Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 22 from your Spiral hymn book, For the
Glory of His Grace. Let's all stand together, number
22. We were ruined by the fall, Adam's
sin defiles us all. By our deed as by our birth,
we deserve the law's great curse. Helpless, hopeless sinners we,
never can our souls retrieve. ? But the blessed Son of God
? ? Came as man in flesh and blood ? ? He fulfilled the law's
demands ? ? And in death stretched out his hands ? ? On the cross
of Calvary ? ? Christ redeemed and set us free ? In the time
which God had set, the Spirit came for His elect to regenerate
and call from the ruin of the fall. By His power and by His
grace, we were born for God's own praise. ? Now your purpose
we fulfill ? ? Saved according to your will ? ? Sing this song
of joyful praise ? ? For the glory of your grace ? ? Blessed,
holy, triune God ? ? Hear our praise through Christ our Lord
? Please be seated. Well, it's exciting out there,
isn't it? Hopefully by Sunday, all the walls will be up. That's
amazing when you think about how long it took us to get to
this stage on this building. I'm very thankful. Let's open our Bibles to Psalm
132, Psalm 132. Pray. The Lord will give us eyes
of faith to see our Lord typified in this Psalm by David. It's
not about King David. It's about the son of David.
And when God's people say, Lord, remember David and all his afflictions. Lord, look to what the Lord Jesus
Christ has suffered in order to put away my sin for me. How he swear unto the Lord and
bowed unto the mighty God of Jacob, he was faithful to all
of his promises to the father. Surely I will not come into the
tabernacle of my house nor go up into my bed, the Lord Jesus
Christ saying to the father, I will not ascend back into glory
and take my rightful place at the right hand of God. That's
my, that's my home. I'm not going to go there until
I will not give sleep to mine eyes or slumber to my eyelids
until I find out a place for the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ
committing to provide for his church and for his father, all
that's necessary for the salvation of his people before he goes
home, a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob. Lo, we heard of
it in Ephratah. We found it in the fields of
the wood. We will go into the tabernacles.
We will worship at his footstool. Arise, O Lord, into thy rest,
thou and the arc of thy strength. Let thy priest, and all of God's
people are priests. He's made us to be priests and
kings. We're a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Let thy priests
be clothed with righteousness and let thy saints shout for
joy. For thy servant, David's sake,
turn not away the face of thine anointed. The Lord hath sworn
in truth unto David. He will not turn from it, of
the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. The Lord Jesus
Christ seated on the throne of God right now, reigning sovereign
and having accomplished the salvation of his people. What a glorious
king we have. Let's ask the Lord's blessings
on our time tonight. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we come into thy holy presence. Thanking you that we have. A
substitute. We have a sin bearer. We have
thy dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has ascended back
into glory, having found a place for thee in this world. Lord,
this is the place of thy habitation. Made. Made so. By the finished work of Christ.
Lord, we pray that you would. Inhabit the praise of your people
tonight. We pray that you would make yourself
known that you would draw us into thy presence that you would
affirm to our hearts through faith the hope of salvation in
Christ. For it's in his name we ask it.
Amen. Number 272 from the Hardback
Tymnal, 272. Let's stand together. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground
is sinking sand. When darkness veils his lovely
face, I rest on his unchanging grace. In every high and stormy
gale, My anchor holds within the veil. On Christ the solid
rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground
is sinking sand. His oath is covenant, his blood,
support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives
way, he then is all my hope and stay. Upon Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground
is sinking sand. When he shall come with trumpet
sound, O may I then in him be found, Dressed in his righteousness
alone, Faultless to stand before the throne. On Christ the solid
rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. Please be seated. I want to try to bring a message
for sinners tonight. on what it means to be forgiven. Forgiven. The one thing that
centers are concerned with more than anything else is the forgiveness
of sin. Lord, I need to know that I can
stand faultless before thy throne and him. We just saying. How
is it that the Lord? Forgives us, puts our sin away. Scripture says in Psalm 32 blessed
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. There is no blessing like that.
