Good evening. Let's open our
Bibles, if you would, to the epistle of Romans, Romans chapter
one. Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated under the gospel of God, which
he had promised to for by his prophets in the holy scriptures,
concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the
seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the
Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by
the resurrection from the dead, by whom we have received grace
and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations
for his name, among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ,
to all that be in Rome Beloved of God, called to be saints,
grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. First, I thank my God through
Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout
the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I
serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing
I make mention of you always in my prayers, making a request,
if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey
by the will of God to come unto you. For I long to see you, that
I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end you may be established. That is, that I may be comforted
together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me. Now
I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed
to come unto you, but was let hitherto, that I might have some
fruit among you also. even as among other Gentiles.
I'm a debtor, both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to
the wise and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I'm
ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God and salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall
live by faith. We'll end our reading there.
Alright, Sean, you can lead us in the end. If you would, please turn to
Psalm 204. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. O soul, are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you
see. There's light for a look at the
Savior, And life more abundant and free. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look
full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow
strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Through death into life everlasting,
He passed and we follow Him there. Over us sin no more hath dominion,
For more than conquerors we are. Turn your eyes upon Jesus Look
full in His wonderful face And the things of earth will grow
strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace His word
shall not fail you, He promised. Believe Him and all will be well. Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look
full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow
strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Okay, if you would now turn to
song 282, Hiding in Thee. O safe to the rock that is higher
than I My soul in its conflicts and sorrows would fly So sinful,
so weary, thine, thine would I be Thou blessed rock of ages,
I'm hiding in Thee. Hiding in Thee. Hiding in Thee. Thou blessed rock of ages, I'm
hiding in Thee. In the calm of the noontide,
in sorrow's lone hour, In times when temptation casts o'er me
its power, In the tempest of life, on its wide heaving sea,
Thou blest rock of ages, I'm hiding in Thee. Hiding in Thee, Hiding in Thee,
Thou blessed rock of ages, I'm hiding in Thee. How often the conflict when pressed
by the foe, I fled to my refuge and breathed out my woe. How often when trials like sea
billows roll, Have I hidden in thee, O thou rock of my soul? Hiding in thee, hiding in thee,
Thou blessed rock of ages, I'm hiding in thee. All right, let's open our Bibles
together now to Psalm 142. Psalm 142. I poured out my complaint before
him. I showed before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed
within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I
walked, have they privily laid a snare for me. I looked on my
right hand, and behold, there was no man that would know me.
Refuge failed me. No man cared for my soul. I cried
unto thee, O Lord. I said, thou art my refuge and
my portion in the land of the living. Attend unto my cry, for
I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors,
for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison,
that I may praise thy name. The righteous shall compass me
about, for thou shalt deal bountifully with me." Thank God for his word. Let's bow together. Our Father, we've gathered here
this evening out of different walks of life, different circumstances, but all with one great need,
to hear a word from Thee. Father, I beg of You that You
would give us a word from Thee tonight, that You'd give us a
message from Your Word that would reveal to us the glory of Christ
our Savior. Father, I pray that you would
give us a believing heart. Hearing ears and seeing eyes,
these are of the Lord. We cannot hear, we cannot believe
without thee. Father, I pray that you would
be pleased in your mercy and grace to grant a heart of faith. Father, we thank you for this
opportunity to meet together and to worship and praise your
matchless name. We're able to, again, sing out
your praises and safely. Father, we're thankful that you've
seen fit to give relief from this pandemic. And we pray that
your continued hand of power be on us, that you deliver us
completely from this scourge. Father, we thank you for this
place. There's so many things we have to ask for, so many cares
of the heart. But Father, we thank you. Don't
ever let us forget to be thankful, to express our thanksgiving for
who you are, for your mercy and your grace to your people, for
a Savior whose blood atones, that puts away sin, for life
that you give that's eternal. Father, we're so thankful. We
pray your continued blessing be upon this place, upon this
people that you would be merciful and gracious, that you'd lead
and guide in the future as you have in the past. We pray you
continue to bless your word to your glory. Let this be a place
in our town where the glory of God is preached and declared.
