Alright brethren, let's go back
to Psalm 68. I want to speak on verse 19. I
read this verse and it got to the end and it said, Selah. And
I tried to stop and think on this a little while, and pray
on this a little while, and I think the Lord gave me a message. Verse 19, Blessed be the Lord
who daily loatheth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Now we saw that this speaks of
Christ. He's the one who ascended on
high, who led captivity captive. And Christ is truly, as verse
19 says, He is the God of our salvation. As verse 20 says,
He that is our God is the God of salvation. Can you say Christ
is your God? Can you say He is your God? Can you own Him to be your God? In every way that His people
need salvation, Christ is our salvation. There's no part of salvation
that's up to me and you. In every way that we need salvation,
Christ is the God of our salvation. Salvation has always been in
His hands. He's God. He always has been
the God of our salvation. He was the God of our salvation
in eternity, He was the God of our salvation when He walked
this earth and accomplished redemption for His people, and He's the
God of our salvation now that He's ascended to the high hill
higher than Bashan, where He sits and reigns. Verse 17 speaks
of the chariots of God being 20,000. Speaking of the thousands
of angels and the Lord is among them just like he was among the
angels at Sinai When Christ gave the law at Sinai the angels were
he was in the midst of the angels We're just saying he's the archangel
and he is he's Michael. He is the archangel and he is
in the midst of His angels and He dispatches His thousands and
legions of angels. He dispatches them just for the
protection of His people. The people and the events of
this earth right now are ruled exactly, doing exactly only what
Christ would have them to do. And Satan can only do anything
by Christ's permission. And here's the good thing. Here's
the good news. Our Lord Jesus Christ exercises
His dominion at all times for the salvation of His people.
Everything that's happening from the time He created the earth
until the time He folds it up and everything in between, He's
been working for the salvation of His people. Everything. everything
that happens. He is the God of our salvation. Go to Psalm 3. I want you to
see what this means. You know, you would think you
could read He is the God of our salvation and we could get this. But we need to read a few scriptures
and get what that means. Psalm 3, verse 8. Salvation belongeth
unto the Lord. Thy blessing is upon thy people. He's salvation. All of salvation
is of Him. Look at Psalm 37 and look at
verse 39. Psalm 37, 39. The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord. Their righteousness is of the
Lord, and the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord. He
is their strength in the time of trouble. You don't have to
turn here, but let me read Isaiah 25 9 to you. It shall be said
in that day, and this is the day He comes to you in power,
it's the day that Christ finished His work. It's the day you behold
Him in glory. This is it. Any time you behold
Him, in that day it shall be said, Lo, this is our God. We've waited for Him, and He
will save us. This is the Lord. We have waited
for Him. We will be glad and rejoice in
His salvation. What does that mean? It means
just what Jonah said, salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is
of the Lord. Blessed be the Lord who daily
loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. My subject is God who daily loads
us. Now, there are two ways God loads
his people that are spoken of in this passage. And those will
be our points. This is how he is the God of
our salvation. Now, first is just what it appears
to mean here with the words the translators have added. He daily
loadeth us with benefits. That is, he bestows benefits
on his people daily. Now, here's the nature of all
his gifts. This is the nature of all his
gifts. Their frequency, daily. Daily. Their number, He loatheth
us abundantly. And they are benefits. That means
they're not something we deserve and they're not something we
earn. They're something He freely gives you. He freely gives you. Now let's think about some of
these benefits and as we look at these now, please don't just
hear this and think, yeah, I know that. and just check off a box. Think about how he has loaded
you with these benefits. One, and this is how we come
into this realization of these benefits. He's loaded us with
the means of grace. He's loaded us with the means
of grace. He sent us the preaching of the
gospel in spirit and in truth. and he daily loads us with the
benefits. He said in Proverbs 8, 34, blessed
is the man that heareth me. Blessed is the man that heareth
me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. You picture You picture Christ
in heaven, you picture the temple of the Lord in heaven, surrounded
by the fence and the gates, and He's saying, and here you are
in the earth, but you're listening for Him. When you come hear the
gospel preached, this is how He's gonna speak to His people.
