Psalm 118, the title of the message tonight,
Sin Now, Prosperity. We live in a very prosperous
time. We live in the richest country I believe that has ever existed. Yet people have never been less
happy and less content. They're just discontent. And
the reason for this is that man is like the sea. It's never full. He can never
be full. His wants can never be fulfilled.
Since the fall of Adam, Man's lost the way to God, the
truth of God, the knowledge of God, he's lost God. He lost spiritual
life. And the only one who can really
satisfy the soul is the one who made it, God. And as long as
he's missing, There will never be any satisfaction, any real
happiness, any real joy, any real contentment. There won't
be any. He can't be that way. Solomon said, man is like the
horse leech. He said, the horse leech has
two daughters. They cry, give, give. He said, he's like the
grave. He's never full. And the sea,
that is never full. That's the way man is. That's
what Solomon says in Proverbs 30, 15, and 16. But the prosperity spoken of
here is completely different than that of the world and false
religion. You see, they count prosperity
as material gain. They think that they are blessed
because they have abundance. Those who die without Christ,
and they die with abundance, all that abundance, is going
to be a curse. It's going to be a curse. Every person outside of Christ
that stands in judgment will have to give account for every
penny that's gone through their hands, because it's God's. The earth is the Lord's, the
fullness thereof, and they who dwell therein. There is nothing
on this earth that's not His. He said, the gold is mine. The
cattle on a thousand hills are mine. If I was hungry, he said,
I wouldn't tell you because the cattle on a thousand hills are
mine. It's not a thousand cattle on a hill, but it's a thousand
hills. All the cattle on them are mine.
It all is. False religion and the world,
they count gain in a monetary way. and it can never satisfy
them. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes
5.10, he who loves silver shall never be satisfied with silver.
It can't satisfy you. I was telling a young person
this here not too long ago. They were talking about making
money. Talking about one thing. Here's what the education this
person wants, is whatever it takes to make a lot of money.
And I said, that will not make you happy. You know what the
word of God says? The rich man's riches won't let
him sleep. He's worried about the stock
market falling. You know, when the stock market crashed, was
it 1926 back then? At that time, people jumped out
of windows. People lost all their stuff.
They jumped out of those windows, but no poor people jumped out
of them. They didn't jump out. They don't even have any windows
to jump out of. They're on ground level. When you're on ground level,
you can go out and win. It ain't gonna hurt you. But
when you climb to the top and you jump out, and the Lord takes
it all and you jump out, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. But what the church, as well
as believers individually, want and need is soul prosperity. Spiritual prosperity. That's
what I want. I want this for me. I want this
for you. I was talking to Todd Nyberg
yesterday, and I said, as I've gotten older and being a pastor
here, I said, my greatest desire is that we could let everything
go and that we could grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ.
And the Lord Jesus Christ is absolutely everything. He's everything
to us. I mean, we have got about this
much longer, and we're going to be gone. We're going to leave
this earth. And not one thing's going with
us. As I told a very wealthy man here not too long ago, I
said, the second you die, you're penniless. And the only thing
that I have when I die is what I have in Jesus Christ. And that's
the true riches. Those are the riches that I can't
lose. and they are spiritual riches. So with that in mind, let's look
at this. He says here in verse 25, Save now, I beseech Thee,
O Lord, O Lord, I beseech Thee. Send now prosperity. This is the cry. You know, after
I studied this, when you first look at it, you don't realize
it's saying what it's saying. But this is the cry of the people
wishing their king the best. As he comes in, he said, "...open
to me the gates of righteousness, and I'll go in." Last week. Well,
here the people are wishing their king the best. It's like saying,
God saved the king. That's what it's like saying. And this was probably spoken
when David was made king. But this applies to the Lord
Jesus Christ when He entered Jerusalem. This is a Messianic
psalm here. It says in Matthew 21 and verse
25 and 26, they go together here, because it's quoted in Matthew
21.9, And the multitudes that went before and that followed
cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! The word save now, there in that
verse, verse 25, the word save now in Hebrew means Hosanna. That's what it means. It means
Hosanna. And this is the cry of the church that King Jesus,
our King, I love calling Him our King, I thank God I am under
the theocracy of the Lord Jesus Christ. I can watch the news
and not get overly tore up, although I rarely watch it, but I don't
want to ruin my day. But I know this, I know that
my King, our King, the King of heaven and earth, is ruling and
governing all nations right now for the eternal purpose that
was purposed of God before the world began. I know that. I know
that. And the church cries that King
Jesus would go forth and empower now and save sinners throughout
this whole world. Oh, wouldn't you like to see
that? You know the one thing that would fix the world's problem?
