Psalm 71, and we'll begin in
verse six this week. And I wanna speak to you on the
Lord holding us up from the womb. David said, he held me up from
my mother's womb. And I wanna say something that
the Lord has, I believe, taught me this week that really is not
directly related to the message tonight. And when I say the Lord,
whenever I say the Lord's taught me something, you know by that
I mean he spoke to my heart about it and I know it may be a little
bit. I pray better than I did. And we don't know anything as we
ought to know. But the Lord. I believe has been teaching me
about something I see. in myself and in a lot of others
that I love very dearly. A lot of bitterness and a lot
of a great condemning spirit regarding the gospel and directed at people who don't
know the gospel. There's a tendency to label everybody
as a heretic that doesn't know everything we know. I pray that I never compromise
the truth of God in any way, in consideration of anybody ever
compromise the truth. And our Lord had some very harsh
words for the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes, but
those were very particular groups of people who were deliberately
deceiving people for their own gain. The typical sinner who just flat
doesn't know God Do we have any compassion or are we just gonna
be harsh and judgmental? Paul, when he spoke about us
delivering the message of the gospel, he said, we beseech you. From our heart to yours, I pray,
we beseech you, be you reconciled to God. I believe he spoke to King Agrippa
when he said, don't you believe the prophets? He said to him,
I know you believe, I know you believe. And he said, I would to God that you were such as I am, accept
these bonds. And I pray for that spirit. And
I pray for the Lord to take away this tendency we have to argue
and debate and to fight and to break fellowship with those who
don't agree with us. And I pray we'll just flat get
over ourselves and give a hoot whether somebody goes to hell
or not. That's what I pray. For some compassion. David said in Psalm 71 6 by the. My God, by the. Have I been holding
up from the womb? You're the one. You're the one
who took me. Out of my mother's womb, my mother's
bowels, my praise shall be continually. Of the. Now David has spoken in the beginning
of this psalm of trusting in the Lord. He confessed in verse
one that he had put his trust in the Lord and that's very instructive
language. You will deliberately and consciously
place your trust in somebody or something. Everybody does. And David said, mine's going
where it belongs. My trust is in God. And we know, he said, that even
from his youth, since he'd been a boy, he'd been trusting in
the Lord. And apparently had no intention of placing that
trust anywhere else. And we know, and we were reminded
as we studied that from Hebrews chapter 11, and we could have
turned to many verses of scripture but it's so clearly and beautifully
expressed in Hebrews 11 that it's by faith that we choose,
it's by faith that we believe, it's by faith that we walk, it's
by faith that we move with fear for God if we do as Noah did
and built an ark. Salvation is through faith and
faith moves us. Read Hebrews 11 again. But now
in this verse, in verse six, we see that salvation is through
faith, but it's by grace. It's by grace. Ephesians 2.8,
for by grace are you saved through faith. And that not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God. It's of faith that it might be
by grace. He said, just not in this same
context, really, For by grace are you saved through faith.
And that's not of yourselves. If it was, it wouldn't be grace.
It's God's gift. Faith is God's gift. Yes, David
put his trust in the Lord, consciously, deliberately. And in verse five,
he made a good profession, didn't he? That since he was a boy,
he said, I've trusted in God. But here in verse six, we see
why. This is cause and effect. Faith is the effect. And grace
is the cause. Now faith is also a cause, a
secondary cause. You say, well, the sun makes
my flowers grow. That's a fine statement, isn't
it? The sun causes the flowers to
grow. They wouldn't grow if they didn't have any sunlight. But
who makes the sunshine? It's by God through sunshine. It's God that causes them to
grow. He sends his rain down to do that. So faith is also
a cause, but it's a secondary cause. By faith, Noah, being
warned of God, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving
of his house. Faith caused him to move with
fear before God and obey God in the building of that ark.
And it resulted in the saving of his house. So faith caused
him to move, but what caused his faith? Noah found grace. And he wasn't looking for it.
He just found it because God was gracious to him. Now Paul
said in Hebrews 12 to looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God." Now, what's the
object of our faith? Faith has to believe something. Faith has to trust something
or somebody. What's the object of our faith?
Christ, who for the joy that was set before him endured the
cross, Christ crucified, and sitting down on the throne of
God right now, making intercession for us on the basis precious
blood. That's the object of my faith.
But I find in that verse also that He's the cause of my faith.
The word author there as we've seen before in Hebrews 12.2 is
from a root word which means that by which anything begins
to be. The origin, the active cause. Christ is the one by whom my
faith began to be. He is the origin of my faith.
He is the active cause of my faith. David trusted in the Lord.
He put his trust in God. Why? Because from his mother's
womb, God had held him in his hand. That's why. Because before David was ever
born, or had done any good or evil, that the purpose of God
according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that
calleth, God said, I love David. Now that verse is from Romans
9, 11 through 13, that passage, and it's talking about Jacob,
but you just plug a name in there. Just plug a name in there, but
I'll tell you this, it'll have to be the name of somebody that
has faith. It'll have to be, it's the name,
if somebody has put their trust in God, it's not by their will,
as he said later in Romans 9, it's not by their will, it's
not by their effort, but it's of God that shows mercy. Before
he was ever born, God was gracious to him. And that's why he put his trust
in God. God delights to show mercy. He
delights to show mercy. God said to Jeremiah in Jeremiah
1 5, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew you. And this
is not just being aware of Jeremiah now, he's aware of everybody.
But this is an intimate knowledge. This is love. This is the love
of God, which passeth knowledge. Before I formed thee in the belly,
I knew you, and before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified
you. You were holy to me while you
were still in the belly, because I made you holy. This is what David's talking
about. God chooses all of his people from the beginning, 2
Thessalonians 2, 13. We thank God for you. If you
know God, I thank God for you. And if you don't know God, I
want you to know tonight that he delights to show mercy. He's
gracious and he's omnipotent. And that combination, if that doesn't mean something to
you, it ought to. The one who delights to show mercy on sinners
is able to show mercy on sinners and nobody can stop him He does
it as he pleases. Can you pray to that god? Can
you cast your soul before that god? Who has mercy on whom he
will have mercy and whom he will he hardens From the womb he holds them in
his loving and powerful hand David wrote in Psalm 139, 13,
thou hast possessed my reins, thou hast covered me in my mother's
womb. Can you picture that? Before I'm even formed, before
I even come forth, before I even cry the first time, before I
ever open my eyes, God's hand is on me. That's why I trust
him. I love him. I do, by his grace
I love him. You know why? Because he loved
me in my mother's womb. When my children presume to know
how to do something better than I do, how absurd, you know. But one of my favorite things
to say is, I was doing that before you were born. What God is saying
in his word is I was saving you before you were born. What a
delightful thought. What a wonderful truth. How can God do that? How can
he do that? Have you ever thought about that?
When I was in my mother's womb, I was vile and wretched. Before
I had ever done any good or evil, I was evil. You know what I was
fixing to do? Evil That's what I was gonna
do that's what I did do once I came out I Went astray from
the womb like David speaking lies just like you did just like
your children did And just like there's will David said in Psalm 51 5 behold
I was shaping in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive
me and That doesn't mean she committed sin in the act of conceiving
David. He's saying, when my mother conceived
me, I was in sin. I was born in sin. A sinner begets
a sinner, just like a dog begets a dog. Dogs don't give birth
to rabbits. And sinners don't give birth
to anything but sinners. I was vile then. Job asks a question
and answers it in Job 14, for who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? Not one. Not one. Even God doesn't do that. He
can do whatever He wants to do. It's consistent with His character.
And that's what He wants to do. It's that which is consistent
with His character. But even God doesn't bring a clean thing
out of an unclean, strictly speaking. Because that which is born of
the flesh is flesh. The unclean thing that came out
of an unclean thing is always going to be unclean. But that
which is born of the Spirit. Oh, created. by Christ in true
godliness and holiness, Paul said. That's a clean thing coming
out of a clean thing. Begotten again by the word of
God, by his Holy Spirit from above, he said to Nicodemus.
But here's the question. If I'm conceived in sin, how
can God love me even then? Why would he? Why would he? Turn to Romans
8 with me. Romans 8, 33. I want to begin with a passage
of scripture that is often scrutinized and rightfully so, but I want
to read into a context that's maybe not so much. Always look
at verse 33 who shall lay anything? To the charge of God's elect,
you know who that elected. That's what David's talking about
He chose me and loved me and said his affection upon me for
my mother's womb Nobody can lay anything to their
charge either because it's God that justified the one the only
one who can condemn me is You can't condemn me. We love to
do that. We love to condemn one another, but it means nothing.
I haven't sinned against you. You haven't sinned against me.
We've all sinned against God. And he's the one that said, not
guilty. How are you going to judge me
now? Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. When we get all high and mighty
and think we know better than everybody else and start condemning
everybody, are you condemning one of the ones he died for?
Are you sure? Am I? We got no business condemning
anybody anyway. Who am I? Let's leave that to God. And
if God says not guilty, you're not guilty. And you know why
he does? Because it is Christ that died,
because of the precious blood of my Savior. I'm uncondemnable. Yea rather that is risen again
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession
for us. That's what we just talked about,
the Christ who died and is risen and is sitting on the throne,
making intercession for those for whose sins he paid. Now here,
35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Did he love
me then? Was he holding me even in my
mother's womb? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or peril, or sword, no matter what situation I find myself
in, no matter how low I've sunk, no matter if I've hit rock bottom,
Christ loves me. As it is written, for thy sake
we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the
slaughter. And you know what he's saying there? Yeah, but Christ loves us. You see that? We're accounted
as sheep for the slaughter. We're the offscouring of the
earth, he said in another place. Yeah, but Christ loves us. Nay, in all these things we are
more than conquerors. Why? Because Christ loves us. And through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded 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 creation shall
be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. He loved me and cried. How can
God love me? A vile, wretched thing that's
not ever gonna do. And God, God's not naive. He knows the end from the beginning.
He knows that I'm a wretch and when I come out of the womb,
I'm gonna start acting like a wretch. And I'm not ever gonna quit acting
like a wretch. I'm gonna get more and more wretched
the longer I'm out of the womb. But he loved me. How? how to
answer that, but I know a couple of things about it. I know it
was in Christ. I know it was because of my Savior
and what he did for me at Calvary. And I know that the word creature
there in verse 39, it means creation. It's the word creation. And it
means anything founded, established, or created. And you know what's
included in that? That Paul doesn't name Paul often
would name a lot of things and then he'd say, and anything else
that I forgot to mention, and that's what he's doing, any other
creation. You know what's included in that?
Time. Time. All the ages of time and
even eternity and whatever gulf there is between time and eternity,
none of it can separate me from the love of Christ. His love
for me is that strong. It's invincible love. Christ's
dying love was expressed and displayed at Calvary, but it
didn't begin there. And it didn't end there. The
effects of his sin atoning victory for his people are not limited
by time. How do you think Abraham was
saved? He was saved by the precious blood of Christ, just like I
was. Abraham wasn't on some kind of waiting list until Christ
came and actually was crucified on Calvary Christ is the lamb
slain from the foundation of the world Revelation 13 8 so
in my mother's womb by virtue of the fact that Christ is my
eternal Savior God held me up in his omnipotent hand And notice
it says he held me up He held me up I want you to know that
the picture here is of somebody leaning on something, bearing
all of their weight upon something that is able to support their
weight. That's what it is. He's holding
me up. It's like this pulpit right now is holding me up, all
my weight. He is holding me up. In other
words, I'm doing right now what David said has been happening
since I was in my mother's womb. I'm still leaning on him. He's
still holding me up. He was holding me up then. And
now, by his grace, I am consciously resting all of my weight upon
him. And you know what? It amounts
to the same thing. And that's what David was saying in the
beginning of this psalm. I'm consciously resting upon him. He's been holding
me up. You see, I trust Him. I trust
God. And I've been trusting Him since
I was a boy. But my salvation goes back way farther than that.
My salvation is not my trusting in Him. It's Him holding me up. It's not me putting my weight
on Him. It's Him holding up my weight. And that's been true
from the beginning, before I ever even knew it. Do you see that?
This is the salvation of God. And it amounts to the same thing
then and now. In my mother's womb and right
now, you know what? It's the same thing. Our experience
of salvation is simply our becoming aware of what has always been
true. I didn't do anything then except
lean, lay, rest in his arms. And that's what I'm doing now.
I'm not helping that situation any. Are you? You making it light on God? I was a dead weight then in his
arms and I'm a dead weight now in his arms. I just know it now. And I'm so glad. It's so good to know it. Do you object to being called
a dead weight now? Let's see Christ let you go and
see what you are. Let's see him let you go for
one second and let's find out what you are. On second thought,
no. Lord, don't let us go. Not for one second. I've been laying in his hand. since I was in my mother's womb.
And because of who he is, because it is of the Lord's mercies,
I'm not consumed. Because he is the Lord, and he
said, I change not. Therefore, because of that, because of him,
that's where I'm at right now. I'm still right there. I've been
there before I was born, since before I was born, that's where
I am right now. A dead weight in the hand of God, but by his
grace sanctified and precious in his sight. That's the truth behind David
trusting in God. David was a faithful man and
he was also a wretched fool. By God's grace, he trusted in
God. And we know why, don't we? He
loved God because God first loved him. And that's the testimony
of every believer here tonight. Thank God for his eternal, boundless
love. Amen, let's pray.