Brother Paul Mahan, pastor of
Central Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, Virginia. Welcome,
brother. Appreciate you. Thank you. It's been good to be here. I
have thoroughly enjoyed and been blessed by these messages. The
one this morning, both messages last night. Thank the Lord for
them. Thank the Lord for you men. And
your pastor, I'm very thankful for him. I've known each of these
men quite a long time now, haven't we? Quite a long time. And esteemed
them so highly and counted it an honor to be your friend. And it's an honor to be here
also. When asked to preach for a church,
when a pastor asks me that, I'm always overwhelmed by it at first,
incredulous that I would be asked, but honored because I know how
I feel about the people whom I preach to. jealous for them
and want men who have their good in mind. And I don't want to
betray that, this honor. It's an undeserved
privilege and an honor. And I want to comfort God's people
and glorify Him at the same time. And let me also thank you for
what you've done already to make this an enjoyable conference. All the food that's been prepared
and will be, I expect, and all the hard work, I thank you for
it. I know it's hard, a lot of work
involved, and I thank you for it. I commend you for it. I do. Turn with me to the book of Psalms,
Psalm 103. Psalm 103, knowing I would be
bringing a second message, this will be a benediction. Benediction means blessing. And
that's how this psalm begins and ends, with a blessing. Always
been a favorite of mine and many of you, I'm sure. Two verses
in particular that I always think of and come to mind, one really
spoke to me recently. Verses 13 and 14, like as a father
pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are dust. God the Father, Father to His
children. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is
the Father, isn't it? We will probably make no real
distinction here when we speak of the Lord because the Father,
the Son, the Holy Spirit, these three are one. Here, O Israel,
the Lord our God is one, one Lord, and they are one in this
work of salvation. So this is about the Father,
whom the Son, and the Holy Spirit all take place together in this
work. Verse 1 begins this way, Bless
the Lord, O my soul. Bless means to worship, adore,
thank, give all the glory to. Bless the Lord, Father, Son,
Holy Spirit, the Lord, O my soul. My soul, may every one of us
in here personally bless the Lord. We all have great reason
to do so, don't we? To worship the Lord. We're not
here to merely go through a worship or a religious service, but we're
here to worship the Lord, aren't we? To give thanks unto the Lord.
Everyone in here surely has great cause to be here, don't you?
Innumerable blessings. that you can bless His holy name. For bless the Lord in all that
is within me, mind, heart, and soul, all that is within me,
bless His holy name. His holy name. How blessed we
are if we fear His name. There is no fear of God before
the eyes of our modern generation, is there? That is the thing that characterizes
this generation more than any other to me, this unbelieving,
untoward generation. No fear. They boast that. But we bless His holy name, don't
we? We make mention that His name
is exalted. We dare not use that name in
any way other than in blessing and reverence and fear and respect. You young people, And let me
warn you, never use that name, never use that name in any way
but in reverence and respect. It's become a byword today, hasn't
it? Don't get used to it. People
that blurt out, oh my God, don't do that, don't do that. We are to fear His name. We bless
His holy name. Verse 2, And bless the Lord,
O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. The Lord is our
great benefactor. He daily loadeth us with benefits
or blessings. But like spoiled rich kids that
we are, we often forget, don't we? We often forget that all
things Every good and perfect gift comes from above. All material
things, all spiritual things. What is the greatest blessing
of all? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ
Jesus. And the next verse tells us,
who forgiveth all thine iniquity. That is the greatest blessing
of all. who forgiveth all thine iniquity in Christ, who paid
for them, who suffered for them, who forgiveth all thine iniquity. Iniquity means you're not just,
you're not right. In other words, he forgives everything
that's not right about us. Which is, what is right about
us? We just heard that. He forgives
everything that's wrong with us, like a father, just like
a father. This is what we're leading up
to. Just like a father. A human father, their child can
really do no wrong. Who forgiveth all that is wrong
with us, all our inequity, forgiveth all our past, present, and future. Didn't our Lord say, all manner
of sin shall be forgiven? and who healeth all thy diseases."
