According to the book of Psalms,
let's read Psalm 145 together. I will extol Thee, my God, O
King, and I will bless Thy name forever and ever. Every day will
I bless Thee, and I will praise Thy name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly
to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation
shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty
acts. I will speak of the glorious honor of thy majesty, and of
thy wondrous works. And men shall speak of the might
of thy terrible acts, and I will declare thy greatness. They shall
abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall
sing of thy righteousness. The Lord is gracious and full
of compassion, slow to anger and of great mercy. The Lord
is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. All Thy works shall praise Thee,
O Lord, and Thy saints shall bless Thee. They shall speak
of the glory of Thy kingdom and talk of Thy power, to make known
to the sons of men His mighty acts. and the glorious majesty
of his kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. The
Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that
be bowed down. The eyes of all wait upon thee. and thou givest them their meat
in due season. Thou openest thine hand and satisfies
the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all
his ways, and holy in all his works. The Lord is nigh unto
all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in
truth. He will fulfill the desire of
them that fear him. He also will hear their cry and
will save them. The Lord preserveth all them
that love him, but all the wicked will he destroy. My mouth shall
speak the praise of the Lord and let all flesh bless his holy
name forever and ever. Let's pray. Good morning. I read the 145th
Psalm, but my text is taken from Psalm 146. The theme in these two Psalms
are similar. I like what Brother Milton had
an article in our bulletin this morning. He said, the worship
of God Almighty is not a casual thing. And that's what we are
here to do this morning, to worship God Almighty, whom we just read
about, whose greatness is unsearchable. And it is no small thing. It's
not a casual thing. What a blessing to gather with
the people of God, to open his word and read his word and hear
his gospel. It's a great privilege. It's
the greatest event on Earth that's occurring at this moment. Men
don't probably believe that for the most part, but this is the
greatest event on Earth. There is not a better place to
be. I believe that. I do. By God's grace, I'm going
to be here to hear God's Word preached at every opportunity
that He gives me. Greatest event. Could not be
in a better place doing a greater thing. But it's a serious business. We're talking about eternal things.
Where else are you going to hear the truth? Where else are you
going to hear God speak the truth to your heart, to your soul?
It's not out there in the world. But I can remember hearing preachers
say a lot when I was growing up, especially that, I stand
before you as a dying man preaching to dying men. That's serious
business, isn't it? We're all dying. We're dying
men. And I read this statement this
week, and I think it's a good statement. It says that the work
of every preacher is to be a watchman and to do our best to discover
and declare the fullness of Christ and the emptiness of the creature.
And that's my aim this morning. That's the target I'm shooting
at, to do that very thing. So look with me in Psalm 146.
The title of my message this morning is a happy man, a happy
man. You know, in one of our country's
famous documents, the Declaration of Independence, it speaks of
God-given inalienable rights, man's right to pursue happiness,
to pursue life and liberty in the pursuit of happiness. Well,
I heard I believe it was Henry who said one time that if you're
pursuing happiness, you'll never find it. Happiness is not to
be found. But we read in our scripture
what a happy man is, who the happy man is. It's found in verse
5 of Psalm 146. Happy is he, and I might add,
happy only is he. This is the only truly happy
man. Happy is he that hath the God
of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God."
Now, the Scripture says that's a happy man. But my dear friends
and brothers and sisters, just a little background on what led
me to this message. And I'm not sure I can put this
into words in a proper manner, but my heart is heavy lately
for so many who are going through great trial in some cases facing
death, or have died. Many I know have died in the
last few months. And many that I know are dealing
with frailties of old age, have many struggles. not to mention
that the heartaches and sadness and sorrow and the anxieties
that just comes with life that we all face on a daily basis.
But here is the conclusion of the matter as I think on these
things, and my heart is heavy regarding these things. This
is the conclusion of the matter that presses on my mind, that
this thing we call our life on this earth is swiftly coming
to an end. We sing change and decay and
all around I see we're surrounded by death and dying and suffering. Swift to its close ebbs out life's
little day. And you know many of these things
I myself have thus far been spared. But I know I soon too shall pass
that way. I will soon be facing death as
a very near prospect. But I wonder, as I observe, how
is it with these folks as they are brought through these things?
