All right, brethren, it's so
good to see you. It always is. And I am running some new hearing
aids, and I can't tell how loud I'm speaking. So you in the back,
if I'm not talking loud enough, just do like that. I want you
to hear me. And you won't hurt my feelings.
I'd rather you let me know I need to speak up. I'm thankful that you asked me
to come here, and I really pray tonight the Lord would be pleased
to bless us with His Word, and that we would have Christ to
be the preacher, and that we would hear this Word in our heart.
I've been thinking about this Psalm, Psalm 116. I've been thinking
about this all weekend. I preached on it some years ago,
But it really was on my heart this past weekend, and I think
because perhaps it's needful for you, I don't know, but the
Lord just laid it on my heart. I preached it a few years ago,
but it's like Brother John Chapman said to us when he was at a conference
one time. A ways back, he said, he said,
I preached from this passage this week. He said, but somebody
might say, I've already heard that sermon. He said, well, you
might've heard me preach from this, but you ain't heard this
sermon. And that's how this is. You might've heard me preach
from this Psalm before, but you hadn't heard this message. And
I pray tonight to Lord, make us hear it. Psalm 116, verse
15. Psalm 116, verse 15. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of His saints. My subject is the death precious
to God. The death precious to God. This is a verse that we've all
heard preached at funerals. I've preached it at funerals.
And without a doubt, precious is the physical death of God's
saints. God appointed the hour we will
die. The Lord Jesus Christ has conquered
death for all God's saints. So when we pass from this life,
we're going to be immediately in His presence. So yes, that
physical death is precious to God, the physical death of His
saints. But this psalm, speaking of another
death, I always think it's I always like it when something gives
me an indication that the Lord gave me the message. And the
psalm you just read, brother, I've been reading it all day
because there's a verse in it that we're gonna see is in this
psalm. And so I've been back and forth
between those psalms all day as I've looked at this. So that
just was a confirmation to me that the Lord led me to the right
scripture. that this psalm is talking about
the death that God works through trials. From the day He calls
us, He works this death. Every trial, He works this death.
And the last death will be that physical death. And these deaths,
from the first time He works this, through every trial, each
of these deaths are precious to God. They're precious to God
and it's the death of our fleshly self. It's the death of confidence
in self. It's the death so that our new
man rests in Christ alone. That's why it's precious to God.
Now there's two verses quoted here that are quoted in the New
Testament. And both these verses quoted
in the New Testament Paul is preaching from Psalm 116. And
so he gives us the whole meaning of Psalm 116. Go with me to 2
Corinthians. First, look at verse 10. Psalm
116, verse 10. I believed, therefore have I
spoken. Alright, now go to 2 Corinthians
4. Paul quotes this. And I'm going to just show this
to you first, and then we'll see it in the psalm. But here's
what this psalm is teaching us. Paul said, we have this treasure
in earthen vessels. Powerless vessels. The preacher,
you, everybody he saves, all his saints. We have this treasure
of the gospel in earthen vessels that the power may be abgotten
out of us. Now watch what he says here.
This is what the Lord does through all these trials. Verse 10. He
said, 2 Corinthians 4.10, He said, We're always bearing about
in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also
of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. In other words,
that it might be known to us and to our brethren that we're
living by the faith of Christ working in us, not by our flesh.
Verse 11, for we which live are always delivered unto death for
Jesus sake. And that means it's not just
that they did suffer because they preached the gospel of Christ.
And in that sense, it was for the sake of Christ that they
were persecuted. But it was also for the sake
of Christ in that it was to keep Paul and all his saints looking
only to Christ. And he said, and we're delivered
to death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh
in us, but life in you. He's saying we preach Christ
and we preach what he's taught us through these deaths, and
through that he's working life in you. And he says, Next is
our psalm, he says, we having the same spirit of faith, we
have the same spirit as the psalmist did, we're all speaking by one
spirit, and according as it's written, it was written by David
in our psalm, he said, I believed and therefore have I spoken.
