Well, we won't be closing for
the coronavirus. If required by law, we still
may not be closing for the coronavirus. Probably not. People don't understand what
this is, and I'm not sure we do. This is not expendable. Not for
me. So if the Lord enables me, I'll
be here. Whoever can. We'll just do what we have today. 2 Samuel 22, verse 1 through
7, this morning, this evening. 2 Samuel 22 is going to take us
a while to get through. It's a really, really beautiful
song that David Saying unto the Lord when the
Lord had delivered him from all of his enemies. That's why we
sing by the way That's why we just sang Because the Lord's
delivered as he saved us from all of our enemies In the first four verses of this
chapter, we're reminded of something Really in precious to think about
the completeness of the salvation of God and In verse one, David
writes that this is a song of his when the Lord had had saved
him from all of his enemies. And of course, the key word being
had, you notice I emphasize that for a reason, past tense, he
saved us. Of course, the word all is key
in that verse too. It reminds us that the Lord,
when he saves, he plumb saves. from all of our enemies, sin,
self, Satan, sinners, each other. In other words, death and hell. This world. Past tense, when he had saved
him, he sang a song. In verse two, he said, he is
my savior. In verse three, he is the horn
or the strength, power of my salvation. A lot of present tense
there, he savest me from violence. That is wrong, cruelty, and injustice. Present tense, he is. And then
verse four, I'm gonna call on the Lord and that's how I will
be saved. That's how I've always been saved. And I'm gonna call on Him because
I know He will save me. I know He can. He's shown that
He will. I don't presume upon His will,
but if He shows Himself willing, He don't change. Here's all you
need to know about the immutability of God. You can read a lot of
books on it, that's fine. But He said, I am the Lord, I
change not. That's pretty good. Oh, don't forget the rest of
that. Therefore you sons of Jacob are
not consumed. I like that part too. The reason
I'm saved is because the Lord don't change. And that's why
I'm gonna be saved too. And we know because of who God
is that if I am saved right now, And I know that by faith, that's
how I know I'm saved, by faith. We know Christ by faith, we know
that we know Christ. By faith, if you believe. Faith is the evidence of things
not seen. I can't see my name written in
the book of life, but God said you believe in my son, I'll save
you. I believe him. By his grace, I believe him. So we know by faith, I believe
God concerning his son. I believe on his son, and knowing
that, I know that God is eternal and unchangeable, and that his
salvation is eternal. I know from his word by faith
that he hath from the beginning chosen his people unto salvation. Second Thessalonians 2.13, we're
bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved
of the Lord, loved by God. That's what election is now.
Always remember that. It's not God saying eeny, meeny,
miny, moe. He fell in love with some sinners.
And I don't understand that. But that's what election is. If the purpose of God according
to election might stand, he said, I've loved Jacob. Because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation. through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth. And I tell you something else
that we know. Listen to what Paul wrote to the church at Philippi
in Philippians 1, 3. He said, I thank God, I thank
my God upon every remembrance of you. Always in every prayer
of mine for you all, making request with joy. for your fellowship
in the gospel from the first day until now. Being confident
of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you,
he'll finish it, he'll perform it. Until the day of Jesus Christ,
that day when the Lord alone is exalted that Isaiah spoke
of. The day of Jesus Christ, he'll
perform that good work, he'll finish it. We know if I'm saved
right now, I know that God did that a long time ago, and I know
this. He's never gonna stop saving me. Well, we need to see this in
verse four, too. He said, I'll call on him. I'm
gonna call on him. We have this promise from God. Romans 10, 13, whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Some will question, that's who's saved now, whoever
calls on God. Some will question that and lean
on their pathetic understanding and say, well, if salvation is
eternal, if we're chosen to it from the beginning, why do we
need to call? Others will just call on him. Guess who's gonna
be saved? Guess which one of those is gonna
be saved? Also in verse four, it says this,
he is worthy of all praise. Why? Because he saved me. Because
he's saving me. And because he's gonna save me. His greatest glory and worthiness
is revealed in his saving. Grace, his infinite saving grace
and power. And in him saving the most sinful
of all of his creatures, the most wretched. That's how his
glory shines now. And he did so, here's the glory
