Good evening, brethren. I thought
I had a message. And, uh, I just, uh, I didn't think I
did. So I'm studying yesterday all
day and greater part of today. And, uh, just knowing about Jimmy
and knowing the troubles that some of you have and the sorrows
you've had, I wanted a message, a real message
for you. And I think the Lord did give
me a message. Before we turn to my text, I
want you to look with me at Isaiah 43. Just listen to that song. And
I want to read this to you. This is right where that song
comes from. You're very familiar with this.
Verse 1 says, But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O
Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have
redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine. When Thou passest through the
waters, I will be with Thee. And through the rivers, they
shall not overflow Thee. When Thou walkest through the
fire, Thou shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon Thee. For I am the Lord Thy God, the
Holy One of Israel, Thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Saba for thee. Let's turn now to Psalm 118. This is where my text will be.
And the song we just sang said that the Lord gives a song in
the night season and all through the day. We do have some night
seasons, don't we? Here's my text in verse 14. The Lord is my strength and song
and has become my salvation. Let's read a little bit before
this and after this just to get some context. Verse 13 says,
Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall, but the Lord helped
me. The Lord is my strength and song,
and has become my salvation. The voice of rejoicing and salvation
is in the tabernacles of the righteous. The right hand of
the Lord doeth vaguely. The right hand of the Lord is
exalted. The right hand of the Lord doeth
vaguely. I shall not die, but live, and
declare the works of the Lord. The Lord hath chastened me sore,
but he hath not given me over unto death. The Lord is my strength
and my song, and has become my salvation." We learn this the same way David
did. That is, through trials that
the Lord sends that are such that we find out we just don't
have strength. We find out that we're weak.
We're incapable of saving ourselves. And the Lord teaches us He is
our strength. Whenever the Lord first comes
to one of His children, this is what He does. You recall this. I like to think sometimes about how it was when I didn't know
the Lord and I didn't understand the Gospel and I couldn't look
into these Scriptures and make any sense of it. And then I just
know that somewhere along in there the Lord opened my eyes
and I began to hear and see and believe the Gospel. And I remember how it was at
the beginning The Lord works this in the beginning. He comes
to one of His elect and He begins to make us see the greatness
of our sins. What the psalmist says of the
nations is how we see our sins. He said there in verse 12, they
come past me about like bees. The Lord makes us see our sins
as numerous as bees. So many sins that even our best
deeds, our very best deeds are sin before Him. We're all as
an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags. We all do fade as a leaf, and
our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. And the way
the Lord makes us see our sin is by making us see His holiness. He turns you to the cross, and
He makes you begin to see Christ crucified, and makes you understand
that Christ was on that cross because God is holy. It took the Lord God sending
His own Son to save me from my sin. Nothing else would do. The Lord is merciful, He's long-suffering,
He's plenteous in redemption, but our Lord will not clear the
guilty. He will by no means clear the
guilty. And every child of God that He
saves must die. We must die under the justice
of God. There is no exception. Every
soul that sinneth must die. And the Lord shows us, He turns
us by the Spirit and makes us behold the Lord Jesus on that
cross laying down His life in place of His people and makes
us to understand that's what it took to put our sins away.
God's holy. When sin was found on His Son,
He wouldn't spare His own Son. And you begin to see your sins
and you become like Isaiah when he saw The Lord at high lifted
up and heard them declare, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of
heaven. And he said, woe is me. I'm undone. And you see that and you know
that about yourself. The reason that we have comfort The reason the Lord comes in
and comforts our hearts is because the Lord Jesus Christ went to
that cross. The sin of our very best deeds
had to be purged away. We had to have one that is the
author and finisher of our faith who believed God perfectly. and who suffered perfectly, and
who actually bore our sin, and actually bore the wrath of God
in our place, and actually put away our sin. And as He did it,
He did it from a holy heart in perfection, never looking away
from our God. And the Lord brings you to see
that One right there is the Holy One. There's only One. He's the
Holy One. We're not the Holy One. Not of
ourselves. And He makes you see that and
He brings you to cast all your care on Christ. You behold Christ
come out of that grave and go up into the glory. Look here
in verse 19. This is Christ speaking. Open
to me the gates of righteousness. I will go into them. I will praise
the Lord. This gate of the Lord into which
the righteous shall enter. I will praise Thee for Thou has
heard me and art become my salvation. The stone which the builders
refused has become the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord's
doing and it's marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the
Lord hath made. Day of grace, this day of salvation,
this eternal day of perfect righteousness accomplished by the Lord is the
day He made. We will rejoice and be glad in
it. And so beholding His holiness,
beholding Christ on the cross, the Lord brings us to rest all
in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that's not the only time
our Lord brings us to know our sin. That's not the only time
He brings us to know that Christ is our strength. We have to be
taught this over and over. He's going to grow His child.
