Psalm 147. We read the whole psalm last
week, and I'll begin reading in verse 10. It says, He delighteth not in the
strength of the horse. He taketh not pleasure in the
legs of a man. The Lord taketh pleasure in them
that fear Him and those that hope in His mercy. Praise the
Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise thy God, O Zion! For he
hath strengthened the bars of thy gates, he hath blessed thy
children within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders,
and filleth thee with the finest of wheat. He sendeth forth his
commandment upon earth, his word runneth very swiftly. He giveth
snow like wool, he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He
casteth forth his ice like morsels, who can stand before his cold?
He sendeth out his word and melteth them, he causeth his wind to
blow, and the waters flow. He showeth his word unto Jacob,
his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt
so with any nation. And as for his judgments, they
have not known them. Praise ye the Lord. Now the Lord has sent his truth
into the earth in a very plain and obvious manner, but yet he
has hid that truth from man in such a way that a man cannot
attain to it in the flesh. And Brother Al has done a very
good job of bringing forth the creation of man in the image
of God. And often it is that men have
considered that the place that Adam was at was a perfect place. And indeed it was a place that
insofar as God created Adam and for the purpose that He did,
a place of perfection, He saw Adam and He said it is a good
thing. He said this is good. He was
pleased with what He did. But had Adam continued on in
the garden, that's all that he would have ever been, was simply
an occupier of the earth, one who tended the gardens and all
of those things. Now the Lord did indeed create
Adam in that way, but as you pointed out, He created Adam
in the image of God. But in order to demonstrate unto
men that there is no connection between the flesh and that which
is spiritual, although there is a spiritual aspect, as you
pointed out, in man in the sense that he is a spiritual being,
being made body, soul, and spirit. Yet he cannot in that spirit
that he is given naturally inherit the kingdom of God. And Adam,
regardless of what he had ever done in his life, had he never
sinned, and we're speaking hypothetically because that never could have
occurred because that was not the purpose of God, in the creation
of Adam. Now some people think that God
did have made an experiment and it could have went either way,
but it didn't. No, it couldn't have went anyway,
but the way that it went because that was the way God ordained
that it would go because God would demonstrate the glory of
His grace in the redemption of sinners. And had there been no
sinners, there could have been no redemption. And his purpose
for the creation of the earth would have been null and void.
So there was no hypothetical situation that could have occurred.
It occurred as it did because it occurred according to the
purpose of God. But the glory of that is that,
dear brethren, there is a Redeemer. You see, that's the glory of
creation is that there is a Redeemer. This is not a secondary thing. This is not a stop-gap deal. This is not the second choice
of God. This is the first choice of God,
that He might manifest the glory of His grace in the earth through
the redemption of sinners. What a glorious thing! I mean,
is there anything more glorious than the glory of Christ? And
so had men been caused to continue on in that perfect state, the
glory of Christ would have not been seen by him in the manner
in which it has been seen. And he is the Redeemer. And what
a glorious song. See, this is the song of the
ages. This is that which an angel desired to look into. This is
an amazing thing. This is a thing that transcends
the thought of man. No man could have ever designed
such a thing. See, men could have never come
up with it because if men had come up with it, Adam would have
just carried on and done right, wouldn't he? And he'd have never
messed up. I mean, who wants to mess up? Nobody wants to mess
up. Everybody wants things to just
go along smooth and not have any problems. But you see, God
has ordained those things to occur according to the good pleasure
of His will that he might be glorified through
Christ who is the image of the perfect God. And He has indeed
brought us to a place in redemption better than the place we were
created in, because we were created a little lower than angels. And Brother Al talked about this.
You see, in our natural creation we are created a little lower
than the angels. But in the redemptive work of
Christ, we are raised up higher than angels. And we are made
heirs and joined heirs with Jesus Christ, which no angel could
ever claim to be. Because the angels in some measure,
in some measure are as the animal creation. They are a noble creation. They are a creation which is
gloriously made by God, higher than the natural creation of
men. But you see, the natural creation cannot inherit the kingdom
of God according to what the Scripture says. The Lord said
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And so it
is that there has to be something, a change that must come about. The Lord Jesus told Nicodemus
about it, did He not? He said, Nicodemus, except a
man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.
