Verse 4-7, Exodus 34. This thing here is aggravating. Exodus 34, let's read the first
seven verses. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Hew thee two tables of stone, like unto the first, And I will
write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables
which thou breakest. And be ready in the morning and
come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai and present thyself there
to me in the top of the mount. And no man shall come up with
thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mountain,
neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount. And he
ewed two tables of stone, like unto the first. And Moses rose
up early in the morning, went up unto the Mount Sinai. And
as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two
tables of stone. And the Lord descended in the
cloud, and stood with him there. One who was standing there with
Moses. Was standing with him. Just notice that, stood with
him. You know Moses wasn't standing in his presence, he stood there
with him. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. Stood there with him. Ain't that what it says? And
the Lord descended in a cloud and stood him. Stood with him
there. and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed
by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful
and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the children's
children, unto the third and fourth generation. The title of my message today
is Seven Glorious Attributes. Seven Glorious Attributes of
God. When the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, When he brought
him out of Egypt, it was the fulfillment of a promise that
he had made to Abraham. He had made a promise to Abraham,
saying, your descendants are going to go into a strange country
and be held in bondage, but I'll bring them out in 400 years.
And he made a promise to Abraham that he'd go down and he'd get
those people and bring them out. And it was because of the covenant
that God had made with Abraham is the reason he brought Israel
up out of Egypt. And then, then, the law entered. The law entered. When God sent
down the law in Exodus 19, Exodus 24. And here's what they said
when Moses read the law to them. Look over here in Exodus 24.
Let's just look at a couple things over here. And let me show you
what I'm talking about. Exodus 24. This is where people
really, really, really mess up. Moses read the book to the people. Here in verse 3, look what he
says. And Moses alone and Moses came
and told all the words of the Lord and all the judgments and
all the people answered with one voice and said all the words
which the Lord has said will we do. will we do? Well Moses wrote it all down
and then he says down in verse 6 this even this covenant was
ratified with blood and Moses took some off sacrifices and
took half of the blood and put it in basins and half of the
blood he sprinkled on the altar and he took the book of the covenant
and read in the audience of the people they said all that the
Lord has said we will do and be obedient and Moses took the
blood and sprinkled it on the people and said behold the blood
of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning
these words now what words did they say that whatever you say
in your law that's what we're going to do that's what we're
going to do that's what they said now that's when you say
that I'll do when they read that law to them read the Ten Commandments
and all the rituals And all the sacrifices and all the tabernacle
and everything that was to be. They said, oh we'll do that.
We'll do that. Well they didn't last no time
at all before they made a golden calf. So I tell you what, people
they say when they face God's law, they say I can keep that.
I can do that. and in labor to be saved by that. The very minute they say, I'll
do that, they enter under a curse. But now the covenant that God
made with Abraham wasn't, I will do. You know, people said, I
will do. We'll do what God said. That's
not what he said. Now as to the covenant God made
with Abraham, there was nothing that Abraham had to keep. When
the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he dwelt
in Mesopotamia, you know what he said? Go! What Abraham do? He went! Where you go? Where you want me to go? You
just go! I'll tell you when you get there.
It don't make no difference where you go and I'm telling you to
go. And I'll tell you what, there was no conditions in that covenant
that God made with Abraham. And I'll tell you there was nothing
that they can keep, no conditions, no stipulations. It was unconditional. To Abraham and his descendants
it was a covenant of grace, pure, free, sovereign grace. He just
told Abraham what he was going to do. And then he turned around
and told Abraham, these people here when they said that, they
said they heard the judgments of God and said we'll do it.
Abraham, you know, God told him to look up. He looked up. Look
down. Look down. Take your son up on a mountain.
