to know am I here or am I not.
Beautiful old hill. And a fellow named Daniel Herbert
wrote an answer to it in poetry. And on the back seat, so you
got two. You got an insert and you got a back seat and a back
side. And read it. You'll enjoy it.
It's a sweet poem. Let's see. I believe his mom is not doing
well, so remember her in your prayer seat. on my dad, so just pray for her
and also pray for Alita as she attends to him, because that's
the hard part too, remembering your prayers. And the others
who requested prayer, too. Any word on Trish Tamper? She...
She woke, she was talking yesterday evening. She was talking? Well,
good. Did she hurt bad in that fall?
When she fell out of bed? She still can't sit up or walk.
Okay, let's begin our worship service with hymn number 37,
How Great Thou Art. Then I in awesome wonder Consider
all the world Thy hands have made I see the stars, I hear
the holy thunder I bow to Thou, O You Instinct, my soul, my Savior,
come to me. How great Thou art! I'll break the water. And hear the birds sing sweetly
in the trees When I look down from lofty mountains and dew
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze How great thou art. How great thou art. How great thou art. How great
thou art. And when I hear that God his
Son not swearing, see him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross I heard him
gladly bearing, he bled and died to take away Instincts of my soul, my Saviour
God, to Thee Thou break Thou art, Thou break Thou art Instincts
of my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee Thou break Thou art, Thou
break When Christ shall come, with
shout of acclamation, and take me home, what joy shall fill
my heart! Then I shall bow in humble adoration,
and there proclaim, my God, Instincts my soul, my Saviour
God, to Thee How great Thou art! Instincts my soul, my Saviour
God, to Thee How great Thou art! After Scripture reading and prayer
listening, number 205. The Bible is turned with me to the second
Psalm, Psalm 2. David writing, quoted by the
church, together in Acts chapter 4. Why do the heathen rage, and
the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against
His anointed, and against His Christ, saying, Let us break
their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us, He
that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them
in derision. Then shall he speak unto them
in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have
I set my king upon my holy hill Zion. I will declare the decree,
and the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son, this day have
I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee
the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possession. I shall break them with a rod
of iron. I shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges
of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and
rejoice with trembling. Kiss the sun, lest he be angry,
and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all they. name under heaven given among
men, the only name under heaven given among men, whereby we must
be saved. We come asking, Lord, that you
would be pleased to meet with us in the presence of your spirit
this hour, that he might take the things of Christ and show
them unto us. We pray for those who are sick,
especially a man as she's suffering these late days of her life. You sing the praises of Jesus
Christ in a heart full of thanksgiving for what you've done. Help us
now, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Number 205. by the law Monster of the sinner, receive
it! Monster of the brother, believe
it! We knew the cross, but then we
found Christ and redeemed us! Jesus provides a perfect salvation! Come unto Me, O purest Reformed! Watch for all who sin and disbelieve
it, Watch for all who rather believe it, Keep to the cross
the burden you fall, Christ can redeem us, Surely His grace will keep us
from falling. As He from death to life has
gone, Blessed salvation was for all. Water of the sinner receiving,
Wash for all, O brother, be fleeting. Faith to the cross, a burden
to fall. Christ hath redeemed us, wash
for all. Let us pray. Father, we are told
you in the name of Christ, asking that you might be pleased to
cause us to worship you in this manner that you've ordained,
that your children give unto the church for the preaching
of the gospel here and other places to spread this word abroad.
We set forth the glories of Jesus Christ. We are thankful that
you who control all things, own all the gold and silver, and
count on a thousand of you, who would deign to allow your children
to have a part in this wondrous ministry of the gospel. We thank
you. And let us show our thanksgiving,
we pray in Christ's name. Amen. back to the Psalms, Psalm 2. I was looking at our Wednesday
night message for the next two weeks. I was looking at one verse
that will probably deal with Wednesday night. This sets everything in its proper
order. The reason men are condemned
is because they've been disclosed. Light has come. Before he said
that, in John chapter 1, he said, Jesus Christ is that light, that
light of every man that comes into the world. So this light
is here. This light has come. Men are
without excuse. Their deeds of evil are exposed.