We're just a baby when we begin. He's going to grow us up into
Him in all things. And one way He does this is through
the flood and the fire of trial and trouble. He's growing
us in the knowledge that our Redeemer is our strength. That's
the purpose of it. There's sore trials. There are
trials that make us see we don't have any strength in ourselves.
Verse 13, he said, Now it's thrust sore at me that I might fall,
but the Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength. You
remember Ahithophel. That was David's dear friend.
But he betrayed him. He just utterly betrayed David.
And when David's son Absalom stole the throne, Ahithophel
went to Absalom, and this is what he said. He said, let me
now choose out 12,000 men, and I will arise and pursue after
David this night. And I will come upon him while
he is weary and weak-handed. And I'll make him afraid. And
all the people that are with him shall flee, and I'll smite
the king on me." These trials make us weary and weak-handed. They make us weary and weak-handed. They make us afraid sometimes.
But that's the purpose. If we're going to find out that
we're weak, and something of how weak we are, God does that
on purpose. It's full Sovereign control of
our God is working it. It brings us into these things.
But He knows what we suffer. Our Lord Jesus Christ knows exactly
what we suffer. He has suffered everything that
His people suffer in a far greater way than we'll ever suffer it.
We won't ever suffer it like He suffered it because He suffered
it. If it's the devil's temptation
that's making you weak-handed. He knows that. Our Lord knows
what that's like. Scripture says, after His baptism,
the Lord Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted of the devil. He knows what that's like. If
it's betrayal of a friend, of a loved one, like Ahithophel
betrayed David, the Lord knows that. That was a picture of Judas
betraying our Lord Jesus. Yea, mine own familiar friend
in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted
up his heel against me." The Lord knows that. Is it sinners? Is it our sin
that's making us weak-handed and sore afraid? Consider Him
that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest
you become weary and faint in your minds. You've not yet resisted
unto blood striving against sin. Our Lord knows what that's like.
If it's being left alone when somebody you love has departed. He knows that. He said in John 16, 32, speaking
to his apostles, he said, Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now
come, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall
leave me alone. And yet, I am not alone, because
the Father is with me. Our Lord Jesus knows what that
is. And He's promised His people, I'll never leave you and I'll
never forsake you. We could go on all night talking
about our different trials and the things we suffer, but whatever
it is, brethren, the Lord knows it. He's walked where His people
walk as a man. He knows the weakness of our
flesh. He experienced it. When he told his apostles, the
Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, I know our Lord Jesus
is a sovereign God. But in the flesh, he experienced
exactly what that was. How weak our flesh is. How else
is this going to be true? We have not a high priest which
cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. That's our
weaknesses. All the infirmities our sin causes,
he knows he was touched with them. He was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
welcome to His throne of grace." It's a throne of grace. "...that
we might find help, that we may obtain mercy." We
need mercy. We're going to always need mercy.
