Let's open our Bibles again to
Psalm 75. I titled the message this evening,
Who's in Control Here? I thought of this illustration.
Some of you may remember the day that President Reagan was
shot. And while he was in surgery and
out of commission, it is reported that Al Haig, and I'm not sure
what position he held, Secretary of something. But it is reported
that Al Haig went around telling everybody, I'm in charge here.
Now, I'm no constitutional expert, but I don't believe there should
have been any confusion about who was in charge. It's the Vice
President. I believe that. That's right,
isn't it? I mean, I'm not wrong about that.
There shouldn't have been any confusion about who's in charge. Well, you know, when we look
at this world, who's ruling it, who's controlling it. When we
look at the salvation of God's people, there ought not be any
confusion about who's in control. Ought not be any. I hope every
one of you here already know that God's the one that's in
control. And David here in this Psalm 75 gives us a view of God's
sovereignty. I pray we'll make God's people
praise Him and worship Him. My first point is this. Now who's
in control here? It's God. God's name. His very name tells us that he's
in control. Look at verse one. Unto thee,
O God, do we give thanks. Unto thee do we give thanks,
for that thy name is near, thy wondrous works declare. Now the
name of God tells us who he is. The name of God means something. His name reveals his character.
It reveals what he's like. And God is so great. He has many
names, and each one of those names tell us something different
about what God is like and tells us what great works that He has
done for His people. God's name is the Almighty. That's His name, the Almighty.
Well, that tells me God's in control, doesn't it, you? He's
the one that has all might and has all power. His name is the
Almighty, and He's come near to His people. to use all that
might of God to save His people from their sins. God's name is
the Creator. Well, again, that tells me God's
in control. There ought not to be any confusion about this.
The one that spoke the world into existence is the one that's
in control of it. And God's come near to His people. He uses the power, His creating
power, to create new life and cause a new birth in the hearts
of His people. And there's no threat to God's control over
everything. I'm thankful, aren't you, that
God's not like men? There's so many reasons I'm thankful
God's not like men. Bad things always happen when
a man gets total control. I mean, you just mark it down.
If a man gets total control, he can become an evil dictator.
A man will always use his power for his own benefit, and almost
always at the expense of the people that he's supposed to
be ruling. God never does that. He uses His power for His glory
and always for the good of His people. God the King isn't like
a human king. You know, I guess they have to
do it. President Reagan's a good example.
You know, the president can't just go out to Walmart, you know.
He can't just go out and talk to people. He's got to have that
secret service. They're all around him. They
check out when he's going to go somewhere, the exhausting
Stuff they do to make sure he's going to be safe when he gets
there. He's got to separate himself from the people. He's got to
put himself up there in a big castle. He's got to have security
around him everywhere he goes to keep people away from him
for his own safety. God the Almighty came near his
people in the person of his son, Lord Jesus Christ. He came near
his people. And his name tells us what he
did for him when he came. His name is Jehovah Sidkenu,
the Lord our righteousness. God uses his unquestioned, unparalleled
power to make his people the righteousness of God and his
son. His name is Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide. God uses
his sovereign power to provide everything His people need to
stand accepted before the Father. What a Savior! His name is Jehovah
Rea, the Lord our Shepherd. God uses His sovereign power
to come near His lost sheep. He comes to seek them and to
save them. He finds them and carries them
home on His powerful shoulders. He leads them in those green
pastures of His Word, to feed them in the green, lush grass
beside the still waters." Aren't you glad He comes near His people?
His name is Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that healeth. Don't we need
that? Don't we need somebody who's
willing to come near us, to be where we are? Isaiah described
us as full of wounds and bruises and putrefying sores from the
tip of the head to the sole of the foot. were nothing but unsoundness
and wretchedness. But Christ came as the Good Samaritan.
He didn't pass by on the other side of the road. He came where
we were, down in the ditch where we were beaten and not half dead
like the scripture, like the parable says, but dead. And He
healed His people by coming where they are and pouring in the oil
and the wine, the spirit and the blood and making them whole.