What must they be thinking? I know I'm subject to the same
weaknesses, and the end of my life is very near, and I wonder
what will I be thinking when my death is in view. Are they
full of fear and dread? What a helpless place to be in. having not been taught in the
scriptures especially, and facing the end of your life in this
earth. What a helpless, hopeless feeling and fearful thing that
must be. And you see, we're all alike
in this. We all must pass this way. We have a life to live,
and we have a death to die. We must pass from this life.
It's many times a painful thing. It's always a sad thing. But for the believer, there is
no death. Isn't that right? Scott used
to say it's a graduation. It's graduation day. But I said
all that to say this. And this is where I want to go
with this. There are two more far greater
things in which we are all alike without exception. And we're
all different. We come from different backgrounds.
We have different ideas on things. But we're more alike than we
are different, aren't we? We're more alike than we are
different. But the first thing is this, in which we're all alike,
and it's the cause of all these problems. It's why we die. It's why we suffer. It's why
there's sickness. It's why there's pain and agony
and anxieties and all these things. The first thing is this, and
it's the cause of all these things. We all have a sin problem. We've
got a sin problem. And it must be dealt with. And
we can't undo our sin problem. We were born in Adam as sinners
by nature. Our own personal sin. We do something
or say something or think something. I wish I hadn't done that. I
wish I hadn't said that. But there's nothing we can do
about it. It's been done. It's been said. And it's a lasting
thing. It's not something that we can
put away or undo. We've got to deal with it. We've
got a sin problem. All without exception are sinners
as descendants of Adam. according to the scriptures.
I know there's men that don't believe that and deny that, but
we look to the scriptures and it teaches us that we're all,
without exception, sinners by nature because we're descendants
of our father Adam. And then secondly, we've got
a sin problem first of all, and secondly, because of our sin
problem, we, that's you and I, I'm talking about all of us here,
we need a savior. If I were to be able to sit down
with someone I know and love and want to tell them about our
Savior, I believe I would look at them in the eye and say, you
and I, we're alike. We both need a Savior. And I'm
not preaching down to you. You're a sinner and you need
a Savior. And that's our greatest need. And that's not correct. I corrected myself. I wrote that
down. That's not our greatest need.
It is our only need. our only need. There's nothing
else we need. Not for a moment can we be without
a Savior, else we perish. Do you believe that? And if you're
one of God's people, you have never been without a Savior,
and never will be. Apart from God giving grace to
us by Jesus Christ, we're in an awful place, and it becomes
more evident as we age. and when we get sick and when
we suffer loss and observe these things and those around us. Oh
my, what shall we do? What shall we do when we're in
this place? Shall we go down to the grave
in fear and trembling and terror? A man outside of Christ, that's
all there is. There's no hope and there's no
Nothing to be cheerful about or joyful or happy about. It
is fear and trembling and terror. No one to help. Your husband
can't help you. Your wife can't help you. Your
kids can't help you. You're alone. No one to help. None to lean on. Oh my. And that's what I think about
when I see people going through this that don't know Christ.
I don't want any of us to experience this. What a dreadful thing.
Don't even like to think about it. We tend to, a lot of times,
just put those kind of things out of our mind because it's
too fearful to even think about. My heart is heavy for those who
I fear may be going this way to the grave, or may have already
gone this way to the grave, full of fear and trembling, not knowing
what comes next. A man cannot be truly happy who
dies this way. He may have had a lot of pleasures
in this life, but he's never known happiness. It cannot be. If he were happy, which I don't
believe he was or could have been, he's not now. Don't know
that it can be said he was ever a happy man. But I believe we
men, and that includes us, we fool ourselves, we deceive ourselves,
and we try to convince ourselves that we're happy. But we know,
you know, and I'm being honest with you, we know deep down where
we hide our true self, that whatever gives us enjoyment here, we must
soon turn loose of it. All that we have, all that we
own, all that we enjoy, our health, our youth, we're going to turn
loose of it. The scriptural definition of
happy is this, happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his
help. whose hope is in the Lord his
God. And I said, happy only is that
man. He's the only happy man. So having
established our desperate condition, our hopeless and helpless condition,
we read in the Psalms, I forget which one it is right now, but
the psalmist says, Lord, make me to know my end, the measure
of my days, what it is. so I may know how frail I am."
