I want you to turn, if you will,
back to Philippians 4 and look at verse 6 and 7 with me. I want
to use verse 7. Be careful for nothing but in
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests
be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passeth
all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. Now this morning, the thoughts
that are upon my heart, I want, by the grace of God, if I can,
to give them to you, as the Lord has been pleased to give them
to me, and as he does give them to me as I stand before you today. There are many things that I'm
sure that you would like to have in the coming year. many goals
maybe that you've set that you would like to meet. There are
various things that in your life that maybe you would like to
be rid of this time next year. And maybe there are several things
that you would like to lay hold of in the coming year. Maybe
you would like to have a better position, a better job. Maybe
you'd like to have more means to live in this world and to
do those things that you feel obligated to do. There may be
various, various desires of heart here this morning. If I were
to call upon you, probably every one of you would have some desire
in your heart that you would like to see and have fulfilled
in this coming new year. But as I stand before you this
morning, there are three things that I would like to have in
the year 93. Three things that I feel desperate
for, and I want to give you these three things this morning and
talk to you a little bit about these things. I believe this
is urgent, necessary for every child of God, every poor, afflicted
child of God in this world, We're on a pilgrimage to glory. We're
in a world that's no friend of grace to help us on to God. We're
in a world that is an enemy of God. And we're in enemy territory,
as it were. And we need these three things
that I'm going to mention to you this morning, and we need
them, as I said, in a desperate way. And I hope this morning
the Lord will stir up your heart to receive these things. Now
one of the things that I'd point out first before I get into this
is that these three things that I'll mention to you are not things
that you and I can generate in and of ourselves. These three
things are of God. These three things are heavenly
in nature, and they can only be given to us by the eternal
God. And so as we're talking about
these things this morning, you keep that in mind. These things
we need, God has them, and God can give them unto us. And may
the Lord be pleased to do that. Now the number one thing that
I want in the coming year is found here in verse 7. And it
says, And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall
keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. The number one
thing that I would like to have in this coming year is I would
like to have the peace of God to act as umpire in my life,
to rule in my life, the peace of God to keep my heart and my
mind. I desperately need that. Now
you see, peace is a heavenly word, and how insignificant a
matter will mar our peace of mind. Some little thing, some
trifling thing, some just an incident will somehow or other
affect the peace of our hearts. We're such poor creatures that
we may lose our peace of mind even by a word that somebody
speaks or by a look that somebody gives to us. It's always happening,
it seems. There are so many things to mar
our peace and to mar our rest. There's always seems to be disturbance. There's always that which would
somehow or other affect us to the point where that we just
simply are out of sorts and we don't have that quiet, calm spirit,
that calmness of heart that we ought to have and that we desire
to have as the people of God and that which would give a good
testimony to everyone around us. We need that our hearts and
our minds would be kept by the peace of God. Now the Apostle
Paul, who under the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, that penned
these words here, after he was converted, he loved peace, he
preached peace, And he lived in peace as much as was possible,
he said, as much as is possible in you. He said you live peaceably
with all men. And the Apostle Paul was a man
of peace. And he loved peace and he lived
in peace. And he now dwells above in peace
before the throne of God. This man who spoke these words. Well, I think that we have a
great privilege here mentioned in this text, spoken of here
by the Apostle Paul. A great privilege. The peace
of God can be given, and this peace of God, it passes all understanding. Now, you know, there are many,
many times when we set our minds to work to try to figure out
exactly what's going on in our lives. We try to figure out why
this is happening and why something else is happening. And you know,
sometimes when we gather here on a Sunday, sometimes maybe
the things that we say appear to be irreverent. And then before
the week is out, the things that we said on Sunday are very, very
applicable to our situation and to our circumstances. And so
listen, if you will, very carefully to what I have to say here this
morning, because this is not irrelevant. This privilege that
we have here is this. that God is able, when we're
not able, in and of ourselves, to figure out why and figure
out the wherefores of life and the difficulties that we're living
under and in in our life. We can't figure out the circumstances. We don't know why. But in those
times, the Lord can give us a peace. He can give us a peace that passes
understanding. Even though we can't understand
it, the Lord can give us a peace that makes us in our own souls
to be so calm and settled that we just know that everything
is going to be alright. That the hand of the Lord is
with us and it's upon us and that God is going to work out
our situation and that He's going to bring to pass that good will
of His And you know the Lord brings His people in to these
trying circumstances and into these difficult circumstances
that they can't figure out. They don't have the ability to
figure out. If a man's ways be of the Lord, how can he know
his way, the Bible says. And so man gets into these various
difficulties. God leads him into them and brings
him into these circumstances and in order that he might cry
out to God that this blessed privilege would be His, that
He would have the peace of God that would keep His heart and
would keep His mind. And then also I think that we
have here I mentioned the power of the operation of this peace,
and I like this because it says it shall keep your heart and
your mind. It shall keep it. Now, beloved,
there isn't anything else I know of that can keep a person's heart
and mind but the peace of God that passeth all understanding.
