First time Brother Mahan introduced
me to preach for him. He jumped up and grabbed the
microphone. He said, I forgot he learned to whisper in a sawmill.
It is so good to be with you tonight. So very good to be with
you. I trust God will be pleased to
meet with us. I keep asking God to give me
grace. to listen when He speaks. He speaks to us by His Word.
I open it, read it, and ask the Lord to cause me to hear. He speaks in creation. The heavens declare His glory.
As I behold various things in creation, I seek grace to ask
Him for grace to behold His glory in creation. and he speaks by
his wise, adorable, and good providence. Every event, I am
confident, every event in God's providence is a message from
God for men, particularly a message from God for us, his people. Last night, an airplane crashed
in Buffalo, New York, killed everybody on board. a couple
weeks ago an airplane crashed and nobody was killed. God speaks
in both instances, reminding us of the frailty of humanity,
the brevity of life, reminding us that we wait for our breath to be given us by God's commandment. Every breath given by God's command. Most of you are aware that last
week all across the state of Kentucky, part of Arkansas, we
had a sudden freeze. Everything was under ice. Woke
up Tuesday morning a week ago to about three quarters of an
inch of ice hanging on the trees and power lines and what power
lines were hanging and we had it all over the place. We were
without power for eight days. better part of nine days, really.
And most of our folks in the congregation, most folks in our
county didn't have any water or electricity. And some were
without power much longer than that, some still are. But in
those times, we tend to look at things and we get a little
bent out of shape. We look at things just in the
immediate and we think, well, this is terrible. I recall on
occasion saying to folks, it looked like a war zone around
here. And then I'd catch myself. And I realized that it only looked
like a war zone to somebody who'd never seen a war zone. Sometimes
we'd get a little edgy because we had some bent fenders or food
wasn't exactly what we wanted. Had to go get water and carry
it. Had to go get kerosene oil and put it in lamps. And things
were a little cold. And you'd go outside and it was
just freezing, zero temperatures. Folks got a little edgy sometimes
and you'd think this is some terrible, terrible thing. It's
not trouble. That wasn't trouble. Some of
you know what trouble is. That doesn't look like it or
feel like it. That's not trouble. That's just a minor inconvenience
for a few days. But the Lord was teaching us
and preparing us, perhaps preparing us for great trouble, but all
the while teaching us. I am equally convinced that everything
in God's creation and everything in God's providence is designed,
ordained, decreed, and brought to pass by infinite wisdom to
teach us something about the new creation of grace. If you
want to see a beautiful picture of how God saves sinners, read
Genesis chapter 1, verses 1, 2, and 3, and you'll see how
God saves sinners beautifully pictured in the creation of the
world. You want to see a picture of what God does in our lives,
look at the various elements we call elements of nature, the
various elements of God's creation and how he uses them to instruct
us in day-by-day life and apply those things to your own heart
and life spiritually and you'll find much instruction. Now with
that in mind turn with me to Psalm 147 and hold your Bibles
open at Psalm 147. If you're taking notes, this
is the title of my message, God's Ice, God's Cold, and God's Thaw. God's Ice, God's Cold, and God's
Thaw. Three times in these verses of
scripture, we are called upon in this psalm to give praise
to God, to give praise to the triune Jehovah. In verses one
through six, The psalmist calls for us to praise God for his
grace and for his greatness in the exercise of grace. In verses
7 through 11, he calls for us to give praise to God, the triune
God, our God, for his unfailing faithfulness to us. And then
in verses 12 through 20, he calls for us to give praise to our
God for his special care of his own. First, the psalmist calls
us to praise God. to give praise to our God for
his grace in saving us and for his greatness displayed in that
grace which we experience. Oh God give us eyes with which
to behold these things and understand them spiritually. Look at verse
one. Praise ye the Lord for it is
good to sing praises unto our God. What a word with which to
describe God. Our God. Our God. Imagine that. Imagine that. That's my coat. This is my God. A personal possession. God makes himself our God. He makes himself our property
even as we are his people and his property. Read on. For it
is pleasant and praise is comely. Praise the triune three-in-one
Jehovah for it's good to praise our God. This great God, our
God, is worthy of praise and it's good to praise him for these
