Now brethren, this psalm, Psalm
103, is a wonderful, blessed psalm throughout. The whole psalm,
every word of it, is just a special, special psalm. I want you to
look, I want to focus our attention on verses 10 through 18 for now. And I want you to listen to this.
The Lord hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded
us according to our iniquities. You remember Paul prayed in Ephesians
that Christ might be formed in us, that we might be able to
comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length
and depth and heighth, and to know the love of Christ, to know
the height and depth and length and breadth of Christ's love,
which passes knowledge, he said, that you might be filled with
all the fullness of God. Our text right here gives us
those dimensions of Christ's love. Here's the height of God's
love, verse 11. For as the heaven is high above
the earth, So far hath he removed, so great is his mercy toward
them that fear him. Here's the breadth of his love.
As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed
our transgressions from us. Here's the depth of his love.
Like as a father pitieth his children, with deep compassion,
deep pity. So the Lord pitieth them that
fear him. For he knoweth our frame, he
remembereth that we're dust. Here's the length of his love.
As for man, as for our love, we're like the grass. As a flower
of the field, so we flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it
and it's gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord, is from everlasting to everlasting. Upon them that fear him and his
righteousness unto children's children to such as keep his
covenant and to those that remember his commandments to do them.
I wanna speak for a little while on the subject of God's love
toward us. God's love toward us. Now before we get into this passage,
we need to first find out who the us are. You notice verse
11, great is his mercy toward those who fear him. Verse 13,
the Lord pities those who fear him. Verse 17, the mercy of the
Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him. Fear is
a God-given reverence for God. It's a reverence for God. If
I can hear the grace of God preached and free forgiveness of God's
priest, and I can say, well, this is just sin. I'm just gonna
go ahead and do it. It doesn't matter. We all sin.
He's forgiven us our sin. I better be careful as to whether
I really know this God or not, because this is for those that
have a holy reverence in their heart for God that don't want
to sin against Him. that hate their sin because it
is against Him. These are for those who God has
shown something of His holiness and something of our sin so that
we only want to be found in Christ. Reverence for God, fear of God. Then notice it says, this is
written, verse 18, to such as keep His covenant and to those
that remember His commandments to do them. Christ is the covenant. Christ is the everlasting covenant. God said, I will give thee for
a covenant of the people, speaking of Christ. Christ came and he
kept all the terms of the everlasting covenant of redemption for God
and for his people and brought us together in one. And the only
way you and I keep covenant and keep God's commandments is when
God brings us to faith in Christ, to trust Him, to present us to
God. And we keep the commandment of
God to believe on Christ and love one another as He gave us
a commandment. Now that's who this is to. This
is to those who've been born again of God the Holy Spirit,
given faith in Christ, a God-given love in their heart with reverence
to God, fear to God. That's who this is to. That's
the us he's talking about here. Now if that doesn't describe
you, I urge you to listen to every
word of this gospel and follow along in these scriptures because
if God does this work for you, this is how he's going to do
it. And I pray to God tonight, he would give you faith and repentance
and bring you to cast all on Christ. Wouldn't that be wonderful? So our subject is God's love
toward us. And here's to sum it all up. God deals with his people in
everlasting love that is in Christ. And he saves us by that love.
And it never ends. It never ends. First of all,
we see God's love in how God has not dealt with us. He says
in verse 10, the Lord hath not dealt with us after our sins,
nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. Just think what
it would have been like if God had dealt with us according to
our sins. What if he had rewarded us according
to our iniquities and paid us the wages of our sin? What would
that look like? Well, first of all, he would
have left us dead in our sins, spiritually dead, blind, with
no desire for God whatsoever. He would have let us just be
left with the love of this world in our heart so that we're just
content to live for the now and for this world. and then one
day reward us with eternal condemnation and eternal destruction. That's
what it would be if he left us in our sin and dealt with us
according to our sin. For the wages of sin is death. That's the reward of iniquity,
is death. But the gift of God, that's what
we're talking about tonight, the gift of God. His eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Like every other sinner,
you sitting here right now that know the Lord, you and I have
never done anything but transgress against God. We did that before we knew Him,
and we've sinned continually since we've known Him. We deserve
nothing from God but condemnation. That's all. That's all. That's why, that's one reason
why our text is reminding us God hath not dealt with us after
our sins. He's not rewarded us according
to our iniquities. If he did, we'd have no hope whatsoever.
