Alright, brethren, Psalm 104.
Thank you, Brother Art. You know the theme of this psalm
is the greatness, the greatness of our God. He created the earth
and all things. He waters this earth, sends the
waters and provides and grows every living creature so that
the glory belongs only to the Lord. And so we come to verse
16. It says, The trees of the Lord
are full of sap, the cedars of Lebanon which He hath planted. This is a reoccurring theme throughout
the Scriptures where the Lord uses the analogy of trees to
speak of His people. I don't know if you've ever been
out west and seen those mighty red woods. That's what the cedars
of Lebanon were like. One of those trees has a plaque
saying it's 320 feet tall. If you stand in front of those
trees, the circumference and the width are just amazing. You
can stretch your arms out and there's still a couple of feet
on each side of you. get to the edge of those trees.
I was at one place and I saw a hollowed out redwood. If you've
ever been there, you've seen it. There's a hollowed out redwood
where it's a camp house that will lodge seven or eight people
and sleep and eat and there's multiple rooms in it. And this
is inside of a tree, hollowed out. That's the image of these
cedars of Lebanon. They were mighty cedars of Lebanon.
And scripture declares God's saints are trees of the Lord,
the planting of the Lord. He said in Psalm 92.12, the righteous
shall flourish, he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. He shall
grow, no doubt he shall, and he shall grow and he shall be
like a cedar in Lebanon. So he's comparing us to these
trees. And there's three ways I want to look at this. First
of all, we're the planting of the Lord. That's what the text
says. Secondly, that means all provision is of the Lord, just
like it is for the cedars of Lebanon. And then thirdly, that
means all fullness, all fullness is of the Lord. Now, let's start
with the planting of the Lord. He says here in verse 16, the
trees of the Lord, the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted.
And the purpose here in this whole Psalm, like we've been
seeing repeatedly, is when you think of the cedars of Lebanon,
they were planted in the wilderness. And they were on mountain ranges,
and they were away from any man whatsoever. They were just out
in the wilderness. And they weren't planted by man,
they weren't cared for by man, they were planted by God. We
know in the beginning when God made the world, this Genesis
1.11 says, and God said, now this is how God creates everything,
me and you included. God said, He does it by His Word.
And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding
seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after His kind, whose seed
is in itself upon the earth. And it was so. It was so. That's where these trees of Lebanon
came into being. That's how they were planted.
The Lord planted them. And He made seed to be within
them, so as the seed fell, more were planted. The trees of Lebanon. And that's so with the Lord's
spiritual creation. With you and I, if we're created
anew, it's all of the Lord. It's of His planting. He did
the work. A spiritually dead sinner, ruined,
who is a God-hater by nature, loves the God of our imagination,
but not the true and living God. We don't make ourselves to be
planted. We don't make ourselves to be created anew. We don't
convert ourselves. Not by our will. You can't just
willingly decide to believe God. It's not by the preacher's will,
using man's wisdom and trying to take the edge off the gospel
and persuade men to believe. That's not how it's accomplished.
And it's not even by the sinner being blood relations to somebody
who is one of God's children, who he has planted. John said
in John 1 that they were born not of blood, not of the will
of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. It's not of
blood relations, it's not of a man's will, the will of his
flesh, and it's not the will of a man, but of the Lord, but
of the Lord. We're born again, we're planted
by the Lord, by the Lord blessing His Word, by Him creating a new
heart, filling us with sap, as He speaks of here, with the Spirit
of God, with Christ being formed in you, so that He creates faith
and love and all the fruit of the Spirit. He said in Isaiah
16 and verse 21, shall be all righteous. Thy people
shall be all righteous. They shall inherit the land forever,
the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may
be glorified." That's what God says. Now when you read God's
people are all righteous, that means all His people are righteous
and each one individually is all entirely, completely righteous. That's all in and by the Lord
Jesus Christ. This is why we must be born again.
This is why we must be planted. It's because the Lord Jesus Christ
came into this world, the Son of God, Christ Jesus, and by
what He accomplished for His people at the cross, He made
His people all righteous. Now, the next time we're down
and the next time we're troubled, you just stop and think about
the all-knowing God, the all-seeing God, God who declares things
as they are. saying of His people that they
are all righteous. And think about what that means
between holy God, to be all righteous. That will lift you up, that will
encourage you, all righteous. That means no spot, that means
no sin, that means no record of sin, that means past, present
and future, all righteous. God doesn't call something righteous
unless it is righteous, unless it is righteous as God is righteous.
