Turn to the 146th Psalm with
me this evening. And the psalmist opens up, and
I'll read this whole psalm and come back and say a few things
about it. Praise ye the Lord. Praise the
Lord, O my soul. While I live, will I praise the
Lord. I will sing praises unto my God
while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes,
nor in the Son of Man, in whom there is no help. His breath
goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, and that very day
his thoughts perish. Happy is the people that hath
the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his
God, which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein
is, which keepeth truth forever, which executeth judgment for
the oppressed, which giveth food to the hungry, The Lord looses
the prisoners. The Lord opened the eyes of the
blind. The Lord raises them that are bowed down. The Lord loveth
the righteous. The Lord preserveth the stranger. He relieveth the fatherless and
widow, but the way of the wicked he turns upside down. The Lord
shall reign forever and ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all
generations. Praise ye the Lord. David starts out as we'd like
to and need to and hopefully we do. We praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Don't praise
man. Don't brag on man. If you're
going to praise anybody, praise ye the Lord. Bless His name. He's the one worthy of praise.
Over in Revelations 22, I read tonight, it said, Worship God.
Worship God. And then praise the Lord not
just with my lips, not with just my words, but praise the Lord
with my soul, inside you, in your soul, with that part that
God saved, that part that God knows, that part that knows God,
that living soul, that being that's within you, praise Him
in your very soul. Your soul longeth. David said,
My soul longeth for the Lord, yea, my soul longeth. And so
we praise the Lord with our soul. And while I live, while I live,
I'll praise the Lord. While I live, while I live on
this earth, while I live in this world, while I live in the home
God gave me, while I live with the people the Lord blessed me
to be, while I live, I'll praise the Lord. I'll mention Him and
His glory, and if I sang anything, I'm gonna sing praises unto my
God, and listen to this, while I have any being. That means
while I have any existence, while I have any being, while I have
any soul, if I have any understanding, I'll praise the Lord. And then
look what He says, so if you're gonna praise God, then put not
your trust in princes, men of power. men of prestige, men of
authority, men of wealth, men of power. Don't put your trust
in princes. He may sit on the throne. He
may have lots of wealth. He may dress in wonderful, wonderful
clothes. And people may stand around him
and laud him and brag on him and say he's the one that's got
all this wonderful power and authority. But he said don't
put your trust in them. Don't put your trust in the Son
of Man. Any son of Adam, any son of Adam at all. Don't put
any trust in the son of man. Don't put your eggs in anybody
else's basket. Because he said, in whom there
is no help, not in the princess or the son of man. And that word
help in the margin says salvation. There's no salvation from them.
There's no salvation from man. There's no salvation from a prince.
There's no salvation from those on this earth. And this is why
we don't put no trust in Him. This is why we don't. His breath
goeth forth. That means that one of these
days His breath is going to cease. His breath goeth forth and He
returns to the earth. HIS BREATH LEAVES HIM, AND WHERE
DID HE COME FROM? HE'S GONNA GO BACK TO THE GROUND. HE COMES OUT OF THE EARTH, AND
HE'S GONNA GO RIGHT BACK WHERE HE CAME FROM. HE'S GONNA DRAW
HIS LAST BREATH. THAT PRINCE IS GONNA DRAW HIS
LAST BREATH. THAT SON OF MAN WHOM YOU TRUSTED, THAT PERSON
WHO HAD THIS POWER THAT YOU TRUSTED IN, HIS BREATH GOETH FORTH. HE'LL
DRAW HIS LAST BREATH, AND HE RETURNS TO THE EARTH. Just like me and you. That's
why you don't put any trust or hope in anything that man in
this earth can do. And then that very day, that
very day, everything he thought, everything he hoped in, everything
he believed, everything he rejoiced in, all of his hopes, all of
his aspirations, all of his fears, all of his anxiety, everything
that about that person. That very day, that prince or
that son of man whom you, that very day, this is why you don't
do it, his very thoughts gone too. When he goes, all of his
thoughts go with him. It's like Nehemiah said, I thought that he would say, come out here
and wave his hand over me. Simon Magus thought that the
kingdom of God and the gifts of God could be purchased with
silver and gold And on look what else he says though, but now
listen to this verse 5 happy Blessed that word happy is blessed
is he that has the God of Jacob for his help or his salvation
and You know who the God of Jacob
is? All you've got to do is remember who Jacob was and who Jacob is. Jacob, the first thing you find
him is, he comes out, he holds on to his brother's heel and
comes out of that room first, and he comes out of there, and
the first thing you read about him is he's dressed up like his
brother Esau so he could get the blessing from his father.
