Turn our Bibles to Psalm 32.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate Cecil doing that. I was going
to lead the singing. He said, no, I don't want you
to do that. You've got enough to do. So I
appreciate that. And y'all sing pretty. We ought
to do that more often. Maybe that's easy for me to say.
I don't know. But that was very pretty. All
right, Psalm 32. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven. whose sin is covered. Blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and whose
spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones
waxed old through my roaring all the day long, for night and
day thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the
drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin unto thee,
and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess my
transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity
of my sin. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee
in a time when thou mayest be found. Surely in the floods of
great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding
place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble.
Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. I will
instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go.
I will guide thee with mine eyes. Be not as the horse or as a mule
which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with
bed and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. Many sorrows
shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy
shall compass him about. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,
ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. Let's bow together in prayer. Our God and Father, how we thank
you for this blessed portion of Scripture that we've just
read, how we thank you to read in your goodness, your mercy
and grace to your people, that you forgive the sin of your people,
that you forgive our transgression, that you take away the sin of
your people through the sacrifice of the blood of your precious
Son. Oh, how we thank you. Human language is not sufficient
to express our thanksgiving for our all, that you would sacrifice
your only son to put away the sin of the likes of those of
us gathered here together this evening. Father, we're thankful.
And we beg of thee this evening that you give us a spirit of
worship, that you bless the preaching of your word, that you bless
both the preacher and that you bless the hearer that you cause
the name of your son to be lifted up, that we would not just see
but understand and believe that all of our blessing is in him,
that we're blessed in him because of him. Father, cause the name
of Christ to be lifted up and cause your people to find comfort
and encouragement, strength for the rest of this journey in hearing
one more time of Christ our Savior. his sufficiency, his love, his
pity, his powers, grace for his people. Father, we thank you
how you've blessed this congregation for so many years. And we freely
confess it's not because of our goodness. It's not because of
anything we've done right, not because of our faithfulness or
anything about us at all. But it's because of your goodness,
your mercy and grace. Father, I pray You continue to
bless Your Word. Don't leave us alone, but continue
to bless Your Word to the feeding of Your sheep and the calling
out of Your sheep, especially for the glory of Your great name.
Father, we pray a blessing for those that You've brought into
the time of trouble and trial. We pray a special blessing for
our brother Mike at this very time that You'd give us a good
report, that You'd give the doctors and nurses some understanding
of what to do to relieve his pain to restore him back to us
as soon as it could be Thy will. Bless us again, Father, as we
look into Your Word. Give us a seeing eye, a hearing
ear, and a believing heart. First, in the precious name of
our Lord Jesus Christ, for His glory, we pray. Amen. All right,
Ivan, the title of the message when I give you the title of
the message, you'll know Frank didn't think of that. The title
of the message is hashtag blessed. Tara Kendall gave me this title
a long time ago. I preached a message similar
to this psalm. She said, you should call that
hashtag blessed. So I kept that back in my mind, saved it for
tonight. Now, usually when people start to talk about how blessed
they are, they start to hear the psalm, count your blessings,
name them one by one. Normally, you know where people
begin and what they talk about. They begin and they talk about
material things, fleshly things, earthly things. It's going to
be that time of year we're going to start getting these annual
Christmas letters. People tell us everything that
happened to their family in the year. You'll see it on social media,
hashtag blessed. And when that happens, you start
reading those letters and they start talking about their blessings.
What they're really getting ready to do is brag on themselves.
This is the opportunity they can take to brag on their children.
Their children are doing so well in school. They're winning every
award. Big job promotions this year. They got him a new car.
They got a new house. They took these exotic vacations.
