I was really blessed this morning
with those things Brother Al shared with us. It is amazing
how that when the Lord gives a man eyes to see that he can
see Christ on every page. And other men can read the Bible
from cover to cover and never see Him at all. It's an amazing
thing, it's an amazing grace that the Lord does give us understanding. I remember having a argument
of sorts in the past, not a... not an angry argument of that
type, but a benevolent argument, but a gentleman whom I had great
respect for said that the Old Testament was a commentary on
the New. And I told him I thought he had
that backwards, that the New Testament is the commentary on
the old, because apart from having an understanding of the gospel, you cannot comprehend the full
understanding and meaning of the things found in the Old Testament.
Just like Brother Al pointed out, I mean, those Jews read
for years uh... concerning the uh... he's cursed who hangs on a tree
they couldn't possibly have any understanding of the full import
of that it was up until christ hung on a tree and we understand
it was made a curse for us that such things as that come into
view and so we are blessed uh... to live in the age in which we
did this is the day of salvation uh... there's not another never
has been another, this is the day. This is the day that the
Lord hath made. Now we know that every day is
the day that the Lord makes, in that sense, when we speak
about the Lord's day, we understand that the Lord makes all days,
but this is the day that the Lord has made, the day of salvation.
And what a glorious time it is. The Lord said that there has
not arisen a greater prophet among men than John the Baptist. But John the Baptist was the
last of the Old Testament prophets because he died without the knowledge
of the resurrected Christ. And that's the difference between
the Old Testament and the New Testament. See, the Old Testament
testifies of Christ. It even testifies of His resurrection. but it does not see the resurrection
of Christ. We have actually seen it. Now
we haven't seen it with these eyes, but we believe the testimony
of those who did see him and have testified to us that Jesus
Christ is risen from the dead. And the Lord said that John the
Baptist, there's not a greater prophet, there is not Elijah.
Not Isaiah, not Elisha, none of the prophets of old were greater
than John the Baptist. He was the greatest of all because
he was the one nearest to Christ. But he said, I tell you, he that
is least in the kingdom of God is greater than John the Baptist.
That is the purpose or the meaning of what he was saying was that
even the smallest babe who has the least bit of understanding
of the glory of Christ revealed in the scriptures has greater
understanding than John the Baptist could have. John the Baptist
saw the Lord Jesus Christ and said behold the Lamb of God taketh
away the sin of the world but he had no idea how he would do
that. I mean the Lord gave him that
vision just like when you read Isaiah and you read the things
that he wrote and it's so plainly he points Christ out but yet
He didn't know what he was writing, really. I mean, he did in a prophetic
sense in which the Lord gave him that prophecy, but he did
not know what those prophecies entailed. He did not know the
extent of them. He didn't know the beauty of
them. And so what a blessed people we are to live in this age, in
this time, when the Lord has revealed himself from heaven.
Now, a lot of people are still waiting for the kingdom of God
to come. They think it's something that's
gonna come out there in the future, but dear brethren, the kingdom
of God has come. When Jesus Christ came into the
world, crucified as the redeemer of sinners, the kingdom of God
has been manifested in the earth. And so we do await the return
of Jesus Christ. But he does not come to make
his kingdom known. He comes to gather that which
is his. And so it is that we rejoice
today that we've been given eyes to see him. Because to see Christ
is to see everything. If a man sees Christ, he doesn't
need to see anything else. So you don't need somebody to
come tell you something to add to Christ. What you need is Christ. The understanding of who Christ
is. and the fact that he died for sinners on Calvary's cross,
and that is the sum total of the message. I mean, all that
a gospel preacher is is just somebody that gets up and says
the same things over and over. I mean, that's all we can do,
just tell you the same thing over and over, but it's the truth.
You know, there is no greater truth than that. So may we rejoice
therein. We're in Psalm 123. It says, Unto thee, this is another
of the songs of degrees, Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou
that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants
look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto
the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our
God, until that He have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us,
O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we are exceedingly filled with
contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled
with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the contempt
of the proud. Now this is much in keeping with
the same thing that all of these songs of degrees uh... set forth and that is calling
upon the lord uh... and the lord jesus christ uh... called upon the lord uh... daily continually and we sing
a song i will call upon the lord and uh... that is the activity
of the sons of god calling upon the name of the lord now that
uh... a man by nature very few men
in the right situation will not call upon God. You know, to help
them out. I mean, oh God, help me. You
know, that's just a natural thing. That's not necessarily faith.
