Alright brethren, let's go back
to Psalm 86. Psalm 86. We ended Thursday night in verse
7. David said, In the day of my
trouble I will call upon Thee, for Thou wilt answer. God is
willing to answer. He will answer the prayer of
those who come to Him in His Son. But is God able? Is He able to answer? Absolutely. This is David's praise to God,
and it's his confidence in God, and it's the same with every
believer. He says in verse 8, Among the gods there is none
like unto thee, O Lord, neither are there any works like unto
thy works. All nations whom Thou hast made
shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord, and shall glorify
Thy name. For Thou art great and doest
wondrous things. Thou art God alone. He says, Teach me Thy way, O Lord. And here's what will be the result
when the Lord, when He does this. David knew the way, but he's
in a very difficult situation here and he's asking, teach me
thy way, O Lord. And this will be the result.
I will walk in thy truth. Unite my heart to fear thy name. He feared the Lord, but he's
surrounded by the proud, and he's asking the Lord, unite my
heart to fear Your name, not theirs, Yours. He says, I will
praise Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart. I will glorify
Thy name forevermore. Here's why. This is what he wanted
to see. This is what he wanted a glimpse
of right here. For great is Thy mercy toward me. Thou hast delivered
my soul from the lowest hell. O God, the proud are risen against
me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul
and have not set Thee before them." Now listen to this contrast. This is the way he wanted to
see again in the Lord. He wanted to show Him this. Thou,
O Lord, art a God full of compassion. and gracious, long-suffering,
and plenteous in mercy and truth. Oh, turn unto me, and have mercy
upon me. Give thy strength unto thy servant,
and save the son of thine handmaid. Show me a token for good, that
they which hate me may see and be ashamed, and here's what the
token he was asking for, because Thou, Lord, has helped me and
comforted me. He says there in verse 8, Among
the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord, neither are there
any works like unto Thy works. The idle gods of men's minds,
man-made gods of superstition, among the gods there is none
like unto Thee, O Lord. Neither are there any works like
unto thy works, for thou art great and doest wondrous things. Thou art God alone. Idle gods
are like men who imagine them, no more powerful than the men
who made them. You know, men never attribute
power to their gods above the power they have. Man never attributes
to their gods the works that God alone works. What have the
false gods, when have they ever created a heaven and an earth? When have they ever created the
universe and the moon and the stars and everything in the earth? When did they say, let there
be light? And there was light. Wondrous things. Our God is great.
Now every knee shall bow. in that final day and glorify
God and bow down to Christ and give Him the glory. But it's
God's very person revealed in Christ. His very person being
great, revealed in Christ. That's the wondrous work for
sinners like you and me that brings His people out of every
nation to bow before Him and worship Him. is the revelation
of Him and to behold His wondrous works. That brings us His people
and every nation come and bow down and worship Him. He said
in Isaiah 45.23, I have sworn by myself the words gone out
of my mouth in righteousness and it shall not return. Not
going to return void. He said that unto me, every knee
shall bow and every tongue shall swear. Here is what they are
going to say. Surely, shall they say, in the
Lord have I righteousness and strength. Even to Him, to Christ,
shall men come, and all that are incensed against Him shall
be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and shall glory. All of them, they are
coming. Every child of God is coming
to Him. They are justified by Him and they are coming and glorying
in Him. Now David's cast down here. He's very cast down. He's
fearful. He's surrounded again. And this
time it's probably when Absalom, his son, was after him with his
band of men. And he asked the Lord to show
him just one more time. He says, verse 11, Teach me thy
way, O Lord. Teach me thy way. Give me one
more glimpse, Lord, of your wondrous person and your wondrous works.
Your mercy, Your love in Christ toward me. Let me see Your way,
Lord." This is how God will work wondrously in David's heart and
make him walk with God. This is how He's going to turn
him from the enemy to Christ. This is how He's going to unite
David's heart to fear God rather than men and rather than whatever
enemies he's facing. He's saying, show me Christ the
way. This is how it's going to happen. Verse 11, and when He
does, I will walk in Thy truth. That's Christ, the truth of God. I'm going to walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear thy name. He's dependent on God to do this.
