Let's turn together to Deuteronomy,
chapter 32. Deuteronomy, chapter 32. God's servant Moses is giving
his last word of instruction to the children of Israel, and
as he does, he begins his instruction with a song of praise to our
God, the Lord God who had led them through the wilderness for
forty years. who led them, providing for them,
protecting them, guiding them in all things according to his
wise and good purpose of grace. He led them, the scripture tells
us, in a straight way. That may seem like strange language,
considering they made this eleven-day journey in forty years. He led
them in a straight way, exactly as he had purposed. exactly for
their good in the best way possible. Now, Moses' purpose in this psalm
of praise, it seems to me, is threefold. First, he wants to
exalt and extol the Lord God who has redeemed and brought
his people out of the land of bondage. That is my purpose tonight. I want to exalt and extolled
Him, who alone has redeemed us and brought us out of bondage
into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Let's begin
here in verse one. Give ear, O ye heavens, and I
will speak. And hear, O earth, the words
of my mouth, my doctrine, that which I teach shall drop as the
rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain
upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass, because
I will publish the name of the Lord, ascribe ye greatness unto
our God." Oh, God teaches that. When he speaks of the name of
the Lord, hold your hands here and come back to Exodus 34. He's
talking about what God is. He's talking about our Lord Jesus
Christ, our Redeemer, who is Himself the name of the Lord
and who is Himself the full revelation of God. Now, we generally don't
use names the way they were used in Scripture. They don't use
names even the way they've been used historically to describe
something about the person to whom the name is given. But God's
name speaks of His whole being. His name is his attributes. His name is his character. So Moses is telling us that he
would publish the name of the Lord. And publishing his name,
he says, a scribe gives greatness to him. And remember back in
Exodus 33, Moses asked the Lord to show him his glory. And in
Exodus 34, he hides him in the cleft of the rock and shows him
his glory. Look at verse 6. And the Lord passed by before
him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy
for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and
that will by no means clear the guilty. visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children
unto the third and fourth generation of them, to the third and fourth
generation. Now, notice the word in verse
seven. It says, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and. That looks like
a strange word, doesn't it? when you consider what follows,
and that will by no means clear the guilty. Now here is the great
glory of God revealed. Here God shows His greatness
in salvation. Moses said, Ascribe ye greatness
to our God, Luke 2. The prophet Simeon said, His
name shall be great. and his name is great in his
salvation. The great glory of God is wrapped
up in, revealed in, made known to us in the person and work
of his darling son by which God can be and the only way he can
be, both just and the justifier of him that believeth in the
Son of God. Only by Jesus Christ bearing
our sin upon the curse tree, to the full satisfaction of justice,
does the Lord God truthfully and mercifully forgive iniquity,
transgression, and sin, and will by no means clear the guilty. He will not clear any who stand
before Him guilty, but rather exercises His justice in pouring
out His wrath upon the guilty. But because He made His Son to
bear our sin and our guilt, now God Almighty in that same justice
and truth pours out upon our guiltless soul His boundless
mercy. His name is revealed so many
ways in Scripture. Your pastor's given you these
many times, I'm sure. Let me give them to you again.
He is revealed to us in Psalm 95 as Jehovah Hoseinu, that is,
the Lord our Maker. That's His name. He who made
us also is He who made us His children. It pleased the Lord
to make you His people. Abraham, when he came up to Mount
Moriah in Genesis 22, to worship God with his son Isaac, and the
Lord God told Abraham to take his son there and offer him as
a sacrifice to God. You remember along the way, Isaac
said, Daddy, we've got the fire, we've got the wood for the burnt
offering, where's the sacrifice? And Abraham said to him, and
he said deliberately to him, My son, God will provide, not
for himself, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering."
And by the time Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, that prophecy
was typically fulfilled, and there was a ram caught in the
thicket. Abraham sacrificed the ram, and when it got done, he
called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh. He said, the Lord
will provide. That is, the Lord will see, and
the Lord will provide, and the Lord will be seen in that which
he provides. His name is Jehovah-Jireh. He sees our need. He provides
our need in his Son, our sacrifice, and he is seen in the provision
he makes. And then in Exodus 17, his name
by which he reveals himself is Jehovah-Nissi. You remember the
children of Israel were in battle, and His name is called Jehovah-Nissi,
the Lord our banner. He is the banner around whom
His people are gathered, and gathered to Him we find complete,
constant rest, for we have complete, unalterable victory over all
our foes. In Psalm, or in Exodus 15, He's
called Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord that healeth thee with His stripes. We are healed. He bear not only
our sins in His own body, but Matthew tells us He bear our
sickness. Our sickness, that too. He who suffered as our substitute
knows as He sits upon His lofty throne in heaven. Everything
that touches you by experience. Everything. He knows it better than a loving
father knows what his son goes through when his son's hurting.