But see, faith is that that moves upon the people of God to call
upon the name of the Lord because they delight in Him. Not because
they just want to get out of a jam. You know, everybody wants
to get out of a jam. I mean, when things don't work
out, everybody's wanting some help for that time. But the people of God call upon
the name of the Lord because they delight in Him. They desire
His presence. They desire to know Him. They
desire to walk with Him. And they find themselves not
able to do so. See, the man that thinks he walks
with God is the man who does not walk with God. When a man
is satisfied that he has a relationship with the Lord, he doesn't have
a relationship with the Lord. But the man who is desiring a
relationship with the Lord is the one in whom the Lord is pleased
to be working. That's the way the Spirit of
God works in men, is to cause them to desire to know him and
to see themselves as far from him. Unto thee lift up mine eyes,
O Lord, that dwellest in the heavens. Now, I think one of the things that
has characterized the majority of the thought process that people
have in the present day, and this has infected even many well-meaning
folks, is the idea of a buddy God. You know, the idea that
God is just sitting around waiting for us to call on. I mean, you
know, he's there for our beck and call. He's like our puppies. You know, we got him and whenever
we want to play with him, we'll play with him. And then when
we don't, we, you know, we gonna do something else. And that's
really the way that people in general view God is that He is
their helper. And He wants to help them. Now
the glorious thing is that the Lord does help His people. He helps those that call upon
His name. But he is also that one of whom we sang a moment
ago, immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light, inaccessible,
hid from our eyes. Most blessed, most glorious,
the ancient of days, almighty, victorious, thy great name we
praise. Now, he is that one who's immortal,
he's invisible, he cannot be seen, he cannot be approached. And so men need to, when they
have a right understanding of God, they know that even the
ability to call upon the name of the Lord is the grace of God. And so it is that the psalmist
says, unto thee lift up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in
the heavens. You see, he is that one who is
high and lifted up and his train fills the temple. And when Isaiah
saw him, what did he do? He fell down before him, and
he said, oh, I'm a man of unclean lips. And you see, as men are
taught who God is, the brightness and the glory of God's holiness
causes a man to see himself as dark and without any redeeming
qualities, as a worm. I mean, the Lord said to Jacob,
thou worm, Jacob. Now, if the Lord called him a
worm, I think it's all right. Now, some people take affront
to that, say, oh, we ought not to talk about people like that.
Well, that's how the Lord described the one whom he loved. He said,
Jacob have I loved. But he said, thou worm, Jacob.
Oh, you see, the Lord would have us to be in our place before
him, and what is our place is to be upon our faces before him. because he is the one who dwells
in the heavens. He doesn't dwell in the next
door room. I mean, he's not just wherever
we want him to be. He's where he is. And you know, Fannie Crosby,
I'm not a fan of all of her hymns, but that one, one of them that
she wrote, I mean, she wrote a lot of good ones. But pass
me not, O gentle Savior. Hear my humble cry, while on
others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Because you see,
until a man has an understanding, that the Lord does pass by men.
And it is of the Lord's mercies that we're not concerned. Dear
brother, we don't have any ability to cause God to do anything.
Now I know you hear a lot of these preachers on the radio
and TV telling you can paint God back up into a corner and
you can get him where he don't have any choice but to do something.
