so so Good morning. Welcome back for
the second hour. We're going to open this hour
with the hymn that's on the back of your bulletin. Let's all stand
together. Come, let us join our cheerful
songs with angels round the throne. Ten thousand thousand are their
tongues, but all their joys are one. Worthy the Lamb that died,
they cry, to be exalted thus. Worthy the Lamb, our lips reply,
for He was slain for us. Let all that dwell above the
sky and air and earth and seas conspire to live thy glories
high and speak thine endless praise. The whole creation join
in one to bless the sacred name of him who sits upon the throne
and to adore the Lamb. Please be seated. Good morning. For your scripture
reading this morning, can you turn with me please to Matthew
chapter 11? And we will read verses 25 through
30. And at that time Jesus answered
and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent. and has
revealed them unto babes. Even so, father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight, all things are delivered unto me of my father.
And no man knoweth the son but the father, neither knoweth any
man the father save the son, and he to whomsoever the son
will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you and learn of me and you shall find rest unto your souls. For
my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And we are so thankful
that it is so. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for drawing
us into your house once again. And we ask that in this hour,
you would give all of our focus to you. We pray for Our brothers
and sisters, wherever they may be, they be ill or injured, that
you would put your healing hand of mercy on them and Lord that
you would bring them back with us that we all might worship
together again. Lord, give us eyes to see, ears
to hear and hearts to believe. And most of all, forgive us of
our sin. We ask these things in your name. Amen. number 226 from the hardback
timbrel. Let's stand together once again. I am not skilled to understand
what God hath willed, what God hath planned. I only know at
His right hand is one who is my Savior. I take him at his word indeed. Christ died for sinners, this
I read. For in my heart I find a need
of him to be my Savior. ? That he should leave his place
on high ? ? And come for sinful men to die ? ? You counted strange,
so once did I ? ? Before I knew my Savior ? ? And all that he
fulfilled may cease to be ? the travail of His soul in me, and
with His Word contented me, as I with my dear Savior. Yea, living, dying, let me pray,
My strength, my solace from this spring, that he who lives to
be my king, once died to be my Savior. Please be seated. Caleb's going
to bring special music. If you'd like to follow along,
it's 355 in the hardback hymnal. From every stormy wind that blows,
From every swelling tide of woes there is a calm. A sure retreat is found beneath
the mercy seat. There is a place where Jesus
sheds the oil of gladness on our heads. A place that all besides
more sweet, It is the blood-bought mercy seat. There is a scene where spirits
bend, Where friend holds fellowship with friend, Though sundered
far by faith they need, Around one common mercy seat. Ah, whither could we flee for
aid, When tempted, desolate, dismayed, Or how the host of
ill defeat, At suffering saints no mercy seat? Are there on eagle wings we soar,
And sin and sense molest no more, And hand come down our souls
to greed, While war re-crowns the mercy seat. Thank you, Caleb. Thank the Lord for the mercy
seat. Lord told Moses, you place the
blood on the mercy seat and there I will meet with you. When I
see the blood, I will pass by you. That lamb that was slain
is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And that mercy seed is
Christ. It's his mercy toward his people. And I want to try to preach about
his mercy and his compassion and his love toward his people
this morning. If you would turn with me in
your Bibles to Acts chapter seven. Acts chapter seven. I have three
Simple points right from one verse that I would like to elaborate
on. Verse 34, Acts chapter 7. I have
seen, I have seen the affliction of my people. That's my first
point. He remembers that we're made
of dust. As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth
them that fear him. I have seen the affliction of
my people. The affliction that God's people
experience is the affliction of their sin. That was the, Stephen's
preaching about those children of Israel that were in bondage
in Egypt. But we know that that serves
as a type of the bondage that we are under in our sin. And the Lord says, I've seen
the affliction of my people. I have heard their groanings. I have put it in their hearts
to groan over their sin. And I've heard it. And the third
point, I am come down to deliver them. Oh, what great hope we have.