He said, we also believe and therefore speak. We're telling
you what the Lord's taught us through these deaths. Knowing,
here's what they learned through suffering these deaths, knowing
that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also
by Jesus and shall present us with you. Do you remember when
Paul said to the Philippians, he said, I want to know Christ
and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings
being made conformable unto His death, being made willing to
take the cup that God gives me just like Christ did in Gethsemane
and submit and say, not my will but Thine be done. I want to
know the power of His life keeping me And as I suffer, I want to
be kept by Him and I want to be made conformable. I want to
be made to submit to Him and trust Him no matter what He's
doing. Well, that's what He's saying here. He said, for this
cause, 2 Corinthians 4, verse 16, for which cause? We think
not. It's the faith of Christ working
in us. It's Christ's interceding for
us. It's the life of Christ sustaining us. He said, but though our outward
man perish, that's the death that's precious to God. Our outward
man is perishing. He's making us to die through
these, suffering these trials. Yet the inward man is renewed
day by day. For our light affliction, which
is but for a moment, works for us. a far more exceeding eternal
way to glory, while we look not at things which are seen, but
at the things which are not seen. That's what God works through
these deaths. He makes us stop looking at things with his carnal
eye, makes us see by faith and trust the Lord. For the things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not
seen are eternal. That's, Paul's preaching our
psalm. Paul's preaching the message
of our psalm. I'm gonna show you that. Now there's another
verse. I want you to go back to Psalm 116. There's another verse in our
psalm, in verse 11. I said in my haste, all men are
liars. Now that word, haste, makes some
people... We just read it in that other
song. I said in my haste, my feet are cut off. And the Lord's
cut me off, He doesn't hear me. Well, here He said, I said in
my haste, all men are liars. And some people think here that
He was hastily, quickly calling men liars, and He was wrong in
that. Well, that might be the case.
But Paul preached that word. And Paul quoted that verse in
Romans 3. And what Paul was declaring in
the verse was, all men are liars. That's what he was declaring.
Listen, verse Romans 3, 4. Let God be true and every man
a liar. And what David is saying in our
psalm is, is through this affliction, the Lord brought me quickly. He brought me hastily to the
point where I realized I'm a sinner. Every man on this earth is a
sinner, not to be trusted, and I'm the chief of sinners. That's
what David learned in our psalm. That's the death that's precious
to God. It's the death of self. So, what
I'm going to try to show you here is, from the context of
this psalm and from these two verses that are quoted from this
psalm, The death that's precious in God's sight, brethren, is
the death of our flesh. It's the death where the Lord
turns us from looking to ourselves, from trusting ourselves, from
justifying ourselves, from sanctifying ourselves. He makes us see this
flesh is dead. We're sinners. And he turns us
to look to Christ alone. That's the death that's precious
to God. And it'll go on. It can't happen one time as long
as we're in this body. It has to keep going on. And
the final death that'll be precious to God is when we draw that last
breath and put off this body. But here's what the Lord taught
David. First of all, and I got to say
this because Mark put me on the spot a while ago when we was
eating dinner. He said, I like it when a man tells me The three
points he's going to make, and then he makes them. And I do
that nine times out of ten, and I didn't do that in this message.
So I'll tell you what I'm going to show you. I'm going to show
you how he works love in us. I'm going to show you how he
increases hope through these deaths, faith, repentance, and
praise and thanksgiving. I may not get to all of those.
If I run out of time, I'm just going to quit. But I'm going
to get as far as I can get on it. First of all, these deaths
are precious to God because in our inward man, the Spirit of
God is growing us in love for the Lord. He's making our outward
man die, but in the inward man, He's making us love our Lord
more. He said there in verse 1, I love the Lord because He
has heard my voice and my supplication. There's no cause in us for God
to love us. You know Deuteronomy 7, 7. The
Lord didn't set His love on you or choose you because you were
more in number than any people. You're the fewest of all people.
But because the Lord would. He didn't have a reason in us
to love us. The cause is Christ and His love
in Christ. But He gives us great reason
to love Him. He gives us all the reason to
love Him. I love the Lord because He hath
heard my voice and my supplication. Because Christ is at God's right
hand, and He's our high priest, and He's made a new and living
way. The new veil is Christ's flesh,
Him laying down His life for us. And by His blood, and by
Christ being at God's right hand, we have access to the throne.
The holiest of holies. We can enter into that holiest
of holies where no man could go but the high priest. Now Christ
has made a new way and you and me can enter into that holiest
of holies into God's presence. And He'll hear us. He'll hear
us when we pray. Isn't that astounding? You've
got to be made holy for that to happen. And that's how come
God hears us is Christ has made us holy so we can enter into
God's presence. And by this, when we go through
these sufferings and the Lord puts an end, He begins to just
mortify our flesh and we're turned to cry out to the Lord. And the
Lord hears us, the Lord shows us how nothing changes His love
for His people. And this is how He grows you
to love Him more and more. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sin. Brethren, if God so loved us,
if He loved us after that manner, without there being a cause in
us, the cause was for Christ's sake that He loved us, then He
said we ought to love one another the same way, after the same
manner. Don't have to have a reason in
your brother to love him. Love them for Christ's sake.