reasons. First, it's pleasant. If you read Revelation chapters
4, 5, 7, 14, you'll find out that one of the great delightful
things we have to look forward to in that state of eternity
we refer to as heaven, as glory, as everlasting life, is perfect
Uninterrupted praise. I don't mean this kind of whoopee,
charismatic, waving your hands and acting stupid. I'm not talking
about that. I'm talking about real praise. The continual uninterrupted praise
of God. Wouldn't you love to live that
way? With uninterrupted gratitude. Uninterrupted praise. Praise
is pleasant. Not only that, it's comely. It's
beautiful. No sight of humanity is more
comely, more beautiful, more proper than the sight of God's
altar covered with the calves of our lips, our continual praise
to Him. Read on. The Lord doth build
up Jerusalem. When we give praise to our God,
we acknowledge our nothingness and our utter dependence upon
Him. And the psalmist here says, give praise to God, this is comely,
for the Lord doth build up Jerusalem. He designed the building in his
eternal decree in predestination. He laid the foundation for the
building of his church, Jerusalem, in effectual redemption. And
he builds his church in regeneration, giving life to whom he will.
And he will complete his church. He will complete Jerusalem in
resurrection glory. Watch this next word. He gathereth
together the outcasts of Israel. What does God do day by day? What's he doing? We've just gone
through a tumultuous political season. And frankly, I don't like the
results. To be honest with you, I don't like them. None of them.
None of them. Except that God did it. That
makes it all right. That makes it all right. And
I'm going to live with it with contentment and give him praise. What's God doing in this? What's
God doing in this? What is God doing today? How
often I say to my wife when she says to me, what's this world
going to be like for our grandchildren to grow up in? I'll tell you
what it's going to be like. God keeps reminding me of this.
He's going to be doing tomorrow what he's been doing for the
last 7,000 years. He's gathering together his banished
ones. He's gathering together His elect. That's what God's doing. In the
exercise of His providence, in the rule and dominion of our
God over the thoughts of every man's heart, over the rule of
every nation in the universe, God Almighty gathereth. Did you see the word? gathering. This is the present, continual,
unending work of God. He gathereth together his outcast,
the outcast of Israel, those whom he has scattered to the
four corners of the earth with his mighty outstretched arm.
God is gathering together. Look at verse 3. He healeth the
broken in hearts. He pours in the oil of his grace
and pours it into the vessels that he has broken. He bindeth
up their wounds like a good shepherd, like the good Samaritan. Our
Lord Jesus, the great physician, pours into all of his grace to
heal the brokenhearted and binds up the wounds. But understand,
before he binds up the wounds, he first makes the wounds. Before
he feels the broken vessel, he breaks the vessel. The Lord Jesus
always wounds and then heals. He always breaks and then binds
up. He always slays and then gives
life. He never does things the other
way around. The Lord Jesus binds up the broken hearted and he
binds up those whom he has wounded. He alone we're told in verse
four. He alone who is Jehovah our God tells the number of the
stars. You remember what God told Abraham?
He said your seed will be like the stars in heaven and stand
upon the sea. Who can number the stars in heaven? Scientists proudly used to think
they could. Now they realize they can't.
They're beyond the scope of their grasp. Every time they think
they've seen the last one, another one appears. Have a little bit
stronger grasp with which to see. Who can number the stars? Who can number God's elect? They
are as the stars of heaven, a multitude. God numbers them. He refers to
them throughout the scriptures in multiples of 12. The 12 tribes
of Israel, the 48 boards around the tabernacle, the 144,000 described
in the book of Revelation, multiples of 12, the 12 gates, the 12 foundations,
all of those things speak of God's elect. They're spoken of
as a specific number given for a great multitude that no man
can number. God numbers them. He numbered
them from eternity. Not only did He number them from
eternity, He numbered the very hairs of their head from eternity. Imagine that. This shouldn't
be surprising then. He calleth them, each one, by
their names. He promised to give us a new
name. He makes us to wear the name of the Lord Jesus, whose
name is Jehovah, our righteousness. And so we wear His name Jehovah,
our righteousness. But He calls each one by their
names. He numbers the stars. He numbers
His elect. And then at the appointed time
of love, He calls them. He calls them personally, effectually,
by name. That's not to say that God speaks
with a roaring voice from heaven and He calls out Don Fortner.
