If you would please stand with
me and we'll sing this last hymn for the day, How Vast the Benefits,
sung to my faith has found a resting place. How vast the benefits divine
which we in Christ possess! We are redeemed from guilt and
shame and called to holiness. Not for works which we have done,
nor shall hereafter do. Hath God decreed on sinful men
salvation to bestow? Glory, Lord, from first to last
is due to Thee alone. Unto ourselves we dare not take,
nor rob Thee of Thy crown. glorious shirt he undertook to
satisfy poor man. And grace was given us in him
before the world began. This is thy will, that in thy
love we ever should abide. That earth and hell should not
prevail to turn thy word aside. Not one of all, Thank you. You may be seated. O Lord of my heart, not be all
else to see that Thou art. Thou my best thought by day or
by night, waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. O Thou my wisdom, and Thou my
truth. I ever with Thee, and Thou with
me, Lord. Thou my great Father, and I Thy
true Son. Thou with me, Father, and I with
Thee, Lord. Thou mine inheritance now and
always, Thou and Thou only, first in my heart. I'm King of Heaven,
my treasure Thou art I'm King of Heaven,
victory won May I reach Heaven's joys, O bright Heaven's sun Heart
of my home, heart whatever be called, still be my vision of
the world of old. And for the Kevin. come and preach for
me a while back, and a while get back and answer me, I don't
blame you. But I'm glad that the Lord put
it on your heart to come and preach to us. Man, I pray for
you. I pray God will be with you. You don't come up here by yourself.
We don't want to come up here by ourselves. You don't want
to stand here by yourself, do you? No. May God come and be
with you, amen. Thank you all for having me back. It's
good to see so many of you. Nice to be back in this area,
too. If I had to get up directly after David, if David preached,
And he said amen, he sat down and I stood up and I had to preach.
I would say because of that, turn to Numbers 6. Numbers chapter 6 will be our
text. I want to tell you how I got
to this text. There's so many advice and opinions
and writings and it overflowed the earth, right? What's God
saying? I want to know what the Lord
has to say about something. And so I see all these, a lot
of bumper stickers and things. I'm blessed. And people say,
well, I'm blessed. Well, are you? You know what
that means. And people say, bless your heart. And in this area, that means
something that's not real kind, isn't it? But I'll tell you what
I struggle with. And you can laugh. If you won't
laugh with me, I guess you won't cry with me. When somebody sneezes,
I don't know what to do. I'm telling you. If you're around
me and somebody around me sneezes, know that on the inside, I'm
a wreck. Because I want to say something
like, well, bless you. I can't do that. And I know that. And I think I'm blessed that
I do know that. That I can't. God blesses. I
can't bless. I want to be a blessing. I do. When you're young, You want stuff. And you want money. And you want
accolades or whatever. And then as I've aged a little
bit, now I've got children coming up, I want to give them money.
And I want to give them stuff. And make sure they've got a good
pillow or whatever. And give them accolades. And
then when I was, Lord just saved me. I needed to be blessed. I
needed to be saved. And I needed a blessing. And as time goes on, the Lord's
blessed me. His mercies are new every day.
He ain't gonna run out. I want to be a blesser. I want
to have some wisdom, and I want to be kind, and I want to be
long-suffering. I need to learn how to be gentle.
I need to learn how to be meek. And all those things are gifts.
I don't have, God has to give. How could I bless somebody? God tells us. Did you know that?
Especially us who preach. He's talking to preachers here,
we'll see. But this is to all of us. So look here in number
six. And we ought to know these things.
People say, count your blessings. Well, that's a good thing. David
said, how precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God. How great is
the sum of them. If I should count them, they
are more than the numbers of the sand. And I always start
out, I'll tell something else on myself. I'm just upset or
in a trial or mad or whatever. I need to be thankful. I'm always
thankful for running water and electricity, positive material
things first. And don't take me long to sit there and start
thinking all the things I'm thankful for food, I think for my family,
my children, all these things. I'm thankful for mercy. I'm thankful
for that wine press. It's what Christ did for me. And I want to be a blessing to
other people. This is something that My dear friend Mark's read
to me, I don't know how many times, at the close of services.
And it's normally an ending, but I think this is a good beginning.
