If you're turning your Bibles
to Psalm 107, 107, we'll be looking at verses 32 through 43 this
evening. Psalm 107, verse 32 to 43, and
I'm entitled to this message, The Congregation of the Redeemed.
The Congregation of the Redeemed. The Scripture says, let them exalt him also in the
congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of
the elders." Now, when it says, let them exalt him, he is referring
to all of these characters that he had mentioned before in this
psalm. He is referring to those he mentions
in the first couple of verses The redeemed. Let the redeemed
exalt the Lord. Where? In the congregation of
the people. Now, again, this psalm was written
to the redeemed. Look at verse 1. He says, Give
thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth
forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath
redeemed from the hand of The enemy, this psalm, the purpose
of this psalm is this, that the redeemed should give thanks. Oh, that men, you'll read this
over and over in this psalm, oh, that men would praise the
Lord. Oh, that men would give thanks unto the Lord. And you
know who gives thanks? You know those who give praise?
Listen, those who have been redeemed from the hand of the enemy. Tonight,
have you been redeemed? That's a question. That's an
important question. Have you been bought by the blood
of Jesus Christ? Is this your psalm? Is this written
for you? Because those are the ones who
give thanks, those who have been redeemed. And you that have been
redeemed, let me ask you this. Is it not just reasonable to
serve Him? Is it not reasonable to give
thanks? Isn't that what Paul said? He said, I beseech you
by the mercies of God, because of the mercies of God. What's
that mercy? You've been redeemed. That you
should present your bodies a living sacrifice, hold an acceptable
Lord, which is your reasonable service. Don't you think it's
reasonable to give thanks? To praise Him? To give thanks
unto Christ? Now let me ask you this, believer,
can you do that and live in sin? Is that possible? Can you serve
two masters? You that have been redeemed,
can you serve two masters? Our Lord said you can't. You will
cling to the one and despise the other, or you will hate the
one and love the other. You cannot serve God and man,
and you can't give thanks to God with your lips. Isn't that
what he says of those who are not redeemed? He said, they worship
me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. How do
the redeemed give praise? With their lips? Yes. But that
comes from the heart. We praise Him, we thank Him from
the heart. And those who are just giving
lip service, they're not redeemed. Remember, the double-minded man
is unstable in all his ways. Why? He just thanks with his
lips. Well, gee, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. And there's
no real heart in it. Why? They've not been redeemed.
The redeemed know what it is to be redeemed. We know from
what we've been redeemed. We know what great price it costs
to redeem us. Therefore, seeing the love of
Christ who redeemed us, we give thanks. We give thanks. And so tonight, if you are redeemed,
then you're going to recognize yourself. I want you to look
in the mirror of Scripture, and I want you to see that this Scripture
is yours, and the characters that are mentioned in this Scripture
are a mirror image of both our person and our experience. Now, we've been through these. If you want the messages, I imagine
you can go online and get them. I'm going to briefly go through
them Don't have the time to fully exhaust them again. First of
all, you see yourself in the wanderer in verses 4. In verse
4, look at that. And they wandered in the wilderness
in a solitary way. They found no city to dwell in.
They were hungry and thirsty. Their soul fainted in them, and
then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered
them. We were wanderers. By nature we wandered in the
wilderness of sin. We wandered like Jacob in a waste-howling
wilderness. He found us. We were hungering
and thirsting for righteousness. We had no righteousness. It was
a barrenness inside of us and we had nothing. We were starving
to death and didn't even know it. We had no refuge. It says
they had no city to dwell in. We were nomads wandering without
a refuge. We were hungry and thirsty. Isn't
that our experience by the Holy Spirit? He made us hunger and
thirst after righteousness. We need righteousness. He showed us our need in what?
We cried unto the Lord. Isn't that what we did? When
you were in the wilderness, did you not cry unto Him? Give me righteousness. The righteousness that only Christ
obtained. Give me the redemption that only
Christ purchased. And you know what He did? He
delivered us. He led us forth in the right
way and put us in an habitation, a city of refuge He put us in.
