Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 452, My Savior's Love, 452. Let's
all stand together. I stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how he could love me, a sinner
condemned unclean. How marvelous, how wonderful,
and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful
is my Savior's love for me. For me it was in the garden He
prayed not my will but thine He had no tears for his own griefs
But sweat drops of blood for mine How marvelous, how wonderful,
and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful
is my Savior's love for me. In pity angels beheld him and
came from the world of light. To comfort him in the sorrows
he bore for my soul that night. How marvelous, how wonderful,
and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful
is my Savior's love for me. He took my sins and my sorrows,
he made them his very own. He bore the burden to Calvary,
and suffered and died alone. How marvelous, how wonderful,
and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful
is my Savior's love for me. When with the ransomed in glory
His face I at last shall see, T'will be my joy through the
ages To sing of His love for me. How marvellous, how wonderful,
and my song shall ever be. How marvellous, how wonderful
is my Saviour's love for me. Please be seated. Herein is love. Not that we love God, but that
He loved us and gave His Son a propitiation for our sins.
Oh, how marvelous. How wonderful. Will you open
your Bibles with me to Psalm 30, please? Psalm 30. Jared and Lawrence,
good to have you all here. I will extol Thee, O Lord, for
Thou hast lifted me up and hast not made my foes to rejoice over
me. O Lord, my God, I cried unto
Thee. Thou hast healed me. O Lord,
Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave. Thou hast kept
me alive. I should not go down to the pit. No fear of death, no fear of
judgment. All the wrath of God is satisfied
in the sacrifice that Christ made of himself on Calvary's
cross. Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks
at the remembrance of his holiness. For his anger endureth but a
moment. All the fury of God's anger lasted
but a few hours. and was quenched, was satisfied. And in his favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night,
but joy cometh in the morning. Now this whole life that we have
here in this world, we're living in the night, aren't we? A lot
of weeping, a lot of sorrow, a lot of trials and troubles.
Oh, but for that morning, what joy, what joy we're going to
have that everlasting morning. And in my prosperity, I said,
I shall never be moved. Lord, by thy favor, thou hast
made my mountain to stand strong. Thou didst hide thy face and
I was troubled. I cried to thee, O Lord, and
unto the Lord I made supplication. What profit is there in my blood
when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise the Lord?
Shall it declare thy truth? Hear, O Lord, and have mercy
upon me. Lord, be thou my helper." As glorious and critical as was
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross, it would
have been of no value had there not been the resurrection. If
there's no resurrection, we're of all men most miserable. The
Lord Jesus Christ died and shed his blood and God didn't reward
him with the resurrection. That's what David's talking about
here. What value is my blood? If I go down in the pit and don't
come out, Verse 11, thou has turned for
me my mourning into dancing. Thou has put off my sackcloth
and girded me with gladness. To the end that my glory may
sing praise to thee and not be silent. Oh Lord, my God, I will
give thanks unto thee forever, forever. I want us to pray together and
remember Cindy Toll's sons, John and Brandon. Their father was
59 years old. He passed away today, suddenly. And they are grieving the loss
of their dad. So let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father. What great hope and joy you've
put in our hearts and knowing that there's a day. When the
sun is going to rise and never to set again. Lord, we ask that
during these days of trial and darkness during this time of
trouble. That you would enable us to set
our affections on things above, not on things of the Earth. Pray
for your comfort and for your peace and for the hope of salvation
that comes in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, we pray for John
and Brandon and ask Lord that you would be merciful to them.