Unite my heart to fear thy name, Lord. Not any other. Fear your
name. I will praise thee, O Lord my
God, with all my heart. I will glorify thy name forevermore,
for great is thy mercy toward me. Thou hast delivered my soul
from the lowest hell. And he contrasts God's dealing
with him with the proud here. He said, The proud are risen
against me, assemblies of violent men seeking my soul. They've
not set thee before them, but thou, O Lord. See the conjunction? But thou, O Lord. Unlike the
proud. He said, Thou, O Lord, art a
God full of compassion. Gracious, long-suffering, plenteous
in mercy and truth, turn me and have mercy upon me. Give thy
strength unto thy servant. Save the son of thine handmaiden.
Show me a token for good. Give me a crumb from the master's
table. Just give me a glimpse of my
Lord. Let me see your way. Let me see your truth. Give me
your strength, Lord, that they which hate me may see and be
ashamed because, Lord, you've helped me. You've comforted me.
Our Savior is the great God. God our Savior is the great God
and He does wondrously. He works wondrous things and
all His works are wondrous. His name is wonderful and all
His works are wondrous. Wondrous works means, wondrous
things means they're marvelous, they're surpassing, they're extraordinary,
they're separate by distinguishing action. That's what David's asking
him to show him. He's saying, show me thy way,
God. Show me your truth. Show me your
great mercy who's redeemed my soul from hell. Unite my heart
to feel your name by showing me one more time how thou art
a God full of compassion, gracious, long-suffering, plenteous in
mercy and truth. Christ is God's strength to save
him. Christ is the way. Christ is the truth. He's God's
way to save him. He's the token for good. There's
just one sign, our Lord said. That's the token. That's Christ,
our Redeemer. He's our help. He's our comfort. David said in Psalm 96.3, Declare
His glory among the heathen, His wondrous works among all
people. Declare His wonders among all
people. And that's what I want to try
to do this morning. I want to declare some of His wonders,
some of the wondrous things our Lord has done for His people.
And I pray this morning God would show us His way, teach us His
way. That He'd show us mercy and this
great compassion He shows and strengthen us and save us and
comfort us. Now, we're talking about wondrous
things and we can't begin to even plumb the depths here. We
can't even scratch the surface. We are going to look at some
of these and I pray God will help us here. These wondrous
works are mysteries that are incomprehensible to us. They
are wondrous things we have to behold by faith. That is how
God's children enter into these. First of all, it is God's wondrous
work that He loved His people from eternity and entered into
counsel to save us in Christ. Before this world was made, He
wondrously loved us and He wondrously entered counsel to save His people. Psalm 139.17 says, How precious
also are their thoughts unto Me, O God! How great is the sum
of them! It's wondrous that He thought
upon us, but it's even more so that His thoughts were thoughts
of love. That's amazing that He even chose a people and thought
upon us, but that His thoughts were thoughts of love. That's
eternal, sovereign love. The eternal, sovereign love of
God in electing His people to salvation. That's wondrous. That's
wondrous. It's by the great God who's wonderful
in counsel. Wonderful in counsel and excellent
in working. Our God's like no other because
of His immutable counsel. It's immutable. He alone wondrously
worked it all out for His people. He counseled with Himself on
what He would do to save His people and He worked it all out
for His people. And since the day He's called
us by His grace, there's not been a day that we didn't prove
the immutability of His love by our weakness and our doubting
and our frailty and our infirmities and our falling. We prove every
day the immutability of His love. And the Lord's never changed
His love toward His people in Christ. It's said of our blessed
Redeemer, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved
them to the end. And that's self-Christ. Wondrous
work that He thought upon us and loved His people and entered
counsel to save us. And then it's His wondrous work,
a wondrous thing that He made with Himself an everlasting covenant
of redemption and He came and fulfilled everything in it. God's
way that David prayed to be taught. He wanted to hear this one more
time. He wanted it renewed in his heart one more time. Teach
me Thy way, O Lord. What will a renewed view of Christ
crucified do by God's grace? What's that going to do in the
heart? I will walk in Thy truth. Unite my heart to fear Thy name. I'll praise Thee, O Lord my God,
with all my heart, and I will glorify Thy name forevermore.
Here's God's way. Here's God's truth. This is what
He's going to teach us when He first teaches us, when He renews
us in our heart, and He revives us. This is how He's going to
strengthen us right here. Great is Thy mercy toward me.
Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. While the proud
rose up against him, David said, O Thou, O Lord God, Thou art
full of compassion, gracious, long-suffering, plenteous in
mercy and truth. All this wondrous work, all this
grace is sure to His people because it's all been accomplished in
the wonderful work of our Redeemer. This mercy is sure to his people
because it's all been accomplished by God's only begotten Son whose
name is Wonderful. Now you think of what a wondrous
work this is. God was manifest in the flesh. We're talking about wondrous
things, too wonderful for us. God was manifest in the flesh.
What vain God, what idol ever gave such a wondrous gift? There's
no other idol that ever men talk about in all the theologies of
idols that ever gave such a wonderful gift as God gave in sending His
own Son to take flesh like unto His brethren. No other God ever worked such
a wondrous work. God was manifest in the nature
of His brethren without sin to redeem us from all sin. What
a wondrous work. What a wondrous work. This is
a wondrous work. He hath made Him sin for us who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. Wonder of wonders. Angels don't cease looking into
this wonder. Angels want to look into this
wonder. They want to behold this wonder
because it's so great. God, the Word made flesh. The
lawgiver made under the law? The sinless made sin for his
people? His sinful people made the righteousness
of God in him? Wondrous things. Free pardon,
free justification, free sanctification, eternal life, all in accordance,
justly. with His mercy, and His mercy
in accord with His justice. That's a wonder, a wonder, a
wonder, a wonder of God. Lord, You're great. You've done
wondrously. You don't have any idol gods
here, of any idol gods doing anything remotely close to what
our God has done. Christ crucified is God's way. Teach me Thy way, Lord. He's
the way. I walk in thy truth, Lord. He's
the truth. I walk after Him. I follow Him
by faith. Look to Him. Trust Him. He's
the way by which He continues to unite our hearts in fear.
How is it? Have you ever been just really,
really afraid? Something in this world just
terrified you and you're really, really afraid? The only way our
hearts are going to be united to fear Him and not fear things
that would otherwise cause us to fall away. I mean something
so frightful it would cause you to fall away from the Gospel.
The only way is for Him to unite our heart in fear to Him. Sanctify
Him rather than them. And how does He do that? He shows
us that by His blood He's delivered His people from the lowest hell.
He's redeemed us. This is what he wanted to see.
This is the token. I want to see Christ. I want
to see a glimpse of my Redeemer. I want to see your wondrous never-ending
compassion and grace and long-suffering and mercy and truth, Lord. Show
me a token. Beholding Christ. Now, if we
look at this psalm, we behold Christ. We see this assembly
of the proud and this assembly of the violent. We see them gathered
about Christ on the cross in this perfect prayer of our Redeemer. What angered the proud so that
they nailed Christ to the cross? What angered them so much that
they nailed Christ to the cross? It's God's way of salvation by
grace. It's God's way of salvation by
Christ's righteousness imputed freely through faith that He
gives apart from any work in us. This is what the proud were
angry about. God's way of receiving sinners.
God's way of saving us freely by His compassion and by His
grace. God's way of suffering long with
His people, all our days. God's way of doing all justly
due to Christ making mercy and truth meet together in harmony.
This is what angered the son that stayed home. This is what
angered those that nailed Christ to the cross. He took the glory
away. He took the works away. This
angered the proud because the proud lust to put on that fair
show we talked about this morning. The proud lust to use the bit
and bridle of the law. They want to constrain others
that they may glory in their flesh. God's way of uniting our
hearts to Christ and keep us walking by faith is His endless
compassion in Christ for Christ's sake. It's His wondrous long-suffering
and plenteous mercies to His child. That confounds the proud. That's a paradox to the proud.
That's a proud unregenerate religionist doesn't understand this and he
doesn't find rejoicing in this. That's God's abounding love.
That's free forgiveness to the vilest offenders. He never stops
showing. That's what will constrain sinners.
to walk after Him when we've sinned. That's the stuff of repentance. Unite our hearts to fear Christ
more than men. Make us give all praise to God.
Make us glorify His name, all without the heavy hand of a proud
man. John said, little children, these
things write I unto you that you sin not. I'm writing these
things to you and I'm instructing you, I'm exhorting you not to
sin. And what was the message that the Spirit of God gave him
to give to them, to motivate them, to constrain them, to obey
and strive against their sin? What was it? And when you sin, We have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he's the propitiation for
our sin. That is a paradox to religious men. They want glory.
You can't tell a sinner not to sin and then tell him, but when
he does sin, it's already forgiven and God's going to be merciful
to him. That'll just make him sin more. No, it won't when the
Spirit of God's working in the heart. That'll make him repent. That'll make him mourn his sin.
