I invite your attention to Psalm
103. 103rd Psalm. Our brother Chris
read it to us a moment ago. This is the second of three parts
in this message. It's a rather lengthy psalm and
much in it. Our brother Mitch was writing,
commenting on what is said in this psalm. There's a lot in
it. So we're going to try to consider this psalm in three
messages. This is the second. The first
message was preached just prior to my trip to Iowa. And so we
gave an introduction to this series. And I included it in
the synopsis that you have before you in the tract. I'm not going
to go over that entire introduction, but it does introduce the subject
of blessed Jehovah. We did, though, observe that
there's a three-fold division in this psalm. First, are blessings of Jehovah
identified in verses 1 and then also verses 20 through 22? We
considered that in the priest's previous message. Today we're
going to consider verses 2 through 7 on the subject of Jehovah's
blessings summarized and then, God willing, next Lord's Day
we'll look at the third division, verses 8 through 19, on the subject
of Jehovah the Blesser characterized, but today I want us to consider
Jehovah's blessings summarized, verses 2 through 7. Let me read
these verses to you. Psalm 103, verse 2. Bless, Jehovah,
O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all
thine iniquities. who healeth all thy diseases,
who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with lovingkindness
and tender mercies, who satisfies thy mouth with good things, so
that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. Jehovah executeth
righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed, He made
known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. Now that's the way that we psalm
our God. Bless, Jehovah, all my soul and
forget not all his benefits. Forget not his benefits. I am said to be forgetful. said
to be. I suppose it's true because the
people who tell me so appear to be truth speakers, but here
is one thing we should not forget. Now, it is not good to forget
your wife's birthday, your anniversary. I have gotten our anniversary
wrong one time and got away with it. But do not forget this. His benefits. But then again,
a birthday comes only once a year. It's understandable. You may forget. His benefits,
they're daily. They're every day. multiple times
throughout the day. Therefore, forget not all his
benefits." Now, this word benefits actually means dealings. Forget
not his dealings with people. Jehovah deals with people according
to whom and what they are. And when he deals with the wicked,
it's not benefits. His dealings with them are of
a retributional nature. He gives unto them the recompense
of their wickedness, forever destruction and punishment
for their sins. That's his dealings. Now remember
that this word benefits actually means dealings. Jehovah's dealings
with his people are in benefits. There's no retribution involved. God never punishes His people. I repeat, God never punishes
His people. He may discipline them, but He
never punishes them. Because He did so in Jesus Christ. And because of what God has done
through Jesus Christ, now His benefits flow unto us. Forget
them not! All His benefits are of His saving
grace. Now, forget not all his benefits. Okay, folks, we are completely
incapable of doing so. Forget not all. You do not even
know what his benefits are. So many of them, forget them
not. But I like what Charles Haddon
Spurgeon said on this. He said, the psalmist selects A few of the choicest pearls
from the casket of divine love threads them on the string of
memory and hangs them about the neck of gratitude. That's what
it is. Just forget not its benefits. And we'll just look at a few
of them, just a few of them this morning. Notice that all these
benefits are in the present tense. We here do not speak of what
Jehovah has done, nor will we speak of what he will do. We speak of what he is doing,
and what he is doing today is what he is doing yesterday, and
what he is doing tomorrow, because all his benefits are in the present
tense. Everything he's doing is in the
present tense. God never begins to bless his
people. God never ends blessing his people. He ever is blessing his people. We're going to consider here
that six benefits, only six, forgiveness of iniquities, healing
of diseases, redeeming from destruction, crowning with loving kindness
and tender mercies, satisfying with goodness, and delivering
from oppression. The first, bless Jehovah for
forgiving all your iniquities. Consider, He forgives all your
iniquities. What is an iniquity? It is any
