It's my desire that everybody
to whom I preach would be able to sing the song that Moses and
the children of Israel sang that day when God had delivered them
across the Red Sea. I want to see my children saved
and I want to see them be able to sing this song. I want to
see your children saved. I want to see them be able to
sing this song. I want us to be in harmony together
in heart and in mind singing this praise to our Redeemer. It would be so sad to know that
some here, while God's elect are called and sing this song
to Christ, it would be sad to know others will be the ones
who are in the place of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. While God's
people are a trophy of His justice, being saved by His righteousness
and His mercy, those that rebel against Him will be found to
be a trophy to His justice and wrath. Either way, we're going
to glorify God. Either in mercy, in salvation,
or in just damnation. But we're going to glorify God.
Oh, I pray God to bring you to sing this song. Notice there
in verse 1, it says, they sang unto the Lord. You know, whenever
we sing, as much as Sarah and these other musicians and singers,
as much as they're singing to us, They're singing to the Lord. The Lord hears it. And when we
sing here, the Lord hears. We're singing unto the Lord.
We're singing to Him. And what was the song? They declared
that He hath triumphed gloriously. He hath triumphed gloriously.
We saw last time that sin and death and the devil, God has
triumphed gloriously over them. The horse and his rider he's
thrown in the sea. Today I want to just look at
verse 2. And we see more of this good news that we sing unto the
Lord. And every sinner born of the
Holy Spirit and taught of God sing this song. This is the song
of every believer taught of God, born of His Holy Spirit and taught
of God. This is our song. Verse 2. The
Lord is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. He
is my God, and I will prepare Him a habitation. My Father is
God, and I will exalt Him. I've titled this, The Lord My
Strength. Every believer truly believes
the Lord is my strength. Every believer born of God, taught
of God, believes the Lord is my strength. And therefore, He
is my song. I rejoice that He is my strength. Scripture only speaks of two
kinds of songs. Only two kinds of songs are mentioned
in Scripture. Christ said in Psalm 69, 89,
The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches
of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. They that sit
in the gate speak against me, and I was the song of the drunkards. That's the song that you hear
played on the radio in popular music, the song of the drunkard.
And then When you're in that, when you're a lost sinner, when
you're a dead sinner, you have no strength. You're dead in trespasses
and sins and you have no strength whatsoever. But the only song
that a dead sinner, a strengthless sinner, a sinner with no strength,
the only song he wants to hear is a song about himself. A song that glorifies man and
man's total depravity. That's what he wants to hear.
Have you ever considered the subject matter of popular music? I had
a songwriter sitting across the table from me one time told me
that if I ever had writer's block and I wondered what subject to
write about, he said, just go read the seven deadly sins that
God hates. That's our subject matter. I
felt like the devil was in the room with me when he said that.
The seven deadly sins the Lord hates. Every popular song is
about one or more of these sins of depravity. Think about it.
A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift
running to mischief, a false witness that speaks lies, he
that soweth discord among brethren. That's the subject matter of
all the songs of the drunkard. And it's a song of man and it's
a song that glorifies man's depravity. That's what it is. A dead sinner
has no strength in himself and he only rejoices to hear songs
about himself and about his depravity. But the sinner that's saved by
God's grace and has experienced God's power, he knows that he
has no strength in himself. He's taught that he has no strength
in himself. And he's taught that all his
strength is the Lord. And so the songs that he wants
to hear are songs that declare, Christ is all my strength. That's the song God's people
want to hear. We have an old man of flesh in
us that still likes to hear the song of the drunkard. But that
new man created within us wants to hear the song that declares,
the Lord is all my strength. The Lord is all my strength.
How is the Lord my strength? How is the Lord your strength,
believer? Well, He's my strength of revelation. He's my strength of wisdom. When
the Lord makes Christ wisdom unto us, He's the whole revelation
of God. Everything there is to know about
the invisible God, we behold through faith in Christ Jesus
the Lord, His Son. He's our strength of revelation. Without Him, we have no understanding
of who God is, of who we are, or of how God saves sinners.
And we can't believe the Word of God without Him. He's the
full revelation. The Lord's my strength of righteousness. He's my strength of justification.
You and I can't keep the law. We looked at that the first time.
