Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church,
located at 2709 Rock Springs Road in Kingsport, Tennessee,
would like to invite you to listen to a message of sovereign grace
by their pastor, Gabe Stoniker. For information and service times,
visit www.ksgc.church. And now, Gabe Stoniker. I have a very happy message for
us today. If you would like to read along,
I will be preaching to you from Psalm 32. Psalm 32, it is a wonderful
psalm, and I pray you will very much enjoy this. The last verse,
verse 11 in Psalm 32, it says, be glad in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord. That is the title of this message
and that's the goal of this message. Come the end of this, I pray
that we are all glad in the Lord, happy in the Lord. This is a beautiful psalm. It is a beautiful prayer to God. And it is a beautiful answer
from God. And I pray the Lord will really
open this up to us. This is a prayer that every child
of God can pray from the depths of his or her soul. And it begins with this truth
right here, okay? We are going to start our happiness
with this truth right here. Verse one says, blessed is he
whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Now, that's a blessed person.
That's a happy thing, isn't it? Blessed is he. Blessed is she. Blessed. Truly blessed. You know, people are always talking
about being blessed. You know that's so. People always
talk about being blessed. They say things like, I have
been so blessed with good health. You've heard that? I have been
so blessed with a good job, so blessed with a good home life,
blessed with a good wife, blessed with good kids, blessed with
good friends, blessed with good material things, or whatever
it may be. blessed with this, blessed with
that. A very common way of saying goodbye
now is have a blessed day. People say that when it's time
to say goodbye, they say have a blessed day, meaning have a
prosperous day. And Although I want all of those
things for people, everything we just said, good health and
a good job and a good home life and wife and children and friends
and all those things. Although I want all of those
things for people, none of those things are the great blessing
from God. None of those things, although
he is the giver of all of those things. If we have good health,
he gave it to us. If we have a good wife, he gave
it to us. Good husband, good friends, everything
is of the Lord. Every good and perfect gift comes
from above. They are blessings when he gives
them. But none of those things are
the great blessing of God Almighty to his people. The great blessing,
the true blessing, the blessing from God of eternal significance
is, verse one says, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered. Transgressions are what we do.
We commit transgressions. Sin is what we are. That's what
we are in being. We do what we do because we are
what we are. We commit transgressions. We commit sins because in the
flesh, sin is all that we are. And in our flesh, because we
are what we are and we do what we do, the scripture says, We
are naturally cursed. Did you know that? When Adam
sinned, did you know a curse came? Cursed, not blessed. I'm speaking
in natural terms, the way all of us were born into this world,
conceived of our parents. Not blessed, but cursed. That's the actual reality of
our condition in our flesh as we live our lives before God.
Cursed. If mankind was speaking correctly
and speaking truthfully, he would go around saying, oh, we are
so cursed. We're just so cursed. How's everything
going? Oh, I've just been so cursed.
So cursed in this life? Cursed is the ground for my sake. That's so. That's the reality. Because of everything that we've
brought on ourselves, everything that has caused us to be condemned,
caused us to be exposed, everything that we've been convicted of
by God's law because of the life we've lived, we're cursed. We're cursed. And had God left
us alone, we would have died in our cursed condition. And
we would have spent an eternity bearing a condemnation that we
could never fulfill. Never fulfill. Do you know why
Christ arose from the grave? You know, everybody knows. I
would venture to say most everybody knows that Jesus Christ died
on a cross, was buried in a tomb, and arose from that tomb. He
arose from the grave. Do you know why he arose? It's
because he fulfilled the condemnation. He satisfied the punishment.
God Almighty punished him for the sins of God's people that
were laid on Christ and he satisfied the condemnation. He fulfilled
it all. You and I could never do that. If Christ did not die
for us we will lay in that grave suffering condemnation forever
because we will never be able to satisfy God and therefore rise from the grave.
We will stay there forever. That's why Christ arose. But
you and I could never do that. And that is the reason why for
a sinful soul like you and me, one thing truly constitutes as
being the great blessing from God. One thing is needful. The
forgiving, covering, satisfying, atoning blood of the Lamb of
God. That's what's needful. For God
so loved, He gave. He gave the great blessing to
the sinners that he chose to save. To all of his people, he
gave his only begotten son. Christ Jesus, our Lord, came
and took the transgressions. Think about that. That's amazing.