He took his son up on a mountain. Whatever God said, Abraham, out
of love for his Lord and what God done for him, Abraham did
not have to do anything for God to do something for him. And
then God said before it's time for him to go, said, Abraham,
I am thy exceeding and great reward. Huh? Not the law. not the law, me, I'm going to
be your reward and I entered into a covenant and God said
8 times to Abraham I will, I will, I will, I will, I will and Abraham
just stood there yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that's the way we are but God
entered into a covenant of Sinai with Israel when that law entered
and they had to keep it to enjoy any blessings If they failed
one time, one time, without the right sacrifice,
they were cursed. And I'll tell you something else,
that law, it told him here to make two new stones. And the law was written on stones. Stones have no feeling. Stones
can't do anything for you. Stones can't do anything for
anybody. And all they can do is be broken.
And what God does is He don't write on stones. He writes on
our heart by the Spirit of God. He writes on our hearts. You
can read that in Hebrews. And He also tells us that the
Lord has written on our hearts. We're a letter to be read by
everybody. God wrote it on our hearts. And
I tell you what, then we had hearts of stone until he took
it out and gave us a new heart, gave us a new heart. Now let's
look at this and get down here to what it says about the Lord.
The Lord said to Moses, the Lord said unto Moses, wouldn't that
be something for God to talk to you like he did Moses? Hew
thee two tables of stone just like the first ones that you
had, the first ones we made. And I'll write upon these tablets,
I'll write upon these tables. Not you Moses, you bring them
up here, the words which, now listen to this, that were in
the first tables, now watch this, which you break. Even Moses broke
the law. Even Moses didn't keep the law.
He broke it not because of anything he done, but when he saw Israel
sin. And oh my, he didn't get to go into the promised land
because of what he did. And he said, be ready in the
morning. Be ready in the morning. Oh,
what typical teaching there is for us. Those first tables of
stone were broken. And I tell you what, they were
broken because man's inability, man's absolute No power to keep
himself from sin. No power to keep himself from
false gods. No power. He's got to worship
something. It's a golden calf. A man's got
to see something before he can worship at all. The only people
that really worship God is seeing Him who is invisible. We don't
have to have something visible to worship. In fact, we ain't
got nothing visible right now, do we? You see any crosses? See any pictures? You see any
statues? You see any idols set up here?
No! We don't need something to look at. But them people under
the law, they got to have something that they can see. If it's nothing
but their own faith and nothing but their works and nothing but
their obedience, they got to have something. And I'll tell you what, and I'll
tell you when them philosophers, but that man, he ain't got no
ability. No, he ain't got no ability. And I'll tell you those
first tables were provided by God himself. He said, I'll give
them, I'll give them. But the second tables was to
be hewn by Moses. And he said in verse two, and
be ready in the morning. You get up and you be ready first
thing in the morning now. And you come up here in the morning.
And listen to what he said here, present thyself. We're presenting ourselves before
the Lord right now. You know that? But not on the
basis of like Moses did, but on the basis of what Christ did.
We're presenting ourselves. We come here and say, Lord, here
we are. He prayed. We always pray that.
We're in God's presence. Present thyself before me. And
I'll tell you what, and he said, I don't want nobody to come with
you. And when Christ did the work, no man helped him. He by
himself purged our sins. When you come up here, there's
only one man I want up here in my presence. And that's the way
God was. Only one man was ever acceptable
in God's presence. Only one man could come into
God's presence. Who shall ascend in the holy
hill of God? He that hath clean hands. He
that hath a pure heart. He that has never lifted up his
soul to vanity. He that has never told a lie. And there ain't but
one person like that in this whole universe. And that's the
Lord Jesus Christ. Huh? And oh listen. He said come up here now. And
I tell you there's only one man that can come into the presence
of God. And here's what's so wonderful about it. He took us
with him. But look what else he says now. No man shall come
up with you. Neither let any man be seen throughout
all the mountain. I don't want nobody around here
but you. That's what he's telling. I don't even want the flocks
around the mountain. And oh my. And you know here's
what happened with the first tablets. You know they were broken. That shows man's inability. He
can't keep the law. I don't want to try to keep it.
