Psalm 104. I really want to focus our attention
on these verses here in verse 27. He says, speaking of all
His creation, all the living in the earth and the sea, stars and the moon. He says,
These wait all upon Thee, that Thou mayest give them their meat
in due season. That Thou givest them, they gather.
Thou openest Thy hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest
Thy face, they are troubled. Thou takest away their breath,
they die and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thy
Spirit, They are created, and Thou renewest the face of the
earth. God is sovereign in creation. He created everything. Everything
that's made was made by Him and for Him, and without Him was
not anything made that was made. And God rules everything. Our
sovereign Savior, God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ rules
everything in the heavens and in the earth. Our Lord Jesus
said that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without the
Father. And Isaiah, he declared that
he raises up kings and he puts down kings. He raises up nations
and he puts down nations. So from the least to the greatest,
all are ruled by the sovereign hand of our Redeemer. Man is
accountable for our sin, responsible to believe God and
glorify Him, so that we can't use his sovereignty as an excuse.
But nonetheless, God is absolutely sovereign over all things. And this is so of salvation. God is sovereign in salvation.
He is the sovereign Savior. He determined the end from the
beginning, declared how He would save, by whom He would save,
and who He would save, and then God is so sovereign, so powerful,
He brings it to pass exactly like He said He would from the
beginning. That's what He's doing right now. and has been doing
since the world was made. Everything He's doing, He's working
it all together for the salvation of His people and the glory of
His Son. Everything. Everything. Now in
creation, in nature, we see darkness and we see light, we see winter
and summer, we see barren seasons, we see fruitful seasons, but
God is working all those seasons. I remember whenever Kaylin's
uncle Tommy, they had a big flood down there and storm and they
were interviewing him on the news and they said, you know,
what do you think of Mother Nature doing this? And Tommy said, it
wasn't Mother Nature. Let me say that right up front.
God did this. I don't think they put that on
the news, did they? He's ruling everything. He's
ruling everything. He works all these things together
for good to provide for His living creation, but the same is true
in salvation. The same is true in salvation.
God's children experience sorrow and joy, darkness and light,
death and life, and God's working it all. And yet God's working
it for our good. He's bringing His elect to Christ
and He's keeping us looking to Christ and He's saving us and
bringing glory to His name through it all. He's working it all.
So I want to show you here four works of grace. Four works of
grace. And they're right here in the
verses I just read. The first is waiting. The second
is giving. The third is withdrawing. And
the fourth is renewing. Now, first of all is the waiting. He says here, these wait all
upon thee that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. Every creature God has made waits
upon God to give them their meat in due season. That's His season,
when He's pleased. Every creature is waiting on
Him to give. And that's so for God's elect.
That's so for God's elect. Now, you might say, well, how
is waiting a work of grace? Because we don't wait until God
gives us grace. We will not wait until God gives
us grace. Until the Lord begins this work
of grace in His child, we don't know anything of spiritual meat.
We know nothing of spiritual meat. We come for sons of Adam,
dead in sins, and our appetite is only for sin. It's only for
sin. I mean, the person who is the
most moral and the most dedicated, dependent person in this world,
If he hasn't been regenerated by the Spirit of God, the only
thing he hungers for is sin. That's it. It's sin. Sin is the meat of the natural
man. But by God's work of grace, when He gives you faith, regenerates
you, gives you faith, He gives you a hunger and a thirst for
Christ the bread. He makes you hungry for the Lord
Jesus Christ, your righteousness. Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst after righteousness, our Lord said. Happy are they.
You don't usually associate happiness with hungering and thirsting.
You know, when you're hungry and thirsty, that's not very
pleasant. But happy, blessed are those
that hunger and thirst after righteousness, because they shall
be filled. They shall be filled. The meat
of God's providing is Christ the bread. Christ the bread.
Christ the life. He's the life, He's the bread,
and when He makes you to know Him, He makes you hunger for
Him. How does He do this? The Spirit of God that we saw
this morning, He sends the Spirit of God and He convinces us of
sin. How does He do that? By convincing
you, you have never believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what our Lord is going
to say in John as we come to it. He convinces us of sin because
we haven't believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And that truly
is the chief sin. That's the chief sin. And the
glorious thing is when He brings you to believe on Christ, He
makes you know you're righteous and He remembers you sin no more.
