Thank you, Joy. Good evening,
everyone. Let's open this evening's service
with hymn number 38 from your Spiral Gospel Hymn book, The
Debt of Love. Let's all stand together, number
38. Come, every sinner saved by grace,
you who by faith God's Son embrace. Tell all who hear your voice
below the debt of love to Christ you owe. Dear Lord, I lift my
praise to Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. He left his father's throne above
and came to earth on wings of love. For us he lived, the perfect
man, and so fulfilled the law's demand. Dear Lord, I lift my
praise to Thee All that I am or hope to be I owe alone, O
Christ, to Thee Jesus endured his father's ire and died at
the appointed hour. What he endured, no tongue can
tell, to save our souls from death and hell. Dear Lord, I
lift my praise to Thee, All that I am, for hope to be, I hope
alone, O Christ, to Thee. From death's dark grave our King
arose, and triumphed over all our foes. Up through the skies
the victor rode, and reigns on high our Savior God. Dear Lord, I lift my praise to
Thee, All that I am, or hope to be, I hold alone, O Christ,
to Thee. From heaven Christ will quickly
come, And bring His ransomed people home. There we shall see
His lovely face, And chant the praises of His grace. ? Dear Lord, I lift my praise
to Thee ? ? All that I am or hope to be ? ? I owe alone, O
Christ, to Thee ? Please be seated. How did Paul put it? I am what
I am by the grace of God. That's what that hymn that we
just sang was saying. thankful for his grace. Open your Bibles with me please
to Psalm 13. Psalm 13 and made a slight adjustment on our
schedule for the conference seeing how it'd be difficult for everybody
to try to figure out what to do all day Saturday and come
back Saturday night and so many people from so far away We're
going to have lunch here on Saturday and have an afternoon service
at 2 o'clock. And so we'll be finished around
4 and then we'll have all Saturday evening to spend with our guests
and be back on Sunday. All right? There's a sign-up
sheet in the back for things that we need for lunch on Saturday.
All right. Psalm 13, a Psalm of David. How long wilt
thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt thou hide
thy face from me? You know that's exactly what
the Lord was feeling on the cross when he cried, my God, my God,
why'st thou forsaken me? How long shall I take counsel
in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall
my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord
my God. Light mine eyes, lest I sleep
the sleep of death. Lest my enemy say I prevailed
against him, and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. I have trusted in thy mercy.
My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. What's the Lord saying about
God's salvation was in the covenant of grace. The Lord was rejoicing
in knowing that the father was going to be faithful in keeping
his promises in that covenant. I will sing unto the Lord. because
he hath dealt bountifully with me. Let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly father,
we approach you as humbly as we're
abled by your grace, knowing that We have no right in and
of ourselves to come into thy holy presence. But oh, what great
hope, what great confidence, what great boldness you've given
to the hearts of your people in knowing that we have an advocate,
Jesus Christ, the righteous one, who has gone before us as our
forerunner, who has opened the veil, who is seated, ever living
to make intercession for us. And Father, we take comfort and
hope in knowing that we will be accepted and are accepted
in him. We ask that you would be merciful
to us tonight. We pray for your Holy Spirit
to speak truth to our hearts and to reveal to us more of thy
dear son. We pray that you would increase
our faith and ask Lord that you would forgive us for so much
unbelief that remains with us. Pray that you would. Increase
Lord our our hope and. And our confidence. As you enable
us to. To set our affections on things
above where Christ is seated at the right hand. Lord, we pray now for our meeting
coming up in just a few weeks, and we ask that you would begin
now, if I not already have, Lord, to impress upon the hearts and
minds of the pastors that are coming the messages that you
would have us to hear, and pray that you would prepare our hearts
to hear them. We pray, Lord, for our friends that we've invited
and ask, Lord, that you would move in their hearts to come,
and we know, Lord, that All that you have ordained to eternal
life will hear and will believe. We pray that you would be merciful
to our children and Lord, that you would add to your church
those that should be saved. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Let's all stand together once
again. We'll sing hymn number 352, Jesus, lover of my soul.
