Go with me, if you would, to
Psalm 116 again. Psalm 116. Our Lord crossed over the Sea
of Galilee one time into the country of the Gadarenes. And he did that because he purposed
to save one man. Isn't it amazing that the God
would do that, that he would take that journey and cross over,
cross over the sea of Galilee to save one man. But he had one man that he had
purposed to save, and that man was a lunatic. That man, you think about that. He made a special trip for this
one man. This was somebody he loved. This
was somebody that he had known from eternity past, set his love
on and set his affection on. And that man was a lunatic who
was possessed with devils. And he spent his time cutting
himself. He lived in tombs. He was, uh,
he was something. But the Lord came to him and
he put an end to every bit of that. He healed that man. He clothed
that man. He put him in his right mind
and he saved him. The Lord revealed himself to
that man and showed him that Christ was his only hope. showed him that Christ was that
man's health, that man's salvation, that man's redemption. And when it was time for the
Lord to leave, that man cried to him, let me go with you. The
Lord got into the ship and the man was trying to get in the
ship behind him. He said, I want to follow you.
I want to, I want to be with you. And the Lord said to him,
He said, no, I don't want you to follow me right now. I'm very
confident that the Lord assured that man, you're joined to me. You belong to me. I'll never
leave you. I'll never forsake you. But he
told that man, I want you to go back to your family and all
of your friends. And I want you to be a witness
of me. I want you to go witness me.
I want you to tell everybody how great things the Lord has
done for you. What the Lord was saying was,
I want you to go give your testimony. I want you to go give your testimony. That's what a testimony is. It's
telling people how great things the Lord has done for you. That's
what a testimony is. Telling other people how great
things the Lord has done for you. That's what I want to do
tonight. I want to do that for myself and I want to do that
for you. I want to do that for you. We're
going to give our testimony tonight. We don't take turns standing
up in front of each other, giving our testimony. The reason is because the word
of God is our testimony. And I wouldn't even want to do
that. I would not want to stand up and just on a whim, try to
come up with my own words. I would never want to stand up
with my own words when I have God's words. None of us would
God has declared for us how great things he has done for us. So
from his word, I want to give tonight. Every believer's testimony. That's what the title of this
message is. Every believer's testimony. And I want to use
the first line of Psalm 116 for a foundation. This is a starting
point for our testimony. I'm going to read these words
like they are my own. You read these words like they're
your own. Let's see if come the end of this, we can honestly
say in our hearts. Yep. Absolutely. That's my testimony. Those are the words of my heart.
Here's where the testimony begins. Verse one, Psalm 116 verse one,
it says, I love the Lord because this is my testimony. I love
the Lord because I did a search of the scripture for three words. Three words, I was looking specifically
for three words in this exact order, the Lord because. That's the phrase that I searched. I found some verses that say
the Lord because. From all the verses that I looked
up, I found five that I want us to use for our testimony.
And my prayer is that with each one of these, we're gonna be
able to say, amen, amen. I totally agree. This is my testimony. Psalm 116 is one of them, but
I don't wanna start here. I wanna go in the order that
they appear in the scripture. The first one is in 2 Chronicles
7. If you turn with me there to
2 Chronicles 7. And I'll remind us again, the
phrase that brought us here is the Lord because. This is when
Solomon held a dedication for the new temple. They built a
new temple. And when it was finished, they
held a dedication for it. And Solomon prayed on behalf
of all the people And verse four, chapter seven, verse four, it
says, then the King and all the people offered sacrifices before
the Lord and King Solomon offered a sacrifice of 20 and 2,000 oxen.
And just enter into that for one minute, 22,000 oxen and. And hundred and 20,000 sheep,
a hundred and 20,000 sheep. So the King and all the people
dedicated the house of God and the priest waited on their offices.
The Levites also with instruments of music of the Lord, which David,
the King had made to praise the Lord because, and here's our
phrase. The Lord, because why did they
do all that? Why did they praise the Lord?