Not believe in Him, everything is sin. And that is the chief
sin. Believe in Him, He makes you
know you're righteous in Him. And the Spirit of God convinces
us of righteousness. He convinces us that we don't
have any, and He convinces us Christ Jesus is the only righteousness
God will accept. And He convinces us of judgment.
He convinces us that when Christ went to Calvary's cross, He thoroughly
conquered sin, death, and hell for His people and settled judgment
by His death and resurrection. He is the judge who has settled
judgment for his people and now is the advocate with the Father
for us. And when he does this, we start hungering and thirsting
after Christ, after his righteousness, after obedience to him, after
him. We're hungering and thirsting,
and our Lord gives us our meat in due season. He gives us our
meat. He's growing us. He's providing
for us in due season. Just like it was the season of
His love when He came to you, like we were that child cast
out in the field, polluted. He came to you. It was a season
of love. And in His due season, His appointed
time, He continues to grow and teach and show. He's always doing
it, but He does it or some seasons and other seasons. And it says,
knowing this, knowing that everything is of His hand, knowing we're
utterly dependent upon God to provide, just like the animals
in the creation, our Lord makes us wait upon Him. These wait
all upon Thee. And this is what our Lord is
doing. He's blessed the regenerate sinner
so that we wait upon God. What is involved in waiting on
the Lord? What's involved in that? It's a very active thing,
waiting on the Lord. First of all, He's blessed you
with faith. That's the only way you wait
on the Lord, is by faith. Believe in Him. If you don't
believe Him, you're not going to wait on Him, because we'll
try to change things. Waiting on Him to work His will
requires believing Him that He alone can do it. So faith, He
gives you faith, and you know Christ is your life, Christ is
your righteousness, He is your full provision, and just like
He worked out our salvation, He is working everything out
for us in this life, so you wait on Him. You wait on Him. He blessed
us with patience, endurance, perseverance. That's how you
wait. You wait by persevering. You
wait by enduring whatever He is pleased to send. You wait,
you wait. He's giving you the patience
to persevere in faith, waiting on the Lord. Waiting on the Lord. We're waiting right now over,
you know, we wait as we go through different seasons, but we're
waiting, overall we're waiting for His return. This whole life
of faith is a waiting, a persevering in faith, enduring whatever He
brings before us that we might see His return. He blessed us
with a spirit of prayer, utter dependence on God. This is entirely
involved in waiting. While you wait, you're casting
all your care on the Lord. You're dependent upon Him to
give you your meat in due season. And you're praying to Him, you're
supplicating Him, because only He can do so. You're like Moses
who prayed, Lord, take not your presence from us. If you don't
go forth with us, we don't want to go forth. We want your presence.
And you're praying, you're asking God for His presence. We're at
God's mercy. He's the provider, and we're
waiting on him. He blesses you with hope. Hope's
involved in waiting. You won't wait if you don't have
a hope. What would you wait for? But when you have a good hope
and a sure hope that he's going to bring to pass what he says,
you wait in hope. You wait in hope. And so we wait
for our Lord in hope. And this is because He's blessed
us with a love for Christ. Love's involved in waiting. You
want to see Christ get the glory, and you want to see Him do the
saving, and you want to see those that He saved to know that He
did it all. And in love for Christ, in love
for your brethren, you wait on the Lord. You wait on the Lord.
And you rejoice in tribulation because as He matures you, as
He grows you in patience through all this, the love of God is
shed abroad in your heart. We see the love of our God for
us as He brings you through every affliction. That's where you
see it, and that's how He grows you. That's how He grows you.
So we're waiting upon the Lord. We believe in Christ. We're persevering
in faith. We're praying for Christ to provide.
We're asking Him to lead us and to save us. We're doing so with
all hope in Him, and we're doing so because He's given us a love
for Him. These are all involved in waiting
on the Lord. And those that wait upon the
Lord shall want for nothing. James said, let patience have
a perfect work, that you may be in tire, needing nothing. And the truth is, those God gives
the grace to wait on Him. will not want for anything because
he always provides everything his child needs. Everything. Everything. That's the first
thing, the blessing of waiting on Him to give you meat in due
season. Here's the second thing is the
work of grace is His giving, His giving to us. He says there,
Thou givest them, they gather, then openest Thine hand and they
are filled with good. In Providence, God gives to all
His creatures. He's the one that gives to all
His creatures, the beasts, the fowls, the fish, and they gather
what God gives them. And the same is true of God's
child. The same is true of God's child. That Thou givest them,
they gather. In the wilderness, the Lord,
they were hungry and they were thirsty, and they couldn't do
anything about it. That's us by nature. That's us
in this thing of salvation, of righteousness, of everything
we need to be accepted of holy God. We can't provide it. That's
so of us in our daily lives. God's ruling everything. Everything. And we're utterly dependent on
it. And by His grace, He's going to make His child know that and
keep us knowing that. And so there he brought them
into this place, and they're hungry and they're thirsty, and
what did the Lord do? He poured down, He sent them
bread from heaven, the manna, and He told them, gather it.