352 from the hardback hymnal. 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. Leave, ah, leave me not alone,
still support 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 sin. Let the healing streams
abound, Make and keep me pure within. Thou of life, the fountain heart,
freely let me take of Thee. Spring Thou up within my heart,
rise to all eternity. Please be seated. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Psalm 12, please? Psalm 12. I've titled this message, Lord
Save. And that's the first two words
of this Psalm. I know it's translated the word
help, in the King James Bible, but it is the word, save. It is the word, save. And it's
every believer's heart's desire. God puts it on your heart to
save you. You cry out to Him, Lord, save
me. And we can remember in religion
when we thought that was just a one-time experience. We got
that settled. We've nailed it down. It's in
our past. we often recounted the experience in order to bolster
our confidence. Well, I remember when I got saved.
You remember that? We don't talk like that anymore,
do we? So we know what David meant when he said, my sin is
ever before me. As long as we're in this old
man, we're going to be crying out for the Lord to save us because
that's what he saves us from. He saves us from our sin. That's
what salvation is. And everybody prays. Everybody,
you know, everybody cries out to God in times of trouble. And
generally, most folks, when they pray, they just say, help me,
Lord. Help me in this situation. Help me in this circumstance.
Deliver me from this trouble. But only faith, only faith cries
out for the Lord to save or deliver me. That's what the word means. Deliver me from my sin. Deliver
me from the penalty of it. Deliver me from the power of
it. And oh Lord, put in my heart a longing for that day when I'll
be delivered from its very presence. Never to experience it again.
That's what David's praying. Now the context of the psalm
is David is lamenting the situation that's in Israel with rulers
that are ungodly. And particularly when Absalom takes over his father's
throne. And he's lamenting the condition
of the whole nation as a result of ungodly leaders. and we can
do that we can we can the nation of Israel is a picture of the
church and and when God when God puts on your heart to be
saved to cry out to him to save you you lament not only over
the condition of your own heart but over the condition of his
church and and and and the world in which we live but as it's As is true with all
these Psalms, the best way to understand these Psalms is to
see David's words as prophetic, the words of Christ. And that's, this is such a glorious
picture of our Lord praying for his people from the cross, placing
confidence in the Father to save us for his work of redemption. Look what he says, save Lord,
save Lord, for the godly man ceaseth. There is no godly man and if
our salvation is determined by our godliness, we have no hope
of being saved. And the Lord is is also acknowledging
the fact that this word ceaseth means to die. And so the Lord
is crying out to the father to save his church and to save him. In saving him, he saves his church
because the one and only godly man is about to die. He's going
to cease to be as he was in this world. For the godly man seeth
it, for the faithful fail from among the children of men. There is no faithfulness, not
that satisfies God's justice apart from the faithfulness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Our faithfulness fails, doesn't
it? And here, Looking at this verse
as a prayer of the believer, how much easier it is for us
to see our old man than it is to see our new man. I mean, we
just, you know, we say, Lord, save me for my godly man, my
new man, the man created in Christ Jesus is ceasing to exist in
my mind. All I see is my sin. All I see
is, Lord, I had someone tell me recently that, well, you don't
need to ask God to save you. He's already saved you. He's
already saved you in the covenant of grace. That's not my experience. I have great hope and great confidence
when God gives me the faith to look to Christ for all of my
righteousness, as all of my justification before God. But my sin is ever
before me, and I'm constantly We would not be so presumptuous
to think that, you know, we don't need to ask God to save us. The godly man sees this and the
faithfulness, Lord, I want to be faithful. I do. But I fail. I fail in my attempts
to be faithful. And that's the reason why I need
to be saved. Because my new man is, I've got
to have faith in order to see the new man. God's got to give
me eyes of faith in order to be able to see the new man. I
can see the old man with my fleshly eyes. With my natural senses,
I can see the old man. But to see the new man, the Lord's
got to give me faith. He's got to enable me to look
to the Lord Jesus Christ as my head and know that I am in him. so that when he died, I died. The life that he lived is my
life before God. The hope of my acceptance in
the presence of God is in the Lord Jesus Christ. God's got
to give me faith to be able to look back into the covenant of
grace and to believe that I was placed in Christ before the foundation
of the world and that God's never seen me outside of Christ, that
I am As we saw last Wednesday night in Isaiah 53 10, that I
am his seed. And it pleased the Lord to bruise
him and to make his soul an offering for sin when God saw his seed. In order for me to see that I'm
in Christ, God's got to give me eyes to see that. He's got
to give me faith to believe it. And that's why I'm crying out.
