Our loving Heavenly Father, it
is good that thy people can gather in thy presence in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and we bless thee for the access that
we have into thy presence this evening. We pray that thou wilt
be pleased to minister to us in exactly the way that thou
knowest is best and most fit for us. We pray that thou wilt
speak to the deepest needs of our souls, that there will be
that personalness about the unfolding of thy word amongst us this night. Thou knowest us from the oldest
to the youngest, the needs that we have, the concerns and anxieties
that we carry, the losses that we have suffered and the challenges
that we must face. They know us about our personal
life. They know us about our work life. They know us about the relationships
that we have. And they know us where we are
in our soul's journey. We ask our God that thou wilt
feed thy people, that thou wilt be pleased to nourish our souls
in the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we ask that
if there be those this night who have as yet no knowledge
of thee as their Saviour. that thou wilt be pleased to
challenge and convict and convert, and that thou wilt be rejoicing
in this place as well as in heaven over those that are found and
brought home. We are grateful for the way in
which thou hast dealt with us hitherto, and we trust thee for
the days that lie ahead. We pray that thou wilt help our
unbelief and that thou wilt be pleased to minister to our every
need. For Jesus' sake, Amen. Now turn with me again to the
book of the Psalms, if you will, please. Psalm 28. Psalm 28. We'll read from verse 1. Psalm
28 and verse 1. Unto thee, a psalm of David,
unto thee will I cry, O Lord, my rock. Be not silent to me,
lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down
into the pit. Hear the voice of my supplications
when I cry unto thee. When I lift up my hands toward
thy holy oracle, draw me not away with the wicked and with
the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours,
but mischief is in their hearts. give them according to their
deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavours, give them
after the work of their hands, render to them their desert. Because they regard not the works
of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy
them and not build them up. Blessed be the Lord, because
he hath heard the voice of my supplications. The Lord is my
strength and my shield, my heart trusted in him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth,
and with my song will I praise him. The Lord is their strength,
and he is the saving strength of his anointed. Save thy people
and bless thine inheritance. Feed them also and lift them
up forever. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. My text this evening is the ninth
verse of this psalm, although I do hope to touch upon a few
thoughts throughout the whole of the psalm. Save thy people
and bless thine inheritance. Feed them also and lift them
up forever. We have said it many times, it
bears repetition, that the Lord Jesus Christ is to be found in
the whole of Scripture. And so when we turn to the book
of the Psalms, we are not surprised to find him there also. But it is to my shame that despite
living in this New Testament age, in spite having the benefit
of 2,000 years since the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world,
lived, suffered, died, rose again, and returned into heaven, Despite
the fact that it is this length of time since his atoning death
and his continuing intercession for his people in glory was so
fully revealed by the apostolic testimony and the writings of
these men who spent time with the Lord Jesus, it is to my shame
that I still feel like a little child when I stand in the shadow
of these Old Testament believers. They saw so much of that which
was yet a long way off that they put us to shame when we think
of how little yet we have grasped and understood of the fullness
of the Lord Jesus Christ's work. This is a psalm of David. It
tells us that in the title. But we find Christ here. This is a psalm of David, but
a greater than David is to be discovered here. And repeatedly,
the Scripture speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ's greatness, his
excellence, his majesty, the wonders of his works, and contrasts
them with others who are themselves symbolic in the overall picture
of the Scripture. Here's what I mean by that. The
Lord Jesus Christ is revealed to us in Scripture as a prophet,
a priest, and a king. And we can see when we look at
his works, when we look at his life, when we look at his words
and ministry, that these aspects of his ministry are revealed. The Lord was a prophet because
he brought the revelation of God to mankind. He was a priest because in his
own intercessory work, he represented his people as a high priest. We learn of that in the book
of Hebrews. And we can see that there is
a dominion and a sovereignty and a royalty and a kingship
about his reign over his creation, but more particularly over his
church. The Lord Jesus Christ is a prophet,
priest, and king. But he is greater than every
prophet that ever there was. He is greater than every priest
that ever there was. And he is greater than any king
that ever was. In Matthew chapter 12 and verse
41, we read this verse. The men of Nineveh shall rise
in judgment with this generation. And I don't think we need to
limit that generation to the people that the Lord Jesus Christ
was speaking to. But even if we do, the point
is still valid. The men of Nineveh will rise
in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it. because
they repented at the preaching of Jonas. And behold, a greater
than Jonas, a Jonah, is here." The Lord Jesus Christ was saying
to the people of his day that there was a time when the Word
of God was preached and men repented of their sins. as the Word of
God was declared. And yet the generation of the
Lord's day, who heard from the lips of the Saviour, who was
greater than Jonah, they would not repent and believe. And the men of Nineveh will come
in the judgment and condemn the generation of our Lord and the
generation subsequently, because they have failed to hear the
word of God's great prophet to them. The Queen of Sheba, the
