Psalm 75 says to the chief musician,
altasheth a psalm or song of Asaph. Unto thee, O God, do we
give thanks. Unto thee do we give thanks.
For that thy name is near, thy wondrous works declare. When
I shall receive the congregation, I will judge uprightly. The earth
and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved. I bear up the
pillars of it. Selah. I said unto the fools,
deal not foolishly. And to the wicked, lift not up
the horn. Lift not up your horn on high. Speak not with a stiff
neck. For promotion cometh neither
from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is
the judge. He putteth down one and setteth
up another. For in the hand of the Lord there
is a cup, and the wine is red. It is full of mixture, and he
poureth out of the same. But the dregs thereof, all the
wicked of the earth, shall wring them out and drink them. But
I will declare forever, I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. All the horns of the wicked also
will I cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted. now this is of course another
psalm of asaph and this is uh... actually a psalm of asaph is
very similar to some of the psalms of david in that uh... there is a cry at the beginning
of the psalm unto the Lord, and then the answer of the Lord comes
to that. And so I believe we have Asaph
here speaking in the first verse, saying, Unto thee, O God, do
we give thanks. Unto thee do we give thanks,
for that thy name is near, thy wondrous works declare. Now that
is the prayer the desire of the
righteous those who've been called by the lord out of the darkness
and into the light uh... they have a desire to praise
his name to give him thanks they can't escape that you know as
hard as a man uh... might run from the lord he's
going to be brought to the place to praise him if he belongs to
the lord and if you don't believe that just ask old jonah You know,
He'll tell you that it's a true thing that you can't get away
from the Lord. The Lord will bring His people
to Himself and oft times He brings us by a thorny road and a place
that is not comfortable to us. But He nonetheless will bring
His people to a place where they will praise Him with a glad heart.
Now you can teach kids to pray, that is to say words of prayer.
You can teach them to say thank you to the Lord. But only the
Lord can bring a child or a man to the place where in the depths
of his soul and heart he longs to give thanks to the Lord. And
there's a difference in that, you know, when a man delights
in giving thanks to the Lord. And that's what is happening
here. As Asaph says, unto thee, O God,
do we give thanks. Unto thee do we give thanks.
We do give thanks. We desire to. For that thy name
is near, thy wondrous works declare. We have seen the wondrous works
of the Lord. We're seeing the wondrous works
of the Lord unveiled in the earth at the present time. Now there's
a lot of people that think that these things that have come upon
the earth at the present time is some kind of a work of the
devil and that he's been you know that he's working his work
and God's just up there trying to do the best he can to keep
this thing from getting out of hand. But I'm telling you this,
that just like, and I don't know that the Lord does not use Satan
in such things as this. He may do that. He did with Job,
did he not? To bring heartache upon Job. But make no mistake about it,
the Lord was the one that called Satan out. And he said, have
you thought about Job? I mean, I don't know if the devil
thought about him or not, but the Lord said to the devil, have
you considered my servant? He said, why don't you go down
there and see what you can do with him? And the devil said,
well, man, I can get him. I'll turn him aside in a heartbeat.
And the Lord said, well, go ahead. But we know how that turned out. Now, Job was a man received by
the Lord, but Job was a man that had a lot of lessons to learn.
and he learned the biggest one at the very end of the book after
he'd gone through all the stuff. See, people think that the Lord
was teaching Job when he had all these afflictions, and he
was, but the afflictions was only an interlude to the place
where the Lord was going to bring Job. He just sat in the stage.
