If you will, take your Bibles
and turn with me to Psalm 129. 129. I don't remember the last
Psalm that I spoke here. I've had so many meetings, and
they've all been with these Psalms. But they're all recorded, so
you can go listen to them. But this morning, I'm going to
be preaching from Psalm 129. Many a time have they afflicted
me from my youth, may Israel now say. Many a time have they
inflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against
me. The plowers plowed upon my back,
They made long their furrows. The Lord is righteous. He hath
cut asunder the cords of the wicked. Let them all be confounded
and turn back that hate Zion. Let them be as the grass upon
the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up. Wherewith
the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his
bosom. Neither do they which go by say,
The blessing of the Lord be upon you. We bless you in the name
of the Lord. I invite you to turn back with
me now. Psalm 129. And I would ask that you try and put
yourself in the shoes of the pilgrim who with anticipation
is making his way to Jerusalem to partake of the typical feast
And as he does so, he begins to think about the world. The world who don't have an anticipation,
who don't have an invitation to go to Jerusalem and do what
he's doing. With anticipation, he makes his
way to Jerusalem to be a partaker of these typical feasts and see
the gospel of Christ as God set him forth as the propitiation
for his sins. The whole first part of Romans
24 and 25 is dealing with Old Testament saints being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus,
whom God has set forth to be the propitiation for our sins
through faith in His blood. Remission of what? Sins that
are past. He ain't talking about everybody's
past sins. He's talking about saints in
the past. Sins of men in the past put away. Well, how could they see Christ?
Christ hadn't come yet. God set Him forth. in the tabernacle,
and the sacrifices, and the priesthood, and all these things. And these
believers are singing about this. They understood that. They didn't
have the understanding we have, or the clearness of it revealed
as we have it since the Son of God has actually come, but they
had it. And they had it in figure and type. What peace? Well, the peace of
the Passover. When I see the blood, he said,
I'll pass over. the Feast of the Firstfruits,
the Feast of the Tabernacles, the Feast of Pentecost, all these
feasts. And oh, what a blessed, blessed
time it is when God's saints gather together to worship and
be taught of God from His Word. It's filled with heavenly treasure
and the Holy Ghost helps us to dig out that treasure. I love to watch I don't even
know the name of it. Anyway, they go out and mine
gold and different things. And every now and then, they'll
dig up a big nugget. And boy, they just go nuts, don't
they? Wow, look at this. And they'll weigh it and measure
it and show it and take pictures of it. That's what we do when
we find these nuggets in God's Word. We tell anybody that'll
listen, I want to show them. And it's a blessed time. And as they journeyed to God's
designated place of worship, they would sing these inspired
songs and call to memory all that God had done for them, all
that God was doing for them, and all that God had promised
yet to do. And they'd sing these songs. This will be the 10th of the
15 songs of degrees. We've been singing songs of deliverance,
songs of the keeper, songs of God's house, songs of heavenly
eyes, songs of God's intervention. We've been singing songs of assurance
and revelation and songs about the builder. Except the Lord
build the house, they labor and bang, they build it. And there's
nothing like the gospel to inspire, motivate, and cause the heart
to sing praise under our God and Savior. That's why we sing.
We're inspired. And this morning I want us to
turn our attention to a subject that most would rather avoid
or not think about at all. It's the song of troubles. The
song of a troubled heart. Our Lord said, in the world,
You shall have tribulation. What's that? Trouble. Trouble. Returning to Lystra and Iconium
and Antioch, Acts 14, 22, Paul exhorted them to continue in
the faith and told them that we must, through much trouble,
through much trouble, enter into the kingdom of God. There's going
to be trouble. Oh, I thought all the Lords,
they just happy, happy, happy, happy every day. Oh, my soul. That's not been my experience. In this world, you're going to
have trouble. And we, through much trouble,
must enter into the kingdom of God. And as it's said of the
victorious saints, standing there in the presence
of God. These are they that come up out
of great trouble, great trouble, and have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Trouble plays a
part in the salvation of our souls. It plays a part. Paul writes
in Romans 5.1, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have
access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice
in hope of the glory of God. Now watch this. And not only
so, but we glory in trouble. What troubles? Troubles in the world. Troubles
within, troubles without. We glory in tribulation also,
knowing that tribulation worketh patience. You know why? Because every time you get in
trouble, after you've suffered a while, He'll get you out. He'll
get you out. It ain't long, we're back in
trouble again, and He'll get you out. And every time He does,
you see this on and on and on, He's proven His faithfulness
to you. He's a faithful Savior. He said,
I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. And He
comes and He gets you out of trouble, and after a while you've
got patience. Patience. You're waiting on the
Lord to come. And then when He comes, He says
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. And there's good news in our
