Good evening, everybody. Turn
with me, if you would, to Psalm 85. Psalm 85. Monday was a little
bit of a special day. Brother Angus Fisher was still
here with us and he needed to do some studying. He was continuing on, traveling
to other places. He would still be preaching and
he needed to do some studying and so did I. So we both came
over here to the church and studied together. And I thought it was
just such a special day. I let him have my desk. And I
took my standing desk contraption into Lauren and Tracy's classroom. And that's where I studied. And
he studied in my office. And we would talk back and forth. And it was just a special day. And, uh, I looked at some different
things, but, um, just before the end of the day, when everybody
came for our work evening, I saw some 85 and something stood out
to me about every verse in this song. And I showed it to brother
Angus. As soon as I read this, I said,
look at this. And after he read it there with
me and his accent, he said, oh, if you just preach that, there's
your message right there, Gabe. And I agree with him. And I just want to preach that.
Our brother just read it to us. And I just want to preach that
tonight. Let me first show you what stood
out to me about each verse. I read through this and they
just popped out on the page, all right? Verse 1 says, Look
at the middle of the verse after that colon there. Verse 2 says, Thou hast. Look at the middle
of the verse. Thou hast. Verse three says,
Thou hast. The middle of the verse says,
Thou hast. Verse four says, Turn us. You turn us. The middle of that verse says,
cause thine, you cause. Verse five says, wilt thou? The middle of that verse says,
wilt thou? Verse six says, Wilt thou, the
middle of that one says, that thy. Verse seven says, show us, you
show us. The middle of that verse says,
grant us, you grant us. Verse 8 says, I will hear. The middle of it says, for or
because he will speak. I will hear because he will speak. Verse 9 says, surely his salvation. It's his salvation. Verse 10 says, Christ, Christ,
Christ, Christ. Mercy, that's Christ. That is
only found in Christ. If we're looking for mercy, there's
only one place to find it, in Christ. Truth, that's Christ. There's only one place to find
it, in Christ. That's only found in Christ. Righteousness, THAT'S CHRIST! THAT IS ONLY FOUND IN CHRIST! PEACE? THAT'S CHRIST! THAT IS ONLY FOUND IN CHRIST!
THAT IS ONLY FOUND! IF ANYBODY WANTS PEACE, IF YOU'RE
IN TURMOIL OVER ANYTHING AND YOU NEED PEACE, THERE'S ONLY
ONE PLACE TO FIND IT! IT'S IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!
Verse 11 says, shall spring out. The middle of it says, righteousness
shall look down. Verse 12 says, the Lord shall
give. The middle of it says, and our
land shall yield. The Lord will give, we will yield. Verse 13 says, righteousness
shall go before him. and shall set us in the way of
His steps." This is the sovereign word of a sovereign God. That's the first thing that stood
out to me when I read this. God is sovereign and this is
the acknowledgement of His sovereignty. That's what this is, the whole
thing. is the acknowledgement of His
sovereignty. We hold here the sovereign word
of the sovereign God, who sovereignly does all things. Sovereignly, He does all things.
Thou hast, thou hast, thou hast, thou hast, whatever it is. Thou
hast, whatever has been, thou hast, wilt thou? This is an acknowledgement
of sovereignty. Will you, wilt thou? It's you, it's all you. You will and we shall. That's the acknowledgement. You
will and we shall. This is the sovereign declaration
of our sovereign God. That's the first thing that struck
me. The sovereign word of our sovereign God. And the second
thing that struck me was the glory and the beauty of the sovereign
word of our sovereign God. This is sovereign. Every word
of it is sovereign. And what struck me was the glory
and the beauty of the sovereign word of our sovereign God. Everything about this is matter
of fact, all of it. It is absolute. And let's just take note of the
glory and the beauty of this absolute matter-of-fact declaration
concerning our God and His dealings with His people. So look with
me at verse 1 again. It says, In the first three verses, He
lists six things that the Lord has already done for His people. Already. Hast is past tense. Six things the Lord has already
done for His people, alright? Verse 1 says, Lord, Thou hast
been favorable unto Thy land. Your possession. Lord, you have
already been favorable. You've already been favorable.
You have already been gracious. You have already been well pleased. That's what the word means. You're
already well pleased. Does that strike anybody? You're already well pleased. How do we know that he has already
been favorable? How do we know that? What did
he do to show us that? Verse one goes on to say, thou
hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. That's how we know
he has already brought back the captivity of Jacob. Who is Jacob? Jacob is you and me. Every time
we see Jacob, put your name there. Put my name there. Jacob is the
sinner. That is you and me. What was
Jacob captive to? What are we captive to? Our sins. Our sins. We are so captive to
them. We're so captive to them. We're
just so bound to them. We can't get away from them.