That's how come God loves us. When He first made us hear the
law, for the first time, we saw there was nothing in us to love. That's the first time we experienced
this death. When He made you hear the law
and declared you guilty, Paul said, I was alive without the
law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and what? I
died. That's the death that's precious
in God's sight. I died to all my self-justifying,
my self-sanctified, my self-confidence, my self-wisdom. I died when I
heard that law. Everything I thought was good,
I found out was nothing but sin. Well, in these trials, the Lord's
doing that same thing again. That's what he's doing again,
just like he did the first hour. We get our love, we get our affection
set on things in this world. We turn to things in this life
and we start getting too fond of these things in this life.
And if the Lord left us in that, we'd perish from the Lord. But
He won't leave His child. He sends you the trial. And when
He first sends it, oh, we try to deliver ourselves. We try
to lean to our understanding. You know, it's just as logical.
This is how I'm going to get out of this. And we just get
more tangled up, more tangled up. And that's the Lord's doing.
He's going to keep it going that way until He set fire to all
our fleshly strength and all our fleshly wisdom. And He's
just brought us down and shown us His death. And then we cry
to the Lord. Then we cry. He said, He heard
my cry, my supplication. That's when we cry to the Lord.
And through that whole trial, the Lord has done again what
He did the first hour He called you. You know what He taught
us the first hour He called us? I've loved thee with an everlasting
love. Therefore, with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. And when the Lord has worked
this sin of trial, He's shown you, you were going away from
me. You were looking to all, loving all those things. And
in loving kindness, I drew you again. How does that grow you
in love? Because you see, there wasn't
anything in me for Him to do this for me again. There was
nothing in me to make Him love me and draw me to Himself. I'm
telling you, brethren, if He had not loved us in Christ with
no cause in us, that's the only reason He didn't destroy this
world when we fell in Adam. It's the only reason He didn't
destroy us all the years we were dead in our sin. And it's the
only reason He still will not let us perish when we set our
hearts on things in this world. But He draws us again to Him
and teaches us, I've loved you with an everlasting love. My
love's in Christ. My love does not change. And
that brings you to cry out with the Psalmist crowd out here and
say, I love the Lord because He heard me. He heard me. He's the one that made me cry
to it. I wouldn't have done it if he
hadn't just hedged up my way to where all I could do was cry
out, say, Lord, save me. And then he called me and he
taught me. It was me drawing you the whole
time because my love don't change. That's what increases your love
for him. All right. Secondly, you see
why this death is precious in the Lord's sight. That's a precious
death to the Lord when we're turned from self to him. Alright,
secondly, the death of our flesh is precious to God because through
this death, He's going to increase us in hope to call on the Lord
as long as we're alive to keep calling on Him, hoping in Him.
Look here, verse 2. Increase in our hope. He said,
because He inclined His ear to me, therefore will I call upon
Him as long as I live. When God sends that trial and
He makes you call on Him, He waits a lot of time. He doesn't
answer you right away. He's making our flesh die. He's
making our flesh die. He's making us call on Him and
call on Him and call on Him. He's making us importunate. Keep
knocking. Keep knocking. Lord, help me.
Please help me. And the longer He waits, the
more fervent that knock gets. Please help me, Lord. Oh, the trial may be long. But
I'll tell you what, hope and patience is going to say this.
He heard me last time. He'll hear me this time. I'm
going to keep calling. As long as I have breath, as
long as I live, I'm going to keep calling on Him. Because
He's my only hope. I'm going to keep calling on
Him. Our Savior gave the parable of the man that he went at midnight
to his neighbor and he was asking for bread and the neighbor was
already asleep so he wouldn't get up and give him any bread.
And the man kept knocking, kept knocking. And the Lord said,
though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend,
yet because of his opportunity, he will rise and give him as
many as he needed. You know, if somebody just calls
out, you know, if there came a door at night, Mark, Mark. But if they kept
on and kept on and kept on and pulled out of there, Mark! You're going to finally get up
and go because of your importunity. That's why the Lord waits. Are
you at a trial and you're crying to the Lord for help and crying
to the Lord for help and it doesn't seem like he's helped you? Him
waiting on you is him hearing your call. Him waiting on his
saints is him hearing his beloved. The Lord waited. When he heard
Lazarus was dead, the Lord waited two days before he went there.