What a healer He is. Then His name is Jehovah Shalom,
the Lord our peace. I don't think there's anything
more precious to a troubled heart and a troubled mind than peace. One of the things I've always
been very thankful for, Janice has made our home a place of
peace. She's not going to allow any,
she just won't allow it. She won't allow it. You all going
to make up? Oh, how wonderful it is a place
of peace. Brethren, we declared war on
God. In Adam, we declared war on God. We declared a war we
cannot win. And Christ came. He came near
his rebel people and made peace for them. Made peace with God
for them by the blood of his cross. By sacrificing himself
to make peace with God. His name is Jehovah Shammah.
The Lord is there. He came near His people and He's
always so near His people no matter where you are, He's there.
He's just there. He's always there with His people.
His name is Advocate. Christ came near His people to
be their substitute and He died to put their sin away and He
arose to be their Advocate. to always plead with His Father,
pleading His blood for the forgiveness of sin for His people. If any
man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous. Aren't you glad He came here,
an advocate that came near and stood with you, stood for you
before the bar of God's justice? In His name is the bread of life.
Christ came to give His people life, and He came so near Him
that He became one with them to give them life. Christ is
our life, the bread of life. What is it we do with bread?
We eat it. And when you eat it, it becomes
part of you. God's people have eternal life through union with
Christ. Christ in you, the hope of glory. He came so near His people, He
has union with them to give them life. Christ uses His unquestioned
power to give life to His people, to give life to those who sinned
against Him. His name is the Bridegroom. Christ
came so near His people, He came to marry Himself to them, to
make them one flesh with Him. And what a Bridegroom He is,
because His name is faithful and true. He's a faithful and
true husband. He came near to His people to
save them, and He'll never leave them, and He'll never lie to
them. that His salvation is done in truth. See, all of God's wondrous
works declare who God is and tell us how wonderful He is. I was going to say God's people
don't take that for granted. Let's say it more accurately.
We don't always take it for granted. We don't always take it for granted.
God's people are thankful people. And we ought to be, shouldn't
we? Everything we are, God made us. Everything we have, God's
given us. What do you have God didn't give
you? Not one thing. We ought to be known as a thankful
people because of how God so greatly blessed us. And God's
blessings don't make his people proud. It humbles them. Why would God do something like
this to me? It humbles them, makes them thankful.
It's good and it's right for us. to thank God and sing praises
to His name. It's good for us to be thankful
that He's in control. He is the one who's in control.
His name tells us that. And then second, Christ receiving
His people tells us that God's in control. Verse 2 says, When
I shall receive the congregation, I will judge uprightly. Now this
can only be our Lord Jesus Christ speaking. He says, I will receive
my people and I'm going to be the one to judge the earth with
righteousness. Now, don't think when the Lord
says I'll receive my people. Don't mistake that into thinking
that this means he's issued an invitation. That's not what he's
saying at all. He's saying I will receive my
people at a set time. That's what the word means, a
set time. It's like an old nobleman. If
you've ever seen old movies or something, old nobleman, and
suppose just some old and somebody from town, you know, the baker
or somebody comes to town, knocks on the door of that great big
old house, and the butler comes and answers the door, and this
fella says, I'd like to see the nobleman. And the butler says,
looks at him, says, he's not receiving visitors right now.
Who's in control? The nobleman is in control. Now,
he'll receive you at a set time. He's not receiving visitors right
now. Christ is the one who's in control. God is sovereign
in salvation, and he's going to receive his people. He's going
to receive all of them at a set time. All that the Father giveth
me, he says, shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I'll
in no wise cast out. I'll tell you when Christ receives
his people, it's when he calls them to himself. When the Spirit
calls, they come running. They can't help it. It's called
the irresistible call of the Spirit. You know why it's irresistible?
Because God's in control. Christ will receive his people
in the day that they seek for him with all their heart. That's
so. But you know when that day will
be? When God gives them a new heart. God said you seek for
me with all your heart and that very day you'll find me. That's
the day that's been set of God for him to receive his people.
And Christ receives his people when they're in times of trouble.