Queen of the South, as she's called, shall rise up in the
judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, for she
came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom
of Solomon. That woman came all the distance,
travelled all the miles that she did through those desert
realms, up probably out of Africa, and she came to hear the wisdom
of Solomon, so touched was she. So affected had she become by
the stories, by the reputation, by the wonderful things that
were said to exist in the court of Solomon, that her passions
were raised. Her inquiry was such that she
would not have it second hand. She would not have it from the
lips of another. She had to see for herself. And yet a greater than Solomon
is here. The Lord Jesus Christ is a greater
King than ever Solomon was. And people will not listen. They will not hear. The men of
Nineveh will rise in judgment. The Queen of the South will stand
in the judgment because a greater in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ is amongst us and amongst his people, and they will not
hear. Such is the culpability of the
generation in which we live. They will not hear Christ. In Hebrews chapter 9, The Lord
Jesus Christ there is spoken of as a priest, not any priest,
but a high priest, the great high priest. Christ being come,
a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more
perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, nor
of this building, nor of works, nor of the physical things, the
tangible things of life, but in his own body, in his own person. neither by the blood of goats
and calves and the old sacrificial system that so many adhered to,
but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. A greater priesthood
now exists. The Lord Jesus Christ in his
excellence is greater than the prophets that ever were, greater
than the kings that ever were, greater than the priesthood that
ever was, and he is eligible, worthy, to have a hearing and
to be heard in our day. Christ's precept after Melchizedek
was greater than Aaron's, for the law having been a shadow
of good things to come and not the very image of the things,
he is greater than the law. Moses epitomizes the law for
us in many ways, and when the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking
about the law, he would often call it Moses. And Stephen, that
honourable man, that good man, that man who served assiduously
the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in those earliest days
of the apostles. He was taken and he was slain
There's some lovely parallels between, you can have an opportunity
to read it in the early chapters of Acts, lovely parallels in
the way in which Stephen's death is contrastable with the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. But Stephen had an opportunity
to give a testimony before he died. And this is what he said
in the presence of his executioners. This Moses, whom they refused,
Who made thee a ruler? This Moses whom they refused,
saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? The same did God
send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which
appeared to him in the bush. He brought them out after that
He had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in
the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years. This is that Moses
which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the
Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me,
him shall ye hear. And so whether we're looking
at the prophets, whether we're looking at the kings, whether
we're looking at the priesthood, whether we're looking at the
law, it is all transcended by the Lord Jesus Christ. And those
who become entranced by revelation, however that revelation might
be presented, Those who become preoccupied with laws and rules
and regulations and ceremonies and ritualism, those who find
that they aspire to the wealth of this world and the grandeur
and the popularity Everything is subservient to Christ. And if he is not heard, then
the culpability, the judgment, the condemnation that falls upon
the shoulders and the souls of men and women will be without
repentance. God will pour his wrath over
every generation that stands accused in the judgment of failing
to hear his most excellent servant, the Lord Jesus Christ. We look
to the Old Testament to find pictures, glimpses, signs of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit does not disappoint
us in Psalm 28. Here we find the Lord Jesus Christ
beautifully presented to us. It is the Psalm of David. but we see that David is speaking
about Christ. And indeed I think that this
is one of the Psalms where we can readily find great comfort
and encouragement by seeing that David and Christ very often appear
to merge together, and where David appears to be speaking,
we discover that suddenly these words are most apt in the mouth
of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. And this, I think, is one of
the beauties of the book of Psalms, that we enter into not simply
the account of the words and the works of the Lord Jesus Christ,
which we find in the Gospels, but into the sentiments and into
the emotions and into the heartfelt prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ
himself in this wonderful book of Psalms. The Lord Jesus Christ
is the holy oracle that David turns his attention to. Here
is the need of a man being presented in a prayer of David. And he
says, hear the voice of my supplications. He's crying unto the Lord. He says, hear the voice of my
supplications when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
source of revelation. that we have of God, His eternal
love for His people, His eternal covenant promises to His elect. And the Lord Jesus Christ in
the revelation of the Gospel speaks to His people as the great
holy oracle who is to be heard and to be listened to. The needs
that we have as sinners are the same needs that afflicted David
in his day, Moses in his generation, Jonah and Solomon. These men,
great as they were in different ways and in different spheres,
were also troubled men, men who had problems, men who had issues,
men who were, at best, sinners, though employed graciously by
God. Their need was always the same.