now. Father, the hour has come. Glorify
thy son, that thy son may glorify thee. How did God do that? He
went to Calvary. His greatest glory is in how
he saved me. Who saved me and how he saved
me by the sacrificial, sin gotta be paid for, doesn't
it? Substitutionary, I can't pay for it, so somebody else
gonna have to. Substitutionary sacrifice, death of his only
begotten well-beloved son. We're gonna praise him, aren't
we? We're gonna have to. Verse five, when the waves of death
compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The waves of death, death pictured
as drowning, drowning, but not drowning in a sea or a lake or
a river. These floods are made out of
people. He's talking about flood made out of people. And David said, I'm afraid. They make me afraid. David, the one who took down
Goliath when he was just a boy, when everybody else was shaking
in their boots, all the grownups weren't acting so grown up that
day. David the one who ran from Saul to save his life He did
the prudent thing But he wasn't scared of Saul if he was he'd
have killed him while he was sleeping one of the two times
he was able to do so if he wanted to David who went into battle as
a young man and slew his ten thousands he said the floods
of ungodly men make me afraid and Ungodly men and that's the only
can there is by the way He's not saying ungodly there as a
variety of men, but as an adjective describing all men That's what
men are they're ungodly And they're scary When David said I'm afraid but
you know what else he said when I am afraid at what time I am
afraid I'm not trusting you That's what he just said in the song,
too. There's nothing scarier than people. Mark it down. Even
in all of our imagination, we can't come up with anything scarier
than us. I like scary movies. I just enjoy
them. I just, I don't know why, because I'm an idiot, I guess.
But you know, we can't even imagine anything scarier than we are.
Zombies are nasty, and they'll bite you, but they're not very
smart. People will figure out a way to mess you over, won't
they? And they'll do a whole lot worse than that. Don't be afraid of the dark.
Don't be afraid of monsters under your bed or anywhere else. Be
afraid, be wary. Be wise as serpents and harmless
as doves. You remember why the Lord said
that? Listen to this, Matthew 10, 16. He said, behold, I send
you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise
as serpents and harmless as doves. And you know what the next four
words are? But beware of men, beware of men. People are really good at doing
really horrible things They're really good at it And they're
really horrible Look at verse 6 in our text the sorrows of
hell compass to me about the snares of death prevented me
Now we're reminded here that people are not all we have to
be afraid of. The sorrows of hell surrounded
me and the snares of death confronted me. That's the word there. They
confronted me. They stopped me in my tracks.
They came up against me. They confronted me. Do you know
what death and hell are? They're the consequences of my
sin. They're not the effects of somebody
else's sin coming at me. They're the consequences of my
own sin, death and hell. The sorrows of hell don't compass
me because people are bad. The sorrows of hell compass me
because I'm bad. The snares of death surround
me and confront me Because of me and something else
we need to understand about death and hell. They're not. The bad guys here. We are. And also they're not
the problem in another way. God said I kill. And I make alive
death is something God does and only he does. The consequences
of my sin or death, but I can't kill myself. I can't do it. Even if I destroyed this body
myself, which how are you going to escape the providence of God?
If God don't ordain it, you ain't doing it. But also I can't kill
myself in the true sense of the word. I can't do that. It's not
my prerogative. God does it. Only God does it. So if death
and hell are encompassing me, listen, in Revelation 1.18 we're
told very clearly Christ said, I am he that liveth and was dead
and behold I'm alive forevermore and I have the keys of hell and
of death. Hell can't do anything to you,
but he can. You remember when he said, fear him. Don't fear
him who's able to kill the body and then they got nothing else
they can do. Fear him who's able to kill you and put you in hell. So when David says this about
death and hell, he's talking about something God's doing,
or gonna do, or may do. So if God is the one
you've got the problem with, then what are you gonna do about
that? Next verse, in my distress, I called upon the Lord. That's
what you're gonna do. You're gonna come begging him.
That's what you're gonna do. You're gonna be a mercy beggar. You're gonna say, Lord, have
mercy on me. God, be merciful to me. I've
sinned against you. You think about what that publican
said. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. That's the last one
that deserves mercy, the sinner. A victim, you know, of some kind.
