Alright brethren, we'll be in
Psalm 103. As far as I can tell, we had
good services in Danville. And the brethren there send their
greetings to you. And they said to thank you for
your prayers for them. And I hope you heard the messages. Sunday I preached from Psalm
101 and Psalm 102. And I ended by reading Psalm
103. And I was trying to show the
life of a believer. We begin with that strong resolve,
and we go through many trials, and then Psalm 103 is where the
Lord brings us. And then on Tuesday, we looked
only at Psalm 103, and I tried to cover the whole Psalm, but
I want to try to preach from Psalm 103 again tonight, but
only the first five verses. You know, carnal writings of
men become old when you repeat them, but not the gospel, not
the scriptures. And the reason for that is what
we're going to see in our text tonight. It's by the Spirit renewing
and keeping the word new. That's why Paul said, to write
the same things to you, to me indeed's not grievous, but for
you it's safe. When I was at Franklin, after
hearing my pastor preach a message, I would be there, I would hear
the message and I would get the cassette tape and listen to it
two or three times. And I was thankful for faithful
preachers of the past and books and things that were recorded
of their messages and I was thankful for other pastors current in
that day. But the Lord gave me that pastor. And the Lord gives his word for
his people through the pastor he's provided to minister to
that congregation. And it never failed when I would
listen to the messages two or three times, the Lord would reveal
things to me that I didn't hear the first time. And it would
be a greater blessing than when I heard it the first time. So
I want to try to preach this psalm again. I hope you've heard
it already, but I want to try to preach Psalm 103 in person
for you. I've prepared it with you on
my heart and I want to preach it to you. Now we saw in Psalm
102 how the Lord sends the trial and He brings us to be like a
pelican in the wilderness. And then in Psalm 103, He shows
us where He brings us. Look here at these first five
verses. David writes, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that
is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities,
who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction,
who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies.
And here's how David was brought to bless the Lord. This is how
he was brought to bless the Lord. Verse 5, who satisfies thy mouth
with good so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. Now I'm not very familiar with
eagles, but I do know something about ducks. And I read that
the eagle is like the duck in that they molt. They molt. And when a duck molts, they're
shedding their old feathers. and they're growing new feathers.
And when that's taking place, those old feathers become dull
and they become motley colored. So much so that a mallard greenhead
with all its vibrant colors will look just like a hen, like a
mallard hen. You can't tell them apart. Even
the greenhead will become dull and black and brown looking. And when they're molting, they
can't fly. They can just kind of scoot across
the water, but they can't get any altitude, they can't fly.
And that's what he's describing here when he's painting this
picture of the eagle. That's how we become in the trial. Like Psalm 102, we saw we're
cast down, we're depressed, we're weak, we're like a pelican in
the wilderness. But when that eagle sheds its
old feathers, Then the new colorful feathers replace the old feathers.
And they put off the old and they put on the new. They're
renewed. And then they take to the sky and they have new life
and sing loudly. And that's what God works in
His child through this molting season of trial. That's what
He's working for us. In the trial, we can't fly. We're
weak. cast down under the weight of
our sinful old man of flesh. Look back there at Psalm 102
verse 3. Listen to David again. He says,
verse 3, My days are consumed like smoke. My bones are burned
as a hearth. My heart is smitten and withered
like grass so that I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the
voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin. I'm like a
pelican of the wilderness. But at the Lord set time, look
down at verse 17, it says, He will regard the prayer of the
destitute. He has to bring us to be totally
destitute. Totally destitute. And He will
regard the prayer of the destitute. He shall appear, or He won't
despise their prayer. He looks down, verse 19, He looks
down from the height of His sanctuary, from heaven, And in verse 20,
He hears the groaning of the prisoner to loose those that
are appointed to death. And He does it to declare the
name of the Lord in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem. He is
going to bring His people to praise His name and give Him
all the glory as He works this. And so verse 5 in our text, Psalm
103 verse 5 says, So He satisfied thy mouth with good things. He
feeds us, our inward man. He gives you fresh views of Christ
our bread, Christ our strength. And He feeds you inwardly in
spirit, by the Spirit of God. And so that thy youth is renewed
like the eagles. Our inward man is renewed like
when God first revealed Christ in your heart. That's your youth. When you first heard the gospel
and He first revealed Himself to you, He renews you just like
it was in the first hour you heard Him. And He makes you put
off the old man by renewing the inward man with Christ our life
and Christ our strength. This is what happens over and
over and over through a believer's life. Hosea 2, let's go over
there and I want to show you the Lord declares this what he'll
do for his elect, for his bride. You know, Gomer is us. Gomer
is a picture of God's elect, his children. And the Lord said
that. In Ahosea 3, He said what He's
showing here with Hosea and Gomer is the love of the Lord toward
His elect Israel. Now look what He says He'll do
for us, verse 14. He says, Behold, I will allure
her and bring her into the wilderness. She's talking about you who know
Him, you who are His. I'll bring her into the wilderness.
