We Are Dust

Q: What does the Bible say about God's mercy?

God's mercy is described as everlasting and is extended to His people, signifying His unchanging nature towards those who fear Him. Psalm 103 beautifully describes God's mercy as being from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear Him. This enduring mercy is a reflection of God's eternal and unchangeable nature. It's important to recognize that while human life is fleeting, God's mercy remains constant. David, in this Psalm, emphasizes that despite our frailty and sinfulness, God's mercy is ever steadfast, illustrating the profound grace that He extends to His elect across generations.

Q: How do we know God's sovereignty and election are true?

The truth of God's sovereignty and election is revealed through scripture, particularly in the covenant of grace established before the foundation of the world. The assurance of God's sovereignty and election is rooted in scriptural truth, particularly as outlined in passages like Ephesians 1 and Romans 9. These texts highlight that God's choices about salvation were made before time, emphasizing that His grace and mercy are not contingent upon our actions but are bestowed according to His divine will. Furthermore, the Old Testament covenants, as understood by figures like David, reinforce the belief that God has always had an elect people whom He has chosen for mercy in Christ, demonstrating His sovereign authority over all creation.

Q: Why is humility important for Christians?

Humility is significant for Christians as it acknowledges our frailty and dependence on God's mercy amidst our fallen nature. Humility is a vital characteristic for Christians as it aligns our understanding of who we are with the reality of our condition before a holy God. Psalm 103 articulates that we are but dust, a metaphor that captures our fragility and the transient nature of human life. Recognizing our limitations helps us appreciate the depth of God's mercy toward us. This humility fosters a spirit of gratitude and reliance on Christ's righteousness rather than our own, ensuring that we remain focused on God's grace instead of our achievements.

Q: What does it mean to keep God's covenant?

To keep God's covenant means to believe in and treasure the gospel of grace and the promises secured for us in Christ. Keeping God's covenant is not about fulfilling the law's obligations, which Christ has already accomplished. Rather, it refers to holding fast to the gospel message of grace and recognizing our identity in Christ. Those who have been brought into covenant relationship with God do so by faith; they cherish His promises and live in light of His mercy. This covenant is a reassurance of the blessings that flow from God's eternal love and is pivotal in understanding our relationship with Him as His elect.

We're in Psalm 103, and we're going to be reading from verse 14 through to verse 19. Psalm 103, verse 14. For he knoweth our frame, that is God. For God 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 is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting, upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children. To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them, the Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this lovely reading from his word.

I like old books. I like old books. And over the years, I have collected a few. And I'm going to show you one of them today. It's an old hymn book. And actually, it's an old hymn book containing the Psalms of David that were paraphrased by Isaac Watts. So you can see it's a bit chunky and clubby. But there you are. I don't know whether you can see the inside page there.

But that's the Psalms of David by Isaac Watts. And they're bound together. It says inside, the Psalms of David by Isaac Watts bound together with his hymns and spiritual songs. Now, our first hymn today was by Isaac Watts. So somewhere in here, that hymn will be found. This book that I've got was published in 1777. And that was 30 years or nearly 30 years after Isaac Watts died.

He was born in 1674 and he died in 1748. He's actually buried in London. He's buried in a place called Bunhill Fields in London. which is interestingly close to where John Gill is buried, and also Joseph Hart, the other hymn writer that we often use in our services. And I've been to visit his grave. In Bunhill Fields, a lot of nonconformists are buried there, including John Bunyan. So if you ever get an opportunity to visit London or to visit Bunhill Fields in London, you should pay a visit.

It's very interesting to see and to learn a little bit about it. But when I look at these old books, getting back to my old book again, when I look at these old books, I often wonder whose hands they've passed through over the years. And sometimes I'll find a name inside the book. This one actually has a name, Lilla Stanley, written inside.

I wonder who she was. but she may have sung these hymns in church worship. She too is dead. I don't know where she's buried, but how many others have owned this little volume? All dead, all buried, all turned to dust. And soon the present owner of this book will be dead and buried and turned to dust as well.

David's Psalms inspired Isaac Watts, including this Psalm 103 that we're studying now. David wrote these Psalms and he left them to the church. But then David died and was buried. David wrote in verse 14, God knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are dust. As for man, he says, his days are as grass as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.

