It's nice to see the allusions
in these hymns to the 23rd Psalm. I picked one up on the first
hymn and then I saw another one on the second hymn. Anybody notice
them? You got them? Both? Yeah? Good. Third verse there of the
first hymn. Surely His goodness and mercy
here daily attend thee. So that's where we're going to
be thinking this evening. We're going to Psalm 23 verse
6 and we're thinking about the goodness and mercy of God. And
then in Mr Whittle in hymn 2, he says, In the last verse, I
know not when the Lord may come at night or noonday fair, nor
if I walk the vale with him or meet him in the air. Yea, though
I walk through the valley of the vale of the shadow of death. So there we are. That's nice.
23rd Psalm. It just keeps popping up, doesn't
it? It's good. Turn with me in your Bibles,
please, to Exodus chapter 33. So, our reading this evening is from
Exodus chapter 33, and we're going to read from verse 1. Exodus chapter 33 and verse 1. The Lord said unto Moses, Depart,
and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought
up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I swear unto
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I
give it. And I will send an angel before
thee, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the
Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. unto a land flowing with milk
and honey, for I will not go up in the midst of thee, for
thou art a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in the way. And when the people heard these
evil tidings, they mourned, for no man, and no man did put on
him his ornaments. For the Lord had said unto Moses,
Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiff-necked people.
I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment and consume
thee. Therefore now put off thy ornaments
from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children
of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the Mount
Horeb. And Moses took the tabernacle
and pitched it without the camp afar off from the camp and called
it the tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass that everyone
which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation
which was without the camp. And it came to pass, when Moses
went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up and
stood every man at his tent door and looked after Moses until
he had gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, as Moses
entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and
stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. And all the people saw the cloudy
pillar stand at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose
up and worshipped every man at his tent door. And the Lord spake
unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And
he turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son
of none, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle. And
Moses said unto the Lord, See thou seest unto me bring up this
people, and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with
me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee
by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore
I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now
thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy
sight, and consider that this nation is thy people. And he
said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy
presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein
shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in
thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest
with us? So shall we be separated, I and
thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the
earth. And the Lord said unto Moses,
I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken, for thou hast
found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And he said,
I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all
my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious unto whom I
will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see
my face, for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord
said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon
a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth
by, that I will put thee in a cliff of the rock, and I will cover
thee with my hand while I pass by, and I will take away mine
hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not
be seen. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Now if you'll turn with me please
to Psalm 23. Psalm 23 and you'll find our verse there for this
evening which is verse 6. Psalm 23 and verse 6. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. The Lord Jesus Christ once spoke
of a man tormented in the flames of hell. The place where this man was
was fearsome. Fearsome. The condition of this man was
hopeless. The suffering of this man was
unceasing. And the Lord Jesus Christ tells
us of this man in his fearsome, hopeless, suffering condition,
pleaded for mercy. He pleaded for mercy. He asked
for mercy for himself, and he asked for mercy for those that
he loved. But the Lord tells us that despite
his sincere and earnest request, no mercy was forthcoming. His abode was fixed, a great
gulf. had been put in place such that
none could travel from one place to another. That man's condition
was unalterable. That man is there still. 2,000 years ago, the Lord Jesus Christ
spoke this narrative. And that man is in exactly the
same condition tonight as he was when this message was first