If the Lord sent the gospel and saved them. What if God saved
the leaders of this country and China and Russia? What if He
saved those leaders? What if He did that? But I tell
you what, now, there is a people He's going to save. There's a
people He's going to save. If we pray that His saving power
go through the earth and He would save sinners, sinners like me
and you, that His saving power will be
known in all nations. Wouldn't it be something that
if the saving power of Christ went into North Korea? Wouldn't
that be something? We wouldn't have to worry about
nuclear problems. Oh, not if he saves, not if he
saves. But he came to save and he's
going to, and we pray that he would save. Now. Now. It's like Isaiah 53.10, listen. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
and offer him for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hand." That's what we pray for, don't we? We pray that the pleasure
of the Lord will prosper in his hand right now. And you know
what? Right now it is. The pleasure
of the Lord is prospering in the hand of Christ right now.
Exactly everything God purposed and willed is being accomplished
right now. Every bit of it. But we also pray this. We also
pray that He would save us now. Lord, save me. Save me. Save me from my sin. Save me from the power of sin.
Save me from the power of darkness, the power of Satan. Save me daily.
Save me daily. Now. Now, I need daily saved,
you know. I need the Lord to deliver me
daily from all the evils that's against us, against me, against
you who believe the gospel. And I know this, I know this,
that our prosperity all hinges on the prosperity of Christ.
It all hinges on this. Did he get the job done? When
he came into this world and he cried, it's finished, is it finished? Or is it my faith that finishes
it? My faith finishes nothing. When he cried, it's finished,
it's finished because of the one who finished it. The Lord
Jesus Christ, the God of heaven and earth. And it's finished. And because he, listen, when
he came into this world, And He accomplished bringing in an everlasting righteousness
by His obedience and by His death. He accomplished that. He accomplished
putting an end to sin. Sin is not going to reign. He
said sin will not reign over you. That sin nature will not
reign over you. It has been dethroned. He has taken away the power of
Satan. He's taken away the power of death. And now that it's all
in His hands, it's all been turned over to Him, He has the power
and the authority to send prosperity. And when we truly pray, and you
notice He says here, we beseech, we beg, we beg you. We are beggars. Cecil Roach used
to say, and I know you all don't know him, but he was at 13th
Street, he used to call us mercy beggars. We're just mercy beggars,
that's all we are. But we beg the Lord, we beseech
Him in begging for spiritual prosperity. First, we pray for the prosperity
of the Lord's Church all over this world. Not just here. I pray the Lord would prosper
this spiritually. Not numbers. I'm not looking
for numbers. You know, it would thrill my soul if the Lord filled
this house up with believers. Not goats. Believers. Sheep. It would thrill my soul
if He would fill this place up with sheep. And I do pray. I
pray often about that. I do. That He would bring sheep out
there into the fold if they're out there. But my responsibility
is to feed the sheep that are here. And I pray that there are
some yet that will come into the fold. But we pray first for
the prosperity of His church, that she would be strengthened
and she would grow. She would grow in faith. That
she would be strengthened in the Lord. It's like saying, Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I pray Thy kingdom come. The
kingdom of men is always going to be evil. That kingdom is always
an evil kingdom. It's never going to change. But
the kingdom of Christ is a righteous kingdom. It's made up of a holy
people. It's made up of a righteous people
made that way in Christ. And we pray, Thy kingdom come,
for the prosperity of His kingdom. And as believers, listen, as
believers, we need individually soul prosperity. We need that
individually. We pray it for His church, universal. We pray it for the church, local.
And we pray it individually. I need soul prosperity. Do you?
That's what I need. I don't need more money. I don't
need more money. You're not going to hear too
many preachers say that. I don't need more money. I don't
need more material things. I need spiritual prosperity. I want to grow in the things
that brings me closer to the Lord Jesus Christ, to walk with
Him. Now what does that mean? What
does that look like? Well, first of all, I believe
it's this. It is growth In grace and in the knowledge of Christ.