troubles. Our Lord speaks in Revelation 2 to the church of
Smyrna. And he said, I know thy works
and thy trouble and thy poverty. I'm fully aware of it. Now, he
said, you be aware of this. You're rich. You're rich. God, who is rich in mercy and
for the great love wherewith he loved us even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. And
He did that, that in the ages to come He might show to us the
exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through
Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. Quibbling
over who was used as a means of their salvation, as though
some men added something to it. Paul said to the church, let
no man glory in men. Don't glory in men. Oh, they
saw Peter and the miracles he performed and everybody got down
to his feet like they were going to pray to Peter. And he said,
get up, get up. I'm not God. I'm just a man. You don't worship me, you worship
him. Let no man glory in men, for
all things are yours. Whither call, Can I say that
Paul is mine? If I believe what he said, I
can. Do I believe that God inspired
the Apostle Paul to speak to me? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Huh? Listen to this. All things are yours whether
Paul or Apollos? You mean preachers? Not even
apostles? You mean preachers? You can say
that of a preacher? God called him just for me? Absolutely
I can. That's why in Romans 10 where
he said, How are you going to call on him in whom you have
not believed? How are you going to believe
in him of whom you have not heard? And how are you going to hear
without a preacher? As it is written. Now listen. How beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of Nobody's ever told
me how beautiful my feet are, but they have. They have, when
they heard the gospel. That no man glory in men, all
things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world. You mean the world is mine? It
is in Christ. It is in Christ. He orders everything
in this world for our good and His glory. Everything. They're down here quibbling over
these little petty things, and God said, don't you know you
shall judge angels? And that's not all of it yet,
whether Paul, or Apostle, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world,
or life. Why? For death, even death, is mine. For things present are things
to come. All are yours, and ye are Christ's,
and Christ is God's. Don't put no stock in me. Don't
put no stock in me. He said, I know your works, and
I know your trouble, and I know your poverty, but you're rich.
You're rich. Brethren, it's not our troubles
that cause us to sing, but the one who sends them and controls
them and delivers us out of them and accomplishes His purpose
in them. That's why we sing. That's why
we come to glory in tribulations. So let's look at this Song of
Ascension and see if the Lord will teach us to sing it. It
begins in verse 1. Many a time have they afflicted
me from my youth, may Israel, all of God's elect now say. Many
a time have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they've not
prevailed against me. The plowers plowed upon my back. They made long their furrows. What's he talking about? He's talking about false religion.
He's talking about that bondage we're in and that one Satan whom
we serve. You're of your father the devil,
the lust of your father you'll die. And if you don't, If you
don't, just like Egypt, that taskmaster will grab that whip
and he'll lay your back open. And this world will too. This
world will too. The law, my soul. You think the
law was a good husband? Man, the law had a whip. You do this or else, or else. Oh, these are troubles. Troubles
within. Troubles that dwell in us. Trouble
that lives nearby. What kind of troubles? Well,
let's think about the trouble within. David said, my sin is
ever before me. It never leaves. It never leaves. I can be on my best behavior. I can be studying the Word of
God. And things just, boy, they're just clicking and coming and
my heart's so blessed. I'm out on the river somewhere. Thinking things ought to be,
I'm glad our hearts ain't TV so everybody can watch them. David said, my sin, my wicked
lust, and desires, and greed, and covetousness, and envy, and
pride, and unbelief, ignorance. Oh, wretched man that I am, Paul
cried. Not that I used to be, that I
am. My sin, my sin, it's ever before
me. This is trouble. Trouble is my
heart. John writes in his first general
epistle, if we say we have no sin, who'd say such a thing? Nazarenes. I grew up in a Nazarene
religion. They believe in a second definite
work of grace. That is through your obedience
and through your following what they tell you, you can get to
this plateau and if you reach that, God sanctifies you and
you can't sin again. All right? Listen, if we say
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. We don't know anything about
sin and we don't know anything about a holy God. All of this world's religion
is a religion of lies. They don't know the truth. But
that's not all. John says again, if we say we
have not sinned, we make him a liar. I've heard men say, men that
ought to know better, I have no desire to sin. Do what? Paul said he did. When I would do good, evil is
present in me. That which I would do, I don't
do. What I wouldn't do, that's what I do. You don't do what
you wouldn't do unless you desire to do it. I've got no desire
to sin. Well, you're a liar. That's all
I can tell you. Grace or no grace, you're a liar. Believers are restrained by the
love of God and by a bit of gratitude and honor and even a godly fear,
but they still lust and desire the things of the flesh. David was a man after God's own
heart, and he's up there and he's watching another man's wife
take a bath on the roof. Well, he didn't turn his back,
go back, no, stood up there and watched her. And then he said, well, I'm the
king. Good to be king. I can do anything I want to.