To have all our transgressions forgiven, to have all our sin
covered, to be able to stand, as we just sang, faultless before
his throne. What hope? Turn with me to Psalm
106. Psalm 106. Sinners find themselves to be
so much like those children of Israel that rebelled and then
were chastised and then were brought to repentance and then
were restored and then they rebelled and then they were chastised
and then they were brought to repentance and then they were
restored. Seems to be the life of a sinner. In Psalm 106, the Lord recounts
the activity of the children of Israel in the wilderness and
how the Lord was pleased to save them for his own namesake. Notice in verse six of Psalm
106, we have sinned with our fathers and have committed iniquity
we have done wickedly. The scripture says the Lord forgives
iniquity, transgression, and sin. Iniquity is what we don't
do. Iniquity is what we don't do,
what we're unable to do. be holy and righteous in and
of ourselves before God, we fall short of his glory. And so our
inability is our iniquity. Our transgression is what we
do. We transgress the law of God. And the scripture's clear, we
transgress one of God's law, we've broken all of God's law.
And truth is, we've not been able to keep any of it. So, transgression
is the violation of God's law, and sin is what we are by nature. We're sinners. We're sinners. We're unable to be righteous,
unable to keep God's law, sinful in the presence of God, in need
of forgiveness. The writer of the psalm says,
we have sinned. We have sinned with our fathers,
just like our fathers. The sins of the fathers are carried
to the second and third generation. And the older we get, the more
painfully aware we become of how much like our fathers we
are. Isn't that true? And I used to think that a lot
of that was was nurture. You know, you got the nurture
in nature. I used to think that we were mostly what we are because
of our experiences and because of our examples and because of
all those, I don't believe that anymore. I believe the vast majority
of what we are is by nature. We've inherited this in nature
and we find ourselves acting just like our sinful fathers.
And so the psalmist says we have sinned with our fathers. We're
not saying we've eaten, our fathers ate sour grapes and our teeth
have been set on edge. We've eaten the grapes ourselves.
We've set our own teeth on edge. We've done exactly what our fathers
did. We have sinned with our fathers.
We have committed iniquity. We have done wickedly. Our fathers understood not thy
wonders in Egypt. They remembered not the multitude
of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red
Sea." They didn't remember God's mercies. They didn't understand
what he was doing, and they provoked God. how quickly we forget the
mercies of God, and how dull of understanding often we are,
and how rebellious we are in provoking our God. And here's
our hope, brethren. Look at the next verse. Nevertheless,
Nevertheless, in spite of our lack of understanding, in spite
of the fact that we eat sour grapes just like our fathers
did, in spite of the fact that we remember, we are so prone
to forget and so prone to wonder, in spite of all of that, nevertheless,
he saved them for his namesake. He had made a covenant to save
his people and to maintain. He had signed a contract, if
you will, with his father. And he had committed to become
the surety of his people. Now, a surety, we use that term
in real estate, I know, as a cosigner. We call a cosigner a surety,
and a surety is there in case the primary holder of the mortgage
is not able to maintain their commitments, then the responsibility
falls on the cosigner, on the surety. The Lord Jesus Christ
signed our covenant contract, if you will, with the Father,
Knowing that we would not be able to make would you would
you commit yourself to be a cosigner? To someone who you knew in advance
would not be able to make any of the payments You might I've
co-signed a couple of times in my life, but I did it depending
on the person that I was co-signing knowing that it would fall back
on me if they weren't able to but I believe they would and
they did they did and But I wouldn't cosign for somebody who I knew
up front would not be able to make any of the payments. And
that's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did as our surety. He signed the contract knowing
that we would not be able to make any of the payments. And
so he saved them for his namesake, for his namesake. His name was
on that covenant. And in order to maintain His
glory and His integrity, in spite of the fact that they were not
faithful, yet He saved them. Does that give you encouragement?