And the word frail, it means destitute. It means ceasing. Oh, we're frail. And there's
no help in man. Look at verse 3 of Psalm 146
with me. Put not your trust in princes,
nor in the Son of Man, in whom there is no help. No help in
man. no helping me, myself, or others,
no matter how high a position he may hold, no matter how great
in the eyes of this world he may be, no helping man. Why is that? Verse 4, his breath
goeth forth and he returns to his earth. In that very day,
his thoughts perish. He's a man. He came from the
dust and he goes back to the dust. And for want of a little
air, he ceases to be. Oh, he's frail. And his thoughts,
his plans, his schemes, his purposes perish that very day. No helping
man. Let me ask now an important question. I've given this a good bit of
thought this past couple weeks, I guess. I think this is a good
question. Have you and I been brought to
the place that we know this, that if I am to be saved, it
must be by grace. That is, if I am to be rescued
from sin and from death and from hell and given any peace and
enjoy true, lasting, eternal happiness, have I been brought
to this place that if I'm to enter into these things, that
God must have already acted for me, not hoping he will act. or hoping that I will do something
that will cause Him to act to rescue me. But my hope lies in
that He has given me grace in Christ Jesus before the world
began, that God must have already acted for me, and it is done. Have I been brought to that place?
You see, I'm helpless to act on my own behalf. And my sin
can only bring God's contempt upon me. So God must act in grace
towards me and he must have already done so. God never changes. He's eternal. He does not reach
a point in time when he decides which course he's going to take.
But that's my hope. that God has saved me from all
eternity, that I have never been without a Savior, and I can never
be lost. That's my hope. It's a place
of hopelessness and helplessness for this flesh. And where does
that leave us? There's only one thing we can
do, and that's it. It forces you. People don't like
that. I don't like being forced. I
do. It forces you and I to do what? To hope in His mercy. To
hope in His mercy. We are backed into a corner.
We can't get out. There's no way out. We're hemmed
up and shut up to the fact that if God does not show mercy, we
will die without hope. If God does not show mercy, we
will die without hope. Turn to Psalm 147 together, verse
11, just over one page. Now this ought to just delight
your soul to no end. If you have an interest in your
soul, 147.11, the Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him
and those that hope in his mercy. Right there, that's a good hope,
isn't it? Oh my, the Lord taketh pleasure
in them that fear him and those that hope in his mercy. Psalm
33, 18 says, behold, look at this, behold, the eye of the
Lord is upon them that fear Him and upon them that hope in His
mercy. The eye of the Lord is on Him. When you start looking
in the Scripture, there is an awful lot about mercy. Boy, that's
a delightful thing, isn't it? My heart is enlightened just
talking about it. I was kind of down there at the beginning
talking about all these things that we deal with in life. That
just picks me up and just does something for you. Behold, the
eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that
hope in his mercy. We read in Psalm 86 that he's
plenteous in mercy. In Micah, we read he delights
in mercy. And remember that publican's
prayer in the temple. He prayed, God be merciful to
me, the sinner. That's all he prayed. And the
scripture says he went down to his house justified. What a gospel. Oh me. This is a good hope. This is a good hope. There is
no other hope. No wonder the writer says, happy
is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help. You know who Jacob
is? The God of Jacob. He of whom
the scripture says, Jacob have I loved. I've loved Jacob. Jacob, his name's not a noble
name. He's a cheater, it means cheat,
deceiver, supplanter, whose name God changed to Israel, prince
with God. That's Jacob, the God of Jacob. God was not ashamed to call Himself
Jacob's God. Look over in Exodus chapter 3
regarding this. Our God's a friend of sinners.
He's a friend of Jacob. I can identify with Jacob. Exodus chapter 3, beginning verse
13. And Moses said unto God, Behold,
when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto
them, The God of your fathers has sent me unto you, and they
shall say to me, what's his name? What shall I say unto them? And
God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, thus shalt
thou say unto the children of Israel, I am has sent me unto
you. Now that strikes some fear in
my heart. The great I am has sent me to
you. But then God goes on. He said,
and God said, moreover, unto Moses, thus shalt thou say unto
the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob has sent me unto you. And this is my name forever.
This is my memorial unto all generations. The God of that
sinner, Jacob. Our God's the friend of sinners. And he said of Jacob, I've loved
Jacob, I've hated Esau, therefore hath he mercy on whom he will."