That'll make him hate his sin. That'll make him fall out to
Christ. His way is compassion toward
His frail children. Frail children. His way is long-suffering
toward us for Christ's sake when we don't act like God's child. His way is plenteous mercy rather
than judgment. He doesn't set judgment on His
people. Free mercy, free grace, plenteous
forgiveness. His love constrains us to walk
in His way in our dealings with one another. You can't see the
abundant forgiveness He's shown us. Just abundant, plenteous redemption. Plenteous forgiveness. And then
go out and hold somebody's feet to the fire for far less. You know, you just, in your heart,
you just delight for peace. You just delight for mercy. You
just delight for strife to be over. And you want that. Christ is wondrously a good shepherd. And He leads you to green pastures
that are so good, the pastures are so good, His grace and His
kindness and His love is so good that you can take down all the
fencing around the pasture. And His sheep are just going
to stay right there with the shepherd. Why? Because we got a good shepherd.
The green grass He brought us to is the grass of His grace
and His love and His forgiveness and His mercy and His compassion.
Who wants to go off and eat briars? You got the green pasture. And when you stray, what a wondrous
work. What a wondrous work. When you
sin, He is your advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the
righteous. He's the propitiation for your
sin. He'll bring you back in that
great compassion, that great love, that great mercy. Have
you noticed, we're going to see this at some point. When our Lord told Peter, Peter
was going to deny Him three times. Peter was saying, no, I'm not.
I'm not going to deny you. The Lord said, yes, you're going
to deny me, Peter. The Lord said, I've prayed for
you that your faith fail not. And it didn't, it didn't. He
sustained Peter. But he said, you're going to
deny me three times before the crock crows. And then immediately
he said, let not your heart be troubled. If you believe in God, believe
in me. I'm going to keep you Peter. I'm your advocate. I'm your propitiation. Your faith
is not going to fail. I'm going to find you. I'm going
to restore you. That's compassion. That's love.
That's that immutable love. Lastly, look here, God's wondrous
works what he reveals in our hearts. When Christ made this
petition to God our Father, when He is the one praying this, God
was so well pleased with Christ and the full satisfaction He
made for His people to God's justice. He raised Him and He
gave Him all power over all things in heaven and earth as the head
over all things to His church to fill all in all. And Christ
our Mediator sent us the Gospel. Now let me ask you a question.
Do you believe Christ is the Son of God? Do you believe He's
the Son of God? Is He your hope, seated there
at God's right hand, your life, without anything of you, Him
alone? He's everything you need to enter
into God's presence. Do you believe that? Do you believe
Him? The only way Christ is all our
confidence is because He worked in us wondrously. That's the
only reason. Wondrously. We were dead, He
made us alive. Our hearts were stone, He gave
us a heart of flesh. We were lame, He made us leap
like a heart. We were blind, He gave us sight.
We were condemned, He justified us. We were covered and polluted
and He robed us in His righteousness. Somebody said this, the wise
man only wonders once in his life, but that's always. That couldn't be more true about
a sinner made wise unto salvation. You only wonder once, but it's
always. From the day he calls you, you
just are in amazement. History teaches us there's seven
wonders of the ancient world. I see more of them sitting here,
right here, before me. There's more of them hearing
this message. There's wonders of God's grace
scattered all over this world that are greater wonders than
any wonders of the ancient world. He works wondrously. Our God
doeth great things past finding out, yea, in wonders without
number. David marveled at the wondrous
covenant God had made with him in Christ. He wondered at that.
And so do we. God made with David when He called
him. And this He did for you and me.
He made with you an everlasting covenant, ordered by Christ,
by God the Father and His Son, Christ Jesus, ordered in all
things, ensure, fulfilled, finished, accomplished, done. David said,
it's all my salvation. And God promises the believer
never-ending, unchanging grace because of that. Long-suffering,
mercy and truth for Christ's sake. That's His covenant promise.
And that's what David is asking Him to show him. Give me a token
of this, Lord. Show me this one more time. This is a wondrous thing. Think
about it. God has confirmed His covenant by His oath to you. Believer, He sealed it by His
blood and He's promised that in blessing He will bless us
and glorify His Son in us and bring us to glory with Him. That's
His promise. David is saying here, Show me
thy way, Lord. Show me this compassion. in Christ
toward me. Show me your long-suffering in
Christ toward me. Show me your mercy in Christ
toward me." Now you think about this. I tell you exactly what
he's doing. He's doing just what Moses did.
