evening. We're going to be in
Psalm 146 tonight. If you'd like to turn with me
there in your Bible, Psalm 146. At hymn we just sang, closed
with Because I'm trusting Christ, therefore I know that I'm God's
chosen one. And that really is the only evidence
that we have. We don't look to a changed life. We don't look to an experience
or a decision that we make. We look to Christ in faith. And
faith is the substance of things hoped for. It is the evidence
of things not seen. So I'm thankful of that hymn. That's a good hymn. I want us
to do something a little different tonight. Normally I read from
a different passage of scripture for our call to worship, but
I'm going to read our text for our call to worship. So if you
have your Bibles open to Psalm 146. Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live, will I praise the
Lord. I will sing praises unto my God
while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes
nor in the son of man. In whom there is no help, his
breath goeth forth, he returneth to the earth. In that very day,
his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God
of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. which made heaven and earth and
the sea and all that therein is, which keepeth truth forever,
which executeth judgment for the oppressed, which giveth food
to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners. The Lord openeth the eyes of
the blind. The Lord raiseth them that are
bowed down. The Lord loveth the righteous.
The Lord preserveth the strangers. He relieveth the fatherless and
widow, but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. The Lord
shall reign forever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the Lord." Talked to Todd today, and Lynn
is continuing to make progress. She's getting up and walking
around a good bit. So she had some internal bleeding,
and they thought that they might have to go back in and fix that,
but it seems like that has stopped. So they're very thankful for
that. Also, I want us to pray for Phil
and Raynon's baby, little Axel. He's still struggling on life
support. Let's pray together. Our gracious and glorious Heavenly
Father, thank you for reminding us and
we pray that you would impress it upon our hearts tonight, that
we're not to put our trust in man in whom there is no help. We pray, Lord, that you would
increase our faith. We pray that you would bless
your word and make it effectual to our hearts We know, Lord,
that faith does come by hearing and so, or give us ears to hear
what the Spirit has to say into the churches and cause us, Lord,
to find our hope and our help in the Lord Jesus Christ, who
himself is so glorious and able, sufficient for all our needs.
We pray that you would cause him to be lifted up and that
our hearts would be drawn to him and we would find all our
hope in him. We thank you for the progress
that you've given Lynn and ask Lord for your hand of healing
to continue to be on her and give her full recovery. We pray
for little Axel and thank you for the doctors and nurses that
minister to him and pray that you'd give them skill and wisdom
and knowledge and Pray for Phil and Rain and then ask Lord that
you'd give comfort and grace to their hearts as they wait
on you. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Let's all stand together again.
We'll sing hymn number 235, 235. Pass me not, O gentle Savior
Hear my humble cry While on others thou art calling Do not pass
me by ? Savior, Savior ? ? Hear my humble cry ? ? While on others
Thou art calling ? ? Do not pass me by ? ? Let the ant on the
throne of mercy ? Help my unbelief Savior, Savior,
hear my humble cry While on others Thou art calling, do not pass
me by Frosting only in Thy merit Would
I seek Thy face. Hail, my wounded, broken spirit,
Save me by Thy grace. ? Savior, Savior ? ? Hear my
humble cry ? ? While the others now are calling ? ? Do not pass
me by ? ? Thou the spring of all my comfort ? Please be seated. We've taken the title for this
message tonight from verse six. I mean, I'm sorry, verse five
of our text. If you look there with me at
Psalm 146, verse five, happiest he that hath the God of Jacob
for his help, whose hope is in the Lord is God, Christ, our
helper and our hope. What a glorious God we serve.
