Alright, if you would, open your
Bibles with me this evening to Psalm 128. Psalm 128, and as
you're turning, let me remind you that Sunday morning, we're
going to begin our service at 10 a.m., not 10.30, 10 a.m.,
so that we can have some classes for our children after the service. At 10 a.m., be here, because
that's when we're going to start. Also, I should let you know,
Sue Thacker's in the hospital. She was having some trouble breathing,
and they did some blood work and found some enzyme numbers
and things that they didn't like. And she had a stress test, which
she came through with well. But Kevin tells me he thinks
that they'll keep her tonight. She'll come home in the morning,
Lord willing. But we want to remember her in prayer. All right,
Psalm 128. Blessed is everyone that feareth
the Lord, that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the
labor of thine hands, happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well
with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful
vine by the sides of thine house, thy children like olive plants
round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man
be blessed that feareth the Lord. The Lord shall bless thee out
of Zion, and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days
of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's
children in peace upon Israel. Thank God for his word. Let's
bow together in prayer. Our Father, we're so thankful
that you've given us another opportunity to meet together
and to worship you, to hear your gospel preached. And Father,
I beg of thee that you bless us this evening. Bless us with
your presence, bless us with your spirit, and enable us to
worship. Father, enable me to rightly
divide the word of truth, to with a heart of compassion,
preach your gospel to your people. And Father, give your people
a hearing ear, a believing heart that would believe the things
of Christ that we here preach, that we might leave here this
evening believing on and trusting in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And Father, we're so thankful. How can we begin to
thank you for the many, many blessings you so freely bestowed
upon us, our families, our homes, our jobs, the food we eat, the
air that we drink, or the air that we breathe. Father, it's
all come freely from thy hand, how thankful we are. Especially
how thankful we are for our Lord Jesus Christ. How we thank You
for a Savior who saves. Saves His people from their sins.
Not tries to, but does. Father, we thank You. And we
pray for those who are in times of great difficulty. We pray
for our sister Sue and others, Father, who are hurting, who
are sick, who need You especially. Father, undertaking their behalf,
we pray. heal their bodies, and especially
we pray you comfort their hearts and their minds, knowing that
you are the one who is in control of all things. We pray for your
hand of healing. We pray that you'd be at the
doctors and nurses who treat our loved ones, that you would
give them wisdom and compassion in treating them. Father, bless
us, we pray. Bless us as we look into your
word. Show us, reveal to us our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course,
in his blessed name, we pray and give thanks. Amen. Praise Him, praise Him, Jesus
our blessed Redeemer. Sing o'er His wonderful love
proclaim. Hail Him, hail Him, highest archangels
in glory, strength and honor. Give to His holy name Like a
shepherd Jesus will guard His children In His arms He carries
them all day long Praise Him, praise Him, tell of His excellent
greatness. Praise Him, praise Him, ever
in joyful song. Praise Him, praise Him, Jesus
our blessed Redeemer. For our sins He suffered and
bled and died. He our rock, our hope of eternal
salvation. Hail Him! Hail Him! Jesus the crucified. Sound His praises, Jesus, to
bore our sorrows. Love unbounded, wonderful, deep,
and strong. Praise Him, praise Him, tell
of His excellent greatness. Praise Him, praise Him, ever
in joyful song. Praise Him, praise Him, Jesus
our blessed Redeemer. Heavenly portals, loud with hosannas
ring. Jesus, Savior, reigneth forever
and ever. Crown Him, crown Him, prophet
and priest and king. Christ is coming over the world
victorious. Power and glory unto the Lord
belong. Praise Him, praise Him. Tell of His excellent greatness. Praise Him, praise Him. Ever in joyful song. I certainly hope we can do that
tonight, don't you? Praise Him. He is certainly worthy
of our praise. Alright, if you would, open your
Bibles with me again to Psalm 128. I've titled the message
this evening, Domestic Bliss. I took my title, changed it a
little bit, but something Janet says frequently. She gets the
house cleaned up, she gets everything just the way. She wants it, you
know, and she'll just sit with a satisfied look and say, domestic
beauty. So I thought of this when I read
this psalm. I thought this is domestic bliss. Now last Wednesday,
we looked at Psalm 127. We saw how the Lord has built
his house. He's got a well built and a happy
home. His house is his people. God's
house is well built because he built it on the the foundation
of the chief cornerstone, our Lord Jesus Christ. That house
is safe and secure. It's not going to fall down.