You know, I have met in my life a couple of other Don Fortners.
And just as sure as I heard a voice speak from heaven and say Don
Fortner audibly, I'd be dead sure as either one of them, not
me. Not me. What you mean, calleth them by
their names? He calls his own in such a way that when he calls,
you know he's called. You know he's called. Preachers
and imaginary soul winners and social workers, religious workers,
Go around telling people that God has saved them. Tell them
to repeat after me, say this prayer, sign this card, and the
Lord has saved you. Let me tell you something. If
God ever gives you faith in Christ, you will know He gave you faith
in Christ. You won't need me to tell you. And if you need
me to tell you, He hasn't given it. That's just that. He calls
His own by their names, personally, individually. Give him praise,
we're told in verses five and six, because he's gracious and
because he's great. Great is our Lord, our Adonai,
the cause and the support of all things, for of him and through
him and to him are all things. He is of great power, great power. Now watch this, and not his knowledge,
There's more here than I've got my brain wrapped around yet.
His understanding is infinite. His understanding. Knowledge
is one thing, understanding is something else. I know about
a lot of things I don't understand. His understanding is infinite. What's that include? Everything
he knows. He understands His purpose. He understands how He works all
things together. He understands His design. He understands you and what you
feel and experience. He understands infinitely. His understanding is infinite. Now watch this. The eyes of the
Lord, we're told in Proverbs 15, are in every place beholding
the evil and the good. God knows everything, yeah, but
his understanding is infinite. So in that light, listen to this,
the eyes of the Lord are in every place. He beholds always the
evil and the good, but the eyes of the Lord, the Spirit of God
tells us in 1 Peter 3, are over the righteous. The eyes of the Lord behold everything. He sees everything. He understands
everything. But His eyes, the eyes of our
God, whose understanding is infinite, are over the righteous. They watch over us continually
to protect and guard His own. They're over the righteous. All
right, back here in Psalm 147 verse 7. David teaches us, secondly, to
give praise to the Lord our God because of His immutable unfailing
pleasure in us. Because of His immutable unfailing
acceptance of our souls in Christ. I want so much for you to get
this. I want so much for you to get this. If you're in Christ, God Almighty
in all the fullness of his holy being and character smiles on
you all the time. Often he appears to frown, but
behind the frowning providence he hides a smiling face. Let me show you, verse 7. Sing
unto the Lord with thanksgiving. Sing praise upon the heart unto
our God. Oh, learn, child of God, to answer
God's goodness with thanksgiving and praise. Praise Him even for
His dark providence. When He covers the heavens with
thick, dark clouds, what's He doing? Look at verse 8. Who covereth the heavens with
clouds who prepareth rain for the earth. You see the gathering clouds,
it looks like rain, and the clouds get heavy and dark. We're fixing to get storms. and
you can't see the sun and the light just barely breaking through
and the mid-days turn to darkness and say, oh, we're about to have
a storm! Because God is gathering up in
the heavens rain, not with which to destroy the earth, but rain
for the earth. I'm pretty sure Mr. Cowper must
have had this very passage in mind when he wrote, you fearful
saints, fresh courage take, the clouds you so much dread are
big with mercy and shall break in blessing on your head. He
prepareth rain for the earth, watch this, who maketh the grass
to grow upon the mountains. The rain comes by God's decree
And every drop of it falls exactly where he sends it. So give him
praise. He takes pleasure in you. Where
do you see that? Look at the next line. He giveth
