Rinaldo's sister, Marina, who
has also been here on several occasions over the years, lived
in Dominican Republic in San Domingo. She was a believer and
the Lord took her home this week. Rinaldo went down to visit her
a few weeks ago to see her before she passed away. She's, of course,
is Armida's daughter. And I'm not sure if they'll tell
Armida or not, but I pray for the family. You don't have to turn your Bibles.
I just read this one verse. Give ear to my prayer, O God,
and hide not thyself. from my supplications, attend
unto me and hear me." That's our prayer. Lord, hear us. May
he receive our words of praise and worship as we stand together
to sing the hymn that's on the back of your bulletin. So let's
stand together. Tom? To Christ the Lord let every
tongue its noblest tributes bring. When He's the subject of the
song, who can refuse to sing? Who can refuse to sing? Survey the beauties of His face,
and on His glories dwell. Think of the wonders of His grace,
and all His victories tell, and all His victories tell. Thou hast redeemed our souls
with blood, hast set the prisoners free, hast made us kings and
priests to God, and we shall reign with Thee, and we shall
reign with Thee. The whole creation join as one
to bless that holy name of him who sits upon the throne and
to adore the lamb, and to adore the lamb. Please be seated. Good morning. Our scripture reading
is going to be located in Colossians, first chapter. We're going to
read verses 9 through 14. It's similar to the passage that
Greg read in Ephesians. This is Paul's prayer for the
Colossians. Colossians 1.9. For this course, we also since
the day we heard of it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might
be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and
spiritual understanding. And this is what we need the
most. We need knowledge of his will and the wisdom and spiritual
understanding. that ye might walk worthy of
the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work,
increasing in the knowledge of God." And as we increase in the
knowledge of God, that's how we become fruitful. It's parallel
to knowing Christ and knowing Him. With all might, this is straight
from God, according to His glorious power. It's not by our power. We have no power. All of the
power comes from the Lord. Unto all patients and non-suffering
with joyfulness. And we give thanks, giving thanks
unto the Father, which has made us to meet, to be partakers of
the inheritance of the saints and light. If we, we can't imagine
what that means yet. Can we be partakers of the inheritance? who have delivered us from the
power of darkness and have translated us. into the kingdom of his dear
son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of our sins. Father God, we come before you
this morning giving you thanks and praise. Father, we come before
you, of course, by the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, by
his righteousness and by his shed blood. We come before you,
like our pastor Greg says, because we have nowhere else to go, Father. We are in need of you this morning. We are in need of your spirit
to fill us, to be with us, to teach us the word. Pastor Greg
also needs to be full with his spirit. We ask for that, that
Christ might be glorified, that he might be magnified, Father.
And we are all dependent on you to get to know Christ, to know
of his glory, to know his person. We are totally dependent on you.
We can go nowhere else. We also pray for those family
members that have lost ones this week, Father. We pray for them. We pray for you to comfort, that
your spirit might comfort them. And they may seek you. They may
become closer to you. that you might use it for your
honor and glory, Father God. Once again, we thank you for
the privilege of listening to your word, and we ask for your
spirit to teach us about Christ. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let's all stand together once
again. We'll sing hymn number 23 from their Spiral Gospel Hymns
hymn book, number 23. Pass me not, O gracious Father,
sinful, wretched though I be. Though you might in truth condemn
me, let your mercy fall on me. Love of God so everlasting, Blood
of Christ so rich and free, Grace of God so strong and saving,
Magnify them all in me. ? Pass me not, O blessed Savior
? ? Let me hear your gracious call ? ? I'm a guilty, helpless
sinner ? ? Savior, at your feet I fall ? ? Love of God so everlasting
? Blood of Christ so rich and free, Grace of God so strong
and saving, Magnify them all in me. Pass me not, O mighty
Spirit. You can cause the dead to live. Speak the word of saving power. Give me faith and make me live. Love of God so everlasting, Blood
of Christ so rich and free, Grace of God so strong and saving,
Magnify them all in me. Pass me not a poor lost sinner. If you will, you can save me. Reach down with your hand of
mercy. Saving others, Lord, save me. Love of God so everlasting, Blood
of Christ so rich and free, Grace of God so strong and saving,
Magnify them all in me. Please be seated. you turn with me in your Bibles
to Psalm 54. Psalm 54. I've titled this message the
same as the first two words of that Psalm. Save me. Save me. There are three simple
questions I want to try to answer in this message. The first one
is When do I need to be saved? When do I need to be saved? The
second question is, how can I be saved? And the third question
is, what do I need to be saved from? When do I need to be saved? How can I be saved? And what
do I need to be saved from? Well, the short answer to the
first question is right now. Right this very minute. That's
when I need to be saved. Is that when you need to be saved?