David understood that man's life was short, temporary and passed quickly. Actually, I looked up Psalm 103 in Watsy's collection. And there are twice as many verses in Watts' version as are recorded in Gadsby, or that Gadsby included in his collection. And Isaac Watts actually had these two verses in his hymn as well. He had, he knows we are but dust, scattered with every breath. His anger, like a rising wind, can send us swift to death. Our days are as the grass, or like the morning flower. If one sharp blast sweep o'er the field, it withers in an hour. When David died, his soul went to be with the Lord, and his body was placed in the ground and turned to dust, just as he knew it would.

Now we know that because Peter, the Apostle Peter, tells us that in Acts chapter 2 verse 29. He is speaking on the day of Pentecost and he is preaching a sermon to a vast congregation, thousands and thousands of people in the city of Jerusalem gathered there for the feast of Pentecost and there Peter preaches to them. It was at the time when the Holy Spirit came and filled them all. And he says this, men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David. That's the man that we're thinking about who wrote this psalm that we're studying at the moment. He says, let me speak freely unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day.

So Peter knew that David's tomb was there in Jerusalem where he was and where he was preaching. He's both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. David knew that that would happen. He knew his body had been made from the dust, the dust of the ground, and it would return to dust.

And yet David also wrote this in Psalm 16 verse 10. He wrote, For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Now the Jews, for many centuries, and at that time in Jerusalem when the Lord was there and when Peter was preaching, the Jews thought that David was speaking about himself when he wrote these words from Psalm 16.

But the Lord's apostles teach us what David really meant. Peter, and later Stephen, gave this testimony concerning Jesus Christ and his resurrection by God. And in Acts chapter 13, we read these verses. And as concerning that he raised him, that is, God the Father raised Jesus Christ up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, that's the Psalm 16, thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption, For David, after that he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, that is he died, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. His sepulcher is still there in Jerusalem at the time of Peter's preaching. But he whom God raised again, that is Jesus Christ, saw no corruption.

Stephen continues, Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. so that Stephen and Peter were preaching the gospel to these Jews of their day and using David's testimony and David's death and burial and corruption to prove that the one of whom he spoke was the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Psalm 103 is a beautiful example of those sure mercies of David. In fact, it's the sure mercies of Christ of which Stephen was speaking about on the day that he was martyred. Stephen's sermon was made that day when he was martyred and lost his life to stoning. But what a testimony that man left. And Psalm 103 is all about the Lord's everlasting mercy, the sure mercies of which David spoke. And it is these that once again, in our verses today, will take our attention. David is continuing to rejoice in the mercy of God, as he has from the beginning of this Psalm.

He called his heart and his soul to bless the Lord out of the gratitude he felt for the Lord's goodness and his mercy and his love. And the psalmist king had personal experience of God's forgiveness. He understood reconciliation by blood atonement. He understood and believed in sovereign grace David knew the Lord's pity and care and love. He knew it for himself and he knew it for his people. And he knew that that pity and care suits the weakness of our frame and suits the corruption of our nature and the poverty of our condition.

God as our creator knows that we are of the dust and that we will return to dust. And that truth ought to humble us. We are mere earthen vessels. We're empty clay pots, clay jars. There is nothing of value in us except what God puts there. May God forgive us when we become too full of ourselves and think too highly of ourselves. David understands this. And the psalmist likens our human condition to the grass of the field, or at the very best, to the flowers of the field.

There is growth and vitality in grass, but it's short-lived and it is soon lost. Grass springs up in the morning and it's cut down in the evening. It's vulnerable, it's exposed, it's likely to be consumed by animals or stepped upon and trodden down. And it withers so very quickly under adverse weather conditions. and just the same as the grass and the flowers of the field.

There is nothing enduring. There is nothing substantial in you or me. There is nothing in our body. There is nothing in our mind that is of any real value or any real significance. Human life is uncertain and precarious. Man, in his most flourishing circumstances, is soon gone and forgotten. Well might an older person look back over the years of their life and think, is that it? Is that all there was? Is that all that my life has been about? Solomon could say, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

What is life without Christ? What does it amount to if we do not have Christ? Brothers and sisters, we are so blessed to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and we are so privileged to have a good hope of eternal life in Him. Don't ever forget or despise the blessedness that we possess amongst all of the millions of people in this world, all who have lived and ever will live and are living now. We, we are the blessed ones for the hope and faith we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. But David continues, God is not like men. God is different.