Our God is immutable. He's the same today as he was
yesterday and as he shall be forever. He said to us, I am
the Lord and I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. Now the immutability of our God
doesn't just refer to the fact that his decrees cannot be changed. His decree of election and redemption
are set in eternity, and they're set by His nature and by His
character, and they cannot be changed. Our God cannot be changed,
but it also means that His love cannot be changed. His love cannot
be diminished by our sin. And His love cannot be increased
by whatever good behavior we may perceive ourselves to have,
his love is perfect. His compassion changes not. I have seen the affliction of
my people. I have heard their groanings
and I have come down to deliver them. Our love is influenced by our
emotions and by our circumstances. And our emotions, whether they
be love or, or, or hatred or wrath or compassion are corrupted
by our sin. And so they are. ever-changing
in degree and in the subject in which they're shown towards. God's not that way. He's not
that way. The Lord said, you thought that
I was altogether such a one as yourself. Men make God to be
like themselves. And I want to declare to you
this morning that our God is holy. He's other than we are.
He's not like us in any way. All of his divine characteristics
are faithful and true and immutable, immutable. Romans chapter two, verse four,
the scripture says that our God is long suffering and it is his
goodness that leads to repentance. It's the love of God that constrains
us, that causes us to bow and to believe. It's not the threatenings
of his judgments or wrath. It's knowing that all the judgments
of God have been satisfied in Christ. It's what manner of love,
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we
should be called the sons of God. And herein is love, not
that we love God. We can't measure God's love by
our love. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that he loved us and gave his son as a propitiation
for our sins. There's the evidence, there's
the demonstration of the love of God toward sinners that Christ
laid down his life for his sheep. and greater love hath no man
than this, than he laid down his life for his friend. I have
seen their affliction. I have heard their groanings,
and I have come down to deliver them. These are all a work of grace.
The Lord sees our struggle with sin. And just like he did for
Lot, turn to me to 2 Peter chapter 2. 2 Peter chapter 2. Look with me at verse 7. You
remember Lot. Lot chose the low ground, Lot
chose the easy life, and he found himself in Sodom. And the Lord
would destroy Sodom, but not before he brought Lot out. And even though Lot lingered
in Sodom, the angel still took him by the hand and brought him
out before the fire of God fell. And now we have Peter telling
us in 2 Peter chapter two, verse seven, that he delivered just
lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. For that righteous
man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous
soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. The Lord knoweth
how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to reserve
the unjust until the day of judgment to be punished. What was it that
vexed Lot's soul with the conversation of the wicked that he lived with? Well, at least in part, it was
his attraction to it. That's why he lingered. He didn't
want to leave. That's what vexed his soul. When
Jacob wrestled with the Lord, That Genesis chapter 32, when
the Lord came down and met with Jacob, he had already divided
up his family and his property. And the scripture says, and he
was left alone. And that chapter begins by declaring
how fearful Jacob was of what Esau was gonna do to him. He
was scared to death that Esau was gonna kill him and kill all
his family. And the scripture says he wrestled
with the Lord all night. And when the Lord saw that he
prevailed not, he touched him in the hollow of the hip and
he blessed him and changed his name from Jacob to Israel, the
Prince of God. What was Jacob wrestling with?
How is it that God didn't prevail against him? There you go. Hear Jacob wrestling with God?
That is a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ that
Jacob was wrestling with. And he wrestled with the Lord
all night long. Just like we do. What was he wrestling with? He was wrestling with his sin.
He was wrestling with his fears. That's what caused the conflict. It was the old man in Jacob that
was having a hard time believing God. And God had to wound him. He had to cripple him. And then
he changed his name. No longer are you Jacob, but
now you're a prince of God, you're Israel. That's what the Lord
does. He sees and he hears the afflictions
and he knows how to deliver us from our temptations. When Rebecca became pregnant
with twins, and these twins wrestled in her womb, And she went before
the Lord and prayed, why am I thus? Why am I this way? Why is this
pregnancy so difficult? And the Lord said to her, because
there are two nations in you. There's two nations in you. What
is Rebekah a picture of? And what were the two nations?
Jacob and Esau. And the scripture says that the
Lord told her that the Older, who was Esau, born first, would
serve the younger, who was Jacob. Jacob's a picture of our new
nature. He's a picture of the new man, of the new creation,
the one who had his name changed. Jacob, I loved. Esau, I hated. Esau's a picture of our old man.
And what's the Lord say? What's he saying to me and you?
