We'll try to edit that out. If you take your Bibles and turn
me to Psalm 106. Psalm 106. The title of the message this morning is the
believers praise and confession. The believers praise and In the beginning of this chapter
here, in verses 1 through 3, the psalmist says, Praise ye
the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord,
for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Who can utter
the mighty acts of the Lord, and who can show forth all his
praise? Blessed are they that keep judgment.
and he that doeth righteousness at all times." In these early
parts of this chapter, the psalmist ascribes and encourages praise
and thanksgiving unto God for both His being, His goodness,
and His eternal mercy. You who are believers in the
Lord Jesus Christ, you who have received of the Lord mercy. The psalmist asks us, who can
utter the mighty acts of the Lord and who can show forth His
praise? Who among us can measure His
work? Who among us has reached the
heights of praise worthy of His glorious name? Who among us? Who among us? Is there any end
to the debt of worship, praise, or thanksgiving that we owe to
the mercy of God? Is there any end? Can you find
an end to what we owe to our God? If we were to utter His praise
as from eternity, as from the beginning, as the holy angels,
we would only be doing what we should do. If we were capable
of obeying the law of God, in the end, all we would be doing
is what was required of us. Remember, Jesus, when He talked
about a servant, He said, If you send your slave out into
the field, and he goes and he prepares all the stuff, and he
brings it back into the house, and he prepares the food for
you, and he gets ready, and he says, what do you do? Do you
tell the servant that he should eat first? No. No. The servant has done only what
he was required to do. He's not worthy of any praise.
If we would obey the law of God, we would be worthy of no praise
still. We'd be just doing what we should do. We who are believers in Jesus
Christ, we do give praise and thanks to God because of His
mercy. Because of His mercy. We who are by nature sinful creatures, instead of praising God by nature,
we all hated God. hated God. We despised the things of God. We rebelled and we are sinful
creatures. And yet, we who even are believers
in Jesus Christ, do we not confess that we are sinners? We who know
the mercy of God, who are the chosen of God from eternity,
are still prone to all types of sin. All types of sin. We were born again of the will
of God. We were born again and given a new nature. A new nature. Salvation that is of God is a
new creation. It's not an act of the man's
will. It's not an act of religion.
It's not an act of works. It is completely the work of
God in creation. Just as God said in the beginning,
let there be light and there was light. That's what happened
to us who are saved. God spoke and there was a new
creation in us. There was a resurrection of the
dead. And this new man is created after God in true holiness. This new nature that we have
as believers, if we have any desire to praise and give thanks
to God for His mercy, if we have received His mercy, we know then
that this was a creation of God and not of us. We had nothing
to do with this. This was a new creation. This new man that's created in
true holiness is created after the image of Jesus Christ. Go to Romans 3. Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3 and verse 20.
Paul concludes something he gives a very detailed conclusion here. He says, therefore, by the deeds
of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by
the law is the knowledge of sin. How do you know what sin is?
But that you look in the law. And then when we look in the
law, what do we find? Nothing but guilt. The law can do nothing
but condemn us. Therefore, nobody is justified
by the law. But now, The righteousness of
God without the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God. Let me ask you, is there
any other righteousness? Is there any other righteousness
but the righteousness of God? No. That's the only righteousness
there is. The righteousness of God which
is by faith of Jesus Christ. Not by the faith of J.D. The righteousness of God did
not come by our faith. It was not wrought by our faith.
It was wrought by the faith of Jesus Christ. Notice these two words, unto
and upon. Unto all and upon all. Them that believe. Now, there's
our faith. There's our faith. The faith
of Jesus Christ gave us the righteousness of God. And these two words,
unto and upon, they mean impute and impart. That's what they
mean. Impute means to charge to your
account. From eternity, God has charged
His people with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. From eternity.
That's been given to me. It's been imputed to me. From
eternity. It's mine. And when I was born,
that righteousness was not imparted to me. It was imparted to me by the
act of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, in the new creation of the new
man. The righteousness that comes
by the faith of Jesus Christ is imputed and imparted to all
who believe on Jesus Christ. Have you believed on Christ?
