Good morning. All right, take
your Bibles and turn to Judges. Judges chapter two. My heart was encouraged as I
began to understand the spiritual blessing that our God reveals
to us, which he works in the heart of his child, where we
see his tender mercy and grace. in faithfully teaching us and
keeping us, in speaking to us and calling us away from sin
and rebellion. It reminded me of when Asaph
in Psalm 73 said, my feet were almost gone and my steps had
well nigh slipped. And that's where we all would
be without the grace of God keeping us, keeping our hearts, keeping
us in the way of life, which is Jesus Christ. And so our God
faithfully causes us and keeps us walking in the light of Christ
our Savior. And this passage here, it serves
as an example of how the Lord does exhort you and me, his children,
with his word, and he calls us unto faithfulness in believing
that word which our God has spoken to us. And we see here that we're
exhorted by the Lord and he exhorts us in his word, he exhorts us
in the prophets, he exhorts us in the apostles to look to Christ,
to look to our salvation and to believe him. so that we don't
practice sin, so that we don't just fall into sin and carelessness
and indifference to the sinful works of this flesh. Paul said
it this way, for we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. Galatians 5.5. So we look, He
teaches us to look for His righteousness, to look for His works to be made
evident in us by the power and the grace of His Spirit according
to His promise. Now, let me give you some scriptures
that confirm and affirm to you what I'm saying, how that our
God keeps us, that he doesn't call us to sin, that he didn't
save us to do what we would do in this flesh, but that he calls
us unto righteousness, to live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. First, turn over to Romans chapter
six. Go to Romans six, and we'll begin
in verse one, and we'll read down to verse five together. Paul says what? What shall we
say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? God forbid, let it not be, Lord. How shall we that are dead to
sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many of us
as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. that
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of
the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together
in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness
of his resurrection. All right, turn over now to Colossians
chapter three. Colossians three, looking at
the first three verses. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek
those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. Set your affection on things
above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life
is hid with Christ in God. To which Peter adds, who his
own self, bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we,
being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose
stripes ye are healed. We see there that our God has
called us unto righteousness. He's put away our sins, not so
that we can live in sins and rack up a whole bunch of sins.
It's that we are called unto righteousness by the grace and
power of our God, which dwelleth in us by faith and keeps us and
turns us from dead works, whether they're the sins of the flesh
or they're the religious sins of the flesh, trusting in our
own dead works. He turns us from that unto Christ
our Lord and Savior. Now, I'm gonna read together,
we'll read the first five verses of Judges 2, but I'll give some
comment there. And then afterwards, I wanna
focus on the lesson which our God is teaching us and giving
to us, blessing our hearts with here in this passage. So it says
in verse one, an angel and an angel of the Lord came up from
Gilgal to Bochem. And I used to get hung up when
someone would say a word different from how I thought it should
be pronounced. So it's not Bochum, I did look it up. It's not a
C-H as in church, but a C-H as in character. So it's Bochum.
So we'll just let it rest there. He came up from Gilgal to Bochum
and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt and I've brought
you onto the land which I swear unto your fathers. And I said,
I will never break my covenant with you. So the Lord here sends
an angel. And we know that an angel is
a messenger. He carries a message from our
God to his intended audience, which is you this day, just as
it was this people here being spoken to. And this angel is
an angel of the Lord, meaning this is the Lord Jesus Christ
whom he sent to speak to the people. And he comes reminding
them of what God had done for them. He says that God, or I,
made them to go up out of Egypt. I made you to go up out of Egypt.
God brought you out of or unto the land which he swear unto
their fathers. God did this for his people. And this is true of all God's
people. We're saved by a sovereign God
who has performed all our salvation, who works all our salvation by
His grace, He made you to go up out of your spiritual Egypt. meaning he delivered you out
of the bondage of slavery, to sin, to unbelief, and spiritual
death. Christ made you to go up out
of that. You didn't deliver yourself.
You didn't decide to follow Jesus, and now he's given you help.
