Lord willing, that's going to
be our theme for the next few weeks. The Lord's been dealing
with my heart about the love of Christ and I'm preparing some
messages right now for Sunday. and next week. Thank you, Tom. That hymn is a blessing. I want us to read tonight from
Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. Good evening.
It's good to see everybody. While you're looking there, I'll
tell you that Charles and Cheryl Pennington come down every winter
and they were supposed to be here a month ago. And Charles,
they found a growth in one of his lymph nodes, and he's going
to have to have that removed the 20th of this month. And if
he recovers from that, they're hoping to still be able to come
down a few weeks afterwards. But I want us to pray for Charles. We'll begin reading in verse
28. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. In other words,
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, we raised in Him. He was the firstborn and all
those that He predestinated and all those that He forloved were
in Him in His resurrection. Moreover, whom He did predestinate,
them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified,
and whom He justified, them He also glorified." He did it all,
didn't He? From His foreknowledge, to His
predestination, to His calling, to His justifying, to His glorifying,
He did it all. Salvation is of the Lord. It's His work of grace and love
towards His people. For what shall we say to these
things? What's our conclusion? Here it
is. If God be for us, who can be
against us? Nobody. Oh, Elisha and his servants
were surrounded by fiery chariots, weren't they? They that are with
us are more than they that be with them. If God be for us,
If God before would be on his side and he's on our side, then
nothing else matters, does it? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? The accuser of the brethren is
always trying to accuse us, isn't he? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? The
law can't condemn. The condemnation of the law has
been silenced by the perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession
for us. He ever lives, the right hand
of the majesty on high, interceding for his people. Father, shall
I slay them? Shall I slay them? No, don't
slay them, feed them. Feed them. Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? That phrase, love of Christ,
is used three times in the New Testament. Lord willing, we'll
have a message from each one of them. The first one's going
to be from here. shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword. As it is written,
for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted
as sheep for the slaughter." When the love of Christ is made
manifest in our hearts, we die. We die. He becomes our life. And the gospel just continues
to slay us, doesn't it? Nay, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Anywhere you see an us, there
is also a them. God's love is not for all men,
it's for us. For I am persuaded. Here's my
persuasion. that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord." God bless his word with spirit
of faith, we could rest in it. Let's pray together. Our heavenly
father, we, we are humbled to read these words and we're thankful
for the faith to believe them. We ask Lord that you would forgive
us for our unbelief and increase our faith and cause us to delight
in and to rest in and to believe in your love toward us in Christ
and all of his accomplishments. We thank thee that we have an
an intercessor, an advocate, one that pleads our case before
thee. one in whom we have all our acceptance, and one in whom
we are loved, even as you love Christ. Lord, we don't even begin
to understand what that means, but thank you. Thank you for
the declaration of it, and thank you for the faith to believe
it. We pray that you'd bless your word. We pray that you'd
give to the cry of your children, the bread that they need. Feed
us, Lord. Feed us with the bread of life.
We pray for Charles and we ask, Lord, that you would comfort
his heart and we pray that you would encourage him as he waits
on Thee. We pray for the doctors that
minister to him. We know, Lord, that these are
instruments of healing and we We just know that they're in
your hand and we pray that you would use them, Lord, skillfully
to bring healing and strength to Charles' body and allow us
to have time of fellowship with them this winter. We ask it in
Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand together again. We'll
sing hymn number 374 from the hardbacked hymnal. Hardbacked
hymnal 374. Jesus calls us for the tumult
of our lives while restless sea. Day by day his sweet voice soundeth,
saying, Christian, follow me. Jesus calls us from the worship
of the vain world's golden store, from each idol that would keep
us, saying, Christian, love me more. In our sorrows and in our
sorrows, days of toil and hours of ease, still he calls in cares
and pleasures, Christian love me more than these. Jesus calls us by thy mercies,
Savior may we hear thy call, give our hearts to thy obedience,
serve and love thee best of all. Please be seated. In looking at that passage of
scripture that we just read from Romans chapter 8, I was cause to go back to Isaiah I'm
sorry to Psalm 44 to see where that verse was that Paul quotes
in Romans chapter 8 verse 35 when he says yea for thy sake
we are killed all the day long we are counted as sheep for the
slaughter And reading that verse in Psalm 44, I was so encouraged
with this psalm. I hope that it will be a blessing
to you. I want us to turn in our Bibles to Psalm 44. Psalm 44. And I introduce this
message by telling you its title, A Cry for Help. One thing I know
about the children of God is that they are always crying for
help. One thing I know about sinners,
and all God's people are just that. They cry for help. Look how this psalm concludes
in verse 26 of Psalm 44. Arise for our help and redeem
us for Thy mercy's sake. Lord, come to our help. Come
to our aid. Redeem us, not for anything found
in us, but for Thy mercy's sake. In grace and in truth and according
to Your mercy, Lord, we have no other plea, no other plea
to offer Thee other than that. But we are in need of Thy help."