"...and find grace to help in time of need." Go to Him. That's the purpose. Isn't that
the purpose? Wasn't that the purpose of God
when He first came to us and taught us our sins and showed
us Christ as our strength? Wasn't the purpose to draw you
to Christ? That's the purpose in every one
of these troubles we face, is to bring us to Him. Come to His
throne of grace to obtain mercy, to help in time of need. These trials exercise us. Go
with me to Romans 5. They exercise us and they teach
us how faithful God is. They teach us that everything
He's promised, He's actually doing it. Everything He's promised,
He's doing it. And this is how He's going to
grow us. In verse 1 he said, being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one
that wrought that peace. He is that peace. By whom also
we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and
rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We're looking forward
to a day when our Lord Jesus is going to bring us to where
He is, and we're going to be perfectly conformed to Him. We're
going to be perfectly righteous. Paul said in Galatians, by faith
we wait for the hope of righteousness. We're going to be perfectly righteous
one day. But we not only are rejoicing
that that's so right now, we not only have that hope for that
right now, here's something else we rejoice in. Verse 3, and not
only, but we glory in tribulations also. knowing that tribulation
worketh patience." That's waiting on the Lord. That's endurance. Trusting the Lord, waiting on
Him. And patience, experience. That's maturity. That's just
what it says. It's experiencing God's power
and God's grace. And experience hope. And hope
maketh not a shame, because the love of God is shed abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." The
Lord Jesus, by these trials and by Him coming and in your heart
making you to know He is your strength, He is your all, He's
growing you stronger in that hope. He's making you more patient
to wait on Him to come, He's making you experience His power
and His grace to do so. He's growing you in that hope. Because you know, if He did that
for me in this trial, He did it for me in the last one. He
did it for me again in this one. And every time I face a trial,
He keeps doing this for me. That just gives you greater hope.
He's going to bring me there. He's going to come and get me
and bring me there. And you see the next word in
Romans 5? He did this for us when we were
yet what? Without strength. Verse 6, when
we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. He's saying to us here, if He
did this for us when we had no strength, if He did this for
us when we were the ungodly, now that He's reconciled us and
made us friends with God and brought us into peace with God,
He did that by His death, we shall surely be saved by His
life. So He makes you see all over
again, over and over and over, He is all our strength. You know,
when Paul was talking about preaching, he said, we're not sufficient
of ourselves. He said, we don't have any sufficiency. That's not only true about preaching. That's true about everything
in our life. We have no sufficiency of ourselves.
Our sufficiency in everything is God. In everything. Paul said, when he had that thorn
in the flesh, you know why that thorn was given to him? Because
the Lord gave him an abundance of revelation. Do you want to
know the Lord more? Do you want Him to grow you in
grace and knowledge of Him more? He will, but you know what He
will do as well? He will give you trials and troubles,
because if He didn't, we would get puffed up over what He's
taught us. That's mercy. That's grace. And
when Paul prayed to have it removed, the Lord answered him, and He
said, My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength's made
perfect in weakness. How are we going to see His strength?
How are we going to know He's all our strength? How are we
going to rejoice to know we don't have any strength and He's all
our strength. It's by God showing us our weakness
and showing us He's our only strength. And so Paul having
experienced this many times, and I encourage you to read 2
Corinthians chapter 11 and see all those things that Paul And
he went through, you know, the stripes and the shipwrecks and
just the beatings and the arrests and all the things he suffered.
But he saw Christ being in strength so much that he was brought to
say, I'd rather glory in my infirmities. I'd rather glory in my total
weakness. That the power of Christ might
rest upon me. I take pleasure in infirmities.
in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses
for Christ's sake. Because when I am weak, then
I am strong. We have that backwards, don't
we? We think when we're strong, we think when we've got some
ability about ourselves and, oh, I'm strong in faith today. No, we're not. We're depending
on the arm of the flesh. But when we're down in the valley,
and we're at that place where we cannot so much as lift up
our head to God, and He makes you know His grace is sufficient,
that's when we're strong. That's when we're strong. When
Christ is your only strength, that's when we're strong. So
these trials and these troubles, they're mercies to us. They're
good for us, and they're needful. Anything that grows you in a
knowledge of Him and makes you see Him in a greater light, that's
a good thing. That's a good thing. Well, next
thing he says, there is the Lord is my song. The Lord made the
children of Israel see their utter weakness when they came
to the Red Sea. They could do nothing. They were
hemmed in on all sides, they could do nothing. He brought
them there. And then he told Moses, now tell everybody to
stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And when he carried
them across that Red Sea, split it wide open, dried it up so
they went across on dry ground, they got to the other side. The
Lord destroyed all Pharaoh and his army. Then sang Moses and
the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and Spake saying,
I'll sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath
He thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my
song, and He's become my salvation. He's my God. I'll prepare Him
a habitation. My Father's God, I will exalt
Him. He puts a song in our heart.