The condemnation is exposed because the light is shed upon it. No
man escapes this. Believer or unbeliever does not
escape this. Jew or Gentile does not escape
this. Light is come. And that light
is fully manifest and revealed. Men know very little about God
at the beginning, but even those who know Him know very little
about Him. But they know this about Him. If you want to know
or understand what sin is, don't look at a box or a Bible or a
movie show or an internet. Don't look at gambling out in
Las Vegas. Don't look at any of those things.
If you want to know what sin is, you find out what God did. were in Jesus Christ on Calvary
Street. When His Son was made to be sin
for His people, what did God do? How does God feel about sin? When His Son was made to be sin,
He poured out His entire wrath upon Him. Complete. He held back nothing. because Jesus Christ is not only
man, he is God. He took that wrath in its fullness
and completeness, which was the punishment of God for our sin,
which is equal to an eternity of hell and separation from God.
He took that sin upon himself. He came out on the other side
alive. For he said, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, my God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? And then, in order to fully fulfill
the law, now he had taken our punishment in those three hours
of darkness when God rolled up his sleeve and beat his son to
death. He had taken that and lived. But you see, that punishment,
eternal punishment, does not satisfy the law. That's why hell
never ends. That's why hell is eternal. No punishment can ever pay for
the law. The only payment for the law
for sin is death. You know the price of your sin
and my sin, regardless of how small we might think it might
be, it is worthy of eternal death. So Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
on that cross, on that hinge pin upon which all history and
time and eternity hang, Jesus Christ gave up His life Voluntarily, he who is life,
he who is the light of this world, he who is life, voluntarily cease
to live. Why? Because that's the only
thing that will satisfy God for sin. The only thing that will
answer God's law is Jesus Christ dying in his room instead, in
the room instead of his people. That's what saved us. That's
why when we preach the gospel, we talk about his death. When
we go to baptism, we talk about his death. We take the Lord's
table as a recognition of his death until he comes again. That's
our salvation. And this is the light that comes
into the world. This is the condemnation, that
men love darkness rather than light because of deeds of evil.
That great thing, that great day, saved and redeemed his people
for all eternity by answering God's demands. And that's where
it all hangs. That's the nail in the sure place. Jesus Christ. This psalm is about
that day and the results of it. It is the day when men and women
gathered together in a courtyard in Jerusalem and cried, crucify
him, crucify him for we will not have this man reign over
us. Let his blood be upon our heads,
they cried. Let his blood be upon our heads.
They raged against him when they finally put him In chains, they
spit upon him. They pulled his hair out of his
face. They beat him across the back
with many whips. They punched him. They laughed
at him. They stuck their tongue out at
him. They mocked him. They put a crown of thorn upon
his head and nailed him to a stall as he pulled across. And there they mocked him also,
as thou be the king of Jews. Thou be the Savior, save thyself. He cannot save himself, he's
going to save me. He cannot save himself. The heathen rages. But the Lord
said, the raging is in vain. from Genesis chapter 3 and verse
15, the promise that Jesus Christ would come and bruise the serpent's
head and his heel would be bruised by the serpent. When the promise
was made to Adam and Eve when they sinned against God, God
didn't put them in hell. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. In the beginning was the word
and the word was with God. The word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. The word was made flesh and dwelt
among us and we beheld his glories. We only begotten the Father full
of grace and truth. It's all about Jesus Christ.
Why do the heathen rage? They rage because they hate.
Their deeds are evil. They hate God. Christ said the
reason you hate me is because I disclose your evil. I show
you what your sin is. What is the sin? The light is
coming to the world. This is the condemnation. The
light is coming to the world. Why do the Hesians rage? And
they may imagine a vain thing, he said. The kings of the earth. This is the political power.