And we saw how God's house is a peaceful house. Now this Psalm
128 talks more about the goings on inside God's house and its
domestic bliss. And we read it to open the surface.
And you see how this Psalm talks about a man. You get the picture
in your mind, don't you? A man comes home. from work,
and he happily eats the fruit, the labor of his hands. He eats
what his hands have provided for him and for his family. They
sit around the dinner table. They all sit down and eat together.
He enjoys it. And they go around the dinner
table talking, and it's well with everybody there at that
table. It's well with every one of them. His wife, she's fruitful. The house is full of children.
And the Lord blesses all the people. He just blessed them
all. And a man, he lives to see peace come on his children and
his grandchildren. The next generation are all sitting
there around his table, all at peace, all blessed of the Lord.
It's all well with them. He's got generations at his table.
And he looks around and he says, this is domestic bliss. This
is why I've worked for all my life to have my family like this.
Here are these generations. A happy home. And you go reading
the writers we would normally read. And they say this is the
description of the believer's home. And sometimes I wonder
if them fellows, they lived a long time ago. Maybe they lived in
a different world than I do. I don't know. But this is not
always true of every believer you know, is it? No, the Lord
doesn't bless every couple with children. Even believing parents,
sometimes they have a child and that child is an utter rebel. and they haven't been taught
to be obedient, and they're a rebel. And you don't have to look now,
just today, you think, oh, this is a new thing. Eli, Samuel,
and David had, I mean, just utterly rebellious sons, because they
did not teach them to be obedient. Believers do not always see all
of our children or grandchildren saved and blessed of the Lord.
So if this psalm is supposed to describe every believer's
house, many of us are going to get discouraged and we'll find
no comfort from this scripture because we'll think, if my home
is not, this does not describe my home, then I must not be a
believer. And that's what you get, just
as an aside, that's what you get every single time you look
for God's blessings materially in the things of the flesh. You're
going to get discouraged every time. Now that being said, there
is absolutely no question that our homes should be a reflection
of the Lord that we believe. They should be now. The home
of a believer should be run by wise, loving parents who teach
their children. Not only just keep them alive,
you know, until they're 18, but they teach them and raise them.
The children in a home of a believer, now they should be happy children
because they're obedient children who've been taught to respect
authority. The scriptures should be taught. The Lord should be
worshipped. His name should be used and talked about in the
home of a believer. The home of a believer should
be a place of peace and love for everybody that's in that
home, because that's a reflection of our Lord, isn't it? But sadly,
now I'm not just talking about out in the world, I'm talking
about believers. Sadly, that is not always the case. So this
is not talking about the home of every believer. Now, if this
does describe your home, be thankful. Be thankful. The only explanation
for it is God's grace. Now you think, oh, but you know,
I've got some wisdom to act right. I go out and work hard, have
a job to supply for my family. I teach my children to have a
work ethic. Who gave you that word? Now come
on, who gave you that wisdom? You think you came into the world
that way? No, no you didn't. Who gave you a job that enables
you to provide for your family? That's all God's grace. Every bit of it. Now this psalm
is talking about domestic bliss that's found where it's always
found. And the only way that can be
found is it's describing God's house. It's describing God's
people. The man who enjoys this domestic
bliss in his house is the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who sees
all of his children from every generation blessed. It's always
well with him. That can be talking about no
one but the Lord Jesus Christ. So why is there bliss in the
Lord's house? Domestic bliss. There are four
reasons found in our psalm. The first one is this. There's
domestic bliss in God's house because of who the head of the
home is. Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord, that walketh
in his ways. Now God's children fear and reverence
God, and we walk in his ways. But now let's be honest. No point
in not being honest, is there? Our fear of the Lord, our respect,
our reverence of the Lord, and our walk in his ways is far from
perfect, isn't it? Far from perfect. The Lord does
not bless his people because of how strong our faith is. or
how well we act. That's not why God blesses His
people. God's blessings are by His free grace. We can expect
no blessing from God if we're trying to earn His blessing by
our works or how well we act. And even if we could walk in
God's ways, even if we could do that perfectly, you know what?
