103 is a Bible in itself. I could spend a lifetime in this
psalm. Most of the writers agree that
David wrote this psalm in his latter years. I think David died
when he was about 75 or 80. And they believe that this psalm
was written in those latter years. And it may be, because I see
these things, these marks in this psalm. In the latter
years of a believer's life, there's a sharper, keener sense of sinning. An older believer is more aware
of the nature of sinning. His mind is occupied in regard
to sin with the attitude and spirit as much or more than acts
and deeds. Sin is an inward principle and
an attitude that results in outward acts and deeds. Most young people
are taken up with what he did. God is taken up with why he did
it. Secondly, in latter years, there's a higher regard for grace
and pardon and mercy, to whom much is forgiven. Our Lord said
this, to whom much, much, much is forgiven. He loves much. And the older believers, taken
up with that subject of love and grace and mercy, in Christ
Jesus because his sins sometimes overwhelming. David said, my
sins are ever before me. Then in the latter years, there's
a clearer understanding of the frailty of life. It's difficult to think of death
when you're 20 years old. It's difficult to think of death
when you're surrounded by your children. Difficult to think
of death until this flesh starts to crumble. Is that not true? But when this flesh starts to
crumble, we begin to think of our new home. As Paul said, if
this earthly tabernacle And we're not aware of the fact it is nothing
but a tent. That's all it is. But we're not
aware of that till we get a little older. It is a tent, a frail
tent. And when it crumbles and is removed,
we have a building eternal in the heavens. Abraham looked for
a city because he didn't have one here. In the latter years,
our prayers began to change. There's less asking and more
thanking. You find that to be so. There's
less petition and more praise. Oh, we ask things for our children. We ask things for our friends.
We ask things for others. But our needs physically and
materially are not just that much anymore. We ask for grace
and mercy and give thanks for his goodness. So those are the
characteristics that I see in this psalm of David in his latter
years. Let's look at verse 1 and see
how far we can go this morning looking at this scripture. Bless
the Lord. Bless the Lord. We should bless
the Lord himself. It's possible to bless his gifts
and his works and his word and his ways and fail to bless him. We bless the Lord himself for
who he is. We bless him. Bless the Lord.
Bless the Lord. Oh my soul, We bless him individually. We bless him inwardly. Oh, my
soul, I bless the Lord, not the pastor or the elders or my father
and mother or my friends, but my soul and not just my lips. Bless the Lord himself. Oh, my
soul, my inward man. Bless the Lord unreservedly,
listen, bless the Lord O my soul and all that's within me. Every
faculty of my mental, moral, and spiritual belief, bless the
Lord. All that is within me, bless
the Lord. Bless his holy name. Let my worship,
this is my prayer, let my worship and my praise be sincere. O God, deliver me from a half-hearted
worship and an insincere praise. But with all my heart, mind,
soul, and strength, let me bless the Lord and praise His name,
for He alone is worthy. And we bless Him for who He is.
Bless the Lord, O my soul. And all that is within me, bless
His holy name. Look over across the page of
Psalm 104. Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art
very great. Thou art clothed with honor and
majesty, that's why I bless thee. Thou cover'st thyself with light
as with a garment, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters, who maketh the
clouds his chariot, who walketh upon the wings of the wind, who
maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire. Bless
the Lord, this is the Lord I bless and praise. Sovereign, omnipotent,
omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, almighty God. Bless his name. Look at verse 2. Bless the Lord,
O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Is this not truth? Listen to me a moment. Forget not all his benefits. Can I? Could I? I'll tell you, memory is frail
and fleeting about the best things, the good things, the glorious
things. But memory is so acute and strong
concerning the bad things, and the foolishness of this flesh.
Isn't that so? We remember so well what we ought
not remember. And we have struggles and trouble
remembering what we ought to remember. And here David says,
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and don't you forget the pit from
which you were digged. Don't you forget all his benefits. How could we? Every good gift
and every perfect gift is from above. That's what James said. John said a man can receive nothing
except to be given him from heaven. Psalm 68 says, Blessed be the
Lord who daily loadeth us with benefits. Who daily loadeth us
with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Again, he said,
what shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward
me? Well, let's name a few. Verse
3, he forgiveth all thine iniquities. David mentions forgiveness first,
of all God's benefits, of all God's blessings. is he forgives our iniquities. That's first in order of spiritual
experience and blessings and first in value because if I don't
have that, I don't have anything else. He forgiveth all thine
iniquities. You see, forgiveness is divine.
He forgiveth all thine iniquities. He hath made him to be sin for
us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
He forgiveth all thine iniquities. Forgiveness is divine, and forgiveness
is complete. He forgiveth all thine iniquities. All of them. Remarkable. What a blessing. All of them.