And Father, for those who are in times of great trouble, sickness
and sorrow and heartache, we pray for them. We pray a special
blessing for our brother Aaron as he goes through these treatments.
Father, You'd undertaken His behalf that You would use these
means, as difficult as they are, to heal His body and to raise
Him up. Father, be with Michelle and
with His family. Give peace to the heart, we pray. Comfort our
hearts. And Father, when we hurt and
we do not understand, Father, give us the faith to
cling to Thee. In all these things we ask, in that name which is
above every name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. All right. Psalm 142. The title of the message this
evening, Our Refuge in Portion. Now, everybody here, I'm making
sure I know everybody. Everybody here knows, at least
up here, that Christ is the believer's refuge. Christ is the believer's
portion. The word means our part, our
inheritance. The Lord Jesus Christ is such
a perfect refuge. He's our refuge. He is such a
perfect refuge that everyone who's hiding in Him is saved. Saved from their sin, saved from
all of God's wrath against their sin. The Lord Jesus Christ is
such a perfect refuge, not a drop of God's wrath will ever fall
on anyone hiding in Christ. Christ is such a perfect and
complete portion, such a perfect and complete inheritance, that
if you have Christ, you have everything. If you have Christ,
you don't need anything. That's how perfect He is, how
complete He is. Now, you know that, don't you?
Everybody here knows that. Well, I want to show you again
from our text this evening why it is that it's true. Christ,
our refuge and our portion. I'll show you a couple things
from this psalm. Number one is this, Christ our refuge and our
portion is the suffering sacrifice. Verse one, this is penned by
David, but these are the words of the son of David, Christ our
savior. He said, I cried unto the Lord with my voice. With
my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication. I poured out
my complaint before him. I showed before him my trouble.
Now the Lord Jesus, talked often with his father. He was a man
of great prayer. He prayed just all the time. He was in constant communion
with his father as he went about his earthly ministry. And that
communion, that prayer, the way he was with his father was so
sweet to him, was so sweet to our Lord, and it was very helpful
to the Savior as a man to be able to talk to his father like
that. But here, the Savior cries from Calvary. And he cries to
the Lord. This is him crying to God. He's not crying and talking to
his father, but to God, the judge of all. And he's crying in agony
as he suffers for sin. He cries in agony as he suffers
the unmitigated wrath of his father against sin. He cries
to his father to tell his father of his agony, the word That's
what the word in verse two in trouble means. It means agony.
I showed before him my agony. And this is the Savior confessing.
He is receiving justice from his father. As much as he's suffering,
he confesses this is exactly what he deserves. The Savior
is confessing the sin that had been made his when he was made
sin. It became his sin. He never committed any sin, but
he became guilty of it. And he confessed it. Well, that's
a mystery, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ was perfect. He did no sin. He knew no sin. He never thought about sin. So
the only way he could be suffering this kind of trouble, this kind
of agony, is if the sin of his people actually became his sin. See, if this had not become his
sin, if he had not become guilty of this sin, then he was innocent.
And the Father would be putting an innocent man to death. The
Father would be causing an innocent man all this agony, and that
wouldn't be just. So the Lord Jesus was actually
made guilty of the sin of His people. And that's why He suffered. He took the sin of His people
away from them. And He suffered for it. So they
never will. And the Savior didn't try to
hide any of that sin. He said, I showed before Him
my trouble. Despite the humiliation that it brought, the pain and
the suffering that it caused, the Savior did not try to hide
any of the sin that was laid upon him. He confessed them all
so that the Father would see every sin and that every sin
laid upon him would be fully punished. The all seeing eye
of God didn't miss one of those sins at Calvary. See, this is
business. It's being done. In the South,
they say bidness. I used to know a man. He said,
we're doing bidness. This is bidness. Being done between
a father and a son. Between God and God. Now, I know
men were the instruments of it. Men are the ones who privately,
who sneakily laid traps for Him. It was men. It was the Jews.
It was the Romans. They took the Lord. They came
in a mob and they took Him. It was men. These men, they spit
upon the Lord. They crucified Him. They drove
nails in His hands and His feet. They thrust that crown of thorns
upon His head and mocked Him as He suffered. Men did that.
