Alright, Psalm 92. Now tomorrow is Thanksgiving,
and I'm glad that we have a day in this nation set aside called
Thanksgiving. A day for giving thanks. And
the reason I like that is because it begs the question, to whom
are we thankful? That's good for lost sinners
to think about. And if it will make some sinner
think about that question, that's good. To who is it that we give
thanks? Who does the sinner saved by
grace give thanks unto? Our Psalm, Psalm 92 begins, verse
1, it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. Unto the Lord. And it's a good
thing to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High. It's a good thing to give thanks
to the Lord because it gives God glory. It gives Him glory
and God's true saints give God all the thanks because we give
Him all the glory. There's nothing that we have
that we didn't receive from God. So we thank Him for all our blessings. We sing praises to His name because
He is the Most High. A man can receive nothing except
it be given him from above. So we thank God for all blessings. And it's good to thank God when
He gives us good times and blessings that we see are blessings and
that we're thankful for. It's good to thank Him. But it's
also good to thank Him when He gives us sad times and He gives
us sorrow. Both are by the hand of the Most
High, both are for our good and for His glory. In everything
give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you. When I'm in the valley, give
thanks, because this place right here where I am in the valley,
This is the will of God for me. And it's God's will for me to
thank Him. So in everything give thanks. It says there, it's good
to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning and thy faithfulness
every night. God is Alpha and Omega. He's A to Z. He's the author and finisher
of His people's faith. In the morning of eternity, salvation
began by God's unmerited loving kindness to His people, to whom
He chose. And it goes on, it is carried
through, that salvation is carried through to the end by God's faithfulness. In the womb of the morning, Scripture
said when we were born again and drawn to Christ, that was
by God's loving kindness. And it's by God's faithfulness
that He carries us all through this life until the end. Every
trial, every trial begins by God's loving kindness and we're
carried to the end and delivered by His faithfulness. And so he
says to us every morning, it's good to thank God and sing praise
to His name every morning for His loving kindness. He carries
us, He gives us each new morning. And He carries us through that
whole day by His faithfulness. So we give him thanks and we
praise his name for his loving kindness and for his faithfulness. Now as we near the beginning
of a new year, it will be here before you know it. And as we
enter and draw near to the beginning of a new year and the end of
this year, we have so much to thank God for. So much to thank
God for everything. everything. But most of all,
most of all, above all, we thank God for His great salvation in
His Son. That's what we thank for the
great salvation we have in His Son. Now this Psalm gives us
three things in particular for which we thank God. First of
all, we thank Him for saving us by the works of His hands.
For saving us by the works of His hands. Secondly, we thank
God for strengthening us by His Spirit. And thirdly, we thank
God for preserving us until the end. We thank Him for saving
us by the works of His hands. strengthening us by His Holy
Spirit and for preserving us to the end. We thank God. We give God all
the thanks and we sing praises to His name for saving us by
the work of His hand. He says there in verse 4, For
thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work. I will triumph
in the works of thy hands. O Lord, how great are thy works,
and thy thoughts are very deep. A brutish man knoweth not, neither
doth a fool understand this. Now, here's the state, here's
the state, brethren, of each believer. If you're a true child
of God, truly born of God, this is your state. I know it is.
Because it's mine. It's the state of every sanctified
child of God. He says there in verse 4, we're
glad. We're glad. No matter what, no
matter what, even when I'm sad, I'm glad. Even when I'm sad,
I'm glad. And here's how we arrived at
this state. Verse 4, Thou, Lord, hast made
me glad. Look back there at what Brother
Robbie just read. Psalm 100. Look there. He says, Psalm 100, Know ye that
the Lord, He is God. It's He that hath made us. Not
we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep
of His pasture. What does that make you do? Enter
into His gates with thanksgiving. And into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless
His name. Bless His name. We have to say
with Paul, by the grace of God, I am what I am. by His free sovereign
grace. I am what I am. God made us,
brethren, by choosing us in His Son before this world was ever
created. He made us by predestinating
us into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. God,
the Most High, is not a God of chance. He is a God of immutable
purpose. God made us before our mother
and our father made us. Listen to this. Thine eyes did
see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in thy book all my members
were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there
was none of them. God made us before we were made. Well, that's my state. I'm glad. How I arrived at it? Lord, thou
hast made me glad. What was the means? Verse 4 says,
through thy work, through thy work. God himself, God himself,
the sovereign, holy God of creation, God himself took flesh like mine,
sinless flesh. And he did all the work that
God sent him to do for God. Before God could do anything
for me, God had to perform a work for himself. And he came forth
and he finished the work that God sent him to do for God. The Lord is well pleased for
His righteousness sake. He will magnify the law and make
it honorable. That's what He's done. The Lord's
well pleased, not for my righteousness sake, not for your righteousness
sake. The Lord's not looking at you
or me and boasting in anything in us. The Lord's looking at
His Son's righteousness. And he's well pleased for his
righteousness sake because Christ honored the law. He honored the
law and he magnified the law. He magnified how important the
law is and how it must be upheld. And he honored it. He did that
for God. He did the work of declaring
the righteousness of God. He made justice and justification
meet in harmony. Justice and justification, truth
and mercy met in harmony in Christ. And Christ finished the work
that His people couldn't do. The work we could not do for
ourselves, He finished it. When our Lord Jesus cried out
on the cross and said, it is finished. He cried out, it is
finished. According to most people, they
say that when he cried it's finished, he didn't really mean it's finished,
he meant it's finished a little bit, but now there's something
you have to do. That's not what it meant. It meant it is finished. What did he finish? He finished
the transgression. He finished the transgression.