I'm going to have her. And so he did. And then her husband
come back, ruined the whole thing. And he said, well, I'm the king. I'll just get rid of him. I'll
just get rid of him. So he told his captains, next
time you get in a fierce battle, you all back off and just leave
him out And he died. And then the prophet,
God sent him a prophet. And he gave him an illustration
defining exactly what David did. And David got angry and said,
you bring that man here right now. I'll take care of this.
He said, thou art the man. And boy, he melted. Don't tell me, say people don't
have a desire to sin. That's ridiculous. There'd be
no need for grace if that were true. I need grace, everyday
grace. I need forgiveness, everyday
forgiveness. I don't need to go back 25 years
and talk about something that happened to me. I need right
now, everyday, every minute, every hour, Paul talked to the Galatians,
here's what he said, he said, walk in the Spirit. What's that
mean? That means looking to Christ.
Loving Christ, resting in Christ, rejoicing in Christ. Walk in
the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
What lust? I thought we didn't have any
lust. Ain't what the Word of God says,
is it? For the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary
the one to the other, so that we cannot do the things that
we would. I can't be as evil as my flesh wants me to be, and
I can't be as holy as the Spirit of God would have me to be. I
can't do either one. To walk in Christ by the Spirit
is to have the fruit of Christ. Love. joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. I can't
have or produce such things except in Christ, and inward troubles
are a result of a fallen nature. We all had our conversation in
time past in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in trespasses and sins, quickened us together with Christ,
raised us up together with Christ, and set us together with Him
in heavenly places. And to that end, And in His own
time, He'll show us these things and give us the gracious gift
of Christ by faith. I hear a lot of talk about having
a new nature. Now I know I'm getting ready
to draw a bullseye on me. I'll get comments from everybody
in the country, but it's so inward. I hear a lot of talk about having
a new nature. Where does it say that? You show
it to me in the scripture. Where does it say that? Now you
better listen to me. If you had the very nature of
God, you'd never sin. You'd never think an evil thought. You'd never have an evil desire. Satan himself came to Christ
and examined him from head to foot and couldn't find anything
in him. That's the nature of God. I ain't
got that. Do you? If you had the nature of God,
you couldn't sin. God's not tempted with evil,
neither tempteth He any man. You can't tempt God. Oh, but you said Peter says we're
partakers of the divine nature. Well, turn over there and let's
see. 2 Peter 1. Beginning with verse
2. Turn over there. Let's take a
look at this. We're partakers of the divine nature. Peter writes to this church and
he said, Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge
of God and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power
hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. Are you listening? through the
knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue. Whereby, through this knowledge
of Him, are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises,
that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature. having
escaped the corruption that's in the world through lust. What
in the world is he talking about? He's talking about a man being
in Christ. That's what he's talking about. There's only one man who ever
had a divine nature, and that's Jesus Christ. Is that right? That's what the Scripture says.
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. Well how am I a partaker of the
divine nature? My soul, the divine nature is
what accomplished my redemption. I'm partakers of the divine nature
in that He justified me, He redeemed me, He reconciled me, He gave
me my righteousness. Now you start looking in here
for that and you're going to be looking in a black hole. It
ain't there. Now he talks about that old nature,
and then he points us to a divine nature, but don't start telling
me about that other nature you have. You ain't got any such
thing. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory, not a new nature. I guess so, and I know I've made
some enemies for life, but it's so anyway. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. The truth about regeneration
will set your soul free and it will give you a peace and a rest
and a joy that we read about so often in
the Scriptures. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 14, For
the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that
if one died for all, all his elect, all those given him by
the Father, then were all dead. And that he died for all, all
his elect, that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.
He's talking about love, gratitude, submission to him. Wherefore,
verse 16, henceforth know we no man after the flesh, that
is by his fleshly nature and how he appears in his outward
appearance. Man looks on the outward countenance,
God looks on the heart. Yea, though we have known Christ
after the flesh, saw him, heard him, touched him, yet now henceforth
know we him no more after the flesh. Now watch this. If any man be in Christ, in Him
by eternal election, in Him by divine predestination, in Him
by holy union, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. He's a new creation. One with
Christ. One with the Father, fully justified,
completely righteous, blessed with all spiritual blessings. Victorious over death, held in
the grave, sealed in Christ in the heavens. Sinless, victorious,
accepted in the beloved. My inabilities have been resolved
in Christ. My curse has been dealt with
in Christ. My sins are all put away in Christ.