They just, oh, they're so blessed. All the things the Lord's given
this year. In those letters, or after that
hashtag on social media, you know what there is never talk
of? There's never talk of heartbreak. There's never talk of rushing
off to the hospital because I got chest pains. There's never talk
of loss and sorrow and worry and grief. Now, all of us would
like to enjoy all those things, you know, that people talk about,
but let me ask you this. Is that the real blessing? Is
it? Is that what we really should
be seeking? Well, if you want to know the answer to questions
like that, ask yourself this question, you'll find out the
answer. What say the scripture? What does God say is the real
blessing? What does God say we should really be seeking after?
Well, our text this evening answers that question. First, number
one, a person who's truly blessed, their transgression is forgiven.
Verse one of Psalm 32, blessed is he whose transgression is
forgiven. That word transgression means
revolt against authority. Now, if we're honest, that strikes
at all of our heart. Now, we all want to revolt. and
authority. Transgression is to stare up
at God and say, no, God, no, I will not submit to your authority.
No, I will not obey your law. I don't see why I'd have to.
No, I will not ask for your forgiveness. No, I will not submit myself
to the righteousness of Christ. I'd rather try to establish some
on my own. I'm just not that bad off. Now
that's the nature that all of us have. We're all rebels against
God's right to rule, or rebels against his right to make the
rules, or rebels against his right to be the judge over us.
And that transgression is high treason against the king. It's
exactly what it is. And most kings put people to
death for those crimes of high treason, and rightfully so. But the blessed man, the blessed
man is not the man that goes and takes the throne by force. The blessed man is the man whose
transgression is forgiven. Now, when God forgives transgression,
God forgives this revolt against him. He doesn't just ignore sin
and say it's OK. That's what we do with it, but
that's not what God does. God can't do that because God's
holy. When God forgives transgression. He takes the transgression away,
he forgives it, this word forgiven. means lifted. God has forgiven
the sin of his people by lifting it off of them. He lifted the
guilt of it off of them. He lifted the burden of it off
of them. He lifted the stain of it off of them and he put
it upon Christ our substitute. And the Lord Jesus Christ paid
for all that sin with the blood of his sacrifice. Sin of God's
people has been forgiven in justice because it was lifted off of
them and justice was satisfied through the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ, so it'll never come back. Now look over Matthew
chapter 9. Think of this in light of those
people who use that hashtag blessed or send out those letters and
talking about all the things, material things, physical things,
health that they've been blessed with in the year. I'll tell you
the person who's been blessed is the person whose transgression
is forgiven. That word blessed means how happy,
how happy is that person if their transgression is forgiven? And
here's a perfect example of it. Matthew chapter nine, verse two. And behold, they brought to him
a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed and Jesus seeing their
faith said under the sick of the palsy, son, be of good cheer. Thy sins be forgiven. Now you
got the picture. This man's sick of the palsy.
Whatever that word palsy means, he's lame. He cannot walk. He cannot get up out of that
bed. His legs are probably just like twigs. They've just atrophied. There he lays on that bed. His
friends have to carry him into the master. There's all those
people gathered in that house. Maybe Pharisees, maybe rich,
influential people. Somebody owns this big house.
There's people with some means there. There's people with good
jobs. There's people with health and
strength. And they're all standing there. They've come to see the
Savior. They've come, not the Savior,
they've come to see Jesus, this miracle worker, this leader.
They're laying on the floor as this man. The Lord calls him,
my son. Son, you could cheer. Your sins are forgiven. Now get that broom in your mind's
eye. All those people in that fellow
laying on the floor. Who can say I'm blessed? Sins are forgiven. The last person
who we would say was the blessed man is who God says is the blessed
man. And he's blessed beyond measure.
The greatest blessing any sinner, any of us can have is for God
to say to us, be of good cheer. Your sins forgiven. That's a
miracle. The blessed person's sins are
forgiven. The blessed person is not the
morally upright person who never does anything wrong. The blessed
person is a sinner who never did anything right. But the Lord's
forgiven their transgression. He lifted it off of them and
paid for it through the sacrifice of his son. This blessing of
forgiveness is so great. No other blessing matters. It
doesn't matter all these other things that you have. If you
don't have this blessing of the forgiveness of your transgression,
all these other fleshly benefits that the Lord has given you,
in the end are going to be a curse to you. But this blessing, if
you have this blessing of the forgiveness of your transgression,
whatever else you don't have won't matter. This is the great
blessing. This is the truly blessed person.
