Turn with me, if you would, back
to Psalm 103. A portion of this psalm was quoted
at my grandmother's funeral. And it blessed me so much when
I heard it, just thinking about the peace of it and the rest
of it and the satisfaction of it. As soon as I heard it, I immediately
knew I would want to look at it with you tonight immediately.
Let's begin in verse one, Psalm 103 verse one. It says, bless the Lord. Oh my soul. And all that is within me, bless
His holy name. Don't you want to do that? Don't
you want to just slowly, sometimes I write in my notes, slowly. When I say read this, slowly,
bless the Lord. Oh my soul. And all that is within
me, bless His holy name. Don't you want the cares of this
world to leave, the thoughts of this life to go away? Don't
you want your soul, don't you want your mind to stop everything
else to get out of the way? And don't you want your soul
to just bless the Lord? All that is within me, bless
His holy name. Hannah and I had the great privilege,
it truly was a great privilege to go out to California and be
with brethren. We were in rescue two weekends
ago. And we were in San Diego last
Wednesday night. And we ended up, because of my
grandmother's funeral, we ended up being in Alexandria, Louisiana
last Sunday. That's three different congregations
of brethren. And with each one, every time
that I left these congregation of dear, dear brethren, I felt
so blessed. Each one of them for different
reasons caused me to feel blessed. I felt, um, I felt blessed for
this congregation. Those congregations made me blessed
for this congregation. But I was blessed in meeting
them. I had never met anybody in Rescue
California. And I had only met a couple of
the brethren in San Diego. I was just blessed to meet with
them. I was blessed to worship with them. Truly worship with
them. I told them, and I mean this,
I sincerely wished that all of you could have come with me.
I want to encourage all of you to go to California. I know that's
far, but go anywhere. Visit our brethren. Go visit
your family. It is a blessing. It is honestly
a blessing. Next time you hear a conference
come up, go. Go visit your brethren. It is such a blessing. We were
out there, we were able to worship together, truly worship together. And it's men and women I'd never
met before. But it was very clear to me that
they loved Christ. They loved Christ, not just election
and limited atonement. And they loved Jesus Christ. And that's all I need to know.
As soon as I find out somebody absolutely loves and is consumed
with and taken with Jesus Christ, that's it. We're one body. We're
one heart. We're one mind. We're one soul. In one spirit, worshiping one
Lord. And that's what happened. And
I was blessed. I was just so blessed. And it
was a moment where I was sincerely reminded of the blessing that
it is to be allowed. And that's the thing that keeps
coming back to me. Being allowed in any way to be
a part of the Lord's ministry. What a blessing, what a blessing
just to be a believer, just to be a believer and to gather together
with other believers and knowing that the Lord has provided that
for us. He has done that. We have that
here. I thank the Lord for each one
of you. I thank the Lord for bringing me here. I thank the
Lord for bringing you here. I thank the Lord for giving them
a place of worship and a body, a congregation of brethren to
worship with. And I thank the Lord for giving
that to us here. We have a place where we can
gather together as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ, and
we can worship him. We can come into this house and
gather in his name. and worship Him, and what a privilege. Entering into that makes me sincerely
say, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless
His holy name. Our souls have been graciously
caused, graciously allowed to bless the Lord, and what a blessing. What a blessing. We get to bless
the Lord. We get to bless the Lord, not
just with the mind, not just with the tongue, but with the
soul, our eternal souls. Whether we have tongues or not. Now, I went back and forth on
whether or not to tell you this, only because I don't want to
single out this brother, but Hannah and I met a brother who
just stole our hearts. Honestly, that's the best way
I know to say it. He stole our hearts. This precious,
precious brother, I hope he comes here. I know everybody's not
going to go out there. I'm going to beg him, would you come see
us? I want you to meet this precious man. He, I'm not going to give you
the whole story, but he loves the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
got cancer in his tongue and they had to cut his tongue out.
And it's hard to understand him, but you can. It's very difficult
for him to talk, but you know, you get it. And this is what
he said. He said, I thank God for taking
my tongue. He said, all I ever did was curse
him with it. But now I get to bless him with
everything he's left me. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. All that is within me, all that's
not within me, Bless the Lord. Oh my soul all
that is within us What a privilege and that's what this man was
saying. He made me That's what we say He caused me he made me he allowed
me to bless his holy name Bless His holy name. That's what we do. We bless His
holy name. Isn't that what God's people
do? While that name is just a byword, people just roll it off. They
use it as a curse word. That name just rolls and rolls.