Why did they offer all those sacrifices and praise the Lord? It's because his mercy endureth
forever. His mercy endureth forever. That tells us what the Lord has
done for us. And that tells us why we love
him. Can we say in our hearts, I love
the Lord, and I wanna encourage us to make this real, this person
to you, this man to you. I love the Lord because His mercy
endureth forever. It endures forever. I am so thankful for the fact
that There's nothing I can do to undo his mercy. Nothing. His mercy will last
forever. I love my Lord. I'm saying this
is my own words. I love my Lord because his mercy
to me will never end. It will never end. He is so merciful. You know, mercy is for those
who need mercy. Mercy is for centers. Mercy is
for a beggar. Mercy is for one who ought to
be punished. Mercy is being spared the punishment
that you're owed because of your actions. That's what mercy is. Mercy is not bringing the law
down on you. When the law says it ought to
be brought down on you. When the law was brought down
on Christ, the only way that mercy can come to a child of
God is if judgment comes to Christ for them. And when the law was
brought down on Christ for the sins of God's people, that is
the moment that every child of God received mercy. And that
mercy is forever. You know, we're sinners, you
know that? We were sinners, we are sinners, and we will be sinners. And His mercy is gonna endure
forever. We're gonna do things that we're
gonna think, ah, haven't I learned by now? What in the world is
wrong with me? His mercy endures forever. We can come to Him, we can approach
a throne of mercy with confidence. That mercy came from God in a
lawful way. Christ was made to be the guilty
one in the place of his people. He was made to be the guilty
one. The amazing thing about God's mercy is Christ didn't
just say, I'll pay the debt. I tell you what, I'll, I'll,
I can handle it. I'll pay the debt. He didn't
just say that. He said, I'll take the guilt. I'll take the shame. I'll take
the sin. I'll take the sin. I'll take
that very sin, that very sin. I'll take it to myself. I will
bear it as my own and I'll stand before the judgment in it. That
was God's mercy to us. There's an old song that says
a ransom was found. Ransom means a payment. Yes,
a ransom was found. Love paid the price on Calvary's
mound. Judgment was met and the law
satisfied and mercy was born when a ransom was found. That's
my favorite line. You want to know where mercy
came from? It was born right there. when a ransom was found, and
because that price paid was just according to judgment, according
to the law, because everything truly is satisfied, everybody's
satisfied, that payment will never have to be made again.
What that means is, That payment for sin, that payment of mercy
will endure forever. That one payment, it'll endure
forever. A believer hears that and honestly,
knowing what he is, knowing what he's done, he hears that and
he thinks, I love him for that. I love the Lord because his mercy
endures forever. That's the first reason. Number
two, Turn with me to Ezra chapter 3, it's a few pages over, it's
page 654 if your Bible's like mine. Ezra chapter 3, Ezra mentions His mercy as well. but he adds something to it.
This story, this account right here is the rebuilding of the
temple after it was destroyed. It was built, destroyed, and
now here's the rebuilding of the temple. Ezra 3 verse 10,
it says, and when the builders laid the foundation of the temple
of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets
And the Levites, the sons of Asaph with symbols to praise
the Lord after the ordinance of David, King of Israel. When I read that, I read that
in, in, uh, Solomon's account. And I read that here and I thought
maybe we should have done that when we poured the slab over
there at our new building, said our instrument players to the
side play and to God be the glory. Great things he done. God is good. God is great. The
Lord is king. Praise God from whom all blessings
flow. They were so thankful and so
happy. That the foundation was being
poured. They were singing. They were
praising verse 11 says, and they sang together by course in praising
and giving thanks unto the Lord because, and there's our phrase,
the Lord, because this is why they were so thankful. This is
why they were praising him. It's because he is good. He is so good. His grace is so good. His favor, His kindness is so
good. To say that He's good is not
just to say that He's one of the good ones. It's not to say
that. It's to say that He is what goodness
is. He is good. Goodness is of Him. Goodness only comes from Him. If we have Him, we have all goodness. If He's with us, all goodness
is with us. And you think about standing
in His presence. One of these days, if we belong
to Him, we're gonna stand in His presence. To stand in His
presence is to stand in the presence of goodness. He is so good. He is so good. To know Him is
to know what good is. I love the Lord because He is
so good. He's just so good. Number three, turn with me to
Psalm 13. Psalm 13, David said, this was
his testimony. This is our testimony. This is
every believer's testimony. Psalm 13 verse six says, I will
sing unto the Lord because, here's the reason why. He hath dealt bountifully with
me. He hath dealt bountifully with
me. Can we not say that all of his dealings with us have been
bountiful? All of his dealings, that word
means full. It means fully. It means to the
fullest. It means to the benefit of. To the benefit of. It means to
bring to ripeness, like fruit that's ripe and ready. It means
to do good too. Can we not say that all of his
dealings with us have been bountiful? All of them, all of them, all
of them, all of them. I mean all of them. They've all
been bountiful. Painful? Yes. Sorrowful? Yes. Trying? Yes. Beneficial? Yes. Good? Yes. Abundant? Yes. Our cup runneth over. Yes. The Lord has dealt so bountifully
with us. It makes me think of that story of George Whitefield.