Now listen, this is not only us at our conversion, but is
this wanderer not us often after our conversion? How often do
we wander in the barrenness of sin and turn around and the Lord
expose our sin and we hunger for Him? We're like that Shulamite
woman. who ignored him. And then when
he left, what? Her heart melted in her. Her
heart... She wanted him. She desired him. And you know what she did? She
cried after him. And he was found. He found her and put her in the
way. The second character we see is the rebel. Look at that
in verse 11. I'm sorry. They that sit in darkness
in the shadow of death, bound in affliction. Verse 10. because
they rebelled against the words of the Lord. Isn't this our nature?
We were rebels by nature, rebels by birth, haters of God. The Scripture says a natural
man, he hates the law of God. He despises, he's an enmity against
God, and he's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be. We were rebels, and because of our rebellion, we were in
chains of darkness. We are chains of sin. "...We rebelled against the word
of the Lord. We contemned His counsel the most high. Therefore
He brought down their heart with labor, and they fell down, and there
was none to help." Isn't that what you found? When you labored
in religion, the Lord made you feel your chains so heavy that
you couldn't stand. And then what did he do? He broke
those bars asunder. He showed you that Christ has
set the captives free. That Jesus Christ paid the debt
of sin. That we are no longer under the
law, but under grace. And by grace, through faith,
these rebels, this rebel became a son. This rebel, this rebel
became a friend of God. When we fell down, we cried,
verse 13, unto the Lord in our trouble, and he saved us from
our distresses, and brought us out of the darkness, and the
shadow of death, and broke the bands asunder." Verse 17 is a picture of us,
fools. By nature we are fools. Oh, how
foolish is a sinner. Can you imagine anything more
foolish than a sinner? He clings so tight to his sin. We cling so tight to our sin. We hold our sin like it's gold
and refuse Christ like He's the plague. What a fool. What a fool. I tell you that
I've seen men literally destroy themselves by holding on to iniquity. I've seen men would rather die
holding their sin, would rather lose all that they have and hang
on to that pleasure of sin for a moment. Is there anything more
foolish than that? In verse 18, look at this. It describes the fool, it says,
their soul abhors all manner of meat, and they draw near to
the gates of death. It's like someone puts a steak
in front of this man, and he's starving to death, and he's so
foolish, he hates the steak. He despises the food set before
him, and he'd rather starve to death than eat. Isn't that what that song we
sing often, I can't remember exactly, but it says they'd rather
starve than come? How many would rather starve
than come to Christ? You know what that is? That's
a fool. You'd rather burn in the fires of hell than come to
Christ. Why? Because your sin's precious to
you. You see, I can say that because that's me. I was a fool. I wondered about loving my sin
and despising my Savior. Until when? Until I drew near to the gates
of death, and I saw the folly of my sin. I saw it gave me,
the pleasure it gave me was not worth the condemnation it brought. And what I cried unto the Lord,
what I asked, Give me wisdom not to abhor the meat, Christ,
the bread of life. Give me wisdom so that I might
eat and live. You know what the Lord says in
James? He says, He giveth wisdom to all and He abradeth not. To
all who believe in Him, to all who trust Him, now the double-minded
man is not going to give you anything. But all who believe
Him, He'll give you wisdom. What is His wisdom when He gave
you fools? I'm talking to me and you. Believer, redeemed,
we were fools. You fools. What was the bread? It was Christ. What's the wisdom
of God? Is it not Christ? The wisdom
of God? How can God be just and justify
the ungodly? You answer that, you've got wisdom.
Christ is the only way God can be just and accept the sinner. That's the only way. Through
the offering of Christ. When He gave us wisdom, I'll
tell you, there's nothing like wisdom. He enlightened our minds
by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's like the light came on.