The religious power. Herod, king of the Jews. The
Jews and the Gentiles all gathered together. People say, well, the
Jews crucified Christ. We crucified Christ. Our sins
nailed him to the cross. We were in that courtyard, and
don't think for a minute, if we were living in that day, and
walking in that path, that when Jesus Christ, this nobody from
Nazareth, who never went more than 50 miles from his hometown,
walked into our midst, into our religious organization, which
we are quite happy with, and living with, and going every
Sabbath to worship, all that, by listening and going to the
courtyard and debating things of God, this is our life, we're
happy. And this man, this guy in a shepherd's
robe, comes walking into town and says, I am the Son of God, hear me. What would we do? Somebody did today, what would
we do? We'd laugh at him, we'd mock him, and we'd put him on
a cross if we could. That's what we did. Kings of
the earth, the rulers, they take counsel together against Christ,
against the anointed of God. And this is their thing. We do
not want God to rule us. This is always the issue. Don't preach to me. Don't preach
to me. If you say anything about what
God says to you, you're preaching to me. I'm not preaching to you.
Not a bitch indeed. This is what has always been
the issue. Is God going to rule or am I going to rule? Somebody's
going to be God. One songwriter said, everybody's
going to serve somebody. You want to serve God or you
want to serve the devil? But men want to be God. This
is what the promise was made to Eve in the Garden of Eden
when the serpent stood with her. He said, you know, God said don't
eat of that fruit. But he knows this, that if you eat of that
fruit, you'll be like him. You're no good and evil. Men,
they're no good and evil. God knows good and evil. God
created good and evil. But God knows how to handle both.
And God knows what to do with both. We don't know how to handle
either one. And we can't tell the difference between the two
most of the time, what's good and what's evil. What we think
is good is evil, and what we think is evil is good. This is
an upside down world we live in right now. Everything evil
is being called good, and everything good is being called evil. Paul said this in Romans chapter
7, he said, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm a child of God,
Savior on the road to Damascus, seeing the bright light, blinded. And then the scales come off
my eyes when an eye came and preached to me. I've seen it. I've seen some things, brother.
But you know what? As a child of God, as an apostle
of the Lord Jesus Christ, I don't know what I'm doing most of the
time. I want to do some things, and
I don't end up doing them. What I don't want to do, that's
what I end up doing. He said, I'm just a mess. He said, when
I would do good, evil is present with me. That's what good and
evil came in the garden of Eden. Good and evil came. Men can no
longer do anything good without evil being present with them.
Rulers of this world want this. God, get out of my business. wasn't tempted as he was, he
did it openly. He said, God, get out of my business.
Now, he we who are born in sin, conceived in iniquity, and come
forth in my womb, tell him lie. Do you think that we have a better
shot at finding God than Adam did, who was an innocent man,
who knew nothing of sin, but was yet a sinner? Adam was a sinner. He said. That's what sinners do. But this is what he said, I don't
want my wife. And that was shown in fact when
God called out to him, he ran and hid. First he shoved together
fig leaf aprons to cover his own nakedness as if his words
could do it. Why? Because he didn't want God
to find out what he had done. Then when God called, he ran
and hid in the bushes. And when God confronted him with
his sin, he said, it's not my fault. I didn't do it, that woman. Why do they heathen rage? Because
God's in their business. Because light is coming to this
world of darkness rather than light. Let us break their bands
of thunder. Let us cast away their cords
from us. They got us bound up. I'm bound. I don't want to have
to give up this and give up that. That's what people think about
being a child of God. You ain't giving up nothing,
neither are I. You've inherited everything. God in response to this, and
this has always been a fascinating thing to me. He that sitteth
in the heavens, who sits in the heavens? God, who dwells in the
light wherein to no man can approach. He sits upon the circle of the
earth and views all that's in heaven as his grasshoppers. He
who sits in the heavens is his habitation, the earth is his
footstool. Where's the house you'll build me, he said. I sit
in my throne as the You think about what went on
at the cross, how horrible the things were that men did to Christ.
