Good morning. You'd like to turn
with me in your Bibles to the 11th chapter of Acts. There's
a verse here I want us to. To look at. Pray the Lord will. Will cause us this morning to
remember I've titled this message to remember Christ, how prone
we are To forget, look at verse 16 of Acts chapter 11. Then remembered
I the word of the Lord. All the confusion. All the conflict. All the problems. All controversies
are settled. What sayeth the scriptures? Then
remembered I the word of the Lord. If the Lord's pleased to
send his spirit and to make his word effectual to our hearts,
we will be put in remembrance of Christ this morning and all
will be well. Let's ask the Lord's blessings. Our merciful heavenly father, we come before you as sinners in need of your mercy
and in need of your grace. Lord, we are so prone to forget. We get so caught up in the things
of this world. We pray that you would speak
as only you can to our hearts, that you would cause us to hear,
thus saith the Lord. that you would cause us to hear
the voice of thy dear son, who said, I call my sheep by name
and they follow after me. Lord, call us to Christ and give
us faith to believe him and to look to him and to rest all the
hope of our salvation in his glorious person and in his accomplished
work. For we ask it in his name. Amen. Turn with me, if you will, back,
you can hold your finger there in Acts chapter 11 and turn with
me back to Psalm 106. Psalm 106. And we'll begin reading in verse
10. We're so much like the children
of Israel. Look at verse 10, and he saved
them from the hand of him that hated them and redeemed them
from the hand of the enemy." That's exactly what the Lord
Jesus did when he bowed his mighty head on Calvary's cross and said,
it is finished. He saved us from death. He saved
us from our enemy. He saved us from the judgment
that is to come. He saved us, saved us from ourselves. destroyed the works of the devil.
What a glorious work he accomplished for his people. And he is our hope, and that
work that he did is the hope of our redemption. And he is our hope of righteousness
before God. But look at the next verse. The
waters covered their enemies, and there was not one of them
left. Not one. What the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
on Calvary's cross was not a partial salvation. It was full. It was complete. He drowned the
enemy. Then believed they his words
and sang his praise. That's what we do when God gives
us faith. We believe the word of God. We're
not interested in opinions. We're not interested in denominational
distinctives. We're interested in what thus
saith the Lord is because we put all our hope in what God
has said. And here's a picture of our salvation. He's talking about those Old
Testament Israelites. We know that here, but he's talking
about all spiritual Israel. This is my experience and this
is your experience if you're a believer. Look at verse 14. But. I'm sorry, verse 13. They soon
forgot his works. They waited not for his counsel.
Have you forgotten the work of Christ this week? Have you? Not sought his counsel when you
should have. Sure you have. Sure you have. But they lusted exceedingly in
the wilderness and tempted God in the desert. And he gave them their request.
Gave them what they asked for. But he sent leanness into their
soul. Now that's the mercy of God. That's God's mercy. You see,
the unbeliever can be completely content with lusting after the
things of this world. The unbeliever can be completely
content in seeking after the counsel of this world. But when
the child of God does it, he sends leanness to their soul. And he makes them to hunger and
thirst after righteousness. He uses that old man Jacob to,
the old man Esau to make Jacob hunger after Christ. And we know
that's what the younger, the older shall serve the younger
and the older was Esau. And that's the man of the flesh.
And Jacob is our new man and here's our experience. And so
we've come here this morning to be reminded of what God has
done. Because we need to be reminded.
We're so prone to forget. And if we've never heard, if
we remain yet this morning strangers to his grace outside of Christ,
then our hope is that the Holy Spirit will take the same message,
the same exact message that the child of God needs to hear to
remind them to teach the unbeliever the truth. about who Christ is. You see, we don't preach one
message to unbelievers and another to believers, do we? It's the
same message. It's the same Christ. We all
have the same need. Look at verse 21. Aren't you
glad the Lord sends leanness to your soul when you find yourselves
in this world? Lord, my feet are dirty. I've been walking around this
world. I need you to wash my feet. My heart has grown cold. I need you to warm my heart with
the love of Christ. Lord, my mind has got caught
up in the things of this world and I need the mind of Christ.