I tell you, it's fulfilled in Christ. Our Lord said it like
this, think not, He told the Jews, think not that I'm come
to destroy the law and the prophets. I am not come to destroy the
law. I've come to fulfill it. To fulfill
it. And so our second tablets, when
these tablets here were done, they took them and put them inside
that ark. which that's a picture of our
Lord Jesus Christ when that tablet, those two stones, those ten commandments
was put inside that ark and that mercy seat was on top of it that
shows that our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled them and the blood
of Christ is on that mercy seat and our mercy seat so we don't
have to deal with that law so Moses did as God commanded him
as God commanded him and he says in verse 4 he did as the Lord
commanded him and he ewed two tables of stone like unto the
first just like them he rose up early in the morning went
up unto the mountain and the Lord commanded him and he took
in his hand two tables of stone you know they must not have been
great big you know people think about great big old thick rocks
you know but they couldn't have been very thick You know, and
they probably weren't very big. They was big enough, it's called
a tablet even. And he could carry them in one
hand. He could carry them in one hand. And you know when God
wrote them, he wrote on the front and he wrote on the back. And
if you've ever seen a synagogue, I've been, I've seen synagogues
in different places. And a lot of synagogues have,
they have two tablets. And they're set like this, you
know. And they'll have the ten commandments on them. And they
sit there on that synagogue, you know, where the Jews even
meet today. They have those, a lot of them have those Ten
Commandments on them. And I don't know why, I don't
want them in my house. People, you know, you remember
here a few years ago, everybody had the Ten Commandments. They
were sticking them out in their yard, and they had them in frames,
and they was giving them away to people. Tried to give me one. No, don't want them. Don't want them. Don't want them. I know what they say. And I know
I haven't kept them. Why would I want to look at them?
I want to see Christ who fulfilled and Christ the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believe it. That's who I
want to see. I want to see Him who kept that law, fulfilled
that law, brought glory to that law and magnified that law. And all Moses did as the Lord
commanded. And God told him, said, I'll
write on them. I'll be the one to write on these tables. Again,
God had to write these. This is God's word, so God said,
I'll write it. I'll write it. And now look what
happens. Ah, this is amazing. In verse
5, And the Lord descended in the cloud. You know that cloud
of, that's Yucana glory, that cloud. He come down in the cloud
often. Come down in the cloud in the tabernacle. And the Lord
descended in the cloud and stood with him there. Stood with him. It's like the voice of the Lord
God walking, walking in the cool of the day in the garden. How
does a voice walk? If it's Christ, you can. If this
is Christ here standing before Moses, you can. and he's standing
before Moses and he descended and then look what he says and
stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord that's exactly
what he said up in verse 19 of chapter 33 I will proclaim the
name of the Lord you know the scriptures have much to say about
the name of the Lord Oh, I'll tell you his name. It has much
to say about Christ's name. There's no other name under heaven
given among men. And you know, there's much to
say about God's name. He said over in Exodus, he said
he was jealous for his name. What do you think he means by
I'm jealous for my name? What he's saying is I'll let
no gods be before me. I'm jealous for my glory. I'm
jealous for my character. I'm jealous for my holiness.
I'm jealous for my righteousness. I'm jealous for my name. Christ
is my namesake. He's coming and I'm jealous.
I'll not have no gods before me. I'll not have you have anybody
else before me. I'm jealous. I'm jealous. Don't you dare go off after another
god. Don't you go after another idol.
Don't you do it. Don't you do it. I won't put
up with it. And I tell you what, we don't
want to do it. And as you know, our Lord even
taught us to pray. Hallowed, how holy is thy name. The name of the Lord is a strong
tower and the righteous run into it and save. Malachi, he says,
the Lord had a book of remembrance for those that thought upon his
name. So our Lord Jesus Christ, I proclaim
his name. And when he said I will, the
Lord stood there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And proclaimed
the name of the Lord. And when the Lord proclaims his
name, that means to reveal himself. To make himself known. It's like
when Gabriel came down and told Mary, we've got a name for your
son already. We got a name for your son. Well
what is it? Jesus. You know his name reveals
who he is. You know what Jesus means? Savior,
Jehovah, Savior. So I tell you what, we already
got his name. God said I want his name to be
called Jesus. And he said, and this is what
he's going to do because of who his name is and what his name
means. He shall save his people from their sins. All right, let's look here. There
are seven glorious, blessed attributes the Lord deals with here with
his people. These are the ways of the Lord.