You know, the Lord works intricate things. It's amazing how one
activity of man intersects with another and causes this to happen
and that to happen and these things unfold. But the Lord, He brings His people
to the place where He wants them to be. And the place where He
wanted Job to be was to recognize that while Job had some knowledge
of God, because he did. I mean, he said some things in
the book that indicate that he had a good understanding. of
many of the things concerning the truth of God. But the one
thing that he needed was the thing that the Lord would bring
him through this intricate process to know and understand, and that
was to see himself for what he really was before holy God. And what he said then was, he
said, you know, I've heard of you by the hearing of the ear. that I've been taught all my
life the things of God. He said, I knew these things
to be true. He said, I've heard of you. But
he said, now, he said, mine eye seeth thee, and I hate myself. Now see, the place that a man's
got to come in order to really thank the Lord and give glory
to God is that place. Until a man comes to that place,
he'll never be ready to praise God. He may say the words, but
until he knows himself to be an unworthy sinner before Almighty
God, and he hates what he sees. So you can tell a man that he's
a sinner. If you went out in the world
today and asked folks if they were sinners, I'd say most people
would probably say, well, yeah. But how many people hate their
sin? I mean, how many people hate what they see within themselves? And that's the place God brought
Job, was to hate himself. He said, I hate myself, and I
repent in dust and ashes. Oh, for repentance to be brought
upon God's people today. I believe that's perhaps one
of the reasons the Lord has sent His pestilence into the earth
to bring His people to repentance. Oh, that we might be brought
there. We might realize that in His mighty hand He might kill
us all. You know, men sat back, oh, well,
you know, this thing, it's gonna go this far, we're gonna have
about this many deaths, and you know, in a couple weeks, everything
will be back to normal and all that. That's just talk. People
don't know anything in the world about this. God could kill every
person in the earth tomorrow with this thing if it pleased
him to do so. And what could men do about it?
I mean, how many ventilators would it take to prevent it?
Huh? How many masks would it take?
I mean how foolish are the ways of men to think that they can
thwart the way of God. Now I'm not telling you not to
wear a mask if you feel like you need to wear a mask or hole
up in your house till you know, three weeks from now. I mean,
I'm not giving out advice on what you need to do, but I'm
telling you about the one that's got this thing in his hand. And
he'll do with it what he pleases to do. And there won't anybody
prevent one thing from occurring that he has ordained to occur. And we give thanks. I'm thankful. You know, I'm thankful that the
Lord has sent this thing into the earth not because i might
enjoy the effects of it but because he did it now what the lord told
us to pray father thy will be done in the heavens or in the earth
as it is in the heavens may it be so for that thy name is near
thy wondrous works declare Oh, we can see the hand of God in
everything. I mean, you look around you and
even the natural man can look out there and has a testimony
to the glory of God. And the Scripture says when they
knew God, when they could look out there and they could see
the natural beauty and the natural wonders that occur in the earth,
when men could see it, You'd think they'd have fell down and
worshiped God, but it said they made him like unto one like unto
themselves. Images of four-footed bees. I
was just reading, or no, I saw it on the computer. It was talking
about, I was looking at the thing. It was talking about some various
ruins and things that they found in the United States of the native
peoples that were here. And you see the carvings and
the artwork that they did. And most of it was their depictions
of what they considered God, or what we assume they were picturing
what God was. And He was always some creature,
some four-footed beast, some animate object that men could
hold on to and say, that's God. And that's the way men look at
God. They want Him to be how they want Him to be. Oh, well,
God, you know, He's a God of love. He'd never send a virus
into the earth. He said, I'll make peace, create
evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.
Oh, what a wondrous God He is. When I shall receive the congregation.
is i believe uh... the answer of the lord they say
says when i shall receive the congregation i will judge uprightly
you know the lord does not often entertain the ways of me like
we think that does i i'm often struck by it as i think about
uh... when nicodemus came to the lord
you know the lord never answered nicodemus directly as to what
Nicodemus was asking, because Nicodemus was asking the wrong
thing. Nicodemus thought he was going to enter into this intellectual
discussion with the Lord, and he said, Now, good master, we
know that you are one sent from God, and the Lord didn't even
say a word about what Nicodemus said. He said, Nicodemus, Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. I mean
that must have just knocked old Nicodemus back on his heels for
a minute. Wait a minute, what? Can a man be born again? Can
a man enter his mother's womb? He said, Nicodemus, I tell you.