The Lord healeth all our diseases. If anyone in here has been sick,
it was the Lord that wounded you, right? I, the Lord, do all
these things. If anyone is healed, though means
were used, a physician, a hospital, medicine, nevertheless, it was
the Lord, Jehovah Rapha, that healed you. Right? He gets all the glory. But you
know, all of our physical ailments and diseases are not always healed,
are they? While on this earth. Many die
from various diseases, cancer and so forth, don't they? But
the spiritual diseases which we all have, and we all don't
have but one, we all have them all. Blind, halt, lame, Deaf,
dumb, lepers. The Lord heals all those in all
of his people. All those diseases. And he redeemeth,
verse 4 says, who redeemeth, the Lord redeemeth thy life from
destruction. How many vessels of wrath are
there out there in the world fitted for destruction, the scripture
says? How many? How many people are there? Many
go in that broad road that leads to destruction. Many, but few
are chosen. Few are vessels of mercy fitted
by the Lord as well. But these vessels of wrath, people
who waste their substance, who sell themselves out to destruction. How many? And such were some
of you, but God. For His great love wherewith
He loved you, if you're in Christ. For His great love spared you
from this destruction. He redeemed your life from destruction. Not because you or I had any
redeemable quality. The only quality that made us
redeemable is the fact that we needed redeeming. Lord Jesus Christ, like Hosea,
it was mentioned last night, like old Hosea, was told to go
and love a forlorn woman. And so he came, the Lord Jesus
Christ came, and he says, I bought her to me for a price. I redeemed her life from destruction. All of his people were redeemed
by his precious blood. You know we're not redeemed with
corruptible things, don't you? but with one thing, the precious
blood of the Lamb. Verse 4 says, "...who crowneth
thee with loving kindness and tender mercy." You remember the
story of the child in the field in the book of Ezekiel, cast
out to the loathing of its person, how that it was polluted in its
own blood, and when the Lord came by, He said, I saw you and
I said live. And thy time was the time of
love, my love toward you. And he said, I spread my skirt
over you, I covered your nakedness, I swore unto you, I entered into
a covenant with you because you're mine. I washed you with water,
I thoroughly washed away the blood from thee, I anointed thee
with oil, I clothed you with broidered work, shod you with
badger skin, girded you about with fine linen, covered you
with silk, decked you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hand, a
chain on your neck, a jewel in your forehead, earrings in your
ears, and the last thing He said was, I put a beautiful crown
on your head. He crowned us and the crown that
we will receive in glory. is salvation itself, the crowning
glory. And we are, as it were, His crown,
jewels in His crown. He makes up His precious jewel,
put in His crown, crown of His glory. He crowns His people with
this salvation, which is His loving kindness and His tender
mercy, crown of them. Who, verse 5 says, He satisfied
thy mouth with good things. the Lord, every good and perfect
gift. How much good have you and I enjoyed in this life? Literally speaking, how much
good have we enjoyed and been blessed with? God giveth us richly
all things to enjoy, doesn't He? Just as you do your children. How much good have we been blessed
with? How many good meals? Last night,
I would venture to say that Solomon's table was no more beautiful than
that. Brother Chris, he didn't eat
better food than we did last night. There's a lot more of
it, but he didn't eat any better food. How many good meals, how
many good things have we been blessed with? How many good times
have we enjoyed, Brother Bob? How many? But the chief good,
it says he satisfied thy mouth with good. The chief good. The greatest good is good news
in it. The gospel which satisfies our
mouth, which if you eat, you eat the blood, the body and drink
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. When you hear the gospel of Christ,
your salvation, doesn't it satisfy you? Those who hunger and thirst
after Him, His righteousness. Do you not come away satisfied? Nothing else can satisfy you
quite like this gospel. Satisfy with your mouth. He said,
open your mouth and I'll fill it. If you come with a need for
Christ, He said, just open your mouth, I'll fill it up and you'll
be satisfied. Satisfied. And I believe that
we have eaten truly at a greater table than Solomon's, the table
of the blessed Lord, the table of His gospel. Don't take it
for granted. Bless the Lord. While the world
is eating the husks of religion and feigning, feigning satisfaction,
people, we hear more gospel in five minutes than most here in
a lifetime. Don't ever take it for granted.
Sad to say we do, don't we? Sad to say. And he says, this
gospel, these good things, your youth is renewed like eagles.