Pray that you would use this time to speak to them. We pray
for Tom and Cindy and ask Lord you'd give them wisdom and grace
to know what to say. Lord, we know that you do all
things well. And we know that it is appointed
unto man wants to die. Lord, we we ask that you would. Use every experience of death
that we have in this life to remind us. Of our own mortality
and the brevity of this world. We ask it in Christ name. Amen. Let's all stand together once
again, we'll sing hymn number 11 from the gospel hymn spiral
hymn book, number 11. With broken heart and contrite
sigh, a trembling sinner, Lord, I cry. Thy parting grace is rich
and free. O God, be merciful to me. ? I smite upon my troubled breast
? ? With deep and conscious guilt oppressed ? ? Christ and his
cross my only plea ? ? O God be merciful to me ? No works
nor deeds that I have done can for a single sin atone. To Christ the Lord alone I flee. O God, be merciful to me. And when redeemed from sin and
hell, With all the ransomed throng I dwell, My raptured song shall
ever be, God has been merciful to me. Please be seated. We open your Bibles again to
the Psalms, number 29, Psalm 29. And then also find, if you will,
please, the first chapter of Hebrews, Psalm 29 and Hebrews
chapter one. I've titled this message, When
God Speaks. When God speaks, oh, I want Him
to speak. I want to hear His voice, don't
you? I want to know what God has to say. And when He speaks,
how is it that God speaks? This psalm is all about God speaking
to His people. The first question I have to
ask is, by what means does God speak? You know the answer to
that, don't you? Look at Hebrews chapter 1. God,
who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto
the fathers by the prophets. God speaks by his word, doesn't
he? He speaks by the written word, those things that he gave
the penman of scriptures to write down about himself. And so we preach the word, don't
we? In season and out of season. We believe this book is the word
of God. God, who in times past spake. He spake to our fathers by the
prophets. half in these last days. And when God speaks of the last
days, he's speaking of that entire period of time between the first
and second coming of Christ. And every generation of God's
people have been hopeful that they lived in the end of the
last days. And as we are, we are. Well, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful
that that eastern sky is going to split, that the trump of God's
going to sound, that the dead in Christ are going to be raised,
and those of us which are alive will be caught up together with
them in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Oh,
that could happen any moment, any day. What a blessed day that's
going to be. And every child of God has lived
in hopeful expectation of that moment in time. when the Lord
returns in the same manner in which he left. So in these last days, he has
spoken unto us by his son. All the prophecies of God are
fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when we preach God's word,
we preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we're not talking
about him, we're not preaching the word of God. The gospel concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all about him, isn't it?
And so he's the one, he's the one that interprets the word
of God for us. When he speaks, he said, he said,
all ye that labor in a heavy laden, come unto me, come unto
me and learn of me. He's the, he's the teacher and
he's the subject, isn't he? Now, it'd be pretty boring to
stand in front of some man who spends all of his time talking
about himself, wouldn't it? And yet, just the opposite is
true when we stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and he talks
about himself. Oh, Lord, tell me more, tell
me more. Tell me more about who you are. You're my life. You're my hope. You're the only
light I have. I want you to talk to me about
yourself. and that's what he does. In these
last days he has spoken unto us by his Son. The Word of God, the Logos, the
very expression of who God is was made flesh and he dwelt among
us and we beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace. Light came into the world but
men love darkness rather than light. They couldn't hear the
voice of God. It's like those men that were
with Saul of Tarsus when the Lord Jesus Christ spoke from
heaven and said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And
the scripture says that the men that were with him heard a voice.
They heard a sound, but they saw no man. They didn't know
what it was. And that's the way it is with
the unbeliever. But when God speaks, He speaks
to his people and he speaks to his people through his word and
by the Lord Jesus Christ. He hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his son whom he hath appointed heir of all things
by whom also he made the worlds. Everything has been given unto
the Lord Jesus Christ. He has preeminence over all things. everything's under his feet and
he made everything who be the brightness of his glory Paul
said in the book of Colossians that he's the fullness of the
Godhead bodily everything we're ever gonna know about God when
God speaks he speaks about his son when God speaks he his son
speaks the Lord said when the comforter comes and that's That's
the means by which the Lord's going to speak to us by the Holy
Spirit. He's not gonna call attention
to himself. He's gonna speak of me. He's gonna lead you to
Christ. So when God speaks, the Lord
Jesus Christ is center. He gets all the attention. He
gets all the glory. He gets all the preeminence.
