That Psalm that Art just read
sums up my message tonight. It says there, the salvation
of the righteous is of the Lord. He is their strength in the time
of trouble. I've titled the message In God
we boast. And that's what our preaching
is, really. If you think about it, the message
of the gospel is boasting in God. It's declaring God's works. And we got the title from down
here in Psalm 44 and verse 8. In God we boast all the day long
and praise thy name forever. This is our message. Glorying in the Lord. But it begins up here in Psalm
44 1 and it says, We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers
have told us what work thou didst in their days, in the times of
old. They heard the news of what God
had done from their fathers. Their fathers taught them. the
truth of what God had done. The greatest responsibility of
fathers and mothers is to teach our children the gospel. This
is the greatest responsibility we have as fathers and mothers
is to teach our children the gospel. That's of God. God told the fathers in Israel
concerning the Passover He said in Exodus 12, 26, it shall come
to pass when your children shall say unto you, what mean ye by
this service? That you shall say, it's the
sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of
the children of Israel in Egypt when he smoked the Egyptians
and delivered our houses. God told the fathers, you teach
your children what this means. God told the fathers concerning
the offering of the firstborn, He said, It shall be when thy
son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? Thou shalt
say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out
of Egypt from the house of bondage. And it came to pass, when Pharaoh
would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the firstborn
in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn
of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to the
Lord all that openeth the matrix, big males, but all the firstborn
of my children I redeem. God told the fathers, teach this
to your children. God told the fathers concerning
the giving of the law and the mountain being on fire and how
they needed a mediator. God said, teach them thy sons
and thy sons' sons. God had delivered them over into
the land of Canaan and He told them to set up these stones and
He told the fathers concerning that crossing of Jordan. He said,
when your children shall ask their fathers in time to come
saying, what mean these stones? Then you shall let your children
know saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. for
the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before
you until you were passed over and he said he did it that all
the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord that
it is mighty that you might fear the Lord your God forever. So
God commands fathers to teach our children and this goes for
mothers too. Paul commended Timothy's mother
and his grandmother because they taught Timothy the gospel from
the time he was a young child. They taught him the scriptures.
And he commended his mother and his grandmother for doing that.
This is the greatest responsibility we have. I'm thankful for you
that are here consistently and you have your children under
the sound of the gospel consistently. I have seen parents who were
not consistent. They would come to services on
a regular basis, but if something came up and they wanted to do
it, they would do that instead of coming to hear the gospel
preached. And by that, they taught their children that the gospel
was not the most important thing there is. And so the children
end up making a profession of faith. Some do, some don't. But they make a profession of
faith and then go off to college and then go off into the world
and you never see them again. But there are those mothers and
fathers who consistently had their children under the preaching
of the gospel of Christ. And they let nothing come between
hearing the gospel and those children, they would make sure
they were in every service. And God honored it by planting
their children in His church under the gospel and giving them
faith in Christ. Now, it's not a guarantee, but
Christ did say this. He said, if any man serve me,
him will my father honor. We see it in God's commendation
of Abraham. God said concerning Abraham,
I know him that he will command his children and his household
after him and they should keep the way of the Lord to do justice
and judgment that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which
he has spoken of him. He commended Abraham for keeping
his children under the gospel. Well, the opposite was so of
Eli. Eli was a priest and God had
promised him the priesthood all throughout generations in his
family. But Eli didn't correct his sons.
He didn't teach his sons to honor God. And God rebuked Eli and
He said, He said, Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said
indeed that thy house and the house of thy father should walk
before me forever. But now the Lord saith, Be it
far from me. Listen to this. For them that
honor me, I will honor. And they that despise me shall
be lightly esteemed. Fathers and mothers should study
the word of God. We should study this book, fathers
and mothers, so that we can teach our children in our homes the
message of this book. Think about it now, there is
nothing else we will ever teach our children that can give them
eternal life but the words of this book right here. That's
it. And there's nothing we can teach
them that's disimportant. Absolutely nothing. I want my
children one day, I want my children to say, we've heard with our
ears, oh God, our father and our mother have told us what
work thou didst in their days and times of old. I want my children
to say that and say it in faith. Now for you children, it's a
great blessing to have fathers and mothers who believe the gospel.