I was preaching one time a few years ago on the Gadarean man
who lived in the tombs. He was a lunatic and they tried
to bind him with chains and he couldn't be bound. He kept breaking
the chains. They couldn't bind him. A brother
came up to me afterward and he said, that Gadarean man, that's
me. He said, I try as hard as I can
to bind my mind with chains, bind the sin of my mind with
chains. He said, I break them every time.
He said, I try so hard to bind my tongue with chains that all
the sin that just flows out of this mouth, I try as hard as
I can to bind it and I break them every time. He said, that's
me. We are all by nature captive
to sin. But listen to the sovereign word
of our sovereign God. He says, in Christ, you are not
anymore. In your flesh, yes, you are,
but in Christ, no more. In Christ, I have already brought
you out of your captivity. You are already brought out of
your captivity. Verse one says, thou hast been
favorable unto thy land. Thou hast brought back the captivity
of Jacob. Verse two says, thou hast forgiven
the iniquity of thy people. Thank God for the word hast.
That's what I titled this message. Thank God for the word hast. He said, you have already been
forgiven all of your iniquity. You've
already forgiven all the iniquity of your people. Already forgiven. It made me think of Peter. The
end of Luke, didn't write it down. It's either
Luke 13 to Luke 14 or John 13 to John 14 or somewhere in the
Bible. The end, the very end of a chapter
says, the Lord told Peter in all of his pride and all of his
arrogance, they may leave you, but not me. I'm strong and I'm
faithful and I'm your follower and I'm your friend and I'm your
disciple and I'm with you to the end. And the Lord said, Peter,
before the rooster crows in the morning, you are going to deny
me and curse me and leave me three times. Alright, that's
the end of that chapter and then the next chapter begins. The
first words are, let not your heart be troubled. You believe
in God, you believe in me. I've already forgiven all your
iniquity. You haven't even finished it yet. You still have iniquity
to come. Let not your heart betray." Is
that not just wonderful? You have already forgiven all
the iniquity of your people. Already. I haven't even finished
it yet. Already forgiven. Already delivered. How did he do that? HOW COULD
A SOVEREIGN HOLY GOD WHO MUST DO RIGHT AND MUST JUDGE RIGHTLY,
HOW COULD A GOD LIKE THAT JUST FORGIVE THE INIQUITY OF HIS PEOPLE? LOOK AT THE END OF VERSE 2. THOU
HAST COVERED ALL THEIR SIN. YOU COVERED ALL THEIR SIN. HE
WAS FAVORABLE. and brought his people out of
their captivity and forgave all their iniquity. And he did that
by pouring blood all over their sin. He just poured blood all
over their sin. Verse three says, thou has taken
away all thy wrath. How did He do that? How can a
holy God who hates iniquity and hates sin and hates sinners and
hates workers of iniquity and must punish sin, how can He take
away all of His wrath? How did He do that? He did that
by pouring blood all over their sin, covering the whole thing
in blood. Blood is the answer. Not my works,
it's blood. Blood is redemption. Not my turning
over a new leaf and doing right and starting to act like a good
Christian. Blood is the answer. Blood is the appeasement. What
blood? The blood of bulls and goats?
Any blood? No. The blood of one particular lamb. One particular lamb. All throughout
the ages, those Israelites got a lamb, got a lamb, got a lamb. They all had a lamb. Generations,
you better get a lamb. Go get you a lamb. Your house
needs a lamb. Everybody go grab a lamb. One
particular lamb. The blood from one particular
lamb covered all the sins of all of God's people. It's amazing. That's amazing. The spotless
Holy Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Through Christ, the
end of verse three says, thou has turned thyself from the fierceness
of thine anger. You turned your own fierceness. God was angry with the wicked
every day and he turned his own fierceness by supplying his own
appeasement. He appeased himself. So verse 4 says, turn us, you
turned yourself, so turn us. Turn us, don't you
deeply desire that as you see the way that you go in the sin
you still live in, this sinful flesh you still live in. based
on what He has promised and said in His Word. Don't you desire,
Lord, turn me, turn me, change me, stop me. Turn us, O God of our salvation. I love that line. You are the
God of our salvation. You're the author of it, the
finisher of it, the ruler of it, the security of it. You say
when, where, how, You are the God of our salvation,
therefore we're looking to You. We're hoping in You. Our prayer
is that because of everything that Thou hast already done, Your anger toward us will cease.