This is where it begins. It's growth in grace and in knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what I want so much for
me and you. And a large part of that responsibility is on
my shoulders, standing here each week. It's for us to grow in
Christ and in knowledge of Him. Grow in His grace and in knowledge
of Him. And then it's to grow in the fruit of the Spirit. It's
to grow in the fruit of the Spirit. I don't think we think as much
about this as we ought to. I know we probably don't pray
about it as much as we ought to. But in Galatians 5, 22 and
23, we have the fruit of the Spirit listed. And the first one is this, love. That's the first one. It starts
with love and all the rest follow. You see, these are the things
we can grow in. I'm not going to grow in the doctrine of election.
It is what it is. I'm not going to grow in the
doctrine of particular redemption. These are pillars of the church.
They are Bible. They are sound. They are scriptural. But I tell you this, election
is election. Particular redemption is particular
redemption. And we preach it as it is. But I can grow in love. I can love you more than I do.
I can love Jesus Christ more than I do. And it's embarrassing
I don't. He loves us with a fervent love.
I mean a white hot love. You ever seen metal that has
been melted? I mean it's white hot. Just white
hot. The love that our Lord has for
us is an undying love. It's an eternal love. I have
loved you with an everlasting love. It is divine love. There's no sin in it. There's
no sin in it. And we can grow in this. You
know, the Word of God tells us that there are three graces,
faith, hope, and love. Faith is going to give way to
sight. Hope is going to give way to reality. Love is going
to grow and grow and grow for eternity. We haven't even began
to scratch the surface of what love really is. Having loved
his own, he loved them to the end. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. And then joy, the second fruit. Joy. You know, the believer is a paradox. He mourns over his sin, he or
she mourns over their sins, and at the same time, they have real
joy in the Lord. We have sorrow, but yet we rejoice. And we can grow in this joy in
the Lord by knowing more and more of Him. Take my yoke upon
you and learn of me. That's how your joy increases.
That's how your love increases. It increases as your knowledge
and understanding, spiritual knowledge and understanding of
Christ increases. You cannot exhaust knowing Christ.
He's the wisdom of God. And then peace. So, I tell you,
these psychiatric offices are full of people trying to find
peace. They are. I mean, I feel for
them. They're trying to find peace,
peace of conscience. Sometimes they're so guilt-ridden.
They take medicine to numb the conscience. But to have real
peace with God, To have real peace of conscience. And the
only thing that will quiet a guilty conscience is the blood of Christ.
He's the only one. We have real peace with God in
Christ. We have been reconciled to God.
Get a hold of that. Get a hold of it. It'll give
you peace that He has reconciled us. I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything to reconcile
myself to God. He did it. He reconciled us to
God. Now the scripture said, now be
you reconciled to God. That means just lay down your
shotgun. Just lay down your shotgun and be reconciled to God. And
then long-suffering. Patience with others. Patience. When others are going through
trial, be patient with them. Not very mature if they're babes
in Christ? Be patient with them. I'm so thankful Henry was so
patient with me. I look back now, some of the
stupid things that I would say. Patient. Patient. And patient
under trial without complaining. I don't want to be like Israel
of old and murmur every time you turn around. Every time they
turned around and said, I wish we were back in Egypt. but to be patient under trials
in such a way that God is glorified. And then gentleness. This is
your demeanor. You have a gentle, not a rough,
overbearing personality, but gentleness. And be known for
this. Be known for this. Be known for
kindness and gentleness. And goodness. Goodness. Genuinely good to others because
God's good to you. The Lord has said He's good and
doeth good. He doeth good. This is your character. You know, this is being like
your Father which is in heaven. He's good, isn't He? He's good. His sun shines on the just and
the unjust every day. And then faith. Faith in the
Lord, listen, at all times. There is never a time, ever,
ever, ever, ever, ever a time when we should ever have a glimmer
of doubt about our Lord, His faithfulness, His promises. Hold
on to those promises. He'll fulfill His promises. Faith in the Lord at all times
and in all situations. He said, I'll bring you out.
