Each time we sing that song that
we sang a moment ago, Dark and Thorny is the Desert. And I come
to verse 5 and it says, Millions there of flaming seraphs fly
across the heavenly plain. There they sing immortal praises.
Glory, glory is their strength. And from the beginning, to the
present time and beyond, the Lord has ordained that all creatures
that He has made in the heavens and the earth shall bring glory
to Him. And He has specifically designed the angels, certain
ones of the angels, not all of the angels are the same, they
all have different purposes and the Lord uses them. for various
things. He sends some as messengers into
the earth. He sends some to watch over his
children. The scripture says that they
watched over even the Lord Jesus Christ, lest at any time he should
dash his foot against a stone. And they comforted him in the
garden when he prayed for us. And the scripture says, and this
song says, and of course this is found in the scriptures, that
there they sing immortal praises. Glory, glory is their strength. I mean, they are designed for
one purpose and that is to give glory unto God and they gladly
sing those praises forever. But the songwriter says, but
methinks a sweeter concert. makes the heavenly arches ring. And the song is heard in Zion, which the angels
cannot sing. Oh, what a privilege it is to be called as the sons of God to be redeemed by the blood of
the Lamb. See the heavenly host in rapture
gaze upon the shining band, wondering at their costly garments and
the laws in their hand. It's an amazing thing to consider
that the Lord should set His love and mercy and grace upon
the sons of men. And the angels, the scripture
says they desire to look into these things. They would look
into them with wonder because they don't, they can't fully
comprehend it. It's outside of the realm of
their experience to know those things that the sons of God have
been privileged to know. A sweeter concert that they cannot
sing Oh, their crowns, how bright they sparkle, such as monarchs
never wear. Glory, honor, and salvation reign,
sweet shepherd, ever reign. And so we shall indeed sing the
songs of Zion, which has one subject, and that is Christ and
Him crucified. And when we look through the
scriptures, If we cannot see that, then we have missed what
Scripture's about. There's a lot of people that
are great scholars of the Bible, and they can tell you many things
about the Bible. I'm amazed as I read many of
the things that these great scholars have written. But the sad thing
is that many of those same great scholars have never seen the
subject of the book that they write about. Because if you do
not see that Christ is the sum total of that which the Lord
has set forth in the earth for men to know, then you've not
seen what the truth is. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father
but by me. He is the truth. And all of those
things, you see, if you do not understand that Redemption is the theme of creation. See, a lot of people begin with
creation and then they kind of add redemption onto it. They
say, well, God created this world and then He brought about redemption. But you see, that's backwards.
Because the Lord determined to redeem and then He created the
world in order to manifest that redemption. Now, that's a glorious
thing. Not everybody's given eyes to see that. And not everybody
likes that. See, men that, those that would
seek to exalt men, they don't like that because that puts men
in kind of a secondary position rather than being at the center.
Men are just kind of put off to the side because the glory
of God is that which is important in all that we read in the scriptures.
From the beginning, in the beginning, God. He is the beginning. And He is the end. There is nothing
outside of Him. And all of the glory belongs
to Him. All that He has done, He has done well. Not a thing
that ever transpires in this creation that we see and that
He has formed for His own purpose is ever outside of His purpose.
It all goes for one thing, and that is to bring glory to His
Son. in the redemption of his people. And that is the song
that shall ring through the ages. What a glorious thing. You know,
people speculate about what will the saints of God be doing for
eternity. Well, I don't know specifically
how all of that is, you know, what's going on. I know God created
man He created angels. He didn't
create the angels to be men, and He didn't create men to be
angels. He created men to be men, and
He created us for the purpose of manifesting the glory of His
grace in the earth and through the ages to come, the scripture
says. And so what, how all of that,
what our day-to-day activity, of course, it won't be any such
thing as a day-to-day, because Christ is the light. And there
is no darkness there, so there's not a night and a day. You see? The evening and the morning were
the first day. And Christ is the day. He is
the light. And so we are given the privilege
to worship Him in spirit and truth in the present fashion.