The oldest believer in here has flown out of this place on wings
of eagles. There's times when you've heard
this gospel, when you've felt born again. Every time, as one
of our brethren used to say, every time the gospel is preached
and I hear it, I get saved. The Lord saves me. I feel like
I'm born again, don't you? Well, we are in effect. New life. New life. Your youth is renewed
like eagles. You go out of here skipping like
a roe, leaping over a wall, running through a troop. Bless the Lord,
O my soul, for this gospel we get so much of daily, low to
thumb. Look at verse 6. The Lord executeth
righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed, all oppressed
by sin. The Lord executed, worketh out,
provideth a perfect righteousness for all who are oppressed by
sin." He executed it. He worked this out, this perfect
righteousness for them and in them. And this means the judge
of all the earth, our Lord, will do what's right concerning His
people. Everything He does is right and
for our good. Oh, my son. Oh, my son. Look at verse 7. He made known
His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel.
Made known. Well, so He's made known His
ways to us, hasn't He? His acts, His works, He's made
known unto us. Moses said, Lord, show me Your
glory. Show me Thy way. And He did,
Brother Thomas. Says the Lord put him in a cleft
of the rock, and the Lord made His goodness pass before him.
The Lord came down Himself and stood right there on the rock.
And we've already heard that's the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
And have we not been put in the cleft of the rock, the rock of
ages which we just sang about? Has He not made His goodness
pass before us? All the goodness of God has passed
before us this morning in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful,
gracious, long-suffering kind, has passed before us in the person
and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now look at these next
few verses and let's see what the Lord is and what the Lord
will not do and what the Lord hath not done. Verse 8 says,
the Lord is merciful. That's what He is, full of mercy. Bless the Lord, O my soul. My
greatest need is what He's fullest of. Did you hear that, Brother
Jim? What we need the most is what
He has the most. It's full of it. Mercy. Mercy is full. The Lord is merciful and gracious. Gracious. By the grace of God,
I am what I am and He giveth more grace. And give it. And give. He's gracious. He delights
to give. Delights to give. Like a father.
He's slow to anger. Slow to anger. Plenteous in mercy. There's plenty
to go around. He doesn't just show it to one.
And many have received this mercy and will continue to receive
it. Because he's full of it and he's plenteous in doling it out. Abundant mercy. But he's slow
to anger. Our brother has already said
this morning, the anger of God was spent on the Lord Jesus Christ. We're talking about the father
here, who pities his children. And is there ever really a sense
in which you're angry? Let me use a grandfather more
as a topic. A father, yeah, maybe, an earthly
father. A grandfather, okay, listen.
Brother Don, he's a grandfather, been one longer than me, and
I couldn't believe he did not use one single illustration using
his grandchild. Well, I'm going to. I'm new at
this. And I have the floor. I'm forced to listen to your
stories, but a grandfather anyway. Is there ever really a time when
you're really, I mean, angry, when you want your wrath to come
down? And our Lord truly, He's not like
us. Aren't you glad? God said that,
He said, I'm God, I'm not a man. He's not like us. There's never
really a sense, even a sense in which God is angry with His
children. Because He knows our frame. This
is what I hope to get to in a moment. He knows our frame. He's merciful. He's slow to anger. Plenteous
in mercy. There's another scripture that
says He's ready to pardon. ready to pardon, waiting to pardon
his children. Ready. More ready than they are
to admit they need it. In fact, let me give you this
illustration. My granddaughter, cutest girl ever been born. At any rate, my granddaughter
one day was in I had laid my Bible open on the stool in front
of my chair there. I was reading. I had a pen that
I was writing also. And I left the room and I came
back and she had taken that pen and written her epistle all over
that. She's two years old. Written
her epistle all over it. I knew what I was going to do before I confronted her. I was going to pardon her long
before she knew she needed it. I went up to her and I sat in
front of her and I said, Isabella, look what you've done. I had
to make her to know she'd done wrong. She didn't know she'd
done wrong. Father, forgive them." They know not what they did.
I had to give her repentance. I had to make her to know, you've
done wrong. And Brother D., as I began to
speak to her, as sternly as I could, you know what I'm talking about.
I saw her countenance begin to drop. And the realization of
what she'd done pass over her face. And before she could get
out any words, I said, that's okay. That's okay. I forgive you. Like the prodigal
son. He practiced that speech, didn't
he? Going to go back to the father and say, father, I've sinned.