God's people bless His holy name. Holy, holy, holy. We've been allowed to bless Him
for His holiness. Everything that we have comes
from Him. Every blessing, every benefit, and we're about to look
at some of them. But first and foremost, we collectively
bless him for his holiness. We do, we bless him for his holiness. It was his holiness that caused
Christ to come to us. It was his holy justice that
demanded a payment for our sin. It was his holy name that brought
the payment for that sin. And what is that Holy Name? What
shall we call Him? The Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Emmanuel, God with us, our Lord
and our God. Verse 1 says, Bless the Lord,
O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name. Verse
two says, bless the Lord. Oh my soul. And forget not all
his benefits. Now this is what was quoted and
this is what blessed me. And this is what I want to emphasize
all his benefits. all His eternal benefits, the
benefits that bring eternal hope to a sinner. When it's time for
a sinner to leave this world, our hope is that God will give
us a hope. We want to leave this world with
a hope before God. And our hope is in all His benefits. That's where our hope is. Five
of them are listed right here. And in Christ, in the Lord whom
we bless, in His holy name, a man or a woman can leave this world
and can enter into glory, clinging, blessedly clinging to the promise
of these benefits. David said in verse two, Bless
the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all His benefits. Don't forget
them. Don't forget them. That's why
this is our text tonight. I don't want us to forget them.
Let's not forget them. For our assurance and our comfort
and our hope, let's not forget all the benefits that we have
given to us in Christ, of Him, through Him, to Him. The benefits
of our blessed assurance. This is assurance. I want to
read this to you. Sunday morning, my father preached
down in, um, Alexandria, but brother Milton Howard, who pastors
there, he was leading the singing and, um, he led the song, blessed
assurance. And before he led that song,
he, um, told this story right here. And this is, and this is
good in 1880 during the war. in the Transvaal of South Africa,
which is a province of South Africa. It's called the Transvaal,
1880. It says that the soldiers that
were going to the front, going into the battle, going to the
front of the battle, when they would pass another body of soldiers,
another company of soldiers, they would greet them, 494 boys,
494. The return greeting would be
six further on boys, six further on. The meaning was in their
little hymn book that had been sent to the front, they had a
song book. Number 494 was God be with you
till we meet again. And six further on, 494 plus
six is 500. Hymn number 500 was blessed assurance,
the Lord Jesus is mine. They would go into that battle
and pass a group of soldiers and say, God be with you till
we meet again, boys. And they would reply, our blessed
assurance in going into the front of this battle is the Lord Jesus
Christ is ours. And that's so, isn't it? That's
every child of God. No matter what comes in this
life, that's our hope. That's our assurance. That's
literally all I have. That's all I have. It's not holy
living. It's not being a good person.
It's not any of that stuff. All I have is the Lord Jesus
Christ is mine. That's my assurance. That's all
I have. Bless the Lord. Oh my soul, no
matter what comes, don't forget his benefits. So David is talking
to himself here. Oh my soul. And that's what we
say to ourselves. Don't forget his benefits. If
you want assurance and comfort and hope, don't forget his benefits. Five of them are listed right
here. And God's people can cling to every one of these with all
their might, all right? The first one is in verse three. It says, who forgiveth all thine iniquities. I love that. Listen to the definition
of the word iniquities. It means perversities. It means depravity. It means
guilt. Who forgives all your guilt?
Who forgives all your perverseness? It means evil immorality. You want to describe us by nature?
Evil immorality. Oh, David said, soul, bless the
Lord. He has forgiven all your evil
immorality. How? How did he do that? In his
own blood. He offered to God. When he offered
that blood to God on our behalf, All of our iniquities, all of our perverseness, all
of our immorality, all of it was forgiven. Amazing. You want assurance? There it
is. What a benefit. If that was not
the word that the Holy Spirit of God used, I wouldn't use that
word, but that's the word there. That's what it is, it's a benefit.
What a benefit, that's a benefit of having the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's something a sinner can leave this world clinging to,
really. All right, here's the second
benefit. The end of verse three says,
who healeth all thy diseases. all thy diseases. That's what
he does. That's a benefit of having the Lord Jesus Christ.