And so that is what Jesus Christ came to do, was He came to redeem
that which was His and to give life unto His people. And so
the Lord delighted not in the strength of the horse. There
is nothing in this world that the Lord takes delight in in
the sense that He needs it. or that it takes wonder at it. Some people think of this creation
as though God sits back in all of it. No, God doesn't sit back
in all of it because He made it. It's just like He wanted
to. I mean, if you go and you look
at the Grand Canyon and you see the wondrous expanse of it and
you think of the wonders of it, what a glorious thing it is,
but it's really nothing unto the Lord. Now he gave it so that
he might show to men just how small and minuscule that he is. But if man in his natural sense
is as small and minuscule before some natural creation as that,
think how much more so it is that he would stand before the
presence of a holy God. And so it is that he delighteth
not in the strength of the horse, he taketh not pleasure in the
legs of a man. He doesn't need men. Men don't
do anything that God can't do without. You've all heard that
phrase, and I hate it, but I hear it from time to time. God has
no hands but yours. Dear brethren, that's a pathetic
thing. The Scripture says He takes no
pleasure in the legs of a man. How can we be His hands? We're
not His hands. He's got His own hands and He
uses them according to the good pleasure of His will. And sometimes
He's pleased to empower the hands of men to do His bidding, but
He doesn't do it because He needs them. He doesn't do it because
He takes pleasure in them, but He does it because it seems good
in His sight. It is according to His purpose.
The Lord takes His pleasure in them that fear Him, those that
tremble. before Him and those that hope in His mercy.
Because you see the Lord would demonstrate unto men that the
glory of His person, the glory of that which He would show to
men is in the demonstration of His goodness. Now what He said
to Moses? Moses said, Lord show me Thy
glory. And I imagine Moses figured there was just going to be some
panoramic sweeping fire and some glorious thing that was going
to take place. And the Lord said, Moses, I'm going to make all
my goodness pass before you. But he said, you can't even look
at it. You can't even see it. Because you see, this is beyond
the realm of man to consider the goodness of God. Now sometimes
men talk about it and they say, oh, ain't God good? And what
they mean by that is things turned out like we wanted it to. Doesn't
that make you think about the goodness of God when everything
is going like you want it to? I mean, boy, God's good. This
is great. But what about when things don't
go like you want them to? Same God, same goodness. just demonstrated in a different
way. You see, the natural man can't receive it, can he? I mean,
the natural man can't hit his finger with a hammer and say,
that was great. Have you ever done that? No,
you've never done that. You probably said a few choice
words and hopped around and slung your finger and said, why on
earth did I do that? And all of that kind of stuff.
But you see, that man who is taught by the Spirit of God Not
the natural man, but the inner man. He's taught by the Spirit
of God. There's some benefit in that.
Now, I don't know what it is. But I don't know what it is in
the flesh, but I do in the Spirit because it causes me to remember
that this world is not my home. This is not the place that I
was designed to be and to spend my days hammering nails and hitting
my finger and hurting myself and all of that. That is not
what I am designed for. It is not my purpose. The Lord
takes pleasure in them that fear Him, those that hope in His mercy,
because He is good. He is good unto all that call
upon Him. There has never been a man that
has called upon the name of the Lord seeking mercy. That man who has given up all
hope of his own ability, who has come seeking mercy from the
hand of God and has never been turned away, the Lord shows mercy. He delights in mercy. He loves
those that repent. He loves those that call upon
His name, those that hope in His mercy. Praise the Lord. O
Jerusalem, praise thy God, O Zion! For he hath strengthened the
bars of thy gates, he hath blessed thy children within thee." Now
I believe he is speaking here concerning that fortress into
which the sons of God had been brought. And the church of God,
spiritually speaking, is the gathering together of the saints
of God. Now we know there is a natural
expression of that which is in the local assembly as God's people
come together, they're gathered together, they're knit together,
they're brought together, but that's a small expression of
the greater expression of that church which is the body of Christ,
the bride of Christ, those for whom the Lord has shed his precious
blood. And he says, For he hath strengthened
the bars of thy gates. Now we talked about this a little
bit last week. It does not make a difference
how strong the gate is. The bar to the gate is where
the strength and the security lies because you can have the
greatest of gates or doors. If you don't have some means
to keep that gate closed that can't be breached, then it's
of no use because you can take the most expensive of doors and
the cheapest of criminals and they will find a way to get in
it if the bar to the gate is not strong enough to keep them
out. And I thought about when I was reading this about what
it said about Noah when Noah went into the ark. And of course
in the movies You see Noah and his sons there. They're pulling
on these ropes, you know, pulling the door up, closing the door
up to the ark. That's not what the Scripture
says. It says the Lord shut him in. Now, he didn't close the
gate. The Lord closed the gate. I don't
know how he did it, but I know that he did it. And then, brethren,
what the Lord shuts, no man can open. And so that's what he's
saying here, that he shuts the gate and nobody can open. For
he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates, he hath blessed
thy children within thee. You see, the people of God are
blessed in the church of God. Those who are not gathered in
among the children of God, those who are yet wandering out on
the hills, the highways and the byways and have as of yet not
been called in, they are not strengthened. They are weak and
they are being made weaker. so that they might be brought
and drawn in. But you see, those who are within
the gates, the Lord of the Scriptures says that He hath blessed thy
children within thee. There is a blessing unto the
people of God when they are brought to the place of embracing Christ,
of seeing Him, of being reconciled unto Him. Now, Jesus Christ is
our atonement. But it is the atonement of Christ
that causes us to be reconciled unto God. That is, that barrier
of rebellion which was in our hearts against God is melted
away when He is pleased to give us a glimpse of the redemptive
work of Christ. And we see Him as our Redeemer.