It's like, yes! Yes! I see, I was blind, but
now I see. I was a fool, now I'm made wise. Have you received Christ? Isn't
it? That's wisdom. That's dumb wisdom,
only given by God. I'll tell you this though, isn't
this our experience too? Aren't we still so foolish? Can you think of how many foolish
things we do today? We're so foolish. We're still
so foolish and often We're deceived by our own hearts. We're deceived and become as
fools by abstaining from the Word of God. We're deceived by
embracing sin into our bosom. Isn't that foolish? What does
a wise man say? Do you expect to grab fire and
put it to your bosom and not be burned? Do you expect that?
Well, yeah, I think I'm not going to get burned this time. No,
this time it's going to be different." What is that? Someone bang their
head against the wall and it hurts, and they expect a different
result the next time they do it? Isn't that a fool? And yet
this is our nature. We're foolish. Oh, believer,
may God give us wisdom. What is that wisdom? The wisdom
is, look to Christ. Look to Christ. The fourth one
is the Mariner. In verse 23, they that go down
in the sea and ships and do business in great waters. Who is this
mariner? They are they that follow Christ
and abandon all safety. These mariners, they go out into
the sea and they abandon the safety of land. They abandon
their family. They leave all and do business
in great waters. This is what the believer does.
We abandon the world and set sail for glory on Christ. The ark. He's the ship. He's
the ship in which we've entered to do business with God. And
you know what God gives His men in this world? Trouble. Scripture says that He's in the
deep. In verse 25, God commanded the
waters to rise up, and the wind and lifted up the waves thereof.
They mount up to heaven. They go down to the depths. His
soul is melted in trouble. He reels to and fro and staggers
like a drunken man. He's at his wits end. Oh, believers,
is this not our experience? Can you not identify? If you're
going to serve Christ in this world, listen, there's going
to be storms. There's going to be trials. There's
going to be hurt. There's going to be suffering.
And you know what we do the minute we start suffering? We try to
fix it. You try to fix it. You stagger around trying to
right the shit. I tell you what, if you right
the ship, God will give you glory. But you see, God brings you to
your wit's end. And then what do you do? What do you do at
your wit's end? You do the same thing you did at conversion.
You cry unto the Lord. You cry unto the Lord. And what
does He do? He calms. He makes the storm
a calm, verse 29, and the waves thereof are still. And they are
glad. They are glad. I'm sure this mariner thought
he wasn't going to make it. How many times do we think that?
I'm just not going to make it. Well, that depends on if you're
in the ship. You know, the ark had no lifeboats, no life preservers. Why? All
their hope was in the ark. You listen, the believer is doing
business in great waters. All his hope is in Christ. You
don't have to write Christ. He'll ride himself. He's bringing
you to glory. You're not bringing him to glory.
There were no sails on the ark either, you know that? No sails.
Who directed the boat? No steering wheel. God did. And who's going to bring you
to glory, believer? You're redeemed. God will. God will. And now then, the last characteristic
is this. the characteristic of the congregation. Let's go back to this text and
look at this again in verse 32. Verse 32, he says, "...let them..."
Who? The wanderer, the fool, the rebel,
the mariner, those who have cried unto the Lord and been saved
by Him, redeemed by the blood of Christ. "...let them..." What
are they to do? They are to exalt the Lord. Where? In the congregation of the people. In the congregation of the people. Here is the conclusion of the
psalm, and these are called a congregation. The congregation are the sum
total of all the redeemed. The sum total of all the redeemed.
All the elect of God are by nature and by birth sinners. And if we have ever been born
again by the Spirit of God, we are to fall down on our knees
and exalt Him. To exalt Christ is the heart
of His people. Why? He has redeemed us. We are
to exalt Him. Wanderers, rebels, fools, mariners,
Exalt Him. He has redeemed us and made us
cry to Him in faith. He has delivered us. He has saved
us. And you listen, He has made us
acceptable. He has made us acceptable before
God. And though we sin still, though
we are prone to any sin, He will afflict His own sheep. He will make us come to see The
vileness of our sin, the cost of our sin, and the price He
paid. The price He paid. He will never
bring us under the law. Isn't that a wonderful thing?