Right now. I can't live off of yesterday's
manna. I've tried. I've tried. I've tried living
off of the experiences that I've had with God in the past. And it's like, you remember the
manna that came from heaven in the wilderness and they tried
to, they, not believing God for today's manna, they kept a portion
for the next day and when they went to use it, it was full of
worms. You ever eat food that's got worms in it? Well, you probably have if you've
ever had, if you've ever had food poisoning. You just didn't
see them, you didn't know it. But that's exactly what eating
worms would do, wouldn't it? Make you sick. Make you sick. You try to live off of yesterday's
manna, you're going to get spiritually sick. I don't care how wonderful
your experience was with God, you can't have any confidence
in it, can you? You look back to those experiences
and you wonder, well, Lord, I just, I can't rest the hope of my immortal
soul on that experience. I've got to have a fresh measure
of manna today. That's why the Lord said, give
us this day our daily bread. When do I need to be saved? Here's the passage, save me,
oh God, by thy name. and judge me by thy strength. Hear my prayer, O God. You and
I, whether we recognize it or not, need to be saved right now. That's why Peter, when he spoke
of coming to Christ, did not speak of it as a past experience,
but said, to whom coming right now. That's when I need to be
saved. Now, I've talked to folks who've
begged for it and said, well, you know, I don't need to be
saved. I've already gotten saved. And by that, what they mean is
they're hanging on to an experience that they had and trusting that
experience for their salvation. And I, that causes great doubt
in my mind as to whether or not there was anything to that experience.
I had someone say to me one time, well, if we've been saved in
the covenant of grace before eternity passed when Christ as
the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world and God
already wrote our names in the Lamb's Book of Life, then what
do we need to be saved for? It's already done. If the Lord
Jesus Christ actually accomplished the salvation of His people as
you say He did, and He did, then why do I need to be saved? That's
already been done. it's already accomplished. Well,
that kind of thinking is using worldly wisdom and logic to trump
the revelation of God's Word. It's also a denial of every believer's
experience and it is evidence that a person that would talk
like that is devoid of the Spirit of God and does not believe the
Word of God. Let me read you just a few places
where David, a man after God's own heart, cried out for God
to save him. Psalm chapter 3 verse 7, arise,
oh Lord, and save me, oh my God. Psalm 6 verse 4, save me for
thy mercy's sake. Psalm 7 verse 1, save me, Lord,
from all them that persecute me. You know anything about the
persecution of your own flesh and your own sin, you know your
need to be saved. Psalm 22 verse 21, save me, David
prayed, from the lion's mouth. Oh, he is a roaring lion seeking
whom he may devour, isn't he? You've ever had any experience
with him? You know you have no power over him. Lord, you're
gonna have to save me. Psalm 31 verse 16, make thy face
to shine upon thy servant. Save me for thy mercy sake. Psalm 57 verse three, save me
from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. You ever
fear being swallowed up? Peter had that fear, didn't he? Peter, walking on the water,
took his eyes off of Christ and looked at the wind and the waves
and began to drown. And he cried, Lord, save me,
save me before I be swallowed up. Deliver me from the workers
of iniquity, Psalm 59, verse 2. Save me from the bloody men.