The older your firstborn man, that's your physical man, that's
your fleshly man, that's your sinful man, shall serve your
younger man, the new man in Christ, in that your body of death that
you bear with, that's what Paul said, who shall deliver me from
the body of this death? Oh, wretched man that I am. The Lord sees the struggle and the
affliction of his people with their sin. He's given us these Two natures. We're made after the likeness
of our father, Adam, and the old man, and we're made after
the likeness of Christ and the new man. And we're here in this
life with two natures. And the Lord says to us what
he said to those Israelites who were the people of God, yet they
were suffering under the affliction of the slave masters, the taskmasters. And the Lord says, I see your
affliction. I see the struggle between your
two natures. I remember that you're made of
dust. And I've come to hear your groanings
and to deliver you, to deliver you from your affliction. And
one day we'll be fully delivered. What a day that'll be. When this
corruptible will be made incorruptible and this mortal will be made
immortal. When we see him as he is and we're made like him,
what a glorious, glorious day that'll be without sin. But in the meantime, in the meantime,
we need a God who's full of compassion. We need a father who pities us. A father who sees the afflictions
that we're experiencing. the flesh warring against the
spirit and the spirit against the flesh so that we cannot be
what we would be. And that's what the Lord's saying
to us right now. I have seen the affliction of my people.
I've seen it. We make God to be like us whenever
we think that his love is diminished because of our sin. Or that his love is increased
because of our good behavior. Our God is immutable. His love
doesn't change. His love is exactly the same
all the time. Peter, in fear of man, denied
the Lord Jesus Christ on that fateful night of his trial before
his crucifixion. Denied him with cursing. And
the scripture says that when the Lord, after he was scourged,
came through that It's called the praetorium, that area where
Pilate was trying our Lord. And the Lord looked at Peter.
And the scripture says that Peter went out and wept bitterly. What kind of look did the Lord
give to Peter that night? Did he give him a look of disapproval,
disgust? Did he give him a look of anger? Yeah, Peter, I told you we're
going to do this. Oh, no, that wouldn't have broken
Peter's heart. That wouldn't have broken Peter's
heart. You see, the Lord was doing what he did because of
the afflictions that Peter was suffering. Peter was suffering
the fact that he loved Christ and that he had already said
that very night that these others may deny you, but not me, I'll
die with you. And yet now he's cursing the
Lord and denying his knowing him. What was it that broke Peter's
heart and caused him to go out and weep bitterly? Oh, it was
that look of compassion. Same look he gives you and me
when the goodness of God leads us to repentance. Have you ever
experienced the goodness of God leading you to repentance? Have
you ever experienced the Lord looking on you with compassion?
You see, the truth is that never was the Lord's heart moved more
with compassion than when Peter sinned so grievously. Let us not err in making our
God to be like us. We withhold our affections when
someone doesn't make us happy, don't we? Someone offends us,
we get all puffed up. We treat them with disdain and
hopes of manipulating them and punishing them. God's not like
that. Not at all. When he sees us in
our sin, If there's ever a time when his compassion is filled,
it's when he looks upon the leper who says to him, Lord, if you
will, you can heal me. And the scripture says, and the
Lord had compassion on him and said, I will, and reached out
his hand and touched the leper and healed him. You see, it's not our sin that keeps us
from Christ. Our sin is what drives us to
Him. What keeps men from Christ is
their righteousness. It's believing that they don't
need Him, that they're doing fine without Him, that they can
just... You see, once God in His sovereign
grace makes you to be a sinner, and He's got to do that, He's
got to cause us to see that everything about us is just the opposite
of what's true about Him. Isaiah saw the Lord high and
lifted up. And he saw himself, woe is me,
I'm undone. What did Peter say in another
place after the resurrection? What did the Lord say to Mary
at the tomb? Go tell Peter and the disciples
that I have risen. You see, the Lord was having
compassion towards Peter because of Peter's sin. He came to save
sinners. We experience the love and compassion
of God when we, when our sin is exposed. Our sinfulness is
revealed by the glory of His sinlessness. And we're brought
to bow at His feet and say, with that publican, have mercy upon
me, the sinner. would not so much as even look
up. It's not our sin that keeps us from Christ. It's man's righteousness. His self-righteousness. In Luke chapter 15, when that
prodigal took his inheritance and went out and wasted his inheritance
on riotous living and found himself in a pig pen. Literally, he found
himself in a pig pen eating the husk that the swines do eat. And there's a spiritual picture
of that. I believe that son ended up as a Sunday school teacher
in a free will Baptist church. And he was eating the same stuff
he was feeding his Sunday school class members. That's what, And what'd he say? He said, the
servant's in my father's house. I'll go home. And I'll ask my
father, just allow me to be the servant. Did the son ever get
a chance to ask him his father that? No. The father was already
out at the end of the driveway, looking down the road when the
son appeared and the father ran to the son and lavished him with
kisses and said to his servants, bring out the rope. This my son
who was lost has now been found. Put the shoes upon his feet,
kill the fatted calf, put a ring upon his finger. The scripture says the father
saw him and had compassion on him. You remember in Luke chapter
10, the Lord gives the story of the Good Samaritan and everybody
reads that story and says, well, I want to be a Good Samaritan
and you ought to be. Somebody's in need, our heart
ought to go out to them and if we can help, we should help.