I need you to enable me to set my affections on things above
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. I don't know
things of this world. Then remembered I the word of
the Lord. Isn't that glorious? Peter said,
after he saw the Holy Spirit fall on Cornelius and his household,
he said, then I remembered. Then remembered I the word of
the Lord. When he said, John shall baptize you with water,
but I shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And then all
was clear then. See, all the conflict and controversies
that Peter may have been experiencing in that conversion of a Gentile,
it was all clear when he remembered the word of the Lord. Who caused
him to remember those things? The Lord did. The Lord's the
one that has to cause us to remember. He's the one that has to enable
us to see and to hear. But by nature, we're like these
children of Israel. Look at verse 21 in Psalm 106. They forgot God, their savior,
which had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the
land of Ham and terrible things by the Red Sea. Therefore, he
said that he would destroy them. Had not Moses, his chosen, stood
before him in the breach to turn away his wrath, lest he should
destroy them? Do you see the gospel in that?
Do you understand that Moses here represents a type of the
Lord Jesus Christ? And when God told Moses that
he was gonna wipe out the children of Israel in the wilderness,
Moses interceded for them. He stood in the breach. He became
their substitute. And he prayed for Israel and
asked God to have mercy upon them. That's what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done for us. Had he not stood in the breach,
had he not, if he was not right now seated
at the right hand of God as our intercessor, our righteous substitute,
pleading our cause before God, We would be destroyed for what
we've what we've thought and what we haven't thought and what
we've done and what we haven't done this just today, much less
all this past week. We have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. Aren't you thankful? What Moses did for the Children
of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. Oh, that we would remember, be
brought to remember. And that's why we're preaching
Christ and preaching the word of God right now, because this
is the means by which God enables us to remember. Faith comes by
hearing and hearing comes by the word of God. You remember when Mary and Well, there were two Marys and
Martha went down to the open tomb on the resurrection and
they met those angels there and the angel said, why seek ye the
living among the dead? He's not here, he's risen. And the angels asked them, do
you not remember what he told you back in Galilee? And the
scripture says, and they remembered and rejoiced. Oh, don't you know
they had thought that somebody had stolen his body. They were
completely confused until they remembered what the Lord had
said unto them, and then they were rejoicing, and they went
back and told the apostles, he's risen. He's risen, he's alive. Psalm 78 verse 34 says, and when
he slew them, then he sought them. They sought him and they
returned and inquired early after God. Oh, the stripes of chastisement
are a good thing, aren't they? The scripture makes it clear
that if you're not chastised, then you're not a child of God.
And he does that. It's not punitive. All the punitive judgment of
God was exercised completely on the Lord Jesus Christ. But
we're in need of being chastised. We're in need of being corrected.
And so the Lord causes us to remember through those corrections.
Listen to the next verse. And they remembered that God
was their rock and the high God their redeemer. Psalm 111, turn
with me back there, Psalm 111. Don't you love it when the Lord
causes you to remember? And you realize, you know what,
all the things that I've fretted over, my disquieted spirit, my
cold heart, It all makes sense now. This is what God has said.
This is what I need to be reminded of. You have your Bibles open
to Psalm 111. Look with me at verse 2. And
the works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have
pleasure therein. That's where our real pleasure
is. We try to find pleasure in the
things of this world, but we... Again, the unbeliever can be
completely content with the pleasures that this world has to offer
and never seek after anything else. The child of God never
can. He never can. He sends leanness to their soul. He calls them to hunger and thirst
after righteousness. He calls them to hate their sin.
And he brings them and he chastises them and he brings them back
to himself. And his works are remembered. Look at verse three. His work is honorable and glorious,
and his righteousness endureth forever. The scripture says that
he made the law of God honorable. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness. There's no righteousness outside
of Christ. And we go about, everybody's
trying to establish their own righteousness. You see that among
men, don't you? You see that in your own life,
don't you? And then the Lord reminds you, he brings to remembrance
that you have no righteousness. that all of your righteousness
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. That all we like sheep have gone
astray, each unto us our own way. All our righteousness there
is filthy rags before God. And we find ourselves understanding
and believing and trusting that he made the law of God honorable. Never been able to do that. Never
been able to fulfill one jot or tittle of God's law and he
fulfilled it all. He hath made his works to be
remembered. The Lord is gracious and full
of compassion. Now that's what a sinner needs
to hear. Child of God, brothers and sisters, our God is gracious.
