Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 107, and reading for
our text, verse 3. The third verse. Psalm 107, verse 3. And gather them out of the lands
from the east and from the west, from the North and from the South. Psalm 107 and verse 3. Right the way through this psalm,
we have the exhortation to give thanks unto the Lord. The reasons are given, for He
is good, for His mercy endureth forever. When we have something
like that exhortation that runs right through, there's a couple
of things that we should immediately think of. One is that there is
something in this passage that is of cause for Thanksgiving. So we should be looking for and
expecting that which shall bring us to praise God, to thank Him,
To see that He is good, to see that His mercy endureth forever. It's good when we come to a passage
of the Word of God in that way and immediately our expectation
is raised that here is to be the Word that we could give thanks
to the Lord for and praise Him for. The second thing is that
men are so backward in giving thanks unto the Lord. And so we have in verse 8 and
other verses as well, that men would praise the Lord for His
goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men.
When we think of the Lord healing the lepers, the nine, where were
the nine? There were ten that were healed.
only one return to give thanks unto the Lord. We are very prone
for that in our lives, to take the benefits and blessings God
gives and not return thanks. And we need to identify what
those blessings are. Sometimes it is only when the
Lord takes them away that we realize what a blessing that
was. And not just material things,
spiritual blessings, a tender conscience, a teachable spirit,
a love to the word, a love to the brethren, a desire for the
things of God. Those things are things that
we should give the Lord thanks for, if we discern the Lord has
given us them, once we did not have these things. Now we do,
so give thanks to the Lord for them, for every softening, for
every drawing, for every heart melting. In our text we have a people
that are gathered and this is what is upon my spirit a gathered
people and we're told where they were gathered from you would
have noticed in the hymn that we have just sung that there
was a mention of the gospel spreading to all lands and where the gospel
is to go forth to so gathered them out of the lands from the
east and from the west from the north and from the South, that
is the Gentiles. The Jews must have, of course
there were times that they were scattered, but this is another
Psalm, another portion of the Old Testament that is pointing
to the Gentiles. And yet we see with Peter going
to Cornelius, he needed the Lord to take down that barrier, that
opposition that he had, and to call that not unclean that God
hath cleansed and to go to Cornelius and to preach the gospel and
it's a beautiful thing to see in these gospel days that the
word is going to all lands yes there no doubt are some it has
not yet gone to but amazing the spread of the word of God If
this be of God, then who can withstand it? And we see all
the persecutions and the trials that have been over the centuries.
And here is the word that is sent forth to all lands. And
of course, this afternoon, we're joining from one side of the
world to another in the same gospel, the same word, the same
gathering. And that is a blessed thing to
be able to do that. We are also told that those that
are in our tax, those that are gathered, that they were redeemed. In verse 2, the redeemed of the
Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy, set
free by the payment of a price. And we must remember this, when
we're coming to our subject this afternoon, we are talking of
those that why they are gathered is because they were redeemed
by the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree. His blood was shed for
them, the payment was made, the debt was settled, and therefore
they are to be gathered. and it is a vital thing that
we recognize this, that in the gathering of God's people there
is a joining together, a joining together of the redemption that
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. The two go together. We need to really remember this
to get any benefit, to get any comfort from our calling. Those that are called, they are
those that are redeemed. And thinking of those things
going together in Psalm 84 and verse 11, we have, He shall give
grace and glory. No good thing shall he withhold
from Him that walketh uprightly. And the two things are joined.
