All right, brethren, Psalm 147. This psalm is so appropriate, and I just admire the Lord's timing. I was thinking today we started this series going through the psalms in July of 2011. I was 41. And we've come to this passage with a huge snowstorm coming and an ice storm coming. And he tells us, here is the Lord who sends the ice and the snow. I thought, what an appropriate passage and how timely the Lord brought us right here, right now.

Let's begin. I'm just going to read verse 7 and make a few comments by way of introduction and then we'll get into the psalm. He says in verse 7, sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving. Sing praise upon the harp unto our God. That's what this psalm and all the psalms are exhorting us to do. To give God all the thanksgiving and all the praise. He alone is worthy of it. He alone is worthy of all the honor and all the praise. Remember that every blessing, everything that we have, comes from His hand. Everything. And He's ruling everything. He is sovereign God. There's not a hair that falls from your head, not a bird that falls out there in the forest, There's not a germ in your body or a king on a throne that moves without God. Everything is under his power, including the devil. Everything and everyone.

Now, the main point of this Psalm is to show us that just like God sovereignly controls the weather and feeds the animals and the birds, So he sovereignly saves his people and provides everything we need. That's the point of what we're looking at. I've titled this Sovereignty in Nature and Grace. That's what we'll see. We're gonna see that he's the provider of life. All life is provided by God. We're gonna see what God does and does not delight in. What he takes pleasure in. what he does not take pleasure in. We're gonna see where our peace and our security is and why. We're gonna see the power of his word. And I'm gonna save the last thing to the very last. I want you to stay with me to the end and you'll see the best part.

All right, let's look here. First of all, our God is the provider of life, the provider of life. He says in verse eight, Sing thanksgiving to the Lord, praise the Lord who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow up on the mountains. He giveth to the beast his food and to the young ravens which cry. God's the sole creator and the sole provider of his whole creation. God is. He shows us here what it takes to make the grass grow. He covers the heavens with clouds. It says God prepares the rain for the earth. You know, science has all these names for what happens. God just tells us how it is. He prepares it. He covers the heavens with clouds. He prepares the rain for the earth. And by sending the rain, he makes the grass grow up on the mountaintops where no man is. And he does all that to feed the animals and the birds. He feeds the beast. No animal produces their food other than a mother providing milk for the young, and that's of God. but they don't produce their food. God provides their food. He sustains the life of everything that's living. God hears the young raven cry and he provides their food. God does that.

Now this is not simply to give us a lesson about nature and what God's doing in nature. This is to tell us something about salvation and about how God is sovereign in salvation. That's the purpose, this is to exalt Christ. How does a spiritually dead sinner have life? You look at the raven, it's a scavenger and a raven has a bad reputation. It's a bird that is used to symbolize something frightening or something scary, you know. It can't plow, it can't sow, They don't have storehouses. And yet it says, God hears them when they cry and he feeds them. Now, is that not a picture of a sinner?

We have the worst reputation of any creature. We've taken God's very creation and abused it. We've exalted ourselves. We've fallen in sin so deep that scripture says we're spiritually dead by nature. Dead. Dead. No life. No way of giving life. No way of producing spiritual life. Man can't just produce faith. He can't just start believing. We can't do any of these things. We're helpless to provide ourselves with righteousness that God demands. We can't do it. We just cannot do it.

but just like the earth is dry and it's barren unless God send the rain. Brethren, we're dead and we're barren unless God send the Spirit, His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes and unless He give us the gospel and gives us a revelation of the gospel and gives us light and discernment, all of this is of God. He does it all. It's all by his sovereign power and he sends it just like he sends the rain at the precise time, right where he'll have it to fall. He sends the gospel at the predestinated hour and right to the chosen sinner and blesses it and gives life. He does that himself. God gives spiritual life. God gives faith. God grants repentance. God makes us have light to behold the Lord Jesus. It's all of him. He puts the cry of mercy on our lips. We don't even cry like the raven unless God gives us grace to cry in truth. And he puts that in our heart and on our lips, and when we cry, he hears his child.