We can't keep the law. We come into this world under
the guilt of Adam, our father, We come into this world conceived
in sin so that our nature's corrupt, so all we are before the law,
before God's holy, righteous, just law is, is guilty. We can't
do anything about that. Christ Jesus the Lord is the
strength of righteousness. He is the Lord our righteousness,
Jehovah Sidka knew. He is the one who came and made
himself to be a servant made of a woman, made under the law. so that He might fulfill that
law for His people, and then go to the cross and lay down
His life, the just for the unjust, and bear our sin, and bear the
curse due to us, due to our sin, that the law might be satisfied
and honored, so that He is both our righteousness, positive,
and our justification of our sin. He's the strength of our
righteousness. We have none apart from Him.
And then the Lord is the strength of our holiness, the strength
of sanctification. If God the Father had not separated
out, sanctified out from among all people those He chose in
Christ before the foundation of the world, if He had not done
that, you and I would never ever be able to separate ourselves
and sanctify ourselves from the mass of fallen humanity. We'd
never be able to do it. He gets all the glory for that.
He's the strength of our sanctification. If Christ had not come and sanctified
His people by perfectly fulfilling the will of God and perfecting
forever them that are sanctified, you and I, by our bound will,
by our will being bound to our sin nature, That means our will
is dictated by our sinful lust. We only will do what our sinful
nature dictates us to do. And so we would have never by
our will been able to fulfill the law and perfect ourselves
in holiness. We would have never been able
to do it. Christ did it. And the Spirit of God, if the
Spirit of God had not come and sanctified us in heart and given
us a new life and made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints and light in regeneration, we would have never been able
to give ourselves life. Can a clean thing come out of
an unclean thing? No way. And we could have never
given ourselves life, we could have never made ourselves into
a holy new man. So it's God the Father in divine
election that sanctified us, it's Christ the Son by His blood
on Calvary's tree that perfected forever them that are sanctified,
and it's God the Holy Spirit who washes us in regeneration
and purifies us through faith and makes us holy unto God. And
when it says then that we're made fit, we're made meet to
be partakers of the inheritance of the saints. We're made fit
to be a partaker with those who are sanctified and holy and already
in glory with God. We're made fit by this threefold
work of our God. We're made fit by Him to enter
in to God's presence. and partake of that inheritance
with His saints in the perfect light of God. Nothing else has
to be done for that to take place. You take that thief on the cross,
he had his hands nailed to a cross, he had his feet nailed to a cross.
When they were put there, he did not know who Christ was. He hated God, he hated Christ,
and he hated himself, and he hated all men. He was just a
hateful, enmity-filled, dead sinner. And through Christ preaching
to him on that cross, He gave him life and He gave him that
holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. And He didn't
do one thing with His feet. He didn't do one thing with His
hands. He couldn't. That holiness we have to have
is Christ formed in you, the hope of glory. Christ has to
be made unto us, sanctification. And He had Christ. He had that
holiness. He had that holiness. That holiness
that when we err from the right way and we turn out of the path
and God corrects His child and chastens the child He loves,
He does it that we might be partakers of Christ's holiness instead
of trying to be partakers of a holiness that we conjured up
and called holiness. He's that holiness. Lift up the
hands that hang down and make straight paths for your feet.
Where? To Christ our sanctification.
He's the holiness we have to have. And that thief on the cross,
Christ said to him, today you shall be with me in paradise.
Why? Because he had the holiness he
had to have. It's not in our works, brethren.
It's Christ. He's the strength of holiness.
He's the strength of holiness. And the Lord is our strength
of redemption. He said, if the Son shall make you free, you
shall be free indeed. And brethren, He's made us free
indeed. Christ being made a curse for us, He's redeemed us from
the curse and condemnation of the law and we'll never, ever,
ever, ever, ever experience that curse again. There is therefore
now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. Absolutely
no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. Born of His
Spirit, we're His brethren, redeemed. I couldn't pay anything I owed
to the law, but Christ paid it all, all the debt I owed. Sin
had left the crimson stain and He washed it white as snow. I
don't owe the law of God anything. And brethren, every day, you
and I get up. This is the sad thing. I said
this over and over. This is the sad thing. We see
how the Lord is our strength in all those other things that
are the most difficult of all. Our revelation, our righteousness,
our holiness, our redemption. That's the hard part. And this
is what we seem to have the most difficulty with. We face some
mountain that's really just a molehill. And oh, this is it. We're just not going to be able
to get through it. It's over. We're going to fall away. The
Lord is our strength every single day in Providence. And that's
the easy part, brethren. The other part's the hard part.