David begins this psalm with expressions of praise, and I
remind you of something that we saw a few weeks ago in Psalm
145. The title of that psalm is David's
Psalm of Praise, and the rest of the five psalms in the book
of Psalms are the only ones in the entire book of Psalms that
don't have a title. And so that title refers to all
five Psalms. Psalm 145 through Psalm 150 are
David's Psalms of praise. And we know that David is speaking
prophetically as the one through whom the Lord Jesus Christ came. He's speaking prophetically for
Christ, who's called the son of David. And so when we read
these words, we're reminded of the faith and faithfulness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. When he begins in verse one by
saying, praise ye the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul, to extol
him, to lift him up, to worship him. I'm reminded what the Lord
said when he said, and you, when you were without strength, Christ
in due time when we were yet without strength, Christ died
for the ungodly. And you remember that word ungodly
is the word worship with the Greek alpha in front of it. God
refers to those who are unable to worship him as being ungodly. And only when the Lord enables
us by His Spirit to praise Him, to acknowledge Christ for who
He is and to worship Him, That's what our Lord said to that woman
at the well in John chapter 4, didn't he? He said, the father
seeketh them who worship him in spirit and in truth. But when
the spirit of God takes the truth of who God is and through faith
enables us to rest our hope in Christ, the sovereign, immutable,
omnipotent Savior of sinners." And he's the only one that's
worshipped. Men feign worship all the time. We did it for years.
We pretended to be worshipping God when actually we had a God
who needed to be worshipping us. He was dependent upon us
in order for him to have his way. What I'm saying to you is
that the only God that's worthy to be worshipped and the only
God that actually is worshipped is a God who is absolutely sovereign. And our Lord acknowledged his
Father as being completely sovereign. And when the Spirit of God causes
us to believe who the Lord Jesus Christ is as the Son of God,
the successful Savior, the sovereign one. Then we bow before him in
worship and we're able to raise our voice with the voice of Christ
and say to our Heavenly Father, praise ye the Lord. Praise the
Lord, oh my soul. This isn't just words that we're
speaking. This isn't just an intellectual
ascent. This isn't just theological knowledge. This is a work of grace in the
heart, whereby God takes those who are by nature ungodly, those
who are unable to approach his presence, and puts away their
sin by the sacrifice of Christ. Puts them away. makes us, sanctifies
us, makes us perfect in his sight, and then says to us, come boldly
to the throne of grace that you might find help and grace in
your time of need. That's what our Lord does. And so he's calling us now, praise
the Lord, worship him from the heart, in the soul. And if you're
unable, ask the Lord, Lord, put away my sin. Give me, give me
grace to be able to come into the presence of God. How can
a man be right with God? How can, how can we stand in
the presence of a holy God? Only if we're found in him. And
the scripture is clear. If we're in him, we're acceptable. Accepted in the beloved. Isn't
that what the Lord said? We're accepted in the beloved. Verse two, while I live, while
I praise the Lord, only the living can praise the Lord. Oh Lord,
if you'll give me spiritual life, I'll praise you. In him was life and the life
was the light of men. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
himself is our life. And in him is the light of the
gospel. We come to understand who we
are in the presence of the Holy God and our complete dependence
upon Him for all our righteousness. We come to believe that he was
successful in the work of redemption that he accomplished on Calvary's
cross. And so we live in Christ. In him, we have our life. And so David says, while I live,
I will praise the Lord. As long as God gives me life
in Christ, my heart will be raised. My soul will be raised in adoration
and in praise and in thanksgiving. That's why Paul said in Philippians,
he said, rejoice, rejoice in the Lord always. Well, you know,
you just don't understand the troubles that I have. No, again
I say rejoice. The Lord just repeats himself,
doesn't he? We have reason to praise God
and reason to rejoice with him and in him, regardless of what
he's ordained for us to suffer in this temporal world. So he
says, let your gentleness be known unto all men. Don't be
anxious for anything. The Lord is at hand. And In everything
by prayer and supplication, let your requests be known unto God
and the peace of God, the peace of God, which exceeds understanding. And that doesn't mean that that
peace can't be understood. It means that, you know, we want
to understand things because knowledge and understanding is
control and power, isn't it? God's not going to let us control
anything or have power over him in any way. We're going to be
submissive to him. We're going to be looking to
him for all of our power. Lord, we can't believe without
you. We can't see without you. We can't hear without you. We
can't breathe without you. We have no life physically or
spiritually whatsoever without you. And so the Lord says the
peace of God is better than understanding. We want to understand everything.
God said, no, you're not going to understand everything. I'm
not going to give you power over me. That's what Jacob wanted.