And they went and gathered it, and they ate it. They gathered. That He gave them, they gathered.
And our true bread that God has provided is Christ. Our Lord
Jesus said, verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not
that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread
from heaven. My Father giveth you the true
bread from heaven. He said unto them, I am the bread
of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst. That means,
yes, you're going to hunger and thirst after Him, but it means
you're never not going to be filled and be provided for with
everything you need for salvation. He's our life. He's our life.
We hunger and thirst for Christ, and because now we have eternal
life, we want to know Him. We want to know more of Him.
We want to see Him more, because He is our life. He is our life. Now, because of this, we know
this. You know this. Nothing we produce
satisfies our hunger. Nothing we produce satisfies
this spiritual thirst He's given. You know that so. You know that
so. And God's going to keep us knowing that so. Christ is the
one need. He's the bread God's provided
to meet this spiritual hunger and this spiritual thirst. And
He says there, that thou givest them, they gather, thou openest
thy hand, they're filled with good. When he gives, we gather. We actively feed upon Christ
our bread. We feed upon him through the
preaching of the gospel. You came here this morning. If
the Lord brought you here and he brought you here with a hunger
and a thirst, you came here for that reason. You want to be fed
Christ the living bread. We gather by going into His Word
and reading His Word, just daily. God's child is going to go read
His Word. I want to see what the Lord says. I want to know
what... And it never fails that the Lord
will lead you in the Scripture to something you need, something
that's very appropriate, that He's worked together, that will
feed you. It's appropriate for whatever
season you're in. We gather this bread in daily
prayer. We have to go to Him. And He's
the one feeding us. He's the one opening His hand.
And we gather this way. And we're daily actively gathering
this heavenly manna. This is what He makes His child
do by grace. And He always gives abundantly.
Look here, He says, Thou openest Thy hand in their field. He's
not just dropping some crumbs for His people. He's opening
His hand. He's filling His people. He said He makes your cup run
over. Fullness of His righteousness, that's what fills your heart.
Fullness of His saving grace. Fullness of all His accomplished,
finished work of redemption for His people. This is what fills
the hungry soul. When you're really hungry and
thirsty for Christ, it's a hungering and thirsting to be assured That
He is everything in your salvation. And this is the fullness. When
He opens His hand and just fills your heart to know He indeed
is your all. And there's a fullness. There's
a fullness He gives you. He fills you. He fills you. Fullness
of grace. Fullness of grace. So there's
the waiting, and this is all by grace. There's the giving,
which is all by grace. Him opening his hand and giving
Christ the bread. And then if need be, there is
the withdrawing. Look here in verse 29. Psalm
104, 29. Thou hidest thy face, they are
troubled. Thou hidest thy face, they are
troubled. Thou takest away their breath,
they die and return to their dust. God works in salvation
like He works in nature. He works in salvation. Nature,
what He's doing in His creation is an illustration for us, if
you have spiritual discernment, to see. He said when He gives
you grace, He said the mountains are going to sing and the trees
are going to clap their hands because you start seeing Christ's
glory, something that honors Christ in the way He made everything,
in the way He works everything. And so this thing here of withdrawing,
just like it is in nature, so it is in grace. There is good
and evil, there's light and darkness, there's life and death, there's
different kinds of seasons, and so it is with grace. Thou hidest
thy face. What happens? They're troubled. They're troubled. As we saw this
morning, God never takes His Spirit from those He everlastingly
loved. He never takes His Spirit away
and forsakes those that He laid down His life for and poured
out His life's blood for. He never forsakes one He's regenerated
and given faith in Christ. He will not give you faith to
trust Him to count the cost and confess Him
before men and put all your trust in Him and then make you ashamed
for trusting Him. He won't do that. He will not
do that. So then why would He hide His
face? Why would He hide His face? He does hide His face. God knows
exactly what we need. Exactly what we need. His face
is It's His countenance, it's His
light, it's His approval, it's His strength, it's His presence. That's what's in His face. So why does He withdraw His face?