If the Lord gives grace here below, He will give glory in
heaven above. If they are, as in John 17, prayed
for, given the word, kept by God in this world, then they
share also in the Lord's petition, Father I will that they who thou
hast given me be with me and behold my glory. And so we have
in Romans 8, that beautiful joining together, a chain from verse
29, for whom he did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn
among many brethren, whom He did predestinate, them He also
called, and whom He called, them He also justified, and whom He
justified, them He also glorified. So if we find in the middle of
that that we are called, we look back to predestination, we look
back to foreknowledge, we look forward to being justified, and
we look forward to being glorified. God's people that are called
are already justified. But these things then, are joined
together. What God has joined together,
let not man put asunder. We're used to doing that in our
lives, in many things. Very few things stand alone. There is a going together, and
if we'd have read the previous verse, verse 28 in Romans 8,
we know that all things work together for good, to them that
love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose. So, a working together. We think
of in Ezekiel, we have the wheels, and the wheels within wheels,
and wheels working together. providence and grace the teaching
of the Lord that they go together the Lord always joined with his
miracles and the miracles that the disciples did then they were
joined with teaching and with times of blessing nothing is
wasted by the Lord But in this point especially, I want to notice
the joining of those that are gathered, and when we look at
this subject, gathered people, that they are, and each time
of their gathering is, that they are redeemed. I'd like to also notice that
the Redeemer is, of course, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
but He is the Gatherer as well. Jehovah, really, the work of
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is involved in every step of
the redemption. And so, we have not let the redeemed
of the Lord say to whom He hath redeemed, they're not redeeming
themselves the Lord hath redeemed them you say this is Old Testament
well yes of course they were redeemed in time from Egypt but
even those in the Old Testament all people from Abel's day right
to the last one They are all redeemed by the precious blood
of Christ. Abel, he offered by faith a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain. He could see Christ's day. He
could see what was promised and what would most certainly come
to pass. When God's promise, God promises
something, it is as good as done and the benefits can be given
before the deed is done like at Calvary, just as much as it
can be afterwards. Then we come to the words of
our text, and gathered them, we're still speaking of the Lord,
we're still speaking of God's work. He is the gatherer, He
is gathering His people, He is drawing them to Himself, He is
the One. So, in thinking then of these
these preliminary remarks i want to come to the gathered people
and four times four times that the lord gathers his people and
i'll mention them to you first and then we'll go back over these
points the first is gathered by calling or by quickening grace
The second is gathering into local churches, a gathering together
for worship. And then thirdly, there's a gather
together by death, that is to heaven and to glory. And then
lastly, there's a gathering at the last day, at the resurrection,
when the bodies are joined to the soul, a new body, celestial
body. And each of those gatherings,
they are joined together. And the very first one, you might
say, is the very important one that gives assurance that all
of the rest will follow on in God's time. firstly then gathering by calling
and we might say in this who to whom to whom when Jacob was
blessing his sons in Genesis 49 he uses the words until Shiloh
come And the Jews always understood that Shiloh was the Lord Jesus
Christ. It was a word pointing to Him,
given to Him. And it was said this, unto Him
shall the gathering of the people be. That is the expectation given
to the fathers, that they would be gathered in that way. And
when we come then to the New Testament and come to Paul's
epistle to the Ephesians, you have in the first chapter in
verse 10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might
gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven,
and which are on earth, even in him." So it's gathering together
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah prophesies that there
shall be a root that shall come out of the stem of Jesse, and
to it shall the Gentiles seek another reference to the Gentiles. It's amazing in a way that the
Apostles and those in their day, they did not recognize at first
what these prophecies were pointing to. The idea that it should not
be just Israel, but to the Gentiles, to every nation, seemed very