Except a man be born of a natural birth and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. Therefore, he must be born again. And so it is that the Lord doesn't
necessarily even entertain the thing that Nicodemus or that
Asaph is saying here, but he answers him nonetheless, as is
one whom Asaph is worshiping, the wondrous works of God. He
says, when I shall receive, this is how it is, when I shall receive
the congregation, I will judge uprightly. He said, when I manifest
those children that belong to me, the congregation, the gathered
out, called together children of God. He said, I will judge
uprightly. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ
came into the world as the one who was just, that is, he would
fulfill the law of God in his jot and tittle. But he would
also be the justifier of those which He would call out, those
which believe in Him. And so He is both just and the
justifier, but He says, I will judge uprightly. So when the
Lord is pleased to call out His people and He is pleased to manifest
the congregation of His children in the earth, He says, I will
judge rightly, uprightly, because I have made them holy. he said be ye holy for I the
Lord your God am holy now how are you going to do that? I've
heard men describe how you do it you know you don't go to the
picture show you wear your hair a certain way you don't spit
on the sidewalk you say yes ma'am and no ma'am you do all these
things and you'll be holy you gotta be holy well I'm telling
you the only way that a man will ever be holy enough in the eyes
of Almighty God is to be found covered in the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ who alone is our righteousness. And that is the
basis, dear brethren, upon which we expect to stand in the judgment. And if you expect to stand in
the judgment based upon anything that you might have performed
or done in your lifetime, you are going to be sadly disappointed. Because there's not going to
be a place or a time for you to plead your case. Christ is
our Advocate. And He will judge uprightly. and he will do right. Will not the judge of all the
earth do right? Sure he will. And payment God cannot twice
demand, first at my bleeding surety's hand and then again
at mine, for if Jesus Christ paid the price for my sin, then
dear brethren, according to the justice of almighty God, I must
go free. I must. It's not a matter of
maybe. You see, to be found in Christ
is that place wherein we stand. He said, I will judge uprightly.
I won't stand in that upright judgment. Do you? I mean, is
that the place? When He judges His own Son and
He says, You are righteous. I won't be found in Him. the earth and all the inhabitants
thereof are what? Dissolved. Scripture says that when the
Lord comes, the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Now,
I've heard men wax eloquent about that and talk about how all that
occurs and what not. It just baffles me. It blows
my mind when I think of the elements melting with fervent heat. I
mean, this thing is going to be dissolved, dear brother. There's
not one thing that you see at the present time that you're
going to see. in that day, because it's going
to all be dissolved. It's going to go by the wayside.
Now, it's hard, that's a hard thing for some folks. Oh, you
know, he's not, surely he's not going to destroy the Empire State
Building. That thing's been there. Or the Golden Gate Bridge. And all these wonders, the, what's
the thing out there that's got all the presidents on it, Mount
Rushmore. I mean, think of all the labor and trouble and whatnot
that men's went through. to do all these things. He said,
I'm going to dissolve them. There's not going to be anything.
There's not going to be anything left. For I bear up the pillars
of it. Oh, what a wondrous thing. Dear
brethren, that's the place of our rejoicing. is in a God who
rules in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth and there's none that can stay his hand or say unto him,
what doest thou? But our God is in the heavens.
He hath none whatsoever he hath pleased. Oh, if that doesn't
strike fear and trembling into your heart, then brethren, there's
something wrong with you. You're spiritually dead. To consider
the wondrous works of our God We always come back to the most
wondrous work that He's performed. He bore up the pillars of it.
He saved the earth. He saved the world. How did He
do it? Through His Son, Jesus Christ. He said this world is worth nothing.
It's worthy to be destroyed completely. But He says, I'm going to make
it new because I've got a people in Jesus Christ that are going
to inhabit it forever. A new heavens and a new earth.
Now how's that going to be? I don't have any idea. I don't
know what it's going to be like. I couldn't tell you a thing in
the world, but I can tell you this, that the Lord, the same
one who made this world, has said that He went to prepare
a place for us, that where He is, there we may be also. And here's the kicker. We were
talking about swearing there a moment ago and the need for
it. Here's what the Lord said. He
said, if it was not so, I would have told you. I believe Him. You know, I don't believe He
was pulling our leg. I think He said the truth. He
said, if it wasn't so, I told you so. He was standing there
with his disciples, and he's the one that said, Swear not
at all, but let your yea be yea and your nay nay. Dear brethren,
we can believe the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. He bears up the pillars of it.
I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly to the wicked, lift
not up the horn, lift not up your horn on high, speak not
with a stiff neck. Now, you know the horn in the
scriptures usually has reference to a seed of power. You often
find in the prophecies it speaks about the horn. You know, this
horn or that horn. And that's speaking about a seed
of power. And so what he's saying here,
he said, lift not up the horn. That is, don't think that you've
got power to do something. That's what he said to the, he
said unto fools. Who's he speaking to? He's speaking
to all of us. Because you see, the fool, the one that is the
true fool is the one who said in his heart, there is no God.
Now what he really said was, there is no God for me. Because I mean, even a fool knows
there's God. He might not like to admit it,
but he knows that it's so. But what he does say, what the
true fool says is, I will not have this one to rule over me.