Number six, we'll look at verse 22. Number six, 22. And the Lord
spake unto Moses, his prophet, saying, Speak unto Aaron, and
unto his sons, saying, On this wise, ye shall bless the children
of Israel, saying unto them, The Lord bless thee, and keep
thee. The Lord make his face shine
upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance
upon thee, and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon
the children of Israel, and I will bless them. I'm gonna try to go through each
part of this phrase by phrase, and we'll just look at it. If
I don't get past the first one, if I get too excited, we'll just
stay there and it'll be okay. Verse 22, who's speaking, who's
listening? So the Lord's speaking, verse
number 622. The Lord spake unto Moses saying, he's telling him
to do something, speak. He didn't say color or picture,
he didn't say write this down this time. He said go preach
to him, speak to him. So Aaron and his sons, that's
the preacher. tribe of the Levites, saying, on this wise, this is
how, and I'm going to tell you what to say, ye shall bless the
children of Israel. It's shall. This will be a blessing,
what the Lord's about to say, not to everybody, not to everybody,
to the children of Israel. That's not this political nation
that was established in the 50s or whatever. This is the picture
that God gave us in that physical mission of spiritualism. He said,
this is my people. You go preach to my people and
you tell them what I'm going to tell you to tell them. And
it shall bless them. If you love Him, this will bless
you. Preach to Israel. Tell them on this wise, just
as I say. That's what Paul told Timothy. He said, preach the
Word. Preach the Word. Do you remember
who the Word is? I'm going to tell you who the
blessing is up front. We'll have the dessert before we eat anything
else. This is a person he's going to talk about. The instant in
season, out of season, whether they like it or they don't like
it, whether they feel blessed or they're not blessed, this
is what you say and I go say it. A man asked me one time,
he said, do you have a message of condemnation or reconciliation?
I said, it's the same message. You either like it or you don't.
I don't know what to tell you. And that's scary. Saying unto them, the Lord blessed
thee. Verse 24. Blessed thee. Who is blessing the children
of God? He is. The Lord. The capital
L, capital O, capital R, capital D. The self-existing one. The
Lord of hosts. The Lord. And He's going to bless
them. Who's doing the blessing? He
is. Who's the only one doing anything? The Lord is. This is the Lord's doing. And
if you look in Matthew 5, we're going through the beatitude.
Blessed. None of those things are material,
are they? Most people say, well, it's blessed
to be poor. No, it's blessed to be poor in spirit. That's
a spiritual thing. It's the first thing. But that
word blessed there in Matthew 5 means highly favored of God. The Lord gives you poorness of
spirit. He gives you meekness. Highly
favored of God to have those. Hear this word, the Lord bless
thee. This is fabulous. That doesn't mean highly favor
to God. Now for him to do it, you are highly favor to God.
In the Old Testament, blessed and blessed, you know what the
word means? Literal translation, kneel. Kneel. The Lord's gonna kneel you. I walk in my driveway today,
try my best. I say, how am I gonna get through
this? I won't submit. That's not my nature. That's
not my instinct. I won't surrender. I won't bow
to the holy God of heaven and earth. I have to be made to bow.
And the first thing the Lord says is, I'll kneel to you. He
has to make me surrender. He has to. He has to put that
new nature in me and break me and break my heart. But it means kneel. We bless
the Lord when we kneel, when we bow to Him, when we're made
meek. That meek means we just learned the other day. Okay, this is what the Lord has
for me. The Lord did it. See me eye cusping?
Alright, that's the Lord. It's raining? The Lord did it.
It's sunny? He did it. I've increased in
children or wealth or money or whatever, or I've decreased.
Though He's slain me, I trust Him. That's meekness, just bowing. That blesses the Lord. Brethren,
this is good news. This is to be truly blessed.
Blessed is the man. Kneeled is the man that trusteth
in the Lord. So just trust him. But you know
what? The Lord kneeled. He condescended. He came down. Was made a little
lower than name. Why? You. For his people. He has a people. It's plain.
But that's who he came down for. He knew. He came down. Why? He
had to. For them. They were conceived
in sin. We fell in Adam. We fell in that
concession. We fell all by myself. I lied
from the womb. I cried when my diaper didn't
need changing. And Paul said, you want to keep
the law? Do you hear it? You ever ate a medium-well steak? You know how many laws there
are? It's a sin not to know and not to agree with all of them.
You got a railing on the roof of your house? Christ kept all
of them for his people. Born of woman, born of the Holy
Ghost, God, Emmanuel, God with us. And he said, I'll redeem
them. And he was the kinsman of redemption.
He was related to us. He was born of a woman. He was
able. That's God Almighty. And he, you just preach, willingly. for the joy set before him. He came to us. That's what we
needed. We needed a substitute. We could
not do it ourselves, and we could not provide satisfaction, and
here's the substitute that satisfied. Made atonement, atonement. I
said this last time, I said, I go to prepare a place for you.
