Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 145 from the hardback hymnal, 145,
Hail Thou Once Despised Jesus. ? Hail Thou once despised Jesus
? ? Hail Thou Galilee and King ? ? Thou didst suffer to release
us ? ? Thou didst free salvation bring ? ? Hail Thou agonizing
Savior ? bearer of our sin and shame. By thy merits we find
favor. Life is given through thy name. Paschal Lamb, thy God appointed,
all our sins on thee were laid, thy almighty love anointed, ?
Thou hast full atonement made ? All thy people are forgiven
? Through the virtue of thy blood ? Opened is the gate of heaven
? Peace is made twixt man and God Jesus, hail, enthroned in
glory, there forever to abide. All the heavenly hosts adore
thee, seated at thy father's side. Therefore, sinners, thou
art pleading, There thou dost our place prepare, Ever for us
interceding, Till in glory we appear. ? Worship, honor, power
and blessing ? ? Thou art worthy to receive ? ? Loudest praises
without ceasing ? ? Meet it is for us to give ? ? Healthy, bright,
angelic spirits ? Please be seated. I've never seen so much gospel
in that hymn before. Thou hast full atonement made. We are at onement with God for
the atoning work that the Lord Jesus accomplished on Calvary's
cross. All thy people are forgiven through
the virtue of thy blood. We can sing that hymn anytime
you want, Tom. That's a great hymn. All right,
let's open our Bibles together for our call to worship. Hebrews
chapter four. Hebrews chapter four. We'll begin reading in verse
eight, or verse nine. There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. Now the word rest is the word
Sabbath for he that has entered into
his rest. He also hath ceased from his
own works as God did from his. The Lord rested on the seventh
day because he was finished. Finished. The Lord Jesus Christ
cried on Calvary's cross, it is finished. Let us labor, therefore,
and that's our labor, as our natural tendency is to work,
isn't it? Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest, lest
any man fall after the same example of unbelief. For the word of
God is quick. That word means alive. It's powerful,
sharper than any two-edged sword. It cuts, it kills, and it heals. Piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and
as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither
is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but
all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom
we have to do. Seeing then that we have a great
high priest that is passed into the heavens, as we just sang
about, the Lord Jesus Christ, our advocate, seated at God's
right hand. He's passed into the heavens.
Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our profession. What
is our profession? Christ is all, is finished. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly. confidently, not cocky boldness,
but confident boldness unto the throne of grace. We're confident
in Christ. We're confident that God was
pleased with the work that he accomplished. We're confident
that he's all I need before God. Let us therefore come confidently
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. Let's pray. Our gracious and merciful Heavenly
Father. We are thankful. That the grounds
on which we are able to approach you is that of grace. And the
finished work of thy dear son. Lord, the only way that we can.
Pray the only way that we can worship. The only way that we
can come boldly into thy presence. Is by the blessing of your spirit. Lord, we pray that you would
give to us faith that we would be enabled this hour. To set
our affections on things above where Christ is seated at thy
right hand. Lord, we confess to you that
our. Our affections are often drawn away from the. Lord, we've
come to this place in hopes that you would. Show us the. Forgiving grace accomplished
on Calvary's cross is shed blood of thy dear son. If we would
find our rest, our hope and all our salvation in him. but we
ask it in his name and for his glory. Amen. Number 354, three, five, four. Let's all stand together once
again. What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything
to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything
to God in prayer. Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful? Who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Are we weak and heavy-laden,
Cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge,
Take it to the Lord in prayer. Do thy friends despise, forsake
thee, Take it to the Lord in prayer. In his arms he'll take and shield
thee. Thou wilt find a solace there. Please be seated. That's what it is to come to
the throne of grace with boldness, taking it to the Lord. confessing
our need. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Psalm 103. Psalm 103. And I've taken the title for
this message from the last part of verse 2 that says, forget
not all his benefits. Our God is a glorious benefactor. And we are the beneficiaries
of his mercies and of his grace. And the Lord in this psalm is
calling on us to worship him from the heart. But our hearts
are where our problem is. It's the thoughts and the imagination
of the hearts that are only evil continually. Our hearts is where
sin resides. I wrote an article in the bulletin
this week and I began the article by saying there's nothing inherently
evil about money. Money can be used for good or
can be used for evil. The evil's in our hearts. That's
where the problem is. Covetousness and greed and selfishness,
those are conditions of the heart. And so when the Lord says to
us, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless
his holy name. Lord, there's my need, there's
my problem. You're gonna have to do heart
surgery on me. You're gonna have to take your
word, as we just read in Hebrews chapter four, that word that
is sharper than any two-edged sword, and you're gonna have
to divide asunder the thoughts and the intents of my heart.