And before he could get it out, father said, bring the fatted
calf. And this is the amazing thing
in that. Now she ruined a couple of pages in my Bible. No problem,
I've got three or four others just like you. But you know the
amazing thing is now I turn the page and look at that and I say,
well, honestly, the Lord has scars in His hands
that we put there. He looks at them and says, That's amazing. Like a father
pities his children. He's full of mercy, ready to
pardon. Verse 9 says, he will not chide. Neither will he keep
his anger forever. If he seems angry, he won't keep
it forever. He will not chide. He will not
chase them too long, more than you're able to bear. You know,
if we are without it, we're bastards, aren't we? If we are chastened,
God dealeth with us as with son. But He still doesn't deal with
us the way our fathers dealt. It says in Hebrews 12, we had
fathers of our flesh who corrected us and we gave them reverence.
And it says they chastened us after their own pleasure. And
sometimes I thought that's exactly what my dad was deriving from
his chastening. And he would say, this is hurting
me more than it's hurting you. I didn't believe that for a minute.
Did you? I know now, don't you? It really
does hurt you more than it hurts them. And my father was often,
well, sometimes wrong. And he dealt with me. Did you
ever have, those of you who had siblings, Your parents couldn't find out
who did what that they punished all of you? Anybody? Sarah? Absolutely. That happened
sometime. I thought, that's not fair. Danny
did that. He's always done that, my brother.
But since he couldn't find out, I'll just punish you all. God
doesn't do that. He can't do that. He doesn't
do it after his own pleasure, but for our good, and every single
time he chases, it's for our good according to his infinite
wisdom. It's going to work for our good. He's not capable of doing anything
else. All day. For our good. He will not chide, continue to
chide, longer than is necessary. Verse 10 says, He hath not dealt
with us after our sin, nor rewarded us according to our iniquity. He hath not, He will not and
He hath not, never will deal with us after our sins. Is that the best news you've
ever heard? He hath not. Why? Will the Lord
never deal with us after our sins according to the justice
that our sins deserve? The recompense of our sins. Why will He not deal with us
after our sins? Why has He not rewarded us or
punished us according to our iniquities? Why? Because He dealt
with Christ after our sins. That's why. He rewarded Him. for what we did. In other words,
he got the blame for what I did and I got the credit for what
he did. That's called substitutionism.
Substitution. That is the gospel. Christ is
the gospel. He hath not. He is merciful. He will not chide forever. He
hath not dealt with us after our sin. Verse 11, for as the
heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward
them that fear him. I used to look at, well look
with me at Isaiah 55, very quickly, Isaiah 55. I used to read these
verses like that and especially Isaiah 55, speaking of the Lord's
ways and thoughts being higher than the heavens are above the
earth. And I thought of that as being, just the the essence
of His person, how infinite He is in His thoughts and His ways
and how much higher He is than us and past finding out. And
that's true. But the sense in which He said
this, look at it. He's talking about His thoughts
and His ways that are higher above us than the heavens or
the earth. He's talking about His mercy. that His mercy is so much greater
than us, so much higher than what mercy we know, it's as high
as the heavens are above the earth. He says in verse 7, let the wicked
forsake his way. How wicked? The wicked. The unrighteous may in his thoughts
and let him return unto the Lord. return on the Lord, but if he
leaves, He won't take him back again. No, it doesn't say that.
Just keep coming back. To whom coming? Didn't our Lord say, Him that
cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. He didn't say how many
times, did He? Keep coming. In no wise. There
will never be a time when He will not take you back. Never be a time when he said,
all right, you've done it now, it's too much, you've gone too
far, I will not receive you. No, he said, him that cometh. Let him return. Let him return. We play the prodigal daily, don't
we? And the father kills the fatted
calf daily. in the form of the gospel. Let
him return unto the Lord and he will, not maybe, not might,
not if you do that, he will have mercy. That's because of who
he is. I used to balk at the statement
when a man, I heard this years ago, that God is merciful so
he has to show mercy. I remember distinctly as a young
man thinking, that's just not right. His mercy is sovereign.
Yes, it is. But he is merciful. And what He is, He must show. This is His glory. He must be
merciful. Our hope is who He is, people.