But a sinner? Be merciful to the one who hated
you and nailed you to a cross and spit on you and mocked you
while you bled out? Be merciful to me? Yeah. That's what we got to have. We
got to have mercy. So what are you going to do? In my distress, I called upon
the Lord and cried to my God. What's my distress? I killed
his son. But I still got to call on him.
I got to have mercy now. Got to have it. And he did hear
my voice out of his temple. And my cry did enter into his
ears. Well, you see, we have a big
problem. That's why this brave, courageous, strong man was scared. We got a problem. Hell, we're
hanging over hell by a thread, aren't we? And we know it, by
God's grace we know it. Our problem is with God. And
there's just one way out. In Acts 4, 10, listen to this.
The message that was preached on that day, be it known unto
you all. There was thousands of people
gathered to hear this. They needed to hear it, religious
people that didn't know God. Like our generation. And to all
the people of Israel, Be it known unto you that by the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised
from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you
whole. And this is me saying this part as a testimony to the
power of God and the saving grace of God. And as confirmation of
who it is that's sent me to preach this to you. This is God's word. what He's saying now by Him.
He's the one that did. Don't look at us like we did
anything. This is God's Son. Listen, this is the stone which
was set at naught of you builders, which has become the head of
the corner. And listen, He already said whom
you crucified. Don't miss that part. Jesus of
Nazareth whom you crucified and you set at naught the headstone
of the corner. Neither is there salvation in
any other. He's your problem, but I tell you this, He's your
only solution too. There's no salvation in any other.
You can't hide from Him. You can't please Him. You can't
make up for what you've done. How do you make up for killing
God? You killed the Prince of Light. For there is none other
name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
You see that? That's called being shut up to
Christ. one who ought to put you in Hell. That's who you've got to come
to. Listen to this, what do you suppose the consequences will
be of crucifying the Son of God and setting at naught His chief
cornerstone? What are we going to do about
that? What is anybody going to do about that? Acts 2.36, therefore
let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made
that same Jesus whom you have crucified both Lord and Christ. That's bad news for a sinner. That's bad news if you crucified
him. He's on the throne now. The one
you spit on is on the throne. The one you
murdered is on the throne of the universe. When they heard
this, they were stabbed in their hearts and said unto Peter and
into the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall
we do? That's not the same question
as. What must I do to be saved? What
good work, the rich young ruler, what good work shall I do to
inherit eternal life? He was literally saying, what
can I do? I want to do something so that I might be worthy. You
know what they're saying? What in the world are we going
to do? That's despair. You just murdered the son of
God. What are you going to do about that? What can we do? What are
we going to do? And Peter said unto them, repent,
change your mind. You know why we killed God? Because
we think we're God. You're gonna have to change your
mind about that. About you and him. It's gonna
have to be the opposite of what you think. And be baptized, every
one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Confess the one you denied. Own the one you murdered. Repent and confess your sins,
repent and confess that Christ's death is not just what you're
guilty of before God, but bless God, Christ's death is the only
remedy for what you're guilty of before God. And this is the
same thing as saying believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Is
he preaching a different gospel than Paul and Silas? who said believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's the same message. It's the same thing. What is
repentance? It's believing Him. Change your mind from what to
what? What He said. That's what. It's believing on
Him. It's the same thing. And confessing
Him that He's your only hope. That you're not gonna be saved
by what you do. What you do is the problem. I'm gonna have to
be saved by Him and what He did. It's the same thing. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Faith is
God's gift and it's exactly what you need. Repentance is God's
gift. It's exactly what you need. Two
sides of the same coin. Once you believe, you'll repent
and not until. And you can't repent without
believing. And baptism is a public confession
of what you believe. I believe that all of my salvation
is Christ, Him crucified, yea rather, that is risen again. It's public confession of the
faith that is in your heart by grace. If you believe in your
heart and confess with your mouth and
public baptism. God said, whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And David says, so
I called on him and he saved me. That's simple, isn't it?
That's so simple. I didn't question him. I called
on him. You know what calling on him is? It's all through the
scripture. Lord, be merciful. God, be merciful to me, the sinner.
Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. David said, I didn't question
him. I called on him. I didn't say, well, how does that work?
I called on him. I didn't blame him. I didn't
blame God. That's our natural tendency,
isn't it? Well, I'm the way you made me. No. I didn't blame him. I called on him. And he saved
me. I didn't make a deal with him. I didn't say, I will if you will.