And you're gonna have to draw my heart out that I might find
my hope. and my comfort and my praise
in Christ. This faith we have, this love
we have, this worship, this prayer, everything we do is a matter
of the heart. I mean, anybody can show up at a church building.
Anybody can open their hymnal and sing songs. Anybody can bow
their head and mouth some words of prayer. But in order for those
things to be done, as the Lord said to the woman at the well,
in spirit and in truth, the Lord's gonna have to open the eyes of
our understanding to the truth of who we are and who he is and
what he's done to accomplish our salvation, and he's gonna
have to move our hearts by his spirit. Now, what are the means
by which he does that? Causing us to remember his benefits. Causing us to remember his benefits. See, people say, well, you know,
if I give, God will bless me. Being able to give gratefully
and cheerfully is the blessing. That is the blessing. You see,
that's a work of grace in the heart. What greater blessing
is there? Anybody can give, but to give
from the heart. You say, well, if I pray, God
will bless me. Being able to pray in the spirit
is the blessing. It is the blessing. Lord, move
my heart so when I pray, I'm not just, I'm not just mouthing
words. I'm not just expressing some
cold doctrine, but you've enabled me to enter into your presence.
and come before your throne of grace with boldness and find
help in my time of need. Lord, I'm always needy. You say,
well, if I go to church, God will bless me. Anybody can go
to church. The blessing is being able to
worship God when you're here. That's the blessing. being able
to enter into His presence, being able to hear His voice, being
able to see His glory. That's the blessing. That's the
blessing. That's the rest. You see, men,
cease from your labors. Men do all these religious labors
in hopes that God will reward them. We cease from our labor
as he ceased from his, and we rest in Christ. That is the blessing. And that is the labor. Because
it's contrary to everything that our natural man does, everything
he thinks. The Lord said, my ways are not
your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts
as the heavens are high above the earth. So my ways above yours,
Lord, you're going to have to, you're going to have to work
in my heart. And if the Lord changes our hearts and gives
us a heart of grace and a heart of love, that's what he said
in, in Hebrews chapter eight, as he's quoting from Jeremiah
chapter 31, he said, I'll make a new covenant with my people.
Not like the covenant that their fathers had in the wilderness,
which they broke. But I will write my laws upon
their hearts and impress them upon their minds. And no longer
will it be necessary for a man to say to his neighbor, know
the Lord, know the Lord, for they will all know me from the
least of them, even unto the greatest. That's the work of
grace in the heart. That's the new covenant. That's
the new birth. And so. We're, we're speaking
to this, to this apart from the grace of
God corrupted heart. And we're saying, oh, oh my soul. Oh my soul, my heart. Bless the Lord. Bless the Lord. Look at, look at verse, look
at verse, Verse 1, bless the Lord, oh my
soul and all that is within me. Lord, that's what I wanted. I
want to worship you with all my heart and all my soul and
all my mind. The Lord Jesus is the only one
that ever did that. One day we will. One day we will. Right now we've got this dead
man clinging on, don't we? That's our desire. You see, that's
the desire that God puts in the heart. When he says, I'll write
my laws on their heart and I'll impress them upon their mind,
I'm gonna give them a new nature, I'm gonna cause them to say,
bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that was within me, bless
his holy, bless the Lord. Look at verse two, oh my soul.