That's what He says of His people. By the blood and righteousness
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, God uses men to preach the
gospel. He does use men to preach the
gospel. Not because He has to, but because He chooses to. He chose to do that. Because
it really shows more of the power and wisdom of God to use earthen
vessels than it would be for him to say without them, if you
think about it. Because he can take one God-hating
rebel, fill him with the Spirit of God, give him the Word, and
make him faithful to preach the truth of God, and bless others
just like Him with that Word. That's amazing that God will
do that. And the picture here is, is you have these trees of
Lebanon on these mountain ranges. No man's feeding them. Who's
feeding them? Who's planting them and growing
them? God is. Now He does use means, but it's
God that does the planting. It's God that blesses the Word
and makes His people to hear that Word. Peter said, we're
born of the incorruptible seed. which by the gospel is preached
unto you. Now, faithful men that God sends
are going to use just, we're not using some hybrid seed, we're
not using some generic man-made seed, we're using the pure seed,
the word of the gospel is what we're using. That's what God's
going to plant His trees with, the incorruptible seed which
by the gospel is preached unto you. How is it that men are going
to be brought to preach this? It's going to be by God's sovereign
decree, by His sovereign grace, by Him choosing whom He will.
and saving them by Christ's righteousness and sending them forth to preach
the message of God's sovereign purpose, His sovereign will in
saving His people. We got to be made to know that
it all began with God. This is illustrated in the Scriptures.
You know how the house of the Lord was built? You know how
Solomon built the temple of the Lord? Solomon made a decree. He made a covenant. And he made,
in his purpose, he decreed and he sent Hiram, King Hiram, who
cut down cedars of Lebanon and floated those cedars of Lebanon
down the river to Jerusalem and he built the temple. You think
of the picture in that. God our Father decreed from eternity
that He would build His house with the cedars of Lebanon, His
chosen people. And He sent forth Christ our
King who comes forth and by His work of grace He cuts us down
first. He cuts us down so that we are
not mighty in ourselves and think we stand in ourselves. He cuts
us down but He makes us to be born again by the seed of this
Word and plants us and makes us to grow up into His house,
His temple, just like the Lord did that with Solomon and King
Hiram, using the cedars of Lebanon. And the seed that God blesses
to plant His cedars is the gospel of Christ in Him crucified. It's
the gospel of Christ in Him crucified. We sing this, we sing just saying,
wanting to be nearer to the cross and nearer to the Lord. And this
is the message. This is the message. And this
is how it's going to come to pass. The Lord drawing us and
the Lord blessing us by the seed, by this incorruptible Word of
Christ and Him crucified. I want you to look at Ezekiel
17. We've looked at this before, but I want you to see this. And
these are all just things that we see in nature. You probably
use these methods yourself when you plant, if you like to garden. You know, Christ is, He is Himself
the preeminent seeder of Lebanon. He is. And you know, if you're
going to plant a tree from a tree, you cut the apical bud that grows,
the tree grows up from that, it's the very top part of the
tree. You cut that and you make a slip and you plant it and it
grows. And that's what our Lord is talking
about right here. The highest cedar was the house
of David. The house of David. And look
at what the Lord says here. Ezekiel 17 verse 22. This is the gospel of Christ
and Him crucified. He says, Thus saith the Lord
God, I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar. That's the house of David. That's
the house of David. He says, and I will set it, you're
going to plant this branch like you do a slip, when you take
a slip, you know, from a cutting from another branch and you plant
it. I'm going to take the, I'm going
to plant, I'm going to set it. I will crop off from the top
of his young twigs a tender one and will plant it upon a high
mountain and eminent. In the mountain of the height
of Israel will I plant it, and it shall bring forth boughs,
and bows, and bare fruit, and be a goodly cedar. And under
it shall dwell all fowl of every wing, that is, every elect child
who Christ redeemed out of every kindred nation and tongue under
heaven. In the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell,
in Christ the vine, in Christ the preeminent cedar. And all
the trees of the field shall know, He said, I the Lord have
brought down the high tree. Israel was proud, self-made. He said, I brought down the high
tree. And I've exalted the low tree. Christ Jesus who came low
and served the Lord in righteousness for His people and unto the death
of the cross. I've exalted Him. He exalted
me and I've exalted Him, God said. And I've dried up the green
tree, and I've made the dry tree to flourish. I, the Lord, have
spoken it and have done it. That tender one that was taken,
that's Christ. That's Christ. Scripture says
He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, as a root out
of a dry ground. He hath no form, no comeliness,
there's no beauty in Him that when we should see Him, we should
desire Him. And that's how Christ came forth. Just a man. Not what
men expected, a lowly man, born of lowly parents and not like
people expected. Zechariah 6.12, Thus speaketh
the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold, the man whose name is the branch.
