For our scripture reading, let
us turn to Psalm 89. I will sing of the mercies of
the Lord forever, with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness
to all generations." And truly this psalm is, like all the psalms,
it's all about Christ. And it's not about our salvation,
it's about His glory. For I have said, mercy shall
be built up forever. Thy faithfulness shall thou establish
in the very heavens. I have made a covenant with my
chosen. I have sworn unto David my servant. Thy seed will I establish forever,
and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah." Now this
poor sinner can rest in that. And the heavens shall praise
thy wonders, O Lord, thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the
saints." You know, that's just such a sweet, that the Lord,
the congregation of the saints. Religion has so distorted that
word that, you know, it's just terrible. But it's precious to
us because we are a set-apart people, set-apart by the Lord
Jesus Christ to Him and for Him. For who in the heaven can be
compared unto the Lord? who among the sons of the mighty
can be likened unto the Lord? God is greatly to be feared in
the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all
them that are about him." Now, there it is right there. If you
fear God in the assembly of the saints here, then you don't fear
man anymore. Oh, Lord God of hosts, Who is
a strong Lord like unto thee? Or to thy faithfulness round
about thee? Thou rulest the raging of the
sea. When the waves thereof arise,
thou stillest them. Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces,
and probably Rahab here would be better translated Egypt. Thou
hast broken Egypt in pieces as one that is slain. Thou hast
scattered Thine enemies with Thy strong arm. The heavens are
Thine, the earth also is Thine. As for the world and the fullness
thereof, Thou hast founded them. The north and the south, Thou
hast created them. Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice
in Thy name. Thou hast a mighty arm, strong
is Thy hand, and high is Thy right hand. Justice and judgment
are the habitation of Thy throne. Mercy and truth shall go before
Thy face. Blessed is the people who know
the joyful sound. And that's what we've heard,
this great salvation. We've heard this joyful sound,
and there isn't anything. As a matter of fact, in Hebrews
it says that Jesus is here singing among us, and what he sings is
his gospel, because it's all about him. It's all about him. They shall walk, O Lord, in the
light of thy countenance. In thy name shall they rejoice
all the day, and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted. For thou
art the glory of their strength, and in thy favor our horn shall
be exalted. When I am weak, then I am strong. For the Lord is our defense.
He is our shield and the Holy One of Israel, our King. We'll leave off there. Let us
pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we come before You. And Father,
sometimes words can't express Your glory and what You've done
to us. As weak, feeble sinners, we can't come and bow before
Your throne, and ask that you'd be pleased again to lift up our
Lord Jesus Christ, to glorify Him, and cause us to rejoice
in this. Give our brother Greg the words
to speak, and Lord, that as this gospel is preached, may you speak
to our hearts, for we ask it in Jesus' precious name. Amen. uh... When this passing world is done,
When has sunk yon radiant sun, When I stand with Christ on high,
Looking o'er life's history, Then, Lord, shall I fully know
Not till then how much I owe When I stand before the throne
Dressed in beauty not my own I see thee as thou art, love
thee with unsinning heart. Then, Lord, shall I fully know,
not till then how much I owe. Chosen not for good in me, Wakened
up from wrath to flee, Hidden in the Savior's sight, By the
Spirit sanctified. Teach me, Lord, on earth to show
in thy love how much I owe. When the praise of heaven I hear,
loud as thunders to the ear, loud as many Sweet as harps, melodious voice,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know Not till then how much I owe. Thank you, Lauren. That was a
blessing. If you'll turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 115. We looked at the first three
verses of this Psalm Wednesday night, so if you need some introduction
to this message, you might want to get a copy of that message
from Wednesday night, if you weren't able to hear it. My question this morning is,
do you need to be delivered from idolatry? Do you need to be delivered from
idolatry? In other words, are you, by nature,
an idolater? You say, no, I've never done
that. then I'm afraid I have to let you know that you are
and you don't know it. Because the truth is that every
single one of us come into this world with a little idle factory,
working strong from very, very young, in our minds, and we're
creating a little God that is altogether as we are ourselves. It is only by man's nature. that
he would be an idolater. And until the Lord delivers us
by making himself known for who he is, we will remain in our
idolatrous ways and in our idolatrous religion all our lives. And even,
even after he delivers us and is pleased to make himself known
to us, We have to keep hearing about who He is because we remain
all the days of our lives, even as believers, as recovering idolaters. We are so prone to look back. We're so prone to look at ourselves. We're so prone to interpret everything
in this world in light of who we are and what we need. Thus, the reason why we need
to hear the gospel is to deliver us from our idolatrous ways. Do you need to be delivered from
your idolatry? I do. I do. And I pray that the Lord will
use His Word, bless it with His Spirit, to do just that for us
right now. The psalmist begins in verse
1, and we'll just touch briefly on these first three verses.