We know when God speaks, when we're able to see Christ. Christ the Lord Jesus Christ,
verse three, be in the brightness of his glory and the express
image of his person. The express image. Upholdeth
all things by the word of his power. When he had by himself
purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty
on high. We know when God speaks because
we see. We see the successful work of
the Lord Jesus Christ having put away our sins, having purged
them, having covered them with his precious blood and having
been received back into glory, he's seated at the right hand
of God and he ever lives to make intercession for us. When God
speaks, he speaks through the prophets of Christ and we see
what he's done and where he is. We just know it. Being made so much better than
the angels, he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name
than they. He's received by inheritance. A name, a name has been given
him above every name. He did not consider it to be
robbery to be with God, but made of himself of no reputation.
and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,
whereby God has given him a name that is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess."
Oh, what a name. God speaks. He speaks by His
Spirit through His Word about His Son. Has God spoken to you? Has He? Have you seen the success of
his work? He purged by himself. You see something about who he
is, the brightness of his glory, the fullness of his image. You've
seen the success of his labors on Calvary's cross, purging our
sins by himself once and for all. See Him received back into
glory, seated at the right hand of God, making intercession on
behalf of His people. Our forerunner has gone before
us into glory. God speaks. That's how He speaks. And when God speaks like that,
everything else is well. You know, we want God to speak
to us about our future and about our circumstances and about our
events, but the truth is we can't be sure about any of that. The Lord hasn't made it, the
Lord hasn't given us a definite word about what our lives are
going to be like in this world. We don't know what our circumstances
are going to be. But when God does speak about
our life in Christ, all our circumstances are well. They're just well. We know that He's done all things
well. We know that He works all things together for His glory
and for our good. God speak to me. You know, there
are people that think, well, God speaks by intuition, or God
speaks in dreams, or by some self-professed prophet, or there's
a whole lot of people in this world that believe that God spoke
through Mohammed. You know, people are looking
at all sorts of means for God to speak. Signs and wonders. So when God speaks, He speaks
by His Spirit through His Word about His Son. And He gives His
people hope. Now who does God speak to? Go
with me to our text now in Psalm 29. To whom does God speak? Now, the word Ben, B-E-N, translated
in the Hebrew language means son. So that the word Benjamin
means the son of my right hand. The word Reuben translated means
behold, a son. And the word Ben-Hadad, the name
Ben-Hadad means the son of Hadad. So Ben translated means son. Now I just tell you that because
in this first verse of Psalm 29, the words that are translated,
oh ye mighty, In the Hebrew, I don't know why the translators
put that in there, but in the Hebrew, it's the word ben. The point is that God doesn't
speak to those who are mighty in themselves. God speaks to
the sons of the mighty one. That's the literal translation
here. Give unto the Lord Oh ye sons of the mighty one. They're the only ones God speaks
to. God's not speaking to, you know, God's not running around
trying to get people who don't want to hear Him to hear Him.
My sheep hear my voice. Turn with me to John chapter
10. You know, this idea that God's running around, trying to get
men to give him his attention? No. No. Give unto the Lord, O
ye sons of the Mighty One, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Look at John chapter 10 at verse
26. But you believe not, because
you are not My sheep. As I said unto you, My sheep
hear My voice, and I know them. and they follow me. You cannot hear my voice because
you're not my sheep. God's not going around crying
to people. When God speaks, the sons of
God hear. Now, here's the comfort of that,
brethren. We would be wrong to think that
the assurance of salvation comes by looking at how we live or
looking at what we've done or looking to a decision. That's
just the way works religion gets its assurance. It gets its assurance
based on something that we've done. Here's the assurance of
salvation. hearing the voice of God and
believing what he has said. That's the assurance of salvation.
When that Ethiopian eunuch said to Philip, he said, does the
prophet speak of himself or is he speaking of another? And beginning
right there in Isaiah 53, Philip preached unto him Jesus. And
he listened and he heard the voice of God and he believed.