That's the easy part. I want you to think about it.
I want you to think what it truly means for the Lord to be your
strength. Now think about this. It means, with the Lord as my
strength, I am as strong as the Lord. Think about it. With the Lord as your strength,
you are as strong as the Lord. Whatever the Lord will have you
to conquer, you're going to conquer it. We are more than conquerors
through Him that loved us. Paul said, I can do all things
through Christ which strengthens me. If I can't do it, it's because
it's not God's will for me to do it and He didn't give me the
strength to do it. But if I do it, and I'm able
to do it, whatever it is, all things, I can do it through Christ
that strengthens me. Christ said it on multiple occasions.
Remember the thorn he gave to Paul? Look at 2 Corinthians 12.
Let's know what he said to him. The Lord is my strength. Look
here at 2 Corinthians 12. Look at verse 7. lest I should
be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations.
And see, this was a mercy to Paul. God gave him all these
revelations, gave him all these blessings. And isn't it just
like us? When God does that to us, He
gives us revelation, He gives us blessings. What happens? We'll
get puffed up. We'll get puffed up. Isn't that
crazy? We get puffed up over something
that was given to us. But to keep us from getting puffed
up, God will give us a thorn. And He says here, lest I be exalted
above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was
given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet
me, lest I should be exalted above measure. And for this thing
I sought the Lord thrice, three times, that it might depart from
me. And He said unto me, My grace
is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in your
weakness. You see, in order to behold that
Christ is all our strength, we're going to have to be made to see
our total weakness. Why is it that some of you here
are shaking your head yes and saying amen to everything I'm
saying and others are not? It's because those who are not
don't see how totally weak they are. And so they don't see how
that Christ is all our strength. You have to be brought to the
end of yourself and be brought to see you have no strength in
yourself. That's when you'll behold Christ
is all your strength. Not until then. We have to be
brought to see that we're ignorant, totally ignorant, thoroughly
ignorant and can't know God. and then we'll behold Christ
our wisdom. We have to be made to see we're
unrighteous, guilty, and can't do a thing about it before we'll
see Christ is all our righteousness. These things are necessary, brethren.
If I'm going to see Christ is all my strength, I have to be
made to see my total weakness. Verse 9, Most gladly therefore... This is a man that's been taught
by God by experience and knows something. He says, Most gladly
therefore will I rather glory in my utter weakness. You don't
hear that in most churches, do you? You don't hear that in most
pulpits. I'm going to glory in my absolute
inability and my thorough weakness. that the power, the strength
of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in
the thorn that God gives me. I take pleasure in infirmities,
in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses
for Christ's sake. Because when I am weak in myself,
then am I strong in the Lord my strength. Christ said the
same thing again in John 15. John chapter 15. He said it using
the metaphor of the vine and the branches. And John 15 verse
4, Christ said, Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot
bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can
ye except ye abide in me. Isn't that a simple picture,
simple illustration? I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me ye
can do nothing. And the margin says, severed
from me. You can do nothing. If a man
abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered.
And men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they
burn. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall
ask what ye will. What does a believer ask? What's a believer's will? What
do we ask? Thy will be done. That's what
we ask God. Thy will be done. I don't care
what it is we want. At the bottom of it, this is
what I want above everything else. Lord, I want your will
to be done. And look what He said. And it shall be done unto
you. It shall be done unto you. You
want to get what you ask for? You want God to give you what
you pray for? Do you want that? Then ask Him to do His will. You'll get what you ask for every
time. Guarantee it. Here it is my Father glorified
that you bear much fruit by our strength. No, by Christ's strength. That's how God the Father is
glorified. And so, this is how you'll be my disciples. Christ
alone is our strength. He's the strength of our life.
He's the strength of godliness. He's the strength of righteousness,
of holiness. He's our strength of complete
acceptance with God. Everything we need is in Christ.
Sinner, you trust everything that is the weakest thing. That's
what we all do by nature. You think your will is free.