When you read the branch, you are talking about this cedar,
you are talking about this branch, Christ the Lord, the tree. He
shall grow up out of His place, He shall build the temple of
the Lord, even He shall build the temple of the Lord, and He
shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne,
and He shall be a priest upon His throne, and the counsel of
peace shall be between them both." Between God and Him, between
God and His people, between Jew and Gentile, He made peace for
His people. How did He do it? He makes us
see We're not different from others. We've got everything
in common with one another. We're sinners. That's it. He
makes us see that first. And He makes us see this is what
we have in common too. We've got one righteousness.
It's Christ. It's Christ. We don't have any
righteousness we can boast in. We've got one righteousness.
Now we can glory in Him all we want to, but He's our only righteousness. And that's how He creates. He
put away our sin, He brought in righteousness, and He made
His people, as we read, all righteous. So, now who's going to take care
of these cedars? You got these cedars up there
on the mountain? They're the planting of the Lord? Who's going
to take care of them? Who's going to provide for them?
No man. No man goes there. Who's going to provide for them?
Who's going to water them? Who's going to take care of them? Who's
going to take care of us? Who's going to water us? He planted
us, now who's going to provide for us? Look back there at verse
13, Psalm 104, verse 13. He watered the hills from His
chambers. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.
And so the full provision for you and me, the full provision
for all His people wherever we are in this world, is our Lord.
He is the provider. He's the provider. He's provided
us all things in Christ. This is what we really need.
We need righteousness. And we need holiness. And this
is what Christ has provided. And you that are planted of Him,
that have been born of Him, this is what He's provided us. It's
all of Him. It's all by Him. And it's in
Him. And this is what true sanctification
teaches us, not to look at ourselves, but to find everything in our
Lord Jesus. That's separate and separated
out from every other religion in this world. is to find all
your hope and all your confidence in Christ only, in Him only. And He's the full provision.
He's our righteousness, so He's our life. And what did the apostles
say? You have the words of eternal
life. That's what the water is, as
we saw last time. This water is Him watering us
with the words of life. And it's coming just like this
right here, through the preaching of the Word. You sinners saved
by the same grace, Only because he chooses to, not because he
has to, but because they're sinners saved by grace, made to know
this about themselves. Saved by grace. They're going
to use the same gospel by which God called them in the beginning,
because they know that it's by that gospel they were born of
the Spirit of God, and kept by the Spirit of God, and that's
the word whereby God continues to provide for them in their
own heart. So that's the gospel they're going to preach. That's
the gospel they're going to preach. And so we don't glory. We don't
have anything to glory in. The glory belongs to the Lord.
Paul said, I've planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. He's the one that provided. Neither
is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but
God that giveth the increase. He's the husbandman. He's the
provider. Our faith and every fruit that
we have, we didn't produce it. You don't produce it, it's produced
by the Lord. Every bit of it, produced by
the Lord. And so we give Him all the glory. That's what He
meant when He said, Thy people also should be all righteous,
the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may
be glorified. He shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.