Brian, that's the most foolish thing that ever was. You can't
cause God to do one thing. You're at his mercy. And that's
what the psalmist says, unto thee lift up mine eyes, O thou
that dwellest in the heavens. Lord, if you don't save us, we're
not gonna be saved. If you don't help us, we're not
gonna be helped. We don't have the power. It's not within us,
O Lord, to do these things. Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto
the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon thee. the
Lord our God until he have mercy upon us. Now you see, what could
a servant do? Now we don't have much of an
idea about servitude as it's spoken of here in our day and
time, but it was quite common in those times for people to
be servants, to be slaves. And still in parts of the world,
still the same. You know, and But what can a
servant, that is one who has no power, see a servant really
had no power whatsoever to do anything. They didn't have the
right to do anything except what their master allowed them to
do or gave them the ability to do. And so as the eyes of a servant
look to the hand of their masters, that's how we're looking unto
the Lord. We're waiting upon him. Lord, because it's up to
Him, it's not up to us. It's up to Him to do with His
own as He wills, and He said that He will do that. He said,
I'll show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and whom I will,
I'll harden. It's according to His purpose,
according to His grace and mercy that He shows kindness to anyone. See, people just think, well,
that'd be wrong if God wasn't kind. Well, who said that? I mean, he could have not been
kind if he wanted to not be kind. But he is kind because that's
who he is. And he would show, but it's not
because he's obligated to be kind. It's not because he's obligated
to show mercy. It's not because he's obligated
to do good things. He does those things because
he will do those things. He is those things. He shows
love because He is love. But He's not obligated somehow
to do it. And men certainly can't get up
in arms if He chooses not to love them. I mean, what can a
man say? What could Esau say? I mean,
he couldn't say anything, could he? He said, the Lord said, is
it not mine own power to make one vessel unto honor and another
unto dishonor? It's in His hand. And so what
does that cause the man in whom the Spirit of God works in him?
Does it cause him to get mad? I mean, when you find out that
the Lord is the one that shows mercy and there's nothing on
earth you can do to change his mind about it, what does that
cause you to do? If it caused you to get mad,
I say the Spirit of God's not at work in you. But when the
Spirit of God's at work in a man, it causes him to cry out the
louder, like blind Bartimaeus when the Lord was walking by. And the people said, Bartimaeus,
quieten down. And he could see in his mind's
eye, well, he couldn't see anything, but in his mind's eye, he could
imagine the Lord passing on by and not stopping. And he knew that his only hope
of being able to see was the hand of the Lord to touch him.
And he cried out the louder, Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me. And the greatest thing that we
can read about in the scripture occurred. Scripture says Jesus
stood still. Because he heard the cry of a
sinner. He heard the cry of a blind man. He heard the cry of one
who was in need. And he stopped. And all the procession,
you know, they probably bumped up against one another as he
just stopped. They didn't know what was going
on. There might have been some of
them saying, well, we've got to get over here. Make any difference. Because you see, when a sinner
cries out to the Lord, the Lord hears that cry. There's never
been a sinner that called on the name of the Lord, seeking
mercy, that did not find it. I mean, the Lord's not, he doesn't
turn a hard ear to the man who cries out for mercy. because
it's his spirit that prepares the way. Who made the eyes of
Bartimaeus? The Lord did. Who caused those
eyes to be blind? The Lord did. Why did he do that? So that he might manifest the
glory of his grace in giving a man sight that he might see. And so it is that the Lord does
save sinners in the present time, even as the eyes of a servant
look to the hand of their masters, and the maiden to the hand of
her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until he
have mercy upon us. Oh, do you desire mercy today?
I mean, are you satisfied with where you're at? You satisfied
with things as they are? Do you need the mercy of God?
He is that one that shows mercy. as eyes of a servant look to
the hand of their master. Now, you know, commands can be given in many
ways. And you can tell somebody to do something. And with your children, I know
it was this way with me when I was a kid, my mother could just look at
me And I knew that I better pay attention to what was going on. And so it is, the servant looks
to the hand of his master. You know, many times a master might direct his servant
with the gesture of a hand. And so the children of God look
to the hand of the Lord because we desire to know what it is
that he'd have us to do, do we not? See, a man that's seeking
to follow the Lord, he wants to know what the Lord would have
him do. Now, think of old Jonah. See, in his rebellious state,
he didn't want to do what the Lord told him to do. But I guarantee
you, once he got out of the fish, he wanted to do what the Lord
had him to do, didn't he? I know he did. You know he did,
too, because where'd he go? He went right to the place where
the Lord told him to go. And he was glad to go. Now, he
wasn't glad with the result, was he? Because he said, yeah,
yeah, Lord, he said, I knew if I went down there and preached
that these people would repent. And see, he hated the Ninevites.