And he said, what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip
said, if thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe everything
you just told me. I believe I heard from God when
you were preaching to me the gospel. And I believe it. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. Faith is the evidence of things
not seen. Sometimes I tried to make a point
of this when a Sunday morning, but sometimes the Lord's table
is referred to as a means of grace or the preaching of the
gospel is referred to as a means of grace. There's only one means
of grace. There's only one faith for by
grace. Are you saved through faith? Not of yourselves. If we make
anything else a means of grace, we end up with a works gospel. If we end up with something we
do as a means of grace, we end up with a works gospel. Faith
is the work of the Spirit of God in the heart that enables
us to believe God. How do I know I'm saved? Because
I believe God. I believe what He said. I've heard Him. You
say, have you heard Him audibly? No, it's a lot louder now, a
lot louder now. We're going to get to that in
just a moment. But here's the evidence. Now, am I suggesting
that preaching and the fellowship of the saints and prayer and
God's Word are not important? Oh, they're very important. But
they're not means to grace. They are means to faith. There's
a difference. There's a difference. These are
the means by which God gives us faith. He strengthens our
faith through our fellowship, doesn't He? He gives us faith
by hearing His Word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the Word of God. And when we read God's Word,
we're encouraged and our faith grows. These are means of faith. Faith is the only means to grace. If we make those means of faith
a means of grace, we'll end up with the works gospel. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
the hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. God
only speaks to his children, and he speaks to every one of
them. Psalm 29 is about the voice of God being spoken to the people
of God, about the son of God, through the word of God, by the
spirit of God. Give unto the Lord. How do I
know if I've heard him? How do I know if I've heard the
voice of God? Well, because I give unto the
Lord all glory and all strength. He gets all the credit. He did
it all. And he did it all by himself.
And we're not, if we deny that God predestined a people
according to his own will and purpose. If we deny election,
we haven't heard the voice of God. If we think that the Lord Jesus
Christ made an offer of salvation, which is made effectual by something
we do or decision we made, we haven't heard the voice of God.
Why? Because we're robbing from Christ,
his glory and salvation and taking some credit to ourselves. The
sons of the mighty one, when they hear the voice of God, give
unto him all glory. God has made him to be for us
all our wisdom, all our righteousness, all our sanctification, and all
our redemption. As it is written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. We know that we've heard the
voice of God. when we acknowledge Him as getting
all the glory, all the credit, all the fame, and all the praise
for all of salvation. We say with Jonah, salvation
is of the Lord. It's all of Him. Those people who robbed Christ
of His glory and salvation simply have not heard the voice of God. They've been taught by man, but
they haven't heard from God. Not only do we give him glory,
but we give him strength. Give him strength. In that while
we were yet without strength. The Lord didn't say when you
were of little strength. When you were doing your best,
you were taking your last breath. You were, no, when we were yet
without strength, we had no strength. Christ died for the ungodly.
He gets all the strength, doesn't he? And he still does. As we
grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ, Lord, I'm not going
to be able to believe you if you don't give me the strength
to believe you. I can't make myself alive if you don't give
me life. Lord, if you don't give me the
strength to resist temptation, Lord, I'll fall into it. If you
don't deliver me from the evil one, he'll take over my life
because I don't have the strength to resist him. I don't have the strength to
resist him. How do I know I've heard the
voice of God? Because I believe that I have no ability whatsoever
to save myself or to keep myself saved. I'm completely dependent
upon his strength. and he gets all the glory. I've
got no strength. Give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name. Now we're answering the question,
how do I know if I've heard the voice of God? I don't speak his name in vain.
And I've told you all before, the first 20 years of my life,
I grew up a sailor. I was a sailor. I cursed like
a sailor. I didn't think of anything about
it. I didn't think anything about using the Lord's name in vain.