We often find ourselves in times of trouble, don't we? You know
where he receives his troubled people? At the throne of grace. He's opened the way to the throne
of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time
of need. And when Christ receives sinners
to himself, it'll always be right. See, he says that I will judge
uprightly When I receive the congregation, when I receive
all of my people, it's going to be right. It's going to be
right for Him to receive them because Christ came to save them. It's going to be right for Christ
to receive those people because they belong to Him. The Father
gave them to Him in divine election. The Son came and died for them. He put their sin, when Christ
died, He put the sin of His people away. There's no sin left in
them. then it's right that he received
them. And the Holy Spirit draws them to Christ. It's only right
that he received them. It's only right that he received
them and his mercy and his grace. And you're never going to have
to worry that something's going to happen to keep one of God's
elect from coming to him. You know, a human being thinking
dead thoughts the way we do, thinking thoughts that are far
too low of God, What we might wonder, we might worry. All right,
God elected a people. Christ came and died for those
people. But, you know, something might happen that'll stop them
from hearing the gospel. Something might happen that'll
stop them from hearing the Spirit's call. You don't ever have to
worry about that. Ever. Because here's the third
thing. Christ ruling the earth tells
us that He's the one that's in control. Verse 3. The earth and
all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved. I bear up the pillars
of it. Now, we know one day the whole
earth will be dissolved. When the day the Lord returns,
this earth's going to be dissolved. God's going to burn it up with
a great and fervent heat. That's what Peter said. Now,
you know that day's coming. Everybody here knows that day's
coming. And Peter told us, and seeing
then, that all these things will be dissolved. Everything in this
earth's going to be dissolved. What manner of persons ought
we to be while we are living? Huh? In all holy conversation and
godliness, shouldn't we be looking for and hasting unto the coming
of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be
dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? We know
that day is coming, don't we? Shouldn't we live looking for
Him? Shouldn't we live trusting Him and believing Him? Now, this
earth will be dissolved when Christ returns. But you know
what? This whole earth, this instant
would be dissolved if Christ was not the one holding it together. This world would dissolve into
chaos and ruin because of sinful men if God didn't hold them back. Now, I don't want to make a politically,
maybe I do want to make a politically incorrect statement. I don't
know. We ought to take care of God's creation. I mean, we're
squatters living on his creation. We ought to take care of it.
But I want to tell you something. This place ain't going to run
out of water till God's done with it. It's not going to happen. The polar ice cap is not going
to melt and flood the earth with water till God's done with it.
Till he's called his people out of it now, this thing's not going
to run out of air till God's done with it. Because he's in
control. and he's gonna save his people
from their sin. He crucified his own son. He made his own precious son
sin for his people. I imagine he can keep oxygen
here for us to breathe, don't you? I just imagine he can. This world would dissolve into
chaos if it wasn't for this fact, Christ is in control. Hebrews
1 tells us that. The Lord Jesus Christ upholds
all things by the word of his power. It's not even hard for
him to do. It's just the word of his power. He upholds everything
in creation and he holds it all together just by word. Paul told
the church at Colossae that Christ created all things. Everything
was created for his glory and he is the one that holds it all
together. By him, all things consist. Here's what all that
means. It means a whole lot more. It
means something much more precious to our hearts than the fact that
Christ holds all this creation, this ball hanging in space and
the air and the food. It means a whole lot more than
that. It means this, that the Lord Jesus Christ orders every
event in his creation to accomplish his one purpose, the salvation
of his people. Everything that happens in this
creation happens according to the will of the Savior for the
salvation of his people. He orders everything that happens,
everything. So no unforeseen event can come
up and stop him from saving his people and bringing them to faith
in Christ. Because the Lord's in control
of everything, of everything. And since God's in control of
everything, that means there's no such thing as chance. There's
no such thing as luck. Weren't you just lucky to live
in a place where the gospel's preached? Yeah, I hear about
people turn on the radio and they heard the gospel. They went
and found this place where the gospel's being preached and the
Lord saved them. Weren't you just lucky to flip on the radio
that day? No, sir. No. That's God's eternal purpose. being carried out, calling his
people to Christ. Everything that happens in human
history is happening because that's what God ordained to happen
before the foundation of the world. God's not reacting to
what we do. No human history. You know, all
human history is, you know, it is, is God carrying out his eternal
will and purpose that he purposed before he created anything. That's
all it is. So we need to remember that.
God's people would have a whole lot more peace of heart if we
would remember that this is not just a doctrinal thing that we
say, you know, we repeat. We'd have a whole lot more peace
in our heart if we remember this, that God's in control. We really
would. When things happen that are very
painful to us, and we say that's a bad thing, But you know, really,
it's not something that bad has happened. I mean, you feel like
this earth is going along. Everything seems to be going
pretty good. And they elect somebody to be president from a party
that you ain't registered in. And you think the world's gone
off its rails. You think the car starts skidding on the ice.