And all of our arguments against Him cease. And we fall at His
face and we worship Him. He hath blessed thy children
within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee
with the finest of wheat." It is there that the Lord is pleased
to bless His people among the saints of God. Now I believe
there is a picture here of the benefit that there is for God's
people to gather themselves together in local assemblies to build
one another up in the most holy faith. Now, men can get out here
and they say, oh, well, I don't need that. I can be strong and
I can go along and I'll just do my own thing and I don't need
that. Well, I'm telling you, according to what Scripture says,
that's a foolish and disobedient mindset. Because if a man belongs
to Christ, he has ordained that there is a means and a way wherein
he will minister and strengthen the saints of God. And it is
in that relationship one with the other. The body supplied
by that which every joint supplies because that is the ordained
purpose of God. That's why he said in the book
of Hebrews, forsaking not the assembling of yourselves together
as the matter of some is. There is, it is the manner of
some. But He said, not forsaking that
assembling of yourselves together, and so much the more as you see
the day approaching. What day is He talking about?
He's talking about the end, the end of your life. I mean, He
may be speaking of the return of the Lord, but we may not all
be alive at the day the Lord comes back, but I guarantee we'll
all be alive up until the time we die. And the day is fast approaching
for us all, regardless of when the Lord actually literally returns
to the earth, which He will. And some of us may be alive and
remain at that time. He sent forth His commandment
upon earth. His Word runneth very swiftly. Now the Lord causes His Word
to accomplish exactly what He desires. Now when the Scripture
says He runneth very swiftly, we think of a swift runner as
one who is the fastest. Well, that's not necessarily
what the word swiftly means. It means certain. The Word of
God goes certainly. It goes swiftly because it will
accomplish the thing that it sets out to do. It may not be
swift in the sense that men think of what swiftness is, because
the Lord, He works a work sometimes that lasts for a man's lifetime.
But He draws His people unto Himself, and His Word runneth
very swiftly. He giveth snow like wool, he
scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes, he casteth forth his ice
like morsels, who can stand before his cold?" Now, who can stand
before the cold which being the judgment of God? Because the judgment of God in
the sense of a man considering it It is a cold thing. There is no place of refuge in
it. You see, the judgments of God,
the Word of God, the Law of God, as it goes forth in the Word
of God, there is no comfort to the natural man therein. Now,
he might take some comfort because of his ignorance in it. But there
is no comfort in it, no real lasting comfort, because it is
like the snow that is sent out. It covers, and there is no relief
from it. I mean, think about if the snow
fell on the earth, but the Lord never sent any warmth to melt
it. It would just build up and build
up and build up. I mean, you look up there, you
would have the North Pole or the South Pole. Now they tell
us that all that's melting away, but I was reading somewhere the
other day, they said there's more arctic ice now than there's ever
been. And yet you hear all these people
talking about the earth warming up, it's all going to melt. Well,
it may, but if it does, it'll be because the Lord does so. Who can stand before His cold?
Now listen to what He says here. He sendeth out His Word and melteth
them, He causeth his wind to blow and the waters to flow.