Each one of these seven attributes that I'm going to talk about,
they are constantly, constantly in exercise. There's never a
time that God is not exercising these seven attributes. And look
what he said, and the Lord passed by before him, And proclaim the
Lord, the Lord God. Here's the first one. The Lord
God merciful. Merciful. You know what the first
one was mentioned? Merciful. And that's what he
said before. He said, I will have mercy. When
he proclaimed the name of the Lord, he said, I'll have mercy.
That's the first thing you said about Him. I'll cause my goodness
to pass before you and I will have mercy on whom I'll have
mercy. Now I want you to keep this and look with me over in
2 Samuel chapter 23. Look what happened to David over
here. David numbered the people of
Israel and they told him not to do it. They said don't do
that David. God did, they're God's people.
He'll take care of them. He knows who they are and He
knows how many they are. But David wanted to number them.
Wanted to know how many people. You know that's what they used
to do in a lot of church buildings and stuff. You'd come in and
they had a board up on the wall. And they'd tell you how many
people had been there for Sunday school. And how many people had
been for the worship service. And how much money they took
up. Oh boy. There ain't no sense
counting people. Ain't no sense counting people.
The Lord knows them that are His. You may count somebody that's
not one of His. Go around, there's one here, there's one there,
and you go through all the people and say, boy number them as the
Lord's people. You may number somebody. If Esau
had been in the crowd and you said, boy there's one of the
Lord's people. I said, no that ain't mine. So that's the danger
of it. That's the danger of it. Well
look what happens here now. God told Gad to go say something
to David about this numbering the Lord's people. Verse 13,
So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall
seven years of famine come unto thee in the land? Or wilt thou
flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? Or that there be three days of
pestilence in the land? Now you advise, and see what
answer I shall return unto him that sent me. And David said
unto Gad, I'm in a gray strait. Now listen to what he said. Let
us fall now into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are
great. And let me not fall into the
hand of men. Let me fall into God's hand.
Let God decide what to do with me. Now that's a wonderful thing. You know why he said I do that?
Because his mercies, his mercies are great. You know God delights
to show mercy. Wrath is a strange work. And Jeremiah said his mercies
are new. Mercies are new every morning. Every morning. Then he said not
only is he merciful, then he said gracious. Gracious. Grace is the ground. That's another
thing he said I'll be merciful and I'll be gracious to whom
I will. And graciousness or grace is the ground on which God gives
us everything and bestows all His mercies. He doesn't look
for anything in man. He doesn't ask anything from
a man. All He does is He gives His free
favor to His people and He doesn't even think for a moment that
they're worthy of anything He does for them. He never ever
looks for anything worthy about them. He never does that. And all great is His mercy. Great
is His grace. Thank God for the grace of God.
I can never say enough about grace. I can't talk enough about
grace. I can't enjoy grace. It's like,
oh, I love grace. I need grace. I've got to have
grace. I need Thee every hour, every moment, every second. I
need You. What do I need? I need mercy
and I need grace. And when Paul would write his
letter, grace, mercy, and peace be unto thee, from God the Father,
and from Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh my, ain't you thankful that
God is gracious? Oh gracious, when you go to bed
tonight, He's gracious. When you get up in the morning,
He'll still be gracious. And you come here Wednesday night,
He'll still be gracious. He's gracious and He always has
been and He always will be. Even when we get to glory, He'll
be gracious. He'll still be gracious. Praise
His name. Then look what else it says about
Him. That's the second attribute. Look at the third. Long-suffering. This is one of my favorite attributes
of God. Long-suffering. Long-suffering,
that means slow, slow, slow, slow to anger. You know what
he said about us? People say God is, He calls all
men to repentance. He would that every man repent.