In fact, the script says that the Lord, the Father seeketh
such. to worship Him. May He give us
a mind to do so. And we're looking in Psalm 103, and we looked at the first, about
the first four verses or so of this last week. It begins and
ends with the same phrase, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all
that's within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities,
who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction,
who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth
thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like
the eagles, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, Now, men
think and they didn't believe what the Lord said from the beginning
when He told Adam, in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt
surely die. He didn't believe that. Eve didn't
believe that, and now she was deceived. But Satan said, well,
did the Lord really say that? I mean, you really think? That's
the way that it is. Hey, the only reason the Lord
wants you to not eat this is because He's keeping something
from you. You can't really die. I mean,
you can't die. And yet, the scripture indicates
that men do die. It's appointed unto men once
to die. as a result of what the Lord told Adam he would do. He didn't say, Adam, if you do
it. He said, Adam, when the day you do it, this is what's gonna
happen. And you see, the Lord told Adam
what was gonna happen. And surely enough, that is what
happened. But the scripture says, the Lord
redeemeth thy life from destruction. Now, destruction is at which
awaits all who sin against the way of God. You can't escape
that. The wages of sin is death. Now a lot of people don't like
for you to say that. It's okay to say it every now
and then. Maybe once or twice a year you can tell men that,
but you don't want to tell men that every time you get before
them. But the fact of the matter is
that men need to be told that every day of their life. The
wages of sin is death. Why? So that they might know
that the only hope of life that they have is in the hands of
Him who is the life and who gives life according to the good pleasure
of His will. Because He is that One whom Scripture
says He redeems thy life from destruction. Now, I don't know
what you think about what destruction is, but destruction is destruction. I mean, when something's destroyed,
that's the end of it. It's done for. And that's the
place, that's the head, that's the place all men are headed
is to a place of destruction, apart from the mercy of God to
deliver them from that. He redeems our life from destruction. That is the whole work that he's
performed. Who crowneth thee with loving
kindness and tender mercies. Now, the man who has come to
know Christ can appreciate the loving kindness of the Lord.
All men think that they know what the mercy of God is. But
you can't know what the mercy of God is until you have seen
yourself to be a sinner, estranged from God, without any hope. And then you can begin to grasp
a little bit of what it is if the Lord says that He has redeemed
you from destruction, what that loving kindness and mercy consists
of, how it manifests itself, what it is. and the glory of
it, and that which causes men to rejoice in consideration,
who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies, he pours
those out, who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that
thy youth is renewed like the eagles. Now, as a man goes through
this life, and he is brought from darkness to light, and he
begins to see himself to be what he is, then he understands the
oppressive nature of this world. Now as long as a man's a part
of the world, see the Lord said that ye are not of the world. He said that this is not your
domain. We want, according to that very
concept that the world does, the world is not looking to be
rid of the world. The world's looking to embrace
the world. See, the men of this world, they
want more of the world. They want more of the cosmos
and the things that go on in the world. It's their delight.