Save me, Lord. Now that's just the first 59
Psalms out of 150 where David cries for God to save him. So
to say that, well, my salvation's already been taken care of, I
don't need to worry about it, I don't need to ask for it, I
don't need to pray for it, I don't need to think about it, it's
already done, is a denial of what God's word teaches. Jeremiah
prayed this in Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 14. Heal me, O Lord,
and I shall be healed. Save me, and I shall be saved,
for Thou art my praise. Jeremiah, the prophet of God,
Lord, if You save me, I'll be saved, and You'll be my praise
for having accomplished my salvation. So David prays, Save me, O God. by thy name, judge me, judge
me by thy strength. Do you have a need right now? I'm not talking about later on
this afternoon or next week or next year or yesterday. I'm talking
about right now. Today is the day of salvation.
Now is the accepted time. You see, the truth is the only
time every person is saved is right now. Just like you can't have any
confidence in whatever experiences you've had in the past, you can't
have any hope of having a future. Nothing ever got done tomorrow.
And no one ever got saved. I didn't like the way I said
that. No one's ever been saved tomorrow. It just doesn't work
that way. Salvation is a current experience
of grace in the heart. Can you join your voice with
King David and with the saints of God right now? Right now,
Lord save me. That's when we need to be saved.
We need to be saved right now. Second question is, how can I
be saved? Now you ask most folks that question,
they would say, well, you've got to accept Jesus Christ, you've
got to make a decision, you've got to pray this prayer, you've
got to do this work, you've got to be baptized, you've got to
whatever. And our question would be to them, then who does the
saving exactly? Who does the saving? Who gets
all the glory for my salvation? Are you suggesting that God wants
everybody to be saved and that Christ died for everybody to
be saved and that God has made an offer of salvation and that
that offer is made effectual by... Well, that's not what David
said. David said, save me by thy name. By thy name. Don't save me by
my sincerity. Don't save me by my prayers.
Don't save me by my works. Don't save me by anything that
I do. Don't save me by my free will. Don't save me by my commitment. Don't save me by my experience. Don't save me by my feelings. If you've experienced the grace
of God, you know that as a believer there are times when you don't
feel saved. But you know what? You also know that before God
saved you, you didn't feel lost. Feelings come and feelings go.
Feelings are deceiving. My only warrant is the word of
God. None else is worth believing.
Don't save me according to my feelings, Lord. Don't save me
by my experiences. Don't save me by my accomplishments.
But Lord, I've done many wonderful works in Thy name. Don't save
me by that. Don't save me by my sufferings. There are people
who think, well, you know, salvation by suffering. If you just suffer
enough, God will take that into consideration and He'll credit
you with that suffering and you'll be saved. But don't save me by
my sufferings. I don't care how much a person
suffered. I mean, I do care, but it's not going to make a
difference in your salvation. Don't save me by my knowledge.
Oh, but I've read all the Puritans, and I know the Bible, and I've
studied the Greek and the Hebrew, and I've been to seminary, and,
you know, save me by my own knowledge, Lord. Don't save me by my knowledge. I don't know anything, except that I'm a sinner, and
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only hope of salvation that
I have. And what I know about that is very limited. Very limited. Well, someone says, well, save
me by my faith. Oh, don't save me by my faith. You see, it's not faith that
saves, it's the object of our faith that saves. David says,
save me by thy name. By thy name. What is that a reference
to? Well, it's a reference to reputation.
Your name is your reputation. I had a young man do some work
for me several years ago, and he had just received a business
from his father, who had built this business up, and he was
doing some work for me, and he told me, he said, my father's
advice to me was that, son, it's taken me a whole lifetime to
build the reputation for this company, and you can ruin it
in one day. We've got a good name. We've
got a good name. That's a rare thing today. Everybody's
more concerned about profit than they are with their name, with
their reputation. Might God give the believers,
you know, the scripture says, let your yea be yea and your
nay be nay. In other words, you answer a
question with yes or no, for anything else comes from evil.