We wouldn't deserve any reward, would we? Isn't that what we're
supposed to do anyway? All we can say is we're unprofitable
servants. We've just done what was our
duty to do. That's what our Lord taught us to say. We get no extra
credit for this, no blessing because of our words. The only
one who ever earned God's blessing, the only one who's ever blessed
by God because he perfectly feared God and because he perfectly
walked in God's ways and perfectly obeyed God is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the only one. And listen,
the reason his house is blessed is because of who he is. This
house is blessed because of who the head of the home is. Now,
it's a blessing. It is a blessing to see a home
that has a wise, good, loving head. That's God's house. It's a blessing to be able to
live in a house that has such a wise, good, and faithful Savior
as the head of our house. You see that naturally speaking,
don't you? Naturally speaking, homes that
have wise and good and loving parents enjoy more peace and
more prosperity than those that don't. This is something that
Sean and Eric have both told me about recently. This time
of virtual learning, where the kids don't go to school, they're
learning virtually, you know, sitting at home, sitting at the
kitchen table, doing their schoolwork. You know, children are blessed. If they live in a home where
the parents are with it enough, and they care enough, and they
have the ability enough to be able to make sure that schoolwork
is done right. You know, they have the means,
they're interested in making sure their children learn and,
you know, don't miss out on anything, you know, that they're missing
in school. And they just make sure that work is done. They're
on their kids to make sure that work gets done. Do you know that's
a blessing? Lila, I bet you can't skate on
one assignment, can you? Not one. And sometimes that might
not be so great, but you know, it's a blessing to you. It's
a blessing to have parents. This, I promise you, that'll
pay dividends in the long run. I promise you it will. And that's
just naturally speaking. And that's true in so many other
ways, isn't it? Children are blessed if they
have wise parents who are interested and know what's going on. Well,
what does that mean for God's children? Oh, we're blessed because
of who our Father is. God's children are blessed for
Christ's sake. God's children enjoyed bliss. Bliss we didn't earn. Bliss we
don't deserve because of who our Father is. See, we don't
enjoy this bliss. Just going about doing our own
thing. Isn't that when Israel got in trouble? When every man
did what was right in his own eyes? They got in trouble. No,
God's children don't live that way. We enjoy this bliss by living
in obedience to our Father and walking in His ways. Now, how
do you walk in God's ways? If you're one of God's children,
you're interested in this. You want to walk in God's ways.
Well, how do you do that? Well, man's religion tells you,
well, be more moral than everybody else. Learn so much about stuff
that you can be a counselor and tell everybody else how to live.
That's not so. You know how we walk in God's
ways? It's so simple. It's by walking by faith. It's
by walking, not by sight, not by our words, but walking by
faith in Christ. We walk in God's ways by living
a life of dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And the person
who walks by faith, that the Father has blessed them and taught
them and given them faith, that person who walks by faith is
blessed of God. Look at verse four. Behold, that
thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord." That
man's going to be blessed for Christ's sake. Christ is the
one who earned all the blessings, just like a father, you know,
in a home, goes out and earns the money to pay for everything.