And that's all understanding. Isn't that what the text says?
It passes all understanding. And the only thing that can do
that is God's peace. And so you must pray for it.
I remember many times, and I won't get into telling you the times
and the situations, but many times, when very distraught and
very upset and confused, when God was pleased, to come and
impart this peace to my troubled soul and to enable me to be able
to calmly go on and live and face whatever was necessary in
my life. And so God was able to do this.
And the sphere of the operation of God's peace is it shall keep
your heart and your mind. And many times, you know, we
just got so many loose ends, and we make excuses for ourselves,
and we say, well, you know, if you had the problems I have,
preacher, and if you were facing what I'm facing, then you wouldn't
talk about being calm, patient and being so submissive to God. But beloved, I know where you
are. I've been there myself. And I know that this is what
we need. This is what I must have. Day
by day, something to keep. And Paul said, the peace of God
shall Keep your heart and your mind through Christ Jesus. And that's the sphere of its
action. Namely, in Christ Jesus. In rather than through. The word should be in. It's in
Christ. In Christ Jesus that the peace
of God keeps our hearts and minds. Now, if we're in Christ, The
Bible says that if we're in Christ that all things are ours and
that we have the blessed covenant of grace to give and to dispense
unto us all things needful and necessary in our life. God will
and has made provision for all your need, dear friend. You that
are in Christ Jesus and so the peace of God shall keep your
heart. Now outside of Him, there is
no peace. The Bible says He is our peace. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
peace. He has made our peace with God. I would like if you would turn
with me to the book of Isaiah. chapter 26 the book of Isaiah
chapter 26 now beloved as we talk about this subject this
morning and the need of this peace of God that will keep our
hearts and minds over in Isaiah chapter 26 in verse 3 it says
thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on
thee because he trusteth in thee And then verse 4, Trust you in
the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. Now the words perfect peace here,
thou wilt keep him in perfect peace. And you know we are often
willing to accept something other than perfect peace. The beloved
perfect peace is possible for the child of God. God said, I
will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee. Now the words perfect peace here,
it might be better translated peace, peace, or peace upon peace. And these words are intended
to express peace, I think, in the most emphatic way possible. The peace that God gives His
people in Christ is an extensive peace. It's the widest peace
possible. It's an increasing and real peace
that the Lord's people enjoy. Now let me say this because I
believe it to be the truth. Now if we take an honest survey
of ourselves and if we do not enjoy the peace of God, if we
have been living frustrated disquieted lives, if we have been, as it
were, having so many loose ends, and if we've been just making
a nuisance of ourselves because we've been coming to pieces and
unraveling, as it were. Now listen to me, beloved, we
need to look at ourselves because the blame must be laid at our
door alone, because we make ourselves restless by our unbelief and
by our sin. We make ourselves restless. We put ourselves, as it were,
into this state. Now, the point I'm trying to
make is that God's people, they have some basic fundamental truths
that they know in their hearts Things that they know the Word
of God teaches that they can fall back upon and rest upon
in their souls. And we must do that. And we must
do it or else we shall find ourselves without this peace. First thing
I would like to say in reference to this peace is that this peace,
there is this peace where there is an absence of war and danger. Now, beloved, if we're in Christ,
we read in Isaiah 40, and in the first few verses there, where
that it says that the warfare of the people of God is accomplished.