In other words, if you have to confirm your yes or your no by
swearing by your mother's grave or swearing by God or swearing
by something else, that comes from evil. A person with a good
name, you can believe them when they say yes or when they say
no. They've got a good name. They've
got a reputation. They're faithful to their name. We had some work done on one
of our vehicles this week. Got the bill, paid the bill,
got home, popped the hood, and half the things that they charged
me for, they didn't do. They didn't do. Now, I didn't
know anything about this company. We were stranded and had to have
the work done, so didn't know anything about it. But I know
that name now. You want to know who that name is, I'll tell you.
Stay away from them. They're not trustworthy or they're
not reliable. They're liars and they're thieves.
But that's how we judge a person's name, isn't it? We bought something
on Craigslist some time ago and got it home and found out it
wasn't all that the person who sold it to us said it was going
to be. And Trisha's the one that went and got it. And she said,
well, you know, in the front yard, there was a Jesus sign. I said, that should have been
your first warning. Somebody tells you I'm a good
Christian, run. run they're using someone else's
name to to try to convince you that they can be trusted they're
hiding behind that name so when David says save me by
by name save me by the reputation of the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ what is his name Well, it starts out with Jesus, doesn't
it? You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people. You see, this covenant is kind
of like when you buy a house. You've got to sign your name
a hundred times on all those pages, don't you? And then you're held to the contract. And your names, you don't live
up to your end of the bargain. Is that your signature? There's
your name right there. The Lord Jesus Christ, when he
struck hands with God the Father in the covenant of grace before
the world began, put his name on that covenant. And he said,
just like Judah said to his father, when his father didn't want Benjamin
to go back to Egypt, Judah said, I'll be his surety. And if I
don't bring him back, I'll bear the blame. I'll bear the blame. My name's on the contract. Hold
me responsible. I'm faithful to what I say I
will do. And God the Father, God the Son
told God the Father, I'll save my bride. Those that you chose
for me, I'm going to go redeem them. I'm going to purchase them
unto myself. His name is on the contract.
And David's saying, save me by thy name. Don't save me by anything
else. How are we to be saved? We're
not to be saved by something that we do, a decision we make,
a prayer we pray, a work we perform, an experience we have. We're
not to be saved by that. We're to be saved by thy name. His name shall be called Wonderful. Now what the Lord said in Isaiah
chapter 6, chapter 9 verse 6, He said that His name shall be
called Wonderful. Now we use that word Wonderful
very loosely, don't we? But when it's applied to the
Lord Jesus Christ, He is the only one that's full of wonder. He's full of wonder. He fits
that name perfectly. People blaspheme God when they
call Him awesome. He's not awesome. He's awful. The scripture calls Him awful.
He's full of awe. His name shall be called Wonderful. That's His name, and He's good
for His name. He's wonderful to save. He's
wonderful to keep us from falling. He is the wonder of God, the
fullness of the God bodily, the fullness of the Godhead bodily
in the Lord Jesus Christ. His name should be called Wonderful Counselor. That's his name. That's his name. You know, the world is full of
therapists. Our nation, you know, we're the
We're the most prosperous and most unhappy and the most discontent
people probably on the face of the earth. Everybody's got a
therapist and everybody's on drugs and doing this and doing
that. His name, his name is Wonderful
Counselor. Go to him. Go to him. There's not a question you have
that he won't answer. There's not a need you have that
he won't meet. That's his name, and he's good
for his name. The mighty God. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He came unto His own, and His
own received Him not, but as many as received Him. To them
gave He the power to become the sons of God. He tabernacled among
us, and we beheld His glory as the glory of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and full of truth." Oh, He's
all-powerful. He's sovereign. He's nothing.
You remember when Sarah laughed when she heard that she was going
to be with a child at 90 years old? You would have laughed too.
Ninety years old. You remember what God said to
Abraham? I tell you what, God, is anything too hard for God? Is anything too hard for God?
