It's good to be with you. I was here three years ago, I
believe it was, to stay with Paul. A lot of you probably remember
me from then. I was here two years ago, and
stayed with John. Now I've stayed with John again,
and it's good to see you all. Most of you probably know him.
as he introduced me, Gary Vance, from Davis, Virginia. And today I've chosen in Psalm,
Psalm 71, to speak to you by God's grace. In Psalm 71, this is believed to be a psalm
of David. Most of David's psalms before
the psalm, in the heading, it will have David as the one speaking,
and as the chief musician, it will say this, this, and it didn't
say that, but there's some things in it that declares it to me
to be written by David himself about himself. And then Psalm
71 here in verse 9 and 18 says, Cast me not off into time of
old age, forsake me not when my strength faileth. And it seems
to be David writing it on it. And Psalm 71, 18 says, Now also
when I am old, in great heavy, O God, forsake me not until I
have shown thy strength unto this generation. And in these
Psalms, most of the time, you can refer to Christ quite often
as David, you know, a type of Christ, and also in the lessons
as pointing to Christ. And it can be applied to God's
church, Hank, God's church and to God's people and every believer
that's in a distress. You know, David was in a distress
during his plea, that he was in distress because of his son
Absalom had rose up against him. And he was asking God in prayer
to give him deliverance from this and to help him with this.
And God did this for him, and he turned to praise God on account
of it. So starting in 71, He said, In
thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. So David was looking to the Lord
as only the child of God can. We cannot look to ourselves for
anything, can we? We know who we are in His life.
And we know who He is as our Lord, don't we? And we, by His
grace, submit to Him and bow to Him and call upon Him because
He is our all. He is the Lord and He is our
Lord. He is our Lord. And we don't
trust in ourselves, do we? We put our trust in the Lord
by His grace through faith in Him, which is the gift of God,
don't we? So we look to Him and rest in
Him. And David also repeated this in another song. He said,
in thee do I put my trust. So we don't put our trust in
any creature or anything like that, do we? We put our trust
in God and the promises of His Word toward us, don't we? He
promised His people through His Word. And He will be with His
people. Christ said, I'll go with you
always, always, didn't He? Even to the ends of the earth.
At times, it may seem like that He's not with us right then,
but He is always with us. There's never a time that He's
not with us. And whatever happens to us is by His will, His permissive
will, or by His grace. And it will be for our good,
won't it, in God's glory. So, the Lord, He is Jehovah. He's God over all. God bless
forever. And He's all in Him. We look
to Him and rest in Him. And we can trust only in Him.
That's the only one we can trust in for our souls. We look and rest and trust and
we rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not something
that God forces you to do. God works in your heart. You
gladly bow to Christ, don't you? And rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul said in Philippians
1, being confident of this very thing, that He would have begun
a good work in you, He will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ.
So, that's our confidence in Him by His grace through faith,
ain't it? We look to Him and we're accepted in Him. We don't
know what might happen to us in this flesh, or what even we
might do. We don't know. In time of, you
know, somebody might walk up and slap you, you might even
slap them back, you don't know. Oh, but God keeps a watch over
His children, and those whom Christ is in, He's with them
always, always, even in the eternal glory. And David said, in him,
you see, he said, deliver me in thy righteousness. We don't
look to our own righteousness, we don't have any. But we look
to Him and His righteousness on. We're accepted in the Beloved. We're accepted in the righteousness
of God Himself in and through Christ, ain't we? God accepts
us as His own children. We're His children through Christ. And David's asking God to deliver
him in his time of trouble here. And probably his son Absalom
rising up against him. But we're justified by the blood
and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank you. We're
completely whole in Christ before God. We're sinners in this flesh,
but in Christ we're completely whole and every sin has been
put away once and for all by His sacrifice. There is nothing
between me and God to condemn me before God. Sin condemns me,
but it does not condemn me before God, for Christ has put away
my sins, and there is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ. So we, by God's grace, love and
love and rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our rest and our
peace. We have peace with God through
Christ. We are at peace with Him. We're not working in serving
Him to gain favor with Him. We love to come together in unity
and worship Him who we love, don't we? Together, His people.