Sometimes He does not tell us. Sometimes He does not tell us.
Sometimes it's to show us that He is our sovereign God. He can
do with His own what He will. Sometimes it's to humble us from
our pride, to save us from our sin. It's to show us what we
are, left to ourselves, that we're just weak as dust. But
it's always, it's always, it's always to grow us in grace and
knowledge of Christ. Always. Always. To keep us knowing
our need for Christ to save us, to keep us knowing He shall save
us. It's always. But when He hides
His face, our soul is troubled. Our soul is troubled. The light
of His face is life and peace, and when He just a little bit
hides His face from us, that's interrupted. that's interrupted,
and so it's troubling to it. But do you know, think about
this, do you know, I know it's troubling, and trouble's trouble,
it's not supposed to be peaceful, it's troubling, but what a blessing
to be troubled. What a blessing to be troubled
when you don't Perceive the Lord's face and you know his presence
and know know that You know when that grows cold or dark or however
you want to describe it. What a blessing to be troubled
You wouldn't be troubled if the Spirit of God hadn't made you
know what it is to have His face shine upon you. You wouldn't
be troubled if you didn't know the blessing of having Christ
and holding you in His hand and providing everything for us.
We wouldn't know the blessing of that if we weren't born of
His Spirit. And when that is just taken away just enough to
get our attention, it's troubling. And that's a blessing that it
is troubling. There's a blessing in it that
it is troubling. Worldly men, unregenerate men, are troubled
when carnal things are taken away. And I know we get troubled
by those things too. But this is part of how our Lord's
teaching us with that as well. But the worldly man, he's only
troubled when carnal things are taken away. If he's got everything
carnally speaking, he's fine. And there's no thought of Christ,
no thought of salvation at all. But with God's child, Even if
he takes away worldly things, you might be troubled for a little
bit, but the Lord continues to remind you that that's not your
life, and that really is not, you know, for everything Paul
said, we suffer, there's a but that goes with it. And we may
be troubled, but we know the Lord is providing and shall provide
for his people. And so that's not what troubles
us. What really troubles his child
is if he hides his face just a little bit. Why is both of
these so? Why does the worldly man only
trouble when carnal things are taken away, and yet he has no
thought of God's faith, and you, though you might be troubled
a little bit when he takes away worldly things, the real trouble
is if he hides his faith. Why are both these true? Because
our Lord said, where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also. If our treasure is just in worldly
things, if that's our riches, That's where our heart's going
to be and that's what's going to trouble us. But if our treasure
is Christ and the unsearchable riches of Christ that He gives
freely to us by His grace and we need Him and we have to have
Him, if He's our treasure, that's where our heart's going to be.
And so if He withdraws His face just a little, that's what the
trouble, that's going to be the trouble. So how does this next
word apply to God's work of grace in the child of God? He does
withdraw. He does hide His face some. But how does this next
word apply to grace? Verse 29, Thou takest away their
breath, they die, and return to their dust. Christ is our
life. He's our life. And the Holy Spirit's
our breath. Now again, He's never going to
leave us. He's never going to forsake His child. When he hides
his face, our spirit sinks into a kind of death. But the good thing is, what our
Lord is working is death to things that need to die. Death to our earthly confidence. Death to our fleshly strength. Death to whatever it is that
we're putting our trust in that's taking our heart away from Christ. Death to that. And it's troubling. And when He withdraws our hearts,
that's when our hearts start going out to Him and start longing
and thirsting and hungering and begging for His presence. You've
got to have the Lord Jesus. You have to have Him. And that's
the purpose of it. That is the purpose of it. The
psalmist said in Psalm 88.3, he said, my soul is full of troubles.
My life draws nigh to the grave. I'm counted with them that go
down to the pit. I'm as a man that hath no strength.
Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave,
whom thou rememberest no more, and are cut off from thy hand."