No. No. His name shall be called
Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God. He's all-powerful, the Sovereign God, the Everlasting
Father. Well, I thought He was the Son. And Philip asked him, he said,
Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us. What did the
Lord say? Oh, Philip, have I been with
you so long that you don't know by now that if you've seen me,
you've seen the Father for I and the Father are one? Everything
that you can ever know about God the Father, we learn in the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. And you are complete in him. complete in Him, so that He that
does the sanctifying and they that are sanctified are all as
one, whereby He's not ashamed to call us His brethren." He's
the everlasting Father. Never had a beginning, never
had an end. And God's people have been in
Him from eternity past. And they are secure in Him. That's
why the Lord said, No one can separate you from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus, and no one can pluck you out
of my hand. You can't pluck yourself out of his hand. That's how almighty
he is. That's how powerful he is. That
means that you can't sin yourself out of the gospel. And the unbeliever who only has
one nature hears talk like that, and they say, you can't tell
people that. You're giving them a license to sin. You're excusing
men's sin. You're giving them no. No. It's the love of God that constraineth
us to realize that He loves me so much that I can't send myself
out of Him. If there's anything that makes
me not want to sin, it's that. It's that. The strength of sin
is the law. You put me under the law, In
order to curb my behavior, in order to make me obedient and
live by the law, and the strength of my sin is the law. Just tell
me not to do something, that's what I want to do. But tell me
how much he loves me and what he's done for me and how he has
successfully put away my sins once and for all by the sacrifice
of himself, never to be brought up again. Never. The only thing that makes me
not want to sin, the Prince of Peace. Know what
Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6? He should be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince
of Peace. The Prince of Peace. We have peace with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. The peace of God that passes
understanding will keep your heart and your mind in Christ
Jesus. The only way I'm going to experience
God's peace. Everybody wants the peace of God, but nobody's
interested in peace with God. They think they already have
that by something they've done. David said, save me by thy name. Save me by thy name. Get that. By thy name. Use the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. which is perfect to save me. Don't save me by anything else. How am I going to be saved? I'm
going to be saved by His name. His name's a good name. He's
got a perfect reputation. We try to keep our name good.
Sometimes we fail and we have to apologize for those failures
and try to make things right. He's never failed. He's never
had to apologize. He's never lived up to his, he's
never not lived up to his name. He's got a perfect reputation. He's a name that you can trust. Take everything to him, everything. And then David says, notice in
verse 1, he says, judge me by thy strength. How am I going
to be saved? Only if God judges me by my strength. Do you want to be judged by anything
that you've done? Anything. Only a believer is
going to shake their head no to that question. The unbeliever
is going to say, well, you know, I've done some good things. I've
done some good things. You know, there was times when
I've really been sincere in my prayers and God judged me by
that. I'll be okay. No, you won't.
You'll go to hell for it. You'll go to hell for the most
sincere prayer that you've ever prayed. When God gave Moses, the instruments
of worship, he told Aaron that you've got to put on your miter
holiness to the Lord for Aaron, who was the priest and a picture
of Christ, had to go in and bear the iniquity of the holy things. Now you and I are here today
worshiping God. This is a holy thing. And yet
in every one of our hearts, in every one of our hearts, there's
iniquity. And you and I are in need of
the Lord Jesus Christ to bear the iniquity of our holy things
in order for them to be acceptable to God. You don't want God to
judge you by anything you've done, by anything you are. David said, save me. When do
I need to be saved? I need to be saved right now.