Just sit down and wait. Just wait on Him. He'll bring
you out. Just wait on Him. Wait on the
Lord, I say. That's what David said. Wait
on the Lord. Wait, I say, on the Lord. And then meekness. That's true humility. Meekness
is not weakness. We know that. If it was, Jesus
Christ would be the weakest person to ever live because He was meek. He was the embodiment of meekness. He's the embodiment of everything
I'm reading to you here. It's not just something he had,
he was the embodiment of it. See, grace and truth came by
him, he's the embodiment of grace and truth. And temperance, moderation, self-control,
that's what that means, self-control. This is the prosperity we need
the Lord to send us and to enable us to grow in. We can grow in
every one of these things. We can grow in it. And then it says in verse 26,
"...Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We have
blessed you out of the house of the Lord. Blessed be our King."
That's what we say. "...Blessed be our King who came
in the name of the Lord." Everything our Lord did. Everything the
Lord Jesus Christ did, He did in the name of the capital L-O-R-D,
Jehovah. Jehovah the Father, Jehovah the
Son, Jehovah the Holy Spirit. Three distinct persons, but one
God. Three distinct persons in the
Godhead, but He didn't do anything in His name. He came in the name
of the Father. Listen to John 5.43, I have come
in my Father's name. He didn't come in His own name,
He came in His Father's name. Everything he did, he did in
the name of his Father. He said, I am come in my Father's name
and you receive me not. If another shall come in his
own name, him you will receive. But I come in my Father's name.
He came in his Father's name and not his own name. He came
to do his will, not his own will. Not that his will was any different,
but he's letting us know that what he's doing is the will of
the Father. It's the will of the Father. He came as a servant. It did not embarrass Him to serve.
He came to serve. If you remember John Mark, you
remember Paul Barmas had a falling out over John Mark, you know
what that was over? He didn't like to serve. Christ came as
a servant. He took a towel and washed the
disciples' feet and dried them. Behold My servant, Isaiah 42. Behold My servant. He came as
a servant. He said, I came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister. He came to minister. He came
on a mission. He came with the orders of heaven.
Isn't that something? He came with the orders of heaven
to redeem a people, a multitude of sinners no man could number.
He came to do it and He did it. He came to honor the Father,
He came to honor the law, He came to honor it and make it
honorable, to magnify the law and make it honorable. That's
what He came to do. And He did it. He did it. And He came with a full consent,
the full consent of the Godhead. He came with a full consent. And because of that, because
of that, blessed, is He that cometh in the name of the Lord
Jehovah, the self-existent One. And we have blessed you out of
the house of the Lord. This is what the priest said,
At that time, the priest would respond back, the people said,
blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord, and the
priest would say, the priest would bless the people and the
deliverer, in this situation, the king. The priest would bless
the Levites. They would pronounce a blessing. Are we not kings and priests
under God? Are we not made kings and priests under God? Is this not the church blessing
our Lord, our Savior? Listen to Psalm 103, verse 1.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that's within me, bless His
holy name. Are we not here tonight to bless the Lord? Are we not
here to say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord?
And you know what? Blessed is He that's coming again.
in the name of the Lord. He's coming again. For 4,000
years, the Old Testament kept saying, someone's coming, someone's
coming, and He came. Well, it's been 2,000 years,
and the New Testament says He's coming again. And I tell you
what, just like when He came the last time, it's going to
happen like that. He came and they didn't even
recognize Him. But now the church will, the
church will. But now listen, in verse 27.
Who is the Lord? He kept saying, Blessed is he
that cometh in the name of the Lord. Who is the Lord? God. God is the Lord. God is Jehovah. As I said, God is Jehovah, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is the Lord which
has showed us light, bound the sacrifice with cords, even unto
the horns of the altar. He's saying here that God is
Jehovah, the self-existing one, the only living and true God.
You know, there are many gods worshipped throughout this world. There's many gods. They've got
them whittled out and stuck on shelves. They've got them hanging
around their necks. They've got gods everywhere. Everywhere. But there's only one. There's
only one living God, and He's revealed in the pages of this
book. You would think that we would bury ourselves in this
book to know God. You'd think we would literally
bury ourselves and we would saturate ourselves in knowing Him. And
what a blessing and a pleasure it'd be to know Him, the peace
and the comfort it would come from knowing Him. And yet we
don't read it nearly, not even close as we ought to. Not even
close. But God is the Lord. And I want us to realize and
understand that the understanding that we have has been given to
us by God. It's not because we're overly
intelligent here. That has nothing to do with it. That has nothing to do with it.