Past, present, and future. All of them. The blood of Jesus
Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sins. There isn't a
spot or a blot on the record of God's children in glory. All
thine iniquities. And forgiveness is continual. It's precious, it's divine, it's
complete, and he forgiveth. And that word of sin is who?
Forgiveth. It doesn't say he forgave. He
forgiveth. Keeps on forgiveth. If any man
sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous. He ever liveth to make intercession. He forgiveth, forgiveth, forgiveth. Lord, if thou should mark iniquity,
who could stand? But there's forgiveness with
thee, today, tomorrow, every day. He forgiveth all thine iniquities. He healeth all thy diseases. We're talking about sin here.
We're talking about spiritual diseases. That's what we're talking about
here. He healeth all thy diseases. People sitting right here who
have diseases, have troubles and struggles in the flesh, that's
normal. That's expected. Sometimes God
heals them, sometimes He doesn't. Sometimes we pray for our friends
who are sick. God raises them up. Sometimes
he doesn't. But these diseases, he healed
all of them. All of them. The leprosy of the
soul. The corruption of the mind. The whole mind is sick. The whole heart is pained. But
he gives us a new heart. Takes the old stony heart out
and gives us a new heart. He gives us a sound mind. gives
us a new height. He heals all our disease. Why
is sin called a disease in the Bible? Can I give you four reasons
that you might be interested in? Why sin is called a disease? Well, first, it destroys. It
destroys the good sales. It destroys the goodness and
the holiness God gave us in creation. Our sins have completely destroyed
the image of God in man. It's gone. It's rotted. It's
gone. It's slain. It's killed. The image of God.
The likeness of God. He created man in his own image.
That's gone. And sin did that, didn't it?
Destroyed it. Just like a physical disease
will destroy beauty and youth and strength. And sin destroyed
anything good in us. Secondly, it disables people. A natural disease disables a
man or woman. They can't work anymore. And
sin has disabled us and we can't please God. In the flesh, no
man can please God. In the flesh, no man can please
God. No man can serve God. Nothing we do is acceptable to
God. God created man and his chief
end was to glorify God, and we can't do that for which we were
created. Thirdly, sin, like disease, causes pain
and suffering to everybody. We don't sin to
ourselves. Our foolishness and ignorance
and sin hurts people all around us. Hurts our children, hurts our
children's children. Hurts our friends. Hurts our
love. Our sin, like a disease. Here's
a person that's sick, but the person waiting on him has a harder
time than either. Sin comes in like disease and
just tears the whole house up. That's what's done to us. And
then it finally ends in death. That's why sins cause disease. It'll end in death. It'll end
in eternal separation from God. Go on your way, if we're foolish enough. And
it'll finally end up in eternal death. A normal disease, a natural
disease, ends up in death, in the grave. Spiritual disease
ends up in eternal death. He forgiveth, bless the Lord,
my soul, He forgiveth all thine iniquities. He healeth all thy
diseases, verse 4. He redeemeth thy life from destruction. He redeemeth thy life from destruction. Suppose a man is in prison for
murder. He's condemned to die. The law
has found him guilty and pronounced him guilty and sentenced him
to die. And that man also has an incurable
disease. I think of Jack Ruby who killed
Lee Harvey Oswald. They put him in jail. And before he had trial, they
found out he had cancer. So the law condemned him to die,
and that cancer is condemned him to die. So if he does not
die by the hand of the law, he's going to die by the hand of that
disease. He's twice dead. There's a double sentence of
death upon him. And that's the way we are. The law has condemned
us to death. And the sin within us, it's going
to destroy us anyway. So the governor may pardon us.
Say the governor pardoned a man who's condemned to die, set him
free, and he has that inward disease, he'll die anyway. But when our Lord Jesus pardons
us and forgives our sin, he puts away the disease. He takes away
the curse of the law, and then he takes away the cause of death
within us, and he redeems our life from destruction. He redeems
my body and my soul. The Lord Jesus didn't just die
for my soul's salvation, he died for my body's salvation. That's
the reason Job said, in my flesh I'll see the Lord. That's right,
he redeemed my life, body and soul. And then it says he crowns
us with loving kindness. I want you to read Verse 5, He
satisfies our mouth with good things, so our youth is renewed
like the eagle. These verses, verse 3, 4, and
5, they point out three curses removed. Three curses removed. Let's see
if we can see them. Three curses removed. The first
one is in verse 3, the guilt of sin. He forgives our sins. The second one is the corruption
of the soul. He healeth our diseases. The
third one is destruction eternal. He redeemed our life from destruction. He took from us the guilt of
sin, the curse of sin, and destruction. Now here are the three blessings.
He crowns us with loving kindness and tender mercies. He blesses
us with all spiritual blessings and the heaven is in Christ.
with tender mercies and kindness. Secondly, he satisfies our mouth
with good things, our spiritual mouth and our physical mouth.