conveyed to those who heard the Lord speak. There is no mercy
in hell. There is no grace outside of
Christ. There is no peace in judgment. Let me be clear, if I may, with
you this evening. The Lord Jesus Christ has been
presented to us by the unique revelation of God as the only
way of salvation for men and women, the only way of salvation
for sinners. Now we all fall into the category
of sinners. That is our state by nature,
it is our state because of who we are and because of what we
have done. It is Adam's legacy to us and
it is the desire of our heart. It is what we are by birth, and
it is what we are by practice. We are sinners, and before the
holiness of God, we are condemned in the natural state. The Bible goes on to tell us,
again very clearly, that if that way of salvation, if that way
of deliverance, if that one who has come from the realms of glory
to be the saviour of his people is rejected, is passed over,
is not considered, is not thought worth our time and our effort
and our energy. If we despise that One who has
come, if we despise the riches of the goodness of God, the goodness
and the mercy of God, if we despise the goodness of God, His forbearance
and His long-suffering, there is no other sacrifice There is
no other way of redemption. There is no other door of access. And we will find ourselves shoulder
to shoulder with this man in hell. and there we will spend
eternity under the judgment of God. This is how serious this
message is that we preach to a fallen world, that we preach
in a fallen world, that we preach as a sinner to sinners. This is the message of mercy,
of goodness, of grace that comes from God. There is a way of salvation. And to deny that way, to reject
that way, to despise the riches of the goodness of God is tantamount
to treading underfoot the blood of the Son of God. Treading underfoot
the Son of God and counting the blood of the covenant, wherewith
he was sanctified, an unholy thing. You see, when the Lord
Jesus Christ shed his precious blood, when the Lord Jesus Christ
went to the cross, he did something that no other person ever could. He is the perfect one, the Holy
One. He is the God-Man. came into
this world in order to open a way of access to God, to redeem a
people, to carry their sins, to deal with the judgment that
must otherwise fall upon them, and to carry it himself for the
salvation and deliverance of a people whom he loved. And if we will do despite to
the spirit of grace, how shall we escape if we neglect so great
salvation? This is a serious thing. It behoves
me as a preacher of the gospel, and I've already said it, let
me repeat it, as a sinful man to sinful men and women, to remind
you once again That whatever it is we have to consider and
think about, whatever it is we spend our time upon when we come
together to worship God, when we sing His praises, when we
read His scripture, these matters are real. And there is a lot at stake.
The Word of God says, let a man examine himself. And every time
the gospel is preached in our hearing, we ought to examine
ourselves. We ought to be thinking to ourselves,
are these things mine? Do I believe these truths? Can I take God at his word? And remember that if we are his
people, it is because of his goodness and it is because of
his mercy towards us. The psalmist testifies here in
Psalm 23, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the
goodness and mercy of which we speak are God's gifts to men. We have endeavoured to show how
the Lord Jesus Christ can first lay hold upon the promises of
this psalm. And so, by that reasoning, we
remind ourselves that the goodness and mercy of God is first the
portion of the Lord Jesus Christ in his humanity, in his covenant
offices, in that office which brought him into the world and which he willingly accepted and
undertook, and in which he became subservient to the will of the
Father, to do all the Father's will, in which he relegated himself
under the authority of the Father, and in which in his humanity
he was subjected to all the trials and troubles and problems and
temptations of this flesh. The Lord Jesus Christ was granted
great and precious promises. And yes, we read these promises,
and we enjoy them, and we take them to heart, I trust, and we
believe them for ourselves. But let us remind ourselves that
they are his promises first. They came to the Lord. And when
the Holy Spirit tells us that goodness and mercy shall follow
me, all the days of my life, then it is the Lord Jesus Christ
who first speaks these words with meaning. It is the Lord
Jesus Christ who says, testifying to his faith in God, testifying
to this revelation that was granted to the God-man, that the goodness
and the mercy of God will follow him all the days of his life. And I'm sure that there would
have been occasions when the Lord experienced hardship and
trial and difficulty that we know nothing about. When he struggled
with temptation that we only glimpse at, when he felt pain
in his body and in his mind, and he had that great wrath of
God, that cup of suffering pour down in his soul, where the spectator
would say, How is it possible that goodness and mercy is following
Christ in this situation? Well, I think that that's good
for us to think that. I think it's good for us to examine
such a question and say to ourselves, how is it possible when Christ
went through all of those things that we can possibly interpret
that as being the goodness and mercy of God at work in his life? Because the Lord Jesus Christ
believed it to be so. And we take God at his word.
