Good morning, everyone. I was
telling someone earlier the first time I came here to preach was
a few months ago. I was so nervous that I couldn't
even probably remember my text. Seeing the folks that I've known
for some time again, and seeing some that was not here. But as we stand behind the pulpit, We are to be nervous all the
time because of the responsibility that is laid before us. And we
don't take this lightly. God has given an understanding
that this is something God does, and only God can do it, and we're
thankful for it. As our brother read to you in
the book of Limitations, I'm going to pick up right there
where he left off, Limitations 3. And the religious world says,
God don't do that. If you read down through what
Jeremiah said, and as our brother read it just a few minutes ago,
how often he said, He, He laid me in the darkness. He has built
it against me. And the religious of our day
says, oh, God only does good things. This pandemic is something
Satan does. Oh, no. Oh, no. Our God is in
control. And everything that happens in
this world today, God is in control of it. And if we understand that,
then it will give us hope and peace. And what I want to try
to look at here this morning is the believer's hope. Jeremiah
said, there's no hope for me. My hope is gone. My strength
is gone. My hope is perished from the
Lord, in verse 18. Isaiah, when he saw the Lord
and all of His holiness, Isaiah said, I'm a man cut off. I'm
cut off. And I have no strength and no
hope. These were men that God chose from the beginning of the
foundation of the world, and made them great men in history,
and they see themselves as they are. They see themselves as sinful,
wretched, vile creatures, and they see the holiness of God,
and they cry out, I'm cut off. There's no strength or hope for
me. I read some words this week The
writer said, God has hedged us about on one side with promises
of mercy, lest we despair. And he has hedged us about on
the other side with warnings, lest we presume. Well, I've been
in church all my life. I read the Bible, surely I'm
saved. Paul said, examine yourself,
whether you be in faith. Examine yourself. It's not something
for the pastor to do, or the preacher to do, or for your friends
and neighbors to do. It's something we do here. What
dwells here in my heart? What do I think of the Lord Jesus
Christ? Who is He to me? This is personal. This is something personal. Peter
said, give diligence. Oh, make this thing a diligent
thing. to make your calling and election sure. Don't just presume
because you come to the house of the Lord, maybe even come
to the gospel with the priest, that you're one of his. When
we see ourselves in our nature, in our sin, in our inability,
how could we ever entertain a thought that we'd receive the blessing
of eternal life from a just God. I know something about what dwells
here. I don't know much about it, but
I know something about what dwells in this sinful flesh. Mr. John Newton wrote, Amazing grace,
how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. But he also
wrote this, to the point I long to know. Oft it gives me ancient
thoughts. Am I His or do I love the Lord
or not? Am I His or am I not? Does this
not run through our minds? When troubles and trials, as
Jeremiah went through here, he said, the Lord's cut me off.
There's no hope for me. I'm in a dark place where there's
no light. It always said in verse 19, remembering
my afflictions and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, my
soul has then filled in remembrance and is humbled in me. That's
what God brings troubles and trials to us for, for one of
the reasons to humble us. to cause us to put off this flesh,
to cause us not to have any dependency in the flesh, and to lean totally
and solely upon the Lord Jesus Christ, for there strength is. In myself there is no strength.
That's what Jeremiah said. I'm cut off. I have no strength. I have no hope. Oh, but when
we see the Lord, when God by His grace gives us a fresh vision,
of the Lord Jesus Christ, in His beauty, in His holiness,
in His reverence, in His power, then, for then our soul has hope
in Him. Lord, as long as we look into
this flesh, as long as we look here, if we find no strength
and we find no hope, I have five points to make, or six points,
I'm sorry, in verse 22 down to verse 26. There's six statements
here of the believer's hope. The first one is in verse 22. It is of the Lord's mercy that
we're not concerned. That's our hope. That's our hope. David said in Psalm chapter 51,
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness, according
to the multitude of Thy tender mercies. Blot out my transgression. Lord, my sin, my shortcomings,
my failures is against the Lord. My sin is against God and God
alone. Oh, we wrong people. Our neighbors,
our friends, we wrong them, but our sin, our sin is something
against God. God is the Holy One, and we are
the sinful creatures. David does not ask for justice.
David was one of the greatest men in Scripture. If you read
through David's life, David was one of the greatest men in all
of the Scripture. But yet he saw himself a sinner,
a sinner. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." So what he's just
talking about when he sinned with Bathsheba, no, David's considering
his whole life here. Everything that had took place
in his whole life. And he says, against thee and
thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.
That thou must be justified when thou speakest, and clear when
thou judgest. Our sin is against God, and He
would be just to condemn us. But we cry as the prophet did.