If you're a child of God, you're just rejoicing in your heart
right now saying, Amen, that's me. That's me. When God was pleased
to make Himself known to me, He made me to be a helpless child. He made me to be a sinner in
need of grace and in need of mercy. And I'm just so thankful
that He's given us in His Word prayers that we can pray and
know that He hears them. God receives only that which
He gives. You got that? He receives only
that which He gives. And so He gives us these words
and He's delighted when we bring them back to Him. When we just
bring back to God the very words that He's given to us. And He's
pleased to make Himself known when that happens. So I pray
this evening that Psalm 44 will be your cry and my cry to our
Heavenly Father that He would come to our aid and that He would
redeem us for His mercy's sake. If that's to happen, then we'll
begin in verse 1 of Psalm 44. And my first question in this
psalm is, what is the beginning of our redemption? What is the beginning of God
helping us? Where does it start in our experience? Now we know where it started
in eternity. In eternity it started in the
heart of God and to use the word started is just a word that we
have to use to try to explain things because in fact He's loved
us with an everlasting love. There's never been a time. It
started in His heart. But in our experience of His
mercy, in our experience of His redemption, in our experience
of Him helping us, where does it begin? And verse one tells
us, we have heard with our ears, oh God, our fathers have told
us what work thou didst in their days in the times of old. It
begins with hearing. call upon the name of the Lord
and thou shalt be saved? How shall they call upon whom
they've not believed? And how shall they believe in
him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? Oh, Lord, unstop my ears. Lord, enable me to hear your
voice. Enable me to understand what
you're saying and to believe it to genuinely hear what you're
saying to me. I stand amazed at how how dull
of hearing I can be and how I can read God's word and hear God's
word preached and has no impact on me. Lord, you've got to do
it. You've got to give me ears to
hear. You've got to open the scriptures. You've got to unstop
my ears. You've got to cause me to hear
thy voice and to follow after thee. Isaiah put it like this
in Isaiah chapter 35, in that day shall the deaf hear the words
of the book. in that day shall the deaf hear
the words of the book and then in chapter 42 verse 18 he said
hear ye deaf and look ye blind we looked at that Sunday how
the Lord said for judgment came I into the world that they which
see not might see And that means that if you can't see any reason
in yourself why God would save you, then you're beginning to
get some sight. You're beginning to get some
sight. Look what he says, bring forth the blind people that have
eyes and the deaf that have ears. When John began to wonder about
the Lord and what was going on and why he was in prison, John
the Baptist I'm speaking of. He sent his disciples to ask
the Lord, are you the one or do we expect another? And the
Lord very mercifully said to those disciples, you go back
and tell John, that the blind receive their sight, the lame
walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. Tell him what
I'm doing. Oh, that's where it begins. This is where our redemption
begins. The Lord has to open our ears. This can't be heard
by education. It can't be understood by intellect. It's got to be a work of the
Spirit of God. The natural man cannot receive
the things of the Spirit of God. He just can't do it. So our cry begins right there. Lord, enable me to hear. Enable
me to hear. I'll be like that wayside hearer. The seed will fall on hard ground
and the bird, the fowls of the air will come and snatch it away
and I won't remember it. Lord, I'll be like that shallow
ground hearer. that the seed fell on and sprang
up and showed life and yet there was no depth of root in it when
persecution came, it died. I'll be like that seed that fell
into the briars and thickets and get choked out by the things
of this world and I won't be fruitful. Lord, if you don't
do it, you've got to cause your Word to have an effect in my
heart. And the only way that's going
to happen is if you toil the soil of my heart and make it
a heart that's able to receive your word. This is where we begin
with our cry for mercy. Our cry for mercy doesn't begin
with, Lord, help me with this problem, or help me with that
problem, or solve my marriage, or solve my financial problems,
or solve my health problems, however serious they are. No!