It says, comfort ye my people, comfort ye my people, tell them
that their warfare is accomplished. Now what that means is that all
of our sins have been forgiven once for all, never to be charged
against us again. Now, we need to reflect upon
that, to think upon that, because these things are the foundation
for our peace in Christ. We need to believe that the warfare
is accomplished, that God no longer is angry with His people,
and that we have been reconciled unto God through the death of
His Son, Jesus Christ. And then also that Christ has
taken possession of us, never to lose us, never to lose us. Now that point really comes home
to my heart. Most of you here believe in the
doctrine of eternal security. That when God saves a poor sinner,
that that poor sinner is kept by the power of God through faith
in Christ Jesus until the day that God takes him out of this
world and takes him home to glory. Now, beloved, we believe that,
and we must continue to reflect back upon that. That we are the
possession of the Lord Jesus Christ. That God, in the Old
Covenant, that He gave us to Christ, and Christ bought us,
and He actually possessed us. The Holy Spirit came and arrested
us and brought us into Christ. And so, the Father owns us, and
He has possessed us, and He will never lose us. And there is nothing
that we cannot safely commit unto Him. Our Heavenly Father
rules all things in the universe, and He will not neglect us. Now I know sometimes it's hard
for us to believe that the Lord has knowledge of us as individuals
living in this way-off place where we live, or we're in a
big crowdsome place, and you say, Preacher, you think God
sees me there? The eye of God sees you, and
if you belong to Him, your name is written on the palms of His
hands. And he can see it. You've seen
some of these computer disks, and you know how much information
can be on just a little piece of paper, or on a little disk,
a little plastic disk. And I'll tell you this, God knows
His people. God knows His people. He knows
every one of them. He rules the universe. And He'll
never neglect one of His people. He'll be a God unto His people. And we need to believe that and
rest upon that. And there is nothing that we
cannot safely commit unto Him. Peter said, cast all of your
care upon Him, for He careth for you. Now this is the foundation
for peace with God. that will keep the heart and
the mind. Now the peace that God gives,
beloved, is rest in the soul. Now peace in the soul is resignation
to the will of God. Now you remember this, there
is no way that a man or woman living in God's world that claims
to believe God will ever have peace with God unless they are
resigned to the good will of God in their life. Are you submissive
to the will of God? Have you bowed your knee to what
God has said in His Word? What He has taught you? What
you know in your heart you ought to do? And what you know you
must do? Have you bowed your knee to that?
And to things that you cannot understand? Have you in your
own heart said, these things I do not understand. These things
I just don't know how they'll ever work out. But there is one
thing for certain. They are right if they are His
will. If it is His will, then these
things are right. And they're right for me. And
Lord, even though my carnal mind and fleshly mind does not agree,
Yet Lord, I know that You're right, and I know these things
are right. And Lord, if in my heart You
detect that there is something against Your will, and there's
a fault in my mind against Your will, then Lord, You just reckon
it not to be there, because I know that You're right, and everything
You do is right, and I know that it's proper for me to bow unto
Your will and to resign myself fully unto your will. And also there must be confidence
in the goodness of God and contentment with the providence of God. Now,
beloved, are we confident that God is good? The Lord is good
to them that trust Him. Those that call upon Him and
trust Him. God is good. Now, beloved, we
often have hard thoughts of God in our heart. We often quarrel
with God. We often are somehow or other,
you know, our fleshly pride, it makes us rebel against what
God has sent into our lives. And the flesh is not subject
to the law of God. Neither indeed can it be. There's
a rebellious spirit in every one of us by nature. And we know
that, and so listen to me, we've got to trust the goodness of
Almighty God and believe that He's too good to do wrong. Too good to allow anything to
come into our lives that will not eventually work out for our
good. And then, too, we must be content
with the providence of God, submit ourselves, and be content with
it. You say, well, preacher, I just
can't be content with things the way they are. My friend,
you must recognize that God has the power to change Those things
in our life that need to be changed, go to Him and ask Him to change
them. And if He does not change them,
then He will say to you as He said to Paul, My grace is sufficient
for thee. Child, wait upon Me and trust
Me. And I'll change them when it's
good and when it's right and when it's proper. Okay, now listen. We make ourselves restless by
unbelief, I said. And the Scripture here says that
you'll keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee
because he trusteth in thee. He trusteth in thee. He is trusting
you. He's relying upon you. Now listen to me. When a child
of God looks upward, There is no sort of justice against Him. The cup of wrath, He will never