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us. Now, in the vernacular, we
might say, it's not about you. That's a good way to interpret
that. It's not about you. And the believer says, it's not
about me. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto Thy name be glory. What is the chief end of man? What is the chief end of man?
What is your purpose for existence? Why are you here? What's life
all about? What's this world about? Well,
God says it's all for His glory. to glorify god and enjoy him
forever is the chief end of man and the scripture says whether
you eat or whether you drink whatsoever you do you do it all to the glory
of god in other words you acknowledge your dependence upon him in everything
you do the most mundane things in life lord i wouldn't be able
to eat food if you didn't provide it and if you didn't give me
the health to enjoy it and digest it and make use of it i couldn't
do it lord it's all to your glory It's all to your glory. To glorify
God means that you acknowledge your complete dependence upon
Him for everything. For everything. And that everything
that He's created is for Him and by Him and to His glory,
including yourself. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto Thy name be glory for Thy mercy and for Thy truth's
sake. Lord, it's all about your mercy.
It's all about your truth. Lord, I'm in need of your mercy,
and I want to know your truth. And they will say unto you, look
at verse two, wherefore should the heathen
say, where is now their God? We talk about the glory of God,
and they say, where is your God? Surely you don't believe that
this is of God. Yes, we do. Our God is in the heavens and
he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. He's working all things
after the counsel of his own will. As I said in the first
hour, nothing has ever occurred to him. He's never had a new
thought. He's purposed everything in this
world. Every atom is moving in the exact
direction and purpose that God ordained it. Every event in your
life and my life. And He's purposed it all for
His glory. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto Thy name be glory. He's in the heavens. We're upon
the earth. He's moving everything for His
glory. Verse 4, their idols, the ones who don't know that
it is for His glory, the ones who don't believe that He is
in the heavens and that He is working all things after the
counsel of His will, the ones who don't believe that, the ones
who do not depend upon Him for His mercy, and the ones who do
not know His truth. The Lord said, for this cause
came I into the world, and for this reason was I born to bear
witness unto the truth. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. There's one truth. Christ is
that truth. There's no truth outside of Him. Their idols are silver and gold.
Now he's using, I want you to follow me on this now, because
he's using the analogy of a little idol maker, a little statue,
a person who would take silver, gold, and fashion a statue and
put it on a little podium and bow down to that statue and kiss
its feet and pray to it and all those sorts of idolatrous things. And you say, well, I don't do
that. They're the works of men's hands.
They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they
see not. They have ears, but they hear
not. Noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but
they handle not. Feet have they, but they walk
not. Neither speak they through their throats. And now take notice
of verse eight. They that make them are like
unto them. Man by nature sets himself up
on the throne of God. And God sends him a strong delusion
that he might believe a lie. And man by nature worships himself. And he looks at his existence
and he looks at this world and he looks at the events of life
and he interprets them all in light of himself. And in that regard, we are either
idolaters or we are recovering idolaters. Either way, the Lord
needs to deliver us. They have mouths, but they speak
not. They talk, but they speak not
the truth. In man-made religion, they are
full of pious platitudes, but they are unable to declare the
truth about the promises of God. They don't understand them. They
don't believe them. They preach. They have mouths. They preach. But in their preaching,
all they do is put men under the law, give them a set of rules,
of regulations that they must follow. They are quick to give
counsel, but they are unable to provide any comfort. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Tell them, speak ye comfortably
unto Jerusalem, and tell them that their warfare is accomplished. They don't know anything about.
Sin being put away. They don't know anything about
Satan being destroyed. They don't know anything about
God's people being securely saved for all eternity through the
work of Christ. So they're not able to give any
comfort. They give counsel. Christian counseling. That's
a big thing today, isn't it? Counselors galore who are putting
band-aids on cancer patients. That's all they're doing. They're
not providing any comfort. They're not taking away the guilt.