Second thing you hear about him, he runs off because his brother's
gonna kill him. His mama says, you gotta get
away from him. He goes over there and he beats his father-in-law
out of all of his cattle in just a little while. He has so much
more than his father-in-law does. You know how he labored and waited
and waited for his wife. And then on his way back, the
Lord God laid hold on him. He was a supplanter and a deceiver.
And, boy, God came at night, and the Lord Jesus came, laid
hold on him, and would not turn him loose. What's your name?
My name's secret. Wonderful. Oh, listen, he wrestled with
Jacob and kept Jacob till the break of day. He said, you know
what? You're not going to be Jacob anymore. You're going to
be Israel. You're going to be a prince. You're going to be
a prince. He's the God of election. Jacob
was chosen of God. He's the God who loved Jacob
and hated Esau. He's the God who said, I'll have
mercy upon whom I'll have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom
I'll have compassion. And I said, and that's why he
says, blessed is he who has the God of Jacob for his salvation. the God of election, the God
that loved you with an everlasting love, the God that came and laid
hold on you, the God who came and throws your hip out of joint
and you walk different from that day forward. And oh, and listen to what he
goes on to say, happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his
help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. You know why we have
this hope in him? Because he's the one who made
the heaven. He made the heaven. God said,
let there be light, and there was light. In the beginning,
God made the heavens and the earth. This God that we're talking
about, this God who's our help, this God of election, this God
of love for His people made heaven and earth, and then He made the
sea. You know, they tell me, and I don't know if it, and I
guess it's right, I guess people measure those things. They say
three quarters of the earth's covered with water. Three quarters of
it's covered with water. The sea. You know how many things
in the sea that people ain't seen? And the sea. He made the heaven,
the earth, and then he made the sea. I've seen some incredible
creatures in the sea. I've seen some big whales, I've
seen some small whales, I've seen porpoises, I've seen big
fish, little fish, jellyfish, sand dollars, what do they call
them, stars, sand stars? I've seen a lot of things in
the ocean. I've seen other colored fish
you can imagine. I've seen coral. I've seen all
this and that. And I've just seen just a fraction.
of what there is. He made heaven, the earth, the
sea, and everything that's in heaven, everything that's in
earth, everything's in the sea, and all that's therein. That's
what He means. Everything that's in the heaven,
everything that's in the earth, everything's in the sea, and
everything that's in it. And then look what else He does.
He keeps truth forever. He keeps it. Whatever anybody
else says about truth, God said, I'm gonna keep it. I'm gonna
guard it. I'm gonna protect it. It's my truth, and my truth will
stand forever. And then look what else he said.
He executes judgment for the oppressed, which giveth food
to the hungry. Food to the hungry. Now I wanna
talk about five things here about the Lord. You notice here in
the last two verses, Look what it says here. The Lord loosed
the prisoner. The Lord opened the eyes of the
blind. The Lord loveth the righteousness.
The Lord preserveth the fatherless, the strangers. The Lord shall
reign forever and ever. I want to talk about the Lord.
And oh my, Dirk read just a minute ago that God is good to all and
his mercy endureth forever. And listen to what it says. This
is the God we trust in. Look what it says there in verse
7. The Lord looses the prisoners. Our Lord is the liberator. He
looses the prisoners. And it's only prisoners that
He sets free. People that ain't bound, they
don't need to be set free. Only the prisoners. Look in Isaiah
61 with me for just a minute. We'll just gaze at it here in
Psalm Isaiah 61. And he loosed the prisoners.