We cry as the old writers in Holy Scripture. Have mercy upon
me. If God should mark an iniquity,
who should stand? Oh, but there is forgiveness
with thee. This is our hope. This is our
hope. It is of the Lord's mercy that
we are not consumed. God would be just to consume
us and burn us into dust. But oh, because of His lovingkindness,
because of His goodness and His grace towards our undeserving,
hell-deserving people, we have this comfort, we have this confidence,
knowing that God will be merciful to me, a sinner. We must understand that this
thing of mercy It's totally undeserved. Totally undeserved. Paul said,
"...and you have he quickened who were dead and trespassing
the sin." That's our nature. That's how we came forth from
the womb. That's who we are within ourselves. We stand dead. And
men around us say, oh, dead don't mean dead. Yes, dead means dead.
Brother Donnie Bell said, double dog dead. We were dead and trespassing
the sin. We had no ability. does are we
had no thoughts toward god our thought was as he said in verse
two were in a compact we walk according to the court of this
world according to the prince of pariah that the spirit of
our work in the children's disobedience among whom we all had our conversation
in time flat every one of us had our conversations in in time
has been a lot of our play fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind and were by nature Children of wrath, even as others.
That's a picture of you and I by our nature, or in our nature,
outside of the grace of God. Oh, but he said, but God. Here's
our hope. This is our hope. But God, who
is rich in mercy, for his great love for which he loved us. Who
is this? This is everyone that he chose.
before the foundation of the world. Who they are? I believe
I've met some of them. I believe I know some of them.
But there's many that I have never met, many that I will never
know. But God does. God chose them,
each and every one of them, particularly. He says, you're mine. Come out
from among them and be a separated people. I am your God and you
shall be my people," said the Lord. Mercy belongs to God to
do with as He sees fit. God is a sovereign God. He does
things according to His own good pleasure. I mean, so I don't
like that word sovereign. That means that He reigns and
rules. That's exactly what it means. It means that he is in
complete control of all things, and he does things according
as his own pleasure desires to do, whether it be the saving
of the soul or the damning of the soul. This is God's work. Mercy belongs to God. Paul said
in Romans chapter 5, For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy. And I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion. So then it's not of him that
willeth. Well, I've tried to do this, and I've tried to do...
It's not of him that willeth. It's not of him that runneth.
But it's of God that showeth mercy. Mercy belongs to God,
and God alone can extend it. And He extends His mercy to undeserving,
sinful, wretched, vile creatures just like me. He extends it in
and through the Lord Jesus Christ. God's mercy is only found in
Christ. It's only extended to the sinner
in Christ. If you are to have mercy, it
must be in and through Christ. Paul said in Titus chapter 3,
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his mercy he has saved us. and by the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly. For there is great sin, there
must be great mercy. For there is great depravity,
there must be great mercy. For there is great dishonesty,
this corruption, this defilement in us, it must be only the mercy
of God can take it away. which He has shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ, our Savior. That being justified by grace,
we are made ours according to the hope of eternal life. In
myself, I deserve, I deserve God's wrath. Every hour of every
day, even as we attempt to preach the gospel to His people, our
sins and our thoughts and our attitude is so full of this thing
of flesh that we deserve the wrath of
God. But my hope is that God will be merciful to me in and
through the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at the second phrase here
in verse 22. It is of the Lord's mercy that
we are not consumed. Because His compassion fails
not. They are new every morning. Not because my compassion fails
not. Not because my love fails not.
Because His compassion fails not. They are new every morning. For that I may understand, and
that I may see something of the love of God, and His love for
His people never fails, never fails. It's new every morning. He loatheth us daily with benefits. I have loved you, He told Jeremiah,
with an everlasting love. Because of my love, I've drawn
you unto myself. I said, come out and be ye a
separated people. Be not entangled with the world.
Be not entangled with this thing of works religion. Come out from
among them. And see my love shed upon you. Oh, but I need to see. I need to see this every morning. I need to see it fresh every
day. Yesterday's grace is not sufficient. Yesterday's love
is not sufficient. Every morning that I wake up,
I need the mercy of God to be with me, to give me this fresh
breath that I breathe into my lungs and get my heart regenerated
and start beating again. It's because of who I am, what
I am. I have difficulty understanding
anything, comprehending anything of the love of God. Here's a
point I long to know. Often it gives me ancient thoughts.