He heals all our diseases. Turn with me over to Isaiah 33. Isaiah 33 the heading at the
top of my page Says Privileges of the godly the privileges the
benefits The benefits the privileges of those who have been placed
in Christ the godly and In this chapter, he's talking about their
eternal state in glory. He's talking about eternity verse
17 says Thine eyes shall see the king
in his beauty. They shall behold the land that
is very far off. Verse 20 says, look upon Zion,
the city of our solemnities, our solemn worship, our solemn
things. Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem,
a quiet habitation, A tabernacle that shall not be taken down,
not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither
shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious
Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams,
wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship
pass thereby. For the Lord is our judge, the
Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king, he will save us. Now look at verse 24, it says,
and the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick, which is, that's
exactly what we say right now. I am sick, I am filled with a
loathsome disease, I'm just so sick. He said, the inhabitant
shall not say I am sick. The people that dwell therein
shall be forgiven their inequity, their iniquities, their infirmities. They're all going to be removed
from them. They're all going to be lifted
off of them. They're all gonna be carried
away forever. That's coming. That really is coming. Our Lord
has done that for us. He has secured that for us. And
that relief is coming. And it's all because the scripture
says, He took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses. He relieved
them of us. He relieved us of them. by bearing
him himself. And one day real soon, we're
gonna know the experience of that. We're going, that's what
a great benefit of the Lord. What a benefit, what a thing
to look forward to. My grandmother, who many of you
knew, she had scoliosis and she was bent in half. And you saw
her a few years ago. She hadn't been here in about
three years or so. She got much worse. She had congestive heart failure. She had stage five kidney failure. And who knows what else? Her
body just shut down. Who knows what else she had going
on? But on Thursday, April the 14th, at 3.32 p.m., I received
a text and my family received a text from my dad that said,
Granny is perfectly well. The Lord took her home about
10 minutes ago. And at that moment, 10 minutes
before, 322, you know what happened? Honestly, at that moment, you
know what happened? She was healed of all her diseases, all her
infirmities. This is real. This is real. All of the diseases that her
sin had brought on her, at that moment, the Lord lifted her up and she stood upright with not one failure in her body,
no failures. And she was like Jesus Christ.
She was spotless. She was pure. She was holy. This
is real. Never again will she, she's alive
and well. She's alive and well. Never again will she say, I am
sick. Never again. Not spiritually,
not physically. Never again. Go with me back
to Psalm 103, here's the third benefit. Verse 4 says, who redeemeth thy
life from destruction. This body will lay down, but
our lives will not be destroyed. He said, whoever lives and believes
in me will never die, never. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. He redeemed us from the curse
of the law being made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed
is everyone that hangs on a tree." He redeemed our life from destruction. What a benefit. eternal destruction. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. Bless the Lord. I will sing of
my Redeemer and his wondrous love to me on the cruel cross
he suffered from the curse to set me free. He redeemed my life
from destruction. Benefit number four. The end of verse four says, who
crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. We may not
be crowned with anything down here on this earth. I wouldn't
get my hopes up. I wouldn't put my hope in being
crowned anything. But honestly, think about this. The Lord said, our Lord said,
in glory, all of my people. going to be crowned as he is,
so are we. They're going to be crowned with
love. They're going to be crowned with grace. They're going to
be crowned with mercy. They're going to be crowned with
Christ. He's our head. We're all going
to say, put the crown on our head. You put the crown on my
head. They're going to be crowned,
crowned with the Lord Jesus Christ because of Him, the benefit of
the love of God. What a benefit of having Christ.
We have the love of God, the love of God Almighty, the benefit
of the grace of God, the benefit of the mercy of God under the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. All because of Christ, that benefit
is going to come to all of God's people. They are going to be
crowned with loving kindness and tender mercies. The love
of God is found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
if we're in Him, we're in the benefit of God's love. The mercy
of God and the grace of God, it's all found in the person
of Christ. And if we're in Him, we're in
the benefit of His mercy and grace. Bless the Lord. It's all about the Lord. Bless
the Lord, O my soul. Verse three says, who forgiveth
all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth
thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving kindness
and tender mercies. And the last one, verse five,
who satisfieth thy mouth with good. The word things is in italics. Who satisfieth thy mouth with
good, So that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. He has satisfied
our mouth with good. He has fed us. He has and he
will. Satisfied our mouth with good. Christ, none good but God, Christ. He satisfied us with Christ. He satisfied us with his innocence,
his purity, his pleasantness, his righteousness, as verse six
goes on to say, the Lord executes righteousness. Every good and
perfect thing that we need to stand before God, our Lord and
our Savior has satisfied us with it. Forgiveness. healing, redemption,
grace, mercy, goodness. In Him, our youth is renewed
like the eagles. That's what's coming. That's
the benefit of being in the love, and favor, and blood, and mercy,
and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our youth is going to be renewed
like the eagles. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
all that is within me. Bless His holy name. Let's all
stand together.