That's not where it begins. It begins with, Lord, open my
ears that I might hear what our fathers have told us about thy
work and about thy person." Cornelius, when Peter showed up to preach
the gospel, Cornelius said, we're all here to hear the things that
God has commanded thee to tell us. Oh, when we come to this
place that we would have in our hearts that prayer. Lord, enable
me to hear." When we go to God's Word, when we listen to messages,
when we're just going through our day, Lord, help me to hear. The voice of this world and the
voice of my flesh and the voice of my sin and the voice of Satan
is so loud, it'll drown out your voice. You remember when Elisha
went up on the mountain after defeating the prophets of Baal
on Mount Carmel and he ran from Jezebel and went up to that other
mountain and hid himself in a cave and said, I'm the only one left. The Lord said, Elisha, come here.
And a great wind blew that rent the rocks, but the voice of God
wasn't heard. And a fire came. That consumed
the mountain and the voice of God wasn't heard. And a great
quaking took place and the voice of God wasn't heard. And then
what happened? A still, small voice. Be still
and know that I am God. Lord, if I'm going to be redeemed,
if you're going to help me, it'll be through my ears. That's how
God ministers grace. The avenue, the channel to our
hearts is our ears. And I'm not talking about our
physical heart and I'm not talking about our physical ears. I love that story of Mark chapter
7 when the disciples brought that young man to the Lord and
he was deaf and dumb. And they couldn't do anything
for him. And the father said, your disciples
can't help me. Oh, you have little faith. He
took him and put his fingers in his ear and the Lord said,
Ephrathah, that is, be opened. And immediately his ears were
opened and his tongue was loosed. Why? Because it took the voice
of God. It took the Lord Jesus Christ
to do it. And if He doesn't do it for you
and do it for me, we'll know nothing of His redemption. If
He doesn't cause us to hear. He said He gives the deaf ears to hear. Have you been made deaf to the
condemnation of the law? Do you believe that the Lord
Jesus Christ has satisfied the demands of the law so that the
accusations of Satan now, you're deaf to them? Are you deaf to man-made works
religion? I just don't even have any interest
in listening to it anymore. I'm just deaf to it. Once the
Lord teaches you the truth, you don't want to listen to lies.
You can't. You're deaf to them. Deaf to any voice, or any reason,
or any explanation why God would save you apart from His grace
and mercy in the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you're deaf to that, then you heard something. He came
to give the deaf ears to let the deaf come before me and they
shall hear. The beginning of our redemption
comes with hearing. And our text tells us what it
is we hear. Look at the next verse. How that
thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand and plantest them.
How thou didst afflict the people and cast them out. He drove out the heathen. He
put away our sin. The heathen of our own flesh
had to be put to death. That's what He said. We're killed
all the day long as sheep. And when we hear the gospel,
He puts our righteousness and our hopes outside of Christ to
death. And that's what we hear. He delivered us up from the kingdom
of darkness, exposed all the lies of false religion, and set
us free from the condemnation of the law. That's what he says
here. Here's what they're going to
hear. How that thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand.
It wasn't my hand that did it. It wasn't my hand. Who can stand before a holy God?
