Psalm 103. I'm going to read the first four,
five verses of this psalm together. David writes, Bless the Lord,
O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all His benefits." Then he begins to name these
benefits, "...who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth
all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who
crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies." who satisfy
thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like
the eagles." Blessing the Lord. If I had a title for the message,
it would be that. Blessing the Lord. To bless the
Lord. David writes, Bless the Lord,
O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. David
here sought to bring his whole being, his whole soul, and all
that is within him to bless the Lord. He says it even twice in
verse 2, bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. The question then is, what is
it to bless the Lord? How can we who are sinners, who
depend totally upon God. Surely we can be blessed of God,
seeing He can add much to us. But how can we, who are His creatures,
bless God? Bless God. The secret is, the
key is, the understanding this word, bless, it means to kneel. That is the root word here in
the original, is to kneel, to bow down, to worship, to praise, to give thanks. So David is saying,
praise the Lord, bless the Lord, worship the Lord. Honor the Lord
with what? All that I have, all my soul,
all my heart, all my will, all my desire. Let everything that
is within me bless Him, praise Him, worship Him. Psalm 95 it
says, O come let us worship and bow down. Now that is how we
worship God. You cannot worship God standing.
You must be bowing to worship God. God must cause a man before
he's ever going to bless the Lord, He must cause him to kneel,
to bow. Let us kneel before the Lord,
our Maker. So blessing God is not adding
anything to God. When we bless Him, when we praise
Him, we are only giving to God what is rightfully His. what
is His by just desert. He is worthy of all praise."
I read... You don't think that's... Well,
preacher, that's just right. We understand that. Not everybody
understands that. I read a man one time, he said,
to bless the Lord means you need to get out there and save souls.
You need to add to God. That man has no clue who God
is. No clue who God is. We cannot
add anything to perfection. Cannot add anything to His joy.
He is fully happy. And nothing we do adds to Him
at all. He is the great I Am. We worship
Him and bow because He is worthy of all blessing. In Revelation
4.11 it says, "...Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and
honor and power For thou hast created all things, and for thy
pleasure they were created." And listen to this, only saints
can bless Him. Only those who know Him can bless
Him. Only saints can bless Him from
the soul. Religion tries to bless God. They try to worship God in their
vain attempts of outward religion. They put on their shows, and
their pomp, and their ceremony, and their beautiful structures,
and their beautiful robes, and all of the sights and the sounds
that appeal to the flesh, and they say that is worship. Yet God said, they worship me
with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. You can't worship
God except it come from the heart. David said, bless the Lord, oh
my, what soul. It comes from the heart to worship
God. And if a man is not saved, does
not know God by divine revelation, he cannot bless God. It's impossible. try as he may, he can't. Only
believers are able to do this. Only those who are quickened
by the power of the Holy Spirit to the new birth, who are given
a new nature, who believe solely on the Lord Jesus Christ as all
their hope, they alone are able to bless and praise the Lord. In fact, only those who are in
Christ, their blessings alone are received of God. They're
blessings alone. Therefore, you believer, you
may bless the Lord because you are indeed dead unto sin. You may approach unto God because
Christ has removed your sin. He has given you His holy nature,
and therefore you may bless the Lord with all your soul, and
be accepted," Paul said, "...likewise reckon yourselves indeed to be
dead to sin, but alive unto God." How? Through the Lord Jesus Christ. Only through Him. Only through
faith in Him. And secondly, not only to bless
the Lord, what do we bless? His holy name. We bless His holy
name. When you think of a name, what
do you think of? Character. This is what it's talking about
when it says the name of the Lord. It's talking about His
attributes. Bless the Lord through the knowledge
of His attributes. In other words, when I say a
name of a person, automatically you associate that name with
a character. with some attributes concerning
the person. If I were to say Adolf Hitler,
well, there's some character there. When I say his name, his
character, his evil character comes to mind. When I say the
Apostle Paul, there's character that comes to mind. His love
for God, his love for Christ, his conversion, those characteristics
come to mind. When I say the name Jehovah,
There should be characteristics of Jehovah, attributes of Jehovah
that come to mind by which we bless Him. And we bless Him from
our innermost being concerning His character. We bless Him because
He is great. Isn't Jehovah great? He is great
