Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. StSq2 2.60 Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. I've been to the sea, I've been
to the land, I've been to the forest, I've been to the trees, I've been to the
place where the flowers bloom, I've been to the mountain, Two. Good evening, everyone. Welcome
to the services. Continue to remember Linda Welburn. She hasn't been feeling well
for some time. And I think she had a doctor's
appointment yesterday, but she hasn't heard anything yet. also
continue to remember Judy Harmon. I did have some good news. I heard
from a dear friend of mine who attends the church in Spring
Valley, North Carolina today. He has a son in his early 20s
that has a brain tumor and they found out that it was non-cancerous. So that's great news and an answer
to prayer. And I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful. Let's go to the
Lord in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we are indeed
thankful and grateful for all that you've done for us in Christ. Lord, we often come to you, most
of the time come to you with requests and needs, but Enable
us to be thankful, to come to you with thanksgiving and praise
in our hearts for what you've done for us in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We know that we're undeserving.
We know that it's mercy and grace, in mercy and grace that you've
been mindful of us. And we are grateful, Lord, not
as we ought to be, but we are grateful, thankful. We ask that
you would be pleased to visit us again tonight. Send your Holy
Spirit, Lord, teach us more of Christ. We beg thee, O God, that
we might grow in grace and grace and in the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus. We know that without Him, we can do nothing, and that with
Him, we can do all things through Christ, which strengthen us.
We pray for those of our number who are sick and ailing and in
affliction. And Lord, we ask that it could
be your will that you restore them to health, that you would save us By your grace, save us,
Lord. If we're not saved, save us now.
Thank you, Lord, again for this place that we can meet together,
for these that have come out tonight. And it's in Christ's
name that we ask these things and are grateful in his name. And in his name we pray, amen. Turn with me to 475 in the hymn
book, Redeemed. That's something to be thankful
for. Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed how I love to proclaim
it. Redeemed by the blood of the
Lamb. Redeemed through His infinite
mercy. His child and forever I am. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed, redeemed, His child
and forever I am. Redeemed and so happy in Jesus
The language my rapture can tell I know that the light of His
presence With me doth continually dwell Redeemed, redeemed Redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb Redeemed, Redeemed His child and forever
I am I think of my blessed Redeemer I think of Him all the day long
I sing for I cannot be silent Theme of my song Redeemed, redeemed
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb Redeemed, redeemed His child
and forever I am. I know I shall see in His beauty
The King in whose law I delight. Who lovingly guardeth my footsteps,
Giveth me songs in the night. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed, redeemed, His child
and forever I am. And turn over to 496, if you
would please. 496. I heard an old, old story How
a Savior came from glory How He gave His life on Calvary To
save a wretch like me I heard about His groaning Of His precious
blood's atoning Then I repented of my sin and longed on victory. Oh, victory in Jesus my Savior
forever! and bowed me with His redeeming
blood. He loved me ere I knew Him, and
all my love is due Him. He plunged me to victory beneath
the cleansing flood. I heard about His healing, Of
His cleansing power revealing, How He made the lame to walk
again, And caused the blind to see. And then I cried, Dear Jesus,
come and heal my broken spirit. And somehow Jesus came and brought
to me the victory. Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior
forever. He sought me and bought me with
His redeeming blood. He loved me ere I knew Him, and
all my love is due Him. He plunged me to victory, Beneath
the cleansing flood I heard about a mansion He has built for me
in glory And I heard about the streets of gold Beyond the crystal
sea About the angels singing And some sweet day I'll sing
up there the song of victory. Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior,
forever He's on me. and bought me with His redeeming
blood. He loved me ere I knew Him, and
all my love is due Him. He plugs me to victory beneath
the cleansing flood. Before you turn with me to Judges
chapter 5 tonight, if you would turn with me to Psalm 100, a
very familiar Psalm. Psalm 100. Here in Psalm 100, the psalmist
sings, make a joyful, a cheerful noise, sound unto the Lord all
ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness,
with pleasure, with delight, with thankfulness. Come before
His presence with singing a joyful, triumphant voice. Know ye that
the Lord, He is God. Jesus Christ is God. It is He
that hath made us and not we ourselves. We are His people
and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving. and into his courts with praise. And be thankful unto him and
bless, worship his name. Why? Because the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting. And
his truth endureth to all generations. The writer of Hebrews wrote by
him, speaking of Christ, Therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of
praise, gratitude to God continually. We should be thankful all the
time. And he said, be thankful, offer
the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit
of our lips giving thanks to his name. That's what the entire
chapter of Judges chapter five is all about. It's a song of
praise and thanksgiving of the victory that God gave Israel
over Sisera and the cruel King Jabin that we looked at last
time. And as we saw in our last study,
that victory is a picture of our victory over sin. And friends,
That's something to thank and to praise God for. It was accomplished
by the substitution of Christ. It couldn't be accomplished any
other way. And it took his keeping of the
holy law. You know, we often say that and
without really giving it a lot of thought. The law of God has
to be kept perfectly. in all points. If we are guilty
in one point, then we're guilty of the whole law. So we've got
to keep the whole law. And I have difficulty keeping
any of the law, much less all of it and keeping it perfectly.
But Christ did. And for that, we should be thankful. And it took Christ satisfying
God's holy justice. God wouldn't be satisfied with
anything less than perfection. It has to be perfect to be accepted.
That's something that we can't accomplish in and of ourself.
Christ did it for us. And that's something to be thankful
for. When God reveals to you that
only Christ could do that for you, you'll be thankful and full
of praise. I can assure you of that. It
took the death of our Lord Jesus in the chosen sinner's place
to put away their sin. And that's something to be thankful
for. That's something to praise His
name for. That's something to worship Christ
over. And the victory, as we just sung,
belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone deserves the honor,
the glory, the praise, and the thanksgiving. And this victory
came, and this is the amazing thing, this victory came by the
sacrifice of Himself. He who knew no sin was made sin. Now what does that mean, Brother
David? Just what it says. He was made sin. Our sin was
imputed and charged to Him, and His perfect righteousness was
charged to our account. What an amazing transaction that
was. We who are nothing but sin are
made the righteousness of God in Him. And I never, I never
grow tired of hearing that. This is a song of Deborah, Israel's
judge. And by the way, if you would
go and turn to Judges 5 with me if you haven't. And it's a song that she wrote
and a song she sung. Verse one tells us, then sang
Deborah and Barak, the son of Abanoam. And I forgot to tell
you this last week, but Deborah, her name means a bee. We've all heard that saying,
busy as a bee. Well, her name has more to do
with that term busy than it suggests being busy to do things in an
orderly manner. Our God is a God of order. And
God raised up Deborah to restore order to Israel. And Deborah,
no doubt, sets things in order concerning the matter of who
should be thanked and praise for the believer's victory over
sin. Have you ever given much thought
to God's order of things? For example, the election of
God. God choosing sinners according
to his own will and his own purpose is the first thing in God's order
of salvation. If salvation is of the Lord,
and it is, then it had to originate with God. and finish with God,
and everything in between had to be God's doing. Salvation
is of the Lord from beginning to end. With all things, God is the first
cause. If God is to receive all the
glory, honor, and thanksgiving for our salvation and redemption,
this has to be the order of things. If salvation originates with
God before man was ever created, before man ever did anything
good or evil. You know, we're taught all our
life, grow up and be good little boys and girls, and everything's
gonna be all right. Well, that's not so. That's not
so. We got to be perfect, as I said,
to be accepted. Only one way to be perfect in
Christ. And so the divine order of things
is that the purpose of God, according to election, according to God's
choosing, It's not of works, but it's of
Him that calleth. Salvation's of the Lord. And
since God foreknew, chose, and elected, He called His elect
by the glorious gospel. That's God's means of saving
sinners. He uses what the world calls
foolishness, that being the preaching, being preaching of the gospel.