And He says, blessed is He that heareth Me. And when you go to
Him in prayer, when you're listening to His word preached, you're
watching daily at His gate. You're waiting at the post of
His door. You're there trying to get a
word from Him. Is that why we're here? I pray
that's why we're here, that we're wanting a word from God to speak
to us. The preaching of the gospel is
the means that God chose to save his people. This is the means
of grace. This is how he's chosen to save
his people. It's a foolish means to this
world. It's despised by most. It's considered
an ignorant thing by those that think they're wise. But by this
method, this is how God says in 1 Corinthians 1 that no flesh
is gonna glory in his presence. If you go somewhere and they
claim to be preaching the truth of God and you see folks glorying
in their flesh, you can rest assured they're not preaching
the glory of God. Because where the true gospel
is being preached, there's going to be no way anybody can have
any reason to glory in their flesh. Not in the message being
preached, not in the way the service is carried out, not not
in who he uses to preach. There's nothing about it that's
gonna give anybody any reason to glory in their flesh. But
here's what you will have. Those that glory will glory in
the Lord. This is why he's chosen this means. This is how he's
doing this. Now you think about the benefit
that the Lord has loaded on you in that he sent the gospel to
where you are. Most of you sitting here are
from New Jersey. There are few or not, but most of you are.
He didn't make you move to where the gospel was. He brought the
gospel to you. That's a great benefit. You didn't
have to leave your home. You didn't have to leave your
family. You didn't have to leave the land you know and love. He
brought it to you. He doesn't do that for everybody.
He makes some leave and go. And if you're here as a young
believer and you grew up in a house where you had a mother and a
father who believed the gospel and they pressed upon you the
importance of assembling together with the saints of God under
the preaching of the gospel, preached in spirit and in truth,
oh, what a benefit God's given to you. Don't take that lightly. That's a daily benefit he's given
to you. And for you young believers who
he's actually impressed with that, with that. value and made
you see how valuable that is. That's a great benefit he's giving
you. This is how he's going to begin saving us. This is how
he's going to keep it going from here on out. He's going to save
us this way. People make fun of us gathering
and sitting in the same places and hearing the gospel preached,
and they don't know what they're missing. They really don't know
what they're missing. Here's another thing. God daily
loatheth us with the blessings of his grace. This is through
this means, He's loaded us with the blessings of His grace. God
our Father, through the blood and righteousness of His Son,
sent forth the Holy Spirit. And listen to how Paul worded
this in Ephesians 1.17. The Holy Spirit gave unto you
the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Talk
about a benefit. He gave you the spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of Him. This gospel can't be
understood, not lovingly, not savingly, except by revelation. set by Him giving you the spirit
of revelation in the knowledge of Him. We've received not the
spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, given
of God, that we might know the things that are freely given
to us of God. We looked at this Sunday, this
is the unction, this is the anointing whereby you know all things.
We were spiritually dead, He came and gave us life. and He
continues to sustain that life. We were spiritually blind, this
book was a sealed book to us, and He gave you eyes to see.
Do you remember that? We were just talking about that
earlier with Iona, how she's just excited that she's seeing
things in the scriptures, and she's hearing things in the gospel
that she never heard before. Remember when you could see for
the first time? He gave you ears to hear, where you can hear this
word. We were ignorant. He took the
things of Christ and He showed them unto us. And He teaches
His people how God has loaded us with benefits from eternity.
This thing didn't just start. It's not something I did to get
these benefits. They started back in eternity. He shows you how that He freely,
undeservingly chose us unto salvation simply because He would. He made
you to know how He predestinated you unto the adoption of children. You know who loves the doctrine
of predestination? Those that were predestinated
unto the adoption of children. And in the time appointed, in
the time predestinated, because you were sons already, He came
to where you are and He sent forth the Spirit of His Son into
your heart and for the first time you began to cry out, Abba,
Father. What a benefit, what a benefit. And all of these benefits are
in Christ and they're by Christ. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called,
them he also justified, whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these
things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? That's what the psalmist is rejoicing
in. He's the God of our salvation.