That's a great, great blessing. God's given you something that
most children in this world do not have. I know a lot of people
in the town I live in, in my hometown too, that have no idea
what this book says. Because their fathers and mothers
didn't know what it said, and their fathers and mothers didn't
know what it said. But you've got fathers and mothers who believe
this gospel and that's a great, great blessing God's given to
you. And I commend our young people who are always here to
hear the gospel preached. Scripture says we're born again
by the Word of God. It's right here through this
preaching that God gives life to dead sinners. So the scripture
teaches us be swift to hear. slow to speak, slow to anger. Scripture says, lay aside everything
that would be a distraction and receive with meekness the engrafted
Word, which is able to save your soul. It is so very, very important. And then after you hear the Gospel
preached, then give yourself to search these Scriptures to
know more about what was preached. The Lord spoke of the Bereans.
And He said these were more noble than those in Thessalonica. Here's
why. They received the Word with all
readiness of mind. They sat there and they paid
attention and they looked up the Scripture and they gave their
full attention to the Word being preached. But they didn't stop
there. It says, and they searched the
Scriptures daily to see whether those things were so. You're
old enough now, most of these young ones sitting here, you're
old enough to where you already see how the world can get a hold
of your heart. You've already been around long
enough to see the world, more and more and more and more, it
takes your heart. Don't go the way of the world.
Do not go the way of this world. Take advantage of the blessing
God's given you with believing fathers and mothers and ask them
questions. Did you see, you hear in all
those scriptures I read, God said to the fathers, when your
children shall ask you, what does this mean? So you ask your
fathers and mothers. Go to them and say, what did
he mean when he said this? and take advantage of that. And
then when they show you in the scriptures what it means, take
heed to what they said. And seek Christ now. Seek Him now and seek Him diligently. The Lord said, you'll find me
when you search for me with your whole heart. So give yourself
to search for Him. Right now. Well, what are we
to teach our children? What are we to teach them? We're
to teach them that the gospel is not man's works for salvation,
but it's God's work. That's what we're to teach them.
The gospel, the good news, is not man's work working out his
salvation for himself. It's God's work working out the
salvation of his people. He said there, We've heard with
our ears, O God, our fathers have told us what work thou did
in their days, in times of old. First of all, the gospel that
we must teach our children is the good news that God has a
chosen people in this world for whom He gives nations. Look at verse 2. They told us
how thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand. and planted
them. That is, it planted God's elect.
And how did thou dist afflict the people and cast them out?
That is, the non-elect. And then concerning God's elect
at the end of verse 3, He says He did all of this because thou
hadst a favor unto them. I won't labor this point because
we've looked at it so much lately, the doctrine of election. But
nobody can successfully argue against the doctrine of election. Nobody can because it's on every
page of the Bible. It's on every page of the book.
It's obvious when you read the Scriptures that there are some
people in this world that God favors with His free grace and
there are some people in this world that God shows no favor. There was a bunch of nations
around Israel And when they went to Canaan, there was all these
seven nations in that land. People. And God threw them down
and cast them out. He didn't show them favor. But
in Israel, God had an elect people. And everything He did in Canaan,
He did for those elect people in Israel. Everything. He drove out the heathen. and
He favored His elect people and planted them. That's obvious. Looking at that, it's obvious
God has some people that are His people, that He favors, His
elect, His chosen, that He has grace upon. And there are some
who He leaves them to themselves. Those that He cast out didn't
want God. They didn't want anything to
do with God. They had their gods, they had their idols, just like
all men do. And they didn't want God to begin
with. So it wasn't like God was doing
them a disservice. They didn't want God. But it's
obvious from that, brethren, that God has a people. And He
won't take no from that people. They're no different from the
others. But God's going to have favor. He's going to show favor
to them. Free. Grace. It's not based on anything
in the center whatsoever. It's sovereign, meaning God can
choose who He will. It's free, meaning it's not based
on anything in the center. It's distinguishing grace in
that God chooses some and passes by others. But God has favor
to a people. and there's no difference in
them from anybody else. It's simply God's favor. You
take Noah for an example. Noah was no different than the
rest of the people that lived around him. The scripture says
God looked down from heaven upon the children of men and he said
concerning all men everywhere on the face of the earth, he
said the thoughts of his heart, the imagination of the thoughts
of his heart is only evil continually. That's right. God's talking about
the ones that were going over and helping little old ladies
cross the street. And He was talking about the
ones who were murdering little old ladies. All of them. Their
thoughts were only evil continually. Because their thoughts weren't
on God, their thoughts weren't on Christ, their thoughts weren't
on giving Him glory. Their thoughts were on themselves.