The children are blessed because of their father's work. God's
people are blessed for Christ's sake, because Christ earned all
the blessings, and they're all ours because of who our Father
is. Now, our Father, He makes us
His children and He gives us faith in Christ. And then He
blesses us for having it. He gives us faith and then He
blesses us for having it. He makes us walk in His ways
and then He blesses us for doing it. That's the way God's children
are blessed. It's because of who their father
is. He's a wise and good and gracious, loving father. All
right, number two, there is domestic bliss in the Lord's house. because
of how the Lord provides for his home. Verse 2, For thou shalt
eat the labor of thine hands, happy shalt thou be, and it shall
be well with thee. Now look at Ecclesiastes chapter
2, just over a few pages. Ecclesiastes chapter 2. You know
that verse, eating the labor of thy hands, happy shalt thou
be, it'll be well with thee. That describes domestic bliss,
doesn't it? Look here what Solomon says,
Ecclesiastes 2, Verse 24. For there's nothing better for
a man than that he should eat and drink, and that he should
make his soul enjoy the good of his labor. This also I saw,
that it was from the hand of God. Now you see what that's
saying. The psalmist says there's nothing
better for this. Go out and work. You know, we all think we'd love
to win the lottery and not work. You know, that wouldn't be good
for us. Best thing for us is get up and go to work and earn
a living and come home and eat and drink and enjoy the good
of your labor. The psalmist says, now remember
this. This is what I saw. That it was from the hand of
God. Go out and work as hard as you can work. Be the best
employee wherever it is you work. Be the very best at it. Every
time there's a performance evaluation, you be sure you deserve the top
grade. You deserve a raise. Whether
you get it or not, you deserve it. And then remember this, everything
you have comes from God's hand. That is domestic bliss. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the head of His home. And He has worked. He came
and He worked hard to provide for His children. And He provides
everything they need. He provides for them perfectly. He enjoys the fruits of the labors
of His hands. Now what is His work? What is
His labor? His work is righteousness and peace. The Savior makes His
people righteous by His obedience for them. He gives that righteousness
to them freely and He enjoys seeing His people delight in
it. He enjoys seeing His people delight in Him. He enjoys seeing
His children enjoy the labor of His hands. And every parent
in this room can understand that, can't you? Don't you enjoy seeing
your children enjoy what you've provided for them? Christmas
is coming up. And we all love to see our loved
one enjoy the gift that we got them, don't we? This is amazing. Our Savior enjoys seeing His
people enjoy what He's given. All the spiritual blessings He's
given them. He makes His people righteous. And they enjoy the
fruit of the Lord's righteousness. They enjoy the fruit of the Lord's
obedience and sacrifice. They enjoy the fruit of His doing. And it shall be well with every
one of them. Isaiah said, it shall be well
with the righteous. He's made all His children righteous.
That's why it shall be well with them. Now again, you parents
understand this. When it's all going well for
your children, Oh, that's domestic bliss, isn't it? Oh, everything's
going so well for them? And you know what? Everything
is always going well for God's children. Everything is always
working together for good for God's children. And our Savior
enjoys that bliss that He's provided and made for His children. And
His children enjoy it too, because they know where it came from.
It came from the hand of our Father. Alright, number three. There is domestic bliss in the
Lord's house because He makes His wife fruitful. Verse three. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful
vine by the sides of thine house. Thy children like olive plants
round about thy table. Like I said earlier, you know,
some couples, believing couples, they never have children or it's
very difficult for them to have children. And I tell you the
reason for that. Despite all the advances we have
in medical technology, we cannot give life. We just cannot do
it. Now we know the process. We know
the process of how a child is conceived from a seed and an
egg. We know that process and we cannot
make it happen. Only God can do that. He gives
physical life and He gives spiritual life too. It's the only place
it can come from. But here it says that his wife
should be fruitful. Believers are the bride of Christ.
The bride on earth is the church. And we would never be fruitful. You know, God's given us this
responsibility as His church to preach His gospel. We'd never
be fruitful in it. It would never produce any fruit.