Better than a loving mother knows and hurts for her child as her
child is hurting. He who is the Lord that heals
you is touched with the feeling of your infirmities, and He is
constantly working His work to heal. For the... Paul Daniels, a little
bit ago, talking about the God of heaven has surgery, he said,
If the doctor cut everything bad out of us, we'd be the next
left. And I said, so. So, I recall reading years ago,
Richard Baxter was laying on his deathbed, and some friends
came in to visit him. I mean, he only had, could hardly
breathe. And one of the friends made one
of those dumb statements we make when we go to visit folks. He
said, well, Brother Baxter, how are you today? And he propped
himself up best he could on one elbow, and he said, almost well.
Almost well. Soon would be well. Soon. Because his name is Jehovah
Rapha, the Lord that he lit there. And Joel 6, his name is called
Jehovah Shalom, the Lord our peace. It is in Christ, only
in Christ, that we have peace with God. And believing in Him
built on this rock, we shall not be confounded, but we have
peace from God, and we have peace in this world as we go through
this world, because He is our peace. His name is called Jehovah-rah-ah. The Lord is my shepherd. A little
girl in Sunday school was called on to quote the first verse of
Psalm 23, and she stood up and quoted it like this, The Lord
is my shepherd. He's all I want. That's a good
translation. He's my shepherd. And that makes
everything all right. He's my shepherd. His name is
called Jehovah Z'tik'u. The Lord our righteousness, all
our righteousness. And his name is called in Exodus
31, Jehovah in Kedesh. Now many folks include that.
The Lord says, I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Jehovah in Kedesh, our righteousness
and justification, our righteousness and sanctification. The only
one who makes a difference between you and another is Jehovah in
Kedesh. His name is called in Ezekiel
48. I love this. The name of that
city shall be called Jehovah Shabbat. The Lord is there. And let me tell you something,
my brother, my sister, wherever you are, anytime along your way,
the Lord is there. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again,
I say rejoice. Let your moderation be known
to all men. That word moderation, it's only
used one other time in the scriptures. In that passage it speaks of
the gentleness of Christ. Let your gentleness be known
to all men. Unruffled ease, that's the word. Let your steady He's be known
to all men, the Lord's at hand. Will you hear me? He's God at
your elbow all the time. All the time. And Faith was a
little girl. You know, as they get older,
they learn not to trust you. They find out you're not quite as
strong as they thought. But when she was a little girl,
she thought I hung the moon and caused the sun to rise and set
at my will. And we'd go walking in the wood
behind our house. We lived in West Virginia, lots
of forest around us, and we'd take long walks together. And
I recall one day walking, and we came up on a turkey early
in the morning. And if you've never been really
scared, you ought to try it. When those things take off, Just
suddenly, it sounds like somebody is fixing to shoot the hole in
the sky, and you're the target. You know what she did? Just as
soon as she just jumped, terrified, took him in the hand, she's perfectly
calm. All it takes, Daddy's here. Daddy's
here. Will you hear me? Our God. is at hand all the time. All the time. When you're aware
of it, and when you're not, it makes no difference, except to
you. Jehovah Shabbat, the Lord is
there. And this one of whom we speak
is Jehovah Jesus, the Lord our Savior. Now, as he tells us to
publish the name of the Lord, he says, Ascribe ye greatness
to our God. You're not going to contribute
anything to God's greatness. What he's saying is that as you
walk with him, or rather as he walks with you, as you live and
move and have your being in him, trusting him, ascribe greatness
to him. He's no failure. He's infinitely
greater than you ever imagined, infinitely stronger than you
ever imagined, infinitely more gracious than you ever imagined. Ascribe greatness to Him by confidently
trusting Him, proclaiming His name. And then He gives us, in
the next verse, four specific aspects of the greatness of our
great God and Savior. Now notice what it says, He is
the Rock. The only one there is. He is
the rock. Sometimes you'll look at somebody
and say, boy, he's a rock. No, he's not. He's just sand.