They had a need for justification. They had a need to be made right
with God. They had a need of salvation
to be delivered out of that place of judgment and justice. They
had a need for redemption because their souls had to be bought
out from under the indebtedness that they had to the law. As
transgressors of that law, the law demanded retribution and
they had to be delivered from it. They needed peace with God. They needed to be reconciled
with God. And that's what David's position
in this psalm is. He is crying out to God for that
reconciliation, that peace, that at-oneness, atonement that he
is aware of his need for. And he cries. He cries. Sometimes we think that What is it the old songwriter
said? Nobody knows the trouble I've
seen. Well, probably they do. Probably they do. And there is
a depth of emotion here in this psalm which David is laying bare
to us. And there's not one of us cannot
enter at some level and to some degree into the sentiments of
this psalm. We have all seen trouble. I know
it. I'm not going to tell you mine
and I don't expect you to tell me yours. But I know that we
all are a troubled people. But the troubles of this life
pale into insignificance. when we contrast and compare
it with our soul's need before a holy God. And that's the importance
of occasions like this. It's the importance of being
able, as it were, to take the opportunity and to stand in David's
shoes and to hear the things that he says and to make them
our voice as well. David says, unto thee will I
cry. That's the reason why he has
something yet to say to us. I cannot imagine that David could
have had any concept about what our life would be like. and yet
he knew those deep heartfelt pleas that we also encounter. He could not have speculated
what it would have been to live in the 21st century and yet those
things which fill his soul are things which we can still identify
with. He knew heights of spiritual
joy, and he knew the depths of guilt. He knew what it was to
be brought into pits of depression. He knew that in that position,
as it is spoken of in this psalm, he could go to the Lord for help. In that, he has something to
teach us. He goes to the right place. He goes to the one who is his
rock. I cry, O Lord, my rock unto thee. Be not silent to me. If thou
be silent, I become like them that go down into the pit. We have a need to go with David
and to give our pleas before the Lord, to cry unto him and
ask that we, fickle as we are, wavering as we are, undependable
as we are, might find some substance, some foundation upon which to
place our feet. For except the Lord should hear
our cry, except the Lord should be called upon to answer us,
then we will go down with them that go to the pit. I cry, do
not be silent to me, O Lord. May he be gracious. May God the Holy Spirit be gracious
to us tonight. May he give us a sense of sincerity,
earnestness about this task that we are embarked upon. as we go into the presence of
God, and may he show us what it is to see the Saviour Jesus
Christ as our rock, lest we become as the damned that go down into
the pit. I am a sinner. Where can I go? David reaches for the Holy Oracle. David is our pointer tonight. He is reaching for Christ. He is reaching out to that one
who speaks words of life and words of mercy. Hear the voice
of my supplications when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my
hands toward thy holy oracle. And in this we see that David
is turning to Christ. May we turn to his Saviour, to
his Christ, and find him to be ours also. He says, draw me not
away with the wicked. Let me not be as one of the lost
and one of the damned. You see, salvation is what David
sought despite his awareness of the need for justice. What
David was calling for here was not justice, but mercy. He called upon the Lord, who
had a people A people whom he had chosen from eternity, a people
whom he had placed in covenant relations with Christ. A people
that he was committed to deliver out from under the judgment of
sin. A people set apart, a people
sanctified in Christ, covered with his blood, justified upon
the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ's sacrifice and obedience. Those others, however, were outside
of that. Those others were outside of
that group that David was identifying as the Lord's people. And here
we see that there is a people whom God has chosen and a people
who are to go down into the pit. the wicked outside of Christ
he drew away. In Jude verse 4 we read that
there was a people who were before of old, that is in eternity,
ordained to condemnation. As Thomas says in Psalm 26, gather
not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men. David was smarter, David was
wiser in this respect than most professing Christians are today. David believed in sovereign grace. David knew that there was a people
who were blessed in covenant relationship with God and there
were a people who were the reprobate and condemned and left in their
sin. He knew that justice demands
punishment of sin. He knew that these workers of
iniquity, these hypocrites, must be judged according to their
deeds, after the works of their hands, and that they would obtain
their due desert. These people regard not the works
of the Lord. Verse 5. Because they regard
not the works of the Lord, nor the operations of his hands,
he shall destroy them and not build them up. Here is a people