hard for them to grasp. And maybe you can apply that
to some of us. I really think, you know, there
are some who say, well, the only ones that shall be in heaven
were gospel standards, strict Baptist, and the thought that
the Lord should ever call anyone from any other church or denomination
or land, they wouldn't even think that. I'm sure there are those
among us that think like that. It's a very sad thing. Once it
was mentioned by the late pastor's widow at Wattersham, she says,
rumoured amongst the Reformed churches that there's a little
place in heaven and it's just reserved for the Gospel Standard
Baptists. And it's very sad to hear those
things, that instead of realising the Lord has his people in every
nation, kindred and tongue, and under many different denominational
barriers and banners as well and many holding things that
are not truths in secondary matters and no doubt there's things that
we haven't got right either and it's a blessed thing to know
that the vital truth of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ As soon
as you have a person joining man's work to it, you know that
that is not of salvation. But when the crown is put on
the Lord's head, that no flesh should glory in His presence,
that salvation is of the Lord. How could Jonah have saved himself
from the world's belly? And the salvation is of the Lord,
is through the precious blood of Christ, the redeeming blood
of Christ, and the gathering of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so it is Him that is gathering by calling. He which hath begun
a good work in you shall perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. It is God that begins the work,
it's not man that begins it. It is God's sovereign beginning. I pass by thee when thou wast
in thy blood, and when thou wast in thy blood, I bid thee live. The Lord Jesus Christ bids His
people live, and that is a command that they must obey irresistible
grace. The grace of God will conquer
the hardest heart. will bring into union, a feeling
union to the Lord Jesus Christ. You have in Psalm 50, verse 5,
gather my saints together, those who have made a covenant with
me by sacrifice. You know, the covenant is made
between the Father and the Son, but we are the subjects of it. That's why David can say, hath
made with me. an everlasting covenant ordered
in all things and sure the agreement like between david and jonathan
and david and saul mephibosheth wasn't alive he wasn't there
at the agreement table but he was the beneficiary of it And
when the time came, the blessings came to him, not because anything
good in him. He was lame in both his feet,
but because of the covenant. And those who are called, it
is because they are redeemed. And the Lord alone knows who
are his redeemed people. We preach the gospel to every
creature. We do not, cannot preach it just
to the elect, we don't know who they are, but we set forth the
law and we set forth the gospel and it is the Lord that uses
that means, the means is. It has pleased God through the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. And even though
that is the ordinary means, yet many of us have known there's
been other means the Lord has used. Perhaps a Jehovah's Witness
come to the door in the case of a couple of us, or it may
be other things have been used, something said, something done,
even by an ungodly person, and it has been used to bring us
into concern. and to start that work make a
real desire and a concern and to seek the things of God sometimes
it can be something most small and insignificant but dear friends
it's not the thing that was used It is the power. It is how God
has used it. When we think of the Lord preaching
on earth, a more perfect preacher you could not have got. But did
all believe? Were all called that heard Him?
When He spake words and they said, never man spake like this
man spake. But they went away back to the
Pharisees, those that heard Him. Were they called? No. It is God's
sovereign work. It's not the eloquence of a preacher.
It is not the wonderfulness of the means. It's what God has
done with him. He can use the most insignificant. If he can use a little maid carried
away captive in the Syria to be the means of pointing Naaman
to go to Elisha, to go to Israel, he can use all things and we
are not to stifle the means or disallow the means in that way
the Lord will use it primarily in the nurturing and the quickening
of the people of God, it is through the Word of God, it is through
the preaching of the Gospel, and really none can really come
to full faith and assurance without the Word of God. Faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. It is the only way
that God reveals himself to men is in the closed pages of the
scriptures between Genesis and Revelation. No future revelations,
no more any inspired preachers or those that having special
words from heaven, no, we are to preach the word, the word
was given by God. And that is the one that is to