Someone whose transgression is forgiven. The second a person
is truly blessed, when their sin is covered. He says at the
end of verse one, whose sin is covered. That word sin means
an offense or a crime. And all of us are sinners. That
means we're criminals before God's law. We've broken all of
God's law, not just one point, but we've broken all of God's
law. To offend in one point is to
be guilty of all. So that makes us offensive criminals,
doesn't it? All of it. We've broken the entire
Law of God. And when God looks at us in our
nature, we're offensive to Him. We look offensive to Him. We're
a body that's just covered with untreated, open sores. We smell
offensive, just like a grave when they open it up, you know,
the smell that comes out of it. That's us by nature, offensive.
And the only thing you and I can do with a dead body It's so offensive
to us. The only thing we can do to it
is cover it up. We dig a hole deep. Six feet
deep. We put it in a coffin that's all sealed up. We put it down
to ground. We cover it with concrete and
then we cover it up back up with six feet of dirt. Now, the body
in that grave, in that casket, is still ugly. It still stinks.
It's still dead. The only difference is we can't
see it. We can't smell it because it's
all covered up. But now, God can't cover us in that way. The
all-seeing eye of God is going to see through a bunch of dirt.
He's going to see through concrete and a coffin and so forth. So
when God covers sin, at the same time He covers sin, He takes
the filth of the sin. He takes the stench of it away.
Because when God covers the sin of His people, He covers it with
the blood of His Son. That precious, perfect blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ covers that sin so that it's gone. He takes the stain of it away,
the filth of it away, the stench of it away. Look over a few pages
of Psalm 85. This covering of sin is a work
of God, it's a work only God can do. Now, we don't need to
try to get involved in this work now of covering our sin. This
is a work only God can do. Psalm 85 verse 2. Thou has forgiven
the iniquity of thy people. Thou has covered all of their
sin. See, covering of sin is the work
of God. Thou has covered all of their
sin. If you and I try to cover our sin, we're going to make
the problem worse. We're going to try to cover sin
with more sin. Look over 2 Samuel chapter 12. Now, if we try to
cover sin, we're going to try to do it one of two ways. First,
we're going to try to hide our sin from covering it, from trying
to keep it hidden from men. And somehow, we hope, trying
to keep it hidden from God. 2 Samuel 12. Isn't that what
David did with Bathsheba? He went in and committed adultery
with her. She became pregnant, so he called
her husband up trying to, you know, get everybody to think
this is her husband's child. But he wouldn't go in. He's faithful
to the king. Oh, he was so faithful to the king. He would not go
in to his wife because he's a servant to the king. And what did the
king do to him? He killed him. He had the man
killed. took Bathsheba in to be his wife. Then the babies were about ready
to come. Now people then, or as smart as people are today,
they can count backwards and say, don't you reckon people
knew this is not David's baby? I bet you they're whispering.