He totally, completely blotted out the transgression of Adam
for his people. The transgression of his people.
He blotted that out for his people. He made an end of sins for his
people. His people cannot sin. You and
I cannot sin. Oh, in ourselves, that's all
we do. But I'm talking about before the judge, before God,
we cannot sin. Christ made an end of sins for
His people. When He cried out, it's finished,
He said He had made reconciliation for iniquity. He brought His
people back into friendship with God. And He brought in everlasting
righteousness. Righteousness that we can't We
can't make it end. It's everlasting righteousness. We can't mess it up. We can't
mess it up. He sealed up the vision. He sealed
up prophecy. And he anointed the most holy.
That's what he meant when he said it's finished. He finished
all the works. Now here's my state. I'm glad. Does that make you glad? I'm
glad. Here's how I arrived at it. Lord,
thou hast made me glad. Here's the means. It's through
thy work. What's the result? Verse 4. I
will triumph in the works of thy hands. Christ's blood is
so effectual. That work is so finished. God
is so satisfied. His law is so honored, brethren,
that you and I can speak right now like we have already won
the victory and He's already divided the spoils with us. That's
how sure this thing is in Christ. It's not sure because of us,
it's sure because of Him. I will triumph in the works of
thy hands. Christ delivered us from so great
a death and He doth deliver And in Christ we trust that He will
yet deliver us. I will triumph in the works of
thy hands. Now seeing this is all of God,
seeing all this is of our Redeemer, what then shall I do? What shall I do? Seeing it's
all of my Redeemer, what am I going to do? I'm going to ascribe it
all to God by thanking Him for all. And by singing praise to
Him for all. That word loving kindness and
faithfulness, that takes in who God is and everything God's done
for His people. Oh Lord, verse 5, Oh Lord, how
great are Thy works, and Thy thoughts are very deep. A prudish
man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this. Paul
said this, he was going on about how the Lord has saved you in
Gentile and how he won't lose one and he got to the end of
verse 11 and he said, oh the depth, oh the depth of both of
the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments
and his ways past finding And that's where He brings you
in. You can't plumb the depths of His wisdom and His knowledge.
You can't plumb the depths of His great works. All we can say
is, Lord, they're deep. They're deep. They're deep. I was preaching down at Rocky
Mount a few weeks ago and one of the brethren came up to me
after the message and they made this comment. They said, you
went deep on that subject. Oh brethren, I didn't even scratch
the surface on it. I guarantee you that. The depth
of God's works. Now tomorrow, some won't give
thanks to anybody but themselves. You know there's no such thing
as a self-made man. There's no such thing. Everybody
has somebody to thank. Many gonna think they're lucky
stars. There's no such thing as luck.
There's no such thing as lucky stars. God is the most high. Everything that comes to pass
in this world is by the direct hand of our sovereign God. Good or evil, it's under his
full control. There is no luck. There is no
chance. Everything comes to pass according
to His purpose. Some people are going to think
they're idle that they call God. Why they thank Him, I don't know.
Because they say themselves He can't save unless they let Him.
They say He can't do anything unless they let Him. Why would
you thank a worthless God like that, I don't know. But some
will think they're idle. But why will men think these
worthless things? Because the brutish man does
not understand. The fool does not know, he does
not understand this. And you know what brethren? You
and me, we were the brutish man. We were the brutish man. We were
the fool. We did not understand God, His
works, and we couldn't. But you know what? It's by those
very works that we couldn't understand and that we didn't know. It's
by those very works that He gave us the mind of Christ and taught
us what great things He had done for us by the work of His hand
and made us understand. By the very works we didn't know
and couldn't know, God regenerated us and gave us an understanding
of what He's done. Do you see how, what resounding
proof that is that we're saved only by the works of God? The
works that we wouldn't confess, the works we couldn't know, the
works we couldn't believe, the works we didn't understand, God
saved us by those works. That's why brethren, it's only
a man who's been born of God that gives God all the glory
for salvation. Because we understand and know
things now that we could not understand and didn't understand
before. We wouldn't bow to these things
before, now we love them. We love them. Now secondly, we
thank God for strengthening us as His particular people. He strengthens His people. He gives us fresh oil, the psalmist
said. He gives us the Spirit of God
afresh and strengthens us. But He does this as our particular
people. God does not do this for everybody. Look, verse 7. When the wicked
spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do
flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed forever. But thou,
Lord, art most high for evermore. For lo, thine enemies, O Lord,
for lo, thine enemies shall perish. All the workers of iniquity shall
be scattered. You and I can look about us and
we see everywhere around us here, everywhere in this world, throughout
this nation, we see wicked men springing up like the grass.