And Noah was no different. He was absolutely no different
from the rest of them. What made the difference? Scripture
says, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord looked
upon Noah and said, I'm going to save him simply because I
will. I'm going to have mercy on him
simply because I will. And God made the difference.
And that's so with all God's elect. There's no difference
in them. It's not that they're somehow
better than others. They're not. By and large, according
to Scripture, they're the worst of the lot. But God had mercy. Simply because He would have
mercy. And God works everything in this
world for His elect people. He gives nations and people for
His elect. Go to Isaiah 43. We see that
in our text here. We see that God, He cast out
a multitude there, cast them out. But then these others He
planted. And look here at Isaiah 43 and
look at verse 3. He says, I am the Lord thy God.
He's speaking to Jacob and Israel. That's you and I who are his
elect. We're Jacob in our flesh, we're
sinners, scoundrels, supplanters, cheats, just sinners. But in Christ we're Israel. God's
Israel. And he says there, I am the Lord
thy God, the Holy One of Israel. He's our Holy One. That's what
that means. The Holy One of my chosen people,
my Israel. thy Savior, I gave Egypt for
thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee." Those are nations
with people, made up of people. He said, I gave them for you.
Since thou was precious in my sight, thou has been honorable
and I have loved thee, therefore will I give men for thee and
people for thy life. Everything God does in this world,
He's doing it for His elect people. And everything Christ did when
He walked this earth, He did it for His elect and His elect
alone. One of my favorite stories, I
was going to tell you about Teresa Edmondson, Brother David's wife,
but I'm going to not tell you that because I'm hoping he'll
tell you that story when he's here next week. But a similar
story is one they told at Brother Henry's funeral And I just love
this story. You know, he was at Iwo Jima
and then that major, major battle there for multiple days and the
ship in front of him was sunk, the ship behind him was sunk,
the ship on the other side was sunk, all around him these ships
were sunk. But that ship couldn't be sunk. Why? Because God had an elect
on that ship. And he was going to use him to
preach the gospel and wage a warfare greater than that war ever thought
about being and save his people. And so he saved that ship. And everybody else on that ship
got the benefit of at least one of God's elect being on that
ship. Everything God does in this world, he does for the sake
of his elect. Everything. And remember what
we saw the purpose of God is in electing a people. Romans
9. It's talked about Jacob and Esau. It said the two had done neither
good nor evil. They're in their mother's womb.
They hadn't done anything good or evil that the purpose of God
according to election might stand. Not of works, but of him that
calleth. That's the purpose. You see,
we're proud sinners by nature. And before we're ever going to
be saved and call on Christ, you've got to be made to know
you're a sinner. Now I know we'll say, yeah, I'm
a sinner, everybody's a sinner. That's not confessing you're
a sinner. When you're a sinner, when you're
made to see, you're not worth a bucket of spit. You're just
an abomination before God. And we have to be made to see
this, that we don't have a will to call on God. We don't have
a will to come to Christ. We don't have any ability in
ourselves to work out anything God will be pleased with. The
doctrine of election strikes a blow to our pride and declares
to us, it's not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of
God that shows mercy. God has mercy on whom he will
have mercy. And it brings us to Christ's
feet to see, God, you can do with me what you will. It's His
prerogative to do with us what we will. We need to be brought
down. That's one purpose of God's electing
grace, is to bring us down. Would you believe this? When
I was studying this chapter, this psalm, I was reading all
these different commentaries. And as I'm studying this, there
was actually one commentary that said, and here's the quote, See,
human will must work together with divine grace. That's what
they got out of these eight verses I read to you tonight. It's that
depraved heart, it's that blindness from which God has to save us.
That's why He chooses whom He will and gives us a new heart
and faith to come to Christ. But it's so, God has a people
and He works everything for them. just as Christ laid down His
life for the sheep. That's the God, the true and
living God. Now secondly, what must we teach
our children? We must teach them that salvation
is not by our hand, but it's by God's right arm, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Salvation is not by our works,
it's by God's right arm, His power. And that's the Lord Jesus
Christ. Look here in verse 3. He says,
They got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did
their own arm save them, but thy right hand, and thine arm,
and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favor unto
them. Somebody said this amongst the
commentaries, and this was a good saying. They said, in verse 1
up there, he said, our fathers have told us, God, of your work,
singular. And they said, why is it just
one work, singular, when there are so many works that God did
for Israel? And he said it's one work singular
because all the works God did for Israel pictured the one work
Christ did on the cross when he fulfilled the law and crushed
the devil's head and delivered his people from all our enemies.