He is the rock. The only rock on which to build. The only rock laid by God as
a foundation stone in Zion. The only rock of refuge for our
souls. He is the rock. And his work,
now look at it, he didn't say his works, because his work is
all one. Dan Culver, his work, all his
work is the saving of your soul. That's it. His work is one work. Everything he does is his work,
and his work is perfect. All his ways, all his ways of
providence, All his ways in the whirlwind, in the tornado, in
the hurricane, in the earthquake, all his ways in pestilence and
famine, all his ways are judgment, justice, righteousness, and wisdom
of God of truth and without iniquity. He's never done wrong, because
there's no wrong in it. just and right, you see. Now the first thing Moses wants
to do is to extol and honor the Lord Jesus Christ, our God and
Savior. His second object was to remind
us of our God's great goodness to us. To inscribe upon our hearts
and our minds the memory of His gracious work for us, with us
and in us. and thereby inspiring love, gratitude,
and devotion to Him. God's servant, His faithful servant,
begins by reminding us in verses five and six that we're a corrupt,
sinful people, altogether undeserving of the
least of His favors. And then in verses 7 and 8, he
says, remember the days of old. Remember that everything God
does in this world, everything God is doing, has done, and shall
do, is according to His everlasting, immutable, electing love and
purpose of grace toward His people. Look at it, verse 8. When the
Most High divided the nations, divided to the nations their
inheritance, When he separated the sons of Adam, when God said
to Shem, Ham, and Japheth, this is where you're going to live,
and when he continues through his providence separating the
sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people. He set the bounds
of every human being, of every nation, every tribe, every kindred,
every tongue. every individual human being. He set the bounds according to
the number of his elect. According to the number of the
children of Israel. Now, he's not talking here, as is
obvious if you read through the scriptures. about those folks
who live over there in Palestine, been fighting Arabs all these
years. That's not who you're talking
about. You're not talking about the physical descendants of Abraham. There is no spiritual advantage
at all to being a physical descendant of Abraham. God's grace doesn't
run in bloodlines. The nation of Israel was only
typical of the Israel of God. that holy nation and royal priesthood
described in the New Testament, speaking of God's church, the
whole body of His elect. Now, this is what it's telling
us. Remember, you corrupt, sinful, wretched, undeserving people. Your God set the bounds of every
man's habitation according to his eternal love for you." I just caught Clare's
eye. If I'm not mistaken, he was born
and raised up in Detroit. I was born on a tenant farm down
in southeastern North Carolina. And I wouldn't really call it
raised, that's kind of jerked up by the hair of the head on
the streets of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why the two places
existed. And why your parents and mine
existed. Because God said His love for
us would be perfect. He preserves the sons of Adam
according to his purpose of grace for his own. Remember, children
of God, that you are the Lord's chosen portion and the lot of
his inheritance. Look at verse 9. For the Lord's
portion is his picture. Lamentations, the prophet said,
the Lord is my portion, saith my soul. That's tremendous. Oh my God, he declares that I
am his worship. And he says, Jacob. I'm so glad
he used Jacob instead of Israel. Jacob. Scoundrel. Jacob. Undependable. Jacob. Shifty. Jacob. Tricky. Jacob. lot of his inheritance. You, his people. God's Israel. Sinners, though we are in ourselves,
the lot of his inheritance. Remember where you were and what
you were when he called you by his grace. Look at verse 10.
He found him in a desert land. He found us, we didn't find him.
And he found us in a desert land. in the waste and howling wilderness,
in a desert land that had nothing for us. He led him about. Led him all his days. He instructed him, both before
he knew it and since he knew it. And kept him, kept him as
the apple of his eye. Now look at verse 13. Oh, have
we provided for him. He made him ride on the high
places of the earth. I've been riding there for fifty-five
years. I've only known about it a little
while, but I've been riding there for fifty-five years. That he might eat the increase,
not the remit, the increase of the fields. And he made him to suck honey
out of the rock. Why don't you give that a shot
sometime? I've been doing it all my life. Like you, I've been between a
rock and a hard place a few times. And you know what I got from
it, I thought I got pain. Most of the
time I thought I got real harm. All I got was honey out of the
rock. That's all. Read on. Butter of kind and milk
of sheep, with fat of lambs and rams of the breed of Bashan,
that is, the best there are, and goats with the fat of kidneys
of wheat, thou didst drink the pure blood of the There was nothing
unclean in anything I did. Just the pure blood of the grave.