just abundant and they seem to just be flourishing. The workers
of iniquity. We live in the most wealthy prosperous
generation there's ever been. Just wealth is just unbelievable
how much wealth some people have and how much prosperity they
have. Great prosperity. Great prosperity. is frequently
the forerunner of destruction to wicked men. It leads them
to provoke divine wrath. Think about it. By hardness of
heart, great prosperity will harden a sinner's heart further.
Just look at Pharaoh. By pride, God gave Nebuchadnezzar
all the kingdoms of the earth. And you know what it did? It
just hardened him against God because he was lifted up in pride. Prosperity leads to destruction
because of the haughty hatred men have for the saints. The
more man has in this world, the more prosperous he becomes in
this world, The more it seems the rich hate God's saints. Look at Haman. Look at Haman. Oh, he was prosperous. All he
wanted to do was kill all the Lord's people. It leads to destruction by carnal
security. Think of the rich fool. He had
so much his barns couldn't hold him. Oh, I know what I'll do.
I'll give all this to the furtherance of the gospel of Christ. Nope.
I'll tear down my barns and build bigger barns. And then I'll say
to my soul, soul, take your ease. You got it made now. Rest of
your days. Thou fool. Thou fool. Tonight, your soul is going to
be required of you. Then whose things will these
be? carnal security. And prosperity
leads to destruction because of self-exaltation. Men just
become so self-exalted when they prosper a little bit with money
and wealth and things. Men begin to just really become
proud of self and just so exalted. Look what I have accomplished.
Look what I have accomplished. Look at Herod. Look at Herod. And all the while, he thinks
God has really blessed him. God's blessed me. Just look at
this prosperity I have. God's blessed me. God says, the psalmist says,
but thou, Lord, art most high forevermore. None of this is
out of God's control. It's according to His purpose.
What's He doing? It's that they shall be destroyed
forever. You mean God would prosper people
in this world simply to destroy them forever? That's exactly
right. That's exactly right. Don't envy
the rich. Don't envy them. Our Lord said
it's easier for a camel, a full-grown, real, living, breathing camel
to go through the eye of a sewing needle than it is for a rich
man to be saved. God warns us against prosperity
more than anything else in this world. The cares of this world
choke out the word. Many have lusted after money
and their faith has just been choked out and they've just been
pierced through with arrows. Don't envy the prosperous. But,
you and I, we had our hands full of this world. We were looking
to all the prosperous things we had and looking to the works
of our hands and we thought we were rich and increased with
goods and had need of nothing. God does something for His particular
people that He doesn't do for the rest of this world. Psalm
95 verse 10, I mean verse 92 verse 10, but by horn. That word horn is strength. But
my strength shalt thou exalt like a wild ox. How's God going
to do that? I shall be anointed with fresh
oil. Fresh oil. Our Lord Jesus Christ
in the beginning, He said, I'll pray the Father and He'll send
forth another comforter. He'll send forth the Holy Spirit.
And when He's come, He won't speak of Himself. He's going
to speak of me. And He's going to convince, He's going to persuade
my people scattered throughout the world. He's going to convince
them of three things. He's going to convince them of
righteousness, because I go to the Father. He's going to convince
them of sin, because they believe not on me. Of righteousness,
because I go to the Father. And of judgment, because the
Prince of this world is judged. And when He came forth in the
first hour, God anointed us with all, and He convinced us of those
three things. Christ is the righteousness of
God. He convinced us that our sin, our chief sin was not all
these immoral things we thought was our chief sin, but our chief
sin was we didn't believe on Christ. And He made us see Christ
is the righteousness of God and judgment has been settled, the
works are finished. And He brought us to believe
on Christ. And then when He brought us to believe on Christ, He sealed
us. He sealed us. He sealed us just
like we used to seal tomato sauce in those jars. He sealed us.