to the beast his food. And to the young ravens which
cry, he feeds them too. You remember how Paul refers
to the law of God When he says, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth
of the oxen that treadeth out the corn, he said, Does God care
for oxen? Are you so foolish as to think
that God started PETA? Does God care for oxen? No, no. Does God send his rain on the
earth, cause the grass to grow on the mountain, and give food
to the wild beast, and feed the filthy raven? Does God do that
because he loves dogs and monkeys and jackasses and ravens? No,
no, no. He delighteth not in the strength
of the horse. That's not where his pleasure
is. He taketh no pleasure in the legs of man. Well, Brother
Don, the way that reads, if you read it like that, it looks to
me like God doesn't take any pleasure in the wild beast. He
doesn't take any pleasure in the filthy raven. He doesn't
even take any pleasure in men. You got it right. You got it
just exactly right. He doesn't take pleasure in anything
except His Son and His people in His Son. Read on. The Lord
taketh pleasure in them that fear Him and those that hope
in his mercy imagine that the three-in-one Jehovah Father Son
and Holy Spirit takes pleasure in you He takes pleasure in me
because we're in His Son this is my beloved Son in whom I am
well pleased That's not talking about by whom
I'm well-planned, that's in whom. Are you in His Son? I'm in His
Son, one with His Son. As really and truly one with
His Son, as His Son is one with Him. As really and truly in His
Son, as His Son is in Him. And as the Father in heaven takes
pleasure in Christ the Mediator, so He takes pleasure in His people
all the time. Oh, but Brother Don, what about
our sin? Christ put them away. What about
God's demands for holiness and righteousness? Christ fulfilled
them. And we in Him have borne His
wrath and fulfilled all His justice and all His law. John Trapp wrote,
The Lord takes pleasure in them that put themselves into the
hands of justice in hope of mercy. These are his chepzibahs, his
darlings, in whom he taketh singular delight and complacence. What
does that mean? The Lord God hath made us from
eternity accepted in the beloved. Is that what the book says? He
hath, once and for all, with finality, made us accepted in
Christ Jesus. And he's never changed his mind.
When Adam said, we were still accepted. When we went astray
from our mother's womb speaking lies, still accepted. When we
lived all the days of our lives, Terry Ho, with our fist in God's
face. He appeared to be against us,
but all the while for us. And today, blessed be His name, there is
no change in our God. He takes pleasure in them that
fear Him. Now, look at verses 12 through
20. We're instructed here to give
praise to our God because of His special care. because of
his distinguishing particular love and grace constantly exercised
toward us and upon us. Praise the Lord, praise Jehovah.
Oh Jerusalem, praise God, Elohim, the triune God. Oh Zion, let
others live and die in base ingratitude. The children of Jerusalem in
Zion shall give praise to our God for he hath strengthened
the bars of thy gates. There's a fellow who a couple
years ago started a teaching that lots of folks have fallen
for and the church age is over, Christ has come, judge the world
and church age is over so folks ought to quit going to church,
local churches are now all forsaken by God. No, not hardly. Our Savior said the gates of
hell shall not prevail against His Church. He has strengthened
the bars of thy gates and our Savior has promised to break
in pieces the gates of brass and cut and sunder the bars of
iron just as Samson did the gates of Gaza. He promised to perfect,
establish, strengthen and settle His saints. and he is a wall
of fire round about them. Now look at this next line. He
hath blessed thy children within thee. Thy children, there are
many, they're all taught of God. They're all children blessed
of God. He hath blessed thy children.