It's just the way we talked. Just the way we talked. It's
the way it was. And then I had a religious experience
around 20 years old. And for the next 20 years, I
used the Lord's name in vain worse than I did the first 20
years. I spoke of Jesus Christ, the
Lord, the Son of God, and I told lies about him. I didn't believe that he was
Jesus. You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His
people from their sins." I didn't believe that He was the Christ,
the Anointed One, the Messiah, the one sent of God in the full
power of the Spirit of God to accomplish all the purpose for
which God sent Him, the salvation of His people. I didn't believe
that. I used His name in vain. I took His name as my name. Be like a, you know, there's
a lot of identity theft going on right now, isn't there? A
woman takes, Robert takes your name, and reports herself to
be your wife, and gets into your bank account, and she'd be using
your name in vain. And that's what I did. I called
myself the bride of Christ, and I didn't know the Lord Jesus
Christ. We give glory unto His name. oh his name is Jehovah
the glorious self-existent I am the one who is dependent upon
nobody or no thing for anything he holds all things by the power
of his own word and we're dependent upon him for everything everything
We've heard His voice when we know something about what His
name means and we give glory to His name. We don't speak His
name in vain. We speak it in reverence and
in worship, believing that He is the Christ. Here's the assurance of salvation,
isn't it? Oh, if you look to yourself to
try to get assurance of salvation, you're not going to have assurance. You have everything but assurance. Worship the Lord. Look at verse
2. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Now, you know the
word holy and the word sanctified means the same thing. Well, the
word holiness and sanctuary means the same thing. It means that
which has been set apart. And here the The meaning of this
is to worship God in the beauty of His sanctuary. Now, everything about that sanctuary
in the Old Testament pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ, everything
about it. The single door, the holies of
holies, the labors, the fire, the sacrifices, the mercy seat,
the Ark of the Covenant, everything in there, the badger skin, the
gold rings, everything had to do with the person and work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And you remember when the Queen
of Sheba came up to visit with Solomon and she observed his
going up into the sanctuary and she saw his servants and she
saw the wisdom that he had and she said, half has not been told
me. she said I didn't believe what
I was told about you back in Sheba I had to come see for myself
but now that I've seen it I realize that they didn't tell me half
of it oh how beautiful how excellent you are Solomon there we have
there's Christ we worship him in the beauty of his sanctuary verse 3 And the beauty of his name, he's the lion of the tribe of
Judah, isn't he? He's the only one able to unloose
the seals and open the book and fulfill the purpose of God. The voice, I love verse 3, the
voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the voice of God thundereth,
the Lord is upon many waters, the voice of the Lord is powerful.
The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. How do I know if I've heard God's
voice? There's a lot of voices in this world. I mean, the politicians
are saying one thing, the educators are saying another thing, the
philosophers are saying another thing, the religious leaders
are saying another thing. Everybody's got their opinion,
don't they? How do I know if I've heard God's voice? Do you not sometimes feel like
the only sane person in an insane asylum? I mean, you listen to these other
voices and you think, where are you coming from? There's no truth
to what you're saying. You know you've heard the voice
of God. Yes, it is a still small voice. But it's so loud. that it drowns out every other
voice. The picture that David's giving
here is a man standing. I've never been to Niagara Falls,
but I understand it's the largest fall in the world. More water
goes over that fall than any other falls. And I suspect that
standing there on that little platform, I've seen pictures,
you would not be able to carry on a conversation with somebody.
If you've been there, I'm sure you can testify to that. Why? Because it's so loud. The voice of the Lord is upon
many waters. The God of glory thundereth upon
many waters. He drowns out every other voice. You hear the voices of other
men, but you, but you, you, the voice of God is so loud. Somebody said, you know, you're
suggesting God speaks audibly. Oh no, it's a lot louder than
that. It's a lot louder than that.
When God speaks, it puts all other voices to shame and to
quiet. And you realize this is the truth.