They thought they was getting something done. Our Lord was
laughing. Our Lord was laughing. They think
they're getting something done. They think they're getting rid
of something. They think they're winning some kind of battle. They think
they're winning some kind of show. They're not. They're not. He that sits in heaven shall
laugh, shall laugh at men. It would be hard to think of
God in that context, but here God is mockingly laughing at
men. And that's proved that it's mockingly
by the next phrase that says the Lord shall have them in derision,
derided. How's he going to do that? The
word derision is an interesting little word in the English language. And if you're without Christ
this morning, that's exactly what I'm doing for you. I'm speaking
in a language you can't understand. Well, you're talking English.
I'm talking about the gospel. I'm talking about the gospel.
It's the language that men can't know. It's the foreign language. It's the foreign language. And after he has forgiven men
their sin by the blood of Jesus Christ because of his death,
and he said he should speak to them in his wrath and vex them
in his sole displeasure, this is what he's going to say. You
thought you got something done, but you didn't. What you was
actually doing was what I predestinated to be done. They were acting what they thought
on their own volition. They were exercising their will.
These were their thoughts and their anguish, but they didn't
know that the words upon their tongues were the words that God
had put upon their tongues. They didn't know that the hatred
in their heart and their mind was the hatred that God had put
in their hearts and minds. Oh, they was going to get rid
of Jesus over in Acts chapter 4. They sang a song together. When they heard that Peter had been let out of prison,
they cried this song in Acts chapter 4. They lifted up their
voice in verse 24 to God with one accord and said, Lord, thou
art God, which has made heaven and earth and sea and all that
is in them. who by the mouth of thy servant
David in Psalm 2 has said, why do the heathen rage? And the people imagine a vain
thing. The kings of the earth stood
together. The rulers are gathered together
against the Lord and against his Christ, his anointed. For all the truth against thy
holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed both Herod, that's religion,
and Pontius Pilate, that's politics, with the Gentiles, that's everybody
who's not a Jew, and the people of Israel, that's everybody who
is a Jew, that's all people. They were gathered together.
He didn't say they gathered together. Well, they did gather together
because they were gathered together. God gathered them in this pile
and morass of wickedness. He gathered them. He punched
them like little doggies. He moved them and manipulated
them. Man's thoughts are his mind, but his feet are directed
by the Lord. They were gathered. God has herded
them into this Golgotha outside Jerusalem, a
lonely hill, like a place of a skull, where the worst of criminals
are crucified and killed and capital punishment. They gathered
them all together. Gathered them all together. God
has gathered them. Why were they gathered? Why?
Why were they? Why did God gather them? For
to do. whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel
determined before, predestinated, that's the first time the word
pro-rezo is used in the New Testament, predestinated before to do, ordained
before to do. Why'd they imagine a vain thing?
Because God made them imagine a vain thing. Why'd He say, let
us cast their cords from us and cast these bands from us? Because
God put that in His heart to say it. Because you see, this
is how the whole thing works from Genesis 1 to bring Jesus
Christ to that hill and to use men to bring Him and hold the
men accountable for bringing Him, though God put it in their
heart to do so. And then they'll say, huh, if God is sovereign,
How can he hold me accountable? That's what it says in Romans
chapter 9. Who hath resisted his will? O man, who art thou
that replies against God? Can a thing formed say to him
that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Has not the potter
the power over the clay to make one vessel under honor and another
under dishonor? What if God, willing to show
His wrath and make His power known, made vessels fit to destroy
and others fit to glorify? What if God did that? It'd mean
He's God and you're not. It means He's the potter and
you're the clay. Why do they imagine the same thing? Why? Because it's ordained of
God. And here's how he proves it. After he speaks to them in a
foreign language, this is the language he's speaking. See that
wounded person? See that lamb slain from the
foundation of the world? See that torn up, drawn and quartered
sacrifice on that lonely tree on Golgotha? Yet, Have I set
him on Zion's holy hill? He is my king. I've set my king. Who rules in
this world? Jesus Christ rules. For in him
dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily. I've set my king
on a holy hill, Zion. Set my, set him as king of the
church. King in the church. And he said,
I will declare the decree. This you don't understand. The
Lord said unto me, thou art my son. This day have I begotten
thee. Thou art my son. This is what
we find out about that one on Calvary Street. He's the son
of God. And he's very God. Of very God. And he says to his son, ask me.