Our Lord blesses us, body and soul, with good things. I'm having
good things here this morning. I'm feeding on good things, aren't
we? His mercy. My wife and I go home, our Sunday
dinner, Our God supplies our table with food on good things. He satisfies my mouth, my spiritual
mouth and my physical mouth. And then I have a life that'll
stay young. My youth is renewed like the
eagles. Paul, you remember those big
eagles we saw down in Florida? They're sitting way up high.
Boy, they've got eyes. They can see so far. They've
got strength. They're so young and they fly.
They soar. Looks like they're going to fly
to the sun. Strong. In our lives, we have an eternal
life, eternal youth, eternal glory. That's our Lord. My, my. He is merciful, isn't He? Look
at verse 6. Don't forget this. The Lord executed
the righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He's
merciful. He delights to show mercy. However, the Lord is going to
deal with the enemies of his church. The Lord is going to
execute righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed and
harassed and persecuted. Every martyr's blood is going
to be Every believer that's ever been
laughed at, mistreated, going to be avenged. Every hand lifted
against his church and against his preacher and against his
truth and against his gospel, God's going to deal with them.
The Lord executed righteousness and judgment for all that are
oppressed. Be merciful. But man's injustice
and cruelty and oppression and persecution upon God's people
shall receive judgment and retribution at the hand of God one day. As
David said, all wrongs will be righted and all oppression shall
be avenged. Our Lord is merciful, but our
Lord is just. Turn to Psalm 9. This is a scripture
you could look at that with this one I just read in Psalm 9, verse
16. The Lord is known for his mercy
and his love and grace, but look at verse 16 of Psalm 9. The Lord
is known by the judgment which he executed. The wicked will
be snared in the work of their own hands. Their own hands, their
work of their own hands will condemn them. God is just. And then verse 7,
He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.
Oh, how condescending our Lord is, how merciful to reveal Himself,
to make known His ways. Who am I to expect God to reveal
to me His ways? But he made known to Moses his
ways. God didn't leave Moses alone
to figure out his ways. God didn't leave Moses alone
to discover the truth for himself. He'd have never found it. He'd
have never discovered it. Moses prayed, Lord, you show
me your way. You show me your glory. And God
made known his ways, the ways of grace, The way of covenant
mercies, Christ said Moses wrote of me. Moses down through the
years saw Christ just like Abraham and Isaiah. God made known his
ways. Christ is the way, truth and
the lie. He made known to Moses the way
of grace, the way of covenant mercies, the way of substitution.
That which is left out of most preaching today is substitution.
Moses knew about substitution. Abraham knew about substitution.
He said, the Lord will provide himself a lamb. The way of the
cross, the way of the entrance into the holiest by the blood
of Jesus, Moses knew that. God didn't leave it to Moses
to find that out by himself. He'd have never discovered it.
Like all men, he'd been blind throughout his life. But God
made known. And I'll tell you this, if Moses
needed the Lord to make known to him God's ways, boy, how much
more we need the Lord to make known His ways to us. If Moses could not find the way,
know the way, discover the way, except God made it known to him. How much more do I need him to
be my teacher? No man, Christ said, can come
to me except my Father which sent me draw him. It is written,
they shall all be taught of God. Every man that hath heard of
the Father and learned of the Father, he'll come to me. Moses
heard and learned the ways of God. Now stay with me. He made known to Moses. He revealed
to Moses his ways, his ways, the way of grace, the way of
life, the way of covenant mercies, the way of the cross, his acts
to the children of Israel. Unbelieving Israel, who murmured
at the manna, who murmured at the smitten rock, who murmured
at the power of God, who murmured that all these things, all they
saw was the result of God's ways, powers, and purpose. Moses saw
the reason. They saw what God did. Moses
saw why he did it. Even so, this day is a remnant
according to the election of grace and the rest are blinded.
He made known under Moses, his ways, his purpose, his glory, to the
children of Israel, his acts. They saw what happened and they
didn't know why. Why did he die on the cross?
Why was he born a woman? Why was he despised and hated?
Why did the Father turn his back on him? Why must he suffer so
terribly? Why must he be buried? Why must
he rise? Why? The whole world knows he died.
We know why. The whole world knows he came
into the world, was born of a virgin. We know why. The whole world
knows what he did. We know why. that God may be
just and justify us. He made known his ways. Let's look at verses 8 through
13 as a unit. The Lord made known himself and
his ways to Moses and to David, and David blessed his name for
it. Listen to verse 8. The Lord is merciful and gracious
to us in Christ, giving us all we need. The Lord is slow to
anger, plenteous in mercy. He's long-suffering to us before
we're converted and afterwards. He's long-suffering to us, slow
to anger, plenteous in mercy, before he saved us and after
he saved us. He puts up with our foolishness
and folly and long-suffering. And he'll not always contend.