I'll not bow down and worship him. I'll not give him thanks.
I'm gonna go on my way. I believe that preacher's full
of baloney. I'm not gonna pay attention to
him. And he said to the fools, don't
be foolish. And to the wicked, speak not
with a stiff neck. A stiff neck. Isn't that what
he said to the Pharisees? He said, you're a stiff necked
people. He said to the nation of Israel.
because you're a stiff necked people. What's a stiff necked?
It's somebody that you know they grit their teeth and they're
just not going to do what he said. Well he'll bring his people
where he wants them to be. Lift not up your horn on high,
speak not with a stiff neck. For promotion, that is being
raised up, promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west
nor from the south. There's not any direction that
You can think of that any lifting up is going to come before my
face, but God is the judge. You know,
isn't it interesting there that he didn't mention the north? You know, often in the north,
he comes from the north. uh... the north star that's that's
uh... the direction you know that uh... i have a card in the head and
all these things i don't have the significance of my cake give
you some mysterious interpretation of all of that uh... the lord
is said all these things in motion and surely he will come from
the direction that he sees fit to come. But he does mention
the fact that promotion doesn't come from the east, the west,
or the south. It comes from above. And we think
of north, we think of going up, don't we? And that's the place
from which that promotion comes. But God is the judge. He putteth
down one and setteth up another. And this is nowhere more true
than we see in the realm of politics. And men think that presidents
and kings and all of that stuff are put in place by the will
of men. you know we we know that's the
means god may use to put the king where he wants him to be
and and donald trump might be proud thinking that he got was
smart enough to get all the votes and everything but i'm telling
you what he's the president of the united states right now because
god made him the president and if he gets put out it'll be because
god put him out it won't let it make it is what
fox news as our cnn or whoever else uh... it won't make any
difference whatsoever the lord said if uh... whom he wills in
the earth and he puts them down you know every man that's ever
risen to power he thought he had it i mean think about the
clintons they thought they had the power they had the bull by
the horns i mean they had this thing all figured out Didn't
work out just like they planned, did it? Because that's not in
God's ordained purpose. But God is a judge, he putteth
down one and setteth up another in the same way in which he creates
one vessel under honor and another under dishonor, as it hath pleased
him. Because he is that one who is
the judge of all the earth. For in the hand of the Lord there
is a cup and the wine is red. it is full of mixture and he
poureth out the same. Now, there's a lot of things
that we could consider about this cup in the hand of the Lord. I believe, as I believe all things
in the scripture, point to Christ. And I believe that this is a
testimony to the pouring out of that cup of wine which is
the cup of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ he said father I
drink this cup this is the cup that you have given me and I
drink it up for in the hand of the Lord there
is a cup and the wine is red without the shedding of blood
there is no remission of sin it had an amazing thing i mean
you think of all the substances and things in are yet the lord
said the life is in the blood man can't live without blood
the lord jesus christ poured out in our behalf and i know
some people have made going to great lengths to say, well, he
drained out every drop of blood in his body. I don't know if
he drained out every drop of blood that was physically in
his body. That's not the point. The point
of the shedding of the blood of Christ is the evidence of
the fact that he died. It's not the fluid, but it is
the fluid that the Lord ordained to be the life of a man. and he said without shedding
of a man's blood not the blood of bulls and goats and Christ
alone is that one who has shed his blood in the behalf of his
people and he poured out his blood and he has obtained eternal
redemption I believe probably of all the scriptures in the
book that I go back to in great rejoicing is that one in Hebrews
where he hath obtained eternal redemption. I remember years
ago before I ever really knew of what the doctrines of grace
were. I grew up of course listening
to Armenian preaching and talking about how Jesus, you know, poured
out his blood and he paid the sin debt of all mankind and all
of that. And I can remember thinking through
this and thinking in my mind that He has obtained eternal
redemption. He poured out His blood and paid
something and got something. How could it possibly be then,
if He paid for that, that He wouldn't get what He paid for?