That's where the pelican was in Psalm 102, remember? I'm like
a pelican in the wilderness. He said, I'm going to bring her
into the wilderness. He's going to discover to us our lewdness,
our sin. He's going to discover, make
our mirth to cease. But this is also what He's going
to do. Our text says it too. He's going to speak comfortably
unto her. He's going to feed you, satisfy
you with good things. He's going to speak comfortably
the gospel, the word of His grace into your heart. I'll give her
her vineyards from thence, from this place, and the valley of
Acre, I'm going to give her for a door of hope. In the valley
of trouble, that's what it means. when He brings you into the wilderness
and the valley of trouble so that you're destitute. You're
destitute. He's going to renew in us the
fruit, the vineyard, the fruit of hope in Christ along with
faith in Christ and love for Christ and love for one another. And by doing this inwardly, making
you behold Christ and all His benefits towards you, all anew,
here's the result. and she shall sing there as in
the days of her youth and as in the day when she came up out
of the land of Egypt. Brethren, regeneration is one
time. The Lord regenerates us, he creates a new man in us, and
you behold Christ and all things are new. You reconcile to God
and all things become new. But the renewing of the Holy
Ghost is ongoing. I feel sorry for folks who You
know, they get it all patched up right at the beginning and
they don't ever have another problem the rest of the time.
That's not so with God's people. You're going to have to be renewed
over and over and over. This is really what true sanctification
is. This is how he's really going
to keep him at being preeminent and keep you and me as being
nothing in our own esteem. And when he does this, He keeps
doing it. Isaiah 58, 11 said, The Lord
shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought,
and make fat thy bones. And thou shalt be like a watered
garden, and like a spring of water who waters fell not. And
when He does this, again your strength is renewed like it was
in the beginning. You behold Christ anew. It says,
In the days of our youth when Christ first delivered you out
of bondage and made you behold Him. Remember what the Lord said
to Peter when Peter started his trial? When in his trial, Peter's
a believer, he'd been converted. The Lord said, Peter, I prayed
for you that your faith fell not. When you are converted from
this pride and arrogancy and boasting and thinking yourself
something when you're nothing, when you're converted from that,
strengthen your brethren with what I teach you. And that's
what Peter did. And you start singing to the
Lord. You start really worshiping God in spirit and in truth. Only
Christ can create this. This is how He does it. The first
time, this is how He does it. Anytime we truly worship Him,
this is how He does it. And He said you go sing, just
like you did when you were brought out of Egypt. And so back in
our text, in Psalm 103.1, you start singing, Bless the Lord,
O my soul. In all that is within me, bless
His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all His benefits. To bless is to praise with the
affection and the gratitude from the new man. We get our affection
set on the cares and the sins and the troubles and all the
things around us. And it takes the Lord working
this to set your affection on Him so that you really say to
yourself, quit talking to others and quit trying to tell others
what to do and you start preaching to your own heart, oh bless the
Lord, oh my soul. Bless the Lord, all that's within
me, bless His holy name. It's not only His benefits for
which we praise Him, it's His holy name. It's God our Savior
Himself. When you're in the trial and
He reveals to you your sin, and He reveals to you your self-righteousness,
and reveals to you you've been trying to be self-sufficient.