because He is the only God. The only true and living God. Asa said this, in Judah God is
known, His name is great in Israel. His name is exalted. Isaiah said
that His people make mention of His, and His name is exalted. His name is holy. He is the only
holy God, righteous and true. He is omnipotent, all-powerful. He is sovereign. Our God is in
the heavens and hath done whatsoever He hath pleased. Our God is eternal. Our God is immutable. These characteristics,
we may dwell upon them, take each one of them and contemplate
the greatness of His name, that there is none like Him, that
He is altogether by Himself. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit. He is the only Savior. There is no other Savior but
God. Jehovah's a covenant God. Isn't
that something that brings it to mind? And we're going to talk
about these benefits. These benefits that He's going
to show us are concerning a covenant that He made with Himself, concerning
us, His children. These things should cause us
to bless His name, for He is great and holy and powerful,
omnipotent, immutable. And listen, we should bless His
name because it's dreadful among the heathen. His name is dreadful. Why do you suppose men don't
want to come and hear the gospel? They don't want to hear of their
sin. You know, our Lord Jesus said,
if I had not come, they had not sinned. Now, they had sinned,
they just didn't know it until they got there, until He revealed
it to them. Men don't... He's dreadful. He's
a God of justice, a God of wrath, and a God of love. These things. And so by these characteristics,
God is worthy of all blessing, of all His creatures, that every
one of us here should bow down and worship Him. Bow down and
worship Him. But no one will unless God reveals
Himself to them. Now, everybody should. Everyone
should bow. But unless God reveals Himself
to man, they will not bow. They will not bow unless He reveals
His mercy and gives them faith in Christ. How can you bless
God outwardly by religious lip service? But only those who experience
the grace of God and regeneration shall kneel before God and bless
Him. Now, the benefits of wicked sinners is not that it instills comfort,
but fear. Those who do not know God. The
wicked, he says in Isaiah 3, woe unto the wicked, it shall
be ill with him. Now hear this, if you're without
Christ this morning, I want you to understand what God says about
you. It is ill with you. It is very bad with you. It is
ill. It is not good. "...for the reward
of his hands shall be given him." This is why it's ill, because
God will judge you and give you a just reward for all your sins. That's why it's ill. You see, salvation is not knowing
Calvinism. Now, there's a lot of people
confused about that. People think that they know doctrine in their
head, that somehow they can worship God. No, it's not just knowing
doctrine or creeds of a church. What is it? It's to know Christ.
If you don't know Christ, God says it is ill with you. It is
not well with you. Have you surrendered to Christ?
Listen, those who bless the Lord, we kneel. We surrender. If you've not surrendered to
Christ, it's ill with you. It brings to mind when I think
of surrender, I think of some of those portraits in the Appomattox
house, how the South surrendered. One of those photos, it shows
a line of weapons stacked. Just rows and rows of these arms
that are stacked. When they surrendered, it was
an unconditional surrender. They surrendered their weapons
and their flags. Have you surrendered your weapons
and bowed before God? What are your weapons? Your works.
You know, your works are not for God, they're against God. If a man take Christ and try
to apply his work to Christ, he is against God. He is against
the gospel of God's grace. He is still fighting. He is not
surrendered. You must fall down in seeking
absolute mercy. You cannot obligate God to show
mercy. You must come as the leper came. Lord, if you will. Peradventure. Peradventure. That's how a sinner comes in.
Hope against hope. That he might show me mercy. And if a man is trying to work
some kind of deal and demand mercy, that's not surrender.
That's not surrender. If you've never repented of your
dead works, you've never known the benefits of God's blessings. But all that come to God trying
to merit His favor, it is ill. But there's something good here. If God, by His mercy, gives you
repentance, causes you to surrender, and you do come for mercy, I
want you to know this. It's well with you. God says this to his children,
to all who believe on Christ, it is well. Say you to the righteous,
it shall be, what? Well. It shall be well with him. Audrey. Audrey, would you get
the door, please? Thank you. Now those who have come to Christ
by faith, what have we found? We have found mercy. We have
found mercy. Every one of us who have come
to Christ, we have found mercy. This term merciful was first
used concerning Lot. Lot was the first time that the
word merciful was used in Scripture. Listen to this. While he lingered
in Sodom, the men laid hold upon him and his wife and upon his
daughters, the Lord being merciful to him. and they brought him
forth and set him without the city." Now, did Lot deserve deliverance? You know, he lingered just like
his wife and children. There was no difference between
him and his wife who found out that she had no belief at all.