And that's the means God uses to save sinners. And those whom
he calls by his gospel, he justifies by this gospel. And those whom
he justified, he will one day glorify. Do you know what glorify
means? It means to be without sin. When
we receive a glorified body, that means we receive that new
body without sin. Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait. And that's something to be thankful
for. We can never thank God enough for sending Christ to save us.
We can never thank Christ enough for dying in our room instead
and shedding his precious blood to wash and put our sin away. But we sure ought to try. We
sure ought to try. And when you see that your sin
is your greatest enemy, and it is, when you see deliverance
from sin is your greatest victory, and when you see who it is that
delivered you from your sin, you'll be thankful and you'll
praise Him. And that's what Deborah's singing
about throughout this whole chapter. Okay, Judges 5, verse one, then
saying Deborah and Barak, the son of Abenoam, and on that day
saying, praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when
the people willingly offered themselves. Now, anytime that
I read in the scriptures about God's people being willing, To
do anything, my mind immediately runs to Psalm 110, verse three,
thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Now we
have no will to do anything apart from God's initiating power. If God doesn't empower, bestow
his grace and mercy upon us and give us life, We will never be
willing to do anything that would, as far as bowing to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And only God has the power to
make us willing and to accomplish that. So first and foremost,
we praise and thank God for His greatness. Only a great God could
do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And every king and
every monarch and every president and every ruler has only the
power that God gives them. You know, that's what the Lord
told Pilate. Pilate asked, are you a king? And the Lord didn't
give him an answer. And Pilate said, speakest thou
not unto me? Don't you know who I am? Don't
you know I have the power to crucify you? And don't you know
that I have the power to release you? You know, you need to show
me a little respect. You need to show me a little
bit of honor because of who I am. And we see something there of
man's arrogance and abuse of power. Man has no power, but
that power which God gives him, and that's how the Lord answered
him. He said, thou couldest have no power at all against me, except
it were given thee from above. Except God Almighty give it to
you. And that's the case with all
who are in power. Any power a man has is given
him from God. Now, I want us to look at Psalm
110. Hold your place here in Judges
5 and turn with me to Psalm 110, beginning in verse one. It's the powerful one, the almighty,
the sovereign, omnipotent God that gives power to man. And notice in verse one of Psalm
110, it says, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou in my right
hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. See friends, it's
God who makes Christ's enemies his footstool. What's a footstool?
Well, it's something put under your feet. And verse two, the
Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion, rule thou
in the midst of thine enemies. And he does, and he always has,
and he still does today. It's the Lord that sends his
royal and powerful scepter of the gospel. The power of God
unto salvation is what it's called. To bring sinners into the obedience
of Christ. None of us could ever be obedient
apart from being made willing to bow in the day of God's power. In verse three, thy people shall
be willing in the day of thy power and the beauties of holiness
from the womb of the morning thou hast to do of thy youth.
When will God's elect be willing? In the day of his power. And
there's no willingness within a sinner to bow to Christ, apart
from God executing His power to make them willing to do so. Are you willing? He made me willing.