They who have clean hands and a pure heart. It's the hand of
God. The Lord Jesus Christ is God's
right-hand man. And it's His hand, it's His work
that drives out the heathen and that puts them to death. And
it's His hand that plants them. Look, He planted them all to be planted in the garden
of God's grace. To be brought, Donnie, to this
place and to be able to sit here where the spices of His grace
and mercy are the aroma of our hope. To be a tree of righteousness
which is, the scripture says, the planting of the Lord. It's His planting. To be like
that tree that's planted by rivers of water. It just doesn't wither. Rooted and built up in Christ. Established in His love. That's what He does. That's what
we hear. That's what we hear. Now I know
the psalmist is talking about what God did in bringing the
children of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness into
the promised land. But you know that those are just physical
pictures of spiritual truths. Because that's exactly what he's
done for us. He's delivered us from the taskmasters of the law. He's delivered us from false
religion. In one sense we're in the wilderness
now, but in another sense we're already in the promised land.
Joshua's already crossed the Jordan. He's already established
us in that place and so that all the blessings of God are
in Christ in the heavenlies for us right now. That's what we
hear. That's our hope. And when we
cry for redemption, the Lord gives us ears to hear that glorious
truth. Now look what else he says. The last part of verse two, how
thou didst afflict the people and cast them out. He afflicted us with our sin,
didn't he? And he cast us out of man-made
religion and cast us out of the imagination of our own thoughts
and minds. You know what else he does? He
does exactly what he did for the Israelites. When He gives
you ears to hear and you're able to believe the gospel, in time,
in time, you're going to find less and less and less connections
to this world. Not because you push people away
from you, but because they don't want anything to do with you.
and God cast them out. God cast out the heathen that
were in the land and gave them that land. A land that they didn't
earn. A land that they didn't deserve.
Houses that they didn't build. Vineyards that they didn't plant.
He gave it to them. That's exactly what He does for
us. And He cast those people out. What was the biggest problem
that the Israelites had their whole time in the Promised Land? God didn't cast out all the heathens. He left some of them there. And
that was their affliction, wasn't it? That was their affliction. Paul said it like this in 2 Timothy. All they that live godly in Christ
Jesus. In other words, all they that
trust Christ, believe the gospel, rejoice in Christ, have had ears
to hear the truth of the gospel, shall suffer persecution. Now, I looked up that word persecution.
It means to be pushed away. It means to be pushed away. And
the Lord said, your persecution will come from your own house.
Why? Because they haven't heard. They haven't heard. Paul said,
if I still preached circumcision, then why am I being persecuted?
For then would the offense of the cross cease. As long as we
compromise the offense of the cross, the accomplished work
of the cross, and accept any part of circumcision as a means
of salvation, then we will not suffer persecution. But if we
stand for the truth of the gospel, then we'll experience the same
thing the Lord did here. He'll cast out the people, for
they got, look at verse three, for they got not the land in
possession by their own sword, neither by their own arm. It's not by might, it's not by
power, it's by my Spirit, saith the Lord. And what does the Scripture
say about the Spirit of God in relationship to the Word of God?
The Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. You know all throughout
the Scripture the tongue is spoken of as a sword. The Lord Jesus
Christ, when he's seen in the book of Revelation, has a flaming
sword coming out of his mouth, doesn't he? And so he's saying
here, you didn't get this by your words. You didn't formulate
a prayer and inherit the land of Canaan because you rattled
the sword of your tongue and brought to me a prayer that was
acceptable. No, the sword of the Lord, His
Word, which is sharper than any two-edged sword, divided asunder
the thoughts and the intents of the heart that exposed me
for what I was. It was the Word of God. Why?