who are outside of God's grace, outside of His mercy. Here are a people that David
is saying, do not let me be drawn away with them. Do not let me
be drawn into that group, but rather draw me from them. And this is our ministry. This
is always the ministry of the Gospel. It always has been. It
was David's testimony, it was the testimony of the Old Testament,
the testimony of the Apostles, and the testimony of the true
Church of Jesus Christ since that time. It is to declare that
if men disregard God's way of salvation, They are going to
hell. They are going into the pit. They will come under the severest
judgment in their souls of God's righteous indignation. We speak
much of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the crucifixion
that he suffered, the wrath that was poured into his own soul. Everything that the Lord Jesus
Christ endured on the part of his people will be eternally
inflicted upon those who go to hell. It is a fearsome prospect. a fearsome prospect to be outside
of Christ. Let us not be amongst those that
are drawn away. Let us not be amongst those who
have no grace from God. Let us hear my supplication,
hear my plea as I turn to the Holy Oracle, as I turn to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Let me not be as one of those
who are drawn away. If we have a sense of the fearfulness
of a lost eternity, then we have the beginning of a glimmer of
hope if we can see through David's eyes. It is the work of God that
we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ whom he has sent. The Saviour himself tells us
that in John chapter 6. There is forgiveness with thee
that thou mightest be feared. This is the only hope that a
believer can have. It is the only hope that a sinner
possesses, that God will hear and answer our prayer. We have to go there. We have
to pray that prayer. We have to appeal to the mercy
of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. We will suffer for all eternity
the consequences of our own wickedness and willfulness if we do not
approach the Lord upon the footing and foundation of the Lord Jesus
Christ's death and shed blood Blessed Lord. It is a wonderful
thing that David says here in verse 6. Blessed be the Lord
because he has heard the voice of my supplications. Here is
a man who knew something of the judgment which must come to those
whom God would draw aside, those who were not under the covenant
blessings of His grace and outside of His love. Men will have nothing
to do with Christ. If men will have nothing to do
with God's grace, they will suffer the consequences. And there is
no sentimentality in David's prayer. There is no emotionalism
coming in here with respect to, oh, they didn't know any better,
or they didn't have anyone to tell them, and if their life
had been different, then they would have walked a different
way and pursued a different path, and maybe everything would have
changed. God surely can't judge finite
man with infinite suffering. because they don't know enough
to trust in him. That's not David's prayer. He
knows full well the consequences of rejecting Jesus Christ and
it is our responsibility as the Church of Christ to make sure
that that is a message which does not go unheard. But here's
the ground of our hope. If the Lord will hear us, blessed
be the Lord, because he had heard the voice of my supplication. What love God has for his people. What a love that would cause
him to stoop and hear the prayer of a sinner. And be willing to
respond to such a one. I can tell you that if you go
to the Lord Jesus Christ, if you go to God the Father through
the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ, He will hear. That is the great comfort that
the Lord's people have. That is the great privilege that
becomes those who trust in Him. What grace to give a sinner such
access. Whosoever calleth upon the name
of the Lord shall be saved. Here is David's prayer. Here is David's confidence. But is not this also a word for
the Lord Jesus Christ to pray to his Father? Read verse seven
with me, Psalm 28, verse seven. These are beautiful verses. The Lord is my strength and my
shield. My heart trusted in him and I
am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices
and with my song will I praise him. The Lord is their strength
and he is the saving strength of his anointed. Save thy people
and bless thine inheritance. Feed them also and lift them
up forever. These are David's words of thanksgiving. They're David's words of rejoicing
in his own soul that he has been heard of the Lord. But in a very
marvelous way, I think they are also the words of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Here we see that David is testifying
that he is a weak, fallen sinner, and yet he has discovered that
the Lord is his strength. He is saying, I am defenseless. Every accusation against me is
just, but the Lord is my shield. He says that I have none to deliver
me. My heart trusted in him. He said, I am sinking fast, and
I am helpless, but I am helped of thee. We think about these
words as David's words, and if we can take them to ourselves,
how privileged we are to be numbered amongst those whom the Lord loves. But oh, how I rejoice to hear
them from the Saviour's lips also. He who became sin for me. He upon whom the judgment of
God was placed. He who was condemned of the law
and under the wrath of God. In Hebrews chapter 9 verse 12