Your will is as free as a frog in a snake's belly. He can jump
around all he wants to, but he can't get out of that snake's
belly. And you are in the belly of the devil. You are under his
power by nature, under the power of your sin. You can do everything
you want to within the four walls of your sinful nature, but you
can't get past that. You can't get out of that. That's
bondage. That's bondage. Don't trust your
will, that's the weakest thing you got. Next time you get the
flu, will yourself to not have the flu. Just will yourself to
not have the flu. Next time you stump your toe,
will yourself for it not to hurt. You can't accomplish anything
by your will if it's not God's will. See, we're saved by sovereign
will. Whenever I named my son Will,
somebody said, Free Will! And I said, I hope Sovereign
Will. We're saved by God's Sovereign
Will. He's the only one that can do
what He will. He's not bound to anybody except
for His holy nature and His holy character, which is a good thing. That means He only does what's
right. You and I can't do our will. Our will is subservient
to His. We're saved by His will. That's
why that leper came to the Lord and he didn't say, Lord, now
you do what I'm willing for you to do. He came to the Lord and
he said, Lord, if you will, if you will, you can make me whole. You can make me clean. See, we're
at the mercy of God. We're not going to worship God
until we worship a sovereign God. You can't worship anything
but a sovereign God. Think about that. You can't worship
a God that you can control. That makes you the God. Worshipping
is to worship a God who rules everything and everybody all
the time. He's all the strength of His
people. And the only way you'll worship
is worshiping the God who is all your strength. Now let's
go on. Secondly, every believer confesses
and sings, the Lord is my salvation. The Lord has become my salvation.
Now, what does that mean that the Lord is my salvation? Most
anybody you talk to would say the Lord is my salvation. If
God is my salvation, then He's all my salvation. Just like we
were looking at with His strength. If He's my strength, He's all
my strength. Or He's none. If he's my salvation, he's all
my salvation, or he's none of my salvation. Brother Adam built
this pulpit. He's a great carpenter. He built
this pulpit, and he did it by himself. And I can say to you,
Adam is my pulpit builder. He's my pulpit builder. Now,
if Kevin, Kevin's a great carpenter too, if Kevin added just one
percent Then Adam didn't build the pulpit. They're co-builders
in it. They're co-builders. I don't
know. Did you help with it, Kevin?
OK. I thought that's right. Adam
built it. So Adam built it. Sean, if you ask Sean, he'll
tell you he helped. But Adam built the pulpit. So he's the builder. Now, in
salvation, God is my salvation. That means He's all my salvation. And if I come claiming, well,
I just added one percent, then He's not all my salvation. We're
co-saviors. And that's what most people believe.
Their God is a co-savior. He's just helping them out, making
up for their deficiencies. That's not salvation. Salvation
is the Lord is all my salvation. Christ is the author and the
finisher of faith. He is the Alpha and the Omega. Salvation is of the Lord. That
means it's apart from any contribution on my part. When the Lord brought
them to that Red Sea, look there at Exodus 14 verse 13, Moses
said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still. You just stand
still. Don't lift a finger and see the
salvation of the Lord, which He will show you today. For the
Egyptians whom you've seen today, you shall see them again no more
forever. Brethren, what did the children of Israel contribute
to the defeat of the Egyptians? What did they contribute? Nothing. They didn't contribute a thing,
not one thing. God did everything to defeat
the Egyptians. And so God was their salvation.
All those elect children standing there with Moses, God was their
salvation. They didn't contribute a thing.
They didn't lift a finger to it. Psalm 68, 20 says, He that
is our God is the God of salvation. And unto God the Lord belong
the issues from death. unto Him. If you and I are going
to be saved from death, it's going to be by Him. We can't
do it. We cannot contribute. I like
to use the illustration of resurrection. I think that's a great illustration.
Resurrection is a salvation from death. Can you and I contribute
to our resurrection? Can we add any part to that?
Can you bring yourself back to life? Nothing. And just like you can't contribute
anything to that, we can't contribute anything to any other part of
our life. No other part of our life. Salvation
is of the Lord. Now here's the question. Has
the Lord become your salvation? Has the Lord become your salvation?
Have you been made to see that there is nothing about you, nothing
about anything you can do that can save you? The Lord has got to be all our
salvation. There is great peace, brethren,
and nowhere else will you find this peace than knowing that
our omnipotent Christ who cannot fail is all our salvation. That is great peace. When you
have a great Savior who cannot fail, then you have a great salvation. And you have great peace. That's
what I want for you. I want you to cease working.