And the Lord continues to provide rain and continues to feed the animals and the birds, and likewise, he continues to feed you and me who he's called and given faith to trust him. He continues to feed us all our day.

Go with me to Matthew chapter six. It sounds to me like our savior, he gave Psalm 147, he gave it to the man who penned it, and then it sounds like in Matthew six, he's preaching right from this psalm. Look here, Matthew six, you know, Preachers try to come up with applications. We don't have to come up with any. The Lord gives them to us, and he gives us the whole meaning of this Psalm.

Here in Matthew 6, he's telling us you cannot believe God and serve God and depend upon mammon, earthy, the carnal things. And look what he says here now in verse 25. Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on? Is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature? Can you worry 18 inches into your height? Can you do anything, accomplish anything by worrying? Why, I take you thought for raiment. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? All these things does the ungodly world seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." That's Christ. Seek Christ the King and His righteousness. All these things will be added to you.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Doesn't that sound like our psalm? That sounds just like what our psalm is teaching. Well, the author is the one who just, we just read what he says to us about that psalm.

Now let's go to this next thing, Psalm 147. And this is really the application of those verses we just read about God feeding the animals. Here's the application to it. This is what God does not take pleasure in and what he does take pleasure in. He said, verse 10, he delighteth not in the strength of the horse, he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man, The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him and those that hope in his mercy.

God has no delight in carnal, earthly, temporal strength. None at all. Not horses and not man. When God delivered Israel into Canaan, he said, I'll provide you a king. He said, don't go seeking a king like these other nations. I will give you a king. and he shall not multiply horses unto himself. Why did he say that? This is, later they did. They chose the king they wanted, and God gave them a king, corrupt king, and then they multiplied horses.

Now this is not God saying don't have a military to provide defense for a nation, but what this is telling is for his spiritual Israel, for his elect, for his saints, he's telling us, Do not look to anything of you or anything of this world to deliver you from your enemies. That's what he's saying.

Listen to this from Deuteronomy 20 in verse one. He said, when thou goest out to battle against thine enemies and seest horses and chariots and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them, for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. That's the point, that's the point.

You remember that one scripture where they went to go battle with, I think it was two or three different enemies had come together to fight them, and the Lord told them to go to the front line and stand there and sing praises to God. And they did it, and the Lord worked some kind of fog or something on the battlefield, and the enemies thought the other enemy was the enemy, and they fought each other, and when it was done, they killed themselves. And all the Lord's people did was sit there and sing praises to Him.

The Lord's with you. It's our belief to put confidence in carnal weapons, but even more than that, it's total ungodly and totally something God takes no delight in for a man to put confidence in his own strength, his own will, his own works to try to obtain a righteousness and acceptance with God.

Our enemy is that we have a sin nature. Our enemy is that we're unrighteous and ungodly by nature. Our enemy is the law of God saying that that sinner must die and you can't defeat. Our enemies are our powers and principalities that you can't see. Enemies that we don't even know are around us.

But here's the point of it all. God said, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in my sight. It's not gonna be by our strength. He said salvation's not of him that willeth. It's not of man's will. Salvation is not of man's will. It's not of him that runneth. Salvation's not of man's works. It's of God's mercy. Salvation is by God's mercy.

We walk in the flesh, but we don't war in the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're mighty through God. God makes our weapons mighty. Through the pulling down of strongholds, he brings every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, to look to Christ and believe Christ and trust that his perfect obedience to God is our acceptance with God. That's how a sinner's conquered, through the gospel of Christ and crucified.

Salvation's not by a sinner's efforts, to climb up step by step to God by his works. That's not salvation. God delights in those who fear him, those who fear him, those who reverence him, those that see Christ as our sanctuary. Remember he said in Isaiah, he said, he said, don't say a confederacy, don't make a confederacy with the ones that these people make a confederacy with. Sanctify the Lord of hosts. See him as all powerful. See him as the sovereign who saves and none can take us out of his hands. See him high and lifted up. Sanctify him and he shall be your fear and he shall be your dread. And he will be the sanctuary for you. He'll protect you. But those that don't trust Him, He'll be a stumbling block. They'll be snared and trapped.