So the goodness of God attended Christ when the devil came to
him with temptation. The mercy of God was Christ's
portion when the wrath of God was poured into his soul. Even
in that, the goodness of God was present. Even at that time,
when the Father, in His righteous judgment and indignation, turned
His back upon the Son, the goodness and the mercy of God was still
His portion. How do I know? Because the Bible
says so. Right. Now, take it to yourself. Take it to yourself, when these
trials come, when these difficulties are faced, when these challenges
that seem to get into our very soul and bring us down, when
these dark days, what is it they call them? The black dog days.
And we all get them, we all get them. These days when we struggle,
we struggle with ourselves and we struggle with the people around
about us and we struggle with the world in which we have to
live. And we have great fears about
what it is that's happening, what it is that's happening to
me, and what it is that's happening to the people that we love, and
what it is that's happening to the testimony of Christ, and
what it is that's happening to the Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we say to ourselves, where
is the Lord's will in all of this? Where is the Lord glorified
in all of this? Well, let me tell you. The goodness
and the mercy of God attend us daily. And even in the hardships,
when we're too blind, when we're too myopic, when we're too short-sighted
to see these things, it is still the goodness of God and still
the mercy of God that follows us. the goodness and mercy of God
followed Christ. They were the father's gift to
his son. So if they follow him, stay with
me here, if the goodness and mercy of God follow Christ, then
where he goes, they follow. Where he is, they are. Where he resides, They dwell. And where he's not found, they're
not found either. Where he isn't, they're not present. The goodness and mercy of God
are distinguishing blessings. They're not universal. And that is why we have the right
as preachers to say to those to whom we speak, sinner, take
nothing for granted. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. call ye upon him while he is
near. Because if you seek the goodness
of God, if you would have the mercy of God, if you are ever
to find grace from God in the days of your life on the face
of this earth, before you are cast into that fiery pit where
that man longed to be blessed of God and could not, then you
have to find Christ. You have to find Christ because
that's where you'll find goodness and mercy. It's following Him. There is a day coming. Scriptures
declare it when you will seek and you will seek the goodness
of God and the mercy of God. And if you have not found it
on this side of eternity, you never will find it. Because the day of salvation
will be past and it will be gone forever. Now we've endeavoured,
as I've said, to show how these things in this psalm are to do
with the Lord Jesus Christ in the first instance and how that
before these benefits ever flow to his people, they are Christ's
benefits. The benefits and the blessings
flow to us in Christ. Just as the promises of God are
to the God-man, so we get the benefits of the promises of God
insofar as we are in Him. They flow to us in Him. They are to us, yea and amen,
in Christ. Outside of Christ, no goodness. Outside of Christ, no mercy. Outside of Christ, no grace. It really ought not to be so
difficult to conceive of that, should it? Surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. If these words
are Christ's, and I trust we have shown them to be, then the
goodness and mercy and the grace of God are found in Christ, not
found where Christ is not. And yet, how is it that so many
theologians in our day, so many religious teachers in our day,
explain to us these notions of common grace? and universal goodness
and mercy that flows to all people if they will just reach out and
grasp it, when clearly the message is that these gifts are distinctive
and found only in the Lord Jesus. We consider it a great error
to speak of common grace as if God's grace flows to all men
without distinction, or as if all men and women have an interest
in Christ irrespective of faith and belief. All grace, all love,
All goodness and mercy is in Christ. Outside of Christ, otherwise
to that, Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 29 declares, our God is
a consuming fire. Now in hell, the rich man lifted
up his eyes and sought mercy. But he found none, because Christ
is not in hell. That's why there's no mercy in
hell, because Christ isn't there. He has ascended on high. He is seated as victor and redeemer
of his people at God's right hand. And we come today to worship
one who is ascended and in glory. And when we come to this verse
in Psalm 23, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all
the days of my life, I think that it's appropriate that we
give that word, surely, a little bit of emphasis. Because it seems
as if that's what the psalmist is doing when he begins this