I want you to cease trying to save yourself. I want you to
cease trying to hide under this false covering that somehow you're
good and somehow it's going to be different for you with God.
He's just going to tell you to come on in. We'll overlook the
things where you didn't measure up. No, He won't. No, He won't. It has to be perfect to be accepted
of God. Perfect. How good do you have
to be to enter into God's presence? You have to be as good as God.
That's Bible. You have to be as good as God.
Who shall enter into heaven? He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart and has not lifted up his soul to vanity. You have
to be perfect to enter into God's presence. That is only by the
person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ who makes us an entirely
new creation by His work. He takes a sinner who is dead
in corruption, in sin and death, and He doesn't use any part of
that sinner. He just creates a new man in
that sinner. And when He gets done raising
that new man to glory with Him, He is going to create a new glorified
body and bring it with Him. And all this He does through
the cross. All He does is by magnifying
all God's holy attributes, by honoring God's law and justice,
by putting away all the sin of His people, and by coming and
revealing what a great glorious Savior He is to His people. He
does this creative work through the word of His gospel. That's
why in the very beginning it says the Word was with God and
the Word was God and all things were created by the Word. It's
because it's by this Word. This is the incorruptible seed
whereby the Gospel is preached unto you. And just like the first
creation, natural creation was made by the Word, by God speaking,
that's how this new creation is made. God speaks and it is. God speaks and He creates His
people anew. The voice cries, and the voice
will lift up the voice together with the voice. I lift up my
voice together with Christ's voice, and it's His voice that
makes the difference. And that's when we're created
anew. And He doesn't use anything of you or any part of you or
any work by you. He does it all and He makes us
entirely new. You want to know why it's important
to see in the beginning was God and He created all things out
of nothing? You want to know why that's important?
Because it magnifies the fact that when He comes to a dead
dog sinner, He creates all things out of nothing. He doesn't use
anything about you to create a new man. He creates us all
anew. We're His workmanship entirely
of God. Now, whenever God is our salvation,
and He's all our salvation, the believer confesses God to be
his God. When He's become our salvation,
I will confess God to be my God. And from then on, I will begin
living for God. Now look at Exodus 15-2. He is
my God and I will prepare Him an habitation. You see that? He said the Lord is my strength
and my song. He has become my salvation. Here
is what followed. He is my God and I will prepare
Him an habitation. Now, when a young lady falls
in love with a young man, Let's just think about it in these
terms. When a young lady falls in love with a young man, she
has no problem telling everybody that will listen that he's her
man. She don't have a problem doing that at all. Kristen Keller,
you couldn't get her to shut up. She had no problem telling anybody
that would listen that Rob was her man. Kelsey Sanders had no
problem telling everybody that John Keller was her man. Kelsey
Keller now. She had no problem saying John
Keller was her man. But you imagine now after John's
love showed his love for her and she's falling head over heels
for John. Can you imagine Kelsey saying, now I want to marry him
but I don't want to do it publicly because I don't want people to
know that I love him. I don't want people to know he's
mine. Can you imagine that? Don't make sense does it? Would
never happen would it? It's true for the sinner that
Christ constrains by His great love for us. When He's made you
to see that all that He's done for you and what great salvation
He's accomplished for you, can you imagine Moses having just
witnessed this great salvation that the Lord wrought for him?
Can you imagine Moses getting on the other side of that mountain
and saying, now, I don't want to tell anybody He's my God.
Of course not. With the heart man
believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation, because the scripture says, whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. That's God's work. When He makes you to believe
on Him, you're going to believe on Him unto righteousness and
you're going to confess Him publicly because you're no longer ashamed
of Him. That's what faith does. Faith
is not ashamed of Christ. Like Moses and all those elect
children on that seashore, Christ reveals Himself to be our salvation
and the believer confesses publicly, He is my God. That's what we're
professing Believer's baptism. He's my God. The Lord said, Whosoever
shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, of him shall the Son
of Man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in
his father's, and of the holy angels. So believers are not
ashamed of Him. Faith in Christ is not ashamed
to confess Christ. Now, also when a young woman
falls in love with a young man, she's going to prove it. It's
going to get out on her that she's in love with somebody because
she starts doing everything for the object of her love. Her life
begins to revolve around him and everything she does is about
him and it's obvious she's in love with him. She proves it
by what she does. Moses said, I will prepare him
a habitation. He's my God and I'll prepare
him a habitation. I'm going to prepare him a place
to dwell. I'm going to adorn for him a place for him to dwell.