He made me willing. It's not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. I'm
willing because God made me willing. but as many as received Him,
speaking of Christ, those who bowed and seized and grabbed
hold of the Lord Jesus, not by their power, but God, to them
gave He power to become the sons of God. We didn't give ourselves
any power. We didn't pick ourselves up by
our bootstraps. God gave us the power to become
sons of God. To them that believe on His name,
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God." It sounds to me like our
will is nothing to brag about. And it's not. And in verse four,
the Lord hath sworn and will not repent. The Lord, He decrees,
He purposes, He wills, and He does not change. That's what
the word repent means. And thou art a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek." Christ is our great high priest
that is passed into the heavens. Christ is our great high priest
who was touched with the feelings of our infirmities and was in
all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Christ, our
great high priest, became us. What a condescension for one
who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, Hebrews
7, 26. And here in verse five, the psalmist
says, the Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in
the day of His wrath. Kings are no match for God. He's
the one that made them king. He's the one that gives them
the power to rule and he's the one that can take it away. They're
no match for him. He shall strike through kings
in the day of Israel. And that's what we see in Judges
chapter four. That's what we saw. And that's
what Deborah is thankful for in Judges chapter five. And so
Deborah sings and she thinks and she praises God for Israel's
God-given victory over Sisera and King Javan. And look at verse
six. He, the Lord, shall judge among
the heathen and he shall fill the places with the dead bodies. He shall wound the heads over
many countries." It's the Lord who kills, it's the Lord that
makes alive, it's the Lord that brings down, and it's the Lord
that brings up. He shall drink of the brook in
the way, therefore shall he lift up the head. It's the Lord whose
sufferings like the abundant waters of the brooks partook,
expressed by drinking here, and worked out the salvation of his
people for his own glory, honor, praise, and thanksgiving. Friends,
we ought to be thankful. God helped me to be thankful.
Now back to Judges chapter five and look at verse four. Deborah
sings in Barak, Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou
marchest out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and
the heavens dropped, and the clouds also dropped water. The
mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from
before the Lord, God of Israel." This speaks of the Lord's great
works in the battles for his people. All the victories, all
the battles won by the Lord for his people are but a picture
of the Lord by himself, putting away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. It's God who marches into battle
for us. What is there for us to fear?
Nothing. No wonder the earth trembles.
The heavens drop, the clouds drop water. When Christ cried
from the cross, it is finished. The veil was rent in two, the
earth quaked, rocks split in two. The dead were raised to
walk among men. Friends, when we endeavor through
the Scriptures to set things in order about who did the sending
and who did the saving, it's necessary to expound who God
is. But it's also necessary to expound
and describe the condition of the people who the Lord came
to deliver. Verse six, in the days of Shamgar,
you remember him? He was just mentioned there in
the last part of chapter three. He was the son of Anath. In the
days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied. Then the travelers
walked through byways. The inhabitants of the villages
ceased. They ceased in Israel until that
I, Deborah, arose, that I arose, a mother in Israel." Now, if
you remember, Shamgar was the one who slew 600 Philistines
with an ox goad. The Philistines were known as
highway men or highway robbers. They were thieves and they robbed
travelers and citizens. And because of this, the people
of Israel just stayed home. I'm like, I'm not going anywhere.
They're going to knock me in the head and take everything
I got. And this was a great deterrent that kept Israel from traveling
and buying food or working to provide a living. It was a real
issue. And Shamgar killed 600 of these
Philistine criminals, but he only put a dent in the problem.
And the people were afraid to travel and they became destitute.
And what a description this is of the elect of God's spiritual
condition. By nature, we're spiritually
grounded, destitute, fearful, and without breath. And we like
Israel of old are idolaters by nature, worshiping anything and
everything, but the God, the true God. And the kings of sin,
Satan and self, did nothing but oppress us and nothing changed
until God raised up a deliverer. And a deliverer He raised up.