transgression against Jehovah's law. And all of us are iniquitous. The psalmist says, my mother
conceived me in sin. I was born in iniquity. I departed
the womb estranged from God and speaking lies. We have been iniquitous
from the day we were born. And even before we were born,
we were iniquitous in our mother's womb. We read that the wicked drink
iniquity like water. Like a thirsty man, they drink
iniquity. That's who and what we are by
nature. We are by nature iniquitous people. We therefore are worthy of death,
for everyone shall die for his own iniquity. And yet, Jehovah
says, because of Jesus Christ, I will forgive their iniquity
and their sin I will remember no more. There was a woman who told her
pastor that she had trouble just dealing with sins she committed
in her past. They were of such a great nature
and she felt so inadequate as a Christian and that they just
troubled her. The sins that she had done And the pastor told her, why
do you remember them? God does not. Why should we go to God to seek
forgiveness for something we did in the past when he's already
forgiven it? It would be like going to God
and saying, Lord, I know you forgave me of that sin, but it
still bothers me. Would you give me some peace
about it? And the Lord opens up the book I don't find it in
here. I do not. Are you sure? I do not remember
that. This is God who says, I will remember your iniquities no more. There are some who may say, I'll
forgive you for what you did, but I'll not forget what you
did. God never does. God says, I forgive you And by
the way, I forgot what you did. He will forgive and forget your
iniquities. We thank him for doing so. This
forgiveness is found in Jesus Christ alone, Ephesians 1, 6. In him we have forgiveness of
sins according to the riches of God's grace. Jehovah laid
on him the iniquity of us all. I'm assuming that the text says
iniquity singular instead of iniquities because God just took
all the iniquities of his people, put them into one load and said
that's their iniquity. Their iniquity includes all their
iniquities laid upon Jesus Christ. He bore the iniquity, the Calvary,
and there he suffered and died for it. In him we have forgiveness
from our sins. This forgiveness is complete
and entire. He forgives all your iniquities. All your iniquities. Iniquities whether public or
secret. Iniquities whether of deed or
word or thought. Iniquities whether small or great. Iniquities of the past and the
present and the future. Second, bless Jehovah for healing
all your diseases. Consider verse 3. He heals all
your diseases. All diseases. Every one of them
is the result of Adam's transgression, sin, and fall in the Garden of
Eden. In his original created state,
there was no sickness. There was no pain. There was
no infirmity, no malady. God created man and he was perfect. No sin, no sickness until Adam
sinned. And then the curse fell upon
mankind that by the sweat of your brow you shall eat your
bread. The ground will yield forth thorns
and you have just opened the casket. of diseases and maladies
and infirmities. And so it was that when Adam
sinned, all these maladies, all these illnesses, all these sicknesses
came upon mankind. But Jehovah heals us through
Jesus Christ. His name is Jehovah-Raphael,
the Lord who heals. is Exodus chapter 15 verse 26. That's His name! Jehovah who
heals? None can except Jehovah. Jesus Christ is the Son of Righteousness
with healing in His wings. Consider the sun on a somewhat
cloudy day and you see a ray here and a ray there piercing
through the clouds Such a welcome sight, is it not? I hope that
one of those rays will fall upon my house and stay on this somewhat
cloudy day. Well, Jehovah shall arise in
the person of Jesus Christ as the Son of Righteousness with
healing in His wings. Jesus Christ arises and the rays
from His wings are healing. He has come to heal His people.
He is the Great Physician who healed all who came to Him. Notice,
He healed all who were sick. Matthew 8, verse 16. He never
told a sick person. I think we need to do some research
on this. I'm not really sure what you
have. No. He never told a sick person.
Sorry to inform you, this is terminal. And there's no cure? No. All who came to him in faith,
he cured them of their disease, whatever it was. And he never
charged a single red cent. Never charged. He did not have
to publicize. Everybody else did. They told
what he was doing. They brought their sick to him.
But Jesus never told anyone, I'm not healing you. You don't
have enough money. You're not sick enough or whatever.
