Good morning again. Every time I stand to try to
preach the gospel, I feel as if I'm going to be doomed for
failure from the beginning. And this passage in Psalm 106
says, praise ye the Lord. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord
for he is good, for his mercy is forever. And then verse two
says, who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can show
forth all his praises? We're not able. We're not able,
we're doomed for failure, aren't we? We come to worship him. There's no way we can show forth
or utter all of his mighty acts or show forth all of his praise.
By God's spirit, by God's spirit, we'll do just that. We'll show
forth his mighty acts and engage our hearts in praise. Let's stand
together. Tom, you're gonna come lead us
in number two in the hardback teminal, number two. Yeah. ? Of divine all loves excelling
? ? Joy of heaven to earth come down ? ? Fix in us thy humble
dwelling ? ? All thy faithful mercies crown ? ? Jesus thou
art all compassion ? Pure, unbounded love thou art. Visit us with thy salvation. Enter every trembling heart. Breathe, oh breathe, thy loving
spirit into every troubled breast. Let us all in thee inherit. Let us find that second rest. Take away our bent to sinning. Alpha and Omega be, End of faith
as its beginning, Set our hearts at liberty. Come almighty to deliver, let
us all thy life receive. Suddenly return and never, nevermore
thy temples leave. Thee we would be always blessing,
serve Thee as Thy hosts above. Pray and praise Thee without
ceasing, glory in Thy perfect love. Finish then Thy new creation,
pure and spotless let us be. Let us see Thy great salvation
perfectly restored in Thee. Changed from glory into glory. Till in heaven we take our place. Till we cast our crowns before
thee. Lost in wonder, love, and praise. Please be seated. Good morning. I'm not by nature
a happy person. Deanna knows that I'm a pessimist.
I have been all my life. I pick out the worst thing that
can happen and anything less than that makes me glad. But
church makes me happy. It really does. I could never
begin to tell you we're supposed to leave everything. It makes
us unhappy out in the parking lot. When we come in that door,
we're in the only safe place in this whole world. God has
furnished a man and given him the gift and the ability to see
Christ in every scripture. Greg has that gift and I don't
want to embarrass him, but he does. And he's given him the
ability to tell us about it, just like he's given us the ability
to hear it. That's the greatest gift that
God can give a child of God is to see Christ in every scripture. When I came here, I couldn't
do that. I'm a little better now. I'm not as good as I'd like
to be, but we're in such a scripture this morning. We're in Genesis
chapter two and verse 15. The Holy Spirit only gave man
one verse in creation, Genesis chapter 2 and verse 7. And the
Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living
soul. That's it. That's pretty straightforward,
that's cut and dried. All of men are like that. All
of mankind are like that. We're conceived in sin, shapen
in iniquity, we come forth from the moon speaking lies, and unless
God intervenes, we die in our sin. One verse will cover all
of that. But the woman got 10 verses.
You believe that? Does that mean women are 10 times
harder to make than men? I don't think so. I don't think
so at all. It's because it's talking about
the woman, the woman, Christ and his church. That's what it's
all about. Oh, and Eve is in it too. Genesis
chapter two and verse 15. It starts at the covenant of
grace and ends with our union with Christ. And the Lord God
took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and
to keep it. What was the garden of Eden?
That's where a man without sin spoke face to face with God. Greg touched on that this morning.
If you're a child of God, we are without sin. The Lord Jesus
Christ is here because there's more than two or three of us.
This is the Garden of Eden or as close to it as we'll ever
get. We were given to Christ in the
covenant of grace, the Garden of Eden. He's here to dress us
and keep us. And the Lord God, verse 16, and
the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the
garden, thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in a day thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, it
is not good. that the man should be alone.