But that story of the Good Samaritan, Christ is the Good Samaritan
and you and I are the ones left in the ditch, wounded by our
sin in need of the compassion of the Lord. And what happened? The scripture says the Levite,
who's a picture of the law, saw him laying over there in the
ditch. And what'd he do? He went on the other side of
the road. Why? Because the law can't help a sinner. The law
can't help a sinner. And then the priest came and
he saw the man who'd been left for dead. And he went on the
other side of the road. He couldn't help either. And then the good Samaritan came.
He saw him and he had compassion on him. That's what the scripture
says. He had compassion on him. And he went to him and he bound
up his wounds and he took him to the inn, which is a picture
of the church. And he provided for him. And he said to the innkeeper,
Whatever he needs, put it on my account. I'll pay it next
time I come through. And that's what the Lord says
to the father, put it on my account. The Lord bore the sins of his
people. He has compassion for our sins. We have not a high priest who's
not touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in
all ways tested and tried as we are, yet without sin, You say, well, if he was without
sin, how does he know what sin's all about? Oh, brethren, you
and I have never, ever experienced the shame and the guilt and the
separation that sin causes more than what the Lord Jesus experienced
on Calvary's cross. See, that's the problem with
sin, isn't it? We get wounded by our sin and we're filled with
shame and separation from our God. You and I have never experienced
that. Like what the Lord Jesus experienced
when he hung on Calvary's cross and cried, my God, my God, whilst
thou forsaken me. He drank the bitter dregs of
the cup of God's wrath when he took our sin in his body upon
that tree and suffered the full justice of God to put it away,
put it away. Oh, he knows what sin is. infinitely
more than you and I have ever experienced sin. We have to struggle with our
own sin. He bore all the sins and we only
struggle with the sins that we're aware of, which only makes up
a very small portion of what sins we're actually guilty of.
We only get guilty and ashamed of the things that we don't want
other people to know about, don't we? We don't have any idea how
bad our sin is. No idea. Somebody said to me one time,
well, you just don't know what I've done. It's a whole lot worse
than you think it is. a whole lot worse than you think
it is. And the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God bore all the
sins. And I believe, how could he not
be conscious of every sin that every one of his children had
committed as he hung there as our substitute and satisfied
God's divine justice? That's why he has compassion
on us. we have a high priest who is able to sympathize with
our afflictions. And he says to us exactly what
he said through Moses when he sent Moses, whom he also said,
another I will send like unto thee. But Moses is a type of
Christ. As he went and saw the afflictions
of his people, he heard their groanings and he went down to
deliver them. And when the Lord saw that multitude
of people who the disciples said, Lord, we don't have enough food
for them. We need to send them home so
they can, you know, get three days. They've been with the Lord
and they've run out of all supplies. And the scripture says, and the
Lord looked on them with compassion for he saw them as sheep without
a shepherd. What hope does a sheep have without
a shepherd? A dumb animal, defenseless animal
like a sheep has no protection without the shepherd. And the
Lord sees us as sheep without a shepherd, and he has compassion
on us. And we say, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want of anything
for he has provided me everything. I don't need to pay for my sins,
he's already done it. I don't need to try to establish
righteousness with God, he's already done it. Everything that
I need to stand in the presence of a holy God, the Lord Jesus
Christ has provided. I have seen the affliction of
my people and seen, he sees it all, doesn't he? Well, what are we gonna hide
from God? And yet we do just like our father
Adam. When we're feeling the shame
and the guilt of our sin, what do we do? We go and hide ourselves.