He's full of compassion. As a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. He has pity for his
children. And he brings them again and
again and again back to Christ. And it's the love of Christ that
constraineth us. It's the goodness of God that
leads to repentance, isn't it? It's his mercy that breaks our
hearts. He makes his works to be remembered. What is God's crowning work? What is his crowning work? What
do all his works point to? You know what it is. It's the
redemption that he achieved for his people on Calvary's cross. It's the successful atonement
for our sins. It's the satisfying of God's
holy justice. I brought this out Wednesday
night. Scripture says on several places that our God is not a
respecter of persons. He's not a respecter of persons.
He holds everyone to the strict compliance to his law. And the
scripture says that he will not allow sin to go unpunished. Will not do it. And the clearest
example of that is seen, like is all of God's attributes at
Calvary's Cross. When God Almighty saw sin on
his son, he did not respect his person. He did not give him a
pass. He did not say, well, this is
my darling son, I'll I'll hold back some of my wrath. No, he
poured out the full fury of his wrath. So then Isaiah chapter
53, it says in the, it pleased God to Bruce him. He did not
respect his persons, but in doing that, he satisfied his justice. So that now we have the mercy
of God and the goodness of God and the compassion of God, even
though in us, there is sin continually yet. He is a God of mercy and
forgiveness. Then remembered, they are the word of God. Look at, turn with me to Psalm
119. Psalm 119. I'm trying to help us to see from God's word
that our God is a God full of compassion. He delights in showing
mercy, and he's committed to his word. He's faithful to his
promises, particularly, well, all of his promises, equally
so. which begin with the promise
that God the Father made to his son in the covenant of grace
in eternity past to give him a bride. And the promise that
the son made to the father to redeem his bride of their sin
and the promise the Holy Spirit made to go in power and make
them willing and regenerate them and give them faith and repentance
in the day of his power. That's our God. That's our God's
promise and he's faithful to all of his promises. You have
your Bibles open to Psalm 119. Look with me if you will at verse
52. I remembered thy judgments of old, O Lord, and have comforted
myself." There's our comfort, brethren.
We don't get much comfort from this world, do we? We get a lot
of conflict from this world. We're not of this world if we're
in Christ. Though a part of us is drawn
to this world, we are never content or satisfied with the things
of this world. Then remember to eye his judgments." Where
is the judgment of God satisfied? It was satisfied at Calvary's
cross when God poured out the fullness of His wrath in satisfying
His justice. for the sins of his people. Then
I remembered his judgment. His judgment is not towards me.
His judgment was towards the Lord Jesus Christ. He sheathed
the sword of his justice in the heart of his own son. And he
said, I saw the travail of his soul and I was satisfied. Our God is satisfied with what
Christ did. Then remembered I his judgments
of old, O Lord, and have comforted myself. There's our comfort. Look at verse 53. Honor hath
taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law.
Thy statutes have been my song in the Lord and my pilgrimage.
I have remembered thy name. O Lord, in the night, and have
kept thy law. Now we know that these words
are first and foremost the words of Christ, but in Christ they
apply to us. All those who are found in Christ,
not having their own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
righteousness, which is by the faith and faithfulness of the
Lord Jesus Christ, have kept God's law. The law has been silenced. We've kept it. There's no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. The law cannot bring a charge
against those who are in Christ. And that's what we're saying
when we say, I've remembered thy name, O Lord. Shall call
his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.