I will make him and help me for him. And out of the ground, the
Lord God formed all of the creatures. He formed the beast of the field
and the fowls of the air. And he brought them to Adam to
see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every
living creature, that was the name thereof. So Adam gave names
to all cattle and the fowl of the air and every beast of the
field. But for Adam, there was not found
and help me for him. No church in all of the sacrifices
of dead animals, no help me, no wife, no bride for Christ. And the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of
his ribs and closed up the flesh thereof instead. And the rib
that the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman, the church,
the bride. And the Lord brought her to the
man And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of
my flesh. She shall be called woman because
she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave
father and mother and cleave to his wife. That means be glued
to his wife. And they too shall be one flesh. That's us and Christ. This is
a great mystery. That's why it took 10 verses
to tell us to it. And they were the both of them
naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed. Stripped
of our sin and our self-righteousness, we stand before Christ. And I'm
not ashamed to call him Lord, and neither is any other child
of God. And he is not ashamed to call
us brethren. To be able to see Christ in the
scriptures is one of the greatest gifts that the Spirit can ever
give a child of God. Father, we come before you this
morning, Father, grieving our own shortcomings,
Father. We are a people that have to
be constantly reminded of Christ and His Spirit and grace because
our minds are finite, Father, and the grace leaves us. We ask, Father, that you'd strengthen
our unbelief. You'd help our unbelief. You'd
open our hearts and our minds to the truth of the scripture.
That you'd show us Christ, Father. You'd make us happy in this house.
That you'd cause us to love one another. That you'd incline our
hearts toward thee, Father. You'd cause us to love you because
we know you first loved us. We ask these things, Father,
in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing the hymn that's on the back of your bulletin. Christ whose glory fills the
skies, Christ the true, the only light. Son of righteousness arise,
triumph o'er the shades of night. Day spring from on high be near. Day star in my heart appear. Sun of righteousness arise. Triumph o'er the shades of night. Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by thee Joyless is the day's return Till thy
mercies beams I see Till they inward light impart Glad my eyes
and warm my heart Joyless is the day's return Till thy mercies
beams I see Visit then this soul of mine,
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief. Fill me, radiancy divine, Scatter
all my unbelief. ? More and more thy self display
? Shining to the perfect day ? Fill me, radiancy divine ?
Scatter all my unbelief Please be seated. Caleb Hickman is gonna
sing Can I tell them the hymn, Caleb? If you want to follow
along, it's hymn 227 from your hardback timbrel, if you want
to follow the words. Now I see the cleansing wave,
the fountain deep and wide. Jesus, my Lord, mighty to save,
points to his wounded side. The cleansing stream I see, I
see. I plunge in, oh, he cleanseth
me. Oh, praise the Lord, he cleanseth
me. Christ cleanseth me, yes, cleanseth
me. I rise to walk in heaven's own
light above the world and sin. With heart made pure and garments
white, and Christ enthroned within. The cleansing stream I see, I
see. I plunge in, oh, he cleanseth
me. Oh, praise the Lord, he cleanseth
me. Christ cleanseth me, yes, cleanseth
me. Amazing grace, tis heaven below,
to feel the blood applied. And Jesus, only Jesus know, my
Jesus crucified. The cleansing stream, I see,
I see. I plunge in, oh, he cleanseth
me. Oh, praise the Lord, he cleanseth
me. Christ cleanseth me, yes, cleanseth
me. That was a blessing. Thank you, Caleb. I don't know
if I've ever heard that. I like the changes you made to
it. Will you turn with me in your
Bibles to Psalm 105? Psalm 105, I titled this message,
Make Known His Deeds. Every time we come together,
we, by the Spirit of God, have a desire to make known his deeds,
to point to the Lord Jesus Christ and declare what it is he has
accomplished for his people. I was thinking as Robert was
talking that the world has made many attempts to create a utopia. Whether it be a government, a
form of government, or whether it be a city or a place or a
novel, utopia seems to be the desire for all men. And Robert, I was thinking as
you were speaking, this is close as utopia where we're gonna get
right here. And I'm so very thankful for this church and for you and
for the blessing that God gives us to meet together and to meet
with us. But this morning, I want to try
to declare his deeds. Notice with me in Psalm 105,
Verse 1, give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, make
known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto
him, talk ye of all his wondrous works. And if we're going to
make known his deeds, it's going to take us all eternity. If we're
going to talk, if we're going to talk of his wondrous works,
we're going to be, we're going to be talking for the rest of
time and eternity. His deeds are that infinite and
that glorious. Now, if you turn back to first
Chronicles chapter 16, I'm not recommending you do that right
now, but you'll find that the first 15 verses of this Psalm. are recorded in First Chronicles
chapter 16. You remember in a battle that
the Israelites had with the Philistines under the leadership of Saul,
the Ark was taken. And the Ark was put into the
Temple of Dagon and God proved himself, proved Dagon to be no
God in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant. And the Philistines
put the Ark on a cart And God also cursed the Philistines with
boils and sicknesses, and the Philistines couldn't get rid
of the ark quick enough. And they sent it back to Israel, and David
thought, well, you know, they've left it in Obed-Edom's home. And David thought, well, we'll
move the ark on a new cart. I can just imagine what that
new cart must have looked like, but David got his idea of moving
the ark from seeing the ark come back on the ark from the Philistines.