She went back. She turned back. Her heart was
still there. But Lot found mercy. And listen,
I didn't deserve mercy either. And neither did you. Friends, if we deserve mercy,
guess what? It's not mercy. It's not mercy. All of God's
people need mercy, and all that come to God by Jesus Christ find
mercy. Find mercy. The Lord is gracious,
listen, and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy. So let us, with David this morning,
seek to bless the Lord. We who believe in Christ, we
are able to bless the Lord. Let us, by grace, bless the Lord,
worship the Lord. Worship the God of mercy, the
God of grace, the eternal, boundless compassion of God who has brought
us to faith in Christ. Now I've got six things here,
six benefits. In these little verses here,
six benefits by which we may be able to bless the Lord. These are things that move the
soul of the believer to blessing. These are the things, the benefits,
move us to bless God. First thing is this, forgiveness
of sins. Look at that in your text. Verse
3, Bless the Lord who forgiveth all thine iniquities. We have heard these things time
and time again. These things I'm mentioning to
you, we've heard them time and time again, haven't we? But we're like Israel. The Scripture
says this, Israel forgot God, their Savior, when He had done
these great things in Egypt. These Egyptians, after God had
delivered Israel, guess what? They forgot. How can you forget
the parting of the Red Sea? Do you suppose that you would
forget that? Do you suppose you'd forget that great power and deliverance
of the blood of Lamb, the Lamb that caused Him to drive you
out? And yet they did. And it didn't
take years. It took just a few days and they
had already forgot. We too are so prone to forget
these things, we become dull of hearing because of the things
of the world creep in on us. We forget these benefits. We're like a leaky bowl. How much do you suppose you're
going to remember this when you get out the door? And that which you retain, how
long will you remember that? It leaks out! You know what you
need to keep a leaky bowl full? You need a constant flow of water. That's what the preaching of
the Gospel is. That's what the reading of the Word is. It's
a constant pouring out to fill us, to remind us of these benefits. Therefore, God says it twice,
Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. Why? They need it twice. They
don't need it just once, they need it again. Lord don't repeat
himself just to repeat himself. It's showing us that we need
to perpetually give you these comforts. And Paul said to his
brethren, indeed it's not grievous for me to say these same things
to you, but it's needful for you. It's needful. It is safe
for you that I preach these same things. And listen, this is the
first one. Forgiveth thine iniquities. This is the first one, because
without it we could have no other blessings. We could not bless
the Lord unless we know our sin is forgiven. Remember what separated
us from God is what? Sin. And unless we know that
sin has been removed, we cannot bless God. We cannot approach
God. We cannot worship God. God demands
payment for sin at the hand of the sinner. Without satisfaction
of God's justice, none of us could freely come before Him.
But God, in mercy, purposed to forgive even before there was
sin. This is good news. He purposed
to forgive you even before there was any sin. In the election of grace, God
willed to forgive you, purposed to forgive you. You know what? God is not like
us. When someone offends us, we weigh this out, don't we?
We weigh it out. We have to... Are they really
seeking our forgiveness or do we need... You know, so we weigh
our forgiveness out like that based on... It's contingent,
isn't it? Contingent upon the other person
or upon how we feel at the moment. God in no such way is like that.
God's forgiveness is not contingent upon the sinner. but his own
desire and will to forgive. In the election of grace, God
willed to forgive out of love, and thus provided a Lamb for
us before. the foundation of the world. Jesus is said to be as a lamb
slain, when? From before the foundation of
the world. Now I want you to notice that every one of these
benefits that I'm talking about are all present perfect tense. He forgiveth, E-T-H, all thine
iniquities. He healeth all thy diseases. He redeemeth thy life from destruction,
crowneth Satisfy the present perfect tense that means that
he did it he is Doing it and he shall forever do it So listen
in this matter of forgiveness. God has forgiven you God is now
forgiving you and God shall forever forgive you. Is that a benefit? Is that not a benefit? It is
to the sinner It is the one who needs forgiveness. How do I know that He will forgive
me? Because God spared not His own Son. but delivered him up
for us all. How then shall he not with him
freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justified." What
does justified mean? It means innocent. That's what
it means. God said they're innocent. Now, if God said they're innocent,
guess what? They're innocent. God's elect are innocent of sin. There is no sin. This is how it is to speak comfortably
to believers, to Israel. Believer, all your sins are forgiven. All that you lack to fulfill
the perfection of God has been provided and accomplished for
you. All of us have broken the law
of God, but God restored what He did not break. Therefore,
none can lay anything to the charge of God's elect, not Satan,
not the world, and listen to this one, not even yourself. Not even yourself. Bless the Lord, O my soul, He
forgiveth all my iniquities. He has cast them into the depths
of His eternal forgetfulness. As far as the east is from the
west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. Therefore Jesus said to that
man that came, he lowered down, was sick of the palsy, he said,
Son, be of good cheer. Why? Thy sins be forgiven. All who come to Christ have this
blessing, all our sins. Secondly, he says this, who healeth
all thy diseases. Not all our physical sicknesses,
but rather the spiritual diseases. Believers get sick, believers
die physically. But truly, our disease is much
worse than physical diseases. It is a spiritual malady. Spiritual
disease. It's pictured in many ways, blindness,
lameness, death. That's a picture of our nature.