Then know this, it's an act of the Holy Spirit. It's an act
of the spiritual work of God. That He's imparted to us the
righteousness of Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, was prepared
to body by the Holy Spirit, made like unto ours, yet without sin. And behold the great worth of
Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God, to be a righteous man. The righteous man. There is no
other righteous man but Him. God said of Jesus, this is my
beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And Jesus believed God. Jesus believed God and obtained
righteousness by his own obedience. And now, right now, we who have
believed, we who do believe, have this very righteousness
in us. In us. This righteousness has
been given to us in a new nature. Our faith did not impute this
righteousness nor impart this righteousness, but yet our faith
is a result of this righteousness. Therefore, we who are saved by
the grace of God have two distinct natures. Two natures in one person. We have the man we were born
with and we have the man that God created. Every one of us
who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we have two natures. Jesus said that which is born
of flesh is flesh. God did not take the old man
and Make him better. God did not take the old nature
and mesh it into with his righteousness. No, we have two distinct natures
in our own body. And they are constantly at war
with one another. Constantly at struggle against
one another. The flesh against the spirit.
And the spirit lusteth against the flesh. And these two are
what? Contrary one to the other. So that you could not do what
you wanted. What do you want to do? I want
to praise the Lord. I do. I want to praise God. I want to give thanks to God
for His tender mercy. And yet, there is an element
in me that's constantly at war against that. Something in me that's always
wanting to go in the opposite direction that I want to go. It is the old nature. And every believer in Christ
can identify with this. Every believer in Christ can
identify with this. If you don't have a struggle,
if there's no struggle, you've got one nature, the old. But we as believers, we have
a struggle in this body. I am my own worst enemy. We are believers in Christ. As
we grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, we become aware
of two great things. I like that hymn. It says, Two
wonders, I confess. Christ redeeming love and my
own worthlessness. Those two things I see more of
today than I've ever seen before. We become more aware of the wretched
man that we are. Paul said, I find within myself
a principle, a law, that when I would do good, evil is present
with me. He said, that which I would do,
I don't. And that I don't want to do,
that's what I do. Oh, wretched man that I am, not
that I was, not that I'm going to be, that I am right now. Oh,
wretched man, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Oh yes, I thank God through Jesus Christ. Yeah, I remember. I remember. There is therefore
now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Do you struggle with that? You
struggle with your sin, and then the Spirit of God comes and applies
the Word again to our hearts, and what happens? Woo! We feel
great! Wonderful! The burden is gone. This is the experience of every
believer. And this is the experience of
our psalmist here. in Psalm 106. He says, praise
the Lord. Give thanks unto the Lord for
His mercy. Who can utter such things about
what He's done for us? Who can utter such acts? Who
can show forth His praise? Am I ever going to be finished
with this praising? No, I can't. I won't find an
end to it. Blessed are they that keep judgment
and that doeth righteousness. Who is that? Let blessed be the
Lord Jesus Christ who is righteous at all times. Blessed be Jesus,
my righteousness. And then notice what he says.
Remember me, O Lord, with the favor that You bear to Your people. O, visit me with Thy salvation,
that I may see the good of Thy chosen, that I may rejoice in
the gladness of Thy nation, that I may glory in Thine inheritance. He just said, That God is merciful
and His mercy endures forever. And he said, oh yeah, remember
me! Struggle. The back and forth
struggle. Oh yeah, He's glorious. His mercy
endures. Oh yes, remember me. Wretched
man that I am. Remember me. This is our confession. We who
want to praise the Lord, praise Him by our confession. Remember
me. Remember me. The psalmist said in another
place, restore the joy of my salvation. How quickly does our
joy fade? When God gives us such great,
overwhelming love for him, to praise him, what happens? It fades, doesn't it? So what do we do? Lord, remember
me. Restore to me the joy of my salvation. Our sin robs us
of the joy of God's salvation. Our sins blind us to the goodness
of God. What must we do when our sins
obscure God's grace. Verse 6, we have sinned with
our fathers. Believers in Jesus Christ must
confess our sins. We have sinned. Now, the psalmist says, That
we have sinned with our fathers and done wickedly. In other words,
he is saying there is no difference between me and your people of
old. There is no difference between
us and that nation of Israel that sinned against God. They
were they not a type? Yes, they were a type of you
and me. And their sin is no different
from ours. He said, we have sinned. We live in a blame shifting world,
don't we? When something happens, somebody
has to be blamed somewhere. I mean, it could be an accident. You could accidentally, somebody
comes in and he robs you, okay? And he gets caught. What does
he do? He immediately says, well, it was my parents' fault. They
didn't raise me right. He says it's society's fault. They didn't give me any money,
so I had to go rob and steal. The drug addicts, they say, ah,
it's the drug's fault. Now, nobody put the drug in their
hand. Nobody put the gun in that other man's hand. They did it.