And that's when Uzzah, you remember the ark, the cart hit a rut in
a road and the ark began to stumble and Uzzah put his arm up, his
hand up to steady the ark and God killed Uzzah right there
on the spot. And the picture there is that we do not put our
hands to the gospel lest we die. And the ark never should have
been on a cart. The Lord had given very specific
instructions on how that ark was to be carried. And so David,
the scripture said, was afraid of God after that. And he didn't
know what to do. And so he went back to the book
of God and he rebuilt the tabernacle, the tent, the place where the
Ark was supposed to be in the Holies of Holies. And now they
make sacrifices and they move the Ark from Obed-Edom's house
into the Holies of Holies. And they did it extremely reverently
and fearfully, knowing that they were handling the Lord Jesus
Christ himself. That's what that Ark's a picture
of, everything about that Ark. And when they got the ark put
in its proper place, that's when David wrote these words and gave
them to Asaph and instructed all the children of Israel to
sing this song. So that's the context of this
song. They are singing this song in
praise to God for the fact that the ark is now in its proper
place. Say, Preacher, you spent a lot
of time giving us a history lesson. What's the purpose of that? Well,
the purpose of that is that the Ark is a Old Testament representation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every part of that Ark, it was
made out of Shittam wood, which was like ebony, it was a very
resilient wood that would not rot and bugs would not bother
it. And then that arc was overlaid with pure gold, representing
the two natures of the Lord Jesus Christ and his humanity with
the wood and his deity with the gold. On top of the ark was a
mercy seat and nothing was to be placed on that mercy seat
except for the sacrificial blood of that lamb once a year. And
God said, here, I will meet with you inside the ark, inside the
ark. Then that's a picture of the
cross. That's a picture of the cross. And inside the ark was
Aaron's rod, which budded. You remember when Aaron put his
rod down next to the rods of the Egyptian soothsayers, that
Aaron's rod came alive. And that's a picture of Christ
as our priest, our intercessor, the one who offers himself to
the Father on our behalf. And then also in the ark was
a was a container of manna that they had gathered together while
they were in the wilderness. and put it in the ark, or put
it in the ofar, and put it in the ark. And that's a picture
of Christ as our priest, as our prophet, I'm sorry, as our prophet.