Verse 4 says, Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause Thine
anger toward us to cease. Verse five says, will thou be
angry with us forever? We deserve it. We deserve it. We constantly provoke our Lord. We do everything worthy of bringing
his anger on us. You know that we do. We just
constantly provoke him. We deserve it so desperately. We desperately deserve it. Even after we know of His salvation,
we know what He's done for us. We know what He's secured for
us. We hear the promise of His Word. We believe it. We still
do it. We still provoke Him. We still
have to say, O wretched man that I am. Verse 5 says, Wilt thou be angry
with us forever? Wilt thou draw out thine anger
to all generations? Wilt thou not revive us again
that thy people may rejoice in thee? Oh, Lord, will you please
revive us again that we may rejoice in thee? Let me just tell you
something. I have preached for a minute.
Let me just tell you something now. It's not an illustration, but
let me just tell you something. Here's our prayers. He said he
did. And we believe him. And he said,
if you pray a good thing in my name, I'll give it to you. You
know, a lot of times we pray for such flippant things and
such selfish things, such things that are not good and not in
his name. But I will tell you this, I want
to encourage every person here to actually pray. There are some
things that we do remember to pray for. We pray for our children
all the time. We pray that the Lord would meet
with us as we do this all the time. There are things we remember
to pray. And I want to encourage every person here to actively
remember and incorporate in your sincere from the heart prayer
to him, Lord, would you revive me again to rejoice in you? That's a good prayer. That is
a very good prayer, because you know how cold we are, you know
how dead we are, starting with the preacher. And it all trickles
down from there. And I just want to strongly encourage
everyone here, if the Lord has called us to Christ, if he has
opened our eyes and opened our ears, and if we have seen and
if we've heard the truth, everybody here, if he has called us, everybody
here can remember the rejoicing. Everybody here does. that great
rejoicing of hearing the gospel of our salvation for the first
time. I'm not saying that you know the moment you were saved,
but I'm saying you know the moment that the Lord started making
it effectual to your heart and the moment you fell in love with
it, the moment you fell in love with Christ, the first time freedom
entered your hearts. The first time deliverance through
the cross of our Savior entered your hearts and the first time
the truth the honest truth of what that blood did. I remember,
I've told you this so many times, but I only grew up under the
preaching of the gospel. I have never not believed in
election, or limited atonement, or irresistible grace, or perseverance
of the saints, or total depravity. I've never not believed in that.
But I remember there came a moment in my life when the Lord started
opening these things to my heart, and I started living on them.
And I needed them. And my soul rejoiced. I understood
what that blood did for me. And I had joy. And you know,
salvation is not an experience, but I had joy. I did. And thankfully I do. But I'm telling you, there was
a point in my life when I had tears of joy. I couldn't hear
the gospel preached without welling up inside. And I mean, I used
to hear people, I'd go to conferences and things and hear people just
laughing in the service and think, did somebody just tell a joke?
I didn't, but they're just so happy and just fellowship. And when the Lord first started really
revealing this to me, I lived for service to service. I did. I couldn't wait. I spent
my week. I could not wait for Sunday and
Wednesday to roll around. And I just want to encourage
all of us here, cry out to the Lord. He can do this. He can light a fire. He can start
the work in me, send a revival, start the work in me. He can
send His Spirit. He can cause our heart I would
rather your heart burn within you by the Holy Spirit than not
burn at all and just be starting with the preacher. I would rather
my heart burn within me as I preach the word to you than go through
the motions of the five points and then walk out and we say
that was all correct. I'm just saying, let's all sincerely
beg the Lord to revive us. Send a revival. I'm not talking
about, you know, people just come running from all over the
place. If he does that, that's great too. I'm talking about
right inside here. Lord, send a revival that I may
rejoice in you. Oh, how sad it is when we God's
people get to a place that we cannot come into His house and
hear the glory of what His precious, infinitely valuable blood that
was completely poured out of His body for the wretched, decaying,
I don't even know how to describe it, of our sin. We hear about
the glory of what He has. We can't enter into how low we
were and how high He has brought us. Lord, revive my heart. Revive
me. I've been here almost 10 years.
10 years from now, let me be more revived than I am today. 20 years from now, You know,
one day in glory, we're gonna have the spirit without measure.