bear it. The anger of God against you
is gone, and it's gone forever. When we look upward, and so as
we look upward, Be reconciled and be at peace in your own soul
because God is at peace. God has satisfied Himself in
His own Son. God is at peace. His wrath is
gone. Forever! It's gone forever as
far as the Lord's sheep are concerned, as far as the people of God are
concerned. And then when we look downward,
there's no condemnation, no death, no judgment, no second death,
no hell for the people of God to endure. The people of God
have suffered in their substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's
never any judgment for you to face, and there's not going to
be any hell for the people of God. The second death has already
been died by the Lord Jesus Christ. He suffered it on Calvary's cross. And then when you look backward,
all your past sins are blotted out. As we said earlier, they're
forgiven, they're taken away, they're remembered no more. God's
people, their past, they have no past. Their past has been
put away. The Lord has taken it. He said,
I won't remember it against you. He said, I've passed it behind
my back as far as the east is from the west. I'll never remember
it against you anymore. It's gone. Clean, gone forever. It's buried in the depths of
the sea. And so there's no need to be
disturbed by your past by looking back. And then outward, God has
made all the beasts of the field, all the stones of the earth,
all the trees of the forest, and even your enemies to be at
peace with you. So why should you not rest? And
why should you not have some peace in your own soul? And then
if you look inward, God has set a guard in your heart to keep
your heart. And that's that peace that we
read of in Philippians 4 and verse 7. This peace that is like
a garrison. That's the word. It's a garrison
around us to keep us and to fortify us in the world. And then when
we look forward, heavenly glory awaits the people of God. All
that the man Christ Jesus is and has done shall soon be ours
in eternal glory. Now God gives this peace to faith. He gives it to those that trust
Him. Oh my friend, do you believe
that God is such? Has He revealed Himself to be
worthy of trust? Has God said, trust me? And then has He ever disappointed
anyone who trusts? No. The Lord has never confounded
the man that believes on Him. The man who believes on God,
the Lord will never make him ashamed. God has revealed Himself
to be trustworthy. And God said, I'll keep you in
perfect peace if you just trust Me. If you just trust Me. If
you rely upon Me. Now God keeps those in peace
whose minds are stayed upon Him. And all your thoughts must be
stayed upon your God. Never think, listen to me, I'll
tell you what that means. All your thoughts must be stayed
on God in this world as you're passing through it. Never, let
me say this, never think of your sin without thinking of the Lord
Jesus Christ and of the fact that your sin has been blotted
out and forgiven. Let your mind be stayed on the
fact that your sin has been taken care of. It's all been taken
care of. It's been put away. And then
never think of your needs without thinking of the all-sufficiency
of El Shaddai, of God Jehovah, of the Jehovah God, the Almighty
God of the Bible. Never think of your needs by
itself. You see, if you do that, sometimes
you're overwhelmed, aren't you? If you think of your needs and
don't think of God's sufficiency at the same time, don't allow
the devil to trick you into doing that. Don't let Him trick you
into thinking of your sins without thinking of the atonement made
by your substitute, the Lord Jesus. And don't think of your
need without thinking of God's bounty and God's ableness to
supply everything that you have need of. And if you do this,
if you practice that, that's staying your heart on the Lord. And never think of your past
without thinking of His providence. You know, sometimes we just keep
thinking somehow or other that things should have been different,
things could have been different. Oh, if I would have just done
this, if I would have just done that. But my friend, it was the
providence of God that dealt with you in the past just like
it's dealing with you today and just like it'll be dealing with
you tomorrow on to eternity. It's God's hands and you know
we got all we got we're so wide You see we didn't see it then
but we see it now how it ought to been done back there We see
how we should have done it without thinking of the promises of God. If a man starts thinking about
the future and he's living in this world and struggling as
we must every day of our lives, listen to me, God's made many
promises in His Word. Many promises that he said, cast
all your burden upon me and I will sustain thee. Call upon the Lord,
I in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify
me. God has made promises, promises
in his word. Call upon me and I will answer
thee and before you call I will hear, saith the Lord. The Lord
has made promises and don't ever think of the future. without
thinking of the future in the light of what God has promised
to his people. Let your imagination, all of
it, be stayed upon your God. We ought never to imagine anything
to be possible that is in any way contrary to the goodness,
the grace, and the power of God. Don't even imagine it. You're
a child of God and you let your imagination just run. And that's
the reason why you're so restless and so disturbed all the time.
