Psalms 102, again reading there
in verse 17, says, He will regard the prayer of the destitute and
not despise their prayer. This shall be written for the
generation to come and the people which shall be created shall
praise the Lord. For he hath looked down from
the height of his sanctuary, from heaven did the Lord behold
the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to loose those
that are appointed to death, to declare the name of the Lord
in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem, when the people are gathered
together in the kingdoms to serve the Lord. He weakened my strength
in the way. He shortened my days. I said,
oh my God, take me not away in the midst of my days. Thy years
are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundation
of the earth and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They
shall perish, but thou shalt endure. Yea, all of them shall
wax old like a garment. as a vesture, shalt thou change
them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy
years shall have no end. The children of thy servants
shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee. Now we looked at some of these
verses last week, thinking on them again, he will regard the prayer of the
destitute and not despise their prayer. That is a glorious truth
which unfortunately in our day has been cheapened so to the
point that men have become inured to it. Most people, unfortunately, many
of them professing to know Christ, they feel that somehow or other
God is obligated in some way to show mercy. They think that
he's just sitting up in heaven like a little puppy dog just
waiting for them to show him some affection and he'll just
come to them and lick them and love them according to their determination. But the mercy of God is sovereign. Now that's a disconcerting truth. to the man who thinks himself
to have something that he can bring to the Lord. If a man believes
he has faith, then he's satisfied with that faith and he can bring
the faith to the Lord and say, Lord, here's my faith. If a man thinks he has good deeds,
he can say, well, you know, I'm not like these other folks over
here. I can bring what I've got to the Lord. And surely the Lord,
I mean, when He compares me with all these other people, everything
will be all right. Because after all, He is a God
of mercy. But remember, we must always
understand When we read the scriptures that he said this, I will show
mercy to whom I will show mercy. And Paul further elaborated on
that and he said, and who he wills, he will harden according
to his good pleasure. Now, that's disconcerting to
the man that knows himself to be a sinner. because he realizes
that the only hope he has is that God, who is absolutely sovereign,
will show him mercy. And so as we stand before men,
we must ever declare unto them that this God, who is full of
mercy, shows us mercy according to the good pleasure of His will
and not according to the good pleasure of men's will. Now at
the same time, it is true that He never turns away one who comes
seeking Him. But they are described here.
He will regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise
their prayer. A man must come to the Lord empty-handed. He must come to the Lord carrying
nothing. Not faith. Lord, I believe, help
thou mine unbelief. See, the man that thinks he has
faith is a fool. Because faith is the gift of
God. And the only man who will ever have faith is those to whom
the Lord gives faith. And when he gives faith to a
man, it's not something he can boast of. Because his boast will
be in Christ who gave him the faith. And so it is that the
Lord hears the prayer of the destitute. He will not despise
them. He said, come unto me, all you
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. But
that's a specific group of people, those that labor and are heavy
laden. Why are they laboring and heavy laden? Because they
know themselves to be destitute. They don't have anything that
they can do. They're in trouble. See, the
Lord helps the helpless. You've probably heard all your
life, and people say this, and they mean well, but they're absolutely
wrong. And they say the Lord helps those
that help themselves. Now that sounds good, doesn't
it? I mean, if you're trying to get folks to get up off of
their rear ends and do something or whatever, you know, that's
good advice in the flesh. But that's not true. The Lord
doesn't help those that help themselves. The Lord helps those
that can't help themselves. See, that's what grace is. It's the Lord helping those that
deserve to be destroyed. And only as a man knows himself
to be destitute can he come to that place. by the grace of God, for He does. This shall be written for the
generation to come, and the people which shall be created shall
praise the Lord. The Lord has determined to have
a people in the earth, the generation that shall be created, those
that are to come. You see, the gospel is true in
every generation, and the Lord has a people in every generation.
He calls them according to the good pleasure of His will. And
many as the Lord our God shall call. And some are not yet created. That is, some are not yet, haven't
come on the scene yet. There's some children that will
yet be born, if the Lord tarries, that belong to Him, that will
grow up to worship Christ, to love His way, to love His Word,
to delight in Him. The generation that shall be
created shall praise the Lord, they shall. The Lord has a generation,
just like Moses had a generation and Jacob had a generation. That
is, those that are generated by him. People of God are generated
by Christ, are they not? They're of the Lord's seed, according
to what scripture says. For he hath looked down from
the height of his sanctuary, from the heaven did the Lord
behold the earth. Now that is an amazing thing. Now most people think that that's
just, well he ought to have done that. See they get mad at God
because he doesn't do the things that they think he should do.