be preached. But again, like with the Thessalonians,
it was to be blessed with power by the Holy Spirit. It is vital
that the Holy Spirit take that word and bless it and fasten
it. Sometimes it might be in the
week following a service that a word drops in. And you think,
where did that come from? Why has that suddenly come to
mind? and you realize that it is what was preached a few days
ago, and it is the Holy Spirit to bring to your remembrance
that which I have spoken unto you, and we know when it is the
Spirit's work it will have an effect. Sometimes we might just
have these things come to a mind and there's no effect, but where
there is an effect, where it softens, where it draws, where
it enlightens, where it brings us from what we are doing back
to the Lord, then we know that is of the Lord. The gathering
is unto Christ. Whatever blessing that is had
by a sinner, however much they might speak of wonderful revelations
and wonderful blessings, if it does not lead that soul to Christ,
it is not of the Lord. The Lord speaks in Deuteronomy
of a test, how He tried His people If there should arise a prophet,
a dreamer of dreams, he prophesies things, and they come to pass,
and if it leads them away from the true and living God, then
they are not to go that way. They're not to think, well, this
is a miracle, this is a wonderful thing, and what he said has come
to pass, we must follow him. No, if it does not lead to Christ,
if it does not go in the way of his commands, and do not follow
him and so we have the warning in our day that satan shall come
in even as an angel of light but we are not to follow anything
that does not follow the word to the law and to the testimony
if they do not speak according to these things it is because
there is no light or life in them and all things the calling
of god the gathering of god will be a gathered unto Christ gathered
by him and gathered to him the power attending to it this is
the new birth this is the quickening work of the Holy Spirit this
is the beginning he which hath begun a good work in you and
so May we view this gathering and especially consider, has
the Lord gathered us in that way? Has He gathered us by calling? Do we come into this text and
when we read, and gathered them, and you say, He's gathered me,
He has wrought in my heart, He has gone and gathered me. He's
brought me from my paths, and from my waywardness, and from
my worldliness, and from my ways, and He's gathered me, gathered
me unto Christ. So Christ means all to me. I know that by that gathering
He redeemed me, that He has died for me, that He has put my sins
away. I know that by calling. I would not be called, I would
not be gathered by the Lord, if He had not known me at Calvary,
and hadn't wrought salvation for my soul then. The two are
the works of God. He is the executor of His own
will, and He gathers the people for whom He has shed His blood.
he gathers them for a purpose. God's people are a social people. They are people to be together. He delights in the habitable
part of his earth. We might have those who think,
oh I'd like to go and live in the wilderness and into a nice
country place where there are not many people around. Well,
sometimes to get away from sinful man and all the abominations
of the cities, but the Lord says, no, my desire is with people,
with souls, with my people, wherever they are. You know, Paul spoke
of those in Caesar's palace, in Caesar's palace, that were
the Lord's people and were blessed. And when we think of Babylon,
we have Daniel and his friends, When we think of Ahab and his
court, and we have Obadiah, and he went and hid the prophets,
50 in a cave. There were those even in days
of such evil, and the Lord's people were there, hidden there. And the Lord knows where they
are, and He gathers them, He brings them. If we do not know
this, may this be our real prayer, Lord gather me. May we pray that
the Lord would give us His Spirit and give us that desire to be
gathered. As we hear these things preached,
it may be that softly the Lord does begin to work and does begin
to draw, does make us realize our need of being gathered. And really, those are the first
signs of being gathered is to feel the need of it. This he
gives you, says the hymn writer, tis the Spirit's rising beam. I want to look then secondly
at the gathering in local churches. Now I know there are those that
are not able to do this. Those that are, especially today,
hearing remotely, they may not have those that they can worship
with locally. But God's plan is, and the aim
of each one of His people should be, to pray for and seek that
they should be gathered together in a church. The apostles went
and established churches, established gatherings of the people together. We think of the word that Paul
preached or spoke to the Corinthians and he speaks of them gathering
together. Sometimes it is in a way of reproving
because they gathered not in a very gracious or good way.