It's not in a doctrine, the doctrine of the Lord's mercy. It's in
Him. He is. This is what He is. Do you need
mercy? He cannot not be merciful to
someone that needs mercy. Is that right? That's because
of who He is. Lord, I need mercy. You got it. He is, He will have mercy. And
it says to our God, this is our God, this is my God, my hope,
all my salvation. And it says He will abundantly
pardon. We're not getting to heaven by
the skin of our teeth. Reluctantly, oh, you don't deserve
to be here. Okay, come on in. No! He says, if one sinner repents,
heaven erupts. Think of that. He's not like
us. We reluctantly receive people. If you keep begging, if you keep
asking, I might forgive you. No! He even gives that, Brother
Chris. He gives that repentance, the
goodness of God. And then when we bring to Him
what He gives, He readily accepts it. Come on in. Well done. Isn't
that a father? Isn't that just like a father? than your thoughts. David one
time said, is this the way of man? No. God is merciful to the
worst. Oh, didn't our Lord reveal that
in His last saving work? The last person He saved was
the worst person on earth. Wasn't it? The thief on the cross. The one we would not save. Had
that man, he was a murderer also, had he broken into your house
and killed your only begotten child, you wouldn't have mercy
on that man, would you? That's the first person the Lord
Jesus Christ brought into glory with him. His last act was the
worst sinner and was the first person in glory with him. He's merciful. His ways are infinitely
higher. His mercy, He delights to show
mercy. Because that's what He is. Verse
12 says, As far as the East is from the West, so far hath He
removed our transgressions from us. Oh my. It's like that story of
the scapegoat. Our Lord is both the goat and
the fit man, isn't He? He's the one upon whom God put
our iniquity and He's the fit man who took them away where
they can't be found again. Old Brother Jack Shanks one time
preached on this and he said, God's not goat hunting either. God's not hunting the goat. It's
gone. Sins are gone to be remembered
no more. It says the iniquity of Israel
shall be sought won't be found. Why? Because they're not there.
Not there. He will remember no more, never
to be brought up again, just as if I'd never seen him. Think about that. Because, like
as a father pitied his children, so the Lord pitieth them that
fear him. He knows our He pitied. James, and let me just give a
few more minutes to this. James said this, the Lord is
merciful. And men often use the word pitiful
in the wrong way. It says the Lord is very pitiful. Not meaning He needs pity. It
means He's full of pity. The Lord is very pitiful, very
full of pity. Pity means to feel sorry for. Pity means to have compassion
on the weakness, to feel the weakness of another. Pity, like
as a father pitieth his children, all of whom fear him. That which characterizes this
generation, pride and all that, is no fear. If you ask me the
greatest characterization of God's people, it's fear. Fear
of the Lord, which always translates into humility and meekness and
so forth. But fear, those that fear Him,
those that honor Him, praise Him, worship Him, Him, but pity. You parents, those of you who
have been blessed to have children and grandchildren. Tell me, beside
love, what is the thing you feel most toward your children? Is it not pity? You feel for
them, don't you? As much as we pity our own children,
how much more? How much more? And these illustrations
will not go very far to reveal the pity of the Lord, because
His pity is higher than the heavens or the earth. But at my own daughter's
birth, Hannah, my daughter, and again at my granddaughter's,
I remember when the doctor handed that, I was there, and the doctor
handed our daughter to me, put her in my arms, Beside an overwhelming
sense of love that I felt instantly knit with her, I looked into
her eyes and she looked into my eyes. It was love at first
sight, buddy. It was. For the mother now has
loved long before she was born. But the thing I felt even more
than that at that moment was pity. She was crying. You know, the
first thing they've got to do is inflict a little pain, don't
they? Make her cry, fill those lungs up, you know, make sure
the child is alive. She crieth. Inflict a little
pain. She's cold. She's been in a hot
tub for nine months. And now she's out in this cold,
cruel world. She's bewildered and she's perplexed.
She's confused. What's going on here? It's a
traumatic thing. It's a violent thing, isn't it?
Huh? It's a violent thing. Pain she's
never felt before. Cold she never felt before. Confusion
she never felt before. And I pitied her, Brother Tom.