That's the work that all these other works typify. And when
we read this right here, we're reading about the Lord Jesus
Christ. The children of Israel did not
get the land of Canaan in their possession by their own sword
and by their own works. And we didn't either. We have
possession of heavenly Canaan now, you that believe on Christ. But we didn't get it by our works.
It wasn't by our power and our wisdom. It was by the right hand
and the right arm of God. It was by the power and wisdom
of God. 1 Corinthians 1 tells us the
power and wisdom of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. It's Him. When I was growing up, it was
common to hear free will preachers They would say this, they would
be teaching how that God is spirit and He's invisible. And so they
would say God has no hands but your hands and no feet but your
feet and no arms but your arms. Well, the truth is God has no
hands and no arms but the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man mediator. God who is spirit came down and
took human flesh like those He came to save. And now we can
see God in the face of Christ Jesus. He is the fullness of
the Godhead bodily. We can see Him now. And His hand
and His arm is the arm by which we are saved. Go over to Isaiah
53 and look at this. Isaiah 53. It says, Who hath believed our report?
Verse 1. Who hath believed our report?
To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? What's the arm of the
Lord? For he, he shall grow up before
him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He
hath no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him there's
no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows. and acquainted with grief, and
we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and
we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. It was our transgressions upon
him for which he was wounded. This is substitution. He was
bruised for our iniquities. God laid the iniquities of all
His people on Christ and bruised Him instead of bruising His people. The chastisement that resulted
in our peace was upon Him. And with His stripes we're healed. He's the arm of the Lord. It's
by Christ that we're healed. It's by Christ that our enemies
are put down. It's by Christ that we're delivered. By Christ. He satisfied the law. He honored God and He delivered
His people. Christ, it says there, that they
were delivered by the light of God's countenance. Hebrews 1.3
says Christ is the brightness of His glory, the express image
of His person. And it says He upholds all things
by the word of His power. He's the right hand of God, the
right arm of God, the power of God. who by Himself, when He
had by Himself purged our sins. That means they're put away forever
and they'll never be brought up again. That means that everybody
that He purged, they'll never be condemned for their sins because
He purged us of our sins. And He did it by Himself and
then He went to the Father and He sat down at the right hand
of God. You see, He's the power of God. He's the power. And Christ is our King and our
God. He's the King and the God and
God in the hearts of everybody that He's regenerated through
the Holy Spirit. Look back there at Psalm 44 and
verse 4. Thou art my King, O God. Thou art my King, O God. This is what we sing to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's our King and He's our God. And here's what we ask Him to
do. Command deliverances for Jacob. That's a powerful King,
isn't it? And that's God. He can command
the deliverance of His people. He come to that tomb where Lazarus
was. And what did he do? He just commanded
Lazarus come forth. And what happened? Lazarus delivered
from death. He came forth. He came to that
demoniac who was possessed with all those wicked spirits and
he commanded them to come out of that demoniac. And what did
they do? they came out. He delivered that
man from those wicked spirits. He commanded the winds and the
waves to be still and saved his apostles when they were on that
sea in that storm. Listen to this. This is from
Deuteronomy 28. He says to his people, you are
going to be blessed You're going to be blessed in the city and
you're going to be blessed in the field. You're going to be
blessed by the fruit of your body, the fruit of the ground,
and the fruit of your cattle. He said you're going to be blessed
in the basket and in the store. You're going to be blessed when
you come in and blessed when you go out. The Lord shall cause
thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy
face as you come out against thee one way and flee before
thee seven ways. How's all this going to happen?
The Lord shall command the blessing. That's how. The Lord's going
to command the blessing upon you. And you're going to have
a blessing. Because the Lord commands it.
But somebody's going to object. There's always an objection.
They're going to say, yeah, but when those children of Israel
went in there to the land of Canaan, they had to fight all
those ites that were in there. Those seven nations. They had
to fight them. So we have to fight. Well, they did. And the scripture does tell us
to fight the good fight of faith. It does tell us that. And it
is a fight. It's a real fight. It's a real
struggle. We are in a warfare. There is
no doubt about that. And it's a real warfare. Don't let anybody think that
you're going to call on the Lord and He's going to have mercy
on you and you confess Him and from then on it's just going
to be smooth sailing from here on out. That ain't the case.