It's God who by His sovereign power and His sovereign grace comes to the sinner and makes us to know Christ is our righteousness. He's our fitness to enter into glory. When He comes and creates a new holy heart, that sanctification in us But that sanctification doesn't make us look to us. That makes us look to Christ and know he sanctified us by his one offering. God delights in his child who hopes in his mercy. See it there? He delights in those who hope in his mercy.

The posture of God's people is not a stiff neck. A stiff neck is, you know, you do like this You start boasting about what you're going to do and not do. That's not the posture that God delights in. God delights in that sinner that comes bowed down to Christ's feet and says, Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. You know why? Because you're putting all your trust in his son. You're looking to his son alone. And that's who God the Father is looking to, is his son alone. Our king rejects the mighty man with his abilities. He rejects him. And he looks to the beggar, smiting on his breast and begging for mercy. That's who he looks to. That Pharisee was rejected, Christ said, but that publican that had his face in the dust and was smiting on his breast and crying, Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. He said he went to his house justified.

The Lord taketh pleasure in his people. Listen to this. He will beautify the meek with salvation. The meek are those that trust only in the Lord.

All right, next we see who our peace and our security is. He says in verse 12, praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise thy God, O Zion. for he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates, he hath blessed thy children within thee, he maketh peace in thy borders, and he filleth thee with the finest of the wheat. Please get this. Brethren, you that have been called by our Lord and given faith to trust him, please get this. He's thy God, he's your God. He's your God. The Lord is thy God, and he's the only one deserving of our praise. And you know how you praise him the most? That publican begging for mercy was praising God. He was showing that he believed God was the only one who can save. Christ is the only one that can save us. Our strength and our protection is not by our hand. It's not by how many alarms we have on our house, or how many locks we have on our doors, And it's not anything we do spiritually speaking that is our security. Our security is the Lord. Our security is the one who is our savior.

He hath strengthened the bars of thy gates. That means he's your keeper. That means he has you surrounded. He's going to protect you. Underneath are his everlasting arms. We're kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed. It's ready. He's done it all. And we're kept by his power through faith. And the emphasis there is not your faith. The emphasis is God's power and God's faithfulness to keep you looking only to him and knowing that he's your salvation.

As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even forever. Now, his city and his spiritual Zion is the church, is his people, is those he's chosen by his grace, redeemed by his grace, regenerated by his grace, and assembled by his grace. They are his people, scattered all over this world in different assemblies, but it's those he has saved by his grace.

He said, and he's telling us here, the only one that we have to praise for creating children, for producing children, the fruit, children, in his church, the only one we have to praise is the Lord. He said, he hath blessed thy children within thee. He has. Remember Isaiah 54, when he said, sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear. He said, cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child. We didn't produce children. We don't produce spiritual children. We're barren by nature. He said, but more are the children of the desolate. That's Christ's spiritual bride. That's his people. That's those he uses to preach the gospel. He said, you're gonna have more children than the married wife. The married wife were the Pharisees that looked like they had all the numbers. And the world's religion, it looks like that's where they've produced all these children. When you go from the beginning all the way to the end of time, there's gonna be a number that our Lord has saved that no man can number. And he produced every one of them. That's the fruit he's talking about. And any fruit that comes from us personally, He alone is the one to be praised.

And He's not only our security, He's our peace. He says, He maketh peace in thy borders. He does. I want you to go to Ephesians 2. I want to show you something I saw this week that blessed my heart. I think it'll bless yours. Ephesians 2. We've looked at this many times, but there's a four-fold peace here that I just saw it this week. And I think you'll see it. Look here. First of all, between brethren. He says, verse 14, for he is our peace. Now get that settled. Christ is our peace. He is our peace who hath made both one. That's his elect Jew and his elect Gentile. How did he do it? He hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, and here it was, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in him, in himself, of two, one new man, so making peace. In other words, all his elect Gentiles and all his elect Jews stand before God as one man in Christ. One in Christ. And because he fulfilled the law, we're not using the law to exalt ourselves over one another anymore. Because we have one righteousness and it's him.