And David contrasts man's brief, vain life, grass and flowers, with the enduring constancy of God. This is what David is teaching us. This is what he is teaching the church. This is what he is teaching God's people down through the ages, down through the generations of those whom the Lord calls to himself. David is teaching us our own weakness and frailty and shortness of life and God's glory and enduring constancy. God is eternal and unchangeable. And God's mercy, like God himself, is from everlasting to everlasting. And here again, we discover David's deep understanding of covenant grace.

In our fallen nature, we are time-bound. And like the grass and the flowers, we soon disappear. And yet the psalmist, tells us here that the mercy of God is ever and eternally fixed on His elect. That is, upon them that fear Him. So although we live our lives, what is it we have? It's just a few fleeting years. Although we live our life in this world and it is soon past and over, yet the psalmist is telling us God's mercy is ever, is eternally fixed on his elect. God's mercy towards his elect isn't limited to our fleeting years.

It exists before and it continues after our brief time in this world, our brief journey in this world. God always had us in view. He always had us close to his heart. And God knows his people from eternity and has set his mercy upon them from everlasting to everlasting.

And David's vocabulary here in this psalm is the language of the gospel. He speaks of everlasting mercy, and forgiveness, and redemption, and imputed righteousness. Actually, the apostle Paul, in his epistle to Romans, he points out in chapter four, verses six to eight, that David knew what was being spoken about here. Paul says, even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works. saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Paul understood that David understood that he was speaking about the righteousness that God imputes to man apart from works.

Pure gospel grace. When David speaks of righteousness, it's not man's own righteousness. It's not David's own righteousness that he has in view. He's already described our sins and our iniquities and our transgressions in verses 10 to 12. Now here we are in verse 14 and 15 and 16.

And the righteousness of which David is speaking is the divine righteousness of God. the justifying righteousness of God, which is settled everlastingly upon Christ's seed in the covenant of grace. and it is freely bestowed, David tells us, on children's children.

What does that mean? Well, he's telling us that it justifies all that belief throughout history down through all the generations. So while one generation lives for a short time, and is like the grass and the flower of the field, and passes quickly, and the next generation comes up, and then the generation after that, and then the generation after that, down through the ages. Nevertheless, God's covenant grace, everlasting mercy, and imputed righteousness extends to his elect in every successive generation, children's children.

And this is where it gets exciting. This is where it gets really, really good. These everlastingly justified individuals of whom David is speaking, they live only a short time comparatively in this world. I don't know, three score years and ten. A few more, a few less. We all are as the grass of the field and must in our human frame return to the dust of the earth whence we came.

However, the covenant of grace entered upon by the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the eternal councils of peace safeguarded and set apart these blessed individuals. their everlasting good is ordered in all things and sure. They were apportioned eternal life in Christ, which was secured for them when Christ came and suffered and died for their sins on the cross. Now I'm not saying here that we existed before time. Nevertheless, like Jacob and Esau, we were known of God before time according to his purpose in redemption.

Listen to what Paul says in Romans 9 verse 11 through 13. For the children, being not yet born, So the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger. Her there is Sarah, Abraham's wife. It was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

This everlasting covenant, founded on everlasting love and everlasting mercy, is the promise of God that undergirds our hope of eternal life and glory. We just live for a short time in this world, but we have heard, we have learned this gospel truth from David and from all those who spoke it as God gave this message to his people to be delivered to his church down through the ages. We have heard this and this gives us a hope not just for the years, the days of our life, the years of our life, but for eternity. It is the everlasting covenant entered into and settled in the council of peace before the world began. And Paul tells us, eternal life was given to us who believe by God, according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.

2 Timothy 1, verse 9. David knew God's everlasting mercy, the covenant of grace, was the foundation and security of all God's blessings for the church here and of all glory and joy in heaven hereafter. And he also knew, David also knew, it was all by the person and work and blood and obedience of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord chose his church, his bride. the bride of Christ in Christ before the foundation of the world.

Ephesians 1 verse 4. And all our mercies in time flow from this blessed appointment. The mercies that we experience in time flow from the settlements agreed upon and secured in the covenant of grace and fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. So that we who believe can rightly trace all the blessings of grace our justification, our sanctification, our regeneration, our calling, our adoption, our conversion. We can rightly trace all these blessings and finally our glorification to God's goodness and mercy, which has made us accepted in the beloved.