He puts a song on our lips when we go through these things. Don't
you find that to be so? We sing all along the way. He said there in verse 15, the
voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the
righteous. The voice of rejoicing, singing praise to God, is right
here in His tabernacle. That's what we just sang, His
praises. And in the houses that His grace
is upon for you that believe, you sing of Him. You praise Him. Why? Just the same reason Moses
said, the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly. When are we
going to see that? When are we going to know that?
When we don't have any strength. And He's brought us right through.
That's putting the song on our heart. putting the song on our
lips. Our song is all about the author
and finisher of our faith. Our song is all about the right
hand of the Lord. It's the right hand of the Lord,
the Lord Jesus Christ who's done valiantly. Our song is of His
immutable grace, how it changes not. Of His never-ending tender
mercies. Our song is of His sovereignty
and how He rules everything on behalf of His people. I gave
nations for you, He said. You're precious in my sight.
I'm not precious in my sight. I see too much of my sin, and
sadly, there's times I do think myself too precious. But in God's
sight, God said, you're precious in my sight. That's where I want
to be found precious, in His sight. In His sight. We're singing the song of His
faithfulness. We're singing the song of His
perfection. We're singing the song of His wisdom and His righteousness
in everything He's done for us. Two different places the Spirit
moved Paul to exhort the brethren to sing. One of them is in Ephesians
5.19. He said, Speak to yourselves
in Psalms. and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving
thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Sing unto yourself. Sing unto
your own self. Just when you're alone. And when
you're with your brethren that are going through anything, sing
to them. And give thanks in all of it.
Praise the Lord in all of it. He said in Colossians 3.16, Let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching
and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. We have a lot to be singing about. We have a lot to praise Him for. He said through Paul, in everything
give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you. It's
His will for us to give thanks concerning everything, and in
everything that's happening in our life, that's the will of
God concerning you. Whatever it is, happy, sad, whatever,
it's what God willed for you. Whatever He saw fit to send us,
brethren, at any time in our life, you could not be given
anything more needful and more better than what it is the Lord
has given you. He wouldn't have given it otherwise.
That's so. That's so. This is what Spurgeon
said. He said, bless God for aching bones. Bless God for a
weary head. Bless God for troubles and trials.
For he who can so praise the Lord is singing a truer and more
acceptable song than youth and health and happiness can present. You can sing when in trouble.
And you can sing when you're crying. And you can sing when
you're down. And really and truly thank God
for sending you what you're going through. That's grace in the
heart. That's grace in the heart. You
know, and when we're troubled and when we're in sorrow, don't
you still have joy in your heart? I mean, I'm not talking about
joy like the world talks about and, you know, going around hoopty-doing. I'm talking about you're sad,
you've got real tears, and you've got real bonafide trouble. But even then, in your heart,
You know, it's going to be okay. Underneath of the everlasting
arm, our Lord's ruling this. He laid down His life for me.
It's okay. You have that joy no matter what. He's provided a whole book of
songs for us to sing in the Psalms. And He's provided some really
good hymn writers where we can just sing some of their song
to ourselves. Listen to this song right here. In all my troubles and distress,
the Lord my soul does own. Jehovah does my griefs redress
and make His mercy known. He helps me on Him to rely. He is my strength and tower.
It is He that hears me when I cry and manifests His power. In every
storm, in every sea, my Jesus makes a way. His light shall
make the darkness flee and turn the shade today. Tis He in trouble
bears me up and leads me safely through. My Jesus does maintain
my cup and daily strength renew." That's a good song. Find a good
song. with some words that just bless
your heart and just sing those songs. Sing those words. If you
can't carry a tune, it don't matter. Just sing those blessed
words and meditate on those words. Another thing this includes is
when you're renewed by the Lord, When you've been through some
sort of trial and He's renewed you and shown you afresh His
grace and His mercy and full salvation we have in Christ,
doesn't that renew you to want to obey Him? It gives you new
strength and new zeal to want to obey Him. If you needed mercy, and the Lord showed you mercy,
and He used some of your brethren to show you mercy, That just
makes you love mercy. That makes you want to be merciful. If the Lord was full of pity
toward you and full of compassion toward you and provided you brethren
that were pitiful toward you and compassionate toward you,
that just makes you want to be compassionate to others. It makes
you, also it makes you look at times you haven't and say, Lord,
forgive me. Forgive me. You don't want to go around talking
about your brethren, talking about their trouble. If you experience
that, that makes you realize that's hurtful, that's painful.