Because He gave me ears to hear it. He gave me ears to hear. And His Word did a work of grace
in my heart by His sword. and by His arm, not by our words. That's why these prayers are
so precious, because the Lord, as I said, receives that which
He gives. And so when we pray, just pray
the Psalms, pray the Scriptures, just offer up to God the things
that He's already made clear. It's His sword. It's His Word
He's pleased with, not our words. Oh, we don't even know what to
pray, do we? We groan and we fumble around
and we try to think of how to express ourselves when we cry
to the Lord. And the Spirit of God has to
intercede because no man knows the mind of another man except
that man himself. And so it is with the Spirit
of God. The Spirit of God knows the mind of God. And He offers
up on our behalf prayers that are acceptable to God. Why? Because they're consistent with
the revelation of truth in God's Word. Look what he says in verse
3. For they got not the land in
possession, we have possession. We have possession of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He said, I'll be in you and I'll
never leave you. Paul said, I'm crucified with
Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I. Christ lives in me.
I have possession of the life of Christ. And He has possession
of me. And together we're one. And we
didn't get it by what we did or by what we said or by a prayer
that we offered. We got it by His sword and by
His arm. That's what saved them. For Thy
right hand and Thine arm in the light of Thy countenance Oh,
that the light of the gospel would shine in our hearts in
the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the countenance. It's
the face of Christ. As we saw Sunday. Somebody was
talking to me today about somebody was just quoting scripture about
how to fix this and how to fix that and the scriptures were
true but that's not, it's Christ. It's the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. These are they which testify
of me. It's his countenance that saves
us. Oh Lord, don't let me settle
for just knowing some doctrine and some theology. If I don't
have the love of Christ, then it's all just sounding brass
and tickling cymbals. That's all it is. You know who are the meanest,
most unlovely people that I have met in all of religion? In all
of religion. I heard a man say one time, let
me answer that question in just a second. I heard a man say one
time, he said, I'd a whole lot rather be around a warm-hearted
Arminian than a cold-hearted Calvinist. Well, I don't want
to be around either one of them. I don't want to be around either
one of them. But the meanest people that I've met that are
religious are Calvinists. They've come to see some doctrinal
truths and they're so mean and they're so unlovely. I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying that they've
substituted the truths of doctrine for the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Those truths are there to expose
the person of Christ. And if they don't bring us to
Christ, then all they're going to do is leave us cold and heartless. Lord, you saved me by your words,
by the sword of your tongue. You saved me by your right arm,
satisfying the demands of God's law. opening my ears and enable
me to hear, and You shine the countenance of Your grace and
Your love on me." That's how I was saved. Lord,
I need You to do that again. I need You to do that again. Lord, would You do it again? You know, we've got a lot of
beaches here in Florida, and I love the beach, and I know most of
you all love the beach as well. You go down to the beach and
pick up a grain of sand. See if you can separate out one
grain of sand and put that in your hand. And you look around. And that's about how much of
God we know. That's about how much of his
love we've experienced. That's a matter of how much of
His grace that we have any knowledge of. Oh, He's infinite. He's glorious. You see, this cry for more of
Him is, yes, I have a grain of sand, but I want more. Look at
it. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. Lord, give me more. Help me. Redeem me by Your mercy. Keep opening my ears. Keep speaking
to me. Keep shining the countenance
of Your grace in my heart. Show me more of Your love and
Your mercy and Your truth toward me. Lord, what I have of You
is so minuscule. Why did he do it? Look at the
last phrase in verse 3. Because thou hast a favor unto
them. That means grace. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Lord, the only reason, the only
reason that you would answer my cry, is because you have been
pleased to be favorable towards me. Not for anything found in
me, but for the favor that's in your heart. For the grace
that's in your heart. That's my only ground and my
only call for help. It's for your mercy's sake. This
is why you did it. The Lord told the Israelites,
I didn't choose you out because you are greater than the other
nations. You were less than all of them. I chose you for my mercy's sake.
I chose you because it was my will to choose you. It's not
of him that willeth, nor of him that willeth. It's God that shows
mercy, isn't it? Thou art my King, O God. Command deliverance for Jacob. Now I want you to think with
me for a minute about this. This is glorious. We often times look at Jacob
and Esau as the two nations that exist in the world. The children
of the sons of Jacob being believers, and Esau, whom God hated, representing
all the unbelievers of this world, and they do. Those two boys do
represent that, but let me tell you something else they represent.