Nobody can be against us. And then think of the benefit
as it being the riches of his glory. I like these phrases Paul
used where he's pressing upon us just how valuable these things
are to us. The riches of his glory. You sit and think about that
phrase. The riches of God's glory? Talk about some riches. That's
a lot of riches. the riches of God's glory. Here's
what he made you to know. He come and loaded you and made
you know this. You that know him, he made you
know you're a vessel of mercy that he athore prepared unto
glory. You're a vessel that he chose
and he prepared, blessing you in Christ, choosing you in Christ,
way athore, way back there. He prepared you for glory. When He entered in covenant to
be our surety with the Father, when Christ entered covenant
to be our surety with the Father, He became the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. That means God never looked to
you and He never looked to me. He looked to Christ. Aren't you glad? Aren't you thankful? And then Christ came. Now He's
the unspeakable benefit. Christ came and the scripture
says He redeemed our life from destruction by His blood. That's what He did for us. He
redeemed our life from destruction. What a benefit. You know why
redemption is so valuable to you and me who believe? Because
it's the precious, priceless blood of God. That's why. God came in human
flesh and took flesh and took blood and poured out that life
for us. And here's what makes it precious
too. He didn't do it for everybody. He did it for you or him. You
talk about loading you with benefits. And He loads us with these benefits
daily as well. He grows us in the knowledge
of Him. We go after a lot of useless
knowledge. We go after a lot of knowledge
that is not really knowledge at all and spend a waste of time
on it. But He's growing you in knowledge
of Him. When you come into here, we're
not talking about this world's knowledge and what this world
can teach you. We're trying to learn some knowledge of Him.
From Him, by Him, about Him. The knowledge of Him. He teaches
us Christ is the God of our salvation. That's something that we ought
not just read that and say, well, I kind of knew that. Think about
that. He's the God. One, He's God. You know, most
people don't believe Christ is God. Most religious folks don't
believe Christ is God. He's God and he's the God of
our salvation. That means he's, all of it is
of him. Christ is God omnipotent. Is
he not the God man? Is he not God omnipotent? All
powers he is in heaven and on earth and all deep places. He's
God omnipresent. He said to us, Lo, I'm with you
always. How can he be in two places at
once? Only if he's God. Everywhere
at once. He's God omniscient. He knows
what's in your heart and mind. Let me tell you something. Don't
ever think you're gonna do something, and especially not to one of
his people, and get away with it. It ain't gonna happen. It's
wide open before God. He knows us. We're gonna have
to stand before him. We're gonna have to deal with
him. He knows everything about us. Now if you're a believer,
that's a blessing to you. Because he's put a new heart
in you and you want him to see that heart. You don't want him
to see the heart in your old man. You want him to see that
heart and know that heart. But if you're not a believer,
what I just said terrified you. That God knows everything about
you. He does. And we're talking about Christ.
He's God omniscient. He's God-immutable. And now what
the scripture says, He's Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today,
and forever. And He's God-triumphant. In Christ,
His people have full, complete forgiveness and pardon of our
sin. They're put away. So He's growing at that, and
you know this. I'm not even scratching the surface
on this. I read John Gill's Body of Divinity.
It took me six years to read it, study it, and I still didn't
scratch the surface of what we're talking about here. We're talking
about the knowledge of God. And He teaches you the knowledge
of Him. He's growing you in the knowledge of Him. And also, He's
growing us. These are the benefits He loads
us with. He's growing us in grace, in the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
He's growing His people in love. true love, not that feigned hypocritical
love that religious folks have, true love, godly love. He's growing
us in joy, peace. He's growing us in long-suffering.
He's growing us in gentleness, in goodness, in faith, in meekness,
in temperance, These are things He's growing you in. He does
so daily. There's never a time when He's
created you anew that He's not growing you in grace from that
day forward. And as he's doing it, he's daily
saving us from the body of this death. He's delivering us from
the body of this death that we still carry around the whole
time as well. He will not let your old man reign. He won't
let sin as far as justice and condemnation reign over you because
you're not under the law, you're under grace. And he's not going
to allow your sin nature to dominate you so as to make you to where
you won't believe. Or so as to make you to where
you turn from him back to your works and to the law. He's not
going to do that. He's going to keep you trusting
him. And he's growing that inner man
day by day, renewed in the knowledge of him day by day. That's a daily
benefit he's poured out on you. Could we make our babies grow
any faster? Can we make them learn to walk
any faster? They only grow as fast as God
grows them. The same is true with His children.
The same is true with our brethren. We ought never get discouraged.
We ought never get discontented. with one another, because God
is daily loading us with the benefits of grace. He's daily
growing us in grace, but we only grow as fast as God grows us. And sometimes He grows you by
letting you fall on your face. You know how you're gonna learn
to be long-suffering? Somebody's not gonna be long-suffering to
you. and it's going to hurt you. And that's going to make you
appreciate long suffering. How do you learn not to touch
a hot stove? You get burnt by a hot stove.
And God will let you fall on your face to grow you in grace. We don't like the trial. We don't
like coming to trials, and we don't want to suffer in trials.