You know what? And you find so many of the Lord's
people in prison. The first prisoner you find,
I believe, is Joseph. He was in prison. He was in the
dungeon because Potiphar's wife lied on him, accused him of things
that he didn't do. And he went to prison, went in
dungeon, and they kept him down there in the prison in dungeon.
Who, you know, who brought him up out of that dungeon? Who loosed
him from the prison? God raised him up. Not only did
he raise him up, but he put him on the throne. He made him lord
over Egypt. He made him, if anybody had any
bread, they had to come to Joseph. And oh, look at the Spirit of
the Lord, God is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach
good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, and listen to this, to proclaim liberty to
the captives and the opening of prison to them that are bound. He loses the prisoners. He brought
Israel up out of the iron furnace He called it when he brought
him up out of Egypt. God did that when no Belshazzar
Nebuchadnezzar had Daniel put down into the they had Daniel
put in the lion's den Daniel's down there in that lion's den.
They said boy, we're done with this fella They went down there
the next morning they said Oh King said Daniel I Are you there? He said, oh, yes. Said the Lord shut the mouth
all these lines. He just laid down, slept, used
them for pillows. And the old man had to bring
him up out of that. And oh, what about the three
Hebrew children in the fiery furnace? Our Lord Jesus Christ
got right in there with them. And they come and looked and
they said, wait a minute, did we put three in there? Yes. And
it even destroyed the men, put them in there. Did we not put
three in there? We did. I see four. Who's that fourth
one? He looks like under the Son of
God. And they walked out of that fiery furnace. I say the Lord
loses the prisoners. And not only does He lose those
actually in prison, but He loses those who have mental prisoners. Mental, they have fears and anxieties
and troubles and depression. and temptations and things like
this. You know, Job said something
that years and years ago troubled me until I, until I, you know,
the Lord gave me some assurance. I mean, Job chapter 3. I used to have some awful, awful
anxieties about things in this world. I come back from Vietnam and
I was in an absolute, I was in the horriblest condition you
could imagine. I'd have rather stayed over there as come home.
That's how what a condition I was in. That's just because this
world was so strange to me at that time. Mental pressures,
mental fears, anxieties. But look what Job said here in
verse 25. For the thing which I greatly
feared has come upon me. And that which I was afraid of
has come unto me. I feared a fear and it came upon
me. That's what Job said. And oh, I tell you, there's people
that have fears and worries and anxieties and depressions. And what is it that you fear?
What is it that you fear? Death? Loss of a child? Loss of a loved one? Your health
going bad? Fear ended up in a nursing home?
Fear ended up in a wheelchair with some horrible disease that
you waste away with? Well, I tell you what, the Lord
loses the prisoners. You put it in God's hands, you
leave it with Him, cast your care upon Him for He cares for
you and He will not, will not let you go through anything that
He won't go through it with you. He'll set you free from those
things, He'll set you free from depression, He'll set you free
from fears. He said, He hath not given us
the spirit of fear but of power and of a sound mind. And oh,
and I tell you, not only is he loose, these prisoners have mental
things. And a lot of people have mental
issues. And let me tell you something,
though. If you ever go to an analyst or a psychiatrist or
psychologist, what they're going to do is tell you why you're
like that is because you're a victim. Some circumstance or something,
you're a victim of this or a victim of that. I personally believe
I'm not a victim of anything but sin, and that's my own fault,
and that's my own problem. And God's the only one that can
save me from any situation I'm in. Anything that ever went wrong
in my life is my fault. Anything that ever went right
in my life, God's fault. And I'm going to take the blame
for what I've done, and I'm going to give Him the glory for what
He's done. So don't let anybody say, well, it's just your circumstances
and your situation is what puts you in that condition, what puts
you in this condition, that other condition. There's nobody, listen,
if we have fears and anxieties, it's because of our sin and our
lack of trust. I really believe this in the
Lord Jesus Christ. I actually, I'd go to God, I'd
go to God, and I know some of you have, when you have problems