He made you to go up out of your bondage. He delivered you. And
He delivered you from spiritual darkness like that plague which
came upon Egypt when the whole land fell into darkness. That's
where we all were by nature until our God made us to go out of
bondage and brought us by His power and glory out of that darkness. And so we see our Lord who sets
us free from slavery to sin, slavery to dead works religion
that cannot profit us, that cannot break off the shackles of this
flesh and of death. And he's the one who comes and
says to the prisoners, go forth. You're free. I've paid the debt
you owed, which kept you in this prison. Go forth. Sinner, show
yourself, come out of the darkness, come into the light, nothing
to fear, I've put it away. I've put it away, all your sin,
you're forgiven, you're free. And so Christ does that for us.
Christ bought us with his own blood and therefore he brought
us out of spiritual darkness and he brings us into our eternal
inheritance Him so these are all promises. He's declared to
them the promises which he's fulfilled to Israel his people
and you the Church of Jesus Christ are the true Israel of Christ
and so these are pictures their types of our salvation in him
and he reminds them of the covenant and And concerning that covenant,
the covenant of grace, he says, I will never break my covenant
with you. Your God says, I'll never break
my covenant with you. Nothing's going to turn me from
the grace which I've given to my people in the covenant of
grace established by the blood of Jesus Christ, my son. He said
verse two now, and ye shall make no league with the inhabitants
of this land. Ye shall throw down their altars,
but ye have not obeyed my voice. Why have ye done this? Why have
you done this? He reminds them of his word,
which he spoke to them, and he points out to them their disobedience
to his command to them. And he says, you're to go into
the land and throw down their altars. There's no way to anger
a people more than to go in and cast down their religious altars. When you declare the gospel,
you're throwing down the altars of man. You're throwing down
what he trusts in and thinks that's my righteousness. That's personal, what you're
doing. If you go onto the property of someone, and you pick up their
statue of Mary, and you go smash it in the street, you're casting
down their altar, which they're trusting in, and they will be
angry with you. And that's exactly what we do
in the preaching of the gospel. We're casting down the trust
of man, and every imagination which falsely and vainly puffs
itself up and exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ, we're
casting it down through the preaching of Christ. He says, you're supposed
to do that. You're supposed to uphold my
truth and declare the gospel, but you've not obeyed my voice.
Why have ye done that? Wherefore, I also said, I will
not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns
in your sides and their God shall be as a snare unto you. And so he's reminding them, this
is the warning I gave you. And this is the trouble which
will come upon you for your disobedience, which you bring upon yourselves. You know, Peter said it this
way in 1 Peter 2 verse 11. He said, Dearly, dearly beloved,
I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims in this world, abstain
from fleshly lusts. Why, Peter? Because they war
against the soul. live in sin, and you are disregarding
what you know your God says to you, it's a trouble. It makes
a war against your soul. And so Peter says, don't do it.
Don't do it. Seek your God to strengthen you,
to keep you, to turn you from that, and to establish you in
Christ, to keep you in Christ. Now this angel is Christ and
he is speaking to the people as the mediator of the covenant
which he made with them in Gilgal. So hold your place in Judges
2 and turn over to Joshua chapter 5. Joshua chapter 5 and we'll
just look at two verses. Verse 2 and then verse 9. Joshua 5 verse 2. So Joshua is
just before the book of Judges. At that time the Lord said unto
Joshua, Make these sharp knives, and circumcise again the children
of Israel the second time. This is a picture of the second
birth when we are born again by the Spirit of God. circumcised them again. It doesn't
matter what works they did in the flesh. I'm not looking to
those things. Those are works of the flesh.