He didn't want them to repent. He didn't want the Lord to show
mercy to them. But blessed be the Lord. He's that one that
with a hand, He directs his people. He doesn't need a great fanfare
or something. You know, all these people, they
try to get people stirred up, go do this and do that in the
name of the Lord. When the Lord pleased to move
in the hearts of man to do something for the Lord, that man will do
it. If the Lord's doing it, now if men just get it up to do,
I don't know what they might come up with, but when the Lord
sends a man to do something, he'll do it. Have mercy upon
us, O Lord. Have mercy upon us, for we are
exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled
with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the contempt
of the proud. Now we are, as a people, the
scripture says that they that will live godly in Christ Jesus
will suffer persecution. Now that doesn't necessarily
mean that somebody's gonna bring physical harm to you or whatever,
but just the contempt that people have for the truth of the gospel. Now, men, by and large, especially
in this part of the country that we live in, they don't manifest
an open contempt of the gospel. I mean, most people kind of,
you know, fall in line with it. I mean, I have people coming
in the store all the time telling me, oh yeah, we heard you on
the radio the other day, and all that. But I often think in
my heart, well, did you listen to what I said? Because I know
that in human nature, men are in contempt against the things
that we're declaring. How do I know it? Because I've
seen men in action. I know how men think. And I know
that when you preach a sovereign God, who does accord to his will
an army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth." There's
not a lot of people that like to hear that. Now, they might
like to hear it for a little while, but when it gets down
to where they actually start to think about what you're saying,
then they have contempt for it. They don't like that. Well, that's
a bunch of hardshells, they'll say. Or that's a bunch of hyper-Calvinists. They got all kinds of names.
There's contempt. for the gospel of Christ. And
so it is, we desire the mercy of God. Have mercy on us, we're
exceedingly filled with contempt. Now, we're exceedingly filled
with contempt for ourself, are we not? I mean, I don't think
anybody could have more contempt for me than I have for myself
when I think about what I am by nature. But there is a contempt
that people have for the people of God. And we can feel it. You know, I know what it is. You know, I was recently asked
if I would preach at a community-wide, what they call
a revival. And so I told the guy that asked
me, he didn't really, I don't think he never really knew anything
about me or whatever, he just knew I was a preacher of the
sword, or what people call one anyway. And so I said, well,
brother, I said, you know, I would be, I'm never against going and
declaring the gospel anywhere, but I said, let me give you,
one of my CDs here, and you listen to this and you think, and see
if you want me to preach this, because I said, I'm not gonna
preach anything different than what I preach on that. Well,
I never did hear nothing else from him. Now I don't know, I
don't know, maybe he just forgot that he had asked me or something,
I don't know. But brethren, the religious world
does not delight in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They delight
in what they think is the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is something
that puts all the power in the hands of men to do as they will
do. And they will allow God to do
things. By the grace of God, I'd be right
there in their midst. But by the grace of God, I'm
not. And so we declare what we believe
to be true. And we are filled with contempt.
Our souls exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that
are at ease and with the contempt of the proud. The Lord said that
he would reveal things to the to the weak and the beggarly,
and hide them from the wise and prudent, and deliver them unto
babes. And such is the gospel, because
that's all we are. We can't do a thing that the
Lord doesn't direct us in. But we can do all things through
Christ to strengthen us. What a glorious thing, dear brethren,
to know and understand. See, a lot of people think that
if you say, I can't do anything but what the Lord allows me to
do, that you're kind of just saying, I'm just, you know, you're
just kind of complaining. Well, I'm not complaining, I'm
thankful. I'm thankful that the grace of
God is that which constrains us. Because you see, I can't
fall away if the Lord keeps me. I can't depart from the faith
if the Lord keeps me. And my desire is that He will.
And my belief is that He will, according to the promise that
He's given. Oh, what a glorious God we have.
One in whom we can call in a time of trouble, or in a time of rejoicing. See, many, many people call on
the Lord in times of trouble, but those that love Him call
on Him when rejoicing. I mean, our greatest place of
rejoicing is in Him, is it not? I mean, what happiness that the
world could give you would, if you won the lottery tomorrow,
I mean, a lot of people think that'd just be the answer to
all problems. You know, if I could just win the lottery, I wouldn't
have any more cares or worries, and I could live out the rest
of my days. But, brethren, that wouldn't be anything. Wouldn't
be anything, because all that's in this world passes away in
a moment. But the Lord endureth forever. And He's the one in whom, by
the grace of God, we've been given the ability to call on
his name. And he in his mercy said he would
hear us. What a blessing it is.