Oh, we remember his name. Remember his work, we remember
his word. We need to be reminded, don't
we? That's why you're here, that's why I'm here, to remember what
God has promised and what God has said. Jonah, when he was in the belly
of the whale, he said, when my soul fainted within me, I remembered
the Lord. No, he said that he was in the
bars of the deep and the weeds were wrapped around his neck
and he was in the grave. And as Jonah was three days and
three nights in the belly of the whale, so the Lord Jesus
Christ was in the belly of this earth and brought forth victorious. But he remembered the Lord, and
in remembering the Lord, he cried unto the Lord. He said, I prayed
unto the Lord, and I said, salvation is of the Lord. And as soon as
he spoke those words, chapter three, verse one says, and the
whale vomited about on this dry ground. Salvation's of the Lord. God's not looking to me to add
anything to what Christ has already done. It's not a work, it's not
a decision. It's not a sincerity, it's Christ. He's all in salvation. He's all
and He's in all. And when I remember that salvation
was of the Lord, that He had done it all, He did it in the
covenant of grace when He chose a particular people according
to His own will and purpose. He did it in Christ when Christ
became our surety. Yeah, it's raining, it's okay. We're dry in here. He did it when Christ died on
Calvary's cross. He did it when he opened our
ears and enable us to hear the truth of the gospel and to believe
on Christ and and forsake the lies of self-righteous religion,
free will religion, works religion. And he's doing it right now,
I trust in the hearts of the children of God, enable them
to look again to Christ and be remembered the salvations of
the Lord. It's of the Lord. Here's another example of how
the Lord uses his word to bring his children back to himself.
You remember what the Lord told Peter on the night of the last
supper before he went to the cross and he said, when Peter
said, Lord, they may leave you, but not me. Peter was overconfident. He, he, he trusted in his own
Strength and ability said they may all forsake you but you can
count on me. Oh Peter Satan has asked to sift
you before the cock crows three times in the morning. You're
gonna deny me three times and sure enough Exactly what he did
with cursing. I know not the man And at that
very moment The Lord looked upon him after he had been scourged
and beaten and He came out and he set his eyes on Peter. Was it a look of, I told you
so? Was it a look of disgust? Was it a look of disappointment?
No, what was it? A look of compassion. And the scripture says, then
Peter remembered what the Lord had said and went out and wept
bitterly. What a what a mercy. What a mercy
that the Lord would look upon us and in the worst of our sinful
state and cause us to remember his grace and his mercy and what
he accomplished and and give us that broken and contrite heart
David talked about in Psalm 51. when the Lord cleansed the temple. And the scripture says, and the disciples
remembered what the scripture said about the zeal of the Lord
upon his house. They understood what he was doing. They understood that they had
turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves. And that's
exactly what's happened in modern day Christianity and religion
today. Men have turned the grace of
God into something to be bought and sold by your works and by
your will. And they've turned this house
of prayer into a den of thieves and the Lord was was zealous
for his glory and zealous for the gospel of his grace and would
not allow men to glory in themselves. And they remembered. Then in Revelation chapter 18, when the scripture refers to
the falling of Babylon. Babylon is a picture of all false
religions in this world, works religion. And after the Lord
describes the fall of Babylon, he says to his church, he says,
come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord,
that the judgments against Babylon not come upon you. For he remembered
their iniquity. God remembers us in Christ. He remembers those who are not
in Christ and charges them for their iniquity. And he gives
to his people the grace to hang all the hopes of their salvation
on remembering Christ and his word. Psalm 49, 15, the Lord gives
a very poignant example when he says, can a woman forget her
suckling child? That she would not have compassion
on the son of her womb? Is that possible? And we would
say, no, that's not possible. And then he goes on to say, yea,
they may forget, But I will not forget you. I will not forget you. Though
a mother forgets her only child, I will not forget you. I'll remember. Remembering God's word is not
just remembering the print and promises that are given to us
in scripture. It's remembering Christ. It's remembering Christ. He is
the Word of God. He's the Word that was made flesh. And He's the fulfillment of all
prophecies and all the law. It's to be brought by the Word
of God to see the Word of God. Let me show you that. The first
time the word word is used in the scriptures is in Genesis
chapter 11. Turn with me there. Genesis chapter 11. This was before the building
of the tower at Babel. And verse one says, on the whole
earth was of one language and of one speech. Now that word
speech is the word word. Everybody spoke exactly the same
word. They were of one word. And then
they said, let us make for ourselves a city and a tower that reaches
up into heaven. That's a picture of what man
does in order to try to achieve access to God. Let us build for
ourselves a name. Let us build for ourselves a
city. And what did they have? They had bricks for stone and
slime for mortar. What a picture of religion. Well, man fashions his own bricks
with his hands and tries to hold them together with the pitch
of the atonement of Christ and work his way up to heaven. And
what did God? God sent confusion of speech. And the reason we call it Babel
today is it's just confusion. That's what man-made religion
is. One person says this, another
says that. And it's confusing and it's complicated. It's convoluted. It doesn't,
it's not in agreement. The religions of the world are
all giving us a different, a different word. But before that, they were
all of one word. And what a picture of the church.