Do you find yourselves to be more like the children of Israel
than you wish you were? Let's go back to the beginning
of this psalm because this matter of salvation of sin is so gloriously
displayed in this psalm. We're called on to praise the
Lord, to give glory and honor. That word praise, well the word
here, praise the Lord, is the word hallelujah. And it means
to give glory and honor to him for what he has done. And when
we come into his presence and we gather together for worship,
that's what we're doing. We're not feigning our worship. We're not pretending to be. to
be singing hallelujahs to him, we know that all the work of
salvation was accomplished by him. He did it for his namesake,
in spite of me. Nevertheless, for his namesake,
he saved him. And so we're brought by the spirit
of God into a spirit of praise, aren't we? And how sweet it is
when the Lord enables us to feel that and experience that. Those moments come and go, don't
they? Nevertheless, we know, we know
that he is worthy of all of our praise. And we're always asking
him, Lord, enable me to praise you. Well, this psalm, this psalm,
these next couple of verses are gonna tell us about that. Look
what he says. Praise ye, praise ye the Lord. You, this isn't for somebody
else, this is for me. You praise the Lord. Oh, give
thanks unto the Lord for he is good. Can we think about the goodness
of God without being reminded of that rich young ruler that
came to the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 19 and said,
good master, good master. What good thing can I do to inherit
eternal life? Well, now you just called me
good, and you're wanting to know what good you can do in order
to obligate me to save you. Why callest thou me good? There's
none good but God. Paul said, in me, that is in
my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing. You know, I want to be,
you know, when we refer to people in this world as good or bad,
we're comparing man to man, aren't we? And I don't want to be identified
as a bad person. You want to be a good person.
You want to be a person that's got integrity and a person that's
faithful to your promises and a person that's considerate of
others. You want to be responsible. You want to be a good person
as you are compared to other men. But God's done great on
a curve. You remember when you were in
school? And everybody would do really bad on a test, and the
teacher would decide, you know what, I'm going to have to grade
this one on a curve, because if I grade it normal, everybody
fails. And so, you know, the bulk of
the class is in the middle. You've got two or three A's and
two or three F's and everybody else, and you're thinking, man,
I'm glad I got a C instead of an F on that test, because it
was graded on a curve. God doesn't grade on a curve.
He's not comparing man to man. His standard of righteousness
is perfection in Christ. And we've all fallen short of
his glory. He's the only one that's good.
He said, I'll cause my goodness to pass before you. Why callest
thou me good? For he is Good. And he is the only one
that's good. And he demands goodness and perfection. And if he doesn't impute to us
his righteousness, we'll not have any goodness to stand in
the presence of God. If the Lord Jesus Christ is not
our surety, if he's not our substitute, if he's not our sin bearer, if
he doesn't stand in our stead, then we have no goodness before
God. None. So we praise the Lord for
he is good. His mercy. Look at the next phrase. His mercy is forever. Never been a time when he wasn't
merciful toward his people. You know, we show mercy when
we see someone in need or we see someone hurting or we have
pity towards someone and we, we may act. in a way to help
them in that time of need because of a feeling of mercy that we
have. And, and yet there's other times we don't have mercy for
somebody, you know, you know, you got yourself in this situation,
you get yourself out of it. What if the Lord's mercy was
like our mercy? You got yourself into the mess
you're in. You get yourself out of it. The
Lord's not like that, is he? Aren't you glad? His mercy is
forever. There was never a time he wasn't
merciful toward his children. He pities his children. As a
father pities his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear
him. He pities us. And he has mercy toward us. He
delights in showing mercy. And there was never a time when
he wasn't merciful. And nevertheless, in spite of
the fact that we remember not, we understand not, and we provoke
him, and we do just like the, yet his mercy is forever. Notice the word endureth is in
italics. This is an eternal mercy. Everything
about God's eternal. His justification is eternal.
