory, that was the time. That was the end, and ever
since then. He's been pleased to keep an
appointment according to his time. And to visit his people. Here's our hope. Here's our hope,
Lord, in this sinful body and this parched land. Lord, bring
me to Zion because this is where you've promised to show forth
your mercy and your grace and your person. It's the only place. Look at verse 14, I love verse
14. For thy servants take pleasure
in her stones. Now, what are the stones of Zion?
Well, there's one great cornerstone. The Lord Jesus Christ called
the chief cornerstone. The stone which the builders
have rejected has become the head of the corner. The religious
reject the Lord Jesus Christ because he robs them of their
righteousness and of their glory. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
no, that's the foundation of my church. And upon this rock,
I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not be able
to prevail against it. And then over there in first
Peter. Peter in talking about the church says, you are lively
stones built up together into a spiritual house. What did the
Lord, you remember, you remember Saul of Tarsus had to be knocked
down off his high horse and be put in the ground, put in the
dirt, beg for mercy. We thought he was somebody. You know what Saul translated
means? Desired. Desired everybody wanted
to be like Saul and when Saul the king Saul was chosen in the
Old Testament Everybody desired him. He was scripture says he
is head and shoulders above everybody else. May he look kingly and
they chose Saul Because he was desired and Paul tells of his
own experience. He says I was above my peers
and See, everybody wanted to be like me. I was an Israelite. I was circumcised the eighth
day of the tribe of Benjamin, a member of the Pharisees. You know, I was somebody. Everybody
looked at me and they wanted to be like me. And then what
did God do immediately? Changed his name, didn't he?
What did he change his name to? Petros. Peter. I'm sorry, Paul, Paul, changed
his name to Paul. What does Paul translated mean? A stone, a little stone. That's what he changed his name
to. And so what does God say here
in verse 14? For thy servants take pleasure
in her stones. We walk in the light as he is
in the light. We have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ cleanses us of all sin.
God's people love each other. They take delight. They don't
have this fellowship with anybody outside of Zion. They don't. It's just the way it is. Not with family, not with friends.
I mean, I'm not saying that we... Lord said, don't judge the world. You'd have to come out of the
world to do that. You're in the world, but you're not to be of
the world. But we just don't have fellowship with anybody
outside of Zion, do we? But in Zion, each member of the
church is a lively stone, stacked one upon the other, all built
upon that cheap cornerstone. And the Lord says, when he comes,
this is one of the evidences that the Lord is here. One of
the evidences, as the Lord is here, is that God's people rejoice
in mercy to have fellowship with one another. Thou shalt arise and have mercy
upon Zion for the time to favor her. Verse 14, for thy servants
take pleasure in her stones. and favor the dust thereof."
Now, you can look up that word favor. It means to have pity
upon. It means to show mercy toward. Now, if the stone is a picture
of the believer, what is the dust a picture of? The scripture
says, she will have mercy and pity upon the dust of Zion. Well, what is the first reference
to dust that we find in the Scriptures? And the Lord formed man out of
the dust of the earth. Of dust you were made and of
dust you shall return. What is the dust? It's our humanity. It's our creatureness. It's our
faults and failures. It's our sin. God's people don't
stand in judgment of one another because of their sin. They have
pity towards one another. They show mercy towards one another,
knowing that, that, that they are the chief of all centers. Who am I to stand in judgment
of another? For thy servants, here's how
we know that the Lord has risen and visited Zion because the
servants of God take pleasure in the other stones that build
up the family of God and they have pity and mercy upon the
fleshliness of one another. They really do. So the heathen, look at the next
verse. So the heathen shall fear the
name of the Lord and all the kings of the earth I glory. Now
do all the heathen fear God? No. Here's the point. Before
God makes you one of the kings of the earth and he makes his
people to be kings and priests, he makes them royalty, he adopts
them into his family and makes them Uh, part of his family before
they did before he does that they're heathens. You ever been
a heathen? You ever been a heathen? I never
been a heathen. If you really believe that the
truth is that you still are. And you don't know it because
God only saves heathens. He only saves God haters. He
only saves the enemies. You who once were at enmity with
God. And every child of God saves.
Well, that's where I was. That's where I was. The heathen shall fear the name
of the Lord and all the kings of the earth, thy glory, when
the Lord shall build up Zion. You see that in verse 16, it's
the Lord's church. He's going to build it. We're
not trying to build a kingdom here. We're not trying to build
a church where we're, we're like sheep dogs. Yeah, we're, we're
just, we're just trying to round up God's sheep. Aren't we? We
just, we just declare the gospel and God adds to the church, them,
which shall be saved. He adds to the church. The Lord shall build up Zion
and he shall appear in his glory. When the Lord is building his
church, he glorifies himself. He glorifies himself primarily
by saving sinners. That's the number one way that
the Lord glorifies himself, through the salvation of the sinner.
There's no greater miracle in all the world than for a dead
man to be made alive, a blind man to be able to see, a deaf
man to be able to hear, a God-hater to love the gospel. There's no
greater miracle. People say, well, show me a sign.
There's the sign. There's the sign. There's the
evidence of God's presence. And that happens when the preaching
is all about him, when the fellowship is all around him, when service
is all to him and when salvation is all by him. For to him, from
him and through him and to him are all things. And he gets all
the glory. See, when he visits his church,
he's glorified. He shall appear in his glory. When the old Testament church
met, he appeared at the mercy seat where the blood was sprinkled
for the forgiveness of sin and the Shekinah glory of God. God
said here, I will meet with you right here where the blood is.
That's where, where the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is where
God is. And you say, you, you preach,
you talk about the death of Christ a lot. You've heard what Paul
said. We preach Christ and him crucified. And we profess to
know nothing among you save Christ and him crucified. It's he's
the subject and he brings, he brings glory to himself by the
shedding of his blood. When the New Testament church
met in that upper room in Luke chapter 24, the Lord appeared
unto them. And what did he say? What was
the first thing the Lord said? They were scared to death. They
thought he was a ghost. I mean, he just appeared. What'd the Lord say? Peace be
unto you. Peace be unto you. How can I
have peace? I am your peace. He's the prince
of peace. You know, everybody wants the
peace of God to give them the absence of conflict in their
lives. And they have no interest in
having peace with God, not knowing that their greatest conflict
is the sin that stands between them and God. And the Lord Jesus
Christ came to take away that sin. And when you have peace
with God, through the Lord Jesus Christ, peace of God, it follows,
doesn't it? It follows. And it excels. It's better than any understanding
that we could have. And when the apostles met, when
the early disciples met, the scripture says they continued
steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine in fellowship, in the
breaking of bread, and in prayer. They remained destitute. They remained dependent. And
they continued to come together. God bless His word to our hearts.
Let's take a breath.