They're vain. They cannot save. Circumcised them again a second
time. Verse 9, And the Lord said unto
Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from
off you. I've cleansed you from the stench
and the vile filth of your sin, of your bondage to sin and iniquity,
to things of death. I've wiped them clean. I've washed
you from those things. Wherefore, the name of the place
is called Gilgal unto this day, which means rolling, rolling
off. And so what The spiritual picture
there is not fleshly things, it's not carnal things of man-made
circumcision, but it's the picture of the circumcision that the
Lord does not for the males, but for all His children. When
He circumcises the heart of His children, when He removes the
worthless flesh and throws it away, whether you're man or woman,
young or old, Whether you're smart or not smart, it doesn't
matter. Whether you're rich or poor,
Christ has delivered us from sin and death by circumcising
us with the spirit. Well, turn over to Colossians
2, we see it. Colossians 2, verse 9, and then
we'll be coming back to Judges 2 after. Colossians 2, verse 9. Just to
establish the context here, he says, in Christ dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Everything you need is given
unto you in Christ. And ye are complete in him, which
is the head of all principality and power. Now here verse 11,
In whom also ye are circumcised, with the circumcision made without
hands, and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism. wherein
also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of
God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead
in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened
together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses. And so Christ our Savior made
us to come up out of corruption, made us to come up out of bondage
and spiritual death and slavery to sin and the fear of death
and the worry and the works and trying to work a righteousness
for ourselves. Christ put that all away. and
established us in peace and in joy and in comfort because He
is our righteousness. Christ is our righteousness and
He brought you up into fellowship with your God. We were partakers
of fleshly vain things and had no fellowship with God but Christ
by His blood brings us into fellowship with our God and made us partakers
of the saints in light were reconciled to him and forgiven of all our
sins. Now back to Judges 2 verses 4
and 5. And it came to pass, when the
angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children of
Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept, and
they called the name of that place Bokom. Bokom which means
weeping. and they sacrificed there unto
the Lord. So this, I've titled this message,
From Gilgal to Bokom, From the Covenant to Weeping. So in this
passage here, the church is visited by her covenant head, and he
comes to remind his bride to warn her of the grave danger
of compromise on any level. He's showing us don't compromise
with this world. Don't trust in the things of
this world. Trust me. You're my people. Look to me for all your righteousness,
for I've provided everything to you and for you. Now, salvation
is of the Lord. Salvations of the Lord. Jonah
2 9. We do not save ourselves. We have no No glory, nothing
to glory in in our salvation and the life we now have in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the author and the
finisher of our faith. He's the first and the last.
Our life is in and by him. We have no power, no effect,
nothing, no merit to strengthen or to keep our life in the Lord
Jesus Christ or improve upon what he has done. But though
our God is the Savior, the one who keeps us and gives us life,
he does reveal to us that there are challenges. You might think,
well, if he's the one in control, why is there any trouble that
comes upon me? Why is my life not smooth sailing? You've probably known people
that began and professed the profession in Christ, and when
difficulties and trials came, they fell away. fell away. I remember someone very specifically
back in where we came from in New Jersey. that started off
well, that seemed happy and joyful, and literally said, I never had
problems until I believed on Christ. And they fell away and
left forever. So Christ shows us that there
are trials and there are difficulties which come against us. There's
oppositions to the truth. There's persecutions. There's
challenges. There's trials. There's hard
times. to you that believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, that are waged against the people of God. He
tells us in Matthew 10 verse 16 through 18, he said, behold,
I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. How long
would one of your goats survive out in your yard without any
protection? Not very long, not very long. your sheep among wolves,
be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves, but beware
of men, beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils,
and they will scourge you in their synagogues, and ye shall
be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony
against them and the Gentiles. Why are there difficulties? If
Christ is in full control, why are there difficulties and troubles
that come upon us? One reason, the Lord says, is
that you bear testimony against them which oppose the truth of
God. In addition to our testimony
which we bear, it also reminds us, that's how wicked my heart
is by nature. That's what my God saved me from. Lord, why am I not like that?