Lord, save me. Save me. My faithfulness fails. My new
man is so hard to see. Lord, I've got to have faith
to see. Save, Lord, save. And there's an interesting You
can look these words up. They're not difficult. But this
word help, that's translated help, it is the word save. But
it's in an interesting verb tense in that it means cause to be
saved. We're not just saying, Lord,
save me, but cause me to be saved. How am I going to be saved? Well,
he's going to have to cause faith to take place in my heart. I can't be saved unless he gives
me faith. He's got to cause that. He's
got to cause me to look to Christ. He's got to cause his justice
to be satisfied in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's
cross. He's got to cause righteousness
to be established in his sight. He's got to cause it all. Cause
me to be saved, oh Lord. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
crying out, Lord, cause me to be saved. By the covenant promises
of your faithfulness, cause me to be raised from the dead. Lord, cause yourself to be satisfied
with the sacrifice that I'm making on behalf of my people. Lord,
cause me to be saved. The godly man, the only godly
man is about to die. And the faithfulness of the children
of men, That's not gonna save anybody. See, that's the message
of religion, isn't it? If you're faithful enough, if
you're faithful enough, you're dedicated enough, you're committed
enough, you can be saved. But religion is all about commitment. That's all it's about. It's all
about man's faithfulness. And there's no salvation there.
God requires perfect faith and perfect faithfulness. And the
Lord Jesus Christ, the only one does that. The faithfulness of
the sons of men has failed. It has failed. Now he, he, Isaiah
chapter 42, shall not fail nor be discouraged. He's going to
be successful in what he came to do, the saving of his people. So our faithfulness fails, his
never fails. And when our hearts condemn us,
God is greater than our hearts. When we're unfaithful, he remaineth
faithful for he knows his own. He knows his own. There's our
hope. There's no salvation apart from
this, is there? So this is the believer's prayer understood
in the context of his two natures. And this is the Lord Jesus Christ
praying understood in the context of his work of redemption for
his church. What a glorious thing it is.
The Lord calls us to be saved. There's no promise given by God
where he promises deliver us from sickness, physical death,
trials, troubles, Paul calls them necessities, doesn't he?
We cry out to him for him to deliver us in those times And
we're hopeful that he'll be pleased to do that. But, you know, if
he doesn't, if he doesn't, he's going to heal us anyway, isn't
he? Armita is in the hospital right now. She's 93 years old. And she has pneumonia. They thought she had congestive
heart failure, but they've ruled that out. And visited with her
the last couple of days. Reynaldo told me, he said, she
doesn't want to do anything but listen to Cody preach. That's
all she wants to do all day. She doesn't want to watch TV.
She doesn't want to do anything. She just wants to listen to Cody
preach. And I said, isn't that the way
we all ought to be? You know, here's a dear sweet sister in
her twilight days, just crying out, save me, Lord, save me. It's the only thing that's going
to matter in that day, isn't it? Verse 2, they, and if we understand
this as the words of Christ, we all speak vanity. We do. Our words are so, even when we
speak the truth, we can't avoid putting ourself in it, can we?