I pitied her. I want to say, let's put you back
in. I'm going to join you. And I began to pity, as the days
went by, I began to pity her on the future. Born into this
A cruel world, a sinful world, and all that she would have to
go through, the falls, the troubles, the trials, the pain, the sorrow. Why does the Lord pity us? And
why does the Lord pity us? Verse 14, because He knoweth
our frame. How does He know our frame? Because as the children were
partakers of flesh and blood, he himself also took part of
the same. We don't have a high priest who
cannot be touched with the feet of our infirmity, but was tempted
at all points, like as we are, yet without sin. He knows our
frame. Because He became flesh and dwelt
among us. He knows us. He knoweth our frame. My, my. Everything about us. I was going to have you turn
to Psalm 139, but don't do that. You know those verses, how David
said, Nothing I think, nothing I say, nothing about me. You
don't know it all together. You know it before I think it,
before I say it. He said you knew me before I
was even made. You know me. He knows our frame,
our makeup. Now here's, give me a moment
or two, okay? I think this will comfort you. He knows our frame. What is our
frame? We just heard this, didn't we? full of lust, full of temptations,
the propensity to evil that's there. How does He know this? And this goes along well with
what we just heard. How can the Lord really know
what sin does to us? Unless He really was made sin. You know, men have made this
somewhat of a controversy, but to me, Brother Don, it's without
controversy. Like the incarnation of Christ,
it's without controversy. God was manifest or made flesh. And without controversy, he was
made sin. tempted in all points, yet without
sin, in his life being the perfect sacrifice, the sinless man without
spot or blemish, but when he went to Calvary's tree, he was
filled full of sin. How else could he know how I
feel? Huh? If all the things that the
Lord Jesus Christ said or did were written in a book, the world
could not contain them. What all did he say on Calvary's
tree? We don't know. We have seven sayings. That doesn't
mean that's all he said, does it? Some believe he quoted all
of Psalm 22, don't they? I go along with that. My God,
my God, it starts out in that whole psalm. His bones are poured
out like water. He may, Brother Todd, have quoted
Psalm 38, which is a Messianic psalm, absolutely
isn't it? My loins are filled with a loathsome
disease, Psalm 38 says. Is that how you feel? That's
how we feel. And we know what it feels like to be full of sin. How could he know unless he was
full of sin? Huh? He knows our frame. He didn't do it. He didn't commit
it. But he became it. Explain that. I don't have to. Nobody can. And a man's a fool to argue it.
Just believe it and bow to it. And men, under the guise and
the pretense of giving Him glory, take away from His glory when
they don't acknowledge that He became sinful. That's a fact. You cannot know
what someone is feeling unless you really, really have gone
through that, can you? You're a teenager. Like a father
to his children. Your teenagers often look at
you and say, you don't know what I'm going through. Most teenagers
think that their parents went from 12 to 40. Overnight, don't
they? Don't they? You don't know what
I'm going through. Shoot. You know them better than they
know them, don't you? Of course you do. That's why
you're so, don't do this, don't do what I did. Right? Am I telling the truth here?
How else could he know? He became sin. He really did. What I say is let's quit striving
with pot shards, arguing with goats, and let's
just comfort our people. But this is His glory. He knows
our sinful frame. He was made sin. He knows our weakness and
our inability. My little granddaughter tries
her best to do things. She's only two years old. And
without her parents, she can do nothing. Nothing. Well, didn't
our Lord say just that? You know, our Lord keeps calling
us His little children because we'll never really be any more
than that. Little children, the Lord, Brother
Bob, kept saying that to grown men in their thirties and forties,
His disciples, little children. We don't expect much out of that
little two-year-old girl. In fact, we don't expect anything. What does the Lord expect out
of flesh? Nothing. He knows her frame. He knows
our frame. He doesn't expect too much. What
is our frame? Do you ever wake up in a bad
frame of mind? Maybe I should ask, do you ever
wake up in a good frame of mind? We blame it on one side of the
bed, don't we? So we sleep on the other? Wake up the same way. Bad frame of mind. His children. The Lord knows
His children like more than we even know our own and pity our
own, the pride that we have, which we should never have. A
child of God should never have pride ever, but we do, don't
we? I remember distinctly bragging about something to my friends,
you know, boasting, boys get together, and girls, start bragging,
you know, boasting and all that. And I was talking about this
and that and the other and turned around and my dad was standing
there. He knows me. About half of what I said was
a lie. And the other half, he did it for me or gave it to me
or whatever, and I was bragging about it. What do we have that
we have not received? What? Name something, anything
that we have not received. Now if we've received it, how
could we possibly? Glory is if we had not received
it. But we do. That's our frame, isn't it? Cold. How could we listen to this gospel?
and be cold. How? The Lord was going to the
cross. He sweat blood for them. What were they doing? Sleeping. I get mad at people that fall
asleep in church. I'll just be honest with you. Go ahead, Don. Be honest. You
said be honest. Okay. We get mad. What did the
Lord do? Three times they fell asleep.