When Jacob was wrestling with the Lord and Jacob asked the
Lord, what is your name? The Lord said, why ask you my
name? What do you want control over
me? No, I'm going to give you a new name. And he changed his
name from Jacob to Israel. And God's the one who knows our
name. We know his name, he's given
us his name, but what do we really understand about that? Truth
is, brethren, we don't understand anything we believe, do we? We
really don't. But we believe. Look, while I live, verse 2,
I will praise the Lord, I will sing praises unto my God while
I have any being. If I have any being whatsoever.
Now let me ask you a question. When we're done looking through
this glass darkly, and we see him face to face, when that which
is perfect is calm, and that which is incomplete passes away,
and David said, I'll be satisfied when I awake in his likeness,
we're going to see him as he is and be made like him. We're
going to be alive then? We're going to be alive then? Oh, the
feeble efforts that we make to praise our God now are so feeble. They're so far short of what
we're going to experience in glory when we're able to worship
Him without distraction, without sin. without the body of flesh. And so David says, he says, I
will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. Oh, we're
going to have being then, perfect being and perfect praise and
perfect worship. You know, we talk about worship
and bowing before our God, and yet we all feel so ashamed of
how frail and how insincere and how incomplete our worship is,
don't we? How easily distracted we are
even when we come together for worship. Won't be that way then. Won't be that way. We'll praise
Him as we ought and praise Him as we desire to do now. But we
do it. We do worship Him. In faith we
worship Him. We bow before him and we say
amen to everything that he has said, everything. Look at verse three. I'm reminded,
I think we're gonna close the service with hymn 10 that Isaac
Watts wrote when he said, oh God, our help in ages past, our
hope. for years to come, our shelter
from the stormy blast, and our eternal home. He is our eternal
home. He went on to say, under the
shadow of thy throne, thy saints have dwelt secure, sufficient
is thine arm alone, and our defense is sure. Sure. We have a sure
hope, a sure salvation. This is not pie in the sky by
and by. This is not, oh, well, I hope
it's going to happen, or let's just Let's just give it our best
and wish this thing. No, we have the very infallible,
inerrant, inspired promises of God's word to declare to us who
he is. And we have the spirit of God,
which gives to his children faith to believe every word that God
has spoken, every word. We don't pick and choose. We
just, we bow and say amen to every word Look at verse three,
put not your trust in princes nor in the son of man in whom
there is no help. Now that word help there is the
word salvation. It is the word salvation. Man
can't save me. I can't save myself. I can't
depend upon a decision that I've made. or a sorrow that I experienced,
or some change in my life that has taken place in order to show
evidences of repentance. I can't depend upon those things.
In man, there is no salvation. I can't save myself. I thought
about how in religion, we used to try to give one another assurance
of salvation. You know, only a lost man will
try to assure another man that he's saved. You think about that. Only a lost man will try to give
assurance of salvation to another man. We don't do that. Assurance of salvation. I mean
we we encourage one another and we pray for one another and we
fellowship together in the spirit of God But you come to me and
say, you know, I just don't know if I'm saved. I'm gonna I'm not
gonna say Oh, yeah, you are. Let's just pray it. Let's let's
nail it down right now Let's pray this prayer and you know,
I've seen I've seen changes in your life. I'm not going to assure
you of your salvation Why would a man do that Because
the things that he's telling you to look to for the evidence
of your salvation is what he's looking to for the evidence of
his salvation. That's why I say only a lost
man would try to give assurance of salvation to another man. God's got to give you that. But
we used to do it in religion. We bolster one another up and
assure each other how, you know, how safe we were. That's what
the Lord, look what he's saying. Put not your trust in princes
nor in the son of man in whom there is no salvation. There's
no help of salvation. There's no help of salvation.
Not by a changed life, not by decision, not by the assurance
that come from a man, not by the words of a false prophet.