Do I love the Lord or not? Am I His or am I not? This runs
through my mind continually. They say, well, you should push
these things aside. I've tried to. I've tried to
push them aside, but because of this sinfulness of the flesh,
It keeps coming back, coming back, coming back. Oh, my soul,
understand and rest in the fact that God's love, or the love
that God shed upon His people, begins with Him. It begins with
Him. Not that I did anything to earn
His love or not that I even loved Him. But He loved me while I
was dead and trespassing sin. And He sent His Son to be my
propitiation. He sent the Lord Jesus Christ. What the Scripture says, God
so loved the world that He gave, He sent His Son to be the propitiation,
to be the mercy seat for my sin. And as He hung there on the cross,
And he cried out, it's finished! The work of redemption is finished. He's finished the work God gave
him to do. And he sat down on the right
hand of God, waiting or expecting, until all of his enemies be made
his footstools. But it was the love of God that
brought all these things about. Herein is love. Not that we love
God. That's impossible. You and I
hated God. You and I sinned against God.
You and I had nothing to do with God until God began a work within
us. And men and women around our
community says, oh no, that's not the way it is. We've got
this little fire, this spark within us, and we've got to work
it out. We've got to fan it, make it into a blown flame. And
then God does something for us. No. You and I were dead. We had no desire. We had no strength. We had no ability. Dead means
dead in the scriptures. Spiritually dead. Oh, we walked
around in this body, but we had no life of God. Until God comes
and breathes unto us the breath of life. The Holy Spirit comes
and takes a bow within our heart and within our mind and within
our soul, and we begin to live. We live now unto God. Herein
is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent
His Son to be the perpetuation for our sins. We love Him because
He first loved us. That's the only reason. That's
the only way that any sinner can ever love God is because
God first loved me. And yes, we rest. This is our
hope. This is our hope. And this love that He's shed
abroad in our hearts will never change. It will never change. My love for things changes. I may love you
today or say I do, and tomorrow I may be mad at you, and I may
do something, you may do something, you may be upset with me. But
not so with God. Not so with God. For I am the
Lord, I change not. And because I change not, therefore
you sons of Jacob are not consumed. For I am persuaded, Paul said,
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor power, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." I
was in a meeting at a funeral, and this topic came up out in
the auditorium. Some men were talking about it.
And there was a man that supposedly had been a preacher all his life,
or most of his life. And he said, you know, when you
read that, he left out everything except me. He said, I can separate
myself from the love of God. How foolish. How foolish. Are you not a creature? No other
creature shall be able to separate you. from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus. It's not my love for Him, it's
His love for me. If I only depended upon my love
for Him, then I could turn and walk away probably. But He will
not let me walk away. He holds me in His hands all
the days of my life. And He directs my steps in the
paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Do I sin? Oh, my
soul. You don't know nothing about
this person here. I know a little bit about him. I know about the
sin that it does so easily beset me. But God sees me standing
in the robes in righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
sees me as I am in Christ. Not as I am in His flesh, but
He sees me and deals with me, blesses me, gives me, sanctifies
me as I am in Christ. As I am in Christ. Our Lord said in John chapter
15, He said, This is My commandment, that you love one another as
I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for a friend. Ye are my
friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Oh, let us understand
this well. Nothing I have done, will do
or ever do, calls God to love me. But understand this also, Nothing that I will do will ever
cause God to stop loving me. He said, well, that's not Scripture. Oh yes, that's Scripture. There's
nothing that I can do in this flesh. He said, what about if
you turn and just forsake God? He won't let me. His love constrains
me. Left to myself, I would. But
His love constrains me and holds me And keep me looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of my faith. In myself I would turn
away, but God hold me with the right hand of righteousness to
the point that He will not forsake me and He will not let me go. Here's my third point. For great
is our faithfulness. Great is our faithfulness. There's much made here and said
exhorts us to faithfulness. This book tells us to be faithful. The Lord said be faithful. Be
faithful hearers, be faithful worshippers, be faithful in prayers,
be faithful in holiness, be faithful in everything that you do. And
we should be faithful. But it is not our faithfulness
that keeps us. It's His faithfulness. I will
never leave Thee. nor forsake thee. I will go with
thee always, even unto the end of the world." That's His faithfulness
to me. Though I fall every day, though
I sin every moment of the life, yet He remains faithful. He will
not let me go. If He's given us a new heart,
which desires to walk with Him, to know Him, to love Him, we
will be faithful. Oh, but even when we fall, when
we fail, when we falter, when we stammer, when we stumble,
He remains faithful. I have loved thee with an everlasting
love, and I will not let you go. Because God is faithful, great
is thy faithfulness, O Lord, unto me. Morning by morning,