portion of his psalm. It's an important word, because
it speaks to us of the sovereignty of our God. It speaks to us of
sovereign goodness, and it speaks to us of sovereign mercy, because
it follows Christ. It follows Christ. Certainly
it is. That's another word for it. Certainly,
absolutely, completely, surely. It even has the sense of limitedly. It's telling us here that there
is such an absoluteness of this goodness and mercy following
Christ that it is not to be found elsewhere. And that is the reason
why the Lord Jesus Christ could subsequently say, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me, for it is in him that the goodness and the mercy of
the Lord God dwell exclusively. They shall follow me. They shall not follow another. They follow me. Surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me, says the Lord. Moses learned that lesson. The passage that we read together
in Exodus chapter 33 is an amazing gospel passage right at the beginning,
almost of the scriptures. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
these books of Moses revealed to us that Moses, this man of
God, this prophet of God, this man who spoke face to face with
God, this man who was blessed, with the knowledge of God perhaps
beyond anyone else in those early days of gospel revelation. Despite that dispensation in
which he lived, that time of law, that time of judgment, that
time of the patriarchs, he knew the covenant mercies of God.
The Lord spoke to him about these covenant mercies. He knew that
he was going to a land that had been promised to Abraham, to
Isaac, and to Jacob. Every time you encounter that
phrase in Scripture, it's telling you to look at the covenant.
It's reminding us to observe the promises. Because these things
came to successive generations according to God's distinguishing
grace and will. Moses learned about covenant
glory from the Lord Jesus Christ personally. And it's very clear
from Exodus 33 that Moses, in speaking to the Lord, and we've
mentioned this before, these are revelations that the Lord
Jesus Christ, in his pre-incarnation form, gave to the Old Testament
patriarchs. We saw it with We saw it with
Abraham, we've seen it in the past with Noah and his wife,
we see it with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace
there in Babylon, and in other cases. And here it would appear
that Moses also is having an audience with the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he speaks to the Lord, and
there is something here said concerning Moses' desire to know
more of God. That's always something that's
worth noticing. When a man wants to know more
of the Lord, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. In Exodus 33, verse 19, Moses
is asking for evidence of God's grace. He's asking for a manifestation
of the goodness and the mercy of God. that it will be granted to him
to see this thing. And in verse 19 we read, And
he said, God speaking, I will make all my goodness pass before
thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee.
And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will
show mercy on whom I will show mercy. Well, if nothing else,
there's your goodness and mercy of the Lord spoken of right in
that verse. But have you ever seen a more
clear statement of distinguishing grace? It takes Paul in Romans
8 and 9 and 10 to unfold this statement that had been made
to Moses in these gospel days and to teach us the doctrinal
significance of these things in the apostolic age. We didn't
read it, but in Exodus 34, in verse 6 and 7, we have, as it
were, a restatement of these things, where we find that the
Lord, having said He will do it, goes on to do it. And the
Lord passed before him, Moses. and proclaim the Lord, the Lord
God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's
children unto the third and to the fourth generation. A higher statement of the grace
of God, perhaps not found in the whole of the Old Testament,
and yet coupled immediately with a promise of judgment. This is
God. And he takes to himself this
great work of calling whomsoever he will into the experience of
his grace and his mercy, his goodness and his mercy. And here,
in these passages, whether it's Exodus 33 or here in Exodus 34,
the goodness and the mercy of God is expressly linked to the
coming Lord Jesus Christ. For it is Christ whom Moses saw. It was Christ whom he saw when
the hand of God was pulled back, there where he was in the cliff
or the cleft of the rock, when he looked upon the hindmost part
of God. I've mentioned this once before
on another occasion, but what do you see when you look at somebody's
back disappearing away from you? What do you see? Well, the last
part of anybody that you see that's walking away from you
It's their heel. It's the last part that you see. And what was promised there in
the garden? That the serpent would bruise
the heel of the deliverer. You know what I think Moses saw
when that hand was lifted? I think he saw a bruised heel.