And then these are happy folks because their hope never changes. You know, we have hopes and dreams, and they're
often never realized, and we're disappointed, and we're more
hopeful at one time than another. But when your hope is in Him
who never changes, your hope never changes. Our view of it
may change. We may lose sight of it, but
it never changes. It's in God who never changes. It's in the unchanging God that
we hope and hold to. Malachi 3 verse 6 says, For I
am the Lord, and I change not. Therefore, ye sons of Jacob,
there's Jacob again, are not consumed. If we have hoped in
Him, we can yet continue to hope in the Lord our God. Swift to
its close ebbs out life's little day. Earth's joys grow dim, its
glories pass away. Change and decay in all around
I see. O thou who changest not, abide
with me. Now we read earlier, I didn't
have you turn, but Psalm 33, 18 says this, and this is a blessed
thing to me. When I think about the scriptures
and look at them numerous times, Psalm 33, 18 says, Behold, the
eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that
hope in his mercy. And what a blessing it is to
know that our Lord's mindful of us. and His eye is upon us. But to know it has always been
so, and it will always be so, that's a higher level of joy
and uplifts your heart. Because I read this scripture
earlier in the week, Psalm 33, 18. The eye of the Lord is upon
them that fear him. I read it again today. The eye
of the Lord is upon them. It's still there. It's present
tense. It doesn't change. The Word of God does not change.
There's not a time that I can read that scripture and it's
not speaking of now. And it always will speak of now.
That's one of the most blessed things about God's word being
eternal. Man's word, we just read that
man's thoughts about things and his opinions, they perish with
him. God's word endures forever. And
it says down here, where is it? It just came to mind. in verse
6 of Psalm 146, that He keepeth truth forever. Truth is eternal. And you can rely on it. You can
trust it. You can hope in God's Word. What
a blessing that His eye is upon us. Always has been, always will
be. Well, let's consider just a few
reasons for happiness and hope that's to be found in God alone.
First of all, we must entirely exclude man from being any source
of help because we're told in verse four that man dies, and
we already talked about that. He dies and goes back to the
dust from whence he came, and his thoughts perish in that very
day. Turn over to Jeremiah with me,
chapter 17. Not only are we not to, there's
no help in man, which gives us a reason not to hope and trust
in man. God has something more to say
about it. In verse 5 of Jeremiah 17, Thus saith the Lord, Cursed
be the man that trusteth in man. Cursed be the man that trusteth
in man. You're cursed. And maketh flesh
his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be
like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh,
but shall inhabit the parts places in the wilderness, in a salt
land, and not inhabited. And in verse 7, blessed is the
man that trusteth in the Lord. Cursed is the man that trusteth
in man, but blessed and happy, satisfied, content is the man
that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he
shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth
out her roots by the river, and shall not see when he cometh,
but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the
year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. What
a contrast, what a difference. Cursed is the man that trusteth
in man, and maketh flesh his arm. Spurgeon said there's three
things that comes from a man who makes flesh his arm and looks
to man for anything. Three things that result from
that. Number one, it dishonors God. God won't have it. He's
a jealous God. Cursed is that man. Trust in
man, the creature. Trust in God, the creator. The
second thing that comes about, it degrades man. It ends up degrading
that man. And then thirdly, it winds up
in disappointment. That man will be disappointed
if he trusts in man or trusts in himself or looks to himself
to do anything. Scripture says, cease ye from
man whose breath's in his nostrils. Cursed is that man that trusts
in man. That's strong, isn't it? That's
not an idle thing. It's not a small thing. We must
hope in God alone. And why is that? Back in Psalm
146. You know, the Scriptures don't
just say something like trust in God and leave it at that.
It gives lots of reasons, and lots of them, not a few. There's
reasons. We must hope in God, and why?