His love is eternal. I've loved you with an everlasting
love. His mercy is eternal. That just means there was never
a time when it wasn't and there'll never be a time when it isn't.
And it doesn't change. It's perfect. It's the same always. He's not like us. He doesn't,
you know, he doesn't change based on the circumstances of, you
know, of, of the person that, you know, his, his love and mercy
and, and compassion is eternal. It's forever. And it doesn't
change. I'm so thankful. That's the only
way I'm gonna be forgiven. If God looks on me the way I
look on other people, then he's gonna lead me to myself. Look at verse two. Who can utter
the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can show forth his praise?
Oh, who is sufficient for these things? Who can begin to, to,
to, to declare the fullness of his grace. Who can? We're just scratching the surface,
aren't we? We're just touching the hem of
his garment. We're just looking through a
glass darkly. We're seeing little glimpses
of his glory and of his grace. And even then, the experiences
that we have, we can't describe them. We can't describe them. We can't put them into words.
We can believe what he says. We can declare what he says,
but who can honor them? That, that word utter means to,
to speak. Who can hook it in? And I, I
can't tell you how frustrating it is to stand up here and try
to try to speak of the things of God. And knowing every time
I stand up here, who can utter the mighty acts of God? Who can
speak well enough of them? Who can describe them like they
need to be described and like he deserves them to be? Who can? And I'm thankful. I'm thankful
that the spirit of God takes the feeble words that we speak. And he, he makes them effectual
to our hearts. And he, he, he utters, he utters
speech. They, they, they're taught of
God. And when the Lord, when the Lord, we have a, we have
an unction, don't we have, we've got a, we've got a, an anointing
from the spirit of God. Who can, who can utter the mighty
acts of the Lord? He can, he can. We can't comprehend
them. We can't exhaust them. We can't speak highly enough
of them. We can't even describe the glory of God in creation.
We look at the created order of things and we see God's handiwork.
And we just are amazed. We're amazed. And the more powerful
the microscopes and the more powerful the telescopes become
and the more we see of what nature and creation is all about, the
more amazed we become at the handiwork of our God who can
describe them. When we look over the experiences
of history and the providence of God and how he's, how he's
worked things together for our good and for his glory. We, we
can't even begin to describe them, but how can we describe
the incarnation? Who can utter these things? Who
can? Who can? God became flesh and dwelt in
the midst of man, a body that has prepared for me. Who can? Who can utter these things? The
glory of these mighty works of God. The mightiest work of God
is not seen in creation. It's not seen in, in, in Providence. It's seen in the incarnation
of the Son of God when he became man, and in his holy life, in
his righteousness that he worked out for the salvation of his
people. That's where the mighty acts of God, the substitution
that he provided, and the work of redemption. Who can utter
these things? Who can utter the mighty acts
of the Lord? These are his acts. When he shed
his precious blood on Calvary's cross, who can utter the glory
of what was accomplished in that? And how all the sins of all of
God's people were covered from the sight of God so that he could
say, your sins, I remember no more. I've separated them. They've
covered by the blood. I've seen the blood. We'll pass
by you who can honor the mighty acts of God. These, the mightiest
act of God was accomplished on Calvary's cross. Wasn't it? Who
can order these things? Who can describe them? You see,
we, we can't begin to fully comprehend them. Can we? Satisfaction. God is completely
satisfied with what Christ has done. imputation and sanctification
as he is. So are we in this world, he that
sanctified and they that are sanctified are all as one so
that he's not ashamed to call us his brethren. Who can, who
can utter these mighty things? We, you see, God utters them. The best we can do is just repeat
what God has said. Isn't that true? And the closest
we can come to hearing the truth of them is the way God has spoken
them. We can't illustrate them sufficiently. We can't speak of them gloriously
enough. We can just say what God has
said and trust that the spirit of God will make those words
Effectual to our hearts. Look at verse two, again, who
could not have the mighty acts of God who can show forth his
praise. Blessed are they that keep judgment. Yeah. Judgment to God is full
satisfaction. That's what judgment is. In other
words, The only way that God's judgment is satisfied is if the
law is perfectly kept. If sin and the punishment due
to sin is fully paid, that's judgment. So how are we gonna
keep judgment? Look at verse three again. Blessed are they that keep judgment. Now God's not saying if you keep
judgment, I'll bless you. This is like the Beatitudes,
you know. People read the Beatitudes in
Matthew chapter five and they think, well, if I can just be
poor in spirit, God will bless me. No, the blessing is being
poor in spirit. And that's what the Lord is saying
here. If you are able to keep judgment, you've been blessed
of God. What is it to keep judgment?