How am I going to be saved? Save me by thy name and save
me by thy strength. I have no strength. I have no
ability to save myself. Man at his very best state is
altogether vanity. The best thing that you and I
have ever done is sinful in the sight of a holy God. Save me
by thy strength. The Lord Jesus Christ is called
the strong right arm of God. He's the one who came in the
power of the spirit of God in order to bear on in his body
he bore in his on his shoulders the full weight of all the sins
of all of God's people David said save me by that I can't
bear one of my sins but he bore all my sins and all the sins
of all of God's people he's the strong man he's the strong man
save me by his strength you and I have no strength We
looked Wednesday night at Psalm 53. Psalm 53 is almost, except
for one slight variation in verse 5 I think, identical to Psalm
14. And it's also the psalm that
Paul quoted from in Romans chapter 3 when he's making this declaration
of our sinfulness before God. Why would God put the same psalm
in the scriptures twice? and then quote it in the New
Testament because what's being said in Psalm 53 is so important
and it's something that the unbeliever doesn't believe. They don't believe
it. Look at Psalm 53. The fool has said in his heart, no
God. Peter was being foolish when
he didn't listen to what the Lord said, didn't he? He said,
not me. The fool has said in his heart, no God. Corrupt are
they and they have done abominable iniquity. This is what Paul quotes
this Psalm in Romans chapter 3 because in Romans chapter 1
he's exposing the sins of the Gentiles and then the Jews are
are agreeing with Paul. Amen, Paul, give it to those
sinful Gentiles. And then he starts out in chapter
2 of Romans, he said, you that judge another, do in the very
same things. Don't you know that whether you're
religious and moral and outwardly respectable or whether you're
the opposite of that, indulging yourselves in all the pleasures
of this world, that you have nothing but sin? God looked down from heaven upon
the children of men to see if there were any that did understand
and that did seek God. In Genesis chapter 6 the scripture
says that God looked down from heaven and looked into the hearts
of man and he saw that every imagination of the thoughts of
their hearts were only evil and that continually. Now that's
God's estimation. When we call someone good, we're
just comparing one person to another or comparing, you know,
we say having a good name, that's important to have a good name. But the Lord Jesus Christ said,
why callest thou me good? There's none good but God. And
here the Lord says, there's none that doeth good, none that doeth
good, not according to God's standards of goodness. So when David prays to be saved, And that's why you don't pray
any other prayer. Pray this prayer. Pray this prayer. And if God's pleased to save
you, you'll be praying other things too, won't you? But, oh,
pray it often. Pray it daily. Lord, save me. I can't live off of yesterday.
I need to be saved right now. I can't rely upon anything in
the future and I need to be saved by thy name for thy reputation
is perfect and I need to be saved by thy strength for I have no
strength. I have no strength to bear the
iniquity of my sin. David said in Psalm 27, the Lord
is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear the Lord is
the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid. If God be
for you, who can be against you? Lord, you're my only strength. You're the only one that can
bear my sin. You're the only one who had the
strength of faith and the strength of commitment to present yourself
before God and be pleasing in his sight. Lord, save me by thy
name and save me by thy strength. So there's the answer to the
second question. When are we to be saved? Right now. How are we
to be saved? By His name and by His strength.
And what do we need to be saved from? Saved from what? Well, first and foremost, you
need to be saved from hell. The unbeliever does not believe
themselves to be held deserving. They don't. They believe that God's going
to take everything into consideration and only people who go to hell
are the really, really bad people and I'm the least above average
and the child of God knows, Lord, you've got to save me from hell.
You've got to save me from the wrath that is to come. You've
got to save me from the penalty of sin. The best thing that I've
ever done in my life is hell deserving. And if, Lord, if you
don't save me, I'm, I'm, you save me, Jeremiah said, I'll
be saved. But if you don't save me, I will go to hell and I'll
deserve it. I will deserve it. So that's
the first thing we need to be saved from. I was talking to
my neighbor some time ago and he, he mocked what I do. And he said, he said, well, you're
out to save the world. And I thought, oh, you have no
understanding of your need to be saved. No understanding. Look, get back with me to Psalm
53 again. There's a verse here that I want
you to see, verse 5. Psalm 53, verse 5. There were they in great
fear where no fear was. What does that mean? He's talking about, you read
this whole psalm, he's talking about the judgment of God. God
scatters their bones. God pours out His wrath on the
unbeliever and now, now for the first time in their life, now
they have a fear of God. There is great fear when the
wrath of God is poured out on the unbeliever where there was
no fear. They have no fear of God. Why
should I fear God? God wouldn't send somebody like
me to hell. God loves everybody, right? God's just a doting grandfather. He's going to overlook all my
failures and He's going to take into consideration the good things
that I've done. No, He's not. No, he's not. This is what we
have to be saved from. And we're only going to be saved
by his name. He's the only one with a perfect reputation and
only by his strength. We need to be saved from ourselves,
don't we? And only the child of God understands
this. Oh, Lord, I can't get out of
my own way. I'm my own worst enemy. Lord, save me. I know more about my sinful desires
than anybody else's. And you know more about your
sinful desires than anybody else's. And you know that you need to
be saved. If God takes his hand off of you, there's nothing you
won't do. Lord, save me from myself. Don't let me have my
way. Thy will be done on earth even
as it is in heaven. Isn't that what the Lord taught
us to pray? Lord, I need your will to be done, not my will. I will all the wrong things.