Ask me anything. what you've done, what you've
accomplished, now sitting at my right hand because you have
accomplished all that you came to do. You have saved your people,
you redeemed them, you put away their sin by the sacrifice of
yourself. You have become their righteousness
in this world and they will stand forever in my presence except
you. You've done mad. Ask me anything. What do you
want? What would you like? Ask of me
and I'll You mean he owns everything?
God has given him power, authority over all flesh to give eternal
life to as many as God has given him. I'll give you the heathen
brotherhoods of the uttermost parts of the earth without possession. He's owner of all things, sole
proprietor of the universe. A couple nights ago all the planets
lined up and some people who were able to look south could
see all the planets in one line. Except Earth, because we're on
Earth. You can see all the others there behind it. What a beautiful
thing. You know why that's the Lord's
business, you see? That's His planets. His planets. His universe. I love to look at those telescopes
they put out in space and those wonderful things they see. Way
out yonder. There's no end. It is before God. And it says, those who oppose
you, remember he said, I have sworn in Isaiah 45, those that
are incensed against thee shall perish. And he said, thou shalt
break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt break them with a
rod of iron. Who? The kings and the priests. To all those
who still imagine that vain thing. All those who say we'll cast
his bands asunder. We'll cast his corpse from us.
All those who can never understand the gospel and never try to.
God shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. The one that's only used for
a time, and once it has made its use, it's cast aside with
the rest of the potsherds. The vessels made to destroy. The vessels made to destroy. And then a piece of advice, as
always, Under the old covenant, which
was a conditional covenant, you could get the blessing of God
if you remained repentant in your life. If you didn't, you
got the curse of God, but it was all due to you under that
old covenant. It was a covenant that showed
unequivocally that man will never obey God. He can't obey God. It's the same way the gospel
is preached. You see, when the gospel is preached,
it does something. It's not just a man getting up
here doing chin music. It's not just flapping your gums
together and saying some things. That's not what the gospel is.
I'm nothing. I'm nobody. But this is something. What I'm
telling you, this book is something. It is something called the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first
and also to the Gentile, to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. This is by God. And the
word of God always has an effect. You think, well, it's not affecting
me. Oh, yes, it is. If you think it's not affecting
you, it's affecting you in the negative. where it will always come forth
for men as a saver of life unto life or a saver of death unto
death. That's the way it will always be. It always is victorious
in what it intends to do. My word shall go forth out of
my mouth, shall not return to be void, but will accomplish
the thing I send it to. This is the word of God. The
word of God. God says, be wise. Wise up! Wise up, oh kings. Be instructed, you judges of
the earth. Serve the Lord with fear. And
the word fear means reverence. Holding him in high esteem and
regard, bowing down before him. Rejoice with trembling seems
to be an oxymoron, don't it? But to rejoice in Jesus Christ
is to tremble before him in joy. Kiss the son. Kiss him. Where you gonna kiss him? Well,
if you're bowed down at his feet, I guess you're gonna be kissing
his feet. Kiss the son, why? Because he's the son of God.
He's the one whom God has set on Zion's holy hill as king.
He's the one who has been given you as his inheritance. He's
the one who can go through you with a rod of iron, can break
you like a pot should. He is the one who has power over
all things. He's the one who has all things
and possesses all things. Kiss him! Because if you don't,
he might get angry. You don't want that to happen. lest he be angry, and you perish
from the way. And his wrath is kindled, but
a little won't take much. It says in Isaiah, I will ease
myself of my adversary. Ease myself. And this is the word of God. are all they that put their trust
in Him. That doesn't mean if you trust
Him, you'll be blessed. The old covenant did, but the
new covenant means if you're blessed, you'll trust Him. If
you're blessed, if God has blessed you, you'll trust the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is how it works in the world
today. How do I know? Father, bless his 12th birthday.