Look at verse one of Psalm 104, bless the Lord, oh my soul, oh
Lord, my God, thou art very great. Lord, I wanna worship. I don't
want to just, I don't want to just go through the motions of
being religious. I want you to, to speak to my
heart. That's where my problem is. The
problem is in my heart. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
13. This, you know, there's plenty
of people participating in feigned worship. And we've seen enough of it in
our own lives to know that if the Lord doesn't doesn't move
our hearts, if he doesn't speak to our souls, if he doesn't cause
his word to be effectual to us, if he doesn't speak to us and
call us out, we'll go through the motions. We'll go through
the motions. Look at Hebrews chapter 13, verse
nine. Be not carried away with divers
and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing that the heart
be established with grace. Lord, if you're going to enable
me to worship, if you're going to enable me to pray, if you're
going to give me a grateful heart, if you're going to enable me
to come into your presence, it's going to have to be by grace.
I've not done anything to merit it. I can't earn it. Not with
meats. Now meats here is like circumcision. It's just a, it's just a symbolic
reference to all kinds of works. You know, not, not with the things
that, that I do. Which have not profited them
that have been occupied therein for we have an altar. We don't
come to an altar. We've, we have an altar. Who
is our altar? Wherefore, they have no right
to eat which serve the tabernacle for the bodies of those beasts
whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest
for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore, Jesus also that
he might sanctify or make holy the people with his blood suffered
without the gate. So those Old Testament carcasses
were taken outside. the camp and the Lord Jesus Christ
was taken outside to Mount Calvary. Let us go forth therefore unto
him without the camp bearing the reproach for we for here
have we no continuing city but we seek one that is to come by
him therefore Let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually,
that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. Seeing that we are compassed
about with such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside
the sin that does so easily beset us. What is that sin? It's the
sin of unbelief. It's the same sin, it's the cause
of all our problems. It's our unbelieving heart. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and the finisher of faith. Whatever faith we have, he's
gonna be the author of it, he's gonna be the finisher of it,
he's gonna be the object of it. Lord, that's a work of grace.
It's a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not
with meats. Lord, you're going to have to.
You will have to speak to my heart. This this matter of faith this.
But we believe it's not. It's not in meats and divers
ordinances. It's not in. It's not in circumcisions
and it's not in rules and regulations. It's in the spirit. It's in the
spirit. It's the spirit of grace. Now. Psalm. 103 The Lord tells us. What his? Benefits are. Because these are the things
that move and motivate the heart. Toward grace. Toward Christ,
these are the things that move the heart. You know, the Lord's,
he establishes our hearts with his word. And in his word, he's
revealed to us his benefits, his blessings. Forget not, look at verse two,
forget not all his benefits. Oh, we could, one day we will. One day we'll be reflecting.
on all his benefits all the time. Right now, we murmur more than
we praise him, don't we? We forget his benefits. The Lord's given us his word
in order to remind us of what a benefactor he is. and what
beneficiaries we are and what glorious benefits he's given
to his people through Christ. And the first one, the first
one in verse three, who forgiveth all thine iniquities? Who is this man that forgives
sin? Only God can forgive sin. that
you might know that the son of man had power to forgive sins.
I'd say unto you, take up that bed and walk, walk. The Lord
performed those physical miracles in order to show that he had
the power to forgive sin. But his forgiving of sin wasn't
just because he had the power, it was because he satisfied the
justice of God through the shedding of his blood on Calvary's cross.
There's no forgiveness of sin without that. Look, who forgiveth
all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases. Lord, that's
my problem. The problem with my heart, you've
said, oh, bless the Lord. Oh, my soul, all that is within
me, bless his holy name. That's what I want. But the problem
is I've got sin. Well, here's my benefit. I've taken it away. I've removed
it from you as far as the East is from the West. I've put it
on the scapegoat. I've sent it out into the wilderness
of forgetfulness. I buried it in the depths of
the sea. I've forgiven all your iniquities. See, the only way
we can come to God with a pure conscience, right? Yeah, it's pretty easy for me
to feel guilty. I feel guilty most all the time.