And He shows you all over again that you're not worthy of the
least of His mercies. And then He shows you His mercy
towards you and that He's just to do it because Christ laid
down His life for His people. justified us, so it's just, it's
the only thing that is just for God to be merciful to us. And
when He shows you that all again, that's when you see His holy
name, all His attributes together in His mercy towards you in the
salvation of His people. And you say, bless His holy name.
Everything He's doing is holy and right and just and good. And in this ongoing renewing
of the Spirit of God, God won't let us forget Him. He won't let
us forget Him and all His benefits. If it wasn't for God doing this,
we would forget Him. You see men that go for a while
and they believe the Gospel, and then one day they act like
they never even heard of Him. What happened? They forgot Him.
Listen to this from Deuteronomy 8.12. Moses said, when they went
into Israel, He said, you're receiving land for which you
didn't labor, you're receiving vineyards for which you didn't
plant, you didn't do anything to make this happen, you're getting
houses for which you didn't build. The Lord said, I'm giving you
all this. But He warned them and He said this, lest when thou
hast eaten and are full, and hast built goodly houses, and
dwelt therein. And when your herds and your
flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and
all that thou hast is multiplied, then thy heart be lifted up,
and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of
the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. Forget it's He who
led thee through that great and terrible wilderness where were
fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, where there was
no water. Forget it's Him who brought thee forth water out
of the rock of Flint, who fed thee in the wilderness with manna,
which thy fathers knew not, that He might humble thee, that He
might prove thee to do thee good at thy latter end. And thou say
in thine heart, My power and the might of my hand hath gotten
me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord
thy God, for it's he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that
he may establish his covenant, which he swear unto thy fathers
as it is this day. That's what he's going to keep
us remembering. And when he brings you here again and you see that
you have forgotten him, you were lifted up. And He brings you
through this again and renews you in the inward man. And He
makes you say, oh, bless the Lord. Oh, my soul, with everything
that's in me, bless Him in spirit and in truth. Let me truly worship
Him and let me not ever forget all His benefits to me. He's given us the gospel to keep
His people in remembrance of Him. and all His benefits to
us. That's what we come to hear preached
is God's benefits to us. His works and what He's doing
in saving us from beginning to end. He gave us the Lord's table. Why? This do in remembrance of
me. And when He does this renewing
work in the heart, we're going to remember Him. We're going
to remember Him. Psalm 102.11 He said, My days
are like a shadow that declineth, I'm withered like grass, but
thou, O Lord, shall endure forever in thy remembrance unto all generations. And here's how. Verse 13, Thou
shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion for the time to favor her,
yea, the set time is come. This is what the Lord continues
to do beginning to end. And you'll go a little while
and you'll go through that molting season. of trial, and He has
to renew you, and He keeps renewing, and He keeps renewing. What does
He teach us when He renews us? What are these benefits that
make us rejoice and bless the Lord and praise the Lord so?
Well, first of all, He continually reminds us of the complete forgiveness
of our sins, and this is how we are healed. He says in verse
3, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases."
Now, by one offering, the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross perfected
forever His sanctified people. God sanctified them, chose them
in Christ, Christ came forth and by His one offering He perfected
His people forever. And when you're born of God,
a new man is created in you in the righteousness and holiness
of Christ by the incorruptible seed and there is no sin in that
new man. When you die, nothing will have
to be done to your spirit. You'll go be with the Lord immediately.
It's this flesh you're going to put off, because it's nothing
but sin, and he'll have to create a new body that'll be with him,
perfect in his righteousness. The scripture tells us, with
his stripes we're healed. Now that happened at Calvary.