Why am I not sticking my fist up in your face and fighting
and warring against you and persecuting your people? Because of the grace
of God. not because we're good, not because
we've done anything to merit it, but because God would be
gracious to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we see that it's
by the grace of God that he's delivered me from that darkness
and he's delivered me from that bondage and that slavery to this
world in which I was a partaker of. Also, it reveals to us the
great power, the glory of our God who has taken us out of that
death and has brought us into the kingdom of his son. And he
protects us in the fiery trial. He keeps us and delivers us safely
through. And he warns us of these things
so that we're not offended because those who think that life is
all perfect and that there's no difficulties they might be
offended. They will be offended if the
Lord leaves them to themselves. Now, I think I read recently
that quote from Brother Scott Richardson, which said, since
I heard the good news, there ain't no bad news. And that's
because we know that all things work together for good, to them
that love God, to them who are the called according to his grace. And so there's difficulties,
but the Lord keeps our hearts so that we're not offended and
turned away from the hope that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our Savior said in John 16 verse one, these things have I spoken
unto you that ye should not be offended. So he is sovereign. He is in control. The trials
and difficulties are not a sign that he's not in control. but
he has a purpose in them, to bear witness, to show us what
he's done for us, to encourage us, and he tells us these things
so that we're not offended, but trust in him. But in this case,
here we see the children of God are reminded and warned by their
faithful God and Savior of what he told them before. And my purpose
in showing you how that there's difficulties that come upon us,
we also see that there's weaknesses in our flesh and there's times
of humbling that the Lord brings to his people for their good. For their good. As is the case
here, look at the end of verse one. He said, I will never break
my covenant with you. Your God will not break his covenant
with you. Verse two, and ye shall make
no league with the inhabitants of this land. Ye shall throw
down their altars, but ye have not obeyed my voice. Why have
ye done this? Our Lord knows why we sin. When our Lord asks us questions,
it's not for His information, not for His learning, it's for
our learning. It's to bring us to see what
our God is saying to us, what He's saying to me. When Adam
sinned in the garden, He said, Adam, where art thou? Where art thou, Adam? He had
told Adam in Genesis 2, verse 16 and 17, He said, He commanded
the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat. I'm not holding anything back
from you. I've provided you every tree, abundantly bearing fruit
all year long. It's always in season, and you
can take anything you want, Adam, and eat of it freely. But of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not
eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt
surely die. God warned him, and Adam sinned,
And God came to Adam, and we see the faithfulness of our God
in coming to Adam. There God declared the gospel
to Adam, the promise of God to put away his sin. And there God
went and put away his nakedness, covered the nakedness of Adam
and Eve by the slaying of two animals. Their blood was shed
for their sin, which was a picture of the Lamb of God. who came
to put away the sin of his people as their sacrifice. Christ came
and he shed his blood in the place of his people to set them
free, to cover them, to clothe their nakedness before God for
their sin and wickedness, to make them clothed with righteousness
in him. Every one of God's children here
being addressed in Judges chapter two, was brought to Bokom. The Lord brought them to Bokom
when the Lord of the Covenant came to them, reminding them
of all His promises, reminding them how they have been disobedient
to the Lord, and asking them, why have you done this? Why have
you done this? Now maybe you don't think believers
are brought into difficulties like this. Maybe the Lord never
has to remind a believer. Maybe you think God shouldn't
have to remind a believer. They should know it. They're
perfect now. They don't sin. They don't need
these words. There's not a time for them to
be convicted. They don't become friendly with
the world and prosper in the world and figure out how to maneuver
and benefit from the world. That doesn't happen to believers. But I'll remind you, in the last
chapter, it's been a couple weeks since we've been in Judges chapter
1, but at the end of chapter 1, we read things that described
the decline of Israel. We read how that they were getting
weaker and weaker, and they were compromising more and more. They
began to gain in worldly benefits, and that by not doing what the
Lord had told them to do. So for example, I'm going to
just read a little bit from verse 27, 29, 30, 31, and 33 of chapter
1. where it says, neither did Manasseh
drive out the inhabitants, neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites,
neither did Zebulun, neither did Asher, neither did Naphtali
drive out the inhabitants of Bethshemesh, nor the inhabitants
of Bethanath. This is verse 33. But he dwelt
among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless, the
inhabitants of Bethshemesh and Bathanath became tributaries
unto them. A tributary, if you're familiar
with waterways, is a smaller stream that feeds into a larger
river. And then that might be a tributary
of another river. And so the little tricklings
of water, the wealth of that water trickles in to another
river, and it becomes enriched by that water. And that's what
a tributary is. They kept them around. They kept
their enemies close. And when they worked in the field
and raised crops, or they raised cattle, a portion of their labors
was fed into the children of Israel. And they were enriched
by those enemies that they kept nearby in disobedience to what
the Lord had said. And so they were profiting. And
they thought, God told me to get rid of these people. But
look, look at how it's profiting me. Everything's fine. It's good. This is working out really well
for us. And then we come to Judges 2
verse 4, and it came to pass when the angel of the Lord spake
these words unto all the children of Israel, because all his people
are guilty of it. Myself included. We're all guilty
of disobedience to the Lord. We all do these things. That
the people lifted up their voice and wept. And thinking about
this, I know that there are some people who claim to believe Christ
and they don't think believers do this. They don't think believers
sin. Believers don't stumble and fall,
trip up like this, they're perfect. And they defend their sin. They
say, well, it's just a mistake. I didn't sin. It was just a mistake.
