The center is me. I am truly thankful, sincerely
to be here. I have just enjoyed being here
so much. I enjoyed the fellowship last
night. And so thankful to have officially been able to meet
Brother John and Kathy and all of you. I've heard of you for
so long and it's just been so wonderful to be here. I'm thankful
for the opportunity. I pray the Lord will meet with
us and bless us and allow us to truly rejoice in the fact
that, as our brother just said, How thankful are we every single
day for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. How grateful. What hope it brings to a sinner
in need of a Savior. I'd like for you to turn with
me, if you would, to Psalm 32. Psalm 32, if you look with me
at the last verse, verse 11, it says, Be glad in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord. That's the
title of this message. Be glad in the Lord. Be happy in the Lord. I pray that the Lord will cause
us to be happy. That's what I hope happens today. That's what I hope we leave here
in our hearts. Happiness. Gladness. This whole psalm, this is a beautiful
prayer to God. And this is a beautiful answer
from God. That's what this psalm is. As
we read through this, we'll see it. This is a prayer to Him.
And this is an answer from Him. This is a prayer that every child
of God can pray from the depth of his soul or her soul. And
it begins with this truth right here. This is where our happiness
is going to begin. If you look with me at verse
1, it says, Psalm 32 verse 1 says, blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Does that make anybody glad?
Blessed is he. Blessed is she. That's what could have been cried
as our Lord exited that tomb. Covered. Covered. Forgiven. Blessed. Blessed. So blessed. That's what
I want us to get a hold of. In Christ, we're so blessed.
In the Lord, we're so blessed. People are always talking about
being blessed. They say things like, I have
been so blessed with good health. Or I've been so blessed with
a good job. I have been blessed with a good
home life. A good wife, a good family, good
friends. Just a good inner feeling. Just
blessed, just so, so blessed. Material things and such on and
so forth. Blessed. A very common way of
saying goodbye now is, have a blessed day. And what that means is,
I hope you have a prosperous day. And although I want all of that
for people, I'm not against any of that. I'm really not. None
of those things are the great blessing from God. None of those
things. Although He is the giver of all
of those things, if we do have wonderful health, He gave it
to us. Whatever we have, He gave it
to us. They're blessings that He gives to people. He's the giver of all these things.
What do we have that we haven't received from Him? He's the giver
of it. And they're great blessings.
But none of those things are the great blessing of God Almighty
to His people. None of those things. The great
blessing. The true blessing, the blessing
of God that carries eternal significance is, blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Transgressions are what we do. is what we are. Brother, I enjoyed
that song you just sang about, let's go, come with me and let's
see why Christ died on Calvary. Let's not just see that He died
on Calvary. Everybody knows that He died
on Calvary. The question is, why did He die
on Calvary? Here's the reason why. I had
transgressions that needed to be forgiven. I had sin that needed to be covered. I did. Transgressions are what
we do. Sin is what we are. We commit transgressions because
in the flesh, sin is all that we are. You know, in the garden,
man fell. fell. Our Lord told Adam, in
the day that you eat of that fruit, you'll die. And that translates,
dying, you'll die. And I keep aging, and I keep
getting spots, and I keep getting wrinkles, and I keep getting
sick, and I keep getting all of these things that are causing
me to dying, eventually one of these days I'm going to die.
Why? Sin! Sin. If you want to know if a
person is a sinner, just wait and see if he dies, or she dies. In Adam, all die. Because of
the sin of one man, it was passed on to all men and women, and
the wages of sin is death. In our flesh, because we are
what we are, And because we do what we do, naturally we're cursed. Didn't
our Lord say, cursed is the ground? Cursed is all things? Not blessed, but cursed. We need to be honest before God
right now because we're going to have to be in the day that
He calls us to stand before Him at His judgment throne. Honesty
has to come. Wisdom is bringing that honesty
before Him right now. And if we do, He is causing us
to do that. It's His goodness and mercy that
causes us to have an honest heart before Him But here's the reality. I said we're going to be happy
and we are, but here's the reality. We've got to understand the reality
to understand the happiness. In this sinful flesh, If men
and women were honest and spoke the truth concerning their condition,
if we honestly told people, here's the truth of my condition, we
would have no choice but to say, how are things going? You have
to say, oh, we're so cursed. We're just so cursed. Everything, just so cursed, just
because of everything that we've brought on ourselves. You know,
we want to convince ourselves and convince each other that
we're not as bad as we really are, but all we have to do is
go into the honesty of our own minds. Just go into the honesty
of your own personal mind. Just look at what's in there.
Honestly. Knowing God sees it all. He sees
my mind. He sees my heart. Oh, we're just so before Him.