But the trials are a must. They must be. Because that's
the only way you're going to learn something. That's the only
way you're going to be grown is to go through it and see how
you're going to learn God's grace is sufficient until you got no
strength. and you have to trust the sufficiency
of His grace. How are we going to learn that
God never leaves us nor forsakes us until you're alone, and you
feel like the heavens are shut up, and you feel like, maybe
I'm not a believer, maybe He's turned me away, and then His
word comes like a lightning being into your heart, and you just
see the word, and you just see Him, and you just rejoice all
over again, and you learn He never leaves His people, But
you have to suffer these things to teach you that he's not gonna
leave you, and he's not gonna forsake you, and he's gonna keep
you growing, make you love more, make you gentle, make you meek,
make you kind, make you temperate. He's gonna do these things by
teaching you, daily loading you with those
benefits. Now here's something else, and
this is probably what we all thought about first. And I purposely
waited to the end of this point for this. He also daily loads
us with temporal benefits. And I saved that for last, because
we usually think of that first, and that's the least of it, really.
That's the least of it. When the Lord Jesus sent his
ministers out to preach the gospel, he didn't give them any necessities. He didn't provide them with any
of their necessities that they would have. He didn't give them
instruction on how to provide necessity for themselves. He
just sent them out with nothing. Absolutely nothing. And then
when they came back, he asked them a question. He said, liked
you anything? You know their answer, nothing.
We didn't like anything. He sent them out empty. But here's
the thing, while he was in a body, as the God-man, he went before
them. I don't mean in body, I mean
in spirit, he went before them. When they would come to some
brethren's house, he would turn the heart of those brethren to
receive them, and to provide for them, and to clothe them,
and to feed them, and to give them some spending money, whatever
it was. He moved them to provide for
their brethren. He's doing that for us today.
And he daily loaded them with benefits so that they lack nothing. You think he's got the power
to do that? Israel wandered in the wilderness 40 years and Moses
went to him and he said, when you wandered in these wilderness
40 years, your shoes didn't even wear out. He said, did you lack
anything? Elijah was in a land of famine. God sent that famine, and Elijah
was suffering from that famine. He was hungry, and that doesn't
mean you're not going to get hungry. But what did the Lord do? He
used the ravens, and he brought him bread and flesh in the morning,
and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook. That woman and her son had a
little bit of meal and oil. That's all they had was just
a little enough for a cake and a little oil to cook it in. And
they were going to eat that, she said, and die. And here comes this preacher.
And he said, the Lord said, make me a cake first. And that oil
and that meal won't run out. Now I know we like to divide
practical Christianity from spiritual Christianity and doctrine and
all that. I'm gonna tell you something. That's all rolled
up into one right there. You think you'd have done that?
Would you have had the faith to do that? Here's your child
and you're sitting there and you got enough to just cook a
little piece of cake for you and that child. And some man
gonna come up to you and say, the Lord said give that to me. It'd be hard to do. They had
as many charlatan preachers in their day as we do in ours. They'd
seen a lot of that before too. Why did that lady believe the
Lord? He loaded her with benefits. He loaded her with food before
he ever even put the oil in the barrel, in the mill, in the barrel.
He loaded her with some spiritual food and gave her faith to trust
the word of the Lord. And here's what happened. She
went and did according to the saying of Elijah, and she and
he and her house did eat many days, and the barrel of meal
wasted not, neither did the cruise of oil fail according to the
word of the Lord which he spake by Elijah. The lesson there is you believe
on Christ, believe the word of the Lord that Christ our prophet
delivered, and you won't lack anything. Nothing. Nothing. What would you answer
if the Savior asked you today, lacked you anything? I know what
you'd answer. If you're the Lord, you're gonna
answer what all the Lord's people answer. Lord, I had never lacked
anything. I haven't lacked anything. Have
you? He's the God of our salvation
that daily loatheth us with benefit. You look at everything David
went through, I'd encourage you to go read over there and see
how the Lord chastened David after he sinned and see what
all the Lord took from David. And David wrote, the Lord is
my shepherd, I shall not want. I don't lack anything. He wrote, there's no want to
them that fear him. They that seek the Lord shall
not want any good thing. That goes for tomorrow, same
as yesterday, same as today. He daily loadeth us with benefits. But there's another meaning to
this verse, and I just want to speak to this briefly. There's
another meaning here. Notice the italics are added
in verse 19. And if you take those italics
out, you read, blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us, even
the God of our salvation. Go with me to Isaiah 46. Now
remember there, he said Christ led captivity captive, and then
he says he daily loadeth us. Now go to Isaiah 46. I'm gonna
show you the same word and how it's translated over here. Isaiah
46.1. Speaking of the idols that men
make and carry around, he said, Isaiah 46.1, he said, Bale boweth
down, Nebo stoopeth. Their idols were upon the beasts. They had to get their horses
and oxen and what have you to carry their gods. And he said,
and upon the cattle, your carriages were heavy loading. That word
loading is the way we looked at the word the first time. You
loaded up your carriages with your gods. They're a burden to
the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together. They could not deliver the burden,
but themselves are gone into captivity. Now verse three. Harken unto me, O house of Jacob,
and all the remnant of the house of Israel. Here's the word, which
are born by me. from the belly, which are carried
from the womb. And even to your old age, I am
he, and even to your gray hairs will I carry you. I have made,
and I will bear, even I will carry, and will deliver you."