Listen to what Isaiah said in Isaiah 45 verse 20. They set
up the wood of their graven images and they pray unto a God that
cannot save. Isn't that true? Some of us have
been there. We set up the wood of our graven
images and we prayed unto a God. That's why I said that we weren't
really praying to God. We were like that publican who
was in the temple. who prayed to himself. He spoke
to himself. I mean, the Pharisee, you know
what I mean. The publican who beat himself
on the breast and would not so much as even look up said, God
have mercy upon me, the sinner. But the Pharisee, he prayed thus
unto himself. Father, I thank thee that I'm
not like other men. And he just gloried in his accomplishments,
didn't he? Put not your trust in princes.
Praying unto a God that cannot save. There's only one God that
can save. No other name has been given
under heaven whereby we must be saved. The name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is the sovereign creator and sustainer of all
of life, both physical and spiritual. And he tells us that in just
a moment. Look what he says here. Isaiah chapter two, verse 22.
Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein
is he to be accounted of? Cease from man. Don't look to
man. No, don't. For anything, particularly the
man that's living in the seat you're sitting in. Don't look
to that man either. We have a man, the God-man, the
one mediator between man and God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who's
seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. Having finished
the work of redemption, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He's the man. He's the man. I preached in West Virginia,
that passage in Proverbs chapter 30, where the Lord speaks of
those things that are too wonderful for me. And one of them is the
way of a man with a maid. And the point there is that the
new birth is the means by which the Lord gives faith. But here's
the thing that's too wonderful for us. The way of the God-man
with his maid. the Church, the Bride of Christ,
these things are too wonderful. But we're completely dependent
upon Him. That's what our Lord's saying.
Don't look to your right or to your left. You know, and this doesn't just
have to do with salvation. It has to do with every human
relationship that we have. You know, we get disappointed
in men We get disappointed in ourselves, first of all, don't
we? You get disappointed in yourself. Are you? I know you do. I know you do. You're everyday,
old wretched man that I am. Paul wasn't talking about a past
experience. He's talking about who he was right then. And Job
said, I am Biola. I see that now. So, you know,
this is our Lord saying, don't become too confident in yourself.
Not just in the area of salvation, but in every area. You depend
upon Him. We're quick to put our confidence
in man, aren't we? Quick to put our confidence.
We get frustrated with our politicians or, you know, with, you know,
our leaders. And we think, you know, They're
under the absolute sovereign control of our God. So the Lord
is saying, don't put your trust in man. They're not in control.
I'm in control of this. You're not in control. Your boss is not in control. The heart
of the king is in the hands of the Lord and he directs it with
us however he wills. God's in charge. He's sovereign.
That's what the Lord's saying to us. Put not your trust in
man for anything. Men will disappoint you, beginning
with yourself. Don't be too hard on other people
that disappoint you. Just think about how many times
you've disappointed yourself. And you'll find yourself letting
other folks off the hook. Because nobody's disappointed
me as much as I've disappointed myself. The Lord said to Moses in Deuteronomy
chapter 3 verse 22, you shall not fear them for the Lord your
God shall fight for you. Oh, the Lord remind us of that
when we're in conflict with another man, we're in conflict with ourselves. We have the flesh worn against
the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and we cry with Rebecca,
why am I thus? Because I've got two natures,
and yet the Lord says, it's not your fight, it's not your battle.
The battle's the Lord's. Don't fear that. David said in Psalm 56 verse
four, in God I have put my trust, I will not fear what flesh can
do to me. And then he went on in Psalm
118 verse 6 to say, the Lord is on my side. I will not fear
what man can do to me. If God be for me, who can be
against me? That's what our Lord's telling us here. Praise the Lord. Worship Him. Bow down before
Him. Men are frail. Men are Men are unable to help. They're
unable to save. Look at verse four. Why is man
so frail? His breath goeth forth, he returneth
to his earth. In that very day, his thoughts
perish. Oh, we love to boast in our abilities,
don't we? Love to boast in our accomplishments
or in our strength or in our beauty or in our intelligence
or men will find something to glory in. and that's not evident with with
uh fake book or look at me you know that all you all you need
is a a minute to look over all the time i've ever seen that
is looking over something i hear enough about it i hear enough
about it to know that it's just man glorying in himself isn't
he it really is what's our lord saying here His breath tells
the real story. What can you do with your breath?