No, religion loves to say that. If you will, God will. Don't
make a deal with God. Call on him. You're sinking like
Simon beneath the wave. You ain't got time to say nothing,
but Lord, save me. Lord, save me. That's calling
on him. By his grace, I didn't make any
promises to him. I believed his promises to me,
and he saved me. I called on his name and he heard
me. He heard me. And listen, we don't doubt that
God will do what he said he would. He said call and I'll save. But listen now, it's not call
a certain way. It's not the quality of your
call. It's who are you calling on and
why. That's what it is now. It's not
the quality or eloquence or some kind of convincing nature of
your call unto God. Simon just said, Lord, save me.
And he did. You think about that. What we
miss now, you mark this down, what we miss in God's word is
not the complicated doctrinal stuff that everybody loves to
argue about. What we miss is what's plain as the nose on our
face. That's what sinners miss. It don't take much to cry, Lord,
save me. You know what it takes? You're
desperate. You need him. You got to have
him. It takes hell confronting you and death compassing you
about. It takes distress. David said,
in my distress, I cry. And you know how distress happens?
You believe what he said. You know why people aren't upset?
Because they don't believe God. If you believe God, you've got
a problem. If you don't believe God, you've got an even bigger
problem. Well, it's not the strength of
the faith with which you call. One man cried with tears, Lord,
I believe. Help my unbelief. You think about
that. It's not the strength of the faith with which you call
him. That man said, in effect, Lord,
I believe and I don't. But I sure do need you. Help me. Help me. I need you.
And the Lord heard. The Lord heard him now. That's the point of this. The
Lord heard that pathetic cry. I believe you and I don't. Help
me. It shouldn't shock us when the
Lord does what he says he'll do, but it kind of does, doesn't
it? And you can hear that in David's psalm here. Nothing wrong
with being in awe of his condescending grace. Nothing wrong with being
in awe of it, is there? Can you hear that in David's
words? He heard me out of his temple. He heard me, the one
who sits, and he called it, David called it over and over in these
psalms, his holy temple. His holy temple. He heard me
out of His holy temple. God sitting on the throne of
the universe, but it's the throne of grace. In His holy of holies
in glory, not made with hands, but the holy of holies, the most
holy place, the very presence of God, He heard the cry of a
worm of the dust. It entered into His ears. I cried, Lord, if you will, and
he said, I will. I cried, Lord, save me, and immediately
he stretched forth his hand and caught me. That's Simon's testimony. I cried,
Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me, and he stopped what
he was doing and said, what do you want? What wilt thou have
me do unto thee? Call on him. The one who can
do anything said, what can I do for you? And David answered that
question for all who call upon the name of the Lord in Psalm
27 four. One thing have I desired of the
Lord that will I seek after. I'm going to ask him for it.
He said, ask and you'll receive. Seek and you'll find. I'm gonna
seek. And it's one thing that I may
dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold
the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. The beauty of the Lord. Now listen
now, he said, I'll call on him. I'm gonna call on him. That's
what Bartimaeus did, right? He called on him and the Lord
said, what do you want? Here's what we want. The beauty of the Lord will make
all of your enemies seem very small. That I may behold the beauty
of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. His beauty will put
your enemies in perspective. They're nothing. They're nothing. Not to him, they're not. They're
nothing. His beauty will turn heartbreaking
sorrow into light afflictions, which are but for a moment. His
beauty. Think about this now. David said,
I want to live where he is. I want to live where he is. And
you know what the closest place to that is on this planet? where two or three are gathered
in my name. That's where I am. That's where I am. His beauty will make a palace
appear a toy, and a prison prove to be a palace. The beauty that
I may behold, the beauty of the Lord. And to inquire, to ask him, what? Show me more of your beauty.
If one thing you want is to see his beauty, then what are you
going to inquire about his beauty? Isn't that what Paul said? That
I may know him. Don't you know him, Paul? Yeah. But I want to know him. That
I may know him in the power of his resurrection. Lord, just show me who you are
and let me live where you live. That's what I want. And that's
our prayer tonight by his grace. And I just want, I just want
us to think about that tonight as simple as it is calling on
the name of the Lord. May he give us grace to crown
him.