I don't think it's David's baby. I don't think so. Men may have figured out, I promise
you God saw it. God said it offended him. God
said it displeased him. 2 Samuel 12, verse 12. Nathan would come in to David
and told David, God's going to deal with this. For thou didst
it secretly. You did it trying to cover it
up. But I'm going to do this thing before all Israel, before
the Son. You try to cover it up. I'm going
to deal with it so everybody can see. There's going to be
no hiding this from men. In verse 13, David said unto Nathan, I've
sinned against the Lord. Nathan said unto David, The Lord
also hath put away thy sins. Thou shalt not die. David, God's
put away your sin. David, God's covered your sin
in the blood of His Son. He's forgiven your transgression
by lifting it off of you and putting it upon His Son. David,
you're a blessed man. Oh, how blessed is the person
whose sin is covered by the blood of Christ. David couldn't cover
his sin, could he? But God did. That's what He does
for His people. Now, the second way we would
try to cover our sin is we'll try to not confess it. If we've
got to talk about it, if we're forced to talk about it, we're
just going to confess part of it, but not all of it. Just tell
as little as you can. And you know if we try to do
that, it's just going to kill us from the inside out. Look
back in our text at Psalm 32, verse 3. When I kept silence, I didn't
confess this, I kept silence. My bones whacked old through
my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was
heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the
drought of summer." And undoubtedly, those are the words of the Savior
as He hung on the cross, suffering for sin, gave up the ghost and
died. But this is also the experience
of a believer. Unconfessed sin brings the heavy
hand of God upon us. God will not punish His people
for their sin. He's punished Christ for our
sin. But there will be consequences for our sin. We will always bear
consequences for our sin. David's sin was forgiven, wasn't
it? But he suffered the consequences of it for the rest of his life.
Unconfessed sin brings the heavy hand of God upon us. But look
over at 1 John. 1 John chapter 1. John tells us what happens when
we confess our sin. We lay all of our sin out in
the open. First John 1 verse 8. If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Not only is God faithful to forgive
the sins of his people, he's just to forgive the sins of his
people. because He's already punished those sins in the person
of our substitute. Now, what have you got to say
to that? I'll tell you what I say. Lord,
I confess all my sins. I confess that everything I've
ever done is sin. I confess everything that I am
is sin. I confess all the sin I know
of, what I don't know of, if I've done it, it's sin. I confess
everything about me is sin. So, Lord, search out all my sin. Search them all out. Don't miss
one of them. Lay them all out in the open.
And then put them away under the blood of Christ. That's what
happened to David back in our text, verse 5. He says, I acknowledge my sin.
He confessed. I acknowledge my sin unto thee.
Am I an iniquity if I not hid? I said, I will confess my transgressions
unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity but my sin. The
Lord is faithful and just to forgive the sins of His people
because He's covered it under the blood of Christ. If my sin,
your sin, is covered under the blood of Christ, Christ shed
His blood, His precious blood to cover your sin, you're a blessed
person. Oh, how blessed. If my sin is
covered, it doesn't matter what else I do have. It doesn't matter
what else I don't have. I'm blessed beyond words. Oh,
oh, how happy. Right, here's the third thing.
Who is the truly blessed person? A person is blessed if the Lord
does not impute iniquity to them. Verse two, blessed is the man
unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Now impute is an accounting
term. It means to count, to count or
to reckon something to be. You count something, an accountant,
you know, I used to work and take care of some of the accounting
books in the businesses I worked for. You would account. You'd
count out how much is there and you record. This is how much
we got. Now, then you impute that. You say, this is what I
count, what I reckon is in the bank account. Well, when you
impute that to your bank account, that's how much is actually there.
Now, I can't go down to the bank. and impute a million dollars
into my bank account unless I've got a million dollars to put
in there. It imputes something that is actually there. Well,
our iniquity is something that's real, isn't it? The word iniquity
means perversity. It means moral evil. Now, that's
what we are. That's our nature. It's not just
what we do. It's what we are. We are perversity. We are morally evil. And it's
easy to impute that to us because that's what we are. And I tell
you where our perversity and our moral evil is most clearly
seen. It's in our good works. Our good
works, those things that we think make us better than somebody
else. Those things that we think make us more savable. Those things
that we think make God more happy with us and our neighbor. Those
things, scripture says, are filthy rags. Those are minstrel's rags. They're rags that are defiled
through and through with sinful blood that make us unclean. Our
very best moral works of religion are moral perversity. That's
what they're moral perverse. They're not good moral people.