They want to hang on to it as long as they can, because it's
the place of their delight. Not so for the sons of God, for
the Lord satisfies their mouth with good things. Because brethren,
nothing that we see in this world is truly good. It's all tainted
with sin, everything that is around us, unfortunately. I mean
the most innocent and good of men that you've ever known. are still sinners according to
the scripture. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. There's nobody, regardless of
age or ethnicity or where they was born
or what they believe or whatever, all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. But the Lord has filled the mouth
of his people with good things. That is, there is good that we
feast upon. And rejoice, so that thy youth
is renewed like the eagles. And you know, you think, of course,
the eagle, when we think this word eagle, I don't know that
it has reference specifically to an eagle as we would define
what an eagle is, but we do know that it has to do with the soaring
of a large bird. when the scripture says that
you shall mount up with wings as eagles, you know, you look
and you see the eagles, when you see sparrows flying around,
they're just flitting and carrying on and going this way and that,
and you can't tell where they're going or where they're coming
from, and I don't know if they know. I mean, the Lord knows
each, the path of each one of them though, because he marked
it out. But when you look up in the sky and you see a, a bird,
it couldn't even be a buzzard, you know, but a bird that's just,
he's just floating along, doesn't look like he's doing anything,
does it? I mean, he's just gliding along. And that's the place,
that's how the Lord is pleased, to renew the strength of his
people. See, a lot of, you know, religion, it teaches men to flap
their wings, doesn't it? I mean, you need to be doing
this, and you need to be doing that, and you need to be going
here, and you need to be going there, and you need to be busy
about this and that and the other, and you need to be work, work,
work. You need to do all these things. But the children of God are not
counseled to flap our wings, but rather to soar as eagles,
because the Lord is the one who is guiding our path, and we are
renewed. What a glorious thing it is.
I mean, if you could choose to be an eagle, or you could choose
to be an owl, which one would you want to be? Or a sparrow,
or whatever, you know. The eagle is a majestic bird. And that's the thing that the
Lord has called His people to. The Lord executeth righteousness
and judgment for all that are oppressed. That is those to whom the Lord
has come. He came, the scripture says, to those that sat in darkness,
they have seen a great light. Those who are in places of need,
that is the one. Now there are, when you look
around you, you can see natural need in the earth. The Lord said,
the poor you have always with you. There's always going to
be a class of people in the earth who are destitute and in need
of this world's goods. I mean, there's always going
to be a stratus among men. You're going to have some men
that's got much of this world's goods, and you're going to have
some that don't have any of this world's goods. But that's not
the oppression that he's speaking about here. I mean, the Lord
executes righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed, not
oppressed in this world's good, because a man can be without
anything as far as this world's concerned, and he's still a rebel
against God. That doesn't make him want to
follow the Lord. In fact, he might be even more
angry at the Lord and the way of the Lord than the man that's
got plenty. So it's not about that. But it's about the oppressed,
that is, those who are oppressed by this world, by the sin that's
in this world, a sin they see around them, and most assuredly,
and most especially, the sin that they see within themselves.
Because you see, we find ourselves to be too much like the world.
You know, we're not trying to be conformed to the world. We're
trying to get away from the world. We don't want to see the conformity
of the world in ourselves. We want to see Christ. We want
to walk in the way that He has ordained for His people to go. He made known His ways unto Moses,
Acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord did indeed reveal Himself
unto Moses. But he revealed himself unto
Moses, not for Moses' sake. Now, why do we say that? Well,
the scripture says that all of those prophets in the Old Testament,
they recognized that they were not writing the things that they
did for themselves, but for us. See, for those that would come
in the day when Christ was revealed, And so Moses, though the Lord
showed his ways unto Moses and to the children of Israel, it
was not primarily for their sake. He brought them out of Egypt,
but you know why he brought them out of Egypt? For our sake, that
we might see the deliverance of Christ, that we might see
what it is that he, how he loved his people and would not leave
them in that oppressive place. The Lord is merciful. and gracious,
slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always
chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. He hath not dealt
with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. Now we read all of that together
because it's all one thought. The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger, plenteous in mercy. See, that's how He has revealed
Himself unto us. That's how we see Him. We understand
that it is His mercy that gives us hope. I mean, that's the reason
we have expectation of His promise, is because we believe Him to
be full of mercy, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. He will
not always chide, that is, He will not always rebuke men. He does not cast condemnation upon men, always. You remember the woman taken
in adultery. What did he say? That's a good
example of him. He didn't chide the woman. He
could have, could he not? He could have said, well, you
saw her low life, you come before me here, and you ought to be
destroyed. It ain't have been right. But
he said, neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. Because
you see, the work of the Lord is not simply to point out our
sin, but to deliver us from it. The Lord doesn't cause His people
to mourn over their sin just so they'll mourn. He causes us
to mourn over our sin so we'll hate it, so we'll turn from it. That's the whole purpose of mourning. You know, mourning is not an
end in itself. Some folks think that the more they can mourn,
the better off they are. Mourning's not the goal. We're
not trying to mourn, but mourning is the work of the Spirit of
God in the people of God. And the work of the gospel is
to deliver us from mourning. Blessed are those that mourn.