But I think the most vivid picture is leprosy, isn't it? That disease
that rots the flesh off of the bone. That's a good picture of
us. Isaiah said we are full of wounds
and bruises and putrefying sores, unclean. In Leviticus chapter
13, God deals with leprosy as a type of sin, and found that
with leprosy, when it is pronounced by the priest to be unclean,
this person is cast out. This person is stripped. He's taken all of his possessions
away. They strip him of his clothes,
they shave his head, they give him rags, and they throw him
out from the worship of God. What a great picture of what
sin has done for us. The leprosy of sin. We by nature
are pronounced unclean. We were born dead in trespasses
and sins cast out from the worship of God. We could not bless God. You know in that chapter there
are four distinct marks of a true leper. In other words, for it
to be leprosy, it had to be deeper than the skin. It couldn't be
just a scratch on the skin. It had to be down in the skin.
The second one is that the hair had to be white, dead from the
root. The third thing is that it had to spread. In other words,
if it was contained, it wasn't leprosy. And the fourth thing
is it had to be painful. It was very painful. It had to
have all of those four marks to be leprosy. So it is true
with spiritual leprosy. Sin has to be deeper than the
skin. It has to be deeper. If you can
be saved by changing outward morality, it's not sin. You're
not a leper. Listen, if it isn't dead from
the root, if you're not dead from the root, you're not a leper.
And listen, if you can contain your sin, you're not a leper. And listen, if sin is not painful,
you're not a real sinner. You see, I only have good news
for lepers. You see, my sin is much deeper
than the skin. Matter of fact, I am dead from
the very core of my being, I am dead. I know this, I can't contain
my sin. It is spread throughout my whole
being. And I know this sin is painful
to my soul. But I've got good news for lepers.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. Jesus
Christ came to the world to save lepers, sinners, true sinners. And as only at the surrender
of Christ may we experience the healing power of His grace. Now thirdly, who redeemeth thy
life from destruction. Remember our plight, believer.
We were dead in sins. We hung over the pits of hell
under the justice of the law. We were in the slave market of
sin, waiting for the judgment and condemnation. But God in
Christ hath redeemed thy life. He said He redeemeth thy life.
Remember I told you last week, two weeks ago, redemption has
two parts, ransom deliverance in order to be redeemed you must
first be ransomed and then secondly delivered delivered this ransom price is the price
of our redemption from the justice of God, from the curse of the
law. And the only price that was acceptable
was the precious blood of the Son of God. There is no other
price. There's no other price you could pay. This is the only
price God demands, it's the only price God provides, and it's
the only one God accepts. If you're trying to pay for redemption,
if you're trying to earn redemption, Isn't this what religion teaches?
Religion teaches you can earn redemption. If you just turn
your life around, if you just do this, if you just do that,
you can redeem yourself. No, you can't. God won't accept
it. It's not worth anything. The
only thing that's worth anything to God in redemption is the blood
of Jesus Christ, His Son. That's it. There is no other
redemption. Paul said, we were not bought
with the price, but with the precious blood of Christ, as
of a lamb without spot, without blemish. This redemption price,
the blood of the Son, He did this by taking our sins
into His own body. The Father made Him to be sin. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree. Friends, we're not getting away
with anything, are we? No. All of our sins who are in
Christ have been fully paid for, not by us, but by our Redeemer. He paid the ransom price. The
just for the unjust that He might bring us to God. And not only
did He ransom us, He delivered us. What's a deliverance? It's
the new birth. That's the deliverance. When
the Holy Spirit comes in power and gives us life, gives us a
heart to believe, To trust in Christ, that is the deliverance,
is faith in the Son of God. That is something man cannot
produce. Now, is this speaking to you? Have you been redeemed?