But the scriptures actually says this over in 2 Peter. He says
this, God is long-suffering to usward. They say God's not willing
that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. But
they forget the part that said God is long-suffering to us-ward. Who's us? His people. To us-ward, not willing that
any of us-ward should perish, but all should come to repentance.
He's talking about a particular people. He's not talking about
everybody. He's talking about His people.
And how long-suffering is He? How long-suffering is God? And
I tell you, God's long-suffering waited in the days of Noah. And
God's long-suffering right now waits, endures. His long-suffering endures. This
world endures. That's what He says, His long-suffering
endures the wicked in this world right now. And His long-suffering
is waiting. And for even the vessels that's
fitted for wrath, His long-suffering waits. And waits, and waits,
and waits, and waits, and waits. And then all of a sudden, when
his long suffering has suffered long enough, man has to face
him just like that. That quick. That quick. That's how long it takes for
your heart to stop. That quick. And when it stops, you're gone. And I'm envious of those that
get to go on to be with Christ. But how many, how many, how many
are vessels of breath that God waits on in long-suffering, patient
with them? How long is He that way? Oh my! And you know, look at our children.
He prayed back in the study. James prayed for kids. We pray
for our children. I've been lax about that. I thought
that when he said it. Been lax about that. But God's
long-suffering waits for our children. Why ain't our children
already gone? Why has not God already cut them
off? Why has He not cut off our children and our grandchildren?
He's got the right to do it. They belong to Him. They're His. Why hasn't He cut them off? Why
hasn't He said, I'll put up with you long enough. I'll put up
with your lying. I'll put up with your stealing.
I'll put up with your law. I'll put up with everything that
you said and done. Put up with your cussing and
using my name in vain. I'll put up with it all. I'm
going to put up with it. And one of these days, if God
don't have mercy, and if God's long-suffering goes out, my children,
your children, your grandchildren, they're gone. They're leaving
this world. He's long-suffering. That means
he's very, very slow to anger. And I'm grateful for that long-suffering.
Ain't you? Oh, I'm grateful. God, please
be long-suffering towards him. Please be long-suffering to him.
And then not only that, but he says, not only is he long-suffering,
and abundant in goodness. Abundant in goodness. Not just
goodness. He's got Bushels and bushels
and bushels of a goodness. Goodness just oozes from God. Oh my, that goodness means kindness
too. It means kindness, always abundant
in kindness. He's abundant in goodness. Oh
my, David said, Oh Lord, thank you for your loving kindness.
Towards me. Look in Isaiah 54. Let me show
you something about God's goodness. David said, I don't know how
many times, I'll mention, I'll mention the loving kindness of
the Lord. In Isaiah 54, in verse 8, look
what it says here. We're all talking about kindness,
abundance of goodness. Look what it says in verse 7.
For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies
will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face
from thee for a moment. With everlasting kindness will
I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. Oh, everlasting
kindness. Oh, look over in Isaiah 63 in
verse 7. everlasting kindness you know like everything else
about him is everlasting and it's abundant look here in verse
7 I will mention the loving-kindnesses
of the Lord oh my how often do we remember the loving-kindnesses
of the Lord and the praises of the Lord, according to all that
the Lord hath bestowed upon us, and the great goodness toward
the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according
to his mercies, and according, listen to this now, multitude
of his loving-kindnesses. Oh, my. Loving-kindness, abundant
in goodness. Oh, just absolutely abundant
in it. Just running over with it. Running over with it. And then
look what else he says. The Lord God merciful, gracious,
long-suffering, abundant in goodness. And look here. He's not only
abundant in goodness, but abundant in truth. Truth. You know, there is a lot of truths
in this world. There are certain things that
are true. I mean, in this world, such things as true. Certain
things about science and math and things like that, they're
true. You know, 2 plus 2 equals 4. 4 plus 4, those are truths. You can't get away from them.