We're always promoting ourselves. We're always trying to come out
looking good, aren't we? We've got to change everything
just a little bit to make ourselves look good. They speak vanity, everyone with
his neighbor, with flattering lips and with a double heart
do they speak. We flatter ourselves. We flatter
one another. And we are double hearted, aren't
we? Now, when James talks about being
double-minded, he's talking about mixing law and grace, works and
grace, trying to be saved with a mixture of the two. Paul said,
you remember when James said, if any man lack wisdom, let him
ask it of God, for God giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth
it not. But let him ask in faith nothing wavering, for he that
wavereth is like the wave of the sea, tossed to and fro. Let not that man think that he
shall receive anything from the Lord, for he is double-minded
in all of his ways." Now, what James is talking about is being
double-minded in that, well, I know I need grace, but I got
to do my part too. I've got to put in my contribution,
if not for the cause of my salvation, for the assurance of my salvation.
Works is not the means of being saved, neither is that the means
of getting assurance of salvation. Faith is the only means to either
one of those. Looking unto Jesus who is the
author and the finisher of our faith. The only confidence that
we're gonna have is when God enables us to look to Christ
and to believe that we are in Him. That's the only assurance
that we're going to have. If we bolster our hopes and thinking
that we're saved because of what we're doing or what we're not
doing, we're being double-minded. We're mixing works with grace. And if it is of grace, it can
no longer be of works. Otherwise, grace is not grace.
It's all of grace. From beginning to end, it's all
of grace. So, but we do that. We have, we, we, we, we struggle
with that double-mindedness, don't we? Because we're, there's
a, there's a Pharisee within each one of us that's drawn back
to a works mentality. Lord, deliver us, deliver us. And these two natures we have,
the spirit wars against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit
so that we cannot be what we would be. We're, we're a contradiction
to ourselves, aren't we? And the Lord said, they speak
vanity, everyone with his neighbor. With flattering lips and with
a double heart did they speak. But here also is the lament of
the perversion that men have made of the gospel. Men flatter each other and they,
you know, there's a, I don't want to call him a theologian,
but a very popular religious leader that died recently. And I read some of the things
that men were saying about him, and they were so flattering.
You know, he was a theologian, and he was an author, and he
was a radio personality, and this and that. And nobody ever
said he was a gospel preacher. And I didn't find anybody saying
that. But here's what man-made religion does. It flatters. It flatters one another, builds
people up, makes them to be more than they are. The Lord shall cut off all flattering
lips. And you know what the believer
says about that? Oh, Lord, cut it off of me. Cut it out of me
right now. Right now. Deliver me from such
vanity, from such foolishness, to flatter myself. And the tongue that speaketh
proud things. It's what we do, don't we? Lord, cut it off. Cut it out. Give me grace. And when my tongue
speaks flattery and pride, Lord, just smite my heart and deliver
me from such speech. But in the end, the flattering
lips of false religion and the pride of man is going to be cut
out eternally. You see, the believer who has some conscious
awareness of his sin and his need for grace is always crying,
save me. Lord, cause me to be saved right
now. Because he knows that his lips
are flattering. He knows that he's full of vanity.
He knows that his faithfulness fails and that the godly man
in him is hard to see unless the Lord gives him grace and
faith. And that desire for the Lord to cut those things out
now is the evidence of hope and knowing that you won't be cut
off eternally. You see, it's the wicked believes
themselves to be righteous, don't they? They don't think they've
got that problem right now. Hey, you know, I've already settled
that. God saved me. I'm not worried about dying.
I made a covenant with death. With hell, I'm in agreement.