we read, Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his
own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained
eternal redemption for us. And it is the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ that is front and foremost when it comes to an
awareness of forgiveness of sin. It is seeing in the blood of
Christ that cleansing power manifested. And what did it cost our Saviour
to accomplish that deliverance for His people? In Matthew 26,
in verse 39, we see something of the experience of the Lord
Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. We see something
of the way in which His prayer to His Father is revealed to
us there by the Holy Spirit. That was a personal prayer. The angels came and sustained
him, we're told, but the disciples were sleeping. They were separated
and sleeping. How do we know what the Lord
Jesus Christ said in that garden? How do we know what he discussed
with his father? He didn't spend any time telling
anybody about it. But by the revelation of the
Holy Ghost, we see something of the intensity of that moment
in the God-man's experience of the anticipation of the cross. Not just the physical suffering
that he was about to endure, grotesque as it was, but the
soul-suffering that he was perhaps already entered into and which
would find its fulfilment in the experience of his death. He went a little further and
fell on his face and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me, Nevertheless, not as I will,
but as thou wilt. In Job chapter 33, in verse 24,
there's an amazing verse which, taken and applied to this situation,
almost appears to allow us to overhear a conversation that
takes place in heaven itself. Then you are told, he is gracious
unto him. And sayeth, deliver him from
going down to the pit. I have found a ransom. Jesus Christ, the faithful witness,
the first begotten of the dead, the prince of the kings of the
earth, that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. David understood that Christ,
his Redeemer, would himself, Christ himself, would be saved
in saving his people from their sin. That God the Father would
take that cup, would allow that cup to pass, and that he would
find that resurrection experience to be the justification of his
sacrifice and the acceptance by God of all the price that
he had paid. This hymn of thanksgiving then,
in the last three verses of this psalm, becomes the hymn of thanksgiving
of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Psalm 20, verse 6, we read, Now
know I that the Lord saveth his anointed. That word anointed,
do you know what it is translated as in the New Testament? Christ. Christ. We sometimes think about
Jesus Christ as if Jesus was his first name and Christ was
his second name. That's not what it says. It's
Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the Anointed One. He is
God's anointed and God's anointed Christ himself is the first one
saved. He's the first fruits from the
dead. He is the one who has risen as
the testimony of the acceptance of the sacrifice that we can
then as his people who trust him and believe in him look to
as the ground of our hope. Because Jesus Christ is raised
from the dead, we have the confidence that God has forgiven our sins
in Him. My lips shall greatly rejoice,
Psalm 71, 23, when I sing unto thee and my soul which thou hast
redeemed. What is ours? We mentioned it
the other evening. What is ours is Christ's and
what is Christ's is ours. My strength. Look at verse 8. The Lord is their strength and
he is the saving strength of his anointed. Christ made petition
of His Father. The Lord Jesus Christ asked His
Father for certain things. The Lord is their strength. He
is the saving strength of His anointed. Here's what the Lord
Jesus Christ asks of His Father. save thy people and bless thine
inheritance, feed them also and lift them up forever. What an amazing prayer for the
Lord Jesus Christ to pray for his bride, for his church. save thy people. He had done
everything that was required. He had fulfilled all the obligations
that fell to him. He had served his father as that
servant of God. And he then comes in his intercessory
capacity before his father and he says, here is the offering
of my blood. This is the price paid for the
redemption of the people. Now save thy people, bless thine
inheritance, feed them also and lift them up forever. Bless thine inheritance. The blessings or the benedictions
of Scripture are wonderful to read and to lay hold upon. We began our thoughts this evening
by thinking of the dire consequence of our sin before a holy God. And yet in the benedictions we
are brought into the experience, we enter into something of the
amazing privileges that God gives to His people. He tells Aaron
in Numbers chapter 6 through Moses, he says, this is how you
should bless the children of Israel. We don't limit the children
of Israel to some national race from the Middle East. We see
that in the New Testament context, Israel is the people of faith. Listen to the blessings that
come upon the people of faith. The Lord bless thee and keep
thee. The Lord make his face shine
upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance
upon thee and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon
the children of Israel. and I will bless them. Hebrews 6,14 says, Surely, blessing
I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. Feed them,