and have worries and fears and anxieties, and go to Him and
tell Him, Lord, I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid this is going
to happen to me. And if You don't uphold me, if
You don't keep me, if You don't save me from it, I'll not be
saved from it. And God did, and as time went
on, He just gives grace and gives strength and gives ability. And
I tell you something else, He says He loses the spiritual prisoners,
spiritual prisoners, all born slaves to sin, held in bondage
to sin. Look in Luke 13 with me. Oh,
listen, I tell you, He saves us that are born slaves, born
in sin. That's what our Lord Jesus Christ
told him. He says, you know the truth and
the truth will set you free. He said, oh, we ain't never been
in bondage. Never been in bondage. Well, I tell you what, I know
what it is. If you ain't never been in bondage,
you ain't never been set free. Oh, listen, look what he said here
in Luke 13, 11. Oh, he saves those born in sin,
born to slaves to sin. And behold, there's a woman which
had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and was bowed together
and could in no wise lift up herself. Oh, they said, well,
you pull yourself up by your bootstraps. She couldn't. She
couldn't even straighten up. And look what he said. And he
laid his hands on her and immediately she was made straight and glorified
God. And listen now, the ruler of
the synagogue answered with indignation, got angry about it, indignant
about it, because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day
and said unto the people, there are six days in which men ought
to work and therefore come and be healed and not on the Sabbath
day. The Lord answered and said unto him, you hypocrite, doth
each one of you loose his ox or his ass from the stall and
lead him away to watering on the Sabbath? And ought not this
woman being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan, listen to this, whom
Satan hath bound, lo these 18 years, be loosed from this bond
on the Sabbath day? She'd been bound 18 years, shouldn't
she be loosed? And that's what he does, he looses
people. And we can't change to break
the change. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, and he shall, shall
save his people from their sins. And the Lord looses the prisoners.
Oh, he knoweth the truth, and the truth hath set you free.
When he called Lazarus out of the tomb, you know what? The
first thing they told him. When he come out, he still had all
those grave clothes on. And our Lord Jesus says, Loose
him! Loose him! And let him go. Let him go. Dead men don't need grave clothes.
Dead men's gotta have the grave clothes. Living men, the living
don't need grave clothes. Take them off of it. And then
look what else it said over here in Psalm 146. The next one. Oh, the Lord looses the prisoner.
And then look what it says. The Lord opened the eyes of the
blind. He's the only one who can give
you sight. And you know the only people that need sight is people
who can't see. That's all people need sight.
Only people need lights, people that sit in darkness. And I'll
tell you what, the Lord Jesus Christ, He can give, only those
who are physically blind can see Christ when He opens the
eyes of the soul, of the understanding, brings light to the soul. You
know, there's people that are born blind, like Fanny Crosby,
wrote, oh, a countless number of hymns. But you know the first
thing her eyes saw when she passed into glory? The first thing her
eyes fell on, she wrote about the Lord Jesus
Christ. She saw Him in faith. She saw
His glory. She's blind, couldn't see anything. But oh, when she wrote all those
hymns about Christ, all those hymns about the Lord Jesus, and
just as minute as she got into glory, she had sight. She had sight. But I tell you
what, spiritually speaking, men are as blind as Fannie Crosby
was, spiritually, until God gives them eyes to see. They say, oh,
I don't see it like you. I don't see it like you. I don't
see it that way. Of course you don't see it that
way. You can't possibly see it the right way until you have
eyes to see. And oh, the Lord Jesus, while
on earth, he opened the eyes of many blind. Blind Bartimaeus,
John chapter nine, they asked him, says, that man was born
blind. They asked him, said, which man
sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? He said,
neither one of them. Mama didn't have nothing to do
with this. The boy didn't have nothing. This is God's work.
And he said, this happened that God may get glorified. And God's glorified when he gives
men sight. Glorified when he opens the understanding. And oh, he gives the physical
sight, the spiritual sight. And Bartimaeus saw in Christ
when he, the Lord Jesus, came by and he started crying out,
he is a beggar. Oh, Jesus, thou son of David.