Blow out a candle? Maybe spin a little toy pinwheel? Maybe swish away a fly? What
can you do with your breath? It's not very much there, is
it? And yet God shuts it off, and in about three minutes, you're
gone. I tell you, one thing we can
do with our breath, and we've learned that very clearly in the last
year and a half or so, is we can spread germs and disease
with our breath, can't we? What's God saying? The Lord is
reminding us, with all the things that we glory in, and all of
our strength, and all of our abilities, and all of our supposed
power, the strength of man, is reduced to his breath. He's just a breath away from
death. You've been choked before. You
panicked, didn't you? Tricia won't even put a mint
in her mouth again. She won't do it. She put one
in her mouth and got choked on it. That's been years ago. But I've almost drowned twice
scuba diving where my equipment failed. And I wish I could stand
here and tell you I had perfect control and I got everything.
And I panicked. I couldn't breathe. That's a fearful thing, isn't
it? I watched my father die a slow death with emphysema. It's just
a slow death of drowning and he was constantly panicking.
He couldn't get his breath. That's how frail we are. It's
just a breath. That's how far we are away from
dying. My God remind us that he's the
one that put the breath in our nostrils. He made Adam from the
dust of the earth and he breathed life into him. And our life is
just one breath away, and God's in control of that. Why would
we put our trust in man? What does he say? His breath goeth forth and he
returneth to the earth. He's just that frail. David said in Psalm 104, verse
29, thou takest away their breath, they die and return to the earth. It's all the Lord's got to do
is just put his hand over our mouth. Acts chapter 17, when Paul was
preaching to those philosophers, oh, they were, don't you know,
they gloried in their knowledge and in their influence and in
their power, and they called Paul a babbler. Let's see what
this babbler has to say. Teach us something new that we
don't know. And what did Paul say to them? Our God does not
worship with man's hands as if he needed anything, seeing that
he giveth to all life and breath and all things. That's our God. He giveth to all life and breath
and all things. Oh, I pray the Lord would. cause
us to be reminded by this scripture how frail we are, how dependent
we are. That's what our Lord said, put
not your trust in man. His breath goes away and he dies. God gives him that breath. Oh no, now here's the contrast.
Look at verse five. Here's the contrast. Our Lord's
told us to praise Him, to worship Him, to bow before Him. And to
do that, we have to cease from man. We have to give up our hope
in trusting in flesh. That's what Paul said when he
said, we are the true circumcision. We are the true circumcision,
not circumcised in the flesh by the hands of men, but circumcised
in the heart by the spirit of God. We are the true circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit. And how do I know I worship God
in the spirit? Because I rejoice in Christ Jesus and I have no
confidence in the flesh. That's it. All of my hope for
life and for salvation is in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I
can't find, not before God. Oh, we are prone to wander. We're
prone to leave the God we love. We find ourselves looking to
flesh way too much. That's why the Lord's given us
his word to remind us to don't do that. Believer says, Amen, I've done
that way too many times. I don't want to do that ever
again. We will. But but here's here's here's
our Lord's here's our Lord's encouragement to us. Verse five,
happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose
hope is in the Lord his God. This word happy means to be blessed. It means to be satisfied. It
means to be content. to be truly happy. The happiness
that the world has to offer is not, it's fleeting, it's fake,
it's false. This is a happiness that comes
from God. This is a true blessing. And when we read, look at verse
five. Happy is he that hath the God
of Jacob for his help. Now, what is the first thing
you think of when you think about the God of Jacob? Jacob I loved. Esau I hated. Oh he loved Jacob with an everlasting
love. He confirmed the covenant with
Jacob when he gave him the birthright. And then Jacob fleeing from his
brother Esau went to Bethel and God confirmed the covenant again
there. And then he went to Laban's house and God and the Lord blessed
him there and gave him Rachel, Leah, and all the children and
flocks and came back and feared his brother Esau and thought,
you know, I've got to appease my brother. And so he sent gifts
to Esau in hopes of abating his anger towards him. And Esau said,
brother, I don't need these gifts. The Lord had already had already