We're all of one word. We all say the same thing. We
all believe the same Christ. We're not in conflict with one
another over what the truth is. That's the way it was in religion. We loved debating and trying
to prove our prowess over someone else. We don't do that anymore. God says it, and we believe it,
and that settles it. You remember, I quote this often
and I think I've quoted it wrong sometimes. In John chapter six,
when after the feeding of the 5,000, they all left with the
Lord said, you just want your bellies full. And you're just
following me for what you can get physically. But if you wanna
be my disciple, you've got to take up your cross and die to
yourself. and follow after me, deny yourself,
deny that you have anything to do with salvation. And then he
turned to Peter and he said, Peter, will you leave me also? And I think I've quoted this
a few times in the past, I know I have. I've said in paraphrasing
that passage, I've said, Lord, where are we gonna go? That's
not what Peter said. To be exact, and there's a big
difference, what Peter said is, to whom shall we go? To whom
shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal
life. We believe that thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God. Lord, we don't have anybody
else to go to. You are our salvation. It's not
that we don't have someplace else to go. We don't have another
man that can tell us what God says other than you. I pray I'll remember that and never
misquote that passage again. That's a big difference. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which
I've committed unto him against that day. Oh, it's a person. This is the word. This is the
word that Peter remembered. He didn't just remember what
the Lord said about when he said, John baptized with water, but
I'll baptize with the Holy Spirit. He didn't just remember those
words. He remembered who said it. He remembered the person that
the words came from. And he gave him complete and
total confidence in resting in that truth because of who said
those words. Genesis chapter 15 is the second
time the word word is used in the Bible. And it says it like
this, and the word of the Lord came unto Abraham. The word of the Lord came. as
a person. And it mentions that two or three
times in those first few verses of Genesis chapter 15. And then
in verse 6 it says, And Abraham believed God, and it was counted
unto him for righteousness. It wasn't just that God gave
him a letter or God gave him some words on a piece of paper
or God even spoke audibly from heaven. He's talking about Christ
came to him. The word of the Lord came unto
me. And Abraham believed him. He
believed the person that was speaking to him. If you have
confidence in a person, you can have confidence in what they
say. And we have total confidence in everything the Lord Jesus
Christ speaks. He is the word of God. And then in Genesis chapter 21,
let me show you this. We've got just another minute.
Genesis chapter 21, look at verse 10. Now this is Sarah speaking to Abraham
about Hagar. In verse 10 says, wherefore she
said unto Abraham, cast out this bond woman and her son, for the
son of the bond woman shall not be heir with my son, even with
Isaac. And the thing was very grievous
in Abraham's sight because of his son. Now you see that word
thing? It's the word word. And we know that Sarah was speaking
God's word because that same passages quoted in Romans, the
son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the,
of the free woman, the child of promise and the word that
scripture gives us this word thing, the thing. And then let
me show you something else. Look at Luke chapter one, verse
35. Luke chapter 1, verse 35. This is the angel coming to Mary. telling her that she's going
to mother the Son of God. And look what she says, look
what the angel says in verse 35. And the angel answered and
said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the
power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy
thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son
of God. That holy thing. How can we describe
the fullness of His glory? You see, the point that I'm trying
to make is the Lord Jesus Christ is the Word of God. And when
we remember, when we're brought to remember, when we're brought
to remember in our struggles with sin and with this flesh,
when we're brought to remember by the Spirit of God and the
Word of God and the grace of God, the Word of the Lord, we're
brought to remember Christ. All right, let's take a break.