I've told it so many times. He was from the 1700s and he
was riding to preach on his horse one night in a town that was
a pretty good distance off and it was pouring rain on him and
he was describing his bad attitude. He said, I just had such a bad
attitude. He was wet, he was cold, he was miserable, he was
tired. He said, you know, Lord, I'm
going to preach the gospel. Why, why so much rain? It's just
pouring on him, just rain, rain pouring on him. Why so much rain? And he said he rounded the corner
and a robber jumped out with a flint pistol and fired right
at him. And the robber's pistol would
not go off because the flint was so wet. And George Whitfield
hightailed it out, crying, thank you so much for the rain. All of his dealings with us are
bountiful. All of them. No matter what the
circumstance may be, no matter how hard, no matter how devastating,
no matter how fearful, Just knowing that His mercy endureth forever. What's going to be on the other
side? Mercy. Just knowing that He is only
good. What's going to be on the other
side? Good. Knowing that He only brings about
good for His people. Knowing that. Every believing
child of God can say, I love the Lord because he has dealt
so bountifully with me. He's just dealt. He'd been so
merciful to me. So good to me. And so bountiful
to me. Number four, turn with me to
Psalm 116. Psalm 116 verse one says, I love
the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplications
because he hath inclined his ear unto me. Therefore will I
call upon him as long as I live. Does it not comfort your heart
to know that the Lord hears you when you cry out to him? This is what he said. He said,
you call on me and I'll hear you every time. Every time I'll sit there and
listen to every word that you cry out to me from the depths
of your soul. I will hear you. I will hear
you. What does a child of God cry
out to him? What is a believer's ultimate
cry? I mean the ultimate cry. Verse
three, the sorrows of death compassed me and the pains of hell get
hold upon me. I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of
the Lord. Oh Lord, I beseech thee deliver
my soul. Deliver my soul. He said, I cried
out for deliverance. And he said, he revealed Christ
to me. He heard my voice, He heard my
cry, and He answered me by revealing Christ to me. Verse five, gracious
is the Lord and righteous, yea, our God is merciful. So gracious,
so righteous, so merciful, so merciful. I love the Lord because
His mercy endureth forever. I love the Lord because He is
good. He is good. I love the Lord because He hath
dealt so bountifully with me. 44 years now, He hath dealt so
bountifully with me. I love the Lord because He hath
heard my voice in my supplications. And the last verse with our phrase
in it is 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Come with me over there. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Verse 13, it says, we are bound
to give thanks always to God for you brethren, beloved of
the Lord, because, and there's our phrase. He said, it's because God has
from the beginning chosen you to salvation. through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. Every believing child
of God says, every believing child of God says, why me? Every one of them. There comes
a point when they say, why would God choose me? Why would he set
me apart? That's what sanctification is,
setting apart. Why would he set me out of this
lump, this same wicked, sinful lump? Why would he set me apart? Why would he put faith in me? Why would he do that for me?
No believer takes any credit for the things that God has done.
No believer. The testimony of every believer
is, I did not choose him, he chose me. I did not set myself apart unto
him, he set me apart unto him. I did not produce any faith of
my own to believe on him. He produced his own faith in
me and caused me to believe on him. And because of all that,
I love him. I love Him. There's a holy God
that I cannot please, but Christ did. There's a holy law that I cannot
keep, but Christ did. There's a perfect righteousness
that I cannot earn, but Christ did. There's a convicting record
of sin that I cannot erase, but Christ did. There's a great judgment
that I cannot endure, but Christ did. And there's an eternal death
that I cannot rise from, but Christ did. And because of that,
honestly, I love Him. I love Him. I give thanks to
God for everything that He is, and everything that he's done
for me in Christ. That's our testimony. That's
our testimony. That's every believer's testimony. I love the Lord because. How do I love thee? Let me count
the ways. I was gonna title this. How do
I love thee? Let me count the ways. I chose every believer's
testimony, but that's so, isn't it? Let me count the ways. All
right, Brother Eddie, you come and lead us in a closing.