But now everything's gone out of control. The car's skidding
on the ice. Nobody's got control of nothing. But God will eventually
regain control. That's not so. That's not so. God's in control. That car began
to skid on the ice because God purposed for it to happen. And
He's in control of it the whole time. And somehow, this is beyond
my pay grade to ever figure out, but somehow God's going to work
all that together to accomplish His purpose to save His people
from their sin. To reveal Himself to His people. And that applies, that's true,
to things that we think are a blessing that we're so thankful for and
things that we call bad. That's true about things that
make us glad and true about things that make us sad. God's in control
of it. This is what God foreordained
to be. And if we'll remember that, that'll
help us be more thankful for our blessings and not take them
for granted. And it'll help us be more patient in our troubles. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who upholds everything, everything that concerns God's covenant
of grace. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
this earth to do his father's will. I must be about my father's
business. I've came to do a job and I'm
going to get it done. He came to save his people from
their sin and he put his whole self into doing it. He put his
whole self into obeying the law, to give his people a righteousness.
He put his whole self into going to Calvary because he came to
ratify God's covenant of grace in his blood. He came to die
to put that covenant into full effect. And I want to tell you,
he did it. He did it all. He completed it
all and he did it alone. He did it alone. Because He's
got all power. By His power, He did it all. The work is done. When He cried,
it is finished, He meant it's finished. He meant there's no
more work left to do. The work of redemption has been
fully accomplished and men don't add one thing to getting the
job done. Christ did it all. Man does not
need to decide how, where, or when the job gets done or becomes
effectual to my heart. The Lord Jesus Christ already
did it all because He's the one that's in control. And it's a
good thing He is, too. Because He's the only one that's
got the power to do it. He's the only one that's got
the love to do it. He's the only one that's got the compassion
to do it. So where does that leave you
and me? Well, I can tell you where it leaves us. This is another thing. There
ought not to be any confusion about this. This leaves us at
the feet of the begging Him to have mercy on our sorry souls. And it's right. It will be right
for God. It will be right for the Lord
Jesus Christ to receive all His people to Himself. It will be
right because He put their sin away. And it will be right for
Him to destroy those who don't bow to Him. It will be right.
And they will never be able to say they weren't warned. Look
at verse 4. I said unto the fools, deal not
foolishly, And to the wicked, lift not up the horn. Lift not
up your horn on high. Speak not with a stiff neck.
Now the word horn in scripture, it refers to power and strength. Just like the strength of those
big horn rams is those big horns. The business end of a bull is
its horns. You don't believe me, wait till
it catches you and tosses you up in the air. That's its power.
The power of a rhinoceros is brought to bear at the tip of
its horn. Here the Lord says to men, to foolish men, don't
deal foolishly. Don't deal foolishly with God
and don't deal foolishly with yourself by lifting up your horn,
by lifting up your power. It's foolish for you and me to
lift up our power to God because we don't have any. He's got it
all. We don't have any power. It's
foolish for us to have a stiff neck and refuse to bow, to refuse
to bow to God's way of salvation in Christ without any of our
works. It's foolish for us to think
that any of our works are powerful enough to do something to save
our souls. It's also foolish for us to think
we can lift up our power. God, look at my power. I'm going
to lift it up to you and help you save me. I'm going to let
you, save me. I'm going to let you. God, look
at me. I'm lifting up my power. I've got a power of my free will,
free decision. God, I'm going to open up my
heart and let you in. It's foolish. I mean, you laugh
and you should. It's foolish. Salvation is not
a decision that men make. If God leaves us to our will,
you know what we'll decide to do? Sin every time. Rebel against
God every time. Go away from Christ every time.