Moses was asking to see the very same thing. When Moses was out
there in the wilderness, he said, how is it that your people are
going to be separated from everybody else? Is it not going to be,
Lord, that you go with us? That you're in our presence?
And he said, Lord, show me thy way, show me your glory. That's
what David is saying here. Your compassion and your grace
and your long-suffering and your mercy and your truth, show that
to me. And so God put Moses on the cliff
to the rock and he said, I'll make all my goodness pass before
you. And he showed him all this glorious
grace and good news in Christ that we have. This everlasting
covenant that we have. This is what David's asking for. We're cast down and we're weak
and we need Him and we need Him to unite our hearts in fear with
Him. And we can't walk and we can't
do anything but just mourn to Him. This is what we're crying
to Him. Lord, show me one more time. Give me a token for good. That promise you've promised
me, that glory you've shown me in the face of Christ. And He
comes and shines His face in your heart and Christ speaks
into your heart and He says, no man will pluck my sheep out
of my hand. I'm going to bring every one of them to glory. Israel
shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation and
shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end. He said it,
shall He not do it? He has spoken it, shall He not
make it good? A wondrous work of our God. He has given us privilege
to be called sons of God. And He has given us that spirit
of adoption that enables us to cry this out to Him, Abba Father. Oh Lord. He didn't choose angels. He chose
frail sinners of dust. This is what David's crying for,
strength and comfort, a token for good, another glimpse of
Christ. Seated at God's right hand, show
me my life, show me my all, show me my security, show me the covenant,
Lord. Show me this one who's all my
salvation. Doing so, He renews in your heart
that you're complete in Him. He renews in your heart that
all things are yours and you're Christ's and Christ is God's.
He reminds you that He's working all things together for good
to them that love God, to them who are called according to His
purpose. Believer, the evil and the good has all goodness and
mercy in it, more wondrous than we can comprehend right now.
But one day we will. The evil and the good has more
good in it than we can comprehend right now, more wondrous good,
but we're going to comprehend it one day. For now, do what
God told Abraham to do. He said, Abraham, look to the
east, and look to the west, and look to the north, and look to
the south. This is all yours. It's all yours. And you're Christ's,
and Christ is God's. Whatever He's bringing to pass
right now, He's doing it, and it's all yours for you. The good, the bad, it's all good. And you are Christ and Christ
is God. And brethren, He is not done
yet. He is not done yet. He will work that great final
wonder when He presents us to Himself without spot and without
blemish. He will do that. He will do that. He is going to keep His child
doing what He did when He brought them to the Jordan and delivered
them into Canaan. Keep looking to Christ. Keep
crying out to Him. Keep crying this prayer right
here. Lord, bow down and hear me. Lord, preserve me and save
my soul. Lord, have mercy on me. Lord,
renew Your joy in my heart. Lord, there's no God like You.
Show me again. Show me again Your way. Show
me Christ the truth. Show me Christ the way. Give
me this token for good that I might see Your glory in His faith and
know something again of all Your loving compassion and Your never-ending
mercy and Your grace and Your truth, Lord, so that I might
fear You, so that I might be comforted and strengthened. That's the way He's going to
keep saving us. And one day, He's going to dry that Jordan
up, and we're going to go across on dry ground. And we're going
into that heavenly celestial city, and we're going to see
then that everything was wondrous, wondrously worked for us. The
people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits. In great trouble, expect great
wonders. In great trouble, expect great
wonders from God. Is there anybody here that you
see yourself for the first time as being so very sinful that
you think there is no way, there is no way I can come to Christ.
It would be too great a wonder for me to come to Him and Him
receive me. The Lord is a God of wonders. He only doeth wondrously. He says, Come unto Me. If you're
a believer troubled like David, He says, Come unto Me. Whatever
the case, He says, Come unto Me. Cast all on His mercy. He's good and He's ready to forgive
and He's plenteous in mercy. That's His glory. He's connected
our salvation to His glory in Christ so that He shall save
us. That's the strongest assurance
a person could have. God has sworn by an oath, sealed
it with His blood, connected His glory to it. He will not
change. He will not be defeated. Every
elect child of God shall be conquered by His love and purged by His
blood and shall be brought to glory with Him. And He won't
fail. I pray he bless that.