And He said, deliver me in thy righteousness. And that's the
righteousness He delivers His people is in, is His righteousness. We're accepted in Him and He
delivers us. We're justified through the blood
and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been delivered
by Him. In 1 Corinthians 1.30 it says,
But of Him, of God are you in Christ, who of God is made unto
us, wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
He's our all, and we don't turn to anyone else or anything else,
do we? We rest in Christ and rejoice
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We tend to glorify Him and lift
Him up, don't we? We lift Him up. We don't glorify
men. We are children of God in and
through and by the Lord Jesus Christ, and we together rejoice
in Him together with one another, don't we? We're close together
as children of God, brothers and sisters in Christ, but our
chief glory together is to glorify Him, to glorify Him. And David
said, He will cause me to escape. He's our refuge in time of trouble. We don't know what we'll go through
with, but we know that we're safe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And He will cause us to escape, whatever it is. He'll cause us
to. And David, in his time of war, his confidence was in God. And he said, He will cause me
to escape. And that's why he, you know,
He bows down His Word to us, His ear to us, don't He? He calms the sins to us. Think
about that. To man, by the grace of God,
through His power and Spirit, to speak to us, His children,
in Christ, don't He? And through Christ. We're the
most blessed people in this world. We're the richest people in this
world. The richest of God's grace and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're rich. And it doesn't make much difference
what we have in this life or the things in this life, but
the main source is our Lord Jesus Christ. And our goal and our
glory is to be with Him in His time in glory. And He said, save
me out of my troubles and save me. And He's the one that saves
us out of our troubles. We are trouble of and in ourselves,
but He saves us out of our troubles. And He keeps us in store, don't
He? And He will receive us into glory
in His time. And David was asking God to deliver
him in his time of trouble here in this war wanting. His son
Absalom had rose up against him, and God gave him some comfort.
and delivered him in that sense, didn't he? And his mind and heart
was eased, and he began to glorify God for it. He said in Psalm
71, 4, deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked,
and out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. In Psalm 82, 4,
he says, deliver the poor and the needy. So, that's me. I can identify with that. I'm
a poor creature. I'm a sinful creature. I'm a
poor creature. I'm a needy creature. I need
God, don't you? I need Christ. And I have Christ
by God's grace. Only by God's grace. And it's
by His grace that we rejoice in glory in Him to us. And He said, be thou my strong
habitation. We're nothing and nobody's in
ourself, are we? And we have no strength of our
own in that regard. He didn't even give us the strength
to be here and to come up here and to stand here, whether we
realize it or not. Our life's in God's hand. And
He uses us in His time, His people, for His glory, don't He? And
He brings us to the place where He does and can. And we try by
God's grace as He speaks to our hearts to honor Him and honor
Him alone as our all. He is our all. So to Thou be
strong habitation. It's God that worketh in you.
It's not you that worketh for God for gain, but it's God that
worketh in you to the price of His glory, isn't it? And we rejoice
in that, don't we? We rejoice in that. So David
here was driven out of his hometown, wasn't he? His dwelling place
where he dwelt. He was driven from his people
and so on and so forth. And he was hiding from the enemy,
wasn't he? But God was with him. He had
a dwelling place. He dwelled in the Lord, and that's
our dwelling place, ain't it? These natural things don't mean
too much to us. The Lord Jesus Christ, we dwell
in Him, and Him in us, don't we? He by His grace and power
and His Spirit, He speaks to our heart, and He dwells in us
richly, and we look and rest and trust and rejoice in Him
alone, don't we, for all things? He that dwelleth in love dwelleth
in God. God loved us, and she had a proud
of His love in her heart, didn't He? We had no love for God by
nature. We're nothing by nature but sinners.
But God in His mercy spoke to us, and expressed His love to
us, and His call toward us through Christ, and pointed us to Christ,
and caused us to look to Christ. and to put our confidence in
Him, and to love Him, to love Him. That's love, ain't it? God's
love. God's love for us and to us. That's love. God loved us. If
God would have looked upon us as we were apart from Christ,
He would have consumed us. Oh, but He looked upon us in
Christ, in an everlasting love, eternal love, didn't He? In the
Lord Jesus Christ. And Hebrews 12, 28 says, Wherefore,
we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved. We're in a kingdom,
the kingdom of God that cannot be moved. We haven't entered
into glory yet, but in the mind and purpose and the Spirit of
God, we're in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're seated with Him
in glory. And in Him, Seated in Him by
the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ in us and us in Him. And
He's seated at the right hand of God. And He's seated. There's
a man in glory that's come to this world under God's bidding
to do what God sent Him to do, to put away all the sins of all
these people and all time. Now He's ascended back to glory
and sat down. And we're seated in Him. Amen.