We're gonna have the spirit without measure. And the Lord can start
that here. Lord, please revive my heart,
my soul, my mind in the gospel of Christ and let me rejoice
in it again. Let's all ask that. Verse six,
will thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in
thee? Show us thy mercy. We've seen
it. Show us again. Let me not know
about it, only know about it. Show it to me. Let me see it.
Let me see your mercy. Give me eyes of faith to see
mercy and just thank God for mercy. The end of verse seven says,
Grant us thy salvation. Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and
grant us thy salvation. Let us see it. Let us have it.
Let us hold it with the hands of our heart. Don't let us just
know about it. Grant it to us. Give it to us. Freely give it to us. Verse eight,
I will hear what God the Lord will speak. FOR HE WILL SPEAK
PEACE UNTO HIS PEOPLE AND TO HIS SAINTS, BUT LET THEM NOT
TURN AGAIN TO FOLLY. I LOVE THAT. I LOVE THAT SO MUCH. THAT MENTIONS HIM AND US. VERSE
8 SAYS, I WILL HEAR WHAT GOD THE LORD WILL SPEAK, FOR HE WILL
SPEAK PEACE UNTO HIS PEOPLE AND TO HIS SAINTS, BUT LET THEM NOT
TURN AGAIN TO FOLLY. PEACE, FOLLY. FOLLY, PEACE. Why do you rejoice in that so
much? How do you even make sense of those two things being put
together? It's because of this right here.
1 John 2 verse 1 says, My little children, these things write
I unto you that you sin not. No more folly. These things write
I unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. That's
His peace. Even in spite of our folly, that's
his peace. He'll speak peace. Verse nine
says, surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him. That first word is surely. I was going to write something
in these notes and it wasn't what I'm about to say and I didn't
write it and I changed it because of the word surely. All of the
sudden I saw the word surely. I was about to give you a maybe. And now I'm gonna give you a
surely, only because it says surely. Based on God's word,
I'm gonna make this statement. Every soul who fears not having
his salvation has it. You don't find that in religion.
Nobody fears not having his salvation in religion. EVERY SOUL WHO TRULY
FEARS LEAVING THIS WORLD OUTSIDE OF CHRIST AND NOT HAVING HIS
SALVATION, THE SALVATION THAT'S ONLY FOUND IN HIM, EVERY SOUL
WHO FEARS THAT HAS IT, SURELY. VERSE 9 SAYS, SURELY HIS SALVATION
IS NIGH THEM THAT FEAR HIM. That glory may dwell in our land. Glory is going to be so full
of glory. Glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ.
Glory is going to be glorious. It's just going to be glorious.
Glorifying our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for who he is and
what he has done. What He did in Himself. Everything
He accomplished for His people in Himself. What did He do in
Himself? What did He accomplish in Himself?
Verse 10. Here's what it is. In Himself,
mercy and truth are met together. That means blood and law. That's
what it means. Mercy is in the blood. Truth
is in the law. That law is true. God's holy and just, good and
right law, blood and law met together right there in Him.
That happened when He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.
The truth of the law said the wages of sin is death. He bore
our sin in His body on the tree and the law said the wages of
sin is death. As soon as the law said that,
mercy in the blood cried, here I am to pay it. Verse 10 says, mercy and truth
are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Righteousness and peace. That means the demand and the
satisfaction of that demand. God demands righteousness. The
demand and the satisfaction of that demand met right there in
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ was the end of
the law for righteousness. And the law's at peace, and God
is at peace, and everyone is at peace. Verse 11 says, Truth
shall spring out of the earth. And he did as a root out of dry
ground. It says in righteousness shall
look down from heaven and thank God he did. God was manifest
in the flesh. Verse 12 says, Yea, the Lord
shall give that which is good. The Lord shall give good. Christ
is good, none good but God. Christ is our God. Because our
heavenly Father loved us, he gave Christ to us. And because
of that, his fruit, the fruit of his vine shall yield her increase. Yea, the Lord shall give that
which is good and our land shall yield her increase. Verse 13
says, righteousness shall go before him and shall set us in
the way of his." Is that not glorious? Righteousness shall
go before him and righteousness shall set us in the way of his
steps. When we're marching to Zion,
we're gonna be marching in righteousness. Every step will be a step of
righteousness. Thank God, lead us in thy way,
O Lord. Let us follow you. Isn't that
our prayer? Just let us follow you. Let us follow you. That's our prayer. Our prayer
to our sovereign God, let us follow you. All right, Brother
Eddie, you come.