In His eyes. Not before each other. But in
His eyes, we're so condemned. We're so exposed. We're so convicted. And had God left us alone, we
would have died in our cursed condition. We would have spent
eternity bearing a judgment and a punishment that we could never
fulfill. Do you know why Christ arose
from the grave? I think it's wonderful to have
a day to celebrate His resurrection. Let's have 365 of them every
year. Do we know why Christ arose from
the grave? Here's the reason why. It's because
He fulfilled the condemnation and punishment of God Almighty
on our sin. Outside of the Lord Jesus Christ,
a soul will never rise from eternal condemnation and punishment and
death because man in his sinful flesh does not have the ability
to ever satisfy God. Never. But this man, when he
by himself endured that punishment, took that sin, and paid that
debt, God the Father, can you imagine? Can you imagine what
the Holy God did to my thoughts? These thoughts right here. When
all these thoughts were pulled out of this mind and laid on
the Lord Jesus Christ, all that wickedness out of this heart
right here, all those feelings, and all that was pulled out and
pressed into Him. And oh, He cried. My soul was sorrowful even unto
death. And God Almighty just punished
my thoughts, and He punished my heart, and He punished my
deeds, and He punished sin. Christ bore it all to its fullness
to the point that God the Father said, I am satisfied. That's
a satisfactory judgment. That's a satisfactory punishment
on everything that that man has done. Raise him from the grave. That is why for a sinful soul
before God, which I am, One thing truly constitutes the
great blessing from God. One thing is needful. That is
the forgiving, covering blood of the Lamb of God. For God so
loved, He gave. He gave the great blessing. to all the sinners He chose to
save. Every one of them. His elect,
as you said. All of His people that He gave
to His only begotten Son, Christ. Every time I say this, it amazes
me. When I enter into how much sin is in me, you don't know my sin and I don't
know your sin, but I know that you came from the same Father
I came from, Adam. And when I think about all of
my sin, and I think about all of your sin, and I think about
all of the sin of all of His people from all over this world,
out of every tribe, kindred, nation, tongue, all generations, what a price. What a price. But our Lord, He took it, He
bore it, He wore it, And He made Himself to be cursed for His
people. They were cursed. And He made
Himself to be cursed. The Scripture says, Cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree. What did our Lord do? He came
down to this place and hung on a tree for His people. He made Himself to be exposed
for them. He made Himself to be convicted
for them. He made Himself to be condemned
for them. And he died in our cursed condition. And he fulfilled the fullness
of God's punishment and God's wrath and he put every sin and every transgression and every
spot of iniquity, he put it away forever. Forever. Never to be brought up again. That's a blessed man. Do you
have things that you've done in your past that you hope are
never brought up ever again? Do you have things that you just
hope somebody doesn't find out about will finally fess up on
you for all eternity? They're put
away. They're put away. In all sincerity, like I was
talking about, what the average person sees to be a blessing
from God. I truly do want all of us to
have happy days rather than sad days. I do. I want us to have
enough money rather than not enough money. I want us to have
good home lives rather than bad home lives. And such on and so
forth. But honestly, What difference
do those things really make if our eternal state before God
is forever settled in Heaven? This life is a vapor! Eternity is forever! Verse 1 says, Blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered in the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 2 says, Blessed is the
man unto whom the Lord imputeth. I love that word. I love that word. The word imputeth
means, this is what it means, It means acknowledges the condition
to be. It does not mean make to be that
way. It doesn't mean that. It does not mean apply to. It means assesses the condition
and acknowledges This is the way it is. This is the current
condition. That's what the word impute means.
The Bible Dictionary refers to it this way. If you look it up,
it says the word deals in reality. And it gives an example in the
Bible Dictionary. It says if you impute that your
bank account has $25 in it, then your bank account has $25
in it. Otherwise, you're deceiving yourself. That's what it means, alright?
I impute that this is a stained wood pulpit. I didn't stain it. I didn't build it. I'm not doing
anything to it. I'm just acknowledging the condition
of it. I impute. This is what I say. This is what
it is. Alright? Now, look with me at verse 2
again. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth. Not iniquity. Not iniquity. Not iniquity. Not iniquity. And in whose spirit there is
no God. I just love this verse of Scripture.