Oh, what a wonderful it is to be in Christ. To know Christ
by God's grace. And David said, wherefore I may
continually live. And I think about it. It's a
continuous thing. You don't just know Christ wants
and go to Christ wants or go to God wants in prayer. We go
continuously. We're continuously in need of
Him. And we see our need by His grace.
Maybe not at all times, but many, many times, don't we? Often,
don't we? We see His need now. We need
Him, don't we? And we have Him. And we look
to Him and rest in Him. The Lord is a strong tower. You know, the fortress and the
strong tower and the watchman that gets up in the tower. He's
that strong tower. And we're in Him, aren't we?
We're inside of that tower. And nothing can harm us in that
tower, you see. We're protected and preserved
in Him because of Him. And He'll receive us in the glory
to be with Him eternally, won't He? So we continually resort
to Him and look to Him and rejoice in Him by His grace, don't we? We do that through this life,
and we'll do it by God's grace until this life is over, until
we're with Him in glory eternally, won't we? And David said, Thou
hast given commandment to save me. Thou hast given commandment. A commandment of God has been
given to save David. God had told David he was going
to enter into a kingdom, didn't He? Into that natural kingdom. Well, we know by God's grace
and power that we're going to enter into a glorious kingdom,
an eternal kingdom, don't we? So He has given command to save
us in that regard. We know that. How do we know
it? We know it by the promises of God in and through the Lord
Jesus Christ, don't we? All the promises of God are sure
in Christ. They're yes and amen, yay and
amen. They're positive. So we're saved
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we don't look to ourselves,
but we look to Christ by God's grace through faith, don't we?
And through the power of the Holy Spirit. in us the hope of
glory. He is our hope. My hope is built
on nothing less, the old song says, than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. You see, we can't lean
on anything else. We lean on His name alone, don't
we? On the Lord Jesus Christ. So
He has given commandments to save us, and He saved us through
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We haven't entered into glory,
but we're saved. We're saved. We have eternal
life in and through and by the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been
received of the Father through Christ, amen, and in Christ. God can look upon us in Christ
before the foundation of the world in His surety. I can't
understand that. But he could, in the most possible
thing that was going to come to happen, Christ was sure to
come. He was sure to die. He stood
in the Lamb's light. Well, that means he stood as
though he had already been slain, because he was so sure to be
slain, he couldn't help but leave. And that's exactly why he came
into this world. He came to save his people from
their sins. He came to take their place before
God, and to suffer God's condemnation against them in our substitute. And that's what he did. We're
saved in the Lord Jesus Christ. And David said, Deliver me out,
O God, out of the hands of the wicked. You know, Asalom, his
son had rose up against him. He rose up against him to kill
him, and finally at war with David and his officers, he was
found in a tree hanging by the hair, one of the Axum was, and
the captain staked him through with a sword and killed him,
didn't he? Oh, but he's asking God to deliver him out of the
hands of the wicked at this time, who had risen up against him
in rebellion, and we believe even his own son had risen up
against him. And that's what we ask God. God,
deliver us from this awful state that I'm in through this awful
being and through this awful thoughts and all these things.