The congregation, we are made to exalt Him. Listen, you know
this, you can't exalt Him unless you're abased. Do you realize
that? If you're... Standing up with
me, and we're looking at one another, neither one of us are
exalted. We're the same. In order to exalt someone, one
has to be beneath them. In order to exalt Christ, we
must be abased. And this is what Christ does
constantly with His congregation, is He abases us. He makes us
to feel our need. He makes us to know that we are
the wanderer, that we are the fool, that we are the rebel.
Why? So that we cry and exalt Him
who redeemed us. And I'll tell you, He'll never
bring us about by putting us under the law. You know this,
the law never kept anyone from sin. You can make all kinds of rules,
and the more rules you make, the more people want to sin.
Sin is excited by law. It's not contained. Oh, friends,
what contains sin in the believer's heart? What constrains you, believer? It is the love of Christ that
constrains us, isn't it? It's the love of Christ. Are
you His? Are you part of this congregation?
Do you belong to Him? Then you let us hear His Word. Let us obey His voice, not out
of terror, not out of some desire of merit to merit His favor. Let us hear His Word out of love. Let us hear His Word out of faith
in Christ. Here's His Word. Now listen to
this, you congregation. Hey, exalt Him. That's His Word to you. Exalt
Him. Here is the work of the Holy
Spirit in us. Here is the real evidence of
true faith, even our love and desire to be abased. You know, the more I'm abased,
listen, the more He's exalted. I know that. The more we are
made aware of who we are and what He's done, it brings us
lower, and the lower we get, the higher He is. We exalt Him. We want to lift Him up. We desire. Do you desire to exalt
Him? How many abase ourselves in word
only? Hey, it's easy to say that, right?
Is it not easy? Oh, praise the Lord! High and
lifted up! You know, that Pharisee, when
he was praying, he prayed thus with himself, Lord, I thank you. He was... Oh, listen, he's thankful.
Listen to his words. He said, I'm thankful. Now, was
he really thankful? I thank you that I'm not like
these other men, these low men down here. That man, he did not exalt Christ,
he exalted himself. They say, well, I know I'm a
sinner. Oh, I know sin's bad. I know I've got to stop. I know. I know I've not exalted Him.
So I start, stop trying to do this, start trying to do this.
I'm going to start listening and I'm going to start obeying
the law now. Living right. You say, I know I've done wrong,
but it's not something done in true faith and love. True faith
and love exalts Christ and turns from sin, doesn't it? It actually
does something. It's not just word only. A true
believer that exalts Christ from the heart has no love for himself
or his sin, and desires only to turn to Christ, to be found
in Christ. Can we ever claim to exalt Christ
while living after the flesh? Can we exalt Him by our forsaking
to worship? How many people say, well, I'm
a Christian, Oh, where do you worship? Well, I don't go to
church. I don't go where people... I
don't go to hear somebody preach. Listen, you're not exalting Him.
You know what His people desire to do? They desire to exalt Him.
How do you do it? Through worship, prayer, study. These things we desire. And sin
we hate. Can we claim to exalt Him and
not worship Him? Can we exalt Him without love? No. No. Well, what moves this
exaltation? It's an exhortation to believers.
We desire to exalt Him. But what is the motivation? Look
there in verse 33. It is the gospel. The gospel
is the means by which we are motivated through the work of
the Spirit to exalt Christ. And here is the gospel laid out
for us in verse 33. Now, I want you to notice a negative
and then a positive. I want you to see reciprocal
things that are going on here. Look at this in verse 33. First
of all, he turneth the rivers into a wilderness and water springs
into dry ground. He makes a fruitful land into
barrenness. Why? Because of the wickedness
of them that dwell therein. Now then, look at the reciprocal
of this. He turneth the wilderness into standing water, and dry
ground into water springs. And there maketh the hungry to
dwell, that they prepare a city of habitation, sow fields, plant
vineyards, and that yield fruits in increase. He blesseth them
also. that they may multiply greatly,
and suffereth not the cattle to decrease." Don't you see the
reciprocal here? He makes a fruitful place barren,
and then He takes a barren place and makes it fruitful. And then
He puts hungry people there to be fed. He plants vineyards.