I'm leaning against that teetering wall, you know, so it is going
to fall on me. And, you know, they don't think
like that, but that's what they're doing. And God says, I'm going
to disannul that covenant. I'm going to cut you off eternally. And the child of God fears being
cut off for eternity. And, and so he, he, he just wants
to be cut out now, Lord cut, cut it out, cut out my sin, put
it on Christ. Give me hope of knowing that
it's been put away once and for all. Verse four, who have said with
our, now here's a, this verse is so crystal clear as to what
man-made religion's all about. What is man-made religion? God
loves everybody, Christ died for everybody, then we're talking
about man-made Christianity. God wants everybody to be saved,
man's got a free will, and God's waiting on you to invite Jesus
into your heart so that he can save you. Your lips, you've got
the power in your speech. And what does David say here?
Who have said with our tongue, we will prevail. Our lips are
our own. Who is Lord over us? Nobody's
gonna control me. I'll be saved when I get good
and ready to be saved. Isn't it? It is blasphemy. It's awful. It's the furthest
thing from the truth. But here's the pride and the
vanity of man believing that God is subject to his will. And he's actually... Now, he
won't put it in these words, but this is exactly what he's
saying. Nobody's Lord over me. I've got power over my own lips.
I've got power over my own will. I'll decide when I'm good and
ready to decide. What arrogance. Now I know they
veil it with humility and they cloak it with all sorts of religiosity,
but this is exactly what's being said. This is the essence of
that religious opinion. And the Lord says for the oppression
of the poor, the Lord came to save the poor. Who are poor? You know, poor is a relative
term when it comes to economics, isn't it? You know, we might
look at somebody and say, well, that's a poor person. And then
we find somebody that's really poor and we go, oh no, they're
not so poor, that's a poor. And it's a matter of, it's relative. Poverty and riches, materially
speaking, are relative. Not so spiritually. You're either
poor or you're rich. You either have nothing or you've
already got everything. It's zero or everything. That's it. So those who are poor,
they have no claim on God. They have no plea that they can make to manipulate
God or to force the hand of God. They've got nothing to bring
to God. They don't have a will. They don't have works. They don't
have a righteousness. They don't have wisdom. They
don't have knowledge. There's another thing, isn't
there? We build ourselves up with knowledge
and God says, knowledge puffeth up. That's all it does. It just
puffs man up, makes him think he's something that he's not.
You see, a man who's depending upon his knowledge is not poor. He's not poor. just like a man
who's depending upon his righteousness or his free will. He's not poor.
A poor man comes before the throne of grace and says, Lord, I don't
know anything, I can't do anything, and I don't have anything. I'm
naked in thy presence, completely dependent upon you for everything.
And if the Lord's given us any understanding about ourselves,
We know that the knowledge that he's given us could just that
easily be taken away from us. I mean, how easy is it for us
to lose a grip on the things that we hold so precious? You know, we get distracted and
we lose sight of those things and we do. for, thankfully, for
short periods of time, but if it can happen for a short period
of time, it can happen for a long period of time, can't it? If
you can lose sight of the truths that God has convinced you of
for a minute, then why can't you lose sight of it for two
minutes? Why can't you lose sight of it for two hours? What about
two days, or two weeks, or two months, or two years, or the
rest of your life? You see? So what we know, we know in part,
don't we? Lord, if you don't keep me knowing
the truth, I'll forget every bit of it. I'll lose sight of
you completely. Now, that's what it is to be
poor. It's to be always poor. You never have anything. You're
always dependent upon Him. And what's the Lord say? Those
that are poor, the oppression of the poor and the sighing of
the needy, Now, I mentioned earlier that man-made religion's all
about commitment and dedication and faithfulness, and the gospel's
all about being poor and needy. It's for the poor and the needy. The self-righteous, they won't. On the way here tonight, we were
riding behind a car. Sabbath 7. What did it say? It had the Ten
Commandments on the back windshield, and God still calls the seventh
day the Sabbath. You know, that was his righteousness. The fact that he, and he had
a Revelation 14 passage too, because when I first thought,
I thought, well, he must be Jewish, and then I realized after he
had the Revelation 14 passage, he was seventh day admonished.