They represent the two men in you. They represent the two men in
me. The one that God hates and that
He will put to death one day. And the one that He loves. The one that's perfect. and the
one that can never be anything but sin. And so when the psalmist says,
Thou art my King, O God, command deliverance for Jacob. Lord, command my new man, my
new nature, which is the only man that's going to be of any
value to me, to be able to control this Esau that's within me. Turn
with me in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 25. Genesis chapter 25 and look at
verse 22. And the children struggled together
within her. Rebecca's got twins in her womb,
Jacob and Esau. and the two boys struggled together
within her, and she said, if it be so, why am I thus?" Are
you a conflict to yourself? Are you a contradiction to yourself? Do you have two twins struggling
within you? And do you find yourself crying,
why am I this way? Why am I thus?" And she went to inquire of the
Lord. That's where you need to go when you're feeling this way. When these two natures, the old
man and the new man, begin to struggle, you take that cry to
the Lord. That's what we're talking about,
crying out to Him for help. And I know that every child of
God does it. Every sinner does it. Why? Because of this reason.
He's his own worst enemy. Verse 23, And the Lord said unto
her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall
be separated from thy bowels. And the one people shall be stronger
than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger. There's my hope. There's my hope. That though in my experience
and in my sin I feel like my old man is stronger than the
new man, in fact, in my experience, the older is the old man. And the newer, the younger is
the new man. And the older will serve the
younger. So that with the new man, I don't
have to be a slave to my sin. I can go before the Lord. Sin
shall not have dominion over you. Why? Because you're not
under the law. You're under grace. I thought
about this. Here's an illustration I think
illustrates this point. National Israel today. Right now. You've seen enough
of the news. To know that we think about terrorism over here,
we don't have a clue what terrorism is. They live with it every day over
there. A sovereign free nation, an ally of the United States
that has to deal with the Palestinians and the Syrians lobbing rockets
over into their land every day. sending suicide bombers and blowing
up cafes on a regular basis. We have one event every 10 or
15 years, and we think the whole world's coming to an end. They
deal with it every day. Now compare the freedom that
those Israelites have, those Jews have in Israel, and the
terrorism they have to deal with versus being a citizen of Syria. under the rule and the domain
of a harsh dictator. Where would you rather live?
If you had to live in one of those two places, where would
you rather live? Would you rather live in Israel or in Syria? I'd rather live in Israel. You're not a citizen of Syria
anymore. You've been set free. The older shall serve the younger. Yeah, we experience a lot of
terrorism, don't we? Rockets come on a regular basis,
and the suicide bombers are there, but we live in a free nation.
We're free. We're free in Christ. We'll never go back to that. So when the psalmist says, Thou
art my king, O God, command Jacob to be delivered from Esau. That's what he's saying. Lord, Esau is plaguing me. Command,
Lord, if you command it, it'll happen. This battle is too strong
for you. It's not your battle, it's the
Lord's. Lord, you command it. You command Jacob to be delivered
and he will be. And when the Lord commands Jacob
to be delivered, what does he do? He reminds us of what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done in destroying the enemy, in delivering us from
sin, delivering us from the consequences of it, delivering us from the
law. You just pray that prayer. Verse
4, Thou art my King, O God, command deliverance for Jacob. Lord,
I've got a new man in me that's younger than my old man. And
they struggle in my flesh. And I'm caused to cry out, why
am I thus? Command Jacob to be delivered. Lord, if you do that, I will
be. He just brings us back to Christ
this way he does. Brings us back to Christ. And
that's how Jacob's delivered. He reminds us of what he's done
for us, and increases our faith, and shows us again his countenance,
and his work, and gives us ears to hear, and that's how he answers
that prayer. I will not trust, I'm sorry,
verse five, through thee will we push down our enemies. Through
thy name will we tread them under that rise up against thee. When Joshua brought the children
of Israel across the Jordan, the first battle that they had
to engage in was against Jericho, a walled city. Remember what
Joshua did? He got the men together, and
they blew ram's horns, and they carried clay jars, and inside
the jars were candles, and at a certain appointed time,
They blew the ram's horn, and they broke the clay jars, and
they cried out in victory, and the walls of Jericho came down. The only hope of defeating the
enemy is when the trumpet of God's grace is declared in the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The earthen vessel of this flesh
is broken. and the light of his countenance
shines forth. And we're brought, we're brought
to rejoice in what he's done. That's when the walls come down.