It's to look to the Lord Jesus Christ alone for all your righteousness
and for all your satisfaction before God. And if you're able
to do that, if you're able to cast the eye of faith towards
Christ and rest all the hope of your salvation in his finished
work of redemption, then you've been blessed of God and you've
kept judgment. Because he's the only one that
satisfied God's justice. Judgment was kept when the law
was fulfilled and when sin was paid for. And judgment is kept
by us when we're enabled by the Spirit of God to rest our hope
in Christ. That's it. Blessed are they who
keep judgment. And look at the rest of this
verse. And doeth righteousness at all times. God's saying, if you do righteousness
at all times, it's because you're blessed of God. How am I going to do righteousness
in the same way? I'm going to keep judgment same way. The Lord Jesus Christ is all
my righteousness. The scripture says that, uh,
whosoever is born of God does not commit sin for his seed remaineth
in him and he cannot sin. So I can't keep righteousness,
but through faith, I'm able to, by looking to Christ, I have
perfect righteousness before God. My righteousness is this
filthy rags, but his righteousness is perfect. So the here's, here's
the Lord telling us about forgiveness. We're, we're like our fathers.
We've, we didn't understand. We've moved. We don't remember.
We rebel. Nevertheless, for his namesake,
he saved us and he's forgiven us by his goodness, the goodness
of God that cannot be uttered. He's kept judgment for us. He's
fulfilled all righteousness for us. David said, I will speak
of thy righteousness, even of thine only. And we have a perfect
righteousness before God through faith in Christ. And we're blessed
of God because we, we keep righteousness. Look at verse four. In light
of these things, remember me. Oh Lord, remember me. Lord, when
I become old and feeble and my mind becomes frail and maybe
even I lose it all together. Remember me, remember me. Lord, when I don't think of you
and I find myself in this world forgetting your mercies, remember
me. Remember me, Lord, when you enter
into your kingdom. You know what the thief on the
cross said? Lord, I like what Paul said when
he said in Galatians chapter four, he said, but now after
you have known God or rather are known of God, Lord, I do know you and I do
remember you as you enable me to and as you reveal yourself
to me, but Lord, my memory's frail. Lord, you remember me. Your faithfulness to remember
me and to remember your covenant promises is the hope of my salvation.
If my forgiveness is based on how well my memory's working,
and how faithful I am that I'm in trouble. Lord, if you will
just remember me. Look, look at verse four. Remember
me, O Lord, with the favor that thou bearest unto thy people. Lord, you're going to show mercy
and grace. This word favor is the word grace.
Lord, you're going to show grace toward your people. And I need
you to remember me, that I might be the recipient of that grace
that you show only to your people. You don't show it to anybody
else. This matter of forgiveness is not something that's extended
to all men. And it's not something that I
can earn or I can merit. Lord, it's something that God
gives to his people in Christ. Lord, remember me, remember me
and show me the favor that you have shown unto your people. Oh, visit me, visit me. We, uh, we visit oftentimes. the elderly that aren't able
to get out. They can't come see you anymore,
so you go see them. The frail, the sick, we visit. James said, this is true religion
and undefiled before God to visit the fatherless and the widow. Those are the ones that are in
need. And And so we're saying with
those fatherless and with those widows and with those elderly
and with those feeble and those sick, Lord, come visit me. You
ever have a person make you feel obligated to come visit them?