Now those folks who teach the bring your babies to the front
of the church and have some preacher act like a priest and slosh a
little water on their face and promise to raise them for the
Lord. It's talking about how those
covenant children are blessed. No. No. I've got just one child and she gets nothing by her relationship
to me except sin. Yours too. It's all we can give
them, pastor. We can teach them better, we
can give them better. All we can give them. What's
he talking about? He blesseth thy children within
thee. All the children of Zion, all
the children of Jerusalem, you and I who are children of his
kingdom are blessed within the walls of Zion, within the walls
of Jerusalem. Oh, how he blesses us in this
place. He maketh peace in thy borders,
and filleth thee with the finest of wheat. Peace in believing,
peace with God, peace of conscience, peace with one another, and gives
us the finest of wheat. Let me ask you, you daddies, what is it that you want for
your family? What do you want for them? Only
the best. That's all I ever wanted for
my daughter, just the best. Just the best. God doesn't just want
the best. Only the best will do for God's
family. He feeds Lester Buckner with
the finest of wheat every day. And he won't feed you with anything
else. Just the best. Just the best. He sendeth forth
his commandment upon the earth. What's that talking about? Last
week he sent his word and around us the
earth was frozen. This past Wednesday we were without
power again. He sent his word on a balmy warm
day and the wind blew a steady 60 to 70 mile an hour wind all
day and again we heard God speak. Power and gold, just like that.
He sends his commandment. Everything that happens in providence,
everything that happens in providence, if it comes to pass, God brought
it to pass. Nothing happens by chance or
accident. He sends his commandment. Now
watch this. His word runneth very swiftly. He speaks His Word
and is done immediately. We read often in the Scripture
of the immediate effects of our Savior's Word upon those to whom
He spoke. He said to the leprous man, be
thou clean and immediately his leprosy was gone. He said to
the blind, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole and immediately
he received his sight. As soon as the Son of God says
to the dead sinner live, the sinner lives. And so it is with
all the affairs of providence and all the affairs of your life
and my life. All that concerns you and all
that concerns me. Read on. Now this is a strange
statement. He giveth snow like wool. Would you please dare to tell
me how snow can be compared to wool? He giveth snow, his snow,
like wool. When I was a young man, oh, I
guess my first trip to Cub Scout camp, I was eight years old.
It was in a cold fall. We were in the mountains of North
Carolina. and we had to go out and do various things staying
outside and they gave us wool to wear. Do you know why? Because
when the wool was wet and the wind was cold the wool would
still keep you warm. He sends his snow like wool. Now up where we live this is
not true in the Arctic region but up where we live you get
six inches of snow Sometimes we get a foot. Not often, but
once in a while. I have seen two feet of snow on the ground
where we are. Where I used to live in West Virginia, we would
often have three feet of snow on the ground. I didn't know
this until I started preparing this message. Take a stab at
what the temperature is when you've got a foot of snow. Here's
the earth. Down below, things beneath the
earth. Here's the earth. What's that temperature? Right
there where the snow is laying on the earth. It rarely drops
below 32 degrees. The snow is an insulator. The
snow wraps the earth with a cold freeze. You put your hand in
it, you can't hold it there long. You hold it there and it'll begin
to burn and then it'll freeze and you'll get frostbite. But
that same snow that burns the flesh wraps the earth as a warm
blanket from heaven necessary to preserve life deep within
the earth, that that life may revive and spring forth anew
in the spring. My wife and I often would say,
we need a winter where we've got some deep snows so that it
frees the insects out of the ground. Well, that was just opposite.
It's incubating the insects. The snow preserves the life within. with a horrible chill without.
He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. Some of you fellows will
be familiar with black frost. You have a early frost in the
spring, I'm sorry, late frost in the spring, and your green
beans are already up, your strawberries are already blooming out, apple
trees are budding out, peach trees budding out, and you get
a frost. You don't really see any ice,
just tips of everything black. Look in the bud, black, everything
dead. Here he speaks of the hoarfrost.