They're not revealing the person of Christ. They have lots of
rules and regulations that they say will make you more sanctified,
but they cannot tell you anything about the sanctifier. The one
who does the sanctifying. They quote scripture. and then
they twist it to their own destruction. They articulate the name of our
God, but by stripping him of his glory and of his power, they
become guilty of using the name of the Lord our God in vain. They empty him of his glory. Their singing may be pleasant
to the ear, but it offers no hope for the soul. And like the
prophets on Mount Carmel, they cry out to their God, but
no fire from heaven ever comes down to consume the sacrifice
and to quench the fiery wrath of God. Peter calls them wells
without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom
the midst of darkness is reserved forever. They speak great swelling
words of vanity, vanity, empty words, meaningless words. They
talk out of both sides of their mouths so that you can't understand
what they say. They'd say you in one breath
that God is sovereign. and omnipotent until he comes
up against your free will? And then you have the great dilemma
of the irresistible force coming up against an immovable object
and the immovable object always wins because in fact the force
is not irresistible. You can't make sense of that.
That's nonsense. They have mouths, but they speak
not. Look at the rest of that verse.
They have eyes, but they see not. Isaiah's prophecy
is fulfilled. They have eyes, but they have
closed them, lest they should see with their eyes. They think
they can see when they cannot. They, like the Pharisees, say,
are you suggesting that we're blind? Surely not. We can see. We know the truth. And the Lord
said, if you were blind, then your sins would be forgiven you.
But because you can see, or think you can see, your sins remain. And he called them blind guides
leading the blind, and they all fall into the ditch. They have
eyes, but they see not. They search the scriptures because
they think in them they have eternal life, but they cannot
see that these are they which testify of the Lord Jesus Christ. They can't see it. They don't
see Christ in the scriptures. Oh, they pick out a few messianic
passages here and there and they say, well that's about Jesus
and that's about... This whole book's about Him. In the volume
of the book it is written of me. From Genesis 1 to the end
of Revelation 20, it's all about Him. All about Him. They think that the Bible is
nothing more than a rule book. for Christian living. They can't see. I had an acquaintance I was talking
to this past week and he came up to me and he said, he said,
I want to thank you for helping me get started on my faith journey.
And I said, well, what do you mean? He said, well, you remember
a few months ago you and I were talking and you were telling
me that there's lots of different truths out there and that I needed
to go out and discover the truth that was true for me and I have. And you know I didn't tell him
that. I said, no, I didn't say that.
Oh yeah, that's what you said. They have eyes but they cannot
see. You can be as clear and plain to them unless the Lord
is pleased to open their eyes, they will remain blind and they
won't hear what you're saying. They see some precepts of Scriptures
and then they go about to establish their own righteousness. They
see some doctrinal truths even. They may see. the doctrine of
total depravity, they may see the doctrine of irresistible
grace, they may see the doctrine of limited atonement or particular
redemption, but they don't see the truth. Why? Because they have eyes but they
see not. They're like the Israelites who
saw the acts of God but did not see His ways. They didn't know
why God was doing what He did. They see that life is brief,
and that they see that there is a God with whom they must
do, and then they go about to approach Him in every way possible
except the way, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, I am the way. the narrow way, the way that
few will find. No, they get on the broad road
that leads to destruction. They have eyes but they see not.
They look on outward appearances and they measure their salvation
by how they're performing. And they stand in judgment of
one another to see who's better than the other, holier than thou.