but it still does point to their gathering together he says now
in in verse 17 of the 11th of his first epistle to the Corinthians
now in this that i declare unto you i praise you not that you
come together not for the better but for the worse so it's meant
to be coming together for the better Well, first of all, when
you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions
among you, and I partly believe it. And he says, well, there
must be also heresies among you. That is serious error amongst
you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. And all the time he's speaking
of the gathering of the churches and so then he's also in the
14th chapter he speaks of them when they're they're speaking
in in tongues and he says if therefore the whole church be
come together into one place all speak with tongues and they
come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers will they not
say that ye are mad But if all prophesy, and there come in one
that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is
judged of all. Thus the secrets are the secrets
of his heart made manifest. So falling down on his face he
will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth. And so he has a lot to say, to
the Corinthian church about their gathering together. Just because
they gather doesn't mean everything can be right. Some of the things
they say, some of their practices be wrong, but that they gather
is right. And in the epistle to the Thessalonians,
the second one, he says that our gathering together unto him
and of course we have the beautiful promise where two or three are
gathered together in my name there am i in the midst it doesn't
just apply to the context, which was a disciplinary action. But that disciplinary action,
again, it is the Church. It's one of the marks, the evidences
of a true Church, that it can exercise, it must exercise discipline
over its members. We think of the letters to the
Revelation. Each one is to a pastor, or the
angel of the churches. Again, it is a gathering together. and the Lord is pointing to this
we think of in the epistles of the Hebrews chapter 10 verse
15 verse 25 rather not forsaking the assembling of yourselves
together as the manner of some is so much the more as you see
the day approaching and so there are all the time there is the
encouragement, the exhortation to gather together. The apostles,
when they were persecuted, being let go, they went unto their
own company. We read, As iron sharpeneth iron,
so a man the countenance of his friend. The two on the way to
Emmaus, when Christ appeared to them, even though it was toward
evening, the day was fast spent, that they went back those seven
and a half miles and that they went back to the apostles they
immediately wanted to be with their people and dear ruth in
the book of ruth thy people shall be my people thy god my god she
clave unto no oh my and we will find this by nature we don't
want the company of the people of God we want the world and
want its music and want its company and its people and some of us
we can testify that was us that was what we desired and we had
the same language as the ungodly depart from us we desire not
the knowledge of thy ways but When the Lord has been pleased
to call us, then we wanted to be with the people of God. We
wanted to join with them. The immediate effect when the
Lord called me and cut me down as a sinner from wanting to get
away from the chapel, away from the things of God, was to want
to attend every meeting I could. We lived Mornington, three quarters
of an hour away from the chapel there at Melbourne. And I came
from wanting to get away to going up in the week. I remember sitting
in the back seat of that chapel next to Laurie Seegers at the
prayer meetings. He used to come over for the
prayer meetings on a Wednesday evening. And I used to come early
so I could come to the prayer meeting before the service that
was held during the time when the I think when the Sunday School
was taking place, or even a Bible study during it, I can't remember
exactly what, but every occasion I wanted to be where the people
of God were, to go and visit them in the week, and to have
that fellowship with them, and it's a good token. We might look
in vain sometimes to find a word from the Lord or a blessing that
the Lord has blessed us with, but when we can look upon our
lives and the same with the apostle, the life that I now live, I live
by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself
for me. In other words, the life that
I now live is different than the life that I lived before.
There's been a change. Who has wrought that change?
Who has gathered me? And why do I then, on my part,
willingly gather with the people of God? Made willing to be where
I would not have wanted to be before, and did not gather before,
but now I do. and this can be a source of comfort
and help especially when satan comes in and tempts us or when
we have fresh views of our own sinful evil heart that even though
we are redeemed we still feel it it still works it still brings
forth fruit unto death we know not left to just remember what
we were as sinners, we know it still by experience, we feel
the wretchedness, the sins that we have, and it is by faith that
we believe that those sins are put away, and that in heaven
there shall be no sin, there shall be no sorrow, no plague
of a wicked heart the apostle says the good that i would i
do not the evil that i would not that i do a wretched man
that i am who shall deliver me from this body of death he says
if i do that which is uh if i do that which i would not is no
more i that do it but sin that dwelleth in me And it is a solemn
reality. Really, it is only God's people,
God's called people, God's redeemed people, that know that sin dwelleth
in me. And it is a powerful thing, a
powerful principle. They need often to be reminded
of the finished work of Christ, the redeeming blood of Christ,
and to faith to view that it is death, as the hymn writer
says, that puts an end to sin. That will then be what ushers
us into the presence of God. It puts an end to sin, but it
also brings us into that sinless, beautiful, blessed state with
the Lord, the conquest of death. Well, may it be then our desire