Now in this particular time in the Lord's history, Deborah,
the poet, the prophetess, was made a mother to Israel. That's
what she was singing here. And she became their caretaker
and their counselor. She had a heart for the people
of God. She had an interest in their
welfare. And as a judge, she's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now in verse nine, we see that she loved her people and thanked
the Lord for them. And in verse nine, she's saying,
my heart is toward the governors, the appointed lawgivers of Israel,
that offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless ye the
Lord. Verse 10, speak ye that ride
on white asses, ye that sit in judgment and walk by the way. They that are delivered from
the noise of archers and the places of drawing water, there
shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord, even the righteous
acts towards the inhabitants of his villages in Israel. Then
shall the people of the Lord go down to the gates. Awake,
awake, Deborah, awake, awake. Utter a song, arise, Barak, and
lead thy captivity captive, thy son of Abenoim. Verse 13, then
he made him that remaineth have dominion over the nobles among
the people. The Lord made me have dominion
over. The mighty. Now, Deborah here
encourages those in authority, the governors and the princes
of the people to declare the righteous acts of the Lord. What are the righteous acts of
the Lord? The gospel. It's what we've been talking
about. The Lord being made sin for us and giving us his perfect
righteousness. All the works of Christ are righteous,
but none more so than the just deliverance of his people. There's
nothing more righteous than the Lord providing a just way to
put away the sin of His people. How did He do it? By being made
sin. By taking our sin upon Himself,
by giving us His perfect righteousness. And in this, the wages of sin
were fully paid. Not simply excused. Christ kept the holy law of God
for his people. Christ satisfied God's holy justice
by the sacrifice of himself. How? By the shedding of his blood. God's blood was shed. This is
God's blood. Being redeemed by the blood of
Christ, God's people have been made kings and priests unto God
and are governors and nobles in the kingdom of God. And it
was Deborah's direction, advice, command, and presence from the
Lord that delivered Israel, God's people, if you remember the study
last week. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ, our
righteous judge, our one mediator, has dominion over all, and our
sin can only be put away by Him divinely intervening and causing
us to be thankful, enabling us to like to do His will, and we
preach Christ's righteousness. There's no other righteousness
for us to preach. We declare His faithfulness.
We declare His salvation. We conceal not His tender mercies. and his loving kindness to sinners.
These are the things that the Psalmist said continually preserve
us in Psalm 40. And for that, we're thankful. Now, in verses 14 through 23,
Deborah sings the praises of those who were with her in battle.
And she also reproves the ones that did not go. And she even
curses those who ignored the deliverance of God's people altogether. And for the sake of time, I'm
not gonna read each of these verses and comment on each verse,
but simply make a general survey, so to speak, a synopsis. In this
song, Deborah and Barak sung the praises of Ephraim, Benjamin,
Zebulun, and Naphtali. Issachar joined with Barak to
fight Sisera. You can read these verses in
your leisure. And every one of those men jeopardized
their lives for the cause of deliverance. What a blessing
and how thankful the child of God should be to have others
of the household of faith to fight side by side with them.
You know, I look out tonight, I'm so thankful for you. I am. We're in this thing together.
Every believer is. We're in this fight together. And I'm thankful for the men,
the pastors, the preachers that I know who fight the good fight
of faith for the cause of Christ and the salvation of God's people.
I thank you for the support of the gospel financially and your
attendance and the fact that you look for opportunities to
tell others about the Lord Jesus and invite them to come and hear
the gospel. We thank our Lord and lift up
one another's hands to encourage each other in this battle with
sin, Satan, and self. And I just today received a call
from a pastor who's a dear friend, and he just called me to tell
me that he loved me. And he appreciated my labor of love for Christ's
sake. And that same man has blessed me time and time again, the same
way. You see, we're ministers of the
same gospel and we're servants of the same God. Now, in verses
24 through 27, Deborah sings the high praises of Jael. You remember her? She was the
woman who nailed Sisera's head to the floor. He came into her
city. She went out to meet him. She
said, come rest in my tent. You'll be safe there. And he
came into her tent and he asked for water. She gave him some
warm milk. And I can just see him nodding
off. She covered him up and he laid down, laid his head down.
And man, she took a hammer and a big spike and right through
the head, nailed his head to the ground. You know, the unbelieving infidels
always bow down by the hand of the instrument of God's choosing.
And God uses the most unlikely to bring down and defeat those
who oppose his gospel and his people. And this was the case
with the courageous efforts of a woman named J.L. The Lord always
honor those who seek to honor Him. I can assure you of that.