Deliver us from these things. And God delivers us in and through
by the Lord Jesus Christ. Cause my heart and my mind to
be set upon Him. You see that? And to rest in
Him and no more else. He said, deliver me out of the
hands of the unrighteous and cruel man. And God delivers us
out of the hands of the unrighteous and cruel man, you know. He delivers
us out of the hands of Satan himself, don't He? And He delivers
us out of the hands of the cruelness of this world, the people in
this world, and this world, don't He? And He sends us our hearts
on Him. and causes us to look to Him,
love Him, and to rest in Him, and to trust Him, and to rejoice
in Him, rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're nothing to nobody,
as I said, but He's everything. For Thou art my hope. Deliver
me, for Thou art my hope. Out of the hand of the unrighteous
and cruel man, for Thou art my hope. Do you see that? My hope
is built on nothing less than Him. We look to Him and rest
in Him. Thou art my hope, O God. Thou
art my trust for my youth. So He's the foundation, ain't
He? We look to Him. Our hope is built
upon Him in earth. Our hope is in Him. Our hope
is in nothing less by God's grace. We look to Christ. Thou art my
trust from my youth. David, from his youth, said,
Thou art my trust. And in Hebrews 13, 8, Paul said,
Christ Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. This
same Jesus that we came into a relationship to, or came in
to acknowledge and to know by God's grace, is the same Jesus
now He was when the day we came to know Him. Amen. He's the same
Jesus. And the more we learn and are
taught about Him, and the stronger we get in faith, the more we
rejoice in Him, amen. The more. We're accepted in the
beloved from the time we start believing by God's grace. We're accepted before the foundation
of the world, but He reveals Him in our heart, and we know
that from the time we start believing. But our faith grows in the grace
and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ through the power of His
Word. And the more we learn about Him, the more we can rejoice
in Him, and the stronger our love is for Him. And the greater
he is, that's it. For by thee have I been holding
up from the womb. It's God that brings us into
the world and it's God that calls us out of the world. And he said
from his mother's womb he had been holding up. By thee, he
had been supported and upheld and sustained and been given
food and raiment out still of the days of his life. And he
was followed by the mercies and grace of God as one of God's
sheep. And we've been held another by
him, ain't we? And he brings us to the point.
Things don't happen by accident. If we're in a certain place at
a certain time, and the Spirit of God works and causes by His
grace to reveal Christ in us, that's by the grace of God in
the power of God, and that's been foreordained before the
foundation of the world. Know unto God all of His works
from before the foundation of the world. God plans all things. Nothing's happening without God,
do you know that? even by His permissive will and
directive will. And He works all things for the
good of His people. It may not seem like it at the
time, but it is. No matter what happens, He works
it for our good. And He'll bring us to glory.
He'll bring us to glory in His time to be with Him forever.
He said, Thou art He that took me out of my mother's bowels.
Thou took me out of the womb, He said in Psalm 229. Thou didst
make me whole. There it is. You made me whole. You took me out of the womb and
you revealed Christ to my heart and gave me faith in him through
knowledge that you gave me and caused me to come to him and
rest and rejoice. He did that. He took me out and
he gave me hope. He gave me hope. He gave me rest.
He gave me peace. And Job, Job 121 says, Maybe
came I out of my mother's womb, and maybe shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. As the Lord gives and as He takes
away, or whatever He does, He does it for our good and for
His glory. And blessed be His holy name.
That's what we say. We thank Him. And here it is,
my praise shall be continually of thee. Our praise is continuously
with him. We're here today by God's grace. We arose to another morning and
come together to worship God by His grace. Amen. And if we
didn't come together, it might be by His grace for His people,
right? In calling us out. All but God,
for reasons of His glory, has brought us here today to give
honor and glory to Him, ain't it? That's what He brought us
here for. To praise Him, to lift up His Holy Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. So, our hearts, by God's grace,
will praise Him. We don't praise men and people
and works and deeds to try to gain favor with God. But we praise
Him who is all and give Him all glory. It's a joy to praise Him. It's not a selfish work, but
it's a joy, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to be here to
talk about Him and to honor Him and to glorify Him. And David
said, I'm a wonder unto many, and no doubt unto many that looks
up on God's people and don't know, they don't know what they're
experiencing. They don't know nothing about
what they know. Even religious people that's wondering about
you and I. Well, what's he have that I don't
have? He says he's right and he's in
the grace of God. Well, I'm in the grace of God.
What makes me the different from him? They don't know. You see
what I'm saying? They don't know. It's by the
grace of God. Who makes me the different to
another? I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. He makes
the difference on me. He's all. So it is a wonder to
many, you see. It's a wonder to many. But Thou
art my stronghold. You're my refuge. You're my strength.