This is the truth. This is the only voice I need
to hear. I don't need to be listening to all these other voices. Have you heard God's voice? Has his voice Drowned it out the noise of all
other voices Does it does the foolishness of this world become
so? So clear to you when you hear
That's what Paul was talking about in first Corinthians was
he when he said when he said that God has made foolish the
wisdom of this world when men by wisdom Knew not God God through
the foolishness of preaching now. I know they call what we
believe foolish and We know what they believe is foolish Can't both be right, can we? God has made foolish the wisdom
of this world. The voice of the Lord is powerful. Now what that means is it's irresistible.
I can't not believe God. When God speaks, I am bound to
believe it. It's so clear to me. I've been
taught of God. The Lord said, they shall all
be taught of me. They'll all be taught of God.
When God teaches you something, nobody can teach you out of it.
When God says it, it's just so convincing. It's convincing,
isn't it? It's powerful. When the Lord spoke to Matthew, Matthew just immediately got
up, walked away from a lucrative business. Matthew, follow me. You know what we just read in
John chapter 10? My sheep hear my voice and my voice is so powerful
they just get up. I'm going to make them willing
in the day of my power. Now what David said in the Psalms,
I'm going to make them willing. I'm going to cause them to come.
they're gonna be, they're gonna come. When I speak, God's people,
the only people that God's speaking to, His sons, His bins, are the
only people He's speaking to. And when He speaks to them, they
hear His voice and they follow Him. They believe everything He said.
Saul of Tarsus certainly believed everything God said, didn't he?
And then later when he was writing, he said, when it pleased God
who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace. That's when it happens. In God's
time, just like it is appointed unto all men once to die and
after that the judgment, it is appointed unto all of God's elect
to hear the gospel at a moment in time and they will hear. And
once they hear, they can't unhear it. They can't unhear it. John said, they went away from
us because they were never of us. For had they been of us,
they would have remained. When God gives you ears to hear,
you can't unhear. And he gets more glory and you
get more weak and more dependent upon him. Look at verse five,
the voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars. Now these cedars
of Lebanon were majestic trees. Perhaps you've seen pictures
of them. There's not near as many as there were, as I understand
back in Solomon's day and in David's day, it was a forest
of them. But the ones that remain are pretty impressive. And one
place they're called the plantings of the Lord. But they're a picture
of God's people. This is the trees of righteousness
which the Lord has planted. And now what's He say? He breaks
the cedars of Lebanon. Oh, and He does, doesn't He?
He breaks our will. He breaks us down. He causes
us to... He changes our swords into plowshares. There was a time when we spoke
blasphemy about God, when we spoke proudly about ourselves. That's the sword. And now what's
that sword become? That sword is beaten into a plow
share. Now we're just interested in
plowing the ground and planting the seeds. Lord, use our words
to that end. He breaks the cedars of Lebanon. Turn with me quickly to Isaiah
chapter two. Isaiah chapter two. Look at verse 12. For the day of the Lord of hosts
shall be upon everyone that is proud and lofty, upon everyone
that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low. And upon all the cedars of Lebanon,
that are high and lifted up and upon all the oaks of basin and
upon all the high mountains, upon all the hills that are lifted
up and every high tower and upon every fenced wall and upon all
the ships of Tarshish and upon the pleasant pictures." Those
are the desired images. Those are the idols. and the
loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of
men shall be made low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in
that day." I'm going to break the cedars
of Lebanon. I'm going to stop their blasphemous,
proud, self-righteous speech. I'm going to cause them to be
brought low. And that's what we are, aren't
we? In your heart, Christ cannot
be preached high enough, can he? And you cannot be preached
low enough, can you? Now, I know we're full of pride
and self-righteousness. I know that. One thing for sure,
a person who thinks that they're humble or not, That's the paradox, isn't it?
The ones that are truly humble believe themselves to be proud.