We read here in verse 6 of Psalm 146, whose hope was in the Lord
his God, which made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that
therein is. God alone, who made heaven and
earth, with his word he hath made all things. He's brought
everything into existence by his great power and his mighty
hand, and spoke all that we see into existence, has created man,
and all that is in the earth, and all that's in the heavens,
and the stars, and all the universes. God hath made it. that which
he hath willed stands fast and is done. The God in whom we trust
is the creator and sustainer of all things. Is He not able
by His great might to deliver us, He who made all things? We need to trust Him. He's given
us life. He will take our life in His
time. We must look to Him. In Him is
life. In Him is salvation. And He keepeth
truth forever. At the end of verse 6, He is
truth. Our Lord said of Himself, I'm
the way, the truth, and the life. And it abides and endures forever
by His keeping, our unchanging God. His promises never change. You can rely on God's promises. And we take His promises to Him
as we pray. Lord, Thou hast said, this word
and you've caused me to hope in this word. And we said earlier
that God must act for me if I'm to have any hope. We read in
verse 6 where God acting, God acting, verse 6, I'm sorry, verse
7. He executed judgment for the
oppressed. Does this not speak of Christ,
the believer substitute, who on behalf of his people was made
sin and condemned sin in the flesh? and wrought out a righteousness
on behalf of His people, He was made sin that we might be made
a righteousness of God in Him to justify us from sin and redeem
us from all our iniquities. God has acted. God has acted. He said this, He said, I, even
I, I, even I, who am God, I, even I, am He that blotteth out
thy transgressions and will no more remember thy sins. It's
God that has done this thing. We need a hope in Him who has
done all things well. And then we read further in verse
7, which giveth food to the hungry. I believe God feeds the hungry.
He feeds the sparrows. He feeds this world. But this
is a spiritual meeting more than a physical meeting. Most men
have never experienced that hunger and thirst for righteousness.
It's talking about that spiritual hunger. God gives food to the
hungry. They then hunger and thirst after
righteousness, they'll be filled. I'll fill them. That's what this
is talking about. God has acted. He said, I am
that bread from heaven. He that eateth of me, he'll never
hunger, he'll never thirst. He feeds us with himself. He feeds the hungry. And go on
down, verse 7, the Lord looseth the prisoner. He gave his life
that we might be made free, because we are bound by sin. bound by
death, bound by Satan, bound by the flesh. Our nature binds
us. We're unable to know God, unable
to seek God, have no desire after God. We are bound in chains that
we cannot break. We're bound by the law and its
penalty that's due our sin, the justice of God. We're children
of wrath. And we're weak. We have no strength. We're bound by our weakness.
We're unable to deliver ourselves. But the Lord looseth the prisoners.
He sets the captives free. He Himself has removed all that's
against us. And we are free indeed in Him. And then the Lord opens the eyes
of the blind in verse 8. Turn over to Psalm 107. as we talk about this point.
Verse 9. 107 verse 9. For he satisfieth the
longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. Such
as sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, being bound
in affliction and iron. That's us, isn't it? That's us.
That's what we've been talking about. Because they rebelled
against the words of God, and condemned the counsel of the
Most High. Therefore he brought down their
heart with labor. They fell down and there was
none to help. But then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble,
and He saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out
of darkness, He gave them sight, and He brought them out of the
shadow of death, and broke their bands in sunder. Oh, that men
would praise the Lord for His goodness, for what He's done,
and for His wonderful works to the children of men. And that's
our business. I heard Greg preach a message
here a while back. Why am I here? That's it. To
praise God. Nothing else. That's why I'm
here. It's not about me. It's not about
you. It's about Him. That is the one
reason we are here. And our song starts out, praise
ye the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live, I will
praise the Lord and will sing praises to my God while I have
any being. That's our purpose. That's why
we're here. And then. The Lord raises them
that are bowed down, who among us have not been bowed down with
fleshly and physical and mental anguish and burdens. God lifts
up his people from those things in his way. He's the only one
that can. We try to help one another, but
God's the only true helper that can help. When there's heart
trouble, when there's soul trouble, when there's anguish of the mind
and physical ailments, God alone can help. And He does. He delivers. He raises up the poor out of
the dust and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill. And this is
the spiritual application of this. We're of the dust, we're
of the earth, we cannot rise to God, but He lifts us up to
heaven by putting us in Christ. He lifts up the beggar from the
dunghill. We're beggars, mercy beggars, have no claim on God,
have nothing to offer God, and He sets us among princes. He
changed Jacob's name to Prince with God, changed his name to
Israel. And he makes us to inherit glory. Oh my, oh my. Has God acted? God has acted. And he hath acted. And it's done. And that's my hope. That what he
did, he did for me. And that's my only hope. And
then he loveth the righteous. The Lord loveth the righteous.