Why? Because he loved him. Because he loved them. He's waiting
to teach us to call and to call and to call. And the Lord said,
ask, it'll be given you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock,
it'll be opened to you. Everyone that asketh, receive
it. That's true of everybody for whom Christ died. You ask,
the Lord's going to give to you eventually. He said, if a son
asks bread of any of you that's a father, will you give him a
stone? If he asks a fish, will you give him a serpent? If he
asks an egg, will you offer him a scorpion? Now listen, listen
to this. He's talking to me and you who
are his holy saints. He said, if ye then, being evil,
know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more
shall your heavenly Father give you? Now this is important. The
Holy Spirit. He'll give the Holy Spirit to
you. Our need is spiritual. We don't
need him to take away the trial. We don't really even need him
to calm the seas or whatever it is. You know, we need to know
in our heart that the Lord loves us and he's got his everlasting
arms under us and he's providing for us. He's redeemed us where
he is. If you know that, It don't much matter what's going on.
You got that peace and you got that hope. And when He's answered
you again, that's growing you in hope so that next time you
say, He heard me last time, I'm going to keep knocking this time,
He'll hear me. As long as I'm alive, I'm going to keep calling
on Him. I'm going to keep calling on Him. All right. Thirdly, these
deaths are precious to the Lord because in the inward man, He's
growing us in faith in Christ. He's growing us in love toward
Christ. He's growing us to hope more in Christ. And He's growing
us to believe on the Lord more and trust Him. Look here now,
verse 3. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of
hell got hold upon me. I found trouble and sorrow. Then
called I upon the name of the Lord. And that's usually the
only time we truly do. And He said, O Lord, I beseech
Thee, deliver my soul Deliver my inward man in spirit. Mortify my flesh and deliver
my soul. Make my flesh dead, deliver my
soul. What did God reveal to him? This
is what he said after the fact. This is what he learned through
the trial. Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Yea, our God is
merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple.
Simple faith. The simplicity of Christ. Faith
is just simple looking to Christ only. Trusting Christ only. That's
who He delivers. I was brought low and He helped
me. How can God be gracious and righteous
and merciful? How can He be gracious and merciful
and righteous? How can that be? It's because
the death of our Lord Jesus Christ is precious in God's sight. You
can look at this whole Psalm and hear Christ speaking. And
it's the death of our Lord Jesus Christ that's precious in God's
sight. The sorrows of death come past Christ. The pains of hell
got hold of Christ when He was on that cross. Because He made
sin for us, He was bearing the curse for us. He was bearing
the death, the living second death we deserved. He was bearing
the hell we deserved on that cross. That's what He was doing
for all His people. And while He bore that, He did
what the psalmist did. He called faithfully upon the
Father. You know, fussing and fussing
about Christ made sin and all of this, there's two things the
law requires. All our sins got to be put away.
The curse has got to be satisfied. Justice has got to be satisfied.
And we got to be perfectly holy with a perfect holy faith and
love toward God. That's what was happening on
the cross. Christ was made sin for us. He was made a curse.
He was justifying us from our sins. And at the same time, in
Him, He's holy and He's faithful, looking to the Father, trusting
the Father. And when it pleased God to raise Him. and declare
him just. That's what he was doing. And
by that, he put away the sin of his people and he brought
in a perfect faithfulness to God for his people. And in him,
we have a perfect, complete righteousness. And that's the death that's precious
to God because he declared God just and he justified his people.
He put away the sin of his people. That's the death that's precious
to God. He honored and magnified God's law. He shows you what
it takes to fulfill the law. That's why none of us can boast
we ever kept it. That's what it takes is what
Christ did on Calvary's cross. Now, for the sake of Christ,
holy God is righteous. to be gracious and merciful to
you and me. He's righteous to do it. Please
get this. Please get this. You got something
against somebody that's a brother in Christ. And I know what we
do. We get our feelings hurt. So
we start trying to figure out ways that they can't be a believer. They did that. They said that.
They did this. They did everything you've done.