That's moral perversity because it's something other than Christ
alone. It's moral perversity. You know, man's religion, they
love to talk about the righteousness of Christ, but you listen to
them, what they really mean is my goodness, my holiness, how
I've done all these things. They love to talk about grace,
but you listen to them, it's not something that's unearned
and unmerited, grace is something God gives me because I earned
it. They just call it grace instead of paycheck, grace instead of
rewards. But man's religion that teaches
those things does not lead people to be moral people. It doesn't
teach them to do good things, you know, and so everybody can
see what a good Christian they are. If that's their motive,
it's not good. It's moral perversity. Because it's trying to have goodness
without Christ. There's none good but God. It's
trying to have goodness without God. Well, that's what we are. It's easy to see how that moral
perversity could be imputed to us. Counted, that's what we are. Well, then how can God? This
is the million dollar question. How can God honestly, not impute,
not count us to be perverse and morally evil? How can He do that?
I'll tell you how He does it. By making us not perverse and
making us not morally evil. Now, we've already touched on
how God did this for His people. Not only did God take that awful
load of black, horrible sin and lift it off of His people and
put it on its own, not only did He do that, But he made Christ
sin for his people, that he might make his people the righteousness
of God in him, that he might make his people actually righteous,
make them not morally perverse, not morally evil, but he made
them righteous in Christ. That's how God imputes his people
to be righteous is because he made them righteous in the person
of our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, how happy is the
person to whom God does not impute iniquity because he's made them
righteous. And that brings us right to my
fourth point. Here's a person who's blessed, the person who's
been born again. At the end of verse two, David
says, and in whose spirit there is no guile. Now, by nature,
our soul is full of sin. Our soul is nothing but sin.
The word guile means deceit. And that's what we are. We're
deceitful. We try to make people think we're
nicer than we are, better than we are. You know, we're trying
to deceive God into thinking, you know, He ought to do something
for us. We're deceitful. We're false. Let God be true
and every man a liar. We're false. We're slack. That's what the word means. Slack. God given us a law to keep and
we're slackers. We haven't kept any of it. Slack.
That's us spiritually. We're full of guile. And we can't
do anything to change that nature of flesh. That's just what we
are. We're flesh. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and it'll never be anything but stinking, rotting,
dead flesh that's full of guile and deceit. So if we would be
blessed by God, we've got to be made what God can accept,
what God will accept. And that's what the new birth
is. In the new birth, there's a new man born. That man is holy. He's righteous. His nature is
righteous so that he cannot sin. Now, the only way people like
you and me can be without guile is if God gives us a new nature.
The old one's not going to be changed and it's something that's
honest. So God's got to give us a new nature. And a blessed
person has been born again. That new man is not a hypocrite
who's full of guile. The blessed person does not pretend
to have any goodness in himself. All his goodness is Christ. The
blessed person doesn't pretend like he doesn't have any sin.
No, he doesn't pretend that at all. What he claims is all I
am is sin, but my sin has been forgiven in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this person who has no guile,
he's been born again, is a blessed person. Oh, how happy. Want me to tell you how happy
he should be? because he's been made just like Christ. Peter describes the Lord in 1
Peter 2 verse 22, who did no sin, neither was any guile found
in his mouth. David describes the believer
with the exact same word, with the exact same language, because
we've been made just like Christ. Oh, how happy, how blessed is
that person who'd been made like Christ. If we've been made like
Christ, We do not have to spend eternity like this flesh. We don't have to spend eternity
in the stinking, rotting flesh, but we'll spend eternity with
Christ. He made just like. All that means
blessed who's been born again. In fifth, the person is blessed.
If the Lord will hear them, it will hear them pray. Verse six
in our text, Psalm 32. With this, Shall everyone that
is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found." Now the blessed person has been
made godly. David says, for this shall everyone
that is godly pray unto thee. That's a person who's been born
again. They've been made just like Christ. And that new nature
that they've received of God prays. He can't help it. He prays. He just has to talk
to his heavenly Father. New man who is born of God must
give thanks and praise. He's got to say thank you. We've
got so much to be thankful for. You've got to say thank you.
That new man born of God has got a nature that's got to praise
the Lord in praise. Who else can really praise him?