Oh, how he loved. How he loves his own. Can never grasp it. I just can't
get a hold of it. How could God love me and you? How? Not just put up with us. Love us. Send his son to die
for us. Greater love hath no man than
this, that he lay down his life for his friends. And herein is
love, we know this, not that we love God, but that he loved
us. And there's no period there,
it goes on. He acted on that love, he proved
that love, he demonstrated that love, but that he loved us and
sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. That's my hope,
that he's my propitiation And that was decided on before I
was ever born, before there was ever an earth or anything. There was just God and His Son,
the eternal God. And then it says, He preserves
the strangers. The Lord preserves the strangers. Over in Ephesians 2, you can
turn there real quick if you want. You all know this one.
it immediately came to my mind, Ephesians 2, verse 12, that at
that time, you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having
no hope and without God in the world. But He preserves strangers,
the Scripture says. I was reading this psalm a little
bit ago, Psalm 121, the Lord shall preserve thee from all
evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going
out and thy coming in from this time forth and even forevermore. Psalm 121, you all know that
one. He preserves the strangers, Gentiles,
spiritual Israel, but fleshly Gentiles. The Lord preserves
the strangers. And then, in the last verse,
we read this, the Lord shall reign forever. That's a good
reason to hope in Him. He'll reign forever. Even thy
God, O Zion, people of God, even thy God is He who shall reign
forever. And He'll reign unto all generations.
All generations. And what a fitting end to this
song. In light of all that's been said, praise ye the Lord. What great cause to praise the
Lord. You know, we'll wind this up. Let me just say a couple of things.
You know, sadly, most religious churchgoers, and we all have
family and people we love, The religious churchgoers, it doesn't
appear that God has ever revealed himself to them. But they believe
this, that God's glorified and honored by what they do for God. And they're busy doing this and
that, and going here and going there, and having these things
that they do, thinking that they're honoring, glorifying God in these
things. And that's not so. God's not
glorified in that, in fleshly energy and what the flesh can
produce. The flesh profits nothing. The flesh profits nothing. God
is glorified, and God is honored, not by what we do for Him, but
what He has done for us. So we need to make it our business
to speak of Him. And as our text says, praise
ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. While
I live, I will praise the Lord. And I will sing praises unto
my God while I have any being. Oh, that men, this is our desire,
oh, that men, that these religious churchgoers would see and that
they would praise the Lord for His goodness and His wonderful
works to the children of men, which He has done. And in closing,
turn there to a portion of that Psalm 145 that we just read. If God has brought you to this
place and He's not made Himself known to you, this place that
you know that if God does not give me mercy, I'll perish. If
God has not acted for me, there's no hope for me. If God's brought
you to that place, read these verses with me. Verse 18 and
19, Psalm 145. The Lord is nigh unto all them
that call upon Him to all that call upon Him in truth, to all
that call upon Him in Christ, who is the truth. He will, He
will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him, not debate with
Him, but fear Him. Not challenge Him, question Him,
but those that fear Him. He also will hear their cry and
will save them, hoping His mercy. Cry unto Him. Blind Bartimaeus
cried out, Lord, save me immediately. Our Lord stopped and turned to
him. May God encourage you to call
out if you don't know him. And we as believers, we continue
to cry out, Lord, save me. Lord, keep me. Keep me trusting. Keep me believing. Help me to
see these things that My soul is happy, content, satisfied
with Christ and in Christ, and I rest in Him. Nothing to fear,
come what may, sickness, death, loss of loved ones, whatever
it may be, nothing to fear. May God bless His word to your
hearts. Let's bow in prayer. Oh, our
kind and gracious, merciful Heavenly Father, oh, how we thank you
for the hope that we have in Christ, our Redeemer, who bled
and died and was ordained from all eternity to be the Savior
of sinners. That's our only hope of life
eternal, our hope of deliverance from sin and its penalty, our
deliverance from fear and the dread of the tomb. Lord, speak
to hearts this morning, make an impression, Go with us and
keep us mindful of Thee and help us to rejoice in Thee as the
scriptures admonished us to do. Make it our business to praise
and glorify You in our souls, in our hearts, that we continue
to lift up praise to He alone who is worthy. Thank You for
the gathering of Your people. Be with us again tonight, we
pray. Watch over us. We know Your eyes are upon us
as we were reminded this morning how thankful we are. Dismiss
us with your love and watch care we pray in Christ's name. Amen.