They do not see that God is looking upon the heart. They don't see
it. Why? Because they have eyes but
they see not. They're idolaters. Religious? Yes. Outwardly moral? Yes. Nice people? Yeah. Until you confront them
with the gospel. You want to see the fangs come
out of a nice person? Just tell them the truth. Show them from the word of God
what idolaters they are. They that make them are like
unto them. You see that? You see how we
have fashioned a God in the idle factory of our own
darkened imagination that looks altogether as we do ourselves, and how that factory needs to
be shut down. and the light of the gospel in
the face of the Lord Jesus Christ needs to be shined in our hearts
so that we'll know God for who He really is rather than worshipping
nothing more than a figment of our imagination? How foolish is that? How crazy
is that? People that don't know the truth
are not in their right mind. They perceive something to be
that's not. They're living a fantasy. They're
living in an imagination. They have ears, but they hear
not. Like the men that were with Saul
of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, the scripture says that they
remained speechless, having heard a sound, but seeing no man. They hear some sounds. They hear
the words of God, but they don't know what they mean. The seeds
of truth, when they're heard, are plucked away by the fowls
of the air. And if they hear enough to where
those seeds show signs of life, they really haven't heard. Because
the shallow soil of their stony hearts, when the tribulation
for the gospel comes the plant dies and produces no fruit or
the thorny soil on which some of that seed falls when the cares
of this world come up they find themselves to be fruitless of
any true faith or any true life they have ears but they hear
not They hear about their need for faith and then they go about
trying to raise up faith out of their own dead souls and wills,
rather than crying out to God to give them the faith that they
need. They hear that they're sinners. But they don't hear that everything
about them is sinful. They know that Christ came to
save sinners, so He must be... Do you understand that when the
Bible describes a sinner, that He's not talking about a person
who's got a few faults? that God looks upon our hearts
and He sees that every imagination of our thoughts are only evil
before Him and that continually? A sinner is a person who is nothing
but sin. They can't hear that. They can't
hear it. They have ears, but they hear
not. Like Pilate, sometimes they ask
the right questions but are not able to hear the truth even when
it's standing right before them. Like the Israelites, they hear
the thundering of the mountain of the law and then foolishly
try to touch that mountain only to their own destruction. They
have ears, but they do not hear. They hear the command to keep
holy the Sabbath, and then go about monitoring their activities
on Sunday, not knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is
our Sabbath rest. They have ears, but they do not
hear. Look at verse 6. They have noses, but they smell
not. The sweet aroma of the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace in the finished, accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ is a stench to them. It's a stench to them. It robs
them of their glory. It puts them in the dirt. Noses
have they, but they smell not. This is the description of an
idolater. Can you relate? Can you relate? The spices of grace in the Lord's
garden are not an attraction to them. Not like they are to
you and me. Oh, God's people come to this
place where the Lord meets with them and the sweet smell of His
grace that comes from the Word of God and ministers to our hearts. Oh, that's our comfort. This is the Lord's garden. But
to them, I don't smell anything. Like the heightened smell of
the vulture, they are attracted to nothing but rotting flesh. The dung of their works is not
a stench to them. Noses have they, but they smell
not. They sniff the air for spiritual
truth, but mistake the foul odor of an evil spirit for the wind
of the Spirit of God. Noses have they, but they smell
not. They breathe in the toxic fumes
of false religion to the damnation of their very souls. You remember
that story in 2 Kings chapter 4 when the prophet Elisha had
the sons of the prophet together and the scripture says there
was a dearth in the land there was a famine and some of the
prophets went out and gathered a lap full of gourds and the
scripture says which they knew not they'd never eaten these
things before and they put them in the pot and they seethed them
in the pot and they smelt it and they said there's death in
the pot There's death in the pot. We eat that, we're going
to die. It's poisonous. They don't know
there's death in the pot. They can't smell it. And so they
drink it and eat it to their own destruction. Elisha came
and put meal in the pot and it made it edible. It made it go
away. And it's a picture of the gospel,
the bread of life, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one that can
neutralize the poison of man-made religion. But men eat it all
day long to the damnation. Why? Because noses have they,
but they smell not. Like old blind Isaac, they smell
the raiment of Esau and think that it's Jacob. Or smell, yeah, and don't know
that it's Jacob. Turn with me to Exodus chapter
30. Noses have they but they smell
not. Exodus chapter 30, verse 34. The Lord said unto Moses, Take
unto thee sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, these
sweet spices with pure frankincense. Of each shall there be a like
weight. In other words, an equal measure of each one of these
four spices were to be divided out. And thou shalt make it a
perfume. a confection after the art of
the apothecary, tempered together, pure and holy. And thou shalt
beat some of it very small, and put it before the testimony and
the tabernacle of the congregation, where I will meet with thee,
and it shall be unto you most holy." So God gave them a very
specific formula for making the incense that was to be burned
in worship, representing the prayers and the life of the Lord
Jesus Christ going up into the nostrils of God. And as for the perfume which
thou shalt make, You shall not make to yourself, according to
the composition thereof, it shall be unto thee holy for the Lord. Whosoever shall make like unto
that, to smell thereto, shall even be cut off from his people."
If you take the formula that I gave you for holy worship and
make that for your own personal use, I'll kill you for it. That's what God said. You know that still happens.
Why? Because idolaters don't know
that it's unto thee, O Lord, unto thee, not unto us, not unto
us. Unto thy name. And so they take
the perfume of the grace of God and they take it to themselves.