It would never do any good if spiritual life depended on us
giving it. We can't give physical life.
We certainly can't give spiritual life, but God does. But God does. Now the job of
the church is to preach the gospel. That is our job. And you know
what? We never preach the gospel in
vain. Never. Very often feels like
it, doesn't it? But you know, we never preach
the gospel in vain. The gospel always accomplishes
God's purpose. Always. It never returns to God
void. It always accomplishes the purpose
that God sent it to accomplish. And when God's purpose is to
give life to one of His children and to sustain that life, to
feed His children, to cause them to grow, you know what He does?
He does it by the preaching of the gospel. He sends them the
gospel. It's the children's bread. And
God makes the church like a vine that grows up and covers the
brick wall of a house. Now, you wouldn't think a vine
could grow so well on brick, but I'm here to tell you it does. When we bought the house that
we're living in now, it had this vine growing up on the brick,
and Jan thought it was really pretty, you know. And man, that
vine would have taken over the house. And you wouldn't think
that vine would be hard to get rid of, but buddy, I'm telling
you, it was almost impossible. I thought I had to get some dynamite
and just blast out this porch, you know, to get rid of this
vine and build a new porch. I mean, it's just almost impossible.
You couldn't get rid of it. That's God's church. That's God's
church. The church prospers in this rocky,
dead world. I mean, it just seems like a
barren wasteland. How does the church prosper?
How does God keep saving His people? How does God keep feeding
His people? They just keep coming back week
after week after week. They're so faithful. How does
that happen? You wouldn't think that could
grow in this rocky, barren world. Just like you wouldn't think
that vine could grow on bread. But you know it does. It does.
You know why the vine grows so well? on that side of that brick
house? It's not getting its nutrients
from the brick. It's getting it from the ground. And here's
why God's church prospers. Even though this world seems
to us to be a lost cause, doesn't it? It's a lost cause. The longer
we live, the more we see this. There's no life in this world.
There's nothing worth having in this world. But the church
prospers because it doesn't get its life from this world. We're
not using the things of this world to accomplish God's purpose.
We get our life from Christ. He's divine. We're the branches. So this is why the church never
fails in preaching the gospel. When the gospel is preached,
everybody that's supposed to get life does. When the Gospel
is preached, everybody that's supposed to be blessed, everybody
that's supposed to be fed, everybody that's supposed to be comforted
is. David says the blessed man, he's
going to have children around his table like olive plants.
I looked this up, so I thought, what does that mean? When there's
a healthy adult olive plant, invariably what springs up around
it is little baby olive plants springing up around this healthy
adult plant. They get their life from that.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the blessed man. He's the head of
his home. He's the one who works to provide
for his family. He's the one who gives life to
his family. He's the one who feeds and comforts his family.
And his children all spring up around him. They all spring up
where he is preached. It all comes from Christ. Now,
look at Luke chapter 10. I guess you could say it this
way. That church springing up, all
those little baby olive plants, those children of God springing
up, doesn't just happen organically. This doesn't mean that the church
is supposed to be idle. We're not supposed to be like
that wife, you know, sitting around eating bonbons and watching soap
operas all day. That's not what this means at
all. Look here at Luke 10, verse 1. After these things, the Lord
appointed other seventy also, and sent them two by two before
his face into every city and place, whether he himself would
come. He hadn't gone there yet, but
he's going to. Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly
is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord
of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his
harvest, Now the Lord's got a people in these cities, and he's going
to go to these cities eventually. But before he goes, see what
he does? He sends preachers to those cities.