Yeah, the only way I have a pure conscience is if I know that
I have no sin. I have no sin before God. I have
an atonement and that word atonement is a conjunction of three words
in the English language at one meant. I have one meant I have
union with Christ. We, he that, he that sanctify
the Lord Jesus Christ is the one that made us holy. And they,
which are sanctified, those are his people are all as one. Wherefore he's not ashamed to
call them his brother. We can come into the very presence
of God without sin, without sin. Why? because here's his benefit. He's forgiven all of our iniquities.
He's purged our sin. He's put them away by the sacrifice
of himself. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
43, Isaiah 43. If there were no other benefits, That'd be enough. Now this whole
psalm, the Lord gives us benefit after benefit after benefit.
And what he's saying to us is forget not all his benefits,
and this will cause you to bless the Lord with all your soul.
Psalm 40, Isaiah 43, look at verse, Look at verse 25. I, even I, am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember
thy sins. Not remember. This Psalm 103
tells us that he separated our sins from us as far as the east
is from the west. And he remembers them no more.
I even, I am he that blotted out thy sin. I didn't blot out
your sin because you were sorry enough. I didn't blot out your
sin because you made renewed commitments to me. I did it for
my own namesake. I did it because that's what
I put my name on in the covenant of grace that I was fulfilling
that covenant promise. God Almighty had said, yeah,
like you, you sign a contract. to pay a bill and your name's
on the line. Well, God signed the contract,
the covenant, and his name is on the line. He said, I paid
the debt because I signed the contract. I made a covenant. I made a promise. And for my
namesake, I blotted out all your transgressions. Now that's reason
to bless the Lord. That's reason to bow before him. I put them all away. All your iniquity, all your transgressions,
all your sins, they are no more. who healeth all thy diseases. Lord, that's my problem. My problem
is the disease of sin, this leprosy of sin that's in my heart. You've
said, praise you with all my heart, but Lord, you're gonna
have to do a work of grace in my heart. You're gonna have to
take away my sin. You're gonna have to heal my disease. And
we don't look back in an experience in religion and say, well, that's
been taken care of. We're continually coming to him for that, aren't
we? We feel the fever of disease in our soul all the time. And so we keep coming. We keep
coming back to the same place. to the same one. And he says,
I put them away. I put them away. You can come.
You can come boldly before the throne of grace. You can come
with all your heart. You can find grace in your time
of need. I've put those sins away. Forget not all his benefits. That's our problem. We forget,
don't we? We're so prone to wander. We're
so prone to get wallow in the fear of the law and then the
guilt and shame of our sin. And we forget the benefit of
what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished on Calvary's cross. That's why
we have to keep coming to hear the gospel. That's why we have
to keep coming to Christ. There's no benefit that will
move the heart to worship him more than this one. My sin has
been the very thing that keeps us from God. How many times we've
not come into the throne room of grace because in our perverted
minds we've thought of it as a throne of law. Well, I've got to, you know,
I've got to satisfy something before I can come before God.
I've got to get some things straightened out. I've got to, I've got to
work something out. I've got to feel more sorrow
for my sin before I can come. And we turn the law, we turn
the, the, the, the, the throne of grace into a throne of law.