God has given us light. Isn't that something? I think,
what's there, 210,000 people in Fayetteville? And not counting
the counties and all this around here, I mean all these different
towns in the county and stuff, all these around here. And God
has a handful of people that He's given light to. He's given
light. Understanding. You understand
who God is. You understand who God is. Isaiah 9-2 The people that walked
in darkness have seen a great light. They've walked in ignorance,
spiritual ignorance, darkness, sin, false religion. And they that dwell in the land
of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined."
Well, one day, one day, I mean, get a hold of this. One day,
the God of heaven and earth, God that can't even be grasped, picked you out before the world
began, but it was a time and a day that He commanded the light
of the gospel to shine in your heart. You. You. You weren't
looking for it. But God commanded the light to
shine in your heart. The light of the
Gospel, the light of Christ. And it's in His light that we
know how God can be just and justify us. We know how God can
save us from our sins through the Lord Jesus Christ. We know.
We know. We know that salvation is of
the Lord. It's not a cooperative effort. It's not a cooperative
effort. It's God saving sinners. God
save me. God saved me, and He didn't ask
me if He could. And all that we know savingly,
we know by the light that He's given us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Listen to these two scriptures in John 8, 12. Then spake Jesus
again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. He that
followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the
light of life. You have the light of life. You're not walking in
darkness. You get up in the morning, you're walking in the light.
You go outside, it's night out there, it's dark out there, but
you're still walking in the light. His light. 2 Corinthians 4, 6,
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath
shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God commanded
that light one day to shine in your hearts. He translated you out of the
kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son. And
then He says here, because of this, because of this, bind the
sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar. You see,
this speaks of binding the lamb to the horns of the altar to
be slain. But the spiritual meaning is
this, because we don't offer the blood of bulls and goats.
We don't do that. That's over with. But listen,
I'll read to you Romans 12.1, and I'll wind this down. He says, bind the sacrifice with
cords, even to the horns of the altar. Paul says in Romans 12,
1, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service. We, as well as everything we
have, is completely committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. He owns us lock, stock, and barrel.
It's all His. Your bank account is His. Whatever
you have, whatever I have, it's His. It's His. This body I have is His. The earth we live on, it's His.
This is the reason why we take care of it. You know, I was telling
somebody once, the reason not to litter is because it's God's
earth. That's why. You wouldn't go throw
that on your parents' yard, would you? Well, this is God's earth. It's His. And the cords we are
bound with to Christ are faith, hope, and love by His Spirit. Binding with the cords, we are
bound to Him through faith, hope, and love. and by His Spirit. And Thou art my God, this is
personal, he's getting personal here, Thou art my God, I will
praise Thee. Thou art my God, I will exalt
Thee. Who's your God? Who's your God? Everybody's got
one. Everyone has one. The One spoken
of in this chapter is the Mighty God, the Sovereign God, the God
of salvation, And I know that we can say, there are men and
women here who can say, Thou art my God, Thou art my God. And I'll praise Thee, Thou art
my God, I'll exalt Thee. Publicly, I'll do it. In my home,
I'll do it. In private, I'll do it. The church
is not ashamed of her Lord. You're not ashamed of Christ.
Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Isaiah
54, 4, Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed, neither be thou
confounded, for thou shalt not be put to shame, for thou shalt
forget the shame of thy youth. Aren't you glad that one day
when it's all over, the Scripture says, the former things will
not come into remembrance. I'm so glad when, as David said,
my sins are ever before me. They're not before God, Christ
put them away. But they are before me, but one day they won't be
before me. I'll forget the sins of my youth. And shall not remember the reproach
of thy widowhood any more." And then he ends like he began this
psalm. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He's good, for His
mercy endureth forever. That's been a good psalm, hasn't
it? If I take as long going through
Psalm 119, we'll be here ten years from
now going through it. But that's alright. We're just waiting on
him to come anyway.