You see Christ as all your redemption and you kneel and surrender before
Him, yes, He's redeemed you. All who surrender are redeemed. Therefore, believer, is there
anyone to condemn you? No. Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Yea,
rather, is risen again, who is at the right hand of God, ever
living, to make intercession for... See, not only did He redeem
me, He's still redeeming me. He's still doing it. He sits
at the right hand of the Father, constantly pleading His wounds. When you sin, what happens? Father,
see these? Oh yes, I see them. He's redeemed. He's redeemed. Believer, then bless the Lord,
for He has not just redeemed you to be His slave, but to be
His Son. Is this not marvelous? I can
understand Him redeeming me to be a slave. Now what the prodigal
thought? Father, just make me one of thine
hired servants. Is that what the father did?
No. He ran and fell on his neck and
kissed him. This brings us to the next one.
He crowneth thee with what? Loving kindness and tender mercies. Bless the Lord, for he crowns
his son He has made us heirs and joined heirs with Christ.
And what does a son of a king get? He gets a crown. And what
is our crown? Our crown is not made of earthly
gold or silver. Our crown is made of the loving
kindness and tender mercies of our God. That is the crown of
us. The crown of righteousness. The crown of peace. Herein is
love, John said. Herein is our love made perfect.
That we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because
as He is, so are we in this present world. Now why does God look
upon you with kindness? Because you are in union with
His Son. That's why God sees you in loving kindness, because
you are in union with His Holy Son. And so as a father pitieth
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. He is the
Father of tender mercies. Believers, we are sons of God,
heirs and joint-heirs with Christ, therefore He crowns us as kings
and priests unto God, and pours out daily His lovingkindness.
Don't you know this, that God is doing all things for your
good? All things. Do you doubt that? Many times we doubt that God
is doing us good. That's why God said this, I know
my thoughts towards you. Stop trying to tell me what I
think about you. I know my thoughts towards you,
thoughts of peace and not of evil. I will do them good all
the days of their life. And this fifth thing, he says,
he satisfies thy mouth with good things. What is this feast that
God sets before us and satisfies our mouth? It is the Word of
God. This is the thing that satisfies
our mouth. When John was before the angel
and he had the book given to him, he said, give me the little
book. And he said, here, take it and
eat it. It will be bitter to thy belly, but sweet to thy mouth.
And what did John find? He ate the book and he said,
it was sweet to my mouth. Sweet to my taste, but bitter
to my belly. The Word of God that reveals
these things of forgiveness and redemption and mercy and the
blood of Christ and the resurrection are sweet to the taste. Sweet. Are they not sweet to us? Jeremiah said, Thy words I found
and did eat them, and they were to me joy and rejoicing in my
heart. What is this bitterness? The
bitterness is because of the remaining flesh, the old nature
that still abides in every one of us, which makes us weary,
this bitter to our belly. Why? Because we long to be righteous
and cannot. We long to see the face of Christ
and cannot. It's warfare that causes us to
be weary and fall into sin, and so many times we are overwhelmed
with sin and guilt and fear. What then causes us strength? The same thing that was sweet
to our taste, also gives us renewal, strength. And that's the last thing. He
said, He will restore, so that thy youth is restored like the
eagles. Are you weary? Are you weary? We get weary. Do you weep because of your sin
and feel the corruption of your own heart, the unbelief of your
own soul? Then let us say with David, bless
the Lord, O my soul. Command your soul to bless the
Lord. And forget not all his benefits. This is how we may do it. Don't
forget the benefits. forgiveness of sins, healing
of our souls and hearts, the blood of Christ and His redemption.
Remember His loving kindness as our Father. Remember the Word
that He gave us to eat. And only by the Word is our strength
renewed. Only by the Gospel that was sweet
to our taste. Yes, this world is bitter. This
world is bitter. Our sins and this rotting corpse
drags us to the earth. But what's going to restore our
soul? Forget not all His benefits. Don't forget. And if we're able not to forget,
what can we do? We can bless the Lord. We can
praise Him. We can bow before Him because
of all of His wonderful benefits. I pray God will bless this to
your hearts.