What's that place? It's a place of atonement. Reconciliation
with God, that we were at war with. That's what our captain
did. And he came, that's what John
was saying, every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is not of God. He's talking about those
Gnostics. Well, he didn't really come and he didn't really, he
really better have, or I'm done. How could he die? How could God,
who is forever, die because that sin was left? Because I had to
die. And then he's risen. That one
that came down, And willfully, willfully kneeled. He willfully
blessed. You talk about blessed. He came for you. He came and
he lived and he willfully died. He's a sinner because that sacrifice
has been accepted. We have an empty tomb. That ain't a bumper sticker,
is it? That's blessed. If that wasn't enough, verse
24. The Lord bless thee and keep
thee. Keep means not to get rid of.
Some things mean just what they mean, right? And so on the surface,
keep means to not cast away. The Lord bless thee and keep
thee. There will be many that are not made to kneel. There's
many that He didn't come down for. And they will not be kept. It said they'll be cast into
outer darkness. Thanks be to God, we are kept.
But it's not just that, well, I didn't throw those away. I
got a bunch of stuff. We didn't throw away. And that
stuff just gets more. I don't mean I love it. I don't
really need it. I have it. Go out in my garage.
There's boxes we didn't even open yet. I don't know what's
in them. Stuff I didn't need last time I boxed them up. But
that's not just, Lord didn't just keep us as a possession
that's in the dusty closet somewhere. To keep means to provide for.
We're needy. What does he have to provide
for me? Everything. I'm not an easy keeper, as they
say. I need a whole bunch. I need a righteousness, a holy
life, everything. I need the blood. I need took
care of. I need somebody to intercede for all my belly aching. Somebody to look over at and
not trust him and look to his son. I need him. He's everything. I need him. When Kierma and I,
we keep chickens. I thought about that a lot this
week. She set eggs the other day in an incubator. And so we
went and picked them eggs out. We put them in an incubator.
And then we watch it. We make sure the humidity's right. And
we make sure it's turned. Them eggs turn every day. And
that little motor don't break. And it stays between this certain
temperature range and certain humidity. And then they're going
to hatch. And then we've got to help them get out of the shelf
sometimes. And then we've got to have water for them. We've
got to have feed for them. We go to great lengths in cost.
to make sure they're protected. The critters don't get to them.
And we care for them. And we are accountable for those
chickens. But we fail. I try to do those things. I try
to provide for them. I try to protect them. And some
of them just die anyway. Some of them have heart attacks.
There ain't nothing I can do about it. You get that? The Lord God Almighty,
the Lord Jesus Christ, cannot fail. He has to keep Not just
stick me in a closet. That means everything. And how
will I know that? He provided Himself a lamp to
build on each other. He came down. He's the lamp. Because of that, I gave my son
for you. You think I can't take care of
all this other stuff? He cannot fail. Behold, he that
keepeth Israel shall never slumber nor sleep. The Lord's thy keeper. That's what it was in Ruth. Naomi
said, honey, she said, the man won't sleep till it's done. I've said of Kimberly, she's
a keeper. My friend just reminded me of that. She's a keeper. Sons
of Adam, that's true for us. Being a child of Adam, being
a sinner, I can't blame him for everything. It's my fault. None
of us are worth keeping. There's no worth in us that would
do this. And to his praise, to the glory
of his grace, in spite of those things, were kept." If you will,
turn to Ezekiel 16. Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel. Daniel went to four. Many of you have read this before.
No, well, I won't comment on this. I'll just read it as it
is. Ezekiel 16, verse three. And say, thus saith the Lord
God unto Jerusalem, thy birth and thy nativity is of the land
of Canaan. Thy father was an Amorite and
thy mother a Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the
day that thou wast born, thy navel was not cut, I'll make sure I'm in the right
place. I said Ezekiel. Okay. Ezekiel 5, or Ezekiel 16, verse
4. As for thy nativity, the day
that thou wast born, thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou
washed in water to supple thee. Thou wast not salted at all,
nor swallowed at all. None eye pitied thee to do any
of these unto thee, to have compassion on thee, but thou wast cast in
an open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that
thou wast born. That's us, an infant, in its
blood, laying in an open field, with no covering, no nothing,
just naked. No having cut their umbilical
cord. But God, He came down, He knew. Verse 6, When I passed by thee,
I saw thee polluted in thy own blood. I said unto thee, When
thou wast in thy blood, live. It's a command. Yea, I said unto
thee, when thou wast in thy blood lived, I have caused thee to
multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen
great, and now art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breast are fashioned,
thy hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now when
I passed by thee and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was a
time of love. And I spread my skirt over thee,
and covered thy nakedness. Our nakedness has covered his
garments. Now, all that lewdness that I
was, I'm giving his robe of righteous. Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee. He said so. We have to sign documents
to get it. I have to get notarized. I can't prove my identity. He
said, you already proved it. I said, well, if I already proved it,
didn't I prove it? I don't understand. I'm having trouble with it. We'll
get things notarized. He says it. I will. I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee, saying, The Lord God, and thou becamest
mine. When I washed thee with water,
yea, I thoroughly washed thee away from thy blood from thee.