I have committed sin in my life. You have committed sin in your
life. We have committed a lot of sin
in our life. not only in the things that we've
done but in the things that we've thought and said and felt. And Jesus Christ came and he
took every single one of them off of his people and laid them
on himself. Every one of them, everything
that was in my heart, everything that was in your heart, everything
that was in the hearts of the elect of the Father, Jesus Christ
took them and bore our sins in his own body on the tree. All of it, all of the sin of
all of his people, that's unimaginable. They were laid on him. And do
you know that the scripture says he was made to be cursed. The holy spotless righteous son
of God. He was made to be a curse for
his people. Cursed is everyone that hangs
on a tree. He made himself to be exposed
for his people. He exposed before God. He made
himself to be convicted for his people before God. He made himself
to be condemned for his people and he died in our cursed condition. He bore the fullness of God's
judgment. He fulfilled the fullness of
God's punishment and God's wrath. And he put every sin and every
transgression, every spot of iniquity, he put it away forever. He removed it forever. Now that's a blessed man. That's
a blessed woman. The man or the woman who receives
that, that is a blessed soul. I want all of us to have happy
days rather than sad days. I really do. I want all of us
to have enough rather than not enough. I sincerely do. I want all of us to have good
home lives rather than bad home lives. But what difference do
those things make really? What difference do those things
make as long as eternity with Christ is forever settled in
heaven? If that's secure, We are blessed
people. If that is secure, then we're
blessed people. Verse one says, blessed is he
whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, covered
in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse two says, blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth. I don't know if you've
ever seen that word, But that word imputeth means to acknowledge
the condition of something, to acknowledge the reality of what
something is. The word is an accounting term. When you think about accounting,
accounting deals in reality. These are the facts. Here are
the sum of the facts. The word imputeth does not mean
to charge to or to apply to, which is what it sounds like,
you know, to impute something. That's not what it means. It
doesn't mean to make something to be that way. It means to assess
the condition of it and to acknowledge this is the way it is. This is
the current condition of what it is. When you look that word
up in a Bible dictionary it gives the example of a bank account
and it actually says if you have $25 in your bank account you
would impute $25. To impute any other number you
would be deceiving yourself because you don't have any other number.
You have $25. I hope that makes sense because
if it does this is beautiful, this is glorious. Verse two says, Blessed is the
man unto whom the Lord imputeth, after assessing, after looking
at it. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth, not iniquity. And in whose spirit there is
no guile. After being inspected, after being assessed, blessed
is the person who the Lord says there is no sin there, there's
no guile there. You know that can only be said
about a person who is in Jesus Christ, covered in Jesus Christ,
hid in the Lord Jesus Christ. covered in that perfect, spotless,
redeeming blood and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love this
verse. This is Jeremiah 50, verse 20.
And it says, in those days, the day of the final judgment, in
those days and at that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity
of Israel, that means God's spiritual people, God's chosen people,
The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall
be none. And the sins of Judah, and they
shall not be found. For I will pardon them whom I
reserve. In that day, the sins of all
of God's people, he will say, go search and see if you can
find one sin on them. And one sin will not be found.
That's glorious, isn't it? He said, I will pardon them whom
I have reserved, my elect, the ones I've chosen to redeem. Pardon
of all their sins, never found again, they're gone. Psalm 32,
verse one says, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth. not iniquity, and in whose spirit
there is no guile. Now David says in verse three,
when I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring
all the day. He said, I kept silence, but
my bones were roaring. For day and night, thy hand was
heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the
drought of summer. We can hear the voice of our
Lord in this while he was hanging on the cross for his people,
being the substitute of his people. We can hear Christ crying this
from the cross, most definitely. But the voice of David also represents
the cry of every child of God, saying, Lord, I must confess
what I am to you. I must, I cannot hide what I
am from you. I don't want to hide what I am
from you. It eats at me. It weighs heavy
on me. You know everything about me.
You see me for what I am. That's what David said in Psalm
139. If you want to look at Psalm
139, he said in verse 1, O Lord, thou hast searched me and known
me. Thou knowest my down sitting
and my up rising. Thou understandest my thought
afar off. Thou compassest my path. You have me surrounded. And my
lying down and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is
not a word in my tongue but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.