Yet we live in a society that loves to blame. Why? Because
that's our nature. Don't think of them as some kind
of exclusive sinners as though they're the only ones that blame
others, because we blame others. Isn't that what our father, Adam,
did? He blamed God. He said, the woman thou gavest
me. He blamed God. And our sin is no different.
Do we murmur? Do we complain against God's
providence? What are we saying? It's God's
fault. We blame God for our sins. We're no different than Israel.
We try to put the blame on God instead of confessing that we
ourselves are sinners. We should say, Lord, I have sinned. Have mercy on me. Lord, remember me and restore
the joy of my salvation, that I may give you praise and thanksgiving. This should be our hearts cry
as we praise our God, as we seek to give thanks unto our God. Do you desire to praise the Lord? Is that your heart's desire?
Is that why we come here? I confess my own sin. I confess
my own inability to give Him the praise that He's worthy of.
This morning, right now, in this place, I am completely unworthy
to give Him such praise as He deserves. I seem incapable of
giving Him such praise as He deserves. Lord, give me that. I confess that all the sin is
mine and all the praise belongs to You. And when we confess our sin,
what are we confessing? Look what the psalmist here is
confessing. Look who he's lumping himself
in with. Okay? I know we like to lump
ourselves in maybe with a better crowd, you know. We say, well,
we're sinners, but we're a better class of loser. A better class
of sinner. No, there's no such thing. The sins of Israel are our sins. So the psalmist is going to recount
for us the history of Israel to demonstrate his sin and the
mercy of God towards his people. First of all, notice this, Israel
was enslaved. In verse 7, he said, Our fathers
understood not thy wonders in Egypt. They remembered not the
multitude of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea, even
at the Red Sea. As Israel was a picture of us,
even so were we enslaved. Believer, remember where we came
from. Don't ever forget where you came from. As Israel was enslaved by Egypt,
that was a type of our enslavement to sin. Our bondage, we were
held captive by our sins and by Satan. But God. But God, who is rich in mercy. delivered His people from Egypt,
how? By blood and by water. By blood and by water. Remember
the Passover Lamb. It was by the blood of the Passover
Lamb that Israel was set free. Even so, we were set free, delivered,
redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. We were redeemed by the blood
of Christ from captivity of sin because Jesus Christ has forever
removed our sins from us. And we were redeemed by water.
You remember at the Red Sea, the people of Israel were delivered
by blood, but what happened to them and their experience? They
came to the Red Sea, and on this side was the mountains. Back behind them was Pharaoh
and his army. In front of them was the Red
Sea. They were trapped. They were redeemed, but they
were trapped. Were we not trapped by the mountains
of our sin? Did not our enemy and our lust
pursue after us to accuse us before God? To destroy us? Were we not entrapped by the
justice and wrath of Almighty God? Were we not in a place of
helplessness? Have you experienced that? Have
you been there where you've been trapped and helpless before God? I have. Trapped by the infinite
depths of God's justice, we were guilty and had nothing to pay,
worthy of justice and eternal wrath. And what did God say to
us? We'll be in that condition. What
did God say to us? Same thing he said to Israel.
Go forth. Go forward. God says, go forward. I will
divide the sea and you shall walk through on dry ground. This
is the experience of every believer because Jesus Christ has made
a way through the sea of God's wrath. He's made a way through
it, not around it. He's made a way through the law.