in mercies I see, All that I needed, thy hand hath provided, great
is thy faithfulness, O Lord, unto me." God is faithful not
only to Himself, but He is faithful to His Word. We read in Numbers
chapter 23 and verse 19, it says, God is not a man that He should
lie, neither the Son of Man that He should repent. Has He said? And shall it be not? Or hath he spoken, and shall
he not make it good? God is faithful. He said, I have
purposed it, and I will also do it, remembering the former
things of old. For I am God, and there is none
like unto me, declaring the end from the beginning. And from ancient times, the things
that are not yet done, say, my counsels shall stand, and I will
do all my good pleasure. And he went about doing this
throughout all generations of all time. He worked according
to his own purpose in armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth, and none can stay his hand or stand to him. Well,
you do. This is God's work. This is something
He does because it pleased Him to do it. And that's the reason
that you and I are saved. Because it pleased God to save
us. It pleased God to bring us out
of an adulterous generation. It pleased God to reveal the
Gospel to us and to teach us and to show us that I am God
and besides me there is none else. Left to ourselves, we would
never understand this. We would go through these works
and rituals that all religion around us is performing and know
nothing about the grace of God until God takes a hold of us
and leads us and guides us and directs us. We will never see
anything no farther than this right here. We will never see
eternal life. We will never see the glory of
God. We will never see the greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ. All
we're going to see is what we do. and what we don't do. And
we're going to pat ourselves on the back and say, look at
me. Except God bring us out. Except
God deliver us from this sinful generation and work within us
His Spirit and cause us to bow before Him. God is faithful to His covenant
for whom He did for us. back before the foundation of
the world. He also did predestinate. I used
this word a while back in some company of a friend. He said,
you don't believe that stuff, do you? You don't believe this
thing of predestination, do you? I said, yes. That's our only
hope. Or what about, that's our only
hope. If God did not choose me, I surely
would not choose him. But he chose a people out of
every kindred, tribe, tongue, and nation all over the world. Even a little place as wretched
and vile and sinful as the place I live, Dingus, West Virginia. There's a people that God says,
you're mine. You're mine. I have given my
son for you. I gave Ethiopia and Cephas for
thee, and I sent my Son to be your propitiation, and you're
mine. So come out, separate yourselves,
come out, and be ye a holy people unto the Lord. Moreover, whom he did foreknow,
he did also predestinate. And that predestinate simply
means that he predetermined our destination. That don't mean
that all these things that people say it does. It simply means
He predetermined our destination. And this is what He predetermined
us to be. To be conformed to the image
of His Son. That's what He predestinated us to. The image of His Son. We have eternal life. We have
holiness. We have righteousness. We have
sanctification. We have redemption. Because it's
all in Him. And we are made like Him. We're
conformed to Him. Therefore, we have also Because
He gave it to us. That He might be the firstborn
among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate,
them He also called. Oh, you're talking about election
now. And whom He called, them He also justified. Well, how
can that be? And whom He justified, them He
also glorified. Well, you're talking about things
that have not yet happened. Not in our stead we're not. It's
not happened to me yet as far as the glorification of eternal
life, but it shall be. He speaks in past tense because
He is able to work all things according to His own good pleasure.
He's able to do all things according to His own will. And what are
we going to say to these things? We say with the old writers of
history, if God be for us, who can be against us? If God saved
me by His grace, who's going to condemn me? If God forgave
me of my sin, who's going to charge me a sin? If God elected
me, am I going to reject that? No. We bow to it. We give thanks for it. Because
God did it for us. And He works a work of grace
within us. Listen to what he says in Jeremiah
chapter 32. He says, And they shall be my
people, and I will be their God. And I will give them one heart,
one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them
and of their children. I will make an everlasting covenant
with them. See what God does for His people?
Nowhere in here does it say, I did this for God. This is all
God does for me. I will make an everlasting covenant
with them, that I will not turn away from them, but to do them
good. But I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall
not depart from me. What keeps me? What keeps me
looking to Christ? God constraining power. His restraining
grace keeps me. and causes me to follow after
Him. Our Lord, all that the Father
has given me shall come to me, and him that cometh unto me I
will in no wise cast out. He said, For I came down from
heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent
me. And this is the will of Him that sent me. Of all which He
has given me, I should lose nothing, but I should raise Him up again
at the last day. Every one that God put into the
hand of the Lord Jesus Christ before the foundation of the
world, Christ came in time and redeemed them, and in time He
will take them to glory, and they shall be just like Him.
That's our hope. Now look down at verse 24. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul. The Lord is my portion. Everything
that I need, everything that I need, He is. If I need righteousness, He is.