taken that away from Esau. I don't need your gifts. I've
got enough. You remember we looked at that
recently in Genesis where Esau says to his brother Jacob, I've
got enough. You keep your gifts. And you remember what Jacob said
to his brother Esau? He said, no brother, you take
it. I've got everything. I've got everything. Well, you
know, the world says, I've got sufficient. I'm good to go. You
know, I'm okay with God. And the child of God says, I've
got Christ. And with him, I've got everything. Everything. Oh, what love the
Lord showed towards Jacob. And when we think, happy is he
that has the God of Jacob for his help, for his salvation. all his hope. This is the God
that loves his people with an everlasting love. The Lord loved,
the scripture says he loved them until the end. And we're reminded
herein is love, not that we love God. We don't measure love by
our love for God. Our love is so fickled and fraught
with sin and Herein is love. Not that we love God, but that
he loved us and gave his son as be a propitiation for our
sin. For greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down
his life for his friends. God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten son. Oh, what the God of Jacob is
a God of love. God is love. He's loved us with
a perfect love and perfect love casteth out fear. And so the
Lord's told us, if you're gonna trust man, you got a lot to be
afraid of. You're gonna trust yourself, you got a lot to be
afraid of. Were you sincere enough when you gave your heart to Jesus?
Did you really mean it? How have you done since then?
Are you gonna put your trust in a decision you made or a prayer
you prayed or a work that you performed? How are you doing
there? Are your works perfect? You see, it's like I said before,
and this is not original, but honest people don't go to hell.
They really don't. A man that can find hope, and
salvation and rest and peace in the decision that he's made
or in a work that he's performed or in the words of a false prophet
or in the assurance that his other religious friends have
given him is a liar. He's lying to himself and he's
lying to other men. We look to all those things and
say, Lord, I've got no hope there. I've got to have Christ. I've
got to have Christ. Oh, what? Jacob. You remember, Joseph ended up
in Egypt. You know the circumstances around
that. And then God sent a drought. and a famine, and Jacob sent
his sons down to Egypt because he heard there was corn down
there. The Lord had provided that through Joseph. And Joseph knew who his brothers
were. They didn't know who he was. And Joseph said, you go
back and get your youngest brother, Benjamin, and I'll keep Simeon
here. And so the brothers went back
to Jacob And where's Simeon? Well, he's holding him hostage
until we bring Benjamin. And Jacob said, no, no, Joseph
is no more. Neither is Simeon. Now you want
to take Benjamin away from me? All these things are against
me. Isn't that what Jacob said? You
ever feel that way? Oh, everything's against me. And actually it was working all
for him because the best 17 years of Jacob's life were the last
17 years of his life. He went to Egypt at 130 and died
at 147 and lived in the lap of luxury with a son as a prime
minister of the most powerful nation in the world. They weren't
against him. All those things weren't against
him. What was God doing? God was loving Jacob and Jacob
didn't know it. You have the God of Jacob as
your hope. And this is a God who provides
everything that his children need. Everything. Even when we can't see it. Even
when we think it's all against me. The Lord is at work. Look, happy is he that hath the
God of Jacob for his help. whose hope is in the Lord. Now, you know, every time you
see L-O-R-D in caps in the Old Testament, it is Yahweh. It's the name that the Lord Jesus
Christ gave to Moses at the burning bush. When he said, when Moses
asked him, whom should I say sent me? Tell them, I am. What
does that name mean? What does it mean, I am? Well,
I don't know what all it means, but I know that he's declaring
himself to be self-existent, the eternal, self-sufficient,
immutable, sovereign, omnipotent God, a God who's in need of nothing
and a God who gives everything that we need. That's who he's
declaring himself to be. Martha, I am the resurrection
and the life. He that believeth in me, though
he die, yet shall he live. Oh, here's our hope. Here's our
hope. We have life in Christ, the glorious
I am the Lord. The Lord, he's God. I just love,
I love that. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He created
everything. Nothing exists that He didn't
make. The Word became flesh, and He
dwelt among us. We beheld His glory as the glory
of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full of truth.