Go to Isaiah chapter 51, Isaiah chapter 51. In verse one, he tells us this,
he said, hearken unto me, you that follow after righteousness,
you that seek the Lord, look unto the rock whence you are
hewn and to the hole of the pit where you were digged. Remember,
I told you to look to Christ and look from where you came
from. Now then, go down to verse 9. It says, Awake, awake, put on
strength, O arm of the Lord, awake, as in the ancient days,
in the generations of old. Art thou not he that had cut
Rahab and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried
the sea? The waters of the great deep
that have made the depths of the sea away for the ransom to
pass over. Jesus Christ have made a way
through the sea of God's wrath. He's made a path by enduring
the wrath of God in our place. Jesus alone has made a path. And what did we do? By faith
we go forward, following His path. We go by faith, following
His blood and righteousness, believing on Him, trusting Him. Jesus, by His righteousness,
made a way through the law. In Galatians 2.19 it says, for
through the law, I am dead to the law. Now, that's good news. It's good news because I didn't
skirt the law. God is not going to come back
on me and demand twice payment because Jesus Christ did it right
the first time. He did it through the law. And
as they walked through the sea, even so, we walked through the
law. And the law cannot touch us because
Christ has already obeyed the law and already put away our
sins. And you remember what happened
to those who pursued the nation of Israel? What happened to Pharaoh?
He was destroyed when he tried to come after the people of Israel.
And so is our enemy. So is our sins. I like this in
our text. Go back to your text in Psalm
106. Look at what happened in verse
10. He said, And he saved them from
the hand of them that hated them and redeemed them from the hand
of their enemy. And the waters covered their
enemies. There was not one of them left. Friends, if we are
believers in Christ, there is not one sin that has been unpaid. There is not one sin left for
us to pay. Jesus paid it all. He paid it all. All of our sins have been washed
away by the blood of Christ. All of our sins have been put
away, and we walk through on dry ground, safe, never to be
touched by the wrath of God. Then believed they His words
and sang His praises. Isn't that what we do? When that
thought comes, when that comes to us, what He's done for us,
surely our hearts want to sing. Just like Moses and all the people
of Israel, when they got to the other side, those bodies were
washed up and they saw it. Every one of them were washed
up on the shore. They were happy. And when I see that all my sins
are gone, I'm happy. I rejoice. But notice how miserable and
wretched we are. Look at the next one. They soon
forgot. His words. How soon will you leave this
place and forget what you've heard? How soon will I leave this pulpit
and forget what I said? We are prone to forget God's
work. for us. Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love. We are prone to forget his works,
to soon forget what great things he's done for us. How many trials
and troubles has the Lord delivered you from? And then, sure as He
is delivered, we rejoice for a time, and then soon we just
forget. We get into trouble again. And
what are we doing? We're fearing. We're in great
need. Our faith is weak. Our sin is great. And we forget what God has already
done for us. We forget that He has given us
His greatest gift. And murmur because He hasn't
given us what we thought was good for us. When Israel went
to the wilderness, they thought, they counseled together and thought
that God should give them quail. That manna wasn't good enough.
I've got to have quail. Verse 14, but lusted exceedingly
in the wilderness and tempted God in the desert, he gave them
their request. Be careful what you ask for. God just might give it to you. And in giving them their lust,
what happened to their soul? He sent leanness into their soul. It seems when the church prospers, God's people soon forget God. I know we don't think we're prosperous,
but if any of us doubted that we were going to eat today, is any of us really starving?