You did the same thing. You've done exactly what you're
condemning. That's what Romans 2 said. That's why Paul said,
Let God be true in every man and liar. He said in Romans 2,
He said, when we condemn another, we're just condemning ourselves
because we're guilty of the same thing. He gave a long list in
Romans 1 of all those awful sins of the Gentiles. I mean, murder
and idolatry and homosexuality and everything under the sun
in there. And then He turns around to the Pharisees and said, now
when you condemn them, you're guilty because you do the same
thing. Outwardly, they were doing the same thing. No, outwardly,
they looked holy. They looked perfect. Here was
their sin in doing all of those things. They looked at their
outward holiness and condemned others and tried to say, I'm
righteous and holy because I don't do those things outwardly. And
Paul said, no, you're just as guilty inwardly. That's what
he's teaching us through these deaths, brethren. He's teaching
us, the sorrows of death come past me. When he makes you know
this, it's the sorrows of past sins, and it's the sorrows of
present sins, and it's the sorrows of knowing that all I am is sin. When the pains of hell get hold
of you, I'll tell you what that is. That's what David was experiencing
in Psalm 51, when he said, against thee and thee only have I sinned. I've done this evil in thy sight
that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear
when thou judgest. I'm the sinner. I found trouble
and sorrow. It means I couldn't deliver myself.
I couldn't dry my tears. I couldn't keep my feet from
falling. I couldn't deliver myself out of the snare of death. Paul
said in one time, he said they were in Asia when the Lord sent
a trial. He said, we despaired even of
life. He said, but we had the sentence of death in ourselves
that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, which raised the
dead. That's what God's teaching us
in these things. Don't trust yourself. Don't trust yourself. That's the death that's precious
to God's sight. Our old self-righteous, self-sanctifying,
self-justifying, self-wise, our self has got to die. No trust
can be put in it. We got to be made so low till
we're simple. The simplicity of Christ. You
know, we could go into all these details about our troubles, trying
to tell what we went through and what God did and all this.
I love how David says this right here. He said at the end of verse
six, I was brought low and he helped me. That's it. I was brought low. How low? I
was a dead man. I saw myself as a sinner, ruined,
dead, could contribute nothing. And he helped me. That's it.
That's it. That's why these deaths are precious.
And he was gracious to do it and right to do it. He was merciful
to me and he was righteous to do it. All right, next. The death of his saints precious
because the Lord grants us repentance all over again in our inward
man. Look here in verse seven. This
is what he said after the Lord worked all this. Verse 7, Return
unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully
with thee. This is a believer. This is David as a believer who
went through this trial and sinned, and his foot slipped, and he
was crying, and he was just in all this trouble, and this is
where the Lord brought him. Return. That's repentance. Return to thy rest, O my soul. You know what that word rest
is? It could be return unto thy Noah. Noah's name means rest. Same word. Just like that raven
and that dove was let out, our flesh don't want to return because
our flesh feeds on death. That's why the Lord has to make
him die. But in the new man, where the Lord's working, he
makes you say, return unto your rest. Oh, my soul. And you go
back to Christ. You go to Christ. For the Lord
has dealt bountifully with thee, for thou hast delivered my soul
from death. You see, we're talking about
the inward man. We're talking about the Lord
working in the new man He's created. We're talking about Him making
dead the outward man, the sinful man, the flesh that's in us.
We're talking about Him saving us in the soul. You delivered
my soul from death. Does that mean He was just about
to physically die? Well, He might have been, but
I'll tell you what, I know what He's saying. You delivered my
soul from me. You delivered my inward man from
the dead man that I am outwardly in my flesh. You saved me from
death, Lord. You saved my eyes from tears.
I couldn't even dry my tears. You saved my feet from falling.
And I walked before the Lord in the land of the living. Where's
that? It ain't the top side of this
earth. It's with Christ in glory. That's the land of the living.
I'm going to walk with Him in the land of the living. Now watch. I believed. How did you believe? Paul answered that. He said by
the same Spirit that was working in him. It's working in us. That's
how we believe the Holy Spirit of God. I believe by Christ interceding
for me. I believe by the faith. What
if I say the life I now live, I live by the faith of Christ.
It's him dwelling in me. That is the faith of my faith
that made me live and believe. Therefore, have I spoken. I was
greatly afflicted. And by this affliction, by the
Lord making my flesh to die, I said in my haste, the Lord
brought me to say right quick, He made me willing, He made me
ready to say, let God be true and ever man a liar. And I'm
the chief liar. I'm the chief sinner. That's
what He brought me to say. I showed you that quote in Romans
3. And I told you how Paul said, thou art an inexcusable old man,
whosoever thou art that judges for wherein thou judgest another,
thou condemnest thyself for thou that judges doest the same thing.
I want you to get this. Be sure to get this. The Lord
has shown me a little of this and he'll have to show me again.