If I need sanctification, He is. If I need redemption, He
is. If I need justification, He is. The Lord is my portion, therefore
will I hope in Him. Aaron, in the Old Testament Scriptures,
Numbers chapter 18, as a picture of the believer in this particular
portion of Scripture, the Lord spoke to Aaron. And the Lord
said unto Aaron, Thou shalt have no inheritance in thy land. God was given the children of
Israel, all this land. The twelve tribes of the children
of Israel. And he called Aaron aside and he said, Aaron, the
Levitical tribe, he said, you're not going to have any portion.
You're not going to have any inheritance in this land. Neither
shall I have any part among them. And now listen to what he says
to Aaron, which is a picture and a type of the believer. I
am thy part and thine inheritance among the children of Israel.
And that's what Jeremiah says, the Lord is my portion, therefore
will I hope in him. As a child of God, we may own
property in this country or in this life, we may own houses
and cars and whatever it is that we can say that we have, but
the Lord is my portion. Our Lord says as our father,
our husband, our brother, our friend, He has undertook our total care, spiritually,
physically, and mentally. He has undertook to be our portion. When I need what I need, the
Lord will provide. The scripture tells us. He will
supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ
Jesus. And everything that I need to
stand before God accepted, I find in Christ and Christ alone. Everything
that we need in this life and in the life to come, God will
supply. Well, I'm just going to go out
and sit down on the street corner and wait for God to Bestow upon
me. That's not what he's talking
about. God gives men and women abilities. He gives them strength. He gives
them talent. He gives them understanding to
do things, to provide for their family, to make of the home and
this and that. But all this is still the Lord
giving it to us. We don't have it within ourselves.
Well, I went to college and studied to be there. Who gave you the
knowledge to even go to college? Who gave you the mind to even
have a mind to read? Is this not what God does? Of Him are you in Christ Jesus. Who of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption? That's what we
need. That's what we need. Listen to what our Lord says
in Matthew 6, verse 30. He says, For of, if God so clothe
the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow
is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you,
O ye of little faith? Therefore, for the cause of this,
Take no fault, saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what all shall we be clothed?
And in parentheses it says, for after these things did the Gentiles
seek, for he didn't seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth
that you have need of all these things. But seek ye first the
kingdom of God, and his righteousness, And all these things shall be
added unto you. Take therefore no fault for tomorrow,
for tomorrow shall take fault for itself." He said, well, that
don't mean what it means. When God speaks, it means exactly
what He says. Whether we understand it or not,
it means exactly what it says. My fifth point, verse 25. The
Lord is good unto them that wait for Him to the soul that seeketh
Him. Consider for a moment. Do you
suppose there could ever be found one who sincerely waited upon
God, sought God's mercy in Christ, called upon Him for mercy, who
did not receive it? No. Because if we call upon God
from the heart, it's already what God works within us. I would
not call upon Him by myself. He works within me and causes
me to seek His grace. He works within me to hear the
gospel. He works within me to believe
the gospel. And He works within me to rest
in the gospel. One writer said, I sought the
Lord, and then I knew that it was He that sought me. I waited
and found the Lord. Afterwards, I knew that it was
He who found me. Our God is eternally good and
gracious to all that call upon His name. For in Christ, He purposed
it, and this is our hope. This is our foundation. This
is our desire. Number six, verse 26. It's good. It is good that a man should
both hope and wait, or quietly wait, for the salvation of the
Lord. This is what Jonah learned in
Jonah's troubles and trials in the fish's belly. He said salvation
is of the Lord. I don't know what it will take
for you and I to understand this. It may take some tragedy, it
may not. But God, if you're His, He will
bring you to a point that you will say, my Lord and my God,
nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Christ I bring. Let
our souls rejoice in His mercy. Let our souls rejoice and find
gladness in His love, that He loved a sinner such as I. And
let us rejoice in His faithfulness. I will never leave Thee, nor
forsake Thee. And let us rejoice in His sufficiency. He's able, He's able to save
to the uttermost all that come unto God by Jesus Christ. And
oh His goodness, the goodness that He supplies us with every
hour of every day. the goodness and the grace that
he gives to us to lead us, guide us, and direct us every day of
our life. David said this in Psalm chapter
65 verse 4. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest. Well, I chose God. No, no. Blessed
is the man whom thou choosest. and causes to approach unto thee,
that he may dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. One day, you
and I, who by the grace of God look to Christ by faith, shall
look at the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. We're going to
see him as he is, and we're going to be made just like Him. And
then we shall worship Him as we deserve to now, but not to
then, because we have this hindrance of the flesh. Our desire will
be to Him, and He will lead us all the days of our life, and
He will keep us by the hand of His omnipotent power, and He
will redeem us, save us, and bring us to glory. Thank you
for your attention.