It's a warfare. A warfare against our flesh,
a warfare against this world, a warfare against everything
that's ungodly. See, it's a warfare, it's a fight,
no doubt about it. No doubt about it. But it's only
through Christ that we win the victory. Look there at verse
5, Psalm 44, 5. He said, through thee, through
thee will we push down our enemies. Through thy name will we tread
them under that rise up against us. For I will not trust in my
bow, neither shall my sword save me, but thou hast saved us from
our enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us. This
is the psalm, if you look down at verse 22, you'll see a familiar
scripture. Yea, for thy sake are we killed
all the day long, we're counted as sheep for the slaughter. You
remember what Paul said to that? In Romans 8, he said, Nay, in
all these things we're more than conquerors, through Him that
loved us. That's how we win the battle.
That's how we win the victory. It's not any strength in us. The strength is God. Look with
me over at Joshua 24 and I want you to see this beautiful picture
of our salvation. Joshua 24 and look at verse 11. God says, you went over, He told
Israel, you went over to Jordan and came into Jericho and the
men of Jericho fought against you. He listed all those different
nations there. And look at the end. And I delivered
them into your hand. God said, I delivered them into
your hand. Look at verse 12. I sent the hornet before you
which draved them out from before you, even the two kings of the
Amorites, but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow. And I have
given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which
you built not, and ye dwell in them. Of the vineyards and olive
yards which you planted not, do you eat." Isn't that a beautiful
picture of salvation? We have all these blessings.
Righteousness, holiness, redemption, peace with God. We have all these
blessings. We have a habitation not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens. We have a city of our living
God that God made. We have all these blessings and
we didn't do one thing to get them. Nothing. You picture Israel. This really happened. They went
into the land of Canaan and there's a beautiful home and God's driven
out the Canaanites from them. And they just went in and everything
was provided and they just started living there. They went to the
vineyard, there's a vineyard planted, the vat's full of wine,
they didn't have to do a thing. God provided it all for them
and they just got to drink the wine and enjoy it. Everything,
God said, you didn't do anything, I gave it all to you. That's
salvation. We didn't do a thing. God gave
it all to us through Christ, through His blood, through His
righteousness, through the works He finished for His people. It's
not by our hand. We have faith. We enter in by
faith and rejoice in Christ Jesus freely by what He's given us.
And we're kept now by His free grace and His power so that we're
going to have this blessing all our days and for eternity. because
he's freely given us that for which we did not labor. That's
salvation. That's what we have to teach
our children. So as long as sinners keep boasting in their fighting
and in their faith and in, you know, I overcome, my overcoming,
that's a man boasting in himself. That's a man that's trusting
an idol god. God said this after He told them
all those blessings that they received. He said He did all
that to them. And He said, Now therefore fear
the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and truth, and put away the gods
which your fathers served on the other side of the flood and
in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord. And the man who is still boasting
about his faith and his overcoming, he is still serving an idol God.
He hasn't put away his idols yet. But what does God's people
do? Those that worship God because
they fear the Lord and they reverence the Lord and they worship Him
in sincerity and truth. What do they do? They give all
the glory to God alone. That's what they do. And so lastly,
brethren, we must teach our children that true worshipers, true worshipers
give God all the glory for all. Look here in verse 8. In God we boast all the day long
and praise thy name forever, Selah. This is the difference
in false worship and true worship right here. This is the difference.
False worshipers boast in themselves, true worshipers boast in God.
God said, who makes thee to differ from another? What do you have
that you didn't receive? Now, if you did receive it, why
glory as if you didn't receive it? Selah, there it ends with
Selah, that means think of this, give this serious consideration. Now listen, Scripture says, of
him are you in Christ Jesus. If we are in Christ, it is because
God chose us in Christ. Who of God is made unto us, if
we know Christ in truth, it is because God made us know Him
in truth. And He's made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. That is, everything we need,
Christ did. So seeing everything that we
have received came from God and not from us, what does that make
a believer do? As it's written, he that glories,
let him glory in the Lord. And so we just glory in Him.
we glory in Him. That's the difference between
true worshipers and false. So my prayer, brethren, is that
God give us father's and mother's grace to teach our children. Teach them, number one, God has
an elect people for whom He works all things. Number two, our salvation
is by Christ Jesus the Lord alone. And number three, we give God
all the glory and all the praise for our salvation. And I pray
God give grace to our children to believe this gospel and follow
Christ. That's my prayer. Amen.