And as we just sang, we, how many sorrows we bear because
we don't pray as we ought. And we do, we pray a miss that
we may consume it upon our own. Oh Lord, here's. Oh, my soul. That's my problem. My soul's
my problem. But that's what the Lord came
to heal. He came to heal my soul. He came
to put away my sin. He came to heal my diseases. By his stripes, we are healed. Healed. You know, that's not
talking about physical illnesses. Anytime we're healed from a physical
illness, whether it be a common cold or cancer, God did it. God
did it. And he can remove any disease
he wants physically from our bodies. But eventually one of
them is going to get us, you know, I mean, there's going to
come a day when the Lord is going to say, okay, I'm not taking
that disease away. I'm going to take you away with
it. But, oh, the diseases of sin,
he said, I've taken them all away, every one of them. By his stripes, we are healed,
are. So he's telling us forget not
all his benefits because remembering what he's done will be the very
thing that will draw out our souls to worship him. Look at verse four. Who redeemeth
thy life from destruction? Oh, we were sold under sin. And
the word redeem means to be bought back. Our father Adam sold us
under sin. We come to this world as sinners
and we continue along that path of being in bondage, being prisoners
to sin. And the Lord said, I'm gonna
redeem them. I'm gonna pay the ransom price. I'm gonna be Hosea
to Gomer. I'm gonna go down to the auction
block. I'm gonna pay the ransom to bring
her home and make her to be my wife. And I'm gonna love her. He redeemeth thy life. from destruction. He's not talking
about just redeeming our life from eternal destruction, although
that certainly is a big part of it, isn't it? He that believeth
in me shall never die. Believeth thou this, Mary? Mary,
do you believe that I am the resurrection and the life? He that Die, even though he die,
yet shall he live? I need my life to be redeemed
from eternal destruction, the judgment and wrath of God, and
that's his benefit. But I need my daily life to be
delivered from the destruction of sin and all the things that
come a part of that, the fears and the doubts and the unbelief
and Lord, I'd be destroyed by this world if you don't deliver
my life. He redeemeth our life from destruction.
He crowneth thee with loving kindness. And you know that word
loving kindness is the Old Testament word for grace. Rarely is the
word grace used in the Old Testament is some, but not, not a whole
lot. This word, loving kindness is the word for grace and, um,
mercy and grace. That's what he's, he, he crowns
you with grace and mercy. He gives to you. That's what
loving kindness is that which you don't deserve. Eternal life,
life eternal. He gives you spiritual life and
he takes from you that which you do deserve. He withholds
from you, that's his mercy, the judgment and wrath of God. And
so he says he crowns your life. And John, when he sees the saints
in glory, what are they doing? They're taking their crowns off.
He's made us to be kings and priests. He's put us into the
royal family of God. He's made us children of God. So as many as receive him, to
them he gave the power to become the sons of God. We're sons,
we're children. and children of the king. And
when we come into his presence, what are we going to be doing?
We're going to be taking that, that crown of loving kindness and
that crown of mercy and casting them at his feet. Lord, you're
the one that kept me. You're the one that got me here.
You're the, you're the benefactor. I was just the beneficiary of
my whole life. Everything I had was a benefit
from God. forget not all his benefits. We lost our place in a royal
family when Adam sinned. And when Christ came, he bore
that crown of thorns that we might be crowned sons of God. Look at verse five. Forget not all his benefits.
Not only does he redeem my life, not only does he forgive my iniquities,
not only does he heal my diseases, not only does he crown me with
grace and with mercy, but he satisfies my mouth with good
things. His word, it's sweet as honey. And we take his word and we eat
it. We feast on the word of God.
That's what the Lord said, unless you eat of my body and drink
of my blood, you have no life in me. And the scriptures are
a revelation of who he is and what he's done. That's his body
and his blood, his person and his work. And every time we go
to God's Word, what are we doing? He's satisfying our mouth. Lord, I've been eating the dust
of this world. I've been eating sawdust. I've
been trying to satisfy my thirst with the polluted waters of broken
cisterns. And Lord, you've brought me to
this fountain of life, this river that flows clear as crystal from
the throne of God, and you've satisfied my thirst. Forget not
all his benefits. This is his benefit to those
that are thirsty, those that are in need. Those that can't
find their, you know, the, the unbeliever can quench his thirst
in this world. They can, they can get enough
pleasure and enough popularity and not power and enough possessions. And they can, and they can be
satisfied. They don't need God. And every time we nibble on those
things in order to try to be satisfied, we find them just
to aggravate our problem. until the Lord brings us back
to himself. And he says, I'll satisfy your
mouth with good things. I'll give you, I'll give you
bread. I'll give you meat. My word is,
is, is meat indeed, isn't it? He satisfied my mouth with good
things so that thy youth is renewed like the Eagles. It's what he
does. He, he renews our strength mounts
us up with wings of eagles causes us to, to walk and not be weary
to run and not faint. That's, that's, that's, that's
his, that's his grace. That's his work in the heart,
but this all is a work in the heart. It's not just, you know,
I'm gonna, I'm going to somehow transform my behavior. and clean
up the outside of the cup when the inside is full of corruption.