They are a blessed people when a people are caused to mourn.
But yet the Lord has designed that for our benefit. He has not dealt with us after
our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. Now a lot
of people, they're concerned that the Lord's gonna give them
what they deserve. You know, they want to get what
they deserve. There's a lot of people, they look at it, well,
you know, I've done all this for the Lord, and I'm sure expecting
to get something. But no, that's backwards again. That's the wrong way of thinking.
You know, if the Lord gave any man on earth what he deserved,
he'd be destroyed. I mean, there's nobody that could
ever earn anything with God. I mean, the Lord said, when you've
done everything that I told you to do, He said, then look at
yourself and say, I'm an unprofitable servant. You've not done anything. It's impossible to earn the favor
of God. Because anything you do that
was right, you should have done that anyway. That's not anything
to be rewarded for. But He has not rewarded us according
to our iniquities. How thankful are we to be for
that? Because had he counted our sins toward us, then we would
all surely be destroyed. But his mercy, for as the heaven
is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that
fear him. The Lord knows what we are, goes
on to tell us. As far as the east is from the
west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. See,
that's the benefit of His mercy, is He has removed our transgressions. He didn't wink at them, He didn't
close His eyes, He didn't make out like they didn't exist, but
He removed them. That's what Christ came into
the world to do. That He might be just and the
justifier of them which believe in Jesus. That's the work of
the Lord. What did the man have to do with
it? I mean, was there anything you could have done to have taken
away your sin? I mean, if a man, if it were
possible, and we know that it's not because of the nature of
man, but if it was possible that from this point forward a man
just lived his life in a perfect way and he never committed another
sin till the day he died, it would be of no avail. Why? Because
he'd still be a sinner. He's covered with sin from head
to foot. And it doesn't make any difference
what a man does. He can't erase what he is. But the Scripture says that the
Lord, as far as east is from the west, Now, so they tell us
there's a North Pole and a South Pole. He didn't say as far as
the North is from the South, because if he did, you could
say, well, it's, ever how many miles that is, that's how far
he took it away. But it's as far as the East is
from the West. See, I mean, as long as you're going East, you're
gonna keep going East. And then you can turn around
and go back West, but you can't, the East and the West never meet
up. As far as East is from the West,
he's removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. Now, why do they fear him? Because
he made them aware of what they are. And he pities his children. You know, even as an earthly
father pities his children, he knows that their weaknesses. He knows their inabilities. He
knows what they are. He doesn't expect them to be
able to perform great and mighty things. Why? Because He knows
what they are by nature. And like as a father pitieth
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. You know, I believe of all things
that missing from the world today in general is a fear of God.
I mean, you know, in general, I mean, at one point in time,
there was a general concern in men in general, even among politicians,
there was a general fear of God. I mean, many of the things that
our nations founded upon echo the fact that men feared God.
They had respect unto the things that He said, but now there's
no fear of God. I mean, men just figure, well,
whatever we can come up with, if it suits us, it's going to
be all right. You know, we can define even
what men and women are. I mean, there's no fear of God
before their eyes, but the Lord said that he was compassionate,
and he did have pity on those that fear him. Now, how does
a man come to fear the Lord? He has to be taught to fear the
Lord. See, men don't fear God by nature. Adam didn't fear God until he
sinned, did he? when he came to a knowledge of
good and evil, then he feared God. But that was a natural fear.