This is a beautiful picture now. Not only now is it not a wilderness,
it's a growing garden. It's a beautiful picture. What
does this mean? First of all, the negative. In
the land of Israel, in this place that this written, it's a desert
place. And water, water is a precious commodity. And those places in
this desert land that have water, they are beautiful. I mean, there's
some places in Israel that are just and beautiful places. Why? Because there are water
in there. There are ponds of water, rivers
of water that flow in. And these plants that grow in
there, they're beautiful. It's like a garden. And God says, He said, I'm going
to take this place that's full of water, full of life, and I'm
going to kill it. I'm going to make it a desert.
I'm going to take this green place and by my word I'm going
to make it a desert. What is this picture of Adam? Was Adam not a plush garden?
Was he not full of goodness? Was he not acceptable unto God
when he was made in the image of God? He was useful. Plants that produce food are
useful to humans, aren't they? They're very useful. We love
that fruit that you get from those plants. They're useful
to man. Adam was actually useful. But
what happened? Because of the wickedness of
our father, the garden was turned into the desert. God in wrath
came, and Adam died. Adam and all his posterity died. So this wilderness that is made
here, it is made by sin. Because of sin, we have become
a wilderness in ourselves. Because of wickedness of the
soul of man, our souls are left barren. The earth is cursed,
and no man of the race of Adam can ever be useful or please
God. Do you think you're useful to
God? Man by nature is of no use to
God whatsoever. A man by nature has no righteousness
in himself whatsoever. Listen, he has no life in himself
whatsoever. He cannot merit the things of
God. You know who knows this? Only
the congregation of the redeemed. They're the only people that
know that's what's happened to us. We understand our nature,
we know our heart and our mind, and the soul of man is fully
corrupt. We could never please God, never
redeem ourselves, and this is the negative gospel, isn't it?
This is a necessary part. People don't like to hear this,
so they skip over this. Listen, without this, there is
no gospel. If you are not dead, then there's no need for a gospel.
If you have the ability to please God, there's no need for a gospel. But I'll tell you this, this
message puts men in the dust. God took that which He made,
which was beautiful, and because of sin, it's a barren desert. And this message puts man in
the dust, but this is the only way to exalt God. In order to
exalt Him, you must be abased. If we are to exalt Christ, we
must be abased. Listen to this in Lamentation
3. He putteth his mouth in the dust for what reason? If so be
there may be hope. If a man is going to ever have
hope of salvation, he must first be put in the dust. He must be
empty of any hope in himself. Let me ask you this. Have you
ever been abased enough? Do you actually ever think you've
found the bottom of your own iniquity? Is there any possibility that
you could ever be abased enough to exalt Christ by your abasement? You see, people, you know, those
vile Catholic priests, they used to beat themselves. They think,
well, if I beat my body with these whips, then I can be abased
enough. If I fast enough, I can be abased
enough. If I afflict my body and obey
the law, I can be abased enough to exalt Christ." Listen. When can you ever abase yourself
enough to exalt God? The answer is never. Your abasement
does nothing to exalt God. That's just the way it is. You're
just learning the truth of the matter. You're not meriting God's
favor by your abasing. Let me read you that text again,
Lamentations 3.29. He put His mouth in the dust. You know who
that is? Christ. If there's ever going to be hope
for you, if there's ever going to be hope for you, God must
put His mouth in the dust. Now look at that scripture again
and see the beautiful place is Christ. See the plush garden
is Christ. And when God abased him, He made
Him to be a desert for us. Made Him to be sin for us. Who knew no sin? Why? So that there might be hope for
us. God took a beautiful, lush Christ
and made it a barren wasteland. He put His mouth in the dust.