Lord, I need to be saved from myself. Restrain my flesh. Lead
me not into temptation. I'm so full of unbelief and that's
the cause of all my sin. Lord, save me from my unbelief
that's easily besetting sin that's ever with me and my sin that's
ever before me. Save me. Save me from sin, not
just the penalty of sin, but the consequences of sin. You
know what? The whole world, you know, you
go to a therapist, the therapist will tell you, well, you know,
it wasn't really your fault. and, you know, I'm okay, you're okay,
and they'll massage your ego and tell you, you know, how wonderful
things are and try to... They're lying to you. The reason
why people feel guilty, the reason why people are ashamed, the reason
why they're filled with guilt and fear is because of sin. It's
because of sin. And sin is what causes all those
bad feelings in your life and in my life. Lord, I need to be saved from
this. And you're the only one that can do it. Therapy's not going to do it.
Psychotropic drugs are not going to do it. The Lord's the counselor. He's the only one that can do
it. The only one. Lord, I need to be saved from
all these feelings that I bring into my life as a result of my
sin. They're debilitating. My sin
is ever before me. Wash me thoroughly from my sin.
Cleanse me from my iniquity. And I need to be saved from Satan.
He really is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And he really
is the accuser of the brethren. And I have no power against him.
But brethren, here's the good news. He has no power against
God. None. The devil's God's devil. And he will control him and use
him and limit him. He's got him on a leash. Lord, save me. You think Daniel
was praying in that den that night? All night with lions walking
around. Save me, Lord. Save me. I bet he prayed that prayer a
thousand times that night. He's the prince of the power
of the air. He's got great power. You can't resist him and I can't
resist him. Lord, save me. The Lord said to Peter, Peter,
Satan has asked to sift thee. like wheat. But I've prayed for
you. Be of good cheer. When you're
converted, teach the brethren. Encourage them. From your experience
of falling, you'll have more compassion and more ability to
encourage the brethren because of your own failures. Isn't that
the way it is? That's why I like being around
God's people. They're not pretentious. They're
not acting Self-righteous are trying to be holier than thou.
They know what they are. They're not looking down their
self-righteous nose at anybody else. Save me now. Save me by thy name and judge
me by thy strength. and save me from the wrath that
is to come. Save me from my sin. Save me
from myself. Save me from Satan. Lord, save
me. Save me. I've got to be saved. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we're thankful that you've given our brother David these words
to speak and to record in thy word. And oh Lord, how we pray
that your Holy Spirit would burn them into our hearts. We ask
it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 318, let's stand together.
318. I need thee every hour, most
gracious Lord. No tender voice like thine can
peace afford. I need Thee, O I need Thee, Every
hour I need Thee, O bless me now, my Savior, I come to Thee. I need Thee every hour, stay
Thou nearby. Temptations lose their power
when Thou art nigh. I need Thee, O I need Thee, every
hour I need Thee, O bless me. I come to Thee. I need Thee every hour in joy
or pain. Come quickly and abide or life
is vain. I need Thee, O I need Thee, every
hour I need Thee. O bless me now, my Savior, I
come to Thee. I need Thee every hour, Most
Holy One, O make me Thine indeed, Thou blessed Son. I need Thee, oh, I need Thee. Every hour I need Thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee. Thank you.