And they'll come up with all kinds of excuses and ways to
do it. But if you don't think believers stumble and fall, then
by your definition, I'm not a believer. I'm not a child of God, because
I know what it is to stumble and to fall and to do wickedly
and to have the Lord come to me and point out all his promises
that he's done for me. and to remind me of what he's
said to me and how that I've sinned against him, sinned against
the light of what he's shown to me. And he comes and says,
Eric, where are you? What are you doing here, Eric? How'd you come to this place?
How'd you come to this place of rebellion where you are? I
told you. that these would be as thorns
in your sides, and their gods would be a snare unto you. I
warned you. I told you these things. And
it becomes Bokom. It becomes a weeping to me when
my god speaks to my heart. I can't speak to your heart. I can't bring you into Bokom.
But your god is able to bring all his people, and he does bring
us to a time of repentance, a time of weeping when we see, Lord,
I don't know what I've done. I don't know how I've gotten
here. I thought it was fine. I thought I was perfect. But
as soon as you spoke, Lord, I see how cold, how dark, how indifferent
I've been. And he does this because he reminds
us of his promise that by his blood, I am clean, that in grace,
not because I earned it, but in grace He put away my sin. He gave me life springing out
of His life. He has given me His Spirit. which
has revealed the hope of the saints in me, and made me a partaker
of that great cloud of witnesses of all the saints of God. And
he's given me the promise of his inheritance, and he's clothed
me with his grace, adorned me with his grace and power with
his righteousness, to know these things, what my God and Savior
has done for me. He's adopted me into the family
of God so that I now have free course to cry, Abba, Father,
forgive me, Lord. Have mercy upon me. Lord, save
me. Don't deal with me as my sins
deserve. Cleanse me with the blood of
Christ. And so it says in Judges 2 verse
5, they called the name of that place Bokom, and they sacrificed
there unto the Lord. How does the Lord work in us
sacrifice to Him? How do we sacrifice to the Lord
in our day? It's a work of the Lord. It's
a melting of our cold heart. It's a softening. of the hardness
that we are in this nature. It's our Lord waking us up out
of our slumber, out of our carelessness and indifference. It's a revelation
of the truth revealed in the inward parts. And it's a knowledge
of wisdom in the hidden part that David spoke of in Psalm
51, verse 6. because the Lord desires truth
in the inward parts. And he gives wisdom and knowledge
in that inner man. And so it's all brought in his
people by our gracious God who does this for us, who said, I'll
never break my covenant with you. You see, the comfort that
we have is that our God comes to us. And He speaks to us, to
our heart. And He shows us these things.
He doesn't just say, forget them. I'm out of here. I'll go find
somebody who's worthy of my love and worthy of my grace. There's
not a man among us that's worthy of the love and grace of our
God. And so it's His faithfulness
to come to us, who says, I'm not leaving you. You're mine.