He knew exactly who he was. He knew he was David's son, the
rightful heir to the throne. The one that had all the authority
and the power. And y'all know the story of Saul
of Tarsus? Clay Curtis preached here. I
believe it was the first conference he came to down here. He preached
the blessing of blindness. Do y'all remember that? He preached
on Saul of Tarsus being blinded on the Damascus road. And what
a blessing it was for him to be blinded. God blinded him on
the Damascus road. may shut him up to himself, shut
him up to Christ, and blinded him so that when his eyes, he
saw with the eyes of faith, he saw the Lord Jesus Christ in
the minute, he saw Christ, submitted to Christ, and started trusting
Christ, God said, now go over yonder and open his eyes. You know, he could see, he could
see until he was blinded. And when he was blinded, that's
when he could really see. He's blinded to everything but
Christ. Old Scott Richardson used to
say all the time, he said, oh, we wish God would make us like
a bunch of mules and put blinders on us where we couldn't see nothing
but Christ. And oh, beloved, and I know this,
there'll be no blindness in glory. There we'll see the king in his
beauty. There we'll see the King in His
glory. And I know this, that if you get around blind people,
you can hold up a light and they can't see it. You know, it's not in the problem,
it's not in the light. It's in the men's eyesight. And
we can hold the light of Christ up just as high as we can. We
can hold the light of God's glory up as high as we can. We can
set our Lord Jesus Christ up high, high and glorious, but
we're holding up that light. But if God don't perform the
miracle and give sight, they'll never see, never see. It takes
a miracle. And then look what else it says
about him. Not only does he open the eyes of the blind, but the
Lord raises up them that are bowed down. He's the comforter,
raises up them that are bowed down. That means bowed down with
a burden. Got weight on you. You're carrying
a load. He said he's the one that comforts
you. Maybe there's people that get bowed down, bowed down, you
know, and they've got a load on them. It's heavy. It may be bowed down or bowed
down with a sorrow for the loss of somebody that they love. Carol, you lost somebody that
you loved dearly. Hershel Burgess died last Monday
and he had this one son. He was here this morning, one
son. That poor boy, he was hurting so bad, he was so lost, he just
wept and wept and wept and wept and wept. He's bowed down with a load of
care, bowed down with somebody that he loved that was lost.
But oh, listen, He raised up those that are bowed down when
they lose somebody that they love. You know, when he came
to him and Mary and Martha sent word to the Lord Jesus, says,
He whom thou lovest is sick. And he waited, our Lord waited
four days. And he went over there and Lazarus was dead. Then Mary
and Martha started crying. Our Lord Jesus Christ wept with
them. I care enough about you to weep
with you. And oh, that widow of Nain, she
lost her son, her only son, and she was walking out of town,
walking along by her son's casket, and there he laid in that casket,
and her heart was broke. Her heart was aching. Her heart
was so heavy. And our Lord Jesus Christ just
stopped it. He said, ah, this woman's got
such a load on her. She's got such a burden on her.
She feels this great loss. It's the only child she's got.
She's feeling this great loss. Nobody to love her, nobody to
care for her, nobody to wait on, nobody. He's just stopped
the casket. Young man, get up. Get up. He got up. Mama got to take him home. He
lifted up those that are bowed down. And oh, sometimes we're
bowed down by burdens of life, burdens of life. But Deuteronomy
33, 25 says, as your days be, as your days be, so shall your
strength be. Look in Isaiah, keep this, because
we're gonna come back to Psalm 146. Look in Isaiah 40, look
in Isaiah 40. Look at Isaiah 40 here, look
what he said in verse 29. He giveth power to the faint. Oh, you feel faint, you feel
so weak, you feel like, oh, you just can't go on. And to them
that have no might, he increases their strength. Even young men,
young women, young people shall faint and be weary. And the young
men shall utterly fall. But they, they that wait upon
the Lord, be patient, be strong, wait on the Lord. They that wait
upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up
with wings as evil. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
Oh, listen, when you bow down, there's a song in our hymn book,
I Take Your Burden to the Lord, I Think. I believe I know where
that's at. Let me just read you a couple
of verses of that. If your body suffers pain and
your health you can't regain, and your soul is almost sinking
into despair, Jesus knows the pain you feel. He can save and
He can heal. Take your burden to the Lord
and leave it there. Oh, if the world withhold from
you its silver and its gold and you have to get along with me,
prepare. Just remember in his word how
he feeds the little bird. When your youthful days are gone and old age is still in the home,
and your body bends beneath the weight of care. He'll never leave
you then. He'll go with you to the end.