There's a lot of truths in this world. But God is truth Himself. Now, when we talk about things
that are true in the world, they will help us get by a little
in this world. Keep somebody beating us out
of some money, maybe. You know, or give us the wrong
change or something. And find our way around by reading stop
signs and things like that. You know, it would be awful to
not be able to read and not know how to read signs. And I know
a couple of fellows that's been like that. But here's the thing. He's truth itself. Truth. And we want the truth. You know,
we got to have the truth. And He is the God of truth. Christ
is called the truth. He said, I'm the truth. You want
to hear the truth? I'm the truth. Don't go looking
for truth over here in this Baptist church. And don't go looking
for the truth from this man or that man or another man. Look
to God. Look in His Word for truth. Truth
about God. Truth about Christ. Truth about
ourselves. Truth about sin. Truth about
salvation. Truth about the attributes of
God. And truth means also this steadfastness. Is anybody more steadfast than
God? Nobody is more steadfast than
God. Oh my! Truth the largest of the
grace of God all truth. We got to have truth Oh barter
said one time the first truth to be had on this world in this
earth He said I want to find someplace where they're telling
it and when I find somebody telling it I'm gonna pitch camp stay
right there And that's the way I was I was
exactly the same way when God started revealing truth to me
I said and I'll find somebody that's telling what I'm saying
in the scripture I'm gonna go and sit right where they are
and listen what they got to say And the first person I run across
that was telling the truth on God Telling man the truth about
himself was Henry Mahan and I tell you what I'll rub less than day
that God crossed my feet bath with him He did not spare. When he said, you know, spare
not and lift up thy voice, Henry would spare not and lift up his
voice. He preached without fear in favor
of men. He really truly did. And he told
me the truth right to my face. And I've seen him tell several
people to their face, right to their face, what they was doing.
I remember one time years ago, there was a couple. that lived
up in New Jersey and they had a great church that they liked
and they'd come down to that great church and visit and they
both had really, really good jobs and they're standing there,
we're sitting around eating at a table and Henry's preaching
them eating in this church and we're sitting around the table
and this couple said, well when we you know, we'll retire, we're
going to come down here and Henry said, you just told a lie What? He said, you ain't going
to come down here. If you meant to come down here,
you'd quit your jobs, you'd leave your jobs, and you'd come down
here and find a job, and you'd pitch camp right here where you
say you want to be, and the only place that you can get any help
from. You know what happened? Two months later they were down
there. I sat right there and listened to him tell them that.
You ain't going to do that. If you're going to do it, if
you wait, you'll never do it. But if you really mean to believe
God and believe in grace and worship God, quit what you're
doing and get down there as fast as you can. And they did. And
I did just, I said, whoo. He done me curl my hair a time
or two, and I used to have curly hair. I ain't got hardly none
now, but I used to have curly hair. He'd kick mine up good
for me. And I'll tell you what, and I
love him for it. Oh, I love him for it. I love him for that. I love Scott Richardson for that.
Oh, I love men who tell the truth. that present God as He is. They
are like God Himself. You know God said, I'll proclaim
my name. That's what they do. They proclaim the name of the
Lord. And I love to hear them. Didn't you? Didn't you love to
hear them? I could just sit and listen to
them on and on and on and on. They'd go on there. But they
admit their truth God's truth taught them still keeps going
on don't it Going on and then look what he says here in verse
7 Keeping mercy for thousands Forgiving iniquity. Oh my goodness. He says he's merciful now. He
says you're keeping mercy He said I got mercy and I'm keeping
it and you know who I'm keeping it for Thousands. Thousands. That was us. He was keeping mercy
for us. And look what he says. Keeping
mercy for thousands. Forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin. That's what he did for us. He
kept that mercy. And he had all this mercy. And he said, I'm going to give
mercy. You've got iniquities. You've
got transgressions. You've got sins. Now I've got
this mercy and here it comes! And I tell you what, it swept
over our soul. Oh my! Thank God that He does that.