He is the great physician who healed all who came to him. How
did he do so? He paid for their iniquities
with his own blood. He suffered in full all their
diseases and all their infirmities. And on Calvary when he died,
every sickness, every infirmity of mankind was suffered by him. He even suffered when he was
on this earth healing people. You will recall that the woman
who had the issue of blood came and unbeknownst to him, more
or less, she touched the hem of his garment. and was healed. And Jesus said, someone touched
me. Well, of course, Lord, there's
a crowd around you. No, no, no, no. Someone touched
me. How do you know? I felt the power
leave my body. When Jesus healed, took something
from him. When he healed, it is said on
one occasion that when he was healing people and doing good
for them, he lifted his eyes to heaven and moaned because every time
Jesus healed a disease, that disease was laid on him. He suffered for our diseases
and not just our iniquities, but also for our infirmities. He Himself bore our infirmities
and bore our sicknesses in Matthew 8, verse 17. By His stripes we
are healed because of Jesus Christ. If God ever heals you, and He
will, if you're one of those who blesses
Him, But when He heals you, He did it through Jesus Christ.
And if He heals you of your infirmity, it is because Jesus Christ suffered
that infirmity for you so that you could be healed from it.
Jesus here is healing all diseases. Now these are primarily our spiritual
diseases. We are all afflicted with spiritual
leprosy. Unclean we are. have to live
outside the camp. Every one of us, we are all as
an unclean thing and all our righteousness are as filthy rags. We were afflicted with spiritual
deafness. Jesus called and we could not
hear. We were afflicted with spiritual
blindness. He says, look to me and be saved.
We cannot because we're blind. He says, call upon me and I'll
save you. We cannot because we're mute. Come to me and I'll save
you. We cannot because we're lame. So Jesus comes, pronounces the
leprous to be clean, opens the deaf ears, opens the blind eyes,
opens and loosens the mute tongue, and give strength to the feet
so that we run to Him, hearing Him, seeing Him, and singing
His praise. He heals also all our physical
diseases, all our physical diseases, every one of them. My son was afflicted with normal
childhood Sicknesses and diseases, the same ones that you have.
And the Lord healed him of those diseases. And then in his middle
age, he was stricken with an infirmity and it was said to
be terminal. And it sent him to a deathbed. And that disease, cancer, was
not cured on this earth, a physical disease. He had it until he breathed his
last on his deathbed, closed his eyes here on earth. in a body still riddled with
cancer. He opened his eyes in glory and
he's like that man who was healed through the hand of Peter and
John of whom we read he was walking and leaping and praising God. No more cancer. Folks, think
about it. No cancer in heaven. You have a heart attack here
that slowed you down? There are things you cannot do
now because of some stroke you had or whatever? You awaken in
heaven and no more. Walking and leaping and praising
God. There is no health care facility
in heaven. No physician. No nurse. No ambulance. No siren. They're
none because He heals all your physical diseases as well. He
heals all your diseases. Number three, bless Jehovah for
redeeming your life from destruction. Redeeming your life from destruction. What is this destruction? The
pit of destruction which is hell. Psalm 55 verse 23. It is the place of future punishment
for the wicked. And all who die in their iniquities,
he redeems your life from destruction. Jesus. I love this. Listen. Jesus redeemed his people
from destruction by becoming the destruction of their destruction. Let me repeat that. Jesus redeemed
his people from destruction by becoming the destruction of their
destruction. Now listen to what he says. I
will ransom them from the power of the grave. I will redeem them
from death. And then he says, O death, I
will be your plagues. Death, you have been a plague.
I'm coming for you and I will be your plagues. O grave, I will
be your destruction. You have destroyed many, but
I will be your destruction. He fulfilled, so that we now
say, O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not looking forward to it.