But as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that
fear him. For he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we
are dust. As for man, his days are as grass,
as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind
passeth over it and it's gone, and the place thereof shall know
it no more. You know, you can look around
you and see all these hay fields around us. And you can, in the
springtime, you can see that grass start to grow up and it
gets lush and they go in there and they cut it off and it grows
up and they go back in there and cut it off. But, you know,
none of that grass abides. Now, the root of the grass is
there, but that grass, if they didn't cut it, you know what
would happen to it? It would die. and the wind would blow
and it would be gone. And men wouldn't be able to say,
well, what a crop of grass we've got. Why? Because they don't
have any grass anymore. And so it is that our days are
as grass. We grow up, don't we? And you
know, when we're young and we're in that growing stage, we just
think that the I mean, life's stretching out in front of us,
and then when we get growing on up a little bit further, and
we get like that grass, you know, the grass grows up straight for
a while, but then pretty soon it gets top-heavy and it starts
to lean over, and pretty soon it'll be laying out completely
flat. That's just the way men are. We grow up, we flourish. All men have a flourishing period.
And it's easier, I believe, naturally speaking, for a man to be enamored
with the world. And by the grace of God, I might
add, as a man gets older, by his grace, if God is pleased
to show grace to him, he can then begin to consider and understand
that his days are as grass, that he withers. and the wind passes
over it and it's gone and the place thereof shall know it no
more. Thanks be unto God that this
world is not our home and we're just passing through. Not because
of some natural thing, but because of the mercy of God. He put us
here for a season. I believe he put some men on
earth to live and die in the earth, and that's it. I mean, the earth's their home.
The world, they're of the world, and they go back to the dust
of the earth. But God's people, by the grace
of God, they've been given eternal life, and they live in Christ. and He's redeemed our life from
destruction. What a glorious thing to consider
the Lord in His mercy and kindness to the sons of men. Why should
He have had mercy on us? I mean, that's a question we
can't answer. But it's one that causes us to
fall down on our faces before Him in worship. Somebody have
a question or a comment? So, are there just as many people
before Jesus came here going to be saved as after He came
here? Well, He knows His people in
every generation. Yeah, I don't know if we could
answer that question or not. As far as what we know about
time, there's been more time from the beginning to the present
time, you know, till Christ came into the world. He's always had
his people in the earth, and he's taught them, but of course
we understand that in his own time, when he brought Christ
into the world, and he manifested the glory of the gospel to men
in a clear way, and we're blessed to be in that time when we see
the salvation. of the Lord clearly as we do.
Now, men in times past, they couldn't see that. They could
see the light out there, but they didn't know what it was.
I mean, just like, as we mentioned there a moment ago, the prophets
even. Isaiah, I mean, they wrote many things and we can look at
it and we know they're speaking of Christ. And he knew he was
speaking of Christ, but he didn't know who it was he was speaking
of, other than kind of like this one who would come. We know who
that one is, see? And we've been greatly privileged.
Now to say who, how many people the Lord's had, I don't know. Now I do know this, that He only
had eight people in the world at one time that he was pleased
to redeem. We have no idea or way of knowing,
but we can take comfort in this, that the Lord knows them that
are His. And so, you know, to say how many people that includes
or whatever, I can't say. Well, they could have been. I
mean, we don't know that, you know, the Lord was demonstrating
that all of the people that perished in the flood, you know, we don't
know that. An interesting note on that is that Methuselah, who
is the oldest man, man lived the longest in the scripture,
900 and somebody tell me, I can't think of how many years it was,
but it was a bunch. Anyway, he's the oldest man in
the Bible, but if you trace the genealogies and look at the,
you can narrow it down. I've done it before. That Methuselah
died in the same year that the flood came. In fact, his name
means in the year of the flood. And so he might have died in
the flood. I don't know if he died in the
flood or he died just before the flood came. But yeah, that
doesn't necessarily mean that the Lord only had eight people
in the earth, but he chose to save eight people out of the
earth in that realm. So yeah. We're all going to die
at this point in time, whether it was in the flood or now. That
is correct. Not going to go past it, that's
for sure.