They did. But those men were God's instruments,
accomplishing God's will. See, as much as what men did,
this is the Son suffering justice at the hand of His Father. This
is God doing business with God. Because that's the only way sin
could be put away. The only one who could pay for
the sin that's against God is God. And that's why Christ was
there. Paying the price no one else
could pay. Now here's good news. The only way the sin of God's
elect could be put away is if Christ suffered. Here's the good
news. It was put away. He put away
all of the sin of all of God's elect. He paid for it. He purged
it away. by becoming our suffering sacrifice.
All right, here's the second thing. Christ, our refuge and
our portion, is the sinless sacrifice. Verse three, he says, when my
spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have
they privily laid a snare for me. Now the Savior says the Father
knew his path. And he did. The father knew.
He watched. He knew. He knew that the Lord
Jesus had been falsely accused by the Jews. He knew the path
that the Lord took. He knew that he was perfect.
He knew that his obedience was perfect. The father knew his
nature was perfect. He could not sin. He had the
nature of God, the holy nature of God. He's perfect. And the
father knew that the only reason the Savior suffered like this
is he was made sin for his people. And that's what made Christ,
the sinless sacrifice. It's important that we understand
this. It's important that Christ be the sinless sacrifice. Because
only a sinless sacrifice can put away sin. God said without
the shedding of blood, there's no remission. But now, in the
Old Testament, rivers and rivers of blood were shed, wasn't it?
Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission. But if
sin's going to be put away, the blood must be It must be sinless
in order to be accepted. Animal blood couldn't do it. The best animal blood could do
is be a picture of Christ's blood. Abel's blood couldn't do it. His blood cried to God from the
ground, crying for justice, crying that there was sin, but Abel's
blood could not put away the sin. Yours can't and mine can't. The blood of my babies can't
and the blood of your babies can't. I saw, I knew this, I've
seen this when I was down in Mexico. Brother Cody would take
us around like a tour guide, you know, and tell us all these
historical facts and tell us what happened in these different
places. And we were at this place where all those big pyramids
you see pictures of on the top of those things, you know what
they did? They offered human sacrifice. That's what they did.
Carrie, your dad told me he was up there. They won't let you
climb up now. Bob told me he climbed up there one time and
he thought, this is the most awful smell. What is this smell?
And he thought it was still the smell of human flesh that they
burned. And it's this place of sacrifice.
They did it a lot. They did it a lot. And this thing
I was watching on TV said the same thing Cody said. You know
what they'd do when they had human sacrifice? They'd kill
their children. Most precious thing they knew.
Most precious thing they knew of. They killed them babies.
Maybe throw them alive down in that deep water. Kill them. Most
precious thing they knew. Didn't put away one sin. Not
one. The Lord Jesus Christ is far
different. The Son of God is far different
than my son, your son and me. The Son of God is perfect. He
had perfect blood to shed as a sinless sacrifice. Now, this
is a great mystery. The sinless sacrifice had been
made sin for His people. Now, you think about that too
long, you're going to get a headache. It's hard to understand. It's
impossible for us to understand, but the Father understood. The
Father knew the path that He took. The Father understood it,
and that's all that counts, because this is business being done between
the Son and the Father. The Father saw the path that
the Lord Jesus took. It was perfect. The Father saw
the path that the Lord Jesus took as He suffered for sin.
He saw that He was suffering justice. And the Father saw that
that path did not stop. He saw that that suffering did
not stop until the sinless sacrifice had put away all the sin that
had been charged to Him. Now that's what God made sure
happened at Calvary. Now if anybody here is a sinner,
I've got something for you. If you're a sinner, you trust
Christ. Your salvation is sure if you
trust Christ, because he made his people perfect and righteous
in God's sight as the suffering sacrifice. All right, number three, sticking
with my S terms here, Christ our portion, Christ our refuge
is the single-handed sacrifice. Verse four, I looked to my right
hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me. Refuge
failed me. No man cared for my soul. And
it's sad to think about how absolutely everyone, everyone in heaven
and earth, abandoned the Master. Our Lord looked to His right.
It doesn't say here He looked to His left, but no matter which
way He looked, I suppose, He didn't see anybody helping. Nobody.