He showeth, listen, he showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes
and his judgments unto Israel. Now he's saying here that he
scatters his eyes out on the ground and he sendeth out his
word and melts it. But he doesn't melt it for everybody
according to what he's saying here. He shows His Word unto
Jacob, His statutes and His judgments unto Israel. He has not dealt
so with any nation. In other words, there is a specific
manner in which He has dealt with His people. And He does
show them the truth of God. And He does melt the judgments
of God against them. He does cause that hoarfrost
that has covered the earth to melt away. in the sweetness of
that which He has revealed unto His people about who Christ is. But He has not dealt so with
any nation. That is, He didn't just do this
for everybody. You know, the dealings of the
Lord down through time have been shown to us to always be specific. Now everybody that reads the
Bible knows that's true, but they think somehow somewhere
along the line God changed. No, God has always been one who
specifically loved His people from the beginning. He created
the world for their benefit under His glory. He specifically loved the nation
of Israel. Now we know that in the carnal
sense, in the natural sense, he used Israel as a demonstration
of that love which he had for that people which he loved from
before the foundation of the world. Just like Adam was the
natural man, so Israel is the natural people of God in that
way. But just like Adam could not
inherit the kingdom of God by being Adam, neither can the nation
of Israel inherit the kingdom of God by being the nation of
Israel. But it is that true nation of
Israel, he which is a Jew which is one inwardly and not outwardly,
which the Lord is pleased to cause to see the Word of God. He hath not so dealt with any
nation. And as for His judgments, they
have not known them. You see, the world, speaking
of natural Israel in the time that the Lord ministered unto
Israel, He didn't reveal His Word unto the Philistines, did
He? I mean, think of all the Philistines that lived and died
in ignorance of the things of God. They were just there. They
were doing the will of God in the earth, but they never knew
anything of the glories of the true and living God, the Assyrians,
all of those. The Lord's love was specifically
ministered to Israel. And so it is that He says here,
as for His judgments, they have not known them. But who did He
show His judgments to? To Israel. They saw them. And dear brethren, we have seen
the judgments of God. He has shown them to us. But
He has not caused them to have power over us. For even the judgments
that He brought to Israel were all for their benefit, were they
not? I mean, He brought them into captivity time and time
again. What for? So that He might demonstrate
to them His deliverance of them. And so it is that He has not
so dealt with any nation. For His judgments, they have
not known them. Praise you, the Lord. He showed
His Word unto Jacob in His statutes and His judgments unto Israel.
The Lord is pleased to minister His Word unto His people. He said here, He sendeth out
His Word and melteth him. He causeth his wind to blow.
What did the Lord say to Nicodemus? He said, Nicodemus, except a
man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. He
said, Thou dost see the wind, or Thou dost hear the wind, but
Thou canst not tell from whence it comes or whence it goes. So
is everyone that is born of the Spirit of God. And so this is
the wind of the Spirit of God that must come upon the people
of God to show them the way. And then he said, And he calls
it his wind to blow and the waters to flow, because when the wind
blows, the snow melts, does it not? And Jesus Christ said, I
am the living water. He said, if any man drinks of
this well, they shall never thirst again. But yet a man can't drink,
you can't drink, well you can literally drink the snow, but
you can't actually drink the snow. It's got to be melted. I mean if the snow, if you didn't
have heat in your body so that the snow when it went in your
mouth it would melt, you couldn't live off of snow. What he says
here is he sends the wind, and the wind and the warmth is that
which melts the snow, which is the Word of God that the Lord
scatters in the earth, and it is that which the people of God
take in and it nourishes them. But he has not shown this unto
any nation but unto those whom he loved. But to those he has
shown the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. And that is
that which we come to remember today. He said, remembers death. Now what do we remember when
we remember the death of the Lord Jesus Christ? Now primarily,
you see, the testimony of the death of Christ, it is a testimony
of His love for His people. It is His death that which necessitated
the death of Christ is the judgment of God against sin. And so whenever
we remember His death, dear brethren, we are reminded that God is a
just and holy God who hates sin to the point that He would send
His Son to die in the behalf of sinners to pay their sin debt. And so yes, we remember that
the Lord Jesus Christ died for us, but we remember the judgments
of God that He sent His Son, that He might be both just and
the justifier of them which believe in Christ. Now you see, the Lord
could have justified His people any way He wanted to. Now the
world, the religious world, sometimes they'll say, well, there was
no other way. The Lord could have justified His people. He
could have never made them unjustified if He wanted them. I mean, the
Lord is under no necessity. But He ordained the law of God
in the earth and sent men under it that He might show the justice
of His own Word in saying that He would not simply just ignore
sin. But that sin had to be paid for.
And it was paid for in Jesus Christ. And therefore He is not
only the Justifier, but He is just in doing so. Because He
entered into a covenant arrangement with the Father that of all that
the Father had given Him, He would lose none. And the Lord,
the Scripture says, ask of Me and I'll give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance. And surely the Lord did, did
He not? When He says, I pray not for the world, but I pray
for them that thou hast given Me out of the world. Thine they were and thou hast
given them to Me. And so we come to this place
today to remember that, to remember His death until He comes again.