Look in Psalm 78 with me in verse 35. Psalm 78 verse 35. now here's what we were and they
remembered that God was their rock and the high God their Redeemer
nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth they lied
unto him with their tongues for their heart was not right with
him neither were they steadfast in his covenant but listen to
this But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed
them not. Yea, many a time turned he his
anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. And here's
why. For he remembered that they were
but flesh, a wind that passes away, and cometh not again. Oh my. Keeping mercy for thousands. And then look what he says here.
Here is the seventh attribute. We need to see this here. I saw
something here I never saw before and I hope I can explain it.
And that will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity
upon the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children
to the third and fourth generation. And will by no means clear the
guilty visiting the iniquity upon the fathers. And here's
what I think I see here. When he visited our iniquity,
and I inherited my sin nature from my father, which from his
father, which from his father, all the way back to Adam. And
God said he visited their iniquity on them. Now here's where he
visited our iniquity. He visited our iniquity in the
gospel. He visited our iniquity on Christ. He visited our iniquity, you
know that's the only way he could clear the guilty. Is by visiting
our iniquity on somebody else. Huh? And so God, what he did,
he visited our iniquity. He visited it. And he saw it. And he wasn't going to let it
go. So what he done when he visited our iniquity, he visited them
in the gospel. He visited them on his blessed
son. He laid on him the iniquity of his heart. He bore our iniquity
in his own body there on that tree. And his justice must be
satisfied. And Christ was punished. So he
visited our sins. in the gospel, took him away,
visited our iniquity. And then look why he says here,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and
upon the children's children unto the third and fourth generation. In other words, he's going to
visit. He's going to visit one generation after another generation.
No generation is going to get by. No children's going to get
by. No grandchildren's going to get
by. The children's children, isn't that what he said? The
children's children to the third and the fourth generation. That
means that for me, to Doogie, to Aidan, for me, to Lenny, to
Josh, to Riley, you're four generations. And every generation is going
to have their iniquities visit upon them. And that's why we
have to continually, continually preach the gospel. Because that's
the only way God, God can visit iniquity on a man is to visit
it in Christ. Charge it to Christ. Lay it on
Him. Ain't that right? Lay it on Him. And I tell you, right now, We're living in a generation.
We live in a faithless, perverse, compromising, proud, deceitful
generation. And God's visited their iniquity.
He said this virus, is it making a difference in anybody? The
only difference it's making in people is the Lord's people. And I'm not afraid of it. I'm
not afraid of it. I don't have to wear a mask.
I don't have to do anything. I'm not afraid of it. I'm not
afraid of dying from it. I'm not afraid of contracting
it. I'm not afraid of it. I'm going
to come and worship God. I'm going to come and I'm going
to worship God. If there ain't but 6 of us here,
10 of us here, 30 of us here, 40 of us here, that's we're going
to worship God. That's what we're going to do.
We're not going to live by fear. We're going to live by faith. Does that make sense to you? You know why? Because the Lord
God is merciful, gracious, abundant in goodness and long-suffering.
keeping mercy for thousands. And oh how long-suffering and
patient is God, even with His people, even with His people. Our Father, thank you for allowing
us to meet here tonight. Thank you for what we've heard
in this service already. Thank you for the scriptures
that were read, the love, the seriousness, Ability for Houston to feel the
responsibility of what it is to read God's word. Take it to
heart. Thank you for that. Thank you
for that honesty. Thank you for the word. Thank
you for these dear saints of God. Thank you for your abundant
goodness and mercy given us in Christ. God bless you dear saints
wherever they are and do please be gracious, be merciful, to
Bill and Dorotha, Larry and Lola, Bruce and Sandy, and others among
us whose bodies are weak. We ask you to be with them. Give
them grace. Give them strength for their
day, for their hour. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen. Amen. Oh, how merciful. How merciful. How merciful thou art to me. Oh, how merciful thou art to
me. merciful blessed lord how merciful
thou art to me