Now here's the second, the second kind of peace. And, verse 16, and he's our peace with God. that he might reconcile both unto God. He reconciled, he made peace with God on our behalf. He reconciled both Jew and Gentile unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.

All right, verse 17, and here's the third piece. He's the peace in our hearts personally. through the gospel, the peace of conscience and the peace of heart, knowing you're accepted of God. And it says he came and he preached peace to you. That's how he gave it to us, through the gospel. He came, he came and preached peace to you which were far off and to them that were nigh.

And here's the fourth. He's our peace in knowing we have access to God our Father at any time. Look, verse 18. We both have access by one spirit unto the Father. That's four ways we have peace, and Christ is the peace in all of them. With brethren, peace with God, peace in our hearts, and peace of knowing we can come to God's throne and call upon God, and he will hear us at any time. That's peace, brethren. Security and peace, what else really, really? What else do you really need?

You know why we have a giant military? Because man's looking to man to secure peace. That's why. We got Christ. He's our security and he's our peace all the time. And he continues to feed us and fill us with the life. Look here now, go back at Psalm 147, look here. He filleth thee, verse 14, he maketh peace in thy borders and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat. The finest of the wheat.

He made this analogy himself. He said, when he was going to the cross, he said his soul was troubled, he said, verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, It abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He is the life. He is the bread from heaven. The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, came down. He came down and he took the nature of his elect without sin. He's the seed. He's the corn of wheat. And he fell into the ground. just like a corn of wheat has to go into the ground. He laid down his life and he was broken in the room instead of his people under the justice of God. And his body was buried in the grave. And just like life comes from that broken seed in the ground, Christ arose with all his people having been justified by his blood. We arose in him. And now he sends this gospel and this good news and he creates his children. And instead of Christ not laying down his life and just abiding alone, he laid down his life for his people and made us righteous by his blood so that he won't lose any of his children. He's gonna have all his people. He bought us with his blood.

The world, and I say this to the young folks, but us older ones need to hear it too. This world is offering us nothing but the husks that swine feed on, that's all. That's all it's gonna get you. And just like the prodigal ended up feeding on husks, whether it's false religion or something in this world, Christ gives us the bread from heaven. He is the bread from heaven. He filleth thee with the finest of the wheat. If you look in the margin, it means the fattest of the wheat, the good stuff, that's him. the bread from heaven. In his city there is no famine. No famine. He's going to provide bread for his people. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty and he will save. He will rejoice over thee with joy. He will rest in his love. He will joy over thee with singing. That's just summing up what this whole passage is saying to us. He's your security and your peace and continually providing you with life and producing children. all through this gospel.

Now, next, look here. Now, he's doing all this by his word. That's what the Psalm is telling us. He's doing all this by his word. All right? And now, this is why I say it's so fitting and so timely, given we're about to have a snowstorm. And down south, they're gonna have real bad ice. And we're gonna have ice and snow.

Look here, listen. You gonna hear it in the news, but you always end up hearing it. It's not mother nature. It's not mother nature. There's no such thing. Where's it come from? Look at verse 15. He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth, his word. His word runneth very swiftly. He giveth snow like wool. He scattereth the hoarfrost, the gray frost, like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels. Who can stand before his cold? He sendeth out his word and melteth them. He causeth his wind to blow and the waters flow.

Now, I'm just gonna read to you what God says about that. If you wanna turn, it's in Isaiah 55.10. Isaiah 5510. He said,

as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, Isaiah 5510, as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth in bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it. For ye shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace. The mountains, the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn, shall come up the fir tree. Instead of the briar, shall come up the myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

It's gonna be so that his people know he did it and give him all the thanksgiving and all the praise. This snowstorm is not mother nature. The snowstorm is God. It's God. Who can stand before His cold?