You know, they just make you feel guilty if you don't come
visit them. Lord, come, you cry that way. You know, we get aggravated with
people if they make us feel guilty about coming to visit them. But
you cry out that way to the Lord. He won't get aggravated with
you. Lord, you come visit me. Come see me. What'd the Lord
say to the disciples when they said to the Lord, we got to go
around Samaria. Oh no, no, no. I must needs go through Samaria.
Why? Because I've got some children
there I need to go visit. They're not even asking me to
come visit them, but I'm going to go visit them anyway. Ziba, is anyone left of the household
of Saul that I might show him mercy for Jonathan's sake? Well, there's a cripple boy.
He's over in Lodabar. He's hiding out. He's the only
one left from the descendants of Saul. And he's thinking that
you're going to find him and kill him because he's a threat
to your throne. What did David say? Fetch him.
Go visit him. Get him and bring him to me.
And all the way back to Jerusalem, don't you know that Mephibosheth
thought, this is it. This is it. This is the end of
my days. David's found me out. He's going
to put me to death. And when David saw Mephibosheth,
what did he say? Oh, Mephibosheth, Mephibosheth. Don't you know that David looked
at Mephibosheth and saw the likeness of his father, Jonathan, in the
face of Mephibosheth? As we see the likeness of fathers
in their sons. And David loved Jonathan. What is
that? That's the father showing mercy
toward us for Christ's sake. And he sees the likeness of his
son in his children. And yet Mephibosheth was all
crippled up, wasn't he? And what did Mephibosheth say?
Oh, why would the king have anything to do with such a dead dog as
I? You know, that's what we say. Lord, why would you have mercy
upon me? Look at me. I'm a threat to your
throne. I've raised my fist in rebellion
against you. I don't understand what you're doing. I don't remember
things. I rebel against you, and I can't
stand up straight. Come here, Mephibosheth, and
sit at my table. And I'll feed you the king's
fare the rest of your life. And you're going to hide those
crippled legs underneath my tablecloth. And you're going to be all right.
You sit right here by me. Sit right here by me. Now, that's
being visited, isn't it? You need a visit? The psalmist said, remember me,
oh Lord, with the favor which thou bearest thy people. Oh,
visit me. And don't just visit me. Visit
me with thy salvation. Lord, I need you to bring salvation
to my home. I need you to bring grace to
my heart. I need you to show me. The, the, the glorious person
and finished work of God, dear son, and the, and the righteousness
that I have in him. And, and, and the fact that your
mercy is an everlasting mercy, Lord, that's what I need. I need
to be saved. I had a man tell me one time, so
you don't have to ask God to save you. He's already done that. I don't know of a prayer. I pray
more often. Lord saved me. Save me again. Save me from myself. Save me from my sins. Save me
from this world. Save me. Save me from death.
Save me from hell. Lord, I need to be saved. Visit me. With thy salvation. Or speak peace and truth to my
heart. Reveal Christ to me. in order that I might see. Lord,
I need to be saved so that I can see. What do those Pharisees say?
Are you suggesting that we're blind? What did the Lord say? If you were blind, then you'd
be able to see. But because you say you can see, therefore your
sins remain. What the Lord said to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, you
can't see the kingdom of God. You cannot perceive of it. You
can't see it. You can't even begin to, you're,
you're, you're, you're blind unless you're born from above.
And so what do we say, Lord, Lord, visit me with thy salvation
so that I can see your goodness. I want to see Christ. I want
to see who He is. I want to see what He's done.
I need to have a better view of Him. Okay, look, here it is. Look
at verse 5. The psalmist says three things are going to happen.
If God visits me with his salvation, three things are going to happen.