He's the bread that came down from heaven. He's the one who
feeds us with his body and with his blood. He said, I'm that
manna which came down from heaven. Moses didn't give you that manna,
my father gave it to you. And then also in the ark was
the tablets of stone the law of God, which represented the
Lord Jesus Christ as king, the law giver, and the law keeper,
the only one able to satisfy the demands of God's law. Everything
about that arc, from his dual nature to his offices as prophet,
priest, and king, and culminating in the sacrifice of his death
on the mercy seat. Brothers and sisters, just as
real as David put that Ark in the Holies of Holies and the
children of God lifted their voices in praise to God for the
reverence of that Ark and all that it represented. We are there
right now. right this very minute, and we
have reason to raise our voices and to lift our hearts in praise
that the ark is here. Our prophet, the one who came
down from heaven as the bread of life, our priest, the one
who went back into heaven and took
his rightful place as our intercessor and our king, Our king, the one
who gave us the law and the one who satisfied the law and the
one who shed his precious blood as a covering for our sin is
here with us. That's why this is utopia. That's
why this is heaven on earth. That's why this is as good as
it gets. It's as good as it gets. God is here. This is where he's
pleased to manifest his praise and his glory. One of the things
that you read in 1 Chronicles 16 is that David, the scripture
says, gave to every man and woman in Israel a loaf of bread, a
good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine. And they rejoiced in
the gifts that had been given to them. And so we have the bread
of life, we have the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we
have the wine, we have the presence of his spirit revealing to us
who he is and what he's accomplished. And we have the gift of faith
to believe on him. And just as the children of Israel
rejoiced back then, David was now set up as king, Saul was
dead, The Philistines were defeated,
and David had recovered all, so we have our king, our prophet,
and our priest, King David, who has defeated the enemy at Calvary's
cross. And he has given to each one
of us a loaf of bread, a good piece of flesh, and a flagon
of wine. He's revealed to us his glory, and we have reason,
we have reason to call upon his name and to make known his deeds
among the people. Notice in our text, it begins
with giving thanks. God's people have reason to be
thankful. We have reason to be thankful. And you say, well,
preacher, you don't know what I'm going through right now.
It doesn't matter. You're a child of God. You're
a child of God. You've got no sin. You're a child
of God. You have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. You're a child of God. You've
got the hope of eternal life. And all this other temporal stuff
really doesn't matter. You've got reason to be thankful,
reason to rejoice. Thank the Lord. What better thing could you have?
Turn to me to Deuteronomy chapter 7. Deuteronomy chapter 7. You think there was anybody in
Israel that wasn't thankful that day? They all had their loaf of bread,
a good piece of flesh and a flagging of wine. The Ark was put into
its proper place, the Philistines were defeated, and God's people
gathered together in one, and they rejoiced in the blessings
of God. There wasn't a dry eye or an
unthankful spirit among them. Why? Well, look at Deuteronomy
chapter seven at verse six. For thou art a holy people unto
the Lord thy God. That word holy means separated. God has separated you. He's made
you to differ. He made to differ the Israelites
from the Egyptians and he has taken us out of the world and
put us into the kingdom of God, translating us from the kingdom
of darkness to the kingdom of his light. That's what he's saying
to us. God has made you to be unholy
people. The Lord thy God hath chosen
thee to be a special people unto himself. But for the grace of God, there
go I, we would not know anything of God. We would not know anything
of his gospel. The world doesn't know God. They
don't know Christ. They don't have any hope. They
don't have the gospel. But regardless of what else we
might be going through, we have reason to be thankful for this
reason above all people that are upon the face of the earth.
Do you believe that? How many billions of people are
there in the world right now? I don't know. I can't keep up
with it. But out of all the people that are on the face of the earth,
he's made you to differ. Who made thee to differ? What
do you have that you didn't receive? And if you received it, why do
you boast as if you didn't? Everything we have is a gift
of God. We have reason to be thankful. The Lord did not set
His love upon you nor choose you because you were more in
number than any other people. He didn't set His love on you
because you were better than someone else or because you decided
that you were going to believe on Him. That's not why He did
it. For we were the fewest of all people. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 If I can
paraphrase that whole passage, God basically gets his children
from the bottom of the barrel. They that are weak, they that
have nothing, that's where he gets his people
from. He didn't choose you because there was something special about
you. But because the Lord loved you and because He would keep
an oath which He had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought
you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house
of bondage from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt." He's brought
us out with a mighty hand, the strong right hand of God, the
Lord Jesus Christ has brought us out and he's made us to differ.
