Turn with me to Psalms 66. I was looking at Psalms 62, and then something better came along.
I abandoned that, perhaps to look at it later. Psalms 66. I'm here with a little cold. Psalm 66. One verse. Verse 16. Psalm 66 and verse
16. Come and hear all ye that fear
God and I will declare what God has done for my soul. Come in
here. Take heed. Pay attention. Ye
that say you fear God, this is what we do. We declare what God has done
for our soul. Let us look a little more fully
into this one verse and like David come here and see what
God has done for us and thereby give God all the glory. He says
what he, what he, I will declare what he, what God has done for
my soul, not what we have done for God. And that's the main
difference in religion today. Everybody will declare the scripture
says, his own goodness. Everybody will declare what they're
doing for God and really they're doing nothing for God. He is not a debtor. He owes no
man anything. No, everyone usually extols their
own virtue. Telling people about their faith
and their actions and their goodness when in reality There is none
good, no not one. That's what Romans 3 says. There is none good, no not one. All together become unprofitable. So, and when I hear, listen to
the news or something and some tragedy has happened and they
want to know how they got through it, well my faith, my faith,
and that's all I talk about is theirs. When we sing that song,
my faith has found a resting place, not in device nor creed. Trust the ever-living one. Our
faith, Christ's faith in us, we just can't help but to look
back to Him. So we have none. We have no true
faith in our natural state. We have no good actions. But
we can proclaim without fail the same thing as David says,
what God has done for us. He came to us. He found us. He healed us. He delivered us. And really we
are on the receiving end of everything gracious. We are on the receiving
end of everything gracious. We've got nothing to offer God.
For we are all dead in trespasses and sins, we're weak, we're frail,
we're unloving and unlovely. But our God in sovereign, majestic,
and free grace does for us all things needful in salvation,
in keeping grace, in justifying grace, and in eternal grace. This is what the believer does. He declares what God has done
for his soul. Let's look at this three different
ways. We declare what God the Father. In the first person of
the Sacred Trinity, we declare what God the Father has done
for our soul. He, in electing love and supreme
choice, He selected us He, like David, said, hath made with me,
in Christ, an everlasting covenant ordered in all things ensured.
He has given us the succeeding great and precious promises.
The Father, we speak of what the Father has done for our soul.
From before time, he set his distinguishing mark of kingly
grace upon our hearts and nothing can alter his choice of his very
own. Not a single thing can alter
his choice of his beloved people. Secondly, we speak of what God
the Son has done for our souls. He, in the second person of the
sacred trinity, assumed our nature, our human frame, and made his
soul an offering for sin. satisfying all of God's requirements,
and nailed them to the tree. He, by himself, suffered and
bled and died upon that cursed tree, reclaiming everything and
more for us, which we lost in the first Adam. In Adam all die,
but in Christ we are made alive. In Christ. giving us His righteousness. It was one thing to die for us
and to take upon Himself our sin, but be of sin the double
cure. There's got to be something else
going on. I've said this many, many times. We have to have,
it's not just the lack of the negative, we have to have the
presence of the positive. So He took our nature, our form,
our sin. It was laid hard on His back,
it says in the scripture. But he must give us his righteousness. Righteousness and completely
justifying us in the sight of him who Habakkuk says is of purer
eyes than to even behold iniquity. And the context or the thought
of that passage in Habakkuk is God is of purer eyes than to
behold iniquity and not do something about it. We're either going
to pay for our sins throughout all time, or God has laid on
Him the iniquity of us all, and therefore we go free. Thirdly, he says, I will declare what
God, what He had done for my soul. We speak of what God the
Spirit has done for our souls by taking the things of God and
the word of this book and revealing Christ to us. We were once in
darkness, now we are illuminated by mercy and grace divine. He has quickened us and put our
feet upon solid ground and thus he gives us the enabling to follow
after our beloved. He makes the things of God most
precious to us and makes the love of God in Christ Jesus constraining,
constraining to his people. Not to all. Not to all. Just like this passage says,
come and hear all ye that fear God. Because one writer said
it, to do otherwise is to cast your pearls before swine. To
share these precious truths. What God has done for our soul.