He said it's finished, with his stripes we're healed. But notice
here, all the benefits here end with ETH. And that is that English
suffix that means they're ongoing. It's not that he's putting away
your sin again, it's that he's continually reminding you, by
renewing you, that he's forgiven all your iniquities. When we're
sin sick, we're diseased in our sin nature and our heart is defiled,
we're either in our sin or our self-righteousness or our vain
self-sufficiency or all of it. But God's going to put us in
the wilderness and He's going to strip us. He will put you
in the wilderness and strip you. Bring you like that pelican in
the wilderness. But then He'll renew you so that you know, and
He makes you know in the court of your conscience, that He continually
forgiveth all thine iniquities and healeth all thy diseases.
And indeed, He heals all physical diseases, but this right here
is the healing of the soul. This comes by the forgiveness
of our iniquities. Listen to this from Isaiah 33,
24. The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick. He's talking
about his people. He won't say, I'm sick. The people
that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity. They go together. The healing of the soul, the
healing whereby your conscience is purged and you behold Christ
and know you're accepted of Him. And He's forgiven all your iniquities.
This is what heals our sin sickness, our diseases. That's what James
was talking about when he said if you're sick, it's sin sickness. This was typified in the leper.
The leper had to come one place. The leper couldn't go anywhere
else to be healed of his leprosy. He had to come to the high priest.
And you're going to have to go to Christ. You got to go to Christ. That's the only place we can
be cured. You have to go to Christ. You won't be cured any other
place. But He will see to it, His people come to Him. He will
see to it, His people will renew you. And He works this throughout
the life of the believer. You go through these scriptures
and over and over and over, you're going to find God's people crying
out for mercy. Psalm 25 11, David's a believer
and he's saying, For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity,
for it's great. Look upon mine affliction and
my pain and forgive all my sins. He said in Psalm 51.9, Hide thy
face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in
me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.
That's what He's talking about, about forgiving all iniquity
and healing our diseases. It's creating a clean heart in
us, renewing a right spirit within us by making us see that He has
blotted out all our sins. Forgiveness of sin and healing
go together. They're vitally connected. Only
Christ can heal us of the spiritual disease caused by our sins. I'm
not talking about physical disease. I'm talking about spiritual disease. I'm talking about sin of not
being able to trust Christ. It's but Christ speaking into
the court of the conscience, making you know all over anew
that he forgiveth all thine iniquities and with his stripes thou art
healed. The blood of Christ didn't bring
pardon for some of our sins, some of the time. The blood of
Christ brings pardon for all our iniquities all the time.
He forgiveth all thine iniquities, forgiveth ongoing, all the time,
all thine iniquities. And He has to make us know that
and keep us knowing that. Then it's well with our soul.
That's how you have the strength to put off the old man and put
on the new man and mount up with wings as eagles and praise the
Lord. And really what that is a picture
of is you enter into the holy place having your affection set
on Christ so that you treat your body and your sins and all your
self-righteousness and everything you are in your flesh like a
dead dog, nothing, like it is, dead. And you see Christ is your
only life. That's the strength. That's our
strength. That's our life. And then we
rejoice over this next benefit. He redeemeth our life from destruction. You know in that first hour,
the destruction he's talking about here is the second death.
It's eternal condemnation. It's the curse and condemnation
of the law. And when Christ first revealed Himself to you, the
first thing He had to do in us was make us see and confess to
Him we're worthy of the curse and condemnation of God and that's
all we deserve. That's it. And we're going to have to keep acknowledging
that to Him. And how are we going to do it?
He's going to bring us to see it. He's going to bring us to
own it. He's going to bring us to know it like it was that first
hour. He continually saves us from
destruction, from everything that would destroy us by separating
us from Him, including our own selves. Including us getting
puffed up and thinking that now we can stand. Now we got some
strength. Now it's synergistic. Now it's
between me and God, the sanctification. He does his part and I do my
part. I wish everything, everywhere that's ever been written would
be destroyed. Because it's a lie. You think David right here is
praising himself for anything he did? You think he's boasting
about anything he had to do with this work? He's giving God all
the glory. And when he works this work,
you don't have to worry about those writings and false teaching
because when he works this work, he'll make you discard them all.