and hungry for bread? No. God has been great to prosper
us, and yet what is the response of prosperity? It is to forget
God. We must be careful to seek to praise and honor and
worship God. Lean not to your own understanding,
but in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy
path." Wait on God. Wait on God. Don't run before
Him. To run before God is a fool's errand. Be faithful in the things that
God has given you. Don't want for more than you
have. May God keep us from murmuring
and complaining about our circumstance. And let us bow down and worship
our God and give Him thanks. for our circumstance, lest we forget what great things
God has done for us. Will God forget you? You bet
He won't. Will He forget your needs? In the preceding Psalm of Psalm
103, It says, For he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that
we are dust. As for man, his days are as a
grass, as the flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind
passeth over, and it's gone, and the place thereof shall know
it no more. We just mowed the grass here
yesterday. Did anybody remember that blade of grass out there
in the middle? You know, the third one from
the tree? Did anybody know it was gone? Well, that's what's
going to happen to us when we die. No one's even going to know
we're here. It won't be long, we're gone. How much do we really count? Zero. Some of us have a little
bit more zeros than others. You put a whole string of zeros
together and what do you got? Zero. But the mercy of the Lord is
from everlasting to everlasting. There's my hope. There's my joy. That's what gives me any value
at all is his mercy. And His mercy is not short, it's
eternal. Many, O Lord, are thy wonderful
works which thou hast done, and thy faults to us were. They cannot
be reckoned up in order. There's not enough numbers to
count how many times God thinks of us. Is that not thrilling? I tell you what, there's nobody
in this world I think of more than myself. But God's thoughts of me are
even more than my thoughts of me. That's wonderful. I've not taken the time to count
my own hairs. Have you? And yet He knows every
one of them. May God give us hearts and minds
to set our eyes and affections on Jesus Christ that we forget
not our God. Remember that we have these two
natures. Remember where we came from.
Remember that we were enslaved. Remember how that Christ freed
us. How that by His blood He redeemed us. How that He went
through the justice of God and was crushed by the justice of
God. And our sins were washed away by His blood. Remember that. Confess your sins, that all you
are and all you do is sin. There is nothing you can add
to His righteousness, that He is our only hope, that only by
His mercy we can be redeemed. Only by His mercy we can be saved. God keep us from forgetting Him. And the last thing I want to
mention is this, God, keep us from compromise. Go down to verse. Go down to verse 30. Thirty four. They did not destroy the nations
concerning whom the Lord commanded them. but were mingled among
the heathen and learned their works. And they served their
idols, which were a snare unto them." God told the Israelites to destroy
those nations that the land was theirs. And what did they do? They said, well, let's not destroy
all of them. Let's keep some of these people
so they can serve us. I got an idea. Why don't we just
put a tax on these people so they can pay us so we can we
can get some money out of this? Some of those Canaanites were
pretty strong people. They were afraid to let to go
in and kill them. The Lord Jesus Christ commands
us who are believers in Christ to mortify the deeds of this
body, not put our sins to tribute, not put our sins to serve us,
but to cut them off completely. What happens if we are not vigilant
in service and obedience to God to put away the sins of this
flesh? Look what happened to Israel.
They mingled among the heathen and learned their works. In other
words, if we do not put off this flesh, It's not going to be long before
we're mingling in with the rest of the world, and you're not
going to be able to tell the difference between a believer and a non-believer. You're going to mingle in. You're
going to mesh in. And you're going to learn how
they worship. You're going to see how they worship. You're
going to follow after them. And they serve their idols, which
were a snare unto them. And notice this, yea, they sacrifice
their sons and their daughters unto devils. Well, pastor, I'm
never going to sacrifice my children to devils. That's exactly what you do when
you compromise the gospel. You do not realize this, but
your faithfulness is seen by everyone around you. To compromise the worship of
God is to sacrifice our children to the devil. is to put an example in front
of them that is not right. And believe me, they'll
follow the bad ones and not the good ones. Believers in Christ, we are all
prone to this. And if we're not aware of it,
if we think, no, not us, surely not me, most likely it's going
to be us. It'll be me. I have no confidence in this
flesh. Do you? I am capable of any sin. May God keep us from what we're
capable of doing. May God keep us under the sound
of the gospel so that we are reminded again and again where
we came from and whose we are. Then we may praise and give thanks
for the mercy of God. We praise Him by confessing who
we are and confessing that without Him, we're nothing. I pray that God bless us to our
hearts. Keep close, hold fast to Christ, and shun the flesh. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer. J.D., would you dismiss us?