Or he does things that they don't think he should do. He brings people to to a sad end
sometimes. And things happen that we don't
think should have happened, but nonetheless they do happen according
to His sovereign will. But the amazing thing is that
the Lord has looked down from heaven, from that place where
He dwells, our God's in the heavens, He has done whatsoever He has
pleased, but He has looked down upon the earth and had pity upon
men. Now, why should he have done
that? See, that's an amazing thing. That's the thing I can't
get over, is why on earth did the Lord have pity on men? Rebellious
creatures. I mean, if you had a dog that
every time you went in the yard, the dog attacked you, and he
was against you at every turn, you'd get rid of the dog, wouldn't
you? I mean, you'd either shoot him or something, but you wouldn't
have him. But dear brother, far beyond
the heartache and trouble of a dog who has no regard to his
master are the sons of men who have despised the way of God
and not had any consideration of his lordship. And yet it is
unto them that the Lord has had regard. He looks upon men. See, the animals, I mean, the
trees of the field clap their hands. The dogs and the cats
and all these other creatures give praise unto the Lord in
some fashion. Now, I know they don't do it
cognitively, but when an old wolf is howling at the moon,
That's all his understanding is, but the Lord would have all
of the creation to praise Him. And yet it's not unto these dutiful
creatures that the Lord has come, but it is unto those who have
despised His way. It's amazing. The Lord hath looked
down, and the Lord did behold the earth, to hear the groaning
of the prisoner, to loose those that are appointed to death.
You ever looked at somebody that was in some kind of a sad situation
that they caused by their own doing? And you looked at them
and you said, well, those jokers get exactly what he deserved.
You've never done that, have you? That's just the way people
are, are we not? Now, if anybody could have said
such a thing as that, it would have been the Lord. Why should
He have pity on the sons of men? But it says, He beheld the earth
to hear the groaning of the prisoner, and to loose those that are appointed
to death. That's what the gospel is, you
see. It's a message about life from the dead. Because Christ
rose from the dead. That's the message of the gospel.
You see, without the preaching of the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, we wouldn't have a gospel. Because we wouldn't
have a great high priest who ever lives. But he does ever
live. He arose from the dead and he
ascended back to the Father. And he overcame death for those
who are appointed to death. Now we are appointed to death.
It's appointed unto man once to die. Not a person in here
that will escape that, apart from the coming again of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Those which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with the Lord in the air. So shall
we ever be with the Lord. But we don't know that we'll
be among that number. But we're fairly certain that
we will be among the number of those who carry out and keep
our appointment with death. It is appointed unto men, but
the Lord came to loose those that are appointed to death. To declare the name of the Lord
in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem. Because you see, the Lord would
have the gospel preached to every creature. And He will declare
His name in Zion. The name of the Lord. Where is
Zion? That's the Kingdom of God. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ
is magnified in Zion among the sons of God. He's not glorified
anywhere else. But the children of God praise
Him because they can do nothing else. His praise in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the holy city. Where
is the holy city? It is wherever Christ is. Now
a lot of people think that Jerusalem that is spoken of in the scriptures
that the Lord has favor upon is some piece of ground that
can be drawn out on a map. But the Jerusalem of which the
Lord has favor is that Jerusalem which cometh down from above.
It's not formed in fashion by men. It's not placed in a place
on the earth. But it is synonymous with the
kingdom of God with Zion. You see, Zion is the stronghold
in the city of Jerusalem. and the Lord would declare His
name there and His praise in Jerusalem. When the people are
gathered together in the kingdoms to serve the Lord, the Lord will
gather His people. He's calling His people. So we
don't have to worry about whether or not the Lord will save His
people because He's already accomplished that on Calvary's cross. Now
a lot of people think that We can't, that some people, if we
don't go out here and do something, that there's gonna be some people
gonna die for whom Christ, or perish for whom Christ died.