Turn with me to Jeremiah 50. Jeremiah 50. I thank God for this verse of
Scripture. So glorious. Jeremiah 50. Look with me at verse 20. In those days and in that time
saith the Lord, saith the Lord, The iniquity of Israel shall
be sought for, and there shall be none." It's
not that they're not going to go, let's turn a blind eye and
just don't look that way anymore. God Almighty said, search it
out, go looking for it, go look for the sin of my people. And
they all come back and report, what did you find? Not iniquity,
no sin, there is none. He goes on to say, "...in the
sins of Judah, and they shall not be found, for I will pardon
them whom I reserve. I elect the ones I've chosen
to redeem. They will be pardoned of all
their sins. Their sins will forever be put
away, never to be found again, because they're gone." They're
gone. Go with me back to Psalm 32. Verse 1 says, Blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the
man unto whom the Lord imputeth, not iniquity, and in whose spirit
there is no guile. Now David says in verse 3, When
I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the
day long. For day and night, thy hand was
heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the
drought of summer. We can hear the voice of our
Lord in that as He was suffering in our stead on the cross of
Calvary. We hear His voice as God Almighty
dealt with Him with a heavy hand. But the voice of David also represents
every child of God who is saying, Lord, I cannot not confess what
I am to You. I cannot hide what I am from
you. I don't want to hide anything
from you. It eats at me. It eats at me. It weighs heavy on me. You know
everything about me. You see me for what I am. That's what he said in Psalm
139. Turn with me over to Psalm 139. Psalm 139 verse 1, it says, O
Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting
and my up-rising. He said, every time I sit down,
you know. Every time I stand up, you know.
Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my
lying down and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is
not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it all
together. Thou hast beset me behind and
before and laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful
for me. It is high, I cannot attain unto
it." Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall
I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou
art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold,
thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall
Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say,
surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light
about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not
from Thee, but the night shineth as the day. The darkness and
the light are both alike." You see everything. You see everything. So verse 23, he said, Search
me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts,
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting. What is the way everlasting?
Jesus Christ. Not me anything. Not my wall. It's Jesus Christ. Lead me to Christ. Lead me in
Christ. He's saying, Lord, we have nothing
to hide from You. Never would we want to hide anything
from You. We want You to search out all
of our sin and redeem us from every last
speck of it. Lord, redeem us from all our
transgressions. Don't let one go unpaid. Isn't that our cry? Don't let
one go unpaid. Purge every last thing. Please
don't leave one spot on me. Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Lord, please wash me. Don't leave one spot on me. Go with me back to Psalm 32. Verse 5 says, I acknowledge my
sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said I will
confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest
the iniquity of my sin. That deserves the Silah that
David put right there. A pause. Let's just pause on
that for a minute. That's a moment to dwell on that
and just let it sink in. Verse 5, I acknowledge my sin
unto thee, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess
my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity
of my sin. He said, I didn't do anything
to redeem myself. I didn't bring anything of any
value or any worth to you. I didn't earn anything. I didn't
deserve anything. I just confessed what I was. That's all I did. And I said, whatever you choose
to do with me, you're good and you're right in it. You're justified in whatever
you're pleased to do. And he said right here, lo and
behold, this is what he was pleased to do. He forgave me of all my
sins. Lord, this is what I am. I'm
just a sinner before You. And I'm at Your mercy. And You
do with me whatever You do with me because You're just and right
and holy and good. I'm not, but You are. And I'm
begging for mercy in the blood that You gave of Your own will
and heart and purpose and desire. Please cover me in the blood.
David said, lo and behold, He forgave all my sins. Don't you
love the story of that leper who came to the Lord Jesus Christ
saying, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. Can't you
see the countenance on our Lord's faces? He said, I will. I sure
will. Be Thou clean. That's amazing. It's just amazing
grace. Verse 6 says, for this, shall
everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest
be found. If you are a sinner in need of
mercy, like I am a sinner in need of mercy, if we are sinners
in need of a Savior, let's seek the Lord while He may be found. How do we seek Him? Well, he
said, I'm sought of them that ask not for me. I'm found of
them that sought me not. I said, behold me. If we have
a heart to seek Him, that's Him drawing us, calling us, saying,
behold me. David said, when you said, seek
my face, my heart cried, thy face, Lord, will I see. If we
have a heart to seek the Savior of sinners, let's seek Him right
now while He may be found. Let's call upon Him right now
while He is near. That Scripture says, let the
wicked forsake his way. Well, here's what I think I need
to straighten up and fly right and do good and post the Ten
Commandments everywhere I look. Let the wicked forsake his way.
And let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts, and let him return
unto the Lord, and He'll have mercy upon him. And let him turn
to our God, He will abundantly pardon. Verse 6, For this shall
everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest
be found. Surely in the floods of great
waters they shall not come nigh unto him. The temporary floods
of this world not only may come, but they will come. They will. But the eternal floods of damnation,
eternal damnation will never come near to a soul that Christ
has redeemed from His sin. Never. Those temporary floods,
they will hit us and hit us. You'll take one step forward
and ten steps back. And you're going to think, when
is this sin-filled life ever going to end? But the eternal
floods of damnation, the eternal floods of condemnation for all
of this sin, it will never overflow a soul that has been plunged
in the blood of Jesus Christ. Verse 7 says, Thou art my hiding
place. I love the song, I'm sure you
all have heard the song, Hail Sovereign Love. Do you know that
song, Hail Sovereign Love? The lyrics say, Hail Sovereign
Love that first began the scheme to rescue fallen man. Hail matchless,
free, eternal grace that gave my soul a hiding place. Against
the God who rules the sky, I fought with hand uplifted high, despised
the mention of His grace, too proud to seek a hiding place.