I'm going to see his goodness, I'm going to rejoice, and I'm
going to glory. Lord, I need to see the goodness
that you've given to thy chosen. Lord, I need to know. that the
goodness of God is for me. If you visit me with your salvation,
if you enable me to set my affections on things above where Christ
is, if you make Christ to be my surety, if your mercy, your
enduring, everlasting mercy is made real to me by your word,
if you're able, I can't declare these things, but if you'll declare
them to me and make me to believe them and cause me to come unto
thee, Then, Lord, I'll see. I'll be able to see. I'll be
able to see who I am, a dead dog sinner like Mephibosheth,
in need of your mercy. I'll be able to see who Christ
is, the glorious, resurrected, successful Savior of sinners,
ascended on high, seated at his rightful place at the right hand
of God. And I'll be able to see what
he accomplished when he shed his precious blood on Calvary's
cross to put away the sins of his chosen. You see that? I'll
be able to see the goodness to the chosen. That's who it's for. You know, you hear people quote
Romans 8 28. We did when we were in religion,
we didn't know Christ. And we said, you know, all things
work together for good. No, they don't. No, they don't. Nothing's going to work out for
good if you're not one of God's chosen. Everything's going to
be bad for you. And whatever temporary goodness
you might experience in this world is going to be part of
your wrath, part of God's wrath and judgment for your unbelief.
All things work together for good for them that love God and
those that are the called, the chosen ones, according to his
purpose. That's how it works out. And
for them, yeah, it's all good, isn't it? It's all good. Lord,
if you'll visit me with your salvation, if you'll reveal Christ
to me and give me faith to rest all my hope in him, then I will
see your goodness towards your chosen. And I will be able to
rejoice, look at the rest of this verse, that I may rejoice
in the gladness of thy nation. John chapter 15 verse 11 says,
these things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain
in you and that your joy might be full. Lord, if you'll visit me with
your salvation, if you'll forgive me of my sin, in spite of the
fact of what I am and what I've done, I'll be able to see and
I'll be able to rejoice. I'll rejoice in the Lord. Oh, to experience his joy. That's
the, that's the peace of God that passes understanding, isn't
it? It's just that, Lord, I get so put out with myself or my
circumstances, but Lord, I need you to visit me with your salvation
so that I can experience your joy. And also that I make glory with
thine inheritance. Listen to what the Lord said
in John chapter 17, verse 24. Father, I will. that they also, which thou hast
given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory,
which thou hast given unto me. Also behold his glory. Lord,
if you'll visit me with thy salvation, if you'll speak truth to my heart,
if you'll reveal Christ to me and give me faith to believe
on Christ, then I'll be able to see I'll be able to rejoice
with your people. And I'll have the hope of knowing
that one day I'm gonna experience the fullness of your glory in
your inheritance. Look at verse six. Oh, this is
the confession of sin, isn't it? We have sinned. If you confess
your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins
and cleanse you of all of the unrighteousness. What is it to
confess our sin to God? It's just to say we've sinned
Lord, everything, uh, uh, inequity, transgression, and sin. That,
that person would first John, uh, chapter one, verse nine,
if we confess. I've told you this before and
you know it, but it's real simple. You know the word logos is the
Greek word for word, okay? Christ is called the logos. In
the beginning was the logos. The logos was with God. The logos
was made flesh and he dwelt among us. He's the word of God. And
you know what the word homo means. Homo means the same. Okay, that's
a great, that word confess is homologia. Okay, if you confess
your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins
and cleanse you of all in your righteousness. In other words,
just say the same thing God says. Just speak the same word that
God speaks. Just take sides with God against
yourself. Just agree with God that you're
a sinner and that everything about you is sinful. That's what
it is to confess your sins. It's not to try to figure out
everything you've done and try to feel sorry for everything.
And you know, you, you can't do that. Homology speak the same word
that God speaks about your sin. And you have confessed your sins
before God and he. will be faithful and just to
forgive you of all of your sins and cleanse you of all of your
unrighteousness. What hope? You see, when people
usually go to God to confess their sins, they're confessing
individual things that they feel guilty about, don't they? You
know, I really messed up over here, Lord. Forgive me for that.