The power of sin is broken in Christ. He took the strong man
down and spoiled his house. My sinnerhood no longer separates
me from God, but rather qualifies me for his grace. He told those self-righteous
Pharisees, he said, I'll have mercy and not sacrifice. You
go learn what that means. You go learn what that means.
I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repent. My sinnerhood
doesn't divide me from God. My sinnerhood qualifies me for
His grace. This is a faithful saying, worthy
of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save who? Sinners! Of whom I am chief. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. Old things are passed away. Old
reasoning gone out the door in it. Old inabilities have all been
overcome. Badgers, come out of that tomb.
He couldn't, but he did. Rise up and walk. He couldn't,
but he did. Old things passed away in Christ. All things become new. It's by way of these great and
precious promises of Christ that God has given us all things that
pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Him.
And the new man is not some invisible force in us causing us to want
this and want that and not do this and not do that. It's the
revelation of Christ and all sufficient accomplished redemption
And as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, that's how we walk
in Him. We're rooted and built up in
Him and established in the faith. I have no hope except Christ.
None. None whatsoever. And I'm going
to tell you something else. If the Holy Spirit were going
to give you a new nature, the very nature of God, there'd have
been no need for Christ to come. Is that right? If he's going to give you such
a nature as to obey his law in perfection, submit to God completely,
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, if he's going to do
that, then why would Christ come? Totally eliminates the reason
for his coming. He comes to save sinners. Oh, listen to me, all the fetters
by which they bound us, all the chains of darkness, all the bars
of our bondage, He cut us under in Christ. Ain't that what that
Psalm is talking about? Psalm 129.4, the Lord is righteous,
not us. Ain't none righteous, no, not
one. The Lord is righteous. He hath
cut us under the cords of the wicked. The more you know about Christ,
the more free you become. He said, if you continue in my
doctrine, you'll know the truth and the truth will set you free. Paul said, put off that old man,
that old man's reasoning and motives and doctrines and understanding
and his habits. Put off concerning the former
behavior, the old man which is corrupt according to deceitful
lust. Ephesians 4.22, and be ye renewed
in the spirit of your mind. And that you put on the new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Who's that? That's Christ. That's Christ. Christ in you, the hope of glory. In a righteous just and holy
redemption, he hath cut us under the cords of the wicked, And
now he says, verse 5, let them be confounded and turned back
that hate God's church, that hate the justified Zion. God's
elect have a common faith, a like precious faith. We endeavor to
keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. How? By
the means that God has provided. The Holy Spirit of God, the preaching
of the gospel, the church itself. the pillar and ground of the
truth, knowing that there's just one body, the church. One spirit, one hope of your
calling, Christ in you, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all, who's above all, through all, and in you
all. Don't come talking to me about four or five different
kinds of faith, there's just one faith. And that faith rests
in Christ. And as a pastor-teacher, I minister
for the perfecting of the saints, how they perfected in Christ.
God puts them in a perfect manner. I just explained about 300 pages of so many letters of writing
about these things. God put you in Christ. Now you're
perfect. Now you're perfect. Now you want
to see it over in Hebrews 10? perfected forever them that are
sanctified. I minister for the perfecting
of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying
of the body of Christ. Now watch this. Till we all come
in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ. And all those who preach something
else, he said, let them be confounded. And they are. No end to the variations
of religion. No end to their doctrines and
differences. The Bible weaves a garment that
will only fit one man. Religion weaves a one-size-fits-all. Let them all be confounded. confounded
that hates Zion. Let them be as the grass upon
the housetops. It don't get high enough to do
anything with. Grows up about that high and
dies. It withers before it reaches
maturity, not even fit to gather. And when exposed for what they
are, nobody should say to them, The blessing of the Lord be upon
you. You can read 2 John, he tells
us the same thing. If any man come unto you, and
he brings not the doctrines of Christ, don't bid him good day,
don't bid him Godspeed, don't invite him in, tell him goodbye.
Goodbye. Lest you be partakers of his
evil deeds. Oh great God in heaven, help
this poor sinner to learn a song of a troubled heart. A song that
turns tribulation into rejoicing. I can sing about tribulation
and glorify my God who delivered me out of it. And I'll tell you
something, you can't think about the God of glory and your salvation
without remembering where He found you and what He saved you
out of and saved you from. Oh, may God keep us to sing that
song.