But thus the eternal counsel ran, Almighty love, arrest that
man." In spite of me. A few more rolling
suns at most shall land me safe on Canaan's coast, and there
I shall sing the song of grace to Jesus Christ, my hiding place."
Verse 7 says, "...thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve
me from trouble." That eternal trouble. Thou shalt compass me
about with songs of deliverance." That's what we're going to sing
throughout all eternity. That's our song right now, isn't
it? It's always going to be songs
of deliverance, songs of glory and honor to Christ our King
and our God and our Ruler and our Sovereign and our Lord. Christ
our King. Now that right there in Psalm
32, that was David's prayer to God. And I'm wrapping up here. But this is God's answer to David. If you look with me at verse
8, he said, I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which
thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye. This is what he said right there.
I will, I will, you shall. I will instruct thee and teach
thee in My Word, through the preaching of My Word. I will
instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go."
Which way should a child of God go? Whichever way Christ is going. Wherever He goes, that's where
we go. He is wherever His people are. That's where we are. We follow
Him. He said in verse 8, I will guide
you with my all-seeing eye. Verse 9, Be ye not as the horse
or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must
be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.
He said don't resist, come willingly. All of God's people do. Verse
10, he said, many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that
trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Mercy through
the gift of Christ. Forgiveness through His blood.
Forgiveness and mercy. I want to tell you something
that happened to me. I tell everybody I can this because
this is just precious. It's just precious. But there's
a dear brother there in Kingsport and he started coming probably
close to four years ago now. And the Lord has enabled us to
have a little program on television on Sunday mornings and he started
watching that program. He showed up one Sunday night
and I pulled up there to the church building and he was already
sitting there and I was in my car and he got out of his car
and he was looking in my car like, you know, and so I got
out and when he saw me he started laughing and he came up and shook
my hand and he said, you don't know me, I know that, but you're
like seeing an old friend. And he said, I need to talk to
you. And he said, I think you have some answers for me. And
I said, well, I don't know. I'll try to point you to the
Word. But anyway, this dear brother, especially initially, but even
still, this dear brother, here's his problem. He's a sinner. And he knows it. That's his problem. And he is so worried over what
God is going to do to him because of his sin. He is so worried
about his past sin that he has lived all of his life. This man
is right at 70 years old. And he's worried about the sins
that he can't stop committing right now. And he doesn't trust
himself to stop sinning In the future. He's just a sinner and
he's so worried about his sin. And he's coming constantly in
the beginning, especially, what must I do? What do I need to
do? And I told him, Danny, you look to the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ which covers our sin. One Sunday morning, he came
to me before we have like this, a Bible study and then a morning
message. And he came to me before the Bible study and he grabbed
me by the arm and pulled me into my office. And he was just, you
know, the sin in his heart and in his mind and in his dreams
at night. I'm just full of sin. And I said,
Danny, here's what I want you to do. You pray to God in your
heart and you cry out to Him and you beg Him for mercy. You
just beg Him for mercy. in the blood that Christ shed
to cover your sin. And he said, mercy, okay. Mercy,
beg Him for mercy to cover my sin, okay. So we went and had
our Bible study. Thirty minutes later, he grabs
me by the arm, we're done. He grabs me by the arm, he pulls
me into my office again in just a more serious than a heart attack. He looked me right in the eye
and he said, how much mercy does God have for me? And I said, Danny, it's infinite. It'll never run dry. It starts
over brand new every single morning. There's enough mercy to cover
all of your sin and all of my sin for all of eternity. And
this precious man started belly laughing. I mean, he was laughing
so hard and so loud, standing there in my office, people out
there. He just started laughing, he had hold of my hand, just
laughing. He said, that's the greatest
news I've ever heard in my life. I said, me too. Me too. That's the greatest news I've
ever heard in my life. Verse 10 says, Many sorrows shall
be to the wicked, but they that trust in the Lord, mercy shall
compass them about. Mercy. Piles and heaps of mercy. So verse 11 says, Be glad in
the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,
ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart."
Be glad in the Lord. Even if life on this earth doesn't
reflect what most people see as a blessed life, even if our
lives don't look like that, even if we can't say, well, I've been
blessed with health, and we can't say, I've been blessed with all
these things, A sin-forgiven child of God can and will be
happy in the Lord Jesus Christ, happy in the Savior who came
and bled and died to put away all his sin. May the Lord create
happiness in our hearts for that. Brother John, thank you for having
me. Thank you. It's been a privilege being here.
The Lord be with you.