evangelize and witness and tell of what God has done. Be sure
you do that and not what you have done for him. That's what
I hear all the time, what I've done. It's at the right place
at the right time. No, God in his providential dealings
with his people, working every cog of the wheel of his goodness
to the likes of us, predestinated, purposed, appointed, for us to
hear the truth, believe the truth, and repent, given repentance
of the newness of life. Melinda and I listened to a message,
which I would recommend, this one, out of Sermon Audio, by
Sinclair Ferguson. Irish. He's still alive. He's an old guy. He's still alive.
And he has a message on all things working together for good. It's
something like that. He's dealing out of Genesis.
It's the life of Joseph. And boy, he doesn't leave anything
unturned. He speaks about how God in His
purpose, in His providence, it didn't look like it was for Joseph's
good. But we know that statement in
Genesis 50. He's talking to his brethren.
You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. When he was
cast in that pit. When he was left for dead. when
he was sold into slavery, when he ran from Potiphar's wife,
when he was thrown in jail. Fourteen years and then fourteen
more years. How difficult was that to see? But he saw by the hand of God. He saw what Matt read in Psalms.
It's all going to turn out good. Whether we live or whether we
die, we are the Lord's. And it may be difficult, we may
be struggling with many things, but it will be well with the
righteous. We speak of what God has done,
God the Father. We speak of what God has done,
God the Son. We speak about what God has done
for our souls, God the Spirit. We speak, not all, but to those
whom the Father chose, the Son died for, and there is no disharmony
within the Blessed Trinity. The three are one. One and three,
that's, you can't separate, you can't really, they're not each
functioning on their own way. They all are functioning in harmony. And that harmony is the glory
of God and the salvation of his elect. This book is a book of
giving God glory. This book is a book of substitution.
What God has done successfully for his people. Now, I'm going
to close with just a few more statements. This is what Archibald Brown,
who I had to look this up to, quite a man, This man, Archibald
Brown, lived from 1844 to 1922. He was a student, a friend, and
he became the eventual pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle
Pulpit under Charles Spurgeon. Matter of fact, he was converted
at 16 in one of the Metropolitan's Sunday school classes. He said
he was a profane, young cusser, and the Lord took that all away
from him. And then he, actually Spurgeon,
there was only one other young man that Spurgeon felt confident
and let him enroll in his preacher's class. There's only one other
man because Spurgeon's wife, Anna, she said about Archibald,
she said the Lord, Charles saw the Lord had his hand on him.
So he allowed him to enroll in the class. and he pastored different
churches in the London area, and then he came back to help
Thomas Spurgeon, Charles' son. The ministry and all the things
that Charles had opened up the orphanages was overwhelming,
so he came back and helped Thomas co-pastor, and then Thomas passed
away and then he was the pastor. This is what he had to say about
our text. Come and hear all ye that fear
God, and I will declare what God has done for my soul, my
soul. A saved soul is a God-pardoned
soul. Only God can pardon a sinner,
not we ourselves. Secondly, a saved soul is a God-reconciled
soul. Once full war, now we have peace
through the blood of Christ's cross. Thirdly, a saved soul
is a sin-delivered soul. Not only are we forgiven, but
our sins are put away forever. Fourthly, a saved soul is a God-arrayed
soul, dressed in the robes of Christ's righteousness without
spot before the Father himself, Ephesians 5.27. Lastly, a saved
soul is a heaven-entitled soul. We have a vouchsafe title to
heaven itself, validated by Jehovah God. So I say to you, I say to
me, I say to all who name the name of Christ, happy, oh happy
are you, the people of God's own choosing. Come and hear all
ye that fear God, and I will declare what He has done. for my soul. Bruce, would you
close us?