His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall
prosper. I don't want to get ahead of
myself. I'm going to forget this if I
don't say it now. There is in every believer a new man that
never withers, not in the least, is evergreen like a cedar of
Lebanon. What we see wither and wilt is
our flesh, the outward. But the new man inwardly never
withers, and he's evergreen. He's evergreen. He shall be like
a tree planted by the waters that spreadeth out her roots
by the river. He shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaves
shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought,
neither shall cease from yielding fruit. Now why is this so? How is this so? It's because
our Redeemer, who protects us, provides for us. He provides
for all His seeders. He's working in all His seeders. Now, there are seasons. There
are seasons when snows come and hard winters come and bitter
winds come and storms come, when those cedars of Lebanon didn't
look like they were thriving. If you've ever seen a big cedar
when the snow comes, those big branches get covered in snow
and they hang way down, way down. And so it is when God sends any
kind of trial to his people, You may not appear hourly to
be evergreen, but this is all the Lord's working. Spurgeon
said this of God's child. He's not a hothouse plant. He's
not in a greenhouse. sheltered from temptation. He
does not live in a world of holy and hallowed influence, preserving
him from sin. He stands in the most exposed
position on yonder bare rock where winds of mysterious satanic
influence and dreadful earthquakes of his own doubts and fears daily
try him. where terrific thunderbolts from
God's right hand, the thunderbolts of desertion and stern affliction
all come against Him. He has no shelter, no protection
except this, the broad wings of the eternal God always cover
the cedars which He Himself has planted. That's His protection. But those
seasons are one of the ways, one of the ways That God's going
to grow us to walk by faith rather than sight. It's one of the ways
He's going to grow us to walk by faith rather than feeling.
Trust in Christ rather than our own strength. And often our strength and our
confidence is simply trusting in things we see. That's just
fact. That's just fact. I have you
turn to 1 Peter 1. I want you to see this. 1 Peter
1. This is exactly what Peter is telling us. Was Peter any
less a child of God when he denied he knew the Lord and left and
went out? Not at all. Not at all. And in fact, he was
not in any jeopardy. Now he himself, if left to himself,
would have been. But he wasn't in jeopardy because
the Lord was working and the Lord was teaching him. And this
is what the Lord taught him, right here. 1 Peter 1 verse 6. He says, Wherein you greatly
rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness
through manifold temptations. Manifold trials. God only sends
to trial because there is a need be. A need be. He tries the faith
He gives. He tries the faith He gives.
with long winters of heavy snows and bitter winds, but the winter
is needful for growth just the same as the summer and the spring.
But be sure to get why. Here's why. By taking away all
other refuge, by taking away everything we can trust in but
Christ, so that He is the only one we can trust in. By Christ
delivering us through these light afflictions that are so hard
to us, so heavy to us, by Him delivering us through them, God
gives us a foretaste of the end of our faith. And He says there,
the end of our faith, which is the salvation of our souls. Every
one of these trials He is bringing you through, He is giving you
a little foretaste that He is going to save your soul. I'm
talking about a trial where you couldn't bear up if he didn't
do it. He didn't do it. It's one way he's going to keep
us knowing we're kept by Christ's power, we're kept by His grace
alone, so that he keeps us dependent on Christ alone, walking by faith
and love rather than sight and mere emotion. Listen to this. He said your faith will be found
unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
Now watch. Whom having not seen, you love
Him. This is what the trial is for.
To turn us from things we see to Him that we don't see. To
increase that love. In whom though now you see Him
not, yet believing. You rejoice with joy unspeakable. And every one of these little
trials He's showing you, that's going to be the end of your faith.
You're going to see Him. And right now, by faith, He's
teaching us, brethren, to not walk by sight. Here's another
thing Spurgeon said. He said He's working to get us
clean rid of that walking by sight which is the disease of
man. to bring us to walk by faith in the Spirit, which is the glory
of a Christian. This is a work well worthy of
God. That's what He's doing. That's
what He's doing. When all that you thought that
you could have some confidence in about yourself, He just makes,
He blows upon it and makes it all wilt. Because it was just
grass. It wasn't the real you. It wasn't
the product He produced. And He blows upon it. And everything
you have your confidence in is gone. And all you've got is Christ. Then you find out who your real
Savior is. And who He has been all along.
And He makes you to know, I did all this for you for this reason.
To show you this. That's the purpose. And this
is our assurance, brethren. Since Christ conquered our enemies,
since He conquered all the enemies of His people on the cross, the
Lord shall protect us and He shall provide for us so that
not anyone can cut us down. That is, separate us from Christ.
Nobody can. The king of Babylon, you remember,
he was causing all this distress. to God's people. God raised him
up to use him to chasten the Lord's people, to bring them
to the end of themselves and the end of all their confidence.
He used this king of Babylon, this hard tyrant king, for that
purpose. But the king of Babylon thought,
I'm going to go further than what God intended. Just in his
own heart, he's thinking, look at all these cities I've taken.