None. You know, we all do this, and
it's very bad, and it's very sad, but you be driving down
the road somewhere or something, and you see somebody who's an
obvious, maybe they're in the act of some immoral sin, or just
an obvious scoundrel, and it's our fleshly way to deal with
them according to their sin. It's our fleshly way, to look
down our nose as if we're holier than they are and say, well,
I'd never. Do you realize you are that filthy
scoundrel? The man speaking to you is that
sinner. You may not commit those outward
lewd immoral sins that some people in this world commit, but don't
think that that makes you less of a sinner. There's a world
of iniquity in our heart. We've never had one thought that
was not sin. And there's plenty of outward
acts of sin. Lord, make us deal with one another
not according to our sin, not after our sin, not according
to our iniquities, not rejoicing in judgment, but rejoicing in mercy. You know when Paul said, if a
brother's overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore
such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself. Why I consider
myself? Because there's a sin that's
worse than any other. And it's apt to overtake us when
a brother is overtaken in a fall. It's sin God says he hates. It's
a sin that God says is like to him like if you were burning
all the trash and all the refuse in the dump and it just stings
your nose it stinks so bad. It's pride. It's self-righteousness. It's
saying, stand over there, don't come near me, I'm holier than
you are. That's in you. And that's in me. And Paul said, if a man thinks
himself something when he's nothing, that's what we need to think.
I'm nothing. God's not dealt with me according
to my nothingness. He's not rewarded me for my nothingness. Oh God, help me deal with my
brethren that same way. That same way, bear one another's
burden and so fulfill the law of Christ, the law of love. Secondly,
how does God deal with us? He deals with us in the height
of love. Verse 11. For as the heaven is
high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that
fear him. You think of how high the heavens
are from the earth, and these are just some earthly illustrations
that we can sort of get a hold of. But God's mercy's infinitely
greater. His love's infinitely higher
than this. But you just take as high as
the heaven is from the earth, so great is God's mercy. That's how great his love is,
how high it is to them that fear him. I want you to think about
God's mercy throughout the ages to his elect. You take Adam. Adam wasn't a private man. Adam's
a representative man. And when Adam sinned against
God, He killed the whole human race. We've heard of some notorious
serial killers. Adam killed the whole human race. God gonna be merciful to that
sinner? He sought him out, made him confess his sin, covered
his nakedness, and saved him. You see mercy? See how great
his mercy is? Noah, God took Noah and taught
him the gospel and told him, I'm gonna deliver you from the
flood of my justice that's coming upon this earth. Puts Noah in
the ark, shuts him up in the ark, that ark that's covered
in pitch, atonement, and the rain falls down on the ark and
doesn't touch Noah. He's saved from the judgment
of God. And he's not out on the ground
very long at all and Noah's in his tent passed out drunk. And God showed Moses mercy for
Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. He showed
him mercy and he holds him up for us in the scripture as a
trophy of his grace. Abraham. Just think if you did
that. Think if you heard one of your
brethren did this. Abraham denied Sarah was his
wife so he could protect his own life and let her be preyed
upon by a pagan king. He did that more than once. In mercy, God chastened Abraham. kept him looking to Christ and
commends Abraham in these scriptures for his faithfulness. You see
God's mercy? See how great his mercy is? Lot
went to live in Sodom and ultimately had to be dragged out by the
angel of the Lord. And yet the scripture calls him
righteous Lot because in God's mercy, He's robed in Christ's
righteousness. David, you know David committed
adultery with a lot more women than Bathsheba? David had multiple wives and
concubines against the law of God. David was guilty of murder
against far more than Uriah. He numbered Israel one time and
70,000 people died because of his sin. And here's the mercy of God. God called David a man after
his own heart. Why? Because God had created
in David a new heart in which was no guile. in the holiness
of Christ and robed him in the righteousness of Christ and therefore
God, it was mercy for God to do that to him and therefore
he dealt in mercy all his days to David. You take Solomon. Solomon sinned so greatly some
don't even think Solomon was a believer. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Pagan idolatrous women that God
said don't have anything to do with. He let them bring that
idolatry into Israel and he joined with them in it. And God chastened him. And he'd