And then we try to cover our nakedness with fig leaves. We're
doing the same thing. And you think the Lord in anger
came out into the woods and said, Adam, where art thou? Oh no,
his voice was filled with compassion. Adam, where art thou? Where art thou? I ate of the tree and I, and
I'm, who told you you're naked, Adam? Adam, don't you see? that you're in need of a lamb
to be slain and the robe of righteousness to be put on you. And that's
exactly what the Lord did. When the disciples wanted to
go from Galilee down to Jerusalem and they wanted to go around
Samaria, because that's what a faithful Jew did. They didn't
want to be around the Samaritans, unclean Samaritans. What'd the
Lord say to the disciples? No, I must needs go through Samaria. Why? Why? Because before they ever got
to Samaria, he saw that poor woman at the well. Five marriages. Now some of you know the pain. of divorce. It's horrible. It's awful. Awful. Five times. And the man she was living with
now wasn't her husband. And she was so ashamed that she
couldn't go to the well in the morning with the other women
in the cool of the day. She had to go in the middle of
the day. The Lord saw her before He went there. And He had compassion
on her because of her sin. I see the affliction of my people. He said to the disciples, I had
meat to eat that you know not of. Then he went to Jericho, and
there was a little man in Jericho that couldn't see over the crowd
because he was too short, so he had to climb up into a sycamore
tree. He had made money his God, and he wasn't happy. as is true
of every person that makes money their God. And I'll go make you
happy. And he was the outcast of the
town because he had ripped everybody off. Well, the Lord, nobody paid attention
to Zacchaeus up there in the tree. And the Lord looked him
in the eye and said, Zacchaeus, come down. We're going to your house today.
Salvation has come to your house. He sees the affliction of his
people. And by seeing our affliction,
our afflictions, yeah, we have afflictions in our circumstances. But you know, the real affliction
in our circumstances is not the circumstances, the unbelief that
goes with the circumstances. That's what causes the affliction. Yeah, reading something about
a saint that died years ago, and he was saying that he had
lost everything. Lost everything. And then he
was smitten with blindness. And his testimony was, I've never
been happier in my whole life. You see, the affliction that
the Lord sees is not the difficulties of the circumstances that he's
put us in. It's the unbelief that goes along
with our sin in those circumstances. Our circumstances don't cause
our unhappiness. They don't cause our affliction. Some of the happiest and most
content and most fulfilled saints of God are suffering under the
greatest circumstances of any. Why? Because the Lord has tried
them with fire and taught them in those circumstances to rejoice
in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Let
your gentleness be known unto man, for the Lord is at hand."
He's at hand. Be thankful in all things. For
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. That's our affliction. Isn't that true with you? Do
you see that? Do you see that when you go through a trial or
trouble or an illness, that it's It's not the circumstance that
causes your unhappiness. The affliction is our sin. And the root of all sin is unbelief. And that's what God's looking
at. Man looks at the outward appearance And we, as men, often
look at the outward appearance and we blame our circumstances
for our unhappiness. But God's looking at the heart.
God says, that's not your problem. That's not your problem. It's your lack of trust in me. It's your unwillingness to believe
in me. It's your... And so we, like Jacob, we wrestle
with God because we're wrestling with our sin, wrestling with
our fear and our unbelief. That's the cause of our wrestling.
And the Lord says, I've seen the affliction of my people and
I've heard their groanings. What is the groaning of a sinner?