Now I'm here to tell you that's not true. because Christ purchased
the eternal redemption of His people. But He has sent men into
the world to declare the gospel unto the world that those for
whom He died might hear it and rejoice and glorify His name
forever. See, the Lord has a people who
will hear the Word of God. They will delight in it. You
can't make a man love the Word of God. I mean, you can get him
to habitually read the Word of God, but you can't cause him
to love it. You can't cause a man to hunger and thirst to find
out what's on his pages, to rejoice in the one that wrote it, or
that gave it to be written. You can't do that. I can't do
that. I wish I could sometimes, but I can't. But the Lord can,
and the Lord does. give a man whom He calls a love
of the Word of God to declare the name of the Lord when the
people are gathered together in the kingdoms to serve the
Lord. See, the Lord's going to have
a people that serve Him. That's just what He does according
to the good pleasure of His will. And then as we have said, this
is the prayer of Christ in this Psalm. He says here, He weakened
my strength in the way He shortened my days. Now the Lord Jesus Christ
was acquainted with the humanity of men because He became a man. According to what Scripture says,
He took upon Himself flesh and blood, walked in the likeness
of sinful flesh. And so He was acquainted with
every heartache that man has. He was appointed unto death.
Do you realize that? That the Lord Jesus Christ had
just as much an appointment unto death as every one of us does. It's appointed unto men once
to die and after this the judgment. The glorious thing is that the
judgment of God fell on Jesus Christ and those who were in
Him have that judgment satisfied.
What a glorious thing. He weakened my strength, he said,
in the way. The Lord, I mean, you stop and
think of the power and strength that the Lord as man walking
on the earth I mean, and he demonstrated that from time to time when he
healed the sick, and the blind, and the deaf, and the halt, the
lame, and he turned water into wine, he stilled the seas, he
did all manner of things. John said the bulk of which,
if you wrote them down, the world couldn't contain. The books in
the world couldn't contain a record of all of those things which
he did. But yet, for our sakes, he became weak. He became like
any other man. And he underwent the pains of
death. He weakened my strength in the
way. He said the Lord did that. Now see, as He submitted Himself
unto His Father, He didn't complain about it. He didn't rail against
the Father. He's just stating it as a fact.
He has weakened my days, my strength in the way. He's shortened my
days. The Lord Jesus Christ lived approximately 33 years. That's
not a very long life, is it? I mean, I used to think that
70 years old was a long life. But the closer I get to it, I
realize that ain't very long. But 33 years, that's young by
any man's standard. I mean, you don't expect that
a man 33 years old is going to die, do you? You don't think
of it in those terms. Now we know that men of all ages,
children, Young men, old men, all face
the same thing. But the Lord said, He weakened
my strength in the way, because you see, He was strong. Now by the grace of God, you
see, the Lord Jesus Christ, He was strong and He became weak
for our sake. We, on the other hand, weak and
he makes us strong. Now only those that are in Christ
can know themselves to be weak. Because you see, the natural
man, he doesn't think he's weak. He's got strength to do a lot
of things. He can do anything he wants to. But the Lord Jesus Christ said,
He shortened my days. I said, Oh my God, take me not
away in the midst of my days. Thy years are throughout all
generations. Now see, even the Lord Jesus
Christ underwent and understood the pains of death. That is, as a man, he had no
penchant for death. In other words, he
didn't have a death wish. He didn't have a desire to die,
just to be dying as a man. He had in his mind, as the scripture
says, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross.
But he didn't do it because he liked the idea of dying. He did
it because he would redeem his people from their sins. And so
just like a man who comes face to face with his own mortality,
as he said here, I said, Oh my God, take me not away in the
midst of my days. See, he had a life force within
him. In fact, Scripture says that
the Lord had given him to have life in himself. If anybody had
a desire to live, it was the Lord Jesus Christ. And as a man,
he understood what it is to desire to live. I mean, we'll do just
about anything. Will we not? To get one more
breath? I mean, you know, when a man's
on his deathbed and he's gasping for every breath that he can because he desires to live. And
so it is, dear brethren. that we are, but we're brought
face to face by the grace of God to see ourselves. Teach us
to number our days to know that we are dust. Give us wisdom,
Lord, that we might number those days and we might see that we're
passing away. I said, oh my God, take me not
away in the midst of my days. Thy years are throughout all
generations. Yet see, His reliance is not
in his ability to live in this world. See, most men, when they
think about heaven, they want to live. I mean, they think that
heaven's a place where they can just carry on just like they
did here. I mean, you know, you hear people
talking about, oh, you know, they're going to go fishing up
there every day and all of that kind of stuff. Well, that's not
what heaven is about. is the place where those, only
those, whom the Lord has caused to be born again would have any