When our Savior looked to the left and looked to the right,
you know what He saw? He saw two thieves. He saw the fulfillment
of Isaiah chapter 53. He made His grave with the wicked
in His death. The only ones who were there
nearby Him, dying with Him, were the wicked. Those men who were
so bad, society said, we can't have men in our society anymore.
They cause too much trouble. Killing folks and raising insurrection
against the government. They're the wicked. They're dying
with the Master. There they were nearby Him, but
they couldn't help Him, could they? They couldn't help Him
at all. They couldn't help themselves. They sure couldn't help the Lord. just to show his power is absolute. And physically, his most helpless,
weak position, suffering as no man ever suffered. They couldn't
help him. He sure helped one of them, didn't
he? He saved one of them poor dying thieves and told him, today,
shalt thou be with me in paradise. But there's no one to help the
soul. The Savior helped, didn't he? But there's no one to help
him. He had some friends. He had a
few friends. Most people hated him. But he had a few friends.
They all deserted him. I mean, you think about this
as a man. He had a very close friend. He
had 12 close friends who were with him pretty much every day
for three and a half years. He taught them. He was with them.
They called him Master. And one of them, named Judas,
betrayed him for just a little bit of money that he didn't keep
anyway. He came to try to give it back
to the priest, and the priest wouldn't take it because they
said it's the price of blood. They had to go buy a potter's field for
it. Betrayed by one of his closest friends. Peter, kind of the spokesman
for the rest of them, said, Lord, the rest of these fellows will
leave you, but I never will. I'll die with you. They'll run.
I'll die with you. The Lord looked, and Peter was
nowhere to be found. A teenage girl. ran Peter off
just by asking him a couple questions. And the rest of them, too. Even
the Father turned His back upon His Son, left Him alone as He
poured out His fury upon Him. The Father's presence was there
with a heavy hand, wasn't it? But His loving presence was gone.
And He poured out His wrath and fury upon our Savior. And He
suffered all alone. Alone. That's sad to think about. That's
sad to think about. A man in such agony, being alone,
being alone. But it was necessary. It was
necessary. The father had to turn his back
upon his son. He had to take away his loving
presence from his son so that his son would suffer full, absolute
justice. So the salvation of his people
would be accomplished in justice. He had to suffer to make it right
for the Father to be merciful to you. He had to. He had to
do that alone. And all of his friends, they
had to forsake him. You know why? So there'd be no
question, I don't think any of you would do this, but some smart
aleck somewhere would say they were with him. they were helping
him. They'd say they were helping
him in this matter of salvation. So the Lord sought to it, all
his friends forsook him, so there could be no doubt, there could
be no question in anybody's mind that the Lord Jesus accomplished
the salvation of his people all by himself, single-handedly. You see, righteousness, being
made without sin, being made perfect, that is in the obedience
of Christ alone. It's not my obedience plus Christ's
obedience. It's Christ's obedience alone. Salvation was purchased through
the suffering and through the death of Christ alone, simply
by His blood. Salvation is not Christ's sacrifice
plus me accepting it. Salvation is not Christ's sacrifice
plus me deciding I'll agree to this thing. Salvation is not
Christ plus my morality, plus my doctrinal straightness, plus
my anything, plus anything I might be proud of. Salvation is purchased
by the blood of Christ alone. Alone. He suffered alone. It's a good thing. If Peter had
stayed and fought and died alongside the Lord, people would give some
credit to Peter. And you know what? Peter ran
away scared of a teenage girl. And people still give Peter too
much credit for this thing, don't they? They still say Peter is
the first pope, the first vicar of Christ, the first embodiment,
representative of Christ on the earth. They say that even though
Peter ran scared. Think how much credit they'd
give him if Peter would have died with him. Christ had to suffer all
alone so that we see salvation is only in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all of him. All right, here's
the fourth thing. Christ, our refuge and our portion,
is the successful sacrifice. Verse 5. I cried unto thee, O
Lord. I said, thou art my refuge and
my portion in the land of the living. Attend unto my cry, for
I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors,
for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison,
that I may praise thy name. the righteous shall compass me
about, for thou shalt deal bountifully with me." Now the Savior, He's
making these requests to His Father, but He's not asking this
in the sense that He doesn't know if the Father is going to
grant Him these things or not. No, He knows. The Savior trusted. This is a covenant being sealed
in His blood. A covenant, an agreement, made
before creation between the Father and the Son. And the Savior trusted