already used him to write two books of the Bible, and God still
used him to write another book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, and
brought him in great mercy to say, this is the end of the whole
matter. You're not gonna find happiness in this life. Fear
God and keep his commandments. That's the whole duty of man. Do you see God's mercy? Continual
mercy. That's just a few outward acts. That's not what was in their
heart. I'm not even talking about what was in their heart. That's true of you and me. How can God speak of his saints
in such love, in such glowing terms in the scriptures? For
as the heaven is high above the earth, So great is his mercy
toward them that fear him. I want to love my brethren in
mercy in some measure like God loves me. I don't feel like I've ever done
that and I want to. James said, in many things we
offend all, or another way that could be translated is in many
things we all offend. You know what the key to unity
is? Unity with Christ and unity with
one another. Constant mercy. Constant mercy. Constantly withholding
from one another what we deserve. Constantly giving one another
what we don't deserve. If you ever stop having mercy, it'll become all about you. You
won't see anything but faults. You'll be so righteous that people
can't stand to be around you. and there won't be a soul that
can convince you you're the only one to blame. Mercy. We need God's continual,
constant mercy, constraining us by that mercy to continually
be merciful to one another. Do you see the love of God? He's great mercy toward us. Here's the breadth of His love.
Verse 12, as far as the east is from the west, so far hath
he removed our transgressions from us. This picture's the infinite
removal of all the transgressions of all God's elect. If you travel
north, eventually you're gonna go south. If you travel south,
eventually you're gonna go north. That distance can be measured
It's somewhere roughly 12,500 miles. But if you start going
east, there's never a point where you're gonna start going west.
And if you start going west, there's never a point you're
gonna start going east. God has so far removed our transgressions
from us that it's infinitely, immeasurably gone. the breadth of God's love in
Christ. But now wait a minute, God's
holy and he won't clear the guilty. So how could God remove all the
transgressions of all his people? God came down to where we are
and took flesh. To me, that's the most astounding miracle and evidence and proof
of the breadth of God's love. God came down here. God came
to where we are, to this stinking, filthy den of iniquity. He came to where we are and was
made in the likeness of sinful flesh. God who gave the law comes
down and takes the form of a man and puts himself under that law
that he gave and honored it for his people. He became us, that's what he
did. He became us, he became his people and he became the
only one he looked to. And all these transgressions,
all these iniquities, all these sins, all these ones we've been
looking at in the scriptures and all the ones that you've
committed and shall commit and think and speak and all of them. It can't even number them. Scripture
says we drink iniquity like water. And we don't see it. We don't
see how bad we are. Art, we don't see it. We're vile. When God says you're
vile, when holy God says we're vile, and Christ became that. He took all those sins of all
his elect in his own body on the tree and became the guilty
one. became the only one that justice
of God looked to. And then he bore an unimaginable
amount of wrath in our room instead and satisfied
his own justice for us. Look back up at verse one. Bless
the Lord, O my soul, all that's within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all his benefit, who forgiveth all thine iniquities. They don't exist before God.
God so completely pardons that not one iniquity remains. Henry Law said, forgiveness gloriously
shines in the splendor of completeness. It's complete. Look, who healeth all thy diseases. Oh, we're gonna get sick, and
God may heal you some of those diseases, but eventually, you're
gonna die. That's not what we're talking
about. Our new man is healed, completely healed, because with
his stripes we are healed. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction. All of this is speaking of the
same thing. The price of Christ's precious
blood purchased his people from the jaws of destruction and it'll
never touch us. Heavenly arithmetic right here,
believer. No sin plus Christ's righteousness
equals eternal life. And you and I didn't do a thing
to have it. He did it all. He did it all. Christ said, verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath right now
everlasting life. You have it right now. Believer, we shouldn't be afraid
of physical death. That's going to be the greatest
day of our lives. Isn't it going to be amazing?
We're going to face that thinking it's like it's the worst thing.