His number with the transgressors, He was made sin for us, and the
wrath of God in full measure, without mercy, fell on Him. Go to Psalm 22. Psalm 22. Look at this here. In verse 6, He said, But I am a
worm and no man. This is Christ speaking, friends.
I am a worm and no man. a reproach of men and despise
of the people. Look at verse 14. I am poured
out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is
like wax. It is melted in the midst of
my bowels. My strength is dried up like
potsherd. My tongue cleaveth to the jaws
of my mouth and thou hast brought me, listen, to the dust of death. You see, the only way for you
and I to exalt Christ is this. He must be abased in our state. He must die in our state. Behold him who bare our sins,
the fruitful river in the wilderness of a sinful world, and God dried
up Christ under his wrath, and he paid the debt for our sins.
And what is the promise? What is the promise of His abasement? Look at verse 24. He hath not
despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath
he hid his face from him, but when he cried, he heard him.
When Christ cried, what did He cry? It is. Listen to that. I have been abased enough. Why? So that God might be exalted. So that God might be exalted.
And now look what happens. Look what happens. Look at the
reciprocal now in verse 35 of our text. He said, He turned
the wilderness and standing water and dry ground into water springs.
And he maketh the hungry to dwell there, and prepare a city of
habitation, and sow the fields, plant vineyards, which yield
the fruit of their increase. Behold, Jesus is the water of
life. And he that was made barren is
what now? Risen from the dead, and he who
was a desert, now is what? He's the water of life. He's
the water of life. He's the bread of life. Look
at what he said. He makes the hungry to dwell
there. Anyone hungry for salvation? Anyone? Listen, anyone. Anyone hungry? Anyone thirsty
for righteousness? Listen, Christ is the water spring. Christ is the fountain open for
sin. Christ is the water of life. Christ is the bread of life.
And the hungry come to Him. And now I say to the sinner who
feels his barrenness, come. And you know what he does to
every sinner who comes? He makes that desert a water
spout. He creates in us a beautiful
nature, one like his own. And so if you're hungry, come.
And if you're hungry, Why not eat? Eat and live. Who? Anyone. Anyone that's thirsty,
come to the water of life. He'll make your barren soul a
place that God is pleased in. What does this do? It causes
us to abase ourselves and exalt Christ. Are we not to be like Him? Did
He not abase Himself? He who had every right gave up
His rights and abased Himself for us. What is it, people? We
give up all our rights. We have none, really. He had
rights. We had none. We abase ourselves. We give up
all our sin and what? We cling to Him. We cling to
Him. We cling to Him. I want Him. I've got to have
Him. I long to lay at His feet and
worship Him, that He should be exalted in my heart, in my mind,
in my soul, in my actions, in my words. He should live. He
should be exalted. And I should be amazed. This
is part of the congregation of His people. I long to dwell
at His feet. I long to be wrapped in His arms.
Why? Listen to this. He's my habitation. He's my habitation. He is my fountain open for sin
and my cleansing. He is the only meal that will
satisfy my soul. And His... Listen to what they
do. Here's what the congregation
does when they exalt Him. They preach His Word. They preach
His Word. Look back at your text here,
let me find my place here. In verse 35, he turned the wilderness
into standing water, dry ground, water springs. Verse 36, and
there he maketh the hungry to dwell, and they may prepare a
city of habitation. And listen, and sow fields, and
plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of, look, look at that
word, increase. What do we do as a church, as
a congregation? What are we doing right now?