Salvation is not a decision that men can make. Salvation is a
decision that God makes. It's foolish for us to think
we can lift up the power of our works to get saved. Janet and I were talking about
this the other day, and then I got a bulletin from Brother
Gabe Stoniker. He wrote an article, which you'll
see in your bulletin next Sunday, about this matter of getting
saved. Salvation is a work that God
does for a sinner and in a sinner. And for us to get say, I got
saved, makes it sound like we had something to do with it,
doesn't it? It makes it sound like we had something to make
it happen. It's like I got a new car. We don't get saved. God simply saves his people from
their sin. I don't get saved. God saved
me by his work, not mine. by His decision, not mine, by
His grace, not my works. And it's foolish for us to lift
up the power of our will, like we can contribute something to
salvation. Salvation requires nothing from
the sinner. Salvation does not require us
to accept Jesus as our personal Savior. The fool says, you'd
better let Christ be the king of your life. You better make
this decision now, they say, because God won't violate your
free will. Well, I'll tell you what, you better hope he does. You better hope he does, because
our will will lead us to hell every single time. Oh, I'm so
glad God violates the free will of this people. I've said this
before. I don't know. I quoted my dad. I don't know if he made, he may
heard it from somebody, but I like it. When God saves a sinner,
he saves a sinner against his will. with his full conceit. That's it. Thank God he does
not need man's free will to accomplish the salvation of his elect. Look
at Ephesians chapter one. He told us this. Now don't deal
foolishly. He told us this. God's accomplished
this, this matter of salvation. God's accomplished it by his
power, by his will for his people. Ephesians one verse four. according as He hath chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will." Whose will? His will. This thing happens according
to His will. Verse 11, in whom also we have
obtained an inheritance being predestinated. according to the
purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His
own will. God has the power to work everything
together to make His will happen. And I'm thankful. I'm thankful.
And that lets me lie down and go to sleep at night. All right,
here's the fourth thing. Back in our text, Psalm 75, verse
8. Christ judging the earth tells
us that He's the one who's in control. Verse 8 says, For in the hand of the Lord there
is a cup, and the wine is red. It is full of mixture, and he
poureth out the same. But the dregs thereof, all the
wicked of the earth, shall wring them out and drink them. Now
this cup that he's talking about here is the cup of God's wrath
against sin. It's full of red, like red wine. It's like blood. And it's a full
mixture, full of mixture. It's everything that sin against
God deserves. And God says he's going to pour
it out. He's going to pour it out on the earth. He's going
to pour it out on the wicked who refuse to believe on him. And he's going to make them drink
it dry. Every last drop. Now, when he says he's going
to make them drink it dry, the wicked will never finish drinking
the cup of God's fury. like their suffering will end.
It'll never end. It simply means this, God's going
to make them drink it forever. And when God pours out that judgment
on sin, it will be right. It'll be right. Eternal damnation
is what sin deserves. Until the end, let's pray for
our lost loved ones. Let's pray for our lost community.
Let's pray. Let's beg God to be merciful.
But in that day, Eternal damnation will be exactly what sin deserves.
And the one pronouncing the verdict will be the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the judge. The Father has given all judgment
into the hand of the Son. And every son of Adam deserves
this cup of damnation. That's what we all deserve. Every
son of Adam deserves to suffer like that. But they all don't. Look at verse 9. But I will declare
forever I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. Now some people
are going to be praising God forever, and they won't be drinking
this cup of judgment. It is going to be people like
Jacob, people who deserve to. They're cheats, they're supplanters,
they deserve to, but they're not going to be drinking this
cup forever. Well, why not? Now here's the million dollar
question, why not? Because Christ, the sinner substitute,
drank it dry for them. even the very dregs of it when
he died in the place of his people. You know why Christ died? For
sin. He was made sin and the Father
put him to death for it. He took the sin of his people
away from them into his own body on the tree and he took the cup
of trembling. He took that cup that they deserve.
He took the cup of God's wrath for their sin away from them
and he tipped it up and he drank it dry. right down to the very
dregs. You know what the dregs are?
It's the bad-tasting sediment that settles down in a bottle
of wine. We had a bottle of wine here
I was using for the Lord's table. And while I was getting ready
to prepare the Lord's table one day and I looked at it, I thought,
that doesn't look very good. And it just settled down there
at the bottom. I had to go buy a new bottle.
That was it. That stuff, the dregs, the very
worst of cause of wrath. Christ drank it dry. So it's
gone. Every drop. Look at Isaiah chapter
51. Isaiah 51. Verse 21. Therefore, hear now this, thou
afflicted and drunken, but not with wine. You're drunk on man's
religion. You're drunk on man's free will.
You're drunken on your sin. Now listen, God says, thus saith
thy Lord, thee Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of
his people. Behold, I have taken out of thine
hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury.