And he's delivered us from the bondage and the penalty of sin. He satisfied the demands of God's
law and he's buried our sins in the depths of the sea and
separated them from us as far as the east is from the west.
He did this by... If that's not reason to be thankful,
You're not going to find any better reason to be thankful
than that. Oh, give thanks. You say, well, that's an Old
Testament reference to Israel. Well, let me tell you what Peter
said in reference to that. To the New Testament church,
he said, you are a chosen generation, chosen of God, not because you
were better or larger in number, but because God made a covenant
and he intended to keep his promise. A royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a peculiar people that you should show forth the praise of him
who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Child
of God, the people of this world are groping blind men in the
dark looking for something. They're looking for some hope.
They're looking for some satisfaction. They're looking for some happiness.
And the Lord says, you've already got it. Be thankful. Which in times past were not
a people, but now are the people of God, which had not obtained
mercy, but now have obtained mercy. That's what Peter says
about the church, about the children of God. We've got the tabernacle
of Christ among us. Our prophet, priest, and king,
the mercy seat, is here. The blood has been shed. God
said, here I will meet with you. Be thankful. Go back with me to our text in
Psalm 105. Give thanks. Give thanks unto the Lord. He's the cause of our Thanksgiving
and he's the recipient of our gratitude. Give thanks unto the
Lord. Call upon his name. You say, well, you just talked
about us being God's chosen people. I don't know if I'm God's chosen
people. You would not call upon his name had he not called you.
Have you called upon him? The Lord said, they that call
upon the Lord shall be saved. Faith is what causes us to call
upon him, to rest all our hope on him, to rely upon all that's
in his name for the hope of our salvation. You shall call his
name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. God's
people call upon him because he calls them. We don't rest the hope of our
being called on a feeling or an experience as wonderful
as those things are when God gives them to us. We don't rest
the hope of our being called on our behavior. As much as the Lord would differ
that from the behavior of the world, we don't look to that. We know that it's Christ that
works in us, that causes us to will and to do after his good
pleasure. We rest the hope of being called
and that God has made us to call on him. He's made us to call
on him. give thanks unto the Lord, call
upon his name. Look at the rest of verse one,
make known his deeds among the people. And here's the difference between
a gospel church and a false God, a true gospel church and a false
gospel church and the true gospel church. We're concerned with
what God has done for us. In a false gospel church, men
spend all their time talking about what they're doing for
God. What a difference. Make known his deeds among the
people. We don't boast in what we've
done for God. Turn with me to John chapter
three, John chapter three. Verse 18, he that believeth on
him is not condemned. But he that believeth not is
condemned already because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation
that light is coming to the world. And men loved darkness rather
than light because their deeds were evil. Now I've talked to a lot of people
who are bound up in some sort of sinful behavior that refused
the gospel because they were not willing to let go of that
sin. And that happens all the time. But that's not the only
application of this. Because I think I've talked to
more people who were outwardly moral. and were relying upon
what they had been doing for God, who refused the gospel because
they refused to believe that their religious works were evil. Either way, either way, men will
not come to Christ and rely upon him for all their righteousness,
believing that all that they do is evil. For everyone that doeth evil,
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved. Lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth, what is it to do truth? It's to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. He that doeth truth, cometh to
the light that his deeds may be manifest that they are wrought
in God." Now what is the deed that's made manifest that was
wrought in God? It's the deed of faith. Now that
word wrought, you can look this up, is in the perfect tense.
And the simple explanation or definition of the perfect tense
is an action completed never to be repeated. That's the perfect
tense. An action completed never to
be repeated. What is the action completed?