If the Lord wants me to live, I'll be glad to do so. But when
the moment comes, I'm not afraid of it. Why? It no longer has a sting. It's
gone. Why is death stingless? Because on Calvary Death came
and gave the sting to Jesus. And it was somewhat like the
sting of a honeybee. A honeybee can sting only once,
and then the sting is gone. A wasp or a hornet just may sting
over and over and over again, but this honeybee stings only
once. Well, that's what the sting of
death was. It occurred only once. Therefore,
death cannot sting me. Jesus Christ suffered the sting
of death for me. He satisfied every requirement
of the law against God's people. He suffered the plague and the
sting of death they deserve. And now he says to death, I am
now the death of death. He does not say, I will kill
death. He says, no, no, no. I am the
death of death. I am the destruction of destruction,
not merely the destroyer of destruction. I am destruction's destruction. I am death's death. It all ended in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, people are through
Him redeemed from destruction. Jehovah redeems the soul of his
servants and none of those who trust in him shall be condemned. The redeemed respond that you
have delivered my soul from death. Have you not kept my feet from
falling that I may walk before God in the light of the living?
We're going to walk in the light of the living. What is that?
It's Jesus Christ. He who is the light of the world,
he says, if you walk in me, you'll not walk in darkness. When John beholds the holy city,
he says, I saw no light there for the Lamb is the light. He who is our light here on earth
will be our light there in heaven. Number four, bless Jehovah for
crowning you with loving kindness and tender mercies. Notice verse
4, latter part. He crowns you with loving kindness
and tender mercies. Now, when God created man, man was said to have been crowned
with honor and glory. In the Garden of Eden, God crowned Adam and said, You
are king of the earth. And he was. He was. Crown him
with glory and honor. All these animals, they're afraid
of you. They'll do what you say to do.
You are the king, crowned with glory and honor. Then the devil
came along and man took off his crown and gave it to Satan. I will serve you. We now run
under Satan's dominion, the god of this age, the ruler of the
present age. That's our state by nature. We
no longer wear the crown that God gave to us in the Garden
of Eden. Rather, we gave that crown to
the devil, and now we by nature are his servants. But Jesus Christ came. And he took that crown from Satan,
and now it is on his head. We do not see man crowned with
glory and honor, but we see Jesus, the writer says, crowned with
glory and honor, who tasted death for every man whom God would
save. And he did! And therefore, because
He is crowned with glory and honor. He has the crown that
we should have had. He, the man of men, he therefore
crowns us. And we shall be kings and rule
and reign with him for a thousand years. But not only that, he
crowns with loving kindness and tender mercies. Notice, he does
not crown merely with kindness, but loving Kindness. Kindness is not always loving. On the last day of office, the
president may grant pardons to a bunch of criminals. And
I mean some very bad folk. He may grant pardons. Why is
he doing it? Because he loves them? No, he's
trying to ingratiate himself. Did I say that? He's trying to make himself look
good on his last day in office. All right? And so, you know,
what does he do? He starts passing out pardons, turning men loose
and free. He's being kind, but there's
not a whole lot of love mixed in this. He does not even know
who these people are. He's just being kind. Jehovah
crowns you with loving-kindness. He is kind to you because He
loves you. Consider what else we read of
this. He crowns with mercies, not merely mercy, but mercies,
plural, and they are tender. They are tender. Mercies are
not always tender. A mortal may show mercy hesitatingly. Please forgive me. Well, I don't
really want to, but okay. That's not really tender mercy,
is it? Are you not glad that Jehovah's
mercy to you is so tender? When He gives mercy to you, He's
tender and kind and loving and so doing. Then the fifth, satisfying
you with goodness, verse 5, He satisfies your mouth with good
things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. Now,
consider this, that nothing on earth satisfies. Read Ecclesiastes. Read what was written by the
wisest man on the earth. Read of a man who was so rich
that gold in Jerusalem was like the stones in the street. Read
the man who satisfied himself or tried with every sensual pleasure
there is. Read of a man renowned for his
fame, his wealth, his wisdom, and his possessions. And he considers
all these things and finally concludes, Vanity! Vanity is just a blowing
of the wind. It's just a breath. I tried to find happiness in
that. It eluded me. In this, it eluded me. In yonder,
it eluded me. One may be famous today, but
fear of being forgotten after he dies. I was on a West Indian
island once with Todd Niberty and I had gone down to preach
in a certain island and it was always a joyous occasion. Todd
was probably my favorite travel companion. And we would preach
in the evenings and fellowship during the day. And I recall
a conversation we had where Todd mentioned to David, of whom it
is said, He served his generation. So I said, Moose, that's all we're called to do.