And if He paid for the sins of all men, why wouldn't all men
be saved? And I can remember reading a
book one time and it was like the lights went off. And it was a book by William
Rushton, The Defense of Particular Redemption. Buddy, I saw that
and it was like, man, that's the absolute truth. First time
ever in my life I've heard anybody say that. Christ paid the price
for sin and he obtained what he sought. And he said in his
prayer to the Father, Father of all that thou hast given me,
I have lost All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I'll in no wise
cast out. Why? Because those that come
to Christ are those for whom He shed that blood and paid that
price. Oh, what a wondrous thing. The
cup, the wine is red. It is a full mixture. It wasn't
some halfway deal. It wasn't something that He sought
trying to do. But He drank the whole cup. And he poureth out of the same,
poured out his life's blood, but the dregs thereof, all the
wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them. The
offense of the cross. See, Christ shed his blood, but
men consider it to be the dregs. Most people don't know what dregs
in a cup are nowadays, because we've got all these fancy coffee
makers and tea makers and all these things, and so you don't
ever hardly see a cup that's got dregs in it. But years ago,
when you used to make coffee and tea, and they often didn't
have ways to filter it as good as they do now, and when you'd
get to the bottom of a cup, it would have a little residue in
the bottom. Some of the coffee that was still
in there, some of the tea leaves were still down at the bottom
of the cup, that's the dregs. Well, I've never seen anybody
turn up the dregs and drink them. Why? Because it wasn't something
that you wanted. You poured the dregs out. The
Scripture says here that the wicked of the earth shall wring
them out and drink them. Why? They hate the Gospel of
Christ. The cross is offensive. I'm telling you, you can go and
you can tell folks that God is an equal opportunity God, and
He's just doing everything for everybody, and you've got as
good a chance as anybody else, and if you'll just do these things
and do that, why, God will just fall over backwards to help you
out. You can go through the earth and preach that and people are
just, oh man, that's just the greatest thing I ever heard.
But I'm telling you this, you start preaching that Jesus Christ,
when He went to Calvary's cross, He went there with a particular
people in mind, and He paid the price for their sin, lock, stock,
and barrel, and they are forever justified in the blood of Jesus
Christ, and you'll find some people that will get angry about
that. Well, what do you mean? Well, I ought to have just as
much a chance to be saved as anybody. You probably do because
salvation is not by chance. Salvation is on purpose. God
who is rich in mercy He has purpose to save his people. Now dear
brethren, that's at one in the same time the most frightening
thought that a man who's stirred up by his sin can have, but it's
at the same time one of the most comforting thoughts when the
Lord brings him to a place to believe in Jesus Christ. Because you see, if we understand
that what Christ did, He did completely then there's nothing
left for us to do. It's not about what we do. It's
not about what we fail to do or what we ought to do. There's
plenty of things you ought to do. There's plenty of things
that you'll fail to do in your lifetime. But Christ, He has
perfectly fulfilled the law of God. And He has purchased our
redemption. Oh, what a wondrous thing. the
same one who said that he is the judge of all the earth and
that he would judge uprightly. But I will declare forever, and
this here again is the answer of Asaph, I believe, but I will
declare forever, I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.
Oh, we will praise him. When we consider the works of
his hands, what are the works of his hands? Oh, it's all these
things we see around here, but that's not the works of His hands
that we glory in, is it? I mean, I can look at beautiful
scenery and I just am amazed at it, but you know, it's nothing
really, looking at the mountains and the vast expanses of the
desert and the ocean and all those things. While that's a
wondrous thing, that's nothing compared to gazing upon the One. who died on Calvary's cross for
sinners. That's a wonder, the works of
God. But I will declare forever, I
will sing praises to the God of Jacob. And then the Lord says,
all the horns of the wicked also will I cut off, but the horns
of the righteous shall be exalted. The places of power of the wicked
shall be destroyed. He already said that. He said,
I will dissolve it. Gonna be gold, bang, just as
if it never existed. You know, if a man would live
forever, how's he gonna do so? Only if God gives him eternal
life. See, the Lord Jesus Christ's scripture says that the son hath
life in himself. You and I don't have life in
ourselves. We have no life. We're dead, trespassed, and sins
apart from the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ. If a man
will live forever, it'll be because he lives in Christ. All the horns
of the wicked, the place of the power of men, will be cut off,
but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted. That is the
place of power for the righteous. will be exalted. Why? Because
the place of our power is in Christ. We don't have any. We know we don't have any. We
know that our hope is in Him. And He will be exalted. Scripture
says, Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess. I
mean, He's the object of the praises of the saints of God
throughout the ages to come. because He's worthy of praise.
He is our power and our strength. May the Lord give us a mind and
heart to worship Him.