Finally He said, sleep on. He knows our frame. Aren't you glad? He knows our
frame. Cold, ignorant, sorrowful. Are you ever sorrowful over what
you don't know what? Why? Are you ever depressed for
no reason? Got the blues, the blahs. David
said, you have all my tears in your bottle. Does anything touch
you, Brother D., quite like the cry of your child? Anything. Nothing. The Scripture says he has every
tear that every one of his children have shed every time in a bottle. Remember. Foolishness, childishness, our
frame. I get pleasure thinking about
the Lord with His disciples. You know, a bunch of fellas get
together. They like to cut up, don't they?
Don't you? Like to cut up, pick up on another
and all that. A lot of foolishness goes on.
Just a pack of foolishness. The more of them you get together,
the crazier it gets. You reckon those fishermen They
got together, those brothers and cousins, they got together.
You reckon they carried on a bunch of foolishness like little kids? Can you see the Lord looking
at them as you would your children playing in the yard? That's great. In fact, there's nothing they
ever said or did that wasn't foolish to Him. Mother, Bob, he's so high above
his thoughts and everything they said was like a little child's
understanding, Jimmy. He took pleasure in that. He's far above us, far above
us. He knows our frame. And it says here in closing,
it says, he remembers that we're dust. Man is like a flower. The field, the wind passes over,
it's gone. Dust. Dust to dust. Created the dust,
go back to the dust. Born to die. That's sad, isn't
it? Doesn't last long, does it? Nothing
lasts long. Things you enjoy, things you
do, just doesn't last long. I think that's maybe one reason
I'm enjoying being a grandfather so much is my child, it went
by so fast. Now I get to experience it again.
I'm reliving my child again. Slower. Trying to do it slower.
Appreciate the little thing. It all goes by so fast. The Lord
knows that. Here and gone. Can't I stay a
little while? Do I have to go now? He knows our friend. I'm not
ready to die yet. No, and you won't be until you're
ready to die. That's what Spurgeon told that
woman one time. She said, Brother Spurgeon, I
fear I don't have dying grace. I don't feel like I'm ready to
go. He said, well, are you dying? She said, I don't think so. He said, then you don't need
it. Just as soon as you need it. He said, you mark the perfect
man, that man that's in Christ, the end of that man. Peace. You'll have dying gray. He'll
be ready to go. She'll be ready to go. Ready to go. We go from birth, born, to infancy,
to being a toddler, an adolescent, teen, adult, and we revert right
back to old age. Right back to childhood in our
old age. No. Sad, isn't it? Sad. You finally grow up, and then
you begin to become a child all over again. I'm watching that. And our Lord said this, You hearken
unto Me, those of you who are born by Me from the belly and from the womb, even to old
age, He said, I am He. Even to hoary hairs, gray hair,
will I carry you. I have made you, I will bear,
or carry you. And I'll carry you, and I will
deliver you. Because I'm your Lord. My, my. Old age and weakness
and strength is gone and courage is gone and the mind is gone.
But He never changes. Pities our frame. Knows our frame. Pities us like a father pities
his children. My, my. What a great Lord we
have. Okay. The Lord bless that. God Almighty said in Malachi
3.10, I will open you the windows of
heaven and pour out a blessing upon you that there shall not be room
enough to receive it. I believe He's been faithful
to that promise this morning. I don't have room for that. Do
you? Thank God Christ. Let's be dismissed in prayer
and stay and eat if you can. We've got lots of good food.
I appreciate all the work that's been done. Thank the Lord for
the faithfulness of His people. Let's be dismissed in prayer. Brother Todd, ask the Lord to
bless this to us this morning. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
our hearts are full. And Lord, truly, we're so thankful
that You remember our prayer.