That's what the Lord said to the Pharisee. He said, you like
whitewashed tombs. And that's what the religious
do. They whitewash the outside. And he said, you full of dead
man's bones. Lord, my problem is a heart problem.
God, you're going to have to do heart surgery. You're going
to have to. And when God changes that, then everything else, everything
else follows done out of the heart, out of the heart flows,
the issues of life, whatever's in the heart, where your treasure is there.
Your heart will be also in the world has their treasure in the
world. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, don't we?
That the glory might be of God and not of us. Our treasure is
Christ. And so we, our hearts are drawn
out to him. The more we hear about him, the
more we hear of his benefits and what he's done for us, the
more we desire to be near him and to know him. Now this forgiveness of sin does
not come without righteousness and justice. Look at verse, look
at verse six, the Lord executed righteousness and judgment for
all that are oppressed, oppressed with what oppressed with circumstance. There's a whole lot of folks
in this world that are oppressed with circumstances, a whole lot
worse than our circumstances, but there's few. that are heavy
burdened with their sin. That's a work of grace for God
to bring you to the end of yourself. And Lord, I can't do anything
about my sin. I can't put it away. I can't, I can't make up
for it. Lord, if you don't, if you don't
execute righteousness. If the execution of your righteousness
in Christ, in his life and in his death was not sufficient
for me, I have no righteousness. If the execution of your judgment,
when you put your sin into the heart of your dear son on Calvary's
cross, if that judgment is not for me, I can't come into that
problem, suffer your eternal judgment. But here the Lord says,
I execute Righteousness and judgment for them that are oppressed,
those that have a problem that they can't do anything about.
You see, every other problem we have in our lives, we can generally make some contribution
to help out a little bit, can't we? We need to do what we can do
with our needs. We're not irresponsible. But here's a problem we can't
do anything about. This matter of sin, we can't
make any contribution to put it away. We can't establish any
righteousness. We can't do anything to satisfy
God's justice. Lord, I've got a, I got a problem
I can't solve. Not only can't, I can't even,
I can't even begin to do anything about it. Lord, you're going
to have to execute that. And that's what he says. He does.
Here, here's his, here's his benefit. I'm going to execute
righteousness and judgment for them that are oppressed. And
here's another benefit. Look at verse seven, verse seven,
he made known. His ways unto Moses, his acts
unto the children of Israel. Now the children of Israel, the
vast, vast, vast majority of them never knew God. They died
in the wilderness as unbelievers. Why? They saw the water coming
out of the rock. They saw the cloud around Mount
Sinai. They saw the mountain. They saw
the command on the ground every day. Every day they woke up,
there's man on the ground except for the Sabbath. They saw the
quail. They saw the pillar of smoke
and the pillar of fire. They saw all these great acts
of God. They saw the plagues in Egypt.
They saw the dividing of the Red Sea. They saw the acts of
God. They knew that God did it. There
was no other explanation for it, but they did not know why. They knew what God was doing,
but they didn't know why he was doing it. They didn't know that
manna was a picture of the bread of life that would come down
from heaven and give his life as a ransom for many. They didn't
know that rock that followed them through the wilderness was
none other than the rock of ages, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that
the water that came from that rock was that sustaining water
of life that came by his spirit. They didn't know any of that. They didn't know that they couldn't
keep the law. They told Moses, they said, we'll
do it. We'll do it. Whatever God said, we'll do it.