You know, I go to church on Saturday. That's my righteousness. I'm not poor. I'm not needy. I'm keeping the law. No, you're
breaking the law in your attempts to keep the law. Keeping the
Sabbath is resting in Christ and only the poor and needy rest
in Christ. trust him and depend upon him
for all their righteousness and all their justification before
God and for the oppression of the poor and the sign of the
needy. Now will I rise? The Lord Jesus
Christ has mercy on the poor and the needy. He doesn't, he
doesn't have mercy on the self righteous. He doesn't have pity
towards those. He said, I did not come for the
well, I came for the sick. The well don't need a physician.
I came for the poor and for the needy and I'm going to arise
for them. I'm going to arise from the dead
for them. So that having been offered up for their offenses,
I'm going to be raised again because of their justification.
God's not going to allow me to see corruption. And I'm going
to send them to glory. I'm going to take them with me.
And they're going to be seated with me in the heavenlies, in
Christ right now. And every time they cry, Lord
save me, I'm going to arise to help them. You see a child of
God, you know when your children are just being fussy, and when
they have a real need, you can tell from the sound of their
cry, can't you? Well, the Lord knows too, doesn't
he? Oftentimes we're just fussy because we don't like our circumstances
and we pretend to be praying. When you cry out, Lord, save
me, that's not a pretend, is it? Lord, I'm poor and I'm needy
and I need to be saved. And he says, I will arise. I'm
gonna run to them. When your child cries and you
know they're in desperate need, you drop everything and run to
them, don't you? That's what the Lord's saying
here. The poor in the knee, I will arise, saith the Lord. I will
set him in safety from him that puffeth at him. I'm gonna deliver him from all
the lies of false religion and I'm gonna deliver him from himself
because he's puffing himself up. I'm gonna rise, I'm gonna be
there. I'm gonna set him free. How am I gonna set him free?
By reminding him again that he's poor and needy and that I'm all
his righteousness before God and I'm all he needs and I'm
all he's got. The words of the Lord are pure
words. They are pure words. As silver
tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Where does
faith come from? comes from God, but what are
the means by which God gives faith? Hearing, and hearing comes
from what? The word of God. Turn with me
to Psalm 19, just over a couple pages to Psalm 19. Now the unbeliever wrests the
scriptures to his own destruction, which was ordained for him. But
the child of God, His faith is in God's word. God's word is
a lamp into his feet. It's a light into his path. And
the word of God written is a revelation of the word of God living, isn't
it? Verse one, Psalm 19, the heavens
declare the glory of God and the firmament show his handiwork.
Day in the day they utter a speech and night and tonight they show
with knowledge. There's no speech nor knowledge where their voice
is not heard. Well, creation is a demonstration of the glory
of God. But we're not gonna know, we're
not gonna be saved by that revelation. It's a general revelation to
all men, to all men. There's not a language in the
world. I understand there's over 7,000
languages in this world right now, today. There's not a language
in the world where creation doesn't cry out of God's glory and that's
the reason for for religions on so many different religions
is that man is trying to reconcile himself with the God that he
perceives to exist but the God that he perceives to exist is
not the God that does exist because the only revelation of God that
he has is creation and so he's got to come to conclusions on
his own but we've got so much more than that we have special
revelation look at what he says Their line has gone out through
all of the earth, the words of the end of the world, in them
hath he set a tabernacle for the son, which is as a bridegroom
coming out of the chamber and rejoiceth as a strong man to
run a race. That's likening the rising of
the son to the Lord Jesus Christ. God said, when they see that
son, they know there's a God. His going forth is from the end
of heaven and the circuit from the ends of it. And there is
nothing hid from the heat thereof. And all that's true. And the
Lord makes it clear in Romans chapter one, that man is without
excuse because he worships the creature rather than creator. He sees the demonstration of
the creator in nature and he worships himself or he worships
the rocks or the sun or the moon. Verse seven, the law of the Lord
now, The law of the Lord is perfect. That word perfect means full.