And, you know, we should go before the Lord and confess certain
things that we're guilty of. But you're not going to figure
it all out. And who goes before the Lord and says, Lord, I'm
a sinner. I'm taking sides with you against me. Everything about
me is either iniquity, transgression, or sin. Lord, I need to be, I
need to be made righteous before you. That's all it is to confess
your sin, brethren. Just agree, speak the same word
that God speaks. What does he say? You're a sinner. Every imagination of the heart
is only evil in that continually. The heart is wicked and deceitful
who can know it is desperately wicked, isn't it? That's what
we know. That's what we, and we don't,
we don't know how wicked it is and we don't know how sinful
we are, but that's not the point. It's, it's, it's denying the
fact that you have any righteousness before God outside of Christ. We have sinned with our fathers. We have committed iniquity. We
have done wickedly. We don't know how wicked our
sin is. We don't know how far short it falls of God's glory.
We can't know because we can't understand the fullness of his
holiness. Our fathers understood not thy
wonders in Egypt Oh, how many, how many things the Lord, you
know, they, they didn't know what was happening. Most of the,
most of the Israelites were unbelievers and they, they didn't, they didn't
know these were gospel truths that the Lord was demonstrating.
And yet we've act so much like unbelievers sometimes, don't
we? Why didn't they remember? They
didn't remember because they didn't understand. You want a
child to remember something? Help them understand what it
means and they'll remember it. I remember one time we were in
Trinidad. And I found out from talking
to the teachers there that the school system was based on rote
memory. Everything the children learned,
they learned from rote memory. And we were walking down the
road and these kids said, look, there's some scythe over there.
I said, what is that? I said, well, it's kind of like
an onion and you use it, you know, for seasoning. And I said,
you mean chive? And they said, well, we call
it sive. And I said, well, how do you, what do you call that
over there? And I pointed to a chicken. They said, a chicken? And I said,
well, how do you spell, how do you spell chicken? C-H-I-C-K-E-N. How do you spell chive, sive? They said, C-H-I-V. I said, well,
how do you pronounce C-H? And there was four or five kids
there. None of them knew how to, but they didn't learn phonetics.
They didn't know how to, they just, they knew how to spell
the word, but they didn't associate the spelling with the pronunciation.
That's just a long illustration to say, you know, children learn
why things are the way they are and they'll remember them, aren't
they? And so it is with us. The Lord shows us why things
are the way they are. And then we're not so prone to
forget. He provoked him at the Red Sea, nevertheless, nevertheless. Now no chastening for the present
seemeth to be joyous for the season, but is grievous. Nevertheless,
afterwards, it yielded the priest peaceable fruit of righteousness
unto them, which are exercised thereby. How many, nevertheless,
as there are in the scriptures, when Moses has read a veil is
over their face, nevertheless, over their hearts, nevertheless,
when it's turned, the veil is taken away. When the Lord turns
the heart to Christ and enables us to see that he has fulfilled
the law, then the veil's taken away. Father, if thou be willing, remove
this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thy will be done. Second Timothy chapter two verse
19 says, nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure having this
seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his. That's our hope, isn't
it? Nevertheless, the Lord knoweth
them that are his. This standeth sure. Lord, visit us with thy salvation. In spite. Of the fact that we're
so prone to forget. In spite of the fact that we're. A rebellious people. Lord, forgive
us for your namesake, for your glory. And he gets all the glory,
doesn't he? You can't take any credit for
your forgiveness, can you? He gets all the glory. Our Heavenly
Father, thank you for your word. Lord. Make it effectual to our
hearts and enable us to rest our hope in Christ. For it's
in his name we pray. Amen. Number 11, let's stand
together number 11. ? With broken heart and contrite
side ? A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry ? Thy parding 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 ?