Nobody else knows better than this one whose transgression
has been forgiven, whose sin has been covered, who's been
caused to be born again. The Lord won't impute rights
or won't impute iniquity to him. Nobody knows better than that
person how the Lord ought to be praised. He's got to praise
the Lord. And they must make their needs known to the Lord.
Who else is going to supply their need? They know who's in control.
They know whose aunt gives them everything they have. And here's
the blessing. The Lord will always hear their
prayer. Because he's always near. Always
he's near his people. And here's something this blessed
person must do. The blessed person must call
on the Lord and beg for mercy. He must. He's a mercy beggar.
And the Lord will always hear the cry of some poor sinner crying
for mercy. always. He's always near those
who need mercy. He's near to them who have a
broken heart and a confined spirit. You go through God's Word and
you find any person who ever came to the Lord Jesus seeking
mercy in you. I challenge you to find one. That's that fact established.
Let me ask those of you who have not called on the Lord for mercy.
Why not? You call on him for mercy. You
won't be the first he denies. He's always near. Always. The Lord is always near his people. His throne room is always open
to his children to come before his throne to find grace to help. You need grace? Go to the throne
room, that's the source of it. There's the fountainhead of it.
Go to it. That's a blessed person when God will hear their prayer
and answer their cries of need. That's a happy person. The end
six, the person is truly blessed if the Lord is their refuge from
the storm. At the end of verse six or middle
of verse six there, he says, surely in the floods of great
waters, they should not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding
place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble.
Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Now you
know primarily the refuge from the storm that this is referring
to here is the storm of God's wrath against our sin. Isaiah
told us that God says there's a day coming that the overflowing
scourge of God's wrath is going to come through. And it'll sweep
away every refuge of lies. But the believer doesn't have
to fear that day. The believers already experienced
it. The believers blessed, blessed. Because Christ is our hiding
place from the storm. The believer hides in Christ
and is safe in Christ. Just like Noah hid in the ark.
Noah was in the ark. God shut the door. Now the rain
came. The rain and the wrath of God
in those floodwaters fell upon Noah's sin. But it fell upon
the ark. Noah was safe. Not a drop of
that water ever touched Noah. Noah was safe in the ark. That's
the believer hiding in Christ. We're hidden in Christ. God put
us there. Christ the Savior went to Calvary's tree. And all of
the wrath of God's justice fell upon him in a great storm. And he bore it all. But that
wrath was gone. Our hiding place is not in our
faith. Our hiding place is not knowing
all the right doctrine. Our hiding place is Christ. A
man shall be a hiding place from the storm. That's Christ, our
refuge. Oh, how blessed is the person
who's hiding in Christ. They're eternally saved. But
now we're talking here about truly blessed people, people
who have been blessed by God. David says, they need a refuge. A truly blessed person can't
be the person who has everything the heart could desire. We read
about it to open the service in Psalm 73. David said, I thought
that. And then I thought, oh, oh, I
was foolish. I was like a brute beast. That's
not the blessed person who has everything the heart could desire.
The truly blessed person is not the one who always has good health,
who never suffers persecution, who's never been humbled, who's
always in the in crowd. No, that's not the truly blessed
person. Look at Hebrews chapter 11. The
person who goes through this life, having never been through
the storm, having never been chastised of God, is not God's
child. The old scripture says that person's a bastard and not
a child. The blessed person needs a refuge. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 36. And others had trial of cruel
mockings and scourgings, yea moreover of bonds and imprisonment.
They were stoned. People took stones and kept throwing
stones at their body until they died, until their head was crushed
by throwing those stones at them. That's a slow process. They were
stoned. They were sawn asunder. They
were cut in two. They were tempted, were slain
with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins
and goatskins. They didn't have any clothes.
They had to find some animal skins to cover up their nakedness.
They were destitute, afflicted, and tormented, of whom this world
was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and
in mountains and in dens and in caves of the earth. I just
bet you, when these, God's children, Now they're blessed, aren't they?