Now, Moses' third option, if I understand this passage correctly,
was to inspire our faith in Christ, our God and Savior. And he does
this by using a graphic, tender illustration of God's oversight
of his people. Let's look at verses 11 and 12
here for a minute, and let me just milk it for what I can. As the eagle, as an eagle stirreth up her nest,
fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them,
beareth them on her wings, So the Lord alone did lead him. Now the eagle, like other birds, cares for her
own. Shows great affection for them, if I could use that term
for an animal. But she manifests indescribable greater wisdom
and care for her young than other birds did. I got to looking at
this passage several months ago. My wife called my attention to
it one morning early, and I've done a little study. I'm not
an expert about eagles, but I learned some things that helped me. Maybe
they will you. It looks to me like the Lord specifically created
this bird to give us a picture of himself and his great care
for us. John Gill said, of all animals,
the eagle is the most affectionate to its young. and most beautifully
careful of them. When it sees anyone coming to
them, it will not suffer them to go away unpunished, but will
beat them with its wings and tear them with its nails." I
kind of like that. She stirs up her nest. The young
might naturally be inclined to be lethargic. indifferent, careless. So the eagle stirs her nest,
exciting them, calling them to life. And as she stirs her nest,
she fluttereth over there, this huge bird. I mean a huge bird. I don't know about others, but
great bald eagle, the wingspan will be six and a half to eight
feet. That's a big bird. Can you imagine
what it would be like to be a little eaglet in the nest? And see this
thing coming at you? No, she comes and flutters her
wings. She beats the branches around the nest so as to awaken
the chicks, and they see who's coming, and they receive her
gladly. She stirs up her nest, she fluttereth
over them, and being awakened, they receive her. Now look at
this. She spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them,
on her wings, and so she teaches them to fly, and she protects
them. Other birds carry their young
in their talons. The eagle carries her young on
her wings. Now get that just a minute. Carried in her talons, a bird
of prey may snatch the young away. Carried in her talons,
someone's shooting may kill the bird, and the eagle be uninjured. But as the eagle, she spreads
her wings and carries her young on her wings, or on her back,
spreading her wings for them to be carried there, none else
going to snatch them away. And nothing shot at the young
can harm the dog until it harms the bird itself. Will you hear me? Our God and Savior so affectionately
and omnipotently cares for us that nothing will touch us that
doesn't touch Him. Nothing will ever hurt you that
doesn't hurt Him. Nothing will destroy you until
it first destroys Him. And be sure you understand what
I'm saying. Nothing's gonna touch Him, and nothing's gonna hurt
Him, and nothing's gonna destroy Him. Oh, more secure was no one
ever than the loved ones of the Savior. But what about this carrying
her young on her wings? There are some who point to this
passage and another like it in Exodus 19 and say, now there
is a proof of a contradiction in scripture that's contrary
to nature. The eagles don't carry their young on their wings. That
might be so, maybe. It's quite possible that the
Lord is simply giving us an illustration of his great care. And so I did
a little more research, got to look at it. And I asked Paul
before services about a fellow named Sir Humphrey Davy. I'd
heard the name, but I didn't know anything about him. I presume
this fellow didn't have a whole lot of interest in what I'm preaching
with him. I don't know. I just presume
so. He was quite an explorer from what Paul said. Sir Humphrey
Davy in one of his explorations was out hunting. And he wrote
this. He said, today I saw an eagle
spread her wings and take her young on his back. And she seemed
to soar directly to the sun. And then suddenly she drops her
wings and takes a dive right to the earth. And the young is
trying to fly. And she makes it until it can
fly no more and it starts to drop. And she swooped under the
young and picked it up and soars in a circular motion toward the
sun till she's almost out of sight. And then she holds her
wings and dove again at diving through the earth. And the young
bird stretches out its wings and flies the best it can. The
mother eagle swooped under again and kept repeating it until at
last the young bird, like its mother, was soaring in a circular
motion as if to the sun itself. And so she teaches her young
to fly. Will you hear me? So it is with
our God. He stretches out His wings, and
He soars with our souls to the heavens. And sometimes it looks
as though He's got to soar alone. How wise and gracious of Him.