You're my people. So I'll tell you these things.
I'll put you in remembrance of what I've done for you. I'll
show you how that your disobedience has not profited you at all. And I'll keep you, and I'll bless
you, and I'll restore you unto fellowship with me because I
won't break my covenant with you. I won't do it. If God left
us to ourselves, If he left me to myself, I would be dead. I
would dry up, I would shrivel up, and I'd be a branch just
broken off and cast into the fire. That's what my works would
earn me. That's what my works would do
for me. I'd be cast into the fire for the burning. And so
instead, we see here how that God, He's not being cruel or
mean. He's being gracious to them to
come to His people to turn us from our ways. He humbles us
underneath the mighty hand of our God. And in His time, He
lifts us up, restored, renewed, refreshed in Him. He, having
loved His own, which were in the world, That's us, in the
world, stained and spotted, stumbling around, doing silly, stupid,
foolish things. He loved them unto the end. Aren't you thankful that your
God loves you to the end, that he will not break his covenant
with you? And so we see in our bokums a
comforting word. When we're brought to weeping,
when our God breaks us and humbles us in our closet, in our time,
when he deals with us, we see there that our God's being faithful
to us. As Paul wrote to the Philippians
in 1.6 when he said, being confident of this very thing, that he which
hath begun a good work in you shall perform it unto the day
of Jesus Christ. Faithful, Paul said to the Thessalonians,
faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. He does it. That which he's purposed
to reveal in you, that in which he's purposed to bless you, he
shall bless you. And he will not be turned from
his word or his work as he blesses his people. Now, these were,
just to confirm, these were faithful people. It's very easy to say,
well, that was under the old covenant, and that was for a
people of a different time. But we see that there's a blessing
here in the way that our God deals with us. He doesn't break
his covenant with us. He's faithful to teach us, to
keep us, to remind us, to give us sight again of our Savior,
of his beauty. And so these, too, were a faithful
people. They mourned for their sin with
weeping, and they worshiped God who gave them repentance, and
they were faithful to the Lord all their days." We read this
in verses 6-10. Look at Judges 2 verses 6-10. And when Joshua had let the people
go, because there's a time when the Bokom's over and you're delivered,
you're set free from the Bokom, it's ended. The children of Israel
went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land. And the
people served the Lord all the days of Joshua. And our Joshua
is king of kings for an eternal day. It's never gonna end. This
Joshua, his life came to an end, but Christ our Joshua, our savior,
is the king of kings and lord of lords for all eternity, so
it'll never end. But the people served the Lord
all the days of Joshua, so you'll never stop serving the Lord,
you're his people. And all the days of the elders that outlived
Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord that
he did for Israel, And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of
the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried
him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath Cheres, in the mount
of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash. And also,
verse 10, all that generation were gathered unto their fathers. Not one of them fell short of
the promise of God and Christ for them. They were all buried.
They were all gathered to the inheritance that God had promised
to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. And so he loved them to the end. Now after them, it says, there
arose another generation after them which knew not the Lord,
nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And so we see
there that our time of Bokom, you that love the Lord, when
the Lord brings you into weeping and breaks our hard hearts and
wakes us up out of our slumber, That's for our profit. That's
for us, that the Lord does that. But we see here that another
generation arose who didn't profit from it. And that's how it is.
When the Lord teaches you, it's for you. And your children, my
children, our friends and family, it doesn't benefit them. It isn't
done for them. It's for you, that the Lord brings
you into Bokom, and we see there that every child of God, every
one, man and woman, all of you, will be brought into Bokom, that
time of Bokom for you, as it's needed by the Lord, as He determines
and purposes it. And it came to pass, it says,
when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children
all the children of Israel that the people lifted up their voice
and wept. That was verse four. That's all
the children, all the children of that generation. So every
one of us, man and woman, we all have our times of Bokom.
None of us are so special and so perfect in our ways that we
never come to that Bokom. And so none are excluded. None
are excluded because He's faithful. He's faithful to forgive you.