delight in, because He is the center of heaven. The worship
and glorification of Jesus Christ is the sum total of what heaven
is. Now what's the activity of the
sons of God? I couldn't tell you and nobody
else can either, but I know one thing. that whatever the activity
of the sons of God is in that city, it will be to bring glory
to the name of Christ. Because He is that one of whom
He speaks of His Father, thy years are throughout all generations. He is our hope. He is our expectation
in every generation. Of old thou hast laid the foundation
of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. What
a glorious thing. You see, He built, He made the
earth to be exactly what He wanted it to be. Nothing has taken Him
by surprise. Because He's done things just
exactly like He wanted it to be. They shall perish, but thou
shalt endure. Yea, and all of them shall wax
old like a garment. As a vesture shalt thou change
them, and they shall be changed. Now there are those that tell
us that the world, that we've got to do everything that we
can to preserve the planet. Well, I'm here to tell you that
there's only one that can preserve the planet, and that's the one
who made the planet. And the scripture says that he's
not going to preserve the planet. Scripture says that the earth
is going to be changed. It's gonna be, the elements are
gonna melt with fervent heat. Now you talk about global warming,
that's global warming, dear brother. And all these people running
around out here trying to teach men how to prevent global warming,
they don't know anything about what they're talking about. Because
the Lord is the one that sends the seasons. He shortens the
seasons according to the good pleasure of his will. Men don't
have a thing in the world to do with it. Now the Lord may
ordain certain scientific things to take place in the earth and
all of these things, but I'm telling you that the only one
who can determine the fate of the earth is the Lord Jesus Christ. He owns it. It's His. He made
it and fashioned it according to the good pleasure of His will.
And when the time comes, the scripture says, He will change
it like a garment. Now you've heard the statement,
the clothes make the man. And that's true in a carnal way,
but it is definitely not true in this case, is it? Because
the Lord made the clothes. That's all that this is. Brethren,
that's all that these bodies are, is just a garment. See,
the Lord breathed into man and made him a living soul. A man
is what the Lord made him to be. And we don't have any more
control over what we are than the tree had any control over
what it is. It's in the hand of Him who does
all things well, and He shall change those things. The glorious
thing is that the Scripture says He shall change our vile bodies
to be like unto His glorious body. You see that is the hope
of the sons of God because we have here no continuing city.
I mean we are not going to get out of this place alive. He endures forever, the scripture
says, even as the Lord testified, thy years are throughout all
generations, but thou art the same. In other words, the vesture,
the garments, the earth, it shall be changed, but the Lord shall
not change. He told his disciples, he said,
I go to prepare a place for you that where I am, there ye may
be also. And then he said something that
is a glorious thing, and most times people just go right over
it and don't even think about it, but he said, if it were not
so, I would have told you. Now do you believe the Lord Jesus
Christ is ever told a lie? No. No, He is the embodiment
of truth. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. And He told this to His disciples.
And He said, if it was not so, He said, this is not a fairy
tale. This is not something that somebody
made up somewhere. But this is the truth. And I'm
telling you that if it wasn't the truth, I'd tell you right
now. Oh, what a glorious testimony,
dear brethren, of that which the Lord will do in the behalf
of His people. But thou art the same, and thy
years shall have no end. He changes not. And dear brethren,
because He changes not, we are not consumed. See, the only thing
that keeps us alive at the present time is the Lord, whether it
be in carnal life or whether it be in that life to come. We
live because He lives. We live because He gives us life.
The children of thy servant shall continue, and their seed shall
be established before thee. Oh, I'm thinking about what Brother
Al was speaking about this morning. Who's the seed to which the promise
was made? Christ. Christ is the seed. And it says here, and their seed
shall be established. Who is that one who is the seed
of God but the Lord Jesus Christ? And who are those who are the
seed of Christ? Those who are in Christ. And
he said, thy seed shall be established before thee. You see, Christ
ever lives to make intercession for the people of God. Now, we've
talked about this many a time. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
intercessor, but He does not intercede before the throne of
God with prayers, with words, but He intercedes before the
throne of God in our behalf by His presence. You see, He is
our Savior. And he says, these who are mine,
they belong to me. Those who are hidden in Christ,
they shall stand before the Lord. Their seed, thy seed shall be
established in every generation unto the end, to all things. May the Lord give us grace to
rejoice in him. Brethren, He is the Savior of
sinners. And He saved me such as be of
a broken and a contrite heart. He hears those that call upon
Him. May the Lord give us a mind and
heart to call upon Him today.