You're not talking about the 10 commandments like we saw on
the back of the car coming here tonight. He's talking about the
all of scripture. All of scripture is a full revelation
of God's grace and God's glory and God's salvation. The law
of the Lord is perfect converting the soul. You see nothing in
nature converted the soul. It gave some knowledge and some
understandings to the existence of God, but it didn't do anything
for the soul. But the revelation of the gospel
made in scripture. That's why the Lord said in our
text, in Psalm 12, the words of the Lord are pure words. They're pure, they're perfect.
Converting the soul, the testimony of the Lord. Now, the law, testimony,
statutes, commandments, all these things, judgments, all these
words are synonyms describing this, the canon of scripture,
which by the gospel is preached unto you. The statutes of the Lord are
right. Testimony of the Lord is sure, verse 7, making wise
the simple. The statutes of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart. The commandments of the Lord
is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are
true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than
gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey in the
honeycomb. Moreover, by them is thy servant warned, and in
keeping them there is great reward. How do we keep God's word? You keep it every time you hear
it and every time you read it, because if you're a child of
God, you believe every word of it. You can't not believe it. That's
what it is to keep God's statutes, is to believe them. And you do,
don't you? You believe every word of it,
everything God says. He's not like, well, you know,
I'm not sure about that. That thought doesn't even enter
your mind, does it? Why? Because you're a believer. And that's what believers do.
Believers believe. The words, go back with me to
our text. Well, the words of the Lord are pure words as silver
tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times, And the
Lord Jesus Christ is that word. He's the word that was made flesh
and dwelt among us. We beheld his glory as the only
begotten of the father, the one that's full of grace and full
of truth. And he was tried in a fire seven times and came out
purified. God's wrath and justice were
satisfied. And that's what this whole book's
about. That's why we have on the front of our bulletin, we
preach Christ crucified because Paul said, I profess to know
nothing among you save Christ in him crucified. This whole
book is about the wrath of God that fell on the Lord Jesus Christ
at Calvary's cross, satisfying God's wrath and establishing
righteousness for his seed. Verse 7, thou shalt keep them,
O Lord. Oh, I'm so thankful for that,
aren't you? How easy it is for our feet to
slip. How easy it is for us to lose
sight of Him. How easy, how cold and indifferent
our hearts are. And if it were possible, if it
were possible, even the elect would be deceived. but it's not
possible. Why? Because he's going to keep
them. And the child of God who's praying
this prayer, save me, Lord, cause me to be saved. knows that he's
in need of salvation more now than ever before. He knows more
about his propensity to sin. He knows more about the sin that's
in his flesh. He knows more about his weaknesses
and his ability to fall away and how frail that knowledge
is that he has that like our sister, Armida, In the last days
of her life, she's praying, save me, save me, save me. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord.
Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever, forever. There's our hope, isn't it? See, we're as dependent upon
the Lord to keep us as we are for him to save us to begin with,
aren't we? The unbeliever, this Lord, this
passage ends with a warning to those who are not believing that
the Lord was faithful to save all those for whom he died and
those who fail to cry, Lord, save me, cause me to be saved.
The wicked walk on every side when the vilest of men are exalted. Man exalts himself, and the wicked,
they follow after the exaltation of man, don't they? Cause me to be saved. We never, never get beyond that,
do we? As you received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in him. How did you receive him? Caused
me to be saved, Lord. Just walk right there. Walk right
there. Our Heavenly Father, we're so
very thankful for the hope of salvation that you give us and
for the revelation of truth in your word. We pray that your
Holy Spirit now would strive with us. We ask for your mercy
and your patience toward us. And we're thankful, Lord, that
you've promised to keep us and, Lord, save us. Oh, we ask it
in the name of our dear son. Amen. Number 11, let's stand
together, number 11. ? With broken heart and contrite
side ? ? A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry ? ? Thy pardoning
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 ransom throng I dwell ? ? My raptured
song shall ever be ? ? God has been merciful to me ? Geez, you're through the conference.