Thou shalt no more drink it again. You won't drink any. of that
cup. Not just you won't drink from
it again, you'll not drink a drop of it. Because Christ, your substitute,
drank that cup dry. He put sin away. And he put all the effects of
sin away. But look at Psalm 116. There is a cup for God's people
to drink. It's not the cup of God's fury.
It's not the cup of His wrath. It's not those horrible drags.
It's the cup of salvation. Psalm 116, verse 12. What shall
I render unto the Lord for all of his benefits toward me? And
what's my response to this message of salvation by grace and not
by works? What's my response to Christ's
death as my substitute? By God's grace, this is my response.
I'll gladly have salvation on God's terms. Verse 13. Here's my response. I will take
the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. And
all of God's elect are going to drink eternally from that
cup of salvation. And they'll not drink a cup of
God or a drop, excuse me, a drop of God's wrath. Look at it back
in our text, verse 10. All the horns of the wicked also
will I cut off and the horns of the righteous shall be exalted. All the so-called power of the
wicked, the power of human will, the power of our religious works,
Christ says He's going to cut it off. He's going to show it
to be what it is. Nothing. But the power of the
righteous will be exalted. Because the power of the righteous
is the Lord Jesus Christ. If they're in Christ, they'll
be exalted. Now back to my original question.
Who's in control here? Who is it that makes the difference
between the saved and the lost? Who is it that makes the difference
between the righteous and the wicked? Is it our horn, our power,
or is it God's? Whose is it? Well, he says, verse
5, lift up your horn on high, speak not with a stiff neck,
for promotion cometh neither from the east, nor the west,
nor from the south, but God is the judge. He puts one down and
sets up another. See, in all things, the difference
is God in it. That's true, naturally speaking.
The difference between the rich and the poor is God made one
rich and another poor. The difference between a tall
person and a short person is God. We can't add one cubit to
our height, can we? And I tried. I tried hanging
from a bar. I tried all these things. You
can't add one cubit to your stature. God made the difference. The
difference between the dead and the living is God. He gave life
to one and took it from another. He preserved life for one and
didn't preserve it for another. God made the difference. And
this is true spiritually. The difference is God. The difference
between the saved and the lost is God's will. The difference
between the saved and the lost is God's grace. The difference
between the blind and the seeing is God gave the seeing eye. Why
do you see this so clearly? Why do you see Christ in the
scripture so clearly? Why do you see Him working out
and accomplishing the salvation of His people? You see His glory.
It makes you want to worship Him and bow to Him. Why do you
see that and your friends don't? God gave us seeing eye. Who made
you different? Come on now. What's the difference between
those who hear the gospel and love it and those who are deaf
to it? They just don't. I mean, what's the difference
they say? It's because God gave the hearing
ear. What's the difference between
the righteous and the wicked? Come on, what is it? What's the
difference between the righteous and the wicked? Is it that you
just decided to act better than somebody else? What's the difference?
It's God who made the difference. It's because God imputed the
righteousness of one to another and not one and not the other.
Otherwise, it'd be exactly the same. Do you believe Christ? I want
you to answer that question in your heart right now. Do you believe
Christ? Do you? Do you know and love
the gospel? Why do you? Why do you? Who made you to differ from somebody
that doesn't? God did, didn't He? And you can't
glory in the difference between you and the lost. Because God
made the difference. Oh, that makes me want to glory
in God, doesn't it? You want to praise Him and thank
Him. He made the difference by his grace. And I can tell you
this, I'm mighty glad he's the one that's in control. Let's
bow together in prayer. Our Father, how can we thank you? How can
we begin to thank you for your mercy and your grace to your
people? How can we thank you that from
the height of glory, from heights we can't begin to understand. You would look down upon sinners
as far down, farther down than we can begin to understand. You'd
set your, you'd see them and you'd set your affection upon
them. You determined by your will to
have mercy on them, save them, to make them just like your son.
And that you would determine to send your son to save them. by his obedience, to make them
clean by the power of his precious blood, that you give your son
as a sacrifice to save a sinful people and that you'll do it. That there's
no, not the remotest chance that you'll fail, but that you'll
save them all by your will and by your power through the sacrifice
of your son. Father, how can we begin to thank
you? But Father, I ask that you'd
accept our feeble attempts at praise and worship and thanksgiving
and hear us and see us only in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in
his precious name we pray and give thanks.