He's faithful to teach you. He's faithful to keep you. He's
faithful in walking with us and causing us to walk in Him by
faith because He's cleansed us from all our iniquity. and he
keeps us unto the end. And so we see how even that time
of sadness and that time of sorrow, which we're brought into, and
we are, we see when the Lord comes and convicts us for something
that we've done, we see it's for my good, that God didn't
leave me, he didn't break his covenant with me, but was faithful
in coming to me and melting my hard heart and keeping me. And
so I pray the Lord bless you that when you're troubled and
when you're reminded of your sin, it's not because God hates
you, it's because he loves you. It's because he loves you and
that's why he does it for you as he does for all his children.
Amen. All right, let's close in prayer
and then we'll have a hymn. Our gracious Lord, we thank you
for your faithfulness. Lord, we know that there's times
when we are disobedient. And Lord, there's times when
you don't deal with us as our sins deserve. And you don't. Lord, you keep us. And you're
patient and so kind with us. And Lord, there's times when
we just continue on in rebellion and in foolishness, going our
own ways, thinking everything's fine, until you come to us and
speak to us, reminding us of your promises and what you've
accomplished for us, speaking your word into our heart in the
new man, which hears the voice of our God and shows us our rebellion
and disobedience, and shows us just how far we've wandered,
And Lord, it hurts. It brings us low. It makes us
to sorrow. But Lord, we see in that how
that you purpose it, not for our hurt, not for our destruction,
not because you've turned from us, but because you're faithful
to us and you're faithful to keep us. And you will not break
your covenant with us because you've established it and made
it in the blood of Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for this mercy.
And Lord, we pray for your people. We hear the news of some having
aggressive, rare cancers and how that must burden their minds
and cause them fear about things, but we pray
that you would fill them with peace and joy and comfort, and
that you comfort the hearts of those that love them and care
for them. And Lord, the prayers that I
hear from people just reaching out, asking for prayer, Lord,
help them and their families. Give them strength. Give them
a heart for your gospel. Cause them to hear your gospel
word and to come and be fed and to sit among your people with
the sheep of God and to have fellowship and to partake of
these blessed things which you give to your people. Lord, help
those among us who are sick, struggling, who are tried, who
are tested, Worried about things, Lord? Settle us in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Help us to see more and more
our sovereign God who is seated on the throne, ruling and reigning
and doing exactly as He pleases. Lord, we see it in our own hearts.
Surely, truly, you do it in every heart, and your will is executed
perfectly as it pleases you, and we thank you for that, and
pray that you would bless us and give us peace, fill our hearts
with joy, and help us to love one another. and to walk by faith
in our Savior, and to see the power and glory which you promised
to manifest in your saints. Because, Lord, we have no power
of our own. We have no strength of our own. We have no wisdom
of our own, no righteousness, no sanctification, no redemption,
that is, of this flesh. But you've provided everything
in your Son, Jesus Christ. And so we pray that you would
flood us with the the fullness of Your train, of Your glory,
of Your power in our hearts and minds. It's in Christ Jesus'
name that we pray these things. Amen. Okay. Our closing hymn is 137. What a day that will be. 137.
Is that right? Good. I didn't know if I gave
the wrong number out. 137. That other hymn, I had the same
hymn on 45 and 46. So, yeah. If you'd like to stand, go ahead.
137. There is coming a day when no
heartache shall come. No more clouds in the sky, no
more tears to dim the eye. All is peace forevermore on that
happy golden shore. What a day, glorious day that
will be. What a day that will be when
my Jesus I shall see. And I look upon his face, the
one who saved me by his grace. When he takes me by the hand
and leads me through the promised land. What a day, glorious day,
that will be. There'll be no sorrow there,
no more burdens to bear. No more sickness, no pain, no
more parting over there. And forever I will be with the
one who died for me. What a day, glorious day that
will be. What a day that will be when
my Jesus I shall see, and I look upon His face, the one who saved
me by His grace. When He takes me by the hand
and leads me through the promised land, what a day, glorious day
that will be. Thank you.