And that's how the word could be translated in our text, or
the meaning it carries is, daily he loads us on Himself. He loads us on His shoulder and
He carries us every day, daily. You see, man's idol gods can't
carry them. They say that. They say they
can't deliver unless they let them deliver. And all they do
is make men bow down. But our God says, this ascended
victorious Redeemer that led captivity captive, He said, you've
been born by Me from the belly. I've been carrying you from the
belly. I carried you from the womb. And I will carry you until
old age, he said. I made you. He made us physically, but he
created you anew spiritually. He made you. And I will bear
you. I will carry you. And look at
this, and I will deliver you. I'm not gonna drop you along
the way and forget you. I'm gonna bring you right to
the end, he said. See, he's the God of our salvation
who daily loads us on his shoulder. You think you're carrying a big
burden? He's carrying you and your burden. You and your burden. We're assured
that he's gonna bear us to the end because he's already bore
the tremendous burden that we have, our sin. Christ, his own
self, bear our sins in his own body on the tree that we being
dead to sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes
you were healed. That's the burden of every believer. That's what
breaks your heart and bows you down is your sin. He bore that
already. He bore that already. He bore
that away already. He said he bore our griefs and
he carried our sorrows. He laid on him the iniquities
of us all. He shall bear their iniquities.
And he said, God said, and I'm gonna divide him a portion with
the great, and he's gonna divide the spoil with the strong, because
he hath poured out his soul unto death, he was numbered with the
transgressors, and he bare the sin of many. And he made, he
accomplished it, he got it done, he made intercession for the
transgressors. Knowing that he bore our sins
away, and having His word saying, I'm going to bear you, I've been
bearing you from the womb, I'm going to carry you all the way
to the end. You can be assured, since He's
justified us, since He's made us righteous, He's not going
to let us go. He's not going to put you down.
He's going to carry you, and He's going to deliver you, and
you can just bank on that. He bore us from eternity, He
bore us on the cross, He bore us from our mother's womb, and
He will bear us until salvation is finished. That's what He's
saying. Daily, He's bearing you. Now,
if you're sitting here and you're struggling with sin and guilt,
what did Christ say? Come unto me, all ye that are
weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He's put away
the sin of His people. He's the only one that can give
His people rest. He's saying, come to Me. You
know what He says to every believer? He says, cast thy burden upon
the Lord and He shall sustain thee. He doesn't say, throw your
burden on the Lord and He'll sustain your burden. He'll carry
your burden. No. He says, cast your burden
upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee. You know what your burden
is? It's the one He's going to sustain.
You. Cast thy burden on the Lord and
He shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous
to be moved. That's who He made righteous.
The righteous He made right. He won't suffer you to be moved.
Moved away from Him. Moved away from salvation. He won't suffer that. Isaiah
40, 11, he shall feed his flock like a shepherd, he shall gather
the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently
lead those that are with young. I wanna end with this song. We
sing Amazing Grace sometimes, but we don't sing John Newton's, all of the verses. But let me just give you, one
of these you'll know, but let me read through these. This is
the third verse. Through many dangers, toils,
and snares, I have already come. Tis grace has brought me safe
thus far, and grace will lead me home. The Lord has promised
good to me. His word my hope secures. He will my shield and portion
be as long as life endures. Yes, when this flesh and heart
shall fail, And mortal life shall cease. I shall possess within
the veil a life of joy and peace. He daily loads us. He loads us
with benefits. He gives us blessing. And as
he's doing that, he loads us on his shoulder and he's carrying
us. That's safety. That's security. That's salvation. That's why he said he's even
the God of our salvation. All of it. All of it. Amen.