And I anointed thee with oil, and I clothed thee also, embroidered
work, and shod thee with the badger skin. I girded thee about
with fine linen. I covered thee with silk. I decked
thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands,
and chains on thy neck. I put a jewel on thy forehead,
and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thy head.
Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment was
fine linen, and silk, and broided work, and didst eat fine flour,
and honey, and oil, and wast exceeding beautiful. And thou
didst prosper into a kingdom, and thy renown went forth among
the heathen for thy beauty, for it was perfect through my comeliness,
which I had put on thee, saith the Lord God. Well, you started
out a whole lot different place than they ended it. He was in
a field dying. That's keeping somebody. And
that's just a physical picture of what this eternal work is.
They're just painting a picture to show you what it looks like.
Isn't that something? Back in our text there are numbers,
six. Verse 25. That wasn't good enough. The Lord make his face shine
upon Lord bless you, keep you, and make His face shine upon
you. He told Moses, He said, Thou
can not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live.
Our Lord said that. He said, No man has seen the
Father save the Son. But boy, I'm glad Philip asked a question
one day. Because this couldn't be me. His face never shown him.
I've never seen him. I had to pick him out of line if I'm in
trouble. Philip said, you show us the Father and He'll suffice.
And he said, Philip, how long have I been with you? He said, show us He'll suffice.
He said, have I been with you so long a time? Yes, you thou
that know me, Philip. He that's seen me seen the Father.
People say, I saw God in the clouds. If you saw Christ, if
you saw anything, they saw nothing. But if we're going to truly see
God, if His countenance is going to shine upon us, we're going
to see Christ. I'll tell you what else is a
blessing, too. I had my son text me this on the way here. I forgot
to write it down. Normally, if I write it down, I forget to
look at it. A blessing, what we call, we're thankful for all
these carnal things, trials are a blessing. They are. Just real general, what's the
end state of a trial? You're going to see Christ. And I won't pray that for myself,
but Lord, keep the trial on your people until it accomplishes
what you've sent it to do. Keep it on there until they see
Him, until I see Him. That's good, isn't it? That's
who we're going to see. 2 Corinthians 4 says, For we
preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves
your servants for Jesus' sake. for God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness. He said, let there be light.
Just like he looked at that baby and said, live. One day, to me,
he sent a man saying these things. And I said, I never heard this
before. I heard it my whole life, and I never, now the light's
wrong. Somebody's wrong. To give the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God. How are we gonna
see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ? That, too, we're
gonna see. The Holy Spirit comes. And who
does He profess? Christ. That's who He speaks. Lord, make His face shine upon
thee, and be gracious unto thee. Be gracious. Be gracious. We know what grace is, especially
if you experience it. It doesn't say He might be gracious
to you. It doesn't say someday He will be gracious to you. He
says, be gracious. Be gracious. It's not offered. There's no condition attached
to it. He's just gracious. My children don't have to love
me. They don't have to like me. I love them. And I like them.
Ain't nothing they can do about that. I just do. Can't keep from
it. He said, I will be gracious.
Be gracious. And lift up His countenance upon
me. If somebody has, you'd say they have a sad countenance.
or sorrowful, mournful countenance. That means their face is, you
can tell, you know, there's something going on about them that's unhappy.
And it shows, you know, micro-expressions or macro-expressions or whatever.
But you can tell, like, you know, are you okay? You look down. The Lord will lift up His countenance
upon them. Those people with sad countenance,
they're not smiling. And this is, God's going to smile at you. My good and faithful servant.
He ain't seeing me. He's seeing the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, look at that. And
all of them in him. Wonderful. And he smiles. People think the Lord is some
kind of stoic statue somewhere. He laughs, and he cries his sorrows,
and he smiles. He smiles. If the
Lord blesses you, and he keeps you, and he makes his face shine
upon you, and he's gracious unto you, and he smiles at you, I
guarantee you're going to smile back. You're going to turn that
frown upside down. You will. The trial may still
be there, the pain may still be there, but God's people are
going to be happy about him. That's just so. You know how
I know? He said so. Moses saw him. And what happened to Moses' face?