And Moses said, you can't keep the law. And he made a sacrifice. They didn't know what those sacrifices
were. They didn't know that they, you see, Moses knew God's ways. They knew God's acts. Now, how,
how true is that of people today? Nothing's changed. Nothing's
changed. People think because they credit
God with an act that, that, that means they're believers and they
don't know why. God did what he did. Everybody
believes that Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross and he
was put into a tomb and raised from the dead. Why I say everybody,
you know, that we are becoming more and more people I meet and
talk to. Daryl's brother called me the
other day and he said, pray for me. Trisha's brother, Daryl,
he's going to be here next weekend. He said, our office manager,
40 years old, she was on the back of a motorcycle with her
husband, Sunday afternoon, and a car pulled out in front of
them, killed both of them. And Daryl had been talking to
her about the gospel. And she responded to him by saying,
Daryl, I'm happy for you. But I don't believe there's a
God. She does now. And I told Daryl, I said Daryl.
There's only one person that's going to benefit from this death.
And that's you. That's you. You're the one God's
going to teach. Your need for Christ, the brevity
of life. Nobody else is gonna get anything
at all from this. They're not gonna benefit at
all from it. But that's true of everything, isn't it? God's
people are the only people that all things work together for
good for them that love God. Those are the called according
to his purpose. We talk to more and more people. But the point
is that those who don't lie to themselves and to everybody else
and profess to be atheist, or involved in some sort of crazy
religious persuasion. A lot of people that call themselves
Christians, like these Israelites who were, who believed themselves
to be the people of God. They knew his acts, but they
didn't know his ways. They knew what God was doing,
but they didn't know why he was doing it. The gospel is about
the why, not the what. We don't comfort ourselves in
thinking because we believe in a historical event that therefore
we're Christians. We believe in a person and we
understand why he did what he did and what he accomplished. That's his way. That's his way. The Lord, verse eight, is merciful
and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide, neither
will he keep his anger forever. He hath not dealt with us after
our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the
heaven is high above the earth, and so great is his mercy toward
them that fear him. As far as the east is from the
west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Forget
not all his benefits. As a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth them that fear him, for he knows that we're
made of dust. Remember that verse over there
in the previous Psalm that we looked at Sunday, that the, that
the believers in Zion rejoice with the stones and they have
pity towards the dust. Well, here's the dust. He remembers
that we're made of dust and he's full of pity and mercy,
compassion toward us. We come again and again and again
and again, often with the same unbelief, the same evidence of
sin. God's not going to roll his eyes.
He's not going to say you again. That's the way we treat each
other. It's the way I'd treat you if
you came to me as often as I have to come to God. You don't mean
it. Oh no, he's not like us, is he? He pities us. He remembers we're
made of dust. And he's full of compassion and
full of mercy. And he says. Come. Come. And we say, oh my soul. Oh my soul and all that is within
me. Bless his holy name and forget
not. Forget not all his benefits. Our Heavenly Father, we're so
very thankful for the revelation of your mercy and grace. In the
person of thy dear son. Our accomplishment, our salvation,
our. Our righteousness, our justification
before they. Lord. Cause us to remember your
benefits and move our hearts in worship of the. We ask it
in Christ name. Amen. 252-352-352 let's stand
together. Jesus, lover of my soul, let
me to thy bosom fly. while the nearer waters roll,
while the tempest still is high. Hide me, O my Savior, hide, till
the storm of life is past. ? Safe into the haven guide ?
? O receive my soul at last ? ? Other refuge have I none ? ? Hangs
my helpless soul on thee ? ? Levi, leave me not alone ? and comfort me. All my trust on Thee is stayed. All my help from Thee I bring. Cover my defenseless head with
the shadow of Thy wing. Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
more than all in Thee I find. Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
heal the sick, and lead the blind. Just and holy is Thy name. I am all unrighteousness, false
and full of sin I am, thou art full of truth and grace. Plenteous grace with thee is
found, grace to cover all my let the healing streams abound
make and keep me pure within thou of life the fountain art
freely let me take a Spring thou up within my heart, rise to all
eternity.