to teach us with stronger faith to rest in Him alone. And He
snatches us up before any harm is done and causes us again to
be carried as it were upon eagles' wings. They that wait upon the
Lord shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and
not be weary. they shall walk and not faint. I've often looked at that, so
it looks to me like that ought to be exactly backwards. They shall walk, they shall run,
they shall mount up with wings as eagles. You got it just right. They that
wait on the Lord mount up with wings as eagles. He said, I carried
you, Exodus 19, verse 4, on eagles' wings. I bore you on my wings. He picked us up, plucked us and
brains from the burning, and carried us on his wing, and he
causes us to run in his way. And as we learn to wait on him,
to run and not be weary, And they would wait on him to walk
and not think. When I was a boy, I was watching
our grandchildren today a little while. I couldn't help but think
about it. You have to keep an eye on them
all the time. You young parents, things didn't used to be that
way. You know, when I was five years old, I'd leave the house
before daylight. I would walk by myself three
or four miles across town and stay until almost supper time
to walk home, and nobody had to be concerned about it. Nobody.
But if it got a little late, and I got to pressing my time
to be home, I could make a shortcut. I could walk through Section
10 pretty rough, and I knew I wasn't supposed to be there. And as
I got a little older, I'd been a daredevil, and I'd pressed
the time, and I'd start down that dark, dirt, tar-covered
road, and just, you know, I was big boy. And I wasn't about to
let anybody know I was scared. And I tried my best to whistle,
and it'd come out like, shh, shh. And after I got out of sight
at the light of one of the streets, I ran just as fast as I could
run to the other end of the street, because I was scared to death. And I've done a lot of running
in my day. Terrified with what God was pleased to bring me to
experience. And never got weary of it. But right now I'm doing a lot
more walking. Things that used to horrify me
don't bother me much anymore. They don't terrify me anymore. They shall walk. Yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for thou art with me. When I run and I stand, they
comfort me. Teach me, Lord, to wait. But there's something else here.
In Leviticus chapter 11, The Lord God specifically identifies
the eagle as an unclean bird, an unclean fowl. Why on this earth would he choose
the unclean fowl that no Israelite was to eat? Why would he choose
the unclean fowl? to be an example and picture
of Himself in His great goodness for us. Because He stretched out His
wings and took us on Himself when He
was made sin for us, taking our uncleanness. to be His uncleanness,
taking our corruption, our sin, and our curse, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. And thus, as upon the wings of
an eagle, He carries us up to glory in the perfection of His
righteousness made hours through the sacrifice of himself. And
there's one more thing. I didn't know this. The eagle
will normally lay two, sometimes three eggs. Do you know how many she hatches
and raises? Just one. The others, She leaves all together
alone. She does everything for that
one third. The one she has chosen just because
she would. And the Lord God Almighty, by
passing by the sons of heaven, leaving them to themselves, chose
one man. Jesus Christ the Lord. Behold
mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth, he says in Isaiah 42. And he
chose us in him, one with him. One with him. Made us one new
man in him. And being one with his darling
son. Will you hear me? He does everything just for us. Everything. All His care, all
His devotion, all His love, all His omnipotence, all His goodness,
all His grace, all His wisdom, is focused just on that one man,
Jesus Christ the Lord, with whom we are collectively one. So the Lord alone He alone separated us from the
sons of Adam. He alone chose us as his portion. He alone found us by his grace,
plucked us as brands from the fire. I was in college in I probably
told you this story before, but it didn't bear repetition. Most
of my trade was black folks and a lot of older folks, most of
them on welfare. They'd come in, buy their shoes,
usually would lay them away, pay two, three, four dollars,
down, buy a pair of shoes and pay on them for weeks and weeks
at a time. I was waiting on this old lady one day. I had no idea
how old she was, but man, she was withered up. I mean, her
face looked like shoe leather. She had been around a long time.
But very pleasantly. She started to lay away a pair
of shoes, and I filled out the receipt, put it on the end of
the box, and I asked for her name. She said, Grace Grahams.
And I said, Do what? She said, Grace Grahams. I said,
Ma'am, I don't have any idea whether you know it or not, but
that's exactly what Grace does. She said, Shall do, honey. out of that desert place hath
wasted, howling wilderness, and made us His own, and has carried
us on the omnipotent wings of His grace, and will carry us
all the way to glory. For the praise of the glory of
His grace. Amen.