I think that's what he saw. I think he saw the Lord Jesus
Christ in his redemptive work. And that was the manifestation
of the glory of God. That was what Moses desired and
that's what Moses saw. Because the greatest glory of
the Lord that has ever been revealed upon the face of this globe is
the death of the God-man as the redemption of his people. The goodness and mercy of the
Lord is linked with the Lord Jesus Christ, because Moses here
sees Christ, who accomplished the sovereign purpose of God
in the salvation of his people. And he gave that goodness and
that mercy to those that were called of God his own, and yet
it was withheld from others. The New Testament writers understood
this covenant promise of God's goodness and mercy, and they
understood it as being revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. When
the Saviour came into the world, Luke writes in Luke chapter 1,
verse 72, that he came to perform the mercy promised to our fathers. That's Moses and Abraham and
Jacob, Isaac and Jacob. That's the covenant again. He
appeared, he came to perform the mercy promised and to remember
his holy covenant. It doesn't get any clearer than
that. If words have meaning, then let's
find that meaning and let's hold it and grasp it because this
is God who is speaking. He goes on in verse 78 of the
same chapter, through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the
dayspring from on high hath visited us, the Lord Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ is the manifestation
of the goodness of God. The death of Christ is the means
of the mercy of God. And the resurrection of Christ
is our assurance of justification by God that we have received
that goodness and mercy as our own. And Paul refers to this
promise when he cites Moses in Romans chapter 9. In verse 15
and 16 he says, And that's the gospel. That's the message of
the gospel. Now, listen, with respect, people, friends, you can take
it or you can leave it. And that's what we do when we
preach the gospel. We put it out there. And men
and women will do with that as they will. I can't force it upon
anyone. These things are merely declared
as the statements, the revelation, the testimony of the word of
God. Will you believe it? Do you believe
it? Are these things meaningful to
you? Do these things thrill you? Do these things cause you to
think, this is not for me, I don't want to know anything about this.
And what else is there that makes that distinction between he who
enters into the bosom of Abraham, Lazarus, or the rich man that
opens his eyes in hell, but this message. For it is only in Christ
that the goodness and the mercy of God will ever be found. Romans 9, 18, Therefore hath
he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. The goodness and mercy of God
in Christ is the sovereign gift of grace, and it is bestowed
at God's prerogative. He makes the call according to
his purpose, according to his will, his good pleasure, in his
time, and completely independent of the will of man. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life. There's a lovely little
phrase. What comfort the Lord Jesus Christ
must have drawn from that phrase in his own heart. In the battling,
in the struggles, in the trials, in the testing, the promise of
God was sure. Goodness and mercy belongs to
Christ all the days of his life. And therefore, it flows to sinners
in Christ for as long as the eternal Son of God is alive. It's his as a gift from God all
the days of his life. Now, who's going to put a date
on the length of the life of the eternal Son of God. You know
what that is saying? You know what that means? That
is saying that God promises upon his own life to give us goodness
and mercy, sufficient goodness and mercy, as will do us all
our needs. Christ is that one to whom goodness
and mercy belong, and he gives that mercy. It is a promise of
grace. Christ trusted in it and enjoyed
his father's promise to him. And we too enjoy that promise
when we trust in Christ. Trusting in Christ is not something
that we do. It's resting on his promise. That's what it is to trust. I
watched this evening when you were coming into the hall, and
I didn't see any one of you lift up your chair and look at the
connections on the bottom of your seat. Not one of you did
it. But you're resting in those chairs
now. Because you just believe that
they'll hold you when you put your weight on them. And we rest in Christ. We believe
that His goodness and His mercy follow Him all the days of His
life. And we believe that it is our
portion in Him to have that goodness and mercy as our experience too. We believe that when God who
cannot lie promises to do good to his people, promises to show