That's when the victories won. It's his battle. I will not trust in my bow. Lord,
I can't do it. Neither shall my sword save me."
I don't have the words to speak. I can't explain it. I can't offer up a prayer or
a defense. I can't defeat my old man. I don't know what to say. Lord,
it's going to have to be your sword. But thou hast saved us from our
enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us. In God we boast all the day long,
and praise thy name forever." Now we don't have time tonight,
but the next 10 or 12 verses speaks of the absence of the
awareness of God's presence. Please take notice of how I said
that. I'll never leave you nor forsake you. But how often times
we feel as if we can't hear, we can't see, we can't believe.
And so the psalmist cries out, but thou hast cast us off and
put us to shame. and goeth not forth with our
armies. Thou makest us to turn back from
the enemy. I am running from my enemy. For they which hate us, we are
spoiled for them. Thou hast given us like sheep
appointed for meat, and thou hast scattered us among the heathen.
Thou sellest thy people for naught, and dost not increase thy wealth
by their price. Thou makest us to reproach to
our neighbors, a scorn, a derision to them that are round about
us. Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, and a shaking of
the head among the people. My confusion is continually before
me, and the shame of my face hath covered me. My sin is ever
before me. Take not Thy Holy Spirit from
me." Lord, I just, I feel like Your grace is clear gone. for the voice of him that reproacheth
and blasphemeth by reason of the enemy and the avenger. All
this has come upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee, neither
have we dealt falsely in thy covenant." In all our sin, in all our struggles,
one thing I know about a child of God, he still believes the
gospel. Can't get away from it. He might
deny it in his actions, but in his heart he can say with all
honesty, all this has come upon us, yet we have not forgotten
thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant, we still believe
the gospel. Every bit of it. Every bit of
it. The only evidence of our salvation
is that. Faith is the evidence of salvation. Can you say, in all my struggles
with Esau, in all the seemingly absence of God's presence, I've
not dealt falsely with the gospel? I'm not light on God. I don't
believe any lies on God. I believe the truth. And I can't
not believe it. I just can't. Our heart is not turned back.
Neither have our steps declined from thy way. He's not saying,
well, I have never sinned or we're living righteous. No, he
said, I'm just stuck. stuck in Christ. And I'm so glad
it's that way. If I could leave, I would. You've
kept us from falling. You won't allow us to forsake
Thee. Though Thou hast sore broken
us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of
dearth, If we have forgotten the name of our God or stretched
out our hand to a strange God, shall not God search this out?
For He knoweth the secrets of the heart. Yet for Thy sake we
are killed all the day long where count as sheep for the slaughter."
Lord, You just keep breaking this old flesh. You just keep
bringing me to the place of death again and again and again and
again. Every day I'm like a sheep brought
to the slaughter. Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, cast us not for all forever. Wherefore hidest thou thy face,
and forgetst our afflictions and our oppressions? For our
soul is bowed down to the dust, and our belly cleaveth to the
earth. Now the belly in the Bible is
a picture of our flesh. The false prophets feed their
belly. We get hungry three times a day and it just reminds us
how fleshly we are. And what do we see a picture
here? Our bellies in the earth. What's the earth? It's just this
world and it's where we are, aren't we? Our flesh just gets
wallowed in the mud and the mire of this world, doesn't it? So what's the prayer? Arise for
our help and redeem us for thy mercy's sake. Bert, would you come and lead
us, please? What to him are we going to say? Oh, Tom, I'm sorry.
Tom's been out a week or so. Number 20 in the softback tent. Now, let's stand. Let's do, This is My Father's
Word. We'll sing the refrain just as if it's verse two. So
just sing straight down.