says the Lord Jesus Christ to his father. Feed them also, fed
and watered by Christ that is the living bread and the living
water. And the Lord Jesus Christ spoke
of his own body as bread when he spoke to that woman of Samaria
of the living water. He was speaking of that which
would sustain and nourish his people. that they would be fed
upon all the days of their life. Christ feeds the believer's soul
when he is preached and when he is lifted up. I am the living
bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread
he shall live forever and the bread that I give is my flesh
which I give for the life of the world. The Lord's people
feed upon upon the bread of life. The Lord Jesus Christ asks that
they should be fed. Save thy people, bless thine
inheritance, feed them also. And the Father feeds us with
the very body of Christ, as we see all that he suffered, all
that he endured, we become part of him. That's why the communion
service is such a significant and important part of our worship. We were talking about it just
yesterday. in the context of the baptism,
how beautiful these pictures are to us. When we share the
communion service, we are eating the body of Christ in symbolic
form. We are united. It's a common
union, communion. We are uniting together with
each other in fellowship, absolutely, but more, more. Transcendently,
we are uniting with Him. His body is entering into our
flesh and is passing into our being. And such a symbolic picture
is a most holy Transcendental, wonderful, divine thing that
we have before us. Feed my people. This is the bread
that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna
and are dead. He that eateth of this bread
shall live forever. Save thy people, bless thine
inheritance, feed them also, and lift them up forever. If you're one of the Lord's people,
your future is secure. The future of the church is secure. Whatever this world does to us,
however hard they stamp, however tightly they squeeze, however
viciously they bite, The future of the people of God is secure. The Lord Jesus Christ has requested
of his Father that it be so. Lift them up forever. Lifted up above our enemies. Lifted up above death. Lifted up out of hell. Lifted up Out of the reach of
Satan and our flesh and our own weakness, out of the reach of
them, we still struggle with the old man. It will be so. But the new man is beyond the
reach of any of them. And that is the wonder of the
state and condition in which we have been brought into. That's
the reason why this flesh availeth nothing. Because the new man
cannot be made any more holy. He is as holy as Christ. And that is what it is to be
lifted up by God. Lift them up forever out of the
reach of all their foes. The new man is beyond the reach
of all our enemies. Bear them, carry them, carry
them now as the shepherd carries his lambs. Raise them up in that
day out of their very graves. Death, where is thy sting? Raised on that resurrection morning
to meet him in the air. Raised as kings and priests forever
with the Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
our Jesus. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
our Lord. Save thy people, bless thine
inheritance, feed them also, and lift them up forever. Amen. Heavenly Father, we thank Thee
for the opportunity to touch lightly upon some of these great
foundational truths which are presented in Holy Scripture. We thank Thee for the insight
of these men and women of God in days gone by who knew something
by faith of the wondrous things which Christ would fulfil in
His coming. And we thank Thee for the Holy
Spirit revelation that brought them into the very same experience
of Thy grace and mercy as we now benefit from. Help us to
unpick, as it were, the signs and the pictures and the types
of the Old Testament to see the Lord Jesus Christ ever more clearly. And help us in the clarity of
that view to be able to serve thee better in thanks, fullness
and gratitude. We believe, our God, that thou
hast placed us upon such a position of blessedness because of the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ that we could never achieve or
ascend to by ourselves, and we rejoice in it. Help us, O God,
to remember that pit from which we have been drawn. Help us to
remember that yet thou hast retained us in this world, that we might
serve thee and that we might seek the salvation of others
as we gather to worship together and to lift up the Lord Jesus
Christ. that has said, I, if I be lifted
up, will draw all men unto me. And we thank thee for the promise
of the salvation of thy people through the preaching of the
gospel. Bless this little congregation here. Cause it to flourish. If that flourishing should be
numerically by growth in numbers, so be it, Lord, we thank Thee
for it. Deepen their understanding of
Christ. Enable them in the days that
lie ahead to shine brightly for the things that they have received
and believe. We pray that Thy glory will be
manifested here in this town, and that the witness that is
born and attested to will honour thee in the days that are yet
to come. Take us to our homes in safety.
Bring us again in the morning that we might worship thee together. And may the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ be ready upon our lips and the peace of God upon
our hearts as we go to rest this night. For Jesus' sake we ask
it. Amen.