Hoarfrost scatters it like ashes. Hoarfrost is a, you've just got
to see it to believe what it looks like. It's a spectacle
Incomparable almost, it looks like flowers bursting out of
the ground. It's just a frost that covers the earth with a
sparkling bright white. He sends the snow and incubates
the earth and over that earth that he's covered with the snow
when the snow is gaudy, he sends the hoarfrost and covers this
dirty earth with a sparkling bright white as he does our souls
in Christ Jesus the Lord. He casteth forth his ice as morsels,
verse 17. Now remember, we read up here
in verse 14, he feeds you and fills you with the finest of
wheat. He casteth forth I don't think I've ever seen these two
words together before. He is ice. It's not just ice,
Thomas. It's his ice. Like morsels of
bread. Like morsels. He cast ice out
of the windows of heaven as morsels of bread for our hungry souls.
And he does so in his daily exercise of grace, whatever the ice is. Perhaps he's talking about the
whore frost. Perhaps he's talking about the snow that falls so
beautifully. Oh, man, it's great to sit down
by the fire, sit down by the fire where it's nice and warm
and look outside a big picture window and watch the snow fall
in the evening lights. Oh, just beautiful, beautiful,
Cedric, beautiful. Maybe he's talking about the
driving sleet. Just, it'll beat the skin off
of you. Maybe he's talking about the
hard frozen ice like we saw back in Kentucky last week. Maybe
he's talking about the beating hail that destroys every crop
a man's planting. Whatever it is, it's his ice
and he sends it. Who can stand before his cold? Now the only way you fellas down
here this far south can get an idea what that's talking about
as if you've seen folks on television, one of those westerns where they're
taking place in the north country in the wintertime and the wind's
blowing and the snow's blowing and the cold is such that you
just, you bear up under it and you turn your back to it and
brace yourself against it. Who can stand before His cold? How often do you ask yourself,
my brother, my sister, why this coldness? Oh my God, why is my heart so
hard frozen against you? You sense the coldness stealing
over you. You sense it. You know it's there. You know it's coming. And there's
nothing you can do to withstand it. You try to pray and your
prayers are just words. You try to read and you just
read words. You come here and you listen
to your pastor and you ask God to speak to you and you just
hear the echo of his voice in these walls. Who can stand before
his cold like the snow he sends? It's necessary to preserve the
life hidden deep within that it may spring forth and live
fresh anew in the springtime of his refreshing. who can stand
before His cold, the cold that He sends. When the cold has come,
He sendeth out His Word and melteth them. Let me see if I can illustrate
this for you. Last spring I sat in the hospital,
I'd begun to make some physical recovery, I had such a horrible
time of desolation, spiritual desolation. If you had asked
me a week before if I thought it was possible for me to be
in such a shape mentally, spiritually, and emotionally, I would have
said not possible, not possible. I mean just utter desolation. God hadn't spoken to me I hadn't spoken to him since
I'd gained consciousness from surgery. I was just desolate
in my soul. And Shelby and I were, bless
her heart, she was trying to help me maintain some composure
of things. She'd read and we'd talk and she'd read and she'd
talk and she'd read and she'd talk. Came time to read scriptures
one morning and she read from Mr. Spurgeon. In the morning
reading that morning was from John chapter 17. I pray not that thou wouldest
take them out of the world. And when she read his word, God
spoke. He said his word and it ran swiftly. I mean before she read the next
word. God had a word for me and the hard frozen heart melted,
melted like water before the fire and the waters flowed from
my heart before him with gratitude. That's what he's talking about.
He sends his word. He calls with his wind, his spirit
to blow and the waters flow. Read on, verse 19. He doesn't do this for just anybody. Do you ever wonder why it is
that you understand something in this book and your neighbor
doesn't? Why it is you can understand
something here and your wife or your mother, your husband,
your father, your son, your daughter, they can't get it? Because He
showeth His Word unto Jacob. His statutes and his judgments
unto Israel. It's called special distinguishing
mercy. The Lord does put a difference
between Israel and Egypt. He hath not dealt so with any
nation. And as for his judgments they
have not known them forgive me if it appears trite
well I just don't get that I don't expect you to, it's a God thing I don't expect you to get it
unless God sends you his word unless God shows you His judgments,
unless God teaches you His way. And my response to all that is,
praise ye the Lord. Amen. Well, I'm glad I was here. I couldn't have been any poorer.