that the Father would deal with Him in justice. The father is
the first one to ever trust in Christ. He trusted him in eternity
to do what he said he'd do, to come be the righteousness of
his people, to be the sacrifice for his people. And the son trusted
the father, that the father would deal with him in justice. The
Savior trusted that once sin had been put away, this matter
of him being in the hands of the Jews and the Romans, this
matter of them making him suffer physically was going to be over
and he would be delivered from them. He trusted that. You know,
the Lord here says that His persecutors, He says, deliver me from them,
for they are stronger than I. Now, what a statement of humiliation
from our Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ is God. Jesus of Nazareth is God. So
as God, He has all power. He's omnipotent. He is the Lord
God omnipotent. And the Lord God omnipotent limited
Himself so that his persecutors were stronger than him for a
time. He humiliated himself like that. He allowed them to take
him. He allowed them to crucify him
so that he would die bearing the curse of his people. He allowed
them to be stronger than him for a time so that they could
make him be the sacrifice for sin. Now, I'm telling you, that's
love. That's love for his people. That
is love for his father, to honor his father that way, and that's
power. that he would limit himself that
way, and at the same time show all of his power in redeeming
his people by his one sacrifice. You just keep talking about this.
What a portion we have. What a Savior we have. The Savior
trusted his Father that once he died for sin, that the Father
would not only deliver him from these Roman soldiers and these
Jewish Sanhedrin, but that the Father would deliver him from
the power of the grave, from death. He trusted that the Father
would deliver him, because this is what he knew. When he said,
it's finished, and gave up the ghost, he knew the sin of his
people was gone eternally, put away under his blood, so that
it was impossible for death to hold him. See, he trusted his
Father. That's why when he died, he cried,
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. I command my spirit
to you to do justice, to do what's right. See, that was not a cry
of defeat that the Savior gave up the ghost and died. That was
a cry of victory. This is the cry of the successful,
victorious Savior. The Savior committed himself
to the hand of his father because he knew the salvation of his
people was accomplished. Their sin is gone. And he knew
the judge of all the earth would do right. They give him the victory.
that He'd give Him the crown, that He'd give Him the throne,
that He'd give Him all the people, call them all together in glory,
that He'd given to Him in eternity past. Now the father had been
dealing with his son in wrath, but eventually the father quit
dealing in wrath with his son and started to deal with him
bountifully. The father eventually gave him all glory. He gave Him
the throne. He gave Him the right to rule.
He gave Him the place of honor at His right hand, the place
of glory in heaven, the glory of glory. The Father dealt with
Him bountifully, richly, giving Him everything because that's
what He deserved. That's what He earned. That's
what He bought by His life and by His death for His people.
Now you see how you can trust Him? If He's your portion, you
have everything. If He's your refuge, your soul
is secured. Nothing can harm you. He's already
put away the sin of His people. He already suffered all of God's
judgment against the sin of His people. If you're hiding in Him,
your soul is safe. Just take a deep breath and relax. Just take a deep breath and relax.
These are the words of the Savior. But we have union with the Savior.
And this is also the cry of God's people. This is the cry. This is the cry of the Savior
from the cross. There can't be any doubt about it. But it's
also the cry of God's people. We have a refuge, don't we? Our
soul is secure. We have an inheritance. If we
have Christ, we have everything. We're in need of nothing. But
that doesn't mean that life in this flesh is going to be a bowl
of cherries. It doesn't mean that at all. Now, we have a refuge
because we need one. We have one to whom we can go
because we need one. This is the cry of the Savior,
but you know, this is also David's cry. When he was in the cave
at Dullam, at the top there of the psalm, you see a prayer when
he was in the cave. Tell you what that cave, what
he's talking about. David wrote this when he was
in the cave at Dullam. Now look back at 1 Samuel chapter
22. This is David's cry, and this is the cry of all of God's
people when they come in a time of trouble and trial, and every
one of us will be there. I have here in my notes at one
point or another, at many points or another, we're going to find
ourselves in the cave of Dolom. We're going to find ourselves
in the place that we're brought low and we're full of fear. When David felt that way, when
he felt like Saul at any moment was going to show up and take
his life, that's what David felt at this time. That's when he
wrote this song. Here 1 Samuel 22, here's when he came to this
cave. David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave
of Dolom. And when his brethren and all
his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him.