And the Lord makes you say, I don't want to do that. If I want to
speak, if I want to say something, I want to speak to my brother
or my sister and tell them what the Lord's done for them. That's how the Lord keeps growing
us. He's weaning us a little bit
more from this world. He's weaning us a little bit
more from it. And He's making us see Him a
little better and want to be with Him a little more. And He
just keeps on doing it and keeps on doing it and keeps on doing
it so that the Lord is my strength and my song. Now lastly, The
Lord is become my salvation. And what do you think about that
wording? When you read that, what do you think about that?
You know, David didn't pin this. I think it's David. Everybody
thinks it is. It sounds just like some other
Psalms he's written. But he didn't write this at the
beginning. He was an age believer when he
wrote this. And he says, the Lord has become
my salvation. Didn't He do that when He first
called you? Didn't He make you say, the Lord
has become my salvation when He first called you? Yeah. But
in every one of these troubles you go through, you come out
of it. Or not even come out of it. He can just do this while
you're still in the trouble. And make you see Him like you've
never seen Him before. And make you feel like, this
is the first day I really knew the Lord. He's become our salvation
today. Is that real? To whom coming? We never stopped
coming to Him. We never stopped learning of
Him. He says this over and over to us. He didn't just say this
the first hour. He says this right now. In whatever
trouble you're in, right now. Whatever burden He got on you,
right now. Whatever is making you sorrowful and making your
heart break, right now. This is what He said. Come unto
Me. All you that labor and are heavy
laden, I'll give you rest. He don't stop saying that to
us. And we say, oh, He's my strength and He's my song and He's become
my salvation. We're so thankful that the Lord
is purged away our sin and made us the righteousness of God in
Him. But He is the Lord our righteousness. Our righteousness is Him. He
is our salvation. We're so grateful, we're thankful
that the Lord has entered into our heart and spirit and He's
taken dominion and He's separated us from sin's dominion and He's
promised that He will not again let sin have the dominion over
you. He won't let you fall away. He's
going to keep you. And we're so grateful for that.
But it's the Lord who is our sanctifier and our sanctification. It's the Lord who is our salvation. We're thankful that he redeemed
us from the curse of the law. We think about that and we think
what amazing grace that he was made a curse for us to redeem
us from the curse. And we rejoice in that. But He's
the Redeemer. He's my salvation. He is. Remember, notice it's true in
each of these here. The Lord is my strength. He doesn't
say the Lord gives me strength. He said the Lord is my strength.
He doesn't say the Lord puts a song in my heart the way He
does. He said the Lord is my song. The Lord is my salvation. He said to Abraham, Fear not,
Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. I am. In what way is Christ our salvation? In what way is He our salvation?
I've got three things to say about this. First of all, He's
our temporal salvation. And in this life, every day,
the things we need, He's our temporal salvation. He's guiding
us. He's protecting us. He's providing
for us every step through this life. I wish I could stop murmuring
when things don't go exactly like I want it. Because it's
going exactly like He purposed it. And He's providing everything. He has spared not His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all. How shall He not with Him freely
give us all things? I love that illustration that
Don used to give about Doug. Took him out to his shop and
said, here's the keys to it. Anything you want, you can come
in here. It's yours. He said his mouth fell open.
He said, I gave you my daughter. You don't think I'll give you
your ranch? The Lord gave His Son to give
us whatever we need. He's our spiritual salvation.
He's our complete acceptance with God. He is the reason God
says, come to my throne of grace. He's our great high priest. It's
through His blood, through what He accomplished at Calvary, it's
by His Spirit that we know Him. Everything about our salvation
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our spiritual salvation.
We are accepted in the Beloved. Can you get over that? Accepted
in the Beloved. It's something else to think
about. He is our eternal salvation. For all eternity, we're going
to be saying, the Lord has become my salvation. Forever. It will never get old. Forever. So go to Psalm 37. This is what
I'm trying to say right here. That's what I'm trying to say.
Verse 5. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him. He shall bring
it to pass. He shall bring forth our righteousness
as the light. And not judgment as the noon
day. Committed to him. Committed all
to him. All right. Other ways?