And we're going to find out as soon as it happens, it's the
best thing that ever happened to me. Because immediately we're
going to be with our Redeemer. Immediately! Oh, don't forget that our righteousness,
seated at God's right hand, there's where our life is. Complete. Complete. He says, I don't remember
your sin anymore because they're gone. They're gone. Our scapegoat took them away
and they're gone. I wish we could get that. Our
sins are gone because Christ put them away. Oh, here's the depth of his love. Like as a father pitieth his
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him, for he knoweth
our frame, he remembers that we're dust. A father pities his
child with deep, tender affection. He has a deep compassion and
a deep empathy for his child. A mother loves her child, she
has deep empathy, deep compassion for her child. God our Father
pitieth his children infinitely more. That word pity there is
close to the word that's up in verse eight for merciful, where
he says the Lord is merciful. That could be the Lord is compassionate.
Loving compassion. Now that's greater when you know
that his mercy is from a heart of compassion. A president can
have mercy on a convict and pardon him. and not have any loving
compassion for him whatsoever. But God has mercy on us with
loving compassion. He pities his children like a
father pities his children. And he knows our frame. He remembers
that we're dust. He created us from the dust.
He knows we don't have any strength. He's upholding you. It'd be like
if you were upholding an outfit on a hanger. You know that hanger
has no strength. Those clothes have no strength
to hang themselves there. If you let them go, they're going
to fall to the floor. He's upholding us all the time. You don't have
any strength. I don't have any strength. We're
just dust. When the light shines through the room and you see
that stuff floating in the air, that's what we are. But look what he does. He came
to us when we were dead in our sins, and what did he do? Look
back at verse four. Who crowneth thee with loving
kindness and tender mercy, who satisfieth thy mouth with good
things so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. In loving compassion,
he came to us and took us from the dung heap of our sin and
our iniquity and set us among princes. In loving kindness,
He crowned us. In tender mercies, He crowned
us. He gave us life. He gave us all
things in Christ, because Christ made us kings under God by His
blood. In loving pity, He gave us life,
revealing Christ in us, satisfying our mouth with goodness. Oh,
taste and see that the Lord is good. If so be you've tasted
the Lord is gracious. He put a taste. He gave you a
taste of hunger and thirst after righteousness. He did this in
compassion. He did this in mercy and love,
compassion. And He continues to do it. Thy youth is renewed like the
eagles. He came to us in that first hour
and regenerated us and made us entirely His new creation, created
in His righteousness, His holiness, and He continues to renew us
day by day. The inward man, the outward man's
dying every second of every day. But that new man is being renewed
constantly. so that your youth, you're eternally
youthful, eternally alive by His constant renewing. That's
tender compassion He has on us. He knows without Him, we're dust.
And in endless loving pity, He governs this whole entire world
for me and you. Look at this, back at verse 6.
The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are
oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses. He made His acts known to the
children of Israel. Who's He talking about? He's
talking about you that are His. The way I got to looking at this
was I was studying Ezekiel for our next question and I got to
looking at how God pointed out all the sins of Israel in spite
of His goodness to them. They just rebelled and rebelled
and rebelled to the point that when He cast them into the nations,
they said, we're just gonna get along with everybody and we're
just gonna worship idols of stone and wood. And for his name's
sake, for Christ's sake, for his elect, God said, no, you're
not. And he brought him out of there.
And he said, I'm gonna purge out the rebels from you, and
I'm gonna make you worship me. And that's what he did. And that's
what he's doing for us. He wouldn't let you just complacently
say, well, I'm just gonna worship the idols of this world. Uh-uh,
no, you're not. And when anybody oppresses his
people, if you just remotely have the inkling that somebody
is God's people, I wouldn't oppress them. The Lord's portion is his
people. Jacob's a lot of his inheritance.
He found him in a desert land, in a waste howling wilderness.
He led him about, he instructed him, and kept him as the apple
of his eye. You know how you protect the
apple of your eye? That's how he protects his people. As an eagle stirreth up her nest,
and flutterth over her young, and spreadeth abroad her wings,
and taketh them, and beareth them on her wings, so the Lord
alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him.