And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt,
and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him,
and he became a captain over them. And there were with him
about four hundred men. had been anointed king of Israel. Samuel came down to his father's
house. You remember the story. And Jesse prayed all his boys
all in front of Samuel. And Samuel said, not the one,
not the one, not the one. Prayed them all in front of him.
And Samuel said, God told me your son's going to be anointed
king. Don't you have any other sons? And Jesse said, well, yeah, I
got one. You don't want to see him. He's a kid. He's out there keeping
sheep. And Samuel said, you bring him. And he came in the room.
And Samuel said, that's him. Right there in his daddy's living
room, anointed this teenager King of Israel. I am going to get into it. I won't try to get into it too
far. I wrote an article about this. It will appear in the bulletin,
Lord willing, Sunday. Do you know that's when David's
troubles began? David out there keeping them sheep? Saul had
never heard of David. He didn't know who David was.
He knew now. And Saul pretty much spent the
rest of his life trying to kill David. This is when David's trouble
started. And when you believe God, when
you come and cast your soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, God causes
you to be born again, I tell you, you come to Christ. You
believe on Him, but you count the cost. Because that's when
your trouble is going to begin. Now you're going to have a new
man, and the old man is going to spend the rest of his life
trying to kill him, fighting against him. That's when David's
trouble began. He'd been anointed king of Israel.
And now, David's doing what he'd been doing for so long. He's
running for his life from Saul. David had been anointed king,
but he's not on the throne. David's down there hiding in
a cave. I mean, he's hiding in a cave. Well, that's God's elect. They're the children of God.
God has saved them, and He's going to glorify them eventually. But right now, they're still
in the flesh. It doth not yet appear what we
shall be. Oh, I get so discouraged and that verse just helps me
so much. It doth not yet appear what we
shall be. We who believe are the children
of God Almighty. But we're still in our sinful
flesh, living in this sinful world. We're not around tonight
Here we are, Catlettsburg, Kentucky. We're not around the throne of
our Savior shouting His praise. We're not seeing Him face to
face. Here we sit, seeing through a glass darkly. Now we see, but
it's through a glass darkly. Here we sit, not worshiping face
to face, but worshiping by faith, which is pretty easily distracted.
Now it's real. It's real. Believe me. You know, you don't have to never
let your mind wander to be saved. I'm not saying that. What I'm
saying is this, we're easily distracted even though we've
got real faith. But here we sit worshiping. We're not in glorified
bodies. We're in sick, sore, decaying,
dying, weak bodies of flesh. We're not victorious over the
world. I mean, I can't be victorious
over my own self. How am I ever going to be victorious over the
world? We're in the midst of the world And most of the time,
it seems like the world's whipping us, doesn't it? Doesn't it? We
are more than conquerors through Christ our Savior. Yet it seems
like all of our enemies are stronger than us. And just like David
thought Saul was going to come kill him at any moment, I feel
like our enemies can come and kill us at any moment. They'd
come destroy us at any moment. We think we've got a few friends,
And I'm telling you, every one of them may forsake us. David
thought he had some friends. But there weren't many. There
weren't many real ones. You know, several million people
lived in Israel. Several million Jews. I mean,
at least 3 million of them came into the Promised Land. Joshua
led at least 3 million Jews into the Promised Land. And they grew
and grew and grew strong in that land. So there were more than
3 million people living in Israel. 400 of them came to David. And
buddy, they were a ragtag bunch. They were people who were in
distress. They were people who were in
debt. They were bankrupt. They were discontented. The word
means bitter of soul. That's the people that came to
David. Welcome home, David said. They figured hiding with David
in a cave is better than being in my house at home. That's what
they thought. And this was a low point for David. This was a low
point for this ragtag bunch. And yet in that cave, the Lord
brought them low to where they just had to live in a cave. And
then they cried unto the Lord. And the Lord heard them. The
Lord delivered them. This seemed like such a low point,
but our Lord recorded this in Scripture to give us a beautiful
picture of salvation in Christ. People who come to Christ and
are saved by Him They're brought, before they come to Christ, they're
brought very low. They're in distress. Because
of the bondage that they're in to sin. They have a sin debt
that they cannot pay. They're spiritually bankrupt.