And here's something, David continues, here's something which is very interesting, I think. This blessed people of whom we are speaking, these chosen of God, these elect of God, these who have received the everlasting mercy of God, this blessed people are said to keep his covenant. We keep his covenant. What does that mean? It means this. We believe it. We treasure it.

We rest in all the privileges secured by it for us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Now let me ask you this question. Do you keep the Lord's covenant? I'm not asking you, do you keep its terms? I'm not asking, do you fulfill its obligations and duties? I'm not asking you that because that question doesn't relate to you. It's not relevant to you. Those obligations and duties never fell upon our shoulders. They fell upon the shoulders of Christ and Christ has done all for us by his life and death as a representative and substitute. That's not what keeping the Lord's covenant means.

It means do you believe it? Do you believe the gospel of mercy that extends from everlasting to everlasting? Do you believe in covenant grace? Do you keep it close to you? Do you cherish that gospel message? Do you treasure it as your ground of hope and confidence? Do you rest in it? Do you rest in that covenant promise and the work of Christ in that covenant?

In the little note I sent out yesterday, I mentioned this quote from John Gill, and I'm going to repeat it here. John Gill writes, this covenant, this covenant of which we're speaking, this mercy which is from everlasting to everlasting, this covenant is made known, says Gill, says John Gill, this covenant is made known to Christ's people at conversion.

His secret is with them, and he shows them his covenant, the blessings and the promises of it, their interest in those blessings and promises, their interest in them and in himself as their covenant God, which they observe, as the word here used signifies, and observing it, they lay hold upon it by faith as belonging to them and laying hold upon it, they keep it as their own and keep it fast and will not part with their interest in it for all the world. That is a beautiful summation of what it is to be converted. It is to understand what Christ has done for us in the eternal mercies of God. David continues in verse 18. He says, Christ's people not only keep this covenant, they not only keep the Lord's covenant, but they keep the Lord's commandments.

That is, they know and remember to do all God's will. And they do God's will when His work in them produces faith and they believe His word and trust in His Son for all their righteousness and all their acceptance with God. They do God's will from the heart, says Paul. We don't do God's will with our hands. We don't do God's will with our actions. We do God's will from the heart.

That's what Paul says in Ephesians 6 verse 6. And John says, he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. That's 1 John 2, verse 17. Well, if we have everlasting life, we abide forever, which means that he that abideth forever doeth the will of God. He that doeth the will of God abideth forever. He that abideth forever doeth the will of God. David isn't looking to the works of men. He isn't looking to his own efforts in this matter for acceptance with God. He is resting upon God's mercy and he is trusting God's promises. What of you? What of me? What are you doing? What am I doing? In whom do we place our trust? David says in verse 19, The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all. David's confidence and our assurance, brothers and sisters, derives from the success of the risen, exalted Christ.

His throne is in the heavens, where he now dwells at the right hand of God, and from where he will come to receive his church and his bride. This is His throne prepared for Him. This is the throne prepared for Jesus Christ, following the completion of His covenant duties. Remember what He said on the cross? It is finished. Following the completion of His covenant duties, this is the throne prepared for Christ in heaven. And David is talking about it in Psalm 103. His redeeming work on the cross is done.

Jesus has a throne because he is king over his kingdom. This is what he won, this is what he obtained, this was what he saw, he shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied and this is his kingdom. His kingdom includes everything indeed, created in heaven, earth and hell, to do with as he pleases. and His is an established throne that cannot be moved, and He has promised He is coming for us for whom He died.

And though, brothers and sisters, we are but dust now, We who lay our bodies down in death and corruption shall rise in incorruption. We shall have new incorruptible bodies. David will have an incorruptible body. Paul and Peter and Stephen will have an incorruptible body. And all of the elect of God down through the ages shall have an incorruptible body. We shall have new incorruptible bodies when we rise again from the dust in which we lay, we shall be like Christ.

For this, says Paul, for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall we be brought to, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. May the Lord bless these thoughts to us today. Amen.

We Are Dust

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's mercy?

How do we know God's sovereignty and election are true?

Why is humility important for Christians?

What does it mean to keep God's covenant?

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About Peter L. Meney

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We Are Dust

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's mercy?

How do we know God's sovereignty and election are true?

Why is humility important for Christians?

What does it mean to keep God's covenant?

Sermon Transcript

About Peter L. Meney

Comments

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