And they make of themselves idolaters. Why? Because they have noses,
but they smell not. They don't smell the sweet perfume
of Christ. They take it upon themselves.
Verse 7 in our text, they have hands, but they handle not. They look to the work of their
own hands as the proof of their salvation. They don't know. They don't know that putting
their hands to the ark will lead to their destruction. They don't
know that. They don't know that lifting
holy hands to God means that you're looking to the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ for all your acceptance before God.
No, they go about trying to establish their own righteousness. They
use their hands to cut and polish the stones of their own altar,
not knowing that in doing so they have defiled the sacrifice. They handle the Word of God deceitfully,
changing its meaning to fit their own heresy. They think that they
have clean hands, because they've been through baptism, or they've
prayed a prayer, or they've joined a church, or they've stopped
some bad habit, or they've started doing some service ministry,
and they've gotten involved in religious activity, and they
think, therefore, their hands are clean before God. And like
Pilate, they're going to be washing their hands to no avail. For all eternity, for the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only hope of their righteousness.
His hands are the only hands that are clean. They put their
hands to the plow and they look back and go back and prove themselves
not to be fit for the kingdom of God. They take of their hands
and they touch the mountain of the law thinking that somehow
they can satisfy its demands only to be destroyed by that
mountain. They have hands, but they handle
not. Feet have they, but they walk
not. They walk not after God. They
walk after men. They walk after the taste not,
touch not, handle not commandments of men thinking that they have
followed Christ. They've made the commandments
of men their rule of life. They've gone in the way of Cain. They've offered up to God the
works of their hands in hopes that somehow that would be an
acceptable sacrifice. And God says, I have no regard
for it. They've trodden underfoot the Son of God and counted the
blood of the covenant a common thing. They say, well, Jesus
loves everybody and has died for everybody and wants everybody
to be saved. And they've trodden underfoot
the Son of God, they've counted the blood of the covenant a common
thing, and they've done despite to the Spirit of grace. They
have feet. Oh, they have feet. They run
to and fro looking for answers in man-made religion, but refuse
to be still and sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and
hear His voice. Scripture says their feet are
swift to shed blood, not knowing that the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ has already been spilt and not one single drop of it
was wasted. It accomplished what God gave
him to do, the salvation of God's people. Look at verse 7. Neither speak
they through their throat. Now that's just biblical language
to describe what comes out of a person's mouth, whether or
not it comes from their heart. In Romans chapter 3, speaking
of man's sinfulness, God says, their throat is an open sepulcher. Where does our throat go to?
It goes to our hearts, doesn't it? And so they don't speak from
their heart, they're speaking from another place. They're speaking,
the heart and the head are indistinguishable in the scriptures and yet here
there's a distinction made. In that a person can parrot,
and that's all they're doing, parroting the words of men. A
person can learn some things in their head and just repeat
words that they've learned. And God says they speak not from
their throat. Their throat is an open sepulcher. That's a tomb
full of dead men's bones. That's what's in the heart. All
they're doing is saying words they've not been taught of God.
They've not been taught of God. They've just been taught of man.
Let me tell you something, if God teaches you the truth, there's
not a person in this world that will be able to un-teach you.
Not one. There's not a situation or a
circumstance that will be able to convince you of what's different
from what God's taught you. But if you've just learned it
from a man, Well, anybody that's a little bit more argumentative
and convincing and persuasive can teach you otherwise. So what
do they do? They go from religious persuasion
to religious persuasion, listening to the words of men. They speak
not through their throat. They speak not from their heart.
Why? Because God's never done a work
of grace in their heart. That's what you and I are in
need of. We're in need of a new heart. We're in need of God to
take out this heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh and
cause us to declare the truth of who He is from the heart and
not to be idolaters. They that make them are just
like them. They trust in them. You see that? In verse 8, they trust in them.