Before I say it, you know what I'm gonna say. Thou hast beset
me behind and before and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge
is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain unto
it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit,
or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up
into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold,
thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall
thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall uphold me. What he's
saying is there is nothing that you are not sovereignly in control
of. There's nothing that you don't
have your all-seeing eye on. Verse 11, if I say surely the
darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about
me. Yea, the darkness hideth not
from thee, but the night shineth as the day. The darkness and
the light are both a light to thee. You see everything. Verse 23, He said, Search me,
O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts,
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting. Is that not our cry? Really,
is that not our cry? Lord, we have nothing to hide
from you. We try to hide it from each other,
we try to hide it from other men, but we can't hide it from
you. We have nothing to hide from
you. Never would we want to hide anything from you. We want you
to search out all of our sin and redeem us from every last
speck of it. Lord, redeem us from all of our
transgressions. Don't let one go unpunished in
the blood of Jesus Christ. Don't leave one sin on me. purge every last stain. Isn't
that our cry, Lord? Search me, know me, try me, purge
me, throughly, completely. Well, back in Psalm 32, verse
five, David said, I acknowledged my
sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid, I said, I will
confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest
the iniquity of my sin. Isn't that wonderful? That right
there is worthy of a salah. David put a salah at the end
of that verse, and that's a pause. Just a moment to really dwell
on that and let that sink in. He said, I acknowledged my sin
unto thee. And mine iniquity have I not
hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions
unto the Lord. Lord, I've done this. I've done
that. I've done, I've done nothing but sin against you. And he said,
lo and behold, you forgave me. You forgave me. He didn't do
anything to redeem himself. He didn't bring anything of any
value or worth. He didn't earn anything. David
didn't say, I earned this from you. No. He didn't say, I deserve
this. He didn't deserve anything. He
said, I sinned. What could he deserve? I acknowledge
my transgressions. I'm a sinner before you. David
said, I just confessed what I was. And I said, whatever you choose
to do with me, you're justified in it. You judge me according
to your own will. And he said, I justify your decision,
because you are just and holy and right and good. And he said,
to the praise of the glory of his grace, he forgave me. That's
what he did. Lord, do with me whatever you're
pleased to do with me. And he said that's what he was
pleased to do with me. Of his own good purpose and pleasure
and will, he forgave me of all my sin. That's amazing, is it? Do you know the Apostle John
said, every soul who confesses before him, I'm a sinner in need
of mercy, will receive forgiveness. The forgiveness that is in the
blood of his son. Verse six right here, it says,
for this shall everyone that is godly, and the only way that
a man or a woman can be godly is in Christ, the God man. That's the only way. For this
shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when
thou mayest be found. If you are a sinner in need of
mercy, if I am a sinner in need of mercy, if we are sinners in
need of a savior, the scripture says, Isaiah 55 says, seek the
Lord while he may be found. he may still be found. It says,
call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake
his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return
unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and let him turn
to our God for he will abundantly pardon. That's a promise from
the word of God himself. Verse six, for this shall everyone
that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be
found surely in the floods of great waters, they shall not
come now unto him. The temporary floods of the world
may come, and I'm not talking about floods of hurricanes. I'm
talking about the floods of trials and troubles and sorrows and
sin. The temporary floods of the world
may come. They may come. But the eternal
floods of damnation and judgment and wrath Those floods will never
come to a soul that Christ has redeemed from his sin and it's
because that flood came to Christ already. He was overflowed with
that judgment, that condemnation. Verse seven says, thou art my
hiding place. You're my hiding place. There
was a song written probably about 150 years ago And it says, hail sovereign love
that first began the scheme to rescue fallen man. Hail matchless
free eternal grace that gave my soul a hiding place. A hiding
place, the song goes on to say, against the God who rules the
sky, I fought with hand uplifted high, despised the mention of
his grace, too proud to seek a hiding place. But thus the
eternal counsel ran, Almighty love, arrest that man. A few
more rolling suns at most shall land me safe on Canaan's coast,
and there I shall sing the song of grace to Jesus Christ, my
hiding place. Verse seven says, thou art my
hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with
the songs of deliverance. Songs of deliverance. That's
what we're going to sing throughout all of eternity. That's the song
of God's people right now. You know that. the song of deliverance. It's not the song of what I'm
gonna do for God or how I've changed and this and that. It's
the song of deliverance, what Jesus Christ did for me, how
he delivered me. Songs of glory and honor to Christ
the King and Christ the King alone. All right, now that was
David's prayer to God. And we'll end this message by
seeing God's answer to David. Verse eight, he said, I will
instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go,
I will guide thee with mine eye. David was praying all this to
God and God answered him by saying, I will, I will, and you shall.
That's the greatest thing a sinner could ever hear. I will instruct
thee and teach thee in my word, through the preaching of my word,
I'll instruct thee and teach thee in the way that you should
go." What way should a child of God go? Whatever way Christ
goes, we follow Him. He said, I'll guide you with
my all-seeing eye. Verse nine, be ye not as the
horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth
must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto
thee. What he's saying is, don't resist, come willingly. And all
of God's people will. They shall be made willing in
the day of his power. Verse 10, he said, many sorrows
shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy
shall compass him about. That soul that trusts in the
Lord, mercy is going to surround him. Mercy in the blood of Christ.
So verse 11 says, Be glad in the Lord. We have so much reason
to be glad. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice
ye righteous and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart. Every soul in Christ. If you
have mercy in Jesus Christ, rejoice. Be glad in the Lord for His sake. Amen. You have been listening
to a message by Gabe Stoniker, pastor of Kingsport Sovereign
Grace Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. If you would like a copy of this
message, or to hear other messages of sovereign grace, you can call
or write to the number and address on your screen, or visit www.ksgc.church. Tune in at this same time next
week for another message of God's free and sovereign grace.