Don't imagine that anything can happen in this world that is
beyond, as far as God is concerned, beyond His ability to manage
it. and to make it turn out for your
good and for His glory. Now then, if you would live in
peace, let all your desires be stayed upon your God. Want nothing but what the Lord
wills to give you. Desire nothing but what God deems
in His providence best for you. Don't even want it. Don't desire
it. Now you see we're filled with
all kinds of desires but the Lord will give you the desires
of your heart if they're in accordance with His will. Don't desire anything
that's not in harmony with God's will. Rejoice in the Lord as
we read, as the brother read to us this morning. Rejoice in
the Lord. Be careful for nothing but in
everything but prayer. Make your requests known to God
and the peace of God will keep your heart and your mind through
Christ Jesus. And so beloved, this is what
we want. We want it, we desire it, and we trust God to give
it unto us. The peace of God. I desperately, desperately need
it in my own life. Now the second thing is this,
and I'll hurry on. I spent a little more time on
that than I meant to. But the second thing is, let's
turn to Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13 in our Bibles. And let's look here this morning. That's not the right reference.
I think it must be the 12th chapter. It is. It's the 12th chapter
and it's the 28th verse. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse
28. It says, Wherefore we receiving
a kingdom which cannot be moved, Listen to this, let us have grace
whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. The second thing that I want
in this coming year is that I want grace, I want the grace of God
to serve God acceptably. I want the grace of God. Now acceptable service must be
rendered unto God in the power of divine grace. Did you get
that? Acceptable service unto God must
be rendered to God in the power of divine grace. Poor, feeble,
human nature. We cannot, we must have grace. Let us have grace. Not, listen,
we can't do it in the power of nature, in nature at its very
best. You cannot serve God as a Christian. You've got to have grace to serve
God. You must have it. Now listen
to me. This is my prayer. This is my
prayer. Let us have grace. Let us have
grace in the home. Let us have grace in dealing
with our families, our children. Let us have grace in dealing
with the various situations that we must deal with in our workplace
or wherever we find ourselves trying to make a living. in this
world. Let us have grace, oh Lord, to
be able to serve you while we're providing our own needs and while
we're managing the affairs of the home and the household, while
we're dealing with family members. Lord, let us have grace. Let
us have grace. Now as a preacher, I most keenly
feel this, I feel it so much, because beloved listen, as a
preacher of the gospel all the years I've been in the ministry,
I have never been sufficient for it. Never have I had a sufficiency
in and of myself. You see, preaching is not like
working on trucks. It's not like building a house. It's not like doing many of the
other jobs that you fellows do and you folks do here. Preaching
is a spiritual work. Preaching is something that a
man can only do. If God has laid hold upon him
and called him, he can only do it by the sufficiency of God. He can only do it as God enables
him to do it. And so every time you come into
the pulpit, you are aware of the fact that you must have sufficiency
of God. You must have the grace of God.
And if you don't have God's grace, to enable you and help you, you'll
not be able to do it. Now I've lived under that for
over 40 years with that feeling of inadequacy and that feeling
of helplessness when it comes to doing this job of preaching
the Word of God. Because a man is not able to
do it in and of himself. It's only by the grace of God. So you pray Let that preacher
have grace, O God. He's standing before me and others
like me and preaching as a dying man to dying men. And Lord, give
that preacher grace. Let him have grace in his heart. Let him have grace in his speech,
grace in his life, grace in every breath. And while you're praying
for the preacher, pray for yourself. because you need the grace of
God in this way. Now turn back, if you will, to
the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I believe
it is. Yes, 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
And look and see how prominent a place that Paul gave to the
grace of God in his own life and his own ministry. Look at
it here in verse 9 and 10 of 1 Corinthians 15. Paul said,
For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called
an apostle, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted
the church of God. But by the grace of God I am
what I am, and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not
in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I. Yet not I, but the grace of God
which was with me. It was the grace of God which
was with me that enabled me to labor more abundantly than they
all, to accomplish more than any of the other apostles, and
to be used of God as an instrument more fully than any of the other
apostles. It was the grace of God that
was given unto me. No wonder Paul said, let us have
grace. that we may serve God with reverence
and godly fear. Beloved, we cannot apart from
this grace and all to grace the old song says how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be. Oh Lord bind my heart as with
a fetter to that grace and to thee Because we feel so often,
you know, the proneness to lean on flesh and to wander away.