He sends them to preach the gospel, and then he's going to go to
those cities. He's going to reveal himself to his people in those
cities through the preaching of the gospel. That's how God's
children spring up around him. They spring up around the preaching
of the gospel. And it's our job as the church
to preach the gospel to our generation. And I'm telling you, we better
get busy. We better get busy praying that
the Lord will give a harvest. We better get busy praying that
the Lord's going to send out laborers into His harvest. We
better get busy praying and preaching, because that's what the Lord
uses to bless His people and to cause them to spring up, to
give life. I'm telling you, before God saves
anybody, invariably this happens, you'll find out somebody's been
praying for that person. The Lord's laid it on somebody's
heart to pray for that person, and the Lord answers that prayer
and gives life. Then we better get praying the Lord of the harvest,
that He's gonna give a harvest. This is how He makes His bride
fruitful, by causing all of His children to spring up around
Him, around His table, around where He is preached, And when
they're all there, that's domestic bliss. Comes from the life He
gives. All right, now here's the fourth thing. There is domestic
bliss in the Lord's house because our Father lives to ensure peace. Verse 5, Psalm 128. The Lord
shall bless thee out of Zion. I mean, this is not a maybe.
The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion. And thou shalt see the
good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt
see thy children's children and peace upon Israel. Now, the Lord's
going to bless his people, and here's how he's going to do it.
He's going to bless them out of Zion. Zion is the church. So this tells us these blessings
we're looking at here are not just physical, material blessings.
They're spiritual blessings that come out of the church, come
out of the preaching of Christ from the church. And our message
is Christ. Our message is the gospel of
peace. It's the peace with which the Lord Jesus Christ purchased
with his own blood. And listen, this peace, this
peace in God's house is expensive. It's expensive. It's peace that
was bought with the blood of God, the blood of God's son. There's peace with God because
our sin is gone under the blood of Christ. And there's peace
in the hearts of God's people for the exact same reason. Because
of the blood of Christ. Our sin has been put away under
His blood. Now that peace is precious. It's
precious because of what it cost. It cost His blood. And peace
of conscience, peace of heart is precious. And I tell you what,
you'll know that's true if you've ever had a guilty conscience.
If you've ever experienced a conviction of sin. then you'll know how
precious this peace is. Peace with God. Peace that has
been bought with the blood of our Savior. Peace that was bought
with the blood of our bridegroom. It's precious because He bought
it. He bought it. Now, I don't know
about you. I mean, I don't have, you know,
a lot of treasures or anything in this life, but whatever it
is that's precious to me, I guard it. I guard it. That light you
got, out there on the front porch, you don't want stolen. You bring
it in because it's important to you. Something that's important
to us, now we're going to guard it, aren't we? This is something we need to
be reminded of. God's children are to guard peace. To guard
peace with each other. We're to seek peace and pursue
it. Pursue it. Seek it. You know
why? Because it's precious. I see these people wanting to
go down and find these ships that sunk 3,000 years ago and
they're going to find all this gold. You know why they go to
all that trouble? Because what's down there is
precious. They seek it. They're hunting it. They're looking
for it. This peace is precious. Now seek it and pursue it. God's
children are not warlike people who are always up for a fight.
I've said this before, I can't imagine a time, a more divisive
time in our country other than right now, other than the Civil
War. Can you imagine a more divisive time in our country? It's just
the way of the world now to be divisive, isn't it? I mean, you
disagree with me on one little thing and, you know, you're the
devil incarnate. It's just... Don't let that attitude,
that prevailing attitude invade God's church. We're to seek peace
and pursue it. God's children have a new nature.
We're not easily provoked into a fight that's going to cause
division all the time now because we're seeking peace. We're pursuing
it. I'm telling you this, you cannot have domestic bliss without
domestic tranquility. You just can't have happiness
without peace. And I learned this. I watched
the master at work. When our girls were growing up,
Janet just wouldn't let them fight. She utterly refused to
accept it. She taught them, you're not going
to fuss and fight now. You're going to love one another.
You're going to feel it and you're going to act like it. I mean,
she just wouldn't stand for it. And it worked. It was a peaceful
home. Thank you. Well, you know what? God does the same thing for His
children. He gives them a new heart of
peace. He gives them a nature of peace.