Take your burden to the Lord. Leave it there. Leave it there.
Oh, and then if you bow down with inward distress. Do you ever get up some days
and And one day you're just, oh, you're just strong, you're
just full of energy, you're just everything going wonderful, great,
and then one day you wake up and you just have this cloud,
this darkness, this heaviness and a burden and you go sighing
all day long and it's unexplainable. You can't explain it. It just
happens. You know, yesterday you were
just having the best time, then you get up and then there's this
heaviness. burden that comes upon you, this
darkness, this sighing, this grief, this sorrow, whatever
it is. And you get some places sometimes
where you even become a burden to yourselves. The Lord, the Lord raises up
them that are bowed down. And oh, if you're bowed down
with sin and guilt, He finds these burdens too and raises
them up. Our Lord Jesus told that woman
who came and washed his feet, said, Oh woman, your sins which
are many, they're forgiven. That woman in adultery, they
come and took her in adultery. He said, He's without sin, let
him cast the first stone. And they all started walking
away. And He says, Is anybody here condemning you? She said,
No man, Lord, I don't either. Go on, go on. Listen and then
look there back here back over here in verse 46 Not only does
the Lord open eyes of the blind loose the prisoners raise them
that are bowed down the Lord loveth the righteous Verse verse 8 the Lord loveth
the righteous and I tell you what there's several, you know,
the why he loves the righteous is because he made him righteous.
He loves righteousness And the only way we can be righteous
is to make us righteous. But He loves His people. He loves the righteous with a
love of complacency. He delights in them. He rejoices
in them. He finds great joy in looking
at His people. It's like looking at His Son.
And He loves righteous. He loves the righteous. And it's
not just a love of benevolence and kindness. Oh, He just desires
our good. I mean, the Lord Jesus Christ,
when God looks at us, He sees righteousness, and He loves that
righteousness. And oh, He looks on us with pleasure,
with delight. For the righteousness is of Him.
It comes through Him, by Him, but because of Him. He calls
us His jewels. And we say, Jehovah's akin you,
the Lord our righteousness. And I'll tell you something else.
He loves to commune with the righteous. He does. He loves to commune with the
righteous. Keep Isaiah, keep Psalm 146 and look in Isaiah
66. He loves to commune with the
righteous. And here's the thing about it.
God's got to give you, not only make you righteous, He's got
to give you, make you a partaker of His divine nature. You've
got to have a new heart, a new will, a new nature before you
can commune with God. God can only fellowship with
people like Himself. He can only fellowship and commune
with holy people, righteous people. That's why you know that people
that say, you know, I trusted the Lord and I know that God
hears my prayer and they've never heard the gospel, never believed
in anything. Somebody heard it, I don't know who it is, maybe
it's in their imagination, but I know this, that only the righteous
and people who know God is the only people that God communes
with and fellowships with and enjoys. and the only ones He
looks at and has anything to do with. Look what is said here
in Isaiah 66, Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne,
the earth is my footstool, where is the house that ye build unto
me, and where is the place of my rest? For all these things
hath my hand made, and all these things have been, saith the LORD.