It's the calling of God's grace. It's the gift of faith. This
is the work of God. It's coming to faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we come to the light. and
confess that our deeds are all evil, but the deed of faith was
wrought in God. He accomplished it. He purposed
it. We talk of his wondrous deeds. The faith that I have was wrought
in God, was given to me by God. I have nothing that I didn't
receive. It's all come from him. This is why I'm thankful. This
is why I have reason to rejoice when I come together with God's
people. The ark is there, put in its proper place. The blood's
been put on the mercy seat. The enemy's been defeated. And
David, the king, is reigning on his throne. his deeds, let's
talk of his deeds among the people. Look at verse 2, sing unto him,
sing songs unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works. All his works are wondrous, they're
wondrous in creation. That by him were all things made
and without him was not anything made that was made. We know that
all of creation was formed and held together by our sovereign
God. You know, it takes a whole lot
more faith to believe in evolution than it does believe in God.
Well, it takes blind faith to believe in evolution. The fact
that all of this came from nothing? No, we talk of his wondrous works
knowing that he is the Lord, and it is He that
made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people, and we are
the people of His pastures. The heavens declare His glory,
and the firmaments, all His handiworks. Psalm 95, verse 5, the sea is
His. He made it, and His hands formed
the dry land. Oh, come let us worship and bow
down. Let us praise. the Lord, our
maker, our maker. He made us, not we ourselves. We are his people. We are the
sheep of his pasture. We are too. talk of his wondrous
works. And in Christ, we are his workmanship,
created just as he created the physical world, so he creates
the spiritual. And just as he made man from
the dust of the earth and breathed life into him, so the Lord makes
us. He makes us and has to breathe
life into us. We are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works. Turn to me to Daniel chapter
four, Daniel chapter four. You remember the story of Nebuchadnezzar. And his exalted view of himself
and how God humbled him and turned him into a beast. And he spent
seven years out in the wilderness living like an animal. And then
the Lord had mercy upon him. And look at verse 34 of Daniel
chapter four. And at the end of days, I, Nebuchadnezzar,
lifted up my eyes unto heaven, and my understanding returned
unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored
him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom from generation to generation. He reigns. He reigns sovereign in creation. He reigns sovereign in providence,
and he reigns sovereign in salvation. And all the inhabitants of the
earth, that's you and me, that's you and me, you believe this?
It's what Nebuchadnezzar came to see. God knows how to humble
the proud, doesn't he? and all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed by God as no thing." That's what Paul said when he
said, in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. When I stand in the presence
of a holy God there's no goodness in me. Whatever goodness I have
is going to have to be imputed to me in the person of Christ.
And he, and he, the Lord God, doeth according to his will in
the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? And God's people say, amen. Oh,
I like my God being on the throne. I'm so very thankful. At the
same time my reason returned unto me and for the glory of
my kingdom and my honor and brightness returned unto me and my counselors
and my Lord sought unto me and I was established in my kingdom
and excellent majesty was added unto me. Now that's a picture
of what God does when he humbles his people and makes them make
the same confession that Nebuchadnezzar made and then exalts them in
Christ. exalts them in Christ. He lifts
up the humble. He causes them to see, yes, in
you, you have nothing. In Christ, you have everything. Now, now, I, Nebuchadnezzar,
praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works
are truth and his ways judgment. And those that walk in pride,
he is able to abase. He is able to abase and he does,
doesn't he? Brothers and sisters, child of
God. The Spirit of God abases you every day, doesn't he? Every
time that spirit of pride raises its ugly head, the Lord, the
Lord shows you what it is. And that's a blessing. Oh, what
a blessing from God that is. Go back with me to Psalm 105.
Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him. Talk ye of all his wondrous
works. Now think back to 1 Chronicles
chapter 16, David and the children of Israel were rejoicing in what
God had done in defeating the Philistines and in bringing the
Ark of the Covenant back, that physical representation, and
there's many of those in the Old Testament. The Old Testament
church had a lot of physical representations of God that we
are forbidden to have today. Forbidden to have, why? Because
no longer is it necessary to say one to another, you need
to know the Lord. In Israel, most of the people
there were unbelievers. We walk by faith. Every member
of Christ's church is a believer. That's how they get into the
church. And they walk by faith, not by sight. But they had this
ark, and we have the ark. The ark is here right now. We're
describing the ark with words, with God's word. We're, we're
defining where we're declaring his wonderful works and defining
his deeds. And faith comes by hearing and
hearing comes by the word of God. It's all we need is that
we don't need a physical representation. The Lord's given us this table
and he's given us baptism and that's it. That's it. Talk ye of His wonderful works,
His covenant mercies. They go all the way back to eternity
past. When God the Father elected a
people, and God the Son entered into that covenant relationship
with the Father as the surety of those people, promising to
do everything necessary to secure and accomplish their salvation,
and God the Holy Spirit entered into that covenant mercy, we're
talking of his wondrous works. We're speaking of his deeds.
That's what David did. He spoke of his deeds, didn't
he? And all of his covenant mercies. You see, eternal life began with
God's work in eternity. Eternal life doesn't begin today
and it didn't begin 2,000 years ago. It began all the way back
in eternity when the Lamb was slain before the foundation of
the world. We are talking of his wondrous
works. Listen to what the Lord Jesus
Christ said in John chapter 4 verse 34. My meat is to do the will
of him that sent me and to finish his work. You remember when the
disciples had gone down to Sychar and they brought the food back
and they said, Lord, aren't you going to eat? He said, no, I'm
not hungry. Not hungry. I have food to eat. I have meat
to eat that you know, not of my meat. My meat is to do the
will of the father. That's my sustenance is to fulfill
everything that God sent me to do. And then those Pharisees asked
him in John chapter six, what shall we do? What shall we do
that we might work the works of God? We want to work the works
of God. And what the Lord say, this is the work of God that
you believe on him, whom he has sent. That's the work of grace
in the heart. That's God's work. We're speaking
of his work, not only in election, but in redemption and in regeneration
and in sanctification, in glorification, it's all his work, salvations
of the Lord. It's his work. And we glory in
him. John chapter 9 verse 4, when
the Lord healed that blind man and the disciples asked, Lord,
why was he born blind? Was it because of his sin or
because of the sins of the father, of his parents? They wanted to
tie that physical malady to a specific sin as if that's how it worked. You know, God punishes this then
for that. And the Lord said neither. but
that the works of God might be manifest in him. For I must do
the works of God while it is day, for the night comes when
no man can work. And the Lord Jesus Christ healed
him of his sight." You remember how he healed him? Remember what
he did? He took some dust from the ground,
spit into his hand, made mud in his hand, put it on the man's
eyes, told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. the pool
of peace, and he washed away the mud and he could see. In
the Old Testament, one of the laws was if an unclean man spit
on a clean man, that clean man became unclean as a result of
the spittle of the unclean man. And here the Lord Jesus Christ
just turns it upside down, doesn't he? He reverses the order. He
takes his spittle, the only clean man, and puts it on the unclean
man and opens his eyes, that the work of God might be manifest."
That's what he came to do. He came to do the work of the
Father. And in John chapter 17, he said, Father, I have glorified
Thee on the earth. I have finished the work which
Thou gavest me to do. And when he hung on Calvary's
cross, he said, it's finished. It's finished. What's finished? The work of salvation, the work
of redemption, the necessity of atonement. Everything was
accomplished by our surety. on Calvary's cross, He came to
do. And what are we doing? We gather
together just like the Old Testament church and we say, sing unto
Him, sing praises unto Him, talk ye of His wondrous works. Tell the people about what he
has accomplished. That'll be reason for their thanksgiving.