And then He gives them a pastor to teach them. To teach them
the scriptures. To teach them peace in His house. Christ our Savior. Christ the
head of our home. He died to purchase peace for
His people. This is Veterans Day. We're all
so thankful for the veterans who gave their lives for our
freedom. Now that's precious. It's precious
to us. The head of our home died to
ensure our peace, to purchase it. And he lives to ensure that
peace upon all of his children. Look over to Isaiah chapter 53.
Everybody here practically can quote it, but turn to it. Let's
look at this. Isaiah chapter 53. Verse 7, he was oppressed and
he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He suffered willingly.
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before
her shearers is done. So he opened not his mouth. He
did not open his mouth to defend himself one bit because he had
been made guilty of the sin of his people. He is taken from
prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation?
For he was cut off out of the land of the living. He actually
died. For the transgression of my people was he stricken, and
he made his grave with the wicked. And with the rich in his death,
because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his
mouth." Our Savior died to purchase peace for his people by dying
in their place, by bearing the punishment that they deserve,
by satisfying God's justice for them, by dying for them. He died. And then he lives. to ensure
that peace to all his children. Verse 10. Yet it pleased the
Lord to produce him. He hath put him to grief. When
thou shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He is going to see his children
and he shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and he's going to be satisfied. He's going to enjoy
this domestic bliss. He's going to be satisfied. By
His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for He
shall bear their iniquities." See, the Savior died, and then
He lives to ensure this peace goes to all of His people. Now,
verse 6 says, back in our text, Psalm 128, "...Yea, thou shalt
see thy children's children in peace upon Israel." In the previous
verse, He says, you're going to live to see the good of Jerusalem
all the days of my life. Now you know He's not talking
about that city over there in the Middle East, Jerusalem. That
place hasn't had a day's worth of peace in how long? He's talking
about His people. Now who's this promise made to
that's going to see the good of His people? The good of this
city, the home where He dwells. Who's going to see that all the
days of His life? Who's going to see all His children,
His children's children blessed? That promise isn't made to anybody
but the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we all like to sit back and
see our children grow and do well. We like to see our grandchildren
grow and do well. See two generations. And if the
Lord really blesses us, maybe we'll live long enough to see
three generations growing and prospering and doing well and
enjoying God's grace. And when we live to see that,
that's domestic bliss. God gave that. That's all God's
grace, isn't it? lives to see that to all His
children. Generation after generation after
generation. Every generation from Adam until
the end of time is going to see God's children called out of
them and enjoy this domestic bliss that our Savior has ensured
for His people. Now isn't it a blessing to live
in a home that's ruled by such a wise, loving head? That no
matter where it is, where we live, at what time we live, We
enjoy domestic bliss in His house, living under the shadow of His
name. That's a blessing, isn't it? Oh, thank God for it. All right, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, how we thank You
for this, Your Word. How we thank You for the bliss
that You've given Your people to live in and by and through
our Lord Jesus Christ, Christ our head. How we thank You for
Your mercy and Your grace that would take such sinful men and
women such as we are and to put us into the body of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Father, how we thank You. Thank
You for Your adopting grace that You would adopt us into Your
family. Thank You for Your regenerating, life-giving grace that causes
Your children to be born again into the family of God. And enjoy
every spiritual blessing that You have for Your people. every
one of them in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, how we thank
You. And we do pray that You give
us the wisdom to order our homes aright, that our homes might
be a reflection of the Savior who we believe, who we serve,
who we love. Father, give us wisdom and grace
and love, love for Thee and love for one another that we might
order our homes and that we might seek peace and pursue it here
amongst each other, amongst your people. Father, we pray your
continued blessing be upon us as we leave this place and go
back to our homes, go with us, give traveling mercy as we go
back out into the world tomorrow. Enable us to recall the things
that we've heard preached and feed upon them and find our joy
and comfort. in Christ our Savior, because
there's none to be found in this world. It's in the blessed name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray and give thanks.