Have mercy upon me, oh God. When Daniel prayed, turn with
me to Daniel chapter 10. Daniel chapter 10. I want you
to see this. Look at verse two of Daniel chapter
10. Now remember, the children of Israel are in Babylon during
Daniel's time, okay? And Daniel, as a prophet of God,
is longing for the day when God would send them back to Jerusalem
to rebuild the temple and to worship God. They're slaves in
Babylon. And Daniel, in those days, verse
two, I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks and nothing's
happening. Nothing's happening. Daniel three
times a day goes into the temple, goes into the tower and faces
towards Jerusalem and pours his heart out to God and nothing's
happening. Now look over at verse 12. Then
said he unto me, From the first day that thou
did set thy heart to understand and to chasten thyself before
thy God, thy words were heard and I have come for thy words. Oh, child of God, keep praying. The Lord said, knock and it shall
be opened unto you. And that word knock is in the
plural sense. In other words, it says, keep
knocking. Ask, and it shall be given to you. Keep asking. Seek
and keep seeking. Turn with me to Luke chapter
11. Luke chapter 11. Daniel had no reason to believe
the Lord was hearing his prayer. No evidence whatsoever. And when
the Lord answers his prayer, the Lord says to Daniel what
he says to me and you. When you first started praying,
I heard you. I've heard you now. Let me make
this as clear as I can. Prayer is not. A work that we
perform in order to sway the hand of God. Prayer is a work
of grace that God performs in our hearts. Don't miss, don't
don't. When God gives us the grace to
pray, He's given us that grace to pray because His purpose is
to answer that prayer. Any prayer that doesn't persist
until the Lord is just something that we've come up with. It's
not, true prayer is a work of grace in the heart causing us
to cry out. Told the men this morning, we've
got a room back here and we call it the cry room, appropriately
so. It's for babies during the service
to be taken to, lest they disrupt the service. And it's for the
men of this congregation to pour their hearts out and cry out
to God to bless these services before we ever start. Daniel, I put it in your heart
to pray. I know you've been praying for
three weeks, Daniel, and it seems like nothing's happened, but
I heard you from the very first day. Hannah, remember when she went
to the temple, was barren and wasn't able to have a child,
and she was praying, and Eli thought she was drunk. He thought,
you know, this woman's She's speaking, but I don't hear any
words. And she looks like she's intoxicated. And Eli went to
rebuke her. And she said, oh no, my Lord.
She said, I'm asking God for a child. The Lord gave her Samuel, didn't
He? Samuel. You see, faith has to be tested
in order to be proven to be true. We saw in the previous hour that
the word of God was tested and tried in the fire, and you and
I are gonna be tested and tried in the fire to be purified. Look at Luke chapter 11, you
have your Bibles open to Luke 11. We'll begin reading in verse
five. And he said unto them, which
of you shall have a friend and shall go unto him at midnight,
and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend
of mine is in his journey, and has come to me, and I have nothing
to set before him. And he from within shall answer
and say, Trouble me not. The door is now shut and my children
are with me in bed and I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto
you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his
friend, yet because of his importunity. You see the root of that word,
don't you? How important is it that God
see your affliction and hear your groaning and come down to
deliver you. Because the importunity of that
need will, will cause us to pray. Because of the opportunity, he
will rise and give him as many as he needed. I say unto you,
keep asking and it shall be given to you. Keep seeking and you
shall find. Keep knocking and it shall be
open to you. For everyone that asketh receiveth,
and he that seeketh findeth, and him that knocketh it shall
be open. For if a son shall ask bread of any of you that is his
father, will he give him a stone? Or if he asked for a fish, will
he give him a serpent? Or if he asked for an egg, will
he give him a scorpion? If you then being evil know how
to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will
your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask? Oh, the Lord's just saying, I'm
not like you. I'm not like you. Your affection, your love for
your children cannot be compared to the love that I have for you.
That's what He's saying. I've seen your affliction. I've
heard your groanings, and I've come down to deliver you. There's
our hope. The Lord Jesus Christ came down. And how far he came cannot be
measured in distance or in time. How far he came cannot be measured
in wealth The Lord Jesus Christ came down
an infinite, an infinite distance. He left the throne of glory. He was made in the likeness of
sinful men. He suffered the contradiction
of men, the shame and the and the accusations that men made
about him. Here he was God, the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, with the full power and authority of God. And yet he humbled himself and
made himself to be a servant. He washed the feet of his disciples. And he's still washing the feet
of his disciples. I trust that he's washing our
feet right now. But He's washing it with the
water of His Word. And He's once again showing us
His mercy and His grace and His love towards us. For I have come
down. And He didn't just come down
that once. Born of a woman. Born under the
law to redeem them who were cursed by the law. But he's still coming
down. Isaiah said, oh Lord, rend the
heavens and come down. And every time we come together,
that's our prayer. Lord, rend the heavens, open
the windows of heaven and come down and see the affliction of
your children and hear the groanings of their cry and deliver us. Deliver us from our sin. Enable
us to look on the Lord Jesus Christ for all the hope of our
salvation. That's what it means to be delivered
from your sin. You see, when you're not delivered
from your sin, you're just consumed with it. You're consumed with
it. You can't deliver yourself from
it. Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter
eight, verse nine, for you know, for you know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, how rich was he? Oh, the wealth of this world
is nothing compared to the richness of his glory. He said, if I was
hungry, I wouldn't tell you. What are you going to do? The
cattle on 1,000 hills belong to me, and the hills belong to
me, everything. The stars are not pure in my sight. He's the
creator and sustainer of all things. And though he was rich,
yet for your sakes he became poor, that through his poverty
we might be made rich. He emptied himself. That's what
he did, he emptied himself on Calvary's cross. John chapter six, the Lord said
in that chapter several times, I am the bread that came down
from heaven. Now, bread is Don't think about
just a loaf of bread. Bread in the Bible is a symbol
of food, okay? How sustenance is what it is,
physical sustenance. How necessary is food for you?