And we need the grace of God. So Lord, let us have grace. Let us have grace. Do pray for
me. Do pray for me that I'll have
the grace of God upon me in such a measure that I'll be sufficient
for what the Lord has called me to do. Now the number three
thing, and the last thing, I want you to turn to Romans 1, Romans
chapter 1, and I want you to look at verse 21. Romans 1 and
21. It says, because that when they
knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful. Neither were thankful. Now here
is two sins, here's two indictments against those that the Bible
says knew God. Number one, they glorified Him
not as God. Now listen to me, we around here,
we do not glorify Him as God, as we would like to. We're not
able, as we would love to do it, to glorify and exalt the
Lord, but we're working on that. We're working on that. And we
try to glorify God every time we come here together. We try
to exalt the Lord and glorify Him as God of heaven and earth. The sovereign God of the universe. But now listen to me. There's
something else here that caught my eye. Something else here that
I think we need. It says, neither were thankful.
Neither were thankful. Beloved, the third thing I want
in the new year is a thankful heart. I want a thankful heart. You know, I think that when we
read this indictment, neither were thankful, that we should
immediately, it should set off an alarm in our hearts, in our
minds, our soul. There is not one of us here today
that cannot say that things are better with us than we deserve
them to be. There's not a one of us. Now,
I know that we often get bowed down. We often find ourselves
very low. We're cast down. David had that
trouble in the Psalms. Oh my soul, why art thou so cast
down? We get so cast down in and of
ourselves. But beloved, we need a thankful
heart. We must look around us. We must
open our eyes. We must do this. Now listen to
me. I find that in gratitude, this
not having a thankful heart, I find that that breeds pride. It breeds impatience. It breeds
frustration. And it breeds rebellion against
God. I'm talking about a heart that
is not thankful. Now, most of us here, I mean,
we know that this lesson, I said it at the outset, that we're
powerless to give ourself a thankful heart. But beloved, listen, you're
not going to have a thankful heart until you are aware of
the fact that you can't give yourself one and that you don't
have one. John Warburton, I was reading,
oh years ago, the book Mercies of a Covenant God. And in that
book, John Warburton told about some of his experience, how God
had blessed him and delivered him and provided his needs. Something unusual had happened,
I forget just exactly what it was, but God so graciously showed
him his hand and met his needs. And old John, he wanted to be
thankful, but he wasn't. He just didn't have a thankful
heart. And he was aware of it. It was
bothering him. It was disturbing him. And he
was mad at himself because he didn't have a thankful heart.
So a few days later, he was out on an old road walking down a
country lane. And God blessed him with a thankful
heart. The Lord just gave him a thankful
heart! And he was able to praise God,
able to rejoice in the Lord, to give thanks unto His God. Now then, listen, we read over
in the book of Isaiah, if you want to turn there with me, Isaiah
chapter 61, we read, while it's not in our power to have this,
that it's in the power of Christ and in the ministry of the Lord
Jesus that we can receive this. Notice, if you will, here in
verses 1 and 2 and 3, that it's talking about, it's a prophecy
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, how that He'd been anointed of
the Lord to preach good tidings unto the meek. He sent me to
bind up the brokenhearted. to proclaim liberty to the captives,
the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our
God, to comfort all that mourn, to apport unto them that mourn
in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, and listen to this, the garment of praise for the
Spirit of heaviness. To give unto them, to appoint
unto them, to give unto them is the language. to give unto
them the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified. It will
glorify God to lift that spirit of heaviness off of you, my brother,
my sister, to lift it off of you. It will glorify God that
you no longer are just continually, monotonously, groaning and moaning
and fretting about your situation. It'll be to the glory of God
to have you walking around with a joyful heart and a spirit of
praise in your soul and offering praise and thanksgiving unto
God even though it looks like that tomorrow may be the last
day that you'll ever make it, that your situation is so desperate
that you're not going to be able to make it any longer, just lift
your heart up to God and praise Him and give thanks to Him. It's
amazing how this works. It's amazing how merciful, how
lovingly God puts within, how He lifts out and how he puts
within his people a thankful heart. Now, this unthankfulness,
I think, is a sin. There's no excuse for it, especially
to those who know God. There's no excuse for it. If
a man knows God, there's no excuse because there's so many daily
mercies. Mercies known. Mercies unknown. There are temple mercies, spiritual
mercies, that God gives unto every one of us. There we must,
my beloved, we must have a thankful heart unto God. And we must not
dwell upon, so many people dwell on what they don't have. It's
always what they don't have. The children of Israel in the
wilderness, they were that way, you know. They had the manna,
but they didn't have any garlic. They didn't have any onions,
they didn't have any leeks, they had manna, and they had shoes,
and they had a coat on their back, and the Lord opened up
the stone in the wilderness or in the desert and gave them water,
but they didn't have, they didn't have, they didn't have. And beloved,
that's exactly the way you and I are. We spend too much time
dwelling on what we don't have, and we're not grateful for what
we do have, what God has put into our hands. Well, I know
that hell and destruction are never full, the eyes of man are
never satisfied, and I know that this is a sin that's going to
be with us, but don't look on it that way. You get rid of it
and ask God to give you a thankful heart and don't be satisfied
until you get one from the Lord. A thankful, a thankful heart. Now listen to me. Thanksgiving,
as one old writer said, drives away bad thoughts. For bad thoughts
are bad tenants who pay no rent and they foul the house. Thanksgiving,
my brother, will drive away a lot of those things that you've been
dwelling on, thinking on, meditating upon in your heart. My, the time
has gotten away from me. Let me just read a few verses.