But here's what the Lord says, when I speak, when I speak, I'm
gonna put them in their place. And we're glad he does, don't
we? Lord, keep speaking. Keep putting me in my place. Knock me off my high horse. Make
me low that Christ might be all and in all. Look at verse 6 quickly. He maketh them also skip like
a calf. Not only does he put us low,
but he causes us to rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Let
your gentleness be known unto all men. Why? Because the Lord's
at hand. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious
for nothing, but in all things by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving, let your requests be known unto God and the peace
of God that passes understanding will keep your heart and your
mind in Christ Jesus. Isn't that true? You skip like
a calf. Oh yeah, those cedars are gonna
be broken, but when they're broken, they're gonna be glad. They're
going to rejoice. They're gonna have something
to rejoice in. They're gonna have someone to
rejoice in. What hope? What comfort? The forgiveness of sin? Is there
anything better than that? I got a text this morning from
a brother in another church and just checking on me, just said,
just how you doing? You know, we love you guys. And,
And I wrote him back, I said, oh, the love of Christ that binds
our hearts together really is nothing else in this world like
it is there. He said, no, there's not. There's
not. Nothing else. We rejoice. We skip like a calf. That's how I know if I've heard
God's voice, I've got something to rejoice about. Verse 7, the voice of the Lord
Divideth. Now that word means to discern
or to separate. It divideth the flames of fire. There's two flames of fire. There's
the fiery wrath of God that fell on the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's
cross. Like on Mount Carmel, he was
that sacrifice that the fire fell on and the fire consumed
the sacrifice, but then the sacrifice consumed the fire, didn't it?
Sacrifice consumed the fire. That's, you see, we do. And then what's the second fire?
That's that lake of fire, isn't it? The second death. God's justice
is gonna be satisfied. It's either gonna be satisfied
in his son or it will go I say, it's going to be sad. It'll go
unsatisfied. That's why I said, and that's why hell's eternal
because God's justice is never satisfied in hell. But those
are the two fires. And when God speaks, he divides
the flames of fire so that we look at the fiery wrath that
fell upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And it delivers us from the fear
of death. There is now therefore no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh
but after the spirit. The spirit of God has spoken
and he has divided the fires. The voice of the Lord shaketh
the wilderness and there's a lot to be said about that. You can
look at Hebrews chapter 12 to see what God has shaken and what
God has not shaken. But the voice of God shakes everything
that can be shaken and it remains, it holds that which cannot be
shaken. The voice of the Lord make it the hinds to calf. It's
the voice of God that gives the new birth. There's no salvation
of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. The voice
of God is what brings about the new birth. You've got to be born
from above Nicodemus. You've got to be born of God.
You got to be born of the spirit. You got to be born again. It's
the voice of God that does that. He discovered the forest and
his temple and in his temple doth everyone speak of his glory. How do I know if I've heard the
voice of God? As I'm among a bunch of people who just talk about
the glory of Christ. speak of His glory, rejoice in
His accomplished work and in His glorious person. The Lord
sitteth upon the flood, like that ark. That ark sat on the
flood, didn't it? Everybody else died in the flood,
but those that were in the ark, those that were in Christ sat
upon the flood. Yea, the Lord sitteth King forever,
the Lord will give strength unto his people. The Lord will bless
his people with peace. The voice of the Lord. God speak, all speak to our hearts. Our heavenly father, we're so
thankful that you have spoken and so hopeful that you will
continue. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Number 326, let's stand together. More about Jesus would I know. More of His grace to others show. More of His saving fullness see. More of His love who died for
me. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus, more
of His saving fullness see, more of His love who died for me. More about Jesus let me learn,
more of his holy will discern. Spirit of God my teacher be,
showing the things of Christ to me. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. ? More of his saving fullness
see ? More of his love who died for me ? More about Jesus in
his word ? Holy communion with my Lord ? Hearing his voice in
every line ? Making each faithful saying mine ? More, more about
Jesus More, more about Jesus, more of His saving fullness see,
more of His love who died for me. More about Jesus on his throne,
riches and glory all his own. More of his kingdom sure increase,
more of his coming Prince of Peace. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus, more
of His saving fullness see, more of His love who died for me. Yeah.