to gather, and it be a comfort to us to realize that we have
done that, and we do do that, when we are able to do, sometimes
through illness or lawful calling, we're not able to do so, but
may it be that desire, that we really put that desire, that
we might be where the people of God are, we might be in His
temple. We think of David when he was
driven from Jerusalem and how he longed to be with the house
of God the sparrows were there they found lodging there but
there was he in the wilderness and how he longed for the house
of God well then thirdly we have a gathering by death a gathering by calling a gathering
into the local church and now gathering by death going back to genesis and to
dear jacob and blessing his sons jacob said to them i am to be
gathered unto my people and he actually uses this term of gathering
in reference to his death sometimes yes it is said i die or i go
to my father's but is gathered unto my people those have gone
before us the Lord said that God is the God not of the dead
but of the living he reminded those that were listening to
him what God said to Moses I am the God of Abraham and the God
of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead
but of the living and so we gathered unto the living gathered unto
his people that are beyond the grave those who have gone before
us our fathers and forefathers they've not perished they've
not ceased to exist they are with the lord absent from the
body says the apostle paul and present with the lord at last
in heaven we know that there shall be an innumerable multitude
a great gathering of all from the first to the last. But as
each one dies, they are gathered. We have the beautiful picture
in Acts 7 of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, that was gathered,
and he looks up and he testifies of Christ standing at the right
hand of God to receive him. And the Lord says in John 14,
that in My Father's house are many mansions. If it were not
so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you,
and if I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come again and
receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. The Lord will come and gather
His people unto Him. Father, I will that they also
whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am. And of course,
if one is gathered in that way, then there's others. All of the
people are gathered to be with Christ, from every nation, kindred,
and tongue. What a beautiful way of viewing
that solemn last enemy, that enemy of death, in the way that
Jacob says, that I am to be gathered. Every one of God's children have
been gathered by calling, that have been gathered into the local
church, joined there, and they are to be gathered at last, gathered
by the Lord at death to be with Him and to be forever with the
Lord. But there's one last gathering
that I want to mention as well, and that is the gathering that
is at the last day. When the Apostle writes to the
Thessalonians, he gives a very concise, very beautiful word
to those Thessalonians who thought that those that had died, that
they had perished, or that the resurrection was past. and so he gives them that knowledge
and it's interesting how it begins in 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse
13 but i would not have you to be ignorant brethren we can be
ignorant can't we we can have the word of god before us and
not really realize what it is saying It's a blessed thing to
have the Lord come and open our understanding to the truths of
God. But what He'd have them not be
ignorant was concerning them which are asleep. the bodies
of those that were asleep in the grave, the souls of those
that were alive in heaven, that ye sorrow not, even as others
which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus
will God bring with Him. He'll bring them, He'll bring
their souls with Him. For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the
coming of the Lord shall not prevent, or that is, go before
them which are asleep, or those who have died. For the Lord himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ
shall rise first. To those that are coming with
him, their bodies are rising. Job says that after my skin,
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. For myself, not another, he shall
be raised, the dust shall be raised. Then we which are alive
and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds,
together with them gathered to meet the Lord in the air, so
shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another
with these words. And we're told by our Lord, at
that last great day the Lord shall send forth His angels to
gather His elect from the four corners of the earth. The Lord
shall gather them. He shall use His servants. He shall use the angels. But
it is the Lord that is the gathering. He is the heavenly Boaz. He is in charge of the harvest.
he has the command to his his servants as to what they should
do and to where they should go and he knows his dear people
we have the beautiful chapter of the resurrection 1 corinthians
15 and the close of that chapter the apostle again saying i show
you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed
and it is so shall we be forever with the Lord. It is a beautiful
thing that the Lord has a prepared place for a prepared people and
He will gather them in these four ways that we've set before
you. And the great key, this is all
the Lord's doing. He is doing the gathering and
if He has gathered us firstly by calling, He will be the one
that draws us to His people as well. And He will be the one
that gathers us at death when we have no power, no life, no
ability. We can't keep alive our body,
we can't retain our soul, but it must return to God that gave
it. And then at the last day, raising
our flesh again, and to be forever with the Lord. This is then a
beautiful theme, a gathered people, and I pray that there might be
those of you, me included, this afternoon, that discern that
we are amongst that gathered people. The Lord has done that
for us, and that it is in this way that we are gathered together. And gathered them out of the
lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and
from the south. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen.