Thank you, ladies, and thank
you, Adam and Rob. I think sometimes that it would
be good to, after you've heard the message, to go back and listen
to the songs and the scripture reading that was sung before
the message and just see how well it goes with the message.
I'm sitting here knowing what the message is, and I'm just
sitting here going, that's amazing. That'll be a blessing to you,
I think. All right, verse 17, Psalm 119, 17. This is the next
section of Psalm 119. It's titled with the third letter
of the Hebrew alphabet. Each verse begins with that Hebrew
letter. We hear David here in his utter
dependence upon the Lord. If we read this and hear Christ
speak, you see the fulfillment of this in perfection. But we
hear David here as a believer in utter dependence upon the
Lord, and he's desiring to behold Christ and be strengthened by
his Lord and his Savior. Let's just jump into it. We'll
just begin here with the first verse. The Spirit that God creates in
us anew is not like the spirit we have by nature. It is a spirit
of utter dependence on the Lord. Utter dependence on the Lord.
He says here in verse 17, deal mouthfully with thy servant that
I may live and keep thy word. When our Lord served the Father
as the righteous servant of God, the last Adam, He was utterly
dependent upon the Father. He really walked as His people
in this earth, depending on the Father entirely. So He could
certainly pray that. But for you and me, the meaning
of this form of the Hebrew word that's translated bountifully,
it's translated a lot of different ways in scripture, and it includes
everything God's child desires of the Lord. Everything we depend
upon the Lord for is in this word bountifully, dealt bountifully. It means it's translated in some
places to serve and do good, to reward, to bestow, The Lord
Jesus served us in this earth, and he's serving us now still
continually all the time. He ministers every spiritual
gift to his children freely. It's not due to merit in us,
it's the gift of his grace. And we're asking our Lord to
minister to us and do us good. The word sometimes translated
to wean, like a child weaned from the breast. We're asking
the Lord and depending on the Lord to wean me from my sinful
flesh and from this world. Make me wholly taken up with
Christ. Deal bountifully with me. Sometimes
it's translated to ripen and make yield. Aaron's rod budded
and blossoms and yielded almonds. That's what it means. We're asking
the Lord to grow us and make us yield fruit. And as it's translated
here, deal bountifully, deal bountifully. The Lord dealt bountifully
unto his people when he blessed us in Christ in eternity. He
dealt bountifully to us, blessed us with all spiritual blessings.
And Christ dealt bountifully to us when he came here and served
God the Father perfectly and laid down his life on Calvary's
tree for us. He dealt bountifully to us. Our
Savior, continues to give His children abundant grace. He continues
to deal bountifully to us, supplying all our need. All our need. He
does not supply our want, but He supplies our need. If we're
not getting what we want, just know He's not going to supply
what we want. He's going to supply what we
need. Why did He ask this? He said that I may live and keep
Thy word. Not one sinner can live unto
God walking by faith alone in Christ Jesus our Lord. Not one
can do so until the Spirit makes us know that Christ has freely
redeemed us from the curse of the law. You cannot live and
live under God and walk by faith until you know in the heart,
in spirit, that you've been redeemed from the curse of the law. It's
an impossibility. Before the Lord does that, every
work is living to self. In the best, most zealous religious
days, living to self. It's from selfish motives. trying
to indebt God, it's self-righteousness, it's self-sanctification, it's
for the selfish end of earning heaven, every bit of it. The
law was given by God to be at Sinai, the law of Sinai, given
to be the ministration of death. Paul tells us about the glory
it had in 2 Corinthians 3 as the ministration of death. It
had glory. It had glory. is to declare us guilty and to
minister death to everything that we think is good in our
flesh. That's the purpose of it. It
hadn't lost that purpose. That's still the purpose of it.
But as long as a man is under the law, as long as a man is
trying to, is looking to the works of his hand, to his obedience,
the law only makes him more sinful. I'm not saying the law makes
him sinful, he's only breaking the law more and more. It's mainly because he's looking
to it for righteousness rather than to Christ. Paul said the
law wrought in him all manner of concupiscence. The lust of
his sin nature filled him with pride, thinking he was righteous
by his deeds. He thought he had done something
to earn favor. Now, it's only when our Lord
Jesus Christ, only when the Spirit of our God creates a new pure
holy heart and frees us from that fear of bondage and death
by revealing to us that our sins have been put away and we've
been made righteous in Christ. We've been redeemed from the
curse of the law. That's when we start living unto
God. Living unto God. Now, we desire
with all our new man to live to him and keep his word. That's
the delight of the inward man, to live unto Him and keep His
word. And when we behold our sin, the
Spirit keeps us running to God our Father, to Christ our High
Priest, confessing our sin and our need for Him to cleanse us.
We're begging God from a broken heart like David does here, deal
bountifully with thy servant that I may live and keep thy
word. David was born of the Spirit.
He believed the Lord Jesus Christ. He followed him. He walked by
faith. He sought to honor him in all
that he did. Why does he ask God to make him
live and keep his word? Same reason every believer does.
He was aware that he's yet a sinner. He was aware that in his flesh
was nothing good. You see, this is an entirely
new attitude, an entirely new spirit from what we had when
we were in our flesh. It's beholding we're the sinner
with no sufficiency in ourself and no strength in ourself and
totally needing the Lord to continually deal bountifully to us that we
might live and keep His Word. Totally different spirit. Be
sure to get this, living unto God is living in absolute dependence
on the Lord. Living to Him is living in absolute
dependence on the Lord. God's revealed to us how bountifully
He's been to us in His Son. He has dealt bountifully to us,
and so we desire to honor Him. We desire our life to be lived
to Him. That's what we want. that we
walk by faith, trusting He is our only righteousness, and depending
entirely upon the Lord to deal bountifully to us. And by the
Spirit of our Lord, He's going to keep us in that meekness,
that newness of spirit, to where we can't ever think we have sufficiency
in ourselves. We're going to constantly be
needing Him to deal bountifully to us. Now, secondly, God's grace
going to make his child continually ask God to show us our Lord Jesus
Christ in His Word. That's what we want. I want to
see Christ in His Word. You talk to anybody born of His
Spirit and they'll tell you, I want to see the Lord Jesus
Christ in His Word. He says there in verse 18, Open
thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. No sinner has any ability to
see spiritual things till God gives us new eyes, New Testament
eyes, to be able to see spiritually, to be able to see what the Word
is teaching us and that it's all concerning Christ. That's
so with all the Old Testament. That's so with the law that God
gave. Moses came down from that mount
with that veil on his face, and in 2 Corinthians 3.14, Paul said,
just like Moses' face was covered with that veil, he said, until
this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of
the Old Testament, which veil is only done away in Christ.
Men go to the Word, and men go to the New Testament the same
way, thinking they have life in it, by doing, by doing, and
that's what they're looking for, what to do, what to do. He said,
but even to this day, when Moses has read the veils on the heart,
nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.
Now the Lord is that spirit. He's going to do that. Where
the spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. He has to open our eyes.
But we all, once he's worked this, with open face, not a veil
anymore, the heart's made new and we have eyes to see, and
with an open face we behold as in a mirror the glory of the
Lord. We're seeing the glory of the
Lord. We're seeing what he's done for us, what he's fulfilled
for us. And here's the result. We're
changed into the same image of our Lord Jesus in a new man.
and we're changed from the glory of that old covenant, that was
his subject in 2nd Corinthians 3, was how that glory administered
death to us and showed us you don't have one thing good in
you, that had glory in it. But we're translated from the
glory of that to the glory of His everlasting covenant of grace,
to the glory of Christ Himself, and that's by the Spirit of the
Lord. When the Lord gives you these
New Testament eyes, Then we behold him who is wonderful. David said, show me wondrous
things out of thy law. When he gives you the New Testament,
we behold him whose name is wonderful. Then we start beholding the wondrous
things he's done for us. The saving, conscience, cleansing,
blood, the power. is the blood of Christ. It's
what He's accomplished for His people in redeeming us from the
law of sin and death and making us everlasting alive by His righteousness. You know, after declaring how
the Spirit creates us anew in Christ's image and turns us from
the glory of the law to the glory of Christ and to God's grace
and the glory of this new covenant, Paul said the same way that that
happened in the beginning as we've received mercy, we faint
not. The same way that was done in
the first hour by God making us behold Christ and what He
has accomplished for us, that's the only way we don't faint now. It's by the same Spirit of God
showing us the same Lord Jesus Christ and all His glory and
what He's done for us and God's grace to us. That's why we preach
Christ. That's why God's child is saying,
Lord, open my eyes and let me see him who's wonderful. Let
me see the wondrous things he's done for me in your word. That's
how he keeps us walking by faith, showing us the wondrous things
that Christ who is wonderful has done for his people. And
we beg God, show us. We come here today saying, Lord,
will you show us one more time? Show us one more time. That's
what David's saying. Open my eyes, show me one more
time. When we see Christ in God's Word,
we say things marvelous. That's what that word wondrous
means. Marvelous, wonderful, surpassing things. Things impossible
to behold but by the Spirit of Revelation. The Spirit has given
us the key to these scriptures. Christ Jesus. His light, we start
seeing Him who is light. David now, he only had the first
five books of the Bible. Maybe he had Job, maybe a few
others, but you imagine David's delight. You don't have to imagine,
you know it. When the Lord first opened his
eyes and made him start seeing Christ, and made him start seeing
Christ in those books he had, the Word of God. In God's account
of creation, He probably read that numerous times, God's account
of creation. Now, he beheld pictures of Christ
and how Christ makes his people a new creation where once all
he read about was how God created all things in heaven and earth.
Before, he read the story about how the serpent tricked Eve and
how Adam disobeyed God and just like men preach from something
like that today, And David probably walked away, and I swear to God,
I need to stay clear of snakes. That serpent tricked me. I need
to beware of snakes. Just natural things is what I'm
saying. But when the Lord shows you Christ who is wonderful and
shows you wondrous things that he's accomplished for you, you
begin to behold the wonder of God's unchangeable, unchanging,
sovereign love and grace in Christ. How that when Adam sinned and
plunged the whole world into sin and death, God's grace toward
Adam and toward the rest of his elect didn't change one bit.
How you know that? Because God saw all his people
in Christ the last Adam from the foundation of the world.
He saw us in the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
How do you know that? Because now David sees how that
the Lord came to him and drew Adam and Eve to himself and made
them confess to the Lord, we have sinned against you. We've
sinned against you. That's where we need to be brought.
That's where we need to be brought to know we've sinned against
God. Sinned against God. Now he beheld how that our Lord
Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God and how that the Lord
slew these animals in place of Adam and Eve. And he saw how
that's what I deserve. And the Lord took my place. And he saw God's grace to clothe
us, to call us and give us faith and clothe us in the righteousness
of Christ and that God not only slew that lamb in her place,
God took the skin and clothed them with the skin. Now he saw
wondrous things. Now he beheld Christ in Abel's
lamb and the blood by which Abel was accepted. Now he saw Christ
the seed of woman. Now he saw Christ our Shiloh,
Christ the prophet greater than Moses, the Passover lamb, the
smitten rock, the manna from heaven, the brazen serpent, the
tabernacle, the high priest, the mercy seat. Now they all
held wonder to him because he saw Christ who is wonderful in
it all. He'd heard of the flood, I'm
sure, from his youth. Heard about it many times. One
day the Spirit of God made him behold Christ, our ark. He saw
something of God's divine election and how just like Noah and his
family, God put them in that ark, so from the foundation of
the world, God put his people in Christ by divine election.
Saw that, how Christ bore the flood of God's justice in place
for his people, and his people were safe in Christ. He saw something
of God making his people an everlastingly new creation, and how Noah was
delivered to the other side of that flood and came out to a
new earth. And he saw again some of the
saving, unchangeable grace of God, and how when Noah sinned,
it didn't change God's grace toward him one bit. Wondrous
things, wonderful things. You know, David was taught of
the Lord that Christ was his salvation, just like you and
me are today. I think men get it wrong when they try to belittle
what the saints of old know. I mean, they knew by the Spirit
of God, same as you do. This is what our Lord said. The
Pharisees were gathered together one time and the Lord asked them,
saying, What think you of Christ? Whose son is he? And they said
unto him, He's the son of David. And the Lord said, How then doth
David, in spirit, been born again just like you. How did David
in spirit call him Lord? Saying, the Lord said to my Lord,
sit there at my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool.
David knew what that meant. That's what our Lord's saying.
How did David do that? If David's called him Lord, how's
he his son? And no man able to answer him
a word, and they didn't dare from that day forth ask him any
more questions. David believed God just like
you and me do. He trusted Christ all his salvation. We used to
go to these scriptures, seeking life in these scriptures by our
doing. That's what we were looking for.
That's all we read. We saw commandments. That immediately made us think,
something I got to do. That's all we thought. That's
what we looked for. and we thought we had life. Now, God's opened
our eyes to behold Christ who is wonderful. We go to God's
word asking God to open our eyes and make us see Christ that we
might live spiritually, have life and strength in us, and
keep the word of our Lord. That's what we're asking. Now,
thirdly, The reason we're so dependent on our Lord Jesus Christ,
one of the reasons, is because he has truly made us strangers
in this earth. Our Lord Jesus, by his spirit,
by his blood and his righteousness, he's made us strangers in this
earth. Verse 19, I am a stranger in the earth, hide not thy commandments
from me. You see how that could be applied
to our Lord Jesus. He's the preeminent stranger
when he walked this earth. perfect, perfect separation from
this world entirely. He makes his people strangers
in this world too. We come into this world and God's
a stranger to us, but now by his grace we're not strangers
to God, we're strangers in the earth. Now, therefore, you're
no more strangers and foreigners to God, but fellow citizens with
the saints and of the household of God. That's so by the spirit
of God, but just like the saints of old, we're going through this
world, and this is the heart God's put in everyone born of
his spirit. Our life in Christ is at God's
right hand, and because we know that so, we are strangers and
pilgrims in this world. This ain't my home. This ain't
your home either. It's going to be gone just as
quick as you can blink your eye. The gospel is foreign to this
world's religion. Completely foreign. And therefore,
we're strangers and pilgrims passing through it. And we're
not in a friendly neighborhood. As the Spirit moves us to pray
this, here's why. When the Lord moves you to pray,
Lord, I'm a stranger. Keep me. Keep me. The Lord Jesus is at God's right
hand, and He's interceding for His people. We heard Him in John
17. He's still interceding with this,
saying, I've given them thy word. The world hath hated them because
they're not of the world, even as I'm not of the world. I pray
not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but thou
shouldest keep them from the evil. They're not of the world,
even as I'm not of the world. And Christ is interceding, and
God the Father hears his son, and he's working for his people.
David asked God there, ìHide not thy commandments from me.î
Heís asking the same thing he asked back up in verse 10. He
said, ìWith my whole heart,î thatís his new heart, itís whole
and heís with that whole heart, ìhave I sought thee. Oh, let
me not wander from thy commandments.î Do you ever pray, believer, ìLord,
keep me. Donít let me stop believing you.
Donít let me go back and look to myself and try to save myself
and don't let me forget who my Redeemer is. Don't let me, just
keep me Lord, preserve me. Do so by your grace. Don't let
me fall away. Our Lord Jesus thanked the Father
for hiding these things from the wise and prudent. But he
thanked the Father for revealing them to babes. A babe is somebody
who's been given a spirit, this new spirit that David has in
this psalm, one that's been made like a little child, like a baby,
like a baby, wanting to please his father, but knowing he is
a sinner depending entirely upon his father to make him do so.
That's what a baby is. That's what a little child is.
Our Lord said we have to be converted and become as little children.
You take these little ones running around here. Right now they have
a desire to please their father and mother. But they're entirely dependent
on father and mother to provide everything for them. They're entirely dependent on
mother and father to teach them what pleases them. Is that not God's people? He
makes you like a little child and we're utterly dependent on
Him to do everything for us. We're utterly dependent on Him
to even teach us. This is my beloved Son and who
I am well pleased. You hear Him. You follow Him. And He has to keep telling us
that. He has to keep showing us that and teaches us that.
Our Savior though, He's so gracious to those He's redeemed. He's
so gracious. Remember when he came back after
the resurrection, and he came to his apostles. They walked
all that time with him. They saw him. They knew him,
you know. But they had seen him on the cross. And he'd come back
to them, and they didn't believe him. They were full of doubts
and fears, and they just didn't believe. And he knew that. He
knew that was their heart. You ever had somebody that you
think knows you and they got your name wrong and thought you
were somebody else, whatever, and it kind of fins you a little
bit. You know, you know me. Our Lord didn't do that. He didn't
do that. Then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the scripture. That's what he keeps
doing. We have a great longing now in
our heart, a new longing we didn't have before in our heart. Verse
20, my soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy
judgments at all times. Doesn't your heart long, brethren,
for the day that you will walk before God in perfection? Don't you long for that? Don't
you long to be free from this body of death and walk before
God in perfection? But did David mean the strict
letter of God's law? David means that he longed for
God's judgments to be spoken to his heart in reference to
his Lord Jesus Christ. and who he was to him, what he
had done for him. God is going to make the believer
behold God's righteous judgments. He's going to make us behold
His servant, the Lord Jesus, justifying many by bearing our
iniquities. And the Spirit is going to make
you hear God's judgment in your heart that the believer is righteous
in Christ. Make you know personally you're
righteous in Christ. That's the judgments we're wanting
to hear. David was afflicted by God at
this time. His heart was breaking for God
to shine light to him. He wanted to behold Christ. He
wanted to see Christ. You ever been in that place where
your heart is breaking to hear God speak the gospel of his judgment
of salvation accomplished into your heart and you can't get
any comfort till you hear it? Your heart's breaking. You're
longing for that. He wanted the Lord to renew him,
to behold Christ and strengthen him. Look down at verse 25. My
soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken thou me according to
thy word. Look at verse 27. Make me to understand the way
of thy precepts. If he makes you understand the
way, the way of all his precepts, you'll do the very next thing.
I'll talk of thy wondrous works. You'll talk of Christ the way.
Verse 81, my soul fainteth for thy salvation. Who's the salvation
of God? The Lord Jesus. I hope in thy
word, in the living word. Mine eyes fail for thy word,
saying, when wilt thou comfort me? Make me to know again in
my new spirit your judgment in declaring that Christ has justified
me from all my sins. You won't long for that till
He makes you see your sinner. As long as we're righteous, we won't
long for that. Make me to know again in my heart your judgment
of how Christ has made me righteous in your sight. My heart's breaking for your
judgments. I want to hear how I'm accepted
in your beloved Son. My soul breaketh for the longing
that it hath unto thy judgments at all times. Make me to know
your judgment and your promise to keep me and deliver me today
and forever. Verse 81 said, My soul fainteth
for thy salvation, but I'm hoping in thy word. I sound like a man
who won't know how he can Save himself? Sounds like somebody
that's dependent on the Lord to make him know judgment's settled. You see, the only way you and
I are going to keep his judgments, we're going to hear them and
we're going to keep them, is when we're made to know that
we've kept all his commandments in Christ. That's the only thing that's
going to make us not err from His commandment to believe on
Christ and walk by faith. Look at Him only. Those born
of God err from His commandments when we turn from the end of
them. What's the end of them? What's
the end of all the commandments and judgments of God? What's
the end of them? Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes. When we turn from Him, we err
from His commandments. It's only in Him that righteousness
is fulfilled and we have righteousness. God has shown that to us in His
Word. Look at verse 21. He's shown
that that's err to turn from Christ. He said in verse 21,
Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed which do err from
Thy commandments. In religion, the scribes and
the Pharisees erred from God's commandments. They did so by
looking to the Lord's commandments and rejecting Christ, whose righteousness
they all declared. That's exactly what they did.
It made them proud of their own righteousness, and it made them
despise others. That's what it did. The Lord
rebuked them many times, and in the end, he cursed every one
of them. And then outside of religion,
Pharaoh and the Romans and the baser sort that were stirred
up against Christ, even princes erred from the Lord's commandment,
rejecting Christ just as well, just the same way. The spirit,
there are spirits like Pharaoh. Who's the Lord that I should
obey him and submit to Christ as all my righteousness? Don't
tell me that. Our tongues are our own. And all of them, in and out of
religion, curse God, and they curse men. And in scripture,
they rejected Christ, they beat Christ, they spit upon Christ,
they knelt into the cursed tree. And though the Lord rebuked them,
they wouldn't hear. And in the end, the Lord left them cursed. That's in and out of religion.
What's the error? Where's the error? Not trust in Christ. Not believe
in Christ. Now David's on the receiving
end from those, some who are in religion and some who's out
of religion. You know what this is like to be on the receiving
end from them in religion or on the receiving end from those
without and usually some are both at all the time. These are
folks who reject Christ, and they said, verse 22, he said,
Remove from me reproach and contempt, for I've kept thy testimonies.
Princes also did sit and speak against me, but thy servant did
meditate in thy statutes. Thy testimonies also are my delight
and my counselors. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ can
say this entirely of himself in perfection. Our Lord Jesus
could pray this to Father and this is probably his very words
that he prayed when he was suffering rejection and cruelty of men. He was reproached, he was held
in contempt by sinners in religion and out by princes also. But
he kept God's testimonies in perfection. In perfection. The only person that ever walked
the top side of this earth that did it since the fall. The only
one that ever shall. And because he perfected his
people by his one offering, the Holy Spirit makes his people
keep the testimonies of our Father. We saw in one of the other sections
that testimonies of our father are all bearing witness of his
son, that his son is his salvation. He gave his son. He's going to
have his people hear his son. and follow His Son and look to
nobody else in glory and nobody else but His only Son. And when
He bears witness in our heart that this is His beloved Son
in whom He is well pleased and commands us to believe on Him,
we believe on Him. And this is the only way we keep
walking by faith, is by Him continuing to do so when we turn whichever
way. to those in religion that reject
Christ or to those out of religion that reject Christ. This is the
one way He keeps us walking by faith, by making us hear the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now we meditate in all God's
statutes. And of course we want to obey
our Lord's statutes in everything as much as the Lord will enable
us to do it. That's the desire of our inward
man. That's why we're longing for one day being free that we
can walk before Him in perfection. But we're meditating in all God's
statutes while we're hearing God's testimonies, His witnesses
in everything we're looking into of how Christ is our righteousness
in all, in everything. And that's why verse 24, Thy
testimonies also are my delight and my counselors. Brethren, since Christ bore the
reproach and the contempt in the room instead of his people,
and bore it, suffered it perfectly, he may remove some of the contempt
and the reproach from you and me. But he might not. He might not. But he don't have
to. He does not have to. Because
by him making you see him and what he's accomplished for you,
he does something far better than removing it. He gives you
humility to depend entirely upon him because you see you got no
strength in you. And only that, He makes Himself to be your strength
by showing you He is your righteousness. He is the holiness in you, keeping
you separated to Him and following Him. And He keeps doing this,
no matter what it is. And so He makes you content to
walk by faith and you can bear the reproach because you keep
on looking to Him. I pray now He'll help us to remember
Him. All right. Brother Adam and Brother
Art, would you all pass out the elements?