He showed pity to Moses and pity to Israel by protecting them
everywhere they went. When they went from nation to
nation, from one kingdom to another people, he suffered no man to
do them wrong. He suffered no man to do them
wrong. You ever felt like you've been
wronged by a man? No, you haven't. If it comes across to you as
wrong, now it might have been wrong what he did, but God permitted
it for your good. He wouldn't suffer a man to do
you wrong. He, man, the man that does you wrong, that we deem
as being done wrong, God permitted it to do you right. That's right. He reproved kings for their sakes. He said, touch not mine anointed,
do my prophets no harm. And God tells us, to me belong
with vengeance. Recompense. Their foot shall
slide in due time. For the day of their calamity
is at hand. The things that shall come upon them make haste. For
the Lord shall judge his people and repent himself for his servants
when he seeth that their power is gone and there's none shut
up or left. He knows your dust. Everything
we see going on in this world is happening just for his people. And since he pities us in love
when he corrects us for our sins, he gets the job done and he leaves
off correction and he loves us to Christ. Look here in verse
8. The Lord's merciful and gracious,
slow to anger, plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide. He
doesn't keep on rebuking his child for our sin. Neither will
he keep his anger forever. He doesn't deal with us after
our sin. What does he do? Christ put away
the wrath of God, so he doesn't chase it in wrath, but he's gonna
come to us when we sin, and he's gonna make you know you've sinned
against him. And he's gonna make you hate
that sin because he's gonna make you see it's against Christ who
put it away. And he's gonna get the job done. He effectually gives you repentance
in your heart and makes you hate the sin and turn from it. Don't think you've stopped sinning
when you do that, but he will turn you and give you a different
repentance. It's a changed mind about it. It's to hate it and loathe yourself
for it and to mourn over it because it's against your Redeemer and
cast all your care on Christ and trust Christ to be your righteousness. And he gets the job done, but
when he does that, brethren, it's over. He doesn't make you
stay in that place forever. He's not trying to destroy. He's
doing what he tells us to do, restore. He's not judging. He's being merciful and faithful. And when a brother is not that
way and they get haughty and arrogant and stand by yourself,
don't come near me, you know what you need to do? Do for them what God does for
you. Love them. We can see every sin in this
world but that sin of self-righteous pride. We just don't acknowledge
that one. Because it feels so good. Love
them. God will chase them. God will
rebuke. God will bring them to themselves. And then when he
does, it's over. And he goes on showing you his
mercy and his love. Like a father pities his children,
the Lord pitieth them that feareth him. He knows our frame, he remembers
where it does. He doesn't do it to destroy us,
but to save us. And look at this last thing,
the length of his love. Our love's gonna end, we're just
like grass, we're as flimsy We're not talking about good grass.
We're not talking about that grass you spend hours trying
to cultivate in your yard. We're talking about old field
grass, just worthless. But look at this, but the mercy
of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that
fear him. His righteousness unto his children's
children to such as believe on him and love one another. He
said, let your conversation be without covetousness. and be
content with such things as you have. He's saying in whatever
state you're in, no matter how bad it is and how much it hurts,
be content. Why? He says, I'll never leave
thee, and I'll never forsake you. Christ told his disciples, he
said, you're gonna all forsake me, but I won't be alone, because
my Father will be with me. And I don't care how much you
feel forsaken, when those you never thought would ever forsake
you, forsake you. Christ is with you. He don't
leave you. Ain't that right, Donna? Can a woman forget her sucking
child that she should not have compassion on the son of her
womb? Yes, sadly, they can. But I will
not forget thee, God said. I've graven you on the palms
of my hand, your walls are continually before me. We just sang it. The
soul that on Jesus had leaned for repose, I will not, I will
not desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should
endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake. I ask God to make me love my
brethren. Some measure the way God loves
me, don't you? I don't want to deal with you
after your sins, because God hasn't dealt with me that way.
I want to rejoice in mercy to you, just as God's been merciful
to me. If God's forgiven and forgotten
your sins, I want to forgive and forget them. I want to show
mercy with loving pity and compassion. I want to hurt when you hurt.
I want to cry when you cry. and I don't want it to ever end.
And I'll tell you what, by His grace, it's not gonna ever end
for me and you toward one another. Charity never faileth. The God-given
love never ends. It's gonna be for eternity. You
see the deep, deep love of our Lord Jesus? Could we with ink
the oceans fill and were the skies of parchment made, were
every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade,
to write the love of God above would train the ocean dry, nor
could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from
sky to sky. That's love. That's love. Amen.