We are sowing fields. We are sowing the seed of God's
Word. That is our only mandate given
to us in this world. We have one purpose. Preach the
Word. Sow the seed. And here's the
promise of preaching right here. It'll always be successful. Now,
tonight, listen to me. From the bottom of my heart,
I do not feel successful. I am struggling to preach the
Word to you in myself." I don't know if you hear. I have
no power to make anyone hear anything. If you just listen
to me, you're wasting your time. If you hear Him, that's a seed being sown by God. What does this mean? We preach
the depravity of man, the election of God's grace, the covenant
of grace. We preach the perfect atonement of Christ. We preach
the effectual power of the Spirit. We preach the keeping and the
perseverance of the saints. And we have this promise, it
will always do what God sends it forth to do. Always. He said, my word shall go forth
out of my mouth and accomplish that whereunto I send it. Tonight,
if you go away hardened, that's what God did. That's what God
intended for this word to do, harden your heart. Now, if you
go away and you are saved, listen, that's exactly what God intended.
And I like this word, we only increase. You put your money
in the stock market, you may increase, you may decrease, right? You may buy a home, its value
may increase or may decrease. Look at that, we only increase.
There's only increase for us. Why? Because God swears that
all his people will come to him. Jesus said, all that the Father
giveth me, you listen, shall come to me. Is there any question
about that? Any question about the success
of this word? There's no question. Paul says
he causeth us always to triumph. Are you going to see that? Nope,
I probably won't see any of this result. I won't see a thing.
Why? I would exalt me and not him.
But I know this, it's only going to increase. It's only going
to increase. Look at verse 38, what's he going
to do to his congregation? He's going to bless them. He
blesseth them also, so that they multiply greatly, and suffereth
not their cattle to decrease. He's always going to add to his
church such as should be saved. You got that? What happened in
Acts, wasn't it? He said he added daily to the congregation such
as should be saved. Must be as many as the Lord ordained
to be saved. You get this. They will be saved. They will believe on him. But notice what he does to his
congregation. In verse 39, again, again, they are minished and
brought low through oppression, affliction, and sorrow. He pours
contempt upon the princes and causes them to wander in the
wilderness, for there is no way. Yet he setteth the poor on high
from affliction and maketh him families like a flock. You know
what God does to His congregation? You listen. He tries our faith. Again, they're brought low. Is
that not the story of your life, Believer? The joy of the gospel raises
our heart, and immediately we are raised, and what? And again,
we are brought low. What does he do that for? Why?
Why does he bring us to nothing again? That word, minished, means
brought to nothing. How many times have you been
brought to nothing? Why? Through chastisement He brings
us. Through providence He brings us to nothing. Whatever His means
of bringing us to nothing, He does it for a reason, and that
is to try our faith. In the congregation, there are
two types. There are sheep and there are
goats. There are tares and there are wheat. It is not for us to
determine who is who. But this will determine them,
the trying of their faith. The trying of their faith. You
listen. The true believer, the true believer
will always continue to believe. True faith always is tried and
proven by God for our joy and for the praise of Christ. If
you have true faith, it will endure the trials, it will be
abased and humble us so that we may exalt Christ the more.
But listen, there's always those tares among the wheat. Look at
this in verse 40, "...he poureth contempt on the princes, and
causeth them to wander in the wilderness, where there is no
way." There are some who are false believers. There are some who just mouth
the truth. It's not for us to find them
out, but God will. And listen to this, Yet he sitteth
the poor on high from affliction, and maketh him families of the
flock. The righteous shall see it and rejoice, and all iniquity
shall stop her mouth. Whoso is wise, listen, they will
observe these things and understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.
Are you his? Are you redeemed? Are you the
wanderer who cried in the wilderness and was found of him? Are you
the fool? Are you the rebel? Are you the
mariner? Are you the congregation that desires to be abased and
exalt the Lord? It is my heart's desire to exalt
Him, and I know it is for every believer, every true believer.
And listen, this doesn't stop, does it? It continues. We want
Him to be exalted. I pray that God would give this
and give this message to your hearts and that you, His congregation,
would exalt Him. Why? To have been redeemed from
the hand of your enemy by the blood of His Son. May God keep
us.