When our Lord makes His child hear the law and hear that we're guilty, He freezes you like ice. Like ice freezes. He freezes you. You know you can't move. You can't do anything to please God. And when He makes you feel like, when our Savior makes you feel like His presence is not with you, It's the same thing. You can't do anything. You're frozen. Our Lord said, without me, you can do nothing.

Ice can't melt itself. How does ice melt? How does it melt? He sends out his word. That's what it says. He sends out his word. You know what's gonna happen? He's gonna make you hear the law, and you're gonna be frozen from all your works. You're not gonna keep trying to come to God by something you do. You'll see it's all in vain. And if he needs to wake you up, if you become lukewarm and cold, he'll make you feel like his presence is gone, and he'll wake you up. But how's it gonna, what's gonna happen then? He's gonna send his word, he's gonna send his gospel, and Christ is gonna speak, and the sun, this is how the ice melts, the sun rises and shines. Well, scripture says the son of righteousness Christ, the Son of Righteousness, with healing in His wings, healing in His rays. And by His warmth, He causes the wind to blow. The Spirit blows where it will, He said. You can't see when it's coming, where it's going, and you can't resist it. The Holy Spirit enters in, and He causes the waters to flow. Life. Life. He makes you know His presence.

When the Lord Jesus spoke His word, Lazarus was in that tomb, and he waited because he loved Mary and Martha. He waited until they knew Lazarus was dead. Martha protested. He'd been in the tomb now for three, four days, three days, whatever it was, and he did that on purpose so they would know. And when he spoke his word, Lazarus, come forth, that man was dead, and that man came alive, and he came out of that tomb.

When that leper came to him and asked for the Lord to heal him, he said, be thou clean, and immediately his leprosy was cleansed. When that blind man, he drew that blind man and he told him, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. What did he mean by that? Thy faith hath made thee whole? It's the one faith's looking to. The object is Christ made him whole and immediately he received his sight. Christ did that.

When he speaks the word, when's a man going to believe? When he speaks and gives you faith. That's how faith comes. When's a man going to repent of trusting himself and trusting his words? When he speaks the word. When are we going to know Christ is our only righteousness and our only wisdom and holiness and redemption? When he speaks the word. And he's going to do it through a preacher preaching, but you're going to know it's Christ speaking. You're going to believe him. And you're going to praise him.

He said, it's the spirit that quickeneth the flesh, prophets nothing. The words that I speak unto you are spirit in their life. And he's still doing that. He's speaking this word, he's using the written word, he's using the preached word, but the effectual power is Christ himself in spirit, speaking to the heart. He said, a new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away that frozen, hard, stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. It's all to the praise and glory of God our Father and His Son and the Holy Spirit. Every bit of it.

In the next few days, the snow's gonna come. And when that snow starts falling, and you see those snowflakes coming down and start accumulating on the ground, you remember, we just read it right here in God's Word, God did that. And then when you see the sun come out a few days later, and you start seeing it all melt, and you start seeing the waters flow. You remember, Christ is the son of righteousness. He's the one who shines and gives life in a dead sinner, and it's by his word. You remember that when you see these things in the next few days.

Now, I said there's one last thing I want to give you. This is the best part. This is the best part. God does all of this only for his elect. Look at the next word, verse 19. He showeth his word unto Jacob. Sinners in ourselves, that's all we are. He showeth his word to Jacob, his statutes and his judgment unto Israel. In Christ, we're Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation. This is distinguishing grace. This is particular redemption. This is saving, calling, keeping grace to his elect alone. And as for his judgments, they have not known them. What does that mean? That means none of us knew him. None of us were able to discern him. None of us were able to believe him. It's by revelation. He revealed his word to us and gave us discernment.

Seeing all of this and knowing all of this, when you walk out of here and the days to come, what should I do? I've heard all of this. He's the giver of life and he's my security and he's my peace and I've heard that he does it all by his word and he produces his children and all of this that he does. What should I do? There's only one thing to do. It's the very last word in this passage. Praise ye the Lord. That's what we do, isn't it? We praise the Lord. He did it all. Everything is of the Lord. All right, Brother Adam.