Because you'll know from experience he's the only one that works
this. He's the only one that works this. David said in Psalm
41, I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined unto me
and He heard my cry. He brought me up also out of
a horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock
and established my goings. That's David as a believer right
now. He did that for you in the first
time, but that's David as a believer right now. And what was the result?
David said he put a new song in my mouth. Praise unto our
God. Many shall see and fear and shall
trust in the Lord. David had a bunch of marvelous
deliverances all through his life, all through the wilderness. Once he got to the throne, then
he was out in the wilderness again and the Lord just kept
bringing him into these places where he couldn't deliver himself
and the Lord kept delivering him. And by all those lesser
redemptions and deliverances, he kept him seeing the great
redemption Christ had worked for him, or would work for him
at Calvary. That he has redeemed him from
eternal destruction. And that's what he's going to
keep us knowing. That's what he's going to keep us knowing.
And so after each trial, with each renewing, this is the peaceful
fruit of righteousness that he worked. This is how he keeps
you partaking of his holiness. Right here. He keeps us praising
and worshiping the Lord because we see that He continually, verse
4, crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies. Continually. Never a time He's not crowning
you with lovingkindness and tender mercies. He's made us kings unto
God by His blood and He crowns us. And He crowns us with lovingkindness
and tender mercies. He remembers we're dust and He
deals with us as dust. And it keeps on, verse 5, He
satisfyeth. He keeps satisfying thy mouth
with good things. This is how He's crowning you
with His loving kindness and His tender mercy. He keeps satisfying
your mouth with good things. That means He's feeding you. So that thy youth is renewed
like the eagles. When do you really rejoice in
mercy? When do you really rejoice that
all your sins are forgiven? In the face of your sin. When you behold your sin. And
you behold what you are. And it gets so obnoxious to you
that you just... You think that you abhor earthly
bread, you abhor your dainty meat, the scripture said. You
feel like you're drawn near to death, like you have drawn near
to destruction and you're not His. Listen to this from Job
33, 24. When the Spirit renews you inwardly
to behold Christ and see nothing's changed, nothing's changed. Nothing has changed with Him
towards you. When He makes you see this, listen to this. Job 33 verse 24, Then He is gracious
unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit.
I found a ransom. Christ is at ransom. His flesh
shall be fresher than a child's. He shall return to the days of
His youth. This is renewing. Like when He
first called you. He shall pray unto God, and He
will be favorable unto Him. He shall see His face with joy,
for He will render unto man His righteousness. That is, God will
render to you Christ's righteousness. And he looketh upon men, and
if any say, I have sinned and perverted that which was right,
and it profited me not, he will deliver his soul from going into
the pit, and his life shall see the light. Lo, all these things
worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring back his soul from the
pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living. The Holy
Spirit regenerates one time, and you have a new man in you.
And He's keeping that new man sustained and alive by Christ
in you, Christ the life in you. But there's going to be plenty
of times that God renews the renewing of the Holy Ghost, it's
called, throughout the life of faith. And He's going to keep
His mercies new unto us. That's what Jeremiah said. In
Lamentations 3.23, they're new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. We'd forget Him if it wasn't
for Him doing this. It's how Christ grows us to trust
Him more and ourselves less. It's how He grows us to love
our brethren as Christ loves us. How's that? When we're in
that place and you see what a vile wretch you have been and how
ignorant and foolish and sinful and ungodly And yet God crowns
you with loving kindness and tender mercy. That's what you
want to do to your brethren. When they're vile and ugly and
puffed up and think they somebody when they're nothing. Just be
gracious and wait and trust the Lord. He's the only one can work
this. The only one. He grows us to
love our brethren because He never stops showing us. He crowns
us with these benefits of grace even while we demerit each and
every one of them. Each and every one of them. He has to continually show us
this because we continually demerit all this by our sin. So remember, if you're in a trial
and you're depressed and you're down and you're weak, assurance and faith are two different
things. Faith is just believing God,
trusting His Word for Him to do what He says He'll do. When