That'll be reason for their rejoicing. Give them a loaf of bread and
a good piece of flesh and a flagon of wine. That'll satisfy their
souls. And the Lord is working now. He's working through his spirit,
regenerating the hearts of his lost sheep and causing them to
come in faith to Christ. He's working through his spirit,
causing the unbeliever to be convicted of their sin and to
look again and again and again to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
I made this point the first hour. I just want to try to make it
again. The root cause of every sin, the one sin that doth so
easily beset every one of us is the sin of unbelief. And when
the Spirit of God convicts you of sin, he convicts you of the
root cause of your problem. I don't believe God. It's not
my husband's fault. It's not my wife's fault. It's
not my children's fault. It's not the government. It's
not my circumstances. It's not this person or that
person. That's a person who doesn't know the Spirit of God. It's
all on me. It's all on me. And the only
problem I've got is unbelief. Lord, help thou mine unbelief. The one thing that The Lord Jesus
Christ is God. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily, no question about it. What is it that distinguished
him from us? He had perfect faith. You see,
whatever is not of faith is sin. There's our problem. The Lord
Jesus Christ never wavered. He had perfect faith and he had
no sin. Talk ye of his wondrous works. Child of God, there's coming
a day sooner than we think. Be careful. Be careful. Peter warns us of those who say,
well, they've been talking about the coming of Christ for 2000
years. Where is he? Oh, the child of God lives in
hopeful anticipation that it's going to be today. When the trump of God shall sound
and the dead in Christ shall be erased and those of us which
remain shall be caught up together with them in the air, so shall
we ever be with the Lord. That's his wonders works. That's
God's word. That's his promise. This is the
promise of the father. I'll close with just reading
verse 3. Glory, glory ye in his holy name and let the heart of
them rejoice that seek the Lord. The Lord has given us this very,
very simple ordinance of his table for the child of God to
partake in. As a. As a reminder, that's what
it is. It's a memorial. Of what we are. Hope is not in the wine. It's
not in the bread. It's not in you know you you
read the article that Joe Terrell wrote. I put it in the bulletin
this morning. About Kobe Bryant, you know everybody's taking comfort
in the fact that he took the Lord's table. I mean he he didn't
take the Lord's table. He took communion at a Catholic
Church the morning before his helicopter crashed. And everybody
thinks, well, he's good to go. There's nothing salvific in this
bread and wine. Salvation is in the Lord. And through the eyes of faith,
we look beyond these things to the body and blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Our Heavenly Father, we ask your
blessings on this table. We thank you for your word. Your
works are wondrous, far beyond our ability to describe or to
even enter into, but Lord, we thank you for the faith that
enables us to believe them. And we ask now that you would
increase our faith as we receive this bread and this wine to look
far beyond these physical elements and to acknowledge the sinless
life of thy dear son for all of our righteousness and his
shed blood for our justification before thee. For we prayed in
Christ's name, amen. And ask the men if they'll come,
please. Number 17, let's remain seated. See the table spread before you,
see the feast of bread and wine. These are symbols of our Savior,
tokens of His love divine. Bread that's broken is his body
Crushed beneath the wrath of God Wine poured out is a reminder
Of our Savior's precious blood Children of our God, remember
how he bought your soul and mine. In remembrance of our Savior,
eat the bread and drink the wine. Jesus came, the God incarnate,
to fulfill God's holy law. On the cross he made atonement
and retrieved us from the fall. Let us never forget the promise
Jesus made to come again. Soon he comes, our King, to call
us home to glory. Praise his name. With this hope and expectation,
we rejoice to keep this feast, celebrating our redemption till
we lean on Jesus' breast. As long as you do this as often
as you do this, Lord didn't tell us exactly how often to do it.
We kind of have a tradition here of doing it the first Sunday
of each month, but. We're not going to make any. Judgments
about when to do it or how often do it. Lord said as often as
you do it, do it in remembrance of me. This is my body which
has been given for you. The Ark of the Covenant is here. Spiritually. The mercy seat is
here. The blood is here. And the Lord
said here. I will meet with you. When the
blood was put on that mercy seat, God said right there who I will
meet with you. For without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sins. When I see the blood. I'll pass
by you. Do this in remembrance of me. The whole God's people said,
amen. Let's stand together. Brother
Burt, would you dismiss us in prayer, please?