We have God as our Lord. the God of Jacob, the Lord, our
God, the sovereign creator and sustainer. Look at verse six,
which made heaven and earth, the seas and all that is therein,
which keepeth truth forever. He's All things were made by Him.
Without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was
life, and the life was the light of men. The light shined in the
darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. The Lord has to invade
our darkness. And when He does, then we see
the truth. We see the truth of who we are.
We believe that He's God. We bow before Him. believing that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. And all that that implies, all
that that implies The Lord said, men will honor me with their
lips. And that's what men in religion do. They pretend to
worship God and they say things about him that are true, but
then they deny the very essence of deity by making him dependent
upon us for him to be able to have his way. He's God. he hath done whatsoever he wills
with all the armies of heaven and with all the inhabitants
of the earth. And no man can stay his hand and no man can
say unto him, what doest thou? Our God condescended in the person
of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ to show forth the glory
of God and the grace of God, the power of God to save sinners. Oh, blesses he that has this
God is this God. What a blessing. He made heaven and earth. He
made it from nothing. Oh, we say it that way. He really
made it out of himself. He's the one that We have exit signs over our doors. And that word comes from the
word to exist. And it means to be out of. So we go out those doors if we're
going to exit this place. And our God, that's what I am,
is a reference to. Everything comes out of him. He exists, he's self-existent,
and he's able to speak and create things out of nothing, we say,
but he really didn't create it out of nothing, he created it
out of himself. We take the raw materials and put them together
and say, oh, look what we created. No, we didn't create anything. And so it is when the Lord creates
the new man in one of his children. He creates him out of himself. This reference to him speaking
in creation, let there be light, and there was light. And God
said, you know, he spoke each day of the creation. And before that, the earth was without
form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And
God said, let there be light. We're without form and void,
and darkness is upon the face of our deep. We're so full of
sin and unbelief. And God says, let there be light. What a, what a glorious, glorious
God. I want to show you one thing
before we close. We're not going to be able to get through this
whole Psalm, but look at, look at verse six, the last part of
verse six. You see that word keepeth, keepeth,
which keepeth truth forever. And then in verse seven, which
executeth judgment, which giveth food to the hungry, the Lord
looseth the prisoner. When you find... These are participles
in the Hebrew language. And It's not just old 7th century
King James language that puts an ETH at the end of these verbs. This is a reference to something
that has continual activity. In other words, it never had
a beginning, it is now, and it will never have an end. It is
our immutable God who is continually acting. And he doesn't just say,
well, he's going to, he's going to keep truth forever. No, he
always has kept truth forever. He is keeping truth forever,
and he always will keep truth forever. So when we read, when
we read in verse, in verse six, which executeth judgment, he
has always executed judgment, he is executing judgment, and
he shall always execute judgment. This is a glorious truth that
is lost in every other translation of the Bible, because they'll
put it either in the past tense or in the present tense or in
a future tense, but really this is the eternal tense. So when
you're reading your King James Bible and you find an adjective
or a verb that ends with E-T-H, that is the eternal tense of
that truth. It means that it never had a
beginning and it's never gonna have an end and it's never gonna
change. It always has been, it is now
and shall always be. I am the Lord and I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. He keepeth truth forever. Was there ever a time in eternity
past when God didn't keep his promises to his son to reward
him for his redemptive work in providing him a bride. The people for whom he was going
to die never was a time. Is there ever going to be a time
in the future when God's not going to keep truth? You're not
going to be faithful to every word that he's ever spoken. He
can't deny himself. It's like I said, someday If
men think by free will that they have the freedom to will something
against their nature, that's not ever going to happen. You
can't do that. You can't will against your will. And in that sense, God doesn't
have a free will. He cannot not keep truth forever. You see? He can't change. There's why it's such a blessed
thing to have the God of Jacob. The Lord is our help. And why
it's so foolish to put our trust in a man who's no stronger than
his next breath. Our heavenly Father, bless your
word and keep us. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 10, number 10 in your
heart, back 10. Now let's stand together. Tom,
you come please. Our hope for years to come.