You're my stronghold. By Your grace, through faith
that You give me, I rest in You and trust in You and look to
You and rejoice in You. It's all in Him, ain't it? The affection that He puts in
us, you see that? That's not a thing of human nature. That's the grace of God in the
hearts of His people that honors God and glorifies God and exalts
the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, don't it? In 2 Corinthians 6, 8-10,
it says, By honor and dishonor, by evil and good report, as deceivers
and yet true. You see that? That's why people
think, unknown but yet well known. You see that? We're unknown of
many, but yet we're well-known by many, God's people, and by
God. He says that. Well-known, well-known. And behold, as dying in your
life, behold, we live. We're dying every day. My hearts
are getting gray. I ain't got much. It's half a
minute. But I'm dying and I've got pains
and aches and things like that. I'm not complaining. But I'm
dying every day. But yet I'm alive unto God. Oh,
that's joy in Him. That's joy in the grace of God. Alive unto God and we'll be with
Him forever. We're chastened but not killed. We're not destroyed. You see
that? We're chastened. We're chasing for things, and
God has to bring us to remembrance of Him many times only, and chasing
it. Oh, but we're not destroyed.
It's for our good and for His glory only. And we're poor but yet rich. Poor in nature but yet rich in
mercy. Rich in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Having nothing and yet possessing all things. All things are of
God in Christ and through Christ to our hearts by His grace. We
have nothing. We say we might have nothing,
but we have the greatest riches that's ever been brought into
this world by the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou art my strong refuge,
my comfort and my rest, and my peace is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I rest in Him and in Him alone. I can't rest anywhere else. I
look to Him by His grace. Let my mouth be filled with praise
to thee, to honor thee and to praise thee. Romans 2, 4, Paul
said, Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness in four births
and longsuffering, knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee
to repentance? The goodness of God. We will
never know God if he hadn't in his goodness, by his grace, in
our hearts, led us to him, to Christ. and to look to Him. Oh,
that's the most blessed blessing that this world can ever know,
ain't it? The goodness of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. The
goodness of God in Christ. They said in Psalm 52-1, the
goodness of God endeareth continually. The goodness of God is a continuous
goodness. It's not here today and gone
tomorrow. It's continually. The goodness of God leads us
to repentance. The goodness of God will lead
us into heaven by His grace and power. The goodness of God rests
us in the Lord Jesus Christ, entrusts us in Christ, and rejoices
us in Him, don't it? That's the goodness of God. We'll
never know this except by the grace of God. That's it, ain't
it? And with thy honor all the day
long, all the day, and with thy honor, the goodness of God toward
us, and it's in His honor, we honor Him for it, don't we? God
is good to us, isn't He? He's good to us. We're the most
blessed people in this world. Oh, the goodness of God honors
God, rejoices in Him, and rests in Christ all the day long, We
don't rest in Him one time and not rest in Him another, do we?
By God's grace, we continually look to Him. We can't look anymore
else. God has revealed to us who we
are, and we can't look here. We've got to look by our own.
We look to Christ. He calls it, and we do it. We look to Christ. We honor Him. We extol Him. We worship Him
who loved us and gave Himself for us. All things are attributed
to Him. All the grace and knowledge,
and all the purpose, and all the bringing to, and all the
keeping, and all the working in, and all the bringing us in.
It's all of Him. It's all in and through and by
Him. And we give Him glory to have revealed Himself to us. His goodness endures forever. The goodness of God endureth
forever. Lamentations 3.23 says they are
new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The
faithfulness of God to us are new every morning. When you open
your eyes of the morning, you know what that is? That's the
goodness of God directing you to Christ. That's what it is.
What's usually the first thing you think about? You think about
God and His goodness to you, don't you? Through Christ, our
Lord Jesus Christ, what can we do today, or what are we going
to do today? Lord, how can we honor Your name? How can we lift
You up by Your grace in our hearts? The goodness of God. Psalm 161
says, Praise ye the Lord. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord
for He is good. There it is. There's the goodness
of God. The Lord is good to us, ain't
He? He's good. He's eternal goodness. And we'll be with Him forever.
Together. In glory. Rejoicing. Together
in Christ. The goodness of God. Give thanks
unto the Lord. He is good. His mercy endureth
forever. It's eternal. His mercy endureth
forever. He loved us with an everlasting
love, and shed abroad His love in us. Amen, everyone. Bring
us in glory by His love to anyone. We thank you all for calling
us to be here with you. It's good to be here. Good to
see you all. By God's grace, maybe he'll make
us able to come back again.