Scripture says, in whom you also trusted after that you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also
after that you believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of
promise. He sealed us. And Christ promises to give us
fresh oil. By the Spirit of God, He continues
to give us fresh oil, fresh anointing. There's no way we'd continue
in faith otherwise. There's no way we would be carried
away with the wicked and be lost for the prosperity of this world
except for Him giving us fresh oil, strengthening us, strengthening
us, make us strong. He said the youths are going
to faint even though A person's young and has the... once might
have had the strength of a young person in the faith. They're
going to faint. You're going to faint. He said,
but they're going to mount up with wings as eagles because
He gives fresh oil. He gives strength to them that
have no strength. He don't give strength to you
that have strength. He gives strength to them that
have no strength. Now listen, if you're outside
of Christ, you're God's enemy. If you're outside of Christ,
if you meet God, you might flourish in this life. Well, please understand
this. Please hear this. You might flourish
in this life. In a job, in the things you're
ambitious for, and with your friends, and with honors, and
whatever it is. You may flourish in this life,
but if you meet God without Christ, there's coming a day when that
will not be the case. You're not going to flourish
with God. If you're trusting in your works, they're iniquity.
They do not equal up to the righteousness God requires. And the scripture
says, He will scatter. Lo, verse 9, Lo, thine enemies,
O Lord, lo, thine enemies shall perish. All the workers of iniquity
shall be scattered. Our God, Christ Jesus said, in
that day, men are going to stand before Him and He's going to
say, depart from me, you workers of iniquity, I never knew you. Hear that. If you're sitting
here right now without Christ, hear that word from God. That's serious. It's serious
right now. You may stand before God before
the night's over. It's urgent. But Christ's people, born of
His Spirit, they're going to live forever because God lives
forever. And we're going to behold Him
that day. Our eyes are going to behold our enemy and our ears
are going to behold the wicked that rose up against us. God,
when He casts them out, He's going to do it in righteousness
and His people in that day are going to praise Him for His righteousness. I pray God to make you a trophy
of His mercy and His grace, not a monument to His justice. Now let's look at this last thing.
We thank God for preserving us to the end. We thank Him for
saving us by the works of His hands. We thank Him for strengthening
us as His particular people with fresh oil. And we thank God for
preserving us unto the end. He says, verse 12, the righteous
shall flourish like the palm tree. Now that's not a palm tree
like you think of down by the ocean. That's a date tree. A date tree. Dates, like dates. That's what that is. 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. Christ made each of his people
righteous. That's who the righteous are.
Those he made righteous. Those he's called and robed in
his righteousness. And by his preserving hand, he
makes the righteous flourish like the date tree. They say
a date tree grows straight up and its branches don't grow out.
He makes us grow heavenly, heavenward. He makes us grow up, flourish
in godliness and flourish in thanksgiving and praise to God. And it's by His preserving hand
He makes us like the cedar tree, strong. Cedar tree doesn't rot. He preserves us like the cedar
tree. Well, how does He make us flourish?
Look at verse 13. He plants us in the house of
the Lord and He makes us flourish in His courts. He planted us
in the first hour. He brings you and He joins you
in His local assembly under the preaching of the gospel and He
makes you to grow, He makes you to flourish through the preaching
of Christ in Him crucified. It's what we thank God for. This
is how He preserves us. Through the preaching of Christ
in Him crucified. I've heard folks make fun of
the saints who just come and they sit in the same spot in
a pew week in and week out and all they just... One man was
mocking his people one time and he said, y'all just like to feed
and feed and feed, that's all you like to do. That's all any
of us do in natural life is just eat and eat and eat. How you
gonna live? That's all His people do. We
come and we feed and feed and feed. And He grows us and makes
us flourish. They shall bring forth fruit
in old age. They shall be fat and flourish.
And that means He's going to make us flourish to the end.
He's going to preserve us to the end. Now let's end. I want to end by reading this
last verse. And this verse applies to everything
in this psalm. Not just to what came right before
it. It applies to everything in this psalm. It declares why
it's a good thing that believers give God all the thanks and all
the praise. Here's why it's a good thing.
Verse 15. We give Him thanks and praise to show that the Lord
is upright. To show He's my rock. To show there's no unrighteousness
in Him. Here's why He saves by the work
of His hands. Here's why He destroys His enemies
and strengthens His elect. Here's why He preserves His people
until the end. To show that the Lord is upright. To show that He is their rock. To show that there's no unrighteousness
in Him. Christ justified them. Christ
satisfied righteousness for them. God's just and He will preserve
them. Therefore, He's upright. Tomorrow,
just like every day, we'll give thanks to God. We'll give all
the thanks, all the credit, all the praise, all the glory to
God, to God our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. But tomorrow now,
if somebody asks you, some family member asks you and says, why
do you give God all the thanks? Why do you praise Him? Why do
you say that All your salvation is of Him, and you have nothing
to do with it. You turn to Psalm 92, and you read on verse 15,
to show that the Lord is upright, to show that He's my rock, and
to show that there's no unrighteousness in Him. That's why. That's why. I pray God to give you a happy
Thanksgiving time with your family, Thank Him. Thank Him. Praise Him. Amen.