That's first and foremost our Lord Jesus speaking on the cross
of Calvary. God hid His face from him entirely. Entirely. He cried out, My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And He said, it's because
you're holy. You're holy. And with Him bearing
our sins and bearing the curse, He said, and I'm a worm and no
man. He was justifying God for pouring
out wrath upon Him. And He hid His face from him
entirely. And because He suffered that for His people, He will
not take His face, His countenance, His presence from His child like
He did on Calvary's cross. Christ bore that curse and condemnation. And He won't do that for His
children. But He will graciously, kindly do it just enough to make
you think He's taken away, He's present. To make, to draw out
of you that longing and that need and that hunger and that
thirst so you're crying out for Him and you see your need of
Him. That's the purpose of it. Let me see if I can find this. Look over at Psalm 30. Marginal
reference. I'd like to read this entire
Psalm. I think I will. Psalm 30. Psalm 30. Here it is. This just says it better. And
you hear Christ saying this, and you hear God's people saying
this. I will extol Thee, O Lord, for
Thou hast lifted me up and hast not made my foes to rejoice over
me. O Lord my God, I cried unto Thee,
and Thou hast healed me. O Lord, Thou hast brought up
my soul from the grave. Thou hast kept me alive that
I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints
of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness,
for His anger endureth but a moment, and His favor is life. Weeping
may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. And in
my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by Thy
favor, Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. Thou didst hide
Thy face, and I was troubled." That's how He makes our mountain
to stand strong. When He hides His face, we see
all we are is weakness. And what did Paul say? When you're
weak, that's when you're strong, because that's when you're counting
on the Lord alone. on him alone. You hid your face,
I was troubled. I cried to thee, O Lord, and
unto the Lord I made supplication. What profit is there in my blood
when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall
it declare thy truth? Hear, O Lord, and have mercy
upon me. Lord, be thou my helper. Thou
hast turned for me, my mourning and dancing, that has put off
my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, to the end, that my
glory may sing praise to Thee and not be silent. O Lord my
God, I will give thanks unto Thee forever." That's the whole
thing right there. That's why he does it. That's
why he does it. to make us pour out our soul
to Him, to see our need of Him, to see that He's our strength,
He's our power, He's our all, and that's how He keeps you growing
in the grace and knowledge of Him, knowing He is indeed all
you salvation. All you salvation. All He has
to do is just hide His face just a little. Hide His face just
a little. Without His presence, without
His presence. It's as though spiritually we
return to the dust, and we do. It's the dust of this flesh.
He calls it there in our psalm, our dust. We turn to our dust,
because that's all we are. You see your dustiness, you see
that's all you are. Incapable of renewing yourself,
incapable of reviving your soul. I just... Things, you know, We just can't. We just can't
revive our soul. You can't just make yourself
cease to be troubled. When He says, let not your heart
be troubled, with that commandment comes the power. And when He
shines His faith, that's when you're revived. That's when you're
revived. He keeps us knowing our dependence
upon Him. That's the whole message of this
psalm. That's the whole message of this psalm. Just like every
creature in God's creation is dependent on God to give the
rain and to give them their meat in due season, to give them their
light, so every vessel of mercy is entirely dependent on God
to give. And we forget this. We forget
this. We start thinking we're providing
and we start thinking we're capable of this or that, and the Lord
reminds us again, that if He just hides His face a little,
we return into our dust. Christ said, without Me you can
do nothing. Without Me you can do nothing.
But His grace is unchangeable, His love is everlasting. He said
for that reason we're not consumed. He's doing this for the good
of His people. That's why He's doing it. Because
His love fails not. He purchased us with His blood.
He's not going to lose us. He's going to keep us knowing
He is all our salvation. But it feels like we're going
to die. It feels like we'll die when we don't feel the presence
of Christ our life. But God's faithful. God's faithful. What comes next? Renewing. Look there in our text, Psalm
104. He said, verse 29, you hide your
face in the trouble, you take away the breath, they die, return
to the dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit,
they are created. Thou renewest the face of the
earth. Every year in the winter season,
the grass, and the plants, and the trees, they all appear to
die. You know, the leaves cast off
their leaves, the trees cast their leaves in the fall, and
the snows fall, and everything just looks dead. No life to it. Stripped. But then the spring
comes. God brings the spring season,
and He renews everything. The leaves come out, a little
while fruit starts bearing, and everything is vibrant, everything
is full of life. And naturally speaking, we see
this in God's providence with men too. One generation passes
away and another generation cometh. And then when you die, as a believer,
He renews you, you go to be with Him immediately. But then one
generation dies, He provides another generation. And He just
keeps providing life, keeps replenishing the earth with men. And God does
something similar to this in each and every born-again child
of God. and every one of us. He sent
forth the Spirit that we might be born again, that we might
be created, and He creates us anew. And so we wait upon Him,
and what He gives, we gather. But when He hides His face, there
is a sort of death that comes. But He renews His child, and
He delivers us from the downcast state into which we've fallen.
Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit. Our new man has no strength,
no power but the Holy Spirit of God. He comes and He is the
life of the new man. And it's how our Lord's teaching
us His grace is sufficient. It's how He's teaching us that
He is our Keeper and our Provider. So after the winter season, after
you've gone through the winter season and you appear dead, He
renews you. He sends you the Spirit and renews
you. And you're new. When you're in
that state where you're hungering and thirsting, and then God brings
your heart to behold these precious promises, and you behold Christ,
that's the renewing. You know, you don't see His face,
and you're hungering, and you're thirsting, and you're longing
for His presence. And you open the book, and you look at it,
and it's just words on a page, and you're reading it, and you're
reading it. And then you come across the Scripture, and He
shines the light, And He shines it in your heart and it just
is life in your soul. He renews you. He makes you see. And He does this in so many ways
in our life. He makes you see Him at His throne
of grace. He makes you behold Him and see
He's not left you. He's done this to teach you. He's done this to renew you.
And when He does this, you've heard me say this over and over,
It's like being converted all over again. It is. Every time
he shines his light. Every day you're seeing things
about the Lord and learning things He's teaching you in His Word.
And there are things He already taught you, but you see them
like they're all brand new. He keeps them new to you. But
there are certain seasons where He works such grace in His people
and renews you and revives you so that you feel like, is this
the first day I ever knew you? Because it's so new. His presence is so new. His light
is so bright. He just keeps doing this for
us, brethren. It's how He keeps the Gospel new. It's how He keeps
Himself in remembrance in our hearts so that we know Him. Our
God is sovereign. He's faithful. He's wise. He
knows exactly how to keep us. If we get too high, he knows
how to bring us back down where we need to be. If we get too
low, he knows how to bring us up. If we try to run this way
or that way, he knows how to draw us to his breast. He knows
exactly how to keep us, and that's what he's doing. And it's not
by our words. It's not by our tears. You can
cry and cry and cry, and it's not just our tears that's going
to make this happen. It's all him. It's all him. Sovereign and powerful, just
like He rebuked the waters and they went to their place. When
He's done the work, rebuked in our heart and He rebukes whatever
He's used to chasing you, and He flees to their place. And
He renews you. He renews you. This is what I'm trying to say. The Lord will not let us leave
our first love. It's like he came to the church
at Ephesus and he told them, and he said, do the first works.
He's going to keep you doing the first works. He's going to
keep his child dependent entirely upon Christ like you did at the
first. He's going to keep His child giving Him all the glory
like He did at the first. He's going to keep His child
reading and hungering for His Word and His Gospel just like
He did at the first. He's going to keep you hating
your sin and your self-righteous self and keep you wanting to
put off that old man, just like you did at the first. He's going
to keep us doing this, being on guard and watchful and looking
after Him and following Him. And He's going to keep us gathering
what He gives. He's going to keep us gathering,
assembling with His saints, partaking of His table in remembrance of
Him, reading the Scriptures more to see more of Christ, looking
for Christ more in these Scriptures. He's going to cause us to spend
our time in His throne of grace giving Him thanks and asking
for more grace, living in dependence upon Him. That's what He's going
to do. And so He keeps us like we saw last time. That's how
He keeps you growing like the cedars of Lebanon full of sap.
It's all by His work of grace. Makes you trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified. That's what
the psalmist said in Psalm 30. He did all this that my glory
might be Him, that I might praise Him. And this is what the Lord
says in Psalm 104, the glory of the Lord shall endure forever. The Lord shall rejoice in His
works. You're His works, and He's going
to rejoice in His works. And He's going to bring His works
to rejoice in Him. So if you're hungering and you're
thirsting for Him, be thankful that you are. If you're longing
for His face, be thankful that you are. If you're supplicating
Him and casting it all on Him, be thankful He's worked that
in you. He's given you faith. He's made you to wait on Him,
to persevere looking to Him even though you're troubled. Keep
doing it. Keep doing it. Because in His season, in His
time, He will renew and He will give you a fresh view of Him
and He'll revive. We can't create revival We can
have a meeting, but that ain't a revival. But He can create
revival. And He revives each of His people.
He will do this. Don't give up. Keep looking at
Him. Wait on Him. Wait on Him. Amen.