He had to wear a veil. He was just glowing. We see Him,
we'll be happy about it. The Lord lift up His countenance
upon you and give thee peace. Peace. We think a lack of war. Our word is so deluded nowadays,
isn't it? We need to find out what God
means whenever He says a word. He gives peace. And He said,
I give thee peace. Peace is a gift. from God. It says in Colossians 1, for
it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell.
And having made peace, He made this peace and He gives it through
the blood of His cross. Starting with them sweat drops,
all the way. He gives this peace that He made
through the blood of His cross by Him reconciling all things
unto Himself. He said, that's my people. I'm
going to kneel down to them and I'm going to gather them together.
They're in me and they're mine and I'm going to keep them. And
then I'm going to tell them about it. Because it's already been
done. It's the finished work. He said
in John 14, but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom
the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things
and bring all things into your remembrance whatsoever I had
said unto you. I want to remember this. I always
say like on a Thursday at 7.42 a.m. When I stubbed my toe, I remember
this is the Lord blessing me and keeping me. He's shining
his face upon me. Peace I leave with you. My peace
I give unto you. Not as the world giver. I give
unto you. Let not your heart be troubled.
Neither let it be afraid. Don't get upset. Don't be scared. I gave you peace. And it come
through the cost of His blood. That's how valuable that peace
is. What kind of peace? You just keep going back to that
blessing. He came and kneeled. He stooped down. He came to the
earth. He provided everything. He shined
His face upon us. He's been gracious to us. He
prepared that place of atonement and that war that we were at,
that we are, the enmity that we are to the Father. He's put
it away. Has He given you peace? We did
not make peace with God. delusion says I've made my peace
with God. No, you haven't. He's the peacemaker. Verse 27, and they shall put
my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them. Put my name on them. What's his
name? Well, I think it's Donnie. Somebody said it. They got a
poster up in our office that's got every name that could fit
on that poster of the Lord. He has a lot of names. I've preached
through the names of Jehovah, and I thought, well, there's
seven. Well, there's not, there's more than that. And we can try
to make things perfect, and He already is. We don't have to
make it. But how many names does He have? A lot. Isaiah 9, 6, His name
shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God. The Father says,
Call the Son, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. That's his name. I thought through
many of them, and I think this will be sweet for today. There's Jehovah Raya, the Lord's
my shepherd. Put that name on them. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord
will provide. Put that name on them. Tell them,
put it in their laps. Jehovah Rapha, the Lord my healer.
Jehovah Shalom, my peace. This peace he gave, it's himself.
Jehovah Nisi, the Lord my batter. But Jehovah said, Kenneth, the
Lord my right. He said, put my name on them. I stole this from somebody else.
But whenever you get married, and after the ceremony's over
and they kiss, they turn and say, face the audience. They
say, I now present to you, Mr. And Mrs. Whatever that fellow's
name is, Kevin Thacker. Your name is Mrs. Kevin Thacker,
right? In Jeremiah 23. That's where
this was first mentioned. You know where I'm going. In
the days, Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is the name whereby
he shall be called Jehovah's sick kin and the Lord our righteous.
Ten chapters later, a wedding took place. In those days, shall
Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely. Everything
looks the same. And this is the name wherewith
she shall be called the Lord our righteous. I tremble at these
things because he said so. My name's Kevin, the Lord, our
righteous. He put his name on me. He gave
me his name. In closing, I thought, it says
there, and I will bless them, what he's promised, he can't
undo. It must come to pass. Israel blessed Jacob. And then
he left. He took off running. And he saw
come home with that venison. And boy, he was torn to pieces.
And he said, Father, take it away. You've said it. Just say it again to me. Give
me a blessing. And he said, no. I blessed him. It's done. What
a picture that was. That's when the Lord said, and
I will bless them. Take it to the bank. It's going
to happen. I always think, how am I going to wrap up something?
How am I going to finish this and bring us to a culmination
of something? How am I going to end a message when I'm a preacher?
Sometimes before I say, well, that's it. I'm not here. I'm not going to see y'all next
week. We'll pick this up Wednesday. And I thought, what better thing?
We started with number six. Let's end with verse 24. The
Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his faith shine
upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance
upon thee and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon
the children of Israel, and I will bless them. Amen. Very thankful for
that message. Andrew, when he was there, our
firstborn, I used to say that prayer constantly to him. That's what I wanted for him.
Man, that's mine. I thought about that scripture
in Zephaniah. He said, they told Israel to sing. He said that
the Lord rejoices over you with joy in his singing. Y'all can feel that way. You
can feel that way. I don't have anything to do with
it. I will bless you. God bless you. God bless you.
So thank you for these messages. I know the Lord touched my heart.
This stand will be dismissed. We're going to have food back
here so everyone will stay and enjoy the fellowship with each
other.