They're discontented. They're bitter of soul. Because
that is the only nature that they had to receive from Adam.
A sin nature that's bitter. Those are the people who come
to Christ when they had no other option. Then they come to Christ. And He becomes the captain over
them. The captain of their salvation. They're bankrupt. He pays their
debt for them. By just like what we saw earlier,
suffering for them is their substitute. They're discontented and He delivers
them from their discontent. He delivers them from their bitterness
of soul by giving them a new nature. By giving them His nature. Making them partakers of the
divine nature. And one day soon, they're going
to reign with Christ. when David came to Jerusalem
and finally sat on the throne. You know who reigned with him?
You know who were his close advisors, those people who were with him?
Raised to positions of authority with David? The 400 from the
cave. Ended up reigning with David
in Jerusalem. But before any of that happens
with God's people, He brings them very low. It's just our
nature. You know this and I do too. We
just don't cry out to the Lord until we're brought very low. And we cry out to the Lord. You
know what? I don't know all the reasons
the Lord does what He does, but this is part of it so that we
see how dependent we are on Him. Then we'll cry. I think it's
interesting. People write great big old books
on prayer. Nobody's going to teach you how to cry and how
to pray when the Lord brings you low. When you're going down for the
last time, you're going to say, Lord, save me. You'll know how
to pray. You'll know how to cry. So I
say to us tonight, cry out to the Lord in your trouble.
Cry out to Him. He already knows. So cry out
to Him. Remember when our Lord said,
I showed before Him all my troubles? Show before the Lord all your
troubles. Now, I don't know if this will
help you like it did me. Show the Lord all your troubles. Don't show the Lord all your
ideas for solutions. I've always tried to be that
at work and things. I was a problem solver. I want
to be Jan's problem solver. She's got something. I want to
be the problem solver. Don't be the problem solver.
Show before the Lord all your troubles. Cry out to Him, showing
Him how dependent you are upon Him. All our troubles, they're
too much for us. Our sin, the weakness of our
flesh, Our trials, our heartaches, the enemies we have in this life,
the enemy that's within this old man. They'd all overwhelm
us. They're all too powerful for
us. So cry out to the Lord. Cry out to God. He's the only
one who's able and willing to help. So cry out to Him. Rest
in Him. What a help He is. What a refuge
He is. He has all power. He can save
you. He can deliver you. He can protect
you. He has love that's immeasurable. He won't leave you alone. Cry
out to Him. Hide in Him. We don't have any
other refuge, do we? There's no other refuge we have
but Christ. We think sometimes, I'll take
care of myself. We've already failed ourselves.
As soon as we think that, we've already failed ourselves. I promise
you the mission won't be accomplished. We fail ourselves. The world
fails us. We put some trust in the world
and the things going on in the world and what we're trying to
build up in the world. It'll fail us. Our friends fail us. Even from time to time, God forgive
us, our brethren will fail us. But Christ will never fail. Never fail. He is a refuge for
his people that will never fail. He will always deliver his people. Always. He's our inheritance. We don't have anything of value
in ourselves. Physically, what is the human
body worth? A couple bucks? We don't have anything valuable
in ourselves. And spiritually, we've got nothing. We don't even
have $2.15, do we? but we have an inheritance. Peter
says the believer's inheritance is incorruptible. It's undefiled. It fadeth not away. It's reserved
in heaven for you who believe God, who believe on Christ. It'll
never fail you. Our inheritance is not corruptible
things like the riches of this world that are going to burn
up someday, will decay, will make themselves wings, Solomon
said, and fly away. The stock market is a weird thing
to me. People have all this wealth accumulated
on the stock market, but they don't have their hands on any
of it. And in a day, it's gone. I mean, you never even laid your
hands on it. It's gone. And if it's not gone like that,
it's going to burn up and decay. But not the believer's inheritance.
The believer's inheritance is something that's incorruptible.