And then this song also rebukes and curses those who lead these
battles to the tending of others. Now, the believers always encouraged
to fight the good fight of faith and lay hold of eternal life,
whereunto we're called. And those who fought made a good
profession before many witnesses, but those who didn't hear are
rebuked. And there are many who are content
to just sit back and to leave the fighting to others. In verse
15, Reuben is mentioned, and he represents those who love
their possessions more than the gospel. Reuben, the tribe of
Reuben had a great number of sheep. And they stayed on the
other side of Jordan, if you remember our studies in Joshua.
And Reuben had a great number of sheep, and he could not go
to battle leaving his sheep. That was his excuse. Well, I
can't leave my sheep without a shepherd. He reminds us of
those bidding to come to the wedding feast. Do you remember
that parable the Lord told? And they all begin to make just
ridiculous excuses. Boy, we're good at excuses, aren't
we? They're not very good most of
the time. And one said, I bought a piece
of ground, I need to go see it. Well, who buys a piece of ground
without seeing it first? And another said, I bought five
yokel oxen and I got to go prove them. Listen, I have never bought
a used car that I didn't test drive first. Another said, I've
married a wife and therefore I can't come. Lord, the woman
thou gavest me. Come on, man. That's a good one
for us, isn't it? We use that one quite a bit.
The bottom line is Reuben loved his sheep more than he loved
Israel, the people of Israel. And obviously he chose to hear
the bleeding, the crying of the sheep over the cries of the people
of Israel. Now in verse 17, we see that
Gilead wouldn't cross over the Jordan to fight. We're told that
Dan remained in their ships on the Mediterranean Sea, delivering
their merchandise and taking care of their personal business.
It was business as usual. Asher too did business on the
busy seashore, excuse me, ports of the Mediterranean. And here's
the bottom line. The bottom line was that they
were all too busy with the manning of this world. There's Me-Roz,
as mentioned here, and its inhabitants were cursed because they just
simply refused to help Bob, without even giving an excuse. We're
just not gonna help. And friends, it's the same today.
People are too busy with their own interest to have any interest
in the fight against sin. And the sad thing about it is,
is that it's their sin. Professing, able-bodied believers
neglect the work, the preaching of the gospel, Seen it so many
times, some poor, elderly, ill lady somewhere in faith is praying
and giving all she can for the deliverance of, or the preaching
of the gospel for the deliverance of sin. And I thought this was
very interesting. This, you know, a lot, several
of the commentators didn't even comment on this chapter. But
I thought it was necessary, and I have gleaned a great deal from
it. I see how important it is to
be thankful to the God who loved us and gave himself for us. So that's the purpose behind
this study, that we might be thankful. Now look at verse 28. Here we're told, kind of given
an inside story. The mother of Sisera, the man
who had the nail driven through his head, looked out a window
and cried through the lattice. And she said, why is his chariot
so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariots?
Why isn't he back by now? And her wise ladies answered
her, yeah, she, yay, she returned to answer to herself. Have they
not sped? Have they not divided the prey
to every man a damsel or two, to Sisera, a prey of divers colors,
a prey of divers colors of needlework, of divers colors of needlework
on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spool. Now these are very interesting
verses. Sisera's mother here is lamenting
his late return, yet she continues to believe that he's victorious. She and her friends begin to
make excuses as to why he is yet to return. In verses 30,
their excuses are sad, but they're not any sadder than ours are.
And They claim that Cicero is running behind because he had
to divide the spoils of the victory. Why their victory was so great
and the spoils were so great, but that's why he's late. He's
dividing the spoils. They reason between themselves
that Cicero's army has took so many of the enemies captive that
it's taken much longer to deal with the whole ordeal. Scissor's
mother claims that her son, being the moral man that he is, has
seen to it that the soldiers are not abusing the damsels that
were captured. Well, my son is an exemplary
fellow. He's making sure that even those
women of the captors are not being abused. Or maybe, or maybe
ladies, he's just picking out dresses of various colors and
beautiful needlework as presents for his mother and for you, my
friends. Fit for the great general of
the king's army. Yes, that's what it is. That's
why he's late. And I was thinking to myself,
what a picture of religion this is. Discounting the word of God
and praising the works of man. Even when the battle is over
and their hero is dead, they defend their value of choice,
their will, and their works to the end. And that's the This
is a summation of salvation in verse 31. So let all thine enemies
perish, O Lord, but let them that love Him, that being Christ,
be as the Son when He goeth forth in His might. As Sisera and his
army perished, so shall all the enemies of the Lord's people.