But to this man I'm going to look at, to this man I'm going
to pay attention to, Even him that is of a poor and contrite
spirit and trembles at my word." Who trembles at his word? People
that he's made righteous, that knows what he's like. And oh,
he lets them speak to them and he speaks to them. The secret
of the Lord was them that fear him. And he loves his people,
he loves the righteous with a love of grace, a love of favor. And
He does for His own what He doesn't do for others. He said, I'll
withhold no good thing from them. And He told us in Psalm 37, Delight
thyself also in the Lord. And He loves the righteous and
I'll tell you something, He's going to honor them. Psalm 37
and verse 5 says this, HE'S GONNA HONOR THE RIGHTEOUS.
EVERYBODY'S GONNA KNOW WHO THE RIGHTEOUS ARE ONE OF THESE DAYS.
PSALM 37, VERSE 5 AND 6. HE'S GONNA HONOR THEM. ONE OF
THESE DAYS THE WORLD'S GONNA KNOW WHO RIGHTEOUS REALLY ARE.
HE SAID IN VERSE 5 OF PSALM 37, COMMIT THY WAY UNTO THE LORD,
TRUST ALSO IN HIM, AND HE SHALL BRING IT TO PASS. AND HE SHALL
BRING FORTH THY RIGHTEOUSNESS, as the light, and all thy judgment, and everybody
will see that you've already been judged just as the noonday,
the world's gonna know one of these days, and we'll bring your
righteousness right out in the light, and everybody's gonna
see and know who the righteous really are, and they'll see right
in the middle of the day, right in the middle of the day, go
ahead and call, you know, call us hypocrites, Say, there ain't nothing to you,
nothing to you, God. Go ahead, God's gonna prove them
all wrong one of these days. And then last of all, look what
it says down here in verse 9 of Psalm 146, and I'm through. Look
what it says here. The Lord preserveth the strangers. You know what David said? David
said, I'm a stranger with thee, as my fathers were. You know,
we're strangers and pilgrims here. That's what he says. He
preserves the strangers. That's what he said, that we're
strangers, we're pilgrims here. As in a strange land, that's
what he called us. He said, he told about Jacob
and Abraham and Jacob and Isaac. He said, they dwelt as strangers
in a strange land. And how strange this world gets
and how strange this land gets and how strange we get in it
as the longer we live in it. And oh beloved as they were strangers
we are now. But I tell you one thing, look
what I said, He preserved us the strangers. Isaac and Jacob
and Abraham, all the saints that were strangers in this world,
He preserved them. He preserved them and He preserved
them and He preserved them. HE MEANT TO SAVE JACOB AND MEET
THE NEEDS OF JACOB THAT HE EVEN HAD HIS SON, JOSEPH, RAISED UP
SO THAT HE'D HAVE SOMETHING TO EAT WHEN THE FAMINE CAME. AND
WHATEVER HAPPENS TO US IN THIS WORLD, WE'RE STRANGERS, AND WE'RE
STRANGERS WITH OUR FATHER. THAT'S WHY, YOU KNOW, I DON'T
CARE WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT GOD. IT HAS NO EFFECT ON ME. AND IT
CERTAINLY DOESN'T HAVE EFFECT ON GOD. MAN SAYS, I DON'T BELIEVE
GOD. SO WHAT? That ain't nothing new. I don't believe the Bible, so what?
Join the rest of the world. But I do. Don't you? I believe Him. I believe His
Word. You know why? Because He preserves
us. He preserves us. Our Father, O gracious God in
heaven, O thank you that you are God. You're the God of Jacob.
You're the God of election. You chose us. You're the God who loved us before
the world ever began. Because you loved us is why you
chose us, and why you laid hands on us,
why you apprehended us, why you put us down, why you called us
and brought us to yourself. Why you loosened us. Why you
gave us eyes to see. Lifted us up when we was bowed
down. Oh Lord, all that's done for
us, you do it. And we thank you for it and bless
you for it. God, see the saints safely home. See these dear saints
safely home. God bless them and they're going
out and they're coming in. God bless them in their sleep
and God bless them when they come up in the morning. Lord,
it's only you that we look to and trust and believe you'll
keep us and preserve us and bring glory to yourself through us
on this earth and in the world to come. We bless you. Amen. Amen. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look fully at His wonderful face.