It cannot decay. It cannot fly away. Because the
believer's inheritance is not things on this earth. And it's
not what folks try to tell you now. They say, oh, you know,
you're going to suffer now, but you've got a reward in heaven.
You're going to have a crown in heaven for doing this. Lay
told me that when I did something nice for her. She said, oh, that's
going to be a crown for you in heaven. It's not mansions in heaven.
They say, oh, don't worry about your house now. You live in a
shack now, but oh, you're going to have a mansion in heaven.
That's not the believer's inheritance. Our inheritance is Christ himself
are exceeding great reward. So hang on to him for all you're
worth. He's a friend of sinners that
will never fail you. He's a refuge that won't let
a drop of a leak of God's wrath come through. He's our inheritance. He'll give you everything. But the road between here and
there It's not going to be smooth. Trials will come to God's people.
Just like David. The Lord's going to put us in
the cave of Dullahan now. But when those trials come, you
remember this. God's not punishing you. God
doesn't punish His children like that. Christ has already been
punished for your sin. He's not punishing you. Trials
will come. And they're going to be tough.
And you'll think that the Lord's abandoned you. You'll think the
Lord's forgot you. But He hasn't. He hasn't. He's
your refuge. Matter of fact, at that time
of trial and heartache and loss and suffering, the Lord hadn't
abandoned you. You're closer to Him than ever.
Doesn't that make you just hug up to Him all the more? Doesn't
that make you seek Him all the more? Trials will come from the
hand of our God. But you remember this. The grace
that's sufficient for every one of them will come from His hand
too. And eventually, the Lord's going to deliver you. He'll deal
bountifully with you. The Lord's either going to deliver
you from your trouble in this life, or He's going to deliver
you from taking you out of this life. I mean, that's not something
we all really want. That's the best day of a believer's
life. It is when God takes them from
this life to the next. And you leave this behind. The
Lord's going to deliver you and deal bountifully with you. He
already has. He already has, hasn't He? His
mercy, His grace. He gave His Son for you. How
much more bountiful can you be? Christ gave His blood. He gave
His life for you. He dealt bountifully with you.
He's not going to leave the job half done. He will deal bountifully
with His people. The day's coming, He's going
to deliver us from this clay prison and take us to be with
Him. In the salvation of your soul,
in all things, in all things, you hang on to the Lord Jesus
Christ. In the salvation of your soul,
you hang on to Christ. You look to Christ and Him alone.
You trust Christ and Christ alone. You seek Him, you give up everything
else. And seek Him so that Christ is
all you have. If Christ is all you have, you
got it all. Now if you got Christ plus your
works, you got nothing. But if Christ is all you have,
you have it all. And your soul is saved. And in
every situation, in every trial, and even every blessing here
below, You hang on to Christ. You look
to Christ. You trust Him alone. And you
make it so that He's all you want and all you need. Because
if you have Him, you don't need nothing. You don't need one thing. God help us to look to Him. To have Christ as our only refuge
and Christ as all our inheritance. Alright, let's bow together. Our Father, how we thank you
for the Lord Jesus Christ. How we thank you for his precious
blood. How we thank you for his obedience. How we thank you for his love
and grace and mercy and pity to his people. How we thank you
for what he willingly suffered to redeem his people from their
sins. Father, how we thank you. Father,
I pray you give each one of us here tonight the faith, the believing,
to rest in Him, to hide in Christ our refuge, to be thrilled that
Christ is our inheritance. He is our all and in all. And
Father, in the times of trouble that we're going through right
now or that we will be going through shortly, Father, cause
us to, in those times, to look to Christ. To not look at ourselves,
but to look to Him. To rest in Him. To find our comfort
of heart in Christ our Savior. For it's in His precious name
and for His glory we pray. Amen. Alright, Shawn, you can
lead us in a song. Song number 272, The Solid Rock.
Stand, please. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand. When darkness veils his lovely
face, I rest on his unchanging grace. In every high and stormy
gale, My anchor holds within the veil. On Christ the solid
rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. His oath is covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives
way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, The other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand. When He shall come with trumpet
sound, O may I then in Him be found, Dressed in His righteousness
alone, Faultless to stand before the throne. On Christ the solid
rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.