I suspect some of us are getting hungry right now. How necessary
is food for you? How far can you go without it?
How long can you last without it? And every bite of physical
food that you take into your mouth, one way or another finds
itself into every cell of your body. And the Lord said, unless
you eat of my body and drink of my blood, there's no life
in you. I'm the bread that came down from heaven. Moses didn't
give you, he's the manna, the bread of life. And he said
that we're to ask him for our daily bread, daily bread. What happened to the children
of Israel when they tried to, they didn't believe that God
would provide them bread tomorrow, so they tried to gather enough
to sustain them for a few days. And what happened when they woke
up the next morning to the bread that they'd saved from the previous
day? It rotted. It was full of worms. If we try to live on the grace
that God gives us today, tomorrow, it won't be sufficient. And so the Lord says, I see your
affliction. I see it. I understand the shame and the
guilt and the struggle that you have with your own nature and
with your unbelief and with your sin. I know it better than you
do. And I hear your groanings. And
I've come down to deliver you. And that's what He does. He delivers
us from the shame, the guilt, the penalty, and the power of
sin. And one day he will deliver us
from its presence altogether. What a day, what a day that'll
be. No man, the Lord said in John
chapter three, to Nicodemus, no man hath ascended up to heaven,
but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man, which is
in heaven. The Lord delivers us when he
gives us faith to look to him and to see that he is seated
at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. that he's
all our righteousness before God. Galatians chapter one, verse
four, he gave himself for us that he might deliver us from
this present evil world. And that's what he's come to
do, to deliver us. I've come down to deliver you. deliver you from a works religion,
deliver you from your unbelief? I see your affliction. I've heard
your groaning. I suppose, who shall deliver
me from this body of death? Oh, thanks be to God. Through
Christ Jesus, I am free. There is now therefore no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh.
You see, that's what it means to be delivered from this present
evil world. Everybody in this world has got
one nature and they're just walking according to what they see and
feel and hear and their experience in their flesh. They don't have
the affliction that we, you see, you don't have affliction over
sin until you get a new nature. That's just the truth. The man's
got one nature. He's not afflicted over his sin. Matthew 27, verse 43, they said
of the Lord Jesus as He hung on Calvary's cross, He trusted
in God. Let Him deliver Him. If he will have him, seeing how
he said, I am a son of God. The Lord Jesus could not be delivered
on Calvary's cross. Lest we not be delivered. He willingly laid down his life. so that he could say to us, I see your affliction. I hear
your groaning and I've come down to deliver you. Our heavenly father, bless your
word with the gift of faith. Cause our hearts to groan before you and deliver
us, we ask in Christ's name, amen. Number 11 in the spiral hymnal,
let's stand together. With broken heart and contrite
side, A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry, Thy pardoning grace is
rich and free. ? O God be merciful to me ? ?
I smite upon my troubled breast ? ? With deep and conscious guilt
oppressed ? ? Christ and his cross my only plea ? O God, be
merciful to me. No works nor deeds that I have
done can for a single sin atone. To Christ the Lord alone I flee. ? O God be merciful to me ? ?
And when redeemed from sin and hell ? ? With all the ransomed
throng I dwell ? ? My raptured song shall ever be ? God has
been merciful to me.