He does it, He'll give you some assurance in your heart, but
there'll be times when you're cast down in your burden with
your sin. And sometimes you just don't
know what it is. You don't know what's causing it. You just feel
like you're going to fall away. Believe Him. It doesn't say you
have to be assured and have all this feeling of I'm His and I
know I'm His. No. When you're in darkness,
believe Him. This is what it is to wait on
the Lord. And the Scripture says, they that wait upon the Lord
shall renew strength. We see how you're going to do
it. He's going to do it, isn't he? In time. You'll mount up
with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint. But He's going to keep us knowing
that His renewing is the only way we faint not. It's the only
way. Have you ever been so weak that
that you didn't think you knew him or have you been cocksure
you know him ever since he caught you. I hope, I hope he brings us all
through this because he does bring all his children through
this, every one of them. It's the only way you're going
to put off them old feathers and put on the new. And this
has to be constantly his work. You can hear Paul say, put off
the old man and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. You
can't be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Well, I preached
that then. The same reason he says, tell
these dry bones to live. God said, you pray to me, I'll
send my spirit, I'll make them live. And he'll send his spirit
and he'll renew you in the inward man. It's the only way you're
not going to faint. And you'll truly worship him
and him only. You'll see then that you were
worshiping the works of your hands, that you were trusting
your knowledge and trusting something about yourself. And a little
bit more, you'll see, I can't trust a thing about me. And you see, He really is all
your wisdom and all your strength and all your redemption and all
your rejoicing. He is. Let me show you this. Go to 2 Corinthians 4, we'll
close with this, but I want you to see it's the only reason,
the only way we're not going to faint. And by not fainting, we mean
the only way we're going to keep believing Him and Him alone,
apart from anything in us. Verse 8, He sends you the trial.
Paul said, and we're troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We're perplexed, but not in despair.
We're persecuted, but not forsaken. We're cast down, but we're not
destroyed. And here's why. He says it's
because the Spirit of God renews us and the life of Christ is
manifest in us anew. And He's really manifest to you
anew. And then verse 16. He says, for
which cause we faint not. This is the cause. David's telling
us in the Psalm. We saw Psalm 102, where he was. Then we see Psalm 103. And Paul's
saying the same thing. It's the only way we faint not. But though our outward man perish,
yet the inward is renewed day by day. The men think they get
more holy because they don't sin like they used to. That's
just your old man of flesh perishing day by day. True godliness and
true holiness and true worship is God renewing you in the heart
to worship Him in the Spirit alone. And when He does that, that's
when you find out, verse 17, that all that affliction, remember
if Psalm 102 was the prayer of the afflicted, when you're overwhelmed,
you start saying, bless the Lord, O my soul. Bless the Lord, all
that's within me, bless. And you find out that that was
just a light affliction, which was but for a moment, working
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Why? Because by it, God turns you
from looking at things that are seen, made you see some things
that are unseen. The things that are seen are
carnal. They'll kill us. That's what He's got to separate
us from. He's got to redeem us from that destruction every day,
the things we see, and think this is godliness, this is serving
God. And then we'll stand one day
before God and say, didn't we do many wonderful works? Didn't
we cast out those vile, sinful devils? We oppressed them. We oppressed them. The Lord said,
I saved the oppressed. I never knew you. We've got to
be renewed to see there ain't a good thing in us. I'm tired
of happy preaching. I'm ready to start preaching
some Ralph Barnard preaching and just make it say what we
are. We're gutter snipes at what we
are. We're just the lowest basest,
vilest thing there is. And we need God to save us and
we need Him alone to do the saving. And He's got to keep renewing
us to see this flesh is not getting one bit better. It's perishing
day by day because it's a sin. That's all it is, is sin. And
the only thing it's going to end in is death. That's what's
in your body. And if you trust it, that's where
you're going to end up. Trust Christ only. And I don't
have a doubt that all His people will because this renewing work
keeps you blessing Him and rejoicing in Him. We'll look at the rest
of that Psalm 103 later. But it keeps you looking for
things that are seen. It makes you see the things that
are not seen. What only faith can behold. And that's true worship. That's true worship. Amen. you