I might die this death again. But I want you to get this. When
we're in a trial, as long as we're still condemning others,
And as long as somebody else is the problem, and as long as
we hear the gospel, and in our heart we're saying, I hope they're
hearing that, God ain't brought us to the end of the trial yet.
You can mark that down. God has not brought us to the
end yet. That's the old man that has got
to die. That's self justifying, self
righteous, self sanctifying, self exalting self saying, It's their fault. Next time you
see somebody else sin, your brother, your sister falls, and you look
at them and you see them sinning. Before you start to speak, I
want you to have this thought. Remember, Clay told me this.
Remember this. When you see somebody sin, somebody
fall, a brother or sister, before you speak to condemn them, you
just remember, God's holding up a mirror for you to see you.
God's holding up a mirror for you to get a good look at yourself. Well, a believer wouldn't do
that. Paul said, we don't judge after appearance anymore. We
judge spiritual judgment. We judge in the heart. What's that mean? That means
we know no man after the flesh anymore. Do you want your brethren
to know you after the flesh? Do you want to look at just the
things you say and do and say, and have confidence in you or
not have confidence in you by what you say or do. I don't.
All men are liars. Our Lord says it this way. Cease
ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils. Don't put trust
in man wherein it seems to be counted up. That includes self. We have to be brought personally
to confess in me, that is in my flesh dwells no good thing. When you're really brought there
and you really believe that I'm such a sinner, I can't contribute
one thing. And the only way I've been sustained,
the only way I keep believing and repenting and loving the
Lord and anything that I've done, the only way, is the faithfulness
of my Lord Jesus. And the only way God continues
to be gracious and merciful to me is because of Christ my righteousness. I was brought love. He helped
me. He did it all. Oh, he brings
us then to worship and praise him alone. That's why this desk
precious. Look at verse 12. What shall
I render to the Lord for all his benefits toward me? That's
where he brings you when he's worked this death and shown you
Christ again. What shall I render to the Lord
for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation
and call upon the name of the Lord. Paul said, I want to be
made conformable to his death. When he was in Gethsemane and
he's weeping, And he's sweating, as it was, great drops of blood.
He said, and what shall I say? Father, remove this cup from
me. He said, no, Father, not my will, but thine be done. Paul
said, I want to be made conformable to that death. I want to be brought
to say, Lord, whatever cup you give me, I know it's a cup of
salvation. It might be suffering. It might
be. It might be joy. It might make
me cry. It may make me rejoice with laughter. I just want to take the cup you
give me and submit to your will and trust you and call on you
to save. He said, I'll take the cup of
salvation. This I'm going to render to Him
and thank Him for everything He's done for me. Whatever He
sends to me, I'm going to take that cup and I'm going to bow
down and I'm going to call on His name and trust Him to bring
me through everything. I'll pay my vows to the Lord
now in the presence of all His people. I'm going to bear witness
to all these work God's done for me to my brethren in the
midst of His house. I'm going to tell them these
things the Lord's done for me. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of his saints. You know, that's another way
of saying, it's good for me that I've been afflicted, that I might
learn thy statute. This death of my old sinful flesh
is precious in the sight of the Lord. It's been a precious thing
to bring me to the place where I'm not trusting anything about
me. For a little while, I'm just trusting Him. And the Lord's
going to keep doing this. He's going to keep doing this.
He's going to keep doing this. One day we're going to draw our
last breath. And it's going to be the final day. And we're not
going to have to go through this anymore because we're going to
be with him. And this is what this precious
death does for you. Everybody wants assurance. Everybody
wants assurance. But none of us want assurance
the way God gives assurance. That's the problem. We all want
assurance, but we don't want assurance the way God gives it.
This is how he gives it. Because at the end, this is what
he said. Verse 16, Oh Lord, truly I am
thy servant. I am thy servant. I'm the son
of thy handmaid. Thou hast loosed my bond. I will
offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call upon
the name of the Lord. I'll pay my vows to the Lord
now in the presence of all his people in the courts of the Lord's
house in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. And here's the lesson he learned
from it all. This is what he's telling every one of us. Praise
ye the Lord. Give him all the glory. And when
that day, when he brings us to that last death, you know what
we're going to do for eternity? Praise ye the Lord. We're going to give him the glory.
Precious in the Lord's precious, precious in God's sight is the
death of his saints. That's precious death to God.
Anything brings you to trust Christ only. That's precious
to God. Precious to God. All right, brethren.