You know, our enemies are His enemies. I've seen God's people taken
advantage of, and I've seen God deal with it. All that love Christ will be
like the sun in the middle of the day when its heat and its
light are at its greatest. Because you see, the true friends
of God Those who are in Christ are as bright and as glorious
as Christ himself. How so? By the substitutionary
sacrifice that he made for them. And for that, we ought to be
thankful. And then we're told the last
phrase of the chapter, and the land had rest 40 years. And again, we see that the work
is finished. You talk about that a lot, Brother
David. That's where my comfort's found. That's where your comfort
is to be found. The work is finished. There's
nothing for us to do but to rest. That's where we can rest. But
those who rest in Christ get much more than 40 years. They
get forever. They get eternity. So the question
is, are you resting in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Lord, help me to rest. Can you hear the Savior say,
take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I'm meek and lowly
in heart and you shall find rest for your souls. This is talking
about soul rest. The rest of the soul, being able
to give my soul to the Lord and know that it's in good hands
and know that everything is gonna be all right. Rest for the soul
is found only when the work of the soul is complete and finished.
And my friends, it is finished. Now listen closely to these words
in closing. And we know, the child of God
knows, that He, Jesus Christ, was manifested to take away our
sins, and in Him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth
not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen
him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive
you. He that doeth righteousness is
righteous, even as he is righteous." My righteousness is in Christ.
We preach His righteousness, not our righteousness. Our righteousness
is filthy rags. Not by works of righteousness
that we've done, no. Righteousness is not righteousness
at all. And then John goes on to say,
he that committed sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth
from the beginning. And for this purpose, the Son
of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the
devil. Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin. That's talking about me. For his seed, Christ's seed,
remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he's born of God.
Now that's the gospel. That's good news, isn't it? May
God be pleased to make it so for his glory, our good, and
for Christ's sake. And I confess to you tonight
that I'm thankful, not as ought to be, not as I should be, not
as I hope to be, but I am thankful. Shelly, if you would come, let's
sing a closing hymn together. 296, you can remain seated. Chris, if you would, at the end
of the song, dismiss us in prayer. 296, all the way, my Savior,
lead me. so All the way my Savior leads me,
what have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy,
who through life has been my guide? Heav'nly peace lead by
His comfort, here by faith in Him to dwell. For I know whate'er
befall me, Jesus doeth all things well. For I know whate'er befall
me, Jesus doeth all things well. All the way my Savior leads me,
Cheers each winding path I tread, Gives me grace for every trial,
Feeds me with the living bread. Though my weary steps may falter,
Can my soul the thirst may be, Gushing from the rock before
me, Oh, a scream of joy I see. Gushing from the rock before
me, Oh, a scream of joy I see. The way my Savior leads me, all
the fullness of His love. Perfect rest to me is promised
in my Father's house above. When my spirit, cold and mortal,
Wings its flight to realms of day, This my song through endless
ages, Jesus, lead me all the way. This my song through endless
ages, Jesus, lead me all the way. Our Father, we come to you worshiping
you tonight, thanking you for giving us the desire to come
and be together. Most of all, we thank you for
Christ's crucifixion and that you've given us the eyes to see
that. We thank you. We can't say enough
to appreciate what you've done. We ask that you go with us as
we head home. We ask that you bring us back
at the appointed hour to worship you again on Sunday. All these
things we ask in your name. Amen. Amen. You're dismissed. Over here.