us mercy when we deserve judgment, we can rely upon him who is faithful. And if goodness and mercy are
ours all the days of Christ's life, They are ours all the days
of our lives, because our life is in Him. John says, the Apostle
in 1 John chapter 5 verse 11, and this is the record that God
has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever." The house of the Lord primarily is
a phrase which is used in connection with the tabernacle and then
subsequently with the temple, later with the temple when it
was constructed. Much as we rejoice to see the
fact that the Lord God is pleased to tabernacle with men, much
as we rejoice to know that He dwelt there in that holy of holies,
We see and we understand that those were just pictures, they
were types granted to those old men and women to speak about
something more glorious, something more wonderful, that God himself
would dwell, not in some ethereal, spiritual way, visible as a cloud
of smoke or as a fire in the sky, but as a man with our flesh,
and that as such he would represent us before God as our substitute
and our surety. I will dwell in the house of
the Lord forever. The house of the Lord is Christ's
Father's house. We're in our many mansions, and
where the Lord God himself dwells. It is not a house made with the
hands of men, nor is it a house that is adorned by the works
of men, but it is a city, and it has foundations, and its builder
and its maker is God himself. Abraham was a man of faith. But
he sojourned in the land of promise as a strange country, dwelling
in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of
the same promise. And we today are men and women
of faith. If so be the Lord has granted
to us this gift of life, this goodness and mercy, which we
have trusted in. But we, like them, still sojourn
in this land of promise. A land of satisfaction it is
not. It is a land of promise, but
we see that promise now fulfilled in Christ. We see that He has
opened that door, that He has gone to prepare a place for us
and He is coming again to receive us unto Himself. This still is
a strange country for us, and we have discovered that we cannot
make it our home. Whatever it is that we build
here in this life, whatever it is we turn our hand to, whatever
it is we construct here in this world, it is temporal. And we might polish those windows
as much as we can, and we might paint those doors as much as
we can. but you turn your back in them
and come back six months later and they need a new fresh coat
of paint and they need a new wipe down because this world
is just soiled and dirty and it is going in one direction.
We dwell in tabernacles, frail bodies, soon to be unpegged and
wrapped up. And we dwell here together as
a congregation of the Lord's people. He calls us the great
congregation. Sometimes we don't feel too great,
but that's what we are. We are that great congregation
of the Lord's people. And we dwell here together with
the children of promise. And with them we rest upon the
same promises of the goodness and mercy of God to us in Christ. The Apostle Paul could say in
2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 8, Henceforth there is laid up for
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but
unto all them also that love his appearing. Brothers and sisters
in the Lord, do you look forward to spending eternity with the
Lord Jesus Christ and the glory of his presence? Are we able
to look beyond the difficulties of our day, the trials of the
moment? Do we understand that the goodness
and mercy of God is even now, right now, our portion in this
life? that the things that we sometimes
find encroach upon our happiness here are nevertheless designed
for our greater good. Do you anticipate eagerly the
city streets of heaven? What will it be like? Those mansions
adorned by the very hands of Christ in that great preparatory
work I mentioned once to someone that the Lord took six days to
create the heavens and the earth. It's been almost 2,000 years
that he's been preparing those mansions. What are they going
to be like? I shall dwell in the house of
the Lord forever. I shall dwell there. No more
pilgrims. No more pulling up tents, tabernacles,
and moving on. No more seeking something that
is yet to come, but entering into the fullness of all that
the Lord has prepared for us. No more strangers, but then we
shall see him face to face. Then we will tarry, and then
we will stay. The Lord Jesus Christ is sat
down upon the throne of his glory. There in the eternal realm, we
worship our risen Christ. And we are even now seated together
with him in heavenly places. The goodness and the mercy of
God is ours in the presence of his dear son. Amen.