I'm going to go on in there and just do what I want to with Israel. And God brought him down. God
destroyed him. And when he did that, they rested
and they sang. You just imagine if a king was
being used to chasing us here, and he'd come in our country
and was wreaking havoc, that's what the king of Babylon was
doing. Taking some of them away, but when the Lord brought him
down, it says they sang and rejoiced. And here's what they said. Isaiah
14, 7 and 8, it says, Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, the
cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller
is come up against us. It means the devil nor anybody
else can cut us down, can make us fall by any means whatsoever. That means separate his people
from Christ. No feller. that would fall us
and drop us and make us fall can come up against His people.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Name anybody. Paul just, he just makes it open-ended. He says, shall tribulation or
distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?
What if God brought you, we faced the coronavirus and you'd have
thought the world ended. What if he brought us into a
famine? Might be. Might be coming. They say it's
crashing tomorrow. Might be. And if he brings us into a famine,
to where we're standing in soup lines, and we don't have our
fancy clothes. You know, the majority of this
world, about three or four countries own everything, and the rest
of this world is living on dirt floors. And we want to go around
talking about how benevolent we are, God can just create a
famine and bring down the mighty high, mighty cedar that thinks
he's a self-made man and bring us down to see we totally depend
on God to provide. neither persecution, nor famine,
nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword. For Thy sake we are killed
all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the
slaughter. But if God brings any of that to pass for His people,
this is the truth. No, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through Him that loved us. He's put away
our enemy. He's destroyed the devil for
his people by putting away all our sin and making us the righteousness
of God in him so that the devil don't have a thing to accuse
you of anymore. He can't. He can go to God all
he wants to. And the Lord just intercedes
and says, The Lord rebuke you, Satan. This is a brand plucked
out of the burning. I am persuaded. Are you persuaded?
I am persuaded. Neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
should be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is why He is going to put
you in a place sometime where we see the only salvation we
have is Christ. But if you have Him, that's why
the world was created. That's why He gave you faith.
That's why He came and worked out a righteousness for His people.
That's why He's bringing to pass everything He's bringing to pass
in this world is to teach us this. Stop judging and reasoning
from man up to God. Go to God and reason down from
God to man. Nothing He's working is by accident. If I reasoned from man up to
God, I'd have quit a long time ago. In the redwood forest, they have
this redwood cut in half. Anybody ever been there? Anybody
seen that? You been there? You've seen this big redwood
they got cut in half. They got the rings, you know,
and they got the little plaque. So from the inside out, they
got these rings showing the growth of this redwood. And in the middle
it says Magna Carta 1215. And then, a little further out,
it says Columbus, 1492. This is the growth of this tree. A little further out, Pilgrim,
1620. A little, it grew a little longer. Independent, 1776. Grows
out a little bit. California added to the Union,
1850. And that wasn't the biggest tree and the oldest tree there.
That was just one of them. Just like our Lord grew that
tree and protected it all those years, He's doing the same thing
for His people who are the cedars of Lebanon. Same thing. Same
thing. Every stormy wind that blows,
He's teaching us to depend on Christ alone. He says, See ye
from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for where is he to
be accounted of? And you know who that applies to first and
foremost? Each one of us personally. Stop
trusting self. Stop looking at self. Look to
Christ. Look to Christ. Talkers are going
to talk. Talkers are going to talk. Ought
not to. Ought not to. Talkers are going to talk. But
cease needing man's approval and cease being cast down by
man's disapproval. Trust Christ. Trust Christ. Of ourselves, our flesh, our
foundation is in the dust. Of ourselves, our foundation
is in the dust. But as weak and feeble as we
are, Christ is all our strength. He's all our power. He's all
our wisdom. He's all our righteousness. He's
all our provision. He's our all. Everything. Trust
the Lord Jesus alone and walk by faith. This is the vineyard
which His right hand has planted, the branch that He's made strong
for Himself. It's in His strength. If we've
been planted together in the likeness of His death, even if
He permits it, there's going to come a time He's going to
permit it when these bodies are going to be cut down. But even
when that appointed hour comes, if we be planted with the Lord
in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness
of His resurrection. I know men have said this, and
I know what they mean, I understand it. You're immortal until your
work here on this earth is finished. And that's true. But truly, you're
just immortal. That's the truth. So our fullness,
here's the third thing, our fullness is of the Lord, and I'll be brief
here. The trees of the Lord are full of sap. Full of sap. Those cold winters, the cedars
of Lebanon don't appear full of sap, but they are. They are. Christ will never leave you nor
forsake you. The Spirit abides with you, shall be in you, our
Lord said. He's going to prune us, but He'll
never cut us down. You know, He said, when the till
tree casts all its leaves, it looks like it's dead. And He
was talking about Israel. When the till tree casts all
its leaves and it looked like it was completely dead, it was
cut down to the root, He said, just like a tilled tree and as
an oak tree whose substance is in them when they cast off all
their leaves, so the holy seed should be the substance thereof. Christ is that holy seed. He's
that life within all His people. When they look like a dead oak
tree with all their leaves cast off and they don't look like
there's any life in them, Christ is the substance in His people,
in His people. We're to receive one another
without doubting and disputing. That means just wait a little
while. Just wait a little while. See what God works. And while
you wait, pray for your brother. And while you pray for him, be
thankful. I think instead of going around
talking about this and that thing about one another. I think we
ought to, if the Lord's put His chastening hand on somebody,
I think we ought to talk about how gracious the Lord's been.