They're blessed people. Their transgression is forgiven.
Their sin is covered. God will not impute iniquity
unto them. I just bet you when they're being stoned and they're
being sawed in half, when somebody's taking a sword and killing them,
When they were hiding in caves back there, it's dark and it's
damp and it's cold. Maybe they got their children
back in there with them and their children are sick from the elements
and stuff that they're in. I just bet you somebody didn't
tell them. Why don't we tweet out hashtag blessed? No, I just
bet you. I just bet you. And I bet you
that the people who were doing that were the people down there
in the fine homes. They had the front row seats,
you know, the seat of preeminence in the temple. Nobody thought
those people up there in the caves. cut in half, laying down
there in the grave, had their head cut off or something. Nobody
thought they were blessed. But they were. Verse 39. These
all, having obtained a good report through faith in Christ. On this earth they received not
the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that
they without us should not be made perfect. They didn't receive
it in this life, but they had it in the life after this one.
Christ is our refuge. Christ is our Savior. You already know this by experience.
Maybe some of you are really young when it's done. But you'll
find it out. Christ is your Savior. There
won't be a lot of days when you need a refuge. But you need a
refuge from the storm that's too strong for you. You cannot
take it another second. But you are blessed. You have
a refuge that will never fail. And if Christ is your refuge,
in those dark times and the storms so loud and it's scary and you
hang on and you remember this. Look, here's what God says. We
will have songs of deliverance. It says here at the end of verse
7, Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Christ
is your refuge. You're going to be delivered.
Oh, how blessed is that person. who has the victory in our Lord
Jesus Christ. Then seventh, a blessed person
is a person who led of the Lord. They're not left to their own
devices, they're led of the Lord. Verse eight, I will instruct
thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide
thee with mine eye. Be not as a horse or as the mule
which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with
bed and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. The best illustration
I could think of for this is a child. You know, a child who
has parents who diligently teach that children, it's hard, it's
hard work, but it can be done. Parents can teach a child to
be obedient. And there can be times that,
I mean, you know, you can teach a child to be obedient, but he's
still a kid. He's going to act up. Out in public, he's going
to act up somewhere. If that child's acting up, this
is a blessed child. When mama can give that child
the evil eye and stop everything in its tracks. That's a blessed
child. God's people are his children. Blessed people are children of
God. And God teaches his children. He teaches his children. Our
Lord said, they shall be all taught of God. He teaches his
children. And we should strive to be like children, childlike
in faith, childlike in trust, We trust our heavenly Father. Not because we see any evidence
of something He's going to do. We don't trust Him because I
know this is what He's going to do. No, I trust Him because
He's God. I trust Him because He's my Father. No matter what
He does, I'm going to trust Him. That's childlike faith. But too
often, we find ourselves being childlike in behavior, don't
we? We find ourselves acting like a self-centered brat. When
that happens, the Lord's going to correct His children. Now,
he could do it with his eye. David warns us here, don't be
like a stubborn ewe. Don't make the Lord get out to
bit and bridle and lead you around with the, you know, be submissive.
The blessed person is the person, the child that the Lord leads
with his eye. And I'll give you a good example
of it. Old brother Peter was a married child, wasn't he? He
was so self-centered. He was so selfish. He denied
he even knew the Lord. And all it took to break that
child's heart was a look, just a look from the Savior. And he
broke his heart, went out and wept bitterly. And he learned. Didn't he learn? Peter, do you
love me? Be my sheep. Be my sheep. That's
what he did, didn't he? The blessed person is the person
who's taught of the Lord, who willingly follows Him. Then last,
a person is blessed who's the object of God's mercy. Verse
10, many sorrows should be to the wicked, but he that trusteth
in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Now the wicked are
people who in this world have everything. Those are the people
that, you know, that you look at them and you think, wow, that's
been a blessed person. But the Lord says about those
people that they will have many sorrows. Just look at them in
this life. Look at them when they have everything
the flesh could want. Look at them and mark this down.