Those of you that have a pencil, and you're writing down some
things. Write down Psalm 100, read it, it's a very short psalm.
And write down Psalm 95, read that psalm. And then Psalm 69,
verse 29 through 32. I don't have the time this morning
to read all those verses, but good verses on what I'm talking
about. Now let me share these verses with you before we close. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2
and verse 14, He said, now thanks be unto God, which always causes
us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the Savior of
His knowledge by us in every place. That's a tremendous verse,
isn't it? Thanks be unto God. Now in verse,
Colossians 2 and verse 7, rooted and built up in Him and established
in the faith as ye have been taught, abounding therein with
thanksgiving with abounding therein in what you've been taught what
you've been established in in the faith Hebrews 13 and 15 by
him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually
that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. Sounds like something we ought
to be involved in. Sounds to me like it's something
new that we could take up most of us around here. Sounds to
me like there'd be a whole lot of room around here. You say,
I'm kind of poor preacher, don't take no money at all for this
sacrifice. Don't take any money. No, it doesn't take a dime to
offer. Listen, it says you offer the
sacrifice of praise. That is the fruit of your lips.
Giving thanks to his name. You don't have to have a thing.
Poor people, people without, wealthy people, anybody can offer. And with such sacrifices, the
next verse says God's well pleased. He's well pleased. with that
sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise as well as he mentions
there communicating and sharing in that next verse. But then
in 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 16, 17, and 18 he said rejoice evermore. He said you pray without ceasing
and then he said this, in everything you give thanks for this is the
will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. This is God's will. You
say, Preacher, I don't know if I can do that or not. This is
God's will. You're interested in God's will concerning you?
That's it. You give thanks in everything,
brother. And I believe that if you give
thanks in everything, there's going to be a couple things happen.
One, I believe that you're going to have an eye, the Lord will
give you an eye, to see more clearly the true riches which
He's bestowed upon you. And number two, I believe this,
that in actuality you will have more to give thanks to God for
as the year ends, 93, that God will do that. God will give you.
If you're grateful and mindful of what God is doing and what
He's done for you, And I couldn't begin to tell you all God's done
for us. I've tried to tell you some of
the things this morning. But I hope that your prayer will
be to God. Lord, be pleased to give me that
peace that passeth understanding. Lord, give me grace. Let me have
grace. Lord, this is a tough road I'm
taking and you know you've led me on it and you've led me in
it. Let me have grace. And then, Lord, give me a thankful
heart. These are the things that are
on my mind this morning, and I hope that God will be pleased
to, in this new year, grant this poor preacher to have those things.
And if I get those things, listen to me, I'll be better off. I'll
be a better preacher. I'll be better off. I'll be better
off. I don't have any... You know,
if nothing changes materially, I'll be a better man spiritually
if I got these things. Don't you think so? Oh, you will
be too. You'll be so much better off.
And so may God bless these things to your edification and to your
upbuilding. Father, we thank You. Thank You
for Your Word, for Your truth, and for Your Divine Spirit that's
helped us this morning. Be pleased to stamp these things
upon our hearts. For Jesus' sake, Amen.