We're not interested and overly concerned about leaving a legacy. And it's true. It's true. We're
here to serve our generation. I am here to serve you, the people
of my generation, all of you who are here. Now, 50 years from
now, someone's going to come across some kind of a record
that says, Daniel Parks pastored Sovereign Grace Church. Who? Daniel Parks. Who was he? We do not know. So it is. I was not put here to serve some
future generation. So I realize that very shortly
after I die, I'll be forgotten. Some people cannot cope with
that. Some people are doing all they can to make sure that when
they're dead, a hundred years later, somebody knows they were
here. Now, we're not concerned about
that. He satisfies us with goodness
and fame cannot satisfy. One may obtain great wealth in
this life and then realize, what's going to happen to this
wealth when I'm gone? I cannot take it with me. I mean, you know, you never saw a Brinks armored
truck following a hearse, did you? You never saw one of those,
did you? No! You're not taking it with
you, folks. And some rich people are afraid
to give it to their children because they know it's going
to get squandered. It took me so long and it was
such a hard labor to accumulate this wealth and these children,
I know what they're going to do with it. It's going to be
gone. So, you know, hey, listen, folks, you cannot find happiness
in wealth. You cannot find happiness in
your good appearance. Now, you may do all you can to
keep yourself looking young, but it's a losing battle, and
you're going to lose it. The older people in this congregation
were once beautiful young people, and the young people are one
of these days going to look like us old people. It's gone. It's temporary, folks. There's
nothing you can do about it. Do not look for happiness in
your good looks. It's not going to happen. Do
not look for happiness in your sensual pleasures. There are a number of occasions
when I have walked up the steps from my study into the kitchen
and said, babe, I can smell it downstairs. Whatever you're cooking,
I can smell. It's just gone through the whole
house. Of course, you know that happens
when you have a furnace. It's intaking here and throwing
it out somewhere else. So she's cooking in the kitchen,
and I'm In another room, we're shook by doors and steps, but
the fragrance from her pots and pans are coming right into my
study. And I've got to run up, what
are you cooking? What are you cooking? It smells so good. Well,
there's going to come a day when I'm going to walk up the steps
and into the kitchen and say, are you cooking? I can't smell
it. It's going to be like COVID in
the old age when you can no longer smell and taste like you used
to. A steak no longer tastes as good
when you're missing your teeth, when your taste buds have become
dull, when your sense of smell has become weak. No. If you have sensual pleasures
now, enjoy them while you can because there's coming a day
when they're gone. Happiness is not found in any
of these. But Jehovah satisfies the desire
of his people with good things. All these benefits and so much
more. Their youth is renewed like the
eagles. It is not that the eagle in its
old age becomes young again, but it means that in our old
age, we're going to be like young eagles. They that wait upon the
Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings
like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
Sixth and last, bless Jehovah for delivering you from oppression.
Jehovah executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. The ungodly may wrongly and unjustly
persecute and prosecute Jehovah's people, but he will graciously,
righteously, and justly execute righteousness and justice against
their oppressors, but he will deliver his people from them.
One of the foremost examples of this is with the children
of Israel. For years, for years in Egypt,
they suffered oppression, slavery, being made to do all the labor
of Egypt. They cried for deliverance. Jehovah
heard their cry and prepared Moses to lead them. We read in
verse 7 of our text here that he made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the children of Israel. And notice the difference. Notice
the difference. Moses knew God's ways. Israel saw God's acts. He made known his ways to Moses. He showed his acts to the children
of Israel. For example, at the Red Sea.