And be thankful for what He's doing. Because without it, we'd
perish. And it's always for our good. He's going to make you to be
rooted and built up in Him, just like a tree's rooted, established
in the faith, opposed to sight and sense, just like you've been
taught, rebounding with thanksgiving. The sap is the fullness of Christ,
it's His Spirit, it's His unchanging love. Remember this from Ephesians
3. He said, Ephesians 3.17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts
by faith. There's the holy seed, there's
the substance, there's the sap. That you being rooted and grounded
in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length and height to know the love of Christ, His
love for His people, for you, that passes knowledge that you
might be filled with all the fullness of God." He said, they're
going to be full of sap. What is this fullness? It's everything
Christ is. The fullness of God filling you
with Him. And He fills us with more sap.
He gives more grace. I can give you another scripture
that talks about Him filling us with sap. Tribulation, work with patience.
Patience, experience. Experience, hope. This is all
through what? Through tribulation. And hope
makes not a shame. Why? Because you're full of sap.
Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost which is given to us. What's going to be the result
of that? Psalm 92.12 says, The righteous shall flourish like
the date palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in
Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall
flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth
fruit in old age. They shall be fat and flourishing
to show that the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there's no
unrighteousness in him. That's what he's showing. That's
what he's showing. The church doesn't look the same
today as it did 25, 30 years ago. Some of the most staunch
advocates for the glory of God, who knows? And some of the ones you never
expected would be there are planning. still flourishing to show the
work of the Lord. Just wait a while. You'll see. I will be as the dew unto Israel,
he shall grow as the lily, he'll cast forth his roots as Lebanon,
his branches shall spread, his beauty shall be as the olive
tree, and his smell as Lebanon. But you remember this too now.
Remember this. When the fruit tree bears fruit,
that's when the fruit tree is the most vulnerable. That's when
you're going to have all kinds of varmints coming around when
the fruit tree is bearing fruit. And when we start bearing fruit,
it can be dangerous for us because we start looking at the fruit. But even to your old age, I am
He. Even the whore hairs will I carry
you. I've made you. I'll bear you. I'll carry you.
I'll deliver you. The true fruit is growing more
and more dependent on Christ. That song we just sang, Nearer
to the Cross, if God gives us the blessing of having that,
it's not going to come like we think. It's going to be good, but it
probably won't come like we think it's going to come. But He gives more grace. He keeps
filling you with sap. What is it? The oil of joy in
a place of mourning. That's what it is. The garment
of praise for the Spirit of Heaven is that they may be called trees
of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be
glorified thereby. And you know what God's people
are going to do now and forever? In Psalm 148.7, He writes, Praise
the Lord. And he talks about different
parts of his creation. But if you look down at verse
9, he says, Praise the Lord, ye fruitful trees and all cedars. And that's what we're going to
do. As the cedars of Lebanon, you're going to praise the Lord
now and forever. He's the only one to praise.
He's the only one to praise. Father, thank you for this Word.
We pray you bless it. Lord, bring forth this good news in our heart.
Fill us with the sap. Make us planted by your grace
and make us see that you truly indeed are the one who works
it and the one who keeps us and who provides all. And the whole
point of it all is to show us we never grow independent of
you. We're always growing more and
more and more dependent on you. We see it in our life, Lord,
as it perishes and as we get weaker and as we get down to
our last breath, there ain't gonna be but one we're depending
on. It's You. Teach us that now, Lord. Forgive
us our sins. Thank You for Your grace. In
Christ's name, amen.