Now, God provided everything for the tabernacle. He provided
everything for that habitation where God dwelt. God provided
all the materials and Moses was the one who built it. He built
it. Well, God the Father provided
everything by providing His Son. And His Son is the one who builds
this habitation. His Son builds the place where
He'll dwell. And the place He dwells is in
each of His redeemed children and in the whole church collectively. He's dwelling in His people. And by Him dwelling in us, we're
filled with His glory and that's how we're sanctified. Go to Exodus
40 and look at this. It's pictured here in the tabernacle
that Moses built. He said, I'm going to prepare
for him a habitation. And he was talking about the
tabernacle. And he built this tabernacle and look what happened.
Exodus 40 in verse 34. It says, then the cloud covered
the tent of the congregation, that's the tabernacle, and the
glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not
able to enter into the tent of the congregation because the
cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the
tabernacle. And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle,
the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys. But if
the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not to the
day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was
upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the
sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.
And that's a picture, brethren. The child of God is the tabernacle
of the Lord. He's the temple of the Lord in
which Christ dwells. The church is His holy habitation.
Scripture says, Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and
that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? What agreement hath the
temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the
living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them, I will
habitate in them, and walk in them, and I'll be their God and
they shall be my people. Scripture says that the church
in Christ, all the building is fitly framed together and grows
into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you're building together
for a habitation of God through the Spirit. God dwells in His
people. Christ prepared that tabernacle.
He did everything to prepare it and then He comes and dwells
in it. That's the work of our Lord. That's the sanctifying
work of the Lord. And when Christ has made us His habitation and
He sanctified us and made us holy, that's when the believer
begins preparing a habitation for the Lord. That word, preparing
a... I'll prepare a habitation for
the Lord, that word in another scripture is translated being
a keeper at home. A keeper at home or a keeper
of the home. You know, the wife is a keeper
of the home for her husband. That's what the scripture says.
She's a keeper of the home for her husband. And that's a picture
of Christ's bride. It's a picture of His church
and His people. We're made keepers of Christ's
home. We're made keepers of His church and keepers of ourselves
to adorn the habitation where Christ dwells. And so, And all
of this is by Christ dwelling in us. By Christ dwelling in
us, we do what Christ would have us to do. Just like that temple,
the Lord filled the tabernacle and the children only moved when
the glory of the Lord moved. They moved. And Christ is the
glory of the Lord. It fills His people and we only
move when He moves. Listen to this, I will put my
spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you
should keep my judgments and do them. You ever wonder what
he's talking about? What are those statutes and judgment?
There's men who will tell you he's talking about the law. Once
he's done this, now we can keep the law of God. Listen to what
John tells us it is. If we love one another, God dwelleth
in us and his love is perfected in us. That's His statute and
His judgments. You love one another. And when
He dwells in you, He's going to cause you to love one another.
Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God
dwelleth in him, and he in God. How am I going to be made to
not be ashamed of Him and to confess Him? Christ is going
to be dwelling in me. That's how I'm going to do it.
You also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, a
holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
by Jesus Christ. How am I going to be made to
offer up spiritual sacrifices? It's by being built up a habitation
of God. By Him making me do so. The scripture
says we work out our salvation. Go to Philippians 2. I want you
to see this real quick. Philippians 2. I've heard men
preach on this and they preach such outlandish things on this,
but I want to show you something. Philippians 2. Look at verse Philippians 1,
27. Only let your conduct be as it
becometh the gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see you
or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand
fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith
of the gospel. He is saying, I want to hear of your affairs.
I want to hear of your daily dealings amongst one another
and with one another. Now look at Philippians 2 to
12. My beloved, as you have always
obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence,
work out your own salvation. That is, do all your daily affairs. Same word. Do work out all your
daily affairs with one another in the church with fear and trembling. Why? Because it is God which
worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Because
God's present. Because God's in that brother
and in that sister. Because God's in your midst.