That word, chide, is contend, correct discipline. Neither will he keep his anger
forever. He not dealt with us after our
sin, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. What is the
reward of iniquities? The wages of sin, death. But
he hasn't dealt with us in that fashion, nor rewarded us and
given us the wages we've earned, Barnard used to say. God doesn't owe me anything.
And then he'd stop and say, yes he does too. He owes me the wages
of sin. I've earned them. But he's not
going to reward us that way. According to our iniquities.
He rewards us according to our Savior's redemptive work. What
Christ accomplished. The Father said I'm pleased.
And therefore he's pleased with us. Listen, Father, as the heaven
is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that
fear him. As far as the east is from the
west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like
a father pities his children, the Lord pities them that fear
him. Let me apply that. The space
between heaven and earth. As the heaven is high above the
earth. That's the height of his love.
Indescribable distance out yonder. That's the height of his love.
As far as the east is from the west, that's the length of his
love. The height and the length. And
like a father, a loving, gracious father, pities his children. That's the depth of his love.
Only a father can understand how he pities his children. So
the Lord pities them that fear him. Oh, love of God, height,
breadth, and depth, how rich, how pure, how measureless, how
strong, it shall forevermore endure, the saints' and angels'
song. Could we with ink the ocean fill?
were the skies of parchment made. Every man on earth, scribe by
trade, every stalk or quill, to write the love of God above
would drain that ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain
the whole of his love, though stretched from sky to sky. As
high as the heaven is above the earth, east is from the west. Like a father pities his children,
the Lord pities them that fear him. The word fear is not scared,
it's respect, it's awe, it's worship, it's regard for God. It's not a slavish fear, it's
the fear and awe and love of a son, of an awesome father,
who's been gracious and wonderful and kind to us, who holds our
times and lives and everything in his hand. He knows our frame. We're earthen
vessels. He being the potter and we the
clay, he knows our frames. He knows our frames. He understands
our frailty and our flesh, and he knows just how hard to tap
that pottery and not break it. Our Lord said to Jeremiah, go
down to the potter's house and take a look. He said, you're
the clay, I'm the potter. And the clay is on the wheel
and the potter just how hard to squeeze and just where to
touch, just where to use the instrument. Without going too
deep or the hammer to break. He knows. He knows our frame. He can test them to their point
of endurance and not beyond. He being the potter and we the
clay, he understands our frailty and our flesh. He knows it. He
knows our flesh. He remembers we're dust. He remembers
we were taken from the dust, and he remembers we'll go back
to the dust, and it'd be a blessing to us if we could remember it,
wouldn't it? That we're dust. And then here's
a word or two on the next two verses. As for man, as for man,
left to himself, number one, his days are as feeble and flimsy
as the grass. His progress and growth and glory
is temporary as the flower. His fall is sure, the wind passeth
over it, And his future, it's gone. And his memory, the place of
shall know it no more. That's for man. His days are flimsy as grass,
his glory is like the flower that flourishes for a while,
but the wind blows upon it and it dies and it's gone. But look
at the mercy of God, what it does for us. But the mercy of
God is from everlasting to everlasting. It reaches from eternity to eternity. The mercy of God is immutable,
unchangeable, eternal. The covenant of grace is from
eternity past. The covenant of peace is for
the present. And the covenant of glory guarantees
the future. His mercy, the mercy of God,
is from everlasting to everlasting. Who are the objects of that mercy?
Listen, to them that fear Him, to them who fear God, to them
who worship God, to them who are aware of who He is. And His
righteousness unto children's children, the seed of Abraham,
all believers, and to such as keep his covenant to those who
rely on covenant mercies." They're not relying on their works and
their goodness and their religion. They keep his covenant. That's
what they keep to their hearts and to their breasts and to their
minds. David said, although it be not
so with my house, God's made with me an everlasting covenant.
This is his last words on this earth, David's last words. God
has made with me a covenant. I kept that covenant in my heart,
in my mind, in my soul, under my feet, with my foundation.
God made with me a covenant, ordered in all things, ensured
that this is all my salvation, to those who keep his covenant.
And to those who remember his commandments to do them, who
walk in his word, who walk in his love, who rejoice in his
truth, his commandments are not grievous, we love them. And the Lord hath prepared his
throne in the heavens. It's his throne. It's in the
heavens. And he rules over all. Say to
the heathen, thy God rules. That's what I'm saying. That's
what every honest preacher said. God's God. He rules. So that brings forth these words
of praise. Listen. So bless the Lord, ye
his angels. that excel in strength, that
do his commandments, that hearken to the voice of his word. Bless
the Lord, all ye his hosts. Bless the Lord, ye ministers
of his, that do his pleasure. Bless the Lord, all his works,
and all places of his dominion. Let everything that hath breath
praise the Lord.