Now the children of Israel have been liberated from Egypt, they
have been brought out of Egyptian bondage, and now they're on their
way to the promised land. And Pharaoh realizes what a mistake
he had made. So he gets all his chariots And
what was left of his army, for the Lord had already done a great
destruction, what was left of his army, he goes off in hot
pursuit with his chariots against the children of Israel. And there
he has them in the wilderness. They have been driven as it were
into a wedge with the sea on one side and the mountain on
the other. They cannot swim the sea, they
cannot cross the mountain, and Pharaoh is coming from behind. And the children of Israel see him
coming, running to and fro, trying to
find some way to get an escape, wringing their hands in despair. And Moses stands between them
and the Red Sea and says, Stand still! Moses, what are you talking
about, stand? Do you not see what's coming
up behind us? Do you not see that sea we cannot
cross, the mountains we... We're going to perish! And you
say, stand still? Yes, I said, stand still! Why? See the salvation of Jehovah. You mean if we stand still, if
we do nothing, except stand still, we're going to see Jehovah's
salvation. That's what I said. Now, will
you stand still and watch what's going to happen? Well, God's
going to do something. And when God is done, you will
never see the oppressing Egyptians again. Moses, how can you know
that? It's in the script. God told me what he's going to
do. He revealed his ways to me. He didn't tell us. He told me,
Moses says. He told me what he was going
to do. He told me to stand here at the Red Sea. He told me to
tell you to keep quiet and stand still. And he told me that he's
going to make you walk through this red sea on dry ground and
then he's going to destroy your oppressors when they come after
you. Folks, it's impossible. It is physically impossible.
Moses is not ashamed or embarrassed to tell it because Jehovah has
already declared beforehand to Moses what God is going to do. God spoke to Moses face-to-face
as a man speaks to his friend. He didn't speak to Israel face-to-face. They were afraid he would. They
did not want to be in his presence and God just comes down and talks
to Moses face-to-face. Moses knows what God is going
to do before God does it. Israel does not know what God
is going to do until God does it. Then they see it. He made
known his ways to Moses. Made known his acts to the children
of Israel. And they saw it. They stood still.
Moses stretched his rod over the sea. And what happened? Bless
Jehovah for delivering you from oppression. Read that 15th chapter
of the book of the Exodus, perhaps the day before the day is over.
Oh, rejoicing, the horse and its rider, he is drowned in the
sea. He rescued us. He saved us. And so it is with Jesus Christ. Jesus sometimes will tell us,
Would you stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah? Lord,
do you not see the circumstance we are in? Do you not see the
trouble that is all around us? Yes, I see what's around you.
Just stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah. I'm going
to take care of your oppressors. Why is that? Jesus has had God's
ways made known to him. He knows what's going to happen,
and He, like Moses, is telling us, just stand still, you're
going to see the salvation of Jehovah. You will not know what
God is going to do until God does it. You may pray about this
and that, but you do not know what God is going to do until
God does it. Jesus knew from eternity. Now,
this is the way that we bless Him. And in these manners, Jehovah
blesses his people. As their king, he forgives them
of their offenses against him. As their physician, he heals
them of the diseases caused by their offenses. As their Redeemer,
he delivers them from the destruction their diseases merited. As their
Lord, he crowns them through grace to reign with Christ. As
their benefactor, he satisfies them with all that is good. As
their champion, he overthrows their oppressors. And you know
what? God forbid that we should enjoy
all these blessings and just not bless our blesser. Oh, let the blessed bless their
blesser. Oh, God, our Father, we bless
you. We bless you. We speak highly of you. We would
honor you. for all that you are doing for
us. To your glory in Jesus' name
we pray. Amen.