How are you going to act with God in your midst? How are you
going to act towards your brother with God in your midst? That's
what he's saying. He's there. to work out all your
daily affairs. Now, ladies, it's not popular
today. I understand it's not popular
today for a wife to be a keeper of a home. Women today, they
think that's belittling them. That's God's greatest honor.
He's put upon a woman to be a keeper of a home. It doesn't mean you
can't work outside the home, but it means you are to be a
keeper of the home for your husband. And a believing wife honors her
husband by teaching her children and by keeping her home for her
husband. And this is the high honor. In
doing that, you're a picture of Christ's bride and what she
does for Christ her husband. Go to Titus 2.4. I want you to
see this. Titus 2.4. This is all included
in adorning or making a habitation for the Lord. The picture is of a believer,
of Christ's bride adorning herself and keeping herself chaste and
keeping herself so that He comes home and everything is kept for
Him. Look, Titus 2.4. He is talking
to the wives and he says, verse 3, ìThe aged women, that they
be in behavior, as becometh holiness, are holy women, not false accusers,
not given to much wine, teachers of good things, that they teach
the young women to be sober, to love their husbands.î The
church, the Bride of Christ, we teach our children to love
Christ our husband. Thatís what Iím doing today.
To love their children. We love those younger in the
faith. It says, to be discreet, chaste,
keepers at home, that Christ's bride is preparing and adorning
His habitation all the time, just like the wife. Be good,
be obedient to their own husbands, just like Christ's bride, the
believer is obedient to Christ our husband. And here's why,
here's the adorning. This is what it means, that I'll
prepare a habitation for Him, I'm going to adorn His habitation,
that the Word of God be not blasphemed. Look at verse 10, that they may
adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. Why do
we do this? Because the grace of God that
brought us salvation has appeared to all men and taught us that
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly,
righteously and godly in this present world looking for that
blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and
our Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that He might
redeem us from all iniquity and purify to Himself a peculiar
people zealous of good work. That's why we do it, for His
sake, for our husband, for our husband. So, when He's made you
to see that He's all your strength and He's all your salvation,
He makes you confess, He's my God. And from that day forward,
you start living for Him, adorning His habitation. Alright, lastly. And when He becomes our salvation,
we give Him all the glory for being our covenant-keeping, covenant-fulfilling
God. Verse 2, Exodus 15, 2, He said,
He is my Father's God and I will exalt Him. You go with me to
Galatians 3. My Father's God means He is a
covenant-keeping God. He kept covenant with Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob and He has kept covenant with me. And that's
how salvation is, it's by God's covenant promise. Look here,
Galatians 3.13, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,
being made a curse for us, for it's written, Cursed is everyone
that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might
come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive
the promise of the Spirit through faith. And he says, I speak after
the manner of men, though it be but a man's covenant, if it's
a man's promise, if it's confirmed, no man can disanul it or add
to it. Now, to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.
They were confirmed. And he said, not to seeds as
of many, but as of one. And that seed's Christ. This
I say then, the covenant that was confirmed before of God in
Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul. That it should make the promise
of no effect. For if the inheritance be of
the law, it's no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by
promise. So we thank God and we praise
God that He kept all His covenant promise to save us. And all those
promises are fulfilled in Christ. Faith in Christ glorifies God
for being a covenant keeping God. Go to Revelation 15. I'll
end with this. We're going to sing this song
forever. You know that? Look here, Revelation 15 2. This
is not just a song we're going to sing here. We're going to
sing this song forever. Giving Him all the glory. Revelation
15 verse 2, ìI saw, as it were, a sea of glass mingled with fire,
and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over
his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name,
stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.î And they sing
the song of Moses, the servant of God. They sing the song weíre
looking at in Exodus 15, the song of Moses. and the Song of
the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty,
just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints. You realize Moses'
song here is the first song ever recorded in history, and God's
preserved it for us to read it, and it's all about Christ. And
it's the song we're going to sing for all eternity. I pray
God has made Himself your salvation, He made Himself to be all your
strength, And He's brought you to be willing to confess He's
my God. Made you willing to live for
Him. Made you willing to exalt only Him for saving you by His
covenant promise. That's my prayer. Amen. After we sing a closing hymn,
Brother Kevin, will you come and close in prayer once we finish
singing? Alright, brother.