That's as happy as they'll ever be. As good as it's ever going
to get. And very, very soon they're going
to die. And everything they had that
they were so proud of is just going to be Turn to dust. Their
children are going to think, what in this world were they
doing with all this stuff? You know, we got to get rid of
it. We can't sell for a dime. We're going to take the goodwill.
And it's gone. Forgotten. But you mark that
believer. You mark that blessed person. They're in a storm. They're full
of sorrow. Oh, how tried they've been. One storm after another, after
another, after another. You mark them. You mark them.
That's as low as they're ever going to be. You wait until you
see what's coming. Oh, a day of eternal glory and
joy and bliss. And those wicked, you mark them
now. This is as good as they're ever
going to get. The Lord says they're going to have sorrows eternally,
separated from God, but not God's people. No, that blessed person
is an object of God's mercy. Now God is rich in mercy. He never deals in little bits
of mercy. He doesn't dole it out by the
crumb. He doesn't have like a salt shaker of mercy, just give it
a little bit. No. Mercy compasses them about. Mercy on every side. Mercy to
forgive their sin. Mercy to give them life. Mercy
to give them faith. Mercy to carry them all the way
to the end. And mercy to bring them into
the presence of God himself. Surely, goodness and mercy will
follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. Brethren, that person's blessed. That person's blessed. If they're
sick right now, their body is so sick and wracked with pain
and disease, if they're heartbroken with grief, that they just can't
handle, if they're in poverty so they don't know where their
next meal's coming from. They're blessed. Blessed of God. And their fleshly circumstances
do not change that. They don't change it. They are
blessed of God. So in closing, that's the blessed
person. That's the blessed person. What will that blessed person
do? Be glad in the Lord. Oh, be glad
in the Lord. And rejoice, ye righteous, and
shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. I'll tell you
what you do if you're that blessed person. You be glad. Be glad
in the Lord. Don't be glad in the perishing
things of this life. Enjoy those things if the Lord
gives them to you. You know, I know of brethren
here and in other places, have opportunities for promotions
coming up and things in their job that would be wonderful for
them. And I pray the Lord give it to
them. I do. If the Lord gives that to you,
enjoy it. Use it wisely. But don't set
your heart upon it. Be glad in the Lord. Be glad
in Christ who is your righteousness. He's made you righteous in Him.
He lifted your iniquity off of you. He's covered your sin. He
won't impute iniquity to you. Oh, that's the blessing. That's
the blessed person. And that lets us shout for joy.
God's made you upright in heart. He's given you a heart. Not an
outward appearance, but in heart. That's where God deals is in
the heart. And that's where the blessing
is. That's the blessed person. And outside of that person, Outside
of Christ, other than that person, anybody outside of Christ, I
don't care who they are, has no right to hashtag blessed. Not one. They don't have any
right to it whatsoever because outside of Christ, there is no
blessing. There's only a curse. But in
Christ, no matter what your fleshly circumstances are, you're blessed. That is the blessed person. All
right, let's bow together. Our Father, how we thank You
for this great blessing that You've chosen to not bless good
people, not people who deserve it, but You've chosen to bless
sinners in such an awesome, wonderful manner. You've chosen to bless
Your people with every spiritual blessing. You've not withheld
one spiritual blessing from any of Your children. because you
blessed us with everything in the Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
how we thank you. How our hearts thrill to hear
Christ our Savior, His precious blood that covers our sin, that
He willingly took the sin of His people, put it away so that
there's no sin left to impute to your people, but you accept
us freely in the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. Father, how we thank
you. Cause us to be well-taught children. Give us a submissive,
obedient attitude as your children that we might be taught of Thee.
But taught from Your Word. Be led with Your eye. Father, don't leave us to ourselves.
You've blessed us so richly, but don't leave us to ourselves.
Keep us ever near Thy side. Keep us ever being taught Your
Word. Always and only see us and hear
us in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in His precious name. For
the glory of His name, we pray and give thanks.