Now, here's the command of God. Here's
the call of grace. And if you're able to hear it,
come. If you're thirsty, drink. If
you can hear, believe. If you're willing, God's made
you so, come. If you're able to believe, believe. Oh, Israel, the true Israelite,
is not the one who has been circumcised by the hands of men, but the
one who has been circumcised by the Spirit, the circumcision
of the heart, the cutting away of all these idols, all these
fleshly passions, all these man-made religions. God cuts them away
when He gives you a new heart. O Israel, trust thou in the Lord. Trust in Him. Are you able to
trust the Lord Jesus Christ for all your salvation? Are you able
to trust that He chose you in Him before the foundations of
the world? Are you able to believe that
when the Lord Jesus Christ walked this earth 2,000 years ago that
He was doing it on your behalf and accomplishing a righteousness
for you that you can't accomplish for yourself? Are you able to
believe and trust that when He hung on Calvary's cross that
He was suffering the wrath of God's judgment in order to put
away your sin? Trust Him! Salvations of the
Lord. He's done it all. Are you able
to believe that God proved His satisfaction in Christ by raising
Him from the dead and received Him back into glory and that
the Lord Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God as your
intercessor and sin-bearer before God, as your righteousness, as
your advocate before God? Can you trust Him? Trust Him. I mean trust Him. Believe that
He's able and you're not. You can't believe in His ability
without believing at the same time in your absolute total inability. You can't believe that He's everything
until you believe you're nothing. You can't believe He's able unless
you believe you're unable. you can't believe you he can
unless you believe you can't you just it is two sides of the
same coin you can't divide that coin it's called repentance and faith Oh house of Aaron God has made
us to be not only princes that's what Israel means we are Children
of the King in the royal family of God? What greater station
in life is there? What greater station is there
than to be a child of God? Oh, what manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the children
of God, children of Israel? And Aaron, who was Aaron? Aaron
was the priest, wasn't he? And God has made us not only
kings, but He's made us priests. He's given us access into the
very presence of God so that we can approach the throne of
grace with boldness, with confidence. Trust the Lord. He is their help
and their shield. Do you need a shield? Do you find the fiery darts of
Satan? to be hurled in your direction
quite frequently, you need a shield to quench those. He is our shield. Scripture calls it the shield
of faith. Faith is not something we have to hold up. Faith is trusting Christ. Ye that fear the Lord, trust
in the Lord." Trust Him. Trust Him for all your righteousness.
Believe that He's satisfied the justice of God. Cast all your
care upon Him. Why? Because He careth for you. He's able and you're not. This is the difference. between
those who are the true circumcision of God, who worship God in the
Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh, and those who are still bound in idolatry. Lord, deliver me. Deliver me
from making you to be like me. Enable me to believe that you
can be trusted and that I can lay everything on you and that
you are able to save to the uttermost them who come to God by you.
Lord, give me that faith. The Lord has been mindful of
us. He will bless us. Oh Lord, cause me to believe
that. He's not going to bless you because
of something you do. He's going to bless you because
He delights in showing mercy towards His children. He will bless the house of Israel.
He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless them that fear
the Lord, both small and great. You say, well I'm just nobody.
Oh no. No. In Christ, in Christ, all the
blessings of God, all the promises of God are for all of His children. The Lord shall increase you more
and more, you and your children. He'll grow you in His grace.
He's pleased to save you. He's not going to leave you in
one place. He's going to grow you in His
grace, though you might not see it. You ought not to see it. Afflictions, He's going to grow
you through them. Trials and troubles, He's going to grow
you through them. You are blessed of the Lord,
which made heaven and earth. The heaven, even the heavens,
are the Lord's. But the earth hath He given to the children
of men. That means that He's given us
this earth. That's what it means. The earth's
not been given to everybody. Matter of fact, men outside of
Christ are given to the earth. They're put in the grave and
they're sent back to the earth that they came from. But for the child of God, for
the one who has been delivered from idolatry, this earth belongs to them. It belongs to them. And Satan
says, I'm going to take that away from you. You can't. It's
the Lord's, and I'm in Him, and it's all here for my use, and
it's all here for His glory, and it's all going to be used
for my good, however He chooses to do that. The dead praise not the Lord.
The spiritually dead, they can't praise God. They have feigned
worship. Neither any that go down into
silence, but we, will bless the Lord from this time forth and
forevermore praise you the Lord not unto us O Lord not unto us
but unto thy name be glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's
sake. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father
we thank you that you are merciful to save idolaters We ask, Lord,
that you would continue to deliver us from our idolatrous thoughts
and idolatrous ways, and that you would enable us, by your
grace, through faith, to trust Christ for all our salvation.
We thank you for this table. We thank you for the simplicity
of it. We ask that you'd bless the bread and the wine. through
faith that we would have eyes to see and ears to hear, noses to smell. We pray it in
Christ's name. Amen. I'm going to ask the men
if they'll come and distribute the wine and the bread. Brother Tom, we're going to sing
number one in the soft back tenor. Just remain seated, please. Number
one.